Review: Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! - Lloyd H. Miller

If I told you that Lloyd Miller recorded an entire album about Civil War characters (in many meanings of that last word), you should not be surprised one bit. This most history-obsessed of kids musicians has been recording songs about the famous and the infamous and those who aren't known well enough to be either from almost the very beginning of his band The Deedle Deedle Dees.

But he's never been as focused on a single period as he is on his new solo album Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!, subtitled An Introduction to the Civil War Era for Kids. It's labeled as Volume 1 of Miller's new Sing-A-long History project, suggesting listeners will get to hear more deep dives into history, which plays into Miller's interest in hearing from all the personalities. One might expect a Civil War-based album to feature lots of songs about Lincoln, but the Great Emancipator is more of a side character -- aside from a setting of Walt Whitman's "O Captain! My Captain!" (a duet with Marianne Tasick) and a recording of the Gettysburg Address featuring more than a dozen folks, Lincoln doesn't really make an appearance.

Instead, the album is more interested in characters like Baldy, the horse of Union General George Meade, whose head is mounted on the wall in a Philadelphia Museum, who get a song ("Baldy") to themselves. (That one's an old Dees track, re-recorded here.) Or Harriet Jacobs, a slave who escaped from her master, but who lived "Trapped in the Attic" for seven years before making it safely to freedom in the north. (It's an awesome, urgent song.) "Weeksville" introduces listeners to one of the first free black communities in the United States, founded in Brooklyn before the Civil War. It's not that Miller isn't interested in the War itself -- John Brown makes an appearance, as do songs of the time like "Follow the Drinkin' Gourd," "Marching Through Georgia," and "Tenting on the Old Campground." But Miller would rather sing through the voices of the people whose voices haven't been drilled into our brain over the past 150 years, the slaves and soldiers (and, er, the horses), but use more modern sounds -- rock and hip-hop, for example -- to do so.

The 38-minute album will be most appropriate for listeners ages 7 and up. You can listen to four tracks from the album here. I also recommend the curriculum guide (a first draft can be downloaded here), which features lyrics, historical background, and suggestions for classroom activities and further reading.

Because of its slightly narrow focus, Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! won't be to everyone's tastes, certainly all the time. But Miller gets credit for introducing the familiar big picture story of the Civil War through newer, less familiar lenses. His enthusiasm for the material shines through, giving new voices to old voices, which lifts this above many educational albums in terms of appropriateness in a broader context (e.g., the minivan). Highly recommended for the classroom setting, but recommended for all.

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

Itty-Bitty Review: Calling All the Kids to the Yard - Cat Doorman

A little more than a couple years ago, Portland, Oregon artist and musician Julianna Bright gave the world her Cat Doorman alter ego and a fantabulous debut album.

Now she's back with Calling All the Kids to the Yard, the first of 4 digital-only EPs Bright plans on releasing in 2015. And based on the 12-plus minutes on these first 4 tracks, we're in for a treat.

All the hallmarks of that debut -- the tumbledown organic folk-rock sound, the fully-felt emotions, Bright's enthusiastic vocals -- reappear here. If the first album's theme was of individual expression, the songs here focus more on the world outside. "Loving Cup" starts out with a slow acapella chorus, then moves into a rocking meditation ("I'm ready as I've never been / To slow my breath and to take in / All the world's wonders, all its kin / I start to see you."). "Wake Up" features funky organ, crunchy guitar, hand claps, and an encouragement for the listener to "reach out" and pay attention to the world. After the title track, the album closes with the least-lullaby-ish verson of "All the Pretty Horses" I've ever heard.

You can stream (and download) the album, most appropriate for kids ages 3 through 9, here. Fans of the debut album will definitely find more music here to their family's liking, but this should appeal to a broad range of Zooglobble readers and kindie fans. If possible, I like this even more than the debut. Definitely recommended.

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

Review: The Peculiar Tales of the S.S. Bungalow - Big World Audio Theatre

Let's give a hearty "Ahoy, mateys!" for the crew of Big World Audio Theatre, whose debut story and music collection The Peculiar Tales of the S.S. Bungalow set sail earlier this year.

(Let me also promise you that the rest of this review will be free of sailing-related puns.)

Based in Portland, Oregon and headed up by Laki Karavias and Jason Reuter, the Theatre (really, a loose collective of area musicians and artists) turned to Kickstarter to raise monies for the production and release of the album. The result is a lovingly crafted album and physical product that tells the story of Captain Gregory and the S.S. Bungalow's trek across the Atlantic Ocean to find the Lullaby Islands and the treasure found there.

