Public
GREG OSBY
Blue Note
It'll probably take a few decades for history to sort the important jazz figures of the '80s and '90s, but here's betting that Greg Osby will be one of them. The 44-year-old alto saxophonist was part of the influential M-Base Collective in New York and has gone on to establish his own voice and standing within the realm of improv-based music. Osby's new CD, Public, recorded live at the Jazz Standard without signal processing of any sort, is another jewel in his crown. The music has a clarity and immediacy that seems difficult to come by these days. The interplay within Osby's quartet (along with trumpet ace Nicholas Payton on four of the seven tracks) is remarkably intuitive. Osby excels at reconciling the order and melodicism of post-mainstream jazz and the more abstract freedom of the avant-garde. This talent is probably best heard in the group's roving remake of Gershwin's "Summertime"; they take liberties but serve up just enough of the classic tune's melody and spirit. The band also buffs up some bebop in the form of "Shaw Nuff," a Dizzy Gillespie nugget, and "Bernie's Tune," swinging fast and hard but relying on nothing typical. Osby's playing is refreshingly original. Familiarity is his foe; he cuts and pastes together vigorous mouthfuls of notes using neither the stock fluidity of a post-bopper nor the predictable squalls of the "out" players. His solos take odds turns and oblique twists, but hang together to make bold, unpredictable statements.
You never really know what's coming next out of Osby's horn — and that's a good thing. The album's only minor miscue comes in special guest category. Pop singer Joan Osborne sits in on "Lover Man" and delivers a competent, saloon-style reading that never seems to connect with the band. 
—ERIC SNIDER
Me First
THE ELECTED
Sub Pop
As one of Rilo Kiley's two singer-songwriters, Blake Sennett helps that band balance alt-country and poetic rock, creating one of the most engaging and original sounds in indiedom. With his side band, The Elected — whose four-piece lineup is augmented in the studio by a gaggle of multi-instrumental scenesters — he takes an entirely different tack, forgoing any and all jagged dynamic rock 'n' roll edges in favor of a quietly insinuating style. Me First is an enjoyable amalgam of acoustic guitars, pseudo-country, electro-pop and Beatles-lite orchestration, and while that may read like a recipe for a total mess, Sennett and company mostly pull it off. It is a mess, in a way; the occasional shadowy lyrical theme aside, listening to the disc is like getting caught in a cotton candy machine at a very hip county fair. But it's fun, too, and most of the time Me First adeptly juggles, juxtaposes and smooshes together a laundry list of obvious influences, from Elliott Smith, Beck and Gram Parsons to Dylan, good friends Bright Eyes (a few of whom make an appearance) and the aforementioned Fab Four. Unfortunately, the album's conspicuous airiness serves to keep it from achieving its full potential. Me First is a fun, light listen — even the more serious stuff — but it mostly comes off like a bunch of friends in the studio, intent on keeping things fun and light. The best songs ("Greetings in Braille" and the flawless closing trio of "A Response to Greed," "Don't Blow It," and "British Columbia") strive to make a real emotional connection and, to their credit, do so, amid a backdrop of insubstantiality. Don't get me wrong, the disc sounds great. But it also sounds like a trifle too often to transcend. 1/2
—Scott Harrell
Howling … It Grows and Grows!!!
THE CATHETERS
Sub Pop
An album back, young Seattle upstarts The Catheters were considered in some quarters to be heirs to Mudhoney's snide garage-rock throne. These days, however, they're just another loud-ass four-piece hacking their way through the jungle that lies between The MC5 and The Jon Spencer Blues Xplosion. Actually, they don't have to hack through it — they seem content to travel paths well worn over the last couple of years. You can say all of the standard things about Howling: that it's a fun romp, that it infuses punk rock with an angular updating of the blues, that the record damn near guarantees that the band absolutely tears the shit out of it live. All of which, of course, are very nice ways of saying that the record is an almost completely anonymous neo-garage rave-up, barely distinguishable from any number of its ilk. And that's the bottom line, despite The Catheters' interesting affinity for incorporating more atonal noise than most, and the fact that, weirdly, all of the even-numbered tracks on Howling are better than all of the odd-numbered ones. They probably do absolutely tear the shit out of it live, so go see 'em when they come to your town. Eleven or 12 bucks would be better spent on a ticket and two beers than on another solidly mediocre blues/garage/ retro/whatever album that you thought was gonna be different, somehow. 1/2
—Scott Harrell
Hard Again
I'm Ready
MUDDY WATERS
Epic/Legacy
The late '70s was not a good time for the blues. If '60s rock had dug a grave for America's premiere roots music, the disco "era" threatened to shovel dirt over its coffin. Yet here came Muddy Waters in 1977, 62 years old, a prime originator of Chicago blues, making a raunchy, pure album that gave no quarter to anything remotely pop. With winking double entendre, he called it Hard Again. Mercurial blues-rocker Johnny Winter produced the album in a big Connecticut studio, everyone in the same room, and tracked it live. Waters and Winters made history. Hard Again wasn't a hit by conventional measures, but it was a watershed; the LP caught on with aficionados, made many converts and certified that the blues would survive. Waters' swaggering bellow carries the music, but not without a passel of fabulous songs: "Mannish Boy," "I Can't Be Satisifed" and "Deep Down in Florida," to name a handful. The studio band is in raucous form, the instruments caroming off each other to make a thick sonic stew. Although Hard Again featured guitarists Winters and Waters' road sideman Bob Margolin (who contributes thoughtful liner notes to the reissue), this is not a showcase for six-string stunt work. Instead, the axe men punctuate the vocals with stinging fills and runs. A year later, the Waters-Winters team convened to the same studio to make I'm Ready, a companion piece that added the considerable guitar talents of Muddy's old sideman Jimmy Rogers. Although a triumph, it did not quite achieve the visceral punch of its predecessor. Together, these bookends can stand next to the Chess classics of the '50s and '60s. And the fact that the song "I'm Ready" is on a commercial for a certain sexual potency drug seems quite apropos.
Hard Again
I'm Ready 1/2
—ERIC SNIDER
This article appears in Jun 24-30, 2004.