Read and Appreciated in 2003
A Year’s Best List
5. Best Jazz: Freak In, Dave Douglas
I’m finally ready to forgive Dave Douglas for the unfortunate self-indulgence of 2001’s Witness. Every musical genius is entitled to make one absolutely disastrous album and hopefully now that he’s got that out of his system he’ll come up with more excellent releases like the ultracool Freak In, which combines Douglas’s trumpet work with fusion and electronica and even throws in some world music into the mix. I honestly miss the Douglas that worked with accordionist Guy Klucevsek and others to create gems like A Thousand Evenings or Charms of the Night Sky, but you can’t argue with his drive to innovate—as with Davis or Coltrane you can either follow or get left behind. If I have to come up with a list of the most original, innovative, creative jazz trumpeters since Miles Davis and Ornette Coleman, only Douglas really makes the cut.
And for another 2003 release that combines jazz, electronica and world music to excellent effect see guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel’s Heartcore.
6. Best Latin: Caraluna, Bacilos
You couldn’t turn on the radio for more than a few minutes anywhere in Latin America without hearing the first cut from this album, “Mi Primer Millon”, which begins, appropriately enough, with the line “Yo solo quiero pegar en la radio…”. (“All I want is a radio hit…”) Yes, it’s unabashedly commercial, radio-friendly pop music, but its infectious tropical beat and amalgam of styles (there’s even a reasonably successful foray into ska) finally seduced me. The title song, “Caraluna”, is especially winning.
7. Best Classical: O Quam Gloriosum/Ave Maris Stella, Tomás Luis de Victoria, Westminster Cathedral Choir
If you’re a fan of choral music this reissue of an early eighties recording by the Westminster Cathedral Choir featuring two masses from the Spanish Renaissance composer Tomás Luis de Victoria is a must have. The Agnus Dei movement in each of them is particularly sublime.
Corelli, Violin Sonatas, Andrew Manze, Richard Egarr
Not having listened to Corelli’s sonatas in any other version I can’t comment on those improvisatory qualities of Andrew Manze’s interpretation that appear to have caused such an incredible outpouring of critical praise. But I will say that this is some of the most gorgeous playing of Baroque music I have ever heard and that it made me rush and seek out everything else Manze had ever recorded. (NB: Check out his Handel sonatas.)
