[Dixielandjazz] Paul McCartney reviewed

[Robert Ringwald]

Long read.  Delete now if not interested.  



Paul's Love Does Them Good
by Thomas Conner
Chicago Sun-Times, February 5, 2012
The idea sounded perilous -- Paul McCartney, one of the most revered writers in pop
music, shifting gears into interpretive mode for an entire album of standards from
the '30s and '40s. John Lennon used to knock McCartney's "granny music" in the Beatles
(specifically deriding "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da"), and now here's McCartney at age 69,
a grandfather himself, cooing through Johnny Mercer and Fats Waller?
Should we expect a double bill at casinos this summer with Michael Buble?
McCartney, though, has been a nostalgic old fuddy-duddy since he was a teenager.
"Yesterday" wasn't his only misty-eyed glance backward, and he was especially reflective
on his last album of original pop, "Memory Almost Full" (2007), which found him examining
his "Ever Present Past" as well as singing, "Don't live in the past / Don't hold
on to something that's changing fast" ("Vintage Clothes").
Never one to take his own lyrical advice, McCartney told Rolling Stone magazine last
year he's wanted to do an album of standards "since the Beatle days" and delayed
it further with good reason: "Rod [Stewart] went mad on it. I thought, 'I have to
wait so it doesn't look like I'm trying to do a Rod.'"
Blessedly, McCartney does not pull a Rod. "Kisses on the Bottom" (out Tuesday from
Hear/Concord) is a trifle, for sure, but a largely pleasant one.
The cheeky title, so to speak, comes from the second verse of the album's first song,
"I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter," referring to the X's and O's
with which the narrator plans to amend his signature. This album is its own love
letter, a heap of sentiment collected for McCartney's late father, Jim, who played
these songs at the piano for his family in a Liverpool suburb. The production and
arrangement throughout is just that intimate, in fact, which is what makes the whole
thing so instantly comfy.
McCartney's aim isn't as broad as Linda Ronstadt's recordings with Nelson Riddle,
nor do these "Kisses" smack with the retro gimmickry of Stewart and countless others
who've used the "songbook" to substitute a lack of ideas. This is a very quiet, delicate
set that fulfills McCartney's simple, stated mission: "This is an album you listen
to at home after work, with a glass of wine or a cup of tea."
"Kisses on the Bottom," in that respect and others, greatly resembles "As Time Goes
By," Bryan Ferry's 1999 album drawing from a similar era. Like McCartney here, Ferry
had no delusions of being a jazz singer, but he surrounded himself with fine players,
kept a leash on everyone including himself and came out the other end with a nifty
cafe record.
McCartney is backed by several astute jazz players, including Diana Krall and her
band, who don't play their instruments as much as they pet them, stroke them, sigh
into them. The jazz guitar on "Always," the wistful piccolo on "Only Our Hearts"
(one of two songs McCartney wrote for this occasion), Krall's fleet, feathery piano
throughout -- it's all so light sometimes it barely holds together. McCartney's voice
spends much of the time in an unusually high register, cooing and sighing, only coming
down to recognizable Macca for "Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive," which is about as
punchy as this album gets, and his other original tune, "My Valentine."
The two original compositions are graced by some extra guests -- Eric Clapton's guitar
on "My Valentine," Stevie Wonder's harmonica on "Only Our Hearts" (the first time
they've recorded together since "Ebony and Ivory"). Both songs slide easily into
the oeuvre. McCartney's Beatles tunes became standards themselves, later covered
by Ella and Sinatra. Neither of these new tunes leaps out as an enormous accomplishment,
but either could enjoy long life snugly in the songbook with the other oldies.
It's warm, it's cozy, it's whimsical. (In fact, the only time the record really nose-dives
is when the whimsy overtakes it, as in the odd selection of "The Inch Worm" or the
cutesy way McCartney sings "My Very Good Friend the Milkman.") It's utterly unnecessary,
only a paper moon. But McCartney presents more conviction and heart here than he
has on many of his more rocking solo albums. "More I Cannot Wish You," indeed.
___________________________________
by Kitty Empire
London Observer, February 5, 2012
Even the most distracted student of popular culture has probably learned that pop
and its unkempt cousin, rock, came along in the 1960s and swept away all that had
come before. Teenagers no longer wanted to listen to the same music as their parents,
and their parents before them: that frumpy aural wallpaper known as "the standards".
The Beatles were responsible for much of this melodic overhaul, channelling the energy
of rock'n'roll and R&B.
As he reaches his 70s, however, it seems as if Paul McCartney has decided to come
clean about some other formative influences. Even the Beatles, McCartney's new album
asserts, were touched by the songwriting of the American hit factory auteurs of the
1920s, 30s and 40s: Irving Berlin (represented here by the saccharine swish of "Always"),
Harold Arlen ("Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive", rather more fun) and Frank Loesser
("More I Cannot Wish You"), to name but three. No one was immune. McCartney is normally
seen as the Beatles' soppiest traditionalist, the Fab most in hock to the dapper
old dreamers. It's an impression that persists, even though he's never shy of portraying
himself as source of the Beatles' more avant-garde ideas. On "Kisses on the Bottom",
however, he accentuates the conservative.
McCartney's 15th solo album is a jazzy, feather-light collection of standards, punctuated
by two McCartney originals ("My Valentine" and "Only Our Hearts") that blend so immaculately
into their habitat, they are hard to spot on a first listen. Soon, though, "My Valentine"
stands out because it's the song that reminds you most of those sentimental Beatles
