I miss living in Athens, Georgia. Music falls out of the sky there like tech start-ups spring from San Francisco’s shifting, sandy foundations. (Guess which one I prefer.) Recently, an Athens stalwart recommended Kurt Vile’s B’lieve I’m Goin (Deep) Down… so I picked it up and gave it a listen.
Kurt Vile
Kurt Vile
B’lieve I’m Goin (Deep) Down…
Matador
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It was partially recorded in Athens, and I know that it found itself on a bunch of year-end “best of” lists for 2015, including Patterson Hood’s annual run-down. And my buddy really seems to like it a lot so I went in with high expectations. I was not disappointed. I was confused. Still haven’t found my way out of the woods on this one yet. But I’m gonna keep trying. I think there’s a payoff in here somewhere…

So, it appears there was a B’lieve I’m Goin Down in addition to the (Deeper) Down… version that we are looking at here. Hood said specifically that the longer version was better. This is a rarity. The shorter version has 12 songs while mine has 18. The extra six are all tagged on to the end of the recording on a third disc, and I’m not sure that the flow of the album survived this sequencing decision. Seems like those songs could have been scattered throughout the affair if they truly deserved their inclusion. I mean, how likely is it that the extra songs make the most artistic sense in a clump at the end of the original work? They’re similar enough to the rest of the material, I guess, except they seem a bit more “strummy” to me while the bulk of the work involves a bunch of Vile’s finger picking. And he’s got that down, for sure. That and his laconic vocal delivery that he never steps away from at any point over the course of six long sides. I kept waiting for the record to “take off,” but the mood established in “Pretty Pimpin’” is still in effect at the end. There’s a bunch of humor involved, and it gets a little too left of center at times for my taste. It’s highly unlikely that I’m going to get into a tune called “No Stranger To The Ball Bust” on a Rock ’n’ Roll album. I love to laugh, but I take this business pretty seriously, and having a bunch of comedic input in a Rock setting is like dropping a full-on song and dance number in the middle of The Revenant to me.

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Still, there’s something in here that keeps pulling me back. My buddy asked me if I like it, and I told him truthfully that I do. I’m still looking for the genius in the work though. I asked him what it was that turned him on about (Deep) Down… and he told me that the record “feels good.” And, by golly, he’s right! That’s exactly what’s happening. This is a breezy, Summer record that rewards repeated listens by creating a mischievous little world that’s fun to inhabit for a bit. It’s created with sparse instruments that are easily identifiable and some deadpan vocals that kinda remind you of that dog at the park with the funny haircut. He might not look like the other dogs, but he seems to be having more fun than they are. There are worse ways to spend your time in 2016, for certain.

Bill Evans and Jim Hall
Bill Evans and Jim Hall
Undercurrent
Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab
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The piano. There’s an instrument that makes sense. Leave it to me to pick up the damn guitar which is a torture instrument in comparison. The piano has all the notes laid out right in front of you. In order. From low to high, and back again. Veteran readers may note that I more or less whiffed on a Thelonious Monk record last month. It was a fine recording; I just had most of the songs on a similar record from the same sessions. This month, I picked up another Monk disc as well as Undercurrent which is a Bill Evans record with Jim Hall from 1962. This version is part of MoFi’s Silver Label series. I’ve had my eyes on it for a while and this just seemed like the time to slip into the stream. Jazz guitar can be as challenging for me to listen to as I imagine it is to play. And Jim Hall is a guitarist. So, let’s see…

This is a weird one. Turns out, this is a Blue Note title, but I don’t think it was in the beginning. As best I can figure out, Blue Note bought the title some years after its initial release. Which may explain why it seems so far gone from any other Blue Note title that I am aware of. Rudy Van Gelder’s name is not attached to it, and the whole thing sounds way darker than what I am accustomed to from Blue Note. And I don’t think that is a function of MoFi’s work either. I’d be curious to hear what this recording would sound like if the Music Matters folks got a hold of it, but that seems beyond unlikely at this point. The original tapes aren’t available (thus, the Silver Label designation), and it just doesn’t sound like something that the Music Matters team would be particularly interested in.

