{"id":1185,"date":"2014-12-04T16:28:09","date_gmt":"2014-12-04T16:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/?p=1185"},"modified":"2014-12-04T21:25:21","modified_gmt":"2014-12-04T21:25:21","slug":"gene-seymours-top-ten-jazz-albums-for-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/?p=1185","title":{"rendered":"Gene Seymour’s Top Ten Jazz Albums for 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

A strange year, an exasperating year; maybe even an ominous one for jazz music\u2019s already diminished stature in the marketplace. First this happened,<\/a> followed closely by this.<\/a> And then this came up<\/a> and so did all the resulting cawing and cackling on the social media sites. When you add the very public, free-falling disgrace of the nation\u2019s leading — or, at the very least, most famous — jazz devotee, you may as well shrink wrap and label 2014 as a bummer despite the varied finery listed below.<\/p>\n

And I know what you saner, stoic ones are going to say: That a list such as mine, or anyone else\u2019s, represents the best possible counterargument to the signifying-nothing that is sound-and-fury, on- or offline. Art doesn\u2019t care what the Washington Post or New Yorker says or does \u2013 or mostly doesn\u2019t. Art walks its own serene path through the fire towards high ground. Art is a ninja-warrior aristocrat with two layers of body armor and an unrelenting poker face. Art would assure me, in firm, modulated timbres, that just because some people think jazz stopped being cool doesn\u2019t mean it has.<\/p>\n

Knowing all that, however, doesn\u2019t improve my end-of-the-year mood; one that can\u2019t be quantified as good or bad, but is, all at once, restless, melancholy, somewhat manic and predominantly wary. All told, I\u2019m just a little anxious to see what\u2019s coming next \u2013 in jazz and everywhere else.<\/p>\n

You ask: Dread or hope? I say: Turtles are cool.<\/p>\n

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\"AmbroseAkinmusire_ImaginedSavior_cover\"<\/a><\/p>\n

1.) Ambrose Akinmusire, \u201cThe Imagined Savior is Far Easier To Paint\u201d (Blue Note)<\/strong> \u2013 As with its illustrious Blue Note predecessors from fifty years ago, Akinmusire\u2019s second effort for the label meshes with the subconscious fabric of its turbulent times without needing to be explicit in its content (except when it chooses to do so). Just as Donald Byrd\u2019s \u201cA New Perspective,\u201d which brought this<\/a> into the world, is still redolent of all that America was going through in the early sixties, so do the somber, mostly minor-key soundscapes in \u201cThe Imagined Savior\u2026\u201d reflect present-day sorrow, regret and barely-contained anger with thwarted possibilities. The anger breaks into full, unfettered view in the sepulchral \u201cRollcall for Those Absent\u201d on which the voice of young Muna Blake, backed only by Akinmusire\u2019s keyboard and Sam Harris\u2019 Mellotron <\/a>is heard reading the names of young black men shot to death by police, including Amadou Diallo and Trayvon Martin, whose names are intoned more than once. That more names could have been added to this roll since it was recorded only enhances the disc\u2019s up-to-the-minute capital. Adding to this Tapestry of Now is \u201cOur Basement (ed)\u201d, written and sung by Becca Stevens, which is told from the perspective of a homeless man. What counters the ruminative gloom and anxiety of these and other pieces is the vigorous musicianship displayed by Akinmusire as both trumpeter and bandleader. In both capacities, he has a fluid command of phrase that comes across the way electricity would if you could hold it in your hands. Whether letting fly with his regular combo, including front-line partner Walter Smith on tenor sax, or blending with a string quartet, Akinmusire\u2019s horn reaches for and often achieves attributes of the human voice, a quality that clearly marks him as one with all the greats on his instrument who preceded him. If you wonder (as my erstwhile colleague and friend A.O. Scott does<\/a>) if there are artists who can speak directly and indirectly to the Way We Live Now, look in this corner of the room and get to know its dimensions. Be advised: They can only get bigger from here on.<\/p>\n

