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Uptown, Downtown, All Around the Town
Uptown and Downtown are about to merge. Back in the old days, say, from the mid ‘70s through the late ‘90s, the New York jazz world was engulfed in a Culture War. The scrimmage line was around Houston Street, and the combatants rarely crossed it, except maybe when the Downtowners played some club in the East Village, in which case they rarely strayed west of 2nd Avenue. Uptown, personified by Wynton Marsalis, his brand of neo-classical jazz, and institutionalized, toward the end of the period, in the founding of Jazz @ Lincoln Center—vs. Downtown, revolving around a disparate crew of avant-gardists who grew out of the “loft scene,” led (to the extent that rebels can be led) by John Zorn and headquartered at clubs like The Knitting Factory and Tonic. On the night of Feb. 3, 2001, Marsalis crossed the divide to come play at The Knit, which was in the throes of financial crisis. This was seen as an Event, something like Sadat speaking at the Knesset, though it was suffused with noblesse oblige, the rich uncle deigning to help out, and hang with, the bedraggled beatnik nephew. The currents began to shift four years later, on March 9, 2005, when Dave Douglas—the quintessential downtown trumpeter, and sideman in Zorn’s Masada—opened for Marsalis’ sextet at J@LC’s Rose Theater. The tidal wave came exactly two years later, when Masada itself played a double bill, to a packed (and unusually rakish) crowd, with the ultimate bad boy, Cecil Taylor. And now we stand on the edge of what could be a 1989 moment for modern jazz—the year when the Berlin Wall fell and the East-West divide of Europe was mended. The Gorbachev figure of this shift is George Wein, now 84 and the leading impresario of the jazz establishment for 60 years: the founder of the Newport Jazz Festival, which later evolved into the Kool Jazz Festival, the JVC Jazz Festival, and now—debuting this June—the Carefusion Jazz Festival, which seems to be a different creature entirely. Wein recently told the New York Times’ Ben Ratliff that he’d been spending time roaming the clubs of downtown—even crossing the bridge into Brooklyn (“another world,” he said of the borough, as if he were describing a trip to the jungles of South America)—and that he’d come away realizing that music has changed and, as he put it, “I’ve got to change my way of listening.” The Carefusion festival (named after its sponsor, a health-care company) will include the usual array of big-ticket stars at big halls, among them Herbie Hancock (celebrating his 70th birthday), McCoy Tyner, and Keith Jarrett’s Standards Trio. But Wein is also booking Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society, his adventurous 18-piece "steam-punk" big band, to play Dizzy’s Coca-Cola Club at Jazz @ Lincoln Center; some habitues of the Jazz Gallery to play Symphony Space; and Revive da Live, a large jazz/hip-hop ensemble featuring rapper Talib Kweli (at a place yet unannounced), as well as a quartet called Other People Do the Killing, which Wein heard at the Zebulon club in Brooklyn's Williamsburg section; among a few dozen others. For many years now, globalization and the Internet have allowed for syntheses of western music with rhythms and harmonies from the farthest corners of the globe. Now maybe Uptown and Downtown will be fused in New York City, too.
Audiophile LPs: Fresh Blood Needed
Consider this a wish list from someone who loves owning classic jazz albums reissued on clean, thick slabs of virgin vinyl, preferably cut at 45 rpm—but who’s weary of seeing the same titles pop up over and over again with each slightly new format (180g, 200g, single-sided 45, clarity, etc.). I understand the impulse: certain labels and titles have a mystique (e.g., Blue Note and Blue Train); they’re surefire winners; it’s an uncertain business, so go with the sure thing. But there are other titles, by equally big-name artists, on the same vaunted labels, that somehow get passed over every round. In some cases, these albums that I have in mind are better, and better-sounding, than the ones that get re-re-re-mastered. I’d like to include newer musicians and newer music on this list, but people in the business tell me that customers just don’t buy LP reissues of fairly new jazz. I don’t know if that’s true; I suspect, given that this is a boutique business to begin with, that the fans could be found. But I’ll stipulate that it’s true for purposes of this wish list—and here it is: Artists House LPs. In the 1970s, John Snyder produced a lot of terrific albums on his short-lived Artists House label. The sound was very good, often superb. In the ‘90s, Verve licensed a few of the titles for CD, but the sound was lousy. Assuming the original tapes are still around, someone like Classic, Acoustic Sounds, or Speakers Corner should have a go. My favorite of the bunch: Soapsuds, Soapsuds, a wonderful, melodic, even lyrical duet album by Ornette Coleman (on tenor sax, as opposed to his usual alto) and Charlie Haden on bass. Masterpieces by Ellington. This is Duke Ellington’s first LP, made in 1950, but except for the mono, you’d think it was a modern audiophile reference recording. (I say this on the basis of a $10 DSD-mastered CD put