Review: LMNO Music (Green) - Enzo Garcia

Over the course of just a few years, San Francisco-based Enzo Garcia has released nine albums of original and occasionally quirky folk reworkings of traditional and original kids' songs. The recently re-released Green is a good example of Garcia's work. One of the primary things I find so appealing about the series is the fact that electronic keyboards, which in many artists' hands is the great bane of children's music, are long absent. Instead, on tracks such as "What Do You Do?," Garcia employs a toy piano. I'm not necessarily a huge toy piano fan, but Garcia's fondness for using instruments you don't typically hear (on albums of any kind) means getting to hear familiar songs in unfamiliar ways. And so on "This Old Man," Garcia is joined by Tom Waits' occasional side man (and budding kids' musician in his own right) Ralph Carney on slide clarinet. Garcia and Carney also team up on a rousing "Drunken Sailor," which spares no lyrics in the tale of the punishments for the inebriated crewmate, Garcia's rolling of the "r's" on "rusty razor" echoing Carney's tenor sax. There's no track on here that's quite as engrossing as "Hold My Hand" on his Pink CD, but the round on the traditional "My Paddle's Keen and Bright" comes close. (I also liked Garcia's "Dee Dee.") Even more than Pink, Green will be most enjoyed if you participate along with the music. The disks were created to accompany Garcia's weekly music classes, and so if you move around (or accompany with shakers and tambourines) the music here, you'll get the most out of the album. The songs here are most appropriate for kids ages 1 through 6. You can hear samples at the album's CD Baby page. Enzo Garcia is right in the middle of the great folk music tradition that encourages music-makers to take traditional tunes and make them their own. On Green, Garcia continues to help families hear old tunes in new ways (and maybe even start to make them their own). It's as good as any Garcia album to introduce you to his music. Recommended. [Note: Bryan at The Pokey Pup notes that they're currently running a special offer where if you buy Green you can get LMNO (Red) for free. Easy-peasy. Click here for more...]

Review: Bullfrog Jumped (Children's Folksongs from the Byron Arnold Collection) - Various Artists

It's Alan Lomax for the kiddos. Released last year by the Alabama Folklife Association and given a new release this upcoming Tuesday, Bullfrog Jumped is a collection of folksongs sung by mothers, grandmothers, and other women in the summer of 1947, when they were recorded on front porchaes and in kitchens by Byron Arnold, a Professor of Music at the University of Alabama. There are some standards -- "Frog Went A-Counrting" and "Skip To My Lou," for example -- but many of these folksongs were new to me, or at least the melody or lyrics were. There are, for example, three different versions of "All The Pretty Little Horses," none of which quite sound like the wistful lullaby has become more than 50 years later. "Skip To My Lou" has about 10 verses, only 3 or 4 of which I'd heard before. There are some stellar voices on the disk. Vera Hall, whose recording of "Troubled So Hard" was sampled by Moby on Play (and who was definitely familiar to Alan Lomax), has a great song, "Little Lap Dog," here. The voice that made me snap to attention every time I heard it was that of 17-year-old Mozella Longmire, who has 4 tracks on the disk, including "Little Sally Walker" and "Two Little Gentlemen From the Spring." Sixty years later, Mrs. Longmire is still singing in the choir at Mt. Triumph Baptist Church, and it seems to me someone needs to record an album of her singing folksongs. I'd buy it. The songs are most appropriate for kids ages 0 through 6. You can hear four tracks here, two more here, and samples of all the tracks here. With 42 tracks in about 36 minutes, sometimes the snippets of songs are just to short to be of much listening interest heard straight through. The a cappella nature of the album can also become a bit repetitive for an entire disk. But as a sampler and recording of songs familiar and much less so, the recording (which sounds great for a recording 60 years old) and the liner notes (of Smithsonian Folkways quality), should be in every library and preschool.

Review in Brief: Music For Tots - Little Miss Ann

With experience singing in Old Town School of Folk Music Wiggleworms classes, Chicago-based Ann Torralba would seem a logical choice for recording a CD targeted at the preschool set. And sure enough her debut kids' CD as "Little Miss Ann," Music For Tots, is geared for exactly those kids. A folk-poppy blend of traditional kids' songs, covers, and originals, the 22-minute disk is notable for its arrangements, which take out-of-the-ordinary approaches to familiar songs. Sometimes these arrangements sound great, such as on "You Are My Sunshine," which is given a different melody and jazzy percussion background, or "Pirate Ship," which employs a tin whistle to fun effect. Other tracks' arrangements aren't as endearing (the rhythm on the Pete Seeger-inspired "Edamame" was just, well, too angular, for example), but Torralba gets points for at least trying something different. (And I particularly enjoyed the Torralba originals.) The disk is appropriate for kids ages 1 through 5. You can hear samples of all the tracks (and purchase the CD) here. With its reinterpretations of traditional songs, this disk would work really well in preschool programs. And while I don't think the CD will become the favorite of many families, Little Miss Ann's musical and lyrical re-interpretations on Music For Tots are good for the occasional sing-along for young families.

