Random Thoughts & Theories

Jul 26 2014

Another “Jazz is Dead” column? Just copy-and-paste this…

 

BitW square avatarI’m as tired as anyone from the occasional, random columns, both on blogs and, shamefully, in conventional news sources, typically entitled something to the effect of “Jazz is Dead.”

Bullshit.

I encounter way too many excellent new jazz recordings to believe that statement to be anything but a whole lot of fuck-all.

Every week I’m highlighting outstanding new recordings, which serve to illustrate the breadth and variation of expressions that call Jazz its home.  Some of them are forward-thinking, while some of them are rooted firmly in the Jazz of Today, and then others immerse themselves lovingly into the Jazz traditions that serve as the foundation and lineage on which Jazz continues to grow… and thrive.

These Jazz musicians I listen to and spotlight on this site (and on Wondering Sound), I want them all to have huge financial success and be able to focus solely on their art.  But their ability to do so isn’t an indicator of the medium’s spirit.  It’s the music itself.  And if a columnist proclaiming that Jazz is dead is citing commercial considerations or just revealing a lack of knowledge of the music that’s out there, then that’s got nothing to do with Jazz… it’s a sign that the columnist doesn’t have a clue about where to look for signs of life.

I give a pretty good rant.  On a lot of subjects, really, but when it comes to music, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that I have strong feelings about these “Jazz is Dead” columns.

But I just got left in the shade.

A recent visit to the AllAboutJazz forums had me fall upon a post from forum member Alypius, who shot down the latest “Jazz is Dead” column, which somebody linked to on the forum.  It should be standard boilerplate response to any of those stupid columns.

This is pretty much the entire post word-for-word.  I removed a couple sentences and left off the opening and closing sentences, just because they were specific to the article in question and looked out of place when removed from that context.  And like I said, now it’s ready for you to copy-and-paste into the comments section of the next “Jazz is Dead” column you encounter.

Here it is:

Your essay is a real head-scratcher.  Man, I have to ask: Are you even listening? Are you really aware of the range of creativity going on out there? I find all such global hand-wringing tiresome. And it’s tiresome because it’s not true. I am not prone to rants, but hand-wringing such as what you have posted provoke them. Lack of innovation? Give me a break. There is a richness of creativity going on today that makes a lot of jazz of the past look staid and old-fashioned. There are rhythmic innovations, harmonic innovations, innovations in the choice and use of instruments, an unheard-of compositional richness, and dialogues with musics from across the planet.

You heard Steve Lehman? He’s drawing on compositional techniques from the cutting-edge of contemporary classical. Have you bothered to go and hear the Wayne Shorter Quartet perform recently — these mind-boggling hour-long fearless explosions of sound? Have you bothered to chart the ambitious and prolific career of Dave Douglas? John Zorn? Brad Mehldau? Heard Craig Taborn? Darcy James Argue? David Binney? William Parker & Hamid Drake? If you’ve actually heard any of these folks, you would not have the audacity to speak as you did. Lack of innovation? Please, give me a break.

Go dig out some of those 1960s LPs. In that supposed heyday of jazz, that supposed golden age, there were lots of copy-cat records. Lack of innovation abounded. In their defense, some of those guys were just trying to make ends meet in a tough economic environment. What is different today is not the creativity. It’s the abysmal state of music industry. Jazz artists have very, very few clubs to play. They get virtually no publicity for latest ventures. They certainly get no support from record companies. Don’t rose-color the past: artists really struggled back then too.

You ever actually read a history of jazz? The biggest jazz audiences were during the fusion era when Miles Davis played rock festivals like the Isle of Wight. It wasn’t just Miles’ musical creativity. He was very gutsy in terms of his business decisions — for instance, figuring out how in the late 1950s to move from Prestige to Columbia, then later throwing his venerable jazz legacy to the wind by embracing electric trends and working with Bill Graham and the rock scene. By the way, some people are pretty critical of the “creativity” of the fusion era — exactly the period when jazz had, numerically speaking, its biggest audiences. As for today, many of the economic issues faced by creative jazz artists are, often enough, the very same ones that plague creative classical artists and plague creative rock artists: people don’t seem willing to pay to listen to music any more. Creativity abounds — but it doesn’t pay.

Let me go back to the beginning of my rant: Are you listening?

