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Superheroes Jive Talkin' Robots (Self-released) Of related interest: Medeski, Martin and Wood; Galactic; Rockin' Teenage Combo Phat Sidy Smokehouse, Zuba, Jive Talkin' Robots Crystal Ballroom 1332 W Burnside St., 778-5625 9 pm Thursday, Feb. 18 $8 Despite the widely held belief that funk should be as tight as a rubber band stretched around Bootsy Collins' head, it's actually best when played fast and loose. This is true of jazz as well--excessive restraint is rarely a good thing in improvised music--and the Jive Talkin' Robots, a local five-piece act, show they know this well on their latest release. Instead of locking into a simple groove, the Robots shoot their flubbery jazz-funk in all directions. Organs and guitars bounce off the ceiling. Saxophone solos glom onto a melody and ooze away again. Globs of bass wiggle and slip under, around and back on top of the constantly leaping beat. It could become an awful mess, this gelatinous jazz pudding, but the Robots' frenzied dexterity is akin to a master chef in spasms of ecstasy: You see the hands moving and though you fear the worst, what finally slides off the skillet is easy to swallow. Julia Child ain't nothin'. The Jive Talkin' Robots could out-cook her ass in a second. John Graham Lucrezia Vizzana: Componimenti Musicali Musica Secreta with Catherine King (Linn Records) Of related interest: Hildegard von Bingen, the Anonymous 4 The life of Lucrezia Vizzana, a 17th-century Bolognese nun, makes a tantalizing story: Sent to a convent at age 8, as a young woman she wrote compositions culminating in the Componimenti Musicali of 1623. She then fell silent musically (there is no evidence of any compositions from her last 40 years) and went insane after protracted struggles with church authorities shook the convent; a fellow nun wrote that the conflict erupted because of music. The motets (polyphonic songs) in this collection are interesting examples of the early Italian baroque (think Monteverdi). Scored for one to four voices and continuo, many of them are psalm settings while others are ecstatic devotions (e.g., "I love Christ, whose bedchamber I shall enter"). Catherine King and the voices of Musica Secreta (Deborah Roberts, Tessa Bonner and Mary Nichols) come well recommended, having sung with such ensembles as the Tallis Scholars and Gothic Voices. They bring their limpid English style to carefully wrought performances that are excellent overall, though their approach to certain acrobatic passages is not uniformly agile. The Vizzana disc is the second for the group, which is dedicated to early music written and performed by women, specifically nuns. They will find a wide audience--even if many of their listeners are, like the people behind the Gregorian chant and Hildegard craze, only looking for millennial mood music. James McQuillen Éthiopiques Vol. 5: Tigrigna Music, 1970-75 Various artists (Buda) Of related interest: Charlie Patton, Blind Willie McTell, Big Bill Broonzy 1972. Some say it was the greatest year in music. And if you use black American music as your sole evidence, it's not a hard point to prove. Funkadelic tripped out on "Free Your Mind and Your Ass Will Follow," Rahsaan Roland Kirk's Blacknuss beautifully mixed jazz with soul and pop, and James Brown was in funky form. But America wasn't the only place generating intense black music: Ethiopia was also swingin'. After experiencing a cultural explosion in the '60s (along with the rest of the world), Ethiopian cities like Addis Ababa and Asmara fostered a vibrant music scene. Influenced equally by American radio heard on military bases and their own traditions, local musicians created a striking hybrid. Electric guitars shimmered alongside the plucks of the krar, an Ethiopian harp. Soul-styled horn bands accompanied vocalists who wailed as if singing the Islamic call to prayer. Now five volumes into its commitment to making rare music widely available for the first time, the superb French world-music label Buda gives us the opportunity to check it out. These bands play music like you've never heard, but because of the cyclical nature of culture (African music influences American blues, which influences Ethiopian pop), it all sounds strangely familiar. Jeff Fuccillo - - - - - - - - - - - -
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