A troubling trend amid high notes

This was a transformative year for jazz performance in the Southland. Start with the grand opening of a spectacular new locale -- the Walt Disney Concert Hall. Although there were questions about the sound qualities of Keith Jarrett’s performance in November, the venue clearly has the potential to serve as a showcase for world-class jazz acts.

Add to that the Cerritos Center’s new Sierra Nights series. The intimate configuration of the larger complex, perfectly sized for jazz and world music, has already been used for performances by young jazz star Peter Cincotti and the superb Brazilian singer Monica Salmaso.

On the club front, the move of Catalina Bar & Grill to a spacious new room on Sunset Boulevard provides jazz fans with an elegant supper club. Feinstein’s at the Cinegrill -- another classy transformation of an existing room -- is balancing jazz acts with cabaret performers (Jane Monheit one week, Betty Buckley another). And the opening of Fitzgerald’s in the Woodland Hills Hilton brings swinging sustenance to the jazz-deprived West Valley.

On the wider front, the good news is that by midyear, jazz recording sales had increased -- up as much as 21% according to Nielsen SoundScan. The bad news is that the uptick in jazz CD sales -- at a time when the record industry as a whole is down 8% -- can largely be traced to the success of Norah Jones, the pop-leaning singer whose debut album has passed 7.5-million. Jazz-tinged vocalists Steve Tyrell and Cincotti have also had hit albums, although neither has approached Jones’ numbers.

Talented as they may be, their presence on the jazz charts is best attributed to the slippery nature of today’s genre definition. And the worrisome thought is that they will be joined by a growing legion of boomer-favored acts -- Rod Stewart, Aaron Neville, etc. -- obscuring the complex beauties of jazz with more and more jazz-lite versions of standard tunes.