A Charlie Brown Christmas as performed by the cast of Scrubs

A Charlie Brown Christmas Performed by the Cast of Scrubs

Deadwood

I have, through the tender auspices of the good folks at Netflix, made my way through the third (and, alas, final) season of Deadwood. I went through the episodes slowly because I knew that they were the final episodes of this compelling series (HBO in its dubious wisdom decided not to continue the show) and I was loathe to rush through them (though the impulse to do so was always there, of course.)

Deadwood is (was) not for everyone…it is (was) gritty, bawdy, messy, absurd, engaging, and, most all, profane…but I relished all three seasons with all of its compelling drama, serpentine plotting, and wonderfully flawed and complex characters.

The language of the show was poetic and profane…most often both at the same time…and the locale was lived-in, rough hewn, muddy, messy, and ramshackle. I have no idea if any of this was true of Deadwood, South Dakota in the late 1800’s but it has a fierce verisimilitude that I quite readily accepted (even while accepting, however reluctantly, that people probably didn’t speak in the colorful profane poetic way the characters sometime did in the series.)

At the heart of the series was Ian McShane’s wondrous performance of the brutal, acerbic, savvy and, yes, profligately profane Al Swearengen, Deadwood’s manipulative power-broker (as well as a saloon owner and whoremaster). The third season was underscored by the conflict between Swearengen and the even more brutal George Hearst (Gerald McRaney is in very fine form as the complex, driven Hearst) and it is a violent, strategic, uncompromising chess match that is never anything less than wholly, awfully engaging.

There is not much resolved by the time the series ends and we are promised a movie or two to bring to some better resolution the plotlines that would have come together in the planned fourth season…I hope that the promise comes true but even if it doesn’t Deadwood is (was) still well worth the investment of time and (rapt) attention.

Happy Turkey Day :-)

High Steppin'

The Pimps of Joytime do make a joyful noise on this very fine, very funky CD. The Pimps cook up a heady musical gumbo that throws choice influences like Prince and Curtis Mayfield, the Neville Brothers and the Meters, Sly and the Family Stone and the Red Hot Chili Peppers and War and then they spice it up even more with potent dollops of Afro-Caribbean pop, hip hop, and punchy rock & roll. The result is almost too soulful, too funky, and too delightfully engaging for words….but only “almost” :-)

The Pimps hit the ground running with the jamming, mostly instrumental, title track and then they slide smoothly into the percolating love jam “My Gold” (featuring falsetto vocals that would do Curtis proud and some fine guitar work.)

The band keeps it in a solid groove from the mid-tempo strut of “She-Do” to the solid funk shuffle of “Long Ride” to the old school funk of “Workin’ All the Time” (featuring some great vocals, keyboards, and horns) to the extended jam “Street Sound” (with chanted vocals that remind me of War back in their prime and some nimble guitar and bass playing)…and they keep the musicianship up at that superlative, utterly infectious level throughout the entirety of the disc.

The yearning ballad “Be Good” slows down the tempo to nice effect and then the Latin-flavored “Bonita” kicks things back into sweet danceable groove.

The Pimps are tight and in the pocket all the way…on the haunting “San Francisco Bound” and the joyful reggae of “Tea Time” and the raucous, gospel tinged, guitar and organ driven finish to “Hey Mr. J” and onto to “H2O”, the funkiest eco-friendly song you’re likely to hear :-)

By the closing uplift of the hopeful “We Shall Find a Way” (buoyed by some great guitar and organ work and featuring a grand harmonica solo), I was completely hooked. The Pimps of Joytime are the real deal and High Steppin’ is a real fine…funky, soulful, rockin’, jammin’, enormously entertaining…CD. ‘Nuff said. :-)

Below is a video of the Pimps of Joytime jamming live.

Project Runway

As I’ve probably said before, I really don’t care about so-called high fashion (and I have a closet full of jeans, t-shirts, caps, sneakers, and well-worn boots to prove it) but, that said, I love Project Runway :-) And after a year’s absence…a year during which Bravo tried to clone Runway with wan pretenders like Shear Genius and Top Design…it’s back!

Mrs. Seal is back in all of her Teutonic fabulousness, judges Nina Garcia and Michael Kors are back with their supercilious snarkiness, and, best of all, the ever-unflappable, ever-dapper Tim Gunn is back as the mentor to this year’s crop of designers.

The designers this year all seem to be more experienced as a group than previous groups of contestants…many of them have already put out collections and/or have their clothes worn by celebrities…and that seems to me to bode to a more competitive…and cutthroat…competition. Cool.

The show hit the ground running this year…eschewing showing the preliminary judging in favor of just introducing the finalists and throwing them into the business of creating fashion right away. Most of the designers rose to the challenge of designing and creating an outfit that represented their fashion outlook, a few didn’t, and, as Heidi Klum says on every show, one was “out”.

Too early to say who is going to breakout either as the one to beat or the one the other designers want to beat up (first round winner Rami said that he had set the bar for the competition and I can’t disagree with him…and young Christian, with his pretentiously asymmetrical hairdo, affects being full of his own greatness but he seems too non-threatening to really pull it off) but the gloves usually don’t come off during the first week of the show.

