Hartford Courant from Hartford, Connecticut • 126

G3 THI HAITTOKO COWANT: January 2a, I9M Benatar Bound to Formula; Bright Note on Blue Note Note Records in its prestigious period of the 1950s and '60s. Although all the musicians are still in their 20s, they perform, compose and arrange with impressive maturity and authority. The ensemble work is crisp, and adolescent angst The songs, especially "It's All Up to You," are somewhat twisted versions of the kind of anthems U2 records. However, where U2 promotes a wide-eyed, rather naive hope of personal and universal redemption, Black Flag tempers that hope with cynical observations that ring more true to life. RUTH DUNN 1 -if --V i.

si: the solos are assured and sometimes crackle with extra zest Best of all are the sextet's up-tempo and medium up-tempo pieces. Among these are the soulful "Git in There," with its Minguslike title, and "Blue Hughes," a tribute to the great poet Langston Hughes. One venture into a. more mellow mood is less successful. Alto saxophonist Kenny Garrett, a favorite at Hartford's 880 Club, is a key force on the front line that includes Michael Philip Moosman on trumpet and flugelhorn and Ralph Bowen on tenor saxophone.

Pianist Harry Pickens shares rhythm section duties with bassist Robert Hurst and drummer Ralph Peterson. "O.T.B." is yet another sign that Blue Note, which was resurrected just one year ago, should lead a long and fruitful life. It ought to flourish as long as there are new generations of musicians of such high quality as Out of the Blue. OWEN McNALLY I CLASSICAL FRANZ LEHAR: GIUDITTA Nicola! Gedda, Edda Moser; Munich Is uik POPROCK SEVEN THE HARD WAY PatBonatar Chrysalis I Pat Benatar has painted herself into a musical corner. She sings big, bold rockers designed to be effective Jn an arena andor video context Put recently on vinyl, the power-pop singer sounds dangerously dependent on a specific and limited musical style that has become all too formulaic.

This is the problem with her latest album, "Seven the Hard Way." She has made an effort to rock hard, but ftrithin the confines of power-pop Eock that she herself has helped es-ablish. Here, "hard" simply means grittier guitar work and muscle-bound Overproduction that is filled with echoes, overdubs and studio effects. The record is produced by Senator's husband Neil Geraldo, who has given himself a starring guitar part and has filled Benatar's singing with clutter. There are no clean sounds, no fresh vocals, and nothing Spontaneous about the music. Worst of all, Benatar's voice nee so vibrant and alive is now so processed, so metallic that it sounds 9s if she's been shot full of audio preservatives.

She is more dependent than ever On the basic quality of the songs themselves. Give her a well-crafted une such as "Invincible" and she Can make the most of it. With less-gian-terrific material, which makes Exhibition at Real Art Ways Is Showcase for Nine Painters THE 1ST ALBUM Modern Talking RCA Records Slam-bam thank you Wham! The latest European teen sensations Wham! lookalikes Dieter Bohlen (the blonde) and Thomas Anders (the long-haired brunette) have assaulted our shores with "The 1st Album," whose title distinguishes it from their Second Album, which they've already released in Europe. These two Germans call themselves Modern Talking, and so far they've had five gold singles across the Atlantic. Can they repeat that feat here? It probably depends on how cute they look on MTV, because their pallid, repetitive techno-pop is unlikely to burn up U.S.

radio airwaves. JOCELYN McCLURG HERMAN ZE GERMAN AND FRIENDS Herman RarebeM and Various Artists Capitol Records Devotees of Germany's premier Sturm und Drang group, Scorpions, may be stung by the fact that there's works, but the action is subordinate to the painterly quality of the surface. DeLottie has created a rich and rhythmic surface of colored lines that float before the viewer in shal1 low space. Figures exist within this complex linear pattern but are, in general, subordinate to the overall surface composition. DeLottie synthesizes the vision of Jackson Pollock and Philip Guston without copying either.

Bob Basey's style is bold, obvious and delightful. His three small paint-" ings, particularly the one of a large watermelon perched on the roof of a Hopper-type building, are full of life and magical meaning. There is still time to see the ceramics of Jane Morse and the paintings of Dan Rosenthal at the MS Gallery in Hartford. The Rosenthal paintings are heavy-handed (and painted) expressionist works that will appeal to some. There is nothing heavy-handed about Morse's ceramics, however; she has created dream images of carefully fragmented pale-colored figures, which seem to float in limitless space.

Hers is one of those special private expressions, which are to be cherished. "Curators' Choice: Nine Connecticut Painters" will continue through Feb. 14. Real Art Ways is at 94 Allyn Hartford. Telephone: $25-5521.

