Friday, April 1, 2011

Appreciating Mary Halvorson

The Smithsonian is proclaiming April as Jazz Appreciation Month.



I will participate by sharing the various ways that I appreciate jazz.

In the entire scope of music, jazz represents a tiny niche. Last I noticed, jazz accounted for 3 percent of music sales. Among those 3 percentage points, Kenny G probably represents 1, the Marsalis family another 1, leaving the last 1 for everyone else.

I like the idea of tiny-ness when it comes to jazz—because it is not tiny. Within that 1 percentage point is another world of creativity too massive to hear in just one month of formal observance. The music is filled with people who occupy a niche of this tiny niche yet cultivate a meaningful following.

Today, I recognize guitarist Mary Halvorson for occupying her niche of the niche in a most distinctive way. Her fearless style of slashes, spikes, and squalls is not a new approach—Jimi Hendrix and James Ulmer were doing similar things three and four decades ago—but I have never heard this vocabulary assembled for exactly this dynamic effect. I would describe the dynamic range as discreet to thoroughly impolite, but often with no gradations in between.


The video I have embedded does not show her at her most jarring. If you have a better suggestion for a video to embed, please let me know.

For more gloriously jarring Mary Halvorson, try her recent CD, "Saturn Sings." http://www.cduniverse.com/productinfo.asp?pid=8310187

No comments: