SOUND CHECK.Arturo Sandoval/``Hot House'' (N2K) Trumpeter Arturo Sandoval tries here to re-create the Latin big band of Dizzy Gillespie but doesn't rise to Dizzy's epic and trendsetting level. However, ``Hot House'' is still cool. This steamy collection can be danced to, cuddled with, or simply taken in when the night cries out for the Latin-tinge thing. It features a lot of romantic moments, a little funk and some muscular charts topped by Sandoval's steroid-laced high notes and home-grown Cuban machismo. This CD gets loud and schmaltzy schmaltz·y also schmalz·y adj. schmaltz·i·er, schmaltz·i·est Informal Of, relating to, or marked by excessive or maudlin sentimentality. See Synonyms at sentimental. , but such excesses are often common to a good time. The Phil Ramone-produced set is eminently swinging, with guests including Michael Brecker on tenor saxophone, singer Patti Austin, and Tito Puente on timbales Timbales (or tymbales) are shallow single-headed drums, shallower in shape than single-headed tom-toms, and usually much higher tuned. The player (known as a timbalero . Three and one half stars - Karl Stark Philadelphia Inquirer Ani DiFranco/``Up Up Up Up Up Up'' (Righteous Babe) Funk-folk diva DiFranco is still evolving after all these years. Here, her sound has gotten more crisp yet not overly clean; it's less dense yet still deep - less rock more roll. DiFrancophones need not be alarmed. Ani remains sweet and savory, sexy and smart. She has not settled down as much as settled in. The early DiFranco signature was big chords, strummed full and fast. On last year's ``Little Plastic Castle'' her sound expanded to include horns. On ``Up,'' there's the occasional banjo banjo, stringed musical instrument, with a body resembling a tambourine. The banjo consists of a hoop over which a skin membrane is stretched; it has a long, often fretted neck and four to nine strings, which are plucked with a pick or the fingers. and Wurlitzer organ. As boppy as the songs are, they remain idea-centric. The tendency of contemporary folk is for it to go straight to the heart, missing the head completely, with songs you've memorized before they're done. No danger of that here. ``Angel Food'' is a spicy innuendo. `` 'Tis of Thee'' and ``Trickle Down'' covers political ground. ``Virtue'' speaks of irony: ``Virtue is relative at best/ There's nothing worse than a sunset/ If you're driving due west.'' ``Angry Anymore'' is about growth, ostensibly hers, and may suggest why there's less roar here. As the title tune declares ``She's trying to sing just enough/ so the air around her moves/ and make music like mercy/ that gives what it is/ and has nothing to prove.'' Buy it. Three stars - James Hames hames linked metal, curved bars that fit around the horse collar and serve as the attachment for the trace chains and traces. Sugar Ray/``14:59'' (Atlantic) This album is a far cry better than the lazy brutishness of this Orange County band's previous effort, ``Floored.'' Loping bass rhythms for laid-back acoustic-guitar refrains is much more listenable lis·ten·a·ble adj. Being such that listening is pleasurable: an undistinguished but listenable soundtrack. lis than amateur nastiness - though that easygoing nature doesn't make it work completely, and their retro moves don't convince, either. Frankly, when these guys sound like Devo, as they do on the jumpy ``Personal Space Invader,'' they're hard to walk away from; when they cover the Steve Miller Band's ``Abracadabra'' lick for lick, they're easy to kick around the room. ``14:59'' is such a slight album, too, short and repetitive and rushed - strangely not the sort of manifesto a one-hit wonder would issue to ensure a second shot at the top. Maybe frontman Mark McGrath and company know something we don't. Either way, though a poppier Sugar Ray is welcome, this just doesn't seem thought through. Two stars - Ben Wener Orange County Register James Brown/``Say It Live and Loud Live in Dallas Shot during a 1991 sold-out performance at the Dallas Starplex Amphitheater. Track listing
Brown might bill himself as the hardest-working man in show business, but almost half of this live album is devoted to his fabulous band, billed here as the James Brown Orchestra. No longer the Famous Flames and not yet the JBs, Brown's band nevertheless displays the same skintight skin·tight adj. Fitting closely or clinging to the skin. skintight Adjective (of garments) fitting tightly over the body; clinging Adj. 1. funk and high-strung energy. Featured horn players Maceo Parker and Waymon Reed blow jazz-worthy riffs during the band's 15-minute solo stint in the middle of this concert. Even when Brown is on stage, he lets the band do much of the heavy lifting, and they're always up to the task. The songs Brown seems most interested in here are ``Licking Stick,'' ``I Got the Feeling'' and ``Cold Sweat'' - a tune that he stretches out to 12 minutes by tossing in quotes from ``Soul Man,'' ``Ride Your Pony'' and a few other soul standbys. Three stars - Rick Shefchik St. Paul Pioneer Press
