Customer Reviews

Chicago's Avant Today: Delmark 50th Anniversary Collection

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Good old Delmark. Not only do these sign on fearless acts that don't care if they are technically "jazz" or not, but they continue to offer some generously priced samplers to help spread the goodness.

It starts off with a rather standard Ernest Dawkins' number that sounds like it could come from 50s era Blue Note. But then things start to get nervy by track 2, "Hyperspace" where Ken Vandermark and Mars Williams try to out-skronk each other with the NRG Ensemble.

An important selling point for me was the inclusion of the always-forward-thinking Rob Mazurek and the Chicago Underground Orchestra (or Duo, or Trio, or Quartet, depending on the year). "Ostinato" doesn't burst out of the gate with avantness, but I suppose a sampler like this doesn't want to chuck you into the deep end of the pool head first. Working your way there is part of the fun.

When my brother passed along a copy of Jeff Parker's "The Relatives," I really grew to like it. It wasn't standard Wes Montgomery wannabe jazz guitar, it took all kinds of subtle detours around jazz-related genres. So I was a little let down when I got his prior release "Like-Coping," which was just guitar trio jazz with very little variation. The one variant was "Holiday for a Despot," and I'm glad Delmark includes it here. It shows the weirdness that Parker was going to embrace in a few years and that his time in Tortoise is fortunately rubbing off on him.

"Top Shelf," by the Sound in Action Trio, was probably recorded around the time that Ken Vandermark became the toast of the town with his MacArthur grant. This is more lyrical that crazy, and again the inclusion is probably meant to just whet the appetite.

So is this worth it? Oh yeah. It's just not enough. Seven tracks, 50 minutes, c'mon. Can you really sum up the power of Chicago's avant-garde jazz scene within that amount of time? I say, no way. But it doesn't hurt to try. Especially at this price. Buy it and then take it from there.