You don't often get a second chance to make a first impression, the cliche goes, and that's especially true in children's music. A cheesy song is enough to make the parent quickly hit the eject button lest the children get too attached to music that drives the parent absolutely nuts; a poor album cover will doom the CD before it even reaches the player. So it was with
Uncle Rock's 2nd CD,
Plays Well With Others (2006), released a couple weeks ago. Uncle Rock? Just the name made me a little dubious. The logo? Designed by a child (the artist's son, as it turns out). And the opening song? Starts with the shouted phrase "Are you ready?" I was thisclose to hitting eject and never looking at the CD again, let alone listening to it.
And then within the space of about one minute, I was interested. The opening track, a general dancing around song, has a nice groove and includes the lyric "I'm gonna shake my head like the head of a mop." OK, you've got me back -- I'll stick around. Uncle Rock, as it turns out, is New York State-based Robert Burke Warren, who's played with both Wanda Jackson and RuPaul, among others. (I feel fairly certain that puts him in fairly small company.) Joined by a bunch of musicians on various tracks, he brings a loose roots-rock attitude to the CD, giving it a nice, organic feel. (The production is a lot better than the 4-track home recordings on his debut album.) The best cuts are those that are more fully realized instrumentally and lyrically. "Picnic in the Graveyard," for example, is a great kids' song about... er... death. Well, not exactly, but it's about Dia de los Muertos, a day of celebration where people have a picnic in the graveyard. "We're gonna sit in the grass / With people from the past / And we will not be afraid," goes the lyrics. It's got a great chorus backed by a horn section. The amusing "Gettin' Big Blues" is a bluesy number about how difficult it can be for kids to grow older ("I once had a T-shirt / the coolest thing around / but since I can't get it over my head / It's gonna be a hand-me-down" ... "I once had attention / I was an only child / But now there's a baby in the house / So I'm going wild... Pick me up / 'Cause I don't wanna walk") It works for both kids and their parents. The kids on the album generally add, instead of detract, from the mix.
Some songs ("Playin' Possum, "Shoe Bandit," "I'm a Pirate") don't work as well for me, they seem a little cheesy. But I give Warren credit for trying different things. He turns in a nice medley of "Magic Carpet Ride/Hey Bo Diddley/Magic Bus." And while the album's best cuts are the midtempo rockers, the closing ballad "Connected" is a sweet song.
The CD is most appropriate for kids age 3 through 8. You can hear clips of a few songs at Uncle Rock's
MySpace page, though only one song, "Sugar Talkin'," is off the new CD. (Robert, update that page, pronto!) You can also hear samples at the
album's CDBaby page.
Warren has made big strides in this, his second album. Teaches me to judge a book by its cover. He's got a little bit of Ralph's World and a lot more of Brady Rymer in him.
Plays Well With Others is an album with some great cuts of kid-friendly roots-rock. Recommended.
I would call Owen Duggan the "next Raffi," but the problem is, I already did that with someone else. And even if I no longer believed it (which I do), it would look pretty foolish of me to recant scant weeks later. So let me put it this way -- Owen Duggan is Raffi.
Or, to put it another way, Duggan's late 2005 debut album An Elephant Never Forgets is the album that Raffi could've recorded after The Corner Grocery Store, had he decided to continue mining the vein of classic kids' songs, folk songs, and other musical traditions instead of becoming increasingly concerned with ecology and children -- all Good Things, no doubt, but far from where Raffi started. But Duggan has the sweet voice (here's a man who needs to record "Puff the Magic Dragon") and talented backing musicians that makes Raffi's work so pleasant to listen to.
Duggan, a San Antonio-based music teacher, has put together a wonderful group of musicians to back up this collection of Duggan originals and classic tunes. The gentle humor of the album is evident in one of my favorite tracks, the zippy "The Ants," better known as "The Ants Go Marching." Duggan and his band gives the song an increasingly manic energy, which is released in a jazzy musical outro. I especially liked the brass work of Ron Wilkins throughout the album, but the whole set of jazz and folk musicians who back him up are top-notch. The music switches between gentle kids folk music (the Duggan original "The Elephant Song" and "I Got the Baby Blues"), covers of classics (Tom Paxton's oft-recorded "The Marvelous Toy"), authentic folk music (the energetic fiddle tune "The Green Meadow"), and jazz (the Ellington/Strayhorn "Happy Go Lucky Local"). Duggan closes out the album with a couple lovely lullabies, which seems to be the standard for kids' albums nowadays. (Almost makes me nostalgic for the Raffi albums, which sometimes ended up on an uptempo note.)
This album is targeted right at kids ages 2 through 6. You can hear samples here and order the disk at Duggan's website or the standard Amazon/CDBaby/iTunes trio.
If Raffi makes your eyelid twitch erratically, I really can't recommend the disk to you. But if you have an appreciation for Raffi's work, and are looking for something else besides to play, An Elephant Never Forgets is a nice collection, a little jazzier, a little poppier than Raffi, and every bit as well done. Recommended.