out by Columbia/Legacy a few years ago.) And these are some of the Duke’s grandest arrangements ever. It’s a jaw-dropper. (Some audiophile houses have reissued other early Ellingtons, but this is the one.) While we’re at it, let’s have a good vinyl reissue of his 1957 Shakespeare tribute on Columbia, Such Sweet Thunder and his 1967 proto-“world music" fling on RCA, The Far East Suite. Other Blue Notes. For all the Blue Note reissues out there, it’s curious that these have been passed over: Wayne Shorter, Speak No Evil; Jackie McLean, Let Freedom Ring; Eric Dolphy, Out to Lunch; Andrew Hill, Point of Departure. Japanese Direct-to-Disk LPs. In the ‘70s and ‘80s, several Japanese labels produced direct-to-disc albums, most notably Sony, and most notably there, Herbie Hancock’s solo The Piano. A few years ago, Sony put out a CD of this album, with alternate takes, mastered from the back-up tapes. (The sound was so-so.) But Sony engineer Mark Wilder told me at the time that the master lacquers still exist in Tokyo. Somebody, go get them, and press some D-to-D albums all over again! Another eye-popper was Lew Tabakin’s Trackin’, a 45 rpm, direct-to-disc on Japanese JVC/RCA. Other M.I.A.s. Frank Sinatra & Count Basie, Sinatra-Basie (Reprise) (the rendition of “I Won’t Dance” is worth the price of admission); Lee Konitz, Motion (Verve); Art Pepper, Today (Galaxy); Chico Freeman, The Outside Within (India Navigation). And how about some Mapleshade titles, for instance, its long-time decent-seller, Clifford Jordan, Live at Ethel’s. Readers: Any other suggestions? Audiophile reissue houses: Any takers?
Dylan in the White House
It’s been nearly a week since PBS’ broadcast of the White House concert of music from the civil-rights era, and its sounds and images keep popping up in my brain. The Blind Boys of Alabama (now old but still feisty men) singing “Free At Last,” the Freedom Singers testifying “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me ’Round,” Natalie Cole putting a surprisingly spirited cover on “What’s Goin’ On,” the very sight—shivering, for someone like me who remembers those times—of watching these people singing these songs a few hundred yards from where some of them sang in protest not quite a half-century ago, now inside the White House, as the official painting of George Washington looked on. But the highlight, by far, was Bob Dylan, croaking out “The Times They Are A-Changin’” in stately waltz time, on acoustic guitar, backed only by piano and bass. Yes, his voice is shot, but he knows how to turn its limits into glory, and he sang his lyrics with ringing clarity (no mumbling at this White House). A lot of those lyrics are as true as they were in 1962. Were some in that audience shivering when he sang “Come, writers and critics / who prophesize with your pen / Keep your eyes wide / The chance won’t come again” or, still more, “Come, senators and congressmen / Please heed the call / Don’t block at the doorway / Don’t block up the hall”? And when he followed that with warnings that “the battle outside” will “soon shake your windows / and rattle your walls,” did they feel the vibrations?
Watch the footage: He seems like a prophet on the mount. Certainly he’s the poet of our age. And, in that sense, I’ve never heard him sing any better. External Link :: Blog Entry :: Comments (12)
Ted Nash's Portrait in Seven Shades
Many composers, jazz and otherwise, have tried to write pieces inspired by famous artworks, but Ted Nash is one of the few who pulls it off. His new album with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, Portrait in Seven Shades, lays out musical equivalents of paintings by Monet, Dali, Matisse, Picasso, Van Gogh, Chagall, and Pollock—a conventional lot (MoMA 101, you might call it), but that makes his task more challenging because most people know these paintings, they know how they feel when they look at them, so they’ll know very quickly how Nash stacks up. It’s good to see Nash fronting the LCJO, Wynton Marsalis’ thriving big band. He’s one of its most versatile players and composers, coming up through not just Wynton’s posse but also the more adventurous Jazz Composers Collective led by Ben Allison and Frank Kimbrough. Nash’s 2002 album Sidewalk Meetings, one of the decade’s best, displayed an Ellingtonian knack for lush colors and narrative drive. Portrait in Seven Shades shows those talents haven’t dimmed. On “Monet,” he stacks airy winds on top of trombones, accents the mix with trumpets and his own flitting flute—and, yes, those shimmering Water Lilies come to mind (though so do Ravel and Debussy). For Dali’s “The Persistence of Memory” (the one with the drooping clock), he sets just slightly dissonant lines in a quirky 13/8 time—which on paper may seem a bit reductionist (weird clock, weird time), but hey, it works! I was skeptical when I read, in his liner notes for “Picasso,” that he wrote harmonies in 4ths to evoke a Cubist style, but that works, too. “Pollock” could be a mess (splatter some random chords on the keyboard, and call it “Number One, 1950”), but it’s subtler than you might imagine: yes, there’s splattered chords, but they’re aligned with a jaunty rhythm that suits the brushstrokes not only on Pollock’s vast abstract canvases but on his earlier symbolist works too. Only “Chagall” falls short: klezmer rhythms and an accordion are a good starting point, but Nash doesn’t develop the theme. (Then again, a lot of Chagall didn’t develop either, but that’s another story.) A few weeks ago, at Lincoln Center’s new Atrium, I heard Nash and a quartet play scaled-down versions of some of these pieces. The concert was lively, inventive, even a bit startling. On Feb. 4-6, he’ll play the whole suite with the full LCJO at Jazz@ Lincoln Center’s acoustically splendid Rose Theater. External Link :: Blog Entry :: Comments (0)
