Jazz 08 Part Three: Top Ten Albums of the Year

I understand that it is now in verve for critics to replace their annual top ten lists with alphabetical, formless, un-fun lists of albums that are "the best, in this critic's humble opinion." Anyone who reads this blog knows by now that this sort of meaningless, politically-correct list isn't quite my style. Hence, I'm kicking it old-school: numbered from ten to one, here are the best jazz albums of the year. Feel free to disagree with the picks or lament the lack of your favorite record in the comments section:

10. "Invisible Cinema" by Aaron Parks: Parks, who is shaping up to be the pianist of choice for the current crop of youngsters on the jazz scene, made his Blue Note debut as a leader with "Invisible Cinema," a record with a ridiculously opaque plot that doesn't seem to actually matter. The music is like prog rock with jazz musicians; Mike Moreno's guitar pyrotechnics recall Pat Metheny and Johnny Greenwood in equal parts.

9. "The Remedy" by Kurt Rosenwinkel: With "The Remedy," Kurt Rosenwinkel has proved yet again that he deserves to be this generation's most influential voice on guitar. As opposed to playing licks, Rosenwinkel plays fluid, seemingly random lines. There is a tragic element of this record though; saxophonist Mark Turner recently lost two fingers in an accident, and the jazz scene's loss is monumental.

8. "Party Intellectuals" by Marc Ribot: PARTY PARTY PARTY PARTY... Marc Ribot's free-rock trio is so good that you forget that you're listening to a jazz musician who plays with John Zorn. Like last year's "Draw Breath," by The Nels Cline Singers, songs alternate between noisy, violent free improvisations and the loudest, booty shaking party music ever.

7. "Live" by The Brad Mehldau Trio: For my money, Brad Mehldau is the best piano player alive and working in the jazz idiom. While older musicians like Herbie Hancock and Keith Jarrett recieve all of the accolades, Mehldau has proven himself repeatedly with his trio on records like live. The interplay between him, bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Jeff Ballard recalls both Jarrett's standards trio and Bill Evans' great trio, but creates music all its own. Mehldau covers pop songs ("Wonderwall" and "Black Hole Sun" here) without a hint of irony, and plays them like standards. Every track is a highlight.

6. "Kinsmen" by Rudresh Mahanthappa: Mahanthappa's septet on this record consists of a jazz quartet augmented by an Indian classical music trio. While there have been numerous other attempts to fuse the two musics, "Kinsmen" sounds like nothing else ever released in the jazz idiom. Saxophonists Mahanthappa and Kadri Gopalnath duel brilliantly on the tracks "Ganesha" and "Convergence (Kinsmen)."

5. "Crossing the Field" by Jenny Scheinman: "Crossing the Field," which features a full orchestra without sounding even remotely corny, is violinist Jenny Scheinman's best album yet. Her scrappy rural lyricism shines next to Bill Frisell's guitar and Jason Moran's piano, and her original compositions are alternatingly haunting, quaint, and beautiful. It makes sense that her other release this year was a set of spunkily sung versions of folk songs; her violin playing has the same weary, gorgeous quality as her voice.

4. "Esperanza" by Esperanza Spalding: Guilty pleasure of the year. Hands down. I could listen to Esperanza Spalding go on and on about her boy trouble for hours straight, and have. While her first album, "Junjo," was a straight-ahead date that showcased her bass playing, "Esperanza" is more of a contemporary R&B record with acoustic instruments and a latin-jazz tinge. Just listen to "Precious" and try not to get indignant about Esperanza's awful boyfriend (Can you believe he wanted her to change for him?), or, if you're in a jazz mood, get a hear of the catchy and wordless "I Adore You," the album's best track.

3. "The Door" by Mathias Eick: There are videos on youtube of Mathias Eick exploding with incredibly fast high-note runs, but that could not be further from "The Door." The quietest album of the year, "The Door" features the sort of lyricism expected from someone much older than the young Eick. His debut showcases the influence of earlier ECM artists and a little bit of the sound of his main gig, Jaga Jazzist, but really sounds like nothing else. If you could translate the feel and look of an intricate ice-sculpture into a jazz album, you would wind up with something a lot like "The Door."

2. "History, Mystery" by Bill Frisell: "History, Mystery" is easily Bill Frisell's most cohesive album since "Nashville," if not since "Have A Little Faith." The band is something like a who's who of the rural jazz movement: Jenny Scheinman and Eyvind Kang take up the strings, Ron Miles plays trumpet, and the perennial rhythm section of Tony Scherr and Kenny Wollesen anchors the proceedings. The album's sound is evocative of Americana circa 1950 or 1960; a melting pot of blues, country, bebop, soul, tango, Copland-style classical music and pretty much anything else Frisell sets his sights on. The record is set up as two different suites that go together, the first framed by different versions of "Probability Cloud," and the second by versions of "Monroe."

