Tag: Kris Davis

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Best Of live music

Best of 2022: Live Music

A Weirdo From Memphis, Railgarten, Memphis

This was the year of irrational exuberance. In a better light, this year was full of excellent examples of not skipping shows. I saw about 160 shows across 11 cities in two countries at around 70 venues. Next year I’m looking to travel more carefully and pay some of this exuberance off instead of racking it up, get back down to my usual ~100 range; a little too often, I found myself burned out and exhausted, not quite enjoying every thing as much as usual.

But that exuberance did pay off more often than not. I saw some amazing shit this year, of all genres. Big touring acts I didn’t think I’d ever see, acts I had tickets for in early 2020 who finally go to play, and joyous, joyous crowds everywhere. And this year, I had a couple festival sets that might have been the best shows I saw all year – Compulsive Gamblers at Gonerfest, Scrunchies at Dirtnap – so I added blurbs on my favorite sets, grouped by festival. The sets on here, every damn one of them, made the hassle of being there as close to worth it as possible. Most of the time, they made it worth slogging through rain and snow, two airports, surly bartenders, bullshit security theater, and salved whatever slight wounds with an hour or more of transcendence, but the kind of transcendence that makes me closer with the other people there. That makes me love the world a little more.

Honk Wail and Moan at Dick’s Den

Similarly to my theatre recap, these highlights are only a small chunk of the story. I’m overjoyed to see most of the venues I love made it through to the other side of 2020-2021 emboldened and still swinging. While Dick’s Den only appears once on the list, it’s where I saw the most music – by my count, 29 shows – and had the best time overall. It takes its place in the firmament of Columbus culture, not just music, seriously but not too seriously. It’s still where you’re likely to see new projects get formed and old friendships renewed and hear some of the best music in the world.

Natalie’s consolidation to Grandview makes an amazing amount of sense; I’ll miss that little listening room that’s marginally closer to my house, but I think optimizing the two areas of the venue for different listening experiences is great, and they cast the widest net of booking in town, with Charlie Jackson’s legendary ear supplemented by bookers like Alec Wightman’s Zeppelin Productions and Bruce Nutt’s Crazy Mama’s booking – as I write these very words, I’m thinking about having dinner to the dulcet tones of the Colin Lazarski organ trio tonight, already have tickets to a Zeppelin booking in 2023, and am fondly remembering talking about Bruce Nutt and Natalie’s with a bass player in Memphis a few years ago.

From left, Matt Benz, Pete English, and Bob Starker of the Sovines, Natalie’s Grandview

The Ace of Cups reinvention is still tweaking the balance of dance parties and various genres of music, but the bones of the venue – most of the great bartenders are still involved, the sound has improved slightly, the patio’s been refurbished in subtle but very good ways – and it feels (from the outside) healthier than it’s been in a while. A side effect of the new ownership and promoters is a few touring bands who often played Ace out of loyalty to Aleks or Marcy are now in rooms that are a little better sized for their actual Columbus draw, the Sweet Knives show at Bourbon Street and Jon Spencer and the Hitmakers at Rumba were more exciting in mostly full rooms than the last (also great) half-full crowds they played to at Ace. More exciting shows for bands with slightly smaller draws and freeing Ace up for the 300ish people shows it does better than anywhere else in town.

Rumba, in general, upped its quotient of rock and roll while still making time for the Americana and singer-songwriters it has always served better than any other standing room in town. Bourbon Street is finding its own equilibrium, and I had more great, leaving-later-than-I-planned nights there than in the last five years, which makes my heart sing about the bar that used to be my second living room. These are in chronological order and in Columbus unless otherwise stated. All photographs have only me to blame.

