Hendrix: Still Standing Near The Fire

Thirty-eight years ago, in the March 30, 1972 issue of Rolling Stone, critic Stephen Davis began a review of Jimi Hendrix's Hendrix In The West with these words: "Scrape, scrape. That sound you hear is Eddie Kramer, the proprietor of the late Jimi Hendrix's New York recording studio, Electric Ladyland (sic), scraping the bottom of the Hendrix barrel for the second and possibly second-to-last posthumous album of the deceased genius' music."

Mind, this was before albums like War Heroes, Loose Ends, Crash Landing, Midnight Lightning, et.al. were unleashed on a public hungry for more from the man who sanctioned just three studio albums during his career.

The state of Hendrix's estate and the various reissue programs licensed by it are well documented, and I had long since grown cynical about the state of the Hendrix catalog myself. As many interesting tidbits that the estate had released under the aegis of Jimi's adopted half-sister Janie, it had also done things like slap his name on golf balls and psuedo-psychedelic clothing. Long ago, I stopped paying much attention.

But the estate's deal with Sony Legacy brought new hope. After all, the company has done a fabulous job with re-packaging the Miles Davis catalog and reissuing essential music by artists like Charles Mingus and Thelonious Monk. Maybe they'd do right by Hendrix, too.

But a new studio album? I immediately flashed back to that Rolling Stone review, but a couple of good advance notices piqued my interest.

I glanced at the sleeve of Valleys Of Neptune when it arrived this morning and thought, Hmmm, "Stone Free," "Hear My Train A Comin'," "Lover Man," "Fire." Ah, more of the same. I put the disc on and started into some work. The good mixes caught my ear, and the alternative versions were interesting. And then I came to "Red House." Wait a minute! Why was the original Experience re-doing that and "Fire" in early 1969?

The liner notes explain that the band re-cut them at a rehearsal for their appearance at Royal Albert Hall—a performance that was filmed (and rumour has it, will finally be released in some decent form)—and released posthumously on a couple of quasi-bootlegs.

Suffice to say that if Stephen Davis had known this was in Kramer's "barrel" he wouldn't have been so hasty. Hendrix's guitar solo and vocals are first rate—easily on par with the original release (on Are You Experienced in the UK and Smash Hits in North America)—and the quality is almost that good on several other tracks. This is more than barrel scraping or cashing in; this sounds like a dedicated Eddie Kramer listening to hours and hours of stuff and finding some real gems. If only for the sound of that guitar on "Red House" and a clean studio version of Hendrix's killer cover of "Sunshine Of Your Love," Valleys Of Neptune is a winner.

American Quartet: The Full List

Someone asked me the other day for the full list of the output of Keith Jarrett's American Quartet so they could follow along. Here it is, with the original labels and recording dates:

El Juicio – Atlantic Records 1971
Birth – Atlantic Records 1971
Expectations – Columbia Records 1971
Fort Yawuh – Impulse! 1973
Treasure Island – Impulse! 1974
Death And The Flower – Impulse! 1974
Backhand – Impulse! 1974
Mysteries – Impulse! 1975
Shades – Impulse! 1975
The Survivors' Suite – ECM 1976
Eyes Of The Heart – ECM 1976
Byablue – Impulse! 1976
Bop-Be – Impulse! 1977

Talk About Woodshedding!

Saxophonist Jane Bunnett and trumpeter Larry Cramer are taking their Art Of Jazz Festival on the road this summer, leaving the red-brick urban oasis of Toronto's Distillery District and heading north to Bancroft, Ontario.

Bunnett's family has owned land in the region south of Algonquin Park for almost a century, so the Bancroft area—and its vibrant arts community—is not new to the couple. Lately, they've been attracted to the log bandstand that the town constructed on the York River in 2001, which will be the primary site of the new Art Of Jazz presents the Algonquin Arts & Music Festival from July 30 to August 1.

Bunnett and Cramer are still putting together a lineup, so stay tuned for more details.

Recognition Issues

Bill King announced via Facebook this week that he is discontinuing the National Jazz Awards program that he began in 2002 (picking up from the earlier Jazz Report Awards that he ran with his then-business partner Greg Sutherland). King says that his team lacks the time to beat the corporate bushes to make up for the shortfall caused by the withdrawal of the awards program's funding through the Canadian government's FACTOR grants.

