Tag: Marc Ribot

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Best Of live music

Best of 2024 – Shows

Stunning year of shows this time – in the usual suspect cities as well as a more than welcome return to Chicago. As you can probably expect, Dick’s Den featured most prominently in my show-going this year, with 26 as I write this (had to cut it off to give myself a break at year’s end, but I’ll probably be there twice more before the 31st) and Natalie’s coming in second at 20, followed by Cafe Bourbon Street at 14, and Rumba Cafe at 11.

As usual, everything listed is in chronological order, all photos are by me, and everything is in Columbus unless listed otherwise. Openers are listed if they added to my impression as I thought about this list.

The Barbarians Reunion, Radegast, January 2024
  • Tony Barba and Friends, Radegast Hall, NYC – A surfeit of credit card points allowing me to do it on the cheap made for a last-minute trip to Winter Jazz Fest in January 2024. I saw great shit there, as well as theater and exhibits, which I’m going to talk about in the Festivals portion of this wrap up… but the single thing that made me decide, “Fuck it, I’m going,” was a Facebook announcement of a reunion in the Brooklyn beer hall Radegast on Sunday night of one of my all-timers, a band of some of my dearest friends that helped define Brooklyn to me when I was first going there often in the early 2000s: the Tony Barba-led, hook-drenched The Barbarians. I rolled into this dark, cavernous room for two sets, wrapping the vintage Barbarians lineup’s mini-set of five stone-cold classics with older and newer material of Barba’s playing with other friends like Noah Jarrett, Conor Elmes, and Dave Treut that made me get off my stool and dance, that knocked me against the bar, that made me regret having a flight that left five hours after I stumbled out into the street, and that put a flag in the ground that said “This is going to be a good fucking year.”
  • Worthington Chamber Orchestra with Ucelli, Worthington United Methodist Church – I’m on record as thinking Mark Lomax is one of Columbus’s very finest composers and the more of his chamber music I hear the stronger that impression gets. I didn’t even know the Worthington Chamber Orchestra existed until I heard about this Sunday afternoon program themed around the underground railroad’s presence in Worthington (a good reminder in the wake of more recent white supremacist news around this suburb), and I was blown straight back in my seat. Lomax’s concerto used the cello quartet Ucelli at its spine to create a different form of cello concerto than I’d heard and, with the WCO under the baton of Antonie Clark, a wild, shifting, stormy narrative that opened up into these gorgeous sunlight textures. Anne and I talked about this for half an hour over dinner after.
  • Benefit for Dre Peace, Natalie’s Grandview – This show was a reminder of one of the things the Columbus music scene has always done very well: show up for each other. And a sterling reminder of the good work Natalie’s does providing stages to support this showing up. While the discussion from someone else with a kidney transplant at this benefit to get singer Dre Peace a new kidney was the single most moving moment of the evening, I was also gobsmacked by beautiful songs from Talisha Holmes, Ebri Yahloe, Starlit Ways and the Liquid Crystal Project. A Night that made my heart feel a little more full.
From Left: Talisha Homes, Ebri Yahloe, Starlit Ways; Natalie’s Grandview, February 2024
  • Nickel Creek and The Staves, Mershon Auditorium – Only got to the venue in time for a few songs from The Staves but their harmonies and barbed songwriting blew me away. Nickel Creek I was later to the party than other roots fans of my generation – I had to back into it through my love of Chris Thile and Sara Watkins’ later work – so this was the first time I’d seen them as a unit. Cataracts burned off my eyes – this was one of the best, most energetic live bands of any genre I’d ever seen: the beautiful tension and floating quality of encore-closer “Holding Pattern,” where Thile’s high-and-sweet tenor took on a flood of shadows as he sang, “Hold me, darling, while the world burns down,” is still stuck in my throat nine months later.
  • The Sleeveens with Goblin Smut and the Whiteouts, Cafe Bourbon Street – Irish-born Stef Murphy’s Tennessee-based supergroup (featuring members of Sweet Knives and Cheap Time) The Sleeveens blew my mind with catchy, crunchy riffs and grooves that recalled my favorite parts of the Stiff records catalog without feeling like just a throwback. And reminded me of the joyous, snotty power of longtime friends/faves The Whiteouts while turning me onto jubilant Goblin Smut. One of my most satisfying nights of rock and roll all year.
  • Hurray for the Riff Raff with NNAMDI, Skully’s Music Diner – I’ve been a fan of Hurray for the Riff Raff for a while – my fandom solidified with a stunning Twangfest set in 2016 followed by their masterpiece The Navigator (my favorite record of theirs until this year’s record of the year for me, The Past Is Still Alive). This set – with a killer opener from avant-R&B chameleon NNAMDI who also held down the bass chair in Hurray for the Riff Raff – did a couple of things I thought were almost impossible at the same time: doing a set of the entire new record that had come out in the last week or so, with one older tune included, for an artist with such an extensive and deep catalog, and having the crowd eat it up; and a set I didn’t move once during. Not to get another beer, not to talk to someone, not to use the restroom. The rare set that didn’t provoke any restlessness. The moment on “Snakeplant,” hearing a full room cheer as Alynda Segarra sang, “There’s a war on the people, what don’t you understand,” was as powerful a reminder I got of the connection between performer and audience as I had all year. Maybe as powerful as I’ve ever had.
Hurray for the Riff Raff, Skullys, March, 2024
  • Jeff Parker and the New Breed, Wexner Center for the Arts – An hour-plus of music whose seamless transitions and taste for ambience and texture – with an astonishing band including Josh Johnson on sax and keys, Paul Bryan on bass and synth bass, and Jeremy Cunningham on drums and sampler, Parker reaffirmed why he’s one of the great guitarists, composers, and bandleaders of my lifetimes, doing favorites of mine like “Executive Life,” the Steve Reich funk of “Max Brown,” and even dipping into forbears for that kind of elastic, electric group dialogue with a sterling read on Weather Report’s “River People.”
  • Seventh Son Anniversary, Seventh Son Brewery – Another reminder of the beauty of my community. Seventh Son – co-owner Jen has been a friend since I was 20 – open their doors and hearts to a lot of community organizations, artists, projects. Their anniversary this year coincided with Record Store Day and assembled some of my favorite people and acts in this town – including probably my favorite DJ duo The Coming Home, Natural Sway, my first time seeing Big Fat Head, and rare, welcome performances from the full trio version of Scrawl and Envelope that had a crowd of at least 1/3 people I wholeheartedly love singing along with me.
  • Scott Miller and Robbie Fulks, Thunderbird Cafe, Pittsburgh – I’ve been lucky to see these two of my favorite songwriters – and two of my gateway drugs to alt.country (whatever that is) – semi-often in the last few years, but this shared bill was tempting enough to schedule a trip to Pittsburgh around an art exhibit Anne wanted to see to overlap their date. And it didn’t disappoint – both singers, solo acoustic, have what feels like an infinite grasp on the history of American music and a wide, deep catalog to draw from. My heart vibrated like it was going to pound out of my chest from the first notes of Miller’s teenage looking-back-rallying-cry “Freedom is a Stranger” to the last downbeat of their shared Roger Miller encore.
Jeff Parker and the New Breed, Wexner Center, March 2024