The Jazz Loft Radio Project
The Jazz Loft Project is one of the most fascinating documents of multiple obsession—an obsession about an obsessive’s obsession—and it’s worth checking out in multiple media. From 1957-65, W. Eugene Smith, who had been one of America’s most successful photojournalists, retreated to a 4th-floor walk-up on 6th Avenue and 28th Street in Manhattan and took pictures from his window—over 1,000 rolls worth—of life’s spontaneous carnival out on the street. Next door, the composer Hall Overton was running a late-night rehearsal studio for jazz musicians. Smith started photographing them, too. He also wired the whole building for sound, set up several tape machines, and recorded the jam sessions, as well as conversations and even the occasional news and cultural program on TV and radio. Sam Stephenson became obsessed with Smith over a decade ago, received grant money to restore the tapes—which had long been stored at the University of Arizona’s Center for Creative Photography—and assembled a smattering of transcripts and photos into a wonderful book, published late last year, called The Jazz Loft Project (Knopf). Along the way, Sara Fishko, an inspired radio journalist, met Stephenson, caught the fever, and embarked on a five-year project of her own. The result is a 10-part series, lasting four hours, that covers Smith, Overton, the various musicians who dropped by (most notably Thelonious Monk, who used the loft to rehearse his big band for his landmark 1959 Town Hall concert), and the whole subterranean scene, a hidden chapter of American socio-cultural history, now discovered like some long-lost archaeological treasure. It is completely captivating. Fishko’s series will be spread out in four parts on WNYC-FM, one each Monday in February, at 10 pm. You can listen to the whole thing, any time, on the station’s website. External Link :: Blog Entry :: Comments (3)
Darcy James Argue's Secret Society
Toward the end of 2009, I read a lot about Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society, an 18-piece big band, and its debut CD, Infernal Machines, which was showing up on several best-of-the-year lists. But I never received a copy of the album and couldn’t figure out how to contact the label, New Amsterdam. Finally, I bought a copy from Downtown Music, a terrific alt-jazz record store in Manhattan, and, it turns out, the excitement is justified. Argue hails from Vancouver, has a background in chamber music, studied jazz composition with Bob Brookmeyer and Maria Schneider, and started what he calls his “steampunk big band” in 2005. Some of the tunes on Argue’s album are fusions of those influences: Schneider’s rolling lyricism stacked on Brookmeyer’s dark, bass-heavy rhythms. But there are other traces: Dave Douglas’ melancholic minor intervals; Gil Evans’ propulsive electric phase; the indigo dissonances of Julius Hemphill’s short-lived big band; even some of the march-band oom-pa-pa of Sousa—sometimes alternately, sometimes all shmooshed together, boisterous but always tight, never messy. All of which is to say that Darcy James Argue has got an original sound. He has a special knack for crisscross lines and interweaving rhythms, employing the big band not so much for a big sound or for call-and-response refrains, but rather for the timbres and textures that the different sections of a big band can stir into the mix. Sometimes his pieces run on a bit, as if he doesn’t quite know where to take a gem once it’s cut. Still, this is a composer—and a band—to get to know and follow closely. External Link :: Blog Entry :: Comments (1)
Fly at the Jazz Standard
I caught Fly—the trio consisting of Mark Turner on tenor and soprano saxophones, Larry Grenadier on bass, and Jeff Ballard on drums—at the Jazz Standard Thursday night. It’s an odd name for a jazz band, but it fits their music to a T: airy, breezy, turning loop-the-loops or just coasting through the clouds, defying gravity, but almost nonchalantly. There is no noticeable center in this trio—the three players form the points of a truly equilateral triangle—yet the machinery holds together, riveting yet seemingly effortless, and it’s a bit of a mystery how. The music is cool but not too casual, low-key but never mellow. Turner blows in a dark, rich tone with supple phrasing, something like Sonny Rollins channeling Lee Konitz. Grenadier and Ballard, longtime staples in pianist Brad Mehldau’s trio, provide ballast while perpetually adjusting to, and driving, Turner’s melodic flow—a tough trick to pull off without a piano or guitar to lay down chords. Fly plays at the Standard through Sunday. Their latest CD, Sky & Country, on the ECM label, was one of the best of 2009.
