The Clarke/Duke Project - "II" (1983)

Rating: 4

Verdict: Blue Bin

Although I have still been making my way through my album collection and merrily blue-binning records, it has come to my attention that I haven't actually been reviewing them. So I'm back to review the Clarke/Duke  Project!

I actually own three records by Stanley Clarke, who for those who don't know (I didn't), is best known for his bass playing on his own solo fusion records in the 70s as well as those of various jazz supergroups. The other two records I own, Journey to Love and School Days, I rather enjoyed and showcased a surprising level of diversity and inventiveness on Clarke's part in addition to the expected hyperactive bass playing (also worthwhile). And yet, prior to listening to this record, released just seven years after School Days, I looked up the allmusic.com rating and saw a 1.5 star rating. I doubted the veracity of such a low mark but really shouldn't have.

Indeed, Clarke was a victim of the same mass loss of taste in the 1980s that affected so many other musicians who released excellent music in the 60s and 70s. Having released several seminal jazz albums, he performed some inscrutable calculus that led him to the conclusion that the next way to proceed as an artist was to release albums of poorly sung dance-pop backed by drum machines and synthesizers. There are occasional glimpses on this record of Clarke's stupendous bass playing as well as a jazz-informed sense of melody. But I believe that these aspects may well make this particular album worse instead of better since they obscure whatever hooks there may well be. I will admit that the record isn't totally abysmal, but what it is is pointless and a disappointment compared to what came before. Blue bin!

Bob Dylan - "New Morning" (1970)

Rating: 8

Although it is my opinion that Dylan would never again reach the astounding heights of Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde (and that includes Blood on the Tracks, which although it would probably make my purely hypothetical Hall of Fame Album Pyramid, wouldn't make the Pantheon), my recent listening to his immediate post-Blonde oeuvre certainly hasn't been unrewarding. Although I agree with the critical masses that his infamous Self-Portrait was a misfire, I also don't think it deserves infamy. Yet he released several good to great albums during this stretch, including John Wesley Harding, Nashville Skyline, and New Morning, released just four months after Self-Portrait. My main criticism of him during this stretch is not that he lost his genius, but that his genius was unfocused, manifesting itself on a handful of songs per album only. This is somewhat the case on New Morning, but there is enough strong material to recommend it.

On this album, Bob largely ditches the guitar and focuses primarily on rambling piano ballads. Being Dylan, his piano-playing is unpolished, his vocals are abrasive at times, and especially due to the short length (35 minutes), it isn't hard to imagine it being knocked off in four months. Yet he is also more direct and heartfelt on this album than he had really ever been until this point, and he conveys a genuine warmth and sweetness. Although this is nowhere near as momentous a record as his earlier stuff and has too much filler for me to call it a masterpiece (witness the awful beatnik spoken-word "When Dogs Run Free"), the best songs here are also spiritually akin in that Dylan's humanity shines through like almost no other rock songwriter can manage.

For example, I was already familiar with the opening track "If Not For You," as covered by George Harrison on All Things Must Pass. After hearing Harrison's glorious Phil Spector-ized version with its wall of acoustic guitars, the much more low-key Dylan version with its significantly dinkier organ part and ramshackle feel passed me by on the first listen. And yet now, I am overwhelmed by the homely charm of the Dylan rendition and although the Harrison version is hard to beat, it's much closer than I ever would have thought.

The other major highlight for me is "Sign On the Window" which has the closing verse:

Built me a cabin in Utah

Marry me a wife, catch a rainbow trout

Have a bunch of kids who call me Pa

That must be what it's all about

Out of context, these lyrics seem almost embarrassingly naive. But in the context of the rest of the lyrics. ("Sign on a porch says, 'Three's a crowd'"), the tone is much more wistful. And in the context of the music, when you hear his rueful vocals in conjunction with his piano, it's deeply moving. Although Dylan is about the lyrics first and foremost (contrary to what the contrarians will have you believe), the way he sings the lyrics is just as important as how they are written down on paper, which is what nearly all the singer-songwriters who followed in his footsteps forgot. Keeper!

Crystal Gayle - "We Must Believe In Magic" (1977)

Rating: 5

I own two records by Crystal Gayle, who I had never heard of prior to that fateful day when I bought four boxes of records for $70. Apparently she was a somewhat popular country singer in the late 70s and early 80s but has faded into obscurity today, being most notable for being the younger singer of Loretta Lynn and having recorded a soundtrack album with Tom Waits. Both of these facts give her some credibility in my eyes, and although I am not exactly a country buff, I did find the pure country songs on We Must Believe in Magic to be tolerable. Gayle has a nice, though not exceptional voice and she's preferable to most modern country for sure.

The problem with this record is that the notion of trying to have a crossover hit had already seeped its way into Nashville, and several tracks here are misguided attempts to blend the horn section and rhythm of a disco song with the steel guitars of a country song (well, it was 1977). The main offenders are the disco-country cover of Cole Porter's "It's All Right with Me" (as awful as it sounds) and the closing title track, a synthesizer-led adult contemporary ballad that really isn't country at all and featuring lyrics about Alpha Centauri, ensuring that it would be dated by 1978.

So apart from the efforts to be modern, the country songs here are decent. But I'm not a country buff, so those songs aren't enough for me to rate this as a good album. They're decent, but they're not George Jones. Blue bin!