The Philadelphia Inquirer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 82

NEW ON VIDEO FOR CHILDREN NEW RECORDINGS 6-D Thursday, March 10, 1988 Releases from Plant, Shorter Top compact discs 4TC It (ft i 'tit? gXiJS I A' Fun, facts from man beasts A tape that combines humor and learning, starring a canny canine, is among the new video tapes available for kids. THE ADVENTURES OF COMMANDER CRUMBCAKE: VOLUMES 1 2 (1987) (Hi-Tops) $14.95 each. 60 minutes each. Kour writers from the Saturday Night Live television stable have created a new children's educational series that combines humor and satire to prove learning can be fun. The animated programs are aimed at kids from ages to 10 and feature an intrepid dog, Crumbcake, that can speak and reason.

In Volume One, Crumbcake studies synonyms, antonyms, prefixes and suffixes and saves the world from the mass confusion of a bogus dictionary. Volume Two deals with paleontology and fossils in a pair of "time-warp" stories. For children THE CARE BEARS: FABULOUS FABLES (1987) (Fries) $14.95. 45 minutes. Four new animated series: Desert Gold.

The Two Princesses. Grumpy the Clumsy and The Purple Chariot. THE GARBAGE PAIL KIDS MOVIE (1987) (Paramount) $29.95. 87 minutes. Those gross-out parodies of the Cabbage Pop Reviewed by Ken Tucker ROBERT PLANT Now and Zen (Atlantic Robert Plant, former lead singer for Led Zeppelin, has just released his fourth solo album, Now and Zen, and it's the finest set of songs he has recorded since that great hard-rock band broke up.

Plant has finally moved beyond merely echoing the music he used to make with Led Zeppelin. Working with co-songwriter Phil Johnstone, he has found a new set of rhythms and subjects around which to construct songs. The best songs here "Tall Cool One," "White, Clean and Neat" and "Billy's Revenge" use Plant's amazing squall of a voice to create stormy, exciting rock-and-roll. THE TOM RUSSELL BAND Road to Bayamon (PhiloRounder Veteran songwriter Russell has come up with a highly engaging country-music album that is influenced by the literate folk music of performers such as Townes Van Zandt and Nanci Griffith. No stranger to literary aspirations himself one of the most evocative songs here is called "William Faulkner in Hollywood" Russell is also good at terse, howling, uptempo country music such as "Home Before Dark." THE BOOGIE BOYS Romeo Knight (Capitol This New York-based funk act is now down to two members, Romeo J.D.

and Boogie Knight (hence, in a roundabout way, the album title). Their album is spiced with a substantial amount of adroit rap music, but the Boogie Boys are also interested in pop melodies, as the catchy "I'm Comin' and "Body" suggest. JIMMIE DALE GILMORE Fair and Square (Hightone This Austin-based singer-songwriter has a high, baleful voice with which to sing his country music, and his interpretation of Joe Ely's "Hon-ky Tonk Masquerade" rivals Ely's own version. At times Gilmore's material takes a turn toward folkie blandness, but in general he's a good, witty singer, as his version of the old Guy Mitchell hit "Singing the Blues" proves decisively. 3 To the Power of Three (Geffen Two members of one of the most intrusive art-rock acts of all time, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, join up with musician-songwriter Robert Berry to form not, as you might expect, Emerson, Berry and Palmer, but a new art-rock act called 3.

If ponderous melodies and showily intricate musicianship is your idea of a good time, you'll have fun here. For the rest of us, only the amusingly cluttered-up version of the Byrds' "Eight Miles High" is intriguing. Jazz Reviewed by Francis Davis Teaching youngsters the ABCs of operating the family VCR Top pop albums 1. DIRTY DANCING Sound track (10 weeks at No. 1) 2.

GEORGE MICHAEL Faith 3. INXS Kick 4. TIFFANY Tiffany 5. MICHAEL JACKSON Bad 6. DAVID LEE ROTH Skyscraper 7.

DEF LEPPARD Hysteria 8. DEBBIE GIBSON Out of the Blue 9. JOHN COUGAR MELLENCAMP The Lonesome Jubilee 10. RICK ASTLEY Whenever You Need Somebody From Billboard Magazine 31288 1988 But nothing else on this grossly overproduced album of middlebrow funk is worthy of the man who played such questing solos and wrote such challenging compositions as a member of the Miles Davis Quintet and Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers in the 1960s. The pity is that Shorter has formed what could have been an excellent band, with drummer Terry Lyne Carrington and keyboard player Geri Allen.

