CHRISTGAU CONSUMER GUIDE

CHRISTGAU CONSUMER GUIDE

ROBERT CHRISTGAU

BY

The proximate reason I cracked the jazz albums waiting patiently on my A shelf was context: confronting political exile Abdullah Ibrahim, pondering media here Wynton Marsalis, knocked for a loop by boho posers the Lounge Lizards, I needed a sense of their musical competition. A few days later I was anticipating the labors of the forthcoming CG with dismay—somehow this music was not preparing me to calibrate microdistinctions among young white bohemians. Then again, neither is anything else these days, so I decided to take a breather for the rest of the month.

Despite the teeming if not thriving rock underground, the spirit of 1975—industrial stasis enlivened by occasional visionaries, insurrectionists, and master crafters—has been on us like a temperature inversion for years. I mention this because 1975 was the last time I devoted any considerable portion of a CG to jazz—ordinarily I limit myself to selected media heroes, fusion moves, and works of genius. But in periods of stasis, resisting the pleasure principle is a crime against nature. I come to the jazz albums below as a jazz fan who’s a rock critic, with a rock critic’s tastes, values, specialized knowledge, and frame of reference. Going for context, I haven’t exempted also-rans the way I otherwise would, and of jazz aficionados consider my fault-finding presumptuous, I can only respond that I’m known for my kind heart. Meanwhile, rock aficionados should bear in mind that in periods of stasis movement is called for. Start with the Lounge Lizards if you want—I love them myself. But there’s no reason to stop there.

ARTHUR BLYTHE “Da-Da”

(Columbia)

Blythe is a major musician and except for one piece of dinky funk this passes pleasantly ehough, but its conceptual confusion epitomizes jazz’s commercial impasse. Not only does Blythe play safe every which way, but there’s no logic to his successes. You wouldn’t figure the synthed-up ballad from Brazilian pop romantic Djavan to generate more atmosphere fhan the readings from Coltrane and Roland Hanna. Or Kelvyn Bell to provide the album’s liveliest moment on the other funk attempt. Or the neat remake of “Odessa” to generate respectable heat up against the wild one on 1979’s Lenox Avenue Breakdown, back when there was reason to hope Black Arthur would get the best of this shit. B

JOHN CARTER “Castles Of Ghana”

(Gramavision)

This ain’t jazz, it’s modern chamber music, quite European in view of its ostensible subject, which is how AfroEuropean mercantilism became the slave trade. In the modern European manner, its real subject is itself-^— explorations of color and texture that are worth tagging along on occasionally, but best left to the specialists and their grant money most of the time. B-

MILES DAVIS “Tutu”

(Warner Bros.)

Miles’s endgame at Columbia was true fusion—improvised jazz-rock, pretty good of its sort, but what a sort. This is more like pop-funk Sketches Of Spain, with the starperson’s trumpet glancing smartly off an upto-date panoply of catchy little tunes, beats, and rhythm effects. I cried fraud at first, and if you have no use for catchy little anythings you’ll agree, but I changed my mind. Marcus Miller acquits himself in the Gil Evans role, George Duke gets off a nice lick, and Scritti Politti provides a snappier cover than Cyndi Lauper. Minor, and his best in a decade.B +

KEVIN DUNN “Tanzfeld”

(Press import)

First a Fan, then sole leader (and member) of a Regiment Of Women, this Atlantan has been making art damage seem like fun ever since he put “Nadine” on sideways seven years ago. Not exactly a font of creativity, he sticks”Nadine” on this _ album along with three more covers, a postmodernistically kitschy instrumentai, an art-maimed instrumental, and three “originalV songs: one called “Nam,” one beginning “Mommy, I don’t want to be a fascist, ’ ’ and one consisting of movie titles that begin with “I.” Inspirational Verse, from his lyrics-provided cover of “Louie, Louie”: “A fine little girl a-wait for me—/A cotch a chill: ah! certainly/Peel the linga: Aranda cone/(we never divine how Ah make it home).” B +

JOHN FOGERTY “Eye Of The Zombie”

(Warner Bros.)

With his compact songs and workingman’s aura, Fogerty was an outsider in the ’60s. In the ’80s, with his San Fran contemporaries either cozying up to MTV or peddling nostalgia on the bar circuit, it’s clear that he took the visionary fallacies of the time as deeply to heart as Jerry Garcia himself, and good for him. Then as now he had no interest in fashion, which is why his music retains an undeniable modicum of interest. But like they say, the ’60s are Over. B

ABDULLAH IBRAHIM “Water From An Ancient Well”

(BlackHawk)

Longing for his South African home, where American jazz has long symbolized black possibility, Ibrahim syncretizes. Relinquishing neither the modernist idiosyncrasy that underpins his exile nor the big-band, entertainment values that have shored up the townships for close to half a century, he roots himself in the shared melodies and rhythms that give South African jazz its sound. Except maybe for tenor man Ricky Ford, the all-Americans who complete his Ekaya octet aren’t great improvisors, but Ibrahim writes to their strengths and adds plenty of his own. Ekaya was more exuberant, but as inspiriting as I find the lilt of “Mandela” and “Manenberg Revisited” here, it’s the brooding spiritual reserves of side two that convince me of Ibrahim’s power. Not only does this artist have something to be serious about, he’s found a way to make it breathe. A-

KRONOS QUARTET “Music Of Bill Evans”

(Landmark)

This ain’t jazz, it’s chamber music, and where the same not-quite-swinging strings worked up an agreeable tension on Monk Suite, here the compositional mesh is too neat—Evans damn near wrote chamber music to begin with. On the cute tunes there’s an undearing novelty effect, but all the impressionistic watercolors gain is a gravity of tone that will challenge the assumptions of nobody interested enough to listen. B

