Rehearsing The Blues

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.

2011, Part 1: What I Listened To

You may have already read the "Top Ten" list I published a few weeks ago here on RTB. If you didn't, or if you want to read it again, don't bother looking - it's gone.

Thinking about my picks (which I was dissatisfied with even as I hit "publish"), I came to the conclusion that a Top Ten list is too narrow a field. A good jazz critic listens to all kinds of music over the course of a year, and every time he hits "play" on his iPod is just as important as every other time, whether it's a new release he's hearing for the first time or an old favorite from Miles, Coltrane or Monk.

So this is my "What I Listened To" list, comprising all the albums, new or old, jazz or not, that really stayed with me over the course of the year. One criterion was that it changed the course of my listening in a major way or was listened to more than other albums. This excludes most of the CDs I actually reviewed this year- so if you want to know what I think of all the 2011 CDs people are writing about on the jazz blogosphere around this time that aren't on this list, check out this, this, this, this, this, or this. Another Roundup (#7) is about to be published.

All finished? Okay.

Benny Carter, Additions To Further Definitions (1966)

Billie Holiday, All Or Nothing At All (1957)

Stan Getz, At The Shrine (1955)

Charles Mingus, At UCLA (1965)

An English Professor's Son Reads Nicholas Payton

NOTE: Although I do take issue with some of Payton's definitions here, this is not meant to reflect on the validity or non-validity of any other statements Mr. Payton has made. A typo does not a liar make!

Great! Nicholas Payton! Love that guy!

But seriously, Nicholas Payton has written another manifesto on his blog. I'm sure it will be extensively covered in the jazz community here in this small, cozy world of the Internet, and I really don't care enough to go into it more myself. I've said my piece on the actual issues, and you can read that here. But I don't want to be left behind as Payton, jazz trending topic of the year, makes more news. I might lose blog hits, and we all know how important those are! So, to stay current but retain my sanity, I'm tackling the one thing that really, really bothers me about Payton: the guy doesn't bother to use freakin' spell check on his manifestos. Here goes:

1. "Can NOT" is technically correct (although the use of capital letters could be seen as melodramatic, and even be confused with an acronym, since Payton often uses BAM, another three-letter capitalized word). However, Payton uses "cannot" later in the post. I would suggest using one or the other. "Cannot" would probably be better, since it's easier to read and is more common. 

2. "Prejudice" should be "prejudiced." The way he has it now, Payton is saying that African-Americans can literally be prejudice, which is like saying that someone can be hunger or be microwave oven. That's pretty easily fixed, though.

3. In "President of The United States," the word "the" shouldn't be capitalized. Words such as "at," "and," "of," or "the" are usually left lowercase, because they aren't the main words of the title being written.

4. "Black." I have no problems with Payton capitalizing the word "Black" - it's a commonly accepted convention - but he should keep it consistent, as later on in the article he writes "black." Since the uppercase version appears most often, he should stick with this. 

5. "To that I say" is a bit archaic, but if Payton wants that grandiose effect, that's an aesthetic choice to be respected. However, the phrase is more commonly followed by a colon, not a comma. This helps the reader make sense of what is being said, and helps the overall flow of the words. It's a small detail, but an important one.

(Do Jazz Critics Need To Know How To Play Jazz?)

It's been a topic on conversation in the jazz community recently. I almost got involved, but then decided not to, mainly because I hadn't yet seen this video, from an article in The Atlantic by Brian Mockenhaupt, titled "The Last Patrol":

 

A US Army patrol in Afghanistan might be just about the farthest thing from jazz and jazz critics on the planet. But Mockenhaupt is right on about those who write about medicine or courts not having to be doctors or lawyers. I don't think that critics need to be musicians to write well about jazz, or any music. But as Mockenhaupt says, it can add another dimension to that writing.

And there's my very belated two cents on that issue!

The Jazz Internet, Part 2: Peter Hum

This is the second installment in a series of interviews with jazz critics and bloggers on the topic of the internet as a medium for jazz writing.

Peter Hum, who is also a pianist, writes for the Ottawa Citizen, producing Jazzblog.ca, the newspaper's, well, jazz blog. His is one of the few blogs dealing purely with jazz to be affiliated with a major North American newspaper, and is, along with Ben Ratliff and Nate Chinen (of the New York Times) one of the biggest names in newspaper writing for the jazz community. I spoke with him via e-mail about the way that the blog format, and the internet, has changed the art of jazz criticism.

JW: Okay. This is the first in a series dealing with the way the internet and jazz writing interact, and the ways that the internet has changed that writing. Your blog is written for the Ottawa Citizen, a major Canadian newspaper. Let's start at the baseline - why did you choose the online medium for your work?

