Tag: Jacob Garchik

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Best Of Playlist record reviews

Playlist – 2022 Spaces

In contrast to the last playlist, these are compositions and performances I didn’t think fit as neatly into the categorization of songs. Usually – but not always – instrumental, usually – but not always – a little longer, a little more sprawling.

https://tidal.com/browse/playlist/3d5c5631-c345-46e8-8584-b749c9631177

  • Medicine Singers featuring Jaimie Branch, “Sanctuary” – I was a big fan of Yonatan Gat’s band Monotonix live, but they never quite gelled for me on record, but I’ve been extremely excited to see the various paths, curiosities, and enthusiasms he’s followed since breaking out on his own. My favorite is his collaboration with the Native American group Eastern Medicine singers on this stunning self-titled album. The record is full of guests, but every guest seems well-chosen, none more so than Jaimie Branch here, who adds a questing, majestic trumpet that feels like coming home to a place that doesn’t look quite the same.
  • Terri Lyne Carrington featuring Ambrose Akinmusire, “Rounds” – Drummer-composer-bandleader Terri Lyne Carrington’s New Standards project is one of the most important pieces of work enhancing jazz in years, with 100 great new compositions by women. The accompanying record, New Standards Vol. 1 finds Carrington assembling a crack rhythm section of herself, Kris Davis on piano, Linda May Han Oh on bass, Matthew Stevens on guitar, and a series of guests. This album-closing, spiky house fire written by one of my favorite pianists (and the artist we went to see the first time Anne and I went to the Village Vanguard together), Marilyn Crispell, features a jaw-dropping, dangling off the edge of the world trumpet solo from Ambrose Akinmusire.
  • Mary Halvorson, “Amaryllis” – Mary Halvorson made two of her strongest statements yet in 2022, with the mirrored records Amaryllis and Belladonna. I greatly admired the work with the Mivos Quartet on the latter – and it’s one of the things I’m most looking forward to seeing at Big Ears – but I couldn’t get several of the pieces with her crushing new sextet of Patricia Brennan on vibes, Nick Dunston on bass, Tomas Fujiwara on drums, Jacob Garchik on trombone, and Adam O’Farrill on trumpet out of my head, especially this title track on the other album. It’s a call to arms of raging beauty and a successful attempt to transcribe the beauty of the world, that moment where Halvorson’s comping mutates right behind O’Farrill’s blistering solo then takes off in another direction knocks me out.’
  • Loraine James, “Building Something Beautiful For Me (Holy Presence of Joan d’Arc)” – The posthumous renaissance of Julius Eastman continues to be a source of joy. This year brought a couple of artifacts of his own compositions and a breathtaking record of homages and refiguring from London-based composer/producer Loraine James. This title track uses the first piece of Eastman’s work I loved, the vocal intro and massed cellos of The Holy Presence of Joan d’Arc, and stretches the tones, playing with the colors so new light shines right through.
  • Brian Harnetty, “Let There Be a Moving Mosaic of This Rich Material” – Brian Harnetty is one of Columbus’s finest composers in a field where the bar is high. Over the last several years, his work with archives, especially with the past of Kentucky and Ohio, has provided a rich field he’s dug deep and made the best use of. His new record, Words and Silences, is a masterful look at the monk and writer Thomas Merton, using Merton’s own words and Harnetty’s settings to craft a mosaic look at the great man’s life. It’s a remarkable paean to stillness, attention, to getting off the merry-go-round of modern life and stopping to hear ourselves. Like all of Harnetty’s work, the insistence on meeting the materials where they are doesn’t negate the artist’s intention or vision, it opens it wide.
  • Bill Frisell, “Waltz for Hal Willner” – As I said in an earlier Parting Gifts playlist, Hal Willner’s tribute records were world-shattering to me, bringing together Leonard Cohen, Diamanda Galas, Harry Partch instruments in the service of Charles Mingus compositions, everything on Night Music… it all stunned me. And I’m so glad I got to see Willner once doing a piece with recordings accompanied by a small band, including Bill Frisell, where the affection between the two was radiating throughout the Stone. I love everything on Frisell’s new record, Four, pairing him with pianist Gerald Clayton, drummer Johnathan Blake, and Greg Tardy on clarinet and saxophone, but I kept coming back to this beautiful, elegiac waltz.
  • Kalia Vandever, “Passing Through” – Composer and trombonist Kalia Vandever assembled a nuanced, powerful sextet for an album of some of the best jazz compositions anyone’s writing now, Regrowth. Her striking trombone voice is front and center with gripping accompaniment from Immanuel Wilkins on alto, Lee Meadvin on guitar, Paul Cornish on piano (check his dancing solo that rises right out of a gorgeously gnarled stretch from Vandever), Nick Dunston on bass, and Connor Parks on drums.
