Itty-Bitty Review: Move Over Lullabies... It's Time for Wake Up Songs! - The Flannery Brothers

Let's see if I can write the review for Move Over Lullabies... It's Time for Wake Up Songs!, the spring EP from Maine's Flannery Brothers, in less time than it takes to listen to the album itself - just 15 minutes. (A lot less than the amount of time I spun the disk, that's for sure.) It's a novel twist on the standard kids music trope, the lullaby album. That's right, with its bright yellow cover and a picture of a very friendly-looking dog on the back, it's an album designed to get your kids up and at 'em bright and early. If they listen to the disk before you have your coffee or yoga or morning routine of choice, you run the risk of premature grumpiness, because in less than 15 minutes, they will be excited for the day ("The Wake-Up Song"), grooving to a kazoo-playing dog ("In the Morning") and shaking like you've just given them their sixth latte ("Shake!" - a title which appears to be missing about four exclamation points). With the piano, guitar/bass, and drum trio, it's got a very sunny feel -- a little West Coast jazz for the kids. Kids ages 3 through 7 will most likely groove to the tracks here, a couple of which can be heard at the brothers' music player at their home page. I think preschool teachers will especially find a song or two on here worth incorporating into their morning routines. As for the rest of us, if this were 40 minutes long, the relentless cheerfulness might wear some folks down, but at 15 minutes in length, it's an excellent dose of orange juice for first thing in the morning. If that's what you need, this is for you. Recommended. Disclosure: I received a copy of the album for possible review. Also, I think it took me about 20 minutes to write this. Oh well.

Review Two-Fer: "Rock & Roll Playground" / "Jazz Playground" - Various Artists (Putumayo)

Ah, Putumayo Kids, you compiler and purveyor of music from around the world, you must be running out of themes, right? Rock & Roll Playground? Isn't there another region of the world you need to unearth some musical treasures from? What's next - Pop Playground? Hip-Hop Playground? (Actually, please get on that, stat.) Most regular readers have heard many of these tracks (or at least the artists), but credit Putumayo for having the sense to string 'em together in a happy-happy pop-rock mixtape with few if any duds. For example, Taj Mahal -> Dan Zanes -> Charity and the JAMband = win. (Or, Rhythm Child -> Rosie Flores -> Uncle Rock = win.) Best for kids ages 3 through 8 (samples here), you could probably put together your own 34-minute playlist, but why bother when they've already done the work for you? Recommended.

Having said all that, Jazz Playground is my favorite of all the Putumayo "Playground" series disks, and that's saying something. The nature of jazz is such that it covers lots of styles and permits fresh interpretations of songs we've heard dozens if not hundreds of times before, and as a result, there's a nice mix of new and old, providing new perspectives -- and isn't that one of the major points of the Putumayo concept anyway? The album deftly navigates the line between over-reliance on English language voices (which you can get anywhere) and non-English language songs (which can be hard for English speakers to fully appreciate, no matter how funky the liner notes are). Beyond that, it's just plain fun through and through, from Zooglobble favorite Lewis Franco & the Missing Cats doing his swing original "Stomp, Stomp" to Chris McKhool's fiddle-based take on "Spider-Man" to the Latin jazz of Jose Conde's "Cumbamba." And on down the line. Best for kids ages 2 through 8, the 31-minute album (again, samples here) goes onto my shortlist of essential jazz-for-kids albums. Definitely recommended.

Itty-Bitty Review: "The Best of The Laurie Berkner Band" - The Laurie Berkner Band

Why such a tiny review for such a big superstar as Laurie Berkner? Because it's a greatest hits disk, the future of which is somewhat in doubt in the mp3 era. After all, if your family are superfans, you'll get it just for the three new-to-CD tracks, including rerecordings of "Pig on Her Head" and "Moon Moon Moon," both previously seen on video, and the new track "Open Your Heart." (There's a deluxe edition as well, featuring four videos, including a previously-unreleased one for "Mouse in My Toolbox," which is similar in scope to Berkner's other Nick videos. You superfans will probably want that version.) The rest of you? You might just download the extra tracks from the album you don't have (there are no more than four from any particular album). But that obscures just how important a songwriter and performer Berkner is for the pre-K set. As a whole, it's a solidly constructed disk, with no major omissions -- I personally would've included more tracks from her debut Whaddaya Think of That?, but all the big tracks are here. And over the roughly 15 years or so Berkner's been performing for kids she's compiled a catalog of songs that would be the envy of just about any kids' musician. "We Are the Dinosaurs" is a stone-cold kids' classic, for example, one that works equally well performed live by a band and performed by your preschooler's teacher. "Moon Moon Moon" is the only lullaby written in the past hundred years that I actually sing to my kids. And "Victor Vito" is cheesy, dorky, and stuck in your brain for the next week now that I've mentioned it. And so on. While other artists slowly slide up to the 4-to-8-year-old age range, Berkner's continued to make music -- darn good music -- for preschoolers. So while I'm not sure many regular readers actually need The Best of The Laure Berkner Band! given the relative lack of new songs, as a collection of some of the best original music for preschoolers of the past twenty years, it's highly recommended. (Disclosure: I was provided a copy of the regular edition of the album for possible review.)

