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Mira is mm n dirks word:
FDL1R NEW EDS FR0M THE SPEETRUM DF
RHYTHM AND IMPR0V
SANDY BULL
Re-Inventions Best of The Vanguard Years
Vanguard
THOMAS MAPFUMO & THE BLACKS
UNUMITED
Chimurenga 98
aNonym
THE NEVILLE BROTHERS
Valence Street
Columbia
MEAT PUPPETS
Live in Montana
Rykodisc
M s ditlicult to tolerate much ot today's jam-rock scene
after seeing the Neville Brothers when they're on The
Nevilles can boast important contributions to rock and roll.
R&B. soul. funk. New Orleans roots music, jazz and con
temporary pop Live, it’s their knowledge ot how to build
up a song, break it down, and build it up again that makes
them so formidable, while their knowledge of the complex
ities of rhythm remind one of the hypnotic essence of the
metaphor 'groove Some of my favorite moments have
been listening to the Nevilles perform versions of white
groove-rock standards — like The Allmans' “Midnight
Rider" and Stephen Stills' 'Love The One You're With *
Though they're covers, the Brothers' versions are. arguably,
definitive
Like many great live bands, the Nevilles are challenged
when they attempt to capture these strengths.m the studio,
and their new recording. Valence Street, like many Nevilles
discs before it. fails miserably The opening track, 'Over
Africa," is ambitious but hokey — the other brothers
should have vetoed brother Cyril's idea to sing about
Mount Kilimanjaro and one or two other images he seems
to have lifted from The Lion King Maybe that's not too fair:
one gets the sense the Nevilles are trying on the rest of
Valence Street— they didn't phone this one in — but the
results are a jumble of unfocused, play-it-in-your-sleep
funk and schlocky mid-tempo soul.
A notable exception is the band's cover of "If I Had A
Hammer" with Aaron on vocals A song that you thought
really never needed to be played again is
reworked as a Caribbean song of
freedom, the band providing a gravity-
defying second-line cushion for Aaron's
flawless voice to float on The only other
purely successful tune is 'Mona Lisa."
which has already appeared on Wyclef
Jean's The Carnival It shows again that
the Nevilles flounder in the studio
without an assertive, iconoclastic pro
ducer Somebody get Daniel Lanois on
the phone'
The Nevilles can be as flat live as
any white hippie band, they just aren't
flat as often Plus they've got the entire
African continent in their camp You
can talk all of the diasporic ya-ya you
want, but it's easier to feel the connec
tions between Africa and Uptown New
Orleans at a live show by a great
African performer, a performer like
Thomas Mapfumo. the so-called
'Lion ot Zimbabwe" By miking the mbira (the Zimbabwean
thumb piano), running it through a PA system, and
backing it with a fully electrified rock/jazz lineup, Mapfumo
has created a style of pop music known as Chimurenga.
which is amply demonstrated on the new aNOnym release
Chimurenga 96 Mapfumo is a fierce social critic — he
was jailed for his views by the Rhodesian government in
the 70s — but late-period Chimurenga is infused with a
steady, driving calm. It is some of the most beautiful music
in the world, recorded here with very few overdubs, and its
loping, interwoven rhythms are capable ot inducing out-of-
body experiences
When white guys try to get to out ol their bodies, it
usually works best when they're acknowledging their own
roots The Dead was always best when they’d let Jerry Ilirt
with bluegrass and folk, and I'll take the country-tinged
Widespread over the flatline tunk-lite of a group like The
Spin Doctors any day All ol this should be a nice way to
lead up to a discussion of The Meat Puppets’ Live In
Montana CD. but it isn't, because the band comes across
as such an anarchic mess that their starkly pretty lysergic -
country style — the best ol the many styles the band has
flirted with over the years — never comes across
Neophytes will find glimpses of it in the opener
‘Touchdown King." but it you really want to know what all
of the fuss was about buy //and Up Cn The Sun. soon to
be rereleased on Rykodisc The initiated will love this CD's
jokes, fallmg-apart bootleg ambiance, and moldy country,
disco and Sabbath covers But doesn't the fact that you're
'initiated" make you feel like a Deadhead 7 Well, doesn’t it 7
Ol course, theres nothing wrong with feeling like a
Deadhead There's nothing wrong with joining the Kiwanis
Club, either, though those guys might be able to clue you
in on the little secret that it's nerdy looking guys in glasses
who usually produce the best psychedelia, not the world's
hip-hugging, long-hair having, dude-on-a-motorcycle
types Which brings us to Sandy Bull, a near-forgotten
American guitarist whose best work from the '60s and 70s
is collected in the new CD Re-Inventions Bull thrived in
the place where Ornette Coleman. Brazilian Composer Luiz
Bonfa and Earl Scruggs all sat down for a cappuccino. It's a
place you could probably only get to with copious amounts
of illicit substances — substances in which Bull indulged
copiously.
That doesn't mean that Bull's drug addiction should be
mythologized, it's just that his version of Chuck BerryS
'Memphis. Tennessee" brings to the table all of those fears
'60s East Coast gurus had about the American mind not
being ready to awaken to a
higher consciousness On this
10-minute instrumental version
of the rock and roll standard. Bull
drags the U S A s postwar
teenage id into the vastness of
space, giving it a simultaneous
raga treatment and cosmic
spanking that's as frightening as it
is fascinating
It's a bad trip, but there are
many good ones worth paying
attention to. including Bull's own
22-minute ’Blend." an impro
visatory but architecturally solid
jam with Ornette Coleman drummer
Billy Higgins It's a testament to the
rigor with which ‘free" music
should be explored — a rigor that's
usually the first thing to go when
rock bands go into their Spinal Tap
Jazz Odyssey mode Bull also
recorded a 10-minute gospelized
excursion influenced by the Staple Singers, a version of
Bonfa's 'Manha de Carnival" on an oud. and a version of
the 'Carolina Burana Fantasy" played on the 5-string
banjo Most of it will make your hair stand on end, but
none of it will make you want to yell 'Freebird"
Aisha Leuwenhoek
Discriminating Young Ladies Seek Social Introduction at
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