As we mentioned last month, the Chicago Public Library capped a “we’re not just books” promotion with a music contest, challenging Chicagoans to write songs about the city. Through September, “Sound Off” garnered submissions from across the spectrum not only stylistically, but by age as well. The winner, however, wasn’t an unknown but rapper Psalm One (born Christalle Bowen). We’re not saying – this being Chicago – that the fix was in, though not only is Psalm a widely admired MC (she’s signed to Rhymesayers, home to Atmosphere, Brother Ali, and MF Doom), but, as was revealed when Trevor Fisher profiled her in IE three years ago, has a degree in biochemistry. (Jessica Hopper and Rhymefest were on the judges’ panel, if that tells you anything.) It’s kind of like Dwyane Wade coming home to win a park-district H.O.R.S.E. competition. A people’s choice vote went to Shawn Pennington’s “Door Closing.” Psalm’s “My Bucket Song” and more entries can be heard at notwhatyouthink.tumblr.com/tagged/music_entry.

AND THE VAN THEY RODE IN ON

The members of local-group Scotland Yard Gospel Choir have never espoused much religiosity, regardless of what can be inferred from their name. But there’s a chance they’re either cursing or praising a higher power after their van was destroyed on I-65 in late September. En route to Cincinnati while touring behind this fall’s And The Horse They Rode In On (Bloodshot), a tire blew and sent their van across the median into oncoming traffic. Frontman Elia Einhorn told the Chicago Tribune that drummer Jay Santana managed to steer the van back into the median, but couldn’t keep the vehicle from flipping several times. Everyone was injured, though Mark Yoshizumi had to be airlifted to Christ Church in Oak Lawn, while Mary Ralph broke her pelvis and collarbone and Einhorn’s head was sliced open on the torn roof. A benefit show goes down at Hideout with The 1900s and Brighton MA on the 12th, while Bloodshot Records has set up a Paypal account if anyone wishes to help the band pay for their medical expenses or replace their equipment, which was destroyed.

MARRIED TO IT

Even though our publication cycle prohibits us from delivering hard news the way we’d like, we do have the advantage of giving you perspective and closure in a manner your average source has no time for. (Remember Senator Larry Craig? Did he pray enough to get the gayness out of him? Hello CNN? ABC?) So. You might remember this little saga we followed all summer called “Aerosmith.” (They were on our June cover to tout a summer tour; the bandmembers endured various mishaps until the jaunt was eventually scrapped.) It turns out, since frontman Steven Tyler’s stage-fall that ended their roadtrip, he had not spoken to any of the rest of the band until an October 17th concert in Hawaii. Guitarist Joe Perry released a solo record and told Reuters that he hasn’t written a song with Tyler in more than a decade (so much for the next band album happening anytime soon), and Aerosmith will be put on the shelf indefinitely. Adding insult, Perry’s wife Billie sent a Twitter that she has never listened to an Aerosmith album from start to finish. “Without the live show, the songs n [sic] lyrics don’t move me.” Wait a second, she has a Twitter page?

BUT ONLY ONE DVD?

There seems to be some confusion. At various points in the last two years, we’ve been told the CD era is over, and downloads are the form. (Never mind that 29 percent of households in this country do not have regular Internet access.) Pitchfork proclaimed this transition at least twice: once for Guns N’ Roses’ Chinese Democracy, and again when The Beatles’ albums were restored – the post-Sticky Fingers Rolling Stones reissues were justifiably ignored. Jazz, of course, sees no boundaries, so if the key or time signature changes the band adapts and Jimmy Smith (tuning out his death) takes a 20-minute organ solo. That’s how come Columbia Records can justify its latest dip into the Miles Davis (a Dolton native!) pie: The Complete Columbia Album Collection, a 70-CD, single-DVD, $325 Amazon.com exclusive. The package, which is only undergoing a single pressing, also includes a 250-page book and all the rarities/outtakes that have been included with recent reissues. The irony is by the time the average Davis fan has time to absorb all this material and appreciate the remastering, not only will the CD era be over, but likely life as well. The cockroaches will thank you for your purchase.

– Steve Forstneger

For its 2009 thesis, the Legacy reissue arm of Sony Music contends 1959 was jazz’s greatest year. While Miles Davis’ Kind Of Blue would establish that for any jazz novice, the label tosses three other reasons your way. (And they already released the 50th-anniversary editon of Blue.)

Expanded reissues of classic albums are intimidating for neophytes, especially for something that gets treated as academically as jazz. Since forever it has been difficult to find an unaugmented version of Kind Of Blue, which foists the burden of history on someone just looking to enjoy the music for the first time. In that spirit, the expanded editions of Time Out and Ah Um are best appeciated by dedicated fans. Though the remastering is on par with what’s already on shelves, the packaging, notes, and extras (the Mingus disc has a PDF volume of extra liners and the full version of Mingus Dynasty, released the same year; Brubeck’s is joined by Newport Jazz Fest recordings from the ’60s, and a DVD with live footage, interviews, and a piano lesson). Asking a novice to begin here is like handing a first-grader Herodotus.

But Sketches Of Spain demands the full spectrum. That said, if you’ve never heard the album, don’t read any of the liners until after listening. Working with the great Gil Evans, Davis crafted the most surprising entry in his vast catalog by, for perhaps the only time in his career, facing backwards. Without spoiling it, Sketches defies categorization. It isn’t inaccessible, but don’t approach it if you’re tracing his steps from cool to hard bop to fusion. Calling it classical music is inadequate, but perhaps best. Davis was never the most technically accomplished musician, but working with Evans frees him from having to adhere too closely to the unbending lines on a staff and lets his lyricism take hold. It’s a haunting, sad piece, but immensely colorful. It almost comes off as like a film score, and it is based off a previous work. The bonus material includes Evans and Davis’ precursor work, as well as the only live performance of Spain’s centerpiece suite.

