4 For the JT staff, theme issues can either be a lot of fun or a real chore. When it doesn’t work, it feels like we’re simply connecting a bunch of dots, albeit well-written and sharply designed ones, to form some preset picture. Plus, if we’re doing a theme devoted to a specific instrument, we feel a certain pressure to somehow make it comprehensive, as if it must include all the giants of the past as well as the innovators of the present. If, as with this month, we’re doing a drum issue, then it must include something on the likes of Papa Jo Jones, Art Blakey, Philly Joe Jones, Buddy Rich, Tony Williams, Max Roach, Elvin Jones, Kenny Clarke, Roy Haynes and Jack DeJohnette. But obviously that would take more pages than a single magazine can muster. Or so it seems. It was only when I read the magazine cover to cover that I realized we didn’t need to connect the dots, because the dots connected themselves. We didn’t need to cover all of those legends and innovators—our featured artists simply did the name-checking for us. Beginning with a cover story on the chronically affable Matt Wilson, we hear not only about his own projects, but also about his affinity for Roach, DeJohnette and other iconic drummers, thanks to a series of toss-up questions posed by our Nate Chinen. Of course Wilson’s list of favorites includes Rich, whose lengthy rivalry with Gene Krupa is the subject of a fascinating piece by Dr. Bruce H. Klauber. Rich also had a rivalry of sorts with Roach, whom Andrew Cyrille recalls fondly in an Overdue Ovation by Bill Milkowski. Cyrille points to bop legend Clarke as his inspiration for taking his music to new places. In the Before & After feature with Jimmy Cobb, we hear his informed take on the pantheon of great drummers, including Jo Jones, Blakey, Elvin Jones, Ed Thigpen, Haynes and Williams. When it comes to the innovators of the future, look no further than our Opening Chorus section, in which we profile Justin Faulkner, perhaps the most impressive young drumming prodigy since Tony Williams; Tyshawn Sorey, who talks about going back to college to study composition; and Dan Weiss, who connects his music to the masters of Indian percussion. Or, for more on drumming’s bright horizon, read Nate Chinen’s column about new explorations in rhythm. And you can’t talk about drumming without talking about Latin jazz, in all its permutations. Miguel Zenón isn’t a drummer, but his latest project draws on the drum rhythms of his native Puerto Rico, explained by his drummer Henry Cole in a fascinating sidebar story about the plena tradition. Be sure and read that and the Zenón feature, the first JT contributions by Fernando González. There is something awfully communal about drummers who so intensely keep track of one another. This month it has served us and our special-issue gods quite well, so much so that I wish we could have run some sort of index in the back, the way books do. Apparently, when it comes to great drummers, it takes one to know one. true 129 2009-10-12T21:06:31-04:00 false 25182 177 true 96 2009-11-01T00:00:00-04:00

For the JT staff, theme issues can either be a lot of fun or a real chore. When it doesn’t work, it feels like we’re simply connecting a bunch of dots, albeit well-written and sharply designed ones, to form some preset picture. Plus, if we’re doing a theme devoted to a specific instrument, we feel a certain pressure to somehow make it comprehensive, as if it must include all the giants of the past as well as the innovators of the present. If, as with this month, we’re doing a drum issue, then it must include something on the likes of Papa Jo Jones, Art Blakey, Philly Joe Jones, Buddy Rich, Tony Williams, Max Roach, Elvin Jones, Kenny Clarke, Roy Haynes and Jack DeJohnette. But obviously that would take more pages than a single magazine can muster. Or so it seems. It was only when I read the magazine cover to cover that I realized we didn’t need to connect the dots, because the dots connected themselves. We didn’t need to cover all of those legends and innovators—our featured artists simply did the name-checking for us. Beginning with a cover story on the chronically affable Matt Wilson, we hear not only about his own projects, but also about his affinity for Roach, DeJohnette and other iconic drummers, thanks to a series of toss-up questions posed by our Nate Chinen. Of course Wilson’s list of favorites includes Rich, whose lengthy rivalry with Gene Krupa is the subject of a fascinating piece by Dr. Bruce H. Klauber. Rich...

51139 2009-10-24T09:06:04-04:00

4 Yes, it’s true. We put (another) rock star on the cover of JazzTimes. But this month’s cover subject, guitarist Nels Cline, had heavy jazz and experimental music cred way before he joined the acclaimed rock band Wilco. We featured the Los Angeles-based guitarist in 1997, and a few years back, Cline wrote an interesting piece for us about the legacy and influence of Andrew Hill. In short, he is no Johnny-come-lately to the jazz scene, nothing like those aging rockers who turn to jazz for some sort of cloak of credibility late in their fading careers. If anything, Cline went the opposite way, going from the jazz avant-garde to rock. And he never stopped recording and performing as a jazz artist. What’s been most interesting is just how warmly he’s been accepted and embraced within the rock world for essentially playing the same audacious way he plays in front of small audiences. True, he’s now merely bringing his own sound and approach to a fully formed band with an established identity and a clear-cut leader in Jeff Tweedy. But it is interesting that Wilco fans of all ages genuinely appreciate Cline’s creative explorations. Yet, at least for now, Cline’s own solo performances don’t play to the same arena-sized audiences. I thought it appropriate to ask our own Nate Chinen, who interviewed Cline for the cover story, to speak about this duality, because as a frequent New York Times music critic, Chinen works the rock beat almost as much as the jazz one. I asked him what it’s like going from jazz to rock, sometimes in the same night. “Being a jazz critic really lays the groundwork for me to be perhaps a different sort of rock critic,” says Chinen. “It’s interesting that, of the four people writing about pop music for the New York Times, three of us have covered jazz. I think it really helps. You’re used to listening closely and deeply to what happens beneath the surface of a band’s interaction.” And how about going the other way, from rock to jazz? “In a way, if I were only writing about jazz, day in and day out, I think burnout is a real risk. It really helps to have some kind of variety.” Sometimes the variety is in the music itself. “One thing that’s been interesting to me here in New York is how much young energy there is on both the rock and jazz spectrums, and how much cross-pollination is happening at the moment,” Chinen adds. Watching Cline onstage with Wilco, I almost forget that he’s much closer in age to my 50-something self than to the average audience member (or even the rest of the band). It seems reasonable to presume that, for a young Wilco fan, seeing the middle-aged Cline improvise may change the way he or she views the work of instrumental jazz artists—Cline included. true 129 2009-10-05T14:18:38-04:00 false 25139 175 true 96 2009-10-01T00:00:00-04:00

JT's Editor in Chief explains how a rock star can end up on the cover of a jazz magazine.

43376 2009-10-05T14:18:44-04:00

4 The <I>JazzTimes</I> issue you hold in your hands may not look any different from recent editions, but in fact it’s the result of a very special transformation. For the last 39 years, the magazine was owned and run by the Sabin family—first Ira Sabin, who founded the publication in 1970, and then his sons, Glenn and Jeff Sabin, who took over the business in 1990 and transformed it into the award-winning glossy magazine that All Music Guide called “arguably the number-one jazz magazine in the world.” However, recent financial pressures made the economics of a one-title business untenable for the owners. After a brief hiatus, the <I>JazzTimes</I> brand was purchased in early July by Madavor Media, a publishing group based in Boston. We appreciate the support and understanding we received from subscribers during this period. Whether it was calls and e-mails to the <I>JazzTimes</I> office or messages posted to jazztimes.com, the communication from our readers was almost unanimously positive. Just as readers could more readily value a publication they suddenly didn’t receive, we can now better appreciate the loyalty of our vocal and passionate audience. A more significant result of the hiatus was the opportunity for us to objectively evaluate ourselves, determining what should be changed with the magazine and how the publication might be transformed yet again to make it more competitive. What we found was that <I>JazzTimes</I> is an excellent magazine. Thanks to a stellar list of contributors, from Nate Chinen to Nat Hentoff, the writing is intelligent and crisp. With photographers such as John Abbott, Jimmy Katz and Nick Ruechel, and with top-notch graphic design, the look of the book is contemporary and sophisticated yet still very readable. The magazine is able to cover the diversity in artists and music that fit, albeit sometimes uncomfortably, under the wide umbrella of jazz. We have no plans to tear up the playbook and work against the strengths of this publication. However, we do realize that we need to adjust to the changes in the way that music is made and information is shared. Our Web site was recently redesigned and now features a depth and breadth of content. The site also allows our readers to voice their own opinions and share news, commentary and photos from all over the world. That international aspect is no small consideration. Jazz is no longer solely an American phenomenon. Alert readers may have already noticed more and more coverage of artists, releases and events from all over the globe—from Italian jazz pianists to young Israeli players. That trend will only increase in the coming years. The music industry itself has changed a great deal since Ira ran his newspaper from his record store in Washington, D.C. Large labels have come and gone in the jazz field, and the DIY approach now reigns supreme. As a result we need to cover more artists and releases than ever, and we are already doing that by using jazztimes.com for extended coverage of the hundreds of recordings and performances we’ve traditionally ignored due to lack of space. There will be other tweaks in the approach of the magazine, but our focus will remain on reader engagement. We are confident that <I>JazzTimes</I> will remain not just a viable outlet, but also an essential one for jazz fans and practitioners who share a passion for this vibrant music. One major reason for our confidence in this lies with the formidable resources and expertise of the Madavor organization. Founded by Jeffrey Wolk, Madavor has done its own transformation act and in the process become a leading publisher of niche fan and enthusiast magazines, from International Figure Skating to New York Golf. Madavor’s credo is to tap into the shared passion of people within a specific community. We are very excited to be working together to strengthen the relationship between this magazine and the uniquely diverse jazz community. For many years <I>JazzTimes</I> used the slogan “About the Music” in all of its promotional materials. We dropped it not just because it ran its course the way slogans do, but also because it had become internalized like a mantra. Of course <I>JazzTimes</I> is about the music. Some things will never change. true 129 2009-10-08T16:42:50-04:00 false 25163 176 true 96 2009-08-01T00:00:00-04:00

