A lot is going on as the holiday season nears. Perhaps the big event of the week was the announcement of the 50th Grammy Award nominations. I have been extremely critical of the Grammies in the past. The nominees this year do little to shake up my perception that this is a ceremony that favors the famous over the innovative, but there is one particular nomination worth mentioning. Of note is the inclusion of Herbie Hancock's River: The Joni Letters in the running for Album of the Year. Forget for a second that Herbie Hancock is in a major category competing with the likes of Kanye West and the Foo Fighters. The fact that a jazz pianist of Hancock's stature can receive a nomination for a tribute album to Joni Mitchell is incredible. The album is one of the essential musical performances of the year, and to me, this shows that someone on the National Academy of Recording Arts was listening to the right music when they voted. This is a very inspired choice and I hope it brings some more mainstream attention to one of the finest jazz pianists alive today.
To follow up last week's column, we have to talk about the Led Zeppelin reunion. It actually did happen, and by all accounts, the band was worth the hype. Clips were starting to pop up on YouTube, but were quickly removed by the band's label on Wednesday. I managed to see a few of the clips before they vanished, and I think the band sounded absolutely huge. Page's guitar solos were as epic as ever and Plant sings the songs wonderfully for a man his age. It doesn't even need to be said that his vocal range has diminished somewhat, but with a singer of this style, that is expected. We are now told that the show will be available on DVD next year, so we can all look forward to seeing the show ourselves in the new year.
As promised last week, I have a few Christmas gift ideas for music listeners of all varieties. Hopefully this can help you all out, just in case you're still hurting for gift ideas this late in the holiday season. And if you see anything that looks particularly appealing, there is always Christmas money to spend in a few weeks.
For the classic rock enthusiast...
Very few Christmas releases this year are as essential as Pink Floyd's collective package, Oh By the Way. The price may look a little huge ($231.99 on Amazon), but considering you get all 14 of the band's albums, it's quite a bit cheaper than getting the albums separately. Another essential release is Led Zeppelin's Mothership. The two CD hits set (plus one DVD) make this the most worthy greatest hits collection by the band. And for classic rock fans that already own all the essentials, you might want to look for newer albums by aging icons. Chrome Dreams II (Neil Young), Magic (Bruce Springsteen), Dirt Farmer (Levon Helm) and Raising Sand (Robert Plant and Alison Krauss) all come highly recommended.
For the jazz listener...
Certainly the aforementioned Herbie Hancock album, River: The Joni Letters, would be an excellent choice, but some will turn their nose up to the appearance of several popular rock vocalists. There was no shortage of great jazz released this year. Metheny Mehldau Quartet is the second duet album from Pat Metheny and Brad Mehldau, and is every bit as inspired as the first. For a fan of older jazz, Sonny Please by Sonny Rollins is an excellent work from one of the reigning kings of tenor sax. And although Kenny Garrett's last album, Beyond the Wall, was released last year, I'll still put it here. It's one of the jazz albums that continues to impress me with every listen, and I'd recommend it to just about anyone.
For the classical connoisseur...
The classical recording that got most of my attention this year was Simon Rattle's rendition of Ein Deutsches Requiem by Johannes Brahms. This requiem is one of the most epic vocal arrangements in the classical repertoire, and Rattle gives it a fantastic treatment. With the help of the Berlin Philharmonic, this piece sounds as grand as ever. Not interested in vocal works? Try the Orion String Quartet's recordings of Beethoven's Middle String Quartets. Containing some of the finest string quartets of all time, this set is a great gift for any classical listener.
For a fan of modern rock music...
For anyone who still has a soft spot for early nineties hard rock, a few veterans released great albums this year. Zeitgeist (The Smashing Pumpkins) and Year Zero (Nine Inch Nails) were both satisfying, but it was Carry On by Chris Cornell that I have listened to the most. The album proves that Cornell is the kind of singer who can make an otherwise mundane and mediocre set of songs into one of the best rock albums of the year. Other fantastic new albums include Because of the Times (Kings of Leon), Fear of a Blank Planet (Porcupine Tree), Easy Tiger (Ryan Adams), and Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace (Foo Fighters).
I hope I've given all of you a few ideas to make things a little easier this holiday season. I'll be back next week to talk about more current events as well as my predictions for the music scene in 2008.