Itty-Bitty Review: Funky Fresh and Sugar Free - Sugar Free Allstars

If you're going to title your second kids' CD Funky Fresh and Sugar Free, you better bring at least a modicum of funk, am I right? Luckily, Oklahoma's Sugar Free Allstars meet that test. The heart of the music is still Chris Wiser's Hammond B3 organ and Rob "Dr. Rock" Martin's drums, but they've opened up a little more on this disk, with Wiser occasionally playing sax or bass, and Dr. Rock pulling out the theremin. If there's nothing on the album as instantaneously memorable as "Bathtub Boy" from their debut, this new album is much more consistent -- heck, just better -- overall. "Rock Awesome!" is actually the least funky track on the disk (though kids may get into the call-and-response) and "The Train Beat Song" I think works much better live than it does on the album. But the eight songs in the middle are solid tracks -- I'm particularly fond of "Little Red Wagon" -- and Wiser's sense of humor is evident on the silly "SFA Disco Dance Party" and the stroll-down-memory-lane "6th Grade Band." (Note: not my memory lane. Sixth grade orchestra is muuuuuch less interesting.) With the aspirational exception of "6th Grade Band," kids ages 3 through 7 are most likely to enjoy the songs here. (You can stream the whole album using the player below.) Funky Fresh and Sugar Free is sweet, but your kids may even lose some calories overall dancing to the music. Recommended.

Disclosure: I was provided a copy of the album for possible review.

Itty-Bitty Review: The Monkey Dance: All the Kids Are Doin' It! - The Sweet Colleens

Based in the Twin Cities, The Sweet Colleens normally play Celtic-flavored roots music for adults, but they've branched out on The Monkey Dance: All the Kids Are Doin' It!, their first album for kids. It's a hodge-podge of styles, from the more rockin' title track and the especially fun Cajun'-tinged "No Beans, No Brownie" (the chorus soon to come to a home near you), to the more traditional "The Terrible Twos Step" and "Who's My Pretty Baby?" (Covering Woody Guthrie will usually earn you bonus points 'round these parts.) Though the Minneapolis Youth Chorus sounds great on a number of the tracks, they also sound a little out of place on the album -- I'd've rather heard the band tear through another traditional roots piece to get the kids dancin'. The album will be most appropriate for kids ages 2 through 7. You can hear a few of the songs from the 41-minute album at the band's new Myspace page. For a first kids' album, The Monkey Dance is pretty decent -- some fun tunes, good musicianship, and a willingness to get playful. I'm recommending this for fans of roots rock. And I think if the band decides to record their second album for families and figures out what they really want to do, look out -- it could be seriously good.

Seven Sleepy Lullaby Albums (The Sequel)

A couple years ago, I put together a review of seven lullaby albums. It's time to do another review of lullaby albums that have crossed my desk in the past six to nine months and, what do you know?, there are seven more. Must be a lucky number.

The most striking lullaby album in this collection is Until the Light of Morning, the recently released album from New Yorker (via London) Essie Jain. As Jain notes in her liner notes, the 35-minute album is "designed to unwind itself as it goes along, as the music becomes softer and more relaxed, eventually becoming as instrumental as the heart beat." It's definitely the best-constructed lullaby album here, perfected for moving from evening play time to sleep time. The music and lovely packaging make it a good choice for gifting to the new parent... or maybe even your own family. (Listen to a couple songs here and 3 more from a live Daytrotter session.) Definitely recommended.

Sing Me To Sleep from American Laundromat Records is the latest in the time-honored tradition of getting indie rock artists to record music for kids. The For the Kids series can cross "lullaby disk" off their to-do list, because this fits the bill. The indie artists here such as Stars, Dean & Britta, and Tanya Donelly cover others' songs for the album. As you might expect given the compilation nature of the disk, the definition of "lullaby" gets stretched considerably. I love The Leisure Society's take on "Inchworm," but it gets far too peppy to be a lullaby, and I'm not sure "Little Boxes" is really a lullaby in any sense of the word. (Also, can we please put a five-year moratorium on covers of "Pure Imagination" and "Rainbow Connection," both covered here and a billion other kid-related comps?) Far better are Dala's take on "Dream a Little Dream of Me" and Telekinesis' version of "Can't Get It Out of My Head," along with a number of other tracks. There's a limited edition with tracks from Julie Peel and the Coctails, and more -- the tracks from those artists in particular definitely aren't throwaway tracks and are probably worth the extra cash, along with a gorgeous instrumental version of "The Sound of Silence" from the Abbasi Brothers. Peter Broderick's "You Are My Sunshine" may induce nightmares, though, and count me among those wondering why Say Hi covered the Violent Femmes track "Kiss Off" (it does make for interesting listening, though, I'll give it that much). Proceeds from the album will go to The Valerie Fund, which provides support for the comprehensive health care of children with cancer and blood disorders. (Listen to songs from the album here.) It might not be a perfect album, but you can certainly find a good 30 minutes of excellent lullabies. Recommended. I think these two albums are the cream of this particular crop of disks, but there are 5 more after the jump -- you're bound to find at least one of these that appeal to you...