Three strong big band recordings have crossed my desk in the last few days. Abdullah Ibrahim’s Bombella, arranged by the late Steve Gray for the WDR Big Band Cologne, sheds new light on the pianist’s compositions and answers Ibrahim’s marvelous solo-piano disc Senzo from last year. Omar Sosa’s Ceremony, arranged by Jacques Morelenbaum for the NDR Bigband, offers a similar story — a pianist’s music newly expanded — even if the modernist Afro-Cuban aesthetic couldn’t be further from Bombella. Also, Graham Collier’s Directing 14 Jackson Pollocks, a two-disc set, revisits older Collier works and offers “The Vonetta Factor,” a new piece. Collier’s music has pronounced and dissonant free-improv elements, but also structural involvement and concrete, crisply articulated rhythm. It swings, and I regret not hearing the disc sooner (it’s from May 2009).
Of big bands, critics’ priorities, etc.
Graham Collier regrets it too. He’s written a post taking critics to task (constructively) for the lopsided results of our year-end polls, and as Patrick J. readily concedes, he makes some valid points. My eyes sometimes glaze over at these discussions, because I listen to some 700 CDs a year and it’s hard for me to swallow the notion that I’m not checking out enough music. And yet it’s true. At this point it’s a given that whatever offbeat and excellent music I’m taking in, there are probably scores of other deserving titles I overlook.
All the same, and while I’ve already noted the unsatisfactory nature of the whole exercise, I have to stand by my 2009 picks, which represent my listening experience as of the date I submitted them. And I’m not much bothered by the consensus titles, which Collier laments as evidence of a “pack mentality.” Vijay Iyer, Darcy James Argue, Miguel Zenon — these artists, to name just three, had a huge impact on the sound of 2009. Why shouldn’t more than one critic recognize them? And these are hardly “major label” darlings or publicity hogs, to the extent that such a creature still exists in jazz. Argue’s release was partly fan-funded, if I’m not mistaken. Iyer put Historicity out on a pretty obscure foreign label, ACT. Zenon records for Marsalis Music, which needless to say is artist-run (although to be fair, I believe it has a major distribution deal).
I’m all for outliers, wild cards and underdogs, don’t get me wrong. One of my top 10 picks was the Chicago band Herculaneum. Ferocious album, Herculaneum III, one of many fine releases last year from Portugal-based Clean Feed (not a major label by any remote stretch).
This is where things get subjective, I realize. To wit: Collier quotes my JJA colleague Chris Kelsey in calling John Hollenbeck’s Eternal Interlude “a formally conventional big band album,” which nearly sent my morning coffee through my nostrils. If Hollenbeck is conventional, then maybe his friend and collaborator Meredith Monk is conventional. Her music employs consonant melody, after all. And that’s what I suspect Chris means. For “formally conventional,” read “not free jazz,” not explicitly tied to the post-Ayler school of skronk.
We’re all entitled to our opinions — indeed, we critics live by them. But Chris’s remark seems pretty close to an outright error. And it puts me in mind of 2002, when one of my picks of the year was John Ellis’s Roots, Branches & Leaves. Chris Kelsey, reviewing for either JazzTimes or Down Beat, dismissed it as a neo-bop record, going so far as to suggest that the players sound like they perform in suits and ties. Perhaps he got this idea from the fact that Jason Marsalis was the drummer, I don’t know. But he missed out on an album that merged the postbop continuum and southern folklore, derived from Ellis’s North Carolinian family roots. Bilal, the noted R&B experimenter, sang old-time melodies in a high, haunting drawl on two tracks. To me, Roots, Branches & Leaves remains one of the most poignantly personal jazz statements of the last 10 years. But Ellis got dogged for it in print, and I’d be surprised if it appeared on a single top 10 list besides mine. That’s life.
7 Comments
Collier does make some fair points. HOWEVER – a few thoughts:
1) When you object that your album didn't make more year-end lists, you're not decrying the "pack mentality." You're just decrying that the pack mentality didn't swarm your way.
2) I chose the new Ramsey Lewis album as my #1 pick; it made precious few other lists and mine was the ONLY vote for it on this year's Pazz & Jop. So it's tough for me to swallow that I'm part of the pack mentality because some of my lower-ranked picks coincided with many people's higher-ranked ones.
