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Monday, January 30, 2012
Music Week
Music: Current count 19377 [19321] rated (+56), 847 [821] unrated (+26).
Rated count is insanely high, not just because I've been leaning on Rhapsody
hard but because I've been doing Impulse's twofer series, where I offer
separate grades for each original album as well as for the combined package:
basically, I get three grades for one record. This will make for a fairly
healthy Recycled Goods later this week. The skeletons follow, but not the
write-ups which would be awkward here. (I'll hold back a bunch of other
records I'd like to hold these together, and the others don't quite look
right mixed in.)
- Marion Brown: Geechee Recollections / Sweet Earth Flying
(1973-74 [2012], Impulse):
B+(***) [Rhapsody]
- Mel Brown: The Wizard / Blues for We (1968-69 [2012],
Impulse):
C+ [Rhapsody]
- Alice Coltrane: Huntington Ashram Monastery / World Galaxy
(1969-71 [2012], Impulse):
B+(*) [Rhapsody]
- Sonny Criss: The Joy of Sax / Warm and Sonny
(1976 [2012], Impulse, 2CD):
C+ [Rhapsody]
- Bill Evans Trio: Explorations (1961 [2011],
Riverside/OJC):
B+(***) [Rhapsody]
- Chico Hamilton: El Chico / The Further Adventures of El Chico
(1965-66 [2012], Impulse):
B- [Rhapsody]
- John Handy: Hard Work / Carnival (1976-77 [2012],
Impulse):
B [Rhapsody]
- Freddie Hubbard: The Artistry of Freddie Hubbard / The Body
and the Soul (1962-63 [2012], Impulse):
B- [Rhapsody]
- Keith Jarrett: Mysteries / Shades (1975 [2012],
Impulse):
A- [Rhapsody]
- Charles Mingus: The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady / Mingus
Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus (1963 [2012], Impulse):
A- [Rhapsody]
- Blue Mitchell: African Violet / Summer Soft (1977-78
[2012], Impulse):
C [Rhapsody]
- Oliver Nelson and Friends: Happenings / Soulful Brass
(1966-68 [2012], Impulse):
B+(*) [Rhapsody]
- Howard Roberts: Antelope Freeway / Equinox Express Elevator
(1970-72 [2012], Impulse):
B+(*) [Rhapsody]
- Sonny Stitt: Now! / Salt and Pepper ([2012], Impulse):
B+(***) [Rhapsody]
- Clark Terry: The Happy Horns of Clark Terry / It's What's
Happening (1964-67 [2012], Impulse):
B+(**) [Rhapsody]
- Michael White: Spirit Dance / Pneuma
(1972-73 [2012], Impulse):
B [Rhapsody]
Music Week Ahead
Been listening to Rhapsody a lot this week, which is always good for
the rated count. Also been playing two unnecessary compilations of old
music -- one jazz, the other rock and roll -- which are things I can
linger on. I say unnecessary because there's hardly anything in either
set I don't have elsewhere. But I never get to what I have elsewhere.
No news on Jazz CG/Jazz Blog/Jazz Prospecting or whatever. I did
finally set up a new directory to handle the work in, although I still
haven't carried over the defunct JCG(28) material. And I did catalog
several weeks of unpacking, which I'll list below. Seems like the
inflow has slowed down, but I'm still getting a few items, and it
will probably pick up when/if I get my outlet straightened out.
Meanwhile, I've been focusing on Recycled Goods this week, and
should have a decent-sized Rhapsody Streamnotes before long --
alas, not much yet to recommend. But I've barely started with 2012.
I keep chasing down stragglers from 2011, and more often than not
find I've already beaten that horse to death. The only A-
addition to the post-freeze
2011 list was to correct a
bookkeeping omission from way back (Beth Ditto's EP). The
only new A- on the new
2012 list is one I'm actually
somewhat soft on but I do approve of the political thrust.
I did at least manage to start a pair of metacritic files for
2012:
new and
old. Not much in them
yet -- I have scanned all the usual suspects, but haven't seen much
of interest yet. I've made a few minor changes, mostly using 75 as
my threshold metacritic point score (instead of 80 last year) --
still thinking about whether to drop down to 70 (usually 3.5 stars)
on more than Spin and Rolling Stone.
I also belatedly decided to keep adding new reviews (and Chuck
Eddy's year-end list) to the
2011 metafile. Mostly,
I'm doing a better job of checking on release dates, so I figured
I should enforce the rule that the 2012 file only covers 2012
releases, but I also wanted to keep info on some late-2011s, and
the 2011 file seemed like the perfect place to do that. (For one
thing, free mixtapes seem to have a slight uptick in December,
whereas commercial releases get pushed up or pulled back. E.g.,
M.I.A.'s Vicki Leekz came out on Dec. 31, 2011, so it
utterly missed 2011 year-end lists.)
The Expert Witness discussion group poll results are finally out,
at least for albums (songs later, and I'm not sure what poohbah Joey
Daniewicz has planned for comments):
album tally (62 albums with 2+ references; single references promised
"soon"),
top 25 (in dramatic countdown format),
ballots. I submitted one of the latter, although you're better served
looking at the 2011 list (link above, or see my
blog entry, which splits out jazz and non). The electorate are
people who follow closely Robert Christgau's
Expert Witness blog -- big fans of his, as is evident by the
selections (although the only record to crack the top 25 that he
didn't review was one of my picks, so I can claim to have a few
fans there also). None of my 10 picks finished in the top 10, and
just 4 in the top 25 (Raphael Saadiq at 13, Mekons at 15, Todd
Snider at 19, and Allen Lowe at 25), which suggests I'm falling
out of step with everyone. On the other hand, I had 6 of the top
10 at A- (haven't heard Funeral Dress II), but also
10 more of the next 15 -- a higher correlation than I'm likely
to find anywhere else.
I'll post Recycled Goods this week, and probably Rhapsody
Streamnotes. We should also have something special from Michael
Tatum. I'll start back up on the jazz after that. Meanwhile, I
have a lot of stuff to do around the house. I'm also way, way
behind on mail, and need to catch up with that. Also have to
decide whether to renew my Notes on Everyday Life domain name,
or chuck it. The site broke when the old server died, and has
been dormant for over a year now, but my intent has always been
to move the political posts there, do the music stuff over on
Terminal Zone, and save this site for personal shit (like my
mother's legendary
coconut cake
recipe). I don't recall her complaining about not being able
to get things done until she was about my age. Now I know how
she felt.
Unpacking: Found in the mail over the last several weeks:
- Juhani Aaltonen and Heikki Sarmanto: Conversations (TUM, 2CD)
- Clipper Anderson: The Road Home (Origin)
- Ehud Asherie: Upper West Side (Posi-Tone)
- Ran Blake/David "Knife" Fabris: Vilnius Noir (NoBusiness): advance
- Kyle Bruckmann's Wrack: Cracked Refraction (Porter)
- Don Byron New Gospel Quintet: Love, Peace, and Soul (Savoy Jazz): February 21
- Candy Dulfer: Crazy (Razor & Tie)
- Sarah Elgeti Quintet: Into the Open (Your Favourite Jazz)
- Nobuyasu Furuya Quintet: The Major (NoBusiness): advance
- José Garcia: Songs for a Lifetime: Live (José Garcia Music)
- Johs Ginsburg: Zembla Variations (Bju'ecords): February 7
- Dennis González/Yells at Eels: Resurrection and Life (Ayler)
- The Alex Goodman Quintet: Bridges (Connection Point): February 28
- The Habit: Lincoln Has Won (Reel to Reel)
- Jeff Hamilton Trio: Red Sparkle (Capri)
- Steve Horowitz: New Monsters (Posi-Tone): March 20
- Tommy Igoe and the Birdland Big Band: Eleven (Deep Rhythm Music): February 14
- Vijay Iyer Trio: Accelerando (ACT): March 13
- Daunik Lazro/Jean-François Pauvros/Roger Turner: Curare (NoBusiness)
- Josh Levinson Sextet: Chauncey Street (Jlevrecords)
- Matt and the City Limits: Crash (Island/Def Jam): February 21
- Mockuno NuClear: Drop It (NoBusiness)
- Nick Moran Trio: No Time Like Now (Manor Sound)
- Luis Perdomo: Universal Mind (RKM): February 14
- John Raymond: Strength & Song (Strength & Song): February 28
- Pete Robbins Transatlantic Quartet: Live in Basel (Hate Laugh Music): February 7
- Arrica Rose & the . . . 's: Let Alone Sea (Poprock)
- Marlene Rosenberg Quartet: Bassprint (Origin)
- Joan Soriano: La Familia Soriano (IASO): April 10
- Stone Quartet: Live at Vision Festival (Ayler)
- Tumbledown House: Fables and Falsehoods (Silent Coyote Music)
- Elio Villafranca/Arturo Stable: Dos y Mas (Motéma)
- Justin Walter: Stars (Walter)
- Doug Webb: Swing Shift (Posi-Tone)
- Joanna Weinberg: The Piano Diaries (Kissingpoint)
- Ben Wendel: Frame (Sunnyside): February 28
Purchases:
- The First Rock and Roll Record (Famous Flames, 3CD)
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Expert Comments
On Allen Lowe (surprise 25th place finisher in Joey's EW poll -- the
highest finisher that Christgau didn't write about during the year):
First I heard of Allen Lowe was back when Francis Davis was writing
a Jazz Consumer Guide for the Voice. He flagged Lowe's first
two albums (1990-92). I bought them; liked the second (New Tango
'92) more, but should revisit the first. Ever since then he's been
a guy I've kept an eye open for -- among other things, picking up
American Pop and That Devilin' Tune in book form even
before I got the CDs. Davis and Lowe became friends. Davis introduced
Lowe to Roswell Rudd, and they did an album together. Lowe discovered
me when I started doing Jazz CG. He's a guy who expects to know
everything, so he was surprised he hadn't heard of me before. He
barraged me with emails over several days as he digested all of my old
(mostly 1970s) music screeds -- very flattering, I thought, although
he also chewed me out on various points. I haven't heard much from him
since, although he was clearly disappointed when I panned his
guitar-work on Jews in Hell, but he also got much better this
time out.
By the way, Rich Halley's catalogue is on Rhapsody now, so by all
means check out Children of the Blue Supermarket, and for that
matter his older work, especially Mountains and
Plains. Terrific saxophonist, but I know him mostly because he
sought me out (although I'm pretty sure I had a Penguin Guide
note on him). I tried to get Lowe and some others up on Rhapsody but
that doesn't seem to have happened yet.
Got thumbed down for some reason.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Expert Comments
Joey Daniewicz is (slowly) posting some album results from his EOY
2011 poll. Presumably this will wind up being the top 25:
- Frank Ocean, Nostalgia, Ultra 443 (32)
- Tune-Yards, Whokill 442 (33)
- Wussy, Strawberry 390 (28)
- Paul Simon, So Beautiful or So What 326 (29)
- Pistol Annies, Hell on Heels 186 (16)
- Teddybears, Devil's Music 177 (17)
- Jay-Z/Kanye West, Watch the Throne 140 (18)
- Wussy, Funeral Dress II 131 (10)
- Fountains of Wayne, Sky Full of Holes 120 (11)
- Das Racist, Relax 108 (12)
- Low Cut Connie, Get Out the Lotion 84 (12)
- Shabazz Palaces, Black Up 83 (9)
- Raphael Saadiq, Stone Rollin' 78 (7)
- Withered Hand, Good News 77 (7)
- Mekons, Ancient & Modern: 1911-2011 76 (8)
- Jens Lekman, An Argument With Myself 74 (9)
- Emperor X, Western Teleport 68 (7)
- TV on the Radio, Nine Types of Light 67 (6)
- Todd Snider, Live: The Storyteller 55 (6)
- Kate & Anna McGarrigle, Tell My Sister 55 (5)
- Serengeti, Family & Friends 54 (6)
- Mates of State, Mountaintops 52 (6)
- Wild Flag, Wild Flag 51 (7)
- Britney Spears, Femme Fatale 49 (6)
- Allen Lowe, Blues and the Empirical Truth 46 (3)
- Dave Alvin, Eleven Eleven 44 (5)
- Middle Brother, Middle Brother 41 (4)
- Blaqstarr, Divine 39 (6)
- Lobi Traore, Bwati Kono 39 (4)
- Adele, 21 39 (3)
- Tom Waits, Bad as Me 38 (4)
- Carolina Chocolate Drops/Luminescent Orchestrati, Carolina Chocolate Drops/Luminescent Orchestrati 34 (5)
- The Weeknd, House of Balloons 34 (5)
- Fucked Up, David Comes to Life 33 (5)
- Tyler, the Creator, Goblin 31 (2)
- PJ Harvey, Let England Shake 30 (3)
- Matana Roberts, Coin Coin Chapter One: Gens de Couleur Libres 30 (2)
- Hayes Carll, KMAG YOYO 29 (3)
- Those Darlins, Screws Get Loose 28 (5)
- Mayer Hawthorne, How Do You Do? 27 (3)
- Lady GaGa, Born This Way 26 (4)
- Yuck, Yuck 25 (3)
- Sonny Rollins, Road Shows Vol. 2 24 (3)
- Deer Tick, Divine Providence 22 (3)
- Drive-By Truckers, Go-Go Boots 22 (2)
- Group Doueh, Zayna Jumma 21 (2)
- Lykke Li, Wounded Rhymes 20 (3)
- Darius Jones Trio, Big Gurl (Smell My Dream) 20 (2)
- Gang of Four, Content 19 (2)
- Lupe Fiasco, Lasers 19 (2)
- Tinariwen, Tassili 18 (2)
- A Note of Hope 17 (2)
- Battles, Gloss Drop 16 (3)
- Terakraft, Aratan N Azawad 16 (2)
- R.E.M., Collapse into Now 16 (2)
- White Denim, D 16 (2)
- Girls, Father, Son, Holy Ghost 16 (2)
- Bombino, Agadez 15 (2)
- Gregg Allman, Low Country Blues 15 (2)
- Rihanna, Talk That Talk 14 (2)
- The Baseball Project, Vol. 2, High and Inside 14 (2)
- Stephin Merritt, Obscurities 13 (2)
- Garland Jeffreys, The King of In Between 10 (2)
- Brad Paisley, This Is Country Music 10 (2)
Monday, January 23, 2012
Music Week
Music: Current count 19321 [19294] rated (+27), 821 [821] unrated (+0).
Some Rhapsody, both mopping up 2011 and my first two 2012 non-finds, and
I reckon there will be more of all that this coming week. Meanwhile, haven't
played any new jazz, so there's no Jazz Prospecting. The one piece of mail
I got from Maura Johnston suggested we talk after the "year flip." Hasn't
happened. I did figure that she wouldn't have much time until Pazz &
Jop was over, so didn't mind waiting on that. Still waiting. Meanwhile,
I'm way behind on cataloguing the incoming jazz -- the "unrated" count
should be climbing (slowly), so I have to catch up with that. Have started
to create a new directory structure for a jazz blog, but don't have it
working yet. Still, the returns on the Rhapsody mop-up are slim: only
two B+(***) albums among the 31 in my working file. And I finally
wouldn't mind listening to more jazz -- but pickings seem to be slim
there too.
Pazz N Jop vs. Metacritic File
After several years when my
metacritic file
did a pretty good job of predicting the outcome of the Village
Voice's PazzNJop Critics Poll, this year's
album
results surprised me on several counts. For starters, only 5
of the top-10 metacritic albums finished in PnJ's top-10, where
previous years landed 8-9. The divergences continue further down,
but what's more interesting is how they diverge.
Here are the PnJ top-40 finishers that matched or exceeded their
metacritic (MC) file positions (PnJ rank on left, MC on right, with
+diff):
- Tune-Yards: Whokill [5: +4]
- PJ Harvey: Let England Shake [2: +0]
- Jay-Z/Kanye West: Watch the Throne [7: +4]
- Wild Flag: Wild Flag [23: +19]
- Tom Waits: Bad as Me [6: +1]
- Adele: 21 [11: +5]
- Destroyer: Kaputt [12: +5]
- Drake: Take Care [20: +12]
- Shabazz Palaces: Black Up [13: +3]
- Fucked Up: David Comes to Life [17: +6]
- The Weeknd: House of Balloons [14: +1]
- Paul Simon: So Beautiful or So What [58: -44]
- EMA: Past Life Martyred Saints [34: -19]
- Frank Ocean: Nostalgia, Ultra [37: -21]
- The Roots: Undun [25: +8]
- The Black Keys: El Camino [27: +7]
- Pistol Annies: Hell on Heels [121: +98]
- Beyoncé: 4 [54: +28]
- Gillian Welch: The Harrow and the Harvest [51: +24]
- Danny Brown: XXX [105: +77]
- Lady Gaga: Born This Way [71: +41]
- Bill Callahan: Apocalypse [43: +12]
- Oneohtrix Point Never: Replica [40: +5]
- Tim Hecker: Ravedeath, 1972 [52: +16]
- Kate Bush: 50 Words for Snow [62: +25]
- Raphael Saadiq: Stone Rollin' [79: +40]
- Wye Oak: Civilian [80: +40]
And here are the top-40 MC finishers that lost position in PnJ
(MC rank on left, PnJ and -diff in brackets on right):
- Bon Iver: Bon Iver [9: -8]
- James Blake: James Blake [34: -31]
- Fleet Foxes: Helplessness Blues [18: -14]
- St. Vincent: Strange Mercy [12: -4]
- Radiohead: The King of Limbs [33: -24]
- Wilco: The Whole Love [22: -12]
- M83: Hurry Up, We're Dreaming [19: -4]
- Kurt Vile: Smoke Ring for My Halo [20: -4]
- Girls: Father, Son, Holy Ghost [25: -7]
- Lykke Li: Wounded Rhymes [38: -19]
- Real Estate: Days [32: -11]
- Yuck: Yuck [24: -2]
- The Decemberists: The King Is Dead [29: -5]
- The Antlers: Burst Apart [68: -38]
- War on Drugs: Slave Ambient [49: -21]
- TV on the Radio: Nine Types of Light [43: -14]
- The Horrors: Skying [80: -50]
- Washed Out: Within and Without [82: -51]
- Feist: Metals [59: -27]
- Wild Beasts: Smother [392: -359]
- Panda Bear: Tomboy [69: -34]
- Atlas Sound: Parallax [61: -25]
- SBTRKT: SBTRKT [127: -89]
- Beastie Boys: Hot Sauce Committee Part 2 [77: -38]
It's not hard to figure out differences between these two lists:
the gainers featured more female artists (10 to 3), and more blacks
(9 to TV on the Radio). The two geezers (Waits and Simon) were on
the gainer list. The Voice poll has always favored those groups, but
rarely by this much. Another structural difference is release date:
among records released on or after October 25, six gained ground,
one lost (Atlas Sound). Lots of year-end lists are submitted early,
so later polls inevitably pick up later albums. (If you go back to
October 1, the losers pick up M83 and Feist, so 6-3; forward to Nov.
1 drops Waits, so 5-1.)
The other difference that jumps out at me is that the gainers look
much better than the losers. Checking against my grade-list, I see a
7-2 advantage in A- or better records, versus 4-9 with B or worse.
The other thing I looked at was the UK split, which I had predicted
would hurt PJ Harvey -- it did knock her out of first, but she wound
up with a very strong second-place finish. After checking several bad
guesses, I wound up with 4 UK acts on the gainers (PJ Harvey, Adele,
Bill Callahan, and Kate Bush) vs. 6 on the losers (James Blake,
Radiohead, Yuck, Horrors, Wild Beasts, and SBTRKT) -- not much of
a trend, but the drops on the latter were pretty large. MC tends
to overcount UK artists due to the disproportionate number of music
mags published there, so it's something I mentally correct for.
More on this below the fold.
Another way to look at the differences is to divide the PnJ votes
by the MC counts. (I actually add one to each value to eliminate the
possibility of divide-by-zero faults. I tried this with PnJ points,
but the scaling warps the results toward high vote-getters.) Using
a combined 20-vote minimum, here are the top PnJ gainers:
- 1.118 - Fountains of Wayne: Sky Full of Holes [18/16]
- 1.083 - Anthony Hamilton: Back to Love [12/11]
- 1.000 - Pistol Annies: Hell on Heels [43/43]
- 0.898 - Danny Brown: XXX [43/48]
- 0.889 - Nick Lowe: The Old Magic [15/17]
- 0.852 - The Men: Leave Home [22/26]
- 0.838 - Paul Simon: So Beautiful or So What [61/73]
- 0.833 - Twilight Singers: Dynamite Steps [9/11]
- 0.833 - Lou Reed & Metallica: Lulu [9/11]
- 0.765 - Bombino: Agadez [12/16]
- 0.760 - Wild Flag: Wild Flag [91/120]
- 0.739 - DJ Quik: The Book of David [16/22]
- 0.714 - Feelies: Here Before [14/20]
- 0.688 - Wussy: Strawberry [10/15]
- 0.670 - Tune-Yards: Whokill [135/202]
- 0.625 - Britney Spears: Femme Fatale [24/39]
- 0.621 - Lady Gaga: Born This Way [40/65]
- 0.615 - Demdike Stare: Tryptych [15/25]
- 0.614 - Das Racist: Relax [26/43]
- 0.610 - Beyoncé: 4 [46/76]
- 0.606 - EMA: Past Life Martyred Saints [59/98]
- 0.603 - Drake: Take Care [81/135]
- 0.600 - Tombs: Path of Totality [8/14]
- 0.600 - The Beach Boys: The Smile Sessions [23/39]
- 0.592 - Jay-Z/Kanye West: Watch the Throne [105/178]
- 0.591 - Frank Ocean: Nostalgia, Ultra [54/92]
- 0.588 - Lydia Loveless: Indestructible Machine [9/16]
- 0.574 - Charles Bradley: No Time for Dreaming [26/46]
- 0.571 - Mekons: Ancient & Modern [7/13]
- 0.571 - Dirtbombs: Party Store [7/13]
- 0.562 - Meshell Ndegeocello: Weather [8/15]
- 0.556 - The Rapture: In the Grace of Your Love [14/26]
- 0.554 - Adele: 21 [86/156]
- 0.539 - PJ Harvey: Let England Shake [129/240]
- 0.531 - Raphael Saadiq: Stone Rollin' [33/63]
- 0.531 - Gillian Welch: The Harrow and the Harvest [42/80]
- 0.530 - Tom Waits: Bad as Me [96/182]
- 0.526 - The Roots: Undun [60/115]
- 0.526 - Jessica Lea Mayfield: Tell Me [9/18]
- 0.524 - Psychic Paramount: II [10/20]
And here are the big losers (for this I'm skipping over a large
number of jazz albums, which are heavily sampled in MC and very scarce
in PnJ; the first one would have been Gretchen Parlato in 2nd, then
JD Allen in 3rd, James Farm in 5th, Julius Hemphill in 6th, and two
reissues -- double whammies, I'm afraid -- Wadada Leo Smith in 8th
and Miles Davis in 10th; note reverse sort, so Wild Beasts is the
biggest loser):
- 0.048 - Wild Beasts: Smother [4/103]
- 0.059 - Tennis: Cape Dory [1/33]
- 0.067 - Cat's Eyes: Cat's Eyes [1/29]
- 0.069 - Ghostpoet: Peanut Butter Blues & Melancholy Jam [1/28]
- 0.074 - Bibio: Mind Bokeh [1/26]
- 0.074 - Cass McCombs: Humor Risk [1/26]
- 0.074 - The Dodos: No Color [1/26]
- 0.083 - Bill Wells & Aidan Moffat: Everything's Getting Older [1/23]
- 0.083 - Chad VanGaalen: Diaper Island [1/23]
- 0.088 - The Weeknd: Thursday [2/33]
- 0.090 - Anna Calvi: Anna Calvi [5/66]
- 0.091 - Male Bonding: Endless Now [1/21]
- 0.091 - Ty Segall: Singles 2007-2010 [2/32]
- 0.092 - Iron & Wine: Kiss Each Other Clean [5/64]
- 0.094 - Justice: Audio, Video, Disco [2/31]
- 0.095 - Childish Gambino: Camp [3/41]
- 0.095 - Kate Bush: Director's Cut [1/20]
- 0.098 - Gil Scott-Heron & Jamie xx: We're New Here [7/81]
- 0.100 - Bad Meets Evil: Hell: The Sequel [1/19]
- 0.100 - Other Lives: Tamer Animals [2/29]
- 0.107 - Josh T. Pearson: Last of the Country Gentlemen [5/55]
- 0.109 - The Arctic Monkeys: Suck It and See [6/63]
- 0.113 - Metronomy: The English Riviera [8/79]
- 0.114 - Death Cab for Cutie: Codes and Keys [4/43]
- 0.114 - Kasabian: Velociraptor [3/34]
- 0.115 - I Break Horses: Hearts [2/25]
- 0.118 - SBTRKT: SBTRKT [10/92]
- 0.122 - Battles: Gloss Drop [10/89]
- 0.122 - Beirut: The Rip Tide [10/89]
- 0.125 - Cass McCombs: Wit's End [5/47]
- 0.125 - Sepalcure: Sepalcure [2/23]
- 0.125 - WU LYF: Go Tell Fire to the Mountain [6/55]
- 0.125 - Zomby: Dedication [8/71]
- 0.128 - Explosions in the Sky: Take Care, Take Care, Take Care [5/46]
- 0.129 - Jonathan Wilson: Gentle Spirit [3/30]
- 0.130 - Little Dragon: Ritual Union [6/53]
- 0.132 - Balam Acab: Wander/Wonder [4/37]
- 0.132 - Björk: Biophilia [9/75]
- 0.132 - Thurston Moore: Demolished Thoughts [6/52]
- 0.133 - Noah and the Whale: Last Night on Earth [3/29]
Similar breaks here as above, although the most extreme one between
these two lists is how my grade scale maps: I have 11 A- records
gaining, only 1 (Bibio) losing. B or less break 4 to 7, but the
unplayed albums are 7 up and 14 down. Women break 13 to 5 (counting
Tennis and Little Dragon in the latter, but not Wussy or Mekons up
top), and blacks 12-4 (counting SBTRKT, which actually has a pretty
good album).
I'm not sure what to conclude from all this. My first thought was
that the new Village Voice editor (Maura Johnston) had reshuffled the
voter deck. And indeed there was quite a bit of turnover -- about 150
old critics gone and just slightly fewer new critics added -- but I
have yet to discern any real pattern. (Among other things, I tried
counting female names in the two sets, but gave up when it got too
tedious and seemed likely to be indecisive.) Overall participation
was less than 50%, and it may well be that the Bon Iver suppoorters
just got complacent -- the album is something of a soporific if not
quite a narcotic -- while the Tune-Yards crowd got energized. (I'd
be happier if I liked Tune-Yards more, but I have both contenders
down in the dead-ass boring end of the good albums pool, along with
such marginal but tolerable talents as Kurt Vile, Destroyer, and
Wild Beasts.)
Johnston, at least, was pleased,
summing up:
Before this year's ballots were even sent out, many outside observers
had tagged Bon Iver's falsetto-swaddled, reverb-drenched second album, Bon
Iver, as the likely pick for No. 1;[ . . . ]
That w h o k i l l -- the second album by Merrill Garbus's
tUnE-yArDs, a shot across the bow that blended the personal and political
into a stunning proclamation of faith in the self that quite literally
begs "Don't take my life away" at one point -- marched to the top spot
instead could speak to an unspoken desire to wrench one's ears and brains
out of the constant stream of bad news and appreciate the miracle that
is being fully alive and present in the world, no matter what external,
extenuating circumstances might exist.
I can recall years when I hoped as much, but now I just tally
up long lists of numbers, hoping to discern something diverting
in the cracks. After a couple weeks of drought, I found one today:
a Dutch reissue of some 1992-96 Detroit techno by a group I'd never
heard of, Drexciya. Turns out it was in the metacritic file, way
down with a count of 1 -- although had I kept updating the file it
would be more like 4 or 5 (found an 8.7 in Pitchfork, 4.5 stars in
RA). It's kind of a trifle, but as irresistible as that sort of
thing gets.
