Difficult News

There is no easy way to say this. I am coming up on my 100th post here and my one-year anniversary. But all of that seems less important today. My father passed on this morning. The memorial service will be next week some time. Needless to say, Oliver di Place may be affected. I don't know that my emotional state will allow me to fairly review albums. And there might not be much here at all for a while. But then again, there might. This blog is a lifeline for me, and I have made many friends through it. So, I'll be playing it by ear.

Whatever happens, know that Oliver di Place will eventually get back to normal. Artists: if you are interested in sending CDs for review, please continue to do so, and I will get to them as soon as I can. If you want to send inquiries, please do, but understand that I may be a little slow to respond.

Above all, to my readers and listeners: thank you for your support and your patience in this difficult time.

She Swings, She Sways - Wasted Love Songs

[purchase]

She Swings, She Sways is a six piece band. Between them, they can top the usual drums and bass with twin acoustic guitars plus electric guitar and piano. Or acoustic guitar with two electric guitars and trumpet. They can add in a mandolin or harmonica. And guests on the album bring fiddle, pedal steel, and French horn into the mix. The bass player plays a stand up bass, but sometimes he bows it instead of the usual plucking. So She Swings, She Sways can use a lot of different musical textures. They do so, but with great subtlety, and the whole thing holds together beautifully. But Wasted Love Songs is an album that rewards repeated listens, because there is so much going on musically. Some songs are mostly acoustic, while others rock out. Sometimes both things happen in the same song. There is even the occasional waltz.

John Gordon is the main songwriter and lead vocalist. He manages all of this beautifully. The pacing of the album allows for the building and release of dramatic tension, both within the individual songs, and in their sequencing.

And what could be more dramatic than love? On the back cover of the album, each of the eleven songs is dedicated to a different woman. The album opens with a declaration of love, What I Wouldn’t Do, and closes with an apology for all the wrongs committed in a relationship, Even So. In between, Gordon takes us on a journey through the adventures that relationships can be. Gordon is a brave narrator, taking on some difficult subjects with delicacy, but also with honesty. He Loves Me depicts a woman who seeks a white knight to rescue her from an abusive relationship. In Ryan’s Song, a woman must decide whether to try to make a relationship with a drug addict work; there are hints that he may be in recovery by the end of the song. But I was most impressed with Evelyn’s Green and Highway.

In Evelyn’s Green, a man offers comfort to a woman who is dying of an unnamed disease. It is clear that the narrator knows she will not recover, but he lies to her about the seriousness of the situation. Perhaps he lies to himself, in hopes that it will be true. The listener must decide whether to forgive this man for his false assurances. It is clear, however, that he does it to try to comfort the woman he genuinely loves.

Highway gives us a young American on a brief visit to Ireland. He has read in Chaucer and Kerouac about sexual liasons that always seem to result in great pleasure for both parties. Sure enough, he meets a young woman, and they wind up sleeping together. It is necessary for John Gordon to describe the sex scene. He does this discreetly but effectively, but we know that it goes badly. And the narrator must leave for home the next day, so there is no time for him to make it right. The kicker is that he is telling all of this to the young woman’s brother. Is this a final gesture of apology?
So here is a collection of three or four minute songs with rich musical textures and emotional complexity that I would expect to find in a much longer work. Either way, as I said earlier, Wasted Love Songs is an album that offers great rewards for repeated listens. That is a rare thing, to be treasured.

She Swings, She Sways: Evelyn‘s Green

She Swings, She Sways: Highway

Housing Project

I have been involved in a project modeled after Habitat For Humanity, except that instead of building houses from scratch, we are performing extensive renovations. Because much of the work is done by volunteers, (myself included), it takes a long time. We’ve been working on one house for over a year now. As it turned out, the house needed to have completely new wiring and plumbing, it was is converted from oil to gas heat, walls were removed or moved, all of the windows were replaced... It has been pretty amazing. I wanted to help, but I am not exactly handy. I had always assumed that these jobs were things you paid someone else to do. How they were done was something I thought would always be a mystery to me.

Now the project is reaching the point where the house is starting to be put back together. It is possible to imagine it as a house, and not just a shell. And this got me thinking about houses, and the songs about them.

Pete Seeger: Little Boxes

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Malvina Reynolds wrote Little Boxes in 1963, when housing developments were a new thing. She saw them as a symbol of conformity. Reynolds coined the term “ticky-tacky” for this song; you can now find the term in the dictionary.

I chose Pete Seeger’s version of Little Boxes over the Reynolds original, because this is the version I first heard. The song was part of my childhood. My parents embraced the sentiment of the song as a way to encourage me and my brothers to not take the common path, to dare to think for ourselves.

