tj collective
Reviewed by Dorothy Pawlowski
Published: 20 May 2010
lp: through the ruins of midnight
“Through the Ruins of Midnight” is a collection of nine, mostly short(ish) tracks by TJ Collective . The “TJ” in collective question is one Terry Jones, who authored the music and lyrics on this album as well as playing a mean saxophone. He also appears to grace the album cover in a stylishly rendered portrait in keeping with the rest of the CD graphic design which is tasteful and entirely apropos the musical content.
The rest of the collective features bass players, keyboardists, vocalists male and female, clarinet, trumpet, drums and other percussion and, my personal favourite, the accordion. This last is used to beautiful franco-effect on (fittingly) “La Francaise” which also features a French language narrative by Anna Cashman, ah so sexy!
You’d be forgiven, reading the above instrumentation, that this is a jazz ensemble but stylistically there is so much more on offer here than one genre: I can hear soul, funk, R & B, klezmer, swing, lounge, doo-wop and ska, sometimes all in one track! But it works. The songs are well crafted, the orchestration cleverly thought out and the performance solid, though not flawless (a virtue in my book). The overall feel here is urban, if not urbane with a Zappa-ish, light-hearted take on the interpretation of the styles.
Harry Van Venetie’s vocals are very reminiscent of good ol’ Tom Waits and I thought I would grow tired of them by the end of the album, but the variations in tempo and style between the tracks kept my interest piqued until the end.
There are some very danceable moments on this CD, including the swing track “Not Everybody Loves the Way You Do”, a lovely male/ female dialogue, “Do You Really Want Me” and the Latin-ska “El Padre”. You could dance to the rest of it, for sure, but it would be the cheek-to-cheek kind of dancing, and what’s wrong with that?
On an album showcasing so many genres, however, there are surprisingly few truly memorable moments. The homogeneity of the production seems to iron out those interesting stylistic variations and hybrids which I found somewhat disappointing. I would very much like to have heard something a little more daring and dramatic with the mixdown and found myself nit-picking relative vocal/ instrumental melodies.
It may also have been an error of design finishing on the (mostly) instrumental “Visions of Love”; this last being perhaps the weakest track of the collection, sort of an easy–listening meandering which undermines to some extent the strong vocal presentations previously offered.
TJ Collective quotes on their MySpace page and promotional material from a review by Liz Black of their performance as a part of the 2009 Fringe. Ah, now I understand: TJ Collective is a cabaret, and as cabaret this works very well musically, and I can only imagine that a live performance would complete the picture. I’ll be looking forward to that moment.
