Other Writing

Aug 21 2015

Things I love about Twitter: Chris Schlarb’s “Making the Saint” tour

 

Chris Schlarb Making the SaintGuitarist Chris Schlarb, whose music I’ve raved about on this site repeatedly, completed a solo tour in 2014 in support of his new album Making the Saint.

His Twitter feed was incredibly entertaining to follow.  I’ve decided to embed a compilation of the post-show tweets.  The tweets included here all have the same format: a few words about how the show went, a tangential comment, and a tally of his progress on recouping his financial investment in the tour.  I think these tweets are illuminating, succinct glimpses into the mindset of a touring musician.  The only other musician I’ve seen that does anything resembling this on a consistent basis is Ken Vandermark (and his is a Twitter feed also worth following).

In any event, here begins the Chris Schlarb tour tweets travelogue. Visit his Twitter page for even more tour tweets, which often focus on side-trips in between shows and pre-show observations.  Also, at the foot of this column, be sure to check out some announcements about current & upcoming Chris Schlarb projects.

 

July 1 – Hitting the Road

 

July 5 – Phoenix, AZ – Trunk Space

 

 

July 6 – Santa Fe, NM – High Mayhem

 

July 8 – Denton, TX – House Show

 

July 8 – Dallas, TX – Good Records

July 9 – Austin, TX – MASS Gallery

 

July 10 – San Antonio, TX – Sala Diaz

 

July 11 – Houston, TX – Alabama Song

 

 

July 15 – Nashville, TN – Stone Fox

July 16 – Athens, GA – Cine

 

 

July 18 – Lynchburg, VA – Speakertree Records

July 19 – Richmond, VA – Plan 9 Records (Afternoon)

 

 

July 19 – Charlottesville, VA – Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar (Evening)

 

July 20 – Washington DC – Union Arts DC

 

 

July 22 – Philadelphia, PA – Ortlieb’s Lounge

July 23 – New York, NY – New Amsterdam Records

 

 

July 25 – Rochester, NY – Vineyard Community Space

 

July 26 – Buffalo, NY – El Museo

July 27 – Athens, OH – Donkey Coffee

 

 

July 28 – Cincinnati, OH – Heligator House

July 29 – Owensboro, KY – Daviess County Public Library

 

July 30 – Indianapolis, IN – Joyful Noise Recordings

July 31 – Goshen, IN – Ignition Music

 

 

August 1 – Chicago, IL – Comfort Station

August 2 – Oshkosh, WI – Oshkosh Masonic Center

 

 

August 3 – Iowa City, IA – Public Space One

  August 4 – Wichita, KS – Track House  

 

 

August 5 – Denver, CO – Leon Gallery

 

August 6 – Salt Lake City, UT – Diabolical Records  

 

 

August 8 – San Francisco, CA – Holy Innocents Episcopal Church

   

August 9 – San Luis Obispo, CA – Boo Boo Records  

 

All Done – Show Over

*****

In the wake of the tour conclusion, I asked Chris a handful of questions.  Here’s a composite of his responses.

Favorite shows?  Best memories are from Brooklyn, Indianapolis, Goshen and Oshkosh.  Favorite side trip was the few days I spent in New Orleans… no show there, and it was completely magical.  I was also able to see [former collaborator & pedal steel guitarist with the Brian Blade Fellowship] Dave Easley play a trio set, complete with Zappa, Allman Brothers & Beatles covers, plus the old jazz standard “Moonlight In Vermont”.

My thoughts on the tour as a whole was that it was a completely insane thing to do.  It was also very successful creatively and personally.  I learned a lot about myself as a performer.  I challenged myself both musically and intellectually. Biggest challenge?  Well, performing solo, and the complete lack of dynamics that a band gives you.  I worked on my set, performance, and concept for months ahead of time in an effort to put on a great show.  I tried my best to meet the challenge head-on.  I’m proud of the hard work I put into the show and the tour.

Of course, I don’t look at this tour as the end of anything. I’ll be back on the road next fall with the band.  It’s part of a continuum.  You can’t win at music.

*****

That’s not to say he isn’t trying… Released today is Schlarb’s soundtrack to the video game Dropsy.  You can check that out on his Bandcamp page.  Also, Chris Schlarb has two new recordings in the works.  There’s the third installment of the Psychic Temple series due out Spring 2016 on Asthmatic Kitty.  Follow developments about this recording on his website’s blog.

