LATEST ADDITIONS

Legendary photographer Jim Marshall recently said that of all the magazine spreads that have used his images over the years, the one appearing in The Tracking Angle issue 13 was one of a “handful” of the finest ever.

The Canadian folk/rocker’s vital third album opens with an ambitious, though somewhat out of character tune featuring a melodic line and driving rhythmic pulse reminiscent of something that might have been penned by Death Cab For Cutie’s Ben Gibbard, though the vocal is unmistakably Edwards’: a feathery, vulnerable-yet-stoic tone fitted to unadorned, precise phrasing that can comfortably draw out a one syllable word the length of a football field.

On the opener, “Dragonfly Pie,” Stephen Malkmus and The Jicks want to lay a heavy trip on you, man. Dualing fuzz toned and wah-wah’d guitars, Mitch Mitchell (or Ed Cassidy)-like skin pounding (by Janet Weiss late of Sleater-Kinney), a plodding rhythm and a lysergic vibe produce an acid flashback swirl. Until the chorus, that is, where it becomes positively skip- on-stone jaunty.

Lou Donaldson playfully skids into a few bars of David Rose’s “Holiday For Strings” mid-solo during a cover of the Kelmar/Ruby standard “Three Little Words,” indulging himself in a bit of shtick popular back when jazz could be lighthearted, studious and physical. Sonny Rollins was and is a deft practitioner of the off-handed musical quote as are and were many of the other jazz greats of a bygone era. It’s rarely done today. Jazz is more serious and cerebral, unless it gets goofy as the drummer Matt Wilson sometimes can get.