How Are Things in Your Town?

AMG Review of How Are Things in Your Town?

Sean Carruthers
All Music Guide

Short of spending a zillion dollars on all of the original albums, this is one of the best ways of getting your mitts on a substantial chunk of Ken Nordine's original Word Jazz recordings, even if you already have the Rhino compilation CD. There are nine tracks here that don't appear on that release, including one ("Pacing") that was recorded for the Word Jazz Vol. 2 release, but never actually put onto vinyl before this album. All of the other tracks are taken from his first four Word Jazz albums: Word Jazz, Son of Word Jazz, Next! and Word Jazz Vol. 2. Because Nordine's band changed a few times over the course of those albums, there's definitely a mixed bag approach to the album, especially since the tracks do not appear chronologically; most of the tracks feature Nordine in his usual mode (telling a story over a jazzy backing track), while a few of them have Nordine interacting with soundscapes instead. You could argue with some of the choices here (tracks like "Smerd" and "Roger" could easily be replaced with something more interesting) but for the most part it's a good overview of Nordine's early recordings.