Elliott Caine - LA Record

Elliott Caine Sextet - Hippie Chicks on Acid

One look at those classic Reid Miles designed album covers adorning countless Blue Note records of the 50s and 60s and it’s generally assumed that those guys were hopped up on Chesterfields and more than a few pulls off a cheap pint of whiskey. Nonetheless local trumpeter Elliott Caine has summoned the hard-bop gods with his propulsive sextet and saddled them with a title and cover evoking some rather horrible flower power imagery. Recorded live at Alva’s Showroom in San Pedro, Caine leads his band through over a half dozen straight-ahead swingers aided by great local instrumentalists like vibist Nick Mancini who pummels each note with his lightning-quick mallets, particularly on the simmering “No Way Out” and spacious “Little Rio”, while saxophonist Carl Randall provides a raspy-toned boast over driving waltz “Paying the Price”. Caine, who has been tearing up southern California stages for decades, displays his refined sense of swing and grounded writing skills throughout the record with articulate Lee Morgan-esque passages over the disjointed harmonies of “Defiance” and crisp ballad work on the deliberate “A Different Beauty”. Caine’s sextet has recorded a confident set of hard-bop, highlighting a great venue and some of the more captivating sidemen in town but, seriously, who chose that cover?

LA Record Issue 103

Hesitation Blues #4 - LA Record

Here’s some good news on the local jazz front: It looks like the Jazz Bakery will be getting a permanent home after all. Thanks to the persistence of local jazz doyenne, Ruth Price, the Bakery will be returning to Culver City next year with help from a $2 million Annenberg grant. In the meantime they’ll continue to host shows around town including a spoken word event with Luis Alfaro and pianist Bill Cunliffe on March 24^th at the Culver Events Center as well as presenting guitar legend Jim Hall at the Musicians Institute on March 26^th – one of the most regal 80 year old, 6-stringers still touring the globe. Over at Catalina’s jazz club dashiki-clad sax master Pharaoh Sanders will be blasting his free-jazz fury March 17^th through 20^th - one of the few Coltrane disciples still stalking the stage. For something completely different on the same stage Kurt Elling will bring his pomade croon April 20^th to the 22^nd. There should be enough soul patches in the crowd to fill a hot tub. I hope the bartender makes a good martini.

On March 6^th avant-conjurer Adam Rudolph will bring his Organic Orchestra to the Electric Lodge in Venice Beach. His ensemble will not only include woodwind icon Bennie Maupin (Bitches Brew, Headhunters) but also tow-headed son of skate-rat, Austin Peralta. Peralta’s recent Brainfeeder release Endless Planets rattles across jazz history with glimpses of 50s quartal harmonies, 60s free jazz and glistening 70s smoothness. His impeccable command of the 88 has been on display since he was pre-teenager. Now that he’s no longer a child prodigy Peralta has stepped up his game, bringing deliberate, jack-hammering piano without all the cheek-pinching novelty.

May 3^rd will be the ten year anniversary of Billy Higgins’ passing. Higgins’ contribution to jazz drumming was immense (Ornette Coleman, Dexter Gordon, Charles Lloyd) but his contribution to Los Angeles is even greater. His Leimert Park club, the World Stage, still continues to host weekly jam sessions, a tradition that has provided a swinging center-point to one of the most culturally-rich blocks in Los Angeles for decades. On March 26^th saxophonist Dale Fielder will bring his Donald Byrd/Pepper Adams homage to their cramped stage. Fielder, a local journeyman, has made it a personal mission to hip the world to the sounds of baritone saxophonist Pepper Adams – a challenging task but well worth the time.

Bill Frisell, ethereal guitar hero, will be playing in the dark to accompany a series of Buster Keaton shorts at UCLA on April 2^nd. For some old school floor stomping the French Quarter’s own Preservation Hall Jazz Band will be walloping Royce Hall’s stage with tubas and crawfish on May 12^th. Madeleine Peyroux, French chanteuse by way of Georgia and Brooklyn, will bring her hushed vocals to the Luckman Arts Complex on April 9^th. Her Billie Holiday vocals combined with a fedora-sporting backing band make for an interesting show, deliberate and pure with torch-singer shades, minus the heroin and squalor.

