Best of 2020 Playlist – Spaces

This encompasses freer-form work. I once set up two basic “things” I’m looking for in music, all credit to mentor and friend Rich Dansky for helping me get to this: either a shot of emotion, a story; or a landscape I want to come back to and explore again and again. These are some examples of the latter category I loved in the darkness of 2020.

Continue reading for notes on each piece, basically post-show cocktail talk because you’d never hear me playing 90% of these on a jukebox.

Where to buy what’s available on Bandcamp, courtesy of Hype Machine’s merch table: https://hypem.com/merch-table/1LcoH1YHihwDfw0XxlFvBD

• Eric Revis, “When I Become Nothing” – Long one of my favorite bass players, Eric Revis’ records as a leader get stronger and stronger, and his 2020 entry, Slipknots Through The Looking Glass, is a tour de force most of us are going to be unpacking for a long time. This wrenching ballad, written by tenor player Bill McHenry, features gorgeous interplay between McHenry and alto player Darius Jones in a landscape of Kris Davis’ immaculate piano, Chad Taylor’s slippery brushwork, and Revis gluing everything together.
• Powers/Rolin Duo, “Caterwauls” – This duo of Jen Powers on dulcimer and Matthew Rolin on guitar crushed it this year. They gave us at least two records I couldn’t stop listening to, appearing on fundraisers and comps and live streams. For the quality of the beguiling vistas they paint in these records and for two people who’ve done as much for the Columbus musical prospects as anyone they deserve this attention and more. This shorter track takes the scrape of strings and turns it into a gorgeous glass sculpture, with sunlight reflecting differently off each of its sharp edges and sinuous curves.
• William Basinski, “Transfiguration” – Like much of my generation, I came to Basinski through The Disintegration Loops and this new one came closest to that beauty of trying to capture something ephemeral, trying to freeze the moment something comes apart and still retain the holy vibration of its living.
• Ingrid Laubrock and Kris Davis, “Jagged Jaunts” – I think the first time I saw Ingrid Laubrock was close to her moving to New York, a trio with Mary Halvorson and Tom Rainey at Issue Project Room. Her reed sound struck me and enraptures me still. One of two Laubrock-led records on this mix and one of two records drawn from called Blood Moon, this pairs her with frequent collaborator Kris Davis (also see the Eric Revis record and my year’s best live performances blog). I’m a sucker for the paring of reeds and piano sans rhythm section – seeing Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock when I was 19 or 20 at the Southern made a deep impression – and this is one of my favorite examples of that kind of deep dialogue in years.
• Angel Bat Dawid and Tha Brothahood, “What Shall I Tell My Children Who Are Black?” – I remain salty at myself for not being able to get more people out to 2019’s Angel Bat Dawid show at the Wexner Center. She and the band’s document of another appearance on that tour, LIVE, is one of the best live records I’ve ever heard and a rare example of a live recording capturing the pure, improvisatory magic I felt in the room with them.
• Kassa Overall featuring Vijay Iyer, “Was She Happy (For Geri Allen)” – Kassa Overall’s I Think I’m Good was a record I recommended to a broad group of people frequently based on completely different tastes they had. This mysterious, questing tribute to the late Geri Allen, one of my favorite pianists, featuring her friend Vijay Iyer, resume their dialogue from one of Iyer’s underrated Mike Ladd collabs. This song knows the layers of its repeated, unresolved dialogue, “Was she happy? She was on a quest,” in a way that makes my blood go cold.
• Makaya McCraven, “The Way Home” – I raved about McCraven in the Live Performance blog, and this record, despite a title implying outtakes from his explosive 2019 Universal Beings, reminds me how much potential still exists in jazz forms and how much unexplored territory is out there for bands willing to reach for it. 
• Matmos, “Revelatory Mini Clot” – Matmos, the long-running collaboration of Drew Daniel and MC Schmidt, have made one of the most intriguing oeuvres in contemporary music out of alchemizing rigorous intellectual exercises into electric, life-affirming body music – the record of theirs that only used sounds from a washing machine was on my best of list that year, I sweated myself half to death watching them roar “Roses and Teeth for Ludwig Wittgenstein” in a tiny tent at Pitchfork Festival one summer, leading us all in a singalong of “The rose has teeth! In the mouth! Of the beast!” Their new one, The Consuming Flame: Open Exercises in Group Form, carries on that proud tradition, along with their embrace of community in calling 99 collaborators together with the only instruction that each artist submit something at 99 beats per minute, and made a combine out of them, leaning into the jagged edges and the half-seen snippets of each journey while building something new and personal.
• Liturgy, “Apparition of The Eternal Church” – Liturgy’s brand of transcendental black metal struck a chord with me the first time I saw them – even if the unlikely setting of Bernie’s during a Scion Rock Fest – and they’ve continued to make better and more vital records. Their new one, Origin of the Alimonies, features some of the best songwriting from Hunter Hunt-Hendrix that I’m still unpacking, with phenomenal, empathetic playing from the band. This, their arrangement of one of my favorite Olivier Messiaen’s organ pieces, burned my eyebrows off the moment I heard it.
