Author: Carol Cooper

More Melting Pot Jams From Jovial L.A. Hip-Churners

Ozomatli
Don’t Mess With the Dragon
Concord

If you’re a giddy optimist like me, you hope to one day hear Ozomatli’s cheerfully rebellious politi-pop wafting from every car radio in New York City. Don’t Mess With the Dragon is a celebration of their native L.A. in all its multicultural vibrancy and socioeconomic volatility. Singing in both English and Spanish, toying with Tower of Power horn fills during “City of Angels,” paying homage to the polymorphous funk of New Orleans during “Magnolia Soul,” and lobbing tight rhymes amid their jam-band virtuosity throughout, Ozo’s 10-man crew salute the aural mosaic of ethnic signifiers that makes our country great. Continue reading “More Melting Pot Jams From Jovial L.A. Hip-Churners”

Various Blues Interpretations, From the Nuanced to the Masochistic

 

The Holmes Brothers
State of Grace
Alligator

Coco Montoya
Dirty Deal
Alligator

Vesta Williams
Distant Lover
Shanachie

When Led Zep covered Kansas Joe and Memphis Minnie’s “When the Levee Breaks,” they thought they were making “rock ‘n’ roll.” When the Pointer Sisters covered Koko Taylor’s “Wang Dang Doodle,” they thought they were making “pop soul.” And when Kanye West looped a famous Ray Charles riff, he thought he was making “hip-hop.” This only goes to show how the blues has always been wide and dynamic enough to contain and/or presage almost every subsequent American musical style. So naturally, these three albums manage to sound very different but remain recognizable as fruit or flower of the same tree. Continue reading “Various Blues Interpretations, From the Nuanced to the Masochistic”

Right Livelihood: Moral Dilemma, Impossible Dream or Mindful Choice?

While I’ve only been an active dharma practitioner since 1999, everyday I’ve had countless opportunities to view my working life and its varied results through the lens of interdependence. At first, it was quite disorienting to be in the middle of a random business transaction and suddenly see my client’s point of view. This unexpected empathy made me feel more open, more vulnerable and yet empowered with new knowledge. Gradually I began to enjoy ever more subtle shifts in perspective that improved the depth and quality of my interactions with both clients and co-workers. Not that everything I experienced was always sweetness and light, but I became much more flexible and spontaneous. Continue reading “Right Livelihood: Moral Dilemma, Impossible Dream or Mindful Choice?”

Pure Percussive Pleasure

Kenny and Louie’s joyous retro reboots dominate clubs and living rooms alike

Gotham’s hippest and happiest underground nightlife owes its origins to the ever-streetwise and affable duo of Brooklyn’s Kenny “Dope” Gonzalez and Bronx-bred “Little” Louie Vega, known officially (and appropriately) as Masters at Work. Consider Vega’s parties at Cielo, co-produced by West End Records honcho Kevin Hedge and attracting a who’s who of underground production talent from around the world, all dancing, drinking, slipping demos to the DJs, and networking like mad. Kenny, meanwhile, recently funked up the venue with a solo DJ set mixing r&b rarities with new and remixed tracks, days after his Masters at Work cohort returned from a festival stint in Europe. Continue reading “Pure Percussive Pleasure”

Outward Is Heaveward

Presenting gospel’s modern sounds in praise and worship

There’s so much going on in gospel music today that you may have missed when Kirk Franklin paused from promoting Hero, his latest chart-topping CD, to go on The Oprah Winfrey Show with his wife to discuss his triumph over video porn addiction. His point? To publicly reduce himself to an imperfect everyman who overcame a troublesome vice with the support of prayer and faith. Continue reading “Outward Is Heaveward”

Princely Digs

At home with His Royal Badness, who shows us his secret stash

Prince
3121
Universal

In his long-ago heyday Prince complimented Kid Creole’s backup girls by admiring how Adriana Kaegi “used every beat of the music in her choreography.” Evidence of that admiration loomed large this February on Saturday Night Live, when Prince’s new band broke into a fierce little fit o’ funk called “Fury” in which Mr. Nelson’s own distaff trio adopted several signature Coconut moves. Támar and her crew do Ikettes meet Isadora Duncan, while Adriana’s Coconuts did Ikettes meet the I-Threes. But you get the idea — just the way Prince wanted you to. Because as with all of Prince’s stylistic borrowings over the years, every strategic cross-reference is intentionally transparent. Continue reading “Princely Digs”

