Recent Reading

Music Database

Artist Search:

Browse

Website Search

Google:

Blog Entries [790 - 799]

Monday, January 1, 2018

As 2017 ends, I'm reminded of how sick to my stomach I was election night 2016 -- I normally stay up past 4AM, so pretty much the whole weight of the catastrophe was clear before I tried to sleep. At that point I could predict a whole series of unfortunate future events. In that regard, I haven't been especially surprised by what Trump and the Republicans have done in 2017. They've pretty much lived up to the threat they clearly posed -- the main surprises coming in the form of comic excess, like cabinet secretaries Betsy DeVos, Rick Perry, and Ben Carson. Trump himself has proven to be even more of a bloviating buffoon than he was during the campaign. And his scatterbrained reign is succeeding in one important respect where Hillary Clinton's campaign failed: through his own ineptness, he's making it clear that the real threat to most Americans these days comes from regular Republicans. One shouldn't get overoptimistic that Democrats will capitalize on that point with a resounding electoral win in 2018, but that's not as much of a fantasy as it was a year ago when Clinton et al. snatched defeat from what should have been a clearcut victory.

Some scattered links this week:

• Umair Irlan/Brian Resnick: Megadisasters devastated America this year. They're going to get worse. The big ticket items were hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria, but floods, droughts, tornadoes, wildfires, and other severe weather took their toll.

  Requests for federal disaster aid jumped tenfold compared to 2016, with 4.7 million people registering with the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

  As of October, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had counted 15 disasters with damages topping $1 billion, tying 2017 with 2011 for the most billion-dollar disasters in a year to date. And that was before the California wildfires.

  Many people reflexively blame these disasters on climate change, and there is evidence that some of that is true -- the piece looks at several such arguments. But the price tag is also rising due to increasing development, and also due to infrastructure neglect -- the Puerto Rican power grid the most obvious example. The other big question (not really raised here) is what happens if/when government fails to cope with disaster costs. Unfortunately, we're bound to find out the hard way.

• Fred Kaplan: The UN Vote on Jerusalem Was a Dramatic Rebuke to Trump That He Brought on Himself: The UN voted 128-9 (with 35 abstentions) to "declare null and void the United States' recent recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel." The US (Trump and Nikki Haley) responded by throwing a hissy fit:

  The rebuke is amplified by the fact that Trump had announced the day before that he would revoke financial aid for any country that voted for the resolution. "Let them vote against us," he said at a cabinet meeting on Wednesday. "We'll save a lot. We don't care. But this isn't like it used to be where they could vote against you and then you pay them hundreds of millions of dollars. We're not going to be taken advantage of any longer."

  Trump's U.N. ambassador, Nikki Haley, wrote a letter to other delegates, warning, "The U.S. will be taking names" during the roll call. "As you consider your vote," she elaborated, "I encourage you to know the president and the U.S. take this vote personally. She then tweeted, "At the UN we're always asked to do more and give more. So, when we make a decision, at the will of the American ppl, abt where to locate OUR embassy, we don't expect those we've helped to target us." . . .

  The countries that voted for the resolution -- or, as Trump sees it, against him -- include four of the five biggest recipients of U.S. aid: Afghanistan, Iraq, Egypt, and Jordan. They also include countries that Trump has courted since taking office -- Saudi Arabia, Russia, China, India, Pakistan, and Vietnam. They also include every country in Western Europe, though Trump might not care about that.

• Ezra Klein: Incoherent, authoritarian, uninformed: Trump's New York Times interview is a scary read. Charles P Pierce has a similar take on the same interview: Trump's New York Times Interview Is a Portrait of a Man in Cognitive Decline. Trump's becoming so incoherent it's impossible to discern any method in his madness. That may seem alarming, but it's giving too much credit to the office, assuming the myth of leadership that hasn't been true for many years. Even highly competent presidents -- Obama, most clearly, or Clinton or Johnson, or for that matter Eisenhower -- are often prisoners of their administrations, alliances and choices. Having approved a series of astonishingly bad personnel picks, Trump's already handed his administration over to its fate, something which will be increasingly clear as he continues to lose his grip. The best we can do under these circumstances is to refocus on what his staff actually do, and recognize the corruption and moral rot it's shot through with.

• Paul Krugman: America Is Not Yet Lost: Still, it's been pretty bad:

  Many of us came into 2017 expecting the worst. And in many ways, the worst is what we got.

  Donald Trump has been every bit as horrible as one might have expected; he continues, day after day, to prove himself utterly unfit for office, morally and intellectually. And the Republican Party -- including so-called moderates -- turns out, if anything, to be even worse than one might have expected. At this point it's evidently composed entirely of cynical apparatchiks, willing to sell out every principle -- and every shred of their own dignity -- as long as their donors get big tax cuts.

  Meanwhile, conservative media have given up even the pretense of doing real reporting, and become blatant organs of ruling-party propaganda.

  Like Yglesias below, Krugman sees hope in the broad popular resistance that has risen up against Trump and the Republicans. Still:

  And even if voters rise up effectively against the awful people currently in power, we'll be a long way from restoring basic American values. Our democracy needs two decent parties, and at this point the G.O.P. seems to be irretrievably corrupt.

  Isn't that the rub? The Republicans have clawed their way back into power, after eight GW Bush years that by any objective standards should have been totally discrediting, precisely because most Americans (not just Republicans but many Democrats who supported Clinton) see avarice, greed, power, and corruption as the American value. That is what needs to be changed to restore decency to politics, to make democracy work for all. In that regard, I'd focus more on converting one party than both. The Republicans will change, as they always have, once the vast majority recoil against their corruption. But that won't happen until the people are presented with an honest alternative, which is what Hillary Clinton somehow failed to do in 2016.

  Krugman also wrote: Republicans Despise the Working Class and Republicans Despise the Working Class, Continued:

  Josh Barro argues that Republicans have forgotten how to talk about tax cuts. But I think it runs deeper: Republicans have developed a deep disdain for people who just work for a living, and this disdain shines through everything they do. This is true both on substance -- the tax bill heavily favors owners over workers -- and in the way they talk about it.

  I think one pretty obvious clue came when Ayn Rand groupie Paul Ryan gave a Labor Day speech extolling America's entrepreneurs ("job creators") without even mentioning the people who actually do the work. Such people regard jobs alternatively as charity or more often as a bottom line loss -- an expense best cut by automation or offshoring.

• Sharon Lerner: Banned from the Banking Industry for Life, a Scott Pruitt Friend Finds a New Home at the EPA: Albert Kelly, head of the EPA's Superfund program -- a job he has no relevant experience for, unless fraud counts.

• Maryam Saleh: One Year of Immigration Under Trump: My first thought a year ago was that of all the areas Trump could affect as president, the one he's likely to impact most directly, and most cruelly, is immigration. Plenty of competition, and some of his efforts have been partially stymied, but that fear has proven well grounded.

• Mitch Smith: Fatal 'Swatting' Episode in Kansas Raises Quandry: Who Is to Blame? Big story here in Wichita also noted nationwide. A gamer in Los Angeles called police in Wichita reporting a murder and hostage situation. Police deployed a SWAT team to the prank address and shot and killed a resident.

• Matthew Yglesias: The political lesson of 2017: resistance works: No week-in-review piece this week, but this is a fair note to strike to sum up the past year. Problem, of course, is that while resistance has halted or slowed down some very bad things, it hasn't won anything of note, while Trump and the Republicans have pushed lots of things through that will be hard if even possible to reverse. True, several attempts at "repeal and replace of Obamacare" failed, but Republicans still managed to sneak a repeal of the "individual mandate" -- never very popular but long touted as the cornerstone of any scheme to get to universal coverage through private insurance -- tacking it onto a bill that was already overwhelmingly unpopular. Where Democrats are easily cowed by any hint of unpopularity, Republicans just get more determined to use the power they have to enact the changes they want, always figuring they can con the public into giving them more power. That the electoral tide has shifted is a good sign, but in the short term will only make them more desperate. The tax bill is a prime example of taking what you can when you can, with no regard to public opinion. Indeed, the whole "smash and grab" operation known as the Trump administration is driven like that.

  Other Yglesias pieces:

  • How to Make Metro Great Again: Tinkering with the DC subway system.

  • The biggest surprise of Trump's first year is his hard-right economic policy: About the only "populist" move of Trump's early campaign was the scorn he heaped on big money donors, a luxury he enjoyed only so long as he could afford to self-finance his campaign. He eased off on that late in the campaign, secure that many voters would cut him some slack compared to the donor queen, Crooked Hillary. There never was any substance to his "economic populism" -- e.g., look at his tax cut proposals during the campaign -- and he wasted no time surrendering all the key economic positions to ultra-rich donors and their lackeys. Less successfully, he's let orthodox Republicans in Congress run his legislative agenda; in exchange, they haven't questioned his personal or political scandals, and more often than not tried to provide him cover. In the end, he lacks both the moral courage and intellectual depth to plot his own way. Hence he's turned himself into little more than a tool, a particularly rusty one at that.

  • The economy is normal again

• Micah Zenko: How Donald Trump Learned to Love War in 2017: Well, seems to be an inescapable part of the job. In his first year, Obama may not have come to love war -- at least not as ardently as GW Bush in his first year -- but he was well on the way to becoming an enthusiastic participant. Hillary Clinton tried to convince us that she, and not Trump, the one truly prepared to be Commander-in-Chief, but all it takes is deference to the top brass to get passing marks in that test -- something she should have remembered as it was key to husband Bill's embrace of the military in his first war-loving year. The hope some had for Trump was that he would push his fondness for business deals ahead of the failed neocon agenda and realize that customary rivals like Iran, Russia, China, and even North Korea could be turned into business opportunities, benefiting American investors (if not workers).

  In reality, the Donald Trump administration has demonstrated no interest in reducing America's military commitments and interventions, nor committed itself in any meaningful way to preventing conflicts or resolving them. Moreover, as 2017 wraps up, the trend lines are actually running in the opposite direction, with no indication that the Trump administration has the right membership or motivation to turn things around.

  President Trump has maintained or expanded the wars that he inherited from his predecessor.

  As Jennifer Wilson and I pointed out in an appropriately titled column in August, "Donald Trump Is Dropping Bombs at Unprecedented Levels." Within eight months of assuming office, Trump -- with the announcement of six "precision aistrikes" in Libya -- had bombed every country that former President Barack Obama had in eight years. One month after that, the United States surpassed the 26,172 bombs that had been dropped in 2016. Through the end of December 2017, Trump had authorized more airstrikes in Somalia in one year (33), than George W. Bush and Obama had since the United States first began intervening there in early 2007 (30).

  The growth in airstrikes was accompanied by a more than proportional increase in civilian deaths, . . . But as the volume of airstrikes and deaths increased, the Trump administration has subsequently made no progress in winding down America's wars. Moreover, it doesn't even pretend that the United States should play any role in supporting diplomatic outcomes.

  While Obama was campaigning, he liked to say that he wants to change the way we think about war, but in remarkably short time it was he who changed his thinking. Trump scarcely had any thinking to change. His instinct to give the generals unstinting support locked him into Obama's failing wars. The Russia collusion scandal precludes any opening there. Obeisance to Israel and Saudi Arabia have reopened conflict with Iran. His own stupid bluster has turned North Korea into a potential nuclear confrontation. Meanwhile, he's tearing down the international institutions that offer the only path toward peace and stability.

• TPM: 2017 Golden Dukes Winners Announced! Considering everything they had to choose from, a pretty lame selection: Scott Pruitt is guilty alone of more conspicuous corruption than anyone ranked here. Or maybe they didn't have that much to choose from? Maybe they only read TPM headlines? Rep. Duke Cunningham raked in millions and wound up in jail to get this award named.

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Sunday, December 31, 2017

Not really ready, but had to push this out before the month and year ended. The 161 records are the most all year, topping 156 in January, even more so 144 last December. This late spurt brings the Year 2017 list to 1023 (including 11 still pending) -- nowhere near a record but a respectable quantity, I'd think. It's been a struggle as promo copies have become scarcer, but the whole year has been a struggle. I fully expected to listen to less this year, but fell back into old habits not knowing what else to do.

Still accumulating EOY lists for my EOY Aggregate, which has been pretty stable almost since the beginning, but as the database grows I become aware of more things I had no awareness of previously. January, as usual, will pick up more of these stragglers. I'll freeze the Year 2017 list in late January -- probably a bit more than 2016's 1075 records, though again nowhere near record levels.

As the last hours of 2017 tick away, I've failed to accomplish two fairly mechanical tasks I expected to complete: the compilation of my Jazz Guides, and an update to Robert Christgau's website. The latter is probably still a week away. No idea about the Jazz Guides -- end of January might be possible if I knuckle down, but that would require a big change from recent practice.

Most of these are short notes/reviews based on streaming records from Napster (formerly Rhapsody; other sources are noted in brackets). They are snap judgments, usually based on one or two plays, accumulated since my last post along these lines, back on November 28. Past reviews and more information are available here (10531 records).

Recent Releases

Espen Aalberg/Jonas Kullhammar/Torbjörn Zetterberg/Susana Santos Silva: Basement Sessions Vol. 4 (The Bali Tapes) (2016 [2017], Clean Feed): Three previous volumes listed saxophonist Kullhammar first, with bassist Aalberg and drummer Zetterberg -- perhaps because Aalberg wrote all the pieces (except for a "Javanese traditional"). Last one was recorded in Ljubljana with Jørgen Mathisen. This one in Bali with Santos Silva on trumpet, and everyone dabbling in gamelan. The Indonesian touches are hard to discern, but Kullhammar remains one of the most distinctive saxophonists working. B+(***)

Aesop Rock & Homeboy Sandman: Triple Fat Lice (2017, Stones Throw, EP): Third EP collaboration, five songs, 17:41, the former's word density a plus, especially as the beats (notably piano for the opener) rise to the occasion. B+(***) [bc]

Yazz Ahmed: La Saboteuse (2017, Naim): Plays trumpet and flugelhorn, describes herself as "British-Bahraini" but doesn't elaborate. Second album, has a side-credit with Radiohead and covers one of theirs here, writing all but one of the rest, more often than not with vibraphonist Lewis Wright. Some enticing Arabic rhythmic wrinkles, strong guest spots from Shabaka Hutchings on bass clarinet. B+(**)

Fabian Almazan: Alcanza (2017, Biophilia): Pianist, born in Cuba, raised in Miami, also credited with electronics here, backed by bass (Linda Oh), drums (Henry Cole), and string quartet, with Camila Meza singing and playing guitar. Eleven parts to the title suite, interludes to spotlight the trio instruments, vocals arch and arty. B-

Alvvays: Antisocialites (2017, Polyvinyl): Canadian indie-pop group, second album, Kerri MacLellan the key vocalist, also plays Farfisa adding an organ-like effect to the guitar-bass-drums. B+(**)

Denys Baptiste: The Late Trane (2017, Edition): British saxophonist, tenor and soprano, fifth album since 1999, picks pieces from Coltrane's 1963-67 records backed by a quartet schooled in The Quartet plus "special guests" Gary Crosby (bass) and Steve Williamson (tenor sax). They get the basic idea right, revel in the deep sax search, but in their enjoyment they lose track of Coltrane's own fear and dread. B+(**)

Bargou 08: Targ (2017, Glitterbeat): Named for an isolated valley where the Atlas Mountains of Algeria lap into Tunisia, "a forgotten place." A little rustic for Arabic pop, almost Saharan dry. B+(*)

Courtney Barnett/Kurt Vile: Lotta Sea Lice (2017, Matador): Singer-songwriters, one from Australia, the other from Philadelphia. Last time out she released one of the best records of the 2015 -- not just my opinion there, as it finished 2nd in the Pazz & Jop poll -- while Vile (real name) is well-regarded (27th in same poll), although not much by me. No doubt she brightens up his drab songs, a pretty comfy album until it sours a bit toward the end. B+(*)

John Beasley: Presents MONK'estra Vol. 2 (2017, Mack Avenue): Monk pieces done up big band style -- credits I see look like they could use more trombones, although they weigh in heavily enough, so much so that the Monkishness can get lost. Guests include Dianne Reeves singing "Dear Ruby." Beasley plays keyboards and conducts. B

Ernaldo Bernocchi: Rosebud (2017, RareNoise): All joint credits, so intent is probably eponymous. Leader plays baritone guitar and electronics, joined by FM Einheit ("metals, sand, stones, tools and electronics") and Jo Quail (cello), for a gloomy, nostalgic post-industrial soundscape. B+(*) [cdr]

Blushh + Maddie Ross: Split (2017, self-released, EP): Los Angeles-based DIY rockers, four songs, 11:04, two each: Blushh a guitar-bass-drums quartet with singer Shab Ferdowsi, Ross a single with a similar (same?) band, less catalogue, but more punch. B+(**) [bc]

Sam Braysher With Michael Kanan: Golden Earrings (2016 [2017], Fresh Sound New Talent): Alto sax and piano duo, seems to be the former's first album, while Kanan has a single album from 2002. One Braysher original, the rest a mix of standards and early bop favorites (Parker, Dameron), ending with a brief "Way Down Yonder in New Orleans." Nothing flashy, just easy and intimate, cozy even. B+(***)

Phoebe Bridgers: Stranger in the Alps (2017, Dead Oceans): Singer-songwriter from Los Angeles, first album, starts pretty slow, too wrapped in strings for folk rock, picks up enough speed to disqualify as slowcore either, but sad -- it is that, just not pathetic. B+(*)

Alan Broadbent With the London Metropolitan Orchestra: Developing Story (2017, Eden River): Pianist, perhaps best known as the guy who added lushness (including string arrangements) to Charlie Haden's Quartet West. Goes whole orchestra here, dubbing his piano trio -- with Harvie S (bass) and Peter Erskine (drums) -- in separately. Five pieces by Broadbent, four by others (Tadd Dameron, John Coltrane, Miles Davis twice). Lush and gorgeous, a bit overblown. B+(*)

Brockhampton: Saturation (2017, Question Everything/Empire): Music collective, hip-hop group, "the Internet's first boy band," formed in Texas, based in California, the one member I've heard of before Kevin Abstract. First of three 2017 albums, all but one of the titles four-letter words ("Heat," "Gold," "Star," etc.). B+(*)

Brockhampton: Saturation II (2017, Question Everything/Empire): Growth and development, means using five-letter song titles this time -- "Gummy," "Queer," "Jello," etc., even replacing "Skit" with "Scene." B+(**)

Brockhampton: Saturation III (2017, Question Everything/Empire): And on to the six-letter titles: "Boogie," "Zipper," "Johnny," with the former skits now "Cinema 1-2-3." B+(**)

Peter Brötzmann/Heather Leigh: Sex Tape (2016 [2017], Trost): Second duo album together, Leigh playing pedal steel guitar, trying to make it even uglier than Brötzmann's reeds, often succeeding. Can't say that the instrument has ever been played like this before, but while she reminds me of bagpipes, that just goes to show it could be worse. B-

John Butcher/Damon Smith/Weasel Walter: Catastrophe of Minimalism (2008 [2017], Ballace Point Acoustics): Live tape, on the shelf for nearly a decade -- Butcher (soprano/tenor sax), Smith (bass, samples, lloopp), Walter (percussion). Can get rough, and sometimes better for it. B+(**)

Call Super: Arpo (2017, Houndstooth): British electronica producer, Joseph Richmond-Seaton, second album plus a bunch of shorter releases since 2011. The little stutter beats don't seem like much at first, but gradually they grow radiant, and even the electronic washes shimmer. A-

Tyler Childers: Purgatory (2017, Hickman Holler): Country singer-songwriter, Saving Country Music's favorite record of 2017, but while he's got the traditional sound down pat -- it really does sound terrific -- the songs don't manage to stick. B+(**)

Billy Childs: Rebirth (2017, Mack Avenue): Pianist, from Los Angeles, played with J.J. Johnson and Nat Adderley in the late 1970s, eleventh album since 1988. He wrote the first six tracks (one, the title track, co-written by singer Claudia Acuña), covering "The Windmills of Your Mind" and "Peace." He can be a dazzling pianist, but the productions are overkill, especially on the two vocal tracks. Saxophonist Steve Wilson has a nice run on the closer. B-

Collectif Spatule: Le Vanneau Huppé (2017, Aloya): French group, "jazz acoustique," with Chloe Calleston vocals, flutes and saxophones, chromatic harp, cello, bass, two drummers -- precluding any chance this might get pigeonholed as chamber jazz. B+(**)

Eva Cortés: Crossing Borders (2016 [2017], Origin): Singer from Honduras, half-dozen previous albums since 2007, wrote four (of eleven) songs, one in English. B+(*) [cd]

CupcakKe: S.T.D (Shelters to Deltas) (2016, self-released): Chicago rapper, Elizabeth Eden Harris, second mixtape, not yet 20 but, as they say, "barely legal" -- leads off with rap porn like "Best Dick Sucker" and "Cool Fuck," but also raps about growing up rough and throws it all in your face. B+(**)

CupcakKe: Audacious (2016, self-released): Despite the cheesecake on the cover, she dials the porn back a bit -- well, you still get titles like "Spider Man Dick" and "Cock a Doodle Doo," but also "Picking Cotton" on the evolution of slavery and "Birth Mark" like how you carry your scars, the thrills of "running with the LGBT," and how she discovered "Jesus." B+(***)

CupcakKe: Queen Elizabitch (2017, self-released): Artist name Elizabeth Eden Harris, from Chicago, fourth self-released album -- Wikipedia splits calls two of them mixtapes, two "studio albums," but I doubt you can figure out which is which. Order is a bit easier, not so much because she's maturing -- still just 20 -- but over time she draws less on porn (not that "Cumshot" doesn't count here). Also her beats get louder and more cluttered. But her closing freestyle is as sharply political as anything this year. B+(**)