Also on the verge is a new album, titled Music For Bus Stops.  It’s comprised of two long-form pieces with an 11-piece ensemble.  It’s live in studio, no edits, no overdubs.  The first track, “Music For Bus Stops,” was composed by Schlarb and Tabor Allen.  The second track is a rendition of the opening salvo from Brian Eno’s classic ambient meditation, Music For Airports.

Here’s the ensemble:  Chris Schlarb (electric guitar), Tabor Allen (drums, percussion), Philip Glenn (Hammond organ), Danny T. Levin (trombonium, euphonium, marching baritone, valve trombone), Paul Masvidal (electric guitar), Curt Oren (baritone sax), Cathlene Pineda (Wurlitzer electric piano), Sheridan Riley (drums, percussion), Kris Tiner (trumpet), David Tranchina (double bass) and Mike Watt (electric bass).

*****

In the meantime, browse various articles about Schlarb’s music on this site.  This LINK should take you to them.

Also, explore the music of Chris Schlarb on his Bandcamp page and Soundcloud page.

*****

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Jan 2 2015

Old year bleeds into the New. New year gets a heartbeat.

 

BitW square avatarSo, about 2014…

I always forget what a massive effort it is to compile these Best Of lists.  I go into them thinking, hey, this’ll be fun, talking about the best of the best music, and since I’m just writing up opinion-y synopses for each, it’ll be simple.  I can just coast through December.  And then by the end of December, I’m lucky to have the will to string together more than a couple sentences.  I love doing the whole Best Of thing, but I’m also glad when it’s over.

I forget stuff.  Like last year, I forgot to schedule my Label of the Year, Best of Reissues/Archival, my Favorite Non-Jazz by Jazz Artists column, and my Best of Previous Years Revisited.  I meant all of those to precede my Best of 2014 reveals, but, yet again, forgot.  I’ll be posting them sometime in January.  The drafts are pretty well done, but I’m going to take some time to finish putting them together.  Don’t be surprised if you see a bunch of These Are Videos That I Like posts over the next week or two.

I was caught off guard by how many albums appearing on my Best of 2014 list hadn’t been written up on my site by the end of November.  It’s not unusual for there to be a couple.  I believe I had about three each in 2012 and 2013, maybe four each.  This year, I was lucky to have enough open slots to finish writing everything up before the Best of 2014 reveals began.  And even then, I still have two that had to fall into January 2015 (Diego Barber and The Westerlies).  On some of the boards I frequent, there’s been talk of 2014 being a down-year in Jazz.  I no longer think that’s the case.  What I think typifies 2014 in Jazz is that the best music of the year is some of the more complicated albums… and not just in terms of their technical complexity, but also by their way of challenging what we consider Jazz.

One of the challenges I have as a writer about this music is providing some sort of context.  It doesn’t have to be much, but I think it helps to provide a sort of positioning reference, like a genre-GPS, of how a particular album fits in the overall landscape.  That’s difficult to do when there’s a massive sea between that landscape and the album I’m writing about.  That means I need to spend more time listening to the album and that writing about it will be that much more difficult.  I believe it’s why I had to race to get as many write-ups completed in December, and I believe it’s the quality that most signifies the best jazz in 2014… The Year in Challenging Music.

So, some of 2014 will bleed into 2015…

Coming up in January are lengthy write-ups of albums by The Westerlies and Diego Barber.  The Barber one is almost finished, though I need to email him some interview questions.  I’ve received answers to my Westerlies questions, but I still (still) haven’t yet figured out how to present everything I’ve written.  But they will be going up in January.  That’s for sure.

I’ll also be putting up columns of Label of the Year, Best Reissues/Archival, my Favorite Non-Jazz albums by Jazz Artists, and a Best of 2013 (revisited) column.  The rest of the January slots will be taken up by albums that I never got around to writing about from earlier in 2014 (like Jason Moran’s Fats Waller project), and also some albums that popped up at the end of 2014.

I’m not sure when I’ll begin the weekly recommendations column again.  In previous years, it would start showing up on eMusic/Wondering Sound around mid-January.  I’m tentatively planning on starting back up on January 14th, but I’m giving myself the out of doing an abbreviated one that week and starting back in for real on the 21st.  No news yet on a permanent home for the weekly recommendations column or whether I’ll go to a subscription service.  The next couple of weeks will see me formulating plans and approaches for that.  But for the time being, it’ll be hosted here on this site.

What’s ahead for 2015…

Diverging dramatically from past year predictions, I don’t have any real big plans for 2015.  I plan to write short-and-sweet recommendations of albums.  In some instances, I intend to take advantage of my brevity to include past albums from the same artist who has a new release out.  I have a few long form pieces that I’m working on, but there’s no ETA on those.  Other than that, mostly what you saw in October & November of 2014 is what you’ll see going forward.