  • Chicano Batman with Lido Pimienta, The Bluestone – I was blown away when I first saw LA R&B/rock powerhouse Chicano Batman at A&R bar back in 2017 and they’ve only grown in power – intense grooves and sweet harmonies, a kaleidoscopic sense of melody and an encyclopedic understanding of rhythm made a set I couldn’t stop dancing during. Lido Pimienta accompanied by an astonishing percussionist blew me away with poison-tipped songs and a voice that made my spine straighen.
  • Shannon and the Clams with Tropo Magica, Ace of Cups – Long one of the best live bands in the world, Shannon and the Clams brought their doo-wop tinged soul-rock back to Ace to promote their best, most painfully textured record yet, The Moon is in the Wrong Place, for a night of pure but never monochromatic beauty and catharsis. And they brought Tropo Magica who – back when they were still called Thee Commons as a four piece – Anne and I rolled the dice on at Ace almost a decade ago not knowing anything and walked away with a new favorite band, destroyed. An opening set I couldn’t imagine anyone else following, but, of course, Shannon Shaw, Hunx, and the rest of her band did with grace; making transmuting personal tragedy and quieter moments into anthems that feed the audience’s souls seem easy.
  • Contrary Motion, Urban Arts Space – More of this, please. A stellar chamber music program in honor of Pride Month spanning the spectrum from legends like Pauline Oliveros and Julius Eastman to the first great local contemporary composer I ever heard, Rocco DiPietro (who also worked with and wrote a great book on Eastman), to a striking new piece from co-director (with Sam Johnson) Noah Demland.
Chicano Batman, The Bluestone, May 2024
  • Megan Palmer and the Mezzanines, Rambling House – One of Columbus’s finest exports, Megan Palmer, has been setting the world on fire in Nashville for a while but we always benefit when she comes back through town. This collaboration with Dave Vaubel (The Randys) and Max Button’s delightful Western Swing/countrypolitan covers band The Mezzanines, augmented by the firepower of guitarist Brett Burleson gave fascinating rhythmic textures I wasn’t used to on Palmer songs I’ve been singing along to for years – a samba here, a rolling rockabilly riff there – and she’s always had good bands. Her adding rich violin textures to half of the Mezzanines repertoire was icing on the cake.
  • The Mavericks with Nicole Atkins, Rock the Ruins, Indianapolis – This double bill – finally getting to see the Nicole Atkins lineup with great Memphis guitarist/songwriter John Paul Keith on leads – in Indianapolis, a city Anne and I already love, was a no brainier. A beautiful summer night, The Mavericks changing up the set list in interesting ways – including frontman Raul Malo smiling more than I’d ever seen and finding the perfect balance between the dance party and the after party – and Nicole Atkins and band making those sometimes very intimate songs into anthems as big as the sky.
Nicole Atkins and Raul Malo, Indianapolis, August 2024
  • Meshell Ndegeocello, Wexner Center for the Arts – Meshell Ndegeocello has been on an artistic hot streak lately – following a masterpiece in a career strewn with masterpieces, Omnichord Real Book with an expansive, as-overflowing-with-ideas-as-its-subject tribute to James Baldwin No More Water – bringing the latter live to the Mershon stage under Wex auspices was breathtaking. Going to church in the best ways. The two shows from the Wex on here were – finally, after a while – just scratching the surface; the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Nathalie Joachim, and Tyshawn Sorey were all best-of-year contenders. It was just a stacked year.
  • Steve Dawson and Diane Christiansen, Hogan House – This was a reminder how good Fall is – Anne and I had to leave one of our favorite events, Art of the Cocktail, at the CMA early to make this; we’d also given up tickets for one of my favorite current jazz singers, Cecile McLorin Salvant, at the Wex because we’d bought those when Dawson and Christiansen were announced; all the same night. It’s also a tribute to Hogan House – a venue run by PJ and Abbie Hogan that brings these celebrations of the power of song to our town on a regular basis and constantly blows me away with its welcoming vibe, its remarkably good sound, and the friendliness and charm of its owners I’m lucky enough to call friends. Even with all that going on, within the first few notes of a set that reached back to Dolly Varden classics and leaned heavily on Dawson’s last two stellar records, Time to Let Some Light In and Ghosts, Anne and I both knew there was nowhere we’d rather be, and posted up at a bar halfway home to talk mostly about this set for an hour.
Meshelle Ndegeocello, Wexner Center, September 2024
  • Kris Davis Trio, Columbus Museum of Arts – A piano player who’s given me many of my favorite records and shows over the years making the trio record that stood above for me in a year of astonishing trio records, with one of the finest rhythm sections working, Robert Hurst and Johnathan Blake, hitting the highest heights in that CMA auditorium.
  • Davila 666 with The Ferals, Ladrones, and Las Nubes, Rumba Cafe – The same night as the Kris Davis Trio (what’d I tell you about fall?) brought back one of my all-time live rock backs, Puerto Rico’s Davila 666 for the first time in five years and they tore the roof off Rumba, partying like 2 am while the sun was still out and leading a stacked bill that introduced me to one of my favorite newish bands, Ladrones.
Ladrones, Rumba Cafe, October 2024
  • Dave Alvin and Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Natalie’s Grandview- I’ve been seeing Dave Alvin shows presented by Alec Wightman’s essential Zeppelin Productions since 2000; Wightman also promoted the first time I ever got to see another of my songwriter heroes, Jimmie Dale Gilmore. This appearance by those two fronting Alvin’s crack Guilty Ones band (Chris Miller, Lisa Pankratz, Brad Fordham) was a clinic in the power of songs – songs they grew up with in a lifetime of music fandom, songs that helped make their names like Alvin’s “Marie Marie” and Gilmore’s “Dallas,” songs by their friends (a jaw-dropping reggae take on a Butch Hancock song), and an example of how to balance an unflinching eye with belief things can get better and people can be better.
  • Jason Moran and the Bandwagon, Village Vanguard, NYC – One of my dream gigs for a long time has been to see Jason Moran and the Bandwagon in their standing Village Vanguard residency – a group that turned my head around when they first came to the Wexner Center under the auspices of Chuck Helm and who are still blowing me away in a variety of contexts – and luckily the last New York trip of the year allowed for just that. The final set of the week was dedicated to Duke Ellington with a side trip to songs he’d written for multi-media collaborations with Joan Jonas (the great artist was in attendance) and the bone-deep love of that music, the keen, active listening and responding between Moran, Tarus Mateen, and Nasheet Waits, and the ability to make it all alive was on full display.
  • Jesse Malin and Friends, Beacon Theatre, NYC – The reason we made that final New York trip and the icon of a saying Anne brings out regularly, “You can’t give yourself away.” Malin has thrown benefits, donated, opened the doors of the many bars he co-owns, for every benefit, every friend of his who was in need – and he’s friends with everyone in the music scene – and so it was only appropriate they all returned the favor. Even those of us who have but a couple specific memories flooded the Beacon Theatre with the kind of love I’ve talked about in this list – hell, in almost all of these lists – written large and in neon. I saw a few things after this – some great – but Malin and his band roaring through “Meet Me at the End of the World” and “Turn Up the Mains,” The Hold Steady exploding “Deathstar,” and Lucinda Williams doing their co-write “New York Comeback” are still echoing in my head.
Jesse Malin and Friends, Beacon Theatre, December 2024

