The Tenth Annual Jaybee-bies: 2020 Vision

Executive Summary:

Fuck this year. 

Seriously. 

I'll admit this isn't an original sentiment.

Abstract:

Let me set your expectations right up top here by saying please do not read this for any wise words on this horrendous year. I spent enough time on that here, here, here, well, you get the idea. Right now, I'm just going to focus on the newer (to me) music (or whatever) that got me through it. 

However...

Best Humans:

Smarter people than me have identified the heroes and villains. But here's my very short list of the former. If you can't figure out the latter by now, I can't help you

• Every fucking doctor/nurse/tech/health care worker in the country.*
• Every first responder or front line essential worker.*
• Every teacher.*
• Every mom trying to figure out whether to send their child to school and go to work or to stay home with them.
• Anthony Fauci
• Various internet voices like Don Winslow/John Fugelsang etc.

* Sorry to get all topical and everything, but if you agree with these statements, but don't wear a mask you're part of the problem.

Best Books:

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

The unabridged version, running 1400 or so pages. Overlong, but so was the French Revolution (which this book is NOT about, but kind of is anyway). Funny, too.

Air Guitar by David Hickey

High-falutin' but never pretentious art theory, which includes but is not limited to Chet Baker, Female Wrestling, Las Vegas, and Perry Mason.

The Mirror and the Light by Hillary Mantel

Henry VIII was an okay king, a bad husband, and an even worse boss.

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

Overlong and perhaps overrated, but with many sublime moments.

Best Movies:

I didn't really see any so I don't really give a shit. Or is that vice versa?

Best TV:

Bojack Horseman

Better Call Saul

The Good Place

Schitt's Creek

Watchmen

Music Awards:

Most Work (But Worth it): Fiona

Most Work (And Possibly Not Worth It): Bill Evans, but the jury is still out.

Most Surprising (and Not Necessarily in a Good Way): Bad Bunny I meant to get Beach Bunny!

Most Disappointing: Bill Evans, but only because he's not Bud Powell or Thelonious Monk.

Best Artist: Fiona (writer, singer, pianist)

The Best:

1. Big Thief: UFOF (2019) Mrs. Jaybee hates all the soft-voiced women I'm listening to lately, but I love the utter simplicity of the songs and arrangements.
2. Purple Mountains: Purple Mountains (2019) Crushing depression has rarely been so entertaining.
3. Fiona Apple: Fetch the Bolt Cutters (2020) Man, this one's a lot of work, but it's worth it.
4. Funkadelic: Motor City Madness (2006) I'm cheating a bit because I usually don't include compilations, but this one deserves it. I was inspired by my going back to an early best of during the depths of the pandemic. This is o obviously rock n' roll that all I can do is scratch my head and wonder how we missed it back then. They picked up where Sly left off and then handed things off to hip hop before disintegrating. 
5. Frank Ocean: Channel Orange (2012) Wonderfully diverse, melodic, and entertaining.
6. Devo: Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! (1978) For a so-called weird record, this is quite tuneful and consistent. 
7. Fripp and Eno: Evening Star (1975) This is the one where dial things back from the other more experimental - but weirdly fun - one I picked up this year. Pretty, weird, with just a touch of ominous. 
8. D'Angelo: Black Messiah (2015) It's great to hear a band (as opposed to just a singer) chugging through these very funky songs one after the other.
9. Fountains of Wayne: Utopia Parkway (1999) Sharper than their first. Their satire is bolder but manages to retain their humanity.
10. Beyonce: Lemonade (2016) Pretty slick but all that production is put to good use. 

Latecomers like Classic Collaborations with John Coltrane (8 albums!) and The Last Concert by the Modern Jazz Quartet (a double) don't make an appearance. And poor Bill Evans is just too subtle over the course of his 12(!) album collection to crack the top ten. But time is on his side.

Some of the best songs I heard this year can be found here.

Conclusions:

This music is probably even better than I'm saying it is. After all, it had more to do than it would have to in a typical year. It couldn't bring just joy or inspiration. It had to provide a lifeline. That's a lot to ask. Too much, really.

And although there have been glimmers of hope in the last two months, one family member died and another just got Covid, so we are not out of the woods yet.  

I hope 2021 lets us relax a little. But I wouldn't go as far as this.

Be well.

A Bajillion Classic Albums!

Too Much Music, or Please Ignore the Picture of the Cute Kid:

Last time it was about where to draw the line when it comes to music you consider to be your own.

