New Recordings

Whitney Houston
nolead ends nolead begins I Look To You
nolead ends nolead begins (Arista ***)

nolead ends Nothing has been left to chance in plotting Whitney Houston's comeback from a lost decade of drug- and Bobby Brown-damaged tabloid drama. Before her career collapsed, Houston was one of the most successful hitmakers of all time, and the team assembled by über-executive Clive Davis is pretty much a who's who of R&B chart-topping producers and songwriters who have flourished in Houston's absence. Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz work in tandem on the percolating opener "Million Dollar Bill," and schmaltzy duo Diane Warren and David Foster team up on the survivor's anthem "I Didn't Know My Own Strength." Also chipping in are Akon, Nate "Danja" Hills, and R. Kelly,  who wrote two songs including the closer "Salute," in which Houston presumably disparages Brown. There's also a disco version of Leon Russell's "A Song For You," helmed by Norwegian production duo Stargate.

And if that wasn't enough to guarantee successful re-entry into the mainstream for her first album in seven years, Houston will appear on the season premiere of Oprah on Sept. 14 in what the Queen of All Media has dubbed "the most anticipated music interview of the decade." As you might expect considering how many cooks are working in Houston's kitchen, I Look to You is hardly a cohesive personal statement. It does, however, showcase a 46-year-old singer whose voice has weathered nicely with age, even as it has lost range at the high and low ends. Houston's gospel-honed instincts about when to hold back and when to cut loose still serve her well, and set her apart from a host of ululating maximalist divas. Not an unadulterated success, but a rock-solid adult-contemporary return from a brand-name superstar who's gotten back on her feet with a great deal of assistance.

- Dan DeLuca
nolead begins
Jay Reatard
nolead ends nolead begins Watch Me Fall
nolead ends nolead begins (Matador Records ***1/2)

nolead ends Memphis garage-rocker and home-recording expert Jay Reatard (no, it doesn't rhyme with leotard) has made some exhilarating songs these last few years, gathered on a full-length debut (2006's Blood Visions) and a pair of Matador singles collections. The energy's the thing - Reatard marries the razor sharpness of punk with the manic thrill of glam - and his latest, Watch Me Fall, doesn't lack for speed. Here, though, he's more tuneful, and he seems to be writing with a sense of seriousness that borders, at times, on hopeful. Maybe it's the polished production talking: gone are the super-saturated guitars and drums and, unfortunately, some of the immediacy of Reatard's earlier work. But the wonderfully unexpected mix of pop ("Hang Them All"), twee ("Wounded"), and tension ("Nothing Now") leaves room for guessing what Reatard might do next, and the addictive moments ("It Ain't Gonna Save Me") are exciting right now.

- Michael Pollock

nolead begins Brandi Shearer
nolead ends nolead begins Love Don't Make You Juliet
nolead ends nolead begins (Vinyl Tiger ***)

nolead ends Most of Brandi Shearer's fourth album sounds easygoing and seductive. Pristine acoustic guitars, closely recorded with lots of finger squeaks, ride a gentle pulse behind Shearer's intimate, bluesy alto. Producer Craig Street has done similar work with k. d. lang and Cassandra Wilson, although Shearer is more understated than the former and less jazzy than the latter.

But the cover photo of Love Don't Make You Juliet shows Shearer brandishing taped knuckles, ready to fight, and the album is full of bruised and vengeful love songs. "When you go, I'm going to find you," Shearer sings on the swampy, banjo-driven "When You Wake Up," getting ready to demand an explanation from a (former?) lover. Even "How Glad I Am," the Nancy Wilson standard and lone cover here, sounds obsessive, as if Shearer is enthralled but desperate.

Shearer is trapped between "I Don't Love You" and "I Just Want You To Love Me." It's an uncomfortable but compelling place.

- Steve Klinge

nolead begins Living Colour
nolead ends nolead begins The Chair in the Doorway
nolead ends nolead begins (Megaforce **1/2)

nolead ends At first glance, the last '80s act you'd want to reunite is Living Colour. Though appreciated for its frenetic force and tear-down of rock's lily-white color barrier, the African American quartet was ultimately so much less than the sum of its parts.

Nimble-fingered guitarist Vernon Reid rarely got the opportunity to execute the avant-metal freak-outs he played for Defunkt and Ronald Shannon Jackson, progenitors of the jazzy punk-funk sound at which Reid excelled. Living Colour's rhythm section could nail every curve Reid threw, but fascinatingly melodic pitches were rare. Corey Glover had powerful lungs and a poignant sense of sociopolitical lyricism, but came across as ham-fisted.

Breaking up in 1995 only to reunite in 2001 - did it matter? It does if you consider how truly vivid, diverse and barbed its new album is.

