Cindy Blackman
A Lil' Somethin', Somethin' – The Best of the Muse Years (32 Jazz 32178)

I'm slowly getting over my snooty reluctance to buy CDs on the 32 Jazz label, which has put out tons and tons of cool discs at cheap-as-hell prices. I should be bowing down and praising them for being one of the only jazz labels out there that are doing reissues with a tasteful vision informed by groove enthusiasts.

Artists like Woody Shaw, Houston Person, and Etta Jones have had great material reissued by 32 Jazz, stuff you would otherwise probably never see on CD. My snootiness is based entirely on packaging, but the label's been getting a bit better with that.

They still look like cheesy knockoffs of No Limit albums, with the junky plastic jewel box and Photoshop 101 cover art. But what the hell. Sometimes I see one and have to chastise myself. "Damn you, Sheryl," I say to myself, "This is a hip little disc, and only $7.99. What the fuck you gonna do?"

Sometimes that leads to me being circled by store security, but mostly it results in me buying the disc and knocking down the wall of aesthetic snobbery that prevents me from diving into 32 Jazz too deeply.

This CD was of interest to me because there's not too many famous female drummers out there, and the ones that are kick ass, and furthermore I was surprised that the foxy lady who gives Lenny Kravitz his backbone had actually come from a jazz background.

I only know Cindy Blackman from seeing her in videos like "Are You Gonna Go My Way," so I was like, coolness. I knew it wouldn't be what I'd love it to have been – a deeply funky, powerhouse percussion workout that would leave my head spinning and my ass black and blue.

What it is is exactly what I thought it would be – good 90s trad jazz. Blackman's chops are great, and on some of the cuts she really tears, but the stuff is hard-bop-derived regular jazz.

Most of the cuts are her originals, with covers of "'Round Midnight," Miles Davis's "Tune Up" and "Beatrice" by Sam Rivers also included.

"'Round Midnight" is probably the most irrelevant track on the disc, but it's also the one that will probably compel 95% of the people who buy this CD to buy it. People really need to stop recording it though. Monk left us like 80 different recordings of it, not to mention another 80 or so from Miles and 80,000 more from most everyone else. This one doesn't do anything new.

"Beatrice" is my fave cut, featuring great soloing from everyone, including Blackman, Ron Carter on bass, Kenny Barron on piano, and Gary Bartz on sax. Joe Henderson contributes "Teeter Totter" on which he also plays (along with Wallace Roney on trumpet). That's a smokin' one.

The disc is compiled from four albums originally released on the Muse label between 1987 and 1995, by which time the lure of rock'n'roll dollars must have been looking pretty sweet to Cindy. What's great about the disc is that it's compiled smartly, a rare disc that kind of gets you excited about recent trad jazz. Very well-assembled.

I can't say I'd seek out the original albums, but I have faith that these are some of the prime moments. Who knows, maybe the stuff they left off is all the mind-blowing funky stuff I envisioned, but I doubt it.

"Missing You" (not the John Waite song … fortunately or unfortunately, I can't tell) is a twisty ballad not far from a Geri Allen tune, very opaque and rainy-day, featuring some nice piano work from Jacky Terrason and a cool squirrelly sax sound from Antoine Roney. Most of the cuts hover in the Art Blakey realm, firmly in the Jazz Messengers formula – a formula that works quite well, of course. There's a reason Blakey got like 900 albums of mileage out of that approach – 'cuz it's damn good.

Some uptempo stormers, some midtempo strollers, some downtempo chillers; nothing mind-bending, just good jazz. I'm probably overrating it a bit just because I think this CD is cool, and because Cindy Blackman is cool.

But there you have it – it's my "coolness affirmative action program" in which cool stuff gets less scrutiny. Plus, there's A Lil' Somethin' you should know: women drummers rule, fool.

Loud Bassoon rating scale

Review by Sheryl Cho