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\"Mulatto<\/a><\/p>\n

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2.) Allen Lowe, \u201cMulatto Radio: Field Recordings 1-4 (or: A Jew At Large in the Minstrel Diaspora\u201d)(Constant Sorrow 101)<\/strong> \u2013 In the 32-page liner notes accompanying this package, which constitute some of the finest music criticism I\u2019ve read all year, Lowe begins by talking about his \u201cstrange encounter\u201d with fellow classicist\/bandleader Wynton Marsalis, with whom he dared discuss \u201cthe modernist implications of minstrelsy,\u201d which Marsalis pointedly refused to engage since he\u2019s predisposed to regard hip-hop in general and \u201dGangsta Rap\u201d in particular as \u201cneo-minstrelsy\u201d catering to racial stereotypes. Which was far from the point that Lowe was attempting to make in the first place. In the six years since that brush-off, Lowe, a polymath who\u2019s as incisive with his shtick as he is with his sax, dove headfirst into what some would consider the mongrelized, or creole-lized foundation of 20th century popular music where shotgun-shack juke joints and free-swinging black vernacular found communion with the tunesmiths piecing together their slick contraptions on Tin Pan Alley, or in the Brill Building. The result of Lowe\u2019s restless search for a proper response to Marsalis is this four-disc omnibus of mostly home-cooked sessions (Lowe lives in Maine) in which several traditions \u2013 gutbucket, gospel, early New Orleans, ragtime, bebop, stride, avant-garde, nightclub swing, noir soundtrack, beat poetry and backwoods country \u2013 are probed, prodded and often pulled inside out (so to speak) with an eclectic array of musicians from saxophonist J.D. Allen, trumpeter Randy Sandke and clarinetist Ken Peplowski to saxophonist Noel Preminger, pianist Matthew Shipp and singer Dean Bowman. Along with other reeds, horns and rhythm players, there\u2019s also a tuba (Christopher Meeder), a fellow musicologist (Lewis Porter) who plays wicked piano, alone or accompanied, and \u2013 of course, what else? \u2013 a novelist (Rick Moody). Even some of the titles of these pieces \u2013 \u201cJim Crow Variations\u201d, \u201cThe Discreet Charm of the Underclass,\u201d \u201cWhen My Alarm Clock Rings on Central Park West\u201d (Lowe\u2019s variation of \u201cWhen it\u2019s Sleepy Time Down South\u201d) \u2013 are provocative, mischievous throw-downs to whatever passes these days for dialogue about jazz. And after a year such as this, the prevailing conversation can use some spritzing and shaking-up. (Don\u2019t try to get this through Amazon or I-Tunes. You\u2019re better off ordering it this way.)<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"Sonny-Rollins<\/a><\/p>\n

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3.) Sonny Rollins, \u201cRoad Shows: Volume 3\u201d (Okeh\/Doxy)<\/strong>— I\u2019m well aware that we who worship at the Altar of the Colossus often get carried away. My own effusions are tempered by what a fellow patron said about the GLTS (Greatest Living Tenor Saxophonist): that he\u2019s a lot like Mickey Mantle because their strikeouts can be just as spectacular as their home runs. Still, you have to believe me when I tell you that this third installment of recent live Rollins feels richer, goes deeper and is altogether more rewarding than its predecessors. And I say this as somebody who tried, at first, to distract myself from its lure by doing\u2026well I don\u2019t remember exactly. But I do remember feeling my head swivel sharply upon hearing Rollins\u2019 variations on \u201cSomeday I\u2019ll Find You,\u201d the album\u2019s second track, from a 2006 performance in Toulouse. This Noel Coward ballad begs to be crooned in the grandest of tenor styles. Rollins never croons, at least not here. He asserts the theme while veering ever so modestly off its edges to let you know what\u2019s coming as soon as he retrieves center stage from guitarist Bobby Broom. When it\u2019s his turn to speak, Rollins slides into the first bars of the melody, pulling at its corners before he really gets to work somewhere around the third chorus. (Or is it the fourth? Never mind.) He\u2019s clearing away open spaces for whatever direction he wants to go. At one point, he\u2019s playing with the harmonies in the grand modernist manner of pulling them apart and rearranging them in different patters; maybe he\u2019ll become fond of a riff and run with it to see if it opens still more territory, making just enough room for one of his licks to leap into the sky if only so he can find out where it lands. He\u2019s trying to figure it all out as hard as we are. That\u2019s why we\u2019ve borne witness all these years: To collaborate in his process and share his potential surprise with what\u2019s disclosed. There\u2019s plenty more enlightenment to be found on these arias. And, jumping back a couple metaphors, there\u2019s not a strikeout in the bunch.<\/p>\n

