Review: The World Is A Curious Place To Live - Lori Henriques

Who are the inheritors of the edutational mantle passed on from Schoolhouse Rock ?  While the crunchy pop purveyors of, say, the Bazillions have distilled a handful of lessons into 3-minute songs whose chord structures and arrangements would fit on any AAA radio station, who took the less-poppy and more obscure route that some of those songs from 40 years ago took?

Lori Henriques, that's who. 

Her 2011 kids music debut, Outside My Door , was one of those "unlike any other CD" CDs for which the phrase actually fit.  A mixture of 1970s piano jazz, Broadway exposition, Sesame Street , and, yes, Schoolhouse Rock , the album eschewed pop-rock for jazzy explorations of birthdays, twins, and more subjects of kid-concern.  It was smart without being snooty (yes, she rhymed "goat turd" with "awkward").

On her new disk, The World Is A Curious Place To Live, the Portland, Oregon-based Henriques even more fully embraces her inner Schoolhouse Rock  nerd.  From the album title, which isn't so much descriptive as it is sage advice, to the songs within, which deal with topics scientific, mathematic, and linguistic.  In fact, the 35-minute album can even be thought of as 3 separate and sequential EPs on each of Henriques' obsessions.

The first EP, featuring the most scientific songs, includes the album's strongest songs.  With its celebration of curious people both famous and close to Henriques' orbit, the opener "Curiosity" features a bouncing chord accompaniment and her evident delight in the wordplay. (For good measure, Henriques throws in a scat line or two.)  On songs like "Crunchy Privilege," you can hear why she cites Cole Porter as an influence.  And while Henriques having fun moving her fingers quickly to match the lyrics, the two strongest tracks on the album are "When I Look Into the Night Sky" and "Dinosaur," two  ballads.  The former, an ode to wonder and amazement, is based on "Saint James Infirmary" and has a lovely video to match.  The latter is wholly original, simultaneously an honest-to-goodness love song for a dinosaur and a wry recounting of millions of years of evolution ("We've still got the ants / And they're still crawling round on our floor").  I can't see this playing on too many radio stations, but it so totally nails that combination of earnestness and nerdiness that's one of kindie's most appealing strains.

The other two EPs-of-a-sort are fun, but don't quite reach the heights of the preceding songs.  The counting songs are brief and for the most part meld familiar classical melodies with skip-counting lyrics for numbers 2 through 6 ("Counting by Six is Sublime" to me works best).  The language songs include a Norwegian travelogue ("When in Norway") and, appropriately for Henriques, a wordsmith at heart, a celebratory ode to words themselves ("Vocabulary").

As on her debut, the only accompaniment is Henriques' piano, which she nimbly plays.  The age range may differ by section -- older kids probably won't find the number songs as interesting as the language and science ones -- but there's a sweet spot between the ages of 5 through 9.  Henriques has joined Justin Roberts and decided not to have her latest album streamed on Spotify, but you can stream samples on iTunes.  And, as with her debut, the album packaging from her brother Joel Henriques is lovely.

I think the thing I love most about The World Is A Curious Place To Live  is that Lori Henriques clearly practices what she sings, offering up celebrations of the world outside of ourselves.  Her jazzy-pop-by-way-of-Broadway-and-Carnegie-Hall is still unique in the world of kids music and worth being curious about.  Definitely recommended.

Note: I received a copy of the album for possible review. 

Review: Turn Turn Turn - Dan Zanes & Elizabeth Mitchell with You Are My Flower

Has there ever been a more high-profile collaboration between kids musicians than that of Dan Zanes and Elizabeth Mitchell?  The giants at the start of the kids music movement -- Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Ella Jenkins, Raffi -- don't appear in person on the others' albums.  And while collaboration is now the norm in kindie, with Mitchell especially as well as Zanes appearing on other artists' records, there is essentially no precedence for Turn Turn Turn , the brand-new album from the two kindie superstars.  (Aside from a Laurie Berkner duet with Mitchell on Berkner's holiday album, there's really nothing.)  It's as if Lady Gaga and Katy Perry teamed up for a new release, or maybe it's the kids music equivalent of Watch the Throne.  (And, not only that, the duo's touring together, too.)

