Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • 70

ENTERTAINMENT SUNDAY, MAY 20, 2001 SOUND BITES: FROM READERS Zero Gravity Band: 'Drive' xaB, Sound WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO? Send your raves and rants about discs new or old to soundbitesfreepress.com. Keep it brief (50 words or less) and clean. Include your name, address, day and evening phone numbers and the hours you can be "Listening nonstop to a new local CD, "Drive," by the Zero Gravity Band from Flint: smooth jazz-rock with a bit of blues, a hint of big band, all original music and lyrics. Great keyboards, drums, guitar and an awesome vocalist. Check out www.zgband.com for the sound." Jann Kinzingcr, Milford A A A A reached.

If your comments are fascinating, we'll edit them and excerpt them on a future Sound Judgment page. 1 J11X2SU2 REVIEWS All reviews use a scale of one to four stars. II II A 17 P' COMTRY-ROC JUL i il' i bj i 1 ter his 1973 overdose oundless as my admiration for R.E.M. and adds three live tracks with his band the Fallen Angels, which proved he could walk it like he talked it like any honest-to-goodness good old boy. Yet as brilliant a flameout as Parsons might have been, his greatest contribution to American music may have his sponsorship of Emmylou Harris, a divorced single mother and folksinger he hired as his duet partner after going solo.

After introducing her to the Louvin Brothers and to eye-to-eye, born-lovers harmony, he bowed out. And ROCK i i i i she stepped in to doggedly preserve his leg 1 mm i 3 a ing contract with Galaxy, precluding him from recording for anyone else except as a guest. Adhering to the letter of the law, he hired on as a sideman for a series of albums for a Japanese label looking to re-create the West Coast cool-jazz sound of the '50s. The seven albums that resulted were credited to trombonist Bill Watrous, trumpeter Jack Sheldon, pianist Pete Jolly, drummer Shelly Manne and sax players Sonny Stitt (two albums) and Lee Konitz, but only on the Konitz session did the nominal leader actually drive the date. The rest of the tracks on this five-CD boxed compilation, recorded between 1979 and 1982, see Pepper firmly at the helm, and playing for keeps.

Only the Stitt tracks sound sloppy, and some of the rest mostly jams and rethinks of standards is breathtaking, including a romantic nuzzle with Sheldon on "You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To" and a stunning "Everything Happens to Me" from the Jolly-credited session. The final session, the most formal, pairs Pepper with the prickly Konitz, and they sound like long-lost brothers. Pepper died 5 months after these recordings were made. According to the liner notes by his widow, Laurie, they were done for "fun and easy money." They ended up, however, as a valuable piece of a legacy. By Terry Lawson, Free Press staff writer DRUM-N-BASS Big Bud "Late Night Blues" (Good Looking) Laid-back drum-n-bass, in your face.

The full-length debut of Big Bud is a mishmash of blues, hip-hop, jazz, funk and, yes, fluttery drum-n-bass. A longtime purveyor of all things relaxed, England's Big Bud kicks off the two-CD set with a string of tunes that would sound right at home in a luxury sedan commercial oooh, so smooth it hurts. Big Bud cooks up a simmering blend of subtle jazz riffs, presented like a jazz quartet playing in front of a live audience. The second CD is where Big Bud gets smoking, riding the wave of sumptuous ambient textures and light, feathery drum-n-bass. Take off your shoes on this one.

By Tim Pratt, Free Press special writer ALSO NEW In stores Tuesday: The Beach Boys, "Hawthorne, CA Birthplace of a Musical Legacy." Outtakes and rarities from studio sessions. Nikka Costa, "Everybody Got Their Something." Big-buzz release from a blue-eyed funkster. Stabbing Westward, "Stabbing Westward." Midwestern industrial pop. TurecA u9nnn Gram Parsons may be, I'm not disposed to name him the inventor of country-rock. Buck Owens may.have been that, by accident if not by-- design, and besides, Elvis and Carl Perkins were there years before.

