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La La Land's music perfectly scores film

Album cover for The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack for La La Land
Album cover for The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack for La La Land

B Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

La La Land

Interscope

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Album cover for Shirley Horn's "Live at the 4 Queens"

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Despite its name and appearance, Gucci Mane’s new album, The Return of the East Atlanta Santa, is not a Christmas album.

You can't have a visually arresting modern movie musical without an aurally dazzling set of songs. So for every fantastical bit of film energy from La La Land writer-director Damien Chazelle, there's an equally rousing tune to go with it from the flick's composer, Justin Hurwitz, with lyrics from musical theater's hottest team: Justin Paul and Benj Pasek.

The film's music received two Golden Globe Awards on Jan. 8.

The tale of two stardom-hungry showbiz kids (Emma Stone, Ryan Gosling) in various stages of love and support for the other in Los Angeles is guided, at first, by a let's-put-on-a-show razzle-dazzle of brass and reeds. When fragile-but-lovely vocalist Stone and gal pals Callie Hernandez, Sonoya Mizuno and Jessica Rothe get to singing "Someone in the Crowd," it's a fresh-faced stomper in the tradition of West Side Story's "America."

As the Gosling portion of La La Land involves his frustration with being a deep jazz pianist in a pop jazz world (the latter represented, oddly enough, by John Legend and his slick "Start a Fire"), numbers like "City of Stars" have a cool Cali-jazz feel a la Bobby Troup. The upbeat piano prance of "Another Day of Sun" sums up La La Land handsomely: "a Technicolor world made out of music and machine/It called me to be on that screen."

Hot tracks: "Another Day of Sun," "Someone in the Crowd," "City of Stars"

-- A.D. AMOROSI

The Philadelphia Inquirer

A- Shirley Horn

Live at the 4 Queens

Resonance

There are only a few live recordings by the great singer Shirley Horn. As she was a master of jazz vocals -- as vital to singers as Miles Davis is to trumpet players and Thelonious Monk and Ahmad Jamal are to pianists -- which makes this paucity of live recordings even more regrettable.

But we have this jewel, a nine-song set recorded in 1988 in Las Vegas. She was deliberate, but emotionally rich and soulful. Her impact also is felt in the recordings of Cassandra Wilson and Rebecca Parris, among others.

Joined by her longtime bassist Charles Ables and drummer Steve Williams, Horn, also a pianist, is in superb voice. Her delivery throughout is stunning; her take on "Lover Man" aches and cries. If there's a better version of "Just for a Thrill," I've yet to hear it. Her affinity for Brazilian music is beautifully shown on "Meditation."

On a 10-minutes-long "Isn't It Romantic?" Horn also allows her impressive piano skills to shine.

Horn, who died in 2005, collaborated with Davis, Carmen McRae and Wynton Marsalis. She was an exquisite singer, especially on ballads, as this album shows brilliantly.

Hot tracks: all

-- ELLIS WIDNER

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

B Gucci Mane

The Return of the East Atlanta Santa

Guwop Enterprises

Don't let the title fool you. Despite hinting at the holiday with a snippet of "Jingle Bells" and a sexy display of Santaness, this is not a Gucci Mane Christmas album. It is, however, the newest of four album gifts Mane has released since August as part of his hard, fast comeback from a long prison term. Not only has the incendiary Mouth of the South shaken the jail weight -- he dropped 75 pounds -- but also his once mouthy vocal style has found a new lyrical frankness without eschewing the funk.

Mane recalls his druggy, thuggy past without romanticizing it on "I Can't" ("You can still talk homicides, but I can't") and the bouncy "Last Time" ("I'm an ex-X-popper"). "Stutter" re-creates Mane's trap-hop best while advancing the form with lean muscularity. Plus, Mane is more playful on Santa than he was throughout 2016's recordings, whether it's the lusty, contagious "Nonchalant" or his duet with Drake on "Both."

Hot tracks: "I Can't," "Stutter"

-- A.D. AMOROSI

The Philadelphia Inquirer

B+ Jane Siberry

Angels Bend Closer

Sheeba Music

Jane Siberry twists genres and conventions on Angels Bend Closer, a haunting, uplifting album.

On the Canadian's first major release in five years, Siberry's lyrics arrive like emotional gushes barely contained by their musical frames, mostly lavish ballads with a bounty of details.

Nearly seven minutes long, "Morag" encapsulates Siberry's intense diversity -- nearly stream-of-consciousness lyrics with few rhymes but plenty of reason, swirling melodies, crisscrossing arrangements and messages of reflection and redemption.

Siberry illuminates a wide range of relationships, but love is always at the core.

"Mama Hereby" is a daughter's call for truce where reconciliation is also possible, while "Anytime," which appears first as a ballad and then propelled by a solid groove in a Willie Mitchell-like R&B production, expresses a parent's protectiveness even as the distance grows.

Other highlights include opener "Walk on Water," the k.d. lang duet "Living Statue" and "Everything You Knew as a Child," which alternates dramatic verses with a thumping refrain handsomely dressed in lang-like majesty.

Siberry is hard to pin down, but is a one-of-a-kind listen.

Hot tracks: "Morag," "Everything You Knew as a Child," "Living Statue"

-- PABLO GORONDI

The Associated Press

Style on 01/17/2017

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