Toni Braxton’s sound—not simply of emotion, but of authority and maturity—is center stage in the ballad “Woman,” about the status of a woman in a relationship. “I need to be touched, I need to be loved” and “I’m not your friend, who only needs you sometimes,” Braxton sings. (The fat beat in the song calls to mind that in certain songs of two different performers, Michael Jackson and Luther Vandross.) Braxton is great with ballads.
A Male Jazz Singer, A Mindful Man of Elements: Gregory Porter and his album Water
Gregory Porter’s album Water does not do only one thing; consequently, Porter cannot be made into a negative example. In Hoagy Carmichael and Johnny Mercer’s “Skylark,” romantic expression is balanced by dignity and restraint; and although the song—inescapably—has much of its customary wistfulness, it seems more rooted, tempered by the real, and the repeated question at the end is one of both doubt and hope. The fast horns, percussion, and singing voice of “Black Nile,” a composition by Wayne Shorter, gives way to scatting.
A True King’s Playthings: Bo Diddley’s Beach Party
In the song, Bo Diddley sings “Baby, you know I love you so, I’ll never let you go,” the kind of recurring and rudimentary declaration of young love that reassures, even as its exuberance promises a certain single-minded trouble. With its thick grooves and hammering rhythm, the music can be heard as rhythm-and-blues with a rock edge, or rock with rhythm-and-blues roots; and that makes it very American. (The song begins as something you can dance to, but its rhythm becomes so dense it is nearly industrial; a prophetic development.) Of course, Bo Diddley is one of the men—with Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Little Richard, and Ike Turner—who laid the foundation for rock and roll.
For Love and Justice, in the American Grain: the album Voice of My Beautiful Country by singer Rene Marie
Flack’s interpretation has great power within restraint; and Rene Marie pursues great animation, believable impersonation. Rene Marie’s selection of patriotic songs—“America the Beautiful,” “My Country ’Tis of Thee,” and “The Star-Spangled Banner”—is shrewdly ambitious, admirably epic. Rene Marie’s album, Voice of My Beautiful Country, is, as intended, a major work.
With A Little Help: Grizzly Bear, Friend
Is this the music of solitude, contemplative or narcotic solitude? Or of youthful though alienated community? Grizzly Bear’s interpretation of the Gerry Goffin-Carole King song “He Hit Me” is delivered like the cross between a choir song and a sensitive male ballad; and the song, usually sung by a woman, in which violence is the mistaken mark of love (“he hit me and it felt like a kiss”), has an irony that may be sublime.
A review of According to Luke by Rosanne Dingli
It isn’t just the natural world that is richly described, but also the iconic places that the characters visit, from the Saydnaya convent in Damascus to the Rabat Priory in Malta, along with the many paintings and sculptures, all described with the kind of meticulous detail that helps the reader sympathise with the love that Jana has for the places and work.
A review of How to Survive a Natural Disaster by Margaret Hawkins
How to Survive a Natural Disaster is, in turns, a disturbing and very funny novel of frailty, change, and a kind of survival. Each of the characters makes multiple transformations, both internal and external, that move between appearance and the reality underneath. Artifices come and go and finally disappear by the book’s end.
Friends Refining Musical Language: Rruga (Path) by the Colin Vallon Trio
The Colin Vallon Trio is a gathering of friends, if not of a generation. (Colin Vallon was born in 1980, Patrice Moret in 1972, and Samuel Rohrer in 1977; and the 1970s were not much like the 1980s, with societies in different parts of the globe expanding and experimenting in the earlier decade and becoming more conservative and constrictive in the latter.) The Colin Vallon Trio has been stimulating comment and enthusiasm for the thoughtful dynamics of its work, and is considered unusual, by some, for being inspired by singers in a field in which instrumentalists can be arrogant about their primacy.
Prophet Receives Respect from Prodigy: The Dancing Monk by Eric Reed with Ben Wolfe and McClenty Hunter
Sometimes beauty is not enough. It may be one of the ironies of human experience that when a person begins life as a stranger, he is likely to end life that way too, no matter what happens—whether celebration or success—in between. There are moments of talk, of explanation and understanding, but they are only moments. If one is liked and respected apart from any explanation, one will remain so; if not, the power of the explanation will not last. The experience of a person is what counts, for most people.
The Triumph of Music: Nnenna Freelon, Homefree
Nnenna Freelon has command of her instrument, her voice, and she is confident and earthy, with great energy, in “I Feel Pretty,” making the Bernstein-Sondheim song one of self-reflection rather than vanity: love has been transforming. The flugelhorn solo is one of melodic curls, smoky curls; and the band has significant vitality. “The Very Thought of You” is a Ray Noble song of contemplative appreciation; and in it, aware, sensual, emotive, Freelon has the kind of authority that is rooted in experience and experiment, the kind that cannot be faked.