Bozo Mark's Hot Picks In The CD Player For Winter (January, February, and, this being Minnesota, probably March)

1. Small Steps

Larry McDonough

Marx Music

Yes! I produced it, and yes! yes! it's on my label, and yes! yes! yes! certainly I'd like you to buy a copy... But, all that said, this is one cool album, and it has been prominently hanging around the CD player, and I don't have to be listening to it, do I? Anyway...this got done because Larry (who is the keyboardist in BOZO allegro) asked me to make a copy of a demo tape he had done, and I had no idea how great he is in a solo piano setting. What impresses me so much about his approach is how he takes a tune and puts it through the filter of his musicality and ends up with something quite different. Elsewhere on this site, I call it "bebop-cum-impressionism, sort of Bill Evans meets Debussy", and that pretty much says it. Being an arranger, I'm much more interested in cool things being done to tunes rather than improvisational chops per se, and Larry's arrangements delight me no end. "Linus And Lucy", "Layla", and "All Blues" are recognizable (well, you might have to work a little bit on "Layla"...) but unlike any other versions you've ever heard, with odd twists and cool turns. And "Good Day Sunshine"! Larry took my arrangement from The REVOLVER Suite, which was already slightly out there, and fractured it further...very cool, very weird, very hip. As an improviser, Larry shines on, and if anybody has ever heard of another pianist who takes bass solos, please let me know about it. Some point soon, if not already, there'll be a corner of this website devoted to Larry and this album. Until then, if you're interested in hearing this, email us here at Marx Music for more information.

2. House Of Blues This-Ain't-No-Tribute Series

Various artists

House Of Blues

The concept is simple: take blues artists, turn them loose on a composer/performer/group's repertoire, and watch the sparks fly. Of the five that I have heard or heard of, I highly recommend the Janis Joplin, Rolling Stones, and Dylan CDs. Janis was, of course, so steeped in the blues it hurt, and this disc has the added advantage of more women performers (almost half) than the other two. "Me And Bobby McGee" and "Mercedes Benz", by Syl Johnson and Taj Mahal, respectively, are the most transformed tunes, and therefore my favorites. The Stones CD is cool because Jagger and Richards' music was always refracted through their love for the blues and r & b, and it's fittingly hip to have Stones tunes make the return trip. "Satisfaction" by Junior Wells will make you laugh out loud with pleasure. Dylan, of course, is never far from the blues, and this disc may be the most consistently pleasing, with the best match of performers and material. I like to put all three in the player and spiral between them for over three hours of bluesy takes on three fine repertoires. Two caveats: 1) I didn't care for the Eric Clapton CD at all; as much as I like him I don't feel his repertoire has the musically idiosyncratic individuality to facillitate the transformative process that these other, more successful discs possess. 2) There is a Led Zeppelin CD as well, but I'm not that big of a fan and none of the tunes rang enough bells for me to check it out.

3. Room To Move 1969-1974

John Mayall

Polydor

This is one of my guilty pleasures. I know all about the charges leveled again the Godfather of British Blues - he can't really sing, he can't really play, his tunes often explore goofy, very non-bluesy subjects. But - he was enormously influential on my musical development, I like him a lot, and I derive great pleasure from hearing this set, containing at least two of his golden eras, reissued on CD. (A digressive, though interesting, anecdote: I subscribed to downbeat throughout my junior and senior high school years, until they trashed his "Room To Move" album, with the first no-drummer band, which I deeply loved. downbeat and I parted company soon after that, and check our review file here on the site for the punchline to this story.) Anyway, this period of time contains Mayall's very cool drummerless bands, the retrospective stuff he did with all the great people who cut their blues teeth with The Bluesbreakers in the '60's, and his jazzy horn bands of the 70's. Great performances from Clapton, Harvey Mandel, Sugarcane Harris, Johnny Almond, Blue Mitchell, and yes, Mayall himself (so sue me).

4. Jazz For... Series

Various Artists

32 Jazz

I bought a couple of these as gifts for Christmas, and when I looked at the labels the artists included seemed so hip I thought maybe they were worth checking out myself. They don't look like it. With terrible scantily-clad-babes-looking-soulful covers, this series resembles those dreadful light jazz compilations for people who think Kenny G is a saxophone player. (Which reminds me of a joke: Late one night, you enter a jazz club. Sitting at the bar are Saddam Hussein and Adolf Hitler. Unfortunately, since you've just been to a meeting at the record label, there's only one bullet left in your revolver. Who do you shoot? Answer: Kenny G) But (lots of "buts" in this go-round of picks, have you noticed that?) - we're talking Sonny Stitt, Pat Martino, Woody Shaw, Red Garland, Ron Carter, Hank Jones, Donald Byrd, Joe Henderson, Phil Woods, Al Cohn, Zoot Sims...these are not lightweights. Yes, the selections are ballads, but the playing is exquisite. And the liner notes, by compilation director/veteran producer Joel Dorn, are hilarious.

5. Live 1966

Bob Dylan

Columbia

This is the famed Live at Royal Albert Hall bootleg material, cleaned up and released as volume four of Columbia's Dylan Bootleg Series. Two CDs: the first acoustic set, just the Man, his guitar, his harp, his voice; the second, confrontational "electric" set with what would become The Band. This is the last gasp of the Dylan who irrevocably changed the face of popular music, before his motorcycle accident took him elsewhere. This is an artist ahead of his audience and refusing to turn back to see if they can keep up. When Dylan turns to the band before the last tune, "Like A Rolling Stone" and says, "Play fucking loud!", something is happening and you do know what it is. This is powerful stuff, Mr. Jones.