3) "Best" ≠ most innovative, most groundbreaking, most ambitious, or even most influential. Best = best. And I object to the implication that I'm doing it wrong because an album that is especially innovative/ ambitious/ etc. isn't on my list. I can readily concede all those things without particularly liking it.
I do think that part of the complaining about lists comes from any artist's wish that more people would recognize one's music as worthwhile and notable, certainly there is little criticism from those consensus picks about being on them. Sure, any artist would want to be considered a consensus Top 10 pick, but (at least for me personally) it is not because one wants to be considered one of 'the best' (what is that anyway? music isn't like sports), but because being on a list creates more opportunity for people to consider the music and this is what all artists (well, most) want. As I mentioned over at ABS, the lists have an outsized influence on what is considered worthy or who listens and gives a chance to what music, especially with so much product out there today. But as you point out, even though you as a critic hear 700+ albums in a year, there are bound to be some excellent things you listened to that get passed over or not throughly assimilated or understood, not to mention the hundreds of recordings that you didn't hear. Yes, not everything is great let alone good, but also not everything that is praised is automatically 'better' than what is not and this is what the lists, rightly or wrongly, imply (I do realize that better, good, great are all in the ear of the listener).
Taking up Michael West's "Best" ≠ most innovative, most groundbreaking, most ambitious, or even most influential. Best = best.", this is completely a subjective point. For him, it might not mean those things, but for someone else being innovative, groundbreaking, ambitious, and/or influential IS part of being THE 'best'. Saying best=best is like saying you know porn when you see it. Maybe this is why some artists complain about not being on them, since the criteria for these lists IS subjective and flexible, which in itself isn't bad (after all, it is human nature to categorize), but coming from an established publication, writer, etc. often the list connotes a sense of finality to the average listener that any artist (even those more thoughtful ones on the lists) would find laughable. Perhaps the 'best' is so subjective that maybe instead, these list touting the 'best' should really be marketed as list of albums the critic 'likes' or "albums of note, that were heard in the year".
Thanks for this – look, I take no special joy in making top 10 lists. Some critics do. But to me, it asks us to quantify what can't really be quantified. And many of the other things you suggest. However, in the end I find it a useful info-processing device for myself and a record to refer back to in years ahead. That said, I don't offer it as some sort of judgment from Olympus, and no critic should. I agree fully with your concluding remark, that it should represent albums of note, personal favorites, rather than "CDs that should absolutely dominate and crowd out everything else."
My condolences to your coffee and/or nostrils!
Graham sent out 18 cd's, and that is why he wasn't on many lists. Plain and simple to me. I know he expects writers to find out about the cd and then contact him, but I've never heard of it working that way. The good writers seem to be very busy and inundated with new cd's, so it often takes time, money and luck to get your cd listened, at least that has been my experience.
Hey David,
"Formally conventional" is different from "conventional." The Hollenbeck is in no way conventional when compared to Basie, for instance. But in terms of form, he works within established parameters. It has nothing to do with skronk, or whether it is or isn't free jazz. The Hollenbeck album is excellent for what it is, but Collier's redefines the concept of large ensemble jazz, something that cannot be said of Hollenbeck.
As for the Ellis, I don't remember what I wrote, but I doubt I dismissed it as cavalierly as you suggest. That said, I do remember thinking it quite average. Different strokes, etc.
CK
ACT a "pretty obscure foreign label"? You must be kidding. That type of comment shows what's wrong with the oh so insular American Jazz scene. A scene where Blue Note which in it's most recent years has virtually abandoned new jazz yet gets awarded the top jazz label by downbeat readers. Wake up America! You guys are no longer producing the best or most interesting jazz music in the world despite what you might believe. Be brave and open your ears. Check out cuneiform, runegrammophone, cleanfeed, Leo, jazzgroove and any number of excellant non mainstream record labels out there. Regards.
If you read this blog regularly, you'd know that I frequently recommend titles on Clean Feed, Rune Grammofon, Cuneiform and other non-mainstream labels in the U.S. and abroad.
I should have been clearer in my description of ACT, which I'm well aware has issued recordings by fine European musicians as well as David Binney, Joel Harrison and others.
Re Blue Note – the label has signed Robert Glasper, Aaron Parks and Lionel Loueke in recent years and still records Jason Moran and Joe Lovano. Not enough, you might say, but given the economically tottering status of Blue Note's parent EMI, the label could be doing far worse in terms of jazz.