2002 Year-End Jazz Review
Searching the Maroons
for Good Music

By Robin D.G. Kelley
SeeingBlack.com Cultural Critic

Talk about jazz and other Black music! Click here!

Most of my friends think I only listen to Thelonious Monk. Well, that's almost true, but all the serious Monk heads know that his music inspires listeners to either reach way back to the old and obscure, or reach way forward into the new and obscure. Monk brings me to the outlyers, the maroons, the music-makers who refuse the "jazz" box in favor of Freedom.

So what I've compiled is neither a "top ten" or a "best of" list; rather, it is an idiosyncratic gathering of the most compelling music I've heard this year. Mostly young cats. Of course, there were many brilliant releases by folks whom the record industry don't consider "outlyers" entirely, even if they treat them badly. I immediately think of Cassandra Wilson's sublime and powerful Delta blues-inspired Belly of the Sun (Capitol). The song "Justice" alone is worth the price of the CD. And then there was that remarkable album by Wayne Shorter and friends, Footprints: Live! (Verve). That band is so tight, with Brian Blades drumming like a man possessed (with the spirit of Tony Williams?) and Danilo Perez revealing his spectacular piano skills. If you never knew Wayne Shorter was one of the great composers and tenor players of the last half century, this album is a reminder.

But let me get back to the outlyers.

Here are my five selections, though the order don't mean a thing:

Fieldwork, Your Life Flashes (Pi Recordings)
This trio of three incredibly talented young musicians: pianist Vijay Iyer, saxophonist Aaron Stewart and drummer Elliot Humberto Kavee. They don't play "world" music but it is global and at times interstellar, free and imaginative yet deeply rooted in African-American improvisational traditions, South Asian music as well as modern forms from to the Caribbean. And Vijay Iyer is the pianist/composer to watch in our century. His harmonic and melodic ideas are fresh and imaginative, and in his writing and improvising he treats the piano and all tonal instruments as if they are extensions of the drum, which may explain why his music always generates so much excitement. A rising creative giant, to say the least.

Matthew Shipp, Nu Bop (Thirsty Ear)
Matthew Shipp has his own school, and avant-garde is too small a word for what he does. He loves songs and sounds and could care less about boundaries. Sort of like Don Byron, he can play free and break all harmonic rules but he's always making music. Nu Bop breaks from his previous experiments in that he and bassist William Parker, drummer Guillermo E. Brown, and others, bend and stretch hip hop grooves into a free musical journey that extends far beyond all the lame attempts at "jazz hip hop" fusion. Not just head nodding here.

The Fully Celebrated Orchestra, Marriage Of Heaven And Earth (Innova)
If you can't get enough of Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry, back when they made those great Atlantic recordings, they check out this young band from the Boston area. Three of them, saxophonist Jim Hobbs, drummer Django Carranza, and bassist Tim Shanko, had been playing together for some time, but what makes this album special and brings the group up a dozen notches is the addition of cornetist/composer Taylor Ho Bynum. He is one of those once-in-a-lifetime talents who can play everything and always sound like himself. Remarkable technique, inventiveness, energy…Bynum can really "talk" with that horn of his, and the tunes he's written are mad genius. (Check out his recent Duets (Wesleyan) 2002 with Anthony Braxton.)

Wadada Leo Smith's Golden Quartet, The Year of the Elephants
(Pi Recordings)
Perhaps this is Miles Davis meets the Chicago School. Smith is one of the great trumpeters and composers who has yet to be given his due. These are wonderful ensemble recordings. With Anthony Davis on piano, Jack DeJohnette on drums, and the Art Ensemble of Chicago's own Malachi Favors Maghostut on bass, it's like playing with a band of melodists rather than a rhythm section. Layers and layers of song. Free but swinging… hard.

Mal Waldron, One More Time (Sketch)
I did not select this because Mal Waldron joined the ancestors this year, though that wouldnąt be a bad reason. I chose this because it documents one of the great collaborations in modern music, that between Waldron and soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy. They made several duet albums and performed together on and off for over four decades. And in the process created a musical language so elegant and natural, it's like the calling of tropical birds at dawn. Here they are joined by Lacy's regular bassist, Jean Jacques Avenel, and record in both duo and trio format. Besides new pieces and a real funky blues, "Blues for J.J.'s Bass," they include two Waldron classics: "All Alone," written for/with Billie Holiday, and "Soul Eyes." These happen to be two of the most beautiful "jazz" ballads ever written. I loved this album, and so did Waldron. He included these prophetic words in his liner notes to One More Time, "Measured against eternity, our life span is very short, so I am extremely happy to have this record as a high point of mine."

-- December 23, 2002

© Copyright 2001-05 Seeing Black, Inc. All Rights Reserved.