The JimH Blog

Bogey Vujkov - Comin' Up for Air

Bogey Vujkov's new CD "Comin' Up for Air" shows just what can happen when one of my favorite jazz pianists teams up with some of the best session musicians in Seattle and the music really starts to cook. It verges on commercial (hey, musicians got to eat, eh?) with lots of high-octane elaborate percussion but there are also moments of remarkable tenderness. Bogey has given me permission to include a couple of samples in this blog post. Click the titles to hear them and see what you think. Click the image to buy the CD.

Three Sketches is an original piano solo with a reflective style that seems to fit somewhere between Debussy and jazz.

Tune for Howard by Bogey's mentor Billy Taylor starts with a piano solo and then kicks into gear.

Will "Comin' Up for Air" be a commercial success? Selling music has always been a tough business and jazz even more so, but I really think this one has a shot. And remember, you heard it here first!

Can Kronos Quartet save classical music?

As has been widely reported elsewhere, classical music is dying. The public isn't exactly clamoring for the next great symphony or opera. Modern classical (there's no good word for this category of music) composers are out of touch with what anybody wants to hear.

There is a lot of great music being written, but much of it is called jazz. That's a whole other discipline, but it's interesting to see what happens when a top flight string quartet takes on the challenge.

Kronos Quartet is known for attacking unusual projects. Listen to this piece from their album Pieces of Africa. More recently, they have recorded an album of music by Thelonius Monk and another by the great pianist Bill Evans. There's something completely wrong about a string quartet playing music that is meant to be improvised, but there's also something completely right.

Take for example a song I've recently become obsessed with, partly because I love to play it myself: Very Early. Here it is played by the Bill Evans trio. It's haunting, it's lovely, its rich dark chords fit together in classic Evans style. This song is often covered. Here's a version by a singer you've never heard of named Sandra Booker.

Here's what Kronos Quartet does with it. They cheat a little by adding a fifth player -- the bassist Eddie Gomez who played with Bill Evans for many years. They're breaking the rules, but breaking the rules is just what classical music needs.

Did Jane Monheit peak at 23?

Jane Monheit's latest album has just come out, and like the one before that, it's bland. What happened to this talent we had such hope for?

When Come Dream With Me came out four years ago, Jane was only 23 years old. Somehow she convinced some of the finest musicians in jazz to be her side men and she recorded a remarkable album that started with this recording of Over the Rainbow. Listen carefully. Turn off your email, lower the lights, and really listen.

Kenny Barron is one of my favorite pianists (we'll get to Glenn Gould in a later post) and his comping here is both simple and elegant, both tasteful and tasty. Chistian McBride's bass provides perfect support. Oh yeah, and there's that singer. Jane is just a kid, but she totally commits to this song written for another kid with a remarkable voice back in the 30s. Sure, she swoops and maybe even shows off a little, but you buy it because it's completely sincere. Her perfect intonation doesn't hurt either. It's one of the best jazz cuts of the past decade, and it's not even really jazz.

She has never recorded with such great musicians again, preferring her younger band. Her arrangements have never been as good. She's never sounded as confident.

And yet I am confident she will become not just a star but an important musician. That sincerity I mentioned has never left her. Her musical sensibility has wandered a bit, but the spark remains. She believes in the music and she makes me believe in her.

Bah Humbug Maureen Dowd

Maureen Dowd mentioned in her blog yesterday -- wait a sec, it was her Op-Ed piece, but what's the difference -- that the annoyingly ubiquitous Christmas music this time of year gets her down because of its blatant commercial associations. I couldn't disagree more.

It gets me down because it's just bad music. We're supposed to like it. It's supposed to make us happy and jolly and remind us of those glorious Norman Rockwell Christmases we never had. But why not admit it, it's just bad music. Pa rum pa pum pum. Bah Humbug.

Now, why can't I add a trackback to the NYT?