The JazzTimes issue you hold in your hands may not look any different from recent editions, but in fact it’s the result of a very special transformation. For the last 39 years, the magazine was owned and run by the Sabin family—first Ira Sabin, who founded the publication in 1970, and then his sons, Glenn and Jeff Sabin, who took over the business in 1990 and transformed it into the award-winning glossy magazine that All Music Guide called “arguably the number-one jazz magazine in the world.” However, recent financial pressures made the economics of a one-title business untenable for the owners. After a brief hiatus, the JazzTimes brand was purchased in early July by Madavor Media, a publishing group based in Boston. We appreciate the support and understanding we received from subscribers during this period. Whether it was calls and e-mails to the JazzTimes office or messages posted to jazztimes.com, the communication from our readers was almost unanimously positive. Just as readers could more readily value a publication they suddenly didn’t receive, we can now better appreciate the loyalty of our vocal and passionate audience. A more significant result of the hiatus was the opportunity for us to objectively evaluate ourselves, determining what should be changed with the magazine and how the publication might be transformed yet again to make it more competitive. What we found was that JazzTimes is an excellent magazine. Thanks to a stellar list of contributors, from Nate Chinen to Nat Hentoff, the writing is intelligent and crisp. With photographers such as...

2009-10-08T16:43:21-04:00

4 Come on, admit it: When you saw this month’s JazzTimes in your mailbox or on the newsstand, you were surprised—maybe even shocked. In this issue, we’re proud to offer extensive coverage of iconoclast John Zorn. Not only did Bill Milkowski secure a candid, no-holds-barred interview—is there any other kind with Zorn?—but Nick Ruechel shot brand new portraits, one of which made the cover. Zorn is undoubtedly one of the most prolific, original and important figures in American music today. Like his forebears in the loft era, he understands the avant-garde is defined not by a specific stylistic paradigm, but by an ability to avoid such boundaries. One of the most “out” things about him is how bewitchingly “in” he can get. Listen to the apocalyptic, metallic ooze of Naked City’s Leng Tch’e, then the sun-kissed surf melody “Mow Mow” by his Dreamers outfit, then his righteously grooving Masada quartet—a Zorn collection is a survey of musics new and old, with smack-in-the-face surprises at every turn. As eventful as this piece is, however, it’s not entirely unprecedented. Longtime JT readers might remember Zorn’s lengthy interview in the March 2000 issue, a polemical cover story he (unknowingly) shared with Wynton Marsalis. Then, as now, contradictions abound: Zorn generally distrusts interviewers, but he’s often a remarkable conversationalist; he resents commerce but is himself an entrepreneur with enough business savvy to sustain a record label specializing in underground music. In the older interview, also conducted by Milkowski, Zorn seems especially dour, perhaps even paranoid, regarding the influence of corporations and the manner in which major labels trivialize experimental music. Milkowski offers the possibility that getting one’s music produced and sold could be a more proletarian affair through the Internet and a not-yet ubiquitous audio format known as “MP3,” but Zorn isn’t convinced. Says Zorn: “[D]o you think these large corporations are going to let that happen? … I mean, I would love to think that in 500 years everybody’s gonna have their own Web site.” Although his timeline is a few years off, Zorn’s concerns are perceptive, even if they aren’t all that prescient. He’s speaking a decade ago, in an odd epoch for the Internet and technology-dependent culture in general. Much of the public only knew the ’net as a series of buzzwords and Wall Street blunders. The truth is that the Internet has forced businesses of all sizes, especially media- and entertainment-oriented ones, to reinvent themselves in order to survive. JazzTimes recently made strides toward that survival with its re-launch of JazzTimes.com. In the spirit of the online age, we’re giving it all away: You can search through archival materials—columns, reviews, features, photos—stretching back to the early 1990s. There are also myriad opportunities for readers to contribute their own jazz writing, event listings and more. It’s a beautifully designed site and we’ll be frequently adding exclusive features, the first of which is this month’s John Zorn interview, unedited and unfettered by magazine space constraints. true 292 2009-04-17T14:43:51-04:00 false 24583 174 true 96 2009-05-01T00:00:00-04:00

Come on, admit it: When you saw this month’s JazzTimes in your mailbox or on the newsstand, you were surprised—maybe even shocked. In this issue, we’re proud to offer extensive coverage of iconoclast John Zorn. Not only did Bill Milkowski secure a candid, no-holds-barred interview—is there any other kind with Zorn?—but Nick Ruechel shot brand new portraits, one of which made the cover. Zorn is undoubtedly one of the most prolific, original and important figures in American music today. Like his forebears in the loft era, he understands the avant-garde is defined not by a specific stylistic paradigm, but by an ability to avoid such boundaries. One of the most “out” things about him is how bewitchingly “in” he can get. Listen to the apocalyptic, metallic ooze of Naked City’s Leng Tch’e, then the sun-kissed surf melody “Mow Mow” by his Dreamers outfit, then his righteously grooving Masada quartet—a Zorn collection is a survey of musics new and old, with smack-in-the-face surprises at every turn. As eventful as this piece is, however, it’s not entirely unprecedented. Longtime JT readers might remember Zorn’s lengthy interview in the March 2000 issue, a polemical cover story he (unknowingly) shared with Wynton Marsalis. Then, as now, contradictions abound: Zorn generally distrusts interviewers, but he’s often a remarkable conversationalist; he resents commerce but is himself an entrepreneur with enough business savvy to sustain a record label specializing in underground music. In the older interview, also conducted by Milkowski, Zorn seems especially dour, perhaps even paranoid, regarding the influence of corporations and...

