Rehearsing The Blues

I Sipped. What Next? (Mixtape Review)

To me, there are three kinds of artist.

First, there is the innovator/creator. This artist makes what is personal to him or her, whatever it is. At the end of last year, I argued that Terell Stafford's traditional-sounding Billy Strayhorn tribute fit this description, even though it isn't on the "cutting edge" of jazz. Vijay Iyer, who certainly is on the front line of innovation, also fits the bill.

Second, there is the follower. From Marcin Wasilewski playing like Keith Jarrett to BBNG riding along on Robert Glasper coattails (and dissing him in the process), there are tons of followers out there: cats who can't quite make music from the heart, so they just copy the heart of someone else. This is regreattable, but it's also worth noting that these people often do their copying very well, and in so doing, they often demonstrate something deeper about themselves, making it all kind of worth it.

Third, there is the musical narcissist. He's kind of like the follower, except without the redeeming qualities of good execution and that small glimpse under the surface. He follows, but he doesn't realize, or doesn't want to realize, he's following - he thinks he's innovating just as hard as the creator. His music is interesting merely as an artifact to reflect on later: "Wow, a lot of people jumped on So-And-So's bandwagon back in 1995," or whatever. If Art Tatum was the creator, then Oscar Peterson was the follower, and Benny Green is the musical narcissist. 

See where this is heading yet?

Everybody Loves Raymond (But They Shouldn't) (Op-Ed)

Note: This piece, more of an op-ed than anything else, was originally written for Nextbop.com, but the folks there decided not to publish it. I'm proud to say I write for Nextbop, and am grateful to Sebastien Helary and Anthony Dean-Harris for giving me the opportunity. But certain aspects of Nextbop's editorial policy, such as not criticizing but also not seemingly saying no to the average or mediocre can get on my nerves. I'm a believer in assessing things based on their worth, not their aspirations (or my own), and that's how I wrote this piece.

Anthony asked me to review this album, and it seemed to me to exemplify that point, and a larger point about this newest generation of jazz musicians. John Raymond, if you're reading this, keep on truckin'. Don't give up, man. The rest of you, read on.

Roundup #8: What I Missed In 2011

Ari Hoenig, Lines Of Oppression

Ari Hoenig's latest record, a quartet effort with rising stars Tigran Hamasyan and Gilad Hekselman prominently featured, is exactly what one expects from the agile and complexity-minded drummer. That isn't to say it's boring or dull; it just isn't all that surprising, either. Hekselman sounds a little less like Kurt Rosenwinkel, but not much, and the inventive Hamasyan doesn't have many opportunities to expand into the pianistic regions we all know he should be able to reach. An effect that has seemed awkward in the past, Hoenig's Blakey-like manipulation of the pitch of his drums to play melodies, has here been turned into what is unquestionably Lines Of Oppression's set piece: a hard-swinging, soulful rendition of the Benny Golson tune "Moanin'," bracketed by Hoenig's expressive drum kit.  

But elsewhere, the gimmicks seem to be just that, gimmicks, without the sense of deep musicality that elevates "Moanin'". "How High The Moon" is arranged very creatively indeed, but the tune is such a chestnut that the re-arrangement seems to be more out of obligation than a real musical necessity, and when the melody ends up obscured behind tempo and meter changes, it brings up the question of why they bothered with the tune at all (for contrast, check out Aaron Goldberg and Guillermo Klein's Bienestan, where standards were arranged similarly, but with more respect for the sound of the material). Worth buying for "Moanin'" alone, but with that said, don't come crying to me when the rest of the disc disappoints.

All Around The Town

I review Portico Quartet's new, self-titled album to officially inaugurate Nextbop's CD review series, For Your Consideration. Read the review here.

As you may or may not know, Rehearsing The Blues will be taking a vacation, starting in May, when I leave for Army basic training at Fort Benning, GA. I wrote about my enlistment at the New York Times' At War blog, and you can read the article here.

I've got some RTB content in the pipeline, don't worry. I'll be starting with some CDs I missed in 2011, including discs from Air Hoenig, Tigran Hamasyan and Allen Lowe. Stay tuned!

2011, Part 2: The Last CD Roundup of the Year (Roundup #7)

Bill McHenry, Ghosts Of The Sun (Sunnyside)

I'll admit that I don't buy every album that ends up in my library, but I can proudly say that I paid every penny of the price for Ghosts Of The Sun, and I did it with tears in my eyes. The disc was released on the day that its drummer, the legendary, late Paul Motian, died. It is a testament to Motian's skill and McHenry's that the loss of a key player does not, weeks on, overshadow the music: Motian's skill, even through the sorrow and memorials that followed his death, remains as restrained and music (not ego) -oriented as it ever was, and McHenry's tunes are felt strongly enough by the band (filled out by Ben Monder and Reid Anderson) that they stand on feet of stone. Like this band's previous recording, Roses, to highlight any one track over another would do a disservice to a seamlessly planned and flawlessly executed whole, so I will merely say: Get this record. And pay for it!

Common, The Dreamer, The Believer (Warner Bros.)

Common's last album, Universal Mind Control, was a Pharrell-produced, hip hop-light carbon copy of Kanye West's 808s & Heartbreak. It was a disappointing album for many reasons - most of all because it cast doubt on whether Common could continue as a strong rapper without an equally strong force behind him (collaborator and friend J Dilla died just after completing a track, one of his last, to Common's Forever Begins, released in 2007). However, Common has regained my trust by going back to 1994's Resurrection, still the strongest record in his now deacde-long discography, and hiring producer No I.D. to produce all of this new record. And despite a controversy over the use of the word "nigger" in verses on the track featuring poet Maya Angelou, Common's rapping is as strong as No I.D.'s production. "So Sweet" is reminiscent of the best moments of Kanye's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, "Gold" hits that medium-tempo Common sweet spot, and "Windows" shows the rapper's thoughtful side, as well as incorpoating more "trendy" hip hop sounds without sounding forced. Neither stuck in the past or overextended into the future, this is a welcome second coming for the rap resurrector.

