Recent Reading

Music Database

Artist Search:

Browse

Website Search

Google:

Music Week [0 - 9]

Monday, May 19, 2025

May archive (in progress).

Music: Current count 44235 [44197) rated (+38), 22 [21] unrated (+1).

I published a Loose Tabs on May 14 (actually, late Tuesday night). I figured I should clear the decks, as I would be cooking on Wednesday and Thursday. I had shopped on Tuesday, and planned out a fairly grand Thai menu -- panang curry duck, pad thai, tom kha gai (soup) -- plus that Burmese tea leaf salad I wasn't able to pull off for my birthday dinner. I thought of pineapple upside down cake for dessert, with ice cream. I also picked up some odds and ends, which turned into three side dishes: cucumber salad, water chestnut salad, and grilled Japanese eggplant with Thai peanut sauce. I wrote up lots of notes as I worked. Rather than trying to recap them here, you can find them in my notebook.

The two days of cooking took my mind of writing, including reviewing any records. That's reflected in the reduced rated count this week, but not severely. I think we have a nice mix of exceptional records this week, although I did fall down on my promise to tweet about them on the fly. I don't feel like I'm getting much value out of Bluesky at the moment, although I'll concede that part of the problem there is I'm not putting much work into it.

I have very little idea what I'll be doing this coming week. I could try to wrap up a books file, but the amount of stuff worth mentioning is huge -- especially if you include the propaganda and nonsense that one can only ridicule.

New records reviewed this week:

Julien Baker & Torres: Send a Prayer My Way (2025, Matador): Two singer-songwriters with enough reputation for me to have checked out their solo catalogs -- three Baker, four Torres -- and accorded them respectable if unenthusiastic B+(*) grades (5, with ** for the first Torres, B for the middle Baker; Baker is also one-third of Boygenius, stuck at B for a widely-admired album and two EPs), merged here as "an American country duo," which means common songs with somewhat southern voices and (mostly) acoustic arrangements. The vocal contrasts help sustain interest, which may be all the songs ever needed. B+(***) [sp]

Jon Batiste: Beethoven Blues [Batiste Piano Series, Vol. 1] (2024, Verve): Pianist from Louisiana, studied at Juilliard, was music director and bandleader on Colbert 2015-22, has since moved on to other projects, which this as the first of a promised series of solo piano explorations, with a mix of original pieces and covers. Given my ingrained antipathy to nearly all classical music, the best I can say here is that nothing here bothers me, and this is downright pleasant. B+(*) [sp]

Blondshell: If You Asked for a Picture 2025, Partisan): Singer-songwriter Sabrina Teitelbaum, grew up in New York, where her father ran a vaping products company, based in Los Angeles, second album, alternate title "More Songs About Bad Faith and Sexual Ambivalence." B+(**) [sp]

Buck 65: Keep Moving (2025, Handsmade): Rapper from Nova Scotia, started releasing albums around 1999, with 2003's Talkin' Honky Blues an early masterpiece, ran out of steam around 2014, but nearly everything since his 2022 reboot has been terrific. This one compiles 31 short, sharp pieces (51:25). A- [bc]

Mackenzie Carpenter: Hey Country Queen (2025, Valory Music): Country singer-songwriter from Georgia, first album, makes a nice impression. B+(*) [sp]

Lucy Dacus: Forever Is a Feeling (2025, Geffen): Singer-songwriter from Virginia, fourth album since 2016, not counting her share of Boygenius. This almost won me over with sound, and the lyric videos almost convinced me the words have weight. I don't normally factor politics into my reviews, but while I was sitting on the fence here, I read in Wikipedia of her referring to Obama as "war criminal" and took that as the tie-breaker. A- [sp]

Erik Friedlander: Dirty Boxing (2024, Skipstone): Cellist, several dozen albums since 1991. This one is backed by Uri Caine (piano), Mark Helias (bass), and Ches Smith (drums). B+(**) [sp]

Erik Friedlander: Floating City (2024, Skipstone): Discogs combines this as a second CD with Dirty Boxing, but Spotify has they as separate albums. Another quartet, with Mark Helias returning on bass, but the piano/drums replaced with guitar (Wendy Eisenberg) and voice (Sara Serpa). B [sp]

HiTech: Honeypaqq Vol. 1 (2025, Loma Vista): Techno group from Detroit, rapper-producer-DJs go by King Milo, Milf Melly, and 47Chops; two previous albums, 11-12 cuts but time probably comes up short. B+(*) [bc]

Jenny Hval: Iris Silver Mist (2025, 4AD): Norwegian singer-songwriter, studied in Australia, started in a gothic metal band, worked through a couple more bands, moved back to Norway, this her ninth solo album, plus she has two more as Lost Girls, and four novels. The metal influence may have contributed to the C+ album in my database, but it's an outlier. I certainly don't mind this one, but can't say I'm following it carefully. B+(***) [sp]

Salif Keita: So Kono (2025, No Format): Legendary Malian griot, started with Les Ambassadeurs, still going strong at 76. B+(**) [sp]

Alex Koo: Blame It on My Chromosomes (2024 [2025], W.E.R.F.): Belgian pianist, sings some (but not especially well), mother is Japanese, father was a missionary sent to Japan, fifth album since 2014. B+(*) [sp]

Jinx Lennon: The Hate Agents Leer at the Last Isle of Hope (2025, Septic Tiger): Irish poet with music, 16 albums since 2000, has messages, stories, and anger -- more than I can digest, but enough to respect. B+(***) [sp]

Model/Actriz: Pirouette (2025, True Panther/Dirty Hit): Boston rock band, new-wavish, Cole Haden the singer, second album. B+(**) [sp]

Willie Nelson: Oh What a Beautiful World (2025, Legacy): Per Wikipedia, Nelson's 77th solo studio album (I have 114 albums rated under Nelson's name), a collection of a dozen very good Rodney Crowell songs, a nice production with a singer still good enough to cover anything. Seems too easy, but at his age what more can you hope for? A- [sp]

Enrico Pieranunzi/Marc Johnson/Joey Baron: Hindsight: Live at La Seine Musicale (2024, CAM Jazz): Italian pianist, many recordings since 1975, a long-running trio with bass and drums -- his association with Johnson goes back to 1992, with various drummers (Billy Higgins, Paul Motian) until Baron took over in 2009. B+(**) [sp]

Simona Premazzi/Kyle Nasser Quartet: From What I Recall (2024 [2025], OA2): Piano and saxophone (tenor/soprano), backed by bass (Noah Garabedian) and drums (Jay Sawyer). B+(**) [cd]

The Gary Smulyan and Frank Basile Quintet: Boss Baritones (2024, SteepleChase): Two baritone saxophonists, Smulyan by far the better known, with a steady stream of albums since 1997 (including a Tough Baritones with Ronnie Cuber), while Basile mostly has side-credits with big bands (starting at UNT in 1999). Backed here by piano (Steve Ash), bass (Mike Karn), and drums (Aaron Seeber). Anyone expecting a rousing sax joust will be disappointed, but not much: these are nice guys who prefer to swing and bop in tandem. B+(**) [sp]

Billy Woods: Golliwog (2025, Backwoodz Studioz): Rapper, from DC, mother a lit professor from Jamaica, father a "Marxist intellectual" from Zimbabwe, tenth solo album since 2003, not counting collaborations, most notably in Armand Hammer. Dense, rambling, hard for me to get a solid handle on this, but I have no doubt there's much to return to when/if I can find the time. A- [sp]

Neil Young: Coastal: The Soundtrack (2023 [2025], Reprise): Solo album, "features 11 songs selected from Young's 60-year career, recorded live on his 2023 tour," cast as a soundtrack for a video tracking the tour. B+(*) [sp]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

James Moody: 80 Years Young: Live at the Blue Note March 26, 2005 (2005 [2025], Origin): Bebop saxophonist (1925-2010), mostly tenor, also played quite a bit of flute, joined Dizzy Gillespie in 1946 and was a regular in his various bands, while he established his own career with "Moody's Mood for Love" in 1952. He opens this 80th birthday bash singing "Benny's From Heaven," badly at first but so infectiously he won me over. He opened with a solid band -- David Hazeltine (piano), Todd Coolman (bass), and Adam Nussbaum (drums) -- then brought out the stars for the back stretch: Jon Faddis (trumpet), Paquito D'Rivera (alto sax/clarinet), Slide Hampton (trombone), plus guest spots for Randy Brecker (trumpet) and Cedar Walton (piano). He turns this into an old-fashioned bebop revival, reprising his hits as well as "Cherokee," "Birk's Works," and "Bebop" itself. A- [cd]

James Moody: The Moody Story: James Moody Septet 1951-1955 (1951-55 [2025], Fresh Sound, 3CD): Saxophonist (1925-2010), started on alto but mostly played tenor, played in an army band during WWII, then joined Dizzy Gillespie in 1946, and even now is probably best known for his work in later Gillespie bands. After a few years in Europe, he returned to the US, and recorded these early sessions for Mercury and Prestige. Various lineups here, but aside from the odd vocalist he appeared in septets, with Dave Burns (trumpet) prominent enough to get larger type on the box. [NB: Volume 1, which covers 1951-54, is not available to stream, so is unheard here. This grade only covers Volume 2 (1954-55) and Volume 3 (1955), which I've played, but the separate volumes only seem to exist for streaming.] B+(***) [sp]

Pink Floyd: Pink Floyd at Pompeii MCMLXXII (1972 [2025], Columbia): Live concert from 1972, released as a film in 1974, and newly remastered, so the songs here predate their mega hit albums -- The Dark Side of the Moon came out in 1973, but there are two takes of "Echoes" (from 1971's Meddle) prototype here. B+(*) [sp]

Louis Stewart & Jim Hall: The Dublin Concert (1982 [2024], Livia): Irish guitarist (1944-2015), a couple dozen albums from 1975 on, plays host here to the more famous American guitarist (1930-2013). Easy does it. B+(**) [bc]

Sun Ra: Inside the Light World: Sun Ra Meets the OVC (1986 [2024], Strut, 2CD): "OVC" stands for Outer Space Visual Communicator, a device Bill Sebastian invented, "a giant machine, played with hands and feet, that allowed artists to create and finger-paint with light similar to how musicians create and explore sound with their instruments." I doubt the visuals make any difference, although Sebastian could hardly hope for a more fortunate alliance. B+(***) [sp]

Horace Tapscott's Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra: Live at Widney High December 26th, 1971 (1971 [2025], The Village): A phenomenal pianist from Los Angeles, also notable as a community organizer, ran this not-quite-big band at least through 1979's Live at I.U.C.C.. Starts strong with a 25:03 version of John Coltrane's "Equinox," with Al Collins on tenor sax, two trumpets (Butch Morris and Walter Graham), two trombones, two bassists, drums and congas. The following pieces, with vocalist Linda Hill and "word musician" Kamau Daáood are no less wonderful. A- [bc]

Hiroshi Yoshimura: Flora (1987 [2025], Temporal Drift): Japanese ambient musician (1940-2003), first album 1982, this one only released in 2006, after his death. Starts mostly piano, shifting later to contemplative synth tones -- which recall early Eno ambients, reportedly an influence. B+(***) [sp]

Old music:

Armonicord: Esprits De Sel (1977, L'Électrobande): French free jazz band, formed 1973, this their only album until a live tape from 1975 surfaced in 2023, only name I recognize is Juke Minor (baritone/sopranino sax, flutes, contrabass clarinet, guimbri, also wrote the liner notes and composed all but the Django Reinhardt cover), joined here by Jean Querlier (alto sax, oboe, English horn, flute), Joseph Traindl (trombone), Odile Bailleux (harpsichord), and Christian Lété (drums). Rough in spots, but vital. B+(***) [yt]

The Buttress: Endofunctor (2023, self-released, EP): Rapper Bethany Schmitt, from New Jersey, second album (per Discogs, this one short at 9 songs, 21:53; the other, from 2011, even shorter, at 6 songs, 6:13), title here "a mathematical function that leads back into itself," with an analogy to satanism, an interest that suggests an abusive Christian upbringing. The murkiness is no doubt intentional. B+(**) [sp]

The Buttre$$: Structural Stabilization of an Historic Barn (2011, self-released, EP): Early work, six pieces, 6:13, noise exercises generated on EMU modular synthesizer, not the worst I've heard, but not something I'm much interested in. B [bc]

James Moody: In the Beginning (1949 [2017], Inner City/Solid): Possibly the tenor saxophonist's earliest records, the first five tracks released as Max Roach Quintet (with Kenny Dorham trumpet, Al Haig piano, and Tommy Potter bass), the other seven as James Moody Quartet & Orchestra (with Art Simmons piano, Buddy Banks bass, and Clarence Terry drums). B+(**) [sp]

James Moody: Moody's Mood for Blues (1954-55 [1994], Prestige/OJC): Tenor saxophonist (some alto), compilation originally relesed in 1969, draws from four sessions, most originally released on the short albums Moody and James Moody's Moods (art work for both on cover, although half of the latter is skipped). A mixed bag of blues, ballads, standards ("Over the Rainbow," two takes of "It Might as Well Be Spring"), and bebop, with two Eddie Jefferson vocals and one where Ilona Wade channels Billie Holiday. B+(**) [sp]

James Moody: At the Jazz Workshop (1961 [1998], Chess/GRP): Reissue of Cookin' the Blues, which came out in 1965, plus some extra cuts. Septet again, Howard McGhee (trumpet) the best known, plus trombone, baritone sax, piano, bass, and drums, with Eddie Jefferson singing on three tracks. B+(**) [sp]

James Moody: Homage (2003 [2004], Savoy Jazz): Nothing in my database for him between 1961 and 1996 -- years when he got by with his Las Vegas gigs and road work but I also missed at least a dozen albums on Muse, Vanguard, and Novus. After Dizzy Gillespie died in 1993, he mounted something of a comeback up to his death in 2010. This is a good example of his rich tone and easy flow. Raps a bit at the end. B+(**) [sp]

Torres: What an Enormous Room (2024, Merge): Singer-songwriter Mackenzie Scott, sixth album since 2013, one I didn't bother with at the time, figuring she had settled into a rut and I wouldn't have anything to say anyway. Slightly better than that, but still don't have much to say. B+(**) [sp]

Joanna Wang: Modern Tragedy (2018, Sony): Singer-songwriter, originally Wang Ruolin, from Taiwan but raised in Los Angeles, a dozen or so albums since 2008, some with titles in Chinese (this one has a Chinese title on Spotify, but Discogs gives English titles for album and songs, which are mostly in English). B+(**) [sp]

Carl Winther/Richard Andersson/Jeff "Tain" Watts: WAW! (2023 [2024], Hobby Horse): Piano/bass-drums trio, just last names on the cover. The Danish pianist started in his father's group -- Jens Winther (1960-2011), played trumpet -- and has led his own groups since 2010. B+(**) [sp]

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

• Larry Ochs/Joe Morris/Charles Downs: Every Day → All the Way (ESP-Disk) [04-11]
• Bruno Parrinha/Carlos "Zingaro"/Fred Lonberg-Holm/João Madeira: Enleiro (4DaRecord) [04-25]
• Scheen Jazzorkester & Fredrik Ljungkvist: Framåt! (Grong) [04-01]
• Carlos "Zingaro"/Flo Stoffner/Fred Lonberg-Holm/João Madeira: Na Parede (4DaRecord) [04-25]

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Monday, May 12, 2025

May archive (in progress).

Music: Current count 44197 [44154) rated (+43), 21 [21] unrated (-0).

Another week, and not a hell of a lot to show for it, although the rated count remains rather high -- boosted by wrapping up the rest of the Strata-East reissues I hadn't prioritized last week. Since then, and with my demo queue mostly caught up, it's been a struggle to find things to check out, although I now have a fairly sizable checklist based on the DownBeat Critics Poll ballot, which is sending me back to 2024 records, many of which never even placed in my 2024 EOY Aggregate (which among other things means they went unmentioned in the 2024 Francis Davis Jazz Critics Poll).

I blew out a full two days of my time filling in the 73 categories DownBeat asked me to vote for. As usual, I took notes, this time being careful to copy down all of the nominees they offered in all of the categories. To save time, I dispensed with attempting any sort of running commentary -- as I've often done in previous years (which start in 2003, well before they first invited me to vote) -- although I may return and add some later. As my method is to start with last year's notes and edit them as I go, I'm aware that most of what I dropped were lists of snubbed musicians (which in major categories like alto sax and piano could be very long; but to do them properly, as opposed to just reiterating last year's lists, would take a lot of effort, something I was in no mood for).

I also have thoughts on the design and implementation of the poll, but they would do little good. Some I've actually shared with DownBeat, like splitting Hall of Fame into separate living and dead sections, since they tend to be judged differently, and the two-per-year process is too limiting -- cf. the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame's by-the-dozen approach, which, easy to say, is way too much. I also think the album categories should be calendar aligned: that critics should have an extra 3 months to consider the past year, and that readers should have 9 months, should not just be deemed a feature but relished as a luxury. It takes time to catch up, and more time for things to sink in, so why not take advantage?

I have a million other complaints -- ok, more like a couple hundred, but the mass is way too daunting to detail. The least I can do is mention this line from the invite: "As you already know, it's a LOOOONG ballot and will probably take a little less than an hour to complete, but your input is truly valued." I've never completed it in less than three hours, and that was only by cribbing from past note sheets and voting for 90% of the same people again. Even this year, where my revotes came close to 80%, it took me 6-8 hours, spread out over three days. There are 73 categories, and each one offers 40-75 nominees (with new jazz albums peaking at 136 -- only 22 on my A-lists, out of 110 for 2024, so 80% of my top picks don't even get nominated).

Other than that, I managed to get a small amount of house work done last week. I cleared out a pile of dead, decrepit, and/or just disgusting electronics and hauled them off to recycle. I've done some sweeping, some window cleaning, and some yard work. I more-or-less fixed a porch rail that's been leaning alarmingly. I found where an air conditioner plastic slab has broken, so I need to figure out how to straighten it out and get it level. The big task of finding proper places for all the CDs and books, including weeding a few out, remains, as does the more confusing job of sorting out the tools and hardware and putting them where I can find them. The garage and basement need major cleaning.

I should go shopping for glasses. While my eyesight is improved, short/medium distances are still troublesome. I need to work on my planning, especially for writing, website development, and finding a new car. Unclear how long the current one will even keep running. It certainly doesn't inspire me to consider any sort of road trip.

I do have enough material for a Loose Tabs this week. Possibly for a Books post as well: draft file has 16 main section books; while in the past my standard has been 40, I've been wanting to cut that down, especially as the sublists have grown, and I once posited 20 as a good size. We're beginning to see the first post-2024 election books, and there are a number of important new books on Israel. I also have a big section on jazz books, which I've rarely compiled before. And I still have a lot of tabs open.

I also have a couple of questions I hope to answer -- I considered knocking them out today, but don't want to delay posting any more than necessary. How much of this stuff I'll get done next week is anyone's guess. The only project I'm actually enthusiastic about is a dinner, which will give me a chance to combine the salad I missed from the Burmese birthday dinner last October with a couple of old Thai favorites (including one, panang curry duck, that I haven't made since a birthday dinner over a decade ago).

Minor housekeeping note: as I've been listening to 2024 releases, I've been adding them to the appropriate 2024 files, including tracking, jazz and non-jazz, and even the EOY aggregate (although I'm making no active effort to collect more data for it). I've basically given up on the idea of including previous-year albums that were unknown to me in the new year lists (as I had done for many years). Eventually, I think that all of the older annual lists should be resynched to calendar year, although at this stage the amount of work involved is hard to imagine doing.

I'll also note that my Bluesky account has finally topped 100 followers. I got nervous for a while when the count dropped from 100 to 99, especially as that happened right after a non-music post that no one seems to have understood.