All of which is to say the expectations for this album were probably pretty high in a lot of quarters, including this one.  So it took me a few listens to fully appreciate Turn Turn Turn, an album essentially recorded in a long weekend.  For those of you expecting the full-band musical travelogue experience of most of Zanes' Dan Zanes & Friends albums or the lush, mellow lo-fi indie folk-rock of Mitchell's albums with husband Daniel Littleton, daughter Storey, and friends as You Are My Flower, the sound is different.  That unadorned cover album photo, which looks like it could've been taken fifty years ago, is a pretty good pictoral representation of the music within.

The majority of the tracks are renditions of traditional songs, some of which will sound familiar to fans of both artists' previous work.  For example, "So Glad I'm Here," which Mitchell memorably recorded on You Are My Sunshine, here gets a funky banjo treatment.  I prefer the first treatment, easily one of my top five favorite Mitchell tracks, but I appreciate the attempt to mix it up.  Other songs will sound familiar just because they move in the same circles the artists have traveled in before -- the sea song "Sail Away Ladies" would've fit on Zanes' criminally unknown Sea Music, while "Raccoon and Possum" could have been recorded (differently, in all likelihood) by Zanes and Mitchell on many of their previous albums.  Mitchell fans may miss, however, the more modern not-obvious-until-recorded cover choices (Velvet Underground, Allman Brothers) on her previous albums.

There are six original tracks as well.  With "Honeybee," Mitchell's lone original, a gentle song with nifty wordplay that could easily be a lost Woody Guthrie track, she reminds the listener that for all her gifts as a song-interpreter, she has songwriting gifts, too.  (Don't hide them under bushel basket, Elizabeth!)  Zanes contributes five new songs.  I particularly like "Coney Island Avenue," a strutting, hand-clapping stroll through a local neighborhood -- a prototypical Zanes song.  "Now Let's Dance" is his best (and successful) attempt at a sing-along folk-dance tune, while "In the Sun" is a dreamy, mid-afternoon nap of a song that's probably the best actual duet here, a nice blend of their voices.  (Though "Shine," the closest thing to a modern pop song on the album -- though it's not very close at all -- is a close second.)

Suggesting an age range for Dan Zanes albums (and, to a lesser extent, Elizabeth Mitchell albums) is a fool's errand, so while it's not an album focused on toddlers and infants, kids of all ages should enjoy it.  As noted above, the instrumentation mostly eschews the fuller-band sound of DZ&F albums and fuzzy lo-fi rock of YAMF albums for a more restrained folk sound; look at that album cover again -- mandolin, guitar, tambourine, and ukulele.

Once you get past your preconceived notions of what this album should sound like (including this review), I think you'll find that Turn Turn Turn offers up many enjoyable moments.  There are a handful of dance songs for fans of Zanes' dance parties and some songs that showcase Mitchell's warm yet crystalline voice.  But the album's biggest strength is that this album of two of kindie's biggest stars features those musicians getting together to play songs humbly and joyfully.  Highly recommended.

Note: I received a copy of the album for possible review. 

Itty-Bitty Review: ¡Fantastico! - Lucky Diaz and the Family Jam Band

Although they’ve released just three albums for kids and families, Lucky Diaz and the Family Jam Band have almost enough bright, acoustic rock songs for kids and families to release a “greatest hits” album.  Diaz’ latest album Fantastico! takes a look back at some of his best songs, but with a twist.

Take “Gato Astronauta,” about a space-traveling cat.  In its original incarnation, the song had just two Spanish words -- the title.  With the help of Tejano music producers Noe Benitez and Christina Martinez-Benitez, Diaz reworked “Gato” and some of his other English-language hits into Spanish.  On the only entirely new track on the album, Diaz takes the traditional Latin American children’s singing game “La Vibora de la mar” and turns it into a shimmery pop song.  By marrying his bubbly pop songs to a new language, he's given the songs new life and suggested an alternative route to non-English music for kids.

The 22-minute album is appropriate for kids ages 3 through 8.  It'll obviously appeal to those looking for Spanish-language music, but it holds up even if you're just a fan of good kids' music.  A first-generation Mexican-American, Diaz grew up in San Antonio, Texas, and he says his mom is most pleased that he’s finally recorded an album in Spanish.  His new album neatly honors his family’s past and his own musical past while pointing the way to a new, very danceable future.  Definitely recommended.

Note: I received a copy of this album for possible review. 

Itty-Bitty Review: Champions of the Universe - Ratboy Jr.

Trying to describe the music of New York's Ratboy Jr. is an exercise in merging two disparate references.  Funk made by your favorite dog?  Music for the easily distracted kid in all of us?  A blender with really good taste in guitar-drum duos?

