{"id":72,"date":"2012-04-14T02:20:00","date_gmt":"2012-04-14T02:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/toddbishopjazz.com\/index.php\/2012\/04\/14\/cd-review-69-annee-erotique_237\/"},"modified":"2015-09-28T00:23:35","modified_gmt":"2015-09-28T00:23:35","slug":"cd-review-69-annee-erotique_237","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/toddbishopjazz.com\/index.php\/2012\/04\/14\/cd-review-69-annee-erotique_237\/","title":{"rendered":"CD Review: 69 Ann\u00e9e \u00c9rotique – Chicagojazz.com"},"content":{"rendered":"
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CD review: Todd Bishop\u2019s Pop Art Four – 69 Annee Erotique<\/a> (chicagojazz.com, published July, 2009)
\nby Paul Abella<\/p>\n

Origin Records strikes again with another outstanding disc, this time from drummer Todd Bishop and an outstanding group playing the music of Serge Gainsbourg. I have to admit, I hadn\u2019t a clue who Serge Gainsbourg was, prior to seeing this disc make its way across my desk. Of course, curiosity got the best of me and I had to check out Gainsbourg\u2019s music to hear these songs straight from the source. What I heard was charming and familiar on a number of levels. At once, I heard the jazz meets French folk of Maurice Chevalier (or Edith Piaf), the soundtracks of any number of hip sixties and seventies movies, the nouveau chanson of Pauline Croze and even the music of Beck. What started off as, \u201cThese guys are doing a tribute to who?\u201d quickly turned into, \u201cOh man, this really is hip!\u201d I loved Bishop\u2019s disc from the second I put it in the CD player\u2013\u2013I am a sucker for fat bass lines and funky drum grooves, after all. But now, armed with the knowledge of what this stuff sounded like the first time around, I was eager to go back again and check it out anew.
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\nThe one downside to this disc is a reasonable quibble, and it might do best to get it out of the way upfront: on far too many of these songs, Bishop and company stay too close to the originals. And while one wants to make sure that the songs are still at least a little recognizable, frankly, for all of Gainsbourg\u2019s qualities as a writer and arranger, he didn\u2019t always focus a lot on melody. Which is fine to an extent, because these songs seem to be just as much about texture as anything. But, in those instances, vocals can forgive a lot\u2026or make a lot of things more forgivable. So, on tracks like \u201cBallade de Melody Nelson,\u201d where neither vocals nor melody are anywhere to be found, even these great musicians can fall a little flat. But, on \u201cBonnie and Clyde,\u201d where the melody is equally absent but Bishop\u2019s arranging is a little more aggressive, it works. On \u201cInitials B.B.\u201d Bishop has it both ways, by utilizing a vocalist and keeping the arrangement pretty close to the original, he knocks one out of the park. But if the jazz purists might already be offended by the lack of more conventional jazz material, they\u2019d lose their minds when confronted with a song that has more in common with Sonic Youth\u2019s \u201cBull In The Heather\u201d than it does with \u201cAutumn Leaves.\u201d<\/p>\n

This disc does get your attention right off the bat. An insistent groove, some psychedelic keyboards and strings set up a nice melody on 69 Annee Erotique. The true pleasure to be found on this track, though, is the burning saxophone solo by Richard Cole, which really takes this disc up a notch.<\/p>\n

\u201cCannabis\u201d is aptly named, and moves at a slightly woozy pace. Again, Richard Cole lays down a ripping solo on tenor solo that really elevates the tune. While it has the feel of a song that should have closing credits rolling down a screen while it\u2019s played, it\u2019s a great jam and a nice display not only of Cole\u2019s chops, but also Bishop\u2019s arranging skills.<\/p>\n

\u201cNew York, U.S.A.\u201d is heads and tails the best thing on this disc. It\u2019s also the song that strays farthest away from Gainsbourg\u2019s original intentions. Given a samba feel that is helped along by Blake Thomas\u2019 cuica, this one just flat out rocks. Much of the saxophone solo is given to the tenor\/drums treatment, and without any chords behind him, Cole shows some flashes of early to mid-sixties Sonny Rollins (think \u201cEast Broadway Rundown\u201d), and when Steve Moore shows up on the Rhodes to help guide things back home, the results are fantastic.<\/p>\n

\u201cLe Poinconneur des Lilas\u201d and \u201cIntoxicated Man\u201d prove that Gainsbourg was capable of writing something somewhat akin to jazz, and Bishop\u2019s arrangement help to showcase that. Bishop rounds out the disc with one of the best pieces of sixties pop cheese that I\u2019ve ever heard, in the form of \u201cJe t\u2019aime\u2026Moi Non Plus.\u201d It\u2019s nice, it\u2019s pleasant and it\u2019s a good way to take this disc home.<\/p>\n

69 Annee Erotique is an interesting album if taken on it\u2019s own terms. This disc is as multi-faceted as the artist to whom it is a tribute, and does a great job of covering a lot of those bases. While I think a more interesting album could have been made from the standpoint of seeing how much these songs could have been stretched, tinkered with and reassembled, the final results here are certainly fascinating. An entire album of music as adventurous as what is heard on \u201cNew York U.S.A.\u201d would have been more exciting from a jazzer\u2019s standpoint. But after listening to Bishop and crew on this disc a few times, I doubt that\u2019s what they were going for. Instead, we\u2019ve gotten a jazz crew\u2019s take on the music of one of France\u2019s legendary composers and performers. Todd Bishop aimed to stay true to Gainsbourg\u2019s vision instead of creating his own, and in the process made a pretty compelling album. I\u2019m certainly looking forward to more from this group in the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CD review: Todd Bishop\u2019s Pop Art Four – 69 Annee Erotique (chicagojazz.com, published July, 2009) by Paul Abella Origin Records strikes again with another outstanding disc, this time from drummer Todd Bishop and an outstanding group playing the music of Serge Gainsbourg. I have to admit, I hadn\u2019t a clue who Serge Gainsbourg was, prior to seeing this disc make its way across my desk. Of course, curiosity got the best of me and I had to check out Gainsbourg\u2019s music to hear these songs straight from the source. What I heard was charming and familiar on a number of levels. At once, I heardRead More →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":195,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[61,63,68,67,15],"class_list":{"0":"entry","1":"post","2":"publish","3":"author-todd","4":"post-72","6":"format-standard","7":"has-post-thumbnail","8":"category-uncategorized","9":"post_tag-69-annee-erotique","10":"post_tag-chicagojazz-com","11":"post_tag-paul-abella","12":"post_tag-pop-art-4","13":"post_tag-reviews"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbishopjazz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbishopjazz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbishopjazz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbishopjazz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbishopjazz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/toddbishopjazz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":196,"href":"https:\/\/toddbishopjazz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72\/revisions\/196"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbishopjazz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbishopjazz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbishopjazz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbishopjazz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}