OK, the moment you’ve been waiting for: down to the wire for the final countdown, ending in riotous celebration and drunken revelry.
Also, it’s New Year’s Eve.
The last installment of the Top Ten Jazz CDs for 2009 follows below; but first, some honorable mentions. “Ten” is an arbitrary number for end-of-the-year considerations (one by which I admittedly abide), reinforced by such major considerations as our use of the decimal system, the history of mathematics, and David Letterman. But the list could easily be, say, the Summit Sixteen, or the Terrific Twenty – you get the idea. (And considering that I logged in close to 550 releases in 2009, can you really blame me for wanting to pull your coat to a dozen or so more?)
So along those lines, let me pass along some Honorable Mentions: several albums, in more or less alphabetical order, bubbling just below my official Top Ten. The cooperative piano trio of (Jon) Alberts/(Jeff) Johnson/(Tad) Britton, based in Seattle, released Apothecary (Origin), filled with smartly altered versions of jazz standards. Another piano trio disc, jazz dauphin Gerald Clayton’s Two-Shade (ArtistShare), would easily have gotten my vote as “debut of the year” if not for Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society (discussed yesterday). Vocalist supreme Kurt Elling, my friend and colleague, made several Top Ten lists around the country with his Dedicated To You (Concord), an elegant and expert tribute to John Coltrane & Johnny Hartman, and a mood-setter of considerable depth. And his fellow vocalist, Roberta Gambarini (who like Elling is a 2009 GRAMMY® nominee), marshaled the emotion to match her virtuosic instrument on Easy To Love (Emarcy).
Chicago saxophonist Jim Gailloreto wrote some of the string-quartet arrangements for Elling’s album, precursors to his stirring achievement on American Complex (Origin); more on that in next week’s Top Ten in Chicago Jazz. Great arrangements also distinguished Echoes Of Ethnicity (Owl Studios), the “little big-band” album by Derrick Gardner, with writing as fiery as his own trumpet work. On his inspiring Evolution (ArtistShare), Jon Gordon places his piquant alto in settings that range from sax-piano duo to string trio to chamber jazz ensemble, in a tour-de-force from an under-the-radar master.
John Hollenbeck, a cerebral drummer and committed composer, brought us several more of his epic big-band compositions on the GRAMMY-nominated Eternal Interlude (Sunnyside), with its especially challenging but equally rewarding 19-minute title piece. Keyboardist Geoff Keezer, who stands out even in an age awash with gifted pianists, turned his attention southward on Áurea, a gorgeous incorporation of Argentinean and Peruvian elements into jazz. Meanwhile, a pianist from a previous generation – 70-year-old Mike Longo, who played with Dizzy Gillespie in the 60s and 70s and also studied with Oscar Peterson – issued his best album in years, and one of the best piano trio albums of this year, Sting Like A Bee (CAP) – the sequel, of course, to a 2007 disc called Float Like A Butterfly. And saxist Marcus Strickland’s Idiosyncrasies (Strick Muzik), a trio date featuring his twin brother E.J. on drums, makes the case that these guys have become a major part of the jazz conversation as we head into the ’teens.
As for the final installment of my Top Ten for 2009:
#3 – Luis Bonilla, I Talking Now! (Planet Arts): You’d be excused for thinking that there are more than just one jazz trombonist named Luis Bonilla. His sterling and often startling technique fits perfectly in the wild-and-wooly juggernaut that was Lester Bowie’s Brass Fantasy – and equally well in a traditional big-band, such as the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra. With trumpeter Dave Douglas, he becomes a willing accomplice in post-modern chamber music; meanwhile, he has espoused his own Caribbean roots on albums under his own name, as well as Latin jazz standouts William Cepeda and Bebo Valdez. And on I Talking Now!, Bonilla reaches elsewhere for inspiration – to the hard-bop core embodied by the storied composer and bandleader Charles Mingus, whose muscular but detailed persona lurks behind most of the music on this thrilling album. Bonilla leads a standard quintet, with piano-bass-drums and reeds, on music that collars you from the get-go. He talking, all right, and he got plenty to say.
#2 – Dee Alexander, Wild Is The Wind (Blujazz). To get the disclaimer out of the way, I wrote the liner notes to this album – and I’ll be damned if that gets in the way of giving it proper due. For most of this decade, Alexander has dominated the Chicago vocal scene, with a breadth of expression that takes her from re-creating the music of Dinah Washington to wordless, high-flying scat with the Great Black Music Ensemble, which contains many of the city’s most avant-garde improvisers. She lacked only a well-produced document of her skills (as a vocalist and songwriter); Wild Is The Wind filled that void, and beyond even the high expectations of those who’ve heard Alexander in person. No vocal album of 2009 had smarter programming, more variety, or a better instrument at its center. Alexander is a jazz diva in the grandest sense; the fact that she displays not an ounce of bad behavior makes her artistic triumphs all the sweeter.
#1 – Pierre Dørge & New Jungle Orchestra, Whispering Elephants (SteepleChase). Three decades after establishing his New Jungle Orchestra, the Danish guitarist Pierre Dørge continues to ply the same unlikely mix of West African rhythms, tunes inspired by Ellington and Monk, rambunctious horn arrangements, and his own kora-influenced guitar – and yet he never runs out of fresh ideas or infectious novelty. Novelty alone wouldn’t cut it, though. Dørge has continually refreshed his creative wellspring by opening himself to other world-music inspiration (including music of China and the Middle East) as well as that of the Chicago avant-garde, and the music here exhibits further depth and expansion of his basic concept. As usual, Dørge wrote almost all the tunes on this, the NJO’s best album in several years – engrossing, witty, and transportive. And if you can’t also smile to this music, you should check for botox poisoning. (Though copyrighted 2008, this album actually arrived at the very beginning of 2009, which is why it qualifies here.)
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