1998 a Good Year for Artists of Every Stripe

It’s been a good year for jazz. With the retro-oriented young lions no longer dominating the scene, there was plenty of room for a broad selection of classic reissues, concept albums, Latin jazz and pure straight-ahead, uncomplicated improvising. Here’s a selective list of some of the year’s best offerings.

*** RON CARTER, “So What,” Blue Note. This is a superb example of a Carter trio, with Kenny Barron on piano and Lewis Nash on drums. Barron is everyone’s pianist of choice these days, and Nash is almost equally favored. In this propitious setting Carter’s finest qualities as a bassist come through in a performance with artistic subtleties.

*** 1/2 STEVE COLEMAN, “Genesis & the Opening of the Way,” RCA/BMG. This career-defining two-CD release stretches across the breadth of alto saxophonist-composer Coleman’s vigorously independent interests. “Genesis” on the first CD is a seven-part work for a large ensemble filled with subtle byways and unexpected interactions. The second CD showcases an improvisatory setting that identifies him as one of the unique contemporary voices on his instrument.

**** MILES DAVIS, “The Miles Davis Quintet, 1965-’68: The Complete Columbia Studio Recordings,” Columbia Legacy. One can make a convincing case for the fact that the ensemble represented in this stunning, six-CD boxed set--Wayne Shorter on saxophones, Herbie Hancock on piano, Ron Carter on bass and Tony Williams on drums--represents one of the most collectively creative bands Davis ever assembled. The playing from each member is stunning, and the compositions include such influential pieces as “E.S.P.,” “Nefertiti,” “The Sorcerer” and “Speak Like a Child.”

*** 1/2 HERBIE HANCOCK, “Gershwin’s World,” Verve. A set of unusually thoughtful takes on Gershwin (and a few others) with contributions from Joni Mitchell, Stevie Wonder, Kathleen Battle, etc. Hancock functions effectively in a variety of settings and manages to put the stamp of his own personality on every piece, most notably a tender, solo view of “Embraceable You.”

*** 1/2 DAVE HOLLAND, “Points of View,” ECM. For the last couple of years, Holland has been working with the unusually instrumented ensemble heard here--Robin Eubanks, trombone; Steve Wilson, alto and soprano saxophones; Steve Nelson, vibraphone and marimba; and Billy Kilson, drums. Anchoring it all, Holland’s solid-as-a-rock bass playing is a reminder of the creative results that can be gained from a concern for detail and a total emphasis on the music.

*** 1/2 KEITH JARRETT, GARY PEACOCK, JACK DeJOHNETTE, “Tokyo ‘96,” ECM. No one in recent years has embraced standards, from a jazz perspective, more thoroughly or more effectively than this trio of world-class artists. This CD, the last before Jarrett’s playing was stopped by a long bout with chronic fatigue syndrome, maintains the trio’s high level of artistry in tunes such as “It Could Happen to You,” “I’ll Remember April” and “Autumn Leaves.”

**** RAHSAAN ROLAND KIRK, “Aces Back to Back,” 32 Jazz. The blind multi-instrumentalist, who died in 1977 at 41, was often seen as a talented jazz oddity. What almost immediately becomes apparent in this gripping four-CD set is the huge range of his abilities, both as a boundary-breaker and as a straight-ahead improviser--one of the most adventurous artists of the ‘60s and ‘70s.

*** DIANA KRALL, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” Impulse! There’s no full-length new release this year from the most talented new jazz singer of the late ‘90s--no surprise, since her 1997 release, “Love Scenes,” is still at the top of the jazz charts. But in the meantime, there’s this delightful EP, with lovely renderings of the title track, “Christmas Time Is Here” and, best of all, Krall in an irrepressibly swinging solo piano-voice romp through “Jingle Bells.”

*** 1/2 JOSHUA REDMAN, “Timeless Tales,” Warner Bros. This program of pop songs spanning many decades triggers aspects of Redman’s musical imagination that have not easily been revealed in the past. Such tunes as Joni Mitchell’s “I Had a King,” Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin’ ” and Lennon & McCartney’s “Eleanor Rigby” demonstrate a good balance between his commercial popularity and his innate jazz creativity.

*** 1/2 CHUCHO VALDES, “Bele Bele en La Habana,” EMI/Blue Note. Pianist Valdes and his Havana-based quartet illustrate how far-reaching Cuban jazz really is. The music ranges from dance rhythms to bebop, from percussive contemporary classical music sounds to lush, Art Tatum-esque ballads and driving Afro Cuban rhythms. ,

**** VARIOUS ARTISTS, “The Jazz Singers,” Smithsonian Collection. Almost every jazz singer one might ever care to hear is in this five-CD compendium: Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Carmen McRae, Anita O’Day, Joe Williams and Billy Eckstine, Shirley Horn, Louis Armstrong and, yes, Ray Charles and Frank Sinatra.

**** VARIOUS ARTISTS, “The Complete Jazz at the Philharmonic on Verve 1944-49,” Verve Records. Jazz at the Philharmonic started out in Los Angeles as a series of staged jam sessions and wound up as a showcase for some of the world’s most important jazz artists--Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Coleman Hawkins, Oscar Peterson, Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald among them. All are present in this comprehensive 10-CD overview of a brief but influential period in the lengthy Jazz at the Philharmonic history.

*** 1/2 JOE ZAWINUL AND THE ZAWINUL SYNDICATE, “World Tour 1997,” Zebra Records. Keyboardist Zawinul’s creativity reaches out in all directions on this two-CD set, producing music with dozens of textures, samples, melodies and rhythms from around the world.