[dar-list] dar mention in Erin McKeown review -worst use of Dar Williams

[Sharon G]

sounds like a WTF????moment or an attempt at a bad joke....Dar is not
recording the Cab Calloway songbook is she????

____________________________-


Well, now it's official: everyone is going to do a jazz standards
album.  First it was Linda Rondstadt, then Joni Mitchell, then Rod
Stewart.  Here we have a standards album by Erin McKeown, the
kinda-folkie songstress who seemed to hit an indie-pop high note with
last year's We Will Become Like Birds.  Coming soon to Amazon.com: Dar
Williams Sings the Cab Calloway Songbook.

Sing You Sinners is not the usual standards recordno Sinatra-esque
big band here, no strings.  And the songs are more off-beat than
usual.  But still, the composers hereCole Porter, Fats Waller, Harold
Arlen, Johnny Mercermake it a definite standards record.  What
McKeown has doneor so it seems to this jazz record geekis not to
choose from the great songwriters as much as to cherry-pick tasty
tunes associated with her favorite jazz vocalists: two from Blossom
Dearie, one from Anita O'Day, two from Nat Cole, a Sinatra ballad,
andbecause McKeown is flatly obsessed with heranother Judy Garland
classic.

The good news: for the most part "Ms. McKeown" (as she is affectedly
known to her fans) attacks these Tin Pan Alley tracks with aggression
and originality.  The core band is a jazz quartether own guitar with
piano/bass/drumsplus a ragtag three-piece horn section, arranged in
many cases in a jazz style that sounds like a hopped-up "jump" band
such as Louis Jordan's Timpani Five.  In other cases, Sam Kassirer
jumps from the ivories to Wurlitzer e-piano or organ, or McKeown
plunks banjo, further dirtying up the basic swing sound of the rhythm
section.

A well-known tune such as "Paper Moon", for example, is nicely remade
here.  Drummer Allison Miller goes into a Latin polyrhythm and
acoustic bassist Todd Sickafoose plays a vampno straight swing at
all.  Porter's "Just One of Those Things" is entirely reharmonized in
an electric mood, with McKeown cheating the famous melody to fit the
pedal-tone style.  "Melody" (the only original in the collection) is
played as a Jelly Roll-ish rag with a bridge that cops the changes to
"I Got Rhythm"a rough-and-tumble, fun band workout that emphasizes
the leader's affection for old-timey music.

On these tracks, McKeown seems to be playing favorite jazz songs,
sure, but in the direction of her strengthslightly herky-jerky
theater music, kind of a folky Tom Waits with a serious jones for the
old band singers.  When the arrangements get a bit more rockish and
electricas on the rockabilly take on the usually Andrews
Sisters-sounding "Thanks for the Boogie Ride"this record does not
seem so distant from Birds.

The bad news:  McKeown's affection for her influences hems her in
quite a bit too.  The two songs copped from Blossom Dearie serve
merely to expose McKeown as a singer pretty darn uncomfortable with
jazz.  "It Might as Well Be Spring", done straight as can be with
swinging piano trio accompaniment, finds the leader occasionally out
of tune and rhythmically leaden.  The truth is, McKeown's voice has
always sounded sort of schm-uglynasal and muffled and vaguely of
another era.  If you know Dearie's effortless, swinging version, this
pale imitation just stabs you in the soul.  "Rhode Island Is Famous
For You" is a comic novelty song of incredible charm, and the horns
lead the way on a rollicking arrangement.  But the vocals are hard to
understand and ploddinga distant third (at best) to Dearie's winking
zinger and even John Pizzarelli's hilarious live versions.

A few other songs have this flat, faux-jazz vibe too: "Something's Got
to Give" (arranged for tasty McKeown guitar and brushed drums), "I Was
a Little Too Lonely", and "Don't Worry 'Bout Me".  Nothing here to
offend, really, and fans new to these songs will be well-served by
discovering the great songwriting and melodies.  Her Waller cover, "If
You a Viper" and the one tune totally new to me, "Sing You Sinners",
both compensatethey're rougher and let McKeown get Waits-ier and
old-timier.  Better.

But maybe this is a jazz snob's review of a record that will mainly be
listened to by the uninitiated.  It could be a snazzy introduction to
jazz for yet another generation of open-minded music fans.  The All
Music Guide's take on McKeown's cover of the Garland hit "Get Happy"
makes my point.  Jo-Anne Greene writes:  "McKeown and her backing
trio, ... turn the song inside out, threading it through myriad
musical styles, from its champagne piano intro, across the shifting
sands of jazz, into R&B and rock 'n' roll, and out into '60s surf."
Truth is, all respect to Greene and the AMG, it's a straight jazz
arrangement in every respectdriving swing, a piano solo, and a boppy
horn arrangementthat Greene has "heard" as R&B, rock and surf because
she probably doesn't listen to much jazz.  Here's hoping that Greene
and other McKeown fans dig into more Waller, Cole, Dearie, and the
like as a result.

Me, I've always been both a jazz fan and a McKeown fan, particularly a
fan of Birds.  I'll be leaving Sing You Sinners mostly on the shelf,
though I've already ripped the weirder songs for my iPod.  Here's
hoping that the lovely Ms. McKeown returns to her broader-brush pop
music (or her weirder, old-timey origins) while leaving the Nat Cole
tunes to John Pizzarelli and Diana Krall.  I hate to be a musical
segregationist, but sometimes it's a question of exploiting your
strengths.

Erin McKeown has plenty of those, but floating a harmonically complex
melody over a swinging rhythm section isn't her bag.  And Sing You
Sinners simply isn't her best notion.  Oddly, the CD booklet includes
a stilted interview with the artist in which she "explains" her desire
to record standards and the interviewer gushes about how funny "Rhode
Island" is.  It smacks of a certain defensiveness.  Erin McKeown is
too good at her own music to have to squirm as a faux jazz singer.
Next time out, with some fresh songs, I bet she doesn't feel obligated
to explain the music.

-- 
And the blessings were like poets that we never find time to know,
But when time stopped I found the place where the poets go.
And they said, "Here have some coffee, it's straight, black and very old,"
And they gave me sticks and rocks and stars and all that I could hold,


sage advisor, does weary mean wiser
dar williams