The Philadelphia Inquirer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 78

G10 THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER Sunday, January 29, 1995 THE MASIELLO FAMILY REQUESTS THE PLEASURE OF YOUR COMPANY. New Recordings Bettie Serveert, Grover Washington Jr. Pop il DlRt- r- 33 UUJJ- sounds, such as hip-hop and the blues. The influence of the Philly Sound, specifically that of Thorn Bell, is all over "Something to Remind You." Check that glockenspiel it sounds very familiar. Bolstered by Lyle Mays' shimmering piano and Metheny's own searching, plaintive guitar-synth lines, the idea reaches its ultimate fruition on the suitelike "To the End of the World." But the rhythmic exercises that usually make Metheny's work so satisfying are often rendered nearly impossible by the hip-hop drum loops.

Kevin L. Carter ZUMPANO Look What the Rookie Did (Sub Pop What do you get when you combine the bubble-gum splendor of the 1910 Fruitgum Company with the whimsical charm of the Turtles and the sing-along harmonies of the Grass Roots? Why, Zumpano, of course. Imagine Brian Wilson in collaboration with Pavement's Steve Malkmus: Zumpano is the bar mitzvah band for the slacker generation. Look What the Rookie Did, the debut of this post-grunge four-piece out of Vancouver, is a gleeful reminder of how innocent pop songs and melodic hooks made Top 40 AM radio so much fun. Zumpano's songs released on Sub Pop Records, the label responsible for bringing grunge (and Nirvana) to breakfast tables all across America contain bright layers of vocal harmony on "The Party Rages On," fluffy horn arrangements on "Temptation Summary," and a classic interpretation of Jimmy Webb's "Rosecrans Boulevard." Bruce Warren NOW-FEBRUARY 26 Tickets 10 38, Call (215) 57V3550, ext.

ir WilMiTCTfiPPTTIffllTfiP fTillnUl UilUiLl HiJJilllUJ Grover Washington Jr. has a new recording, "All My Tomorrows, with a pianist, bassist and drummer. 13 iron BETTIE SERVEERT Lamprey (MatadorAtlantic What becomes an indie-rock legend most? It helps to be exotic and a bit obscure. Bettie Serveert has those bases covered. The group is Dutch, with a name that is a non sequitur: It comes from a tennis instructional manual by former pro Betty Stove and translates as "Betty serves." Bettie Serveert vocalist Carol van Dijk sings (in English) in a yearning voice that has a tendency to dissolve, making it hard to focus on what she's saying.

This, and such titles as "Cybor and Feathers," add the properly confusing qualities. But Bettie Serveert never sounds as if it's trying to be cool. Sure, the cry in van Dijk's voice verges on the little girlishness of Juliana Hatfield or Harriet Wheeler of the Sundays, but van Dijk sounds perfectly relaxed and emotionally open, even as she delivers such lines as "If the whole world should drop deadI've a home inside my head." Bettie Serveert's cultural distance from the music it loves early Neil Young, mostly allows the group to go about its business with a minimum of fuss and self-consciousness. Lamprey is not so successful as 1993's Palomine, partly because the band can strive too hard to be grand, and the slow-building tunes grow repetitive. But even though the band's faux-Young guitar tactics could use some work, there remains a freshness to van Dijk's singing that's instantly compelling.

Dan DeLuca VAN HALEN Balance (Warner Bros. Edward Van Halen doesn't want to be called Eddie anymore, but you'd recognize his dizzying, virtu-osic guitar-playing anyway. You'd also know his drummer-brother Alex and bassist Michael Anthony, who still crash and crunch with abandon. But as long as Sammy Hagar's on board, this seesaw is overloaded with moronic bombast. The lost-without-David Lee Roth quartet's first studio album since 1990's For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge is nearly unlistenable, thanks to the band's frontman.

