Full Disclosure, Part 4: Having Said All That

As I've said in the past my jazz sweet spot is late-fifties small combos. 40s big bands are a big learning curve for me and I find 70s fusion revolting and 80s "quite storm" boring.

Here's a sort of list of my favorite jazz albums

• Miles Davis: Kind of Blue/In a Silent Way/Jack Johnson
• Thelonious Monk: Misterioso/Genius of Modern Music
• Django Reinhardt: Djangology
• John Coltrane: Giant Steps
• Bud Powell: The Amazing Bud Powell, Vol. 1
• Keith Jarrett: The Koln Concert
• Erroll Garner: Concert by the Sea
• Charlie Christian and Benny Goodman
• Vince Guaraldi: A Charlie Brown Christmas
• Charlie Parker: Ken Burns Jazz/Legendary Dial Masters
• John Coltrane and Thelonious Monk: Live at Carnegie Hall

I'm not really sure how helpful that is, so I decided to try something else. Here's a table with several of the above, along with a couple I'm not crazy about, all scored via some not-so-well-thought-out categories, each using a scale of 1 - 5:

Accessibility: How likely you'll immediately find it catchy.

Depth: How much there is to hear in there.

Warmth: How welcoming in tone.

If I threw in all of the ones I first mentioned you'd more easily see that my favorites don't score consistently highly in any particular category. That's where my own taste comes in.

So with this in mind let me tell you about a few records, which I'll try to grade, and also score.

John Coltrane: Africa Brass (1961)

Ever the explorer, here JC is with a big band (arranged by sweet weirdo Eric Dolphy) and it is so much better than I'd expected. The big band provides a huge sound wall that JC tries to bound over. It provides an outlet for all that pent-up musical energy.

My version contains both volumes, with some resulting alternate versions. Not a problem. JC always makes them worthwhile.

The best place to start with JC? Probably not. That might be My Favorite Things. But bitching JC disc? Absolutely.

Grade: A-

Score: 4/4/4

"Song of the Underground Railroad"

Sun Ra Arkestra: Lanquidity (1978)

I could swear I caught Sun Ra for the first time on Saturday Night Live. I couldn't track it down on Youtube, but Wikipedia not on confirms it, but says that this album was recorded right after their appearance!

Buck Henry was the host that night, and I remember him introducing Sun Ra and Arkestra with all due respect and reverence. The performance was easily one of the weirdest I'd witnessed up until that time. Unless Tiny Tim counted.

SR is the classic "difficult artist with a huge back catalog" that makes the idea of finding an entry point quite daunting. I asked some on-line acquaintances where to start, and they offered some helpful suggestions, like "anywhere". I finally broke down via a mysterious now missing Christgau recommendation and got this record, with bonus alternate versions of each cut.

And I'd take it over Bitches Brew any day. That bloated monster was almost all flash and awkward funk (Yes, I just invented that oxymoronic genre.) But Lanquidity is modest, almost halting, slightly out of tune saxophone duets and slow-churned miasma. A bit funky, a bit brooding. And the alternate cuts just extend the spell. Kind of like that strange neighbor of yours who talks to himself all day. 

I'm not sure if this would be a good entry point for Sun Ra, so be warned.

Grade: A-

Score: 3/3/3

"Where Pathways Meet"

Various Artists: Roots of Jazz Funk, Vol 1 (2006)

This collection lands squarely in my jazz sweet spot, and is just wonderful.

I only own one of its eleven cuts. And the rest includes several artists who aren't quite in the pantheon but who have great performances (Lee Morgan, "The Sidewinder", Art Blakey, "Moanin", Horace Silver, "Song for My Father", Cannonball Adderly, "Work Song") and some who are, doing songs that had thus far eluded me.

The key concept: no standards (and thus, no trying to figure out the tune and what they're doing to it),  just instrumentals with memorable riffs, and ace players to drive it home. Because if you don't do it right it can be deadly dull. This one gets it right every single time.

A perfect intro to the era.

A

5/4/5

"Work Song"

Now, before I go all pop for the spring, as a parting gift, here's a performance from Sun Ra and Arkestra from about a year before the SNL appearance, where they let it all hang out:

Full Disclosure, Part 3: Where I'm Coming From

Music is an obsession for me, so I almost couldn't help but do a better job of staying in the convo than most. If I'm wrong, then I’m just another drunk in the virtual bar. 

My goal is to keep you from being this person, or an old geezer who says things like "Kids These Days". 

But with that in mind, There Are Some Things About Me You Should Know. The following is a list of things that might provide insight into my taste.

I have a bigger-than-average (1,600 or so) record collection, with the inevitable gaps. I don't think I'd want every single record by anybody, and can speak with real authority about none. And I'm willing to accept the general consensus that, say, Dylan (1973) is a horrible album. I did, however, hear his version of "Big Yellow Taxi" and...shudder.

I have my own unique tastes and enthusiasms.

I'd like to think my center of gravity is pop music, but the definition of which changes daily, so to be more specific, I'll say "rock music" - bands that play electric guitars, preferably with some songwriting underneath it. 

Rock 'n Roll should be fun. And if serious it should be very passionate. 

I was always more Allmans/Dead than Zeppelin.

I like guitars that chime and that crunch. Loud, by itself, does nothing for me.

Great technical skill means nothing without good songs. The minimal skill required to put the song across is all that's really needed.

I am way behind on music by African Americans, only enjoying 70s (Funkadelic) in the last 20 years or so, and 80s/90s hip hop about now.

I find music from Africa - at least what I've been exposed to - to be very enticing. Probably because they like their guitars, too. The singing and the beats are a bonus.

