Tag: So Percussion

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Best Of Playlist record reviews

Best of 2023 – Spaces

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

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

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

Playlist – August 2022

Almost as late as last month with some internet issues and work travel, but happy to finally be submitting this in Memphis as I also compile some notes at the midway point of a really stellar Gonerfest. Love to you all, and thank you all for listening and reading. Enjoy these first days of fall as we all dance on the cusp.

https://tidal.com/browse/playlist/d01499fd-af20-41e5-b09d-03e48f0dc74a

  • Call Me Rita, “Measure Twice, Cut Once” – This barn burner is my favorite track yet out of artist Vanessa Jean Speckman’s rock and roll project Call Me Rita, assembling a who’s who of Columbus rootsy rock superheroes in the service of a ferocious, all out rocker. Drummer Jason Winner and Todd May on bass and backing vocals power this train with Jay Gasper’s lead guitar and surprising, delightful bursts of synth skidding over Micah Schnabel’s slashing rhythm and backing vocals. “The creditors keep calling me. How much more can I bleed? I’m taking my autonomy.”
  • Lee Bains + The Glory Fires, “Post-Life” – I liked the Dexateens and I was really impressed with Lee Bains’ solo band when I saw them at Woodlands a couple years before the pandemic but it didn’t prepare me for how much I love their new record Old-Time Folks and how utterly blown away I was seeing them at Rumba a few weeks ago. An electrifying dance through the fire that reminded me of everything I love about a four piece rock and roll band: controlled fury, deep grooves, and more than a little hip shaking, with shout outs to the SCLC and the incisive puncturing of old lies and snake oil pitches as the icing on the cake. “It’ll rip your soul from your cooking, the home place from your voice, and the thunder from your songs. It’ll sell you back the bootlegs, stare at you with dead, flickering eyes, like it didn’t do nothing wrong.”
  • Bobby Previte, “HUNTER (remix)” – Drummer/composer Bobby Previte is riding a new wave of creativity and productivity lately and my favorite of the recent records is Nine Tributes (For Electric Band) with each track paying tribute to a guitarist he’s played with over the years. The centerpiece of this band, taking on the daunting challenge of inhabiting/paying tribute to these guitarists without doing an impression and exceeding my wildest expectations, is my friend since childhood, guitarist Mike Gamble, with the quartet filled out by Akron native Kurt Kotheimer who sounds like he was born to play with Previte, an extremely simpatico hookup; and interesting textures from keyboardist/reeds player Michael Kammers. I had a hard time picking a track off this, but I kept coming back to this loving take on Charlie Hunter’s approach. The band captures the ebuillance and greasy swing that’s made Hunter so beloved without giving up any of themselves in that take.
  • shark, “Torpedos in Leather” – My pal Ginny Riot is as good a barometer as quality as I’ve found in Columbus and we all know I have a few. While I was first introduced to her through her acoustic work, when I heard she was playing drums in a new outfit, shark, it shot to the top of my list to checkout. Within a song and a half of Anne and I seeing them at Rumba, they were my new favorite Columbus band and looking around the room I knew enough people dancing that I wasn’t alone. This track, with Ginny’s drumming and vocals in a sea of surging, grinding guitars from Hugh Man and Professor Zac Glickman is a snarling reminder of everything I come to rock and roll for, reminding me of The Cramps and the Gun Club and Twin Guns and Daddy Long Legs, but it’s own thing.
  • Ibibio Sound Machine, “Protection From Evil” – London’s Ibibio Sound Machine gripped me by the collar immediately and they’ve only gotten better. Eno Williams’ voice and powerhouse seven-piece band get an added assist from Hot Chip’s Joe Goddard and Al Doyle on additional keyboards and NYC techno legend Peter Matson on drum programming on this party track for the ages. I’m looking forward to finally seeing them live with Anne in New York in October.
  • Bad Bunny, “Tití Me Preguntó” – My pal (and former coworker) Mary turned me onto the new Bad Bunny record. His work before Un Verano Sin Ti I enjoyed select singles from but didn’t delve into a whole album but this hit at exactly the right time. The way he slides over the dembow rhythm on this track, the synthetic handclaps and sewing-machine drums sparking against the quavering synth, and his voice sliding from singing to rapping. It’s collared shirt dance club music, late enough on a hot night the breeze is reminding you this season won’t last forever.
  • Tonton Pal, “Furu” – A similar dance club track that makes me want to sweat but in a full suit. The flow of this Senegalese rapper has a give and take that makes everything feel alive, just a little improvisational.