CYNDI LAUPER “True Colors”

(Portrait)

Cheap sentiment-plus star-budget video make the first side so disheartening that the second isn’t much more than a relief. Just as the sensitive relationship songs retreat from the perils of triads and the pleasures of jerking off, “What’s Going On” is a nostalgic generalization after the first album’s confrontation with, capital. Girls just want to have money—and no fun changes everything. B-

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EDDY LAWRENCE “Walker County”

(Snow Plow)

A folkie who works in NYC, Lawrence cultivates a pastoral gift for vernacular narrative, as in the Alabama locale of his title and most of his material—lots of red dirt gone to asphalt, farmland gone'to housing tract, homes gone to trailers. Sure he veers into sentiment, but only the instrumental is without its turn of phrase. B +

THE LEADERS “Mudfoot”

(BlackHawk)

Opening with a glorious and playful 13minute blues and closing with a sweet and crooked “Cupid” that Chico Freeman sings and some college-radio wiseass should ciairrT, this all-star blowing unit gets arty in between and also gets away with it. By arty I mean Art Ensemble or maybe just AACM: several tunes where all the hook and half the pulse is a bass part that’s more ostinato than rhythm line, plus a lyrically desultory duet between main man Arthur Blythe and weak link Kirk Lightsey and a group improv that grows out of Lester Bowie’s mute. Familiar gambits all by now, but this kind of execution is what everybody who begins with them is hoping to end up with.A-

THE LOUNGE LIZARDS “Life In Tokyo/Big Heart”

(Island)

initially, John Lurie’s fake jazz was so conceptual it needed the chordless wonder of Arto Lindsay to knock the stuffing out of it every bar or two, but after trying to play the real thing he’s settled for composing a full-fledged counterfeit. Blaringly dissonant and tunefully sleazy at the same time, Lurie’s ensemble writing is Mancini boheme rather than Thelonlous manque—sometimes almost danceable, sometimes theme music for a movie too slick to star him, and always something else besides. Only brother Evan’s “Punch And Judy Tango” tempts you to take the solos literally. A-

MAHOTELLA QUEENS “Izlbani Zomgqashiyo”

(Shanachie)

Famed for their work with seminal groaner Mahlathini, they get the billing, but various kings get the good parts, groaning or just singing lead calls or embellished responses on every one of these hit singles from the early and middle ’70s. This is mbaqanga—specifically mgqashiyo, extolled in the notes as “an African kind of beat that will never die”—at its catchiest. The structures are varied just enough to keep you on your toes, and the beat is indomitably alive. A-

BRANFORD MARSALIS “Royal Garden Blues”

(Columbia)

Though many tout him as the big talent in the family (not counting Dad, of course), they’re just making conversation: he’s more fun for damn sure, but his artistic personality is stili unformed. Much as I dig the Gershwin flag-waverT the art of jazz wouldn’t be a C-note poorer if this solid blowing record had never existed. Hype aside, that can’t be said of Wynton. B +

WYNTON MARSALIS “J Mood”

(Columbia)

As the first young jazz musician ever to enjoy true major-label promotion, Marsalis is trapped into selling an image whether he likes it (or admits ft) or not. On the one hand, he inevitably attacts admirers who respond not to Nhe substance he hawks so assiduously but to the idea of it, which makes me wonder whether they really thrill to the shadings and dynamics that up till now have constituted his genius. And on the other hand, those of us who can’t stand his expensive tailoring and neoconservative pronunciamentos are tempted to dismiss the pleasures they insure. Listen hard enough and pleasures reveal themselves in profusion, but despite what Marsalis believes even their profusion isn’t quite reason'to bother, because in his" wrong-headed determii nation to abjure the trendy and the obvious, he never lets loose. Most of us would say that inventing meaning while letting loose is the essence and promise of jazz. Neoconservatives wouldn’t—maybe because they’re not up to it. B +

ARCHIE SHEPP “Little Red Moon”

(Soul Note Import)

If you happen to be Archie Shepp, this is how easy it is to make an album you can live with. Visit your label in Milan and take on an expatriate rhythm section and a couple of European sidemen, one of them top-drawer. Go 18 minutes on a vamp and pick up another publishing credit with a little something called “Impromptu.” Add Trane to Benny Golson to “Sweet Georgia Brown” on the B. Take three days, don’t push it. Have fun. B +

TINA TURNER “Break Every Rule”

(Capitol)

Charges that Tina has betrayed her precious heritage come 20 years too late—not since she and Ike reeled off five straight r&b Top 10s between 1960 and 1962 has she pursued the black audience with any notable passion. Her benefactors of the late ’60s were Phil Spector, Bob Krasnow, the Rolling Stones, and the Las Vegas International Hotel, where she and Ike were fixtures at the time of Elvis’s cornback; their big numbers of the early ’70s were the totemic rock anthems “Come Together” and “Proud Mary.” That she should now realize the pop fabrications of white svengalis is just a couple more steps down the same appointed path, and she’s damned good at it, even an innovator1—Private Dancer remains the archetypal all-singles all-hits multiproducer crossover, and Whitney Houston should be so soulful. Unfortunately, the follow-up musters no archetypal crossover singles, and no totemic rock anthems either (Bryan Adams induces her to go metal, which is more than Bowie or Knopfler can claim). Fortunately; ranking svengali Terry Britten gets his own state-of-the-pop-art side. If he and Tina can’t convince you rich people have feelings too, you’re some kind of bigot for sure. B+ S