  • Mark Lomax Trio, “Better Get Hit in Your Soul” – Another of the finest Columbus composers is also one of our best drummers and bandleaders, Dr. Mark Lomax II. For Charles Mingus’s centennial, Lomax and his longtime collaborators Dean Hulett on bass and Eddie Bayard on tenor team up for loving, well-crafted versions of a number of Mingus’s finest compositions. This is one of my favorite pieces on Trio Plays Mingus, with a long, melodic bass intro that flowers into a soulful masterclass in group interplay about a minute in. Three of our greatest players digging into material they’ve been working with as long as they’ve been playing music, with nothing to prove but always the questing spirit for finding something new, of surpassing their own expectations. This rises and rises but never leaves the soulful, earthy qualities of the original piece behind; you could sing every solo in this if you had the knack.
  • Tigran Hamasyan featuring Mark Turner, “All The Things You Are” – Armenian pianist Tigran Hamasyan first caught my attention for his intricate compositions so his album-length detour into standards, StandArt with a sympathetic rhythm section of Matt Brewer and Justin Brown, and guests was a delightful surprise. This gorgeous version of one of my favorite standards features the great tenor player Mark Turner and the lines Hamasyan and Turner weave around one another leave me breathless.
  • Moor Mother featuring Nicole Mitchell, “ARMS SAVE” – Moor Mother’s Jazz Codes plays with and jousts the jazz influences that have always been present in her un-classifiable work. This track, a highlight in a record full of them, featuring multi-reedist and composer Nicole Mitchell, uses the classic poetic device of sliding sentence fragments around, watching them spark against each other, in the night-sky-tapestry of reeds and a subtle beat. “I’m so hot, but no fans, but at the stake of all your demands, guess my presence never been felt.”
  • Mali Obomsawin, “Blood Quantum (Nəwewəčəskawikαpáwihtawα)” – Bassist and bandleader Obomsawin’s Sweet Tooth is one of my favorite debuts in a long while and this 11-minute album closer merges an Obomsawin composition with a contemporary Native American chant written by Obomsawin, Lokotah Sanborn and Carol Dana of the Penobscot Nation with arranging assistance from Lancelot Knight of Muskoday First Nation, and it’s a stunning, defiant, swinging meshing of jazz playing with horns from Allison Burik, Noah Campbell, and the record’s co-producer Taylor Ho Bynum, and a rhythm section including drummer Savannah Harris and guitarist Miriam Elhajli and the music of Obomsawin’s (and the nation’s) heritage.
  • Tarbaby featuring Oliver Lake, “Purple” – The collective trio Tarbaby – pianist Orrin Evans, bassist Eric Revis, and drummer Nasheet Waits – is one of my favorite groups in contemporary jazz, for many years at this point, and some of my favorite work of theirs also brings in the saxophone giant Oliver Lake. This simmering free ballad featuring trumpeter Josh Lawrence is a perfect example of form meeting intention and lighting the flame of beauty.
  • Jacob Garchik, “Bricolage” – Garchik’s new record “Assembly” fits together pieces of improvisations with a killing quintet of Sam Newsome on soprano, Jacob Sacks on piano, Thomas Morgan on bass, and Dan Weiss on drums, into new compositions in a really beautiful way that feels like it builds on his last few records, Ye Olde and Clear Line and playing with some ideas from his film scores while also staying in touch with his lineage as a jazz trombone player.
  • Bobby Previte, “GAMBLE” – One of my great joys this year was getting together in the same place with my childhood friend Mike Gamble and his wife, filmmaker Devin Febboriello, after a break of several years. So it was an extra joy to get to tell him how much I loved his work on Bobby Previte’s Nine Tributes for Electric Band and ask him if it was intimidating to be the guitarist on a record that pays tribute to so many other amazing players that Previte had worked with, from Sonny Sharrock to Charlie Hunter to Nels Cline. And, of course, with the humility I’d expect, the answer was, “Oh man, of course.” But it says something that not only did Previte – who’s played with everybody – call him for this task, but one of the tributes is dedicated to Gamble. And it’s a crushing piece, a key example of an artist being truly seen by another.
  • Sonic Youth, “In & Out” – I loved the collection of Sonic Youth compilation rarities and outtakes this year, In/Out/In, varying from fully formed works to rehearsal space jams. The wordless vocals on this and sly krautrock rhythms kept giving me joy in the months since its release.
  • Angelica Sanchez Trio, “Before Sleep/The Sleeping Lady and The Giant that Watches Over Her” – One of the great pianists working in jazz today, Sanchez assembled an all-star rhythm section of Billy Hart and Michael Formanek for this formidable trio album. The newly composed “Before Sleep” section blends so perfectly into the Ellington piece it feels like they were made for one another.
