Brit Abroad â A.H. George's Blog

Listen Here: Inaugural Podcast

Alex George — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 11:58:02 +0000

What's with the strange accent?

In this strange world we live in, it seems like a book just ain’t enough any more.

Fellow Amy Einhorn author Eleanor Brown recently wrote a great post about all the extra-curricular activities that writers have to do these days, in addition to, you know, actually writing the book. One of the things I’m thinking about doing from time to time is to put out little snippets of this mysterious book with no title as podcasts, or at least mp3 files for y’all to listen to. Here’s the first one – taken from the very start of the book. This is humbly offered up more in the spirit of scientific enquiry than anything else… I’m curious to see whether it works as it should. If all goes well, we shall see about some more, although probably not for a while. Because I should probably finish the damn thing first. Oh yes, and find a title – of which more in a later post.

It’s always something of a shock to hear one’s voice after it’s been recorded. I sound quite different to how I think I sound. I remember once going to see Julian Barnes read and being impressed by what a wonderful, resonant reading voice he had. Oh well. It hardly seems fair that he can write like an angel and sound like one too, does it?

Anyway, I hope you enjoy it. I’d love to hear what you think.

Isn’t She Lovely?

Alex George — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 12:04:26 +0000

All right, enough with the book stuff, at least for a while. Here is something quite wonderful in my little pop v. jazz series – pianist Aaron Goldberg tearing up Stevie Wonder’s classic hit.

The tune comes from Goldberg’s superb new CD, Home. (It’s unfortunate that this CD has the same title as the wonderful live duo recording by Bruce Barth and Steve Wilson which I am very fond of, not least because there’s a shot of the back of my head on the CD cover. But I digress.) Goldberg is backed by two of my favorite players, drummer Eric Harland and bassist Reuben Rogers. Saxophonist Mark Turner also joins in on some tracks. Goldberg’s playing is in turn sweetly melodic and then strongly, excitingly percussive. He’s got technique to die for. All-round bad-ass pianist. I love this whole album.

As for this song in particular – well, what’s not to love? It’s a great tune, of course, but Goldberg has taken it and turned it into something quite new. I love the romping, syncopated motif he returns to throughout the song. You’d never guess on first listen what you were listening to, but it makes perfect musical sense once you hear the chorus – which he plays about as straight as a jazz musician can. The first time you hear it, at 1:08, is a true ah-ha! moment. Now I can’t listen to the original version without Goldberg’s delicious refinements echoing through my head.

One Day I’ll Fly Away

Alex George — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 11:35:15 +0000

Jazz treatments of pop covers turn up in some unusual places, but I never thought I’d find one on a Keith Jarrett record. But on Jasmine, his latest outing for ECM, a gorgeous duet session with bassist Charlie Haden, Jarrett covers One Day I’ll Fly Away, which was a hit for Randy Newman in 1980.

As you’ll hear, Jarrett and Haden this very straight. There are no pyrotechnics, clever chord substitutions, whizzy improvisational delights. Actually, to my ears, there’s not much of anything. It’s all done with consummate musicianship, of course, but it left me a little cold. By way of comparison, here’s Newman herself, performing the song live with Joe Sample (who wrote it), twenty-six years after it was first released. Now, this gave me goosebumps. It’s been a long time since I’d heard her sing, and I’d forgotten what a great voice she has – utterly distinctive, and (here, anyway) full of emotion. I like the Jarrett/Haden version, but if I had to choose one to take one to a desert island, I’d take Randy Newman every time.

Pop 1, Jazz o. Who’d have thought it?

50 Ways to Leave Your Lover

Alex George — Mon, 17 May 2010 13:18:58 +0000

Thought I would try and cheer up your Monday mornings by resurrecting this occasional series of pop tunes receiving a jazzier treatment. This is a delightful version of the Paul Simon classic by Sophie Milman.

