Jazz in the 90s

[mjazzg]

Digable Planets at the Jazz Cafe just after their first album, that was a night

Edited December 11, 2020 by mjazzg

[AllenLowe]

I was lucky enough in the 1990s to record a bit with Julius Hemphill, who did great work in that decade; he was particularly on fire the night we recorded

New Tango '92.

[Rabshakeh]

On a whim, I am currently working my way through the Penguin Guides, which are easily found in charity shops these days. I was already familiar from younger years with their Core and Crown recommendations but I hadn't considered their non-Core and no-Crown recommendations before. 

Whilst I viewed them with a certain disdain at the time, read retrospectively they're an excellent frozen snapshot of a certain critical viewpoint in the 1990s and 200s. Brad Mehldau and the Bad Plus were supreme. On the avant side, it was Evan Parker and Barry Guy, once a week, every week. ECM was an enormous titan that required recognition. Straight Ahead jazz of the Young Lions Coltrane-gang type was increasingly seen as old hat. A very heavy domination of Europeans. No fusion. No smooth or radio friendly jazz. 

It is strange to be confronted with the past in this way. That was a vanished era of low access to information, high critical power / gatekeeping, a lack of any expectations of a social mission (with accompanying extreme downplaying of African-American and of younger musicians) and a time before "poptimism" shattered self-perceived elite tastes.

The 1990s and 2000s is generally my least favourite era for this music. Obviously a lot of the music reminds me of the reasons for my angry dismissals at the time, but, there is a hint of nostalgia to going through some of this stuff. 

[mjazzg]

They were an absolutely invaluable resource for me at the time. Each new edition greeted with much anticipation.