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\"Kenny<\/a><\/p>\n

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4.) Kenny Barron & Dave Holland, \u201cThe Art of Conversation\u201d (Blue Note)<\/strong> \u2013 Barron has proven to be such a compelling partner in previous recorded colloquies with Stan Getz, Charlie Haden and Regina Carter that it\u2019s a wonder it\u2019s taken this long for him to have a sustained sit-down with the indefatigable Mr. H. To say their meeting doesn\u2019t disappoint would be understating matters to a felonious degree. They engage in an organic, mutually respectful flow of ideas and storylines with each man giving leeway to the other seemingly by intuition more than design. They hit all the lights on such standards as Parker\u2019s \u201cSegment\u201d (which, for this occasion, should have worn its alternate title, \u201cDiversity\u201d), Monk\u2019s \u201cIn Walked Bud\u201d and, especially, Strayhorn\u2019s \u201cDaydream.\u201d The revelations are more pronounced when it comes to each player\u2019s compositions: Barron\u2019s \u201cRain\u201d opens vistas of lyrical expression for Holland while the latter\u2019s \u201cDr. Do Right\u201d craftily indulges Barron\u2019s affinity for the Latin beat. I\u2019m especially partial to the opening track, Holland\u2019s \u201cThe Oracle,\u201d because it is so reminiscent of one of my all-time favorite trio albums of the same name led by the late great Hank Jones and featuring Holland and the also-now-departed Billy Higgins. That album is out of print. This one more than compensates for its absence.<\/p>\n

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\"Marc<\/a><\/p>\n

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5.) Marc Ribot Trio, \u201cLive at the Village Vanguard\u201d (PI) \u2013<\/strong> I have for decades challenged those who love hard rock, but hate progressive jazz to imagine, when listening to an outer-limits tenor sax solo, that there\u2019s an electric guitar laying down the same pipe. I\u2019ve urged jazz heads to do the reverse for heavy-metal speed runs. No takers at either end. But who\u2019s going to listen to me anyway? Better that they should all listen to this, because when guitarist Ribot, drummer Chad Taylor and bassist Henry Grimes Go Outside as did John Coltrane (\u201cDearly Beloved,\u201d \u201cSun Ship\u201d) and Albert Ayler (\u201cThe Wizard,\u201d \u201cBells\u201d), they don\u2019t merely make my point. They drive it home like a high-performance car going down on a steep hill at top speed. This unit\u2019s been mining such territory for some time now and the revelations burn hotter within the hallowed confines of jazz\u2019s Holy Dive. Oddly enough, though, it\u2019s when Ribot and company do a 180 and apply their eclectic chops to light-footed, more conventional renditions of \u201cOld Man River\u201d and \u201cI\u2019m Confessin\u2019 (That I Love You)\u201d that they really seem to be taking chances; each man carefully spreading their range onto these chestnuts without unnecessary spillage. Their solicitousness within the body of each song gives greater magnitude to what they do outside the lines. Just to re-emphasize: Anything that\u2019s done to amplify the enigmatic, yet persevering legacy of Grimes\u2019 old boss Albert Ayler is worth the investment of energy; theirs, and yours.<\/p>\n

