JAZZITUDE BEST OF 2003
See our Best of 2001
list
See our Best of 2002 list
See our Best of 2004 list
See our Best of 2005 list
See our Best of 2006 list
Jackie
Terrason/Smile (Blue Note)
Smile is a fitting followup to Jackie Terrasson's previous release,
A Paris. The quick French pianist returns with his trio for
another round of music that is delightful in its surprises and reassuring
in its ability to continue the jazz piano trio tradition. Terrasson
is a fairly unique piano voice, at time recalling Abdullah Ibrahim,
at others Bill Evans.
Wayne Shorter/Alegria (Verve)
That Wayne Shorter’s newest release, Alegria,
has the sound of an instant classic should come as little surprise to
anyone who has followed the saxophonist/composer’s career. What
is surprising is the way Shorter works with a large group of musicians
on many tracks to provide beautiful settings for his trademark soprano
and tenor playing. The arrangements for the larger ensemble are orchestral
in nature, but they have none of the hackneyed, clichéd sounds
that musicians can fall into on this type of project. Instead, many
of these recordings call to mind the way in which Miles Davis and Gil
Evans were able to use a large ensemble to create harmonically sophisticated
and musically meaningful settings for Davis’s unique trumpet sound.
Tord
Gustavsen/Changing Places (ECM)
What the heck is happening up there in Norway, anyway? Looking
at the roster of world-class jazz musicians this country has produced,
you would be forgiven for thinking that jazz is the most popular music
there. It’s not, but it does enjoy a sound base of musicians and
fans. Jan Garbarek, Terje Rypdal, Karin Krog, Jon Christensen, Sidsel
Endresen, , Per Jørgensen, and Nils Petter Molvær are all
fairly well known among fans of modern, interesting, and even cerebral
jazz. To these names must be added that of Tord Gustavsen, whose trio
has released their first CD, Changing Places, on ECM this year.
Kurt
Elling/Man In the Air (Blue Note)
Man In the Air highlights Elling’s skills as
a lyricist, as he offers lyrics to a number of his favorite jazz compositions,
many of them contemporary. There are some virtuoso performances, but
there are also some remarkably gorgeous and emotionally charged lyrics
to compositions by Pat Metheny, Joe Zawinul, Herbie Hancock, and Courtney
Pine. Themes that emerge in Elling’s lyrics include love, loss,
the power of the human spirit, and the spark of the divine.
Jane
Ira Bloom/Chasing Paint (Arabesque)
Given soprano saxophonist Jane Ira Bloom’s interest in
movement and the physical side of musical creation as well as her pioneering
use of live electronics to shape her improvisations, it should come
as no surprise that she should be interested in or inspired by the work
of painter Jackson Pollock. Her latest CD, Chasing Paint, is
a suite of music that aims to recreate the way that Pollock pushed paint
around a canvas by allowing her quartet (Bloom, pianist Fred Hersch,
bassist Mark Dresser, and drummer Bobby Previt) to move sound around
the group in a sonically similar fashion.
Chick
Corea/Rendezvous in New York (Stretch/Concord)
Rendezvous in New York is a distillation of the three
weeks of performances that Corea and his musical colleagues from over
the years put on at New York’s Blue Note in December of 2001.
It’s an opportunity to hear one of modern jazz music’s most
amazing pianists play in a variety of settings and styles. While the
music presented here isn’t all perfect, it is all reflective of
some aspect of Corea’s career, and this is a CD that any serious
jazz fan or piano fan is going to put into heavy rotation.
Keith
Jarrett/Up For It (ECM)
On their last few CDs this group has amazed us by adding ever-increasing
layers of complexity to its sound; now they strip those layers away
and simply become a great trio living up to its legendary abilities.
In case you haven’t gotten the message yet: Up For It is
a recording you need to hear. This is true if you’re a Jarrett
fan or even if you merely enjoy some of his work or haven’t been
that crazy about his last few releases. This is much more than just
another perfect or near-perfect Jarrett recording—it is a really
major performance that we’ll still be listening to in ten or twenty
years.
Greg
Osby/St. Louis Shoes (Blue Note)
On his latest release, St. Louis Shoes, Osby forgoes
his usual sharp compositions in favor of interpretations of the compositions
of others. In keeping with the thematic element, the opening and closing
tracks are both associated with St. Louis—Duke Ellington’s
“East St. Louis Toodle-Oo” and W.C. Handy’s famous
“St. Louis Blues.” Both are performed with the utmost respect,
yet are given (pardon the extension of the metaphor here) a new pair
of shoes that changes their context so that they become not just tributes
to the past, but signposts to the future.
Dave
Douglas/Freak In (RCA)
In the final analysis, what probably makes me more certain
than anything else that Freak In is an important album is the
fact that it is so damn hard to talk about. In the past, with albums
like Kind of Blue, Headhunters, A Love Supreme, you knew that
you were in the presence of something great precisely because you couldn’t
quite name the direct antecedents; the work seemed to come largely from
its own time and place. Well, Freak In is exactly like that,
and that’s one reason I think people will still be listening to
this album years from now.
Nicholas
Payton/Sonic Trance (Warner Bros.)
On Sonic Trance, Nicholas Payton brings his
considerable instrumental chops as well as a vivid imagination to bear
on jazz music. On this jazzy magical mystery tour, the New Orleans trumpeter
borrows elements from modern electric jazz, Miles Davis, world music,
reggae, hip-hop, electronica, ragtime, mariachi music, R&B, and
pop music and cooks them up into a sound that manages to evoke all these
genres and more while somehow sounding entirely fresh.
Matthew
Shipp/Equilibrium (Thirsty Ear)
While Equilibrium isn’t as surprisingly new
as Nu Bop, it does seem to find a way to integrate its various
components more organically than Shipp has managed previously, as though
all the sounds and elements here were bacteria thrown into a petri dish
and allowed to create its own ecosystem—to find its own equilibrium,
in other words. The addition of vibraphonist Khan Jamal, who is wonderfully
inventive, adds a great deal to the overall sound of Equilibrium,
giving the ensemble a certain coolness that offsets Shipp's relentless
driving and drummer Gerald Cleaver's effective bop-meets-beats drumming
on "Vamp to Vibe," the album's second track.
Liz
Wright/Salt (Verve)
These days there are a lot of recording opportunities for
a singer as versatile and talented as Lizz Wright. Surely it would be
a simple matter for her to wrap her warm, rich voice up in a hip-hop
beat, hire a whizbang producer who could dress her up in samples referencing
R&B’s rich cultural heritage and be at the top of the charts
in no time. But the 23 year-old Atlanta vocalist doesn’t need
the claptrap of modern star machinery to get her noticed—she’s
the real deal. Wright’s debut CD, Salt, reveals her to
be a singer with deep roots in true R&B, soul, jazz, gospel, and
just the right dash of pop. She’s being compared to Sarah Vaughn
and Oleta Adams, and though it takes more than one album to make a career,
I can’t argue with the comparisons.
