teabowl

The Dusty Foot Philosopher

K’NAAN. Interdependent Media 2008, Audio CD, $8.52

Troubadour

K’naan. A&M/Octone 2009, Audio CD, $4.99

I’m a dreamer but I ain’t the only one | Got problems, but we love to have fun | This is our world, from here to your hood | We alive man, it’s okay to feel good

Delivered in a sing-song that’s not entirely unlike Jay-Z’s 2003 single ‘99 Problems’ (but without the menace), ‘Dreamer’ by Somali/Canadian rapper K’naan is a good starting point for listening. He was 13 when he left Somalia, a war-torn African country that instantly credentializes K’naan, in a way. Like the reviewer at PopMatters said, you’d like to listen to the music on its own merits, but that’s sort of difficult when the MC is from one of the world’s political hot zones, mostly ignored by the world community and a place where civil war essentially continues without an end in sight, to this day.

Continuing with the biography for a moment, K’naan’s family left left Somalia on the last commercial plane out in 1991, first settling in New York City (where K’naan’s father had already lived and worked as a cab driver for a few years), and later in Toronto, Canada. K’naan knew early that he liked hip hop, learning lyrics from Rakim and Nas records phonetically before he learned English. Right from the outset, there was always a strong world music inflection to K’naan’s music and lyrics; he was no gansta but a man with a political mission. ‘Discovered’ by Youssou N’Dour while delivering a spoken word performance in front of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees in 1999, K’naan’s first record, The Dusty Foot Philosopher was released in Canada in 2005 and finally saw a US release in 2008. (All of this info courtesy of Wikipedia, of course.)

It’s an imaginative, interesting and engaging record with more than enough musical interest to match K’naan’s strong poetry. As discussed by other reviewers, K’naan sounds a little like Eminem – less angry, less clever with his words, perhaps, but also significantly less acerbic and hurtful. I’m reminded more of the Fugees during their classic The Score period. The Fugees always sounded as if they were dipping their feet in their Caribbean origins, sounding a little reggae, a little soca, a little zouk and a lot r&b in addition to their conscious but not fun-averse rap. And in a way, that’s exactly the kind of sound K’naan achieves. There’s as much party and pop in his records as there are in, say, the latest 50 Cent oeuvre. But it’s a different kind of party, one where women are a little more respected, where the partiers discuss the politics of back home while some Fela Kuti or fiery Afro-jazz rumbles in the background (something like the middle section of Troubadour’s ‘Fire in Freetown,’ maybe).

I walk with three kids that can’t wait to meet God lately | That’s Bucktooth, Mohammed and Crybaby | What they do everyday just to eat, Lord have mercy | Strapped with an AK and they blood thirsty | So what’s hardcore, really? Are you hardcore? Hmm… | So what’s hardcore, really? Are you hardcore? Hmm…

K’naan is a man with a message, and, like any poet on a mission, it’s often delivered in a less-than-subtle way. Hip hop has never been a subtle art form, and so subtlety is not a requirement. Being cleverer, sharper and more insightful is; and K’naan definitely makes himself heard on these records. Marley looms large in K’naan’s CDs to date – he’s there in the sing-song, and in the moments when K’naan directly invokes and channels him. That’s another parallel to the Fugees: Wyclef has made a very successful career out of channeling Bob Marley, in voice and lyrics often sounding uncannily like him. K’naan follows this model in many ways; Troubadour, released in 2009, was even recorded at Marley’s Tuff Gong Studios in Jamaica.

Comparing the two records, it’s clear that The Dusty Foot Philosopher is a more interesting, better-produced record, while Troubadour is more consistent, poppier, lighter and more party-oriented. Production on both records was handled by Canadian production duo Track & Field (Gerald Eaton and Brian West of r&b band The Philosopher Kings, also the producers behind Nelly Furtado’s first two albums which had a whimsy similar to The Dusty Foot Philosopher), and their sound is always impeccable. There isn’t a single track on these two CDs that falls into that category of “didn’t need to hear that” so many hip hop records are plagued by. The beats are always elegant, never heavy-handed, and there are so many acoustic instruments here that aural fatigue doesn’t have a chance to set in. K’naan is a gifted MC and a good singer, alternating between the idioms with great ease.

