This is a good idea: A Blog Supreme has various notable twentysomething online jazz advocates to contribute lists of the top 5 "gateway drug" albums from the last 10 years -- records they'd recommend to other young listeners looking to get a sense of today's jazz scene. The series is called Jazz Now and it kicks off today with ABS head blogger Patrick Jarenwattananon's own list. (Yes, Infernal Machines gets an honorable mention nod but that's not why I'm linking.) These posts include streaming tracks from each record, and, in most cases, YouTube clips of the selected groups playing live as well.
More Jazz Now lists to come in the days ahead from Lucas Gillan (AccuJazz), Sebastian Helary and Justin Wee (Nextbop), Dean Christesen (RVAJazz), Alex Rodriguez (Lubricity), Adam Schatz and James Donahue (Search and Restore), Lars Gotrich (NPR Music), Mike Katzif (NPR Music), and the young-at-heart Josh Jackson, who hosts the must-listen jazz-in-the-present-tense broadcast The Checkout on WBGO.
Also: I was just lamenting to an interviewer yesterday about the lack of a two-way dialogue between current indie-rock-by-people-who-can-play-their-instruments-really-well and current jazz. It seems to me like groups like, for instance, Guillermo Klein's Los Gauchos would be a natural compliment to a bill headlined by, say, the Dirty Projectors. Turns out the DPs are already touring with British "post-jazz" band Polar Bear, whose self-titled 2008 release makes Patrick's Top 5.
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