Post by rick on Feb 7, 2012 0:52:54 GMT -5
www.nytimes.com/2012/02/07/arts/music/a-new-album-from-paul-mccartney.html?ref=arts
February 6, 2012
McCartney Gets Back, Way Back
PAUL MCCARTNEY
Kisses on the Bottom
(Hear Music)
The music on Paul McCartney’s first “standards” album, “Kisses on the Bottom,” floats over you like a light mist on a cool spring morning in an English garden as the sun glints through the haze. You want to inhale the fresh air, taste the fragrance of buds blooming, as the sky clears to a serene deep blue. Mr. McCartney exudes the unassuming charm of a country gentleman in a good mood, sitting on the grass and whistling to himself.
“Kisses on the Bottom” breaks the mold of the typical standards album by a rock performer. Far from a solemn, self-conscious act of reclamation, it is more a jaunty tip of the hat to the pop music of his parents’ generation. Every element of the album, produced by Tommy LiPuma, contributes to the feel of a perfectly fitted, custom-tailored suit. The rhythm arrangements by Diana Krall, who plays piano on most of the cuts, have a crispy, airy bounce. In addition to members of Ms. Krall’s band, the guest guitarist John Pizzarelli gives his instrument a buoyant, ukulelelike sound
Mr. McCartney, whose voice is almost as youthful as in the Beatles’ glory days, doesn’t explore lyrical subtext. He trusts in the reliable pleasures of catchy pop tunes, of moon, June and spoon. Others might inflect “It’s Only a Paper Moon” with sarcasm or deliver “Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive” as a self-help harangue, but not Mr. McCartney. It is all about ease and relaxation in the moment.
The album’s cheeky title comes from a phrase in the opening cut, the Fats Waller standard “I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter.” The gossamer orchestrations by two heavyweights — Johnny Mandel and Alan Broadbent — float like milkweed behind Mr. McCartney’s voice.
A slightly wistful version of Irving Berlin’s “Always” sits comfortably beside two winsome McCartney originals, “My Valentine” and “Only Our Hearts.” The closest the album comes to darkness is in a moderately slowed-down “Bye Bye Blackbird” and “Get Yourself Another Fool,” a minor R&B hit, from 1949, for Charles Brown, and later recorded by Sam Cooke.
“Bye Bye Blackbird” is a celebration of chasing away the blues once and for all: no antidepressants needed. Eric Clapton’s guitar lends “Get Yourself Another Fool” a blues flavor, but the hue is baby blue, not inky. Frank Loesser’s trickily metered arithmetic lesson, “Inchworm,” from the movie “Hans Christian Andersen,” is aimed at the child inside us all.
More than 40 years have passed since Mr. McCartney infuriated the rock counterculture with the exquisite sketches of his first two post-Beatles records, “McCartney” and “Ram.” The rage and contempt heaped on an artist who was dismissed as trivial and reactionary and a betrayer of the Beatles’ legacy has long since dissipated. What distinguishes Mr. McCartney’s music, then and now, is his utter lack of grandiosity.
As he sang all those years ago in a slightly defensive tone: “Some people wanna fill the world with silly love songs/And what’s wrong with that?”
By sticking to his guns and insisting on being himself, he has answered his own question: nothing at all.
-- Reviewed by STEPHEN HOLDEN
February 6, 2012
McCartney Gets Back, Way Back
PAUL MCCARTNEY
Kisses on the Bottom
(Hear Music)
The music on Paul McCartney’s first “standards” album, “Kisses on the Bottom,” floats over you like a light mist on a cool spring morning in an English garden as the sun glints through the haze. You want to inhale the fresh air, taste the fragrance of buds blooming, as the sky clears to a serene deep blue. Mr. McCartney exudes the unassuming charm of a country gentleman in a good mood, sitting on the grass and whistling to himself.
“Kisses on the Bottom” breaks the mold of the typical standards album by a rock performer. Far from a solemn, self-conscious act of reclamation, it is more a jaunty tip of the hat to the pop music of his parents’ generation. Every element of the album, produced by Tommy LiPuma, contributes to the feel of a perfectly fitted, custom-tailored suit. The rhythm arrangements by Diana Krall, who plays piano on most of the cuts, have a crispy, airy bounce. In addition to members of Ms. Krall’s band, the guest guitarist John Pizzarelli gives his instrument a buoyant, ukulelelike sound
Mr. McCartney, whose voice is almost as youthful as in the Beatles’ glory days, doesn’t explore lyrical subtext. He trusts in the reliable pleasures of catchy pop tunes, of moon, June and spoon. Others might inflect “It’s Only a Paper Moon” with sarcasm or deliver “Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive” as a self-help harangue, but not Mr. McCartney. It is all about ease and relaxation in the moment.
The album’s cheeky title comes from a phrase in the opening cut, the Fats Waller standard “I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter.” The gossamer orchestrations by two heavyweights — Johnny Mandel and Alan Broadbent — float like milkweed behind Mr. McCartney’s voice.
A slightly wistful version of Irving Berlin’s “Always” sits comfortably beside two winsome McCartney originals, “My Valentine” and “Only Our Hearts.” The closest the album comes to darkness is in a moderately slowed-down “Bye Bye Blackbird” and “Get Yourself Another Fool,” a minor R&B hit, from 1949, for Charles Brown, and later recorded by Sam Cooke.
“Bye Bye Blackbird” is a celebration of chasing away the blues once and for all: no antidepressants needed. Eric Clapton’s guitar lends “Get Yourself Another Fool” a blues flavor, but the hue is baby blue, not inky. Frank Loesser’s trickily metered arithmetic lesson, “Inchworm,” from the movie “Hans Christian Andersen,” is aimed at the child inside us all.
More than 40 years have passed since Mr. McCartney infuriated the rock counterculture with the exquisite sketches of his first two post-Beatles records, “McCartney” and “Ram.” The rage and contempt heaped on an artist who was dismissed as trivial and reactionary and a betrayer of the Beatles’ legacy has long since dissipated. What distinguishes Mr. McCartney’s music, then and now, is his utter lack of grandiosity.
As he sang all those years ago in a slightly defensive tone: “Some people wanna fill the world with silly love songs/And what’s wrong with that?”
By sticking to his guns and insisting on being himself, he has answered his own question: nothing at all.
-- Reviewed by STEPHEN HOLDEN