In the Mix

I've never made it up to S.O.B.'s in New York for one of DJ Rekha's bhangra dance parties, but tonight at the Art Museum the Indian American DJ makes traversing the Turnpike unnecessary when she brings her Punjabi hip-hop-electronica to the great stairwell beneath Augustus Saint-Gaudens' statue of Diana. Rekha, the Brit born record spinner born Rekha Malhotra, works the South Asian dance groove in the tradition of Tavin Singh and Punjabi MC on Basement Bhangra, her new disc out on Koch whose effectiveness increases once guest MC Wyclef Jean gets out of the way after the first track. She spins from 5 to 8:45 tonight.

Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers proved to be a perfectly decent halftime attraction last night at Super Bowl XLII. Not Prince, but not bad. And in the musical facedown of the evening, hip-hop (and techno) scored a victory over heavy metal. Tom Brady and The Patriots came out on the field to the strains of Ozzy Osbourne's "Crazy Train." That locomotive was derailed, however, by Eli Manning and The Giants, who made their entrance to "Stronger," the Kanye West/Daft Punk collabo seen right here.

If there was any doubt that the Barack Obama campaign is the (young) celebrity cause of the moment, it's dispelled by the Yes We Can video posted here, which stars, among others, John Legend, Scarlett Johansson, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Common, Esthero, Adam Rodriguez, Kelly Hu, Ed Kowalczyk (of the York, Pa. band Live), Kate Walsh, Herbie Hancock, Tatyani Ali, and Michael, the dude from Lost.

The Senator from Illinois, it seems, is now officially more chic than helping eradicate AIDS in Africa by buying red T-shirts at the Gap. The Yes We Can clip, which began making the rounds on the Internet over the weekend and last time I looked, had been viewed almost 700,000 times on YouTube, was pulled together by will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas and directed by Jesse Dylan, son of Bob. It's a mash-up of a South Carolina Obama speech with spoken and sung vocals by the cast of celebs - including Johansson, who's got an album of Tom Waits covers in stores soon - with musical backing in the form of strummed acoustic guitars and Hancock's gentle jazz piano.

As viral political marketing on the eve of Super Tuesday goes, it's pretty effective stuff. The black and white imagery conveys a sense of seriousness, Legend's gospel-soul vocalizing underscores Obama's message, and Johannsson's flirtatious smile suggests that maybe if you like Obama, she'll like you, too.

Dylan has said that the video was made without the involvement of the Obama organization: "We didn't talk to anybody there," he told the blog Gothamist.com. "We just came together because it was an inspirational song about change coming out of his speech."

But even if the Obama campaign wasn't behind it, there's no question that they've been savvier about mixing pop culture (and pop music) with politics than the Hillary Clinton campagn has, as is apparent from their choices of theme songs. Besides Oprah, Obama has Curtis Mayfield's "Move On Up," and U2's "City Of Blinding Lights" in his corner. (For thematic unity, I'd suggest the addition of "Yes We Can," by the late great New Orleans soul singer Lee Dorsey.)

Along with Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen on the campaign trail, Clinton uses Celine Dion's "You and I." Though, to be fair, she also has some less painful selections on her playlist, including Tom Petty's "American Girl," Dolly Parton's "9 to 5" and The Police's "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic."

And the Dems aren't the only ones mixing pop and politics. Some of the choices of the Republican candidates are rather suave: Mitt Romney uses Elvis Presley's "A Little Less Conversation," and John McCain plays Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode," and, more bizarrely, ABBA's "Take A Chance On Me." Mike Huckabee doesn't have a theme song per se because, dude, he's in a band. As for Ron Paul, his DJ spins "Hope For America," a song written specifically for Paul by a supporter named Steve Dore.

Of course, the quality of campaign soundtracks might not make a smidgen of Super Tuesday difference. Four years ago, a guy named John Kerry had the backing of a whole slew of high profile supporters on the Vote For Change tour, including Bruce Springsteen, the Dixie Chicks, and R.E.M. And look where that got him.

