Tag: Gerald Cleaver

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Best Of Playlist record reviews

Best of 2023 – Spaces

Here are some things that moved me in jazz, classical, and other instrumental (mostly) forms this year.

https://tidal.com/browse/playlist/bbe455af-3b1f-4a30-a42c-9a967bc93869

  • Wild Up/Julius Eastman, “If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Rich?” – The ensemble Wild Up continues their vital grappling with/resurfacing the once-thought-lost work of composer Julius Eastman with a third volume containing several of the pieces on the original three-disc anthology I had the hardest time grappling with. The acidic overtones and sharp stabs on this sardonic, jagged piece are perfectly executed here, under the baton of Christopher Rountree, and reflect a world I see in a way I didn’t when I first heard the piece, also laying bare the sense of hope inherent in getting off the mat every time.
  • Wadada Leo Smith and Orange Wave Electric, “Nzotake Shange” – One of America’s finest composers and trumpeters, Wadada Leo Smith (Anne said, after watching a quartet set at the Stone, it sounded like “Falling down stairs” and she wasn’t wrong but in a good way), assembled a dream team of electric downtown-associated players for his remarkable record Fire Illuminations: guitarists Nels Cline, Brandon Ross, and Lamar Smith; bassists Bill Laswell and Melvin Gibbs; electronic musician Hardedge; percussionist Mauro Refosco; and drummer Pheeroan akLaff. Each tune reflects on an individual or a specific moment in history, and this piece, named for the poet and playwright who broke me when I read for colored girls 15 years after it premiered, exemplifies everything I find so intoxicating about the album, the deep groove and the perfectly refined and directed shots of fire spraying over it.
  • Irreversible Entanglements, “root ⇔ branch” – Irreversible Entanglements not only blew my hair back twice this year but also put on an even more assured and powerful second album, Protect Your Light. This piece, partly in tribute to jaimie branch, has been a favorite since I first hit play, and it’s still a balm, horns slowly waltzing through Moor Mother’s poetry and the deep, circular groove of Luke Stewart’s bass before erupting into a hip-swaying march. “Let the horns open the day and get free.”
  • Johnathan Blake, “Lament for Lo” – Drummer Johnathan Blake released his best record as a leader with this year’s Passages, and it’s full of great players. Still, I kept coming back to this drum solo intro/tribute to fellow New York drummer Lawrence “Lo” Leathers, both as a tribute to conciseness in a playlist more given to sprawling statements and a reminder of how much texture and emotional content one instrument being played alone can be.
  • Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society, “Last Waltz for Levon” – I’ve been waiting for several of the pieces on Darcy James Argue’s latest record, Dynamic Maximum Tension, to be collected on a recording for a very long time. This one, written in the wake of The Band drummer Levon Helm’s passing, I saw him do almost ten years ago in the basement theater of subculture, and he introduced it by paying tribute to Helm’s deep, instantly recognizable pocket. The Secret Society pays tribute to that slippery waltz that shadow-painting sense of time, in one of a record packed with gems – until writing this, the Duke Ellington tribute “Tensile Curves” was my choice for the playlist periodically, it was the Buckminster Fuller-inspired piece – and I can’t wait to see this band again at Big Ears finally.
  • Henry Threadgill, “The Other One: Movement III, Section 13” – Henry Threadgill followed one of the all-time great music memoirs, Easily Slip Into Another World, with a stunning chamber music record, The Other One, from which this is drawn. Not playing horn, just conducting, Threadgill’s affinity for tension and mystery in dynamics shines through loud and clear and his facility for strings takes on dimensions I wasn’t expecting.
  • Kali Malone, “Does Spring Hide Its Joy v2.1” – One of the standout performances I saw at Big Ears last year, composer and organist Kali Malone convenes a trio with cellist Lucy Raiton and guitarist Stephen O’Malley for a long record of beguiling riffs on melodic cells glowing with long tones.
  • Ingrid Laubrock and Cecilia Lopez, “LUNA MAROMERA” – Ingrid Laubrock put out several good records this year but I kept coming back to this duo record with Cecilia Lopez on electronics, Maromas, a continued investigation of the duo format from one of my favorite saxophonists, that also beguiled me when Anne and I saw the duo in Brooklyn in the Spring. There’s grit here, the ragged breathy tones and the long pulses that decay unevenly, that add to the inherent mystery.
  • Thandi Ntuli and Carlos Niño, “Lihlanzekile” – Producer/percussionist Carlos Niño has gotten a lot of deserved heat this year, I saw him anchor a brilliant trio with Surya Botofasina and Nate Mercereau at Winter Jazzfest in January, and my favorite record of his was this gorgeous duo album with South African pianist Thandi Ntuli. This closing track, translating to “It is clean”, was a piece I returned to over and over, an undulating landscape that changes every time I try to perceive it.
  • Andre 3000, “BuyPoloDisorder’s Daughter Wears a 3000® Button Down Embroidered” – The record that put Niño’s name into the wider American consciousness and which I liked a lot; though, as I discussed with Andrew Patton, it fits more neatly into the ambient genre or even downtempo electronica than the “flute jazz” box some people who didn’t know that was a genre tried to put it in. This track features the trio I mentioned above, creating alongside Andre Benjamin, and is one of the two tracks to feature flute instead of what I think is an EWI. It’s beautiful.
  • Allison Miller, “Fierce” – One of my favorite composer-drummers, Allison Miller, outdid herself this year with a small group record co-sponsored by a series of art spaces with Lake Placid Center for the Arts in the lead, Rivers in Our Veins. As always, she assembled a remarkable group of musicians with a deep history with her and each other: Jenny Scheinman on violin, Jason Palmer on trumpets, Ben Goldberg on clarinets, Carmen Staaf on keys, and Todd Sickafoose on bass. The intertwining – I think – Rhodes and acoustic piano comping under Scheinman’s solo that seems to burble out of Goldberg’s is a highlight of this track, and there’s not a dull track on the album. The interplay is really as good as it gets.
  • Damon Locks and Rob Mazurek, “Yes!” – Trumpeter, composer, and bandleader Rob Mazurek has worked with composer/bandleader/polymath Damon Locks in a variety of settings, most notably Mazurek’s shifting Exploding Star Orchestra, but distilling their two languages down to a duo on New Future City Radio paid off big, both on this record and seeing them live at Big Ears.
  • MEM_MODS, “Midtown Miscommunication” – One of my sleeper favorites in the good-for-all-parties category, a deep Memphis groove project from Paul Taylor (Amy Lavere, New Memphis Colorways), Steve Selvidge (Big Ass Truck, Hold Steady, Lucero), and Luther Dickinson (North Mississippi Allstars).
  • James Brandon Lewis and the Red Lily Quintet, “Were You There” – Saxophonist James Brandon Lewis reconvenes my favorite of his bands, the Red Lily Quintet – Kirk Knuffke on cornet, William Parker on bass, Chad Taylor on Drums, Chris Hoffman on cello – for a tribute to his Grandmother by way of paying tribute to the pioneering gospel singer Mahalia Jackson. Every song on For Mahalia, With Love, is a winner, with deep soulful grooves and stretching out without sacrificing any bit of these timeless melodies. The colors of the instruments coming in on this one remind me of Beethoven’s 9th in the best way.
  • Chris Potter, “You Gotta Move” – Saxophonist Chris Potter has a special affinity for the Village Vanguard. His newest record, Got the Keys to the Kingdom, is another stunning example. Potter and his powerful quartet – Craig Taborn on piano, Scott Colley on bass, and Marcus Gilmore on drums – tear into and pay homage to fascinating repertoire throughout the record, but I kept coming back to this glorious cubist-gutbucket take on Mississippi Fred McDowell’s “You Gotta Move.”
  • Mendoza Hoff Revels, “Echolocation” – Also blues-inflected but with open arms for everything since, the collaboration between guitarist Ava Mendoza and bassist Devin Hoff, featuring James Brandon Lewis in a more coiled, snarling mode than I’m used to, and Ches Smith’s powerful drumming, is the best avant-rock ensemble I’ve heard in recent memory. The liner notes referencing Ornette Coleman’s Prime Time and later Black Flag ring true, but this doesn’t sound like anyone else.
  • Tyshawn Sorey, “Seleritus” – Drummer and composer Tyshawn Sorey digs into the corners of the songbook with his killing trio of Matt Brewer on drums and Aaron Diehl on piano on Continuing. This deep dive into an Ahmad Jamal piece captures the space and silence of Jamal’s kind of shorthand in the common parlance but also captures the heaviness he always brought to the bandstand. A majestic tribute that plays everything these three have learned about the source and brought to their own work through the original.
  • Love in Exile, “Eyes of the Endless” – This supergroup of Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer, and Shahzad Ismaily exceeded every expectation I had going in as a big fan of all three players and writers. This piece has Iyer on Rhodes instead of the normal acoustic piano, and both the heavy strike and the ring of that instrument give the astonishing melody from Aftab a different, shimmering texture, like a cape being flung off and tossed into a bay.
  • Kurt Rosenwinkel and Geri Allen, “A Flower is a Lovesome Thing” – The gods of reissuing blessed us with a remarkable document of a duo concert in Paris in 2012 before Allen’s untimely passing. Two voices that shaped the jazz players my age and younger as much as anybody else explode this tune, one of my favorite Billy Strayhorn pieces, thoughtfully, out of love. Every note of this holds the next, waiting to be born, but not in a way that ever feels rote or obvious.
  • Aaron Diehl and the Knights, “Gemini” – Speaking of acts of love, it’s hard to compete with this one. The great Mary Lou Williams wrote her Zodiac Suite – which many jazzers play at least parts of to this day – as a through-composed chamber suite but it’s – I don’t think – ever been recorded as such. Masterful pianist Aaron Diehl restored the score and teamed up with NYC guardians of the contemporary canon, The Knights, for a beautifully recorded, definitive reading.
  • Roy Hargrove, “The Love Suite: In Mahogany – Obviously Destined” – Another gift from the reissue gods: a pristine recording of the 1993 Alice Tully Hall performance of trumpeter-composer Roy Hargrove’s piece The Love Suite: In Mahogany. This movement highlights both Hargrove’s sizzling horn playing and Marc Cary’s piano (that solo a couple of minutes in undulates with silky dynamism, but everyone – Jesse Davis, Ron Blake, and Andre Heyward comprise the rest of the horn section, Rodney Whitaker and Gregory Hutchinson keep things moving and held down as the remainder of the rhythm section – kills it here.
  • Yasmin Williams featuring Aoife O’Donovan, “Dawning” – Columbus was finally blessed with Yasmin Williams as the Wexner Center this year after several cancellations. The entire performance floored me, but I was especially intrigued by this new piece she introduced, revealing Aoife O’Donovan’s involvement. The studio recording delivers on all the promise that collaboration holds. Williams lets every note ring on its own, rolls feel like last year’s snow finally slipping down cliff sides, in a slow drag tempo perfectly suits O’Dovonan’s wordless vocals.
