THE GIG

Programming Note

[Update: Show is archived here] Some critics are natural-born list-makers. I’m not generally one of them. But for some reason it has been easier than usual to track my favorite albums this year. I’m keeping mum about those for now, at least on the jazz tip. On the pop side, I’ll be blabbing this Friday at 2 p.m. on Soundcheck with John Schaefer.

If you can’t tune in, you can stream the show live at the website, or listen to an archive after the fact. The segment will feature some of my Top 10 non-jazz albums of 2009 (thus far). As of this writing, the list is subject to change, though I do suspect that Maxwell, pictured ever so smoothly above, will make the final cut.

My pop focus on the show doesn’t mean that jazz is being slighted. Will Layman, who writes for PopMatters, will offer his picks. I don’t know Layman, but his Top 15 from last year looks pretty tight. 

Related link: Pride: Deadly Medley - Soundcheck, March 27, 2009

(My last visit, part of a series inspired by the Seven Deadly Sins.) 

RIP George Russell

Deadlines have prevented me from commenting on the commenting sparked by last week’s Chamber Music America post, which has been extremely instructive to me. Thanks to everyone who has waded into this discussion -- and please, keep it going, if you have more to say.

I hope to add a few more thoughts soon, but in the meantime it feels appropriate to pay my sincere respects to composer George Russell, who died on Monday night. His example puts this subject in perspective: it’s hard to imagine another jazz musician who sustained a longer or more productive relationship with the academy. We’ll see tributes across the jazz blogosphere; I’ll update this post accordingly. 

More at:

• Stereophile
• The Secret Society 
• NPR's A Blog Supreme
• The Echoes Blog
• Jazzblog.ca
• Lament for a Straight Line 

Grant Me This

 

Chamber Music America announced its latest rollout of commissions today: a dozen separate grants, awarded under the aegis of its New Jazz Works: Commissioning and Ensemble Development program. Among the recipients are John Hollenbeck’s Claudia Quintet, a quartet led by Rudresh Mahanthappa (pictured above), and Mario Pavone’s Double Tenor band. (For a full list, scroll to the bottom of this post.)

Commissions like these have become a fundamental part of the jazz economy. And, I’d add, now a significant factor in jazz’s creative life. Last year I confessed some guarded ambivalence about this fact in a related Gig column, musing about the specific qualities of these “new jazz works” that tend to look good in grant-proposal form.

I know, I know: Gift horse, mouth. It seems churlish, maybe even foolish, to question any institutionalized program that sees fit to distribute funding in the name of creative music. 

Haden and Iverson

Not far into his second set with Ethan Iverson at the Blue Note on Tuesday, Charlie Haden took a moment to recall their first meeting. It was at a 2006 memorial service for the tenor saxophonist Dewey Redman. For his part in the program, Iverson sat at the piano to play “Broken Shadows,” a processional ballad from the 1971 Ornette Coleman album of the same name. (Redman and Haden both took part in that session, indelibly.) Afterward, Haden recalled, he introduced himself to Iverson, who greeted him this way: “I know what you’re going to say. I was playing your chords.”

Song for Sonia

Sotomayor and Obama (not O'Farrill, sorry)

This morning brought news that pianist Arturo O’Farrill has been commissioned to write a piece for judge Sonia Sotomayor, premiering in November. To the best of my knowledge, this will [NOT] be the first time a jazz musician has composed new music inspired by a Supreme Court Justice nominee -- though I suppose Don Byron could have an acerbic “Clarence Thomas Suite” stashed in a drawer somewhere. [Oops. See comments below.]

The selection of O’Farrill for this commission makes all kinds of sense from an institutional perspective. He has experience with arts commissions, and a former affiliation with Jazz at Lincoln Center. His Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra is one of the city’s eminent large ensembles, with resident status at Symphony Space, which is sponsoring the new work in partnership with the Bronx Museum of the Arts.

