The New Year holds all sorts of promises-of new love, increased wealth, world peace. But what do we, as jazz fans, really and truly want more of? Affordable nightclubs? I guess. Books about jazz? Eh, sure. Compact discs? Hello! Yes!
Though my groaning basement shelves may disagree, you can never have too many CDs. With that in mind-and knowing you don’t just buy this mag for the editor’s notes, regardless of what my mom says–we compiled all the info we could by press time (Dec. 31, 2003) about the biggest releases of 2004.
Remember, like on prom night, dates are subject to change. And TBA means “to be announced”; there aren’t dozens of albums scheduled with that title.
January
Cheryl Bentyne
Talk of the Town
Telarc
Various Artists
Live From the Cotton Club
Bear Family
Bud Shank, Bob Cooper,
Bob Brookmeyer
Mosaic Select
Mosaic
Bob Brookmeyer
Mosaic Select
Mosaic
Marcus Miller, Michel Petrucciani, Kenny Garrett, Lenny White
Dreyfus Night, 1993
Dreyfus
Joey DeFrancesco
Plays Sinatra His Way
HighNote
David “Fathead” Newman
Song for the New Man
HighNote
Don Braden
The New Hang
HighNote
Joel Frahm & Brad Mehldau
Don’t Explain
Palmetto
Dave Douglas
Strange Liberation
Bluebird
Preservation Hall Jazz Band
Best of The Early Years
Hot Four
Shake That Thing
Preservation Hall Recordings
Jenny Scheinman
Shalagaster
Tzadik
Jamie Baum Septet
Moving Forward, Standing Still
OmniTone
Russ Johnson
Save Big
OmniTone
Von Freeman
The Great Divide
Premonition
Brian Bromberg
Choices
A440
Larry Carlton
Sapphire Blue
Bluebird
Claudia Quintet
I Claudia
Cuneiform
Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath
Bremen to Bridgewater
Cuneiform
Two CDs live
Allan Holdsworth
Centrifugal Funk
Tone Center
February
Brian Lynch & Bill Charlap
Brian Lynch Meets Bill Charlap
Sharp Nine
Wadada Leo Smith
Nu Frequency
Tzadik
Four CDs of his Kabell recordings
John McLauglin
The Montreux Concerts, 1974-2003
Warner Bros.
Seventeen live CDs
Curtis Fuller
Up Jumped Spring
Delmark
Ted Sirota’s Rebel Souls
Breeding Resistance
Delmark
Marian McPartland
Piano Jazz: Mary Lou Williams
Concord
Takashi Matsunaga
Storm Zone
Blue Note
U.S. debut by 17-year-old Japanese wunderkind pianist
Paul Brown
Up Front
GRP
George Benson
Irreplaceable
GRP
Roy Haynes
Fountain of Youth
Dreyfus
Roland Hanna
Tributaries: Reflections on Tommy Flanagan
IPO
World Saxophone Quartet
Tribute to Jimi Hendrix
Justin Time
El-P
High Water (Mark)
Thirsty Ear/Blue Series
Def Jux rapper’s collaboration with Matthew Shipp and Co.
Ray Vega Latin Jazz Sextet
Squeeze, Squeeze
Palmetto
David Berkman
Start Here, Finish There
Palmetto
Brad Mehldau Trio
Anything Goes
Warner Bros.
All-acoustic trio recording
Andy Bey
American Song
Savoy
Hubert Laws
Moondance
Savoy
The Mark Turner-Jeff Ballard-Larry Grenadier Project
FLY
Savoy
Tierney Sutton
Dancing in the Dark
Telarc
March
Jason Miles
Maximum Grooves
Telarc
DJ Spooky
Blue Series Mega-Mix
Thirsty Ear/Blue Series
Dave Brubeck
For All Time
Columbia/Legacy
Box set compiles Time Out, Time Further Out, Countdown: Time in Outer Space, Time Changes, Time In and six bonus tracks
Andy Narell
The Passage
Head’s Up
Monica Mancini
Ultimate Mancini
Concord
Reworked Henry Mancini classics by his daughter and the likes of Stevie Wonder and Take 6
Ranee Lee
Maple Groove
Justin Time
Enrico Rava
Easy Living
ECM
Charles Lloyd & Billy Higgins
Which Way Is East
ECM
Intimate, home-recorded duets, just before Higgins died
Fred Hersch
Fred Hersch Trio + 2
Palmetto
Russell Malone
Playground
MaxJazz
Bill Charlap Trio
Somewhere: The Songs of Leonard Bernstein
Blue Note
April
Janis Siegel
Sketches of Broadway
Telarc
Pieces of a Dream
TBA
Head’s Up
Marion Meadows
TBA
Head’s Up
John Abercrombie Quartet
TBA
ECM
Steve Kuhn
Promises Kept
ECM
Marilyn Crispell Trio
TBA
ECM
Louis Sclavis
Napoli’s Walls
ECM
Gerald Albright
TBA
GRP
Dave Grusin
TBA
GRP
Craig Taborn
Junk Magic
Thirsty Ear/Blue Series
David Murray & the Gwo-Ka Masters featuring Pharoah Sanders
TBA
Justin Time
Frank Kimbrough Trio
TBA
Palmetto
Mulgrew Miller & Jessica Williams
TBA
MaxJazz
James Carter
Live at Baker’s
Warner Bros.
