[Dixielandjazz] New Mainstream?

[Steve barbone]

The problem is still there. You can't dance to the "New Mainstream" Jazz as
defined below. Interesting discussion though. Mainstream jazz? Maybe so, but
not Mainstream music and IMO it never will be.

Cheers,
Steve

Is There A New Mainstream?  By Marc Meyers - All About Jazz

Back in the day, the term ³mainstream² was intended to apply to jazz that
fell between the radicalism of bebop and the galumphing stodginess of ³moldy
fig² music. In other words, the mainstream was the swinging sound of the
majority of musicians circa 1950, the swing music played by the likes of Ben
Webster or Roy Eldridge. As bebop went from radical music to generally
accepted music, and then was challenged by the avant-garde and free jazz,
mainstream became mainstream-modern, and Sonny Stitt became as mainstream as
Coleman Hawkins.

But with the rise of fusion at the end of the 1960's, jazz began a long,
slow process of splintering into many styles, many idioms, so much so that
by the end of the Twentieth Century, jazz had become irrevocably Balkanized.
There was no longer a discernable mainstream, certainly not in the sense of
the term fifty years ago. However, as the current century unspools, the
discerning listener may hear the emergence of a school of younger musicians
who don't look to the past for inspiration. These players love to swing, but
their music looks forward, employing unorthodox compositional forms, ³odd²
time signatures, and knotty, complex harmonies. So the question arises: is
there now a New Mainstream in jazz? In my opinion, the answer is a definite
yes.

If this is indeed the case, then I'd have to define ³new mainstream². Okay,
new mainstream is a jazz style that preserves the essential element of swing
and uses composition to create new challenges for the improvisers. New
mainstram's most obvious characteristic is probably the so-called ³odd² time
signature, such as 5/4 or 7/4. But today's jazz musicians have to swing in
these time signatures, as hard and as fluently as they do in 4/4.

³In new mainstream, the old 32-bar standard song form is out the window,
replaced by segments or sections that might require the improviser to
negotiate shifting time signatures and/or shifting tempi...²

And they do. A composition that I consider representative of new mainstream
is ³Stalker,² by trumpeter David Weiss, from his fine album The Mirror. In
³Stalker,² the soloist has to negotiate both a vamp in 7/4 and an up-tempo
4/4 blues, and everybody's got to swing both parts. And they do.

So new mainstream swings, but not from ideology. Today's musicians will
incorporate the dreaded backbeat sometimes, and a guitarist like Pete McCann
might crank it up sometimes. Actually, compositions in new mainstream might
incorporate a rock feel as one of several segments.

In new mainstream, the old 32-bar standard song form is out the window,
replaced by segments or sections that might require the improviser to
negotiate shifting time signatures and/or shifting tempi, such as Dave
Douglas' ³Seventeen,² from Strange Liberation, a superb album that actually
represents the essence of new mainstream, a swinging modern jazz that is
driven by composition.

So who are the leaders of the new mainstream? This genre seems to have
arisen spontaneously, through an unspoken consensus among younger musicians
who quite obviously wanted to swing, but who also wanted to play a music
rooted in the present. What better way to do that than to create new forms
that incorporate modernity, that, among other things, recognize some of the
innovations of Ornette Coleman? Dave Douglas is certainly one of the
founders of the new mainstream. Chris Potter, an emerging giant of the
saxophone, is part of it. So, too, are trumpeters David Weiss and Peter
Kenagy, and pianist Renee Rosnes.

But to me, the best example of the new mainstream is the wonderful SF Jazz
Collective, whose 3-CD set Inaugural Season Live 2004 is a towering
achievement. (This set and the commercially-issued single CD on Nonesuch
that is drawn from it have both been reviewed here at AAJ.) The SF Jazz
Collective does it all. They tear through Ornette Coleman's music, and their
own compositions use the shifting rhythms and time signatures that so
characterize the new mainstream. The sterling soloists include trumpeter
Nicholas Payton, pianist Renee Rosnes, and above all, saxophonist Joshua
Redman, who is simply magnificent, certainly now a giant of the tenor
saxophone. So there it is. I firmly believe that a new mainstream in jazz is
here. Let's enjoy it