Here’s looking forward to a scintillating season of Project Runway. Make it work, people, make it work.

Harvest Moon

Neil Young with backing vocals by Emmylou Harris and his wife Pegi Young.

Happy 62nd Birthday, Neil Young :-)

Many happy...and rockin'...returns of the day!

In Rainbows

The methods by which we obtain music are…and have for a long time been…changing (something the major labels and the large record store chains have been loathe to acknowledge or quick to adjust to.) As CD sales continue to plummet and record stores (one of the great joys of my younger days) continue to disappear…as sites for legally downloading music multiply (iTunes is the undisputed leader, of course, but Amazon. com recently joined in the fray, and there are many other outlets…my personal favorite is eMusic, a site that specializes in “indie” labels) music fans have a multitude of ways to get their musical fixes.

Artists too are redefining the ways they get their music out to the public. Prince caused a stir earlier this year by giving away copies of Planet Earth with a British newspaper and Madonna recently jumped ship from a major label for a multi-tiered, multi-million dollar deal with a concert promoter.

Radiohead, the amazing, creatively restless and adventurous British band, has upped the ante by offering their new record, the gorgeous and beguiling In Rainbows, as a download on their website where the listener can choose how much (if anything) they want to pay for it. Fans can decide to pay nothing (according to one report more than half of them are opting to do just that) for the record and they can still download the ten tracks that make up In Rainbows (a standard CD will be issued next year and there is also a pricey box set consisting of the CD, two vinyl LPs, a 2^nd CD with bonus tracks and digital photos, lyric booklets and other artwork that will begin shipping in December.)

The audacious marketing experiment aside, In Rainbows is a remarkable rock and roll record (and for the record, I paid $10 for it…$1 a track…and it was money well spent.) From the funky “15 Step” to the all-out rocker “Bodysnatchers”…from the lush, shimmering “Nude” to the soaring, electronic washes of “Weird Fishes/Arpeggi”…to the love songs, grandly ruminative (“All I Need”) and gently flowing (“Faust Arp”)…from the pulsating, rock solid “Reckoner” (hear below) to soothing, mid-tempo groove (accented by haunting electronic accents) of “House of Cards”…from the throbbing rock and roll of “Jigsaw Falling into Place” to somber and almost ethereal (save for the commanding drumbeat) closer “Videotape”…the tracks are uniformly intriguing, involving, and compelling. It is, quite simply, a wonderful album.

The Hoax

I haven’t been moved to go to the movie theater much this year and even my Netflix queue has been quiet for a while but as the year winds to a close I’m endeavoring to get caught up on some movies that I’ve missed this year. Case in point: Lasse Hallstrom’s interesting character piece, The Hoax, which came out to generally good reviews earlier this year.

The movie chronicles the audacious 1970s hoax perpetrated by Clifford Irving involving a supposed autobiography of the famously reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes. Irving scammed more than a million dollars from McGraw-Hill and Life Magazine and was well on his way to getting away with it before Hughes surfaced (in a news conference held via speakerphone) to scuttle his play.

The Hoax, with a screenplay based on Irving’s own book about the whole affair, juxtaposes the unfolding of Irving’s elaborate…and frankly bold…scheme against the events of the times (the Vietnam War and the protests against same, the Nixon Administration, etc.) to intriguing effect. It also strongly suggests that Irving’s plot was allowed to go forth due to a double dealing conspiracy between Hughes and his people and Nixon and his people.

I don’t know about that last bit but I do know that at the heart of this movie…which itself is briskly paced, engaging, and witty…is a bravura performance by Richard Gere that captures the charm, the intelligence, the deviousness, the callousness, and, eventually, the paranoid fantasies of Irving. Gere is amazing and so is Alfred Molina, playing Dick Suskind, Irving’s conflicted partner in crime; they play off each other with such fierce chemistry that they make the movie soar.

The rest of the cast…including Marcia Gay Harden, Stanley Tucci, and Hope Davis…are fine enough in underwritten supporting roles.

Clifford Irving is a charming rogue (something testified to by venerated CBS newsman Mike Wallace in one of the DVD’s bonus features) and this movie, however true it is itself (it’s based on Irving’s book so it’s skewed towards romanticizing his actions to some extent), has a real charm of its own.

I'm Not There

Bob Dylan is such a distinctive singer and songwriter that it can be problematical trying to cover his songs. Of course, this doesn’t stop people from trying (the songs are too magnetic and powerful for that)…I must have at least a dozen CDs of Dylan covers (with Dylan songs sprinkled liberally amongst many, many other discs) in my personal collection. More than perhaps with any other singer-songwriter, those attempting to cover Dylan need to dig in and find their own way of coming at the songs or else they probably shouldn’t bother.

This collection…the soundtrack to Todd Haynes’ upcoming movie where 5 different actors (including Cate Blanchett) play Dylan…is a slightly mixed bag but there are more than enough highlights to make it a very worthwhile listening experience. The set gets off to a worrisome start with the epic “All Along the Watchtower”…the music (by the Million Dollar Bashers, a group that backs several performers over the course of the 2-disc set) is biting and fierce but Eddie Vedder’s vocal is strangely distant, as if he was afraid to really try to connect to the words. But then things pick up with Sonic Youth’s muscular take on the title track and then My Morning Jacket's Jim James (backed by Calexico, who also back up several artists on the set) takes a fine turn on “Goin’ to Acapulco”. The great Richie Havens inhabits “Tombstone Blues” with vigor.

