The new jazz... or jazz music not involving Charlie Parker
Since my P4K thread has been hijacked by the jazzheads :P I thought a thread dedicated to new jazz was in order. I'm starting things off with a little traffic for my friend in the Gray Flannel Suit. He responded to an NPR challenge asking for 5 albums in the past decade to introduce someone to modern jazz.
Some big lists have already been pointed out, but I'd love some more focused recommendations.
Some big lists have already been pointed out, but I'd love some more focused recommendations.
Comments
OK, just to be clear, this isn't going to be a discussion about Charlie Parker, huh?
Perhaps the title should be, "If you died before 1960 you probably didn't release anything new this decade".
Well, not unlike the unicorn and the two headed flying gila monster, I am afraid there is no such beast.
Dave Douglas - Live At The Jazz Standard
Bobby Previte - Set The Alarm For Monday
Jeremy Pelt & Wired - Shock Value - Live At Smoke
Donny McCaslin - In Pursuit
Charlie Hunter - Songs From The Analog Playground
All artists in their prime, all very much playing jazz.
This could be the new thing (but it still involves Charlie Parker)
Tough to name five, but I'll go for it.
The List:
1. Will Collier Septet - "Everybody Loves the Will Collier Septet"
2. Robert Glasper - "In My Element"
3. Guillermo Klein - "Filtros"
4. Esbjorn Svensson Trio - "Strange Place for Snow"
5. Ben Allison - "Little Things Run The World"
The Reasons:
1. To my ears, Will Collier's ensemble embraces everything that is right and true about jazz. Listening to it, there's no doubt that it's jazz you're listening to. It celebrates the art form. But just as it embraces the roots of jazz, the compositions sound as fresh as anything getting produced by the newer strains of jazz sub-genres. To my thinking, choosing this album illustrates that looking back on jazz doesn't preclude one from thinking ahead, too.
Listen Here
2. Robert Glasper's jazz piano has a gravitational effect on other music genres. Where some jazz experimenters reach out to other genres to blend in those sounds with jazz, Glasper seems to draw those genres to jazz, resulting in his own jazz voice simply incorporating those non-jazz aspects that speak to him. Even though he works with musicians from outside the genre, he never seems to lose his jazz identity. It's adventurism like Glasper's that is an aspect of jazz that is important to emphasize.
Listen Here
3. Guillermo Klein, aside from being one of the top composers on the scene, is arguably the best example of the nu-jazz movement. Quite honestly, I'm not entirely sure exactly what nu-jazz means anymore (it's definition has changed over time), but to me, it speaks of a cinematic style of composition, a sort of storytelling sound that focuses less on rhythm and more on melody. That Klein not only wields this sound without abandoning jazz roots, but that he incorporates Latin influences into it is not only impressive, but just amazing music. I do believe "Filtros" will be one of those albums we place on a pedestal in fifty years.
Listen Here
4. I chose E.S.T. as an example of the expanding presence of electronic and effects on the jazz scene, in addition to the sound of jazz coming from ECM-label geography. Esbjorn's excellent piano trio uses these effects with amazing results. He has a moody sound to the music, sometimes epic, sometimes sublime, just a hint of heartbreak and hope just behind the notes.
Listen Here
5. I chose Ben Allison to represent the current jazz movement that embraces many of Indie rock's elements, as well as a stretching out of rock's rhythmic attitudes. Nobody does it as well and as consistently as Ben, though there are some solid contenders. It just seemed like one of the five slots should go toward this type of sound.
Listen Here
Some alternatives to the five category choices above
1. Matthew Halsall - "Colour Yes" (alternative to Will Collier)
2. Omer Avital - "The Omer Avital - Marlon Browden Project" (alternative to Robert Glasper)
3. Brian Blade Fellowship - "Season of Changes" (alternative to Guillermo Klein)
4. Mathias Eick - "The Door" (alternative to E.S.T.)
5. Todd Sickafoose - "Tiny Resistors" (alternative to Ben Allison)
I am a big fan of the album Elm by Richard Beirach at al. (I also have Eon).
Let me try to describe what is capturing me without being encumbered by such out-of-reach resources as actual knowledge of how music works. The piano has this crystal quality and often sparkles in crisp flutters of clear-edged notes, and yet their patterns are sufficiently unpredictable that it doesn't just sounds like an adept bar pianist running trills for decoration. It's like a patter of raindrops on a hard dry surface, hinting at the energy and pending crackle of the storm, rhythmic but not linear, random yet with a deep sense of natural harmony. Notes don't resound greatly, nor do they tinkle, they ring crisply. Of course the percussionist is helping the effect along quite a lot too in terms of energy patterns. I have just been listening to samples of the first Consecration album by Bill Evans...
...and I am hearing maybe something of the same quality; more of that slightly electric sparkle than in the Complete Village Vanguard Recordings 1961, which I also like a lot, but which mostly has a more relaxed, languid kind of vibe. There's a piano solo on the first or second track of Matthew Halsall's Fletcher Moss Park that catches my ear kind of the same way. Too much crackle of underlying tension for the cocktail lounge, not enough dissonance to be Monk, let alone Taylor (both of whom, again, I like, but they are not this), not enough bombast and too much fleetness to be most of the Jarrett I've heard (though there are moments towards the end of the first 15 minutes of the Köln concert that definitely are what I'm describing, before he gets to the more thumpy part (and kind of loses me)), not enough humor to be Ellington. Some ECM cousins that I have, like Tord Gustavsen Trio or Marcin Wasilewski Trio, are nice in their own way but don't have the same verve.
Does this make enough sense to anyone else to be able to suggest anything else I ought to check out? (I am realizing that the above sounds like knowledge of jazz, but it's really just a run down of what Guvera gave me, and I am always wondering what lies in the abyss of ignorance just to the left or right of what I have found so far)
(Has any resource ever tried to trace pathways through jazz based on resonances and affinities rather than decades and movements? I read in a review that Matthew Halsall was doing modal jazz in the vein of Miles' Kind of Blue; being a lover of Kind of Blue did turn out to predict rather liking a number of the Halsall tracks I've heard, at least for me. I quite often find myself thinking "That. I'd like to hear more that sounds kind of like that." But it's hard to put that into a search engine.)
tl;dnr: What sounds like Elm?