Hank Shteamer, a writer I know, posted a list of 10 jazz releases he felt were making 2010 a particularly good year for the music, along with a bunch of honorable mentions. I agree with a bunch of his choices, but the year has in fact been so strong that I've got a list of 13 of my own, which doesn't overlap with his primary 10 at all. (A couple of his honorable mentions make my list, though.)
Here we go:
Carlos Bica, Carlos Bica + Matéria-Prima (Clean Feed)
Regina Carter, Reverse Thread (E1)
Decoy, Vol. 1: Spirit/Vol. 2: The Deep (Bo’Weavil)
Marc Edwards/Weasel Walter Group, Blood of the Earth (ugEXPLODE)
Amir ElSaffar/Hafez Modirzadeh, Radif Suite (Pi)
Fight the Big Bull, All is Gladness in the Kingdom (Clean Feed)
John Hébert Trio, Spiritual Lover (Clean Feed)
Dave Holland Octet, Pathways (Dare2)
Lawnmower, West (Clean Feed)
Earl MacDonald, Re:Visions – Works for Jazz Orchestra (Death Defying)
Dan Pratt Organ Quartet, Toe the Line (Posi-Tone)
David Weiss & Point of Departure, Snuck In (Sunnyside)
Showing posts with label regina carter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label regina carter. Show all posts
Thursday, September 09, 2010
Thursday, July 01, 2010
THIS QUARTER IN JAZZIZ
I have a couple of items in the issue, too, of course—a short piece on P.E. Hewitt
, a dude who composed, arranged and recorded three albums of pretty impressive small-group jazz back in 1969-72, and whose work has now been boxed up by Now-Again Records; a column looking at four new solo horn albums, some better than others; and a review of Brad Mehldau's much-discussed Highway Rider.Here's how that last one went:
BRAD MEHLDAU
Highway Rider
(Nonesuch)Brad Mehldau has never been a particularly extroverted pianist. But on the new double disc Highway Rider, he turns his signature introspection into numbing enervation.
Mehldau augments his regular trio with second drummer Matt Chamberlain, saxophonist Joshua Redman and a full orchestra, not to mention the heavy hand of producer Jon Brion, best known for making artsy pop with Fiona Apple and Kanye West. The labor-intensive results offer little more than a pale imitation of 1970s Keith Jarrett—in whose quartet Redman's father Dewey played.
On tracks like "Don't Be Sad" and "The Falcon Will Fly Again," Redman tootles along as Mehldau attempts to bolster the saxophonist's melodic lassitude with baroque indulgence. The latter track features a small choir chanting "la-la-la, la-la-la-la" in its concluding moments, as well as studio dialogue that includes the sounds of a happy child—presumably Mehldau's, as Highway Rider is dedicated to him.
Arrangements shift from solo piano and quintet to duos and trios And two tracks feature just the orchestra, which, ultimately, keeps Highway Rider stuck on the soft shoulder of the road. The string players offer little you couldn't hear over the closing credits of a second-tier romantic drama, leeching sorely needed energy with over-sweetened arrangements. At nearly two hours, this release is simultaneously overstuffed and idea-starved.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
THIS WEEK IN THE VOICE
Regina Carter, Wandering Genius
Detroit's finest jazz violinist can find the soul in anything
It's been almost four years, but Regina Carter still remembers the phone call. It's not the kind of thing you forget.
"I get this call, it's probably nine in the morning, before I'd had coffee—I thought it was a prank call, and I wasn't too amused," she recalls with a laugh. "The person said, 'Obviously, you don't know about the MacArthur Foundation.' I said, 'I do know about the MacArthur Foundation—what's your name and number? I'll call you back.' I made my coffee and I called the number back and I said, 'Does this person work in your office?' and they said, 'Yes, we'll put you right through.' Then I was stunned. I can't even tell you. It was like everything froze."
The so-called genius grant, which Carter received in September 2006, allowed the Detroit-born violinist to go back to school, but perhaps more importantly, it helped alleviate some personal sorrows. "I'd had such a dark year the year before—gone through a huge lawsuit and lost my mother—so at that point, I needed some sunshine," she says. "I felt like that was the universe and my mother saying, 'Here.'"
Carter began studying classical violin at age four; she didn't even know there was such a thing as jazz violin until high school, when a friend introduced her to the music of Noel Pointer, Jean-Luc Ponty, and Stéphane Grappelli. A live Grappelli performance convinced her jazz was her destiny. "There was so much camaraderie between the musicians. This light went on, and I was like, 'That's what I want when I play' . . . not knowing the journey I was about to be faced with."
