Van Morrison: Precious Time

Van Morrison's 1999 album Back On Top

Birthday greetings to singer/songwriter Van Morrison of Belfast, born George Ivan Morrison, who celebrates No. 66 today.

Morrison has produced 33 studio albums in his career, one for every other year he’s been alive, or nearly two for every three years of his professional life. Prodigious, indeed.

More than half — 18 — are in this collection, which makes us wonder what we’re missing with the other half. Or put it this way: a third of his studio albums have been recorded after he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993 (“. . . in the tradition of the great Irish poets and the great soul singers, he is the Caruso of rock and roll,” said The Band’s Robbie Robertson at Morrison’s induction).

There have been at least three tribute albums done of Morrison’s songs, and we’ve passed on all of those. Better to hear Van Morrison sing Jackie Wilson Said than anyone else.

In the meantime, we’ll save space for the 16 Morrison albums we don’t have, and for whatever more Morrison produces in the years ahead. And we’ll remain mindful of what Morrison sung in Precious Time (link below), from the 1999 album Back On Top (not that he ever wasn’t):

Precious time is slipping away
You know you’re only king for a day
It doesn’t matter to which God you pray
Precious time is slipping away

Sources: rockhall.com, wikipedia.org

Brad Mehldau: River Man

Brad Mehldau's 1999 release Elegiac Cycle

Birthday greetings to pianist Brad Mehldau, who celebrates No. 41 today.

You may not need be a scholar of German literature or philosophy or Romanticism to understand Mehldau, but it doesn’t hurt. His liner notes and interviews are full of varied and detailed references from Thomas Mann to Brahms to Coltrane to Beethoven to Rilke to Ginsberg and Kerouac to Plato to acid jazz to the “masters.” It’s exhausting, but enlightening; the listening to his music is easier than the reading, but both are worth the effort.

“The ever shorter and shorter life span of each trend perpetuates a sentiment that’s characteristic of some of our jazz critics these days,” Mehldau wrote in the fascinating liner notes to his 1999 album Elegiac Cycle. “To be a Master, you must do one or more of the following:

• “A.) Imply, with the help of Yes-Men, that you are nothing short of a Messiah.”
• “B.) Rise from prolonged, unexplainable obscurity.
• “C.) Have a good portion of your work recorded before 1965.
• “D.) Die.”

Mehldau has done none of the above. And while we’ll leave it to the experts to determine Mehldau’s place in the jazz world, we know where his place is here — in the antique we call a CD player or the iPhone.

Mehldau’s music is as diverse as his thinking — you can listen to him perform songs of Paul Simon, the Beatles, Nirvana, Soundgarden, Harold Arlen, Cole Porter, Monk, Evans, Radiohead or Charlie Chaplin, as well as his own work. And his liner notes are equally interesting and varied — you can find discussions of anything from mortality of art to the art of composition.

“Alas life is short, art is long,” Mehldau wrote on Elegiac Cycle. “Great music packs a primordial punch. And when the wind is knocked out of you, something great takes place: You get to feel your own mortality. (italics Mehldau’s) . . . The process of improvisation is a kind of affirmation of mortality. Even in the moment you’re creating something, it’s already gone forever, and that’s precisely its strength. Improvisation would seem to solve the problem of death by constantly dying as it’s being born. It scoffs at loss, and revels in its own transience.”

Got it? If not, just listen. And if you do, just listen. And enjoy.

A link below to Nick Drake’s River Man:

Sources: musicianguide.com

Around the World: Israel’s Anat Fort

It’s a small world when vacation intercedes. Around the World resumes this week and will continue weekly:

Here’s where Israeli pianist Anat Fort is like all of us, according to her website: she spends too much time on the computer, drinks a cup or two of coffee a day and sprinkles her week with good chocolate and red wine.

Here’s where she’s different from most of us: her musical rabbi is renowned drummer Paul Motian, her teacher was pianist Paul Bley and her album And If  was picked as one of 2010′s 10 best in jazz by slate.com’s Fred Kaplan.

“The Israeli-born pianist Anat Fort’s second CD with her trio is turbulent but spare, knife-edged but tender, brimming with melodic hooks that loop in sinuous shapes and a slightly klezmeric insouciance,” wrote Kaplan, in words that might be easier to understand if they were in Hebrew if you’re not a jazz fan. Or even if you are.

But know that it’s high praise indeed. And that Fort and her international trio — American bassist Gary Wang and German drummer Roland Schneider — perform up to it.

Born near Tel Aviv and trained classically, Fort came to America to study at William Paterson University in New Jersey. She’s divided her time between the U.S.’s established jazz scene and the burgeoning Israeli one ever since.

Wrote Geoffrey Himes in the Jewish Times: “Anat Fort is not the first person to discover that you can understand your homeland from a distance in ways you never could while living there. But she has translated those insights into compositions and arrangements marking her as one of the most promising pianists in jazz.”

The Village Voice’s Francis Davis said Fort was “a real discovery,” after her debut album, A Long Story, for ECM. A discovery that should be met with a hearty Mazel Tov.

Sources: Anatfort.com, stereophile.com, slate.com, ilikejazz.com