2009-04-23T14:00:06-04:00

4 Let me tell you about some of the music I’ve been digging lately. First, there’s that burning set featuring Freddie Hubbard, McCoy Tyner and Elvin Jones from Berlin, 1987. Joshua Redman’s recent double-trio engagement at New York’s Highline Ballroom and Ravi Coltrane’s Vanguard show from last December have received repeated plays, as have a killer Wynton Kelly-Wes Montgomery 1965 jam at NYC’s Half Note, a ’57 Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers gig in Philly and a steamy 1981 Tokyo meeting of Herbie Hancock and Carlos Santana. If you’re wondering why you haven’t seen these for sale, it’s because they aren’t. These unreleased live recordings are among thousands that make the rounds on the Internet, available for free download to those who know where to find them. I mention this not to make anyone jealous or to rile music-industry types, but because to me the gray-area practice of making stealth recordings is validated by what’s discussed in Thomas Conrad’s Opening Chorus piece in this issue. Conrad ponders the importance of “private” recordings, a category that includes Sonny Rollins’ compilation Road Shows, Vol. 1 (Doxy/Emarcy), the album that earned the top spot in JazzTimes’ 2008 critics’ poll in the category of Historical/Reissues. Much of the album consists of soundboard recordings never originally intended for release. We’re all glad that, in this case, wiser minds prevailed and the music is now available; it’s only due to the diligence of those who keep the recorders rolling at concerts, sometimes surreptitiously, that those of us who weren’t in the room that night can hear the music. The success of that album made me think about just how much goes on in general in the world of jazz that most fans are either unaware of or spend little time thinking about. And if there is a current running through this month’s issue, it’s one of well-kept secrets and elusive information that lies beneath the surface of the music. Andrew W. Lehren’s fascinating investigative report, “Guilty Until Proven Innocent,” reveals an uncomfortable truth that record buyers in the Cold War era never knew: Some of our greatest artists—Max Roach, Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington among them—were hounded by overzealous FBI agents eager to prove these geniuses were political subversives. Don Heckman’s profile of bassist Jennifer Leitham, meanwhile, unveils the pain and difficulties experienced by a respected musician who spent more than 40 years living in the body of a male until she made the bold decision to be who she really is. In a way, even the arrangers featured in Josef Woodard’s cover story—Michael Abene, John Clayton, Gil Goldstein and Vince Mendoza—operate in the shadows. How many listeners, even those who do read the small print in the CD booklets, have really given much consideration to the essential contribution of these talented behind-the-scenes people? There’s also an underground aspect to Nate Chinen’s Gig appreciation of avant-gardist William Parker. Now, if you don’t mind, there’s a 1992 Jimmy Giuffre/Paul Bley/Steve Swallow concert from Sweet Basil cued up in the CD drive. true 10422 2009-03-24T11:08:13-04:00 false 24379 138 true 96 2009-04-01T00:00:00-04:00

Let me tell you about some of the music I’ve been digging lately. First, there’s that burning set featuring Freddie Hubbard, McCoy Tyner and Elvin Jones from Berlin, 1987. Joshua Redman’s recent double-trio engagement at New York’s Highline Ballroom and Ravi Coltrane’s Vanguard show from last December have received repeated plays, as have a killer Wynton Kelly-Wes Montgomery 1965 jam at NYC’s Half Note, a ’57 Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers gig in Philly and a steamy 1981 Tokyo meeting of Herbie Hancock and Carlos Santana. If you’re wondering why you haven’t seen these for sale, it’s because they aren’t. These unreleased live recordings are among thousands that make the rounds on the Internet, available for free download to those who know where to find them. I mention this not to make anyone jealous or to rile music-industry types, but because to me the gray-area practice of making stealth recordings is validated by what’s discussed in Thomas Conrad’s Opening Chorus piece in this issue. Conrad ponders the importance of “private” recordings, a category that includes Sonny Rollins’ compilation Road Shows, Vol. 1 (Doxy/Emarcy), the album that earned the top spot in JazzTimes’ 2008 critics’ poll in the category of Historical/Reissues. Much of the album consists of soundboard recordings never originally intended for release. We’re all glad that, in this case, wiser minds prevailed and the music is now available; it’s only due to the diligence of those who keep the recorders rolling at concerts, sometimes surreptitiously, that those of us who weren’t in the room that night...

2009-04-03T12:07:53-04:00

4 What does it say about me that I enjoy putting together this issue with its tributes to those important figures who died during the past year? Call me morbid or, better yet, respectful, but this annual issue with its Farewells has been a great source of pride for me. Over the years, we’ve struggled to deal appropriately with deaths in the jazz world. Who gets a mention or obituary? Who gets a longer tribute? And what should that tribute consist of? Honestly, we’ve never known if we’ve answered those questions correctly. And running lengthy obit tributes in issue after issue seemed like a concession to the old “jazz is dead” slur. I’d like to say that the idea of putting all of the tributes into one issue was an original one all my own, but it wasn’t. Publications like Entertainment Weekly and The New York Times Magazine have been doing it for years. My contribution has solely been to play matchmaker and find interesting eulogists who can speak from the heart with distinction. In fact, one of the surprising benefits of this section has been the discovery of rich new voices outside the general realm of jazz journalism. Artists like Branford Marsalis, Charlie Haden, Christian McBride, Dianne Reeves and Joe Lovano have shown themselves to be as articulate on paper as they are on their respective instruments. Since we started this annual section back in 2006, many of the pieces have left indelible memories. Last year, Randy Brecker wrote beautifully about his brother Michael in a Farewell that not only cracks me up, but also makes me teary every time I read it. I suppose that comes from having two brothers of my own. And Sonny Rollins’ memories of his childhood friend Jackie McLean never fail to magically transport me to that special place and time of Harlem in the ’40s. In a few cases over the years, the Farewells have formed a tragic chain. We had Oscar Peterson pay tribute to his longtime bassist Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, and now Benny Green does the honors for his mentor, who died at the end of 2007. We asked record producer Joel Dorn to salute Ed Bradley in 2007, only to have Joel pass away later that year and become the subject of one of the most touching tributes in this issue. Les McCann’s funny piece about lifelong pal Dorn offers a window into their very special friendship. There is a longstanding tradition of eloquent eulogies in jazz. One of our former contributors, Stanley Dance, delivered the eulogy at Duke Ellington’s funeral in 1974. I remember talking about that occasion with Stanley and he counted that speech as one of the best things he ever wrote. He knew that his words in this case mattered a great deal and, if done properly, would live beyond his own years. Indeed they have: “It is Memorial Day, when those who died for the free world are properly remembered. Duke Ellington never lost faith in this country, and he served it well. His music will go on serving it for years to come.” We in turn dedicate this issue to all of those who served the jazz community so well before they passed away in 2008. true 129 2009-02-24T14:39:16-05:00 false 21258 137 true 96 2009-03-01T00:00:00-05:00

What does it say about me that I enjoy putting together this issue with its tributes to those important figures who died during the past year? Call me morbid or, better yet, respectful, but this annual issue with its Farewells has been a great source of pride for me. Over the years, we’ve struggled to deal appropriately with deaths in the jazz world. Who gets a mention or obituary? Who gets a longer tribute? And what should that tribute consist of? Honestly, we’ve never known if we’ve answered those questions correctly. And running lengthy obit tributes in issue after issue seemed like a concession to the old “jazz is dead” slur. I’d like to say that the idea of putting all of the tributes into one issue was an original one all my own, but it wasn’t. Publications like Entertainment Weekly and The New York Times Magazine have been doing it for years. My contribution has solely been to play matchmaker and find interesting eulogists who can speak from the heart with distinction. In fact, one of the surprising benefits of this section has been the discovery of rich new voices outside the general realm of jazz journalism. Artists like Branford Marsalis, Charlie Haden, Christian McBride, Dianne Reeves and Joe Lovano have shown themselves to be as articulate on paper as they are on their respective instruments. Since we started this annual section back in 2006, many of the pieces have left indelible memories. Last year, Randy Brecker wrote beautifully about his brother Michael in a...

2009-03-02T00:28:20-05:00

4 Niche magazines are strange creatures. JazzTimes, as we must begrudgingly admit, falls into that category. The music and culture we cover, like any insular art form tucked away from mass media and able to transcend politics, often seems perennially unchanged. With its profound respect for the past, jazz is especially susceptible to a kind of aesthetic stasis. I swear, whenever I leaf through back issues lying around the office, I see features I could slip into the current issue without anyone but our diehard readers noticing. Some of my favorite books are anthologies of definitive jazz journalism, such as that of Gary Giddins, Nat Hentoff, Dan Morgenstern and Whitney Balliett, and I’m continually amazed at how relevant the writing remains decades after the fact: a credit to both the prose and a music worth lifetimes of re-examination. Of course, there are other instances that negate my theory, when jazz seems absolutely timely. One is when we assemble the issue you hold in your hands, the annual Year in Review edition. This is where we reflect on the victories, foibles, tragedies, oddities and funny stuff that bookmark time far better than retrospectives on Trane or Chet Baker. I just put down the 2003 Jan./Feb. issue, which tracked the happenings of 2002, and I was suddenly reminded of what a big deal the arrival of Norah Jones was for folks in and out of jazz. Also in that issue, former JT editor Christopher Porter makes a prediction that a little piano trio known as The Bad Plus will turn heads in the coming months with its Columbia debut. Good call. 2008 wasn’t just another year, though. Jazz flirted with the general public more than usual, thanks to Herbie’s Grammy win and the Return to Forever tour. Superficial stuff, I know—the public interest, not the music—but you have to take what you can get. And, oh yeah, the U.S. elected its first African-American president, a man whose healthcare policies could surely help the uninsured musicians JT business reporter Marc Hopkins talks to beginning on page 64. The other moments when jazz thaws from its cryogenic freeze happen far more frequently—whenever I hear Ornette Coleman, Guillermo Klein, Dave Douglas, Todd Sickafoose, Mary Halvorson, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Brian Blade, Terence Blanchard, Cuong Vu, Christian Scott, Miguel Zenón, anything Jason Moran touches, Aaron Parks, the list goes on. The last name in that list, a pianist whose terrific Blue Note debut, Invisible Cinema, met a surprising dearth of critical fanfare and just missed our Top 50, should not be slept on. Developing under Blanchard and Rosenwinkel, Parks is as harmonically and temporally advanced as they come at age 25, though he seems more concerned with crafting some sort of instrumental sub-genre that has yet to be named. (It sounds to me like a meld of post-rock and the modern jazz concocted at Smalls in the 1990s.) With any luck, Blue Note will green light another Parks disc in 2009 and our esteemed critics will listen closer. Perhaps by then I’ll know what to label his music in a Top 50 blurb. true 292 2009-02-12T12:37:24-05:00 false 21143 136 true 96 2009-01-01T00:00:00-05:00

