Dave Alvin and the Guilty Women
Yep Roc

2008 was a difficult year for Dave Alvin, personally and as a musician:  His best friend of decades and a steady member, much of the time, in his band, The Guilty Men, accordion player Chris Gaffney died in April. It was a time for retreat and a time to heal. Along that new path, Alvin found himself fronting a band of “guilty women” — mostly Austin and Northern California-based players — during the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in San Francisco in October 2008.  The set they played was a stunner (and should be sought out online, as it’s floating around); it also resulted in this fine new release, as Alvin went into the studio with Cindy Cashdollar, Nina Gerber, Laurie Lewis, Sarah Brown, Amy Farris, Christy McWilson and Lisa Pankrantz, along with special guests that include Marcia Ball and Susie Thompson. From duets with McWilson (as well as her taking some solo turns on her own songs) plus Farris’ feisty and compelling fiddle and Cashdollar’s pedal steel work, this is one heckuva “new band” debut. Among the highlights are a winning sounds-new-all-over-again Cajun take on Alvin’s own “Marie Marie” (written back in his Blaster’s days in the early ’80s and one of that band’s signature songs), with a nod to the Beausoleil version years back; the blues-dipped “Callfornia Burning,” which is not about the state’s wildfires but its economic troubles; the poignant “Downey Girl” about Karen Carpenter (she and Alvin went to the same high school, though some years apart); and the jumping swing of “Boss of the Blues,” remembering treks to Central Avenue for R&B as a teen with his older brother, catching Big Joe Turner himself on stage. There’s also a wonderful duet cover of Tim Hardin’s “Don’t Make Promises” and an upbeat closer touched by the bittersweet “Que Sera, Sera” — yes, the Doris Day signature song.  While one hopes Alvin will re-form the Guilty Men in some way down the road, he’s found another highway home with the Guilty Women, and you oughta to hitch a ride too.

Elvis Costello
Secret, Profane and Sugarcane
Hear Music

Let’s hear it for Hear Music. Paul McCartney, John Fogerty, John Mellencamp and Elvis Costello — all on the label. Doesn’t matter if they don’t sell as many of this year’s chartbusters as those flavors of the season who won’t be remembered a decade from now.  The aforementioned gentlemen have carved out their musical histories. The man born Declan Patrick MacManus goes all-out Americana on this set, produced by his friend T Bone Burnett.  Yes, Elvis Costello took a country turn decades ago with Almost Blue and King of America (also produced by Burnett) and flirted with some distinctly American sounds. Recorded during a three-day session in Nashville, the line-up includes some stellar studio (and tour) players, also longtime Burnett compadres such as Jerry Douglas on dobro and Stuart Duncan on fiddle, among others. It’s bluegrass-folk Costello really, on songs such as “Sulphur to Sugarcane” and “The Crooked Line,”  co-written with T Bone Burnett, and “I Felt The Chill” written with legendary Loretta Lynn. There are also songs first written for Johnny Cash, including “Hidden Shame.” Several selections are steeped in history, including “She Was No Good,” about 19th century toast-of-the-globe Jenny Lind (an obsession of Danish fable-spinner Hans Christian Andersen). The album closes with a cover waltz, “Changing Partners,” music by Larry Coleman and lyrics by Joe Dariona — a hit for Bing Crosby in early 1954.  It’s an off-center closer that manages to fit right in on a low-key yet enrapturing album that’s not typical Costello, but then again, despite returns to his heated core beginnings at times, he’s never done anything typical…and that’s part of what makes him great.

John Mellencamp
Life, Death, Live and Freedom
Hear Music

This eight-track EP features concert recordings of John Mellencamp’s songs from his 2008  release, Life, Death, Love and Freedom. While some of the interpretations vary from the the studio recordings, there’s still a question of why.  This would’ve been great as a teaser download collection on iTunes, Amazon, eMusic, etcetera, but as a stand-alone CD…well, a two-disc live set featuring material from the new album and songs spanning Mellencamp’s 30-year-plus career would’ve been much more appealing and also would’ve made more sense for his new label (not to mention wouldn’t have cost that much more to put together, no? All this said, some of the renditions range from the rye, backporch and bluesy “Don’t Need This Body” to the darkly and compelling race tale of “Jena” and hopeful “My Sweet Love.”

Jazz reissues from a label true to its name:

Clifford Brown/Sonny Rollins/Max Roach Quintet
Complete Studio Recordings
Essential Jazz Classics

This disc features two superb jazz albums on one CD: Clifford Brown and Max Roach at Basin Street and Sonny Rollins Plus Four. Those albums were great individually, and even better combined here.  The combo cooks on “Gertrude’s Bounce,” swings lightly with “Step Lightly (Junior’s Arrival),” takes off on “I’ll Remember April,” delivers percolating and smoking takes of  ”What Is This Thing Called Love” and “Love Is A Many-Splendored Thing,” while “Count Your Blessing” is jazz romance as sweet make-out music. Brown died in a car accident just months after the sessions, unfortunately for all of us. Forget the likes of so-called “Smooth Jazz” or worse — the elevator music that’s “Quiet Storm.”  From BeBop to cool, THIS is jazz.

Art Tatum/Ben Webster
The Album
Essential Jazz Classics

Valued as one of the 100 greatest jazz albums ever, this release features pianist Art Tatum’s last studio sessions before his death. This edition offers the original Art Tatum/Ben Webster Quartet album, then adds Tatum solo recordings as well. Plenty of standards here, getting the smokey and alluring club environs treatment, including “All the Things You Are,” “Night and Day,” “Where or When,” and “My All and Only Love.”  This was Tatum and Webster’s only collaboration, despite their long careers, and it’s a wonder for that magic captured at the time.

Red Garland
The 1956 Trio
Essential Jazz Classics

Collecting all trio studio recordings made by pianist Garland the title’s year, featuring bassist Paul Chambers and and drummer Art Taylor, the completed A Garland of Red LP includes standards such as “My Romance” and “What Is This Thing Called Love.” It’s presented here along with a session from December of that year, whose tracks would later be scattered on other releases, as well as a trio tune culled from Garland’s time with Miles Davis on Prestige,  ”Ahmad’s Blues,” with stickman Philly Joe Jones on the drums.