Use Me
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Music CD Cover
Performer: Amy LeeEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2004-07-01
Music Label: Publick Ptomaine Music
Soundtracks:
- Use Me
- Across the Water
- Coming Home
- In the Sun
- Traz da Lua
- Why You Wanna
- More To Love
- One And One Makes Three
- Brite Eyes
- Too Shy To Say
Free Music Notes for Use Me
Free Music Review: The Many Uses of "Use Me."
Hit: 5 Stars
In school, particularly since I was a musical maladroit myself, I was intimidated by the saxophone. As one who never mastered the recorder(!), seeing fellow students manhandling that giant "J" and actually coaxing sounds resembling music from it amazed me. Anyway, it didn't matter, because it was a jazz-instrument - you know, that weird type of music of the black-beret crowd - or worse, that 50's-type "rock 'n' roll" we children of the 60's & 70's never took seriously. I never thought much about the saxophone.
Then, about 1973 or `74, two things happened for me and my buddies in high school: a saxophone showed up in Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon - instant credibility - and John Anthony Helliwell, a saxophone-player (among other things), was the front man for Supertramp. The saxophone suddenly rocked; it was now our kind of cool.
And "our kind of cool" is what Amy Lee gives us in her second CD, Use Me. Cool, yes, but with a radiant heat sneaking through it. In this follow up to her first solo outing, Inside the Outside, Ms. Lee strays from the soft cell of jazz to explore R&B and even some island influences. She described the CD as "pop instrumental," but she is merely being modest. The ten tracks - six of them she wrote herself - have more than their fair share of artistry - doubly so since her backing musicians are established artists in their own right.
She opens by taming the original bluesy melancholy of Bill Withers' Use Me - the oddly-chosen title track - into quick tempo cheer, Amy follows up with two full-power tunes of real, grown-up music: Across the Water and Coming Home. Music to whistle along with... is there such a thing as "air sax?"
Amy's mellifluous multiple saxophones thread a restrained but punchy tropical/reggae influence through In the Sun - inducing memories of her standout pieces with Nicky Yarling on 1993's Margaritaville Café, Late Night Menu. One and One Make Three, a lyrically haunting piece from Peter Mayer's Green Eyed Radio becomes hauntingly lyrical here, through the "voice" of Amy's alto sax. Peter and Jim Mayer and Roger Guth back Amy up on this offering - as the Coral Reefers continue their internal tradition of supporting one another away from the summertime stage. Yes, that pedal steel on Stevie Wonder's Too Shy to Say is Doyle Grisham - does that steel guitar sound great alongside a sax, or what? - and a good number of the tracks are solidly cemented with a foundation laid down by the percussion of Ralph MacDonald. Peter and Jim appear on many more, too. Amy says of the CRB, "when they are available they are always very happy to work on our individual projects. It's always extremely fun to work on these projects and to learn where each other's `heads are at'."
The remaining instrumentals are the "brite" and bouncy Brite Eyes, and the rather nice Why You Wanna, which is the only piece on the CD which has so far failed to grab me. I told Amy this, and asked her for some background on Why You Wanna. Amy answered that the song was "inspired by my relationship with my husband Steve...written 9 or 10 years ago." Oh, great. She wrote it for her husband, and I told her I didn't like it much. How to win friends and influence people... Well, it didn't grab me in my first few listens...but my tastes change like the weather. This time next month it might be my favorite. Buy this CD and make up your own minds - I've been wrong before. Once. Maybe.
Only two tracks feature vocals, which while in the forefront, neither overpower instruments nor detract from Amy as the focal artist. Let's hope we hear more from Alice Genereux, who flew me to the moon as I listened to Traz Da Lua. Amy has yet to meet Alice, who was only to translate the lyrics into Portuguese to demo for Tina Gullickson or Peter Mayer; "I had Alice record vocals for them to study...to learn inflections, etc. She went into a studio in Massachusetts and laid it down with the rhythm tracks I sent her. When I got her recording back in the mail, I popped it in and just about fell out...WOW. I decided after hearing the first 2 lines I would keep her vocals for the tune." Amy's flute on the song is also wonderfully even and emotional. Geoff McBride (returning from Inside the Outside) does Amy proud with her More to Love - a major complaint here is the background vocal from Nadirah Shakoor is so...background! (Okay; a small personal bias here, because there is little I wouldn't do to listen to Nadirah...sigh.)
Amy Lee's credit is way on the plus side: the nine clear winners on her second terrific CD can more than carry a single straggler song that only I might be stubborn about. So, follow me...shove aside that fear of the saxophone and give yourself a treat. We parrotheads are a loyal lot - and we are duly rewarded and rarely disappointed by Coral Reefers' individual accomplishments. After all, let's remember they are the CRB because they are talented musicians.
There. I made it all the way through without mentioning the liner photos...va va va voom.
Use Me Poster
Jazz saxophonist, composer and arranger Amy Lee has been on the national/international music scene since 1990. Her newly released solo CD titled USE ME (PPM 2004) marks her 2nd solo album and contains 7 original compositions and 3 covers including Bill Withers' "Use Me" as well as Stevie Wonder's "Too Shy To Say". USE ME is filled with feel-good songs and soulful soloing that is unique to today's "Smooth Jazz" monotony. That's because Amy's years playing with Charles Neville of the Neville Brothers and Jimmy Buffett have brought to her palette a distinctive blend of jazz, funk and storytelling which is undeniably weaved into her music and playing. Producer/engineer Steve Schwartzberg also brings his pop/R&B skills to the project having worked with such artists as Toni Braxton, TLC, and Boyz II Men. The accomplished musicians backing Amy on USE ME have recorded with hundreds of artists including Earth, Wind & Fire, Steely Dan, Marvin Gaye, Luther Vandross, David ! Sanborn, Kenny G, the Temptations, Quincy Jones, George Benson, David Bowie and Stevie Wonder. The resulting instrumental jazz-pop-soul mix on USE ME is incredibly fresh and fun.International Music CDs
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