Continued from page 28
apiece. Morse breezes through the uplifting "Shine," scaling its emotional peak
with mounting joy. The dramatic, timeshifting "Black as the Sky" is a compact
tour de force for the enthusiastic Portnoy,
with complex bass and elegant harmony
from Trewavas.
Choice covers include The Moody
Blues' "Nights in White Satin." A performance of Dutch band Focus' song "Sylvia"
highlights Stolt's lyrical soloing, and features Focus' Thijs Van Leer as guest organist. A bonus DVD with entertaining
behind-the-scenes footage includes an
impressive tour-van battle of "name that
Beatles song" between Portnoy and Morse.
– Jeff Elbel
7
MICHAEL W. SMITH
& FRIENDS
The Spirit Of Christmas
(Universal)
Despite his contemporary-Christianmusic reputation, Michael W. Smith doesn't slight Santa or other secular aspects of
the holiday's cultural components.
Indeed, he leads with them ("It's The Most
Wonderful Time Of The Year," "Happy
Holiday/Holiday Season," and "White
Christmas"). Even the special guests
(Vince Gill, Lady Antebellum, Little Big
Town,
Martina
McBride,
Carrie
Underwood, Amy Grant, the Nashville
Children's Choir, and the London
Symphony Orchestra) signify broadmindedness. But from the mid-disc medley of
"Deck The Halls," "Good King Wenceslas,"
"O Little Town Of Bethlehem," and "O
Come, All Ye Faithful" onward, it's sacred
all the way. And unifying the halves, and
tethering the whole to the past, is a prayerful recitation of the 17th-century Irish carol
"The Darkest Midnight" (a.k.a. "On
Christ's Nativity") by Bono.
– Arsenio Orteza
7
SWANS
To Be Kind
(Young God)
There are two kinds of people in this
world: the 99% who say that life's too short
to spend two hours trying to decide
whether this latest double-disc Swans
opus is the best album-to-get-rid-of-partyguests ever or only as effective as The
Shaggs' debut, and the 1% who say that
repetitive, nihilistic overkill is a spiritual
purgative and-or a good joke ("No Wave,"
they used to call it.) To determine where
you fall, listen to Disc One's penultimate
track, "Bring The Sun/Toussaint L' overture." Its 34 minutes will have you either
exhilarated by the manifold ways in which
the 18th-century liberation of Haiti led to
the heart of darkness or thinking that
maybe the Frozen soundtrack wasn't so
bad after all.
– Arsenio Orteza
4
*except in
December
Open Sundays In December at Noon
42 illinoisentertainer.com december 2014
JERRY LEE LEWIS
Rock N Roll Time
(Vanguard)
He's one of the last living links to the
golden era of rock n' roll who's most
recently been immortalized in the
Broadway musical "Million Dollar
Quartet," but even at 79-years-young, Jerry
Lee Lewis isn't anywhere near ready to
retire. Rock & Roll Time marks his third
album of collaborations since 2006, all of
which have been supported by a smattering of live dates that confirm "The Killer" is
still alive and well. And if the guest list on
his latest long player is any indication, the
Louisiana native's influence remains at an
all time high, from gifted axeman Derek
Trucks, indie rocker Jon Brion and country
gal Shelby Lynne, all the way back to The
Band's Robbie Robertson, Neil Young and
a couple of Rolling Stones (Keith Richards
and Ron Wood to be exact). Together, they
cover territory as vast as Bob Dylan's
"Stepchild," Chuck Berry's "Little
Queenie," Johnny Cash's "Folsom Prison
Blues" and other lesser known but
nonetheless exceptional country, blues and
rockabilly cuts. The only squabble is that
eleven track batch clocks in just 32 minutes, which seems all too short given
Lewis and company's vitality and simply
begs the need for a sequel.
– Andy Argyrakis
7
MESHELL NDEGEOCELL0
Comet, Come To Me
(Naive)
On something of a late-career roll,
Meshell Ndegeocello is in remarkable control over Comet, Come To Me. "Friends"
drops the Whodini classic into a performance-art bouncehouse, and kicks the
album off as if in mid-performance. Then,
effortlessly, she and her band proceed to
collect lightly eccentric idioms and own
them. "Tom" reprises the lush, organic soul
of her last album, The Weather, while her
forays into underwater reggae and ska
("Forget My Name," the title cut) are coolly arrogant displays of her rhythmic virtuosity. "Folie A Deux" drags her underrated
lyrical ability to the fore, nihilistically shitcanning the emotions agonized over on
preceding songs, and abruptly pointed out
that the feelings underpinning Comet's
celestial beauty is emotional chaos of
galactic proportions.
– Steve Forstneger
8
THE BLIND BOYS OF
ALABAMA & TAJ MAHAL
Talkin' Christmas
(Sony Masterworks)
Clarence Fountain is still M.I.A., Paul
Beasley's falsetto is still too squeaky, and
Taj Mahal is content mainly to pick and
strum instruments. But someone (Ricke
McKinnie? Ben Moore? Surely not the
nonagenarian and sole original member
Jimmy Carter?) is doing a pretty good
Fountain impersonation, Beasley's solo
mic time is limited, and Mahal's deep
black-diaspora roots are a perfect complement to the more circumscribed but equally deep roots of the Boys. Of the half-