New records reviewed this week:

Albare: Eclecticity (2025, Alfi): Australian guitarist Albert Dadon, 16th album, also uses a guitar synth, offers a nice groove album setting off Phil Noy's saxophone riffs. Title is quite the tongue-twister. B+(*) [cd]

Håkon Berre: Mirror Matter (2025, Barefoot): Norwegian drummer, based in Denmark, several albums since 2009, various side credits (especially with Maria Faust). This one is solo, with electronics as well as percussion. B+(**) [sp]

T Bone Burnett: The Other Side (2024, Verve Forecast): Americana singer-songwriter, probably better known these days as a producer but his 1980-92 releases were much esteemed, my favorite the last one, The Criminal Under My Own Hat. Only a few proper albums since, but this one is in much the same vein -- not that he doesn't sound older, and a bit less assured. B+(**) [sp]

Cyrus Chestnut: Rhythm, Melody and Harmony (2024 [2025], HighNote): Mainstream pianist, emerged as a major figure in the 1990s with his Atlantic albums, has found an agreeable home here. Quartet with Stacy Dillard (tenor/soprano sax), Gerald Cannon (bass), and Chris Beck (drums). Six originals, three covers, "There Is a Fountain" is especially nice. B+(***) [sp]

Yuval Cohen Quartet: Winter Poems (2023 [2025], ECM): Soprano saxophonist from Israel, brother of Anat and Avishai and member of the 3 Cohens, backed here with piano (Tom Oren), bass (Alon Near), and drums (Alon Benjamini). This is lovely, a secluded calm before the cataclysm. B+(**) [sp]

George Colligan: You'll Hear It (2024, La Reserve): Pianist, based in Portland, counts as his 38th album (starting in 1996), I'm not finding a credits list, but opens as a trio, with some horns and a singer and switching to electric on the second track. [sp]

Alyn Cosker: Onta (2025, Calligram): Drummer, from Scotland, first album 2009, side credits from 2003 including Tommy Smith and Scottish National Jazz Orchestra. Assembled from multiple sessions with various musicians, including several vocalists. I do like the closing folk song ("Làrach do Thacaidean"). B+(*) [cd]

The Coward Brothers: The Coward Brothers (2024, New West): Howard and Henry Coward, the former better known as Elvis Costello, the latter as T Bone Burnett, with a back story that goes back to 1956, and an actual single from 1985. If you take Burnett's solo album as a reference, this one is much more eccentric, for better and for worse. B+(*) [sp]

James Davis' Beveled: Arc and Edge (2024 [2025], Calligram): Flugelhorn player, from Chicago, wrote all the pieces here, joined by a second flugelhorn player (Chad McCullough), two bass clarinetists (Jeff Bradfield and Michael Salter), bass, and drums. Nice postbop mix. B+(***) [cd]

DJ Dadaman & Moscow Dollar: Ka Gaza (2025, Nyege Nyege Tapes): South African, no Discogs history that I can find, just a note that DJ Dadaman "started his journey way back in 2003," in something called "bacardi music" ("a potent cocktail of kwaito, house and synth pop"), with a hint that this may be older music belatedly released. B+(***) [sp]

Djrum: Under Tangled Silence (2025, Houndstooth): Felix Manuel, Discogs lists as DJ Rum but recent albums have run the alias together. B+(***) [sp]

Maria Faust Sacrum Facere: Marches Rewound & Rewritten (2024 [2025], Stunt): Alto saxophonist, from Estonia, based in Denmark, debut album 2008, third album with this group, which stems from a 2014 album title. Group consists of six horns -- three brass (including tuba), three reeds -- plus two drummers. B+(**) [sp]

Satoko Fujii This Is It!: Message (2024 [2025], Libra): Pianist-led trio with trumpet (Natsuki Tamura) and drums (Takashi Itani), third group album, although the first two probably have close to a hundred together, and this is their most basic grouping, and exemplary as usual. A- [cd]

Galactic and Irma Thomas: Audience With the Queen (2025, Tchoup-Zilla): New Orleans-based jam (or funk) band, active since 1996, with a couple dozen albums, functioning here as backup for "the soul queen of New Orleans" -- a title she earned with hits in the 1960s. She's 84 now, a decade past her last album, but she sounds strong, and the band does her proud. B+(***) [sp]

Hamell on Trial: Harp (for Harry) (2025, Saustex): Folkie singer-songwriter from Syracuse, couple dozen albums since 1996, did this one sounds live sometime after last November 6, which you can tell because he asks how the audience is coping. Just guitar and voice, like The Pandemic Songs, which is all he really needs. A- [sp]

Joel Harrison: Guitar Talk Vol. 2: Classical Duos/Jazz Duos (2025, AGS, 2CD): Guitarist, has a couple dozen albums since 1996, organized something he calls Alternative Guitar Summit, releasing a batch of solos in 2024, followed here by two sets of duos: the titular Classical Duos with Fareed Haque & Dan Lippel, and Jazz Duos with Gregg Belisle Chi, Nels Cline, Adam Levy, Camila Meza, Wolfgang Muthspiel, Anthony Pirog, Brad Shepik, and Mike Stern, with scattered bits of voice. B+(*) [cd]

HHY & the Kampala Unit: Turbo Meltdown (2025, Nyege Nyege Tapes): Jonathan Uliel Saldhana, a producer from Portugal, working with the label's Ugandan house band. B+(**) [sp]

Hieroglyphic Being: Dance Music 4 Bad People (2025, Smalltown Supersound): Chicago house producer Jamal Moss, many albums since 2008. B+(***) [sp]

Art Hirahara: Good Company (2023 [2024], Posi-Tone): Pianist, regular albums since 2011 plus side credits on many of the label's albums, this one with Paul Bollenback on guitar and Ron Horton on trumpet/flugelhorn. B+(*) [sp]

Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra With Wynton Marsalis and Bryan Stevenson: Freedom, Justice, and Hope (2021 [2024], Blue Engine): Stevenson is director of Equal Justice Initiative, and he introduces the various pieces here with reminders of the long struggle for civil rights. I suspect he's preaching to the choir here, but I can't fault anything he says. I can't fault the music either, where the big band plays Rollins, Coltrane, Fats Waller, and "I Shall Overcome." B+(**) [sp]

Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra With Wynton Marsalis: The Music of Max Roach (2024, Blue Engine): A big band program celebrating the bebop drummer's 100th birthday, with Obed Calvaire acting as music director. B+(*) [sp]

KnCurrent: KnCurrent (2024 [2025], Deep Dish): Bandleader is alto saxophonist Patrick Brennan, who has several albums going back to 1999, some as Sonic Openings Under Pressure. Group adds Jason Kao Hwang (violin), Cooper-Moore (generally a pianist but plays his homemade diddley-bo here), and On Ka'a Davis (guitar). B+(***) [cd]

Hedvig Mollestad Trio: Bees in the Bonnet (2024 [2025], Rune Grammofon): Norwegian electric guitar-bass-drums trio, with Ellen Brakken and Ivar Loe Bjørnstad. Fast, heavy fusion. B+(***) [sp]

John Patitucci: Spirit Fall (2024 [2025], Edition): Bassist, has many albums since his eponymous debut in 1988, few I've bothered checking out, but a trio with Chris Potter (tenor/soprano sax, bass clarinet) and Brian Blade (drums) is promising, playing nine of his own songs, plus one from Wayne Shorter. B+(***) [sp]

Pé: Æzæl: Eternity of Nonexistence (2025, Tokinogake): Probably Puria M. Rad, "a Bandar Abbas-based musician and sound designer/engineer who was born and raised in Tehran, studied audio production in Malaysia and has been exploring experimental electronic music since 2014" -- my doubts because this and another album on the same Japanese label have yet to appear on Discogs, although a 2021 album and a couple of 5-file FLACS are listed there, and the notes fit: title is an Arabic word, tied to Sufism, also used in Farsi. Not without interest, but pretty minimal, obscurantist even. B [bc]

Sault: 10 (2025, Forever Living Originals): British funk group, a dozen albums since 2019, don't know what the four with numerical titles are meant to signify. B+(*) [sp]

Joona Toivanen Trio: Gravity (2025, We Jazz): Finnish pianist, debut in 2000 with this same trio: Tapani Toivanen (bass) and Olavi Louhivuori (drums). Has an interesting ambient feel. B+(**) [sp]

Gregory Uhlmann/Josh Johnson/Sam Wilkes: Uhlmann/Johnson/Wilkes (2023 [2025], International Anthem): Guitar/sax/bass + effects all around. Gives this a certain plastic quality, which comes home on the "Fool on the Hill" cover. B+(**) [sp]

Julia Úlehla and Dálava: Understories (2021 [2025], Pi): Singer-songwriter, trained as an opera singer, draws on Moravian folk music, has studied at Stanford and Eastman, worked in New York and Vancouver, but bio is short on specifics. Dálava is basically Aram Bajakian (guitars, bass, piano, synths, percussion), sometimes supplemented by others: Peggy Lee (cello) and Josh Zubot (violin) appear on several tracks each. Strikes me as dark and heavy, but there's something to it. B+(**) [cd]

Jordan VanHemert: Survival of the Fittest (2024 [2025], Origin): Also saxophonist, born in Korea, based in Oklahoma, third album, a postbop sextet with familiar names: Terell Stafford (trumpet), Michael Dease (trombone), Helen Sung (piano), Rodney Whitaker (bass), Lewis Nash (drums). B+(**) [cd] [05-16]

The War and Treaty: Plus One (2025, Mercury/UMG Nashville): Duo of Michael Trotter and the former Tanya Blount, both strong singers, credited on their 2016 debut as Trotter & Blount, fourth album under this name, slotted as country but blows up huge with rafter-raising chorus. B- [sp]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

Borghesia: Clones (1984 [2025], Dark Entries): Electronic music group founded 1982 in Ljulljana (now Slovenia), could pass for Krautrock, recorded extensively through 1991, regrouped in 2009. Second album. B+(**) [bc]

George Colligan: Live at the Jazz Standard (2014 [2025], Whirlwind): A really good pianist since the late 1990s, but it's a crowded field. This is a live set, coming off a trio album with Jack DeJohnette and Larry Grenadier, with Linda May Han Oh subbing for the bassist. B+(**) [sp]

The Descendants of Mike and Phoebe: A Spirit Speaks (1973 [2025], Strata-East): One of bassist Bill Lee's projects at the label, with "soprano" (meaning operatic) vocals by A. Grace Lee Mims, plus flugelhorn (Cliff Lee), piano (Consuela Lee Moorehead), and percussion (either Billy Higgins or Sonny Brown). B [sp]

Shamek Farrah: First Impressions (1974 [2025], Strata-East): Alto saxophonist, born Anthony Domacase in New York City, started playing in Latin jazz groups, first album, group here is as unfamiliar to me as he is: Norman Person (trumpet), Sonelius Smith (piano), Milton Suggs (bass), Ron Warwell (drums), Calvert "Bo" Satter-White (congas). B+(***) [sp]

Shamek Farrah & Sonelius Smith: The World of the Children (1976 [2025], Strata-East): Second album, the pianist getting co-credit with two songs to the alto saxophonist's one, the other songs coming from Joseph Gardner (trumpet) and Milton Suggs (bass). B+(**) [sp]

Art Pepper: An Afternoon in Norway: The Kongsberg Concert (1980 [2025], Elemental Music): Another stop on a European tour that's been getting a lot of coverage recently, with the alto saxophonist's regular touring group of Milcho Leviev (piano), Tony Dumas (bass), and Carl Burnett (drums). Terrific, if course, but no better than the Geneva 1980 date I recently reviewed. B+(***) [sp]

The Piano Choir: Handscapes (1972 [2025], Strata-East): Multiple pianos, some electic, also credits for "vocals, percussion, African piano, and harpsichord," the performers listed as Stanley Cowell, Nat Jones, Hugh Lawson, Webster Lewis, Harold Mabern, Danny Mixon, Sonelius Smith. This runs very long (9 tracks, 104:55), which makes it hard to find the point. B [sp]

The Piano Choir: Handscapes 2 (1974 [2025], Strata-East): Further sessions, five pieces, 33:30, same pianists (possibly excepting Danny Mixon; the other six are featured once or twice) with extra percussionists (Mtume, Jimmy Hopps, John Lewis). Liveliness and brevity help a bit. B+(*) [sp]

Albert White: The Definitive Albert White ([2025], Music Maker): Blues guitarist/singer, had an uncle known as Piano Red and started playing with him in 1962, is 82 now, had two albums released on Music Maker 2007 & 2016 but they seem to have been tapes from the 1970s. No dates given for this, but title suggests this is also collected from old tapes. B+(*) [sp]

Old music:

Khan Jamal: Cool (1989 [2008], Porter): Mallets player (1946-2022), spent his career on the margins of free jazz, starting with a group called Sounds of Liberation. This "percussion and strings quartet" didn't appear until 2002, with a later reissue. Vibraphone, with John Rodgers (cello), Warren Ore (bass), and Dwight James (drums). B+(**) [sp]

Limited Sampling: Records I played parts of, but not enough to grade: -- means no interest, - not bad but not a prospect, + some chance, ++ likely prospect.

Isaiah Collier/William Hooker/William Parker: The Ancients (2023 [2025], Eremite): Young tenor saxophonist, making a name for himself, also credited with "Aztec death whistle, siren, little instruments," with and drummer and bassist who probably figure they qualify. ++ [bc: 22:41/93:40]

Grade (or other) changes:

Marshall Allen: New Dawn (2024 [2025], Mexican Summer): Alto saxophonist, joined Sun Ra's Arkestra in 1958, has led the ghost band since 1995, started work on this shortly after his 100th birthday, also playing kora and EWI, leading a large band with a string section and guest vocalist Neneh Cherry. I'm seeing hype for this as his "debut" album, although I have eight previous albums under his name in my database, not all co-credited to Sun Ra Arkestra. I'm also seeing a lot of people treating this as monumental album, but I'm still not hearing it. Wishful thinking, perhaps? It seems unlikely to me that they're appraising it against the 81 Sun Ra albums I've heard, as well as 6 more under Allen's own name. On the other hand, I paid so little attention first time around that I got the title wrong, so felt I had to fix that much. [was: B+(*)] B+(***) [sp]

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

• Albare: Eclecticity (Alfi) [05-02]
• Paul Dunmall Quartet: Here Today, Gone Tomorrow (RogueArt)
• Michika Fukumori: Eternity (Summit) [06-06]
• Ramon Lopez: 40 Springs in Paris (RogueArt) [05-25]
• Madre Vaca: Yukon (Madre Vaca) [05-26]
• Polyfillas: Rude Boys of England E.P. (self-released, EP)
• Ron Rieder: Día Precioso! (Mason) [05-15]
• Transcendence: Music of Pat Metheny (FMR) [07-01]

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Monday, May 5, 2025

May archive (in progress).

Music: Current count 44154 [44107) rated (+47), 21 [25] unrated (-4).

Another week, with little to show for it, other than a high rated count, thanks to being able to use the Strata-East reissue bonanza as a checklist (in turn pointing me to some related albums). I also followed up on social media mentions to dig up a few old albums I had missed but by artists I've listened to much by (Don Cherry, Dudu Pukwana). I also largely caught up with the release schedule of my demo queue, but I have so little sense of the current date that I may have slipped behind again.

I might also note that I while I rarely request review copies, I did ask for the Murray album, and despite what I took to be a favorable reply, never got it. But since I could stream it, I did. I also didn't receive the Eskelin, nor have I heard the remaster, but I graded both constituent albums A- when they came out, and relistening showed that the grades held up, so I went ahead and wrote the best review I could. One more note is that I got a nice letter from Jon Gold hoping I like his album, a day or two after I plainly didn't like it. Seems like a nice guy who probably deserves a more sympathetic ear than I could muster at the time.

I published a fairly substantial Loose Tabs last week. I didn't update the file this time, but have some new material in the Tabs and Books files. I finally got around to updating the books archive, clearing the way for a new column.

I have an invite to vote in DownBeat's Critics Poll, deadline May 12, so I'll probably try to knock that out. The invite promises it will take less than an hour to fill out, but I've never done it in less than 3-4 hours, and the only way I can do it in less than 6-8 is by shifting to a mode where I stop caring and just copy down answers from previous years. It occurs to me that George Russell may finally be eligible for their Hall of Fame Veterans Committee. They have a weird system that makes it easier for someone who died young to get into their Hall of Fame (e.g., Booker Little, Scott LaFaro) than someone like Russell, whose career was long with many remarkable aspects.

Carlos Lozada's The Washington Book is stimulating a lot of thought on my part. One nice thing about it being an essay collection is that when I run across a chapter I like, I can usually find a link to the original that I can share. The biggest and most important piece so far is 9/11 was a test. The books of the last two decades show how America failed. I've read about half of these books, plus twice as many more, but reached this same conclusion before I read any. I'm not sure I can find the citation, as I wasn't blogging at the time, but my initial reaction was that it was a "wake up call," a challenge to reexamine one's values and make remedies to get back into the right. But I started with a pretty keen awareness that America wasn't always right or honorable or even decent. While that much I learned since growing up with the Vietnam War, what the last twenty-four years have taught me is that Americans have not only "failed the test," they've become much worse people as a result.

New records reviewed this week:

Kris Adams/Peter Perfido: Away (2021 [2025], Jazzbird): Singer, has several albums going back to 1999, teamed with a drummer who was a long-time associate of guitarist-composer Michael O'Neil (d. 2016), playing many of his songs. Also with Bob Degen (piano) and André Buser (bass). B+(*) [cd]]

Anika: Abyss (2025, Sacred Bones): British-born, Berlin-based singer-songwriter Annika Henderson, also a DJ and a political journalist, debut album 2010, this seems to be her third, not counting a band called Exploded View (two albums, 2016-18). Runs on the noisy side of new wave, which is smart. B+(***) [sp]

Gustavo Cortiñas: The Crisis Knows No Borders (2022 [2025], Desafio Candente): Drummer from Mexico, based in Chicago, has a couple previous albums. Quartet with Mark Feldman (violin), Jon Irabagon (tenor sax), and Dave Miller (guitar), all freely into crossing borders, plus a long drum solo. B+(***) [sp]

Alabaster DePlume: A Blade Because a Blade Is Whole (2024 [2025], International Anthem): British saxophonist and spoken word artist Gus Fairbairn, ninth album since 2012, not sure exactly when this was recorded but liner notes quote him as saying "the album was written before the genocide started, but I had Palestine on my mind all the time." I can't say as I followed this closely enough to understand the point, but he does have some interesting goings on. B+(**) [sp]

Destroyer: Dan's Boogie (2025, Merge): Canadian singer-songwriter Dan Bejar (and/or band), more than a dozen albums since 1996. I never noticed him/them until Kaputt (2011) got a lot of hype, and since then I haven't been impressed much, but "boogie" is a welcome novelty (at least while it lasts). B+(**) [sp]

Joe Fiedler Trio 2.0: Dragon Suite (2024 [2025], Multiphonics Music): Trombonist, moved to New York in 1993, where he quickly established himself in big bands (Satoko Fujii, Anthony Braxton, Andrew Hill, Charles Tolliver) while pursuing diverse side projects, including tributes to Albert MAngelsdorf and Captain Beefheart and a trombone/tuba choir called Big Sackbut. Discogs lists four previous Trio albums -- I recommend I'm In -- but the revision here has less to do with personnel (Michael Sarin returns on drums) than configuration: filling the bass slot with Pete McCann on guitar. B+(***) [bc]

Jon Gold: Chasing Echos (2025, Entropic): Pianist, other keyboards, has a couple Brazil-themed albums, co-produced this with drummer Mauricio Zottarelli, scattered musician credits not that the comings and goings make much difference, with vocals often filling in for horns, or maybe just caught up in the flotsam. C+ [cd]

The Haas Company Featuring Samuel Hällkvist: Vol. 3: Song for Mimi (2025, Psychiatric): Fusion group led by drummer Steve Haas, each volume featuring a guest, in this case playing guitar. B+(*) [cd]

Christoph Irniger Pilgrim: Human Intelligence Live (2023 [2025], Intakt): Swiss tenor saxophonist, sixth group album, postbop quintet with piano (Stefan Aeby), guitar (Dave Gisler), bass, and drums. B+(**) [sp]

Melissa Kassel & Tom Zicarelli Group: Moments (2022 [2025], MKMusic): Jazz singer-songwriter and pianist-composer, have at least one previous album, backed by bass (Bruce Gertz) and drums (Gary Fieldman), with help from Phil Grenadier (trumpet). B+(*) [cd]

Kingdom Molongi: Kembo (2025, Nyege Nyege Tapes): Portuguese producer/composer Jonathan Uliel Saldanha, has worked with African groups like HHY and the Macumbas. Mostly chorals. B- [sp]

Marilyn Kleinberg: Let Your Heart Lead the Way (2022 [2025], Waking Up Music): Standards singer, only album I can find but I read things like "brings a lifetime of experience" and "storied jazz singer." Will Galison produced, and gets a "featuring" credit, playing chromatic harmonica, which is an effective alternative to adding a saxophonist, to backing of piano (John DiMartino), bass (Noriko Ueda), and drums (Victor Lewis). Well chosen songs, done with authority. B+(***) [cd]

Le Vice Anglais: Vas-y (2023-24 [2025], 4DaRecord): Portuguese duo, Ricardo Guerra Pires (electric guitar) and Bruno Parinha (alto sax), where "electronic processing and loops were made 'live'." Titles are a mix of French and English, but just as titles. The music emerges from ambient industrial noise, but just barely. B+(***) [cd]

Mira Trio: Machinerie (2022-23 [2025], 4DaRecord): Miguel Mira (cello), Felice Furioso (drums), and Yedo Gibson (saxophones). Two pieces, first a pretty impressive 22:38 slab of inventive improv, second a puzzle that spends way too much time at the barely audible level, which is a personal peeve (in part, perhaps, because I'm not a high volume listener). Mira, by the way, is building up a pretty substantial discography, having started with Rodrigo Amado's Motion Trio. Gibson isn't Amado, but he's often impressive. I don't know if the drummer coined his name, but it's a good one (but not warranted on the second track). B+(**) [cd]

David Murray Quartet: Birdly Serenade (2025, Impulse!): Tenor sax great, pretty great on bass clarinet as well, fought his way through the NYC lofts, and spent the 1980s and 1990s on small foreign labels (mostly Black Saint in Italy and DIW in Japan), compiling the most prodigious discography in modern jazz. After 2000, he slowed down a bit, gated by small labels in Canada (Justin Time) and Switzerland (Intakt). So this is supposedly a big deal: a major label debut (Impulse! is one of many brands managed by Universal, which is as major as they get), recorded at Van Gelder Studio. Same Quartet as has appeared recently on Intakt: Marta Sanchez (piano), Luke Stewart (bass), and Russell Carter (drums). This offers eight Murray originals, with titles that fit well enough with "The Birdsong Project" (a tie-in to a group that issued a 20-LP Grammy-winning box celebrating the avian world, with little if any connection to Charlie Parker). Two feature vocals by Ekep Nkwelle, a third with poetry by Francesca Cinelli. They're ok, but I'd rather just listen to the sax (and especially to the bass clarinet), and the rhythm section is exceptionally fluid. I should point out though that despite how much as I enjoy this, I wouldn't rank it in his top dozen albums (or probably two dozen, or maybe even three). But still: A- [sp]

The Reddish Fetish With the Jersey City All Stars: Llegue (2025, F&F): Drummer Jason T. Fetish, in a tribute to his father, wrote one song while covering standards from Parker and Strayhorn, Silver and Timmons, and both Coltranes. I don't recognize any of the supporting cast, but they sail through some fetching melodies, with a couple vocals (J Hacha De Zola on "Señor Blues" and "Lush Life"). B+(***) [cd]

Clay Wulbrecht: The Clockmaster (2024 [2025, Instru Dash Mental): Keyboardist, evidently some kind of prodigy, "released three albums before he was a teenager," "selected as a Disney All American in 2018," but this is his first album in Discogs. Promises "rich themes, dramatic performances, with bits of his wit," and, sure, he delivers all that. B+(*) [cd]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

Charles Brackeen: Rhythm X (1968 [2025], Strata-East): Tenor saxophonist (1940-2022), first album, originally appeared 1973, cover also notes "The music of Charles Brackeen" and "Dolphy Series 4," and lists the musicians: "Edward Blackwell (drums), Charles Brackeen (saxophone), Don Cherry (trumpet), Charlie Hayden (bass)." B+(***) [sp]

The Brass Company: Colors (1974 [2025], Strata-East): Bassist Bill Lee (1928-2023) has very little under his own name -- people who recognize his name today mostly as Spike Lee's father -- but Discogs lists 206 performance credits, and the notes describe him as "an integral member of the Strata-East family." Group here is deep in brass, with trumpets (Bill Hardman, Eddie Preston, Harry Hall, Lonnie Hillyer, plus Charles Tolliver takes a guest solo), trombone, tuba, and euphonium, plus drums (Billy Higgins, Sonny Brown), with a solo spot each for Clifford Jordan (tenor sax) and Stanley Cowell (piano). B+(***) [sp]

