Lisa Jaeggi - Oh Lady You Shot Me

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There is this music called anti-folk. The people who came up with the label don’t believe that they are making folk music. Folk music, they say, presents the lives of rural people, farmers and the like. It presents a sense of community, and espouses values like friendship and peace. Anti-folk, on the other hand, is urban music. Cities are overcrowded, and the music reflects a desire to find a little patch of space they can call their own. Anti-folk artists do not make pretty music either; their art reflects the harshness of their environment.

And that, for me, is where their argument falls down. Their music reflects the ways in which people respond to their environment. That is what folk music does. The function of the music is not that different; just the environment is. And, by now, Anti-folk has been around long enough to develop its own traditions.

Enter Lisa Jaeggi. I found a reference to her as an anti-folk artist. I’m not sure she would use the label herself. She lives in Brooklyn NY, where you can walk a block and hear music from many cultures. And that background finds its way into her music in many ways. I’m not sure Jaeggi is even aware of all of them herself. Many of her songs are based around repeating guitar patterns. This reminds me of some African music I have heard. Jaeggi’s words often come out in torrents. This is reminiscent of Jason Mraz’s first album, but also happens in rap. And, being exposed to such a diversity of musics, Jaeggi feels free to use whatever elements she pleases to color her music. So, most of her songs have just guitar, stand up bass, and maybe simple percussion, but sometimes she adds glockenspiel or vibraphone.

I mentioned that Jaeggi uses repeating guitar patterns in many of her songs, and it would be tempting to say that she is limited as a guitar player. But, in the course of the album’s nine songs, Jaeggi demonstrates a range of different techniques and moods in her playing. And she also must keep the beat mostly with her guitar; the percussion parts, when there are any, are more for color.

Lisa Jaeggi’s lyrics reflect a world in which real love is hard to find. Relationships are fleeting, and dishonesty is everywhere. But Jaeggi doesn’t give up. Heartache is the last song on the album, and it is a pledge of love. The song ends the album on hopeful note. Before we get there, Jaeggi expresses the search for love beautifully in The Place. There are songs here about breakups. And there are the kind of songs that cause arguments. What is this song about? It depends not only on the songwriter but also the listener. Jaeggi weaves a web of words. It is up to the listener to step back and discern the shape of that web. This kind of writing can seem pretentious or even precious, but that never happens here. Somebody is one of these songs. I hear a song about an artist whose work is passed over in favor of the work of more commercial artists; The narrator says she gets his work, and offers her love. That’s what I hear, but you may take away something completely different.

I should mention that Oh Lady I Shot You contains strong language. Readers should decide their own comfort level before playing this album in the presence of children. The strong language is not overdone, and suit’s the characters.

So I find Lisa Jaeggi to be a fine writer. The music is made by only two musicians on this, Jaeggi’s debut album. I can hear extra parts in my head as I listen to this, and I will be very interested in whether Jaeggi chooses to expand her sound in the future. I hope to share that with you in the future.

Lisa Jaeggi: The Place

Lisa Jaeggi: Somebody

Spotlight Special: Folk Music

What is folk music? Some people would say that it is a single performer, with a guitar or banjo, performing traditional songs. The Joan Baez song in my last post is a fine example, and it is certainly folk music. But this definition excludes traditional music for larger groups of musicians. Bluegrass, for example is certainly folk music. Traditional music is a term which does not mean that the music was not written by anyone; it means that the name of the original author has been lost, and that the music passed into the oral tradition, where it was changed. So does this mean that music cannot be folk music if the author is known? That would exclude the songs of Woody Guthrie, for example. And his songs are changed by each person who performs them. Different arrangements spring up, and some artists even add or update the lyrics. It is just as problematic to say the a song must be so old to be a folk song. How old? Who decides? Finally, many people would say that folk music must be acoustic. But Steve Goodman is widely considered to be a folk musician, and he frequently included electric instruments in his arrangements.

