THE GIG

Wayne's Worlds

Erin Baiano for The New York Times

Wayne Shorter Quartet

Rose Theater, April 27

A Gozar con Mi Combo

Richard Termine for The New York Times

The Music of Cachao

Frederick P. Rose Theater, Jan. 20

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

Ignoring the Boundaries

Part Six 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: Aaron Cohen

Hi Everyone, 

Just wanted to add that reading all the posts here reaffirm how fortunate, and humbled, I am to converse with this group.

 I couldn’t agree more with Angelika that Jason Moran’s Kennedy Center appointment can only mean great things for the institution, and for jazz itself. I didn’t know that his family established a scholarship named after him, but it doesn’t surprise me at all. His family has always supported his dreams, and I’m so glad that they’re also supporting the dreams of so many other talented music students. Also, I had forgotten to include Orrin Evans among musicians who give me confident hope for the future — although I just heard his discs, and his part in Bill McHenry’s group and haven’t seen him lead his own band. I’m looking forward to having that opportunity in 2012. I went to his blog posting on Angelika’s recommendation and he also makes astute points about the music business.

 What my fellow Midwesterner Joe writes about genre boundaries being ignored among contemporary jazz musicians in Chicago is so true. This was also a big part of Danish scholar Fabian Holt’s book, Genre In Popular Music, a few years ago, where he gave considerable attention to Jeff Parker (pictured at top) and Thrill Jockey. I’d just add that there is a significant history to all of this in Chicago, particularly among musicians and arrangers for Chicago’s classic soul music in the 1960s and 1970s (like jazz arranger Tom Tom Washington, who worked for the Chi-Lites and Earth, Wind and Fire as well as Lionel Hampton). Anyway, that history is, hopefully, part of my next book (knock on wood there).

 I had no idea about the Qatar jazz initiative until reading Kelvin’s post — that sure is a world away from what has been happening with the Occupy movement. Definitely all of these political, economic divisions are something to watch in 2012, and if/how these larger issues are reflected in the music. I also hadn’t jumped into the Mary Halvorson fan bus until this summer when I saw her perform an exciting set in a band with Ingrid Laubrock at the Chicago Jazz Festival.

 Glad to see Tune-Yards’ Whokill in Nate’s year-end list. There’s another artist who ignores boundaries and is most certainly bringing jazz ideas into her take on what individualistic pop music should be (can’t remember the names of the saxophonists in her band). Anyway, my wife Lavonne and I loved the Tune-Yards show at Chicago’s Lincoln Hall a few months back. It ended with her offering to hug anyone in the audience who would donate at least $5 to African famine relief. Now that is beyond cool!

 All Best,

 ---Aaron

Occupy Jazz?

Part Five 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: K. Leander Williams

Hey cats. Happy Holidays and all that...

 Cheers to Nate on yet another smashing roundtable. Here’s me trying like hell to maintain the high level of discourse thus far.

 As Nate said up front, I actually asked for the end slot because these days I’m not as engaged with the community as I was when weekly assessments were my gig. What I’ve found surprising is that I’m not quite as out of the loop as I’d initially surmised, and to be absolutely honest, that frustrates me somewhat. The controversies don’t seem to have changed much since I started doing this for a living in the early ‘90s, and even at that time they were tired. I mean, Miles Davis went electric in 1969 or so, right? What his bands did brilliantly was followed by a whole lot of electrified music the punk fan in me doesn’t have much use for, but that’s not really the issue here.

 The bigger point may be that jazz’s popularity has been in decline since maybe the late ‘40s; well before I got here it felt a lot like an economy in freefall — and yet we still haven’t hit bottom. (Think Sonny Rollins at the Kennedy Center, with Jason Moran waiting in the wings.) The difference, thanks to music schools, is that there are tons more jazz-identified folk sharing that pie. Is Esperanza Spalding this generation’s Grover Washington, Jr. or George Benson, jazz-educated but poised to reach folks well beyond the community? Is Robert Glasper? When Glasp hit the Blue Note in February, Kanye and Lupe Fiasco sat in. 

 So, to me, as much as the discourse aboveground turns on the moves of NARAS, Spalding and now Nicholas Payton, those years I spent regularly scouring the scene remind me that somewhere below the radar there’s always music in which sheer creativity and invention trump the symbolism and optics of a Grammy nomination, a superstar guest cameo or the latest “jazz-is-dead” screed. Who’s making that music? Where can it be found? Actually, the better question these days might be, where can a general-interest audience read/hear about it? For all the activity in cyberspace, my sense is that the realities of “search-engine optimization” (SEO) are particularly merciless in regard to any newness that lacks outsized marquee status. Once Spalding starts trending, we end up with 50 articles, blog posts, whatever, that say the equivalent of, ‘Yay, our girl’s a maaaaddd fly bassist and she bested the Bieb, but, um, isn’t that record kinda so-so?’ Meanwhile, there’s next to nothing on the conceptually-gifted unknowns toiling in the trenches, unless, of course, they’ve written it themselves? Hmmm... self-promotion as a way into (or in Payton’s case, out of?) the canon. Let’s see how that shakes out.

