Playing Changes
Page 30
45. Dave Douglas Quintet, Meaning and Mystery (Greenleaf)
46. Andrew Hill, Time Lines (Blue Note)
47. Christian McBride, Live at Tonic (Ropeadope)
2007
48. Michael Brecker, Pilgrimage (Heads Up)
49. The Nels Cline Singers, Draw Breath (Cryptogramophone)
50. Robert Glasper, In My Element (Blue Note)
51. Herbie Hancock, River: The Joni Letters (Verve)
52. Lionel Loueke, Virgin Forest (ObliqSound)
53. Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, Congo Square (Jazz at Lincoln Center)
54. Bill McHenry, Roses (Sunnyside)
55. Joshua Redman, Back East (Nonesuch)
2008
56. J. D. Allen Trio, I Am I Am (Sunnyside)
57. Anat Cohen, Notes from the Village (Anzic)
58. Fieldwork, Door (Pi)
59. Bill Frisell, History, Mystery (Nonesuch)
60. Mary Halvorson Trio, Dragon’s Head (Firehouse 12)
61. Charles Lloyd, Rabo de Nube (ECM)
62. Rudresh Mahanthappa, Kinsmen (Pi)
63. Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Avatar (Blue Note)
2009
64. Five Peace Band, Five Peace Band Live (Concord)
65. Fly, Sky & Country (ECM)
66. Vijay Iyer Trio, Historicity (ACT)
67. Darius Jones, Man’ish Boy (Aum Fidelity)
68. Steve Lehman Octet, Travail, Transformation and Flow (Pi)
69. Joe Lovano’s Us Five, Folk Art (Blue Note)
70. Myra Melford’s Be Bread, The Whole Tree Gone (Firehouse 12)
71. Trio 3 / Geri Allen, At This Time (Intakt)
72. Matt Wilson Quartet, That’s Gonna Leave a Mark (Palmetto)
2010
73. Steve Coleman and Five Elements, Harvesting Semblances and Affinities (Pi)
74. The Cookers, Warriors (Jazz Legacy)
75. Kneebody, You Can Have Your Moment (Winter & Winter)
76. Chris Lightcap’s Bigmouth, Deluxe (Clean Feed)
77. Jason Moran, Ten (Blue Note)
78. Paradoxical Frog, Paradoxical Frog (Clean Feed)
2011
79. Chris Dingman, Waking Dreams (Between Worlds)
80. Gilad Hekselman, Hearts Wide Open (Le Chant du Monde)
81. Arturo O’Farrill and the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra, 40 Acres and a Burro (Zoho)
82. Gretchen Parlato, The Lost and Found (ObliqSound)
2012
83. Ravi Coltrane, Spirit Fiction (Blue Note)
84. Tom Harrell, Number Five (HighNote)
85. Masabumi Kikuchi Trio, Sunrise (ECM)
86. Donny McCaslin, Casting for Gravity (Greenleaf)
87. Linda Oh, Initial Here (Greenleaf)
88. Wadada Leo Smith, Ten Freedom Summers (Cuneiform)
2013
89. Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society, Brooklyn Babylon (New Amsterdam)
90. The New Gary Burton Quartet, Guided Tour (Mack Avenue)
91. Ben Monder, Hydra (Sunnyside)
92. Gregory Porter, Liquid Spirit (Blue Note)
93. Chris Potter, The Sirens (ECM)
94. Matana Roberts, COIN COIN Chapter Two: Mississippi Moonchile (Constellation)
95. Craig Taborn Trio, Chants (ECM)
2014
96. Ambrose Akinmusire, The Imagined Savior Is Far Easier to Paint (Blue Note)
97. Flying Lotus, You’re Dead! (Warp)
98. Billy Hart Quartet, One Is the Other (ECM)
99. Hedvig Mollestad Trio, Enfant Terrible (Rune Grammofon)
100. Loren Stillman and Bad Touch, Going Public (Fresh Sound New Talent)
101. Mark Turner Quartet, Lathe of Heaven (ECM)
102. David Virelles, Mbókò (ECM)
2015
103. Amir ElSaffar’s Two Rivers Ensemble, Crisis (Pi)
104. Makaya McCraven, In the Moment (International Anthem)
105. Mike Moreno, Lotus (World Culture)
106. Mike Reed’s People, Places & Things, A New Kind of Dance (482)
107. Tomeka Reid Quartet, Tomeka Reid Quartet (Thirsty Ear)
108. Maria Schneider Orchestra, The Thompson Fields (ArtistShare)
109. Jen Shyu and Jade Tongue, Sounds and Cries of the World (Pi)
110. Henry Threadgill’s Zooid, In for a Penny, In for a Pound (Pi)
111. Kamasi Washington, The Epic (Brainfeeder)
2016
