THE GIG

One More Once: Last Thoughts

Part Eight of a year-end email conversation with Angelika Beener, Aaron Cohen, Joe Tangari and K. Leander Williams. (Jump to: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 )

From: Nate Chinen

Hey gang,

 What a terrific way to wind down the year. I’m grateful to all of you for agreeing to take part in this roundtable — and for bringing so much of substance to the exchange! You really made this a pleasure. Here’s my grasping attempt to close shop. Hang tight, this may be a #longread.

 The issue of Arts & Leisure now sitting on your doorsteps (right, guys?) contains my Top 10, along with those of Ben Ratliff and the indefatigable Jons (Pareles, Caramanica). Aaron, you noted the inclusion of tUnE-yArDs’ whokill on my list. Merrill Garbus, the in-your-face dynamo at the center of that band, crammed so much into this record — Afropop rhythm, jangly harmony, vocals that bark or purr — that it can be easy to miss its jazz moorings.

Her bassist is Nate Brenner, who was raised by an old-fashioned boogie-woogie pianist and then trained at Oberlin; he’s the only other full-time member of tUnE-yArDs, and had a hand in writing some of the songs on whokill.

 This stealth jazz influence was a big feature in some other highly touted releases this year: Bon Iver’s Bon Iver, which is up for Album of the Year; St. Vincent’s Strange Mercy; The Roots’ undun (dig that Don Pullenesque freakout by D.D. Jackson, with attendant ?uestlove fire); even, as Angelika noted, the gilt-armored hip-hop opus Watch the Throne. My current JazzTimes column (analog edition) discusses this phenomenon at length. You can also hear me discuss it with Ben Ratliff on a year-end Popcast. (He begs to differ re: tUnE-yArDs.)

 Speaking of Ben and lists, did you notice what he did this year? High up on his Top 10 is an hourlong set recorded live at 713-->212: Houstonians in NYC, the 92YTriBeCa show that Angelika also mentioned as a highlight. “When it ended,” Ben writes of this high-kinesis jam, “I felt that it said so much about where jazz is now — inasmuch as it is black music, popular music, regional music, improvised music and a philosophy of play — that I didn’t need to hear any more for a while.” (Parenthetically, he adds: “If we can call it an album, it’s a better extended statement than most I heard this year.”)

 Which raises a good question: is the album, as a discrete delivery system, still the best way to adjudicate success in jazz? Do the top-albums lists that we all pore over (Kelvin, you’re the rare exception) really tell us what happened over the past year? Obviously I don’t entirely think so, which is why we’re all here. But I want to use Houstonians in NYC as a springboard for another assertion, about how jazz at its best is the direct product of a social context, a cultural milieu, a moment in time. A scene, in other words. This may sound obvious, but it’s something we (critics and musicians) often take for granted. The music doesn’t emerge from a vacuum. Our perceptions of the music don’t, either.

 This point was born out time and again in 2011. Consider the bonds of brotherhood on Captain Black Big Band, which some of you have mentioned; consider the spirit of inquiry on Miguel Zenón’s Alma Adentro. Consider the vitality of the Chicago scene, invoked by Aaron and ratified by Joe. Or look no further than the wise and pointed assertions made by Geri Allen, in that Alternate Takes interview.

 Well, maybe look a little further. Aaron has a great new book out as part of the 33⅓ series, in which he lays out the social climate and cultural environment surrounding Aretha Franklin’s landmark album Amazing Grace. (I really am preaching to the choir here, so to speak.)

Another new book that smartly unearths the context around the music is Love Goes to Buildings on Fire, by Will Hermes. Its subtitle is “Five Years in New York City That Changed Music Forever,” with a timeframe of 1973 to 1977. Most reviewers have naturally fixated on the Modern Lovers, Patti Smith and Grandmaster Flash (not to mention Springsteen, Dylan, Byrne) — but there’s a lot of good stuff in there about the loft scene, the post-Coltrane avant-garde, and the early stirrings of salsa. David Murray figures into the narrative. So does Lester Bowie, and Eddie Palmieri. Jazz folk should know about this.