  • Lara Downes, “Magnetic Rag” – I was late to the party with Lara Downes, discovering her with last year’s series of work by black American composers, but I made up for the newness of that fandom with enthusiasm, so I was ready for her Scott Joplin record Reflections. This piece is a prime example of how a subtle arrangement by Stephen Buck and her light but decisive touch on the piano can remind us of the gorgeous accessibility, and the big riffs in these 100+ year-old songs, reminding us that Joplin helped define where American music was going and that the artistry of Downes is helping keep it alive.
  • Sweet Teeth, “City of Fern” – Sweet Teeth is a band I love in town because I can never quite get my finger on what they’re doing before they’re onto the next thing, but it’s always good. Brothers Stew (guitar, electronics, vocals) and Sam (cello) Johnson have seemingly voracious appetites for sounds, genres, and approaches. With Body Weather, they made a record as good as the times I’ve had seeing them live. This song sets up a deceptively placid surface and subverts those expectations over and over again for its seven-minute run time. “Ghost walk through a city of fern. All those bell shaped flowers try to sing.”
  • Charles Mingus, “Fables of Faubus” – Much as I love Mingus, I balked at the price of The Lost Album from Ronnie Scott’s on Record Store Day so I had to find it electronically after multiple people told me I was an idiot. This joyous and rightfully enraged romp through one of his classics is a key example of why this document is important and how his songs still glow 50 years after being recorded. A particularly good showcase for Jon Faddis on trumpet – whose other work did not wow me like he does here – and John Forster on piano about whom I knew nothing.
  • Wild Up, “Stay On It” – The Wild Up ensemble presents this favorite of mine of the Julius Eastman compositions, arranged by Christopher Rountree and Chris Kallmeyer, that captures all of its joy, its ebullient intensity, its encouragement to keep going.
  • Ethan Iverson, “For Ellen Raskin” – Iverson made his best, most consistent solo record with his Blue Note debut Every Note is True, making excellent use of a spectacular rhythm section of Jack DeJohnette on drums and Larry Grenadier on bass. I can’t count how many records I have with those gentlemen on them, but I can promise there’s not a bad one. And having three melodicists but who also know and love the simplicity of comping, of finding that pocket in a rhythm section, makes every tune on here shine. For me, this is one of the best melodies Iverson’s ever written, begging to be untangled, played with, and admired.
  • Fred Hersch, “Pastorale” – Speaking of melodicists, pianist Fred Hersch has been setting that bar high for decades, and his Breath by Breath, with a rhythm section of Drew Gress and Joachen Rueckert and the Crosby Street String Quartet, is another glowing example. An example of being perfectly lovely without being syrupy or contrived.
  • Mal Waldron, “You Don’t Know What Love Is” – I got into Mal Waldron after reading he was Billie Holliday’s last accompanist around the same time my late high school/early college self got extremely into Steve Lacy, who collaborated with Waldron for many years. I remember being in Portland and seeing a whole section of mostly solo Mal Waldron discs, getting two, and being blown away by both. Everything record of his I’ve ever found had something to teach me, and this year’s Searching in Grenoble from 1978 is a prime example. In excellent sound, in a transitional moment in his life, and it all comes out in a series of stormy pieces like this dissection of a favorite standard of mine, played with the thump of a martini shaker hitting the bar, then delicately as playing curls of smoke.
  • Peter Brotzmann/Milford Graves/William Parker, “Side B” – This year’s Historic Music Past Tense Future is a remarkable document of an explosive meeting between three artists who worked with each other over the years, all growing out of ’60s free jazz. Brotzmann always plays best with people with strong senses of rhythm and the storytelling drums of Graves bring out something different in his playing from the soulful pulse of Hamid Drake or the crunching surprise of Han Bennink. And Parker’s bass, that knew both so well, is a magic meeting place. This reminds me how lucky I was to live when all three of them walked the Earth and to make time to see Parker soon and Brotzmann whenever he next hits the states.
  • Anadol, “Gizli Duygular” – Anadol, the electronic music project of Turkish artist Gözen Atila has a sense of going inside oneself – the record Felicita is a favorite thing to write to – but there’s always a sense of play, the kind of joyful curiosity every meditation teacher always told me I should approach meditating with and the kind of joyful curiosity I try to approach writing and anything I absorb culturally (but often fall short of).