Voice actor Kevin Barbare narrates the story, which is filled with enough dramatic plot turns, gentle good humor, atmospheric sound effects, and occasional Princess Bride-style meta-commentary to keep the target audience hooked and any adults tuned in amused. The chamber pop-folk, featuring the occasional stringed instrument, horns, and pedal steel, runs the gamut from peppy to slow as befitting the story's twists and turns (sometimes in the same song, as in "Life Is Good." "Follow the Albatross" sounds like it could have been culled from an Uncle Tupelo album. One song, "Aquinas," commemorating a long-loved pet, is particularly sweet and moving in a way few kindie songs are. While the songs are meant to serve a story, speaking as someone who primarily listened to the songs alone, they stand up well on their own.

The album is most appropriate for kids ages 5 through 9. The story version of the album is nearly 75 minutes long; a second disk featuring only the song tracks clocks in at about 32 minutes. (You can listen to the whole thing here.) The physical version, featuring Ward Jenkins' illustrations, is solidly packaged -- for multiple reasons, the CD would make a lovely gift. (I have no doubt that if they ever chose to go the vinyl route, that would look - and sound - splendid as well.)

The Peculiar Tales of the S.S. Bungalow was clearly a labor of love, with a fine attention to detail. I would love to see one of those multinational entertainment conglomerates figure out how to spread this far and wide, though I know that's unlikely. Instead, we'll just have to hope that Big World enjoyed this labor of love enough to make them want to attempt another. Definitely recommended.

Note: I was given a copy for possible review.

Review: Whales Can't Whistle - Bunny Clogs

Can More! More! More!, Bunny Clogs' debut album, really be more than six years old? Wow. That album was all over the map, stylistically, but it was filled with joy and community-mindedness, as if Dan Zanes had been cloned as a Minneapolis funk-and-drum-machine-favoriting rocker.

But here we are in 2015, and I can take Adam Levy's kid-friendly side project off my "one hit wonder" list, and not just because technically they have a second album, Whales Can't Whistle, but because it's pretty darn good, too. Unlike the first album, this one has a theme, animals in the world around us. (Levy's daughter But rather than tackle familiar animals, Levy takes as his subjects less familiar animals like nudibranches, capybaras, echidnas, and a Portuguese man-of-war jellyfish with a curious sense of humor. Also, the "Chipantula" -- half chipmunk, half spider -- though I'm pretty sure that one's made up. Some of the songs are more scientifically based, but more often the animals are the jumping off point for character sketches. (Here's Levy's liner notes description of "Blimpsoz the Sea Pig": "A crazy echinoderm with a vaguely Ukrainian accent describing a traumatic childhood with a happy ending.)

I gravitated towards the poppier songs, like "Beetle Mania," with a vaguely '60s sound, an ear-wormy chorus, and fun shout-outs to the other Beatlemania. One of the "Amelia's Pizza" has a funky piano line and a story worth of Randy Newman but with a happier ending (kid protagonist considers but rejects offer from large multinational corporation to sell and modify her pizzas.) "Echidna Print" features a couple verses from C. Manesterio and funky samples from BK-One.

The album is most appropriate for kids ages 6 through 11. You can stream the entire 47-minute album here. If I had to choose just Bunny Clogs album to introduce someone to the band, I'd probably pick their debut. But it'd be a tough call. Fans of the first album will find much of the same (but different) on Whales Can't Whistle. And I'm pretty sure you won't hear another album celebrating the fauna of the world this distinctive this year. Definitely recommended.

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

Review: Dancin' in the Kitchen - Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer

From the opening lines of "Dancin' in the Kitchen," the title track to Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer's new album, it's clear the duo means business with the album's full title, Dancin' in the Kitchen: Songs for All Families. "Dancin' in the kitchen / with mama and mommy / dancin' in the kitchen with me…" they sing, with the entire song celebrating families off all stripes -- two moms, two dads, all sorts of families.

Fink and Marxer -- who themselves married each other last year -- aren't the first kids' artists to record a song about people who identify as BGLTQ or even families with gay or lesbian parents, but the inclusion of that song in this album is a step towards including those families as part of the overall diversity of family types in this country (and kids music). In fact, more than half of the album are not new songs, but songs from artists like Justin Roberts and Uncle Ruthie Buell that fit within the broad rubric of "family," which kindie godparent Marlo Thomas defines as "a feeling of belonging" (it's the definition that the duo says they like most).

