Top Five(ish) Jazz Tunes of the Spring!

As I've said over and over again, so far this has been an incredible year for jazz; while it doesn't look like the flow of brilliant albums and tracks will let up in the near future, I thought it was worth commemorating what may well be the best spring in jazz since the fifties with something of a Top Five list. The problem (if you can call it a problem) is that after listing a large number of my favorite tunes since March or so and then whittling it down, I was incapable of creating a list of less than eight. I've tried to link you to the song wherever possible. So here you are, in alphabetical order, my almost-top-five of Spring 2008:

"A Change is Gonna Come" by Bill Frisell: Bill Frisell is quite possibly the single most interesting musician to gain status as one of Jazz's premier artist. He got his start playing tons of sessions for ECM, and made a name for himself by spending half of his time with Paul Motian and the other half with John Zorn; for the past ten or so years he has divided his time between working with brilliant guitar trios and making country-jazz records. "A Change is Gonna Come" represents something of a departure; neither country nor jazz, the song is a cover of a Sam Cooke song from the 60s. Greg Tardy plays a ridiculously good tenor solo after Frisell himself finishes up his own trademark solo featuring a lot of space and some notes that nobody else would play.

"Cuerro Y Alama (Body and Soul)" by Esperanza Spalding: While I have not reviewed Esperanza Spalding's "Esperanza" yet (I haven't been able to get ahold of it in it's entirety), based on the tracks featured on her myspace- and this gem, a spanish 5/4 cover of Body and Soul, in particular- that it could be brilliant. At first, when I'd heard that she spent more time singing on this album than on her gorgeous, underplayed debut "Junjo," I was a little bit apprehensive, but her voice is beautiful, and her bass solo on this track is brilliant in a melodic way.

"HumSong (Skidrow Anthem) Remix" by Ambrose Akinmusire and Yellow Then Blue: While the original is without a question growing on me (the more I listen to the album, the more I feel like I may have been a little too harsh on Akinmusire; he really is a shining light in the new jazz scene, so I suppose my expectations were just too high), the remix of "HumSong" as done by Yellow Then Blue just has a vibrancy that the original is lacking. The entrance of Walter Smith III into the track almost halfway through is accompanied by particularly spastic drums, and the sequenced percussion only makes the track seem more innovative and vital. Smith and Akinmusire in passionately trade fours, and Smith hits notes with incredible intensity.

"Lonely Woman" by Marian McPartland: If one more person reminds me that Marian McPartland just turned 90 I may cry; on the basis of her recent "Twilight World" album, she is just as vital (if not more vital) as a musician as she was in the 50s. "Lonely Woman," an Ornette Coleman cover, somehow does manages to fit in with the rest of the album. The most
astonishing thing about her cover of "Lonely Woman" is that she, a ninety year old who came up in the hard bop scene, has managed to make one of the best free jazz recordings of the year.

"Nonvignon" by Lionel Loueke: I didn't love Lionel Loueke's "Karibu;" to be blunt, it wasn't accessible like his live show in spite of Blue Note's efforts to smooth out all of the rough edges in this music. "Nonvignon," however, is without a question Lionel Loueke's most beautiful song. While the version on "Karibu" isn't as great as an earlier solo version on "In A Trance" or the version I saw at his show in Oberlin- he got the audience to sing along-, there is no question that it is one of the best songs of the Spring. In spite of extended movements away from the normal harmony in the middle, Loueke always manages to come back to the gorgeous chords of the song. If more people listened to "Nonvignon" the world would be a much happier place.

"The Remedy" by Kurt Rosenwinkel: The title track of Kurt Rosenwinkel's new live album from the Village Vanguard has the best groove of any jazz song I've heard all year, perhaps the best groove since the title track of Kenny Werner's "Lawn Chair Society," and the band is absolutely incredible. The major stand-out (with the exception of Rosenwinkel, saxophonist Mark Turner, drummer Eric Harland... hell, everybody in this band is a stand-out), for me at least, is pianist Aaron Goldberg, who, while groaning along a la Keith Jarrett, plays one of the simplest, funkiest, most brilliant motivic lines I've ever heard during his solo.

"Threnody" by Vijay Iyer: I've already talked at length about this particular track on this blog, twice. To put it simply, Rudresh Mahanthappa is the most innovative, violent saxophone player in jazz right now, and by the time he comes into the picture you've already been mesmerized by Iyer's interplay with bassist Stephen Crump.