But bad habits are difficult to break, and Shorter calls on these talented young musicians to do nothing that studio hacks couldn't have handled. Super Nova is a dazzling reissue from 1969, when Shorter was at his peak and a fusion of jazz and rock still held promise. The all-star supporting cast includes John McLaughlin, Chick Corea and Jack DeJohnette. The best cut is a version of Antonio Carlos Jobim's "Dindi," with a haunting Maria Booker vocal that breaks down in sobs an instance of the spontaneity that one listens for in vain in Shorter's current work. WOODY SHAW Imagination (Muse Shaw, in his early 40s, has cultivated a roseate tone that immediately distinguishes him from other hard-bop trumpeters.

He is at his best caressing slow- to medium-tempo standards, and he has plenty of opportunities to do just that on this fine LP, on which he receives generous support from trombonist Steve Turre, pianist Kirk Lightsey, bassist Ray Drummond and drummer Carl Allen. STEVE WEISBERG Can't Stand Another Night Alone (in Bed With You) (Xtra WattNew Music Distribution Service From a Carla Bley protege, here's the kind of album we want from Carla but that she's increasingly disinclined to deliver, full of swirling orchestral colors and riotous good humor. Side two bogs down with Hiram Bullock's tiresome guitar rave-ups, but side one is delicious, especially when trombonist Gary Va-lente is braying over the full ensemble. Classical Reviewed by Daniel Webster BEETHOVEN SONATAS FOR PIANO AND CELLO Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax (CBS 42446 Cellist Yo-Yo Ma and pianist Emanuel Ax have been at work on the Beethoven Sonatas for a couple of years and have now produced an album incorporating all five, plus MTV playlist These are the primary rotations for the MTV playlist this week: HEAVY Rick Astley, "Never Gonna Give You Up" Michael Bolton, "(Sittin' on) The Dock of the Bay" Belinda Carlisle. "I Get Weak" Eric Carmen, "Hungry Eyes" Cher, "I Found Someone" Def Leppard, "Hysteria" Foreigner, "Say You Will" George Harrison, "When We Was Fab" Heart, "There's the Girl" Michael Jackson, "Man in the Mirror" Kiss, "Reason to Live" Richard Marx, "Endless Summer Nights" John Cougar Mellencamp, "Check It Out" George Michael, "Father Figure" Pet Shop Boys, "What Have I Done to Deserve This" David Lee Roth, "Just Like Paradise" Sting, "Be Still My Beating Heart" Yes, "Rhythm of Love." ACTIVE AND MEDIUM Terence Trent D'Arby, "Wishing Well" Great White, "Save Your Love" Icehouse, "Electric Blue" INXS, "Devil Inside" Rick Springfield, "Rock of Life" CHILDREN, from I and just put things on hold if there's an instant air of impending disaster.

Pop in a tape, explain the concept of pressing the play button and move on to the stop and eject buttons. Once the child understand that each tape, like each of his books, has a different story to tell, the rest of the lesson will be eagerly, if not quickly, learned. Explain which side of the tape is up and which end goes in. Don't laugh; this is trickier, and more crucial, than any other step. It's the one step that can jam the machine or hurt the tape if done wrong, and it's harder for kids to get right than pushing the proper buttons.

But with simple instructions, it won't take long before you no longer need to supervise: The side with the big holes goes down, and the shiny edge (usually, the one without a label) goes in. Break off the safety erase tabs of tape you don't want erased. This is a little early in the sequence, but better early than never. Breaking off the tabs ensures that you can't record over a favorite tape and once kids get the hang of the record button, every tape in the house is in danger of being wiped out unless it's protected. (A piece of tape over the hole allows for rere-cording, but that's a secret to save for later, like the one about Santa Claus.) Demonstrate the rapid-scan features.

Present them with a tape you know they'll love. Both of my kids were introduced to VCRs via PHOTOGRAPHY 1. GEORGE MICHAEL Faith 2. INXS Kick 3. DIRTY DANCING Sound track 4.

STING Nothing Like the Sun 6. DAVID LEE ROTH Skyscraper 6. JAMES TAYLOR Never Die Young 7. JOHN COUGAR MELLENCAMP Lonesome Jubilee 8. ROBERT PLANT Now and Zen 9.