 I think the issue of social context is one reason why we all feel a little weird about Jazz at Lincoln Center hanging a shingle in Qatar. What could be less organic than that? I’m not implying that good things won’t happen; as we know from many years of State Department subsidy, jazz has a way of winning people over across the globe. Still, this is the work of an institution expanding its footprint on luxury terms, which is why it feels less like Pops at the pyramids than like the opening of a new Bulgari flagship. Or, worse, like this:

 Sheesh, I’ve gone on too long. One more thing: if we weren’t all invested in the notion of a jazz community, why would the challenges posed by a Nicholas Payton register so strongly, and spark such heated response? Why would we all argue so intently about so much? I’m among those who feel that the Year of the Cannibal, as I tagged it at the beginning of this exchange, actually reflects a defiantly thriving culture, with all the crosstalk and controversy that comes with it.

 Last night I saw the Claudia Quintet +1 with Kurt Elling at Cornelia Street Café, unpacking material from their scintillating album What is the Beautiful? (Cuneiform). At the beginning of the set, drummer-bandleader John Hollenbeck dedicated the evening’s performance to Bob Brookmeyer, one of the dearly departed elders of our tribe. It was heartfelt and true.

 And on that bittersweet note, I’ll simply add that this roundtable has been edifying and inspiring — and totally free of name-calling! — and that I hope to resume the thread in person sometime, with each of y’all. See you out there on the grid, and here’s wishing everyone Happy Holidays, and all the best in 2012.

 yrs,

 Nate

Straight Toward the End Zone

Part Three of a year-end email conversation with Angelika Beener, Aaron Cohen, Joe Tangari and K. Leander Williams. (Jump to: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 )

From: Angelika Beener: 

Dear Nate, Aaron, Joe and Kelvin,

 What a panel.  Nate, I’m very humbled to have been invited to discuss this year in jazz with such an awesome group of folks. Hi, everyone.

 I know that the older we get, the faster time flies, but 2011 was a whirlwind, and particularly so as it pertains to jazz. A couple of years ago, during my break from working in various capacities within the “industry”, I realized that what I really wanted to do was write about jazz full-time; unabashedly, free of politics, egos, and high-handed outside opinions (based on ego...did I mention ego?). The idea of finally having that kind of freedom was super appealing to me. Then it was just a matter of the right time to launch something. If 2011 wasn’t a blogger’s dream, then I don’t know what would ever be.

 This was most definitely a year of groundbreaking happenings and ideas. My first interview of 2011 was with Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson of The Roots, and it happened on the heels of the 31-category axe from the Grammy board, or as I fondly refer to it, punishment for a Black woman with a ‘fro and a bass taking one of the highest honors.  

 Potato, Potahto.

 Seriously, though. Steely Dan over Eminem. The Herbie win   over Kanye West (though most opposers were smart enough to grit their teeth and clench their fists, rather than say something stupid or step out of line), and now this?

 I guess we should have seen a temper tantrum coming down the pike. Steve Stoute’s whining open letter to the Grammy board, where he complained that they had “clearly lost touch with popular culture,” was like a glass of cold water to the face. Not the wake-up-call splash kind, but more like the extremely humiliating and embarrassing kind. Further, that a Black guy of his alleged status could be so unknowingly ignorant and disconnected from his cultural and artistic heritage spoke to a much larger issue. An issue that has, in some form or another, ironically been the hottest debate on the table over the last couple of months. (Insert shadow lurking).

 I know what you mean, Nate, about hopes being stirred up by the Esperanza Spalding win. Mine were. I remember getting into a big hullabaloo via Facebook with folks who were appalled by her win. My argument being that whether or not the Grammy board got it right (I happen to think they did), the point was the great symbolism a win like this had.

Ten months later, I kind of feel like that’s all it really amounted to. A lot of symbolism for people who want to see it, but not much more. It’s like the Grammys quarter-backed jazz a great pass straight toward the end zone, but it’s a little too early perhaps to tell if it will result in a touchdown. Hopefully it will pay dividends beyond what the Norah Jones shake up produced some years back, which is likely since there seems to be more of an acknowledgement from Spalding, and less overall denial from the community at large that Spalding is a jazz musician. I guess time will tell. I love Norah Jones, by the way.

 On the subject of the recent jazz debates, Aaron, I totally understand the desire to want to stay above the social media jazz face-off fray, and though the argument is age-old and perennial, I think the cast of characters made it compelling this time around.

