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An occasional blog about populist politics and popular music, not necessarily at the same time. LinksLocal Links My Other Websites Music Politics Others Networking Music DatabaseArtist Search: Website SearchGoogle: Recent Reading
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Monday, May 12, 2025 Music Week
Music: Current count 44197 [44154) rated (+43), 21 [21] unrated (-0). Another week, and not a hell of a lot to show for it, although the rated count remains rather high -- boosted by wrapping up the rest of the Strata-East reissues I hadn't prioritized last week. Since then, and with my demo queue mostly caught up, it's been a struggle to find things to check out, although I now have a fairly sizable checklist based on the DownBeat Critics Poll ballot, which is sending me back to 2024 records, many of which never even placed in my 2024 EOY Aggregate (which among other things means they went unmentioned in the 2024 Francis Davis Jazz Critics Poll). I blew out a full two days of my time filling in the 73 categories DownBeat asked me to vote for. As usual, I took notes, this time being careful to copy down all of the nominees they offered in all of the categories. To save time, I dispensed with attempting any sort of running commentary -- as I've often done in previous years (which start in 2003, well before they first invited me to vote) -- although I may return and add some later. As my method is to start with last year's notes and edit them as I go, I'm aware that most of what I dropped were lists of snubbed musicians (which in major categories like alto sax and piano could be very long; but to do them properly, as opposed to just reiterating last year's lists, would take a lot of effort, something I was in no mood for). I also have thoughts on the design and implementation of the poll, but they would do little good. Some I've actually shared with DownBeat, like splitting Hall of Fame into separate living and dead sections, since they tend to be judged differently, and the two-per-year process is too limiting -- cf. the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame's by-the-dozen approach, which, easy to say, is way too much. I also think the album categories should be calendar aligned: that critics should have an extra 3 months to consider the past year, and that readers should have 9 months, should not just be deemed a feature but relished as a luxury. It takes time to catch up, and more time for things to sink in, so why not take advantage? I have a million other complaints -- ok, more like a couple hundred, but the mass is way too daunting to detail. The least I can do is mention this line from the invite: "As you already know, it's a LOOOONG ballot and will probably take a little less than an hour to complete, but your input is truly valued." I've never completed it in less than three hours, and that was only by cribbing from past note sheets and voting for 90% of the same people again. Even this year, where my revotes came close to 80%, it took me 6-8 hours, spread out over three days. There are 73 categories, and each one offers 40-75 nominees (with new jazz albums peaking at 136 -- only 22 on my A-lists, out of 110 for 2024, so 80% of my top picks don't even get nominated). Other than that, I managed to get a small amount of house work done last week. I cleared out a pile of dead, decrepit, and/or just disgusting electronics and hauled them off to recycle. I've done some sweeping, some window cleaning, and some yard work. I more-or-less fixed a porch rail that's been leaning alarmingly. I found where an air conditioner plastic slab has broken, so I need to figure out how to straighten it out and get it level. The big task of finding proper places for all the CDs and books, including weeding a few out, remains, as does the more confusing job of sorting out the tools and hardware and putting them where I can find them. The garage and basement need major cleaning. I should go shopping for glasses. While my eyesight is improved, short/medium distances are still troublesome. I need to work on my planning, especially for writing, website development, and finding a new car. Unclear how long the current one will even keep running. It certainly doesn't inspire me to consider any sort of road trip. I do have enough material for a Loose Tabs this week. Possibly for a Books post as well: draft file has 16 main section books; while in the past my standard has been 40, I've been wanting to cut that down, especially as the sublists have grown, and I once posited 20 as a good size. We're beginning to see the first post-2024 election books, and there are a number of important new books on Israel. I also have a big section on jazz books, which I've rarely compiled before. And I still have a lot of tabs open. I also have a couple of questions I hope to answer -- I considered knocking them out today, but don't want to delay posting any more than necessary. How much of this stuff I'll get done next week is anyone's guess. The