CD Review: Oy to the World! A Klezmer Christmas (The Klezmonauts)

Oy to the World! A Klezmer Christmas
The Klezmonauts
Satire
2006
10 tracks

The Canadian humourist Stephen Leacock once wrote about a man who, “…flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse and rode madly off in all directions.” Musically, that’s how this release feels. With only ten songs totalling less than one half hour duration Oy to the World! A Klezmer Christmas manages to cover a lot of territory. It’s Christmas music, Hanukkah music, Klezmer music, tango music, movie music, surfing music. It’s most serious and it’s seriously silly. And it’s just, well… wonderful!

A Jewish secular music form, Klezmer has existed possibly since as early as the year 150, has been documented since the 15th Century, and since the 19th Century has spread from its modern origins in Bessarabia across Europe and into the the Americas, influencing many forms of popular music including polka and tango. It’s a joyous, heart-stirring, practically irresistable form of music and an open invitation to dance.

The music on this release has the lively, exotic feel of an oriental bazaar, or at least the sort of oriental bazaar we see in old movies. Every song brings with it a sense of drama, the expectation that something wonderful may happen at any moment.

There’s a serious side to this experiment in cultural blending. The musicianship is superb, and the songs are filled with allusions to other songs, other genres, and other musical eras. Within the Klezmer envelope are included tastes of classical music, dixieland jazz, classic rock, pop music, and other forms that add to the overall delight of this release. The effect is a psychedelic blending of musics and cultures into something truly universal. Yet, at root this set is a classic work of humour, at times subtle and at other times quite outrageous.

As I listen, I’m flooded with memories of recordings heard long ago. There’s the irreverent clatter of Spike Jones’ “Nutcracker Suite” with all it’s insanity, “I Yust Go Nuts at Christmas” and “Yingle Bells” from Harry Stewart as Yogi Yorgesson, and even, or perhaps especially, “Who Stole the Kishka” by Frankie Yankovic and covered by probably every other polka band in North America. Not really a Christmas song, “Kishka” inevitably got a lot of airplay during each Christmas season for more than a decade.

The set begins conservatively enough with a quiet version of “We Three Kings” that escalates not all that gradually into a riotous splash of Klezmer that sets up the listener for the rest of the songs in the set.

The set ends in an equally quiet version of “Away in a Manger” that brings the listener out of the insanity and back to the real world. Peaceful and reverent, This is perhaps the most peaceful and traditional of any song in this set.

Set against the mostly instrumental selections in this set, the lovely vocal version of “Jingle Bells” in Yiddish comes as a delightful surprise. The instrumental bits between and around the vocal evoke memories alternately of B. Bumble and the Stingers’ hit “Bumble Boogie” (Rimsky-Korsakoff reformed as Boogie Woogie by pianist Jack Fina) and Spike Jones at his most riotous.

“Good King Wenceslas” begins with all the pomp and circumstance of a B movie about Arabia then swings into a Middle-Eastern melody over a bass line reminiscent of The Drifters and punctuated with heraldic horns that might hark back to Robin Hood. But wait! Is that just a bit of “Sunshine of Your Love” that I hear infiltrating this song? Yes, and then more classical allusions follow. The mind boggles. All this in just over two minutes.

“The Little Drummer Boy” lopes into sight quietly then, without warning halfway through the song, breaks into a wild drummer mode that can’t help but bring to mind the surfing classic “Wipeout,” right down to the guitar shots amidst the drums and those orchestral waves of instrumentation so endemic to all surfing music.

Be sure to listen for some echoes of old Clint Eastwood westerns in “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.” The effect is almost disturbing, but in a fun way.

The only original song on this release, “Santa Gey Gezunderheit” is clever and funny and a joy to hear. This is a well-written, humourous story that should become a Christmas radio classic, if only as an antidote to the perennial schmalz that fills the airwaves at this time of year.

If you prefer to take your music straight, conventional, and serious, this is not for you. Oy to the World! A Klezmer Christmas will appeal to the person who delights in the bizarre and the unconventional, who relishes the surprises in life and takes fun wherever it can be found. For such individuals, these songs will present an ecstatic kaleidoscope of musical colours. I recommend it highly.

You can learn more about The Klezmonauts at the Oy to the World! website. This website also includes a sampler page where you can download a full-length mp3 of the title song and listen to clips of the other nine songs.

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CD Review: Gently Weeps (Jake Shimabukuro)

Gently Weeps
Jake Shimabukuro
Hitchhike Records
2006
17 tracks

If you’ve ever thought of the ukulele as a simple instrument or even a type of toy instrument, the playing of Jake Shimabukuro will shatter that illusion. I first became aware of this young Hawaiian musician through a music video of Shimabukuro playing “While my Guitar Gently Weeps” which had been posted on YouTube, google and other websites. This young man’s performance was, at the very least, impressive.