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But I’m interested in it. I am now, anyway, after a few listens. Took me a second to get used to the guitar which is not very intrusive, overall. I’ve loosened up on my anti-Jazz guitar stance since I heard Music Matters’ Grant Green and Kenny Burrell titles anyway, and Hall mostly lies back on Undercurrent. Bill Evans is the star of this show for me. He’d already recorded Kind of Blue at this point, and I can’t imagine that hurt his standing in the Jazz community at the time. Just like Miles’ Cookin’, Undercurrent starts off with a version of “My Funny Valentine,” but I couldn’t have picked it out of a lineup at the station if my life depended on it. Undercurrent is its own thing.

MoFi did their usual stellar job of pressing and housing this disc. I appreciate the lack of brightness that sets this one apart from the other piano albums in my collection. This is the sound of two heavyweights going forehead to forehead in the middle of the studio ring for a few glorious rounds. Evans provides the muscle while Hall peppers the place with flurries and quick hooks. It’s pretty laid back. If that sounds as good to you as it does to me, I’d say you need this one on your shelf. I anticipate spending a fair amount of time with it in the coming years. Now, if someone would just do a reputable reissue of Evans’ Village Vanguard album…

Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Monk
Solo Monk
ORG Music
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Alright. About that Monk record…

This month, we’re looking at Solo Monk as I attempt to crawl out from under the mess I made of Record Store Day last month. That’s when I bought a Monk album that I basically already had in different packaging. Solo Monk is a little more of what I had in mind the first time. Whereas the London Sessions were recorded quite literally during Monk’s last session ever as a band leader, Solo Monk was captured about five years earlier. The London Sessions record is cool, but it feels kinda half-baked. Solo Monk is totally baked. Ready for consumption, and ready to roll.

It wouldn’t be hard at all to imagine Thelonious Monk at a piano in the corner of some saloon playing these songs. The performances certainly have that vibe. Monk had heavy hands, it sounds like to me. If Nat Cole’s hands were delicate surgical instruments, Monks were strong enough to hammer home the most elusive notes and to hold them out there until time washed them away. There’s playfulness and humor in the Solo Monk tunes that is mostly absent from his other solo recordings on my shelf. This one was done by ORG Music, but it has the “close-up” feel that I’ve come to expect from Speakers Corner reissues. It is especially “hot” with very little room to hide out between notes. This is the sound of a giant lumbering through his lair. Maybe he’s searching for something. Maybe he’s hungry or tired. Maybe he’s just blowing off steam. I’ve been led to believe that Monk had some things in his head he’d probably have wanted to let go of given the option. His piano attack seems designed to exorcise… something. Demons? Complacency? Clichés? I’m all the time hearing snippets of Gershwin in his playing. It’s almost like “Rhapsody in Blue” was written for Monk, specifically. (If he ever performed the song on record, I am unaware of it.) Those big, 4th of July-like chords rumble out of Monk’s grooves with such force and weight that I always half expect to hear the resolution from “Rhapsody” at the end of every song. But that would be nuts. More often, the Solo Monk tunes resolve themselves with pithy little high-note flutters at the end. As if he’s had enough of all this thundering around in the lair, and he’s ready for a nice bedtime story. Not sure what the moral of said story might be, but I bet it wouldn’t be the type of thing that Uncle Disney would rush to film. But Orson Welles might give it a go. That might work…

ORG did a fine job with this one. The pressing isn’t as deathly silent as I’d like, but it’s mostly flat and black where it should be. It’s about 40 minutes of really fine piano music on a single disc, and it fits in real nicely with my other favorite piano titles in my collection. Those include the Duke’s Piano in the Foreground, Cole’s Penthouse Serenade, and Bill Evans’ Waltz for Debby. Not sure that Evans’ Undercurrent is going to make it into the Legends’ Circle yet, but it might. That one takes some getting used to. Solo Monk feels familiar out of the gate. I’m excited to have it.

Dr. Dre
Dr. Dre
Compton: A Soundtrack by Dr. Dre
Aftermath/Interscope
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Now, for some unpleasantness…

I was really excited about Compton: A Soundtrack by Dr. Dre. It was originally released as a stream on Apple Music and through iTunes before a delayed vinyl release which is, of course, what I held out for because I like music that sounds really good. I also like really good music, and there’s not a ton of it on Compton, I can tell you that much right now.

