Fred Kaplan

A trend of sorts has taken hold the past few years: albums (in most cases, multi-disc boxed sets) capturing not just the highlights of a jazz concert but the whole concert—or a whole week’s worth of concerts, the entire run of a gig at a nightclub—every note of it.

As I’ve mused before (though only twice), what’s the point of having a blog if you can’t indulge in a little self-promotion?

Geri Allen’s new album, Flying Toward the Sound (Motema Music), is a stunner. She calls it “a solo piano excursion inspired by Cecil Taylor, McCoy Tyner and Herbie Hancock.” In jazz pianists’ lingo, this is like Babe Ruth pointing to a spot in right-center field. And she slugs the ball out of the park.

I’m late in coming to the drummer-composer John Hollenbeck. (These things happen: so many records, so little time…) It wasn’t until a few months ago that I stumbled upon Eternal Interlude (on the Sunnyside label), the latest CD by his 20-piece Large Ensemble, which, had I heard it earlier, would have made it on http://blog.stereophile.com/fredkaplan/best_jazz_of_the_year_and_the_de… >my 2009 Best 10 list. (Ditto, just to set the record straight, for http://blog.stereophile.com/fredkaplan/darcy_james_argues_secret_societ… >Infernal Machines by Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society, that other wondrous big band that escaped my attention.)

The pianist Hank Jones died on Sunday at age 91, ending one of the great jazz dynasties (his brothers were the drummer Elvin and the trumpeter-composer Thad) and taking out one more survivor of the generation that founded post-war jazz.

The Jazz Review was one of the most fascinating journals in the history of music-writing. Its editors were Nat Hentoff and Martin Williams, two of the most insightful critics of its day (the late 1950s and early ’60s). But its main distinction was that it consisted almost entirely of jazz musicians, writing articles and reviews about other jazz musicians.

The best new jazz album of 2010 so far: the Ryan Keberle Double Quartet’s Heavy Dreaming (on the Alternate Side Records label). I’ve played it a dozen or so times in the month since I received an advance copy. It’s infectiously joyous, except when it’s movingly melancholic, and it’s head-spinning, too.