Milestones

I'm Back

2010-11-05T21:39:00.000-07:00

It's been almost six months since it happened and I knew at the time what it was, but I'm still absorbing it.
What happened was that in May I had nifty stretch where I did three pieces for the Wall Street Journal in less than a month. As a writer who was flat out proud to write for the publication six times a year, this was a big deal. And it didn't happen out of the blue; my editor called me a few weeks before the launch of the Journal's Greater New York section and told me to expect a lot more WSJ in my inbox.
It also meant that I was a music journalist again, and this is the thing that I'm having trouble wrapping my mind around. I didn't see that coming, really, I didn't.
Ten years ago, I not only made my entire living writing about music, I made so much I was beginning to consider early retirement. A year later I was scrambling; all the music journalism work I'd accumulated disappeared. It was shocking; I'd deluded myself into thinking that the workload was a reflection of my veteran savvy in the biz. That was only going to increase, so naturally, the workload would grow too, right.
Instead, I fell prey to market forces, and the dotcom crash eliminated close to 60K in annual work.
Bye bye early retirement, hello disconnect notices, harassing calls from credit card reps, and of course summonses to housing court.
Sometime in early 2003 I awoke to the notion that I couldn't stomach the pose as an underemployed music journalist anymore. I simply needed to devote myself 24/7--and 52 if necessary--to fixing my financial situation. That might mean calling on any talent I had and seeing how I could develop it. I knew a lot about gourmet food, cheese in particular, so off I went to find a job at a store and dumb luck enabled me to land a 3/4 gig at a shop near me. The shop gave me an entree back into the world of high end cheese. I began shopping some casual sports essays around to daily papers and in a coupla weeks that turned into a weekly column on the NBA for the NY Sun. I still wrote about music occasionally, i.e. six times a year for the Journal, weekly for Newsday (but I could see the writing on the wall that would soon end, and it did in October 2005). The same week that it did, I got a second sports column. By early '06 I began to think of music journalism as a small and declining part of my income. On the one hand, there was WSJ and there were a few pieces in New York magazine, but the Journal work amounted to about 10% of my income and NY mag didn't seem sustainable (and it wasn't).
It didn't really matter that much to me. The sportswriting was growing. I was good at translating the new math of sports to the general audience and it seemed like that would be a good niche going forward. Music J would be a nice little sidelight to the sportswriting and ultimately to this idea that a friend gave me to start a business built around holding cheese tastings.
With a something like a 50-35-15 structure between sports, cheese and music, my income stabilized and I retired all the debt that had made my life miserable in 2002 and '03. I was just starting to think of ways to diversify my sportswriting endeavors when the unthinkable happened. The site I wrote for decided in not so many words to stop covering sports regularly.
I definitely didn't see that coming.
Some people think I should write about book about cheese, and they're right. Some people think I should write about music, and they're right too. One very cool guy gave me a book idea about sports, and it would be a blast as well. But I think the book I should write first is about scrambling in the crappy post-millennial economy. I'm really good at it. I've spent 2010 in constant fear of 111 Centre St. and I haven't paid a utility bill that wasn't accompanied by a threat all year. Does it worry me, no, not really, I need the energy I'd spend worrying to research story ideas or some such.
So it was probably that I was in such a red alert scramble that I didn't appreciate what those three WSJ assignments in May meant. However, as I ponder the beauty of my recent piece on Bill Frisell, http://bit.ly/bH7ZXn and that it's the first piece of four in five weeks for WSJ, it's starting to hit me--I'm a music journalist again.
Wow.
Didn't see that coming.
I'm not a one basket kinda guy anymore though. I'm furiously at work rebuilding the sports work and growing the cheese thing. Still for the first time in eight years, the bulk of my income will come from music journalism.
It's nice to be back.

At The Root on Regina Carter

2010-06-06T12:13:00.001-07:00

A new article! This one is at The Root on the great violinist Regina Carter and her new disc, Reverse Thread.
http://bit.ly/9HtR9z

More on the Playoffs

2010-04-26T15:48:00.000-07:00

Like most NBA observers, I expected the first round playoff series between the L.A. Lakers and the Oklahoma City Thunder to be interesting but still I underestimated it. I figured this series would follow a well worn narrative of a young playoff novice putting a small scare into the sage and savvy defending champions. Yet if after these first four games any Thunder fan that doesn't think their team can win is a hardy cynic. The Thunder's performance in games 3 and 4 feel more sustainable than the Lakers in games 1 and 2.
Okay, I know, I know, that's easy to say after the Thunder's 110-89 win on Saturday night, but it was exactly the vehemence of that win that led me to question the narrative at work here. These two teams were thought to be close and upon further examination some trends should give Lakers fans reason to worry. First of all the two teams second half of the season performance actually favors the Thunder who went 22-13 after the All Star break to the Lakers 18-14. More importantly, the Thunder are a very poor matchup for the Lakers. Just as happened with Aaron Brooks of the Houston Rockets in Lakers second round series last year, the L.A. defense is struggling to contain a speedy point guard. In this case, it's the Thunder's Russell Westbrook who is blowing holes through the Lakers defense.
What's worse, the Thunder's defensive strength capitalizes on the Lakers biggest weakness. The Lakers are not a good 3 point shooting team. during the regular season they ranked 24th at .341; they simply cannot stretch the floor. That's damning flaw against the Thunder whose perimeter defenders are Westbrook (6'3"), Thabo Sefolosha (6'7") and Kevin Durant (6'9"), tall guys for their positions with active arms. The Thunder run off steals and they get more deflections than any team in the league. The Lakers offense has ground to a crawl. During the regular season the Lakers averaged 105.9 points per 100 possessions; through four games with the Thunder they are scoring only 98 points per 100 possessions.
The Lakers still have two solid points in their favor, home court advantage (and the Thunder have yet to win a road playoff game), and Kobe Bryant. Bryant was a nonfactor in Games 3 and 4. He will have to be Kobe Bryant, Superstar, in Game 5 for the Lakers to have any sort of chance. The Thunder are packing the middle and keeping the ball from the Lakers big men, Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum. In other words the games on Tuesday and Friday should come down to the Lakers offense versus the Oklahoma City defense. OKC is winning the battle so far and they have served notice that they will likely be an elite team really really soon, but winning in Staples is still a big step.
If I were a betting man, I'd take a pass. The numbers point to OKC but betting against the defending champs at home in a key game doesn't seem like a sound play either.

