Hot House: a blog dedicated to jazz criticism

Hipness and its Discontents

2012-01-30T18:41:00.000-05:00

Via.

2011

2011-12-31T15:09:00.000-05:00

Thanks to my return to school and other blogging obligations I've been pretty quiet around these parts lately. Which is too bad, since I would have loved to take the time to comment on the latest jazz internet controversies.* I've still got three album reviews in the queue that I have barely started, but alas. I resolve to blog more at some point, but that's as much of a commitment as I'll make for now.

As always, I will list some of my favorite music of the year (jazz and non-jazz) below. I can never listen to anything approaching a comprehensive list of the music released in a given year, but suffice it to say these albums below made me take notice this year.

Ambrose Akinmusire - When The Heart Emerges Glistening
Gretchen Parlato - The Lost And Found
Ben Williams - State of Art
Joe Lovano Us Five - Bird Songs
Orrin Evans - Captain Black Big Band

And my favorite non-jazz of 2011:
Bon Iver - Bon Iver
Cults - Cults
Feist - Metals
Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues
The Roots - Undun
St. Vincent - Strange Mercy
Tune-Yards: w h o k i l l
Kurt Vile - Smoke Ring For My Halo
Wye Oak - Civilian

And one final farewell to Paul Motian, Sam Rivers, Bob Brookmeyer, Andre Hodeir, Hitch, Mad Dog, Hubert Sumlin, Pete Rugolo, Al Davis, Fred Shuttlesworth, The Big Man, Gil Scott-Heron, Harmon Killebrew, Sidney Lumet, Pinetop Perkins, and anyone else I have left out.

Here's to a happy 2012.

*Especially the jazz/Black American Music debate. I'm all for moving beyond the word "jazz," which is way too small a word to encompass all the music stuffed under its umbrella. But suffice it to say, anyone who calls himself the savior of anything (as Nicholas Payton does vis-a-vis "Archaic Pop") sets off my bullshit detectors immediately. I'm glad someone is not afraid to write candidly about the racial aspects of American music, but maybe one day the internet can handle a complex discussion like this without devolving into a pissing match within a few minutes...

Trombone Shorty plays Tiny Desk

2011-10-09T16:12:00.000-04:00

W H O K I L L

2011-09-28T10:33:00.000-04:00

tUnE-yArDs are an indie rock outfit surrounding Merrill Garbus, whose personality and ecumenical style would fit right in with the Nextbop/Revivalist set. W H O K I L L, their album released earlier this year, is among my favorite albums of 2011 so far.

Just call him George Steer-ing

2011-09-26T20:55:00.000-04:00

Not an Onion video, Playing jazz for cows in France:

I've been a vegetarian for ethical reasons (i.e. anti-factory farming) for four years. However, I would most definitely eat a steak made from one of these cows. I'd put some Miles on my turntable while I ate it, too.

Autumn

2011-09-24T14:16:00.000-04:00

It's playlist time again...

Brad Mehldau: August Ending
Happy Apple: Green Grass Stains on Wrangler Jeans
Miles Davis: Fall
Dave Holland: Four Winds
Vijay Iyer Trio: Mystic Brew
Chick Corea: Windows
Medeski Martin and Wood: Your Lady
John Coltrane: Moment's Notice
The Bad Plus: Flim

Listen to this playlist on Spotify

That's One Way to Do it...

2011-09-01T11:42:00.000-04:00

Jazz solos transcribed on recorder, presented without comment:

Happy Birthday Bird

2011-08-29T11:02:00.000-04:00

Ballad (Hawkins, Bird, Jones, Brown, Rich)
Celebrity (Bird, Jones, Brown, Rich)

Personnel: Charlie Parker, alto saxophone; Coleman Hawkins, tenor saxophone; Hank Jones, piano; Ray Brown, bass; Buddy Rich, drums

A Lost Art

2011-08-25T13:01:00.000-04:00

Baseball stadium organ players are an endangered species, but in Atlanta one man keeps on keepin' on, and readers of this blog would probably dig him:

His Twitter feed is a must-follow. Even a Marlins fan (I know, I'm probably the first one you know) can like him.