Although it struggled in its early years to expand its online voting base beyond Toronto—and a fairly conservative Toronto voting base at that—the National Jazz Awards caught on mid-decade and was well on its way to recognizing the achievements of jazz artists and industry workers across the country. (Full disclosure: I was the winner in the National Jazz Awards Journalist of the Year category for 2009, and served on the program's nomination committee in its early years.)

King was tireless in promoting and organizing the awards (last summer, he grimaced in pain from a back ailment as he scrambled around on the night of the ceremony) and while the process had its flaws he was never less than idealistic about his desire to recognize excellence in Canadian jazz.

Ironically, as the NJAs falter this week, the nominations for the Juno Awards (Canada's equivalent of the US Grammys) are being announced. The Junos have the advantage of focusing on popular music (I can't recall jazz ever being showcased on the national TV broadcast) but have neither the depth of the NJAs nor the ability to reflect the input of those who consume artists' work.

These awards programs are thankless (I've also been intimately involved in the Jazz Journalists Association's Jazz Awards over the years) but the recognition does mean a lot, and the ability for members of the industry to come together to celebrate their achievements is important, too. Whenever I think of the NJAs and the Jazz Report Awards I reflect on a speech that saxophonist Jane Bunnett made at one of the awards ceremonies. Looking out at the assembled artists and guests and still chuckling at some of the remarks that had been made by awards recipients, she said: "What a crazy bunch of people we are."

We need more opportunities to realize and express those thoughts.

Great Expectations

In some ways, Expectations—released on Columbia Records in 1972—is something of a ringer in the catalog of Keith Jarrett’s American Quartet. The full quartet—Jarrett, Dewey Redman, Charlie Haden and Paul Motian—is only featured on five of the 11 tracks, and only one piece is played by just the quartet. That stated, the album—originally a two-LP set—was produced by George Avakian, who also produced the band’s two Atlantic releases, and Jarrett’s writing is in the same mode as El Juicio and Birth. It fits into the lineage.

The original album is quite an artifact, with an Afro’ed and tie-dyed Jarrett gracing the back cover, just above 22 flags, representing “countries in which Keith Jarrett has won the praise and respect of musicians, critics and the public.” That would be 22 out of more than 190? Probably not something a “global” jazzman would want to flaunt today. Perhaps the record label had second thoughts, too; Expectations was Jarrett’s only release on Columbia.

The additional elements for these sessions include percussionist Airto Moreira, who had been in Miles Davis’ band with Jarrett, uncredited string and brass sections, and the brilliant guitarist Sam Brown. A Maryland native who first drew attention for his work on Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra, Brown had a stinging attack and a tart tone that Jarrett called on again for Treasure Island in 1974. He committed suicide at the age of 38 in 1977.

Side 1 includes some of my favourite of Jarrett’s writing during this period, in particular “Common Mama,” whose fusion of gospel, blues, Latin and free music makes the case for calling this the American Quartet. Like long stretches of the Bremen and Lausanne solo concerts that ECM released in 1973, Jarrett grooves as he ruminates on a theme. That gives way to a squalling Redman solo, and either Jarrett or Moreira spices things up with a tambourine accompaniment that sounds like that spine-snapping rhythm riff from Miles Davis’ “Helen Butte.” Finally, an Ornette-like theme develops and is handed off to Jarrett for a particularly joyous closing solo.

The spirit of Ornette also infuses “Roussillon,” one of the tracks performed by the quartet alone. Jarrett’s soprano weaves around Redman’s tenor, and following a Haden interlude, Jarrett plays a particularly intense piano solo. To my ear, Redman’s growling tenor solo sounds like he’s emulating Jarrett’s signature vocalizations without mocking the boss.

“The Magician In You” has one of those Jarrett-composed melody lines that is both sprightly and majestic, and it’s attractively voiced by Brown, bookending a Jarrett solo that is filled with leaps and twists. Even with those charms, the performance is almost undone by tentative rhythmic accompaniment that makes this sound like it’s a rehearsal.

