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If you assume soul music is obliged to drown in Memphis horn charts
and gospel chords, 24-year-old English-Jamaican Alistair Tennant,
who under the cognomen Ali has just released Crucial
(Island Black
Music), may not meet your genre specifications. But if you admit
Luther Vandross into the fold, if you think Boyz II Men are in the
tradition, sing hallelujah. Influenced most directly by Al Green,
with goodly dollops of Vandross and Ronnie Isley and much respect
for his love-man contemporaries, Ali distinguishes himself from new
jack crooners like Maxwell and D'Angelo not so much with his voice
as with his songwriting--he works to come up with solid tunes and
lyrics that delineate a situation or express an emotion. Crazy
Don't (the solace of insanity) and Wish You Better (than him) are
two of his harder hitting concoctions. But rarely these days does
a black pop album--any kind of pop album--so successfully avoid
filler.
Are you a guy who yawns when We Will Rock You blasts out over the
stadium PA but still feels his fannish bloodlust stirred by the
Ramones? ESPN Presents Slam Jams Vol. 1 (Tommy Boy)
is designed to
make you cheer: 16 surefire "new wave" anthems whose punky beats no
longer seem weird to anyone--not even Mike Ditka.
The long-planned Capeman rides the wave of the ltest world-music
trend, which is no longer Celtic but "Latin"--especially Cuban.
Which is why incorrigible musical tourist Ry Cooder visited Havana
recently. He intended to come back with two albums, but couldn't
resist a third: Introducing . . . Ruben Gonzales (World Circuit),
which features a revitalized 77-year-old master pianist and no Ry
at all. It's certainly the prize of the three. Thank you, Ry.
Playboy, Dec. 1997
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Nov. 1997 |
Jan. 1998 |
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