Long-delayed live album
Stefon Harris
Blackout
Blue Note
Vincent Herring
TBA
HighNote
Curtis Fuller
TBA
HighNote
May
John Scofield Trio
TBA
Verve
Live album with Bill Stewart and Steve Swallow
Dave Brubeck
Private Brubeck Reporting for Duty, Sir!
Telarc
Hiromi
TBA
Telarc
Spyro Gyra
TBA
Head’s Up
Joe McBride
Texas Chilled
Head’s Up
Charlie Haden
TBA
Verve
Linda Ronstadt
TBA
Verve
Masters at Work
TBA
Verve
Mike Ladd
Negrophilia
Thirsty Ear/Blue Series
Evan Parker
Memory / Vision
ECM
Charnett Moffett
For the Love of Peace
Piadrum
June
Benny Green & Russell Malone
TBA
Telarc
McCoy Tyner, Gary Bartz, Terrance Blanchard, Christian McBride, Lewis Nash
TBA
Telarc
July
Herbie Mann & Phil Woods
Beyond Brooklyn
Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild
Bob Minzter Big Band & Kurt Elling
TBA
Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild
August
Geri Allen, Dave Holland,
Jack DeJohnette
TBA
Telarc
First album in six years
Nancy Wilson
R.S.V.P. (Rare Songs, Very Personal)
Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild
September
The Manhattan Transfer
TBA
Telarc
First studio recording in four years
TBA CDs/Months
Atavistic/Unheard Music Series
Fred Anderson
Milwaukee Tapes Vol. 2 & Neighbors
Globe Unity Orchestra
Live at Hamburg ’74
Blue Note
Jason Moran (blues album)
Chesky
Bucky Pizzarelli, Johnny Frigo, Michael Moore & Howard Alden
Clark Terry
Columbia/Legacy
Miles Davis
Live at the Cellar Door (three two-CD sets); Seven Steps to Berlin: Complete Miles Davis 1963-64 (six CDs)
Duke Ellington
Blues in Orbit; Piano in the Background; Piano in the Foreground
Herbie Hancock/VSOP
Live Under the Sky
Mahavishnu Orchestra
Between Nothingness and Eternity
Preservation Hall Jazz Band
Volumes 1 & 2 (two CDs)
Concord
Karrin Allyson
Gary Burton
Ray Charles (duets album)
Cryptogramophone
Nels Cline Singers
ECM
Paul Bley
Enja/Justin Time
Billy Bang Aftermath Band
Russell Gunn
Cecil Taylor & Italian Instabile Orchestra
The Owner of the River Bank
HighNote
John Hicks
Mark Murphy
Wallace Roney
Cedar Walton
Buster Williams
Marsalis Music
Brian Blade
Branford Marsalis
MaxJazz
Claudia Acuna
Erin Bode
Peter Martin
Rebecca Martin
Denny Zeitlin
Mosaic
Tal Farlow
Verve Sessions
Erroll Garner
Columbia Sessions
Woody Herman
The Complete Columbia First & Second Herds (five CDs)
Gerry Mulligan
Songbooks (four CDs)
McCoy Tyner
Blue Note Sessions
Various Artists
Capitol Big Band Sessions
Various Artists
The Complete Keynote Recordings
Nagel-Heyer
Darren Barrett
Conte Candoli
Marc Copland & Greg Osby
Wayne Escoffery
Donald Harrison
Brian Lynch
Native Language
Jeff Kashiwa
Palmetto
Ben Allison
Orrin Evans with Bilal
Larry Goldings
Andrew Hill
Dr. Lonnie Smith
Steve Swallow with Ohad Talmor
Bobby Watson
Matt Wilson’s Arts & Crafts
Ropeadope
Steve Bernstein’s Millennial Territory Orchestra
Thirsty Ear/Blue Series
Tim Berne & Big Satan
DJ Spooky & Dave Lombardo
Spring Heel Jack & Wadada Leo Smith
Verve
Chris Potter
Live at the Village Vanguard
Uptown
Dizzy Gillespie Quintet with Charlie Parker (1945 Town Hall)
Warner Bros.
Joshua Redman & Elastic Band
Harry Connick Jr.
Only You (Columbia)
Mr. Personality reestablished his jazz roots with last year’s Marsalis Music release Other Hours: Connick on Piano, Vol. 1 and continued to show his comedic acting skills as Dr. Leo Markus on Will and Grace. He finished 2003 with the Gold-certified Harry for the Holidays CD, a network-TV special and a national big-band tour. Connick will continue his strong string of successes in 2004, with the release of Only You, a romantic collection of standards from the 1950s and 1960s featuring an orchestra and big band, as well as star in a romantic musical-comedy movie production based on a concept from the Wonderboy.
Dude has more juice than an orange grove.
Norah Jones
Feels Like Home (Blue Note)
This will be the biggest jazz-related CD in 2004. Norah Jones is too talented and eclectic for labels, and like the breakthrough Come Away With Me, her new album touches on country, folk, pop, blues and jazz. The collection features the singer-songwriter-pianist once again teaming with producer Arif Mardin and her touring band as well as special guests such as Dolly Parton, the Band’s Levon Helm and Garth Hudson and Jesse “Come Away With Me” Harris.
As for jazz, how about this: Jones wrote lyrics to Duke Ellington’s “Melancholia” and retitled it “Don’t Miss You At All.” “I didn’t set out to write lyrics to this song,” she says. “Just the thought of touching an Ellington composition scares me. But I was so inspired by it.” Just as millions of listeners are by her.
Diana Krall
The Girl in the Other Room (Verve)
Diana Krall did more than just tie the knot with Elvis Costello in 2003: She also roped him into writing some damn good tunes with her. True love! The Girl in the Other Room, which figures to be the biggest jazz CD in 2004, features a half-dozen tunes penned by Krall and her hubby as well as six covers, including Tom Waits’ “Temptation,” Joni Mitchell’s “Black Crow,” Mose Allison’s “Stop This World” and Costello’s fab ballad “Almost Blue.”
Krall coproduced the album with her longtime collaborator Tommy LiPuma, who helped round up a bunch of trusted players: guitarist Anthony Wilson, bassists Christian McBride and John Clayton and drummers Peter Erskine, Jeff Hamilton and Terri Lyne Carrington. Krall plays piano, of course, and she sings like a dream.
If Elvis and Diana can work this well together behind the scenes-hey, you know what we mean! Songwriting!-can a duets album for the twosome be far behind? We hope not.
Miles Davis
Birdland 1951 (Blue Note)
Originally broadcast on Symphony Sid’s radio program, the three live sessions documented on Birdland 1951 were recorded at home by a fan. Two of the three sets have been on widely available bootlegs; the third is making its first appearance on CD.
These performances feature Miles Davis in pure bebop mode. Because these Birdland shows are from “off nights,” and not part of a weeklong engagement, the trumpeter put together different bands for each night. Players include J.J. Johnson, Sonny Rollins, Kenny Drew, Tommy Potter, Art Blakey, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, Big Nick Nicholas, Billy Taylor and Charles Mingus. Get past the sound and you’ll hear history in the making.
Wynton Marsalis
The Magic Hour (Blue Note)
After a 20-year association with Columbia ended with the label deciding not to re-sign Wynton Marsalis, the trumpeter signed to Blue Note for the beguiling The Magic Hour. It’s a match made in heaven, too, with Marsalis diving deep into his oft-repeated four basic tenants of jazz: 4/4 swing, Afro-Hispanic rhythm, blues and ballads.
With The Magic Hour-“For kids, the one hour before they go to bed. For parents, the one hour after the kids go to sleep”-Marsalis says, “I wanted to restate my basic love of jazz music in a quartet format.” Just because he writes symphonies and directs Jazz at Lincoln Center doesn’t mean we ever thought Marsalis didn’t love jazz’s core grouping size, especially one that features pianist Eric Lewis, bassist Carlos Henriquez and drummer Ali Jackson. But apparently the trumpeter thought we forgot: Dianne Reeves guests on the opener, “Feeling of Jazz,” scatting about how great jazz is. We never doubted it.