Favorite Festival Sets:

Mendoza Hoff Revels in the bar mirror at Union Pool, NYC, January 2024
  • Winter Jazz Fest, NYC
    • Kaila Vandever, Zürcher Gallery
    • Marc Ribot and Mary Halvorson, Bowery Ballroom
    • Burnt Sugar with Vernon Reid, Brooklyn Bowl
    • Mendoza Hoff Revels, Union Pool
    • A Night at the East, Crown Hill Theatre
Shabaka, Bijou Theatre, Knoxville, March 2024
  • Big Ears Festival, Knoxville
    • Mary Halvorson’s Amaryllis, Tennesee Theatre
    • Jlin, The Point
    • Jason Moran and the Harlem Hellfighters, Knoxville Civic Auditorium
    • Chocolate Genius Inc, Bijou Theatre
    • Christian McBride and Brad Mehldau, Tennessee Theatre
    • Sexmob, The Standard
    • Charlie Dark MBE, Jackson Terminal
    • Shabaka, Bijou Theatre
    • Davone Tines and the Truth, Tennessee Theatre
    • Henry Threadgill/Vijay Iyer/Dafnis Prieto, Tennesee Theatre
Talisha Holmes, Columbus Arts Fest, June 2024
  • Columbus Arts Fest
    • Talisha Holmes
    • Soulutions Band
    • Trek Manifest and the Aye-1 Band
Faheem Najieb Quintet, Jazz and Ribs, July 2024
  • Columbus Jazz and Ribs Festival
    • Faheem Najieb Quintet
    • Milton Ruffin Quintet
    • Clave Sonic
Etran de L’air, Railgarten, Memphis, September 2024
  • GonerFest, Railgarten, Memphis
    • Pull Chains
    • RMFC
    • So What with Derv Gordon
    • Etran de L’air
    • Water Damage
Vernon Reid Conducting Burnt Sugar, Brooklyn Bowl, NYC, January 2024
Categories
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.
Categories
Best Of Playlist record reviews

Best of 2021 Playlist – Spaces

The other half of things I found and loved over the course of this year. These are the tunes that stabbed me in the heart or colored the world in a different way. The songs/spaces distinction is obviously porous and often ambiguous, but in general, I think of stuff that hits this list as landscapes or sculptures, atmospheres, not as much telling a linear story. Frequently instrumental. But there’s probably 20% if you asked me in a week, I’d put it on the other list.  Continue reading for my rambling notes.

Bandcamp links where available, courtesy of the Hype Machine’s Merch Table feature: https://hypem.com/merch-table/6z8411eDN5Dg7ALX8XtFou

Continue reading “Best of 2021 Playlist – Spaces”
Categories
Best Of live music

2021 Best Of – Live Music

Reigning Sound, Gonerfest

Seeing music in (usually small) rooms with like-minded people has – for my adult life and a few years before – been the art form I’ve thrown myself into with the most gusto, where I’ve met the largest groups of my dearest friends, and the most constant source of picking me up and putting me back together when I’ve been down. 

So, the return to that energy, that joy, that magic – even in modified forms, with fewer artists back on the road – was a balm and a beachhead against so much despair this year. It’s unsurprising of the 75ish nights I found myself in a room soaking up some sounds, Dick’s Den saw me the most often at 13 times as of last night.  

Dick’s is also where I found myself, against a wall, talking to old friend and drummer Pauly Abbott, about that surge of energy from people I was used to seeing at shows then didn’t see at all when things switched to live streaming. I am eternally grateful for the close friends I’d see on one of our lawns or a coffeeshop patio, but my extroverted nature craved those next concentric circles of people. Friends I have real love for and who add vital color to my life even if our friendships are more situational in nature. Thank you all, whether you read this or not. 

Jerry Wolf, The Top Steakhouse

That’s also not to overlook the streams that kept giving me a little taste of music happening, music unwilling to be stopped. It was a little bittersweet when the regular streaming series of John Paul Keith and Jesse Malin came to an end, I’m glad ongoing series from Goner Records in Memphis and SFJAZZ in San Francisco persist, and I hope we’ll find a way to keep making these available for people who can’t get to a show as easily. 

I don’t know what happens next, but I’m profoundly, jubilantly grateful for everything listed below, and far more shows than this best-of-the-best 20. Everything is in chronological order. In Columbus unless otherwise specified. All photographs taken (with varying degrees of ineptitude) by me. 