Played by such popular artists as George Formby, Ukulele Ike (Cliff Edwards), Frank Crumit, and Roy Smeck in the first half of the last century, the ukulele has found its own unique place in the world of popular music. It’s been played by such musical luminaries as Arthur Godfrey, Don Ho, George Harrison, Buster Keaton, Herbert Khaury (Tiny Tim), Eddie Vedder, Eric Clapton, Chrissie Hynde, and many more.

The ukulele may seem a simple instrument but, in the right hands, it’s versatile and capable of making beautiful music. Jake Shimabukuro is a master of this instrument, taking it to its limits and even, if this is possible, beyond. The most recent player in a long tradition, Shimabukuro raises the bar, bringing this humble Hawaiian instrument to a whole new level of class and respectability. His virtuoso playing may even surpass that of the wonderful Roy Smeck, known in his day as the “Wizard of the Strings.”

I’ve never really understood the idea of so-called “bonus tracks” on CD releases. There’s really nothing “bonus” about them at all, and the whole idea seems just silly. Take this CD, for instance. It has seventeen tracks total. The packaging lists the first twelve tracks then adds the heading “Bonus Tracks” and lists five more songs. To me, that would suggest that somewhere there’s an identical CD available for the same price that includes only the first twelve tracks. I suspect that’s not the case. So why not just list all seventeen tracks and be done with it?

I could say a lot about each of these songs, but that would make a very long review. Shimabukuro’s “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” is an exceptional interpretation of this classic. “Ave Maria” is soft and gentle, a lovely, old-fashioned solo instrumental. “Let’s Dance” is a lively dance number with a bit of flamenco flavour reminiscent of Jose Feliciano. Other songs appear to show the influence of Antonio Carlos Jobim, Clapton, and other guitar greats of the past forty years. Several tracks, such as “Misty,” have a cool, jazzy feel to them that harks back to mid-century. Others, like “Beyond the Break,” with a surfing music style that takes me back to Dick Dale, have a definite rock edge. Every song includes different elements that set it apart and demonstrate the versatility of Jake Shimabukuro.

While each of the instrumental songs in this set impressed me both for the consistent high quality of Shimabukuro’s performance and for the variety of style that set each song apart, I was especially impressed by the final track, “Wish on a Star.” It wasn’t so much Shimabukuro who impressed me on this one song in the set with a vocal part, but the wonderful voice of Jennifer Perri. This is a beautiful, sensitive interpretation of a quiet love song. Perri has one of the sweetest voices I’ve heard in a long time.

Jake Shimabukuro, a young man with an impressive talent, is clearly not one to hide his light under a bushel. This is a brilliant set of music by an accomplished young artist. I would definitely recommend getting this release, recorded while his light brightly shines. Already widely known, this young man is destined to become a star.

Learn everything there is to know about Jake Shimabukuro at the Official Jake Shimabukuro Website. You can hear four tracks from this release on Jake Shimabukuru’s MySpace page.

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Movie Review: Miami Vice

The Movie

Based on past experience, I usually tend to be leary of movies that are remakes of earlier hit movies and especially of movies that attempt to capture the essence of a popular television show in a single longish episode. Most of these productions fall into one of three categories: a slavish copy of the original, which doesn’t work because the original belongs in a past time; an attempt to update the characters and story, which doesn’t work for much the same reason; or a “remake” in title only with essentially a different story and cast of characters, which is a cheat. A few fall under a fourth category. They actually capture the spirit of the original while appealing to contemporary audience. Having watched all of the original Miami Vice back when it was the coolest program on television, I was intrigued to see just how well the movie version would stand up.

It probably helps this new Miami Vice that it was written and directed by Michael Mann, whose sensibility drove the original television series. All the elements are there: flashy camera work; vast surreal views of city, sea, and sky; very cool and very expensive boats, planes, and automobiles; characters that dwell just this side of caricature; and, of course a very driven rock score that drives the story forward. However, this

directorial continuity may also have harmed the “unrated director’s edition” that I viewed. At times, I felt the story begin to drag almost long enough to make me lose interest. I have to wonder if the included “footage not seen in theatres” is the cause. Is it wise to add back in footage originally excised, probably for good reason?

Increasingly over the past decade or two, moviemakers have shown an increasing reliance on elaborate special effects to compensate for otherwise weak story lines. Showing great restraint, Michael Mann has created a movie that is, over all, very low tech. Even in this surreal Miami, the action is low-key and realistic, with less of the overblown comic book feel that many contemporary directors seem compelled to create in their action films. There’s a dryness about the action in Miami Vice that’s more cool than hot, more of inevitability than chaos.