 At the risk of turning into the bummer patrol, there’s another jazz survival mechanism that crystalized for me near the end of the year. It came by virtue of a weird juxtaposition: The announcement that Jazz at Lincoln Center was building bridges to luxury hotels in Qatar (y’know, over there near the Arab Spring), while scores of the people we’ve come to call “the 99%” are out in the streets worldwide attempting to “occupy” everything. I’ve wondered about the symbolism of it ever since. I happened to be downtown at the Occupy Wall Street protests just weeks before the J@LC announcement, on the day that hundreds of local musicians, many union-sponsored I think, marched in solidarity with the happenings in Zuccotti Park. (Yes, my heart swelled when at one point some random brass band spontaneously broke into Thelonious Monk’s “Well You Needn’t.”) I’m not mad at J@LC’s initiative (like them, I’m fanatic enough to want jazz to be heard everywhere), but it certainly made me wonder if jazz’s premier option was to become the music of the 1%. That kinda puts me in mind of the days of swing at restrictive country clubs and the like, but from a musician’s standpoint it’s probably better than waiting on the .001% who actually purchase jazz product.

 All this said, there were a few things I caught live this year that blew me away, though I can’t say they represent trends of any kind.

 Marc Ribot’s Sun Ship Ensemble with Mary Halvorson, Chad Taylor and Henry Grimes. In theory it was a twin-guitar Coltrane tribute, but that was merely the jumping off point. Sonically, the music was raucous, more other-planes-of-there than sheets-of-sound. It’s also where I finally understood the growing Halvorson cult. She was on fire that night. I don’t know how to say it delicately, but I generally tend to feel that jazzers of her generation need to spend more time improvising on melodies they didn’t write. I’m well aware that might be the geezer in me talking. (Holy shit, am I the oldest cat in this roundtable?!? Geez, that never used to happen.)

 Matt Shipp and Darius Jones. Still haven’t heard their duo disc Cosmic Lieder, but no matter (hint, hint to Aum Fidelity’s resident new papa Steven Joerg... actually, I’m kidding; I never asked for a copy). When I caught Jones earlier in the year with the trio on his other 2011 disc, Big Gurl, it was kinda lukewarm, but at the Jazz Standard he had a soothing effect on Shipp’s key shifts, which in turn brought out the warmth in Jones’ alto.

 Double bill: Robert Glasper Trio + Vijay Iyer Trio. Wrote about it.

 Bill McHenry Quartet with Orrin Evans, Eric Revis and Andrew Cyrille. The set was fantastic, but like Aaron said, it was bittersweet for me as well. I knew Paul Motian was in the hospital, but didn’t know details. That was the night Lorraine Gordon of the Village Vanguard used the word “dying” to describe his condition. Paul and I had had a several funny conversations since I first interviewed him for Down Beat in the early ‘90s, so I was doubly sad that I’d missed his last gig in town with pianist Anat Fort in September — basically, because I didn’t wanna brave the rain, I think. Yeah... hindsight...

Ring Shout

Wynton Marsalis at 50

Rose Theater, Oct. 12

Majesty of the Blues

Ernest Gregory

Wynton Marsalis Quintet & Septet

Rose Theater, March 31

Essentially Ellington

The Essentially Ellington High School Jazz Band Competition, a flagship initiative of Jazz at Lincoln Center, draws many dozens of aspiring musicians to New York every spring, for an event both inspiring and entertaining. I caught a portion of the competition last year, when the winner was Garfield High, a perennial favorite from Seattle, Wa. 

This year’s throwdown is scheduled for May 12 to 14 at Frederick P. Rose Hall. Jazz at Lincoln Center just announced the finalists, and one twist is Garfield’s conspicuous absence, for the first time since 2001. (If this is beginning to sound like college football rankings, you have some idea of the intensity with which these bands and boosters approach their task.) Anyway, here are the 15 bands advancing to the finals: 

Angel Faces

Chad Batka for The New York Times

2011 NEA Jazz Masters Awards

Frederick P. Rose Hall, Jan. 11

Full Spectrum Jazz

Photo courtesy of Peter Gannushkin

Playlist, Oct. 31

Mary Halvorson, Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra,

Mike Reed’s Loose Assembly, Dan Tepfer Trio, Russell Malone