only project I'm actually enthusiastic about is a dinner, which will give me a chance to combine the salad I missed from the Burmese birthday dinner last October with a couple of old Thai favorites (including one, panang curry duck, that I haven't made since a birthday dinner over a decade ago). Minor housekeeping note: as I've been listening to 2024 releases, I've been adding them to the appropriate 2024 files, including tracking, jazz and non-jazz, and even the EOY aggregate (although I'm making no active effort to collect more data for it). I've basically given up on the idea of including previous-year albums that were unknown to me in the new year lists (as I had done for many years). Eventually, I think that all of the older annual lists should be resynched to calendar year, although at this stage the amount of work involved is hard to imagine doing. I'll also note that my Bluesky account has finally topped 100 followers. I got nervous for a while when the count dropped from 100 to 99, especially as that happened right after a non-music post that no one seems to have understood. New records reviewed this week: Albare: Eclecticity (2025, Alfi): Australian guitarist Albert Dadon, 16th album, also uses a guitar synth, offers a nice groove album setting off Phil Noy's saxophone riffs. Title is quite the tongue-twister. B+(*) [cd] Håkon Berre: Mirror Matter (2025, Barefoot): Norwegian drummer, based in Denmark, several albums since 2009, various side credits (especially with Maria Faust). This one is solo, with electronics as well as percussion. B+(**) [sp] T Bone Burnett: The Other Side (2024, Verve Forecast): Americana singer-songwriter, probably better known these days as a producer but his 1980-92 releases were much esteemed, my favorite the last one, The Criminal Under My Own Hat. Only a few proper albums since, but this one is in much the same vein -- not that he doesn't sound older, and a bit less assured. B+(**) [sp] Cyrus Chestnut: Rhythm, Melody and Harmony (2024 [2025], HighNote): Mainstream pianist, emerged as a major figure in the 1990s with his Atlantic albums, has found an agreeable home here. Quartet with Stacy Dillard (tenor/soprano sax), Gerald Cannon (bass), and Chris Beck (drums). Six originals, three covers, "There Is a Fountain" is especially nice. B+(***) [sp] Yuval Cohen Quartet: Winter Poems (2023 [2025], ECM): Soprano saxophonist from Israel, brother of Anat and Avishai and member of the 3 Cohens, backed here with piano (Tom Oren), bass (Alon Near), and drums (Alon Benjamini). This is lovely, a secluded calm before the cataclysm. B+(**) [sp] George Colligan: You'll Hear It (2024, La Reserve): Pianist, based in Portland, counts as his 38th album (starting in 1996), I'm not finding a credits list, but opens as a trio, with some horns and a singer and switching to electric on the second track. [sp] Alyn Cosker: Onta (2025, Calligram): Drummer, from Scotland, first album 2009, side credits from 2003 including Tommy Smith and Scottish National Jazz Orchestra. Assembled from multiple sessions with various musicians, including several vocalists. I do like the closing folk song ("Làrach do Thacaidean"). B+(*) [cd] The Coward Brothers: The Coward Brothers (2024, New West): Howard and Henry Coward, the former better known as Elvis Costello, the latter as T Bone Burnett, with a back story that goes back to 1956, and an actual single from 1985. If you take Burnett's solo album as a reference, this one is much more eccentric, for better and for worse. B+(*) [sp] James Davis' Beveled: Arc and Edge (2024 [2025], Calligram): Flugelhorn player, from Chicago, wrote all the pieces here, joined by a second flugelhorn player (Chad McCullough), two bass clarinetists (Jeff Bradfield and Michael Salter), bass, and drums. Nice postbop mix. B+(***) [cd] DJ Dadaman & Moscow Dollar: Ka Gaza (2025, Nyege Nyege Tapes): South African, no Discogs history that I can find, just a note that DJ Dadaman "started his journey way back in 2003," in something called "bacardi music" ("a potent cocktail of kwaito, house and synth pop"), with a hint that this may be older music belatedly released. B+(***) [sp] Djrum: Under Tangled Silence (2025, Houndstooth): Felix Manuel, Discogs lists as DJ Rum but recent albums have run the alias together. B+(***) [sp] Maria Faust Sacrum Facere: Marches Rewound & Rewritten (2024 [2025], Stunt): Alto saxophonist, from Estonia, based in Denmark, debut album 2008, third album with this group, which stems from a 2014 album title. Group consists of six horns -- three brass (including tuba), three reeds -- plus two drummers. B+(**) [sp] Satoko Fujii This Is It!: Message (2024 [2025], Libra): Pianist-led trio with trumpet (Natsuki Tamura) and drums (Takashi Itani), third group album, although the first two probably have close to a hundred together, and this is their most basic grouping, and exemplary as usual. A- [cd] Galactic and Irma Thomas: Audience With the Queen (2025, Tchoup-Zilla): New Orleans-based jam (or funk) band, active since 1996, with a couple dozen