I think “steady as she goes” will be my watchword(s) for the first half of 2015.  After that, well, we’ll pretty much just have to see how everything shakes out.

I’d like to end by expressing, again, how much I appreciate each of you for stopping by and checking out the site.  I really hope you’re all finding cool new music and having fun doing it.

Let’s end with a video for the Bird is the Worm 2014 Album of the Year, Fire! Orchestra.  It begins with an interview of Mats Gustafsson and then leads into a live performance of Part I of the album, Enter.

 

Here’s hoping for a very happy 2015 for all of us.

Cheers.

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Jan 1 2015

Me and the 2014 NPR Music Jazz Critics Poll

 

BitW square avatarIt was my honor to participate in this year’s Jazz Critics Poll.  Begun originally by respected jazz critic Francis Davis, who used to set up shop at the Village Voice, and has now moved the entire dealio over to the NPR site.  This was the poll’s 9th edition.  I was flattered to be included again this year, my second time to cast a vote.

Here is a LINK to the amalgamated results, showing the top ten and also the top fifty, as well as some sub-categories.  It includes comments from Davis on each of the top ten results.  They also have sample tracks from each of the albums that fell in the top ten, and links to various other articles about the artists.

Davis talks about this year’s results in a column on the NPR site HERE, with an expanded take on this year’s winner, Steve Lehman Mise en Abîme.

Also, the individual ballots are compiled and maintained by Tom Hull over on his site, Hullworks.  Here’s a LINK to view them.  In addition, there’s now a list of all of the jazz critics (LINK), with each leading to their specific ballot.  My ballot (Dave Sumner) can be found HERE.

I can only imagine how exhausting it must’ve been to coordinate and compile all the lists.  My genuine respect for the work Davis, Hull and the NPR staff put into this.

(From Andrea Keller’s Wave Rider)

I have some thoughts on the results, you betcha.

So, not unlike the comparison of results from last year, my selections for the 2014 poll didn’t match up with the amalgamated list or, really, the list of anybody at all.

Here’s my ballot, beginning with my top album of the year.

  1. Fire! Orchestra – “Enter”
  2. Rob Mazurek & Black Cube SP – “Return the Tides”
  3. Rafael Karlen – “The Sweetness of Things Half-Remembered”
  4. John Ellis & Andy Bragen – “MOBRO”
  5. Diego Barber – “Tales”
  6. Hans Feigenwinter ZINC – “Whim of Fate”
  7. Andrea Keller – “Wave Rider”
  8. Angles 9 – “Injuries”
  9. Masaa – “Afkar”
  10. Roberto Negro – “Loving Suite Pour Birdy So”
  • Latin Jazz selection:  Danilo Perez – “Panama 500”
  • Debut selection:  Gonzalo Levin Octeto – “Gonzalo Levin Octeto”
  • Vocal selection:  Masaa – “Afkar”

Reissues/Archival:

  1. John Coltrane – “Offering”
  2. Jarrett/Haden/Motian – “Hamburg ’72”
  3. Jimmy Giuffre – “New York Concerts”

Not unlike the 2013 poll, most of my selections for New Releases only received a vote from myself.  My 4th selection, Barber’s “Tales” received three votes other than mine.  My 8th selection, Angles 9’s “Injuries” received two votes other than mine.  But that’s it.  My other eight selections had to settle for me being the only one to recognize their brilliance.

I’m not really surprised, though there’s a few, like Fire! Orchestra, Rob Mazurek, and John Ellis, where I would’ve expected to see a few others follow my wise lead of selecting them for consideration.  But all joking aside, it’s my sincere belief that the Jazz Critics Poll provides the opportunity for those albums to receive a second look by other critics.  The albums definitely deserve it.  And I’m thrilled to be given the additional platform of the NPR poll to provide that opportunity.

And much like last year, my selections for the various sub-categories were a mixed bag.  On the Reissues, I was in line with the critics, and that probably is due to a combination of there being less reissues than new releases, plus my own interests don’t lie in reissues, and so my experience with what’s out there isn’t as comprehensive.  I like my selections, though.

My choice for Latin Jazz, Danilo Perez’s excellent “Panama 500” made the list in 4th place.  My selections for Vocal and Debut didn’t rate on anybody else’s list.  Last year, my selection for Debut of the year, Jaimeo Brown’s “Transcendence” fell in line with other critics.  It was also my Album of the Year for 2013.