I like “old” country music (Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, etc) but even then in small doses. (I don't ever see myself doing a "Country Weekend" at my house.

Modern county music just sounds like watered-down rock 'n roll with cornier guitar playing. Due to sexual - and political - politics, unless there's a female singer, I usually can't get through it.

I usually have my fill of bluegrass after listening to one album a year.

I also don’t see myself doing a “let’s play all my reggae albums today” unless I take up weed during my retirement.

I have a greater tolerance for blues, which I can play all day, but maybe not tomorrow. Not the summer, either.

Electronica would get its own day (by which I mean night).

Ditto ambient. Unless I’m in a depression, then it's for the duration.

Classical is best taken in small doses. But I can imagine a “classical-only winter” in my future.

I look forward to a jazz-only winter. In lieu of that there's always a John Coltrane Day, Thelonious Monk Day (in song title order, just for laughs) Miles Davis Day, etc.

I’m also a big believer in the “Don’t hate disco/funk/EDM, etc. because it’s got a beat, and don’t hate classical because it doesn’t”. It's like hating chicken because it tastes like chicken.

Each of these genres produces both good and bad music. My judgments are based on how well I keep up with the conversation. They may seem all over the place because of that - hating a perfectly pleasant album while loving something that doesn't even make sense to me. I will try to warn you when this happens.

And metal! How could I forget metal? 

Because I want to.

Full Disclosure, Part 2: The Convo

Whatever anyone may tell you about hearing music that absolutely floored them that happens less and less as you get older. But it's not because of the music itself.

Some recent studies have found that we connect most with the music we hear at age fifteen. That's what we'll always look back on wistfully, often with good reason. But if you stopped listening after that, it's highly likely you'll hear something new and have that same feeling. 

And it's not simply that you haven't listened. It's also that the music has changed over time. One of the reasons it changes is that it's not done in a vacuum. There are artists who will hole up in a studio and seemingly out of left field release something that completely changes the game. 

More often, though, it's that an artist releases something that's a little different and listeners respond positively to it. (Let's for the moment forget about the 90% of the time when they react negatively.) The artist is then encouraged to continue to make music in this vein, or even explore further.

Then other artists respond - either through being inspired or wanting to cash in - by producing something like what the first artist did. Suddenly you've got a trend that will either die out or in turn push someone else to try something a little different again, and so on. The music is evolving. (Just call me Jaybee Darwin.)

So what I'm saying is that there is a kind of dialog going on between artists and audiences, with the first group doing something the other group responds to positively. Over time the dialog is such that there are references or even "in-jokes" the artist is confident the audience will get.  

And here (finally) is the critical part: If you drop out of the audience for a while, if/when you come back you might be bewildered by the sound. If however, you don't leave you might find these same sounds to be quite natural.

And if you liken it to participating in a conversation, it's like you're hanging out with friends talking and you step away for a while. When you come back it's unlikely they're talking about the same thing as before so you have to listen to get your bearings again.

With music those periods of stepping away can be years, what with life pulling and pushing at you. 

And, man, when you come back it's jarring. I had a period in the early nineties when the kids were young so loud music was "counterproductive" to sanity, new music was replaced by diapers and formula. 

By then, radio had discovered Classic Rock, and abandoned any pretense of playing anything new except in the strictest chronological sense. The internet was in its infancy. The best it had to offer was "Joe Schmo's All-Time Favorite Albums" on an AOL bulletin board. (Joe, by the way, likes Black Sabbath.) So I read about new music more than heard it.

My absence had an impact - the nineties are highly regarded for grunge, ska, etc. To this day I'm a bit cool to it all. I'm still not crazy about lo-fi guitars or white guys strumming off the beat.

The typical response might be a variation of "Kids These Days". But when you hear yourself saying things your mom and pop said - and I'm sure they were wonderful people - you should know you're in trouble.

But over time I worked my way back into the conversation.

But if you see this guy, don't even try:

Full Disclosure, Part 1: Egrets, I've Had a Few

I was busy patting myself on the back the other day about some clever turn of phrase I came up with, when it occurred to me that my original goal in creating this blog - other than the obvious ones ("Ego Trip", "I'm Smarter Than You", "Avoid Actually Conversing with Humans", etc.) - was to bridge the gap between other people my age and all the great music available to them that they probably didn't know about. 

A recent audit revealed that I suck at this.

The critical idea was to disprove the notion that "there's no good music anymore", by directing the reader to said good music. I felt qualified to do this because, except for a short period in the early nineties, I've kept up with musical developments while my dear readers may not have. This is due to them having a life while I don't

So, while I've been free and easy about telling you that I like something, it might have been more helpful to also have given you the context you might need to determine if you might like it, too.

After all, it's one thing to say "this is a good jazz record" but do you really know what I mean by that? Do you know I love late-fifties small-combo jazz and loathe fusion? And if neither of those two labels means anything to you, have I told you if said record might be a good entry point into jazz? Maybe not.

Thus my grades were based on personal enjoyment and not that of the reader who may be hearing free-acid-bop-dixieland jazz for the first time. As our beloved ex-President would say, who knew?

So who would blame you for just shaking your head/plugging your ears? Besides me, I mean?

I'll continue to grade according to my very specific tastes, but I will try to provide more context/ caveats/caution when needed. That way, when I recommend a jazz record, you will already know what I like, and thus, be able to judge if it's a good bet to check out yourself.

I may even - if so inspired - place the music somewhere on a spectrum of that genre.

Just don't ask for bar graphs, okay?

Oh, and don't buy this record: