Rating 5.0
Great Bacharach musicThis was the first of Tzadik's 'Great Jewish Music' tributes, and definitely the best, due to the musicians involved, and of course the source material. There's been quite a resurgence of Bacharach's music of late (thanks to Austin Powers, among other things) and this tribute helps to show that this resurgence is well-deserved. When some of the biggest names in modern music (Bill Frisell, Eyvind Kang, Marc Ribot, Fred Frith, etc.) record your music, that is some pretty high praise.So, onto some of the music... Dave Douglas reworks 'Wives And Lovers' into a wonderfully swinging version for trumpet, piano and bass sax/piccolo/flute, and one wonders why we haven't heard more of Dave with this lineup. Accordionist Guy Klucevsek mixes 'Who Gets The Guy?' with 'This Guy's In Love With You' with a result that is almost unrecognisable due to his extreme reharmonisation. 'Walk On By' gets a relatively straight but beautiful reading by downtown legend Kramer. And so it goes - most of the tracks are reworked beautifully, or covered relatively straight, but great versions nonetheless. One that most notably breaks the mold is Joey Baron's solo drum version of 'Alfie'. Kind of interesting, but doesn't really hold up to multiple listens. As another reviewer said, there's probably just too much music here - though I love Marc Ribot, it is probably not necessary to have two tracks by him (one solo, one with band). And some of the tracks, towards the end of the second disc in particular, are a bit lacking. But all in all, this is a worthy tribute to a great songwriter. Great for the musically adventurous Bacharach fanIf you are a fan of Hal Wilner's tribute albums to Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk, and Nino Rota, and also of Burt Bacharach, this album is right up your alley. At 20 songs, there are about six too many, but at least two of them are worth the price of admission by themselves. I'm speaking of Bill Frisell's beautiful solo version of "What the World Needs Now Is Love" on what sounds like an acoustic archtop guitar (none of his volume pedal/tape delay effects, just pure Bill), and also of Medeski Martin and Wood's super-funky version of "Do You Know the Way to San Jose." If only MM&W had such strong material to work with on their own albums...The more experimental things work in about half the cases on this album, and there are a small number of tracks you will never want to hear again. I distilled my favorites onto one CD so I wouldn't have to program and switch the discs out to get to all my favorites. |
