THE GIG

Men of Mystery

Loren Stillman and Bad Touch

Le Poisson Rouge, Sept. 28

Flies in a Bottle

At some point, certain jazz folk may have stopped paying close attention to Medeski Martin & Wood. They’re doing fine, in case you were wondering. After coming to the end of their Blue Note Records affiliation five years ago, they went indie full-time, establishing Indirecto Records and doubling down on their bet that there will never be a bear market for instrumental grooves.

Beyond Revolutions

Critics’ Choice: New CDs

Miranda Lambert, “Revolution”

In today’s paper: the album review above plus my take on Ornette Coleman at the Rose Theater. (Some readers of The Gig will probably skip right to the latter, but let me say right now that Miranda Lambert is serious business. Ignore her at your peril.) For the concert review and set list, skip to the post below. Meanwhile, a few additional thoughts.

Following the Sound

Ornette Coleman 

Frederick P. Rose Hall, Sept. 26

Set List:

Following the Sound

Sleep Talking

Blues Connotation

9-11

The Sphinx

In All Languages

Taking the Cure

Peace

Out of Order

Bach

City Living

Turn Around

Dancing in Your Head

Song World

Song X

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Lonely Woman

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Jordan

Random Acts

Playlist, Sept. 27

Ahleuchatistas, Karen O, Bill Frisell, Kornstad, David Sylvian

Configuring Coltrane

Coltrane Revisited

Birdland, Sept. 23

Jazz Listings

Sept. 25-Oct. 1

Exotica: It Takes a Village

Continuing my commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Statehood, here’s a new YouTube find (new to me, anyway) featuring pianist-bandleader Martin Denny on the long-running local program Hawaii Calls. This apparently dates to 1956, a few years before entry to the Union, which partly accounts for the perfumed air. Note how host Webley Edwards hails Denny as “a man who’s both modern and native in his approach to music,” before the band sidles into “Quiet Village,” the definitive anthem of exotica. The camera trains first on the musicians, with their tropical birdcalls, before a languid (and staged) montage that’s part National Geographic, part South Pacific.

Exotica was by definition a mongrel genre, hovering not only between “modern” and “native” but also between the West and the Orient, between honor and exploitation, between shrewdness and kitsch. (I might add art and commerce, but the scales were pretty far tipped, in that case, all along.) Because it was an instrumental pop music during the era when jazz was pop, there’s quite a bit of overlap in terms of style and repertoire. Musicians like Denny came from a similar school of thought as George Shearing, though their arranging strategies actually fell more in line, at the end of the day, with Sun Ra.

Forward Forays

New Languages / Clean Feed Fest

Avram Fefer, Ben Gerstein 

Critics’ Choice: New CDs

Sachal Vasandani, “We Move”

Absence & Noise

MadLove, AlasNoAxis

Southpaw, Sept. 16

Notes From Underground

Jazz Listings

Sept. 18-24