So I would say that folk music displays deep knowledge and influence of traditional music, but may update both the content and the sound for contemporary audiences. An arrangement of Lord Franklin from 150 years ago, about the time it was written, would not have included an electric guitar. But that is not out of respect for tradition, but simply because the technology did not exist yet.

Here then is a set of the folk music of today. I have deliberately chosen only songs written by the artists performing them. These songs provide a range of answers to the question of what folk music is today. I believe that each of these artists would be welcomed at a modern folk festival. And, if I was there, I would try to catch all of their sets.

Anne & Pete Sibley: Pick Up These Chains

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Anne and Pete Sibley are acoustic musicians. Their arrangements are spare, often just the two of them singing together and playing guitar and banjo. They make this work beautifully. Pick Up These Chains is about how love can pass down through generations, a perfect theme for a folk song. This music reminds us that country music at its best grew out of folk music. The Sibley’s songs are mostly originals, but maybe they will be considered part of the tradition one day. I can certainly hear why.

Annie & Rod Capps: Another Day

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Annie and Rod Capps are songwriters, and I would think that that is how they will be known in the future. Another Day is a beautifully realized character portrait that also tells a story. The Capps use fuller arrangements, sometimes including electric guitar and even drums, but there is a delicacy to their arrangements. This goes well with Annie Capps sweet voice. That sweetness can seem to mask the emotions of the songs sometimes, but in the end the feeling always comes through.

Sarah Jarosz: Broussard‘s Lament

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Sarah Jarosz was jamming with musicians like David Grisman when she was twelve. She’s eighteen now, and she has come into her own as a songwriter. As she gains experience, she is going to be downright scary. Jarosz can play fairly straight bluegrass, but she can also blend in the jazzier sound Grisman is known for. Broussard’s Lament starts as a folk ballad, and evolves into a Grismanesque jam. Throughout, Jarosz never loses track of her subject. She creates a protagonist who relates their experience of the New Orleans flood. There are many older musicians who can not show off their prowess as players and arrangers, and put over the emotion of their lyric at the same time. Jarosz can and does.

Thad Beckman: I‘m Falling Apart

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Thad Beckman probably isn’t as old as he sounds. He sings in a weary and gruff voice, and his characters are often in decline. This is the stuff of country and blues, and both are well represented here. I’m Falling Apart is a bluesy number concerning a classic subject: the end of a relationship. Beckman obviously knows and loves this music, and his songs ring true.

Barbara Lamb: I Was Wondering

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Barbara Lamb is a contradiction. On the one hand, her fiddle playing and her vocal harmonies show a deep understanding of bluegrass music. But she adds percussion from various parts of the world, and also electronic effects. And she plays almost everything herself, so this music is entirely a product of the recording studio. Still, the mix is intoxicating. One minute, the music is almost straight bluegrass, and the next there is a hip-hop flavor to it. So call this music mutant bluegrass, and enjoy the ride. This may or may not be something that will sound normal in the future. It depends on how many people can pull it off. Meanwhile, whatever else this music may be, it is a lot of fun.

For a Song: Barbara Allen

Joan Baez: Barbara Allen

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I must be out of my mind. Last week was jazz singers week, and it was a labor of love for me. But it was a labor, a lot of work. So this week is folk music week. As before, there is this post, to be followed by an all folk Spotlight Special for the weekend post. And things will wrap up with a folk music album review. So, to get things rolling…

I was introduced to jazz singing by an artist I already knew for other music. Folk music was different. My parents emphasized classical music above all else, but there was still folk music around. We received radio signals from New York City, and one of the classical stations there had a folk show on Saturday nights, called Woody’s Children. Also, my parents had 78s by Paul Robeson. Now Robeson was not a folk singer, but much of his material was traditional, especially spirituals. Finally, I attended marches against the Vietnam War from age eight on, and so I got to hear Peter Paul and Mary, Pete Seeger, Arlo Guthrie, and many others I don’t even remember anymore. But all exerted a subtle influence on my musical taste, and all of this is a big part of why Oliver di Place sounds the way it does. Nevertheless, when I began to put together my own album collection, folk music did not have a place at first.

