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Show key from a slant-eye-d alcohol-lace- d lgar, Hilton Ruiz Excition (Steeplechase) exposed through his work with Charles Mingus. His second album for the SteepleChase label of Denmark shows a broad musical scope and a knack for choosing empathetic cohorts. Reedman Frank Foster, trumpeter Richard Williams, bassist Buster Williams and drummer Roy Brooks, A-- l New York pros all, dig into this program of traditional jazz works with elan and sensitivity. Ruiz' "Dedication to the Cooker" is reasonably straightforward until the bridge, where he starts tossing 34 and 44 time back and forth, a rhythmic diversion that keeps everyone on his toes. The title track opens with all voices playing free, an exhilarating yet slightly chaotic sound. Foster tickles the heights with his wispy soprano while Ruiz blocks g chords. Bassist out Williams uses small figures and long runs, mumbling low and whistling high. Ruiz' solo begins clear and cool, but soon he's a mad bull on the loose roaring wildly over the idea-formin- keyboard. ruminative duet with bass and drums ends this fervent A Tom Verlaine (Edtfra) ach-ingl- Those familiar with Tom Verlaine's earlier work with the Television won't be too surprised: his inventive, spare guitar lines, the surnow-dissolv- ed the gettin' ready to blow," and Side moody, unreal "Down by the realist rural dreamscapes of his Offsetting these weird, affecting mumblings are a series of amicably humorous tunes "Cold War," a drunken Texas waltz, the raucous "Ubangi Stomp" and Elvis Presley's lusty old "Baby Let's Play House." Pink Cadillac is about as uncommercial and basic as a record can get these days. Yet repeated playings won't wear down its appeal. The playing is pliant, but not drag-footedl- y sloppy. Prine, hobnobbing with the ghosts of Memphis, Tennessee, has backed off a step from his sullen singersongwriter stance to make an album that sounds just as great as it reads. Steven X. Rea ble if obvious drummer, maintains the beat reliably, providing a steady ground for Verlaine's explorations. Second guitarists Mark Abel and Television-lik- e rhythmic complexity on "Last Night" and "Breakin in My Heart," the only songs on which Verlaine takes extended solos. Verlaine's playing, unadorned and willfully mid-Fifti- unvirtuosic by most standards, eschews the cliched histrionics of most rock and roll guitarists. His solo structures, curiously static, abjure obvious hooks and climaxes for a more compelling form based on ir- -' resolution and extension. Vocally, Verlaine is much looser here than on previous outings. LA Explosion (Bomp) The Motels The Motels (Capitol) The Pop Go! (Arista 2020 2020 recent years to the growth of rock and roll, but perhaps this lull will be reversed by the flurry of new activity, the results of which are now appearing on vinyl. Among the earliest and most impressive releases are those from 2020, the Pop, the Motels and the Last. 2020 is a band in the true collaborative sense. Songwriting, lead vocals and guitar leads are shared by guitarist Steve Allen, bassist Ron Flynt and Chris Silagyi, who adds third-par- t harmonies as well as guitar and simple synthesizer lines.. Mike Gallo's drumming propels their tunes into great dance music. The Pop helped initiate the LA music surge, but, since signing to wave-inspir- otherwise typical Mac offering, is Buckingham's. His "Tusk," the most ambitious song on the album, benefits from Mick Fleetwood's prop- ulsive beat and hauntingly claustrophobic production. "Not That close to hard rock roll as Mac will ever get. "The Ledge" is a surprisingly raw stab at rockabilly. k Besides his usual is as steady-as-a-roc- drumming, Fleetwood's aggressive double-timin- g in "What Makes You Think You're the One," literally car- John Prine Pink Cadillac (Asylum) ries the tune. Christine McVie's long suit is the lilting love ballad, Arista John Prine's seventh album corded in Memphis, at Sam (Sun Records) Phillips' studio, the place where Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Roy Orbison