Stephen Malkmus (backed the Million Dollar Bashers) threatens to get close to getting caught up in doing a parody of Dylan’s idiosyncratic phrasing on “Ballad of a Thin Man” but in the end he manages to avoid that trap for the most part. He also covers “Can’t Leave Her Behind” in a clipped, singsong way that is plaintive enough to suffice. Malkmus also sings “Maggie’s Farm” but his wan vocals are not up to the level of the killer rock-steady backing that the Million Dollar Bashers give him.

The amazing Cat Power kills on a throbbing, horn-driven romp through “Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again” while John Doe is equally impressive on the soulful gospel of “Pressing On” (Doe later also sings “I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine” with soulful conviction) and Yo La Tengo offers up a delicate, lilting version of “Fourth Time Around” (they kick it up into higher gear later on a rollicking version of “I Wanna Be Your Lover”.)

Calexico appears several times: backing up Iron & Wine on an atmospheric version of “Dark Eyes”, offering up sweet Latin flavored support (including some sublime horn and string work) to Roger McGuinn’s lovely “One More Cup of Coffee”, providing supple support to Willie Nelson’s potent cover of “Senor (Tales of Yankee Power)” (which features a powerful Spanish verse sung by Salvador Duran), and effectively underscoring Charlotte Gainsbourg’s ethereal, whispery reading of “Just Like a Woman”.

The Million Dollar Bashers (featuring Tom Verlaine on guitars, John Medeski on keyboards, Wilco's Nels Cline on guitar, and Sonic Youth's Steve Shelley on drums) also a couple of other appearances: providing stellar support on Karen O’s feisty cover of “Highway 61 Revisited” and presenting an appropriately dense and spooky version of “Cold Irons Bound (with Verlaine on vocals).

Mason Jennings’s “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” (accompanied only by his acoustic guitar) is well-intentioned but it lacks bite and therefore comes off a pale imitation of the brutally acerbic original (he fares a little bit better later on “The Times They Are A-Changin’”.) Los Lobos’ gently-driving take on “Billy 1”, on the other hand, is a full-bodied gem. Jeff Tweedy, accompanied by drums, bass, and fiddle, takes on Dylan’s phrasing to good effect on “Simple Twist of Fate” while Mark Lanegan is deliciously foreboding on the ominous “Man in the Long Black Coat”.

Mira Billotte is a wonder of vocal economy on her quietly shimmering “As I Went Out One Morning” and Sufjan Stevens turns Dylan’s gospel dirge “Ring Them Bells” into an almost baroque fantasia (complete with a soaring horn section) that works wondrously when you imagine that it shouldn’t at all. Jack Jackson is his soothingly laconic self on “Mama, You’ve Been on my Mind/A Fraction of Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie” which features some of the best acoustic guitar playing on the CD.

Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova (of the Swell Season) play a fine acoustic (guitar, harmonica, banjo, bass) version of “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” while The Hold Steady rock out on a potent take of “Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?” and Ramblin’ Jack Elliott offers up a ragged but heartfelt “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues”. The Black Keys rock a thick, bluesy “Wicked Messenger” while Marcus Carl Franklin (the youngest of the actors playing Dylan in the film) is surprisingly assured on “When the Ship Comes In” and Antony and the Johnsons are subdued (to haunting effect) on “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door”.

Dylan and The Band tie up the CD with “I’m Not There”, recorded during the fabled Basement Tapes sessions.

Dylan afficianad0s may argue the merits of these covers but there is, as I said before, much to be enjoyed on this soundtrack.

The Top-Earning Dead Celebrities

You gotta love it. There are dead people who still raking in more money in a year than most of us will earn in our entire lifetimes. Such is life :-) Forbes Magazine came out with their annual list of the Top-Earning Dead Celebrities.

At the top of this year’s list…which also includes two Beatles and the Godfather of Soul… is Elvis Presley. 30 years after his death, Elvis earned a cool $49 million (which must make Lisa Marie, his sole heir, very happy.)

John Lennon came in second with earnings of $44 million, followed by Charles M. Schulz ($35 million), George Harrison ($22 million), Albert Einstein ($18 million), Andy Warhol ($15 million), Theodor (Dr. Seuss) Geisel ($13 million), Tupac Shakur ($9 million), Marilyn Monroe ($7 million), Steve McQueen ($6 million), James Brown ($5 million), Bob Marley ($4 million) and James Dean ($3.5 million).