I need to think more about how to make future metacritic files
more useful. (Should also give some thought to whether they're
worth the work, especially before I start another.) One thing I
think this one perhaps inadvertently measures is how concentrated
and collusive the critical press is.
Lots more analysis of the PnJ results over at Glenn McDonald's
Needlebase site, like this
centricity chart. I'm way off the pace as usual (609), but not
completely dead last because I do occasionally vote for something
someone else likes (6 of 10 records this year, Raphael Saadiq by
far the most popular). Seems like there was more analysis in years
past, especially in terms of affinities and cross-linkages. I'd be
curious, for instance, to see what the results would look like if
you only selected voters with one or more jazz albums on their
ballots. I can think of a lot of other questions like that, which
is why this would become even more useful if we had more data.
But that's a perennial gripe. If I don't change course, some day
I may take a crack at it.
Expert Comments
My comment on the above:
I spent a lot of time comparing PnJ results with my metacritic
file, and posted what I came up with on my blog tonight. In all the
years I've been doing this, the PnJ voters usually came up with
results that were slightly smarter, more balanced, and often more
inspired than what I collected (except that I always found a lot more
jazz), but never by the margins I see this year. I suspect that a big
part of the reason is that PnJ appears later: not only does that help
pick up November releases that never make the early polls, it gives
people a chance to test their ideas against other published
lists. Other than that, I just don't know. Maybe the new Voice editor
figured out a way to jam the ballot boxes. Maybe depressive albums
don't inspire one to get out and vote.
Iran Contra II
This is a draft I wrote for a local newsletter. Turns out to be
much longer than they wanted, so they'll have to edit it way down.
Iran had no problems with the United States until in 1953 when the
CIA orchestrated a coup that toppled the democratic government, installed
Mohammed Reza Pahlavi as dictator ("shah"), and handed Iran's nationalized
oil company over to a multinational cartel dominated by US companies.
The Shah went on to make enemies of virtually everyone in Iran, and was
finally deposed by a revolution in 1979 that ultimately led to today's
Islamic Republic. Iran broke relations with the US, and adding insult
to injury held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days, until Ronald Reagan
became president and negotiated their return. Since then US policy on
Iran has been irrational, petulant, and sometimes bellicose, while
Iran's attitude has bounced back and forth between challenging and
conciliatory.
During the 1980s the Reagan administration supplied arms to Iran
as part of its illegal scam to arm the "Contras" in Nicaragua, but
the US also supplied arms to Iraq in support of its seven-year war
against Iran -- one that resulted in over a million deaths -- and
the US itself shot down an unarmed Iranian airliner and attacked an
offshore Iranian oil platform. In 2003 as the Bush administration
was ramping up its propaganda campaign to sell war with Iraq, one
of its hawks candidly boasted, "Anyone can go to Baghdad. Real men
go to Tehran." But ironically, the governments the US installed in
Iraq and Afghanistan were well stocked with politicians sympathetic
to Iran. Common interests should have led to an easing of tensions
between the US and Iran, but unfortunately the US has lost control
of its policy toward Iran. The result is the current paradox where
Obama is withdrawing troops from Iran's borders at the same time
he is clamping down ever-tighter sanctions in an attempt to cripple
Iran's economy. Why the reckless push toward war after a decade of
proving that war in the region is a fool's mission?
The short answer is that US Iran policy is being driven by Israel,
and Israel's governing coalition actually wants to promote conflict in
the region. They feel they must keep their people afraid of external
threats, otherwise most would want to settle their conflict with the
Palestinians -- the exceptions are the hawks who benefit from Israel's
militarist culture and the ultra-religious settlers who have done so
much to "create facts on the ground" that cannot be dismantled without
throwing Israel itself into civil war.
But it was only in the 1990s when Israel started to view Iran as
a threat, and started trying to drum up alarm by predicting Iran would
develop nuclear weapons "within five years." Back in the 1950s Israel
developed its "peripheral strategy" aimed at forming alliances with
non-Arab nations and parties as a counterweight against Arab unity
against Israel. That strategy worked in some cases: Turkey has been
a long-term ally (at least until Israel killed nine Turks on an aid
boat to Gaza), as was Iran both before and after the revolution. On
the other hand, Israel's repeated meddling in Lebanon eventually
turned everyone against them, provoking the once-complacent Shiites
to organize into Hezbollah. Israel only turned against Iran once
the US had smashed Iraq in 1991, leaving Israel with no credible
Arab enemy, and leading toward the Oslo Accords -- the only genuine
existential threat Israel's right ever faced, precisely because it
promised to end the Palestinian conflict.
The chief promoter of Oslo, Yitzhak Rabin, was assassinated by
an anti-peace fanatic. He was in turn followed by a series of prime
ministers -- Benyamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak, and Ariel Sharon --
who destroyed the Oslo agreement, both by direct action and by
ratcheting up the settlement efforts. At the same time, Israel's
security establishment became increasingly hysterical about Iran
and its alleged nuclear weapons program. (No such program has
ever been proven to exist, and Iran's religious leader has not
only denied interest in such a program but has declared that
to build such weapons would be contrary to Islam. Israel has
repeatedly asserted that Iran would have nuclear weapons in 3-5
years, and none of those forecast have proved true.)
The level of Israel's hysteria spiked sharply upward as soon
as Obama was elected president. As long as Bush was in office,
Israel had no worries that the US would apply any serious effort
toward resolving the Israel-Palestinian conflict -- the "Quartet
Plan" and the "Roadmap" were treated by all sides as little more
than a joke. However, Obama vowed to focus on the conflict, and
demanded that Israel halt its settlement activities. Netanyahu,
in response, did everything he could to change the subject to
Iran. Three years later, Obama had made no progress on stopping
the settlements, much less ending the conflict, but instead he
wound up with a program of trying to economically strangle Iran,
risking an outbreak of violence in the Strait of Hormuz -- a
section of Iranian coastal waters through which a large portion
of the world's oil passes.
Iran is nestled between Iraq and Afghanistan, but is at least
twice as large as both combined. Iran has been shunned and isolated
since 1979. It fought off an invasion by Iraq in the 1980s, and it
has faced an increasingly hostile US presence in the Persian Gulf
since 1990. Israel has bombed other countries suspected of working
on nuclear weapons, has supported the MEK terrorist organization
which attacks Iran, and has assassinated Iranian scientists. The
US conducts drone flights over Iran. Like the US, Iran has an
unsavory history of taking covert actions outside its territory,
but it's hard not to see that they have a right to fear attack.
Obama could do much to calm this situation by "taking options off
the table" -- by declaring that the US won't attack Iran, by
offering to recognize and trade with the Islamic Republic, and
by declining to be a pawn in Israel's apocalyptic game. War with
Iran would be a losing proposition for everyone. Dismantling the
barriers that keep Iran isolated from and angry at the rest of
the world would be a win for everyone -- except, perhaps, the
few people both here and in Israel (and mostly likely in Iran,
too) who thrive on stirring up trouble.
For more historical detail on the relationship between Israel and
Iran, see Trita Parsi's 2007 book, Treacherous Alliance: The Secret
Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States (Yale University
Press). For fairly extensive quotes and my comments, look
here. Israel's
dependency on prolonging its conflict both with the world and with
its own subject people has been documented many times in many places,
but never more clearly than in Richard Ben Cramer's 2004 book, How
Israel Lost: The Four Questions.
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Brownback's Hail Mary Pass
No Weekend Roundup this week: I've been preoccupied with crunching
Pazz & Jop numbers, and more on that in a day or two. Meanwhile,
I'm not sure there's been much to focus on. The week, after all, was
dominated by the White Folks Primary in South Carolina, and I'm sick
and tired of listening to those malcontents griping about how we need
to go back to "the principles this country was founded on" -- how can
the heirs of John Rutledge, Charles Pinckney, John Calhoun, and Strom
Thurmond say such a thing without choking? Romney's collapse was
especially amusing, although exit polls show he did manage to win
his class (indeed, all those with income over $200,000), and as far
as the Republican Party is concerned, that's all that really matters.
Still, from all the TV coverage you'd think South Carolina was even
whiter than North Dakota, and prosperous too -- whereas in fact it's
so poor companies like Boeing move there to escape the high wages
they have to pay in Kansas.
Speaking of Kansas, I have open a bunch of open tabs concerning
Gov. Sam Brownback's state income tax plan:
The last piece sums up the Brownback-Laffer scheme thus (my emphasis
added):
Brownback's plan would cuts rates, starting for 2013, so married
couples would face a top rate of 4.9 percent instead of the current
6.45 percent. The plan would exempt 191,000 operators of partnerships,
sole proprietorships and other small firms from paying any taxes on
their business earnings. The standard deduction for heads of
households would double to $9,000.
To offset potential revenue losses, Brownback proposed eliminating
numerous credits and deductions, including ones for charitable contributions
and interest payments on home mortgages. He'd also keep the sales tax at
6.3 percent, rather than dropping it to 5.7 percent in July 2013, as
scheduled by law. He'd eliminate a credit for poor workers and their
families.
Some critics dubbed the plan "Robin Hood in reverse" after state
Department of Revenue figures showed that, as a group, filers with
adjusted gross incomes of $25,000 or less would see a collective
increase in their income tax burden while filers with incomes
exceeding $250,000 saw the largest percentage cut as a group.
There are more articles with more details, including numerous
case examples of how the proposed changes would hit the bottom lines
of various taxpayers (plus Crowson's view, here on the right).
But in looking for typical examples, the
articles avoid the white elephant in the room: the tax-free carve
out for business income. Although a lot of people who would catch
a break there are small business owners who don't make much money,
virtually everyone in the state who does make a lot of money --
starting with billionaires like Charles Koch and Phil Ruffin --
gets a free pass.
Of course, the argument is that we need those businesses to create
jobs and keep the economy running. Still, how much thought went into
this? Laffer, who was paid $75,000 for consulting, is possibly the
biggest fraud in American history, having largely invented supply-side
economics while sketching on a napkin. Brownback holds prayer vigils
in Topeka to seek divine guidance for his policies -- or maybe he just
hallucinates them then prays they work?
The idea of using tax breaks for incentives is venerable and easily
overdone, but the key idea is that you're trying to encourage people to
do something they wouldn't do without the incentive. We have tax breaks
to get people to donate to charities, or to finance more expensive homes
than they need -- two items that come to mind because Brownback is
planning on ending them (and, by the way, the non-profits and realtors
are none too happy about that). But do we really need special incentives
to get businessmen to try to make even more money?
I could see coming up with a package of breaks (and even subsidies)
to help people start new businesses -- there would be lots of ways to
do this that would be capped by business size and profits so they
wouldn't automatically flow up to benefit the richest. The net effect
of the Brownback-Laffer plan is to accelerate the flow of wealth to
the very same people who already have way more than they know what
to do with, while sticking everyone else with the bill.
As the last two articles pointed out, not even the Republicans that
dominate the state legislature could stomach all of this, so they
came up with their own nefarious plan. It's bad enough, but nothing
like what Brownback, Laffer, and God (or maybe Koch) came up with.
Pazz N Jop Research
Took me about five days to copy all of the Pazz & Jop results
into the
metacritic file, and to
copy the metacritic file counts back into a table of
Pazz & Jop results.
The following data results from that travail (plus some SMOP --
small matter of programming).
First table, easiest to generate, is the list of top metacritic-ranked
records that didn't get any Pazz & Jop votes:
- [49] Joe Lovano: Bird Songs (Blue Note)
- [32] Terri Lyne Carrington: The Mosaic Project (Concord)
- [29] Pharoahe Monch: WAR (We Are Renegades) (Duck Down Music)
- [28] Bombay Bicycle Club: A Different Kind of Fix (Island)
- [28] Summer Camp: Welcome to Condale (Apricot/Moshi Moshi)
- [25] Chrles Lloyd/Maria Farantouri: Athens Concert (ECM)
- [25] Jamie Woon: Mirrorwriting (Polydor/Candent Songs)
- [22] Kurt Elling: The Gate (Concord)
- [21] Pinch and Shackleton: Pinch and Shackleton (Honest Jons)
- [20] James Carter Organ Trio_James: At the Crossroads (Emarcy)
Half of those are jazz records, reflecting the fact that I counted a lot
of jazz lists (including over 100 lists from JJA and the Jazz Critics' Poll),
whereas P&J had very few jazz voters (and even some jazz specialists
skewed their ballots away). So let's continue the list skipping the jazz
albums:
- [20] Kode 9 and the Spaceape: Black Sun (Hyperdub)
- [19] The Dears: Degeneration Street (Dangerbird)
- [19] Slow Club: Paradise (Moshi Moshi)
- [18] Arbouretum: The Gathering (Thrill Jockey)
- [18] Cage the Elephant: Thank You Happy Birthday (Red Ink)
- [18] Walls: Coracle (Kompakt)
- [17] The Cool Kids: When Fish Ride Bicycles (Green Label Sounds)
- [17] The Streets: Cyberspace and Reds and Computers and Blues (Atlantic)
- [16] Evidence: Cats and Dogs (Rhymesayers Entertainment)
- [16] Grails: Deep Politics (Temporary Residence)
- [15] Tori Amos: Nightof Hunters (Deustche Grammophon)
- [15] CunninLynguists: Oneirology (QN5 Music)
- [15] Fujiya and Miyagi: Ventriloquizzing (Yep Roc)
- [15] Talib Kweli: Gutter Rainbows (Duck Down Music)
- [15] George Strait: Here for a Good Time (MCA Nashville)
- [14] Big Sean: Finally Famous (GOOD Music/Island Def Jam)
- [14] Cloud Control: Bliss Release (Infectious)
- [14] Baxter Dury: Happy Soup (Regal)
- [14] Eddie Vedder: Ukulele Songs (Monkeywrench)
- [13] Esben and the Witch: Violet Cries (Matador)
- [13] Roots Manuva: 4everevolution (Banana Klan/Big Dada)
- [12] And So I Watch You From Afar: Gangs (Richter Collective)
- [12] Clap Your Hands Say Yeah: Hysterical (V2)
- [12] Dels: Gob (Big Dada)
- [12] Nils Frahm: Felt (Erased Tapes)
- [12] Givers: In Light (Glass Note)
- [12] Kitty, Daisy and Lewis: Smoking in Heaven (Verve Forecast)
- [12] David Lynch: Crazy Clown Time (Sunday Best)
- [12] Dan Mangan: Oh Fortune (Arts and Crafts)
- [12] Sigur Ros: Inni (XL/Young Turks)
- [11] 9th Wonder: The Wonder Years (Traffic Entertainment)
- [11] The Do: Both Ways Open Jaws (Get Down)
- [11] Egyptrixx: Bible Eyes (Night Slugs)
- [11] La Dispute: Wildlife (No Sleep)
- [11] Lanterns on the Lake: Gracious Tide, Take Me Home (Bella Union)
- [11] Parts and Labor: Constant Future (Jagjaguwar)
- [11] Sykes and the Sweet Hereafter_Jesse: Marble Son (Thirty Tigers)
- [11] White Hills: HP-1 (Thrill Jockey)
- [10] Boris: Heavy Rocks (Sargent House)
- [10] Chris Brown: FAME (Jive)
- [10] Gorillaz: The Fall (Gorillaz)
- [10] Jessie J: Who Are You (Universal Republic)
- [10] The King Blues: Punk and Poetry (PIAS)
- [10] Femi Kuti: Africa for Africa (Knitting Factory)
- [10] Man Man: Life Fantastic (Anti/Epitaph)
- [10] The Middle East: I Want That You Are Always Happy (PIAS)
- [10] Moonface: Organ Music Not Vibraphone Like I'd Hoped (Jagjaguwar)
- [10] Ringo Deathstarr: Colour Trip (Sonic Unyon)
- [10] Tinie Tempah: Disc-Overy (Capitol)
- [10] Wiley: 100% Publishing (Big Dada)
We can expand this a little further and take, say, records with no
more than 5 Pazz & Jop ballots (again, lots of jazz here):
- [103-4] Wild Beasts: Smother (Domino)
- [66-5] Anna Calvi: Anna Calvi (Domino)
- [64-5] Ambrose Akinmusire: When the Heart Emerges Glistening (Blue Note)
- [64-5] Iron and Wine: Kiss Each Other Clean (4AD)
- [55-5] Josh T Pearson: Last of the Country Gentlemen (Mute)
- [51-3] Miguel Zenon: Alma Adentro: The Puerto Rican Songbook (Marsalis Music)
- [47-5] Cass McCombs: Wit's End (Domino)
- [46-5] Explosions in the Sky: Take Care Take Care Take Care (Temporary Residence)
- [43-4] Death Cab for Cutie: Codes and Keys (Atlantic)
- [41-3] Childish Gambino: Camp (Glassnote)
- [39-1] Gretchen Parlato: The Lost and Found (ObliqSound)
- [38-5] Friendly Fires: Pala (XL)
- [37-4] Balam Acab: Wander/Wonder (Tri Angle)
- [36-3] Lee Konitz/Brad Mehldau/Charlie Haden/Paul Motian: Live at Birdland (ECM)
- [34-1] JD Allen: Victory! (Sunnyside)
- [34-3] Kasabian: Velociraptor! (Columbia)
- [33-1] Tennis: Cape Dory (Fat Possum)
- [33-2] The Weeknd: Thursday (self-released)
- [32-4] AA Bondy: Believers (Fat Possum)
- [32-5] J Mascis: Several Shades of Why (Sub Pop)
- [32-1] Joshua Redman/Aaron Parks/Matt Penman/Eric Harland: James Farm (Nonesuch)
- [32-5] Gruff Rhys: Hotel Shampoo (Turnstile)
- [32-2] Ty Segall: Goodbye Bread (Drag City)
- [32-3] Matthew Shipp: Art of the Improviser (Thirsty Ear, 2CD)
- [31-4] Cymbals Eat Guitars: Lenses Alien (Barsuk)
- [31-2] Justice: Audio, Video, Disco (Because)
- [31-5] Twin Sister: In Heaven (Domino)
- [31-5] Patrick Wolf: Lupercalia (Hideout/Mercury)
- [30-2] Keith Jarrett: Rio (ECM, 2CD)
- [30-5] Los Campesinos!: Hello Sadness (Arts and Crafts)
- [30-3] Jonathan Wilson: Gentle Spirit (Bella Union)
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Facebook Squibs
And now for something different, a glimpse at some recent home
projects. At first they seem like good ideas, then turn into ordeals,
then ultimately turn into accomplishments.:
I like Etta James as much as anyone, but I don't see anything for
Johnny Otis here, so check this one out.
Notes on Everyday Life
Should probably take more pictures. Definitely should figure out how
to manage them better. But I have a few here that represent some
everyday work around the house. This first one is a 12x8 shed I had
built in the backyard. I've been moving more tools out to the garage,
and in doing so the garage was getting cluttered, especially with
lawn equipment that I wanted to move out. A shed seemed like the
right solution. I've long fancied building something like that, so
I spent several weeks researching shed designs. Bought three books
on the subject, plus I have a lot of general construction books.
Then when push came to shove, I found a company that could build
something very much like what I wanted, and do it a little cheaper
and a whole lot faster. So they put up the shed, but I figured
the least I could do was to build the ramp up to the door -- the
door was about 10 inches above ground level, since the whole thing
was on skids. I wound up spending about half as much to get the
lumber delivered as they would have charged. And it took weeks to
build -- admittedly, mostly waiting for breaks in the cold weather.
It's built out of decking planks on top of a frame built out of
pressure-treated 2x4, 2x2, and 1x4 lumber, itself sitting on top
of paving stones. Underneath that I spread out some "weed block"
plastic, put some fiberglass edges on both sides, and dumped 100
lbs. of gravel on it (not really enough). The front edge rests on
a slice of vinyl garage door trim, so none of the wood rests on
the ground. Still need to do a little more work on the edge.
(Still plan on painting the shed, too. At least I did get a coat
of sealer down on the ramp.)
Second photo is another backyard project, which would have been
visible in the first had it been done then. Here you see the detached
garage off to the right of the top picture, and a bit of the driveway.
When it rains, water drains to a low spot in the driveway about 4-5
feet out from the garage, and pools up unless it can flow off to the
side. The previous owners dug a trench leading off to the left, then
turning back a few feet away from the garage until it hit a low spot.
I've redug that trench four times in the last decade -- often during
heavy rains, which at least is nice in that you get instant gratification
when it starts draining. However, the trenches always fill up, so I
figured a better solution would be to install a catch basin and dig
a French drain to route and absorb the water. The basin is a foot-cube
plastic box positioned to pick up the runoff. We then dug a trench
about 18-20 inches deep, lined it with gravel, and ran about 25 feet
of 4-inch perforated plastic pipe from the basin. In the picture,
you can see the basin and some of the pipe surrounded by gravel.
Afterwards, I covered the gravel with "weed-block" permeable plastic
sheet, and filled the dirt back in. (I say "I" but most of the work
in digging and filling the ditch was done by Tom James, a friend
who does landscape work for a living.) Haven't had any rain since
we got it done, but this should work.
Third picture is a new CD case in our bedroom. This was actually
the second stage of a less visible project. For years I had stacked
four small CD cases on top of the dresser, which the weight was
destroying. To salvage the dresser, I took it apart, glued and
clamped the fraying top piece, and reinforced the top with metal
brackets. But it didn't seem like a good idea to move the cases
back, so I built something that could be attached to the wall.
The CDs you see are the ones from the old units, so capacity is
up (although it can easily be filled from current stocks).
Messed up and made the left unit a bit too high -- the floor
slopes down from the right wall, but I wound up misjudging it.
I thought I'd try painting this unit instead of leaving the wood
tone, and I've used this black paint on a number of projects,
but white might have been a better choice. The decor is still
pretty much what came with the house. That'll be another project
some day.
Finally, fourth picture is a small dinner I made last night. I've
had a duck in the freezer for quite some time. Saw a recipe in Paula
Wolfert's The Slow Mediterranean Kitchen and figured it
was worth a try. I slow-roasted the duck for 3.5 hours the night
before, and made the base for the olive sauce. Last night all I
had to do was to pop the duck under the broiler to crisp up the
skin, and add the olives to the sauce. When I looked for some
sort of veggie accompaniment, a "roasted root vegetables" recipe
in Nancy Harmon Jenkins' The New Mediterranean Diet Cookbook
seemed like just the ticket. The recipe itself it complicated by
beets and winter squash, which I'd just as soon do without. So
I wound up with sweet potatoes, carrots, turnips, a rutabaga, a
couple parsnips, an onion, some leeks, garlic, herbs and olive
oil, roasted in a hot oven for about an hour. A little parsley
on top, and that was it.
Friday, January 20, 2012
Expert Comments
Probably no real point in doing this, but commenters are posting
year-end ballots. We'll give them three-letter abbrevs, and try to
keep track:
alw [Alex Wilson],
apm [Anderson PM],
bra [bradluen: minus Xgau-approved],
cap [Cam Patterson: 25],
daw [Dan W.: +3],
fra [Fraptron],
glh [GlenH444],
grm [Greg Morton],
jag [Jason Gubbels: +HM],
jef [JeffC77],
jol [Jon LaFollette],
joy [Joe Yanosik],
jre [jreamteam],
kra [krazykart: + 5 electronic],
lis [Liam Smith],
mak [Mark926: 15],
mar [Mark Rosen],
mif [Mitch F],
mrc [Marcus2010],
nif [Nicky Faraj],
pah [Paul Hayden],
ric [Richard Cobeen],
rst [rstay],
rym [Ryan Maffei: +3],
scc [scott coleman],
tow [Tom Walker],
ubi [ubik333],
.