Of the other augmented quartet performances on Expectations, “Sundance” is another highlight of the band’s early years—with Brown and Redman taking raucous solos over a churning rhythm bed. “Bring Back The Time When (If)” adds Moreira and drops Brown, and captures the freewheeling side of the quartet between statements of a theme that hints at both calypso and the church.

The gospel connection is solidified in the closing “There Is A Road (God’s River),” which eschews Redman but provides Brown with an exceptional showcase. The string section adds little except some drama, but neither do they weigh down this strong closer.

Birth—The Quartet's Second Helping

Recorded by George Avakian at the same July 1971 sessions that produced El Juicio—the debut release by Keith Jarrett’s so-called American Quartet (featuring Charlie Haden, Dewey Redman and Paul Motian)—Birth leans much more strongly on the band’s experimental side.

Actually, “experimental” might be too mild a word for what Haden does with his bass by processing it through a wah-wah pedal on “Mortgage On My Soul (Wah-Wah).” Listening to it again after all these years—it has not drawn me back in the intervening three decades—I am reminded of producer Teo Macero’s story of adding wah-wah to Miles Davis’ trumpet for the first time. Seeking to emulate the sounds that guitarists like Jimi Hendrix, Terry Kath and Freddie Stewart were making sound hip, Macero—in his own words—“wah-wah’ed the shit out of it.” Haden’s use of the pedal shows just as much restraint.

Rippling and spitting behind a dual sax line, with Jarrett on soprano, Haden’s bass is a powerful engine on this highly danceable piece, and all these years later the elastic growl doesn’t even grate much anymore.

While sonically manipulating a tone as sublime as Haden’s may be the nadir of taste circa 1971, the freedom exhibited on “Spirit” is what made the era so much fun to live through. Mixing Redman’s Chinese oboe, which he dubbed the musette, metallic percussion, flute, bass drums and Halloween-scary vocals, the song has charm despite sounding dated in an era when so much of the world’s music is as close as our earbuds.

“Forget Your Memories (And They’ll Remember You)” has a bit of everything, including a taut bassline—and tremendous solo—from Haden, a highly textured tenor lead, understated drumming and emotive piano playing.

A discursive 11 minutes long, “Remorse” is more of what we used to call “head music” in the early ‘70s, featuring steel drums, banjo (by Jarrett!) and a wailing clarinet solo by Redman. Haden and Motian keep the tension high, and Jarrett’s fractured piano accompaniment leads to one of those spiraling solo statements of his that is an ideal blend of quicksilver imagination and pianistic technique. It forms a nice birth/death bookend with the title composition, which is the album’s highlight. The opening duet between Jarrett and Redman is gorgeous, and makes me wish they had done more of this type of thing. Redman’s bluesy approach is a beautiful match for Jarrett’s romantic lyricism, much the same as the pairing of Archie Shepp and Horace Parlan.

At a little over 35 minutes there is little question that Birth was a helping of leftovers from the band’s first sessions, but it helps flesh out a map of where this quartet would venture during its six-year life.

Jarrett's El Juicio: The Quartet Begins

Keith Jarrett has become so identified with his so-called Standards Trio with Jack DeJohnette and Gary Peacock, and his on-again, off-again interest in solo improvisation that it is difficult to think of a time (1966-72) when he was a polymathic precursor of more recent artists like Dave Douglas and Bill Frisell.

As the pianist in the Charles Lloyd Quartet—that rare jazz band that crossed over to an audience more interested in rock music—he had a profile that few jazz musicians attain in their early 20s. He released his first solo album, Life Between The Exit Signs, in 1967, and formed a trio with bassist Charlie Haden and drummer Paul Motian the next year. In 1970, Manfred Eicher, owner of the nascent ECM record label, invited the young pianist to record for him (initiating a relationship that is now 40 years old). That year, Jarrett also briefly compromised his stance against electronic instruments for the opportunity to create music alongside Miles Davis. Playing with Davis before large crowds—the culmination of which was the 1970 Isle of Wight Pop Festival, where Jarrett created a fearsome frisson in his attack on his electric keyboard—broadened his exposure to an even greater degree than his tenure with Lloyd.