 

Here’s a LINK to the original discussion thread on the AllAboutJazz forum.  After some downtime, it appears that they are back up and running.  This thread was one of the first things I came upon since checking back in on the AAJ forum.  It gave me a real chuckle, and reminded me of why forums like that need to be supported… just a great environment to shoot the breeze about this music.

Speaking of which, Alypius has put in some serious sweat work on that forum developing a very cool resource, the discussion thread entitled “Playlists for Newcomers to Jazz.”  You can find it HERE.

In honor of Alypius’s post, here’s a track from one of his favorite albums of the year thus far, from Orrin Evans’ Captain Black Big Band, the album Mother’s Touch…

And here’s a link to an album review I wrote on this site.

Cheers.

By • Essays & Columns & Lists, Other Writing • 2 • Tags:

May 12 2014

Stuff you should think about doing: Tips to secure a review

 

BitW square avatarAs illogical as it may sound, sometimes albums get a review slot because the artists have made it uncomplicated to do all the things necessary for a decent article to get published.  And it has nothing to do with the music itself.

On Bird is the Worm, when I review something, it’s music that I think should be shared with others.  It’s earned a slot based on various music criteria I’ve established for the site… but that’s beyond the scope of this column.  Because, the thing of it is, I still don’t have the time or the open slots to get to all of those albums that meet my review criteria.  So, now it starts getting down to culling the best of the best, and that’s who gets a review.

Well, most of the time.

Because a review isn’t comprised just of the analysis and evaluation of the music.  There are other things, administrative-type things like embedding an audio track, finding album cover art and artist images, links for artist and label and retail sites, confirming that all personnel and instruments are accounted for, etc… all the things that go into a review but don’t involve hitting a play button on the stereo.

This stuff takes time, and when an artist makes it difficult to acquire these things, I, often, will move on to the next album and put the previous one on the back-burner.  When albums get put on my back-burner, they rarely make it back up front.

So, here’s a list of things you can do to make it so that your album doesn’t get pushed to the side for one that isn’t such a time-eater of my schedule.  They are all quite simple.

1.  Audio embeds.  Have at least one album track streaming online, and be sure it’s embeddable.  You really should have most, if not all, of your album available to stream, but at the very least, one track.  I’m at the point that I won’t review an album if I can’t embed an album track.  There are exceptions to this… ten, actually, and they correspond to the ten slots on my year-end Best Of lists.  Those albums I’ll review without embeddable audio.  That’s not the kind of thing you want to rely upon.  Go upload and stream an album track.

If you’re retailing your music on Bandcamp, then you’ve likely already achieved this.  Bandcamp allows the artist to stream some or all their music on the retail page, and I’ve only seen a handful of instances where an artist shut off all streaming on their Bandcamp page in its entirety.  As long as there’s something streaming on Bandcamp, I can grab and embed it into the review.

Another obvious one is Soundcloud.  Unless you want to get deep into the Soundcloud functionality, then it’s a free account and easy to join up.  You fill out their form, then upload some album tracks.  Probably 75% of the music I embed in reviews is a Soundcloud audio player.  There are two Soundcloud items worth noting:

1.  Are you embeddable?  Be sure when you upload a track that you select the Embed functionality in Settings.  If you don’t check that box, then a reviewer can’t actually embed that song into the review… it just sits there on Soundcloud, useless to anyone outside of that sphere.  In truth, if I’m going to review your album, see your track on Soundcloud, but see the embed functionality is turned off, I won’t push your review to the side… I’ll email you and ask if you can turn it on.  In every instance that I’ve done this, the artist was surprised to learn that it wasn’t embeddable.  It’s an easy enough thing to overlook.  It’s wise to be sure you’ve got it done in advance.

2.  Private setting.  The ability to embed a Soundcloud player isn’t useful just to the reviewer, but to the artist, too.  Many artists embed their own music on their own site via a Soundcloud upload.  Sometimes they make it a Private setting, meaning that you can only listen to the song on their site, and if you try to find it on the Soundcloud site, it won’t appear.  I can appreciate this.  The artist wants you to stay on their site, listening to their music, reading about their backgrounds, their projects, their upcoming shows, and whatever other content they have on their site.