  • Immanuel Wilkins, “Fugitive Ritual, Selah” – Rising star saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins’ latest record for Blue Note, The 7th Hand, is a triumph, a connected suite where each piece makes its own impression. This composition features the core quartet of Micah Thomas on piano, Kweku Sumbry on drums, and Rolling Stones member Daryl Johns on bass, with subtle but gripping interplay and a melody that stuck with me as soon as I heard it.
  • Elvin Jones, “13 Avenue B” – Elvin Jones is very well recorded but there aren’t a lot of examples of him this early as a bandleader after leaving the classic Coltrane quartet. This smoking 1967 set from Pookie’s Pub in SoHo. This piece of classic hard bop features a prime example of his hook-up with bassist Wilbur Little, familiar from Jones’ late ’60s studio dates as a leader but also fiery playing from Joe Farrell, best known for his Return to Forever work, and pianist Billy Greene.
  • Taru Alexander, “Kojo Time” – Drummer and bandleader Taru Alexander’s Echoes of the Masters pays tribute to his inspirations, including his father Roland Alexander. This impassioned romp through a Roland Alexander classic highlights saxophonist Antoine Roney as the entire quintet does a spectacular job with the piece.
  • JD Allen, “This World is a Mean World” – JD Allen, with maybe my favorite tone of any working tenor player, continues his deep dive into blues and the roots of American music with Americana Vol. 2, using the same empathetic rhythm section of Gregg August and Rudy Royston, adding guitar virtuoso Charlie Hunter to the mix to powerful effect.
  • John Scofield, “Junco Partner” – Maybe the first jazz guitarist I was a fan of, John Scofield’s first solo guitar record, self-titled, is a mix of strong originals and classics. This version of the blues traditional – which I learned from the Clash then went back to the Dr. John, the Professor Longhair, the Louis Jordan – highlights Scofield’s blues background and the smoothness of the ideas flowing out of him.
  • Johnny Gandelsman, “Barbary Coast, 1955” – Violinist Johnny Gandelsman went to many of our great American composers for his rapturous and sometimes heartbreaking This is America. For this piece, for five-string violin, Terry Riley wrote a gorgeous homage to a seedy strip of San Francisco in the ’50s.
  • Antoine Fatout, “Roger’s Riff” – Columbus drummer Antoine Fatout has been making noise as a sideman – I first heard him with great guitarist Brett Burleson – and with his own Trio Fa2. This debut record teams him with two of Columbus’s treasures we sometimes share with the world – Roger Hines on bass, best known for a long stretch in Ray Charles’ band, and guitarist Stan Smith (Moacir Santos, Madrugada, Descendre) – for a swinging, melodic record. This is a favorite of mine but there isn’t a bad tune on the album.
  • Oren Ambarchi, “IV” – Oren Ambarchi’s Shebang is one of my favorite recent examples of composition by accumulation. The guitarist brings in collaborators, including drummer Joe Talia, Necks pianist Chris Abrahams, pedal steel player BJ Cole, 12 string guitarist Julia Reidy, and lets them do what they do in cells, slowly drawing it together into this final, jubilant movement.
  • Isaiah Ceccarelli, “Toute Clarte m’est obscure: V. Aubade” – I fucking love an aubade, though I knew the poetic form before I discovered the musical. This fifth movement of Ceccarelli’s Toute Clarte m’est obscure composition centers on Ellen Weiser’s voice that, along with Katelyn Clark’s organ, feels like the sun rising on your face.
  • Mike Baggetta/Jim Keltner/Mike Watt, “Everywhen We Go” – This title track of the new album from this terrific collaboration has a cool spaghetti western feeling, set up as much by Keltner’s crisp drum rolls and edge-of-the-cymbal work as Baggett’s echoing twang and Watt’s melodic heartbeat bass.
  • James Brandon Lewis, “An Anguish Departed” – Saxophonist James Brandon Lewis seems to pop up everywhere these days. This quartet is probably my favorite of the working bands, with Aruán Ortiz on piano, Brad Jones on bass, and Chad Taylor on drums, and Molecular Systematic Music Live captures them at the height of their powers. This mournful throb of a song features wrenching solos from Lewis and Ortiz.
  • Jeremy Pelt, “Still Standing” – Trumpeter Jeremy Pelt follows last year’s conceptual tribute masterpiece with a record of mostly originals, including this one, cinematic in nature as befits the title, and about getting down and playing. The tight band here includes Chien Chien Lu on vibes (check out that buoyant solo), Vicente Archer on bass, Allan Mednard on drums (throughout, his comping is a wonder), Victor Gould on piano, and Brittany Anjou on synth around Pelt’s razor-sharp trumpet sound.
