Geoff Muldaur

[clandy44]

From today's WSJ

Reinventing the Music

Of Bix Beiderbecke

By JIM FUSILLI

Neither Bix Beiderbecke nor Geoff Muldaur has commanded much attention lately from anyone save their devotees, but the two have come together in the form of one of the most surprising and delightful albums of the year. "Private Astronomy: A Vision of the Music of Bix Beiderbecke" (edge Music) is Mr. Muldaur's reinvention of some of the cornet player's compositions and performances, all of which emanate from the late 1920s and earliest years of the '30s.

The 13-song disc comprises Mr. Muldaur's two approaches to the Beiderbecke canon and the sounds of the era. The six chamber performances of his piano compositions illustrate how Mr. Beiderbecke was as influenced by Debussy, Ravel and Stravinsky as he was by Nick LaRocca, Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith. The remaining tracks are bright, snazzy takes on the pop and blues of the time sung back then by Bing Crosby and the Rhythm Boys and Frankie Trumbauer, among others. Surprisingly, and perhaps wisely, no one attempts to trump Mr. Beiderbecke on the cornet. While there are a few spry solos here and there, mostly on violin and guitar, airtight adherence to the layered arrangements is the thing on "Private Astronomy."

To execute the knotty charts, Mr. Muldaur and producer Dick Connette put together an extraordinary band, which includes jazz saxophonist Ted Nash; Art Barone, who played trombone with Duke Ellington; drummer Artie Kinsella, who plays in the All-Star Shoe Band on Garrison Keillor's "Prairie Home Companion"; violinist Paul Woodiel; guitarists Doug Wamble and Mike Munisteri; and Mark Gould, principal trumpet with the Metropolitan Opera. Their work is flawless, studied yet affecting, serious yet full of fun.

"Private Astronomy" represents the next phase in the 60-year-old Mr. Muldaur's return to center stage. A founding member of the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, which featured his then-wife, Maria, Mr. Muldaur emerged from the Cambridge, Mass., folk-blues scene in the '60s and worked with the likes of Bonnie Raitt, Jerry Garcia and Richard Thompson, who reportedly said, cryptically, "There are only three white blues singers and Geoff Muldaur is at least two of them."

He dropped out in 1980 -- "It's the usual boring story of drinking and drugging," he told me -- and went on to establish a successful management-consulting business. On a whim, he joined old friend Bob Neuwirth on a '97 tour of northern Italy.

"We didn't get paid and we were roughing it," Mr. Muldaur said, "but I found myself staying back in my hotel room and working on guitar licks." By the time Mr. Muldaur returned to the States, he'd decided to become a working musician again, and a year later he released "Secret Handshake" (Hightone), a very pleasing blues-folk set that he called "17 years of things that were marinating in my mind, things I'd been singing in the shower."

While working as a consultant, Mr. Muldaur wrote new arrangements of Mr. Beiderbecke's piano compositions, only one of which Mr. Beiderbecke recorded prior to his death in 1931. (Jess Stacy, a pianist best known for his work with Benny Goodman, recorded several of them.) To illustrate the complexity of Mr. Beiderbecke's compositions, Mr. Muldaur insisted upon recasting them as chamber music rather than the jazzy adaptations he'd heard in recordings by Ry Cooder, Benny Carter and Bucky Pizzarelli, among others.

The chamber pieces -- four Beiderbecke piano pieces, a reprise of one, "In a Mist," and a gorgeous reworking of "Davenport Blues" -- are the highlights of "Private Astronomy." "The guys were originally thrown by it," Mr. Muldaur remembered. "It's got a certain feel to it. It's not traditional jazz." And yet, while the music is rich with influence of the classical impressionists, its harmonies, rhythms and some of the phrasing by the musicians are unmistakably rooted in early 20th-century jazz.

Mr. Muldaur sings several songs, including "Take Your Tomorrow (And Give Me Today)," which Mr. Beiderbecke recorded with the Trumbauer band; Irving Berlin's "Waiting at the End of the Road," which Mr. Crosby sang with Paul Whiteman's orchestra during its Beiderbecke years; and Mr. Beiderbecke's "Clouds," with new lyrics by Mr. Connette, Linda Thompson and Rufus Wainwright. Martha Wainwright, Rufus's sister, offers a brassy take on "There Ain't No Sweet Man That's Worth the Salt of My Tears," while, continuing the family affair, Rufus's and Martha's father, Loudon Wainwright III, backed by Mr. Muldaur's daughters Jenni and Clare, sings a rousing "Bless You! Sister."

With his loving renditions of tunes culled from the Beiderbecke canon, Mr. Muldaur succeeds in shaking the cobwebs off songs that are imprinted on the DNA of American music lovers but have long been out of earshot of even those with an ambitious CD collection. His sentimentality adds an appropriate touch of tenderness that echoes long after the music subsides.

[jazzbo]

I've begun listening to this cd and think it's great.

Thanks for posting the review.

[DrJ]

Glad to see this is getting good reviews, I'm looking forward to picking it up. As I've posted in another thread about this recently, I'm a fan of Muldaur's lived-in approach to country blues on the CD SECRET HANDSHAKE (Hightone). His music is worthy of a much wider audience.