tracks, and because McCartney's voice sounds most at home on it, necktie undone,
pouring itself a gin fizz. Covering these orchestral big-band jazz tunes casts pop's
architect in the strangely straitened role of vocal interpreter, having ceded the
playing and arranging to jazz people such as pianist Diana Krall and producer Tommy
LiPuma. (Eric Clapton is on here too, as is Stevie Wonder, with a Disney bluebird-style
harmonica part on "Only Our Hearts".) Where there could so easily have been smug
studio torpor, the arrangements are airy; all precisely plunked upright bass and
brushed drums.
As a consequence you are drawn, perhaps unfairly, towards McCartney's vocals. These
often feel a little papery. And because the renditions are so breezy, the emotional
depths of these songs remain resolutely unexplored. Does anyone other than his new
wife really need to hear McCartney sing Benny Goodman's "The Glory of Love"? Nothing
here is ghastly, exactly; merely anodyne. There is a familiar, testosterone-filled
version of history that insists music is just a constant churn of rebellion, one
in which pop sneers at standards, rock grunts at pop, punk kicks against prog and
machines destroy analogue. In contrast, "Kisses on the Bottom" foregrounds evolving
constancy; just as valid a reading.
There might be a wrinkle or two in the notion of Macca being an arch-traditionalist,
but he does grasp something that runs through a century of popular music. We are
all still firmly in thrall to melody and love songs. These standards have a lot still
to say -- if only they sang a little more potently here.
___________________________________
by Glenn Gamboa
Newsday, February 3, 2012
There's something so adorable about the way Paul McCartney sounds like a schoolboy
in love throughout "Kisses on the Bottom" (Hear Music).
Of course, Macca has his reasons. He's still a newlywed, after all, having married
East Hampton transportation executive Nancy Shevell in October. But "Kisses on the
Bottom" sounds unlike any other McCartney album -- because of the song choices and
their simplicity.
His breezy version of the Harold Arlen classics "It's Only a Paper Moon" and "Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate
the Positive" set the bar for the album -- bright, stripped-down, mostly acoustic
interpretations, tinged with New Orleans jazz and matched nicely by McCartney's earnest,
unadorned delivery.
You can almost hear him smile his way through Fats Waller's "My Very Good Friend
the Milkman." With his original "My Valentine," McCartney walks right up to the line
between poignant and sappy without crossing it, thanks to some well-placed acoustic
guitar. He kind of falls over into sappiness with the children's classic "Inchworm,"
the bane of piano-lesson-taking kids everywhere, but that can be forgiven, since
it follows the delightfully bluesy take on Charles Brown's "Get Yourself Another
Fool."
"Kisses on the Bottom" isn't high-concept like 2007's "Memory Almost Full" or envelope-pushing
like 2005's "Chaos and Creation in the Backyard." It is a pleasant, well-crafted
trifle, an enjoyable little distraction that delivers a lovely time. It's essentially
the soundtrack to the romantic comedy playing in McCartney's head -- and there's
nothing wrong with that.
___________________________________
by Pete Clark
London Evening Standard, February 3, 2012
Upon hearing the title there was some trepidation in my bosom as to the contents
of this LP. Something about it besmirched good old "thumbs aloft" Macca, arch-advocate
of a cup of tea and a sing-song around the old joanna. I need not have worried: the
title simply quotes a line from the first song, I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write
Myself a Letter, and refers to those kisses that appear at the bottom of syrupy missives.
With the exception of two originals, this is a selection of old tunes that Paul grew
up loving and, given that he's quite ancient, these are prehistoric. Needless to
say, they are immaculately arranged and played with distinction -- the upright bass,
semi-acoustic guitar, a sussuration of brushed percussion, silken strings, perfectly
plinked piano, a flash of guitar from Eric Clapton on Get Yourself Another Fool (can't
think who that one might be aimed at...).
And yet. Although pitch perfect, McCartney's voice is wasted on such sentimental
codswallop as Inch Worm, It's Only a Paper Moon, The Glory of Love and Accentuate
the Positive. Anyone would think he had a new woman in his life. And don't get me
started on My Very Good Friend the Milkman. Suffice to say: Warning! May contain
whistling.
___________________________________
by David Burger
Salt Lake Tribune, February 5, 2012
Paul McCartney is releasing a new album of standards, songs that he calls "the songs
which inspired the songs" that made The Beatles legendary.
The album is unfortunately called "Kisses on the Bottom," an off-putting title until
you realize that he's referring to the bottom of a letter. With the help of Diana
Krall and her band, as well as guest appearances from Eric Clapton and Stevie Wonder,
McCartney's new album is full of songs that, in some cases, a young Paul first heard
his father perform on piano at home.
The problem is that although Macca turns 70 this summer, he has always embodied never-ending
youth and vitality, but these songs reveal a frailer and weaker voice with too-smooth
arrangements that linger listlessly. We want rock, not a rocking chair.
___________________________________
by Simon Price
London Independent, February 5, 2012
Why, Paul, why? The flinch-inducing title, lifted from Fats Waller's "I'm Going to
Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter", suggests that McCartney lacks anyone to
tell him when he's had a terrible idea.
That song is the opener of a set of 12 covers and two originals. No expense has been
spared in giving them an authentically vintage feel: to paraphrase Dolly, it costs
a lot of money to sound this cheap. He used to be in The Beatles so if we don't like
it, we can kiss his bottom.


--Bob Ringwald
www.ringwald.com
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