C Various artists
Nina Revisited ... A Tribute to Nina Simone
Revive/RCA
The late Nina Simone, the fiery and eloquent singer-songwriter and civil rights activist, was a huge talent with a distinctive voice, style and presence. Passions ran strong and powerful, mirrored by a voice imbued with pain, love and anger that went beyond the lyrics.
Artists like Simone are difficult for those wanting to pay a "tribute" in song. She was a classically trained pianist with stunning musicality that embraced jazz, gospel, blues, pop and more. Her voice had many layers of meaning revealed in impeccable phrasing.
Most of the singers on Nina Revisited don't get anywhere near that level of meaning or artistry; it often left me yearning for Simone's recordings.
A much-praised documentary, What Happened Miss Simone?, was released in June, but this 16-song tribute isn't likely to garner kudos. It's loaded with stars -- Lauryn Hill (as artist and producer of much of this), Usher, Gregory Porter, Common and others; with liner notes by Angela Davis -- but performances are uneven and it is largely overproduced.
Hill is heard on six songs and is especially memorable on "I've Got Life" from the musical Hair. It has a passion and contemporary urgency. A few others also rise above: A retitled "We Are Young, Gifted and Black," with rapper Common and Lalah Hathaway, is absorbing. Hathaway's neo-soulful voice sings the title over and over as Common's rapping updates Simone's searing "Mississippi Goddam." Also well executed is Alice Smith's experimental "I Put a Spell on You" and daughter Lisa Simone's reading of "I Want a Little Sugar in My Bowl."
Best of all: The album ends with Nina Simone herself, singing "I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free." That song, with its ache and power, illuminates what is mostly missing from this well-intentioned, but largely disappointing set.
The best tribute to Simone is Simone herself. She was riveting and challenging. Nina Revisited is not.
Hot tracks: "I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free," "We Are Young, Gifted and Black," "I Put a Spell on You."
A Sir John Gielgud
Shakespeare's 'Ages of Man'
Masterworks Broadway
With his rich, mellifluous voice, Sir John Gielgud was considered one of the greatest stage actors of the 20th century and a modern master of Shakespeare, playing everything from Romeo to Lear over his 80-year career.
He also assembled and performed a one-man show, Shakespeare's Ages of Man, in which he introduced and recited selections from Shakespeare's plays and sonnets that reflect on the stages of life: youth, manhood, old age. The show was a great success and the album won a Grammy Award in 1979.
The idea of simply sitting and listening to a man speak Shakespearean verse may sound deadly dull, but this is anything but. There's no need for visuals with an artist like Gielgud, who approaches the passages with real skill and understanding. He uses his voice as a master musician manipulates his instrument, changing pitch and style to fit the character -- gruff raspiness for The Tempest's Caliban, fiery energy for Romeo and Juliet's Mercutio.
In Gielgud's hands, the Shakespearean language is not only easily understandable, it's vividly alive.
Hot tracks: You can't go wrong with any of them and they work best as a set.
B+ Benchmarks
American Night
Self-released
When Todd Farrell Jr. isn't shredding as the touring guitarist/backup vocalist with his hard-rocking buddies in Two Cow Garage, he's making music with his fellow Nashville cohorts in Americana-tinged Benchmarks.
American Nights is the debut EP from the Tennessee quartet and it's an impressive mix of big guitars, hymns to the road and the girl who got away, and an undeniable optimism that something better is just around the corner.
Opening with the pensive, atmospheric "Roman Candle," the band -- singer/guitarist Farrell, guitarist Eli Rhodes, bassist Matt Rewinski and drummer Jack Whitis -- gets down to business by the hard-driving second track, "April Fire," a perfect marriage of Hold Steady riffs, regret and those hometown-sametown blues.
The title song captures the restless, late-night wanderlust of youth and features a gravelly guest vocal from Two Cow's Micah Schnabel, while the acoustic "Paper Napkins" is a gentle weeper of a road song that ends on a hopeful note and closes this excellent six-song EP perfectly.
We love this brief introduction and can't wait to hear more from Benchmarks.
Hot tracks: "April Fire," "Paper Napkins," "Just Fine."
B+ Maria Schneider Orchestra
The Thompson Fields
ArtistShare
Arranger, conductor and composer Maria Schneider has resided at the intersection of avant-garde jazz and modern classical ever since her time assisting adventurous orchestrator Gil Evans in the 1980s. Inspired by the colors and subtleties of Evans' experimental post-bop aesthetic, Schneider's metier is a shimmering, soft, dynamic, often thematic sound on magically eccentric albums. Schneider has made inventive recordings starring David Bowie, classical vocalist Dawn Upshaw and harmonica master Toots Thielemans.
The Thompson Fields reunites Schneider and her 18-piece orchestra for their first album in eight years. She applies somber yet sun-dappled tones to homesick ruminations of Minnesota (a feel for birds and gorgeous vistas haunts her work). "Nimbus" conjures up the weight of graying cumulus clouds and rumbling rhythms of coming storms. "The Monarch and the Milkweed" flutters as gently as its namesake butterfly.
In "Walking by Flashlight," soloist Scott Robinson on alto clarinet portrays the thrill and fear of such a mission. "Arbiters of Evolution" allows the orchestra to soar like birds.
Hot tracks: "Nimbus," "Walking by Flashlight," "Arbiters of Evolution."
-- A.D. AMOROSI, The Philadelphia Inquirer
Style on 07/28/2015