Forget Trinh Cong Son. His lyricism is still over people’s head. The more you listen to his songs, the more confuse you get. Nowadays you don’t even have to listen to a song to know what it is about. The title alone tells it all. You don’t need a GED to figure out “Toi Khoc Cho Em Ai Khoc Cho Toi.” Can you get any more straightforward than “Em Gian Doi Sao Mong Toi That Long?” And the best part about these songs is that you don’t have be a trained musician to articulate the lyrics. If a girl broke your heart, you can them. If a girl used you, took your money and left your ass, you can sing them. Lam Chan Huy is obviously an amateur (you can tell by his breath control and karaoke phrasing), yet the tastelessness in the lyrics works despite the cheap, staled and dated productions.

A concept album for Lunar New Year has to capture the spirit of Vietnamese’s most celebrated holiday; the key element Quang Dung fails to deliver on his latest release titled Xuan. He sounds mechanically dull and the cheap studio productions only make it worst.

Let’s face it. Tunes that are suitable for a kid, a grown-ass man like Quang Dung shouldn’t even consider. His lame-out version of “Mua Xuan Oi” doesn’t even come close to little Xuan Mai’s. On “Cam On Mot Doa Xuan Ngoi,” he sings like he could fall asleep in any second. Gone is the charming prince who pretended to be so sincere in “Vi Do La Em.” With “Neu Xuan Nay Vang Em” he sounds like a bored married man who does what he has to do to make his wife happy even though he means the opposite of what he say. The title suggests, “If you won’t be here this spring,” but what he truly mean is “Please don’t be here this spring.”

Needless to say, Xuan is as mundane as it gets. If his sudden marriage was a big disappointment to the ladies, this album is his big disappointment to the fans.

You have to be a Miles’s freak to get through The Complete On The Corner Sessions. The six-disc set, which clocks in almost seven hours, details the experimentation of electric Miles. The music goes nowhere (no chord progression and no harmonic variation) as if the group just played until they wanted to stop. From the funk grooves to rock riffs to alien noises, the tracks still sound as fresh as when they were recorded more than thirty years ago. Miles obviously was ahead of his time.

Thelonious Monk. The first word comes to mind is originality. Even when he played a ballad, he made it his own. In Monk’s Dream, he reinvented the soothing “Body & Soul” with his unique, fractured chord changes. The second word comes to mind is witty. His improvisation on “Bolivar Blues” sounded like a child hitting one key at a time, yet the sequence is brilliant. He was indeed a genius with a sense of humor. Monk’s Dream also displays the fantastic collaboration between Charlie Rouse’s fluidity and Monk’s angularity.

What is there left for musician’s musician Tuan Ngoc to prove? He has a profound influence on the new generation of singers. Like Jay-Z, he is married to one of the hottest chicks in the game. Most important of all, he gets the utter respect from both musicians and listeners from in and out of Viet Nam. As a result, it is not a surprise that he turned toward nostalgia in his liveshow Rieng Mot Goc Troi.

Backed up by a full-size orchestra, Tuan Ngoc performed songs of Trinh Cong Son, Ngo Thuy Mien, Tu Cong Phung, Pham Duy, Doan Chuan and Tu Linh like taking a trip down to memory lane. In “Ngam Ngui,” his voice was gentle but filled with emotion and he knew how to make the lyrics into a personal statement. “Khuc Thuy Du” and “Phoi Pha” were both remorseful and doomed as if he had been through it all in life, and he had the damnedest way of breaking down the lyrics. On the light-swing “Ghen” and sensual-bossa nova “Ao Lua Ha Dong,” he gave a Sinatra-liked, offbeat, cool flavor. Mad props to Hoai Sa, a sufficient jazz pianist, for some savory, delightful touches on the right hand.

His signature “Rieng Mot Goc Troi” remained unmatchable. Despite how many times he had sung it, he still cut to the emotional core of the tune in a way that makes you believe he meant everyone word he delivered. The closeout “Moi Ngay Toi Chon Mot Niem Vui” was a wise choice that left the audience something to take away with.

