Music

It's not another "Lady Sings the Blues," but once again a jazz singer's path has been star-crossed by drugs. Flora Purim, an immigrant from Brazil ten years ago, is now receiving the accolades that once went to Ella, Carmen and Sarah. (Downbeat polls have named her top female vocalist for three consecutive years.) Warner Bros. Records snatched her away from the more esoteric Milestone label with a multimillion-dollar offer. She's married to the brilliant Brazilian percussionist Airto Moreira and they have a daughter, Diana. But there are thorns in the bed of roses: a cocaine bust in 1971, 16 months in Terminal Island penitentiary, and now the threat of deportation. The Department of Immigration will send Flora Purim, as an alien and ex-felon, home, persona non grata, unless a deportation order can be blocked on humanitarian grounds. Writer Len Lyons talked to Flora to get her side of the story.

[Q] Playboy: How did you get busted?

[A] Purim: I lent my 12-string to a friend. Then I got a call for a recording session, so I went back to pick it up. I didn't know my friend was dealing, and the apartment got busted while I was there. It's funny, the police report said they found coke in my bra and I don't wear a bra.

[Q] Playboy: Why can't jazz shake the drug connection?

[A] Purim: In some ways, jazz, drugs and the blues all go together. Blues are sad because of the black people's grief over being brought here from Africa. But I think all this is changing. Jazz has become happier music since it's fused with rock and pop, and it's started to reach more people. The musicians want to promote things other than this selfinvolved image.

[Q] Playboy: You once said Scientology got you off drugs. Is that for real?

[A] Purim: Definitely; but in the beginning, I didn't believe in it, either. It really did help me confront other people and myself without trying to hide things. After a while, I learned that my mood didn't have to depend on drugs and that musicians who used them wouldn't reject me if I didn't want to smoke or blow with them. Actually, what I gained was more control over my own emotions. Chick Corea had a strong influence on me. When I was singing with Return to Forever, Chick wouldn't allow anyone who used anything--even alcohol, even aspirin!--in the band.

[Q] Playboy: When you first came to the States, you were so broke you had to crash with friends, and now you're going to be a millionaire. How did it happen?

[A] Purim: If you sell your soul, you can be very rich.

[Q] Playboy: And how does that apply to you?

[A] Purim: To make some musical dreams come true, like having the best musicians all the time, playing only the best halls, and so on, I needed money. To get money, I had to leave a record company and producer I still love and go to Warner's, where the cash flow is so much greater. What I didn't know was what would happen after the switch, and that's the selling-your-soul part. I have to private life. I have to call ten people before I make a move. All the decisions are out of my hands.

[Q] Playboy: Does that include the music you sing?

[A] Purim: They don't touch that. They'd have to kill me first. We're producing our albums.

[Q] Playboy: But will Warner's settle for just a jazz audience? Won't your approach have to change?

[A] Purim: OK, it's already changed to an extent. I'm approaching my music louder and harder. You have to, if you want to play out of the jazz-club atmosphere. You know, I've always refused--until now--to put on those $1000 dresses that no normal woman would ever wear, because I didn't like that "attitude." I'm in a different reality now. I have to make sure 7000 people who come to see us--see, not hear--get their money's worth. That means putting on a show. I'm also more hybrid than I ever wanted to be. I'm closer to Brazilian roots again but not as free as I'd like to be. I found out it's really harder to be disciplined than free, and this new album, Nothing Will Be as It Was ... Tomorrow, is organized. Very organized.

[Q] Playboy: Don't you think overproduction is a problem in American music today?

[A] Purim: I know what you mean. If you add strings or horns, it can put distance between you and the listener, and you'll never sound the same on the road. I don't work that way. What you hear on my records, you can pretty much play in your garage or practice room. Maybe that's a reason my songs are popular--the young, local bands can play them.

[Q] Playboy: What else is making your music popular?