Sophie Milman is an absolutely cracking singer, with a gorgeous, smoky contralto. Occasionally she swallows a word or two and sometimes sounds as if she could open her mouth a little wider, but she can swing a lyric wonderfully well.

Milman lives in Toronto now. She was born in Siberia and is of Russian-Jewish descent. Her family moved to Israel when she was seven years old, and to Canada nine years after that. I will forego the temptation to speculate as to whether such a peripatetic childhood and multicultural upbringing has had an influence on her music, but I will say that her choices of songs are certainly more eclectic than some. On her latest album, Take Love Easy, she covers Bruce Springsteen and Joni Mitchell (as well as Paul Simon) in addition to more predictable choices from the standard jazz canon. (Perhaps her most interesting song selection was on her previous album: “It’s Not Easy (Bein’ Green)” – first made popular, of course, by one Frog, Kermit T. She sings the lyrics without any of the knowing archness that you might expect, and, astonishingly, it works as a tender ballad.)

But back to “50 Ways”. Milman has dispensed with Steve Gadd’s sinister, military snare drum that gives the original verse its haunting feel, opting instead for a more laid-back approach, but it’s only at the chorus that things really blossom. Listen to that delicious Latin-tinged piano as it fills in at 1:20. Glorious!

One of the things I like about this version is that Milman has maintained total fidelity with the original song while still making it her own. Often jazzers feel obliged to re-arrange and re-harmonize songs so that they’re nearly unrecognizable. (Brad Mehldau’s version of this same song, while excellent, is a good example of this. If you listen closely you’ll hear a snippet of the melody surface about half way through the eight and a half minute tune, and that’s it.) But Milman has enough confidence not to resort to such techniques. If the song is strong enough, and your performance is strong enough (check, and check), just let the music speak for itself.

Enjoy. Happy Monday to you all.

Woke Up This Morning

Alex George — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 03:19:55 +0000

I’m pretty sure Tony Soprano was no jazz fan, but even he would have enjoyed this version of his theme song, from the debut CD of Taylor Eigsti. Eigsti is an interesting player, who has been lumbered with the “prodigy” soubriquet for years, but seems to be wearing it well. As with many first outings, he’s trying to cover a lot of ground on this disk, from this funky little number to “Giant Steps”, and from Bjork to Mussorgsky. It’s probably the only jazz CD I own where there is a credit for “grooming”, and all of the pretty photos of yer man looking moody on a beach aren’t really to my taste, but the music’s all done with finesse and great chops. Helps when you can get stellar sidemen like Christian McBride and Lewis Nash to play with you.

Don’t Talk. (Listen.)

Alex George — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 17:17:58 +0000

After posting this video of Stefano Bollani earlier this week, I was reminded of this gem off his first solo piano album with ECM, which is titled, appropriately enough, Piano Solo.

I’m not aware of the Beach Boys getting too many jazz treatments, but given the complexities and richness of much of Brian Wilson’s work, I’m now wondering why not. I wrote before about Bollani’s “angular” approach to the piano, and this piece illustrates what I’m trying to convey by that. He comes at this material elliptically – as perhaps you have to with something so familiar – and throws down some peachy, darkly atonal chords which sit (to my ears anyway) at glorious odds with the languid feel of the piece.

This also neatly fits into my off-again, on-again series of pop tunes getting reworked by jazz musicians. Oh yeah, and it’s fabulous.

Wrapped Around Your Finger

Alex George — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 10:06:22 +0000

Of course, yer man Sting has many jazzy connections (Branford Marsalis, etc. In fact, now that I come to think of it, he once even appeared on a Joe Henderson album). Lesser known, but probably more musically interesting, are Andy Summers’s excursions into jazz territory with albums like Peggy’s Blue Skylight and his Thelonious Monk tribute album. Really. Still, when you think of the Police, you tend to think of “Roxanne” and stadium rock at its loudest (and possibly best.)

