Destination Unknown

I’ve always been quite oblivious to our local jazz scene,
since no one seems to take much effort promoting this Pinoy Jazz genre. It has
become a problem to our music industry for a long time, because jazz is very
often perceived as either an acquired taste, or oldies music. The latter
stereotype can elicit my screaming of "foul!" because I think it’s just a lazy
pretext for ignoring the genre. Anyone who’s ever heard of Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew or John Coltrane’s Giant Step can attest that Jazz is FAR from
sounding antiquated. Acquired taste, maybe. It’s a quality that has surfaced
since the advent of Free Jazz – around 40 years ago; and therefore casual
listener began to flounder. And since one can approximate that 80% of
Philippines population listen to music merely on casual basis – they don’t care
that much about the instrumentations, or the significance of the theme - Jazz
has long dropped out of our pop-song-humming, Barry-Manilow-singing citizens.

Here’s the story. One day I was bored. It was probably a
Tuesday (as it’s my most yawnworthy day of the week.) So I logged on to the
Internet and posted some comments for my favorite blogger. After having
professed of being a jazz junkie, it was then that I was first told about
Mishka Adams.

Don’t you just love the Internet?

I searched all over to inquire further about this album.
There’s Mishka’s own blog. There are journals about other’s personal experiences
with Mishka’s music (and the feedbacks tend to be positive). Then there’s the
Amazon, home to the laziest Mishka’s review ever written. One "critic" gave
Mishka Adams’ album God Bless The Child a 5 star and said she’s "Billie
Holiday + Norah Jones + Diana Krall". Gee, thanks for clarifying it in a blunt,
"pithy" manner.

It’s been VERY arduous for me to write her a review, mainly
because while jazz shibboleths have become part of my lexicon, I can’t say the
same for world music and pop. What I immediately noticed is that Mishka Adams’ God Bless The Child album have many jazz standards where jazz’s criteria can
easily be imposed (like Body and Soul, and Autumn Leaves, to name a
few), but they are performed in a manner that resembles either New Age or
Afro-Cuban music a lot more. And it doesn’t help too that her originals play
like something that would sit beside a Barbie Cradle’s ballad, albeit a lot
less commercialized and containing messages that are a lot more sensible than
Kitchie Nadal’s high-school-love-notes poetry. So instead of going the standard
route (do I even ever tread that path?) let’s just dissect the Amazonian’s
review in hopes of making a cogent analysis.

Mishka Adams obviously is heavily inspired by Billie
Holiday, and her opuses draw heavy influence on Billie’s fan favorites. One
only has to listen to God Bless the Child of both to realize that their structures are VERY identical, right down to the tempo, dynamic and even the
key signature. The same can be said about Body and Soul and Summertime. But
thanks to the choice of mostly well-done instrumentations, and Mishka Adams’
Enya-contaminated larynx, her renditions end up sounding fresh and distinct
from my straight-out-of-vinyl Billie’s album. Without going into many details,
let’s just say that Mishka’s jazz standards contain tinges of latin,
afro-cuban, and even reggae.

I’m not sure how one is able to find analogues to Norah
Jones and Diana Krall though, as Mishka doesn’t sound anywhere like them both.
Quite honestly, it makes the reviewer read like a jazz dilettante. My guess is
that the only similarity is the accessibility. One isn’t required to know the
basic tenet of jazz theories to be able to appreciate their music. All of them
are able to appease the basest impulse of anyone’s ear with their relaxing and
oft-consonant melodies. Where Mishka is different from the rest, though, is
that she is under no pretense of being high-cultured or elite. In fact, while
others have made themselves unreachable to casual listeners (e.g. Pat Metheny
and Ornette Coleman) and even have gone as far as to exude a snobbish, Ivory-Tower appeal (e.g.
Diana Krall), Mishka has, in fact, very adeptly mesh together pop’s
accessibility with jazz’s sensibility. Ask any recent UP student and they’ll be glad to tell you that Mishka rocks, even though the word "rock" isn’t something you would use as praises to a soulful jazz crooner.

Although the bulk of her album is comprised of jazz
standards, there are enough original materials that are written exclusively for
this release. And these original materials deserve praises too, since they do
not sound like pastiches of the covers, much unlike Sitti’s Para sa Akin.
Though some may say that it’s a cheap trick to make Mishka’s distinct by having
her originals fall in a different category (pop with a touch of world
music, to be specific) to her covers, that doesn’t discount the
greatness of those compositions. They are attuned to earn the approval of fans of
Barbie Almalbis’ "Cradle Days", but without the gratuitous and embarrassing
teenage-angst that are recently too popular with many female pop-rock superstars. Written with a society-sensitive lyrics in mind, they help reveal
to the listener the range of Mishka’s talents that I don’t think it even matters
much if they’re jazz or not.

Besides throwing purists off for mood-inconsistencies, there’s only one other flaw I could think of. The instrumentations are mostly well done, but Mishka might want to do
something about the saxophone. While it doesn’t sound cacophonous, on some
songs like Autumn Leaves, the saxophone is extraneous. I don’t think it does
much to actually enhance the music.

Looking past that peeve though, Mishka Adams’ God Bless the
Child still every bit deserves the  Awit Awards accolade. I am very glad that some local artists are finally taking the effort
to revive jazz’s popularity by straddling the gap between accessibility and
artistry. Sure, Mishka Adams can probably still do a plenty more with her
talents, but as it stands, this album is well worth the time and purchase. And only at P350, you definitely can’t go wrong.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

As an aside, whether or not you already own the first issue,
be sure to get the special edition album of hers. It has contents - 4
additional songs and 2 music videos - that can make any album collectors
happy.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 23rd, 2006 at 6:52 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.