The Music Spectrum 2004 Year-End Lists: Jazz-influenced RockThe CDs That Didn’t Get Reviewed This Year

You can find the best-of year-end lists in most music publications. Rather than rehashing what was already reviewed and discussed this year, Music Spectrum is going deep into the stacks of CDs received this year to take a look at some of the ones that got missed.

Ed Harcourt moved on in 2004 with another release, but thanks to my friends at Astralwerks, I have 2003’s From Every Sphere. Harcourt’s piano-topped melodies land him square inside the growing Rat Pack of sorts in the Jazz-influenced Rock section. He comes in the Spectrum after Rufus Wainwright, Norah Jones, Jesse Harris, and Charlotte Martin. Harcourt’s not nearly as over the top on the vocals as Wainwright, but he soars nonetheless. Where Jones and Harris keep things a bit more inside the jazzy side of things, Harcourt is breaking outside those lines, taking the avant-garde styling heard in someone like Devendra Banhart and combining that with bits from the rockier end of this section (Elvis Costello, the Police). Funk walks on the bass keys of the piano on “Undertaker Strut;” “Ghost Writer” opens up another world with weird keyboard jamming (“what’s that sound in the bathroom?/they’re the voices in my head”); a plaintive, plucked out melody leads in the sorrow-hope of “The Birds Will Sing for Us.”

Based on the 13 track CD of Selections from the A Strange Mess of Flowers boxset, David Garza lands on the Ed Harcourt side of Sondre Lerche. Garza slides and bounces with the jazzy infection now heard also in Jason Mraz and Lerche. There’s Jazz-influenced Rock, but around every corner you’ll find Hip Hop hints, rap-sing tendencies, and some arty takes as well, making him find some common territory with Harcourt’s electronic effects. “What Do I Know” hip-shakes, “American Crawl” pushes the pace of a jazz-tinged pop, and then “Kick It” samples and raps it up. “For Keeps” with serenading violin and crooner vocals sounds most like where Lerche is headed. A Strange Mess of Flowers is released by Wideopen/Redeye Distribution.

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Thanks again to my friends at Astralwerks and EMI Norway, I’ve been stepping into the coffee house/nightclub atmosphere of Sondre Lerche. Written up in Paste magazine earlier this year as one to watch, Lerche is the one that kept me promising to write a long piece about this growing Rat Pack of Jazz-influenced Rock artists. On 2004’s Two Way Monologue, “Track You Down” exemplifies that combination feeling—Lerche sings over acoustic guitar like a coffee house folkster but the chorus brings in strings and harmonizing vocals as if the coffee house walls fell away to reveal a dimly lit nightclub, glass clinking, softly backlit panels surrounding the crooning jazz singer. Two Way Monologue sways through many martini-accompanying tunes, such as “It’s Over,” with pop-inflection as on “Counter Spark.” Also check out the Badly Drawn Boy-type beat to “It’s Too Late.” You’ll find even more gems by stepping back to 2003’s Don’t Be Shallow EP and 2002’s Faces Down. “Dead Passengers” (original on Faces and a live version on the EP) sambas into your pulse, creeping up on you like the thought of “when there is trouble on the road/dead passengers will guide you home.” “You Know So Well” (same album details) has a “Strawberry Fields Forever” keyboard and drum backdrop, and the melodic lyric line just floats into your consciousness.

Also deserving a career retrospective that never got written this year, Hothouse Flowers returned in 2004 with Into Your Heart. Always a toss up between Irish Folk-influenced Rock and Jazz-influenced Rock, I chose to put Hothouse Flowers in the Jazz-influenced Rock especially due some of their past opening tracks which rely on horns and soul. People begins with the jazz man chant of “I’m Sorry.” Songs from the Rain jumps out with the soulful, deep bass lyric of “You’ve been disturbed from your sleep” on “This Is It (Your Soul).” Into Your Heart starts with “Your Love Goes On,” a little more laid back feeling but with a chorus that brings in horns and a soul choir. The album continues that laid back feeling, or at least it seems that way. Give it another listen, and you realize there’s a lot of funk (“Tell Me”), 60’s Motown (“Better Man”), and California valley soul rock (“Santa Monica”). I would like to hear the band shake off a little of the dust, not getting so caught up in those airy strains, move it a little more like the running groove of “Alright.” However, it’s tough when I’ve been anticipating this album for so long. I’ve banked a lot of hours listening to the early albums, especially People, so there was a lot of expectation. Into Your Heart rightly finds the band in a new era, but Liam O Maonlai remains the Irish Motown soulman. The album ends with a common treat in Hothouse Flowers, a traditional tune arranged and performed dramatically by these soulful musicians. Into Your Heart is released by Rubyworks.

From the era of mix tapes (yes, before CD burners and MP3s), I strove to create cassettes for friends that would invoke the times, the season, or the feeling I was trying to tell them about. I would woo girlfriends with tapes dedicated to love. I would prepare mixes for road trips. In that vein, I was overjoyed to receive Driving in the Rain 3 AM: Songs to Get Lost With, thanks to Divine Industries. Released in 2002 by Bongo Beat, the album is the first in a series of CDs to introduce people to music based on themes, a concept from Dave Rave and designed by Ralph Alfonso. This compilation goes well-beyond Jazz-influenced Rock, but 3 AM hits the clock, you’re driving around in the rain, you’re lost in some Canadian city (like we were once in S Ste. Marie), and the Orchid Highway plays some cool, jazzy rock on their “Opiate.” You’ve entered the world Alfonso wanted you to discover. Kimberley Rew’s “Restless Ocean” has those jazz-touched guitar soloing I’ve most often heard in Tim Pierce’s work. BB Gabor’s haunting acoustic guitar “Celtic Cross” weaves through the night air on this posthumously released song. A track from 1996 by Paul Hyde called “When Love Dies” sounds like where Sondre Lerche picked up six years later. Finally, step into the jazz club for a tribute to the original beat on Ralph Alfonso’s own band RALPH’s “Goodbye Jack. Kerouac.”

Thanks to all of the labels for the review copies.