Roundup #6 (Hip-Hop, etc.)

^Exile

Jay-Z & Kanye West, Watch The Throne

When I first heard Jay-Z and Kanye West's collaboration, Watch The Throne, a day or two after its release, my initial reaction was boredom. A few months later, my feelings are strikingly similar, with very few changes. In all, the record strikes me as two very good rappers telling the world how good they are. If this doesn't sound much different from any of Jay-Z or Kanye's previous output, consider this: instead of creating a fascinating blend of two distinct styles complete with distinctive production and cadence, Watch The Throne is, for the most part, a series of similar-sounding tracks made by a variety of producers, over which two of the greatest rappers in the world brag about how rich and awesome they are, seemingly not noticing any changes in the song they're rapping over or the overall flow of the album. Two notable exceptions are "Lift Off," which features Jay-Z's wife, Beyoncé, and "Otis," which "features" (a creative way of saying "heavily samples," a term also used for Marvin Gaye on the album’s last track) Otis Redding. Both tracks are distinguished by more personal production - instead of just being a Lex Luger beat with an ominous and repetitive loop over it, we get heavy, swirling synth sounds and thick beats reminiscent of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. West is at his swaggering best on "Lift Off," bending words with that distinctive voice and creatively using auto tune and melody. Jay-Z sounds good, too, but part of the reason this song is so good is that it sounds more like a Kanye track featuring Beyoncé and Jay-Z than a collaboration. That's in contrast to "Otis," which has catchy and energetic production complemented by the swaggering rhymes of the two rappers - it's the one point in the album where their boasting sounds both self-aware and true. "New watch alert," Jay-Z spits, and the idiocy of such a statement is there, as well as the awe that accompanies the offhand statement of such privilege as fact. West is in great form, his voice growling like it's 2006 again. These tracks are worth a lot - but they aren't worth the price of this entire, mostly empty album.

Why Aren't We Talking About... Don Sleet's "All Members"?

Who was Downbeat's trumpeter of the year from 1956 to 1958? Was it Miles Davis? Chet Baker? Dizzy Gillespie? Lee Morgan? Clark Terry? Nope, it was Don Sleet, who recorded just one album, in 1961, and who died in 1987, at the age of 48.

Roundup #5 (Jazz/Hip-Hop)

^ Casey Veggies

James Carter, At The Crossroads (Decca/EmArcy)

There’s no doubt that At The Crossroads, the new James Carter organ trio album on Emarcy, is competent, interesting and well-recorded. I want to give it a good review, believe me. And far be it from me to tell anyone how to make their music. But the fact is that an album like At The Crossroads is a step backwards for organ trio music. 1958 was a great year, don’t get me wrong, but it’s 2011, and we’ve already had Larry Young show us what the potential of organ-based music can be. Before 1964, At The Crossroads was the epitome of funky, hard-driving hard-bop. But, as I said, it is definitely no longer before 1964.

Do you want an album that will take you back to the good old days? This is it. But if you want to hear what an organ trio can really do, buy Into Somethin’ or Unity by Larry Young.

Interrupted Conversations

Bassist Christian McBride is undoubtedly one of the best bassists of the last twenty years. His early work, particularly with Joshua Redman, is astoundingly good – he even made an intentionally square two-feel sound hip on Joshua Redman’s “On The Sunny Side Of The Street” in 1993. But where Mr. Redman’s style has perhaps evolved too far (I thought his latest effort, with James Farm, was well-intentioned but vague), McBride could be said to be too firmly where he started. He still plays in a trio with pianist Benny Green (who is no modernist). Ethan Iverson, who thinks very highly of Mr. McBride (see comments section below), nevertheless noted:

When McBride pedals for a moment during Ornette’s first solo it is quite a relief.  But McBride is still in the tonality and resolves the 12-bars accurately.  In my opinion, too accurately! 

Iverson's post should be read in full for the context of that quote, but I picked it out because it points to a quality in McBride's playing that I consider flawed, a quality present in force on the bassist's newest record, an album of duets, out November 8th on Mack Avenue.

There are two kinds of duet albums. There is the Joe Lovano/Hank Jones or Joel Frahm/Brad Mehldau variety (an album by an actual duo), and then there is the Sinatra or Tony Bennett Duets variety – one static performer pairing off with a variety of companions. McBride has chosen the latter format for Conversations With Christian, and while it has its moments, it falls prey to the usual failings of this kind of record.

Passion Of A Woman

The pianist Erroll Garner was once asked whether he thought that his playing was adversely affected by his inability to read music. His response? "No one can hear you read."

"Why is it," asked an anonymous Down Beat writer in 1938, "that outside of a few sepia females the woman musician was never born, capable of 'sending' anyone farther than the nearest exit? It would seem that even though women are the weaker sex they would still be able to bring more out of a poor, defenseless horn than something that sounds like a cry for help. You can forgive them for lacking guts in their playing but even women should be able to play with feeling and expression and they never do." The author concedes that "[w]omen are better performers on strings and piano, which are... more in keeping with their temperament" but states emphatically that "[t]hey do NOT... make good percussionists."

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Drummer Terri Lyne Carrington, whose new album The Mosaic Project has just been released, has set out to prove, as many women jazz musicians have before her, that no one can hear your gender, either. She has brought together twenty-one women musicians for an album that both speaks about the role of women in the world and in music and does not speak about it; a record that makes its point with words and purely by example.