We Got the Beat

Music Pick(s) of the Week: Norah Jones and John Mayer continue to rise together…as solo artists

Norah Jones' newest album, "The Fall"
"Battle Studies" by John Mayer

Norah Jones, "The Fall" (Blue Note)
John Mayer, "Battle Studies" (Columbia)

Slightly less than eight years ago about 850 or so lucky Houstonians had an unknown Norah Jones and John Mayer all to themselves. The two budding solo acts were a double-bill at Numbers in Montrose and, even together, didn’t quite have the place filled to capacity.

Since that evening Jones and Mayer, whose paths may have never crossed again after passing each other in the graffiti-stained backstage room on Westheimer, have been forever linked in my mind. The simultaneous release of Jones’ latest album, "The Fall," and Mayer’s new guitar epic, "Battle Studies," does nothing to sever the tie that binds them.

It’s not that their music is so similar. It’s quite the opposite, actually.

Jones’ career to this point has largely focused on piano ballads and romantic torch songs that have revived the contemporary adult slow dance. Mayer, meanwhile, has spent the better part of the last decade establishing himself as the next great white blues guitar hope on stage (with all due respect to Stevie Ray Vaughan), even as he carves out a growing list of sensual easy-rock swoons for the radio.

Their link is that Jones, 30, and Mayer, 32 rose from pre-spotlight music prodigies into full-fledged superstars together before our eyes. And not so coincidentally, both "The Fall" and "Battle Studies" show a level of individuality and distinct character that comes from taking a solid hold on the reigns of their careers.

One need only to look at the cover of "The Fall" to understand that this is not the same shy Jones, posed behind a baby grand that we’ve grown accustomed to seeing in videos for past hits "Don’t Know Why" and "Thinking About You." Dressed in a vintage gown, top hat and posing with a St. Bernard at her side, one almost doesn’t realize that the long, lush hair that defined her American-Bengali Indian beauty has been shorn above the shoulders.

The heft of that hair is symbolic of the weight of artistic expectations that Jones has carried around since she carried away an armful of Grammys (including album of the year) for "Come Away With Me" in 2003.

For "The Fall" Jones has completely flipped the script. Rather than chasing past glories, she has gone looking for a new cache of tuneful riches. She recruited a band of bangers and crashers that usually back up rockers like R.E.M., Beck and Elvis Costello and went to work on a collection of songs that might not produce Top 40 hits, but that she clearly enjoys playing.

First single “Chasing Pirates,” has a kicky chord shuffle reminiscent of the steel drum island themes often favored by Jimmy Buffet. The unexpected beat and peculiar, dreamy lyrics travel the same seas that gave Joni Mitchell’s personality so much definition at her 60s and 70s best.

Best of all, "The Fall" gets Jones off the piano bench and out strumming a guitar and stomping out the beat on "It’s Gonna Be" or simply standing upstage with a microphone to breath the bluesy "Light As A Feather." This may not end up being the Grammy-awarded, chart-topping success of "Come Away With Me," but it could be something much more genuine.

We may have finally met the real, grown-up, Norah Jones.

John Mayer is tired of singing sweet-nothings on the sidelines as well. "Battle Studies" succinctly describes Mayer’s process for conjuring his fourth studio album. He’s been watching and studying at some of the greatest guitarists and lead men in music.

Now, it is Mayer’s turn to rock.

He pays tribute to blues in a rollicking version of Robert Johnson’s "Crossroads" as he remembers it interpreted by Cream and hits new dramatic anthem heights on “Heartbreak Warfare.” Mayer even gets soulful with the latest superstar flavor of the month, Taylor Swift, on "Half Of My Heart."

But the enduring tongue-in-cheek combination of playfulness and independence on "Battle Studies" shows up in the opening lines of his acoustic first single, "Who Says."

"Who says I can’t get stoned? Turn off the lights and the telephone. Me in my house alone? Who says I can’t get stoned?

Who says I can’t be free? From all of the things that I used to be. Rewrite my history. Who says I can’t be free?"

In two lines, Mayer intertwines the humor and talent that makes his fans love him along with the bit of rebellion that might just keep him sane enough to stay on stage for many years to come.

And when he or Jones come back to Houston in support of these new works, you can bet it will be on a stage much bigger than Numbers and – unfortunately - not together.

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Movie Review

Meta-comedy remake Anaconda coils itself into an unfunny mess

Photo by Matt Grace

Jack Black and Paul Rudd in Anaconda.

In Hollywood’s never-ending quest to take advantage of existing intellectual property, seemingly no older movie is off limits, even if the original was not well-regarded. That’s certainly the case with 1997’s Anaconda, which is best known for being a lesser entry on the filmography of Ice Cube and Jennifer Lopez, as well as some horrendous accent work by Jon Voight.

The idea behind the new meta-sequel Anaconda is arguably a good one. Four friends — Doug (Jack Black), Griff (Paul Rudd), Claire (Thandiwe Newton), and Kenny (Steve Zahn) — who made homemade movies when they were teenagers decide to remake Anaconda on a shoestring budget. Egged on by Griff, an actor who can’t catch a break, the four of them pull together enough money to fly down to Brazil, hire a boat, and film a script written by Doug.

Naturally, almost nothing goes as planned in the Amazon, including losing their trained snake and running headlong into a criminal enterprise. Soon enough, everything else takes second place to the presence of a giant anaconda that is stalking them and anyone else who crosses its path.

Written and directed by Tom Gormican, with help from co-writer Kevin Etten, the film is designed to be an outrageous comedy peppered with laugh-out-loud moments that cover up the fact that there’s really no story. That would be all well and good … if anything the film had to offer was truly funny. Only a few scenes elicit any honest laughter, and so instead the audience is fed half-baked jokes, a story with no focus, and actors who ham it up to get any kind of reaction.

The biggest problem is that the meta-ness of the film goes too far. None of the core four characters possess any interesting traits, and their blandness is transferred over to the actors playing them. And so even as they face some harrowing situations or ones that could be funny, it’s difficult to care about anything they do since the filmmakers never make the basic effort of making the audience care about them.

It’s weird to say in a movie called Anaconda, but it becomes much too focused on the snake in the second half of the film. If the goal is to be a straight-up comedy, then everything up to and including the snake attacks should be serving that objective. But most of the time the attacks are either random or moments when the characters are already scared, and so any humor that could be mined all but disappears.

Black and Rudd are comedy all-stars who can typically be counted on to elevate even subpar material. That’s not the case here, as each only scores on a few occasions, with Black’s physicality being the funniest thing in the movie. Newton is not a good fit with this type of movie, and she isn’t done any favors by some seriously bad wigs. Zahn used to be the go-to guy for funny sidekicks, but he brings little to the table in this role.

Any attempt at rebooting/remaking an old piece of IP should make a concerted effort to differentiate itself from the original, and in that way, the new Anaconda succeeds. Unfortunately, that’s its only success, as the filmmakers can never find the right balance to turn it into the bawdy comedy they seemed to want.

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Anaconda is now playing in theaters.

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