BAM! Topping off the top jazz albums for 2011

In the first of these three columns discussing the best CDs of 2011, I explained my decision to stick to jazz, unlike the many year-end lists that now stretch across genres; you can read that rationale here.

 

So it would be disingenuous to ignore the elephant released into the room by trumpeter Nicholas Payton, in a series of incendiary blog postings, responses to his critics, Facebook comments, lambasting of other musicians, and Twitter bursts. (Those venues are not listed in order of importance, by the way: Payton tweets constantly. He has to have the fastest, or at least the most calloused, thumbs in all of jazz.) 

 

Musicians, critics, and fans have all gotten caught up in the conversation, which raises the issue of what to call this music, and who gets to make that decision. It’s a cyclical issue: it comes up every decade or so. Just as it now, it has usually fixated on the fact that “jazz” was originally derived from a crude epithet for sexual activity; that it was applied by the white establishment to describe the rhythmic movement of New Orleans music in the early 20th century; and that its usage, which once insulted the supposedly low morals of the black community, remains an affront to African-Americans and a way for the racist power structure to keep this music from reaching a larger audience.

 

Payton suggested replacing jazz with Black American Music, or “BAM”; to make his point, he spent several weeks ending every post with “BAM!” (which acted as a sort of visual rimshot – giving the dialog the flavor of Borscht Belt comedy). Eventually he elevated the use of “BAM!” to the status of panacea: one post read that “Besides f***ing the White race out of the gene pool, which would take a while, BAM is the only viable solution to curing racism in America.” 

 

You can read a lot of the back-and-forth at Payton’s own site. And a few weeks back, Ted Panken – the excellent historian, journalist, radio interviewer, and blogger – posted a fine summation and a solid response, where you can glean much of what’s been taking place.

 

I have three or four thoughts on all this, and since I’m intent on retaining the word “jazz,” I figure I should state them for the record.

 

I have enormous respect for Payton, as a trumpeter, a conceptual artist musical, and a deep thinker, and I like him, personally – despite the lurid and sometimes destructive nature of his rhetoric. He’s got stuff on his mind, and whether or not I’d use his methods, he’s gotten the conversation on that stuff rolling. But from my perspective, several points nettle.

 

First, I have trouble with the idea that the word “jazz” is chasing away the audience. Yes, we all know people who “don’t like jazz,” often having no idea what actually fits under that broad umbrella. (Some of them react quite differently once they hear the music itself, but that’s hardly the point.) I also know plenty of people who gravitate toward jazz because of the word – as do the scores of advertisers who keep attaching it to their products or using jazz music in the commercials. So clearly some people, at least on Madison Avenue, think that jazz is a good thing – and are willing to put money behind that belief.

 

Second, while complaints about the term have been around for decades, an awful lot of jazz musicians – black as well as white – not only tolerate but also respect the term; for the latest example, listen to the comments Sonny Rollins made after receiving his recent Kennedy Center honors. (Jump in a minute on the video link.)

 

Third, while anyone can and should define his own work as he chooses, no one should underestimate the value of labels for the vast majority of an audience overwhelmed by choices. Simply calling it “music” – or in this case, “Black American Music” – won’t help most people find their way to the idioms they actually enjoy. For better or worse, “jazz” (which long ago shed its XXX stigma, except for historians) has come to have a relatively specific meaning for the listening audience: a beacon to many, if a repellent to others.

 

Finally, if we indeed want to dismiss “jazz” as “racist,” we’d better replace it with something that also lacks racial implications (and "BAM" ain't it) – because despite its origins, and despite the prominence of African-Americans among its current innovators, this music is no longer the exclusive purview of black artists. Its great triumph lies in the fact that, though born of segregation, it has come to affect  people of all races and background; the music’s great power remains its ability to embrace all their innovations. 

 

From my perspective, any discussion has to either start or end there. (But if you don’t mind Nic – go easy on me, wilya?)

 

And speaking of endings, here’s the final installment of my picks for jazz CDs in 2011.

