Jan 28 2019

So… about 2018, Part IV: This is a subtweet

 

All due respect, seriously, all of it, but one of the most misguided, tepid things a person could have said about fans being effusive a.f. about the modern jazz scene is “hey, guys, let’s not get too excited, huh?”

Wrong. Bad. Ignore that advice.

But a far greater sin is if that person tried to convince you that your excitement is somehow disrespectful or hurtful to the scene.

It’s not.  Not even close.  And to suggest otherwise is not only insipid, but also guilty of the very thing being warned against.

Get too excited.  Hyperbole away.  Celebrate these days, because the modern jazz scene (or whatever you want to call it) is having a serious moment, and it’s a moment that can last for a day, a year, an era, an endless age of celebrating new music and grand expressions and creative upheavals.  Embrace it with all you got.

Here is a song that makes me feel completely alive every damn time I hear it.  It’s golden.

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Jan 27 2019

So… about 2018, Part III: Anywhere I lay my head

 

Bird is the Worm is my home.  ‘Natch.  But I got around the internet a tiny bit in 2018, too.

It was another rewarding year writing about music for The Bandcamp Daily.  I’m really appreciative of the opportunity that the music retailer offers me to spread the word about this music on a much larger platform than my modest digs here at Bird is the Worm.  The core of my work for BCD is my monthly recommendations column, featuring the best of jazz and improvised music for any given month.  You can check out the archives in case the Best of 2018 list left you with any cash in your checking account.

I’ve always kind of struggled with the interview format, but after turning the corner a bit and finally figuring some stuff out, I’ve begun revisiting the idea of conducting more interviews.  We’ll see how it goes.  I really enjoyed my interview of Sarathy Korwar, who talked about culture tokenism in music, perspectives of influence, and his excellent 2018 release My East Is Your West.  I also spoke with Steven Lugerner about his 2018 release An Eight Out Of Nine.  In fact, it was two interviews and it covered a massive amount of territory.  The interview column that was ultimately published only touched upon a small portion of the interview.  However, in the coming weeks, I’ll be posting other sections of the interview on Bird is the Worm, as we run down Lugerner’s impressive and diverse discography.

Another development with The Bandcamp Daily was that I’ve begun writing about albums that are decidedly non-jazz or, in some instances, fall under the nascent post-jazz category.  Of the latter tag, check out my write-up of New Hymn to Freedom by the Szun Waves trio.  In the non-jazz arena, I wrote about the gorgeous Touch Dissolves, a solo cello project from Aaron Martin.  I am addicted to that album, and it’s rare that a day goes by and I haven’t listened to at least a little bit of it.

I continue to sporadically post on the hidden little forum, Emusers, which began as an alternative to the increasingly volatile eMusic forum (RIP).  There’s just a handful of us there, often talking about all kinds of music or pop culture.  My handle over there is Jonahpwll, which some of you old-school readers of mine will recognize from my original posts on the eMusic forum, and even my first alias for the Jazz Picks column.  While I am universally regarded as a jazz god on that forum (no matter what any other member posts might other indicate, I am something of a music deity in their eyes), I consider my First-Episode-of-Netflix-Originals posts to be my proudest moments on the site.  Feel free to drop in and chat.

I have also begun dropping in on Reddit’s r/jazz forum.  My handle is birdistheworm.  I make the occasional post.  I’m not sure how much longer I intend to keep returning.  The big takeaway so far is that there is no question, no matter how obscure or nuanced, where Snarky Puppy and BADBADNOTGOOD are not considered valid answers.  Once you discover that inalienable truth, the magic bleeds out of the Reddit experience pretty quick.  Also, after years on the AllAboutJazz forum (RIP), both as member and moderator, my hardcore music forum participation may have reached its natural expiration.

Much to my surprise, I haven’t deleted my Facebook page yet.  I find the site barely tolerable (in many contexts), and one day may finally get around to deleting the damn thing.  Twitter, on the other hand, as reprehensible as it may be in some regards, is still a much friendlier experience, and I continue to actively post on my account (@BirdIsTheWorm).  I am freaking hilarious, plus cat pics.

You should totally follow me.

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Jan 26 2019

So… about 2018, Part II: I am standing in both places

 

When I put together a particular year’s Best Of list, I tend to address the write-ups in the order in which they’ll publish.  That means the Album of the Year write-up is the last one up and the last one out, and when I’m done writing it, there’s a palpable sense of relief, because, lemme tell ya, that Best Of list is a beast.  This year, however, as I hit the schedule button on Rhapsody, I encountered something quite different.  I time traveled.

Bobby Previte isn’t new to me, not even close.  Over the decades since I first discovered his music, a new album or project of his would cross my path, and it was always a nice experience, like catching up with an old acquaintance.  But his 2018 recording Rhapsody, the Bird is the Worm Album of the Year, was something different.  This is a recording that hit me in a way like nothing of his had since the very first time I discovered his music.