Niche magazines are strange creatures. JazzTimes, as we must begrudgingly admit, falls into that category. The music and culture we cover, like any insular art form tucked away from mass media and able to transcend politics, often seems perennially unchanged. With its profound respect for the past, jazz is especially susceptible to a kind of aesthetic stasis. I swear, whenever I leaf through back issues lying around the office, I see features I could slip into the current issue without anyone but our diehard readers noticing. Some of my favorite books are anthologies of definitive jazz journalism, such as that of Gary Giddins, Nat Hentoff, Dan Morgenstern and Whitney Balliett, and I’m continually amazed at how relevant the writing remains decades after the fact: a credit to both the prose and a music worth lifetimes of re-examination. Of course, there are other instances that negate my theory, when jazz seems absolutely timely. One is when we assemble the issue you hold in your hands, the annual Year in Review edition. This is where we reflect on the victories, foibles, tragedies, oddities and funny stuff that bookmark time far better than retrospectives on Trane or Chet Baker. I just put down the 2003 Jan./Feb. issue, which tracked the happenings of 2002, and I was suddenly reminded of what a big deal the arrival of Norah Jones was for folks in and out of jazz. Also in that issue, former JT editor Christopher Porter makes a prediction that a little piano trio known as The Bad Plus will...

2009-03-02T00:28:16-05:00

4 I suppose you’ve noticed that this issue’s cover looks very much like a holiday card. Like many people, I find that as each year goes by, the holidays seem to contain more Crass than Christ, but I have learned to embrace certain aspects of the commercial ritual. For example, I’ve become an expert on Christmas music projects, having a collection of nearly a thousand Xmas albums. Last year, I started a tradition of making a podcast or mix CD of some of my favorite holiday music and sending that out to friends and family, instead of a corny card or one of those obnoxious newsletters filled with barely concealed gloating. Among the artists on last year’s CD were John Scofield, NRBQ, James Brown and The Three Stooges. Connecting those dots sure was a lot of fun and helped to re-introduce the glee that I used to associate with the holiday season back when I was a kid. That visceral connection to the past is one of the holiday’s underrated pleasures. Our cover artist knows all about Christmas and its connection to the past. I always feel like a big shot because I get a Christmas card from Mr. Tony Bennett, the vocal as well as visual artist. It turns out that I’m not so special. This is the 15th year that he has provided a painting to be used by the American Cancer Society for a holiday card that’s used as a fundraiser. Apparently, of the 25 or so cards they market, the card with Bennett’s artwork is perennially the top seller. Bennett says that his paintings for the cards do in fact come from the holiday season, albeit the year before. “My wife’s mother and father live in this tiny little town—there’s maybe 89 people in the town—called Clio in the Sierra Mountains. Every Christmas we go there and visit her folks and it’s beautiful. It definitely snows and it’s so scenic, it’s unbelievable, with thousands of pine trees and all that. So I paint there all week.” Sounds like the movie It’s a Wonderful Life. He laughs, “It is, it is.” It seems that the painting is often a landscape but not necessarily. “You never know. This year I did the Bloomingdale’s shopping bag because they’re promoting my new album with the Basie band—A Swinging Christmas. The bag shows the store with the different international flags and there’s a yellow cab going through the snowstorm and Santa Claus is waving at everybody and I have my little Maltese dog in the front with the cabdriver.” Cute trumps pastoral. I asked Bennett whom he was excited to get a card from, but he had a hard time being specific. I do think his list is just a bit more glittery than mine, as he cited Carol Burnett, who he says always sends a special note or card. Perhaps Ms. Burnett lost my address along the way. For Bennett the Christmas season is about more than cards and notes. “I love the holiday season. Everybody reminds one another that we’re thinking of you and you’re thinking of them. In fact, some of the best Christmas songs say `Why can’t it be like this all year round?’” And Bennett, naturally, relishes the connection with the past. “What I’ve learned, as a student of life, is that when you go back, you learn more than you do going forward. Everybody thinks you have to do something contemporary. Instead, when you go back to Louis Armstrong or to Rembrandt, you learn more from the masters than you do from whatever’s going on now.” I use the same logic for my holiday CD. I hope Ms. Burnett digs it. true 129 2008-12-10T12:19:39-05:00 false 20899 129 200812 true 96 2008-12-01T00:00:00-05:00

I suppose you’ve noticed that this issue’s cover looks very much like a holiday card. Like many people, I find that as each year goes by, the holidays seem to contain more Crass than Christ, but I have learned to embrace certain aspects of the commercial ritual. For example, I’ve become an expert on Christmas music projects, having a collection of nearly a thousand Xmas albums. Last year, I started a tradition of making a podcast or mix CD of some of my favorite holiday music and sending that out to friends and family, instead of a corny card or one of those obnoxious newsletters filled with barely concealed gloating. Among the artists on last year’s CD were John Scofield, NRBQ, James Brown and The Three Stooges. Connecting those dots sure was a lot of fun and helped to re-introduce the glee that I used to associate with the holiday season back when I was a kid. That visceral connection to the past is one of the holiday’s underrated pleasures. Our cover artist knows all about Christmas and its connection to the past. I always feel like a big shot because I get a Christmas card from Mr. Tony Bennett, the vocal as well as visual artist. It turns out that I’m not so special. This is the 15th year that he has provided a painting to be used by the American Cancer Society for a holiday card that’s used as a fundraiser. Apparently, of the 25 or so cards they market, the card with Bennett’s...

2009-03-02T00:28:05-05:00

4 I swear we try to hold these theme issues together, but great stuff just sort of gets in the way. This drum-themed book is a perfect example, with its cover story on—percussion legend David Sanborn? Oops. I’m still confident we’ll delight drum nuts: We have features on Ari Hoenig, a swinging Brooklynite with a bad case of heavy metal “drum face” (see pg. 49), and Bill Stewart, the thinking man’s polyrhythmic virtuoso, as well as a lead review of a new Paul Motian release. There’s also an Overdue Ovation on Alvin Queen, who fairly recently reissued some terrific sessions from his Nilva label days, and an ironic Before & After with Billy Cobham, the mighty jazz-rocker who seems to resent all the grandiose musical attributes that made the Mahavishnu Orchestra a hit. But a couple non-drum goodies fell into play, and we couldn’t resist including them. The first was an excerpt from The Narcotic Farm, a new book that chronicles Lexington, Kentucky’s notorious Narco facility, “America’s First Prison for Drug Addicts.” In the chapter we pulled, stunning archival photos reveal the place where some of jazz’s greatest players went to get clean—and woodshed. (In a startling example of compassion, the U.S. government thought musical studies could assist with addiction recovery.) The other curveball here, of course, is the Sanborn cover feature. Sanborn’s new Decca release, Here & Gone, is a fantastic tribute to saxophonist Hank Crawford. We originally planned to have Sanborn collaborate with his hero in a Q&A, but Mr. Crawford’s health didn’t allow it. Instead we present a definitive profile by one of our favorite contributors, Geoffrey Himes, and photographs by A-list shutterbug John Abbott. The piece surprised me—I wasn’t aware of Sanborn’s childhood bout with polio, for one—but also inspired me to listen. I’ve defended players with pop reputations and serious chops in this space before—in fact, I continue to vindicate Bruce Hornsby’s trio record—and Sanborn deserves reconsideration more than any of them. I’d long associated Sanborn with pseudo-smooth kitsch and what seemed like willfully surreal jams with John Zorn and Sonic Youth on Hal Willner’s Night Music, a program in desperate need of a deluxe DVD reissue. His versatility seemed inarguable, but I wasn’t convinced he had soul. Yet I’d heard great straightahead blowers praise Sanborn’s sound, and as Himes’ piece uncovers, he owns the often elusive niche where R&B groove meets jazz eloquence: where the earth meets the sky. Sanborn, who came up in blues and even free jazz, was initially inspired by Bill Doggett and Ray Charles’ saxmen, and, as Christian McBride says in Himes’ story, his work makes sense in that context. Sanborn is brought into even clearer focus on Here & Gone, where his burnished tone can be heard in the spirit of Crawford and the R&B barwalkers, free of ornate ’80s-centric production. I keep returning to one track in particular: “Brother Ray,” where Sanborn tangles his alto with Derek Trucks’ eerily vocal slide guitar. The song is serene, sure, but definitely not “smooth.” Now if only he played drums. true 292 2008-12-03T14:24:19-05:00 false 20777 128 200811 true 96 2008-11-01T00:00:00-04:00