  • Chad Fowler/Zoh Amba/Ivo Perelman/Matthew Shipp/William Parker/Steve Hirsh, “Sentient Sentiment” – Chad Fowler, here on stritch and saxello, assembles a contemporary fire music supergroup and lets them loose in a frenzy of ecstatic, deeply thoughtful play on the five tracks of Alien Skin. The single show I was sorriest to miss in my town was Zoh Amba’s local debut featuring Chris Corsano, and I heard it was just as good as I’ve heard her in the past. Her lines exquisitely intertwine with Fowler’s and Perelman’s, particularly on this slow burn that blossoms into a line of explosions, as Parker, Shipp (both of whom appear elsewhere on this playlist), and Hirsh set up a baseline that shifts exactly as the music needs to.
  • Wolf Eyes, “Engaged Withdrawal” – I’ve been a fan of Wolf Eyes almost as long as I’ve been digging William Parker and Matthew Shipp, and their Dreams in Spattered Lines is another classic, with maturity as a blessing and not a crutch. This song creeps at a measured pace, Nate Young and John Olson leaving one another enough space and care, enough listening, to each make a proper impression on a record that has everything in its place and wastes no gesture, no moment.
  • David Lang/Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra/Sō Percussion, “man made” – The CSO (not that one, the other one), under their director Louis Langrée, teamed up with leading NYC contemporary troupe Sō Percussion for the first recording of David Lang’s stunning piece “man made.” Lang’s program note about the orchestra acting as translators and decoders, for the less traditional instrumentation and movement of the percussion quartet rings true, and that process – showing the strings – makes it all more magical rather than less.
  • Matthew Shipp, “The Bulldozer Poetics” – Shipp continues his growth into a clearer more approachable, even when the work itself gets thornier and more complex, like the world, piano style on the phenomenal solo album The Intrinsic Nature of Shipp. From the crush of those first notes, this driving piece sets up an entire world.
  • Curtis J. Stewart, “vii. Adagio from Johannes Brahms Sonata No. 1 Op. 78 (We Are Going to Be OK)” – Violinist/composer/arranger Curtis Stewart’s remarkable solo record of Love is one of those gargantuan acts of love I keep talking about and being drawn to. An expansive weaving together of pieces he’s been playing for years and knows well by composers who still speak to him, like Brahms and Ellington, and originals, played in tribute to his late Mother in her Upper West Side apartment. 
  • Kieran Hebden and William Tyler, “Darkness, Darkness” – This collaboration between Kieran Hebden, the electronic musician better known as Four Tet, and avant-Americana guitarist William Tyler, delighted me, particularly this take on the Youngbloods song “Darkness, Darkness.” It unfurls slowly, letting the listener glimpse it in pieces, coming into view like a slowly backing-up camera refocusing every few seconds and coalescing into a powerful groove.
  • Rob Moose featuring Phoebe Bridgers, “Wasted” – yMusic co-founder violinist Rob Moose teamed with a variety of singers on his dazzling Inflorescence EP. I kept coming back to this fragile, pulsing collaboration with Phoebe Bridgers. The strings are both stabbing and enveloping light here. “Standing in the parking lot, in the glow of a Rite-Aid sign, everyone I know is staying in tonight. I’ve been here before, just screaming at a cell phone. Seems like a couple of months went by, but it’s years ago.”
  • Gerald Cleaver, “Of the American Dream” – One of the finest jazz drummers, Gerald Cleaver, has been working up a second strain of electronica-based music that I think hit its most assured and together expression yet with 22/23.
  • JD Allen, “Mx. Fairweather” – JD Allen stepped into the ring with electronics on THIS without sacrificing any of that rich, rounded tone. His great trio – Alex Bonney on those electronics and effects, Gwilym Jones on drums – attack this ballad and the other gorgeous originals on the record with subtlety and laser focus.
  • Nubya Garcia, “Lean In” – This killer single from one of my favorite London sax players, Nubya Garcia, summons up some of the textures of the garage club music she grew up with for an infectious mix.
  • Sexmob, “Club Pythagorean” – Downtown New York institution Sexmob – Steven Bernstein, Briggan Krauss, Tony Scherr, Kenny Wollensen – brought longtime collaborator Scotty Hard (Prince Paul, Mike Ladd, Antibalas) into the fold as a full member on their electrifying The Hard Way. This track also features John Medeski on Mellotron for a powerful groove bursting with hooks.
  • Javier Nero, “Kemet (The Black Land)” – Trombonist-composer Javier Nero leads a large band – including guest Sean Jones on a crackling solo on this title track – paying tribute to the ancient African empire of Kemet. The wordless vocals and frenetic cymbal work from Kyle Swan set up gorgeous massed horns, and killer vibes work from Warren Wolf, and a sizzling solo from Nero.
  • Marquis Hill featuring Joel Ross, “Stretch (The Body)” – Trumpeter Marquis Hill approached the ways intention can give our lives meaning and thoughtless action/habits can decay us, in a way that made more musical sense than any other such attempt I can think of, with the riveting Rituals + Routines. This track features vibes player Joel Ross painting constellations around the tight quartet of Hill, Junius Paul, Micheal King, and Indie Buz.
  • Chris Abrahams, Oren Ambarchi, Robbie Aveniam, “Placelessness (Side B excerpt)” – Chris Abrahams (The Necks’ pianist) brought together this trio of avant-garde guitarist and electronics player Oren Ambarchi and drummer Robbie Aveniam for Placelessness, two extended tracks of throbbing minimalism. Those squiggles around the minute mark, creating an interference color between the circular piano figure and the stuttered drums, were my initial handhold into the world of this music, and they still excite me.
  • Greg Ward Presents Rogue Parade, “Noir Nouveau” – Chicago alto player Greg Ward brings together some of his town’s finest players under the Rogue Parade name – Matt Gold, Dave Miller, Matt Ulery, Quin Kirchner – for the delightful concept album Dion’s Quest. This cinematic piece builds slowly, like shadows creeping along a wall, and develops sharper edges and flashes of light.
  • Sara Serpa and Andre Matos, “Carlos” – The vocalist pushing the boundaries furthest in the jazz/improvisation world right now, Sara Serpa, found an exquisite foil in guitarist/bassist Andre Matos. They assembled a great band consisting of Dov Manski on keys, João Pereira on drums, Okkyung Lee on cello, and Sofia Jernberg on additional vocals for the astounding album Night Birds. This original builds up from cells, sharing some sound-world commonality with the last two tracks, and flies to another place entirely.
  • Lawrence English and Lea Bertucci, “A Fissure Exhales” – I’ve been a big fan of Lea Bertucci’s playing and soundscapes for years. This collaboration with field recordings and tape manipulation artist Lawrence English, a standout track for me from their record Chthonic summons a sense of glacial motion, like many of the instrumental records that drew me this year, brings an entire world into my view and keeps revealing new mysteries.
  • Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah, “Shallow Water (Tribute Big Chief Donald Harrison Sr., Guardians of the Flame)” – The power of the statement in Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah leaving his – up to now – primary instrument, the trumpet, behind in favor of his self-created Chief Adjuah’s bow and vocals, paid off big in his remarkable Bark Out Thunder Roar Out Lighting, a mythopoetic tribute to all New Orleans has given us and everything it can still be. This tribute to the great Donald Harrison, Sr., features electrifying playing from Weedie Braimah on percussion, Luques Curtis on bass, and Marcus Gilmore on drums, among excellent guests.
  • Dan Wilson, “Bird Like” – Akron-based guitarist Dan Wilson grapples with his influences on the terrific Things Eternal, leading a great quartet of Glenn Zaleski on Rhodes, Brandon Rhodes on bass, and David Throckmorton on drums. The fluid lines and gleeful interplay make this Freddie Hubbard classic vibrantly, wrigglingly, alive.
  • Matana Roberts, “a caged dance” – Anything Matana Roberts does is worthwhile, and the fifth chapter in her Coin Coin series, delving into her family history and examining its context in American and specifically Black American history, In The Garden, might be the best installment yet. Produced with aplomb by Kyp Malone (TV on the Radio) and a large band of excellent musicians, including Mike Pride and Ryan Swift on drums, Stuart Bogie and Darius Jones on reeds, and Mazz Swift on violin, there’s not a weak track to be found. The stuttering, walking-the-line-between early 20th-century jazz and mid-century free jazz intro of this tune grabbed me immediately, and the rest of the track never let go.
  • Angel Bat Dawid, “INTROID – Joy ‘n’ Stuff’rin”  – When I interviewed Angel Bat Dawid years ago, she was working on the multimedia Requiem for Jazz project. While I’m still chomping at the bit to see it realized, the record was maybe the most ambitious and moving jazz and jazz-adjacent piece I’ve heard all year. Massed vocal writing and those interweaving horns on this tune… it doesn’t get better. I’m still unpacking this Requiem and will be for a while.
  • Ambrose Akinmusire featuring Bill Frisell and Herlin Riley, “Owl Song 1” – Trumpeter-composer Ambrose Akinmusire assembled a trio of guitarist Bill Frisell and drummer Herlin Riley for the gorgeous Owl Song. This lead-off track is a tribute to all three players’ dedication to tone, space, and adventuring spirits.
  • Missy Mazzoli/Third Coast Percussion, “Millenium Canticles Pt 5, Survival Psalm” – The “Millenium Canticles” suite by Missy Mazzoli, one of my favorite composers and who makes one more appearance on this playlist, is the opening salvo to Third Coast Percussion’s dynamic Between Breaths and this final movement feels like you’ve just made your way to shore. A tribute to finding ways and reasons to live.
  • Beverly Glenn-Copeland, “Harbour (Song for Elizabeth)” – Beverly Glenn-Copeland’s first record in 20 years is a rapturous collection of art songs only he could write. The melody and lyrics of this song, in particular, wrecks me every time. “Don’t you know that you’re the deep, where water, earth, and fire meet? Don’t you know that when you sleep, life’s laughing, weeping?”
  • Mark Lomax II featuring Scott Woods, “Ho’oponopono” – One of the performances I was sorriest to miss in the fall of 2022 was the premiere of Columbus’s greatest composer Mark Lomax’s newest collaboration with poet Scott Woods, Black Odes. I’m still sorry I wasn’t in town to see it, but the record is a spectacular document of an opening into a new era for two of our finest artists. “What else do I need but this hem? / What else do I need to decolonize this kiss to make it a worthy offering?”
  • Missy Mazzoli/Arctic Philharmonic, “These Worlds In Us” – I’ve been a big fan of Missy Mazzoli’s writing since I heard her chamber ensemble Victoire on a blog, and a year or two later saw them in Chicago’s Millennium Park. Her work has grown more expansive, covering a multiplicity of forms, and finally, there was a collection under her name with a variety of uncollected orchestra pieces, Dark With Excessive Bright. This one, new to me, was an immediate favorite and falls into my usual tone: a prayerful/hope-for-the-world piece I like to end these playlists on. Thank you all for reading/listening. I love you.
Categories
Best Of live music