It's a little known fact that the collar-popping, Afro-beat bopping guys in Vampire Weekend, who play a sold-out show at the First Unitarian Church tonight, released their first 7 inch single - "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" b/w "A-Punk" - on Philadelphia's Free News Projects label. Sorry, those are sold out, too. I talked to VW's Ezra Koenig the other day, and that interview is in today's Inquirer. Join them for a ride on their sailboat, as if they were P. Diddy, below. And the more than curious can check out Koenig's pre-VW rap group, L'Homme Run, here.

Amy Winehouse, seen hugging her dear mum in a lovely London scene, almost swept the Grammys last night. Herbie Hancock, however, was standing in her way. (Don't say I didn't sort of tell you so on Sunday morning.) Hancock's River: The Joni Letters took home the album of the year prize, leaving Kanye West disappointed, again. In other news, Stevie Wonder sang a little Alicia Keys before introducing her, John Legend had a Target ad for his new Live in Philadelphia CD, which was recorded at the Tower Theater, and Art Brut, of all people, had a Cingular commercial. Jim Lauderdale, Jill Scott, Steve Earle, Los Tigres del Norte, Flight of the Conchords and a whole bunch of other people won awards. The complete list is here. Here's a video of Winehouse looking not as skinny as she does now as she sings "Rehab," which won her song and record of the year.

Herbie Hancock?!

Usher seemed to know what was up when he told Kanye West that "there are no losers in this category" before the album of the year Grammy envelope was opened up at the Staples Center on Sunday. But Quincy Jones looked as surprised as the rest of America - and Hancock himself - when he announced that the 67 year old jazzman's River: The Joni Letters beat out the heavily favored twosome of Amy Winehouse's Back to Black and Kanye West' Graduation.

What exactly happened here? How did River come to be first jazz disc to win album of the year since Getz/Gilberto in 1965? And did it deserve to do so?

It's not that hard to fathom how River won, if you make yourself think like the Grammys do.

First, a little background: When The Joni Letters came out last fall, it didn't make much of a ripple in the pop cultural pond, not getting nearly as much attention as Shine, the new Joni Mitchell album that was the archetypal singer-songwriter's first album of new material in nine years. Shine also made news because, following in Paul McCartney's footsteps, Mitchell entered into a relationship to sell the album through Starbucks, the coffee chain that I just paid $9.99 to get Internet access to so I could drink my Citrus Monster and watch the snowflakes come down in Harrisburg while I type this blog item. But that's another story...

Shine, unfortunately, turned out to be a pretentious, pedantic disappointment. But The Joni Letters was anything but. Here's an excerpt from my review of the both of them together, which ran in September:

"[Shine]" is meant to be a thematically unified statement on everything wrong with the world, starting with "war, that's what history is for. " On the title cut, "rising oceans and evaporating seas" and "Frankenstein technologies," not to mention "worldwide traffic jams," are added to a laundry list of reasons not to be cheerful. It's an embittered, surprisingly nonpoetic approach. ...

River makes for a more nourishing listen, in part because Mitchell's old songs are better than her new ones. Jones sings "Court and Spark," Tina Turner stretches out with an assured "Edith and the Kingpin," and Corinne Bailey Rae turns in an able version of the title track, though that wintry soundscape has become a too-familiar staple on Christmas albums.

Hancock has been friendly with Mitchell since they worked together on her 1979 album Mingus, and the pianist treats her compositions with delicacy and sensitivity, with a band that includes Wayne Shorter on saxophone and Dave Holland on bass.

Shorter's "Nefertiti" and Duke Ellington's "Solitude" expand on an otherwise all-Mitchell program, and Leonard Cohen drops in for a closing spoken-word version of "The Jungle Line" to take the project out on a note of sepulchral weirdness. "

So that answers the 'is it any good?' question. The answer is yes, in an accessible jazz sort of way, full of melodic interpretations of much loved songs and excellent musicianship. If you go out and pick it up in a post-Grammy frenzy, and you like Mitchell, and Hancock, you'll be more than happy you made the purchase.