The Veldt, Pour House, Raleigh
  • Jerry Wolf, The Top Steakhouse, 04/24/2021 (and other nights) – The first indoor dining Anne and I treated ourselves to was classic steakhouse and cocktail bar The Top. One of the signature pleasures of this gently-updated since the ‘50s room is the curved piano bar in the corner, where we always try to either start or end up with one of their perfect martinis or manhattans; three of those nights we were lucky enough to have Columbus jazz and cabaret legend Jerry Wolf rain down pure, icepick-in-the-heart beauty. An encyclopedic array of songs – I’d ask for “Try to Remember” for Anne or her mom and he’d expand it into a bouquet of songs from The Fantasticks; I’d mention Cole Porter and for the next ten minutes, he’d build intricate harmonic bridges from “Just One of Those Things” through “Don’t Fence Me In” onward to “Night and Day.” And he’d take requests from folks with less interest in standards than I have – one night we heard a surprisingly spry, sparkling “Hotel California” waft over the tables – but just getting to appreciate one of the masters of this art, of this love, of the middle 20th century American song, is something I treasured every minute of and anyone in Columbus should avail themselves of at least once. 
  • Reigning Sound, Harbor Town Amphitheater, 06/05/2021, and Railgarten (Gonerfest), both Memphis, 09/24/2021 – We already had plans for a beach house recharge trip with dear friends the following week of June but the confluence of surprisingly cheap flights and the opportunity to make the last band we saw out of town – in Cleveland the same weekend the first cases of COVID were identified in Ohio – the first band we saw out of town, in their hometown of Memphis, for just one additional vacation day was too tempting to pass up. Still cautiously placed in an outdoor amphitheater we’d never visited on our trips to town, Anne and I were treated to a dazzling set from an expanded Reigning Sound – the classic four-piece lineup of Greg Cartwright on guitar and vocals, Jeremy Scott on bass and harmonies, Greg Roberson on drums and percussion, Alex Greene on organ and guitar, augmented by Graham Winchester on drums and percussion, John Whittemore on various guitars and pedal steel, cellist Elen Wroten, violinist Krista Wroten, and Cartwright’s Parting Gifts partner Coco Hames on additional vocals – hitting most of their joyous, sun-drenched 2021 release A Little More Time With Reigning Sound – and more classics than I had the right to expect, in interesting arrangements. When we saw them again three months later – with that same lineup, but with Marcella Simien in place of Hames – there was the added magic of Gonerfest sprinkled over everything, gorgeous weather, and a dancing crowd, but I still remember the sigh of relief on that rainy June afternoon. 
  • The Veldt, Pour House, Raleigh, 06/12/2021 – We bookended that trip with an overnight in Raleigh. The best part of that stop was seeing old friend and mentor Rich Dansky on his home turf for the first time in years, but I also found time to be stunned by a set from reunited shoegaze-soul band The Veldt at the terrific venue/record store combo Pour House. A sticky afternoon and songs I didn’t know that hit everything I want in a band. Pure, rejuvenating magic. 
Sylvia Cuenca Quintet, Smalls, NYC
  • Brett Burleson Quartet, Dick’s Den, 07/02/2021 – Brett’s not only a friend but a pillar of the jazz scene here in town I love so much. This was one of the first trips back to Dick’s, along with a Rhinestone Quartet show a couple weeks earlier Brett also played in, where everything felt right. A whirlwind of love: hugging old friends, watching no-bullshit jazz played so directly and passionately it moved crowds to press against the stage and throw each other around the dance floor. Around midnight, the throbbing rhythm section of Will Strickler on bass and Antoine Fatout on drums locked into Monk’s “Rhythm-a-ning” and Brett’s guitar and Eddie Bayard’s tenor took us into the eye of a delirious hurricane. Every one of the other six or seven times I’ve seen these gentlemen on a stage has given me a few of those moments, and this reminder sank right into my bones. 
  • Sylvia Cuenca Quintet, Smalls, NYC, 07/16/2021 – Much as I missed that feeling of jazz in a room with people who appreciate the magic of those moments being captured, the beauty of how fleeting it is, I have a special affection for it in New York City, the cradle of most of the jazz I’ve grown up loving. So, it’s no surprise not only would Anne and I make New York one of our first stops after being vaccinated, but jazz would be a key component of that return. This trip to Smalls, always a firecracker of a time, featured a riveting hard bop set from drummer Sylvia Cuenca leading a quintet of rhythm section partners Dave Kikoski on piano and Essiet Essiet on bass behind a smoldering frontline of Craig Handy and Freddie Hendrix. 
  • Kim Richey, Natalie’s Grandview, 07/30/2021 – Natalie’s usually features heavily in this list and 2021 is no exception – with one of the roughest hands dealt a venue (not that it’s ever a competition), Natalie and Charlie Jackson had just opened their larger Grandview location and they were working out the kinks when everything shut down. Kim Richey was one of the many acts I hadn’t seen since Little Brothers closed, and this set commemorating the belated 20th anniversary of the record that turned me onto her and the first tour of hers I saw, Glimmer, summed up everything I keep going to singer-songwriter shows for. Accompanied by a lead guitarist – I wrote the name as “Sam” but didn’t catch the last name – she hit most of that record, along with stories about some of her co-writers like frequent Natalie’s visitor Chuck Prophet and some other stone-cold favorites of mine. Watching her lean into “Chase Wild Horses,” curling those lines like a beckoning, “I’m all done running from the way I was before. Things I’ve done that I ain’t proud of, I can’t even stand the sound of; I still hear them knocking at my door,” pinballed through my body as I walked down King Avenue into the night. 
Tony Monaco Quartet, Woodlands Tavern
  • Huntertones, Natalie’s Grandview, 08/07/2021 – Columbus’s current most prominent local-kids-made-good story, jazz-jam band the Huntertones have been impressing me since they were college students here under the name the Dan White Sextet, and it’s a pleasure to not only see them setting New York and the wider jam scene on fire but also watch their music get more expansive and more in tune with who they are and who they want to be. This homecoming show – I caught the afternoon of their three gigs – was a delightful callback and a reminder of the joy of everyone being together, underlined by an impassioned speech from reeds player White between songs about the energy exchange between band and audience. The touching love everyone on stage had for everyone else lit that room up like a paper lantern, burning through my hangover and making my heart pump a little harder to tunes like “Burns” with its sun-dappled pop-funk textures mingling with second line crunch; a classic quiet storm number turning into a storm of robot bees with angular improvisation; and a gnarled, righteously boozy Chris Ott trombone solo with White and Jon Lampley throwing harmonies off it that sounded like a war cry for the party just around the corner. 
  • The Three Speeds, Vanderelli Room/Paisha, Secret Studio; 08/14/2021 – Coming out of the last lockdown, a little shell-shocked, I was heartened to see venues springing up and working together. One of my favorite examples of that synchronicity was Franklinton art gallery pillar, Vanderelli Room, creating an outdoor stage for a fun, raucous concert series, and then coordinating it with neighbors, and more recent Franklinton residents, Secret Studio, so the two complimented each other instead of competing. That led to one of my favorite days of the summer. First, Columbus rock lifers The Three Speeds, fronted by guitarist/singer Matt Wyatt, with his brother Chris on second guitar and harmonies, and one of my favorite rock rhythm sections (as people and as players) Gene Brodeur and Eddie Blau, churned through a set of raw, catchy-nasty classic punk rock. Over at Secret Studio, Paisha Thomas, performing and recording as Paisha, had one of those sets where everything just clicked for me. She’s long been one of my favorite voices in Columbus, but I didn’t vibe with the songs as much as the voice and the charisma, this time everything fired at the same level. A tight sympathetic band of local legends – Stan Smith on guitar, Steve Perakis on bass, Danny Aguiar on drums – helped, but it was entirely Paisha’s show. When I see a singer do one of my all-time, 20th century favorite songs, Percy Mayfield’s “Please Send Me Someone to Love,” so well it at once becomes the benchmark I set that song against, and I’m still raving about their own songs later that night, it’s a special, special show. 
  • Tony Monaco Quartet, Woodlands Tavern, 08/14/2021 and other dates – Tony Monaco’s one of the great ambassadors of the grooving Columbus B-3 tradition (with Bobby Floyd being the other). Through playing with nationally-renowned greats like Joey DeFrancesco, regular touring of Japan, and building bridges to younger bands and audiences through years of residencies at non-jazz venues. He was one of the first acts I saw after getting vaccinated, in a trio with drummer Tony McClung and saxophone maestro Eddie Bayard, and I saw him as recently as this past weekend, always delivering, reading the crowd and tweaking his approach to the audience without pandering and changing the core of who he is. The packed Saturday night dancefloor in one of our best sounding clubs, as pal John Turck (also a keyboardist and bandleader) said, “I knew he’d be funky, you couldn’t not here.” With longstanding foils Derek DiCenzo on guitar, Randy Mather on tenor, and Louis Tsamous on drums. Digging into the repertoire of B-3 classics like Jimmy Smith and mingling them with floor-shakers like an extended, shimmering read on Stevie Wonder’s “Sir Duke” and a griding, artfully chopped take on the Booker T and the MGs classic “Green Onions.” I barely stopped moving for two sets. 