This is not the first time nor will it be even remotely close to the last time that I shall reference Jerry’s Record Exchange, one of Denver’s finest music stores during its time, and the owner John Loquidis, who was so gracious with his time hipping me to cool jazz, both old-school and new.  At the time I began frequenting the Capitol Hill neighborhood store, I was already deep into a jazz addiction, almost exclusively old school, and equipped with the tools to keep getting deeper into the addiction.  But new school jazz was a different beast, and it was nice getting advice and guidance.

John steered me in the direction of Bobby Previte’s 1988 release Claude’s Late Morning.  This was a solid suggestion, because I was already familiar with Previte via his association with Wayne Horvitz, and both Wayne and all-time favorite Bill Frisell appeared on this Previte session.  And so it accompanied me home.

I recall not being so much into some of the electronic fusion adventures that Horvitz and Frisell would undertake back then.  But what would always turn me into a fan, however, was how both musicians could muddy up the electric shininess, give it some rough edges, and reveal a beauty within that decay.  Previte’s Claude’s Late Morning applied that touch with a masterful stroke.  God, I fell for that album.  The frenetic tempos that were like watching the clockwork mechanics of an intricate, yet massive machination.  The suddenly emergent melodic reveries, either bursting out like rays of sunlight or gentle sighs at the end of a lovely day.  The folksy, cheerful “First Song For Kate” was probably the first track to really sink into me, but, later, and ever since, it was the album’s title-track that got its hooks in me and never let go.  It’s a chipper tune, at times, but there’s a shadow that hangs over those moments, and becomes darker for a mournful tone that is heavy as hell, but strangely hopeful, too.  Those passages are so beautiful that it makes a state of mourning seem like a comforting place to be.

We never really expect many of the changes that occur in our lives, but they’re experienced with an immediacy that doesn’t leave a lot of room for analysis and the change is simply accepted as it happens.  These changes don’t necessarily have to be momentous in any particular way… just that things happened and now they are one way where before they were not.

When I finished writing up Rhapsody for the Album of the Year post, my mind drifted back twenty years to a day in Jerry’s Record Exchange, when I scooped up Claude’s Late Morning, and shortly thereafter, became addicted to it.  Back then, life seemed so big and the future vast enough to embrace it.  And, now, in the present day, it begins to feel that way all over again.  These past years, I listen to Claude’s Late Morning only occasionally.  That’s how these things go.  But it will always be more than a casual listen for me, and now, after Rhapsody, and all that it means to me as a recording, I can hear the music clear as day in my head, and when I hit the play button on the CD, it’s as if it was only yesterday since last I heard it.  And through it all, I feel the passing of time like an emerging sun slowly warming my face, my arms, my heart.

There’s no profound statement I’m looking to make here, only an observation of how music becomes stamped on our timeline and behaves as a marker for comparison, and that it serves a role much more enjoyable than the parade of conflicts and plot twists and upheavals and the slow erosion of change that document our time on this planet.

Standing in Jerry’s that day, never once did I have a thought that one day I’d be living in Kentucky (still weird how that happened) and have a decent little jazz blog and freelance gig and find myself actually writing about a new Bobby Previte recording that would knock me over like Claude’s Late Morning was about to way back then.  And yet, here I am… and feeling like I’m back in Denver once again.

I am standing in both places at once, and all I hear is music.

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Jan 25 2019

So… about 2018, Part I: Me and the NPR Music Jazz Critics poll

 

This was my sixth year to be invited to participate in the Jazz Critics Poll at NPR Music.  Begun originally by respected jazz critic Francis Davis back when the Village Voice was his home turf, this nifty compilation of Jazz’s best of 2018 is now housed over at the NPR site.  This was the poll’s 13th edition, the 6th since switching residence to NPR.  I’m no less flattered today than I was the first time around I was asked to submit a ballot, and it is an honest source of pride for me to be included.  Of the many polls and composite end-of-year lists out there, I find the Davis/NPR poll to be one of the more thoughtful, inclusive exercises out there.

The amalgamated results feature the top ten and list 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.  Also, Davis talks further on 2018 in jazz and his own ballot with a separate column on the NPR site.  I’ve embedded some music that appears on his list and the amalgamated list throughout this column.

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

Every year that I compile and create my own site’s year-end Best Of list reinforces my genuine respect for the work Davis, Hull and the NPR staff put into making this thing happen.  It’s a mammoth undertaking.