1. "Tragicomic" by Vijay Iyer: While "History Mystery" presents a beautiful fantasy version of the world, "Tragicomic" presents the world precisely as it is: dark, claustrophobic, complicated, and more often than not downright scary. Of course, Iyer treats it as a joke: the second track is named "Macaca Please" after former Virginia senator George Allen's now famous slur, while the music bludgeons you over the head like a blunt weapon. The album's only moment of respite, which comes in the form of a beautiful solo piano take on "I'm All Smiles" ends in an unsure vamp, and is almost immediately drowned out by the death march and subsequent riot of "Machine Days." Iyer's long-standing quartet with Rudresh Mahanthappa, Stephen Crump, and Marcus Gilmore has made a record that isn't for the faint of heart, but has more to say about the state of the world than most jazz. I said in April that this was going to be Iyer's year, and it was.

Return to the Jazz Concept Album

Some "Travelers" embark on a journey, led by a "Peaceful Warrior" who shows them the way to their destination; but wait! The great warrior's "Nemesis" steps out in front of the group, taunting them, taking a small child from the group and shouting "Riddle Me This" at the top of his lungs in a menacing fashion and asking terrible questions until they are forced to follow him "Into the Labyrinth." The warrior fights and eventually beats the nemesis, shouting "'Karma''s a bitch!" at the top of his lungs. The travelers exit the labyrinth and stop at a "Roadside Distraction" before finally breaking into a "Harvesting Dance" when they've finally reached their destination. The warrior is showered with "Praise" for the way he handled the fight with his nemesis, and the "Afterglow" of the whole incident stays with the group of travelers, following them wherever they go.

That, as far as I can discern, is the plot of Aaron Parks' "Invisible Cinema" (complete with song titles) and, yes, when you view the record in that light, it comes off as overwrought and more than a little corny. Parks has made a point out of not giving away the plot he came up with to the press (it would cease to be "Invisible"), but I think my overview was vague enough as to fit pretty much anything he could have come up with. Point is, the song-titles are really lame.

The music, however, is another story. Like Mathias Eick's "The Door-" a better album than "Invisible Cinema," but don't let that give you the wrong impression of Parks' record- Parks' work manages to imply the feeling of some rock music more in spirit than in sound. "Nemesis" features a 7/8 feel that reminds one more of Radiohead's odd-tempo work-outs than Brad Mehldau's. The compositions are, for the most part, great, although certain tracks drag on for a bit too long. "Peaceful Warrior," which features an interesting, catchy head, eventually is bogged down in lengthy solos from Parks and guitar player Mike Moreno. The same goes for "Harvesting Dance," which, in spite of an interesting chord progression and some interesting work from those two and the other sidemen Eric Harland (drums) and Matt Penman (bass) also goes on for too long.

With those exceptions, however, "Invisible Cinema" is a pretty tight record at about a 50 minute length; unlike some other records from young people recently, it doesn't wear out its welcome, and there's enough going on for multiple listens. Recommended.

JazzTimes has Some Weird Picks for it's Seven "New Jazz Visionaries;" First Half of Aaron Parks' "Invisible Cinema" really good

This is gonna be a quick one. Just some short gripes about the most recent issue of JazzTimes, which I picked up for something to do while I'm in Canada (In case that wasn't a tell, yes, I am in Canada for the weekend), and a link to Aaron Parks' myspace.

First off, it's worth picking up the new JazzTimes just for Taylor Eigsti's "Before and After," in which he apparently has never heard of Martial Solal ("What's the story with Martial Solal? I want to hear more of that"), kinda sorta trashes Ahmad Jamal ("It's in C, which to be honest I don't think is the best key for that tune"), and says that Brad Mehldau "is probably influenced by" Brad Mehldau. It's almost as good as Andy Bey's "Blindfold Test" from a few months ago, but not quite.

Second, Christian Scott is a major new jazz visionary but not Ambrose Akinmusire? I understand the lack of inclusion of Lionel Loueke, Jason Moran (too well-known by now) and Mike Moreno (he and Aaron Parks are like two sides of the same coin, but Moreno plays guitar), but why no Ambrose? I suppose the lukewarm reviews of "Prelude: To Cora" hurt him in this respect, but Scott's "Anthem" was given much harsher press. Plus it would have been nice to see Gretchen Parlato get some love, but oh well. Next time, I suppose. Other than that it was good, with worth-reading write-ups of Esperanza Spalding and Anat Cohen.

