Freedom Jazz Blog

What's your favorite Christmas jazz song?

by Ken Hohman on 12/15/11

Way back in 2003, I wrote a Top Ten Jazz Christmas Songs ever recorded list for All About Jazz. It's become quite popular over the years and you can check it out here:

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=949

Of course, that was many years ago and there have been many great Christmas jazz records since then. One of my favorites is Wynton Marsalis's Christmas Jazz Jam, a superb collection of tradition, modern and gospel songs given splendid treatments by the LCJO. I'll start things off by saying that, if I were to recreate my list (which I am not), I would include the operatic version of "Go Tell It On The Mountain" featured on this disc.

But what about you? What's your favorite Christmas jazz song?

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Cloudy, With A Chance Of Rip-Off

by Ken Hohman on 09/01/11

A funny thing happened to me the other day. I purchased a digital song on Amazon and the system asked me if I wanted to the download the song or upload it to a cloud. Now, at the risk of sounding like a Luddite, I should tell you that I took the crazy action of opting to download the song to my computer. Call me a nutty old record collector, but when I fork over money (or digital currency) for any merchandise, I at least want the privilege of owning it.

The powers that be have really pulled off the royal flush of scams with this digital cloud conspiracy. They're selling music without even having to deliver the music. It's like the old dollar bill on a string trick, only with a music file. Put another way, it's like paying for a car and letting the car dealer hold on to the keys for you....for eternity. Old P.T. Barnum would be proud of these hucksters.

Normally, I wouldn't give a hoot about the music industry's latest way to keep the yoke on music buyers. After all, in my lifetime I've been through...and paid for...every music format that has been foisted on me by them. I have 78s that still sound great (though I'm not THAT old), cassettes that still play and CDs that are still in heavy rotation at home and on the air. But never in a lifetime of buying music have I heard of not owning anything for what you pay. The whole thing is crazy. And what's even crazier, I read a New York Times column where the writer had uploaded his entire collection to a cloud so that he can save space and delete all the recordings from his hard drive. Looks like that dude won't be inviting friends over to listen to music any time soon.

As a long-time eMusic member, I can say that the writing is on the wall for those who opt in for cloud uploads. Over the past few years, eMusic has been raising their prices for digital files and, predictably, trying to convert hold-outs like me to get off the grandfather plan. At another juncture, I was informed that I would no longer have unlimited uploads if for some reason I lost the original music file. One upload and one upload only, please! What's worse, countless records (yes, you can still call them that) that I purchased years ago no longer show up as being purchased by me. Not surprisingly, eMusic recently announced that it will also be embracing cloud technology.

Don't get me wrong. I actually love Emusic. But like any other business, they are going to squeeze every possible dollar from the business model until the customer cries "Uncle!". And these cloud con artists at Apple's iCloud and Amazon are no different.

So, a word of caution to you cloud chasers. Before you decide to let your music service do you the favor of holding on to you music for you, or you decide to go cloud crazy and upload your entire collection to a cloud, you would do well to think about how you will be able to access your music in the coming years and how much it will cost you to do so. You should think about how constantly evolving technology, software and hardware might prohibit you from accessing your beloved music collection in the future. You might even want to think about how awkward it would be to walk into a record store (or your local big box store that knows nothing about music), fork over your hard-earned cash for a CD and then have the clerk say that he will be holding on to your CD until you're ready to listen to it.

Hey, hey...you, you...get off of my cloud!

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Dedicated To You

by Ken Hohman on 04/18/11

In Volume 3 of Freedom Jazz Dance reviews, there are a number of tribute records. As I indicate in the featured review, "Paying homage to those who came before is a time honored ritual for keeping an artist's work alive, as well as galvanizing one's own sound." There are many other reasons for a tribute record, like giving an artist's work a new twist (Conrad Herwig's recent "Latin Side Of..." series of recordings come to mind), reuniting artists who played on the original sessions or even labels just trying to squeeze the most money out of an artist's catalog. I'd be interested to hear your spin on what qualities make a tribute album worthwhile. I'd also love to hear examples of ones that you think were successful...or not! Fire away. My ears are wide open.

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Esperanza Extravaganza

by Ken Hohman on 02/14/11

It is with no small amount of pride that I have managed to actively avoid the Grammy awards my entire life. Though they have tempted me in the past with judicious selections - like when Barry Manilow won Best Pop Vocal for "Copacabana" in 1978 or when Lionel Richie's Can't Slow Down won Album of the Year in 1984 - I'd have to say that watching Lady Gaga hatch out of an egg has about as much to do with music as say, um, Justin Bieber.

But despite all that, I couldn't help but get at least a little excited when I heard that jazz bassist Esperanza Spaulding won the Best New Artist award. I had been playing her music on my radio show for the past few years (no, she isn't a "new artist", but she's young enough to be), and she never failed to make the phones ring. She's a true original, synergizing supple, plucked bass lines with a wholly unique approach to scatting. She's the kind of artist who can take any composition, from bossa to hip-hop, and make it her own. Moreover, she's got the kind of hip sensibilities (check out that soul power 'fro) and street cred that can give jazz wider exposure to young audiences.

The great thing about it all is that she's doing it while still playing (dare I say) true jazz. Just goes to show that you don't have to play "smooth jazz" to win over new listeners. I'm thinking that it won't be long until the name "Esperanza" will become a household word, like Ella, Sting or Bieber. Until then, I'm celebrating by purchasing a really big wig and cueing up Junjo.

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To Shronk Or Not To Shronk

by Ken Hohman on 01/20/11

As I place my ear on the railroad tracks of the jazz broadcast world, my mind drifts to the decision-making of programmers and jazz hosts. In particular, the delineation or metrics used by programmers to decide whether a jazz track is too edgy or avant garde to broadcast over the airwaves. Over the years, I've been fortunate to be behind the mic for several independent radio stations that have permitted me the freedom to play whatever I like. Yahoo! But when I listen to other channels, via webcast or airwaves, I can almost hear the audio line in the sand, the fast retreat, the moment where fear of playing music too challenging or too off-putting kicks in. Let's call it "Fear of Shronk." By this I mean the fear of playing a shronking saxophone, a growling trumpet passage, a mild dissonance or a tone stretched longer than 5 seconds. Of course, the old fashioned phrase for this might be "selling out," but there are reasons other than money and underwriters at play here. Or are there? Do you think the reason for fear of shronk is purely monetary or something else? What exactly do you think is the difference between "out there" jazz and accessible jazz? Do you or a friend harbor a fear of shronk? What songs or artists give you the shronk?

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