NOW PLAYING IN THE SAVAGE JUKEBOX SEPTEMBER 2020

"FEAR OF MUSIC"

TALKING HEADS

Released August 3, 1979

"JAZZ IS DEAD 002"
ADRIAN YOUNGE & ALI SHAHEED MUHAMMAD featuring ROY AYERS
Released June 19, 2020

"JAZZ IS DEAD 003"

ADRIAN YOUNGE & ALI SHAHEED MUHAMMAD featuring MARCOS VALEE
Released August 21, 2020

NEW 2020 MUSIC: In this horrific year, albeit one that has produced an enormous amount of essential, excellent music, the on-going "Jazz Is Dead" project from producers/composers/multi-instrumentalists Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad has become one of the year's most intriguing projects. I have to tip my hat to both figures considerably as the sheer ambition combined with the musical dexterity and the enormous amount of affection and reverence contained has provided considerable solace in such a tumultuous time. 

While Volume 1 essentially served as a bit of a sampler for all eight albums to arrive, I am now wondering, with the arrival of Volumes 2 and 3, both albums composed and performed with the featured artists, Vibraphonist/Composer Roy Ayers and Brazillian Singer/Keyboardist/Composer Marcos Valee, respectfully, I am wondering if there is actually an even larger endgame in mind musically. 

To some, both of these albums may seem to be enjoyable, pleasurable and possibly, even a little slight as each release runs about 30 minutes or so. They do just fly by as songs flow seamlessly from one to the next and before you know it, each album has completed. Certainly, the works are also ones designed to invite you to play again and again as the exceedingly warm production from Younge and Muhammad conjure up eras past--most notably, the 1970's--and their attention to each and every musical detail is impeccable. You can practically hear the fingers on the strings of the bass, the sticks hitting those crisp snare drum rim shots and is there a more luxurious sound than the one that always emerges from the Fender Rhodes electric piano?  

But beyond the immediacy, I am wondering if what we are hearing is part of a larger musically conceptual plan. Maybe I am reaching but to me, the albums are beginning to sound like movements. What if the "Jazz Is Dead" series can be thought of as one entire piece of music, with the debut album representing the amass of themes and each album thereafter is essentially the featured artists taking a solo? In my mind, I like the sound of that and as I continue to enjoy myself with these latest installments ad the fourth scheduled to arrive in late October, I am looking forward to hearing how this entire project will play itself out. 

"DE LA SOUL IS DEAD"

DE LA SOUL
Released May 14, 1991

"SPEAKING IN TONGUES"

TALKING HEADS
Released June 1, 1983

"TOM TOM CLUB"
TOM TOM CLUB
Released October 1981

"MY LIFE IN THE BUSH OF GHOSTS"
BRIAN ENO AND DAVID BYRNE
Released February 1981

REMAIN IN LOVE: TALKING HEADS, TOM TOM CLUB, TINA
CHRIS FRANTZ
400 pages
St. Martin's Press
Published July 21, 2020

I will never forget the very first time I had ever heard of Talking Heads.

I was a child, quite possibly not even yet 10 years old and I was watching "Saturday Night Live," yes the version with the original cast! Anyhow, on this particular episode, I vividly remember announcer Don Pardo's introduction as he intoned the band's name, which instantly caught the attention of my ears, as I was expecting to see some sort of punk band or some other kind of strangeness. Then, the band appeared, completely confounding my expectations both visually and musically. They looked a little like grown up versions of the kids I went to grade school with. Completely unlike rock stars. And as for the music itself, I could not even tell you what they performed but there was something so unlike anything that I had been listening to, that is for certain. Beyond that and most of all, it was the striking and bizarre presence of David Byrne as the band's frontman, with his intense eyes, bodily gyrations and otherworldly vocal tics and spasms, I couldn't help but to wonder, "What's wrong with him?" And I could not look away.

For the duration of Talking Heads' existence, relatively short period during which they cultivated and shape shifted over the course of eight studio albums and one landmark concert feature film in Jonathan Demme's' "Stop Making Sense" (1984), David Byrne, for me, was indeed the constant focal point--so much so that for much of their existence, I was unaware of who else was even in the band, let alone the fact that a woman (bassist Tina Weymouth) was a crucial core member. And in some ways, I wonder if that was how Byrne may have wanted it.   

With the arrival of Remain In Love: Talking Heads, Tom Tom Club, Tina, the memoir by Talking Heads/Tom Tom Club co-founder/drummer/producer/songwriter Chris Frantz, the time has come to pull back the curtain on one of rock music's most inscrutable bands, while also serving as the life and love story of Frantz alongside the aforementioned Tina Weymouth. Much like recent musical memoires by Jeff Tweedy and Phil Collins, what Franz delivers is a well written travelogue that comes off as warmly conversational and therefore, compulsively readable. Granted, it is not as literary in its prose as say books by Elvis Costello, Ben Folds and Tracey Thorn, but what Frantz accomplishes very well is to establish his clear, unfussy voice...it is as if you are sitting with him at a bar stool happily listening to him hold court and spin tales and the effect is unquestionably engaging.

After detailing his family history and Southern upbringing, Chris Frantz takes us to his origins as a student at the Rhode Island School of Design and his desires to become an artists. It is there where he first met Weymouth and David Byrne, and began to house his dreams of becoming an artist and possibly a musician. It is of significant note that Frantz is very careful to utilize his memoir as a means to settle some scores while also being fair minded to the legacy of Talking Heads. That said, there is some serious truth telling to establish.

For myself, being someone who really never knew exactly how Talking Heads created, thinking that the band was a project originated by Byrne as a vehicle for his specific artistry, it was eye opening to say the least that Talking Heads was originally Chris Frantz's idea, essentially his dream, with the additional hopes that Tina Weymouth, his then girlfriend would possibly wish to join him. David Byrne was thus invited to join and not the other way around. To that end, all of the music of the Talking Heads' albums were composed jointly by the full band, which also included Guitarist/Keyboardist Jerry Harrison. And while over time, lyrics were entirely written by Byrne, the earliest material, including the now iconic "Psycho Killer" were co-compositions by Frantz, Weymouth and Byrne.  

Frantz firmly details how Talking Heads albums were constructed, complete with praise for David Byrne's considerable contributions and talents as well as his confusion, anger and hurt with Byrne's tendencies to elevate himself at the expense of the full band and the friction that existed, especially some cruel behaviors directed towards Frantz and Weymouth. Surprisingly, all of this material is not presented through a lens of bitterness. More of matter-of-fact incredulity and even sadness as I think it could be inferred that even now, after all of these years, Frantz still does not understand why David Byrne has been, and often continues to be, the way he has...despite the legacy they created together. 

Aside from the Talking Heads story, Chris Frantz also presents the story of 1970's New York living and the beginnings of the culture rock music hub that was CBGB'S, which gave a home base to rising stars like The Ramones, Patti Smith, Blondie and Talking Heads. We are given the full odyssey of Talking Heads' first European tour as opening act for The Ramones as well as the birth of Frantz and Weymouth's Tom Tom Club, their marriage, births of their children.

It is indeed a love story of a book as Chris Frantz, through all of his stories and adventures, from the music created, the people he has encountered through the years (his memories of meeting James Brown are as hilarious as his time producing an album by Happy Mondays is harrowing) and of course, the life he has built with Tina Weymouth. Yes, there are dark corners. Yes, dangerous times (including his own drug addictions) are included. But Chris Frantz's Remain In Love: Talking Heads, Tom Tom Club, Tina is a book of sheer gratitude, the musings of a man who has more than lived out his dreams.