Little Steven created a stir with his 2017 Soulfire release, followed by last year’s 3-CD live version. This momentum, and this strong 14-piece band, were primed to do more and have now delivered Van Zandt’s first album of new material in 20 years with Summer of Sorcery. Like those efforts, this is written, arranged, and produced by Van Zandt at his own studio in New York City, with Grammy Award winner Geoff Sanoff co-producing aside Disciples of Soul musical director and guitarist Mark Ribler. As before, Van Zandt’s lifelong friend Bob Clearmountain and Bo Ludwig mixed and mastered, respectively.
Van Zandt says, “my first five albums in the ‘80s were both very personal, and very political. I wanted the new material to be more fictionalized. The way records were when I grew up. Before it was an artform. The concept was capturing and communicating that first rush of summer. The electricity of that feeling of unlimited possibilities. Of falling in love with the world for the first time. Obviously, there are occasional personal references, and a bit of what’s going on socially scattered throughout, but I achieved what I set ou toto. I created a collection of fictional movies scenes that feel like summer. I’m quite proud of it.”
After all, this is Jersey Shore rock n’ roll – the kind he and his employer, The Boss, have been delivering for decades now. It’s the boardwalk, the souped-up cars, innocent love, the beach, and both unbridled lust and the sense of being able to do anything. Van Zandt doesn’t just scatter all these images and emotions around, he’s focusing it on that one special summer where on completely falls in love with life, the thrill of being alive. These are richly bombastic horn arrangements, dancing grooves, and high powered performances from a band that loves taking it at full throttle. Given this is an album that thematically hearkens back to the ‘60s, you’ll hear echoes of Sly and the Family Stone (‘Communion’), as well as Sam Cooke (“Love Again,” “Soul Power Twist”), Tito Puente (“Party Mambo”), the Beach Boys (“Superfly Terraplane”), and James Brown (“Vortex,” ”Gravity”) too.
Ten of the dozen are brand new songs, with “Suddenly You,” and an outtake from, the Lilyhammer score (Netflix’s first original series), and a re-make of “Education,” first recorded for his 1989 Revolution. Van Zandt, energized by all that took place on the Soulfire tour, sums up his current state in the opening “Communion” chorus – “Harmony, Unity, Communion.” The percussion-infused “Party Mambo” touches on politics, with the couple from two different cultures. The girl turns out to be into Santeria and plotting spiritual revenge for the abandonment of Puerto Rico. “Vortex’ has a bit of Blaxploitation just as James Brown’s “Down and Out in New York City” did on the last album. “A World of Our Own” nods to the ‘60s girl groups.
Van Zandt calls the rather tongue-in-cheek “Superfly Terraplane,” the first single, the only real rock song but don’t be misled. Every song packs tons of energy, whether he deems, it blues, soul, or Latin. There’s a lot to be for not taking one too seriously Van Zandt’s “Soul Power Twist,” for example, is just a plain fun dance song from yesteryear. On the other hand, Little Steven is very committed to better education and honoring teachers as evidence by last years “Soulfire Teacher Solidarity Tour,” an initiative to bring music curriculum into schools across the country. In that vein, he pulled “Education” from his funk-oriented 1989 record, also as a means of revisiting that sound.
”Suddenly You,” the outtake from the series Lilyhammer, was never used on the show but he wanted it her for its South American summery vibe. “I Visit the Blues,” built loosely in the mode of Bobby Bland’s “I Pity the Fool,” is included as Van Zandt as been getting more deeply into the blues recently. He had one on the last album and he’s hosting the Blues Music Awards again this year in Memphis as he did in 2018. The concluding title track is the culmination of capturing that perfect nostalgic summer in one song.
When you hear Summer of Sorcery you can practically feel summer coming on.
