Customer Reviews

Around The City

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Having own Elias' 2004 LP "Dreamer", I too was surprised at the musical shift on this LP.

However, the question here is not rather or not it fits the narrow-minded view of jazz purists, but is a good LP? Here the answer is yes.

While the title track & "Oye Como Va" may have to grow on me, the rest of the CD is great. Try listening to "Running" or her version of Bob Marley's "Jamming" without moving your head or getting up to dance.
Elaine is also writing more, as she wrote or co-wrote many of the songs on this disc. She's still showing off her chows as a jazz pianist & there's still lots of brazilian jazz/bossa nova present (& even flamenco-favors with "Slide Show").

Bottom line, the purists should go elsewhere if they want nothing but standards, but the rest of us will enjoy this disc.

Updated May 8, 2007

Breaking boundaries doesn't by itself automatically equate with true innovation or quality.

The fields of jazz are littered with failed attempts to break boundaries. The reason we don't hear them that often is that they've been buried in the cosmic bit bucket where they belong. After all, when was the last time you heard the Duke Ellington and Count Basie tributes to the Beatles? Or Stan Getz playing "Marrakesh Express." Or, for that matter, Paul McCartney as a symphonist. Indisputably great artists making ill-advised choices in an attempt to widen their audiences, or to be taken more seriously, or whatever.

There's no question that Eliane is breaking out and exploring new avenues on this album. Some of the reviewers have made the dubious claim that because it's different, it's automatically better. They also make the claim that the reason her loyal fans hate it is because they're just old squares who can't keep up with an artist who's outgrowing them.

The thing is, in order for the new stuff to be an improvement, it would actually have to BE better.

Some of the stuff that Eliane sings and plays on this album is just junk, most notably the title cut. Some of the album is quite good.

To separate the good from the bad, you simply have to perform the 'Lester Test.' Look at the liner notes, and wherever you see the name Lester Mendez, that cut's probably bad. Wherever his name is missing, that cut's probably good.

The 'Lester' tunes are all reaching for pop breakthrough, mostly at the expense of those things that make Eliane great. It's as though she checked her own judgment (which is impeccable) at the door for those sessions, and let Lester and the whole star-making pop music machinery run the show. The result is predictable: formulaic, mediocre pop music.

Because she's got such great instincts as a composer and arranger, it's surprising to see her lavish her playing talents and her name to material that's so... lame.

The thing is, Eliane is SO fabulous when she's fabulous that we feel a sense of loss when she's not. That's a terrible burden for her, but part of the price of being so great. In her prior outings, she's put her best assets on hold to explore her vocal avenues, and 'Around the City' merely compounded that, putting her best stuff one level still further back.

Great news, though. We saw her last fall when she appeared in SF at the Great American Music Hall, along with her all-time best sidemen (Marc Johnson, who never left, and especially Satoshi Takeishi, who has been sorely missed).

They proved that she's still got it... Man, oh man, does she ever still have it! She did something that night that we hadn't seen before. She sang, yes, but, for once, instead of obscuring her playing brilliance, she brought all her gifts to bear, played her heart out, and brought down the house!!! Half a year later, we're still totally buzzed by the music that emanated from that spot that night. She can sing all she likes if she does it like that!!!

Eliane is an unbelievably great artist. This particular outing deserves less, but we love her too much for that, so 3 stars on this for a 5-star artist.

While Elias is an established musician/ pianist / keyboardist / vocalist / songwriter of a high order, one would be well-advised to casually ignore all the jazz snobs who bleat for Elias to return to playing "real jazz." A pedestrian listener such as myself can even vouch that without experimentation, fusing of different music traditions, and the need to break the bounds of what is considered "real jazz," Louis Armstrong, Bird, Miles, Anthony Braxton, Cecil Taylor would never have happened. The drive in modern day to petrify jazz into a respectable art form has backfired and made jazz stagnant and frighteningly outdated today.

Ironically, what stodgy jazz connoisseurs regale as their iconic figure, Miles Davis, repeatedly broke the rules and courted many different music forms to make the continuum that is the heart of jazz pulse and breathe. Elaine Elias does just this. Those of us who love and listen to the so-called "hip" clubby/lounge music will truly appreciate the sonic adventure within "Around The City." Club music often samples other people's music passages into loops that- though stylish sounding- tends to entropy into banality. One has always wondered how the form could jettison in capable hands of great dexterity. Elias's reading of Bob Marley's "Jammin'" realizes this, with a momentum that sounds like a fluid updated sequel to Mile Davis's Milestone. It's fast, infectious, and reminiscent of the gyroscopic tension that Bebop was remembered for.

The track that is the pearl of the album however, is the stately "Slideshow." How wonderfully it captures what I call that Brazilian "Certain Sadness" that Astrud Gilberto's voice has come to embody. The lyrics are beautiful and the flamenco guitars and handclaps are gorgeous. Just one listen puts me on the cliffside roads leading into that stretch of beach front in Ipanema.

Songs like the Latin tinged rhythm of "Running," "Segredos," and "Oye Como Va," (suddenly sexy-sounding in the absence of Carlos Santana's whiny electric guitar) to a traditional jazz ballad of Buddy Johnson's "Save Your Love For Me" and a pop AOR easy-listening "We're So Good" showcases Elias's range. I hope Elias continues to explore. It's a sheer joy to see and hear that bossa nova can continue to evolve and stay with the times.

