I learned that when an artist I admire starts making records I don't like, it's probably because what he feels compelled anough to record and put out is not the same thing as what I want to hear. The fact that I want to hear Joey Baron and Kermit Driscoll doesn;t make the recent crop of Frisell records bad. His adgenda as a player is different from mine as a listener. IT DOES NOT GIVE ME THE RIGHT TO TELL HIM WHAT HE SHOULD MAKE, WITH WHOM, NOR WHAT TO COMPOSE. As long as he's making what he makes with every bit of skill he has, I wish him well. I cast my vote at the record store.
And yet, is this what JZ himself does (as listener/label honcho/session funder) when he makes album suggestions to various artists? was D.Bailey's "agenda as a player" really about making a trio record with W. Parker, etc? i am sure some artists pass on his suggestions for projects but doubtless if they do, they do so with great ambivalence because for many impoverished artists there are few funded recording opportunites. (example: JZ suggested to John Schott that he make a gtr/b/d trio album. schott passed on it, but i think he was ambivalent...and he is arguably underrecorded.) sometimes i find myself wishing JZ, and others in his position, would not make the suggestions to the artists but let them come in with their own ideas (i know, this does indeed happen alot). other examples of what i'm talking about--that koto player's trio record of monk tunes was a label guy's suggestion if i remember correctly.... and various other boutique label owners' bright ideas for personnel groupings. i mean, this still happens a heckuva lot in the jazz/improv world. more than i wish it did. (after awhile i start to tune out the onslaught of debabatable concepts). I guess it happens in other scenes also, more than i realize? GC san francisco