‘Tis
the season for the outpouring of Top 10 lists, and their many
variations, for jazz, world events, etc. The jazz lists tend to have
a lot of variation depending on the each reviewer's personal
tastes, as well as what he or she listened to during the year.*
Bottom line, all are extremely subjective.
Composer, bandleader and NEA Jazz Master Maria Schneider’s creativity knows no bounds. Her stellar music, voiced by her longstanding Maria Schneider Jazz Orchestra, has drawn on many influences and inspirations throughout her career.
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| Maria Schneider backstage at Newport, 2017 |
Some of her earliest intricate and colorful works were prompted by memories of imaginary monsters conjured up in her Minnesota childhood. A formidable string of recordings by her 18-piece big band start with 1994’s Evanescence (Enja), in part a tribute to her mentor, the late Gil Evans.
Her newest project, the two-disc recording Data Lords, is just out as her fifth project on the ArtistShare label, the world‘s first crowd-funding internet arts platform. It is a very strong departure from her Grammy-winning 2015 release The Thompson Fields.
Data Lords is about “the impact that the data-hungry digital world has had on our lives,” Schneider says, and the natural world that has long been rooted in her music.
Disc
One, titled “The Digital World,” focuses on the oft-unsettling digital side of
the equation. The composition titles pretty much speak for themselves, though
Schneider has penned thoughtful notes in the CD booklet that speak to the
inspirations behind and intent of each work. The compositions on “The Digital
World” are: “A World Lost,” “Don’t Be Evil,” “CQ, CQ, Is Anbody There?,” the
other-worldly “Sputnik” and “Data Lords.” That title track takes aim at the
giant data companies that track the minutae of our everyday lives as artificial
intelligence increases its hold.
Disc Two, “Our Natural World,” celebrates the magic and beauty of the physical world around is and is a balm for what Schneider describes as "the relentless noise of our digital world.” Those tracks are “Sanzenin,” inspired by the lush, meditative gardens surrounding Kyoto, Japan’s Sanzen-in Buddhist temple, the artful “Stone Song,” “Look Up,” “Bluebird,” and two Ted Kooser poetry-inspired pieces, “Braided Together” and “The Sun Waited For Me.”
Standout soloists on this project include accordionist Gary Versace, guitarist Ben Monder, alto saxophonist Dave Pietro, baritone saxophonist Scott Robinson, soprano/alto saxophonist Steve Wilson, tenor saxophonists Donny McCaslin and Rich Perry, trombonists Marshall Gilkes and Ryan Keberle, and trumpeter Mike Rodriguez.
“Look Up” is a clever piece that features Gilkes and pianist Frank Kimbrough. As its melody spirals up, this is a musical reminder to indeed look up: up at the sky, up at the birds or, as Schneider says, “simply at each other.”
In
other words, look up from those laptop, iPad and smartphone screens once in a
while -- and savor the things around us that aren’t plugged in to something.
Except your music player, of course, because this powerful project deserves
repeat listenings.
Thanks
to my parents’ modest record collection, there was some music by jazz artists
in our upstate New York home when I was growing up in the 1950s and early ‘60s. But these were considered
more popular music of the day, not so much with a genre tag. Sprinkled among platters by varied popular
vocalists and instrumentalists, I found records by Nat King Cole, Al Hirt and pianist Eddie Heywood.
They likely set the tone for my full-blown jazz appreciation that began blossoming
in college, from 1967-1971, and intensified with the Newport Jazz Festival's return to its Rhode Island roots in 1981.
There
is no guessing game here. I’m just listing the recordings that had a profound,
early impact on my appreciation of jazz. My ears heard most of them for the
first time in the early 1970s through the mid-1980s. 
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| Nora York, Newport Jazz Festival, 2001 |
Her material, as heard on Swoon (Good Mood Records), is very insightful and well-crafted. "In The Morning" describes the ups and downs of someone living an artistic life. "Snowstorm in June," "Earliest Memory" and "Rain Came Down" are about climate change. Her lyrics - and the way she delivers them - make you hang on every word.