Even the Rcatles could make a convincing claim. (Remember "I Don't Want to S(ioii the Still, Parsons, sofiof Southern gentry anH a military-school brat, was a bonaHt.de a musician's niusiciarr-who-'considered country an honorable path, as opposed to a hippie side trip. Though Parsons' first recorded group bore the unfortunate San-Franny name "International Submarine Band, its assortment of Parsons originals like the Johnny Cash-inspired "Luxury Liner" and covers like "Miller's Cave" was completely sincere; it was a no-irony zone of musical North-South reconciliation. This thoughtfully compiled and nicely annotated two-CD set collects six tracks from the Submarine Band's little-heard recorded repertoire. Alongside them are Parsons' contributions to the two best coun-try-rock LPs ever recorded: acy while recording one album after another of unstinting, rarefied excellence.

Harris also became the Art Bla-key of country- mm rT.Ti If. I. tL. jr rock, her Hot Band serving as finishing WfSUSJp Emmylou MmMIM Harris ftf Ijw-iinr out of 4 stars school for charismatic singer-songwriters like Rodney Crowell (with whom she cowrote and recorded the Parsons-influenced instrumental wunderkind Ricky Skaggs and English expat eccentrics Albert Lee and Paul Kennerley. This new two-CD distil lie'JIimiilt'HH f9lltllMMIi1klP WarnorRnnrica 4 k.

il In i 1 which he introduced his beautifully li44JMJ" ArchivesRhino v. homesick "Hickory Wind" and made soul singer William Bell's "You Don't Miss Your Water" sound like a lost Hank Williams classic and "The Gilded lation of her 1996 box set hits the high points of the Warner years, which remained very high for a very long time. One wishes, however, that it provided a better overview. Unlike most artists with 3-decade careers, Harris has made some of her best music in collaboration (her duets with Dylan are true tightrope-walking) and in the recent past: The absence of anything from 1998's "Wrecking Ball," an album as perfect as 1975's "Elite Hotel," or from last year's brilliant "Red Dirt Girl," leaves this sounding a mite musty. By Terry Lawson, Free Press staff writer Palace of Sin" by the Flying Burrito Brothers, the band he led with fellow flown-away Byrd Chris Hill-man.

It also contains nearly the whole of his two heartbreaking solo albums for Reprise, "GP" and "Grievous Angel" the second released posthumously af- R.E.M. "Reveal" (Warner Bros.) Cut from the same dense space-age cloth as 1998's "Up," "Reveal" boasts some of R.E.M.'s boldest work yet as well as some of its mellowest. Guitarist Peter Buck spends most of the CD searching for futuristic textures and tones. He paints several tunes with an e-bow, an electronic gizmo that makes his guitar hum ethereally. Other tracks get their juice from elaborate horn sections or gurgling, whirring synthesizers.

But the most important element here is the string section. Working with an army of 21 violinists, vi-olists and cellists, R.E.M. dives headfirst into mystical baroque-pop. The abundant strings do remind you how incapable the band seems of rocking out anymore. But magical, violin-laden anthems like "The Lifting," "I'll Take the Rain" and "She Just Wants to Be" are every bit as powerful as the fuzz-drenched glam-rockers on "Monster." And no matter how far R.E.M.

travels, it always brings along its best instrument: Michael Stipe's voice. ByThorChristensen, Dallas Morning News SOUL Shirley Murdock "The Very Best of Shirley Murdock" (RhinoElektra Traditions) Before there was a Faith Evans or a Kelly Price, there was Shirley Murdock, whose solo style was unique to the late '80s. Often she sang about other people's husbands; sometimes she crooned about the everyday kind of love you can talk about in the office. But her popularity soared when she remade "As We Lay," the tale of an adulterous affair. The sultry lyrics wouldn't raise an eyebrow in today's crass music world, but at the time they resonated with listeners, drawn in by Murdock's multirange vocals.

Evans and Price recently remade "As We Lay" as a duo, but it was Murdock, with her pulpit-trained style, who made that single what it was. Hidden gems on this album include "Go on Without You," "Spend My Whole Life" and her classic duo with the late Roger Troutman, "Computer Love." No one has dared touch that song, yet all the kids know about this synthesized 1980s tune. Some songs just never go out of style. Apparently some singers don't either. By KelleyL.