The truth is that I won’t stop at just looking at Soundcloud for an embeddable album track.  I will also check your artist site.  If I see you’re streaming album tracks on a Soundcloud player, and the link on that player takes me to a “Page Not Found” error on the Soundcloud site, I’ll know that it’s on Private setting, and I’ll email you with a request to provide the embed code so that I can include it in the review.  The Soundcloud player will behave just like it does on your artist site… people will be able to listen to it as they read the review on Bird is the Worm, but they won’t be able to grab it themselves or follow it back to Soundcloud.  It remains Private, but now in two spots… your own artist site and on BitW.

3.  You avant-garde people with your 20+ minute avant-garde tracks.  Some artists only upload sample tracks to Soundcloud… typically one-minute fragments of songs.  I won’t use those.  EVER.  If you’ve got sample tracks uploaded to Soundcloud, it’s as useful to me as having nothing at all.  BUT, I do make an exception for you free jazz/avant-garde musicians who often put out 45-minute long albums with just one or two tracks.  For you, streaming a full album track might be the same as streaming the entire album, and you might not want to do that.  I do make an exception for you when it comes to samples.  I’m obviously not going to use a one-minute sample here either, but if you’ve got two 20-minute tracks, I’d be willing to use a sample that’s about 50% of actual time play (or approximately 10 minutes in length).  There have been a couple times I’ve used smaller samples than that, but those were still about 33% of actual play time… a 6-minute sample on a 18-minute track.  I doubt I would go any lower than that.  But the point is, I think most reviewers are going to be sympathetic to the album presentation of certain types of albums.  I know I am.  Keep that in mind.

When I go about choosing which album track to embed, it doesn’t come down to which is my favorite track.  I have two primary considerations for which album track I choose to embed in the review.  The first, is it representative of the album?  It’s not a rare occurrence for an album to have something of an outlier song on it, something that doesn’t sound like anything else on the album.  The immediate example that pops into my mind is the title-track from David Binney’s South.  It’s this beautiful rustic tune that sounds more like something from a Brian Blade Fellowship recording than the sharp bop and hard angles of the rest of that album.  I adore that track.  But I also wouldn’t embed it in a review.  I’d pick a track that was more representative.  I don’t want the reader to feel ambushed if they buy the album based on what they streamed on my review, then discovered that the rest of the album sounds nothing like that.

The second consideration for which album track I choose to embed is based on how quickly a particular song grabs the ear.  Some songs develop slowly.  Nothing wrong with that.  But I’m not going to risk losing my reader’s attention with one of those.  I’m going to be looking for something that immediately engages.  It could be a wildly expressive saxophone intro or it could be a series of quiet, simple piano chords… but it has to be something that draws the ear in.  It’s going to be a song that develops a rapport right from go and doesn’t let up… at least not until enough time has passed that the listener has sufficiently bought into the track and will listen all the way through.  In my mind, that’s about a minute into the song… after that, the song can do whatever it wants, because the listener is locked in for the duration.

If you’re not going to stream all or most of your album, if you’re only going to allow one album track to stream, that’s what you should keep in mind when you decide which album track it’s going to be… not your favorite, not the song you’re most proud of, not the one that has your favorite solo… choose the track that engages right from the beginning, because you want to connect with the listener immediately, and the longer you hold their attention, the better the odds that they’ll keep reading the review and buy the album.

Still not convinced?  Take a look at this article.  It’s one of my eMusic Jazz Picks columns.  With the new eMusic platform of Wondering Sound, I’m able to embed music along with the column.  I typically include 15-20 album recommendations per week.  Only a few had music I could embed.  Readers/buyers will be listening to that music as they read the entire column.  How much does that increase the likelihood that those are the recommended albums people choose to buy?  Substantially, I’d imagine.  (NOTE:  As it turns out, I’m allowed to embed Bandcamp players into the column, even though it’s an eMusic thing, so if you’re on Bandcamp, don’t go thinking you now have to run out and create a Soundcloud page, too… going forward, that won’t be an issue).

You can also upload an album track to video services like Youtube and Vimeo.  That’s perfectly fine.  I’ll just shrink the dimensions down to where they look like a player.  Something like this…

If the video is on Youtube, you might want to be sure that it’s not getting hit with those ridiculous Google ads.  If it is, then I won’t be able to use it… one, because Youtube won’t let me shrink the player down like it is above if there are ads in it, and two, I won’t let those tacky ads show on my site.  Vimeo, as far as I can tell, doesn’t have this issue.

Okay, that was a long section on embedding a track.  Let’s move on to the other items.

2.  Details, details, details.  Be sure to list, somewhere/everywhere, all the personnel, instrumentation, recording date(s), and any other relevant information regarding the album.  If you have an artist site, put it there.  If you’ve got a Soundcloud and/or Bandcamp page, also list it there.  If you’ve got something up on Youtube or Vimeo, list it there.  Make it easy to find this stuff.  Not only because it might help you secure a review, but it’s the right thing to do.  Also, it’s not a bad idea to include links to retail sites on those pages.  I always include retail links in a review.  The easier it is for me to find them, the better it is for you.  Including contact info isn’t a bad idea, either.  Do an image search on your album cover… Does it show up early in the search results?  Does it show up in multiple sizes?  How hard do people have to search for your album cover until they fall upon the first instance of it?  These are things to be checking for.

3.  Your life in pictures.  Promo photos are probably a drag.  Personally, I don’t like having my photo taken even under casual circumstances… something about feeling overwhelmingly self-conscious.  I dunno, whatever.  So, I sympathize with some of you who cringe at reading the words “promo photos.”  But you need to do it.  And, seriously, it doesn’t have to be complicated.  I’m not talking about setting up an appointment with Glamour Shots.  An iPhone camera or a simple snap camera will do.  But you’re going to want something that writers can use.  I’ve noticed that online magazines thrive on them.  And while I rarely use them on my own site, I do have to use one on my eMusic/Wondering Sound Jazz Picks column, and I’ve noticed that a lot of the online music magazines use them, too.  So, just suck it up and take a few.  The good news is, I’m going to suggest some easy shots to take.

1.  Your future is as big as the horizon.  Take some rooftop shots.  It doesn’t matter if you’re in NYC or some tiny town where a 3-story building is as tall as it gets… anything with a horizon line will look cool.

A. Here’s a cool one of Miguel Zenon –> Pic

B. Here’s a good one from JD Allen –> Pic

C. Here’s two from Tobias Meinhart –> Pic1 & Pic2

2.  You and the City.  Try some photos that have you in the city.

A. Here’s a great one of Carolina Calvache –> Pic

I love how the city reflects off the window like that.  But you don’t gotta be living in NYC to get a good “city” shot.  Hell, living in the vast tundra of Iceland can get you a good photo…

B.  Here’s a good one from Sunna Gunnlaugs –> Pic

3.  Your life as an album cover.  I also like ones that incorporate aspects of the album cover in it.

A.  For instance, here’s one for Oran Etkin –> Pic

B.  And a great one from Rebecca Trescher –> Pic

4.  You got personality, baby!

A.  The quartet Get the Blessing has some of the best promo shots around…

Get the Blessing
Get the Blessing

Some aspects of these photos to note:  They don’t have any words on them.  That’s preferable.  Though it seems like an artist name appearing in the photo isn’t always a deal breaker.  Also, there’s usually various sizes offered of these photos… a standard rectangle and also a banner image.  Most photoshop apps will allow you to adjust the dimensions on your photos.  Also, when you save these photos online, whether on your own site or some third party photo sharing site, be sure the file name and metadata have your name in it, because otherwise, no matter how well I search for it on Google, the photo isn’t going to show up.  Of course, if you have these photos saved on a Media page on your website, that would take care of that.

Anyways, those are some examples.

4.  Live performance video.  For plenty of reasons, it’s good to have some decent video of a live performance.  It’s also okay to have some mediocre or even bad performance video, but you should have a couple that have clean audio, decent lighting, and a steady camera shot.  And it doesn’t even have to be in front of a live audience.  I would happily feature a video of an ensemble rehearsing a new song in their practice space.  I have a Sunday video feature series, and I like to use a video from an artist/ensemble that will have a review posted that week.  It’s the kind of extra promotional punch a decent video can provide you.  Some sites like to use a video along with the review.  Some sites just like videos.  I mean, you’re already performing live and you’re going to be in your studio practicing… one of your friends has to possess some sort of decent recording device and get you a clean video that’s fun to watch.  Getting some decent videos up is a helpful thing if you can swing it.