Capitalizing on well-rounded musicianship, Reid & Co. finally find the luster that was sorely missing from their catalog. Though they've toyed with blues previously, nothing was as holy and rolling as the sacred steel of "Bless Those." And while the bonus of staunchly soulful song ("Behind the Sun") makes Chair memorable, the blissful metal and Glover's surprisingly approachable sermonizing on "DecaDance" and "Burning Bridges" make Living Colour sound effortless. Finally.

- A.D. Amorosi

John Fogerty
nolead ends nolead begins The Blue Ridge Rangers
Rides Again
nolead ends nolead begins (Verve Forecast ***)

nolead ends For his first post-Creedence project, in 1973, John Fogerty billed himself as the Blue Ridge Rangers, playing all the instruments himself on a set of country, R&B, and gospel tunes. Now, he's reviving the concept, although this time he's joined by a full complement of accompanists, including such heavyweights as drummer Kenny Aronoff, guitarist Buddy Miller, and steel guitarist Greg Leisz.

From John Prine to John Denver, Rick Nelson and Buck Owens, the material takes Fogerty beyond his familiar swamp-rock (although he does revive his own "Change in the Weather"). Of course, that's the point, and Fogerty has long had an affinity for this kind of music, going back to such Creedence classics as "Down on the Corner" and "Lookin' Out My Back Door."

Fogerty's obviously having a ball here - listen to the way he gives his backers the spotlight to tear it up on "Fallin' Fallin' Fallin'" and "Haunted House." His duet with Bruce Springsteen on a Cajun-flavored take of "When Will I Be Loved" doesn't match the Everly Brothers' for smoothness of harmonies, but the track's rugged exuberance is emblematic of the whole project.

- Nick Cristiano

nolead begins Loudon Wainwright III
nolead ends nolead begins High Wide & Handsome:
The Charlie Poole Project
nolead ends nolead begins (2nd Story Sound ***1/2)

nolead ends Charlie Poole, a string-band hitmaker of the 1920s, died at 39 in 1931, giving birth to a legend that has long fascinated folkies and bluegrassers. Loudon Wainwright III celebrates the North Carolina banjoist's legacy in this two-CD set, and as you'd expect from the sharp-witted Wainwright, it's no dry, dusty homage.

In acoustic settings ranging from solo to full band, sometimes with horns, Wainwright presents 21 numbers recorded or performed by Poole. They include everything from the driving "The Deal" ("Don't Let Your Deal Go Down"), with its proto-rock-and-roll attitude, to the touching ballad "The Letter That Never Came" - songs that show Poole's stylistic and emotional range.

Wainwright, however, sometimes with producer Dick Connette, also delivers eight originals that attempt to present a personal portrait of Poole and his milieu. So you get a project that offers insight into Poole, but is still very much a Wainwright album. The originals include the leadoff title track, which gets at Poole's charisma and hints at the desperation that drove this itinerant entertainer: "Let's live it up - might as well we're all dyin'/ High wide and handsome - let's put on a show."

- N.C.

Endurance
nolead ends nolead begins Heath Brothers
nolead ends nolead begins (Jazzlegacyproductions.com ***)

nolead ends Elder brother and bassist Percy Heath may be gone, but the remaining brothers - composer Jimmy on saxophones and Albert "Tootie" on drums - soldier on, making sonic whoopee with two younger cats.

The Heaths, who came of age in Philadelphia after World War II, are one of the jazz world's most celebrated families. Jimmy, 82, nicknamed "Little Bird," mixed it up with the Dizzy Gillespie Big Band, collaborated with Miles Davis in the fateful year of 1959, and has one of the most elegant sounds in jazz. Albert, 74, debuted on a 1957 John Coltrane recording called Prestige, hung with pianist Herbie Hancock a decade later, and delved furthest into popular music.

This outing, the brothers' first since Percy's passing in 2005, focuses on Jimmy's compositions - seven of nine cuts are his - and there's a tasty sense of old-school bop in the air.

"Ballad from Leadership Suite" is a handsome composition, full of smoky ballad playing, while "Wall to Wall" projects a great loping drive courtesy of Albert. The session could have taken more chances.

Pianist Jeb Patton, who studied with Jimmy at Queens College, shows that he learned some things in his elegant drive through "Two Tees." Bassist David Wong, a Juilliard graduate, provides the polished bottom and bows the melody on "From a Lonely Bass," a tribute to Percy.

- Karl Stark

nolead begins Laurence Hobgood
nolead ends nolead begins When the Heart Dances
nolead ends nolead begins (Naim Jazz ***)

nolead ends When bassist Charlie Haden comes around, a lot of good things usually happen. So it is here.

Chicago-based pianist Laurence Hobgood leads this largely duet recording with Haden that also includes two Hobgood piano solos and three trio tunes with fellow Chicagoan, singer Kurt Elling.