Here was my ballot:

NEW RELEASES

  1. Bobby Previte, Rhapsody (RareNoise)
  2. Walking Distance, Freebird by Walking Distance feat. Jason Moran (Sunnyside)
  3. Quin Kirchner, The Other Side of Time (Astral Spirits)
  4. Thumbscrew, Ours/Theirs (Cuneiform)
  5. Makaya McCraven, Universal Beings (International Anthem)
  6. Ambrose Akinmusire, Origami Harvest (Blue Note)
  7. Marije Van Dijk, The Stereography Project Feat Jeff Taylor and Katell Keinig (Hert)
  8. Roller Trio, New Devices (Edition)
  9. Myra Melford’s Snowy Egret, The Other Side of Air (Firehouse 12)
  10. Juan Ibarra, NauMay (self-released)

REISSUES/HISTORICAL:  No choice.

VOCAL:  Marije Van Dijk, The Stereography Project Feat Jeff Taylor and Katell Keinig (Hert)

DEBUT:  Quin Kirchner, The Other Side of Time (Astral Spirits)

LATIN:  Dos Santos, Logos (International Anthem)

I’m not going into the details of my list, since I pretty well fleshed out my thoughts and feelings in the official Best of 2018 list, as well as the various write-ups the albums received on this site and The Bandcamp Daily.

As I have every year (except for the first year I voted), I didn’t select anything for the historical/reissue category.  I just don’t have time to listen to that stuff.  There’s too much great new music out there for me to look back upon older stuff… especially considering that so much of the archival finds are typically mediocre live performances or studio sessions/tracks that were justifiably shelved back in the day.  Be that as it may, the music of John Coltrane may very well be my blood type for how important that music has been to my life, so I did write something for this site about Both Directions At Once.

The thing of it is, some of the archival finds and reissues of long-dormant recordings are actually pretty spectacular.  For me, this is especially true when it opens a window into the past, and in doing so, becomes more than just another audio tape covered in cobwebs, behaving, instead, as a postcard or time capsule to another place and time.  I wrote about one such recording for The Bandcamp Daily: The Valley of Search, by Alan Braufman.  I seriously considered making this my sole submission in the reissue/archival category, but chose not to.  It would have been disingenuous for me to forego listening to most reissue/archival material but then include a couple things I really liked for a best of list.  I would be guilty of the same criticism I level at some people voting in a best of list when the total new releases they’ve listened to number in the dozens or low hundreds.  As such, I withheld my vote in that category.  But definitely check out the Valley of Search recording.

Some thoughts about the amalgamated top ten recordings of 2018:

Here’s the Critics’ amalgamated list (with total points and total voters following each):

  • Wayne Shorter Quartet, Emanon (Blue Note) 259 (34)
  • Henry Threadgill 14 or 15 Kestra: Agg, Dirt . . . and More Dirt (Pi) 233 (36)
  • Andrew Cyrille, Lebroba (ECM) 193 (37)
  • Makaya McCraven, Universal Beings (International Anthem) 190 (29)
  • Ambrose Akinmusire, Origami Harvest (Blue Note) 177.5 (25)
  • Steve Coleman and Five Elements, Live at the Village Vanguard, Vol. 1 (Pi) 174.5 (25)
  • Myra Melford’s Snowy Egret, The Other Side of Air (Firehouse 12) 166.5 (31)
  • Mary Halvorson, Code Girl (Firehouse 12) 164.5 (29)
  • Cécile McLorin Salvant, The Window (Mack Avenue) 135 (21)
  • Thumbscrew, Ours/Theirs (Cuneiform) 123.5 (23)

A rather novel experience for me is how much comparison there is between the amalgamated top ten and my own ballot.  Albums by Makaya McCraven, Ambrose Akinmusire, Myra Melford and Thumbscrew make an appearance in both mine and the NPR list.  And at the other end of the spectrum, only three of my top ten selections (Juan Ibarra, Marike van Dijk and Roller Trio) went unselected by any other critic.  That number has typically been twice that amount in previous years.  In truth, I expect it to be higher most years.  My site typically covers music that most other sites do not, which means the inclusion of that music on other writers’ top ten lists is unlikely to happen.  But that’s where I think this site provides value to the ecosystem of modern jazz and improvised music writing… discovering the hidden gems from the obscure places and self-produced and small label sources, and spreading the word as far as I can.  It’s a role I happily fill, and one that is endlessly rewarding.

This is the part of the year-end column when I continue to examine my ongoing struggle with the music of Mary Halvorson.

Mary Halvorson makes an appearance on the list both with her own Code Girl and the trio project Thumbscrew.  Writers’ preoccupation with her music appears endless.  That statement, apparently, also applies to me.  I continue to find her music confounding.