World Saxophone Quartet + M'Boom
The World Saxophone Quartet and the five-piece percussion group M’Boom play together at Birdland in midtown Manhattan through Sunday. It’s music to make your head sweat and spin. WSQ was the most inventive, exciting jazz band of the ’80s—just four saxophone players (Julius Hemphill and Oliver Lake, alto; David Murray, tenor; Hamiet Bluiett, baritone), sans rhythm section, fusing avant-garde expressiveness and traditional forms with jaw-dropping zest, wit, and beauty. M’Boom was created by drummer Max Roach in 1970 as a way to explore the untapped possibilities—not just rhythmic but melodic and harmonic—of percussion instruments: congas, marimbas, vibes, drumkits, bongos, bells, all sorts. The two bands joined forces once before, in 1981, to great acclaim. (I missed that concert, alas.) WSQ still has the same players, except for Hemphill, its main composer and harmonic genius, who left at the end of that decade and died a few years later; a string of saxmen have sat in since, but the current successor, James Carter, is by far the most virtuosic. M’Boom has changed shape several times over the years. Its lineup this week is stunning: Warren Smith, Ray Mantilla, Eli Fountain, Steve Berrios, and, on vibes, Joe Chambers. Birdland’s stage may be a bit too small for all the rumblings. Certainly there were times, in Wednesday night’s earcly set, when the horns’ mikes could have used some boosting and Carter could have stood a bit closer to his. This didn’t matter much when he held his soprano horizontal and blew lovely ballads, but some of his fast fingerwork was blurred when he blazed through an up-beat number on alto. Still, this is minor complaint. Overall, everything meshed dazzlingly. If you can’t make it to Birdland this week, listen to some albums. Many of the WSQ’s classics (Revue, Steppin’, W.S.Q., from the late ’70s and early '80s on Black Saint) are out of print and hard to find; but one of my favorites, World Saxophone Quartet Plays Ellington (1982, on Elektra/Nonesuch), is still available. Murray has led well over 100 albums (Morning Song, Home, Ballads for Bass Clarinet, Shakill’s Warrior II, The Hill, to name a handful). Bluiett is in best sound on his ’90s CDs from Mapleshade, especially Young Warrior, Old Warrior, If Trees Could Speak, and Bluiett’s Barbeque Band. Carter’s best are Chasin’ the Gypsy, Jurassic Classics, and The Real Quietstorm.
Fred Hersch, Drew Gress, Paul Motian
Pianist Fred Hersch plays at the Village Vanguard this week, joined by bassist Drew Gress and drummer Paul Motian. I was at last night’s early set, and it was one of the most bracing I’ve seen in a long while. I’ve dropped my jaw enough times in this space about Motian’s magicianship. Many drummers accent the beat by playing around it, but Motian—who’s nearly 79 and more agile than ever—stretches and squeezes time a half-dozen ways in every 8-bar phrase, always startling but never out of place, like nobody since Tony Williams. Gress, a regular in Hersch’s early bands who hangs more in avant-garde circles now, hovered close to the songs’ lines, but he flitted from one line to another—melodic, harmonic, or a cruising bass walk—with inventive ease and a nice, fat tone. But it was Hersch who raised eyebrows and sparked delight, infusing whatever he played—standards, blues, bossas, original compositions, or Monk tunes—with a wizard’s imagination and a lyrical intensity. The trio plays through Sunday. If you can’t make it, pick up his latest solo CD, Fred Hersch Plays Jobim (on the Sunnyside label), in which he covers the Brazilian classics with dynamic subtlety, great verve, romantic flourish, and not a trace of sentimentalism. External Link :: Blog Entry :: Comments (2)
The Blues and the Abstract Truth at 45
With Analogue Productions’ new 45 rpm vinyl pressing of Oliver Nelson’s The Blue and the Abstract Truth, we finally have a reissue of this great album that’s worth buying. It was recorded in 1961 by Rudy Van Gelder, for the Impulse! label, and featured a stellar cast of players: Nelson, alto sax; Freddie Hubbard, trumpet; Eric Dolphy, reeds and flute; Bill Evans, piano; Paul Chambers, bass; and Roy Haynes, drums. The highlight is the first track, “Stolen Moments,” as thrillingly cool as Miles Davis’ “So What” (the starter to Kind of Blue, released two years earlier) and similar in feeling: a slow blues theme blown in unison by the band, followed by each player carving elegant variations in solo—Dolphy’s and Hubbard’s in a fleet simmer, Nelson’s almost noble in its simplicity. A few “audiophile” reissues have come out over the years, in vinyl and aluminum, but this is the first that comes close to the wondrous sonics of the original black-and-orange pressing. The bass isn’t quite as woody, the cymbals not quite as shimmering, the horns not quite as 3D—but, again, it comes very close. If you can find the original for under $50, congratulations. (I paid $40 for mine 25 years ago.) If you can’t, get this, without regrets. External Link :: Blog Entry :: Comments (1)
