CHRISTGAU CONSUMER GUIDE
AIR: “Air Lore” (Arista Novus):: Demonstrating not only that ragtime (Scott Joplin) and New Orleans (Jelly Roll Morton) are Great Art consonant with Contemporary Jazz, but also that they’re Corny. And that both Great Art and Corn can be fun.
CHRISTGAU CONSUMER GUIDE
by
Robert Christgau
AIR: “Air Lore” (Arista Novus):: Demonstrating not only that ragtime (Scott Joplin) and New Orleans (Jelly Roll Morton) are Great Art consonant with Contemporary Jazz, but also that they’re Corny. And that both Great Art and Com can be fun. Which is why the somewhat stiff, if not comy, readings of the themes, especially “King Porter Stomp,” don’t get in the way, Although just what could get in the way of Henry Threadgill improvising over an explicit pulse for a whole album I can’t imagine.
A
JAMES BLOOD: “Tales off Captain Black” (Artists House):: This isn’t the great Blood Ulmer record I’ve been waiting for. How can it be, when the saxophone player is Ornette Coleman, who makes everything he plays his own? And how can it be, when the drummer is Denardo Coleman, who can’t follow Blood in free time or on the one? But it does offer the densest guitar improvisations anyone has put on record since Hendrix, and over catchy themes, too. And it does offer Ornette Coleman.
A*