- [01] Another Side of Funkyman - rym
- [01] Bambara Mystic Soul - jag
- [01] Nigeria 70: Sweet Times - jag
- [01] Note of Hope - rst
- [01] Sofrito: Tropical Discotheque - jag
- [01] Abdullah Ibrahim & Ekaya: Sotho Blue - bra
- [01] Alabama Shakes: EP - cap
- [02] Allen Lowe: Blues and the Empirical Truth -jag, ubi
- [01] June Tabor: Ashore - ubi
- [01] Bomb the Music Industry!: Vacation - jol
- [03] Britney Spears: Femme Fatale - apm, rym, scc
- [01] Class Actress: Rapprocher - cap
- [01] Comet Gain: Howl of the Lonely Crowd - jag
- [01] Craig Taborn: Avenging Angel - jag
- [01] Cults: Cults - jag
- [02] Dave Alvin: Eleven Eleven - grm, scc
- [01] DaVinci: Feast or Famine - jag
- [01] An Horse: Walls - apm
- [01] Let's Wrestle: Nursing Home - apm
- [02] Deer Tick: Divine Providence - apm, mif
- [01] DJ Quik: The Book of David - bra
- [01] Drake: Take Care - jag
- [01] El Rego: El Rego - jag
- [01] Eric Church: Chief - mrc
- [01] Farmers by Nature: Out of This World's Distortions - jag
- [01] Garland Jeffreys: The King of In Between - mrc
- [02] Girls: Father, Son, Holy Ghost - jag, kra
- [01] My Morning Jacket: Circuital -kra
- [01] Greg Ward: Greg Ward's Phonic Juggernaut - jag
- [01] Gregg Allman: Low Country Blues - cap
- [01] Harrison Birtwistle: Night's Black Bird - bra
- [01] Jimmy Cliff: Sacred Fire - cap
- [01] John Cale: 1919 Live London 5/03/2010 - cap
- [01] John Prine: The Singing Mailman Delivers - cap
- [01] Julius Hemphill: Dogon A.D. - jag
- [01] Katy B: On a Mission - bra
- [01] Kieran Hebden/Steve Reid/Mats Gustafsson: Live at South Bank - jag
- [01] Lee Konitz: Live at Birdland - jag
- [01] Lee Perry/Bill Laswell: Rise Again - jag
- [01] Lil Wayne: Sorry 4 the Wait - nif
- [01] Lindsey Buckingham: Seeds We Sow - pah
- [01] Lupe Fiasco: Lasers - bra
- [02] Matana Roberts: Coin Coin Chapter One: Gens de Couleur Libres - tow, ubi
- [01] Mathias Eick: Skala -grm
- [01] Matt Lavelle: Goodbye New York, Hello World - bra
- [01] Matthew Shipp/William Parker/Beans/Hprizm: Knives From Heaven - jag
- [01] Metronomy: The English Riviera - rst
- [03] Middle Brother: Middle Brother - apm, jag, kra
- [01] White Denim: D - kra
- [01] Black Keys: El Camino - kra
- [01] Rene Marie: My Black Lace Freudian Slip - ubi
- [01] Mikal Cronin: Mikal Cronin - kra
- [01] Ty Segall: Goodbye Bread - kra
- [02] Rustie: Glass Swords - kra, scc
- [01] SBTRKT: SBTRKT - kra
- [01] Sepalcure: Sepalcure - kra
- [01] Tycho: Dive - kra
- [01] Machinedrum: Room(s) - kra
- [01] Cashier No. 9: To the Death of Fun - lis
- [01] Steve Cropper: Dedicated - lis
- [01] Miranda Lambert: Four the Record - cap
- [01] Mountain Goats: All Eternals Deck - jag
- [01] Nacho Picasso: For the Glory - jag
- [01] New York Dolls: Dancing Backward in High Heels - nif
- [01] Off: First Four EPs - cap
- [01] Ofori Amponsah: Odwo - joy
- [01] PJ Harvey: Let England Shake - daw
- [01] Anna Calvi: Anna Calvi - scc
- [01] Pusha T: Fear of God II: Let Us Pray - cap
- [03] Rainbow Arabia: Boys & Diamonds - apm, fra, mak
- [01] BLNRB: Welcome to the Madhouse - mak
- [01] Ralph Carney's Serious Jass Project: Seriously - jag
- [01] Adele: 21 - scc
- [01] Raphael-Halley-Halley: Children of the Blue Supermarket - bra
- [01] Roy Orbison: The Monument Singles - daw
- [01] Tom Ze: Estudando a Bossa: Nordeste Plaza - mak
- [01] Scroobius Pip: Distraction Pieces - jag
- [01] Sonny Rollins: Road Shows Vol. 1 - joy
- [01] St. Vincent: Strange Mercy - rym
- [01] Terakaft: Aratan N Azawad - jag
- [01] The Baseball Project: Volume 2: High and Inside - jef
- [01] The Bats: Free All the Monsters - cap
- [01] REM: Collapse Into Now - lis
- [01] Poly Styrene: Generation Indigo - lis
- [01] The Caretaker: An Empty Bliss Beyond This World - jag
- [01] Theo Parrish: Ugly Edits - jag
- [02] Tom Waits: Bad as Me - pah, ubi
- [01] Vaccines: What Did You Expect From the Vaccines? - pah
- [01] Radiohead: The King of Limbs - mak
- [01] Vieux Farka Toure: The Secret - cap
- [02] Wilco: The Whole Love - jag, kra
- [01] Gang Gang Dance: Eye Contact - kra
- [02] Cartagena! - grm, jag
- [03] Battles: Gloss Drop - jag, lis, nif
- [02] Blaqstarr: The Divine EP - alw, jre
- [02] Bombino: Agadez - jag, joy
- [02] Brad Paisley: This Is Country Music - cap, jol
- [02] Drive-By Truckers: Go-Go Boots - cap, mar
- [02] Eddy Current Suppression Ring: So Many Things - cap, jag
- [02] Group Doueh: Zayna Jumma - jag, joy
- [02] Hayes Carll: KMAG YOYO - mar, pah
- [02] Iceage: New Brigade - cap, jag
- [03] Lykke Li: Wounded Rhymes - jol, mrc, scc
- [02] Miles Davis: Live in Europe 1967 - bra, jag
- [03] Rihanna: Talk That Talk - jre, ric, scc
- [03] Serengeti: Family and Friends - mar, scc, tow
- [02] Sonny Rollins: Road Shows Vol. 2 - bra, glh
- [02] Stephin Merritt: Obscurities - mar, rym
- [03] Those Darlins: Screws Get Loose - nif, pah, ubi
- [03] Tinariwen: Tassili - lis, mar, tow
- [02] Todd Snider: Live: The Storyteller - grm, nif
- [03] Caroline Chocolate Drops: Luminiscent Orchestrii - alw, glh, ric
- [03] Fucked Up: David Comes to Life - bra, daw, mif
- [03] Lobi Traore: Bwati Kono "In the Club" - cap, daw, grm
- [04] Low Cut Connie: Get Out the Lotion - lis, mif, mrc, tow
- [05] Mates of State: Mountaintops - apm, grm, jre, ric, scc
- [03] Plastic People of the Universe: Magical Nights - daw, glh, joy
- [03] Raphael Saadiq: Stone Rollin' - cap, mar, ric
- [04] Shabazz Palaces: Black Up - cap, jag, joy, mak
- [04] The Mekons: Ancient & Modern - daw, jag, lis, rst
- [03] The Weeknd: House of Balloons - daw, mif, nif
- [03] Yuck: Yuck - jol, joy, ric
- [05] Das Racist: Relax - glh, jag, jef, mak, rst
- [06] TV on the Radio: Nine Types of Light - cap, fra, jol, kra, mak, ric
- [04] Wussy: Funeral Dress II - alw, cap, glh, joy
- [05] Fountains of Wayne: Sky Full of Holes - grm, jef, jol, pah, rym
- [06] Jens Lekman: An Argument With Myself - alw, daw, joy, jre, mak, mif
- [05] Kate & Anna McGarrigle: Tell My Sister - alw, daw, fra, glh, tow
- [08] Pistol Annies: Hell on Heels - cap, jef, jre, mak, mrc, pah, scc, ubi
- [07] Wild Flag: Wild Flag - cap, grm, jag, lis, ric, rym, scc
- [06] Withered Hand: Good News - glh, jag, mar, nif, rym, tow
- [07] Emperor X: Western Teleport - cap, jag, mif, ric, rst, rym, tow
- [11] Teddybears: Devil's Music - apm, cap, daw, fra, jef, mak, mif, ric, rst, scc, tow
- [13] Jay-Z/Kanye West: Watch the Throne - alw, cap, daw, fra, jag, jef, jre, mak, mrc, nif, rst, rym, scc
- [14] Wussy: Strawberry - cap, daw, jag, jef, jol, joy, jre, mak, mrc, nif, pah, rym, tow, ubi
- [17] Paul Simon: So Beautiful or So What? - alw, apm, glh, grm, jag, jef, jol, jre, mak, mar, mif, mrc, pah, rst, rym, scc, ubi
- [17] Tune-Yards: Whokill - alw, apm, fra, glh, grm, jag, jef, jre, kra, mak, mar, mif, mrc, pah, ric, rst, rym
- [18] Frank Ocean: Nostalgia, Ultra - alw, cap, daw, fra, glh, jag, jef, jol, joy, jre, mak, mar, mif, nif, mrc, rym, scc, tow
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Expert Comments
Johnny Otis died, age 90:
On Johnny Otis: George Lipsitz introduced me to a cut on an old LP
comp that I immediately snarfed up. But it took years and years of
searching to find "Signifying Monkey" on cd. It finally showed up on
Cold Shot/Snatch and the Poontangs on Ace -- not the stuff he
was famous for (notorious maybe).
Haven't been in touch with George for ages now, but I did notice
that his most recent book is called Midnight at the Barrelhouse:
The Johnny Otis Story.
Errors/corrections for Pazz & Jop poll:
- 517. Chris Chochran, Them (): Cochrane; label: Tzadik
- 677. Snsd, Girls' Generation (1st Japan Album) (Nayutawave/Universal Music Japan): Group name is Girls' Generation, which is popularly abbreviated SNSD; album is probably Girls' Generation, their first (and only) Japanese studio release; album later repackaged as The Boys
- 902. Bazan, Strange Negotiations (Barsuk): David Bazan
- 902. Oneohtrix Point Never, Returnal (Editions): label: Editions Mego
- 902. Simphewe Dana, Kultur Noir (Warner): Simphiwe Dana, label: Warner Bros. [UK]
- 902. Darren Johnston, Gone to Chicago (Porto Franco): Darren Johnston's Gone to Chicago, title The Big Lift
- 902. Fabulous, The S.O.U.L. Tape (self-released): Fabolous
- 902. Marshall McLuhan, The Medium Is the Message (Five Day Weekend): title, The Medium Is the Massage
- 902. The Bachata Legens (iASO): The Bachata Legends
- 1734. Wadada Leo Smith's Organic: Eart's Reflections (Cunifrom); Earth's Reflections; label: Cuneiform
- 1734. Imaginary Flaying Machines: Princess Ghibli (Coroner); Imaginary Flying Machines
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
SOPA/PIPA
Some timely reading today:
Saved the latter for last because I wanted to quote from it:
Stopping legislation like this is very important to me, because the
continual escalation of intellectual property enforcement is the
foundation of the incipient rentier dystopia I've explored in much of
my
previous writing.
Some of the companies that are lobbying against SOPA and PIPA may well
have their own dreams of a rentier dystopia, and that's something to beware
of. Unfortunately, we live in a political system dominated by conflicting
special interests, almost completely oblivious to the idea of a public
interest, especially one unable to line the pockets of politicians.
Update: Also see the
post-blackout report at Wikipedia.
Pazz + Jop
Again, my Pazz & Jop ballot, plus some extra info:
- Dan Raphael/Rich Halley/Carson Halley, Children of the Blue
Supermarket (Pine Eagle) [12]: 850-1-12: only vote.
- Lobi Traore, Bwati Kono "In the Club" (Kanaga System
Krush) [12]: 850-1-12: only vote.
- Mekons, Ancient & Modern (Bloodshot) [10]: 167-71-6:
Ted Cox, Jason Gubbels, Andrew Hamlin, J Neo Marvin, Christopher Monsen,
Rob Trucks.
- Jimmie Dale Gilmore/The Wronglers, Heirloom Music
(Neanderthal Noise) [10]: 902-10-1: only vote.
- Allen Lowe, Blues and the Empirical Truth (Music &
Arts) [10]: 341-31-3: Jason Gubbels, Ken Shinamoto.
- Todd Snider, Live: The Storyteller (Thirty Tigers/Aimless)
[10]: 902-10-1: only vote.
- Lupe Fiasco, Lasers (Atlantic) [9]: 244-47-6:
John Bush, Bill Forman, Jason Gross, Geoffrey Himes, Kye Stephenson.
- Sonny Rollins, Road Shows Vol. 2 (Doxy) [9]: 142-84-8:
Larry Birnbaum, Alex Henderson, Steve Holtje, Daniel King, Ken Shinamoto,
Jon Solomon, Chip Stern.
- Dave Alvin, Eleven Eleven (Yep Roc) [9]: 197-59-6:
Geoffrey Himes, Larry King, Randy Lewis, Bill O'Neill, Leland Rucker.
- Raphael Saadiq, Stone Rollin' (Columbia) [9]: 39-307-33:
Robert Bishop, James Blount, Ken Capobianco, Salvatore Caputo, Thor Christensen,
Charles R. Cross, Bree Davies, Jer Fairall, Steve Forstneger, Ted Friedman,
Gary Graff, Randall Grass, Nick Green, Kory Grow, Kenny Herzog, Joey Hood,
Steve Horowitz, Charles Johnson, Greg Kot, Todd Martens, Noel Murray,
Bill O'Neill, Ryan Patrick, Rebecca Raber, Mosi Reeves, D. Patrick Rodgers,
Al Shipley, Alfred Soto, Ian Steaman, Lindsey Thomas, Ken Tucker,
K. Leander Williams.
Positions sorted: 39, 142, 167, 197, 244, 341, 850, 850, 902, 902.
Votes sorted: 39, 8, 6, 6, 6, 3, 1, 1, 1, 1.
Voters with common picks:
- Larry Birnbaum: Rollins
- Robert Bishop: Saadiq
- James Blount: Saadiq
- John Bush: Lupe Fiasco
- Ken Capobianco: Saadiq
- Salvatore Caputo: Saadiq
- Thor Christensen: Saadiq
- Ted Cox: Mekons
- Charles R. Cross: Saadiq
- Bree Davies: Saadiq
- Jer Fairall: Saadiq
- Bill Forman: Lupe Fiasco
- Steve Forstneger: Saadiq
- Ted Friedman: Saadiq
- Gary Graff: Saadiq
- Randall Grass: Saadiq
- Nick Green: Saadiq
- Jason Gross: Lupe Fiasco
- Kory Grow: Saadiq
- Jason Gubbels: Lowe, Mekons
- Andrew Hamlin: Mekons
- Alex Henderson: Rollins
- Kenny Herzog: Saadiq
- Geoffrey Himes: Alvin, Lupe Fiasco
- Steve Holtje: Rollins
- Joey Hood: Saadiq
- Steve Horowitz: Saadiq
- Charles Johnson: Saadiq
- Daniel King: Rollins
- Larry King: Alvin
- Greg Kot: Saadiq
- Randy Lewis: Alvin
- Todd Martens: Saadiq
- Christopher Monsen: Mekons
- Noel Murray: Saadiq
- Bill O'Neill: Alvin, Saadiq
- Ryan Patrick: Saadiq
- Rebecca Raber: Saadiq
- Mosi Reeves: Saadiq
- D. Patrick Rodgers: Saadiq
- Leland Rucker: Alvin
- Ken Shinamoto: Lowe, Rollins
- Al Shipley: Saadiq
- Jon Solomon: Rollins
- Alfred Soto: Saadiq
- Ian Steaman: Saadiq
- Kyle Stephenson: Lupe Fiasco
- Chip Stern: Rollins
- Lindsey Thomas: Saadiq
- Rob Trucks: Mekons
- Ken Tucker: Saadiq
- K. Leander Williams: Saadiq
In 2010 there were 713 voters; in 2010 there were 701. 148 names were
dropped from 2010 to 2011; 136 were added. The initial letter supposedly
invited 1500 critics.
I wound up ranked 609 in centricity, with a 0.07 factor -- replace
Raphael Saadiq with Avram Fefer, which would have made more sense for
me to do, and I would have been much closer to the bottom. By contrast,
Joey Daniewicz had the highest centricity score (0.74). His album ballot
picks wound up: 1, 3, 6, 8, 11, 13, 14, 16, 25, 109.
Expert Comments
More PnJ, this time a question as to why Matana Roberts finished at 78:
Matana Roberts' Coin Coin finished higher than I expected,
but it did get unusual support from beyond the usual jazz confines,
including rave reviews in No Ripchord and Tiny Machine
Tapes, and an EOY list place in Prefix. It has vocals, a
black history theme with an AACM pedigree which steers clear of the
pitfalls Wynton Marsalis stumbles into when he tries to do this sort
of thing. It finished 15th in our Jazz Critics' Poll, so has some cred
there but is truly a crossover item (very small label, I didn't get
serviced it so I imagine it didn't get much promo; I played it on
Rhapsody, and have been told that I underrated it, which could well
be). Finished with 33 in my metafile, same as J Cole, Coldplay, Neon
Indian, Tennis, etc.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Expert Comments
PnJ comes out:
I was trying to get my end-of-year lists posted before P&J came
out. Down in the fine print I grade out year-end lists by Christgau
and Jason Gross -- the latter has steered me onto some obscure but
interesting stuff in the past, but less so this year. Anyhow, I
prepended a quick paragraph of my first impressions of P&J:
I haven't digested them, but there are a lot of surprises, starting
with the tanking of Bon Iver (9th place), Fleet Foxes (18th),
Radiohead (33rd), and James Blake (34th). (Drops like these almost
suggest the new editor rigged the poll with more better-than-average
critics.) Paul Simon rose even more than expected (14th). Another
higher-than-expected that strikes me is Lydia Loveless in 134th (321
in my file) -- 1 spot below Brad Paisley, 9 below Lucinda
Williams.
Key thing is that a lot of [bad] records that had lots of favorable
press performed way below expectations. Offhand, it looks like about
the same number of critics, votes, and records this year as last, so
one thing to research is who left and who came. (I know we got Chris
Monsen and Jason Gubbels on the list this year, which was certainly
good for Wussy.)
I may quibble later, but at first glance this looks like the worst
year ever for the predictive power of my metacritic file.
I'll also remind you that the real fun is in the individual
ballots. E.g., I found someone named Josh Kortbein with a couple of
metal albums, some avant jazz, Ebo Taylor, the Cornelius Cardew box
set, and something I've never heard of on Important that could be any
of those things.
More, trying to sort out the voter shift. Turns out Milo Miles was
dropped from the poll this year.
Comparing the 2010 and 2011 voter lists, 148 names were dropped
from the former (of 713 voters), and 136 were added to the latter
(resulting in 701 voters). That seems like a lot, but the original
invite letter announced that 1500 people were invited to
participate. If that is true, participation is less than 50%, so there
is likely to be a fair amount of change from year to year even if the
invite lists are identical. I've separated out the lists, and the
overwhelming majority of names are people I don't recognize, so I
can't draw any real conclusions. It does occur to me that when Matos
ran a critics poll at Idolator a few years back, he came up with a
younger and more web-based electorate than the Voice had, so someone
could try comparing that voter list to the (2011-2010)
differences.
By the way, aside from Milo, the most famous missing name is
probably Toure.
The interesting thing about Joey topping the centricity list is
that nearly everyone else ducked. See the note at the top of the
page:
In 2010 there were 26 voters with >.7 centricity. In 2011 only 4!
In other words, there wasn't much consensus this year -- actually,
the word I'm tempted to use is conformism. I've seen ballots with 8 or
9 of the top 10 finishers on them. Joey's sorts out: 1, 3, 6, 8, 11,
13, 14, 16, 25, 109. Throw out Wussy and the lowest finisher was
Girls. And he managed to do that while working in two free downloads,
two more hip-hop albums, one 70-year-old, and one 21-year-old. To
quote me in one of Bob's 1970s articles, "some consensus."
JeffC77:
Re: Pazz & Jop 2011. The distressing news is contained near the
bottom of the list, where a whopping 621 albums are listed even though
each only earned one or two mentions -- which has to be some kind of
record. So it would seem that pop music critical consensus is becoming
as fragmented and ghettoized as the listening tastes of the general
public. Want further proof? A third of the high school students I teach
have never heard of Adele, and another third hate her simply because
she's popular with the third third.
Christgau responded:
JeffC: I'm not gonna do it, but you should look back at past lists
and see how many records got one mention. About half seems right to
me. I've written about this in at least one essay, but I'm not going
to find it either.
More from me: I copied the results into a file, ran an emacs macro
to pound them into single-line field-separated format, and could then
isolate the single votes easily and accurately:
JeffC: Your data set (621 1-vote records) is in error. The number
of PnJ records this year with only one vote is 1250, which makes them
63.5% of the total (1967). Due to sorting by points, 1- and 2-vote
(and possibly more) are mixed up in the results. (The first 1-vote
records, with 30 points, appear at number 344.)
The 2000 figures Marcus quotes work out to 62.9%, which is eerily
consistent. The record probably dates to 2004-05 when the poll peaked
with 793 and 795 ballots, although I doubt that the ratio of 1-vote
records is that consistent year-to-year.
By the way, my metacritic file has 4602 records, of which 2001 have
only one vote -- 43.4% of the total. It could be that as the sample
size increases the percentage of 1-vote records flattens out, but it
is also true that I deliberately undercounted single-vote records: on
dozens of lists I didn't bother writing down things I hadn't seen
before. (Actually, I think the main factor is that I counted longer
lists. My math isn't good enough to quickly figure out how many
skipped records it would take to even out the books, but it's more
than 1000, and I skipped more like 200-300 records.)
As I recall, a few years back it was widely reported that there are
something like 35,000 releases per year. I wouldn't be surprised if
the number tops 50,000 now (especially counting all the digital-only
releases). Not only is consensus impossible against such numbers, I'm
not sure that it's even desirable.
End-of-2011 List
Update: The
PazzNJop results came out after this was written but before I
posted it. The Expert Witness results aren't out yet.
[PPS:
link here]. I haven't
digested them, but there are a lot of surprises, starting with the
tanking of Bon Iver (9th place), Fleet Foxes (18th), Radiohead
(33rd), and James Blake (34th). (Drops like these almost suggest
the new editor rigged the poll with more better-than-average
critics.) Paul Simon rose even more than expected (14th). Another
higher-than-expected that strikes me is Lydia Loveless in 134th
(321 in my file) -- 1 spot below Brad Paisley, 9 below Lucinda
Williams. More of this sort of thing later.
Today's the day I declared 2011 over, at least as far as my year-end
list is concerned. A copy as of today will be
frozen for future reference.
I'll continue to fiddle with the still active
2011 list up to Dec. 31, 2012, but
new adds and belated grades for currently pending records will be flagged
in a different color (as I've done for a number of years now). This has
taken a few days longer than usual, in part because the working list had
turned into such a mess. I finally decided that I can't trust myself to
rank records below A-, so I've alphabetized those sections.
I was tempted to do that with the A- list part as well, but
figured I should at least be able to give the upper regions a decent go.
But it, too, was a mess, so I've wound up doing a lot of resorting. One
result is that the ballots I turned in to
Pazz & Jop, the
Jazz Critics Poll, and the
Expert Witness Poll have all been more or less eclipsed. The only
reason what follows won't be as fleeting is that I'm more likely to
move on to 2012, but what I want to do here is to lay out my most
official A-list of 2012. I'm going to do this in two chunks: the
first is my jazz list; the second non-jazz. They are roughly equal
in length, reflecting the fact that, for professional reasons as
much as taste, I listen to a lot more jazz than anything else. I
could try breaking non-jazz into further genres, but that seems
like overkill. In both cases, I'm mising a few compilations and
vault discoveries in, even though I keep them separate in my main
lists. (The separation dates from writing Recycled Goods. I won't
bother listing favorite reissues here, since whether I listen to
a reissue or not is pretty much -- well, not random exactly, but
contingent on a lot of very arbitrary conditions. Whereas I can
make a strong claim to have listened broadly to jazz, and I can
make a weaker but still substantial claim to have sampled a wide
breadth of non-jazz, I haven't heard more than a small fraction
of the reissues I'd like to hear, much less everything else.)
On both lists, ** indicates something only heard on Rhapsody
or some other download source. I've generally played these less
than records I have hard copies of. Not so noted are records I
later obtained real copies of.
The top jazz list:
- Dan Raphael/Rich Halley/Carson Halley: Children of the Blue Supermarket (Pine Eagle)
- Avram Fefer/Eric Revis/Chad Taylor: Eliyahu (Not Two)
- Allen Lowe: Blues and the Empirical Truth (Music & Arts, 3CD)
- Abdullah Ibrahim & Ekaya: Sotho Blue (Sunnyside)
- Muhal Richard Abrams: SoundDance (Pi, 2CD)
- Sonny Rollins: Road Shows Vol. 2 (Doxy/Emarcy)
- David Murray Cuban Ensemble: Plays Nat King Cole: En Español (Motéma)
- Matt Lavelle: Goodbye New York, Hello World (Music Now!)
- Ellery Eskelin Trio: New York (Prime Source)
- De Nazaten & James Carter: For Now (Strotbrocck)
- Tommy Smith: Karma (Spartacus)
- Ted Rosenthal: Out of This World (Playscape)
- Adam Pieronczyk: Komeda: The Innocent Sorcerer (Jazzwerkstatt)
- Tyshawn Sorey: Oblique - I (Pi)
- Mathias Eick: Skala (ECM)
- Darius Jones: Big Gurl (Smell My Dream) (AUM Fidelity)
- Colin Stetson: New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges (Constellation) **
- Carlo De Rosa's Cross-Fade: Brain Dance (Cuneiform)
- Ernest Dawkins' New Horizons Ensemble: The Prairie Prophet (Delmark)
- Wadada Leo Smith's Organic: Heart's Reflections (Cuneiform, 2CD)
- Andrew Cyrille & Haitian Fascination: Route de Frères (TUM)
- Rudresh Mahanthappa: Samdhi (ACT)
- Alexis Cuadrado: Noneto Ibérico (Bju'ecords)
- The Chris Byars Octet: Lucky Strikes Again (SteepleChase)
- Starlicker: Double Demon (Delmark)
- David S. Ware/Cooper-Moore/William Parker/Muhammad Ali: Planetary Unknown (AUM Fidelity)
- Jake Fryer/Bud Shank Quartet: In Good Company (Capri)
- Wynton Marsalis & Eric Clapton: Play the Blues: Live From Jazz at Lincoln Center (Reprise, CD+DVD)
- Claire Ritter: The Stream of Pearls Project (Zoning)
- Maïkotron Unit: Ex-Voto (Jazz From Rant)
- FAB Trio: History of Jazz in Reverse (TUM)
- Yaala Ballin: On the Road (Gallery)
- Luis Lopes: Lisbon Berlin Trio (Clean Feed)
- Kieran Hebden/Steve Reid/Mats Gustafsson: Live at the South Bank (Smalltown Superjazz, 2CD)
- Marcus Strickland: Triumph of the Heavy: Volume 1 & 2 (Strick Muzik, 2CD)
- Side A: A New Margin (Clean Feed)
- Joe McPhee/Michael Zerang: Creole Gardens (A New Orleans Song) (NoBusiness)
- Gerry Hemingway Quintet: Riptide (Clean Feed)
- Joe Fiedler Trio: Sacred Chrome Orb (YSL)
- Harrison Bankhead Sextet: Morning Sun Harvest Moon (Engine) **
- Jason Stein Quartet: The Story This Time (Delmark)
- Charles Lloyd Quartet with Maria Farantouri: Athens Concert (ECM, 2CD)
- Miles Davis Quintet: Live Europe 1967: Bootleg Vol. 1 (Columbia/Legacy, 3CD)
- Andrew Atkinson Quartet: Live: Keep Looking Forward (self-released)
- Deborah Pearl: Souvenir of You: New Lyrics to Benny Carter Classics (Evening Star)
- Brian Charette: Learning to Count (SteepleChase)
- James Carter Organ Trio: At the Crossroads (Emarcy)
- Eliane Elias: Light My Fire (Concord)
- Phil Ranelin: Perseverance (Wide Hive) **
- Lim: With Marc Ducret (Kopasetic) **
- Jerry Leake & Randy Roos: Cubist Live (Rhombus Publishing)
- Jerry Bergonzi: Convergence (Savant)
- Honey Ear Trio: Steampunk Serenade (Foxhaven)
- Inzinzac: Inzinzac (High Two)
- Moon Hotel Lounge Project: Into the Ojalá (Frosty Cordial)
That's the second (or third) time in the last week or two I've
published the jazz list -- see my year-end piece at Rhapsody,
Tom Hull: The Thrill of Discovery, and the completist
Extended Year-End Jazz List. While the order has changed,
I haven't added anything lately -- a clear admission that I've
taken a break from jazz lately. Usually it's only a matter of
a week or two until I find something I missed. In fact, here
are the post-freeze 2010 (Jan. 24, 2011) finds:
- ICP Orchestra: ICP 049 (ICP)
- Dadi: Bem Aqui (Sunnyside)
- Free Fall: Gray Scale (Smalltown Superjazz)
- Ideal Bread: Transmit: Vol. 2 of the Music of Steve Lacy (Cuneiform)
- Dmitry Baevsky: Down With It (Sharp Nine) **
- Gord Grdina Trio with Mats Gustafsson: Barrel Fire (Drip Audio)
- Roger Davidson Quintet: Brazilian Love Song (Soundbrush)
Although had I been able to back up a couple weeks I would have added
Benjamin Herman: Hypochristmastreefuzz (Dox) to the top of that
list.
The top non-jazz list:
- Kate & Anna McGarrigle: Tell My Sister (1977-78, Nonesuch, 3CD)
- Lobi Traore: Bwati Kono "In the Club" (Kanaga System Krush)
- Cartagena! Curro Fuentes & the Big Band Cumbia and Descarga Sound of Colombia 1962-72 (Sounday)
- The Mekons: Ancient & Modern 1911-2011 (Bloodshot)
- Jimmie Dale Gilmore/The Wronglers: Heirloom Music (Neanderthal Noise)
- Dave Alvin: Eleven Eleven (Yep Roc)
- Todd Snider: Live: The Storyteller (Thirty Tigers/Aimless, 2CD)
- Raphael Saadiq: Stone Rollin' (Columbia)
- Lupe Fiasco: Lasers (Atlantic)
- Das Racist: Relax (Greedhead)
- Mayer Hawthorne: How Do You Do (Universal Republic)
- The Weeknd: House of Balloons (mixtape) **
- Nigeria 70: Sweet Times: Afro-Funk, Highlife and Juju From 1970s Lagos (Strut)
- Girls: Father, Son, Holy Ghost (True Panther Sounds)
- Frank Ocean: Nostalgia, Ultra (mixtape) **
- Teddybears: Devil's Music (Big Beat/Atlantic)
- Cunninlynguists: Oneirology (RBC) **
- Fucked Up: David Comes to Life (Matador) **
- TV on the Radio: Nine Types of Light (Interscope)
- Kanye West/Jay-Z: Watch the Throne (Roc-A-Fella)
- Wussy: Strawberry (Shake It) **
- Drive-By Truckers: Go-Go Boots (ATO/Red)
- Fruit Bats: Tripper (Sub Pop) **
- Terakaft: Aratan N Azawad (World Village)
- Serengeti: Family & Friends (Anticon) **
- Class Actress: Rapprocher (Carpark) **
- Group Doueh: Zayna Jumma (Sublime Frequencies)
- Buck 65: 20 Odd Years (WEA Canada) **
- Elzhi: Elmatic (Jae B Group) **
- Pistol Annies: Hell on Heels (Columbia Nashville)
- Tinariwen: Tassili (Anti-) **
- Steve Cropper: Dedicated: A Salute to the 5 Royales (429)
- Low Cut Connie: Get Out the Lotion (self-released)
- Emperor X: Western Teleport (Bar/None)
- Poly Styrene: Generation Indigo (Future Noise)
- Neil Young: International Harvesters: A Treasure (1984-85, Reprise)
- Tom Waits: Bad as Me (Anti-)
- Ry Cooder: Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down (Nonesuch)
- Bootsy Collins: Tha Funk Capital of the World (Megaforce) **
- Merle Haggard: Working in Tennessee (Vanguard)
- The Dirt Drifters: This Is My Blood (Warner Brothers)
- Afro Latin: Via Kinshasa (Syllart, 2CD)
- Hot Chelle Rae: Whatever (RCA) **
- Blaqstarr: Divine EP (NEET, EP) **
- Viceversah: Shine Not Burn (AR Classic) **
- Peter Stampfel/Jeffrey Lewis: Come on Board (self-released) **
- Rainbow Arabia: Boys and Diamonds (Kompakt)
- Limousines: Get Sharp (Dangerbird) **
- Bombino: Agadez (Cumbancha) **
- Generation Bass Presents: Transnational Dubstep (Six Degrees)
- Bibio: Mind Bokeh (Warp) **
- The Baseball Project: Vol. 2: High and Inside (Yep Roc) **
- Sofrito: Tropical Discotheque (1976-2010, Strut)
- 9th Wonder: The Wonder Years (Traffic Entertainment)
- Johnny Cash: Bootleg Vol I: Personal File (1973-83, Columbia/Legacy, 2CD)
- Connie Smith: Long Line of Heartaches (Sugar Hill) **
- Eddy Current Suppression Ring: So Many Things (2003-04, Goner) **
- Vijana Jazz Band: The Koka Koka Sex Battalion: Rumba, Koka Koka & Kamata Sukuma (1975-80, Sterns) **
- Miranda Lambert: Four the Record (RCA Nashville)
- Scroobius Pip: Distraction Pieces (Speech Development) **
- Cornershop: Cornershop and the Double-O Groove Of (Ample Play) **
- Hail Mary Mallon: Are You Gonna Eat That? (Rhymesayers Entertainment) **
- Jill Scott: The Light of the Sun (Blues Babe/Warner Bros.)
