“I crave music that grabs my attention,” says Ross Porter in the introduction to his new book The Essential Jazz Recordings 101 CDs. “When I hear a great album, the easiest way I can describe it is to say that it feels like Christmas. It gives me a feeling of wonder, appreciation.”
We all crave music – and books – that grab us by the rhythm section and shake our booties.
But writing about an art form that often defies description is highly problematic.
No less an authority than Elvis Costello has said that, “writing about music is like dancing about architecture - it’s a really stupid thing to want to do.”
Maybe it’s stupid and maybe the written word can never approach the emotional impact of the music, but I’m really glad that people like Porter are willing to take up the hopeless challenge.
“I didn’t want to write just another list book,” the president and CEO of Jazz.FM91 said in an interview from its new Toronto offices in Liberty Village. “I wanted to do something that would have its own personality, attitude and point of view.”
The former host of CBC’s late-night jazz show called After Hours also wanted to give Canadian jazzers their due with the world’s best. Oscar Peterson obviously belongs on everybody’s list and he’s here in many forms, as is only appropriate. His 1962 album Night Train is a standard choice but Porter has also included his Canadiana Suite, and not just for sentimental reasons. “Yes, it’s relevant to where we live but it’s also an underrated masterpiece,” says the Ottawa native and former head of Cool TV.
An excellent choice. The Canadian landscape inspired some of Peterson’s most memorable melodies, including Wheatland and March Past. Peterson is also a sideman on several other of the chosen recordings including the superb Ella and Louis duos and Milt Jackson’s Ain’t But a Few of Us Left.
Other Canucks who made the grade include Diana Krall (Mrs. Elvis Costello) of whom Porter says, “other people spend a lifetime trying to chase down the style she was born with.” Porter finds room for Phil Nimmons, Rob McConnell, Guido Basso and Jane Bunnett (whose bass player is Mississauga’s own Kieran Overs.)
Anyone who is just entering the world of jazz appreciation will find the book an invaluable starting point. In order to provide maximum value-per-listening dollar, Porter has recommended a number of multi-CD, career-spanning retrospective compilations. Admittedly, that may feel like copping out to long-time jazz fans who want a sense of the shape-shifting albums that marked the journey.
No list of 101 jazz CDs can be complete, as Porter is well aware. He bemoans the exclusion of Ornette Coleman’s The Shape of Jazz to Come, wishes he could have included more Ella Fitzgerald and confesses to a severe shortage of Lester Young.
While I have him on the line, I run down my own personal complaints list of those missing in action: Gerry Mulligan, Gil Evans, Jack Teagarten, Anita O’Day, the Blanton-Webster version of the Ellington band, Clifford Brown and especially the unforgiveable exclusion of the man who made the saxophone all that it is in jazz today: Coleman Hawkins.
Porter chuckles. “Yeah, I know,” he says. “I’ve bought a lot of these books and seen a lot of things in them that I did not necessarily agree with. That’s what it’s all about - this debate.”
In his intro, Porter says, “use this book as a guide, but also use it as a springboard.” The Essential Jazz Recordings is a guaranteed springboard – to the Essential Jazz Debate. As long we’re scrapping about the music, we know it’s still alive.
The book is available at local book stores or through http://www.jazz.fm/
It comes with an accompanying CD that is sold separately.