Pan Daijing: Lack (2017, Pan): Born in Guiyang, Southwest China; based since 2016 in Berlin, first album after a couple EPs. Starts with soprano voice against presumably Chinese strings, before moving into her real calling: noise. Relatively choice cut: "The Nerve Meter." B-

Kris Davis & Craig Taborn: Octopus (2016 [2018], Pyroclastic): Piano duets, two of the most accomplished pianists of their generation(s) -- Davis b. 1980, Taborn b. 1970 -- selected from three concerts. Not normally my thing, but remarkable all the way through. A- [cd]

Dev: I Only See You When I'm Dreamin' (2017, Devishot): Devin Tailes, pop singer from California, second album, not all that splashy but knows when to flirt and when to break it off -- title song is about an ex, and she prefers it that way. A-

Dial & Oatts/Rich DeRosa/The WDR Big Band: Rediscovered Ellington: New Takes on Duke's Rare and Unheard Music (2017, Zoho): Pianist Garry Dial and saxophonist Dick Oatts met in Red Rodney's late-1980s quintet and recorded three albums together 1989-93 as Dial & Oatts, hence the attribution. DeRosa, a longtime UNT professor, is an arranger, although Dial has a co-credit in most of the arrangements, and Oatts the rest. The Germans provide the muscle, although Dial and, especially, Oatts claims most of the solos. Delivers on the rare/unheard promise, not least by not sounding very Ellingtonian. B+(*)

Angelo Divino: Love A to Z (2017, self-released): Crooner, unclear on bio but he's worked in New York and Los Angeles, wrote and sang in a piece called "Let Me Be Frank," which hardly needs to be spelled out further. Goes for sappy love songs here, with pianist Rich Eames helping out. B- [cd]

Fabiano Do Nascimento: Tempo Dos Mestres (2017, Now-Again): Guitarist-singer from Rio de Janeiro, second album (in US anyhow), straddles folk and psychedelia, or maybe Brazilian folk just starts out bent like that? B+(**)

FCT = Francesco Cusa Trio Meets Carlo Atti: From Sun Ra to Donald Trump (2016 [2017], Clean Feed): Recorded Nov. 23, a few weeks after the apocalyptic American election. Cusa is a drummer from Italy, discography back to 1997, someone I don't know but most likely should. Trio adds Gabriele Evangelista on bass and Simone Graziano on piano, while Atti plays sax. Titles mostly show interest in economics from Smith to Keynes, but for good measure they toss in a "wrestling bout, refereed by Roland Barthes." Still, no words, just well structured tunes with the sax sharpening the edges. A-

Agustí Fernández/Rafal Mazur: Ziran (2016, Not Two): Piano and acoustic bass guitar duo, the latter producing most of the odd sounds that dominate early, before the pianist really kicks in. B+(*)

Fever Ray: Plunge (2017, Rabid/Mute): Singer-songwriter Karin Dreijer, from Sweden, second solo album after her eponymous 2009 debut, although she's recorded in a number of other projects, notably the Knife (a duo with her brother). Darker and drearier than I expect in a pop record. B+(*)

Nick Fraser: Is Life Long? (2016 [2017], Clean Feed): Toronto drummer, several previous albums, the best showcases for tenor saxophonist Tony Malaby, again featured here along with Andrew Downing (cello) and Rob Clutton (bass). Malaby gets in some monster runs here, too, but the cello gets a lot of space, and when the saxophonist picks the soprano to duet things can get squeaky. B+(**)

Dori Freeman: Letters Never Read (2017, MRI): Folk singer, eponymous debut album last year was very striking. Remarkable voice, nothing affected but everything she does with it is completely stressless -- even a cappella. Short (28:17), but ten songs, none rushed, all satisfying. A-

David Friesen: Structures (2017, Origin, 2CD): Bassist, probably deserves to be noted as a composer too, with a substantial discography from the mid-1970s on. Two sets of duets: one with Joe Manis on tenor/soprano saxophones, with Friesen also playing some piano; the other with Larry Koonse on guitar, a quiet and intimate encounter. B+(*) [cd]

Champian Fulton & Scott Hamilton: The Things We Did Last Summer (2017, Blau): Piano-playing standards singer from Oklahoma, eighth album since 2007. Backed by bass and drums, gives a good showing for her piano and for Hamilton's tenor sax but feels a bit off. B+(*)

Charles Gayle Trio: Solar System (2016 [2017], ForTune): Free jazz saxophonist, in his 40s before he got a chance to record in 1992, his ability to channel raw power perhaps unmatched, although for a while he seemed in danger of wearing out his welcome. Pushing 80, he's playing typically vigorous alto live in Warsaw with local bassist (Kaswery Wojcinski) and drummer (Max Andrzejewski). He also plays quite a bit of piano, here as impressive as his sax. A- [bc]

Paul Giallorenzo Trio: Flow (2017, Delmark): Pianist from Chicago, leads a bright and bouncy trio with Joshua Abrams (bass) and Mikel Patrick Avery (drums). B+(**) [cd]

Ben Goldberg School: Vol. 1: The Humanities (2017, BAG): Clarinet player, discography starts in 1992, sextet -- alto sax (Kasey Knudsen), trombone (Jeff Cressman), accordion/piano (Rob Reich), bass (David Ewell), drums (Hamir Atwal) -- plays six originals "and a Merle Travis hit" ("Nine Pound Hammer"). B+(**)

Frank Gratkowski/Simon Nabatov: Mirthful Myths (2015 [2017], Leo): Duets, alto sax/clarinet/bass clarinet and piano, both musicians in their 50s with many free jazz albums. Good match. B+(**)

Mark Guiliana Jazz Quartet: Jersey (2017, Motéma): Drummer from New Jersey, was in the group Heernt, did a duo album with Brad Mehldau. Quartet with Jason Rigby (sax), Fabian Almazan (piano), and Chris Morrissey (electric bass). Some impressive bits, but I don't care for the closing vocals. B+(*)

Charlie Halloran: Ce Biguine! (2017, self-released): Trombonist, originally from St. Louis, based in New Orleans, looks beyond trad jazz, aiming "to capture the dance music of the French Caribbean circa 1950," his old-timey sound underscored by the "pops and scratches" of recording straight to 78 rpm acetate discs. B+(**) [bc]

Aldous Harding: Party (2017, 4AD): "Gothic-folk" singer-songwriter from New Zealand, second album. Voice and guitar, slow and dark (probably the goth part). B

Keyon Harrold: The Mugician (2017, Legacy): Trumpet player, mainstream in 2009 when Criss Cross released Introducing Keyon Harrold, but second album is something else, with funky riddims, guest vocalists, rappers, and occasional clouds of strings. Beware "Ethereal Souls," a good time to jump to "Bubba Rides Again." B+(*)

Emily Herring: Gliding (2017, Eight 30): Austin singer-songwriter with an air of western swing and a few vocal quirks. B

Lilly Hiatt: Trinity Lane (2017, New West): John Hiatt's daughter, based in Nashville, third album. Rocks hard for Nashville, but loses something when she doesn't. B+(**)

Homeboy Sandman: Veins (2017, Stones Throw, EP): Short album, ten cuts, 24:13, seems to be the preferred length for the rapper, typically smart and low-key. B+(**)

Jazzmeia Horn: A Social Call (2017, Prestige): Jazz singer from Dallas, studied at New School, won a Monk Prize in 2015, first album. mostly standards, band seems first rate but it took many clicks to come up with some names: Victor Gould (piano), Ben Williams (bass), Jerome Jennings (drums), plus horns on half of the tracks: Stacy Dillard (tenor sax), Josh Evans (trumpet), Frank Lacy (trombone). Likes to scat, and is pretty good at it. B+(**)

Hvalfugl: By (2017, self-released): Danish trio: bass (Anders Juel Bomholt), guitar (Jeppe Lavsen), piano (Jonathan Fjord Bredholt). Chamber jazz, probably has some folk roots as it seems to have more in common with pre-classical than with jazz. Pretty. B+(**)

Sherman Irby & Momentum: Cerulean Canvas (2017, Black Warrior): Alto saxophonist, made a splash in the late 1990s -- I recommend Big Mama's Biscuits -- half-dozen or so albums since then, some side credits including Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. Leads quintet with Vincent Gardner (trombone), Eric Reed (piano), bass, and drums, plus Wyonton Marsalis and Elliot Mason drop in as guests. Still a remarkable player, enough so that I kinda wish he omitted the other horns and stretched out. B+(*)

Irreversible Entanglements: Irreversible Entanglements (2015 [2017] International Anthem/Don Giovanni): "Liberation-oriented free jazz collective: Camae Ayewa (poet, also dba Moor Mother), Keir Neuringer (alto sax), Aquiles Navarro (trumpet), Luke Stewart (bass), Tcheser Holmes (drums). Group started playing at Musicians Against Police Brutality protests, and have just gotten angrier -- with good reason. A-

The Jazz Passengers: Still Life With Trouble (2017, Thirsty Ear): Roy Nathanson-Curtis Fowlkes group dating back to 1987, broke up after two 1998 albums with Debbie Harry (recommended) but issued Re-United in 2010. Current edition includes vibes (Bill Ware), violin (Sam Bardfield), bass (Brad Jones, drums (Ben Perowsky and E.J. Rodriguez), plus the leaders' alto sax and trombone. No real singers but many voice credits, mixed up eclectic as ever. B+(**)

Ingrid and Christine Jensen: Infinitude (2016, Whirlwind): Trumpet and alto/soprano sax, sisters, from British Columbia, with guitarist Ben Monder also getting cover credit, plus Fraser Hollins (bass) and Jon Wikan (drums). Postbop, flittering on the horizon with mirage-like shimmer. B+(**)

Ryan Keberle/Frank Woeste: Reverso: Suite Pavel (2017 [2018], Phonoart): Trombone and piano, backed by cello (Vincent Curtois) and drums (Jeff Ballard). Original pieces by the leaders plus some joint improv, looking back and drawing inspiration from French composer Maurice Ravel, especially a series of piano pieces from 1914-17. The piano has some nice flourishes, but I like it better when the trombone weighs in. B+(**) [cd]

King Krule: The OOZ (2017, True Panther Sounds): Archy Marshall, from London, mixes styles from punk to rap but, this time at least, slows them down and gives them a darker, more abstract cast. B

Lee Konitz: Frescalalto (2015 [2017], Impulse): Alto saxophonist, probably the first major one after Charlie Parker to go off and do something remarkably different, his tone fairly described as cool but his logic markedly more complex. Still in remarkable form at 88 (when this was recorded), backed by a very capable trio -- Kenny Barron, Peter Washington, and Kenny Washington -- although they may be a bit too mainstream for him. One anomaly: a couple of Konitz vocals -- not much voice, but still musical. B+(***)

Alex Lahey: I Love You Like a Brother (2017, Dead Oceans): Singer-songwriter from Melbourne, Australia, first album, what we used to call power pop, sounds great most of the time but can thicken up and stall when she slows down for melodrama. Not funny enough to catch you quick, but smart enough to keep trying. B+(***)

LEF: Hypersomniac (2017, RareNoise): Initials stand for singer-songwriter Lorenzo Esposito Fornasari. Band includes some fusion/jazztronica notables -- Eivind Aarset (guitar), Nils Petter Molvaer (trumpet), Bill Laswell (bass) -- but net effect is somewhere betweel prog and the softer metals. B- [cdr]

João Lencastre's Communion 3: Movements in Freedom (2017, Clean Feed): Portuguese drummer, leads a piano trio with Jacob Sacks and Eivind Opsvik. B+(**)

Liebman/Murley Quartet: Live at U of T (2017, U of T Jazz): Two saxophonists, both play soprano and tenor, Dave Liebman and Mike Morley, the latter teaches at University of Toronto where the former is a visiting professor. Backed by bass and drums, also faculty. Often terrific. B+(***) [cd]

Nick Maclean Quartet: Rites of Ascension (2017, Browntasaurus): Piano/synthesizer player from Toronto, quartet adds trumpet (Brownman Ali), bass, and drums. Mostly originals (one by Ali), plus four "Herbie Hancock classics" -- fairly generic fusion pieces, although the spoken word bits are pretty smart. B+(*) [cd]

Christian McBride Big Band: Bringin' It (2017, Mack Avenue): Bassist, landed a major label deal for his debut in 1994 and remains a perennial poll winner fourteen albums later. Second big band effort, sixteen pieces plus a couple guests, with Melissa Walker singing two songs. Three originals, trombonist Steve Davis guests on his own song, seven covers, plenty of volume atop phat bass lines, yet it doesn't jell into anything interesting. B-

Makaya McCraven: Highly Rare (2016 [2017], International Anthem): Second generation drummer, has a remix of his last album, and this one is frenetic enough I wouldn't be surprised if another remix is in the works. Nick Mazzarella adds an avant touch on alto sax, as does Ben Lamar Gay on cornet and diddley bow, with bass guitar and turntables punching up the beat. B+(***)

Zara McFarlane: Arise (2017, Brownswood): British jazz singer-songwriter, "born to parents of Jamaican heritage," laps into r&b, credits stress her role as arranger, although drummer Moses Boyd shares most writing credits. Nicely crafted, but pretty close to nicheless. B+(*)

Joe McPhee/Pascal Niggenkemper/Ståle Liavik Solberg: Imaginary Numbers (2015 [2017], Clean Feed): McPhee opens on pocket trumpet before switching to tenor sax. picking up strength as he works through three improv pieces, backed by bass and drums, visiting Brooklyn from Europe. B+(***)

Gary Meek: Originals (2017, self-released): Tenor saxophonist, sixth album since 1991, surprised not to find him in my database, although the side-credits listed on his Wikipedia page aren't major interests of mine: Flora Purim, Airto Moreira, Jeff Lorber, Brian Bromberg, Dave Weckl, Green Day. A couple of those are on hand here (Bromberg, Moreira), as well as Randy Brecker, Mitchel Forman, Bruce Forman, and Terri Lyne Carrington. They keep this centered in the mainstream, letting the saxophone shine. B+(**)

Ron Miles: I Am a Man (2016 [2017], Yellowbird): Cornet player, born in Indiana, based in Denver, tenor so albums since 1990. This one sometimes co-attributed to his notable band: Bill Frisell (guitar), Jason Moran (piano), Thomas Morgan (bass), and Brian Blade (drums). Cool and eloquent, tied into a film but I'm not sure which led to what. B+(***) [yt]

Jason Moran and the Bandwagon: Thanksgiving at the Vanguard (2016 [2017], Yes): Piano trio, group name comes from their 2003 album, with Tarus Mateen on bass and Nasheet Waits on drums, a long running group. Couldn't follow the patter, and didn't get the vocals or some of the electronics, but clearly still a major talent -- just harder to follow since he departed from Blue Note. B+(*) [dl]

Van Morrison: Versatile (2017, Legacy): Thirty-eighth studio album, another quickie, the covers leaning more toward jazz than the blues on Roll With the Punches. Terrific singer, of course, but there's still something rote about the treatments, although "They Can't Take That Away From Me" is pretty convincing. B+(*)

Kjetil Møster/Jeff Parker/Joshua Abrams/John Herndon: Ran Do (2015 [2017], Clean Feed): Norwegian avant-saxophonist with a Chicago-based guitar-bass-drums rhythm section, two members of which also play in the post-rock band Tortoise. They might conjure up memories of the leader's own rock encounters (e.g., Motorpsycho), but nothing really sparks. B+(*)

Zaid Nasser: The Stroller (2016 [2017], SteepleChase): Alto saxophonist, father was bassist Jamil Nasser, not sure how old he is but he's played with Jo Jones, Bill Doggett, and Panama Francis. He recorded two terrific bebop albums for Smalls 2007-09 and that seems to be it. Backed by guitar-bass-drums, two originals, covers include two tunes by Lou Donaldson, right up Nasser's alley. B+(**)

NERD: No One Ever Really Dies (2017, I Am Other/Columbia): Pharell Williams/Chad Hugo group, name an acronym for "No-one Ever Really Dies" so their fifth album's (since 2002; last was 2010) title just reiterates their core idea. Their beats are also recycled, sparer and a tad less catchy than before. Opening line has a point: The truth will set you free/but first it will piss you off." B+(**)

New Order: NOMC15 (2015 [2017], Pledge Music, 2CD): Like Elvis, opens with a bit of Wagner before ploughing into their back catalog. The live ambiance/audience doesn't quite do justice to their greatest songs, which were perfect as minted in the studio, but I'm still amazed that a band of four can play them at all. So maybe the value added here is the human dimension. B+(***)

New York Electric Piano: State of the Art (2017, Fervor): Pat Daugherty's piano trio, Aaron Comess on bass and Richard Hammond on drums -- a group name Daugherty's used since 2002 although he plays quite a bit of acoustic here, as well as some organ. B+(*) [cd]

Sam Newsome/Jean-Michel Pilc: Magic Circle (2017, Some New Music): Duets, soprano sax and piano, the latter filling in and supporting rather than racing ahead (as Pilc is quite able to do). Two improv pieces, seven standards including Ellington, Monk, and Coltrane. B+(**)

Jeb Loy Nichols: Country Hustle (2017, Inkind): Singer-songwriter, born in Wyoming, moved to Wales in the 1980s and formed a group called the Fellow Travellers, which released three albums 1990-93. Tenth album since he went solo in 1997 (a Christgau A- I didn't care for). This one strikes me as too slick and slinky, as he just glides through one throwaway after another. B-

Gard Nilssen's Acoustic Unity: Livei n Europe (2017, Clean Feed, 3CD): Norwegian drummer, plays in Cortex and runs this trio with André Roligheten on sax and Petter Eish on double bass -- their 2015 debut Firehouse is recommended. Three full sets here: the first just the trio at the North Sea Jazz Festival, plus guest tenor saxophonists on the other two: Fredrik Ljungkvist in Ljubljana and Jørgen Mathisen in Oslo. The guests acquit themselves well enough, but I rather prefer the trio. B+(***)

Dick Oatts: Use Your Imagination (2016 [2017], SteepleChase): Alto saxophonist, moved from Iowa to New York in the 1970s, joining the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra. All Oatts originals except for the title piece from Cole Porter. Hard bop lineup, with Joe Magnarelli at trumpet, Anthony Wonsey on piano, all very fluid. B+(**)

Dawn Oberg: Nothing Rhymes With Orange (2017, self-released, EP): Piano-playing singer-songwriter, has a couple of highly literate and slightly jazzy albums, knocked out three short topical songs (8:29), including the title tirade on a president she refuses to name ("rhymes with bump, and dump") and a coda that goes "I'd love to be wrong," all wrapped up in an orange mushroom cloud. A lyric sheet would be helpful, but she lost me with the line about "Putin's bitch" -- shows she misses the real basis of the mutual attraction society. B+(*) [bc]

Uwe Oberg/Rudi Mahall/Michael Griener: Lacy Pool 2 (2017, Leo): Another Steve Lacy tribute band, this one led by German pianist Oberg, plus clarinet (replacing trombone on the first Lacy Pool) and drums. The clarinet is faster and shriller, closer to Lacy although they also remind me of Lacy's affinity for Monk. B+(***)

One O'Clock Lab Band: Lab 2017 (2017, UNT): Home of one of the largest jazz programs in the country, this is UNT's working big band, full of youthful vigor and emerging chops, but still students. Admittedly, if I was teaching I'd grade their efforts higher. B [cd]

Orchestre Les Mangelepa: Last Band Standing (2017, Strut): Kenyan band, formed in Nairobi in 1976, mostly Congolese musicians, contributed two songs to the justly famous Earthworks compilation Guitar Paradise of East Africa. Never toured outside of Africa until 2016, belatedly landing a record on this UK label. This remakes some of their early hits, probably not helped by the mellowing of age, yet remains remarkable. Better late, I suppose, than never. A-

Kelly Lee Owens: Kelly Lee Owens (2017, Smalltown Supersound): Electronica from London, formerly played bass in the History of Apple Pie. First album, muted beats and melancholy moods. B

Emile Parisien/Vincent Peirani/Andreas Schaerer/Michael Wollny: Out of Land (2016 [2017], ACT): Alphabetic order: soprano sax, accordion, voice/percussion, and piano. Of these Parisien is the least important: the others wrote songs (Peirani and Schaerer two each, Wollny one), the accordion is the focal center of the music, and whether or not you like the music depends on how you respond to Schaerer singing, which ranges from operatic to Theo Bleckmann. B

Phil Parisot: Creekside (2017, OA2): Drummer, based in Seattle, second album, was in the earlier group Big Neighborhood. Basically a hard bop quintet -- Tatum Greenblatt on trumpet, Steve Treseler on tenor sax, Dan Kramlich on piano -- all original material, strong up the middle. B+(**) [cd]

Nicholas Payton: Afro-Caribbean Mixtape (2017, Paytone/Ropeadope, 2CD): Trumpet player from New Orleans, started out in the Marsalis-Blanchard mainstream, looked trad for a duo with Doc Cheatham (by far his best album), then got interested in electronics without ever really finding his niche. Still a fine trumpet player. B+(*)

Gary Peacock Trio: Tangents (2016 [2017], ECM): Bassist-led piano trio, with Marc Copland (piano) and Joey Baron (drums). Copland dials it back a notch to give the bassist more space, and that works out nicely. B+(***)

Penguin Cafe: The Imperfect Sea (2017, Erased Tapes): Not to be confused with Simon Jeffes' Penguin Cafe Orchestra, which recorded five studio and two live albums 1976-95, but not unrelated either as the new group -- three albums since 2011 -- is led by son Arthur Jeffes, and plays a similar pop-tinged minimalism, sometimes with all the strings venturing to the lush side, sometimes for the better. B+(**)