  • Amber Mark, “On & On” – Another artst who’s earlier work didn’t grab me but either my ears got a little more open or the songs got a little sharper or both, because when I finally sat down with Amber Mark’s Three Dimensions Deep, she rose to the ranks of my favorite R&B singers. This song works an unhurried rhythm that’s part cat and mouse and part liquid anticipation, draped in sharp, glittering strings; the perfect showcase for the laser-precise longing she captures in her voice. A new 3 a.m. classic. “I’ve never been more confused; my confidence won’t come through. Lost so much it’s hard to tell what’s fake and what’s myself.”
  • Allison Russell featuring Brandi Carlile, “You’re Not Alone” – The creator of one of my favorite records of last year returns with this dazzling rework from a song Russell originally brought to the underappreciated (sadly, including by me) Our Native Daughters supergroup recast as a duet with Brandi Carlile. The kind of reminder we all need that we’re interconnected and we’re more than our pain and our damage. Those voices alone would put my heart in a vice grip, the surprising, tumbling arrangement for strings by Sista Strings, sends it into outer space. “Wish that I could keep you from sorrow and harm; none of us is here for long, but you’re not alone.”
  • Cole Swindell, “She Had me at Heads Carolina” – As contemporary country music has appropriated recent-past hip-hop and R&B tropes with greater and lesser degrees of artfulness, we’re seeing more sophisticated blending. This caught my eye on a bar jukebox on a sunny afternoon – and I loved everything about it. In a sober light the next day, I was still delighted. First, I love those first couple of Jo Dee Messina records, those songs felt like a cool breeze off coming over a frequently arid landscape – especially “Heads Carolina, Tails California,” her first single, written by Tim Nichols and Mark Sanders – so it hit the nostalgia bullseye it seems like Swindell’s aiming for with the end of his chorus, “She’s a ’90s country fan, like I am.” But the interpolation of the original melody – with the clever use of autotune’s uncanny sheen – and the sampling of Messina’s original as a harmony and texture underlines the way memory and nostalgia draw a lot of us like moths to that flame and the transitory, ephemeral nature of it. “I bought her a round and we talked till the lights came on. I still see that girl every time I hear that song.”
  • Country Rio featuring Tony Grvis, Dusty & Stones, Ervis Guerrero, Daniel Estampida, Orozco, Hunter Leite, and Chisum Cattle, “Neon Life” – The Mexican band Country Rio brings in an international supporting cast for this posse cut soaked in grim determination, including African country duo Dusty & Stones, Texas compatriots Chisum Cattle, and Argentinian Daniel Estampida Orozco. The steady march, led by a rolling banjo line, underlines the underlying grief and loneliness of the life they’re singing about but the mix of voices reminds us of the community and warmth that are found there if you’re willing to open yourself up to it.
  • Ruby Amanfu, “Make It Better” – Shining light on another facet of Nashville, Ghana-born Ruby Amanfu gets deeper and more interesting on every record I hear. This song feels like the end of summer for me, that search for comfort in someone but with an edge, a chill seeping in around the edges.
  • Ashley Paul featuring Otto Wilberg and Yoni Silver, “Shivers” – I met Ashley Paul through the above-mentioned Mike Gamble when we were all in college and, even then, her approach to the saxophone caught me off guard. That appreciation has deepened over the years, as she’s dug deeper into interests in installations and the human voice. There’s a rich, velvety melancholy throughout her stunning new record, I Am Fog, featuring Paul on voice, percussion, sax, and clarinet, backed by Wilberg’s bass and voice and Yoni Silver’s bass clarinet and viola. Had a hard time choosing a track from this, but I kept being drawn to “Shivers” like a moth to a flame.
  • Tarbaby featuring Oliver Lake, “House of Leaves” – I think I first saw the great reeds player Oliver Lake a few years before the meeting I describe in the previous blurb, in High School at our Jazz and Rib Fest, and when I was 21 with the World Saxophone Quartet. Both sets took the top of my head off and I started buying records just based on Lake’s presence, which, of course, introduced me to more artists than I could name. I think I found the collective trio Tarbaby because I’d already been turned around by drummer Nasheet Waits’ volcanic work with Jason Moran and was tentatively getting into pianist Orrin Evans and bassist Eric Revis (both of whom I’m a massive fan of), but my favorite work of the trio adds the voice of Oliver Lake. Dance of the Evil Toys is an extension and expansion of their beautiful collaboration. This sinewy track exemplifies the joys of the record, Lake’s snaking saxophone line cracking and scorching the delicate color fields of the rest of the group.
