Chip Taylor & Carrie Rodriguez - The New Bye & Bye

Chip Taylor & Carrie Rodriguez - The New Bye & Bye

2010, Train Wreck Records

It was a fated meeting at SXSW in 2002 that brought Carrie Rodriguez and Chip Taylor together.  From 2003 through 2005 the duo put out three critically acclaimed albums on Taylor's Train Wreck Records and toured the world together.  In that time Rodriguez blossomed as a singer and solo performer, and Chip Taylor found his passion for songwriting and recording reborn.  In 2006 the duo parted ways to pursue their own interests, with Rodriguez going on to become a successful recording artist in her own right and Taylor reclaiming his mantle as a legend-in-waiting of Americana music.  On October 12, 2010, Train Wreck Records will release The New Bye & Bye - The Best of The Train Wreck Records 2002 - 2007, featuring 13 tracks from past releases and four new songs.

The New Bye & Bye really isn't an album you analyze but one you let wash over you.  Taylor & Rodriguez don't so much tell stories as create moments for the listener to experience, the sort that usually might only be found on a back porch on a Texas summer night (with gracious nods to Appalachian folk).  Highlights include "Your Name Is On My Lips", a mournful love song with a sense that the narrator has been here many times before.  The song is full of sorrow without a sense of being overdone.  Rodriguez chips in on vocals but it's here violin in the break that highlights the sorrow as if interpreting the heart of it all.  "The New Bye & Bye" is a fight in song, with Rodriguez spitting fire while Taylor plays the placating miscreant in an old-school country musical play.  "Don't Speak In English" is the utter highlight of the disc; a tune about breaking out of the ordinary where such is made unimaginable by life circumstance.  The mix of toughness and vulnerability here is stunning, and Taylor and Rodriguez both run with it.  "All The Rain" is a rambunctious turn, the best instrumental work on the album and a highly danceable number you won't soon get out of your noggin.

The New Bye & Bye features two live versions of Taylor classics.  "Angel Of The Morning" is done in the same vocal split employed throughout the album, with Taylor slightly in the lead.  While this may be appropriate considering Taylor wrote the song, Carrie Rodriguez lights up the stage in the moments when she's alone at the mic.  This would have been one time to allow here to have the whole stage.  "Wild Thing" is offered up here in a low-key version that paints the song in a very brush than the version made famous by The Troggs.  Taylor sings it like a love song sung by someone whose been beaten around by life.  The context illuminates aspects of the song you might not have before considered.  The two live tracks are performed by an all-star band that includes Taylor, Rodriguez, pedal steel master Greg Leisz (Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, Joni Mitchell), Bill Frisell and Buddy Miller.  The album closes with a reprise of "The New Bye & Bye", an apt closer.

If your taste in music runs to the roots of country, rock and folk as played on back porches across post-frontier frontier then you need to be listening to Chip Taylor and Carrie Rodriguez.  The New Bye & Bye is a great place to start, offering the best work of their years together and some nice new surprises.  Taylor and Rodriguez are very capable of making magic on their own.  Together they combine those collective talents with the sort of chemistry you can't buy or force.  The New Bye & Bye is essential listening.

Rating: 4 Stars (Out of 5)

Learn more about Chip Taylor and Carrie Rodriguez at http://www.chiptaylor.com/,  http://www.carrierodriguez.com/ or  Train Wreck Records.  The New Bye & Bye drops on October 12, 2010.  Pre-orders of the CD are available from Train Wreck Records and Amazon.com.  A digital version is available via iTunes.

Review: SE Kim Trio - Moment

SE Kim Trio – Moment
2009, SE Kim

SE, Kim is a graduate of The Berklee School Music with a Masters in Jazz Performance from NYU's Tisch School. He is a regular performer on the greater Metropolitan New York Jazz scene, performing at venues such as The Blue Note, the Plaza Hotel and The Desmond Tutu Center. Kim has played or worked with the likes of John Scofield, Joe Lovano, Kenny Werner and George Garzone. His style of play is mellow jazz, with guitar tendencies not too distant from folks like Scofield, Pat Metheny and occasionally even Bill Frisell. His band, the Se Kim Trio, recently released their debut CD, Moment. Let's check it out!

Moment opens with 150, a mellow jazz guitar journey nearly eight minutes in length. Se Kim plays with mild distortion and a congenial demeanor that shines through his music. Listeners might almost divine that Kim isn't so much as writing or playing on 150 as he is channeling some vital musical communication from the universe. Kim crosses over from his mellow, almost supper-club jazz stylings during longer compositions to try out experimental and acid jazz detours, but generally returns to the more genteel styles before closing out each song. Hope You Know sticks a bit closer to a classic mellow jazz sound.

Night Light has a very active melody line for this tempo. Listeners who've yet to notice might realize here how ever-present Kim's guitar is on his trio's recordings. The guitar is always the primary voice in each phrase of each song, with drums and bass relegated to providing a framework for Kim's noodling. While Kim is very accomplished as a jazz guitarist, it would be nice to hear the other instruments take center stage once in a while, even if it's just to change things up a bit. Maybe It's Better This Way returns to the supper-club sound with a Latin Jazz twist in one of the most melodically pleasant songs on the disc.

West 4th captures the spirit of Greenwich Village perfectly in song. There's a funky "different drummer" feel to this composition that's distinctive compared to the rest of the album. You Are Free To Go ranges a bit more towards a pop sound, with Kim sounding a bit like Eric Johnson stylistically (if Johnson played Jazz). Direction sounds like a song that was perhaps written with a vocal in mind. It's more of a musical frame than a full composition where the melody is implied rather than expressed. The Se Kim Trio closes out with Jam, a musical daydream that noodles along at unexpected and unpredictable lengths.

Se Kim is a highly talented musician with a great ear for melody. I think he tries to do too much on Moment. Kim's guitar is always front and center, turning the trio into a soloist with two backup musicians. The guitar and bass here are more than competent, and with a bit more range in their roles could add significant creative tension and release into the process for SE Kim. Kim is good enough to avoid this most of the time, but there is a tendency to drone on at times for the need to fill space with sound. The interplay of equal roles between musical voices can turn a good album into a great one; a great one into a legend. From a writing standpoint Kim certainly has a gift, and he didn't get through Berklee and NYU as a performer without a certain level of talent, but the ability to share the spotlight will turn Kim into a great songwriter and performer. For now, Moment is a strong listen.

Rating: 3.5 Stars (Out of 5)

You can learn more about SE Kim and the SE Kim Trio at www.myspace.com/sekimguitar. You can purchase a copy of Moment at www.cdbaby.com/sekim or download the album through iTunes.