Dylan Different Live In Paris

ベン・シドランsingsボブ・ディラン。好評を博したアルバム『Dylan Different』のパリ／ニュー・モーニングでのライヴ盤が登場！アルバム『Dylan Different』は、ボブ・ディランをカヴァーするというコンセプトの面白さや、渋いジャケの良さも話題になり、ツアーも敢行。その模様を収録した本作は、楽曲はCDに収録された曲とほぼ同じ、メンバーも同様。文字通りCDの世界を披露するライヴ、という感じでしょうか？しかしながら、自身でキーボードを弾きながらの渋いメンバー紹介には、来日公演の東京／コットン・クラブなどでも魅せてくれた粋な感じと、ライヴの幕開けのドキドキ感があり、そこから曲に自然に入って行く構成など、いかにもベテラン・アーティストらしい貫禄が漂います。超名曲「Blowin' in the wind（風に吹かれて）」に突入。この曲は、CD、ライブ双方で、ギタリストのルドルフ・バーガーとデュエットで歌っていますが、本ライヴのルドルフ・バーガーのド渋な声！！これは、ちょっと鳥肌ものです。シワガレタような声質と時折、ドスを利かせたような語り口、囁く様な、それでいて漂う倦怠感は、感情がストレートになって出るこのライヴ・ヴァージョンが断然いい感じ。ディランの曲をなぞるというものではなく、この日には、精神が乗り移ったようなものも感じさせてくれます。ギター・ソロも断然、このライヴが良いです！後半部には、CDに登場しなかった曲も演奏。また、フランス・ブルーノートの貴公子的トランペッター、エリック・トラファズも参加。クールで粋なソロ演奏も彩りを添えます。各人、ライブならではの躍動感あふれる楽しさ伝わる演奏も魅力！日本でこのライブが実現されることはちょっと難しそうなだけに、このライブがCDになったのはとても貴重。パリの幸せな一夜の空気を感じる作品です。
キングインターナショナル

Upon hearing “Everything Is Broken,” the opening track of Ben Sidran's Dylan Different, a collection of Bob Dylan covers that uncovers a near symbiotic connection to his source's material, one wonders what took him so long to record this. Sidran chose a dozen tunes from Dylan’s songbook and recorded them over four days in France, applying his requisite musicality, unaffected jazzman's cool, and streetwise yet elegant poetic imagination. There is a decidedly old-school feel to the manner in which this material is recorded that recalls his late-'70s sides. Sidran plays Fender Rhodes, Wurlitzer, and acoustic piano as well as a Hammond B-3, and is accompanied by a killer backing band that includes trumpeter Michael Leonhart, drummer Alberto Malo, bassist Marcello Giuliani, saxophonist Bob Malach, guitarist Rodolphe Burger, and vocalist Amy Helm. His son Leo did the horn arrangements and played additional piano, B-3, and koto, and there are guests on backing vocals, including Georgie Fame, who duets on “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35,” and Jorge Drexler on "Knockin' on Heaven's Door." What it all adds up to is a truly new presentation of Dylan’s work that seamlessly fits Sidran’s aesthetic without removing the authority of these songs from their historical context. Check the nocturnal funky groove on “Gotta Serve Somebody” or the bluesy dual pianos on “Tangled Up in Blue,” on which Sidran does his talk-singing accompanied by female backing vocalists on the chorus and a restrained horn section. He turns the tune into a slippery, finger-popping club number. Dylan’s slide guitar anthem “Highway 61 Revisited” is given a lithe Latin treatment with Burger’s guitar referencing the original even as the piano and rhythm section make it a funky-butt slow-boiling rhumba. The minor-key swing in “Ballad of a Thin Man” accents the tune's poetry while extrapolating harmonies in the minor-key arrangement. Given Sidran’s treatment of the lyric, if you didn't know better, you might think he wrote it. (The bass clarinet solo by Malach is a sweet touch, too.) He took the greatest liberties with “Maggie’s Farm,” which is not frenetic guitar-based blues-rock here, but a late-night, shimmering piece of beat jazz with an eerie arrangement that extends the reach of the tune’s cultural and economic critique into the heart of the new century. Sidran even has the stones to redo “Blowin’ in the Wind.” He makes it as disturbingly inquisitive and world-weary as the song itself must feel by now, but without losing a measure of its poignancy. Dylan Different reveals Sidran as being in full possession of his jazz and creative gifts but also his ones for interpretive song; by turns, with this fine album, he adds even more weight to the argument that Dylan is a writer of folk songs that transcend their eras of origin in relevancy. ~ Thom Jurek|