Backlash to the Backlash

Part Two of a year-end email conversation with David Adler, Chris Barton, Shaun Brady and Jennifer Odell (Jump to: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 )

 From: Chris Barton

Dear Shaun, Jen, David and Nate:

 Greetings and happy year-end to you all -- and we’re off and running, I’ll do my best to keep the torch upright.

First off, thank you for putting that Mtume v. Stanley Crouch face-off in your kick-starter post, Nate. I saw that video make the rounds awhile back, but never made time to watch. For what it’s worth, I had to take a second to make sure this was a new flare-up and not something that had surfaced recently from some roundtable years ago when that argument seemed to peak, like some long-lost outtake from an old album. Needless to say, this argument about Bitches Brew and acoustic music and what makes jazz *jazz* and all that blah blah is still raging somewhere just makes my teeth ache.

But that aside -- and may such border-wars fall quiet in 2011, if that’s possible (is it?) -- I want to follow your lead about two of the pianists you mentioned in Mehldau and Iverson (and I completely agree about this being a great year for pianists -- Aaron Goldberg’s another that turned my head nicely). Being at a paper that adheres to the ‘star system’ with album-rating, I hung a four-out-of-four on Highway Rider, something I’ll stand by even after listening all year. It was the sort of record that once I heard it I wanted to pass around to so many people I knew, and that’s even before seeing what happens with it live next month.

Interestingly, however, in the fractious Internet/social-media/insta-react-o-tron space your mentioned, a backlash hit that album fast, with a vigor that reminded me of the one that fell all over Franzen’s Freedom, another one that earned so much early praise. On one hand that seems to be some branch of human (or at least critic-human) nature, to throw up a ‘hold on a second’ when rave reviews start piling up, but on the other I wonder if Highway Rider took some heat for not sounding like either Largo or how anyone supposed it should have -- as if it was a sort of classical-inclined Bitches Brew, if I may strangle the transition. Or maybe since Mehldau gets slapped with some kind of pretentiousness badge here and there people react against that too. Then again, maybe some people simply thought it stunk and whattayagonnado. Still, it was interesting how heated the response to that became.

As for Iverson, and maybe this is simply the difference in being on the West Coast, but along the lines of the ‘mainstream conversation’ you mentioned it strikes me how little (present company excepted) the Bad Plus gets talked about anymore. Maybe after 10 years they’re just “that trio that does wacky stuff with the ‘120 Minutes’ songbook,” which would be a shame because I’m right there with you, Never Stop was their strongest record yet. Maybe there’s something in the ever-fractured promotion machine of 2010 that’s not serving them right, or maybe it’s a byproduct of not fitting into one category or another (whatever he might think of their songs, surely ‘Brother Stanley’ above would approve of how many things they plug in every night). It’s probably the sort of ‘what if’ talk that might be better left in our few remaining record store stockrooms, but I wonder what would happen with those guys if they landed an opening slot with like the Black Keys or something, where would the public consciousness go from there? Could that kind of bill-mixing even happen at this point? I’m guessing If anyone could or would even want to do something like that it would be Kanye, which might cause the internet to collapse.

(One more thing: after seeing the Bad Plus again in a tiny club in West LA last week, I hope New York at least had some period in the last 10 years where ‘Dave King is God’ was tagged on subway platforms across the city. Too far-fetched?)

Speaking of virtuosi, that brings us to Nels, someone else who enjoyed a 10-year-anniversary with the Singers’ Initiate (maybe there’s some kind of ‘the year of the 10 year’ list that should come together). On top of that record’s madcap dip into ‘70s fusion in its own right, yes, Dirty Baby was really something. Though its message got a little heavy handed in spots, musically it was remarkable seeing all the moving parts all come together, something that didn’t happen so easily for me on paper.  So, I’d say about a level 8 out of 10 kicking yourself, if there was a possibility of catching it, though I’m betting we’ll hear echoes of Dirty Baby in where Cline goes from here.

One surprise late this year is how that show set the table nicely for Cline’s appearance at an Alice Coltrane tribute months later, one that surprised me by not being a showcase for a galaxy of effects and sonic splatter-art (which, to be clear, I completely love) and instead again going someplace further inward that was more composed and orchestrated. I don’t know where iPhone Nation was during Cline and his crew’s cover of Charlie Haden that night, but I’ll settle for the Singers’ (w/ Yuka Honda) doing a Tiny Desk concert for NPR by way of example:

   Having said that, most of you all may now tell me the 10-out-of-10 level kicking myself I should be embarking on for not seeing that Undead Fest, to say nothing for just about any given night at Ars Nova. I hope someone somewhere is working on an effective way to fold the country in half.

And did anyone try Dogfish’s ‘Bitches Brew’? Will they make more or will I have to wait 40 years until it’s remixed and reissued?

-chris

Comments

[George Grella]

Was there a backlash to Highway Rider? Really? I know a lot of people enjoyed it, which is great, but pointing out that there are problems with it - I would say almost objective problems - is not a backlash. Just like the electric/acoustic debate, we're well past the point of arguing about whether a jazz musicians wants to use strings or not, but in the case of Rider, the quality of the orchestral writing and arranging is really poor. It would not pass muster in a freshman orchestration class, and it's not as if jazz, post-Kenton/post-Focus/post-Gil Evans doesn't know any better. Being a critic means listening critically, and the recording fails at its own premise.

[Kevin L.]

I'm definitely with you on how potent the Bad Plus are at this point. I saw them here in London a couple of weeks ago and I think my jaw was in some drooped position for 90% of the show (during the other 10% it was resting). There are few things in this life more pleasurable than watching Dave King drum.

In terms of the Bad Plus in musical media right now, at least part of it seems to be how people responded to them when "These are the Vistas" came out. Most all of the reviews concentrated on the novelty of the covers, whether they thought it was good or bad. Even the ads for the show in London mentioned those early reviews and described the band in those terms - post-modern jazz trio, as fun as highbrow gets. By it's nature though, the novelty narrative dries up pretty quickly.

I feel (and Ethan & co. correct me if I'm wrong) that the band is so much more than "Heart of Glass" and have preferred to explore their many musical interests, rather than developing their image and touring with semi-big rock acts (something that Medeski, Martin & Wood did when they opened for Phish). The Bad Plus jumped off a major label anyway, which gives them a lot more musical freedom and the ability to more organically affect how people view them. They may not reach the same markets now, but they can connect to individual listeners in deeper ways.

What surprised me most when I saw them though is how the group has integrated so many influences into their collective sound that the music has this very pure, sui generis nature (which I hear in Braxton and Palestrina as well). The fact that the music seems to defy the storylines pegged to it from the first album makes it hard to write about. The Bad Plus are a few steps ahead of us, and I'm just fine with that.

[Dave6834]

The Bitches Brew Ale is quite good, a somewhat sweet stout with some bitter undertones. The specialty beer shops in my area got another shipment of it a few weeks ago, so it might not be too late to try it.

[Steve]

As Miles might have put it, Dogfish Head's Bitches Brew was a m*therf*cker of a beer. I found it on draft a few months ago. Probably gone in that form, but I saw some bottles still for sale in Brooklyn a couple weeks ago.

[D-Bon]

What's not serving the Bad Plus right is bad facial hair. Lose the goatees, fellas. And ask Jamire Williams and Christian Scott to take you clothes shopping.