John Mellencamp: Pink Houses

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I would love to hear someone like Richard Shindell do a solo acoustic version of Pink Houses. John Mellencamp recorded the song at the peak of his popular success, as the rock anthem heard here. But the song is not that far removed from folk songwriting in terms of structure and lyrical content. Mellencamp presents sketches portraits of three people who dreamed of better things in their lives, prompted by the fact that they were each able to buy a house. But each of these dreams has hit a dead end. These houses may be the same ones Reynolds wrote about, but twenty years later, and with their original owners long gone.

Crosby Stills Nash & Young: Our House

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My last two selections are about particular houses. CSNY describe this house as a refuge from the stresses of life. Here, love blooms in a jar flowers in one the windows. In my house, however, one of the cats always tries to eat the blossoms. So this song is not so much about a physical place as a state of mind.

Madness: Our House

[purchase]

Madness performs my last selection, and that fits. Here is a house full of people, always in hurry and often running late. And yet, in the midst of all this, there is a sweet memory of a quieter time. This last one is a house, yes, but also a home. And sometimes the family that lives there gets a chance to catch their breaths, and remember that.

For a Song: Hotel California

The Eagles: Hotel California

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It’s probably true that most of my readers have never wondered if I like the Eagles. But the answer is usually no. There is, obviously, one exception. Hotel California. I should say that the only music of theirs I ever heard was whatever made it onto the radio, so they may have done other songs I would enjoy. But this is the only one I know.

Hotel California came out at an interesting time. In the 1970s, psychedelic rock morphed into progressive rock, and then faded away. Reggae arrived in the United States, and made a big impression on some people, but never achieved consistent commercial success. The Eagles ruled the airwaves with a mix of country rock and hard rock.

Culturally, the 1970s were about the belief in magic. The works of J R R Tolkien found a mass audience. Star Wars was huge. (I know Star Wars takes place in space, but in theme and plot as well, it is fantasy, not science fiction.) A remake of The Wizard of Oz, (remember The Whiz?), was a Broadway hit. And something called magic realism was coming from novelists in Latin America.

Hotel California is neither country rock nor hard rock. It is related rhythmically to reggae, but the arrangement is hard rock. Like so many songs of that vintage, Hotel California has been covered many times. But the covers of Hotel California include reggae, flamenco, and gypsy versions. It’s almost surprising that this unusual rhythm made onto mainstream radio in the first place.

Then there are the lyrics. Hotel California tells the tale of a man who is traveling through an area that is unfamiliar to him. Seeking a place to stay for the night, he comes upon the title establishment. He decides to stay for the night, only to learn that, “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.” Described this way, it sounds fairly mundane. But why can he never leave? The lyrics never say. There are strange behaviors here, some of which sound like rituals, (“they stab it with their steely knives”). So, although nothing magical is spelled out, I have always taken this to be a tale of magic. Beyond that, the song is a mystery. My interpretation changes every time I hear the song. And that is what I treasure about it. But I still feel weird about liking anything by the Eagles.

Kat Calvosa - Chrysalis

[purchase]

Kat Calvosa is a young jazz singer. Chrysalis shows all the joys and pitfalls of that statement. Calvosa shows a great talent for jazz singing, and her band can swing or take it down for a tender ballad. And the fact that Calvosa writes all of her material here is a bonus. But Calvosa shows gives us glimpses of several possible futures. She might continue with jazz, and deepen her groove and develop more of her own voice. She might decide to go pop, and become just another singer songwriter with a pop-jazz touch. Or she might layer on the strings and orchestration in a later release, and go for the Sinatra effect. Commercially, any of these strategies might work, and all are hinted at here. But I hope she decides to go with spare arrangements, and develop her jazz voice. To me, that’s what sounds truest here.

Calvosa sings in a low soprano voice with just a hint of sweetness. She can play with the rhythm without ever losing the beat. Her band supports her well. They can play drums, stand-up bass, and piano. Or, they can change the feel, going with drums, electric bass, and electric piano. Either way, they interweave their lines with Calvosa’s vocals, creating a whole that is richer than the parts. And that is what the listener hears as the album starts. Then, a few tracks in, acoustic guitar and background vocals appear. Late in the album, there is one song that uses electric guitar and organ. Only this last one seems to me to belong on a different album. The rest holds together well.