  • Mark Turner Quartet, “Return From The Stars” – Another favorite saxophonist who hit my radar more recently, Mark Turner has been setting my world – at least – on fire. His newest ECM record, inspired by the writing of Stanislaw Lem (another favorite of mine going back to high school), of which this is the title track, features remarkable interplay with his melodic foil, trumpeter Jason Palmer (those gleaming, braided lines in the introduction knock me all the way out) and the subtle, empathetic rhythm section of bassist Joe Martin and drummer Jonathan Pinson.
  • Jacob Garchik, “Collage” – One of my favorite trombone players, Garchik’s writing caught my attention with his work with the Kronos Quartet and especially his trombone choir The Heavens. The new record, Assembly, pairs him with soprano sax master Sam Newsome and rhythm section of pianist Jacob Sacks, bassist Thomas Morgan, and drummer Dan Weiss. The collisions and disjunctions in these tunes, especially the one I chose, are as important as the beauty of the melodies and the moments of sublime synchronicity. It almost amplifies Garchik’s leanings toward the cinematic – check out his recent Guy Madden film scores – with a depth of field in the way the instruments fall together.
  • Thick, “Tell Myself” – This grimy trio out of the New York diy scene straddles the line between class of 77 punk and shimmery powerpop in exactly the right amounts. An irrepressible rhythm section meant to cause a riot in the middle of a dance party or vice versa with Shari Page on drums (that break at the end makes me want to leap out of my skin) and Kate Black on bass, buoying and jostling Nikki Sisti’s guitar with everyone singing. It doesn’t get much better than this, one of the bands I’m most looking forward to seeing live. “Used to talk about getting old; can’t believe all the lies we told then.”
  • Dead Horses, “Days Grow Longer” – This gorgeous, frayed lament speckled with faith and hope that things can get better, is one of the highlights from Brady Street, the new full length from Milwaukee’s Dead Horses, principally a partnership between Sarah Vos and Daniel Wolff.  “I miss LA and the twin cities and the open road laid bare in front of me. East and west across the continent, baptized by dissidents. Days grow longer now, we’ll move on, move on somehow.”
  • Rachel Sumner, “Strangers Again” – I spent a lot of time in Boston for a few years when my pal Mike Gamble was going to college then and fell in love with the singer-songwriter scene, at the time hovering around the pillars of Dar Williams and Bill Morrissey. Rachel Sumner carries that torch – or at least what I thought that torch looked like as a kid – on the beautiful Rachel Sumner and Traveling Light. This Gillian Welch/David Rawlings cover gets a bone-deep, empathetic, full-throated read, highlighted by Alex Formento’s pedal steel and Kate Wallace’s fiddle.
  • Matt Nathanson, “Beginners” – Another song that hit my radar because of Lori McKenna, who co-wrote it with Hilary Lindsey and Nathanson. The name was familiar to me because of a long-ago friend, Ann Dotzauer, who was a huge fan of Matt Nathanson in college or right after (she called him Matty Nay but I’m not sure if that was an accepted fan umbrella or something she coined). I had a record that didn’t completely click with me but it was nice revisiting those memories as I dug into his new one, Boston Accent. Butch Walker continues to prove himself the ideal producer for this kind of laid back singer-songwriter, giving the sound world enough definition and teeth, but (as a great songwriter himself) without changing the fundamental character of the song. That sliding, “Walk on the Wild Side”-ish bass caught my ears immediately and the rest of this burnished, acoustic slow jam about the seductive charms of memory and how close it is to death, reminded me of Kim Richey songs I loved in my 20s and burrowed right under my skin. “Used to get lost in the songs that I used to sing, used to get caught in the rush. Used to burn bright, used to fill the sky. I used to never get enough.”
  • Deejay Telio, “Bon Appétit” – This track from Angolan rapper Deejay Telio feels to me like it’s dancing on  the same sensual remembering axis as the Sumner and the Nathanson and that’s a mood that feels explicitly tailored for the end of the summer. The little guitar hooks and slippery mix of synthetic and organic percussion layer up to build that mood without every distracting from Telio’s voice.
  • Jesse Baylin, “That’s the Way” – I hear a little of that same twang of hope and desire in this perfectly crafted neo-honky tonk side from Jesse Baylin that could have fit perfectly in the early ’80s tug of war between sparkling shirts and fritzy neon signs with a rollicking piano lick getting it rolling and a whirlwind of hand claps and tambourine, around a stellar vocal, smooth but with an undeniable kick you’ll be finding flavors in for days. “Blows a kiss and it knocks me down – my heart skips a beat when it comes around. It tastes like freedom in a cherry crush. Gives me a reason, gives me all that stuff.”