PINK FLOYD A Momentary Lapse of Reason 10. GOOD MORNING, VIETNAM Sound track From Billboard Magazine 31288 1988 two sets of variations. Their collaboration supports the idea that Beethoven wrote for musicians of equal stature and continues a long tradition of merging the styles of solo players into the demands of chamber music. This is a bright, vital collaboration. The music pulses and the sound of the two instruments is clear and fully colored.

The music comes from early, mid- die and late periods in Beethoven's writing, implying changes in per- formance practice as the music ex- pands and deepens. Ma's sound sub- tly darkens from first to last, and the piano manner expands from Op. 5 to Op. 102. The first three sonatas open wih slow introductions before plung-ing into the quick, melodic ideas.

These players exploit the contrast by '1 infusing the introductions with unusual intensity and sonic glow. Compared with earlier collabora-tions Rostropovich and Richter, Fournier and Kempf, Janigro and Demus, Harrell and Ashkenazy these performers see the music as rooted in classicism and rather less prophetic of romanticism. Their playing illuminates the inner details of the music. The CD contains Seven Variations on "Bet Mannern welche Liebe fuh-len" and Twelve Variations on "Ein Madchen oder Weibchen." The LP adds Twelve Variations on "See, the Conquering Hero Comes." Mainly early pieces for the instruments, they are showpieces based on boldly complex exploitations of the possibilities of familiar operatic tunes. STEPHEN KATES Rachmaninoff's Cello Sonata in minor (Bainbridge BCD 6272 The American cellist, with pianist Carolyn Pope Kobler, revels in the rich colors of this rambling, songful work.

The engineering gives both instruments unusual presence. SINFONIA da CAMERA Creation du Monde (Arabesque Z6569 Darius Milhaud created a 20th-cen--' tury landmark while writing a dance entertainment this 1923 jazz ballet -quickly became the sonic symbol of an era. Its freshness is in its dated-ness. Ian Hobson conducts the Sinfo-nia da Camera in the original instru- mentation 16 instruments plus i percussion and brings the music back alive. The CD also includes other jazz-inspired pieces by Milhaud, Three Rag-Caprices and Suite for Violin, Clarinet and Piano, BENITA VALENTE Benita Valente at Eastman, -Volume I and 2 (Pantheon CD 10680 and CD 07175 Soprano Benita Valente has.

not been recorded as she deserves. Only now are discs appearing to preserve her gift for song and aria. This two-volume series is a start. Volume 1 offers Spanish-and Latin-. flavored songs with piano or with small instrumental ensembles.

A high- light is Villa-Lobos' "Bachianas Brasi- leiras," the wordless aria with eight cellos in which voice and instruments entwine in notable color and glow. Songs by Rodrigo, Obradors and Gra-nados and Spanish songs by French composers Ravel, Saint-Saens and Chausson were taken from a recital in 1985 at the Eastman School. Volume 2 includes arias by Handel and Mozart sung with the Eastman Philharmonia conducted by David Ef-fron and Handel arias with harpsichord and cello. Valente's voice conveys high theatrical emotion without losing its precision and glow. Arias from Rinaldo and Semele and the aria "L'Amero, saro costante" from Mozart's I Re Pastore are the highlights.

The arias from Semele and Atalanta are accompanied by Effron at the harpsi- chord and Robert Sylvester, cello. RATINGS: Excellent Good Fair Poor Classical albums rated on performance and sound. Bruce Springsteen During Spectrum performance 1 Fred Rogers, host of "Mister Patch kids come to life as weird puppet creatures in this feature-length film. MISTER ROGERS: MUSICAL STORIES (1987) (Playhouse) 19.98. 59 minutes.

Fred Rogers tells two stories with some help from his neighborhood friends. MV PET MONSTER VOLUME 2: GOODBYE CUFFS, GOODBYE MONSTER (1987) (Hi-Tops) $29.95. 60 minutes. The little boy who turns into a shaggy, blue monster when he gets hungry is back. This time he's captured Try to avoid letting kids tape things that you couldn 't tolerate hearing at least 12 times.

The Wizard of Oz and now that it can be purchased in stores for under S20, you don't necessarily have to wait a year to tape it off the air. If your child asks to see part of it again, which is almost a certainty, introduce the rewind and fast-forward functions. In a matter of minutes, they will have it down pat and will spend the next two hours (or weeks) rewinding and rewatching the most cherished or frightening parts. Tape something off the air. Even if you have to do this for a while (on many machines, it's a two-button procedure, which very small children will find difficult), let them know what you are doing and how you are doing it.