Stanley Cowell: Musa: Ancestral Streams (1974 [2025], Strata-East): Pianist (1941-2020), made a big impression on me with his 1969 debut Blues for the Viet Cong, was co-founder (with Charles Tolliver) of the Strata-East label. Solo here, with some electric and kalimba (thumb piano). B+(***) [sp]

Stanley Cowell: Regeneration (1975 [2025], Strata-East): Pianist, but strays from his usual fare here, mostly playing kora or mbira behind various singers and lots of flutes. B [sp[

Stanley Cowell/Billy Harper/Reggie Workman/Billy Hart: Such Great Friends (1983 [2025], Strata-East): Documenting a live tour in Japan, the pianist opens, with the saxophonist holding back until the second tune, when he unleashes his full power and glory. Second half evens out a bit as a group. A- [sp]

Ellery Eskelin: Trio New York About (or On) First Visit (2011-13, Ezz-Thetics): Remaster of Trio New York and Trio New York II, previouly released on Prime Source -- hence the title fudging for what is normally a series of previously unreleased tapes. Leader plays tenor sax, with Gary Versace (organ) and Gerald Cleaver (drums). A- [dl]

Joe Fiedler's "Open Sesame": F . . . Is for Funny (2018 [2024], Multiphonics Music): The trombonist's group is a quintet formed for the 2019 album Open Sesame, with Jeff Lederer (soprano/tenor sax), Steven Bernstein (trumpet), Sean Conly (bass), and Michael Sarin (drums). This reissues that and another album from 2021 (Fuzzy and Blue), with some vocals by Miles Griffith. B+(**) [bc]

Billy Harper: Capra Black (1973 [2025], Strata-East): Tenor saxophonist (b. 1943), first album (or a couple dozen through 2013), shows he always had this huge raise-the-rafters sound, fortified here with brass, piano (George Cables), bass, drums, and a choir that can be a bit too much. B+(**) [sp]

John Hicks: Hells Bells (1975 [2025], Strata-East): Early album, released in 1980 but recorded well before his 1979 debut, a trio with Clint Houston (bass) and Cliff Barbaro (drums), three original pieces plus Barbaro's title tune. B+(***) [sp]

John Hicks: Steadfast (1975 [2025], Strata-East): Solo piano, recorded in London, not released until 1990. Four originals, standards from Ellington ("Sophisticated Lady" and "In a Sentimental Mood") and Strayhorn ("Lush Life") to Waldron ("Soul Eyes"), all nicely, if not remarkably, done. B+(**) [sp]

The New York Bass Violin Choir: The New York Bass Violin Choir (1969-75 [2025], Strata-East): Directed by Bill Lee, seven tracks, compiled from five sessions, so it's doubtful the six bassists (including Ron Carter and Richard Davis) were all in play at the same time. Other guests pop up here and there, including Sonny Brown (drums), Harold Mabern (piano), and George Coleman (tenor sax). B+(**) [sp]

Billy Parker's Fourth World: Freedom of Speech (1974 [2025], Strata-East): Drummer, from Buffalo, d. 1996, this appears to be the only album under his name but he appeared on several other Strata-East albums. Parker composed the long (16:00) title piece, the other four pieces coming from band members Cecil Bridgewater (trumpet), Ronald Bridgewater (tenor sax), Donald Smith (piano), and Cecil McBee (bass). Smith sings on the opener, and Dee Dee Bridgewater later on. B+(**) [sp]

Cecil Payne: Zodiac (1972 [2025], Strata-East): Baritone saxophonist (1922-2007), started on Savoy in 1946, early into bebop but often found himself in mainstream settings. His own albums start in 1956, with just this one album for Strata-East -- part of their "Dolphy Series" -- before he moved on to Muse and Delmark. Quintet with Kenny Dorham (trumpet), Wynton Kelly (piano and organ), Wilbur Ware (bass), and Albert Heath (drums). B+(***) [sp]

Charlie Rouse: Two Is One (1974 [2025], Strata-East): Tenor saxophonist (1924-88), best known for his 1960s work in the Thelonious Monk Quartet, although he has some fine albums on his own (mostly later). This was his only album between 1964-78, with especially prominent funk guitar -- George Davis, who wrote 2 (of 5) songs and/or Paul Metzke --backed with cello, bass, and drums. I don't mind that, but was hoping for more of his distinctive sax. B [sp]

Strata-East: The Legacy Begins (1968-75 [2025], Strata-East, 4CD): Label established in 1970 by two young musicians, pianist Stanley Cowell and trumpeter Charles Tolliver, who each had a significant debut albums earlier (Cowell's Blues for the Viet Cong, later reissued more innocuously as Travellin' Man, and Tolliver's The Ringer) but who were witnessing the near collapse (or, just as bad, the mad scramble toward fusion) of most of the decade's major jazz labels. Taking "black power" as something more than a slogan, they took control of their own business to open up space for their visionary art. They weren't especially successful, but managed to release 50+ albums in the 1970s, and even after the principals moved to other labels in the 1980s, much of the catalog has been kept in print, with the occasional extra tape surfacing. When Mack Avenue picked it up, their initial foray has been to put together this label sampler -- a massive 33 tracks over 4 hours, 21 minutes -- plus a few select vinyl reissues and an initial batch of 25 albums on digital streaming platforms. I worked my way through nearly all of the 25 before putting this one on, which works for me more as interesting background than tour de force. B+(***) [sp]

Charles Tolliver With Gary Bartz/Herbie Hancock/Ron Carter/Joe Chambers: Right Now . . . and Then (1968 [2025], Strata-East): The trumpet player's first side credits came in 1965 with Jackie McLean, followed by work with Booker Ervin, Horace Silver, and Max Roach. This could have been his first album, although it looks like it wasn't released until 1971, first as Charles Tolliver and His All Stars, then on Arista/Freedom as Paper Man. A 2019 reissue adopted this title/cover, and added a bonus track, which has now grown to two. The "stars" were pretty young at the time -- Carter was 31, Hancock and Bartz 28, Chambers and Tolliver 26 -- but well on their way, with Tolliver writing all the songs (I would have guessed Horace Silver). A- [sp]

Charles Tolliver's Music Inc: Live at the Loosdrecht Jazz Festival (1972 [2025], Strata-East): Live set from a festival in the Netherlands, five songs, 64:55, a quartet with John Hicks (piano), Reggie Workman (bass), and Alvin Queen (drums). B+(***) [sp]

Charles Tolliver Music Inc & Orchestra: Impact (1975 [2025], Strata-East): Maximalist big band, with 14 horns, 8 strings (not counting extra bassists), Stanley Cowell on piano, drums and extra percussion. Impressive, especially the trumpet, but perhaps too much? B+(**) [sp]

Charles Tolliver Music Inc: Compassion (1977 [2025], Strata-East): Trumpet, quartet with guitar (Nathan Page), bass (Steve Novosel), and drums (Alvin Queen), recorded in Paris, originally came out in 1980, also released as New Tolliver (mostly in Japan). Four songs (39:15), snappy up front, seductive when they take it easy, oustanding trumpet both ways. A- [sp]

Charles Tolliver: Live in Berlin: At the Quasimodo (1988 [2025], Strata-East): Two live sets, originally released as separate volumes, here totals 10 tracks, 114:40 (including a bonus track), a quartet with Alain Jean-Marie (piano), Ugonna Okegwa (bass), and Ralph Van Duncan (drums), all Tolliver songs except for the "'Round Midnight" bonus. B+(***) [sp]

Harold Vick: Don't Look Back (1974 [2025], Strata-East): Tenor saxophonist (1936-87), didn't lead many' albums -- his best known is his one Blue Note album, from 1963 -- but racked up a steady stream of side credits, especially with organ players. Also plays soprano, bass clarinet, and flutes here, with Joe Bonner (piano), Sam Jones (bass), Billy Hart (drums), and others in spots. B+(**) [sp]

Old music:

Don Cherry/Lennart Åberg/Bobo Stenson/Anders Jormin/ Anders Kjellberg/Okay Temiz: Dona Nostra (1993 [1994], ECM): Trumpet player (1936-95), started with Ornette Coleman, continued in that vein with Old and New Dreams, but moved to Scandinavia, where he had huge influence and developed his own unique world fusion jazz. Last album, first three names (trumpet, soprano/tenor sax/alto flute, piano) above the title, others (bass, drums, percussion) below. B+(***) [sp]

Stanley Cowell: Brilliant Circles (1969 [1992], Black Lion): Early album, initially released on Freedom in 1972, then part of Arista's 1975 reissue series, which introduced me to a lot of great early-1970s free jazz. Four musicians wrote one song each: Cowell (piano), Woody Shaw (trumpet), Tyrone Washington (tenor sax, flute, clarinet), and Bobby Hutcherson (vibes), joined by Reggie Workman (bass) and Joe Chambers (drums). B+(***) [sp]

Stanley Cowell: It's Time (2011 [2012], SteepleChase): The pianist started appearing on the Danish label in 1989, eventually recording 16 albums for them. Many were trios, this one with Tom DiCarlo (bass) and Chris Brown (drums). B+(**) [sp]

Joe Fiedler: Will Be Fire (2023, Multiphonics Music): Trombonist, experiments with effects here, adding tuba (Marcus Rojas) to reinforce the bottom, along with Pete McCann (guitar) and Jeff Davis (drums). Seems like good ideas with mixed results. B+(**) [bc]

John Hicks: After the Morning (1979, West): Pianist (1941-2006), led 30 albums, played on more than 300, started with Art Blakey and Betty Carter, but I know him best for his later work with David Murray and several albums he led. This duo with Walter Booker Jr. (bass) plus drums on one tracks was the first album released under his name, but not the first he recorded. B+(**) [sp]

Cecil Payne: Patterns of Jazz (1956 [1959], Savoy): Baritone saxophonist, possibly his first album -- originally released in 1956 as Cecil Payne Quartet and Quintet, reissued as Cecil Payne in 1957, and again under this title in 1991. Starts as a quartet with Duke Jordan (piano), Tommy Potter (bass), and Art Taylor (drums), back half adds Kenny Dorham (trumpet). Bebop but ballads too, with a horn built more for comfort than for speed. B+(***) [yt]

Cecil Payne: Cerupa (1993 [1995], Delmark): After a couple albums on Muse 1973-76, the baritone saxophonist languished through the 1980s (one album on Stash) before his comeback in his 70s, with this the first of four 1995-2001 albums for Delmark. Eric Alexander (tenor sax, 25 at the time) is a driving force, allowing him to switch to flute on two tracks, and Harold Mabern (piano) is vibrant. B+(**) [sp]

Dudu Pukwana and Zila: Life in Bracknell & Willisau (1983, Jika): South African alto saxophonist (1938-90), went into exile with the Blue Notes for a career that spanned and fused his native township jive with avant-jazz. Two festival sets from England and Switzerland, featuring credit for vocalist Pinise Saul, the band including Harry Beckett (trumpet) and Django Bates (piano) as well as African percussionists. A- [yt]

Harold Vick: Steppin' Out (1963 [1996], Blue Note): The tenor saxophonist's one (and only) Blue Note album, his first of fewer than a dozen (through 1977), doesn't stray far from his many side credits, especially those in organ-led soul jazz groups: many with Jack McDuff, more with Jimmy McGriff and John Patton, who plays here, along with Blue Mitchell (trumpet), Grant Green (guitar), and Ben Dixon (drums). B+(**) [sp]

Grade (or other) changes:

New Orleans Party Classics (1955-91 [1992], Rhino): Nowhere near as classic as Rhino's 3-LP (later 2-CD) The Best of New Orleans Rhythm and Blues (the CDs came out in 1988, the LP titles never made it into my database, but most likely appeared in 1987 as A History of New Orleans Rhythm & Blues), so this is an afterthought, which I initially devalued. As with many Rhino comps of this period, this scoops up obscurities, and extends well past the classic period: e.g., the Wild Tchoupitoulas, Dr. John doing "Iko Iko," the Dirty Dozen Brass Band doing "Lil Eliza Jane," but they also include "Sea Cruise," which I have on at least a dozen comps. It's not all great, but hits more than it misses, and it's proven a great way to start off more than a few days. Top earworm: Oliver Morgan's "Who Shot the LaLa." Song that finally erased the minus from my upgrade: "Second Line -- Pt. 1" by Stop, Inc. [was: B+] A [cd]

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

• Alyn Cosker: Onta (Calligram) [05-02]
• James Davis' Beveled: Arc and Edge (Calligram) [05-02]
• Dickson & Familiar: All the Light of Our Sphere (Sounds Familiar) [05-31]
• Mark Masters Ensemble: Dance, Eternal Spirits, Dance! (Capri) [06-06]
• Mark Masters Ensemble: Sam Rivers 100 (Capri) [06-09]

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Monday, April 28, 2025

April archive (closed).

Music: Current count 44107 [44070) rated (+37), 25 [24] unrated (+1).

Last Monday I could anticipate, and to some extent dread, a full schedule of forthcoming events. We did finally get some help with the yard, and got quite a lot done, not that much feels finished. I saw my eye doctor, who seemed much more pleased with the surgery results than I am. I can drive without glasses for the first time ever, and driving at night is much improved. I still have a bit of astigmatism, so he wrote me a new prescription which he says will be "amazing," but I haven't filled it yet. For reading and computer he suggested I try over-the-counter "readers," which I already had, but so far they aren't much help. The computer distance is by far my worst case now, and it remains very frustrating -- not so much when I'm just typing words in, as I'm doing now, as when I need to read and copy information. That especially impacts time-wasting activities like listmaking and blogging, which it what I tend to do when I can't figure out what else to do.

There was a very nice memorial service for Francis Davis on Friday, which we were able to follow on Zoom. One of the speakers there was Allen Lowe, who later posted this on Facebook. He starts with "I'm not going to say much here," then goes on for seven paragraphs. [PS: Also on Substack: A Tribute to Francis Davis.] I've also just seen this screed on Facebook. I'm not finding this particular one on his Substack, but I am finding this (knocking Phil Freeman for his "Trumpian approach to music writing" -- whatever that's supposed to mean) and this (disparaging most other critics, except for a list of eight, at least two departed, and three I've never heard of). I've subscribed, unpaid, which I understand means I'll only get to read every other post. His pieces are so scattershot that's probably just as well.

I'm sitting on an invitation to write something of my own re Davis, but for now am beset by more than the usual FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt, an acronym I heard a lot in business management circles). One thing I have noted is the extraordinary consistency among the various obits I've read. I don't disagree with anything I've read, but I've been trying to figure out if I have anything more to add, and thus far I don't have much. One thing for sure is that I have very little to contribute in terms of personal anecdotes. We've had a long relationship, but it's mostly been focused on poll business, so if/when I do start writing, it's likely to be more on what the poll does, how it works, and why we value it.

I got one question about whether I'd be taking over the poll. The obvious answer is that I already did that, a couple years ago, when Francis became too ill to keep it going. The question now is whether we continue it, and the answer there seems to be yes, at least for now. I've been wanting to do some website work, but like so many of my projects, that's just been hanging in limbo.

I won't go into the long list of things I should work on this week, but for now I'll just note that I have enough pent-up Loose Tabs for a post. Further out is another Books post, which is probably good because I haven't updated the index for the previous one yet. In terms of indexing drudgery, I'll note that I did manage to add February to the 2025 Streamnotes index, but with the closing of the April 2025 file, I'm still two months behind.

I should note the death of David Thomas, of Pere Ubu. Of all of the late-1970s punk-era bands, they were the one I felt closest to, and the loss of Thomas seems to be affecting me most personally. Still, I haven't started replaying records yet, although that may well happen next week. (My most played record this past week was Have Moicy!, although I didn't start with it until a week or two after Michael Hurley's death.) One thing I could see myself indulging in is Pere Ubu's Bandcamp, which has several dozen bootleg show tapes. Any suggestions of where to start?

I don't have much to add on this week's music, other than to note that the 1970s Strata-East catalog is being reissued, and I expect to look much deeper into it. I also wound up looking at Craft's reissues from the Prestige/Bluesville catalog, which in one case led me back to an old Yazoo collection I had missed. I should look deeper into both of those catalogs.

New records reviewed this week:

Archer: Sudden Dusk (2024 [2025], Aerophonic): Another group led by Chicago saxophonist Dave Rempis (soprano, tenor, baritone), this one with Terrie Ex (guitar), Jon Rune Strøm (bass), and Tollef Østvang (drums). Rempis has been producing 3-5 outstanding albums every year, and this is another, with the guitar especially energizing. A- [cd]

Charlie Ballantine: East by Midwest (2024 [2025], Origin): Guitarist, albums since 2015, has a metallic tone that is neither here nor there, but not without interest. B+(**)

Ludovica Bertone: Migration Tales (2023 [2025], Endectomorph Music): Italian violinist, based in New York, second album, composed most songs, sings some, backing group includes Milena Casado (trumpet), Julieta Eugenio (tenor sax), and Marta Sanchez (piano). B+(***) [cd]

Blockhead: It's Only a Midlife Crisis if Your Life Is Mid (2025, Future Archive): Hip-hop producer Tony Simon, from New York, prolific since 2004, both on his own and with others like Aesop Rock. Six tracks, 35:05. B+(**) [sp]

Marilyn Crispell/Thommy Andersson/Michala Østergaard-Nilsen: The Cave (2022 [2025], ILK Music): Pianist, originally from Philadelphia, was an essential part of Anthony Braxton's famed 1980s quartet, has a long list of records on her own, but I was surprised to find nothing else in my database under her name since 2018 -- I've missed a few albums, and others are filed under other names. With bass and drums here. Despite the billing order, the drummer is the composer and "visionary." B+(*) [sp]

Korham Futaci: Heavyweight Rehearsal Tapes (2024 [2025], PUMA): Turkish saxophonist, a founder of the avant group Konstrukt, leads his own quartet here with Baris Ertürk (reeds), bass, and drums. The title is both on point and a bit too modest, as these pieces are powerful, with bits of rock and folk in the foundation, and the improv is polished enough. A- [sp]

Rhiannon Giddens & Justin Robinson: What Did the Blackbird Say to the Crow (2025, Nonesuch): Subtitled "Fiddle and Banjo Music of North Carolina," both started out in Carolina Chocolate Drops, he on fiddle, she on banjo. This is a purist throwback. B+(***) [sp]

Ghais Guevara: Goyard Ibn Said (2025, Fat Possum): Rapper Jaja Gha'is Robinson, from Philadelphia, fifth album since 2020. B+(***) [sp]

Phil Haynes/Ben Monder: Transition[s] (2024 [2025], Corner Store Jazz): Drummer, started in late 1980s, has a wide range of interesting work. Duo here with guitar, tends toward mild-mannered drone, which you don't notice much and remember even less. B [cd]

Phil Haynes: Return to Electric (2024 [2025], Corner Store Jazz): Drummer, leads a trio with Steve Salerno (guitar) and Drew Gress (bass). B+(**) [cd]

Daniel Herskedal: Movements of Air (2023 [2025], Edition): Tuba player from Norway, well over a dozen albums since 2010. Trio with piano (Eyolf Dale) and drums (Helge Horbakken). Pretty mild, atmospheric even. B [sp]

Hiromi's Sonicwonder: Out There (2025, Telarc): Japanese pianist, surname Uehara, 18th album since 2003, a flashy performer with some crossover potential, but unclear how well that's worked out. Much more unclear here, like the label (Discogs says Telarc but other sources Concord Jazz), artist credit (with, without, or "feat." Sonicwonder), who (probably Adam O'Farrill on trumpet), where, when, or why -- questions that mostly fall below my level of indifference. B [sp]

Larry June, 2 Chainz & The Alchemist: Life Is Beautiful (2025, The Freeminded/ALC/Empire): Rapper from San Francisco, Larry Hendricks III, dozen-plus albums since 2010, joined here by Atlanta rapper Tauheed Epps and producer Alan Maman. B+(**) [sp]

Nancy Kelly: Be Cool (2024 [2025], Origin): Standards singer, half-dozen widely separated albums since 1988, picks some memorable songs and sings them with style and verve. Also, two with Houston Person. B+(**) [cd]

Alison Krauss & Union Station: Arcadia (2025, Down the Road): Bluegrass fiddler and singer, first album 1985 (when she was 14), adopted band name in 1989, bestselling albums are two with Robert Plant, but was a Grammy favorite long before. Some vocals by Russell Moore. B+(**) [sp]

Medler Sextet: River Paths (2024 [2025], OA2): Bassist Ben Medler and tenor saxophonist Michelle Medler lead a postbop sextet through six original compositions (5 by Ben), with a nod to Mingus, George Russell, and Gil Evans. With Paul Mazzio (trumpet), John Moak (trombone), Clay Giberson (piano), and Todd Bishop (drums). B+(**) [cd]

Tobias Meinhart: Sonic River (2024 [2025], Sonic River): German saxophonist (tenor, soprano, alto flute), several albums since 2015, backed by piano-bass-drums, plus guitar (Charles Altura) on half, with Sara Serpa singing two tunes. B+(**) [cd]

Leszek Możdżer/Lars Danielsson/Zohar Fresco: Beamo (2023 [2025], ACT Music): Polish pianist, many albums starting 1996, in a trio with bass (or cello/viola da gamba) and drums (frame drum/percussion). Quite nice, but I could do without the singalong. B+(*) [sp]

Napoleon Da Legend & Giallo Point: F.L.A.W. (2025, Legendary): Rapper Karim Bourhane, born in Paris, later based in DC, couple dozen albums since 2013. Discogs has a long list of albums by Giallo Point (since 2014), but nothing more. Title an acronym for "Following Lies Always Wounds." B+(***) [sp]

Arturo O'Farrill/The Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra: Mundoagua: Celebrating Carla Bley (2022 [2025], Zoho): Pianist, born after his parents left Cuba but he's carried the national legacy to America. His connection to Bley was that he played in her big band 1979-83. He's recorded three commissioned suites here, one ("Blue Palestine") written by Bley shortly before her death, and first recorded here, along with two of his own, which fit together into a coherent whole. B+(***) [sp]

Alberto Pinton's Relentless: Allt Större Klarhet (2024 [2025], Moserobie): Baritone saxophonist, originally from Italy, moved to Sweden in 1984, Discogs only credits him with three albums but there are dozens more behind group facades, including this one, a quartet with piano (Alex Zithson), bass (Vilhelm Bromander), and drums (Konrad Agnas). Nice resonance on his main instrument, I'm a bit less pleased with the clarinets and flutes. B+(***) [cd]