1960 to 1965 marked the darkest time of Miles Davis’s life. The white police busted his head open. His parents passed away two years apart. His drinking and snoring cocaine increased. His wife left him. Yet on top of all, in his own word, “[T]he music wasn’t happening and that was fucking me up.” But Miles Smiles again when he finds the sound from the young players: pianist Herbie Hancock, tenor Wayne Shorter, bassist Ron Carter, and drummer Tony Williams. When playing with these youngsters, Davis recognizes that, “this was going to be a motherfucker of the group.” This album helped pushed Davis’s career out of the slump period. The group plays together in an endeavor to bring its music to a higher level. For detail readings of each track on Miles Smiles, the last two chapters of Jeremy Yudkin’s Miles Smiles, and the Invention of Post Bop are highly recommended. Yudkin’s meticulous explanations show what goes on in the studio during the recording sessions.

Ngo Thanh Van’s studio-generated voice still sounds like a machine on her latest record. Studio ’68 is an album that you listen to once with your finger on the skip button and never want to come back again. In every song her vocals get lost in the club production. It sounds as if she accompanies the beat instead of the other way around. Despite not having to sing much, Ngo Thanh Van gives up singing altogether on the ninth track “Tinh Ca.” The album-closer “Vi Anh” is the only slow track on the album and she delivers with such a soulless effort that makes you wonder why she even bothered.

After many empty promises, I finally got to experience Quan Van NoVa live. I didn’t just come alone either. I invited the whole gang, not knowing that my man HML and his crew had already packed the café.

First thing first. I apologize for not only the late arrival, but also the early departure. That’s what happens when you go with a group of people, but at least I got to hear a few unforgettable performances, and Minh Nguyet’s bluesy rendition of Trinh Cong Son’s “Vet Lan Tram” stands out. She started off with a little scat tease and launched into a soul-soothing power with her deep, raucous vocals. The accompaniment responded with her sentiment. HML and the drummer held down the rhythm section while Que Huong sprinkled a few tasty notes around her voice. The result is quite intoxicating for a Sunday afternoon.

One of the negative tradeoffs of drawing quite a crowd is the noise level, which was a bit distracting. Still, Minh and Thanh’s duo guitar was quite savory. On the tango piece, the guitars played together like they were dancing in the air. And the one that impressed me the most is the young Jennifer whose sings her heart out on Trinh Cong Son’s “Cat Bui Tinh Xa.” Despite her nervousness and inexperience (lacks of control), she sounded cute.

I got a chance to talk briefly to anh Tin who wowed me with his interpretation of “Ky Niem” and he told me he would perform another Pham Duy’s tune, but I didn’t stay long enough to hear it. My bad!

Sure, Y Lan’s one those mamas who refuses to grow up, but she could sing like a soul-wrecked woman if she wants to. Her new record, Dung Lay Toi Nhe Cuoc Doi, proves that the ageless songbird can still bring the pain and pathos to Pham Duy’s classic tunes.

Y Lan, believe it or not, sounds much more natural when she chucks out the girlishness in her delivery. “Quan Ben Duong” is a perfect proof. She floats her naked emotion over the breathtaking semiclassical orchestration while recites each word as if she had lived it. “Chieu Ve Tren Song” is the other excellent piece in which she bares her heart and soars her soul on the hypnotic arrangement. Her tone remains flawlessly beautiful on high notes and she rides the orchestra in such effortless elegance, particularly against the intoxicating bass lines on “Mo Khuc.”

Although the last two tracks—ballroom-tango “Pho Buon” and joyful-folks “Ba Me Que”—break the dark, lustful mood, Y Lan has delivered her best album up to date with the support of the economical-yet-magical producer Dong Son. What a great way to start the new year.

In searching for his new sound, Miles Davis partnered up with Gil Evans, the master of mood arrangement who put the renowned trumpeter miles, miles and Miles Ahead of the jazz scene in the late 1950s. Porgy and Bess and Sketches of Spain also marked the redefining sound of Davis and Evans. Davis’s trumpet solos lead the ensemble, instead of just riding the wave. With the support of Evan’s colorful, mournful and lustful orchestration, Davis’s soul-baring melodic lines take listeners into the epics of fantasies that are filled with exotic tones, colors and textures.