Favorite jazz albums of 2004
Jazz expanded and diminished in 2004, a year of quantum leaps (well, at least one) and sad retreats, major statements and continuing attrition.
The biggest news was the long-awaited opening of Jazz at Lincoln Center's new $128 million performing arts complex in Manhattan. The most ambitious and expensive jazz venue in history, it is located directly across from Central Park in the plush Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle. The complex boasts a recording studio, rehearsal hall, classrooms and three performance spaces – the 1,231-seat Rose Theater, the 550-seat Allen Room and the 140-seat Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola.
Never before has jazz had such a lavish home designed specifically for it. Just how the Wynton Marsalis-led Jazz at Lincoln Center fares in future years remains to be seen, of course. But its mid-October debut marked a major victory for this vibrant American music, which has long been hailed around the world while struggling for equal status here in the land of its birth.
And local fans can take pride in the fact that Jazz at Lincoln Center's all-star opening concerts featured not one, but three, San Diego artists – saxophonist Charles McPherson, violinist Mark O'Connor and teen piano phenom Eldar Djangirov, whose splendid debut album is due out in March on Sony Classics.
That's the good news.
The bad news is that Djangirov is apparently the first new jazz instrumentalist to be signed by a major label in nearly five years, a period that has seen record companies collide in futile attempts to sign the "next Diana Krall" or the "next Harry Connick Jr.," instead of nurturing original talent. Only one major record label, BMG, still has a jazz division, which will surely suffer because of its impending consolidation with Columbia Records, whose own jazz division was quietly terminated a few years ago.
Commercial jazz radio stations are virtually nonexistent, while National Public Radio has consistently trimmed back its jazz programming, despite having received a posthumous, $200 million donation from San Diego jazz fan Joan Kroc in late 2003.
Happily, San Diego's only jazz radio station, KSDS-FM, assumed a higher profile in 2004. The eclectic station will kick things up another notch in 2005, as its 27-year-old "Jazz Live" program begins a new focus on showcasing national talent, including vibraphone master Bobby Hutcherson, sax stalwart Red Holloway and former San Diego trumpeter Brian Lynch.
San Diego-based artists with national and international reputations were responsible for excellent albums this year, notably saxophonist James Moody (who in June performed at the White House for the president), pianist Mike Wofford and flutist Holly Hofmann, whose "Jazz in the Park" concert series at the San Diego Museum of Art in Balboa Park drew capacity or near-capacity crowds each month. Equally impressive was the programming by the La Jolla Athenaeum, which – under the expert guidance of jazz program director Daniel Atkinson – staged 16 concerts at three venues that were well-attended and artistically sound.
Downtown, Dizzy's continued to provide a welcome home for young local talent and, periodically, national artists who perform jazz and other styles. But San Diego has not had a club that features national talent on a weekly basis since 1997, when Hofmann discontinued booking artists at downtown's Bristol Court Hotel.
This sad state of affairs shows no signs of being remedied soon, but shouldn't detract from the memorable concerts and albums that made 2004 a year of musical riches for jazz fans here, there and everywhere.
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