Jason Isbell, Amanda Shires, and Denny deBorja from the 400 Unit, Palace Theater
  • Rebirth Brass Band with Largemouth Brass Band (Rumba Cafe) – This steaming hot show on a bitter January night also marked my return to social life after my second bout with COVID. Largemouth Brass Band continues to impress me with every outing, playing songs off their very fine 2021 record with wit and charm. And Rebirth Brass Band reminded all of us why they’re one of the finest American institutions, cross-cutting Hank Williams’ “Jambalaya” with James Brown’s “Talkin’ Loud and Saying Nothing,” Fats Domino with Bobby Womack’s “It’s All Over Now,” in a righteous dance party that’s hard to rival.
  • Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit with Adia Victoria (Palace Theater) – Delayed a few weeks because of the Omicron surge; this has a special place in my heart because it was the last show Anne and I saw in town with our dear friends Heather and Adam before they moved to New York. But beyond that, the music was stunning – Adia Victoria turned the stunning, sparse, blues-soaked narratives from her A Southern Gothic record into smoldering live incantations, spinning them like a prism to the light of the audience. And I finally got to see Isbell do songs from Reunions, maybe his best record yet (I’m going to get tired of saying that eventually), and his covers record paying tribute to the state he spent so much time in, Georgia Blue, and continued to show his powers as a bandleader, and the stunning power and subtlety of the 400 Unit, as good a band as is working today. From the opener, “What Have I Done To Help,” those songs served as a balm and a reminder to be less hermetic, to engage, and to try. A favorite moment: doing one of my favorite songs from Reunions, “Only Children,” an elegy to a similarly talented friend who never quite broke through, with a nuanced delivery, conversational, weaving guitars providing texture underneath and then, after he delivers that heartbreaking bridge “‘Heaven’s wasted on the dead,’ that’s what your Mama said, as the hearse was idling in the parking lot. She said you thought the world of me, and you were glad to see they finally let me be an astronaut,” and a rocket launch of a guitar solo opens up the world of the song and underscores that pain of a dream denied and the beauty of that time you have with those people. And there were probably a dozen of those moments in this front-to-back stellar concert.
  • Bettye Lavette (Thirty One West) – One of the quintessential American voices, R&B royalty, taking us all to church and the juke-joint at the same time in a fantastic old ballroom. More than worth the 45 minutes out to Newark. With a crack band, Lavette traversed a set heavy on her great tribute to other songs made famous by women, Blackbirds (my favorite being an audacious, perfect “Drinking Again”), her gorgeously raunchy mission statement “Take Me As I Am,” a slow, acid pour of John Prine’s “Souvenirs,” and so much more.
Chad Taylor and Jaimie Branch of Fly or Die, Wexner Center
  • Lilly Hiatt (Rumba Cafe) – I’d been waiting for this since it was originally on the books in March of 2020, so I was ecstatic when this third reschedule finally happened – and in the meantime, Hiatt had put out two excellent records. She and her four-piece band hit my favorite moments off the new ones: a tribute to her sister, “Rae,” with a loose-limbed propulsive swing, the hard-won anthem “Walking Proof,” and the mournful chime of “Candy Lunch,” making the songs shine and live and emphasizing what a stellar bandleader she’s grown into since she came on my radar. A crash course in the power and necessity of songs.
  • Jaimie Branch’s Fly or Die (Wexner Center for the Arts) – One of my favorite interviews I’ve ever done and an artist I’ve spoken about rapturously, drawn in by the first few notes of the first Fly or Die record, turned to a full-on drooling fan with the first time I saw her live at Nublu during Winter Jazzfest, and mind was blown, all expectations exceeded bt this fiery show. This rose into the ranks of the best things I’ve ever seen at the Wexner Center – the venue that turned me onto so much of the music I love so much. And what a person we lost, following up that conversation with a big, sweaty hug after the set and a boisterous “What’s up, Rick?” when I saw her a little later.
  • Garbage Greek with The Harlequins and Shark (Rumba Cafe) – I liked Garbage Greek since I first heard them, but they didn’t move out of the shadow of Lee Mason and Patrick Koch’s earlier band Comrade Question until the first time Anne and I saw the three-piece – with powerful drummer Jason Winner’s pummeling swing highlighted – as shows started to resume last year and they’ve grown into my favorite new band. This record release show for their breakthrough record Quality Garbage not only knocked me against a wall, but it also turned me onto two of my favorite new bands, doom-surf-garage three-piece Shark and the infectious hooks and sharp edges of Cincinnati’s Harlequins.
  • Johnny Rebel Memorial Show (Natalie’s Grandview) – It depresses me that I can’t include any Th’ Flyin’ Saucers on my parting gifts playlists because they’re not on the streaming service I use – and a reminder of the peril of streaming in general, especially as it makes us think the plethora of options available is all that’s available. Because of that band, and singer-guitarist Johnny Rebel (Sean Groves), a fellow West Sider, always with a kind word and some great conversation, and one of the most ferocious bandleaders I was ever lucky enough to see. This tribute show, put together by his (and my) friends Jeff Eaton and Jeff Passifume, brought together his friends, inspirations, and those influenced by him in the scene, including my pals The Sovines (playing these songs together for the first time since Twangfest six or so years ago), local blues legend Terry Davidson, an ad hoc band with a bunch of old Flyin’ Saucers and Passifume that blew my hair back, and a lot of hugs and great stories. A reminder of the beauty of community in this town and that the best memorial always turns into a dance party.
Junius Paul and Makaya McCraven, Mershon Auditorium, Wexner Center for the Arts
  • Makaya McCraven (Wexner Center for the Arts) – McCraven’s records taking the time-honored postmodern practice of cutting up improvisations to form compositions have a sense of repetition that recalls modern composition and hip-hop/dance club music, but my favorite aspects come with the love he has for the improvisation as improvisation and the way the final version of the piece – often created in the studio – continues to evolve live with other players. This titanic performance, laying the groundwork in my mind for In These Times, with powerful playing by Greg Ward’s alto, especially everyone working as one mind, transported me.
  • Anais Mitchell (Brooklyn Made, NYC) – One of my favorite songwriters for years – a set of hers at Rumba Cafe about a decade ago wasn’t the first time I saw her, but still stands out in blazing memory. And I love Hadestown as much as anyone – look at my theatre list from last year and I think my records list from 2010 – but I’ve been a fan since hearing “Cosmic American” from an MP3 blog and immediately saying, “I need to hear more of this voice.” Promoting her stellar eponymous record – I think “Felix Song (On Your Way)” is my most played song of the year, with “Bright Star” and “Brooklyn Bridge” right behind – with a tight four-piece band, back in her old stomping grounds since relocating to her home town in Vermont, this was a reminder of everything I love about a songwriter, that shifting sense of character and setting that’s so finely chiseled and crafted out of hearts and memory, with that voice like hearing the stars sing. Direct communication but not simple.