Charlie Parker's "White Christmas"
I’m a little late with this, but if you’re still in holiday spirits, can’t stand to hear Paul McCartney’s ditty or Mel Torme’s jingle one more time, and cringe, thoroughly bummed out, at Bob Dylan’s piss-brew of raspy cheer, take a listen to Charlie Parker’s take of “White Christmas.” He played it spontaneously, at a customer’s request, on Christmas Day, 1948, at the Royal Roost in New York City—with Kenny Dorham on trumpet, Max Roach on drums, Al Haig on piano, Tommy Porter on bass—and it is nothing short of astonishing. The band lays out the melody in the hippest syncopation you can imagine. Bird comes in with his solo, as cool, speedy, exhilarating, smooth, and witty as anything he ever did. It’s four minutes of sheer delight. It’s on a wonderful 4-CD boxed set, from Savoy Jazz, called The Complete Live Performances on Savoy, but you can also hear it by clicking the External Link below. A merry wiggy Christmas! External Link :: Blog Entry :: Comments (1)
The Jazz Book of the Year
The jazz book of the year is called, simply,Jazz. Written by Gary Giddins, the best living jazz critic, and Scott DeVeaux, one of the most astute jazz historians, it’s a vital reference for those well versed in the subject and an essential guide for those who get lost in its thickets and want to know how to listen to the music so that it at least makes sense. There are plenty of jazz encyclopedias and histories out there. What’s distinctive about this book is that it takes you through the century’s sweep of jazz—its soloists, singers, and sidemen, its innovators and embellishers, its evolution and movements—in a manner that lets you hear the music in the same way the musicians do. It’s nearly 700 pages, it’s structured like a textbook, and the first chapter is a glossary of musical terminology. But don’t let any of that throw you. This is a brisk read with a colorful cast of characters and a propulsive narrative drive. Giddins and DeVeaux explain clearly how one musician’s style led to another musician’s style; how that intersected with key transitions in American political, racial, and economic history to produce a new kind of music still; how this union fused with other musical developments; and where the next generation took things next. Scattered throughout the book are 78 “listening guides”—second-by-second descriptions of seminal jazz recordings, from Louis Armstrong’s “West End Blues” to Jason Moran’s “Planet Rock” and 75 years of music-making in between—which, as the authors put it, really do “provide a musician’s-eye view of what happens on the bandstand” and “enable the listener to participate more knowingly in the now of jazz creativity.” One caveat: For these listening guides to make any sense, you need to be listening to the music while reading them; and if you don’t have all (or most) of the records, you’ll have to buy the companion 4-CD The Norton Jazz Recordings (Norton being the book’s publisher), available separately. (They form a terrific compilation anyway, with good sound, in some cases remastered from the original CD issues. So, $40 for the book, $60 for the CDs—pretty soon, you’re talking real money. But you’ll learn more than you would from just about any college-level course on jazz studies, which would cost a lot more. I learned quite a lot myself, and I didn’t have to take midterms. One criticism: A list of "selected musicians" in the back of the book is guilty of several grievous omissions, especially among contemporary jazz players (eg, bassist Ben Allison, pianist Frank Kimbrough, and drummer Matt Wilson, three true masters of their instruments). I should also note that I've known Giddins for about 20 years, but he was a big influence on me before he was a friend. If you feel like dismissing my endorsement as a conflict of interest, your loss. (I've never met DeVeaux.) External Link :: Blog Entry :: Comments (3)
Best Jazz of the Year (and the Decade)
My annual piece on the Best Jazz Albums of the Year appears in today’s edition of Slate (for which I write a regular column, though usually on foreign and military policy). This time, I also drew up two lists of the Best Jazz Albums of the Decade—one for new recordings, the other for previously unreleased historical recordings (treasure troves of which were excavated this past 10 years). Readers of this blog may recall reading about most of these albums in this space. In the Slate piece (see the External Link below), I included 30-second sound clips for each of the best albums of 2009. For the list here, I will place two asterisks (**) next to those recordings with excellent sound quality, one asterisk (*) next to those with quite good sonics. BEST JAZZ ALBUMS OF 2009
BEST NEW JAZZ ALBUMS OF 2000-09
BEST PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED HISTORIC ALBUMS OF 2000-09
External Link :: Blog Entry :: Comments (5)
Miles of Miles and Ella
