The James Logan Courier

The Philadelphia Inquirer (MCT)

Pop:

BERT JANSCH "The Black Swan" (Drag City, 3 { stars)

British folk deity Bert Jansch is a cult hero — Neil Young has called him his favorite acoustic guitarist — for his work with Pentangle and his long solo career. "The Black Swan" builds a bridge to a new generation of "freak folk" fans, with contributions from Beth Orton, Devendra Banhart, and members of the Philadelphia ensemble Espers. "Texas Cowboy Blues" takes a gentle jab at President Bush, but, otherwise, "The Black Swan" concentrates on creating beautifully wrought turning-leaf music, richly contemplative but never soporific.—Dan DeLuca

RUBEN STUDDARD "The Return" (J, 2 stars)

Ruben Studdard made a bold bid for independence, recording the gospel album "I Need an Angel" in 2004. That was a commercial flop. So he's back to embracing his "American Idol" image on this album, to the point of identifying himself over and over as the Velvet Teddy Bear on the title track (which sounds more like a PSA than a song). He also delivers a trademark Luther Vandross cover ("If Only for One Night").

But his return to soul balladeer is a mild disappointment. The single "Change Me" sounds very much like his earliest single, "Sorry 2004." None of the melodies hook and hold, and only sporadically (on songs like "Get U Loose") do they give his voice a chance to shine.

"The Return" carries a stale flavor, like a retreaded Toni Braxton album from the `90s.
—David Hiltbrand

LLOYD BANKS "Rotten Apple" (G Unit/Interscope, 2 stars)

It's been two years since Lloyd Banks' solo debut and three years since he was crowned "2003 Mixtape Artist of the Year." On his sophomore effort, "Rotten Apples," Banks delivers an album chock-full of mediocre beats and boring lyrics. On "Addicted," Philly's own Musiq Soulchild takes over the track entirely, leaving listeners waiting for the hook instead of checking for the rhyme. With the melodic R&B of "Help," another guest, Keri Hilson follows suit. Despite the multi-platinum star power of 50 Cent and G-Unit, the album fails to produce a hit. With soundalike choruses and the all-too-common subject matter — the streets, women, money, jewels and gun clapping — Rotten Apple lives up to its title.—Aine Ardron-Doley

STING "Songs From the Labyrinth: Music by John Dowland, performed by Sting and Edin Karamazov" (Deutsche Grammophon, 1 star)

Sting — ex-Police captain, star of "The Bride" — has long suffered critics' ravings that this supersmart golden boy is nothing but a pretentious twit.

What about us critics? We've had to endure the smothering preciousness of "History Will Teach Us Nothing," "The Soul Cages," covering Prokofiev for "Russians."

And we have. We even delighted at his mention of "Nabokov."

But 17th-century music with lutes and Elizabethan verse? Come on, now.

Fans of Sting's thespian efforts (both of you) will take pleasure in his actor's rasp crisply intoning the high, slow "Flow, my tears (Lachrimae)" and the busy "Can she excuse my wrongs?" But melancholy madrigalist Dowland (1563-1626) surely didn't mean for his four-part harmonies to sound like a third-rate Queen or to have his prose seem dippy.

And when Sting in his best Renaissance Faire oration says something about jarring sounds during, it's all one can do to cease from tittering so.

Roxaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanne, please come home.
—A.D. Amorosi

Country/roots:

MONTGOMERY GENTRY "Some People Change" (Columbia, 2 { stars)

On "Redder Than That," Eddie Montgomery and Troy Gentry sing about attending a high school reunion and realizing, to their obvious delight, that they and their friends remain as redneck as ever. With "Some People Change," the dependable country-rocking duo remain at their rousing best when they let that unapologetic good-old-boy side show, whether warning an ex-lover that "Your Tears Are Coming" or delivering the general flip-off "What Do Ya Think About That." Not that these tough guys can't show a tender side — they do it well with "Lucky Man" and the father-son saga "Twenty Years Ago."

All of that almost makes up for the serious PC mushiness of "Some People Change" (not as quickly or as cleanly as the racist and the alcoholic here, they don't) and "Takes All Kinds" (you know, to make the world go `round). "Clouds," meanwhile, is a howlingly bad ballad that sounds more like a parody of a tearjerker than the real thing.—Nick Cristiano

WAYNE HANCOCK "Tulsa" (Bloodshot, 3 stars)

The title track of Wayne "The Train" Hancock's new album is a swinging salute to the onetime home base of Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys, with Hancock calling out numerous solo showcases for his ace accompanists on guitar, pedal steel and horns (as usual, he employs no drums).

