Jazz Beyond Jazz

An international wrinkle on jazz awards: The British Broadcasting Company on Monday night announced 11 winners of the BBC Jazz Awards, Reunited fusion quartet Return to Forever won for "lifetime achievement," bassist Charlie Haden received the "international award," Sir John Dankworth and Dame Cleo Laine were given the "gold award." But who are these other honorees with little reputation in the States. Are they better known throughout Europe? What are we missing?

In its early years the Newport jazz fest broke some race, class and entertainment barriers, but during the past decade it's become cost-prohibitive for New York jazz fans who can hear most of the acts without leaving town and paying exhorbitant rates for the weekend's lodging. So this year, the festival fights back with chartered buses offering day trips starting in and returning to Manhattan or Brooklyn for a single fee that includes price of the entry ticket. 

So Boston Globe staffer Jeremy Eichler has enlisted his infant son Jonah as a test subject for early musical perception and education. Why limit the kid's choices to Mozart and Schoenberg? How 'bout some good ol' American prime Louis Armstrong, introducing the concepts of improvisation and swing? 

Loud, fast and chopsy -- that was the definition of "jazz-rock fusion" assumed by panelists (including me)  in a Jazz Journalists Association Jazz Matters public panel discussion of "Fusion at 40" held in conjunction with the headline appearance of  Return To Forever at the Ottawa Jazz Festival.

RTF -- introduced by pianist Chick Corea in 1974 to comprise guitarist Al DiMeola, bassist Stanley Clarke and drummer Lenny White -- is a banner act at jazz fests most everywhere this summer. This lineup is together for the first time since 1983, its tour promoted as a 25-year anniversary and accompanied by a two-cd retrospective album (Return To Forever The Anthology) which has gangstered much jazz magazine coverage. RTF meets the loud, fast and chopsy criteria, sorta. But the supergroup was born several minutes past fusion's finest hour, and its members' collaboration honestly shows their age.