Once they see something on "live" TV, then see it immediately again on a tape of their own, the potential of the VCR is driven home in a hurry. Soon they will be badgering you for blank tapes so they can build their own collection. Encourage it. Build a tape collection. By stockpiling their own tapes, kids can learn to read (by distinguishing the different labels), but let's not get carried away.

The real reason to let your child have a personal tape collection is to control his or her viewing patterns: The choice of what to The F3, Al and LX cost more because of their construction. It's usually less expensive to manufacture a camera regaled in computer chips, circuit boards and other electronics. On the other hand, the construction of the top-of-the-line mechanicals is heavy-duty. Some have titanium shutters, the seals are especially effective and the LX, for example, has ball bearings at 10 points of movement. Both, however, require care.

No camera today will take a fall on concrete. Few will stand up to constant exposure to salt air. But from a professional standpoint, it's safer to "run" with a mechanical camera than an electronic one it absorbs shock better. Most folks don't have to "run" and that could headed by Spanish Johnny, a lengthy guitar coda and a percussion arrangement that recalls Springsteen's early infatuation with the work of pm pluuutu 1 nil Lbtui, imj jjjuni- ing street epic recalls the glory days of the mid-'70s Street Band. "Pink Cadillac," the flip of "Born in the U.S.A.," is a ribald rockabilly tune that stands up to the best of Springsteen's recent work.

If Jimmy Swaggart had followed the musical path of his cousin Jerry Lee Lewis, he could surely have wailed on this mix of biblical lore, Saturday night philosophy and vehicular taste. "My love is bigger than a Honda," sings Springsteen, and "bigger than a Subaru." That's why only a pink Cadillac will do. Elvis Presley owned a pink Caddie, of course, and Springsteen dealt with the King's death on "Johnny Bye Bye," the side of "I'm on Fire." Unlike Paul Simon's "Graceland," "Johnny Bye Bye," which borrows its tune from a co-credited Chuck of Xk'deu Rogers: Musical Stories." by a Beaster who has escaped from Monster Land. POUND PUPPIES (1987) (Family Home Entertainment) $14.95 each. 45 minutes each.

Three new tapes in the series about the lovable, huggable pups. Titles are Secret Agent Pup, The Fairy Dogmother and In Pups We Trust. THE THREE FISHKETEERS (1987) (Family Home Entertainment) $14.95. 22 minutes. Animated tale of a trio of piscine adventurers helping a damselfish in distress.

watch is theirs, but only from the universe of tapes that you've pre-approved. If they truly love something on TV, let them enjoy it. My kids gravitated instantly to such oddities as The Monkees and Pee-Wee's Playhouse, so I let them collect several episodes on one long tape. Young kids love to collect, and making their own tailor-made tapes of favorite cartoons or videos was, and is, a big deal. Don't worry about commercials.

At first, I would diligently edit all the ads out of any tapes I handed my kids. Then I learned (somewhat regretfully) that on one tape where I hadn't bothered, the commercials were a bigger hit than the program. Never, ever let them tape anything truly awful. This may take some finesse, but it's mandatory for survival. Once a kid latches onto a tape, it can go through the recorder 100 times until it becomes old hat.

A good rule of thumb is: Try to avoid things that you couldn't tolerate hearing at least 12 times. Even the best ones wear thin after a while: Two years after it left my VCR's "heavy rotation" cycle, Dumbo still sends a shiver up my spine. Use the VCR to help enforce bedtime. This is the best trick of all. Thanks to the VCR, your child's pleas to stay up to watch "just one more show" can be easily and irrefutably deflected.

Just say you'll tape it and send the kid off to bed. Technology triumphs. know enough to keep their equipment clean and properly protected. So your decision may boil down to what kind of photography you like and the money you want to invest. I'm planning a vacation to the Caribbean this spring.

I recently acquired a used Nikon Nikonos underwater camera. What film should I use for the best color in underwater available light? First, you should test that camera before you depend on it. You can do this in your swimming pool or bathtub. Don't wait to submerge it for the first time when you're on vacation. For slide film, I'd go for ISO 200.

