‘88 Golden Feather Awards: Wealth of Choices

The problem with jazz awards is that this field has about as much breathing room as the A Train during rush hour. So, in this ever more crowded arena, the main consideration in selecting honorees for the 24th annual Golden Feather Awards was who should be reluctantly eliminated rather than whom to include.

Does New Age belong in jazz territory? Does fusion? NARAS, the recording academy, says no on both counts. But even within the strict parameters of jazz, how can one decide on a single record when so many albums were issued that not even a critic can claim to have received and listened to them all?

Hurdling these hazards, I have chosen a few artists and events whose impact on the scene rates honorable mention.

INSTRUMENTAL GROUP: The Turtle Island String Quartet. For the first time in jazz history, a string ensemble has shown the ability to improvise individually and swing collectively.

Violinist David Balakrishnan’s arrangements of “Milestones,” “Night in Tunisia” and “Stolen Moments” are alone reason enough to buy this debut album (Windham Hill Jazz WD 0110). The second record, due out Jan. 28, offers even greater inducements.

VOCAL GROUP: Take 6. Now six strong, this amazing group originated as a quartet, organized by four students at Oakwood College, a small Christian school in northern Alabama. Singing entirely a cappella, without overdubbing, they achieve a phenomenal blend in their own arrangements of gospel-based traditional and original material. No vocal unit has sung, or swung, this compellingly since Singers Unlimited.

Despite the overwhelming reaction to their album, relatively little has been seen or heard of Take 6 in recent months. The principal reason is their religion: They are strict Seventh-Day Adventists and have played many dates in churches to raise funds, but they limit their other appearances. Early this month they were booked to take part in a concert at the Universal Amphitheatre, but the date was canceled when they learned it was on a Saturday, when they do not perform.

Four of the members are now living in Nashville; two are in graduate school. Because of the intense interest in their record on the part of jazz-oriented radio stations, it is hoped that they will be make themselves more available for lay dates in 1989. They will appear Jan. 14 at the Town & Country Hotel in San Diego as part of the National Assn. of Jazz Educators convention.

ALBUM: The eponymous debut session by the above cited Take 6 (Reprise 25670).

SINGER: Bobby McFerrin’s runaway commercial victory, at the top of the pop chart (“Simple Pleasures,” EMI Manhattan E148059) just happened also to be a creative triumph. This kind of dual achievement occurs at most once in a lifetime.

BIG BAND: A surprise last-minute entry was the arrival of “Soft Lights and Hot Music” by the Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra (Music Masers CIJD 60172F). The drummer-leader, who inherited this band from his partner, the late Thad Jones, has kept it unusually stable; although its only regular gigs are Monday nights at New York’s Village Vanguard (there were a few outside ventures including a European tour this year), no personnel changes have taken place in six years. Mike Abene’s startling rearrangement of Irving Berlin’s “Soft Lights and Sweet Music” justified the title change. It’s a sad reflection of our economic structure that Lewis has been unable to bring this magnificent orchestra across and around the country.

SOLOIST: Eliane Elias. After living in New York for seven years, the 28-year-old pianist from Sao Paulo has established herself as a composer and soloist of growing conviction and individuality. Her “Cross Currents” (Denon CY 2180) gives a potent indication of creative things to come.

REISSUE: “The Complete Charlie Parker on Verve” (Verve 837-141-2). Selling at $160, this 10-CD set tells you everything you could possibly want to know and a great deal you don’t need to know about what Bird did for Norman Granz’s company, from “Jazz at the Philharmonic” concerts in the 1940s through his final studio session in 1954. (Among the things you could live without are the 10-second false starts and up to 11 different partial or complete takes on the same tune.)

Phil Schaap, who packaged this production (with written introduction by Dizzy Gillespie, session analyses and many unreleased selections) has done a masterfully detailed job. The total listening time of 11 1/2 hours could have been pared to much less; we needed no further proof that despite Parker’s genius he was fallible and wasted a lot of studio time. Still, it’s a fascinating, historically essential adjunct to any jazz library.

BOOK: “Bass Line” by Milt Hinton (Temple University Press). Hinton’s double life as bassist and photographer and now (aided by David G. Berger) as autobiographer add up to a visual and readable delight.

SURPRISE: Patti Austin’s “The Real Me” (Qwest 25696). Her a cappella, multivoiced treatment of an old Quincy Jones jazz number, “Stockholm Sweetenin’,” is the all-too-brief high point. Perhaps this shouldn’t have come as a surprise; after all, should we expect less from Dinah Washington’s goddaughter? Singing Gershwin, Ellington and Arthur Hamilton (“Cry Me a River”), Austin displays flawless taste, style and intonation.

BLUE NOTES: The toll was unusually heavy as we lost Joe Albany, Ashley Alexander, Mousey Alexander, Chet Baker, Ray Bauduc, Billy Butterfield, Al Cohn, Gil Evans, Al Hall, J.C. Heard, Horace Henderson, Memphis Slim, Sy Oliver, Don Patterson, Pony Poindexter, Charlie Rouse, Danny Richmond and Eddie (Cleanhead) Vinson, as well as such good friends of jazz as Dick Bock, David Chertok, Charles Delaunay, Barney Josephson and Baroness Nica De Koenigswarter, in whose home Charlie Parker and later Thelonious Monk spent their dying moments.

Does the size of the death toll indicate that jazz may be moribund? Certainly not. Given the number of bright new talents constantly emerging, we can be assured of the survival of the art form, in its diverse manifestations, far beyond the end of the century. Stay tuned.