#^d 2017-07-24 #^h Music Week

Music: Current count 28462 [28428] rated (+34), 364 [364] unrated (+0).

Very little new jazz in the queue, so I spent most of the week looking elsewhere -- including some old music by Taj Mahal and the late Larry Coryell following their latest albums. Seems like I'm increasingly diverging from Robert Christgau, although for once I like the Peter Perrett album more than he did (but Jay-Z less). He has yet to review my other A- records this week (Alison Krauss and Waxahatchee, though I'll be surprised if he doesn't like the latter). Only three records this week came from CDs.

On the Jazz Guides project, I managed to get 73% of the way through my Vocals 2000- file, bringing the 21st Century guide to 911 pages (vs. 746 for 20th Century). That's up 84 pages in one week. Some quick envelope math based on the remaining Jazz 2000- file suggests I'll wind up with about 1450 pages about three weeks into September. With some stragglers, probably best to nudge those figures out/up a bit: probably 750 + 1500 pages shortly after October 1. Assuming, of course, I keep at it reasonably hard, as I did last week.

I should publish Streamnotes on Friday or Saturday, before the usual Weekend Roundup and Music Week posts on Sunday and Monday (the last two days of July). Currently 121 records (94 new + 4 recent comps) in the draft file.

I filled out a ballot for the 82nd Annual DownBeat Readers Poll. So should you. Tried to spend as little time as possible here. Came up with this:

Hall of Fame: George Russell
Jazz Artist: Wadada Leo Smith
Jazz Group: Mostly Other People Do the Killing
Big Band: Satoko Fujii Orchestra
Jazz Album (since 2016-06-01): Houston Person & Ron Carter, Chemistry (HighNote -16)
Historical Album (since 2016-06-01): Don Cherry/John Tchicai/Irene Schweizer/Leonn Francioli/Pierre Favre, Musical Monsters (Intakt -16)
Trumpet: Wadada Leo Smith
Trombone: Steve Swell
Soprano Saxophone: Jane Ira Bloom
Alto Saxophone: François Carrier
Tenor Saxophone: Houston Person
Baritone Saxophone: Ken Vandermark
Clarinet: Michael Moore
Flute: Nicole Mitchell
Piano: Matthew Shipp
Keyboard: Craig Taborn
Organ: Gary Versace
Guitar: Mary Halvorson
Bass: William Parker
Electric Bass: Steve Swallow
Violin: Jenny Scheinman
Drums: Andrew Cyrille
Vibraphone: Jason Adasiewicz
Percussion: Hamid Drake
Miscellaneous Instrument: Erik Friedlander (cello)
Male Vocalist: Freddy Cole
Female Vocalist: Catherine Russell
Composer: Carla Bley
Arranger: Steven Bernstein
Record Label: Intakt
Blues Artist or Group: Taj Mahal
Blues Album (since 6/1/2016): David Bromberg Band, The Blues, the Whole Blues and Nothing but the Blues (Red House)
Beyond Artist or Group: Parquet Courts
Beyond Album (since 6/1/2016): A Tribe Called Quest, We Got It From Here . . . Thank You 4 Your Service (Epic/Sony)

That took about an hour, as compared to the 8-10 hours I usually spend on the Critics Ballot. I did look at my 2017 crib sheet about midway through, which encouraged me to be more consistent. I had also looked at Tim Niland's ballot, although I only wound up agreeing on 5-6 picks (for one thing, unlike Tim I didn't do any write-ins). The one thing that took some extra time was that I copied down the Album of the Year nominees, checked my grades, and added things I wasn't aware of to my 2017 music tracking file. I found that I haven't heard 40 of the nominated new jazz albums (of 126, so 31.7%). My grade breakdown was A: 1, A-: 12, ***: 17, **: 25, *: 19, B: 6, B-: 6.

I also copied down the nominated "historical albums": I've heard 9/43 (20.9%), which is probably better than in recent years (although the new album share is probably worse). I didn't bother with blues albums -- indeed, my pick there wasn't even an A- record. "Beyond" is a concept I don't find meaningful, even trying to pictures it from the magazine's jazz/blues perspective.