5. Check your retail links.  This is something you should be doing anyway.  Be sure that artist name and album title fields are correct.  Don’t be lazy about this, either.  Be sure your last name really is spelled correctly.  If your album artist name is comprised of all the artist names, be sure that’s how it’s listed and that you don’t fall under the dreaded title of “various artists” (which almost always gets ignored).  Go to each retailer’s main page and search for your album both by artist name and album title… do you show up in the search results and how far up the list?  Do the same in Google.  Make it as easy as possible to find your album retail spots.

I search pretty hard for these to link up with in a review.  I want people buying your album.  I’m always amazed to discover typos and misspellings… things that had me overlook a retail link until the artist emails me later about it.  Also, provide those same links on your Soundcloud and artist site, on Vimeo and Youtube videos… anywhere you have an online presence.  Give every opportunity for listeners to make you their impulse purchase.  And give reviewers every opportunity to provide retail links to their readers to purchase your music.  I know this seems like an obvious thing, but errors in this category happen frequently enough that I’ve given it some space in this column.

Okay, that’s it for today.

Obviously these items relate specifically to me and my site.  It won’t necessarily apply to other sites and other reviewers, but I seriously doubt that these considerations of mine are terribly unique, and taking into account the relative simplicity of completing each item… well, if you haven’t done them yet, don’t feel bad, but get started now.

Cheers and good luck.

By • Other Writing, Stuff You Should Think About Doing • 0 • Tags:

Jan 4 2014

Me and the 2013 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, just in time for its 8th edition.  I was flattered to be included this year.

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, Wayne Shorter Without a Net.

Also, the individual ballots are compiled and maintained by Tom Hull over on his site, Hullworks.  Here’s a LINK to view them, of which mine is one (I’m on Ballot #6, Sumner).

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

I have some thoughts on the results.  Of course I do.

Some of you may be wondering why the poll winner… Wayne Shorter‘s Without a Net… wasn’t anywhere in my Best of 2013 list.  Well, it’s a fine album, and Shorter is one of the all-time greats (I’m still drawn in by the opening to his wonderful 1964 release JuJu), but there are too many weak spots on this recording for it to rank as highly as it did.  You should still consider buying it (if it floats your boat), and there’s nothing wrong with anyone who adores the album above all others, but there was way more engaging and inventive jazz released during the year.

Should that Craig Taborn album get slotted in the top ten?  Eh, not so sure, but I don’t really have any qualms about seeing it there.  It’s one that I can easily see justified, and really, that’s all that can be asked, since so much of this is subjective.  And, besides, as I’ve mentioned previously, Taborn has developed into one of those musicians that is pretty much an auto-purchase if you see his name listed in the album’s personnel.

Ditto on Jason Moran.  In fact, times 100 with Moran.  He’s one of the more exciting guys on the scene right now, and putting out music to prove it.  I’ve heard rumor that he has a Fats Waller tribute album coming out in 2014, and if true, then that is going to be something to hear.  His Fats Waller performance at the Chicago Jazz Festival was one of the highlights of the entire event.  And what about this particular album with Charles Lloyd?  Again, not one that I ranked in the top thirty of my Best of 2013 list, but at the same time, I enjoyed the album very much, and it’s the kind of recording (duo collaboration between piano and reeds) that often presents sublime music that can get its hooks into a listener and never let go.  It’s a fine album, and you won’t go wrong for picking it up.  Though I preferred Moran’s work with Trio 3, on their excellent 2013 release Refraction-Breakin’ Glass.

ECM Records releases were a bit overrepresented in this year’s poll.  ECM is definitely one of the stronger labels out there, and they put out some amazing music year in and year out, but I think some of their recordings are esteemed a bit highly based on reputation more than the music actually presented.  I am enjoying their strong move, of late, signing established artists who don’t typically fall inside their strike zone of Nordic Jazz/Chamber-Folk-Jazz/stuff that really isn’t Jazz at all but pretty damn engaging no matter how you slice it/etc.

It just occurred to me that I didn’t have one ECM Records album in my Best of 2013 list, which, actually, in terms of representation, that would be described as under-represented.  However, in my Best of 2013 Addendum: Beyond Jazz, I do mention that Christian Wallumrod‘s Outstairs is one of the best things released in 2013, but it just didn’t happen to be Jazz… so ECM got in there anyhow.  Overall, ECM Records released a lot of very good albums in 2013.