Whatever.  It's weird, and so long as your family is down with the first 8 1/2 minutes of the album -- a loping song about a sentient rock ("Bill"), a pure pop hit about high fiving one's shadow ("High 5 Your Shadow," natch, along with a digression into the difference between a solar and lunar eclipse), and a gentle, dreamy song about eating clouds ("How To Eat a Cloud"), then y'all will make it through the rest of the album with a silly grin on your face.  For every crunchy Americana and Velvet Underground-inspired tune from guitarist/kazooist Timmy Sutton and drummer/glockenspielest Matty Senzatimore, there's a song like "Pretend Your Hand's a Puppet," which includes an air-drum solo and more "la la la's" than ANY song in recent memory and which should wipe away any churlishness the listener has stored up from the past week.

The album is best for kids ages 4 through 8 (as well as your inner 7-year-old).  Producer and multi-instrumentalist Dean Jones helps sand down some of the band's rough edges, while creating some new nooks and crannies for the band to explore, but in the end the album rests upon Ratboy Jr.'s unironic enthusiasm, heart, and willingness to wear its rubber chicken on its sleeve.  Recommended.

Note: I received a copy of the album for possible review. 

Review: Blink of an Eye - Frances England

I've had the occasional thought over the past few years about what kids music might sound like a few years from now.  What happens when the kids who grew up connected online and encouraged in a DIY world become parents themselves?  What happens when mass-market TV gives way to a million tiny screens (or at least a thousand different programmers)?  When parents have no idea who Pete Seeger is (but have memories of that Lumineers concert they went to once)?

I don't think Frances England's fourth album Blink of an Eye is the answer to any or all of those questions, but it is an answer that presages it.

If on her previous album Mind of My Own , England cranked up the volume and the energy, on this new recording, the San Francisco artist dials it all back a bit.  It's not that England has abandoned melody -- the title track which leads off the album, for example, has a lovely wordless ending to the chorus (helped no doubt by the presence of Elizabeth Mitchell and Caspar Babypants on the track).  But it's all very jangly -- producer Dean Jones and England employ a ton of different percussive instruments throughout the album (I'm pretty sure "Move Like Saturday Night" uses even more different items for percussion, if that's possible).

Although the production values are much higher than those on England's debut Fascinating Creatures, famously recorded as a preschool fundraiser and the first time she'd made an album, the impulse is the same.  It's a very-DIY sound equal parts folk and indie rock, put together with craft and care.  "Little Wings," even though it moves forward propulsively on Morgan Taylor's guitar work, is a quiet piece.  On a number of the songs, England chooses to deemphasize her vocals -- the result on those tracks is impressionistic in effect, the aural equivalent of that collage of an album cover.

And that's really what England is aiming for (and succeeding) lyrically.  Many of the songs are fleeting glimpses -- memories -- of family life and parenthood.  "Blink of an Eye" is the most obvious, but it's the dreamy "Salt Water Spin" and "Look How the Light Dances with Trees" that feel like England telling herself -- and by extension her family and us, the listeners -- "Don't. Forget. This."

This album will be most appreciated by kids ages 5 through 9, though its mellow nature will have a broader appeal for quiet-time spins.  You can listen to the whole thing at England's music page. 

Frances England has carved out a career making very personal music for families -- more so than many artists, I believe she thinks specifically about her own family as the audience.  This approach -- challenging oneself to learn new skills and then reflecting their life outward using those newfound skills -- is one area where I think kids music will evolve.  Maybe even one day a couple decades from now a 28-year-old new parent will remember those albums they listened to on "CD" or an "iPhone," pick up an instrument (or a computer), and try to convey those same dreamy feelings to their own child.  One can hope, anyway.  Highly recommended.

 Note: I received a copy of the album for possible review.

Review: Recess - Justin Roberts

I recently watched Jiro Dreams of Sushi , a 2011 film about Jiro Ono, an 85-year-old sushi maker whose small restaurant in the basement of a Tokyo office building has received three Michelin Guide stars, signifiying it as one of the best restaurants in the world, one worth visiting a country for solely to eat at.  It's a beautiful movies in many different ways, and makes many points about craft, dedication, and skill.  (It also will make you hungry for sushi, but that's not relevant here.)