- J Mascis: Several Shades of Why (Sub Pop) **
- Britney Spears: Femme Fatale (Jive)
- Sorry Bamba: Volume One 1970-1979 (Thrill Jockey) **
- William Elliot Whitmore: Field Songs (Anti-) **
- Hayes Carll: KMAG YOYO (& Other American Stories) (Lost Highway)
- Swollen Members: Dagger Mouth (Suburban Noize) **
- Note of Hope: A Celebration of Woody Guthrie (429)
- La Cherga: Revolve (Asphalt Tango)
- Middle Brother (Partisan) **
- Afro Latin: Via Dakar (Syllart, 2CD)
- Lucinda Williams: Blessed (Lost Highway)
- BLNRB: Welcome to the Madhouse (Out Here)
- New York Dolls: Dancing Backward in High Heels (429)
- Lydia Loveless: Indestructible Machine (Bloodshot) **
Post-freeze 2010 release finds:
- Plastic People of the Universe: Magical Nights (1969-85, Munster, 2CD)
- The Henry Clay People: Somewhere on the Golden Coast (TBD) **
- Aaron Neville: I Know I've Been Changed (Tell It) **
- OFF!: First Four EPs (Vice) **
- Smile Smile: Truth on Tape (Kirtland) **
- Kate & Anna McGarrigle: Odditties (1973-90, Quebeservice) **
Didn't expect to have so much more non-jazz than jazz, even before
the compilations tilted 10-to-1. Could know a couple of marginals off
the bottom of the list, but doesn't seem worth the paperwork. Christgau's
Dean's list, with both McGarrigles and virtually no jazz (a Nils Petter
Molvaer album he likes more than I do) runs much longer (107, albeit
with 12 pre-2011 releases, where I moved my onto the late-2010 list),
so I figure I'm being picky enough.
Genre breakdown, as best I can reckon: rock singer-songwriters: 6
(including McGarrigles, so 2 old); rock groups: 11; electro-pop: 7, plus
4 further into electronica; world: 15 (6 old); country and americana: 15
(including a few who could be traded to the rock categories, like Cooder
and Dirt Drifters); hip-hop: 12 rap, plus 7 with singers (including
Cropper); other: Note of Hope (folk songwriter/rock singers).
Below the fold, I'll present two tables, each grading records from
a friendly long (100+ record) year-end list (Jason Gross and Robert
Christgau).
Every year Jason Gross drops a huge year-end list, including a lot of
shit I've never heard of. Last year his list proved exceptionally fruitful
as I chased down various obscurities. This year, uh, less so. (Lots of
surprises, but thus far only one previously unrated A-, five
***, four **, although there are still lots of records
I haven't been able to track down.) Can't tell
you how many times I looked up one of his bands in AMG and discovered they
are "quirky." I know Jason well enough to say he's pretty quirky, so that
may be the norm, but he does listen to as much new music as anyone, and
one of the good things about being quirky is that you welcome surprises.
The following is his new records list. I don't know that he meant it to
be ordered -- he didn't number anything, but he didn't alphabetize either.
But I figure the best thing to do is to sort it by my grades, if for no
other reason than because I'm curious how it breaks down that way.
A- |
- Bombino: Agadez (Cumbancha)
- Hayes Carll: KMAG YOYO (& Other American Stories) (Lost Highway)
- Das Racist: Relax (Greedhead)
- The Fruit Bats: Tripper (Sub Pop)
- Miranda Lambert: Four the Record (RCA Nashville)
- The Limousines: Get Sharp (Dangerbird)
- Lupe Fiasco: Lasers (Atlantic)
- Middle Brother: Middle Brother (Partisan)
- Jill Scott: The Light of the Sun (Warner Bros)
- Raphael Saadiq: Stone Rollin' (Columbia)
- TV on the Radio: Nine Types of Light (Interscope)
- Tom Waits: Bad as Me (Anti-)
- The Weeknd: House of Balloons (weeknd.com)
- Kanye West/Jay-Z: Watch the Throne (Def Jam)
- Sofrito: Tropical Discotheque (Strut)
|
B+(***) |
- Beastie Boys: Hot Sauce Committee Pt. 2 (Capitol)
- Common: The Dreamer/The Believer (Think Common)
- T-Model Ford and GravelRoad: Taledragger (Alive)
- The Front Bottoms: The Front Bottoms (Bar/None)
- Gold-Bears: Are You Falling in Love? (Slumberland)
- Kembe X: Self Rule (no label)
- Seun Anikulapo Kuti & Egypt 80: From Africa With Fury: Rise (Knitting Factory)
- Los Chicharrons: Roots of Life (Tummy Touch)
- Shackleton: Fabric 55 (Fabric)
- Sidi Touré & Friends: Sahel Folk (Thrill Jockey)
|
B+(**) |
- Battles: Gloss Drop (Warp)
- Deaf Center: Owls and Splinters (Type)
- Eilen Jewell: Queen of the Minor Key (Signature Sounds)
- J-Rocc: Some Cold Rock Stuf (Stones Throw)
- Kitty, Daisy & Lewis: Smoking in Heaven (Verve Forecast)
- Kendrick Lamar: Section.80 (Top Dawg Entertainment)
- Sonia Leigh: 1978 December (Southern Ground)
- Let's Wrestle: Nursing Home (Merge)
- M.I.A.: Vicki Leekx (vickileekx.com)
- Andy Petr: Rapper Turned Singer (Mixpak, EP)
- The Roots: Undun (Def Jam)
- Wild Flag: Wild Flag (Merge)
- Yuck: Yuck (Fat Possom)
|
B+(*) |
- British Sea Power: Valhalla Dancehall (Rough Trade)
- Childish Gambino: Camp (Glassnote)
- Danny Paul Grody: In Search of Light (Students of Decay)
- Sean Jones: No Need for Words (Mack Avenue)
- Mazes: A Thousand Heys (Fat Cat)
- The Pains of Being Pure at Heart: Belong (Slumberland)
- Brad Paisley: This is Country Music (Arista Nashville)
- The Postelles: The Postelles (+1)
- Prince Polo: Brooklyn Bodega (DubShot)
- Rose Hill Drive: Americana (Slow and Shirley)
- Sleeping in the Aviary: You and Me, Ghost (Science of Sound)
- Tune-Yards: Whokill (4AD)
|
B |
- The Chain Gang of 1974: Wayward Fire (Modern Art)
- Dum Dum Girls: He Gets Me High (Sub Pop, EP)
- Tracy Nelson: Victim of the Blues (Delta Groove Productions)
- Portugal. The Man: In the Mountain In the Cloud (Atlantic)
- R.E.M.: Collapse Into Now (Warner Bros)
- Smith Westerns: Dye It Blonde (Fat Possom)
|
B- |
- Lykke Li: Wounded Rhymes (Atlantic)
|
U |
- Hayvanlar Alemi: Guarana Superpower (Sublime Frequencies) *
- Antietam: Tenth Life (Carrot Top)
- The Axis of Awesome: Animal Vehicle (Laughspin) *
- Barreracudas: Nocturnal Missions (Douchemaster) *
- Black Keys: El Camino (Nonesuch) *
- James Blackshaw: Holly EP (Important) *
- Blondie: Panic of Girls (Noble ID)
- Harold Budd: In the Mist (Darla)
- Chicago Blues: A Living History: The (R)evolution Continues (Raisin' Music) *
- Evolution Control Committee: All Rights Reserved (Seeland 2010)
- Brain F{/=}: Sleep Rough (Grave Mistake) *
- Fennesz + Sakamoto: Flumina (Touch) *
- Flying Lotus: Cosmogramma Alt Takes (Warp)
- Justice of the Unicorns: Animals Will Be Stoned (Little Lamb)
- Los Massieras: Better Than Italian (Clone) *
- Lunch: Lunch EP (Mightier Than Sword)
- Lupe Fiasco: Friend of the People (no label) *
- Stephen Marley: Revelation Part 1: The Root of Life (Universal/Tough Gong)
- McKnight & Bogdal: Zombie Nation (Indie Extreme)
- Milo: I Wish My Brother Rob Was Here (miloraps.com)
- Milos: Mediterraneo (Deutsche Grammophon)
- Occult: Detective Club Crimes (Alive)
- Prefuse 73: The Only She Chapter (Warp) *
- Resoe: The Black Void of Space (Echocord)
- Pete Rock/Smif N Wessun: Monumental (Duck Down)
- Robert Scott: Ends Run Together (Flying Nun, 2010)
- Shackleton: Fireworks (Honest Jon's) *
- SMM: Context (Ghostly International)
- Omar Souleyman: Haflat Gharbia: The Western Concerts (Sublime Frequencies) *
- Spook Houses: The Home EP (bandcamp.com)
- STS: The Illustrious (stsisgold.com)
- Swimsuit: Swimsuit (Speakertree)
- Thievery Corporation: Culture of Fear (Eighteenth Street)
- Viva Brother: Famous First Words (A&M)
- Dominique Young: Unique Glamorous Touch Mixtape (Art Jam)
- Air Textures Volume 1 (Air Textures)
- Unclassified (Adult Swim)
|
*Looked for album on Rhapsody and didn't find it.
While I was working on the above, Robert Christgau's
year-end list came out. Michael Tatum noted that he had six top-ten
records in common with Christgau. As expected, I had none (at least in
my Pazz & Jop and Expert Witness ballots) -- the list above rates
the McGarrigle's Tell My Sister high enough, and might include
Magical Nights if I allowed 2010 releases (which in this case,
a record that never appeared in my 2010 metacritic file, would be a
pretty reasonable decision).
We can do the same grade chart here as with Gross above:
The huge A- bump, along with the slope of everything else,
shows that we still correlate rather well regardless of the top-10
split -- indeed, much better than I do with Gross.
I reckon I could do a third chart with another long listmaker
Fast 'n' Bulbous,
but it would only show more distance, and more disinterest on my part
in checking out Fester's recommendations. There are categories where
I've heard a fair amount of what's listed -- e.g., Hip Hop/Rap (12/12),
Electro/Dream Pop (13/13), Country/Folk/Americana (10/13),
R&B/Soul/Funk/Dancepop (7/13), Electronica/Techno/Dance (7/13),
but there are also things like Metal (0/13), Doom (0/13, but I looked
for YOB), Stoner Rock (0/13), Psych Rock (1/13, Psychic Paramount),
and Heavy Rock (1/13, Fucked Up); some other stuff is in between,
but the overall list leans toward the things I like least. Not many
other critics go that deep that consistently, but I find it most
interesting when they do.
Monday, January 16, 2012
Music Week
Music: Current count 19294 [19248] rated (+46), 821 [816] unrated (+5).
Big rated week, almost everything coming from Rhapsody or other download
sources (e.g., found some deep underground hip-hop over at bandcamp). All
of that contributed to a huge 87-record Rhapsody Streamnotes. Ignored my
jazz responsibilities: not sure when I'll pick them up again, but I'm not
exactly inundated with new releases.
Metacritic Results
A couple days ago I decided to stop adding new lists to my metacritic
files of
new records and
reissues/vault music.
That left the former with 4622 records, and the latter with 826.
I had put together similar files for several years running, but
this year's file was, if not the largest ever, the most dilligent
and systematic. Throughout the year I tracked
Metacritic and most of
the online semipopular music publications that regularly reviewed
records and provided grades that I could (like Metacritic) convert
into a numbers. Depending on the publication, I decided that a
grade of 70-80 would be counted as a review of interest, and I
dutifully jotted them down for everything except classical music.
I looked at Metacritic weekly, and I looked at nearly everything
else every month or two. I used this research to find records of
personal interest, and jotted my own grades down when I managed
to listen to something -- a subtle but insignificant bias in the
final totals.
Then when people started posting year-end lists -- something
virtually everyone involved in reviewing records winds up doing
sooner or later -- I collected those two, broadening the sweep:
where I tracked 93 sources during the year, I wound up with 414
year-end list sources (some of those producing multiple lists,
so figure at least 500). The number of publications tracked was
significantly up this year, but the number of year-end lists was
down -- in 2010 I counted literally everything I could find, no
matter how ill-informed or sloppy the compilers. This year I was
pickier, looking for established publications and knowledgeable
critics -- especially bloggers confident enough to produce long
lists. If a list came to 100 records, I counted them all, giving
them equal weight. This is arguably the wrong approach if you
want to find the best-liked record of the year, but it does help
find a wider range of records -- and that was my main interest.
(There are some cases where I didn't count records that hadn't
previously made my list -- this especially happened in looking
at foreign lists, which were occasionally thick with unheard of
local releases.)
I picked up lists from all around the world -- the
listserv at Acclaimed Music Forum was a rich resource, especially
as it picked up lists from print publications that were otherwise hard
to find. I avoided local-specific lists: best Canadian releases, best
local Austin bands, etc. I added in most genre-specific lists: again,
eschewing classical music, also so-called Christian music. I wound up
counting a lot of metal lists although I didn't go out of my way to
find them. I did look for electronica, hip-hop, jazz, and country,
and much less successfully for world. For jazz, I wound up counting
all of the year-end lists at JJA, plus most of the ballots to our
recent Jazz Critics Poll. Still, indie rock dominates by a large
margin: that's just where the press is saturated. There's also a UK
bias, thanks to the fact that about half of the English-language
music publications are based there.
What follows is a cleaned up version of the results for the top
100 records. The second column has the total count. Following the
record info are three numbers: the number of top-3 list finishes,
the number of top-10 list finishes, and the number of tracked pubs
that rated the record high and/or included it in a year-end list.
If you click on the arrow, you'll get an abbreviated list of the
top-10 publications (top-3 italicized; the abbreviations and all
of the sources are
here), and you can
toggle the expansion away. Finally, in brackets, you'll find my grade
for the record, which mostly shows that I don't think there is very
much correlation between where a record places and how good it is.
1. | 250 |
Bon Iver: Bon Iver (Jagjaguwar) 10/23/53
{AV, BB, BBC, BG, Bow, CS, EW, F, G, HC, MO, NR, P, Pf, PM, PMA, Px, Q, Sl, Spk, St, U, UR} [*] |
2. | 240 |
PJ Harvey: Let England Shake (Vagrant) 17/23/51
{BBC, BG, Bl, Bow, Cl, CS, Fly, G, Gw, M, Mg, MO, NME, NR, Pf, PM, Q, Qs, S, Sl, St, U, UR} [***] |
3. | 207 |
James Blake: James Blake (Atlas/A&M) 3/7/46
{BB, CS, G, NR, PMA, Spk, TMT} [B] |
4. | 205 |
Fleet Foxes: Helplessness Blues (Sub Pop) 7/14/49
{ATH, CT, EW, F, Gw, M, NR, OTB, P, PM, PMA, RS, Spk, UR} [B-] |
5. | 202 |
Tune-Yards: Whokill (4AD) 4/14/48
{Bow, CMG, CS, CT, G, MO, NME, NR, P, Pf, PM, PMA, Px, Sl} [*] |
6. | 182 |
Tom Waits: Bad as Me (Anti-) 2/6/46
{BBC, BG, Bl, HC, M, Mg} [A-] |
7. | 178 |
Kanye West/Jay-Z: Watch the Throne (Roc-A-Fella) 4/9/38
{AV, BB, HC, Ok, Px, Q, RS, XXL, JG} [A-] |
8. | 170 |
St Vincent: Strange Mercy (4AD) 3/11/41
{AV, CS, MO, NME, NR, OTB, PM, PMA, Q, Sl, UR} [**] |
9. | 168 |
Radiohead: The King of Limbs (XL) 0/4/43
{Cl, PM, RS, U} [B-] |
| 168 |
Wilco: The Whole Love (Anti-) 1/5/40
{AS, AV, HC, P, RS} [**] |
11. | 156 |
Adele: 21 (XL) 5/7/30
{AS, BB, Cl, EW, F, Q, RS} [B] |
12. | 154 |
Destroyer: Kaputt (Merge) 2/6/41
{CS, OTB, Pf, Px, Spk, TMT} [***] |
13. | 153 |
Shabazz Palaces: Black Up (Sub Pop) 4/7/39
{CMG, CS, OTB, PMA, Px, Sl, JG} [**] |
14. | 150 |
The Weeknd: House of Balloons (self-released) 3/13/36
{AV, BB, Blr, CMG, F, Fa, G, HC, Ok, OTB, PM, Sl, St} [A-] |
15. | 147 |
M83: Hurry Up, We're Dreaming (Mute, 2CD) 4/9/26
{CS, F, P, Pf, PM, Spk, St, UR, XL} [B] |
16. | 145 |
Kurt Vile: Smoke Ring for My Halo (Matador) 1/6/36
{BG, EW, NME, NR, Px, S} [*] |
17. | 141 |
Fucked Up: David Comes to Life (Matador) 3/6/43
{AV, BB, CT, PM, Px, S} [A-] |
| 141 |
Girls: Father, Son, Holy Ghost (True Panther/Matador) 0/5/31
{Fly, NR, Pf, PMA, S} [A-] |
19. | 136 |
Lykke Li: Wounded Rhymes (Atlantic) 2/5/41
{Bl, EW, OTB, S, Sl} [B-] |
20. | 135 |
Drake: Take Care (Young Money/Cash Money/Universal Republic) 1/8/32
{BB, Blr, CS, Fa, Pf, Px, St, XXL} [B-] |
21. | 132 |
Real Estate: Days (Domino) 0/6/27
{ATH, AV, Bow, OTB, Pf, Px} [B] |
22. | 127 |
Yuck: Yuck (Fat Possum) 1/2/38
{Mg, UR} [**] |
23. | 120 |
Wild Flag: Wild Flag (Merge) 3/6/36
{Bl, CT, HC, Mg, RS, S} [**] |
24. | 115 |
The Decemberists: The King Is Dead (Capitol) 0/3/30
{AV, P, RS} [B] |
| 115 |
The Roots: Undun (Island Def Jam) 2/2/30
{CT, Ok} [**] |
26. | 111 |
The Antlers: Burst Apart (Frenchkiss) 2/7/33
{ATH, BBC, Fly, HC, MO, OTB, PMA} [***] |
27. | 109 |
The Black Keys: El Camino (Nonesuch) 0/3/25
{AS, Bl, Blr} |
| 109 |
The War on Drugs: Slave Ambient (Secrety Canadian) 0/2/26
{Bl, U} [**] |
29. | 105 |
TV on the Radio: Nine Types of Light (Interscope) 0/0/40 [A-] |
30. | 104 |
The Horrors: Skying (XL) 6/10/31
{BBC, Cl, Fly, Gw, M, MO, NME, OTB, U, UR} [B-] |
| 104 |
Washed Out: Within and Without (Sub Pop) 0/3/29
{BG, F, UR} [***] |
32. | 103 |
Feist: Metals (Cherrytree) 0/1/31
{AS} [B] |
| 103 |
Wild Beasts: Smother (Domino) 2/9/41
{BBC, Fly, M, MO, NME, Qs, Sl, St, U} [*] |
34. | 98 |
EMA: Past Life Martyred Saints (Souterrain Transmissions) 1/2/31
{S, UR} [***] |
35. | 97 |
Panda Bear: Tomboy (Paw Tracks) 0/1/35
{PMA} [B] |
36. | 96 |
Atlas Sound: Parallax (4AD) 0/0/28 [B] |
37. | 92 |
Frank Ocean: Nostalgia, Ultra (mixtape) 2/6/21
{BB, EW, Fa, G, Ok, JG} [A-] |
| 92 |
SBTRKT: SBTRKT (Young Turks) 0/0/20 [***] |
39. | 91 |
Beastie Boys: Hot Sauce Committee Part Two (Capitol) 0/2/37
{Bl, Gw} [***] |
40. | 90 |
Oneohtrix Point Never: Replica (Software) 1/5/29
{Bl, Pf, RA, TMT, XL} [***] |
41. | 89 |
Battles: Gloss Drop (Warp) 0/2/35
{Cl, Fly} [**] |
| 89 |
Beirut: The Rip Tide (Pompeii) 0/1/28
{DS} [B] |
| 89 |
Bill Callahan: Apocalypse (Drag City) 0/1/30
{Mg} |
| 89 |
Gang Gang Dance: Eye Contact (4AD) 0/3/34
{NR, TMT, XL} [B] |
| 89 |
Nicolas Jaar: Space Is Only Noise (Circus) 1/1/22
{RA} [***] |
46. | 85 |
Foo Fighters: Wasting Light (Roswell/RCA) 0/2/32
{CS, K} [B] |
47. | 84 |
Florence + the Machine: Ceremonials (Universal Republic) 2/6/25
{BB, EW, Gw, Q, Spk, UR} [*] |
| 84 |
Iceage: New Brigade (What's Your Rupture?) 0/2/27
{ATH, BBC} [***] |
49. | 83 |
Cults: Cults (Columbia/In the Name Of) 0/0/22 [**] |
50. | 81 |
Gil Scott-Heron/Jamie XX: We're New Here (XL) 0/0/32 [B] |
51. | 80 |
Gillian Welch: The Harrow and the Harvest (Acony) 2/4/24
{AS, BG, PM, U} [**] |
52. | 79 |
Tim Hecker: Ravedeath, 1972 (Kranky) 1/2/28
{CMG, Qs} [*] |
| 79 |
Metronomy: The English Riviera (Because) 5/10/16
{BBC, Cl, DS, Fly, G, Gw, MO, NME, St, U} [*] |
54. | 76 |
Beyonce: 4 (Columbia) 0/3/21
{BBC, BG, G} [C] |
| 76 |
Mastodon: The Hunter (Reprise) 1/1/26
{K} [B-] |
56. | 75 |
Bjork: Biophilia (One Little Indian) 0/1/33
{MO} [B-] |
57. | 74 |
Ryan Adams: Ashes and Fire (Pax-Am/Capitol) 0/1/22
{HC} [*] |
58. | 73 |
Paul Simon: So Beautiful or So What (Hear Music) 2/3/29
{AS, RS, JG} [***] |
| 73 |
Smith Westerns: Dye It Blonde (Fat Possum) 0/1/30
{Fly} [B] |
60. | 72 |
Laura Marling: A Creature I Don't Know (Virgin) 0/1/28
{St} [*] |
| 72 |
My Morning Jacket: Circuital (ATO) 1/3/25
{Cl, EW, P} [B-] |
62. | 71 |
Kate Bush: 50 Words for Snow (Anti-) 0/1/26
{M} [B] |
| 71 |
Zomby: Dedication (4AD) 0/4/28
{Bow, Cl, RA, XL} [***] |
64. | 70 |
Toro y Moi: Underneath the Pine (Carpark) 0/0/27 [**] |
65. | 69 |
Kendrick Lamar: Section.80 (Top Dawg Entertainment) 0/2/13
{Ok, XXL} [**] |
| 69 |
John Maus: We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves (Ribbon) 0/1/18
{TMT} [B-] |
67. | 67 |
The Field: Looping State of Mind (Kompakt) 0/0/21 |
68. | 66 |
Anna Calvi: Anna Calvi (Domino) 0/2/22
{M, UR} [**] |
| 66 |
Tyler, the Creator: Goblin (XL) 0/1/19
{Blr} [*] |
70. | 65 |
Elbow: Build a Rocket Boys! (Fiction/Polydor) 0/2/30
{F, Q} [B] |
| 65 |
Lady Gaga: Born This Way (Streamline/Interscope) 1/2/21
{RS, Sl} [***] |
| 65 |
Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks: Mirror Traffic (Matador) 0/1/32
{Mg} [*] |
| 65 |
Youth Lagoon: The Year of Hibernation (Fat Possum) 0/0/16 [*] |
74. | 64 |
Ambrose Akinmusire: When the Heart Emerges Glistening (Blue Note) 1/1/8
{JT} [**] |
| 64 |
Iron and Wine: Kiss Each Other Clean (4AD) 0/0/32 [*] |
| 64 |
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart: Belong (Slumberland) 0/0/29 [*] |
77. | 63 |
Arctic Monkeys: Suck It and See (Domino) 0/3/24
{Gw, NME, Q} [B-] |
| 63 |
Mogwai: Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will (Sub Pop) 0/0/27 [**] |
| 63 |
Raphael Saadiq: Stone Rollin' (Columbia) 1/2/24
{BG, CT} [A-] |
80. | 62 |
Wye Oak: Civilian (Merge) 2/3/17
{ATH, AV, Mg} [B] |
81. | 61 |
Cut Copy: Zonoscope (Modular) 0/0/20 [B] |
| 61 |
Low: C'Mon (Sub Pop) 0/1/23
{AV} [C+] |
83. | 59 |
Austra: Feel It Break (Domino) 0/1/22
{St} [*] |
84. | 57 |
ASAP Rocky: LiveLoveASAP (RCA/Polo Grounds Music) 0/1/12
{F} [***] |
| 57 |
Katy B: On a Mission (Columbia/Rinse) 1/5/24
{G, NME, NR, Qs, Sl} [*] |
| 57 |
Colin Stetson: New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges (Constellation) 1/2/13
{CMG, TMT} [A-] |
87. | 55 |
Josh T Pearson: Last of the Country Gentlemen (Mute) 0/3/16
{BBC, M, U} [B] |
| 55 |
Sonny Rollins: Road Shows Vol 2 (Doxy/Decca) 1/1/5
{JT} [A-] |
| 55 |
WU LYF: Go Tell Fire to the Mountain (LYF) 0/3/18
{NME, OTB, Q} |
90. | 54 |
The Kills: Blood Pressures (Domino) 0/1/22
{Cl} [**] |
| 54 |
Peaking Lights: 936 (Not Not Fun) 0/0/10 [**] |
92. | 53 |
Big KRIT: ReturnOf4Eva (mixtape) 0/0/12 |
| 53 |
Little Dragon: Ritual Union (Peacefrog) 1/1/21
{Ok} [*] |
94. | 52 |
Thurston Moore: Demolished Thoughts (Matador) 0/0/27 [*] |
| 52 |
Zola Jesus: Conatus (Sacred Bones) 0/0/21 |
96. | 51 |
Black Lips: Arabia Mountain (Vice) 0/1/24
{F} [*] |
| 51 |
Miguel Zenon: Alma Adentro: The Puerto Rican Songbook (Marsalis Music) 0/1/4
{JT} [***] |
98. | 50 |
Dum Dum Girls: Only in Dreams (Sub Pop) 0/1/18
{BG} [B] |
| 50 |
The Joy Formidable: The Big Roar (Canvasback/Atlantic) 0/1/23
{BB} |
| 50 |
Tinariwen: Tassili (Anti-) 0/0/23 [A-] |
There are three or four jazz records in the top 100 -- Akinmusire,
Rollins, Zenon, you decide about Stetson. Their tracked counts are very
low, basically because it was hard to find jazz magazines to track, but
they cracked the list because I had a lot of individual jazz critic
lists. I could 13 hip-hop or r&b records on this list -- 4 of which
were download only (Weeknd, Frank Ocean, ASAP Rocky, Big KRIT). Further
down the list: Clams Casino, Danny Brown, Charles Bradley, Das Racist,
Childish Gambino (all close at 41-48).
