An author bold enough to decide on the most significant individuals and happenings in his zone of interest and write a book about them might be thought vindicated, to his own satisfaction at least, by a decision to update it. That’s to say, it’s a moveable feast.
Rick Mitchell’s Jazz In The New Millennium – a millennium already a quarter-century old, so well into its stride – is the revised edition of a book written in 2014 and centred on events at DaCamera, the Houston-based organisation that’s been presenting chamber music and jazz since 1987 with a turnover of $2 million. Mitchell was DaCamera’s chief jazz annotator, is a former popular-music critic for The Houston Chronicle, and was once artistic director of the Houston International Festival.
All the musician profiles in the book were written as notes for the DaCamera jazz series between 2000 and 2024. They have received minor editing to indicate, for instance, when someone died or a band changed personnel since they were originally published. The passage of time has meant other decisions and changes, mainly additions.
“For musicians I interviewed more than once – and there are more than a dozen of those – I used the most recent,” he says. “The writing that stands alone are my introductions to the first edition and the new edition, and the play lists at the back of the book.”
The first thing to say is that it’s writing of excellent quality, and Mitchell is clearly aware that (a) new jazz talents are emerging all the time, and (b) although the changing music is immortal its practitioners aren’t. Thus, the need for a revision of his book 10 years on. (In jazz history terms, decades have had their own, albeit artificial, noteworthiness.) Newcomers have to be listed and deaths recorded; though not many of the latter. Also, in 10 years, given their consistency and improvement, some musicians will change category: for example, a Rising Star 10 years ago, Jason Moran is now a Prime Time Player. The book’s discographies reflect these changes.
Focusing a book with such a title on jazz events in one place in a single country, however long-lived, assumes that the place represents the best of what was happening in jazz generally at the time. It can only ever be a personal opinion; but, that said, the lists of names indicate that Houston was a regular destination for those whom others, too, would consider significant. Europeans might demur. Mitchell recognises this as far as Americans who’ve never appeared at DaCamera are concerned (e.g., Keith Jarrett, Wynton Marsalis, Maria Schneider). Then there are those who for some reason he couldn’t interview when they did appear (Herbie Hancock, Geri Allen, Brad Mehldau). Another problem of updating a book such as Mitchell’s is that the previous incarnation represented what the author thought was significant, a consistency which has to be maintained when revising, particularly if, in the author’s opinion, Rising Stars had failed to become Prime Time Players. One assumes, without the original volume to hand, that all the risers rose.
The book’s subtitle is “Live And Well” (jazz in the new millennium, that is), “live” being not a solecistic Americanism for “alive” but a reminder that these pen portraits were drawn in the context of public performances. It’s also how B.B. King used the phrase, breaches of grammatical etiquette notwithstanding.
The musicians are grouped into Living Masters (Dave Holland, Cassandra Wilson, Chucho Valdes and 18 others); Prime Time Players (Regina Carter, Anat Cohen, Terri Lyne Carrington and 31 others); Rising Stars (Hiromi, Dafnis Prieto, Kendrick Scott and 18 others); and Rest In Power (Ray Barretto, Randy Weston, Wayne Shorter and five others). One assumes the RIP section could have been lengthened even when the book was being printed. The thing about book revisions is that more is added than is taken away; often, nothing is taken away. This one includes 40 new chapters.
In the first introduction, Mitchell raised the vexed question of “Whither jazz?” and quoted Joshua Redman as believing that the demise of jazz had been a talking point since the bebop era. “Jazz is going in so many directions, all of them … valid,” Redman said. “It’s no longer possible to survey the jazz landscape and point to the next big thing.” In the revised edition, Mitchell goes for broke and says jazz post-2000 is what anyone chooses to call jazz. But, as in the first edition, he repeats his belief that for something to be jazz it has to possess improvisation, intelligence and integrity. One’s quibble might be that, for example, a new string quartet requiring the four musicians to make up extended passages might fit the bill [depends if he’s saying “improvisation, intelligence and integrity” are not only necessary but sufficient – Ed] but it wouldn’t be jazz – a problem simply compounded if they believed it was. It would be interesting to decide when debates on what was jazz and what wasn’t actually began.
Mitchell asks interesting questions of his interviewees and obtains wide-ranging answers. Maybe singer and Rising Star Lizz Wright can speak for a kind of continuity when she tells Mitchell: “In every song, every performance, I am waiting on something, just like the audience. Maybe I have a little more faith than some people, but the concept of improvisation is very scared, very spiritual, to me.”
She takes her place in a bumper, informative book of 9 x 11 inches, with black-and-white photographs.
Jazz In The New Millennium – Live & Well, by Rick Mitchell. Dharma Moon Press, 254pp, pb. ISBN: 978-0-9905148-2-4