Stewart Copeland - Orchestralli

Stewart Copeland - Orchestralli
Ponderosa Music & Art
2004

Personnel:

Stewart Copeland - drums, composer, producer
Robert Zeigler - conductor
Amedeo Bianchi - sax midi
Judd Miller - ewi, strange horns midi
Ensemble Bash - percussion
Orchestra UECA (United European Culture Association) [14 piece string/brass/woodwind ensemble]

Recorded in Milan, Turin, Bologna and Rome in Italy, this marks the first Copeland live release by Copeland as well as his first non-group or film soundtrack release in well over a decade. Most famous for being the founder of the Police (although pretty-boy Sting got all the attention, and his fights with Copeland were stuff of legend), Copeland has probably been the most productive of the former 80s megahit-trio, having released a steady stream of solo albums, soundtracks to TV and film (i.e. The Equalizer, Wall Street, Highlander), written 2 operas and several ballet scores, co-founded Animal Logic with fusion bassist Stanley Clarke, Oysterhead with Les Claypool (Primus) and Trey Anastasio (Phish), and sessions with everyone from Peter Gabriel to Lloyd Cole.

Copeland in this case takes mostly older material and arranges it for this orchestral setting. His style in highly individual, utilizing a myriad of approaches and idioms to make a mix that is clearly modern but not overly avant-garde. The Orchestra UECA plays in a mostly chamber music style, leaving a lot of space for the Ensemble Bash (a percussion quartet in a similar vein to Kronos Quartet) to work with Stewarts own full trap-kit escapades. Copeland is known for a tasteful, but frenetic style and on this release there is little to say otherwise. His playing is exceptional, with him knowing when to drop out completely, when to establish a steady pulse, and when to crash forward with a flurry of tom/snare/cymbal chaos. The rhythmic contortions of jazz, reggae and North African beat science are all in play here in a well synthesized final form.

Unlike rock bands who use symphonies to eek out a record contract requirement, this is not rock music set to strings. It is a complete work from composition to performance that works on its own merits. The fact that it centers on instrumentation customary to jazz ro rock is merely something that sets it apart from the norm in terms of sonic palette, but not necessarily compositionally. Copeland uses some odd horn-like sounds to add a peculiar character to some of the melodic concepts, and the piano work of Alessandro Carla is exactly what a Copeland performance calls for - playful, suggestive, at times eerie, never overbearing.

If you do manage to even find this release (it is available from Ponderosa Music) I suggest finding his soundtrack work for The Leopard Son with the Los Angeles Symphony as well, or his world-beat cum art-rock solo gem The Rhythmatist.

You might like this if you like:

Peter Gabriel - Passion
Edgard varese - Integrales for 11 Winds and Percussionists (1924-25)
Michael Gordon featuring Ensemble resonanz - Weather
Kronos Quartet - Caravan

D.K Dyson - Rising Sun

D.K. Dyson
Rising Sun
Ocean Records 1997

vocals - DK Dyson
guitars - Gordopn Gaines, Gary Poulson
tablas - Badal Roy
acoustic/electric bass - James Genus
keys - Derek Baynes
plus various other contributors

I was a big fan of early 90s NY band Eye & I, which featured Melvin Gibbs (Decoding Society, Rollins Band, Bill Frisell and many others) and Jason Kibler (aka DJ Logic) and a great vocalist by the name of DK Dyson. At the time they were new and fresh, put out one good album, and dissolved shortly thereafter.

This is to my knowledge her only solo release, and it is really not worth seeking out unless you can take punishingly bad lyrics delivered with irony-free seriousness. Part of Eye & I's charm was the earnestness in the delivery that was tempered by a earthy grounding in the overall band dynamic. Maybe she needs a Gibbs or Kibler to keep from going into pretentious urban new age philosophizing, I don't know, but this album is hard to listen to.

With ace players like Roy, Genus, Poulson (also ex Eye & I), Curtis Fowles and EJ Rodriguez it is hard to go wrong musically, and as a result it often does not go wrong musically. It is a bit staid in parts and certainly not as adventurous as such a line up would suggest, but Dyson herself just bulldozes with a straight face such word boners as "Wind, carry this music in the 4 directions righteously...Earth, support me in this endeavor..." and so on. The whole album is leaden with this, and you get some evidence of this in the song titles: Self-Deception (Ego Wrap), Revolution, B'Klyn Blessings, Anytime Anywhere (Rude-Bwoy) among them.

It is so bloody sad to listen to someone who has done exceptionally good work in other avenues (she's done work with Prince, Ambitious Lovers, the Jazz Passengers and Steve Coleman) but on her own goes flying off into some of the most abysmal verbal meatloaf imaginable.

Cornelius Claudio Kreusch & Blackmudsound - Scoop

Cornelius Claudio Kreusch & Blackmudsound
Scoop
1998 ACT GmbH

CC Kreusch - piano, muted piano, melodica
Greg Osby - Alto Sax
Bobby Watson - Alto Sax
Richard Bona, Salif Keita, Elisabeth Kontomanou - Vocals
Will Calhoun, Cyril Atef, Terri Lynn Carrington - drums/percussion
Anthony Cox, James Genus, Zaf Zapha - Acoustic and electric basses
plus various others

I initially found this gem in the bargain bin at Streetlight Records in San Jose for 4 bucks. It's a bargain at 14. CCK is a German pianist who has a wonderful playing style that draws heavily from Herbie and McCoy, and his phrasing is perpetually dynamic. He has some similarities to James Hurt, but I would wager is not as capable of Hurt's ability to play out on a dime if need be.
This album is composed rather than improvised, but it's well composed, performed with aplomb, and recorded with a dry, warm mix. It seems to be sitting in the common part of a Venn diagram where the spheres of Acid Jazz, early fusion, and straightahead co-mingle. There is also regular smatterings of world beat, but never as a token effort (the album is song driven, rather than having a unified concept). CCK assembles an excellent cast of players to help flesh out his ideas. The title track uses Living Colour drummer Will Calhoun and session bassist james Genus to do a noisy work out that is tight but not stiff.

Tracks like Pulse and Niles are short but sweet. Faith comes of as a bit contrived in the lyric department (this album is mostly instrumental, but has several vocal tracks and vocal chants here and there), but Salif with the incomparable Salif Keita of Mali is excellent. Feel! is an excellent trio piece with Terri Lynn Carrington and Anthony Cox (a stupidly underrated bassist. Go find his solo album Dark Metals to learn for yourself). Calhoun makes another play with his Nigerian clay drum percussion work on Flame which works as an excellent shuffling groove for Richard Bona's supple vocals and CCK's muted piano. Osby lays out some choice bits on several tracks -the man simply cannot play badly- and this is very apparent on Wocai which sounds like it could have come from a late 80s Osby afro-fusion escapade (circa Mind Games but better recorded), as is Nomad which lopes along with a stellar vamp laid out by CCK.

It's a little more cerbral than most acid jazz, and not swinging enough to really fit into what passes for straightahead these days, this is simply a really good debut album for people who like a little variety. It would also probably be a good intro album for folks trying to get their feet wet with jazz who aren't prepped for Coltrane or Ornette yet, but are beyond quiet storm boredom.

You might like this if you like:

Sade - Stronger Than Pride
Greg Osby - Mind Games
Salif Keita - Papa
Groove Collective - any
Herbie Hancock - The New Standard
Rachel Z - On The Milky Way Express