Uri Caine Ensemble - "Wagner E Venezia" CD Album, Germany, 1997 (Winter & Winter)

The great Richard Wagner melodies played by a six-member band, live, in what sounds like a cafe in Venice Italy.  Uri Cane is a composer, and a jazz and classical pianist.  He has done a similar treatment to Mozart's music, but for me, Wagner is the key ingredient for this type of cultural mash-up.    What Caine did was bring Wagner back to earth, not as this insane over-the-top composer, but as a classical composer who wrote these tender sweet incredible melodies.   So in other words, Wagner stripped down.   The theater is gone, the Norse gods are zipped, and what we have here is cafe music played in front of what sounds like an audience in some outside cafe.  

It's a peculiar choice to present Wagner's music in this light, but one that is highly effective and what's more important strips the image off (at least for this recording and band) to appreciate the Wagner experience without the dramatics.  The ensemble besides Caine on piano, is two violins, an accordion, stand-up bass player, and Violoncello.  By far my favorite Wagner recording of all time. And beautifully designed package as well. 

Ennio Morricone - "Slalom" CD Album, Reissued, Remastered, 2000 (Dagored)

One of Ennio Morricone's over-the-top or borderline insane soundtracks from the 1970s.  The music sounds like it for a film that is Bond-like but even more cartoonish.  Beautifully conducted by Morricone's fellow composer Bruno Nicolai, as the great one arranged the orchestra.  It seems to me whenever Nicolai and Morricone get together for a session, it is usually a fun and wild music journey.  Here we have jazz touches that border on Rota/Mancini but with the craziest scat vocals. Dissonant strings with horns and what sounds like a bongo drum playing with the melody as if it was a cat chasing a mouse.  

It can be my imagination, but it seems on this one particular soundtrack Morricone plays homage to John Barry, Henry Mancini, and Nino Rota.   The music is light, but under Morricone's direction, it's textured in various and surprisingly turns.   Not a well-known Morricone, which is a crime. For sure it is the ultimate bachelor groove music, but I think with an additional touch of poison.  And on a side note, one can pretty much trust the taste of the people who do the Dagored record/CD label. Their packaging and of course, music, is fantastic. 

Barney Wilen/Alain Goraguer - "Jazz & Cinema Vol. 1" CD, Remastered, France, 2000 (Gitanes Jazz Productions/Jazz in Paris)

It's no top secret that the Paris culture loves American Jazz.  Similar to American pop culture being in tuned to the British Invasion of the early 1960s.   Gitanes, the tobacco company that probably killed Serge Gainsbourg and many others, had the good taste to sponsor a series of classic French Jazz sessions, that are way out of print, yet, essential to the jazzier and French cultural maven.  I think I have the complete series.  The majority of the recordings are from the post-war years in Paris, from 1946 to 1959.  A lot of it is American and French musicians who made recordings for the French market.  A lot of American musicians, especially Black Americans, made a good living in Paris during those years.   Thanks to people like by beloved Boris Vian.

"Jazz & Cinema" comes to five separate CDs.  Their first volume is devoted to the soundtracks of "J'Irai Cracher Sur Vos Tombes" by Alain Goraguer (based on a Boris Vian/Vernon Sullivan novel) and Un Témoin Dans La Ville by Barney Wilen.  Both from 1959.   Both are great scores by these magnificent talented musicians.   Goraguer is of special interest to me, due that he had worked with Vian, Serge Gainsbourg, and made a pioneering electronic score for La Planète Sauvage.  The CD series is not expensive, and all come with great liner notes and images of the original release.  Their outer CD covers look like a tourist trap attraction but believe me, the sound is great and the talent/recordings are all magnificent. 

Kevin Rowland - "My Beauty" CD, Album, UK, 1999, (Creation)

The very strange Kevin Rowland solo album.  "My Beauty" when it came out, was quite controversial in the U.K.   Eleven covers (no originals) of Rowland twisting rock n' roll standards (of sorts) and pop oddities (of sorts).   I was never a fan of Dexy's Midnight Runners, but I was amused by reading interviews with Rowland, who in fashion, reminds me a bit of a  classic Morrissey.  Not musically, but a great individuality expressed through his image and words.  And of course, there's the music.  I bought this CD in Tokyo because it was the only place on this planet that one can find it.  Rumor is that it was the worst selling title put out by Creation.  I didn't believe the hype because anyone who does a cover of Unit 4 + 2's "Concrete and Clay" and "You'll Never Walk Alone" on one album, had at the very least has a sense of genius. 

And this is a work of genius.  "My Beauty" is a very personal statement by Rowland.  It is like he is coming up from an emotional storm and these songs are the only things in his life that mean something to his life.   Fully orchestrated and no irony even doing a Whitney Houston song ("The Greatest Love of All," this is a man on a mission to get himself better.  The beauty of "Concrete and Clay" is that he adds his own lyrics into the mix as well as on others. There is a self-help aspect to "My Beauty" that is unnerving, and it's not really a comfortable listening experience.  It's music that gets into your face. 

