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Music Review
Kaleidoscope of Cantorial Music
Hymns of the Russian Orthodox Church
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Na Mele O Keka: The Hawaiian Tribute to Jack Johnson
Amazon.com essential recording
Even with records as diverse as Get Happy!!, Almost Blue, and Imperial Bedroom preceding it, you could call Spike the beginn ing of Elvis Costello's super-eclectic period. The 1989 disc, here augmented wit h an hour's worth of inspired demos and B-sides, offered everything from the bed rock New Orleans sounds of Al len Toussaint and the Dir ty Dozen Brass Band to clanging rockabilly, Paul McCartney collaborations (including the sparkling po p hit "Veronica"), and a jazz-ballad standard in the making ("Baby Plays Around" ). And that's only the half of it. As Costello relates in new liner notes, he ha d ideas for several records: "I seem to have elected to make all five albums at once." Such a thing could've gone precious way fast, but nerve, imagination, tun es, and a double dose of anger assured that it didn't. A broadside or three on t he state of England and the world also made Spike hardly less bilious tha n This Year's Model. (Try the coldly mournful "Tramp the Dirt Down" or th e skronking, Marc Ribot-a ssisted "Let Him Dangle.") Heard seemingly everywhere in its day, it deserves the fresh listens this reissue will occasion. --Rickey Wright