Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Grammy Prediction Recap

Aside from the occasional screen crawl, the only jazz appearances on Sunday’s Grammy telecast were the well-deserved lifetime achievement award for Ornette Coleman, and in the memorial tributes. It did seem to answer the question: just what does a jazz artist have to do to make the primetime show?

Jazz might be far from the Grammy spotlight, but I went ahead and made some predictions here in December, so it’s time to take what lumps are coming. (List of all winners & Nominees here.)

I waffled on the best contemporary jazz category, suggesting Béla Fleck and Mike Stern were the frontrunners. Fleck won.

I picked Diana Krall as the prohibitive favorite for best jazz vocal album, but averred Nancy Wilson might be a dark horse. Wilson, of course won. Maybe that’s okay for online commentary, but I’m sure the bookies wouldn’t pay on that.

Best instrumental solo—Michael Brecker on Randy Brecker’s Some Skunk Funk. Check.

Best jazz instrumental album—Chick Corea’s Ultimate Adventure. Check.

Best jazz large ensemble album—Randy Brecker’s Some Skunk Funk. Check.

Best Latin jazz album—Brian Lynch & Eddie Palmieri’s Simpático. Check.

I’d argue that’s not a bad record in the jazz categories. Random predictions in other categories did not pan out as well. In the contemporary blues category, I thought Katrina solidarity would swing it for Dr. John’s Sippiana Hericane. Instead, the New Orleans sentiment went to Irma Thomas for After the Rain. I was hoping Fred Hersch would beat out John Williams’ theme for the appeasement picture Munich in the best instrumental composition category. That didn’t happen. Not really a prediction, I wrote Grammy voters should give best classical producer award to Manfred Eicher every year. They didn’t see it that way.

Corea did take another Grammy for best instrumental arranging, and Dan Morgenstern did receive another Grammy for liner notes, so there are two more checks. I also made a mushy prediction that the best instrumental arrangement award would go to an arrangement on either a Tony Bennett or Chris Botti record. That was a safe bet.

That’s the prognostication record you get here. Make of it what you will.