It was a friend in high school who made it OK for me to embrace folk music. He played cello, acoustic guitar, mountain dulcimer, and banjo. He could pick up pretty much anything with strings and make it sound good. At the height of the disco era, he was an oddball. But my friends and I in high school loved science fiction and Monty Python, and to fit in with us you had to be different. One of the first albums he played for me was by Joan Baez, and I had to have a copy of my own. It wasn’t easy to find in those days; there was no Amazon or even a Tower Records. Instead, I found it in good condition at a flea market. Treasure!

As I discovered the music of Joan Baez, I was immediately taken with the song Barbara Allen, and it is clearly still a favorite. The final image of the rose and briar intertwined introduced me to a kind of poetry I had never encountered before. I still find this to be one of the most hauntingly romantic lyrics I know.

The Stolen Sweets - Sleepytime in Chinatown

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To conclude jazz week, I am happy to present The Stolen Sweets. You will notice that the album cover is designed to look like a matchbook cover. A beautiful woman is in a swanky nightclub. Her gloved hand holds a cigarette in a long holder. Several young men rush up to her and offer her a light. One lights it, and she says, “Thank you, boys” in a voice that makes your heart melt. The smoke rises from her hand like a thing alive, an effect that only works on black and white film.

The music of The Stolen Sweets evokes the world depicted in the films of the late 30s and early 40s. Romance is innocent and pure. Jealousy can drive a man to terrible acts. And everything is idealized. This doesn’t happen in the movies nowadays, and putting it over musically is a challenge. Audiences are jaded, and expect characters to have flaws. The only way to put this over is to evoke a past era so completely that your listeners are willing to suspend disbelief, and take the ride with you. The Stolen Sweets succeed.

The Sweets have two guitar players and a stand-up bass player. There are two male and three female singers. Guest musicians on various tracks add drums, clarinet, a string quartet, cornet, and even Hawaiian steel guitar. The female singers get most of the work; they work as a trio, singing close harmony on lead or behind one of the men; sometimes one of the women sings lead while the other two sing background. This variety of voices and combinations allows The Sweets to capture a variety of moods. I imagine that they have discussions all the time about which vocal combination would best serve each new song they add, and the decisions here are right. The vocal sound often recalls the sound of swing-era sister groups like the Boswell Sisters. The instrumental sound is closer to Django Reinhardt jamming with friends, and the combination works beautifully.

You might expect that Sleepytime in Chinatown would be an entire album of covers of swing-era tunes. After all, we all know that they don’t write them like that anymore. But The Stolen Sweets do. Half the songs here are originals, and they stand proudly side-by-side with the covers. I was particularly struck by the use of language. Listen to the words in The Wizard of Oz, and you will notice the brilliant turns of phrase. Most of the originals here display that same love of language in service of the song. Only one, Easy on the Eyes, fails to deliver in this way; the words here sound good, but the narrative doesn’t make sense. That leaves five original songs that work beautifully. The best of these is Willie the Weeper, the Chinatown Creeper. This is a tale of jealousy, in a gangster setting, and you can imagine that James Cagney or Humphrey Bogart should have been in the film. Dinner for Two recalls a time when women had very different roles than they do now; here is a heroine whose highest ambition is to cook delicious meals for her man. With our modern perspective, we could resent or even pity her, but The Sweets make us believe in her and admire her earnest declaration of love.

The covers include the opening track, I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter. The Sweets’ last album included more familiar tunes, but this was the only cover here that I was familiar with. Like the originals, the covers relate yearning, devotion and jealousy. Puttin’ It On and Guilty are notable, because the bass player, Keith Brush, gets to step out and take solos in each song. He displays the ability to add to the melody while continuing told down the beat; bear in mind that, in the absence of a drummer, the bass is often the only rhythm instrument here.

So here is an album that transports you to a different time and place without a hitch. The original songs, for the most part, work seamlessly along side the covers. The only problem is, the ride is over far too soon. The album is only 34 minutes long! I was left wanting more. And that is the mark of a job well done.

