What with it being a holiday weekend wherein many people gather together and hunker down and watch sports or, this year in particular, if you’re like me, the great new Beatles documentary “Get Back,” by “Lord of the Rings” director Peter Jackson, live cultural events are few and far between for the next few days. So for starters, I want to tell you about a great new album by a Hudson Valley artist that is available on all the major streaming services.
Alt-rock singer-songwriter Jessie Lee Montague recorded several albums and performed widely around the region and in New York City in the late 1990s and early 2000s under the band name Jake. After a decade-plus hiatus from performing and recording, Montague is back with a terrific new album, Unhooked, which revisits songs she wrote and recorded as Jake in new, contemporary settings. With funky, electronic arrangements emphasizing groove and Montague’s sultry, alluring vocals -- as well as her painterly guitar -- soulful songs like “Trouble” and “Cowboy” are as likely to appeal to fans of Janelle Monae as they once might have attracted those partial to U2 and Chrissie Hynde.
Proof of Jessie Lee Montague’s staying power comes in a new rendition of her song, “Miracle,” a blistering, yearning hard-rock hymn as urgent today as it was when she first recorded it two decades ago. Jessie Lee also revisits a couple of cover tunes that she first recorded with Jake. 10CC’s “I’m Not in Love” is given a bass-heavy treatment atop which Jessie Lee’s dreamy vocals soar and her guitar power chords crunch, taking the track into Led Zeppelin territory. Montague also revisits Shuggie Otis’s psychedelic funk gem, “Strawberry Letter #23,” a nod to one of her most important musical influences. Several of the songs on Unhooked, including the dark ballad “Heaven,” are produced by Grammy Award-winner Malcolm Burn, a protégé of Daniel Lanois whose credits include work with Bob Dylan, the Neville Brothers, Patti Smith, and Emmylou Harris. Burn has an intuitive understanding of Montague’s strengths and influences and finds a way to spotlight and support them without imposing extraneous musical touches. This is Jessie Lee Montague music, through and through.
And here are a few live events worthy of note this weekend.
On Saturday night, Hot Tuna – featuring Jefferson Airplane members Jorma Kaukenon and Jack Casaday – bring their blues-based guitar picking to the Mahaiwe in Great Barrington, Mass., at 8. Warming up the crowd for Hot Tuna is instrumental wizard David Bromberg, whose versatility on guitar, fiddle, Dobro and mandolin saw him playing with the likes of Bob Dylan, George Harrison, and Jerry Garcia over the course of his five-plus decade career in music.
On Sunday at 2 p.m. at St. James Place in Great Barrington, Mass., playwright Mark St. Germain will be on hand with some actor friends to read excerpts from his new comic memoir “Walking Evil- How man's best friend became man's worst enemy,” about rescuing a diabolically insane dog that upended all notions of canine fidelity and devotion and life in general.
A new exhibition at Carrie Haddad Gallery in Hudson, N.Y., presents a group show called “A Changing Landscape,” because it offers a kind of 21st century update of the 19th century Hudson River School of landscape painting. Featuring works by Jane Bloodgood-Abrams, Tracy Helgeson, John Kelly, Eileen Murphy, Regina Quinn, Judy Reynolds, and Carl Grauer, the exhibit suggests that a movement that once was marked by dramatic form and vigorous technique has evolved to adapt a softer, more intimate way of perceiving the landscape. The exhibit is on view at Carrie Haddad now through January 16th, and there will be a reception for the artists on Saturday from 5-7 p.m.
And finally, legendary jazz vocalist Sheila Jordan celebrates her 93rd birthday with a concert at the Senate Garage in Kingston, N.Y., on Saturday at 7:30, as part of the Jazzstock series.
Seth Rogovoy is editor of the Rogovoy Report, available at rogovoyreport.com
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