  • Keith Jarrett, “Part III” – I never want to make too much of someone’s work immediately prior to a health crisis and understood in retrospect. But I will say, the examples of Keith Jarrett’s last tour before the massive strokes that have stopped his piano playing (maybe for good) show what an astonishing level he was performing at. I’m just starting to live with it but I might love Bordeaux Concert more than the earlier two, Budapest Concert and Munich 2016. This excerpt – thank you, ECM – drives home one of my favorite parts of a Jarrett show, especially solo: the sense of going along with the current, being bounced by the waves, then finding yourself in this space where you notice every note, you see melodies formed out of air into perfect crystals, that form into a structure within the structure and then disappear again. This is a lovely reminder of what a keen melodist Jarrett is, without sacrificing any of the more complex, intricate harmonies, what a lifetime of love for the piano and the history of piano music can drive you to if you’re lucky enough to stay engaged (and have a lot of other luck besides).
  • Harlan T. Bobo, “Must Be in Memphis” – Another beautiful look back, soaked in love for music and the world, though that’s about as far as I’m going to go with my comparison between Harlan T. Bobo, crown prince of the Memphis garage-rock scene currently living in France, and one of the great virtuosos of my lifetime. After hearing Bobo’s left hand had damage from lupus, I doubted I’d ever get another of his great, wry records bursting with big arrangements that were the result of deep friendships. And when I heard the new one, Porch Songs, was an intimate solo acoustic venture, my outsized joy at new Harlan T. Bobo songs was tempered with “Well, it’s what he had to do…” But Porch Songs undid all those biases with 13 of the best songs he’s ever written, reminding me he’s still the champion of seeing all the sides of frequently fucked up life and finding a way to make that picture beautiful without hiding or obscuring any of it. I hope I get to see one of his less frequent shows – Anne and I still talk about that Gonerfest set that calmed a rowdy crowd into attentiveness. “We crashed a big party, we drank all their whiskey, we wrote most of this song in the pool. I stripped off my breeches and I sat on the hostess; hell, no one around here cares what you do. I learned that this guitar could float but my guitarist, he don’t. We could drink underwater, it’s true. I’m feeling my best but acting my worst. Lord, I must be in Memphis tonight.”
  • Duke Deuce featuring Quavo and GloRilla, “Just Say That (Remix)” – Rising Memphis rapper Duke Deuce teams up with fellow Bluff City native GloRilla and Quavo from Migos for this piano driven adrenaline journey ready to burn the liars and imitators out of the system.
  • The Comet is Coming, “Code” – I saw The Comet is Coming a few years ago at a Winter Jazzfest and it was my first taste of Shabaka Hutchings live. A fireball of a power trio – Hutching’s saxophone backed with Betamax Killer (Maxwell Hawlett) on drums and Danalogue the Conquerying (Dan Leavens) on keys – this advance single from their upcoming Hyper-Dimensional Expansion Beam is another powerful groove, loaded with nuance and surprise.
  • Kokoroko, “Soul Searching” – Great friend Andrew Patton turned me onto Could We Be More, the debut full length by this London-based afrobeat and highlife band and it’s another example of him never steering me wrong. The eight piece band takes a lighter touch and incorporates some breezier textures into this four minute instrumental, with Ayo Salawu’s drums and Onome Edgeworth’s percussion dancing like light on the river of Duane Atherley’s bass line, lifted toward the sky on the intertwining lines of Sheila Maurice-Grey’s trumpet, Cassie Kinoshi’s sax, and Richie Seivwright’s trombone.
  • Meridian Brothers and El Grupo Renacimiento, “Poema del salsero resentido” – Bogota-based Eblis Álvarez’s Meridian Brothers project, known for fusions of electronic music and rock, collaborates with an imaginary salsa band for this eponymous record. He uses a New York-based form from the past to cast a light on very contemporary concerns and preoccupations in a way that honors the groove and subverts it at the same time, in a way that reminds me of a lot of Quantic’s best work.
  • Pillow Boy, “Once I Became One of Those” – Brad Swiniarski’s long been a stealth – or at least “in the know” – candidate for best songwriter in Columbus. Working in bands and, often, behind the drum kit live, he never got the immediate accolades of more self-aggrandizing candidates, but his songs for acts like Bob City and The Means have given me as much joy as anyone to walk the streets of the town I love so much (even when it pisses me off). This record I think (because I couldn’t find a lot of detail) is a frayed disco tune, its undeniable groove riddled with scorch marks and dents, and an excoriating dissection of the interior life of a character.
