January 2, 1997
The Pop Life: A Year to Hear America Drumming
NEW YORK -- In 1996, rhythm was king, at least for The New York Times pop and jazz
critics in their choices for the best albums of the year.
From the rickety beats of Beck, whose album was No. 1 on two lists, to the cross-cultural
percussion palette of Cassandra Wilson, who appears on three, to the abundance of
jazz drummers, drum machines and rhythm-driven music in these tallies and bubbling
under them, the critics were in consensus. But not necessarily with the public.
Except for the best-selling rap band the Fugees, cited in two lists, critical and
popular tastes diverged. Celine Dion's "Falling Into You" was the most popular album
of the year, selling more than 5 million copies. Yet it made none of the lists here.
It was a year of disappointing sales, but musicians continued to explore the odd corners,
and critics continued to follow them there. -- NEIL STRAUSS
Ben Ratliff
1. Ahmad Jamal: "The Essence, Part 1"
(Verve). The rows of shocking diversions and risks on this new album by a 1950s master
could be mistaken for the work of a younger, experimentally minded pianist.
2. Ellery Eskelin: "The Sun Died"
(Soul Note). A homage to Gene Ammons, this rocking, activated session is the
best record yet from a tenor saxophonist who has enlivened downtown jazz for a decade.
3. Dirty Three: "Horse Stories"
(Touch and Go). The violin-led trio comes from Australia but locates nirvana via
some underground river connecting country, blues, Irish reels and crude-sketch rock;
the music is so uncontrived, such a naturally weathered language, that it seems out
of place in the make-believe landscape of alternative pop.
4. Cedar Walton: "Composer"
(Astor Place). The concept was so easy, nobody had thought to do it: produce a record
of all originals by Cedar Walton, the pianist and author of a fistful of pieces that
have come to be ubiquitous in straight-ahead jazz. The result is concision itself.
5. The Raincoats: "Looking in the Shadows"
(Geffen). The women from the re-formed British post-punk group, in their 40s now,
are writing mature, loony songs, redolent of dub reggae and the old-fashioned drama
of '60s girl groups, with small-gesture honesty as an unremovable part.
6. Greg Osby: "Art Forum"
(Blue Note). The Apollonian free play of three to five instruments over loose cycles
and pedal points, and the well-traveled maps of a few standards, make the alto saxophonist's
return to acoustic jazz a beguiling index of the music's past and future.
7. David S. Ware Quartet: "Dao"
(Homestead). Another jazz record for the long haul. The tenor saxophonist's 6-year-old
quartet keeps pulling together more tightly; deadly serious, it gets binding glue
from a powerful distilled motif and then turns up the energy and pathos levels.
8. Kruder and Dorfmeister: "DJ Kicks"
(K7). An Austrian producing duo remixed and segued together pieces by 17
artists (including themselves) within the European club music called electronica;
they came up with 70 minutes of continually opening vistas, a wide palette of sound
and a refined elegance that often seems missing in the genre.
9. Eric Reed: "Musicale"
(Impulse). This young jazz pianist is like a trick portrait: Viewed one way, he's
a post-bop classicist with gospel and soul overtones and impeccable surfaces; move
a bit, look again, and you see hidden troves of humor and the bizarre.
10. Ned Rothenberg: "Power Lines"
(New World). A New York alto saxophonist-composer on the edge of jazz and new music
who draws influences from around the world, Rothenberg has made an album full of
salon-style, flowing melody and flexible rhythm, with an A-list group
from New York's downtown scene.
Copyright 1996 The New York Times Company
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