Chick Corea: Artist of the Year? Is This Really 2009?

by Anthony Medici in Album Reviews, Editorials, Industry News, Musician Reviews, Opinion Posts, Reviews

Time to get back to work.  The holidays are mercifully over.  I was able to use a lot of my unused leave at my real job (and just to repeat, I do not work in a record store, nor do I work for Princeton Record Exchange alas).  I took last week off from blogging and just kicked back to listen to music and read, so far as I could in between all the usual holiday hoopla.   During that time,  I managed to listen to 54 CDs and LPs (rather uncharacteristically, I decided to keep track) and read several interesting jazz books.  I’ve been wondering:  is this too much, or not enough?  A vague feeling of guilt hovers about me (probably due to my parochial school upbringing):  was this time well-spent? 

Let me review briefly what I listened to and read, and you can form your own response to the question I’ve asked myself. 

It’s become a New Year tradition for me to end the old year and start the new year playing John Coltrane.  “My Favorite Things” and “Giant Steps” help me usher out the old and welcome the new, just as Coltrane’s music embraced, subsumed, transcended, and ultimately changed forever “the tradition.” 

Albums, old and new, I particularly enjoyed during this holiday break, in no particular order: 

“The IS Sessions” with Chick Corea, Woody Shaw, Bennie Maupin, Dave Holland, Jack DeJohnette. 

“Coon Bid’ness”- Julius Hemphill, with Hamiett Bluiett, Arthur Blythe, Bakida Carroll, Abdul Wadid, Barry Altschul.

Anthony Braxton’s “Donna Lee,” “Three Compositions for New Jazz,” and “23 Standards (Quartet) 2003.”

“People of the Ninth: New Orleans and the Hurricane of 2005″ -Kidd Jordan, Kali Z. Fasteau, and Michael T.A. Thomas.

“Live at the Willisau Jazz Festival”- the John Tchicai-Irene Schweitzer Group, from 1976.

Andrew Hill’s “Judgment,” “Smokestack,” “Timelines,” and “Blue Black.”

“Cosas”- Tony Malaby- Joey Sellers Quartet (I liked Malaby’s later “Sabino” a bit less, although more hearings my alter this initial judgmenty).

Charles Tolliver’s “Paper Man” and “The Ringer” on Arista LPs. 

Eric Dolphy- “The Copenhagen Concert.”

I’ve always liked David Schnitter’s tenor sax playing, and he is excellent on his leader debut, “Invitation,” despite a subpar rythym section.

Some Blue Note classics make the “terrific” list: Wayne Shorter’s “Etcetera,” Herbie Hancock’s “Maiden Voyage,” and Freddie Hubbard’s “Here to Stay” (R.I.P Freddie).  It’s always rewarding to go back to these classics’ like all great music, they continue to reward. 

Others did not impress:

Joshua Redman’s “Momentum,” incorporating all the latest hip-hop, R&B and Funk riffs, already sounds stale and dated.  Check out Redman’s “Back East” instead. 

Stan Kenton’s “Cuban Fire!”- despite the presence of some excellent musicians (Lennie Niehaus, Lucky Thompson, Sam Noto, Curis Counce), a feeling of ersatz permeates the music. 

Jamaaladeen Tacuma’s “Jukebox” wastes the efforts of tenor saxman Byard Lancaster amid a wash of synthesizers and various electronic gizmos.

Many of the other LPs and CDs fell somewhere in between these poles, neither dramatically good nor cringe-inducing bad. 

I managed to read several excellent books, all music-related: 

“Lee Konitz:  Conversations on the Improviser’s Art” (2007) by Andy Hamilton with Lee Konitz.    Hamilton’s conversations and interviews with Konitz and Konitz associates offer a trove of interesting insights into jazz history and improvisation;however, it tries a little too hard to establish Konitz’s place in the forefront of jazz history.  I listened to a lot of Konitz, Tristano, and Warne Marsh while reading the book:  “Subconscious Lee,” “Konitz Meets Mulligan,” “Satori,” “Round & Round,” “Lee Konitz with Warne Marsh,” “Live in Toronto 1952″ [with Tristano, Marsh, Konitz, Peter Ind, and Al Leavitt].  The early Konitz is classic stuff, sharp, exciting, full of ideas, while later Konitz is a hit or miss affair.  Tristano warned Konitz about recording indiscriminately; perhaps he was right, as Konitz’s vast discography has had the effect of diluting rtather than reinforcing his preeminence as a jazz leader.  Konitz now seems to exist in a lovely musical cul-de-sac.

I was also able to read Graham Lock’s “Forces in Motion:  The Music and Thought of Anthony Braxton” (1988), essential for anyone interested in Braxton’s music, or the life of a jazz combo on the road.  Lock followed Braxton and his group (Marilyn Crispell, Mark Dresser, and Gerry Hemingway) duing their November 1985 tour of England.    It’s a classic account, often amusing as well as informative, despite, or maybe because of Lock’s quintessential British narrative style (that eager amateur mode mocked in innumerable Monty Python skits:  “As we follow Anthony about his bathroom., I asked him …”).  Lock also wears his circa-1980s feminism like a loud checkered sport jacket throughout the book, boring all including the reader.   Still, easily recommended.

Ben Ratliff’s “The Jazz Ear: Conversations Over Music,” is a collection of his NY Times columns in which he discusses music with jazz musicians.  Not all are equally interesting, but I particularly enjoyed the conversations with Andrew Hill, Sonny Rollins, Paul Motian and Ornette Coleman. 

Next on the reading list: Richard Cook’s book on Miles Davis, Howard Mandel’s  “Miles, Ornette, Cecil:  Jazz Beyond Jazz,” and, especially, George Lewis’ book on the AACM, “A Power Stronger than Itself.”

Well, it wasn’t all albums and books.  I managed to watch a good bit of the Sci-Fi Channel’s “Twilight Zone” marathon over New Year’s Eve and Day.  I’ve always thought these shows harbor a jazz sensibility, and I love the critiques of 50s and 60s society. 

Last, and least, the new issue of Jazz Times (February 09- boy, are these guys rushing it a bit?) proclamation of Chick Corea as “Artist of the Year.”   Among the accomplishments cited for Corea in 2008 were “the spectacle of Return to Forever re-forming after 25 years and going out on a triumphant worldwide tour…,” issuance of the album “The New Crystal Silence” with Gary Burton, and a European Tour with another new “supergroup” Five Peace Band.  “Spectacle” seems a well-chosen [albeit inadvertantly I would think] term to describe the RTF hype-rific go-for-the bucks tour, amply supported by JT’s swooning coverage.  The Five Peace Band, by Corea’s own admission, was merely in rolling jam sessions.  The Corea-Burton album placed at only #30 in JT’s same “Reader Poll; it’s a lackluster retread of previous efforts by Corea and Burton.

Since this is supposedly a Reader Poll, I suppose I should say “the people have spoken,” although it seems to me those who responded (how many, I wonder) are only feeding back to JT the same stuff JT fed them during the year.  Don’t get me wrong, I respect Corea, but if he was truly the Artist of the Year for 2008,  and for the reasons cited, jazz is in big, big trouble.  Did Corea really move the art of jazz forward?  Apparently recycling old material and forms qualifies one for “Artist of the Year.”  Is it back to the future, or myabe return to forever?  I guess some think so, but I surely hope not.   My vote goes to Anthony Braxton, followed by William Parker, and Nels Cline; no “spectacles” there, but great music that moves jazz “beyond.”  

Now that I think of it, I do think this was all time well-spent.  Happy New Year!