Best of 2023 – Live Music

Small bar, two dark haired white men playing guitars, one singing, one light haired white man playing piano and singing, one light haired white man playing cowbell and dancing so hard he's blurry
The Little Rockers (from left, Phil Cogley (if I’m wrong there, someone please post), Quinn Fallon, Joe Peppercorn, Jason Winner)

This may sound like a joke to most people who know me, but this year, I really felt the strain of trying to juggle too much. Some of that stress resulted from differently demanding jobs – especially switching companies around Memorial Day. Some of that feeling was mental health, including the fact that a bout of COVID and a recurrence of gout both threw my gym habit, which I’d really enjoyed the last two years, off hard. I’ve got some strategies, and it’s all about iterative improvement/a feedback loop I’d been steadfastly ignoring; we’ll see if I can get to a more balanced place of being open to really enjoying everything I head out for and not being so goddam tired.

That whining out of the way; I’m so glad I have a habit of doing these every year because I saw an amazing array of stuff.  Narrowing this down to 20 was extremely hard – even with another 20 of the best sets I saw at a festival. I saw about 170 shows over 12 cities – though a few of those cities were only for festivals, like Knoxville for Big Ears or Memphis for Gonerfest. 

In no surprise, I was at Dick’s Den the most often, with 25 appearances, and I never saw any bullshit music there. It’s not only my clubhouse; it’s where our finest musicians feel comfortable stretching out, trying new things, and checking new players. Not only our jazz scene, but I feel safe saying Columbus’s entire cultural firmament would be poorer without the constantly rejuvenating energy of Dick’s.

Natalie’s Grandview was next up; I was there 11 times (with two more scheduled after this intro – hopefully after this post, but we’ll see how long this takes – but before the end of the year). Beyond the dazzling show that did make this list, it had the most sweated-over, where-does-this-go shows of any venue in town. In another year, the Robbie Fulks (first time with a full band in a few years), the Sadies (who killed me as a trio when I didn’t think I’d ever get used to them without Dallas Good), Sarah Borges/Eric Ambel (who brought my favorite set list they’ve ever done from two artists who’ve never made a bad record), and Chuck Prophet and the Mission Express (who sailed over what’s always a high bar when he’s in town) all would have made this list handily. 

And I want to take a second to shout out something Natalie’s does that I think is important: residencies. Beyond their legendary extension of Bobby Floyd’s Sundays (to which I’ve been an intermittent visitor since they were held at the Lobby on the east side), they’ve made space to give established and up-and-coming artists recurring weekly space on their more intimate Charlie’s Stage to bring guests, workshop new material, and remind us all just how deep the bench is of talent in this town. I saw stellar examples of this by Lydia Loveless, the duo of singer Sydney McSweeney and saxophone player Terrance Charles, Hammond B-3 players Jon Eshelman and Tony Monaco, and the trio version of alternate-universe harmony maestros The Randys, and easily missed half a dozen I wanted to make. My cultural life is richer through the efforts of Charlie and Natalie Jackson; every year, they double down on that.

Speaking of, I want to take a second to shout out fellow Grandview venue Woodlands Tavern: every time I made it out for Colin Gawel’s monthly residencies, I had a fantastic Sunday; more than once taking out-of-town pals, enjoying the guests he’d bring on, especially his rallying for both democracy in general and reproductive rights in specific with two Issue 2 shows before the two elections.

Cafe Bourbon Street either continues getting its groove back, or I continue getting my head out of my own ass and noticing. Every one of the six nights I spent there could have easily made this list; the one show that made the 20 not only still reverberates in my head but also was worth getting COVID again. Ace of Cups, I haven’t been to as often, but the subtle improvements in sound and the bar, while keeping some of the great staff and the overall ambiance, always make me feel good. I especially appreciate the carrying the torch for bigger community building or reinforcing events – the two-day 20th anniversary of Lost Weekend Records and the fundraiser for Arturo De Leon, headlined by the return of the New Bomb Turks; both made my heart swell.

Everything listed below is in Columbus unless otherwise stated; everything is in chronological order. All photographs are by me. When I list an opening act, it’s because that opener helped nudge the show onto this list.