To my recollection, it started during the summer with pianist Orrin Evans, who received a lot of backlash for saying (amidst yet another club shut down), that there should be more Blacks participating in business aspects of the jazz industry. Then on the musical side, you had Nicholas Payton challenging his peers, the younger generation, and critics alike to respect a certain level of non-manipulatable, fundamental aspects of jazz (or what he was calling “so-called jazz”, before recently settling on Black American Music) established by African Americans. This Evans/Payton one-two punch caught a lot of folks off guard. As it morphed and developed, it even caused contention between Black musicians. 

Overall, I thought the whole thing was great. For the first time in a long time, the scene looked less like Black folks watching along the sidelines while the Ken Burns-esque, self-congratulating, so-called experts psycho-analyze them as if they are behind plexiglass, and more like a big family fight which happened behind closed doors, but the neighbors heard through the wall, if that makes sense. Never have things been so seditious, interesting and thought-provoking -- not in my generation. But then again, never (in my generation) has the dialogue been inclusive of so many perspectives. I think we have social media to thank in great part for that. From musicians challenging critics on diversifying their subjects, to critics challenging women to jump into the dialogue in larger numbers (thank you, Nate), to musicians challenging each other to renounce “jazz” as a colonialist concept, I think the broad inclusion of participants made all the difference in 2011.  

 Incidentally, have you guys seen this?

  

Inclusion creates a broader perspective and frankly just more stuff to talk about. I think that’s why folks who are casual or non-jazz fans are intrigued by all this. It’s tangible, it’s relatable to something outside of itself. I think jazz desperately needs this kind of flexibility in its dialogue. If we’re trying to gain new supporters of the music, the last thing we can afford to be is rigid in our conversations. No matter how intricate the music, if the talk around the music is interesting and inclusive, I believe people will give it a shot. People will give anything a shot if it’s presented in a way that has some familiar tent poles, and that’s where we come in. 

Aaron, I could not agree with you more about where things stand creatively. Jazz is definitely on the upswing, and I think this notion will continue to manifest in 2012, like, majorly. I also love Jason Moran’s recent move to become the Kennedy Center’s artistic advisor. I think if anybody in this business of this generation understands the dire situation of jazz and lack of funding for education, it’s him. (His parents set up the Jason Moran Scholarship at his high school alma mater, HSPVA, very soon after his graduating, and it’s still going). Anyone with that type of personal understanding is an asset to any arts organization. I’m really excited to see where he takes things.  There are also so many great albums coming out next year! But I won’t skip ahead, guys. But I will say this: If jazz is in need of a savior, I think Esperanza will end up being just one of them.  

All the best,

Angelika

P.S. Aretha!

The Piano, at Night, with You

 

Lonely Voyage of Player, Piano and Audience

Arts & Leisure, July 3

(More on this topic here next week)

Doing the Math

Mylan Cannon/The New York Times

Roy Hargrove Quintet / The Badwagon

Prospect Park Bandshell, June 24

Program Note: Radio JaMo

Not long ago I sat down for a radio interview with pianist Jason Moran, for the excellent BBC Radio show Jazz on 3. We talked about the triumphant and humbling year he had in 2010, among other things. He played me some music that inspired him, some of it surprising. It was a fun, relaxed conversation, and I hope to hear a good portion of it when the segment airs tonight.

In the same episode, I engage in good-natured debate with the esteemed British jazz historian Alyn Shipton, one of the consultants on Jazz: The Smithsonian Anthology. (You may be aware that I took some issue with said document, here and here.) Shipton's perspective was interesting, and while I stand by my critique, he should surely be heard.

The show -- which also includes a live recording of the Overtone Quartet, with Larry Grenadier filling in for Dave Holland -- will be streamed live at 6PM EST, and archived free for one week.

The Year in Gigs

Daniel Barry for The New York Times

Results from the 2010 Village Voice Jazz Critics’ Poll are officially in, along with a brief contextual essay by its master undertaker, Francis Davis. No spoilers here: presumably you already knew that this was the Year of JAMO. I’m only sorry that my belated review of Charles Lloyd’s Mirror, slated to run in today’s paper, had to be bumped for space. It was a real pleasure to dive back into that album, after some months, and study Moran’s contribution anew.