Chrysalis opens with the song The Brooklyn Dodger, and we immediately get a wonderful introduction to Calvosa’s gifts as a song writer. Here, she imagines an old man sleeping in the subways, and dreaming of life in a Brooklyn Dodgers uniform. It is never clear whether this a fantasy or a memory, but it doesn’t really matter. Either way, this is a moving portrait of a man with two lives. Baseball serves as both an alternate reality and a metaphor. In the space of an average-length song, Calvosa creates a work of great subtlety and nuance.

The Brooklyn Dodger is no fluke. Calvosa hits the mark with her songs throughout the album. In See It Rise, Calvosa imagines jogging every day past a site where, at first, a beautiful old house stands. The house is torn down, and she jogs past a growing pile of rubble. And she knows that the site will soon contain a new building, a tribute to modern construction, but a structure with no personality. A Rose is a subtle love song, more of a caress than an embrace, and all the more tantalizing for it. Impossible Is Nothing uses billboards as a metaphor for a woman’s growing self confidence. So Calvosa shows an original perspective, and a gift for metaphors.

The only misfire here is The Voices We Ignore. This is a well-intentioned plea for compassion for the less fortunate. It is very difficult to do this sort of thing well, and many songwriters far better known than Calvosa have stumbled. this also the song I mentioned earlier, that doesn’t fit musically with the rest of the album.

But, over all, I really enjoyed Chrysalis. I hope Calvosa sticks with the small group jazz, because it’s a great sound for her. And I am eager to see where her songwriting goes next.

Kat Calvosa: The Brooklyn Dodger

Kat Calvosa: See It Rise

Halloween Party

When I was a kid, Halloween was my favorite holiday. It still is. This is the night for good spooky fun. I always thought you should dress up as something scary. But my friends didn’t necessarily agree. So, one year, I was a witch and my best friend was a UNICEF box. That was scary in its own way, but was not what I meant.

Danny Elfman: This Is Halloween

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What then are the key elements for a great Halloween? Danny Elfman sets the mood with a catalog of scary costume ideas. This song opens The Nightmare Before Christmas, and does a great job of setting the mood. Here, it does so again.

Shivaree: Goodnight Moon

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You need a properly creepy night. There should be a full moon casting strange shadows. A chill wind makes odd noises. Shivaree describes the night perfectly. The title refers back to the classic children’s book, and the song gives it a great spooky twist.

Dr John: Witchy Red

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There should be scary stories. Dr John tells a dandy here. I imagine that, in Louisiana at this time of year, they talk in hushed tones of Marie LeVeau. Dr John’s character meets a modern-day disciple.

Rose and the Arrangement: The Cockroach That Ate Cincinnatti

[purchase]

And of course, there needs to be a party. Let’s have great live music and dancing.

What, you may ask, does that have to do with this song? Back when my wife and I were dating, xxxx-xxx years ago, we attended a Halloween contradance. We chose our costumes carefully, making sure we had a full range of motion. The band was assembled once a year for this occasion, out of the members of several local contradance bands. So there was a piano, fiddles, guitar, banjo, a flute or two, I think an accordion... It was a giant folk dance orchestra. We knew some of the musicians from other dances we had attended, but we had never heard any of them sing. So imagine our surprise when a traditional folk-dance piece suddenly medleyed into The Cockroach That Ate Cincinnatti. There was only one possible response: we kept dancing. So this song has a special place in my heart, and must be a part of any Halloween party I have anything to do with.

If you would like to know more about contradances, (like, what are they?), you can see what I wrote about them here.

Warren Zevon: Werewolves of London

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Finally, you knew this one had to be in there somewhere. There may be hundreds of blogs posting this this week, but that is one way to define a classic.

For a Song: Tam Lin

Fairport Convention: Tam Lin

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Tam Lin is a song I must hear every year at this time. The threads of the tale twist like Celtic knotwork, and a chill October wind blows through the whole thing. Last year, I shared the song for the first time online, on Star Maker Machine. You can still read that post here. The song is a tale of travel between this world and the Celtic Otherworld, and that travel, according to tradition, is most easily accomplished at this time of year. The Celts called it Samhain, and it is the time when the barriers between the two worlds break down.

There is always more to learn about Tam Lin. In preparing for this post, I learned that there is an Irish reel also called Tam Lin. The reel and the ballad are clearly completely different pieces of music. I don’t know how the reel got its name, but I hope to find out. I will be featuring two wonderful versions of the reel next week.

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Blog business: This post is the first of two special posts I am presenting this week as my Halloween party. Look for the next one soon. Preparing for this has proven to be more time consuming than I intended; that is why there was no album review this week. That feature will resume this coming weekend.

Also, the fund drive continues. Please give whatever you can. Thank you.