Black and white photo, dark skin woman singing, light skinned woman sitting and playing violin
Rhiannon Giddens, standing, and Katherine McLin, playing violin, from the Promusica Chamber Orchestra
  • Meshell Ndegeocello (Blue Note, NYC, 01/12/2023) – I’ve been a fan of Ndegeocello since hearing Plantation Lullabies in High School, but I’d never seen her live, so a week at the Blue Note when I was in town for the constellation of APAP side events was a no-brainer. She augmented the already tight usual band with guitarist Jeff Parker and keyboardist Julius Rodriguez. She opened by saying, “It’s rainy outside; we’re going for a mood,” and held me in the palm of her hand as the band slid from silky looseness to snapping wire-tight at precisely the right moments, all hovering around her voice and guitar or keys. They previewed songs from the at-the-time-upcoming The Omnichord Real Book, dipped into the catalog, and sprinkled the 70-80 minute set with a handful of beautiful covers, including a smoky, slow-jam take on the ‘80s George Clinton classic Atomic Dog. Not the first show of the year I saw, but this definitely set a bar for everything that came after.
  • Promusica Chamber Orchestra with Rhiannon Giddens (Southern Theater, 01/19/2023) – One of my favorite contemporary singers since first hearing Carolina Chocolate Drops, my fandom of Rhiannon Giddens exploded after seeing her solo at one of my first couple of Big Ears festivals in the Bijou Theater. She captured the spectrum of American music in Columbus’s intimate historic theater, working alongside our Promusica Chamber Orchestra at Promusica’s annual fundraiser alongside her musical foil, Francesco Turrisi and upright bassist Jason Sypher. With soaring, nuanced string arrangements from Gabe Witcher (often a visitor to the Southern as a member of the Punch Brothers), she tore into classics like Nina Simone’s “Tomorrow is My Turn” and Gillian Welch’s “Factory Girl” along with originals like “At the Purchaser’s Option” with aplomb and that crystalline tone. Just breathtaking.
  • Teeth Marks/Cardiel/Garbage Greek (Rumba Cafe, 02/11/2023) – It’s no surprise Garbage Greek is the only band to make this list twice. They are my people and have been my favorite straight-up rock band since stripping down and woodshedding during COVID. They always bring it whether they’re coming as a three- or four-piece (Adam Scoppa’s percussion and backing vocals add fascinating textures when he’s available). They’ve brought a strain of harder rock to Rumba Cafe. They’re bringing bands that probably wouldn’t play here otherwise. This example turned me onto beautifully unhinged Mexico City two-piece Cardiel – who fused furious garage rock with acid-tinged improv and even the depth and richness of dub reggae – and local band Teeth Marks, who had an appealingly raw vibe that immediately added me to their list.
  • Columbus Jazz Orchestra with Maria Schneider (Southern Theater, 02/12/2023) – I love our Jazz Orchestra, but sometimes the rep isn’t right up my alley. Obviously, there were no such questions with Maria Schneider, who’s been at the forefront of modernizing the big band language for decades. Watching her conduct a set of her deathless compositions was my favorite example of seeing how the muscles of this band can flex, be delicate, and powerful in the same breath.  
Dark skin woman sitting, playing acoustic guitar
Yasmin Williams
  • Yo La Tengo (Beachland Ballroom, Cleveland, 03/22/2023) – Speaking of delicate and powerful, alternating and at the same time, Yo La Tengo might be the touring band I’ve seen most often over the years, but I’ve never seen a better two sets than they brought to one of my favorite venues in March. Highlights for me included an opening “Sinatra Drive Breakdown,” a breathtaking “Center of Gravity,” a dazzling “Sugarcube,” and an encore starting with a cover from underground Ohio heroes Electric Eels.
  • Yasmin Williams with Tarta Relena (Wexner Center, 03/28/2023) – I’d waited a long while for Yasmin Williams. Canceled at least twice due to COVID, another cancelation and a year wait after I’d interviewed her and written a preview. But this makeup date affirmed everything I love about her records, gave me my first taste of my current favorite acoustic guitarist live, and introduced me to the astonishing Spanish singing duo Tarta Relena. Hymns not bound to a specific tradition, resonating notes tearing rips into universes. Once again, an astonishing show from the Wexner Center that served as a palate cleanser/amuse bouche for the glorious buffet of Big Ears.
  • Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit with Amythyst Kiah (Andrew J. Brady Center, Cincinnati, 04/29/2023) – Maybe the last leg of Isbell’s touring with longtime bass foil Jimbo Hart in a new big room in Cincinnati I wasn’t familiar with before heading down, he and his crack band hit every stage of his career, from the song that introduced most of us to him as a writer, DBT’s “Outfit” through a solid helping of Southeastern songs in the year of its 10th anniversary, and every record since Southeastern rehabilitated his image, including an encore that paired the devastating “Cast Iron Skillet” off not-yet-released Weathervanes with early DBTs standout “Decoration Day.” And Amythyst Kiah and band killed a tight nine-song set heavy on her terrific record Wary and Strange but also sprinkled with hard-edged takes on classics like her set-closing bring-the-house-down take on Vera Hall’s “Trouble So Hard,” which she also appeared alongside Gregory Porter on Moby’s recent revisiting of his “Natural Blues” that introduced many of us to that through a sample.
  • Promusica Chamber Orchestra with Caroline Shaw (Southern Theater, 05/14/2023) – Promusica has been one of our cultural treasures for (barely) longer than I’ve been alive, and their 2022-23 season closer brought Caroline Shaw, one of my favorite contemporary composers, to town finally after originally being booked in 2020. Three pieces gave a taste of the scope of Shaw’s work as a writer and writer-performer – Blueprint for a String Quartet, Is a Rose, and Entr’acte for String Orchestra – and they paired this section with a gorgeous version of the first Brahms symphony which Shaw sat in on in the back of the violin section. It was a rapturous night. I couldn’t believe I was lucky enough to see it.
  • Jerry Powell Experience (Lalibela, 06/14/2023) – I was intrigued when, over lunch at a favorite Ethiopian spot in town, Lalibela, I saw a table card advertising that Jerry Powell III, one of our finest jazz drummers whom I hadn’t seen in a while, had a Wednesday residency in the restaurant’s bar. A stripped-down version of his band, accompanied only by a great keyboard player, took us on a journey in two sets: some standards, some more traditional “dinner music,” and some surging extended afrobeat jams. A reminder to be open to what’s in every corner of your town; I end up in the same venues a lot, and it’s not a bad thing; they’re places that are easy for me to get to from my home and from other venues, and that book a large number of shows that align with my tastes. But it’s always good to be reminded how much terrific shit is happening off that well-trod path.
  • Joe Peppercorn/Little Rockers/X-Rated Cowboys/Garbage Greek (Little Rock Bar, 06/21/2023) – Quinn Fallon’s Little Rock Bar has been a locus for multiple groups of my friends; I’ve made friendships there, and I’ve strengthened friendships. I’ve had some of the best nights of the last ten years at its bar or on its patio. Their annual celebration is right before Comfest, so getting some returning out-of-towners is always a delight, but this year was special. Everybody playing, all current or former employees of the bar, brought it. A beautiful solo Joe Peppercorn set. Pickup band Little Rockers’s blazing set included both a gorgeous take on the ‘Mats “Swinging Party” sung by Peppercorn and a killing “Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man” sung by Patrick Koch. Koch’s own band, Garbage Greek, continued their streak of burning down everything in sight. And Fallon’s own X-Rated Cowboys, with a great record out this year, continued their evolution into a leaner, meaner, more colorful band than the one I started seeing over 20 years ago. A tribute to one of the shapes community takes and much of what I love about this town.
Light skinned man in dark blazer and cowboy hat playing guitar, light skinned woman playing drums
Dave Alvin and Lisa Pankratz
  • Dave Alvin and the Guilty Ones (Natalie’s Grandview, 06/29/2023) – I got into Dave Alvin buying King of California when I was in High School. My fandom went into overdrive with the one-two punch of Hightone’s 1997 reissue of The Blasters’ debut album American Music and Alvin’s Blackjack David the next year (still one of my favorite singer-songwriter records of all time, and still a record I go to often, especially in the wee hours of the morning). I remember talking to Alec Wightman on the phone from my dorm room, getting tickets for the first time I saw Alvin at the Columbus Music Hall promoting Public Domain in 2000 – starting me down the road of following Zeppelin Productions, who I don’t think have had a year they didn’t make this list at least once since I started keeping track in college. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen Alvin over the years, at least 15, but – and I had a little trepidation given what I’d heard about his cancer battle recently – I don’t think I’ve ever heard him sing better, the richness of his voice almost knocked the drink out of my hand, and his guitar playing had a razor-cut crispness that more than made up for any minor losses in speed. Plus, he’s always had great bands. Still, this four-piece Guilty Ones was just perfection: Lisa Pankratz’s band-leading behind the drums as she elegantly worked every mood of the set, as good on a smoldering ballad like “King of California” as the gutbucket raunch of Big Bill Broonzy’s “You’ve Changed” and the soaring wistfulness of “Abilene.” Flexible and driving bass from Brad Fordham. And Alvin’s longtime guitar foil Chris Miller with harmonies and jousting, never too showy. Watching this, I was reminded of the purpose of a writer as a conduit for remembrance, for honoring moments that might not come back. In the American popular – whatever that means – music world, Alvin’s given us more shining examples of that mood, that form, than anyone else. He doled out many of my favorites in this show, reminding us that memory doesn’t have to be somber: the rave-up “Haley’s Comet,” the sexy-as-its-subject R&B of “Johnny Ace is Dead,” the Sam Cooke homage “Border Radio,” and the double-barreled reflections on youth and California “Dry River” and “Ashgrove.” A perfect night and a prime example of how good two guitars, bass and drums still sound. Anne and I decompressed, dissecting this in a bar a few blocks away, for hours.
  • Fred Moten/Brandon Lopez/Gerald Cleaver with Ingrid Laubrock/Cecilia Lopez (FourOneOne, NYC, 07/10/2023) and Big Joanie with Frida Kills (Baby’s All Right, NYC, 07/10/2023) – Once in a while, there’s a night that reminds me what enraptured me about Brooklyn in the first place. I was lucky enough to have a few of those nights this year. Maybe my favorite all-around started with a drink with Anne right off the Metropolitan Avenue L stop (following a long remote work day), dinner at still my favorite New York steak house St Anselm, jukeboxes and bar hopping down the street to a space I hadn’t made it to yet, FourOneOne for a set from one of my favorite saxophone players, Ingrid Laubrock, who Anne and I saw on one of our very first trips to the city together, in a mesmerizing duo with Cecilia Lopez on electronics, followed by one of my favorite writers and thinkers about music, Fred Moten, leading a burning rhythm section of Brandon Lopez and Gerald Cleaver. Then, with a debriefing drink on the walk back up the hill, saw righteous Brooklyn band Frida Kills open for UK powerhouse Big Joanie, who made one of my favorite rock records in a long time last year, turning out a packed house.
Punk rock trio - three dark skinned women - with a cheering crowd in the foreground
Big Joanie
  • Soul Glo with MSPAINT (Ace of Cups, 07/20/2023) – Another band who made one of my favorite rock records from 2022, Philly’s Soul Glo, paired with one of my favorite Gonerfest discoveries from the last decade, Hattiesburg’s MSPAINT – I’m not sure there’s a lyric Anne quotes more often than “Destroy all the flags and the symbols of man!” – was obviously a can’t-miss pairing. So much better than I hoped. Hardcore’s always been a genre I admired more than loved, with some exceptions, but I generally love when a band uses those colors as a foundation and color with the rest of rock history. MSPAINT’s gnarled organ-trio crunch has taken on additional flexibility and suppleness, featuring more dynamics than the epic piledriver we first fell for but with the same wit and fury. And Soul Glo was every single thing I wanted in a rock and roll band: a rhythm section that knows when to swing and when to pummel, a slashing colorist of a guitarist, and a frontman I couldn’t stop watching—a magical combination and a show perfectly sized and pitched for Ace.
  • Oneida with DANA (Cafe Bourbon Street, 8/16/2023) – Pal Fred Pfening getting back into booking in 2023 was a phenomenal delight and the barn burning avalanche of Oneida was a show for the ages, dipping into some of their longer dance forms – their krautrock tendencies even blossoming into flowers blooming in disco trenches – with an opening set from DANA who get looser and more vibrant while holding their crown of best rock band in town.
  • Waco Brothers with Jon Langford and the Bright Shiners (Big Room Bar, 09/22/2023) – The last few times we’d been lucky enough to see Jon Langford, one of the iconic songwriters and singers going back to helping invent British post-punk with the Mekons, were at the fantastic Hogan House venue. We still had the pleasure of seeing PJ and Abbie, proprietors/bookers of Hogan House, and doing as much for music that wouldn’t come to this town otherwise as anybody I can think of, but it was a pleasure to see the Bright Shiners in a bar and the Wacos in a room where we could dance. Their own crackling songs like “The Man That God Forgot” and “This Town” holding their own with covers from the real rock and roll canon like “Teenage Kicks” and “All or Nothing” – the best rocking dance party of the year. 
  • Johnathan Blake Quintet (Village Vanguard, NYC, 10/12/2023) – On the heels of a phenomenal record (you’ll see some evidence on this year’s playlists), drummer and composer Johnathan Blake brought the power of a volcanic quintet – Dezron Douglas on bass, Dayna Stephens on sax, Fabian Almazan on piano, and Jalen Baker on vibes – for a perfect set that went from Horace Silver (maybe the best “Peace” I’ve ever heard) to his own new tunes to classics from his father Ralph Peterson, Jr. A night that reminded me why the Village Vanguard stays one of the best listening rooms in the world.
Three dark skinned men singing, two light skinned men playing horns, one light skinned man singing and playing guitar, one light skinned man playing guitar
Harlem Gospel Travelers, Eli “Paperboy” Reed, and band
  • Eli “Paperboy” Reed and the Harlem Gospel Travelers (Union Pool, NYC, 10/14/2023) – I don’t always love a repertory show, but this was exactly how you do it. Eli “Paperboy” Reed used his 40th birthday to pack out the Union Pool room and tear into one of my favorite records of all time, Sam Cooke’s Live at the Harlem Square Club 1963, and for the encore, instead of dipping into his own catalog, brought up the Harlem Gospel Travelers and did songs Cooke was doing in concert contemporaneously. He didn’t even dip into earlier, better-known Sam Cooke songs like “You Send Me.” It was a tribute to scholarship but also to sensual delight – the looseness and good time everyone had on stage and in the audience lit me up from the inside on a day that also included the production of Merrily We Roll Along that made my theater list and a return to century-old Brooklyn classic restaurant Bamonte’s, plus always killer DJing from legends like Mr. Finewine as a nightcap.
  • Lady Wray and 79.5 (Brooklyn Made, NYC, 10/15/2023) – I’ve been a fan of Lady Wray since “Make It Hot” and her co-writes/guest spots on Missy Elliot classics. And I’ve seen a few R&B hitmakers who transitioned to classic soul sounds over the years. But I’ve never seen one do it with the kind of grace and wit Wray did here, honoring her earlier life with a scorching “Make It Hot” about a third of the way through the set and devoting just as much energy and enthusiasm to the newer work. Finally, seeing the reigning Brooklyn disco band 79.5 was as much a selling point as the headliner. They didn’t disappoint – sweated so much from dancing that my blazer stuck to me from sweat when we finally tumbled into the chilly Brooklyn night.
Dark skinned woman playing keyboards and singing, dark skinned woman singing, light skinned man playing bass, light skinned man playing guitar
Lady Wray and band
  • Los Rumberos (Cafe Marula, Barcelona, 11/11/2023) – First trip to Spain, especially Barcelona, was more focused on food and art than music, but after a fantastic dinner, Anne found at Restaurante Informal – some of the best sea bass I’ve ever had – where we didn’t have a plan except not feeling like heading home immediately after, we stumbled into Mexican band Los Rumberos, not just playing rumbas but son, cumbia, vintage disco, reggae, in a ball of sweaty, kinetic energy. Blew me back against the bar.
  • Mulatu Astatke (Fernán Gómez Centro Cultural de la Villa, Madrid, 11/17/2023) – I loved those Ethiopiques compilations, and my favorite was the volume dedicated to percussionist Mulatu Astatke that came out when I was 18. So, seeing he was playing the first night we were in Madrid was a no-brainer. And at 79 years old, fronting a septet of much younger players, he astonished me. Slipping between marimba, timbales, congas, and electric piano, he guided the band like a wizard redirecting a river.
Two light skinned men playing horns, light skinned man playing piano, dark skinned man playing marimba, light skinned man playing cello
Mulatu Astatke and Band