Meanwhile down Orange County way Branford Marsalis and Terence Blanchard will present their own ensembles at Segerstrom Hall on April 3^rd. Easily the most challenging of the Marsalis brothers plus Spike Lee’s go-to composer splitting stage time should be well worth the drive down to Costa Mesa.

LA Record Issue 103

The Bad Plus - NYC Jazz Record

The Bad Plus - Never Stop

Pianist Ethan Iverson, bassist Reid Anderson and
drummer Dave King have been performing as The Bad
Plus for over ten years. Although each is now waistdeep
in their own projects, they have stuck together
without a lineup change, building a rapport that is
almost unmatched in sheer playing hours logged as a
band.

Although this is their eighth album it is the first to
consist entirely of originals - suitable considering their
last record For All I Care consisted entirely of covers,
after mixing the two liberally in earlier releases. Their
previous compositions have always been complicated
beasts that twist and turn without notice and make full
use of their instruments’ potential. This record is no
different.

“The Radio Tower Has a Beating Heart” opens the
album with a cacophonous rattle, which veers wildly
through shimmering levels of noise - at times it sounds
like the band may be playing with axes rather than
their arms - before finding a pneumatic pulse courtesy
of Anderson’s bass. The title track is almost straight
pop with a minimalist quarter-note piano line that
slowly turns over on itself until some disco hi-hat
relieves it of its metronomic universe. Head-turning
bass and piano unisons, something of a specialty with
these guys, boil under Iverson’s right hand on “You
Are” and the pummeling “My Friend Metatron” with
impressive precision.

Midway through the record “People Like You”
slows the band down for a very straightforward ballad,
guided by brushes and a simplistic left-hand piano
part that crescendos over nine patient minutes. “Beryl
Loves to Dance” gets things as funky as they can get
with King riding the bell of his cymbal while all hell
breaks loose on the piano.

The first real bass solo occurs during “Snowball”,
wherein Anderson takes a wistful approach to lull the
listener before “2 P.M.” explodes into a lurching
bombast that uses every key on the piano at least twice.
“Bill Hickman At Home” and “Super America” close
out the record, evoking Randy Newman and Cecil
Taylor at the same time. The former finds Anderson
providing a Scott LaFaro-esque bass solo before
Iverson contributes a drunken honky-tonk stroll while
the latter is a hand-clap revival with a boogie bassline
that quickly closes out the album.

Never Stop is a powerful statement from the band.
Shorn of their clever covers they prove that their only
gimmick is camaraderie, brewed in the Midwest but
earned over an attentive decade on stages and in the
studio. The sky is the limit for their telepathic
collaborations.

Bad Plus @ New York City Jazz Record

Ben Wolfe - NYC Jazz Record

Ben Wolfe - Live At Smalls

Eric Reed - The Dancing Monk

Omnipresent bassist Ben Wolfe can do many things
well. He has made a great career out of playing with
high-profile pianists/vocalists like Harry Connick Jr.
and Diana Krall or he can lead groups through an array
of slaloming originals. Two recent releases perfectly
exemplify Wolfe’s versatility.

In his liner notes to The Dancing Monk, a collection
of Monk standards, pianist Eric Reed states, “I don’t
know that Monk would appreciate my offerings of his
tunes, but I seriously doubt that Monk would want me
to care.” Things open with a waltzed-up “Ask Me
Now”. The changing of the meter is probably the most
radical thing on the record as Reed mostly sticks to a
traditionalist approach. A deft pianist with a graceful
touch, his solos are scattered with references -
“Everything Happens to Me” pops up on “Reflections”
while “Take the A Train” whistles through “Light Blue”
- dropping coy puzzles amidst the swinging solos.
Wolfe and drummer McClenty Hunter expertly serve
as support to these effervescent solos with the latter
taking a few choruses on the Reed-penned title track
and Wolfe taking a spin through “Pannonica”. This is a
polished approach to a jagged repertoire with confident
solos but few outright surprises.