Carter, Free Press staff writer I rnoivi TKE VAULT Art Pepper "The Hollywood All-Star Sessions" (Galaxy) In the late 70s, troubled alto giant Art Pepper was on something like his third or fourth comeback. He had signed an exclusive record Gram Parsons with various artists out of 4 stars "Sacred Hearts Fallen Angels: The Gram Parsons Anthology" Warner ArchivesRhino 4)k 06k 0ht "TF3 Watte Mala mnHoL TOP 10 crooner. Other recent releases in stores: John Campbell "Workin' Out" (Criss Cross). A sly trio recital by the midcareer Chicago pianist John DETROIT DISC Piano music meets electronics indicates this week's position in Detroit. national position.

is last week's position in Detroit. Tyrese TV GIGS Monday Have Matthews Band, Leno Tuesday David Gray, Kilbnrn Wednesday Duncan Sheik, Kilborn Thursday Badlv Drawn Boy, Letterman Nikka Costa, Kilborn Composer Lettie B.Alston, a professor at Oakland University, has long been an important voice in contemporary music in metro Detroit. Her annual concerts showcasing her own music and that of her friends continue to fight the good fight for homegrown new music. Two of Alston's specialties piano music and electronics merge on this two-CD set i 'I 1 0 SINGLES 1 1 1 Lil' Romeo, "My Baby" 2 5 Destiny's Child, "Survivor 3 3 3 Club 7. "Never 4 4 4 Lil' Mo, "Superwoman" 5 9 2 Eden's Crush, "Get Over Yourself" 6 7 8 Case, "Missing You" 7 6 6 Olivia, "Bizounce" 8 8 7 Tamia, "Stranger in My House" 9 2 8 City High, "What Would You Do" 10 19 9 Amanda, "Everybody Doesn't" ALBUMS 1 1 1 Destiny's Child, 'Survivor" 2 3 2 Janet Jackson, "All lor You" 3 2 Paul McCartney, "Wingspan 4 5 Soundtrack, "Moulin Rouge" 5 4 3 Various, "Now That's 6" 6 7 4 2pac, 'Until the End of Time' 7 20 Black Crowes, "Lions" 8 23 Sum 41 "All Killer No Filler' 9 15 8 11 2, "Part III" 10 12 7 Nelly, "Country Grammar" Campbell, who plays with more true melodic invention, rhythmic wit and improvisatory spark than most of the cats who get ink in the jazz press.

Mark Stryker Muhal Richard Abrams "The Visibility of Thought" (Mutable Music). Beguiling chamber music, both notated and improvised, from a vital composer-pianist who explores the territory between contemporary classical and free jazz, deftly avoiding the cliches of either to create his own sound world. Mark Stryker Missy Elliott "Miss So Addictive" (Elektra): Miss has found her groove again: cocky, sly, tricky, sexy. Evelyn McDonnell, Miami Herald The Go-Go's "God Bless the (Beyond): The Go-Go's haven't updated their sound one iota. But who needs forward motion when the songs are as catchy as "Unforgiven" and "Throw Me a Curve." TlwrChristensen, Dallas Morning News Disc 1 is devoted to the acoustic piano.

Alston's music is built from contrasts of texture, harmony and mood, with brusque melodies delivered in spikes of rhythm scrunched against more liquid passages. "Sonata of the Day, No. 1 played with sensitive clarity by Alston's OU colleague Flavio Varani, shows how Alston's fragments are subsumed within larger structures. The three Lettie B. Alston Detroit classical composer "Keyboard Maniac" Lettie B.

Alston, piano, electronic keyboards; Flavio Varani. piano: Cedric Alston and Roderic Leon, electronic keyboards Troy, Albany movements sustain interest over 1 4 Duncan Sheik minutes by way of abstract counterpoint ringing chordal passages and a jazzy rhythmic rumble. The electronic works on Disc 2, for one or multiple keyboards, are less consistent. Still, the best of them, like "Diverse Imagery" for two keyboards and sequencer, are absorbing. Here, ethereal sounds, an allusion to "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen" and ritualistic drumbeats meet in a unique soundscape.

By Mark Stryker, Free Press music writer Week ending May 13. Based on sales at 14.000 outlets nationwide, including Detroit. Compiled by SoundScan. WANT TO HEAR A FREE SAMPLE? www.freep.comentertainmentmusic.