Critical Judgement

I have to admit it, I love when my DownBeat colleagues John Corbett and John McDonough stake out territory at extreme opposite ends of opinion on a particular recording. In the December issue's "Hot Box" feature, Corbett gives Evan Parker's 1970 recording The Topography Of The Lungs—which was just released for the first time on CD—the full five stars, while McDonough allots it a mere one star. While Corbett sees the recording as "one of the best five or so examples of its kind," McDonough writes that it's "a worthless stunt."

Now, it's not that I view music criticism as a bloodsport, or that I favour one John over the other (in fact, I know Corbett only slightly from a couple of encounters and McDonough only from a couple of email correspondences), but the difference of intelligent, informed opinion over art is one of the things that attracted me to the craft more than 30 years ago, when I first submitted reviews to my university newspaper. The fact that two people with roughly equal measures of listening experience can hear something so differently, can position a recording so radically differently within the context of recorded music, is what makes criticism such a vital component of the art world.

Before I saw Corbett and McDonough's divergent takes on the Parker CD, I was thinking of this in the context of the 2006 top 10 lists I've been collecting from Jazz Journalists Association members for posting on our website. I haven't done the math yet to determine overall rankings, but it's clear that Kenny Garrett's Beyond The Wall is going to rank fairly high since it's on a number of critics's lists. Not all, mind; it's not a recording that grabbed my ear, for example, so I was surprised to see it land on so many of my colleagues's lists. But now I'm intrigued to go back and try to hear what fellow critics like Bill Milkowski, Ollie Bivins and Geoffrey Himes are hearing.

And just to make things even more intriguing: in DownBeat, Corbett gave the Garrett CD three stars, McDonough, two-and-a-half.

Top 10

The task of selecting a top 10 CD list continues to get more difficult as new technologies enable musicians to record and distribute their works more easily. I now average well over one CD a day in the mail, and artists point me to downloadable recordings on the Web in addition to those. I know some of my colleagues receive at least twice that much music—not a situation I envy. As a music journalist, you do your best to keep up, but the reality is you just can't hear everything. I rely on colleagues and music-savvy friends outside the industry to tip me to worthy recordings that have caught their ears, and I listen intensely—meaning at least a dozen times each, and in some detail (often through headphones as well as without)—to probably 25 or 30 recordings that I've been assigned to review. Then, there are obvious releases—addressed in an earlier post: Ornette Coleman, Dave Holland, Keith Jarrett, et.al.; musicians of the first rank whose work always deserves a listen—to check out. Anyway, suffice to say, it's a lot of listening, but I don't fool myself that I've heard nearly everything worthy of note. With that long-winded proviso, here's my list for 2006, as of today. You never know what else might catch my ear by year's end. These are in alphabetical order.

Andy Biskin Quartet – Early American: The Melodies Of Stephen Foster (Strudelmedia)
Ornette Coleman – Sound Grammar (Sound Grammar)
Mark Feldman – What Exit (ECM)
Gordon Grdina/Gary Peacock/Paul Motian – Think Like The Waves (Songlines)
Frank Kimbrough – Play (Palmetto)
Brian Lynch/Eddie Palmieri Project – Simpático (ArtistShare)
Brad Mehldau Trio – House On Hill (Nonesuch)
Francisco Mela – Melao (Ayva)
Trio Beyond – Saudades (ECM)
Tomasz Stanko Quartet – Lontano (ECM)

If you're interested in what other jazz journalists fell in love with this year, check out the Jazz Journalists Association annual Top 10 compendium, which will be posted shortly at our website.

Year End

I received the first request for a year-end top 10 list the other day.

This always presents a challenge this time of year, because my list is far from carved in stone. I keep track of recordings that are worthy contenders throughout the year as I receive and hear them, but inevitably there are things I haven't delved into deeply enough by November to determine whether they'll bump something else off the list. For example, I haven't spent nearly enough time with three recordings I know will be contenders for my final list: the new Ornette Coleman, Dave Holland and Keith Jarrett. These are musicians whose work I savour, so I always set them aside for leisuretime listening, and that always seems to get pushed off by more pressing demands. There are also a number of things I should go through again; I know there's at least one Anthony Braxton set that I didn't pay enough attention to.

Still, there are a few things that seem like "locks" at this point. The Brian Lynch tribute to Eddie Palmieri with Phil Woods is exceptional, and is probably far enough up the list that it won't get bumped, and that's likely also the case for Andy Biskin's lovable blenderization of the Stephen Foster songbook with the great Pete McCann on guitar.

So, for some lists, like the one we post on the Jazz Journalists Association website, I'll stall until the last minute. There's just too much listening left to do.