Spring Roundup Part 4: Good Car

People's taste in music is often shaped by the distinctive ways in which it is consumed and used.  Take my father, for instance. For most of my adult life, my father has had an explicit preference for instrumental music that he listens to in the car.  As I have stated elsewhere, the automobile as a listening site has its advantages and limitations. One such limitation arises due to the significant amount of background noise that we take for granted while driving, making it more difficult to appreciate music’s quieter aspects.

The problematically labelled “new age” music that my father likes capitalizes on dynamic contrasts, and he would often get annoyed at having to turn his volume up and down to follow the details of softer passages. When he found an album that stayed within a dynamic range that he would not have to adjust, it would receive a label designating it as “GOOD CAR.”

Although I used to tease my dad relentlessly about choosing music based on the narrowness of its dynamic range, there is merit to the designation. Only in recent years have I realized how much I limited myself by making the car my primary listening site. Even now, the majority of my music begins in the car and gets distributed into different settings as the need arises.  Still, there are some kinds of music whose darkness, angularity, dissonance, or general intended volume are best suited for the private setting of my car. These albums are my version of Good Car.


John Williams - The Last Jedi OST: while this may not be John Williams most memorable Star Wars score, just might be his most masterful. The way that he interweaves themes from throughout the franchise is incredible in this soundtrack, and is best appreciated at max volume.

LITE - Cubic: A few years ago, I would have cited LITE as one of my favorite bands. They have steadily moved away from the aggressive intensity of their earlier work, however, towards a more jazzy fusion approach that lacks the same emotional impact.

Mouse on the Keys - The Flowers of Romance: When I first discovered Mouse on the Keys, they were strictly a piano duo with a drummer. They have significantly expanded their sonic palette since then, but in the process may have lost some of the essence of what made them interesting.

Alcest - Kodama: it's hard to resist an album that cites Deafheaven, Tool, and Princess Mononoke as equal influences. Kodama balances light and dark, beauty and ugliness, hope and despair in ways that convincingly reflect these somewhat diverse inspirations.

The Who - Who Are You?: I'm a big fan of The Who, and I've slowly been putting their albums in my collection for the past 30 years. Despite a couple of really compelling high points, this is the first one I really thought was a big jumbled up mess on the whole.

Andrew W.K. - You Are Not Alone: I got this on the suggestion of several friends, and quickly found that there was more to Andrew W.K. than a comically optimistic attitude and theatrical riff-rock. Once I let go of my cynicism and embraced the idea the he might be genuine, I came to really appreciate his mission statement.

Wei Zhongle - The Operators: A songwriter and an eccentric clarinet player walk into a Chinese opera and start covering the Talking Heads. This isn’t beginning of a joke - its Wei Zhongle

Piniol - Bran Coucou: Piniol is, apparently, a mashup of two separate mathty French noise bands, Piol and Ni. In this incarnation, with two bass players and two drummers, they blast through Bran Coucou with the precision of Battles and the Zorn-esque zaniness of Mr. Bungle.

John Powell - Solo: A Star Wars Story OST: To me, the most important aspect of continuity in the Star Wars universe is John Williams' scores, and there has been no small amount of anxiety to find someone to pass the baton to before he retires. John Powell’s approach is noticeably more polyrhythmic and driving than Williams, but his melodic sense is completely compatible with the franchise’s already established musical canon.

Kite Base - Latent Whispers: This album came too late to make the Dinner Music post, but its Bjork-meets-Nine Inch Nails-meets-The XX would probably fit in that category as well. It is just a bit dark in tone (not content), but it abounds with memorable tunes and smart arrangements.

What is New in Jazz? Christian Scott and Mouse on the Keys

The title of this post could be read in a couple of ways. For example, you could ask “what is NEW in JAZZ?” expressing an interest in the current jazz artists that are doing something above and beyond the usual instrumental pop drivel.  You could also ask “what IS (the) ‘new’ in jazz?” perhaps wondering what kinds of innovations allow good contemporary jazz to avoid becoming the usual instrumental pop drivel.  I am not going to put my head on the chopping block by trying to directly answer either question.

I will, however, say that jazz artists should and do innovate, but it is also hard to pin down the point at which individualistic jazz styles evolve into something else.  Jazz and not-jazz is separated by a fluid boundary, often resulting in complex answers when you (often with fingers in your ears) ask  the seemingly simple question  “is THIS jazz?"  Even more confusing, there are well-established musics (for example, Eastern Indian classical music), that are improvisational like jazz, and sometimes cross over into jazz, but definitely are not jazz.  Where does one start and another stop?

Ridiculous, right?  There are people with a lot more credentials than I have grappling with these kinds of problems as we speak.  Some of them even get paid to do it.  

Personally, it helps me to consider how the music in question can be tied to “the jazz tradition.”  Jazz is aurally transmitted though a lineage that can be traced back to the African-American improvisational styles from the turn of the 20th century. Now, over 100 years later, the point at which jazz started and where it is today often seem to bear little relation, but the two points should connect through the transmission of a specific yet evolving improvisational syntax.

In a previous post on their Sezzions EP, I suggested that the Japanese band Mouse on the Keys is more like “math rock on keyboards” than “jazz fusion.” When I began listening to their full-length release An Anxious Object, it seemed a bit jazzier than its predecessor, but as it has simmered, I still think that it is more “rock-jazz” than “jazz-rock.”

An Anxious Object prominently features instruments that are associated with the jazz tradition, like saxophone, trumpet, and, of course, piano.  Drummer Daisuke Niitome plays in a straight-eighth rock style, but he interacts with the kit with a melodic nuance that seems informed by jazz study.  Mouse on the Keys, however, generally deemphasize lyrical melodies in favor of textural rhythmic interplay, and although there is improvisation in their music, it seems to have a significant compositional element.  Plus they wear weird bodysuits (in their videos, anyway).



Keep in mind that my musings on Mouse on the Keys' "jazziness quotient" are not supposed to reflect poorly on them.  On the one hand, they don't really claim to be jazz, and on the other, An Anxious Object blows me away. The point here is to say that even though superficially they seem to be playing jazz, I think that they are, at the very most, doing something more akin to the jazz fusion that Bill Bruford used to get into in his “rock goes to college” days. It’s not really “new jazz,” but it is killer rock with some jazzy elements.



Besides, from a bit more cynical standpoint, it’s a bit of a bittersweet compliment to say that someone is doing something “new” in jazz. “New” jazz is often indicative of a fracture with the jazz canon. It seems far more desirable and safe to be labeled a jazz “innovator,” because it implies a solid connection with jazz tradition, rather than a break from it. From this rather myopic perspective, Mouse on the Keys may not be innovating in the jazz tradition, but I think that trumpeter Christian Scott clearly is. His release Anthem is a current favorite.



I think that the melodic and harmonic vocabulary that Scott and the members of his band employ is derived from a studied knowledge of bebop, cool jazz, and 70s fusion conventions. He plays unbelievably beautiful melodies that are both distinctive and familiar, and he exhibits an attention to the dramatic and expressive capacities of timbre in a way that identifies him as a Miles Davis devotee.

One of Scott's innovations, especially on Litany Against Fear, is the way in which he employs the starkly melancholic and sometimes dissonant soundscapes of early Radiohead and other “post-rock” bands as a launching pad for improvisation. Many of these groups play with jazzy sounds, but Scott seems to be taking them on at their own game by injecting established traditions into a relevant contemporary setting.  This is the kind of work that helps keep jazz alive and vital in its homeland.