The First Round of the 2010 NBA Playoffs

2010-04-17T06:57:00.000-07:00

The first round of the NBA playoffs is usually a formality, an opportunity for 55 win teams to show off how much better they are than 46 win ones. That probably won't be the case this year. I can readily see five of the eight series going deep into their second week.
The reason for this is fairly simple; the standings are unusually close. In the Western Conference, only seven games separate the #1 seed Los Angeles Lakers and the #8 seed Oklahoma City Thunder. In the 2-7 matchup between the Dallas Mavericks (2nd) and the San Antonio Spurs (7th), the lower seed has nearly twice the point differential of their higher seeded in state rival. The Western #4 vs. #5 matchup between the Denver Nuggets and Utah Jazz features two teams with identical records.
ESPN's John Hollinger, a writer I admire, noted this week that in the first round the higher seeded team with the better regular season record almost always wins these matchups, (41 of the last 41 times), but this season looks like its built for exceptions.
I think Cleveland, Orlando, and Phoenix will breeze into the second round, but the other five series will have the drama of a much later round.
The Utah Denver series will depend entirely on the health of Nuggets forward Kenyon Martin and Jazz forward Andrei Kirilenko (Jazz power forward Carlos Boozer is also ailing but the team has a more than adequate backup in Paul Millsap); without knowledge on their availability, the series is too close to call.
The Lakers should find themselves in a tough series against the young, inexperienced Thunder. The Thunder's strength is their perimeter defense; they use their length to deflect passes and create turnovers. The Lakers weakness on offense is spreading the floor (they have no consistent three point shooters presently). I can't see an upset but I'd be surprised if this doesn't go six games.
In the latest edition of the battle of Texas, I can see the Mavericks overcoming the Spurs entirely due to the depth they picked up at the trade deadline when they added Caron Butler and Brendan Haywood from Washington. The Mavericks were one of the better teams after the break, though their opposition is somewhat underseeded due to a bad run of injuries.
The Atlanta Hawks won't breeze into the next round but they are significantly better than the Milwaukee Bucks, who are missing their starting center Andrew Bogut. With him, the Bucks could have taken this series seven games, instead it will probably be six.
The Boston Celtics of current vintage usually play a surprisingly dramatic first round series and this season should be no exception. Their matchup with the Miami Heat won't go several overtimes, but it should go seven games. The Celtics staggered to the finish, and the Heat who finished only three games behind Boston were one of the hottest teams in the league down the stretch. Seeing how Boston defends Dwayne Wade will be the highlight of the first round. This series will only surprise if it doesn't go seven games.

-MJ

The Knicks Now

2009-12-03T10:49:00.000-08:00

It’s hard for a New York sports team to become nearly invisible in the ubiquitous sports media and irrelevant to all but their most loyal fans, but that’s what the New York Knicks have accomplished this decade. They play on the grandest stage in basketball, Madison Square Garden, but via a remarkable sequence of horrible personnel moves first by Scott Layden then by Isiah Thomas the team has become so bad that mediocrity would merit a banner heading in the New York Times. However, the team’s current state of disarray, a roster littered with unproductive players on long-term contracts, probably suits Team President Donnie Walsh just fine. It gives him a chance to build a Knicks team that is squarely in the tradition of their past champions.
Recently, the team appeared to hit rock bottom. After starting the season with nine losses in ten games, it considered signing free agent guard Allen Iverson, a great player in his prime, but presently a cantankerous, ageing veteran that few other NBA teams regard as worth the trouble, then at the last minute, chose not to. The addition of Iverson would not have turned the Knicks into contenders, but he would have given them a pulse, something that seemed sadly lacking in the team’s efforts early this season as it suffered one double digit defeat after another.
The scenario of watching a lifeless team isn’t new to Knicks fans; during a four year stretch ‘04-’05 through ’07-’08, the team lost nearly two thirds of its games. Rudy Giuliani was still mayor and a rising star in the Republican Party when the team last had a winning season in ’00-‘01. But the Walsh era is supposed to be different. When he took over the team in April 2008, he announced that the team’s goals were to be competitive on the court and to get their payroll far enough under the league’s salary cap so that they could vie for players in the upcoming summer 2010 free agent market, when superstars like LeBron James and Dwyane Wade will be available.
Selling the notoriously impatient New York City market on the concept of “wait till next year,” is considered a long shot, and Walsh’s concept was more like “wait till the year after next year.” Yet, it worked…for a while. New York basketball fans started dreaming of LeBron in a Knicks uniform like so many children hoping to find the latest cool toy under the Christmas tree. Fans shrugged off the fact that neither James nor Wade nor any other star players were likely to leave a championship contender to join the Knicks, a team that has not qualified for the postseason since 2004. In addition, as much as New Yorkers are proud of their bright lights, location matters less than it used to. NFL star quarterback Peyton Manning, one of the professional athletes with the most endorsement deals, plays in Indianapolis.
Last season those concerns seemed far away as the Knicks played solid basketball for much of the season. New coach Mike D’Antoni installed his uptempo system and the team played with urgency and passion, something not seen in a Knickerbocker jersey in many years. Meanwhile Walsh dramatically overhauled the roster. Almost weekly, players from the Thomas era were sent packing in favor of replacements whose contracts expired before the great summer of 2010. This led to a wellspring of optimism amongst the fan base. It seemed that the plan would work. The Knicks would be an improving team and with that plus the lure of New York City, a superstar would find Gotham irresistible. The giddiness led people to ignore that the final edition of the Knicks roster, wasn’t very good. Last season’s squad went 8-18 in their final 26 games, and it turns out that was merely a prelude to this season’s dreadful first month.
The slow start panicked fans as it effectively puts an end “the plan,” their dreams of a superstar in blue and orange, but it probably doesn’t faze Walsh at all. Although he certainly would like to have a superstar choose to come play for his team, Walsh’s reputation as a leading NBA team executive owes to two decades with the Indiana Pacers where he consistently put winning teams on the floor without following the superstar-and-supporting-cast model of roster construction. Instead, his teams were balanced units of solid contributors.
Walsh, who is 68, was born and raised in New York; he probably has vivid memories of the Knicks title era in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. Those teams were also “ensemble” teams rather than superstar plus supporting players. Back in the early ‘70s, New Yorkers took great pride in that fact. Rival teams like the Los Angeles Lakers and the Milwaukee Bucks had superstars, bur the Knicks won with a cohesive, ego-less unit.
Now, as what will probably be his final act in the workplace, Walsh is set to try and build a winner in New York that is squarely in the model of the teams that still cast a long shadow today. It would explain Walsh’s draft strategy, which has avoided high risk/high reward players like Brandon Jennings, a rookie for the Milwaukee Bucks who scored 55 points in only his seventh game in the league. And, it is why he would choose against signing Iverson. He understands that the Garden has had its fill of players who are superstars in their own minds like Stephon Marbury, Stevie Francis, and Zach Randolph. The Knicks of 2010-’11 are far from set, but what little we’ve seen indicates that Walsh is going to pursue players who are stars in the very best Knicks tradition. It’s an ambitious plan, but under these dire circumstances, it’s probably the only one that can work.

