American Folk Fantasies Vol 1: Oysters Ice Cream Lemonade

Dick Connette doesn't see music in terms of white and black, urban or rural, folk or funk, blues or country. He views America's vast musical landscape as one deep river fed by a thousand tributaries, clearly demarcated yet endlessly flooding its banks. With his new project, Too Sad for the Public, he navigates these waters with the help of a gifted raft of musicians including Suzzy Roche, Gabriel Kahane, Ana Egge, Rachelle Garniez, Rayna Gellert, Erik Friedlander, Steve Elson and Chaim Tannenbaum. Under another's direction, such a mix of music and voices would seem more of a compilation than a cohesive album, but here everything is focused through the lens of a deft, expansive, supremely musical vision.
Oysters Ice Cream Lemonade begins with something of a New Orleans shuffle written by Jaco Pastorius. American folk and old-time traditions, even a touch of the jug band era, are explored across the album via old songs and original compositions that could have been written a century or more ago. They are underpinned by subtle arrangements that echo Randy Newman's strings and the harmonic intervals of contemporary classical music. American Folk Fantasies indeed: Connette has realised them in visionary fashion.