TODAY is a CD full of surprises
which should come as no surprise at all. Raul Malo sat at the
helm of The Mavericks during their rise and fall as one of
country music's premier groups, and arguably engineered both
their ascendency and descendency, edging the band's music away
from its baseline country rock sound and toward more
salsa-oriented rhythms. It should come as no surprise then, that
TODAY, Malo's solo debut, should be closer to Havana than
Nashville, closer to David Byrne than David Ball.
Malo, freed from the democratic constraints of functioning in a
band, slips the tethers with a joy that is evident from the
opening title track. His exuberance is communicated by the
topnotch production on this work, resulting in music which
threatens to burst out of whatever sound system you happen to be
listening to, being too large for such physical constraints. It
is, in that way, reminiscent of Cosimo Matassa's production of
Little Richard in the mid-1950s, which resulted in a handful of
recordings which still make the listener feel as if The Georgia
Peach is trapped within their speaker boxes attempting to sing
and shout his way out. Malo's influences, however, are not
gospel, but rather the sound of carnival and calypso.
It is, I think, no accident that Malo chose a label well known
for its jazz offerings for the release of TODAY. If there is one
message here it is that this ain't your brother's Mavericks' LP.
The majority of this CD, from "Today" to "Every
Little Thing' (not the Beatle tune) to "It Takes Two To
Tango" is firmly rooted in the Latin jazz stylings of
Havana; over a third of tracks are sung, either wholly or in
part, in Spanish, while covering the gamut of styles of that
music from traditional flamenco to dance to ballads. While
"Are We Almost There" and "Since When" might
not have been out of place on (later) Mavericks CDs, "Since
Then" certainly would not have been out of place on a
cocktail jazz compilation, either. There is a plethora of
musical influences here; the only ones missing are the ones in
which Malo made his mark, those being country and (arguably)
rock.
The only way to accurately judge this CD, given Malo's strong
identification with country, is to apply what I call the Steve
Jones test, which is, if this were a CD by Steve Jones, would
you think it was any good? Well, you bet! The production we've
already covered. Malo's voice, as always, is in fine form,
fitting quite nicely into that little niche between perfect and
very good. The players on this bad boy are all top notch and
know the genres which Malo slides into and out of so
effortlessly. And the material is simply perfect; there isn't
any way around it. It sounds as if Malo has been writing and
performing it all of his life, which, in all probability, he
has; he simply hasn't released any of it until now.
You're probably not going to hear any of TODAY on your local
country station. You may not hear it on ANY station, given the
confusion program directors sometimes exhibit when an artist
does not conform to their preconceived image an A & R guy
tried so hard to establish. But TODAY is worth taking a chance
on. This is a talented, and gutsy effort by an established
artist whose career amy be just beginning.
|
| Artist |
Raul Malo |
| Title |
Today |
| Label |
Omtown/Higher
Octave |
| Reviewer |
Joe Hartlaub |
| Rating |
 |
|
 |
| website |
Raul
Malo Home Site |
| win stuff |
 |
|
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