Algiers, Rumba Cafe
  • John Paul Keith, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Cleveland, 08/27/2021 – One of my favorite songwriters I completely owe Anne for turning me onto. We’ve bemoaned for years Memphis staple John Paul Keith hadn’t played Ohio since we’ve been fans, so as soon as they announced he’d be playing the outdoor pavilion of the Rock Hall in one of our favorite cities, touring to promote his best album yet, Rhythm of the City, it felt like a no-brainer. Those songs with a tight four-piece band of bass, drums, and keys, sparkled in the summer night air. 
  • Big Sandy and the Fly-Rite Boys, Natalie’s Grandview, 09/08/2021 – One of my favorite voices of all time, seeing Big Sandy after a few years away (though his appearances on Stellar Shows’ livestreams, often introducing video clips, were a pandemic delight) was special. My day job friend and mentor, Cindy Jackson, was retiring and doing a Columbus victory lap; CJ’s an even bigger roots rock fiend than I am, so this show lining up with her appearance felt like serendipity. Anne and I took her out to this show, and she loved it as expected – that voice in duet with Ashley Kingman’s guitar (with thanks to longtime pal Jeff Passifume for the amps in the backline) and the bouncing, supple rhythm section of Kevin Stewart’s singing bass and sweet harmonies and Frankie Hernandez’s classic big beat, undiminished by some time away. Everything brought a heaping dose of fire and gratitude like watching a prize fighter bound off the mat again and again, through a series of swinging classics, leaving some space for the dark ballads he doesn’t get enough credit for, with a centerpiece of two Freddie Fender covers that had me crying. Throughout this list, always an exercise in memory and gratitude for me, I’m reminded again that the magic is being in a room with people, sharing all of this with people you love. 
  • Algiers with Zen Mother, Rumba Café, 09/17/2021 – Another delayed show I was on the second it was rescheduled. The last time I saw Algiers, with a substitute bass player, at Big Ears, is still one of the best rock shows I’ve ever seen and this trip to Rumba lived up to those nostalgic expectations. Songs like “There Is No Year” and “Walk Like a Panther” shifted and roared, textures sliced through the air, leaving a lingering impression before being subsumed in waves of pummeling sound. The magpie nature of all good rock and roll, focused like a laser beam. Attention also should be paid to Zen Mother, the power trio that merged the powerful crunch of doom metal with the delicate intimacy of the Cure; I walked in knowing nothing about the opener and walked out singing their praises to everyone. 
Mark Lomax Trio, Short North Stage
  • John Luther Adams’ “Inuksuit”, VIVO Music Festival, Schiller Park, 09/18/2021 – Over the last few years, a couple organizations have done crucial work to fill in one of the few genre gaps I groused about in Columbus for a while: new music/contemporary classical. One is the Johnstone Fund, who show up right after, and the other is the VIVO festival. I was only able to hit one VIVO offering this year, but it summed up so much of what I love about Columbus. Adams’ “Inuksuit” composition, played throughout Schiller Park, around the stage where Actors’ Theatre stages their plays, the pond, wandering through areas close and far, with good friends I’d barely seen since the lockdown started, on a sunny day, and soaking in these harmonies and revealed textures I missed my first trip through this expansive composition at IJAMS as part of Big Ears. 
  • Mark Lomax Trio with Scott Woods, Short North Stage, 09/21/2021 – One of my favorite composers, Mark Lomax II, had touring cut short on his magnum opus The 400 (which I’ve raved about repeatedly here) but never one to be dormant for long, he reintroduced one of my favorite series, The Johnstone Fund For New Music at Short North Stage, with a brand new composition played by his longstanding trio of Dean Hulett on bass and Eddie Bayard on tenor and words from longtime collaborator Scott Woods. “In Search of a City” was exactly the kind of no-easy-answers reckoning we need, especially in a city that too-often prizes growth at the expense of people. 
Drive By Truckers, Newport Music Hall
  • Drive By Truckers, Newport, 10/14/2021 – For over 20 years, DBT have exemplified that sense of communal, going-to-church catharsis I’ve always been drawn to in a rock show. When Anne and I first met and were comparing shows we’ve both been at, they were one of the first names to arise. While my attention drifted for a few years, they won me back in full effect with their records since American Band. This 27-song, sweat-drenched classic rock and soul revue hit every era of their career, and reaffirmed the joy of being back with other people, of shouting along even when the songs are confronting an ugly truth. Patterson Hood, arms outstretched, introducing “Let There Be Rock” as “This is a song about how rock and roll saved my life, and every word of it is true,” always feels like a call to prayer and I really, really needed it this time. 
  • Arooj Aftab and the Vulture Prince Ensemble, Wexner Center, 10/16/2021 – I raved about Arooj Aftab’s new record Vulture Prince here a couple times, and in a preview of this show I wrote for Pencilstorm, and it’s still a piece of surprising, intoxicating beauty and mystery that’s still revealing secrets months after my first hearing. I confess I was a little disappointed when I saw the band in question was just Aftab and the great Gyan Riley on guitar, but within a few minutes any qualms or worries I’d think something was missing. This was an hour of hypnotic rapture I’m already hungry to see again (at Big Ears unless something goes wrong).
Chuck Prophet and the Mission Express, Natalie’s Grandview
  • Chuck Prophet and the Mission Express, Natalie’s Grandview, 10/21/2021 – My and Anne’s last trip to Natalie’s Grandview before lockdown was a solo Chuck Prophet show where he debuted a handful of songs from his then-forthcoming The Land That Time Forgot and teased a full-band return in the Spring. That show got delayed a few times, but he finally made good in October to a crowd that was more than ready for it. That sense of gratitude I mention a few times over the course of this list is always present in Prophet’s work, especially live, and it was overflowing this time. The band stretching some of the songs into extended guitar and keys showcases with barely a hint of wanking; at other times, stripping it down to the simplest of melodies that would break your heart and turns of phrase that could remind you how beautiful and fucked up life is. A masterclass in how much there still is in the form of a five-piece band turned up and tuned in. 
  • Hayes Carll, Skully’s, 11/11/2021 – One of my favorite songwriters since seeing at Twangfest 13 or 14 years ago but Anne and I hadn’t caught Carll since 2011 in Cleveland (I kind of got off the bus with Lovers and Leavers but I’ve come back around). All of that charm and empathy, and diamond-hard and pretty hooks, were in abundance at this Skully’s show where everything good about the venue (the sightlines, the sound) was in fine fetter and everything not so good (the bar service, the tendency to sell the entire capacity of the building instead of just the room with the stage) was ameliorated or kept at bay. Carll’s new songs, including “Nice Things” and “You Get It All” stood up well against classics like “KMAG YOYO” and “Drunken Poet’s Dream.” That conversational sway and disarming smile left me grinning like an idiot and talking about it with Anne and others hours, even days later. 
  • Marc Ribot, Wexner Center, 11/14/2021 – My favorite guitar player, and the subject of not only one of my favorite interviews but one people kept coming up and talking to me about, did not disappoint in a magical solo show at the Wexner’s Mershon Auditorium. Digging deep into standards – “Someone to Watch Over Me”, “Stella by Starlight” – and originals like “Maple Leaf Rage,” stitched together into one continuum of song. 
  • The Randys, Dick’s Den, 12/11/2021 and other dates – If you can’t find some joy in the Randys, I question your capacity to find it anywhere. With a handful of originals sprinkled in, their perfectly chosen mix of classic pop, honky-tonk, and R&B covers, sung beautifully and played with the gleeful abandon of spinning tops and the dazzling precision of vintage clockwork by original four members Brian Jones, Jon Beard, Canaan Faulkner, and David Vaubel, gained a little chaos-theory looseness when they added Derek Dicenzo without sacrificing an ounce of the beauty that keeps us all coming. One of the first shows Anne and I caught was two sets of them playing outdoors to benefit my neighborhood nonprofit the Clintonville Resource Center, one of the last shows I saw before writing this was their annual Christmas show, and they’ve never let me down, never played a gig I fail to see at least one old friend I was overjoyed to dance with. 
The Randys, Dick’s Den

