I\u2019m going to be upfront about something. This CD from the legendary New Orleans jazz\/funk\/fusion outfit The Dirty Dozen Brass Band is very tough for me to be objective about. Last night I watched the reopening of the Superdome and about three-fourths of the Saints\u2019 win over the Falcons. That said\u2026<\/p>\n
What\u2019s Going On<\/i> is a fund-raiser for the Tipitina\u2019s Foundation, a non-profit set up to bring music back to New Orleans and support musicians who lost property and homes in Hurricane Katrina. This is not an intellectual exercise for the DDBB; three of their members lost everything, and two more had serious damage to their homes. This CD is a cover, not of a song, but of an album: Marvin Gaye\u2019s ground-breaking 1971 album What\u2019s Going On<\/i>. <\/p>\n
Mind you, it\u2019s not a note-for-note cover \u2013 most of the tracks are redone with some brass stylings and New Orleans spice. The brass sound is particularly nice; there\u2019s real substance and depth to the musicianship, especially on tracks like \u201cRight On\u201d and \u201cSave The Children.\u201d<\/p>\n
If What\u2019s Going On<\/i> has a failing, it\u2019s in the guest vocalists. Bettye LaVette\u2019s take on \u201cWhat\u2019s Happening Brother\u201d is brilliant, and Chuck D\u2019s anger is controlled and focused on the title track. But Guru\u2019s take on \u201cInner City Blues\u201d didn\u2019t do much for me, and I really did not like either the arrangement or G. Love\u2019s vocals on \u201cMercy Mercy Me.\u201d This is one of the greatest songs every written \u2013 why mess with it to the point where it\u2019s barely recognizable?<\/p>\n
Should you buy What\u2019s Going On?<\/i> Indubitably. It\u2019s both a good CD and a good cause. I just wish that it would have been a great CD, and I think a little less manipulation of the original material would have accomplished that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":28507,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7822],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-39966","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-dirty-dozen-brass-band","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39966","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\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39966\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=39966"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=39966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}