Mark Stryker

FWIW, here's my list that I submitted to the Annual Jazz Critics Poll: 2021, organized by Tom Hull and Francis Davis and hosted this year for the first time by The Arts Fuse (Boston). To the extent that this annual poll, now in its 16th year, represents critical consensus -- 156 folks voted this time -- I'm typically out of step with most of the fraternity. In short, I favor music more rooted in the core African American values of blues and swing than most of my colleagues. My aesthetic certainly allows for free jazz and its offshoots -- my top 10 this year includes recordings by James Brandon Lewis, Henry Threadgill, and Tim Berne, and I voted for Julius Hemphill in the reissue/archival category. But I still lean toward music with, to me, a more palpable connection to the jazz tradition. I realize of course that the idea of "the jazz tradition" is layered and complex, but I think my ballot itself defines how and where I draw the lines. In any case, here's a link to the results and Francis Davis' introductory essay. Note that the first list you see is Francis' own ballot and the overall results appear below, so you have to scroll to see it. There are also links to all 156 individual ballots. https://artsfuse.org/.../the-2021-jazz-critics-poll-only.../ Footnote: We are prevented from voting for any recording that we wrote liner notes for or otherwise participated in the promotion. That meant I couldn't vote for Roy Brooks' "Understanding" in the reissues/archival category because I wrote the main essay for the package. NEW RELEASES 1. Johnathan Blake, "Homeward Bound" (Blue Note) 2. The Cookers, "Look Out!" (Gearbox) 3. Miguel Zenón & Luis Perdomo, "El Arte Del Bolero" (Miel Music) 4. Bill Charlap Trio, "Street of Dreams" (Blue Note) 5. Renee Rosnes, "Kinds of Love" (Smoke Sessions) 6. James Brandon Lewis Red Lily Quintet, "Jesup Wagon" (Tao Forms) 7. Carlos Henriquez, "The South Bronx Story" (Tiger Turn) 8. Henry Threadgill "Zooid," Poof (Pi) 9. Houston Person, "Live in Paris" (HighNote) 10. Tim Berne-Chris Speed-Reid Anderson-Dave King, "Broken Shadows" (Intakt) RARA AVIS (REISSUES/ARCHIVAL) 1. John Coltrane, "A Love Supreme: Live in Seattle" (1965, Impulse!) 2. Hasaan Ibn Ali, "Metaphysics: The Lost Atlantic Album" (1965, Omnivore) 3. Julius Hemphill, "The Boyé Multi-National Crusade for Harmony" (1977-2007, New World) VOCAL Samara Joy, "Samara Joy" (Whirlwind) DEBUT Kazemde George, "I Insist" (Greenleaf Music) LATIN Carlos Henriquez, "The South Bronx Story" (Tiger Turn)

My experience, however, tracks with this story by John Mulaney. (Much) different music but similar impact.

The 45 rpm single/radio edit was much shorter -- just one chorus of swinging melody, plus the tag from the out chorus. This was on a jukebox at a place in Urbana where I used to hang out in college and we played it to death. One night, we cued it up about a dozen times in a row and after after eight or nine straight plays, the manager came roaring out of the kitchen and yelled, "Enough!!!" and unplugged the jukebox.

No need to revive the discussion/disagreements in this thread, but I came across these words from Joe Zawinul that fill out the details about his relationship with Barry Harris and emphasize how much respect and love he had for him. I thought it would be good to enter them into the record here. From 1984: “Barry and I used to rehearse together a lot at that time. It was kind of a one-sided relationship in one respect, though. I got a lot from him. Coming to jazz when and where I did, I missed the bebop thing, and that was the style of piano playing I wanted to learn. To my mind, Barry was about the closest there was to the pure bebop style—after Bud Powell, that is. Barry has got that down beautifully; he’s a superb musician. We used to spend all our time at Riverside Records’ studios, rehearsing. As I say, he gave me a great deal, and I will never forget it or be able to replay him for it.”

FWIW, "Merry-Go-Round" is my favorite of all Elvin's Blue Note LPs, and it's one of the three records I recommend at the of the chapter about him in my book -- the other two are Trane's A Love Surpreme" and Wayne's "Ju Ju."