Categories
Playlist record reviews

Monthly Playlist – June 2021

As spring rounded its bend toward summer, Anne and I took our first extended vacation since prior to the pandemic and it was a good mix of doing things, seeing both strangers and friends, and chilling the hell out. Saw phenomenal sets of Reigning Sound, Chuck Mead, and The Veldt. I think that influenced this month’s selections – reacquainting myself with the rhythm of airports, planes, favorite roads and coffee shops in beloved cities but also the surprising kind of slowed-down vacation where my usual Friday’s sort through new records was done with coffee on the porch of a beach house I’d never done before. 

Columbus is returning to life and most of what has my number so far has been jazz – Randy Mather leading the Joe Diamond tribute act Rhinestone Quartet getting a packed dancefloor to the hard bop anthem “The Sidewinder” was magic. Brett Burleson leading another quartet with the great Eddie Bayard on tenor moving from one of his slow-burn ballad originals into an eye-of-the hurricane stomping take on Monk’s “Rhythm-a-ning” almost knocked me out of my chair. 

Also, as you can probably tell from the full-to-bulging nature of this list, a bounty of music to love. Continue reading for notes on the songs.

Bandcamp links courtesy of the Hype Machine’s Merch Table feature: https://hypem.com/merch-table/0o869LnrgxOKiD4yyxpvqi

Continue reading “Monthly Playlist – June 2021”
Categories
Best Of live music

Best of 2018 – Live Music

“Hear a song from a band that saves you”
-Ashley McBryde, “A Little Dive Bar in Dahlonega”

I understand the intrinsic dangers of ranking subjective art but I grew up loving this kind of list and I occasionally enjoy reading back over them. I saw over 100 shows this year and another 20 could have easily made this. I still found most of my nourishment in little rooms – and a big one or two – hearing something loud blast my face or something so delicate it made me shut my damn mouth and lean in. Everything is in Columbus unless stated otherwise.

Shows:

Cory Henry and the Funk Apostles, Skully’s
  1. Cory Henry and The Funk Apostles (Le Trianon, Paris, 05/02/2018) -Photo is from the Columbus show at Skully’s which was also damn good and where I got much closer to the action. I was already a fan, of Snarky Puppy and Henry’s gospel-tinted solo work and familiar with his ability to hold an intimate crowd rapt. But this still felt revelatory. Not only has Henry broken through to making some of the richest funk music around, colored by classic Stevie Wonder and Willie Mitchell productions without being a throwback,. As I wrote for JazzColumbus, “No one stopped moving for the entire 90 minutes they were on stage. Like every great bandleader, Henry believed in himself and his team enough to let every member shine. The unit stretched songs and vamps out into uncharted territory without falling into slack jam-band clichés. Every tune walked the line and exploited that sweet tension in coming together and falling apart, dark-hearted duende wrapped in a glowing love for the world.”
  2. Mourning a [BLK]Star (The Summit, 07/27/18) – I ended a long week of celebration, centered on A’s 50th birthday, with a solo trip into the night climaxing with one of the most beautiful sets I’ve ever seen. Cleveland’s Afrofuturist soul band Mourning a [BLK]Star hit their stride this year with two spectacular records and the set I saw epitomized a band leaning into their power with intense focus. Layered, surprising harmonies, thick grooves, edge-of-a-switchblade horn charts, all in the service of truth that cracked my chest open.
Nicole Atkins, The Basement

3. Nicole Atkins with Ruby Boots (The Basement, 08/16/18) – I’ve been a fan of Nicole Atkins for years but as much as I loved her earlier work – “Girl, You Look Amazing” is still on every playlist I make where I expect dancing – Goodnight Rhonda Lee felt special. This tour made a forest fire out of that love. It was as close as I’ll ever get to seeing Patsy Cline in her prime – not in any sense of imitation but in the sense of someone finding that perfect crossroad between country and torch song. Any time you can stand that close to a flame this bright and this warm, take it.

4. Marah (Mercury Lounge, NYC, 01/13/18 and Hogan House, 04/20/18) – In the early 2000s, Marah reaffirmed my faith in rock and roll more often than any other band. I got to see the reunited version, with Serge Bielanko back in the fold, and they still did it. Better yet, I got to see them in both modes, acoustic and full-bore raging electric machine. The latter had the benefit of being at one of my favorite rock clubs in one of my favorite cities, à propos for the anniversary of If You Didn’t Laugh You’d Cry. One of the quintessential New York records of this century at one of the last-standing LES rock clubs from that era, it doesn’t get much better. I wanted to hug everyone. Then I got the songs-forward acoustic version at one of my favorite short-lived venues, Hogan House, those two voices and two guitars and complicated love (between the brothers and for the world) inches away from me. It doesn’t get much better. 

5. Mickalene Thomas/Teri Lyne Carrington (Wexner Center, 10/04/18) – Mickalene Thomas’ canvases always dazzle, look for more on the breathtaking exhibit on the art list, but I was not expecting this foray into multimedia performance to blow me away. Thomas manipulated footage and abstract images behind a laptop to a score by the great Teri Lyne Carrington, also on drums. One of my favorite trumpet players working today, Ingrid Jensen, and an astonishing turntablist I couldn’t find the name of for all my googling rounded out this muscular, delicate quartet. Mesmerizing, throbbing repetition and ecstatic release, a reminder that the cut-up technique doesn’t have to be academic and that deep attention to history and desire should underpin all world-building as much as they did here.

6. David Byrne (Rose Music Center, Huber Heights, 08/11/18) – The last time I saw David Byrne was the weekend after 9/11; easily one of the most potent, emotional shows I’ve ever seen. Everyone I talked to about this tour said “American Utopia is something special,” so I took a chance on letting something compete with those memories and I was so glad I did. Byrne is a lesson in continuing to follow every curiosity and pulling every thread as hard as you can. As A said, “That’s the 66 I want to be.” His use of downtown choreographer extraordinaire Annie B-Parsons dovetailed with the first time I’ve ever seen wireless amplification used to what I think should have always been its purpose: a rock show put onto a plane without being tethered to stacks of amps (or, thanks to its drumline qualities, a trap kit). This freedom was parlayed into an intense respect for sound and content instead of settling into a parlor trick. The most dazzling spectacle I’ve ever seen in a rock show but simultaneously mammoth and human-sized and crushing, as evidenced by my tears in the upper rows on the final encore, Janelle Monae’s “Hell You Talmbout.”

Adam O’Farrill’s Stranger Days, Wexner Center

7. Adam O’Farrill’s Stranger Days (Wexner Center, 02/24/18) –This year had the final half of Chuck Helm’s last season at the Wexner Center and the first half of Lane Czaplinski’s. This show was a perfect example of the former. When Helm first saw, and brought, O’Farrill to Columbus as part of Rudresh Mahanthappa’s Bird Calls project, he took care to single out the young trumpeter and now brought O’Farrill’s cracking project as a leader. When I spoke with him about the impetus for the project, O’Farrill spoke for a while about the inspiration he gains from film and the intense, cohesive, nuanced pieces they brought spoke to that influence. Atmospheres that gripped me by the color and threw me around with every piston in the muscular engine firing.