Ben Ratliff on Nels Cline's new disc

2009-02-09T06:37:00.000-08:00

NELS CLINE
“Coward”
(Cryptogramophone)

If the guitarist Nels Cline had joined the revered and more than semi-popular rock band Wilco in his early 20s, rather than in his late 40s, he might never be making solo-guitar albums on the side like “Coward.” This record reflects a far-and-wide aesthetic imagination, one that’s been broadening for a long time.

Mr. Cline’s playing has seriously mixed blood, and when he records multiple versions of himself on electric and acoustic guitars and about a dozen other stringed instruments, he becomes exponentially more mongrelized. He does his version of John Cipollina’s wide runs and fast vibrato; he likes crying slide guitar glissandi, looped clumps of distortion and amplifier hum, the clashing overtone sounds of Sonic Youth and the slow, deliberate, almost monastic music of traditional Japanese koto players. But he doesn’t let anything rest in one place. Meditative and minimal as these pieces may be, they’re written with rigor. Hear them once, and you might only be lulled, but one more time and you’ll hear the purpose and symmetry.

“Rod Poole’s Gradual Ascent to Heaven” is the imposing accomplishment here. It begins and ends with long zither chords, and over the 18 minutes between, links together slowly evolving figures, building and ebbing. Mr. Poole, an experimental English guitarist who lived and worked in Los Angeles and who was a friend of Mr. Cline’s, was murdered in 2007; a piece like this seems the right kind of homage to someone who had the patience to fully absorb long-form music. But then much of this record strikes a similar tone: it sounds like both an advertisement and an elegy for deep listening. BEN RATLIFF

Point of Departure # 21 and Blue Note at 70 in NYT

2009-02-09T06:24:00.000-08:00

Issue 21 of Point of Departure is out
http://www.pointofdeparture.org/content.html

NY Times on Blue Note at 70
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/07/arts/music/07blue.html?_r=1&ref=musi c

NFL and NBA at The Root

2009-02-09T06:19:00.000-08:00

On the whether the rise of black NFL coaches is sustainable
http://www.theroot.com/views/black-coaches-now-what

On basketball's new superstar, Kevin Durant
http://www.theroot.com/views/durant-durant

-MJ

Two new jazz pieces at The Root

2009-02-09T06:02:00.000-08:00

On Sonny Rollins extraordinary disc, Road Shows Vol. 1
http://www.theroot.com/views/rollins-road-shows

On Joshua Redman's fine disc, Compass
http://www.theroot.com/views/redman-s-compass-ever-steady

-MJ

More from the Masters

2009-01-21T21:28:00.001-08:00

Nat Hentoff at the Wall Street Journal on how jazz hastened the civil rights movement.

Gary Giddins in the New Yorker on guitar great Bill Frisell.

-MJ

On Freddie Hubbard R.I.P.

2009-01-21T21:14:00.000-08:00

Freddie passed at an inconvenient time for me. I was bogged down with holidays in retail and tired. That and also Hubbard was someone whose music I always respected more than I passionately loved.
Dave Douglas did the man justice with his blog at his label

So did Darcy James Argue.

-MJ

A vital dialogue about jazz and criticism

2009-01-20T21:43:00.000-08:00

Ben Ratliff of the NY Times (and like me, long ago of WKCR-FM) fielded questions from readers from January 12-16. It was a constructive exchange that echoes many things that I feel about jazz today.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/12/business/media/12askthetimes.html?hp=&pagewanted=all

I just bet he wishes he could add about 12 more names to his list of contemporary genuises.

-MJ

A song for the Inauguration

2009-01-20T07:15:00.000-08:00

Extra Golden's "Obama"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZ8YZov2m0U

a coupla more from the archives

2009-01-20T06:28:00.000-08:00

Election Night in Harlem for The Root

The current jazz revival for The Root.

The election night piece was just an example of playing a hunch and winning big. The jazz piece is close to my heart and I wish that I had had about 800 more words for it. The caliber of the music is amazing but it won't get the audience it deserves unless the jazz audience is willing to work for it. I suspect they would if there were details on how to do that work.

