Revolver: New Spin

Ann Dyer | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (March 14, 2000)
• Original Release Date: 2000
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Premonition (Emd)
• ASIN: B00004R982
• Also Available in: Audio CD
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #468,312 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. She Said She Said

2. Good Day Sunshine

3. Eleanor Rigby

4. For No One

5. Taxman

6. I'm Only Sleeping

7. Tomorrow Never Knows

8. Rain

9. I Want To Tell You

10. And Your Bird Can Sing

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Too Much of a New Spin?, April 4, 2000

By 

Supa Chief (Saratoga, California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Revolver: New Spin (Audio CD)

For all the talk of how ground breaking The Fab Four were, Beatles fans have become increasingly protective of Beatle music. It should come, then, as no surprise that this new album by Ann Dyer is going to take its lumps.

Revolver: A New Spin does not fall into the mould for usual jazz song book. It is not Kenny G musak, nor is it straight ahead Joshua Reman fairly standard readings of fairly standard songs, this is not even Cassandra Wilson (Re)Running The Voodoo down. Revolver: A New Spin is much more than all that, it is a very personal take on the Beatles' best music. It sounds nothing like the Beatles, instead hindustani influenced jazz vocals mix with electric and accoustic instruments, giving us the freshest take on Beatles music since... well, a very long time, I'm sure.

At it's most pop, songs like "Good Day Sunshine," and "And Your Bird Can Sing" sound as if they could have been played at Lilith Fair. At it's most daring, which would be pretty much every other track, the unorthedox instrumentation, and breezy, loose production compliment Ann's beautiful, edgy, droning, and whether you like her music or not, unique voicings producing truly psychedelic jazz.

I must admit that at first I was put off by such a daring approach to such sacred, (to some of us,) music. Where were the great Macca basslines? But after a second listening the music opened up for me, and I see this album as a real treasure.

I played New Spin for a friend the other day and he said that it sounded like something the late great Don Cherry would have played on ten years ago. If that last sentence means anything to you check this album out. If not, well your guess is as good as mine. I just had to write something, lest people would think that New Spin is really as wretched as the previous reviews said it is.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A new spin indeed!, April 3, 2000

By 

William (San Francisco) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Revolver: New Spin (Audio CD)

This spin on Revolver, the ground braking Beatles recording, is a new spin indeed! And why not, it sounded different then as a Beatle album, and sounds just as fresh now. Ann Dyer takes these tunes to new grounds, proof that well written music can be taken anywhere. Open your minds for these versions of Revolver classics.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Ann Dyer redoes the Beatles' "Revolver" as avant-garde jazz, November 28, 2003

By 

Lawrance M. Bernabo (The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Revolver: New Spin (Audio CD)

Ann Dyer was one of the hits of the 1994 Monterey Jazz Festival and this 1999 album that provides, as the title indicates, a new spin on the Beatles' classic "Revolver" album from 1966 was her second release. "Revolver: A New Spin" puts Dyer firmly in the new wave of jazz singers who mines rock and roll for songs to cover and are just as happy to do John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison songs as they are the classic popular songs of Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, and Cole Porter. The result is a scintillating fusion of rock and avant-garde jazz that should impress open-minded listeners of both jazz and the Fab Four. Dyer and her musicians make some bold choices, but for all of those who were less than inspired by the covers on the "I Am Sam" soundtrack, "Revolver: A New Spin" definitely represents the road not taken.

I was interested to learn that Dyer has studied Hindustani vocalizing because I mistook some of her efforts on songs like "Tomorrow Never Knows" as reflecting the Eastern influences that Harrison was starting to bring to the Beatles at that time. I found myself enjoying the longer tracks, such as the moody "Eleanor Rigby," which now has some tango elements, and runs almost nine minutes long. If those tracks prove too be too much, then something amidst the slowed down "She Said, She Said," the rather simple funk of "Good Day, Sunshine," the cabaret feel of "For No One," and/or the avant-garde version of "Taxman" might be more to your tastes. You just have to be open to the idea of reinterpretation, which is certainly central to the idea of jazz.