This is an amazing piece from the frontlines by Peter Keepnews published in 1979 in Jazz Magazine. https://jazzmf.com/why-big-record-companies-let-jazz-down-2/

For folks interested, I created an annotated Barry Harris playlist. https://ethaniverson.com/2021/12/10/mark-strykers-barry-harris-playlist/

Greg Tate was a heavyweight champion among American cultural critics. There was nobody like him -- not his voice on the page nor the synapses in his brain that made supple and insightful connections nobody else would think of and made them at what appeared to be lightening speed. He once said, "I have come to occupy a somewhat unique position in the constellation of African American writing by keeping one ear to the street, one ear to the academy, and a phantom third hearing organ to my own little artsy-fartsy corner of Gotham and Brooklyn’s Black bohemia." As always, the work survives. "Flyboy in the Buttermilk" and Flyboy 2" are an imposing legacy. I read a lot of these pieces in real time in the Village Voice in the 1980s and '90s, and they were an important of my education -- along with the rest of a murder's row of critics and reporters then at the paper: Crouch, Giddins, Hentoff, Newfield, Ridgeway, Gann, Willis, Kerner, Schjeldahl, Ireland, Goldstein. Only in retrospect did I come to realize that for all of Tate's brilliance, he was only six years older than me and I was never going to catch up up to him -- the motherfucker. I did not always agree with Tate's conclusions -- like, duh, since when is the value of a critic based on whether you always agree with him or her? But he never failed to bring a subject to life in brilliant, singular, and entertaining prose and to illuminate corners of African American culture that I had never considered or made me understand music that I thought I knew from an entirely new angle. He made me see the the world, people, and art differently, more empathetically, and more accurately. This is a big loss. The world was a MUCH more interesting place with Greg Tate in it. Peace to his family and friends. Here's a piece about him from five years ago that's interesting. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-critic-who-convinced-me-that-criticism-could-be-art?fbclid=IwAR3jU9CvJCHKsWyATG5x8MDkdPT3WQce9pHS6a39sBTKprf_MqsNXeLU6ss And here's the man himself, bringing it in 1984 (!) at the insanely young age of 27. https://www.villagevoice.com/1984/09/11/stagolee-vs-the-proper-negro-eddie-murphy-wynton-marsalis-prince/ from 1991 on black identity. https://www.villagevoice.com/2020/06/19/black-like-who-love-and-the-enemy/ From 2006 -- thoughts on black jazz in the digital age. https://www.criticalimprov.com/index.php/csieci/article/download/287/431?inline=1

Co-sign. BTW, this is some deep Detroit shit right here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Real_Thing_(Houston_Person_album)

I think the first volume, "Four," is out-of-this world fantastic. Joe on "On the Trail" or "Green Dolphin Street" is as great as Joe gets. On the whole, Straight No Chaser isn't quite as strong a record. As it happens, I had a conversation last week with Pat Metheny, who LOVES these records.

One of the highlights of my professional life was was the 45 minutes in 2009 I spent speaking with Stephen Sondheim about his classical music influences for the Detroit Free Press. The whole thing was a bit surreal. He had no publicist, no "people," so I had to track down his address and write him a personal letter outlining my idea. I had written to his Manhattan address, and he was at his country place when the letter arrived. He called when he returned to town, but it was so close to deadline that I was literally about to default to a back-up plan. Here was the result: https://www.freep.com/story/entertainment/music/2021/11/26/stephen-sondheim-pondered-opera-musicals-2009-free-press-interview/8770543002/ I sent Sondheim the story and below is the letter I got in return. I framed it (natch) and cherish it R.I.P. to one of my true heroes. Coda: In the interview, I asked specifically about the relative scarcity of jazz interpretations of his songs. The topic didn't make the final cut of the piece because our theme was his classical music influences. But his answer stuck with me. He said the non-standard forms of most of his songs and how deeply they are integrated into the marrow of the score makes them difficult to open up for improvisation; he contrasted them specifically with ABAB or AABA songs like "How High the Moon" and "I Got Rhythm", where the 32-bar chorus opens easily and you can just drop in the improvisation without messing with the chorus structure. However, I think there are still tons of untapped possibilities for jazz interpretations of Sondheim's songs. Musicians would of course have to dig into music they don't know and find creative solutions to the challenges. But given how common it is today for jazz musicians to write nonstandard, multi-section originals, I think the structural wrinkles of Sondheim's songs could provide fertile ground. For example, you could base solo sections on just part of the song, like say, a piquant rhythm that could be transformed into a bass ostinato, or you could isolate a a particular melodic or harmonic section that could form the basis for improvising rather than the whole composition. I brought all of this up to Sondheim and he considered it but remained skeptical. Still, I think there's jazz-related gold in these hills.

So happy to have been able to spotlight an unsung hero and one of my real favorites, singer Frank D’Rone, in my column this month for Jazz Times. H/T to Larry Kart for reading a draft along the way. https://www.google.com/amp/s/jazztimes.com/features/columns/career-frank-drone/%3famp

This is a terrific record. Been part of my recent rotation. I put the final touches on a forthcoming Jazz Times column on Buddy this afternoon ...