112. Melissa Aldana & Crash Trio, Back Home (Word of Mouth)
113. Kris Davis, Duopoly (Pyroclastic)
114. Jeff Parker, The New Breed (International Anthem)
115. Shabaka and the Ancestors, Wisdom of Elders (Brownswood)
116. Tyshawn Sorey, The Inner Spectrum of Variables (Pi)
117. Esperanza Spalding, Emily’s D+Evolution (Concord)
2017
118. Jaimie Branch, Fly or Die (International Anthem)
119. Nubya Garcia, Nubya’s 5ive (Jazz Re:freshed)
120. Ron Miles, I Am a Man (Yellowbird)
121. Nicole Mitchell, Mandorla Awakening II: Emerging Worlds (FPE)
122. Roscoe Mitchell, Bells for the South Side (ECM)
123. Cécile McLorin Salvant, Dreams and Daggers (Mack Avenue)
124. Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah, The Centennial Trilogy (Ropeadope)
2018
125. María Grand, Magdalena (Biophilia)
126. Julian Lage, Modern Lore (Mack Avenue)
127. Dafnis Prieto Big Band, Back to the Sunset (Dafnison)
128. Logan Richardson, Blues People (Ropeadope)
129. Dan Weiss, Starebaby (Pi)
Acknowledgments
My gratitude goes first to those who made this book a reality, notably Erroll McDonald, an editor of deep insight, impeccable judgment, and just the right amount of patience. Our collaboration, beginning with a conversation in 2013, has been grounded always in possibility, a spirit of inquiry, and a driving enthusiasm for the music.
Alex Jacobs at the Cheney Agency brought his guidance, expertise, and moral support, and Elyse Cheney was a clear-eyed advocate during the project’s most formative stage. I’m also indebted to everyone at the MacDowell Colony for a lifesaving residency that brought the book’s structure into focus, and created the ideal conditions to write like mad.
So many musicians have been generous with their time and wisdom that it would be impractical to attempt a full accounting here. But I’m appreciative of specific acts of kindness and cooperation by Herbie Hancock, Sonny Rollins, Jack DeJohnette, Fred Hersch, Maria Schneider, Jason Moran, Steve Coleman, Vijay Iyer, Christian McBride, Brad Mehldau, Esperanza Spalding, Mary Halvorson, Darcy James Argue, and Dan Tepfer.
During a dozen years spent covering the music for The New York Times, I had the best possible colleague and role model in Ben Ratliff, who has also been a friend, and the support of smart editors including Fletcher Roberts, Sia Michel, Peter Keepnews, and Caryn Ganz.
* * *
—
Some of the material in this book originally appeared in JazzTimes, and I’m grateful to my editors there over the years—Evan Haga, Christopher Porter, Lee Mergner—for their unflagging trust and support. Thanks to Robert Christgau, my former editor at The Village Voice, for sharpening my critical faculties and for commissioning the essay “Jazz Goes to College,” a portion of which has been adapted here. Thanks also to Michael Shapiro, my editor at Hana Hou! magazine, for making it possible to report on the ja
zz scene in Beijing. And I owe a debt of gratitude to everyone at WBGO and NPR Music, especially Amy Niles and Anya Grundman, who brought me aboard.
For their lasting friendship, and for many thought-provoking conversations about the music, thanks to George Wein, Mark Christman, Michael Pereira, Matt Applebaum, Russell Motter, David Adler, and Jody Rosen. George Blaustein, who deserves better placement in this paragraph, provided honest and detailed manuscript feedback at a crucial stage.
* * *
—
Best for last: my deepest love and gratitude to Ashley Lederer—an ever-perceptive first reader and sounding board, and a champion of this book through every twist and turn. My partner in every respect, she made this possible in more ways than I can name.