Live at Smalls, recorded over a weekend last May,
features Wolfe driving a quintet through nine of his
compositions, opening with a fast-moving basslinedriven
melody entitled “Block 11”. Spacious harmonies
rise and fall before each ensemble member solos amidst
varying rhythmic intensities, gradually building until
the ensemble reverts back to near-silence and
introduces the next voice. Marcus Strickland’s reedy
hoot gets things going early over a churning montuno
and reemerges at full-steam throughout the rest of the
set. Pianist Luis Perdomo flaunts his quartal chops on
the shifting “Contraption” while Ryan Kisor’s scattershot
trumpet soars through the midtempo swinger
“Telescope”. Wolfe turns in meditative solos, stretching
out in ways that he rarely gets to elsewhere. Live
elements abound on this recording, with Wolfe
shouting out the occasional heads-up to the band and
the faint clink of glasses in the background. The vibe is
comfortable but professional and the audience is as
responsive as the band.


Ben Wolfe @ New York City Jazz Record

Winter Jazzfest - Downbeat Magazine

Caught: Winter Jazzfest Proves New York Jazz Scene's Strength in Numbers

New York's Winter Jazzfest requires a physical stamina rarely asked of jazz fans. Drink minimums and hushed crowds give way to wrist bands and a sea of shoulders, each pair supporting a much-needed winter coat. For its seventh year, the festival presented 68 acts on five West Village stages (Le Poisson Rouge, Kenny's Castaways, Sullivan Hall, Zinc Bar and Bitter End) to more than 4,000 attendees on January 7 and 8.

Drummer Chico Hamilton, who was about to turn 90, helped kick off the festival at Le Poisson Rouge with a comparatively youthful septet. Amid countless jokes about his age, Hamilton displayed an effortless mastery of his kit, proving himself as relevant as the bandleaders one quarter his age. At the close of his set the crowd moved en masse across the street to witness Charles Gayle's fiery saxophone at Kenny's Castaways, his big tone filling the kitschy venue with squealing flights, while bassist Larry Roland and drummer Michael TA Thompson clattered with intensity alongside him. More subdued in decor but no less in sound was Zinc Bar which featured exquisite performances from Aaron Goldberg's trio and Marcus Strickland's quartet.

Saturday night expanded from three venues to five - selling out by 9 p.m. Le Poisson Rouge had one of the more disparate booking sequences. Charlie Hunter played his seven-string guitar to a talkative crowd, laying down intertwined blues riffs in his split-brained style. Following his straightforward set was Stained Radiance featuring Nels Cline's lurking guitar, looping through feedback and fire, providing the soundtrack to Norton Wisdom's rapidly transforming backlit paintings. Organist John Medeski had a rock 'n' roll-like following with various camera phones pointed his way throughout RedCred's set of wailing funk and klezmer soul-jazz. Later in the evening the Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey brought its pointillistic bravado to a diminished but enthusiastic crowd. The quartet made the most of the venue's sound system, turning on a dime while Chris Combs' slide guitar and Jeff Harshbarger's bowed bass-lines arrived in thunderous waves.

Kenny's Castaways hosted a couple of heavy tenor saxophones on its cluttered stage. Donny McCaslin's quartet, aided by Uri Caine's raspy Rhodes, blazed through a handful of breathless originals, sheet music fluttering in their wake. A few sets later powerhouse trio Athereal Bace hit the stage missing one of two drummers, but saxophonist Abraham Burton and drummer Nasheet Waits generated enough hurricane forces to rattle the walls on their own.

