Greatest Hits
The bio for Marvin Pontiac says it all--he was born "the son of an African father from Mali and a white Jewish mother from New Rochelle, New York." But you can't accept the background of this fictitious globetrotter at face value; Pontiac is really just a front for jazzmanJohn Lurie's latest alter ego. Like Lurie, Pontiac is indebted to everything musical under the sun. The blues, jazz, funk, rock, and juju music collide on the quirkyGreatest Hits, with lyrics straddling the netherworld somewhere betweenLeonard CohenandMelvin Van Peebles. "Small Car" and "Pancakes" are mind-blowing world-beat pastiches, in which Lurie's spoken absurdities become mesmerizing trances; other tunes hark to the blues ("I'm a Doggy") and funk ("Arms and Legs"). It all somehow flows together into one memorable disc. Let's just hope a Pontiac obscurities album comes next.--Jason Verlinde