Finally, the first half of Aaron Parks' "Invisible Cinema" is online, and it's really good. Really good. Check out the way he reconciles obvious hip-hop and indie-rock influences on tracks like "Nemesis," which features a solo from Mike Moreno that I would call, for lack of a better phrase, "hella fine."

Casually Introducing Ambrose Akinmusire

Ambrose Akinmusire, based on his work as a side-man on various brilliant recent albums (Vijay Iyer's "In What Language" comes to mind, as does Walter Smith's "Casually Introducing Walter Smith," but we'll get to that one a little later) and on his recent wins in both of the two major trumpet competitions (the Carmine Caruso competition and the Thelonius Monk competition), is probably the young trumpet player of the moment. In spite of this fact, he has waited up until now ("In What Language" came out in 2003) to release a solo record, paying more attention to work as a sideman and on school at the Monk Institute. "Prelude: To Cora" is a pretty good record; the sidemen (including Walter Smith and Aaron Parks) play their asses off, the compositions are fairly modern sounding amalgamations of jazz (read: hard-bop and post-bop) with R+B and hip-hop, and the production only adds to these two things without getting in the way.

If you already want to buy this album based on what I just said, by all means, stop reading now. What is about to follow is a personal (and unpopular, as far as I can tell) opinion of mine about this record.

All of the stuff I mentioned above is true, but the problem is that while listening to "Prelude: To Cora," I experienced deja vu. I didn't think much of it until I realized a few minutes later that it is the same record as "Casually Introducing Walter Smith III." The three major players on "Prelude-" Akinmusire, Smith, and Aaron Parks- all play (the same) major roles on "Casually Introducing." The harmonic language that makes up Akinmusire's compositions on "Prelude" is the same harmonic language that Smith uses in his own compositions. I know what you're thinking, you're thinking "but there's clearly a difference between the two records! 'Prelude' has a vibes player! And there's much more variation on Smith's album!" Both of those things are true. Chris Dingman does not play on "Casually Introducing," although if he did it would not have been much of a different album. And the variation on "Casually Introducing-" which is, for the most part, missing from "Prelude-" was part of what made it such a great record.

This problem is illustrated best by "HumSong (skidrow anthem)," which, ironically, also happens to be one of the prettiest songs on the album. It opens up with a statement of the melody, followed by a section in which an organ trades with another rhythm section instrument (in this case vibes), which itself is followed by trading between saxophone and trumpet, and then the melody is taken out with (what sounds like) sequenced percussion. Sound familiar? That's the arrangement of "Kate Song," one of the prettiest songs on Walter Smith's "Casually Introducing." There is a remixed version on Akinmusire's website that is much more interesting; even though the playing is the same, the fully sequenced percussion adds a sense of urgency that is lacking from the album version.

But seriously, the playing is great- Parks, Smith, Akinmusire, and Dingman are all in top form- and for at least that reason you should probably ignore everything I just wrote about this album, especially if you liked "Casually Introducing." If you do not, however, have "Casually Introducing Walter Smith III," you should go and buy that album; it serves as a better introduction to this group of musicians (and includes guest spots from Robert Glasper, Lionel Loueke, Gretchen Parlato and Lage Lund).

Notes on Blue Note's Notes

There was a recent press release from Blue Note about upcoming albums (on March 5th, to be specific; you can read it here), so I figured I may as well give my thoughts on it. Wynton Marsalis has two new records coming out, each highlighting one of his two sides; one is a set of (surprise!) "blues and standards," I suppose to show that he still plays the same hard-bop/post-bop that he always has, while the other, highlighting his more pretentious blues-and-standards-player-as-auteur side, is a "romantic themed conceptual album of original music based on a poem by Wynton." I didn't even mention that the first record, tentatively called "Willie Nelson and Wynton Marsalis" features Willie Nelson on "Django Reinhardt-inspired guitar." The second record will hopefully be just as good as his last effort into all original material and poetry, "Wynton Raps-" er, "From the Plantation to the Penitentiary..."

The most interesting-looking record mentioned on this press release, however, seems like an afterthought in the midst of the two new Marsalis albums and the "70th Anniversary All-Stars" album, the first solo album from Aaron Parks, who you probably remember as the keyboard player on, well, practically everything from the Monk Institute crowd (Walter Smith III's "Casually Introducing" features him prominently, if you don't have it already, get it, it's great). Parks is killer, and while I don't believe anything on this album is out yet (you can hear a track on his myspace, but I'm pretty sure its not from the record) I'm excited to hear it whenever it comes out; according to the press release Parks will be mastering it next week, so hopefully that's soon.

Next time I'll post a review of Lionel Loueke's Karibu, a few tracks from which can be heard here.