For print film, ISO 400. Remember, too, that your effective shooting distance is from 3'2 to 8 feet. make up Berry, finds its characters headed toward Presley's Memphis home in the line of grief, not metaphor. The lyrics of "Johnny Bye Bye" fmr ft "TV UUU JUi 1111V UU1U LllC tUWO. A liJ found him slumped up against the drain with a whole lot of trouble running through his vein." At the last line, the singer has dry eyes and simply says, "You didn't have to die." "Shut Out the Lights," which accompanied "Glory Days," is a mournful folk ballad that recounts a story much like Tunnel of Love's "Cautious Man." The singer has returned to his home and his lover, but he can't stop equating stability with resignation and finds himself with the 4 a.m.

shakes. "Throw your arms around me in the cold dark night," he sings. "Hey now, mama, don't shut out the light." The title, of course, implies that the light bulb has already blown. Springsteen is not always so blue, course, and in the yule season he can become downright jolly. Two 1 Why electronic cameras cost less By Carl Kramer Washington Post I am not an advanced amateur, but neither am I a novice.

My Nikon F2 was stolen. I assumed the natural replacement would be the F3. Now I'm not sure. I thought I didn't need, or want, any of the new, advanced electronic gimmicks, but now that I read and hear so much about the Canon EOS, the Nikon 4004 and the Pentax SF1, perhaps I should join the electronic photo age. The big question: If these new cameras can do all and are the end-all, how come they cost less then the Nikon F3, the Canon Al and the Pentax LX? Does this mean the new, fancy cameras are lesser ones? Flip sides Springsteen album Wayne Shorter's "Joy Ride" WAYNE SHORTER Joy Ryder (Columbia Super Nova (Blue Note A basic tenet of jazz criticism is that disillusionment and early death prevent some of the greatest jazz of all from ever being played.

For that reason, it once seemed logical to speak of the musicians of Charlie Parker's heroin-doomed era as jazz's lost generation. But that title now more accurately refers to the generation after Parker's, whose victims succumbed not to narcotics but to electronics and the promise of mass adulation. Saxophonist Wayne Shorter is a particularly notorious example: "Causeways," the best track from Joy Ryder, Shorter's third album since leaving Weather Report, has an irresistible emotional pull. a mythical Christmas songs have been released as sides: a mid-'70s version of the rollicking "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" (on "My and the grcst Chsrlcs blv.cs, "Morry Christmas Baby" (on The "Tunnel of Love" single is backed by "Two for the Road," a minor love tune that includes a bit of whistling and was perhaps too cheerful for Springsteen's dour meditation on love. "Lucky Man," the flip of "Brilliant Disguise," is a low-key, late-night blues that features rolling drums and whining guitar that together suggest a less-than-fortunate fate.

"Held Up Without a Gun," the side of "Hungry Heart," is much like the other rockers on The River but is diminished by its one-dimensional lyrics about a rocker who is cheated by a cigar-chomping manager. "Be True," on the other side of "Fade Away" and recorded during the sessions for The River, was also best left off that double album. The lighthearted love tune "Janey Don't Lose Heat" was the other side of the decidedly more depressing "I'm Going Down." (Some of Springsteen's flip sides hnyp tnrnprl up on albums! Tom Waits' "Jersey Girl" concluded Live1975-85 after appearing with "Cover "Stand on It," which recalls Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Travelin' Band," landed on the sound track to Ruthless People after accompanying "Glory Days," and "Merry Christmas Baby" was included on A Very Special Christmas, the 1987 album to aid Special Olympics.) Sequenced together, these songs are Springsteen's Spare Parts, though by most accounts this barely plumbs the amount of unreleased material that lies in the vaults. While half of these tunes deserve their minor-league status, songs such as "Roulette," "Pink Cadillac" and "Johnny Bye Bye" throw valuable light on the singer's better-known work. For fans who just can't get enough, they also constitute the icing on the cake.

SPRINGSTEEN, from 1-D words aren't sung, they're spit and Springsteen's fury matches that of a man heading far beyond the darkness al lilts eiige of iuvii. Why didn't Springsteen release the song, or at least sing it at the MUSE show? One theory holds that he dkin't feel ready to take a political stand beyond the personal issues inherent in all his work. His musical reluctance is less easy to" understand. In the midst of the punk-rock revolution, Springsteen was considered a worthy traditionalist. But "Roulette" was as righteously ra'ucous as anything on such contemporary landmarks as the Clash's London Calling.

One line in particular "Roulette, surprise, you're dead" was as pithy as punk itself. Springsteen's Live197S-8S can be supplemented with the 10-minute concert version of "Incident on 57th Street" released as the side of "Fire," a single released from that collection. With a cat of characters.