While we’re still on the subject of year-end reflections -- and don’t worry, dear reader, this all ends with the arrival of a new year -- Jazztimes has posted my sixth annual Year in Gigs (hence A. Braxton, pictured above). The fun thing about this list is that it makes no claim for comprehensiveness. I saw a lot of jazz in 2010. Perhaps you did too. There’s a good chance that something you saw would have made this list, had I also managed to see it. So with that in mind, I’m welcoming any other Best Gig reminiscences in the comments below.

Please, though, nobody say “Herbie Hancock at Carnegie Hall.” I know a prank comment when I see one.

Year-Ender: All of the Above

Part One 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: Nate Chinen

Joe Kohen for The New York Times

Dear Chris, Shaun, Jen and David,

Well, here we are, closing the lid on another year in jazz, and I can’t decide what narrative to impose. Was this a time of mortal reflection, with the departures of Hank Jones, Abbey Lincoln and James Moody, among so many others? Or a season of triumph, as we observed the endless vitality of Sonny Rollins, Ornette Coleman and Roy Haynes? Was this the year that proved, with a horde of hard-charging younger talent, that jazz is -- in the words of a certain upstart summer festival -- not dead, but Undead? Or was it just another 12 months of hustling, out in the clubs and concert halls, and in the cloistered spaces where we do our solitary listening? Maybe Option E, for all of the above?

Whatever it was, we tracked and chronicled this year in real time (or, as our social-media metabolism might have it, hyper-real time), and I’m wondering how it looks to you now, with a wisp of hindsight. So to keep up a tradition of sorts at The Gig, I’ve asked you all to engage in a bit of year-end banter. Thanks for joining me -- this should be fun.

At this point you’ve probably sent in your ballots and compiled your lists, and it’ll be fascinating (to some of us, at least) to see where consensus forms. My Top 10 will be posted later this week, so for now I’m going to change the subject slightly. I recently appeared on BBC radio to air my conviction that pianists came out in full force this year. It would have been startlingly easy for me to construct a Top 10 of just pianistic efforts. Others might do the same for guitarists, or drummers. 

But consider: Geri Allen, Vijay Iyer, Benôit Delbecq and Matthew Shipp each released a provocative solo disc. Keith Jarrett took the duo route. For trios, try Fred Hersch, Dan Tepfer, Frank Kimbrough, Delbecq again, Kris Davis, Russ Lossing, etc. Larger concepts? Try Myra Melford, Randy Weston, Danilo Pérez, Brad Mehldau. And then there were Jason Moran and Ethan Iverson, each with a band commemorating a decade of strong, unmistakable work.  

About that commemoration: we like anniversaries and round numbers. It’s a way of organizing time, reselling material and sifting winners out of the historical mess. (We jazzbos are not alone in this.)

There was nothing perfunctory or contrived, though, about Ten, the album released this year by Moran’s Bandwagon, or Never Stop, the one put out by Iverson with the Bad Plus (above). In both cases you heard the cumulative weight and wisdom of the last 10 years, and a clear sense of intelligent artists taking the measure of their art. 

A similar sense of purpose lit up several other commemorative moments this year. (I refer you to the aforementioned Rollins and Haynes.) Shaun and David, I’m sure you both paid close attention to the 10th anniversary of Ars Nova Workshop, the nonprofit Philadelphia presenting organization run by my friend Mark Christman. (More on that in a future post, perhaps.) We commemorate because we care.

And, in some rare cases, because we can make a lot of money. (I’m using the Royal We, in case there was any doubt.) Remember Bitches Brew? Perhaps you know that it turned 40 this year. Perhaps you noticed the all-out promotional push, the shiny new product, the unreleased live footage, the licensed Dogfish Head brew. I never said I was opposed to all of this, by the way.  

 

Why bring up Bitches Brew? I’ll blame Kanye West. (Stay with me here, people.) In the musical world beyond jazz, which most of us also cover in one form or another, this is shaping up to be Annus Kanyebilis, with his new-school media strategy a proven success and his recorded opus landing rave upon rave. No one in pop was more compelling to watch this year, whether you believed you were witnessing aesthetic genius or riveted by a car crash. At times West himself seems unsure about which is which; you all saw the Runaway movie, I presume.