Pitch, Rhythm and Consciousness: Sextet (2024 [2025], Reva): Originally Tony Jones (tenor sax) and Charles Burnham (violin), they added Kenny Wolleson (drums) for 2011's Trio, and Marika Hughes (cello) for 2019's Quartet. This time they've added Jessica Jones (tenor sax) and Rashaan Carter (bass). B+(**) [cd]

Private Property: Private Property (2025, Kraakeslottet Platekompagni): Norwegian trio of Guro Kvåle (vocals/trombone), Nicolas Leirtrø (bass), and Øyvind Leite (drums), first album. Vocals run punk-to-hardcore, everything else just free jazz intense and sometimes nasty. B+(***) [bc]

Michael Sarian: Esquina (2024 [2025], Greenleaf Music): Trumpet player, half-dozen albums since 2020, quartet with Santiago Leibson (keyboards), Marty Kenney (electric bass), and Nathan Ellman Bell (drums), on three pieces stretched out to 51:24. B+(**) [sp]

Ray Suhy/Lewis Porter Quartet: What Happens Next (2023 [2025], Sunnyside): Guitar and piano, backed by Joris Teepe (bass) and Rudy Royston (drums), both frequently on Allen Lowe albums, with Porter going back to 1993 in Aardvark Jazz Orchestra. Third group album. B+(*) [sp]

Unity Quartet [Helio Alves/Guilherme Monteiro/Gili Lopes/Alex Kautz]: Samba of Sorts (2022 [2025], Sunnyside): Piano, guitar, bass and drums, the first two from Brazil, the group filled out in Brooklyn, for a nice program of samba standards, with one original song credit for each. B+(**) [cd]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

Scrapper Blackwell: Mr. Scrapper's Blues (1962 [2025], Craft): Blackwell and Leroy Carr recorded their last session together in February, 1935, and split up on bad terms. Carr died a couple months later, and Blackwell didn't record again until 1958, when the rediscovery of long dormant blues singers like Skip James, Son House, and Mississippi John Hurt was just getting underway. This is his best-preserved session, shortly before his own death, a solo performance which nicely shows off his distinctive guitar and vocals, and includes a bit of him on piano. A- [sp]

Blind Gary Davis: Harlem Street Singer (1960 [2024], Craft): Blues singer-guitarist (1896-1972), from South Carolina, lost his eyesight as a child, moved to North Carolina in the 1920s, was ordained as a Baptist minister in 1933, with most of his later recordings credited to Reverend Gary Davis, a title reinforced by his uniquely oratorical style of singing. His early recordings are worth seeking -- see The Complete Early Recordings of Rev. Gary Davis (1935-40, Yazoo) -- but he recorded some in the 1950s (Pure Religion and Bad Company, from 1957, is perhaps his most famous) and much more in the folk-blues boom of the 1960s. This was the first of several albums on Prestige's Bluesville label, and he's in especially imposing form here. A [sp]

Vince Guaraldi Trio: Jazz Impreassions of a Boy Named Charlie Brown (1964 [2025], Craft, 2CD): Jazz pianist (1928-76), started in the early 1950s with Cal Tjader, went on to release his first Trio album in 1956. In 1964, he got the job of writing music for a documentary based on the Peanuts comic strip, and produced this album (now greatly expanded with outtakes), which led to many more. His trio included Monty Budwig (bass) and Colin Bailey (drums). A nice piano jazz collection, with or without back story. B+(**) [bc]

Music Inc. [Charles Tolliver/Stanley Cowell/Cecil McBee/Jimmy Hopps]: Music Inc. (1970 [2025], Strata-East): First album released on the label, which was founded in 1971 by Tolliver (trumpet) and Cowell (piano), at a time when previously dominant labels were dropping like flies, and young musicians who had just come of age on the late-1960s avant-garde were desperate for an outlet. The label ultimately released 50+ albums -- an important catalog in American jazz history which has long been neglected. Recently, Mack Avenue picked up the catalog and have started reissuing records, starting here. Group (with a different bassist) dates back to Toliver's 1969 album, The Ringer, and can be credited here, but the musician names are also on the cover, so I would normally credit them. I wound up with this credit line based on a later album. But while Toliver and Cowell used Music Inc. for various quartets from 1969-76, here they're joined by a "supporting orchestra" that turns this into a big band (plus a little extra brass, including Howard Johnson on tuba). It's a bit overkill for my taste. B+(**) [sp]

Music Inc. [Charles Tolliver/Stanley Cowell/Cecil McBee/Jimmy Hopps]: Live at Sluggs' Volume I & II (1970 [2025], Strata-East): Trumpet/piano/bass/drums quartet, originally released on two separate LPs, total 6 tracks, 68:09, now reissued on one CD or 2-LP, the digital adding 3 bonus tracks (41:29, so 109:38 total). B+(***) [sp]

The Soul and Songs of Curtis Mayfield: The Spirit of Chicago (1958-64 [2024], Craft): Twenty-seven songs written or co-written by Mayfield, the co-writes are with Jerry Butler, who sings most of the songs, either solo or in the Impressions. I went with the various artists designation because none were released under Mayfield's name -- Butler also has duets with Berry Everett, and there are two sides each by Gene Chandler and Wade Flemons. One of my all-time favorite albums is Anthology, a 2-CD set from 1993 that fortifies Mayfield's solo work with a bunch of Impressions hits. I recognize a few of them here (and they're simply fabulous), but mostly this is less familiar material, and not nearly as great. B+(**) [bc]

Old music:

Scrapper Blackwell: The Virtuoso Guitar of Scrapper Blackwell (1925-34 [1991], Yazoo): Blues guitarist and singer (1903-62), born in South Carolina but grew up in Indiana, most remembered for his 1928 "Kokomo Blues," like many bluesmen his career splits into a classic period (1928-34, documented here) and a late revival (1958-62, when he was shot and killed in an unsolved mugging). Much of his early work was done with pianist Leroy Carr, who generally got top billing, leaving this as the main entry under his name. Fourteen songs -- eight originally released under his name, two credited to Carr (but with Blackwell vocals), three to Black Bottom McPhail, one to Tommie Bradley. Robert Santelli listed this at 44 in his top 100 blues albums, and I see little reason to disagree. A- [sp]

Dean & Britta: L'Avventura (2003, Jet Set): Originally credited to Britta Phillips & Dean Wareham, they played bass and guitar in Luna, both sang, got married in 2006, this the first of five albums through 2024 (plus three EPs and three soundtracks, plus more albums in Luna. She had been in a couple other bands before Luna, and she wrote two songs here (to Wareham's three). Best cuts have a touch of Go-Betweens. B+(**) [sp]

Dean & Britta: Back Numbers (2007, Rounder): Second duo album, most songs co-written (plus covers from Donovan and the Troggs, among others), the vocals divided evenly, the songs so unassuming they slip past you a bit too readily. B+(*) [sp]

Dean & Britta/Sonic Boom: A Peace of Us (2024, Carpark): "A holiday season bonanza of winter songs for modern times," which is to say this is mostly a Christmas album minus the crass commercialization: first side ends with "Stille Nacht," second side with "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)." Sonic Boom is British producer Pete Kember, whose old groups were Spacemen 3 (1980s) and Spectrum (1990s), although more recently he's mostly been working with Panda Bear. B+(*) [sp]

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

• Jon Gold: Chasing Echos (Entropic) [04-28]
• Joel Harrison: Guitar Talk Vol. 2: Classical Duos (AGS) [04-18]
• KnCurrent: KnCurrent (Deep Dish) [05-01]
• Le Vice Anglais: Vas-y (4DaRecord) [03-21]
• Carol Liebowitz/Nick Lyons: The Inner Senses (SteepleChase LookOut) [06-01]
• Mira Trio: Machinerie (4DaRecord) [03-14]
• Billy Mohler: The Eternal (Contagious Music) ** [03-07]
• James Moody: 80 Years Young: Live at the Blue Note March 26, 2005 (Origin) [05-16]
• Simona Premazzi/Kyle Nasser Quartet: From What I Recall (OA2) [05-16]
• Ches Smith: Clone Row (Otherly Love) [06-06]
• Julia Úlehla and Dálava: Understories (Pi) [05-02]
• Inés Velasco: A Flash of Cobalt Blue (self-released) [06-06]
• Michael Waldrop: Native Son (Origin) [05-16]
• Dan Weiss Quartet: Unclassified Affections (Pi) [06-06]

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Monday, April 21, 2025

April archive (in progress).

Music: Current count 44070 [44035) rated (+35), 24 [33] unrated (-9).

I'm still in taking-it-easy mode, hoping that a few more days (or weeks or months) will aid in recovering from recent traumas -- I'm more optimistic about the eye surgery and the end of winter (although the last couple days have been pretty miserable) than about the world at large -- and give me time to plot a sensible path forward. I go to see the optometrist mid-week, which should give me a second opinion, some numbers, and possibly some answers on my eyes.

My impression is mostly favorable. I watch TV and go on walks without glasses. I can drive either with or without -- probably a bit better without, but with is good enough I've kept using them. I can still read, not great but no worse than before. (I've never used glasses for reading, so one question is whether they'd make a difference now.) Computer work is still iffy, so I might need some correction just for that. Many things are brighter, and that can cause some strain. It's also a good excuse not to kick myself for not getting much writing or programming done.

I did manage to publish a Loose Tabs on Thursday, and have added a couple items over the weekend, including a couple obituaries/remembrances of the late Francis Davis. I have a longstanding project to update and upgrade his Jazz Critics Poll website. That's on hold for the moment as we try to figure out what to do without him. Meanwhile, I've already collected a couple bits for the next Loose Tabs post. No regular schedule, but the outlet is there if I need it.

I'm expecting this week to be super lightweight. Aside from the doctor, I have some house work scheduled, and some shopping planned. I found some interesting things in the demo queue this week, although the A- albums (except for Dean Wareham) barely made the lower reaches the A-list. Several misses were also quite close, probably hampered by limited plays, with one becoming the first HM I posted a link to on Bluesky. I'm up to 96 followers there.

New records reviewed this week:

Benefits: Constant Noise (2025, Invada): North English duo, ominous spoken word vocals with electropop beats. B+(**) [sp]

Peter Brötzmann/Jason Adasiewicz/Steve Noble/John Edwards: The Quartet: Cafe Oto, London, February, 10 & 11, 2023 (2023 [2025], Otoroku): German saxophonist, one of the founders of the European avant-garde, recorded an enormous amount from 1967 up to his death, at 82, in June, 2023, a few months after this two-night, four set performance (140:28, available on 2-CD, with a 4-LP box and a 2-LP edit in the works), backed with vibes, drums, and bass. Hard to make fine distinctions among his work, but this seems like the sort of monumental capstone one can only imagine a career ending with. A- [bc]

Anla Courtis Ja Lehtisalo: 1972 (2022-24 [2025], Full Connect): Duo, two long-established experimental guitarists (plus long list of other instruments), both born in 1972 ("an era when sound was an experiment"), the former in Argentina, the latter in Finland (first name Jussi; "ja" here seems to be Finnish for "and"). Some remarkable rough-hewn ambient for a world on edge. A- [bc]

Christopher Dammann: Sextet (2024 [2025], Out of Your Head): Free jazz bassist from Chicago, first album, but has side-credits going back to 2014 (3.5.7 Ensemble, which I vaguely recall). Group here with trumpet (James Davis), two saxophonists (Jon Irabagon and Edward Wilkerson Jr), piano (Mabel Kwan), and drums (Scott Clark). Starts solid, stays solid, until the end when they almost break out. B+(***) [cd]

John Dikeman/Sun-Mi Hong/Aaron Lumley/Marta Warelis: Old Adam on Turtle Island (2022 [2025], Relative Pitch): Dutch, or at least Amsterdam-based, improv group, respectively: sax, drums, bass, piano. B [bc]

Trygve Fiske Sextet: The Flowers. The Dance. The Rumble and the Stumble. (2025, Slaraffensongs): Norwegian bassist, side credits from 2004, not clear how many (if any) he should be considered leader of (he's used Waldemar as middle name, and two albums are credited to Waldemar 4). This with Per Texas Johansson, Erik Kimestad Pedersen, Morten Qvenild, Oscar Gronberg, and Hans Hulbækmo. B+(**) [sp]

Food House: Two House (2025, self-released): I've seen this co-credited to Gupi and Fraxiom, but as far as I can tell, they are Food House, not extra hangers on. Hyperpop, or bubblegum bass, or cartoon music sent schizophrenically awry. Not my thing, but probably more amusing than Skrillex. B [sp]

GFOTY: Influenzer (2025, Girlfriend): British glitch-pop singer-songwriter Polly-Louisa Salmon, goes by acronym for GirlFriend of the Year, I heard (but didn't much like) a 2016 EP, which was followed by a 2019 mini-album and now two LPs. I don't get the attraction of glitchy hyperpop but I'm not totally lost here, or totally disinterested, but this could wear thin. B+(*) [sp]

The Hemphill Stringtet: Plays the Music of Julius Hemphill (2023 [2025], Out of Your Head): Hemphill (1938-95) was an alto saxophonist, but also notable as a composer, arranger, and organizer -- a co-founder of the Black Artist Group (BAG) in St. Louis, and later of the World Saxophone Quartet, where he was de facto leader even if others, like David Murray, were better known. Some of his early recordings were duos with Abdul Wadud on cello, so the notion of forming a string quartet to play his music must have seemed natural. Two violins (Curtis Stewart and Sam Bardfeld), viola (Stephanie Griffin), and cello (Tomeka Reid). Although the notes say "all music by Julius Hemphill," a big chunk of it was originally composed by Mingus, and more was improvised. B+(***) [cd]

Jacob Felix Heule/Teté Leguía/Sanishta Rivero/Martín Escalante: An Inscrutable Bodily Discomforting Thing (2021 [2025], Kettle Hole): Percussionist, from Oakland, ten or so albums since 2004, mostly collaborations, Bill Orcutt is about as famous as they get, and another 30 or so side credits. The others play: bass, voice/electronics, sax. One 40:11 piece which gets uncomfortably noisy but then backs off a bit and haves fun with the mess. B+(***) [cd]

Homeboy Sandman & Illingsworth: Dancing Tree (2025, self-released, EP): Four tracks, 13:58. "Money don't make you rich." "You can only learn from experience/ so be curious." "Who wants to sit here and think that we can do something? It's fun to just blame somebody else." B+(***) [bc]

Homeboy Sandman & Yeyts.: Corn Hole Legend (2025, self-released, EP): Five tracks, 10:14. Nice song about Thanksgiving. B+(*) [bc]

Eunhye Jeong/Michael Bisio Duo: Morning Bells Whistle Bright (2023 [2025], ESP-Disk): Piano and bass duo, with one solo track each, but also joined for four tracks (three in the middle, plus the closer) by Joe McPhee (tenor sax) and Jay Rosen (drums). In some ways this seems slight, but every detail signifies. A- [cd]

Ingrid Laubrock: Purposing the Air (2022-24 [2025], Pyroclastic, 2CD): German saxophonist, based in New York, many albums since 1998, none like this one, where she composed music for the poetry of Erica Hunt, each set performed by a vocal-instrument duo: Fay Victor and Mariel Roberts (cello), Sara Serpa and Matt Mitchell (piano), Theo Bleckmann and Ben Monder (guitar), and Rachel Calloway and Ari Streisfeld (violin). No saxophone that I noticed, although I have little patience for this style of art song. B- [cd]

Will Mason Quartet: Hemlocks, Peacocks (2024 [2025], New Focus): Drummer, lives in Rhode Island, side credits since 2009, at least one previous album as leader, this a quartet with Anna Webber (tenor sax), Daniel Fisher-Lochhead (alto sax), and deVon Russell Gray (keyboards), on a multi-movement composition inspired by LaMonte Young. B+(**) [bc]

Joe McPhee & Paal Nilssen-Love: I Love Noise (2022 [2024], PNL): Spoken word intro: "I love noise, because it can be organized into music"; "I think my love of noise is always in the process of becoming." Such generalizations evolve into a sermon on jazz history, touching on Coltrane and Ayler, with drum accents, until McPhee ultimately (19 minutes in) lets his tenor sax take over. B+(***) [bc]

Paal Nilssen-Love Circus With the Ex Guitars: Turn Thy Loose (2024 [2025], PNL): Norwegian drummer from the Thing and many other groups, premiered this septet in a 2021 recording, replacing his guitarist with not just Andy Moor and Terrie Hessells -- who recorded as "the Ex Guitars" in Lean Left with Ken Vandermark-- but also Arnold de Boer, all of the Dutch postpunk group the Ex. The vocals (Juliana Venter, also de Boer) don't bother me here, and may even be a plus, but the pauses and quiet spots seem like a waste, especially compared to what they can do at full blast. B+(***) [bc]

Adam O'Farrill: For These Steets (2022 [2025], Out of Your Head): Trumpet player, father and grandfather were famous Cuban musicians, which he also knows a thing or two about, but he's more likely to hang out with free jazz types, collecting here a pretty stellar octet: Mary Halvorson (guitar), Patricia Brennan (vibes), David Leon (alto sax/flute), Kevin Sun (tenor sax/clarinet), Kalun Laung (trombone/euphonium), Tyrone Allen II (bass), and Tomas Fujiwara (drums). I'm struggling, as my instinct says this is too fancy, but the only thing that might keep this from becoming one of the year's top-rated albums is that it's on a tiny label few have heard of. (Note that Brennan and Halvorson have won two of the last three FDJC Polls.) A- [cd]

Samo Salamon & Ra Kalam Bob Moses Orchestra: Dream Suites Vol. 1 (2023 [2025], Samo): Guitarist and percussionist wrote three long pieces (24:46, 13:38, 17:12) for large ensembles of 19, 16. and 18, total 27 musicians, nearly all familiar names, which add marks of individuality to the collective reverie. A- [cd]

Jaysun Silver: No Excuses (2025, self-released): Punkish, lo-fi, first album after an EP, 10 short songs in 19:07, has a sense of humor (Bandcamp page says "Brooklyn's best musician" and uses tags "amazing, classic, masterpiece"). B+(*) [bc]

Skrillex: Fuck U Skrillex U Think Ur Andy Warhol but Ur Not!! <3 (2025, Atlantic/Owsla): Electronica producer Sonny Moore, from Los Angeles, gained a measure of fame for a series of 2011-14 albums, then nothing until a pair in 2023 and now this, which I am assured is "continuously engaging and hilariously silly" -- traits I didn't come remotely close to being able to confirm. B- [sp]

The Third Mind: Live Mind (2024 [2025], Yep Roc): Roots rock band, best known members are Dave Alvin (from Blasters, with a long solo career) and Victor KRummenacher (from Camper van Beethoven), with vocals by Jesse Sykes, who fronted the Sweet Thereafter for several 2003-11 albums. B+(**) [sp]

The Tubs: Cotton Crown (2025, Trouble in Mind): Welsh indie band, Owen Williams is singer-guitarist, second album. Some jangle. B+(*) [sp]

Mathilde Grooss Viddal/Friensemblet: Tri Vendur Blés Ho I Den Høgaste Sky (2025, Losen): Norwegian saxophonist, has a half-dozen albums since 2006, leads a ten-piece group through a set of pieces based on folk themes, where the folksingers (for better or worse) seem to have the upper hand. B+(*) [sp]

Dean Wareham: That's the Price of Loving Me (2025, Carpark): Singer-songwriter, originally from New Zealand, moved to New York as a teenager, founded the bands Galaxie 500 (1988-90) and Luna (1992-2006 & 2017, overlapping several albums as Dean & Britta)), with solo albums since 2013, this his fourth, produced by the mononymous Kramer in a sonic nod to Galaxie 500. Actually reminded me more of the Go-Betweens, but calmer and in its own way weirder. The song in German is another plus for me, even before I identified it as a Nico cover. A- [sp]

Christian Winther: Sculptures From Under the City Ice (2025, Earthly Habit): Norwegian singer-songwriter, plays guitar, has a couple of previous albums. Group includes a jazz drummer I recognize, and the album eventually skews that direction, although I also wound up thinking of Arto Lindsay's skronk. B+(**) [sp]

Wolf Eyes: Wolf Eyes X Anthony Braxton (2025, ESP-Disk): The former is an electronic music duo from Detroit, Nate Young (electronics, vocals, harmonica) and John Olson (pipes, electronics) that has an insane number of albums since 1998 (Discogs says 130). The saxophonist you most likely know has even more albums, going back to 1968. I'm on record as hating his 1971 solo album, For Alto, but acknowledge that among the few people who can stand such harsh horror are huge fans -- it garnered a rare Penguin Guide Crown. This is every bit as ugly, and possibly as remarkable. B+(*) [cd]

Y: Y (2025, Hideous Mink, EP): English group, first release, 4 songs, 13:30, vocals recall Lydia Lunch, maybe because rhythm touches on New York no wave, goosed with sax riffs. B+(*) [sp]

James Zito: Zito's Jump (2024 [2025], self-released): Guitarist, based in New York, seems to be his first album -- Discogs led me to a trumpet player of that name, 1923-2014, who played in many big bands, from Tommy Dorsey to Gerald Wilson -- a mainstream quintet with Chris Lewis (tenor sax/flute), Luther Allison (piano), Rodney Whitaker (bass), and Joe Farnsworth (drums). Mostly originals, but they liked "After You've Gone" enough to include it twice. B+(*) [cd]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

Peter Brötzmann Trio: Hurricane (2015 [2025], Old Heaven Books): As with Charlie Parker and John Coltrane, I expect that the late German saxophonist's posthumous oeuvre will eventually match, in quantity if not in quality, what he released during his lifetime -- in his case a relatively long one. This was recorded at a festival in Shenzhen, with Sabu Toyozumi on drums and Jason Adasiewicz on vibraphone, for a bit of tinkle that first struck me as an oriental touch, but adds its own dimension. As for the title, this barely reaches Category 1 intensity, which is the way I prefer him. B+(***) [bc]

Charles Mingus: Mingus in Argentina: The Buenos Aires Concerts (1977 [2025], Resonance, 2CD): A tremendous bassist from the start, his genius period as a composer ran from roughly 1956-64, although he got a second wind in the early 1970s with a new quartet that went independent under the joint leadership of George Adams and Don Pullen. His health soon deteriorated, and he died in 1979 (age 56), so anything from his last few years doesn't come with great expectations. I found this one unsettling at first, but flashes of brilliance kept surfacing, most from compositions that undoubtedly have been done better elsewhere, but he had an uncanny knack for breathing fresh life into everything he touched. And for making small groups -- this one especially notable for Jack Walrath (trumpet) and Ricky Ford (tenor sax). Also, he closes both sets with his own solo piano. A- [cd]

