Various artists
More Top Picks Best Japanese Whiskey Glasses
The Sweetest Punch: The New Songs of Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach Arranged by Bill Frisell (Decca/Universal)
Burt Bacharach
The Instrumental Side (Varese Sarabande)
At best, Burt Bacharach’s songs are upbeat pop classics with the perfect hint of melancholy, which in the hands of Dionne Warwick or even B.J. Thomas sound great in any radio era. At worst, they’re elevator music — and not the groovy kind of spaced-out easy-listening revivalists have come to revere. These CDs, both displaying the gray-haired “Austin Powers” lounge lizard’s name though he had nothing to do with the performances, represent both extremes. Arranged just as Bacharach and rock singer Elvis Costello were finishing “Painted From Memory” (1998), jazz guitarist Bill Frisell offers a revealing alternate vision. On the opening “The Sweetest Punch” and the closing “God Give Me Strength,” the horns sound thrilled just to wrap around Bacharach’s beautiful new melodies — although, as with “Painted From Memory,” Frisell’s arrangements occasionally become so polite they fail to ignite any soul or passion. But even the most lifeless parts of “The Sweetest Punch” are punk rock compared to “The Instrumental Side.” Despite psychedelic-rock touches, like sitar on “My Little Red Book,” Grant Geissman’s arrangements of Bacharach’s most familiar melodies are straight from the Mantovani manual. Even in his angry young man incarnation, Costello couldn’t have dragged life out of this overwrought “What’s New, Pussycat.”