Hans Davidsson,
David Higgs, William Porter

The
Eastman Italian Baroque Organ

Gothic Records

An instrument stars in a new LOFT
recording, which like many solo organ CDs, exists to showcase a particular set
of pipes. On this CD, three guys rev up the Eastman Italian Baroque Organ
(recently installed at the MemorialArtGallery) and show us what it can
do. Hans Davidsson, David Higgs, and William Porter
wisely chose 18th-century music with fluorescent appeal that expresses the
orderly sweetness of the Baroque. I especially like
the fluty Sonated’intavolatura from 1716 by DomenicoZipoli,
which David Higgs infuses with delicate charm. Some of the pieces on this CD
curled my toes. Others had me diving for the skip button. Between the light and
shadow, I kept thinking how remarkable it was to be able to hear them at all!
The Eastman Italian Baroque Organ offers a kind of podcast
from the 18th century, when air moving through pipes enchanted.

— Brenda Tremblay

Elvis Costello

My
Flame Burns Blue

Deutsche Grammophon

Please, please put away your
preconceived punk-poindexter notions of Elvis
Costello. The man is a songwriting genius. And his new My Flame Burns Blues is simply beautiful.

Costello says this album “may explain
what I’ve been doing during the last twelve years when I haven’t had a guitar
in my hands.” My Flame Burns Blue has
Costelloreally swinging big band
style with a bluesy swagger and jazz proficiency. The sound is so incredible
it’s hard to believe it’s a live recording — recorded at The North Sea Jazz
Festival in The Netherlands with The MetropoleOrkest.

Costello takes his own tunes like
“Almost Blue” and “Watching the Detectives” — along with contributions from
Charles Mingus, Burt Bacharach, and Billy Strayhorn — and paints them with a lustrous orchestral
wash. Bossa nova beats and cascading strings give the
album a grandiose lounge feel full of red velvet and cocktails. And Costello’s
voice sounds fantastic, believe it or not. His aim is still true. This is music
to fall in love to. This is music to fall in love with.

— Frank De Blase

Pat Martino

Remember:
A Tribute to Wes Montgomery

Blue Note

Tribute albums are everywhere you
look in the jazz CD bins. With the acknowledged masters of the mid-20th century
almost all gone, contemporary artists can’t help but dip into the rich pool of
brilliant work they left behind. While most of these tributes are loose
salutes, with artists taking up the material but putting their own spin on it,
one recent effort breaks the trend. On Remember:
A Tribute to Wes Montgomery guitarist Pat Martino stays as close to Montgomery’s
sound as possible.

Montgomery
was a major influence on Martino in his formative years. When, as a boy,
Martino was introduced to his idol in a nightclub, Montgomery
made a strong impression on him. Now, four decades into his career as a top
jazz guitarist, Martino decided to re-explore these roots. The resulting album
cooks from start to finish. All of the great Montgomery
classics are here: “Four on Six,” “Full House,” “West Coast Blue” and many
more. With John Patitucci on bass, David Kikoski on piano, Scott Allan Robinson on drums, and Danny Sadownick on percussion, the album rides along on a
continuously infectious groove. And while the arrangements adhere closely to
the originals, Martino can’t help but inject his own wonderful style into
numerous solo excursions.

— Ron Netsky

Devo 2.0

Devo 2.0

Disney Sound

So here’s the good news: Devo’s Gerald V. Casale and Mark Mothersbaugh have written two new songs, their first
collaboration in 15 years. The bad news?It’s part of a project called Devo
2.0, a group of five kids cherrypicked to remake the
innovative combo’s best-known tunes. Ranging in age from 10 to 13, Devo 2.0 members play their own instruments and, in a most
tuneless and devolutionary fashion, clone classics like “Whip It,”
“Uncontrollable Urge,” and “Girl”… um, “Boy U Want” (now sung by a 12-year-old
girl and re-titled to presumably avoid confusing an entire generation). But the
simplistic danceability of Devo
songs is what might make them so appealing to children, which is why you could
just throw on your old Freedom of Choice record and let the kids wear themselves out. It’s a brilliant maneuver,
however, marketing to aging hipsters who wouldn’t be caught dead buying Kidz Bop for their own aspiring consumers.
Are we not greedy?

—Dayna Papaleo

ToshiReagon

Have
You Heard

Righteous Babe

New to the Righteous Babe stable,
guitarist-singer-songwriter ToshiReagon
blends folk conventions with a more contemporary take on the blues and several
other styles for a seamless blend. Energy-wise, she can also really rock out
— smooth songs wrap around you with their slow-burning intensity, but when Reagon pushes them over the edge, you go tumbling over
still feeling like you’re in good hands with her velvety voice at the wheel. Reagon’s singing simmers with passion and desire, but it’s
the touches of gospel that weave in and out of the arrangements — vocal
harmonies and that certain unearthly possession — that electrify Have You Heard with conviction that
crackles deep within the grooves. Like the best artists who explore devotion
and attraction simultaneously, Reagon blends the
boundaries between them until you can’t tell which is which.

— Saby
Reyes-Kulkarni

Ashley MacIsaac

Pride

Koch

While his cousin and fellow fiddle
player Natalie MacMaster has steered a more
traditional course in her work, Ashley MacIsaac has
done some serious genre-crossing with the time-honored violin techniques of his
native CapeBreton.
(CapeBreton
is a Canadian island east of Nova Scotia
with its own strain of Scottish-descended Celtic music that has endured since
colonial times; both MacIsaac and MacMaster
are related to famed fiddler Buddy MacMaster). But,
even for a guy who once lifted his kilt on Conan, came out of the closet in the
public eye, and has refused to stick to any one style, you could picture his
manager begging him to reconsider Pride,
where he plays zero violin. As if to warn any of his
traditional fans, the inlay booklet shows MacIsaac
giving a double-barreled middle-finger salute to the camera and exposing all
manner of undies and emaciated skin. And the music?Catchy, guitar-driven
ditties with bluntly clever lyrics and enough energy and attitude to become the
next summer soundtrack to keg parties across North America. Hell,
let’s hope so — MacIsaac could very well redefine
how we use the words “bitch,” “closet,” and “gay.”

— Saby
Reyes-Kulkarni

This article appears in Mar 8-14, 2006.