• Irreversible Entanglements, “Blues Ideology” – This quartet with Moor Mother’s spoken word over it harkens back to so many records I loved when I first tried to write. Still, the space it took me back to the most was seeing Amiri Baraka at the King Arts Complex backed by Blacklist (also the first time I saw Mark Lomax II and Eddie Bayard). But as much as it conjures memories of those formative influences it feels of the moment and of tomorrow; a dazzling, necessary, punch in the mouth.
• Brandee Younger and Dezron Douglas, “The Creator Has a Master Plan” – Taking advantage of the quarantine, partners harpist Brandee Younger and bassist Dezron Douglas dug deep into this beautiful home-crafted record. It’s frequently hard to make some of us hear a song we know this well with new ears, but their “The Creator Has a Master Plan” is one of my favorite takes on this Pharaoh Sanders classic.
• Susan Alcorn Quintet, “Northeast Rising Sun” – Susan Alcorn’s approach to the pedal steel, stretching it in directions that owe as much to Ornette Coleman as Buddy Emmons or Speedy West, is always a delight and an inspiration. With mostly the same players I saw with her at Big Ears a few years ago, this record sparks uncanny conversation between Mary Halvorson’s electric guitar, Michael Formanek’s bass, and Ryan Sawyer’s drums, accented by Mark Feldman’s violin.
• Joel Ross, “Waiting on a Solemn Reminiscence” – One of the best, most striking vibes players in a long time, Ross (who I saw in Makaya McCraven’s band alongside Brandee Younger at my favorite Winter Jazzfest set this year), made a gorgeous record for Blue Note that never feels monochromatic or stuffy. There’s especially good alto playing from Immanuel Wilkins on here, the melody shifting between Ross’s vibraphone and Wilkins’ horn, splitting and recombining.
• Ingrid Laubrock, “Twice Dreamt” – The second appearance from Laubrock on this list, in her more chamber music mode, features eloquent playing from Cory Smythe on piano and Zeena Parkins on harp, among others.
• Artemis, “Goddess of the Hunt” – Artemis appeared from a distance as a contemporary version of the supergroups in Blue Note Records’ first revival. On further listening, it’s an organic, rich project that creates a modern, up-to-the-minute look at the empathy and dialogue that characterizes jazz, that just happened to be composed of all superstars. This one of drummer Allison Miller’s compositions fuses a colorful bounce with stained-glass textures, bringing the title’s myths and the band name into a personal, intimate space.
• Tony Barba, “Rounding Up” – The second record called Blood Moon I loved this year. My old friend, underrated soul-jazz tenor Tony Barba (if you don’t know that The Barbarians record, do yourself a favor), spent some time removed from the national radar, teaching and playing in the Madison scene. Still, this welcome return reminded me how much I missed that warm, vocal tone and that infectious sense of melody—backed by a hard-grooving rhythm section of Devin Drobka on drums, John Christensen on bass, and Matt Gold on guitar. 
• Duma, “Angels and Abysses” – The textures on this Kenyan metal duo’s record struck me first, and the worlds they conjure keep me enthralled.
• The Soft Pink Truth, “Sinning” – I was a fan of Drew Daniel’s solo project from the very title and concept of the first record, dance revisions of hardcore classics with a nod to the classic Minutemen record and a joke about his friend not being able to get it up all in one (rimshot) package). The music didn’t let me down. This new record of originals, Shall We Go on Sinning So That the Grace May Increase? Is full of subtle, spiritual tracks like this, something you could picture the main room DJ playing to transition between crowd-pleasers or when you first walk into the come-down room, and your skin feels like it’s barely holding your nerves in.
• Aquiles Navarro and Tcheser Holmes, “A Night in NY” – This percussion/trumpet duo, are also crucial members of Irreversible Entanglements elsewhere in this mix. Here, they build a narrative track that feels so much like wandering around New York being open to whatever happens next that I felt pangs of melancholic nostalgia. All while retaining the mystery and magic of any good storytelling. 
• Webber/Morris Big Band, “Rebonds”- One of my two great regrets at Winter Jazzfest was not making the set from this band full of some of my favorite players who, in various forms, had given me some of my favorite memories from earlier iterations of the festival. Hearing this phenomenal record amplified that regret—the grinding grooves and intensity fuse with sticky hooks and sharp surprises.
• Nduduzo Makhathini, “Indawu” – The other great regret I had from this Winter Jazzfest was missing this South African pianist twice (the closest I came was waiting in line for a set he was doing with the great Nasheet Waits). His debut for Blue Note Records is a reminder of how powerful spiritual jazz can be, how free of cliches, and how much like the freshwater I didn’t realize I was depriving myself of until I’m finally drinking it. Phenomenal playing throughout, especially the frontline of Logan Richardson on alto, Linda Sikhakhane on tenor, and Ndabo Zulu on trumpet.
• Bill Frisell, “A Flower is a Lovesome Thing” – Bill Frisell has seen a straight-ahead, as much as those words mean anything in this case, renaissance lately, great playing with significant rhythm sections that I love as much as his heavier concept records. Valentine pairs him with Thomas Morgan on bass and Rudy Royston (who also put out a fantastic solo percussion record this year) on drums for a gold standard in this kind of song-based trio. They play this gorgeous Billy Strayhorn ballad like breathing and make it feel like something brand new.