Now I'm wondering about the box sets/compilations/anthologies that will overwhelm you with the sheer volume of music they contain. I've definitely dipped my toe in here with Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier (7 CDs) and Beethoven's Nine Symphonies (5 CDs). 

And I have some friends - yeah you, Nutboy - who think nothing of having every Dylan Bootleg release in existence, and who somehow emerge unscathed and have enough time and brain cells left for other music! 

Because time is the issue here, not money. Not anymore.

I've been stuck on a WHP post on the Beethoven Symphonies for months, and I've had that record for forty fucking years.

It doesn't help that my buying habits have led Amazon to make the following suggestions to me:

Eight Classic Albums by Lee Morgan for $13.54

5 Original Albums by Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers for $16.90

8 Classic Albums by Thelonious Monk for $10.28

Classic Collaborations 1957-1963 by John Coltrane for $13.39

Essential Original Albums by Chet Baker $21.08

And me, like a dog seeing a squirrel, can't help but add them to my Shopping Cart (in the Saved for Later section, thank god).

But note the very reasonable prices for these collections. The prices on the individual albums are pretty good, too, and if I focused on them, one at a time, I'd end up with less music but more I can actually absorb.

But I didn't. Instead, I succumbed to the temptation of the six-CD 12 Classic Albums by Bill Evans thus diving into the deep end of the pool again.

And if I make any more such purchases, does the concept of the single album that has played a central role in my musical life has begun to fade away? And will all of these artists end up getting short-shrift because I can't really listen to any one of them for very long?

Back in 2016, I joked about getting so sucked into the WHP that it might seem I was reading every book ever written and every record ever recorded. As that idiot Morrissey would say, that joke isn't funny anymore.

But Back to Bill Evans, Remember Him?:

Some other important concepts pertaining to this collection:

• Time: A ridiculous 7 hours. Not for him. For me!
• Space: Not terrible, about an inch wide. But it's still an open question if he warrants it.
• Number of Albums: I have this query in Access called "Summary by Artist" which is a quick way of determining who's in my pantheon. It looks something like this:

# Albums	Artist
22	The Beatles
16	Bob Dylan
16	Neil Young
14	The Who
13	Rolling Stones
11	Miles Davis
11	R.E.M.
11	The Kinks
10	Bruce Springsteen
10	Elvis Costello
9	Little Feat

Now, I ask you, is it fair that this young whippersnapper Bill Evans (who I feel I should mention has been dead for forty years) - an artist I don't even know if I like yet - suddenly vaults to the number six spot in one purchase - past other artists like Miles Davis(!), whose albums I purchased one at a time over the course of decades, thus proving their value to me every step of the way?

Uh, what was the question Jaybee? 

Never mind! You get my point.

But Jaybee, What About the, um, Music?

Good Question!

Aside from his work on Kind of Blue, I'm not really familiar with his work. And you know by now not to ask the obvious question: So, why would you then buy 12 fucking albums by him? And all I can say is, I'm the scorpion.

So I will probably NEVER get to the bottom of this small pile of six CDs, so I'll just focus on the first one for now which comprises his first two albums.

New Jazz Conceptions (1956)

Nice, fine technique. Melodic. He doesn't overdo it. But he does mellow out a bit too much on side two.

B+

"Waltz for Debby"

Everybody Digs Bill Evans (1959)

A bit more "sophisticated". What, with all those quotes on the cover he better be. Smooth. Cool. But not much fire. (I just said cool, didn't I??)

He does finish strong with some lyrical tunes, though.

B+

"Peace Piece"

And I'll eventually get to the rest. But based on what I've heard thus far, here is my updated list of favorite jazz pianists:

1. Bud Powell: A great combination of technical mastery and imagination.

2. Thelonious Monk: A bit twisted, technique-wise, but man, what a mind!

3. Errol Garner: Bud Powell for the middle class, in the best possible way.

4. Bill Evans: Technique-wise better than all of the above, but impact-wise less than expected.

5. Art Tatum: Brilliant technique, but too slick by half (whatever that means).

In a word, it's about fun.

And Bill, sorry to say - especially with those forbidding glasses - is not a whole lot of fun. 

The Long View, If I Ever Get To It:

Bill Evans died right around the time John Lennon did, and I remember being in a bookstore overhearing the manager bemoaning the fact that Lennon's death was far more widely known and mourned than Evans, who he considered just as great a talent.

Thems would normally be fighting words but I'm younger than that now. And who knows how I'll feel after immersing myself further? Perhaps my opinion of Bill Evans will eventually be similar. 

The trouble is by then I don't know if I'll have a worthwhile opinion about anything else.