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\"David<\/a><\/p>\n

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6.) David Weiss, \u201cWhen Words Fail\u201d (Motema)<\/strong> \u2013 Most of the music here is so buoyant and luminous that you would never guess that the project is haunted by sadness and loss. Trumpeter Weiss, whose myriad activities include leadership of The Cookers, a septet formed in tribute to Freddie Hubbard, composed most of the pieces on this disc and writes in the liner notes of a full year of sudden, deepening tragedy beginning with the death of seven-year-old Ana Grace Marquez Greene, daughter of saxophonist Jimmy Greene, in the December, 2012 Sandy Hook School massacre. The father of the Motema label\u2019s founder passed away during the ensuing year as did such jazz luminaries as Jim Hall, Donald Byrd, Mulgrew Miller, Butch Morris, George Duke and Cedar Walton. And just weeks after this session was completed, its bassist Dwayne Burro, died from pneumonia. The title track, named for the beginning of a Hans Christian Anderson quote that ends with \u201cmusic speaks,\u201d is dedicated to Burro while \u201cPassage Into Eternity\u201d was written with the Greene family in mind.. Here and elsewhere, you expect something somber and funereal, but instead find lively, propulsive small-group jazz that gives off warmth while staying resolutely cool. When the world keeps saying, \u201cNo,\u201d music as joyfully rendered as this insists on saying, \u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Mark<\/a><\/p>\n

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7.) Mark Turner Quartet, \u201cLathe of Heaven\u201d (ECM)<\/strong>\u2014 Somewhere in the alchemic Ursula K. Le Guin novel that gives this disc its title, there\u2019s a quote from Victor Hugo that describes dreaming as \u201cnothing other than the approach of an invisible reality.\u201d As with the book, much of the music on this album, Turner\u2019s first as a leader in 13 years, shifts time and space while somehow remaining self-contained and grounded. Not since the passing of Joe Henderson has there been a narrative artist on tenor saxophone such as Turner, who, as with Henderson, makes his statements through stealth, cunning and patience, his phrases cohering into shapes that are at once familiar and esoteric. He finds in trumpeter Avishai Cohen a worthy harmonic partner in thematic expression; Cohen bringing a fiery, full-bodied tone to compliment Turner\u2019s cool, dry musings. The overall pace seems locked in neutral, the better to allow the mercurial front line to simulate invisible realities, though the rhythm section of bassist Joe Martin and, especially, drummer Marcus Gilmore execute throughout a slipstream swing compatible with weaving dreams. You couldn\u2019t call this a comeback since Turner\u2019s been quite busy in many venues and combos. But having him return out front, so to speak, affirms the hopes he inspired a decade-and-a-half ago as a tenor player skating to a softer drumbeat.<\/p>\n

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\"la-et-ms-steve-lehman-octet-mise-en-abime-2014-001\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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8.) Steve Lehman Octet, \u201cMise en Abime\u201d (PI) \u2013<\/strong> Though not packaged as such, Lehman\u2019s latest series of experiments in sound mosaics represents a kind of deep-space 90th birthday party for Bud Powell, given that at least two of the tormented bop genius\u2019s pieces, \u201cGlass Enclosure\u201d and \u201cParisian Thoroughfare,\u201d are so drastically reinvented as to be barely recognizable, except for the angular dynamics Lehman applies to their abstract designs. Because his intellectual qualifications are part of Lehman\u2019s hype, you\u2019re tempted to think of his work as composer, arranger and altoist in purely cerebral terms. But given his all-star lineup of some of the brightest young players (trumpeter Jonathan Finlayson, trombonist Tim Albright, saxophonist Mark Shim vibraphonist Chris Dingman and drummer Tyshawn Sorey among others), Lehman has too much firepower at his disposal to leave listeners on ice, so to speak. He\u2019s so creative in his harmonic combinations and electronic enhancements that I\u2019m a little curious to see what he does in more specified contexts; Christmas, say, or 1940s rhythm-and-blues, or the Sun Ra Songbook.<\/p>\n

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\"Gathering<\/a><\/p>\n

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9.) Matt Wilson Quartet with John Medeski, \u201cGathering Call\u201d (Palmetto)<\/strong> \u2013 I\u2019ll just repeat what I posted back in January since a whole lot\u2019s happened since then: Hard bop, late-1960s\/early 1970s vintage, played without apologies and with an open-hearted joie de vivre that can make even the hardest of hard-core progressives wonder why they ever thought the genre was old news. I suppose some would still think it old news, even if they liked it. But there\u2019s nothing musty or creaky about Wilson\u2019s easygoing command of the trap set in all situations or his group\u2019s saucy renditions of such Ellingtonia as \u201cMain Stem\u201d or \u201cYou Dirty Dog.\u201d The quartet also pays homage to the recently departed bassist Butch Warren by playing the latter\u2019s \u201cBarack Obama\u201d with the delicacy, wonder and cautious optimism you suspect the composer had in mind as he wrote it. You\u2019re happy for the leader, one of the perennial Good Guys in the jazz business, which in turn makes you hopeful for the business itself.<\/p>\n

