Is This Jazz? Old Is New

Purchasing a new album has always been a thrill. The only problem I have is learning when enough is enough. I don’t buy a lot of stuff, but when I go in on grabbing new tunes it’s as if I stumbled into a buffet after not eating for week. When it comes time to listen to this stuff, however, the music I acquired in the past tends to get buried in the recesses of my library, only to pop up in some shuffle or snap of intrigue. A year or so ago I had to stop buying into streaming just as a way to calm down on the search and actually listen to what I had paid for. Plus there was the ethical implications of being a musician paying for services that aren’t fairly compensating artists. Lately I’ve taken to putting my digital library on random to see what gems may lie previously undiscovered and some days this practice can be particularly rewarding.

I was a few songs deep into the shuffle the other day when it happened: A track caught my ear that I had never heard before. It was strange at first since the sound was very familiar, but I couldn’t place the artist right away. While the keyboards being used had a timbre often heard in the early years of synthesis, the drums that accompanied them had a driving intensity in their groove that was much more reminiscent of our current era. The bass player sounded like Jaco Pastorius, but so many people cop his sound that it didn’t add up with what I heard. My mind started making assumptions, clouding my instinct. Was it some newer guys playing with retro sounds? Is this some dollar store fusion album I picked up in my travels? Finally I quit guessing and looked to see that I was listening to Weather Report’s “Havona” from their album Heavy Weather. You know, like the one seemingly everyone has bought and listened to? Basically the fusion album the world knows? I felt my jazz credentials slipping.

How did it happen that I missed it? Probably because it’s the last track on the album and I got deep into the opening side, losing the back cuts to the ether. Next thing I did, of course, was to quickly listen to the whole album on the spot so as to be sure I wasn’t missing anything else.

Reflecting back on this, a couple thoughts cross my mind. The first being that this cemented my belief that certain music has to find you at the right time or it loses its effect. When I originally heard this album I had mostly shied away from fusion, but through my evolved taste I’ve found a whole new appreciation for these songs and have since put them on a heavier rotation. Secondly it gave me much deeper admiration for all that these players did for the music at large and how they helped propel this type of sound into musical consciousness, being both pioneers of fusion and forebears of the sounds we hear prominently displayed in modern releases.

Lastly this once again proved the simultaneous timelessness and forward thinking of jazz. That a record from 1977 can sound as if it belongs beside a 2016 download is mind bendingly significant. Masters don’t make music for the now, they make music for wherever and whenever you may find it. That may be now, or it may be 50 years from now, but the track still plays and will carry its effects into people. Jazz music has always made a habit of reestablishing itself by reflecting the modern culture, sometimes through its old stand-by repertoire. A “standard” is a title reserved for tunes that are most prominent — at times most over played — in the jazz oeuvre. Tunes like “All The Things You Are” or “Stella By Starlight” have been recorded more times than I’d care to guess and have become recognized as essential in jazz academia. Yet, despite their age, players still go in on them and continue to bring them in new directions through vibrant arrangements and experimentation.

Even more recent songs have started to become additions to this exclusive catalog. Off the top of my head I can think of three different instances of jazz musicians crushing Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” (Ben Williams, The Bad Plus, Eric Hofbauer) and that number will surely grow over time. The evolution of jazz is impossible to fully grasp because as soon as you have a handle on it, the mold has fractured and spilled out into several directions and continues to seep into all corners of art, culture and sonic capability. This is why I can’t feel particularly ashamed by my miscalculation, but rather humbled by the foresight and genius of these masters, and to be mesmerized by the vastness and unpredictability of the art form at large.

Before I go, though, some questions. Discovering music has never been easier than it is right now. The Internet has made the search for new sounds less of a chore and more of a passive activity. Is this healthy for our musical growth? Do we gain valuable insight from this level of consumption? Or is this constant feeding a way to hold off our appetites if only briefly before going in on more dessert without ever retaining the flavors?

If your collection is vast, or even if it’s only a few artists deep, go back and start to climb down into those tracks and immerse yourselves into what they offer. You’re going to find something exceptional, and it’s often in music you’ve already known.

Happening Around Town:

The John Allmark Jazz Orchestra; Mondays @ The Met (Pawtucket)

Is This Jazz?; First Friday, bimonthly @ AS220 (Providence) isthisjazz.tumblr.com

Joe Potenza; Fridays @ Tarragon Bar (Providence)

Groove Merchants; Mondays @ Fifth Element (Newport)

Jazz Jam;Tuesdays @ Ten Rocks (Pawtucket)

Groove E Tuesday;Tuesdays @ Murphy’s Law (Pawtucket)

Parlour Jazz Jam; Third Sunday each month @ The Parlour (Providence)

Matunuck Beach Hot Jazz Party; Mondays @ The Ocean Mist (Matunuck)

 To add your listing please email isthisjazzri@gmail.com.

Ben Shaw is a local composer, performer, writer, and podcaster. Dig into his works at ahueofshaw.tumblr.com or find him on Twitter @ahueofshaw.