There’s no doubt that, some twenty years later, this movie captures the spirit of the original television series. There are many similarities between the two, but perhaps as important are the differences in style, in cast of characters, in the general ambience of the story.

Both in number and in style or quality, the cast of characters has changed. Colin Farrell’s Sonny Crockett seems world-weary in a way that Don Johnson’s had never been. There was a carefree sense to the old Crockett that doesn’t seem to exist in this new incarnation. Compared to the pretty, stylish, even slick Philip Michael Thomas character, Jamie Foxx presents Ricardo Tubbs as a hardened realist, a cynical down-to-earth undercover cop better fitted for true Film Noir than the trendy world in which the original character had lived. In spirit if not in name, some interesting characters from the original series are missing, especially James Edward Olmos’ dour Lt. Castillo, never quite matched by Barry Shabaka Henley in this movie, and Elvis, Crockett’s pet alligator. Elvis was a comedic set-piece in the original which might have helped save this movie from its mostly humourless ambience.

Like the television series, this Miami Vice features a variety of hot cars and hotter boats and even an eye-catching airplane. There are also two hot women, played by Gong Li and Naomi Harris, although I seem to recall seeing a lot more hot women in the television series. Once again Michael Mann brings us lush lighting and exotic settings. Even the most ordinary of places seems, under his direction, to take on a life of its own. There is a difference. In the series, I recall seeing a lot more buildings, interiors and exteriors revealed in contrasts of light and shade straight off an artist’s palette and Miami cityscapes galore shot from every possible angle. This production seems to focus more on panoramic shots of big sky and big sea with pretty much everything else shot in close.

Over all, this movie has very much the feel of the original series, but it’s darker and less personal. No longer do we see Crockett’s home in a boat with an alligator as watchdog. Only rarely now to we get glimpses into the personal lives of the two main characters, who in this production seem only to know or trust one another. Mann has entered the dark world of Film Noir and turned off the lights.

In the past, critics have likened the original Miami Vice series to an over-long music video, and it did have elements of that. In his new production, Mann has retained a lot of that same sense. There are echoes here of the music of Jan Hammer, Phil Collins, and a score of other artists who had filled out the soundtrack of the television series. The musical artists on this release are new, but the musical ambience remains the same, right down to a remake by Nonpoint of Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight.” On occasion, a line from a rock song of bygone days even sneaks in as part of the dialogue.

While several scenes of this movie do feel like a music video, the final shoot-out feels more like a video game. It’s filled with stock characters who appear from behind walls and obstructions at regular intervals. The camera angles and the lighting are very much like what is seen in a shoot em’ up video game and seem almost a set-up for the video game to come in aftermarket sales.

While a little slow-moving in places, Michael Mann’s Miami Vice is entertaining and does hold the viewer’s interest. The combination of lush, artsy visuals, abundant music behind the action and filling the spaces between, and minimal story-line make this an ideal movie for a quiet night at home. Darker and with less humour than the original series, this tale still captures Mann’s unique vision of Miami. Better than some recent productions in this genre, Miami Vice is worth watching at least once.

The Special Features

“Miami Vice Undercover” features Michael Mann, several actors, real-life undercover operatives, and others discussing the background to this story. Other documentary features include

“Miami and Beyond: Shooting on Location,” “Visualizing Miami Vice,” and “Behind the scenes Featurettes” that provide fresh insights into the making of this movie. There’s also a feature commentary with Michael Mann where his voice-over explains what he had been thinking as he wrote each scene. The movie can be watched in English or French and there are subtitles available in French or Spanish as well as English for the deaf and hard of hearing.

The Heads-Up

While I am very much against piracy or intellectual theft in any form, I am also against any copy-protection that installs itself on the user’s computer without letting the user know. User beware. This release of Miami Vice is copy-protected in just this way. To review this movie, I played the disc once in my DVD player. After that, for reference while writing this, I placed the disc in my DVD-RW. After the first time I referenced the disc, each of my three on-board players came up with a different software generated error message and I could no longer play the disc. Be warned that, if you plan to play this movie on your computer, then without your prior knowledge a copy-protection program will be installed.

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CD Review: The Very Best of Jerry Garcia (Jerry Garcia)

The Very Best of Jerry Garcia
Jerry Garcia
Rhino Records
2006
26 tracks

I was never a Deadhead but I was listening when The Grateful Dead first hit the radio in 1965 and I liked what I heard. I only later became aware of Jerry Garcia as an individual writer and performer. Because Garcia was so influential in creating the sound of The Grateful Dead, I find it difficult, if not impossible, to separate the two. Perhaps the biggest difference is that, on his own, Jerry Garcia is far more eclectic and perhaps even more eccentric than was his most famous band, even at its most extreme. Listening to this double set of studio and live performances, I still like what I hear. I like it a lot.

