CD Review: Eldar - Re-Imagination

REVIEW

Eldar - Re-Imagination



First Impression

     So here it is, child-prodigy Eldar's latest release. Eldar has been criticized by many in the past for his "robotic" sound on the piano because his almost unimaginable technique on the piano enticed him, noted in his first release, to play some songs at really fast tempos that very few could play as cleanly. Though this is true and his technique seemed flawless, many found flaw in his playing, saying that his approach was the direct opposite of the Miles Davis-like, "less is more" type playing. Now, two albums later, how does the new Eldar stack up?
      Ultimately, I wasn't too impressed with his work, and would rather listen to a blindingly fast "Sweet Georgia Brown" to marvel at his speeds than listen to any of the tracks on this record. While they may not all be bad, I can't praise any one of them very much. The main reason behind this lack of praise to them is the fact that there seem to be three types of songs on this record, and all of the songs that fall under each type could almost be baked into a single pie together.
      The first type is the one denoted by the very first track. Maybe this is Eldar's re-imagination of the keyboard, adding electronic noises (reminded me of some of the effect that Kenny Werner put in his latest album, though overused, I think, in this one) and using names like DJ Logic to turn the tables on a couple tracks. Okay, so it was a good effort, but there were still many flaws. The first thing that came through my mind when listening to the first track was, 'Wow, this sounds a lot like the kind of stuff that Lyle Mays and Pat Metheny write together, though the role of great technique is on the piano player and the role of a more lyrical approach comes from the guitar in this CD'. I do like a lot of that music, but there was something about this that was different, and not in a good way. There were many times that I felt ideas were starting to get good, and then we were thrown in another direction that ended up being not so good... and this happened on all of the tracks that sounded like this. There was a lot of energy coming from Ali Jackson on the drums that helped keep interest, but with lackluster solos and strange mood changes within the songs, I ended up being turned off by this type of song. And I repeat, it happened with them all, especially because they sounded quite alike. There's a distinct pop influence in them all, like in Mays' work, and Eldar, to me, puts too much pop in it. Interest was lost midway through the tracks.
     The second type of song is the ballad-esque type. All in all, these tracks bore me to tears. I usually lost interest in the head. "Out of Nowhere" as a ballad is a good idea, but it was absolutely flat from beginning to end. His attempt at being lyrical rather than technical doesn't seem to be working out very well when there it's all boredom and no energy to his lyricism. It's like he's trying really hard to hold back his fingers, so there's a sort of "fakeness" in the space that he leaves. Many of these songs sound like they belong in a movie soundtrack simply because there are a couple highlights and then there's a lot of filler where the actors are supposed to be focused on in the movie rather than the music. It's like listening to the full Attack of the Clones orchestration by John Williams that spans through every single scene in the movie, except the really great parts are just not here in Eldar's recording. Another comparison would be to Christmas CDs like the A Winter's Solstice collection. It's pretty, but aside from a few moments, it's background. Both works compared to know to work it a lot better because this method is deliberate, where in Eldar's works it isn't.
      Finally, there's the return to the type of thing that he did in his first CD with really fast playing over standards. This I enjoyed quite a bit more than the other types. Eldar's playing over the Oscar Peterson tune was a lot more true, I felt, and the ideas were more coherent and intuitive. This is the kind of work that I like hearing, and though I'm that he's being taught to add the lyricism, I wish that he wouldn't record such songs until he learns to use it wisely. Otherwise, this type is just fine if someone forces his into the studio.
     In the end it turned out to just be an uninteresting piece of work. Eldar's use of DJ Logic and the electronics didn't add much to the songs, the repetitive nature of his songs made me wish that he cut the number of tracks in half, and the lyrical approach that he's attempting to do just isn't working out. I can see a lot of aspiring, young pianists looking up to Eldar now and in the future and all of the people Eldar's age and older just scoffing at him because either he's being robotic or because he can't be as original as other players. Technique like that is to be marveled at, but because he has excellent technique does not mean that he is skilled in other areas of playing. I look forward to hearing his other attempts, but time will tell whether or not I listen more than twice to any of those recordings.

Brad Mehldau on Jazz

     I just read an excellent essay on this period of modern jazz being referred to as a sort of "Renaissance" that Brad Mehldau wrote and included in his liner notes to his excellent album "Art of the Trio Volume 4". Read it here.