-MJ

Vijay Iyer's You Tube channel

2009-01-18T22:23:00.000-08:00

There's a lengthy discussion that needs to be had about the jazz audience and the expectation of the music industry functioning as a delivery system. We'll save that for another day and just amplify that Vijay Iyer has started his own youtube channel which functions as a fine archive of highlights from his recent performances.
His own website is full of other resources as well.

-MJ

The Orlando Magic

2009-01-18T08:17:00.000-08:00

I thought the Magic would be a good investment, and now that they are on a seven game winning streak, including four in a row out west (and a victim list that includes the Lakers, Nuggets and Spurs), the only thing left is to see if they can hold home court against Boston (01.22) and Cleveland (01.29). If they do--and of course, barring injury--Magic fans should harbor championship dreams.

-MJ

On Popular Music at The Root dot com 2008

2009-01-18T08:04:00.000-08:00

This is on TV on the Radio's Dear Science,

This is on the Godfather of Soul

This is a QnA with Vernon Reid on the impact of the King Assassination on popular culture.

-MJ

On Jazz at the Root dot com, 2008

2009-01-18T07:16:00.000-08:00

This is on the rise of piano trios, and new albums by Muhal Richard Abrams and Nik Bartsch.

An article very close to my heart, this is on Lee Morgan

Another trumpeter, this is on Roy Hargrove

Kind of Blue at 50.

Early '09 should see pieces on Sonny Rollins, Jazz Icons, and hopefully Josh Redman.

-MJ

At The Root dot com on the NFL's Conference Championship Sunday

2009-01-17T09:56:00.000-08:00

This article goes to great lengths to explain that the Eagles are not a Cinderella team, nor are they this year's Giants.
Then I own up to be utterly confused as to picking between Baltimore and Pittsburgh.

-MJ

From the Archives: Cheese writing

2009-01-17T09:37:00.000-08:00

For a little less than a year, I wrote a column on cheese for the networking site www.moli.com

Here are a few samples
This is on the American Cheese Society

This is on buying great cheese on a tight budget

This is on the rise of southern cheesemaking (ignore the photo of Humboldt Fog)

This is on cheese and nutrition

This is on Cheddar

This is on Vermont's glorious history

This is on cheese gift giving

This is on pairing wines and cheeses

This is on America's rise as an alpine cheese nation

The NBA Xmas Day Marathon

2008-12-27T09:27:00.000-08:00

I saw the danger, but didn't anticipate it. There were five NBA games scheduled for Christmas Day and I planned to be in most of the day housecleaning and cooking (the fish came out nicely; the veal chop was a revelation but the brussels sprouts roasted in maple, lemon and fresh thyme was the screaming down the lane 360 degree spin slam dunk of the day). I planned to watch Boston-L.A. and figured I'd watch bits and pieces of the other four games if they were interesting. For the most part, they were. As a result I spent Christmas with the tube on NBA for nine straight hours and feel better off for it. Some notes.

Boston - L.A.
Well, I certainly wouldn't mind seeing these two teams meet seven or eight more times. While watching the game and checking popcorn machine later, it seemed that the difference was that L.A.'s bench badly outplayed the Celtic bench, and that Fisher and Allen neutralized one another, which is a big advantage to the Lakers. Not that this is a big surprise, but Jackson outcoached Rivers. Several of those Gasol baskets down the stretch came after Doc subbed Eddie House for Perkins. Doc should have kept the small lineup on a short leash. The Lakers big men had had subpar games to that point, but Jackson didn't forget that they were in the game.
Lastly, I was intrigued by Kobe. Several times during the contest he called for the ball but didn't get it. Then with the ball in his hands repeatedly down the stretch of a close game, he passed to Gasol who had a better shot.
Make plans for February 5 when these teams meet again in Boston.

Phoenix-San Antonio
One point games come down to lots of things but in this case, the final play, in which Roger Mason nailed a three at the buzzer is what matters most. Plain and simple: Jason Richardson, who is an asset to the Suns, made a bonehead play rotating off of Mason to double team Tony Parker. Mason is lethal from behind the arc. Parker was already bottled up by Grant Hill.

Washington-Cleveland
The Wizards played like they had this game circled on their calendar for a long time. They didn't look like a 4-22 team. If Mike James plays half this well going forward, the Wizards will be respectable for the last two thirds of the season. Cleveland was the beneficiary of several hometown calls; Cleveland, welcome to the elite.

Dallas-Portland
The Mavericks are a better team than they are given credit for and if healthy, they will scare the beejeezus out of someone in the playoffs. Jose Barea is the best backup point guard in the West and he may have the Mavs dreaming of life without Jason Kidd's salary on the books. New coach Rick Carlisle has done a good job of mixing and matching from a bench full of young inconsistent players.
The Portland offense is designed to have a dominant inside scorer. On nights when Greg Oden isn't that guy, they are going stumble a bit. They shouldn't; there's talent on this team to play in a variety of styles, but Nate McMillan doesn't seem interested in offensive diversity right now. Maybe if Denver wins a few in a row...

Orlando-New Orleans
I flipped it on near halftime and was happy to see that it was a rout. Otherwise, I would never have gotten out and exercised.

Thursday night double bill

2008-04-11T20:20:00.000-07:00

It seemed like a good idea at the time.
I was going to work somewhat late, then bounce to Jazz Standard for the late set of the Dave Douglas Sextet and follow it with an even later evening excursion to the Village Vanguard for the Adam Rogers Quintet. It didn't work out as planned but it was okay.

