This CD tries very hard to marry two very disparate genres, ragtime jazz and trip-hop. When it works, it works very well, when it doesn’t, the results sound messy.
New York City based pianist MARK BIRNBAUM has made a valiant attempt here to fuse the musical styles, investing in Neneh Cherry’s vocals for some tracks, but the main problem with the CD is that like a Prog Rock album (yet another genre!) this offers one hour of music with eleven tracks being minor variations on the same two songs.
The album starts well with ‘Welcome!’ a good rap about revolution and how everyone should unite and focus on our problems: “Time for some action, time to think real, time to speak real.” Sentiments that are heartfelt and probably echoed by millions.
‘Carnival for Eubie’ is another good track, an empowerment song, however the carnivalesque jazz piano rolls sit uneasily with some annoying hop-hop drumbeats.
Tracks like ‘Outta Keys’ have a great Scott Joplin style piano melody which is backed with some atmospheric electronics, but what lets this down is that it is expanded upon, to have an ‘Outta Keys’ bass mix, two other mixes and two vocal mixes. Whilst the vocals suit one alternate mix, there is no need for the others.
The minor variations would suit some EPs as a lot of them have separate mixes, but here when you have four different mixes of one song, followed immediately by a further four mixes of another, it starts to grate slightly.
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‘Ragtime Trip-Hop’ the next track is a nice jaunty piano ragtime boogie, which works well, until it is immediately followed by another mix which has the most minor of changes.
The ‘Luna Keys’ mixes utilise organ rather than piano, and this works well on the original and the ‘Luna Keys Cry’ vocal mix, the vocals seemingly about love and loss:- “I waited oh, for so long/ now I will be all alone.” The problem here is once again it is followed by a further three variations of the same melody.
Overall, when this works, it works really well, however the CD is flawed by the repetition, which had me reaching for the off button. I would have liked to stick around much longer if there had been more variety on offer.
Mark Birnbaum on MySpace
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