With his barbed-wire nasal twang, however, Hancock still brings to mind Hank Williams more than the King of Western Swing, and he's more about rambling than settling down, whether in Tulsa or anywhere else. "You know the road is my wife/I love my life," he croons raggedly on "Highway Bound." It's a life that brings blues as well as joy, and the Texan continues to convey it all with defiantly retro honky-tonk and hillbilly jazz that, thanks to his best collection of material in recent years, still packs quite a kick.
—N.C.

Jazz:

SKERIK'S SYNCOPATED TAINT SEPTET "Husky" (Hyena, 3 { stars)

A vigorous mixing of disparate styles is one of the defining aspects of jazz in the early 21st century. Skerik's Syncopated Taint Septet is a prime exponent of this musical amalgamation.

The band melds dollops of funk and hip-hop with the old-head jazz wisdom of Ornette Coleman and the deviousness of Thelonious Monk. The five horns suggest hints of dance bands past, while Joe Doria's Hammond B-3 organ cements the band's basic groove credentials.

The result is a heady mix of the familiar and the far out. This band works well for listening or shimmying, a rare feat. Saxophonist Skerik, who has one name (like Brazilian soccer superstars), is the putative leader _ his credits range from the jazz funk band Garage a Trois to groovemeisters Medeski, Martin & Wood _ but the group that bears his name plays like a true collective, going slinky on "Syncopate the Taint" before the horns go wild and blow out some righteous, Charlie Mingus-strength froth.

These guys sound unique without leaving listeners behind.
—Karl Stark

NEIL PODGURSKI & NEW FIRE "Revolutions" (Matchstick/Dreambox Media, 2 { stars)

Bop lives in the hands of pianist Neil Podgurski. A protege of esteemed pianist Sid Simmons, Podgurski keeps asking a lot of Monkish questions on this steeped-in-the-tradition CD.

Podgurski's playing is a touch fierce, picking licks that get to the point. His tunes go to puckish places, teasing out bop lines more than blaring them. "Sun and Moon" rolls out its lines in a herky-jerky hipness, while the title track is redolent of hard bop overlaid with more recent anxiety.

Trumpeter John Swana and trombonist Phil Yeager appear on three cuts, while the quartet with bassist Mike Boone, drummer Doug Hirlinger, and tenor saxophonist Brian Settles motors over the rest of this percussive session.
—K.S.

Classical:

HANDEL "The Messiah" Kerstin Avemo, soprano; Patricia Bardon, mezzo-soprano; Lawrence Zazzo, countertenor; Kobie van Rensburg, tenor; Neal Davies, bass. Choir of Clare College; Freiberg Baroque Orchestra, Rene Jacobs conducting. (Harmonia Mundi, two CDs, 3 stars)

The best litmus test for a new recording of Handel's "Messiah" is how absorbing it is at Halloween. And this recording is, though not always for the right reasons. Conductor Rene Jacobs is a compulsive revisionist, and as valuable as that's been in his Mozart opera recordings, you sense the limits in his empathy for The Messiah."

You hear many new things in this "Messiah," partly thanks to his individualistic ideas about voice and instrumental balances. But even when Jacobs' phrasing is momentarily convincing on its own terms, it often does nothing to illustrate the text, as Handel so ingeniously sought to do.
The chorus, though, is one of the best on record, with that clean, articulate English sound, with female voices instead of the pale timbre of boy sopranos. None of the soloists are great — bass Neal Davies attacks his coloratura writing with the accuracy of a lawn mower — but countertenor Lawrence Zazzo and tenor Kobie van Rensburg are excellent. And as is so often the case, the best projection of the English language comes from a Scandinavian — Swedish soprano Kerstin Avemo.
—David Patrick Stearns

JOHN EHNES "Violin Concertos by Korngold, Barber and Walton" John Ehnes, violin; Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Bramwell Tovey conducting (CBC, 4 stars)

What a great collection of concertos. Each of the three is the sole violin concerto of the composer; all were written about the same time, with similarly thick sonorities, but approached from vastly different cultures _ from Korngold's Hollywood-cum-Vienna urbanity to Barber's American emotional earnestness to Walton's gritty British dissonances.

The performances show violinist Ehnes in peak form, full of star quality with his silky tone and almost offhanded ease with the technical fireworks (many of which were written for Jascha Heifetz). Conductor Bramwell Tovey and his Vancouver group stick with Ehnes all the way; even the New York Philharmonic didn't give him such a tight accompaniment in the Walton concerto last season.
—D.P.S.

(c) 2006, The Philadelphia Inquirer.
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