Ivo Perelman/Matthew Shipp/William Parker/Bobby Kapp: Heptagon (2017, Leo): Tenor sax backed by piano-bass-drums: Shipp has been a nearly constant companion of late, with the pair releasing seven volumes of The Art of Perelman-Shipp back in March. The best one then was a quartet with Shipp's everyday trio (Michael Bisio and Whit Dickey), but Shipp's played even more with Parker and brought Kapp back from obscurity for a superb duo in 2016 (Cactus; Kapp first made his mark with the other great avant-garde saxophonist from South America, the late Gato Barbieri). Superb all around. A- [cd]

Ivo Perelman/Matthew Shipp/Nate Wooley: Philosopher's Stone (2017, Leo): Wooley's trumpet adds a shrill note, which eventually takes over the album, drawing the saxophonist in. B+(*) [cd]

Ivo Perelman/Nate Wooley/Brandon Lopez/Gerald Cleaver: Octagon (2017, Leo): A rare "pianoless quartet" album, the two horns (tenor sax and trumpet) freewheeling against bass and drums, which help steady the rhythm and fill out harmonically -- chemistry that works admirably. A- [cd]

Ivo Perelman/Matthew Shipp/Joe Hertenstein: Scalene (2017, Leo): Tenor sax with piano and drums. Not sure if the drummer, a German in New York with Jörg his given first name, has ever played in this company before, but he keeps up as the leaders knock out some of their fastest and most furious runs. A- [cd]

Ivo Perelman/Matthew Shipp/Jeff Cosgrove: Live in Baltimore (2017, Leo): Tenor sax, piano, and drums, a live set (the night's second, as it were) cut within weeks of his latest binge of studio albums. No covers, no songs, just a straight 51:00 improv, roughly equivalent to most of this year's extensive series of Perelman-Shipp collaborations. Of course, always nice to have a drummer on hand. B+(***) [cd]

Margo Price: All American Made (2017, Third Man): Country singer-songwriter, born in Illinois, based in Nashville, first album enjoyed a lot of crossover acclaim, and this one is roughly comparable -- although it tails off a bit after three snappy openers and a 6:19 Willie Nelson duet. B+(**)

Princess Nokia: 1992 Deluxe (2017, Rough Trade): Rapper from New York, "of Afro-Puerto Rican descent," first album after several singles, most famously "Bitch I'm Posh." Beats fold back on themselves, and I lost track of how many times she says "suck my dick," so not a great wordsmith. "Deluxe" expands the EP 1992 to CD (2LP) length. B

Rapsody: Laila's Wisdom (2017, Def Jam): Rapper Marianna Evans, second studio album. Underground beats mostly from 9th Wonder, featured guests on at least half the tracks, probably too many cooks but many of the writing credits trace back to samples. B+(**)

Ada Rave Trio: The Sea, the Storm and the Full Moon (2015 [2017], Clean Feed): Tenor saxophonist from Argentina, also plays clarinet and flute. Trio with Wilbert De Joode on bass and Nicola L. Hein on prepared guitar, which manages to throw everything off kilter. B+(*)

Red Planet/Bill Carrothers: Red Planet With Bill Carrothers (2017, Shifting Paradigm): Minneapolis-based guitar-bass-drums trio (Dean Magraw, Chris Bates, Jay Epstein -- Magraw was in Boiled in Lead and has seven solo albums) backs off their fusion instincts as the postbop pianist runs away with the album. B+(**)

Nadia Reid: Preservation (2017, Basin Rock): Singer-songwriter from New Zealand, second album, sources peg her as folk but other than remaining credible when she drops down to just voice over guitar I don't hear it -- indeed, when the band chimes in she can rock a little. B+(*)

Riddlore: Afro Mutations (2017, Nyege Nyege Tapes): LA-based MC/beatmaker Henry Lee Owens, has ten or more aliases in his discography including many variations on Riddler -- this one, with a question mark, dates from 2003. Discogs styles this "limited edition of 80" cassette, cut in Kampala, Uganda, as "bass music," although there are hard-to-pin-down wind instruments over the bass riffs and beats. The blues sample on "Whose Gonna Be 2" is a nice change up. B+(**) [bc]

Cécile McLorin Salvant: Dreams and Daggers (2017, Mack Avenue, 2CD): Jazz singer, born in Miami to Haitian father and French mother, moved to France to study voice and law, quickly jumped to the top of the polls. Fourth album is a live double (3-LP), backed by piano trio (Aaron Diehl) and string quartet. I'm not taken with the band, and find the songs scattershot (although I like the French chanson). She does have a knack for working in idiosyncratic bits, probably a big part of her appeal. B+(*)

Rina Sawayama: Rina (2017, self-released, EP): Japanese-born pop singer, grew up and based in London. Eight tracks (including two interludes), 24:51, splashy tricks, rarely connects. B-

Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah: The Emancipation Procrastination (2017, Stretch Music/Ropeadope): Third album this year, completing a trilogy known as The Centennial Trilogy. Mostly plays trumpet, but other instrument credits include "sonic architecture" -- seems to be a canned fusion beat, but not a bad one. Strong sax (mostly Braxton Cook), too much flute, doesn't really support its clever title but as solidly enjoyable as its two predecessors. B+(**)

Shotgun Jazz Band: Steppin' on the Gas (2016 [2017], self-released): New Orleans trad jazz band, principally Marla Dixon, who plays trumpet and sings, mostly a sextet with James Evans on C-melody sax and clarinet, plus trampagne, piano, bass, and drums, with extra trumpet and alto sax/clarinet on 5/18 tracks. With a couple Randy Newman songs, perhaps less trad, more Louisiana. B+(**)

Sirius: Acoustic Main Suite Plus the Inner One (2017, Clean Feed): Duo, based in Portugal, the Swazi-born trumpeter Yaw Tembe and French percussionist Monsieur Trinité (Francisco Trindade). Has a "weird folk" vibe, both deeply rooted and abstract. B+(*)

Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith: The Kid (2017, Western Vinyl): American electronic composer, based in Los Angeles, sixth album since 2012, sings, using her voice as fodder for her electronics. Latter is not without interest, but album is cluttered and often annoying. B

Omar Sosa & Seckou Keita: Transparent Water (2017, World Village): Cuban pianist, left his homeland in 1993 (age 28) and after stops in Ecuador and San Francisco wound up in Barcelona. Keita, born in Senegal, based in England, plays kora, talking drum, and djembe. Several tracks add guests playing bata, sheng, and/or koto, some with vocals (both artists credited, but more Keita's thing). B+(*)

Chris Stapleton: From a Room: Volume 2 (2017, Mercury Nashville): The room is RCA Studio A in Nashville, a short (9 cut, 32:19) sequel to the short (9 cut, 32:49) Volume 1 released seven months earlier, with the same artwork colored differently. B+(**)

John Stowell/Ulf Bandgren Quartet: Night Visitor (2016 [2017], Origin): Two guitarists, backed by bass and drums. Stowell dates back to the late 1970s, when he was closely associated with David Friesen, and he's been a consistently interesting picker. Bandgren is Swedish, has a previous album from 2001. Bassist Bruno Raberg wrote four (of ten) songs, leaving three each for the leaders. B+(*) [cd]

Moses Sumney: Aromanticism (2017, Jagjaguwar): Singer-songwriter from San Bernardino, CA, parents from Ghana, lived for a while in Ghana but "was too Americanized," not that he fits any pigeonhole: vocals draw on a cappella gospel with a bit of folk, music ambient rather than rhythmic. Might grow on you, not that I gave it much of a chance. B+(*)

Taylor Swift: Reputation (2017, Big Machine): Sixth album, first sold five million, second eleven million, fifth ten million, this one (so far, even these days) over two million. Her lyrics are stuffed with clichés and the beats are mechanical, but they're pretty catchy, and the fact that the one I've heard before is the one I found more memorable is likely to change if I found time to play this obsessively. B+(**)

Takaaki: New Kid in Town (2016 [2017], Albany): Pianist Takaaki Otomo, from Kobe, Japan, moved to New York in 2014, leads this trio with Noriko Ueda (also from Japan) on bass and Jared Shonig (from LA) on drums. Two originals, one from Ueda, with producer Bernard Hoffer conspicuous in the credits -- two compositions and five arrangements, including two Gustav Holst pieces. Other covers include John Lewis and Dave Brubeck. B+(**) [cd]

Tune Recreation Committee: Voices of Our Vision (2017, self-released): Cape Town, South African group, led by Mandla Mlangeni (trumpet), with "special guest" Mark Fransman (saxes/flute/accordion) and "legendary" Madala Kunene (guitar). Four pieces, bent rhythms based loosely on local models, often with voices (not wild about these). [NB: Length 34:35, but CDBaby has a 9-cut version.] B+(*) [bc]

Turnpike Troubadours: A Long Way From Your Heart (2017, Bossier City): Country band from Oklahoma, John Fulbright a former member, current crew (five albums in) pretty anonymous, although the slow one, "Pay No Rent," sounds like a long lost Joe Ely tune until it gets condescending. B

Jeremy Udden/John McNeil/Akyer Kobrinsky/Anthony Pinciotti: Hush Point III (2017, Sunnyside): Website insists "it's a band," but the cover lists the members in the order given. Group has two previous albums, Hush Point and Blues and Reds, which both list senior trumpet player McNeil ahead of the saxophonist (alto/soprano), the second clearly attributed to the group. B+(*)

The War on Drugs: A Deeper Understanding (2017, Atlantic): Third album, 2014's Lost in the Dream, was a critical breakthrough, a very good sounding alt/indie band. Since then they've got a bigger label, a bigger sound with more keyboard layers, and a lot longer -- nothing there I count as an improvement. B

Jane Weaver: Modern Kosmology (2017, Fire): British singer-songwriter, played guitar and sang in groups Kill Laura and Misty Dixon before going solo in 2002. Electropop, but not bright and not bouncy, which gives it a veneer of depth I haven't penetrated. B+(*)

Wolf Alice: Visions of a Life (2017, Dirty Hit): British alt/noise group, second album, Ellie Rowsell sings (also plays guitar and keyboards, as does Jeff Oddie). Strong presence and depth -- I can see why people are impressed. B+(*)

Charli XCX: Pop 2 (2017, Asylum): British pop star, Charlotte Aitchison, officially this is a mixtape, her second this year after two studio albums and two early 2012 mixtapes. Beaucoup guests, thirteen on eight (of ten) songs, mostly other sings who don't sound all that different, the effect catchy enough but rather slapdash. B+(***)

Yaeji: Yaeji (2017, Godmode, EP): Based in New York and Seoul, Kathy Yaeji Lee, the first of two EPs (5 tracks, 19:13) that topped Gorilla vs. Bear's EOY list. Disarmingly talkie vocals over deep house beats that sneak up on you. B+(**)

Yaeji: EP 2 (2017, Godmode, EP): Five more cuts, 18:05. Again, vocals barely above a whisper, beats don't grab you much, but you sort of lose track of time and feel satisfied. B+(***)

Dave Young/Terry Promane Octet: Vol. 2 (2017, Modica Music): Toronto group, the leaders play bass and trombone and do the arrangements, all standards and jazz pieces like Gillespie's "Bebop," Mingus' "Duke Ellington's Sound of Love," and pieces by Duke Pearson and Cedar Walton. B+(*) [cd]

Neil Young + Promise of the Real: The Visitor (2017, Reprise): New (39th studio) album from a Canadian singer-songwriter who's spent most of his life immersed in deep Americana, backed by Lucas Nelson's bland band. As is often the case with immigrants, he appreciates things about America that natives take for granted, and in some ways he's overly generous ("Already Great"), in others he gets overly defensive. None of this brings out his best songwriting, although there's a nice one early on. B

Waclaw Zimpel/Kuba Ziolek: Zimpel/Ziolek (2017, Instant Classic): Two Poles, Zimpel I'm familiar with as an avant (bass) clarinet player; Ziolek seems (I haven't found any credits) to be on guitar and electronics. Four tracks, enough vocals early on to move this out of jazz and into something like Gong-ish prog, but the post-minimalism takes over on the remarkable closer. B+(**)

Recent Reissues, Compilations, Vault Discoveries

Andina: The Sound of the Peruvian Andes 1968-1978 (1968-78 [2017], Tiger's Milk/Strut): Cover notes "Huayno, Carnaval & Cumbia" -- the latter a style associated with Colombia, something I would have thought more common in coastal Lima than the isolated backbone of the country. But the Incan civilization was centered in the Andes, so what do I know? Starts off remarkably upbeat and plays off that in various ways, some corny, which just adds to the fun. A-

The Bill Evans Trio: On a Monday Evening (1976 [2017], Fantasy): Piano trio with Eddie Gomez on bass and Eliot Zigmund on drums, recorded live in Madison, Wisconsin. I don't know much from this period in Evans' discography but I've heard a couple of terrific records from 1978-80, just a couple years before Evans' death. This is close to their order -- I clearly need to take a deep dive to sort them out. B+(***)

Vinny Golia Wind Quartet: Live at the Century City Playhouse: Los Angeles, 1979 (1979 [2017], Dark Tree): Four horns, nothing more, an experiment at the time when sax quartets were just emerging, but half brass (Bobby Bradford on cornet, Glenn Ferris on trombone), the other half reeds (John Carter on clarinet, Golia just credited with "woodwinds"). B+(***) [cd]

Hamad Kalkaba: Hamad Kalkaba and the Golden Sounds 1974-1975 (1974-75 [2017], Analog Africa): From northern Cameroon, both sides of all three singles Kalkaba released. Starts super bouncy, a kind of roughed up take on highlife called gandjal. Barely slows down after that, ending too soon at 27:33. A- [bc]

Los Camaroes: Resurrection Los Vol. 1 (1976 [2017], Analog Africa): Group from Cameroon, described as their last album -- I can't find any others, just a bunch of singles 1973-77. Dance pop, similar to the Pop Makossa compilation but more consistent. Six cuts, 32:03. B+(**) [bc]

Thelonious Monk: Les Liaisons Dangereuses 1960 (1959 [2017], Sam, 2CD): Previously unreleased Monk session, mostly versions of well-known Monk tunes recorded by his quartet -- Sam Jones (bass), Art Taylor (drums), and Charlie Rouse (tenor sax) -- plus Barney Wilen (tenor sax) for Roger Vadim's film, but evidently unused and thought lost. The official soundtrack was recorded by Art Blakey (with Wilen), and Duke Jordan later re-recorded his pieces (again, with Wilen). This doesn't strike me as a huge discovery -- sounds pretty familiar -- but at this stage most critics are thrilled to find any unheard Monk. B+(***)

Nice! Jay Saunders' Best of the TWO (2009-14 [2017], UNT, 2CD): Saunders is a trumpet player, has taught at UNT 25 years and directed various UNT Lab Bands -- this selection is from the Two O'Clock Lab Band, scattered over several years. Conventional big band, occasionally with an extra horn or two, bashing about. Ends with two pieces, superb in different ways: a striking Marion Powers vocal of "Detour Ahead," and a rousing "Green Onions." B+(*) [cd]

Now That's What I Call 90s Pop (1990-99 [2017], UMG/Sony): Part of a vast sampler series, the label a joint venture between the two megacorps dominating an industry where creativity has always flowed in from the margins. I've never bothered with their annuals, but having a whole decade to work with here, they make a case for "trickle up." The 1990s were the decade when I finally turned from pop music to new jazz and a systematic dive into old country-blues-pop, so I doubt if I actually own more than a handful of these 18 hits -- "Whatta Man," "Poison," "Gonna Make You Sweat" -- although there are other famous earworms like "MMMBop" and "Livin' La Vida Loca." Cover touts this as "The Ultimate 90s Pop Hits Collection" but that just shows the limits of corporate grasp. It wouldn't be hard to pick out a superior '90s pop mixtape, but this winds up being useful -- the now obscure exceptions that prove the rule. A-

Now That's What I Call Tailgate Anthems (1975-2016 [2017], Sony Music Entertainment): Tag line: "18 Crowd Shakin' Sports Anthems." Cover specifically features football helmets. Actually, none of these songs so much as mentions sports, although four have "party" in the title, so that's a bit closer. Starts with six rock anthems from 1975-86 (Queen, Kiss, Journey, Bon Jovi), then eight generic but upbeat hip-hop pieces (including Pitbull and Black Eyed Peas), Pink's "Get the Party Started," and finally three volleys from Nashville (Sam Hunt, Luke Bryan, Jason Aldean). So could have been expanded into four (count 'em) more generically satisfactory party albums, but it's upbeat (anthemic) enough you don't dwell on the transitions. What you notice instead is the common denominator: testosterone. B+(*)

Oté Maloya: The Birth of Electric Maloya on Réunion Island 1975-1986 (1975-86 [2017], Strut): Réunion is a volcanic island of 970 sq. mi. and 850,000 people in the Indian Ocean, east of Madagascar, southwest of Mauritius. It is still controlled by France, which claimed and settled the uninhabited island in the 17th century, bringing slaves from Africa and later indentured workers from India. This comp picks up from the introduction of western instruments, effectively the emergence of pop as opposed to folk. Still, it's hard to place, with few obvious ties to any source of the island's melting pot. B+(*)

Art Pepper: Presents "West Coast Sessions!" Volume 1: Sonny Stitt (1980 [2017], Omnivore, 2CD): The series collects a series of albums Pepper did for the Japanese label Atlas, where he picked a duet partner whose name appeared on the cover -- Pepper had an exclusive deal with Galaxy at the time. This combines two 1980 albums plus three unreleased cuts, with Stitt on tenor, Lou Levy or Russ Freeman on piano, Carl Burnett on drums, mostly racing through vintage bebop material. A-

Art Pepper: Presents "West Coast Sessions!" Volume 2: Pete Jolly (1980 [2017], Omnivore): Pianist, original name Ceragioli, played in Woody Herman's Third Herd and a great many west coast groups, headlining a few records starting with 1955's Jolly Jumps In. One album, with Bob Magnusson on bass, Roy McCurdy on drums, and Pepper resplendent on alto sax. B+(***)

Art Pepper: Presents "West Coast Sessions!" Volume 3: Lee Konitz (1982 [2017], Omnivore): Released in Japan in 1982, probably recorded a year or two earlier. Whereas Stitt and Pepper tended to melt together, the two altos here remain distinct (more so, of course, when Pepper switches to clarinet) -- Konitz adding a wry edge to Pepper's fluidity. With Michael Lang (piano), Bob Magnuson (bass), and John Dentz (drums). A-

Art Pepper: Presents "West Coast Sessions!" Volume 4 With Bill Watrous (1980 [2017], Omnivore): Trombonist, sitting in with Pepper's working quartet: Russ Freeman (piano), Bob Magnusson (bass), and Carl Burnett (drums). Not the most consistent entry in the series, but terrific more often than not: the rhythm section swings hard, the trombone is a delight, and Pepper if often superb. A-

Art Pepper: Presents "West Coast Sessions!" Volume 5: Jack Sheldon (1980 [2017], Omnivore): Trumpet player, takes a vocal on one of the bonus cuts, came up in big bands including Benny Goodman and Stan Kenton and appears on a couple of Pepper's best records. This is another. A-

Art Pepper: Presents "West Coast Sessions!" Volume 6: Shelly Manne (1981 [2017], Omnivore): Originally released in Japan (only) as Hollywood Jam: Shelly Manne and His West Coast Friends, the drummer joined by Pepper (alto sax), Bob Cooper (tenor sax), Bill Watrous (trombone), Pete Jolly (piano), and Monty Budwig (bass). Seems like Pepper could do no wrong in his last year. Trombone is a nice touch. A-

Perseverance: The Music of Rick DeRosa at North Texas (2011-15 [2017], UNT): Student bands, mostly the One O'Clock Lab Band at UNT, one cut by the UNT Orchestra, playing pieces by DeRosa plus his arrangement of a Billy Strayhorn piece. Lush and overblown, but I suppose that's part of the teaching experience. B- [cd]

Oscar Pettiford Nonet/Big Band/Sextet: New York City 1955-1958 (1955-58 [2017], Uptown, 2CD): Live shots from Birdland by various groups led by the legendary bassist. Group size or composition doesn't make much difference to the boppish sound, although the orchestral instruments the leader is so fond of -- flute, French horn, cello, harp -- are evident. Also, Gigi Gryce and Art Farmer loom large, with Gryce credited -- lots of spoken intros here -- for many compositions. B+(***)

Pop Makossa: The Invasive Dance Beat of Cameroon 1976-1984 (1976-84 [2017], Analog Africa): Pop hits from Cameroon, never a major source of Afropop but wedged just east of Nigeria, "makossa" is the Douala word for dance. A dozen songs by as many artists, a couple of them perked my ears, the others passing by amiably enough. B+(*) [bc]

The Rolling Stones: On Air (1963-65 [2017], Interscope): BBC radio shots from their earliest years, mostly covers including a number of things I don't recall from their albums -- their first three UK albums were mostly covers, with just { 3, 3, 4 } originals. Pretty good sound, most unremarkable although I noticed some quirky they only returned to on Some Girls, their reboot after they got a bit too slick. B+(**)

The Rolling Stones: Live 1965: Music From Charlie Is My Darling (1965 [2014], ABKCO): Peter Whitehead filmed a documentary of the Stones touring Ireland and released it in 1966 as Charlie Is My Darling, capturing band and crowds as they lurched toward stardom. The film was expanded in 2012, with this soundtrack eventually spun off. B+(**)