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\"Microscopic_Septet-Manhattan_Moonrise-cover\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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10.) The Microscopic Septet, \u201cManhattan Moonrise\u201d(Cuneiform)<\/strong> — Where in their 1980s flowering they suggested, as a perspicacious observer put it, a \u201cwedding band from Mars,\u201d these wily retro sharpies now look on the inside-cover photos of this disc like a weathered, motley council of wizards from a Tolkien homage hiding out from Sauron on a band bus touring the Dakotas in the winter of 1939. Yet even with added snow in some of their membership\u2019s facial hair, the Micros still sound airtight, agile and ready for anything co-founders Joel Forrester and Philip Johnston toss into their playpen, whether it\u2019s a funk stomp a la Johnston\u2019s \u201cObeying the Chemicals,\u201d a Monk-ish pastiche from Forrester, \u201cA Snapshot of the Soul\u201d or the snap-brim eminently danceable swinger, also from Forrester, that gives the disc its title. Cards on the table, I\u2019m at a loss to explain what \u201cMM\u201d by TMS is doing here since it doesn\u2019t exactly break new ground either for the group or for its genre. But it\u2019s a genre that they, and they alone, own: Microscopic Septet music at its most proficient, inquisitive and enjoyable. There may have been more significant and ambitious albums I heard or missed out on this year, but few that had as much trouble staying out of my machines as this. Long Live The Micros! And Long Live Jazz \u2013 whatever the heck that means!<\/p>\n

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\"Frank<\/a><\/p>\n

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HONORABLE MENTION: \u201cFrank Kimbrough Quartet\u201d (Palmetto); Tyshawn Sorey, \u201cAlloy\u201d (PI); Regina Carter, \u201cSouthern Comfort\u201d (Masterworks ); Omer Avital, \u201cNew Song\u201d (Motema); Ron Miles, \u201cCircuit Rider\u201d (Enja); Keith Jarrett & Charlie Haden, \u201cLast Dance\u201d (ECM); Randy Ingram, \u201cSky\/Lift\u201d (Sunnyside); Jason Jackson, \u201cInspiration\u201d (Jack & Hill); Matthew Shipp, \u201cI\u2019ve Been To Many Places\u201d (Thirsty Ear); Richard Galliano, \u201cSentimentale\u201d (Resonance); Aaron Goldberg, \u201cThe Now\u201d (Sunnyside).<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\"Kendra<\/a><\/p>\n

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BEST VOCAL ALBUM: Kendra Shank and John Stowell, \u201cNew York Conversations\u201d (TCB)<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\"Offense<\/a><\/p>\n

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BEST LATIN ALBUM: Arturo O\u2019Farrill & the Afro-Latin Jazz<\/strong>
\n Orchestra, \u201cThe Offense of the Drum\u201d (Motema)<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\"Coltrane<\/a><\/p>\n

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BEST REISSUE: John Coltrane, \u201cOffering: Live at Temple University\u201d (Impulse!)<\/strong><\/p>\n

HONORABLE MENTION: Charles Lloyd, \u201cManhattan Stories\u201d (Resonance)<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A strange year, an exasperating year; maybe even an ominous one for jazz music\u2019s already diminished stature in the marketplace. First this happened, followed closely by this. And then this came up and so did all the resulting cawing and cackling on the social media sites. When you add the very public, free-falling disgrace of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[592,5,599,118,406,597,598,248,594,593,196,595,4,596],"class_list":["post-1185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-jazz-reviews","tag-allen-lowe","tag-ambrose-akinmusire","tag-arturo-ofarrill","tag-dave-holland","tag-david-weiss","tag-frank-kimbrough","tag-kendra-shank","tag-kenny-barron","tag-marc-ribot","tag-mark-turner","tag-matt-wilson","tag-microscopic-septet","tag-sonny-rollins","tag-steve-lehman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1185"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1185\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1208,"href":"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1185\/revisions\/1208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}