LATEST ADDITIONS

The production, arrangements and recording are strictly decent (but clean and well crafted) demo-quality, the drummer boat-anchors the tunes behind the beat&#151he’s no Ringo&#151and with tunes such as “You’re Like Lead” (you’re always bringing me down), and “Rubber Soul,” and with an album title like Love Is Not Enough (get it?) you have to wonder if these guys are doing Beatles or Rutles.

Forget the Van Gogh-like cover. There’s nothing crazy going on here, or perhaps these four guys just wanted to subliminally suggest that you lend an ear. I’m glad I did.

Riverside issued this Charlie Byrd album in 1960, two years before his collaboration with Stan Getz on the classic Jazz Samba (Verve V6-8432), which has been reissued by both DCC Compact Classics and Speakers Corner (still in print, I believe).

It’s taken almost forty years for someone to be sufficiently inspired by Van Dyke Park’s epic Song Cycle to attempt an equally grand and ambitious musical undertaking, but with the release last year of this album by 25 year old Bay area harpist/composer Joanna Newsom (San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom is a second cousin), the wait has proven worthwhile.