Latest releases reviewed

AIMEE MANN
Live at St. Ann's Warehouse, New York 
V2/SuperEgo 
**

Anyone who has even a casual interest in smart, hook-laden pop/rock that concerns itself with desperately unhappy and dysfunctional people will know that Aimee Mann is the Killer Queen. Pretty much unheralded - although with a profile that was bolstered by her soundtrack to the movie Magnolia - Mann has in the past 15 years created a fine body of solo work that has yet to transfer completely successfully to a live setting. This 2-disc DVD/CD set goes some way to explaining why: she doesn't really like touring, considering it a necessary evil that has to be embraced so as to promote her work. Shot in muted tones that reflect the mature material on offer, the show, to a song, is edifying if hardly exciting. Eager-beaver fans will be pleased to know that two new songs (from her forthcoming album, King of the Jailhouse) are previewed; there are also backstage, rather poised interviews with Mann (quite revealing and cutely cerebral, Mann looking more like an academic than one of the best female rock stars of the past 20 years) and her band (thoroughly superfluous).

www.aimeemann.com  - Tony Clayton-Lea

RAY CHARLES 
O-Genio - Live In Brazil 
Rhino
***

Given the current interest in all things Ray thanks to Jamie Foxx's portrayal of him on the big screen, we can probably expect many, many more live DVDs featuring Brother Ray in full flight to hit the shops this year. While those from the later years of his career (like the recently released set from the 1997 Montreux Jazz Festival) are often not up to much due to the poor playing of some of the musicians onstage, that caveat does not apply here. O-Genio is a splendid find, featuring footage from two 1963 concerts recorded for a TV special in Sao Paulo the day before the singer's 33rd birthday. Some of the performances are quite mesmerising, Charles and his sharp-as-a-pin orchestra finding new, soulful corners in the most familiar of tunes such as Hit The Road Jack or You Are My Sunshine. www.rhino.com - Jim Carroll