Speaking of jazz labels, it’s nice to see Blue Note Records return to a level of prominence.  One of the all-time great labels, during the 50s and 60s, they released some of the greatest jazz albums ever recorded.  Things started going downhill after that, with the quality of music released getting increasingly bad, and then getting to where, in the new century, they were releasing non-jazz recordings, and some awful ones at that.  It was like watching some great actor reduced to a comic relief bit on something pathetic like The Expendables or a walk-on role on some god-awful show like Drop Dead Diva.  But now, under the guidance of Don Was, Blue Note has been releasing some respectable albums yet again, and for me personally, a man who has so much nostalgia tied up in Blue Note, of so many great albums discovered when I was first getting into Jazz, it’s nice to see the turn-around.

But Jazz is decentralized now when it comes to labels, and despite the Jazz Critics Poll giving the impression that the best music is being released by just a couple of labels, that’s not the case.  The best jazz is being released by small labels, many who don’t release more than a dozen albums in a year.  And in some instances, the best music is self-produced, as more and more musicians take advantage of the opportunities that technology offers them for recording and editing their music, and the internet for selling and promoting it.  The brilliant upside to this development is that there is lots of great music getting released that might not otherwise see the light of day if it were up to a small pantheon of established labels.

Two of the Critics amalgamated Top Ten made my Best of 2013 list.  I slotted Darcy James Argue‘s Brooklyn Babylon at #16, and Mary Halvorson‘s Illusionary Sea received the #15 spot on my list.  Also, Jaimeo Brown’s Transcendence, which I selected as my Debut of the Year (as well as my best overall of 2013), tied for second in the collected critic’s list in the Debut category.  And then there’s Nilson Matta‘s Black Orpheus, which received many votes for Latin Jazz album of the year.  I actually chose Pablo Ablanedo‘s ReContraDoble as my Latin Jazz album of the year, and placed his album at #12 on my Best of 2013 list.  Matta’s Black Orpheus placed one slot behind at #13… so, you can see, it was pretty much a dead heat between those two.

I believe that in the instance of seven of my top ten selections, I was the only person to vote for that album.  I’d have to confirm this, but I believe Jaimeo Brown, Nicole Mitchell, and Ben Goldberg were the only artists who had albums in my top ten, who also were selected by at least one other of my fellow reviewers.  This is not a new experience for me.  It’s not a rare occurrence for me to rave about a recording, just to discover that my review is about the only one out there on the entire internet.

I don’t set out to achieve this.  Actually, it often saddens me a wee bit to see that other writers aren’t as excited about the music that I am so deeply affected by.  On the other hand, I seek out certain qualities in music, and I definitely have a very long reach when it comes to finding the music no one else is discovering, so I’ll admit to a certain pride in being the guy that brings music to light that might not otherwise receive any critical attention whatsoever.  I would like to think that I am establishing just such a reputation.  And I am thrilled to have received the opportunity to shed light on these ten excellent recordings on a big time platform like NPR’s/Francis Davis’s Jazz Critics Poll.

There are several in the Critics’ top fifty that are wonderful albums which didn’t quite make the cut on my own Best of 2013 list… much to my exasperation/disbelief/chagrin/bemusement/etc.  Each time I compile my list, I’m amazed by the quality music that, inevitably, gets left off.  When I look over the various artists and albums that the Critics chose on their own respective ballots, I’m genuinely happy to see that other people are mentioning many of the albums I couldn’t make room for on my own ballot.  And that leads into my final observation about the poll results, an observation that is the most important of all…

The variety of albums represented on the list, no matter where I or anybody feels like they should’ve been ranked, display the remarkable diversity and strength in jazz today.  So many wonderful recordings affecting so many astute listeners, and all in different ways.  There’s so much out there for you to listen to, and there’s so many avenues at your disposal to get started.  You can’t do anything wrong.  There’s no incorrect way to begin.  Just pick one, hit the play button, and if you like it, scoop the recording up and listen to even more.  If you don’t like what you hear from that sample track, move on to the next one.  It’s really that simple.  Enjoy!  It’s just music, and it’s nothing but fun!

Unless, of course, you try to make a Best-Of list.  Those are nothing but pain, despair, and angst.

Cheers.

By • Announcement - Music, Essays & Columns & Lists, Other Writing • 4 • Tags:

Jan 1 2014

A New Year, Yet Again

 

BitW square avatarSo, here we are.  End of another year, and this site’s second full year of operation.  I opened the doors in December of 2011, just in time to put together some hastily constructed Best of 2011 synopses while trying to get a handle on what I was doing.  Having just completed the 2013 rendition of that process, I’m getting better at it, but still trying to get a handle on what the hell I’m doing.

