Back In the Saddle - summer recap, Øya and Oslo Jazz

Photo by Chris Monsen (c)

An eventfull summer, involving a long but lovely coastal drive, a couple of music festivals and involvement with the release of ENO, Norway's first music mag proper for quite some time (who said printed arts journalism was dead?) is (mostly) behind me. Hopefully, this space will be updated on a more regular basis from now on. I have, however, in addition to having seen quite a bit of live music, been able to catch up on some recent album releases, both jazz and non-jazz, meaning the 2010 list may see a facelift in the upcoming days.

Øya 2010 was one thing (many good to great gigs - none mentioned, none forgotten), but two of the most anticipated concerts of the summer were Ornette Coleman and Mostly Other People Do the Killing, who both played during this year's Oslo Jazz Festival (as did Charles Gayle and Archie Shepp, both of whom I missed).

Ornette Coleman brought long time associate Tony Falanga on double bass, and son Denardo Coleman on drums, together with Al McDowell on electric bass. Playing on the main stage of Oslo's (fairly new) Opera, the sound was impeccable, as one would hope from any new opera house. This meant that Falanga's arco work was more clear and audiable than I've experienced before (this was the fourth time I've seen Falanga with Coleman). Since the group have recently dropped the second double bass player, Falanga played more riffs and walks than he has done previously, and locks into grooves more often than Gerg Cohen and Charnett Moffett - who played on previous tours - used to do. McDowell's bass playing almost doubles as an electric guitar, tending to stay up on the register, but he also brings in the feel of Ornette's 70s electrified groups. Denardo bashed on the drums, in contrast to many of his father's often quiet if forceful melodic bursts, much to the annoyance of some I've since talked to. Though I remind them that Ornette have often had juxtaposed elements in his music. Of the tunes they played, many of which were culled from Ornette's late 50s early 60s records, another new rendition of "Sleep Talk(ing)", a cracking "Blues Connotation", and the closing "Lonely Woman" were just a few of the highlights.

Mostly Other People Do the Killing played their rip-roaring fireball of über jazz to a much smaller, but no less enthusiastic audience the following Saturday. Their ability to both channel, deconstruct and reinterpret the jazz canon in their own idiosyncratic way is made even more clear as they take exactly the same route with their own material -- they quoted some five or six of their own tunes during their first piece of the night, without losing track of where they were headed. MOPDtK sure are a bundle of energy and humor, and drmmer Kevin Shea in particular is bringing back jazz shtick -- at one point a "tussle" with one of his cymbals during an imrpovisation ended with him using it as a stearing wheel behind his drum kit. You know, Monk used to get up and dance during gigs. A great band, both live and on record.

Xgau's Consumer Guide & Molde Jazz '10

The more observant of you may have noticed that I've put up a section on the right hand bar of this blog called "Subject to Change". The idea was (and is ) to post links to things that I find worth reading, but don't feel the need (or the time) to comment on myself.

At the top of that section as of now, is a link to Tom Hull's comments regarding the demise of Robert Christgau's Consumer Guide, which I do feel the need to say something about myself.

The influence of Christgau's CG can be felt on several planes. His great writing - joyful celebrations of the art form as well as acerbic put downs and the in-betweens - has inspired me and others to try to reach for a higher level of how to write and think about music, especially in how to convey those thoughts to others. And Christgau could unfold the essence of a record using fewer, but more telling, words than most. His immense appetite for music has meant that he has discovered more gems than most other critics, which has certainly also meant sifting through hours of crap. With the CG, he had an opportunity to cover more of that music in writing per month than any other critic.

Much of the above has been said by many commentators allready. But what has perhaps been his biggest influence on me has only been mentioned in passing or by extention by others.

Christgau crystalized the idea that music communicates - implicitly and/or explicitly - attitudes, values, ideas and emotions, and the question becomes not only what those qualities are, and if or how they resonate, but also how they are communicated. No one "genre" has the monopoly on the attitudes and ideas I find valuable (even if, at first glance, some may seem better equipped to convay them more than others, or certain "genres" seem to have more of one attitude or value than the next). That is the reason I more often than not have tended to agree with Christgau's accessments: because our world views are similar. Sure there have been disagreements, as there should be if you're an autonomous being, but these disagreements have just as often as not tended to regard how well or not I've thought the above mentioned qualities have been communicated more than what was valuable in the first place.

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On a different note, Molde Jazz 2010 kicks off today, and for the first time since setting up this blog I won't be in attendance. This is partly because of practical reasons, but also that barring Sonny Rollins and the Brötzmann/Kondo/Pupillo/Nilssen-Love project Hairy Bones, there really wasn't much that tickled my fancy. Instead, I hope to bring extended coverage of Oslo Jazz Festival in August, which has a great line up this year with Ornette Coleman, Mostly Other People Do the Killing, Charles Gayle and Archie Shepp among the highlights.