The Rolling Stones Hackney Diamonds 2023

I know, it's been out for three months. But I couldn't bring myself to buy it until I heard it, and it took me a while to get my hands on one. I have been disappointed by the Stones any number of times in the past even when the "new" record received favorable press. In fact, most of the time since 1973 I've felt they just weren't making great, or even particularly good, records. I did a career overview not long ago, and as I said then, only Some Girls, Steel Wheels, and Stripped have lived up to their 60s legacy. Don't get me wrong, I think the Stones are a great band, and the records they made between 1964 and 1972 (except Satanic Magesties Request) can stand up to anyone's recorded output, but for almost 50 years they have mostly made less than stellar studio records. 

I can confirm what you have doubtlessly already read about the record. It's good. It's really very surprisingly good. It is hard to compare this one to the classics because it is clearly a modern product, recorded with a slick, clean 21st century sound. 

Several times I have discussed what it takes for a band to get it done. In my opinion, the must-have ingredients are a good singer, a solid drummer, and good songs. And by that standard, this new Stones record easily makes the grade. Mick Jagger is a better singer on this record than I have considered him to be in many moons. He's remarkably invested in being Mick Jagger again. Steve Jordan is a killer drummer, and Charlie comes back to life on two songs, so the drum thing is covered. It's that third ingredient that makes all the difference. These are better songs than Kieth and Mick have managed in a very long time. And they might not be as good as the songs on one of those 68-72 classics, but they get frighteningly close. And they still have two killer guitar players.

There's a bunch of celebrity cameos. It's pretty cool that McCartney plays fuzz bass on Bite My Head Off, but both Stevie Wonder and Elton John add nothing, and Lady Gaga's wailing on Sweet Sounds Of Heaven will have you yearning for Clare Torry. 

None of that matters. The songs are good. Almost all of them. The guitars sound like the Stones, and Mick does a shockingly good angry snotty punk better than any eighty year old should. Did I mention that the songs are good? Angry is a great opener, and Get Close, Bite My Head Off, Whole Wide World and Driving Me Too Hard all rock hard. The ballads Dreamy Skies and Keith's outstanding Tell Me Straight keep the quality up, and Sweet Sounds of Heaven sounds good today. It might not age that well. That's OK.

The Rolling Stones at 80. They up and made a solid record. Go figure.

John Handy Hard Work 1976

John Handy had a long and successful career in jazz beginning in the late 50s. He played with Charles Mingus on at least five albums between 1959 and 1964 while also recording as a leader. He continued as a leader, recording his own bands until 1996, and appeared on some twenty-five different albums, mostly under his own name. His early work was mainstream/post-bop jazz that was generally highly listenable yet still challenging. He also worked with Indian musicians as an early Indian music/jazz hybrid pioneer in the 70s and 80s. 

This one is a mix of jazz, R&B, blues, and funk, and became a surprise jazz and crossover hit for Handy, reaching #4 on the Billboard jazz chart and #43 on the Hot 100. The title track kicks things off in high style, a funky jam with great sax and guitar solos. Blues For Louis Jordan is one of three vocal tracks, and Handy is a good vocalist, and he also throws down a hot sax break. Young Enough To Dream is a delight that features sax, keyboard, guitar and percussion. 

The sunny So-Cal jazz of Love For Brother Jack opens side two, and features Handy's sax again. Didn't I Tell You is a funky blues/jazz featuring hot keys and sax, and another solid vocal performance. The fast, driving funk blues of Afro Wiggle features Mike Hoffman's guitar to fine effect. You Don't Know ends the set with another vocal and includes funky keys and guitar. 

Handy wrote all of the songs. The band is stellar with Hotep Cecil Barnard keyboards, Mike Hoffmann guitar, Chuck Rainey electric bass, James Gadson drums, Eddie "Bongo" Brown congas and percussion, Zakir Hussain tabla (on three tracks), and Handy's tenor and alto saxes and vocals. 

I hadn't listened to it in a very long time until recently, and I'm glad I got back to it. A super saxophonist plays funky jazz with a stellar band and solid tunes, and everyone contributes to make a great record. A great find in a used record store, and of course digital and streaming availability too.

Van Morrison from Versatile 2017 to Accetuate The Positive 2023

It hasn't been easy keeping up with Van Morrison these last few years. He's been cranking out records like crazy. Since Roll With The Punches in 2017, he's released no less than nine records, including three in 2023.