The Rolling Stones: Ladies & Gentlemen: The Rolling Stones (1972 [2017], Eagle Rock): Key line (from Wikipedia): "The film was sold by The Rolling Stones as a tax-incentive based venture capital investment." Film cut from four 1972 concerts, no songs older than 1968, the concept was that by setting theaters up with a new-fangled quadraphonic sound system viewers would feel like they're in the middle of a 10,000 seat arena. In 2010 it was remastered in HD digital and "shown in select theaters." Of course, nowadays it's just streamable product, probably consumed alone on a phone or tablet. Still, this was when they started referring to themselves as "the world's greatest" and at the time the boast seemed credible. A-

The Rolling Stones: Sticky Fingers Live at the Fonda Theater 2015 (2015 [2017], Eagle Rock): All ten songs from the 1971 album are featured here, the order shuffled, following three non-album openers and three more songs to close -- a concept for a great band that's been living in its back catalogue for decades. B+(*)

The Rough Guide to the Music of West Africa ([2017], World Music Network): A large and varied landscape, stretching from Cameroon to Senegal or maybe Mauritania -- it's always hell trying to figure out where Rough Guides find their picks, even more so when you don't have their booklets (not that they were ever much help in the past). Offhand, Victor Uwaifo dates back to the early 1970s, but most of the other names I recognize passed through the corporation's more contemporary Riverboat label, so they've moved on from searching the world to recycling their own back catalog. A little scattered, but some gems, and ends strong. B+(***)

Sweet as Broken Dates: Lost Somali Tapes From the Horn of Africa (1969-20002 [2017], Ostinato): The notes, so far as I can tell, place most of these songs in the 1980s, most recorded in Mogadishu before Somalia turned into a war-torn failed state, some in Djibouti on the other side of Ethiopia. Lots of keyboard vamps, remarkably consistent for the range of dates and locales. B+(***)

Bro. Valentino: Stay Up Zimbabwe (1979-80 [2017], Analog Africa, EP): Calypso singer Anthony Emrold Phillip, probably from Trinidad but with an eye toward revolution elsewhere, with two long singles (total 17:31), one bemoaning white Rhodesia and South Africa, the other celebrating black power in Grenada. B+(***) [bc]

Old Music

Allen Lowe/Roswell Rudd: Woyzeck's Death (1994 [1995], Enja): The second collaboration, with Lowe (tenor sax) composing up to the title piece and the trombonist contributing the last two pieces. With Randy Sandke (trumpet) and Ben Goldberg (clarinets) backed by piano-bass-drums. A meditation on Georg Buchner's famous play (left unfinished at the playwright's death), a bit awkward and dramatic, but great to hear Rudd. B+(*) [sp]

Uwe Oberg/Christof Thewes/Michael Griener: Lacy Pool (2006 [2009], Hatology): German pianist, plus trombone and drums, playing eight Steve Lacy tunes plus two joint improvs. Nicely twisted, disjointed even. B+(***)

The Rolling Stones: Singles 1968-1971 (1968-71 [2005], Abkco, 9CD): The third such box, with a CD for each single, A and B sides in order -- in one case a 4-song EP, another adding three remixes to "Sympathy for the Devil." I was gifted the first two by the publicist but fell off the list for this one. I found that Singles 1963-1965 was short enough I could consolidate the whole box onto a single (quite extraordinary) CD, but this runs a bit long for that. Useless, I think, but some great songs, and some surprises in the obscurities -- I was thrown by "Out of Time" -- sounds pre-1968, only appearing as a single from 1975's "odds and sods" Metamorphosis, yet one of the best things here. B+(***)

Roswell Rudd: Everywhere (1966 [1967], Impulse): The trombonist's only name album for a major label in the 1960s, a session -- four cuts, 47:15 -- that has only been reissued as part of Mixed, co-headlined by Cecil Taylor (prepends three Taylor cuts, one with Rudd). With Giuseppi Logan (flute/bass clarinet), Robin Kenyatta (alto sax), Lewis Worrell/Charlie Haden (bass), and Beaver Harris (drums). B+(***)

Sex Mob: Dime Grind Palace (2003, Ropeadope): Group formed in 1998 -- Steven Bernstein (trumpet), Briggan Krauss (sax), Tony Scherr (bass), and Kenny Wollesen (drums -- with nine albums through 2016, this their fifth, joined here and there by various guests, notably Peter Apfelbaum, John Kruth, Scott Robinson, Marcus Rojas, and Roswell Rudd (the latter brings the grind to 10 of 16 cuts). B+(***)

Taylor Swift: 1989 (2014, Big Machine): Not on Rhapsody when this came out so I just noticed it after playing the new one. Looking at reviews, I'm struck by complaints about her sounding robotic in her country-to-pop transformation, but she's a lot more limber and sensitive vocally here than she'd become a mere three years later. B+(***)

Waclaw Zimpel: Lines (2015 [2016], Instant Classic): Polish clarinet player (including alto and bass), also plays organ, Fender Rhodes, and kheen here, overdubbing like John Surman but less obvious -- favoring the keyboards for post-minimalist rhythm, using the organ for a churchy air, shading with the clarinets. B+(**)

Revised Grades

Sometimes further listening leads me to change an initial grade, usually either because I move on to a real copy, or because someone else's review or list makes me want to check it again:

Angles 9: Disappeared Behind the Sun (2016 [2017], Clean Feed): A powerhouse nonet, with three brass (notably Magnus Broo), two saxes (including leader Martin Küchen on alto/tenor), piano-bass-drums plus Mattias Ståhl on vibes. Four pieces start with hard rhythmic figures and branch out chaotically, although the foundation keeps them in some kind of order. The fifth starts slow and tries to sneak up on you. [Was: B+(**)] A- [cd]

Notes

Everything streamed from Napster (ex Rhapsody), except as noted in brackets following the grade:

• [cd] based on physical cd
• [cdr] based on an advance or promo cd or cdr
• [bc] available at bandcamp.com
• [sp] available at spotify.com
• [yt] available at youtube.com
• [dl] something I was able to download from the web; may be freely available, may be a bootleg someone made available, or may be a publicist promo

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Monday, December 26, 2016

Music: Current count 29058 [29021] rated (+37), 388 [389] unrated (-1).

Extended the week a day, which helped make up for not playing any unrated music on Christmas Eve -- was busy cooking paella for what's left of the family here. Was pleased to see that Cam Patterson finally posted a picture of his legendary crawfish étouffée -- he contacted me many years ago, mentioning his ritual and urging me to write more about my cooking. You can find a picture of my paella here -- had to drag out the big pot for it.

Finally got into the latest batch of Ivo Perelman CDs, and while I choked on Philosopher's Stone (too shrill), the rest proved remarkable. Missing below is Live in Brussels, which I had previously graded B+(**) based on Napster, before I got the CDs. I will give it another shot later on, but seemed unnecessary at the moment. Since I closed off the week, I've discovered Art Pepper's West Coast Sessions on Omnivore. I need to replay to first two volumes, but there's a good chance that all six will wind up at A- -- as did the 5-CD box The Hollywood All-Star Sessions, where I first heard most of this marvelous music. I got into the Rolling Stones boots after Laura wanted to hear Beggars Banquet. I reconsidered Angles 9 after it showed up number two on Chris Monsen's list.

Spent several days last week cleaning up the album credits for the Jazz Critics Poll listings. I noted all the new records that got votes in my 2017 EOY List Aggregate, but the process was so slow and tedious I postponed work on reissues and the vocal-debut-Latin side-polls. I got far fewer complaints about errors this year than ever before, although I've found so many since the pages went up that I suspect fatigue or indifference as much as anything else. I saw a tweet from poll winner Vijay Iyer bemoaning the shortage of women critics, but that's only one of many identity groups that got shortchanged -- one I've complained about in the past was lack of European critics. I also got a letter from someone complaining about a shortage of jazz radio dj's (we got more of them than women or Europeans). He included a top-100 chart from Jazz Week, which I'll factor into my EOY Aggregate. He stressed that the JW list wasn't a "smooth jazz" list, which is true, but it isn't very adventurous or even interesting: for instance, I only count four records also on my 79 deep Jazz A-List (Jack DeJohnette's Hudson, Katie Thiroux's Off Beat, Yoko Miwa's Pathways, and Jimmy Greene's Flowers). Part of the problem is that it doesn't include a single album from the two labels Francis Davis singled out as "gatekeepers" to the polls (ECM and Pi) -- labels which scored 9 of the top 30 new jazz albums (6 and 3 respectively; note that Pi only released 5 albums last year, placing 60% of them in the top 17, the others landing at 60 and 94).

I could just as well complain about the lack of avant-oriented (or even -curious) voters. For instance, Free Jazz Collective just released their Free Jazz Blog's 2017 Top 10 Lists, collecting 21 writers, only three of whom submitted ballots to JCP. I've never been consulted on who gets invited, and especially have no idea who got invited but didn't vote. I do know that JCP typically gets about twice as many voters as JazzTimes for their annual poll, yet relatively speaking remains more open-minded.

I was thinking I'd write something about my EOY Aggregate this week, but I'm running out of time, and it's still in flux even if not changing very fast. But I will list out the current top 20 (my grades in brackets):

1. 205: Kendrick Lamar: Damn (Top Dawg) [A-]
2. 143: Lorde: Melodrama (Lava/Republic) [A-]
3. 134: SZA: Ctrl (Top Dawg/RCA) [**]
4. 131: LCD Soundsystem: American Dream (DFA/Columbia) [**]
5. 120: St Vincent: Masseduction (Loma Vista) [A-]
6. 91: Vince Staples: Big Fish Theory (Def Jam) [**]
7. 79: The War on Drugs: A Deeper Understanding (Atlantic) [B]
8. 78: The National: Sleep Well Beast (4AD) [***]
9. 77: Sampha: Process (Young Turks) [*]
10. 69: Slowdive (Dead Oceans) [*]
11. 67: Kelela: Take Me Apart (Warp) [**]
12. 66: Perfume Genius: No Shape (Matador) [B-]
13. 60: Father John Misty: Pure Comedy (Sub Pop) [B-]
14. 60: Thundercat: Drunk (Brainfeeder) [*]
15. 57: Jay-Z: 4:44 (Roc Nation/UMG) [**]
16. 57: Tyler the Creator: Flower Boy (Columbia) [B]
17. 48: King Krule: The OOZ (True Panther Sounds) [B]
18. 44: Big Thief: Capacity (Saddle Creek) [**]
19. 42: Fever Ray: Plunge (Rabid/Mute) [*]
20. 41: Migos: Culture (QC/YRN/300) [***]

All in all, a better bunch of records than I'm used to in EOY lists, although I always find at least one record I can't imagine why anyone would vote for -- this year it's Perfume Genius: I can't hear any reason why anyone would find it attractive, even though on balance it's not so much worse than Father John Misty or War on Drugs. I probably won't spend much more time on this, at least beyond next week. I clearly still have some things that need to be factored in, even if just for my own curiosity. I've currently collected 94 lists, which is a far cry from last year's 557 lists. Those lists have identified 1481 records so far this year, compared to 4978 in 2016. Pazz & Jop typically comes up with about 1500 records.

By the way, I didn't get an invite from the Village Voice to vote in Pazz & Jop this year. No idea why, other than that they've changed management in the last year, supposedly to a group less inclined to let things run on autopilot. My Year 2017 list is up to 1001 lines (16 pending, so rated count is 985), which doesn't strike me as bad for a critic. Granted, probably two-thirds of that is jazz -- the Non-Jazz A-List is currently a relatively anemic 51 titles long (compared to 79 jazz), so maybe it's just anti-jazz prejudice taking hold there. Still, feels like a nudge out the door.

I published a "quick and dirty" consumer guide to the recordings of the late trombonist Roswell Rudd: The Incredible Honk (one of his album titles). I was so short of time and uncertain of consciousness that I almost let it go, but it finally cleaned up easily enough. I became a Rudd fan in the late 1970s, when Arista reissued a series of album that originally came out in Paris on Freedom Records. They included two Rudd titles: one chunk of avant-squawk I hated, the other (a jaded swing quartet with Sheila Jordan singing) I absolutely loved. I then tracked down his JCOA album (another good one, also with Jordan), and a few years later I grabbed Regeneration, his Herbie Nichols/Thelonious Monk tribute. That was pretty much his last album for more than a decade, until Francis Davis wrote his 1993 profile (see link below). Rudd returned to the spotlight after that, especially after he hooked up with Verna Gillis -- evidently some kind of world music impressario, hence his albums with musicians from Mali to Mongolia to Puerto Rico. It's been a delight to follow him since I started writing JCG.

Some Rudd links:

• Francis Davis: White Anglo-Saxon Pythagorean: 1993 profile of Rudd, exscerpted from his out-of-print 1996 book, Bebop and Nothingness: Jazz and Pop at the End of the Century.
• Nate Chinen: Roswell Rudd, Trombonist of Agreeable Bluster and Far-Ranging Influence, Dies at 82
• Peter Hum: RIP, Roswell Rudd (Ottawa Citizen).
• Giovanni Russonello: Roswell Rudd, 82, Trombonist With a Wide-Open Approach, Is Dead (New York Times).
• Peter Stone: Roswell Rudd (Assoc. for Cultural Equity).
• Michael J West: Roswell Rudd Dies at 82 (JazzTimes)
• Ralph A Miriello: The Indefatigable Spirit of Roswell Rudd Rings through on "Embrace": Written before Rudd's death, a review of his possibly last album.

I've been toying with the idea of writing an essay on political strategy, tentatively titled A Letter to the Democrats. It would start with a survey of American political eras: one thing I'm struck by is that for 1800-1856 the Democrats only lost two elections (both to short-lived Whig generals); from 1860-1928 the Republicans were dominant with only two Democrats were elected president (two terms each for Cleveland and Wilson); from 1932-1976 only two Republicans won (two terms each for Eisenhower and Nixon); and from 1980-2016 only two Democrats (again two terms each for Clinton and Obama). Mark Lilla talks about "two dispensations" for the last two eras, but that seems like a quaint term. There are plenty of reasons to think that the poles may switch in 2020 -- not least that each era shift was preceded by an exceptionally unpopular one-term president (Buchanan, Hoover, and Carter), and it's hard to imagine that Trump is any different (indeed, he's probably the weakest of the four). On the other hand, the current Republican phase is anomalous in many respects: especially that it represents a shift to the right, whereas all previous era shifts moved toward more democratic/liberal foundations. But there's a lot more interesting stuff that flows from this framework. The main question is how should candidates position themselves to realize the transformation that is possible.

From a practical standpoint, I figure I'd have to knock this essay out in 4-6 weeks, hoping to get it published in March/April so that it might have some immediate effect on the 2018 elections. So it will have to be short, quick, and pointed. I won't be able to do a lot of research, but I thought I'd at least start to make a survey of books I should be aware of. One of the things I did today was to search Amazon for "democrats" -- which turned up nothing of interest. I then tried to refine the search and tried "democratic party prospects" and got what has to be the most useless Amazon results page ever:

1. The Communist Manifesto, by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
2. Essential Works of Lenin: "What Is to Be Done?" and Other Writings
3. Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning, by Jonah Goldberg

I was expecting to find some more recent/less dated strategizing along the lines of E.J. Dionne: They Only Look Dead: Why Progressives Will Dominate the Next Political Era (1996) and John Judis/Ruy Teixeira: The Emerging Democratic Majority (2004), but I'm finding very little of that. Sure, Dionne does have a new book, One Nation After Trump: A Guide for the Perplexed, the Disillusioned, the Desperate, and the Not-Yet-Deported, as does Teixeira, The Optimistic Leftist: Why the 21st Century Will Be Better Than You Think -- but I don't find their cheery optimism at all convincing. I did read Mark Lilla's The Once and Future Liberal, which got me thinking along these lines, but mostly because of its defects. There must be something else worthwhile. Or maybe I've discovered a market gap? Regardless, I've procrastinated so long already that if I do decide to do something, I need to move fast.

New records rated this week:

• Yazz Ahmed: La Saboteuse (2017, Naim): [r]: B+(**)
• John Beasley: MONK'estra Vol. 2 (2017, Mack Avenue): [r]: B
• Sam Braysher With Michael Kanan: Golden Earrings (2016 [2017], Fresh Sound New Talent): [r]: B+(***)
• Phoebe Bridgers: Stranger in the Alps (2017, Dead Oceans): [r]: B+(*)
• Peter Brotzmann/Heather Leigh: Sex Tape (2016 [2017], Trost): [r]: B-
• John Butcher/Damon Smith/Weasel Walter: The Catastrophe of Minimalism (2008 [2017], Ballance Point Acoustics): [r]: B+(**)
• Collectif Spatule: Le Vanneau Huppé (2017, Aloya): [bc]: B+(**)
• Dial & Oatts/Rich DeRosa/WDR Big Band: Rediscovered Ellington: New Takes on Duke's Rare and Unheard Music (2017, Zoho): [r]: B+(*)
• Agustí Fernández/Rafal Mazur: Ziran (2016, Not Two): [r]: B+(*)
• Champian Fulton & Scott Hamilton: The Things We Did Last Summer (2017, Blau): [r]: B+(*)
• Frank Gratkowski/Simon Nabatov: Mirthful Myths (2015 [2017], Leo): [r]: B+(**)
• Charlie Halloran: Ce Biguine! (2017, self-released): [bc]: B+(**)
• Lilly Hiatt: Trinity Lane (2017, New West): [r]: B+(**)
• The Jazz Passengers: Still Life With Trouble (2017, Thirsty Ear): [r]: B+(**)
• Lee Konitz: Frescalalto (2015 [2017], Impulse): [r]: B+(***)
• Alex Lahey: I Love You Like a Brother (2017, Dead Oceans): [r]: B+(***)
• Christian McBride Big Band: Bringin' It (2017, Mack Avenue): [r]: B-
• Ron Miles: I Am a Man (2016 [2017], Yellowbird): [yt]: B+(***)
• Jason Moran and the Bandwagon: Thanksgiving at the Vanguard (2016 [2017], Yes): [dl]: B+(*)
• Zaid Nasser: The Stroller (2016 [2017], SteepleChase): [r]: B+(**)
• Sam Newsome and Jean-Michel Pilc: Magic Circle (2017, Some New Music): [r]: B+(**)
• Dick Oatts: Use Your Imagination (2016 [2017], SteepleChase): [r]: B+(**)
• Ivo Perelman/Matthew Shipp/William Parker/Bobby Kapp: Heptagon (2017, Leo): [cd]: A-
• Ivo Perelman/Matthew Shipp/Nate Wooley: Philosopher's Stone (2017, Leo): [cd]: B+(*)
• Ivo Perelman/Nate Wooley/Brandon Lopez/Gerald Cleaver: Octagon (2017, Leo): [cd]: A-
• Ivo Perelman/Matthew Shipp/Joe Hertenstein: Scalene (2017, Leo): [cd]: A-
• Ivo Perelman/Matthew Shipp/Jeff Cosgrove: Live in Baltimore (2017, Leo): [cd]: B+(***)
• Red Planet/Bill Carrothers: Red Planet With Bill Carrothers (2017, Shifting Paradigm): [bc]: B+(**)
• Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah: The Emancipation Procrastination (2016 [2017], Stretch Music/Ropeadope): [r]: B+(**)
• Shotgun Jazz Band: Steppin' on the Gas (2016 [2017], self-released): [r]: B+(**)
• Omar Sosa & Seckou Keita: Transparent Water (2017, World Village): [r]: B+(*)

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries rated this week:

• The Rolling Stones: On Air (1963-65 [2017], Interscope): [r]: B+(**)
• The Rolling Stones: Live 1965: Music From Charlie Is My Darling (1965 [2014], ABKCO): [r]: B+(**)
• The Rolling Stones: Ladies & Gentlemen: The Rolling Stones (1972 [2017], Eagle Rock): [r]: A-
• The Rolling Stones: Sticky Fingers Live at the Fonda Theater 2015 (2015 [2017], Eagle Rock): [r]: B+(*)

Old music rated this week:

• Allen Lowe/Roswell Rudd: Woyzeck's Death (1994 [1995], Enja): [sp]: B+(*)
• The Rolling Stones: Singles 1968-1971 (1968-71 [2005], Abkco, 9CD): [r]: B+(***)
• Roswell Rudd: Everywhere (1966 [1967], Impulse): [r]: B+(***)
• Sex Mob: Dime Grind Palace (2003, Ropeadope): [r]: B+(***)

Grade (or other) changes:

• Angles 9: Disappeared Behind the Sun (2016 [2017], Clean Feed): [cd]: [was B+(**)] A-

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

• Justin Gray & Synthesis: New Horizons (self-released): January 5
• Peter Sommer: Happy-Go-Lucky Locals (self-released)

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Sunday, December 25, 2016

A day late from the usual Sunday, but having missed last week, I figured the exercise would be worthwhile. Like our trash collection, we're running a day late this week.

Growing up we always had a special dinner on Christmas Eve, then gathered around the tree in the living room and opened presents. I gave up on shopping and presents after my parents died in 2000 -- partly, I suppose, because we moved to Wichita in 1999 to be closer to my family, but after doing serious shopping I got sick and missed that last Christmas. We tried to keep the tradition going, but it fizzled out when my brother and his family moved away. The only thing I kept was the Christmas Eve dinner, which I've ever since subjected my sister and her son to. I rustled up a bit pot of paella last night, with a lobster, some shrimp and scallops instead of the usual clams. I figured I'd do some tapas on the side, but didn't come up with much: potatoes with tuna and egg, a white bean salad, a pisto (onions, zucchini, peppers, tomatoes, cooked down to a paste), sauteed mushrooms in garlic sauce, some olives, a loaf of "bake it yourself" garlic bread. Per a tradition that only started after we returned to Wichita, I made date pudding (topped with caramel sauce and whipped cream) for dessert. I was feeling pretty depressed, but the sensation vanished as soon as I started cooking. That's pretty much all I have to show for 2017, but it feels like I'm accomplishing something when I do it.