By 1971—the year he turned 26—Jarrett was in a position to call his own artistic shots. One of the results was a growing interest in performing solo piano concerts with no set musical agenda (an arc that begins with one of my favourite Jarrett recordings, Facing You, and peaks with The Köln Concert—still the largest-selling recording in ECM’s vast catalogue).

Along with Davis, one of older artists Jarrett revered was Ornette Coleman. While Coleman had eschewed piano in his bands since leaving the orbit of Paul Bley in the late 1950s, Jarrett decided to rejuvenate his trio with the addition of Dewey Redman, Coleman’s bandmate since 1968, and explore music that was dominated by muscular improvisation. As noted here, Jarrett recognized a challenge in using two musicians—Haden and Redman—who were indoctrinated in Coleman’s approach to melodic free playing. In July 1971, he convened his new quartet in the studio with veteran producer George Avakian. The results are captured on two albums: El Juicio (The Judgement) and Birth. I’ll deal with them in separate posts.

It begins with the bass. One of the dominant features of the American Quartet's music was the heft and percussive thrust of Haden's bass. On "Gypsy Moth," El Juicio's opening track, Haden is high in the mix (he even sounds powerful on an MP3 download) laying down a strong pulse that grooves and weaves throughout the piece. In the opening minutes, Jarrett uses this foundation to accentuate his gospel-influenced playing. The percussion is spare, even and metallic sounding, a foreshadowing of the frequent use of additional percussionists—either Airto Moreira, Guilherme Franco or Danny Johnson. Although the American Quartet is often remembered for its "outside" leanings, what many people disregard is how hard this band could cook. During Jarrett's piano introduction the band sounds like some kind of strange juke joint hybrid (even Jarrett's trademark vocalizations sound more celebratory than anguished in this context). In his liner notes for The Impulse Years: 1973-1974—a collection of the quartet's mid-period recordings—Chuck Berg writes that the band was sometimes criticized for sounding like Ramsey Lewis' popular trio, a comparison that never struck me. What does strike me, once Redman enters, is how Jarrett's melody line and the rigor the band brings to it might've influenced Pat Metheny (who would work with Redman and Haden on his '80-'81 recording). In its middle section, "Gypsy Moth" has that propulsive sailing element that so much of Metheny's early writing has. But there's more, too. After stating that airy melody, Redman begins to extend into a highly textured improvisation, with Haden louder than ever, and the percussion—sounding like Jarrett has picked up a tambourine—becomes more ragged and urgent. Finally, the piano re-enters for the tune's closing 45 seconds.

As an introductory statement, "Gypsy Moth" has almost every element that would make the American Quartet so influential. In little over eight minutes, the band points to a new direction in jazz—at once driving and fragmented, joyous and inward looking.

Coleman's influence is unmistakable on "Toll Road," with Jarrett combining his soprano sax with Redman's tenor in the kind of jostling unison head that Coleman and Don Cherry pioneered, a relationship that is made even more obvious on the two-part "Piece For Ornette."

"Pardon My Rags" introduces yet another fascination Jarrett expressed through the American Quartet: a love for exotic musical sources. Here, the opening percussion statement sounds like an extrapolation of Balinese music; later, he would explore Asian micro-tonality through Redman's use of the shrill, double-reed suona, which he called a musette.

In recent years, Jarrett's music has been perceived as so tightly controlled that it is difficult to remember that he used the American Quartet to explore so many diverse elements. When we get to Birth we'll explore Haden's use of wah-wah manipulation of his bass, but on El Juicio's "Pre-Judgement Atmosphere" the sonic palette expands to include more metallic percussion (a precursor of Henry Threadgill's hubkaphone?) and electronically processed vocals that are reminiscent of Hermeto Pascoal's work on Davis' Live-Evil. It remains a kind of quaint reminder of the sound of the early '70s.

The title track shows the quartet as many people seem to recall it—improvising freely and fervently in much the same style as Coleman's quartet, which means that Motian is a lot more aggressive than he has been for the past 35 years. In this early work, Jarrett cleaves closer to the types of thematic statements that Coleman writes than he would in later recordings, and it's only when he shifts back to piano from soprano on the second part of "Piece For Ornette" that the band sounds like it's taking Coleman's influence somewhere untried. Jarrett would later opine that this band never recorded anything as untethered as it was capable of, but they sound marvelously free on the second part of "Piece For Ornette," with Jarrett using many of his piano signatures and his bandmates flowing all around him.