  • Walter Smith III and Matthew Stevens, “Hornets” – In Common III, the latest in a series of collaboratively led records by saxophonist Smith and guitarist Stevens, with an all-time rhythm section of Kris Davis, Dave Holland, and Terri Lyne Carrington, is a perfect example of how tight and beauitful this kind of small group jazz playing can be. One of my favorite things in jazz is hearing how the group comes out of a solo and there are so many excellent examples in this concise five minute piece, particularly after riveting solos from Stevens and Davis, back to that infectious chorus with meaty transitions.
  • Dezron Douglas, “Coyoacán” – Dezron Douglas leads a killer band including George Burton on piano, Joe Dyson Jr on drums, and Emilio Modeste on sax, through a series of terrific compositions on his new Atalayan. This smoldering tune is a highlight on an album full of highlights.
  • Julian Lage, “Heart is a Drum” – Guitarist Julian Lage continues to refine his approach and expand his field of vision with every outing. On View With a Room, his most developed album yet, he re-teams with tight rhythm section Jorge Roeder and Dave King and adds influence turned peer Bill Frisell into the mix for ten great originals. This one grabbed me by the lapels almost immediately.
  • Kali Malone, “Living Torch I” – Composer Kali Malone trades in the pipe organ she’s best known for on Living Torch for a series of synthesizers in a trio format with trombonist Mats Äleklint and bass clarinetist Isak Hedtjärn. With that instrumentation, long, painterly tones are almost expected but Malone and the other two players use those in a way that’s as surprising and fresh as it feels natural and organic. These two pieces are like watching the shadows change as the sun rises over a canopy of trees.
  • Sarah Davachi, “Harmonies in Bronze” – One of my favorite contemporary composers, Sarah Davachi didn’t disappoint on the 2022 record Two Sisters. This pipe organ solo builds slowly and, appropriate to its name, takes on sculptural qualities. The entire record is stunning but this piece makes me want to simultaneously unpack it and just sit back and watch the light drip out of it.
  • Makaya McCraven, “Seventh String” – I had a harder time finding a way into McCraven’s sprawling In These Times, and I suspect seeing more of the material live (after the tastes we got in the excellent Wexner Center show) will snap it into focus. That said, I immediately loved a handful of songs, including this stormy slow jam.
  • Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, “Have You Felt Lately?” – This opening track from LA based composer Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith uses elastic tones, sudden shifts in rhythm, and treated vocals to build a doorway to an entire universe, shimmering and shifting.
  • Dirty Bird, “The Question” – This loping house track kicks off producer Dirty Bird’s excellent Wagenmuzik album. The chopped, moaning vocal “Is it real?” repeats and folds over on itself around the hard but distant drums, like the soundtrack to a montage at sunset over a dirty street, day melting into night, one world rubbing up against the next.
  • Anna Butterss, “La Danza” – Anna Butterss, known as a bassist but playing everything on this standout track from her excellent Activities record, creates a soundworld that’s full of details and nuance but here never rising above a steady throb, a slow dance in the waning moonlight.
  • Tyshawn Sorey Trio, “Autumn Leaves” – I’ve seen Tyshawn Sorey a lot over the years in many contexts, mostly focused around his compositions or avant-garde improvisation (I still cherish seeing him in the trio with Ingrid Laubrock and Kris Davis at the late, lamented Cornelia Street Cafe). So it was a little bit of a surprise to see this record of standards with pianist (and Columbus native) Aaron Diehl and bassist Matt Brewer come out, but once I heard it it felt like the most natural thing in the world. Standards I’ve heard a million times, like this one, in versions that hold up to any I’ve heard by any of the greats.
  • RedmanMehldauMcBrideBlade, “Rejoice” – The second reunion record of this quartet that was so influential to me and so many others in the ’90s, LongGone, did not disappoint. This bouncing Joshua Redman composition gives he and Mehldau plenty of space to stretch and I’m especially in love with the almost taunting call and response inside McBride’s playing.
  • Tony Monaco, “Lush Life” – One of Columbus’s keyboard treasuers, maestro of the B-3 Tony Monaco, made his best record in years, Four Brothers, teaming up with saxophonist Eddie Bayard, guitarist Kevin Turner, and drummer Willie Barthel III. Here they take on maybe my favorite standard of all time, digging deep on a classic slow-burn rendition.
  • Charles Lloyd with Zakir Hussain and Julian Lage, “Tales of Rumi” – I enjoyed all three of the Charles Lloyd Trios records but I think my favorite was this collaboration with tabla master Zakir Hussain and virtuoso guitarist Julian Lage. The three approach the situation as equals and the equal weight on each instrument shines and lets the difference in tonal quality shine through this winding, snaking piece. As usual with these, I try to end with a prayer. Thank you all for reading and listening.
Categories
Best Of Playlist record reviews