Walking into Jazz Standard to hear Douglas, I was reminded of the last time I heard him there. I went with an old pal, who has been in and around the biz for years. Douglas group played a fine set to my ears, but my friend was unconvinced. "Some of those solos," he said. "I feel like I heard them too often at Knitting Factory."
It's been years since Douglas was a regular at the Knitting Factory though I first became acquainted with his work when the performance space/club was on Houston St. So the remark carried some weight. Did Douglas spend so much time varying the groups that he plays in that his solo style had ossified.
The Sextet Douglas presented Thursday night was proof of his still restless mind. DJ Olive was on Turntables, Brad Jones played an acoustic bass that was amplified to give it a mean rip snorting sound that might be more at home in a funk or backwater country band, Marcus Strickland was on tenor saxophone, Gene Lake laid a ferocious backbeat, and Adam Benjamin supplied the necessary Fender Rhodes keyboards.
The Fender was necessary as the music often feels like an updating of those rare few but utterly vital early '70s electric jazz recordings. Olive works more as an additional source of percussive sounds rather than textural ones. With Benjamin, Strickland and Lake all clustering short staccato figures over Olive's beat and Jone's atmospheric grunts, the music had a techno feel that should delight any fan of LCD Soundsystem (James Murphy fans would also like Bad Touch the cooperative quartet featuring drummer Ted Poor, saxophonist Loren Stillman, guitarist Nate Radley and keyboardist GaryVersace).
Did the solos sound similar to last time, initially yeah, they did. But as the set wore on the performance began to take on a personality all of its own. Douglas soloed but in shorter bursts than before. It was terse music that needed to generate excitement to work and with each of the six working within the surprising novel framework of the group, they did. I almost skipped the Vanguard just to let this music echo in my head.
But I'm not one to quit while I'm ahead (actually I'm not one to quit period).
A quick cab ride later, I was in the Vanguard for Rogers, a guitarist who has had several standout sideman gigs. My favorite in fact is a live at the Village Vanguard date with saxophonist Chris Potter called "Follow The Red Line." This week is his Vanguard debut as a leader and he brought along a stellar band, pianist Edward Simon, bassist Scott Coley, saxophonist Mark Turner, and drummer Jeff "Tain" Watts.
Rogers music offers bright clear melodic lines at the outset of each tune, but they retreat gently into abstraction by mid song. His tunes come with titles like "Confluence" and "Continuance." These aren't pieces about deep laments and emotional highs; they are about abstract thoughts about emotive highs and lows. Most bands would have struggled with the complex music, but this quintet brought it off nicely. Watts was consistently a pleasure (made me wonder if he's exerted an influence on the exceptional young drummer Tyshawn Storey), there were great duet moments between Tain and all three members of the front line. Colley matched wits well with Rogers on two occasions. However, by midset there was a sense that this was one of those nights were the band was--cliche alert--a little less than the sum of its parts. I could see what frustrated Nate Chinen on the night he attended.
Rogers and his bandmates make powerful but proudly insular music and some of that insularity is prevented me from fulling appreciating the force.
It was an awkward nightcap but two sets of music like this is never a bad time.

-MJ

A fun discussion

2008-04-06T09:01:00.000-07:00

The Root asked me to write the music piece for their 40th anniversary of the MLKing assassination package. I was flattered. It enabled me to talk about where I'm from a bit more than usual.
http://www.theroot.com/id/45635

The list is out

2008-04-06T07:59:00.000-07:00

A few days before Easter, I was asked by New York magazine to cull a list of the six to twelve most New York jazz recordings of the last 40 years for a segment they were doing called the New York Cannon. It's part of the magazine's 40th anniversary celebration.
The list with edited prose is on page 75. The full list is below.
I spent a lot of time wrestling with the assignment before coming to the conclusion that the list should be idiosyncratic and personal. Ask twelve critics each to do a list like this and you'll probably come up with 144 different albums. I kept having to remind myself that this isn't intended to be the 12 "best" albums of the last 40 years, just the 12 most indicative of the city. Of course New York City is the jazz capital of the world, so that makes it tougher. The 40 year cutoff made it very tough too since Coltrane's Vanguard sessions, Sonny Rollins on the Bridge, and other key NYC events took place in the years before 1968.
Also its idiosyncratic because what New York City means changes from New Yorker to New Yorker.
Nonetheless it was a fun assignment and I'm delighted that it ran so vividly.

Ornette Coleman – Of Human Feelings (Antilles, 1979)

The last track is called “Times Square,” but other tracks could have been called “Chelsea,” “Harlem,” and Soho. This 1979 masterpiece from the saxophone legend and his electric band Prime Time brims with urbane energy and New York rhythms, part funk, part African, part Latin and all jazz.

Arthur Blythe – Lenox Avenue Breakdown (Columbia, 1979)

In the ‘70s, Soho was full of musician-run performance spaces in lofts and it abetted a scene where great small group experiments took place. Given a budget by a major label, Blythe showed how diverse and exciting a loft-inspired large ensemble could sound.

Miles Davis – On The Corner (Columbia, 1972)

The cover looks like a caricature of 125^th St. circa 1971, but the music sounds like a funkified urban jungle, broken down subways and all. Miles last great studio album is a polyrhythmic monster that screams get down or get out.

The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra – Live in Swing City Swingin’ with the Duke (Sony, 1999)

Until Lincoln Center started a jazz constituent, most repertory bands were just weak shadows. This orchestra gets the rehearsal time and space to nail the elegant sophistication and debonair tone of jazz’s greatest composer.

World Saxophone Quartet – Live at BAM (Black Saint, 1985)

Born in the lofts of the ‘70s, WSQ was equal parts soulful pop energy and avant garde elusiveness; they prefigured the entire late ‘80s/early ‘90s Knitting Factory scene, Medeski, Martin and Wood, and Sex Mob.

Brad Mehldau – The Art of the Trio 3: Live at the Village Vanguard (Warner Bros, 1998)

When pianist Brad Mehldau started doing Live at the Village Vanguard albums, jazzheads wondered WTF? With his third volume, he proved worthy of the mantle of Evans, Rollins, Coltrane, and the many others who have used that title. Also with a repertoire that began claiming creative pop as grist for improvisational flights, he pointed jazz toward a post-millennial future.