  • Kris Davis Quintet (Village Vanguard, NYC) – Among my favorite piano players, and a core part of how much I loved the last Winter Jazzfest with her stellar closing set of Diatom Ribbons, so it felt appropriate seeing her at my first trip back to the Vanguard. She assembled a killer band, with a crunching, subtle rhythm section of Terri Lyne Carrington on drums and Trevor Dunn on bass, Val Jeanty on turntables and electronics, and Julian Lage on guitar, and – appropriate to the hallowed room – grappled with the history of the music, with mesmerizing takes on Eric Dolphy’s tribute to Monk, “Hat and Beard,” Roland Shannon Jackson’s “Alice in the Congo,” and a dazzling read of Geri Allen’s “A Dancer” along with her own stellar compositions.
  • James McMurtry (Skully’s, NYC) – A case study of someone who gets better and better, McMurtry came through touring his magical last record, Horses and the Hounds, for the first show I’d been lucky enough to link up with in about 10 years, and the mix of storytelling and dancehall joy was just right. A tight four-piece band adding color and muscle, highlighting his weathered voice on classics and newer material like the beauty-of-remembering, tumbling narrative “Canola Fields” and the potent anthem of acceptance in the face of a world you know too well, “If It Don’t Bleed,” to an audience that felt brought together by those stories.
Don Was All-Star Revue, Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit
  • Roland Johnson (Whiskey Ring, St Louis) – There was scarcely a moment I didn’t love about my return to St Louis, culminating in John Wendland’s wedding to Jenny Heim. For the bachelor party, organized and ring-led by Wendland’s best friend and fellow DJ and music writer Roy Kasten, Kasten outdid himself by bringing one of the last of the great St Louis soul singers, Roland Johnson, to the back patio of one of my favorite bars of all time, the Whiskey Ring. A combination of beautiful originals and classic covers like “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg” and “Take Me to the River,” Johnson’s supple voice took us to church and to the stars. The after-party at the Royale with DJ Landy Dandy was also spectacular – see her if she’s spinning when you’re in the STL – but that first brush was hard to beat.
  • Don Was All-Star Revue with Alejandro Escovedo (Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit) – I feel confident that if the Bikini Kill concert we were in Detroit for the weekend of Anne’s birthday hadn’t been postponed again, I feel confident it would have made this list. As it stands, I was extra glad I made the case for going out a day early for DIA’s Festival of Colors. Finally getting to see one of Detroit native Don Was’s all-star groups paying tribute to Michigan rock and roll innovator Iggy Pop, with members of Was (Not Was), Detroit Cobras, Dirtbombs, and so many others, was the best kind of this sort of tribute show. Alejandro Escovedo’s warm opening act – and appearance at the finale of the tribute trading verses on “I Wanna Be Your Dog” with Mick Collins – was the icing on the cake.
  • Death Valley Girls with LA Witch (Natalie’s Grandview) – Natalie’s has long had some rough and rowdy rock and roll as part of their musical diet, but it became a little more prominent in 2022, and my favorite example was this stellar double bill with two bands I’ve liked playing at the top of their games. The organ-drenched swing of Death Valley Girls complimented and contrasted the barbed-wire shoegaze power trio of LA Witch in a room that made both of them sound exactly as good as I’ve always thought they could.
Damon Locks’ Black Monument Ensemble, Lincoln Theater
  • Reckless Ops (Vanderelli Room)/Dirty Dozen Brass Band (Scioto Mile)/Sweet Knives (Cafe Bourbon Street)/Honk Wail and Moan (Dick’s Den) – These “a night in the life of” entries used to be a staple of these year-end lists but I think I’ve gotten away from them. This year granted me such a prime example I couldn’t not talk about it. As Anne was out for her usual girls’ weekend, and the couple of compatriots I’d roped in for part of this had to bail, I found myself with no one else’s schedule to account for and a determination to make as much of the plethora of good options as I possibly good. Starting with Franklinton Friday, what’s become one of my favorite traditions in town – and take advantage of it soon because it’ll go the way of Gallery Hop before we know it – I caught my pal Billy Heingartner’s new band, where he plays drums with longtime collaborator, and one of my favorite songwriters in town, Bill Wagner, Reckless Ops. Duane Hart’s thick, hardcore-tinged bass lines and Heingartner’s drums gave a crunch and a stoner-rock menace to some of Wagner’s finest and most delicate songs (I think a few were older Bygones songs, some were new, but I wouldn’t swear to it). From there, I walked across the bridge to see another installment in the best Rhythm on the River lineup in recent memory (though it felt strangled by the lack of a beer vendor, limited food trucks), a rousing set by American institution Dirty Dozen Brass Band. I headed to my old stomping grounds, Cafe Bourbon Street, for a few great songs by the D-Rays who have evolved into a more nuanced rock band over the years, and then a delightful reunion of old friends to watch the best Sweet Knives set I’ve ever seen, from a band I’ve never seen be less than great. The addition of a keyboard player and backing singer added additional weight and texture to some of Alicja Trout’s finest songs without blunting their spiky impact. I wanted to see my favorite Columbus band, Dana, but I had a limited amount of energy and wanted to get to Dick’s for Honk Wail and Moan. HWM is one of my favorite institutions; a band I saw (I think at the Jazz and Rib Fest, but it could’ve been something else outside) around the same time I first saw Scrawl, Haynes Boys, and TJSA, but so together and so different from what I was expecting I didn’t think they were local at first. I was lucky to catch the second of three sets, going through a series of great Brian Casey (RIP) compositions, with discursive and enlightening introductions by Steve Perakis and a series of guest stars, including singer Michelle Ishida. It was a beautiful tribute to one of our great composers and a tribute to the friendships that feed the soil of the music I love so much here.
  • Damon Locks and the Black Monument Ensemble (Wexner Center/CAPA) – Damon Locks’ Black Monument Ensemble ties together dance, hard funk, free jazz, and contemporary gospel harmonies into a magical tribute to being alive, even when it’s complicated; to trying, even when it’s fucked up. A powerful band that takes on today with all its challenges, all its large and small devastations.
The Comet is Coming, Bowery Ballroom, NYC
  • The Comet is Coming (Bowery Ballroom, NYC) – I’d already been lucky enough to see this band a few years ago – but after a blistering set by Shabaka Hutchings’ other bands, Sons of Kemet, I wasn’t going to miss this on our second trip to NYC in 2022. And it exceeded expectations by a mile – a surging dance party in Bowery Ballroom, after a terrific meal with good friends Heather and Adam and a play that also made my year-end list, Anne and I danced till we were sore and trekked up to East Village standby 2A to talk about it for another two hours (in the eye of the crushing hurricane of young people).