Charles Mingus: Reincarnations (1960 [2024], Candid): The bassist, coming off a peak year that included Blues and Roots on Atlantic and Mingus Ah Um on Columbia recorded three albums for Nat Hentoff's label in 1960 -- two nearly as good as his masterpieces, plus a third set of scraps. After the revived label reissued the catalog, they found more scraps, which they fashioned into Incarnations, and more scraps here: five tracks, 48:30, with various musicians, notably Eric Dolphy (3 tracks, on flute, bass clarinet, and alto sax), and Roy Eldridge (2 tracks, on trumpet). B+(**) [sp]

Spectacular Diagnostics: Raw Game [Ten Year Edition] (2015 [2025], Vinyl Digital): Chicago hip-hop producer Robert Krums, reissue of first album, twelve tracks with nearly as many guest rappers (including Jeremiah Jae, Quelle Chris, Vic Spencer, Westwide Gunn & Conway the Machine). B+(***)

Old music:

Charles Mingus/Max Roach/Eric Dolphy/Roy Eldridge/Jo Jones [Jazz Artists Guild]: Newport Rebels (1961 [2024], Candid): Hard to parse this album cover, as the title could be the group name or vice versa, or either could be "Jazz Artists Guild," but the names are too big to ignore -- although Jones is the only one to play on all five tracks, and other notables show up on the roster here and there, including Booker Little, Kenny Dorham, Benny Bailey, Jimmy Knepper, Tommy Flanagan, Abbey Lincoln, and a couple lesser-knowns (like Peck Morrison on bass, twice), but I don't see where Roach plays. B+(***) [sp]

Charles Mingus: Charles Mingus and the Newport Rebels (1960 [2010], Candid): Another compilation from the same sessions, but of six songs, only one appeared on Newport Rebels, and while the cast of characters is similar (Dolphy, Eldridge, Flanagan, Knepper, Jones, and Richmond appear here), some new names also slip in (from the cover: Ted Cuson, Booker Ervin, Paul Bley). B+(**) [sp]

Charles Mingus: The Complete Town Hall Concert (1962 [1994], Blue Note): This was reportedly a "live workshop" of music meant to be recorded later, including two parts of a two-hour composition ("Epitaph") that was ultimately recorded by Gunther Schuller in 1989. But when United Artists released 36 minutes of this in 1962, it was widely deemed a disaster, with this later 68-minute CD merely aimed "to clean up the mess." A very big band: 7 trumpets, 6 trombones, 10 reeds (including an oboe), 2 pianists (Jaki Byard and Toshiko Akiyoshi), 2 bassists (Mingus plus Milt Hinton), Dannie Richmond on drums (but with extra percussionists), just one guitar (Les Spann). B+(*) [sp]

Phew: Phew (1981, Pass): Japanese singer Hiromi Moritani, started in post-punk group Aunt Sally, recorded this first album with members of Can (Conny Plank, Holger Czukay, Jaki Liebezeit), kept the name as an alias for more albums after 1987, including work with Anton Fier, Bill Laswell, Jim O'Rourke, and members of Raincoats, Boredoms, and Einstürzende Neubauten. This is very much part of the moment when bands like Cabaret Voltaire were being formed. Probably someone to study further. B+(***) [sp]

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

• Alberto Pinton's Relentless: Allt Större Klarhet (Moserobie) [03-14]
• Ryan Truesdell: Shades of Sound: Gil Evans Project Live at Jazz Standard Vol. 2 (Outside In Music) [05-30]

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Monday, April 14, 2025

April archive (in progress).

Music: Current count 44035 [44005) rated (+30), 33 [26] unrated (+7).

I had my second cataract surgery on Tuesday. When I took the tape off that evening, it was bright and blurry, but less dramatically so than after the first eye. I had some bruising below the eye, but it seemed minor. I was more struck by how creepy the loose, aged skin of the eyelids seemed. What I had feared was the the if the right eye recovery was as slow as the left seemed, I could have diminished vision for a few weeks. (It had been about a month now, and the left eye was still blurry, although the amount of light passing through the lens was more, and bluer.) But the blurriness in the right eye cleared up right away that morning. When I went to see the doctor, he not only cleared me to drive, but told me I could drive without glasses. I drove home with glasses, deeming them close enough to what I was used to, but I've since stopped using them for walks and TV. I haven't done much driving since, but haven't had any problems.

I have an appointment to see my regular optometrist a couple weeks out, so I expect we'll get some better measurements then. The biggest question is what, if anything, the expensive toric lens in the left eye has done. It was supposed to correct for significant astigmatism -- which the right eye had very little of, so we went with the standard lens there. The expectation is that I will need glasses for reading, although in the past I've never used them. (I didn't need them at first; while my bifocals help a little, it usually suffices to hold the book a bit closer.) I've been reading OK, both with and without glasses, all through this period.

What seems more likely is that I'll want glasses for the computer screen -- a focal distance of about 30 inches (I would have guessed less, but just measured it). I seem to be having more trouble with computer work this week (or month) -- although there could be other factors at work, including psychological ones. I'm going through a period where I have very little inspiration to do much of anything, or even to assign any blame for my sloth.

Speaking of which, this week's haul is down a fair amount from the last couple weeks, although 30 albums has long been my definition of a solid week's work. Most of the A-list came late in the week, thanks to Robert Christgau's Consumer Guide. Two of those records got lower grades at first, raised more on reflection than on further listening. [PS: Also upgraded: The Delines.]

I should also mention Dan Weiss' RiotRiot Report, which I haven't really worked my way through yet -- but I'm pleased to see the Ex and YHWH Nailgun (and Mekons, rated much higher here), and probably need the extra encouragement to get to Skrillex.

I perhaps should note an unusual degree of ambivalence about this week's grades. I could just as easily have upgraded the Art Pepper and/or the Kenny Dorham live set. Instead of giving the latter a third play, I went into his back catalog, and didn't so much get diminishing returns as flagging interest. Same thing for Birchall: pick any one of his albums and it's likely to sound fabulous, but play five in a row and they all start to sound the same. I know Pepper well enough to hedge my bets. I hardly know Diblo Dibala at all.

While I have very little real work to show for last week, I did manage to go back and fill out my long-neglected Streamnotes: Year 2024 Index, from which I had skipped the last four months. I still haven't done any for 2025 yet (other than to create the empty file). I've almost always done these on the same day I opened a new monthly file, but as they take 2-3 hours each, I started putting them off. While the indexes may not be of much use to readers, they help me find old reviews (avoiding inadvertent re-reviews, or at least helping with re-grading; I've already found several records I reviewed for a second time). I'd promise to catch up this week, but this is one of those computer tasks that I'm having eye trouble with.

No plans for the upcoming week. Good chance I will publish a "Loose Tabs" later in the week. I've collected a few items for it, and they don't have a lot of shelf life. Unlikely I'll do a books post this week, although I would like to get back to it. More useful would be to get to my planning documents, especially the one for household tasks.

New records reviewed this week:

MC Paul Barman: Tectonic Texts (2025, Househusband): Rapper, still remembered for his wit and wordplay in 2000-02 albums (first, It's Very Stimulating, a 18:01 EP). Words still dance, even if a bit herky-jerk, or maybe that's the beats? B+(***) [sp]

Basic: Dream City (2025, No Quarter, EP): Trio led by guitarist Chris Forsyth, whose records date back to 1998, and percussionist Mikel Patrick Avery, released a group album in 2024 (This Is Basic), follow that up here with a 3-cut, 26:48 EP with new bassist Douglas McCombs. B+(*) [sp]

Nat Birchall Unity Ensemble: New World (2023 [2024], Ancient Archive of Sound): British tenor saxophonist, has a 1999 debut but picked up the pace around 2010, "a Coltrane devotee of the highest order," never more so than in this explicit tribute, his core group a quartet plus extra percussion, on this occasion joined by Alan Skidmore (tenor sax) and Mark Wastell (percussion). B+(***) [bc]

Nat Birchall: Dimensions of the Drums: Roots Reggae Instrumentals (2024, Ancient Archive of Sound): Another facet of the British saxophonist's work, assembling these mild-to-sublime rhythm tracks single-handedly. B+(***) [sp]

Corook: Committed to a Bit (2025, Atlantic): Singer-songwriter, started lo-fi c. 2021 that hardly matters here. Trans, which figures into subject matter too much not to mention, especially as the point seems to be to uncover common humanity without (or even with?) the distractions of gender. A- [sp]

Silke Eberhard Trio: Being-a-Ning (2024 [2025], Intakt): Alto saxophonist, trio with Jan Roder (bass) and Kay Lübke (drums). Original pieces, with a hint of freebop Monk. B+(***) [sp]

Craig Finn: Always Been (2025, Tamarac/Thirty Tigers): Singer-songwriter from Minneapolis, started in 1990s with Lifter Puller, moved to New York in 2001 and started the Hold Steady, still a going concern but since 2012 he's also been releasing solo albums, this his sixth. Not a lot of difference between the two, as the band albums feature the same detailed storytelling, and if the music is a bit mellower here, it's still cut from the same cloth. Both are nearly peerless. A- [sp]

Ayumi Ishito: Roboquarians Vol. 2 (2021 [2025], 577): Tenor saxophonist from Japan, studied at Berklee and moved to New York in 2010. Several albums since 2015, including a previous volume by this "avant-punk style" trio, with George Draguns (guitar) and Kevin Shea (drums). More guitar than sax here. B+(*) [bc]

Clemens Kuratle Ydivide: The Default (2024 [2025], Intakt): Swiss drummer, also electronics, debut 2016, second group album, quintet with alto sax (Dee Bryne), piano (Elliot Gavin), guitar (Chris Guilfoyle), and bass (Lukas Traxel). B+(**) [sp]

Andy Fairweather Low: The Invisible Bluesman (2025, Last Music): British singer-songwriter, started in Amen Corner, had a notable series of solo albums 1973-76, after which he mostly did session work and tours, ranging from Chris Barber to Roger Waters, Bill Wyman, Joe Cocker, and Eric Clapton. He's put out occasional records on his own since 2004, with 2023's Flang Dang a high point. That was an album of originals, but this one is just a set of blues covers -- probably close to what he's been playing for Clapton, and probably better than Clapton can do without him. [PS: I haven't sought out Clapton since I hated 461 Ocean Boulevard in 1974, although I did enjoy two later albums: 1994's From the Cradle, and 2011's Play the Blues, filed under Wynton Marsalis. I've only heard one other post-1974 album, 2004's Me and Mr. Johnson.] B+(***) [sp]

Myra Melford: Splash (2024 [2025], Intakt): Pianist, got on my radar c. 1990, when Francis Davis wrote a Village Voice Jazz Consumer Guide, and and gave her and Allen Lowe the pick hit slots. Trio with Michael Formanek (bass) and Ches Smith (drums/vibes). B+(***) [sp]

Gurf Morlix: A Taste of Ashes (2024 [2025], Rootball): Roots-rock singer-songwriter, used to play drums and husband to Lucinda Williams, has been on his own, producing a new album nearly every year since 2000. B+(**) [sp]

Elias Stemeseder/Christian Lillinger + Craig Taborn: Umbra III: Live Setting (2021 [2025], Intakt): Swiss pianist, German drummer, both also electronics, only surnames on the album cover so I've tended to credit them as Stemeseder Lillinger, but I usually add the missing names to the credit rather than having to rewrite them in the review. The "Live Setting" is in very small print, but seemed worth noting. Taborn plays piano here, moving Stemeseder over to spinet, synth, and effects. B+(**) [sp]

Macie Stewart: When the Distance Is Blue (2023-24 [2025], International Anthem): Pianist, sometimes prepared, also violin and voice, third album since 2020, backed by strings (viola, cello, bass). B+(*) [sp]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

Champeta w/Edna Martinez: Diblo Dibala Special ([2024], NAS): Website shows 25 programs currated and introduced by DJ Martinez, exploring the Colombian "champeta": "rhythms and influences are said to have arrived with the sailors from West Africa in the 1960s and 70s." This one focuses on the Congolese soukous star (b. 1954; best known in US for Loketo's Super Soukous (1989), but probably includes other artists, in a continuous mix aside from the branding. It's really terrific, probably improved by the editing, but is it real? Not as far as I can tell, which makes it hard to recommend. A- [os]

Kenny Dorham: Blue Bossa in the Bronx: Live From the Blue Morocco (1957 [2025], Resonance): Bebop trumpet player (1924-72), a 1951 Modern Jazz Trumpets compilation added him to Fats Navarro, Dizzy Gillespie, and Miles Davis, and he remained one of the top players into the 1960s. Hard bop quintet here with Sonny Red (alto sax), Cedar Walton (piano), Paul Chambers (bass), and Dennis Charles (drums). Strong showing, but perhaps more so for the sax. B+(***) [cd]

Paul Dunmall/Paul Rogers/Tony Levin: The Good Feelings (2009 [2024], 577): British saxophonist (here plays tenor and soprano, bass and Bb clarinet), backed with bass and drums (before the drummer died in 2011, so this is in some sense a belated tribute). B+(**) [bc]

Joe Henderson: Multiple (1973 [2025], Craft): Major tenor saxophonist (1937-2001), made his reputation in a series of now-classic Blue Note albums 1963-66, moved on to an extended run at Milestone 1968-77, had an unaccountably spotty decade-plus after that -- a couple albums on European labels, one more for Blue Note (The State of the Tenor, which pretty much was) -- before Verve picked him up in 1991, giving him the living legend treatment (but saddling him with concepts that I found less satisfying: tributes to Strayhorn, Davis, and Jobim; a big band; Porgy & Bess). I'm far less familiar with the Milestones, although he easily aced his entry in 2006's Milestone Profiles series, so I didn't even recognize this title (a Penguin Guide ***). It may have been easy to dismiss due to the then-fashionable electric keyboards/bass/guitar, congas, bits of soprano sax, flute and vocals. But a rhythm section with Dave Holland and Jack DeJohnette shouldn't be dismissed -- they also contributed one song each, to go with three by Henderson. But now you can't help but focus on his tenor sax -- the Penguin Guide line is that he always sounds like he's in the middle of a great solo -- an this is certainly a good example. But I also have to admit I'm also digging Larry Willis' funky electric piano. A- [sp]

Freddie Hubbard: On Fire: Live From the Blue Morocco (1967 [2025], Resonance, 2CD): Trumpet player (1938-2008), opened with a bang on Blue Note in 1960 and was everywhere doing everything with everyone for a few years, although nothing in my database I especially like between Blue Spirits (1965) and Red Clay (1970). Quintet here with Bennie Maupin (tenor sax), Kenny Barron (piano), Herbie Lewis (bass), and Freddie Waits (drums). While this is nice enough, and I'm always up for long takes of "Summertime" and "Bye Bye Blackbird," nothing here really turned my head. B+(**) [cd]

Rob Mazurek: Alternate Moon Cycles [IA11 Edition] (2012 [2025], International Anthem): Cornet player, started c. 1995, early on mostly for his Chicago Underground groups, later for larger groups like Exploding Star Orchestra. This came out as the label's first LP in 2014 (2 tracks, 30:45), the digital reissue adding a 20:13 bonus track. Trio with Matt Lux (electric bass) and Mikel Patrick Avery (organ). Ambient. B+(**) [sp]

Mac Miller: Balloonerism (2014 [2025], REMember Music/Warner): Rapper Malcolm McCormick (1992-2018), seventh album, second posthumous release, As with 2018's Circles, seems better dead than alive. B+(***) [sp]

Art Pepper: Geneva 1980 (1980 [2025], Omnivore): Alto saxophonist, spent much of his prime years in jail, but made classic albums when he was out in 1956 and 1960, and finally got back on track around 1975 -- an album called Living Legend -- and went on to record a huge amount of extraordinary jazz up to his death (at 56) in 1982: The Complete Galaxy Recordings is a 16-CD box which chock full of delights, a bounty more than matched by the steady stream of live shots from those years. This adds 10 tracks, 126 minutes, of previously unreleased material from his first tour of Europe, with his regular touring quartet: Milcho Leviev (piano), Tony Dumas (bass), and Carl Burnett (drums). He is terrific, as usual, mostly playing his originals, with only minor reservations for sound, the less inspired band, and the fact that there is so much similar material already available -- or maybe just that I only played it once. B+(***) [sp]

Old music:

Nat Birchall Unity Ensemble: Spiritual Progressions (2021 [2022], Ancient Archive of Sound): Tenor saxophonist, from Manchester, plays "spiritual jazz," where the spirit was embodied by John Coltrane, but extends all the way back to Africa. First group album, a quintet with Adam Fairhall (piano), Michael Bardon (bass), Paul Hession (drums), and Lascelle Gordon (percussion), where Birchall is also credited with wood flutes, singing bowls, mbira, balaphon, gunibri, and percussion. B+(**) [bc]

Nat Birchall: The Infinite (2022 [202]3, Ancient Archive of Sound): One of several solo albums, where he lays down rhythm tracks with keyboards, bass, drums, and percussion, then dubs in his tenor sax (or soprano, or bass clarinet). B+(**) [bc]

Nat Birchall: Songs of the Ancestors: Afro Trane Chapter 2 (2023, Ancient Archive of Sound): Solo again, with some organ for piano, a full range of saxophones, and two Coltrane pieces in addition to three by Birchall and one trad. B+(**) [bc]

Kenny Dorham: Blues in Bebop (1946-56 [1998], Savoy Jazz): Early sessions from 1946, with one track from Billy Eckstine's big band, more with Sonny Stitt, a few scraps from 1949 (a session with Kenny Clarke and Milt Jackson, plus a couple Royal Roost shots with Charlie Parker) and 1956 (a side-credit with Cecil Payne). Some good work here, but only the Parker cuts turned my head. B+(**) [sp]

Kenny Dorham: Jazz Contrasts (1957 [1992], Riverside/OJC): Six tracks, four with Sonny Rollins (tenor sax), who gets a small print "with" down in the corner, and probably a picture in front of a harp (actually played by Betty Glamman on three tracks, including the two with no Rollins). B+(**) [sp]

Kenny Dorham: Quiet Kenny (1959 [1986], New Jazz/OJC): Not really a ballad album, but let's say mid-tempo, the trumpet clear and articulate in a quartet with Tommy Flanagan (piano), Paul Chambers (bass), and Art Taylor (drums). CD adds a nice "Mack the Knife." B+(***) [sp]

Kenny Dorham: Jazz Contemporary (1960, Time): Original LP -- trumpet with baritone sax (Charles Davis), piano (Steve Kuhn), bass (Jimmy Garrison or Butch Warren), and drums (Buddy Enlow) -- had six tracks (39:28), but at some point four alternate takes got tacked on (at least by 2000 in Japan). Nice contrast in the horns here. B+(***) [sp]

Kenny Dorham: Whistle Stop (1961 [2014], Blue Note): This is closer to the hard bop album I was expecting, with Hank Mobley (tenor sax), Kenny Drew (piano), Paul Chambers (bass), and Philly Joe Jones (drums). B+(***) [sp]

Grade (or other) changes:

The Delines: Mr. Luck & Ms. Doom (2025, Decor): Americana band from Portlant, sixth album since 2014, Amy Boone is the singer but Willy Vlautin, who has a reputation as a novelist (seven since 2006), is the songwriter. Scant reason for excitement here, but the songs have a quiet majesty, especially when the horn arrangements kick in. [was: B+(**)] A- [sp]

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

• Kris Adams/Peter Perfido: Away (Jazzbird) [05-01]
• Christopher Dammann: Sextet (Out of Your Head) [02-07]
• Satoko Fujii This Is It!: Message (Libra) [05-09]
• The Hemphill Stringtet: Plays the Music of Julius Hemphill (Out of Your Head) [04-04]
• Eunhye Jeong/Michael Bisio Duo: Morning Bells Whistle Bright (ESP-Disk) [03-14]
• Melissa Kassel & Tom Zicarelli Group: Moments (MKMusic) [05-01]
• Adam O'Farrill: For These Steets (Out of Your Head) [03-28]
• Jordan VanHemert: Survival of the Fittest (Origin) [05-16]
• Wolf Eyes: Wolf Eyes X Anthony Braxton (ESP-Disk) [02-14]

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Monday, April 7, 2025

April archive (in progress).

Music: Current count 44005 [43949) rated (+56), 26 [25] unrated (+1).

My second eye cataract surgery is scheduled for tomorrow morning. While I'm optimistic longer term, after a month, my left eye doesn't seem to be much improved over its previous state. This hasn't had much adverse effect on me, probably because the right eye was always a bit better, and could compensate for the left. So I'm worried of having more debilitating vision loss after tomorrow, even if the longer term prospect is better. Accordingly, I've tried to tie up as much as I could the last few days.

That involved posting a Book Roundup on Saturday, and a Loose Tabs on Sunday, as well as today's Music Week. (Some minor updates today, generally flagged with change bars -- I've added some book covers to the Book Roundup post without marking them.) Also good that I finished reading Christopher Lasch's The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy. Much of interest there, but not as well focused on the title as I had hoped -- although posthumous books are bound to be lacking something or other. Don Malcolm wrote in to suggest I follow that with Lasch's "magnum opus," The True and Only Heaven (1991). Later for that, although maybe I can scratch something out of reviews and synopses, which would easily be more cost-effective. I have mixed views both on progress and on the conservative mores Lasch espouses, which are unlikely to be moved much by reading another 592 pages.

Meanwhile, I've started Mark Fisher's Capitalism Realism: Is There No Alternative?, which is pretty short (120 pp, although at my rate I'm still unlikely to finish it before surgery). I also have a bunch more books waiting in the wings, to read whenever I'm able. (Three, including Richard J Evans' long biography of Hobsbawm, arrived just today.) But worst comes to worst, I have a long list of TV series to watch. (Currently we're deep into Astrid et Raphaëlle.)

Worth noting that the rated counter rolled over another thousand mark (44). Odds are pretty good that I'll hit 45,000 by the end of the year, but I'm far less certain about 50,000. The full A grade for Mekons may have started as a typo, as I had A- several places in my far-from-normalized system, but when I saw it once, I chose to stick with it. The Hood and Isbell albums are upgrades, although the latter doesn't count as such, since I first encountered it this week. It led me back to Hood, and when Hood got better, so did it -- albeit differently.