Herbie @ TED

2011-08-03T10:46:00.000-04:00

Nice embouchure, Barry!

2011-07-12T11:14:00.000-04:00

So do you think Obama is more of a JJ Johnson guy or a Kai Winding guy?

via f yeah dementia!!1!

Trane's House

2011-07-08T09:07:00.001-04:00

Via the AV Club:

Philadelphia: The John Coltrane House

Further reading: A Love Supreme, But a House in Ruins (NYT)

When Webster's Added Jazz to the Dictionary

2011-06-16T09:44:00.000-04:00

From The Atlantic:

In a musty Brooklyn bookstore this past weekend, I went looking for an old dictionary for a very special secret project. Among the teetering stacks of books, I came across a gorgeous 1927 Webster's International New Dictionary, and paging through it at Karloff down the street, I found myself drawn to the NEW WORDS section. These words were not invented in 1927, but represent additions to the book since its original publication in 1909. So, what we're capturing here is change between 1909 and 1927, a fascinating historical moment of great technological and social change.
...
jazz, n: a. Music. A recent type of American music, esp. for dances, developed from ragtime by introduction of eccentric noises and negro melodies, and now characterized by melodious themes, dance rhythms, and orchestral coloring.

Other new words from that edition: bootleg, super, Yuan, airplane, and Great White Way.

Tina Fey on her Father

2011-06-11T09:10:00.002-04:00

Don Fey certainly had friends of other races and religions. He has told me a couple times about the night he kissed Lionel Hampton. He was at a jazz concert as a teenager with an all-white audience. At one point in the show, Lionel Hampton would invite a woman from the audience to dance with him, but the white girls were all too scared to be seen dancing with a black man. To ease the tension, Don Fey jumped up and fast-danced with Mr. Hampton, at the end of which Lionel Hampton kissed him on the forehead to a round applause.

The quote is from Bossypants. Ah the self-mythologizing of the Depression generation...

List: Jazz Nicknames

2011-06-08T09:25:00.000-04:00

This week A Blog Supreme lists 12 great jazz nicknames. Here are 12 more, sans commentary:

Roy "Little Jazz" Eldridge
Oran "Hot Lips" Page
Jeff "Tain" Watts
Billie "Lady Day" Holliday
Johnny "Rabbit" Hodges
Arthur "Zutty" Singleton
Willie "The Lion" Smith
Johnny "Little Giant" Griffin
Harry "Sweets" Edison
Albert "Tootie" Heath
Jay "Hootie" McShann
Sonny "Newk" Rollins

Oh, Internet

2011-06-07T07:50:00.002-04:00

via RoboShark

RIP

2011-05-28T12:12:00.000-04:00

Obituary.

Prince of Darkness

2011-05-26T10:49:00.000-04:00

It's Miles Davis' 85th birthday. For some reason, May 26 is not yet a federal holiday, so instead of a day off from work, all you're getting is links to some of my previous Miles Davis content.

Help this dude publish an Eric Dolphy graphic novel

2011-05-24T18:23:00.000-04:00

Via Peter Hum:

My plan is to self-publish a 74-page book, a sort of interpretive biography. I've been researching Dolphy's life for some time, and I've read everything about him I've been able to get my hands on. I'd like to tell his story the way I see him—a musical prince. I chose to draw the novel in a style reminiscent of the great album covers from 40's and 50's. Artists like David Stone Martin and Ben Shahn were an inspiration.

The artist is Keith H. Brown. You can contribute at Kickstarter. Below is a video describing the project. Needless to say, I love the idea.