@Paynic

Maybe it's just a trumpeter thing. (above: Wynton Marsalis) 

UPDATE: Payton shows us what's really important to him: his ego, and his place at the top of some kind of authenticity hierarchy. Click here for pure bullsh*t. I hate to be publicizing this crap but someone has to be out there defending Strickland, and basic intelligence, against this stupidity and worthless bravado. Just a sampling:

When have those of you who know me, ever seen me do anything but try to support this music? Who in here knows more about the history of this music than me?  Who here is qualified to go toe-to-toe with me musically or otherwise on this subject? Any takers? I’ll answer. Not one of you. Not one.

Or this:

There is no living soul who can walk on a bandstand anywhere in the world and play more horn than me. Period. Not a single one of you shit talkers. Never has there been a musician who can represent the entire scope and tradition of this music from its inception in New Orleans through Chicago, from Basie’s idiom to Charlie Parker’s , Monk’s language, Ahmad Jamal’s, Miles’ style, Trane’s, from James Brown to Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Earth, Wind and Fire, George Clinton, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, James Williams, Bobby Watson, Donald Brown, Duck, Dilla, etc., than me.

Never.

No, totally, we're all listening, Mr. Payton. Your endearing way of stating an argument has us all on your side. Oh, no, wait, we're angry at you - why could that possibly be? Oh, and by the way, "disagreeing" is different from "assassination of character." I'd get that sh*t straightened out ASAP if I were you.

David Adler is more levelheaded about all this than I am: this is recommended.

---

Nicholas Payton, alone, with no help from anyone else in the world, and in face of overwhelming odds, is singlehandedly swooping down from heaven to save jaz- I mean, to save Black American Music. 

I love this cat's music. Into The Blue would be on my top 50 list of records of the last decade, if I ever decided to make such a list. But has Payton ever considered that people don't hate him, they just don't care? He's hardly the first one to reject the word "jazz," but I think Ellington said it best, and without just being an egotistic asshole about it: "Why don't we just call this Negro music?"

If Payton just started humbly practicing what he preached without donning the crown of jaz- sorry, Black American Music - gatekeeper, people might listen harder. Instead, he throws down pointless gauntlets instead of thoroughly investigating issues. I'm not saying the dude is wrong. I'm saying that the best way to win in argument is to understand and thoughtfully refute the opposing position. Payton says his piece - loudly and angrily - then gets defensive when people get offended. Give me a f***ing break. 

In Motian (RIP Paul Motian)

Paul Motian, who died today at the age of eighty, was the first jazz drummer I ever heard, on Bill Evans's Sunday At The Village Vanguard. I never tried to incorporate his style into my own as a drummer  - it was too personal, too close to his own personality and history for me to try to emulate. Now, I'm glad I chose the way I did. Hindsight would have only made me cringe at how badly I would have approximated one of drumming's greatest artists.

For several months, I've toyed with the idea if writing a piece on Motian and Roy Haynes. Two of, when I first came up with the idea, the last living drummers from the 1940s and 1950s, their styles have evolved drastically over decades of experimentation. Play a Bill Evans record and a Jakob Bro record to a young jazz fan, and I'll bet he'd be puzzled by the obvious similarities between two drummers who are seemingly as obviously different.

Motian, in the 1970s, discarded the airy lightness of the 1960s, just as he had discarded the more conventional approach he had in the 1950s. But he never lost the space in his playing. Getting rid of the soft, light touch of his work with the Bill Evans trio cut away only distractions from his musical essence - none of the essence itself. I think of Paul as a minimalist player, one who used very few notes, but this is not in fact the case. He could often be a very busy player, filling a track with myriad sounds from his drums and punching out driving, wave-like solos.

It was his individual notes, the strike of a stick or a brush on drumhead or cymbal, that were minimal. There is no baggage on a drumbeat from Paul Motian, no needless whisper of the brush bristles, no rattle from a too-loose snare. Every note was chosen carefully to fit with every other note, but also to stand alone. Few drummers, old or young, can say as much for their own playing. Paul was no minimalist - he was a detailist, and as with a great poet or a great painter (of whatever style), specificity and care in the creation of one's art can only enhance it. Paul Motian not only enhanced his own playing this way, but the playing of dozens of other musicians, on dozens of records. Thankfully, we still have these - and the ability to click "repeat," over and over and over. RIP, Paul - you will be missed.

The Jazz Internet, Part 1: Josh Jackson

---

This is the first installment in a series of interviews with jazz critics and bloggers on the topic of the internet as a medium for jazz writing.

Josh Jackson, of WBGO, is a bit of an anomaly in this series. He doesn't write about jazz, he broadcasts it, and his view of the internet as a medium for jazz is therefore very different from the rest of my interviewees. But it's an interesting view, and an essential one. The transition from radio to the internet is complex, and many of its facets translate into the wider internet transition of the jazz community. Read on:

JW: Josh, your work for WBGO (including Live At The Village Vanguard with NPR and The Checkout) obviously relies on the internet a good deal, for streaming audio, etc. A good place to start this interview off might be just for me to ask for your own perception of how the internet has shaped your work in jazz, both in terms of how and what you can produce.

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.