Electronica placed 11 records, although the electro-pop borderlands
are hard for me to gauge, so maybe less (M83, Little Dragon). Off the
list includes Rustie, Balam Acab, Justice, Kuedo, and Andy Stott, but
the dropoff is sharper here.
Country didn't fare so well. The only thing country-ish that cracked
the top 100 was Gillian Welch, leaving off the list: Pistol Annies, Hayes
Carll, Lucinda Williams, Eric Church, Miranda Lambert, and that hideous
Glen Campbell album (at 25). The only world album to hit the list was
Tinariwen, and just barely. Runner up was Bombino (way down with 16).
I also bothered to do a breakout for metal, which strikes me as at least
as cliquish as any other genre, and probably more so. Only top-100 was
Mastodon, with Liturgy (38) and Wolves in the Thron Room (35) well back.
Only one I bothered to listen to was Mastodon -- nothing there I ever
want to hear again.
The reissues list is way spottier than the new releases list, and
got swamped by jazz votes near the end, pushing Julius Hemphill and
Bill Dixon into a thicket of expanded rock reissues. Most of the press
doesn't cover reissues at all, and those who do don't do a very good
job of it. Further down, there is a lot of fodder for Recycled Goods
if only I were able to get the records and find the time, but neither
appear to be in the cards.
In theory, the metacritic file should do a fairly good job of
predicting the results of the Pazz & Jop critics poll, but I
have my doubts this year (but we will find out real soon now). One
persistent problem is that I don't score more for placing higher
on a list, whereas P&J does. The result is that a broad-based
record will lead one that is intensely favored by slightly fewer
voters. In the recent past, my file listed Arcade Fire over Kanye
West, and Phoenix over Animal Collective -- two wrong conclusions,
although both were easy to predict by looking at the ranks. Same
thing would seem to be happening this year: PJ Harvey should easily
beat out Bon Iver, and indeed on
Metacritic's own list summary does so handily (Bon Iver slips
to third, behind Adele, which I have stuck in 11th; Adele wasn't
reviewed all that well initially, but after selling 5 or 6 million
copies critics seem to be warming to it). The problem here is that
PJ Harvey has a huge advantage with UK critics, whereas Bon Iver
does slightly better in the US, and P&J is an American poll.
James Blake and Radiohead also have slight UK biases -- much less
so than Harvey -- so Bon Iver's only practical challengers are
rather far back in the pack: Fleet Foxes, Tune-Yards, Tom Waits,
Kanye West/Jay-Z, St. Vincent, Wilco, and I suppose you could just
as well throw in Adele, Shabazz Palaces, or the Weeknd (the big
story of the year was the free downloads, and the big winner there
is House of Balloons).
Hanging around Christgau's Expert Witness discussion list, I
initially expected Tune-Yards to be the record to beat. It's no
doubt a contender -- finished 4th at Metacritic -- and it has both
broad and intensive support, but not nearly as much of the latter
as I had expected. Watch the Throne is a record that got
mild reviews -- probably some rebound from My Beautiful Dark
Twisted Fantasy -- but has gained ground in year-end lists.
In most years, two or three crossover rap albums get more support
in P&J than in the metacritic file, so there's a good chance
that it, Shabazz Palaces, Drake, and Roots will get something of
a bump, but I've scoured the hip-hop lists pretty well so they
could just as well have it already.
The only other big movement I'm sure we'll see wtih P&J is
Paul Simon -- tied for 58 on my list, certainly top-40 and possibly
top-20 at P&J. Other than that it's hard to say. Two records
that finished strong that I can't credit are M83 and Real Estate:
I don't see anything attractive about either, and find it hard to
imagine what it might be. (Beirut is another one, but looks to be
on its way down.) The Horrors is a big UK thing, so expect them to
drop (and take Wild Beasts with them, if not Florence or Laura
Marling). I expect Frank Ocean will do better -- he's Weeknd's
main competition, and I know a lot of people who prefer him. Two
more possible gainers: SBTRKT and Oneohtrix Point Never. I'll
also admit that the main reason I voted for Sonny Rollins was to
see if we can push a jazz record into the top-40. Looks like a
long shot, but not out of the question.
More after P&J, as I try to close out the year.
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Weekend Roundup
Some scattered links I squirreled away during the previous week
(or two):
Steve Benen: Friday's Mini-Report:
It's a good thing Obama didn't listen to Republicans on the auto industry:
"Chrysler will add 1,250 jobs at two Detroit factories next year -- another
sign that the once struggling automaker appears to be making a comeback."
It's a good thing Obama didn't listen to his own advisers -- principally
Austin Goolsbee -- when they recommended that he let Chrysler fold. They
argued that doing so would help General Motors, and wouldn't be a problem
because General Motors would pick up the unemployed Chrysler workers. To
my mind, this was the single most craven revelation in Ron Suskind's The
Confidence Men. Obama was initially persuaded, but backed down after
someone pointed out how insane this was.
Henry Farrell: Lilla v. Robin: Count me among those who disliked
Mark Lilla's review of Corey Robin's The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism
From Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin. I picked up a copy of Robin's book
shortly after it came out. I haven't gotten around to it, but I understand
the central thesis is that conservatives (at least from Burke on) all
share one essential trait: their desire to defend the upper class against
any challenges from the riff-raff. The upper class may be capitalists or
slave owners -- or, if he bothered to look that far, Soviet commissars --
but the instinct is the same. Lilla made a big show of arguing that there
are differences between conservatives as if that invalidated Robin's point,
then dismissed the book with a flurry of invective. I had never heard of
Lilla before, so Henry's post helps frame my annoyance. Also includes this
interesting paragraph:
Al-Ghazali, as quoted by Ernest Gellner, puts Mannheim's point more pithily --
"the genuine traditionalist does not know that he is one; he who proclaims
himself to be one, no longer is one." But what I don't know (and can't tell
from the book) is how much of this agonism is unique to conservatism's
intersection with liberalism, and how much is a generic product of the
competitive pressures of political conflict. The left and the right shape
each other as they fight. Conservatives read Saul Alinsky. Markos Moulitsas,
when he started trying to organize the netroots, was partly inspired by the
Goldwater movement (as depicted in Rick Perlstein's Before the Storm).
To really get at the questions that I think (perhaps I'm wrong) Robin is
interested in, you would need an intellectual history not of the left, or
the right, but of how they have shaped each other, and how each has
separately been defined by the struggle between them. This would allow
you better to figure out which parts of conservatism are uniquely
reactionary, and which parts are simply reactive.
It's certainly hard to think of any significant movement in US history
that has been more obscured and distorted than the New Left, in large
part because so much of the post-1970 right was defined by its hatred
of the civil rights, antiwar, women's, and environmental movements.
Still, such reaction wouldn't have gained any traction without aligning
with the class interests of the rich, which is again the key point.
Mike Konczal: An Interview with Josh Kosman on the Embeddedness of
Private Equity in the Tax Code: Related to the Romney/Bain stuff
elsewhere. Kosman's The Buyout of America: How Private Equity
Is Destroying Jobs and Killing the American Economy is one of
the first books to check out on how private equity firms work --
and given its scant attention paid to Bain won't be the last.
Private equity and buyouts started as a way to take advantage of tax
gimmicks, not as a way of saying "we're going to turn around companies."
And now it's out of control. I look at the 10 largest deals done in the
1990s, during ideal economic times, and in six cases it was clear that
the company was worse off than if they never been acquired. Moody's just
put out a report in December that looked at the 40 largest buyouts of
this era and showed that their revenue was growing at 4 percent since
their buyout, while comparable companies were growing at 14 percent.
In January -- so just in the past 12 days -- Hostess, the largest
bakery in the country, just went bankrupt. Coach, the largest bus company,
just went bankrupt. And Quizno's is about to go bankrupt. All of these
were owned by private equity.
Paul Krugman: Untruths, Wholly Untrue, and Nothing but Untruths:
I was deeply radicalized by the 2000 election. At first I couldn't believe
that then-candidate George W. Bush was saying so many clearly, provably
false things; then I couldn't believe that nobody in the news media was
willing to point out the lies. (At the time, the Times actually told me
that I couldn't use the l-word either). That was when I formulated my
"views differ on shape of planet" motto.
Now, however, Mitt Romney seems determined to rehabilitate Bush's
reputation, by running a campaign so dishonest that it makes Bush look
like a model of truth-telling.
I mean, is there anything at all in Romney's stump speech that's true?
It's all based on attacking Obama for apologizing for America, which he
didn't, on making deep cuts in defense, which he also didn't, and on being
a radical redistributionist who wants equality of outcomes, which he isn't.
When the issue turns to jobs, Romney makes false assertions both about
Obama's record and about his own. I can't find a single true assertion
anywhere.
And he keeps finding new frontiers of falsehood. The good people at
CBPP find him asserting, with regard to programs aiding low-income
Americans, that
What unfortunately happens is with all the multiplicity of federal
programs, you have massive overhead, with government bureaucrats in
Washington administering all these programs, very little of the money
that's actually needed by those that really need help, those that
can't care for themselves, actually reaches them.
which is utterly, totally untrue. Administrative costs are actually
quite small, and between 91 and 99 percent of spending, depending on
the program, does in fact go to beneficiaries.
I'll add that it's private charities that have trouble delivering
a majority of what they raise to their putative recipients. (Part of
their problem is scale, most is the cost of fundraising, and some is
due to lack of accountability.)
For a top-ten list, see
Steve Benen: Chronicling Mitt's Mendacity.
Also see Krugman's column,
America Isn't a Corporation. The basic points should be clear to
anyone, but bear reiterating. As for Romney:
Now, to be fair, being a career politician isn't necessarily a better
preparation for managing economic policy than being a businessman. But
Mr. Romney is the one claiming that his career makes him especially
suited for the presidency. Did I mention that the last businessman to
live in the White House was a guy named Herbert Hoover? (Unless you
count former President George W. Bush.)
And there's also the question of whether Mr. Romney understands
the difference between running a business and managing an economy.
Like many observers, I was somewhat startled by his latest defense
of his record at Bain -- namely, that he did the same thing the Obama
administration did when it bailed out the auto industry, laying off
workers in the process. One might think that Mr. Romney would rather
not talk about a highly successful policy that just about everyone in
the Republican Party, including him, denounced at the time.
But what really struck me was how Mr. Romney characterized President
Obama's actions: "He did it to try to save the business." No, he didn't;
he did it to save the industry, and thereby to save jobs that would
otherwise have been lost, deepening America's slump. Does Mr. Romney
understand the distinction?
Romney probably likes the GM/Chrysler example because Obama's team
did in fact steal a few pages from the private equity handbook there,
so it's something he can understand in his own way: they did force some
executives out, close some plants and lay off workers, and cajole the
unions into reducing costs; but they didn't saddle the companies with
unsustainable debt, and they didn't pile on huge management fees to
instantly recoup their investment. Consequently, the industry emerged
from the process healthier, whereas had Bain or their ilk been involved
they would have been left off in far worse shape.
Let me add two arguments I have, not with what Krugman said but with
what he didn't. One is that Romney is not a typical businessman. Most
people who run businesses preside over organizations meant to produce
useful goods or services and try to make a comfortable profit doing so.
Romney, private equity investors like him, and their financial allies,
are fundamentally parasites and predators. They look for the margins
between what a company can be bought for and how much cash can be sucked
out of it how quick, and when they find one they devour it, reaping
quick profits and almost invariably leaving the company depleted and
often defunct. To such people, taking over the government looks like
a license to steal -- if not just for oneself, then also for one's
friends (e.g., with Bush père left office he landed at Carlyle Group,
one of the world's largest private equity firms).
The other question is whether government should be run
like a business. That's a big one I can't begin to do justice to
here, but the answer is no, and there are lots of reasons. One way
to look at this is that capitalism is necessarily unstable, so you
need some way of counterbalancing its excesses: to stimulate demand
when it slacks, to pop bubbles when they emerge, to keep businesses
honest, to protect workers, to provide services that businesses can't
(or shouldn't) because they can't (or shouldn't) be gated, or even
because we jointly want to do something without thinking of the
bottom line.
One more bit of Krugman on
Romney and the Bailout:
So what the story of Romney and the auto bailout actually shows is
something we already knew from health care: he's a smart guy who is
also a moral coward. His original proposal for the auto industry,
like his health reform, bore considerable resemblance to what Obama
actually did. But when the deed took place, Romney -- rather than
having the courage to say that the president was actually doing
something reasonable -- joined the rest of his party in whining
and denouncing the plan.
And now he wants to claim credit for the very policy he trashed
when it hung in the balance.
Andrew Leonard: The Long Overdue Downfall of Gordon Gekko:
Of course, he means Mitt Romney:
Like Gekko, Romney made his fortune buying and selling companies; and
like Gekko, he believes that his "greed is good" version of rough-and-tumble
creative destruction is a positive force for America, weeding out the bad
performers and nurturing lean-and-mean profit engines. If you are looking
for the paradigmatic exemplar of the new style of capitalism mogul launched
by the Reagan revolution, Romney is your man. Michael Douglas' Gordon Gekko
is merely ersatz.
The shock is to see Newt Gingrich and his financial backers channeling
the Oliver Stone critique so passionately and wholeheartedly. If you have
not seen the three-minute advertisement "When Romney Came to Town," the
soon-to-be debuted documentary lambasting Romney as the enemy of the
American worker, prepare to be flabbergasted.
"Their greed was only matched by their willingness to do anything to
make millions in profits."
"This film is about one such raider and his firm."
"His mission: To reap massive rewards for himself and his investors.
"Romney took foreign seed money from Latin America, and began a pattern
exploiting dozens of American businesses."
And so on. Michael Moore doesn't sting this hard, and MoveOn isn't
this angry. If Romney, as expected, ends up winning the Republican
nomination, Obama's campaign team can relax.
Much is being made of whether Gingrich has broken some sort of
unspoken code of Republican primary collegiality by declaring class
warfare on Romney. As Jonathan Chait argues, you can question whether
a fellow GOP candidate is a true conservative, but to call him a
"plunderer" is, or should be, beyond the pale. Plundering is what
capitalism is all about! The free market is supposed to be built on
the principle of unrestrained plunderation. Or it would be, if
Democrats didn't keep getting in the way with their socialist-leaning
regulations. [ . . . ]
What the Wall Street Journal euphemistically calls "the rougher
side of American capitalism," in its Monday article examining the
legacy of Bain Capital, is suddenly no longer in fashion. And there
is no better proof of this than the spectacle of one of the great
culture warriors of our time, Newt Gingrich, defecting to the other
side.
His treason won't help his sorry campaign, and won't deflect Romney's
path to the nomination, but it is still well worth our attention. Because
the power of its attack highlights Romney's biggest vulnerability. In the
32 years since Ronald Reagan was elected president, there has never
been more widely expressed antagonism and anger toward the practitioners
of corporate-raider, leveraged-buyout, excessively compensated CEO,
shareholder-value capitalism than there is now.
And that's Mitt Romney. That is who he is. He can flip-flop about
everything else, but there's no way to wriggle out of his essential
nature. He's the 1 percent -- even Newt Gingrich says so.
My emphasis added.
Leonard has another related piece:
A Romney Showdown: Krugman Versus Brooks: mostly on David Brooks,
since it's more interesting to talk about wrong than right:
With this column, Brooks settles, once and for all, the question of
whether he himself is an elitist. And not just any run-of-the-mill
elitist! No, Brooks is a heroic, truth-telling elitist, with the
courage to say what conventional wisdom about American discourse
declares verboten!
In sum, great presidents are often aristocrats and experienced political
insiders. They experience great setbacks. They feel the presence of God's
hand on their every move.
Unfortunately, we're not allowed to talk about these things openly
these days. We disdain elitism, political experience and explicit God-talk.
Great failure is considered "baggage" in today's campaign lingo.
I wonder, why might Americans disdain elitism? Could it have something
to do with our history, our defining identity as a people who rebelled
against monarchy? Could it be that one of our core values, at least until
recently, is the idea that anyone, no matter what family they were born
into, or how wealthy they are, or what prep school they attended, has (at
least theoretically) the potential and opportunity to rise to the highest
office in the land?
Brooks doesn't weigh in on whether Romney qualifies as a true blueblooded
aristocrat -- although, given the fact that his father was a governor and
car company CEO, the implication is obvious. What's equally obvious, however,
is the slam at Obama, who was raised by a single mother and enjoyed none
of the advantages that were mother's milk to Romney.
Alex Pareene: Romney's Rivals All Become Socialists, to Horror of Conservatives:
Subtitle: "GOP candidates trash capitalism, and good on them."
Perry added that "there is something inherently wrong when getting rich
off failures and sticking it to someone else is how you do your business,"
which is basically a wholesale rejection of the free market system.
(Even the reasonable Jon Huntsman got shrill: "Governor Romney enjoys
firing people. I enjoy creating jobs.")
Sarah Palin is among those attempting to stanch the bleeding by blaming
the bad old liberal media for attacking Romney for his success, but everyone
can plainly see who's actually responsible.
National Review's Jim Geraghty complains that the candidates now all
sound like Occupiers. The Club for Growth is pissed at Newt for his
anti-Bain Capital attacks. Phil Klein accuses Romney's rivals of Marxist
rhetoric. Avik Roy diagnoses Romney derangement syndrome. (The American
Spectator literally calls for Gingrich to be investigated for violating
campaign finance law for perhaps coordinating with a Super PAC. What
happened to the absolute defense of campaign funding as speech?)
It looks like Republican opinion leaders are beginning to coalesce
around Romney due in part to disgust over anti-capitalist attacks being
levied against him. Of course, his rivals wouldn't be pushing this line
if they didn't think it was effective. The irony is that the Republican
candidates are shameless enough to embrace the exact arguments
conservatives and centrists have successfully shamed liberals out
of making.
John Quiggin: Blogging the Zombies: Expansionary Austerity -- After the Zombies:
A draft chapter to append to the forthcoming paperback edition of
Quiggin's fine book, Zombie Economics: How Dead Ideas Still Walk
Among Us. Key paragraph here (my emphasis added to key line):
Expansionary austerity is not simply a zombie economic idea. It
forms the basis of a political strategy of class war, undertaken by
the financial and political elite (the "1 per cent") to hold on to the
wealth and power they accumulated during the decades of market liberalism,
and to shift the costs of their own failure on to the rest of the
population. An effective response must similarly combine an
economic analysis with a policy program and a political movement to
mobilise resistance to the push for austerity.
In other words, it is a political ploy disguised as economics.
The problems with writing a chapter which tries to treat it as a
matter of economics is that without its politics there is no idea
there. Simply put, recessions occur when large numbers of people
stop spending, either because they don't have and cannot borrow
the money, or because they have a liquidity preference not to do
so. Recessions end when people start spending again. Governments
can help mitigate or even end a recession by deliberately making
up the missing spending. Austerity is the argument that government
should not do so, and in fact should contract like the private
sector. By further reducing spending, the only thing austerity
can do in the short term is to deepen and prolong the recession.
So how can anyone think austerity can ever be expansionary? As
best I can reckon, the answer depends on three highly implausible
assumptions, each having more to do with political interests than
with economics. First, austerity can only be expansionary in the
long run: since by any analysis you're digging a short term hole,
you're expecting something so good to happen later that it will
more than make up for short-term sacrifice. (Keynes, you should
recall, was notoriously dismissive of such arguments, reminding
us that in the long run we're all dead.) Second, you assume that
all economic growth results from investor confidence: that the
economy can't grow until the rich are ready to invest again, and
that as soon as they are it will grow spectacularly without any
of the distortions government intervention would inject. And third,
you assume that no permanent harm will come from prolonging the
recession: for instance, you assume that idling workers won't
cause their skills to atrophy, that education cuts won't reduce
the skill levels of the workforce, that reduced health care won't
undermine public health, that neglecting infrastructure won't
reduce its value, that prolonged hardships won't kick back in the
form of crime or revolt, and so forth.
I can't see any way for austerity to prove its benefits, but
I'm handicapped by viewing people as having both substantial needs
and a democratic claim on the nation's wealth, and because I view
workers as having at least as much to do with the generation of
that wealth as anyone else (and probably a good deal more). The
proponents of austerity, on the other hand, are remarkably keen
on marginalizing everyone else. In fact, their economic theory
tells them that recessions would automatically self-correct if
only labor costs would drop to whatever level allowed immediate
profitability rather than be obstructed by unemployment-producing
strictures like minimum wage law. (Again, this is a major point
where Keynes proved not that it shouldn't or couldn't work but
that it doesn't.)
While conservatives like to argue that whatever is convenient
for them now is in line with timeless principles, the main effect
of austerity programs is to delay, and the action conservatives
most want to delay is anything that redistributes wealth, even at
a trivial level. For example, unemployment benefits, food stamps,
any sort of income support helps prevent the labor market from
collapsing, allowing the unemployed to hold out for decent wages,
and reducing downward wage pressure on the employed. Businessmen
look at their own labor costs as lost profit, but don't seem to
be able to grasp that lower wages for everyone reduces demand and
locks them into a death spiral. That view is pure politics.
There are reasons why austerity arguments have some appeal,
and those do involve zombie economic ideas -- e.g., the idea that
government should be run like a corporation. But the main idea
is based on pure faith: if we just let nature run its course, we
will rebound from this recession like we've rebounded from every
past one. This is one idea that could be not just wrong but
disastrously so. One big reason recessions in the past didn't
persist was because external factors promised opportunities for
growth: people, land, resources, energy, technology, access to
markets, all those things used to be expanding even when the
economy panicked. All those factors are approaching limits now,
and that in turn limits the opportunities for investors. We've
seen how recovery from the last three or four recessions has
been increasingly protracted, with long delays in recovering
employment levels, and no net wage growth over the last 30
years. Meanwhile, in searching for ever higher profits, the
rich has turned increasingly to financial tricks -- indeed,
one of the big problems with monetary stimulus is that when
we pump more money into the financial system very little of
it ever gets into the real economy, which makes the approach
vastly inefficient. Such stimulus only adds to the inequality
problem, which like austerity aims at impoverishing workers
but winds up hollowing out the entire economy. I suspect that
it has already become the case that the only way to actually
grow the economy out of its recession is through a massive
redistribution of wealth. We're a long ways from having the
political insight to do that, but part of the process is
extirpating the economic zombies Quiggins writes about: the
whole hoary theory of "expansionary austerity" chief among
them.
Expert Comments
My notice:
Since no one else mentioned it, I guess I will: Rhapsody
Streamnotes up on my site -- a big one with 87 new records, few of
which are really good but most of which have their cult fans. Last
week I've been working furiously on the metacritic file, and feel like
I'm done with it now. I'll write something up on it next week --
certainly something post-P&J since I'm curious how many records get
votes there but didn't appear in my list. I'll be surprised if many
do, given that my list is 4622 records long (+826 in the reissues,
etc., complement). My own year-end list has topped 1000 new
records. (Just tried one quick way to count it all and came up with
1321, which would include 100 or so still unrated items, plus a bit of
noise, so 1200 might be a real number.) Still, IMO best thing I wrote
this week was a note on "expansionary austerity." That should be up
later today, pushing all those little notes further into
obscurity.
Saturday, January 14, 2012
Rhapsody Streamnotes (January 2012)
Pick up text here.
Friday, January 13, 2012
Expert Comments
Threw this out:
At the risk of tipping my hand, here are three records from my
soon-to-be-posted Rhapsody Streamnotes that I'm a bit worried about
overrating, mostly because they're way outside my bailiwick (and are
therefore things I doubt I'd ever wind up playing much no matter how
good they sound), and because by design I only give them one or two
plays.
- La Dispute: Wildlife (No Sleep)
- The Front Bottoms: The Front Bottoms (Bar/None)
- Limousines: Get Sharp (Dangerbird)
Recommendations for the last two came from Jason Gross's Ye Wei Blog --
his 2010 year-end list yielded 6-8 surprise winners so I picked through
his 2011 list pretty thoroughly (but only came up with these two). La
Dispute (from Grand Rapids, MI) has broader support, but it's mostly from
hard rock mags I have no use for like Kerrang and Sputnik --
I didn't look at it seriously until it showed up in a more interesting
list (#7 at The Needle Drop). All three are on Rhapsody.
Public question about what one listened to in high school:
I didn't go to high school, but in junior high I favored the
Rolling Stones over the Beatles, had some Kinks and Yardbirds lps, had
singles (but no albums) by Bob Dylan and James Brown. Motown was the
only thing I could ever dance to, but I didn't own any until
later. During my hermit years I bought books but virtually no music --
the Band is about all I recall. In the 1970s I flipped the other
way. Most influential were Velvet Underground, Parliament, Ornette
Coleman, and George Jones -- my mother started talking to me again
after I discovered George Jones. Oh, and Ducks Deluxe; gotta mention
Ducks Deluxe.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Expert Comments
Someone opined: "Anyone who makes a worst albums list for 2011 and
doesn't include Chris Brown in the mix, doesn't go far enough." I had
a few things to say on this:
I have Chris Brown sandwiched in my list between Björk and Zebrahead,
like them a mere B- (possibly unfair to Biophilia, which
reportedly is intended to be something more than just a music stream).
Lots more down below them, and I don't even go looking for bad albums.
Seems to me that if you really wanted to write up a "worst albums" list
you should do some research. For instance, the 3rd worst album I ran
across this year was Thompson Square -- an eponymous country act
determined to be lamer and smarmier than Lady Antebellum. Yet I found
two records I thought even worse: Mark Moultrip's Relaxin' . . . on
the Edge, and People Like Us, Welcome Aboard. Still, those
records weren't totally devoid of merit: I rated them D+, but
they are challenges to anyone who wants to construct such a list.
As it happens, I was looking at PopMatters'
Worst Album list last night, wondering whether I should count them
as backhanded compliments. Some, like Lady Gaga (7), seem to be. Some
just strike me as pack mentality: Lupe Fiasco (3) seems to have set
himself up for a drubbing by publicly fighting with his record company --
some critics take that sort of thing as an excuse to pile on. LMFAO (9)
is another one that's fashionable to trash -- the Sorry in the
title is the first hint. Then there are things like Owl City (10) that
are an affront to literacy, and Goblin (4) which if you take at
all seriously is innately detestable. Brown (2) almost gives us a
perfect storm of all the reasons that make it easy for people to dump
on an album, including that it really is pretty bad. Only Lulu,
which has swept virtually all such lists this year, proved more
irresistible.
Still, PopMatters bothered to come up with two records I hadn't
heard of, which do appear to be truly awful: a death metal record,
Ilud Divinum Insanus, by Morbid Angel, and something I can't
begin to classify by a group called Triumph of Lethargy Skinned
Alive to Death. That's a good deal more digging than most such
lists show -- they're more likely to merely expose are the prejudices
and limitations of the critic. (Look at the bottom of my list and
you'll surely find some of mine.)
Nate Smith (sharpsm) responded:
I actually have Tom Hull's Worst Album Of The Year. How cool is that?
And indeed, Welcome Abroad is pretty horrible. One of those
found-sound/sample/mash-up things, only completely inept, and boring.
It's kind of cute in small doses (Julie Andrews sings "The Sound Of
Music" over The Doors' "The End" -- haw haw HAW!), but listening to
more than ten minutes at a time is indistinguishable from torture
(or being in a Car Stereo showroom). Bad album.