I’ve published two music articles elsewhere in the past couple weeks. One is an article for the Arts & Leisure section of this past Sunday’s New York Times, about a new and startling 4-CD boxed set of previously unreleased Ella Fitzgerald sets, recorded in an L.A. nightclub in 1961 and ’62 (i.e., her peak years), called Twelve Nights in Hollywood (Verve). The other is a brief review for New York Magazine of an eyebrow-raising 70-CD Miles Davis boxed set called The Complete Columbia Album Collection. That’s 52 albums, plus a previously unissued DVD of the 1967 quintet playing two concerts in Europe. But one thing I didn’t much mention in either article was the question you might be asking right now: How’s the sound quality? The Ella sets—which, by the way, are some of the best Ella Fitzgerald ever recorded (!)—sound quite nice indeed. (They were produced by Norman Granz and engineered by Val Valentin.) In the pantheon of Ella, they’re not up to the sonic standards of her best studio albums, but they’re among her best-sounding live dates, similar in caliber to Ella in Rome (from 1958 concert tapes, which were discovered 30 years later); they’re far superior to Live at Mr. Kelly’s (a ’58 date excavated from the archives just two years ago), which, remarkably, is the only other recording of Ella singing in a small club. This boxed set is the best recording of the year. Get it. The Miles box (put out by Sony/Legacy) is more complicated. They all sound quite good, as most of Miles’ Columbia recordings did. (Yes, the original pressings of the mid-to-late ‘60s LPs were less than stellar, but, as we found out much later, with the Mosaic reissues, that was because of the era’s vinyl—or dreadful EQ on the production tapes—not because of the master tapes.) These are, with few exceptions, the best-sounding CDs of these albums out there, taken from the most recent remasterings. (Of course, the LP reissues by Classic Records are far superior. I should add that the box includes only Miles’ Columbia albums, not those for Blue Note, Prestige, or Warner Bros.) Sony/Legacy’s P.R. department informs me that the following discs in the box were taken from DSD masters: Directions, Quiet Nights, We Want Miles, Star People, Decoy, and Aura. The following came from Japanese masters: Circle in the Round, Miles in Tokyo, At Filmore 1970, On the Corner, Get Up with It, Pangaea, The Man with the Horn, E.S.P., Filles de Kilimanjaro, Black Beauty, You’re Under Arrest, and Agharta. I can’t claim to have done comprehensive A/Bs, but for the random selection of 10 or so that I did compare, the discs in the box sound at least as good as the single discs that have been out in the market for a while, except for Aura, which, for some reason, lacks some of the original CD’s depth and dynamics. The box is available only from amazon.com for under $300, or about $5 per disc: not bad. One thing I’ve just learned while writing this: Some customers have complained to amazon that the boxes have been crushed in the mail and that some of the discs have specks of glue from their thin cardboard sleeves. As a result, Sony/Legacy is in the midst of a recall and will soon put out sturdier boxes and re-glued folders. I should say that my box came in fine shape and that, while a few discs had a speck of glue, my (constantly bitten) fingernails removed it with no problem—and no sonic detriment. External Link :: Blog Entry :: Comments (8)
Maria Schneider at the Jazz Standard, '09
Maria Schneider’s early set last night at the Jazz Standard—part of her 17-piece Jazz Orchestra’s traditional Thanksgiving-week run—reaffirmed and advanced her position as the preeminent big-band composer of our era. The time has long passed when she could adequately be pegged as an acolyte of Gil Evans. Though she did come up the ranks as his assistant, and still draws on his stacked, lush harmonies, her sound is distinctly her own. The melodic lines are now more propulsive, the rhythms more varied, the dynamics both brasher and suppler than anything her mentor devised. Much of the set consisted of a suite from her 1996 album Coming About (which she reissued, in much improved remastered form, last year), opened and capped by a new composition, as yet unnamed. The new piece was gorgeous: airy, weighty, and cinematically evocative. And it jelled seamlessly with the older suite, which sounded much tighter and more passionate than I’ve heard it before. One reason is that her band has also blossomed. More than half of its members have played with her for over 15 years. During that time, they’ve each developed their own sounds (many are leaders of their own fine groups) and figured out new ways to integrate them with hers. All the solos last night were masterful—sweeping exuberant, and expressive—though I’d single out those by pianist Frank Kimbrough, trumpeter Ingrid Jensen, saxophonists Donny McCaslin and Rich Perry, and guitarist Ben Monder. They’re playing through Sunday (with Thanksgiving Day off). If you’re in the New York City area and can wrangle a ticket, go. If not, go to her website and buy some albums. (Her most recent, Sky Blue, is her best.) She also cares deeply about good, balanced sound, both live and on record, and her albums reflect that. External Link :: Blog Entry :: Comments (1)