Trinidad-born and Bay Area-based, 
Long before Laurie Berkner, long before Raffi even, there was Pete Seeger. His stepmother spent a lot of time recovering folk songs from historical neglect, and her stepson put many of those on record. He was incredibly productive in doing this for Folkways Records, recording 54 albums for them. One of those albums, originally released in 1960, Seeger's Song and Play Time, received a new release on CD in 2001.
More than anything, the thing that keeps Pete Seeger's albums far from the file marked "important-but-unlistenable" is that voice. Crystal-clear and sweet, accompanied only by his adept banjo-playing, and sometimes by nothing his conviction that folk songs are worthwhile, Seeger's voice invites listeners to sit down and listen. (His voice sounds great on this remastered album.)
Until, of course, he encourages them to join in the fun. Sometimes that encouragement is for physical activity, as in "Here We Go Loopy-Loo," the precursor to the "Hokey-Pokey." (Or, since the "Hokey-Pokey" has been around since possibly the Middle Ages, perhaps it's the successor.) Sometimes the encouragement is to sing along, as in the classics "I've Been Workin' on the Railroad" and "She'll Be Comin' 'round the Mountain." (The latter, I would note, includes a lyric about killing the old red rooster -- "hack-hack" -- which got left out by Raffi and Laurie Berkner. I like the addition and it certainly puts the next line -- "We will all have chicken and dumplings" -- in much better context.) And sometimes Seeger simply wills the listener to participate, singing loudly and clapping a cappella on "Captain Jinks."
Kids age 2 through 6 will most enjoy the songs here. You can hear samples at the 
Why are there not more great jazz albums for kids? You have wonderful melodies infinitely adaptable to the improvisational technique that is one of jazz's trademarks, and yet the number of really good jazz albums geared for kids is small. Hayes Greenfield's 2002 release, Jazz-A-Ma-Tazz, is one of those few albums, great for introducing kids to jazz.
The vocals, unsurprisingly for an album of renditions of kids' songs, are front and center. Miles Griffith turns in a broad variety of vocal approaches and his often gravelly voice contrasts nicely with the sweet voices of Lisa Michel and Charenee Wade. Richie Havens also lends his resonant voice to two tracks, "Grandfather's Clock" and "Oh Susanna."
The album utilizes a broad range of jazz styles, from the gospel wrap-up to "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" to the scat stylings on "Skip To My Lou" to the more contemporary jazz sounds of "This Old Man." Greenfield has also indicated -- and here's where my surface-deep jazz knowledge recognizes the names but not the particular albums -- that on "Grandfather’s Clock" they employ Latin swing (like John Coltrane's arrangement of "A Night Has A Thousand Eyes"), on "Old MacDonald" they use Thelonious Monk’s harmonic progression from his tune "Bemsha Swing", and on "Animal Fair" they superimposed Coltrane's classic "Giant Steps" harmonic motion. (Note: I have "Giant Steps" and I didn't recognize it, which says everything about me and nothing about Greenfield's skill here.)
What makes this album such a great introduction is the combination of vocals that are both skillful as well as engaging for kids (some tracks feature kids, but only as accompaniment) with instrumentals that are so often missing on kids-focused jazz CDs. Most tracks feature an instrumental break, with Greenfield's saxophone work taking the lead on the solos. The rest of his band swing solidly, too, making the whole 47-minute disc a pleasure to listen to.
It's really hard to put an age range on this disk, because I think most of the album works for adults just as well as for kids (with the possible exception of some of the vocal tracks where Griffith's voice is perhaps too cartoony), but I'll shoot for ages 2 through 12. You can see video clips and learn more about the project at the 
With its Giselle Potter-illustrated cover, the inattentive adult might be fooled into thinking that this is another Ralph's World CD. Clearly, Verve put some thought into how to market this compilation. But with Lionel Hampton, Oscar Peterson, and Ella Fitzgerald (twice!) among those heard on the disk, somebody also put at least a little thought into the music itself. The 11-track, 28-minute album is a nicely sequenced mix of jazzy renditions of children's standards (Ella's versions of "Old McDonald" and "The Muffin Man"), silly novelties (Louis Prima's "Yes! We Have No Bananas"), and other kid-friendly songs. While the presence of Hampton, Peterson, and Fitzgerald are nice, for a person like myself whose jazz knowledge is about a quarter-mile wide and a foot deep, the Louis Jordan, Blossom Dearie, and Carmen McRae tracks are pleasant discoveries. (And while Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World" doesn't really fit the swinging attitude of the rest of the tracks, it's a great cut, so we'll let it slide.) If I had any qualms with the disk it would be: a) I wish a disk entitled "Jazz for Kids" would have more than one semi-instrumental track (Peterson's boppy "Mumbles"), and b) I wish the disk's liner notes would've been seriously upgraded, giving more than just each track's title, artist, and release date. But as a whole, this is a pleasant collection of vocal jazz tracks from the mid-20th century and should please even those proclaiming to be allergic to jazz. Recommended.