(From Diego Barber’s Tales)

So, how about that Jazz Critics amalgamated top ten?  Here’s some quick thoughts on each of them.  Some of my comments are going to be critical… harsh, even.  The thing I want each of you to take away is, please, go check these albums out for yourself.  What matters is whether you enjoy them or not, and while I may be critical about some of the albums in the Critic’s amalgamated top ten, there isn’t a one on the list that I don’t think deserves your attention.  All of them initially appeared on my own list of “potentials” when I first began creating my Best of 2014 list.  Well, except for the Sonny Rollins, but that’s a different issue I address further on down the column.  But even that wasn’t a question of music quality.

Let’s begin…

 

1.  Steve Lehman Octet – Mise en Abîme

This one got slotted at #18 on my own Best of 2014 list.  It’s a fascinating album, and it definitely possesses a cerebral quality that I look for.  But it really sort of ends right there.  Not terribly evocative from an emotional standpoint.  I find myself returning to this album quite a bit.  I’m always finding something new that amazes me.  But where it captures the imagination, it doesn’t do that so much with the heart.  That said, it’s one of the more amazing album to get released in 2014, and quite frankly, there’s very little that separates an album slotted at, say, #6 vs. #18.  I’m unsurprised to see it get the #1 slot on the amalgamated list, and the album does the jazz community proud by representing it as the champion of 2014 on the NPR Jazz Critics poll.

2.  Wadada Leo Smith – The Great Lakes Suites

Some strong musicianship on this recording and I love seeing Henry Threadgill get back in the mix (he’s one of the musicians to first get me into Jazz and modern jazz, too).  Trumpeter Smith puts out one huge project after the other, and this tribute to, yes, the Great Lakes here in the U.S., is no different.  This double-disc project didn’t make my Top 30, and was one of the early cuts of those albums under initial consideration.  This is such a joyless album.  There are some stunning moments from a perspective of technical proficiency, and the album does have heart, but the blood that flows through it is sort of lifeless and sad.  Even when the quartet shifts gears or tone, it’s not much of a sea change in comparison to what came before… it’s the kind of thing that leads to tedium.  And two CDs of this just gets to be too much.  Again, this isn’t a bad album, and as far as a music achievement, its inclusion in the amalgamated Critics list doesn’t offend me or seem out of place.  I can see why this album might capture the ear of other listeners.  But there were too many times that listening to the album became a drag, and it was easy enough to cross off the list.

3.  Ambrose Akinmusire – The Imagined Savior is Far Easier to Paint

This excellent album didn’t make my Best of 2014 list, but that’s a reflection of the depth of the modern jazz landscape and not the quality of this recording.  Follow the LINK to my recommendation of the album (on this site).  I can’t recall exactly when I cut this album from consideration during the process, but if my Best of 2014 list covered 50 albums (instead of 30), I’m pretty sure this one would have snuck in.  Definitely check it out.  I think it was my Wondering Sound Pick of the Week when it was first released.  Gotta love the Mingus-y album title.

4.  Sonny Rollins – Road Shows, Vol.4

See below.

5.  Mark Turner Quartet – Lathe of Heaven

I liked this album well enough, though I don’t think I ever gave it serious consideration for my own Best of 2014 list.  It’s a good album, solid, but not exceptional.  Follow the LINK to my recommendation of the album (on this site).  That said, if I were to create a Best Jazz Artist of 2014 column, Turner would be at or near the top of the list.  In addition to my recommendation to check out this album, find anything else he contributed to in 2014 and give that a listen, too.  It just seemed like all of 2014 I was writing about albums where I was noting Turner’s excellent contributions to the music.  Turner had a strong 2014.

6.  Marc Ribot Trio – Live at the Village Vanguard

Likable album with some strong moments performed by strong musicians.  I like that he touches upon Coltrane’s “Sun Ship” on the same album as he performs a cover of “Old Man River.”  I never wrote about the album for Bird is the Worm, but there’s a lot of good albums that I just don’t have the time or space for.  I liked the album well enough, but I’m surprised to see it fall into the Critics’ top ten.  But the live performance electricity really comes through nicely on the recorded medium, and add to that the artists imaginative takes on the music, I’m unsurprised to discover it resonated with a lot of other listeners.  Yes, I’m surprised to see it here, but I have no qualms about its appearance.  Quality music is quality music, which means it always has a valid claim to critical praise on Best Of lists.

7.  Jason Moran – All Rise:  A Joyful Elegy to Fats Waller

This is one that I’ve been listening to regularly ever since it first came out.  It was one of the last 10 cuts when I pared my list down to the final 30.  I’ll be publishing a recommendation for it in January.  I kept thinking my perspective on the music would change, one way or the other, but I still enjoy this recording the same way since the first listen.  If you get a chance to see this project performed live, go.  I was fortunate to catch Moran do the Waller thing at the Chicago Jazz Fest a couple of Summers ago, and it’s still one of the best things I’ve seen on stage in a while.

