Week of Jan. 6: This week, a new song from Michael Stipe, an old Joni Mitchell protest song reappears, and Kassa Overall’s new mix of jazz and hip-hop.
PREMIERE: Sasha Dobson Uncovers The Sad Heart Of Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi”
As a kid, I never thought of Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi” as a protest song. It seemed a wry but good-natured tweak of the increasing consumerism of early 1970s America. But the breezy pop of the original has now been replaced with the spare melancholy of Sasha Dobson’s cover. Dobson is part of the Americana trio Puss N Boots, along with Norah Jones and Catherine Popper. Her version, from the forthcoming album called Stop, Hey What’s That Sound: Classic Protest Songs Reinvented, does away with most of the musical accompaniment, starting with the pastoral sounds of birds and a rushing stream. Dobson delivers Mitchell’s melody as a slow croon; and when, at the end, a jackhammer intrudes on the bucolic background, Mitchell’s famed lyric “you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone” hits just a little harder.
The album, which also includes Dawn Landes’s version of “For What It’s Worth” and Ryan Miller of Guster doing Curtis Mayfield’s “People Get Ready,” comes out on January 31.
Michael Stipe Marks His 60th Birthday With A New Benefit Single
Saturday was REM frontman Michael Stipe’s 60th birthday, and he celebrated the occasion with a decidedly un-celebratory new single called “Drive To The Ocean.” Like his earlier solo release, “Your Capricious Soul,” which came out this fall, it’s a benefit song. That earlier tune was a benefit for Extinction Rebellion; this one is for Pathway to Paris – the organization founded by Jesse Paris Smith and Rebecca Foon (who also records as Saltland) which aims to bring artists, politicians, tech innovators, etc. together to help the world achieve the climate-based goals of the Paris Agreement. “Drive To The Ocean” is a somber ballad, with tolling piano chords, and a quiet chorus of voices surrounding Stipe’s own. A barking, distorted guitar sound adds an unsettled quality to lyrics that eventually settle on a favorite image that has recurred in Stipe’s writing: radio.
I Think I’m Good: Kassa Overall Fuses Jazz and Hip Hop
Drummer Kassa Overall has had steady work as a jazz musician, but as he showed on last year’s album Go Get Ice Cream and Listen to Jazz, he is also interested in hip hop production (and interesting album titles). Now he’s releasing his next LP, called I Think I’m Good, in which he shows off all of his musical talents: drumming, rapping, singing, and producing. Overall refers to himself as a “backpack jazz producer,” using a small, portable studio setup that gives the album an intimate feel even as the songs take on big ideas and layers of sound. The release date is Friday, but this song is available now; it’s called “I Know You See Me,” featuring producer J Hoard and singer/flutist Melanie Charles. In the space of just over three minutes, this tune offers a sturdy hip hop beat; Overall rapping, singing, and perhaps moaning at the start; references to Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s “This Train”; and what sound like jazzy woodwind samples and pitch-shifted voices. One of the topics Overall addresses in his songs is his own experience with mental illness, which perhaps is where the album title comes from. On this song, the standout lyric is this one: “I only feel right when I write what I feel.”
Jonah Parzen-Johnson Extends The Sound Of The Sax With Electronics
Brooklyn-based sax player and electronic musician Jonah Parzen-Johnson has spent the past seven years developing a distinctive sonic palette, one that combines the baritone sax with a self-designed assemblage of hardware and electronics. His forthcoming album is called Imagine Giving Up, and “Up” is the name of the track he’s just released. The sound on this new album is even richer and more surprising than his last couple of LPs, in part because of the “extended techniques” (like playing audible overtones or using circular breathing), but also because he has apparently sampled and post-produced the sounds of his own horn, mixing them in with the other electronic textures. “Up” has an almost cinematic sound, with a creeping pulse under a recurring three-beat rhythm (that eventually expands into something almost like a bolero), and Parzen-Johnson’s sax keening over the top.
Imagine Giving Up comes out on January 17; Jonah plays at Nublu 151 on February 12.
President Obama Releases His 2019 Music Playlist
I miss President Obama. That’s not a political statement – it’s a musical one. Remember when our President would listen to music? And just like most of us, feel the urge to share his favorites with everyone? Well, last week, Obama released a list of his favorite songs of 2019, and typically, it ranges from some of the year’s biggest pop hits (Lil Nas X’s “Old Time Road”; Lizzo’s “Juice”) to hip-hop, rock, country and soul. Some of the artists have appeared on earlier Obama playlists, like Bruce Springsteen, Beyonce, and The National. But the new one shows our 44th president still listening to emerging artists: Adia Victoria’s gothic blues and the Latinx pop of Angelica Garcia (whose prior album was also deeply rooted in blues-rock) both made the list. Singer/rappers from Nigeria (Burna Boy) and Jamaica (Koffee) add to the set’s international appeal. Regular readers of these Weekly Music Roundups will see some familiar material in the Obama playlist, but there’s lots to discover as well, and the whole thing is available as a Spotify playlist.