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Recording Reviews: 7/2/00
Sunday, July 02, 2000 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"Down Here,"
In a long-awaited follow-up to her well-received 1996 debut, Tracy Bonham plays many roles. Throughout the dozen pieces of ear candy here, she is torch singer, Aimee Mann-style popstress, Patty Griffin-ish folk-rocker, Shirley Manson poseur. And Bonham can maintain any of those roles well enough to sell you on a song.
With production help from Tchad Blake (Pearl Jam, Soul Coughing) and Mitchell Froom (Cibo Mato), the songs are crisp and the hooks catchy. Sounds like a formula for greatness, right?
The only problem comes when you actually listen to the lyrics Bonham is singing. And since she wrote them all, the blame for banality starts at home.
Undermined by awkward phrasing and trite choruses, Bonham clearly misses a chance for a big score.
All the black leather and Christina Aguilera-style bared real estate below the navel that Bonham adopts on the packaging aren't a mitigating factor. We expect Christina and Britney to sing songs that are a little vapid and unworldly. It doesn't work when your niche is a twentysomething singer-songwriter.
-- Tracy Collins
"Dan Fogelberg Live: Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed and Some Blues."
Here's one you've been waiting years for, huh?
Dan Fogey-berg, poppin' a Geritol and rockin' the joint! Or, should I say, rockin' his joints.
Oh, I'm sure someone out there is reading this, thinking that after they finish listening to that mix tape of America, Bread and maybe even Kenny Loggins singing "House at Pooh Corner," they're going to put on an old Fogelberg album and revel in it while letting the Jack Russell terrier whiz on this review.
Fine. But take my advice, this is an album for the adrenalinally challenged, those who are happy to keep their pulse rates under 65 and who limit their music listening to, say, 67 minutes, which is what it takes to slog through this collection of something old, something new, something painful and some gruel.
-- Tracy Collins
"Shake It Up," Boney James/Rick Braun.
Let's establish up front that we're not talking about Bird & Diz or Miles & Trane here -- doing so is pointless. But for what it is, this collaboration between trumpeter/flugelhornist Braun and saxophonist "Boney James" Oppenheim, mainstays of the "smooth jazz" movement who have worked together regularly since 1993, comes up a winner.
This CD scores because of the interplay between the two headliners, often unusual in contemporary jazz. James, playing mostly tenor, and Braun sound fresh together perhaps because, as they said in an interview, they pushed each other during the recording.
The octave unison lines of the opening track "R.S.V.P.," James' cool, coy, slippery improvisations trading off with Braun's more upfront style, give a harbinger of things to come. The Latin-influenced "Shake It Up" lives up to the title, Braun going over the top here.
Not one but two updates of "Grazin' in the Grass" (one instrumental, the other vocal), which original performer Hugh Masekela himself called "really slammin,'" made their way onto this CD, offering a bridge not found on the original recording. The half-time rearrangement of the Horace Silver classic "Song for My Father" Braun's Harmon-muted trumpet providing mystery, translates well in this setting.
If there's a disappointment, it's "Love's Like That," in which Fourplay serves as the rhythm section. On that tune, the band sounds like the studio musicians they are by occupation, though guitarist Larry Carlton offers some dreamy fills.
With apologies to Isaac Hayes and the Friends of Distinction, "Can you dig it?" I sure did. It may be James' and Braun's best recorded work to date.
-- Rick Nowlin
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