ON THE COVER

57th ANNUAL CRITICS POLL

• p 26 : Christian McBride
  Acoustic Bassist of the Year
  By Ted Panken
  Our Acoustic Bassist of the Year has manned the bass chair in some of the most significant groups of the past several years, from the Pat Metheny Trio and the Chick Corea/John McLaughlin Five Peace Band to the Sonny Rollins Trio with Roy Haynes. His monster chops are unquestioned, but it’s his bandleading, producing, organizing and teaching skills that have led him to become one of the most influential jazz artists on the planet today.
  Late in the afternoon of Friday, May 8, Christian McBride stood in the foyer of David Gage’s Tribeca bass atelier, poised to play-test the latest addition to his arsenal. There was little time to spare—McBride had 15 minutes to retrieve his car from the parking lot, and it was a mere 90 minutes until gig time at the Blue Note with James Carter’s new band with John Medeski, Adam Rogers and Joey Baron. Still, McBride couldn’t restrain himself. Beaming at his new possession like a father cradling a newborn, he put forth an elegant, funky one-chorus blues that the prior owner, the late Ray Brown, might well have cosigned for his own. Then McBride packed with a single efficient motion, enfolded Gage and his wife with a hug and exited the premises, grabbing the car keys with two minutes to spare.
  McBride was elated for reasons that had less to do with the excellence of the bass than with the pass-the-torch symbolism of the occasion. His new instrument had not come cheap, but he seemed to regard his possession of it to be more in the nature of an inheritance than the result of a transaction.
  “It means the world to me, but I don’t think I’ll get that sentimental about it,” said McBride, who performed with Brown and John Clayton throughout the ’90s in the singular unit Super Bass. “In my heart I’ll know it’s Ray’s bass, but I’m going to play what I need to. We had a father-son type of relationship. I don’t want to sound selfish, but I feel I should have it, since John has one of Ray’s other ones.”

FEATURES

• p 30 : Sonny Rollins
  Jazz Artist of the Year/Jazz Album of the Year
  By Howard Mandel/Dan Ouellette/Will Smith
• p 32 : Hank Jones
  Hall of Fame
  By Howard Mandel
  Pianist Hank Jones is a courtly gentleman of the old school, who wears a coat and tie for an interview conducted in his own lodgings and is forthright about his approach to music.
  “I try to play evenly,” Jones says with genuine humility about his style, which is widely regarded as maintaining the highest standard for keyboard playing in the contemporary vernacular. “I don’t take too many excursions, I don’t go too far away from the melody, I don’t go out in the deep water. I want the listener to understand what I’m doing. I try to stay pretty much right down the middle and yet keep it interesting.”
  In these efforts he has succeed magnificently, though he understates the depths he’s mastered—as well as the progressive broadening and continuity of what’s “right down the middle” of jazz that he has established and documented in more than 450 recordings under his own leadership and with the greatest vocal and instrumental stars from the ’40s through today. At 91, Jones is universally acknowledged to be what his frequent collaborator Joe Lovano calls “a treasure” : a man of experience who embodies the wit, warmth, elegance, swing, sagacity, ongoing productivity and open-minded creativity we hope for from all artists and too rarely find. Besides the respect—no, awe —of his colleagues and international audiences, Jones has been the recipient of numerous honors, being designated a Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts, given a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and now inducted into Down Beat’s Hall of Fame.
  The pianist takes this all in stride (pun intended) as befits a man who began professional life at age 13 under the esthetic sway of Fats Waller, Art Tatum, Earl “Fatha” Hines and Teddy Wilson. “I’m just trying to keep up with the other guys,” he insists, those “guys” being the pianists he’s known and admired. His conversation is laced with references to the late Oscar Peterson, Erroll Garner, Bill Evans, Tommy Flanagan and John Lewis, as well as George Shearing, Barry Harris, Marian McPartland and diverse next-generation players. But one wonders : Who can keep up with Mr. Jones ?
• p 34 : Oscar Pettiford and Tadd Dameron
  Veterans Committee Hall of Fame
  By Ira Gitler
• p 36 : Rudresh Mahanthappa
  Rising Star Jazz Artist/Rising Star Alto Saxophonist of the Year
  By Shaun Brady
• p 38 : Shemekia Copeland
  Rising Star Blues Artist/Group of the Year
  By Michael Jackson
• p 40 : Chick Corea
  Electric Keyboard/Synthesizer Player of the Year
  By Aaron Cohen
  It’s no accident that two of Chick Corea’s best-known bands have been named Circle and Return To Forever (RTF). The winner of this year’s Critics Poll in the Electric Keyboard/Synthesizer category has always been a step ahead of the next technological trends. But during 2008 and 2009, he’s also been going back to his own past, and showing how much his associations from the 1960s and ’70s mean to today’s jazz audiences.
  Last year, Corea appeared on DownBeat’s cover as RTF’s classic lineup of himself, Al DiMeola, Stanley Clarke and Lenny White reconvened for a wildly successful tour. The reunion has already resulted in the 2-disc Return To Forever Returns (Eagle Records) and the DVD Return To Forever Returns : Live At Montreux (Eagle Eye). A few months ago, he joined up with guitarist John McLaughlin—his colleague from Miles Davis’ seminal work in fusion—to form the Five Peace Band with such younger musicians as Christian McBride and Kenny Garrett along with drummer Vinnie Colaiuta (alternating on some live gigs with Brian Blade). This group’s self-titled live disc was released this year (Concord).
  When he had the chance to take a short break between tours, a relaxed-sounding Corea made it seem like his own joviality and wise observations make him as much of a magnet for his new crew as his landmark music.
• p 42 : 57th Annual Critics Poll : Complete Poll Results
  – See the complete list of the winners of the 2009 57th Annual DownBeat Critics Poll !
  • Top Album of the year
    — 1. Sonny Rollins, Road Shows, Vol. 1 (Doxy/Emarcy)
    — 2. Joe Lovano, Symphonica (Blue Note)

