Rickie Lee Jones is the kind of artist whom you will either love
\nor hate – and, so long as you approach her on her own terms, she
\ncould probably care less either way. She walks her own unique
\nmusical path, daring to try and re-invent jazz one moment, kicking
\nback with cover versions of her favorite songs the next. It’s
\nenough to leave you scratching your head – especially, if you’re
\nsomeone like me, when you haven’t followed Jones’s career over the
\ncourse of the past 20 years.<\/p>\n
So don’t be surprised if you aren’t certain what to make of
\nIt’s Like This<\/i>, Jones’s latest collection of tunes, in which
\nshe tackles 11 songs running the gamut of 20th Century Popular
\nMusic. Is this pseudo hero-worship personified, or is Jones merely
\nclearing out the pipes with material she fees as comfortable in as
\nher own skin?<\/p>\n
It takes guts for anyone to tackle a menagerie of artists as
\nvaried as George Gershwin and Leonard Bernstein on one end of the
\nspectrum, and Steely Dan and The Beatles at the other. What’s even
\nmore intriguing is that this combination works, though it is not
\nsomething you will grasp right out of the jewel case.<\/p>\n
At times, one has to wonder if Jones’s wispy, sing-song,
\nschool-girl voice will be able to handle tough material like Marvin
\nGaye’s “Trouble Man,” but those fears are quickly dispelled as
\nJones’s vocals cut through the song like a chainsaw through a
\nsapling. Clearly, effortlessly does she threaten to make material
\nlike this her own – and so long as she’s delivering the goods with
\nsuch finesse, who could resist? Similarly, Jones (dueting with Joe
\nJackson) sends chills down listeners’ spines with “One Hand, One
\nHeart”. Other such moments come on “For No One” and a truncated
\nversion of Traffic’s “The Low Spark Of High-Heeled Boys”.<\/p>\n
Yet there are moments where one has to wonder what Jones is up
\nto on
\nIt’s Like This<\/i>. Her cover of Steely Dan’s “Show Biz Kids” is
\nsolid enough, but she hardly chose the sharpest crayon from the
\nSteely Dan discography to cover. (Then again, maybe she chose one
\nwhich matched her vocal capabilities.) Her take on “Smile” makes me
\nwonder if there is anything this song has left to prove, and what
\nJones’s goal is by taking on Charlie Chaplin’s well-worn song. And
\nsome of the earlier material, like “Up A Lazy River” and “Someone
\nTo Watch Over Me,” doesn’t carry the same impetus that the first
\nhalf of the disc does. (In contrast, though, Jones puts wheels on
\n“I Can’t Get Started,” taking it in directions even Gershwin
\nprobably never dared to dream of.)<\/p>\n
\nIt’s Like This<\/i>, in the end, seems to be a release where
\nJones allows herself the freedom to cut the creative rug on songs
\nshe admires. Whether you are willing to come along for the ride or
\nnot, that’s your decision. And, for the most part, the ride is
\npretty smooth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25613,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6451],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-36819","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-rickie-lee-jones","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36819\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36819"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36819"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}