So, what’s been going on for the last year?

As I tell you about it, here’s some music to listen to.

Yes, yes, yes, I had many plans for 2013, many which never came to fruition.  That was to be expected, as my time and energy are scarce, and my dreams and goals are vast and unending.  I had intended to do more interview-type stuff, but have come to the conclusion that, one, I’m not very good at it, and two, they are seriously time-intensive.  I have a new-found respect for people who conduct interviews, and I can understand why one-person operations like mine who focus on interviews, that’s pretty much all they do.

I’ve kind of given up on having different review themes.  Things like Something Different and Beyond Jazz and The Safety Net and Know Your Sideman (etc etc etc) are all good ideas, and I’ll still throw those out there from time to time, but mostly, I’m going to be scrapping those sub-series and just write what I want to write.  If I want to do an older album, you’ll know it from my lead paragraph.  If it’s really not a jazz album (or Something Different), the review will make that apparent.  If I write a column that covers a majority of an artist’s output, well, that’s kind of an Artist Overview, isn’t it?  I guess the themes aren’t going away so much as I’m not going to use them in the column titles.  I think.  (At this point, you’re remembering, quite vividly, how rambling these annual columns are).

Now, that said, I do plan on having some wildcard columns.  There’s an upcoming column that just has examples of modern jazz covers of Radiohead and Bjork tunes.  No real reason that I’m doing it; just seemed fun at the time.  I’m going to do some quick hits on certain labels, highlight some of their recent releases, especially if I’m filled with regret that they didn’t get more coverage on my site (Constellation Records, I’m looking at you).  I think I would like to start offering a monthly free track sampler.  If you have an album track from a recent release that you’re already giving away as a promotional device, shoot me an email and we can talk about what’s involved.

The whole Tiny Reviews thing pretty much dropped off the map the second half of 2013.  I feel like that was a trademark of my site, and I do still like the idea of publishing a Tiny Reviews column every Saturday… the first three editions having about 5-6 tiny reviews, and then the fourth edition of each month having one featured tiny review and then a long list of very tiny reviews… just a sentence, a mini-album cover image, and maybe one or two links.  The problem with all of that is the amount of time those things take.

Back when I first started out, they were pretty sparse in terms of links, text, personnel, etc, but as I try to offer more with each, the whole process has become a bit cumbersome.  This is probably the change that would personally bother me the most, just because I attach my site’s identity to the Tiny Reviews series sufficiently that I get all wrapped up in nostalgia about it.  Thinking I might just return to my old standard of just copying exactly what I wrote for my eMusic synopsis and not much else.  We’ll see.  I want very badly to get the spotlight on as much deserving music as I possibly can, and those Tiny Reviews columns give me the opportunity to do that, just a little bit, for albums I wouldn’t otherwise have the time to touch upon.

What else, what else, what else?  I am intending (yet again) to attempt to begin throwing jazz shows, here, in my new hometown of Frankfort, KY.  I think I’ve got a good plan in place on how to go about it; don’t know if that plan will ever get any legs under it, but we’ll see.

What’s kinds of things should you expect to see on Bird is the Worm in 2014?

I want to illustrate the connectivity of the music I feature here.  If you’re a frequent reader of this site, you’ve been given list after list of quality albums and musicians.  That won’t change.  But I plan to provide more context for you now, too.  You’ve already begun seeing some of that at the bottom of reviews, with a Other Things You Should Know sub-section.  I also have pubbed a couple Two-Fer articles (ie Two (albums) for a Rainy Day, that kind of thing).  I want to trace some lines, whenever possible, from the album you just read about to other albums and musicians and projects out there… those you’ve read about previously and those of which you may be unaware, so that you can see how all this music ties in together.

The internet has provided more artists more avenues to get their music out there.  Traditional methods of discovering music have fallen to the side of the road.  How everything fits together has become more difficult to ascertain.  I want to provide some of that guidance.  Patterns are there, just not immediately visible.  If I review an obscure album, I’m going to show why it isn’t all alone on an island, and how to get to other, similar albums.