Watching the movie came at a fortuitous time for me as a reviewer, because I'd been banging my head for weeks  -- virtually -- trying to figure out how to write a review of Justin Roberts' latest album, Recess.  It is, as I've noted before, difficult to write about musicians who consistently release high quality music for families.  How do you write "this is great" without boring your audience (or, almost as importantly, yourself)?  And with Jiro , the answer came to me -- through the prism of the difficulty of maintaining one's craft over an extended period of time.

Justin Roberts released his first album for kids, Great Big Sun, in 1997; this new album is his ninth.  There is not a kids musician today who has a discography of original music for kids and families as consistently great and large as Roberts has produced over the past 16 years.  Other have a great discography featuring reinterpretations of classic songs or have fewer albums or written over a shorter period of time, but let's stop here to think about the dedication to craft his career has entailed. Sixteen years of crafting songs with a singular audience in mind.  Roberts didn't go full-time to kids music until the early 2000s, and he's now putting together a couple kids' books, but for the most part, that's more than 15 years doing a single thing over and over.  Is it any wonder that Roberts' songwriting skills are so sharp?

Many of Roberts' songwriting hallmarks are on display in Recess, starting with the irresistible title track.  Child narrator with enthusiasm on full display?  Check.  Internal rhymes?  Check.  Spelling?  Check.  (OK, I wouldn't necessarily suggest that spelling is one of Roberts' hallmarks.)  All that wrapped in powerpop that seems that seems like it can't get any more powerpoppy until he finds the amp that goes to 11.  It's a great song, among Roberts' best.  (Critic's obligatory fawning praise for producer Liam Davis and the whole Not Ready for Naptime Players, who bring Roberts' songs to vibrant life?  Check.)

His songwriting skills are such that at this point he's willing to tackle one of the most obvious (and usually tired)  subjects in kids music -- princesses and girls wearing pink -- and he completely turns it on its ear, offering up a song that many adult listeners will hear as an allegory about how it just takes a handful of people changing their attitude to overturn outdated ways of thinking ("It seems so obvious to us, it's hard to understand the fuss").

As the album proceeds, the longtime Roberts fan will hear echoes of previous songs -- I can't listen to "Hopscotch" without thinking of "We Go Duck" and their celebrations of childhood games, or "I'll Be an Alien" without several songs about kids dreaming of their escape like "Backyard Super Kid."  There are the songs that serve up an entirely different musical interlude mid-stream such as "Every Little Step."  And, yeah, there seems to be a direct line (in reverse) from the narrator of "Check Me Out, I'm at the Checkout" to that of "Meltdown!"

To me, the way this album differs from its predecessors is Roberts' increased emphasis on songs about parenthood.  In the past, those celebrations of parenthood have been more oblique (the sideways glance at the parents in "Cartwheels and Somersaults," still my all-time favorite song of his).  And on Recess, songs like  "School's Out (Tall Buildings)" take that same approach.  But a song like "Every Little Step," though ostensibly (and I'm pretty sure in actuality) about dog ownership by the dog, is easily heard as a celebratory song about the parent-child relationship.  "We Got Two" is a song about twins, but from the parent's perspective.  "Red Bird" carries on Roberts' tradition of ending his album on a gentle note, but if you take a step back, it's hard to believe the journey the album takes from the album opener to the string-assisted ballad at the end.  Yet they seem part of a whole, enthusiasm yielding to unconditional love and wonder.

Like the rest of his discography, the album is most appropriate for kids ages 5 through 9, though he obviously has wider age appeal.  Roberts has decided to limit his music for digital streams on services such as Spotify, and his taste for the analog extends to the gorgeous packaging for the CD, which includes a lovely cover courtesy of Ned Wyss.  Wyss also designed the secret robot in the packaging, who is your child's (and your) guide through a secret website featuring activities for your child and a treasure trove of JR rarities for, well, probably you.  (And me.)

It's actually those rarities such as a 2002 live recording of "Yellow Bus" that bring us back to the beginning, to the importance of craft. Even "Yellow Bus," a classic, fun and funny song in its own right, might only be the sixth or seventh best song on Recess.  On the one hand, in its recapitulations of themes and styles I could say that Justin Roberts' career up to this point has led him right here to this album.  But that might suggest some sort of finality to the journey, and the thing that I've realized is that he's going to continue crafting great music.  Recess  is a great album, Roberts' best (though that's a close call, to be sure), but I also know that it's very likely that one day he will release something even better.  Highly recommended.

 [Note: I received a copy of the album for possible review.]