  • Closet Mix, “My Appeal to Heaven” – Another of my favorite songwriters in Columbus, Paul Nini, though he’s better known than Brad with years of leading the great band Log, putting out records under his own name, and getting the “Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Paul Nini” shout out on Great Plains’ enduring classic “Letter to a Fanzine.” His newest project Closet Mix, with his brother Chris Nini on keys, Keith Novicki on guitar, and Dan Della Flora on drums, doesn’t record much but everything they’ve put out so far is a gem. This mix of jangle and mystery is aided by some excellent horn work from my pal Fred Gablick (long of Honk Wail and Moan) on reeds and New Basics Brass Band leader Tim Perdue on trumpet and writing the arrangement.
  • Julia Wolfe & Sō Percussion, “Forbidden Love” – Julia Wolfe might be my favorite current composer working in classical forms. Her triumvirate – with David Lang and Michael Gordon – Bang on a Can, was hugely influential on dilettante me in college when I was finding all this new chamber music that didn’t make sense but deeply resonated with me. And a New Amsterdam records showcase during CMJ at Le Poisson Rouge where I got to see one of her pieces in person, fully aware it was her, Lad for nine bagpipes (in this case, one live and the rest on tracks) was one of those physically almost overpower moments where I said “I’ve never heard anything like this” at the same time it’s making all these connections in my head – to Rothko, to Ayler, to Richard Serra – and I went looking for any record with her name on it. For the decade since that show, the strategy has continued to pay dividends, with Anthracite Fields, Steel Hammer, Fire in My Mouth. And this new, beguiling piece, pairs her with one fo my favorite percussion groups but assigns them the traditional string quartet format of two violins, viola, and cello, for an expansive meditation on an American mythology that humanizes it in a way I find incredibly moving.
  • Bonnie Raitt, “Down The Hall” – That flurry of warm strings and tones that end the Wolfe seemed to relate – at least in my head – to this striking closing track from Bonnie Raitt’s terrific record Just Like That… This song tells the story of an inmate trying to be with his fellow prisoners as they’re dying in a sort of atonement, with a power, understated vocal by Raitt backed only by her crystalline acoustic guitar and Glenn Patscha’s B-3. “I sit and wait outside his stall, to help him when he’s done. Whatever shame we might have felt, well, that’s all come undone.”
  • Armen Donelian, “Fresh Start” – This gorgeous title track from a new trio record matching pianist Donelian with bassist Jay Anderson and drummer Dennis Mackrel had a similar sense of story telling to me as the previous two tracks, and a warmth that seemed to resonate against its predecessors and here and the couple of songs that come after it. Donelian’s touch alone is breathtaking but the sympathy of the trio together is what keeps me coming back.
  • Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, “I Just Came Home to Count the Memories” – And talking about “gorgeous,” John Anderson’s early ’80s recording of this Glenn Ray tune set a bar for that when I was a child and, expectedly, Welch and Rawlings find every nuance in the loneliness of the text and the implicit hope in the way the character is still breathing and still choosing to stop by, the unspoken confirmation that they’ve got a future ahead along with the painful past they’re staring down right now. “That little Johnson boy from down the road was asking if the kids could come and play. Lord, I wish I could have told them yes, but I just said ‘I guess, son, not today.'”
  • Jim Lauderdale, “Lightning Love” – I like everything Jim Lauderdale does but most of my favorite work of his finds him playing with classic country music tone and texture and his new record Game Changer is rich with exactly that sweet spot of his writing and supple vocals.  Tommy Detamore’s pedal steel provides almost orchestral accompaniment around a tight rhythm section. “Holding on to what we’ve got that’s sent from up above. Sunshine, wild skies, deep in your eyes – lightning love struck us.”
  • Nicki Bluhm, “Feel” – Nicki Bluhm, best known for her work with the mostly-acoustic Grumblers, opens up her sound and reminds me of her alacrity for singing all kinds of material on her new one Avondale Drive. The horn (courtesy of the great Karl Denson)-and-organ dappled subtle groove on this soul song, and her transitions from clipped, rhythm phrasing into an open-hearted croon, made it an immediate favorite of mine. “Sometimes I wonder can I ever change?”
  • Julia Jacklin, “Love, Try Not to Let Go” – Another track in a subtle soul vein that also fits my macro-tendency to end with a song I can think of as a benediction or a prayer. Laurie Torres’ drums and the piano line (either Jacklin herself or Ben Whiteley) encompass a whole world of hope and drifting, and the low-key vocal on the verses to the hyper-controlled burst of the chorus, keep me coming back. “The echo of that party the night I lost my voice; the silence that surrounds it no longer feels like a choice. I need you to believe me, when I say I find it hard to keep myself from floating away.”

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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”