Yes, it’s heavy on the piano, 4-hands and 2 piano music, but those are sub-genres of keyboard music that aren’t usually seriously considered or encountered in the media (unless backed by a major label, like the 5 Browns are by Sony) and there were several releases this year worth checking out. Besides, there are a couple of other things in here to mix it up a little…so non-pianophiles need not despair!

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The list of reasons to look forward to 2008 just got a little bit longer: Anthony Gonzales will release the fifth M83 album on April 15. For Saturdays = Youth, Gonzales worked with producers Ewan Pearson — who has twiddled knobs for the Rapture and Ladytron — and Ken Thomas, who counts Sigur Rós among his clients. Shades of all those bands, as well as the direct-yet-evocative sound of Before the Dawn Heals Us, can be heard on “Couleurs,” an eight-minute plus epic that joins wistful synth atmospheres and soaring guitars with escalating rhythms. The sound is nostalgic and exciting at the same time, which fits the vibe the title Saturdays = Youth gives off perfectly.

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Photo Credit: Adam Dorn

In the realm of popular music, it is very likely we will not see a producer like Joel Dorn again. Dorn died of a heart attack on Monday in New York City. He was 65. At the time of his death he was working on a box set for Rhino called Homage A Nesuhi, in tribute to his mentor, the late Nesuhi Ertegun, who gave him his first job in 1964, producing the debut album by flutist Hubert Laws, entitled The Laws of Jazz ().

Dorn, who began corresponding with Ertegun when he was 14, didn’t formally become a staff producer at the label until 1967. Before he became a producer full-time (and eventually Nesuhi’s right-hand man as Vice President of the division), he’d logged some real experience with records by Laws, Mose Allison, and others, but his full-time gig was as a very successful DJ in his native Philadelphia, at WHAT-FM. He started at the station in 1961 at the age of 19. Dorn made his connections with labels and artists during his tenure in Philly, but his eyes were on production all along. Ertegun knew that be brought something else to the table at Atlantic as well: that Dorn sought from the very beginning to marry together the popular sounds of R&B, soul, blues, and rock & roll, to his jazz productions. Throughout his long career, Dorn cited his biggest influences as the songwriting team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, and the early productions of Phil Spector.

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Amerie - Because I Love It
A pair of Top Ten albums and Top Ten R&B singles to match. You’d think Amerie’s path would be without obstacles going forward, but album number three — this one — was left unreleased in the States. In other territories, where it was released, it was left to rot. It’s a shame; the album is loaded. The amicable and possibly temporary split between Amerie and her primary producer, Rich Harrison, might’ve been a cause for some concern, but this set of songs is altogether more colorful and varied than both All I Have and Touch. It’s almost excessively generous, provided you are able to keep up and absorb a set of songs that, sequentially, is of exceptionally distinct halves. The all-too-brief intro, the Clutch collaboration “Hate 2 Love U,” “Make Me Believe,” the Cee-Lo co-production “Take Control,” and “Gotta Work” are all restlessly upbeat, dishing out prancing horns (sampled and synthetic), tumbling/crashing drum breaks, zipping organs, and other ’60s/’70s soul-funk authenticators. Read more >>

Chrisette Michele - I Am
Chrisette Michele sometimes seems more eager to please her elders than express herself straight-up. Take, for instance, “I’ve been studying Miss Billie, Miss Ella, Miss Sarah Vaughan, and Miss Natalie Cole,” from “Let’s Rock.” That’s reverence. And then there’s “Take me back in the day, when lovin’ was pure,” from “Golden.” She was born in 1982. Above all, there’s her voice, a gently scratchy instrument that occasionally plays up the fact that none of its antecedents were born after the 1960s. But that’s just her voice, which adapts to each mostly fresh-sounding production on I Am, though there is no denying she is not going to impinge upon the territories staked out by most other R&B artists her age. Following strategically-placed features on Jay-Z’s Kingdom Come and Nas’ Hip Hop Is Dead — her roles on “Lost One,” “Still Dreaming,” and “Can’t Forget About You” could’ve been mistaken for dusty samples — the album straddles old-but-new/new-but-old rather adeptly, and the ease with which Chrisette shifts from approach to approach is impressive. Read more >>