Monster Mash

Happy Halloween from Bobby "Boris" Pickett and some classic movie monsters
(and your pal here at Neverending Rainbow :-)

Heroes

Just when I was beginning to worry if Heroes was going to turn into Lost…so wrapped in introducing new characters and subplots that they leave the old characters and situations off to the side…it seems to be turning the corner and picking up a second wind (mixed metaphors are fun, ain’t they? :-)

I still think the Hiro in Ancient Japan storyline is a non-starter for me (they need to get him back to the present and back with Ando ASAP…though I guess they still have to deal with Isaac’s painting showing Hiro fighting a dinosaur), the amnesiac Peter in Ireland storyline is also a bit of a slog (though it seems that Pete is headed back to North America which should hopefully get him back in the mix), and the Maya/Alejandro thing is annoying at this point (we don’t know enough about them to care about their seemingly endless journey and the addition of Sylar to their subplot is full of unrequited possibility so far.) Claire and her flying boyfriend are cute together but it doesn’t seem to add much to the story.

On the other hand, some things are coming together. Noah “HRG” Bennett and the Haitian seem to be about causing some ruckus. Matt and Nathan on the trail of Matt’s father, the boogey man of Molly’s nightmares, is a good step as well. Micah’s New Orleans sojourn seemed kinda blah but now that Mohinder, who is undercover with the sinister Company, has shown up to find Monica that plot thread seem likely to be made an interesting part of the overall tapestry (especially with Niki already having voluntarily gone to the Company looking for a cure for her super-powerful schizophrenia.)

Adding new characters is fine, I guess, but we already have more than enough people to keep up with (especially since all of the major characters survived the showdown at the end of last season with the exception of DL…and frankly I’m wondering if there’s a twist there since we didn’t see the body) and adding Hiro’s companions in Japan, Peter’s new love and her friends in Ireland, Micah’s relatives and their friends in New Orleans, Claire’s new classmates in California, and Sylar’s traveling mates, the “wonder twins” (if you’re of a certain age you’ll get that allusion…) is nearing on being overkill. (I do like the addition of Nichelle Nichols…she brings an undeniable grace to the proceedings…though I do hope they are planning on giving her more to do.)

All that said, I still trust that the show’s creative staff has a plan and thus I remain faithful. The virus storyline seems to be on the verge of really turning into something exciting. And perhaps the upcoming episode that will fill in the gap between the end of the 1^st season and the beginning of this one will bring more light and perspective on what’s going on…we shall see.

Smokey Robinson and Linda Ronstadt

From the Motown 25 special, Smokey Robinson and Linda Ronstadt duet on "Ooo Baby Baby" and "The Tracks of my Tears".

The Next Great American Band

The good folks at American Idol have decided to try to find The Next Great American Band in a AI-style competition complete with a perky host (Dominic Bowden, host of New Zealand Idol…who is much less insufferable than Ryan Seacrest actually), celebrity judges dishing out praise and support (Sheila E. and Johnny Rzeznik of the Goo Goo Dolls), and the apparently requisite snarky, “brutally honest” judge with an non-American accent (in this case Australian record industry vet, Ian Dickson who answers to…and tries desperately to live up to…the nickname of “Dicko”.)

The auditions, held in the desert (110 in the shade) next to Lake Las Vegas for some reason, also followed the pattern of having talented bands interspersed with oddballs brought in to give the judges (and the viewers) something to roll their eyes at.

Overall, the 2-hour premiere was...okay. Not great but okay. In the end, it’s about the music. The judges winnowed through all of the bands and have picked 12 who will start competing for America’s vote starting next week.

Is the “next great American band” going to come out of this? I dunno…I doubt it…but, that said, stranger things have happened in the music industry (especially in the state of flux the industry is in right now.) But, that said, some of the bands are pretty good…I rather liked the tight country pop band Sixwire, the great country/gospel trio the Clark Brothers, the rocking funk band Franklin Bridge, and the rockers Dot Dot Dot myself…and all of them have potential so the competition should be entertaining (and may the most popular…and hopefully the best…band wins once America gets to start letting their fingers do the voting.)

Viva Laughlin

Oh my. Did we learn nothing from Cop Rock? Mixing casino drama with a murder mystery, cheesy soap opera/family drama, and karaoke production numbers must have seemed like a good idea to someone at CBS….as hard as that is to believe…but the finished product was…not so good.

Viva Laughlin is bad on so many levels…bad writing, bad acting, poor character development, uninteresting mystery, improbable coincidences…and, oh yes, the production numbers.

Melanie Griffith (am I delusional or couldn’t she really act at some point?), bless her, was a sport to vamp along to Blondie’s “One Way or Another” while trying to seduce an old flame but she really should have re-thought that.

Hugh Jackman (an executive producer and apparently a recurring guest star) strutting with casino waitresses turned backup dancers while singing along with the Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil” (see above) was not quite as embarrassing…but it was a close call.

Similar fates awaited Elvis’ “Viva Las Vegas” and Bachman-Turner Overdrive’s “Let it Ride” (both warbled by Lloyd Owen, the series lead) before the hour was over.

I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt and saying they were deliberately going for “campy”…they missed “campy” by a mile (we’re apparently supposed to take this silly stuff seriously) but I’m going to give them that benefit of the doubt just the same.

Maybe there’s an audience for Viva Laughlin but I’m not going to be part of it.

* * * * *

October 22 addendum:

After two broadcasts CBS has mercifully put Viva Laughlin out its (and our) misery by canceling it. It's Sunday night time slot will be filled with a CSI rerun next week and then with a new edition of The Amazing Race. Presumably no careers have been marred beyond redemption (not likely since not many people watched Viva Laughlin.)