  • Los Carnash (Sonido Necrotico, Mexico City) – On a great Mexico City trip, we saw some wonderful music that just happened to appear – a dulcimer-led trio in La Opera, a mariachi band singing Dean Martin on the way back from Teotihuacan, a great New Orleans trad jazz group at Zinco Jazz Club – but the one thing we sought out, a garage-punk evening led by Sonido Necrotico, was an indelible memory. We couldn’t even get in the performance space. Los Carnash (90% sure, but based on the process of deduction) delivered a catchy, crunching set that shook Anne and me watching downstairs from the bar. A reminder of the power of youthful rock and roll.
  • Jon Langford and the Bright Shiners (Hogan House) – I saw a few other very good things after this (including running into the gracious Hogan House hosts PJ and Abbie twice more in the same week), but this new project from Jon Langford had such a sense of mischief and communal joy, stringing together songs from a variety of Langford’s projects from the Mekons (a magical, wistful “The Last Dance” and an appropriately righteous “Memphis, Egypt, Etc Etc”) to brand new songs in lockdown, and a couple perfectly chosen covers from Grant McLennan, The Kinks, and Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros. There was a sense of nostalgia – that to live is to miss people, but also a deep sense of being grateful and making each moment matter.
Nubya Garcia, Mill and Mine, Big Ears Festival, Knoxville
  • Big Ears Festival (Knoxville)
    • Tift Merritt with Eric Heywood – A singer-songwriter who’s given me as many songs I’ve loved in the last twenty years as literally anyone with her partner who redefined how I thought about the pedal steel guitar, doing a duo set in the most intimate venue of Big Ears, drinking a whiskey I’ve never seen before (thank you, bartenders, at Jig and Reel) and weeping, it was so beautiful.
    • Sons of Kemet – The fact that I could walk from that set above, across a set of railroad tracks, and go straight into this set, which stands among the best dance parties I’ve ever been to, justifies my getting to Big Ears every year I can make the money and time work out.
    • Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah – Finally got to see someone I’ve wanted to for a while, and chief aTunde more than delivered. A set that made me move and love the world and also reconsider a lot of long-standing preconceptions about the audience-performer dynamic.
    • Nubya Garcia – Someone else whose records I’ve loved for a while and is on the cusp of breaking through to a larger audience, playing a set with just a lean four-piece band, organ, bass, drums, and the purest saxophone tone I’ve heard in a very long time.
    • Andrew Cyrille and Marc Ribot – The first meeting of two of the instrumentalists who helped form the way I think about their respective instruments took on the whole of American music and sent me into the night with stars in my eyes.
Scrunchies, High Noon Saloon, Dirtnap Festival, Madison
  • Dirtnap Record Anniversary (Madison)
    • Scrunchies – If this set had been a standalone show, it would have been one of the two or three best rock and roll sets I saw all year. This band came more into their own with this year’s sophomore record Feral Beach, and live, they’re a force to be reckoned with and a powerful reminder of how much Dirtnap Records is still giving us.. If they come to your town, do not miss.
    • Fox Face – I’d been waiting to see this Milwaukee band since falling in love with their record End of Man in 2021, and they exceeded those sky-high expectations live.
    • Sugar Stems – I’ve been proselytizing for Sugar Stems’ blend of ’60s girl group and vintage punk since they blew me away at Gonerfest several years ago, and I had to buy everything. Hearing these songs again in this reunion set felt like the last call on the best Saturday night of your life, even though it was early afternoon.
    • Bad Sports – I love anything Orville Neeley, and this Bad Spots set was a perfect example, a quintessential example of what I’m looking for in a rock band.
    • River City Tanlines – Probably my favorite band from one of my favorite songwriters, Alicja Trout; this power trio left a pile of smoldering rubble in their wake. It had been too. goddamn. long.
Dana, Nelsonville Music Festival
  • Nelsonville Music Festival (Nelsonville)
    • SG Goodman – One of my favorite newish singer-songwriters, I was already enamored with her 2022 album Teeth Marks, and seeing her live with a perfect four-piece band reaffirmed everything I love about that genre and the specificity of these songs, making every detail ring out into the woods.
    • Tre Burt – With my recently-jacked-up ankle and wrist, I only made my way down into the semi-hidden wooded part of the new NMF site once, but I picked the right set. Tre Burt’s stunning solo set came the closest of anything I saw all weekend to make the hassles and first-year growing pains of the new site into conjuring the magic so many of my friends who love the festival so much talk about.
    • Dana – My favorite Columbus band proving they can own a big outdoor stage just as readily as a late-night club; their songs have the heft and power to translate.
Willie Phoenix, Hot Times Festival
  • Hot Times Festival
    • Willie Phoenix – I was already blown away by Damon Locks before Anne and I walked down to see the towering figure of Columbus guitar rock, dominating easily the best of the longer-running outdoor festivals. Still in great voice, still an unmistakable guitar tone.
    • The Four Mints – Columbus R&B loyalty with a fuller band behind them than we’re usually lucky enough to get and a beautiful multigenerational crowd soaking it in. This summed up everything I love about Hot Times and much of what I love about Columbus.
South Filthy, The Lamplighter, Memphis
  • Gonerfest (Memphis)
    • Compulsive Gamblers – Similar to Scrunchies, if this had been a standalone show, it’d be one of the couple best shows I saw all year. I never thought I’d get a full band version of this early Greg Cartwright/Jack Yarber collaboration, and while I loved the stripped-down quartet version that came through the Beachland, this almost made my heart burst out of my chest. The deep, warm sadness and empathic darkness of “Two Thieves” through the swaggering, grim boogie of “Rock and Roll Nurse” made me feel like I could fly.
    • King Khan and the BOlivians – A testament to the power of the community that’s grown up around Gonerfest, King Khan was forced to go alone as BBQ was ill, so he drafted old friends Greg and Jack Oblivian for a (probably) once in a lifetime set of their mutual songs.
    • South Filthy* – Asterisked because it’s not actually part of the festival but a side day show at the Lamplighter, but I don’t think it would have happened were Walter Daniels not drafted for the Compulsive Gamblers show. A Texas/Memphis supergroup who put out a couple of my favorite filthy roots rock records kicking up sparkling dust in the back room of one of my favorite bars in the world.
    • A Weirdo From Memphis – With members of his Unapologetic crew, AWFM owned the stage, the rigging above, and the sign overlooking us with a sprawling set of big hooks, righteously angry shouts, and dense, hypnotic arrangements.
    • Sick Thoughts – A classic. If you asked me what “Goner” music sounds like, I’d point to Sick Thoughts, but this year – with their new record and this killing victory lap of a set – they hit a new level full of songs I couldn’t get out of my head, played with extra fire.
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"Hey, Fred!" live music theatre