Jerry Gonzales and the Fort Apache Band – Rumba Para Monk (Sunnyside, 1988)

During the ‘80s, you had to live in a pretty exclusive part of Manhattan to not hear great Latin music at least in passing, and this top flight band showed exactly how much Bronx and Barrio was in jazz’s most idiosyncratic composer.

Dave Holland Quintet – Prime Directive (ECM, 2000)

The precise arrangements of this stellar combo vividly recall the panoramic gleam of Wagner era midtown and the sun drenched Saturday mornings of contemporary Greenmarkets with equal ease.

Abbey Lincoln – Abbey Sings Abbey (Verve 2007)

On a record where jazz’s best living singer proves she’s also its best living songwriter, spare arrangements liberate vocal jazz from the ballroom and the cabaret and move them to a quiet corner of Central Park.

John Zorn’s Masada – Vol. 2: Beit (DIW, 1995)

In the early ‘90s, John Zorn created the ultimate downtown music: the Ramones at CBGB meet Ornette Coleman at The Five Spot and play with Eastern European ghetto harmonies and melodic structure. The only thing more bizarre than the recipe is how well it works.

Jason Lindner – Premonition: (Stretch, 2000)

Jazz isn’t learned on the bandstand anymore; it’s studied in conservatories. In the mid ‘90s, just as those institutions were flooding Gotham with its graduates, Mitch Borden started Small’s in Greenwich Village so the best could really get schooled. Jason Lindner’s big band was one of the first bands to establish themselves and create the new downtown sound.

Jenny Scheinman – Crossing the Field (Koch, 2008)

An album that grew from jam sessions in Red Hook squats and became the epicenter of the new Brooklyn jazz scene in Park Slope, Scheinman’s disc is full of weird combinations on the bandstand and irresistibly creative and eclectic music.

Chris Byars at the Village Vanguard

2008-03-31T08:01:00.000-07:00

Although technically, a Teddy Charles gig, the set I saw at the Village Vanguard Sunday night belonged to saxophonist Chris Byars.
Byars is a concise and pithy improviser and his three recordings on Smalls are stellar. It was his 2006 release Night Owls that made me take a greater interest in listening to all of my mail. With no foreknowledge of him I put it on. It just happened to be on top of the stack and I was floored by the arrangements for his octet. Meticulous and lush, the group captured the luxurious veneer of '50s jazz without sounding stuck in that period. The solos took advantage of contemporary rhythmic edges and abstractions. His next release, Photos in Black, White, and Gray offered equally stunning work for a quartet. The smaller setting allowed two of his bandmates, pianist Sasha Perry and bassist Ari Roland, a chance to shine. I haven't given his third disc, Jazz Pictures at an Exhibition of Himilayan Art, a fair shot yet, but it's near the top of the stack.
Byars gig at the Vanguard, was constrained mostly by the presence of vibist Charles, a veteran of the jazz wars who turns 80 in April. Like many a veteran he's played with everyone and at one point Byars read a list of the luminaries with whom Charles has played.
See the problem? Byars was too enamored of his bandmate to just let loose. The set included much fine playing, particularly on Gigi Gryce's "Sans Souci" and Charles' s "Arlene," but overall the band felt like it was stuck in a gear just shy of burnin'.

-MJ

Drew Gress at Jazz Standard

2008-03-26T21:15:00.000-07:00

The trumpet-saxophone-piano-bass-drums quintet has been a cornerstone of small combo jazz for more than 60 years. At Jazz Standard Wednesday night (March 26) the Drew Gress spin on the format, a group he calls Seven Black Butterflies performed a set that wandered through that history with such an elegant progression it was almost a narrative.
Gress is a bassist of the first call depending on who's in your phone. He's worked as a sideman with his 7BB bandmates, saxophonist Tim Berne and trumpeter Ralph Alessi as well as such notables like pianist Uri Caine and saxophonist Ravi Coltrane. In addition, he's played behind a good many novelty acts.
I first saw Seven Black Butterflies last fall at CIM in Brooklyn and they played music that owed to third stream tonalities and just left of center structure that made me wonder if he'd played with Andrew Hill. At Jazz Standard, they took a different tack, showcasing Gress's compositional talents and gently moving forward with esthetic and historical progressions.
The opening tune was a gentle hard bop piece that relaxed the groove (i.e. when I say hard bop, think Golson's Along Came Betty, not Timmons.s Moanin') and offered solos that recalled pastel blends rather than the blunt basic colors that hard bop often traffics in.
I thought that this might be his way of telling the nearly full house that he knows the tradition but has his own ideas of how to articulate it. But I may be underestimating the crowd. I think the current jazz crowd is too young to feel a sense of betrayal by modernity and avant garde tendencies in jazz. Going to an expensive nightclub like Jazz Standard now is all part of taking in music that more challenging (thankfully) than the conventional fare be it Amerian Idol or a hotel bar pianist churning out standards.
The second piece moved forward and westward. It began with a collection of spare notes from each of the five that took their sweet time cohering into a abstracted beat that melted into a fiery solo by pianist Craig Taborn. Drummer Tom Rainey, a master of nuance and subtlety but not a banger, followed along with Taborn but got blown down by his ferocious gusts. It seemed a tribute to the Chicago avant garde of the mid '60s, Taborn's solo was very Muhal-esque.
The rest of the set moved gently forward. There were pieces that echoed the early '70s free-ish fusion, late '80s traditional jazz with a few pop resolves sneaking in, and the set closed with a piece that felt very now, unusual rhythms dissolving into duos and trios and finally the band working out on a beat that sounded completely new and yet accessible.
Much of the music was from Gress' new disc, The Irrational Numbers (Premonition), which was produced by Gress and David Torn. It captivated me when I first heard it earlier this year, but I didn't stay in its grasp long. Now, it's going into heavy rotation.