     Thinking about how West conquered every room he entered this year, I drew the only parallel that seemed really apt: to post-Bitches Miles Davis, another frequently bedeviled African-American sound-sculptor drawn to aggressive reinvention, unbridled ego and rococo indulgence. This parallel doesn’t entirely flatter either artist.

But jazzfolk often complain about how their music gets left out of the mainstream conversation. Miles would have none of that, for better or for worse. If the timing had worked differently, I suspect he might have put in a cameo on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, even if that title is more Mingus-esque in syntax and scope. Look at how much steam can still be generated by Bitches Brew, all these years later. That level of cultural cachet seems to be precisely what West is reaching for. 

Speaking of reaching, I believe this exhausts the air in the room, for now. I gladly pass the baton to Chris, out in Los Angeles. Take it in any direction you like, good sir, but just answer me this: was the Nels Cline Dirty Baby premiere as unmissable as it seemed? (Sub-question: how hard should I be kicking myself, still?)   cheers to all, Nate

Consensus Bureau

Yesterday’s Jazz Matters panel on the Best of 2010 was a blast -- it could only have been improved by a stronger turnout and pitchers of draft beer. (Jazz Journalists Association president Howard Mandel, our moderator, voiced his awareness that those two things are probably related.) I could hardly put together a more astute or collegial crew than the one David Adler assembled, with WBGO’s Josh Jackson and Down Beat’s Jim Macnie (and of course, Adler himself). There was plentiful agreement; I’m amused to report that the only real dissent formed around one of my picks. Read on for more about that.

But first, a side note on the comments below my last related post. Mahalo to everyone who contributed picks (and keep it coming)! I’m intrigued by the apparent consensus around Mary Halvorson’s new album, and can’t help but muse about selection bias: beyond this here blog-ville, and the teeming urban centers, how are people feeling about it? Or perhaps the salient question is: who hasn’t heard it that should? On the panel I wondered aloud whether it would even show up in the jazz-mag reader’s polls. It’s certainly in the running for my Top 10, as is the other comment-field-consensus pick, Jason Moran’s Ten. (Speaking of Halvorson and Moran, you saw this, right? Amen.) 

Ought to Be

A few songs into their rampagingly good first set at the Village Vanguard on Tuesday, Jason Moran and the Bandwagon played a somber version of “Artists Ought to Be Writing,” from Artist in Residence, their 2006 album. The track hinges on a spoken text by the conceptualist and philosopher Adrian Piper, whose work, Moran averred onstage, had been important to every member of the band. 

Artist in Residence, as you may recall, opens with “Break Down,” a choppy backbeat roil whose refrain is a sampled deconstruction of the same text. So when you reach “Artists Ought to Be Writing,” a few songs later, you hear Piper’s statement through a fog of recognition. These are the words you hear (w/ pauses notated, I think, by Moran):

Wrongs and Rights

My column in the July/August JazzTimes (not online, alas), concerns music publishing, an issue of stealth importance today. To parrot a dry but earnest line from my own self: “At a time when most jazz musicians are composers, and other sources of income are dwindling, music publishing may be the one area with growth prospects.” Given the thrust of some recent bloggery, it seems a good notion to revisit.

Jazz musicians have long paid the price for inattention to their publishing. In some cases, it’s a matter of ineffectual policing. You may know, for instance, what happened with Thelonious Monk’s most oft-recorded composition, “’Round Midnight.” After it had been introduced to Cootie Williams, the song was filed for copyright with three names on the certificate: Monk, Williams and lyricist Bernie Hanighen. “Consequently,” writes Robin Kelley, “Hanighen and his estate receive a third of the royalties from every version of ‘’Round Midnight’ produced. And in turn, the original composer and his estate receive only a third of the royalties -- to this very day.” Got that?

But let’s set aside the Big Fish example from a bygone era. Most present-day jazz musicians will never write a “’Round Midnight” -- and that shouldn’t at all diminish their interest in the publishing game. In the column, I seek illumination on that point from Dan Coleman, whose publishing-administration company, “A” Side Music, works with the likes of Maria Schneider, Brad Mehldau and Billy Childs. (More on him in the comments.) I also consult with two publishing-savvy musicians, bassist Ben Allison and keyboardist Larry Goldings.