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1. Ralph Vaughan Williams: A Sea Symphony
Delivered with visceral excitement and awe-inspiring majesty, Ralph Vaughan Williams’ A Sea Symphony (1909) receives one of its greatest performances in this glorious super-audio recording by Richard Hickox and the London Symphony Orchestra, one to rival its predecessors and to set a high standard for others to emulate in the future. A setting of stirring poetry by Walt Whitman, this optimistic and heroic pæan to the world’s oceans and sailors has never sounded warmer, richer, or deeper, thanks to Chandos’ direct stream digital reproduction and the amazingly realistic multichannel mix which is so vivid and evocative, one expects to feel a bit “of dashing spray, and the winds piping and blowing” from the speakers. Read more>>

Vaughan Williams: The Wasps
Vaughan Williams: A Sea Symphony

2. Anton Bruckner: Symphony No. 4
The Symphony No. 4 in E flat major, “Romantic” by Anton Bruckner has long been one of the most popular of his symphonies, and it has received numerous performances in its multiple versions, often to the confusion and consternation of listeners who have grown familiar with only one. For this 2007 EMI release, Sir Simon Rattle leads the Berlin Philharmonic in Leopold Nowak’s 1953 edition of the 1886 version, somewhat puzzlingly known also as the “1878/1880″ version, the first three movements representing Bruckner’s second attempt on the work, and the Finale being a replacement movement prepared for Hans Richter’s 1881 premiere. Read more>>

Bruckner: Symphony No. 4

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If you’re a die-hard fan of Maya Arulpragasam, but your copies of Arular and Kala have lost their luster after repeated spins, here’s a sixer of similar femme fatales worth checking out — in the simplest terms and the most convenient definitions:

Tigarah — Kind of like M.I.A., but more Japanese.

Bonde do Role — Kind of like M.I.A., but more Brazilian.

Santogold — Kind of like M.I.A., but more American (R&B).

Rye Rye — Kind of like M.I.A., but more American (hip-hop).

Amanda Blank — Kind of like M.I.A., but more American (Idol).

Bunny Rabbit — Kind of like M.I.A., but…um…less political.
 

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Peter Brötzmann - Complete Machine Gun Sessions
Thanks to Atavistic and its truly treasured Unheard Music Series, we finally have the Complete Machine Gun Sessions as recorded in 1968. That short-lived but forever memorable (in the annals of free music lore) band was led by the vision and über lungs of saxophonist/composer Peter Brötzmann. It was built out of his stellar trio with pianist Fred Van Hove and drummer Han Bennink (the Europeans were already tearing down the walls of nationalism and their association with the American free jazz scene). Read More >>

Stanley Clarke - Children of Forever
Stanley Clarke’s debut solo effort was issued when he was already a seasoned jazz veteran, and a member of Chick Corea’s Return to Forever, which at the time of this recording also included Joe Farrell on soprano sax and flute, the Brazilian team of vocalist Flora Purim and drummer/percussionist Airto Moreira. Produced by Corea, who plays Rhodes, clavinette, and acoustic piano on “Children of Forever,” the band included flutist Arthur Webb, then-new RTF drummer Lenny White, guitarist Pat Martino, and a vocal pairing in the inimitable Andy Bey and Dee Dee Bridgewater also appear in meaningful roles. Read More >>

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If you haven’t seen it already, Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen has written a nice obituary of Ike Turner.

Fagen explains his importance to music and opines on what the native of the Clarksdale, Mississippi area (also home to Robert Johnson) may have asked the devil for down at the crossroads. Fagen’s guess?: “Organization!”

“His employers included the Bihari brothers at Modern Records, the Chess brothers in Chicago, and a host of tough club owners. They didn’t like to fool around with their money. Ike had to be at that session on time, he had to book those gigs, make sure the band’s suits were pressed, and that they rolled in to the next town ready to play.”