The St. Paul Pioneer Press is a newspaper based in St. Paul, Minnesota, primarily serving the Twin Cities metropolitan area. Mystikal/``Ghetto Fabulous'' (No Limit/Jive) Mystikal, among No Limit's brighter talents, offers precious little in the way of quality (much less innovation) on his sophomore effort. The growling rapper can do anthems in his sleep, so it's no big deal that ``Ghetto Fabulous'' is overloaded with them, or that ``I'm on Fire'' or ``Yaah!'' are as instant as Cup o' Noodles. But Silkk the Shocker Silkk the Shocker (born Vyshonn King Miller on June 18, 1975) is a rapper originally from New Orleans, Louisiana, and Richmond, California and is the brother of Hip Hop Mogul Master P and rapper C-Murder. He is also the uncle of teen american rapper, Lil Romeo and Young V. and Busta Rhymes outshine out·shine v. out·shone , out·shin·ing, out·shines v.tr. 1. a. To shine brighter than. b. To be more beautiful, splendid, or flamboyant than. 2. him on key tracks, and that shouldn't happen. Mystikal is better than that. One and one half stars - Ben Wener Various/``Postpunk Chronicles'' (Rhino) This three-CD series, with discs sold individually, provides a look at the genesis of post-punk, a sonic blueprint we take as a given these days, made then by artists who employed wildly divergent sounds but shared two key factors: a flippant flip·pant adj. 1. Marked by disrespectful levity or casualness; pert. 2. Archaic Talkative; voluble. [Probably from flip. attitude and the ears of the intelligentsia. Here's the edgier stuff: the garage new wave of the Stranglers (``Duchess''), the piercing pulse of the Soft Boys (``I Wanna Destroy You''), the morbid synth synth n. 1. Informal A synthesizer. 2. A style of light popular music made with synthesizers. Also called synth-pop. noise of New Order (``Ceremony''). For all the bluster, this music presaged a kinder, gentler rock in the post-Def Leppard world, laying the foundation for the smartening-up of the rock mainstream. The ethos is summed up by Pete Shelley's second verse in the Buzzcock's gleefully glee·ful adj. Full of jubilant delight; joyful. glee  ful·ly adv.glee sardonic ``Everybody's Happy Nowadays'': ``Life's an illusion/Love is a dream/But I don't know what it is.'' It was that lyrical and musical mesh of romantic nihilism nihilism (nī`əlĭzəm), theory of revolution popular among Russian extremists until the fall of the czarist government (1917); the theory was given its name by Ivan Turgenev in his novel Fathers and Sons (1861). and cynical idealism that went on - for better or worse - to permeate the pop consciousness and that continues to color the tunes we hear on corporate airwaves nationwide. Four stars - Brian McCollum Detroit Free Press The Detroit Free Press is the largest daily newspaper in Detroit, Michigan, USA. It is sometimes informally referred to as the "Freep". Some still refer to it locally as "The Friendly" -- a slogan from an ad campaign in the '70s. Greg Osby/``Banned in New York'' (Blue Note) It's sort of pretentious, actually: Alto saxophonist Greg Osby records his quartet at an undisclosed New York club with a single microphone, and Blue Note packages and markets the CD, rough edges and all, as cinema verite. The irony? There's nothing underground or revelatory about the music. Placed in a leaner, more traditional acoustic milieu than some of his recent work, Osby's oblique harmonic sense, chess-player phrasing and heavy articulation recall Wayne Shorter, and the band's sound world of suspended time and harmony betray a similar debt to Miles Davis' '60s quintet. Still, the music is inspired, with pieces segueing without breaks (more Miles), and Osby's rat-a-tat lines cutting a path both visceral and shrewd. Three stars - Mark Stryker Detroit Free Press Sly and Robbie/``Drum & Bass Strip to the Bone by Howie B'' (Palm Pictures) Over the years, drummer Sly Dunbar and bassist Robbie Shakespeare, Jamaica's most famous rhythm section, have dabbled dab·ble v. dab·bled, dab·bling, dab·bles v.tr. To splash or spatter with or as if with a liquid: "The moon hung over the harbor dabbling the waves with gold" in hip-hop; explored the noise fringes with producer Bill Laswell; and provided rockers and pop stars with a brand of crisp, understated support that exhibited a reggae tinge without being overtly tropical. So it was perhaps inevitable that the two would find their way into the loop universe, and it's a stroke of luck that they hooked up with producer Howie B, whose own albums have nudged the outside edges of the genre. ``Drum & Bass Strip to the Bone'' is a vaguely psychedelic trip through the techno jungle in which slightly menacing atmospheres and bellowing bellowing see bellow. bellowing continuously in bovine rabies, continues until pharyngeal paralysis supervenes. bellowing soundlessly Jaco Pastorius-style bass melodies (``Fatigue Chic'') are underpinned by patient, soothing drum patterns, and burbling bur·ble n. 1. A gurgling or bubbling sound, as of running water. 2. A rapid, excited flow of speech. 3. synth squiggles somehow become integral to the colorful groove. Throughout, the action in the foreground (of the faux march ``Into Battle,'' among others) is almost secondary to the shifting, compellingly juxtaposed jux·ta·pose tr.v. jux·ta·posed, jux·ta·pos·ing, jux·ta·pos·es To place side by side, especially for comparison or contrast. loops underneath, creating a music that might be stripped to the bone rhythmically but is rich in texture nonetheless. Three and one half stars - Tom Moon Philadelphia Inquirer CAPTION(S): Photo Photo: no caption (Arturo Sandoval) |
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