[A] Purim: In my opinion, what impresses people most is self-confidence and honesty. After that, it's your ability. Your audience might like the music first, but it's not enough. They want to know you as a person. I don't hide my weaknesses. Even if I sing flat, so what? I don't slide up to the right note, like Billie or Carmen. Maybe I'll use it as a coloring sound or do something new with it.

[Q] Playboy: What are your chances for avoiding deportation?

[A] Purim: I don't know. I'm hoping Immigration will look at me as a useful person. Jazz is the first music you could call American. The fact that I'm a Latin and a family woman and that I promote American music should be to my credit. If they take me away from it, it's going to be a reflection of the way America treats her art form.

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You can rent your blues and photograph your soulYou can even dig some diamonds out of rock'n rollYou can change the worldBut if you lose controlThey will take away your T-shirt

Emerson, Lake and Palmer, the world's most solemn rock-'n'-rollers, have released a funereal-looking double-pocket album called Works (Atlantic). It is often difficult to characterize something as big as these four sides, but we think the lines quoted above will give you the general idea.

E. L. & P. each provide one side of music on Works and the three of them get together for the grand finale on the fourth side. The stately lines we have selected to head this review are a reasonably representative sample of Greg Lake's side.

Carl Palmer is a bit more eclectic. He does two songs that sound like Doc Severinsen and the band from The Tonight Show. And he continues E. L. & P.'s practice of rocking the classics with selections by Prokofiev and J. S. Bach.

There is abosolutely nothing wrong with stealing from classical composers. In fact, knowing whom to steal from is a sign of real talent. But Bach did not play rock 'n' roll and you can't turn a Two Part Invention in D Minor into Louie, Louie by adding a drum track.

The everybody-on-stage-for-the-big-production-number side tries to turn Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man into a long rock number with similar results. E. L. & P. might be a bit more palatable if they weren't so damn serious. They seem to think that they are interpreting the music, revealing something that nobody ever saw before: missionaries of culture to the Quaalude set, opening our eyes to the glories of real art.

Keith Emerson is so far into culture that he seems to have left rock 'n' roll behind altogether. His solo side is taken up entirely by his Piano Concerto No. 1. Emerson tickles the ivories himself and he has the London Philharmonic Orchestra for a backup band. What is surprising is that Emerson's concerto is the least objectionable side of the album. If you are going to mess with the classics, you might as well really get into it: Use all those strings to play something rather than have them fil in chords behind a rock band.

The concerto is not great music, but it is a serious attempt, and writing even a poor one takes a lot of work. Emerson has more ideas than he knows what to do with; he tends to state an idea and then go on to the next one without pausing to develop anything, but some of the ideas are very good. We think he ought to stick to this sort of writing. His concerto is un-likely to push Brahms out of the standard repertoire, but it is closer to being good classical music than the rest of Works is to being good rock 'n' roll.

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Garland Jeffreys, the Ghost Writer (A&M), has put his ear to the pavement all over Manhattan and has written songs that reflect the mixture of his black, white and Latino heritage. He's got the big-city lyrical savvy of our best songwriters but is, thankfully, devoid of the easy answers that they occasionally peddle. He is angry and confused and his words embody this rather than try to explain it, while the music moves comfortably from rock to reggae with Jeffreys grasping each form as if it were his own. From the Stoneslike pissed-off rocker Wild in the Streets to the scuffling sensuous reggae of I May Not Be York Kind, it's his rich voice that provides the music with its emotional heart.

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All right, this is Playboy talking. And we're about to review Marie Osmond's new record. You can see it coming, right? We're so attuned to a higher order of musical artistry that we're going to tear into This is the Way That I Feel (Polydor) like a school of sharks going through Dannon apple yoghurt.

Well, to tell the truth, there is a certain smooth sameness to Marie's performance--like something you can squeeze from a lily-white tube in an even, slick snake line and lop off in three-minute-23-second segments. Put the word love or music into each title, pass Go and collect $2,000,000.

But that's show business and--like masturbation--we're all guilty of it in some form. The key thought to hold in your mind when listening to bubble-gum music or Muzak or even Pat Boone is that you might think you could do better, but that noble thought and a herd of buffalo or Methedrine won't get you across town on the bus.