I notice that I'm writing more reviews like Backxwash, where I don't explain why I like it but I do, and Black Country, New Road, where I dismiss a well-regarded album just because I can't bother to care. Neither of those reviews do anything for me as a critic, but they're data points in case you're interested. At this stage, that's often the best I can do with my attention span.

While this week has been fairly productive in terms of writing -- three posts, roughly 23k words (per wc, probably 20k using my inline word count program) -- I've gotten very little else done. I expect even less in coming weeks. One thing I've fallen behind on is my "pick hit" posts to Bluesky (actually, I've done even worse at recommending articles, which was my origijnal plan). Most of this week's batch didn't come out until today, and I still haven't done late adds Hood and Isbell, so those at least you're reading about here first.

New records reviewed this week:

2hollis: Star (2025, Interscope): Rapper Hollis Frazier-Herndon, father is drummer in Tortoise, second (or fourth) album, following EPs and mixtapes since 2020. B+(**) [sp]

Carl Allen: Tippin' (2024 [2025], Cellar): Drummer, from Milwaukee, led some albums in the 1990s but mostly side-credits -- Discogs counts 185 from 1985. Aside from one bit of guest piano, this is a trio with Chris Potter (tenor/soprano sax, bass clarinet) and Christian McBride (bass). Standard mainstream fare, but Potter is in especially fine form. B+(***) [sp]

Florian Arbenz/Michael Arbenz/Ron Carter: The Alpine Session: Arbenz Vs Arbenz Meets Ron Carter (2024 [2025], Hammer): Swiss drummer, had a couple 2000-01 records but his discography really kicked off in 2020 with Conversation series, which started as pandemic-imposed virtual encounters, usually one-on-one but sometimes more. This falls out of the series, as the bassist showed up in person, joined by the family pianist. B+(**) [sp]

Backxwash: Only Dust Remains (2025, Ugly Hag): Rapper from Zambia, Ashanti Mutinta, based in Montreal, sixth album since 2019. B+(***) [sp]

Barker: Stochastic Drift (2025, Smalltown Supersound): Sam Barker, British electronica producer, based in Berlin, second album plus several singles/EPs and a DJ mix. Less immediately fetching than his first album, Utility (2019), all the better to sneak up on you. B+(***) [sp]

Believers [Brad Shepik/Sam Minaie/John Hadfield]: Hard Believer (2023 [2025], Shifting Paradigm): Guitar-bass-drums trio, group name from the trio's 2020 album. B+(***) [sp]

Black Country, New Road: Forever Howlong (2025, Ninja Tune): British band, started with Isaac Wood as lead vocalist, but he left after two albums. The rest carried on, with a live album in 2023, and now this third studio album, the vocals now divvied up between three women. I'm not really sure what's going on here, but I do know that I don't particularly care. B [sp]

Blacks' Myths Meet Pat Thomas: The Mythstory School (2023 [2025], self-released): Duo of Luke Stewart (bass) and Trae Crudup (drums), released a couple albums 2018-19, supplemented with two "Meets" albums since, this one with the British avant-pianist (recently acclaimed for Ahmed), impressive as usual. B+(**) [bc]

Bonnie "Prince" Billy: The Purple Bird (2025, No Quarter): Singer-songwriter Will Oldham, from Kentucky, started around 1993 as Palace Brothers, then Palace Music, playing what was then called "freak folk." After releasing an album under his own name in 1997, he adopted this alias, which has been good for a couple dozen albums now. While I had heard some of his early music, I didn't initially make the connection here -- I missed the Billy the Kid reference (which I now understand is not the only one), and thought the name sounded Anglo-monarchist-folkie or at least pretentious. So this is the first of his BPB albums I've checked out. It's actually a very nice album -- "Our Home" is a choice cut, and "Guns Are for Cowards" a notable title -- not enough to send me diving, but it certainly breaks the ice. B+(***) [sp]

Xhosa Cole: On a Modern Genius, Vol. 1 (2023 [2025], Stoney Lane): British alto saxophonist, from Birmingham, third album since 2021, six Thelonious Monk covers plus an Ellington song ("Come Sunday," with a strong Heidi Vogel vocal), backed with guitar, bass, and drums, plus a guest credit for tap dance (4 tracks). B+(***) [sp]

Geoffrey Dean Quartet: Conceptions (2024 [2025], Cellar Music): Pianist, DC area, second quartet album, with bass (Harish Raghavan), drums (Eric Binder), and trumpet (Justin Copeland). B+(*) [cd]

The Delines: Mr. Luck & Ms. Doom (2025, Decor): Americana band from Portlant, sixth album since 2014, Amy Boone is the singer but Willy Vlautin, who has a reputation as a novelist (seven since 2006), is the songwriter. B+(**) [sp]

The Ex: If Your Mirror Breaks (2025, Ex): Dutch postpunk group, started 1980, many cultural and political parallels to the Mekons, but side interests run less to folk/country and more to jazz/afrobeat. Three guitars and drums, the rock component seems more amped than usual, perhaps because they dedicated this to Steve Albini. A- [bc]

Bryan Ferry/Amelia Barratt: Loose Talk (2025, Dene Jesmond): British singer-songwriter, leader of Roxy Music in the 1970s, with a solo career started as a side covers project in 1973, taking over after the first disbanding in 1982, with a band reunion 2001-11, and other side projects. In this particular one, he wrote the music for Barratt's spoken-word narration. Normally I would parse the cover as listing Barratt first, but most of the early reviews only mention Ferry, and it's easier to file the album there. I'm finding both words and music here very attractive -- not quite at the level of Laurie Anderson, but an approximation. A- [sp]

Nnenna Freelon: Beneath the Skin (2024 [2025], Origin): Jazz singer, started in church, got married, had kids, started singing professionally in her late 30s, with 15+ albums since 1992. Has done standards, including a Billie Holiday tribute, but wrote or added claim to everything here (even "Oh! Susanna"). She never impressed me much before, but she's on fire here, and the Alan Pasqua-led band provides impeccable support. [cd]

Dave Hanson: Blues Sky (2024 [2025], Origin): Denver-based pianist, co-leader of H2 Big Band, seems to be his first album as leader, although Discogs lists more than a dozen side-credits, going back to UNC Jazz Lab Band in 1987. He wrote all 10 pieces, played by a quartet with Wil Swindler (alto/tenor sax), Mark Simon (bass), and Paul Romaine (drums). B+(**) [cd]

Nick Hempton/Cory Weeds: Horns Locked (2023-24 [2025], Cellar Music): Two saxophonist, both playing tenor this time, in what can be considered a throwback to the days of Gene Ammons and Sonny Stitt, backed here with organ (Nick Peck) and drums (Jesse Cahill). B+(**) [sp]

Lilly Hiatt: Forever (2025, New West): Nashville-based singer-songwriter, daughter of John Hiatt, sixth album since 2012. B+(*) [sp]

Jason Isbell: Foxes in the Snow (2025, Southeastern): Former Drive-By Trucker, tenth studio album, divorced his wife and dropped the band credit. Pretty basic, real songs over acoustic guitar. Noted lyric: "[God] made man so he could watch and laugh." Probably more like that. The greater intimacy helps the new love songs. A- [sp]

Japanese Breakfast: For Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women) (2025, Dead Oceans): Indie pop band from Philadelphia, Michelle Zauner the singer-songwriter, fourth album since 2016. Probably 2nd best reviewed album this year (AOTY 83/26, behind FKA Twigs at 86/33; Lady Gaga is +1 reviews, but -5 points; Perfume Genius is +3 points, but -5 reviews). No doubt this is nice, but I've already forgotten it, and will never play it again. B+(*) [sp]

Kaisa's Machine: Moving Parts (2024 [2025], Greenleaf Music): Finnish bassist Kaisa Mäensivu, third group album, quintet with vibes (Sasha Berliner), guitar (Max Light), piano (Eden Ladin), and drums (Joe Perl). B+(**) [sp]

Kelela: In the Blue Light (2024 [2025], Warp): Singer-songwriter born in DC, parents Ethiopian, last name Mizanekristos, started singing jazz standards and progressive metal, debut mixtape 2012, has since lived in Los Angeles and London, two studio albums, this a live one from the Blue Note Jazz Club in New York, which may be why she leans into a jazzy vibe. B+(**) [sp]

Knats: Knats (2025, Gearbox): British jazz group, from Newcastle, led by Stan Woodward (bass) and King David-Ike Elechi (drums), first album -- trio picture probably adds trumpet player Ferg Kilsbly, but credits also list tenor sax (Cam Rossi) and keyboards (Sandro Shar) plus nine guest spots on individual tracks. That risks getting a bit busy for my taste. B+(*) [sp]

Kedr Livanskiy: Myrtus Myth (2025, 2MR): Russian electronica producer/singer, fourth album. B [sp]

Manic Street Preachers: Critical Thinking (2025, Columbia): One of the big Britpop bands of the 1990s -- along with Oasis, Radiohead, and Blur -- who dominated the All-Time Albums lists of the early 2000s (from UK sources; Radiohead was the only one that got much notice in the US). Fifteenth album since 1992. I'm surprised to find only 2 graded in my database, and none even listed after 2009. Title track gets my endorsement both for words and music. My interest did flag a bit by the end. B+(*) [sp]

Nicole McCabe: A Song to Sing (2025, Colorfield): Alto saxophonist from Los Angeles, several albums since her impressive Introducing Nicole McCabe (2020), adds credits here for "woodwinds, synthesizer, piano, percussion, and voice," with others (piano, bass, drums) only listed for a couple songs each. Not much voice, and I have mixed feelings about the synth percussion. B+(**) [sp]

Mekons: Horror (2025, Fire): Early postpunk band from Leeds, debut album 1979 but didn't really come together until 1985, when they soaked up some honky-tonk country and spit out Fear and Whiskey. Jon Langford ran various side projects -- notably the Three Johns, then after his move to Chicago, the Waco Brothers -- but returned periodically for group albums, some of which have been extraordinary. This sounds like another. A [sp]

Billy Mohler: The Eternal (2025, Contagious Music): Bassist, several albums since 2019, this a quartet with Devin Daniels (alto sax), Jeff Parker (guitar), and Damion Reid (drums). B+(***) [sp]

Silvano Monasterios Venezuelan Nonet: The River (2025, self-released): Pianist from Venezuela, moved to US in 1990, has several albums since 1997, recorded this in Brooklyn where he has some ringers like Alex Norris (trumpet) and Jeff Lederer (bass clarinet/clarinet). B+(**) [cd]

Patricio Morales: La Tierra Canta (2022 [2025], Northsound): Classical guitarist from Chile. B+(*) [cd]

Matthew Muñesses/Riza Printup: Pag-Ibig Ko Vol. 1 (2023 [2025], Irabbagast): Saxophone and harp duo, both musicians trace their roots back to the Philippines. Lovely in its limited way. B+(***) [cd]

Marius Neset: Cabaret (2024 [2025], ACT Music): Norwegian saxophonist (tenor, soprano, EWI), 15+ albums since 2008, backed by Elliot Galvin (keyboards), Magnus H jorth (piano), Conor Chaplin (electric bass), and Anton Eger (drums), starts with the title song, then moves around a lot. B+(*) [sp]

The Nightingales: The Awful Truth (2025, Fire): British post-punk group, principally Robert Lloyd, released three albums 1982-86, regrouped with a new album in 2006. B+(*) [sp]

Oklou: Choke Enough (2025, True Panther/Because Music): French singer-songwriter Marylou Mayniel, first album after EPs since 2014 (initially as Loumar) and a 2020 mixtape, all titles in English, a Canadian named Casey Manierka-Quaile contributed to the music. B+(**) [sp]

Organic Pulse Ensemble: Ad Hoc (2024, Ultraääni): Alias for Gustav Horneij, Finnish multi-instrumentalist (mostly sax and percussion), several albums, records solo, reportedly in one take (but that's hard to credit)identifies as spiritual jazz. B+(**) [bc]

Ben Patterson Jazz Orchestra: Mad Scientist Music (2023 [2025], Origin): Trombonist, from Oklahoma, played in and was musical director of the USAF's Airmen of Note, has run his big band since 2016. B+(*) [cd]

Perfume Genius: Glory (2025, Matador): Alias for singer-songwriter Michael Hadreas, from Iowa, seventh album since 2010, well regarded, but demands more attention than I can muster, although for the first couple tracks I thought it might be as pleasantly innocuous as Japanese Breakfast. B [sp]

Porridge Radio: The Machine Starts to Sing (2025, Secretly Canadian, EP): English indie rock band, Dana Margolin singer-songwriter, half-dozen albums since 2015, this a 4-song, 15:57 EP that's about par for their sound. B+(*) [sp]

Bobby Rush/Kenny Wayne Shepherd: Young Fashioned Ways (2025, Deep Rush/Thirty Tigers): Two blues guitarist-singers, Shepherd is the young one, but only relatively (47, albums since 1995), as Rush (91) plays more harmonica. B+(**) [sp]

Mark Turner: We Raise Them to Lift Their Heads (2019 [2025], Loveland Music): Tenor saxophonist, a rising star in the 1990s, mostly side credits of late. Even with a solo album, this seems largely attributable to Jakob Bro, who wrote the songs produced, and runs the label. B+(**) [sp]

The Weather Station: Humanhood (2025, Fat Possum): Canadian folk-rock band, mainly singer-songwriter Tamara Lindeman, seventh album since 2009. B+(*) [sp]

Yseult: Mental (2024, Y.Y.Y): Surmane Onguenet, French singer-songwriter, parents Cameroonian, second album, her first in 2015 at 21, after she was runner-up in a singing contest. I noticed her on a Shygirl feature but didn't expect this would be so scattered, touching on neo-soul, postpunk, electro, and trap. B+(**) [sp]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

Johnny Bragg: Let Me Dream On ([2025], ORG Music): R&B singer from Tennessee (1925-2004), spent most of the 1950s in prison, where he sang in the Prisonaires, and also appeared on the Marigolds' hit "Rollin' Stone" (1955). His recorded legacy is largely captured on a 2001 Relentless compilation (The Johnny Bragg Story: Just Walkin' in the Rain). This seems to be something else, "demos, band rehearsals, and live recordings that, fortunately, Bragg preserved on tape in the 1960s and 1970s." B+(*) [sp]

Erik Friedlander/ and Michael Nicolas: John Zorn's Bagatelles: Vol. 2 (2019 [2025], Tzadik): A second album separated from its original box set release, this one with two cellos playing 10 of Zorn's pieces. B+(**) [sp]

Mary Halvorson Quartet: John Zorn's Bagatelles: Volume 1 (2019 [2025], Tzadik): Originally released as the first disc in Zorn's Bagatelles 4-CD box set (2021) -- actually, the first of four 4-CD boxes, which still didn't exhaust the 300 compositions Zorn wrote for the series -- now broken out separately, and unlike most of the albums Tzadik releases of Zorn's compositions, credited to the musician(s) -- perhaps some recognition that the guitarist has arrived. Actually, she's joined here by a second guitarist, Miles Okazaki, along with Drew Gress (bass) and Tomas Fujiwara (drums). Despite his massive cache of compositions, I still have little sense of Zorn as a composer, but anyone who doubts Halvorson's chops or arranging sense should shut up. A- [sp]

Krautrock Eruption: An Introduction to German Electronic Music 1970-1980 (1970-80 [2025], Bureau B): The title of Wolfgang Seidel's recent book, reviewing the development of what we've come to call Krautrock (a term from UK music critics that caught on, probably because it was never meant as derogatory): the mostly instrumental, mostly electronic music developed from the late 1960s into the following decade by German groups like Neu, Can, Faust, Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk, Popol Vuh, Amon Düül II, etc. The book details 50 albums, but this is just a 12-track sampler, and the Bandcamp page (which is most of what I have to go on) doesn't bother with group credits, making me wonder about its utility. B [sp]

Salsa de la Bahia Vol. 3: A Collection of SF Bay Area Salsa and Latin Jazz: Renegade Queens (1991-2025 [2025], Patois, 2CD): Trombonist Wayne Wallace is the main artist behind this label, their domain noted in the title, as is their focus this time around on women artists, few I'm familiar with, but plenty good enough for a couple hours of nice background music. B+(*) [cd]

Serengeti: Mixtape 2 ([2025], self-released): Chicago rapper, lots of releases, this a housecleaning exercise, 18 "old demos and other stuff," the titles nothing but the track numbers, no dates or other info. B+(*) [bc]

Trigger: John Zorn's Bagatelles: Vol. 3 (2019 [2025], Tzadik): Trio, which released an album on Shhpuma in 2019, with two electric guitars (Will Greene and Simon Hanes) plus drums (Aaron Edgecomb). They are fantastically noisy, which seems to be as legit a take on the music as any other. B+(*) [sp]

Old music:

Xhosa Cole: Ibeji (2021-22 [2022], Stoney Lane): British saxophonist, second album, title from "Yoruba orisha (West African spirits) for 'twins', exploring the themes of duality" through a series of duets with seven percussionists, who introduce their pieces with stories and critical insights, and occasionally sing. The sax pulls it all together. A- [sp]

Miles Davis: The Lost Septet (1971 [2000], Sleepy Night): Live recording, from Wiener Konzerthaus in Vienna, Austria, from a period when the trumpet master was developing his "electric" band approach, with electric bass (Michael Henderson) and keyboards (Keith Jarrett), with soprano/alto saxophonist Gary Bartz, drummer Ndugu Leon Chandler, and percussionists Charles Don Alias and James Mtume Foreman. Davis is overshadowed by the intensity of the percussion, and perhaps even more so by the relentless Bartz. A- [sp]

TEST: TEST (1998 [1999], AUM Fidelity): New York avant-jazz quartet -- Tom Bruno (drums), Sabir Mateen (alto/tenor sax, flute, clarinet), Daniel Carter (alto/tenor sax, trumpet, flute), and Matthew Heyner (bass) -- recorded this one studio album, although some live tapes have since appeared. The jousts may seem unexceptional, but some of the subtler bits (especially the clarinet) are interesting. B+(***) [sp]

Grade (or other) changes:

Patterson Hood: Exploding Trees and Airplane Screams (2025, ATO): Drive-By Truckers singer-songwriter, released three solo albums 2004-12 along with group albums, this his fourth (not counting the pandemic-filler Heathen Songs). Too quiet to keep my attention, but interesting enough when I do notice. But my surprise at liking Jason Isbell's new album better brought me back for a revisit, and it gained a slight upper hand. [was: B+(***)] A- [sp]

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

• Phil Haynes/Ben Monder: Transition[s] (Corner Store Jazz) [04-21]
• Phil Haynes: Return to Electric (Corner Store Jazz) [04-21]
• Jacob Felix Heule/Teté Leguía/Sanishta Rivero/Martín Escalante: An Inscrutable Bodily Discomforting Thing (Kettle Hole) [03-07]
• Chris Jonas: Backwardsupwardsky (Edgetone) [03-04]: LP
• Nancy Kelly: Be Cool (Origin) [04-18]
• Medler Sextet: River Paths (OA2) [04-18]
• The Reddish Fetish With the Jersey City All Stars: Llegue (F&F) [05-01]
• Sextet: Pitch, Rhythm and Consciousness (Reva) [04-22]
• Unity Quartet [Helio Alves/Guilherme Monteiro/Gili Lopes/Alex Kautz]: Samba of Sorts (Sunnyside) [04-18]

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Monday, March 31, 2025

March archive (final).

Music: Current count 43953 [43902) rated (+51), 25 [24] unrated (+1).

As I've noted often of late, my life is in some kind of limbo until I figure some stuff out, including what (if anything) I should work on writing. It's easy to blame (or credit) procrastination for a big part of that, but one part that is on some kind of schedule is eye surgery. I saw the doctor today, and he was pleased enough to schedule the second (right) eye. I go in next week, April 8. After that, my vision at least should start to clear up. I have an appointment with my old eye doctor a week or two after that, which I will have to reschedule: my annual check up, a full year after he recommended that I see the surgeon in the first place (well, actually more like the 3rd or 4th time) -- it's taken that long.

In the meantime, I spent several days working on the backyard shed. A couple of boards had come loose, and the whole structure had slipped off its mounts. It also had a lot of rot on the outside boards. Short of replacing them, my brother advised applying linseed oil and paint thinner, so I did that. I put it all back together, and screwed it firmly to the shed.

The shed itself is raised 6-inches, sitting on treated timbers. It's enough space for small critters, like rabbits, to hide, which makes it tempting for the dog to dig around. Laura wanted me to close it off, so I bought a roll of 1/2-inch hardware cloth, cut it into 8-inch swathes, and wrapped the shed with it. That involved a lot of crawling around and digging, so the wire wound up below ground level. Not fun at my age, but over four days I got through it.

I still have more to do there. I have some plastic edging I want to dig in next to the wire, which will extend the depth another 3 or 4 inches. I also need to caulk some cracks in the paneling, and repair at least one split trim board. There's a bit of overhang on the ends, and a soffit problem -- if that's the right word (I need to get on a ladder to look at that). I need to wash the siding down, and see about touching up the paint. All that can wait for a nicer day. Same for much clean up around the yard. I also need to pull the grill out, and figure out why I'm not getting all the burners to light.

Indoors, I started to work on a blog post expanding on a tweet I wrote:

It occurs to me that there are 3 kinds of Democrats: A) those concerned for everyone (left); B) those who are self-interested (elites, pace Reagan); and C) those who are nation-oriented (pace Trump). Each has good reason to be anti-R, but conflict with other-D, which weakens opposition to R.

It quickly became too much of a rabbit hole, so I wound up moving my scraps to the notebook. What got me thinking was Robert Christgau's self-reference to Patriotic Democrats. Bill Clinton's New Democrats were a reaction to losing to Reagan. Clinton accepted (and effectively validated) the core of the Reagan attack on welfare and big government, but thought he could win by doing it better. And sure, he did it better, at least for the tech and finance industries, but few of his gains trickled down to the middle class (let alone to the poor), and in the end he didn't win much.

Reagan also made patriotism a big part of his pitch, mostly because it seemed to be a more respectable way of flattering and rallying white identity. Trump even more so, especially as he rarely campaigns on his corrupt economic agenda (when he does, they're reduced to gibberish: tax cuts, drill drill drill, tariffs). All along, some Democrats have tried to out-hawk and out-jingo Reagan and the Bushes, to little a vail. But with Trump they have good reason to suspect he's a phony, and to assert themselves as much truer patriots. (Again, so far, to little avail.)