The Stolen Sweets: Willie the Weeper, the Chinatown Creeper

The Stolen Sweets: Putiin‘ It On

Spotlight Special: Jazz Singers

Once, a jazz musician, Duke Ellington I believe, was asked, what is jazz? “If you gotta ask, you ain’t never gonna know”, was his reply. And it’s true. The differences between Kid Ory and Ornette Coleman are extreme, and yet both are jazz. And this is also the case with jazz singers. Ella Fitzgerald and Cassandra Wilson are both jazz singers, but with very different styles and approaches.

This point was really driven home for me at a concert I attended quite a few years ago. My oldest brother was attending Berklee College of Music at the time, and the faculty and students presented a concert on the history of jazz. Different ensembles came and went from the stage all evening, and for me, connections were made. By putting different styles of jazz in chronological order, the performances went a ways towards explaining how one grew into the next.

I am fortunate to have a selection of jazz singers to present that somewhat allows me to do the same thing. All are contemporary artists, but each is working with a different style of jazz. It happens that all of the singers presented here are women. I am quite sure that there are also many great male jazz singers out there; I hope I will hear from them, and I would be happy to share the results another time.

Meanwhile, instead of a Spotlight Song this week, here is a whole set of them. Each of these artists is well deserving of a full album review, but most of these albums reached me too late for that. But I wanted to share their music with you nonetheless, so here they are.

Miss Tess: Saving All My Love

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The Boston music scene has many artists who are exploring the sounds of music from the period prior to World War II. Miss Tess is one of these. On her album Darling Oh Darling, she performs songs in early country, blues and jazz styles. Many of these songs are originals, but the sound is from that earlier era. And Miss Tess has a wonderful brassy voice that is perfect for this music.

Remember that, in the pre-war era, the rules of music had not been formed yet. Small ensembles could include combinations of instruments that would seem odd today. The boundaries between musical genres that are so strict now did not exist then, and it was not unusual for an artist or group to cross these musical lines at will. For Miss Tess, this is worth celebrating, and she has the talent to back it up.

Nina Vox: Little Drop of Poison

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As jazz music developed, Latin jazz became an important subgenre, one that many artists still draw on today. Nina Vox makes her debut with an album that draws heavily on this style. She has a sultry voice that recalls cabaret singers, and the combination really works.

Here she turns the Tom Waits song Little Drop of Poison into a tango, and all of the emotion of the piece survives nicely. I could tell you that Nina Vox hails from Brazil or Argentina, but no. She’s actually from Australia.

Debbie Cunningham: Overjoyed

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Debbie Cunningham probably sounds most like what people think of when they hear the term “jazz singer”. She is backed by a trio with drums, bass, and piano, sometimes joined by other instruments. For her take on Stevie Wonder’s Overjoyed, she adds light touches which recall the fusion jazz of the late 70s. The key to this performance is that light touch. Cunningham’s arrangement pays tribute to the source, but I find her delivery of the vocal to be more believable than the original.

Laura Siersema: Talon of the Blackwater and Graces

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Over a rhythm carried by the drums and guitar, Laura Siersema sings a beautiful duet with the fretless bass part. Siersema may not think of herself as a jazz singer at all, but this song and a few others on this album have a similar flavor to Joni Mitchell’s album Hejera. Siersema also stakes out plenty of her own territory, but the whole thing has a jazzy feel to it in my mind. And I mean that as a complement.

Joanna Chapman-Smith: Things Are Gonna Go Wrong

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Finally, we have Joanna Chapman Smith. I’m pretty sure she will find her inclusion here surprising. And yet, her music contains many of the same elements the combined to form jazz. Here are cabaret, klezmer, some folk, and maybe even some classical references. And Chapman-Smith combines them all into a coherent whole, and makes music that sounds not quite like anything I’ve ever heard before.

Things Are Gonna Go Wrong starts with just Chapman-Smith’s voice and the bass, and it really does sound like jazz. But then, the accordion and clarinet join in. So the sound, and the combination of instruments is certainly unusual. But I still feel that this song belongs in this set, and makes musical sense.

