Bosque Brown: “Baby”

(out of 5)

When I learned that Bosque Brown’s new record, Baby, had been recorded over a period of fifteen months, I feared that its songs may be so bloated and stuffed with ideas that they would collapse under their own weight. But when I finally gave the disc a spin, I was shocked to find just the opposite to be true. Baby is a record of sparsity to say the least. Simple melodies are presented in quiet arrangements of scarce instrumentation.Yet, Bosque Brown treads mostly the same territory of their 2005 debut, Bosque Brown Plays Mara Lee Miller, and just as on that recording, there is a undeniable beauty to the stripped down guitars and piano folk of Mara Lee Miller and friends.

Jarvis Cocker: “Further Complications”

(out of 5)

Former Pulp front man and tweed-jacket wearing, rock’n'roll professor, Jarvis Cocker, is back on the music scene with his sophomore solo effort, Further Complications. This album follows his terrific 2006 solo debut, Jarvis (aka The Jarvis Cocker Record). Further Complications reveals Cocker doing what he does best: crafting pop hooks that dig deep into the listener’s mind, and serving up lyrics which are as witty as they are intelligent. It’s been a long time since Cocker put out a middling record and this one is no different; teamed up with producer Steve Albini, Cocker turns in the hardest rocking set of his career in these eleven songs.

Cocker opens the record up with the title track in which he sets an existential tone for the entire album as he declares his need for complicating his life. And his life may seem a little more complicated since we last heard from him. Jarvis Cocker’s debut saw a slight change of subject matter for Cocker since he was a new family man at the time. Three years later, Jarvis is in the process of divorce and back to singing about his favorite subject: seducing women. However, Cocker isn’t the young man he once was and this certainly affects his approach.

Patience is a Virtue

Hello Tone Marrow Readers…

It’s been a while. However, I’ve survived grad school final exams and a kidney stone and now I’m back to catch up on some reviews. I heard a whole heap of good music while I was away and I’ll be reviewing lots of it here in coming weeks. Regular posts will begin tomorrow.

Just a reminder: when life gets crazy and I don’t review as much, I still update my Twitter. Check it out: https://twitter.com/tonemarrow

Thank you for you patience,

Gavin

The Soloist (Wright, 2009)

“Do you know ‘Free Bird?’”

(out of 4)

The Soloist is only one of many films this year that will suffer from poor marketing. Many of the trailers for this film portray it as a syrupy tearfest– or merely another film that romanticizes mental illness to become one of the “feel-good” films of the year. Yet, these trailers really don’t capture what this movie is about (in defense of the advertisers, it would be difficult to give an accurate portrayal of this unique film). But two things gave me hope: Robert Downey, Jr. and director, Joe Wright (Pride & Prejudice; Atonement). It is a good thing when an actor’s or director’s involvement in a film can attract us to something we otherwise might not give a second glance to–and these two men whom I respect did not disappoint.

The story of The Soloist is simple enough: LA Times columnist, Steve Lopez (Robert Downey, Jr.), is desperately trying to find something to write about when he stumbles upon Nathaniel Anthoney Ayers, Jr. (Jamie Foxx) on the dirty streets of Los Angeles. Ayers is a homeless man who is playing a two-string violin and speaking in rapid non-sequiturs. After he mentions attending Julliard, Lopez thinks there might be a story here. It is clear that Ayers is mentally impaired and he admits quickly to Lopez that he has had a few setbacks and so it may be natural to ask whether Lopez cares about Ayers or about the story of Ayers. This is a question that the film doesn’t avoid (as many weaker films might), but addresses it head on. Eventually, Lopez must come to terms with whether or not he truly cares about Ayers or is merely exploiting him for his story.

Lopez begins to write about Ayers and one of his kind readers sends a cello to be given to the troubled musician. Lopez continues to write about Ayers and as a result, a real relationship develops between the two men. The rest of the film unfolds revealing the hardships Ayers faces because of his schizophrenia and his homelessness and the difficulties Lopez encounters while helping him. And, as we might expect, the friendship that develops ends up changing both men.

Though this story may sound somewhat conventional, it’s anything but. Hollywood has trained us to approach movies like this with certain expectations. We might expect the mentally challenged music genius to be a saint who inspires everyone who comes in contact with him, we might expect an ending in which both men are significantly better than where they started, we might expect to see a romanticized mental illness which functions as more of a charm than a disability. The Soloist doesn’t really provide any of those things. Instead, it offers us something a little more courageous and a little more honest. We see the men change, but not as much as we might expect, we see that neither of these men are saints as they both display various character flaws, and we see just how frustrating loving someone with a mental illness can be. We also see the power of friendship vs. the power of medication, and what grace looks like in every day life. It may not be what we expect, but it never is. Though this is not a “feel-good” movie (in fact, it’s tough to watch at times as it forces us to think about homelessness and mental illness) yet, it does leave the viewer feeling encouraged as the credits roll.