Biggest story from the last couple weeks were the Republican tax bill: a massive giveaway to corporations, proprietors who can take advantage of the "pass-through income" provisions, and to the growth and consolidation of aristocracy, and eventually a drain on the economy and an excuse for cutting back on actually useful services the government provides. But also very important are the end of FCC "net neutrality" rules and the latest round of sanctions against North Korea. Of course, the latter could instantly jump to the head of the list.

Some scattered links this week:

• Matthew Yglesias: The 4 most important political stories of the week [Dec. 22]: Congress passed a major tax cut; The government won't shut down for Christmas; Affordable Care Act signups remained robust; Republicans turned on Robert Mueller; and The 4 biggest policy stories of the week, explained [Dec. 15]: A Democrat won a Senate election in Alabama: Doug Jones; Republicans wrote their tax bill; Sexual harassment accusations kept rolling Congress; Net neutrality. Other Yglesias pieces:

  • The real cost of the Republican tax bill: Argues that the models showing revenues down by $1-1.5 trillion will likely be proven low, not least because IRS enforcement under Trump is likely to be slack. I would add that actual revenues in Kansas have consistently fallen short of expectations, because the Brownback cuts allowed unanticipated scams.

  • The tax cut expectations game.

  • What "affordable housing" really means.

  • We're witnessing the wholesale looting of America:

    Throughout the 2016 campaign, the political class talked a lot about "norms" and how Donald Trump was violating them all. He brushed off fact-checkers, assailed the media, went on Twitter tirades against his critics, and dabbled in racism. Since taking office, his norm busting has spread. Members of Congress who under other circumstances might be constrained by shame, custom, or the will of their constituents have learned from Trump's election that you can get away with more than we used to think.

    Norm erosion is real, and it matters. . . . These scholars are all considering deep, long-lasting differences in cultural norms, but we also know from experience that norms can sometimes shift dramatically in unusual circumstances. Sometimes a blackout or other disaster prompts a few people who would ordinarily be too cautious to break store windows in broad daylight to become more brazen. And the normal course of ordinary life flips into reverse, as those with some inclination toward bad acts recognize a moment of impunity and grab what they can, while those who would ordinarily be invested in upholding order are afraid and stay inside. The sheer quantity of bad acts makes it impossible for anyone to hold anyone accountable. Soon, a whole neighborhood can be in ruins.

    Or a whole country. . . .

    It takes a lot more than Donald Trump to orchestrate the kind of feeding frenzy that's currently playing out in Washington. Nothing about this would work if not for the fact that hundreds of Republican Party members of Congress wake up each morning and decide anew that they are indifferent to the myriad financial conflicts of interest in which Trump and his family are enmeshed. Moral and political responsibility for the looting ultimately rests on the shoulders of the GOP members of Congress who decided that the appropriate reaction to Trump's inauguration was to start smashing and grabbing as much as possible for themselves and their donors rather than uphold their constitutional obligations.

  • Why Trump's tax cuts won't be repealed.

  • Republicans are on tilt with their super-unpopular tax bill.

  • Collective ownership of the means of production.

• Dean Baker: Bubbles: Are They Back?

  Should we be concerned about a bubble now? Stock prices and housing prices are both high by historical standards. The ratio of stock prices-to-trend corporate earnings is more than 27-to-1; this compares to a long-term average of 15-to-1.

  House prices are also high by historic standards. Inflation-adjusted house prices are still well below their bubble peaks, but are about 40 percent above their long-term average.

  Baker also wrote: Diverting Class Warfare Into Generational Warfare: Round LVIII; e.g.:

  It is also important to understand that government action was at the center of this upward redistribution. Without government-granted patent monopolies for Windows and other Microsoft software, Bill Gates would probably still be working for a living.

  We spent over $450 billion on prescription drugs in 2017. Without government-granted patent monopolies we would probably have spent less than $80 billion. The difference of $370 billion is equal to an increase of a 5.0 percentage point increase in the Social Security payroll tax. But the generational warriors don't want anyone talking about how much money our children to pay drug companies with government-granted patent monopolies.

  Baker is a bit confused about Microsoft -- patents played at most a small role in building its monopoly -- the late 1990s antitrust case which Microsoft lost covered much of this -- but copyrights are essential for maintaining it.

• Zack Beauchamp: We are sleepwalking toward war with North Korea.

• Sean Illing: How the baby boomers -- not millennials -- screwed America: Interview with Bruce Gibney, author of A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America, which looks to be pretty awful. I don't doubt that various age cohorts grow up with different experiences, but there has always been more variation within a generation than change from one to the next. It's not that Gibney is unobservant -- he identifies Ronald Reagan's 1980 election as the turning point from which today's rot stemmed -- but he pairs his superficial groupings with clichéd analysis and bogus measures (especially the growth of debt). Gibney, like so many reactionaries from the 1950s on, blamed postwar affluence for breeding a generation of selfish ingrates who lack the social solidarity bred in their parents by depression and war. As Gibney puts it:

  I think the major factor is that the boomers grew up in a time of uninterrupted prosperity. And so they simply took it for granted. They assumed the economy would just grow three percent a year forever and that wages would go up every year and that there would always be a good job for everyone who wanted it.

  This was a fantasy and the result of a spoiled generation assuming things would be easy and that no sacrifices would have to be made in order to preserve prosperity for future generations.

  Gibney's argument might be more interesting if he focused on things that were truly new and widespread, like that "boomers" were the first cohort to grow up with television and its mass consumer advertising, with news presented more in images than in words, with world travel reduced from months or weeks to hours, with science promising greater control of nature but also raising the spectre of extinction. Maybe some people responded to such sweeping change by becoming sociopaths, but (for a while, at least) the opposite seemed to be happening: in the late '60s and early '70s, the "boomers" were in the forefront of movements for the environment, sexual equality, for consumer rights, for civil rights and against war. You can argue that the new left was too individualistic and too nonchalant about power, and that those weaknesses made it easier for conservative reaction to seize power -- and beset the country with all the ills Gibney decries. But the fact that Bill Clinton, GW Bush, and Donald Trump were all born in 1946 doesn't make them representative of a generation. Indeed, they were clearly exceptional, carefully selected by unrepresentative powers.

  Nothing actual in this piece about "millennials" -- one's political hopes for them (e.g., Steven Olikara: Here's one reason to be optimistic about politics: Millennials in office) lie not in generational change but in the fact that thanks to the conservative reaction they've been so severely screwed. But that only changes if they recognize the real culprits.

• Ezra Klein: "An orgy of serious policy discussion" with Paul Krugman.

• Mike Konczal: "Neoliberalism" isn't an empty epithet. It's a real, powerful set of ideas. Good explanation of the word, if you wind up stuck needing to use it.

• Kevin M Kruse: The Second Klan: Review of Linda Gordon's book, The Second Coming of the KKK: The Ku Klux Klan and the American Political Tradition.

• German Lopez: The past year of research has made it very clear: Trump won because of racial resentment: Three charts here, mapping the tendencies of people "least satisfied" with economics, "most sexist," and "most denying of racism" to vote for Trump. The latter two are highly polarized, as well they should be: Trump was blatantly racist and sexist, especially compared to his opponent, and his campaign actively polarized people on those issues, so of course sexists and racists (not uncommonly the same people) voted for him overwhelmingly. Still, to say he won because he appealed to racism you have to quantify how large that voter share was. Given that racists were already highly aligned with the Republican Party it's hard to see a lot of movement on that score, not that were was none. "Economic dissatisfaction" is another story: that the "least satisfied" tilted toward Trump at all is the surprise -- really, a complete breakdown in the Democratic Party's messaging, all the more damning given how easy it should have been to depict Trump as the poster boy for exorbitant greed and privilege. The underlying facts have never been in doubt. That we keep rehashing them has more to do with politics. Sanders supporters were quick to identify the failed economic hopes of the white lower classes because that's one thing their program addressed and could convert into the additional votes necessary to beat Trump and the Republicans. Diehard Clinton supporters like the racism narrative, because it shifts blame from the candidate to the "deplorable" voters.

• Premilla Nadasen: Extreme poverty returns to America.

• Rebecca Solnit: Don't let the alt-right hijack #MeToo for their agenda.

• Matt Stoller: What is net neutrality? It protects us from corporate power.

• Matt Taibbi: Bob Corker Facing Ethics Questions? What a Surprise: "The Tennessee senator's financial success has been one of Washington's open questions for years." Corker flip-flopped on the tax bill, first voting against it because it would increase the deficit, then voting for it even though its impact on the deficit hasn't changed (but the joint committee added a break on real estate taxes that evidently saves Corker millions of dollars). More on Corker: Mary Papenfuss: #CorkerKickback Turns Up the Flame Under Senator for His Tax Vote Switch. Paul Krugman, in Passing Through to Corruption, also mentions Corker:

  Senator Bob Corker, citing concerns about the deficit, was the only Republican to vote against the Senate version of the tax bill. Now, however, he says he will vote for a final version that is no better when it comes to fiscal probity. What changed?

  Well, one thing that changed was the insertion of a provision that wasn't in the Senate bill: Real estate companies were added to the list of "pass-through" businesses whose owners will get sharply lower tax rates. These pass-through provisions are arguably the worst feature of the bill. They will open the tax system to a huge amount of gaming, of exploiting legal loopholes to avoid tax.

  But one thing they will also do, thanks to that last-minute addition, is give huge tax breaks to elected officials who own a lot of income-producing real estate -- officials like Donald Trump and, yes, Bob Corker.

• Todd VanDerWerff: Disney acquiring Fox means big, scary things for film and TV: "Here are five reasons the deal is terrifying -- and only one of them is increased media consolidation."

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Saturday, December 23, 2017

One of the great trombonists of all jazz history, Roswell Rudd, has just died, at 82, evidently of cancer. He was a major figure in the 1960s avant-garde, later refocusing his sense of the tradition into two especially great albums -- 1974's Flexible Flyer, which restarted Sheila Jordan's brilliant career, and 1982's Regeneration, which rekindled interest in the music of Herbie Nichols -- and after a dozen years away from the studio mounted a marvelously wide-ranging comeback. For all his range, he had a singular sound on trombone -- unflinching, a deep and dirty growl -- which made trombone one of my favorite horns, and set a standard: searching for his name in my writings, I've found myself repeatedly trying to measure up other trombonists to him.

I have no time to write anything that does justice to his music, but I figured the least I could do would be to pluck my various reviews of his work out of my Jazz Guides. In this task, I've been helped by Mindspring's discography, although it unaccountably ends around 2002. All I've managed to do is to make a quick pass to weed out some redundancies and asides. I've also added stubs for a few albums I haven't heard (but by no means all of the ones Rudd played on).

Eli's Chosen Six (1955, Columbia) Rudd started off in this Dixieland group. I've only heard one cut on a compilation, and they seem to be an amusing bunch -- not that I wouldn't rather hear more trombone and less vocals.

Eli's Chosen Six: Ivy League Jazz (1957, Columbia)

Cecil Taylor/Buell Neidlinger: New York City R&B (1961, Candid) Originally issued under the bassist's name, Taylor's name added later as the pianist is the draw, especially on the two shorter trio cuts with Billy Higgins; the other two cuts add horns: Archie Shepp (tenor sax) on both; Clark Terry (trumpet), Steve Lacy (soprano sax), Roswell Rudd (trombone), and Charles Davis (baritone sax) on the closer. [8]

Cecil Taylor/Buell Neidlinger: Jumpin Punkins' (1961, Candid) [+]

Cecil Taylor: Cell Walk for Celeste (1961, Candid) Outtakes from the New York City R&B and Jumpin' Punkins sessions that didn't appear in album form until 1988, most quartet with Shepp, Neidlinger, and Dennis Charles, but two tracks with the extra horn quartet, with Steve Lacy's soprano sax by far the most noteworthy. [7]

The Gil Evans Orchestra: Into the Hot (1961, Impulse -99) Evans' masterpiece was his 1960 Out of the Cool, so this title makes sense as the next step, but the album itself is schizo, with two dull orchestral tracks led by trumpeter John Carisi (they do seem to wake up for the third), and three slices of something else by Cecil Taylor's quintet (Archie Shepp, Jimmy Lyons, Henry Grimes, and Sunny Murray, adding Ted Curson and Roswell Rudd on the closer). [The Taylor tracks were later reissued along with a Rudd session as Mixed.] [5]

Steve Lacy/Roswell Rudd: School Days (1963, Hat Art -94) Ken Vandermark named one of his best quartets after this album. [9]

Albert Ayler/Don Cherry/John Tchicai/Roswell Rudd/Gary Peacock/Sunny Murray: New York Eye and Ear Control (1964, ESP-Disk -08) Ayler's record, but all names are on the cover and all are notable, the four horns churning tumultuously, with Ayler's tenor sax reaching for the sacred, and Rudd's trombone plumbing the profane. [6]

Archie Shepp: Four for Trane (1964, Impulse -97) [9]

New York Art Quartet (1964, ESP-Disk -08) One-shot avant-garde group, at least until they reunited for a 35th Reunion record, but an important item in trombonist Roswell Rudd's discography -- he dominates the rough interplay with alto saxophonist John Tchicai, while percussionist Milford Graves is at least as sparkling; the sole artiness is the cut that frames a poem, but it too is a signpost of the times, "Black Dada Nihilismus," by Amiri Baraka. [9]

The Jazz Composers Orchestra: Communication (1964, Fontana) A pathbreaking large group assembled by Carla Bley and Michael Mantler to play their pieces and arrangements, which over the next few years rotated to feature other composers, including Rudd (see Numatik Swing Band, below).

New York Art Quartet: Mohawk (1965, Fontana)

New York Art Quartet: Old Stuff (1965, Cuneiform -10) Short-lived group, long remembered. Danish alto saxophonist John Tchicai teamed with trombonist Roswell Rudd to cut two 1964-65 albums, an eponymous one on ESP-Disk that has remained in print more often than not, and a second that soon vanished, leaving us with nothing more until the pair got together in 1999 and cut 35th Reunion. These radio shots add significantly to their legacy, another 70 minutes (compared to 43 on the first album). The bass and drums slots were variable: Finn von Eyben plays bass here, and Louis Moholo drums. Rudd was working out the logic of free jazz trombone, and Tchicai lets him run with it, filling in and edging around. [9]

New York Art Quartet: Call It Art (1964-65, Triple Point 5LP -13) Extravagant packaging, with the 5 LPs each in its own jacket, packed alongside a 156-page clothbound book, both enclosed in a very handsome plywood box. The group, with Roswell Rudd on trombone and John Tchicai on alto sax, was more at home in Copenhagen than in New York. They cut the one album they're known for on ESP-Disk, another for Fontana in England, but other recordings have leaked out over the years -- notably Old Stuff, released by Cuneiform in 2010, and now this stack of "previously uncirculated" vinyl. Hard for me to evaluate -- among other things I'm no longer accustomed to 15-20 minute chunks -- but everything I play has its fascinating points. [9]

Roswell Rudd (1965, Free America/Verve -05) The great trombonist trades lines with alto saxophonist John Tchicai, creating a bouncy polyphony that never quite slips into a groove; a radio shot tape, sound quality so-so. [+]

Archie Shepp: Live in San Francisco (1966, Impulse -98) [5]

Roswell Rudd: Everywhere (1966, Impulse -67) The trombonist's only name album for a major label in the 1960s, a session -- four cuts, 47:15 -- that has only been reissued as part of Mixed, co-headlined by Cecil Taylor (prepends three Taylor cuts, one with Rudd). With Giuseppi Logan (flute/bass clarinet), Robin Kenyatta (alto sax), Lewis Worrell/Charlie Haden (bass), and Beaver Harris (drums). [8]

Archie Shepp: Three for a Quarter/One for a Dime (1966, Impulse -69) [5]

Archie Shepp: Mama Too Tight (1966, Impulse -98) [5]

Cecil Taylor/Roswell Rudd: Mixed (1961-66, Impulse -08) [+]

The Jazz Composer's Orchestra (1968, JCOA)

Charlie Haden: Liberation Music Orchestra (1969, Impulse -96) [+]

Gato Barbieri: The Third World (1969, Flying Dutchman -70) Front cover just says "Gato" under the title. Album opens with flute, then a little vocal, before blossoming into one of the most identifiable tenor sax tones ever. Interesting line up here, with the first hints of his Latin/tango rhythm melded with Roswell Rudd's trombone growl. [8]

Carla Bley/Paul Haines: Escalator Over the Hill (1968-71, JCOA) [5]

Roswell Rudd and the Jazz Composer's Orchestra: Numatik Swing Band (1973, JCOA) Sheila Jordan sings. [9]

Roswell Rudd: Flexible Flyer (1974, Black Lion -95) One of my all-time favorite albums, with Sheila Jordan singing and Rudd's the only horn voice, remarkably tasteful piano by Hod O'Brien and a rhythm section that could swing free but doesn't. [10]

Steve Lacy/Roswell Rudd/Kent Carter/Beaver Harris: Trickles (1976, Black Saint) [4]

Roswell Rudd: Blown Bone (1976, Phillips)

Roswell Rudd: Inside Job (1976, Arista/Freedom) [3]

Carla Bley: Dinner Music (1976, Watt)

The Carla Bley Band: European Tour 1977 (1977, Watt -78) [+]

Enrico Rava Quartet (1978, ECM) [9]

Laboratorio Della Quercia (1978, Horo)

The Carla Bley Band: Musique Mechanique (1978, Watt -79) The title piece here is broken into three movements, each marked by a striking mechanicalism in the movement: the rhythm lurches in small, sharp locksteps, while there is much huffing and puffing -- notably from the lower reaches of the bass section, especially Bob Stewart's tuba. Roswell Rudd sings during the middle movement, with a similar mechanical thrust. And Karen Mantler's glockenspiel adds something to the final movement. The two other pieces are less distinctive, and less obviously humorous, and for that matter less obviously interesting. [5]

The Definitive Roswell Rudd (1979, Horo)

Roswell Rudd/Steve Lacy/Misha Mengelberg/Kent Carter/Han Bennink: Regeneration (1982, Soul Note -83) [10]

That's the Way I Feel Now: A Tribute to Thelonious Monk (1984, A&M -85) [One track, credited to Terry Adams and Friends.] [+]

Allen Lowe/Roswell Rudd: Dark Was the Night -- Cold Was the Ground (1993, Music & Arts) [+]

Allen Lowe/Roswell Rudd: Woyzeck's Death (1994, Enja -95) The second collaboration, with Lowe (tenor sax) composing up to the title piece and the trombonist contributing the last two pieces. With Randy Sandke (trumpet) and Ben Goldberg (clarinets) backed by piano-bass-drums. A meditation on Georg Buchner's famous play (left unfinished at the playwright's death), a bit awkward and dramatic, but great to hear Rudd. [6]

Steve Swell Quartet: Out and About (1996, CIMP) Probably the best avant-trombonist to come along since Rudd starts his career by entertaining the master.