As an introduction, El Juicio is not without its flaws, but it definitely sounds like a harbinger of great things.

Now Spinning: Digging Roots and Willie McBlind

As noted here, I spent my teens immersed in electric blues music as purveyed by The Allman Brothers Band, Johnny Winter, Paul Butterfield and the like. Through them, I cycled back through time to Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf and Elmore James, then further back to Son House, Bukka White and Robert Johnson. Without access to the Allmans or their peers in the flesh, my friends and I spent many a night soaking up electric blues—and soaking up quart bottles of Molson Export—via guys like Dutch Mason, Morgan Davis and David Wilcox (unwittingly, in the same barrooms as Dan Aykroyd, as it turns out).

What turned me on about guitarists like Wilcox, Winter and Duane Allman was how they took the blues form beyond what their predecessors had created, spinning out longer forms, using amplification for expanded dynamics and applying more advanced techniques than some of the early blues players possessed.

When I moved on to other forms of music—and, for the most part, gave up my wicked, beer-soaked ways—it seemed that electric blues guitar had been taken about as far as it could go. I began to realize this wasn't true when I heard Sonny Landreth wailing behind John Hiatt, and Derek Trucks began to outgrow the long shadow of Brother Duane. And, while they may be the highest profile players, Landreth and Trucks aren't the only guitarists who are taking the blues genre further out. Recently, two new releases have me as hopped up as I used to get after a couple of quarts of Ex.

The first recording—Digging Roots' We Are—reacquainted me with a guitarist I first met at the Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville. Raven Kanatakta was—still is—a striking-looking young man who was studying at the Berklee College of Music. The last time I saw him, at the jazz festival in Ottawa, he was worried that a repetitive-strain injury would force him to quit guitar and focus on composition. He needn't have worried; he has developed into an exceptional, distinctive player. Sharing leadership of Digging Roots with his wife, singer ShoShona Kish, he's creating a compelling blend of blues, rock and urban dance music. I've been spinning We Are off and on for weeks.

The second guitarist who's caught my ear is Jon Catler, an inventive player who uses harmonically re-fretted and fretless guitars in his band Willie McBlind. Catler also collaborates with a creative singer, Meredith (Babe) Borden, who has a three-octave range. Both Catler and Borden have worked extensively in art music—he with La Monte Young, her with Meredith Monk and Philip Glass—and those influences flow into strains of Blind Willie Johnson and Mississippi Fred McDowell with a solubility that seems unlikely but sounds right. While I haven't warmed to Borden's voice as much as I have Kish's—purely a matter of taste, and mine is simply that—I'm sure many listeners will find Willie McBlind's Bad Thing indispensable. They certainly stir up an exciting racket that takes you way outside of where you might have imagined the blues going.

The State of my Business

Jason Gross at PopMatters has a long and thoughtful overview of the past year in music journalism, which includes some sharp insight on the transformation from print to digital.

There is also about a month's worth of interesting reading if you follow the links to his award winners for best pop music writing of the year.

Into The Quartet—Into The Bubble

Preparing for my immersion in Keith Jarrett's so-called American Quartet I realize that I am missing two pieces of their official catalogue: their first release, The Mourning Of A Star, which was recorded in July 1971, along with El Juicio and Birth; and The Survivors' Suite, the band's first of two recordings on ECM. I have to remedy that.

I've been pondering how to launch this study—thinking I might begin with Expectations, which, although it was recorded three months after the quartet first recorded, always feels like an introduction to me, because it features other musicians.

Tonight, though, flipping through a slim book of Jarrett quotes that ECM published in 2003, I found the ideal beginning in this quote, from an interview he gave to Michael Ullmann in 1994:

"When you have two guys from Ornette Coleman's band, which never had a piano, and their leader is now a pianist, it's a very touchy situation. Because when you hear music melodically the way most of the Ornette players—including Ornette—hear, they are not trapped; they will never allow themselves to be inside a zone if they feel like leaving that zone. So if you're writing something to make a unit out of this quartet, it's like writing a thing that's a bubble that can continue to expand in different directions and doesn't inhibit everybody. But still, you don't want one guy to play one way, and another guy to play on changes. You don't want the bubble that holds them together to burst. The challenge was immense, but it was a very interesting band."