This came to a head with Russiagate and the Ukraine impeachment, which was led by the so-called Security Democrats (and was, I think, a complete disaster, but that's a long story -- one important point, little recognized, is that they helped provoke Putin's invasion of Ukraine, where they remain the most dedicated party to perpetual war. So what I'm wondering here is whether Patriotic Democrats aren't making the same mistake viz. Trump as New Democrats made viz. Reagan? I.e., validating them on points they'll seem more credible for, while aligning themselves with thanklessly bad policies, and looking less than honest in the process.

But sorting all that out, and showing that the left has better answers, is a taller order than I'm up to right now. But what it turns out I was up for was assembling a 2025 Metacritic File. I made it all the way through Album of the Year's publication list, even the metal ones I regard as completely useless. I've also gone through the reviews/lists at All About Jazz, Hip-Hop Golden Age, and Saving Country Music, and I've included Phil Overeem's list, plus all of the grades so far from Robert Christgau and myself. It is, to date at least, as comprehensive as I've ever done, resulting in 792 new music albums listed, although only a paltry 14 old music albums.

The immediate payoff started with last week's large review list, and continues below (more jazz this week, because AAJ took a long time, Overeem was a good source, and I was quicker than usual to move on some albums I got email on, like the Marsalis. I didn't really touch my demo queue again this week, because most of what I have there is still unreleased. I did continue to post on Bluesky about Pick Hit albums as they I recognized them. My preference there is to find Bandcamp links, but sometimes I have to search out substitutes. By the way, Tim Niland is doing something similar on Bluesky. If you like my tips (or even if you don't), you should follow him there. I'll be adding his listings to my Metacritic File. (He doesn't do grades, but only writes about things he likes.)

It seems highly unlikely that I'll keep this file anywhere near up-to-date, but it's something I can always fall back on when I find myself out of sorts, or just get frustrated trying to figure out what to play next.

The last two weeks have thrown the March Streamnotes archive into overdrive. I haven't done the indexing yet, but it's on my head, even before getting around to drawing up my todo list. One thing I did do was to create the 2024 frozen file. Late adds to the regular 2024 file henceforth will be marked. I've done this for many years now, but never this late before.

What I'm more likely to work on next week is a new Book Roundup. The latest one I've done was back on April 25, 2024, so nearly a year ago. I'm way overdue, and have a lot of catching up to do. Then there is the problem of all the book notes I have left over from a year ago. Most have lost their timeliness, but still should be worked in somehow.

New records reviewed this week:

Artemis: Arboresque (2025, Blue Note): Third group album from this "female supergroup," which I've been filing under pianist Renee Rosnes (although maybe I shouldn't, as the group writing is, and always has been, pretty widely divided). Now down from seven to six to five, with founders Ingrid Jensen (trumpet), Norika Ueda (bass), and Allison Miller (drums) joined by Nicole Glover (tenor sax, who replaced Melissa Aldana on the 2nd album). (The clarinet/alto sax slot, with Anat Cohen on the 1st album, Alexa Tarantino on the 2nd, has been dropped, and vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant only had two songs on the 1st.) Postbop of a high order, something I respect more than enjoy. B+(**) [sp]

Banks: Off With Her Head (2025, Her Name Is Banks): Singer-songwriter from Los Angeles, goes by her last name, first is Jillian, sixth album since 2014. B+(**) [sp]

Bdrmm: Microtonic (2025, Rock Action): From Hull, UK, dreampop/shoegaze band, third album since 2020, following EPs back to 2016. Appealing sound, seems to have come together nicely. B+(***) [sp]

Black Milk & Fat Ray: Food From the Gods (2025, Computer Ugly/Fat Beats): Detroit rapper Curtis Cross, 18 or so albums since 2002, including a previous with producer Ray Boggues from 2008. B+(**) [sp]

Booker T & the Bleeds: Ode to BC/LY . . . And Eye Know BO . . . Da Prez (2022 [2025], Mahakala Music): Saxophonist (alto/tenor), b. 1949 in Seattle, last name Williams, not the more famous MGs organ player, but I remember him from a 1988 album, Go Tell It on the Mountain, one of those rarities that makes you wonder whatever happened to him? Hehas a few more side credits (Saheb Sardib, Dennis Charles, Roy Campbell, William Hooker, Jean-Paul Bourelly), but not much lately. Featuring credit for Gary Hammon, another tenor saxophonist from Seattle, plus Mark Franklin on trumpet, and some of the label's regulars, including Christopher Parker on piano and a Kelley Hurt vocal. Mixed results: sound a bit harsh, music too. B [bc]

Anouar Brahem: After the Last Sky (2024 [2025], ECM): Oud player from Tunisia, has a dozen albums on ECM since 1991, jazz rooted in his native folk and classical music. Quartet, names on the cover: Anja Lechner (cello), Django Bates (piano), Dave Holland (bass). Very nice. B+(***) [sp]

Brother Ali: Satisfied Soul (2025, Mello Music Group): Minnesota rapper, originally Jason Newman, albino, converted to Islam, 10th album since 2000, produced by Ant (of Atmosphere). Gets personal: "I got a platinum soul, a solid-gold heart, a steel-trap mind and that's a damn good start," but beware the ego. And philosophical: "human beings are mysterious things" and "the truth isn't always what it seems." A- [sp]

Rob Brown: Walkabout (Mahakala Music (2023 [2025], Mahakala Music): Alto saxophonist, first album was a duo with Matthew Shipp in 1988, many side credits with William Parker, but has a couple dozen albums as leader. This is a trio with Brandon Lopez (bass) and Juan P. Carletti (drums). B+(**) [bc]

Burnt Sugar/The Arkestra Chamber: If You Can't Dazzle Them With Your Brilliance, Then Baffle Them With Your Blisluth Pt. Two (2022-24 [2025], Avant Groid Musica): A compilation of live performances from the year after founder Greg Tate died, recycling a title from a 2004 collection. Credits, as best I can decipher: Jared Michael Nickerson (leader, electric bubble bass), Bruce Mack (vocals), Leon Gruenbaum (keyboards), Andre Lassalle (electric guitar), Shelley Nicole (vocals), Marque Gilmore (drums), Ben Tyree (electric guitar), Lewis Barnes (trumpet), "et al," which seems to include (at least on some cuts): JS Williams (trumpet), Anthony Arington (sax), V. Jeffrey Smith (sax), Dave Smith (trombone), Paula Marcus (drums), Chris Eddleton (drums), Vernon Reid (directed four tracks). Focus seems shifted to funk, and more covers (including some rework on "Summertime"). Sample lyric: "The world's gone crazy, the least you can do is dance." B+(**) [bc]

Nels Cline: Consentrik Quartet (2024 [2025], Blue Note): Jazz guitarist, albums start around 1990, but has played in the rock band Wilco since 2004, and this is his first jazz album since 2020. Quartet, with Ingrid Laubrock (sax), Chris Lightcap (bass), and Tom Rainey (drums). Cline wrote all the pieces, his guitar laying down a foundation for the sax, in particular, to build on. A- [sp]

Doodlebug and 80 Empire: A Galactic Love Supreme (2025, Gladiator): Craig Irving, part of the jazzy rap trio Digable Planets, best known for their two 1993-94 albums (several reunions only produced a 2017 live album), not much on his own, but here teams up with Toronto-based producers, brother Adrian and Lucas Rezza. Some of this works well, and some falls flat. B [sp]

Mathias Eick: Lullaby (2024 [2025], ECM): Norwegian trumpet player, sixth album on ECM since 2009, also credited with voice and keyboard, backed with piano (Kristjan Randalu), bass (Ole Morten Vågan), and drums (Hans Hulbækmo). B+(**) [sp]

Sam Fender: People Watching (2025, Polydor): English singer-songwriter, from near Newcastle, third album since 2019, all big UK hits, not so much elsewhere, gets tagged as "heartland rock," which is to say compared to Bruce Springsteen, Bob Seger, and Tom Petty -- not without reason, but I'm not sure of the point. B+(*) [sp]

R.A.P. Ferreira: Outstanding Understanding (2025, Ruby Yacht): Rapper, initials for Rory Allen Phillip, released his first albums as Milo, started using this moniker around 2019, with 2-3 albums/mixtapes per year since. B+(**) [bc]

Sullivan Fortner: Southern Nights (2023 [2025], Artwork): Pianist, from New Orleans, debut 2015, got quite a bit of attention for his Solo Game in 2023, returns here with a trio, backed by Peter Washington (bass) and Marcus Gilmore (drums). B+(**) [sp]

Rose Gray: Louder, Please (2025, PIAS): British pop singer-songwriter, first album after singles (since 2019), EPs, and a mixtape (2021). Fine dance beats, party themes. B+(***) [sp]

Billy Hart Quartet: Just (2021 [2025], ECM): Venerable jazz drummer, Discogs credits him with playing on 763 albums since 1963 (Jimmy Smith, although he appears on a couple later-released Wes Montgomery albums from 1961), including 88 albums as leader or co-leader (since 1977). I figure he was 81 here, writing 3 (of 10) songs, and leading a quartet with Mark Turner (tenor sax, wrote 3 songs), Ethan Iverson (piano, wrote 4 songs), and Ben Street (bass). B+(**) [sp]

William Hooker: Jubilation (2023 [2025], ORG Music): Avant-drummer, many records since 1977. Credits are sketchy, but this one opens solo, but also includes: Matt Lavelle (trumpet), Stevie Manning (alto sax), On Davis (guitar), and/or Adam Lane (bass), from a live date. B+(**) [sp]

Horsegirl: Phonetics On and On (2025, Matador): Indie rock band from Chicago, made up of Nora Cheng, Penelope Lowenstein, and Gigi Reece, singles from 2019, second album, produced by Cate Le Bon, spine title adds an extra "And On" for good measure. B+(**) [sp]

Vijay Iyer/Wadada Leo Smith: Defiant Life (2024 [2025], ECM): Piano and trumpet duo, Iyer also playing electric and electronics, follows a similar album from 2016. Much to notice here if you take the time, but it goes slow, and it's hard to get excited. B+(**) [sp]

Jennie: Ruby (2025, Columbia): K-pop singer-rapper Jennie Kim, from Blackpink, first solo album. I'm impressed by the rhythmic sense on the raps, less so on the production overkill on the sung numbers. B [sp]

Anthony Joseph: Rowing Up River to Get Our Names Back (2025, Heavenly Sweetness): British poet and novelist, originally from Trinidad, started recording spoken word jazz albums with the Spasm Band in 2007. His 2021 album is a favorite, not only for its title (The Rich Are Only Defeated When Running for Their Lives). This was less immediately appealing, but the bounty of words has few peers, and in the end that's also true for the music. A- [sp]

Lola Kirke: Trailblazer (2025, One Riot): Born in London, father was drummer for Free and Bad Company, moved to New York when she was five, has several albums, and a substantial career as an actor. Her 2024 EP Country Curious got her some attention from country music fans. She doesn't have the twang so common in Nashville, but her songwriting can pass -- especially "Mississippi, My Sister, Elvis & Me." B+(***) [sp]

Benjamin Lackner: Spindrift (2024 [2025], ECM): German pianist, divided time between Berlin and New York, several albums since 2008, recorded this in France, a quintet with Mathias Eick (trumpet), Mark Turner (tenor sax), Linda May Han Oh (bass), and Matthieu Chazarenc (drums). B+(***) [sp]

James Brandon Lewis Trio: Apple Cores (2025, Anti-): Tenor saxophonist, two-time poll winner, backed by Josh Werner (bass/guitar) and Chad Taylor (drums/mbira), on a rock label I get no publicity from, both LP and CD already marked "Sold Out." Terrific, as always. A- [sp]

Lolo [Mamah Diabate/Jabel Kanuteh/Stefano Pilia/Marco Zanotti]: Lolo (2025, Black Sweat): Two African griot names on the cover (Diabate, from Mali, plays djeli ngoni; Kanuteh, from Gambia, plays kora), with two Italian names (guitar/bass and percussion). B+(***) [bc]

Loot: Loot (2023 [2025], ICP): Quartet led by Dutch pianist Oscar Jan Hoogland, who composed all the pieces, with Ab Baars (tenor sax/clarinet), Uldis Vitols (bass), and Onno Govaert (drums). The label reminds us of the lamentably passed Mengelberg, and so does the opening piano, a playful trickiness that lifts everyone's spirits. A- [bc]

Jako Maron: Mahavélouz (2025, Nyege Nyege Tapes): Electronica producer from Réunion, a French island in the Indian Ocean, has a rep for building on local folklore, both on his own and in the group Force Indigène. Rhythm tracks, simple repeated figures with a bit of dissonace. B+(***) [sp]

Branford Marsalis Quartet: Belonging (2024 [2025], Blue Note): Saxophonist, mostly tenor, major figure since he (and his brother) left Art Blakey in the early 1980s. Quartet with Joey Calderazzo (piano), Eric Revis (bass), and Justin Faulkner (drums), together since 2012 (when Faulkner joined, otherwise since 1998). Music is by Keith Jarrett, all six tracks from his 1974 album -- possibly his best ever (with Jan Garbarek, and sure, I've always been partial to saxophone) -- expanding on their 2019 cover of "The Windup." As with their previous cover of A Love Supreme, they add something of their own without challenging the original. On the other hand, he reaches further here, and comes up with more. If one took this at face value, it would be one of his best. So why not just enjoy it as such? A- [sp]

Caili O'Doherty: Bluer Than Blue: Celebrating Lil Hardin Armstrong (2025, Outside In Music): Lil Hardin played piano, joining King Oliver when he came to Chicago, met and married Louis Armstrong, reportedly convinced him to step out as a leader, and played with him on the first round of Hot Fives, contributing a few classic songs. She then left the band, then left him, and eventually (1938) they got divorced, but she kept the name, and capitalized on it. Tribute here includes vocals by Michael Mayo and Tahira Clayton (I much prefer her), and Nicole Glover on tenor sax (big solos). B+(**) [sp]

Jeremy Pelt: Woven (2024 [2025], HighNote): Mainstream trumpet player, couple dozen albums since 2002. Backed with vibes, guitar, bass, and drums, with guest synth on four tracks, vocal on one. B+(*) [sp]

Ivo Perelman/Ken Vandermark/Joe McPhee: Oxygen (2025, Mahakala Music): Saxophone trio, the former on tenor, the others credited with "winds." B+(***) [bc]

PremRock: Did You Enjoy Your Time Here . . . ? (2025, Backwoodz Studioz): Rapper Mark Debuque ("perhaps best known as one half of ShrapKnel"), but has previous albums more/less under this name back to 2010. B+(***) [sp]

Dave Sewelson/Gabby Fluke-Mogul/George Cartwright/Anthony Cox/Steve Hirsh: Murmuration (2023 [2025], Mahakala Music): Bandcamp page attributes this to the label, but since the cover lists five names, and they're all pretty well known -- baritone sax, violin, alto sax/guitar, bass/cello, drums -- we should credit them. B+(**) [bc]

Six Sex: X-Sex (2025, Dale Play, EP): Francisca Cuello, from Argentina, no albums but fifth EP since 2019, "combines elements of reggaeton, dance hall and electronic music, by mixing sensual urban rhythms with ecstatic beats." Six songs, 17:24. I was tempted to hold out for more, but came around with multiple plays. A- [sp]

Dayna Stephens: Hopium (2022 [2025], Contagious Music): Saxophonist, tenor mostly, has a dozen-plus albums since 2007 plus a lot of side work. Postbop quartet with Aaron Parks (piano), Ben Street (bass), and Greg Hutchinson (drums). B+(*) [sp]

Thomas Strønen: Relations (2018-22 [2024], ECM): Norwegian drummer, best known for his group with Iain Ballamy, Food (8 albums, 1999-2015), including in the 76 credits Discogs lists. This was recorded in several places over several years, and it's not clear who plays where, but the credits are: Craig Taborn (piano), Chris Potter (soprano/tenor sax), Sinikka Langeland (kantele/voice), Jorge Rossy (piano). Mixed bag, but Potter (for one) doesn't disappoint. B+(**) [sp]

Trio Glossia: Trio Glossia (2024 [2025], Sonic Transmissions): North Texas trio of Matthew Frerck (bass), Joshua Cañate (tenor sax/drums), and Stefan Gonzalez (vibes/drums), first album (although Gonzalez has a bunch of side-credits, starting with his father, and Cañate appears with him in a very good Dennis Gonzalez Legacy Band album last year). B+(***) [sp]

Jesse Welles: Middle (2025, self-released): Folkie singer-songwriter, from Ozark, AR, debut 2012 as Jeh Sea Wells, went by just Welles 2018-23, reverted to actual name for 2024's Hells Welles. Title song is antiwar. B+(**) [sp]

YHWH Nailgun: 45 Pounds (2025, AD 93): NYC-based experimental rock quartet (post-punk, but even more post-no wave), first album, very short at 21:04 but 10 songs. Electronics expand the sonic palette, and the rhythm splinters into countless shards. I tend to devalue short albums, but this is remarkable, and I'm not sure how much longer it could go on and still retain its impact. A- [sp]

Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek: Yarin Yoksa = If There Is No Tomorrow (2025, Big Crown): Anatolian rock group, which is to say Turkish but based in Berlin, where orientalism passes as neo-psychedelia, fifth album since 2019. B+(**) [sp]

The Young Mothers: Better If You Let It (2022 [2025], Sonic Transmissions): Founded by Norwegian Thing bassist Ingebrigt Håker Flaten after he moved to Austin, originally a free jazz group but with "hard-hitting punk energy, and hip-hop rhythms," even some rap-song on this third album, with Jawaad Taylor (trumpet), Jason Jackson (tenor/baritone sax), Jonathan F. Home (guitar), Stefan Gonzalez (vibes/drums/voice), and Frank Rosaly (drums). The jazz component is sharper than the hip-hop. B+(**) [sp]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

William Hooker: A Time Within: Live at the New York Jazz Museum, January 14, 1977 (1977 [2025], Valley of Search): Live set, previuosly unreleased, where the drummer relentlessly hacks his way through the frenzied cacophony thrown up by a pair of saxophonists, Alan Braufman on alto and David S. Ware on tenor. This was early for all of them, with Hooker senior at 30, and Ware still a decade away from his great run as a leader from 1988 to his death in 2012. Only Braufman, the youngest at 26, had a significant album already released, 1975's Valley of Search (on India Navigation), but he quit shortly, only reissuing the album in 2018 (hence his label name, and this record) when he relaunched his career at 77. B+(***) [sp]

Ginger Johnson and His African Messengers: African Party [Deluxe Edition] (1967 [2025], Innovative Collective/BBE Music): Percussionist from Nigeria (1916-75), moved to London after WWII, played with jazz musicians like Ronnie Scott, recorded some singles and this 1967 album (slightly expanded here). Intense drums, wailing sax, chants, lives up to its title. A- [sp]

Music Is a Message From Space ([2025], Corbett vs. Dempsey): Various artists, but the subject is Sun Ra, who leads off with a 1:56 snip of solo vocal, "recorded by Ra at home in Chicago during the 1950s," the first side filled out with solo covers of Sun Ra tunes from Raymond Boni (guitar) and Jason Adasiewicz (vibes). Second half starts with Wolfgang Voigt's remixes of Sun Ra loops, then a solo piece by Joe McPhee (from 1970, the only solid date given here). Grade here excludes the vinyl-only bonus track from Spaceways Inc. + Zu, presumably from the album that was my first Jazz CG Pick Hit (2003's Radiale). B+(*) [bc]

Neil Young: Oceanside Countryside (1977 [2025], Reprise): Another archival release, presented as a lost album in his "Analog Originals" series, the title (with different takes?) appeared in his Archives Vol. III: 1976-1987, reflecting an LP division into ocean (solo) and country (band) sides. But the songs are familiar: three from Comes a Time (1978), two from Rust Never Sleeps (1979), three more from Hawks & Doves (1980), and remakes of two older songs (one from Harvest, the other a non-album cover. No surprise that much of this sounds great -- those are some of my favorite albums -- but this seems like an unnecessary remix, the variations fine but far from revelatory. [PS: Surprised to find this on Spotify, after Young's publicized removal of his music there back when they cut their big Joe Rogan podcast deal.] B+(***) [sp]

Old music:

Six Sex: Fantasy (2019, Dale Play, EP): Dance-pop singer-songwriter from Argentina, Francisca Cuello, "combines elements of reggaeton, dance hall and electronic music," plus sex appeal, of course, but still working on that. First EP, 5 songs, 11:38. B+(*) [sp]

Six Sex: Area 69 (2022, Dale Play, EP): Still a work in progress, but has a video. Six songs, 12:30. B+(**) [sp]

Six Sex: 6X (2023, Dale Play, EP): Some new beats and filler, stretching six songs to 15:10, to mixed effect. B+(**) [sp]

Six Sex: Satisfire (2024, Dale Play, EP): Six songs, 15:24. Stronger dance beats with fewer glitches. B+(***) [sp]

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

• Jacob Felix Heule/Teté Leguía/Sanishta Rivero/Martín Escalante: An Inscrutable Bodily Discomforting Thing (Kettle Hole) [03-07]

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Monday, March 24, 2025

March archive (in progress).

Music: Current count 43902 [43856) rated (+46), 24 [25] unrated (-1).

I'm stuck in some sort of limbo, and expect to be for some time. For now, I'm waiting for an appointment with the eye surgeon, later this month, where he will evaluate the operated-on left eye, and probably schedule surgery on the right. After the surgery, I was hopeful that this would clear up quickly. I'm less optimistic now. The left eye is somewhat better for distance, but still far from clear. There's a fairly significant color shift between the eyes, which suggests I'm getting more light through the left eye. I can see well enough to drive, watch TV, etc. Reading is a bit more difficult, but not impossible.

Surgery will make the right eye worse before it gets better. Right now I have doubts that the left eye will be able to compensate for the right as well as the right has for the left. In the long run, of course, it should be better, but in the really long run we're all dead. It's not like I'm looking forward to decades of improved vision. On the other hand, I've lasted much longer than I imagined at 20, when my life was a total wreck, or even at 30, or 50 (when I started looking forward to retirement). Looks like I just have to get through another 6-8 weeks. After which it will be summer, and I can complain about the heat, instead of the cold.

