Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Tom WAITS & Crystal GAYLE - Soundtrack “One from the heart” 1982


Tom WAITS & Crystal GAYLE - Soundtrack “One from the heart” 1982

Jazz

True, the pairing of Waits and Crystal Gayle sounds like the perfect recipe for disaster. But don't come here looking for his usual rusty tin cup of Blue Ruin. This album's more like $10 Martini in some high class caberet club.
Apparently, Waits had been going through a bit of a career crisis and was on the verge of leaving the business. Despite the grind of constant touring & masterpieces like, SMALL CHANGE, commercial success continued to elude him. Rather than go the way of Springsteen or at worse, Billy Joel, Waits took a sharp turn off "Heart Attack & Vine" into parts unknown.
But at the time, there was a sense in the industry that Waits was just a washed up novelty act, verging on a parody of what he drank so hard to forget. Then Francis Ford Coppola came knocking & locked him in a room with nothing but a Steinway and a dream.
When he finally woke up, Waits had a steady paycheck, a wife, and an Oscar bid for Best Original Score. Not to mention a head full of strange ideas. Though the movie may not be the lost masterpeice Coppola would have you believe, the soundtrack in terms of the genre it pays tribute to, pretty much is.
Hardcore fans of those rusty pipes may be put off by the presence of Loretta Lynn's little sister, but Crystal Gayle's a far cry from The Grand Old Opry here. In fact Waits takes more of a supporting role here, giving her the spotlight. Waits has provided the perfect torch song with " Old Boyfriends" which is perfectly matched by Gayle's jaded sultriness.
Waits & Gayle duet on "Picking Up After You" which for my money tops his turn with Bette Midler on FOREIGN AFFAIRS. In fact, Midler was 1st choice for the project. But Gayle's low key personality proves to be the perfect choice, especially on numbers like, "Take Me Home" & "Any Way Out Of This Dream?"
As for Waits' turn at the mic, "Broken Bicycles" is worth the price of admission alone. One of my favorite Waits tunes. A dark,haunting melody & full of stark imagry like, "all those playing cards tied to the spokes" . It's something he still dusts off for live shows.
Among the few the instrumentals, the "Tango/Circus" montage sounds as warped as anything off of RAIN DOGS. Overall, the remaster & packaging are a vast improvement & there a real gem in the bonus track of, "Purple Ave".
This seemed to signal the end of an era for Waits. After this, he shed the lounge lizard routine and has been dancing around in his bones ever since. But HEART offers a rare glimpse of Waits in a slick, commercial setting without compromising a rusty nickel of artistic integrity.
By  K. H. Orton
**
Apocalypse Now is widely considered director Francis Ford Coppola's Waterloo, an ambitious personal vision that nearly wrecked his fabled career, health, and sanity. In fact, it was the director's equally Quixotic 1982 Vegas-themed musical One From the Heart that forever cast a pall over his Hollywood future, sounding a death knell for his once-promising American Zoetrope studios in the bargain. Hindsight being 20/20, it's now easy to see Heart's visual conceits as the glorious cinematic antecedent to Moulin Rouge, its smart, lounge-savvy score by musical odd couple Tom Waits and Crystal Gayle easily 15+ years ahead of the retro-hipster revival it preceded--and outclassed at every turn. Now brightened by a sparkling digital remastering, it remains the most accessibly mainstream--and ironically idiosyncratic--music of Waits' storied career. Constructed as a dialog between lovers in a fitful emotional spiral, Waits raspy growl is the perfect counterpoint to Gayle's own gutsy, surprisingly bluesy diva turns. Backed by the spare, deftly lugubrious production of Bones Howe and key contributions by jazz vets Greg Cohen on bass, saxist Teddy Edwards, and the key, mournfully lyrical trumpet of Jack Sheldon, Waits' score has long since taken its rightful place as a modern classic, a perfectly realized romantic daydream that never forgets the wistful, broken hearts stacking up beneath the Vegas neon. This edition features the previously unreleased Waits vocal outtake, "Candy Apple Red" as well as an early, discarded version of the opening montage "Once Upon A Town/Empty Pockets," rejects that only underscore the strength of Waits' musical hand. Enhanced CD also features a newly-edited video montage by Coppola's son, Gian-Carlo.
By Jerry McCulley.
**
Tom Waits- Piano, Vocals, Orchestral Arrangements
Crystal Gayle- Vocals
Joe Porcado- Glockenspiel
Emil Richards- Vibraphone
Donald Waldrop- Tuba
Dick Hyde- Trombone
Gayle Levant- Harp
John Evans Thomassie- Percussion
Leslie Thompson- Harmonica
Ronnie Barron- Organ
Bob Alcivar- Piano, Conductor, Orchestral Arrangements
Dennis Budimir- Guitar
Larry Bunker- Drums
Gene Cipriano- Sax (Tenor)
Greg Cohen- Bass, Contribution
Teddy Edwards- Sax (Tenor), Contribution
Chuck Findley- Trumpet
Jack Sheldon- Trumpet, Contribution
John Lowe- Woodwind
Victor Feldman- Tympani (Timpani)
Shelly Manne- Drums
Pete Jolly- Piano, Accordion, Celeste
Lanny Morgan- Woodwind
**
01. Opening Montage, Tom's Piano Intro,Once Upon a Town/The Wages of Love (5:16)
02. Is There Any Way Out of This Dream? (2:14)
03. Picking up After You (3:55)
04. Old Boyfriends (5:54)
05. Broken Bicycles (2:51)
06. I Beg Your Pardon (4:28)
07. Little Boy Blue (3:43)
08. Instrumental Montage, The Tango,Circus Girl (3:00)
09. You Can't Unring a Bell (2:23)
10. This One's from the Heart (5:46)
11. Take Me Home (1:40)
12. Presents (1:00)
13. Candy Apple Red  (2:45)
14. Once Upon a Town,Empty Pockets (5:23)
**
NoPassword
**
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