Erratum: Pianist Frank Kimbrough kindly pointed out to me that The Mourning Of A Star is, in fact, a trio recording without Dewey Redman. My error resulted from my poor reading of the credits in Richard Cook and Brian Morton's Penguin Guide To Jazz. So, I'm only missing one, and I have a line on that now, too. Onwards!

Music Takes Manhattan

Where else but New York City can you feel so completely immersed in music talk and actual listening that you can imagine yourself in a world where music is the lingua franca and larger problems simply disappear? Uptown, where Paul Blair led an historical walking tour of Harlem; Midtown, where the Association of Performing Arts Presenters delegates took over two large hotels; and Downtown, where the Winter JazzFest filled five West Village clubs to capacity (and beyond, onto the frigid sidewalks)—Manhattan felt like it was buzzing, despite weather that was almost too much like home for me.

One of the more jaded of the compatriots I spent three afternoons discussing jazz business with thought that the APAP confab was like a scaled-down version of the late, lamented International Association of Jazz Education conference—which used to take place at the same two Midtown hotels—but the scale seemed just right to me. On a purely selfish level, it meant you could get a table at the Hilton's bar to chow down on amazing street food and chew the fat about the fortunes of jazz.

On another level, it meant that the discussion within the conference went beyond jazz to other branches of art, allowing dance presenters to trade notes and experiences with new music promoters. Within our own group, it meant—for one of the first times I can remember—young bucks like National Public Radio's Patrick Jarenwattananon and relative gray beards like Gary Giddins exchanged ideas. The most-productive of the Jazz Journalists Association's three session I participated in was the setting for energetic discussions between writers, Webcasters, publicists, label owners like Pi's Yulun Wang and musicians like bassist Melvin Gibbs. Invigorating stuff! As JJA president Howard Mandel and I pondered at the end of a small cocktail party: How do we keep this dialogue flowing?

If we can do that, I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that we may be on the verge of a rejuvenation of the jazz journalism business that might be on the level of what happened in the 1960s, when magazines like Rolling Stone changed the face of music journalism. No one has any doubt that there is no shortage of vital music to report on. Numerous artists who participated in the two-night Winter JazzFest marveled from the stage about the great music going on and the terrific vibe among the large audiences.

My full report on Winter JazzFest will be in a future issue of DownBeat.

A New Jazz Synergy

Once the festival season ends, it's a lonely life for those of us in the jazz industry outside New York City. Time was—as uninviting as winter air travel is—when early January offered a nice off-season opportunity to get together, at the annual International Association of Jazz Education conference. But IAJE lost its way, got a little greedy for true international reach, and went bankrupt. Suddenly, January seemed a lot longer and colder.

Fortunately, jazz workers, like nature itself, abhor a vacuum, so we found a new reason to get together in the weeks after Christmas.

The Association of Performing Arts Presenters has been around for more than 40 years, and represents members in some 15 countries, in addition to all 50 states in the U.S. The organization is reaching out to the jazz community this year, tying its annual conference into the National Endowment for the Arts' Jazz Masters celebration and staging some jazz-centric programming of its own.

What's more, the APAP conference also coincides with Winter Jazzfest, which fills a handful of West Village clubs with some of the most interesting young musicians in jazz for two nights. This year's lineup is exceptional, featuring the kinds of one-off combinations you only get to hear in New York, as well as great touring bands like Vijay Iyer's trio.

The Jazz Journalists Association lost one of its main focal points when the IAJE went under, and we hate a vacuum more than anyone. Fortunately, APAP has reached out to the JJA this year, too, and the organization will be staging several events in and around the conference. On Saturday, from 2-4 p.m., I'll be moderating a town hall-style session on the business of jazz journalism. The session is free and will be held at the Sheraton Hotel, 811 Seventh Avenue, Conference Center Room E, on the hotel's ground floor just to the left inside the Seventh Avenue entrance. If you have a couple of free hours and you're in the neighborhood, drop by and find out a bit more about the state of jazz criticism in the digital era.