Short Takes: Pink Martini, Carole King, Michelle Shocked

So much music, so little time…here’s a few capsule reviews to help me get caught up (and to get stuff filed into the racks instead of just cluttering up the space around my CD player :-)

Pink Martini – Hey Eugene!

The 14-member band…lead by pianist Thomas Lauderdale and the amazing, multi-lingual vocalist China Forbes…is so wonderfully eclectic that you never know what’s coming next on this great disc. From the big, dreamy, string-drenched, old Hollywood-style ballad (“Everywhere”) that opens the disc to savory Latin flavors of “Tempo Perdido” and “Mar Desconocido” (featuring a sample from a Chopin waltz) to songs sung, quite effectively, in French, Japanese, Russian, and Arabic (as well as English, of course :-) “World Music” is ably represented by this crack band from Oregon :-) Two of the sparkling highlights are the title track, a sly, witty rejoinder to a guy who never called after what seemed like a perfect first encounter, and a sweet, amazing duet between Forbes and the venerable Jimmy Scott on the classic “Tea for Two”. This CD challenges your expectations…unless you’re already a Pink Martini fan…and then rewards you abundantly for your willingness to take the music journey.

Carole King – Love Makes the World

The remarkable Carole King has been making music as a songwriter since the 60’s and as a performer since the 70’s and this disc of songs affirming love and life, put out on her own Rockingale label, shows that she still has the right stuff in spades. This is a a nifty, enormously entertaining pop record that keeps King, in fine voice, squarely in the spotlight even while featuring some fine guest turns by Babyface, Wynton Marsalis (some very nice trumpet work on “I Wasn’t Going to Fall in Love”) , Celine Dion, Graham Nash (a charming, sumptuous duet on “Two Hearts”), K.D. Lang (so fine, as always, on the soaring duet of “An Uncommon Love”), Steven Tyler (some great harmony and background vocals on the rocking “Monday Without You”), Alejandro Lemer (a cool Spanish duet on “Lo Que Tú Eres Para Mí”), and King’s daughter Louise Goffin (a frisky duet on “Where You Lead”.) A simmering revival of “Oh No, Not My Baby” featuring just King’s soulful voice and piano is grand highlight.

Michelle Shocked – To Heaven U Ride

You never know where the muse will take Michelle Shocked but you know it’s always going to be interesting wherever it is. This is a soulfully ragged and heartfelt gospel set recorded live at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival in 2003 (the tapes were apparently unearthed fairly recently.) Shocked, backed by a tight band and a gospel quartet, is a credible gospel singer and you can feel the spirit moving through her on her covers of The Band’s “The Weight” and Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s “Strange Things Happening Every Day”, on the classic spirituals “Wade in the Water” and “Uncloudy Day”, and on her own “Quality of Mercy”. If the bluesy pathos of Billie Holiday’s “God Bless the Child” is just a bit beyond her (it’s a game try nevertheless) she is on sure footing throughout most of this uplifting CD.

(Below is a video of Pink Martini performing the very cool “Hey Eugene” live.)

Led Zeppelin Goes Digital

One of the last digital holdouts, Led Zeppelin, is finally coming into the 21^st Century when their entire catalog will be made available on all the major online music download services on November 13, a date which coincides with the release of their 2-disc compilation, Mothership.

A week later a remastered version of the soundtrack to The Song Remains the Same will come out with 6 songs that weren’t on the original record.

Going full bore into the digital revolution, Zeppelin ringtones and downloads will be available via Verizon.

With this release, one of the few other major catalogs that remains legally unavailable online is that of the Beatles (and rumors abound that those classic albums will be available online in the near future.)

Trav'lin' Light

The first time I remember hearing Queen Latifah she was rapping with sass and unabashed confidence on All Hail the Queen and I was smitten at once. I was smitten all over again the first time I heard her sing as part of her stellar turn in the underappreciated 1998 movie Living Out Loud. Her first CD of pop and jazz singing, The Dana Owens Album, was a treat and now she’s back with another tasty outing on a collection of classic jazz, pop, and blues tunes.

Trav’lin’ Light kicks off with a fine cover of Phoebe Snow’s “Poetry Man” and then slides smoothly into the rueful “Georgia Rose”, a bluesy ballad featuring some very distinctive, very accomplished harmonica by the ever-amazing Stevie Wonder. The immortal Toots Thielemans adds sweet harmonica harmony to the lilting “Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars.”

Latifah is just as home in the down home blues of “Don’t Cry Baby” as she is with the big band swing of Peggy Lee’s “I Love Being Here with You” and the propulsive jazz of “I’m Gonna Live Till I Die”. She is elegantly sublime on the title tune aided and abetted with some nice piano work by Joe Sample and appropriately saucy on her take on Nina Simone’s frisky “I Want a Little Sugar in My Bowl”.

10cc’s dream pop hit “I’m Not in Love” is effectively transformed into a big soul ballad while Smokey Robinson’s “What Love Has Joined Together” is presented as a grand mid-tempo jam and she steps right into the funky, sassy spirit of the Pointer Sisters’ “How Long (Betcha Got a Chick on the Side)”. “Gone Away”, co-written by Donny Hathaway and Curtis Mayfield, is another sweetly soaring soul ballad that the Queen knocks out of the park.

