High times for jazz are here apparently. Last week, legendary composer Herbie Hancock won the Grammy for Album of the Year.
River: The Joni Letters is probably the only sorta-jazz album to win Best in Show in the awards’ 50 years. Never mind that River is effectively a pop album – all of the songs are covers of Joni Mitchell tunes and sung by some of today’s trendiest soft-rockers, including Leonard Cohen, Norah Jones, Tina Turner, and Mitchell herself. And never mind that the win isn’t really that surprising, considering that several recent Album of the Year winners – Tony Bennett’s MTV Unplugged, Natalie Cole’s Unforgettable … With Love, and the soundtrack to O Brother, Where Art Thou? – are homages to the pop canon, loaded with familiar singalongs.
In bestowing Best in Show on River, the Recording Academy, the trade group behind the Grammys, seems to be trying to make up for decades of neglecting America’s original music form. I bet that even the least passionate jazz fan can rattle off at least 20 real jazz albums more deserving. (A Love Supreme, anyone? Bitches Brew? MJQ’s Last Concert? Hancock’s own Maiden Voyage?!) Clearly, as evidenced by River’s win, the academy is up to something, namely flipping the bird to iPod Nation and focusing on music lovers who don’t download music – or don’t know how to – and share it with their friends: old-timers.
Except for Beck, the category of Best Solo Rock Performance could have come from 1988: Paul McCartney, John Mellencamp, Bruce Springsteen, and Lucinda Williams were the other nominees. And the show opened with a duet between R&B songstress Alicia Keys and ancient video footage of the late, great Chairman of the Board, Frank Sinatra, whose head and black-tux-clad torso loomed in spooky black and white on a screen directly above Keys’ piano centerstage. Creepy. In a development that either prefigures or follows the academy’s newfound jazz fetish, the Fort seems to be all wrapped up in the resurgence. Along with the recent opening of the Scat Jazz Lounge downtown, several groups and performers – including drummer and bandleader Adonis Rose and pianist Jhon Kahsen – have been busy waving the jazz flag.
Arts Fifth Avenue is another staunch supporter, and on Saturday, there’ll be a mega-throwdown at 1628 5th Ave., featuring the Fifth Avenue Jazz Collective: local masters Leonard Belota, Pat Brown, Damon Callahan, Joey Carter, Jeremy Hull, Sam Walker, Dave Williams, and Keith Wingate. I’d bet that they’d all welcome a little local love, even if only until the jazz fad vanishes. Call 817-923-9500. … Congrats to the Blue Shoe Project, a nonprofit blues education organization in Colleyville whose Last Of The Great Mississippi Delta Bluesmen: Live In Dallas took home the Grammy for Best Traditional Blues Album (Vocal or Instrumental). Recorded by Jeffry Dyson and his son Michael Dyson, the father-and-son team that founded Blue Shoe, the album features performances by Henry James Townsend, Robert Lockwood, Jr., David “Honeyboy” Edwards, and “Pinetop” Perkins. Visit www.blueshoeproject.org.
Contact HearSay at hearsay@fwweekly.com.