Elton Dean Quartet + Roswell Rudd: Rumours of an Incident (1996, Slam)

Elton Dean/Paul Dunmall/Tony Levin/Paul Rogers/Roswell Rudd/Keith Tippett: Bladik (1996, Cuneiform)

Roswell Rudd: The Unheard Herbie Nichols, Vol. 1 (1996, CIMP) [9]

Roswell Rudd: The Unheard Herbie Nichols, Vol. 2 (1996, CIMP) [5]

Elton Dean's Newsense (1997, Slam -98) The saxophonist in early 1970's prog-rock group Soft Machine, although that barely (and rather obliquely) hints at his jazz career (up to his death in 2006). It helps here to know that Dean led a 1976-81 nonet called Elton Dean's Ninesense (including South Africans Harry Miller, Louis Moholo, and Mongezi Feza, also Harry Beckett from Barbados), so the name here introduces a new nonet. The horns are dense and thick, but few stand out. [6]

Ab Baars Trio + Roswell Rudd: Four (1998, Data)

Steve Lacy/Roswell Rudd: Monk's Dream (1999, Verve -00) [+]

Roswell Rudd: Broad Strokes (1999-2000, Knitting Factory) Eclectic, it sez here. Big groups, small groups, too many vocals (awful ones at that), some great trombone. A mishmash. [5]

Archie Shepp and Roswell Rudd: Live in New York (2001, Verve) Ten or so years ago, Roswell Rudd was working in a Catskills hotel when Francis Davis tracked him down to write a "whatever happened to?" article about him. Since then he's come back big enough to share top billing in this reunion of Archie Shepp's '60s quintet, soon after sharing top billing with Steve Lacy on 2000's Monk's Dream. This is the better album, partly for the obvious reason that Shepp's run-of-the-mill blues vocals are infintely preferable to Aëbi's stilted operatics. But top-of-the-line billing is not just newfound recognition for the doyen of avant-garde trombonists, this record rides on Rudd's compositions, and resounds with trombone (abetted by second trombonist Grachan Moncur). [9]

Steve Lacy-Roswell Rudd Quartet: Early and Late (1962-2002, Cuneiform 2CD -07) One thing that distinguished both Lacy and Rudd is that they vaulted directly from trad jazz to the avant-garde, pausing only to snatch up the songbooks of Thelonious Monk and Herbie Nichols. Instrumentation had something to do with this: before Lacy, the only known soprano sax master was Sidney Bechet, while, pace J.J. Johnson, the trombone had long been a New Orleans staple for dirtying up the lead trumpet -- Louis Armstrong never went anywhere without a Kid Ory or Trummy Young or Jack Teagarden. The first Lacy-Rudd quartet only cut one album, School Days (1963), but it was landmark enough that Ken Vandermark named his trombone-powered pianoless quartet after it (and everything School Days released was golden). The four early cuts here are unreleased demos -- three takes on Monk and one on Cecil Taylor -- and they are major finds, keys to how to turn a song inside out and make something new of it. The group broke up with Lacy moving to France and Rudd teaming up with Archie Shepp and others before fading into obscurity. Finally, they regrouped for tours in 1999 and 2002, with a new album, Monk's Dream. The rest are live shots from the tours -- long pieces, mostly Lacy's improv frameworks, plus Monk and Nichols and a sprightly pseudo-African riff from Rudd. They don't blow you away so much as they resonate with the authoritative voices of two major careers bound together at their ends. [9]

Sex Mob: Dime Grind Palace (2003, Ropeadope) Group formed in 1998 -- Steven Bernstein (trumpet), Briggan Krauss (sax), Tony Scherr (bass), and Kenny Wollesen (drums -- with nine albums through 2016, this their fifth, joined here and there by various guests, notably Peter Apfelbaum, John Kruth, Scott Robinson, Marcus Rojas, and Roswell Rudd (the latter brings the grind to 10 of 16 cuts). [8]

Roswell Rudd's Malicool (2003, Sunnyside) The veteran avant-garde trombonist meets Toumani Diabate and friends for some rather atmospheric kora, balophone, ngone, djembe, guitar, bass and 'bone. Rudd sounds fine in this context, and Diabate sounds much like he always does, but you'd think the meeting ought to have generated a little more edge. Like maybe they could use a drummer? [+]

Roswell Rudd & the Mongolian Buryat Band: Blue Mongol (2005, Sunnyside) The great jazz trombonist engages a conservatory-trained Mongolian folk group; part of the interest is the similar harmonics between trombone and throat singing, but the highlight is when Rudd cops a Beach Boys line for "Buryat Boogie." [9]

Roswell Rudd/Mark Dresser: Airwalkers (2004, Clean Feed -06) Bass-trombone duo. Seems to me this is more Dresser's show: he does this sort of intimate abstraction quite often, it's always difficult to follow but sometimes interesting when you do. Always great to hear Rudd, and a rare treat to hear him this rough but still in control. But not a record that will convert anyone. [7]

Anita O'Day: Indestructible! (2004-05, Kayo Stereophonic -06) Well into her 80s, she doesn't swing as hard as she used to, and her voice is more gone than not, but she inspires a couple of near-faultless bands. Roswell Rudd rumbles on three tracks, including "Gimme a Pigfoot and a Bottle of Beer." Joe Wilder stands out on the other tracks. O'Day's post-prime recordings have always been a matter of taste and sentiment: you have to like her a lot to see past the decline, but that's easy to do. [7]

Roswell Rudd & Yomo Toro: El Espíritu Jíbaro (2002-06, Sunnyside -07) One of Rudd's world music match-ups, with Bobby Sanabria reinforcing Toro's Puerto Rican country beat, and Rudd just being the great trombonist he's always been. Better than his beatless Mali album; not as intriguing a mix as those Mongolian throat singers. [8]

Roswell Rudd Quartet: Keep Your Heart Right (2007, Sunnyside -08) New album of (mostly) old songs, the few the great trombonist managed to write lyrics for. They're set up for Sunny Kim, the first singer he's used since he rediscovered Sheila Jordan. Unfair for anyone to have to walk in Jordan's shoes, but I'm not sure I'd think much of Kim in any case. To her credit, she fares best on two songs Jordan sung on Flexible Flyer, ably negotiating the same tricky phrasing; elsewhere she ranges from competent to not. Piano and bass do little, and I still wonder what Rudd has against drums (or drummers). The trombone is glorious. [6]

Chuck Bernstein: Delta Berimbau Blues (2007-08, CMB) Minimalist gutbucket blues played on a Brazilian diddley bow, with Roswell Rudd for a choice cut. [8]

Roswell Rudd: Trombone Tribe (2008, Sunnyside -09) Several tribes, actually: the title group with three trombones and Bob Stewart on tuba; one called Bonerama with five plus a sousaphone; the Gangbe Brass Band of Benin; and Sex Mob, which qualifies when Rudd weighs in; also, scattered unnamed groups with everyone from Eddie Bert to Ray Anderson to Josh Roseman. And what do trombone tribes do? Duh, party! [9]

The Second Approach Trio With Roswell Rudd: The Light (2009, SoLyd) Passing through Moscow, the trombone great gets sucked into a maelstrom of flying scat and piano -- like he never left the '60s. [7]

Allen Lowe: Blues and the Empirical Truth (2009-11, Music & Arts 3CD) Probably better known for his books and compilations -- the 9-CD American Pop: An Audio History From Minstrel to Mojo and the 36-CD That Devilin' Tune: A Jazz History plus their separately published books, with a new 36-CD blues series in the works -- than for his original music. I first discovered him when Francis Davis tabbed his first two self-released 1990-92 albums as Pick Hits in an earlier edition of Jazz Consumer Guide -- critical admiration that continues as Davis wrote liner notes for this release. Based in Maine, mostly cut with a local group occasionally spiced with outside star power -- Marc Ribot, Matthew Shipp, Roswell Rudd, Lewis Porter -- this digs deeper than I could have imagined into blues form, blues notes, and blues psyche, turning every aspect over and inside out. Lowe plays alto, C melody, and tenor sax, and guitar. While most of the guitar is played by Ray Suhy or Marc Ribot, Lowe especially stands out on "Williamsburg Blues" -- his guitar with Shipp's piano. Three discs means some sprawl, comparable I'd say to 69 Love Songs in that neither the theme nor the invention wears thin. (Well, maybe a bit in the middle disc.) [10]

Roswell Rudd: The Incredible Honk (2011, Sunnyside) An smorgasbord with Cuban, Cajun, Chinese, and Malian guests, topped by "Danny Boy" stripped down to a bare 'bone. [8]

Roswell Rudd: Trombone for Lovers (2013, Sunnyside) With the "Joe Hill" suite at the end, this could have been called Trombone for the Masses: I don't mind the rapper there but the NYC Labor Choir takes some getting used to even though I feel like saluting the political point. Everything else is just superb: the opening "Ghost Riders in the Sky" with Steven Bernstein's slide trumpet, Bob Dorough on "Here, There & Everywhere," Fay Victor on "Trouble in Mind," Michael Doucet's violin on "Autumn Leaves" and "Tennessee Waltz," familiar songs that seem perfect when they pop up: "Baby, It's Cold Outside," "Struttin' With Some Barbecue," "Green Onions," "Unchained Melody," "September Song." As for "Joe Hill," well, organize. [10]

Roswell Rudd & Heather Masse: August Love Song (2015, Red House -16) Masse is a singer from Maine, part of the folk group The Wailin' Jennys but also has a couple jazz albums. She wrote one-and-a-half songs here -- the half segues into "Old Devil Moon" -- and the trombonist wrote two songs, the rest from the standards repertoire. With Rolf Sturm on guitar and Mark Helias on bass, what I love is the trombone growl and rumble, but the others, not least the singer, do their part too. [9]

Bob Merrill: Cheerin' Up the Universe (2013, Accurate -15) Trumpet player, crooner, don't know if he's related to the famous songwriter of the same name (1921-98), but is clearly much younger and still living. Band includes John Medeski, Russ Gershon, Nicki Parrott, and George Schuller, and Harry Allen and Roswell Rudd drop in for a cut apiece. [7]

Roswell Rudd/Jamie Saft/Trevor Dunn/Balasz Pandi: Strength & Power (2015, Rare Noise -16) Free jazz quartet, everything joint-credited, presumably improvised on the spot. The trombonist has done things like this in the distant past, none recently, and never has he got the mix this right. Saft has emerged as an exceptional free jazz pianist, and the bassist and drummer know the game. [9]

Roswell Rudd/Fay Victor/Lafayette Harris/Ken Filiano: Embrace (2017, RareNoise) Trombone-piano-bass trio plus singer, one of the most distinctive ones working today if not always one of the easiest to listen to. In some ways this recalls Rudd's mid-1970s work with Sheila Jordan -- less swing, the pianist a bit more ornate. Victor is especially striking on songs that don't tempt her to scat or vocalese, like "Can't We Be Friends" and "House of the Rising Sun," but she's pretty impressive traipsing over Mingus and Monk. The trombone isn't exactly lovely, but so full of soul it can't be the work of anyone else. [9]

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Monday, December 18, 2017

Music: Current count 29021 [28995] rated (+26), 389 [388] unrated (+1).

Spent most of the week sorting out the Jazz Critics Poll ballots, but got slowed down the last few days. Every year we do a Hanukkah party: no religious significance, basically just an excuse to fry up some latkes for friends. Over the years I've added a few side dishes: I salt-cure a chunk of salmon, make some chopped liver, make my own applesauce (we still buy the sour cream). Last year I baked some rye bread to go with the chopped liver. This year I did honey rye rolls (from The Gefilte Manifesto), and whipped up a batch of their "everything bagel butter." I also had some sauerrubben (salted turnip) left over from a previous meal, and the citrus-carrot horseradish, so I made a terrine of gefilte fish (used dover sole) to go with that. I also fried up and pickled some frozen perch fillets I found in the freezer. The centerpiece were the potato pancakes: 3 lbs of russets, 3 onions, 3 eggs, fried in grapeseed oil in three skillets. I don't get to eat until the frying's done, by which time everyone else are pretty well sated.

For a light dessert, we had a bowl of strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries with a wine-sugar syrup and a second bowl of vanilla cream. I recently bought a 12-cup food processor, which made quick work of the onions and potatoes, the chopped liver, and the other tasks I presented it with (although it wasn't great at mixing up or kneading the bread). Prep work was pretty relaxed. The frying caused problems, first tripping the smoke alarm, then the range hood shut down. Doesn't seem to be a permanent problem, but it's never been so fussy before.

I played golden oldies while cooking, hence the low rated count. Also lost more than a few hours to a carpentry project: a new pantry rack that'll attach to the basement door. Bought some more paint for that today. Should get it up in a couple of days.

One casualty of this work was no Weekend Roundup yesterday. You can, at least, check out Matthew Yglesias: The 4 biggest policy stories of the week, explained: A Democrat won a Senate election in Alabama; Republicans wrote their tax bill; Sexual harassment accusations kept roiling Congress; Net neutrality (i.e., the end of, so your ISP can start auctioning you off to the highest bidder). Given that a candidate as inept and disgusting as Roy Moore still managed to get 650,000 votes (48.4%), I doubt the good news about Alabama will last long. Everything else is more/less horrible. The takeaway is that Republicans don't care about doing vastly unpopular things as long as they advance their owners' agenda. Even if they blow up and cost them a couple elections, like 2006-08, they believe they can claw their way back to power. Yglesias' piece, a piece arguing Why Trump's tax cuts won't be repealed, reveals part of the reason: a profound lack of ambition from the Democrats.

Another thing I didn't have time for was working on the EOY Aggregate List. Picked up a couple lists, but nothing much changed. Much of what I did come up with was suggested by various jazz lists, but still lots of things not on Napster or Bandcamp. Finally wound up with Ron Miles' I Am a Man on YouTube, but that's hardly a fair medium for reviewing. Note three B+(***) records among the vault discoveries: Thelonious Monk, Bill Evans, and Oscar Pettiford all did well in the Jazz Critics Poll, but one spin (especially for the 2CD items) wasn't enough to convince me. Indeed, I also had Call Super pegged at B+(***) before I chanced an extra spin this afternoon, and enjoyed it enough to nudge it over the line.

I was saddened, and given that he was only 61 years old, shocked to hear that Ralph Carney has died. He grew up in Ohio, played clarinet (saxophone, all sorts of other instruments) in the Akron-based new wave rock group Tin Huey -- kind of a big deal c. 1979, with Chris Butler going on to form the Waitresses -- and released a few albums from 1987 on. I'm especially fond of two of the jazzier ones: Carneyball Johnson (2006) and Ralph Carney's Serious Jass Project (2009); also fine, by the latter group, was Seriously (2011). I wrote him once for records, and he was uncommonly gracious and generous, leading me to his work on several fine "spoken word" albums: Ira Cohen's The Stauffenberg Cycle, Robert Creeley's Really!!, and David Greenberger's OH, PA. He was probably most widely known for his long association with Tom Waits, but he did much more than that.

Keely Smith (originally Dorothy Jacqueline Keely) also passed away last week. She got a job singing for bandleader Louis Prima in 1949, married him in 1953, divorced him in 1961. Prima did some good work as far back as 1934 and had some hits in the '40s, but their period together (along with saxophonist Sam Butera, aka "the wildest") made them stars, especially in Las Vegas. Especially notable is their 1958 Live From Las Vegas. She continued recording up to 1965, then made brief comebacks around 1985 and 2000. The only album I noticed came out in 2005, a thoroughly enjoyable recapitulation of her heyday called Vegas '58 -- Today.

New records rated this week:

• Fabian Almazan: Alcanza (2017, Biophilia): [r]: B-
• Denys Baptiste: The Late Trane (2017, Edition): [r]: B+(**)
• Ernaldo Bernocchi: Rosebud (2017, RareNoise): [cdr]: B+(*)
• Alan Broadbent With the London Metropolitan Orchestra: Developing Story (2017, Eden River): [r]: B+(*)
• Call Super: Arpo (2017, Houndstooth): [r]: A-
• Billy Childs: Rebirth (2017, Mack Avenue): [r]: B-
• Ben Goldberg School: Vol 1: The Humanities (2017, BAG): [r]: B+(**)
• Mark Guiliana Jazz Quartet: Jersey (2017, Motéma): [r]: B+(*)
• Keyon Harrold: The Mugician (2017, Legacy): [r]: B+(*)
• Jazzmeia Horn: A Social Call (2017, Prestige): [r]: B+(**)
• Sherman Irby & Momentum: Cerulean Canvas (2017, Black Warrior): [r]: B+(*)
• Irreversible Entanglements: Irreversible Entanglements (2015 [2017], International Anthem/Don Giovanni): [r]: A-
• Ingrid and Christine Jensen: Infinitude (2016, Whirlwind): [r]: B+(**)
• Liebman/Murley Quartet: Live at U of T (U of T Jazz): [cd]: B+(***)
• Nick Maclean Quartet: Rites of Ascension (2017, Browntasaurus): [cd]: B+(*)
• Makaya McCraven: Highly Rare (2016 [2017], International Anthem): [r]: B+(***)
• Zara McFarlane: Arise (2017, Brownswood): [r]: B+(*)
• Gary Meek: Originals (2017, self-released): [r]: B+(**)
• Uwe Oberg/Rudi Mahall/Michael Griener: Lacy Pool 2 (2017, Leo): [r]: B+(***)
• Emile Parisien/Vincent Peirani/Andreas Schaerer/Michael Wollny: Out of Land (2016 [2017], ACT): [r]: B
• Nicholas Payton: Afro-Caribbean Mixtape (2017, Paytone/Ropeadope): [r]: B+(*)
• Gary Peacock Trio: Tangents (2016 [2017], ECM): [r]: B+(***)
• Cécile McLorin Salvant: Dreams and Daggers (2017, Mack Avenue, 2CD): [r]: B+(*)
• Jeremy Udden/John McNeil/Akyer Kobrinsky/Anthony Pinciotti: Hush Point III (2017, Sunnyside): [r]: B+(*)

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries rated this week:

• The Bill Evans Trio: On a Monday Evening (1976 [2017], Fantasy): [r]: B+(***)
• Thelonious Monk: Les Liaisons Dangereuses 1960 (1959, Sam, 2CD): [r]: B+(***)
• Now That's What I Call Tailgate Anthems (1975-2016 [2017], Sony Music Entertainment): [r]: B+(*)
• Perseverance: The Music of Rick DeRosa at North Texas (2011-15 [2017], UNT): [cd]: B-
• Oscar Pettiford Nonet/Big Band/Sextet: New York City 1955-1958 (1955-58 [2017], Uptown, 2CD): [r]: B+(***)

Old music rated this week:

• Uwe Oberg/Christof Thewes/Michael Griener: Lacy Pool (2006 [2009], Hatology): [r]: B+(***)

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

• Wali Ali: To Be (Mendicant)
• Vinny Golia Wind Quartet: Live at the Century City Playhouse: Los Angeles, 1979 (Dark Tree)

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Monday, December 11, 2017

Music: Current count 28995 [28950] rated (+45), 388 [390] unrated (-2).

First time I calculated the rated count I came up with 31, which looked way low. A closer look kicked it up to 37, and then I went back and rechecked everything in the rated list and found a bunch of records missing grades. I also recalled that I had played two Yaeji EPs, so fixed that. Final rated total winds up pretty close to the upper bounds of a good, solid week. Contributing were two things: one was that I was recuperating from the previous week's cooking madness, taking it easy with hardly any distractions; the other was that I used a good deal of my chill time aggregating EOY lists, which suggested a lot of records to check out. Can't say as they've generated a lot of finds thus far, although one list pointed me to the legendary Kenyan band, and their label's Bandcamp page led me to the Andina compilation. My tip for the '90s pop compilation came from Robert Christgau (at the time I couldn't find the other one he liked, Now That's What I Call Tailgate Anthems, but I've found it now, so next week).

I finally got the Jazz Critics Poll ballot data last night, so I'm swamped with work to do to check and format that data. Still not sure when NPR is going to run -- probably this week, quite possibly before I get my part done. Otherwise I'd write something about how the EOY list aggregate is shaping up, but I suppose you can see for yourself. As I initially suspected, Kendrick Lamar's Damn is well ahead, with the next four slots very close (83-78 by my count, compared to 114 for Lamar and 55 for 6th place Vince Staples: Lorde, LCD Soundsystem, SZA, and St. Vincent. I've compiled far fewer lists than I have in recent years, but I'll note that AOTY's 2017 Music Year End List Aggregate currently shows the same top six albums in the same order (although they have Lorde opening up a clear gap over a virtual tie between LCD Soundsystem and SZA). Their top ten rounds out with War on Drugs, Father John Misty, Sampha, and National, with Slowdive 11th. My top 11 has the same records, order slightly shuffled.

After that we disagree more, with Mount Eerie dropping from 12th on their list to 28th on mine; Tyler the Creator from 13th to 19th; the XX from 21st to 38th, Taylor Swift from 36th to 68th. There are fewer dramatic improvements on my list, although the early UK bias certainly helps Jane Weaver (from 40th to 16th). I'll know more, and be able to say more, next week. One thing I will note is that my list has picked up on so few jazz lists that it's completely useless for predicting the Jazz Critics Poll.

One final note: after reviewing it, I discovered that Octopus is actually scheduled for Jan. 28, 2018 release, so it doesn't appear in my 2017 Jazz List. I did find the FCT album after I cast my Jazz Critics Poll ballot, so as usual it took me just a few days to find an A- album I had missed.

New records rated this week:

• Bargou 08: Targ (2017, Glitterbeat): [r]: B+(**)
• Courtney Barnett/Kurt Vile: Lotta Sea Lice (2017, Matador): [r]: B+(*)
• Pan Daijing: Lack (2017, Pan): [r]: B-
• Kris Davis & Craig Taborn: Octopus (2016 [2018], Pyroclastic): [cd]: A-
• Angelo Divino: Love A to Z (2017, self-released): [cd]: B-
• Fabiano Do Nascimento: Tempo dos Mestres (2017, Now-Again): [r]: B+(**)
• FCT = Francesco Cusa Trio Meets Carlo Atti: From Sun Ra to Donald Trump (2016 [2017], Clean Feed): [r]: A-
• Nick Fraser: Is Life Long? (2016 [2017], Clean Feed): [r]: B+(**)
• David Friesen: Structures (2017, Origin, 2CD): [cd]: B+(*)
• Aldous Harding: Party (2017, 4AD): [r]: B
• Ryan Keberle/Frank Woeste: Reverso: Suite Pavel (2017 [2018], Phonoart): [cd]: B+(**)
• King Krule: The OOZ (2017, True Panther Sounds): [r]: B
• LEF: Hypersomniac (2017, RareNoise): [cdr]: B-
• Joao Lencastre's Communion 3: Movements in Freedom (2017, Clean Feed): [r]: B+(**)
• Van Morrison: Versatile (2017, Legacy): [r]: B+(*)
• New Order: NOMC15 (Pledge Music, 2CD): [r]: B+(***)
• Gard Nilssen's Complete Unity: Live in Europe (2016 [2017], Clean Feed, 3CD): [r]: B+(***)
• Orchestre Les Mangelepa: Last Band Standing (2017, Strut): [r]: A-
• Kelly Lee Owens: Kelly Lee Owens (2017, Smalltown Supersound): [r]: B
• Phil Parisot: Creekside (2017, OA2): [cd]: B+(**)
• Princess Nokia: 1992 Deluxe (2017, Rough Trade): [r]: B
• Nadia Reid: Preservation (2017, Basin Rock): [r]: B+(*)
• Riddlore: Afro Mutations (2015 [2016], Nyege Nyege Tapes): [bc]: B+(**)
• Rina Sawayama: Rina (2017, The Vinyl Factory, EP): [r]: B-
• Sirius: Acoustic Main Suite Plus the Inner One (2017, Clean Feed): [r]: B+(*)
• Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith: The Kid (2017, Western Vinyl): [r]: B
• Chris Stapleton: From a Room: Volume 2 (2017, Mercury Nashville): [r]: B+(**)
• John Stowell/Ulf Bandgren Quartet: Night Visitor (2016 [2017], Origin): [cd]: B+(*)
• Taylor Swift: Reputation (2017, Big Machine): [r]: B+(**)
• Tune Recreation Committee: Voices of Our Vision (2017, self-released): [bc]: B+(*)
• The War on Drugs: A Deeper Understanding (2017, Atlantic): [r]: B
• Jane Weaver: Modern Kosmology (2017, Fire): [r]: B+(*)
• Wolf Alice: Visions of a Life (2017, Dirty Hit): [r]: B+(*)
• Yaeji: Yaeji (2017, Godmode, EP): [r]: B+(**)
• Yaeji: EP 2 (2017, Godmode, EP): [r]: B+(***)
• Dave Young/Terry Promane Octet: Vol. 2 (2017, Modica Music): [cd]: B+(*)
• Neil Young + Promise of the Real: The Visitor (2017, Reprise): [r]: B
• Waclaw Zimpel/Jakub Ziolek: Zimpel/Ziolek (2017, Instant Classic): [r]: B+(**)

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries rated this week:

• Andina: The Sound of the Peruvian Andes 1968-1978 (1968-78 [2017], Tiger's Milk/Strut): [r]: A-
• Bro. Valentino: Stay Up Zimbabwe (1979-80 [2017], Analog Africa, EP): [bc]: B+(***)
• Oté Maloya: The Birth of Electric Maloya on Réunion Island 1975-1986 (1975-86 [2017], Strut): [bc]: B+(*)
• Now That's What I Call 90s Pop (1990s [2017], UMG/Sony): [r]: A-

Old music rated this week:

• Taylor Swift: 1989 (2014, Big Machine): [r]: B+(***)
• Waclaw Zimpel: Lines (2015 [2016], Instant Classic): [r]: B+(**)

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

• Ivo Perelman/Matthew Shipp/William Parker/Bobby Kapp: Heptagon (Leo)
• Ivo Perelman/Matthew Shipp/Jeff Cosgrove: Live in Baltimore (Leo)
• Ivo Perelman/Matthew Shipp: Live in Brussels (Leo, 2CD)
• Ivo Perelman/Nate Wooley/Brandon Lopez/Gerald Cleaver: Octagon (Leo)
• Ivo Perelman/Matthew Shipp/Nate Wooley: Philosopher's Stone (Leo)
• Ivo Perelman/Matthew Shipp/Joe Hertenstein: Scalene (Leo)
• Takaaki: New Kid in Town (Troy)

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Sunday, December 10, 2017

The Democrats in Congress, especially the leadership, have had a really bad week, and I fear they've inflicted grave wounds on themselves. John Conyers and Al Franken have resigned after enormous pressure from the party leadership, leaving the party with fewer votes, summarily ending two notable careers. I especially blame Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Shumer. Back in 2016 Hillary Clinton like to posit a "Commander-in-Chief Test," figuring she'd compare favorably to Donald Trump by emphasizing her own fondness for military adventures -- I think her hawkishness was a big part of why she lost, but my point isn't to rehash her delusions. Rather, what we saw last week was a "Shop Steward" test, which Pelosi and Shumer utterly failed. They let a little media pressure blow them over. More importantly, they failed to insist on due process, on the most basic principles of traditional American justice, and in doing so they sacrificed political standing and insulted and demeaned the voters who had elected Conyers and Franken.

