I’ll break the rules and list two albums that are other people’s best-of-2018 but not mine.
Two sources I respect, Giovanni Russonello in The NY Times and Fred Kaplan in Slate (and Stereophile) have published their best jazz of 2018, and I agree with most of it. But each has an album of a musician that ambitiously covers all of Thelonious Monk’s compositions. Monk famously is one of the two most covered composers despite writing only 70 tunes, with Duke Ellington who wrote 2,000.
I appreciate novel settings and arrangements for familiar music.
Frank Kimbrough plays piano accompanied by bass, drums and sax, and thus goes up against Monk himself. It’s not bad, but I prefer Monk himself. Some like Monk’s playing, others like him as a composer but hate his playing.
Miles Okazaki plays solo guitar. I have previously expressed my disdain for jazz guitar. The electric guitar is for bending the notes, playing with distortion, shredding. Guitar is Hendrix. Without that wildness, the pure-tone plink plink plink of jazz guitar is profoundly boring.
The compositions are great, and I applaud the ambition of complete coverage, and the musicians are competent and inspired and respectful. But not for me.