Steve Davis Quintet, Live at Smalls
Smalls is, well, a small jazz club in New York City’s West Village and, while far from the most comfortable establishment in town, it’s certainly among the most authentic and dedicated. The cover is cheap, the audience is youthful (two facts that are probably related), the musicians are usually the best up-and-coming players, and established masters sit in now and then too. (Last week, Albert “Tootie” Heath played drums with the Bad Plus pianist Ethan Iverson.) Smalls’ owner, Spike Wilner, has started a new CD label, called Smalls Live, featuring (as might be guessed) sessions recorded live at the club. Six discs are out at the moment, they’re all called Live at Smalls, and the best I’ve heard—one of the most satisfying jazz albums of the year generally—is by the Steve Davis quintet with Larry Willis. Davis is one of the richest-sounding trombonists around: warm in tone, fleet-footed in rhythm. Willis is a veteran pianist who made his first album on the Blue Note label in the mid-‘60s and, over the decades since, has developed and polished a burnished sound, part clanging block chords (a la McCoy Tyner), part swaying gospel, part romantic soul. The album—which includes such standards as “Surrey with the Fringe on Top,” “Nature Boy,” and Strayhorn’s “Daydream”—has the feel of a very good old Blue Note album by Art Blakey or Jackie McLean: no coincidence, as Davis played in latter-day versions of both men’s bands. The band—which also includes Mike Dirubbo on bass, Gerald Cannon, and Willie Jones III on drums—is buoyant, piercing, in a groove, and full of verve. The label’s engineers, Glen Forrest and Ian Hendrickson-Smith, use ribbon mikes and soften the multi-track digital with analog mixing. They’re not 2-channel minimalists like Luke Kaven, proprietor-engineer of the Smalls Jazz label (which is not the same thing), and their sonics are a bit thin by comparison. (Kaven’s discs are audiophile-quality.) Still the sound is lively, dynamic, nicely balanced and tonally true. External Link :: Blog Entry :: Comments (0)
Nellie McKay does Doris Day
Nellie McKay’s Normal As Blueberry Pie: A Tribute to Doris Day (Verve, CD and LP) is the unlikeliest delight of the year. Who’d have thought that the snarkmistress of Get Away from Me (her 2004 debut double-album, with its “Explicit Lyrics” label, downtown cool, and sharp-wit irony, to say nothing of the title’s savage slash at the then-raging darling, Norah Jones) could produce such gentle covers of hits once sung by the queen of wholesomeness? And yet that’s what this is. Yes, there’s a whimsy to the arrangements (nobody these days could sing the lyrics to “Send Me No Flowers” straight-faced), but there’s no winking or nudging. McKay clearly has a feel, and a love, for these songs and the sensibility they reflect. A few weeks ago, my friend and Stereophile colleague Michael Fremer went to a Jazz At Lincoln Center “listening party,” marking the album’s release, and I think it’s fair to say we were both a bit smitten by her charms. With her wavy blonde hair, broad smile, and polite shyness (whether real or feigned), she seemed a throwback to the ‘30s or ‘40s, a character that Carole Lombard might have played in a screwball comedy. Besides talking about the album, she sang a couple of the tunes live, accompanying herself on a ukulele—such a pure, lovely voice. She clearly has the chops for this sort of music. The album’s mix churns her voice through a weird, though slight processing (which, as she clearly displayed at the party, was entirely unnecessary). Still, her singing is so strong, the effect detracts little, and the engineering otherwise (by the estimable James Farber) is impressive and palpable. (The CD and LP were both mastered from a digital file; the latter sounds better than the former but not by much.) Besides singing, McKay, who’s 27, co-produced the album (with her mother, actress Robin Pappas), arranged all but two of the 13 tracks, and plays eight instruments, usually a few of them (overdubbed, of course) at once. In some ways, the most swaying tunes are those where she plays all the instruments on the track: piano, organ, bells, and tambora on “The Very Thought of You,” and ukulele, bells, and mellotron on “Send Me No Flowers.” Very nice with brandy, or hot chocolate, on a cold winter night. External Link :: Blog Entry :: Comments (2)
Truth + Beauty + Jazz = Herman Leonard