8.  Brian Blade & the Fellowship Band – Landmarks

This one is an overreach.  I enjoy this album, and Brian Blade’s Fellowship albums are some of the very best things to ever happen to the modern jazz scene.  If I begin talking about Fellowship albums like Perceptual and Season of Changes, I will get seriously fanboy without the least bit of provocation.  Buy all four of the Fellowship albums immediately.  Follow this LINK to my recommendation of Landmarks, which is the fourth of Blade’s Fellowship recording.  Buy it.  It’s a really good album.  But it’s a step down from the excellent Season of Changes, and it also pales in comparison to Perceptual.  It’s the Fellowship band making a very Fellowship-ish album.  It’s more of the good stuff, but the good stuff doesn’t necessarily get you on a Best Of list.  Brian Blade is one of the best things on the modern scene and taken as a whole, his Fellowship albums are amazing.  But viewed individually, Landmarks doesn’t quite reach the bar set by previous recordings.  But, seriously, still buy it.  Just get Season of Changes and Perceptual first.

9.  Kenny Barron & Dave Holland – The Art of Conversation

I mean, yeah, okay, it’s a nice enough album.  You’ve got two jazz giants recording a duo collaboration in the studio, so it’s going to have some solid moments.  It just gets a little dull at times.  I think this one gets up there more on the reputation of the artists than the album itself.  Did I enjoy listening to it?  Yes, definitely.  Do I ever pine to listen to it again?  No, not really.  To my mind, if an album doesn’t have staying power, if it isn’t the kind of recording you feel compelled to return to even when your listening queue is overwhelmed with new releases, then it’s probably not a Best Of recording.

10.  Jane Ira Bloom – Sixteen Sunsets

I liked this album well enough when I first sat down with it, but nothing about it ever would’ve prepared me for seeing it receive a pretty strong consensus as Best Of album.  There are some gorgeous moments on the recording, but there are also some lulls in the action.  I first became aware that something was up when the excellent jazz critic Kevin Whitehead first vouched for it during the creation of the Wondering Sound 25 Best Jazz Albums of 2014 list.  But I can see how a sublime soprano sax album can grab the ear of a listener.  However, I was caught off guard seeing it grab so many critical ears.  I’m thinking maybe I need to revisit this one.  Interesting.

(From Hans Feigenwinter ZINC’s Whim of Fate)

Now, on to that Sonny Rollins album…

This year saw the clarification of what gets considered a New Release vs. what is considered a Reissue/Archival selection.  I’m going to refer to it as the “Sonny Rollins rule.”  The last handful of years, the jazz legend, thankfully, has been releasing some cherry-picked live performance recordings from tours that occurred over the last ten years or so… entitled Road Shows, with Volume 3 getting a 2014 release.

As you’ll notice, the third installment got slotted at #4 on the amalgamated critics list.  Y’know, whatever.  The third volume pales in comparison to the first two volumes.  It begins slowly.  The first couple of tracks are nothing special… it only picks up steam (and a lot of it) in the second half.  That alone would disqualify it from consideration from my own list.  But it also covers material that’s over ten years old.  How are you going to call that a new release?  And it’s not even the same concert.  It’s a de facto compilation album.

And what does it say about the state of jazz when you’ve got well-respected critics saying that the best Jazz in 2014 are cherry-picked songs from concerts held between 2001 and 2012 by an artist whose best work was performed in the 1960s?  It’s great that Rollins is releasing this music and it’s great that the jazz community is celebrating this jazz legend.  And there’s nothing wrong with loving any of the Road Shows volumes and there’s nothing wrong with saying, hey, this is one of my favorite things to come out in 2014… but, damn, slot it in the Re-issues/Archival section and leave the New Releases section for actual new releases.

Well, the clarification says that anything recorded within the last ten years counts as a new release, which allowed many people to include Volume 3 in their “current” releases list.  It bugs me.  I mean, look, even though I don’t agree with the rule and don’t agree with the inclusion of Road Shows Vol.3 in the Best of 2014 new releases list, I’m not going to have any problem learning to live in a world where the rule exists.  Besides, Rollins certainly has earned all of the attention and praise that he’s getting… there’s no controversy there.  It just bugs me is all.  I imagine it’s not unlike the supreme irritation that some people suffer when they see a Best Of list like mine and say, dammit, most of those albums aren’t even Jazz!  I guess there’s plenty of differing perspectives to go around.