Notes
1 CHANGE OF THE GUARD
1. Washington on Charlie Rose, PBS, March 18, 2016; retrieved from charlierose.com.
2. Eric Sullivan, “Kamasi Washington on the Pressures of Being Called Jazz’s Savior,” Esquire, esquire.com, May 2, 2016.
3. Steve Behrens, “After 19 Hours of Passion Comes the Suspense,” Current, January 15, 2001; retrieved from current.org.
4. DeJohnette, personal interview, February 3, 2015.
5. Francis Davis, “The 2015 NPR Music Jazz Critics Poll,” National Public Radio, npr.org, December 21, 2015.
6. Martin Williams, “Will Charles Lloyd Save Jazz for the Masses?,” New York Times, September 15, 1968; retrieved from nytimes.com.
7. Albert Goldman, “Jazz—Out in Front Again with All the Old Sidemen,” Life, 1972.
8. Billy Taylor, “Jazz: America’s Classical Music,” The Black Perspective in Music 14, no. 1 (winter 1986), special issue: Black American Music Symposium 1985, p. 21.
9. Herbie Hancock, with Lisa Dickey, Possibilities (New York: Viking, 2015), p. 201.
10. Marsalis, interviewed for Ken Burns’s Jazz, November 19, 1996; transcript retrieved from pbs.com.
11. “Wynton Marsalis: My Relationship to MLK,” CBS News, January 16, 2012; retrieved from cbsnews.com.
12. Bernstein, phone interview, November 9, 2015.
13. David Hajdu, Heroes and Villains: Essays on Music, Movies, Comics, and Culture (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo, 2009), p. 220.
14. Will Crutchfield, “Trumpet—Wynton Marsalis,” New York Times, August 26, 1984; retrieved from nytimes.com.
15. Lundvall interview, Billboard, October 7, 2000, p. W-20.
16. Robert Palmer, “Perils Confront the Young Lions of Jazz,” New York Times, May 22, 1983; retrieved from nytimes.com.
17. Francis Davis, Bebop and Nothingness: Jazz and Pop at the End of the Century (New York: Schirmer, 1996), p. xi.
18. Ronald M. Radano, New Musical Figurations: Anthony Braxton’s Cultural Critique (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), p. 272.
19. Kamasi Washington, with Josef Woodard, “All the Doors Opened,” DownBeat, July 2016.
20. Ben Ratliff, “Driving Jazz, with Ease, in Los Angeles,” New York Times, April 26, 2015.
21. Geoff Dyer, “The Intimacy Behind Jazz’s Seminal Image,” New York Times Magazine, May 14, 2017.
22. Kamasi Washington, phone interview, December 22, 2016.
2 FROM THIS MOMENT ON
1. Mehldau, personal interview, May 6, 2015.
2. John S. Wilson, “Jazz Quintet Featuring 2 Holidays,” New York Times, November 21, 1985; retrieved from nytimes.com.
3. When Bernstein made his debut album, Somethin’s Burnin’, in 1992, he enlisted the same personnel: Cobb, Mehldau, and the bassist John Webber. Cobb reunited the lineup for a 2015 album, The Original Mob, on Smoke Sessions Records.
4. Marsalis, June 1983, quoted in Francis Davis, Jazz and Its Discontents: A Francis Davis Reader (New York: Da Capo Press, 2004), p. 212.
5. Greg Tate, “The Real Music,” Vibe, January 1995.
6. Metheny, personal interview, February 15, 2007.
7. Mehldau, phone interview, October 12, 2004.
8. A. O. Scott, “The Best Mind of His Generation,” New York Times, September 20, 2008; retrieved from nytimes.com.
9. Book 1, Sonnet 3, which includes the line “Song is reality. Simple, for a god.”
10. Mehldau, liner notes, Live at the Village Vanguard: The Art of the Trio Volume Two (Nonesuch, 1998).
11. Mehldau, phone interview, February 11, 2010.
12. Tad Hendrickson, “Radiohead: The New Standard Bearers?,” JazzTimes, October 2004.
13. Mehldau, liner notes, 10 Years Solo Live (Nonesuch, 2015).
14. “The Jon Brion Show—Feat. Elliott Smith/Brad Mehldau (’00),” YouTube video uploaded by AlRosePromotions, youtube.com/watch?v=PK4okHerWeI.
15. Brion, personal interview, May 18, 2009.
3 UPTOWN DOWNTOWN
1. Zorn, quoted in Ben Ratliff, “Barricades to Storm Whether or Not Any Guards Were on Them,” New York Times, March 12, 2007; retrieved from nytimes.com.