Sullivan Hall, the most remote of the venues, was where everyone was discreetly partying, with DJs premiering unreleased recordings between sets and nearly every other person in the room carrying an instrument case. The tuned-in crowd ran at capacity all night on sleepy Sullivan Street. Maurice Brown brought his powerful chops and effortless showmanship, while the Robert Glaser Experiment dealt in heavier grooves with the crowd sweating and swaying along.

At the Bitter End, the American Midwest-meets-Africa dance band Nomo crammed onto the tiny stage for a surging crowd, heating up the room with rapid-fire horn solos and polyrhythmic dance beats while Noah Preminger's saxophone eloquently ushered in Sunday morning as Frank Kimbrough wrestled with the house's wobbly tuned piano.

Downbeat - April 2011

Hazel Scott - NYC Jazz Record

Karen Chilton
Hazel Scott: The Pioneering Journey of a Jazz Pianist from Café Society to Hollywood to HUAC

In 1968 Ebony magazine succinctly stated, “Hazel
Dorothy Scott Powell Bedin has, in the span of what
might be considered a short lifetime, been many
things: child prodigy, darling of café society, concert
artist, civil rights pioneer, the wife of a famous and
powerful man, mother, divorcee, expatriate.” Karen
Chilton’s biography is a straightforward account of
an extraordinary life that never wavered in the face
of racism, political witch-hunts or financial
hardships, providing ample reason for resurrecting
her as both a social and musical pioneer.

Born in Trinidad in 1920, Scott emerged as a
piano prodigy, guided by her musically-inclined
mother towards classical repertoire. While still in
her teens she became the toast of New York, putting
a boogie-woogie spin on the ten-fingered puzzles of
Liszt and Chopin. This success led to a handful of
film appearances that ended when she chose her
integrity over employment, displaying a stoicism
that would lead to financial hardships as she
outgrew her captivating looks. In her mid 20s she
married political trailblazer Adam Clayton Powell
Jr., forming one of the most powerful couples in
New York and they lived accordingly, supplying
plenty of ammunition for those looking to take them
down. By the mid ‘50s her marriage had dissolved
and she was facing charges from the House
Un-American Activities Committee. She escaped the
scrutiny by moving to France but eventually
returned to New York to focus on her family before
succumbing to pancreatic cancer in 1981.

Through Scott’s unpublished memoirs and
interviews with her son Adam Clayton Powell III,
Chilton weaves the story of a woman who, due to
her strong beliefs, often found herself with her
artistic pride intact but her career in shambles. Scott
was a complex and stubborn woman whose musical
prowess was shaped equally by the classics and
family friends like Billie Holiday, Lester Young and
Art Tatum. Her glamorous lifestyle and unmatched
musicality make for a moving story that Chilton has
eloquently brought to light. A well-researched
biography on an unnecessarily forgotten star.

Hazel Scott @ New York City Jazz Record

Me, the Mob, and the Music - LA Record

Tommy James
Me, the Mob and the Music - One Helluva Ride with Tommy James & the Shondells

Midwesterner Thomas Jackson found fame, and a little fortune, through a cover of Brill Building fluff "Hanky Panky". Attracting a fair amount of radio play Jackson slowly made his way east until he landed in the hands of Morris Levy - Roulette Records owner and infamous payola king to Alan Freed. In Manhattan Jackson became James and the Raconteurs became the Shondells and for the next four years he owned the pop radio charts with hits like "I Think We're Alone Now", “Mony, Mony” and "Crimson and Clover". James details these years as a pop phenom as well as where all that money may have gone. James seems both thankful and betrayed by the man who made him a household name while profiting off of his work, praising Levy for his artistic freedom in the studio while also noting all the fishy behavior and mercenaries/label heads Levy employed who were occasionally found dead, if found at all. James was one of few artists to successfully transition from bubblegum pop to pyschedelic rock (with very little help from hallucinogenics) and eventually cashed in on it thanks to 80s new wave covers by Billy Idol and Tiffany. Overall James seems astonished by his success, writing about his time working with Hubert Humphrey’s presidential campaign and passing on a slot on the Woodstock stage with little resentment towards those who owed him millions of dollars in back royalties. It is a wide-eyed account of a dark and brutal business told in awe at having survived it.

