DownBeat June 2013 [antikvár]

amazon.com www.mikemacarthur.com Tm a music reviewer and I spend my days /oo/c/ng for albums like this one" -This Jazz DURGA Mouthpiece MANTRA Saxophone "A spiritual Sax! TOP 50 PRODUCTS First Take ) BY BOBBY REED J Phi My Joe Jones Honoring Musical Heroes AT PRESS TIME, THE DOWNBEAT STAFF WAS BUSY TABULATING the results of our 61st Annual Critics Poll. The results will be published in our August issue, but there is one winner we can announce now. Our Veterans Committee has elected blues icon Robert Johnson (191l-'38) into the DownBeat Hall of Fame. This induction, which we feel is welcome and overdue, speaks to the importance of blues as an American art form that has spread across the globe, and it honors Johnson's oeuvre a key influence on jazz, rock and other types of improvised music. Here's some "inside baseball" info about the induction process: In addition to voting in the other categories of the Critics Poll, the Veterans Committee participates in a separate round of voting for the Hall of Fame. Candidates must receive at least 66 percent of the Veterans' votes to be inducted. In the 2012 poll. Johnson received 52 percent. In 2013, he earned 69 percent to push him across the finish line. Welcome, Mr. Johnson. Johnson—whose recordings of "Cross Road Blues," "Hellhound On My Trail," "Sweet Home Chicago" and "Rambling On My Mind" have influenced generations of musicians—joins Bessie Smith. Frank Zappa and Jimi Hendrix as one of the very few members of the Hall of Fame who is not generally categorized as a jazz musician. The Veterans Committee was founded in 2009 with the intention of honoring great artists who helped shape the direction of the music DownBeat readers love. The candidates on this ballot are either 100 years past the anniversary of their birth or 50 years past the anniversary of their death. These are candidates who, for a variety of reasons, had not been inducted in years past via either the Critics Poll or the Readers Poll, but that we feel are important musical pioneers. Prior to this year, the veteran critics had inducted nine great jazz artists; Oscar Pettiford, Tadd Dameron, Baby Dodds, Chick Webb, Phiily Joe Jones, Billy Eckstine, Paul Chambers, Gene Ammons and Sonny Stitt. Now Johnson joins the elite club. Of the 133 members of the DownBeat Hall of Fame, some were inducted while they were still active and their careers were thriving. But others had to wait. Drummer Max Roach (who is discussed in our Money Jungle feature on page 32) was elected into the Hall of Fame via the regular Critics Poll in 1980. The following year, drummer Art Blakey was voted in via the Readers Poll. But the great Phiily Joe Jones wasn't inducted until 2010, and his route was via the Veterans Committee vote. The DownBeat Hall of Fame is an important ledger that helps current and future generations understand, appreciate and celebrate the artists who have helped make improvised music the grand, diverse melting pot that it is. That Money Jungle feature includes a lot of great details on a couple of other jazz musicians who permanently altered the path of the music: Duke Ellington (Readers Poll inductee in the Hall of Fame in 1956) and Charles Mingus (Readers Poll inductee, 1971), Just mentioning those artists' names can inject ati air of reverence into a conversation. But listening to their music can change your life. oe