Hours: Monday through Friday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. There is no admission charge. The Rosentbal-Morse exhibition will run at the MS Gallery, 205-A Sisson A Hartford, until Tuesday. The gallery will be open Tuesday from 10 a.m.

to 5:30 p.m. Telephone: 232-2417. Record Reviews up most of the album, the result is pure stagnation. FRANK R1ZZO IN MY HEAD Black Flag SST Records The kind of music Black Flag makes is the kind of music rebellious kids might play to scare their parents. The high-speed pace, the fierce vocals, the heavy-metal-style guitars, the evil-sounding melodies all these dements may very well frighten the most musically open-minded mom and dad when first heard blasting from behind the closed doors of Junior's room.

Looking beyond that initial impression is important when listening to, and trying to understand, Black Flag. Although the music is not presented in an especially pleasant manner, the songs are, in fact, astute observations of life. Black Flag exposes truth, even if it's rather unpalatable, such as the description of a teenage alcoholic's denial of any problem in "Drinking and Driving" sure to tell yourself that this is cool and make sure to tell yourself that you have no choice and make sure to tell your friends that they drive you to it and that you can quit anytime that you Apathetic, wasted youth is lamented in "Retired at 21" retired at 21, your mind is gone, your race is "In My Head" is a chronicle of Art Review like Luis Bunuel manages to suggest that the table is not only central to existence but can represent far more than the act of consumption. She also uses a bottle caught in the act of falling over. The inclusion of a self-portrait with a halo in one of the works adds a suggestion of religion, which both enriches the painting and increases the possibility of confusion.

In addition to the obvious religious implication, the halo also adds several art historical references such as the Gauguin "Self Portrait," in which he gave himself a halo, and the great Marsden Hartley version of the Last Supper, "Adelard, the Drowned Master of 'The The viewer will profit by a comparison between the two large paintings of Susan Hoffman-Fishman and the works of Joan. Gardner. The paint in Hoffman-Fishman's works is dry and its application is apparently not of great interest to her. The subject matter is more obvious and of great importance. "The News a la Cassatt" clearly depends on a knowledge of its art historical source for part of its impact, unlike Gardner's oblique references to the past.

Both of the painters use a flat Matisselike overall pattern as a background, but their differences in approach to paint application and design blur the basic resemblance of the motif. Bill DeLottie, working in paint stick, is delicate in his technical approach and in his presentation of subject matter. The latter is so discreetly done that it is basically invisible; there is a lot going on in these AftunruitAil Pmu pop star, smiles after a concert at Concert Choir and Munich Radio Orchestra, Conducted by Willi Bo-kovsky EMIAngel, two LPS This lush, autumnal work was the last of Lehar's operettas, which is to say it was among the last pieces written in the genre. It's a beguiling platypus of a piece: Lilting fin de siecle operetta tunes are put bravely in the service of a libretto that serves up dainty of modern, post-World War I desolation. Because it was premiered at the Vienna State Opera (the year wag 1934), the piece has sometimes been mistakenly called a true opera, but neither the composer nor any other responsible person ever made this1 claim.

No, this work is a lovely anachron nism, a piece in which the 64-yearr; old Lehar manfully tries some-? times successfully, sometimes not to keep alive a style and sound that had already long vanished. The piece may lack the big, menv orable tunes of r'The Merry Widow" or "The Land of Smiles," but it is a lyrical thing to hear. Of course, whether we would want to hear it more than a few times is something else again. Nicolai Gedda and Edda Moser. are the stylish, heart-stealing stars And of course, the veteran conductor Willi Boskovsky is the last word on! how this kind of music must move.

STEVE METCALF Art Ways. Below Hale. She named the new group Sade. Sade's origins are as interesting as her career. She was born Helen Fola-sade Adu on a university campus Ibadan, Nigeria, to a Nigerian who was a lecturer there, and an! English mother.

1 When she was 4 years old, her parents separated, and she moved with her mother to England, where1 they settled in what Sade calls a "low-budget seaside resort," named, Holland-on-the-Sea, about 60 miles-from London. Sade, a shortened version of her' African middle name, is a product of both Africa and Europe. She believe, this has helped her develop into an artist with wide appeal. She shrugs off attempts to pigeonhole her music' and to describe her as a black or white artist. "I consider myself me," she said(n "My dad's black and my mom's-white, and I just don't look at life like" that.

I was brought up not to eveff' question the color of people's skins We were brought up to question what's underneath it." still nothing new from the ensemble on the immediate horizon, but this waxing affords a quantum of solace. Scorpion drummer Herman Rare-bell is at the center of a rich roundelay of heavily metallic divertissements, blending the vocals of such venerables as Steve Marriott and such ascendant stars as Don Dokken, Bobby Blotzer (of Ratt renown) and even the nostalgia-tugging soul songstress Darlene Love, who contributes background warbling to "Having a Good Time." Doubtless you will have a good time with these aggressive anthems, which certainly seem varied enough to please the pickiest. Personal favorites include "Junk Funk," which belies the sensitivity of its title with some truly thunderous percussion; the polyrhythmic complexities of "Wipe Out" (a tribute to the inspirational post-serial innovations of the Sufaris); and, for sheer tonal ambition, "Do It," in which Rarebell and guitarist Michael Thompson construct dense webs of interplay, suggesting a personal iconography cer-tain to confound any epistemologically based interpretations. MATT DAMSKER I JAZZ O.T.B. Cut of the Siu Blue Note Records Out of the Blue is a good young band rooted in the modern mainstream one of the staples of Blue "The News a la Cassatt," above, by is a life-size clay reclining nude by we've actually been working fairly consistently, and it hasn't been that easy." Sade brought her soul and jazz-flavored act to the United States for the first time last month, as she began an eight-city concert tour after her huge successes in Britain.

She is one of the hottest pop sensations to emerge from England since Boy George and Culture Club. And like the fashion-conscious Boy George, Sade is setting fashion trends with her sleek appearance. Her striking, Afro-Asian features are made more prominent by her severely pulled back hair and the bright-red lipstick she wears with her simple, but elegant wardrobe and trademark gold-hooped earrings. She exudes understated elegance on stage as well, with her smooth and sultry voice. "Promise" shot to the Top 10 during its first week of release and has spawned such hit singles as "Sweetest Taboo," "Is It a Crime," "War of the Hearts" and "Maureen." But it was the Latin-based "Smooth Operator" that first intro Susan Hoffman-Fishman, is part of an exhibit at Real Jane Morse on display at M.S.

Gallery. By BERNARD HANSON Courant Art Critic "Curators' Choice: Nine Connecticut Painters" at Real Art Ways is a line exhibition of works by artists who, although not unknown, certainty deserve to be brought even further to the public's attention. The works Jpere selected by Sherry Buckber-rough, professor of art history at the University of Hartford, and Patricia Reville, Real Art Ways' curator of visual arts. Most of the works are large, measured in feet rather than inches, boldly patterned, and presented in intense color. Many of the artists, who are represented by three paintings each in most cases, emphasize a painterly application of their medium, although several have modified tradition and have used paint stick instead of brush.

This modification has generally produced a desirable result. 1 There is, naturally, considering the state of painting today, a strong emphasis on content, most of which is intensely emotional. Post-modern is the easiest term to use in describing many of the works, although there are considerable variations in the individual artists' approaches to the style. Joan Gardner is one of the most painterly painters in the exhibit. All three of her large canvases have richly worked surfaces that work well with the strong colors.

The subject matter is not obvious, however, but in every case ambiguous. Clearly there is more here than meets the eye, but it is not spelled out for the viewer. Gardner has a fondness for several motifs that appear in these canvases. She likes scenes of eating and, Sade, the Nigerian-born British Radio Cty Music Vl -s I I Sade: A Pop Sensation From England I duced her to American audiences. Sade's musical career came almost by accident.

It began four years ago when, as a designer of men's clothing and a part-time model with no formal training as a singer, she was discovered by a friend who managed Pride, a London funk band. Desperate for a back-up vocalist, he approached Sade. "I went to an audition and basically they turned around and said to the manager that I wasn't any good," she recalled, laughing. "It's true, I'm fair, I think. "Then they waited for about a week and they auditioned a couple of more people who must have been even worse, and they came back and asked me again.

So I fell into that completely by mistake." Soon after joining Pride, she stood out as the group's main attraction. In early 1984, she broke off from the group with three of Pride's original members, her songwriting collaborator and saxophonist Stewart Matthewman, bass guitarist Paul Denman and keyboardist Andrew By PETER R. ECCLES Associated Press She's seductive, stylish and stunning. She's a singer and her name is Sade. She stands cooly before a sold-out crowd at Radio City Music Hall, about to sing one of her hits, "Your Love Is King." Then she sheds her cosmopolitan exterior and slinks into a slow samba, pulling down her jacket to bare her back.

Her fans love it. Though she never wanted to become a pop star, Sade (pronounced Shar-DAY), has quickly risen to fame. She's been nominated for a Grammy award as best new artist, and her debut album last year, "Diamond Life," a blend of jazz, pop and Latin, sold more than 7 million copies worldwide. Her new album, "Promise," has already soared on the charts. "I haven't popped out of nowhere, not as extremely as people think," said the 25-year-old Nigerian-born British pop star.

"We have been together for about 4Vi yearsnow, so.