Music In, 2024, Batch 2

Jumping right in ...

• Joni Mitchell, "Night Ride Home", 1991, 10 tracks. I was pleasantly surprised to discover this album, which somehow I didn't have. So pleasant to hear Joni's voice singing songs I'd never heard before. Very nice listening.

  1 bone to pick though. She uses a song pattern where the background singers sing the song title at the end of pretty much every line. "Yvette in English" jumps out as maybe an early use of that?

  This album has a couple of songs that definitely use this pattern: "Ray's Dad Cadillac":

  So I got out my counter app & started listening. It was not as bad as I thought. 2x / chorus. Apparently 8 choruses => 16 repetitions of "Ray's Dad Cadillac". Song is 4:34.

  OK, now I have to try the next song, "The Only Joy In Town". Our repeated phrase is "Botticelli black boy" ... OK, same pattern, phrase sung 2x in chorus & weird interlude section playing Imaj7 - VII-7sus2. 16 uses in 5:11 song.

  So great to hear Joni's voice singing things new to me! 4 stars.

• Kaidi Tatham, "Fusion Moves", 2024, 10 tracks, Bandcamp. I think this is Kaidi remixing other artists on his label? Pretty good stuff, afro-jazz-fusion-dance. I gave 1 theistic track - a woman who has found a new lover is so thankful to gawd for hooking her up, LOL - 1 star. The rest, 4 stars, nice listenable, danceable stuff.

  Since this a different artist for each track, it doesn't seem fair to pick just 1. So despite 4 stars, no video.

• Vampire Weekend, "Father of the Bride", 2019, 18 tracks, Bandcamp. Apparently several years since their previous, hence all the songs. 59 minutes. What a bunch of great, catchy tunes! A really fun album! I don't remember them having a female singer? The male-female duets & harmonies are excellent. Really good pedal steel in there also. When I started playing again in 2006 & arthritis in my hands was worrisome, my fallback position was to sell all my guitars and get a top-of-the-line 2-neck pedal steel in Nashville.

  Anyway, really fun album! I bought it after their latest came out & I saw I didn't have this one. F#ck you very much, Amazon & Apple, with whom I have spent $1000s purchasing music, for not informing me of a new release by an artist whose music I had bought from you, because you want me to purchase your "all-you-can-eat" subscription plan, WHICH I WILL NEVER, EVER DO! Grrr!

  As this album is now processed, I can download & enjoy their latest, yay!

  4 stars. Here's "This Life":

• Pernice Brothers, "Who Will You Believe", 2024, 12 tracks, Bandcamp. Wow, what tasty tunes! Crunchy lyrics. Makes me think of ... the Jayhawks, & my fav, Gene Clark? 4 stars. Here's "December in her Eyes".

• Murder By Death, "In Boca al Lupo", 2006, 12 tracks. I'm pretty sure this was recommended by my son, as a local band that was really popular when he was in college. The band is from Bloomington, IN, my son got a 5-year master's from IU Bloomington, maybe 1999?

  Interesting album, reminded me of a couple of bands who never gave their names. Hmmm, they have a female cello player, so, maybe, Ra-Ra Riot?

  You know, I'd like to hear more of it, so 4 stars rather than 3. Here's "Brother":

• Tyler Daley, "Son of Zeus", 2024, 12 tracks, Bandcamp. I think I got this confused with Children of Zeus. No, I go to his Bandcamp page, the header says "Children of Zeus". So is he a member & this is a solo album I think. It says Tyler Daley is from Manchester, UK, a lot of good music coming out of there now.

  Regardless, nice tunes, very mellow, rapping is also laid back.

• Duke Ellington & His Orchestra Feat. Ivie Anderson, "The Ivie Anderson Collection 1932-46", 50 tracks. "it don't mean a thing (if ain't got that swing)" was next up on the list, I start working it up, Ivie Anderson was the 1st person to sing it. She was singer for the Duke Ellington orchestra from 1932-1942. I found this collection, 50 tracks, I think reasonably priced? Enjoyable. A few songs I do. Quite a variety. 4 stars. Here she is performing "All God's Chillun Got Rhythm" in the 1937 Marx Brothers Movie, "A Day at the Races". Nice! The song is in my list now.