The title is misleading. Compton: A Soundtrack by Dr. Dre is not really by Dr. Dre at all. I’ve railed about this “featuring” business for long enough now. And I’ve finally given over to the idea that most current Hip-Hop artists can’t float a full-length record on the strength of their own skills, and that “featuring” seemingly incongruous and divergent artists on an album might draw those featured artists’ supporters over to the primary artist’s fan base. Whatever, man. None of that is in the service of the song. It’s always in the service of “more effective” marketing and advertising. And I hope that it’s obvious by now that I respect an artist’s right to manage her or his output in whatever way she or he sees fit. But hearing Dr. Dre using these spastic, stuttering drum beats just makes my ass draw canal water. Those beats are amongst my least favorite flavors on the Pop Music menu in this woebegone era of Surface Explorations and Dime Store Talent. I was really looking forward to hearing a Master at work after a significant layoff. I was visualizing a return to form. Perhaps even an album of such monumental cultural importance that those same aneurism inducing beats might drift away into the netherworld of Compton’s wake. Nope. Not by a damn sight. They’re everywhere. Instead of bringing this ship back to shore, Dre just let it drift right along with what everyone else is doing today. Not only does he not do a ton of rapping on Compton (despite the efforts of what is reputed to be a gang of ghost rap writers), but his production work is compromised by the watered down efforts of his collaborators.

Let’s find a couple of silver linings if we can, yeah? If you listen with the right ears, the “songs” sort of follow the storyline of the movie Straight Out of Compton. That movie was a blast, and it was fun to reflect on how scary N.W.A. seemed to the establishment in the early ‘90s as Dre is reputedly one of the most powerful players in today’s music industry. He should have wielded that power in a way that resulted in a better record. The Compton packaging is pretty strong and the two discs are pretty well pressed.

That’s all you’re getting from me on this one. If this was, in fact, Dre’s final solo release, he went out with a whimper. And not even his own whimper. He let a bunch of lesser talents whimper for him. Maybe he should stick to making overpriced headphones and counting his money from here on out. I’m trading this one in.

Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday
At Storyville
ORG Music
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I needed to cleanse my palette after the Dre misstep so I went with something a little safer, a little more classic. I’ve known for a long time that I needed to be more proactive with my Billie Holiday explorations so I finally jumped in when I saw that ORG Music had done At Storyville. This record was taken from radio broadcasts made in 1951 and 1953. Holiday passed away in 1959 so these count for late era recordings, I suppose. I’d be interested in hearing some of her material from when she was younger, but I think those are mostly on 78s. I can’t imagine any reputable reissue company is going to take on the task of releasing those. I don’t think you could clean them up enough to make it worth the trouble, and I suspect you’d lose the humanity in the recordings during the scrubbing process. So, this seemed as good a place to start as any. Better late than never.

Storyville was a club in Boston. It was named after the red light district in New Orleans. These songs sound more at home in Boston though. They’re intimate and sparse with Billie’s voice strong in front. The drums are so far in back that they’re almost an afterthought. The piano swings a bit, but nothing like what you’d find at Tipitina’s. Listening to these songs, it’s hard to say what, exactly, brought Holiday to the world’s attention. I mean, she sings great, but I can’t imagine that there weren’t other vocalists that were equal to the task. To be clear, I would happily listen to this music every day for the rest of my life. I’m just trying to put my finger on what made Holiday catch fire in the public consciousness. I struggle a bit with this, I’ll admit. I’ve never been quite able to figure out what drives people so crazy about Frank Sinatra, for instance. I’ve almost decided that you’d have needed to be there to get a feel for what made these artists so hot. Were they in the news all the time like all these little clumps of people that we see today? Or did their talent carry them through? I’m just riffing right now, and it may seem like I’m lumping Billie Holiday in with some unsavory 21st century characters, but I really do enjoy her music. I just can’t help but imagine that there were other, lesser known artists in this age with equally strong pipes. Holiday kinda lures you into that area right between sleep and wakefulness. That dreamy space where you know you’re about to go under because you catch yourself thinking some really far out thought that doesn’t fit in the real world. It’s quite an effect, and would be worth the price of admission on its own. Maybe that’s why she endures…

Or maybe Billie Holiday didn’t fit in the real world either. I’m going to dig a little deeper to see what else is out there for the audiophile community as far as her catalog goes, but I’d be happy to have Storyville as my lone Holiday title if that’s the way it shakes down. Stan Getz plays sax on three songs which is pretty cool. But I get the most kicks out of following Billie’s vocals through their little peaks and valleys, up through the clouds, and occasionally back to Earth. ORG, of course, did a fine job with the mastering and pressing so it’s a fine time to dive in if it’s something you’ve been considering. They don’t make ‘em like this anymore.