The people who record (or write or paint) this artistic Nembutal are quite professional and even the thinnest, most mindless excuse for music is (listen closely) executed by craftspersons who never miss a not and who could play just about anything they wanted to if you put it on sheet music in front of them. These musicians--from the deadly Osmonds themselves right down to the percussionists who rings the cowbell--are stone pros who are highly regarded practitioners. That doesn't make their songs any more pleasant to listen to than a truckload of potato salad hitting the sidewalk from the top of the World Trade Center; but before you laugh at them, try picking up a truckoad of potato salad.

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Our reviewer would like to apologize for the delay in filing this review of Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes' second album, This Time It's for Real (Epic). Seems that he was laid up with a broken leg and his girlfriend was handling the disc-jockey chores. Somehow, Southside Johnny got mixed up with the Great Hits of Phil Spector. Or was that Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller? Never mind. The confusion is cleared, the leg is healed and now the boy can dance, which is just as well, 'cause This Time is a record that won't let you sit still. Miami Steve--the guitarist from Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band--deserves top honors for writing, arranging and producing most of the songs on the album. At the center of each tune are the Miami Horns--the most impressive set of woodwinds and brass the side of Jericho, site of the world's first battle of the bands. The wall of sound supports the heartfelt vocals of Southside Johnny and the tremendous lead work by Willie Rush. (The rhythm-and-blues soul format is too restrictive to showcase a flashy guitarist properly, but take our word for it--this boy can fly.) While none of the songs on this album matches the stunning Fever on the Jukes' debut, the over-all quality here will dispel the PR hype that this is just the farm-team band for Springsteen. These boys are major-league material.

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The world seems to have caught up to Dickey Betts. It has been said that if guitar licks could be copyrighted, Betts would be a very rich man. With the Allman Brothers Band, he helped create a distinctive rock-'n'-roll guitar style that virtually every picker south of the Ohio River has mined for good chops. You hear people who sound like Betts everywhere these days. He is a much better guitarist than any of his copiers, but his picking is no longer startling enough to carry a whole record. On Dickey Betts and Great Southern (Arista), he tries to make it do that and the result is a rather undistinguished piece of work that doesn't particularly stand out from the music of many less talented people now working in Southern rock. Part of the beauty of the Allman Brothers Band was the contrast between the laid-back country quality of Betts's music and the driving, black sound of Duane and Gregg Allman. Great Southern doesn't have that kind of strength. Mostly, the band is there to back up Betts rather than to move out front as his equal. With nobody doing any driving, the music seems to languish. It needs more bite, a harder edge, to make it move; a little less front porch and a little more back alley.

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As everyone knows, this past March 18th marked the 127th anniversary of the invention of the kazoo in Macon, Georgia. To celebrate that momentous occasion, New York turned out in style for Kazoophony in Concert at Alice Tully Hall, an "alleged cultural event and musical parody" featuring the remarkable--and widely ignored--Kaminsky International Kazoo Quartet and Fie-On-Arts Ensemble.

A kazoo, of course, is a little plastic pipe that, when you hum into it, distorts your voice into a satisfyingly resonant buzz with better-than-usual carrying power. The Kazoophony, according to the concert's announcer and straight man, Howard A. Kaminsky, was on tour from its native country, Ludakravia (where everyone is named Kaminsky but no one is related), in order to promote the almost unheard-of art of classical kazooing--and to make a buck on the side.

After presenting a brief history of Ludakravia, our announcer brought on the five members of the Kaminsky International Quartet (a kazoo quartet consists of either seven members with two missing or whoever feels like showing up, whichever is more). While repercussionist Light Fingers Kaminsky repercussed, kazooists Natasha, Boris, Igor and Feodor Kaminsky marched ceremoniously onstage, attired in traditional full concert tails and bare feet. Taking their places beside a large potted palm (Arthur Kaminsky), they raised kazoos and played the "short version" of the Ludakravian national anthem. We traced some obvious American influences in the tune, which was reminiscent of the first four bars of The Star-Spangled Banner and in tonal quality was suggestive of a Bronx cheer.

