BIO RITMO 11/7, DOUBLE DOOR This unusual amalgam is based in Richmond, Virginia–hardly a mecca for Afro-Caribbean music, but a good meeting place for its members, who hail from as far north as Jersey City and as far south as Cuba. The light but lively merengues, bombas, and charangas on its new Salsa Galactica (Permanent) are mostly the work of Cuban Symphony veteran Rene Herrera, who also manages to maintain discipline in a small army of musicians that includes a former boxer and a former member of Gwar.
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IDA 11/7, LOUNGE AX; 11/12, Fireside Bowl Less pretentious than the Rachel’s, less schoolmarmish than Low, Ida is among the best of those bands that like to boast that their amps go down to minus one. Its third album, Ten Small Paces (Simple Machines), is its most likable yet: new permanent bass player Karla Schickele can write, too, and Ida’s own folksy, minimalist compositions are broken up with covers of tunes by idols great (Neil Young, Bill Monroe, Brian Eno) and small (fellow sensitive indie rocker Geoff Farina). Paradoxically, this band sounds great really, really loud, because you can actually hear the scary empty spaces where a lesser ensemble might be tempted to toss in a forced screech or a wall of strings.
JAMES TAYLOR QUARTET 11/8, Martyrs’ This London instrumental outfit–no longer a quartet–started out covering spy themes on a record it called Mission Impossible. Now, ten years later, we get Creation (Acid Jazz/Hollywood), a passel of tunes bandleader Taylor has composed for movies (two songs from Austin Powers), copied from TV or movies (“The Theme From Starsky and Hutch”), or written to sound like they were from movies (the title track). And it’s indeed the perfect sound track for car chases in your head, if you suffer from that affliction. But he made the mistake of tossing in a version of Lalo Schifrin’s “Theme From Dirty Harry,” and next to that masterwork the rest of the album sounds like some uptown latte-drinking version of that “smooth jazz” cabdrivers listen to.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): Ida photo by Pat Graham.