Supposedly, one thing the Democrats hope to achieve in sacking Conyers and Franken is "the moral high ground" -- demonstrating their superior sensitivity to and concern for victims of sexual misconduct (pretty broadly defined). In theory, this will pay off in defeating Roy Moore in next week's Alabama Senate race and/or in putting pressure on Donald Trump to resign. In fact, Trump was elected president after 19 women accused him of various shades of assault, and after he bragged about as much. While Moore is facing a closer election than Alabama Republicans are used to, he remains the favorite to win Tuesday. And while some Democrats imagine that if Moore wins the Senate will refuse to seat him, I can't imagine the Republicans sacrificing power like that. Nor, quite frankly, should they. (The only duly elected member I can recall either branch of Congress refusing to seat was Adam Clayton Powell, in a shameful travesty -- although, come to think of it, they did take months before allowing Al Franken to enter.)

Some scattered links this week:

• Matthew Yglesias: 4 stories that mattered in politics this week: The tax reform hit some snags ("Senate Republicans appear to have written a corporate AMT provision that they intended to raise a little bit of revenue in a sloppy way that actually raises a ton of revenue and alienates the businesses who were supposed to benefit from a big tax cut"); President Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital; Al Franken announced he'll resign; The government will stay open for a couple of weeks. Other Yglesias pieces:

  • We have a trial date: March 19, "the beginning of the trial at which the Justice Department will seek to block the merger of AT&T and Time Warner." There is no shortage of good reasons for blocking this merger, and indeed for untangling all of the past mergers between data transit and content companies, although it's surprising to see Trump's DOJ lifting a finger to prevent the further concentration of predatory corporate power.

  • Apple could get a staggering $47 billion windfall from the tax bill:

    What's particularly striking about this windfall is that though Apple has been a fierce advocate for corporate tax reform -- $47 billion is a lot of money after all -- Apple CEO Tim Cook has explained over and over again that shoveling billions into his corporate treasury won't boost his investment spending.

    He already has plenty of cash, but beyond that, when Cook wants Apple to invest more, he borrows the money.

  • Tomorrow's financial crisis today: Points out that less than ten years after the worst recession since the 1930s Trump's administration is working to undermine the Treasury's Office of Financial Research and "let banks take on more risky debt:

    The nature of a banking crisis is you probably won't have one in any given year, regardless of how shoddy your regulatory framework is. As long as asset prices are trending upward, it just doesn't matter. In fact, as long as asset prices are trending upward, a poorly regulated banking sector will be more profitable than a well-regulated one.

    It's all good. Unless things blow up. But if your bad policymaking takes us from a one-in-500 chance of a blow-up in any given year to a one-in-20 chance, you're still in a world where things will probably be fine across even an entire eight-year span in office. Probably.

    Trump has taken a lot of risky bets in his life. And though he's often lost, he's usually been insulated by his inherited wealth and by his very real skill at structuring deals so other people end up holding a lot of the downside. Any presidency inherently has that kind of structure with or without skill. Presidents suffer when they make mistakes, but other people suffer more.

    ?he key phrase here is "as long as asset prices are trending upward." The surest way to keep asset prices rising is to let rich people make and keep more money, which is what happened from the Bush tax cuts forward to 2007-08. What broke then turned out to be pretty simple: a big chunk of those assets were built on subprime mortgages, and the people who signed up for the mortgages weren't able to grow their incomes enough to cover their debts, so they defaulted; meanwhile, the banks had leveraged themselves so much they couldn't cover their losses, so they started to fail in a cascade that threatened to make the "domino theory" look like small potatoes. But the government, especially the Fed, stepped in and pumped several trillions of dollars into the banks to prop them up so they could unwind their losses more gracefully, while the government did very little to help the little people who suffered the brunt of the recession. (I was going to say "virtually nothing," but things like extended unemployment benefits did help keep the recession from matching the desolation caused by the Great Depression.) We're already seeing asset bubbles in things like the stock market. The whole point of Trump's tax cuts and deregulation is to feed this bubble, even though there is no clear way to sustain the trend or to appease the financier's appetite for ever greater profits. Coupled with a massive collapse of business ethics -- this has been growing since the "greed is good" Reagan era, but Trump is an even more shocking role model -- it's only a matter of time before the whole edifice collapses.

  • We need a healthier conversation about partisanship and sexual assault.

  • The tax bill is a tax cut, not a culture war: Pushes back against the idea that Republicans chose targets to "reform" by how much they would hurt "blue states" (the SALT deduction being the obvious example). Shows that the overriding reasoning behind the cuts/reforms is to favor the rich over the poor, regardless of where they may live or do business. Of course, the real cost to poor and working Americans won't appear in scoring the bill -- it will come later in the form of service cuts and the ever-widening chasm between "haves and have-nots."

  • Republicans need Roy Moore to pass their tax bill.

  • Groundbreaking empirical research shows where innovation really comes from.

  • Democrats need to get a grip about the budget deficit: "The tax bill is bad, the debt is fine." ARgues that "Bush's deficits were fine and Trump's will be too" and that "Obama's deficits were way too small."

  • Don't worry about the debt.

• Matthew Cole/Jeremy Scahill: Trump White House Weighing Plans for Private Spies to Counter "Deep State" Enemies: Evidently one of Erik Prince's schemes, notably backed by Oliver North. One suspicious point is that the scheme would still report to CIA Director Mike Pompeo, figuring him more loyal to Trump than to the "Deep State" he nominally manages a big chunk of. Also see Aram Roston: Private War: Erik Prince Has H is Eye on Afghanistan's Rare Metals. Evidently the mercenary leader is trying to turn his private army into some sort of modern British East India Company colossus.

• Juliet Eilperin: Uranium firm urged Trump officials to shrink Bears Ears National Monument: Helps explain why Trump and Zinke radically shrunk the borders of the National Monument (see maps). The land still belongs to the federal government, but will now be managed by the Bureau of Land Management. For info on what that means, see Adam Federman: This Is How the Trump Administration Gives Big Oil the Keys to Public Lands.

• Tara Golsham: Rep. Trent Franks, who is resigning immediately, offered staffer $5 million to be his baby surrogate: One of the more bizarre stories of recent weeks: Arizona Republican, "a deeply conservative member of the House Freedom Caucus and one of the most pro-life members of Congress. Evidently he has that kind of money, and assumes it entitles him to run roughshod over others.

• Jim Kirby: Hillary Clinton's emails got as much front-page coverage in 6 days as policy did in 69: An analysis of New York Times -- your newspaper or preferred media source may vary (with some never matching that 6-day email window), but for a supposedly sober and serious news source, that's pretty disgusting. One might argue that Hillary's email controversy speaks to her character, but no more so than hundreds or thousands of Donald Trump anecdotes. Even so, you'd think it sensible that news coverage of an election would focus more on likely policies and future scenarios than on past personal quirks. The only excuse I can think of is that today's campaigns are often as shallow as the media covering them -- or at least try to be.

• Rashid Khalidi: After Jerusalem, the US Can No Longer Pretend to Be an Honest Broker of Peace: Actually, that was clear even before Trump ordered the US embassy moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, as Khalidi knows damn well -- he's even written a whole book about it: Brokers of Deceit: How the US Has Undermined Peace in the Middle East. What I've yet to see anyone comment on is why the US didn't move the embassy earlier. The basic reason is respect for international law, which as this week's announcement shows has sunken to new lows in Washington. The 1947 UN resolution proposing partition of the British Mandate in Palestine -- a resolution that David Ben-Gurion lobbied fervently for -- called for dividing the Mandate into two states, but keeping Jerusalem separate as an international area. Immediately on declaring independence in 1948, Israel launched a military offensive aimed at expanding on the borders the UN prescribed. The main target of that offensive was Jerusalem, which wound up divided between Israeli and Jordanian forces. In 1967 Israel launched another war and drove Jordan from East Jerusalem and the West Bank -- territories that the UN ordered Israel to return, despite Israel's almost immediate annexation of Jerusalem and environs. Israel's de facto control of Jerusalem has never been squared away with the rulings of international law, so no country with respect for international law has conceded Israel's claim. "Until now," you might say, but the US has increasingly shown contempt for international law, and this is just one more example.

  By the way, a headline in the Wichita Eagle today: "After US decision on Jerusalem, Gaza protests turn deadly." First line of article explains how: "Two Hamas militants were killed in an Israeli airstrike on Saturday after rocket fire from the enclave hit an Israeli town, as the death toll in violence linked to President Donald Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital rose to four." No damage was reported from the Gazan rockets. For info about the other two deaths, see: Peter Beaumont/Patrick Wintour: Two Palestinians shot dead and one critical in riots after Trump speech. Also: Raja Shehadeh: I have witnessed two intifadas. Trump's stance on Israel may ignite a third.

• Sarah Kliff: Obamacare sign-ups defy Trump's sabotage campaign.

• German Lopez: Roy Moore: America "was great at the time when families were united -- even though he had slavery." Anyone who thinks that the problem with Moore is his fondness for underaged girls clearly hasn't paid any attention to his politics or to his political legacy. More worrying is Moore's unwavering contempt for the law -- after all, Moore has been stripped of his position on the Alabama Supreme Court for failing to submit to federal law, specifically the First Amendment. When Donald Trump tries to tout Moore as the "law and order candidate" he does little more than expose his own flimsy and dicey relationship to the law. (Meanwhile, Moore's Democratic opponent, Doug Jones, has a distinguished record as a federal prosecutor, credentials that only someone as reality-challenged as Trump can readily dismiss.) I wish I could say that Moore's casual endorsement of slavery is even more shocking, but we've always known him to be a racist. After all, Alabama's given us George Wallace and Jeff Sessions, so how much worse can Moore be? Well, this statement is a pretty good example: "I think it [America] was great at the time when families were united -- even though we had slavery. They cared for one another. People were strong in the families. Our families were strong. Our country had a direction." The most obvious problem is that slavery was a system which denied family life and bonds, one that allowed slaveowners to prevent or break families by selling members. He could hardly be clearer that he doesn't regard blacks as people -- as Lopez notes, only one of many blind bigotries Moore espouses. Still, I detect another curious note in the quote: it's like he's trying to channel ideologues like George Fitzhugh who tried to defend slavery as anti-capitalist -- an alternative to the coarse materialism that Bible-thumpers like Moore so despise.

  More on Moore:

  • Jane Coaston: Inside the bubble: why Roy Moore has conservative media on his side.

  • Brian Resnick: Official Roy Moore campaign talking points "debunking" sex abuse allegations against him.

  • Campbell Robertson/Jonathan Martin: Alabama, Despite History of Unruly Politics, Has 'Never Seen Anything Like This'.

  • Kenneth P Vogel: James O'Keefe, Practitioner of the Sting, Has an Ally in Trump: O'Keefe, who runs a Mercer-backed dirty tricks operation that recently tried to muddy the waters by staging a false accusation against Roy Moore. Thankfully, this one was exposed before it did any harm, but the more gullible Democrats and the liberal media are, the more "disrupters" like O'Keefe will take advantage of them.

• Andrew Prokop: Michael Flynn's involvement in a plan to build nuclear reactors in the Middle East is looking even shadier: More "Russia" scandal this past week, but one should recall that Russian schemes under Putin have nothing to do with fomenting world revolution or curtailing US imperial ambitions: they're founded on pure oligarchic greed, which isn't at all unlike the Trump approach to business. E.g., this piece summarizes a "whistleblower" report about a deal Flynn was working on:

  According to the whistleblower, [Alex] Copson flat-out said the following things:

  • That he "just got" a text message from Flynn saying the nuclear plant project was "good to go," and that his business colleagues should "put things in place"
  • That Flynn was making sure sanctions on Russia would be "ripped up," which would let the project go forward
  • That this was the "best day" of his life, and that the project would "make a lot of very wealthy people"
  • That the project would also provide a pretext for expanding a US military presence in the Middle East (the pretext of defending the nuclear plants)
  • That citizens of Middle Eastern countries would be better off "when we recolonize the Middle East"

• David Roberts: A moment of truth arrives for Rick Perry's widely hated coal bailout: Long article, really should be a much bigger scandal than anything having to do with "sexual misconduct" -- with billions of dollars of benefits going to five coal companies, paid for by rate hikes from millions of consumers, and championed by a moron like Rick Perry, it wouldn't even take much of a stretch from the media to blow this up, but evidently they're too lazy to care.

• Aja Romano: MSNBC won't cut ties to Sam Seder after all: succumbing to alt-right outrage was a "mistake": Another cautionary tale, showing you can't trust anything reported on right-wing media, and that the kneejerk "zero tolerance" reactions of "liberal" media combines are set up perfectly to be scammed. More: Ryan Grim: MSNBC Reverses Decision to Fire Contributor Sam Seder.

• Mark Joseph Stern: The Trump Administration Just Declared War on Public Sector Unions.

• Corey Williams/David Eggert: Conyers' Congressional Seat Won't Be Filled for Nearly a Year: So, Nancy Pelosi browbeat Conyers into resigning his seat, certain that a Democrat would replace him -- the current gerrymander of Michigan concedes that -- but evidently the Republican governor of Michigan can simply hold the seat open for a whole year?

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Monday, December 4, 2017

Music: Current count 28950 [28931] rated (+19), 390 [391] unrated (-1).

I spent most of last week planning, shopping, prepping, and cooking a massive dinner for the Wichita Peace Center's 25th Annual Dinner, with major (indispensable) help from Janice Bradley, Max Stewart, and Russ Pataki, with a few others pitching in on dinner days, notably including people I didn't know who hung around to help clean up. I fixed a range of Indian dishes: lamb and potatoes in a cream sauce (rogani gosht), tandoori chicken in a tomato-butter sauce (makhni), fish tikka, patiala pilaf (minus the fried onions), a sweet potato/chickpea curry, mattar paneer (peas with cheese), bharta (smoked eggplant), cabbage, kali dal, cucumber raita. We served appetizers at the tables, including a minted aloo chat (potato salad), coconut relish, pineapple sambal, a hot tomato chutney, paratha (flatbread), tapioca chips, a couple of store-bought chutneys (brinjal, lime pickle). Had spice cake and a Moroccan fruit salad for dessert. Best compliment I had was when one friend came up to me and cooed in my ear, "the food is divine." I had my quibbles with the fish and rice -- partly frustration as they were the last things done and both ran into unexpected problems.

Mark McCormick was the featured speaker (buy his new book here). He gave a nice speech, and was even better fielding questions, stressing how we've become disconnected and desensitized to the problems around us. Partial proof of that was evident in the disappointing turnout: a little over 40 people this year, compared to 60 last year. (Not getting an accurate RSVP count until too late, I prepared food for 60, so we had a lot left over.) I was pretty much a wreck by the time it was done. Doubt I'll be able to do it again, but afterwards Max was trying to figure out ways to spread the work out -- I've never been very good at delegating -- and I was wondering whether paella might scale up better. Don't need to decide for nearly a year.

I published the November roll-up of Streamnotes last week. on Tuesday. With everything else going on, I didn't expect I'd be able to find anything new to add to what I had noted last Music Week. But I found four of this week's five A- records in the day between Music Week and Streamnotes: the David S. Ware archival set (from 2010, so still new enough) wasn't unexpected, and the two Chicago tenor saxophonists (Ken Vandermark and Mars Williams, dba Made to Break and Boneshaker, respectively) were right up my alley. But Re-TROS, a tip from Chris Monsen's 2017-in-progress list, was totally unexpected: a Chinese alt-rock group, at times (but not all the time) sounding like a cross between Pulnoc and Konono No. 1 (on Bandcamp, by the way).

December 3 was the deadline for ballots for Francis Davis' Jazz Critics Poll. I resorted my top jazz picks and submitted the following:

New records:

1. William Parker Quartets: Meditation/Resurrection (AUM Fidelity, 2CD)
2. Satoko Fujii Orchestra Tokyo: Peace (Libra)
3. Gonçalo Almeida/Rodrigo Amado/Marco Franco: The Attic (NoBusiness)
4. Aki Takase/David Murray: Cherry Shakura (Intakt)
5. Rich Halley/Carson Halley: The Wild (Pine Eagle)
6. Rocco John: Peace and Love (Unseen Rain)
7. Buffalo Jazz Octet: Live at Pausa Art House (Cadence Jazz)
8. François Carrier/Michel Lambert/Alexey Lapin: Freedom Is Space for the Spirit (FMR)
9. Mostly Other People Do the Killing: Loafer's Hollow (Hot Cup)
10. Barry Altschul's 3Dom Factor: Live in Krakow (Not Two)

Reissues or historical:

1. American Epic: The Collection (1916-36, Third Man/Columbia/Legacy, 5CD)
2. Paul Rutherford/Sabu Toyozumi: The Conscience (1999, NoBusiness)
3. The Three Sounds: Groovin' Hard: Live at the Penthouse 1964-1968 (Resonance)

Vocal album: Roswell Rudd/Fay Victor/Lafayette Harris/Ken Filiano: Embrace (RareNoise)

Debut album: Buffalo Jazz Octet: Live at Pausa Art House (Cadence Jazz) -- I allowed that if groups aren't eligible (leader Michael McNeill has several albums under his own name) the best individual pick is probably Kate Gentile: Mannequins (Skirl).

Latin Jazz album: Gabriel Alegria Afro-Peruvian Sextet: Diablo en Brooklyn (Saponegro) -- I noted that Miguel Zenón: Típico (Miel Music) was actually higher on my list, but I thought Alegria's album was more Latin Jazzy.

My ranking is highly proximate. Parker is the only download, and I probably haven't played it enough, but the two contrasting quartets reminds me of Ornette Coleman's marvelous In All Languages, where he split a double-LP among two groups (more distinctive ones than Parker's). Each half is potentially great, but I still haven't moved it above the A- bin. I replayed maybe half of the top ten last week, but there's still not a lot of distance from top to bottom, or even throughout the A-list.

I was going to make a comment based on something Robert Christgau said in a recent Pittsburgh Post-Gazette interview, but I can't look up the quote due to an "ad blocker" snit fit I don't feel like indulging. As best I recall, he said something about most critics viewing EOY lists as personal branding exercises. My list can be viewed that way. To the extent that I have a brand, or a public persona, it's that of someone who listens far and wide, doesn't follow fashion, and doesn't want to get pigeonholed. On the other hand, this year's list is more avant than usual, and leans toward people I've repeatedly favored in the past -- something I've noticed a lot this past year (while suspecting as some kind of a rut, but not caring enough to break out of).

My Best Non-Jazz of 2017 list is even more problematical, not least because I've cared for it less. I haven't, for instance, played 2nd-ranked Run the Jewels or 3rd-ranked Sylvan Esso since I initially graded them, so early in the year that they were necessarily slotted high on the list. I don't have a Pazz & Jop invitation yet. When I do, I expect I'll do a lot of shuffling, if only to "fit my brand" as it's becoming increasingly impossible to believe that I'm sorting out anything objective.

