Audio Files

By JOHN FLEMING, GINA VIVINETTO, HELEN A.S. POPKIN, ALAN RITTNER and PHILIP BOOTH

© St. Petersburg Times, published December 17, 2000

CLASSICAL FILE

CHRISTMAS WITH THE MASTER CHORALE & EMPIRE BRASS -- The Master Chorale is one of the jewels of Tampa Bay. Under the direction of Jo-Michael Scheibe, it teams up with the Florida Orchestra in masterworks of the choral repertory. The chorus is a formidable artistic force in its own right, as last winter's performance of David Fanshawe's African Sanctus so thrillingly demonstrated.

At this time of year, the Master Chorale is a tradition for many listeners, with its annual holiday concerts, joined in recent seasons by the Empire Brass. Now there's a new self-produced CD out with the chorus and brass quintet performing selections that range from a premiere of Eric Whitacre's setting of Lux Aurumque to Santa Claus is Coming to Town.

Even the tried and true among the 24 selections sound fresh because of classy arrangements and buoyant singing, recorded in September at First Presbyterian Church in St. Petersburg. Highlights include Kurt Knecht's jazz treatment of Go Tell It on the Mountain, the majestic opening movement from Monteverdi's Vespers, Jeremy Silverman's baroque arrangement of Ding Dong Merrily on High, Morton Lauridsen's O Magnum Mysterium and Mid-Winter by former Kings Singer tenor turned full-time composer Bob Chilcott.

The Empire Brass shines in arrangements by tuba player Ken Amis, and first trumpet Rolf Smedvig is featured to brilliant effect in numbers like Bell-Tone's Ring. Quintet and chorus blend together beautifully.

This is the Master Chorale's second Christmas album in five years, and perhaps the addition of the Empire Brass and some new music justifies the return to another seasonal program. Certainly it's a nice stocking stuffer that will provide great background music in many a bay area household on Christmas day.

But it's disappointing that Scheibe and company apparently feel the need to play it so safe with recording projects. The musical world is full of interesting, challenging, delightful choral works that aren't well known, or classics that deserve to be brought to a wider audience, and there could be no better champion of them than the Master Chorale.

Christmas with the Master Chorale & Empire Brass costs $15. Call (813) 258-9468. GRADE: A-

-- JOHN FLEMING, Times performing arts critic

ERYKAH BADU, MAMA'S GUN (UNI/MOTOWN) Only R&B singer Erykah Badu could write the following and not sound obnoxious:

Your booty might be bigga

but I can still pull your n--

(but I don't want him)

Ya got your sugar

on your pita

but ya n-- thinks I'm sweeter

Instead, on Booty, she sounds sassy, confident and totally grounded -- in short, like Erykah Badu.

On Mama's Gun, her third album following her enchanting 1997 debut Baduizm and a great live album, the lady with the giant Q-Tip turban offers more sexy soul with a quirky, often feminist vibe.

Comparisons to Billie Holiday, Bessie Smith and Marvin Gaye notwithstanding, Badu has her own thing going on. Her vocal delivery is nuanced: slinky here, cranky there, always emotive. Badu writes songs with no chain to genre. Some of Mama's Gun is maddeningly funky -- check out the hard 1970s-style groove of Penitentiary Philosophy (and pay attention, Lenny Kravitz.) Then saunter around your pad while the deliciously inviting Didn't Cha Know? fills the air.

The album's first single, Bag Lady, is definitive Badu, full of soul, with a sharp critical eye on just what's wrong with the world. But don't get too down, sugar, Badu seems to impart, because we can fix this mess. Ultimately, Badu uplifts. You like listening to her.

A pleasant, though aimless duet with Stephen Marley -- yes, Bob's kid -- some samples, strings, trumpet and flute keep things eclectic.

Sure, the album loses its thread in spots, and a debut like Baduizm is tough to follow, but Mama's Gun is cocked and ready to go. GRADE: A-.

-- GINA VIVINETTO, Times pop music critic

RICKY MARTIN, SOUND LOADED (COLUMBIA) The Spanish guitar and disco thumps that begin Sound Loaded send the gals I work with into the hall where they throw their arms in the air and swing their hips as if the office is really a Miami disco.

