{"id":3733,"date":"2023-11-30T13:04:51","date_gmt":"2023-11-30T21:04:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/?p=3733"},"modified":"2024-07-10T08:19:57","modified_gmt":"2024-07-10T16:19:57","slug":"gene-seymours-top-ten-jazz-albums-for-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/?p=3733","title":{"rendered":"Gene Seymour’s Top Ten Jazz Albums for 2023"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

There\u2019s been so much wonderful music out and about this year that I could have easily plucked a few more from my runners-up without losing any sleep. (A motif to which, as with others baked into this year\u2019s blog, we shall, in roundabout manner, return.) And not to sound like a broken record, as it were, but you wonder why with so much talent and achievement coming from so many directions and from so many generations, jazz remains an afterthought, a marginal presence in the global marketplace. Unless I\u2019m mistaken, nobody\u2019s yet asked Esperanza Spalding \u2013 sorry, esperanza spalding \u2013 to headline a Super Bowl halftime show. Or even an NBA All-Star Weekend. At least, she headlines this list, or, more accurately, shares top billing.
But then, I often wonder whether music, any music, has much of a place in people\u2019s lives these days. If whatever I\u2019ve been seeing lately on Saturday Night Live<\/em>\u2019s musical guest shots are any indication, presentation and fashion are what matter more than whatever sounds are being made. (I know, I know, whatever the hell am I doing watching Saturday Night Live<\/em> lately in the first place? Can\u2019t blame COVID anymore, even if it doesn\u2019t seem to have gone away after all\u2026) So maybe it\u2019s no longer just jazz \u2013whatever people believe it to be \u2013 that\u2019s getting hit in the face; it\u2019s all the other genres that are now all merely boutiques. There are now college curricula in Hip-Hop History in case you haven\u2019t heard.<\/p>\r\n


Maybe this explains why lately I\u2019ve been thinking about the way past generations, including mine, used to buy records. Briefly: you went to whatever outlet or department store had people you could trust, and you hung out, browsed, and maybe something was playing in the background that made you go, \u201cWhat\u2019s that?\u201d The people you trusted were happy to not only tell you, but bring out a fresh copy of the thing that turned our head and you decided you needed to take this \u201cride\u201d home. And then you shared it with other people who trusted you and maybe if there were little people in your house, they would hear it and start getting ideas\u2026<\/p>\r\n


My origin story. If you\u2019re reading this, it\u2019s probably yours, too.<\/p>\r\n


I don\u2019t know what the equivalent of this process is today unless you count tweets and Bandcamp messages in whatever in-box you reserve for such intelligence. I only know it\u2019s not the same and neither is the world that make those earlier, more haphazard encounters possible.<\/p>\r\n


All I know is that the Good Stuff still somehow makes it out and about. Think of me, then, as that guy in the department store or record outlet \u2013 whatever that is \u2013 tilting his head at the turntable in the corner. Like that? There\u2019s some more over here\u2026

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1.)<\/strong> Fred Hersch & esperanza spalding, Alive at the Village Vanguard<\/em> (Palmetto)<\/strong> \u2013 You need to give this one to the wisenheimers in your life demanding to know what\u2019s so special about jazz, or even what jazz is<\/em>. It\u2019s possible these people at least remember hearing Barack Obama profess affection for Spalding while he was still president; maybe they\u2019ve heard or even seen live performances of her varied bands showcasing her upright bass, acrobatic vocals, and varied ensembles. For this bare-bones live set at jazz\u2019s Holy Dive with the redoubtable pianist Hersch, Spalding left her bass at home and what results from their collaboration \u2013 which I\u2019ve been labeling \u201cHerschsperanza,\u201d and try and stop me from obtaining a copyright! \u2013 may be the grandest, most insurgent act of her still-ascendant career. Traditional pop standards are blown up, rewoven, and all-but terraformed into audacious counter-narratives through the interaction of Hersch\u2019s polymorphic variations and Spalding\u2019s serpentine, uproarious digressions. From Ira Gershwin\u2019s lines of \u201cBut Not For Me\u201d (\u201cI was a fool to fall and get that way\/Hi-ho, alas, and also lack-a-day\u201d), Spalding extrapolates the following strain of vocalese: \u201cOh, me. Oh, my. What a sad case I seem to be. It’s my fault, letting love to lead the way. I should know that there’ll be skies of gray. I can’t say I’ve seen too many, but they say that Russian plays do boast of many gray skies, all right – and then some words I don’t really understand because it’s, like, old English – hi-ho, alas, and lackaday. That’s how I feel, confused about the whole situation\u2026\u201d<\/em> She carries this willed ingenuity into smart-alecky battle against Bobby Troup\u2019s ring-a-ding lyrics on Neal Hefti\u2019s \u201cGirl Talk, which in her hands becomes a twelve-minute proto-feminist interrogation of male presumptiveness, at one point, veering into issues of \u201ceconomic sustainability. Reduce, Reuse. Recycle\u2026Am I lying?\u201d while still riding the song\u2019s theme and changes as if she were on a thoroughbred leading the Preakness by a length-and-a-half. Charlie Parker\u2019s \u201cLittle Suede Shoes,\u201d in like fashion, weaves a dream of dancing in suede shoes just as Hersch\u2019s \u201cDream of Monk\u201d becomes, with Spalding\u2019s vocals, a clarion call for diligent, if circumspect weirdness. These tracks were culled from a three-night engagement, and I bet those in attendance felt as you will when this album ends: wishing these two crazy kids never stop.<\/p>\r\n

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