-MJ

Jason Moran at the Stone

2007-12-10T08:11:00.000-08:00

Jason Moran at the Stone

A gentle snow—more a seasoning in the air than an urgent statement of precipitation-- fell intermittently on Manhattan Friday afternoon and it felt utterly incongruous until Jason Moran’s second set at The Stone that night.

Moran’s set introduced one of the pianist’s new projects, a trio with coronet player Ron Miles and guitarist Mary Halvorson, at the Stone, the artist run space that often host works in progress by performers capable of filling much larger and less off the beaten path venues. Their best moments recalled the fluid movement of water but they cohered with an elegance that stunned.

Moran’s deeply ruminative chords set the tone of the eight song program which included originals by all three members and a sweet cover of Duke Ellington’s “I Got it Bad (and That Ain’t Good).” Moran is fond of creating deep velvety chords and that transition into hard staccato rhythmic figures. In the jazz piano pantheon, it’s his link to Jaki Byard, Muhal Richard Abrams and to a lesser degree Andrew Hill, and on this evening, the softer patterns were his connection to Miles soft blurry tone. The spiky rhythms were his bond to Halvorson, a player who looks a bit like a gussied up Lisa Loeb, but plays like a direct descendant of Derek Bailey; she created hard dissonant figures and oddball rhythms.

The unusual harmonies of a piano guitar coronet trio washed across back and forth through the sold out crowd that buzzed with anticipation before the show and left looking cleansed from the experience. If only the aftermath of snow in the city was so pleasing.

-MJ

What's Wrong with the Mavericks

2007-12-08T08:29:00.001-08:00

What’s Wrong with the Mavericks

Last season the Dallas Mavericks set the NBA ablaze finishing with a 67-15 mark, one of the best regular season records of all time. Then they crashed and burned in the playoffs losing in the first round to a Golden State team that eked into the postseason on the final day of the regular season thanks to a loss by the other team vying for the final playoff spot. There are ugly losses, really ugly losses then there are historically bad losses and that defeat fell into the third category. In addition, the Mav’s playoff meltdown occurred after they choked away an NBA Finals in 2006.

So when they started out 12-8, in ’07-’08, it was reasonable to wonder if something was amiss. That’s a pace for a 49-33 season, something that would lead to dancing in the streets of Manhattan, but far less than what’s expected in Dallas.

There might be something wrong, but nothing shows up on my radar. The Mavericks defense is a bit softer this season so far, but good defenses often take a while to gel. At this point of the ’05-’06 season Detroit, a perennially rugged defensive club also ranked badly in Defensive Efficiency (points allowed per 100 possessions), so the Mav’s 20^th ranking among 30 teams doesn’t concern me much. On offense, the Mavs can still score on anybody, ranking fifth in Offensive Efficiency.

The Mavs have made some nice changes to their roster bringing in swingman Eddie Jones and pivotman Brandon Bass. Their roster looks very, very sound. So why are they on pace to finish almost 20 wins behind last year’s team?

The answer is twofold. Last year’s team had a much better record than their play indicated. The ’07 Mavericks had a point differential that was consistent with 61 wins not 67 and those things tend to “correct” themselves over time. And this year’s team has a win differential of a 52 win team, not a 49 win one so far. Thus we’re talking about a nine win difference.

That’s easier to explain; the division is much, much tougher. Last season New Orleans was mediocre (a 39-43 record) and Memphis was outright horrible (22-60). This season New Orleans is playing like a powerhouse (13-7) and Memphis is much tougher than their 6-13 record indicates. Their point differential is consistent with a team that’s 9-10. Or to put a finer point on it, Memphis, the last place team in the Southwest Division is playing well enough to be a second or third place team in four of the other five NBA Divisions.

Let’s say that the Mavs are a 58 win club, a 58 win club goes through some stretches where they play like a 49 or 50 win club and some where they look like a 65 win club. It’s the natural statistical distribution of things during a long season.

There’s another unquantifiable thing going on with the Mavs. Last season they approached every game as if it offered redemption for their Finals foldo. This season, they’ve all but said that the regular season is a warm up for the playoffs. If the Nets said that, I’d worry about overconfidence, but the Mavericks have won 57 games or more in five of the last six seasons. They are an elite team that has improved in key ways after almost every season. They look formidable this season too, but formidable isn’t as earth shaking as it used to be.

The Heat are Cold

2007-12-07T08:19:00.000-08:00

In general I like to think ill of good teams and good of bad ones. It's proof that growing up in Chicago affected my sportsmanship more than going to high school in Texas.
One exception to that rule is this year's edition of the Miami Heat. At 4-14, I'm ready to dismiss them from then discussion of relevant NBA teams. Yes, they are only eighteen months removed from a championship parade, but more relevantly they are an old team six months removed from being swept out of the playoffs in the first round. The track record of old teams in decline can't be pretty (I'm not going to do that research now, though).
Those thoughts came to mind last night when I chose not to watch the Heat-Blazer game. My mind is already made up on both teams. The Blazers are a very good young team that would be well served by a brief relocation to Portland Maine this spring in order to qualify in the Eastern Conference playoff bracket.
Instead of wondering who the Heat will take with their lottery pick, I began to wonder if it was worth it. In 2003-04, the Heat were an exciting up-and-coming young team. Then that youth (except Dwayne Wade) was gutted in exchange for Shaq, Antoine Walker and Jason Williams. A title ensued. Without the deals there wouldn't be a banner hanging from the rafters of American Airlines Arena. However, without the deals, the Heat would enter this season with a nucleus of Wade, Caron Butler and Lamar Odom. Put a halfway decent supporting cast around those three and you have a championship contender whose five year window is opening rather than an old team whose shorter window of contention just slammed shut.
As a team exec, I'd take the banner. As a fan, I'm less sure.

What would you choose.