The "why-it-won" question is a little tricker. The Joni Letters didn't make anybody's best CDs of 2007 list, outside of the jazz realm that I know of, and it was certainly a surprise when it showed up among the nominees. But once it got into the running, it was the clear dark horse in the race. If I were in Vegas, I would have taken the long odds and put money down on it.

How come? Partly because with two clear favorites, there was real vote-splitting potential with Winehouse and West. As Hillary and Barack are to Democratic voters, Amy and Kanye were to Grammy choosers: Most people like them both, and would have been happy to vote for either one.

That opened up the possibility for a third way, and Hancock did better than John Edwards for a number of reasons. The Grammies like to give awards to older, respectable artists who deserve to be rewarded for the contributions of a lifetime. Take a look at album of the year winners in recent years: Tony Bennett in 1995, Bob Dylan in 1998, Santana in 2000, Steely Dan in 2001, U2 in 2005, Ray Charles in 2006, Hancock this year.

Other years, there have been consensus winners that combined obvious quality and commercial success: Lauryn Hill in 1999, OutKast in 2004. But this time, West and Winehouse broke that consensus in two, and Hancock stepped in.

He was able to pull it off not just because he's old and respectable and deserving of being rewarded for a career that's included great post-bop work with Miles Davis in the '60s and the 1983 pop hit "Rockit!," which also won a Grammy. He also won because he paid tribute to Mitchell. An esteemed elder statesman jazz artist honors an esteemed elder stateswoman singer-songwriter, and as if to curry favor with voters, gets Grammy fave Norah Jones to sing on it, too. It was a surprising choice for album of the year. But if you think about it, also a safe one.

If you haven't seen the Old Spice and Bud Light ads, or the Sports Illustrated photo shoot with Heidi Klum, you might not know that Will Ferrell has a new movie coming out. It's called Semi-Pro, and it's about a fictional ABA team called the Flint Tropics. It's set in 1976, which explains the short shorts and the high hair.

I interviewed Ferrell last week in State College, where he was making merry with the Funny or Die? tour. (That story will be in the Inquirer next week.) In the movie - which features Patti LaBelle in a crucial cameo - Ferrell plays Jackie Moon, the Tropics' owner, coach, power forward, head of promotions, and part time funk-soul man. In the latter capacity, the man who brought cowbell player extraordinaire Gene Frenkle to life on the Saturday Night Live recreation of Blue Oyster Cult's "Don't Fear The Reaper" gets his musical jollies again. This time, he's doing his let's-get-busy-in-a-bathtub-full-of-sweat routine on "Love Me Sexy," with the help of Chic's Nile Rodgers, who produced.

"I always try to sing the best I can," Ferrell told me before he put on a pair of Capezio pants and Uggs to belt out Alicia Key's "No One" at the Funny or Die show. "But it's funny, people either come up to me and say, "God, you actually sing really well,' or, 'Oh God, I love that song, because you're such a bad singer.'" You be the judge.

The Academy got it right when they gave the best song Oscar to Once's Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova for "Falling Slowly," beating back the three entries from the Disney Enchanted machine. "Make art, make art," Hansard said in a tart Irish brogue, keeping his hortatory remarks blessedly to the point. And then, after those misogynist, unfeeling bad guys in the orchestra pit cut off Irglova before the Czech cutie pie could get one word out, good guy Jon Stewart brought her back out, so she could talk about how the Oscar was "such a big deal for all other independent artists ... So fair play to those who to dare to dream. Hope at the end of the day connects us all, no matter how different you are." 'Twas a beautiful thing.

No, not the Spanish martyr or the Caribbean island. I'm talking about Annie Clark - a.k.a. St. Vincent - who'll be the in-house saint at the First Unitarian Church tonight. (That's Wednesday.) To get an inkling of where the multi-instrumentalist is coming from, consider that she used to tour with Sufjan Stevens and the Polyphonic Spree. To get a better idea, check out "Jesus Saves, I Spend," from last year's well worth investigating Marry Me.