I want to end this section by stressing that you should go check out all of those Road Shows albums, beginning with the first volume.  They’re all really really good, and you owe it to yourself to see if they float your boat.  There’s some seriously majestic playing on those albums.

About those perspectives on Jazz…

A question I am perpetually haunted by is an old one- “Is this even Jazz?”  It’s a query that could be applied to many in my Top 30… many in my top ten, even.  NPR’s Patrick Jarenwattananon was interviewed about the 2014 Jazz Critics poll on WBGO’s The Checkout podcast, and the interviewer seemed particularly exasperated that producer Flying Lotus’s electronica/fusion/beyond genre 2014 release wasn’t included on the NPR list, referring to the fact that many jazz musicians perform on the recording and that it has some similarities to Miles Davis’s fusion period of the 70s/80s.

This kind of justification is not uncommon.  However, the presence of jazz musicians on an album doesn’t make the music jazz… most jazz musicians possess an abundance of training, talent and experience that they can attain a level of excellence in any number of music genres.  The other flaw in that argument is tracing lineage back to music that was already a jazz outlier, I.E. well, this is similar to this which is similar to this which is similar to this, which kind of sounds like traditional jazz.  How long does the trail of breadcrumbs need to extend out from Jazz center before it just stops being Jazz?

With much on the modern scene, I believe we’ve surpassed that distance, and I had to quickly check my own exasperation at the Flying Lotus suggestion because, hey, I do the same thing… All. Of. The. Time.

Listen through my Best of 2014 list.  How many of those recordings are truly Jazz albums?  How many of them have a foundation in the blues?  How many of them adopt a sense of swing?  The strongest tie to traditional forms of jazz music these albums possess is heavy improvisation.  But this is one of those dog-chihuahua things… jazz requires a certain amount of improvisation but improvised music is not necessarily jazz.  And, yet, here I am lauding this great music (and it is great music) as the Best Jazz of 2014.  It’s not entirely accurate and it is a perpetual struggle within me… the jazz purist vs. the big-tent-jazz-is-music-meant-to-evolve battle.

Sometimes I regret even pigeonholing my site by using the word Jazz.  Sometimes I think I might be doing Jazz more harm than good by taking the Big Tent approach.  Ultimately, though, I just want to find the best music out there, no matter how tenuous its ties to traditional Jazz, and help get the spotlight on it.  That’s what matters most to me, and if you take anything away from this column at all, it should be that the only question that matters is: “Do I like this album?”

You come to my site and check out everything I recommend.  You like what you like and take a pass on the albums you don’t.  Easy peasy.  Matters of categorization and genre and tradition should only be a secondary concern.  I just felt like mentioning that it’s something I think about, and since this kind of blog-y Year In Review column seems to bring out the cerebral babbler in me, well, here I am typing about it.

I love my Best of 2014 list.  It’s the best collection of music you can find… no matter what you or I decide to call it.

For tomorrow’s column, I’ll talk a little bit more about my Best of 2014 list, the year of 2014 in general and what’s on the horizon in January 2015.

Cheers.

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Dec 12 2014

Three Birthday Candles

 

BitW square avatarThis anniversary really sneaks up on me. Really, the only way I seem to know that my site is celebrating an anniversary date is that it goes down for a while due to a problem with processing the renewal payment.

So, here we are again. I feel compelled to make some sort of big post about the year that has passed and what is coming ahead. Sure, why not?

Here’s a song to listen to while you read.

(Malte Schiller’s Red Balloon, “You Got Away With That” from Not So Happy)

 

I can’t believe it’s been three years. At the same time, it feels like a lot more than that. I am pulled in two directions. One has me discouraged that I’m not doing more with the site… offering more and different types of content, expanding in directions I’d intended and just, overall, being more effective at running this operation. The other direction is an utter disbelief that I’ve done as much as I have. It’s a crazy experience, where I find myself perpetually looking forward to what music is on the horizon and what possibilities potentially exist for my site, while simultaneously floundering in the day to day panic of publishing something, anything.

It’s terribly fun… a strange kind of suffering that highlights the discovered joy in both the profoundly creative and the everyday mundane, and in which time seems to fly right on by even as each moment lasts a tiny eternity.

I feel like maybe with that last paragraph I wrote the opening for a TED talk on one of the stages of the grieving process or, at the very least, I’ve got a decent pitch for the next installment of the Hellraiser movie franchise.