Still, that’s not going to stop anyone. Here’s titian-haired pianist Lynne Arriale’s version of Wrapped Around Your Finger. Arriale takes a great deal of care in constructing the arrangements for her group, often subtly re-harmonizing tunes to give them a different feel. Listen to the quiet dissonances she throws in along the way. This is instantly recognizable as the pop song we all know, but there is a spooky, almost ethereal quality to it. During his solo, Randy Brecker’s trumpet quickly unshackles itself from the tune and spirals into crescendos of increasing intensity – it’s almost a relief when the familiar tune comes back in for the low-key ending.

For me this does not pack the emotional punch of last week’s entry, and I’m not sure it’s as successful a transition into a jazz idiom as some I’ve featured, but it’s still an interesting effort. I’d be interested to know what you think.

Alone Again, Naturally

Alex George — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 13:01:42 +0000

Little late with the Thursday post this week, so here’s a good one that I’ve been saving up.

This week’s example of pop/jazz crossover is one of the oddest songs I know. It was written by Irish songwriter Gilbert O’Sullivan, he of the alarming 70s ‘fro. You wouldn’t know from the jaunty, upbeat feel of the original version that this was a lament of a would-be suicide unless you listened closely to the lyrics. He sings the song in a bland monotone, so apparently bereft of emotion (to my ears, anyway) that it’s positively spooky. There is a bewildering disconnect between words and music. Here’s a You Tube video of the original version.

British jazz vocalist Ian Shaw, though, gets it right. The lyrics now come front and center. By untethering the tune from its naff, plinky-plonk rhythm, Shaw does something quite extraordinary with this. He’s a wonderfully soulful singer who always wears his proverbial heart on his sleeve, but even by his standards this feels raw and almost unbearably poignant. Even after countless listens, this still gives me goosebumps every time I hear it. I believe every word he sings. Listen to his falsetto lament at the very end of the song, and I defy you not to feel moved. I don’t want to get too heavy or nuffink, but this, ladies and gents, is what great art is all about. Utterly riveting.

This is from Shaw’s excellent album, A World Still Turning.

Beatles, Jazz, or What?

Alex George — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 11:57:26 +0000

Finally, on this Thursday morning spot, some Brad Mehldau. Mehldau is perhaps the musician most responsible for the recent vogue of adopting pop songs and transforming them into a jazz idiom. I could do several months’ worth of posts just with him. He’s covered everything from Oasis and Paul Simon to Radiohead, Nick Drake, and Soundgarden. And he does it all with his characteristic intelligence, sometimes turning tunes so inside out that it can be difficult to recognize what you’re listening to apart from the odd glimmering phrase of melody here or there, which can be like a delicious glimpse of the sun on a cloudy day.

Anyway, here’s a cover from a lesser-known British popular beat combo from Liverpool. On this occasion Mehldau plunges into the melody and just wallows around in it. He’s lyrical, complex, and compelling. What I love about this performance is that, while remaining pretty faithful to the tune, he manages to shed a whole new light on music that I thought I knew pretty well. And that, in a way, is what this is all about. Utterly joyful. This track is from his 2005 album, Day is Done. The album also contains “She’s Leaving Home” and a wonderfully elliptical reading of “Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover”, and is highly recommended.

Last Train…

Alex George — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:55:55 +0000

Jeepers. It is Thursday again already? Time for some more pop/jazz confection, then.

I have written before in these pages about Cassandra Wilson. I actually met her once, backstage at the Royal Festival Hall, when she performed with Wynton Marsalis. Clang. Drop that name, son.

Anyway, this is from one of her earlier albums, New Moon Daughter, and I love it. I can’t help thinking that only someone of Wilson’s deliciously mordant sensibilities could have imbued a Monkees’ tune with so many dark and sinister undertones. But she does it with some style. Davie Jones, you little Brit Abroad, eat your heart out.

(By the way, there are no visuals with this, so I don’t know what’s with the big black screen. No point looking at it. Ain’t nothin’ gonna happen.)

Brit Abroad â A.H. George's Blog