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12th STREET RECORDS
ANDY BEY/IN’T Necessarily So: Bey is a genre unto himself. Even though this set was recorded a decade back, it could have been recorded yesterday and it wouldn’t matter. Recorded live with the Washington Brothers backing him up, this dramatic reading of tunes from the masters cooks. Recorded just as he was coming out of the shadows again with his first set in 22 years, Bey’s energy propelled him into making his mark for the ages. Partly a throw back to golden jazz vocal times, this is the work of a neglected master putting everything aside and letting nothing come between him and the audience. Smoking stuff jazz vocal fans should not miss.
9292982
GEFFEN
EMMY ROSSUM/Inside Out: She made her bones in “Phantom of the Opera” and the powers that be have decided to wrap her up as the new pop confection for the Sarah Brightman market. With a club groove lite vibe running the set, this is the new standard in suburban hipness for people that like their hipness dictated by the whims of pop culture. An offbeat hybrid of a set that doesn’t remove her far from her theatrical roots as it tries to bring a younger audience into her tent, as long as she’s doing original material, it might be more fun next time if she went more into a Victoria Hart like bag and was more bubbly than serious, with all the skin she’s open to showing in the cover and the booklet, it seems something more light handed would serve her well.
10157
HIP-O SELECT
JAMES BROWN/The Singles V. 4 1966-67: For years, the “Star Time” collection was a great bounty. Then came the special editions of selected works; that was a real treat for the Brown geek. Now, we continue to get deeper into his world of singles and this is a gas. Whether they were hits or not, they are on board. This 4th volume in the series finds him just after one of his hot as a pistol phases where he was kicking it out for Christmas. Diversifying in the year just before America got turned on it’s head, he’s doing “Cold Sweat” along side interpretations form “Porgy & Bess”, rockabilly covers and the first of his message songs. If you’re one of the many that love Brown, this set is as cool as the first time you hear the Maceo flute solo on the previously unreleased 12 minute version of “Doin’ It to Death”. Some people say “om”, some people say “HAH!”, and you don’t have to be a soul starved Brit to be in that number. HAH!
9472 (limited edition) (www.hip-oselect.com)
LIBRA
SATOKO FUJII QUARTET/Bacchus: There was a time in the 80’s when the Japanese were stealing our fusion and selling it back to us in a better, hipper form just like the Brits were doing with blues a generation earlier. The latest from this quartet is right in that 80’s pocket, not so much in sound but in fury. Improvised and rocking, this jazz crew knows how to deliver. Unless you are a devoted follower of the Japanese jazz scene, you might not know that this is a crew of all star hitters in their own rights, all contributing toward the whole. A real moving target of a player, Fujii delivers yet another diverse outing that stands apart from previous sets. A real find for the open eared.
1136
Volume 31/Number 1
November 1, 2007
MIDWEST RECORD
830 W. Route 22 #144
Lake Zurich, IL., 60047
CHRIS SPECTOR, Editor and Publisher
©2007 Midwest Record
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