Where The Dusty Foot Philosopher is angry about the state of the world, its steadfast ignoring of Africa’s plight and strife, and driven by the impulse to spread the word, Troubadour picks up the story of a highly assimilated quick-learner immigrant grappling and coming to terms with life in Canada. Waiting for money transfers from Western Union (’15 Minutes Away’) or integrating the breakup of his mother’s marriage after what sounds like domestic violence (’Take a Minute’), these are Canadian preoccupations. Perhaps not typical middle-class Canadian preoccupations, but observant analyses of the African diaspora’s life in the Greath North.

And, taken against this background, maybe Troubadour’s more streamlined sounds are entirely appropriate – a reflection of K’naan’s participation in weaving the ongoing fabric of the music of Africa’s great international migration. His main shingle may say hip hop, but this is much more universal than that. Africa, as it does so often, turns lemons into lemonade in its cultural exports.

Completely amazing, messy, crazy video by The Kills. From their first album, No Wow. Which I still like more than their second record, Midnight Boom.

Incredibly, this CD is out of print, and even Amazon only seems to have sketchy availability through zShops. So I can’t even provide a “buy” link. David Sylvian is the former lead singer and songwriter of Japan. Robert Fripp is the mastermind behind King Crimson. Sylvian is known for his introspective, spiritual, seeking lyrics and self-effacing music-making. Fripp was exploring a more industrial style in the early/mid 1990s. Together, they made one of the most remarkable rock records I know.

Using elements of funk, industrial music, noise and combining Fripp’s angular guitars with a deep, rumbling, sharp, melodious Chapman Grand Stick played by Trey Gunn, this is both enlightened meditation and purely enjoyable music, like a jam band with a spiritual purpose. Sylvian, often seen primarily as a singer/songwriter, should not be under-estimated as a musician/composer, and much of what’s heard here is the interplay of a band. For me, it’s definitely guitar-dominated, but Gunn’s Stick is also instrumental in defining the sound here; this record is a precursor to the subsequent next incarnation of King Crimson, also featuring Gunn from about 1994 onwards.

Find the ladder | Climb the ladder | To God’s Monkey [...] Can’t breathe the air | It’s too thin | This far from heaven | This far from heaven

Sylvian writes introspective, mysterious, strange, often darkly funny lyrics. His voice, low like the best British male singers (think Bryan Ferry, Curt Smith of Tears for Fears or Mark Hollis of Talk Talk) is calm, clear, articulate, authoritative. This is a kind of post-rock: if you know Sylvian’s and Fripp’s histories, it’s clear that this record is post everything: neither rock nor ironic retro; rather, the culmination of a long journey through pop, rock, noise, song structure, vocals, instrumentals, improvisation – in short, a clearly articulated and conscious decision, “this is what we can offer you now.” It’s an authentic statement, uncompromising in many ways, not of its time, but also playful because of the songs, often great songs with smart lyrics and memorable melodies, and the impeccable musicianship. Nothing here is left to chance, not the writing, nor the arranging or playing.

Like Fripp’s work with Crimson and Sylvian’s solo work, there are several very long pieces here. ‘Firepower,’ ‘20th Century Dreaming’ and ‘Darshan’ each run more than 10 minutes. Like an industrial jam band of sorts, they bring enlightenment through repetition, a very Eastern-religion concept. 5 minutes into Darshan’s 17 minutes, you realize it’s put you on another plane, that the music floats you like a good DJ mix, and while it’s primarily rhythm, there’s enough audio interest to keep you listening. Like other music meant to induce a trance (and I’m not using the word here to denote the dance genre but in a more basic, ritualistic sense), Darshan manages to make you feel like the warm envelope of a blanket is being pulled from you when it ends. And, somehow, you’re left out in the cold, robbed of Fripp’s intense soloing and Sylvian’s increasingly evolved, odd and challenging synth pad harmonies.

Fitting, then, that it should end with a slow, ambient number that’s all Sylvian’s keyboards. Orchestral, calm, pastoral, like early Aphex Twin or The KLF’s best work.

If you can’t find The First Day anywhere, Sylvian’s two-disc retrospective Everything And Nothing (also discontinued, but more readily available) has some of the songs and is, without question, worth getting:

Everything and Nothing

David Sylvian. Virgin Records Us 2000, Audio CD, $8.85

White Lies For Dark Times

Ben Harper & Relentless7. Virgin Records 2009, Audio CD, $8.43

A review of Ben Harper & Relentless7, White Lies for Dark Times (2009)

“Relentless7,” the name of Ben Harper’s new band, sounds like the title of a book by Enid Blyton or Carolyn Keene. And they are an adventure to listen to.