2020 Best Of Playlist – Songs

I tried to break out this year’s playlist into a few zones to make them a little less unwieldy. What’s fun about this is it lets me make room for songs I played constantly, even if I didn’t love the whole record. Also putting these in different posts so it’s not too much to bite off.

Songs features tunes that lean a little more pop-oriented, usually with lyrics or dance beats. 

Spaces deals in compositions and improvisations that are a little more abstract and usually instrumental. 

Obviously, more than a few things could have fit on either.

Parting Gifts features people who’ve passed this year – heavier on jazz because it feels like COVID took a bigger bite out of living legends in that category, but obviously loss doesn’t miss any of us.

Here’s the first batch, mostly “songs.” For notes, basically, what I’d blather at you when I queued it up on a jukebox, continue reading below.

Merch Table Link courtesy Hype Machine: https://hypem.com/merch-table/3ENpeOuJ31RoF6c6CKkdjm

Continue reading “2020 Best Of Playlist – Songs”
Categories
Playlist record reviews

Monthly Playlist – September 2020

Working up that Pink Elephant Greatest Hits reignited a love for me of making playlists. It also reinforced that I had a few years of not taking in much new music – my time on the bus (or walking) had mostly fallen into a rut of playing the same feel-better playlists. I never had a problem getting more than I needed for my year-end list but loving 35 records in 365 days to pare down to 20 didn’t feel like me, looking at prior years when I had almost 100 contenders to cut down to a top list.

I also miss writing about records, and I’m grateful for the promos that still come through. On the third hand, as winter comes and the pandemic rages on, I need some structure and some fun projects to get through it. So I’m going to try a monthly playlist of things I’ve heard recently. This first one covers the last couple months, things still fresh in my mind since the idea occurred to me a couple of weeks ago. From now on, it’ll be (mostly) stuff I heard in the last month.

Using Spotify because of ease; I’ve thought about Mixcloud – home of one of my perennial recurring playlist inspirations, Tutti Time – and SoundCloud but haven’t committed to the learning curve yet. If you have a preference, hit me up.

I’d love to do this on Bandcamp if there was playlist functionality, but we finally got Chromecast on it so I’m keeping hope alive. Obviously, especially when we’re not going to shows and buying merch, I encourage you to buy music that speaks to you.