8. Various Artists, New Black Eastside Songbook (Short North Stage, 03/14/18) – Poet/curator/organizer Scott Woods conceptualized and provided titles for a six-song suite collaboration with exemplars of black art in town for something righteous, moving, and true. His expansive genre tastes and clear eye for the world, as it is and as it should be, guided this project. Woods pulled together our best musicians and gave the freshest, most accurate perspective on the town I’ve grown up in. Ogun Meji Duo, featuring our finest composer in Mark Lomax II and my favorite saxophone player Eddie Bayard, absorbed and tossed back Columbus’ rich jazz history (destroyed like so much else with the very deliberate placement of the interstate) on “Welcome to Bronzeville.” Paisha’s barbed satire on “Things to Do in Black Columbus” and Jordan Sandridge’s cri de coeur “Rahsaan Rollin’ in the Dirt” and the acid commentary of Krate Digga’s electronic suite “Blight Privilege” all grabbed me by the collar. Counterfeit Madison’s “Olde Towne Beast” was the best, most focused song I’ve ever heard from her: rich and textured and throbbing. I had tears in my eyes as everyone convened for the finale “Bulldozing the Ave.” The best – bar none – example of what Columbus is capable of was on that stage (and the encore performance at Natalie’s).

9. Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams (Woodlands Tavern, 02/28/18) –This duo, sans rhythm section, with resumes encompassing Broadway and Bob Dylan, Levon Helm’s Midnight Rambles and Little Feat, served as a reminder of the beauty and breadth of roots music. Wrenching originals like “The Other Side of Pain” and “Save Me From Myself” held their own with stone classics like the Louvin Brothers’ “You’re Running Wild,” Carl Perkins’ “Turn Around” and gospel traditionals “Samson and Delilah,” and “Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning.”  Campbell’s flexibility and empathy as a co-writer shone in songs he’d written with both Julie Miller and William Bell, and their voices sounded like they were born to make music together.

10. Thumbscrew (Village Vanguard, NYC, 07/22/18) –This collective trio of Mary Halvorson on guitar, Michael Formanek on bass, and Tomas Fujiwara on drums, put out two phenomenal records this year, Theirs and Ours, along with serving as the backbone for Halvorson’s art-song project Code Girl. The last night of their week at the mother church of jazz was a reminder of how far you can take forms and how much beauty you can plow with an ensemble who know and trust each other. Rare telepathy that glimmered like juggling flaming knives in ever-more complicated patterns but also brought it down to the simple joy of ballads. 

  • Miriam and Nobody’s Baby, Alphaville
  • Reigning Sound, Alphaville

11. Reigning Sound with Miriam and Nobody’s Baby (Alphaville, NYC, 07/21/18) – Greg Cartwright may be the best songwriter of the 20th century (see his high placement on the best sets from festivals list) and his Reigning Sound project, 20 years on, is the best showcase for his variety of moods, riffs, and mots juste. The current line-up with the Jay-Vons backing him doesn’t play very often these days so this Brooklyn show was a treat. Betraying no rust, they proved they can kick up a dance party and reduce you to tears, sometimes in the same song. Opening was my first chance to experience Miriam Linna’s (The Cramps, The A-Bones) new project Nobody’s Baby and it was exactly the kind of sassy, joyous homage to the music she grew up loving you would hope, featuring a crack band including Yo La Tengo’s Ira Kaplan and Daddy Long Legs’ Murat Atkurk.

Curtis Harding, A&R Bar

12. Curtis Harding (A&R Bar, 04/04/18) –No one’s making better revved-up soul-inflected rock music with a sexy groove than Curtis Harding. Promoting his stunning Face Your Fear record, he set the staid confines of the A&R Bar on fire with songs you couldn’t help dancing to, whipping the crowd into a frenzy. One of those shows that send me back out in the night happy to be alive and a little in love with everyone sharing that experience with me.

13. Kronos Quartet – A Thousand Tongues (Wexner Center, 01/25/18) – This live performance of longtime Wex visitors/commissioners Kronos Quartet accompanying Sam Green’s (an artist with his own extensive and fruitful relationship to the Wex) documentary about them was a summation of all the magic they’ve brought so many like me over the years. A victory lap and a reminder how much gas there still is in the tank.

Deaf Wish, Spacebar

14. Deaf Wish (Spacebar, 09/04/18) – Twisted catharsis with a side of fist-pumping doesn’t sound much better than Australian noise-rockers Deaf Wish. Over the years (since first seeing them at Gonerfest in 2011) they‘ve streamlined their sound sacrificing none of the beautiful weirdness at its core. This was one of the best rock bands working, at the height of their powers, giving me that rush I got from Sonic Youth when I was a teenager without ever sounding like an imitation.

15. Marisa Anderson with Sarah Louise (Ace of Cups, 06/28/18) – There’s no better practitioner of solo guitar than Portland’s Marisa Anderson. She plays the electric guitar as though it’s a conduit to the hidden truths of the universe. A stylist who’s synthesized every great voice on her instrument and come out with her own sharp and beautifully nasty twang. The second appearance of “Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning” on this year’s list, which could be the universe trying to tell me something. Sarah Louise’s beguiling opening set reminded me of ’70s British folk and drew me in with its curiosities and complications.

Mwenso and the Shakes, Rumba Cafe

16. Mwenso and the Shakes (Rumba Cafe, 09/08/18) – New York’s Michael Mwenso brought his virtuosic, gleefully unpredictable band (part cabaret revue, part ’70s funk extravaganza, part postmodernism at its zenith) to town in one of the purest expressions of fun I got in a club all year. They kept the wildness of their jam session roots while translating that vibe into a show that made sense to an audience. Charisma to spare and earworms that burrowed into my head for days.

17. Ashley McBryde (Bluestone, 11/08/18) – There isn’t a finer practitioner of Mellencamp-style roots-rock and Patty Griffin country today than Nashville’s Ashley McBryde. Leading her crack six-piece band through a set heavy on her new record Girl Going Nowhere, but with room for already-classics from her debut like “Bible and a .44” and “Luckiest SOB,” she led a class on opening your arms to an audience without pandering. She opened with “Livin’ Next to Leroy” and its crushing opening lines, “Three doors down, there’s tinfoil on the table,” and led us on a journey of lyrics as finely observed and chiseled as a Michelangelo sculpture but with every bit as much concern for the bounce and flow of the music.

18. Zonal and Moor Mother (Corsica Studios, London, 04/26/18) – Techno Animal cohorts Justin Broadrick (Godflesh) and Kevin Martin (The Bug) have reformed under the name Zonal. When a show of theirs was a possibility on my first ever trip to the UK it was a no-brainer and their murky, abrasive, bass-drenched techno is more potent than ever. The x-factor on the middle of the set was Philly poet-rapper Moor Mother who, from her first line “There are no stars in the sky,” teased a rainbow of colors in the viscosity of the music and made whole lives visible in the fire she breathed.

Bonnie “Prince” Billy at Stuart’s

19. Bonnie “Prince” Billy (Stuart’s Opera House, Nelsonville, 10/08/18) – Will Oldham is an inspiration in a lot of ways for me. A polymath, unmistakably devoted to the craft of his songs, who never takes himself that seriously. His unfailing curiosity toward putting his songs into various contexts both keeps him interested and shines light on possibly unexplored textures in the original. This small tour featured chamber-music arrangements with violin and cello, a three-piece horn section, a backing singer/duet partner from the opening band, and the prince playing very little guitar. “I See a Darkness” had a muscle-y gospel punch and “The Way” was recast as a powerful statement of intent, a line in the sand.