The disc ends with “I Know Where I’ve Been”, Latifah’s uplifting showstopper from the movie Hairspray .

Trav’lin’ Light is a wonderful little disc that is destined to spend a great deal of time in my CD player. (See video snippets of some of the songs below.)

Women's Murder Club

I’ve never read any of the James Patterson novels that this ABC show is based on so I came into it with no expectations (well, the title sort of made it sound a bit like Sex and the City only with Carrie, Miranda, Samantha, and Charlotte solving crimes rather than dishing on their lovers :-).

Happily, I found Women’s Murder Club to be smart and witty with the crime drama leavened with enough emotional stuff to keep things interesting while not bogging down the proceedings.

The concept of four friends…a workaholic police detective with no time for romance, a hard working medical examiner whose husband is a wheelchair-bound ex-cop, a smart but emotionally insecure assistant DA, and an ambitious, slightly ditzy newspaper reporter…who pool their wits and talents to solve crimes is elegantly simple and, at the same time, ripe with myriad story possibilities.

Angie Harmon is Lindsay Boxer, the cop whose life is complicated by the fact that her ex-husband has just been made her boss. She is has a nice, banter-filled relationship with her partner, Warren, a “grizzled” (Lindsay’s word) veteran played with acerbic charm by Tyrees Allen. Her friends, Claire Washburn (the medical examiner) and Jill Bernhardt (the assistant DA), are ably brought to life by Paula Newsome and Laura Harris. The three women move between ably doing their jobs and tweaking each other about their love lives…the chemistry between them is very real. Aubrey Dollar plays Cindy Thomas, the reporter, who is not part of the club (her word) yet but you can tell she will be.

The first show deftly sketched out the characters (though, of course, there is much more for us to learn as the series goes on) while solving a murder and then introducing the return of a killer that Boxer failed to put away before. It is not remarkably original but it is very entertaining and that’s more than fine with me.

The Band with the Staple Singers

From The Last Waltz, my favorite version of "The Weight" by The Band and The Staple Singers.

Rest in peace: Roebuck "Pops" Staples, Rick Danko, Richard Manuel.

Pushing Daisies

Pushing Daisies is a decidedly off-center delight, an adult fairy tale with a sly, macabre sense of humor. It has a striking appearance…full of vibrant, primary colors and carefully placed light and shadow illuminating and contouring sets that have a dreamy, willfully retro/art deco appeal. The writing is witty, whimsical, and absurdist (even the narration…an affectation that can often be cloying [see Grey’s Anatomy] is slightly arch and very engaging.)

And the plot? Well, the plot revolves around Ned, a man who when he was a boy discovered, in a most tragic way, that he could bring the dead back to life with a touch. The drawbacks include the fact that if he touches the revived ever again they die again forever. And if the revived are returned to the arms of death within 60 seconds then somebody else in random proximity will keel over dead (one presumes to keep some kind of cosmic balance.) Lee Pace plays Ned, a pie-maker who owns operates “The Pie Hole”, with a wistful, but not self-pitying, melancholy. He keeps a distance…emotional and physical…from those around him due to his power (he cannot even pet his beloved dog, Digby, because of having brought the animal back to life after Digby was hit by a truck when Ned was a boy.)

Ned’s insulated life…he mostly interacted with Olive, an employee at the Pie Hole, a slightly daffy blonde with an unrequited crush on him (played with verve by the always delightful Kristen Chenoweth)…when two people entered (or in one case, re-entered) his ordered life.

He teams up with Emerson, a private detective (playfully brought to life by a very droll Chi McBride), to solve murders by having Ned bring the victims back to life long enough to tell them who committed the crime and then returning the victims to death within the allotted minute after which Ned and Emerson collect the reward. You get the feeling that Ned enjoys having something new, and somewhat adventurous, in his life.

More poignant is Ned’s reunion with “Chuck” (Charlotte Charles, played with impish acceptance of her odd situation by Anna Friel), his childhood sweetheart with whom he had shared his first kiss when they were children and whom he hadn’t seen since the deaths of their parents (Ned’s power being an unwitting catalyst for those happenings) had separated them. Chuck is killed after unknowingly stumbled into a smuggling scheme and Ned brings her back to life and, having pined for her since his youth, found that he was unable to return her to death (another person, a larcenous funeral director, takes her place in the afterlife after Ned lets the time limit go by without touching Chuck again.) Ned is therefore reunited with the girl of his dreams…Chuck becomes a partner with Ned and Chuck, joining with them to solve her own murder…but he is unable to give her even the slightest touch or kiss.

Rounding out the regular cast are Swoosie Kurtz and Ellen Greene (both wonderfully weird and sweetly affecting) as Chuck’s eccentric, socially isolated aunts who live in a gothic house with forbidding wrought iron gates. They do not…and cannot…know that Chuck has returned from the dead.

Like the Heroes website, the Pushing Daisies website has an online comic that brings new nuances to the television viewing experience.