The cross-dressing of Rowland is just eccentric.  Always a dandy he's a guy who pays close attention to his image.  There is something cinematic about Rowland's approach to music.   On songs like "Daydream Believer" it sounds like Karaoke, but with Rowland losing it in the middle of the song.  The thing is he is consistently sincere throughout the album.   His version "You'll Never Walk Alone" is a tear breaker.  Then again, my eyes tear up when I hear this song whoever sings it.  "My Beauty" needs to be reissued.  Or be available for streaming services.  

The Yardbirds - "Little Games" Vinyl, LP, UK, 1967 (Fame)

I have been avoiding The Yardbirds' album "Little Games" due that I love the b-sides of the singles of the Jimmy Page era Yardbirds.   To my surprise, I found another version of the album with the additional b-sides on it.  Bingo! Now my life is complete (in theory).  The band at this time was in a weird frame of mind.  I think everyone was thinking about their future while recording this album.  That is expressed by the duality of the songs on the album.  On one end of the spectrum you have the rockin' blues Yardbirds that is very close to their R n B roots, but then there are the sneaky ultra-pop songs of that year (1967) as well.   Me being perverse, prefer the pop material.  "Ha Ha Said the Clown" and "Goodnight Sweet Josephine" (both written by a Tony Hazzard, must make a note to check him out) are works of genius.  The muscular sound of the Yardbirds (especially Jimmy Page) adds a nervous tension to these pair of melodic songs. 

"White Summer" is Led Zeppelin just right around the corner, as well as "Think About It," but then you have Nilsson's "Ten Little Indians" or "Little Soldier Boy."  Mikie Most produced the album and b-sides, and it's interesting to note the sonic and aesthetic difference from the Jeff Beck years to this.  Which is confused, but that's OK.   In parts, the album reminds me of being a little bro to the Stones' "Between the Buttons."  I think 1967 was a year where musicians didn't only stretch out in the studio but also brought variety to the album package/sound.  Which can work, but I think The Yardbirds true nature is to have a guitar rave-up than say a retro British Music Hall "I Remember the Night."   By no means a masterpiece, but a splendid album.  

David Bowie - "Thursday's Child" CD, Single, 1999 (Virgin)

This CD single or EP, since it has four songs on it, is Bowie at his most profound and moving.  "Thursday's Child" is a song of aging, and looking back, but at the present as well.  It's one of the handful of Bowie songs that moves me to tears if I'm under the proper cocktail of red wine and depression.   There are two versions of the song on this CD, and it's worth the purchase even if you have the full album.   The 'rock' version of "Thursday's Child" has a stronger guitar presence, but still the ballad that sways than makes one shake your head up and down.  

"We Shall Go To Town" is the end of the evening, and there is nothing more.   A couple hitting the town not for fun, but as in destiny brings you to a certain point or crossroad.  A beautiful mournful melody with vocals that express both honesty (with respect to the situation) and dread.  "1917" is technically an instrumental, although I hear a faint vocal buried in the mix and electronics.  It wouldn't be out of place on an album like "Low."    The underrated Reeves Gabrels co-wrote, co-produced the album "Hours"  and this EP.  

Paul McCartney - "Chaos and Creation in The Backyard" CD, Album, 2005 (Capital Records)

It was a moment of curiosity that I discovered Paul McCartney's 2005 solo album "Chaos and Creation in The Backyard."   The Paul albums that I loved were "McCartney," "Ram," and Wings' "Wild Life."  Also the hugely underrated Mike McGear album "McGear" is very much the lost great Paul work as well, since he co-wrote and produced his brother's album. The rest, at least for me, was pure wallpaper music.  "Silly Love Songs" became the first thing I thought of when the two words 'Paul" and "McCartney" came together.  Not a good connection.   So the moment of curiosity came I think due to the photograph of Paul taken by his brother Mike, that's the front cover of "Chaos and Creation in The Backyard.  Also the fact that Nigel Godrich, of Radiohead fame, produced the album.  

The album is a Paul masterpiece.   All instruments by the ex-Wing man and there is a focus on the whole LP that is direct and consistent.  At the time I believe there was trouble in Paul's personal life, and the sadness on the record conveys him in a blue mood.  I have read that "Chaos and Creation" is not his favorite album.  I think due to the relationship between him and Godrich.   In theory, Paul is very much a collaborative artist, and if there isn't someone out there challenging him to do better, he will come up with "Silly Love Songs."  I think Godrich aggressively kept McCartney on track, and made him come up with better lyrics and sonically do things that one is reminded of the early Paul solo albums. 

The songs on this album show why Paul is a great songwriter and performer.  One notices the age effect on his vocals, but it's all good for the material on hand here.  Even the Twee song "English Tea" is superb, because, in truth, Paul loves twee - but he was having a hard time distinguishing from good twee from (very) bad twee.   There are touches of McCartney going through his emotions that in hindsight probably made him feel uncomfortable.  Still, with the assistance of Godrich, and McCartney doing all the instruments and voices, this is an excellent album from an aging (in a good way) artist.  If haven't already, Paul and Beatle fans should re-check this album out.