Billboard Spotlight Review
August 14, 2006

Eliane Elias - Around The City
Producers: Eliane Elias, Andres Levin, Lester Mendez
RCA Victor
Release date: Aug 22

On "Around The City", pianist Elias assigns the keys a back seat in support of her alluring, sensuous vocals sung in English and Portuguese. The Brazil-born, New York-based Elias has played the singer card before in her 18-album career, but nothing like this outing, where she delivers a spellbinding meld of pop, Brazillian and Latin music with a jazz sensibility. Her pianistic excursions arrive sporadically and deeper into the 13-song collection, including a fine run in "A Vizinha Do Lado". But upfront is where "Around The City" enraptures, beginning with the spirited original "Running", and continuing with a bossa-steeped take on Tito Puente's "Oye Como Va" and later a sultry swing through Beck's "Tropicalia". Standout track: Elias' jazzy spin on Bob Marley's "Jammin'" with loops, trumpet ornamentation and a piano sprint, all girded to earth with speedy grooves by two drummers.

[...]

I heard her perform these numbers recently at a new jazz club in New York called Dizzy's. The setting and the music were sublime. She started off with Tropicalia and I was hooked immediately. If you haven't seen her live, you don't know what you're missing. Her brilliance on the piano is just incredible. Marc Johnson and the rest of her quartet complement her so well. My brother and I gave her a standing "O" after nearly every number.

Sure, Dreamer was great and I saw her live when that one came out too.
This is also a winner. All I know is what my head, my heart, my tapping feet and my two ears tell me and they are saying Yesssssssssssssssss!

This is a wonderful album. For fans of Eliane or people who love jazz. Very enjoyable. Thank you Ms Elias!

"Around the City" blows me away on the first eight songs. To get a sense of the sound, start with the notion of Eliane playing piano only, the usual case. But the liner notes state, "Eliane Elias:.... Piano, Fender Rhodes, Wurlitzer, Hammond B3 Organ, Synths." The songs are fortified by many instruments, many musical layers. "Around the City" represents a high point for the electronic, modern jazzy sound.

The four songs in which Eliane is a co-writer -- three with Lester Mendez and Lauren Christy (the opening "Running," "We're So Good," and the title cut) and one with Andres Levin ("Slide Show") -- establish the atmosphere. "Slide Show" is a real gem, shadowy and exotic. It is arguably the CD's strongest track, with terrific rhythm and guitar work, including some flamenco. As for the other three, I find it surprising that one commentator on this board warns the listener away from Mendez. Important from the liner notes is that Mendez is credited with "Instrumentation" for his three entries (which he produced). Imagine a background of chiming, vibrations, and synthesizers, on top of Eliane's singing and great supporting musicians. This overwhelms any complaint that the songs are too much on the popular side.

Levin and Elias produced all the tracks Mendez did not, and what a job they did with "Jammin'" -- It is really great! They convert it from slow-paced reggae to fast-paced jazz, as Eliane pounds down the rhythm and Randy Brecker blares out some blistering trumpet work. Eliane also does some fabulous soloing, and her overall keyboard work here is the high point of her performance on this CD. By contrast, "Oye Como Va" largely resembles the familiar Santana version in feel and execution. The shift that occurs is to more jazzy than popular, also well done.

Eliane's soft, sensual "Segredos," with its pulsating vibrations, is another highlight, a little better than her other solid original, the drifty, atmospheric penultimate track "Another Day," an introspective composition that is more on the popular side. Beck's 1990s Brazilian hit "Tropicalia" maintains the aura of sensuality with its sexy, bouncy swing. The two other Brazilian numbers and the old-line popular jazz "Save Your Love for Me" are by no means subpar entries. They are relatively more sparse musically, but carry that great rhythm of Brazil.

"Around the City" combines many different musical elements and styles. It has plenty of the most potent, musically sophisticated type of jazz, and when less high-powered, it is always pretty. It is never boring. Eliane once again tackled all the latest challenges with her excellent singing on all the tracks and versatile piano work. On top of that, I think "Around the City" has the most elaborate supporting music and production of all her CDs. "Dreamer" and "Kissed by Nature" were good for the pretty and sultry, but "Around the City" wins for the exotic.

This Cd is Excellent! Exhale, where do I begin....

It to me is a journey into the mind & emotion's of a musical genious. It display's level's of expression from happy, to saucy, exciting rythmic sensation, to just plain ole' classic sensual.

I can listen to it from beginning to end, enraptured in complete & utter melodic satisfaction.

At a gathering I had, my guest's were constantly asking me, who is that!!
~ ~
\_/

It has turned me into a (New) Eliane Elias fan, and
I have since seeked, and discovered more jewels in her lair!

If you enjoy journying into multipul levels of musical expression at it's best, then may I suggest you give this a listen....

Peace,
Cheriee

Jazz purists are apparently disappointed by the direction of this CD. I'm a big fan of Eliane Elias's jazz piano from way back. And this CD is absolutely incredible given the direction Eliane Elias chose to take. Since it's not pure jazz, purists are really just criticizing the CD for being the wrong genre. So do you want to believe reviews in which the genre is dismissed right away? They are merely reviewing the genre and not the music.

To perceive Eliane Elias from a merely "purist jazz" point of view is awfully limiting to someone of her vast talent and grossly unfair. Good music is good music and no one musical genre has the patent on quality. Should someone with her smooth, versatile vocal style sing only mainstream jazz standards? Come on !!

Many of these songs are originals by Eliane as well (most are co-written) and they reveal her genius as someone who literally can do it all: sing, play, write, produce and arrange. To do all that and to do so with such amazing results and consistency shows an incredible genius on her part.

My favorite is 'We're So Good' which to me is one of the freshest originals I've heard in years. 'Running' is a great song as well. And she still puts out some incredible piano solos. In that respect, this CD reminds me of the recent Herbie Hancock CD 'Possibilities' in which jazz and pop were somewhat brought together.

Ever since I heard her song Running on XM Radio, I have not been able to get it out of my head. This is one of those song that will be in my music collection for many years. Her voice and great music adds a great feel.