Worst Of The Year though? On the plus side, it's a free download
at illegalart.net (pay-what-you-want, which is the same thing to me),
so you don't end up wasting anything more valuable than an hour of
your life. For sheer take-it-off-or-kill-me morally-bankrupt awfulness
that lists at $12 for the Deluxe version, nothing I've heard this year
beats Goblin.
Jon LaFollette came up with his worst of 2011 list:
Oh, and here is my list of the 20 worst albums from 2011. It's
not definitive, but I wouldn't be friends with anyone who listens
to these for their own enjoyment.
- Chris Brown - F.A.M.E.
- Nickelback - Here And Now
- OAR - King
- 311 - Universal Pulse
- Gym Class Hereos - The Papercut Chronicles II
- SuperHeavy - Self Titled
- Metallica & Lou Reed - Lulu
- Kelly Rowland - Here I Am
- Jessie J - Who You Are
- The Game - Purp & Patron
- Sum 41 - Screaming Bloody Murder
- Avril Lavigne - Goodbye Lullaby
- The Head & The Heart - Self Titled
- Incubus - If Not Now, When?
- Daughtry - Break the Spell
- All Time Low - Dirty Work
- The Wonder Years - Suburbia, I've Given You All and Now I Am Nothing
- Lady Antebellum - Own The Night
- Trace Adkins - Proud to Be Here
- Rise Against - Endgame
For the record, I own 0 and have heard 4 of those:
Chris Brown [B-],
Jessie J [B],
Avril Lavigne [*],
Trace Adkins [B]. I wrote:
I've heard four of Jon LaFollette's 20 worst (Adkins, Brown, Jessie
J, Lavigne). Didn't think the latter was nearly as bad as its reviews,
but it's down past line 700 on my 2011 list, so I don't think our nascent
friendship is endangered.
Only record I can recall from my birth year is
Subconscious-Lee, but since I don't think the LP had been
invented I'm not clear on how (or when) it was released.
MitchF mentioned an error message at my website (errno 35 while
trying to connect to mysql):
The aformentioned error message is a temporary resource allocation
problem, where temporary can persist for hours. I just tried bringing
up the blog and it was extremely slow but eventually successful. That
tells me it's not broken enough that the technical staff can fix
it. Errors like this pop up every few months, and the staff seem to be
clueless: a couple days after it starts working again they usually
send me a message back that says it's working now, with no admission
let alone explanation of it not working. Lately I've also seen http
connect errors, which are also temporary but lock out the entire
site. If I was Mitt Romney I suppose I'd just fire them, but the
bigger advantage of being Mitt Romney would be being able to afford
someone much better.
El Intruso Jazz Critics Poll
Responses to El Intruso's jazz critics poll (up to three per slot):
- Musician of the year: William Parker, Gerry Hemingway, Ivo Perelman
- Newcomer Musician: Darren Johnston, Carlo De Rosa
- Group of the year: Mostly Other People Do the Killing
- Newcomer group: Inzinzac, Honey Ear Trio
- Album of the year: Dan Raphael/Rich Halley/Carson Halley: Children of the Blue Supermarket (Pine Eagle); Avram Fefer: Eliyahu (Not Two); Allen Lowe: Blues and the Empirical Truth (Music & Arts)
- Composer: Tyshawn Sorey, Michael Bates
- Drums: Gerry Hemingway, Tom Rainey, Lewis Nash
- Bass: William Parker, John Hebert, Ken Filiano
- Guitar: Luis Lopes, Raoul Bjorkenheim, Marc Ducret
- Piano: Myra Melford, Kris Davis, Satoko Fujii
- Keyboards/synthesizer/organ: Brian Charette, Gary Versace
- Saxophone: David Murray, Ellery Eskelin, Dave Rempis
- Trumpet/Cornet: Dennis Gonzalez, Ralph Alessi, Matt Lavelle
- Clarinet: Michael Moore, Perry Robinson, Mort Weiss
- Trombone: Roswell Rudd, Steve Swell, Joe Fiedler
- Violin/Viola: Jason Kao Hwang
- Cello: Erik Friedlander
- Vibraphone: Jason Adasiewicz
- Others instruments
- Female vocals: Sheila Jordan
- Male Vocals: Freddy Cole
- Best live band: Vandermark 5
- Record Label: Clean Feed, Cuneiform, AUM Fidelity
To a large extent I'm just throwing names out here, in many cases
just to see what feels good. Some categories I care about, some not
so much. The top three albums are by the book. The group categories
(which for some reason are mandatory) disinterest me. The instrument
slots are vastly unequal: I could go a lot deeper on saxophonists,
but probably went too far on vibraphonists, and I didn't feel like
even attempting the miscellaneous instruments thing. The past winners
have been pretty idiosyncratic -- e.g., Harris Eisenstadt for composer,
Fred Lonberg-Holm for cello.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Rhapsody Jazz Critics Poll
The results of Francis Davis's sixth annual Jazz Critics Poll are
public now. The Village Voice sponsored the first five, but fumbled
the ball this year. Thankfully, Rhapsody picked it up and scored. The
main link is
here.
The component links:
Complete results and all 122 voter ballots are also available
here.
Update: Coming later today.
Expert Comments
I made a short announcement:
Francis Davis's 6th annual Jazz Critics Poll results and essays
are up on Rhapsody:
http://goo.gl/vZCju.
Francis and Rob Harvilla were kind enough to let me participate
once again: I wrote a "second opinion" essay and collated all of the
ballots over on my server. Short piece up on my blog. I'll have to add
an update later once I've gathered my thoughts. Real busy right
now. But I do want to especially thank everyone here who helped out on
my playlist. I doubt I would have hacked my way through it without
your help.
Christgau's year-end piece
(Dad-Rock
Makes a Stand) and
Dean's
List came out today. Only two records (of 107) hadn't previously
appeared in Expert Witness: The Mekons: Ancient & Modern
(hooray), and Oneohtrix Point Never: Replica (thought it had
some upside potential but didn't put much time into it).
Christgau's article posited that the 13 common picks in the top-50s
of Pitchfork and Rolling Stone will finish Pazz & Jop in this order
(the figures in brackets are where my metacritic file currently places
them):
- Bon Iver, Bon Iver [1]
- Tune-Yards, Whokill [5]
- Jay Z/Kanye West, Watch the Throne [8]
- Fleet Foxes, Helplessness Blues [4]
- St. Vincent, Strange Mercy [9]
- Drake, Take Care [20]
- Wild Flag, Wild Flag [23]
- PJ Harvey, Let England Shake [2]
- Destroyer, Kaputt [12]
- Frank Ocean, Nostalgia, Ultra [35]
- Kurt Vile, Smoke Ring for My Halo [16]
- Beyoncé, 4 [54]
- Panda Bear, Tomboy [36]
Walter Cherretté, I believe it was, doubt that Wild Flag would
top PJ Harvey. I commented:
There is a huge difference between how Let England Shake is
viewed in the UK (and only slightly less throughout Europe) and the
US. In the UK there is no contest for record of the year: it's PJ
Harvey by a landslide. But in the US Let England Shake is still
a top-10 finisher, most likely 5-6 (behind Bon Iver, Fleet Foxes,
Tune-Yards, and some combo of James Blake, Wilco, Watch the
Throne, Tom Waits, and maybe House of Balloons) -- Blake
has a UK bias also, but it's less obvious. My metacritic file ranks
Drake 20 and Wild Flag 23. Drake will probably beat that, but it's
hard to see how he squeezes into the top 10. I don't try to weigh
rank, but the rank evidence suggests that Tune-Yards and Weeknd could
do better than my count (5 and 15 respectively).
Monday, January 09, 2012
Music Week
Music: Current count 19248 [19212] rated (+36), 816 [829] unrated (-13).
Didn't publish Jazz Prospecting until midweek, then Recycled Goods, so much
hustle and bustle there. Jazz Prospecting is on hold now. Rhapsody is fairly
active, and a new column due soon. Been going through Jason Gross's
list, and I'm surprised not to find much of interest there. But the
same is true of the world at large.
Sunday, January 08, 2012
Rhapsody Mix Tape
Friday, January 06, 2012
Recycled Goods (93): January 2011
New Recycled Goods: pick up text
here.
Total review count: 3162 (last time's reported 3220 was in error).
Thursday, January 05, 2012
A Company Town Without a Company
Boeing announced that they're closing what's left of their Wichita
plant. That means laying off 2,160 workers, and not fulfilling any of
the promises they've made to Kansas politicos over the last decade
while pursuing the great $35 billion tanker scam. The Boeing plant
dates back to 1927 when it was Stearman Aviation. The plant greatly
expanded during World War II, mostly at government expense, when
employment swelled to over 50,000 and Wichita built the B-29s that
won the war against Japan, and into the 1950s the B-47s and B-52s
that pounded Korea and Vietnam (and still occasionally fly over
Afghanistan).
My father worked at Boeing for 38 years, and my brother worked
there for 23 years. In my father's day Boeing had several large
plants in Washington plus the one in Wichita: all were unionized
and the IAMAW negotiated nationwide, so Boeing's workers caught
a break in Wichita. Nowadays it seems like they have hundreds of
plants. The company isn't much good at building aircraft any more,
but they do big business in auctioning off plants to cities and
states eager to pay to have their citizens exploited. In 2005,
Boeing spun several properties, including most of their Wichita
plant, off in a private equity deal to create Spirit Aerosystems,
reducing their Kansas employment from 15,000 to 4,500, and they
cut more than half of that in the six years since.
It's not that Wichita and Kansas haven't been willing to cut
Boeing hundreds of millions of dollars in loans and abatements
and other favors, nor that the local politicians ever hesitated
to ply their influence for Boeing's benefit -- the tanker scam
is only the grossest example. It may be the unions: before
Boeing carved up their plant in 2005 SPEEA had organized the
office workers, giving the Wichita plant (in right-to-work KS)
the highest percentage union representation of any Boeing plant.
That's no longer true, but Boeing still claims it costs 70%
more to do work in Wichita than in San Antonio, where they
have a non-union workforce in a fresh government-built plant.
Wichita workers aren't used to thinking of themselves as
overpaid, but Boeing has no scruples when it comes to screwing
over their workers.
Some links:
I skipped over the ones searching for reaction from Kansas
politicians. About all they had to say was that they were sad
or sorry. In the 1940s the government built McConnell Air Force
Base across Oliver Street from the plant they built for Boeing.
The two have always had a symbiotic relationship. The reason
the Air Force still flies 1950s-vintage aircraft like B-52s and
KC-135s is that they've been periodically flown into McConnell
and rebuilt by Boeing -- in fact, the KC-135 tankers are based
here, even though they're mostly used to support fighters in
Asia. Take Boeing away and there's no need for McConnell.
For some reason no one noticed how vulnerable McConnell would
be once the KC-135s were replaced. Now if those same politicians
are finally moved to salvage some jobs here, they'll do whatever
they can to kill the new tankers. They never were a good idea,
but now for Kansas at least the jobs excuse works against them.
I sent the following squib to the Eagle's Opinion Line:
Mark these words: McConnell AFB will be closed within five years of
the first new tanker delivery. If you care about those jobs, kill the
tanker contract. We don't need new ones. The ones we already have get
us in too much trouble as it is.
The Eagle is asking for stories telling them "what impact has
Boeing had on you and your family over the decades?" They provided
a living for my father, although it's also likely that the leukemia
that killed him was rooted in the chemical he was exposed to there.
They turned into a nightmare for my brother, firing him for being
too pro-union and for being a medical insurance liability. By then
they liked to brag that "this isn't your father's Boeing." Indeed,
they're not. They haven't just tracked the moral rot of the nation;
they've repeatedly been the cutting edge.
UPDATE: One more Boeing article:
Boeing misses deliveries target; Airbus beats goal.
This just reinforces my argument above that in redirecting its business
to maximizing its political clout and using that to extort income and
financing from government and profits from workers, Boeing has lost its
fundamental competency at building airplanes. It used to be that Boeing
would build entire planes in one factory, with a great deal of vertical
integration. If the advantages of doing so aren't obvious, look at the
accompanying picture, which shows a 787 fuselage being loaded into an
even larger airplane to be flown to the final assembly plant. As Boeing
added more properties (to gain more political angles), and started to
do more subcontracting (mostly to screw their workers, although wide
supplier networks also helped build political clout), the manufacturing
process became vastly more complex, while Boeing's quality control has
declined. You see all this in the 787 program, which is about five years
(and counting) behind schedule.
The contrast to Airbus should be instructive. You'd think that Airbus,
with its government bureaucratic control forcing work to be spread over
multiple countries, and its unions not only pushing labor costs up but
effectively co-managing the company, should be much less efficient than
Boeing, but at least Airbus can concentrate on actually building planes.
And while Boeing is constantly whining about how urgently they have to
cut labor costs to remain competitive, Airbus not only pays higher wages,
they do so in Euros which are much more expensive than dollars. But in
the end the ability to deliver planes makes all the difference.
Expert Comments
Got my jazz year piece back from Rob Harvilla. He killed off the
political comment at the first -- no big deal, I'll post the original
in the blog when it runs. He also asked me to put together a playlist.
Since I can't recall any songs, I asked for help:
Francis Davis has run a jazz critics poll at the Village
Voice the last five years. He wanted to continue the poll
regardless of the Voice, so this year's one will be published
at Rhapsody (where Rob Harvilla landed). Francis kept me involved, and
I wrote a year-end piece, as I have done almost every year. Results,
ballots, and our essays will be posted sometime next week. Got my
edited essay back today, but now Harvilla is requesting that I provide
a Rhapsody playlist to accompany it. Three problems: it has to all be
on Rhapsody (which eliminates about half of my records); I've never
made a playlist before (there or anywhere else); and most importantly
I have virtually no recollection of tracks in my picks, let alone
ideas on how to sequence them. Maybe some of you do? Looking for 12-15
tracks from the 55 records I wound up listing. I'd appreciate the
help. Best to mail me directly.
Spoiler alert: The top 10 jazz records of 2011 follow:
- Dan Raphael-Rich Halley-Carson Halley: Children of the Blue
Supermarket (Pine Eagle)
- Avram Fefer-Eric Revis-Chad Taylor: Eliyahu (Not Two)
- Allen Lowe: Blues and the Empirical Truth (Music & Arts)
- Muhal Richard Abrams: SoundDance (Pi)
- Matt Lavelle: Goodbye New York, Hello World (Musicnow)
- Abdullah Ibrahim: Sotho Blue (Sunnyside)
- Sonny Rollins: Road Shows, Vol. 2 (Doxy/Emarcy)
- Ellery Eskelin: New York (Prime Source)
- Ted Rosenthal: Out of This World (Playscape)
- De Nazaten & James Carter: For Now (Strotbrocck)
As I recall, Halley, Fefer, Lowe, Eskelin, and De Nazaten are not
available (but sometimes it's hard to find things) -- the top three
especially unfortunate. I'll add the rest of the list in a second
post.
And part deux:
Second part of my 2011 jazz list, all A-, listed
alphabetically because I finally realized how hopeless it was to
maintain rank order. I merely list these in the article, but they're
there, so I can pad my playlist with anything from them. (By the way,
I do single out Stetson in the following paragraph so that's one to
focus on; it has a lot of crossover rock support, in part thanks to
Laurie Anderson). I'd guess that about half of these are available on
Rhapsody -- sometimes they surprise you. (The David Murray is there,
but it's hard to find. Lim was one I accidentally found, while looking
for something else by Marc Ducret.) For more info, all of these are
reviewed in Jazz Prospecting notes.
- Andrew Atkinson Quartet: Live: Keep Looking Forward (self-released)
- Yaala Ballin: On the Road (Gallery)
- Harrison Bankhead Sextet: Morning Sun Harvest Moon (Engine)
- Jerry Bergonzi: Convergence (Savant)
- The Chris Byars Octet: Lucky Strikes Again (SteepleChase)
- James Carter Organ Trio: At the Crossroads (Emarcy)
- Brian Charette: Learning to Count (SteepleChase)
- Alexis Cuadrado: Noneto Ibérico (Bju'ecords)
- Andrew Cyrille & Haitian Fascination: Route de Frères (TUM)
- Ernest Dawkins' New Horizons Ensemble: The Prairie Prophet (Delmark)
- Carlo De Rosa's Cross-Fade: Brain Dance (Cuneiform)
- Mathias Eick: Skala (ECM)
- Eliane Elias: Light My Fire (Concord)
- FAB Trio: History of Jazz in Reverse (TUM)
- Joe Fiedler Trio: Sacred Chrome Orb (YSL)
- Jake Fryer/Bud Shank Quartet: In Good Company (Capri)
- Kieran Hebden/Steve Reid/Mats Gustafsson: Live at the South Bank (Smalltown Superjazz)
- Gerry Hemingway Quintet: Riptide (Clean Feed)
- Honey Ear Trio: Steampunk Serenade (Foxhaven)
- Inzinzac: Inzinzac (High Two)
- Darius Jones: Big Gurl (Smell My Dream) (AUM Fidelity)
- Jerry Leake & Randy Roos: Cubist Live (Rhombus Publishing)
- Lim: With Marc Ducret (Kopasetic)
- Charles Lloyd Quartet with Maria Farantouri: Athens Concert (ECM)
- Luis Lopes: Lisbon Berlin Trio (Clean Feed)
- Rudresh Mahanthappa: Samdhi (ACT)
- Maïkotron Unit: Ex-Voto (Jazz From Rant)
- Wynton Marsalis & Eric Clapton: Play the Blues (Reprise)
- Joe McPhee/Michael Zerang: Creole Gardens (A New Orleans Song) (NoBusiness)
- Moon Hotel Lounge Project: Into the Ojalá (Frosty Cordial)
- David Murray Cuban Ensemble: Plays Nat King Cole: En Español (Motéma)
- Deborah Pearl: Souvenir of You (Evening Star)
- Adam Pieronczyk: Komeda: The Innocent Sorcerer (Jazzwerkstatt)
- Phil Ranelin: Perseverance (Wide Hive)
- Claire Ritter: The Stream of Pearls Project (Zoning)
- Side A: A New Margin (Clean Feed)
- Tommy Smith: Karma (Spartacus)
- Wadada Leo Smith's Organic: Heart's Reflections (Cuneiform)
- Starlicker: Double Demon (Delmark)
- Jason Stein Quartet: The Story This Time (Delmark)
- Colin Stetson: New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges (Constellation)
- Tyshawn Sorey: Oblique-I (Pi)
- Marcus Strickland: Triumph of the Heavy (Strick Muzik)
- David S. Ware: Planetary Unknown (AUM Fidelity)
Helpful even to just listen to a record and say, hey, this cut has
to be included. Very wide range of styles here, except not much
run-of-the-mill postbop. For that you can look, e.g., at the
JazzTimes year-end list.
Thanks for your help.
Chris Monsen wrote:
Tom: wish I could help, but I only have limited access to Rhapsody
(it being US only for plays, I can only do artist and album searches,
plus read bios and such. Although I have previously been able to play
albums via proxy servers, that no longer seems to work either). My
experiences with making playlists elsewhere is that they're usually
pretty intuitive, drag and drop songs/tracks into a created "folder"
or using a "plus"/add button or something similar (which seems to be
the case on Rhapsody). There's a "save playlist" option also, as far
as I can see. A shame so many of your picks don't appear to be there,
though (my top two weren't either). Here's hoping someone else can
step up with a helping hand.
Greg Morton:
Tom: I really can't believe that anything I would contribute could
meet your standards, but sheesh, since this morning I downloaded all
the A-'s from your current Prospecting column (plus the Michael Bates
B+*** because it sounded so interesting) with the plan for this
afternoon to collect them all into one file and spend my available
time today and tomorrow going through them, I'll let you know what I
think.
I have some ideas already from last year's earlier albums (Eick was
in the EW PnJ Top Ten I sent to Joey), and will add them at the same
time. Kieran Hebden/Steve Reid/Mats Gustafsson's "Lyman Place" will be
very close to the top of the list.
Chris Drumm:
Don't ask me how I know, but this is how I always did my
compilations, preferring to let others do the heavy listening and cop
their choices for my own compilations. It could be the title track,
perhaps the single, especially the Xgau pick or mention, etc. I can't
always listen as closely to all the albums that come my way as I might
want, but I did listen to the compilations I would make that came
about from such amalgamations. And I liked hearing things for the
first time on compilations, rather than trying to ferret them out
first. Occasionally something that didn't sit right would have to be
either moved or gotten rid of, but I liked it when fortuity
ruled. Totally irresponsible and lazy but if I were making a
compilation from these albums, the tracks "I" would pick are these
(from the last half of the list -- I will go through the others when I
can; how many will be available on Rhapsody I don't know, but it might
be more than you think):
- Wynton Marsalis & Eric Clapton: Play the Blues (Reprise) "Layla"
- Joe McPhee/Michael Zerang: Creole Gardens (A New Orleans Song) (NoBusiness) "Crescent City Lullaby"
- Moon Hotel Lounge Project: Into the Ojalá (Frosty Cordial) "Rumi We're Losing"
- David Murray Cuban Ensemble: Plays Nat King Cole: En Español (Motéma) "No me platiques"
- Deborah Pearl: Souvenir of You (Evening Star) "Happy Feet (At The Savoy)"
- Adam Pieronczyk: Komeda: The Innocent Sorcerer (Jazzwerkstatt) "Sleep Safe and Warm"
- Phil Ranelin: Perseverance (Wide Hive) "Moorish"
- Claire Ritter: The Stream of Pearls Project (Zoning) "Blue Ridge in Watercolor"
- Side A: A New Margin (Clean Feed) "Trued Right"
- Tommy Smith: Karma (Spartacus) "Land of Heroes," "Star"
- Wadada Leo Smith's Organic: Heart's Reflections (Cuneiform) "Leroy Jenkins's Air Steps" [22 minutes]
- Starlicker: Double Demon (Delmark) "Double Demon"
- Jason Stein Quartet: The Story This Time (Delmark) "Little Big Horse"
- Colin Stetson: New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges (Constellation) "Lord I Just Can't Keep From Crying Sometimes"
- Tyshawn Sorey: Oblique-I (Pi) "Twenty" & "Forty" are the free samples
- Marcus Strickland: Triumph of the Heavy (Strick Muzik) "Portrait of Tracy"
- David S. Ware: Planetary Unknown (AUM Fidelity) "Crystal Palace" has YouTube video
Got some mail from Mike Imes at first offering to help, then backing
off because he doesn't have Rhapsody (same for Monsen above), so I wrote:
Just to clarify, in response to a couple messages here and more
direct, the hardest part for me is identifying the songs from the
albums, which would help me get from 50-60 hours of music down to the
12-15 songs I need. If you do suggest something not on Rhapsody, I'll
just scratch it off -- no harm unless you wasted a lot of time finding
it. But if it's not interesting for you to do on your own, you
probably shouldn't bother anyway.
Robert Christgau:
Tom: The physical part of Rhapsody playlists is pretty easy --
drag-and-drop stuff, although changing order once you're done is
clumsier than in iTunes, so doing them in order is a good
goal. Conceptually, however, Rhapsody playlists, like all playlists,
are a bitch. I really believe that most people who do them are
[jacking off], not really worrying about how the music flows. One way
to finesse that would be to do the tracks in order of album finish,
top-to-bottom or vv. Really, don't kill yourself. Lead cuts might be a
reasonable default for track choices, too.
Chris Drumm:
Okay, for what it's worth (not much, but I'm going to MOG to see
what I can do with these -- I'm curious), here is 'my' stab at coming
up with the rest of the picks from Tom's list (which looks darn good
-- I sure hope he has the incentive to keep listening and reporting; I
know I have plenty of listening to do here now -- including see how
much of a MOG playlist I can come up with based on these 'choices' --
which will be a much longer playlist than Tom's and probably entirely
different, but I am looking forward to it anyway; if this wasn't of
any help, I still enjoyed the exercise and found a few resources in
the process):
- Andrew Atkinson Quartet: Live: Keep Looking Forward (self-released) "Keep Looking Forward"
- Yaala Ballin: On the Road (Gallery) "Three Little Words"
- Harrison Bankhead Sextet: Morning Sun Harvest Moon (Engine) "Red Is The Color In Jean Michel Basquiat's Silk Blue"
- Jerry Bergonzi: Convergence (Savant) "Convergence"
- The Chris Byars Octet: Lucky Strikes Again (SteepleChase) "Two Steps Out"
- James Carter Organ Trio: At the Crossroads (Emarcy) "The Hard Blues"
- Brian Charette: Learning to Count (SteepleChase) "Learning to Count"
- Alexis Cuadrado: Noneto Ibérico (Bju'ecords) "Noneto Iberico"
- Andrew Cyrille & Haitian Fascination: Route de Frères (TUM) "Route de Freres, Parts 1-3"
- Ernest Dawkins' New Horizons Ensemble: The Prairie Prophet (Delmark) "Sketches"
- Carlo De Rosa's Cross-Fade: Brain Dance (Cuneiform) "Terrane/A Phrase"
- Mathias Eick: Skala (ECM) "Day After"
- Eliane Elias: Light My Fire (Concord) "Light My Fire"
- FAB Trio: History of Jazz in Reverse (TUM) "Homeward Bound"
- Joe Fiedler Trio: Sacred Chrome Orb (YSL) "Occult"
- Jake Fryer/Bud Shank Quartet: In Good Company (Capri) "Bopping with Bud"
- Kieran Hebden/Steve Reid/Mats Gustafsson: Live at the South Bank (Smalltown Superjazz) "Lyman Place"
- Gerry Hemingway Quintet: Riptide (Clean Feed) "Gitar"
- Honey Ear Trio: Steampunk Serenade (Foxhaven) "Luminesque"
- Inzinzac: Inzinzac (High Two) "Chapi Chapo"
- Darius Jones: Big Gurl (Smell My Dream) (AUM Fidelity) "E-Gaz"
- Jerry Leake & Randy Roos: Cubist Live (Rhombus Publishing) "Aldebaran"
- Lim: With Marc Ducret (Kopasetic) "My Flower, Your Power"
- Charles Lloyd Quartet with Maria Farantouri: Athens Concert (ECM) "In the Paradise Garden"
- Luis Lopes: Lisbon Berlin Trio (Clean Feed) "Mutant Free 1"
- Rudresh Mahanthappa: Samdhi (ACT) "Samdhi"
- Maïkotron Unit: Ex-Voto (Jazz From Rant) "Votivae Noctes"
Joe Yanosik:
I sweat blood and tears on my playlists, listening to the same 16
or 20 songs in at least 5 or 6 permutations before I settle. I have my
own "system" that I'm happy to share FWIW. First, I use my database to
filter by artist or genre or whatever the theme of the playlist
is. Then, I'll do some serious listening to pick my 16 favorites for
that particular mix. I'll start off with an anthem, or at least a song
that has a "build-up" to get everyone's attention. "I Ran" on my '80s
Pop Hits mix is a good example. The second song is typically the bomb:
a usually-short-fast smokin' piece of music, whatever genre. Third
song like the second, just a few sticks of dyno-mite less. Fourth song
is where I'll throw in a surprise, a longer song, not as well known,
but just as solid. I try to think of mixtapes as albums with two
sides, so I'll wind down "side one" with some slow, beautiful stuff
(tracks six, seven) before ending the side (track 8, say) with a
longish masterpiece. Track 9 starts off "side two" with a bang --
typically a rocker with "hit" written all over it. Rest of side two
follows format of side one. I agree with Xgau that picking lead cuts
is usually the way to go. In general, I'd say record companies or
producers or whoever's responsible for that stuff know what they're
doing when they program a record. Not always, but usually. My two
cents . . .
Chris Drumm:
Irregardless of flow, I have now whipped up (off?) a 34-song
playlist lasting nearly four and a half hours, keeping the
alphabetical segueing, that I for one am looking forward to hearing
(http://goo.gl/yIVJ7). A fair number
were not findable on MOG, so at least I have some things to look for
when my eMusic refreshes. Bonehead that I am, this was fun, even if
not useful.