I swear we try to hold these theme issues together, but great stuff just sort of gets in the way. This drum-themed book is a perfect example, with its cover story on—percussion legend David Sanborn? Oops. I’m still confident we’ll delight drum nuts: We have features on Ari Hoenig, a swinging Brooklynite with a bad case of heavy metal “drum face” (see pg. 49), and Bill Stewart, the thinking man’s polyrhythmic virtuoso, as well as a lead review of a new Paul Motian release. There’s also an Overdue Ovation on Alvin Queen, who fairly recently reissued some terrific sessions from his Nilva label days, and an ironic Before & After with Billy Cobham, the mighty jazz-rocker who seems to resent all the grandiose musical attributes that made the Mahavishnu Orchestra a hit. But a couple non-drum goodies fell into play, and we couldn’t resist including them. The first was an excerpt from The Narcotic Farm, a new book that chronicles Lexington, Kentucky’s notorious Narco facility, “America’s First Prison for Drug Addicts.” In the chapter we pulled, stunning archival photos reveal the place where some of jazz’s greatest players went to get clean—and woodshed. (In a startling example of compassion, the U.S. government thought musical studies could assist with addiction recovery.) The other curveball here, of course, is the Sanborn cover feature. Sanborn’s new Decca release, Here & Gone, is a fantastic tribute to saxophonist Hank Crawford. We originally planned to have Sanborn collaborate with his hero in a Q&A, but Mr. Crawford’s health didn’t allow it....

2009-03-02T00:28:01-05:00

4 The end of summer at JT means a mad dash to assemble the two books you just received in the time allotted for one. Not the best conditions, yet every year I’m pleased with the results, and think you’ll be too. The October brass-themed issue is packed with truly lucid features, as is the bonus 2008-2009 Jazz Education Guide. You don’t need to know Jamey Aebersold personally to enjoy this supplement: Pieces on jazz programs at historically black colleges and universities, the intersection of conservatory training and jazz instruction, and the apprenticeship tradition could just as well exist in one of our regular editions. And for young Berklee or Juilliard hopefuls, we’ve even got a freshman year survival guide and a clip on making the perfect audition recording. (Please pass those on to the first-chair trumpeter in your nearest high-school combo.) The impending school season also signifies the unfortunate end of summertime festivals. I made it to San Sebastian, Spain, for the Heineken Jazzaldia events, where the only thing more sublime than the performances was the scenery. Hopefully you got a chance to check out a fest or two: If you didn’t, or if you want to know what JT’s critics thought of the event you did attend, flip to page 26 for a quick excerpt and then log on to jazztimes.com for full coverage. But you don’t have to bring a lawn chair every time you want to hear a lot of jazz in a short stretch, and one of jazz’s most incisively programmed soirees is—if you’re a subscriber—happening right now. The Dave Douglas-directed Festival of New Trumpet Music (FONT) commands Manhattan and Brooklyn venues from Sept. 14-28 with the full spectrum of attitudes and approaches to jazz (and anti-jazz) trumpet, from the muscular to the meditative to the just plain out. Two pieces in our October brass issue cover the extremes of that gamut: Nate Chinen’s Gig installment, “Of Horns & Hard Drives,” delves into the use of electronics as conceptual instigators for trumpeters. Many of Chinen’s electro-savvy subjects, among them Cuong Vu and Shane Endsley, have a jones for new sonic landscapes that obscures the trumpet’s history of cutting contests and high-register squeals. (In the Ed Guide cover story on Jon Faddis, the former Dizzy protégé of matchless technique is revealed as a surprisingly art-minded teacher, stressing personality, emotion and performance. Who says you can’t have it both ways?) If you need a refresher course on how physically (and mentally) taxing the trumpet can be, read Geoffrey Himes’ October cover profile on brass god Freddie Hubbard. Hubbard’s embouchure ills stretch back to a lip blister that burst over 15 years ago, and, compounded with additional health woes, he hasn’t yet achieved anything you’d consider rehabilitation. But the piece isn’t a eulogy or even a cautionary tale, as Hubbard’s limited physical resources have assigned new value to his composition work—an angle of Hubbard’s genius previously eclipsed by his heroic chops. If you’re looking for them, his story also brims with lessons—complicated ones, full of unexpected triumphs and strange shortcomings. How’s that for jazz education? true 292 2008-09-24T19:08:21-04:00 false 20378 127 200810 true 96 2008-10-01T00:00:00-04:00

The end of summer at JT means a mad dash to assemble the two books you just received in the time allotted for one. Not the best conditions, yet every year I’m pleased with the results, and think you’ll be too. The October brass-themed issue is packed with truly lucid features, as is the bonus 2008-2009 Jazz Education Guide. You don’t need to know Jamey Aebersold personally to enjoy this supplement: Pieces on jazz programs at historically black colleges and universities, the intersection of conservatory training and jazz instruction, and the apprenticeship tradition could just as well exist in one of our regular editions. And for young Berklee or Juilliard hopefuls, we’ve even got a freshman year survival guide and a clip on making the perfect audition recording. (Please pass those on to the first-chair trumpeter in your nearest high-school combo.) The impending school season also signifies the unfortunate end of summertime festivals. I made it to San Sebastian, Spain, for the Heineken Jazzaldia events, where the only thing more sublime than the performances was the scenery. Hopefully you got a chance to check out a fest or two: If you didn’t, or if you want to know what JT’s critics thought of the event you did attend, flip to page 26 for a quick excerpt and then log on to jazztimes.com for full coverage. But you don’t have to bring a lawn chair every time you want to hear a lot of jazz in a short stretch, and one of jazz’s most incisively programmed soirees...

2009-03-02T00:27:48-05:00

4 Welcome to the New Visionaries issue, our thinly veiled version of the compulsory “Where Is Jazz Headed?” edition. We hope the answer provided here is hopeful; it was laborious choosing from a grand pool of hotshot young players, mainly because we strived to avoid them, bypassing the glissando-happy prodigies in favor of charm and conceptual ingenuity. The magnificent seven, let’s call them, occupy some miraculous middle ground—the same space (dare I say) Miles and Coltrane made musical homes in: they’re not at all histrionic, yet they’re also not trying to actively avoid the century of jazz music that predates them (our cover says “New Jazz Visionaries,” not “Nu-Jazz Visionaries”). Instead, jazz runs in their veins alongside contemporary tributaries like hip-hop, indie-rock and pop. Some have a business-minded infrastructure to work the PR angles (cover subject Esperanza Spalding), and some have to navigate music careers with self-made machinery (Marcus Strickland), but they’re all ingenious. In this issue’s The Gig, Nate Chinen reinforces that such progressives are birthed in tight-knit communities of other spry talents. He likens the bebop incubator Minton’s Playhouse to the Smalls that gave us Kurt Rosenwinkel, but the analogy that sprang to my mind while perusing the piece had more to do with the coterie of youthful journalists who write about the music today. The 31-year-old Chinen is at the zenith of that set, and he proved it in June by winning the Jazz Journalists Association’s writing award for the last three years. (JazzTimes was fortunate enough to be voted Best Periodical for the 10th year in a row, and we’d be foolish not to acknowledge Nate’s role in our victories.) Reading Chinen’s raw copy is one of the joys of my job. His prose is so well calculated he’s a challenge to line-edit; what you see in the book is pretty much what he sends me, and I imagine it’s the same scenario for the editors at one of his other outlets, the New York Times. In his Final Chorus, Nat Hentoff appreciates out loud The Jazz Ear (Times), the forthcoming book by Chinen’s Times colleague Ben Ratliff. (A critic at the Gray Lady since 1996, Ratliff has a decade on Chinen but is still a teen by jazz-critic standards.) I’ve pored over Ratliff’s reviews and previous books: his Times Essential Library: Jazz proves its title is no hyperbole, and his Coltrane: The Story of a Sound defies jazz-bio convention in favor of heady analyses. It’s a rare trick to be writerly and accessible at once, but Ratliff pulls it off: He assumes intelligence of his reader but not knowledge, defining concepts and cross-pollinations and allowing his insight to snowball. He carries the stateliness of historic Times critics like Robert Palmer, but lets his own predilections—he knows a lot about avant-garde heavy metal for a jazz aficionado—and his generation seep through, casting him off into uncharted critical waters. Here’s to the future—on record and in print. true 292 2008-08-12T19:15:20-04:00 false 19897 126 200809 true 96 2008-09-01T00:00:00-04:00