Festival Sets:

Dark skinned woman singing, dark skinned man playing trumpet, light skinned man playing saxophone, dark skinned man playing upright bass, cheering crowd in foreground
Irreversible Entanglements
  • Winter Jazz Fest (NYC, Various Venues, January 2023)
    • New Standards Songbook
    • Irreversible Entanglements
Light skinned woman playing bass and singing, light skinned woman playing guitar and singing, crowd in foreground
Scrawl
  • Lost Weekend Records Anniversary (Ace of Cups, February 2023)
    • Scrawl
Light skinned man, filming, light skinned man playing guitar, three backing singers - two dark skinned women flanking a dark skinned man, dark skinned man singing, keyboard player and horn section in the background, crowd in foreground
Lonnie Holley with Mourning [A] BLKStar
  • Big Ears (Knoxville, Various Venues, March 2023)
    • Lonnie Holley with Mourning [A] BLKStar
    • Terry Allen and the Panhandle Mystery Band
    • James Brandon Lewis
    • Trio Imagination
    • Staples Jr. Singers
    • The Jazz Bins
    • Rica Chicha
    • Peter One
Light skinned woman playing upright bass, crowd in foreground
Amy Lavere
  • Twangfest (St Louis, Off Broadway/Tower Grove, June 2023)
    • Amy Lavere and Will Sexton (Tower Grove Farmer’s Market)
    • Paranoid Style
  • Summer Solstice (Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, June 2023)
    • Barzuto All Stars
Light skinned woman singing, flanked by two light skinned men playing guitars
King Louie Memorial Family Band
  • Gonerfest (Memphis, Railgarten, September 2023)
    • Alien Nosejob
    • Virvon Varvon
    • COFFIN
    • Civic
    • King Louie Memorial Family Band
    • The Courettes
Light skinned woman singing and playing percussion, light skinned man playing drums, light skinned man playing banjo
Rica Chicha
Categories
Playlist record reviews

Playlist – June 2023

Active participant in a lot of great stuff this month – as always in Anne’s birthday month – but also did a lot of struggling, feeling like I was mired in my own muck. Shorter blurbs and extremely late this time. I thought about taking my once or twice-a-year mulligan and just putting the playlist out, but when I looked back at it, there were several things I really wanted to give the handshake for. Thanks for reading and listening; I love and appreciate you all.

