Call and Response

Lovers of jazz will note that at this time of the year, when the release of new jazz records begins to slow, the jazz bloggers begin to submit their lists of the “best jazz albums of 2013.”  While there are some releases during these last two months, typically new jazz album releases hold off until after the first of the year, thus giving jazz writers opportunities for critical listening and reflection.

This writer faced a real challenge trying to come up with list of ten albums of my own that I could personally recommend to the jazz listening audience of our local community radio station. It would be easy enough for me to make a list of the ten best jazz album of the 50’s (I tend to know the music more), but keeping up with the current jazz scene is another story.  Hell, I’m just now catching up with the “new breed” of jazz musicians labeled as the “Jazz Lions.”  There are so many significant jazz releases in 2013, including new releases from well-known and established musicians as well as first-time releases from young and up-and-coming musicians, that it would take weeks to sample them all, even though this writer is retired and probably has nothing else better to do anyway.  But, fortunately for me, I did take the time to listen some of these new releases, and I came across some real gems.

For example, check out Chick Corea’s new record The Vigil, released in August of this year, showcasing his newest band also named The Vigil.  The music, as sophisticated, complex, and energetic as anything Corea has done in years, is flat out electrifying.  Don’t be misled by the campy titles like “Galaxy 32 Star 4,” “Planet Chia,” and “Outside of Space” (featuring less-than-stellar vocals from Corea’s wife Gayle Moran Corea singing barely discernible Corea-penned lyrics).  Someone not familiar with Corea’s earlier musical work with Return To Forever might be also mislead by the album cover (featuring Corea astride a noble looking steed and and a knight bekdecked in the sartorial splendor of medieval armor on some epic journey) into believing the record is really the soundtrack to some mystical video game. Not to be concerned. Actually, Corea’s affection for visual symbols of medieval romance and knighthood can be traced to an earlier Return to Forever album The Romantic Warrior (Legacy 1976). Again, despite the cover and medieval-sounding song titles, The Romantic Warrior showcases Corea’s rise as a more traditional jazz pianist backed by a band well-schooled in the “formalities” of jazz fusion, and the album became RTF’s most popular album, garnering them a Gold Record.

What makes The Vigil unique at this stage of Corea’s career is that he is not willing to let fusion define every musical move he makes in the album.  Instead, we hear a balance of approaches and styles in the record:  from mainstream jazz/swing balanced with Latin-tinged rhythms to Corea’s hypnotic-like fusion grooves.  Listening to this record, I hear the direction jazz is being taken, a direction that is not all that different from the direction it has always taken toward a kind of musical heterogeneity, populated by diverse cultures and musical influences.  The beauty of jazz is that rather than slam the musical door in the face of musical diversity, it instead proffers an open invitation to all cultural, global, and social influences to participate in the creation of all kinds of jazz and, therefore, ensuring jazz’s continued survival.