Comment on this story

This week: Brian Wilson finally comes around, Tift Merritt feels like a woman, and jazz artists pay tribute to the Fab Four

Brian Wilson
SMiLE (Nonesuch)

Envisioned both as a direct response to the Beatles’ Rubber Soul and Revolver and as a sequel to the Beach Boys’ masterpiece Pet Sounds, SMiLE was intended to be a “symphony to God.” The album was also to be perhaps the most intricate rock record ever, with a vast tapestry of lush pop melodies and orchestral instrumentation. Instead, disputes with Capitol Records, dissent within the band, and Beach Boy founder Brian Wilson’s deepening mental illness and dependence on drugs crippled the album’s progress. SMiLE was officially scrapped in 1967. Until now.

It’s arguable whether SMiLE is worth the 37-year wait. But it’s a close call. This is not simply a re-recording of long-forgotten tape reels. Nor is it the bastardized bootleg you may have heard. Rather, this is an elaborate pop concerto. Even four decades later, SMiLE manages to both challenge and transform the confines of the album with its harmonic, instrumentally luxuriant poetry. Even Wilson’s cragged-with-age voice can’t dilute this dream come true. If only Paul McCartney could still make albums like this.

—Lloyd Babbit

Tift Merritt
Tambourine (Lost Highway)

If an album could become animate, Tift Merritt’s Tambourine would take on a feminine form, composed of all the personas, moods, and faces an average woman wears. At times, she’s curled up on the couch swaddled in an old boyfriend’s sweater, tears in her beer, clutching a tub of Ben and Jerry’s. Other times, she’s burning rubber and heading out of town without looking back. One moment she’s nurturing, the next she’s impetuous. Merritt’s genuine voice—sultry and ethereal—soars effortlessly through the whirlwind of temperaments evoked in the album. Though Southern by birth, this North Carolina native can’t be pigeonholed as a country singer. Her voice has Susanna Hoffs’ beltability, Emmylou Harris’ fluid clarity, and hints of Sheryl Crow’s endearing scratchiness, but her song style meanders from honky-tonk to soulful to folky to footstompin’ and sexy. “Still Pretending,” the only certifiably country track on the album is a swaggering throwback to Patsy Cline. Merritt gets gospel-ly on the vulnerable “Good Hearted Man,” which melts with longing lyrics and church choir accompaniment. Title track “I am Your Tambourine” kicks the album into high gear with its seductive, cabaret vibe, saucy piano jaunts, and Robert Randolph’s mean pedal steel. About half of Tambourine’s songs have an intoxicating ability to conjure up hazy recollections, while the other half ooze with upbeat feminine fervor that percolates through Merritt’s flawless voice.

—Molly Kincaid

Various Artists
Blue Note Plays the Beatles (Blue Note)

“It’s no use, it can’t be done—The Beatles simply can’t become jazz, or even swing-styled pop. There’s just too much baggage, too much freight of expectation and received memory.” Or so claims the Penguin Guide to Jazz, remarking on a 1998 recording of Fab Four covers. It’s an assessment difficult to countenance given the musicianship captured on this collection and the broad evidence of Beatles interpretations elsewhere.

One in a series of Blue Note collections, which also includes CDs devoted to Burt Bacharach and Stevie Wonder tunes, Blue Note Plays the Beatles features some remarkable material: a Lee Morgan large band playing an Oliver Nelson arrangement of “Yesterday;” a Buddy Rich big band performing a Bill Holman arrangement of “Norwegian Wood;” Grant Green with Blue Mitchell covering “A Day in the Life;” Stanley Jordan’s rendering of “Eleanor Rigby;” Tony Williams with Mulgrew Miller on “Blackbird;” a Dianne Reeves and Cassandra Wilson duet on “Come Together;” and Bobby McFerrin’s hilarious send-up of “Drive My Car.”

While there’s the occasional hokey feel (for example in the head of Stanley Turrentine’s “Can’t Buy Me Love,” which seems disinclined to swing), the solos are universally fine. Guitarist Grant Green blows away his turn on “A Day in the Life,” as do guitarist Fareed Haque on “Come Together” and trumpeter Wallace Roney on “Blackbird.” Twenty years after the fact, guitarist Stanley Jordan’s unique touch on “Eleanor Rigby” is still astonishing (yup, that’s one guitarist, unmixed) despite the occasional clam, and perhaps the most sensitive reading of a Beatles tune in this assortment. In summary, there’s no discernable baggage here.

—Jonathan B. Frey

November 4, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 45 © 2004 Metro Pulse