https://tidal.com/browse/playlist/e4dd0206-e2c0-4113-9e6e-7eff22c9e0ad

  • Jaimie Branch, “take over the world” – I don’t think I have words for how happy I am the new music Jaimie Branch spoke about when I interviewed her, at least a slice of it, is coming out on the posthumous album Fly or Die Fly or Die Fly or Die (world war). This first taste is a spiky anthem, a fireball; Chad Taylor’s roiling drums lead us on this journey that makes tears spring to my eyes and also pump my fist: the best and rarest of combos. “Gonna, gonna, gonna, take over the world… take it back to the love.”
  • Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, “When We Were Close” – Jason Isbell pivots slightly on this one. As I talked about to old friend and mentor Rich Dansky, Weathervanes (as a whole) feels less like the strobe-and-neon gut punches of Reunions and The Nashville Sound and more like a widescreen version of the interiority he sharpened to a fine point on Something More than Free. I don’t think there’s a weak song on the album, but this song about his friendship with Justin Townes Earle hit me at a moment I was primed to think about dead friends and relationships I didn’t care for like I should have – particularly someone who I wasn’t very close to, but I always liked, and we’d been in the same circles for years; RIP Blair Hook, and so many other pals, comrades, and acquaintances. “Got a picture of you dying in your mind, with some ghosts you couldn’t bear to leave behind – but I can hear your voice ring as you snap another B string and finish out the set with only five. And for a minute there, you’re still alive.”
  • MeShell Ndegeocello featuring Jeff Parker, “ASR” – I put an early single on this playlist a couple of months ago but having lived with The Omnichord Real Book in its entirety for a little while, it might be her finest record – saying something, from one of the finest singers/songwriters/bandleaders of my lifetime. I saw her perform this track live at the Blue Note in January, with featured guest Jeff Parker sitting in, and it was a highlight in a set bulging at the seams with highlights. The hypnotic, trance-like groove, the backing vocals curling like smoke, the subtle, beckoning, judging lead vocal, and the shattered-glass ribbons of Parker’s guitar… everything here is perfect. “Can’t get back the time you wasted, you wasted.”
  • Kassi Valazza, “Room in the City” – Another facet in the prism of that feeling I’m grappling with, a sense of loneliness but also gratitude for making it to the other side, from a Portland singer-songwriter I wasn’t familiar with before this terrific record Knows Nothing. Her voice reminds me of British folk and the New Weird America scene I loved so much, and subtle touches on the arrangement – a mournful moan that could be a harmonica or a harmonium, shards of piano, a soaring steel guitar toward the end of the track – reinforce and subvert the buttery closeness of the vocal. “Shadow mountains and the pale green rivers drifting in and out of windy highway sounds. Copper colors and some lonely search for meaning keep me coming back and turning right around.”
  • Loraine James, “2003” – I got into London-based composer Loraine James with last year’s breathtaking Julius Eastman homage Building Something Beautiful For Me and this advance taste of her upcoming record for Hyperdub points me in the direction of another of my top albums of the year. Hazy, humid, and rich, speckled with rough, acerbic textures and an aching vocal bobbing up and down in the beautiful haze. “So much confusion, came up with many conclusions.”
  • Monophonics featuring Kendra Morris, “Untitled Visions” – I still miss those days Monophonics came through town regularly (a powerful dance party at Brothers Drake Meadery sticks out), but I’m overjoyed to see them getting bigger success with some slight tweaks to the formula. The crisp drums and trademark horn stabs sound gorgeous on this track around Kendra Morris’ warm breeze of a vocal. “I close my eyes and turn up my dreams.”
  • Don Toliver featuring Lil Durk and GloRilla, “Leave the Club” – Houston-based soul singer Don Toliver teams up with rappers Lil Durk and GloRilla for this instant-classic ode to finding something to go home with at closing time (or earlier). The shifts in tempo and intensity keep the song from getting monochromatic, along with the varying tonal qualities of their voices – when GloRilla appears with the best one-liners in the song, it feels like the lights in the club shifted right after a perfect but ill-advised shot of tequila – but these points of interest don’t disrupt the innate, butterscotchy smoothness. “Bet up on my Rosé, and I’m ’bout to leave the section. See me after hours; I left the club with extras. Speedin’ down that highway, it’s lookin’ kinda reckless.”
  • Slighter, “Have No Fear (Dark Rave Mix) – This is very much the kind of music I’d have been dancing to back in the days I identified with the subject matter of the previous song, a thick layer of industrial sounds and lugubrious, squelchy bass welded to a pumping dancefloor groove. I wasn’t familiar with this LA artist, but somehow the algorithm knew this would scratch an itch in my brain, light up some neurons I hadn’t given credit to in maybe too long. The original mix is great but hearing this dark rave mix brought up a purging of sweet nostalgia with light and gratitude.
  • Kassa Overall featuring Laura Mvula and Francis and the Lights, “So Happy” – I first encountered Kassa Overall in his jazz drummer guise, playing in a trio with John Hebert and Peter Evans at the Jazz Gallery, and was immediately a fan, but I love the way his records get harder to classify and more all-encompassing, widening the scope of his subject material while sharpening his own idiosyncratic viewpoint. This standout from his excellent Animals links him up with the great British R&B singer Laura Mvula and synthpop mastermind Francis and the Lights for an infectious, bouncing, cracked hip-hop track that might be my song of the summer. “What if you were chosen but, full of fear, you were frozen? My life almost brought to a close in the fight to get open.”
  • The Freedom Affair, “Make Me Surrender (Instrumental)” – I got to Twangfest too late to catch Kansas City’s The Freedom Affair, but so many of my friends raved so hard about this soul band I had to check out 2021’s Freedom is Love, and immediately fell hard for it. This year’s instrumental version has been one of my prime soundtracks for this sticky, muggy season and keeps paying dividends.
  • Kieran Hebden and William Tyler, “Darkness, Darkness” – I saw Kieran Hebden a few times over the years, mostly in his Four Tet guise in the early 2000s, and a couple of those performances blew my mind the same way his first three records cracked it open, and this pastoral collaboration with searching guitarist William Tyler is just gorgeous, one of my favorite recent records to smoke a cigar on the porch or free write to. The loping groove organically appears here like a sunrise over a Kandinsky landscape, like an aubade.
  • Wolf Eyes, “Engaged Withdrawal” – Wolf Eyes, being from Michigan and getting more mainstream media traction, cast a huge shadow on the scene here in Columbus, playing shows and collaborating with friends of mine. For a few years, I lost track, they were mostly self-releasing, not touring as much, but everything I’ve heard since they popped back on my radar has been excellent, and this new record, Dreams in Splattered Lines, is another high point. This heaving miniature, using overlapping repetition, working these tiny cells and nuances to evoke coiled dread  but also a sense of being present, is a prime example of the pleasures within.
  • Sam Butler, “I. At Night, And Then Upon Waking” – Indiana-based trumpeter/composer Sam Butler made a remarkably assured debut album with Folklore and I think this is a cinematic highlight. It makes excellent use of a tight band comprised of people I was already a fan of, like Greg Ward on alto (Mike Reed, Ernest Dawkins, Hamid Drake) and Kenny Phelps (Pharez Whited) on drums, and names new to me like tenor player Garrett Fasig.
  • Ben Wendel featuring Elena Pinderhughes, “Speak Joy” – Ben Wendel from Kneebody and so much else has released one record after another that document expanding ambition and deeper clarity at the same time, and All One is another step forward. Lush layering of Wendel’s saxophone on this original is contrasted by the warm breeze of Elena Pinderhughes’ flute and alto flute.
  • David Garland, “String Flow 1, Part 2 The Fourth” – I first became a David Garland fan through his richly orchestrated, idiosyncratic songs that used their esoteric qualities to drive a knife deep into my chest (that run from Togetherness through my favorite Noise in You is well overdue for a re-evaluation). I didn’t know his “pure” chamber music until more recently. This track from his rapturous new one, Flowering Flows, pours harmony over drones like honey.
  • Gia Margaret, “City Song” – Songwriter-singer-pianist Gia Margaret’s Romantic Piano fuses her songwriter impulses and “pure” composition tendencies as well as any record I can think of in recent memory. The chords and the field recording atmospherics flow into one another and illuminate the soft, dramatic power of her voice. “In flashback, I saw you with so much to tell; the revolving doors hit in a tentative spell, and the birds still fly. I stay up all night.”
  • Henry Threadgill Ensemble, “Movement II” – I didn’t think I could love a Henry Threadgill album without his inimitable saxophone sound on it. But The Other One, a long-form piece Of Valence inspired by Milford Graves, gives me most of the pleasures I’m expecting and also lets me hear facets of his compositional voice in a way that’s so beautifully surprising. Many of his longtime collaborators – including Jose Davila on tuba, David Virelles on piano – do beautiful justice to this thorny, nuanced work.
  • Curtis J. Stewart, “Adagio from Johannes Brahms Violin Sonata No 1 Op 78 (We are going to be OK)” – Violinist-singer Curtis Stewart’s, founder of PUBLIQuartet, Of Love, is intended as a requiem/tribute to his mother and it’s as wrenching and beautiful as that can imply, a record that I sank into immediately and I’m still swimming inside it, as full of love as it is of mystery. Here, Stewart slips the mantra “We are going to be OK” between the lines of this gorgeous Brahms adagio, his violin raining down over clattering synthesized drum beats. A highlight in a record without any weak links.
  • Maisie Peters, “Lost the Breakup” – This song from English singer-songwriter Maisie Peters (whose first record completely blew past me) opens with a shimmering, slicing violin (or a keyboard I’m mistaking for strings) that links it to the sound world of the last few tracks before blooming into an infectious pop kiss-off. “But for now, I’m out in the dust. Oh, is she just like me? Yeah, I reckon you’ve got two types: Country and Western.”
  • Flo featuring Missy Elliott, “Fly Girl” – This boisterous, finely tuned summer smash takes Missy Elliott’s “Work It” – “If you a fly girl, get your nails done, get a pedicure, get your hair did” – and applies a chromed-out, hyper-modern singing-rapping cadence that winks at Elliott’s groundbreaking fusion of the two in her own writing and singing style while bringing it up today, wtih the great Miss.E rocking a verse that proves she’s still paying attention and can keep up with anyone.”Oh babe, might leave you waiting all day, cause these material things are not enough to make me stay.”
  • Lunchbox, “Feel Things” – This standout from New York rapper Lunchbox’s new record New Jazz, with an ominous, lurching beat from Amir.pr0d, is one of the best musical representations I’ve ever heard of the simultaneous desire to feel as much as we can, soak up as much of life, but numb it at the same time, so many of us struggle with. “All this codeine, I can’t feel shit; shit ain’t real; it’s deceiving. We be on top of the building – what the fuck is a ceiling?”
  • Ari LaShell, “Get Down” – Singer-songwriter Ari LaShell’s debut album AWH is a fountain of ideas and power. This track combines her vintage neo-soul vocal delivery with a big post-disco bass line and hard club drums, using repetition as an invitation and a distancing mechanism. “Can you rock with me now?”
