Today was an oddly quiet day at work. My main route of the day was only nine papers, a set of apartments that a carrier refuses to deliver. This was the only time I’ve delivered there without seeing the police.
It was kind of unsettlingly quiet, and as I walked up to the first building a black cat shot out of a bush in front of me, a concentrated bit of lightning lit up an ominous chunk of clouds, and a pair of headlights turned into the parking lot behind me through noisy puddles. Normally, I would have been disturbed by the freakishly sudden appearance of all these omens, but I had my iPod clipped to a belt loop and I was listening to my new CD, Marsalis Music Honors Alvin Batiste.
Alvin Batiste was a modern jazz clarinetist from New Orleans who recently died. In the past, I haven’t been very into jazz, but this album is for me the perfect mix between what I find in pop music and art music; I could listen to the smooth off kilter groove in the background while typing this post, or I could really listen, giving it my full attention for a fuller experience.
If I had to tell you what modern jazz is based on this album, I’d say it was some side groove crackling with a syncopation that pulls at you from multiple directions but never looses it’s straight ahead momentum. Fast chord changes, and a vocal clarinet sound that frequently jumps from the lowest register to the highest. Occasionally Batiste begins darting through quick runs that intensify into sweetly squawked notes — perfect mistakes. These bursts of raw sound are so personalized and communicative, that it only makes sense when they rise to actual words, the lyrics of vocalist, Edward Perkins. Herlin Riley’s drumming is something special; he creates the pockets and grooves for the music to exist in. And Branford Marsalis joins Batiste, his former teacher, on saxophone for some wonderful dialogue between two greats.
Right now the CD is a couple bucks cheaper on Amazon than when I got it, check it out.