Yes, lead cuts too, me also. I've listened to some compilations
over and over again to get sequencing how I like it, when I burned
them on CDs, but these virtual comps there's always the gap between
songs, so what the heck. I love it when a new song comes in right on
top of the old song on the CD, and without a big volume change (cause
for many a retooling). The compilations I used to make, I threw
together all kinds of music, even classical -- usually adagios because
those make a nice break in the action.
bradluen:
Eliyahu is on Rhapsody under Avram Fefer (strangely a search
for the title doesn't work). "Song for Dyani" is one of my favourite
jazz things of the year, as is Matt Lavelle's "You're the Tonic"
(though that one's 19 minutes: uneven track lengths are a hazard of
jazz playlisting).
My fave on Road Shows Vol. 2 was "In a Sentimental Mood"
[edit: though this has a long talky bit at the end], though the
Ornette feature "Sonnymoon for Two" understandably got more press
(again though, 22 minutes).
Milo Miles:
Regarding mixtapes/compilation discs and transitions, one
hard-to-avoid challenge is working from a restricted playlist --
certainly when you're doing year-end retrospectives. Best you can do
is salt unifying sounds throughout the program and try to keep the
transitions more surprising-stimulating than wack-jarring. For
example, here's a set made from my Top 10 albums and Top 10 tracks of
2011, with three substitutions and, of course, two missing.
- Poly Styrene, "I Luv Ur Sneakers"
- Paul Simon, "The Afterlife"
- Bombino, "Tar Hani" (My Love)
- Shabazz Palaces, "An Echo From the Hosts That Profess Infinitum"
- Serengeti, "Long Ears"
- Kiran Ahluwalia, "Mustt Mustt"
- Steve Cropper/Buddy Miller, "The Slummer the Slum"
- Pistol Annies, "Lemon Drop"
- Vijay Iyer, "Duality"
- Banquet of the Spirits, "Briel"
- Tom Waits, "Hell Broke Luce"
- Blaqstarr, "Wonder Woman"
- Wynton Marsalis/Eric Clapton, "Ice Cream"
- The Vivs, "Are You Coming Around?"
- James Vincent McMorrow, "Sparrow & the Wolf"
- Younger Brother, "Shine"
- Battles, "Africastle"
- Oneohtrix Point Never, "Andro"
I think only the first three have what I would consider
radio-sturdy transitions, but the mode and mood morph cleanly enough
for all of it to hang together. Or at least that's my story and I'm
sticking with it.
Greg Morton:
Tom H.: Here's my stab at a 2011 jazz playlist. Without question
there's tons left out but what's here seems to be pretty top shelf. I
hope this helps in some way. Use as you see fit, or not of course.
- "Killer" - Rudresh Mahanthappa - Samdhi: 6:17
- "Wishful Thinking" - Avram Fefer, Eric Revis & Chad Taylor - Eliyahu: 7:39
- "Keep Looking Forward" - Andrew Atkinson Quartet - Keep Looking Forward (Live): 7:55
- "Skull Cave" - Starlicker - Double Demon: 6:34
- "Focus, Thrutime . . . time, Part 1" - Muhal Richard Abrams - SoundDance: 8:10
- "Day After" - Mathais Eick - Skala: 4:52
- "Out Of This World" - Ted Rosenthal Trio - Out Of This World: 8:11
- "Calypso Minor" - Abdullah Ibrahim and Ekaya - Sotho Blue: 6:24
- "Occult" - Joe Fiedler Trio - Sacred Chrome Orb: 6:07
- "Tabula . . . " - Maikotron Unit - Ex-Voto: 2:38
- "Breath Test" - Rich Halley, Dan Raphael &. Carson Halley - Children of the Blue Supermarket: 3:14
- "Lord I just can't keep from crying sometimes" - Colin Stetson - New History Warfare Vol. 2: 4:49
- "The Hard Blues" - The James Carter Organ Trio - At the Crossroads: 9:53
- "Lyman Place" - Kieran Hebden, Steve Reid & Mats Gustafsson - Live At the South Bank: 8:53
- "Parakram #2" - Rudresh Mahanthappa - Samdhi: 5:19
Nate Smith:
Here's a start -- some striking cuts from your A-list albums, the ones
I've heard anyway.
- "Calypso Minor" - Abdullah Ibrahim & Ekaya Sotho Blue
- "Raincheck" - Sonny Rollins Road Shows Vol 2
- "Lord I Just Can't Keep From Crying Sometimes" - Colin Stetson
New History Warfare Vol. 2 Judges
- "Walking the Dog" - James Carter Organ Trio At The Crossroads
- "Otis" - Inzinzac Inzinzac
- "I Wish I Had A Choice" - Darius Jones Trio Big Gurl (Smell My Dream)
- "Don Cherry's Electric Sonic Garden" - Wadada Leo Smith's Organic Heart's Reflection
- "Careless Love" - Wynton Marsalis & Eric Clapton Play The Blues
- "Playing With Stones" - Rudresh Mahanthappa Samdhi
- "Skala" - Matthias Eick Skala
- "Headbanger's Bawl" - Carlo De Rosa's Cross-Fade Brain Dance
- "25th Street" - Kieran Hebden/Steve Reid/Mats Gustaffson Live At The South Bank
- "Bolt Bus Jitter" - Marcus Strickland Triumph of the Heavy
- "Duality Is One" - David S. Ware Planetary Unknown
And just in case you find them on Rhapsody:
- "Appropriated Lands" - Avram Fefer/Eric Revis/Chad Taylor Eliyahu
- "First Car I See Tonight" - Dan Raphael/Rich Halley/Carson Halley Children of the Blue Supermarket
- "Off Minor" - Ellery Eskelin Trio New York
And a couple of favorites from albums that just missed your A-list:
- "Spirit Moves" - Dave Douglas United Front Brass Ecstasy at Newport
- "Lush Life" - Dave Douglas GPS Vol. 1 Rare Metals
- "Someday We'll All Be Free" - Ben Allison Action Refraction (Monsen's song of the year)
- "Linger Awhile" - Ralph Carney's Serious Jass Project Seriously
Tuesday, January 03, 2012
Jazz Prospecting (JCG #28, Part 18)
This will wrap up Jazz Prospecting for a while: until I either
convert to a weekly (or more often) blog, or give up. This also
wraps up the Jazz CG (28) cycle, which at this point seems unlikely
to result in an actual Jazz Consumer Guide post. I posted Jazz
CG (27) on December 19, and got virtually no notice or feedback
for the effort, so while I have (28) nearly complete, it hardly
seems worth the effort to wrap it up. This also wraps up 2011,
and good riddance to all that. I still have 100 2011 albums in
the pending pile, and I'll get to them when I can -- maybe not
the Xmas albums, nor the ones from the US Air Force, but almost
certainly nearly all of them.
Still, I did manage to sort through more than 600 new jazz
albums during the year. The grade breakdown would graph out as
a curve: A: 3; A-: 52; B+(***): 133;
B+(**): 203; B+(*): 156; B: 57; B-:
18; C+: 2; D+: 1. Without checking, I'd say this
is pretty similar to previous years. I may have a few fewer low
grades than in the past, but the deficit is probably in the
pending queue. I'm also down a bit from past years on top --
I can think of several possible reasons for this, including the
bad mood I developed over the last five-six months, but I did
come up with five A- records this installment (three
that I didn't receive found on Rhapsody -- one [Lim] a complete
surprise after a botched search).
I'll report further on future jazz reviewing when I finally
know something. Could still happen on the Village Voice, or could
wind up on Terminal Zone. In the meantime, I'll post a Recycled
Goods this week, and very likely something on my Pazz & Jop
ballot and what I've learned from my
metacritic file.
Downloader's Diary will be late for January -- probably sometime
next week. I have about 30 Rhapsody Streamnotes packed away, so
they'll appear sooner or later. So expect a lot of music in the
next two weeks.
By the way, the collected Jazz Prospecting file for this round
is here. After averaging
a little over 200 records per cycle, the total this round was 402.
Should have gotten two select Jazz Consumer Guides out of all those
records -- five months' work. Not a complete waste because I do
have all these notes, but as a freelance writer I have to say that
2011 was my worst since I started writing again.
The Ames Room: Bird Dies (2010 [2011], Clean Feed):
Sax trio, bills themselves as "minimal maximal terror jazz." Saxophonist
Jean-Luc Guionnet is French, but bassist and drummer (Clayton Thomas
and Will Guthrie) have suspiciously Anglo names. Second album, just
one 48:20 staccato rumble, daring you to turn the volume up to see if
you can discern any changes. I did, a little.
B+(**)
Baloni: Fremdenzimmer (2010 [2011], Clean Feed):
Trio: Joachim Badenhorst (bass clarinet, clarinet, tenor sax), Frantz
Loriot (viola), and Pascal Niggenkemper (double bass). Don't think
I've ever run across Loriot before, but he is central here, setting
the tone and dynamics, and when he decides to whine and mourn no one
else can break free.
B+(*)
Michael Bates: Acrobat: Music for, and by, Dmitri
Shostakovich (2011, Sunnyside): Bassist, or "bassist-composer"
as he likes to say -- as does nearly everyone, which is why I almost
never retain the second part, but the balance is worth noting with him,
even more so than with such distinguished composer-bassists as Ben
Allison and Adam Lane. I must admit I was put off by the Shostakovich
theme, unfortunately, regrettably: for one thing, only one (of nine)
pieces is by Shostakovich; for another, his postbop orchestration --
a superb group with Chris Speed (alto sax, clarinet), Russ Johnson
(trumpet), Russ Lossing (piano, rhodes), and Tom Rainey (drums) -- of
"Dance of Death" is a high point here, possibly because it signifies
to me more as rock (as Weill does) than as classical. The affinities
of the other pieces isn't clear to me, but as tightly composed postbop
pieces they are remarkably varied and inventive. Should play this
some more.
[B+(***)]
Dee Bell: Sagacious Grace (1990 [2011], Laser):
Singer, b. 1950 in Fort Wayne, IN; cut a couple records for Concord
1983-85, but nothing since until now. This session was shelved for
technical reasons but has finally been cleaned up and dedicated to
her late pianist Al Plank. Standards, including a couple jazz tunes
Bell wrote lyrics to. Band includes John Stowell on guitar, and
(even better) Houston Person on tenor sax.
B+(*)
George Benson: Guitar Man (2011, Concord): Guitarist,
was so dedicated to Wes Montgomery that he worked Boss Guitar
into his first album title, but by the early 1970s had slid into light
shlock and in 1976 scored a breakthrough hit with his undistinct vocals.
I wrote him off long ago, but I've gotten a few of his recent records --
for some reason this is the only one Concord serviced me with in 2011,
and this is the least awful of the last three. For one thing, only
three vocals, and his Stevie Wonder impersonation is so uncanny he
gets away with "My Cherie Amour"; for another, he takes two cuts solo,
and he still has that sweet touch, even on something as moldy as
"Danny Boy." On the other hand, his funk isn't even fake, and the
best you can say for his string-drenched "I Want to Hold Your Hand"
is that the melody is unrecognizable.
B-
Carlos Bica & Azul: Things About (2011, Clean
Feed): Title listed above artist name, so it can flow as one, even
into the smaller print "featuring Frank Möbus and Jim Black" (guitar
and drums). Bica is a bassist, from Portugal, has at least seven
going back to his 1996 album Azul (with Möbus, Black, and
a couple guests -- and there seem to be a couple more Azul albums
in the meantime. Möbus has a record/group called Der Rote Bereich --
AMG shows one album, but his website lists six. He's a disarmingly
unfancy player, so it takes a while to sink in how charming he is.
And it's good not to overwhelm the bassist, who has plenty to
contribute on his own.
B+(***)
Ran Blake/Dominique Eade: Whirlpool (2004-08
[2011], Jazz Project): Piano-voice duets. Blake cut his first
album in 1961, calling it The Newest Sound Around, and
has thirty-some records since, most either solo piano or duets
with vocalists (most notably Jeanne Lee; recently with Christine
Correa and Sara Serpa). Eade was b. 1958 in England, met Blake
when she studied at New England Conservatory. She has six albums
since 1992 (counting this one). Her voice is right on target,
so clear it needs little dressing, and Blake makes more out of
less as well as anyone.
B+(***)
Bobby Bradford/Mark Dresser/Glenn Ferris: Live in LA
(2009 [2011], Clean Feed): Cornet, bass, trombone respectively. Bradford,
b. 1934, has a long, and relatively unheralded, avant-garde career --
I've missed virtually all of it myself, including his famous work with
John Carter. Ferris I know even less about: b. 1950 in Los Angeles;
played early on with Don Ellis, Harry James, and Frank Zappa; has six
albums since 1995, mostly on Enja; goes back a long ways with Bradford.
With bass but no drums, this takes its time getting anywhere, wallowing
in murky depths, which seems to be the point.
B+(**)
Michael Cain: Solo (2011, Native Drum Music): Pianist,
b. 1966, AMG lists seven albums since 1990 (but missed this one, and
who knows what else). Google really wanted to dispatch me off to some
British actor. Solo piano and a bit of electronics: slow, gentle, has
some appeal.
B+(*)
William Carn: William Carn's Run Stop Run (2011,
Mythology): Trombonist, b. 1969, from Canada. First album, although
AMG lists a few dozen side credits. Quartet, with guitars (Don Scott),
basses (Jon Maharaj), and drums (Ethan Ardelli). Both Scott and Maharaj
contribute songs, as does producer David Binney.
B+(*)
Corrie en de Grote Brokken: Vier! Het Beste van de Grote
Brokken (1997-2004 [2011], Brokken): Dutch guitarist Corrie
van Binsbergen released this to mark her 25th anniversary, but the
sampler narrows in on a relatively short stretch with a big, brassy
band -- trumpet, trombone, typically three saxes, vibes or marimba,
fronted by singers Bob Fosko and Beatrice van der Poel. Lots of
flashy guitar, most of it closer to rock than to jazz, but knowing
nonethless -- I'm reminded of some of Roy Wood's early-1070s stabs
at neoclassic rock and roll, but the vibes suggest Zappa if only
I'd paid him any heed.
B+(**)
Shirley Crabbe: Home (2011, MaiSong): Standards
singer, studied at Northwestern and Manhattan School of Music.
First album. Has a full-featured band including Brandon Lee on
trumpet, Dave Glasser on sax, and Donald Vega on piano -- but
even with Glasser on hand she wrangled Houston Person for two
guest shots (his "Lucky to Be Me" solo a highlight). Songs jump
around, ranging from "Summertime" to Sondheim and Carole King
("Far Away"). On the right song she can be very striking --
"Detour Ahead" seems to always be the right song.
B+(**)
John Daversa: Junk Wagon: The Big Band Album (2011,
BFM Jazz): Trumpet player, also EVI. Second album, both Big Band;
has pretty scattered side credits -- Burt Bacharach, Fiona Apple,
Kim Richmond, Yellowjackets, Andrae Crouch. Title cut leans toward
hip-hop, but backs away, and I don't have any idea what he really
wants to do, other than be a bit different. "Cheeks" is an example
that delivers both on textures and solo, which is what you hope
for in a big band.
B+(*)
Yelena Eckemoff: Flying Steps (2010 [2011], Yelena
Music): Pianist, born and raised in Moscow, with one of those rigorous
Soviet educations in classical music. Moved to US in 1991. Classical
music dominates her discography, but she's edged into jazz and produced
several more-than-credible trio records. This one includes Darek
Oleszkiewicz on bass and Peter Erskine on drums.
B+(**)
Marty Ehrlich's Rites Quartet: Frog Leg Logic (2011,
Clean Feed): Plays alto sax, soprano sax, and flute, leading a quartet
with James Zollar (trumpet), Hank Roberts (cello), and Michael Sarin
(drums). Strong interplay for most of the way -- the flute, of course,
is the weak link. Zollar usually lurks in the background, but when he
gets a solo shot he reminds you how underrated he is.
B+(***)
Joe Fiedler Trio: Sacred Chrome Orb (2011, Yellow
Sound Label): Trombonist, based in New York (since 1993), fourth
album since 2005. First was a daunting tribute, Plays the Music
of Albert Mangelsdorff. This is a trio with John Hebert and
Michael Sarin, the sort of thing that puts the horn constantly on
the spot. And he proves to be as inventive as his German mentor,
while avoiding the squawk and whine that suggested to me horses
being slaughtered.
A-
Hal Galper Trio: Trip the Light Fantastic (2011,
Origin): Veteran pianist, b. 1938, has thirty-some albums since
1971, including some real gems -- some I've noticed: Portrait
(1989), Just Us (1993), Art-Work (2009). Trio with
his label's ace rhythm section: Jeff Johnson on bass and John Bishop
on drums. Three originals, four covers ("Guess I'll Hang Out My
Tears to Dry," "Be My Love").
B+(*)
Dennis González/João Paulo: So Soft Yet (2010 [2011],
Clean Feed): Duets, González on trumpet and cornet, Paulo (full name:
João Paulo Esteves Da Silva) on acoustic and electric piano, also
accordion. They did this once before, in 2009's Scape Grace,
but this works better, partly because Paulo's rotation keeps it
from settling into a rut, but mostly charm and intimacy.
B+(***)
Hybrid 10tet: On the Move (2011, BBB): Cover also
mentions, in small print, "braam": that would be pianist Michiel
Braam, who put this group together and wrote their pieces. Group
is built from a classical string quartet (Matangi Quartet), a rowdy
rock rhythm section (bass and drums, anyway, plus the pianist, and
you might also factor in Carl Ludwig Hübsch's tuba), plus some
avant-jazz brass (Taylor Ho Bynum on cornet, Nils Wogram on trombone).
The mix is often spectacular -- as on the tango-ish "Cuba, North
Rhine-Westphalia" and the funk-noise of "Fat Centered Gravy" --
but sometimes not. (I initially suspected the strings, but it's
not quite that simple.) The pianist, as usual, has fun.
B+(**)
Tony Jones/Kenny Wollesen/Charles Burnham: Trio: Pitch,
Rhythm, and Consciousness (2011, New Artists): Only released
on LP, although I'm working off a CD-R. Jones plays tenor sax --
only time I've run across him before was on a record by his wife,
alto saxophonist Jessica Jones. Burnham plays violin, and Wollesen
drums. Free, but slow and moody, the violin receding into bass
range.
B+(*) [advance]
Jan Klare/Jeff Platz/Meinrad Kneer/Bill Elgart: Modern
Primitive (2010 [2011], Evil Rabbit): Klare plays alto
sax/clarinet/flute, has four albums since 2001; Platz guitar;
has a couple albums; Kneer double bass, one previous album; and
Elgart drums, also with a couple. Not quite a supergroup, but
finely balanced for jousting, the guitar throwing sax-like leads
as well as rolling with the rhythm, such as it is.
B+(**)
Lama: Oneiros (2011, Clean Feed): Trumpet-bass-drums
trio; respectively, Susana Santos Silva (b. 1979), Gonçalo Almeida,
and Greg Smith. Santos Silva has a record (Devil's Dress) and
a few side roles, including EMJO. Almeida wrote 6 of 8 pieces -- one
each for the others. Dense, heavy, bunched-up in the lower registers,
doesn't move much but goes where it wants.
B+(*)
Steve Lipman: There's a Song in My Heart (2010-11
[2011], Locomotion): Sinatra without the voice -- what, the hat
isn't enough? Good thing he kept his day job: a dental practice
in Windsor, CT. On the other hand, his band -- no one I've heard
of, although the type is so illegible it's hard to make out any
names -- swings gracefully, and his overbite has a certain comic
charm. When Google offered a squiggle on "a comic career" I
entertained the possibility of a put-on, but turns out there's
another Steve Lipman, who got his start during the ancien regime,
offering: "I'm 11 years old, and I've learned to tie my shoes
really well. So if President Bush ever comes to town, I'll teach
him too."
B
Mark Alban Lotz & Istak Köpek: Istanbul Improv Sessions
May 4th (2010 [2011], Evil Rabbit): Flute player, b. 1963,
Dutch but grew up in Thailand and Uganda. AMG credits him with six
albums since 1994 -- certainly an undercount, although I'm at a loss
as how to sort the 35 albums he lists on his website (I'd certainly
credit him with the six albums by Lotz of Music, but his role in
Cachao Sounds: La Descarga Continua is likely minor). Here
he plays with Turkish group Islak Köpek (two tenor saxes, guitar,
cello, and laptop; three names look Turkish and two Anglo). Lotz
ranges from piccolo to bass flute, and the latter gets a lot of
use here. Considerable sonic interest here, especially when they
get loud and dense, which is their preferred mode -- although
improv being improvised they sometimes swing and miss.
B+(**)
Metta Quintet: Big Drum/Small World (2011, Jazzreach):
A project of Jazzreach, a 501(c)(3) non-profit "dedicated to the promotion,
performance, creation and teaching of jazz music." Third album I'm aware
of under this name: bassist Joshua Ginsburg and drummer Hans Schuman are
the constants, with piano and horns rotating -- currently, Marcus Strickland
(tenor and soprano sax), Greg Ward (alto sax), and David Bryant (piano).
They play five pieces: one by Strickland, the others by name players not
in the band -- Omer Avital, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Yosvany Terry, and Miguel
Zenón. First-rate postbop, well within the lines but I suppose you have to
be when trying to be educational.
B+(**)
Yoko Miwa Trio: Live at Scullers Jazz Club (2010
[2011], self-released): Pianist, b. 1970 in Kobe, Japan; moved to
US in 1996 with a Berklee scholarship. Fourth album since 2001, a
trio with Greg Loughman on bass and Scott Goulding on drums. Three
originals, five covers starting with "This Could Be the Start of
Something" and including Lou Reed's "Who Loves the Sun." Most
convincing at high speed -- dazzling might be the word.
B+(***)
Leszek Mozdzer: Komeda (2011, ACT): Pianist, b. 1970
in Poland, classically trained and as likely to turn in Impressions
on Chopin as this set of solo piano meditations on the patron saint
of Polish jazz, Krzyzstof Komeda. Solo piano never does much for me
unless it has a big rhythmic kick; this doesn't, but otherwise it's
hard to fault. Need to play it again, maybe in the context of other
Komeda tributes (which seem to be far easier to score than the old
albums are).
[B+(**)]
Mozik (2010 [2011], self-released): Boston group,
led by Brazilians Gilson Schachnik (keyboards) and Mauricio Zottarelli
(drums), with flute (Yulia Musayelan), guitar (Gustavo Assis-Brasil),
and bass (Fernando Huergo). Zottarelli insists he didn't like Brazilian
music until he moved to Boston. I detect an air of respectful reunion,
winning out over a mischievous desire to mix things up. Three Jobims,
one each from Monk and Hancock, two originals (by Schachnik), one more
("Canto das Tres Raças").
B+(*)
David Murray Cuban Ensemble: Plays Nat King Cole en
Español (2010 [2011], Motéma): More inspired by than based
on Cole's 1958-62 Spanish-language records, En Español and
More En Español. Cole took backing tracks from a small Cuban
group and dubbed in his sweet vocals -- one story is that the 1958
revolution prevented him from finishing the album in Havana. Murray
is at least equally circuitous, recording his Cuban band in Buenos
Aires with tango singer Daniel Melingo -- as rough as Cole is smooth --
then dubbing in strings in Portugal, mixing the album in France, and
mastering it in the UK. Even with Melingo on board, the vocals are
trimmed way back, leaving more room for the sax, as imposing as
ever.
A-
Josh Nelson: Discoveries (2011, Steel Bird):
Pianist, from Los Angeles, fifth album since 2004. Wrote all but one
of the pieces, naming them for things like "Dirigibles" and "Tesla
Coil" -- with featured quotes inside the package from Mark Twain and
H.G. Wells, his interest in new things is curiously dated. Group is
spread out with three horns, but the most satisfying parts lead with
the piano.
B+(*)
Nordeson Shelton: Incline (2011, Singlespeed Music):
Alto sax-drums duo -- drums by Kjell Nordeson, sax by Aram Shelton.
Shelton passed through Chicago on his way to his current base in
Oakland, which sharpened his instincts for developing a distinct
tone and style, but that's never been more clear than in this basic
context. Nordeson's credits include Mats Gustafsson (AALY Trio) and
Paul Rutherford, Atomic and Exploding Customer.
B+(***)
Bill O'Connell: Triple Play Plus Three (2010 [2011],
Zoho): Pianist, b. 1953, studied at Oberlin; has eight or so records,
with an early one in 1978, another in 1993, the rest since 2001 as
he moved more into Latin jazz. I was tempted to attribute this to
Bill O'Connell Plus Three, but changed my mind after checking and
finding another Triple Play album. The core group is O'Connell
and Richie Flores (congas). The "plus three" are Paquito D'Rivera
(clarinet), Dave Samuels (vibes), and Dave Valentin (flute), who
take turns filling out a trio. The rotation avoids any ruts, but
I rather prefer the guestless stretches where O'Connell pushes
harder and breaks up his flow.
B+(**)
The Oscuro Quintet: Music for Tango Ensemble (2010
[2011], Big Round): Based in Philadelphia: Alban Bailly (guitar),
June Bender (violin), Benjamin Blazer (bass), Shinjoo Cho (accordion,
bandoneon), and Thomas Lee (piano). Bailly composed the five-part
"Five Procrastinations"; the rest draws on Argentine masters. AMG
(and others) tend to file this as classical, probably for the same
things that turn me off. Still has its charms -- "oddly OK" was the
judgment from the other room.
B+(*)
Florencia Ruiz: Luz de la Noche (Light of the Night)
(2011, Adventure Music): Argentine diva, or maybe I just mean torch
singer, projects a lot of drama and emotion, although for all I know
she could be as vapid as Enya -- a comparison I've seen, though meant
to be more flattering. Hugo Fattoroso (piano) and Jaques Morelembaum
(cello) are cited as "featuring" -- must be big names in Argentina,
because they only show up for one and two cuts here.
B+(*)
Dred Scott: Prepared Piano (2007-08 [2009], Robertson):
Pianist, originally from St. Louis, went to college in Ohio, spent 10
years in Bay Area, then moved to New York in 1999, which makes him how
old? Extensive discography on his site goes back to a 1991 record with
Anthony Braxton (8+3 Tristano Compositions), but aside from his
three trio records I've heard of nothing else he's done. He played
drums on that Braxton record -- probably the right orientation for
prepared piano ("Funky" sounds like it's mostly percussion). Mostly
short pieces, discreet building blocks ready to add up to something.
[My impression is that this is being reissued on Ropeadope, but my
copy looks like the old, original edition.]
B+(**)
Dred Scott Trio: Going Nowhere (2010 [2011], Ropeadope):
Can't find any evidence that Dred Scott isn't the pianist's given name.
Like his famous namesake he is from St. Louis, but the resemblance ends
there. With Ben Rubin on bass and Tony Mason on drums. All originals
except for a shrewdly deconstructed "7 Steps to Heaven." I am duly
impressed, but don't have much to say.
B+(**) [advance]
Sara Serpa: Mobile (2010, Inner Circle Music):
Singer, b. 1979 in Portugal, studied at Berklee and New England
Conservatory, based in New York. Has a duo album with Ran Blake,
at least three under her own name. This one is spare, mostly
done with just bass and drums (Ben Street and Ted Poor), with
piano added on 4 (of 10) cuts (Kris Davis) and guitar on three
of those (Andre Matos). Texts are evidently taken from lit --
Homer, Herodotus, Melville, Steinbeck, Naipaul, Kapuscinski --
although I can't make any of them out and suspect she's just
scatting.
B
Jen Shyu/Mark Dresser: Synastry (2009-10 [2011], Pi):
Vocalist, b. 1978 in Peoria, IL; parents from Taiwan and East Timor;
based in New York. Has several albums since 2002, a research interest
in "Taiwanese folk and aboriginal music" extending to Chinese-Cubans,
but is best known for her work with Steve Coleman's group. Dresser,
of course, is one of our foremost bassists, so these are voice-bass
duos. I have a tough time when jazz singers get arty -- a primal case
of opera-phobia, I'm afraid -- but this somehow slips through.