Haper had, to date, split his music evenly between a smart, funky, blues/r’n'b/reggae inflected rock sound, and an equally accomplished “Ben Harper” style balladry that always felt, perhaps, a little out of its time. If you could get over yourself enough to really listen, Harper delivered the goods, especially in his early blues oriented songs. Like Bob Marley, Ben Harper knew how to combine the political and the poetic, protest and politics. But it might also be fair to say that the trademark Harper sound had perhaps become a little predictable of late. Great but predictable.

This record changes all that. It’s quite possibly the record of his career. Relentless7 consists, contrary to their name, of three players from Austin, Texas. Guitarist Jason Mozersky is a long-term friend (the friendship originates when he drove a truck for a Texas promoter and played his then band’s demo to a captive Ben Harper). During the 2005 recording sessions for Harper’s Both Sides of the Gun, Mozersky introduced Harper to his friends, drummer Jordan Richardson and bassist Jesse Ingalls. The initial jam session obviously resulted in enough excitement that the concept for Relentless7 was born.

Together, Harper and the seven produce a very full, rich, fuzzy wall of rock ‘n’ roll – swampy, Southern, and full of excitement. Something about their energy reminds me of the North Mississippi All Stars or Jon Spencer Blues Explosion (they don’t actually sound like either of these bands, so don’t get your hopes up too much; this is still Ben Harper as we know him). There’s also a focus, a low-down precision groove that’s reminiscent of ZZ Top. I’m especially fond of Richardson’s drums – he spends a lot of time on the floor toms, producing a lower register rumble to match the growling guitars and thundering bass.

I like the songs, too. I know the reviewers typically mention that Harper’s lyrics aren’t as literate as they could be – some call them mangled couplets – but I think there are strong songs here that will easily be as memorable as those from his early albums Welcome to the Cruel World and Fight for your Mind. I’m rapidly growing fond of “Shimmer & Shine,” “Whyu Must You Always Dress in Black?” and “Keep It Together (So I Can Fall Apart).”

Highly recommended. While the Relentless7 may not replace the Innocent Criminals permanently as Ben Harper’s backing band, they create a powerful, room-filling rumble that provides a fuller, better-grounded foundation for his considerable song craft, voice and lead guitar.

Slice O Life

Bruce Cockburn. Rounder / Pgd 2009, Audio CD, $12.98

A review of Bruce Cockburn’s Slice O Life (Live Solo) (2009)

A lovely and complex CD this, Bruce Cockburn’s first live album of just him and his guitar. Recorded in 2008 at a variety of shows, this is a strong set of well-known tunes and less familiar gems, interspaced with background stories and live banter. Cockburn comes across as a good-natured entertainer, someone who has aged gracefully from being a political singer-songwriter into a musician first and foremost.

The record was produced by Colin Linden and has a clean, thoughtfully balanced sound, not too echo-y, not too dry, that gives a good impression of the rooms it was recorded in. It’s filled with classics that, I’m told, all Canadians know. Since I didn’t grow up here, some of these songs are new discoveries for me, and this is a great way of discovering them, stripped to their essence. Cockburn is a very gifted rythm guitarist, adept at fingerpicking driving music that could stand on its own (and it has, on 2005’s Speechless).

If, like me, you’re somewhat new-ish to Cockburn’s music, I’ll leave you with some favourite lines from ‘Lovers in a Dangerous Time’ and encourage you to hear ‘Slice O Life’ if you can. I’ll be seeking out more Bruce Cockburn.

These fragile bodies of touch and taste | This vibrant skin – this hair like lace | Spirits open to the thrust of grace | Never a breath you can afford to waste | When you’re lovers in a dangerous time.

How would you move house without these? This is the ideal moving bag. From humble beginnings as a $1 useful item available in large boxes at the Ikea checkout, these are now officially one of the most useful things I have in my household. While they’re obviously too large to take them grocery shopping, they’re ideal for moving soft things (pillows, blankets, clothes) and assorted lighter ’stuff’ that doesn’t mind being jumbled together, like shoes.

They also have a satisfying crumple sound – a bit like a sail maybe, or tarp. While you certainly can’t use them to sneak stuff around in, their crunchy nature signifies that they don’t mess around. Apparently, you can carry up to 60kg (130 pounds) in them.

