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Jazz guitarist Grant Green gets his due with the four-CD box set, Retrospective 1961-66.
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The combination of a slumping economy and record
labels scraping their vaults for pricey packages aimed at diehard collectors isn't
making 2002 a great year for box sets: witness the scattershot six-CD vanity project
Capitol Records 1942-2002, or the nine-CD Complete Miles Davis at Montreux,
featuring eight (!) versions of Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time." But here's the
cream of the current crop, all reasonably priced, for the music lover on your
shopping list:
Sam Cooke with the Soul Stirrers --
The Complete Specialty Recordings (Specialty)
The end felt so tragic because the beginning
sounded so pure. When Sam Cooke was murdered in a Los Angeles motel in 1964
for allegedly raping a woman, pop fans mourned the loss of a bona fide soul
singer whose mesmerizing high tenor and boyish charm made him innocence personified.
For secular-music devotees and the church community, Cooke's death and its surrounding
circumstances were even more shocking; the Sam Cooke they knew was the baby-faced
son of a preacher whose tenure with legendary gospel group the Soul Stirrers
produced stirring gospel music.
Now every note of those recordings is housed
in one slipcase and three CDs. For neophytes and Cooke devotees alike, these
tracks are still a revelation, tracking the sound of Cooke rising from an unproven
and tentative Soul Stirrers rookie to the undisputed leader of the group in
just four years. Besides that unmistakable dazzling voice -- with a pure timbre
and soaring multi-octave range reminiscent of another murdered baby-faced dynamo,
Little Willie John -- Cooke's genius shines through in his early songwriting,
as he penned enduring songs such as "Be With Me Jesus" and "Touch the Hem of
His Garment." For listeners more interested in the music over the message, there
are plenty of subtle touches throughout these tracks, from the Hawaiian guitar
style on "Come and Go to that Land," to the insistent, rolling harmonies of
Cooke's fellow Stirrers during "Wonderful."
Like most "complete" box sets, there's some
filler and some killer. The former here is multiple alternate takes of multiple
songs, often sequenced back-to-back, leaving the effect of hearing a sermon
one too many times. But the latter makes up for it, as Cooke's thunderbolts-from-above
performances on three live tracks from a 1955 concert are so overpowering, it's
enough to make the biggest cynic convert.
Grant Green -- 1961-66 Retrospective
(Blue Note)
Grant Green is practically synonymous with
jazz guitar. He was one of the legendary Blue Note label's most prolific artists
in the '60s, recording as a sideman and leader on more than 60 albums in a five-year
span. Green eschewed chords and squalling discordant solos in favor of remarkably
fluid single-note runs built on Charlie Christian's legacy and echoed the horn
lines of Green idols Miles Davis and Charlie Parker. His style was blues-based
and deceptively simple, as the multiple combos and genres on Retrospective
show Green's diverse range. There's Latin grooves ("Besame Mucho"), sublime
ballads ("You Don't Know What Love Is"), impassioned readings of jazz classics
("My Favorite Things"), hard bop ("Speak Low"), spirituals ("Go Down Moses"),
slinky B-3 organ grooves ("Funky Mama"), straight-up trio work (a genius version
of Miles Davis' "So What"), and even country and western, as Grant turns in
a languid version of "I Can't Stop Loving You."
Part of the credit for that substantial artistic
feat deserves to go to his virtuoso collaborators. Drummers Art Blakey and Billy
Higgins, organists Jack McDuff and Jimmy Smith, pianists Herbie Hancock and
McCoy Tyner, saxophonists Joe Henderson, Sam Rivers and Wayne Shorter, trumpeter
Lee Morgan, and vibist Bobby Hutcherson are just a few of the musicians found
on Retrospective. It makes for a free-flowing stream of magical dialogue,
illuminating Green's own signature voice. Superb liner notes, packaging and
photos make this set a must-have for jazz and guitar fans.
Dwight Yoakam -- Reprise Please
Baby: The Warner Bros. Years (Reprise/Rhino)
When it comes to neo-traditionalist country
artists, Dwight Yoakam stands head and shoulders above the crowded field. There
might be a few performers who can sing hard country with Yoakam's craft and
conviction. There might be a few songwriters who can write devastatingly heartbreaking
songs like "Two Doors Down." And there are a few frontmen out there who lead
impressive bands. But there's no one who brings the whole package to the studio
and stage like Yoakam; he's as close to the genius of Hank Williams you'll get.
Reprise Please Baby includes all of
Yoakam's hit anthems like "Guitars, Cadillacs" and "A Thousand Miles from Nowhere,"
as well as forays into the Tex-Mex of "Carmelita" and the Stax Records soul
of "Gone." And with right-hand man/producer/guitar wizard Pete Anderson at his
side, Yoakam's become one of the great interpreters of American music: who else
could cut Queen's "Crazy Little Thing Called Love," ZZ Top's "I'm Bad, I'm Nationwide,"
Junior Parker's "Mystery Train," Cheap Trick's "I Want You to Want Me" and the
Grateful Dead's "Truckin'" and make them sound like their own creations?
Yoakam aficionados will flip over the fourth
disc of the set, a treasure trove of 21 previously unreleased tracks, including
Yoakam's first demo sessions recorded in 1981. On tracks like "This Drinkin'
Will Kill Me" and "I Sang Dixie," Yoakam's signature sound is already in full
bloom. And when he revs up a live full-throttle electric band version of "My
Bucket's Got a Hole in It," it's the ultimate proof that Yoakam's Bakersfield
roots know no boundaries.