  • YoungBoy Never Broke Again, “Dirty Thug” – Baton Rouge rapper YoungBoy Never Broke Again puts out so much material I can’t even hope to keep track, but every time I check in, I’m glad I did. This skin-flaying confessional rides on one of his signature gorgeous melodies with a thumping, insistent beat. “On the dance floor with the devil, can you come take over for him, please? I said, ‘Can you come step in and dance with me?’ Off-white, money coming in left and right, you the last thing that make me complete. I take these drugs with no party. I told that girl I was sorry. I’ m on my shit, oh, now, pardon me. I saw some shit, sad, and it scarred me.”
  • Rodeo Boys, “Tidal Wave” – The fusion of twang and grunge this terrific Lansing quartet brings reminded me of Columbus in the ’90s in all the best ways but the out-in-front queer lyrical perspective and the wide net they cast for sounds and influences plants them firmly in the moment. Had a hard time picking a track, Home Movies is so consistent and so beautifully relentless.
  • Gut Health, “The Recipe” – I’m an unabashed fan of the current wave of rock coming from Melbourne, and this invigorating five piece led by Anhina Uh Oh sums up so much of what I love about that scene: barbed hooks, punchy rhythms, stinging guitars. “Delta of faux! Iridescent! No enemies, real energy.”
  • Nia Archives, “Off Wiv Ya Headz” – London-based producer Nia Archives takes the A-Trak remix of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs rager “Off With Your Head” – already a track that I still put on more party playlists than not, and have on my gym mix – as raw material for this expansive, pounding post-jungle rework. Reminds me of everything I loved about jungle and drum ‘n’ bass and the pure catharsis of dancing.
  • Godflesh, “You Are the Judge, the Jury, and the Executioner” – Godflesh was my entryway into Justin Broadrick’s musical world as a young teenager – and I’ve had my brain melted by live sets by The Bug and Zonal over the years – so I’ve been overjoyed that the comeback Godflesh records since 2014 have lived up to the quality of that impeccable original run, each one getting better. This closing track on the excellent Purge is volcanic, cathartic, and introspective at the same time. As good a fiery riff as I’ve heard in many years and a crunching, unstoppable groove. “The sane, the just, the righteous. We fall. Again.”
  • Boris, “Heavy Friends” – The repetition underpinning the righteous ZZ Top worthy riff from this newest salvo from Japanese power trio Boris, for me, ties together some of the last several items, connectiing Decisive Pink to Godflesh, but even if those connections don’t work for you, this fucking smokes.
  • Serroge, “Damascus” – I believe I found out about this St Louis-based rapper from a random post-Twangfest conversation with someone at the Irish bar down the street from Off-Broadway, and it’s been one of my favorite finds of the year. “I’ve been serving two masters. “I just got multiple packs ’cause I’ve been serving two masters. The truth of the situation: I was blind. Paul on the road to Damascus.”
  • Statik Selektah featuring Posdnous, “Round Trip (For Dave)” – Producer Statik Selektah’s sprawling Round Trip album is packed with pleasures but my immediate favorite was this collaboration with Posdnous in tribute to Pos’s longtime De La Soul compatriot Dave “Trugoy the Dove” Jollicoeur, rippling with horns and piano stabs. “Bittersweet blessings, condolences and congrats in the same sentence while my life learns the lesson. I cry quiet so the knot in my chest is hard to untie, but thankfully the heart keeps pressing.”
  • Vada Azeem, “ABUELA” – Columbus-based Vada Azeem caught my ear with early work as L.e. for the Uncool he continues to impress me. This gorgeous track remembering his grandmother and also a friend who died too young is a horn-drenched standout on his consistently strong We Forgot God Was Working. “I remember what my Grandma told a little me, my eyes full of glee: ‘Stay focused, child, always tie your camel to a tree.'”
  • Lorqa and Synead, “Mirrors” – New York based producer Lorqa and vocalist Synead teamed up for this subtle, icy tune that feels like a perfect tonic for the muggy, suffocating air at the moment and I bet will sound just as good to leaves and snow falling through streetlamps. “Out of bed; muddy boots and I’m still hungover. Clocks are useless, where the time go? Now I see why floating mirrors whisper. All these mirrors are telling you ‘Come on, flow right over.'”
  • Decisive Pink, “Cosmic Dancer” – This collaboration between Angel Deradoorian and Kate NV uses shiny textures to complicate its message, to enhance the mystery, instead of glossing over it – the synth textures tied it in my mind to the previous few tracks but the repetition and the sense of interlocking cells also ties it to Philip Glass but with a heavy dollop of dancefloor charm. “The archer’s bow points out the way to my newest escapade. What lies beyond in the unknown charade?”
  • Gerald Cleaver, “A Marcha Para Baixo” – Long one of my favorite drummers in jazz – a title he handily defended when Anne and I saw him playing with the poet Fred Moten on my last trip to New York – Cleaver’s also been putting out really interesting electronic music, and his new record in that vein 22/23 brings in everything he’s interested in, like the nod to Brazilian music here with sounds that bear faint traces of classic Deodato and David Axelrod, while still flexing his Detroit roots.
  • Wild Up, “If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Rich?” – One of my favorite Julius Eastman pieces gets a luminous reading from the collective Wild Up. who also did the astonishing rediscovery of his piece Feminine. The sledgehammer to the chest of those massed horns and ice knife-wielding indictment of the vocals have never been clearer or more powerful.
  • Orrin Evans, “The Red Door” – This title track to another can’t-miss record by one of my favorite pianists and composers finds Evans assembling a world-beating quintet of Nicholas Payton on trumpet, Gary Thomas on tenor, Robert Hurst on bass, and Marvin “Smitty” Smitt on drums. The empathy on those pulsing, enticing sunlight heads and the intriguing everything-pulling-apart sections shine. Jazz you can snap your fingers to and get lost in.
  • Adeem the Artist, “Fervent For the Hunger” – Still hoping Adeem the Artist rides the wave of more-than-deserved hype to tour somewhere near here as I missed their (by all accounts, excellent) hometown shows during Big Ears. This new song continues the volcanic, ferocious compassion they brought to White Trash Revelry and makes it a natural singalong. “And I’m a holy ghost, lamp post, poet of sorts. A rain drop, machine shop, radio source surtured with lip gloss and hot sauce, indian summers. Just a kid with mixed up head, fervent for the hunger.”
  • Eilen Jewell, “Could You Would You” – I’ve been a fan of Eilen Jewell since Alec Wightman first brought her to town for one of his Zeppelin shows, and every record reveals new layers, new reasons to be enraptured. This standout from her excellent Get Behind the Wheel works in that Roy Orbison/Chrissy Hynde swinging stop mode she does better than anyone else right now, making the chorus “Could you love me like I love you?” a flirtatious, poison-dipped dagger of a challenge.
  • Ashley Ray featuring Ruston Kelly, “Break My Heart” – From the first swoop of pedal steel, Ashley Ray plants her flag in a deep river of trad country balladry, every line perfectly enunciated and stretched out juuuust enough, with Ruston Kelly as a devastating foil. “I just thought that you should know I’ve got a little ways to go. I’m a wild horse at the rodeo, but I think you could take her. If you don’t break my heart, honey, somebody else will. You’ve got a deadly charm, I’ve got nothing but time to kill.”
  • Brennen Leigh, “The Bar Should Say Thanks” – A less smooth, honky-tonk brand of country gets an ideal champion in Brennen Leigh, maybe the artist I kick myself most for missing this year when she played Natalie’s with Kelly Willis. The defiance and longing in her voice recalls vintage crying in your beer Merle Haggard and the fiddle-driven blurry waltz paints an entire world. “Don’t they remember each closing time, whose tab is always open? Who can they count on to hold the hand of a friend who’s barely coping? Who’s the queen of rehashing her hard knocks? Who drops all of their cash in the jukebox when I could have been putting it in the bank? The bar should say thanks.”
  • Madison McFerrin, “(Please Don’t) Leave Me Now” – A slightly different stripe of instant last call classic with this highlight off Madison McFerrin’s excellent debut album I Hope You Can Forgive Me. Subtle, introspective disco that makes me regret even more missing her when she came through Rambling House; I’m damn sure the next time will be someplace much larger. “What is all forgiven when it’s said and done? Could it be we’re livin’ all wrong?”
  • New Twenty Saints, “Ghosting” – I was turned onto this Detroit band by my fellow Pencilstorm contributor Jeremy Porter, and they’re exactly the kind of bar room midwestern/Great Lakes region rock I have a soft spot for, done really well. They’re high on my list to check for next time I’m up north. “I’m always doing time. You show your cards when you can’t show signs.”
  • Bettye LaVette featuring Ray Parker Jr. and Jon Batiste, “Mess About It” – If soul legend Bettye LaVette had just made the same record over and over, I’d probably still lap them up: she’s got one of the signature voices of her generation, and it just gets richer and more fascinating with time. But it’s to her credit she keeps searching, keeps working in different modes with different concepts, trusting whatever she takes on will always be her. The new one, LaVette! teams her with southern rock songwriter Randall Bramblett who came up in similar ’70s trenches, and it’s front-to-back magic. This track in particular, with the great Ray Parker Jr. adding his signature guitar alongside fellow guest, keyboardist Jon Batiste, is a classic slice of funky urban soul. “When you’re burning daylight, and you’re almost home, little things can wind their way inside of you. And your smile gets stolen by the fading sun; got a strange hold on the steering wheel.”
  • Joy Oladokun, “Changes” – With every record, singer-songwriter Joy Oladokun’s work gets stronger, deeper, and more herself. Proof of Life, her second for Verve Forecast, might be her first masterpiece. This burnished, ingratiating tune with a vocal that’s immediate but unfolds with attention is co-written and produced with Dan Wilson and features Wilson on harmonium, with Oladokun adding that pulsing bass line and ukulele part and a warm breeze of a saxophone part from Alex Budman (Clare Fischer, Mavis Staples, D’Angelo). “Was a baby during the LA riots, and I’ve seen cities burn again. Cried for the innocent a thousand times, and people still don’t understand what it’s like to hope again and again, knowing the heartache’s gonna be there till the end.”
  • Keturah, “Nchiwewe (Ode to Willie Nelson)” – The eponymous debut album from Malawian singer-songwriter Keturah stunned me the minute I heard it and is still revealing pleasures and secrets to me. This tribute to Willie Nelson stands alongside Miles Davis’, showing the reach and power of Nelson’s work and the connections between a global artistic community.
  • Jerry David DeCicca, “New Shadows” – Even in the Black Swans, who I loved, Jerry DeCicca was always finding new facets, new contexts for his voice without ever chasing trends or doing anything cavalierly. This first single and title track of DeCicca’s forthcoming record expands the palette of his sonic world further than anything other than his collaboration with Mike Shiflet (which I love) and uses guest stars like guitarist Jeff Parker and baritone sax player Steve Berlin beautifully. As with the last several of these playlists, I like to end with a prayer, and DeCicca’s music has always had meditative, medicinal qualities for me, never more than the holy house of mirrors he builds here. I always look forward to a new record from him, but this taste made this my most anticipated record of the year. Thank you all for listening and reading. “The sun went down and the night got big, so I crawl into the hole I dig.”
Categories
"Hey, Fred!" live music theatre

