Musical quality and reviews

Sometimes I get the question: "why do you always give such high evaluations for the albums you review"?

The answer is simple: the objective of this blog is to promote music that would otherwise remain under the radar screen of regular reviews (based on my personal opinion). So I only review those albums about which I think that their existence should be made known to those interested. And 300 positive reviews a year, is a tiny fraction of all the music that is being produced.

Many labels and musicians send me their new material. And I thank them for that.

Unfortunately for them, I do not review everything. I do not see the point in writing reviews about albums that I do not particularly enjoy, unless they're by established musicians, and my review only has value as a kind of alert to those inclined to buy a lot.

One suggestion to the many young musicians that send me material: listen a lot to music. And here are some general comments about these demos and self-released CDs.

1. Focus on the music, not on the mastery of the instruments. Many young musicians want to demonstrate their skills, which is fine, but that's not the objective.

2. Make sure the CD has coherence. The whole CD will mostly be listened to in one go, so mixing Latin, with bop, and then some free pieces, and then some with electronics, may demonstrate the breadth of the skills, but it does not give the impression of a musical vision.

3. Have something to tell. Why would anyone be interested in buying and listening to your music? What does it do that others did not do?

4. Then don't overdo it. Many CDs I receive try to break boundaries, which is good, but they often go into realms of meaningless experimentation. Experiments are good, as an exercise tool to get new ideas, but they are not the goal. They should be integrated into a musical vision.

5. Many, many musicians have tried to experiment in the same fashion. So it's not because the music is full of noise, or violence, or electronics, that it is new or creative. More often than not it's quite tedious.

6. Create your own voice. A comment closely related to the third point, but try to create something distinct, something personal, something unique. And work on it.

7. It's all about the music. About the emotion, about how formal creativity and instrumental mastery can captivate the heart, mind and body of the listener. Think about his or her listening experience.

8. Be yourself. Understand your emotions, find ways to express their complexity and contradictions. Play what you like, not to impress others.

9. Don't listen to old men like me rambling. Shock old men with new visions.

10. And send me your stuff.

11. If it's any good, I will review it.

That's my promise. And objective.

Cheers
stef



© stef

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What I appreciate in music & how to evaluate it for others

My new CD supply is a little bit slow at the moment (seems like most albums - also in free jazz - were released before the christmas period), so maybe it's a good time to discuss what qualities good music should have for me.

Here are some criteria which I find very important, and true, there may be overlap between them all, but they still have their specific shades and colors of value, and there may be other criteria to add.

1. AUTHENTIC : the emotions have to be real, genuine and truthful, the prime objective should be to create good music for the sake of the music itself (not in order to sell, or to show off, or any other thing ...). That's why I like improvized music, because the link between emotion, musician, sound and listener is to be found in its purest form. It's your immediate emotion you're transmitting, not someone else's. Paradoxically enough, this also includes "absence of self", as a prerequisite for true interplay, listening skills and communion between band members.

2. ADVENTUROUS : the artist/band should be looking for new ways to express what they feel and have to communicate. What's the point for the listener to hear the same kind of approach as others have tried. The surprise element, the creativity, the musical vision are part of the adventure. As a listener I want to be taken along, and explore new musical horizons.

3. ACCURATE : when you hear the sounds, you must have a reaction of "Yes, that's it!", as the sublime translation of feelings through skills and mastery of the instrument, the total sound created by a band or the newly created musical language. The sound, or just obtaining that single note which encapsulates it all, yes, then you know you've transmitted something as a musician, that you've received something as a listener, that you share something. Doing that requires accuracy and concentration.

4. ARTISTIC : by that I mean the more cerebral aspect of music. There is some concept behind it, which leads to structure, balance, length, interplay, selection of instruments, of musicians, of new approaches. This does not go against improvisation, quite on the contrary : great improvised music is all about artistic vision, clever group interaction.

5. ATTENTION-GRABBING : though music can and should require an effort from the listener, it should also include a factor of entertainment, in the sense of keeping the attention going, of being captivating. Lots of music, and especially during long soloing, contains the risk of losing the listener somewhere along the way, even if the musicians themselves are very intensively busy with interesting things. There is of course lots of music which does not take the listener into account at all...

That's my "quintuple A" internal rating system. The stars I usually give in my scoring system are not only not very accurate, they're also not sufficiently discerning. Maybe I should give stars for each of the five criteria listed above. I think the five criteria also include what in Arabic is called "tarab" : appealing to mind, body and soul alike, as far as I understood this from the liner notes from Rabih Abou-Khalil's album with the same name. I specifically did not include the qualifier "beautiful" in the list, because that's even more subjective than the ones already there, and furthermore, I did not find a good synonym for it which starts with an "a" ...

I am currently listening to Vulcan, by the Satoko Fujii Quartet, an album which scores high on all of the above criteria.

But in the end, you're the ultimate judge. I'm just sharing my personal opinions.

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The stars I give

My systems of stars in the reviews is relatively flexible

***** is the absolute top, if you don't buy this album, you're crazy. These albums are good today, and still tomorrow. Top-10 material of the year.

**** is what could belong to the top-100 of the year. Excellent with a limited time frame.

*** is OK, well played, some creative ideas, but probably not consistently on the whole CD.

** is nice try, but next time better.

* not worth listening to.

The halves are in between (dig?)

So why do I give so many stars to all the albums in put in my reviews? Well, because I listen to far more CD's than I review. And I enjoy it to share what I like, rather than to give negative comments on the ones I don't like (except of course, if they're really bad, then I might enjoy commenting). Just like you would like to know what is worthwhile to listen to, rather than to have a list of albums to avoid.

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