Things I’ve Been Digging – 01/17/2021

Immanuel Wilkins Quartet, from left Kris Davis, Daryl Johns, Immanuel Wilkins, Kewku Sumbry; taken from stream and edited

Immanuel Wilkins Quartet at Smalls

I mentioned APAP in last week’s writeup. Generally, in one of these years when I’d be in New York for mid-January, soaking up the remnants of arts presenters’ bounties, I’d be catching between 6 and 20 sets over a few days of Winter Jazz Fest. WJF’s excellent pivot of panels and performances is going on through March, but I caught a few streams that gave me some of that feeling.

The set that gave me the heftiest dose of that energy came from a stalwart of the classic NYC clubs and at the vanguard of this new digital era, Smalls. Immanuel Wilkins (also a standout on Joel Ross’ astonishing record last year) and one of our finest alto players, lead a striking quartet with Kris Davis (who closed out my previous New York trip with an explosion) on piano, Daryl Johns on bass, and Kweku Sumbry on drums. 

The group wove together songs into unbroken suites, building landscapes and shifting them. Simmering, glistening ballads jostled with ecstatic classic fire music. Long, screeching cries curled like smoke into gorgeous melodies. Textures played out and expanded, then splintered and came together. 

This set was everything I want from a band coming out of the jazz tradition. It made me miss New York, it made me miss walking down to Dick’s Den on a good night, and it made me miss being in the room; at the same time, it reminded me how lucky I am to have this option.

From left: Vijay Iyer, Arooj Aftab, Shazad Ismaily; taken from stream and edited

Love in Exile at Jazz Gallery

Jazz Gallery continues to present a wealth of fascinating programming in its streaming iteration and I was enthralled by their trio this week of pianist Vijay Iyer, multi-instrumentalist Shazad Ismaily (both of whom I’ve seen many times) and vocalist Arooj Aftab whose name pricked my consciousness when she played a Big Ears but I’d never seen.

This was an astonishing, glowing hour of music. Mostly working in these slow, unfolding oceanic tempos, the trio displayed an uncanny telepathy. On one piece, Iyer’s exploded flurries of his classic diamond hard-and-glistening attack into spaces left by Aftab’s silky melodies and Ismaily’s circular, hypnotic bass. Another used that tempo to expand into a rich, cinematic, baroque ballad, riding accumulations into a majestic cascade. 

Other pieces had Ismaily bringing in a droning keyboard tone to underpin a dual longing between Aftab and Iyer. Beautiful and beguiling.

Espíritu; shot taken from stream and edited

Espíritu at Under the Radar

Caught up on the rest of the previous week’s Under the Radar and my favorite piece, Espíritu, came from the Chilean company Teatro Anónimo and the pen of Trinidad González. 

It focuses on – mostly young – people grappling with the deep sickness of ennui and hopelessness. As one character says early on, “We are just a group of useless people with a great plan to stop the destruction of the world.”

That plan staggers and stumbles, people are wracked by cruelty and driven into impoverished fantasies that pass that cruelty on through jagged vignettes. Lines like “People yell at me and that makes them happy…Sometimes they think they’re making love but it’s something different from love. Do they dream?” and “If I were your father I’d burn that notebook and send you off to fight a war,” haunted me for days after seeing this.