Welcome to the New Visionaries issue, our thinly veiled version of the compulsory “Where Is Jazz Headed?” edition. We hope the answer provided here is hopeful; it was laborious choosing from a grand pool of hotshot young players, mainly because we strived to avoid them, bypassing the glissando-happy prodigies in favor of charm and conceptual ingenuity. The magnificent seven, let’s call them, occupy some miraculous middle ground—the same space (dare I say) Miles and Coltrane made musical homes in: they’re not at all histrionic, yet they’re also not trying to actively avoid the century of jazz music that predates them (our cover says “New Jazz Visionaries,” not “Nu-Jazz Visionaries”). Instead, jazz runs in their veins alongside contemporary tributaries like hip-hop, indie-rock and pop. Some have a business-minded infrastructure to work the PR angles (cover subject Esperanza Spalding), and some have to navigate music careers with self-made machinery (Marcus Strickland), but they’re all ingenious. In this issue’s The Gig, Nate Chinen reinforces that such progressives are birthed in tight-knit communities of other spry talents. He likens the bebop incubator Minton’s Playhouse to the Smalls that gave us Kurt Rosenwinkel, but the analogy that sprang to my mind while perusing the piece had more to do with the coterie of youthful journalists who write about the music today. The 31-year-old Chinen is at the zenith of that set, and he proved it in June by winning the Jazz Journalists Association’s writing award for the last three years. (JazzTimes was fortunate enough to be voted Best Periodical for the...

2009-03-02T00:27:24-05:00

4 In a 1991 Village Voice column by Gary Giddins on drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson, the author makes the point that fusion, despite its outsized popular following, doesn’t have much to show for critical reception. “[V]irtually all commentary is focused on things like equipment or technique,” Giddins writes, and he’s expectedly right-on (case in point: we even reinstated our tech-geek “Gearbox” capsules for this issue’s Return to Forever cover story). Critics such as Bill Milkowski, who helmed a very serious biography on bass demigod Jaco Pastorius, have done much to canonize jazz-rock, but writerly profiles on loft-dwelling skronkers outnumber elevated journalistic insights on Allan Holdsworth and Dave Weckl tenfold. Music writers like to project, they like romantic struggle, and they prefer music that can be impressionistically interpreted rather than academically quantified, almost as a rule. Giddins turned out a masterful column on Albert Ayler for this magazine in 2004, but what about some love for Steve Khan? Of course, not all fusion is created equal, so the closest most A-list jazz writers get to endorsing the f-word is Miles’ ’60s output, the Tony Williams Lifetime, the Mahavishnu Orchestra or, as in Giddins’ column, Ornette Coleman’s Prime Time free-funk and its ilk (which is, oddly, only rarely remembered as fusion despite its in-the-red electricity). No disrespect to the acoustic avant-garde or, at the other end of the pitch, Albert Murray’s children, but I’ve always believed jazz and rock made fine bedfellows. The idea of the two genres colliding in psychedelic matrimony was never the problem—if you think about it hard enough, it’s as organic a fusion as jazz itself, given the cultural climate of the 1960s. Fusion became a victim of the times; it’s been aesthetically undermined by the very technology that made it possible. The laws of nostalgia may have deemed the Fender Rhodes cool, but the majority of synthesizer tones introduced in the late 1970s and ’80s are not, and neither is the painfully artificial production that made much of that era’s music obsolete. Fusion is even pegged as the forebear of smooth-jazz, though after listening to Bitches Brew and Spyro Gyra in succession, that’s like blaming Robert Johnson for Pat Boone. I hope this annual guitar-themed issue takes jazz-rock seriously. The new RTF compilation, The Anthology (Concord), exhibits not only a heavy hand (the manic unison lines, the cosmic song titles), but also a furrowed brow: These were and are headstrong men with technique to burn, manufacturing heat and drama with the collective skill of an expert film scorer. The Dave Matthews Band, arguably the most popular improvising group of all time, offers a surprising depth of jazz-related knowledge and some shocking sentiments regarding the jam-band scene. Also herein, I profile Vernon Reid, whose work with Shannon Jackson resulted in music that both free-jazzers and hard-rockers are still catching up to. During our interview, Reid, a man of limitless intellectual curiosities, said he wished Mahavishnu could also bury the hatchets and pull it together for a tour. “The Inner Mounting Flame was the real punk-jazz to me,” he said. We’re prepared to cover that reunion with graceful prose, sharp photos and maybe even a Gearbox. John, Jan, Jerry, Billy and Rick—phone home. true 292 2008-07-09T18:18:37-04:00 false 19417 125 200808 true 96 2008-08-01T00:00:00-04:00

In a 1991 Village Voice column by Gary Giddins on drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson, the author makes the point that fusion, despite its outsized popular following, doesn’t have much to show for critical reception. “[V]irtually all commentary is focused on things like equipment or technique,” Giddins writes, and he’s expectedly right-on (case in point: we even reinstated our tech-geek “Gearbox” capsules for this issue’s Return to Forever cover story). Critics such as Bill Milkowski, who helmed a very serious biography on bass demigod Jaco Pastorius, have done much to canonize jazz-rock, but writerly profiles on loft-dwelling skronkers outnumber elevated journalistic insights on Allan Holdsworth and Dave Weckl tenfold. Music writers like to project, they like romantic struggle, and they prefer music that can be impressionistically interpreted rather than academically quantified, almost as a rule. Giddins turned out a masterful column on Albert Ayler for this magazine in 2004, but what about some love for Steve Khan? Of course, not all fusion is created equal, so the closest most A-list jazz writers get to endorsing the f-word is Miles’ ’60s output, the Tony Williams Lifetime, the Mahavishnu Orchestra or, as in Giddins’ column, Ornette Coleman’s Prime Time free-funk and its ilk (which is, oddly, only rarely remembered as fusion despite its in-the-red electricity). No disrespect to the acoustic avant-garde or, at the other end of the pitch, Albert Murray’s children, but I’ve always believed jazz and rock made fine bedfellows. The idea of the two genres colliding in psychedelic matrimony was never the problem—if you think about...