So, what happened in 2014? In truth, not much. Perusing my posts on this day last year and two years prior on my site’s first anniversary, I had all kinds of plans. BIG plans. I had all kinds of ideas of types of content I wanted to produce. Aside from two artist discography overview columns (one for Taylor Haskins and another for Diego Barber, which will publish any day now), I pretty much stayed the course. In retrospect, I am totally unsurprised. Many of the long-form pieces I have planned (and still have planned) never came to fruition and some of the new theme columns also never came around. Perhaps if I can ditch the day job some time down the road, then yes, these plans may actually develop and resolve, but for now, it’s gonna be business as usual.

You’ll have noticed that I’ve moved away from the concept of review and focused more on the idea of recommendation. This is a small difference perhaps, but in my view, a huge change in perception. As I mentioned in one of my (hopefully) helpful advice columns, I make the distinction between reviewer and recommender, and how I came about discovering which of those I am (suspense over: the latter). Three years in, I can honestly say I’m a much better writer about music than I was when I began. And after all that time, I’m still pretty middling. Every now and then I nail a decent column, get the review down with some unusual burst of talent, but mostly, I just muddle my way through them. I’m cool with that. But I feel like my real value to the scene is tracking this music down. There is no off-the-radar in my world. I want to find it all, no matter how obscure. And then I want to get the spotlight on it.

My goal is to write less… much less… about each album. Maybe a decent 250 words of who the artist is, a few brief things about what makes the album cool, some embedded audio and links… and that’s it. The music is gonna do a better job selling itself than my words ever will. I think brevity will benefit both my site and my readers. Of course, every now and then there’ll be an album that compels me to put down a thousand words of flowery prose and mangled analogies, but for the most part, I’m gonna attempt to keep it short and sweet.

There’s also the complication that I’m beginning a new fiction project, so that’s gonna eat up some time, too. This, however, is leading to a Bird is the Worm sister site that I had hoped to be able to announce on my anniversary post (suspense over: I’m not ready yet). But hopefully soon. Maybe late-January, early-February. I still have some work to do on it, and then when I get a decent model fashioned, I then have to decide if it wasn’t a stupid idea all along. Creative inspiration is a beautiful thing, but sometimes when it’s ready to step outside and reveal itself to the public, it realizes that it isn’t wearing any pants. These things happen.

Just over the next hill, we’ve got the Bird is the Worm Top 30 of 2014 coming up. I believe the first reveal is set to happen on December 25th. That said, if I can pull myself together in time, I might have a few preliminary posts that focus on the best labels of 2014, top musicians, and a post on some of my favorite non-jazz albums by musicians who typically perform in the jazz genre. Depending on time and space, those posts may, in fact, start out the new year instead. I am terrible at estimating these things.

What else, what else, what else…  I think that’s about it. Definitely a bit more pragmatic take on the state of things than past anniversary day columns. I’m sure that many of the veteran music site people out there could confirm whether this a normal progression.

I want to thank all of the musicians who create this great music and all of the people behind the scenes who play a part in getting it out there for us to hear. And I definitely want to thank all of you who stop by here and check this great music out. I’m always thrilled to hear that you’re finding new music to love. It always makes me happy to write up an album that appears nowhere on a google search and then discover, months later, that reviews and comments and forum posts about the album are popping up across the internet. Connecting great music with great listeners is my reason for being here in the first place.

Cheers.

By • Announcement - Site & General, Introduction, Other Writing • 4 • Tags: ,

Nov 2 2014

So, about those recent “I hate Jazz” articles…

 

BitW square avatarSo, I went on a pretty long Twitter rant.  I finally had to stop blowing up everybody’s timelines and just finish my stream of thoughts here in a post.

It began after reading this recent Ted Gioia column for the Daily Beast (LINK).  It talks about the recent surge of jazz backlash in the media.

I’m cool with his column, but whatevs.  I’ve pretty well restrained myself from commenting on any of these “jazz sucks” columns that have been popping up lately.  I guess that’s over.

Here’s some quick hit thoughts on items brought up by Gioia or just stuff hanging around my head waiting for an opportunity to pounce.

Let’s begin…

Yes, the Rollins piece wasn’t funny. Obvious.

But has anyone pointed out that the bitterness & disillusionment attributed to Rollins might be real for a lot of jazz musicians?

That jazz musicians avoid thinking things like “I wasted my life” like struggling married couple avoid bringing up the D-word?

Jazz takes enormous time & passion to excel. Creativity as a business is even harder. Fear & bitterness & doubt can creep in.  The New York Times piece (unintentionally, I believe) mocks that. Or, at the very least, is casually dismissive of it.

