ELVIS COSTELLO AND THE ROOTS

DOUBLE TROUBLE

Elvis Costello teams up with the Roots on Wise Up Ghost

 

by Matt Ashare |  
Published September 25, 2013

It's been quite a while — at least a couple of decades — since Elvis Costello has had to worry about proving himself in any significant way. Back in the the late ’70s, when he emerged from post-punk England as an aggressively awkward, angry young man in thick-framed Buddy Holly glasses, with an acerbic tongue, a enervated stance, and a defining penchant for brilliant wordplay, it may have been a different story. After all, it's no secret that the rock establishment isn't generally in the habit of handing merit badges out to the smartest kid in the class.
    That may have put Costello at a slight disadvantage. But it was a disadvantage that he appeared to revel in, and it only seemed to fuel his expansive ambitions. In short order, he assembled a tightly coiled backing band, the Attractions, who helped to define the look, feel, sound, and attitude of what was widely dubbed "new wave"; he conquered the States with a trio of now classic discs that rank among the best three albums any artist has ever started a career with; and he rather rapidly began the process of expanding his artistic vistas, delving into gritty American r&b on 1980's "Get Happy!!," decamping Dylan-style to Nashville to immerse himself in the country stylings of 1981's "Almost Blue," and restively moving from the grand, orchestral rock of 1982's "Imperial Bedroom" to the punchy, horn-accented Philly-style soul of ’82's "Punch the Clock." By 1986, just nine years after releasing his first single (the pointedly prescient anti-fascist salvo "Less Than Zero"), Costello was well within his rights donning a crown on his tenth album, the cagily titled "King of America," even if that particular sobriquet was laced with a certain amount of sarcasm.
    But, Costello's never been one to rest on his laurels: like an adrenaline starved thrill seeker, he's continually sought out new musical challenges, testing his the mettle of his muse in wide-ranging collaborations with an eclectic, seemingly endless array of fellow travelers. The list is long and distinguished. It includes pop royalty (Paul McCartney, Burt Bacharach), jazz guys (trumpeter Chet Baker, guitarist Bill Frisell), classical folks (the Brodsky Quartet), a New Orleans institution (pianist/composer Allen Toussaint), and, in recent years, Emmylou Harris, Lucinda Williams, and Rilo Kiley's Jenny Lewis.
    So, perhaps it's not entirely surprising that his newest, out-of-the-blue project, "Wise Up ghost," an album on the jazz-associated Blue Note label, pairs Costello with the acclaimed Philadelphia-schooled hip-hop group the Roots. Actually, the Roots really are a band in the sense that, like Beastie Boys before them, they're seasoned instrumentalists who have proven more than capable of holding their own as a malleable musical squad on "Late Night With Jimmy Fallon," where they've been stationed since the show began airing in 2009. That's how Costello and the Roots' gregarious drummer Ahmir "Questlove" (or "?uestlove") Thompson — the band's most recognizable spokesperson, if not quite their frontman — first met, exchanged mutual admirations, and hatched the idea of joining forces, if only for a remix or two.
    Again, nothing particularly surprising there: Costello is an avowed polymath, with a nearly boundless proclivity for musical experimentation, and, along with all of their other notable credits, the Roots have spent the last four years backing all kinds of artists on the Fallon show. Plus, the style of hip-hop practiced by the Roots is rooted in the same wellspring of classic soul and r&b that's been central to sustaining Costello since his earliest recordings.
    That said, Costello's been accused in the past, fairly or not, of mere genre hopping, as if it were really all that easy to just dip into jazz, country, or classic music. And, I recently heard someone — and it wasn't Dr. Phil — refer to him as a "serial collaborator," which frankly sounds more like a bogus psychological diagnosis or a BAU designation for a pernicious unsub on "Criminal Minds" than a meaningful crtique. Then again, it often isn't all that pretty when rock dudes, particularly older rock dudes, decide to dabble in hip-hip. Like neurosurgery and ice motorcycle racing, rapping just doesn't really lend well to dabbling.
    Fortunately, "Wise Up Ghost" isn't that kind of collaboration. Costello didn't come to this particular party primed to ply his talents as a rhyme-slinging emcee. So, no, you won't find any serious dropping of badass science on "Wise Up Ghost." Nor will you find Black Thought, the Roots resident wordsmith, which strikes me as a smart move. All due respect to Black Thought, I'm just not sure I need to hear a 59-year-old Costello sparring with a seasoned rapper of Black Thought's caliber, any more than I'm anxious to hear Costello crooning the chorus on a Jay-Z single. While
I'm not philosophically opposed to rock/pop/rap fusions, just because something might have worked in this particular case, doesn't make it necessary.
    Not all of Costello's past collaborations have yielded great dividends. His work with McCartney and Bacharach, for example, was perfectly pleasant. But both delivered more in the way of stylistic flourish than substance, and never fully managed to add up to more than the sum of their admittedly impressive parts. What makes "Wake Up ghost" so refreshingly different is that neither party seems intent on copping the other's approach. Questlove, whose impeccable drumming and intuitive grooves form the foundation of "Wise Up Ghost," and Steve Mandel, who co-produced the disc with Questlove and Costello, employ hip-hop's low-end theory, isolating instrumental samples to create recurring loops (strings, horns, organs, etc. . .) that surface over ominously deep bass tones and sharply rendered rhythms. But the song structures and melodies are very much Costello's, even when his voice is all that's left guiding the bass and drums.
    If the results seem strangely familiar, it's because, well, they are. The disc opens with glitched-up keyboard figure, but as "Walk Us Uptown" comes into focus, with it's dubby feel, staccato guitar reports, and soulful organ tones, it begins to resemble the reggae-inflected derivations of  "Watching the Detectives," one of the first tracks Costello cut with the Attractions in ’77. "Will you walk us uptown while our tears run in torrents?," Costello asks no one in particular, channeling a mixture of paranoia and anxiety, "You can suffer in silence or pray for some solace/Will you wash away our sins in the crossfire and crosscurrents?/As you uncross your fingers and take out some insurance." 
    Later, on the spooked-out "Stick Out Your Tongue," a deadened Costello recites the foreboding lyrics to "Pills and Soap," a dystopian 1982 song he surreptitiously released under the name "The Imposter" just prior to a British national election. By then, it's clear that Costello and Questlove are fully on the same page, aesthetically, philosophically, and otherwise, Indeed, on "Wise Up Ghost" Costello seems to have rediscovered something akin to the synergy he forged with the Attractions in his early years. I'm tempted to say that it's Costello's best album in years, but that feels like cheap praise. It's certainly one of his most consuming creations in quite some time. And, if the "Number One" printed boldly on the cover is any indication, this may just be the start of something very cool.