Don't Mess With the Zamir

I think that listening to new albums by artists who I've never heard of is one of my favorite things to do as a critic; counter-intuitively, I find that I actually wind up having much odder and specific expectations of what their albums will sound like than when I listen to albums by artists whose work I know well. Take Daniel Zamir, for example. I found out about his new album by looking at the Tzadik website (John Zorn's Tzadik label is probably my favorite indie other than Pi, although a lot of their releases are contemporary classical) and finding that the rhythm section was made up of some of my favorite downtown players: Joey Baron, Uri Caine, and Greg Cohen. I found the album online, but before listening to it I figured I may as well check out Zamir's myspace for any clues as to who he is; it turns out that Zamir is an Israeli orthodox Jew, and that his biggest influence (as a musician) is "Torah." And to top it off, the songs had titles like "You Are my G-D" and "Let Me In Under Your Wing." "Ugh," I said, "not another Jewish 'A Love Supreme'," and put off listening to the album so I could sit around and (happily) hear Esperanza Spalding complain about her love life for the fiftieth time.

I couldn't have been more wrong about "I Believe," Daniel Zamir's new album. As opposed to being "Another Jewish 'A Love Supreme'," it's a funky Jewish "Tales From the Hudson;" an accessible Mike Brecker record by a hacidic, soprano saxophone wielding technical monster. The second track, "Poem 51/52," exemplifies the aesthetic of the album perfectly. After a funky, straight-ahead head with a dash of klezmer, Zamir plays a passionate, note-intensive solo that manages to sound killin' in spite of it's wearing technique on it's sleeve. Uri Caine follows with a piano solo that sounds like it could tear the heavens apart; as straight as Caine ever plays with anybody, this solo shows off his chops in a modernist jazz setting as well as anything he's played with Dave Douglas. Greg Cohen also takes a melodic solo, and Joey Baron anchors the proceedings with the off-kilter charm you would expect from his playing with John Zorn and Bill Frisell over the past twenty years.

Other highlights on the album include the aforementioned "Let Me Under Your Wing," which gives Zamir a chance to show off his saxophone pyrotechnics in a three minute solo without accompaniment, and the opener, "7 Midot," which introduces Zamir's intentions on the album with a bang. The only major flaw with the album as a whole is the fact that occasionally the songs blend together; I can't remember the difference between "Poem 54 (770)" and "Poem 10," and a lot of the ideas in Zamir's various solos tend to cross over due to a tendency to put everything he knows into each improvisation. While the former is a problem for the album, you hardly notice the latter due to Zamir's ability to drum up (divine?) excitement during his solos.

On a whole, "I Believe" is a very good album, and showcases Daniel Zamir as a major talent, and one of the leading voices in what I like to call the "Jewish Jazz" movement. He has yet to deliver an album as brilliant as Avishai Cohen's "After the Big Rain" or Anat Cohen's "Poetica," and his compositions and performances aren't quite as mind-blowing as those of Masada or the Bar Kokhba Sextet (both run by John Zorn, his mentor), but "I Believe" is still an extremely promising showcase for Zamir's work. Recommended.

Next time I'm tempted to have a review of Girl Talk's "Feed the Animals," mostly because I can't stop listening to it and attempting to pick out samples... I know, I know, it isn't jazz by any stretch of the imagination, but who cares? Music is music... On the other hand, I could review a concert by Marc Ribot, Anthony Coleman, and Brad Jones. Check back next time!

The Altered State of Myriam

Don't let the top credit on Myriam Alter's new "Where Is There" confuse you, although Myriam Alter is a piano player (and apparently a "fine" one, accorded to a few critics; I have never heard her other records), she does not play anything on the album. Instead, she composes the eight original tunes. The arrangement- the person with the lead credit composes and conducts, but does not play- is reminiscent of John Zorn's Bar Kokhba Sextet, which is fitting; bassist Greg Cohen and drummer Joey Baron, both long-time Zorn associates, are featured on this record. Salvatore Bonafede plays piano on this date, and as such is somewhat liker her alter (get it?)-ego.

All in all, the playing is pretty good. The last few tracks are more interesting in that they have more room for some free improvisation from the group, which also includes clarinetist John Ruocco, cellist Jacque Morelenbaum and pyrotechnical soprano saxophonist Pierre Vaiana, whose playing here recalls that of Daniel Zamir. Vaiana has very few showcases on the album (with such a big cast of players, individual solos are relatively sparse), but when he does solo, as on "I'm Telling You," he commands attention like no one else playing on the album.

