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Music

Audio Files

A look at some new music.

By PHILIP BOOTH
Published March 12, 2006

Charlie Hunter, Copperopolis (Ropeadope)

Charlie Hunter, back with the same trio heard on 2004's Friends Seen and Unseen, wields his hybrid eight-string instrument, a combo bass and guitar, for jammy jazz that grooves and rocks even harder this time out.

Drummer Derrek Phillips provides the seriously funky backbeats, and John Ellis brings tenor sax, organ and other instruments to the mix for a set that blasts open with Cueball Bobbin', its bluesy, overdriven Hendrix-esque guitar slam attached to a slippery unison line.

Copperopolis, recorded in New Orleans about four months before Katrina's devastation, documents a band of many moods: Frontman, with its fuzzy guitar, vintage electric piano and loose-limbed beat, sounds like an instrumental track from a retro-progressive modern rock outfit (say, My Morning Jacket), and Swamba Redux, with its searching melodica and second-line rhythms, is an organic blend of Brazilian and Crescent City musical traditions.

Blue Sock, humming bass groove, slinky melody and all, feels like a page torn from Medeski Martin and Wood, while the slow-floating Drop the Rock charms with lonely lines volleyed by Hunter and Ellis. The latter turns to bass clarinet for a minor-toned unison riff that sparks Phillips' expansive drumming on the tune's last section. And Hunter didn't forget the jazzheads in his audience: He closes with a bouncy take on Thelonious Monk's Think of One, a springboard for Ellis's most potent, most aggressive tenor work. B+

- PHILIP BOOTH, Times correspondent

Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, The Hidden Land (Columbia)

The Hidden Land, the first studio album from Bela Fleck and the Flecktones since 2003's guest-spiked multidisc odyssey Little Worlds, boasts an apt title. Fleck's band occupies an odd niche, a place that's all but invisible to the general CD-buying populace and a musical space that makes the Flecktones a continuing challenge to market, much less to land in the appropriate mall-store bin.

Banjo virtuoso Fleck has gained attention for his efforts in bluegrass, country, classical, jazz and pop, and he manages to jam all of those elements into his working band, touring aggressively again after a 2005 hiatus. But there's nothing artificial about the Flecktones' idiosyncratic blend, which sounds more organic than ever, due in part to the group's shared history - Fleck, bassist Victor Wooten and drummer Roy Wooten hooked up in 1989, and saxophonist/flutist Jeff Coffin joined seven years ago - and the apparent ease with which they communicate.

That fluidity and unforced eclecticism is in evidence from the opener, a cheery take on a Bach fugue, with banjo, alto sax and electric bass melodies and countermelodies circling before segueing into the up-tempo jazz fusion of P'lod in the House. Victor Wooten demonstrates his remarkable fluency as an improviser with a funk-edged turn on Labyrinth, informed by Fleck's bluesy work on Paradis stereo guitar. The quartet also pursues other directions, tinkering with Indian textures on the atmospheric, slow-burning Chennai; employing a clarinet-voiced melody and a sparse arrangement to evoke a 1930s sound on Who's Got Three?; and capping the set with The Whistle Tune, the Flecktones' equivalent of a wistful mountain song. And for fans only, on the DVD side: Bring It Home, a goofy mock documentary. B+

- P.B.

Jack DeJohnette featuring Bill Frisell, The Elephant Sleeps But Still Remembers (Golden Beams)

Jack DeJohnette, from his frenzied funk brilliance circa Miles' electric period to his masterful work driving Keith Jarrett's Standards Trio to a recent exploratory show with Chick Corea and Eddie Gomez in New York, has never shied away from an almost defiant brand of musical adventurism.

The Elephant Sleeps But Still Remembers, recorded by the drummer with similarly inclined guitarist Bill Frisell at Seattle's Earshot Festival in 2001, is no exception. The set, the second duo disc released on DeJohnette's own label, is largely improvised and generally devoid of melody. The two settle into riffs and rhythmic patterns and follow where the muse leads - alternately surreal and hypnotic soundscapes, with DeJohnette playing drums, percussion and piano and Frisell moving between guitar and six-string banjo.

The long title track, which opens the CD, begins with serene guitar textures and picks up steam as Frisell works into searching, acid-washed declarations before finally retreating. In Otherworldly Dervishes, effects-drenched guitar tones play off a primal backbeat, later reaching toward an earthy fusion.

DeJohnette offers impressionistic piano flourishes on Storm Clouds and Mist, veering a little too close to Windham Hill terrain. Several pieces, including Through the Warphole and Cartune Riots, amount to sound-effects experiments. Ode to South Africa is all polyrhythms and sticky guitar lines, leading into chanting and haunting, wordless vocals. The set closes with Coltrane's After the Rain, as DeJohnette's mellow piano lines are trailed by Frisell. It's a perfect chill-out tune. B

- P.B.

[Last modified March 10, 2006, 11:59:08]