OT: Bill Mallonee review in the Washington Post

[DBloom5386@aol.com]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59234-2004Feb20.html

POP MUSIC 

Saturday, February 21, 2004; Page C05 


Billy Taylor 

Keyed to Black History Month, pianist Billy Taylor's concert at the Kennedy Center's Terrace Theater on Thursday night drew from his "Peaceful Warrior" suite, a work inspired by a day he spent in the company of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Jackie Robinson prior to the March on Washington in 1963. The intimately arranged homage found Taylor closely collaborating with bassist Chip Jackson and drummer Winard Harper, his longtime trio mates, while deftly harmonizing three simple themes radiating pride, compassion and determination. 

  
  
Now 82 and still a vibrant force at the keyboard, Taylor also paid tribute to Art Tatum, his principal piano influence, with a melodically ornate and harmonically ringing reprise of "The Man I Love." The novel arrangement, with the strictly left-hand-propelled choruses that open it, was designed to illustrate how Taylor developed his technique by modeling himself after Tatum. But as Taylor's take on the Gershwin tune grew more complex -- dotted with baroque twists and turns -- it also revealed how well the pianist has managed to overcome the minor stroke he suffered a few years ago. 

Most of the music was composed by Taylor, including two pieces that placed the spotlight on his colleagues with delightful results. "Conversion" was animated by Jackson's uncommonly robust tone and his colorful vocabulary of single-note slides, resounding double stops and strummed flourishes. "Titoro," on the other hand, allowed Harper to demonstrate his gift for contrasting full-kit power surges with low-key dynamics and a cheerful array of accents. 

-- Mike Joyce 

Earl Scruggs 

Even at 80, Earl Scruggs must send other banjo pickers looking for a new instrument. Struggling banjoists everywhere have to feel a bit demoralized to see him play with such preternatural ease and such magnificent results. Watching him perform at the Birchmere Thursday night, it seemed likely that he hasn't let a day pass without picking up the instrument and playing for the pure joy of it. 

As legends go, Scruggs is an unassuming one. He may be responsible for two of the most famous bluegrass songs ever -- "The Ballad of Jed Clampett," from "The Beverly Hillbillies" television show, and "Foggy Mountain Breakdown," from the movie "Bonnie and Clyde" -- but he lets his amazingly nimble fingers do his talking. In fact, the only thing he said to the sellout crowd was that he wanted to dedicate a song to the parents of country music deejay Eddie Stubbs, who were in the audience. 

Unlike other bluegrass traditionalists, Scruggs has always been open to experimenting with other styles of music and giving a down-home flavor to rock classics. So it wasn't surprising at this show to hear him lead his superb band through not only standards such as "Salty Dog" and "In the Pines," but also Bob Dylan's "You Ain't Going Nowhere" and the Beatles' "Lady Madonna." The latter, Scruggs's son Randy quipped, was an "old traditional tune by the Lennon-McCartney brothers." 

Randy and others in the band handled all of the singing duties, while the elder Scruggs was content to pick and smile and impress listeners with how simple he made it all seem. And if a dozen pickers in the crowd went home and started practicing piano, well, who can blame them? 

-- Joe Heim 

Richie Havens 

It would not be surprising to hear that a team of environmental scientists is at work on harnessing the power of Richie Havens's right hand as a renewable energy source. 

Havens, who appeared at the Barns of Wolf Trap on Thursday, strums as if strumming could save the world. This high-speed chugging -- as folk as folk can be without teetering over into flamenco -- backs the lyrics he delivers, often at a slow and measured pace, in that enduring, resonant voice. He's touring with guitarist Walter Parks, whose evocative strings of notes formed a sweet counterpoint to Havens's own playing. 

If you haven't caught a Havens show since the '60s -- Havens, in fact, quipped that he'd been on this tour since December 1967 -- you'd still have felt right at home at the Barns, where the loquacious, ZZ Top-bearded troubadour talked, and sang, and talked some more: boomers, good ("My generation is the best-looking generation in the world!"); war, bad (a sermon to the converted before Bruce Cockburn's "Lives in the Balance"); gettin' along, best of all ("We are all here together on this planet, like it or not.") But some things have changed. After he rendered Quicksilver Messenger Service's "What About Me" -- requested, he said, by a 12-year-old via e-mail -- his plectrum was rendered as well. "My pick basically disintegrated," he lamented. "They don't make 'em like they used to." 

-- Pamela Murray Winters 

Bill Mallonee 

When Bill Mallonee says he's going to play some new songs, he doesn't mean tunes from his latest album. He means songs he wrote last week. 

Startlingly prolific and criminally under-appreciated, the Athens, Ga., singer-songwriter has issued nearly 20 albums over the past 15 years, as leader of the rock combo Vigilantes of Love and as a solo artist. Thursday night at Jammin' Java, Mallonee was in alt-country troubadour mode, performing mostly acoustically in tandem with former Vigilante Jake Bradley, spinning through a typically inspiring set peppered with those ever-flowing new songs. 

Since he parted with the Vigilantes of Love sometime around 2002, Mallonee has issued three solo albums -- he's got another scheduled for release in May -- and he drew material such as "Life on Other Planets," "Table for Two" and "Sweetness and Light" from that trio of discs. The tunes brimmed with vibrant lyrical passages and sprightly hooks, always underpinned with a strong spirituality. 

With Bradley's acoustic guitar ringing resolutely behind him, Mallonee unhitched a batch of new songs, which provided some of the 90-minute set's best moments. "High and Lonesome" turned on a hook that Ryan Adams would kill for, "The Kids Are on Drugs" was simultaneously wistful and sweeping and "Chameleon Me" did a slow burn around what sounded like a great, lost early R.E.M. riff. 

Mallonee is a singer and songwriter of great skill and passion. And despite having flown beneath the radar for years while less talented contemporaries have broadened their success, he remains amazingly unfazed, diligently writing songs toward some higher goal. 

-- Patrick Foster 

 
 

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