albums, functioning here as backup for "the soul queen of New Orleans" -- a title she earned with hits in the 1960s. She's 84 now, a decade past her last album, but she sounds strong, and the band does her proud. B+(***) [sp] Hamell on Trial: Harp (for Harry) (2025, Saustex): Folkie singer-songwriter from Syracuse, couple dozen albums since 1996, did this one sounds live sometime after last November 6, which you can tell because he asks how the audience is coping. Just guitar and voice, like The Pandemic Songs, which is all he really needs. A- [sp] Joel Harrison: Guitar Talk Vol. 2: Classical Duos/Jazz Duos (2025, AGS, 2CD): Guitarist, has a couple dozen albums since 1996, organized something he calls Alternative Guitar Summit, releasing a batch of solos in 2024, followed here by two sets of duos: the titular Classical Duos with Fareed Haque & Dan Lippel, and Jazz Duos with Gregg Belisle Chi, Nels Cline, Adam Levy, Camila Meza, Wolfgang Muthspiel, Anthony Pirog, Brad Shepik, and Mike Stern, with scattered bits of voice. B+(*) [cd] HHY & the Kampala Unit: Turbo Meltdown (2025, Nyege Nyege Tapes): Jonathan Uliel Saldhana, a producer from Portugal, working with the label's Ugandan house band. B+(**) [sp] Hieroglyphic Being: Dance Music 4 Bad People (2025, Smalltown Supersound): Chicago house producer Jamal Moss, many albums since 2008. B+(***) [sp] Art Hirahara: Good Company (2023 [2024], Posi-Tone): Pianist, regular albums since 2011 plus side credits on many of the label's albums, this one with Paul Bollenback on guitar and Ron Horton on trumpet/flugelhorn. B+(*) [sp] Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra With Wynton Marsalis and Bryan Stevenson: Freedom, Justice, and Hope (2021 [2024], Blue Engine): Stevenson is director of Equal Justice Initiative, and he introduces the various pieces here with reminders of the long struggle for civil rights. I suspect he's preaching to the choir here, but I can't fault anything he says. I can't fault the music either, where the big band plays Rollins, Coltrane, Fats Waller, and "I Shall Overcome." B+(**) [sp] Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra With Wynton Marsalis: The Music of Max Roach (2024, Blue Engine): A big band program celebrating the bebop drummer's 100th birthday, with Obed Calvaire acting as music director. B+(*) [sp] KnCurrent: KnCurrent (2024 [2025], Deep Dish): Bandleader is alto saxophonist Patrick Brennan, who has several albums going back to 1999, some as Sonic Openings Under Pressure. Group adds Jason Kao Hwang (violin), Cooper-Moore (generally a pianist but plays his homemade diddley-bo here), and On Ka'a Davis (guitar). B+(***) [cd] Hedvig Mollestad Trio: Bees in the Bonnet (2024 [2025], Rune Grammofon): Norwegian electric guitar-bass-drums trio, with Ellen Brakken and Ivar Loe Bjørnstad. Fast, heavy fusion. B+(***) [sp] John Patitucci: Spirit Fall (2024 [2025], Edition): Bassist, has many albums since his eponymous debut in 1988, few I've bothered checking out, but a trio with Chris Potter (tenor/soprano sax, bass clarinet) and Brian Blade (drums) is promising, playing nine of his own songs, plus one from Wayne Shorter. B+(***) [sp] Pé: Æzæl: Eternity of Nonexistence (2025, Tokinogake): Probably Puria M. Rad, "a Bandar Abbas-based musician and sound designer/engineer who was born and raised in Tehran, studied audio production in Malaysia and has been exploring experimental electronic music since 2014" -- my doubts because this and another album on the same Japanese label have yet to appear on Discogs, although a 2021 album and a couple of 5-file FLACS are listed there, and the notes fit: title is an Arabic word, tied to Sufism, also used in Farsi. Not without interest, but pretty minimal, obscurantist even. B [bc] Sault: 10 (2025, Forever Living Originals): British funk group, a dozen albums since 2019, don't know what the four with numerical titles are meant to signify. B+(*) [sp] Joona Toivanen Trio: Gravity (2025, We Jazz): Finnish pianist, debut in 2000 with this same trio: Tapani Toivanen (bass) and Olavi Louhivuori (drums). Has an interesting ambient feel. B+(**) [sp] Gregory Uhlmann/Josh Johnson/Sam Wilkes: Uhlmann/Johnson/Wilkes (2023 [2025], International Anthem): Guitar/sax/bass + effects all around. Gives this a certain plastic quality, which comes home on the "Fool on the Hill" cover. B+(**) [sp] Julia Úlehla and Dálava: Understories (2021 [2025], Pi): Singer-songwriter, trained as an opera singer, draws on Moravian folk music, has studied at Stanford and Eastman, worked in New York and Vancouver, but bio is short on specifics. Dálava is basically Aram Bajakian (guitars, bass, piano, synths, percussion), sometimes supplemented by others: Peggy Lee (cello) and Josh Zubot (violin) appear on several tracks each. Strikes me as dark and heavy, but there's something to it. B+(**) [cd] Jordan VanHemert: Survival of the Fittest (2024 [2025], Origin): Also saxophonist, born in Korea, based in Oklahoma, third album, a postbop sextet with familiar names: Terell Stafford (trumpet), Michael Dease (trombone), Helen Sung (piano), Rodney Whitaker (bass), Lewis Nash (drums). B+(**) [cd] [05-16] The War and Treaty: Plus One (2025, Mercury/UMG Nashville): Duo of Michael Trotter and the former Tanya Blount, both strong singers, credited on their 2016 debut as Trotter & Blount, fourth album under this name, slotted as country but blows up huge with rafter-raising chorus. B- [sp] Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries: Borghesia: Clones (1984 [2025], Dark Entries): Electronic music group founded 1982 in Ljulljana (now Slovenia), could pass for Krautrock, recorded extensively through 1991, regrouped in 2009. Second album. B+(**) [bc] George Colligan: Live at the Jazz Standard (2014 [2025], Whirlwind): A really good pianist since the late 1990s, but it's a crowded field. This is a live set, coming off a trio album with Jack DeJohnette and Larry Grenadier, with Linda May Han Oh subbing for the bassist. B+(**) [sp] The Descendants of Mike and Phoebe: A Spirit Speaks (1973 [2025], Strata-East): One of bassist Bill Lee's projects at the label, with "soprano" (meaning operatic) vocals by A. Grace Lee Mims, plus flugelhorn (Cliff Lee), piano (Consuela Lee Moorehead), and percussion (either Billy Higgins or Sonny Brown). B [sp] Shamek Farrah: First Impressions (1974 [2025], Strata-East): Alto saxophonist, born Anthony Domacase in New York City, started playing in Latin jazz groups, first album, group here is as unfamiliar to me as he is: Norman Person (trumpet), Sonelius Smith (piano), Milton Suggs (bass), Ron Warwell (drums), Calvert "Bo" Satter-White (congas). B+(***) [sp] Shamek Farrah & Sonelius Smith: The World of the Children (1976 [2025], Strata-East): Second album, the pianist getting co-credit with two songs to the alto saxophonist's one, the other songs coming from Joseph Gardner (trumpet) and Milton Suggs (bass). B+(**) [sp] Art Pepper: An Afternoon in Norway: The Kongsberg Concert (1980 [2025], Elemental Music): Another stop on a European tour that's been getting a lot of coverage recently, with the alto saxophonist's regular touring group of Milcho Leviev (piano), Tony Dumas (bass), and Carl Burnett (drums). Terrific, if course, but no better than the Geneva 1980 date I recently reviewed. B+(***) [sp] The Piano Choir: Handscapes (1972 [2025], Strata-East): Multiple pianos, some electic, also credits for "vocals, percussion, African piano, and harpsichord," the performers listed as Stanley Cowell, Nat Jones, Hugh Lawson, Webster Lewis, Harold Mabern, Danny Mixon, Sonelius Smith. This runs very long (9 tracks, 104:55), which makes it hard to find the point. B [sp] The Piano Choir: Handscapes 2 (1974 [2025], Strata-East): Further sessions, five pieces, 33:30, same pianists (possibly excepting Danny Mixon; the other six are featured once or twice) with extra percussionists (Mtume, Jimmy Hopps, John Lewis). Liveliness and brevity help a bit. B+(*) [sp] Albert White: The Definitive Albert White ([2025], Music Maker): Blues guitarist/singer, had an uncle known as Piano Red and started playing with him in 1962, is 82 now, had two albums released on Music Maker 2007 & 2016 but they seem to have been tapes from the 1970s. No dates given for this, but title suggests this is also collected from old tapes. B+(*) [sp] Old music: Khan Jamal: Cool (1989 [2008], Porter): Mallets player (1946-2022), spent his career on the margins of free jazz, starting with a group called Sounds of Liberation. This "percussion and strings quartet" didn't appear until 2002, with a later reissue. Vibraphone, with John Rodgers (cello), Warren Ore (bass), and Dwight James (drums). B+(**) [sp] Limited Sampling: Records I played parts of, but not enough to grade: -- means no interest, - not bad but not a prospect, + some chance, ++ likely prospect. Isaiah Collier/William Hooker/William Parker: The Ancients (2023 [2025], Eremite): Young tenor saxophonist, making a name for himself, also credited with "Aztec death whistle, siren, little instruments," with and drummer and bassist who probably figure they qualify. ++ [bc: 22:41/93:40] Grade (or other) changes: Marshall Allen: New Dawn (2024 [2025], Mexican Summer): Alto saxophonist, joined Sun Ra's Arkestra in 1958, has led the ghost band since 1995, started work on this shortly after his 100th birthday, also playing kora and EWI, leading a large band with a string section and guest vocalist Neneh Cherry. I'm seeing hype for this as his "debut" album, although I have eight previous albums under his name in my database, not all co-credited to Sun Ra Arkestra. I'm also seeing a lot of people treating this as monumental album, but I'm still not hearing it. Wishful thinking, perhaps? It seems unlikely to me that they're appraising it against the 81 Sun Ra albums I've heard, as well as 6 more under Allen's own name. On the other hand, I paid so little attention first time around that I got the title wrong, so felt I had to fix that much. [was: B+(*)] B+(***) [sp] Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:
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