(RCA)
Anyone who has been keeping track of Broadway for the past few years knows exactly how talented Heather Headley is. The Trinidad native first stepped into the spotlight as Nala in Disney's Broadway production of \The Lion King."" Later she rose to national fame and garnered critical acclaim for her performance as the title character of the 2000 musical ""Aida,"" Elton John and Tim Rice's update of the Verdi opera. Her enormous vocals and emotional delivery won her the Tony award that year, and made her one of Broadway's most celebrated singers. With This is who I Am, her debut album, Headley moves beyond her theater roots to mainstream R&B pop, but the results are hardly dramatic.
While her skills as a singer are clear, Headley's vocals are consistently of better quality than the songs themselves. Although she co-wrote three of the tracks on the album, the majority of the songs lack the depth found in those on the ""Aida"" cast recording, which benefited from Elton John and Tim Rice's undeniable experience. It is unfortunate that Headley's voice should be wasted on such forgettable numbers as ""Nature of a Man"" and ""Sunday,"" when she could be in the hands of stronger songwriters.
However, This is who I Am does have its bright spots. Both ""I Wish I Wasn't"" and ""If It Wasn't For Your Love"" are heartbreaking ballads, beautifully understated and simply orchestrated. Her foray into more catchy, upbeat pop hits its high with ""Like Ya Used To"" and the opening track, ""He Is."" Heavily influenced by hip hop and slow dance grooves, both songs benefit immensely from Headley's theatrical delivery. She gives them more life and meaning than they would otherwise find in any other would-be diva.
Unfortunately, Headley's deep well of emotion cannot save songs like ""Fulltime,"" an unremarkable pop song treading clich?? love themes, or ""Fallin' For You,"" a song that reduces Headley to singing dance remixes, interrupted intermittently by a distracting Caribbean-style solo by Chukki Starr. Such missteps are common to the entire album; oftentimes the backing vocals are so overpowering that Headley, forced to sing at what seems like half her voice, comes across as only another R&B wannabe. Headley is at her best when her voice is front and center, unadorned by complicated backing.
Although This is who I Am is unavoidably mediocre on the whole, Headley is fortunately not. Dragging undistinguished songs from a life of obscurity by the sheer power and purity of her voice, she proves that she is in a very selective class of singers--people like Whitney Houston (before the drugs) who could sing the phone book and still be worthy of an audience.
One can but hope that should Headley continue to pursue a career in pop, the rest of the music world will catch up with her so that she can produce an album more worthy of her talents.
From their regular appearances all over Madison to their mention in Spin magazine, Mama Digdown's Brass Band is almost certainly Madison's most ubiquitous band. Still, they face the inescapable challenges of being a brass band in this era. Few SUVs cruise down Langdon bumping a three-trombone sound. This leaves the band to build their name and following through live performance. On their latest offering, Delicious, recorded at the King Club in April, they allow listeners to experience their live stylings at home. This, like stumbling into a bar where the band is playing, is a mixed blessing.
On the album, like in their live performances, Mama Digdown's Brass Band maintains a noteworthy level of innocent buoyance that endears them to their audience. Funneled through riffing horns, playful percussion, and occasional, hooky vocal and lyrical exercises, the band's energy level is consistently high throughout Delicious. While their sound is often very outwardly derivative of '70's funk and soul, especially on ""My Feet Can't Fail Me Now"" and ""Grazin' / Digdown Got Fire,"" as well as traditional big band jazz, their horn patterns still possess a welcome charm of their own.
What plagues the band and the album is a general tone of amateurishness. For a band that's been together for the better part of a decade, they too frequently display the kinds of flaws that make low-level jazz unlistenable. Their horns don't unite as tightly as they should. Strong solos, like the trumpet solo on ""Hush Yo Mouth,"" are tainted by shoddy backing instrumentals.
Meanwhile, the band's attempts at catchy vocals are flaky at best. Their attempts to rile up the crowd or develop a memorable hook reek of effort and lack gusto from the singers in a way that quickly wears on the listener. Similarly, their percussion section is just a fright. They fail to consistently maintain enough rhythm. The rhythms they do use are usually just a bastard child of cartoonish tropical beats. Their percussion is a wasted opportunity to give anchor to their sound and maybe even give the crowd a reason to dance. Instead, the percussion is the backbone of the band's failure to dialogue with its audience or era.
Mama Digdown's Brass Band is a decent college-town band, but their quirky idiosyncrasy is no substitute for what they lack in polish and originality. Their live performances are fun at first, but then begin to irritate. This is captured accurately on the live offering of Delicious. If this were 1994, maybe they'd be useful in providing samples for a rap producer like RZA, but instead, they mark themselves a moderately unlistenable, moderately charming niche band that has no niche to fill. Delicious really serves no purpose in anyone's CD player.