That journey has taken Regina Carter from the all-female jazz-pop quintet Straight Ahead to a solo career that's encompassed funky smooth jazz, old-style swing, classical, and now African music. She has played an 18th-century violin that once belonged to Niccolò Paganini, and done session work for Faith Evans, Mary J. Blige, and Detroit techno pioneer Carl Craig. On 2006's I'll Be Seeing You: A Sentimental Journey, she paid tribute to her late mother through interpretations of popular songs like "Sentimental Journey," "This Can't Be Love," and "A-Tisket, A-Tasket."
Her forthcoming disc, Reverse Thread, due out May 18, takes her music down a very different path. Her band includes longtime drummer Alvester Garnett, bassist Chris Lightcap, accordionist Will Holshouser, and kora player Yacouba Sissoko, who learned the instrument from his grandfather. ("You know when you hear that name or a rendition of that name, 'Oh, they play kora.' ") With MacArthur money behind her, she disappeared into New York's World Music Institute and re-emerged inspired by field recordings, particularly some tapes of the Ugandan Jews, a community that practices Judaism despite being neither genetically nor historically Jewish. Reverse Thread reinterprets melodies based on the Ugandan songs "Hiwumbe Awumba" and "Mwana Talitambula"; the former opens the disc, while the latter comes two tracks from its end, finding Carter's ultra-clean violin lines shadowed by Lightcap's bowed bass.
"Every culture of music on the planet involved a violin-like instrument, so my ear would always be drawn to that," recalls Carter of the decades of listening, studying, and playing that led her to this record, where folkish melodies combine with a gentle swing that occasionally erupts into full-on hillbilly fiddlin', the kora and accordion providing countermelodies. "Every music has its own groove or its own soul." Her own contribution isn't jazz, or folk, or "world"—it's all those things and more, pure human joy filtered through technical virtuosity.
Detroit's finest jazz violinist can find the soul in anything
It's been almost four years, but Regina Carter still remembers the phone call. It's not the kind of thing you forget."I get this call, it's probably nine in the morning, before I'd had coffee—I thought it was a prank call, and I wasn't too amused," she recalls with a laugh. "The person said, 'Obviously, you don't know about the MacArthur Foundation.' I said, 'I do know about the MacArthur Foundation—what's your name and number? I'll call you back.' I made my coffee and I called the number back and I said, 'Does this person work in your office?' and they said, 'Yes, we'll put you right through.' Then I was stunned. I can't even tell you. It was like everything froze."
The so-called genius grant, which Carter received in September 2006, allowed the Detroit-born violinist to go back to school, but perhaps more importantly, it helped alleviate some personal sorrows. "I'd had such a dark year the year before—gone through a huge lawsuit and lost my mother—so at that point, I needed some sunshine," she says. "I felt like that was the universe and my mother saying, 'Here.'"
Carter began studying classical violin at age four; she didn't even know there was such a thing as jazz violin until high school, when a friend introduced her to the music of Noel Pointer, Jean-Luc Ponty, and Stéphane Grappelli. A live Grappelli performance convinced her jazz was her destiny. "There was so much camaraderie between the musicians. This light went on, and I was like, 'That's what I want when I play' . . . not knowing the journey I was about to be faced with."
That journey has taken Regina Carter from the all-female jazz-pop quintet Straight Ahead to a solo career that's encompassed funky smooth jazz, old-style swing, classical, and now African music. She has played an 18th-century violin that once belonged to Niccolò Paganini, and done session work for Faith Evans, Mary J. Blige, and Detroit techno pioneer Carl Craig. On 2006's I'll Be Seeing You: A Sentimental Journey, she paid tribute to her late mother through interpretations of popular songs like "Sentimental Journey," "This Can't Be Love," and "A-Tisket, A-Tasket."
Her forthcoming disc, Reverse Thread, due out May 18, takes her music down a very different path. Her band includes longtime drummer Alvester Garnett, bassist Chris Lightcap, accordionist Will Holshouser, and kora player Yacouba Sissoko, who learned the instrument from his grandfather. ("You know when you hear that name or a rendition of that name, 'Oh, they play kora.' ") With MacArthur money behind her, she disappeared into New York's World Music Institute and re-emerged inspired by field recordings, particularly some tapes of the Ugandan Jews, a community that practices Judaism despite being neither genetically nor historically Jewish. Reverse Thread reinterprets melodies based on the Ugandan songs "Hiwumbe Awumba" and "Mwana Talitambula"; the former opens the disc, while the latter comes two tracks from its end, finding Carter's ultra-clean violin lines shadowed by Lightcap's bowed bass.
"Every culture of music on the planet involved a violin-like instrument, so my ear would always be drawn to that," recalls Carter of the decades of listening, studying, and playing that led her to this record, where folkish melodies combine with a gentle swing that occasionally erupts into full-on hillbilly fiddlin', the kora and accordion providing countermelodies. "Every music has its own groove or its own soul." Her own contribution isn't jazz, or folk, or "world"—it's all those things and more, pure human joy filtered through technical virtuosity.
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