Part of the reason for the unique story is that it is based on a real people and real events. The people and names are real and Susannah Grant’s script is based upon the real Steve Lopez’s book about his relationship with Ayers. (Though much of the story is accurate, for some reason, Grant chose to make Lopez estranged from his wife/editor (played wonderfully by Catherine Keener) though the real Lopez is happily married to a woman who is NOT his editor.) And the story on the screen rings true, which is why it dodges many of the pitfalls we might expect to see in a film like this.

One of the movie’s main strengths is in the performances of the two leads. Robert Downey, Jr. is terrific as the conflicted Lopez who is trying to be a Good Samaritan, but struggling. And Jamie Foxx really immerses himself in the role of Nathaniel Ayers (he even went to the point of filing his teeth to make them seem more realistic). Foxx, a classically trained musician himself, is right at home playing musicians as he displayed in his Oscar-winning portrayal of Ray Charles in Ray. Here he manages to create a character that is far from perfect, though still sympathetic. The interaction between the two actors is terrific and their scenes together throughout the film are believable and often moving.

Another thing that really sets The Soloist apart is how well Joe Wright utilizes the strengths of the medium of film. There are ways to tell a story through film that a novelist or a painter cannot use, this is true for all mediums. What separates great artists and good artists is that great artists understand their medium and how to use it well to accomplish their goals. Wright makes use of jump cuts, camera trickery, and an extended series of flashing colors to aid him in telling this story. These tricks pay off as Wright uses them to communicate to the audience Nathaniel Ayers’ madness as well as his deep love for the music Beethoven, among other things. It’s also these tricks that give the film one foot in the art house while keeping one foot in the multiplex.

There is no question that with The Soloist, Joe Wright has given us three terrific films in a row, making him a filmmaker to pay close attention to in the future. With each film, he gets more adventurous in his storytelling and it feels as though his best work is yet to come. Wright’s previous two films have focused on romantic love in England and so it is refreshing to see an American story of friendship with this film– showing him to be a director of some diversity. Wright handles both formats masterfully, and with The Soloist, he has given audiences another reason to look forward to films under his direction.

Bob Dylan: “Together Through Life”

(out of 5)

“I’ll say this, I don’t give a damn about your dreams,” so sang Bob Dylan three years ago, on “Thunder on the Mountain,” the opening song of his thirty-second studio album, Modern Times. And that one line sums up Dylan’s career fairly well in that he has always made music for himself regardless of what others hoped and expected from him. He felt uncomfortable being the voice of a generation when he was a young man in his twenties playing folk tunes and so he went electric and angered many of those fans. When fans grew accustomed to the rock’n'roll Dylan of Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde, he became a country crooner on Nashville Skyline. In the late seventies, during a brief stint exploring Christianity, Dylan recorded three “Christian” albums, much to the bewilderment of his long time fans. And in the last twelve years, now officially known as “Dylan’s Comeback,” he has focused his efforts on the music that interests him, the music that he wants to explore, namely, pre-war blues, rockabilly country, and other forms of early twentieth century Americana.

The result of this new focus has resulted in Dylan’s most recent studio records, 1997’s Time Out of Mind, 2001’s “Love and Theft”, and 2006’s Modern Times, which have been a true return to brilliance for the 67-year-old legend. These works have been rightfully lauded and praised by fans and critics alike, earning Dylan fans in a whole new generation. After this successful latter day trilogy, people again are looking to Dylan with high expectations of a grand statement, a new masterpiece to be added to his already masterpiece-laden oeuvre. And these expectations have been placed on Together Through Life, studio album number thirty-three, though it’s existence was only announced a mere two months before it’s release. Yet, Together Through Life is not a grand statement, and it may really not be what listeners want or expect from Dylan, but don’t bother complaining about it, after all, he doesn’t give a damn about your dreams.

Allen Toussaint: “The Bright Mississippi”

(out of 5)

Just call April the month of Joe Henry. A few weeks ago, we saw the release of Ramblin’ Jack Elliott’s terrific new set, A Stranger Here, and now we have another album with Henry at the helm and here again Henry is working with a living legend, Mr. Allen Toussaint. It certainly isn’t inappropriate to begin this review with reference to Henry, since this record would never have been made had Henry not pestered Toussaint to make it. Allen Toussaint has had a long, lauded career and solidified himself as one of the preeminent jazz and R&B songwriters of the twentieth century. Though he has worked in a fairly wide vein of music, he has never recorded an entire album of the music of his youth, the music that he heard in the city streets while growing up in a shotgun shack in New Orleans. It’s this New Orleans music which he has loved and played his entire life and which Henry finally convinced him to put to tape for The Bright Mississippi. And, boy, I’m glad Toussaint and Henry made this one.

Though Henry’s contribution is important (he provides the backing band as well as a crystal clear production that brings these songs the clarity they deserve), this is clearly Allen Toussaint’s record. He functions not merely as a bandleader, but as a song interpreter, jazz prophet, and an elder statesman of a forgotten style of music as he communicates these old “standards” to a new generation.