Author Archives: Jeff Giles

About Jeff Giles

Jeff Giles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Popdose and Dadnabbit, as well as an entertainment writer whose work can be seen at Rotten Tomatoes, Paste Magazine, and a number of other sites.

CD Review: Heidi Swedberg and the Sukey Jump Band, “Play!”

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What comes to mind when you think of the ukulele? If you’re a member of my generation (or older), you probably think of Don Ho or his many cheesy, Hawaiian-shirted imitators — but the uke is so much more than “Tiny Bubbles” on The Lawrence Welk Show, and Heidi Swedberg is doing her part to demonstrate just how family-friendly ukulele music can be.

Play! offers up 15 tracks, most of them from the public domain (examples include “Froggie Went a-Courtin'” and “Pop Goes the Weasel”), with few production frills and plenty of silly charm. It’s a conscious throwback to the days of family parlor music — as Swedberg writes in the liner notes, listeners should “Tune up and learn one, two or three chords. Play!” And if you’re a little intimidated by the prospect of sitting down and learning to play “Kookaburra” or “My Dog Has Fleas,” don’t worry — she’s included tabs in the booklet. Unlike the many albums engineered to make your kids beg for Backyardigans dolls or Dora backpacks, here’s a collection that challenges you to make your own joyful noise.

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How refreshing is that?

And okay, so you probably aren’t going to shut off the TV and start a family band right away. But even if listening to Play! doesn’t inspire you to buy a ukulele for every member of your family, it’s still an awful lot of fun — Heidi Swedberg is an immensely appealing performer, and she has a lot of fun with her song selections, whether she’s crooning the “Japanese Umbrella Song” or lending a little pineapple flair (and singing saw) to “Dream a Little Dream.” For mellow afternoons, dancing in the kitchen with your kids, or family band practice, Play! backs up the cheerful demand imposed by its title. More, please.

CD Review: Oran Etkin, “Wake Up, Clarinet!”

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Toots Thielemans once joked that when you mix jazz with anything else, you often end up with nothing. He was defending his decision to mix jazz with Brazilian music for his first Brasil Project album, so his point was ultimately that good jazz doesn’t have to be pure, but you get the idea — and if you’ve ever listened to a Kenny G or Dave Koz record, you probably agree that jazz generally doesn’t benefit from being blended or watered down.

Rules are made for exceptions, however, and here’s a fine one: Oran Etkin’s Wake Up, Clarinet!, which offers a delightfully breezy 22-minute course in basic jazz for the younger set.

Dedicated to, in his own words, helping kids “develop a rich musical vocabulary and creativity,” Etkin teaches the Timbalooloo Method, using games and stories to help teach music theory. Judging from Wake Up, Clarinet!, it’s a class I’d like to join. Unlike a lot of “____ for kids” projects, it doesn’t waste time with cutesy sleight of hand; these nine tracks (three intros and six musical numbers, running from 2:24 to 4:29) are simple, but they brim with an obvious, infectious joy.

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Not to mention solid musicianship: the small combo Etkin leads here (on clarinet and sax, natch) includes Jason Marsalis on drums, Fabian Almazan on piano, Garth Stevenson on bass, Curtis Fowlkes on trombone, and vocalist Charenee Wade, who serves as Etkin’s foil throughout. (You can watch Etkin perform three songs by putting the enhanced CD in your computer, too.

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It’s worth mentioning that the concepts Wake Up, Clarinet! addresses are decidedly basic — high notes and low notes, that sort of thing — but Etkin does such a fine job of incorporating those themes into the performances that it never feels like he’s talking down to the listener. These are just bite-sized songs, steeped in jazz, and bursting with a wonderful energy.

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Whether or not you think you care about jazz, this is a Wake Up that should strike a chord with music-loving families everywhere.

CD Review: Various Artists, “Many Hands: Family Music for Haiti”

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You wouldn’t be visiting Dadnabbit if you weren’t looking for quality entertainment that your whole family can enjoy.

What if you could have it — lots of it — and support a worthy cause in the bargain?

That’s the idea behind Many Hands: Family Music for Haiti, the debut offering from Bill Childs‘ Spare the Rock Records, and it works splendidly. The track listing boasts a virtual Who’s Who of the best and brightest in kindie, including Recess Monkey, Elizabeth Mitchell, Gustafer Yellowgold, Dan Zanes, and Uncle Rock — and almost all of the songs are previously unreleased. The set was produced by Dean Jones of Dog on Fleas, who helped round up the artists (including Pete Seeger, recorded in a single take in his living room) and contributed a pair of tracks (Dog on Fleas’ lovely “Sing About the Sun” and the quirky, irresistible Jones solo cut “Little by Little”).

If you’re familiar with Bill’s work, or any of the artists I named above, you know what to expect from Many Hands — it includes its share of boisterous, candy-colored tracks (like They Might Be Giants’ “My Name Is Kingof Socks”), but this crew is fighting the good fight; where they go, smart, honest kids’ music is sure to follow, and most of it is stripped down to its bare essentials. There’s no artifice here, no pandering to children, no teeth-grindingly cute arrangements or lyrics. Just family entertainment, in the truest sense — beautifully recorded by a family of artists, to benefit families half a world away.

More about that worthy cause: Proceeds from Many Hands go to the Haitian People’s Support Project, where they’re working hard to repair the devastation of the January earthquake. It’s a crisis too great for one charity — or one great CD — to solve, but you can help by picking up a copy of the album and explaining the story behind it to your kids. And if you’re lucky enough to live within driving distance, you can attend one of the Many Hands concerts scheduled for the fall.

(While it wasn’t an official Many Hands show, Dadnabbit was lucky enough to play a part in bringing Dog on Fleas to our rural corner of New Hampshire recently. Pictures here.)

The more time I spend with kids’ entertainment, the less patience I have for movies or music that waste energy condescending to their audience. Kids are just like us — they respond to things that make them feel, that treat them with respect, and that trust their intelligence. The artists who contributed their time and talent to this project understand this, and that’s what makes it such a beautiful, valuable listen. If you buy only one CD for your family this year, make it Many Hands.