If I were managing a company, I’d program a double bill of this with Matt Slaybaugh’s The Absurdity of Writing Poetry but there are probably dozens of plays about fighting despair with art, even, especially, when it feels hopeless, this would productively spark against. It made me miss UTR, made me miss NYC, and made me miss the theaters where I first loved work like this in the Wexner Center and at Available Light.

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Best Of Playlist

Best of 2020 Playlist – Spaces

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

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

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

Continue reading “Best of 2020 Playlist – Spaces”
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Best Of live music

Best of 2020 – Live Music, Sometimes Virtual

In this fucked-up year, I was lucky enough to see 35 things before it shut down in early March, in four cities. So I was trying to make good on my promise of excitement! And I still tried, even when it felt like just sitting around my house.

Kris Davis’ Diatom Ribbons, Sultan Room

Live:

  • Brett Burleson Quartet (01/04/2020, Dick’s Den) – It’s not always the first show of the year but Burleson’s annual birthday show is a burst of heat early in January that feels like a starting pistol and an invocation to call forth the spirit of a good damn year. This one in particular, at the end of a marathon also celebrating my friend Crystal’s birthday in the little suburb I grew up, and saying goodbye to college standby The Library with some of Anne’s best friends (including the owner Cricket who was selling it), the two sets I caught here were exactly what I needed. Seeing Burleson with a second guitar player is always a rare treat, and his duets with Josh Hindmarsh over a sizzling rhythm section were some of the most beautiful Jim Hall-style melodic guitar fireworks I could have hoped for.
  • Ryan Truesdell’s Tribute to Bob Brookmeyer (01/08/2020, Jazz Standard, NYC) – I wrote about this at some length earlier but this tribute/memorial birthday party to one of the great arrangers (and teachers, my friend Mike still talks about Brookmeyer with massive fondness) summed up the kind of warm feeling of being at an honest-to-god hang. A feeling I’ve gotten more at NYC jazz clubs than anywhere else in the world, and especially at the (RIP) Jazz Standard, a club that always tried harder than it had to and delivered in spades.
From left: Cochemea at Secret Planet Showcase, Drom; Makaya Mccraven at Webster Hall; Millenial Territory Orchestra featuring Catherine Russell at Le Poisson Rouge
  • Winter Jazzfest (01/10/2020 and 01/11/2020, Various Venues, NYC) – For over a decade, WJF has lived up to its promise of giving out of town bookers (here for APAP) and adventurous locals a concentrated look at one of the greatest, most vibrant scenes in the world. It’s expanded to bring in Chicago and London and Brussels and hit all the major genres without feeling like it’s pandering or diluting. Catherine Russell raising her eyebrow at Steven Bernstein on the Le Poisson Rouge stage. Philip Cohran’s sons in Hypnotic Brass Ensemble tearing SOBs apart. Two old friends hugging each other in front of me during Makaya McCraven’s set and the musicians on stage in awe of their bandmates. A marathon for poet Steve Dalachinsky (one of my inspirations, reminding me how often I’d see him around shows). Every time I go, about every other year, I want to go every year.
  • Secret Planet Showcase (01/11/2020, Drom, NYC) – A punky, world music party in one of my favorite clubs (co-thrown by another of my favorite bars, Barbes). I always leave this sore and sweaty. This year was exceptional, with Daptone horn meister Cochemea leading a frenzied band of almost all percussionists, Sunny Jain from Red Baraat’s rippling spaghetti western tuba funk, the lilting melodies and beguiling rhythm of Alba and The Lions. Magic front to back.
Rock Potluck, Ace of Cups
  • Sarah Hennies and Mara Baldwin (01/12/2020, National Sawdust, NYC) – Sarah Hennies, long one of my favorite percussionists and composers, had a hell of a year with a couple of her finest records and what felt like new performances every time I turned around. This collaboration with Mara Baldwin, a violin quartet led by Anna Roberts-Gevalt, with sculptures inspired by Shaker furniture transported me and made a deep impression in a long day of magic that just kept getting better (I’d already seen the Molly Lieber and Eleanor Smith dance piece, the Rachel Harrison retro at the Whitney, and Simon Stone’s Medea with only a break for dinner at St Anselm, and that was all Sunday). 
  • Kris Davis’ Diatom Ribbons (01/12/2020, Sultan Room, NYC) – Pianist Kris Davis is a recurring presence on these lists. She gets better and better. This live production of one of my favorite records of last year was a kaleidoscopic explosion with one of the tightest, most surprising bands I’ve ever seen – including Val Jeanty on turntables and electronics, Terri Lyne Carrington on drums, Tony Malaby on tenor – in my first trip to the tight, sweaty back room of this Middle Eastern restaurant. I got to end this trip on the highest of high notes, with grooves and crackling melody dancing around my head all the way through a nightcap and a fitful sleep before the next morning’s flight.
  • Final Rock Potluck (01/18/2020, Ace of Cups) – Bobby Miller’s given me a lot of my favorite moments in Columbus music – 4th and 4th Fest, Megacity Music Marathon, the last few years of Ace of Cups booking – but maybe his most enduring impact on this town we both love is (with Shane Sweeney in the first couple years) the importing and localizing of the great Dallas tradition as the Rock Potluck. One night only conglomerations of musicians making sparks fly unlike what we’d expect from their own bands. I was still fighting fatigue- and the kind of wet, shitty day January specializes in –  but Anne and I dragged ourselves down for the last few sets of this…and Oh My God. There was so much burbling joy in this room. Bob Starker took a sax solo behind Marcy Mays on a take on the Fleetwood Mac-via-Judas Priest chestnut “The Green Manalishi,” one of the women from Snarls launching into Blink 182’s “All The Small Things” and watching new songs come out of almost thin air. We all left with some of the best memories of this tradition that will be sorely missed.
Raphael Saadiq, Old Forester’s Parishtown Hall
  • Chuck Prophet (01/28/2020, Natalie’s Grandview) – Any of us who love touring music have at least a couple of stories of artists who got pushed back more than once. Alec Wightman booked Prophet’s full band, The Mission Express, in the hopes we’d get our shit together and had to cancel twice as COVID raged. But we were lucky to get the rare solo acoustic version. Classics like “You Could Make a Doubter Out of Jesus” and “Would You Love Me”, newer songs like “High as Johnny Thunders” and “Bad Year For Rock and Roll” co-existed in a set that felt like a journey. And the memory that stuck most with me is the first time I heard the song that most deeply imprinted this year for me, off Prophet’s new record, still a few months out, “Willie and Nill.” A perfect example of the kind of empathic, hard luck stories Prophet writes better than anyone, “Nilli said, ‘I had a body once, Willie you have no idea. I could make a grown man bark all night – anytime, anywhere.’ Willie said, ‘I had a lion’s mane. Now I sing at the top of my lungs till the neighbors get their broomsticks out and the cops all sing along.’”
  • Physical Boys (02/15/2020, Kaiju, Louisville) – The centerpiece of this Valentine’s Day weekend trip to Louisville – that had me miss the Theatre roundtable awards back home – didn’t disappoint but there’s a special joy getting to see something completely new. One of my favorite music rooms, Kaiju, hosted a newish Louisville band Physical Boys who played a beautiful, intoxicating mix of Stiff Records’ sharp jangle and Afghan Whigs operatic sleaze.
  • Raphael Saadiq with Jamila Woods (02/17/2020, Old Forester’s Parishtown Hall, Louisville) – Raphael Saadiq followed his darkest, most personal album with a stripped-down, muscular tour that was unlike any other time I’d ever seen him. Great venue, killer sightlines, fantastic sound. My only regret was missing most of the excellent (from what I caught) Jamila Woods set.
Bria Skonberg and Byron Stripling with Columbus Jazz Orchestra, Southern Theater
  • Bearthoven (02/18/2020, Short North Stage) – The Johnstone Fund has brought more new music (contemporary classical, whatever you want to call it) in the last few years than any earlier time I remember, filling a gap I sorely missed in our musical scene. This return visit from NYC trio – piano, bass, drums – Bearthoven paired a phenomenal new Sarah Hennies (see above) composition with the bright propulsion of a Michael Gordon premiere.
  • Radioactivity with Vacation and Good Shade (02/19/2020, Ace of Cups) – It had been too long since I caught Radioactivity’s spiky brand of angular Texas punk and this three-band bill reaffirmed my faith in catchy, sweaty rock and roll.
  • Columbus Jazz Orchestra featuring Bria Skonberg (02/23/2020, Southern Theater) – I don’t keep up with the CJO as much as I should but this unseasonably sunny Sunday matinee was a shot of pure light in my veins with the group having a ball alongside guest singer and trumpeter Skonberg on great rep including Leonard Cohen’s “Dance Me to the End of Love” and Cole Porter’s “It’s All Right With Me.”
From left: Amy Lavere, Will Sexton (both at Natalie’s), Reigning Sound (Beachland Ballroom)
  • Reigning Sound with Venus Flytraps, Bloodshot Bill, and Alarm Clocks (03/06/2020, Beachland Ballroom, Cleveland) – The last trip out of town for some culture before this all went south (well, “as,” the weekend we were up there the first confirmed Ohio cases of COVID were diagnosed in Cleveland. A reunion tour of the original Reigning Sound lineup celebrating both my favorite rock club in the country and one of my favorite record labels, Norton, was everything I want in rock and roll.
  • Amy Lavere and Will Sexton (03/10/2020, Natalie’s Coal-Fired Pizza) – The last local show before everything went to hell  – one of my favorite songwriters, Lavere, backed by her longtime partner (whose songs are coming into their own on his terrific new record this year). Their tour was shortly canceled, but I was thankful for this last glimpse before locking down.