Things I’ve Been Digging – 01/11/2021

My TimeHop reminded me that last year, and three years ago, I was in NYC for festivals around APAP, which is always one of the most invigorating parts of any year I work it in. 

From left: Kirk Knuffke, Gerald Cleaver, James Brandon Lewis, taken from stream and edited

James Brandon Lewis, Kirk Knuffke, and Gerald Cleaver at Arts for Art Inc, 01/06/2021

Of the overlapping black music traditions, relatively few hands dig into the fertile intersection between R&B and free jazz. Arts for Art – a storied non-profit that hosts the annual Vision Festival among other services to the culture – kicked off their 2021 with one of the finest examples of the sparks that fly when those two forms hit one another: a trio of sax player James Brandon Lewis, cornet player Kirk Knuffke, and drummer Gerald Cleaver.

As Lewis said in the post-set discussion, “Charles Gayle and Grover Washington, Jr. both came from the same place I did, Buffalo.” This trio wove excerpts of the Bill Withers classics “Ain’t No Sunshine,” and “Just the Two Of Us,” the latter a collaboration with Washington and a massive hit, along with Donny Hathaway’s “Someday We’ll Be Free” into an unbroken 45-minute meditation and exultation.

Lewis’s liquid tone and Knuffke’s sharp, jabbing punctuation aligned on deep hooks like the revolving “I know” section of “Ain’t No Sunshine,” building up the tension and exploding that feeling into a bonfire of abstraction. That jousting coiled into a mournful funeral march before clicking into a more urgent, insistent gear.

Through all of these changes, Cleaver’s drums commented and steered the ship. The one section where he slid into head knocking funk beats felt like an unexpected blast of sun cracking velvet clouds, then as soon as I grasped it, he and the trio were onto something else. 

Everyone in this trio intimately understood both musical forms and used the tropes for their cathartic power as well as misdirection. They didn’t shuffle free playing and dance music; they burned them into something fresh and personal.

Under the Radar, presented by The Public Theater

One of the brightest lights in my personal APAP – and the conduit for many of my favorite things at the Wexner Center every year – is the Public’s Under The Radar fest. This international sampling of moving, riveting performance art and theater pivoted brilliantly to online this year. I’ve checked about half of it so far and there hasn’t been a dud in the bunch. 

Best of all, these are available on demand through the 14th, at https://publictheater.org/programs/under-the-radar/under-the-radar-2021/

Highlights for me so far:

From the innovative Instagram component of Rich Kids

Rich Kids: A History of Shopping Malls in Tehran by Javaad Alipoor

This two hander – which won a prize at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival – featured Alipoor and Kirsty Housley narrating – with dazzling imagery the self-destructive microcosm of the idle rich in Tehran. In doing so, they draw out heartbreaking truths about the decline of civilizations, the scars of colonialism, and the blur between long-term consequences and immediate decisions. 

Full of poison-dagger lines I was still chewing over days later like “There isn’t an anthropocene that connects us, there’s a scar that divides;” vaporwave summed up as “A ghost made of bits and pieces of a past that never quite was;” and a description of Dubai as “It’s like long generations of the past returning eternally to party with them.”

From left: Jason Moran and Alicia Hall Moran. Taken from stream and edited

the motown project by Alicia Hall Moran. 

One of our finest American singers, plumbing the rich terrain between Opera and popular music, Alicia Hall Moran assembled a ferocious band for this, including her husband Jason Moran on piano, Reggie Washington on bass, LaFrae Sci on drums, and Thomas Flippin on guitar, alongside fellow powerhouse singers Barrington Lee and Steven Herring.

Moran drew connections between the Motown songbook and classical “art music,” giving both sides equal weight without sanding down either’s essence, and wove them into a crushing portrait of desire. An aria from The Magic of Figaro sparked off the Holland-Dozier-Holland classic “Sugarpie, Honeybunch.” A torturously slow “Heat Wave” was a languid blast from better seasons. A “Signed, Sealed, Delivered,” drew every nuance out of that Stevie Wonder classic without bogging it down. If I see something better this year – even after theatres open – it’s been a good damn year.

Categories
"Hey, Fred!" live music

Things I’ve Been Digging – 11/09/2020

Celebratory French 75s in the Saturday sun

Some deeply needed good news came out on Saturday and there wasn’t much better than playing classic Kenny Gamble, Spinners, Funkadelic, and Dirtbombs off our porch, bouncing between the sunlight and the champagne and friends. I hope we all remember the lesson that this success isn’t it and we keep working, but part of that work is rest and celebration. I found some art to love in that uncertainty before the news.

Darius Jones and band with singers and conductor at Roulette, taken from stream and edited

Music: Darius Jones: We Can Change This Country! presented by Roulette

In a time of perpetually scattered attention, I needed Darius Jones’ sweeping composition broadcast from one of the temples to new music that’s helped ground my life: Roulette from NYC. 

Inspired by the James Baldwin essay of the same name, Jones assembled a riveting quartet of Cooper-Moore on flute and banjo, Tanya Kalmanovitch on violin, Sean Conley on bass, and Gerald Cleaver on drums, and a who’s who of the best vocalists working in jazz, new music, and the avant-garde today: Gelsey Bell, Amanda Ekery, Jean Carla Rodea, Sara Serpa, Amirtha Kidambi, Yoon Sun Choi, Aviva Jaye, Charlotte Mundy, Fay Victor, Stephanie Lamprea, with heartbreaking film work from Laura Sofia Perez, under the baton of Darcy James Argue (whose sadly-even-more-relevant Real Enemies got a brilliant digital makeover from Cal Performances last month).

Darius Jones and his players/singers meet our tumultuous times with a steely gaze and a combined intensity and integrity. Wisps of shadowy flute melody and skittering drums surf on and get subsumed by wordless vocals, chilling laughter and sheep noises. Collaged snatches of dialogue reminded me of Rauschenberg and Nina Chanel Abney. 

We Can Change This Country! honors the Baldwin essay as a furious representation of a specific, unapologetic point of view, but avoiding the artless reportage that kind of polemic can get mired in. Jones uses all of his power as one of our finest composers and reed players to sculpt with the fire we’re living in and the fire it inspires inside him.

Jones moved me to tears when these voices, all held to the light with their distinctive facets and juxtaposed without smoothing the transitions, rose together on chants (most prominently “Vote him out”). More than any specific message – though the message is clear – that power when we rise together resonated through the bones of this piece and the blood of its viewers. I’m still unpacking this monumental work but it’s one of the finest things I’ve seen in years.

Mic Harrison and Don Coffey Jr, taken from the stream and edited

Music: Mic Harrison and the High Score at the Bijou Theatre

Friday night found me in touch with one of my favorite singer-songwriters in one of my favorite rooms. Anne said, as we were watching, that Mic Harrison is the perfect example of why someone would be in a scene. A vital utility player who stepped into two legendary Knoxville bands: classic alt.country unit The V-Roys (as they transitioned away from being The Viceroys) and powerpop juggernauts Superdrag, for the last 15 years Harrison has put out one classic, crisp record as a leader after another. 

Harrison’s properly celebrated his latest, Bright Spot, in this 100-year-old theater with a barbed-wire-tight version of The High Score including his Superdrag collaborator Don Coffey Jr on drums, for a stream that sounded as good as I’ve heard that room sound and I’ve been in every corner for most of my favorite Big Ears Festival performances. 

Harrison and the High Score doled out meaty, lithe roots-rock featuring some of the biggest hooks Harrison has ever written – the gang chorus on “Used to Be Somebody” was an arrow struck right into my chest – and soulful slow burns like the aching “Back to Knoxville.” He also took time to highlight songs by guitarists Robbie Trosper and Kevin Abernathy. 

By the time they slid into the encore with Harrison’s classic The V-Roys Beatles homage “Sooner or Later,” there were tears in my eyes.

Joel Ross and band, taken from livestream and edited.

Music: Joel Ross’ Good Vibes at Berlin Jazzfest

Joel Ross is killing it this year: he released one of my favorite jazz records, in a crowded field, earlier this fall; he was a highlight in the mind-blowing Makaya McCraven show I was lucky enough to see at Webster Hall in January; he’s brightening so many other artists’ work. 

While it’s never the same as being in the room, Berlin Jazzfest did a spectacular job partnering with Roulette (mentioned above) for paired sets from both shores. Ross and his band wove intricate magic, undulating conversations, burning dialogue and cut-crystal ballads, tossing between the immaculate melodic bass lines of Kanoa Mendenhall through the intertwined lines of Ross’ vibes and Jeremy Cohen’s piano into Brandee Younger’s harp, Immanuel Wilkins’ alto and Jeremy Dutton’s gravitational pull drums. This was the perfect thing for me to hear right before the election got called.