John Pizzarelli
Bossa Nova (Telarc)
This CD comes across as a concept-heavy endeavor geared toward catapulting singer-guitarist John Pizzarelli to mainstream success of the Harry Connick Jr. sort. And it’s about time, too! Johnny P is handsome, charming and funny-oh, and he can play and sing as well, as he proves throughout the self-descriptive Bossa Nova. Sure the Jobim tunes like “Waters of March” and “The Girl From Ipanema” are here, but what might make radio waves is Pizzarelli’s bossa take on James Taylor’s “Your Smilin’ Face.” Art and commerce can make beautiful bedmates.
Tomasz Stanko Quartet
Suspended Night (ECM)
We don’t know much about this release, but what we do know has primed us: The band on trumpeter Tomasz Stanko’s latest is the same as on 2002’s Soul of Things, the CD that caused many critics and listeners to swoon about the Polish jazzman’s beautiful music. Suspended Night opens with a gorgeous ballad, “Song for Sarah,” and the other 10 tracks are called “Suspended Variations I-X.” Consider us suspended until the CD is released.
The Bad Plus
Give (Columbia)
How did the most rousing and divisive jazz record in years come from an acoustic piano trio? Such is the power of the Bad Plus and its major-label debut, These Are the Vistas. For the follow-up, pianist Ethan Iverson, bassist Reid Anderson and the man who seems to either solidify your love or enmity for the band, drummer Dave King, returned to producer Tchad Blake and Real World Studios in England-and why not? Vistas is an amazing sounding disc, and Give is too. The requisite pop reinterpretations are here-the Pixies’ “Velouria,” Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man”-but there’s also a stunning take on Ornette Coleman’s “Street Woman” and eight fantastic originals by the band members. You can love ’em or hate ’em, but you can’t ignore them: The Bad Plus is here to stay.
Monty Alexander/Ernest Ranglin
Rocksteady (Telarc)
Pianist Monty Alexander and guitarist Ernest Ranglin have made many a jazz-reggae CD in their time, and they’ve made many together. But Rocksteady is particular about the spirit it represents-the era when both the jazz-schooled Alexander and Ranglin were cutting tracks for crooners at Jamaica’s Studio One for producer Clement “Coxson” Dodd. Thing is, the duo and their group don’t limit their choices to 1960s tracks, opting for interpretations of the Congos’ “Fisherman” and Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song” right next to classic ska numbers like “Pressure Drop” and “East of the River Nile.”
Alexander left the island in 1961, but the island never left him. Ranglin, a founding member of the legendary Skatallites, is the island. Together they make the worlds of jazz and ska/reggae sound like the best of friends-just like Alexander and Ranglin.
Jamie Cullum
Twentysomething (Verve)
British pianist and vocalist Jamie Cullum’s Twentysomething was the fastest-selling jazz debut in U.K. history, and it was certified platinum in its sixth week of release. Move over, Peter Cincotti, for Cullum not only has the look and sound to break into the U.S. market, he has the artistry to prove even the most ardent critics of young jazz crooners wrong.
A self-taught player whose influences range from Gershwin to Radiohead, Cullum is also something of a dynamo in concert. Twentysomething’s bossa-nova-tinged title track is Cullum’s sardonic and swinging take on a modern day “quarter-life crisis,” while “All at Sea” evokes Coldplay with chops.
Oh, and he’s 24, to be precise.
Joe Lovano/Hank Jones
I’m All for You: Ballad Songbook
(Blue Note)
Tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano and pianist Hank Jones are a few decades apart in age, but both are among the most distinctive stylists in jazz. For this dream pairing the two are joined by bassist George Mraz and drummer Paul Motian for a run-through of ballads that, like the leaders, cross generations, from Lovano’s “I’m All for You” to brother Hank Jones’ “The Summary (A Suite for Pops),” and from standard standards (“Stella by Starlight”) to shoulda-beens (Coltrane’s “Countdown”).
Albert Ayler
Holy Ghost (Revenant)
This will be a box set of eight to 10 discs of ecstatic saxophonist Albert Ayler in all his raw live glory. Remember how gorgeous Revenant’s Screamin’ and Hollerin’ the Blues: The Worlds of Charley Patton collection was? Expect the same treatment for Holy Ghost. We can’t friggin’ wait to see the set and hear what’s on it (the track listing was still being decided at press time). Spirits rejoice, indeed. Originally Published