Review in Brief: Asian Dreamland - Various Artists (Putumayo)

The first region-specific release in its Dreamland series, Putumayo's Asian Dreamland collection was released earlier this month with, yes, a collection of lullabies from Asia. Coincidence or not, it's one of the few areas of the world that Ellipsis Arts hasn't covered in its collections of world lullabies. Although I keep an open set of ears when it comes to music, after more than three decades of listening to it, I've certainly developed some preferences, and one of those is a general indifference to music from Asia. I think it's perhaps the stringed instruments found in many Asian melodies, which may be relaxing to some, but not to me. So it came as little surprise to me that my favorite tracks on this 32-minute disk were those that downplayed the stringed instruments, such as "Cradle Song," from the Tatarstan artis Zulya, or "Aka Tonbo," a Japanese lullaby sung by Aiko Shimada and Elizabeth Falconer. Instrumentals like "Asadoya Yunta," which features a shamisen, a 3-stringed instrument similar to a banjo, were less pleasant to me. As slow as the instrumentals were, they would definitely keep me awak. But one of the advantages of youth is that the ears of the young haven't developed their prejudices like their stick-in-the-mud dads, and so it's possible your kids will be incredibly relaxed by this collection. At the very least, it's a user-friendly collection of traditional Asian tracks supplemented by Putumayo's always helpful liner notes (you think I could identify a shamisen by myself?) A collection of lullabies, it's most appropriate for kids ages 0 through 6, though I'm sure older kids interested in traditional Asian music would find this a useful starter. Listen to Real Player samples here. Again, this collection is not for everyone, but if you're willing to try something new, Putumayo as usual offers you a good place to start.

Review: Newborn / Toddler - Sara Hickman

Austin-based artist Sara Hickman has been making albums for well over 15 years now. I can remember owning a cassette with her self-produced debut Equal Scary People (who knows where that tape resides now?) Several years ago, Hickman decided to record a kids CD inspired -- of course -- by the birth of her kids. And so in 1999, Hickman released Newborn, a collection of songs for "parents who have trepidation about singing to their newborns." Half collection of lullabies, half something more uptempo, the 40-minute album generally succeeds, usually in more the uptempo parts. A simple swinging version of "A-Tisket A-Tasket" or a gentle reading of Cat Stevens' "Moonshadow" -- pleasant to listen to. And Hickman gives her own "A Slice of Heaven" a nifty a cappella treatment. Less successful are the lullabies. I'm a parent who has no trepidation about singing to my kids, and the lullabies here intimidate me, actually. "It's Alright" is a song Hickman created for her 4-month-old daughter, and while the lyrics are sweet and give great comfort, Hickman's strong voice is a bit overwhelming. Maybe I'm wrong here, but it doesn't sound at all like the way I would sing to a colicky baby -- it's that version that I want to hear. The lullabies are fine (I've heard much worse), but they don't always sound the way lullabies might actually be sung.

Now, if the first album occasionally suffers from a bit of preciousness, Hickman's 2001 follow-up Toddler suffers in no way whatsoever in that regard. In about 43 minutes, Hickman records 31 tracks of silly songs, playground rhymes, and a few stories that do a much better job of showing how simple it can be to just sing for your kids. In writing notes on the CD, I repeatedly used the word "fun" to describe the tracks. From the instant-classic playground chant "I Like My Boots" (co-written by Hickman and 8-year-old Kristen Nichols) to the zippy "Weenie Man" to the ear-wormy melody of Hebrew folk song "Hiney Rakevet," Hickman seems to be having a blast. It's multi-cultural, multi-lingual, and a blast of energy from start to end. Unlike Newborn, Hickman also uses a few more instruments (on both albums, the playing is great). Sara's choice of album titles makes it remarkably easy for this reviewer to peg the age range, though I'd go a little on the older side, 0-4 for Newborn, and 1-6 for Toddler. You can hear samples and read lyrics for Newborn here and a few samples from Toddler here. Sara Hickman has crafted a couple nice CDs here. With some sweet melodies, Newborn might make a nice gift for a parent-to-be and is recommended, if only because it's not totally lullaby-driven. But it's Toddler that's definitely recommended -- it's the stronger album and will get much more use owing to the fun evident on the disk.

Review in Brief: Now The Day Is Over - The Innocence Mission

Take away the cover art of a child sleeping next to their stuffed animal, and there's nothing about The Innocence Mission's 2004 album Now The Day Is Over that would compel its placement in a kids' music section. Having said that, the collection of standards and other songs done in lullaby style was performed with kids in mind. The cover art fits. In a low-key jazz-influenced style, sparsely arranged and usually just with little more than guitar and bass to accompany her, singer-songwriter Karen Peris gives a hushed interpretation to the songs, lending to the dream-like quality of the recording. This semi-conscious quality is a good fit for many of the songs, such as "Stay Awake" or Henry Mancini's classic "Moon River" and extends to Don Peris' instrumental guitar work on Chopin's "Prelude in A" and Beethoven's "Sonata No. 8." The one original, Karen Peris' "My Love Goes With You," is a sweet lullaby, much closer to traditional lullabies than most of the songs on the 30-minute disk. One word of warning, though -- Peris' voice, though beautiful, has a distinct and somewhat nasal quality to it. I think most people will warm to it, but some might not. (Indeed, the songs I enjoyed less were the ones I'd heard hundreds of times before -- "Over the Rainbow" and "What A Wonderful World" -- and didn't think the Peris' distinct voice and rendition improved upon the original. The kids around you, of course, with no such baggage, won't care.) As a lullaby album, it's targeted for kids ages 0 through 5, though there's no reason why you won't put it on yourself when the kids are nowhere around and you need some peaceful music. You can clips at the album's CDBaby page. Now The Day Is Over is filled with a sense of goodness that families can find respite in in the course of -- or at the end of -- a busy day. Recommended.