Lovers' deceptions. Bitter memories. Cynical impressions of romance. Yes, love songs, songs of love lost and mourned, abound on Jones's fourth record. The gifted singer-songwriter conjures a darkly romantic mood. "You listen to my answers/ Complete with alibis/ But still my heart beats faster/ Than I can make up lies."
Since most of the songs are original collaborations between Jones and producer-husband Don Dixon, it makes her tart observations on love all the more curious. (With critics speculating about Dixon's seemingly dominant influence on her work, Jones had joked about titling her last LP Good Golly Svengali before deciding on Used Guitars.) But it's still the music that matters, and Jones doesn't falter.
If there were anything resembling pop-music justice, the title track would bring Jones her first true hit. She wraps her warm pipes around a nondescript keyboard riff on the chorus, and you know she has hit paydirt. The countryish "One Shade Darker" equates love's ups and downs to a soldier remembering past wars: "If love is the answer/ I want to surrender."
Like Linda Ronstadt and Bonnie Raitt, Jones has shown a talent for picking the right cover songs on past efforts. On this album, she works wonders with Loudon Wainwright's "Old Friend," delivering the following line with apt face-the-facts clarity: "The good old days are good and gone now/ That's why they're good, because they're gone." (RCA)
Keith Sweat
The Harlem-born Sweat, a stalwart member of an exciting new generation of R&B singers, follows up his popular 1988 debut, Make It Last Forever, with another deft, enjoyable offering.
Keith kicks things off with a choice little aerobic workout titled, "Make You Sweat." Set to a loopy little organ riff and body-jacking beat, it recalls the soul style of Teddy Riley's Guy.
Then it's time to turn the lights down low and settle onto the settee with your sweetie as Sweat drifts into a string of lushly arranged, sweetly sung romantic ballads: "Come Back," "Merry Go Round," "Just One of Them Thangs" (a terrific throw-down duet with Gerald Levert) and "I Knew You Were Cheatin."
This perfect sound track for intimacy is interrupted only by the upbeat "Love to Love You" and the dance tilt-a-whirl of "Your Love," which Sweat immediately reprises as "Part 2," à la Barry White, burbling baritone pillow talk over the melody.
Taken individually, the songs arc all on the good-to-excellent continuum. You'd be glad to hear any of them pop up on the radio. They don't hold together very well as an album because of a lack of variety. But that's not the knock on Sweat it seems to be. As pop history proves, pursuing the singles strategy is often the smartest course. (Elektra)
Holly Dunn
No country singer is more engaging than Dunn is when she has her enthusiasms tuned exactly right and lays that sweet and gleaming voice on songs she seems to care about.
She wrote or co-wrote five tunes on this album (four of them with her brother and co-producer, Chris Waters, and other collaborators), including the destined-for-standardhood "My Anniversary for Being a Fool": "I'll just throw a party/ For me and my heartaches/ Hindsight is heartbreak's best tool."
Dunn also more than does justice to Marty Robbins's old paean to self-pity, "Don't Worry 'Bout Me" and a Charlie Black-Tom Shapiro-Waters song that turns on one of those endearingly simple wordplays she seems to favor, "My Old Love in New Mexico."
In our sequelizing world, it would have seemed appropriate for Dunn to re-create her enjoyable 1987 duet with Michael Martin Murphy, "Face in the Crowd." She's all on her own here, but there are a lot worse problems for country singers than to get stuck with being just Holly Dunn. (Warner Bros.)
Hothouse Flowers
With the stunning success of Sinéad O'Connor and this gorgeous second effort from Dublin's second most-talented rock band, the Irish invasion that began with U2 may be just hitting its stride.
There's nothing new in the Hothouse Flowers' approach after their hearty 1988 debut, People, but consistency is what more rockers should be looking for. The persistent heavenly angel vocal choruses here may stretch the point a wee bit, yet the Flowers' reverent, gospel-tinged style usually sounds heartfelt, not hokey.
Liam O'Maonlai's voice often evokes the emotion of a preacher trying to whip the congregation into an exalted frenzy. "Give It Up" won't be chasing Taylor Dayne up the charts, but it has a feel-good kick that lingers long after the song ends. Neil Young fans might recall his concert standard "Helpless" when they hear O'Maonlai's doleful vocals and piano on "Sweet Marie." One of the better remakes in recent memory just might be the Flowers' take on Johnny Nash's 1972 chart-topper, "I Can See Clearly Now." A gentle piano intro suggests that the storm indeed has lifted, and then a thunderous break drives the song until it settles down again at the end.
CD buyers get the obligatory bonus-cuts, including a live track called "Dance to the Storm." After that Gaelic hoedown ends, a listener feels like a Bible thumper following a revival meeting, exhausted but filled with conviction. (London)
Tony Williams
Dripping with sweat after a tumultuous set recently at New York City's Village Vanguard, Tony Williams offered an insight into his approach to jazz drumming: "I believe there are vitamins in volume," he said.
The best way to appreciate Native Heart, an album of acoustic jazz intended to make your ears ring, is to boost the decibel level on your receiver and let the music roll over you in waves. Amid the surging power of Williams's declamatory tunes and eruptive playing, you will find yourself awash in whirling eddies of rhythm and melodic counterthemes.
Williams was still in his teens when he lent an effervescence to Miles Davis's mid-'60s modal musings with his delicate and splashy cymbal work. A few years later, wielding parade sticks and bashing on an oversize drum kit, he helped launch the jazz-rock revolution with his high-voltage band, Lifetime. Shifting grooves yet again a decade ago, Williams immersed himself in classical composition studies. He has since forsaken rock to work with a more traditional jazz ensemble but retained his powerhouse style of drumming.
Williams's bandsmen, saxophonist Bill Pierce, trumpeter Wallace Roney and pianist Mulgrew Miller, bring a melodic sensibility to Native Heart, while bassists Ira Coleman and Bob Hurst take turns giving the tunes a swinging bottom. The mood of the album ranges from the balefulness of the title track to the buoyancy of "Juicy Fruit" and the freneticism of "Two Worlds." Most of the songs have the punch of hard bop, with harmonic resonances that echo the drummer's early work with Miles. But the complexities of the rhythms keep the music from sounding nostalgic. Through ever changing tempos, Williams maintains a hypnotic pulse while unleashing an expressionistic pattern of sound with rolling crescendos, crashing cymbals and offbeat accents.
In jazz, drummers have traditionally been expected to play a supportive role as timekeepers while horn players and other melodists have hogged center stage. When it comes to rhythmic precision, Williams has few peers. But he is also mindful of his musical forebears in Africa, who relied upon the drums to summon ancestral spirits and to send messages over long distances. Williams is not content to simply keep a beat. As the title suggests, he sees the drums as a means to express the stirrings of the heart. (Blue Note)
- Contributors:
- Andrew Abrahams,
- David Hiltbrand,
- Ralph Novak,
- David Grogan.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