Slightly Grey Feisty Females Strut Their Sassiest Stuff: Saffire — The Uppity Blues Women’s Deluxe Edition

Saffire — The Uppity Blues Women
Deluxe Edition
Alligator

If you buy only one acoustic blues album this year, why not a best-of from a self-affirming trio of feisty females? Culled from six previous Alligator albums, Deluxe Edition by Saffire — the Uppity Blues Women lets these slightly gray ladies strut their top-drawer vocal and instrumental licks on an array of sassy originals and vintage covers reverentially resurrecting the “wild woman” legacy of Victoria Spivey, Ma Rainey, Sippie Wallace, and Bessie Smith. Where contemporary pop “bad girls” from Shakira to the Pussycat Dolls evoke the sensuality and spunk of the blues but none of its wisdom, Saffire lyrics provide all three. Their allegorical “Silver Beaver” is as sexually explicit as anything Lil’ Kim or Foxy Brown might record, just more elegantly phrased. As players they embrace every shade of difference between country, urban, and vaudeville blues, even veering toward country swing and gypsy jazz in “Is You Is or Is You Ain’t My Baby.” Omni-American and young at heart, Gayle, Anne, and Andra are as soulful as Alicia Keys, as defiant as the Runaways, and as heroic as the Dixie Chicks, with none of the career drawbacks of callow youth. Continue reading “Slightly Grey Feisty Females Strut Their Sassiest Stuff: Saffire — The Uppity Blues Women’s Deluxe Edition”

Worldchanging

Worldchanging: A User’s Guide for the 21st Century
Edited by Alex Steffen
Abrams, 596 pp. $37.50

In the wake of a freshly Democratic wind blowing through American party politics, the inspired optimism of a massive how-to handbook titled Worldchanging: A User’s Guide for the 21st Century should garner a national audience well beyond any stereotypical tree-hugger fringe demographic. In fact, this year’s media foregrounding of Al Gore as the “acceptable face” of aggressive ecological reform in this country is an index of just how much the reach (and grasp!) of eco-warriorship has expanded (alongside the Internet) in the past 10 years. Continue reading “Worldchanging”

High Voltage

Before taking the Mercury Lounge stage on Easter Sunday, Aki Morimoto–guitar-wielding front man for Tokyo’s punk power-trio Electric Eel Shock–toyed with some electric blues licks, then let us watch him doff his Dickies tee for his Twisted Sister tour shirt. Was this gesture a symbol of bi-coastal respect? Pan-metal allegiance? or a sly hard-core gender fuck? You decide. From their naked drummer’s Chili Pepper cock-sock to Morimoto’s Hendrix-‘fro, EES loves to keep their growing global fandom guessing. Recently signed for America to the Gearhead label, their European CD (retitled Go USA for the States) is a headbanger’s smorgasbord of signature riffs. From hairmetal flash, to grindcore grit, to speedmetal energy, to Ramones-era brattiness, to Sex Pistol wit, to Eddie Van Halen cheese, EES find fresh, recombinant contexts for all of it. Live, their improbably hooky “Rock and Roll Can Rescue The World” becomes both a statement of purpose and an open index of influences . . . into which Aki howls unexpected ad-libs like a line or two from Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition.” Continue reading “High Voltage”

The ‘Other’ R&B

Sophistipop at summer’s end, remembering the glboal fusion of the ’70s

Solu Music
Affirmation
Solu MusicSalomé de Bahia
Brasil
Tommy Boy

Summer’s end provides the perfect release window for albums like Solu Music’s Affirmation and Salomé de Bahia’s Brasil. Deceptively light, eminently danceable club music, they feature the kinds of sexy, soulful arrangements I term “sophistipop” — and which might otherwise be dismissed as archaic, especially during a radio season wherein classic r&b quotes can sound woefully atavistic unless fronted by some amazingly skillful white vocalist or a rap star. Continue reading “The ‘Other’ R&B”