Thursday, May 24, 2007

This week we're gonna party like it's 1999

As has been noted pretty much everywhere, D:O is repping the 90s this week, with admirable assistance. Like Dan, I'm at the young end of the age bracket here. Though I became exposed to jazz in the 90s, my first years of exploring the music were decidedly repertory-based, leafing through DownBeat and acquiring as many classic albums as I could on a schoolboy budget. I guess I became more aware of new releases and artists towards the end of the decade, but really, not until the early Oughts when I was headed to university.

In playing along with the game and trying to come up with my own list, I don't really associate that many discs with the '90s. I don't remember when a lot of them were recorded (I almost forgot that Mehldau's Art of the Trio run with Warner Bros was in the '90s), unlike most of the stuff in the Behearer and pre-Behearer era which has been indelibly stamped with a time frame upon it in my head. I'm unsure whether it's because these discs were sort of running parallel with my development and so they're contemporary to me and not historical documents, or whether there's not really a cohesive set of '90s aesthetics to evaluate them on. Or maybe I'm just too young.

All this to say, go read the lists, listen to the music, and check out the reflections. Some album citations may surprise you - I didn't expect Nate Dorward to shout out Ruby Braff, for instance.

2 comments:

Mac said...

In scanning the lists I realize i truly have weak knowledge of jazz history. however, let me submit my fav 90's jazz album:

Gary Thomas: While the gate is open. It is copyrighted 1989, but I think it was released 1990.

Anonymous said...

Even though I was able to construct a list from my collection, there's definitely a disconnect since I can't tell you if any of them were actually acquired in the 90s. I'm definitely going to have a tougher time with a 2000s list in 3 years....many more choices in my collection.