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Rickie Lee Jones and Edie Brickell
BY CHRISTOPHER JOHN TREACY
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Rickie Lee Jones’s new The Evening of My Best Day (V2) is the first collection of original material she’s recorded since her much misunderstood (or misguided) attempt to contemporize her sound on 1997’s Ghostyhead (Warner Bros.), and it’s a return to more-familiar terrain — the warm, jazzy rock that made her a star in the ’70s. The trip-hop looping of Ghostyhead alienated many of Jones’s long-time fans, and her 2000 CD, It’s Like This (Artemis), may have been a calculated attempt to make peace with that core audience while having some fun of her own with a collection of quirky but winning covers of tunes by such like-minded fusionists as Steely Dan and Traffic. But on The Evening of My Best Day, she goes a step farther, slipping into the kind of mellow soulful grooves that have always suited her voice. Jones, who performs this Monday at the Somerville Theatre, eases through several stylistic shifts on the new disc. A seasoned nine-piece band flesh out the arrangements without getting in the way of that sultry voice, particularly on the artsy jazz-pop tracks "It Takes You There," "Bitchenostrophy," and "Second Chance." Jones’s lyrics cover a range of socio-economic issues with a subtlety that’s built into her bebopping street-corner delivery. It’s clear she’s irritated by the current political climate, but her anger is cloaked in gorgeous melodies and hummable hooks. Indeed, she’s on record as saying it was her disgust with the Bush Administration that gave her the unifying inspiration for the album. The disc kicks off with "Ugly Man," an ode to George W., and in her own sly way Jones goes straight for the jugular. "He’s an ugly man . . . and he’ll tell you lies/He’ll look at you and tell you lies/He grew up to be like his father/Ugly inside." Against a skeletal backdrop of brushed snare and piano chordings, Jones works her way up to the punch lines gradually and with obvious relish, her little-girl-with-a-stuffed-nose delivery taking some of the sting out of each barbed verse. Elsewhere, a refreshing idealism drives "Tell Somebody," which, alluding to the Patriot Act, finds her urging listeners to "Tell somebody what’s happening in the USA" in a voice that’s neither cynical nor cranky. Although politics may be the thread that holds the album together, this is not a one-dimensional disc. The sinister blues grooves of "Little Mysteries," "Lap Dog," and "Mink Coat at the Bus Stop" are signature character sketches that draw on themes of longing, loneliness, and loss. "Sailor Song" paints a potent portrait of someone who’s found a kind of solace in the solitary life: "A sailor boy/Stole me from my home/And this sea of joy/Is the only life I’ve known." It’s not a bad metaphor for where Jones has found herself after three decades as one of the most distinctive voices on the fringe of pop. Another pop singer with jazzy leanings has also mounted a comeback, with her first solo album since 1994. Former New Bohemian Edie Brickell, whose Volcano (Universal) hit stores on October 9, was often compared with Jones early in her career, mainly because of the bluesy lilt in her delivery. But whereas The Evening of My Best Day offers commentary on the world around her, Brickell’s focus has turned inward, as she ruminates on the realities of regret, unrequited love, and childhood memories. For Volcano, Brickell took guitar lessons so that, for the first time in her career, she’d be able to write without a collaborator. The result, as you might expect, is rich with the kind of storytelling that’s always been one of her strengths. Yet the music suffers from a lack of variety, and it’s saved only by the production of fellow Texan Charlie Sexton. The stellar set of session players do give the disc’s best tracks a much needed boost. And Brickell responds in kind by pushing the limits of her voice. "Rush Around," a New Bohemians leftover, is a simple waltz that showcases the range of Brickell’s vocals. The smoldering "Oo La La" is buoyed by a churning rhythm section that sends her on a ride through a lusty tale of sexual awakening; the song’s instrumental passages provide complementary tension that mirrors the hormonal landslide of the lyrics. "No Surprise" and "The Messenger," on the other hand, are little more than proof that she can handle stylized blues. Volcano is at its best when Brickell has room to experiment, as in the way she tests her vocal limits on "Take a Walk" and "Not Saying Goodbye." And for anyone who remembers wincing whenever a New Bohemians video hit the MTV airwaves, only the appropriately titled "Songs We Used To Sing" is likely to bring back bad memories of the trite neo-hippie campfire sing-along sentiments that Brickell, to her credit, has mostly outgrown. Rickie Lee Jones plays the Somerville Theatre this Monday, November 3; call (617)625-4088.
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