Beyond Category

2011-05-24T07:59:00.031-04:00

Duke Ellington ~~is 112 today~~ died 37 years ago today.. To celebrate the Duke, I will be very suave all day. Also, below is an excerpt from my favorite Duke biography, John Edward Hasse's Beyond Category: The Life And Genius Of Duke Ellington.

In 1969, Leonard Garment, a former clarinetist with Woody Herman, and then an attorney serving as a key aide to President Nixon, teamed with the Voice of America's Willis Conover and several others to arrange for a special White House celebration of Ellington's seventieth birthday. Ellington was asked to submit a list of fifty people he waned invited. The joint Ellington-White House guest list included, besides the expected politicians, musicians Count Basie, Billy Taylor, Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Goodman, Mahalia Jackson, Richard Rodgers, and Harold Arlen; Ellington friends Arthur Logan and Stanley Dance, critic Leonard Feather, producer George Wein, director Otto Preminger, the Smithsonian Institution's Secretary S. Dillon Ripley, the Voice of America's Willis Conover, and Ebony publisher John Johnson. Ellington's sister, Ruth, and his son, Mercer, and his wife and three children also attended.

In a remark that became often quoted, Ellington said, "There is no place I would rather be tonight except in my mother's arms." Nixon winning declared, "In the royalty of American music, no man swings more or stands higher than the Duke." Ellington kissed Nixon twice on each cheek. "Four kisses?" asked the president. "Why four?" "One for each cheek," Ellington replied. Nixon was momentarily dumbfounded. The climax of the evening came when Nixon presented Ellington with the Presidential Medal of Freedom - the nation's highest civilian honor. The medal was the supreme recognition the US government could offer Ellington, and it must have gone a long way to compensate for the disappointment of the Pulitzer rejection.

One can only hope to have such wit.

image via Flickr

Critiquing the Critics

2011-05-22T12:02:00.000-04:00

Jazz bloggers like two things: navel gazing and "what does it all mean?" questions. When the two can be combined, hoo boy does the blogosphere erupt in hand-wringing soliloquies (I'm only being slightly facetious here).

Peter Hum:

There needs to be some critical distance when it comes to jazz writing. It's not quite like holding politicians to account, but even if a jazz writer is an unabashed advocate for the music, I think there has to be some sense that the critic likes some discs or musicians more than others and is more than an uncritical booster. Reader will have a better sense of how their tastes line up with a reviewer. And the absolutely gushing reviews have more meaning if there are lukewarm and even negative reviews to offset them. For comparison's sake: what would you think of a film reviewer who only gave out four-star reviews? And yet, you can easily find the equivalent in the jazz Interweb.

Jon Wertheim:

There are so many jazz blogs out there, and too many of them are wary of making any definite pronouncements. In doing so, they cheat us of their true potential.

Anthony Dean-Harris:

Should we hold back negative criticism because our scene is so small and squabbling would be detrimental to our overall proliferation? This seems to have been the thinking for some time now in a era of logorrheic praise that borders on the fellacious. Yet while the this positivity may have turned jazz press into the Lollipop Guild (yours truly included), it may be time for us to move on to true criticism. Just as we have in the last few years moved from a genre with a very limited internet presence to that of one in which a jazz blog of noodling pontification is a stone’s throw away, maybe we can start making the Wertheim-noted value judgments that every other genre has been making for a while. It may be time to lift that moratorium.

It should be noted that there exists a variance among types of critics, thanks to the democratization of media through the use of the Internet. Writers like Peter Hum and Ben Ratliff, who are paid to write full-time about jazz, should cover a substantial breadth of jazz such that they are bound to write critical reviews in the course of their day-to-day writing duties. I like that I can count on Hum to opine on just about every significant new release.

But people like Patrick Jarenwattananon, Anthony Dean-Harris, Alex Rodriguez, and others whose jazz writing is only a part of what they do cannot so easily cover as many new releases and performances. Is it better for them to simply champion what they really love, and spend less energy on what they do not favor? Surely their readers are smart enough to figure out that they are not obnoxious fanboys, just writers who have chosen to expend their energy on the musicians who get their writerly juices flowing.