There's the clumsy pretension of "The Seventh Seal." The witless "Amsterdam." (Rhymes with "Wham! The abysmal power ballad "Not Enough." And, unfortunately, the unavoidable hits: most notably "Can't Stop Lovin' You," with hooks that smack you into submission and assure that horrible Hagar won't be going away soon enough. D.D. PAT METHENY GROUP We Live Here (Geffen So many of Pat Metheny's trademarks the sophisticated, sweet melodies; the complex but accessible harmonies; the soaring, wordless vocals; the Wes Montgomeryes-que solos are in evidence on this, the first Metheny Group record since 1989. But the guitarist-composer has abandoned many of his Brazilian-isms in favor of home-grown Wherever people of African American descent have traveled, jazz has gone with them. Witness the emergence of Berlin-born pianist Jacky Terrasson, the son of an African American mother and a French father who studied at a performing-arts high school in Paris and later at the Berklee School of Music in Boston.

Winner of the 1993 Thelonious Monk Jazz Competition, Terrasson, 29, is both raucous and funky on this recording of standards with drummer Leon Parker and bassist Ugonna Okegwo. He relishes cosmic shifts in moods and dynamics in the service of a passionate lyricism. Despite its theatrics, his playing doesn't stand out dramatically from that of his peers. Still, one has only to hear his dissection of "I Love Paris" to admire his unique sensibility. K.S.

Classical RESPIGHI: Piano Concerto in A Minor; Concerto in Modo Misolidio Geoffrey Tozer, piano; BBC Philharmonic, Sir Edward Downes, conducting. (Chandos CHAN9285 Australian pianist Geoffrey Tozer's playing is fleet, the BBC Philharmonic's accompaniment swells with authority and passion, but ultimately the two piano concertos here amount to musical novelties, full of eclectic dazzle. "Much of the work is like an orchestral improvisation: Brilliant but inconclusive," writes Jeremy Siepmann in bluntly incisive program notes. His comments are welcome candor in an industry given to hyperbole. Respighi, better known and respected in his own time than ours, borrows from Schumman and Grieg for his free-floating Concerto in A Minor.

He goes medieval-mystical with the reflective Concerto in Modo Misolidio, his favorite of his four piano concertos. (The title refers to the use of the Mixolydian Mode, an ancient scale that runs from to on the white notes.) This recording is the first of a CD set of the complete Respighi concertos from Tozer with the BBC Philharmonic. Lesley Valdes RATINGS: k-kitir Excellent Good irk Fair -sV Poor Classical albums are rated for performance and and 1954, the last hurrah for large-scale outfits before small-combo honky-tonk came to rule the hardwood floor. In addition to Bob Wills, Cooley and Leon McAuliffe, there are the equally adept Johnny Hicks, Curley Williams, Johnny Bond and Al Dexter, and the solos by their fiddlers and pickers is scintillating throughout. Except for Asleep at the Wheel, you'd be hard-pressed to find a contemporary band able to toss around jazz, polka, country and blues with such carefree elan.

D.D. Jazz GROVER WASHINGTON JR. All My Tomorrows (Columbia y2) The terms straight-ahead and acoustic haven't applied much to the work of Grover Washington whose CDs have tended toward jazz lite for several years. But not even a grouchy purist can complain much about All My Tomorrows, Washington's plush recording of ballads with a principal rhythm section of pianist Hank Jones, bassist George Mraz and drummer Billy Hart. This is breathy, sensuous stuff.

Washington can sound positively Getz-like, particularly when he and co-producer Todd Barkan pair his soprano saxophone with Romero Lubambo's guitar on the melody of Preciso Perdoar (One Must Forgive)." Subtle samba rhythms course through much of this recording, which is studded with elegant horn work from the likes of alto saxophonist Bobby Watson, trombonist Robin Eubanks and flugelhorn man Eddie Henderson. Washington taps Freddy Cole, brother of Nat "King" Cole, for three vocals, including a romantic dalliance with singer Jeannie Bryson on "For Heaven's Sake." Some of this CD sounds contrived. Washington, steeped in the arms of the studio, knows the spell he's casting. Yet strip away the artifice, and there's no doubt Washington can lay down artful and memorable lines. Karl Stark JACKY TERRASSON Jacfcy Terrasson (Blue Note) 'Sr i TODAY AT 2 FADAMTE cai e-c s-n BUY at absolute lowest warehouse buyers! Immediate delivery or lake It 9-9, Sun.

10-6 10 ADVERTISE Hi FACTORYDISCOUNT OUTLET CLOTHING Country SPADE C00LEY Spadellal The Essential Spade Cooley (LegacyColumbia Spade Cooley's music isn't quite so luridly fascinating as his life, but it'll do. A celluloid stand-in for Roy Rogers, Cooley was also a gifted fiddler and singer whose musical talents earned him a series of suavely sung, quick-stepping hits "Shame on You," "Detour," "Crazy 'Cause I Love You" and a brief, mid-'40s rivalry with Bob Wills for the title King of Western Swing. After drinking hastened the end of his career, he was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1961 for beating his wife to death (he suspected her of having an affair with Rogers) in front of their 14-year-old daughter. Eight years later, Cooley was three months from being released on parole when, after a concert with the prison band, he had a heart attack and dropped dead backstage. Spadellal gathers the hits that made Cooley the toast of Hollywood in the post-Depression era when migrants from the Midwest made L.A.

the hillbilly-music capital of the world. His deft touch as an instrumentalist and band leader is on display with hot dance numbers, such as "Swingin' the Devil's Dream," "Oklahoma Stomp," and Leon McAuliffe's "Steel Guitar Rag." Cooley can't quite hold you for 20 songs, but his career makes for one of the most colorful footnotes in country-music history, and Spadellal brings him back to life. Dan DeLuca VARIOUS ARTISTS Hillbilly Boogiel (LegacyColumbia Spade Cooley is one of 14 band leaders to cut loose on Hillbilly Boogiel, a compilation of uptempo country swing tunes that capture the ebullient optimism of postwar America. One tune here Louise Massey the Westerners' "Beer Bottle Mama" was recorded in 1942, but the 19 others were cut between 1946 nity, the Ojibwa Leech Lake Reservation. "I was the only white kid in school," she recalls.

Her mother was, and still is, an attorney specializing in Native American law. "She fights for Indian rights and for them to get their land back," she says. "I've been an actress really since I was 10," she says. Eventually, acting took her to the West Coast, where she worked in theater. nen i decided i wanted to learn about other cultures," says Schneider, who recently received a world and cultures degree from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Her interest evolved into three trips across the country in a self-converted ambulance. And those resulted in her one-woman show, I'm Not Weird: American Perspectives, which she describes as "inspired by the diverse and righteous points of view I encountered." Schneider managed to incorporate her love of acting with her love of cultures. She turned an intense study of dialects into a book and tape for performers. "All the other material SUNSHINE BLUES WAREHOUSE SALE jeans jacKeis snins sweatshirts Hours: Fri-Sat 10AM-7PM SUN 10AM-5PM 2905 Southampton d. NE Phllo.

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Mendoza LOS ANGELES TIMES HOLLYWOOD In the wacky scientific environment of Beakman's World, Eliza Schneider takes charge of some pretty disgusting animals. As first lab assistant in the children's series, Schneider has held hissing cockroaches from Madagascar, slithery snakes, slimy slugs and active alligators. "I got to hold his mouth shut," she proudly says of the scaly, and often cranky, reptile. But she didn't mind it in the least. "I had two brothers, and I was more into bugs than they were, so I think this is a blast." And so is the show.

"We never say you're too young for that to our audience," she adds. "We never talk down to them. Kids don't need to be patted on the head." Beafcman's World, which airs on both CBS and the Learning Channel, "was created by a bunch of revolutionaries from the '60s who are in a position of power now, and I think it's beautiful." Schneider, 21, was raised by Peace Corps parents in a Chippewa commu- LEGITIMATE WHOLESALE PRICING No Sales ever. No salesmen, No phony discounts. No used or unclaimed freight.

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2 1 5-632-6800 Pennsauken, NJ Airport CircleRt. 1 30 N. 609-663-1 400 available is someone else 'doing' the accents. I'm putting together real people talking." The actress interviewed 400 people in her cross-country treks. "Putting all their stories right next to each other, with their diverse and righteous points of view, made me believe in them," she says.

With diver- gent stories, she adds, "I really feel we 1 can calm down stereotypes, which are at the root of social unrest." Beakman's World airs at noon Satur-, days on CBS (Channel 10) and 9 and a.m. Sundays on the Learning Channel. It's, geared to ages 5 and up. CALL 215-854-5339.