I also find it unpleasant at times while also experiencing an odd fascination by it.  She has about as singular a sound as any artist could possibly aspire to.  She does her own thing in her own way and her music is a direct reflection of that personal journey… and it’s something that has my undying and sincere respect.  But like Code Girl, it doesn’t end there… Halvorson gets involved in projects that see her stretching out further from her own unconventional sound in wide open, unexplored territories of unconventional music.  Code Girl is a prime example, both in how the music manifests but also with the birds-of-a-feather she collaborates with.  WTF is my response to this.  WTF?

I’ve have been listening to the music of Ornette Coleman for a great many years.  For a time, I was a bit addicted to it.  That addiction incorporated much of the classic free jazz recordings of the day.  Even that which I didn’t much take to, I felt a certain appreciation for.  But Mary Halvorson has my wondering what my reaction would have been like had I been alive and a full-functioning adult when the free jazz wave hit during the sixties.  I think perhaps my reaction to Ornette Coleman would not have been one of adoration, and would not have led to addiction.  I think I would’ve been typing about Coleman’s music on my blog with the exact same word usage and descriptive terms as I do that of Mary Halvorson.

That gives me some hope that, with time, more of Halvorson’s music will eventually connect with me.  It also has me increasingly convinced that the modern day Ornette Coleman is not a saxophonist at all… but a guitarist named Mary Halvorson.  I really hope Halvorson keeps doing what she’s doing, and I hope eventually her music and my ear achieve a sort of communion.  But even if that completeness isn’t achieved, I look forward to the experience… no matter how it shakes out.

That said, it’s obviously not complete alienation between us.  The Thumbscrew dual release Ours/Theirs was my site’s #4 album of the year, and like many of the albums slotted in the top ten, it received some consideration for album of the year.  All of these conflicted feelings and contradictory reactions make me very happy.  Some art should do that to us.  Sometimes the challenge presented is more subtle, and sometimes it’s a slap to the face.  As it should be.

I have to admit to my enjoyment of this exercise, annually working my way through my latest explorations of Halvorson’s music, and its continued status as eternal adversary.

Wayne Shorter Wayne Shorter Wayne Shorter.  It doesn’t particularly surprise me that the underwhelming Emanon received the top slot in the amalgamated list.  Shorter is a jazz giant, one of the all-time greats, so any new recording is going to get an obscene amount of attention.  And if it happens to be an event, like the multi-media project came to be, the pre-admiration of it is likely to be extravagant.  Overall, I found the album tedious.  There was moments to like, some moments shined bright, but, for me, the album just dragged along far too often.  The graphic novel that accompanied it was, well, pretty cheesy and strangely archaic.  It reminded me of the facile science fiction/fantasy stories of the 70s in magazines like Heavy Metal and Epic Illustrated… superficial tales attempting to make grand pronouncements and profound observations that the writers and artists simply weren’t up to the task to communicate.

But, shit, whatever, I’m glad Wayne Shorter is still out there making new music and trying new things.  He recently received Kennedy Center honors, and watching him regaled for all of his career work made me so happy.  I was teary-eyed seeing his reaction to it all.  It was just so gratifying to see this artist who had made so much great music receiving the recognition he so richly deserved.

I was having a pleasant evening eating dinner at J.Gumbo’s Lex, a cajun and creole restaurant in Lexington’s NoLi neighborhood.  I had a good book, a wonderful meal, a pint of beer from the nearby Rock House Brewing, and experiencing one of those sublime evenings where the simplicity of the details somehow add up to a subtle complexity of highly-charged emotional reactions that are best described as subdued magic.  That magic truly manifested when the restaurant put on a new playlist that began with Wayne Shorter’s “Night Dreamer,” a song that is indelibly woven in the fabric of my past and of comforting, happy memories.  That melody was the final ingredient to conjure up the spell that made my evening magical.  That’s what Wayne Shorter means to me, and a thousand Emanons won’t ever change that.  I stare at the album cover to Night Dreamer or Juju or Speak No Evil or hear any of that music, and windows open to past, wonderful memories that flood into my present consciousness, and fill my life with the residual happiness of days well lived.

And that about wraps it up for today.  Remember, as I stressed previously, go to town on that NPR Music Jazz Critics list… and not just the top ten list, but all the albums that received votes.  Many of them have been written about on this site, but this is a great opportunity for you to revisit some albums that maybe you didn’t give enough attention before.  Or, inconceivably, albums I might not have sufficiently recognized for their genius and joy.

Thanks again for stopping by.  I hope 2019 is the best year ever.

Cheers.

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Jan 24 2019

Bobby Previte’s Rhapsody: Live at Roulette NYC

 

Bobby Previte‘s Rhapsody was this site’s 2018 Album of the Year.  Here’s a performance of that recording just a little over a year ago at Roulette NYC.

We’re gonna celebrate this album as many ways as we can.  It’s a stunning performance.

Also be sure to check out other videos on Previte’s Vimeo page.

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