To get the most out of these two sets, I recommend that the listener approach this music with no expectations. Rather than as a famous icon of a generation, think of Garcia as just another musician. Don’t buy into that “very best of” label. Don’t even accept that the music may be good because I’ve said it is. Just listen.

Given a career as long, varied, and eclectic as Garcia’s, I don’t believe that anyone can determine what is really the “very best” of an artist’s career. It’s all too subjective. What criteria are to be used? Who decides what is good, what is better and what is best? Even so, although it’s uneven in some ways, this 26 song retrospective presents a fairly complete picture of who Garcia was as a musician.

Almost half of the songs presented here had first been recorded by other artists. I find these eleven performances the most interesting. I’ve always found the term “cover” offensive because, when I was younger, this term had meant to perform the song pretty much as it had been on the original recording. Back then, and even earlier, artists had interpreted songs, performed them in their own manner without much, if any, attempt to be true the original version. I found no cover versions in these sets, but I did listen to some wonderful interpretations by a master stylist.

Written by Leon Chapeleau, “Deep Elm Blues” was first recorded in 1957 as the B-side of the rockabilly song “Wow Man” by Bobby Jackson, a disk jockey from Amarillo, Texas. It was subsequently recorded by a series of rockabilly and country artists. Somewhere along the line, the title morphed into “Deep Ellum” or “Deep Elem” and that version became a standard of The Grateful Dead. The 1987 live version by the Jerry Garcia Acoustic band holds true to this song’s rockabilly roots, intertwining elements of blues, country, and folk music. Rambling on for more than six minutes, this interpretation of “Deep Elem Blues” is unlikely to lose the interest of even the most jaded listener.

When I was a teen, two of the songs most discussed by me and my would-be musician friends were “Johnny Be Goode” and “Let it Rock” by Chuck Berry. To this day, they remain among my favourites. Jerry Garcia’s studio version of “Let it Rock” is a powerful interpretation. While it doesn’t replicate Chuck Berry, it echoes some lesser-known Chuck Berry sounds. Unlike many recordings of this song, my album cut from the 1956 Berry album of the same name is replete with Jazz and Blues references and sometimes wanders off the Rock & Roll track. I don’t know whether Garcia ever heard this recording, but his interpretation takes much the same approach, enriching this song with a variety of musical references. I could have listened to this track for six or even twelve minutes and still enjoyed it. Unfortunately, the track ends at just over three minutes with a fade that sounds like the original must have been much longer. In my opinion, Garcia or his producers should have taken the song’s advice and let it rock.

While both discs in this release span many genres, often mixing several in one song, they are different in overall approach. The studio disc tends to centre on Jazz, Blues, and mid-century popular music sounds. The live disc tends very much toward Country & Western or Folk music. What unifies the release is the sweet Rock and Roll centre that pervades every song on both discs.

It probably shouldn’t, but the Reggae on the live disc comes as a bit of a surprise. The two longest songs in the set are both based in the jumpy rhythms of this Caribbean music. At almost thirteen minutes, Jimmy Cliff’s “The Harder They Come” is a masterpiece, as is the almost twelve minute long previously unreleased track of “Dear Prudence” from the pens of Lennon and McCartney.

Garcia’s interpretations of Bob Dylan’s “Positively Fourth Street” [also long at nearly eleven minutes] and “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” [another Reggae arrangement] stand with the best recorded versions of Dylan’s songs. It appears that Dylan was correct when he said that “Garcia was the best at covering his songs and if he wondered how to perform his own songs live, he looks at how the the Dead/Garcia did it.” [Wikipedia]

Other performances with which I was especially impressed include the very folky “Catfish John,” the plaintive “Senor,” Irving Berlin’s classic “Russian Lullaby,” Clyde McPhatter’s R&B standard “Without Love,” and the rocking “Evangeline.” Even so, there’s not a bad song on these two discs. I’m sure that each listener will discover his or her favourites.

Depending on who’s listening, the 26 tracks on this release may or may not be “The Very Best of Jerry Garcia” as the title suggests, however they do present a solid retrospective of Garcia’s career. For collectors, for fans, for hard-core Deadheads, and for those who may just be curious about this man and his work, I recommend giving this double set a listen.

You can learn more about Jerry Garcia and his art at the Pure Jerry website. This website also includes a Pure Jerry Sampler page where you can download six songs (one disc) in mp3 format or listen to an entire set of songs culled from the Pure Jerry series in the summer of 1995. There’s also a comprehensive biography of Jerry Garcia at Wikipedia. Gordon Hake has created a website In Memoriam for Jerry Garcia (1942-1995) which includes many interesting links. You can find the latest information about The Grateful Dead at the Official Site of the Grateful Dead. You’ll find some limited information about this release along with clips of all the songs at the Rhino store.

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