Ron Carter Esperanza Spalding - Downbeat

Holiday Gift Guide 2012 [ box sets
n the wake of the economic downturn, the
days are gone when Sony Legacy would release
such gorgeously packaged box sets
as Lady Day: The Complete Billie Holiday
On Columbia 1933–1944 (which came with
a fat booklet of notes and photographs, its CDs
ensconced in 78-like sleeves) or Miles Davis
The Complete On The Corner Sessions (an allmetal
case embossed with raised On The Corner
cartoon figures). For Weather Report: The
Columbia Albums 1971–1975, the jazz-rockelectronic
innovators Weather Report are afforded
an off-yellow cardboard case with secondhand
graphics containing a measly if
beautifully annotated booklet and six mini LPas-CD
reproductions.
Visually, The Columbia Albums takes its
cue from the EU-only Sony/BMG Legacy 2007
release Weather Report Original Album Classics.
Where the new set includes Weather Report’s
first six albums, the EU collection was
a greatest-hits package cherry-picking I Sing
The Body Electric, Sweetnighter, Black Market,
Mysterious Traveler and Night Passage. Both
packages are similarly priced; how does the
audio compare?
Remastered by Grammy winner Mark Wilder,
The Columbia Albums 1971–1975 was created
using up-to-date, high-quality masters. Five of
the six CD titles include bonus tracks culled from
Live & Unreleased, a 2002 double-CD release;
and 2006’s Forecast: Tomorrow. Freshly organized,
the bonus material is finally contemporaneous
with its original album release.
The eponymous release Weather Report
sounds utterly fantastic: detailed, warm, rich,
exhilarating and as current sounding as the day
it was released. In many ways, jazz and its offshoots
have come full-circle, the practice of improvising
within a democratic, collective-oriented
stylistic palette a concept Weather Report pioneered
and then exploited with inspired compositions
and musicianship. Comparing the newly
reissued I Sing The Body Electric to its EU counterpart,
the differences are stark: greater musical
detail from high to low registers, and an overall
wider, deeper musical presentation. The bonus
material is also a revelation. A studio version of
“Directions” is an excellent companion piece to
the original’s live version. DJ Logic’s forgettable
remix of “125th Street Congress” closes Sweetnighter;
live versions of “Cucumber Slumber” and
“Nubian Sundance” complete Mysterious Traveler;
“Man In The Green Shirt” and “Directions / Dr.
Honoris Causa” close Tale Spinnin’.
For Weather Report fans, completists and
those who insist on the best possible audio reproduction,
The Columbia Albums 1971–1975 is
a must-have.
—Ken Micallef
Ordering info: legacyrecordings.com
s a year of high-profile celebrations of
Preservation Hall’s golden anniversary
came to a close this fall,
Artistic Director Ben
Jaffe contemplated not
just the Hall’s musical output, but
also its meaning in both historical
and personal terms. That exercise
is clearly reflected in Preservation
Hall Jazz Band: The 50th
Anniversary Collection (Sony
Legacy), a vast and carefully sequenced
collection of 58 tracks.
The initial inspiration for the
project began when Jaffe visited
the Katrina-ruined Sea-Saint Studios
in 2006. As a child, he had
watched his father, Preservation
Hall founder Allan Jaffe, record
and produce music there, with artists such as
Percy and Willie Humphrey and James “Sing”
Miller at his side. As an adult and second-generation
director of the Hall, Jaffe had continued to
record at Sea-Saint. He returned a few months
after the storm, discovering that while the studio
had flooded severely, the Preservation Hall master
tapes had survived.
Jaffe proceeded to restore
five previously unissued recordings
from those tapes—“I Get
The Blues When It Rains” (1986),
“In The Evening (When the Sun
Goes Down)” (1967), “Nellie
Grey” (1986), “C.C. Rider” (1981)
and “Precious Lord” (1970)—
which now appear on the anniversary
collection. Like all the
tracks in the set, these recordings
are listed along with detailed
explanations of their relevance to
the band, New Orleans jazz or
Jaffe himself. For example, “I’m
Alone Because I Love You,” Jaffe
explains, is included because the
band has recorded it with three singers over the
years: Sweet Emma Barrett, Harold Dejean and
Clint Maedgen. “Part of our mission is to keep
songs like this alive,” he writes.
The intentionally non-chronological sequence
helps highlight the value of reinterpreting
songs from a canon, allowing them to develop
differently for different generations: A 2008 King
Britt remix of “St James Infirmary” plays up the
rhythm of Carl LeBlanc’s banjo and Jaffe’s bass.
A few tracks later, ’60s-era PHJB bandleaders De
De and Billie Pierce’s version of the song is melancholy,
with Billie’s haunting voice and De De’s
mournful cornet overshadowing the beats held
down in part by bassist Chester Zardis.
Key PHJB leaders, from Barrett to Mark
Braud, are also well-represented, with selections
culled from different points in their careers. Meanwhile,
Tom Waits, Pete Seeger and My Morning
Jacket’s Jim James highlight the PHJB’s recent
collaborative projects. As historian Bruce
Raeburn observes in the liner notes, the collection
is “kind of a family album” because of the
musicians’ familial experience and the Jaffes’
actual bloodline. It seems fitting that the boxed
set opens with a band introduction from Jaffe’s
father, while its final song, “Precious Lord,” was
played at Allan Jaffe’s funeral. When his own time
comes, Jaffe writes, he wants the same song
played at his.
—Jennifer Odell
Ordering info: legacyrecordings.com
68 DOWNBEAT DECEMBER 2012