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CDs of the week
Evening Standard 04.04.08
Melodic core: Charlie Parker
Pop heaven: Camille's Music Hole
Delightful: The Breeders' Mountain Battles
Not a write off: The courteeners' St Jude
Theatrical: Melingo's Mandito Tango
Look here too
Camille undoes preconceptions of French pop, The Breeders release their most accomplished and ambitious album and alto-sax genius Charlie Parker's legacy continues...
JAZZ
CHARLIE PARKER
Complete Live at Cafe Society(Rare Live Recordings)
*****
Alto-sax genius Charlie Parker's legacy endures. Young players are still recording his themes and these recently discovered nightclub gems remind us why. Parker's solos, on Just Friends for example, swoop and soar like flocking birds at roosting time, yet with a melodic core that reached everyone and inspired his musicians, particularly drummer Roy Haynes (still active today) and pianist Al Haig, to raise their game. So disregard the 1950 sound quality and some after-hours jamming by Brew Moore (tenor sax), Tony Scott (clarinet) and Chuck Wayne (guitar) and enjoy Parker's only small-group versions of Bewitched, Gone with the Wind and Summertime. JACK MASSARIK
POP
CAMILLE
Music Hole(EMI)
****
The general view is that, with the occasional honourable exception, the French just don't get pop music. With her third album, and first in English, Camille undoes these preconceptions. The woman has a remarkable voice of extraordinary range and clarity, prompting comparisons with Björk, Kate Bush and even Céline Dion. Gospel With No Lord and Canards Sauvages are instantly friendly Europop, frisky and quirkily tuneful. Camille, however, aspires to greater heights. Home Is Where It Hurts recalls the brooding beauty of Massive Attack, as does Winter Child, where the singer pushes her voice into remarkable places. In Katie's Tea, a veritable choir of Camilles spiral deliriously upwards towards a place that could reasonably be described as pop heaven. PETE CLARK
THE BREEDERS
Mountain Battles(4AD)
****
Led by the 46-year-old Deal twins, Kim and Kelley, The Breeders have managed just four albums in 18 years, waylaid by Kelley's heroin addiction, Kim's Pixies reunions and everfluctuating minor personnel. Mountain Battles may be produced by that legendarily brutish enemy of melody, Steve Albini, but it's their most accomplished and ambitious album. Heroically, it's full of brave new directions, tub-thumping guitars and proper choruses, from the spartan, tick-tocking Istanbul to the superlative, widescreen opener Overglazed, via German Studies, which is both sharp and funny. They even manage a straight version of the Mexican standard Regalame Esta Noche. A surprising delight. JOHN AIZLEWOOD
THE COURTEENERS
St Jude(A&M)
***
With a Mancunian swagger and a singer so Liam Gallagher-esque he's even called Liam, The Courteeners have set themselves up for a fall by actively encouraging comparisons to Oasis and The Stone Roses from a very early stage. Their debut album, named after the patron saint of lost causes, jangles along confidently, lifted above the indie pop morass by Liam Fray's biting observational lyrics and anthemic rockers such as Bide Your Time and Not Nineteen Forever. The Phil Spector beats of Please Don't and the closing acoustic ballad, Yesterday, Today and Probably Tomorrow, show a welcome sensitive side. Fray's self-inflicted hype means St Jude fails to be the landmark album he promised, but don't write him off just yet. DAVID SMYTH
WORLD
MELINGO
Mandito Tango (Mañana)
****
The gravelly voiced Argentinian Daniel Melingo sings songs in backstreet slang on one of the best tango releases in years. It's theatrical music full of character, enhanced by great instrumentalists who toss phrases to each other like pickpockets dividing their spoils — Gustavo Paglia on sighing bandoneon, Javier Casalla on biting violin and Patricio Cotella on sawing bass. Melingo himself adds some seductive clarinet. There is plenty of dark, lamp-lit nostalgia for the Buenos Aires of tango legend — as featured in a pop-up image in the CD sleeve — but there's no pastiche, just a fresh, raw energy. Expect spot-lit theatricality when Melingo appears at the Festival Hall tonight. SIMON BROUGHTON
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