2009-03-02T00:27:03-05:00

4 Readers and industry types often mistakenly think JazzTimes has Manhattan offices. We don’t. Washington, D.C., where JT is published, offers plenty of jazz goings-on—Sonny Rollins in the august surroundings of the Kennedy Center is nothing to sneeze at. But in the spring the JVC Jazz Festival takes over New York, turning that city’s peerless club scene into an all-out paradise, and giving me the urge to go Greyhound. Flip through our 2008 JVC Jazz Festival - New York Guide and you’ll find a significantly revitalized program. To be frank, I’ve felt past editions to be overly reverential, but this year’s festival manages to celebrate both tradition and jazz’s contemporary definition with equal aplomb. The lineup is mouth-watering: The Bad Plus 1 featuring Kurt Rosenwinkel, the Charles Lloyd Quartet featuring Jason Moran, protean pianist Dick Hyman, Herbie Hancock with rising guitar star Lionel Loueke, and, among many others, the Tierney Sutton Band (whose reinvention of American Songbook repertory nicely parallels the festival’s doctrine for 2008). If you’re reading this in Utah, I feel your pain. Of course, it’s not only this issue’s JVC guide that reminds us that jazz is to NYC as country is to Nashville and blues is to Chicago—the modern hub where young players move to make it. Jeff Tamarkin’s piece on producer Bob Belden’s new Miles From India double-disc, a heavyweight repertory project that offers a “Where Are They Now?” checkup on many ’70s-era Miles Davis sidemen, has stoked my anticipation for the historic companion concert that will have come and gone by the time you read this. (If you haven’t already guessed, it’s scheduled for Town Hall in Midtown.) In an excerpt from his biography, Delightfulee: The Life and Music of Lee Morgan, author Jeffery S. McMillan reports on one of New York’s stranger, sadder landmark jazz events, the shooting death of Lee Morgan at the now-defunct Lower East Side hangout Slugs’. Also in the jazz-history file this round is Geoffrey Himes’ cover story on Rahsaan Roland Kirk, whose widow Dorthaan imparts stories of Kirk’s record-shopping sojourns from the couple’s New Jersey home to downtown Manhattan. But even with the magnitude and scope of jazz in New York, the competition is fierce and the wages are low, forcing many masterful improvisers to make rent elsewhere. Laurel Gross contributes an investigative piece on jazz musicians playing in Broadway pit orchestras—probably the most popular alternative revenue stream for players in New York aside from teaching. In September 2006 we published a collectable “Jazz in New York” special issue, but who are we kidding? Many subsequent issues, this one included, could just as easily bear that title. In features this issue, Bennie Maupin is something of an aberration. While he spent many important years gigging and recording in New York, today he’s a California resident and main attraction in the Crytogramophone roster—a label whose consideration of the avant-garde has done much to erase the stereotype of West Coast jazz as timidly polite. In support of his talismanic new Crypto release, Early Reflections, Maupin toured across the country earlier this spring. I didn’t manage to catch a gig, though. The closest Maupin came to D.C. was N.Y.C. true 292 2008-06-12T21:08:43-04:00 false 17980 116 200806 true 96 2008-06-01T00:00:00-04:00

Readers and industry types often mistakenly think JazzTimes has Manhattan offices. We don’t. Washington, D.C., where JT is published, offers plenty of jazz goings-on—Sonny Rollins in the august surroundings of the Kennedy Center is nothing to sneeze at. But in the spring the JVC Jazz Festival takes over New York, turning that city’s peerless club scene into an all-out paradise, and giving me the urge to go Greyhound. Flip through our 2008 JVC Jazz Festival - New York Guide and you’ll find a significantly revitalized program. To be frank, I’ve felt past editions to be overly reverential, but this year’s festival manages to celebrate both tradition and jazz’s contemporary definition with equal aplomb. The lineup is mouth-watering: The Bad Plus 1 featuring Kurt Rosenwinkel, the Charles Lloyd Quartet featuring Jason Moran, protean pianist Dick Hyman, Herbie Hancock with rising guitar star Lionel Loueke, and, among many others, the Tierney Sutton Band (whose reinvention of American Songbook repertory nicely parallels the festival’s doctrine for 2008). If you’re reading this in Utah, I feel your pain. Of course, it’s not only this issue’s JVC guide that reminds us that jazz is to NYC as country is to Nashville and blues is to Chicago—the modern hub where young players move to make it. Jeff Tamarkin’s piece on producer Bob Belden’s new Miles From India double-disc, a heavyweight repertory project that offers a “Where Are They Now?” checkup on many ’70s-era Miles Davis sidemen, has stoked my anticipation for the historic companion concert that will have come and gone by...

2009-03-02T00:26:10-05:00

4 One of my favorite movies is D.O.A., a superb film noir from 1949. It includes a priceless jazz-ploitation scene with uncredited appearances by James Van Streeter and Teddy Buckner, but that’s not why I’m recalling it in this space. The film’s ingenious premise involves a man named Frank Bigelow, played by Edmond O’Brien, who gets poisoned and has 24 hours to find his own killer. In its best-remembered line, a doctor tells Bigelow, “You’ve been murdered.” At that point the protagonist becomes, surreally and literally, the walking dead. My health is just fine, but I’ve been reminded of this plotline several times in past weeks, thanks to some changes in JazzTimes’ tiny but tight-knit publishing community. Very sadly, HARP Magazine, JT’s sister rock publication, shuttered its doors mid-March, due to a lack of incoming revenue and increased production costs. Unless you’re as savvy a rock fan as you are a jazz follower, you might not be familiar with HARP, but it was—and I’m not saying this just because my byline was in it—the best American rock mag going for much of its seven-year run. More writerly than its competitors and with a tastemaking voice at once discerning and eclectic, it better resembled a hyper-literate U.K. rag like Mojo than the pop tabloids that crowd its market Stateside. But thanks to the rumor mill and the fact that JT and HARP shared some contributors and office space—despite being separate companies—many people have inquired about the livelihood of the mighty JT. The answer is that all is well. JazzTimes has 38 years’ worth of readers to support it and some related business ventures to subsidize it. And if you want proof of the magazine’s good form, just dig this issue. In addition to coverage of Dianne Reeves and Stanley Jordan, there’s an international bent here that reflects jazz’s newly emerging global diaspora: Andrew Gilbert investigates the slew of Israeli transplants currently making a go of the NYC scene; archival photos show jazz icons visiting foreign lands as cultural ambassadors; and Geoffrey Himes—who’s been writing some of the best profiles on jazz musicians this side of Francis Davis—chats up the inimitable West African guitarist Lionel Loueke. Herbie Hancock made jazz a popular music again for however many minutes his Grammy acceptance speech lasted, but we’ll continue listening and reporting for as long as we can, regardless of what records make it into Wal-Mart. But still, after being asked several times if JT would soon follow HARP, I started to think it might, and I felt like an indifferent variation on O’Brien’s doomed hero in D.O.A.—I was still treading water but knew the end was near. So one morning, instead of reaching for my monocle to line-edit copy, I kicked back, poured four shots of Jameson in my coffee, and cued up YouTube clips of heyday Steely Dan performances. After three hours I contemplated either building a fort using unwanted promo CDs or scaling the building with a ladder I made from Dizzy Gillespie T-shirts. But wait, I thought, this is what I do every day, even on deadline. It’s great work if you can get it. true 292 2008-06-16T19:16:04-04:00 false 18104 117 200805 true 96 2008-05-01T00:00:00-04:00

One of my favorite movies is D.O.A., a superb film noir from 1949. It includes a priceless jazz-ploitation scene with uncredited appearances by James Van Streeter and Teddy Buckner, but that’s not why I’m recalling it in this space. The film’s ingenious premise involves a man named Frank Bigelow, played by Edmond O’Brien, who gets poisoned and has 24 hours to find his own killer. In its best-remembered line, a doctor tells Bigelow, “You’ve been murdered.” At that point the protagonist becomes, surreally and literally, the walking dead. My health is just fine, but I’ve been reminded of this plotline several times in past weeks, thanks to some changes in JazzTimes’ tiny but tight-knit publishing community. Very sadly, HARP Magazine, JT’s sister rock publication, shuttered its doors mid-March, due to a lack of incoming revenue and increased production costs. Unless you’re as savvy a rock fan as you are a jazz follower, you might not be familiar with HARP, but it was—and I’m not saying this just because my byline was in it—the best American rock mag going for much of its seven-year run. More writerly than its competitors and with a tastemaking voice at once discerning and eclectic, it better resembled a hyper-literate U.K. rag like Mojo than the pop tabloids that crowd its market Stateside. But thanks to the rumor mill and the fact that JT and HARP shared some contributors and office space—despite being separate companies—many people have inquired about the livelihood of the mighty JT. The answer is that all is well....

