Customer Reviews

Queen of All Ears

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

6 stars! Listen to the remarkable "Yak" and "Monsters Over Bangkok". Rarely have I enjoyed an album so much the first listen; and as with any great record, it improves each time. "Queen of All Ears" takes elements of Mingus, Coltrane, Zappa, David Byrne, Sun Ra, Ornette Coleman, and David Murray [to name a few] and combines it all, into something as refreshing to me as an anisette & water at lunchtime in late July. [After all, there's plenty of dreck out there. This one, however, is a keeper.] If you like this album I might suggest: the Sun Ra Arkestra's "Jazz in Silhouette"; Medeski Martin & Wood's "It's a Jungle in Here"; Zappa's "Uncle Meat"; and Ornette Coleman's "The Shape of Jazz to Come". The Lounge Lizards take what's best about all these albums and make music that's chaotic, logical, funny, spontaneous, controlled, serious, and intelligent. It's full of contradictions, quirks, and irregularities, but there's also beauty, art, and understanding. Isn't that how life is? I recently saw them in concert here in NYC and it was quite a ride. Mr. Lurie has commanding stage presence and a great sense of the audience. What's better, he's a wacky guy. [You won't find better song titles.] As far as my humble opinion goes, this band is one of the few who carry the torch of the future of jazz, & the future of music. People are finding out about it.

This is the way jazz should sound. If you like this, you'll love Lurie's Voice of Chunk. The compositions are fascinating and Lurie knows how to swing. Listen to the soundtracks that he did for Get Shorty and Excess Baggage.

Wow. That's all I can. Wow. John Lurie and the musicians that he has surrounded himself with are visionaries taking jazz places that Mingus and Davis never knew existed but were always aiming for. Featuring perhaps the funniest and funnest song I've ever heard in "Yak," this has become my favorite album, of any genre. I don't know if the Lounge Lizards can top this, but I look forward to there next recording to see. Wow.

This album and Marvin Pontiac album are best works of John Lurie!

Te Lounge Lizard's lineup:

John Lurie (composer) - alto and soprano Sax
Evan Lurie - Piano, Organ
Ben Perowsky - Percussion
Calvin Weston - Drums
Erik Sanko - Bass
Jane Scarpantoni - Cello
David Tronzo - Slide Guitar
Steven Bernstein - Trumpet
Michael Blake - Clarinet, teno sax

This is an excellent disc I must say. And the name "fake jazz" that Lurie gives the lounge lizard's music goes pretty well with it. It is a strange hybrid where classical music meets jazz, resulting in quirky strange and beautiful music. The sound is more sober than previous Lounge Lizard albums. More refined, so to speak. It has lost the `punkish' edge to it, but this is definitely a good thing.
Every piece is relatively simple and thus, easy to digest. This means that for the adventurous ear this music is like a fine dessert; a sophisticated treat where everything is in its right place. Every element of the music is highlighted. Many pieces have a cinematic feel to them and in combination with the titles you get transported into other worlds, where beauty and humoristic irreverence reign.
Every musician gets a chance to shine, always retaining a firm anchor in each tune's structure, which means that everybody understands his or her role to perfection and therefore never going on aimless rants. The improvisations sound like the tightly-crafted orchestrations going liquid, or in some cases the deconstruction of the tune itself.
Highlights of the album:
1. Scary Children - Immediately jumps to attention. Lurie's work is great, but so is everybody else's. A dark piece that is light and colorful, you must here it to get it.
2. Monsters over Bangkok - Scarpantoni, Sanko and Bernstein make this shine. You can truly see the monsters over Bangkok.
3. John Zorn's S&M circus
Every piece is great, these three being in my opinion the highlights. Yak is great fun. On this tune Lurie goes off narrating a great story that highlights his particular sense of humor. This album is a gem.

Wholly unlike most nu-age jazz, Queen Of All Ears is very sinuous, twisting, evolving music. Its sly modulating rhythms and occasional wails are accompanied by African-sounding percussion and most importantly, a sense of humor (just listen to "Yak"). These guys don't take jazz too seriously. More like Medeski Martin and Wood than Michael Brecker. Great for late-night highway driving home from the bar - less successful as cocktail party background music. Give it a try.

Not that it isn't pretty astonishing in its own right, but the really neat thing about this is where Michael Blake has taken this music in his solo career.

Blake, with several albums to his credit under his own name, obviously got his basic approach and aesthetic from John Lurie. It's all here--the noirish, African-cum-Downtown sensibility, the insistence on the priority of atmosphere over vertuosity, the wild postmodern eclecticism; Blake simple takes it to the next level. With this recording and Voice of Chunk, John Lurie pioneered a provocative and productive approach for modern Jazz which musicians like Ben Allison and Michael Blake have brought to full fruition. Minus one star for the gratuitous cover art and commentary.