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What's so funny about peace, love and understanding? Sharps & Flats Back in white Sharps & Flats Sharps & Flats Sharps & Flats |
Thinking inside the box
BY ERIC ALTERMAN The CD box set is one of capitalism's great innovations. Record companies tap music scholars for unreleased material the record companies already own, give it to technicians to remaster and put together with the old stuff according to some comprehensible but always arguable principle, and then put it all in a fancy box with lots of background material. The record company has a profitable product at precious little cost; the musician in question feels honored to see his history canonized and preserved in a fashion that will likely outlast his life. And fans can achieve in just one purchase a completeness -- to say nothing of the insights frequently garnered through listening to the previously canned material -- that would otherwise take years of searching and collecting. Perhaps more importantly, box sets give devoted fans plenty to argue about. Should the new Impulse! Coltrane box have been chronological according to recording schedules or release schedules? Does Herbie Hancock sound more proficient on his own Blue Note box, or more inspired by the Miles Davis Quintet on Columbia Legacy, which was recorded more or less simultaneously? And why oh why did Bruce Springsteen leave out "The Fever," his greatest bluesy moan, once again? Needless to say, such high-quality arguments don't come cheap. Every year I worry that the old mines will finally give out, but this year's yield demonstrates an impressive array of precious musical ore. For the generous stocking stuffer, here's a list of the year's best.
Oxford University Press' new Encyclopedia of Country Music credits Hank Williams with "almost single-handedly ... setting the agenda for contemporary country songcraft." Williams is country music's Louis Armstrong. He took something that was private and regional -- indecipherable to the larger culture -- and made it part of our national language. During his career, Williams' talent for self-destruction and drunken antics often threatened to overshadow his uncontrollable talents as a writer and singer. An unreliable singer, he was playing beer-hall dances in East Texas while charting the No. 1 song in the country with "Jambalaya." This wonderful 10-CD collection, a limited edition of just 10,000, contains multiple editions of all the great Williams compositions, as well as considerable evidence of the great man's decline and occasional debasement through kitschy self-promotion. In this regard, it resembles the ne plus ultra of box sets, Verve's 10-CD Billie Holiday collection, which, in its original form, is almost impossible to find today. The same goes for Mercury's 10-CD "Complete Hank Williams." Sure, it's pricey, but if you have any feeling for country music at all, it's priceless as well. Ray Charles' country albums are honored with another thoughtful bit of Rhino repackaging, "Ray Charles: The Complete Country & Western Recordings, 1959-1986." If Michael Jordan were a better baseball player, he would be the Ray Charles of sports. Here, the man who practically invented modern R&B brings his unique talents for gospel, jazz and soul singing to various country classics. Charles' Hank Williams covers are particularly illuminating, and, even after all these years, it's hard to resist the emotional wallop of "I Can't Stop Loving You."
Columbia Legacy has done a fine, unpretentious job of summing up Taj Mahal's inventive career in the three-CD "Taj Mahal: In Progress & In Motion, 1965-98." This set contains a marvelously eloquent autobiographical essay by Mahal, whose country blues talents turn out to have been honed in the Delta country of Springfield, Mass. If you think Mahal's gift for pleasing audiences cuts into his claims to be an authentic musical son to the likes of Robert Johnson and Sonny Boy Williamson, listen to these discs and you'll find that such nonsense ain't nobody's business but your own.
Impulse! Offers up an eight-CD "John Coltrane: The Classic Quartet." These beautifully remastered discs catch the great sax man just as his inspiration is moving from melody to spirit, between 1962 and 1965. (Last year's standout box, Coltrane's four-CD "Complete Village Vanguard Recordings," preceded these recordings by a year.) Featuring McCoy Tyner on piano, Elvin Jones on drums and Jimmy Garrison on bass, the early discs cover Coltrane's "pretty" period, while in the middle he starts moving toward -- though never fully reaches -- outer space. It's therefore a good cross section of his entire career, including, as it does, the entire "A Love Supreme" suite, along with a final disc of previously unreleased material. Because Coltrane's incredible creative energies took him to many different labels in many different guises, however, many of your favorites, including "My Favorite Things," "Afro-Blue Impressions" and "Blue Train," along with the wonderful Johnny Hartman and Duke Ellington sessions, must be found elsewhere. N E X T__P A G E .|. The big news: Miles |