The album works best when it's celebrating the everyday-ness of families -- on the title track, for example, or on "Birthday Pup," a Lou and Peter Berryman tune detailing two dogs' many yearly birthdays, which Marxer performs here with Riders in the Sky. Fink's "Twins," recorded with the Canote Twins (actual identical twins), and their Irish medley with Cherish the Ladies "Howdy Little Newlycome/Ceilidh House Polka" are examples of what I think of as one of Fink and Marxer's greatest strengths -- finding other interesting artists to make music with, and plugging themselves in, as it were, to those musicians' talents, especially when those talents mesh well with Fink's and Marxer's bluegrass and roots music skills.

Some folks may find the balance of "message" (even if it's one they support wholeheartedly) and fun of the music sometimes tips uncomfortably toward the "message," but that may depend on whether or not you feel like you've heard your family's story -- or other families' stories -- before. I'm a parent of an adopted child, for example, and while I'm glad John McCutcheon's "Happy Adoption Day" has been around for a couple decades (Fink and Marxer offer their own version here), I've always only been "meh" on the song itself.

The 58-minute album is most appropriate for kids ages 4 through 9. I think Dancin' in the Kitchen will be popular for its content and message, and a fair number of the songs here would have been appropriate on a wide variety of albums, not just one labeled "family." Even if every song doesn't work for me, I'm glad for this album's existence. Recommended.

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

Review: The Cosmobiography of Sun Ra / Jubilee!

Two books, two very different celebrations of two very different men from Candlewick Press. Or how very different were they?

Jubilee! features the subtitle One Man's Big, Bold, and Very, Very Loud Celebration of Peace, and from that wordy subtitle you may not be surprised that the book focuses on a story from the last part of the nineteenth century, when florid descriptions ruled the day. Author Alicia Potter recounts the story of Irish-born bandleader Patrick Sarsfield Gilmore, creator of the National Peace Jubilee in 1869, which he conceived of to celebrate the return of peace at the end of the Civil War.

I was completely unaware of Gilmore and his Jubilee, and so I found that Potter does a good job of maintaining narrative tension in the story. If you, too, are unfamiliar, after reading the story you might wonder why, as it involved the construction of a building (the Temple of Peace) which stood 500 feet long, 300 feet wide, and 100 feet tall at its highest point. Or you might be amazed that a concert featuring a thousand musicians (including a hundred firemen hammering time on anvils) and ten thousand singers has faded from historical view. Potter's text is accompanied by clear, detailed illustrations from Matt Tavares, who nicely captures both the small-scale scenes (Gilmore, awake at night from worry about whether the concert will come off) and the very large-scale scenes.

Jubilee! will be most appropriate for kids ages 4 through 9 (the text itself is probably more for kids in 2nd grade on up, but the pictures make it appropriate for reading to those younger than that). While the Jubilee itself was a celebration of peace, this book is a celebration of grand plans and the ability of music to capture the imaginations of tens of thousands of people.

America has long been a nation of immigrants who've fully embraced, and been embraced by, their new country -- see Gilmore, above -- but does that apply to those who visit from other planets? Two-time Caldecott Medal winner Chris Raschka's new book The Cosmobiography of Sun Ra captures in impressionistic illustrations the life of Herman P. "Sunny" Blount. If you know Blount, you probably know him as Sun Ra, the musician and poet (among other things) who claimed that he was from Saturn.

As Raschka writes in the start of the book, "No one comes from Saturn. And yet. If he did come from Saturn, it would explain so much." The story Raschka tells is of a person who fully embraced life and the many opportunities in America. He played piano, leading his own ensemble before leaving high school, and was one of the first musicians to use electronic keyboards. His band, the Arkestra, made its own clothes.

If it seems like Ra was a little out of the mainstream, you'd be right, and Rashka's text celebrates that "follow your own drummer" path without glossing over the difficulties (one of my favorite lines in the book: "One disadvantage of coming from Saturn, though, was that Sun Ra could never really understand or care too much about money. The New York landlords, on the other hand, did, and kicked the Arkestra out…"). Raschka's watercolor and ink illustrations contain riots of color and feel true to life even if they aren't completely faithful to "real life." This artistic choice is perfect for Sun Ra, known for his eclectic jazz compositions.

The Cosmobiography of Sun Ra will appeal most to readers ages 6 through 10. It's not a huge book, dimensions-wise, and the swirls of color rather than precise drawings may make this book better enjoyed side-by-side than shared with a classroom of kids for optimal appreciation.

Both these books celebrate musical heroes whose names will be unfamiliar to kids and probably their parents. In their own distinct ways, they honor the memories of these two visionaries. Recommended.

Note: I received copies of both books for possible review.