Gracing the 5th floor lobby of Jazz At Lincoln Center for another few months is an exhibition of the great photographer Herman Leonard, whose images of jazz musicians at work deserve the overused term “iconic.” At recording sessions, nightclub gigs, on stage, backstage, between cuts, or in the heat of the moment, Leonard captured the spirit, joy, and intensity of the music and its whole culture more evocatively and empathically than anyone else. His classic work comes from the late 1940s and ‘50s, featuring the likes of Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan. But his later shots are also compelling, especially the chiaroscuro portraits of Miles Davis. Leonard, who is 86 and still very active, has said his aim is “to tell the truth but to tell it in terms of beauty,” and his photographs—which are as collectable as great paintings or other artists’ limited-edition prints—are works of stunning beauty: the warm pool of light against the silky black backdrops, the texture of a jacket, the glow of a horn, the character of these men and women caught spontaneously at the decisive moment. Imagine a letter-day Rembrandt, armed with a camera and a love for jazz, and you have some idea of Herman Leonard. External Link :: Blog Entry :: Comments (5)
John Surman's Brewster's Rooster
John Surman, a saxophonist of jazz, folk, church, and avant-garde influences, has been a longtime denizen in the ECM stable without gaining much renown. When he recently played at a New York club, leading a rhythm section of guitarist John Abercrombie, bassist Drew Gress, and drummer Jack DeJohnette, he acknowledged to the crowd that he was the only player who needed introducing. The same band plays on Surman’s latest CD, Brewster’s Rooster, and it’s the ensemble mix that makes it such a diverting pleasure. On the album’s best tracks, including the opener, “Slanted Sky,” Surman (on soprano sax) and Abercrombie exchange an engaging melody of such wispy moodiness, it almost borders on New Age, except that Gress takes sharp corners in his bass walks, highlighting the slight strands of dissonance while anchoring the beat, and DeJohnette propels things forward with African rhythms in double or triple time. The contrasts fly out at crisscrossing angles, yet they’re gripped and contained by some force of gravity, which stems entirely (and somewhat mysteriously) by the musicians’ mastery at interplay. The only weak tracks are those two or three (out of nine) where Surman plunges into the fray, rather than tracing orbits around it; they’re not bad, just routine. The sound, by Joe Ferla, one of the great jazz recording engineers, is exquisite and palpable. External Link :: Blog Entry :: Comments (0)
Keith Jarrett's Masterful Testament
Keith Jarrett’s Paris/London: Testament (on the ECM label), a three-CD set consisting of two live solo concerts, is a stunning album, a career peak. I’ve seen Jarrett play solo at Carnegie Hall twice in the past few years and my jaw dropped at both. (Both concerts were recorded; one was released as an album in 2006, which I listed as the second-best of that year, topped only by Ornette Coleman’s Sound Grammar.) But those New York dates were nothing compared to what Jarrett ekes from the keyboard here. All of the music is totally improvised, not in the sense of typical jazz improvisations, which take off from a standard song or theme. No, Jarrett sits at the piano and invents something entirely from scratch, extends it for a while, stops, then invents something else entirely from scratch, then does it again, and again, and again. A couple decades ago, Jarrett would spin rhapsodic with these improvisations, for an hour or more. Lately, he’s tightened up, treating them as pieces of a suite. Of the 20 tracks on these three discs, only five last longer (and, even then, they’re just a little bit longer) than 10 minutes. They’re so tight, you’d think they were well-wrought compositions. It must be exhausting to do this. Disc 1, recorded at the Salle Pleyel in Paris on Nov. 26 of last year, is riveting: dense tone clusters, stormy sheets of sound, like something out of late Debussy, but with a knife-sharp blues edge. The fever is so pitched that when he segues into an elegy toward the end of the concert, it feels like some barrier has been broken; the effect is heroic. The concert on Discs 2 and 3, laid down just five days later at the Royal Festival Hall in London, is structured more like the other Jarrett solo concerts I’ve seen, alternating between abstract constructions and stirring ballads. But he’s digging deeper into his melodies, stretching wider in his harmonies, at once anchoring and altering the rhythms with more swing and soul than usual. The middle of the concert, from the start of Disc 3, weighs down a bit, but he bursts free of the repetition with a gospel cadence that’s rollicking in its intensity. It brings down the house. Martin Pearson’s engineering is, as always, superb, capturing the piano’s percussive glow; the bass notes grumble clearly, and the pedal action is palpable. P.S. Yes, Keith hums and moans now and then, and it can be distracting. But if he really needs these eruptions to summon such depths of music, then I'd say the trade-off is worth it. External Link :: Blog Entry :: Comments (5)
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