But, of course, that's not the point; it is Myriam Alter's album, and it feels that way. Alter's compositions, and not the player's solos, are the backbone of the record. Like Zamir and Zorn, Alter is influenced by traditional Jewish music, but the more fitting comparison- and the one I've heard most from other critics- is to young clarinetist Anat Cohen. Like Cohen, Alter is more interested in created complex colours with her band's oddly voiced instrumentation as opposed to writing heads for the various musicians to solo over. This doesn't always work, of course- "September 11th" (can you guess what that one's supposed to evoke?) is a somewhat sludge-y dirge, and "Come With Me" drags on a bit too long. For the most part though, the compositions are interesting, and even occasionally beautiful, as in the tango sounding "Still in Love." Recommended to those who are intrigued by the description; it isn't your average jazz record.

Woah, Jenny

There seems to be an odd (yet pretty awesome) trend in the jazz world lately in which artists release two brilliant, completely different albums at the same time (Chris Potter did it with "Follow the Red Line" and "Song for Anyone" last year, and Vijay Iyer recently did it with his own "Tragicomic" and Fieldwork's "Door"). Violinist Jenny Scheinman has managed to do the same thing, releasing two seemingly completely different albums, "Crossing the Field" and "Jenny Scheinman," at the same time. To add to the confusion, "Jenny Scheinman" is the first album that she has released as a vocalist, and is by no means a jazz album but a low-key, gorgeous, country-folk-rock extravaganza.

"Jenny Scheinman" is one of those albums that begs to be forgotten, and it probably will be. Jazz publications will give it good-but-not-great reviews (4 stars out of 5, perhaps 3 1/2), while more pop-oriented magazines won't even review it (an alt country-folk album? By a jazz violinist? Yeah, right.). This is really a shame, because it's one of the prettiest albums I've heard all year; like the brilliant "Bill Frisell and Petra Haden" from a few years ago the music is so unlike anything else out there, and so low-key, that it will probably just wind up sitting on shelves in the jazz sections of record and book stores. Scheinman seems to know this, as all of the best songs on the album have a weary sort of quality to them; "I Was Young When I Left Home," a folk tune which opens the album and which is given an incredibly spare arrangement here, shines in a scrappy, back-porch sort of way. "Shame Shame Shame" rocks out, with Scheinman mustering up all of her ability to make it sound as bad-ass as possible. Tony Scherr is invaluable as a guitarist on this album; his slide work on every track but "Rebecca's Song" (which features Bill Frisell) adds bluesy gravity to the proceedings. Highly Recommended.

"Crossing the Field," at least on the surface, is incomparable to "Jenny Scheinman;" there are no vocals, and the spare proceedings of "Jenny Scheinman" are gone as Scheinman is accompanied by a jazz quintet (which features pianist Jason Moran, guitarist Bill Frisell in a rare sideman post, Tony Scherr, who plays bass here as opposed to guitar and drummer Kenny Wollesen) and, on a few tracks, an entire string orchestra (conducted by violist Eyvind Kang). "Crossing the Field" is something of a companion piece to Bill Frisell's "History, Mystery," as so many of the same musicians appear on both albums, but the aesthetic is quite different. Scheinman's version of so-called "rural jazz" (I love that term, I even tagged it to the end of my "History, Mystery" review) is much less pastoral than Frisell's, and "Crossing the Field" sounds a lot like Aaron Copland as filtered through Django Reinhardt's quartet, with random modernist flourishes. Frisell plays a characteristically brilliant guitar solo on "I Heart Eye Patch," an up-tempo country-jazz work-out, while Jason Moran gets a chance to stretch out on "Awful Sad," a swing throw-back. Scheinman herself solos on just about everything, but there is no point in going into specifics because every solo manages to be a highlight. Also highly recommended.

The odd thing about these two albums is that, in spite of the fact that on paper (or on online musings) they seem completely different, they compliment each other. Both albums are free to listen to on Scheinman's website, and I would suggest that if you are so inclined you listen to them back-to-back. There's something about the scrappy country-rock of "Jenny Scheinman" that makes the orchestral (yet still scrappy) jazz of "Crossing the Field" even more interesting; whether singing or playing violin, she manages to sound like Jenny Scheinman.

Next time I'll have a review of Daniel Zamir's "I Believe," although I will probably still be spending my time listening to "Esperanza" over and over again, and randomly diluting it with Jenny Scheinman's "I Was Young When I Left Home." I can't help it; they're that good.

Hey, Chico!