No doubt Ricky Livin' La Vida Loca Martin expects nothing less. If you want your guests to stay, you've got to keep the party going. Beneath Martin's perfect face and gyrating body are shrewd business brains that give us She Bangs, the first track and the first release from Martin's second mostly English recording. It's a fuzzy carbon copy of the infectious La Vida Loca, complete with horn section and electric guitar solo. And that's all you really need when you're whoopin' it up in a Miami disco.

Martin makes sure to cover all his bases. Several songs here are sung or redone in Spanish, reminiscent of the 1992 self-titled all-Spanish recording that made him an international star. He's still crooning about heartbreaking hussies (Jezabel) and stretching the salsa to the extreme (Amor).

But the ballads here, such as Come to Me and Nobody Wants to Be Lonely, are too synthesized and sappy to appeal to anyone but the most unjaded 13-year-old. Better to stick with the zippy Latin American pop of songs like Loaded. Even the Spanish version of She Bangs is preferable. GRADE: B

-- HELEN A.S. POPKIN, Times correspondent

MARILYN MANSON, HOLY WOOD (IN THE SHADOW OF THE VALLEY OF DEATH) (NOTHING/INTERSCOPE) -- "I'm not a slave to a God that doesn't exist," shrieks the man who named a previous album Antichrist Superstar, and as a committed atheist I feel obliged to point out that if you don't believe in God, you can't believe in the devil. It's not an either/or.

Yes yes yes, I know "Antichrist" is a metaphor. But what we have here is evidence of a man whose only goal is provocation, which without wisdom is as useful as a nose without nostrils. Manson isn't offensive because he's loud or ugly or (God knows) Satanic; he's offensive because he's an exploiter, a cynical opportunist, a pedant. (Using religious imagery to attack religion; wherever did he come up with that idea?) He's also a hypocrite. His appearance deliberately grotesque, his music deliberately abrasive and seedy, he concocts an apparently autobiographical "concept album" (Zen Arcade it's not) about a naive, idealistic boy seeking beauty and acceptance in a " "perfect' world that doesn't want him." (Boo hoo.)

Eminem's persecution complex is so obsessively detailed, skillfully delivered and flat-out funny that its author comes across as genuinely tragic. But Manson comes off less as raging rebel than petulant child. Talk about gross self-pity: "You never accepted or treated me fair/blame me for what I believe and I wear." What kind of freak craves acceptance?

So much for rabble-rousing. And if you have to ask, the music still sounds like a pile of bricks being thrown down a metal slide. GRADE: C-

-- ALAN RITTNER, Times staff writer

BILL EVANS TRIO, THE LAST WALTZ (MILESTONE) Three-way musical chemistry has seldom been as sublime as when practiced by Bill Evans and the groups he led until his death at 51 in 1980. The pianist, integral to the pastel-colored modal moodiness of Miles Davis' classic Kind of Blue album, gets his due and then some with The Last Waltz, an eight-CD boxed set documenting eight evenings of profound artistry at the Keystone Korner, the now-defunct San Francisco nightclub.

Evans, during his second-to-last week on earth, achieves sweet communion with bassist Marc Johnson and drummer Joe LaBarbera. Grace, intelligence, emotion and inspiration are at play on Evans originals including Turn Out the Stars, Re: Person I Knew and Waltz for Debby, and standards such as Like Someone in Love , My Foolish Heart, Someday My Prince Will Come, Days of Wine and Roses and Autumn Leaves.

Scores of would-be inheritors of the Evans piano-trio tradition have attempted to imitate his impressionistic, introspective, ultimately poignant sound, an approach that comes into particularly sharp focus on the six varied interpretations of Davis' Nardis. But it won't ever be duplicated, as attested to by these 65 beautifully burnished gems, previously unreleased performances of 32 pieces typical of the artist's repertoire at the time. The ideal result of this find would be a renaissance of appreciation for his work. GRADE: A.

-- PHILIP BOOTH, Times correspondent

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