But unlike, say, Eddie Palmieri, who has also been known to roll out a dynamic big band every now and again, O’Farrill doesn’t share Sotomayor’s Puerto Rican heritage. Born in Mexico, he hails from a different substratum of Latino culture. So while there are in fact jazz musicians forging rigorous new hybrids out of Puerto Rican music -- the best examples are saxophonists Dávid Sanchez and Miguel Zenón -- O’Farrill holds a less literal (i.e., ethno-political) claim on Sotomayor: La Celebración. (Need I point out he’s also not a woman?)

JazzTimes (Phoenix! Ashes!)

      

Excellent news re: JazzTimes! It’s heartening to know that even in this economic climate, a valued publication can find an investor. 

I have no prior familiarity with Madavor Media, which publishes such other titles as New York Golf and Teddy Bear and Friends. (I am neither a golfer nor a collector of plush toys. Not sure which of those divulgences comes are more of a surprise.) Howard Mandel has posted some pertinent comments from company director Joan Lynch. This morning I spoke with JT editors Lee Mergner and Evan Haga, both in good spirits. I’m looking forward to working with them again, soon.

Catching Up with Chembo

 

Wilson “Chembo” Corniel projects a measured ebullience. Hands moving in a blur across his tumbadoras -- i.e., congas, though he prefers the Spanish term -- he maintains a strict posture and only the faintest traces of a smile. It’s clear that he sees his work as serious business, even when his music sounds like the essence of jocularity. 

At Creole Restaurant and Music Supper Club in East Harlem on Friday, he made a few genial attempts at stage humor, along the lines of “The more you drink, the better we sound.” The awkwardness of his patter underscored the composure of his playing. Showmanship may be among the requisites of a Latin-jazz bandleader, but Corniel illustrated just how sharply a performance could speak for itself.

Guitar Hero

(a.k.a. the final forthcoming! column for JazzTimes)

John Scofield was onstage with his Ibanez at the B.B. King Blues Club & Grill, a cavernous basement in Times Square, sounding pithy and resourceful. He parsed his solos into sharply asymmetrical phrases, often smearing or scrunching a note for emphasis. At times he set off an electronic sampler, building a riff in layers. He was working at his usual high level; there was plenty to absorb. So why was I thinking, even for the briefest instant, about a Scofield edition of Guitar Hero?

You’ve heard of Guitar Hero, right? And its arch competitor, Rock Band? If you haven’t, that probably means you have no close family members between the ages of 5 and, let’s say, 25. Or it might mean that said family members are bookish, Amish or otherwise dead serious about their avoidance of modern pop culture. (It happens. At 14, I was way into Harry James.) But the phenomenal success of these home-console video games -- Guitar Hero alone has sold more than 25 million units worldwide -- is changing the music business on virtually every front. So in recent months I’ve often wondered about its implications for jazz. I’ve also caught myself fretting, so to speak, about the potential lack of implications, and what that could portend.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On JazzTimes (Wheeze, Cough)

[Update: See "Phoenix, Ashes"]

      

It has been exactly one month since JazzTimes magazine issued a terse statement acknowledging “temporary suspension” and a staff furlough while management made its pitch to potential investors. The following week, at the Jazz Journalists Association’s annual awards ceremony, it won Periodical of the Year for the 11th consecutive time. (No other publication has ever won.) I accepted the award on behalf of the magazine, reading another terse statement -- this one signed, by editor-in-chief Lee Mergner -- and gamely attempting to defuse some of the palpable tension in the room.

Like many other former JT contributors, I’m still awaiting payment for months’ worth of published material. Howard Mandel, president of the JJA -- and the blogger whose pointed musings at Jazz Beyond Jazz apparently pressured JT management into making its announcement -- has taken up the cause of these outstanding payments. Sadly, similar scenes have played out all across the desiccated print media landscape in 2009. If you follow these things, you know that Blender and VIBE were among the other prominent extinctions in recent months. (I had occasion to write for both.) Then there's Performing Songwriter, and Traps, and... well, you get the picture.

Festivals, Meet Your Sponsors

[Update: More from Ben Ratliff and NY1]

 The news is sure to spread in more polished form once we’re finished gawking at the Jackson memorial, but in the meantime here’s the gist of today’s announcement by George Wein: he has a sponsor not only for this year’s Newport festivals, but also for a series of events that includes New York in June 2010.