Chico Hamilton is one of the two great 80+ warhorse drummers in the current jazz scene, the other being Roy Haynes. Hamilton, productive as always, has released two different albums under his own name, "Alternate Dimensions of El Chico" and "It's About Time;" the latter is an EP of dancehall remixes of Chico's music while the former is a new album from his trio, made with long-time band-mates Cary DeNigris (guitar) and Paul Ramsey (bass). The key difference between Hamilton and Haynes is the energy; Hamilton clearly cannot play the way he used to, while Haynes is not only capable, but willing to surround himself with big-name young players (Jaleel Shaw, Marcus Strickland) to keep his game up.

"Alternate Dimensions of El Chico," an album of Chico Hamilton remixes as done by DJs Soulfeast and Mark De Clive-Lowe, suffers from the same problematic inconsistency that just about any jazz remix album does; when it's good, it's good, but when it's bad, it's terrible. Take the two remixes of "Mysterious Maiden," for example. Both remixes (one of which is 12 minutes long, mind you) drag on for what seems like an eternity, and with nothing to show for it but repeating motifs. It's a shame that those two tracks are so bad, though, because almost everything else on the album is pretty good. "Je Ka Jo" and the album closer, "I'm Still Thirsty," both make you want to get out of your stuffy jazz critic chair and dance, while "El Toro" adds an interesting hook to the original tune. Who am I kidding? This album wasn't made for serious jazz listeners anyway, but for DJs in need of something fresh to spin.

I'm going to be brutally honest and say that Chico Hamilton's new trio album, "It's About Time," isn't stellar. It's unfocused and more than a little bit odd. But there are little glimmers of greatness about it; "What If," for example, features some great bass-guitar unison work, while "Nod to Gabor" (for Gabor Szabo, who got his start with Hamilton) has a ton of solo space for everybody. For a guitar trio album, however, there's something missing on most of the tracks; a good guitar trio should sound like more than three instruments (listen to just about anything Bill Frisell's done in the format), while for some reason here it sounds like there are less. For every track like "Nod to Gabor" or "6/8 For CH," which sounds like 60s Blue Note crossover jazz in the best way possible, there's a track like "Paul," which begins by searching for something that never materializes. I don't know that I can quite recommend either album, but I would say that a few of the tracks I mentioned from each are definitely worth a listen if you can find them.

Next time I think I'm going to have a review of Daniel Zamir's new "I Believe," which was released today. If not, you can probably expect a review of Pat Metheny's "Day Trip Tokyo" or Marcus Miller's "Marcus."

Jazz 08 Part One: This Year in Jazz!

I'm just going to come out and say it- disagree if you want, but this is an honest belief of mine- 2008 has been the best year for new jazz in a long, long time. Everything seemed to come together in 2008; 90 year olds released some of the best albums of their careers (Marian McPartland and Buddy DeFranco) and other well-established artists made some major leaps (Bill Frisell, Pat Metheny, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Brad Mehldau). Most of the best records came from artists on the periphery of the jazz establishment, either too weird or too young: artists like Vijay Iyer, his cohort Rudresh Mahanthappa, Esperanza Spalding, Jenny Scheinman, Mathias Eick... the list goes on and on.

Even the disappointments weren't that bad (of course there are exceptions; the Wynton and Willie record was deathly boring, and Dianne Reeves' latest was unlistenable); when Ambrose Akinmusire's "Prelude to Cora" can be put on any kind of list of disappointments you know it was a good year. Perhaps the most surprising moments of the year came with the announcement of the year's MacArthur Fellowships (in a bad way) and Monk Institute Competition winners (in a surprising and sorta good way).

Of course the jazz media fixated on the same boring old people it always does (Sonny Rollins is, for probably the fortieth year in a row, the tenor saxophonist of the year according to Downbeat critics in spite of the fact that he doesn't perform regularly and didn't release an album this year) as opposed to focusing on the cool old people it tends to ignore (McPartland and DeFranco spring to mind- and I'm convinced that the only way Lee Konitz can get into the Downbeat Hall of Fame at this point is by dying).

The music this year speaks for itself, however. Rural Jazz has hit its peak with records like "History Mystery" and "Crossing the Field," and the Jewish Jazz scene only gets better with every barely-heard Tzadik release by somebody like Daniel Zamir or Paul Shapiro. And of course there's Esperanza, the girl of the moment, who deserves to be the next Norah Jones (perhaps the only Norah Jones). Young Ms. Spalding came out of nowhere (well, I'd heard of her, but I also go to Berklee), was suddenly featured on the cover of every jazz magazine and played on Letterman and Kimmel over the course of a week, not to mention her emergence as one of the go-to bassists of the Monk generation.

All in all, a stellar year. Next time on the Jazz Monster I'll have part two of my Jazz 08 series: The Superlatives, all leading up to the final edition of the Jazz 08, my top ten. So tune in a few days, because there's more to come.