THIS WEEK

Other new releases

india.arie: SongVersation (Soulbird/Motown; photo above by Randee St. Nicholas)
“This is where I’ve been for the last 4 years,” she says about her new album in a press release. “I’ve struggled most of my career to feel comfortable with how things were, how I was treated, the politics of the music industry. I needed to pull back from the public eye to ground myself and rebuild my life and career. It’s a process many of us go through: spiritual maturation, spiritual awakening, clearing out the old and starting anew.” For this album, starting anew also meant reconnecting with her longtime writing partner and co-producer Shannon Sanders.

Various Artists: Let Us In / Americana — The Music of Paul McCartney (Reviver/BDG/RED)
Sequel to 2011’s Let Us In / Nashville, both benefiting the Women and Cancer Fund, established in memory of Linda McCartney. Covers of Paul include “Band on the Run” (Will Hoge), “My Love” (Holly Williams), “Let Me Roll It” (Teddy Thompson), “Every Night” (Rodney Crowell), and “Let ’Em In” (Lee Ann Womack). There are Beatles numbers, too, such as “I’m Looking Through You” (Jim Lauderdale), “Yellow Submarine” (Buddy Miller), “The Fool on the Hill” (Bruce Cockburn), and “I Will” (Steve Earle and Allison Moorer).

Various Artists: Sing Me the Songs: Celebrating the Works of Kate McGarrigle (Nonesuch)
Highlights from three tribute concerts in London, Toronto, and New York, which were led by her children, Rufus and Martha Wainwright, along with her sister, Anna. Other participants included Emmylou Harris, Norah Jones, and Richard, Linda, and Teddy Thompson. As with the concerts, proceeds from this two-CD set will be donated to the Kate McGarrigle Foundation, dedicated to raising money in the fight against sarcoma and also to preserving Kate’s legacy through the arts.

Bob Marley & the Wailers and Various Artists: Legend Remixed (Island)
Says Ziggy Marley in the liner notes: “Legend Remixed is a take on the classic album from what I can only describe as a ‘far-out perspective.’ The concept that Jason Bentley and I discussed from the get-go was to approach this as an eclectic expression of artistic pieces that would take the songs somewhere else while respecting the original recordings. . . . Nothing will ever be better than the originals; we know that. This is just another way to experience Legend.” Other remixers include Stephen Marley, Jim James, Roni Size, and Thievery Corporation.

Mavis Staples: One True Vine (Anti-)
Once again, produced (and mostly played) by Jeff Tweedy. Includes songs written for Staples by Nick Lowe and Tweedy himself, along with covers of Low’s “Holy Ghost,” Funkadelic’s “Can You Get to That,” and Pops Staples’s “I Like the Things About Me.”

Perhapst: Revise Your Maps (Jealous Butcher)
Side project of Decemberists drummer John Moen.

Treetop Flyers: The Mountain Moves (Partisan)
Debut of buzz band. The Flyers are based in London, but they recorded their album in Malibu. Which stands to reason, since they have what’s touted as a “quintessential West Coast sound.”

Booker T. Jones: Sound the Alarm (Stax)
He wrote or co-wrote all 12 songs. Guests include Mayer Hawthorne, Anthony Hamilton, Luke James, Gary Clark Jr., Estelle, Poncho Sanchez, and Sheila E.

Hawthorne Heights: Zero (Red River/Sony/RED)
Attention: “dystopian concept album” ahead.

Jane’s Addiction: Live in NYC (UMe)
Filmed at Terminal 5 in July 2011. Available on DVD, DVD+CD, and Blu-ray.

Bobby Whitlock and CoCo Carmel: Carnival — Live in Austin (Domino)
Whitlock is a veteran of Delaney & Bonnie’s band and Derek & the Dominos; Carmel is his wife and current musical collaborator. Their set includes four Dominos songs that Whitlock co-wrote with Eric Clapton: “Anyday,” “Why Does Love Got to Be So Sad?,” “Keep on Growing,” and “Tell the Truth,” as well as Clapton’s “Got to Get Better in a Little While” and Jimi Hendrix’s “Little Wing.” Also out this week (from Future Days/Light in the Attic): Where There’s a Will, There’s a Way: The ABC Dunhill Recordings, which, on one CD, combines Whitlock’s 1972 self-titled solo debut and his follow-up the same year, Raw Velvet.

Canadian Brass: Carnaval (Opening Day Entertainment Group)
Arrangements of Robert Schumann’s Carnaval and Kinderszenen.

Natalie Cole: En Español (Verve)
Her first Spanish-language album, including a virtual duet with Dad.

Femi Kuti: No Place for My Dream (Knitting Factory)
Eldest son of Afrobeat pioneer Fela. Says Femi: “I was being groomed to be like my father, even in the way I dressed. That wasn’t what I wanted. I needed something more challenging. I wanted to break away.”

Yellowjackets: A Rise in the Road (Mack Avenue)
First album that sees Jimmy Haslip, the band’s founding bassist, replaced by Felix Pastorius — son of Jaco. Founding keyboardist Russell Ferrante remains, as does veteran saxophonist Bob Mintzer. William Kennedy returns on drums.

Joanie Leeds and the Nightlights: Bandwagon (Limbostar)
Overseen by star kindie producer Dean Jones, this is the fifth children’s CD from Leeds. Among the guests: Jonatha Brooke, a longtime fave of Stereo Review and Sound & Vision.

Alan Feinberg: Basically Bull — or, the adventurous keyboard works of the vexatious Elizabethan composer John Bull and his contemporaries, the virginalists who invented virtuoso keyboard music, as performed on a Steinway D and recorded one cold winter’s day in Virginia . . .
(Steinway & Sons)
“Vexatious”? As the press release explains, “Bull fled England in 1613 in fear of being persecuted for his ‘incontinence, fornication, adultery, and other grievous crimes’ (according to Bull himself).” Yet “he was a compositional renegade who pushed the boundaries in every sense of the word. With a penchant for writing near-impossible, melodic, spiraling lines that demanded dexterity and diligence, Bull provided, with a cohort of compelling keyboard composers, a folio of incredible works.” The other composers here: William Byrd, John Blitheman, Orlando Gibbons, John Redford, and Thomas Tomkins. “Virginalists”? They played the virginal, a harpsichord-family precursor to the piano.