THE GIG

True Stories

Critics’ Choice: New CDs

Datarock, “Red”

Attaining Ascent

Marc Ribot’s Sun Ship

Rose Live Music, Aug. 26

Tweet Revenge

So, this conversation still has a little life in it, eh? Others have linked to yesterday’s Soundcheck program, in which Vijay Iyer brought an admirable objectivity to his conversation with Terry Teachout. I appreciated some of what Teachout said, too, though I still take issue with his core conclusions -- among them, the notion that young people shoulder the bulk of responsibility for the declining numbers. Iyer made some good points about demographic trends, including this aphorism: “The problem has been not one of accessibility but one of access.” 

I’m holding fast to my conviction that the poll results are suspect, and should at least be considered as something other than absolute fact. (For more on that, see the comments in a recent post here, notably one by J.D. Considine.) But it’s really no surprise that Teachout, a former member of the National Council on the Arts, would give those results his full endorsement. “Those are real numbers, hard numbers,” he says on WNYC, with what strikes me as a note of defensive credulity. His particular critical perspective also explains his view that jazz’s “high-art” stature has driven an audience decline. As I have argued before, that doesn’t account for what’s really happening among present-day jazz fans, whose interactions with the music largely skirt institutions. 

Blah blah blah, right? OK, here’s what I’m getting at: Howard Mandel, Arts Journal blogger and president of the Jazz Journalists Association, has kicked off a campaign to amass evidence of live-jazz attendance. The medium is Twitter, and the hashmark of choice is #jazzlives. Find more instructions here, on Mandel’s blog, and here, courtesy of Darcy James Argue, who helpfully explains:

The point of all this, of course, is to leverage Twitter's social media juju to draw attention to the live jazz that's happening around us all the time. Even if we take the NEA survey numbers with a grain of salt, it's pretty clear that if you want the kids to come to your shows, you've got to start by reaching them the way they want to be reached.

I have heretofore been a Twitter agnostic, but hmmm...?

When Bad Album Art Attacks

A standout from today’s mailbag -- but, um, not for the best of reasons. Rodney Jones is a sharp and versatile guitarist, equally comfortable with backbeat funk and quantum-level postbop. Some years ago, when I was still permitted to do such things, I wrote liner notes for one of his albums. This cover illustration does him no particular favors, though. I’m trying to decide whether it looks more like something you’d airbrush on the side of your van or something you’d see framed on the wall of a psychic readings parlor.

And it’s too bad, because my cursory exposure to this album -- it’s playing as I type -- suggests smarter and less sentimental associations. The band includes Donald Harrison on alto saxophone, Michael Kanan on piano, Lonnie Plaxico on bass and Carl Allen on drums. They open with “Barney’s Blues,” a respectably gritty shuffle. They play songs by Oliver Nelson, John Coltrane and Thelonious Monk. True, there are some Quiet Storm moments, but they aren’t objectionable. The title track, played on acoustic guitar, has a perfectly fine, simple melody, as these things go. (It releases next month. 18th & Vine has more details.)

But ouch, that cover image. Note to Mr. Jones: I know that matters of the spirit are important in your worldview. “Each time we step out in search of a greater truth,” you write on the front page of your website, “we are transformed by the intention that is awakened within our hearts.” Please, though, take a different graphic tack next time. And no, that doesn’t mean dolphins. Much as I love dolphins.

Downward Spiral

Nine Inch Nails

Webster Hall, Aug. 23

Classic Emergence

 

Critics’ Choice: New CDs

Willie Nelson, Roy Hargrove Big Band

Twin Turbine

Marcus and E.J. Strickland

Joe’s Pub, Aug. 21

Rainbow Warrior

Today marks the 50th anniversary of Statehood -- Hawaii’s official admission to the Union. My father was a senior in high school then (McKinley, for all you locals), and he remembers it fondly. But from our current vantage, commemoration is bittersweet, as even a casual student of Hawaiian culture can attest. Here’s a version of a paper I presented at a recent EMP Pop Conference, which covers some of this ground through the lens of popular music (one song in particular).

This is the lilting solo version of “Over the Rainbow” recorded by Israel Kamakawiwo`ole, the Hawaiian music legend also known as Bruddah Iz. There’s a decent chance that you’ve heard it somewhere. On the soundtrack to a Hollywood star vehicle like Meet Joe Black, Finding Forrester or 50 First Dates, perhaps. Or during a pair of emotionally charged scenes in the NBC series ER and Scrubs. Or in one of untold thousands of earnest YouTube montages. Or during the seventh season of “American Idol,” when it was performed by a popular contender, complete with ukulele.

In any case, the ballad reaches straight for the heartstrings, as it was clearly intended to do.

But Kamakawiwo`ole, the Hawaiian music legend also known as Bruddah IZ, brought some coded context to the song that most listeners don’t begin to recognize. As an outspoken advocate of Hawaiian sovereignty, he knew the deeper shading of a song about longing for another place, where skies are still blue. His “Over the Rainbow” is a hymn of exile as well as longing, rich in metaphorical suggestion. Its impact has reached far and wide, eclipsing its veiled intentions. But those intentions tell us much about the world in which Kamakawiwo`ole lived, and the one that he never lived to see.

 

Work in Progress

WPA (Works Progress Administration)

Joe’s Pub, Aug. 19

Action Jackson

Ali Jackson Quintet

At Jazz Standard, Aug. 18