As for Mingus Ah Um and Time Out, they’re as integral to any basic jazz collection as Kind Of Blue. Anyone who has been alive for more than 10 years will recognize more of the core melodies than they’d expect, particularly Mingus’ “Better Git It In Your Soul” and Brubeck’s “Blue Rondo A La Turk” and “Time Out,” the latter of which was the first million-selling single in jazz history.

– Steve Forstneger

There may be no more daunting task in the music world than trying to figure out the enigma that is Jeff Beck. To quote Marlon Brando, he could have been a contender. As innovative as Hendrix, more rockin’ than Clapton, and just head-and-shoulders better than Jimmy Page, Beck could have had it all. However, because of his cavalier attitude towards the biz, his sporadic recording and performance output over the years has kept him from achieving the status and noteriety of many of his peers.

After replacing Clapton in The Yardbirds in 1966, Beck moved on to form The Jeff Beck Group, featuring Rod Stewart on vocals, Ron Wood on bass, and Aynsley Dunbar on drums. With two seminal albums, Truth and Beck-Ola, under their belt, the group would go their separate ways, and Beck would spend his time doing session work or putting out brilliant instrumental discs every now and again. So it’s always a treat when he decides to descend from the mountaintop and drop some knowledge.

Appearing at Eric Clapton’s 2007 Crossroads fest must have lit a fire under him, because he’s taken the same band and released Performing This Week . . . Live At Ronnie Scott’s.

Serving as both primer and master-class, Performing Live runs the gamut of Beck’s career. Starting off at the begining with “Beck’s Bolero,” the disc goes on to hit the high points with “Scatterbrain” and his exquisite reworking of “A Day In The Life.”

But lest you think it’s two hours of non-stop ax noodling, Beck pulls out some heavy-hitter guests to get on the mic, such as Joss Stone assuming Rod Stewart’s duties on “People Get Ready,” Imogene Heap tackling “Blanket,” and of course Clapton running through “Little Brown Bird” and “You Need Love.”

Even with the high-voltage guests, the real power is the backing band. Drummer Vinne Colaiuta, keyboardist Jason Rebello, and especially Aussie bass prodigy Tal Wilkenfeld mesh perfectly with Beck’s flights of fancy, with Wilkenfeld completely taking over the signature “Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers.”

The sound is impecable, and the special-features sections includes extensive interviews with Beck and company.

After watching Performing This Week, one can only hope the Beck’s fire doesn’t burn out again, and we won’t have to wait another six years between offerings.

Performance: **** Features: ***

Miles Davis: That’s What Happened, Live In Germany 1987
Eagle

Speaking of legends, has there been a more influential figure in the jazz world over the last few decades than Miles Davis? (Rhetorical question – no need to respond.) The list of accomplishments is too vast to recite, so a video chronicle is usually a welcome addition to the canon.

Unfortunately, That’s What Happened ain’t it.

Recorded in Munich, the set finds Davis in a particularly uninspired mood. Sure, he hits all the notes, but the fire isn’t there. Perhaps it was age catching up to him, perhaps it was the German food, I don’t know. None of the flash and innovation is on hand. Of course, it doesn’t help when none of the Davis standards are on hand, and the choice of covers is downright head-scratching – Michael Jackson’s “Human Nature” and Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time?” Really?

Well . . . it was the mid-’80s.

What almost redeems the set is the half-hour interview with Davis in the features section. However, it’s not nearly enough when there is so much more and better Miles material available. Skip it.

Performance: ** Features: **1/2

Also available . . . Ministry: Adios Puta Madres (Megaforce) chronicles the farewell tour of Al Jourgensen and his band of venerable industrialists. If you happened to catch the group on this tour, you know that the performances could be generously described as spotty. Adios distills the trip and presents it as a little more cohesive document. Along the way are tales from the road, with one disc featuring performances and the other containing in-depth interviews with all involved.

If this is, in fact, Ministry’s last hurrah as Jourgensen has repeatedly stated, there are worse ways to go out.

– Tim Hiatt

It’s not difficult to understand why Legacy is re-releasing Kind Of Blue for its golden anniversary, though, knowing this occasion was imminent, it could have held off on the ones that preceded it. In fact, the label jumped the gun on the birthday last September, when this music also came with a DVD.

The album remains impervious to hyperbole. In the liner notes’ intro sentence, it’s the first album to improvise on modal chords. Too didactic? It made bebop sound like masturbation. It’s the point to which jazz was heading in 1959 and from which all jazz left. Even the title is loaded with meanings so obvious yet so resonant. “So What”’s melody is recognizable to people who can’t even name it (more so than “Take Five” or “Blue Train” or “Brilliant Corners”), yet said melody is only a fraction of the “song.”

The 50th-anniversary edition might have been better, however, had Legacy just reduced it to the original set. For half its lifetime in the CD age, Kind Of Blue has been augmented. By extending the original album threefold via more and more outtakes, Columbia has diluted it. The second disc includes recordings from this sextet’s 1958 sessions, all of which has been made available elsewhere, and tacks a 1960 performance of “So What” in case you forgot about it, which, at this point, maybe you have. An extra-deluxe version features the album on 180-gram vinyl, a DVD, and a 12-by-12-inch booklet.

– Steve Forstneger