There will be more Things You Should Think About Doing articles (or whatever the hell I’m calling those advice columns).  There’s one coming up very soon, in fact, which will focus upon the relevant topic of digital promos and pitching reviews.

I think 2013 was a very strong year of releases.  I feel like I’m seeing a bunch of comments out there on social media and forums stating that it was a down year for Jazz.  I don’t think that true, and I’m not sure if those same comments were being made at the end of 2012 (and at the end of every year).  The Best of 2013 has a different persona than that of 2012’s.  The transitory nature of collective creativity, the way various scenes play out both collaboratively and in isolation, yes, there’s going to be general differences that reveal themselves as loose trends.

The Best of 2012 was a collective of approachable melodies, some having defined shapes, others more ephemeral but easily distinguished for their melodic beauty.  The Best of 2013 seemed to represent a year of textured percussion as the ground upon which songs set their feet, the building blocks of the albums, and the melodies simply organisms that lived within its confines.  Perhaps no better example of this generalization than the #9 album of 2013… John Zorn’s The Mysteries.  I believe I described the rhythmic approach as the sea in which the darting shapes of melody flash by, drawing the eye momentarily, before disappearing beneath the surface.

2013 may seem like a down year only because the music was more difficult to catch up to, slipping away out of reach, until, years from now, our pursuit ends and we occupy the same spot as the music itself.  2013:  The Year of the Glimpsed Melody.  That might not be true, but if it is, you know who coined it first.

It was no less fun, nor any less difficult, picking out the Top 30 of 2013 than it was previous years.  There’s an amazing array of quality music being released these days, and I’m happy to help draw attention to it.

Okay, I think that’s all I got.  Scarily, I think I’m forgetting several topics I meant to touch upon here, but I believe holiday fatigue has finally crushed me, and my recall, shaky under the best of conditions, is not up to snuff.

I want to thank everyone who stops by, who reads and listens and goes out and purchases all of the great music that gets featured here.  Thanks to all of the musicians for all the wonderful music you gift to the world.  Thanks to all my fellow reviewers and site operators and promoters and labels and label reps and everyone who helps keep the operation running and the lines of communication open.  Thanks to eMusic, and my editor J. Edward Keyes for the eMusic gig.  Thanks to my wife, Katie, who is a big help and a caring person and a huge supporter of my writing endeavors.

I hope everyone has a great end to 2013, and I hope all you have a great start to the new year.

Cheers.

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Dec 18 2013

Engine Studios – One more reason to like the people who like to make music

 

Engine Studios logoTwo of my eMusic Jazz Picks in this week’s column were released by Engine Studios, a small label out of Brooklyn that seems to focus on the free improv and avant-garde territories of the Jazz scene… though I should add, I haven’t yet delved deeply into the label’s discography, so my generalization might be too general in reality.

In any event, I was in the process of tweeting out my picks on Twitter, and as a result, I’m visiting various artist and label sites to see if they actually have a Twitter account.  That’s when I noticed this page on the Engine Studios site.  In addition to receiving a free album download just for joining the mailing list, it was this note that I found most endearing…

If you are broke and addicted to music, please contact me if you need some sliding-scale action.

The idea of adjusting the album price so that fans can have access to the music isn’t a new concept.  In fact, I’ve tried to highlight several of the artists and labels that offer a Name Your Own Price option on the Bandcamp retail site (and elsewhere).  There are legitimate pros and cons to this approach, but the altruistic goal of an artist genuinely wanting to remove barriers to their music for the listeners who will genuinely appreciate their music… I find the entire concept to be admirably humanistic and built of an unguarded decency that can’t be undervalued, especially in our modern times when cynicism is the typical fallback position for some many of us (myself included, far more often than I’d like to admit).

Anyways, I just really appreciated the personal nature of the note, and the generous offers on that page, and decided that I would post something about it.  Check their music out.  I’ve already found a few things that look pretty good.

Here’s another LINK TO THEIR SITE.  And here’s a LINK to their Facebook page, which seems pretty active.

And by the way, those two albums that got recommended from my eMusic Jazz Picks column this week were for the William Hooker Trio Heart of the Sun and Brian Settles Trio Folk.  And, actually, neither album are listed on the Engine Studios site right now, but hopefully they’ll get those recordings added.  But it appears there’s plenty of other albums to browse in the meantime.

Here’s a LINK again to that eMusic Jazz Picks column.

Cheers.

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