2. Wynton Marsalis, “What Jazz Is—and Isn’t,” New York Times, July 31, 1988; retrieved from nytimes.com.
3. George Lewis, A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), p. 442.
4. Murray with Marsalis, ed. Devlin, p. 15.
5. Davis, phone interview, July 26, 2006.
6. Ibid.
7. Jon Pareles, “Lincoln Center Is Adding Jazz to Its Repertory,” New York Times, January 10, 1991; retrieved from nytimes.com.
8. Whitney Balliett, Collected Works: A Journal of Jazz 1954–2001 (New York: St. Martin’s/Griffin, 2002), p. 769.
9. Peter Watrous, “Lincoln Center Elevates Status of Jazz,” New York Times, December 19, 1995; retrieved from nytimes.com.
10. Michael Dorf, Knitting Factory press release; retrieved from michaeldorf.com.
11. John Rockwell, “Music: Zorn and Berne Downtown,” New York Times, August 22, 1987; retrieved from nytimes.com.
12. Berne, personal interview, April 2, 2012.
13. Jon Pareles, “The Pop Life,” New York Times, February 18, 1987; retrieved from nytimes.com.
14. Ibid.
15. Zorn, personal interview, May 8, 2013.
16. Alex Ross, “A Night of Klezmer Free Jazz (Don’t Let Its Name Scare You),” New York Times, October 13, 1994; retrieved from nytimes.com.
17. Douglas, personal interview, August 15, 2012.
18. Michael Dorf, “History of the Knitting Factory,” December 1991; retrieved from michaeldorf.com.
19. Peter Watrous, “In a Dialectic of Virtuosos, Musical Opposites Attract,” New York Times, January 11, 1997; retrieved from nytimes.com.
20. Stanley Crouch, “Putting the White Man in Charge,” JazzTimes, April 2003.
21. Stanley Crouch, “Opinion: The Problem with Jazz Criticism,” Newsweek, June 4, 2003.
22. David Hajdu, “The Body Eclectic,” New Republic, February 9, 2004.
23. Thomas Conrad, joint review of Strange Liberation and The Magic Hour, JazzTimes, April 2004.
24. Francis Davis, “Trumpets No End,” Village Voice, August 10, 2004; retrieved from villagevoice.com.
25. Redman, personal interview, January 23, 2013.
26. Zorn, personal interview, March 1, 2017.
4 PLAY THE MOUNTAIN
1. Coleman, phone interview, February 8, 1999.
2. Iyer, quoted in Michael J. West, “Steve Coleman: Vital Information,” JazzTimes, June 2010.
3. Johannes Völz, “Improvisation, Correlation, and Vibration: An Interview with Steve Coleman,” Critical Studies in Improvisation (Études Critiques en Improvisation) 2, no. 1 (2006).
4. Coleman, personal interview, April 18, 2015.
5. Ibid.
6. Coleman, phone interview, March 7, 2003.
7. Vijay Iyer, “Steve Coleman, M-Base, and Music Collectivism,” 1996.
8. Coleman, phone interview, February 8, 1999.
9. John Moser, “Interviewing Steve Coleman: Despite Accolades, Jazz Saxophone Great Finds Respite in Allentown,” Morning Call, April 29, 2016; retrieved from mcall.com.
10. Coleman, personal interview, April 18, 2015.
11. Ibid.
12. Ibid.
5 THE NEW ELDERS
1. Pérez, personal interview, September 24, 2010.
2. Herbie Hancock, with Lisa Dickey, Possibilities (New York: Viking, 2014), p. 61.
3. Stanley Crouch, Considering Genius (New York: Basic Civitas, 2006), p. 252.
4. Peter Watrous, “A Jazz Generation and the Miles Davis Curse,” New York Times, October 15, 1995; retrieved from nytimes.com.
5. Holland, phone interview, January 19, 2013.
6. Potter, personal interview, January 7, 2013.
7. Shorter, personal interview, December 12, 2012.
8. Ethan Iverson, “Interview with Keith Jarrett,” September 2009, ethaniverson.com/interviews/interview-with-keith-jarrett.
9. Ethan Iverson, “1973-1990,” summer 2006, dothemath.typepad.com [page now defunct].
10. Lovano, phone interview, March 9, 2013.
11. Frisell, phone interview, March 11, 2013.
12. Abrams, personal interview, April 28, 2008.
13. Taborn, phone interview, February 22, 2015.
6 GANGSTERISM ON A LOOP
1. Moran, personal interview, October 21, 2015.