The group next embarked upon the three movements of I'm Inclined to Kazoomusik, a dazzling display of virtuosity in which each kazooist imitated a different stringed instrument. The effect was impressively intricate, sounding much like Mozart's Eine kleine Nachtmusik played somewhere underwater.

Boris Kaminsky, introduced as "the world's lowest bass-kazoo player and former test pilot for Bazooka bubble gum," re-created the audition that won him his coveted place in the Kaminsky Quartet by vocalizing an aria from La Travesty titled Let's Drink, Make Merry, Fool Around and Find the Rest of the Pleasures I Can Think of in the Next 15 Measures.... Subsequent selections featured members of the Fie-On-Arts Ensemble; notably, face and teeth player Stanislaus Kaminsky, who is rumored to possess upper molars with perfect pitch. Fie-On's residual ballerina, Pistachia Kaminsky, executed a flawless arabesque, statuesque and full faux pas. She later returned with partner Najinski Kaminsky to perform with skillful klutziness the duet from the well-known kazoo ballet Swine Lake (he played the swine, she played the lake).

Feodor Kaminsky, who, it's reported, attended the Kazooliard School of Music, where he was studied for many years, gave a solo rendition of Plight of the Kazoomblebee, a rapid piece made even more difficult by the kazooist's attempts to swat the insect while he played. The first half of the concert concluded with the New York City Fight Song, which "honored the tradition of violence in sports by continuing it in music."

During the lengthy intermission, it was discovered that the Kaminskys, in non-Ludakravian guise, had met at the East-man School of Music in Rochester, where group leader and kazookeeper Natasha (a.k.a. Barbara Stewart) currently studies voice and flute. The others are all proficient on nonkazoo instruments and teach music at colleges in and around Rochester. The company has twice appeared at New York's Town Hall in Christmas performances with P.D.Q. Bach discover Peter Schickele, who said of the Kaminskys' interpretation of Mozart: "It sounds no worse on kazoo than it would on brake drums."

Such unqualified praise could also be applied to the second half of Kazoophony, in which the Kaminsky Quartet introduced the first French-horn kazoos. These proved particularly effective in the lower kazoo registers, adding an interesting dimension to the same old blatt. Another high point was the 1813 Overture, written by one Peter Illegitimus Kaminsky to commemorate Ludakravian participation in the War of 1812. In that piece, the audience was requested to fill in for the cannons by shouting "Boom!" in appropriate, and some inappropriate, places.

Stanislaus returned to do a trio for face, teeth and feet and, not to be outdone, Light Fingers performed a piece for drums, wall, floor, podium and anything else that happened to be around. Then the entire company assembled onstage for a rousing finale of John Philip Kazooza's Stars and Stripes Forever and Ever ... and So Forth ... while some of the audience cheered and others hummed along.

Kazoophony's cherished goal of establishing the kazoo as the American national instrument may be a long time coming; but, meanwhile, the company is earning new respect for that humble, and hitherto scorned, instrument. If the Kaminskys have their way, the kazoo no longer will be just another children's toy. Instead, it will take its rightful place among the ranks of the world's great instruments: a proud equal of the jew's-harp, banjulele and wa-wa guitar. --Lindsay Maracotta

Short Cuts

The Isley Brothers/Go for Your Guns (T-Neck): An unhurried program of laid-back ballads and bang-up boogies.

Vitamin E/Sharing (Buddah): An articulate new vocal group, well produced by Norman Connors.

The Fatback Band/Nycnyusa (Spring): Dance music with enough sounds and motifs to keep it interesting, it's a soulful tribute to Fun City.

The Miracles/Love Crazy (Columbia): No Smokey but lots of ideas and some fire.

Lenny White/Big City (Nemperor): An all-star cast helps the nonpareil drummer build a musical megalopolis.

Flora Purim talks about jazz, the music biz and her drug bust.

If you ain't heard Mozart on the kazoo, you ain't heard nothing yet.