Design Your Self

Karim Rashid. Collins Design 2006, Paperback, 336 pages, $7.98

A review of Karim Rashid’s Design Your Self (2006)

Ladies and gentlemen of the class of ‘97: Wear sunscreen. If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now. (’Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young,’ by Mary Schmich in the Chicago Tribune, 1997)

If you lived in the Western world and had access to a radio circa 1999, you know these words. Baz Luhrmann, an Australian screenwriter, director and producer, took a ‘theoretical’ commencement address from a Chicago Tribune columnist and made it into a ’song’ of sorts: read in an authoritative male voice, the track dispenses a broad range of advice over a version of the song “Everbody’s Free (To Feel Good)” by Rozalla. Definitely a ‘novelty’ single, it reached #1 in the UK and Ireland and a respectable #45 in the US.

Industrial designer Karim Rashid’s Design Your Self, whether intentional or not, has the same thrust throughout its roughly 325 high-gloss pages of advice. Clearly not content with a single role or type of work, Rashid-as-author dispenses advice on the four key areas of life. The sub-title is, “Rethinking the way you live, love, work, and play.”

The book’s tone is a benign imperative: “Create large white spaces,” “impose order,” “drink plenty of water and use a humidifier,” “sex toys are great,” “simplify where you can.” It took me a lot of conscious effort to move beyond the imperatives, handsomely summarized on colourful pages with designer-ish fonts.

When I did manage to set aside my indignation at page after page of being told what to do and how to live, I initially learned that Karim Rashid is quite a good writer. While it’s definitely not particularly artistic prose, it is head-and-shoulders above almost every self-help book I’ve ever read. Most explanatory passages are crisp and economical, with perfectly serviceable (and sometimes slightly quirky) anecdotes from the famed designer’s hobnobbing life.

About 100 pages in, another realization: the reason I didn’t set it aside (and I set books aside readily when they irritate me) was that Rashid actually made sense in large stretches. It’s a strangely all-encompassing work, this; as wide (or wider) in scope as Emily Post’s famous instructions about manners, he sets out a comprehensive guide to living in this 21st century, urban, technology-savvy, media-saturated multi-culti world of ours. Design Your Self’s surprisingly broad range of topics also ensures that it never runs out of subject matter and, therefore, doesn’t become boring. (It’s quite possible to read it in the same way one might watch a horrible accident being narrowly averted: “Can he do it? Will he be able to turn the wheel before he hits the guard rail…?”)

Design Your Self is the ultimate reference to a kind of celebratory cultural relativism and as such will be deeply irritating to anyone with a more conservative outlook. Searching for its roots is, of course, not particularly hard – at least not if we speculate a little. Rashid was born in Cairo and grew up in Canada during the crucial Trudeau decades. There’s a generation of Canadians who came of age in the 70s and 80s who, naturally and quite fervently, believe in a tolerant, let’s-all-get-along, economically productive, inclusive society. This book is one such person’s attempt at imparting that world view to the next generation.

Rashid’s father was a non-practicing muslim (as he recounts in a passage about accepting yourself and others), and one gets the impression that his world is a deeply materialistic place, a place where spirituality of any kind has little place (key quote from the section about managing your own death: “Why can’t someone order a casket from Gucci or Prada?”). This seems fitting for a pontificating industrial designer, on one hand: this is a man who makes things, after all. Famous, iconic things. Things we might admire in a catalogue or exclusive storefront window.

On the other hand, it’s clear that Rashid is driven to communicate more than just advice and instructions. His is a thoroughly materialistic ethics, presented in perhaps the only way that such a project can be presented in the 2000s. Rashid’s desire is, I think, to intervene in the increasing occurrence of young people who simply don’t appear to have any idea how to do things, how to live. He does this in a way that is reasonably dignified – not preachy, not against a millennial backdrop of impending doom, not as the wise words of an old man (Design Your Self was published when he was 46). He offers advice based on reason alone, strange as that may seem.

If you can suspend your disbelief long enough – and, perhaps, skip over the portions where he tells you that black is out and that you should wear white and pink – there’s actually a lot to learn here. A little is about design and how one might structure one’s surroundings and activities; a lot is (old-fashioned) common sense, brought into the 21st century by a smart, accomplished and charismatic man.

It’s the sort of book you might find in a second hand bookstore on a Saturday afternoon, and before you know it, it’s Sunday night and you’re lounging on an orange couch with rounded edges in your newly remodeled loft apartment wearing white jeans and silver sneakers, wondering whether you should really have ordered that Gucci casket after all.

Day Is Done

Brad Mehldau Trio. Nonesuch 2005, Audio CD, $3.68

A review of Brad Mehldau Trio’s Day is Done (2005)

This is a surprisingly remarkable record. I’m not sure why it’s surprising, exactly: Brad Mehldau is one of the foremost young jazz pianists working today, and I enjoy most of his work that I’ve heard. But sometimes, a record will sort of insinuate itself in your consciousness; make its way to the top of where the fingers go to click on my Zune when I’m in the mood for a piano trio. I think it’s probably a combination of the quality of the music and quality of the audio.

