Recent releases by artists like Lyle Lovett ("The Road to Ensenada" Curb/MCA), Bela Fleck ("Tales From the Acoustic Planet," Warner Bros.), Hank Crawford & Jimmy McGriff ("Road Tested," Milestone) and Howard Johnson's Gravity tuba ensemble ("Right Now," Verve, with guest artist Taj Mahal) testify to the fact that there are an infinite number of ways to make music and that it doesn't matter what bin the record stores choose to drop a release into -- you can find good stuff in any of them.
We're not huge fans of country music, here in the Kafalas household, but Lovett's album is a lot of fun. Perhaps we're a little biased in Lovett's favor because he's a fellow motorcyclist -- and one who, unlike other celebrity riders, puts in some serious high-speed miles on two wheels, both on- and off-road. "Ensenada" is an acoustic album that showcases his songwriting in a variety of settings: slow, fast, thoughtful, funny, tuneful, and simple. Lovett doesn't mind poking fun at himself, and when he's in a pensive mood, he can pen a ballad that'll have you pushing the "replay" button over and over.
Banjoist Bela Fleck's CD, like the others mentioned here, is hard to classify. It's also an acoustic album, but while some of his material recalls his old bluegrass/New Grass releases on Rounder (e.g., "Places"), other selections are on the jazz/technical side, in a similar vein to that of his recordings with the Flecktones, his electric band. He's got the throttle backed way off, however, from the later Flecktones releases, which, while impressive from a practice-fiend/incredible-chops standpoint, began to get a bit tiring -- not that they weren't enjoyable, but they had a driven, caffeine-buzz feeling. "Acoustic Planet" is a welcome rest stop -- great writing, excellent work by Fleck and his sidemen, but much more relaxed, for the most part, than the Flecktones records.
Hank Crawford and Jimmy McGriff have been collaborating for several decades. Crawford, on alto sax, and McGriff, on Hammond organ, fit somewhere in between jazz and more commercial instrumental music -- but, as with Lovett and Fleck, where you pigeonhole them isn't important. "Road Tested," like most of their earlier records, is the kind of stuff straight-ahead jazz enthusiasts like to sniff at, but they obviously have a great time playing music together. The CD is a mixture of straight-8th-note grooves, ballads, and jazz (used here, for lack of a better definition, to mean a swing feel with uneven 8th notes). Again, it's hard to categorize the music they play -- but it's infectious stuff.
Howard Johnson's "Gravity" tuba ensemble is more of a "jazz" group -- or at least that was the case on their first, self-titled CD that came out last year. Their latest offering, though, adds some selections with blues singer Taj Mahal as a guest artist -- which is adding a lot. The tuba playing, both on "Right Now" and on last year's CD, is unique, in my listening experience at least. The solos are heavy on the notes-per-second scale, and they're more than a little scattershot -- it's not exactly what you'd call precision instrumental playing, by any stretch of the imagination. I shudder to think what my old traditional-jazz purist friends would say, upon hearing this stuff -- but it's musical playing that makes it on its own merits. That's probably why the band was able to release a second album in the first place -- the first one probably sold a lot of copies as a curiosity item, but to justify another release, the band had to succeed on musical terms, not just as a novelty. It's great stuff -- good music, not just good tuba music.
It's important to keep your ears open -- good listening can come from an unexpected source. Not that any of these artists are exactly obscure; but they all have a lot to say, from an artistic position that's not precisely in the middle of any particular category. Record stores can't be blamed for trying to categorize their wares -- but sometimes you have to take their choices with a grain of salt. Good music is where you find it.
Copyright © 1998 John J. Kafalas