But if I had to draw a single conclusion out of these lists, it's that nothing this year matters nearly as much to me as the records I've regularly put on top-ten lists in past years -- especially a decade or more back; e.g., in 2007:

1. Manu Chao: La Radiolina (Nacional/Because)
2. John Fogerty: Revival (Fantasy)
3. Powerhouse Sound: Oslo/Chicago Breaks (Atavistic, 2CD)
4. Gogol Bordello: Super Taranta! (Side One Dummy)
5. Jewels and Binoculars: Ships With Tattooed Sails (Upshot)
6. David Murray Black Saint Quartet: Sacred Ground (Justin Time)
7. Mavis Staples: We'll Never Turn Back (Anti-)
8. Youssou N'Dour: Rokku Mi Rokka (Nonesuch)
9. Mostly Other People Do the Killing: Shamokin!!! (Hot Cup)
10. ROVA: The Juke Box Suite (Not Two)

Or 1997, when the sample size was only 155 records:

1. Cornershop: When I Was Born for the Seventh Time (Warner Bros.)
2. Doc Cheatham and Nicholas Payton (Verve)
3. David Murray: Long Goodbye: A Tribute to Don Pullen (DIW)
4. Ani DiFranco: Living in Clip (Righteous Babe, 2CD)
5. Ray Anderson/Mark Helias/Gerry Hemingway: BassDrumBone (Hence the Reason) (Enja)
6. Bob Dylan: Time Out of Mind (Columbia)
7. Hamiet Bluiett: Makin' Whoopee: Tribute to the Nat King Cole Trio (Mapleshade)
8. Latryx: The Album (SoleSides)
9. Nils Petter Molvaer: Khmer (ECM, 2CD)
10. Yo La Tengo: I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One (Matador)

I don't have earlier lists I can readily tap into, but 1987 and 1977 would be even more memorable to me -- especially the latter, as it came right after I moved to New York City, during my first stretch writing rock crit for the Village Voice, a time when I really cared about my favorite records, and managed to put a lot of time into them. That doesn't happen any more, and while I suspect the variable is me, I can't totally eliminate the music. I mean, doesn't postmodernism start with ironic detachment? Then why shouldn't it end simply with indifference?

I'm not saying that music in 2017 sucks. This year is more/less as good as last year and the year before and so on -- the only long term trends worth noting are that there's more to listen to every year and less time to devote to it. But what is indubitable is that the world in 2017 sucks, so it's getting harder for music to overcome all that drudgery. And, sure, that's probably worse for someone my age, because pretty much everything gets worse as you get old.

By the way, I have started to aggregate EOY lists, using the same formats and methodology as last year. Thus far I have something like four early lists (Mojo and three British record shops, so all UK) plus three individual JJA top-tens, plus I'm counting my grades as I go along, so take this with several distinct grains of salt. The only thing I'm fairly sure of thus far is that LCD Soundsystem's American Dream is the only record with a decent chance of challenging the obvious favorite, Kendrick Lamar's Damn. Moreover, the three jazz lists I've thus far tallied don't offer a single clue how the Jazz Critics Poll is going to sort out (not a single record appears on more than one ballot so far (nor on mine). If I had to hazard a guess, it would be that Vijay Iyer's Far From Over wins, but it doesn't have a vote so far.

New records rated this week:

• Espen Aalberg/Jonas Kullhammar/Torbjörn Zetterberg/Susana Santos Silva: Basement Sessions Vol. 4 (The Bali Tapes) (2016 [2017], Clean Feed): [r]: B+(***)
• Boneshaker: Thinking Out Loud (2017, Trost): [bc]: A-
• Eva Cortés: Crossing Borders (2016 [2017], Origin): [cd]: B+(*)
• Satoko Fujii Orchestra New York: Fukushima (2016 [2017], Libra): [cd]: B+(**)
• Paul Giallorenzo Trio: Flow (2017, Delmark): [cd]: B+(**)
• Made to Break: Trebuchet (2017, Trost): [bc]: A-
• Joe McPhee/Pascal Niggenkemper/Ståle Liavik Solberg: Imaginary Numbers (2015 [2017], Clean Feed): [r]: B+(***)
• Kjetil Møster/Jeff Parker/Joshua Abrams/John Herndon: Ran Do (2015 [2017], Clean Feed): [r]: B+(*)
• Jeb Loy Nichols: Country Hustle (2017, Inkind): [r]: B-
• Penguin Cafe: The Imperfect Sea (2017, Erased Tapes): [r]: B+(**)
• Margo Price: All American Made (2017, Third Man): [r]: B+(**)
• Ada Rave Trio: The Sea, the Storm and the Full Moon (2015 [2017], Clean Feed): [r]: B+(*)
• Re-TROS: Before the Applause (2017, Modern Sky Entertainment): [r]: A-
• Schnellertollermeier: Rights (2016 [2017], Cuneiform): [dl]: B+(*)
• Brandon Seabrook: Die Trommel Fatale (2016 [2017], New Atlantis): [bc]: B+(**)
• David S. Ware Trio: Live in New York, 2010 (2010 [2017], AUM Fidelity, 2CD): [dl]: A-

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries rated this week:

• Hamad Kalkaba: Hamad Kalkaba and the Golden Sounds 1974-1975 (1974-75 [2017], Analog Africa): [bc]: A-
• Los Cameroes: Resurrection Los Vol. 1 (1976 [2017], Analog Africa): [bc]: B+(**)
• Pop Makossa: The Invasive Dance Beat of Cameroon 1976-1984 (1976-84 [2017], Analog Africa): [bc]: B+(*)

Old music rated this week:

• Mars Williams/Paal Nilssen-Love/Kent Kessler: Bonecrusher (2012, Trost): [bc]: B+(***)

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

• Liebman/Murley Quartet: Live at U of T (U of T Jazz): December 15
• New York Electric Piano: State of the Art (Fervor)

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Sunday, December 3, 2017

I spent literally most of last week trying to cook for 60 at the Wichita Peace Center Annual Dinner on Friday, and I've been sore and tired ever since. Thought compiling this post might feel like a return to normalcy, but nothing's normal any more.

Some scattered links this week:

• Matthew Yglesias: The 4 most important stories of the week, explained: Senate Republicans are on track to pass their tax cut (as, indeed, they did); We found our about more sexual harassers (especially Matt Lauer); After Rexit (Rex Tillerson, rumored gone but hanging on); North Korea launched a long-range ICBM (one that could theoretically hit anywhere in the continental United States). Other Yglesias posts:

  • Republicans may regret this tax bill: This seems intuitively right. The biggest political issue in America today is increasing inequality and its various effects, including the binding of political power and personal security to private wealth. Moreover, this is an issue with a strict partisan divide: Republicans are doing everything they can to concentrate wealth and power in the donor class, and Democrats are more or less opposed to this and more or less in favor of a more equitable society (at least like the ones of the New Deal/Great Society era, but with less racism). To the extent people understand the tax bill, it is wildly unpopular, so it's something Democrats can and will run on. It also goes a long ways toward absolving the Democrats' own culpability for increasing inequality: that the Republicans would, strictly through a party-line vote, do something this brazen when inequality is already so severe (and so unpopular) -- and Trump's deregulation program and blatant surrender of the people's government to business interests -- should expose them for all to see. Yglesias cites Josh Barro: The Republican tax plan creates big long-term opportunities for Democrats. By the way, one thing Barro argues that I don't for a moment believe is: "a corporate tax cut should tend to cause wages to rise a little bit, because a lower corporate tax rate makes the US a more attractive location to employ people."

  • We're all in Kansas now: A reference to Gov. Sam Brownback's notorious tax cuts, the enormous fiscal damage they caused, the slower degradation of infrastructure and services, and their near-zero boost to the economy (possibly sub-zero compared to nationwide economic growth during the same period). The only real difference between what Brownback passed and what the Senate just passed is that the US government is able to float much more debt, and thereby soften the degradation. By the way, Brownback, anticipating confirmation as Trump's Ambassador at Large for Religious Liberty, recently gave a "farewell address," not to the public but to the Wichita Pachyderm Club, where the only advice he could offer to his successor is pray.

  • Trump's Treasury Department is lying about its own analysis of the tax bill

  • The tax bill's original sin: The idea that the corporate tax rate must be reduced from 35% all the way to 20%, a much steeper cut than anyone was even agitating for a few years ago (e.g., the Business Roundtable was proposing 25% as recently as 2015). One thing I don't understand is why no one is pushing a progressive tax on business profits: maybe 10% for the first $1M, 15% for $1-10M, 20% for $10-50M, 25% for $50-250M, 30% for $250M-$1B, 35% for $1-5B, 40% above $5B. Probably those rates should be a bit higher, and various loopholes should be filled -- I'd like to see the overall reform on corporate tax rates produce more (not less) revenue. But something like this would benefit most companies while only penalizing companies that use their sheer size and/or monopoly positions to reap huge profits. And slowing them down would be good for everyone.

  • Matt Lauer totally blew it on Trump's blatant lying about Iraq and Libya

  • The rules of "how Congress works" have changed: Points out that the Senate tax bill faced concerted opposition from many special interest lobby groups ("the National Association of Realtors, the National Association of Homebuilders, the AARP, police unions, hospital associations and the AMA, and the higher education lobby"), as well as polling poorly among the public, yet Republicans stuck to their partisan ideology and passed it anyway. That's not how interest group politics has generally worked in Washington. Yglesias doesn't say this, but it more generally fits the model of class warfare. He does note that the Democrats could have crafted a more viable ACA had they not catered to special interest groups, in the vain hope that selling out to lobbyists would rally Republican support for a bipartisan bill.

    Had Democrats gone down a different path and pushed a bill with a strong public option with payment rates linked to Medicare, we would have seen a very different health policy trajectory over the past few years.

    Premiums would have been lower, which would have meant federal subsidy outlays would have been lower, which would have made it affordable for Congress to make the subsidies more generous. Enrollment in ACA exchanges would have been higher; there would have been no issue with "bare counties"; and, because of lower premiums, the "just pay the fine" option would have been less attractive, leading to more stable risk pools.

  • A deficit trigger can't fix the GOP tax plan

  • Crisis at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Also on this, see Matt Taibbi: Trump's Consumer Victory Officially Makes a Joke of Financial Reform.

  • New dynamic score shows the Senate tax bill raises debt by more than advertised

  • The theory behind Trump's tax cuts is exactly what gave us the failed Bush economy: "An influx of foreign hot money isn't what we need." A lot of meat here, but one could dig deeper. Foreign money will drive up asset prices, which will be a windfall for business owners, but once they sell out those businesses will no longer be rooted in the owners' communities. Foreign ownership of American companies has been a mixed blessing: some have gone easier on depressing labor costs, but most wind up operating as American companies do -- as, indeed, whatever they can get away with here -- and they're ultimately as likely to export or automate jobs away as any other capitalists. As Yglesias notes, much of the influx will eventually be converted into bidding up real estate prices (he calls this "housing boom 2.0" but I'm more skeptical that the subprime boom is repeatable, and unless average Americans start making more money -- inconceivable under Republican rule -- we're all stuck in the subprime market). His other point is that the expected influx will strengthen the dollar, hurting exports and manufacturing jobs, so while the rich get richer, the workers get stiffed.

  • If the GOP tax plan is so good, why do they lie so much about it? Partly, I suspect, it's just force of habit, but they really don't have anything potentially popular to offer -- they're just scamming for the donor class, and they'll make the suckers pay for it.

• New York Times Editorial Board: A Historic Tax Heist:

  With barely a vote to spare early Saturday morning, the Senate passed a tax bill confirming that the Republican leaders' primary goal is to enrich the country's elite at the expense of everybody else, including future generations who will end up bearing the cost. The approval of this looting of the public purse by corporations and the wealthy makes it a near certainty that President Trump will sign this or a similar bill into law in the coming days.

  The bill is expected to add more than $1.4 trillion to the federal deficit over the next decade, a debt that will be paid by the poor and middle class in future tax increases and spending cuts to Medicare, Social Security and other government programs. Its modest tax cuts for the middle class disappear after eight years. And up to 13 million people stand to lose their health insurance because the bill makes a big change to the Affordable Care Act.

  Yet Republicans somehow found a way to give a giant and permanent tax cut to corporations like Apple, General Electric and Goldman Sachs, saving those businesses tens of billions of dollars.

  Other links on the tax bill:

  • Steven Greenhouse: America is in crisis. The Republican tax plan will make that worse.

  • Ezra Klein: "The hypocrisy is astounding": this tax bill shows the GOP's debt concerns were pure fraud: Didn't we already know that from the Bush years (Cheney: "deficits don't matter")? Or for that matter from the Reagan tax cuts, when US debt exploded faster than any time since WWII? Wasn't it clear that when McConnell railed about the debt and tried to cut spending programs that would help rebuild the economy that his real motive was to "make Obama a one-term president"? Klein isn't satisfied to call this hypocrisy; he chalks it up to nihilism, also noting:

    The nihilism extends to process too. Republicans complained bitterly during the Obama administration that Democrats weren't holding enough hearings, that they weren't leaving sufficient time to read final bill text, that they were passing important legislation on party-line votes, that they were using the budget reconciliation process improperly. Now they are passing sweeping tax reform through the budget reconciliation process with no hearings, no effort at bipartisan compromise, and bill text that was not made public until hours before the final vote. In a darkly comic twist, changes were handwritten into the legislation in the final hours:

  • Sarah Kliff: The tax bill is the start of Obamacare collapse: It repeals the "individual mandate," which requires individuals to buy some form of acceptably adequate health insurance or face a tax penalty. The mandate helps to make risk pools more equitably representative of the general population, but it also reduce the uninsured population, some of which wind up being treated at the expense of everyone else. Without the mandate, insurance policy rates will rise to cover the increased risk of adverse selection, and hospital charges will rise to cover emergency treatment of the uninsured (some 41 million people by current estimates).

  • Robert S McElvaine: I'm a Depression historian. The GOP tax bill is straight out of 1929.

  • Ella Nilsen: "Lots of outrageous things in the bill aren't getting the kind of attention they ought to"

  • Dylan Scott/Alvin Chang: The Republican tax bill will exacerbate income inequality in America: Of course, you know this, but here are more charts. Most striking, perhaps because least commonly understood, are the figures for "pass-through income" -- Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI, or do I mean Koch?) withheld his vote until the bill cut this even more. The chart that shows how 69% of all "pass-through income" goes to the top 1% explains why. The main thing that's missing here is the effect of ending the estate tax on the concentration of wealth into an aristocracy of heirs. One can also note that the political right has largely been funded not by entrepreneurs but by heirs -- Richard Mellon Scaife is a prime example, although you can also count the Kochs and Trump.

  • Emily Stewart: GOP Senator says it's hard to fund $14 billion children's health care program -- then advocates for $1 trillion tax cut: after which it will be even harder, no doubt. Republicans can always think of excuses for not doing what they don't want to do; even more so, they can always come up with idiotic rationales to do what they always want to do, which is mostly to make rich people even richer.

  • Matt Taibbi: New Tax Plan Contains Even More Bad News for Student Borrowers.

• Gordon G Chang: Is Donald Trump Getting Ready to Attack North Korea? One theory floated here is that the US could disable North Korea by bombing the pipeline that delivers oil from China and/or their one oil refinery. Or, better still, the US could intimidate China into shutting down the pipeline. I don't see how North Korea's leadership does not take the former as an opening salvo in a war, one that forces them to retaliate. As for China, they probably understand that keeping their oil lifeline open is necessary to keeping the peace. And there are real limits to how much the US can push China around without hurting American investments in China (or much worse). At some point Trump's people need to decide whether North Korea having a deterrent against an American attack that no one in the US military wants to launch is really such a big problem. At present it mostly seems to be an affront to the egos of those who still believe the neocon sole-superpower promise of world domination. Sadly, most of the writers in this "War in Asia?" issue of The National Interest seem to buy into such delusions.

• Thomas B Edsall: The Self-Destruction of American Democracy: After raising the question of whether Putin backed Trump out of pure malice for the American people, and quoting Henry Aaron (Brookings senior fellow, presumably not the Hall of Famer) that "Trump is a political weapon of mass self-destruction for American democracy -- for its norms, for its morality, for sheer human decency," he has to admit that "we Americans created this mess." Then he starts worrying about America's declining influence and esteem in the world, offering a chart showing only two (of 37) other countries with higher approval numbers for Trump than for Obama: Israel (up to 56 from 49) and Russia (way up to 53 from 11). I think the biggest drop was in Sweden (93 to 10), followed by Germany (86 to 11), Netherlands (92 to 17, South Korea (88 to 17), and France (84 to 14). Britain and Canada dropped down to 23, from 79 and 83 respectively. Still, loss of approval hasn't yet done much damage to the empire (although Egypt's decision to allow Russian air bases is perhaps a harbinger). But this is more to the point:

  Add to Trump's list of lies his race baiting, his attacks on a free press, his charges of "fake news," his efforts to instigate new levels of voter suppression, his undermining of the legitimacy of the electoral process, his disregard for the independence of the judiciary, the hypocrisy of his personal posture on sexual harassment, the patent lack of concern for delivering results to voters who supported him, his contempt for and manipulation of his own loyalists, his "failure of character" -- and you have a lethal corruption of democratic leadership. . . .

  At the moment, Trump's co-partisans, House and Senate Republicans, have shown little willingness to confront him. The longer Trump stays in office, the greater the danger that he will inflict permanent damage on the institutions that must be essential tools in any serious attempt to confront him.

  Edsall's error is that he doesn't recognize that those Congressional Republicans are every bit as contemptuous of democracy as Trump. Indeed, he gives Trump too much credit, and Charles Koch and Paul Ryan not nearly enough.

• Jill Filipovic: The Men Who Cost Clinton the Election: I'm not so sure about the headline, but is there something more than coincidence going on here?

  Many of the male journalists who stand accused of sexual harassment were on the forefront of covering the presidential race between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Matt Lauer interviewed Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Trump in an official "commander-in-chief forum" for NBC. He notoriously peppered and interrupted Mrs. Clinton with cold, aggressive, condescending questions hyper-focused on her emails, only to pitch softballs at Mr. Trump and treat him with gentle collegiality a half-hour later. Mark Halperin and Charlie Rose set much of the televised political discourse on the race, interviewing other pundits, opining themselves and obsessing over the electoral play-by-play. Mr. Rose, after the election, took a tone similar to Mr. Lauer's with Mrs. Clinton -- talking down to her, interrupting her, portraying her as untrustworthy. Mr. Halperin was a harsh critic of Mrs. Clinton, painting her as ruthless and corrupt, while going surprisingly easy on Mr. Trump. The reporter Glenn Thrush, currently on leave from The New York Times because of sexual harassment allegations, covered Mrs. Clinton's 2008 campaign when he was at Newsday and continued to write about her over the next eight years for Politico.

  A pervasive theme of all of these men's coverage of Mrs. Clinton was that she was dishonest and unlikable. These recent harassment allegations suggest that perhaps the problem wasn't that Mrs. Clinton was untruthful or inherently hard to connect with, but that these particular men hold deep biases against women who seek power instead of sticking to acquiescent sex-object status. . . .

  It's hard to look at these men's coverage of Mrs. Clinton and not see glimmers of that same simmering disrespect and impulse to keep women in a subordinate place. When men turn some women into sexual objects, the women who are inside that box are one-dimensional, while those outside of it become disposable; the ones who refuse to be disposed of, who continue to insist on being seen and heard, are inconvenient and pitiable at best, deceitful shrews and crazy harpies at worst. That's exactly how some commentary and news coverage treated Mrs. Clinton.

  Of course, it's possible that an individual's hostility to Hillary has more to do with her being a Clinton than a woman. There's no doubt that many in the media treated her unfairly. Still, I'm more struck by how gingerly they treated dozens of more damning scandals, especially Trump's own sexual abuse history. Filipovic also wrote: Matt Lauer is gone. He's left heartbreak in his wake.

• Susan Hennessey et al: The Flynn Plea: A Quick and Dirty Analysis. One recalls that from early on Flynn was offering testimony for immunity. One thing the guilty plea suggests is he does indeed have something to further Mueller's investigation as it closes in on Trump's inner circle. Also note that while investigations into foreign interference in American elections has always focused on Russia, the incident Flynn pleaded guilty to involved lobbying Russia for Israel: see Philip Weiss: Flynn's plea on Russia influence reveals . . . Israel's influence!; also Richard Silverstein: Flynn Pleads Guilty to Lying About Trump Sabotage of Security Council Resolution Against Israeli Settlements. Trump's reaction, of course, was to turn up the crazy: Dana Milbank: Get ready for Trump's fireworks:

  I tried to ignore the Trump shenanigans this week, instead writing about the drug industry executive Trump tapped to oversee drug pricing and about the administration lawyer who orchestrated Trump's takeover of the CFPB after serving as lawyer for a payday lender cited by the CFPB for abuses. But such pieces generate only a fraction of the clicks of pieces I and others write about Trump's pyrotechnics.

  Those pyrotechnics are going to increase now that Mueller has turned Flynn. Trump's distractions will be impossible to ignore. But we -- lawmakers, the media and the public -- need to keep our focus on the real damage Trump is doing.

• Shira A Scheindlin: Trump's new team of judges will radically change American society:

• Paul Woodward: Have we been lied to about the Kate Steinle case? Steinle was allegedly killed by an undocumented immigrant, Garcia Zarate, who was acquitted of murder charges last week. Zarate had been deported five times, which "made him a very effective villain for Trump's border security campaign messages." The shooting was clearly an accident, and it's pretty unlikely the case would ever have been prosecuted had Zarate been a card-carrying NRA member. But Trump (aka "the xenophobic, racist, bigot, defiling the Oval Office") went ballistic over the verdict.

Ask a question, or send a comment.

prev -- next