For a Song: Twisted

Joni Mitchell: Twisted

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As I started planning my jazz singers feature for this week’s theme post, I became more and more excited. The fact is that even though I haven’t had much chance to feature it here, I love jazz singing when done well. So I have decided to make a full week of it, starting with this edition of For a Song. The week starts now, and ends with my next album review.

I had no trouble deciding where to start. Twisted was the first example of jazz singing I ever heard. I already knew of Joni Mitchell’s music, mostly from the Blue album at that point. But this was something else. That something else was a quality called “swing”, although I didn’t have a name for it until much later. But I could feel it right away. This was music you could not sit still to. And one other thing distinguished Twisted. Blue is not a happy album, so it was great to hear Joni Mitchell having fun.

Bonus Track:

Lambert Hendricks and Ross: Twisted

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In researching this post, I discovered that Twisted could be found on at least two Joni Mitchell tribute albums. I decided not to include either one. One was a fairly slavish copy of Mitchell’s version, while the other was more original. But what particularly struck me was that no one involved in either of these tributes seemed to know that Mitchell did not write or originally record the song. Mitchell’s career has included a scant amount of covers, and this one was the first. So, to set the record straight, I thought I had better include the original version, by Lambert Hendricks and Ross. It is quite wonderful in its own right, and this is what Mitchell was hearing when she came up with her interpretation.

Red Molly - James

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I reviewed Red Molly’s last album, Love and Other Tragedies, in January; I was rather late, as the album actually came out in 2008. It was only “current” because they were on the cover of Dirty Linen at the time. I won’t make that mistake again. With their new release, James, Red Molly makes a strong case for keeping a close eye on them. James is not a carbon copy of Love and Other Tragedies, although I would have been happy with another album like that. But here, Red Molly stretches out.

First of all, there are drums. Now, when a folk group adds drums, it can mean the end of any claim to folk purity; often, this signals that a group has sold out. No such worries here. The drums, often played with brushes or mallets, enhance the energy or the mood of the songs they are used on, but never overwhelm the material. And they are only used on about half of the songs.

On End of the Line, the band adds a new musical flavor, Western Swing, and it works. End of the Line is one of a few songs where the group also adds some tasty piano parts; again, this seems not like a radical departure, but rather a natural evolution. Maybe the next album won’t have drums or piano, but they will be available if the material calls for them.

But the most significant way that Red Molly stretches out here is with their vocals. The singing on Love… was fine, but here, they demonstrate a greater range, and the results are tremendous. Last time, I described Laurie MacAllister as the country one, but listen to her performance on Lookin’ for Trouble. This is as good an example of blues singing as you are likely to find. Abbie Gardner was the bluesy one last time, but she delivers her own song Jezebel in a way that will make you think the song is a rediscovered Dolly Parton classic. And then there is Gulf Coast Highway. This is my favorite Nanci Griffith song, so I’m especially critical here. And Laurie MacAllister nails it. Some of the gloss in Griffith’s arrangement is gone here, but that works better for Red Molly. Guest vocalist Fred Gillen Jr has a tough assignment here, and I thought he could have blended better with MacAllister, but he certainly does his part to capture the emotion of the song. And there is Falling In. Even in a group where the singers blend so well, you don’t usually hear a song where the lead vocals are shared. But MacAllister starts off Falling In, then Gardner takes over for a couple of verses, and finally Carolann Solebello takes it home. This could have fallen apart at any point, but it never does.

The songs here address a somewhat wider range of subjects that last time. True, the vast majority of the songs are still about relationships. But among these are two songs about coalminers and one about a moonshiner. These people have relationships, but they also live in the wider world. They are doomed but noble working class heroes. In the song Poor Boy, the heroism is featured and the relationships are not explored at all. And still, Red Molly does a fine job of capturing all of the feelings on this wider emotional palette.

So I am very pleased to have the review of James on time. But there is one small problem. This means that I will have a much longer wait for their next one.

Red Molly: Falling In

Red Molly: Lookin‘ for Trouble