CD REVIEWS: Bettye LaVette, Nels Cline Singers, Herbie Hancock, Peter Wolf, Los Lobos, Maya Beiser

Bettye LaVette
Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook
Anti/Epitaph

On paper it seems an odd, if not quite pointless, exercise: pairing one of the greatest soul singers of all time with songs by late-1960s/early-1970s British rock artists including the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, the Who, Pink Floyd, Traffic, the Moody Blues, and Elton John. But Bettye LaVette does not approach these songs as sacred icons of classic rock. Instead, she wholly inhabits and reinterprets them, and, while not exactly rewriting them, she so deeply infuses her own personality into them that such familiar tunes as “All My Love,” “It Don’t Come Easy,” “Nights in White Satin,” and “Wish You Were Here” pass by unrecognized, but no less classic, as rendered by LaVette.

 

 

Nels Cline Singers
Initiate
Cryptogramophone

First off, there are no “singers” in the Nels Cline Singers, at least in the conventional sense of vocalists. But there’s plenty of singing on this double-CD set, as guitarist Cline—best known these days as Wilco’s lead guitarist, but a legendary punk-jazz guitarist who’s been making beautiful noise since the late 1970s—and his bandmates, bassist Devin Hoff and drummer Scott Amendola, sing through their instruments on this diverse program. Rooted in the jazz fusion of the 1970s—think Miles Davis, Weather Report, and Joe Zawinul in particular—Cline and his trio explore uncharted territory in organic improvisations that are full of surprises as they build from a whisper to a scream. No wonder Jazz Times calls Cline “the world’s most dangerous guitarist.”

The Nels Cline Singers perform at the Solid Sound Festival at MASS MoCA on Aug 13-15.

 

Herbie Hancock
The Imagine Project
Hancock/RED

Herbie Hancock is constitutionally incapable of repeating himself or being pigeonholed. A veritable “Zelig” of jazz who has also had key pop successes in nearly every decade since the 1960s, Hancock gives vent to his meta-musical concerns and his insatiable appetite for collaboration on his latest effort, which pairs the keyboardist with an international cast of singers and players including Chaka Khan, Wayne Shorter, Pink, Seal, John Legend, Jeff Beck, India.Arie, Oumou Sangaré, Los Lobos, the Chieftains, Dave Matthews, Anoushka Shankar, and others. Most of the songs were recorded on his guests’ home turf and in their own styles, with Hancock burying himself in arrangements of indigenous songs and pop hits including Peter Gabriel’s “Don’t Give Up,” Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are a-Changin’,” the Beatles’ “Tomorrow Never Knows,” and Sam Cooke’s “A Change is Gonna Come.”

Herbie Hancock brings his “Imagine Project” tour to Tanglewood on Aug 9.
 

 

Peter Wolf
Midnight Souvenirs
Verve

From the Rolling Stones-ish “I Don’t Wanna Know” to the Celtic-flavored “The Green Fields of Summer” to the Meters-like New Orleans funk of “Everything I Do (Gonna Be Funky),” Peter Wolf’s latest recording is an exuberant roots-rock journey with the immediacy of last night’s club gig. Wolf has lived several lifetimes of rock ’n’ roll in his sixty-four years, digging deep into its country, R&B, and blues roots, and instead of J. Geils Band-style bombast, what comes across here is an intimate, soulful expression of joy in the music by a singer and songwriter who shows maturity but no lack of vitality. Neko Case, Shelby Lynne, and Merle Haggard are on hand to lend a bit of color on duets, but they don’t overshadow one of America’s unsung rock ’n’ roll heroes.

 

 

Los Lobos
Tin Can Trust
Shout! Factory

The band’s first collection of new material in four years strikes listeners as classic Los Lobos, harkening back to the group’s 1990 album, The Neighborhood, in its eclecticism, successfully blending its signature Spanish-language Mexican folk-rock with the sort of classic roots-rock leanings and taut songwriting and vocals that made them the East Los Angeles answer to The Band. The players shun some of the more experimental touches they have toyed with since then, instead favoring concert-ready arrangements of numbers that smoke and sizzle with tension, funk, and grit. And the group acknowledges its longstanding debt to and relationship with the Grateful Dead on a cover of the latter’s “West L.A. Fadeaway.”

 

 

Maya Beiser
Provenance
Innova

Maya Beiser is the superstar of the new-classical, avant-garde cello. On her latest recording, Provenance, she comes across as a one-woman Kronos Quartet on a peace mission to the Middle East, intertwining new music from Armenia, Kurdistan, Israel, and the United States, and culminating with a multi-tracked rendition of that classic-rock warhorse, Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir,” whose name has become the very symbol of territorial, cultural, and religious disputes that could possibly cause a world conflagration. As a native Israeli who grew up in the idealistic surroundings of a Galilean kibbutz, coexisting harmoniously with neighboring Christian and Muslim Arabs, Beiser gives voice to the cultural ties among the feuding peoples of the Middle East, inspired by the historic model of medieval Spain, when Muslims, Christians, and Jews together achieved the heights of what we now call Western civilization. Beiser’s wailing cello speaks louder, however, than any history book or political orator.

Maya Beiser is a special guest of the Donal Fox Quartet at the Tanglewood Jazz Festival on Sept 5 at 8.