B+(**)
Enoch Smith Jr.: Misfits (2011, self-released):
Pianist, b. 1978 in Rochester, NY. Second album, a piano trio plus
vocalist Sarah Elizabeth Charles -- although there are also uncredited
male vocals. Seems like too much singing at first, especially once
Smith finally opens up some space for his unconventionally percussive
piano. Mostly originals; covers include "Caravan" and "Blackbird"
(one song I wish the jazz world would just give up on).
B+(*)
The Taal Tantra Experience: Sixth Sense (2011, Ozella):
German-based Indian music group, led by tabla player Tanmoy Bose, with
a mix of German and Indian names in the microscopic credits text. The
tabla is impressive enough, but the fusion tends to even things out,
as if the jazz component was smooth.
B
Gianluigi Trovesi/Gianni Coscia: Frère Jacques: Round About
Offenbach (2009 [2011], ECM): The leaders play clarinet and
accordion, respectively. Trovesi, b. 1944, made an early mark in the
avant-garde (mostly on alto sax), but since he joined ECM he's been
picking around in his classical training, previously teaming with
Coscia for a Round About Weill (and earlier, In Cerca di
Cibo). Jacques Offenbach (1819-1880) was born in Cologne, son of
a synagogue cantor, moved to Paris to study and remained in his new
country, mostly writing popular operettas. About half of the music
here comes from him, the rest by Trovesi and Coscia, much of it
explicitly paired to an Offenbach piece.
B+(**)
Ursa Minor: Showface (2011, Anthemusa): New York rock
group fronted by singer Michelle Casillas, had a previous album in 2003.
Doesn't belong here but someone sent me a copy, guitarist-producer Tony
Scherr has something of a jazz rep, not sure that drummer Robert DiPietro
doesn't ring a bell somewhere, and some of the guests definitely do (e.g.,
trombonist Ryan Keberle). The strings and French horns do little to alter
the fact that this is a guitar band, the singer is mostly affectless but
on a slow one turns on the charm. Seems like a nice group going nowhere.
B+(*)
The Tommy Vig Orchestra 2012: Welcome to Hungary!
(2011, Klasszikus Jazz): I have an advance CD, and a fairly thick
booklet which is probably a proof copy, but which is so jumbled up
I can make no sense of who plays what or what's going on here. Vig
plays vibes, was b. 1938, studied at Bela Bartok Conservatory, fled
Hungary in 1956, cut some records in US that seem to be regarded as
instrumental pop. This is a big band with cimbalom and tarogato and
a lot of horn power -- the guest performance by David Murray towering
above all. Six bonus cuts without Murray show the band to be loud
and brash, but not all that interesting. In order to rise above the
background, Murray is little short of titanic.
B+(*) [advance]
Ricardo Villalobos/Max Loderbauer: Re: ECM (2009
[2011], ECM, 2CD): Two electronics producers. Villalobos, b. 1970
in Chile, has more than a dozen albums since 2002. Loderbauer has
nothing under his own name, but several dozen composer/producer
credits. Both based in Berlin. This isn't a remix of ECM material;
more an attempt to construct electronics frameworks around musical
structures from various ECM records, starting on the classical
end of the spectrum (Arvo Part, Alexander Knaifel) with a few jazz
sources (Louis Sclavis, John Abercrombie, Paul Motian the best
known). First disc leans toward industrial sounds but not intense;
second is more pastoral until it eventually works in some choral
voices.
B+(*) [advance]
These are some even quicker notes based on downloading or streaming
records. I don't have the packaging here, don't have the official hype,
often don't have much information to go on. I have a couple of extra
rules here: everything gets reviewed/graded in one shot (sometimes with
a second play), even when I'm still guessing on a grade; the records go
into my flush file (i.e., no Jazz CG entry, unless I make an exception
for an obvious dud). If/when I get an actual copy I'll reconsider the
record.
Rez Abbasi's Invocation: Suno Suno (2010 [2011], Enja):
Guitarist, from Pakistan, eighth album since 1995, not counting his
work with Rudresh Mahanthappa's Indo-Pak Coalition -- a trio with Dan
Weiss on drums that is expanded to five here, adding Vijay Iyer on
piano and Johannes Weidenmueller on bass, only here the compositions
are all Abbasi. The star power of Mahanthappa and Iyer is undeniable,
but it comes off as unduly heavy, jerky, dramatic -- impressive in its
own right.
B+(*) [Rhapsody]
David Berkman: Self-Portrait (2011, Red Piano):
Pianist, b. 1958, sixth album since 1998 -- the inevitable solo
one. Mix of standards, starting with "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes,"
and originals, four of them designated sketches. Self-assured,
balanced tone, runs on cold logic, impeccable as these things go.
B+(**) [Rhapsody]
The New Gary Burton Quartet: Common Ground (2011,
Mack Avenue): What's new about this Quartet, as opposed to the one
he recorded a live album with in 2009, is replacing guitarist Pat
Metheny and bassist Steve Swallow with Julian Lage and Scott Colley:
younger players, most likely cheaper too, plus they contribute songs,
so the leader is down to one in ten. (Drummer Antonio Sanchez, who
pitched in two songs, was kept over.) Probably a smart move for
Burton, but not as smart as letting Lage take the lead, and adding
a little something instead of vying for top dog.
B+(**) [Rhapsody]
Gerald Cleaver/Uncle June: Be It as I See It (2010
[2011], Fresh Sound New Talent): Drummer, from Detroit, has a half
dozen albums since 2001. No idea where the group name comes from,
but it's basically a sextet with two horns (Andrew Bishop on flute,
bass clarinet, soprano and tenor sax; Tony Malaby on soprano and
tenor sax), piano (Craig Taborn), viola (Mat Maneri), and bass
(Drew Gress), with occasional voices and a bit of guest guitar
or banjo. Can be rough and noisy, smoky, or stretch out into an
orchestration that is almost Ellingtonian.
B+(**) [Rhapsody]
Larry Coryell: With the Wide Hive Players (2010
[2011], Wide Hive): One of the original fusion guitarists -- by the
way, the answer to my question about Gary Burton's earliest quartet --
plugs in with the avant-funk house band of Gregory Howe's Berkeley
label. Sax and 'bone flesh out the heavy riffing.
B+(*) [Rhapsody]
Adam Cruz: Milestone (2010 [2011], Sunnyside):
Drummer, b. 1970 in New York City, has a lot of side credits since
1991 (Eddie Palmieri, Chick Corea, Edward Simon, David Sanchez,
Danilo Pérez, Chris Potter, Steve Wilson, Ray Barretto are only
some of the names; 70-some albums), but this is his first under
his own name -- and a big one: wrote all eight pieces (long ones,
add up to 75:49). He's joined by Potter (tenor sax), either Wilson
(soprano sax) or Miguel Zenón (alto sax), Simon (piano), Steve
Cardenas (guitar), and Ben Street (bass). Brash contemporary
postbop, the horns stellar, especially when one or the other
finds some solo room.
B+(**) [Rhapsody]
Joseph Daley Earth Tones Ensemble: The Seven Deadly Sins
(2010 [2011], Jaro): First album by Daley, although his discography goes
back to 1971 and most of it points this way. He plays tuba and euphonium
here, with a little trombone and other low register horns on his resume.
Has mostly worked in big bands -- Gil Evans, Sam Rivers, Carla Bley,
Muhal Richard Abrams, George Gruntz, Bill Dixon -- with side roles in
Howard Johnson's Gravity and Bill Cole's Untempered Ensemble. Huge group
here, lots of guys you know -- Marty Ehrlich, Scott Robinson, Lew Soloff
(I presume, notes say Lou), Eddie Allen, Craig Harris, Vincent Chancey,
Onaje Allan Gumbs, Warren Smith, Satoshi Takeishi, and a quorum of the
tuba players union, including Howard Johnson and Bob Stewart. Fast,
slick, complex, oh so deep.
B+(***) [Rhapsody]
Empirical: Elements of Truth (2011, Naim Jazz):
English quartet: Nathaniel Facey (alto sax), Lewis Wright (vibes),
Tom Farmer (bass), Shaney Forbes (drums); Farmer does most of the
writing, followed by Facey (2) and Wright (1). Third album since
2007. Sax lines are cutting edge postbop, the vibes adding a light
and flighty contrast.
B+(**) [Rhapsody]
Vinny Golia Quartet: Take Your Time (2011, Relative
Pitch): Plays the whole range of clarinets, saxes, and flutes; b. 1946,
has been very prolific since 1977, releasing almost all of his work on
his own Nine Winds label, but occasionally strays -- Greetings From
Norma Desmond is a personal favorite. Plays soprano/alto/tenor
sax here, with Bobby Bradford on cornet, Kin Filiano on bass, and Alex
Cline on drums. This group generates a lot of heat, and while Golia's
riffing sometimes seems a bit pat (by which I mean I've never cared
for that Charlie Parker up-and-down shit), Bradford always hangs in
there and adds something interesting.
B+(***) [Rhapsody]
Danny Grissett: Stride (2011, Criss Cross):
Pianist, from Los Angeles, studied at Cal Arts, based in New
York. Fourth album since 2006, a trio with Vincente Archer on
bass and Marcus Gilmore on drums. Has very little swing, let
alone stride, to his style; basically a straight-up postbop
player with a deft touch. Three originals, five covers range
from Chopin to Tom Harrell and Nicholas Payton.
B+(*) [Rhapsody]
Sir Roland Hanna: Colors From a Giant's Kit (1990s-2002
[2011], IPO): Pianist from Detroit, lived 1932-2002, has a couple credits
in 1959 but his discography picks up in 1971 and he remain productive to
the end. Solo piano, something he did at least a dozen albums of, from
various sessions -- annoying that I can't find a detailed accounting.
Mix of originals and covers. Can be dense and even dazzling, but I
can't latch onto anything as especially interesting.
B+(*) [Rhapsody]
Fred Ho and the Green Monster Big Band: The Sweet Science
Suite (2011, Mutable/Big Red Media): Subtitled: "A Scientific
Soul Music Honoring of Muhammad Ali." Baritone saxophonist, b. 1957
in Palo Alto, CA, of Chinese descent, has built a notable career out
of bridging African, Asian, and American musics, and charging them
with political immediacy, working especially in a big band context --
the last few years he's called his group the Green Monster Band, and
they usually live up to the name. Numerous strong passages here, but
also a few rough spots, and the vocals near the end didn't connect.
[Don't have recording date. Ho has been fighting colon cancer since
2006, and at least some of his recent spate of records predate his
illness, but there's some reason to think this is more recent.]
B+(*) [Rhapsody]
Fred Ho and the Green Monster Big Band: Year of the Tiger
(2004 [2011], Innova): Pre-illness, unreleased at the time, I'd guess,
because it's a hoary mess, although it has inspired moments, ridiculous
ideas, and such an enthusiastic implementation it's hard to carp. There's
a big suite called "Take the Zen Train," offering "Optometry for the
Vision-less" and critiquing "The Violence of Virtuosity." There are
medleys of Michael Jackson and Jimi Hendrix -- the Jackson descends into
a long sequence of horror movie sounds on "Thriller" that cry out for
video. There's a huge people's chorus on "Hero Among Heroes" -- reminds
me of Maoist mass propaganda although I wouldn't claim that it is.
B [Rhapsody]
Ari Hoenig: Lines of Oppression (2009 [2011],
Naïve): Drummer, from Philadelphia, part of the Smalls retro
bop crowd -- cut a good album for them in 2004, The Painter.
I was looking for one called Punkbop: Live at Smalls, and
found this one instead. Quartet with Tigran Hamasyan on pianos,
Gilad Hekselman on guitar, and either Orlando Le Fleming or Chris
Tordini on bass, with various of them vocalizing, sounding rather
like tapdance. Best at high speed with everyone pounding away.
B+(*) [Rhapsody]
Oliver Lake & Jahi Sundance: Lakes at the Stone
(2008 [2011], Passin Thru): Lake, b. 1942 in Arkansas, plays alto sax,
has more than 30 albums since 1971, many more credits including his
long tenure with the World Saxophone Quartet. I suspect that Jahi
Sundance is his son, hence the plural Lakes. He pops up occasionally
as a producer, and Discogs credits him with three albums. No credits
on what he does here, but he's basically a DJ, manipulating turntable,
maybe laptop samples, mostly percussion to mix with what is otherwise
solo sax, but someone works in a right-on rap on "If I Knew This,"
and another on "Where You Is, Is Where You At."
B+(**) [Rhapsody]
Lim: Lim With Marc Ducret (2010 [2011], Kopasetic):
AMG files this under a French "hardcore rapper" who likes his upper
case ("LIM") and has titles like Triples Violences Urbaines,
Le Maxi Délinquant, and Voyoucratie -- an SFFR, I'd
say, but a miss here. This group is a Swedish sax trio preferring
lower case ("lim"), led by Henrik Frisk (various saxes, writes all
the songs), with David Carlsson (electric bass) and Peter Nilsson
(drums). The three play an admirable brand of free jazz where the
rhythm section keeps everything interesting. Ducret is a French
guitarist who's played most notably with Tim Berne, which is to
say he's right at home here, always quick to zag when the sax zigs.
A- [Rhapsody]
René Marie: Black Lace Fredian Slip (2011, Motéma
Music): Singer, b. 1955, cut her first album in 2000 after raising
a couple of kids. I belatedly checked out her second, the Penguin
Guide crown-winning Vertigo, just before this one, with its
striking standards interpretations, guest horns, swing and scat.
None of that is particulary evident here, where she wrote 10 (of
13) songs, works with a rhythm section I've never heard of, has
unknowns guest on two songs (harmonica and guitar). Still, even
without the scat she's are remarkable singer. Too early to tell
about the songs (e.g., "Rim Shot"), but the title is a salacious
opener, and "Tired" is a blues that buttons the record down tight.
B+(***) [Rhapsody]
Christian McBride Big Band: The Good Feeling (2011,
Mack Avenue): One of the unwritten rules of jazz these days seems
to be that everyone wants to (and gets to) lead a big band sooner
or later. McBride's reportedly been working on his charts for years,
but his ideas are pretty stock: conventional five reeds (plus Loren
Schoenberg on two cuts), four trumpets, four trombones, piano, bass,
and drums (no guitar), with singer Melissa Walker featured on a
few cuts. Fine band, a mix of name soloists and guys who show up
in everyone's big band.
B+(*)
Christian McBride: Conversations With Christian
(2011, Mack Avenue): Thirteen songs, each a duet between the bassist
and someone else: four singers (Angelique Kidjo, Sting, Dee Dee
Bridgewater, and Gina Gershon), five pianists (Eddie Palmieri, Dr.
Billy Taylor, Hank Jones, George Duke, Chick Corea), Regina Carter
(violin), Russel Malone (guitar), and Ron Blake (tenor sax). No
dates, but Jones and Taylor died in 2010. It's hard to get any sort
of consistency or momentum out of this sort of thing, especially
when the constant is the bass, but the vocalists are spread out,
the piano-bass connecting tissue rather than filler. Also helps
that McBride talks along on two vocal cuts, drawing Gershon out
and keeping Bridgewater from falling over the top.
B+(**) [Rhapsody]
Gretchen Parlato: The Lost and Found (2010 [2011],
ObliqSound): Singer, b. 1976, third album since 2005, writes most of
her own material. Has a slight whisper to her voice which is generally
appealing but isn't enough to carry a song a cappella (as she attempts
in "Alô, Alô"), so a good band should help. She has Taylor Eigsti
(piano), Derrick Hodge (bass), Kendrick Scott (drums), and sometimes
Dayne Stephens (tenor sax), all toned down to fit her demure style.
One cut that works: "All That I Can Say."
B- [Rhapsody]
Nicholas Payton: Bitches (2011, In + Out): Trumpet
player from New Orleans, solidly grounded in the tradition, which
got him a gig with Kansas City, a Louis Armstrong tribute,
and a super record with Doc Cheatham, but his more modern moves
haven't worked out as well -- some jazztronica, here a move into
vocal-heavy 1970s-retro r&b. Like Stevie Wonder, he plays all
of the instruments, leaning heavily on the keybs, although only
his trumpet remains distinctive. His croon ranges from competent
to annoying, occasionally supplemented by guest females -- not
clear if they are the intended subject of the title, or some
other form of malapropism.
B [Rhapsody]
Potsa Lotsa: The Complete Works of Eric Dolphy
(2009-10 [2011], Jazzwerkstatt, 2CD): Complete comes to 27 pieces,
dispatched in 95 minutes over two discs. The group is led by alto
saxophonist Silke Eberhard, who arranged the pieces for two brass
(Nikolaus Neuser on trumpet, Gerhard Gschlobl on trombone) and two
saxes (Patrick Braun on tenor, Eberhard on alto). Dolphy usually
played with other horns, so there is some similarity, and the
pieces to managed to evoke all facets of his range.
B+(*) [Rhapsody]
Phil Ranelin: Perseverance (2011, Wide Hive):
Trombonist, b. 1940 in Indianapolis. A founder of the Tribe, in
Detroit in the early 1970s, and much later Build an Ark in Los
Angeles, community-centric groups which bridge avant-garde and
populist sensibilities. Front cover proclaims: "With Henry
Franklin and Big Black"; Franklin plays bass, was also b. 1940,
has a couple dozen albums and a hundred side-credits but isn't
a name I recognize; Big Black (Danny Ray) plays conga, is even
older (b. 1934), is someone I've run across a few times before.
Both have sweet spots here, but so does everyone else, with
Kamasi Washington (tenor sax) and Mahesh Balasooriya (piano)
most prominent, also Louis Van Taylor (bass clarinet, alto
flute), Tony Austin (drums), and a couple more percussionists.
Ranelin wrote all the pieces, and sets the pace, his trombone
leads rough and rugged but pitched into grooves, with vamps
all around. My kind of party.
A- [Rhapsody]
The Rempis Percussion Quartet: Montreal Parade
(2011, 482 Music): Dave Rempis, best known as the Vandermark 5's
junior saxophonist, leads, the group name reflecting that the
quartet has two drummers (Tim Daisy and Frank Rosaly). Even with
double the drum solos, Rempis is fast and furious out front. The
other member is bassist Ingebrigt Haker Flaten, of Vandermark's
School Days project (and many more). Two long pieces, free jazz
blowouts. (Wonder whether another spin or two would push it over
the top -- this is the third straight RPQ album with the same
grade, which makes me suspect at least one should go higher.)
B+(***) [Rhapsody]
Poncho Sanchez/Terence Blanchard: Chano y Dizzy!
(2011, Concord Picante): Reasonable headliners for a recital of a
prime slice of jazz history, but Blanchard won't risk losing his
cool so has no way of touching Gillespie, and Sanchez couldn't be
crazier than Pozo if his life depended on it. Starts with a medley --
"Tin Tin Deo," "Manteca," "Guachi Guaro" -- then "Con Alma" before
letting Blanchard and others in the band peddle their wares. Winds
up being a real nice groove album, with equally nice ballad spots,
not that I understand why.
B+(**) [Rhapsody]
Alex Sipiagin: Destinations Unknown (2011, Criss
Cross): Trumpet player, b. 1967 in Russia, moved to US in 1991,
started in big bands, has more than a dozen albums since 1998.
Bright tone, dynamic, runs in fast company with Chris Potter and
David Binney on sax, Craig Taborn on keyb, Boris Kozlov on bass,
and Eric Harland on drums. A little fancy for hard bop, or basic
(meaning hard-charging) for postbop. The long set closes with
a ballad.
B+(**) [Rhapsody]
Colin Stetson: New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges
(2011, Constellation): Saxophonist -- plays most reeds, French horn,
flute, cornet, but is most noted for the big bass sax -- originally
from Ann Arbor, based in Montreal where he works with Arcade Fire
and Bell Orchestre. AMG lists four albums, including New History
Warfare Vol. 1 in 2008. This is billed as "solo horn compositions"
but some percussion is evident, one song is labeled a Bell Orchestre
remix, and there are occasional vocals -- Sheila Worden somewhere,
Laurie Anderson spoken word on four pieces. Circular breathing turns
the horn vamps into continuous tapestries, patterns repeating with
various dissonances, and everything else just adds to the sonic
interest.
A- [Rhapsody]
Colin Stetson: Those Who Didn't Run (2011, Constellation,
EP): Two ten-minute pieces. Don't have credits, but sounds like circular
breathing sax vamps shagged by extra electronics, the rhythm in the
repetition, the dissonance all over the place. Impressive, but on the
way to wearing out its welcome when it ended.
B+(**) [Rhapsody]
Ben Williams: State of Art (2011, Concord Jazz):
Bassist, electric as well as acoustic. Won a Monk prize which came
with a Concord record deal, and this debut is the record. Annoying
that I can't find cut-by-cut credits, since he shuttles horns in
and out, has John Robinson rap on one piece, uses a string quartet
elsewhere. This leans toward easy electronic grooves, with Gerald
Clayton favoring the Fender Rhodes, and possibly the leader his
electric bass, but they're friendly and rather fun, with Jaleel
Shaw and/or Marcus Strickland picking up the level on sax. I'll
even applaud Christian Scott's trumpet solo on "The Lee Morgan
Story" -- not because it reminds me of Morgan so much as because
the rap puts me in a good mood even though the story is tragic.
Just hard to think of Morgan without smiling.
B+(**) [Rhapsody]
Gerald Wilson Orchestra: Legacy (2011, Mack Avenue):
First glance at the title had me wondering why at 92 he's finally
looking back, but the legacy he plumbs here is built on pilfering
bits of Stravinsky, Debussy, and Puccini. In that he's as clever as
ever, but the latter half holds more interest: a seven-part suite
called "Yes, Chicago Is . . ." -- logically, this follows on from
his marvellous Detroit suite. His Orchestra keeps swelling --
six reeds, six trumpets, more solo power than he can possibly use.
B+(***) [Rhapsody]
No final grades/notes this week on records put back for further
listening the first time around.
Some re-grades as I've gone through trying to wrap things up and
sort out the surplus:
Avram Fefer/Eric Revis/Chad Taylor: Eliyahu (2010
[2011], Not Two):
[was: A-] A
Allen Lowe: Blues and the Empirical Truth (2009-11
[2011], Music & Arts):
[was: A-] A
Unpacking: Found in the mail over the last few weeks:
- Available Jelly: Plushlok, Baarle-Nassau, Set 1 (Ramboy)
- Available Jelly: Plushlok, Baarle-Nassau, Set 2 (Ramboy)
- Jon Balke/Batagraf: Say and Play (ECM): advance, February 7
- Meredith D'Ambrosio: By Myself (Sunnyside): January 31
- Bill Barner: Ten Tunes (Bill Barner): January 10
- Pat Battstone and Richard Poole: Mystic Nights (Bat's Tones Music)
- Hans Glawischnig: Jahira (Sunnyside): January 31
- Tord Gustavsen Quartet: The Well (ECM): advance, February 7
- Jürgen Hagenlocher: Leap in the Dark (Intuition)
- Holshauser, Bennink & Moore: Live in NYC (Ramboy)
- Sheila Jordan/Harvie S: Yesterdays (1990, High Note): January 31
- Don Mark's Fire Escape: In a New Light (Nibomi)
- Michael Moore Quartet: Easter Sunday (Ramboy)
- Michael Moore Quintet: Amsterdam (Ramboy)
- Michael Moore Quintet: Rotterdam (Ramboy)
- David Murray Cuban Ensemble: Plays Nat King Cole: En Español (Motéma)
- Giovanna Passi/Susanna Wallumrød: If Grief Could Wait (ECM): advance, February 7
- Jeremy Pelt: Soul (High Note): January 31
- Gary Smulyan: Smul's Paradise (Capri): Jan. 17
- Talking Cows: Almost Human (Morvin/Jazz Sick): February 28
- Steve Turre: Woody's Delight (High Note): January 31
- The Wee Trio: Ashes to Ashes (Bionic): January 1
- Tom Wetmore: The Desired Effect (Crosstown): January 19
- Matt Wilson's Arts & Crafts: An Attitude for Gratitude (Palmetto): February 14
Purchases:
- Afro Latin: Via Dakar (Syllart, 2CD)
- Afro Latin: Via Kinshasa (Syllart, 2CD)
- Dave Alvin: Eleven Eleven (Yep Roc)
- BLNRB: Welcome to the Madhouse (Out Here)
- Das Racist: Relax (Greedhead)
- Girls: Father, Son, Holy Ghost (True Panther Sounds)
- Larkin's Jazz (Proper, 4CD)
- The Mekons: Ancient & Modern 1911-2011 (Bloodshot)
- Nigeria 70: Sweet Times: Afro-Funk, Highlife and Juju From 1970s Lagos (Strut)
- Sofrito: Tropical Discotheque (Strut)
- Teddybears: Devil's Music (Big Beat/Atlantic)
- Terakaft: Aratan N Azawad (World Village)
- Tom Waits: Bad as Me (Anti-)
- Neil Young: International Harvesters: A Treasure (1984-85, Reprise)
Monday, January 02, 2012
Music Week
Music: Current count 19212 [19174] rated (+38), 829 [834] unrated (-5).
Insane jazz week, trying to get ballots and year-end piece together for
Rhapsody poll. Victim of bad information: Francis told me it would go up
on January 2, but now it looks like January 10 is the real date. Anyhow,
what's done is done. Will probably post Jazz Prospecting tomorrow (rather
than today) -- not sure what that buys me, other than unpredictability,
whch has already been suggested by not posting anything since Jazz CG on
Dec. 19. On the other hand, response to that was so underwhelming I'm
not sure the world wants (much less deserves) to hear from me again.
Feeling like the contempt is mutual.
- Steve Lacy: Live at Jazzwerkstatt Peitz (1981 [2006],
Jazzwerkstatt):
The most important soprano saxophonist of the latter
half of the 20th century, by a margin that's hard to conceive of,
takes a few pieces solo, unfettered by anything but his imagination;
the results are often astonishing, but the narrow range and stringent
tone of the horn itself can wear on you.
B+(**) [Rhapsody]
- Steve Lacy: Five Facings/Five Pianists (1996 [2008],
Jazzwerkstatt):
Duo pieces with five avant pianists; Marilyn Crispell
warms him up; Misha Mengelberg pitches Monk tunes that are softballs
for both; but Ulrich Gumpert pushes the soprano saxophonist into his
top level, and Fred Van Hove joins him there, while the finale with
Vladimir Miller winds down admirably.
B+(***) [Rhapsody]
Expert Comments
Bradley Sroka suggests the following "history of jazz" track list:
- Louis Armstrong, "Hotter Than That" (1927)
- Duke Ellington, "Rockin' in Rhythm" (1931)
- Fletcher Henderson (with Coleman Hawkins), "Queer Notions" (1933)
- Billie Holiday (with Lester Young), "A Sailboat in the Moonlight" (1937)
- Charlie Parker, "Moose the Mooche" (1946)
- Thelonious Monk, "Epistrophy" (1948)
- Ella Fitzgerald, "Night and Day" (1956)
- Sonny Rollins, "I'm an Old Cowhand" (1957)
- John Coltrane, "Naima" (1959)
- Ornette Coleman, "Ramblin'" (1959)
- Charles Mingus, "Original Faubus Fables" (1960)
- Stan Getz & Charlie Byrd, "Desafinado" (1962)
- Miles Davis, "Footprints" (1966)
- Keith Jarrett, "Silence" (1977)
- Dave Douglas, "The Gig" (1995)
- David S. Ware, "The Freedom Suite: I." (2002)
Christgau had a less formal jazz list:
For sure give him Horace Silver's Song for My Father (Steely Dan),
Ellington's East St. Louis Toodle-Oo and some other early Ellington
(ditto), and something by Mingus, don't ask me what (Mitchell). Early
Miles (So What if he's really ignorant) and late Miles (I propose
something funky from the Philharmonic set, though Honky Tonk might
do). Parker's Ko Ko or Now's the Time or both, probably Night in
Tunisia, One O'Clock Jump and In the Mood, and of course In Walked Bud
from Misterioso plus maybe the solo Tea for Two.
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