LA Record Issue 102

Hesitation Blues #3 - LA Record

Hesitation Blues - #3

With a dearth of good jazz rooms in Los Angeles it is up to the major institutions to fill in some of the blanks for open-minded ears. Sometimes they pull through and sometimes they don’t. But if you comb through enough calendars you can piece together a season’s worth of entertaining veterans as well as handful of jazzbos in the midst of ever-evolving projects. In Keith Richards’ nursing handbook/autobiography Keef goes so far as to describe drummer Zigaboo Modeliste as “one of the best ever”. He may be right. Modeliste’s hard-driving drums provided the support for the Meters from the very beginning thus providing the backbeat for countless hip-hop samples throughout the decades. Although it appears that the Mint has totally given up on the jazz bookings, on January 20th they’ll redeem themselves with a solid funk act.

Disney Concert Hall kicks off the year with two disparate performances starting with Brad Mehldau’s engaging Highway Rider project featuring saxophonist Joshua Redman, two drummers (Jeff Ballard and Matt Chamberlain) and a chamber orchestra on January 21st. The album, produced by wunderkind Jon Brion, is a lush genre-less collaboration that should translate well to the stage with enough brooding to last a lifetime. February 15th sees the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, keepers of the old-school flame, wearing their swinging tuxedos under the direction of the self-appointed arbiter of jazz, Wynton Marsalis. Why doesn’t the LA Philharmonic have their own jazz orchestra? At the Getty spidery ax-master Nels Cline performs a concert on February 5th with his “singers” as well as his lady-friend Yuka Honda. Cline, who has been slinging for Wilco lately, can just as easily summon the murderous shred of John McLaughlin as he can the Allman brothers. Cline’s fleet-fingered pyrotechnics are always worth the trip and this one is free! At Largo Martha Wainwright will perform an entire show of Edith Piaf tunes February 11th and 12th. As Rufus’ kid sister, shouldn’t she be doing an evening of Mickey Rooney routines? Ah, la vie en Melrose.

There are also a few noteworthy events occurring a few miles down the 5. Keely Smith became a household name when she began performing as a sort of Tin Pan Alley Alice to Louis Prima’s red-sauce Ralph Kramden – rolling her eyes and belting her way through riotously charismatic pop tunes. Smith, now in her late 80s, brings her dead-pan bob to the Cerritos Performing Arts Center on February 13th to conjure a little of that very old black magic. The Orange County Performing Arts Center can be one of the most interesting sources for mid-tier touring jazz acts. For awhile there the Center could draw enough tuned in subscribers to sip some chardonnay and see what New York had to offer without having to venture beyond Long Beach. These days the shows aren’t as adventurous but on March 4th Chick Corea and Gary Burton definitely have the potential to transfix with their 40-year history of exhaustingly meticulous arrangements. If you want even older people drinking even older chardonnay you can dig out a few gems at the Newport Jazz Party between February 17 – 20th. Aging young lions Benny Green, Lewis Nash and Eric Reed lead their own ensembles while clarinet sensation Anat Cohen makes a rare appearance outside of downtown New York.


LA Record Issue 102

Hesitation Blues #2 - LA Record

Hesitation Blues - LA Record

One of the joys of living in Los Angeles is that you can attend outdoor shows in November without needing clothes stuffed with goose down. LACMA keeps up their jazz series through to Thanksgiving and they have booked some music worth a jaunt down the Miracle Mile. Harold Land Jr., piano-playing son of the West Coast saxophone legend has been playing around Los Angeles for years. On October 29th he’ll bring his tasteful sense of swing and unchanging facial expression to the courtyard with some help from local vocalist Rita Edmond. A couple of weeks later the invaluable Littleton Brothers return to share a bill. Between Jeff, the bassist, and Don, the drummer, the Littleton boys have probably played with every major jazz musician to set foot in Los Angeles in the last twenty years. Their encyclopedic knowledge has kept them in constant demand and here they finally get to call the tunes.