Online:

It was never like being in a room with sweaty strangers, but the proliferation of livestreams and creative pivoting made me feel a little more connected and a little less alone. Favorites of the couple hundred shows I checked in with.

For the first few months of lockdown, Living Music With Nadia Sirota was a balm. One of my favorite violists and a key locus in the new music scene hosted a delightful show once or twice a week, bringing three or more of her pals together – from Claire Chase to Missy Mazzoli, Shilpa Ray to Nathalie Joachim, Judd Greenstein to Ted Hearne – for a taste of what they were doing and a taste of camaraderie I needed even from a remove.

Goner Records simultaneously made me miss Memphis more than ever but gave me a dose of their freewheeling spirit and impeccable taste. Their online translation of Gonerfest was the best streaming version of a festival this year, simultaneously recognizing the international spirit that makes the festival so successful and making us feel like we’re surrounded by our best friends.

Another dose of Memphis came from a weekly shot of John Paul Keith, turning the same skills he uses to keep audiences spellbound as a fine singer, a great guitarist and songwriter, and a charming raconteur toward the camera instead of a barroom. Keith’s jukebox-like memory for songs and artists leads him through delightful anecdotes and a real friendship with people logging in week after week. There was more than one exhausting Monday where hearing JPK say “Hey, Lydia,” brightened me right up – and I don’t even know Lydia.