-MJ

Knicks 100 Nets 93

2007-12-06T07:51:00.000-08:00

About midway through Wednesday night’s Knicks Nets game, I had to stop myself from asking my editor for space in the Friday paper. I felt as if the game was one great big “I told you so” for me. I’ve been saying that having Marbury and Crawford together and having Curry and Randolph together on the court at the same time was counterproductive due to overlapping skill sets. Now without Marbury and Curry out, the Knicks have their most efficient offensive showing of the season.

The Knicks typically put up 101.8 points per 100 possessions. Last night they were on pace for 114.9, a mark if sustained would have them among the top offenses in the league. With only one low post offensive threat and one threat to shoot ballhandler on the floor at any given time, the Knick offense really thrived ; they committed only ten turnovers and only two in the second half.

The Knick offense came at the expense of a Nets team minus Jason Kidd who missed the game due to migraines, and this game underscores that while Kidd’s reputation is for circus passes on the fast break, his greatest value is on defense. All of his teams have improved markedly in Defensive Efficiency, points allowed per 100 possessions, after his arrival, and his absence last night was telling. The Nets were on pace or 106.9 points per 100 possessions last night, a slight improvement over their putrid season average of 100.8, but their defense suffered due to Kidd’s absence.

While watching the game, I was keeping tabs on Philadelphia who was making Boston work for their win. The Sixers have a poor record but they’re not doormat. This weekend’s two game set should be a competitive pair of games.

Some notes from the Game

2007-12-01T07:49:00.000-08:00

So finally, after five seasons of writing an NBA column, I got to go to a game and what an interesting game to start with.
Coming off of an embarrassing, no humiliating defeat in Boston, the Knicks figured to either mail it in to a chorus of boos, or provide the Garden faithful with a rousing and maybe empathic confirmation of their loyalties.
Somehow they did both.
For three quarters the Knicks played the same caliber of lethargic ball that got them hammered at Boston. That Milwaukee was only up by 15-20 points tells you more about the difference between the Buks and Celts than anything else.
Then in fourth quarter Fred Jones--yes Fred Jones--came in and sparked a rally. He d'ed up on whichever Buck guard he was marking and Balkman and Jeffries combined to shut down the middle. Suddenly the Bucks could no longer waltz through the paint for easy buckets, and the outside shots were now contested and not dropping so readily. Jamal Crawford got hot, and the Knicks got a win.
But this win was a guilty pleasure.
The first three quarters made two things abundantly clear. The coaching staff has quit trying. The Bucks played the game as if they'd read their scouting reports on the Knicks. The Knicks showed no such preparation. It was as if they were shocked to see Desmond Mason driving the lane. Most teams know that the right approach is to challenge him to hit outside shots. The Bucks on the other hand, backed off of Lee and Balkman whenever they had the ball on the perimeter, knowing that neither possess the range to hurt them from out there. Hell, I could see Yi Jianlian tell Balkman "go ahead" when he backed off of him as Balkman held the ball 20 feet away. There was no urgency to get the ball out of Redd's hands either.
Further abettting the sense that the coaches were not "in the game" were the substitution patterns which pretty much went according to fouls. Any player with two fouls in the second quarter was benched until the second half.
The other thing that's painfully obvious from being present at the game is how poorly the Randolph/Curry thing is going. You can't have two guys calling for the ball in the low post simultaneously. They cancel each other out and clog the middle with defenders.

The crowd was feisty, and often during the first three quarters fans stood up and went on LONG rants at the team. Even with the dramatic fourth quarter and the standard Garden chants of Dee-Fense and what not, the loudest cheers of the night were the Fire Thomas ones, the second loudest for the Knick City Dancers. The third loudest were for Jianlian who seems to have an Ichiro effect. There were large contigent of Asians, often wearing Yankee or Mets hats, cheeing Yi's every move.

The game reinforced my suspicion that when Thomas is let go (I don't thnk "if" is in the equation anymore), the Knicks will start to win a respectable amount of games.

The talent is there but right now it's being very badly used.

-MJ

What If...

2007-11-17T08:30:00.000-08:00

...The Chicago Bears defense is really coming around.

...and Grossman's ability to throw the long ball ends all those 8 man fronts that have been bottling up Benson all year.

Then Maybe, just maybe, the season isn't finished yet.

-MJ

The Yankees

2007-10-19T21:50:00.001-07:00

The essential problem with how the Yankees bungled the dismissal of Joe Torre is that clarifying the managerial situation is only one of several key problems that the Yankee front office has to deal with this offseason. Judging from how they handled the first one I'm not particularly optimistic about their handling of the next few.

First of all it was hideous to not have a set plan for Torre, letting him twist in the wind was horrifically bad even by Steinbrenner standards.

I had felt the right thing to do was to move quickly, praise Torre for his years of excellence then announce that the team was moving in a new direction and wanted Tony Pena to lead them.

Why Pena?

He’s been in the Yankee organization for a couple of years so he knows the deal. He’s the only man to lead the Royals to a winning season in the last 15 years or so. And he has an good track record of working with young pitchers.

If the Yankees are to be more than playoff also rans, then Joba Chamberlain, Phillip Hughes, Ian Kennedy and Chien Ming Wang are going to lead them. Torre’s track record with young pitchers isn’t strong (hence the Joba rules).

Anyway, now you have what looks like a bungling front office and several more opportunities for them to fumble.

The new manager: if a pay cut is offered to a man who has made the playoffs twelve straight seasons, what incentive is there for top managerial talent to come to the Bronx?

Mariano Rivera and Jorge Posada. Both could leave as free agents and this debacle probably tempts them to test the waters.

And last but hardly least: A-Rod. This is a lean season for free agents, so most of the teams that can bid on A-Rod will. Without him, the Yanks are an old and declining team unless you think Melky Cabrera is a future all star.

Be afraid Yankee fans, be very afraid. This is already bad and it could get worse quickly.

Greetings

2007-10-09T01:11:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my"other" blog. My first blog, http://thejoyofcheese.blogspot.com functions as a billboard for my concerns about cheese.

This blog is for my additional thoughts about sports and music.

-MJ