Versatile 2017 is mostly a jazz album with a few Morrison originals that shows Van to be, well, pretty versatile. It is a solid record with plenty of jazz classics, and Van's originals fit nicely. I wasn't wowed by it, but it was enjoyable, and it pretty much lived up to the title. There are better versions of most of these chestnuts for sure, but Van certainly holds up his end quite well.

You're Driving Me Crazy and The Prophet Speaks, both from 2018, feature Joey Defrancesco's quartet with his Hammond B3 and trumpet plus guitar (Dan Wilson), drums (Michael Ode), and saxophone (Troy Roberts). Both feature Morrison originals as well as jazz and R&B compositions, and both are very good. Morrison seems thrilled/motivated by a different, and jazzier band, than his usual highly skilled accompanists. You're Driving Me Crazy has a more interesting song selection, especially the Morrison originals, all songs that had been recorded previously over the years.

2019 saw Van return to his own band for Three Cords And The Truth. The record features the bluesier side of R&B, and Van writes all the songs for the first time since Keep Me Singing in 2016 (which contained one cover song). The "three cords and the truth" quote from Harlan Howard refers to country music, but thankfully the record has nothing to do with country music. It is merely another very good record from Morrison along the lines of Magic Time 2005 or Keep It Simple 2008, both examples of Morrison's late career resurgence.

I reviewed Latest Record Project Vol. 1 2021 and What's It Gonna Take? 2022, both generally good music dragged down by Van's Covid and divorce inspired whining and bitching. I also reviewed Moving On Skiffle 2023, a relief after the previous two, but not a terribly exciting record.

And that brings us to the other two 2023 Van Morrison records. The first, which is available from Van's web site, is Beyond Words: Instrumental. Other than the pretty awful scatting that is the first song, most of the record is mildly enjoyable. An archival release of instrumentals recorded in the 1970s and 80s, it is mostly studio jams on generally minor musical statements, but it makes nice easy listening (in a good way). It is probably best left to the devoted.

And finally, there's Accentuate The Positive 2023. As with the previous skiffle outing, this one is all covers, except this time it's old time 50s rock and roll with a few country, R&B and pop tunes thrown in. I have mixed feelings about the record. The band is the usual stellar line-up that Morrison assembles, and many of them have been with him for a while now. They take the punch out of some of these oldies, but mostly they sound highly skilled and engaged in the material, and maybe even just having fun. Morrison sings these gems with reverence and genuine excitement and joy. In fact it is remarkable how well Van Morrison still sings. But it is an oldies cover record, and like most of those things, only one or two songs will compete with the originals.

I did a career overview back in 2011, and I have now reviewed or at least mentioned the fourteen records he's made since then in one or more of these Morrison related entries.

Zappadan 2023

It's Zappadan 2023. It might not be the biggest deal it has ever been, but there are quite a few acknowledgements of the festival.

I've reassessed my love of Frank's music this year, and have found that I have less tolerance for his juvenile, misogynistic, let's-push-the-envelope humor, and that reduces my love of at least some of his music. I also feel that his eighties xenochrony method of building songs around isolated guitar solos is evidence of his remarkable editing skills, but not evidence of his best songs in many cases.

But that still leaves a lot to love. If you are new to Zappa and want to know the best place to start, I'd say it's One Size Fits All from 1975. It is one of Frank's best bands playing some of his most accessible material. After that, you could explore any of these:

Freak Out! 1968

We're Only In It For The Money 1968

Hot Rats 1969

Burnt Weenie Sandwich 1970 

Weasels Ripped My Flesh 1970
The Grand Wazoo 1972
Apostrophe(') 1974
Orchestral Favorites 1979
The Best Band You Never Heard In Your Life 1991
The Yellow Shark 1993

 

Some of my favorite Zappadan material comes from the wonderful piano player Fred Handl: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsi7u7DmVE0&t=55s

https://www.youtube.com/@FredHandl/videos

 

Here's some other recent Zappadan posts on the intertubes:

The Association for the Recognition and Celebration of Zappadan

https://www.zappanews.co.uk/

https://united-mutations.blogspot.com/2023/12/happy-zappadan.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sySJTjKePZc 

 

And you can also check out my own past Zappadan efforts: 

https://kleaveburg.blogspot.com/search/label/Zappadan

 

Ted Gioia Music: A Subversive History 2019

Ted Gioia has written extensively on music and is clearly well versed in delivering a theory and supporting it with extensive research. 