I will say, though, that one of the books which most stimulated me in the past few years was Stanley Crouch's anthology Considering Genius, mostly because I found myself disagreeing with him often. As a result, I had to interrogate my own rebuttals to his points, which made my arguments and thoughts about jazz much better articulated and deepened my understanding of why I like certain albums or artists so much. So perhaps a little negativity is in order. At the very least, the negative stuff can often be fun to write, if the writer is really into a takedown piece.

And which writers among us don't like giving a rhetorical smackdown every once in a while?

Stranger things have happened

2011-05-16T20:20:00.000-04:00

On Google's Genius clone:

There are 18(!) songs on this 25 song playlist that are not justifiable. There's electronica, rock, folk, Victorian era brass band and Coldplay. Yes, that's right, there's Coldplay on a Miles Davis playlist.

The sample mix also contained a George Jones track, which gives me an excuse to post this:

Saturday is for Trumpets

2011-05-14T10:18:00.000-04:00

Update

2011-05-08T21:54:00.000-04:00

So, if you guys chip in and buy me this shirt, I'll start blogging again.

I kid, I haven't given up. I'm stretched a bit thin at the moment, but take heart, I will return. Soon...

Mingus Dynasty

2011-04-22T22:47:00.050-04:00

"How would you characterize the kind of music you play now?"

"There once was a word used--swing. Swing went in one direction, it was linear, and everything had to be played with an obvious pulse and that's very restrictive. But I use the term 'rotary perception.' If you get a mental picture of the beat existing within a circle you're more free to improvise. People used to think the notes had to fall on the center of the beats in the bar at intervals like a metronome, with three of four men in the rhythm section accenting the same pulse. That's like parade music or dance music. But imagine a circle surrounding each beat--each guy can play his notes anywhere in that circle and it gives him a feeling he has more space. The notes fall anywhere inside the circle but the original feeling for the beat isn't changed. If one in the group loses confidence, somebody hits the beat again. The pulse is inside you. When you're playing with musicians who think this way you can do anything. Anybody can stop and let the others go on. It's called strolling. In the old days when we got arrogant players on the stand we'd do that--just stop playing and a bad musician would be thrown.

--
"What about British jazz? Have we got the feeling?"

"If you're talking about the technique, musicianship, I guess the British can be as good as anybody else. But what do they need to play jazz for? It's the American Negro's tradition, it's his music. White people don't have a right to play it, it's colored folk music. When I was learning bass with Rheinschagen he was teaching me to play classical music. He said I was close but I'd never really get it. So I took some Paul Robeson and Marian Anderson records to my next lesson and asked him if he thought those artists had got it. He said they were Negroes trying to sing music that was foreign to them. Solid, so white society has its own traditions, let 'em leave ours to us. You had your Shakespeare and Marx and Freud and Einstein and Jesus Christ and Guy Lombardo but we came up with jazz, don't forget it, and all the pop music in the world today is from that primary cause."

--
"I'll never make much money and I'll always suffer 'cause I shoot off my mouth about agents and crooks..."

-from Charles Mingus, Beneath the Underdog, His World as Composed By Mingus, 350-352.

Mingus was not simply making music, he was creating a canon of American art music. But it wasn't simply American music, it was a reflection of his identity as a light-skinned black man in a racially segregated country where he felt alienated from both white and black people (hence the title of his memoir, Beneath the Underdog). As such, he drams from so many traditions (blues, gospel, classical, various Latin folk musics), but brings it all together into a style that is completely jazz but also a departure from it. Like his hero, Duke Ellington, Mingus saw himself as creating a high art form that was self-consciously African American. Of all Duke's children, he has gone the farthest in fulfilling Duke's aim, "the development of an authentic Negro music."¹

¹Eric Porter, What is this Thing Called Jazz? African American Musicians as Artists, Critics, and Activists, 1.