2009-03-02T00:26:14-05:00

4 I was warned by jazz-savvy East Coasters about my second voyage to winter NAMM, that larger-than-life California trade show where the instrument industry debuts the axes and gadgets that will haunt credit statements in the following year. The first time out, I was promised, would be funny and surreal, and it was: Like a Reagan-era metalhead’s bedroom walls brought to life, the exhibit halls featured a who’s-who of VH1 Classic regulars and shred-guitar virtuoso types who make their living by playing certain guitars, amps, pedals and strings. NAMM Round Two, I was told, would yield intense déjà vu. Right again: same booths, same borderline celebrities (apparently Bill Murray showed up, but not near me), same PR spiels about how a specific guitar or snare drum can disclose the meaning of life, same Anaheim—a town that always reminds me how much I love visiting Manhattan. Pop and jazz have weathered several small revolutions since the heyday of Yngwie Malmsteen and the Rippingtons, but you wouldn’t know it at NAMM. Mark Twain was wrong about Cincinnati—when Armageddon approaches, I’m heading to Orange County. Like the suburban megastores that support it and despite the overstock of musicians present, NAMM isn’t always that musical. Because the sellable features of an instrument are better showcased with algebraic flurries of notes than with gently comped rhythm changes and a breezy melody, the shows and demos champion an athletic sort of musicality. It’s sport music, often quite literally: After hurtling over one particularly showy lick, the hard-rock guitarist Paul Gilbert threw his arms in the air and hollered like an Olympian finishing the 40-yard dash. As expected, the jazz schedule is pushed toward fusion most of the time, but not all: Hauling a sack of catalogs underneath the fluorescent lights and feeling not unlike John Zorn locked in the Mall of America, I stumbled upon James Carter and Azar Lawrence trading choruses on “Mr. P.C.” Lawrence, a historical sideman whose recent resurrection after pop sessions, tragedy and substance abuse couldn’t be more welcome, battled this blues form with the Trane-inspired might that earned him ’70s credits such as McCoy’s Enlightenment and Miles’ Dark Magus. And although running into Lawrence was the summit, there were other less cinematic moments of reprieve throughout my four-day sojourn in mid-January. Enter Marcus Miller, who straddles the middle ground between ’80s-era virtuosity and modern musicality better than most. At a too-brief Fender-sponsored performance with a quintet, Miller played selections from Marcus, the new Concord Jazz release he discusses with Don Heckman in this issue’s cover story. The reigning king of the “bass-out-front” format, Miller impressed on several counts. His solos, such as those on Miles’ “Jean Pierre,” tastefully embellished the seesawing melody at the service of the groove. (That and the presence of Toots’ heir Gregoire Maret assured me Miller will never leave jazz behind no matter how many movies he scores.) The set-opener “Blast,” which could easily lay the foundation for a crunk hip-hop club banger, argued Miller does something his ’80s peers seem incapable of: thoughtfully absorb current pop and urban music. The performance only approached a typical NAMM meltdown on a closing rendition of Tower of Power’s “What is Hip?,” and even that was preceded by a telling disclaimer from the bandleader: “They said we got five minutes left, but we play jazz, so that’s a jazz five minutes.” true 292 2008-06-17T18:44:50-04:00 false 18226 118 200804 true 96 2008-04-01T00:00:00-04:00

I was warned by jazz-savvy East Coasters about my second voyage to winter NAMM, that larger-than-life California trade show where the instrument industry debuts the axes and gadgets that will haunt credit statements in the following year. The first time out, I was promised, would be funny and surreal, and it was: Like a Reagan-era metalhead’s bedroom walls brought to life, the exhibit halls featured a who’s-who of VH1 Classic regulars and shred-guitar virtuoso types who make their living by playing certain guitars, amps, pedals and strings. NAMM Round Two, I was told, would yield intense déjà vu. Right again: same booths, same borderline celebrities (apparently Bill Murray showed up, but not near me), same PR spiels about how a specific guitar or snare drum can disclose the meaning of life, same Anaheim—a town that always reminds me how much I love visiting Manhattan. Pop and jazz have weathered several small revolutions since the heyday of Yngwie Malmsteen and the Rippingtons, but you wouldn’t know it at NAMM. Mark Twain was wrong about Cincinnati—when Armageddon approaches, I’m heading to Orange County. Like the suburban megastores that support it and despite the overstock of musicians present, NAMM isn’t always that musical. Because the sellable features of an instrument are better showcased with algebraic flurries of notes than with gently comped rhythm changes and a breezy melody, the shows and demos champion an athletic sort of musicality. It’s sport music, often quite literally: After hurtling over one particularly showy lick, the hard-rock guitarist Paul Gilbert threw his arms...

2009-03-02T00:26:18-05:00

4 We’re a small but dedicated group of writers and editors who bring you JT each month, but often we feel like morticians. Instead of formaldehyde and makeup, we arrange the use of hyperbole and half-remembered anecdotes to dress up our departed, ignoring their embarrassments and failures—like all respectful eulogizers—and sending them off into the annals of jazz history with legacies grossly overstated or, in the case of cover subject Max Roach, hopelessly undefined, even with huge-hearted efforts made by men like the superb drummer Jeff “Tain” Watts (see page 44). Max’s influence outshines words, and the only truly fitting homage I can imagine would be one of his own hi-hat recitals, during which he proved it’s possible to define jazz by swing and swing alone. To be sure, perhaps until Roy Haynes or Tain nods to Max as Max did to Papa Jo, that’s a road we’ll never have the joy of traversing again. Face it: In a century-old art form, especially one once defined by hard living, its players are going to pass away in droves. And pass they do, so much so that I wince when I open my e-mail account each morning. I’ve joked, in questionable taste, that our Web site, JazzTimes.com, should change its slogan from “...more than a magazine” to “keeping jazz alive, one obituary at a time.” Still, our efforts rarely seem great enough to satiate JT’s readers. Each month we’re greeted with a lion’s share of indignant e-mails and letters, ranging from the completely warranted (a helpful voicemail informed me we’d dropped the ball on noting the death of pianist Sal Mosca, one of Lennie Tristano’s brightest disciples, some issues back) to the extremely unreasonable (usually something like, “How could you not include a retrospective article on the late So-and-So? He was a pinnacle of the Scranton, Pa., free-improv scene from spring 1967 through winter 1968!”). In interests of deadlines, we can’t possibly react to each and every death as it occurs with a timely full-length piece; even if we could, you’d probably find that much deifying exhausting and depressing, and jazz’s present and future are too vital to be sidelined anyway. So that’s why we designate March our “Farewells” issue, and thoroughly bum you out with one big gooey, nostalgic rag. Actually, the pieces we rounded up from celebrity contributors ranging from producer Bob Belden to critic Francis Davis and detective novelist Michael Connelly are utterly inspirational, surprisingly candid, and totally worth your time. You should read them for the same reason the divine literary critic Harold Bloom has argued human beings should read at all: because you can’t possibly know enough people. I’m guessing Andrew Hill didn’t phone you regularly to lovingly weigh you down with expectations and constructively criticize your career. But he did call Greg Osby, who remembers those conversations on page 37. Death is brought to life by intimate memories. As I write this, I’m taking short breaks watching YouTube footage of Oscar Peterson—who died too late in 2007 to be included in the Farewells feature—deconstruct “Soft Winds” with the elegant adrenaline that was his trademark (he’s sweating through his tuxedo, and I can’t imagine a better visual analogy for such a fiery traditionalist). It’s a splendid way to pay respects, but it’s not enough for empathy. true 292 2008-06-18T18:56:46-04:00 false 18368 120 200803 true 96 2008-03-01T00:00:00-05:00

We’re a small but dedicated group of writers and editors who bring you JT each month, but often we feel like morticians. Instead of formaldehyde and makeup, we arrange the use of hyperbole and half-remembered anecdotes to dress up our departed, ignoring their embarrassments and failures—like all respectful eulogizers—and sending them off into the annals of jazz history with legacies grossly overstated or, in the case of cover subject Max Roach, hopelessly undefined, even with huge-hearted efforts made by men like the superb drummer Jeff “Tain” Watts (see page 44). Max’s influence outshines words, and the only truly fitting homage I can imagine would be one of his own hi-hat recitals, during which he proved it’s possible to define jazz by swing and swing alone. To be sure, perhaps until Roy Haynes or Tain nods to Max as Max did to Papa Jo, that’s a road we’ll never have the joy of traversing again. Face it: In a century-old art form, especially one once defined by hard living, its players are going to pass away in droves. And pass they do, so much so that I wince when I open my e-mail account each morning. I’ve joked, in questionable taste, that our Web site, JazzTimes.com, should change its slogan from “...more than a magazine” to “keeping jazz alive, one obituary at a time.” Still, our efforts rarely seem great enough to satiate JT’s readers. Each month we’re greeted with a lion’s share of indignant e-mails and letters, ranging from the completely warranted (a helpful voicemail informed...

2009-03-02T00:26:23-05:00