September 2020

  1. “Trouble”, Reverend John Wilkins. Wilkins’ closing set at Gonerfest’s day show outside Murphy’s nine years ago was a thunderbolt-level inspiration to me and one of those sets I still remember with crystal clarity this many years (and over 1,000 bands) later. The son of Rev. Robert Wilkins (who wrote the Stones classic “Prodigal Son,” his voice and guitar changed the air and stopped everyone who might have been a little jaded after six hours and 9 bands that afternoon. And the thing I most remember is this song, preceded by his introduction: “Let me see your hands if you’ve known trouble!” Followed by a chuckle and, “Well, I know you’re young, but I also wanna remind you it’s early.” I’ve been waiting from that moment to this for this song to be on record and this performance – and the whole record, featuring a crack band including Wilkins’ daughters, organist Charles Hodges (from the legendary Hi rhythm section), and drummer Steve Potts (Gregg Allman, Neil Young), lives up to and even betters that glowing memory.
  2. “4 Days,” Mourning [A] BLKstar. Cleveland’s Mourning [A] BLKstar stunned me the first time I heard them, blew me away the first time I saw them live at The Summit, and keep getting better and better. This first record of theirs for Don Giovanni is a brain-expanding, soulful puzzle-box. This song, with its loping groove and fist-pumping, infectious horn riff against a haunting, indicting melody, hasn’t let me go yet. But it was extremely hard choosing just one track of this. The Cycle should be lived with and savored.
  3. “A Little Lost,” Molly Tuttle. I still remember picking up The World of Arthur Russell on Soul Jazz records from Other Music (so nostalgic for that store I’ve watched the documentary about it twice) and amidst the throbbing sideways disco and the chamber music I expected, his voice-and-cello version of this perfect cut-glass miniature of longing stopped me in my tracks. Molly Tuttle’s covers album …but I’d rather be with you was another case of having a hard time picking a favorite track, but her warm opening-up of this song I love so much kept sinking its hooks in me.
  4. “Dangerous Criminal,” Waylon Payne. Talk about coming from royalty and having to live up to it, this son of country superstar Sammi Smith and Willie Nelson’s longtime right hand on lead guitar Jody Payne (and named after his godfather), had a hard road since his first try for country stardom over a decade ago. But he distilled all of it into this lumpy-in-the-best-way, nothing-to-prove masterpiece Blue Eyes, The Harlot, The Queer, The Pusher & Me. This gorgeous song paints a pastoral backdrop for a keening, high-stakes quest: “But still you keep on reaching, you keep hoping and believing somewhere there’s a revelation on this journey that you’re on. Hey, boy, why are you always alone?”
  5. “Goddess of the Hunt,” ARTEMIS. I’ve been in awe of drummer and composer Allison Miller since the first downbeat I heard her play, so when I first heard about this supergroup she was putting together, there wasn’t any doubt it would be something special. Their Blue Note Records debut, and especially this piece written by Miller, exceeds even that high bar. The infectious hook and spiritual sprawl both have room to play here between the sizzling front line of Ingrid Jensen’s trumpet, Anat Cohen’s clarinet, and Melissa Aldana’s tenor and the panoramic rhythm section of Miller’s drums, Noriko Ueda’s bass, and Renee Rosnes’ (who I previously mostly knew from records with singers and am blown away throughout the record) piano.
  6. “These Days,” Elizabeth Cook. A songwriter I’ve been stunned by for many years shot even farther into the stratosphere with Aftermath, full of the explosive defiance and joy of putting things together and learning to breathe again another writer I saw rightly compared to Bowie. One of the hardest records here for me to pick a song from.
  7. “Want You Back With Me,” Lou Kyme. I met Lou through my Twangfest pals in St Louis 15 or so years ago so there’s even less chance of my being unbiased here, but this is one of the freshest Americana records I’ve heard in a long, long time. What’s the Worst That Can Happen pairs the London-based songwriter with Chuck Prophet’s band, The Mission Express, produced by drummer Vicente Rodriguez. The album’s a thrill ride through the various colors of roots rock with sticky playing from Adam Prieto’s organ and James DePrato’s and Kyme’s guitars, and I haven’t gotten this song out of my head since its release as an advance single.
  8. “Source,” Nubya Garcia feat. Ms MAURICE, Cassie Kinoshi, and Richie Seivwright. This title track from the London-based saxophonist Garcia’s debut album as a leader is an explosion. A flaming fountain of ideas immediately appealing and approachable but always eluding grasping. The London jazz scene is having a moment right now with monumental work by Shabaka Hutchings, The Comet is Coming, Sons of Kemet, and more, and this is a testament to someone finding their scene and everyone building each other up to make something great.
