Ann Dyer & No Good Time Fairies: Revolver: A New Spin

Avoiding the nostalgic waxed glow of many jazz vocal interprations, Bay Area iconoclast Ann Dyer honed in on Revolver ’s Hindustani periphery and distant-but-unaffected air for her own “new spin.” With a string-and-percussion-heavy expanded edition of her band No Good Time Fairies, she deconstructs the original arrangements in such a way that each word takes on luminous, concretized properties, particularly on totally-reconstructed versions of “Eleanor Rigby” and “I Want to Tell You”, into which Dyer interpolates a descending line that splits the difference between bebop run and nursery rhyme.

The vocalist spent some amount of time studying with a guru classical North Indian vocal techniques, which she uses coloristically to entrancing effect. “Tomorrow Never Knows” is, not surprisingly, recast in a style that owes much to its original Indian vibe, but “She Said She Said” may be the best example of Dyer’s newly-acquired techniques, as her vocal on the track abruptly shifts from an accusatory and dramatic morphine jazz style to a darkly-languorous exploration of Hindustani melismas. The band as a unit is fully her equal, responding to each other and to her willful metamorphoses with sweetness, shading, or slashing anger, always with a delicate, tense poignancy, bringing out sounds and meanings from the original compositions that are often unexpected.

Tracks: She Said She Said / Good Day Sunshine / Eleanor Rigby / For No One / Taxman / I’m Only Sleeping / Tomorrow Never Knows / Rain / I Want to Tell You / And Your Bird Can Sing.

Personnel: Ann Dyer - vocals / Peter Apfelbaum - tenor sax / Hafez Modirzadeh - karna on track 7 and tenor sax on track 9 / Carla Kihlstedt - violin / Jeff Buenz - electric and acoustic guitars / John Shifflett - electric and acoustic bass / Jason Lewis - trap drums and tabla / Rob Vlack & E. Blake Davis - additional guitars on track 5.

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