Library Listening Project 2010

I blogged way less about Cecil Taylor than I had intended to in 2009, as I worked my way through a couple of dozen of his recordings from 1956 to 2006, but what is New Year's about if not re-birth and resolution? With that in mind, I'm embarking on the third annual Library Listening Project today, and focusing on Keith Jarrett's so-called American Quartet: Dewey Redman, Charlie Haden and Paul Motian.

Unlike most of the iconic bands/artists who have enough far-distant back catalogue to warrant one of these year-long sessions, Jarrett's quartet is actually a band I saw live—in the winter of 1975-76 at Ottawa's National Arts Centre—and followed contemporaneously. I think I probably heard them for the first time on one of the weeknightly jazz programs that CBC Radio used to broadcast. At 20, I was aware of Haden, of course, and knew Motian had been in Bill Evans' landmark trio, although Evans was not someone I had checked out beyond his time with Miles Davis. I had read about Redman's contributions to the early '70s Ornette Coleman group, and was anxious to hear him.

I had few jazz pals in Ottawa at the time, so I went to see the quartet alone (I couldn't even imagine knowing a girl who'd be interested in doing that as a date at the time!) and it was a revelation. Being immersed in the fusion era, Motian's tiny drum kit (to say nothing of what he did with it) seemed revolutionary, and Redman's sound was huge. Jarrett and Haden lived up to my expectations, which were high. Fort Yawuh became one of my go-to albums, with "De Drums" high on my list of favourite live tracks of all time.

It has been interesting to read Jarrett's recent comments about how dysfunctional that quartet was: with Haden still addicted to opiates; and Redman a heavy drinker, chronically late and unable to read music. I'm not sure that knowledge will put this music in a different light; probably not. What does cast a brighter, if not different, light is realizing how many other people this band touched—from Ethan Iverson, who conducted one of those recent interviews with Jarrett, to drummer George Schuller, who recently released a very good tribute to the American Quartet.

Watch for my reflections on the band throughout the coming year.

Top 10 Plus

Here's my contribution to the Village Voice 2009 Jazz Poll:

Top 10 2009
1. Vijay Iyer Trio – Historicity (ACT)
2. Miguel Zenón – Esta Plena (Marsalis Music)
3. Michael Musillami Trio + 3 – From Seeds (Playscape)
4. Henry Threadgill Zooid – This Brings Us To, Volume 1 (Pi)
5. Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society – Infernal Machines (New Amsterdam)
6. Enrico Rava – New York Days (ECM)
7. Jim Hall & Bill Frisell – Hemispheres (ArtistShare)
8. Chris Potter Underground – Ultrahang (ArtistShare)
9. Jon Hassell – Last Night The Moon Came Dropping Its Clothes In The Street (ECM)
10. Dave Douglas – Spirit Moves (Greenleaf Music)

Reissues
1. Louis Armstrong – The Complete Louis Armstrong Decca Sessions (1935-1946) (Mosaic)
2. Miles Davis – The Complete Columbia Album Collection (Legacy)
3. Charles Mingus – Mingus Ah Um 50th Anniversary (Legacy)

Vocal
Lisa Sokolov – A Quiet Thing (Laughing Horse)

Debut
Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society – Infernal Machines (New Amsterdam)

Latin
Miguel Zenón – Esta Plena (Marsalis Music)

Top 10 Coming This Week

What is the definitive Top 10 list of jazz recordings—The Village Voice Jazz Critics Poll—will be published in this week's edition of the newspaper and available online sometime Tuesday evening. Ninety-nine critics contributed to the poll, which is co-ordinated by Francis Davis.

The results are proof positive that there are some exciting young voices out there. Check it out.

'Til 2010

When you're a freelancer there are two kinds of Christmas/New Year's seasons: quiet, which does not bode well for the early February cash flow; or crazy, which means you'll be lucky if you find time for all the necessary pre-holiday preparations. This year, it's the latter for me. No complaints, especially at the tail-end of a year that did not begin well for anyone, but it does mean there will be no leisurely, egg nog-fueled year-end retrospectives and look-aheads. In all likelihood, this is it for 2009.