With colleges back in session some of the more respectable halls get dusted off and unlocked. That cathedral out in Westwood is hosting some of the most regal jazz available. Avant sage Ornette Coleman returns to Royce Hall with his son Denardo. They recorded their first album together in 1966 when Denardo was only 10. Witness one of the most polarizing characters in jazz - 62 years running. A few weeks later an all-star cast will converge to honor Alice Coltrane. A recently passed legend and a tremendous holy link to the Church of John, Coltrane was a Bud Powell devotee before carrying the torch into the 1970s as the widow of Impulse. Her meditative composure and glissanding harp are regrettably over-shadowed by her social status but the proof is in the wax. Led by TV on the Radio’s Kyp Malone and featuring Nels Cline and Pharaoh Sanders, the band will dig into what could be completely amazing or a total mess. Or a little of both.

A little further from the ocean, Chucho Valdes, the Cuban Art Tatum, hits up the Luckman Fine Arts Complex on October 16th alongside his Afro-Cuban messengers. One of the most astounding pianists touring the planet Valdes can leap from spitfire montunos to Chopin-esque agility in seconds. A rare treat in the heart of East LA.

Meanwhile downtown, merry evangelical prankster Reverend Billy, with his street corner preaching and Wayne Cochran hair-do, returns to California on October 21st for a little west coast exorcising. The Life After Shopping Gospel Choir, his rag-tag bunch of robed disciples, channel his anti-commercialism message through song. In the past year he ran a legitimate campaign for mayor of New York as well as getting arrested for putting a hex on JPMorgan Chase. It’s a sincere put-on, part Jimmy Swaggart, part Andy Kaufman. But when the choir gets going there is no denying his preacher-blues transformation. December 20th, however, through the garage and up the escalator at Disney Concert Hall, the Blind Boys of Alabama will lay down some real gospel. Formed in the early 40s the group has found its largest audience in the 21st century performing songs by the likes of Tom Waits and Curtis Mayfield. Think they’ll cover “Pasties & a G String”?

LA Record Issue 101

Springsteen's The Promise - LA Weekly

Bruce Springsteen's The Promise for LA Weekly's "West Coast Sound"


Now some guys they just give up living

and start dying little by little, piece by piece.

Some guys come home from work and wash up

And go racing in the streets.

--Bruce Springsteen

In 1975, at the age of 25, Bruce Springsteen released his third album Born to Run, a commercial and artistic success that solidified his place as the official raconteur of middle-class New Jersey. His tales of paved expanses and the salt-corroded machinery carrying misfits from boardwalk to boardwalk were wrapped in layers of rock orchestration unheard since Phil Spector was regularly terrorizing the studios of Los Angeles. (Few men can get away with using a piano, an organ and a glockenspiel all at once.) But following the album's success, Springsteen found himself locked in a legal dispute with his manager. He spent three years recording and touring before releasing his next album Darkness on the Edge of Town.

Now Springsteen definitively proves it wasn't writer's block that was keeping him off the radio with the release of The Promise: twenty-one tracks of Darkness-era outtakes, unreleased studio versions of live staples and even a newly recorded song (just to give the purists something to complain about). Overall the new tracks are interesting--but Springsteen's thirty-two year old decisions still seem like the right ones.

The double album opens with a Darkness outtake of "Racing in the Street" that is a little too reminiscent of "Thunder Road." An identical harmonica intro directs it immediately into the alternative takes bin. The alternate has a more grandiose conclusion but there was already plenty of that on the official release. "Come On (Let's Go Tonight)" is an alternative take to "Factory", an equally brief working-class dirge that could have just as easily fit on the Billy Elliott soundtrack. "Candy's Boy" is an alternative take on the breathy-but-bombastic "Candy's Room" with a more "classic rock" structure than the official release: Springsteen takes the sparse official track, adds a few verses and trades the guitar pyrotechnics for a roller-rink organ solo to diminished effect.

