ME'SHELL NDEGÉOCELLO — Ventriloquism (review)

ME'SHELL NDEGÉOCELLO — Ventriloquism album cover Album · 2018 · Pop/Art Song/Folk Buy this album from MMA partners
4/5 ·
js
At first glance its fairly obvious that Meshell Ndegeocello’s new album “Ventriloquism”, is a set of cover tunes, but these versions are far more than mere copies, instead, Meshell and her quartet transform each of these songs into something much more than what they were originally. The 80s are often maligned as a musically plastic decade, and there is some truth to that, but listening to how Meshell has taken a handful of mostly lackluster 80s corporate pop tunes and turned them into something deep reveals that there is some gold hidden within this seemingly musical muck. This is an excellent album anyway you look at it, but when you consider what this material sounded like before Ndegeocello transformed everything, it makes “Ventriloquism” into something truly inspired. These pop/RnB songs were the soundtrack of Meshell’s youth, which helps explain why these are the songs she would choose to work with in the first place.

Apparently Meshell’s band spent some time listening to Neil Young’s lonesome and world weary “Harvest” while recording this, and that lowdown country flavor comes through as many of the tracks open with simple finger picking folk/blues guitar, the complete opposite sound that these songs had back in the 80s. Once the tracks get rolling though, guitarist Chris Bruce and keyboardist Jebin Bruni start weaving layers of soft psychedelic sounds that give these songs a pleasant hallucinatory drift. The salient feature are the tempos, all of them quite slow in a very mesmerizing way. Kudos to Meshell that she didn’t break this mood with any ‘uptempo’ numbers, as such a move would have surely hurt the thorough integrity of this art pop masterpiece. Listening to the persistent down-tempo mood of this album may remind some of Roxy Music’s “Flesh and Blood”, on which they also took hot blooded hits like “In the Midnight Hour” and “Eight Miles High”, and turned them into sensual drifting dreams.

So many interesting transformations take place on “Ventriloquism”, but possibly the most surprising is George Clinton’s techno funk hit “Atomic Dog”, which somehow becomes a blissed out psychedelic folk number that early 70s Pink Floyd would have been proud of.
Share this review
more

Review Comments

Post a public comment below | Send private message to the reviewer
Please login to post a shout
No shouts posted yet. Be the first member to do so above!

Review Index

Member Zone

Username:
Password:
Stay signed in

Jazz Subgenres

Artists Alpha-index

JMA TOP 5 Jazz ALBUMS

Rating by members, ranked by custom algorithm
Albums with 30 ratings and more
A Love Supreme Post Bop
JOHN COLTRANE
Buy this album from our partners
Kind of Blue Cool Jazz
MILES DAVIS
Buy this album from our partners
The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady Progressive Big Band
CHARLES MINGUS
Buy this album from our partners
Blue Train Hard Bop
JOHN COLTRANE
Buy this album from our partners
My Favorite Things Hard Bop
JOHN COLTRANE
Buy this album from our partners

New Jazz Artists

New Jazz Releases

Shibusashirazu Orchestra : 渋吼 = Shibukoh Avant-Garde Jazz
SHIBUSASHIRAZU
Buy this album from MMA partners
La folle journée de George Gershwin Big Band
THE AMAZING KEYSTONE BIG BAND
Buy this album from MMA partners
Fascinating Rhythm(s) Big Band
THE AMAZING KEYSTONE BIG BAND
Buy this album from MMA partners
What happened there? Jazz Related Improv/Composition
KEIJI HAINO
Buy this album from MMA partners
The Psychic​/​Body Sound System Jazz Related Improv/Composition
DAN BLACKSBERG
Buy this album from MMA partners
More new releases

New Jazz Online Videos

FASCINATING RHYTHM - The Amazing Keystone Big Band feat. Neima Naouri
THE AMAZING KEYSTONE BIG BAND
snobb· 2 hours ago
Alicante
RENAUD GARCIA-FONS
js· 6 hours ago
She's Forty with Me
WILTON CRAWLEY
js· 6 hours ago
Tall Tillie's Too Tight
WILTON CRAWLEY
js· 6 hours ago
Rhoda Scott Ladies and Gentlemen - special guest : David Linx
RHODA SCOTT
snobb· 19 hours ago
More videos

New JMA Jazz Forum Topics

More in the forums

New Site interactions

More...

Latest Jazz News

members-submitted

More in the forums

Social Media

Follow us
Follow us on Twitter Become a Facebook fan RSS Feed