The north flip-side of those great JPK shows came with Jesse Malin’s Fine Art of Self Distancing, alternately playing solo and his band, from his bars Berlin and Bowery Electric. Malin also ran – with Diane Gentile and others – translations of his fun tribute shows (to Johnny Thunders and The Cramps). Beyond his solid songs, just like Sirota and Keith, he understood and demonstrated what we needed most was fellowship.

Locally, Natalie’s led the way in outdoor shows and now streams, keeping up with their high standards for sound and sight. One of my favorite rooms in town that I dearly hope makes it through this. Ace of Cups got a late start, but I felt very safe on their patio with the precautions they’ve taken and the first of their streams I caught sounded great. 

Jazz clubs in New York have already noted one fallen (Jazz Standard) and are pivoting with great alacrity. Small’s Live and Jazz Gallery are both crushing it with regular, killing performances and Jazz Gallery adds conversations, happy hours, and dance parties. The legendary Village Vanguard is also putting out great sounding, great looking shows by the kind of giants who’d normally be playing to packed houses.

There are still more great performances than I can fit in and more to love than I have time for. I just hope most of these rooms I love make it to the other side and some assistance is forthcoming.

Categories
"Hey, Fred!" live music

Things I’ve Been Digging – 10/12/2020

Bethany Thomas and band, screenshot taken from livestream and edited

Music: Bethany Thomas album release show, The Hideout

The Hideout is another of those clubs I mentioned in an earlier column trying to convert itself to a subscription model for subsistence in these keep-away times. And while I’m rooting for every single place (and person) I love, I might be rooting the hardest for the Hideout. 

It’s not the first club I went to in Chicago (that would be Schuba’s or The Empty Bottle) but it’s the place I’ve had the best batting average of life-altering shows, happy hours, and the place that most feels like Chicago to me. It’s not really a trip if I don’t darken that dance floor at least once.

That feeling flooded my bones with this week’s release party for Bethany Thomas’s triumphant rock record BT / She / Her. I learned about Thomas with Jon Langford’s Four Lost Souls project. Once I picked my jaw off the floor, I dug deeper and found she’s representative of so much I love about the intertwining, us-against-the-world, everyone-together scene in Chicago. She’s worked with so many people I’m a massive fan of including JC Brooks and Robbie Fulks and set their world-class theater scene on fire in classics like Into the Woods and A Moon for the Misbegotten.

This first taste of her work as a songwriter and bandleader cracked my rib cage open. With a tight five-piece band that could go anywhere she led them, spread out on the floor for appropriate distancing, she unfurled what would be hit after hit in a just world. The snarling, volcanic Cramps riffs underpinned the righteous declarations of “I’m Not Sorry and I’m Not Scared.” “De-Escalator” took a slow-burning, taunting waltz dripping in drama worthy of classic Marc Almond, “You can’t walk this line forever” burned right onto the back of my skull. 

“70th Long Song” dragged a castanets-keyed Spector-style stomp by its collar into the here and now. “Walls + Ceilings” builds from haunting Led Zeppelin/Fairport Convention-style rolling acoustic guitar into a crashing tidal wave. She plays with classic Thin Lizzy/Aerosmith guitar dueling and drum triplets on the infectious “Smoke” and haunting soul cries the expansive, cinematic “The Waves.” 

There wasn’t a weak tune here, maybe my favorite new artist of the year.

Kris Davis, screenshot taken from livestream and edited

Music: Thelonious Monk Birthday Celebration – Helen Sung, Kris Davis, and Joanne Brackeen at SFJAZZ.

SFJAZZ pulls another astonishing set out of the archive for their Fridays at Five series. This, the night before Monk’s birthday, from one of their recurring Thelonious Monk tributes a few birthdays ago, linked three exemplars of contemporary jazz piano for a night of deep fireworks: Helen Sung, Kris Davis, and Joanne Brackeen.

The direct collaborations – two pianos were on stage at all times – dazzled me most. Sung and Davis teamed up on an expansive, rich, and twisting “Blue Monk.” That tune was the first taste that got me hooked, the song where I knew I was listening to Monk, this was what everyone was talking about, and I fucking love it present tense. So I have high expectations. Similarly, high expectations played into this because Davis might be my favorite my-age-or-younger piano player, she’s blown me away for a lot of years in a lot of rooms as anyone who’s read a best-of of mine can attest. This soared right through the membrane of those hopes, as maybe my favorite version of the tune burst before my eyes.

The finale on “Straight No Chaser” with Brackeen at one piano and Sung and Davis four-handing the other, took that chestnut into the wild flights of invention that only happen when a great artist grapples with material they love on the same level. 

That love also bubbled out of a brilliant mosaic version of “52nd Street Theme” by Davis. For a heart-stopping “Rhythm-a-ning” by Brackeen, she reminded us of her first-hand experience with this history, “Did anyone ever see Thelonious Monk? He danced on the bandstand,” and, grinning, reminded the room of her playing the tune with Freddie Hubbard in the early ‘80s, “I thought I should play the melody this time,” instead of leaving it to a horn.

A phenomenal set of some of the finest compositions of the 20th century played as well as we’re likely to ever be lucky to hear. And a reminder to do what we can – and agitate the powers that be – to make sure temples to culture like this survive these times along with us.

Joanne Brackeen and Kris Davis, taken from livestream and edited