Springsteen has always been a scholar of rock 'n' roll--especially with the official garage rock professor, Steven Van Zandt, hanging somewhere off to his left for the last forty years. So it is no surprise to find a fair number of genre exercises littered throughout the album. "Ain't Good Enough for You" is the band's take on one of those party-in-the-studio albums that came out in the mid '60s--from the Beach Boys' Party! to Cannonball Adderley's Mercy Mercy Mercy. The band's off-time background vocals, whistles and handclaps capture the party vibe while Springsteen goofs his way through a litany of romantic frustrations. "Outside Looking In" is a Buddy Holly rave-up with rumbling tom-toms and scratchy guitars that is just a few vocal hiccups short of a tribute band.

While Springsteen was recording his highly orchestrated epics, the music world around him was changing. The punk movement, boiling less than forty blocks south of Springsteen's New York recording studio, was in mid-battle cry: Talking Heads '77, Marquee Moon and Ramones. Springsteen wasn't oblivious. His collaboration with Patti Smith, "Because the Night," became one of the biggest selling singles to come out of the CBGB's scene. (Is it surprising that the combination of these two artists sounds remarkably like Cher?) But Springsteen never released a version of his own at the time although it has remained in his live repertoire to this day. The studio version here is a little slower and grander than the Smith version but Springsteen adds a mid-song key change that lifts it to another level.

Springsteen also scored a chart hit when the Pointer Sisters covered his song "Fire" in 1978. The song was originally written for Elvis Presley but became a tribute to him when he died as Springsteen was still toiling in the studio. The Pointer Sisters version is sparser than Springsteen's--more indebted to the Motown girl groups with its tambourine and organ. Springsteen, when performing the song live, often brings out his more theatrical side with coy poses that say more than the lyrics ever could. The resulting studio version is an Elvis tribute that is as much white jumpsuit as pre-Army provocateur.

A lot of purists have shed some tears over Springsteen's decision to add overdubs to his old recordings. This revisionist history has become a bit of a genre these days with albums like Paul McCartney's Let It Be...Naked or the Rolling Stones' recent release of Exile on Main Street and even Brian Wilson's SMiLE. How can there be anything wrong with an artist choosing to alter his own work? The songs might not have benefited from the added work but it's not like he's finishing some lost Jim Morrison bootlegs. In releasing these tracks he has already yielded to some higher marketing power, otherwise he would have released them 30-something years ago. The man wants to do all he can to protect his integrity while preserving his brand. So aside from the added strings and vocals Springsteen has recorded a new song, "Save My Love"--a textbook "Springsteen" song with cascading piano octaves, precision drumming and a soaring chorus. It fits right alongside the other songs, which attests to both the sturdiness of his trademark sound as well as his willingness to exploit it.

The Promise is rather great as a collection of outtakes, but it is an exemplary indicator of the standard that Springsteen upheld in releasing his long-awaited follow-up. As an album, the collection falls a little short of coherence. The quantity of tracks is enough to indicate that it was never intended as an album. The best tracks were chosen for Darkness on the Edge of Town.

Nothing touches the greatness of songs like "Streets of Fire" or "Adam Raised a Cain" for sheer exuberance and screeching guitar. Springsteen is at his jaded best on Darkness, sneering alongside the rest of his generation in denim and a bandana rather than leather and a mohawk. Now in his 60s, Springsteen has lived long enough to see his work interpreted by multiple generations. He has received considerable hints to what his legacy will be. With Promise, he is responding as he sees fit. Who wouldn't, at the age of 61, change of few things they might have done when they were 25?

Springsteen's The Promise @ LA Weekly