     The whole essay is wonderfully written and contains some interesting food-for-thought. Scholarly approaches to music are interesting and also very important for fully grasping what it is we are listening to, I think. My favorite quote from the essay happens to be the closing thought:

"To close I offer a scenario: If all the written music in the world suddenly burned up in a flash, who could do a gig the same night, regardless?" - Brad Mehldau, 1999

Concert Review: Warped Tour 2007

     After my experience at the Reel Big Fish/Less Than Jake show, I wasn't too excited about going to Warped Tour this year, though it never failed to be a blast in the past (the rhyme was not intended). In fact, I almost didn't go. The day before the show I was looking at the lineup online and noticed that many of the bands that I wanted to go see weren't even going to come to Virginia Beach. The ones left were Bad Religion, Pennywise, and Coheed and Cambria, and that didn't seem like enough to get my $30 worth. But, I recalled the great times had, and figured that with all the free CDs and Monster energy drinks I'd be drinking, I'd be getting my money's worth.
     Thus, I went, and I must say, this show was nothing like the one I went to a little over a week before. The first band that I saw was Tiger Army, and since my eye was caught by the old guy playing punk on an upright bass, and since I had a desire to go ahead and start the day, I went into the pit on the last song. It was really lame. At first I thought it would be good because I saw the people in it moving around in a circle. This was the uniformity, I thought, that the other show was lacking, and it reminded me of my times at previous shows. Going in I realized that it wasn't all it was cracked up to be because it turned out that everyone was just running in a circle. This didn't really discourage me, though, because I figured that the fans were just not that into the moshing, which happened with Reggie and the Full Effect a few years ago (that was actually the worst sight that I had seen at a punk show, seeing that there was a HUGE hole and NO ONE was moshing... poor Reggie).
     After that, my friends and I did the walk around and got the normal Warped Tour free merchandise: condoms, Monster, and free CDs. Usually I buy a shirt while I'm there, but since no one had any that were excellent, I settled on going to the Harley Davidson tent and doing a "Strong Man" contest with a hammer and bell, and ended up winning a shirt. To my surprise, it was a Bad Religion shirt with a small Harley logo on the back and no X-ed out crosses! Woohoo! In the end, I bought a couple buttons from a bad called "Angry Penguin" because I was looking for buttons, these were some of the only buttons around, and their logo was excellent:



     To make a long review short, I went to Pennywise and Bad Religion and had a genuinely great time. I could mosh and crowd surf to my heart's desire without the guilt. These pits were the ones I had been looking for at the other show with uniform moshing instead of uniform skanking (seeing as these were punk bands, not ska). The participants were running and pushing each other without throwing themselves across the pit slamming into people, which was the case at the other show that really pissed me off. These bands sounded like what you'd expect them to, too without a loss of quality (with, you know, as much quality as you get out of punk music). I remember my friend Tony saying that he didn't expect the singer from Bad Religion to sound very good live, but after the show he recognized that he actually sounded really good, like he was supposed to.

     And so we come to the real question and intent of this post: what was it that made these pits so much better than ones at the other concer Was it the fact that the concerts were different in genre? Was it the venue and the allowances by it? Or, was it the age groups involved in the pit? Quickly I'd overrule the first due to the fact that similar moshing techniques are supposed to be used for both genres. The second does have to do a little with it, since we are left to our own thing in the Amphitheatre, unlike the NorVA, which prohibited crowd surfing and anything but minute skanking. The real reason, I believe, that this these bands were successful, though, was that the age groups meshed well. Bad Religion and Pennywise have been around since the 80s, attracting fans from three different decades into their moshpit. This lets the experienced ones from the 80s and 90s lead the way, and then this decade's group has no choice but to follow, or else some big 40-year old bald guy will kick their ass. More people my age and older were in this pit while the high schoolers and pre-teens were off to the side listening, waiting for the tracks off of Guitar Hero to come on. In the end, though, to the ones that did participate, I hope you all learned something about moshing, from technique to manners. I was knocked down once at Pennywise and had my elbow all torn up on the concrete, got helped up immediately, and kept on going until I realized that I was bleeding on people, so I went to get patched up before Bad Religion, and kept on going when they started. That's how it works at these shows. If it were the other one that I started bleeding at, I would have stopped because it wouldn't have been worth it (in fact, I stopped really early during RBF then).
     Warped Tour was overall a big success in revitalizing my hopes for the "art" of the punk show. I'm excited to go see more shows with older bands so that more of the veterans will show up with me and again teach the younger crowd how to properly mosh. As for the newer bands and the ones that are getting modern attention, I'm going to think twice about seeing them again. But as for Warped Tour? I'll be back next year.