The last jazz column indicated that in Germany up to three years in prison for disturbing the peace of the dead. The occasion was the new single “Legacy” by smooth jazz saxophonist Kenny G, who fed an artificial intelligence with the sounds of cool jazz pioneer Stan Getz, who died in 1991, and then played a duo with the dead man. Now Kenny G is a punching bag for beginners. But as dark as his endeavor of digging the corpses may be, if you look around at the moment, the cases of necrophilia in jazz are far more common than you might think.
It starts with the currently most successful of all hit albums “30” by Adele, on which the song “All Night Parking (with Erroll Garner)” can be found. The pianist has been dead since 1977, when Adele was not born for eleven years. However, she only took a really exceptionally pretty passage from Garner’s version of “In the Mood for Love” and placed it as a leitmotif under a very successful smoke voices ballad. This is sampling more than bats. Even in the early days of hip hop, great works were condensed to their essence, which was borne by the greatest respect. Even if the monkey “with” bracket is presumptuous – you have to look at the phenomenon on a case-by-case basis.
Melanie Charles: “Y’all Don’t Really Care About Black Women”.
(Photo: Verve)
There is, for example, the amazingly ambitious singer and flautist Melanie Charles from Brooklyn, who forces many a dead diva to compete with her on her new album “Y’all Don’t (Really) Care About Black Women” (Verve). In the opening track “God Bless the Child” she does this without any archive material. She manages to give Billie Holiday’s timbre a contemporary color. In the next piece there is already a “featuring Dinah Washington”, whose recording of “Perdido” from 1956 is first chased through filter and Hall shredders, then as a template for a kind of duet? Singalong? Karaoke exercise? to serve. It’s all garnished with tip-top hip beats and sounds. Sarah Vaughn, Betty Carter, Ella Fitzgerald and the Souldiva Marlena Shaw are also processed in this way. On the one hand, this is the attempt to bring the really big ones into the present in such a way that they sound like a young singer hears them today. On the other hand, it seems as if someone had turned music history through a sausage press from the “Mambo Number 5” series. Which is a shame because, for example, on her version of Abbey Lincoln’s “All Africa (The Beat)” without Abbey Lincoln, one hears that Charles can certainly add interpretations to jazz history on an equal footing.
Makay McCraven: “Deciphering the Message”.
(Photo: Universal)
Drummer Makaya McCraven has perfected a similar approach to working through the musical history as one would hear it today. Last year he released a new version of Gil Scott-Heron’s last album “I’m New Here”, which was even better than the original. For his debut on the Blue Note label “Deciphering the Message”, McCraven has now climbed deep into the record company’s archives. He took originals from legends such as Lee Morgan, McCoy Tyner, Art Blakey and many more, chased them through samplers and effects devices, and then played over them with contemporaries such as vibraphonist Joel Ross or guitarist Jeff Parker. McCraven is visionary enough to distill key moments from the material. He also unearths lost gems like “Frank’s Tune” by pianist Jack Wilson. He shows how a new touch can give such a piece even more meaning. Most of the time, however, the artificial encounters between the present and the past seem too clumsy to be more than lounge fodder.
Gregory Porter: “Rising”.
(Photo: Universal)
And then there is Gregory Porter. Over the years he has brought some dead legends onto the mixer. He brings them together again on his new best-of album “Still Rising” (Blue Note). And it’s amazing how insecure the otherwise energetic singer is hovering around with the originals. With Buddy Holly he even messes up intonation and phrasing. If you listen to the recording with Ella Fitzgerald, you get the feeling that even the legendarily friendly diva has lost patience. And with Nat King Cole’s “Girl from Ipanema” that’s just musical photobombing.
Nat King Cole: “A Sentimental Christmas”
Oh yes, who actually came up with the idea of rearranging Nat King Cole’s Christmas album and then having people like Johnny Mathis, Gloria Estefan or John Legend sing over his velvet voice? Perhaps one shouldn’t assign stars or points to such albums, but punishments? So then: Adele, proceedings closed. Melanie Charles, something with parole. Makaya McCraven, 40 community hours in an Orff school. Gregory Porter, as a repeat offender, something without parole. The producers of the Nat King Cole Christmas album, maximum penalty with forced sounding of particularly catchy Christmas tunes. Pa-rum-pum-pum-pum.