    
    — 3. Charles Lloyd Quartet, Rabo De Nube (ECM)

    
    — 4. Jim Hall/Bill Frisell, Hemispheres (ArtistShare)
    — 5. Rudresh Mahanthappa, Kinsmen (Pi)
    — 6. Donny McCaslin, Recommended Tools (Greenleaf Music)

    
    — 7. Jeff “Tain” Watts, Watts (Dark Key)
    — 8. Kurt Rosenwinkel, The Remedy (ArtistShare)

    
    — 9. Atomic, Retrograde (Jazzland)
    — 10. E.S.T., Leucocyte (Emarcy)
  • Historical Album
    — 1. Anthony Braxton, The Complete Arista Recordings (Mosaic)
    — 2. Miles Davis, Kind Of Blue 50th Anniversary Collector’s Edition (Columbia/Legacy)
    — 3. Dizzy Gillespie Big Band, Showtime At The Spotlite : 52nd Street, New York City, June 1946 (Uptown)
    — 4. Lester Young, The Lester Young/Count Basie Session 1936–1940 (Mosaic)
    — 5. Ornette Coleman, Town Hall, 1962 (ESP-Disc)
    — 6. Dave Brubeck, Live At The Monterey Jazz Festival 1958–2007 (Monterey Jazz Festival)
    — 7. Art Tatum, Piano Starts Here (Sony Classics)
    — 8. Nina Simone, To Be Free (Columbia/Legacy)
    — 9. Miles Davis, Broadcast Sessions 1958–’59 (Acrobat)
    — 10. Benny Goodman, The Columbia and OKeh Benny Goodman Orchestra Sessions (Mosaic)
  • Blues Album
    — 1. B.B. King, One Kind Favor (Geffen)

    
    — 2. Taj Mahal, Maestro (Heads Up)

    
    — 3. Buddy Guy, Skin Deep (Zomba)

    
    — 4. Shemekia Copeland, Never Going Back (Telarc)
    — 5. Joe Louis Walker, Witness To The Blues (Stony Plain)

    
    — 6. Rory Block, Blues Walkin’ Like A Man (Stony Plain)

    
    — 7. Susan Tedeschi, Back To The River (Verve Forecase)

    
    — 8. Derek Trucks, Already Free (RCA Victor)

    
    — 9. Lil’ Ed and the Blues Imperials, Full Tilt (Alligator)

    
    — 10. Amos Garrett, Get Way Back : A Tribute To Percy Mayfield (Stony Plain)
    https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nHv2RwEwB28KWSzoVytFQ61uwxITx_rQ0

DEPARTMENTS

• p 8 : First Take
• p 10 : Chords & Discords
• p 13 : The Beat
• p 16 : European Scene
• p 19 : Backstage With ... : Frank Wess
• p 20 : Caught
• p 22 : Players
  – Logan Richardson
  – Shaynee Rainbolt
  – Jeff Albert
  – Ben Wendel
• p 47 : Reviews
• p 62 : Toolshed
• p 66 : Master Class : Wes Montgomery’s Subtle Approach to Repetetive Harmony—Anything But Static
  By Tim Fitzgerald
• p 68 : Transcription : Anat Cohen’s Virtuosic Clarinet Solo on ’Cry Me A River’
• p 70 : Jazz On Campus
• p 74 : Blindfold Test : Hugh Masekela
  Trumpeter Hugh Masekela was tested on the following tracks for the “Blindfold Test” :
  – Max Roach–Booker Little : “Tears For Johannesburg” from We Insist : Freedom Now Suite (Candid)
  – Dudu Pukwana : “Diamond Express” from Diamond Express (Arista)
  – Wynton Marsalis : “Place Congo” from Congo Square (JALC)
  – Jerry Gonzalez and The Fort Apache Band : “To Wisdom The Prize” from Moliendo Café (Sunnyside)
  – Amir ElSaffar : “Flood” from Two Rivers (Pi)
  – Charles Tolliver : “Chedlike” from Emperor March (Half Note)
  – Brecker Brothers : “Wakaria (What’s Up ?)” from Return Of The Brecker Brothers (GRP)
  – Dizzy Gillespie : “Africana” from Gillespiana (Verve)

Also In This Issue

– Terence Blanchard
– Liam Noble
– Cape Town International Jazz Festival Caught
– Dozens of CD Reviews, Product Reviews and much more !