  9. “(521),” Vladislav Delay with Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare. In my days diving deep into obscure electronic music I had a specific and particular love for the Finnish composer and producer Sasu Ripatti, so all these years later seeing a mention in The Wire that Ripatti revived his Vladislav Delay moniker for a record with the legendary Jamaican rhythm section Sly and Robbie (I refuse to believe, whoever you are, you don’t have at least a few records featuring them) I lit up like a neon sign and the record didn’t disappoint. This worked for the hottest days of summer, and I’m willing to bet I’m still tangled in its intoxicating textures through the deepest freeze of February.
  10. “Her Name,” Makaya McCraven. I already raved about McCraven’s set at Winter Jazzfest (before everything locked down) being a deserved victory lap, and the Chicago scene right now is having a similar moment to Garcia’s London scene. This continues his mind-blowing forays into the textures of dance music and the possibilities of the cut-up within the context of rigorous improvisation. A music of letting everything in, knowing the value of it all, and using exactly what you need.
  11. “Lightning,” Psychic Temple. Writer-producer-label head Chris Schlarb’s Psychic Temple project accomplishes the almost-unheard-of feat of making guest-artist-filled albums that still feel indelibly personal and not like Rolodex exercises. This double album Houses of the Holy is an embarrassment of riches, with each side backed by a different band. This tune, with Chicago Underground Trio, features lyrics by my dear friend Jerry David DeCicca and it’s as good an intersection of these three approaches to exploring the mystery of the world without trying to confine it or diminish it as I could have hoped.
  12. “Dance With Me – Roundhead Version,” Na Noise. One of my favorite Gonerfest bands, this single sums up what I think this Auckland duo is doing better than anyone right now. Sleekness, danger, and hooks nested inside one another.
  13. “Never,” Lydia Loveless. Loveless’ new record uses the sleeker, shinier textures of Real but turns up more of the rootsy textures of and tumbling narratives of Something Else for a perfect entry in the annals of autumn music, one of my favorite genres that’s not a genre but everyone knows what I mean. The insistent, simmering beat on this song leaves room for the question in the lyrics to sink in even deeper: “I’m standing on my own know, isn’t that what everybody wants?”
  14. “Kick Rocks,” Nick Allison. This slice of classic Let it Bleed-era Stones with a side of The Jacobites hit a particular sweet spot for me in Allison’s Gonerfest set and I’m going to enjoy living with it as the leaves turn.
  15. “Running,” Shamir. I saw Shamir at Bowery Ballroom in 2015 only knowing a single and it was one of my shows of the year. A performer so charismatic when he said, “Let me hear you if you’re ratchet,” even Anne had her hands in the air screaming, with a voice that chilled my blood. The records after that didn’t hit the same sweet spot, but the new one – and this song in particular – won’t let me go.
  16. “Cupid,” Spillage Village featuring Earthgang and 6LACK. A friend and co-worker turned me onto 6LACK a few years ago but I wasn’t aware of the Atlanta collective, he’s part of, Spillage Village so this record hit me like a bolt from the blue. 
  17. “I Felt It Too,” Bette Smith. Rock and Soul dynamo Bette Smith’s new record is full for perfect jukejoint Friday night anthems like this one (and no shortage of Sunday sorting-through-the-wreckage comedowns).
  18. “Ladies Night,” Dick Move. One of my favorite Gonerfest finds, if this New Zealand band doesn’t make you want to bounce around the room, I’ve got nothing for you.
  19. “Finally High,” Liz Longley. There were more shows canceled I’m bummed about this year than I can count before we even get to what hadn’t been formally announced. Longley’s planned trip to Natalie’s in the Spring (tentatively rescheduled for 2021) was on that list and that pain got more acute with the release of her record Funeral For My Past. Exactly what I want from a singer-songwriter, that swirl of guitars on the chorus, “Don’t fuck me up, I’m floating. I’m finally high above it.”
  20. “Hergé: Vision and Blindness,” Jacob Garchik. Ending with a beautiful sunrise. Garchik’s profile has raised in recent years with his film scoring and arranging for Kronos Quartet but I remember seeing his all-trombone choir doing the secular gospel music of his The Heavens suite downstairs at Bowery Electric and wanting to drag people in off the street. I’ve seen him in big bands, as recently as January, and his playing is always impeccable, but I’ve been jonesing for some new writing of his. This new record as a leader, too many years since last time, Clear Line, features the cream of the crop in exciting players including Adam O’Farrill, Jennifer Wharton, Anna Webber, and Carl Maraghi, is a massive step forward and maybe my favorite thing to write to all year.