It's a big number to be sure, but context is worth noting: In the same span of time, from 1954 to 1962, Paul Chambers played on 298 sessions. (P.C. appeared on "only" 56 more sessions before his death in 1969. Art Taylor played on 239 sessions between 1954 and 1962. Not to trying to diminish Watkins or his gifts -- hey, Jazz from Detroit! -- but only to note that the top rhythm section players on the East Coast scene in that era, the first flush of 12-inch LPs, were making a LOT of recordings. High demand leads to big totals.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2021/11/03/john-coltrane-village-vanguard-1961/

Gang, the virtuoso command of the altimissimo register in this track is un-fucking-believable. If you play the saxophone on any level, this is jaw-dropping -- the range, the intonation, the power, the flexiblty.. I don't care what you want to do with a saxophone -- master the language of Hodges, master the language of Bird, master language of Trane, master the language of Ayler, master the language of Marcel Mule, master the language of Maceo, master the language of Roscoe — you have to respect this and maybe see what about it you can incorporate into what you want to do. And speaking of of Ace Cannon, whose name pops up earlier in this thread: My friends and I used to have a thing where we'd riff on Ace's supposed "discography" -- Ace in his free jazz period: "Ace in Space." The record with the poker playing Ace on the cover: "Ace in the Hole." The one where Ace gets into a saxophone battle with a different guest on each track: "Ace at 10 Paces." The game was to make up the funniest potential LP and tune names as you could punning "Ace" or "Cannon.". Yeah you kinda had to be there. and controlled substances definitely helped spur our creativity. But we did crack ourselves up. I also recall a Downbeat interview with Branford Marsalis where he was asked if it bothered him that critics were always likening him to different players who he was trying to emulate. Branford's response was basically," I don't care who they say I sound like as long as they don't say I sound like Ace Cannon." I thought that was hilarious.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/02/arts/music/wayne-shorter-esperanza-spalding-iphigenia.html

Nobody is sticking their head in the sand. You wanna talk Wynton and sexism? Fine. You wanna coyly suggest that ANYONE is guilty of abuse or harassment ("might easily be women out there"; "I did have one engagement which suggested") without a shred of evidence? Not fine.

The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra has had a woman in the saxophone section for a couple of years now -- Camille Thurman plays tenor and also sings. Via Twitter I've seen pictures of the band on its current tour in Eastern Europe and while I don't see Camille, I do see another woman playing alto whom I don't recognize. If you want to explore institutional sexism at J@LC, you are of course free to do so and mount whatever evidence you like, You are also of course free to explore sexual harassment in the jazz world too -- the recent rather complicated case of Steve Coleman suggests a number of potent threads. Misogyny, sexism, and harassment are real issues in and out of jazz. BUT dropping speculative hints and conjecture on this site, with not a shred of evidence, that Wynton (or ANYONE) has engaged in behavior that crosses the line into physical/mental abuse or sexual harassment is bullshit. It's out of bounds and should be removed by a moderator.

He's a young kid -- late 20s I think -- with a background as a musician and as a writer. He's got a lot of energy, enthusiasm, and eclectic tastes -- and he has an ear and instinct for getting down, as Cannonball would have said, to the nitty gritty of a subject. He also listens and knows what he doesn't know, so he does what a reporter is supposed to do -- seek out those who do know. He's a sponge. One to watch ...

Finally, the Seattle 'Love Supreme' story I've been waiting to see. Grammy.com's Morgan Enos looks at the two saxophonists (beyond Trane) responsible for first taping and then excavating the tape -- Joe Brazil and Steve Griggs. (Full disclosure: I'm quoted quite a bit here.) https://www.grammy.com/grammys/news/john-coltrane-a-love-supreme-live-in-seattle-steve-griggs-why-joe-brazil-matters

The one with the multi-colored cover I presume ...

FWIW, the reference to 1965 is either a mistake or a typographical error. The band made its public debut at the Village Vanguard on Feb. 7, 1966, though it is true that rehearsals began in late 1965 in a rehearsal studio in Manhattan. What's the source of the quote, please?

Yes -- the shout chorus on Splanky was part of a group of arrangements by several writers (Foster, Wilkins) that helped codify the New Testament Basie sound. "Splanky" in particular has become such a part of the common language in jazz because you hear it all the time outside of a big band context -- organ groups use as a shout chorus on innumerable blues tunes and soloists and/or rhythm sections quote it all time, often without knowing what the source. Cued up here as a reminder ... Some really terrific charts on this LP -- "I'm Beginning See the Lights," "Tangerine" (particularly the second chorus), "I Get a Kick out of You."