I have no idea if something as quirky and smart as Pushing Daisies…created by Bryan Fuller, who created the equally innovative and off-center Dead Like Me and Wonderfalls (the latter of which also co-starred Lee Pace)…has a long term future on network television. I hope that it does but either way I’ll willingly suspend disbelief and enjoy it for however long it lingers.

River: The Joni Letters

It’s been quite the year for Joni Mitchell and her music. First there was the all-star A Tribute to Joni Mitchell collection and then there was Shine, the first new music in a while by the lady herself and now there’s this graceful tribute by her friend and occasional collaborator, the remarkable Herbie Hancock.

River: The Joni Letters finds Hancock, at the top of his considerable game, interpreting music written by (or somehow associated with) Mitchell with his passionate piano work leading a crack quartet including Wayne Shorter on saxophones, Dave Holland on bass, Vinnie Colaiuta on drums, and Lionel Loueke on guitar. The playing throughout is expressive, compelling, and sweetly simmering.

Joni’s poetic lyrical prowess is undisputed but equal attention is given to her amazing melodic gifts as well here. Some of the tracks…arranged and produced by Hancock and Joni’s ex-husband Larry Klein… are instrumentals while others feature an eclectic variety of accomplished vocalists.

“Court and Spark” leads off and features a fine vocal by Norah Jones and that’s followed by a stunning version of “Edith and the Kingpin” featuring a beautifully subtle vocal by the one and only Tina Turner over a tasty, gently-swinging groove deftly anchored by Hancock and Shorter.

Hancock plays solo on “Both Sides Now” for two very lovely minutes before the drums, guitar, and bass slip softly onto the track and coax it along to the point where Shorter joins the sweet fray and brings a lilting counterpoint to Hancock’s sweet playing. Shorter’s sax dances delightfully over, through, and about Hancock’s assured melody on the engaging version of “Sweet Bird”.

Duke Ellington’s “Solitude” features Hancock’s piano subtly but powerfully supported by Holland and Colaiuta while Shorter takes the lead on his own “Nefertiti” dueling playfully with Hancock’s nimble piano work. Klein takes the bass and Dean Parks (on guitar) and Paulinho Da Costa (on percussion) join in for a entrancing take on “A Case of You”.

Corinne Bailey Rae more than holds her own with the remarkable band on the title track while Joni herself brings her smoky, but still utterly compelling, voice and phrasing to “Tea Leaf Prophecy” (co-written by Mitchell and Klein). Shorter and Luciana Souza duet…his shimmering sax, her sultry voice…on a plaintively powerful version of “Amelia” while Hancock and the legendary Leonard Cohen duet…the snaky piano of the first, the undeniable gravitas in the recitation of the second.

The disc ends with a sprightly take on “All I Want” with a soulful and playful vocal by Sonya Kitchell.

For jazz buffs, Joni buffs, Herbie buffs, music buffs…River: The Joni Letters is a grand record for all of them…for all of us…to savor and luxuriate in.

Cavemen/Carpoolers

I'm trying to sample as many new network shows as I can but some of them are making that a hard slough. ABC, for example, managed to pull off the trick of putting on a completely humor-free "comedy" hour on Tuesday night with the debuts of Cavemen and Carpoolers. (One hopes and expects that the series finales of Cavemen and Carpoolers are not too far in the distant future.)

The next time somebody decides they want to turn a Geico commercial into a television series they should think about using the gecko, who could've stared at the viewers for 22 minutes and still been MUCH funnier than Cavemen. Yikes.

And Carpoolers' only saving grace is that it's marginally better than Cavemen. Marginally. Very marginally (what the hell was Jerry O'Connell thinking?)

(Good thing I had my entertaining, well-written, truly amusing pals on House and Boston Legal to come along afterwards and wipe the stench of comedy flop sweat out of my numbed psyche and save Tuesday night TV viewing.)

Magic

I’ve seen at least one review of this CD that calls it Bruce Springsteen’s best record since 1980’s The River. I guess it you’re idea of a Bruce Springsteen record includes lots of soarin’ guitars and wailin’ sax solos and the E Street Band front and center (unlike the last album the band did together…the more somber The Rising…which used the band as sidemen rather than as a integral part of the overall sound) that might indeed be true (personally I think that Springsteen has made a lot of wonderful music since 1980 but to each his own when it comes deciding who the “real” Bruce is and should be.)

Magic has a lot of the classic E Street vibe…this sucker rocks and the Big Man is all over the first few tracks…with lots of radio and concert ready rockers to please the souls of Springsteen fans (like yours truly.)

But Bruce is more than a bit cranky here (the unamused look on Bruce's face in the cover photo is quite appropriate to the lyrical content of this record) at the same time…while the grooves are hard and rock solid, the lyrics are often dark and lacerating. That’s not a criticism…far from it… just a statement of fact. The opening “Radio Nowhere”, for example, is an unabashed slam against the current state of music radio set to insistent, irresistible beat while the acerbic “You’ll Be Comin’ Down” wraps a “what goes around comes around” warning in a rocker so tight that you can almost see the audience dancing as the band plays it in concert.

