MUSIC FOR LIVING: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Dave Douglas & Keystone, Grace Potter & the Nocturnals, Red Horse, The New Pornographers, Vijay Iyer

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Mojo
Reprise

There is virtually no sound on this album that couldn’t have been recorded in the early 1970s, and by that I mean both musically and instrumentally—the liner notes even include the guitars used by the musicians, all of which are vintage sixties models. Musically speaking, Tom Petty returns to his roots on this album, his first studio effort in nearly a decade, shedding any hint of the pop-rock sheen that began to envelop his sound in the late 1980s and ’90s in favor of raw blues, soul, and jam-filled roots-rock. As a result, Petty has come up with his best collection of songs since he first made a splash in the mid-’70s, on an album that would sound totally comfortable being played in rotation with the likes of 1970s Eric Clapton, Traffic, the Allman Brothers, and Neil Young, especially with guitarist Mike Campbell’s highly stylized lead playing. You probably thought they didn’t make records like this anymore; until now, you were right.

Dave Douglas & Keystone
Spark of Being
Greenleaf Music

Available as three separate CDs or as a box set, Spark of Being is ostensibly a soundtrack to the Bill Morrison film of the same name (one CD is subtitled Soundtrack and adheres to the film; the other two are Expand, featuring more free play and improvisation; and Burst, comprised of additional material that didn’t make it onto Soundtrack and Expand). And indeed, much of the music is clearly inspired by Morrison’s new take on the Frankenstein legend (using new, archival, and distressed film footage), with even some occasional creature-like sounds, courtesy of electronica artist DJ Olive, who lends a hand to trumpeter-composer Dave Douglas, along with a masterful lineup of jazz talents including saxophonist Marcus Strickland, keyboardist Adam Benjamin, bassist Brad Jones, and drummer Gene Lake. Douglas is a visionary composer and a virtuoso jazz trumpeter, and at the improvisational heights of this project the group sounds like a twenty-first-century version of Miles Davis’s best fusion groups after they’ve chilled out in the ambient tent.

Grace Potter & the Nocturnals
Grace Potter & the Nocturnals
Hollywood

On her group’s third recording, Grace Potter gets down and dirty on sexier, harder-rocking numbers forefronting lead guitarist Scott Tournet’s vintage Bad Company-style riffage and the Led Zeppelin-like bombast of the rhythm section from bassist Catherine Popper and drummer Matt Burr. Potter swaggers like a cross between Tina Turner and Janis Joplin on bluesy rockers like “Medicine” and purrs soulfully on mid-tempo rockers and ballads including “Oasis” and the Hammond B-3 organ-laced “Tiny Light,” which hints at Stevie Nicks- and Sheryl Crow-style pop-rock. Producer Mark Batson (Dr. Dre, Jay-Z, Dave Matthews Band) was clearly brought on board by Hollywood Records to mold Potter into a hitmaker, and he just may have succeeded.

Red Horse
Red Horse
Red House

While the new-folk movement has spawned some terrific singer-songwriters—three of the best of whom are represented here in this new-folk supergroup—it has sometimes encouraged a solipsism that ignores the joys inherent in hearing musicians sing and play together. That sort of sharing and harmonizing always brings out aspects of performers’ personalities that otherwise are less obvious or even dormant. (Would Peter Yarrow, Mary Travers, or Noel “Paul” Stookey have been as musically or commercially successful as a solo act?) Thus Eliza Gilkyson, Lucy Kaplansky, and John Gorka join forces here on a dozen songs, mostly originals, sometimes sung not by the songwriter, plus the traditional “Wayfaring Stranger”—a nod to an earlier folk supergroup effort of that name, of which Kaplansky was a member. Highlights include Gorka’s version of Kaplansky’s “Don’t Mind Me,” Kaplansky’s version of Gorka’s “Blue Chalk,” and Gilkyson’s rendition of Neil Young’s “I Am a Child.”

The New Pornographers
Together
Matador

On its fifth album, this Canadian supergroup has come up with an exuberantly infectious collection of new pop-rock gems that play like a K-Tel collection of seventies hits. I mean that in the best possible way. These radio-ready productions, full of gleeful Fleetwood Mac-like group harmonies, various lead singers, and eclectic song styles, have the feel of vintage classics right out of the gate. Highlights include the song “Moves,” whose string arrangements and psychedelic bridge recall the Beatles by way of, perhaps, the Move (or its reincarnation as Electric Light Orchestra). Vocalist Neko Case plays front and center on much of Together, but the talent here abounds, and it’s a dizzying, joyful group effort that boasts the best song title of the year: “Valkyrie in the Roller Disco.”

Vijay Iyer
Solo
ACT Music
 
Let’s face it: there are few piano players who really have enough to say to fill an hour on an album or in a concert of improvisational music. Keith Jarrett, Chick Corea, and Cecil Taylor come to mind, of course, and now we can add thirty-nine-year-old Vijay Iyer to the list on the basis of his aptly titled Solo, featuring eleven tracks, half of which are originals and the other half jazz classics by the likes of Thelonious Monk, Duke Ellington, and Steve Coleman. That, and a rendition of “Human Nature”—yes, the Michael Jackson tune by Steve Porcaro and John Bettis—which Iyer turns into a gorgeous elegy for the deceased pop star. But really, it’s Iyer’s virtuosity—his utter command and confidence as he addresses the keyboard on well-known numbers like “Epistrophy” or his own “Patterns”—that grabs a listener’s attention and doesn’t let go. Iyer seemingly approaches each number as a journey, and he takes us along to places we’ve never seen or even dreamed of as he delights and entertains.