cut their early records. Pink Cadillac, while not as as the discs that contained "Sam Stone," "Paradise" and "Hello in There," is arguably the gravelly-voice- d Chicagoan's best was "Over and by Fuin her which work echoes Over," ture Games. But her "Honey Hi" and "Brown Eyes" are built on a single melody line without so much as a chorus change. Luxurious production gives an illusion of freshness, lyric-center- but there's nothing unique in the songs. "Think About Me" is a suc- re- ed album to date. Backed by a foursome of players raised on rockabilly and Bo Diddley (bassist Tom Piekarski, cessful rocker, something Tusk could use more of. Given her vocal and artistic limitations, it's no wonder Stevie Nicks' contributions are the keyboardsax man Howard most predictable. "Sisters of the Moon" is her token gypsy claptrap, arranged like "Stairway to Heaven." "Beautiful Child" is awash with the naive lyricism that makes Nicks' writing so tiresome: "I'm not a child anymoreI'm tall enough to reach for the starsI'm old enough to love from afar... I will do as I'm told." Tusk's superb production may placate old fans there's still a huge music. audience for smooth-as-mil- k creative But without Buckingham's boost this album, which cost $1 million to make, would be the costliest puff pastry in history. Jeff Silberman Levy, guitarist John Burns and drummer Angie Varias), and produced by Sam Phillips' sons Knox and Jerry, Pink Cadillac is a raw, bare-to-the-bon- es excursion into Prine's variably d funny, tragic, prejudiced, hard-edge- world. Prine kicks off with "Chinatown," a rowdy, downright rude blues stroll through the sidestreets of ethnic bigotry, where "The moon is yellow and the people are tooThey roll their eggs on a where the singer, "Feelin kinda tacky with a headful of saki," gets a "sidways hic- bar-b-cue- CgZ (Epic) Los Angeles hasn't offered much in long-awaite- represented here es The Last Along with Patti Smith, he helped piece. pioneer an edgy, modernist singing Side two has a rich, poignant bal- style which has since broadened and lad played by Foster on tenor sax, become capable of carrying more and a rockhouse blues. moods. Zan Stewart On Adventure Verlaine sang that he "loved disaster and loved what came Fleetwood Mac after." What has come after is an eleTusk (Warner Brothers) gant and precise set of music. d The label of Fleetwood Mac's Tusk says it straight: "Special thanks from the band to Lindsey Buckingham." Most of the interesting material, spread thin in an Funny" of the Road," about the mysterious shooting of the singer's girlfriend. lyrics and his reedy voice dominate this solo effort, as they did Adventure and the daring Marquee Moon. Jay Daugherty, Patti Smith's capa- Ricky Wilson build a humor makes Prine sound less desperate than y usual. Still, there's Roly Salley's unhappy "Killin' the Blues," the Viet Nam vet of Saigon who exclaims, "The static in my attic's Tom Verlaine Ruiz is a vibrant young pianist first chickey." Vu- Q ," a ed year ago, they've been absent from the scene. Go! seems detached, concealing the wonderful street band instincts of the Pop's first album, independently released on Automatic. Only "She Really Means That Much to Me" and "Shakeaway" reflect the earlier reverence for infectious melodies. Martha Davis, lyricist and singer for the Motels, makes each number an intimate experience, her expres- sive voice tuning songs of lonely frustration like "Total Control" and "Counting" into emotional pleas. She likes to twist words; in "Dressing Up," the lyrics "outfitted to fit in" reduce the rules of high fashion to a childish game. The album's guitar interplay is also exceptional, as is Martin Jourard's stirring sax work. The Last take an aggressive stance on LA Explosion, touching at times on social themes. The album's generous cuts vary from folk rock, surf music and acid punk to the Mersey beat sound, but occasional lyric blurtings like "Love is a gobbler, love is a turkey," obscure the Last's intensity and potent use of dynamics. Quality is recovered with the fierce yet |