Both are superb here. I’m especially fond of the two Beatles songs Mehldau tackles here (”She’s Leaving Home” and “Martha My Dear”). They’re intelligent, musical, intricate and hamonically adventurous. Mehldau is know for his utilization of pop songs as jazz standards. This has been, of course, standard practice in jazz almost since the beginning (taking popular tunes and performing them in innovative ways, treating them as frameworks for improvisation). Where Keith Jarrett’s standard trio, for instance, steadfastly stays away from amalgamating any new material into its repertoire, Mehldau actively seeks it out. He’s produced, over the years, some extraordinarily fun ‘new standards,’ such as Oasis’ “Wonderwall” and Radiohead’s “Exit Music (For a Film)” and Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun” (holy cow, what a great pick for a ‘new standard’ :) On this record, other outstanding covers include “Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover” and Radiohead’s “Knives Out.”

The trio interplay is flawless, intimate and conscious, which is all the more interesting given that this was the first studio album in a new trio formation. Sound clarity and balance is flawless. Highly recommended. And for those who are on the fence about jazz or piano trios, it’s a good basis for playing “guess the song.”

Neighbourhood

Manu Katche. Ecm Records 2005, Audio CD, $11.50

Playground

Manu Katche. Ecm Records 2007, Audio CD, $11.61

A review of Manu Katché’s Neighbourhood (2005) and Playground (2007)

Manu Katché is a French drummer (born 1958), originally famous for being an in-demand session and live drummer on the 80s/90s ‘world fusion’ circuit (Peter Gabriel, Sting, etc.). Now, his proclivities evidently run more in a jazz direction, and he’s released two stunning and eminently listenable albums on ECM (the German “Edition of Contemporary Music” label that some call the 21st century’s Blue Note). Apparently, he’s also the French Simon Cowell: Wikipedia reports that between 2003 and 2007, he was the mean judge on Nouvelle Star, the French equivalent of American Idol (”He was the most feared of [the judges] for his wit and his severe judgement about the groove and the rhythm of the singer-wannabes.”).

While I’m only beginning to listen my way through ECM’s oeuvre of the past 20 years or so, it’s clear that German producer/owner Manfred Eicher’s vision is distinctive and singular. No matter whether his releases contain jazz, contemporary classical (’serious’?) music, or various flavours of world fusion, they are infused with a particular aesthetic – spacious, present, clear audio; a minimalist approach to arrangement; often an angular sound that requires listeners to really pay attention; but also a warmth that draws us in and captivates our imaginations – for me, many ECM releases are interesting lab experiments positing, “What would happen if…”. The label’s output is, in many ways, representative of an ‘alternate’ musical reality, a realm of possibilities that ‘mainstream’ record labels never really had, where jazz, classical and world music coexist and fruitfully collaborate without skepticism or genre constraints. ECM is one of the few ‘older’ independent labels that grew, and continues to maintain, its audience organically. (Some interesting points in this interview with Eicher.)

ECM’s typical jazz output is maybe best characterized as the dominant European jazz aesthetic: a postmodern type of jazz, rooted in the traditions of acoustic instrumentation (piano trios, classic quartets, quintets, septets, etc.); not typically groove-driven; deeply cognizant of all harmonic possibilities; interested in space and texture over melody; not ‘free jazz’ exactly but definitely exploratory-minded; and actively affirmative of European players’ (often names North American jazz listeners do not recognize at all) decades of experience that should receive more exposure than they do.

Recording Manu Katché’s solo records in that context creates – either deliberately or by happy coincidence – outstanding music because it juxtaposes ECM’s minimalist approach with his pattern-based grooves. The result is a sort of European ’soul jazz’: Katché gives these players (and there are some truly formidable ones: Neighbourhood has Jan Garbarek on saxophone, Tomasz Stanko – whose music I have previously reviewed here – on trumpet, Marcin Wasilewski on piano and Slamowir Kurkiewicz on bass) the freedom to explore what it is like to play with firmer, more articulated, steadier rhythms carrying them. The compositions (all courtesy of Katché) make lovely use of the horn front-line (particularly beautiful, interestingly, on Playgroud, where Garbarek and Stanko are replaced by two younger players, Mathias Eick (tp) and Trygve Seim (sax)).

