To be clear, I’m in no position to critically assess or compare the rich abundance of jazz releases in any given year. But jazz is my hobby music and my first and last musical love, so I keep an ear out, because like life thriving deep in an ocean trench without apparent nourishment, contemporary jazz is defying all odds, producing brilliant new work and evolving careers. I can’t get over how many bright and blazing young people give themselves to this high-level music when it’s largely invisible in the commercial statistics. And of course they’ve suffered along with all other performing artists this year, but I do have a special pain in my soul for the jazz musicians, whose art is especially in-the-moment for musician and audience alike. Jazz shows are intimate by nature, and I have missed cozying up in Rudy’s Jazz Room in Nashville as much as I missed any musical extravaganza that might have happened in 2020.
I tend to think of my taste as leaning just to the left of center, meaning I take to mostly comprehensible forms and tonalities. I savor noise and disorder in doses, but you’ll not find anything in this list that is abrasive or avant-garde. I’d like to think if somebody was curious about contemporary jazz, they could find albums in this list that would make them feel like there was a lot for them out there in this hard-to-explore realm.
The first brilliant release that got me excited for the year ahead was Jeff Parker’s pre-pandemic issue of Suite For Max Brown, a semi-abstract cycle that has styles crushing against each other like icebergs - some neo-soul, some electronica/minimalism, some trad with notes of rock and roll. Parker is the Chicago guitar player behind the long-running genius band Tortoise. He’s relentless with his new ideas.
Not jazz in the American mode but definitely improvised and conversational, Béla Fleck’s live duo album with Malian musician Toumani Diabaté called The Ripple Effect is not to be missed. The banjo and the kora are related instruments, speaking across centuries of history like reunited cousins.
Thirty-eight-year-old American guitarist Nir Felder is among my favorite players and composers. I regularly turn to his debut album Golden Age from 2014, so I was really excited when he released II this summer. It’s a summer-feeling wash of sound played with only bass and drum support. If you don’t find this groovy, savory and sweet, I don’t know what to say.
If you’re a sentient American who purports to ever toss around presumptuous declarations like, “I like music,” then these four names ought to be familiar to you: Joshua Redman (sax), Brad Mehldau (piano), Christian McBride (bass) and Brian Blade (drums). This is the all-star, Team USA front line of jazz in the 21st century. I’ve loved so many of their records in various combos, so this reunion of their 1994 (!) collective on Nonesuch Records titled RoundAgain was bound to be spellbinding and it is! The forms and approach are all classic, proving how robust tradition can be when the cats are modern people who keep evolving.
I’ve become a huge fan of bass player and composer Linda May Han Oh after reading about her a few years ago. Her album of 2019 Aventurine is a neo-classical wonder, so check that out. But I followed her this year into this quintet with saxophonist Walter Smith III and guitarist Matthew Stevens. What to say about it? It’s just unadorned, assured, slinky and melodic. Love it.
I didn’t know nearly enough about veteran trumpet player, composer and educator Ron Miles, because he’s just a very humble musician who reminds me in sensibility of my hero guitarist Bill Frisell. And wait, here’s Bill Frisell now, playing on this lyrical, lovely and refined album, Rainbow Sign. Miles is a music professor, so it’s exciting to see him make a debut on the legendary Blue Note Records, now under the imaginative stewardship of Don Was. Coming late in a hard year, this was a particular balm.
Up there among my very favorites this year and certainly my top discovery of a brand new name for me came through Soundtology by Australian pianist Kevin Field. He plays here with two different quartets. On board is Nate Wood, the astounding drummer from my beloved band Kneebody and guitarist Nir Felder, mentioned above. The off-kilter grooves, the Fender Rhodes piano, the minimalist vamps…it’s audio crack I tell you. CRACK!
I wrote late last month about the dramatic and diverse debut of the super-group ARTEMIS, and I’ll be having more to say soon about my happy discovery of Bahraini-English trumpet player Yazz Ahmed, so I’m not all done with 2020’s best as a listener (and we never should be!). But I’ll wrap this up with the album that I had on more often and with more stress-relieving, dopamine-enhancing effect than any other. And that would be Little Big II: Dreams Of A Mechanical Man by 37-year-old American pianist Aaron Parks. Again, with jazz being a deeply abstract and chemically unpredictable mingling of the music and the individual listener, I hesitate to proclaim this as anything but music I couldn’t enjoy more. Parks has a heady background that includes getting fast-tracked to the Manhattan School of Music where he studied with Kenny Barron. Then he worked with trumpeter Terrence Blanchard and he’s done a ton of side dates with greats of the current scene. This is a bookend to Little Big of 2018 and it’s even more seductive, with understated hip-hop flow, long lines, timbral patience and gorgeous, singable tunes. Here the guitarist is a fellow I don’t know named Greg Touhey, but I’m sure I’ll be hearing him more. His doubled melodic lines with Parks’ piano are a treat. This is almost simple enough to be considered ambient, and I often have it on to write. But no, there are declarative solos and richly detailed ensemble playing that reward close attention. I’m beyond blessed to have music this positive to get through this difficult time.
Please leave any jazz recommendations, new or legacy, in the comments. And if you enjoy this extra-curricular music commentary, along with thoughts on politics and society, you can receive my writing by e-mail every few weeks by subscribing to the newsletter.