The Best Jazz Albums Of 2011

» Posted on Dec 18, 2011 in Jazz | 0 comments

1. Miguel Zenon, ‘Alma Adentro: The Puerto Rican Songbook’

The alto saxophonist Miguel Zenon has made an exceptional album of standards.They’re all by Puerto Rican composers, many of whom — like Zenon — came to New York City to pursue music. In interpreting these melodramas and lingua franca anthems, Zenon has turned them inside out. The arrangements, for jazz quartet and 10 woodwinds, can be stunningly complex, but they only ever feel rich, supple, grand.

2. Gretchen Parlato, ‘The Lost And Found’

You may have heard, that Gretchen Parlato is a “different,” or “new” type of jazz singer. On The Lost and Found, her third and best album yet, she and her band marshal this original sound on sambas, singer-songwriterly duets, pop covers, tunes by peers, a remix, reconfigured jazz classics, head-bobbers, ballads and a healthy dose of original material.

 3. JD Allen Trio, ‘Victory!’

By jazz’s long-winded standards, the trio led by tenor saxophonist JD Allen makes albums of miniatures. Whatever this collection is defined by a certain raw intensity. There’s a well of triumphant feeling here, and it forces its way out, one three-minute burst at a time.

4. Noah Preminger, ‘Before The Rain’

The tenor saxophonist Noah Preminger plays ballads like an old guy, and that’s a compliment. He’s in his 20s, but on this collection of slow to mid-tempo tunes — his second album — he occupies melodies, inhabits their caverns and tight corners, and extracts their richest marrow.

5. Bill McHenry, ‘Ghosts Of The Sun’

The tenor saxophonist Bill McHenry improvises like a child, and that’s a compliment.There is the anchor of a splendidly rough-hewn melody, as there often are on Ghosts of the Sun, his third album with this particular quartet.

6. Ben Allison, ‘Action-Refraction’

The bassist Ben Allison also known as a great composer — has been gradually merging this personal history into his jazz training. It hits a high-water mark with Action-Refraction, an album of covers from Thelonious Monk and Samuel Barber to PJ Harvey, The Carpenters, Donny Hathaway and Neil Young.

7. James Farm, ‘JAMES FARM’

There’s nobody on this record named James Farm; there’s no eponymous plot of land where produce is raised. But there are four folks who are well-known to today’s jazz fans — Joshua Redman (saxes), Aaron Parks (piano), Matt Penman (bass), Eric Harland (drums) — who recorded a disc which somehow feels organic and earthy.

8. Captain Black Big Band, ‘Captain Black Big Band’

The Captain Black Big Band is more accurately the Captain Black Big Bands, plural: a rotating, multi-generational cast of top-notch jazz musicians from several East Coast cities.The bands make great music.

9. Brian Carpenter’s Ghost Train Orchestra, ‘Hothouse Stomp’

The Ghost Train Orchestra, an initiative of the trumpeter and composer Brian Carpenter, plays music scored by largely forgotten composers and arrangers of the late 1920s.It’s weird and unfamiliar music; not quite big-band swing, not quite early New Orleans polyphony, it rewards the close listener with unexpected twists and turns.

10. Rene Marie, ‘Voice Of My Beautiful Country’

The first release of 2011 from vocalist Rene Marie is an exhibition in interpretation.Voice of My Beautiful Country is also a album which contains her definitive takes on a few American patriotic songs, including the much-bandied-about national anthem with substitute lyrics.She’s proud to live in a United States where dissent and creativity and non-standard histories have honor. The second release of 2011 from Rene Marie is filled with original songs; this one, of mostly covers, shows just as much originality.

 

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