Clarence Clemmons, in fine form throughout, wails the opening of “Livin’ in the Future” with assurance. Bruce is in fine voice throughout the record with none of the twang that informed his last few records present (the twang fit perfectly on those records but would be out of place on the anthem-like tunes here.)

The bittersweet “Your Own Worst Enemy” lopes along at a nice mid-tempo beat while thick layers of snarling guitars and distinctive bursts of harmonica infuse the driving “Gypsy Biker”.

This is the sound of a great band working as a mighty, unbeatable unit and that’s more than cool to be sure.

Things lighten up a bit with the wall of sound paean to “Girls in Their Summer Clothes” and the relatively jaunty “I’ll Work for Your Love” (the apocalyptic references to the book of Revelation and “the dust of civilizations” making that “jaunty” comment refer to the music and definitely not the lyrics.)

The title track is a brooding rumination while “Last to Die” rocks hard but is decidedly acerbic lyrically. “Long Walk Home” (see video below) with its lacerating guitars and classic sax solo is a cautiously optimistic rocker that soars along relentlessly while the closing “Devil’s Arcade” builds from a whisper to thick crescendo of guitars and strings and then back to a whisper and up again to stunning effect.

Magic is, crankiness and all, a great record plain and simple.

Short Takes (New TV Season, Part 2)

Private Practice (ABC)
I wasn’t crazy about the backdoor pilot that they presented on Grey’s Anatomy last season but I’m pleasantly surprised by the official debut (see cast above). The characters are all introduced fairly smoothly and all given a chance to strut their stuff a little. The melodrama is kept to minimum (though there is soap enough to go around.) And the people on this show are, more or less, adults…instead of the hormonal teenagers in adult suits on Grey’s…and though the remarkable Kate Walsh is the spun-off star they very carefully set this up as a true ensemble show and that’s all to the good.

Back to You (Fox)
Kelsey Grammer and Patricia Heaton are back on a new series. It’s an old school type of work place sitcom. Comedy veteran Fred Willard offers up some welcome wackiness now and again. It’s all very familiar. It’s all very non-threatening. And the laugh track is too often having a better time than the viewers. Back to you, Fox, I’ll pass.

Dirty Sexy Money (ABC)
I think the title of this show (see cast below) is incredibly lame but the show itself has a breezy, engaging, audacious charm. Peter Krause is more than fine as the idealistic lawyer drawn into the service of the incredibly rich, incredibly famous, willfully reckless and spoiled Darling family (a family he watched grow up as his late father held the same job.) And Donald Sutherland brings a twinkly gravitas to his role as patriarch of the family. The writing on this show is fun…with just enough mystery and drama to keep things from getting too frothy…much in the way that I imagine Big Shots (see below) wanted to be.

Survivor: China (CBS)
I stopped watching Survivor a couple of editions back…the routine of the show is so rote now that there’s really not anything new to be discovered…but I checked into this one because of the decidedly exotic location. The Chinese government, eager to prove themselves a welcoming host before next year’s Summer Olympics, allowed this edition to be filmed in their country. The locale is the only interesting part of the show…the Survivors are again seemingly clueless about the game (doesn’t anybody who comes onto this show watch it before they apply?) and the intrigues have been indulged in so many times…in the same ways…that it’s only vaguely interesting. This edition’s cast is pretty colorless (as of this writing they’ve already tossed out the chicken farmer and the female pro wrestler) and the challenges are dull and predictable…but hey the scenery is nice.

Ugly Betty (ABC)
The consequences of the multiple cliffhangers from last season are explored and Betty, harried to the max, rushes around trying to put out emotional fires. The spark of discovery from the first season is gone but the writing is still taut (and at times audacious preposterous) and it looks like my favorite Americanized telenovela is going to keep the twists and turns…the humor and the romance and the pathos…coming. And that’s cool with me.

Grey’s Anatomy (ABC)
Sigh. I know it’s supposed to be a sexy soap opera but these people can be really trying sometimes :-) Actually I have some emotional investment in almost everyone except the central figures…Meredith and Derek…whom I continue to find tedious as a couple. This episode picks up on some of the threads from last season…including and especially Burke’s leaving, Izzy’s declaration of love for George, and Miranda being passed over for Chief Resident…and moves them along at a fairly smooth pace. The subplot in the first new episode of the season about the deer was silly but it allowed Izzy to have a moment with the interns she’s supervising and I guess that was okay. The romantic couplings at the end had me rolling my eyes but I’m guessing that others will find them to be wonderful. Whatever works. I’m on the record (see here) as having said that my favorite couple on this show was Burke and Christina and now that off-camera incidents have put the end to that relationship I got nobody to root for on the romantic front (I was kinda digging George and Callie but that’s not looking so good right now either) but I will continue to watch. As much as last season made me weary with its relentless pathos I’m still invested in these characters enough to stick around and hope for something more upbeat (at least as upbeat as a soap opera can get :-)

Big Shots (ABC)
If this show was twice as clever as it thinks it is it would still be a crashing bore. Nothing in this mess works…not the self-absorbed, whiny lead characters, not the limp writing, not the “clever” plot twists, not the absurd situations, nothing. And those critics that described this as a male version of Sex and the City owes the cast, writers, director, and crew of that far superior show a very big apology.