This Week: A guitar innovator, reissued Chick, and another from Dylan's vault
Charlie Christian
Charlie Christian: The Genius of the Electric Guitar (Columbia/Legacy)
This four-CD set contains all we have of Charlie Christian. An early electric guitar adopter and the forefather of blues, jazz, and rock guitar, Christian was plucked from Oklahoma City obscurity in 1939 by producer John Hammond and introduced to bandleader Benny Goodman.
For the next 17 months, essentially the rest of his short life, Christian performed and recorded with the superstar bandleader's acclaimed sextets, all stunningly remastered here. Not only is Christian's guitar mastery fully documented, but so is his essential innovation, the transposition of horn lines to the guitar, releasing the instrument from the chorded soloing of the time. Christian's uncharacteristically chorded solo on "Star Dust" compared with his others here reveal the vital nature of this new approach.
But it's not just Christian that makes this collection notable; these are monster swing sessions, capturing some of the finest jazz musicians of the day, e.g., Goodman (clarinet), Fletcher Henderson and Count Basie (piano), Lionel Hampton (vibes), Lester Young (tenor), among others. And despite Goodman's reputation as a big band teen idol, the sheer inventiveness of his playing when in such lofty company can be limitless.
As a collection, Genius of the Electric Guitar is designed for the completist. Not only does it cover everything Christian recorded with Goodman, including all the alternate takes (why not put alternates all on one CD?), but most of the fourth CD contains extensive Christian rehearsal noodling. Add the comprehensive documentation, and the result is a thorough, albeit at times exhausting, testament to an innovator.
—Jonathan B. Frey
Chick Corea
The Complete "IS" Sessions (Blue Note)
Originally resulting in two separate albums issued on two different labels, these reassembled October 1969 sessions form an interesting if nonessential whole. It's a portrait of the young man as daring pianist, recorded during Corea's heady stint on the fringe of bop with Miles. Before Corea himself went the fusion route, he cast his chips as an avant-jazzer, and he was quite good at it, too.
The set leads off with swinging performances of "The Brain" and "This," wherein Bennie Maupin, Dave Holland, and Jack Dejohnette revel in the liberated setting that Corea's writing and playing provides. Flautist Hubert Laws is added to "Song of the Wind," a beautifully ethereal waltz (shades of Corea music to come), and trumpeter Woody Shaw comes aboard for "Sundance," whose charming vamp and theme wear thin after the nth repetition. Alternate takes of each of these tracks follow, and the expected variations are present.
The latter half of the sessions is given over to more harsh explorations. The honk-and-shout mayhem heard in "Jamala" and the half-hour long "Is" (both bolstered by a second percussionist) doesn't add up to much beyond simple sound and fury—but neither is it dull. "Converge" is much more intriguing and integrated, if only in the way its cyclical, dissonant theme echoes left-field classical works of the period.
—Chris Mitchell
Bob Dylan
Live 1975, The Rolling Thunder Review (Columbia)
Dylan and his music have been so mythologized that it can be sometimes hard to hear them for what they really are. This hasn't been helped by the abundance of bootlegging of his work and concerts, and the secrecy surrounding some of it.
The '75 tour, called "The Rolling Thunder Review," is one of those and is the third release in Dylan's "Bootleg Series." (The first contained unreleased outtakes from throughout his career; the second was his legendary "Royal Albert Hall" concert with the Band in the mid '60s.)
With his '70s masterpiece, Blood on the Tracks, released the year before and his most romantic album, Desire, just recorded, Dylan hit the road with a motley collection of musicians—including Joan Baez, guitarists T-Bone Burnett and Mick Ronson, and the violinist Scarlet Rivera. They played in weird venues, sometimes only announcing them a few days in advance. A film crew recorded much of the tour for the critically trashed film, Renaldo and Clara.
The music on this two-disc set reflects the mode that Dylan was in at the time: frenzied. At a creative peak, he was bursting with energy, and on stage he tears through old folk tunes like "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" and "It Ain't Me, Babe."
Listening to him sing his then new material (which have now become "classics" and somehow staid, museum pieces) like "Idiot Wind," "Simple Twist of Fate," and "Tangled Up in Blue" you can hear the anger, longing, and pain that inspired them bubbling up. Also included are some touching duets with Baez.
We're sure to get several more of these releases for the rest of Dylan's life and probably long after he's gone. There's certain to be plenty of duds in the heap, but this set isn't one of them.
—Joe Tarr
December 12, 2002 * Vol. 12, No. 50
© 2002 Metro Pulse
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