From the point of view of a listener who comes to this music from rock, what’s particularly interesting to me here is that – despite the instrumentation (soprano saxophone?) and provencance (Katché’s world music background) – I don’t perceive this as ‘fusion’ or have any Kenny G. associations (I have felt those before, particular when listening to some of Jan Garbarek’s less experimental solo work). While it’s always melodic, the rhythmically propelled, acoustic nature and non-ingratiating authenticity of these records make them equally ideal to listen to in the car (where other ECM jazz releases, like Thomsz Stanko’s records or the Marcin Wasilewski Trio, really don’t work at all) or pay attention late at night wearing headphones.

I also really enjoy how these CDs bring out a more optimistic, positive side of the “ECM sound”: while I find Stanko, Warcilewski and others endlessly fascinating and engaging in their abstractness and angular, ‘important’ musical explorations, they can also, at times, have a bit of a ponderous and depressing effect on me, all cold Scandinavian textures, hints and silences. When Katché’s groove emerges, as it does beautifully at around 1:45 in “Morning Joy” on Playground, my ears perk up and my toes start tapping. I suppose even a label like ECM, with its programmatic approach to musical exploration, ultimately affirms the power of a pattern-based groove. It is, in the end, what makes most popular music work. (I thought of discussing here whether ECM’s is, indeed, ‘popular’ music but decided against it…)

Other perceptive reviews to read: the BBC about Neighbourhood, All About Jazz about Neighbourhood, The Guardian about Neighbourhood, Budd Kopman on All About Jazz about Playground, John Kelman on All About Jazz about Playground.

(Jazz Dancing in Berlin, 1926 – German Federal Archives via Wikimedia Commons)

For someone who thinks of himself as both musical and deeply interested in listening to all kinds of music, I had, previously, studiously avoided listening to jazz. While I had been taught about jazz in high school (Improvisation! Dissonances! Drugs! Trumpets!), I think I had mostly seen New Orleans jazz as interesting but limited, swing (and its various revivals) as quaint and melodious but not very fulfilling and been put off by bebop’s endless “noodling.” Really put off.

My aversion wasn’t a blanket refusal, of course: I had explored certain things because I had found a connection to them, and – as a voracious music listener – it wasn’t particularly hard to find exposure even when I wasn’t looking. So I did have, in my collection:

• Billie Holiday: Because you can’t avoid her as one of the most, if not the most, compelling singer in the history of recorded popular music;
• Louis Armstrong: Because the Hot Fives and Sevens transcend their time and audio limitations completely;
• Django Reinhardt: Because he was an extraordinarily interesting guitar player and his story is one of the craziest of any musician I’ve come across;
• Nina Simone: Because it was easy to find a connection to her through my interest in the blues;
• Bill Frisell: Because he created an interesting, challenging hybrid between jazz and country/folk, and it was a sound that strongly appealed to me (still does), a sparse exploration of popular music in a style not unlike Ry Cooder’s in a way;
• Cassandra Wilson: Because she has a fantastic voice and sang Son House and Robert Johnson songs as if they were standards and created an entirely new, eerie kind of music;
• Keith Jarrett: I didn’t really explore very much of his oeuvre, but I was familiar with The Köln Concert and a few other solo recordings – I thought this was interesting and unusual music that had strong rhythmic and folk/New Age elements that I really enjoyed;
• Madeleine Peyroux: Because on a good day, she manages to sound very much like Billie Holiday, which is to say a lot. She’s an excellent performer of other people’s material and creates a lovely, warm, entertaining sound that draws you in (although I’m not so sure about her most recent effort which features her own compositions);
• Miles Davis: Because, as someone interested in the history of rock, you couldn’t exactly ignore Miles’ late 60s/early 70s electric recordings, particularly the live material, featuring various bands that, frankly, rocked harder than Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin put together;
• The Mahavishnu Orchestra: Because, after exploring Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew you can’t really ignore some of the stuff that came in its wake, and this seemed approachable (although, I have to say, I never felt entirely sure why this was classified as jazz and not prog rock).

Lately, I’ve been exploring jazz almost exclusively (for a month or two, anyway). I’ve discovered countless hours of fantastic music. I’m starting to piece together the history of it as I read Ted Gioia’s The History of Jazz and I feel like a kid in a candy store, discovering this great genre to which I had been closed all these years.

The History of Jazz

Ted Gioia. Oxford University Press, USA 1998, Paperback, 480 pages, $10.00

I’ll be reporting my thoughts about my discoveries right here on Teabowl.