I mean, think of the hardships Rollins went thru in life, both creatively, but also socially & financially via racism & rock’s ascendency?

Are you telling me that he didn’t occasionally struggle with the fear of “I wasted my life” during vulnerable moments?

I don’t think Django Gold was trying to be cruel. I think his poorly crafted article may have been unintentionally insightful in this one instance.

I don’t know Mr. Rollins & I don’t know if my assumptions have any validity. But it’s understandable why other musicians might take offense.

Anyways, that’s the part I of the Django Gold piece I was offended by.

That WaPo column, otoh, was just plain stupid & lazy. I don’t mind if people don’t like Jazz, but don’t dismiss what you won’t explore.

Especially modern jazz, which isn’t explored by the mainstream as much as it should since it incorporates many of the mainstream qualities.

A lot of it sounds more “indie” than jazz. Jazz evolves. It changes. It’s always absorbed other influences, a melting pot of sound.

Each new generation of jazz musicians are different from the previous. They are influenced by new music & new societal forces.
It shouldn’t be surprising that a lot of modern jazz sounds like stuff that doesn’t get categorized as jazz in the first place.

The identity of mod jazz is more diffuse than at any time in its history. Its sound is less recognizable. Mod jazz is hard to sum up.

And that is its strength, even though it is often pointed to as a weakness. However, its diversity makes it more substantial. Bigger.

But I think some misconstrue it as representative as something insubstantial, something easily knocked over by some jabroni who wants some cheap page views.

But they are wrong.

Don’t fear the confidence of modern jazz artists. If they didn’t posses confidence, the music wouldn’t sound as good as it does.

It would be tepid & mimic the jazz of the past & wouldn’t take risks, even in the face of almost certain commercial inviability. It wouldn’t be art. It would be homage.

I just read that Atlantic review of the new Bill Frisell album. It mirrors a lot of my own review (LINK).  Also, it’s not a jazz album, and I think Frisell has gotten to where it’s probably not even accurate to refer to him as a jazz musician.  He does his own thing and he sort of transcends genre classification.  Yes, he got his start in Jazz, and we can claim him as “one of our own,” but not sure it’s applicable to a why is everyone hating jazz theory (too lazy to hyphenate that thing).

But Frisell, after a career of inventive, massively creative music, has really hit a lull with his last few albums.  Me, personally, I have strong feelings about his music, good or bad.  That’s how it is.

Jazz is the Worst is not very funny on Twitter, though I definitely enjoyed both of his blog posts.  I believe that kind of development has more to with a natural blowback against the JazzBro phenomenon.  Unsurprising.

The problem with the defensiveness some of us feel from the “inaccuracies” in columns like the Deadspin one are that, one, it doesn’t represent how we feel or behave, but, two, it does reflect a backlash against some jazz fans who do fit the stereotype of snob/condescending asshole.  Like any general group of people, Jazz Fans is comprised of a wide array of people, and some of them are total pricks.  We do what we can to ignore them or change them or shout them down.

But I sure as hell don’t deserve to have their bad behavior attributed to me.  And I get pissed off when my hard work to change peoples’ opinions on the approachability of jazz are shot down by some knucklehead working for a large media outlet spewing off his witless generalizations about something he or she hasn’t bothered to research and develop a familiarity with.

I believe that I make a welcoming environment for people to explore modern jazz.  Unfortunately there are some people who use their knowledge of jazz as a weapon to hammer into other people the idea that they’re stupid for not knowing something.

Of course people are going to prematurely dismiss something when they expect to be called stupid.  They are going to hate the haters first.

What I don’t like is that these columns calling out “jazz fans” for behavior is attributing the behavior of the worst of us to the group overall.  Fuck that.  I don’t want people to feel stupid for not knowing things about jazz.  I want them to experience the excitement of getting familiar with it, discovering new music, discovering music that brings them happiness.

It’s the whole reason I have this site.  I absolutely love discovering cool new music.  I want to be able to help others do the same.  I want to help guide people to music they may like.  They won’t like all of it and that’s okay.  If I find one album a month that makes me wonder how I got through life without it, that’s a pretty big deal.

Okay, I think I’m out of steam on this one.  I’ll add more if it comes to me, but I think I got that out of my system.

Here’s where you can follow me on Twitter-> LINK.

And here’s a song I like from a 2014 release.  It’s by Angles 9, and you shouldn’t be surprised if it ends up in my Best of 2014 list…

 

You can read my recommendation of their 2014 release, Injuries, here, at Bird is the Worm.

Have a great Sunday!

Cheers.

By • Essays & Columns & Lists, Other Writing • 0 • Tags:

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