• Erik Friedlander, “Feeling You” – Long my favorite cellist, Erik Friedlander, also gave us one of his most nuanced song-based statements with the exquisite support of Ava Mendoza on guitar and Diego Espinoza on drums and percussion. This ballad unfurls at exactly the kind of waltzing pace it needs as everyone keeps the touch light and the fascination high, never slipping into romantic cliches or lugubriousness.
• Mathias Bublath and the Eight Cylinder Big Band, “Eight Cylinder” – This German 17-piece band, led by B3 maestro Bublath, brings funky, impossible-to-ignore grooves and rippling interplay highlight smoldering trumpet work from Takuya Kuroda.
• Shabaka and the Ancestors, “Behold, The Deceiver” – Reeds player and bandleader Shabaka Hutchings helped lead the current London jazz renaissance into the light of the rest of the world’s jazz cognoscenti with phenomenal records by his bands like Sons of Kemet and The Comet is Coming. As Shabaka and the Ancestors, this second album carries the 60s fire music tradition in its genes and orients its sights on the tragedy and pain of today while still landing on a clear-eyed, hard-fought hope.
• JD Allen, “The G Thing” – One of my favorite tenor players continues in the dreamy ballad mode of his last couple records for an intoxicating blend with bassist Ian Kenselaar and drummer Nic Cacioppo.
• Clarice Jensen, “Day Tonight” – The acid-cotton candy clouds drifting through this breathtaking solo record by cellist Clarice Jensen refuse to sit peacefully in the background and was some of my favorite music to write to. I’ve been a big fan of Jensen since I first saw her with ACME and everything she puts out makes me want to hear more.
• Julianna Barwick featuring Mary Lattimore, “Oh, Memory” – Julianna Barwick returned after a pause with her richest, most three-dimensional record. This tune, featuring harpist Lattimore, and most of the record, glows with promise and the kind of love for the world that doesn’t come without knowing its cost and its dangers. Everything on Healing Is a Miracle is worth hearing, over and over again.
• Mary Halvorson’s Code Girl, “Lemon Trees” – Anyone who’s even glanced at one of my lists knows what an unabashed fan of Halvorson I am. If the Thumbscrew record playing Braxton tunes was on this platform, she’d have two discs as co-leader on this mix. This sophomore Code Girl record (fusing her Thumbscrew bandmates, Tomas Fujiwara and Michael Formanek with Adam O’Farrill’s trumpet, Maria Grand’s tenor, Amirtha Kidambi’s voice) takes everything strange and beautiful about their first outing and amplifies it, makes it both stranger and more organic. The guest appearance from Robert Wyatt on this track (and a couple of others) feels like the most natural thing in the world and a healing balm in this dark time.
• Marisa Anderson and Jim White, “Unwritten” – This meeting of one of my favorite guitarists, Anderson, with one of my favorite drummers, White, made sense as soon as I heard about it and blew me away when I finally hear it. It fuses their shared interests in roots music and improvisation exploration, in jagged edges and vibrant brushstrokes, and creates something that sounds like both of them but doesn’t quite sound like either of them. 
• Sarah Davachi, “Hanging Gardens” – Davachi put out a few records this year, all excellent, but I couldn’t shake the rapturous dark organ drones in Cantus, Descant. A document that feels holy in ways I can’t adequately describe, like walking through a Richard Serra sculpture.
• Anna von Hausswolff, “All Thoughts Fly” – Anna von Hausswolff’s solo pipe organ masterwork All Thoughts Fly made me see new colors and textures in an artist I already loved. This 12-minute title track is a journey that echoes other classic organ pieces from Bach to Messiaen but no one else could have written or played this.
• Luke Stewart Exposure Quintet, “Awakening The Masters”- Ending this mix with another of my favorite bassists, who came on my radar more recently, Luke Stewart. Also a linchpin of Irreversible Entanglements elsewhere on this list, and playing in David Murray’s killing new trio, here Stewart assembles a righteous cross-section of the Chicago scene I first encountered at 18 who turned me onto 90% of the jazz that informs what I love today. The frontline of Ed Wilkerson (8 Bold Souls) and Ken Vandermark (Vandermark 5, Peter Brotzmann Chicago Tentet, Sonore) on reeds set these Stewart compositions on fire as the leader syncs perfectly between Jim Baker’s piano and Avreeayl Ra’s drumming. I’ve got so many great memories of seeing every one of these players but the one this calls first to mind is Ra, on my great friend James DeBruicker’s bachelor weekend, at the Hothouse, paired with legendary bassist Henry Grimes (see the Parting Gifts mix) just returned from retirement in quartet with Sun Ra’s longtime right hand Marshall Allen and king of Chicago Fred Anderson in one of the greatest night of improvised music in my life. A tribute to the cross-pollination between scenes and also a tribute to two series Stewart name-checks in the liner notes, Elastic Arts and the Option Series at Experimental Sound Studio. May they both survive this and continue to enrich our lives.