Erik's Random 10

A couple of weeks ago, I talked about the canon and classical music. While there may be a reason for a canon for music that has gone back hundreds of years, I am deeply concerned over the canonization of jazz music. The fate of people like Lester Young is the reason why. While the canonizers, such as Wynton Marsalis and the writers for the New York Times, love Young, does he make the cut? While Marsalis and the Times have a different agenda for canonization, the project is accepted by the American public because they don't want to have to think about their music and they want to know what to buy. Thus they are looking for a few great people they can impress their friends with. In classical music, that is Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart above all else. In jazz, it is the old female singers, Miles, Coltrane, Ellington, and Louis Armstrong. Lester Young is not forgotten about today, but if someone is talking to you about Young, you know they are a big jazz fan. Lester Young is not someone you bring up in polite conversation because you can safely assume that the other people don't know who he is, or at least have no sense of his music even if they have heard of him. Occasionally, you might be wrong, but then it is 2 people excluding a group of others whose jazz collection goes no further than "The Romantic Miles Davis."



1. Lester Young, All of Me
2. Bonnie Prince Billy, Careless Love
3. Mississippi John Hurt, If You Don't Want Me Baby
4. Cat Power, Colors and the Kids
5. Gillian Welch, Annabelle
6. Chris Knight, Summer of '75
7. Malo/Flynn/Ickes/Pomeroy, (I Love You) For Sentimental Reasons
8. Loudon Wainwright III, The Untitled
9. Catherine Irwin, My Old Unlucky Home Far Away
10. John Zorn/Masada, Bikkurim