January promises numerous posts around the time of the Winter Jazzfest/APAP blowout in New York City. The Jazz Journalists Association has now been swept up in the activities, thanks to the dogged work of Yvonne Ervin and Howard Mandel, and I'm lined up to participate in at least one panel discussion. More to come on that, but likely not until the new year.

So have a good one. And enjoy some music—live or otherwise; musicians need you.

Concerts of the Year?

I've had a few inquiries about this year's list of best concerts. Well, a look back over the past 71 posts on Jazz Chronicles will tell you it has been a light year for travel and concert-going. Just about anything I posted now would merely retread what I wrote during my 10 days hunkered down as media specialist for the 2009 TD Canada Trust Ottawa International Jazz Festival. No shortage of memorable concerts there, so I could easily—and happily—nominate Charles Lloyd's quartet, Dave Douglas' Brass Ecstacy or the Maria Schneider Orchestra.

Not surprisingly, a year without a musical road trip has left me staring at my carry-on bag and fingering my passport. The first week of January will change all that when the Winter Jazzfest kicks off in New York City. I'm really looking forward to making the in-concert acquaintance of artists who have excited me on recordings or through word of mouth over the past couple of years, including: Mary Halvorson, Ambrose Akinmusire, Jenny Scheinman and Linda Oh.

Reading List

Three thin-but-vital volumes have been on my bedside table in recent weeks. Two are by friends—Mark Miller's biography of pianist/composer Herbie Nichols and Stuart Broomer's examination of the music of Anthony Braxton—so I'm too biased to saying anything beyond, Great work, guys.

The third book is equally welcome: a new Picador softcover edition of Geoff Dyer's brilliant and evocative 1996 book, But Beautiful.

A powerful example of imaginative non-fiction, the book allows readers to peer into moments in the lives of a number of jazz giants. Dyer puts you in the backseat of a car as Duke Ellington and Harry Carney steer toward their next gig; plummets you in to New York City's Alvin Hotel to witness the final hours in the life of saxophonist Lester Young; and puts you on the downward spiral with Ben Webster as he drinks and plays his way across Europe. Dyer can certainly be faulted—as was Clint Eastwood for his portrait of Charlie Parker—for focusing only on the sad loneliness that befalls some musicians who live too long on the periphery of a life tethered to realities like children and home. He may wear his romanticism on his sleeve, but the rich tapestry of his language and his insights into the human condition make that easy to forgive. There are many other places where you can read the facts about Chet Baker, Art Pepper, Ben Webster and Lester Young; allow Dyer his flights of fantasy about small, meaningful scenes in those lives.

Top 10 Coming Soon

Once again this year, Francis Davis is co-ordinating a year-end critics poll of best CDs for the Village Voice, so my list will be delayed until his compendium appears in the paper and online either on December 30 or January 6. As expected, there have been a couple of late considerations and additions, and Francis' approach requires a bit of revision, since he also includes vocal, latin and historical releases.

Jazz On The Web

Big buzz circulating this week about the future of Jazz.com in the wake of founding editor Ted Gioia's decision to step away from the project. Since Ted hasn't commented yet on the future of the site (and his silent partner/investor hasn't stepped forward) any speculation is just that. Some blog posts have pondered what this means for the future of jazz on the Web—and while I gave a moment's thought to how much I'd miss Ted's vigilant aggregation of jazz posts around the world (and thanks, Ted, for picking up the occasional piece from Jazz Chronicles) if that doesn't continue under whoever takes over his job—I don't think there's great cause for alarm. While there is still no viable business model for a large, expansive site like Jazz.com, I'm convinced that there will always be enthusiastic people who want to spread their passion about the music they love.

That idea was reinforced (again) when I read Robert Hilburn's chatty autobiography, Corn Flakes With John Lennon. Like myself, and thousands of other music nerds out there, Hilburn got involved in music journalism because he saw a void. In his case, it was the early 1960s and the setting was Los Angeles, but it happens over and over, in big cities and small: you hear something that moves you and you want to share it—and your opinions and passion about it—with others.

So, while Ted Gioia's knowledge and steady editorial hand will be missed—and Jazz.com will be missed, too, if Ted's departure signals its end—I'm convinced that someone else will step up and fill the hole he leaves.