Fans who have followed
Dan Zanes
since 2001's
Rocket Ship Beach
probably noticed that the usual hubbub didn't attend the release of his 2004 album
Sea Music
. That was by design --
Zanes
wasn't sure a crowd accustomed to
"Polly Wolly Doodle"
could handle songs not aimed squarely at kids (drinking and general debauchery were among the subjects). He was wrong, of course --
is among his mostly highly regarded discs -- and one hopes the lesson will lead to the masses discovering
Parades and Panoramas
, possibly his best and definitely his most ambitious CD yet.
, wild-haired and wildly optimistic, refuses to strut the musical easy street:
Panoramas
is adapted directly from
Carl Sandburg
's 1927 book
The American Songbag
, a collection of the poet's observations of a "ragbag" America. Because of its origins, the disc can sound straight out of a
Coen Brothers
movie -- you can practically see the dust kicking up on
"Roll the Chariot"
and
"The Railroad Cars Are Coming."
But the effect, rather than dulling the music's colors and textures or sweeping it into a corner alongside other
Americana
oddities, brightens what's on offer. Credit the unsurpassed inventiveness of
and his usual collaborators, including
Donald Saaf
,
Barbara Brousal
, and
Cynthia Hopkins
. Some of these 25 songs are silly (
"The Monkey's Wedding"
), some devastatingly sad (
"Lonesome Road"
), and some flat-out, stunningly beautiful (
"When the Curtains of Night Are Pinned Back"
). All, however, will stay with you and your kids, permanently pinning back the curtains on a panorama you never knew existed but are enchanted to discover. ~ Tammy La Gorce