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Twilight Stories Twilight Stories bounces back and forth between styles like a game of musical Ping-Pong. One minute the band's playing hard-driving bop; the next it's working a mellow groove more suitable for a dimly lit piano bar. The juxtaposition of starkly divergent musical moods is apparent two tracks into the album. The opening tune, "Afrique-Ville," uses racing melodies and exchanging solos to convey excitement. "Yvette" comes next, working on a drastically different level; its downtrodden tempos are marked by softly played blues phrases, suggesting a feeling of despair. This method of variety is maintained throughout the 10-track CD. With skillful playing and composing, pianist Darrell Grant (an assistant jazz professor at Portland State University and the leader of the People's Music Project) keeps it all together with solid piano solos and fluid changes. With a tight band at his side--Don Braden on tenor saxophone, Joris Teepe on bass and Cecil Brooks III on drums--Grant manages to meld the many styles into a fully realized, multi-faceted album. Twilight Stories is a modern jazz gem. Jeff Fuccillo
Perennial Favorites Say what you will about these new groups infatuated with decades-old music, but don't call the Squirrel Nut Zippers a swing band, much less leaders of a swing revival. There are at least two decades and three stylistic shifts separating the '40s "jump blues" of all those royal cherry voodoo daddies and the Zippers' preferred "hot" jazz styles of the 1920s (the MTV fave "Hell" was neither, but rather a '30s-style calypso). In case you need more proof that the Zippers are at least removed from zoot-suited trends, here comes the band's third album, Perennial Favorites, complete with a weepy old-time country ballad ("Low Down Man"), a sleepy tango ("My Drag"), a creepy klezmer-laced vaudeville show tune ("Ghost of Stephen Foster") and, for good measure, another calypso ("Trou Macacq," about the band's life on "the monkey track"). Featuring a mix of old material and newer songs, Perennial Favorites is a surprisingly slight follow-up to a million-selling record. That it was recorded a year and a half ago, just before the band exploded nationally, only adds to the album's strange sense of displacement. But in the long run, Perennial Favorites just might end up the group's most important record--a small, dark masterpiece stuck in the shadow of its better-selling predecessor. Its best moments capture the band's music exactly as it should be: like the creak of a dusty old chest opening to reveal a pirate map of forgotten American treasure. Fresh out of the box, and it's already a lost classic. Roni Sarig
A Good Kind of Nervous K Records' releases usually carry the tag "international pop underground," a hopeful declaration of cross-cultural unity among bands from Olympia to Glasgow to Tokyo. These are musicians concerned with overt melody and romanticism, and they operate below the radar. The Lucksmiths are such a band. Few outside their environs of Melbourne, Australia, have ever heard of them--they haven't even put out a 7-inch on K--but the trio plays gentle songs with resolute charm. Primary vocalist Marty Donald sings in a light accent, enunciating each clever turn of phrase and strumming out catchy if non-flamboyant riffs that bounce along over jaunty rhythms. The band's third full-length is a tour de force of pop for a breezy and clear afternoon, abounding with commentary on youthful love and vignettes about life in a modern town. On the infectious "Punchlines," the band works up a white-soul saunter while Donald laments a relationship in which the woman doesn't get his jokes. He's even more wistful in "Guess How Much I Love You," a touching tale about a long-distance affair, with a circular chorus about missing his lover in places such as the bookstore and the laundromat. It's neither as brooding as the Smashing Pumpkins nor as grandiose as Bush, and that's half the point: The Lucksmiths play pop for people who wish to look beyond the glossy surface. Richard Martin
originally published August 26, 1998
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