How Bad Can It Be When a National Audience Is Exposed to the Music

It’s never easy to pick the 10 most significant jazz happenings of a given year. It’s always a challenge to either winnow or prop up the list. But this year deserves a category of its own.

Sparked by the huge January promotional push for Ken Burns’ “Jazz” documentary series, the year took off at high speed, moving through the inevitable peaks and valleys in cruise control, skimming across the high points, skipping over the down spots. Those high notes encompassed recordings new and old, impressive live performances and upbeat possibilities for the future. Here, in no particular order, are the 10 top picks from an unusually interesting year:

“Ken Burns’ Jazz.” Sure, I was among the many who criticized the 10-episode documentary for a variety of reasons, including its sins of omission--notably the minimal attention given to the last three decades of the 20th century. But Burns brought valuable visibility to the music, which carried well into the year and continues to affect record sales. True, the financial uptick has been attributed to reissue collections of performances by iconic figures. Nonetheless, those sales help make it possible for companies to risk recording talented new artists.

Diana Krall. The nomination of her enormously popular CD “When I Look in Your Eyes” for Grammy album of the year was one of the very rare occasions when a jazz recording was in that select grouping. The fact that she didn’t win in no way minimized the importance of the nomination and--as with Burns--the attention it brought to jazz. (She did take the Grammy for best jazz vocal album.) Krall also proved that her success was no fluke. Her next album, “The Look of Love,” released in mid-September, passed 2 million in sales internationally in mid-December.

John Coltrane’s and Miles Davis’ 75th anniversaries. Amazingly, these two extraordinary figures--enormously influential individually as well as for their memorable work together--were born less than four months apart in 1926: Davis on May 25, Coltrane on Sept. 23. The dual celebrations triggered a flurry of CD collections, all superb. Columbia Legacy mined the company’s rich Davis treasury for a range of reissues, topped by “The Complete ‘In a Silent Way’ Sessions,” Davis’ transitional album from the ‘60s into the ‘70s and beyond. Equally fascinating was “The Essential Miles Davis,” a two-CD compilation of tracks from various record companies, reaching across the arc of his career.

The Coltrane legacy was honored in the remarkable seven-CD collection “John Coltrane: Live Trane, the European Tours” (Pablo Records), recorded during the influential saxophonist’s fertile years between 1961 and 1963. Especially touching was the release of “The Olatunji Concert: The Last Live Recording” (Impulse!) from a Coltrane performance less than three months before his death on July 17, 1967.

Boxed sets galore. As long as we’re on the subject of classic items, it’s worth noting that 2001 was a bounty year for beefing up anyone’s record collection. Boxed sets arrived with impressive regularity, but three were standouts: “Lady Day: The Complete Billie Holiday on Columbia (1933-1944)” is an elaborate, 10-CD compilation of performances covering her entire output on various labels during a period in which she established herself as one of the prime inventors of the jazz vocal art. “Artie Shaw: Self Portrait” (RCA/BMG) is a five-CD overview of an adventurous musical career, selected by Shaw and described in his pithy program notes. And “The Complete Okeh and Brunswick Bix Beiderbecke, Frank Trumbauer and Jack Teagarden Sessions (1924-36)” (Mosaic) showcases the playing of three of jazz’s most idiosyncratic and inventive players, highlighted by many of Beiderbecke’s most admired outings. (

Mosaic recordings are available by mail from Mosaic Records, 35 Melrose Place, Stamford, Conn. 06902 or on the Web at www. mosaicrecords.com.)

Wynton Marsalis and “All Rise.” The West Coast debut of Marsalis’ powerful new work, performed at the Hollywood Bowl by the Los Angeles Philharmonic (conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen), a 100-voice chorus and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra was a major musical event. Its effect stunted considerably by taking place only a few days after the tragedies of Sept. 11, the work--which was subsequently recorded by the same participants--further underscores a growing awareness of the importance of jazz and jazz artists in American cultural life.

Live jazz cornucopia. Beyond Marsalis, it was a bumper crop overall for live jazz in the Southland. Among the top prizes from a long list of award-winning performances: the Keith Jarrett Trio offering yet another superb collection of standards at Royce Hall; Rene Marie’s stellar appearances at the Cinegrill and the Jazz Bakery, signaling the unexpected emergence of a gifted new singer; David Sanchez’s road-hardened sextet in several gigs, seamlessly joining jazz and Latin rhythms; the all-star duo of Stefon Harris and Jacky Terrasson at the Jazz Bakery, affirming the arrival of a talented new generation of artists; the stunningly envelope-stretching playing of the too-little-acknowledged alto saxophonist Steve Coleman at the Skirball; and the music from Charlie Haden’s album, “Nocturne,” at the Knitting Factory, a revelatory example of sheer jazz romanticism.

The clubs keep coming. The demise of Rocco a year ago distressed many fans of the Bel-Air jazz hangout, but the room emerged in Hollywood in a new, Greenwich Village-like mode, featuring late-night sets by some of L.A.’s most imaginative young players. Spazio in Sherman Oaks enhanced its space and established a seven-night jazz policy. Charlie O’s, the ultimate jazz bar-restaurant, did the same, drawing overflow crowds to the atmospheric Valley Glen room. And the Southland’s established venues--Catalina Bar & Grill, the Jazz Bakery, Steamers, La Ve Lee and Lunaria--continued to provide first-rate jazz events.

An inner-city jazz revival. Jazz in the Southland was born, and lived for many years, along Central Avenue. Heard less frequently in the area in recent years, it has begun once again to emerge. The World Stage consistently does yeoman work in the community around Leimert Park, and Bones & Blues in the Watts Labor Community Center is presenting intriguing events. (A January tribute to drummer Billy Higgins included one of his last live performances.) Add to that the lively, annual two-day jazz festival at Drew University, and the establishment of the Luckman Jazz Orchestra under the direction of James Newton at Cal State Los Angeles, and jazz in the inner city is looking good.

Festivals forever. The Playboy Jazz Festival couldn’t quite decide how much emphasis it wanted to place on its jazz component this year, and the result was an atypically uneven flow. Nor did the Bowl’s summer jazz series quite manage to find a consistently appealing pace. (One wonders what will happen next year, now that John Clayton has departed as the Philharmonic’s jazz director.) But the Monterey and San Francisco festivals--always well planned with imaginative, thematic programming--were as good as ever, back to back in September and October. It remains to be seen whether L.A.’s Verizon Fest, which took baby steps this year, will become a similarly robust event.

Sept. 11. Among the many consequences of the Sept. 11 terror attacks was the desire to get back to basics, to find a more reasoned, more adult life view. Adolescent angst doesn’t seem, in these trying times, to merit quite the musical significance that it received in the ‘90s. Jazz in many respects possesses the appropriate qualities of warmth, optimism and community to accompany that changing view. Combined with the emotionally insightful sentiments present in the Great American Songbook, it has the potential to provide a meaningful soundtrack for the mature life decisions that will be demanded in the wake of the tragedies.

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Don Heckman writes frequently about jazz for The Times.