"Wonderwall" by Brad Mehldau: Brad Mehldau, like Kurt Rosenwinkel, has been less than prolific in recent years; "Live," the latest from his trio, was worth the wait. "Wonderwall," a rhythmically interesting (the bass plays in a different time signature from the piano and drums; but the band meets up during the bridge, creating a sort of Steve Coleman vibe without sounding at all like Steve Coleman) cover of an Oasis tune, features Mehldau's usual gorgeous, funky, restrained piano playing. Mehldau, more than anyone else in the jazz world, understands that less is more, and he's come a long way since his note-heavy early records. His music manages to be complex enough to satisfy a jazz snob or music school student, but is simple and catchy enough to be accessible to just about anyone.

Why Do So Many Good Records Come Out in April and May?

That was a rhetorical question. But seriously, there are potentially game-changing records by EVERYONE that have either come out recently or are coming out in the near future, and at the moment at least, I can only listen to a small handful. So expect a flood of album reviews in the near future. For today, at least, I'm gonna try and write short reviews of "The New Crystal Silence," the first collaboration between Chick Corea and Gary Burton in a while, "Diaspora Suite," the new Steven Bernstein record, and Marian McPartland's "Twilight World."

The original "Crystal Silence" was an ECM classic if there ever was one, and rightfully so. It was a brilliant piano-vibes duet album and has clearly informed every other piano-vibes record that Gary Burton has done since, whether with Makoto Ozone or Herbie Hancock. "The New Crystal Silence" is not as good as that milestone, but at least the second CD is a great showcase for Burton and Corea, two brilliant instrumentalists who are still in their prime, to play off of eachother. "Waltz for Debbie," unexpected because this duo has never done standards together, is a particularly gorgeous and welcome surprise. The first CD is the more interesting one of the two (anyone who has ever heard Burton and Corea know what they're getting into with the second disc), featuring string arrangements of tunes familiar to Burton and Corea ("La Fiesta," "Duende," the title track) written by Tim Garland and played by the Sydney Symphony. I personally think that these tracks are beautiful, but there is no question in my mind that its a matter of personal taste. I usually don't like strings, but I think Garland's arrangements are pretty, if not necessarily subtle, and that they add an extra level of bombast to an already larger-than-life duo. Recommended to people who like Corea/Burton collaborations or strings.

When he isn't busy hovering near the top of Downbeat's annual Rising Star on Trumpet critics' poll or making free jazz fun again with Sex Mob, Steve Bernstein has been working on a series of CDs, the most recent of which is "Diaspora Suite," that explore what happens when you mix Jewish music with more contemporary forms. Granted, lately it seems almost impossible to throw a rock without hitting an album whose intent is to do this (Check out virtually anything with Anat Cohen's name attached, or John Zorn's Masada projects), but you can always count on Bernstein to do something interesting. This new one is great, featuring luminaries from California, including Nels Cline on guitar and Peter Apfelbaum on tenor sax. My two favorite tracks are "Simeon (Yis May Chu)," a Jewish funk extravaganza, and the closer, "Benjamin," a klezmer-flavored heavy metal freakout which showcases Cline's guitar chops. While this album definitely is not to everyone's taste (if you think the word "purist" applies to you, I'd take a pass on this one) I would recommend it to listeners with open ears, or listeners who already own and like any of the other "Diaspora" titles.

Finally, Marian McPartland turned 90 years old a month ago, and "Twilight World," her newest offering, was recorded about five months before that. "Twilight World" does not sound like the work of a 90 year-old woman, to put it lightly. Having come up as one of the warhorses of the fifties bop-flavored "mainstream jazz" movement with artists like Oscar Petersen, it should come as no surprise that Marian McPartland has chops, and that her sense of melody is as strong as ever. However, it will come as a surprise (at least to those who don't regularly listen to her "Piano Jazz" show on NPR, where she's spoken with everyone from Petersen to Kenny Werner) that she records not one, but two Ornette Coleman tunes, "Lonely Woman" and "Turnaround," on "Twilight World." These two tracks are fascinating, as McPartland never sounds out of place and manages to make both songs her own. She understands, as anyone from that era would, that lyricism is just as important in free music as it is in music with changes; for that reason these two tracks work just as well as any of the ballads (which include "Alfie" and "In the Days of Our Love"), and fit in. Highly Recommended.

I know people read criticism to see records get panned (believe me, I think it's funny too), but I couldn't really find anything about these three records that could prevent me from liking them. I just saw Lionel Loueke live last night (it was brilliant), so you can expect a review of that next time. After that I'll hopefully be able to review some of the other billion or so big releases this month (Vijay Iyer, Brian Blade, Kenny Werner and Roseanna Vitro, Miguel Zenon, Ambrose Akinmusire and Kurt Rosenwinkel all recently had albums released).