Below, the middle bracket of my Top Ten Chicago Jazz Discs of 2009.  As I wrote yesterday, my main purpose in compiling this list is to highlight excellent music made by your friends and neighbors – the Chicago musicians we get to enjoy in clubs and concerts around the city on a fairly regular basis.  I’ll reiterate that this does not stem from a desire to hold Chicago jazz albums to a different (lower) standard than the one used in choosing my Top Ten from around the world.  In fact, these Chicago albums would certainly qualify in the 90th percentile of all the music I heard last year – in other words, the very top echelon of the more than 550 discs that came my way.  

In the interest of full disclosure, I also point out that one of the albums below, and two of the top three (which will appear tomorrow), bear liner notes by yours truly.  Some polls and publications request that critics recuse themselves from considering albums they contributed to, and I respect the thinking behind that – even as I choose not to honor it here.  

I can only give you my word that any involvement I have with these albums has not affected my choices.  As some measure of proof, consider this.  I wrote liner notes for 18 albums that Chicago artists issued in 2009; only three of those made my Top Ten.  In other words, 15 did not make this list – which would offer pretty lousy odds to anyone trying to buy favorable post-release press from your Chicago Jazz Examiner.  

#7 – Aaron Koppel Quartet, Falling Together Falling Apart (Chicago Sessions).  This was guitarist Aaron Koppel’s second album.  But since his first received almost no recognition, this one –  produced by the ambitiously conceived and meticulously executed new label Chicago Sessions – represented his first opportunity to reach a larger audience.  He didn’t disappoint.  (BTW, this is one of the albums for which I wrote the liner essay, as I did for all 12 albums in the Chicago Sessions catalog.)  Koppel approached the recording in a way you’d have hardly expected from most guitarists in their mid-20s.  Instead of taking the biggest baddest solos on every tune, Koppel stepped back away from the spotlight to showcase his own terrific compositions, as well the admirable interplay and creativity of his high-end associates.  Koppel’s quartet features a spectacular young pianist named Matt Nelson, soon to record an album under his own name; he also brought in guest saxophonists Geof Bradfield and Greg Ward, two of the city’s most engaging and exciting soloists.  The result: an exceptionally mature album by a young guitarist you’ll surely hear more from in this and coming years.

#6 – Jason Adasiewicz’s Rolldown, Varmint (Cuneiform).  Not bad for a johnny-come-lately to the vibraphone.  Jason Adasiewicz started as an indie-rock drummer who changed instruments while playing with the alt-country darlings The Pinetop Seven; a decade or so later, he has become the city’s most in-demand vibist, regularly performing with more than 20 working bands, including some led by such major Chicago new-music figures as Ken Vandermark, Nicole Mitchell, and Rob Mazurek – and the quartet called KLANG, named in yesterday’s column as my #8 Chicago pick.  He’s so busy adding fierce solos and shimmering backgrounds to others’ groups, I’m amazed he found time to lead his own; but this second disc from his quintet Rolldown bounces and bristles from start to finish – it’s a rubber ball with spikes.  It helps that Adasiewicz has enlisted bassist Jason Roebke and drummer Frank Rosaly, two of the city’s most musical young improvisers, into the rhythm section.  And it can’t hurt that Rolldown’s front line features two hornmen whose experience matches the leader’s own: both saxist Aram Shelton and cornetist Josh Bishop Berman are similarly busy denizens of the new-music scene, each belonging to multiple bands while leading one of his own. 

#5 – Bobby Broom Plays For Monk (Origin).   Now that Bobby Broom is back on the road with Sonny Rollins (who first tried to hire him when the guitarist was still in his teens), the rest of the world has the chance to catch up on what Chicagoans have known since the 80s: Broom has one of the few truly recognizable styles among modern guitarists, and one of the most satisfying solo concepts in mainstream jazz.  In his improvising, Broom has a remarkable ability to tap into blues, pop, and funk, but still avoid turning those references into a pap for his audience.  So even as he blurts a phrase guaranteed to catch the ear, he turns it to the pursuit of a purer musical truth; his solos go steadily deeper, even as he takes the scenic route.  In the last decade, Broom used this sensibility to parlay rock-and-roll hits of the 60s into “new standards” for the jazz repertoire.  On this album, he’s upped the ante by tackling the songs of Thelonious Monk without dropping a beat.  Because Monk’s compositions demand a careful respect for their original melodies even more than their underlying harmonies, they pose a significant challenge for any improviser who wants to remain true to the music and yet place his own stamp on the performances.  Future contestants would do well to pay attention to the mastery with which Broom walks that tightrope, ably supported by bassist Dennis Carroll and drummer Kobie Watkins.
 

#4 – Paul Giallorenzo, Get In To Go Out (482 Music).  The title of this album might just as well serve as its review.  It features Paul Giallorenzo, a virtually unknown pianist, leading a group that mostly comprises considerably more high-profile compatriots: bassist Aaron Hatwich, cornetist Josh Berman (see above), saxist Dave Rempis, and drummer Frank Rosaly (both of whom were previously covered here).  Together, they skip back and forth across the line that separates tonal music from more freedom-loving improvisation, in ways that might have made such stylistic forbears as Charles Mingus, Jackie McLean, Paul Bley, and Eric Dolphy awfully proud.  The music is inviting but edgy, impassioned but in control, and often absolutely irresistible.  Giallorenzo – a co-founder of the presenting organization Elastic Arts – has actually performed with a fair amount of Chicago new-music mavens.  He’s somewhat disadvantaged by the fact that piano doesn’t play as big a role in the avant-garde as it did in earlier jazz idioms; but he makes up for that here, with solos that manage to combine density with bright voicings, and a solo style that finds its way back “in” each time it gets “out.”