The duets with Haden are glorious. The first trick they accomplish is to make "Que Sera Sera" into a dark, intriguing affair, not a folksy cartoon. The tunes are studded with rich sonorities. Hobgood proves to be an inventive cat; the positive ions just keep streaming from his head.

And in some ways, the set overdoses on the happy stuff, perhaps because there's so much of it. Still, it induces a pleasant vibe.

Hobgood has been music director for Elling, and both appear at the Windy City's fabulous throwback dive, the Green Mill. So their rapport has deep roots. And it's zesty to have Elling blowing in on Haden's rapturous "First Song" or making "Stairway to the Stars" into a major-league relaxant.

- K.S.

nolead begins Kim Kashkashian
Neharot
nolead ends nolead begins Kim Kashkashian, viola; Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Gil Rose conducting; Munich Chamber Orchestra, Alexander Liebreich conducting; Kuss Quartet and others. nolead ends nolead begins

(ECM ****)

nolead ends Whatever one thinks of the individual pieces on this disc, you'd have to admit that there's probably never been a more fascinating viola recording. Most of the music has been written in the last six years, often by middle-aged composers with substantial personalities but nearly no U.S. reputation. One is Betty Olivero, an Israeli who wrote the disc's title piece (meaning "rivers of tears"), which draws on sources from Kurdish lamentations to Monteverdi. It's a wonderfully dreamy, collagelike piece, tough, with a clear trajectory in its brooding viola writing, odd but eloquent accordion writing, and tapes of voices singing in welters of Mideast microtones. There's so much in it that any given listening is going to be a unique and personal dialogue with where you're at that day.

Not everything here is about lamentation. Tigran Mansurian's Three Arias (Sung Out the Window Facing Mount Ararat) is pretty much what it says it is, and after some foreboding brass writing, the music is often quite lyrical, all the more so because violist Kim Kashkashian is the sort of player who finds great meaning in only a few notes. The disc's final piece, Rava Deravin (Favor of Favors) by Eitan Steinberg, is drawn from Hasidic melodies and exudes a sense of mystical mystery and full, wiry-sounding effects from the viola. It's not a piece that gives up its secrets immediately. Luckily, the others do. - David Patrick Stearns

nolead begins Royal Opera House
Berlioz: The Trojans nolead ends

nolead begins Jon Vickers, Amy Shuard and Blanche Thebom, Rafael Kubelik conducting. nolead ends nolead begins

(Testament, four discs, ***1/2)

nolead ends nolead begins Verdi: Il Trovatore nolead ends

nolead begins Gwyneth Jones, Giulietta Simionato, Bruno Prevedi and Peter Glossop, Carlo Maria Giulini conducting. nolead ends nolead begins

(ROH Heritage Series, two discs, ***)

nolead ends nolead begins Wagner: Parsifal nolead ends

nolead begins Jon Vickers, Amy Shuard, Norman Bailey, Michael Langdon, Louis Hendrikx, Kiri Te Kanawa and others, Reginald Goodall conducting. nolead ends

nolead begins (ROH Heritage Series, four discs, ***1/2)

nolead ends Recently issued live recordings from the Royal Opera House haven't all been worthy of commercial release, but these three all have good sound, excellent performances, and many points of historic interest. The 1957 Trojans was the first major step in the rehabilitation of Berlioz' epic opera about the fall of Troy and Aeneas' interlude in Carthage. Some may take exception to its being sung in English (in a good translation) and in a ramshackle edition, but there's more charisma here than in later, tidier commercial recordings thanks to Rafael Kubelik's conducting, the magnetic Amy Shuard as Cassandra, the authoritative (though not always lyrical) Blanche Thebom as Dido, and a very young Jon Vickers singing Aeneas' tough vocal lines with great freedom. Overall, the performance exudes passionate partisanship and a great sense of occasion.

The other two sets are of less immediate interest but are full of pleasure. Though Gwyneth Jones sang Verdi only intermittently, her vocalism was never more lush or secure than in this 1964 performance, allowing her to take great and gratifying chances. Thanks to Carlo Maria Giulini's direction (not as contemplative as in later years), all singers have a firm idea of what they're about, and only the aging Giulietta Simionato (Azucena) isn't at her vocal best.

Though most everybody on this Parsifal can be found on other recordings of Wagner's last opera, the combination of talent in this 1971 performance has strong synergy. Conductor Reginald Goodall's infamously slow tempos are even slower here than in his 1984 studio recording (Act I is about 10 minutes longer) but feel perfectly cogent, while the cast is uniformly excellent (Donald McIntyre is Klingsor, not Gurnemanz as in later years) and yes, Kiri Te Kanawa is a palpable, welcome presence as the head Flowermaiden.

- D.P.S.