This is an interesting take on music history that postulates music as a subversive element, challenging the status quo and involving violence and societal change, and not just recently, but from the beginning of civilization. Once the upheaval is over, these new musical trends become subsumed and made profitable by mainstream society. Furthermore, musical change/new musical expression/progress comes exclusively from those marginalized on the fringes of society. 

That's a pretty big theory, and Mr. Gioia backs it up with a ton of research. Clearly an academician, his writing occasionally shifts from engaging to pedantic, but not too often. Most of the time the book is quite readable, and the historical episodes he uses to support his theories are interesting in and of themselves.

Like most academic research, data that doesn't support the hypothesis is mostly ignored, or explained away as somehow actually in line with the premise. Still, the book does a good job of digging deep into the subject and Gioia is a skilled writer and explainer of things. 

It is not a holistic history of music, so you should not expect that. It is an alternative to the musical history told by those who have subsumed and monetized radical musical elements into the mainstream. As such it is a fascinating read, and quite unlike anything else on the topic. 

Mr. Gioia has written quite a few interesting sounding books about music. If those other books are as good as this one, you might be reading his work for a while.

Warren Zevon Warren Zevon 1976

I've written a couple of "Perfect (Or Near Perfect)" entries, and there's been plenty of lists of things I love. Nothing can really atone for the omission of this Warren Zevon record from among those lists.

Zevon had a varied, and mostly unsuccessful (commercially, not artistically) career. After the debut Wanted Dead or Alive that sold maybe 500 copies in 1970, this was for most of us, our introduction to Warren Zevon. Produced by Jackson Browne with Waddy Wachtel hanging around, and featuring guest appearances from everybody: Browne, Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham, Phil Everly, Jorge Calderon, Rosemary Butler, Bonnie Raitt, Glenn Frey, Don Henley, and Carl Wilson, the record sounds great. And the songs, oh my, the songs.

There are so many great songs. Hasten Down The Wind, with a beautiful harmony from Phil Everly, outshines even the excellent Linda Ronstadt version. I can't say this enough. Listen to Everly's harmony. It is breathtakingly gorgeous. 

Mamma Couldn't Be Persuaded, Poor Poor Pitiful Me, I'll Sleep When I'm Dead and Join Me In L.A., all rock hard with super arrangements, killer playing, and whip smart, often sardonic, lyrics. And then there's Mohammed's Radio (an ode to the power of music), Carmelita (a sad ode to heroin addiction), and Desperados Under The Eaves (a sad ode to alcoholism), three beautiful ballads on side two.

Frank and Jessie James is a sympathetic spin on the outlaws, Backs Turned Looking Down The Path is a gentle love song, and The French Inhaler is a scathing put-down of an ex lover. There really isn't a bad (or even middling) song.

The music is performed by A-list SoCal professionals brought together by Browne and Wachtel. It's as close to perfect as anything needs to be, and closer than Zevon ever came, although Excitable Boy 1977 is almost as good.

True Love Travels On A Gravel Road

 

 

One of my favorite songs ever. Great melody, beautiful lyric, and several fine performances. Written by the songwriting team of Arthur Owens and Dallas Frazier, the first performance was by Duane Dee, and it's a good version that made it to #58 on the country charts. 

In 1969, Elvis Presley recorded it on his fabulous comeback record From Elvis In Memphis, and it is certainly the definitive version. The Memphis guys play it perfectly, and Elvis is fully invested in the lyric, and sings it straight from the heart. A highlight of what is arguably Elvis' best record.

Next up was a soul version by Percy Sledge, taken maybe a little too fast, but Percy sings it big like he usually does. Another solid interpretation, but nothing beats Elvis.

In 1992, The Afghan Whigs covered the song, and it is a different interpretation for sure. I haven't warmed to it much. Not great, not terrible.

In 1994, both Nick Lowe and The Highwaymen covered the song. Nick Lowe's version is a lovely, heartfelt take, and the Highwaymen do a decent job even with the four of them taking vocal turns.

Ultan Conlon, an Irish singer-songwriter did a nice version featuring Katie Theasby in 2020.