20. Amir El-Saffar and the Two Rivers Ensemble (Lincoln Theatre, 10/10/18) – One of my favorite trumpet players returned with his expansive, roiling Two Rivers Ensemble and with a special guest: El-Saffar’s teacher (and one of the great maqam singers in the world) Hamid Al-Saadi. This was perhaps the finest religious music I’ve ever heard, obliterating any description and leaving me staggered.

Festival Sets:

I’ve got that persistent festival fatigue like everybody else. Art should be part of your life, to the extent you can make it one, not a destination vacation or a cattle call. That said, I hit several and saw sets that were as good as anything, that made me want to go for 12 hours, gorging myself, and those should be acknowledged.

Algiers, The Standard
  1. Algiers (Big Ears Festival)
  2. Nicole Mitchell – Art and Anthem for Gwendolyn Brooks (With Jason Moran) (Winter Jazzfest) 
  3. David Hidalgo and Marc Ribot (Big Ears Festival)
Greg Cartwright with Coco Hamel and Gentleman Jesse, Memphis Made Brewing


4.  Greg Cartwright (Gonerfest)
5.  Susan Alcorn (Big Ears Festival)
6.  Jaimie Branch’s Fly or Die (Winter Jazzfest)
7.  Pierre Kwenders (Cleveland Museum of Art, Summer Solstice
8.  Jenny Scheinman’s Mischief and Mayhem (Big Ears Festival)
9. Jason Moran and Milford Graves (Big Ears Festival) 10. Marc Ribot’s Songs of Resistance (Winter Jazzfest)
11. Roscoe Mitchell – “TRIOS” (Big Ears Festival)
12. Sarah Manning (Winter Jazzfest)
13. Harlan T. Bobo (Gonerfest)
14. Evan Parker’s Rocket Science (Big Ears Festival
15. Bloody Show (Gonerfest)16. Tyshawn Sorey Trio (Big Ears Festival)
17. Oblivians featuring Stephanie McDee (Gonerfest)
18. Craig Taborn Quartet (Big Ears Festival)
19. Diamanda Galas (Big Ears Festival)
20. Ethers (Gonerfest)

 

Categories
live music Uncategorized

Big Ears 2018 Day 1: Ley Lines, Throughlines, and Blurry Borders

I’m far from the first person to say it but Big Ears Festival is special. After a year off – but je ne regrette Sick Weekend – I returned to this booming, bustling college town to reconnect with deeper listening and jump off the merry-go-round for a minute.

Started slow on Thursday but I needed that easing in. Wandered the downtown, filling my lungs and feeling the vibrations of this place. A couple great meals – Chivo Taqueria and Myrtle’s Chicken and Beer – and reacquainting myself with Old City Java.

Stopped at Public House for an apertif to the sensory feast: Postmodern Spirits release party for their (damn good) first single malt Tennessee Whiskey at a party at Public House. I overheard one of my favorite refrains: a stylish regular who works at another bar (I gathered) said about Big Ears: “I dig the crowd, I get it. It brings people from everywhere. I just want them to know culture happens here too.” I’ve said it; I’ve heard it at Gonerfest and Anime Weekend Atlanta. It’s people like her who make that happen: loving your town so much it’s infectious.

Went straight from there to my first set of the festival: ICE (the International Contemporary Ensemble) playing Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s majestic, luminous “In The Light of The Air.”

In the round, most of the audience seated on the floor, the ensemble lit Thorvaldsdottir’s piece from within, shaping and shifting. Motifs rise and repeat, changing their DNA while remaining recognizable. Percussion plays an omnipresent, mercurial role here: clattering and clicking like ash in the air around the bubbling lava of piano; slashing transition color from a bowed marimba; growling propulsion not only moving the piece forward but in every direction.

Glacial accumulation of detail and material dances with the light installation, effectively underlining as when the bulbs surge bright with deep bass throbs. As delicate and dramatic as life. The music is so engaged with the world it absorbed and played with the setting sun, the howl of passing trains, and omnipresent redevelopment.

The pedal steel guitar is one of the most evocative, purely American sounds I’ve run across. No one fuses that unmistakable sound to as pure and personal a language as Susan Alcorn. Alcorn’s vocabulary isn’t the result of eschewing history – she knows her Speedy West, her Leon McAuliffe, her Don Helms, and her Aubrey Ghent. That sound comes from a burning desire to see what else she can say with that vocabulary and unerring taste across the spectrum of music.

The first time I came across Susan Alcorn was her 2006 album And I Await The Resurrection of the Pedal Steel Guitar. In the sleek dance club environs of The Standard, Alcorn dazzled a rapt crowd with that title track and a story about its genesis: trying to arrange Messiaen’s Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum (a World War Ii elegy for wind orchestra) for steel. In those limitations, she found something that vibrates with history but is no one else’s.

Throughout her rapturous set, Alcorn made that guitar snarl and cry, turned it into a barrelhouse piano, a seductive dancer, nature painting, and a chorus of bells. She nodded to Giacinto Scelsi and tango. A profoundly American artist with the simultaneous thirst for the new and love of everything that got us here, Susan Alcorn exemplified Big Ears.

The icing on this delicious Thursday was two guitarists I’ve loved for as long as I’ve loved music. The minute you hear Marc Ribot’s Chuck-Berry-wrapped-in-barbed-wire guitar you never forget it. You hear it everywhere. David Hidalgo’s guitar, accordion, deceptively easy mastery of what seems like every other instrument, plus his spicy honey voice, make every record he guests on that much better – before we even get into his work as the cornerstone of one of the premier American rock bands, Los Lobos, co-writing most of their best songs. So as word trickled out these two titans were playing together it shot to the top of my list to check out. Thursday night at the Tennessee Theater was my chance.

The two men in chairs turned that cavernous stage and massive theater into a living room or a back porch. With the easy charm of old friends who don’t have a goddam thing to prove except to themselves, they lit up the history of American music. Lefty Frizzell’s “I Never Go Around Mirrors” was gifted a gorgeous high-lonesome voice and finger picking from Hidalgo punctuated with hot knives from Ribot. “Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie” got a dry vocal wringing all the hurt out of irony from Ribot as the two painted an expansive, devastated landscape with their guitars, deconstructing and rebuilding. Wilson Pickett and Paquita Del La Barrio and Los Cuatreros were the framework for hard-won and deeply personal voices forged from experience and love. Looks at permeable borders and the way we let each other down.

My favorite moment came with their revitalized take on “A Matter of Time,” the Los Lobos classic from their breakthrough Will The Wolf Survive record written by Hidalgo with Louie Perez. Stripped of horns and thirty plus years since it’s first appearance, the story and Hidalgo’s Sam Cooke-recalling vocal shine just as brightly as ever. The way we want to be better and keep reaching even when we know that “better world” might never be ib in our reach. They dedicated a note-perfect Ventures tune to Nokie Edwards with Hidalgo saying, “When we were kids, that Ventures stuff turned us all on. It was the shit.” Chuckling, he caught himself, “I guess it still is.”

May it always be. Day 2 awaits.