 

 

#4 – Pilc/Moutin/Hoenig, Threedom (Motéma). The French-born pianist Jean-Michel Pilc stands among the most inventive and distinctive pianists in all of jazz. He exploits his gargantuan technique in measured bursts, the better to illuminate the startling trio arrangements with which he refreshes the jazz standards repertoire. Often, this freshening results in the complete reconception of a familiar tune; on this album, he turns Thelonious Monk’s laconic and balanced “Think Of One” into a busy and asymmetrical romp, while his version of John Coltrane’s “Giant Steps” uses clockwork syncopation to re-route the song’s juggernaut melody – an arrangement that differs markedly from his previous treatment of the same tune, on the 2002 album Welcome Home. That was also the last occasion on which Pilc recorded with his original U.S. band – the nimble-fingered bassist François Moutin and drummer Ari Hoenig, a hyper-reactive colorist – which is reunited on this album; their musical fraternity represents a genuine evolution of the groundbreaking trialog Bill Evans created for the jazz trio. Threedom is an album of cameos: 18 tunes, only three of which exceed five minutes in length, and half of which are original compositions credited to all three players. These largely improvised pieces effortlessly fill the interstices between songs by Miles Davis, Ellington, Gershwin, and Charlie Parker, further clarifying the ties that bind this trio to the great treasury of American music.

 

 

#3 – Dead Cat Bounce, Chance Episodes (Cuneiform). The band’s name comes from a Wall Street phenomenon – the idea that any declining stock may briefly rebound, in the same way that even a dead cat will bounce if you drop it from high enough. That it would serve as the name for any jazz band becomes even less likely once you hear this band’s music, which should appeal more to the recent Occupiers than any of the fat felines in the corner offices. In 1997 Matt Steckler, the Boston reedist who leads this outfit, took the stand-alone saxophone quartet (originally heard in classical music, then adapted to jazz in the 70s) and crossed it with drum-and-bass; what emerged was a hybrid with the heart of a big-band sax section and the soul of a funk-steppin’ vaudevillian. (Think of Monty Python playing four saxes at one time, and you’re getting warm.) Dead Cat Bounce picks up where the much-missed Microscopic Septet left off, especially in its occasional forays into straight swing. But the addition of flutes and clarinets to the mix allows for more colors and, on this giddy grab-bag of an album, correspondingly greater variety of moods. And the presence of the puckish veteran Charlie Kohlhase (alto and baritone), plus nearly a dozen of Steckler’s own compositions, will keep you smiling for all 70 minutes.

 

 

#2 – Rudresh Mahanthappa, Samdhi (ACT). Alto saxist Mahanthappa has received plenty of attention in recent years, along with his Indian-American compatriot, pianist Vijay Iyer (a frequent partner in years past). Both have topped polls and earned plaudits for their edgy marriage of jazz improvisation with rhythms and song structures derived from their ancestral musical tradition. But Mahanthappa reaches a new plateau in his ongoing quest to balance east and west on Samdhi (“that which combines or unites” in Sanskrit), with a group esthetic that sprouts organically from the mixed soil of both hemispheres. Mahanthappa’s timbre is broad and blowsy, influenced by the cantilevered contours within the solos of Bunky Green and Steve Coleman; it continually shifts shadings and colors, the way a piece of moiré fabric reflects the light. The resultant range of tonal inflections dazzles the ear, especially on his busiest melodic lines, where each note melts into the next. It constitutes the dominant (but hardly the only) color in the kaleidoscope of this music, and more than on previous discs, it links the other colors – wails from David Gilmore’s guitar, dry sound-blocks from Rich Brown’s electric bass, the jazz drumming of Damion Reid and Indian percussion of Arantha Krishnan, and judiciously chosen sounds from Mahanthappa’s computer – into a unified mosaic (with an overlay of vintage fusion).

 

 

#1 – Bill Carrothers, A Night At The Village Vanguard (Pirouet). The most arresting pianist on the scene today, recorded with a trio in performance (where he most excels), at the country’s most hallowed jazz club – and a double-CD to boot? How can you go wrong? Carrothers sounds like no other pianist in jazz. His use of space, even at fast tempos, gives his solos a magisterial quality; his touch, like that of Monk or Jarrett, conveys depth and mass even when he plays pianissimo. His exquisite take on familiar songs can render them almost unrecognizable; the key here is “almost,” because the eventual shudder of identification simply augments the already magnetic quality of Carrothers’ pianism. (One great example here is a glacial version of trumpeter Clifford Brown’s “Joy Spring,” mashed up with a ballad he favored, “Delilah.”) The album won’t show up on many of the “year’s best” lists, but I suspect that has much to do with Carrothers’ relative reclusiveness: he lives in Michigan’s upper peninsula, and hates most cities. In Chicago we have the great fortune to hear him a couple or three times a year, owing largely to his partnership with Chicago saxist Pat Mallinger; in fact, he’ll join Mallinger for a CD-release party at the Green Mill in late January. Those who do get to hear Carrothers invariably walk away shaking their heads at his commanding mix of gauzy sentiment, unsentimental craft, and bold, blunt phrasing, and comparing him to favorite piano giants of the past and present.