  "Plantation songs": I 1st encountered this term working up the lullaby that my mom sang to me & my daughter sings to her boys, "Sleep, Kentucky Babe". [Wow, what harmonies!] Published 1896, music Adam Geibel (1855-1933), lyrics Richard Henry Buck (1870-1956). Both white, out of Philadelphia, Geibel was a German immigrant & was blind. Somewhere (that I can't find now), I read that around the turn of the 20th century, "plantation music", songs glorifying slavery & plantation life, was popular. I had a flyer for 4 songs including "Kentucky Babe" that I can't find.

  40 years later, plantation songs seem to still exist. This many songs, there were sure to be a few.

  1. Delta Bound - not too bad, just want to go home to Louisiana.
  2. Cotton - SHE REALLY MISSES COTTON!

     Bridge:
     "I guess the lord was partial to the southland.
     Cause he looked down and said one morn
     'somebody's gotta pick that cotton'
     and that's the reason I was born.

     Lord I was wrong, take me back where I was born, I'll never leave the south anymore."

     ????
  3. The Old Plantation - starts with "Dixie" on the trumpet. Sweetheart waiting in an old log cabin.
  4. Alabamy Bound

  I wonder how black artists felt performing these songs? Musicians are always happy for a gig, but, these songs, maybe, ashes in your mouth?

• Andrew Bird, "Sunday Morning Put-On", 2024, 10 tracks, Bandcamp. Yay, Andrew plays Jaz Dumoz music! Yet another one. We overlapped on 3 songs:
  1. "i've grown accustomed to her face";
  2. "i cover the waterfront";
  3. "you'd be so nice to come home to".
  4 stars. What a talented guy he is. Here's "I Fall in Love Too Easily", which is now in my list.

• Rachael Price & The Tennessee Terraplanes. "Refreshingly Cool", 2008, 12 tracks. Rachel Price is of course the lead singer of Lake Street Dive, which has been around since 2004. Wow, good for them, 20 years! All prolly in their 40s now!

  I stumbled across this band & album when I was working up "whose honey are you?". Who knew that Rachel had had this side effort? Not her wikipedia page. I edited the page and placed a reference to this album in the Discography section. But a section in the main article needs to be added for this band, & I do not have the info to do that.

  Rachel Price plays Jaz Dumoz music - &, 13 years before Jaz Dumoz existed, how did she know??? As with Andrew, we overlapped on 3 songs.

  1. "comes love";
  2. "i'm crazy 'bout my baby";
  3. "whose honey are you?".
  4 stars. Here's "minnie the moocher's wedding day":

• the Mountain Goats & John Vanderslice, "Moon Colony Bloodbath", 2009, 7 tracks, Bandcamp. This has 4 tracks by Mountain Goats, 3 by John Vanderslice. As I've been doing some backfilling of the Mountain Goats, I think I've been coming to realize, I like his newer stuff better. "when a powerful animal comes" is an incredible song. On this one, the Goats tracks were "meh", the other guys tunes were interesting. So 3 stars for the Mountain Goats song, 4 stars for the other guys tunes.

OK, not a bad effort! But, oof, _unrated currently at 202 songs, 14 albums. 52 tracks by Adelaide Hall, who discovered Art Tatum in Toledo OH & took him with her as accompanist as she completed her tour in New York City, & Art met Fats Waller, Willy "The Lion" Smith, & James P. Johnson (11 tracks) & bested them in a cutting contest. [More on this in a soon-to-be-published review of a Fats Waller bio I recently read.] 24 tracks by Ina Ray Hutton and Her Melodears (1934 - 1944) - a female bandleader, with, in this case, an all-female band. 22 tracks of "Jelly's Last Jam", 1992 broadway musical based on the life of Jelly Roll Morton. Starring Gregory Hines. I think featuring a lot of Jelly Roll tunes, so should be pretty good!

Lots of fun listening, until next time.