If I weren't in limbo, what I should be doing is working on my planning documents, to figure out what I want to do for the next year or two, so I can get on with it. I have plenty of vague ideas -- too many, really, so a big part of the process of articulating them is to help weed out those that are impracticable or just not worth the trouble.

Lacking that, I sometimes pick out some little chore and take a shot at it. For instance, my wife was worried about the dog digging under the shed -- it's a dachshund mix, and seems especially inclined to dig -- while I've been bothered by rot and displacement of the ramp I built up to the doors. We had a couple of relatively warm days early last week, so I worked on that. I treated the ramp with linseed oil to stop the rot, and replaced the rusted nails with deck screws, finally attaching the ramp to the shed so it can't get shifted any more. For defense against digging, I got one side wrapped with 1/2-inch square hardware cloth. I still have three more sides to do, plus I need to do some caulking and other repairs, but that can wait until it warms up again.

Another chore weighing on my mind was the need to update the database for Robert Chrisgau's Consumer Guide. Since he started buckraking on Substack, he's delayed his Consumer Guides from his website for nine months, so there's little pressure for me to keep them updated. I do add the monthly columns each month a day or two after they appear, but some code checks timestamps and hides them until the release date. Same thing with the database: if you try to access a CG entry less than nine months old, you'll get a link to the Substack page where, if you're a subscriber, you can read the review. With that setup, I should be updating the database regularly, but I've tended to let it slide -- in this case, well over a year.

Another thing I did last week with no planning or foresight was Loose Tabs. Although I gave up spending much of my life reading news the 2024 election, when I terminated my Speaking of Which columns, I found myself with a couple dozen browser tabs open to various articles that had caught and kept my attention. I've been noting some of those under my notebook's Daily Log headings, but I wanted to clean up, and there were so many of them that I found it easier just to dump them into a blog post. Then, of course, I wound up writing (just added the counter, so 95 links, 7389 words). Note that counter includes a greatly expanded note on Robert Christgau's March Xgau Sez Q&A, some extra Dean Baker links, and a second thought on turning minds to slop. I have no plans to do this again, but it might not be a bad idea to keep an open file to collect scraps like this (like I have, but don't use often enough, for Books). In this, I was encouraged by the reader who wrote in:

Really appreciated your latest post, your eloquence always clarifies my thinking even though I have empathized fully with the need to step away from current events. Thank you.

In looking up the X follower numbers in the Loose Tabs piece, I found myself unable to imagine what having many thousands let alone millions of followers might be like, but at my level they feel like personal friends. My Bluesky account is up to 76 followers, with 50 posts. Most of this week's posts have been Pick Hit record links. I thought that was one thing Bluesky might be good for, as (unlike X) their links to files work, and there's no real reason to hoard references to build up suspense for this post. And this week I have a huge number of good records to recommend -- possibly because it's the first week in 2025 where most of my reviews are of 2025 releases.

The Pick Hit posts have at most throwaway notes, but they include links, mostly to Bandcamp pages where you can listen to the music. The only A- record below I didn't tweet about was Saba, which I couldn't find a good link for. I've used a few other link sources in recent weeks, but I'm looking for somewhere you can actually sample the music, without having to go to a streaming service. My format have changed several times as I think about how to package this service, and it will no doubt continue to evolve. If/when I do start dipping under the A- line, I can go to "HM" for Honorable Mention. I can't imagine adding "Duds" to the mix, as I'm a pretty tolerant guy, and nothing much really offends me -- the worst I hear these days is more like a waste of time.

I expect to do more non-music posts, but the one such tweet I want to reiterate here is my response to a widely circulated (at least 1.4M Views+; I picked it up second or third hand) by Senator Mike Lee (R-UT), who wrote:

If you were raised in the U.S., you've been subjected to a relentless bombardment of Marxist propaganda throughout your entire life—at least since you started kindergarten (probably sooner).

How old were you when you first realized that?

First response I saw was from Doug Henwood, who wrote something like: "As an actual Marxist, I can assure you that isn't true." My own response reached back into memory. I started kindergarten in 1955 (there was no pre-school then, at least in working class neighborhoods in Wichita), back when the Pledge of Allegiance (with its newly-inserted "under God") was obligatory, before the Supreme Court ruled against prayers in school, and didn't exit high school until after I read the required Animal Farm, with its teacher guide dictates of which pig meant what. During that entire time, I was never given -- in school, in church, in the Boy Scouts, or on the only three TV channels that existed back then -- even the slightest hint that communists might be anything but sheer evil. Later on, I came to recognize much of what I had been told as propaganda, but none of it was Marxist. The effect was first of all to make me a true believer in "the American way of life," then as I recognized what America's leaders were actually doing, most obviously in Vietnam but all around the world, I started having doubts, and in fairly short order flipped. I started reading actual Marxists, and found deep insight into the modern world, compassion for its victims, and hope for the future. That didn't necessarily make me a Marxist. It certainly didn't make me a fanboy of Stalin or Mao, whom Marxists could critique as savagely as they did Hitler or Churchill. But, as I put it in my response:

I was 16 when I dropped out of high school. By then I suspected that everything I had been taught was wrong. Only later, after I started reading Marxists, did I come to understand how and why, and develop the tools to find truth and fend off nonsense. We need more critical theory, not less.

I probably should have said "critical thinking" instead of "theory," but the key word there is "tools." And to be fair, it wasn't just Marxists who opened my eyes. After I quit school, I tried to figure out what had gone so terribly wrong, so I read a lot of books about education. The best one was by Neil Postman & Charles Weingartner, Teaching as a Subversive Activity, where they argued that the most important thing anyone can obtain from education is a sensitive "bullshit detector." I got mine the hard way.

While Lee's argument is utter nonsense, it is not unprecedented. Back in the 1950s, unbeknownst to me, the John Birch Society was saying that same thing, trying to double down on the McCarthyism that had fallen into disgrace. But the idea is the same: they want the power to dictate what is taught, by by whom, and "Marxist" or more lately "left-wing" is just their name for whatever it is they want to ban. The right has never had any qualms about resorting to force, but often they hope that intimidation will do the trick, and that's the real intent of Lee's messaging.

As for the real effect, we'll see. People like Lee and Trump and Musk give "Marxist" and "left-wing" a lot of good publicity, because they admit that there is an alternative to their own crude, cruel, dysfunctional worldview. The left can't buy or finagle this kind of publicity. Nothing, least of all any kind of conspiracy, is pushing Americans leftward more effectively than the "irritable mental gestures" and malfeasance of the Republican Right.

But, where was I? Impulsive projects, I think. One worth mentioning is that instead of continuing to get marginal returns from adding to my 2024 Metacritic/EOY Aggregate, I created a new one for 2025. I started by plugging all of my own paltry 2025 list (and its tracking file), then I went to AOTY and picked up their 125 highest rated albums of 2025. I've also started looking at select publications, so that at this point the list is up to 256 albums -- way short of 3616 from 2024, but it's enough of a start that I've come up with a huge and varied crop of A-list albums this week, most of which I wasn't aware of a week ago. On the other hand, I did throttle back on my jazz promo queue, as I was getting into future release territory. And I haven't looked at many non-promo jazz records yet, because AOTY doesn't do a good job of tracking them. (I'll add some stuff from jazz sites later; also from sites like HHGA and SCM, which have already contributed a couple albums below.)

I'm skeptical that I'll do a very good job of keeping this up to date, but it is useful in providing answers to the question of what to play next? (As this week goes to show.)

I did finally finish with Eric Hobsbawm's Interesting Times this morning. Coming after his tour de force four-volume history of the world 1789-1991, this has been a really extraordinary experience, doing much to help me frame my own understanding of the world. I've written up two posts based on quotes from the book (Hobsbawm Today and Hobsbawm Again), and will probably do another one soon based on a very insightful section on America. I have a lot of things I should read, but the one I'm inclined to check out first is Christiopher Lasch: The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy (1995, but seems like a pretty good title for 2024).

PS: Overheard from the news room (i.e., my wife's den): Q: "Are you making the same mistake that Biden made?" A: "No, of course not." No fucking idea what they're talking about, yet people can talk like this on TV and think we should take them seriously. Reminds me of a "Get Fuzzy" comic strip, where Rob asks "do you smell something?" and Satchel (the dog, and not normally the sharpest tool in the shed) gives a real answer: "About 857 things. Can you be more specific?"

New records reviewed this week:

Nils Agnas: Köper Sig Ur En Kris (2023 [2025], Moserobie): Swedish drummer, leads a quartet with Max Agnas (on two pianos) and Mauritz Agnas (bass) -- relationship unspecified but likely [cousins; they, but not Nils, are in a group called Agnas Bros.] -- and saxophonist Jonas Kullhammar, in his usual very fine form, playing four jazz tunes (Ornette Coleman, Joe Henderson, two from Carla Bley) and "Over the Rainbow." Quaint line on the hype sheet: "The only foreign musician he has performed so far with is the great Zoh Amba" (who's all of 24 now). A- [cd]

Yazz Ahmed: A Paradise in the Hold (2025, Night Time Stories): British trumpet player, born in London, father from Bahrain, fourth album since 2011, billed as "spiritual jazz," draws on Arabic elements, has many vocals, is hugely ambitious. I like parts of it (especially the trumpet), but have little interest in others (vocals, of course, but also ponderous instrumental sweeps). B [sp]

Annie & the Caldwells: Can't Lose My (Soul) (2023 [2025], Luaka Bop): Singer Annie Brown Caldwell and her family band, from West Point, Mississippi, no previous records I can find, but they've playing and shouting this gospel/blues revival for a long time -- "twenty years" is suggested, which makes sense because the shot of disco is fully incorporated into their legacy. A- [sp]

Ichiko Aoba: Luminiscent Creatures (2025, Hermine): Japanese folk singer-songwriter, Discogs lists 15 albums since 2010. She plays guitar, electric piano, chimes and shells, with various backing including piano/guitar (Taro Umebayashi), strings, bits of harp and flute. B+(*) [sp]

Willow Avalon: Southern Belle Raisin' Hell (2025, Assemble Sound/Atlantic): Country singer, presumably writes her own songs, second album. B+(**) [sp]

Jarod Bufe: Brighter Days (2024 [2025[, Calligram): Tenor saxophonist, has a previous (2018) album on OA2, label seems to have taken over the Chicago department of Seattle-based Origin (Calligram founders Geof Bradfield and Chad McCullough both had records on Origin/OA2). Mainstream/postbop quartet, with Tim Stine (electric guitar), Matt Ulery (bass), and Jon Deitemyer (drums). All originals, rich tone, sinuous groove, nicely done. B+(***) [cd]

Ethel Cain: Perverts (2025, Daughters of Cain): Alias -- or maybe fictional personage is better? -- for Hayden Anhedönia, who released three EPs 2019-21 and a 2022 album, Preacher's Daughter, and announced this as an EP, but at 89:20 (9 tracks) that's one bit of confusion we can avoid. Although this wouldn't lose much but tedium if it were edited much shorter. Little happens. There are few words. The drone is mild enough for background, but doesn't offer much. B [sp]

Clipping.: Dead Channel Sky (2025, Sub Pop): Hip-hop group from Los Angeles, fifth album since 2014, Daveed Diggs is the rapper (he has a couple solo albums, as well as an acting career, but is probably best known as Thomas Jefferson in Hamilton). Guitar and drums, as well as electronics, amp up the noise level, which sounds terrific as the words fly by. A- [sp]

Cymande: Renascence (2025, BMG): British funk band, mostly musicians with Afro-Caribbean roots, released several albums 1972-74, was revived in 2006 and again in 2012, this their sixth album overall (first since 2015, second since 1981). Protest songs over sinuous grooves, something that never seems to go out of style. B+(**) [sp]

Marie Davidson: City of Clowns (2025, Deewee): Canadian electronica producer, from Montreal, half dozen albums since 2014. Mostly spoken vocals over sharp beats with synth frills, gaining momentum as you go. A- [sp]

The Devil Makes Three: Spirits (2025, New West): Bluegrass trio with roots in Vermont, formed in Santa Cruz with their debut album in 2002, singer-songwriter Pete Bernhard moved back to Vermont while banjo player Cooper McBean moved to Ausin, but they kept working together, picking up bassist Morganve Swain for this album. B+(*) [sp]

Ex-Vöid: In Love Again (2025, Tapete): British power pop band, second album, principally Lan McArdle and Owen Williams, previously in the band Joanna Gruesome (2013-15). B+(*) [sp]

Lorraine Feather: The Green World (2022-24 [2025], Relation): Jazz singer, father was famous jazz journalist (and more) Leonard Feather (1914-94), recorded her first albums in 1978 but didn't really get her career going until after 2000. She wrote lyrics here, mostly to music by co-producer Eddie Arkin (guitar) or Russell Ferrante (piano), with strings prominent (Charlie Bisharat on violin), and a bit of Marcus Strickland saxophone. It took me a little while to let this develop. B+(***) [cd] [03-28]

FKA Twigs: Eusexua (2025, Young/Atlantic): British electropop singer-songwriter Tahliah Barnett, third album since 2014, all sizable hits, also has a mixtape and three EPs. B+(*) [sp]

John Glacier: Like a Ribbon (2025, Young): British rapper, second album, has an underground vibe that slips past you a bit too easily. B+(*) [sp]

Tim Hecker: Shards (2020-22 [2025], Kranky): Electronica (mostly ambient?) producer from Canada, 20+ albums since 2001, presents this one as a stopgap compilation, "all material written 2020-22 for the Projects Infinity Pool, The North Water, Luzifer and La Tour" -- i.e., soundtrack work. Seven pieces, 31:09, some sparkly, some subdued, nice enough. B+(**) [sp]

Lady Blackbird: Slang Spirituals (2024, Foundation Music Productions/BMG): Jazz singer-songwriter Marley Munroe, based in Los Angeles, second album, has muscled up the production to the point where it's no longer recognizable as jazz, but so far she's making the power work. B+(***) [sp]

Jeffrey Lewis: The Even More Freewheelin' Jeffrey Lewis (2023 [2024], Don Giovanni/Blang): Folkie singer-songwriter from New York, or "anti-folk," probably not a distinction that needs existence, started 20+ years ago drawing comics and singing "crass songs," has much more of a bond with Peter Stampfel than with Dylan, so the title and album cover here seem like misdirection, or maybe just a temporary lapse of ideas. Good thing the songs come with a surplus. Also that the band rocks harder than Dylan ever did, but the two soft/slow ones at the end ("100 Good Things" and "The Endless Unknown" are if anything better. A- [sp]

Damon Locks: List of Demands (2024 [2025], International Anthem): Sound and visual artist, vocalist for post-hardcore Trenchmouth, joined Exploding Star Orchestra and founded Black Monument Ensemble, spoken word and electronics here on his fourth album (first as solo leader). I can't say that I've followed the words close enough for them to really speak to me, but I get the gist, and the music may bring me back for more. A- [sp]

Brandon Lopez: Nada Sagrada (2023 [2025], Relative Pitch): Bassist, has been very busy since 2017 or so, rounded up an unruly septet of various strings (including electric harp and gayageum), electronics, and two drummers (Gerald Cleaver and Tom Rainey) for one 39:12 piece. B+(***) [sp]

Tate McRae: So Close to What (2025, RCA): Pop singer-songwriter from Canada, third album, started as a dancer, winning awards and a ballet scholarship. Mostly upbeat dance fare. Sounds fine to me, as far as that goes. B+(***) [sp]

Mogwai: The Bad Fire (2025, Rock Action): Scottish post-rock band, 11th album since 1995, last 4 cracked top-10 in UK but little chart action in US. Mostly instrumental, a bit of shoegaze lustre but not too heavy, some vocals, pleasant enough, but for what? B+(*) [sp]

Panda Bear: Sinister Grift (2025, Domino): Noah Lennox, a co-founder of Animal Collective, eighth solo album since 1999. I've often had trouble with their records, but this one is too easy-going not to just enjoy. I've seen it tagged as "tropical rock," and other references to beaches. This time I get the vibe. B+(*) [sp]

Saba & No I.D.: From the Private Collection of Saba and No I.D. (2025, From the Private Collection): Chicago rapper Tahj Malik Chandler, four albums 2014-22, working with Chicago producer Ernest Wilson, who started in 1992 with Common Sense, moving on to Nas, Jay-Z, Kanye West, and stray cuts with Ghostface Killah, Rihanna, and Beyoncé. Title is very offhand, suggesting there's so much more behind it they can't bother with real titles. Beats are super, flow is terrific, lots of ideas. A- [sp]

Moonchild Sanelly: Full Moon (2025, Transgressive): South African (Xhosa) dance-pop singer, touches kwaito and amapiano but in her long list of genres -- her own preference seems to be "future ghetto funk" -- reminds me most of dancehall. I ascribe no import to her "trademark teal hair" or garish makeup, but as dance pop this is pretty otherworldly. A- [sp]

Shygirl: Club Shy Room 2 (2025, Because Music, EP): British electropop singer-rapper Blane Muise, has a 2022 album and a bunch of EPs, including 2024's Club Shy, a remix thereof, and now this 6-song sequel (14:46), all but the first with its own "Feat." -- Bambii, Jorga Smith, and PinkPantheress are the ones I recognize (although Yseult is one I should check out). B+(***) [sp]

Skaiwater: #gigi (2024, GoodTalk/Capitol): British rapper, Jamaican descent, non-binary, based in Los Angeles, first album, 34:23, stutter-step beats that stumble here and there. B+(**) [sp]

Skaiwater: #mia (2025, GoodTalk/Capitol, EP): Eight track, 22:42 sequel to debut album #gigi. B+(*) [sp]

Songhoy Blues: Héritage (2025, Transgressive): Saharan blues band from Timbuktu in Mali, moved to Bamako when a jihadi group took power there, and wound up recording Music in Exile in 2015. Fourth album. Steady going. B+(***) [sp]

Squid: Cowards (2025, Warp): British band, Ollie Judge the lead singer/drummer, third album, says "post-punk" or "experimental rock" but is pretty eccentric, in ways that alternately attract or repel me. B+(*) [sp]

Sharon Van Etten: Sharon Van Etten & the Attachment Theory (2025, Jagjaguwar): Singer-songwriter, guitarist, from New Jersey, based in Los Angeles after a stretch in New York, seventh studio album since 2009, first to name a band. B+(*) [sp]

Chris Varga: Breathe (2024 [2025], Calligram): Vibraphonist, from Chicago but moved to Seoul in the 1990s, recording this, his second album, on a return visit, a postbop quintet with Geof Bradfield (tenor sax), Dave Miller (guitar), Clark Sommers (bass), and Neil Hemphill (drums), playing eight of his own pieces. B+(*) [cd]

Sunny War: Armageddon in a Summer Dress (2025, New West): Singer-songwriter Sydney Ward, born in Nashville, grew up in Los Angeles but returned to hawk her unique Afro-Americana. Fifth album since 2014, second on the label. B+(*) [sp]

Reggie Watkins: Rivers (2024 [2025], BYNK): Trombonist, from Pittsburgh, debut album 2004, only a few more since, including tributes to Maynard Ferguson and Jimmy Knepper. Thirteen original pieces, backed by piano-bass-drums, for a very nice presentation of his horn. B+(***) [cd] [03-28]

Michael Wollny Trio: Living Ghosts (2024 [2025], ACT): German pianist, 30+ albums since 2002, ninth trio album, live from Saarländischer Rundfunk, four 12-20 minute sets, with Tim Lefebvre (bass) and Eric Schaefer (drums). Varied, but very present. B+(***) [sp]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

Plastikman: Musik (1994 [2024], Nova Mute): British techno producer Richie Hawtin, third album under this moniker (his most common alias, preceded by F.U.S.E. and his own name). Space vibes, with a couple of false finishes. B+(**) [sp]

Studio: West Coast (2006 [2025], Ghostly International): Swedish electronica duo, Dan Lissvik and Rasmus Hägg, reissue of their only album, although they had singles 2001-07 and a couple of compilations. Album proper has six very strong songs (57:45), on CD or vinyl, with the digital tacking on six bonus tracks -- mostly redundant versions. Just judging the former. A- [sp]

Yo La Tengo: Old Joy (2006 [2025], Mississippi, EP): Short soundtrack (6 songs, 25:56) for a 2006 film by Kelly Reichardt, although there is some suggestion that this is a new recording, with Smokey Hormel playing guitar, pretty much solo. Nice, as far as it goes. [PS: Moved to reissues, as it appears this music was released in 2008 as part of They Shoot, We Score.] B+(*) [sp]

Old music:

Bantou Mentale: Bantou Mentale (2019, Glitterbeat): Liam Farrell, born in Dublin, based in Paris, started out as a rock drummer, moved toward hip-hop in the 1990s, and later to African music, mostly plays bass and guitar synth here, a group with three expats from Kinshasa, including a vocalist identified as Apocalypse. First of two group albums. Electroclash seems the right word here. B+(**) [sp]

Bantou Mentale: Congo Animal (2020, Glitterbeat): Less clash here, that disorienting sense of glass and metal crashing against walls to form sheets of sound. That allows the rhythm tracks to come to the fore, where they belong, a steadiness that holds all the other sounds in balance. A- [sp]

Paul Dunmall Sun Ship Quartet/Alan Skidmore/Julie Kjær/Ståle Liavik Solberg/Mark Wastell: John Coltrane 50th Memorial Concert at Cafe OTO (2017 [2019], Confront): English tenor saxophonist, not generally known as a Coltrane afficionado, but he did release two tribute albums in 2012-13, so had some prep going into this live set, recorded on the 50th anniversary of his death. Opens with the trio of Kjær (flute), Solberg (bass), and Wastell (drums) on a long 21:22 title, followed by Dunmall's Quartet (with Howard Cottle on tenor sax, Olie Brice on bass), and Tony Blanco on drums) playing the album Sun Ship (37:07; recorded 1965, released 1971). Finally, the two groups merge, with Skidmore (a third tenor sax) piling on for three more tracks (44:16), ending with a bit of "Ascension." I should admit that late Coltrane gave me a lot of discomfort when I first heard his records -- Sun Ship is still a C+ in my database, and while Ascension is an A-, that was certainly a much later regrade. These days this music is still not quite easy listening, but for me at least it does go down much smoother. My caveats have more to do with sound, but I can't fault the sentiment. B+(***) [bc]

The Dunmall album led me to reexamine:

John Coltrane: Sun Ship (1965 [1971], Impulse!): The great, and hugely influential, saxophonist -- tenor, but his soprano on "My Favorite Things" led most later tenor saxophonists to double up -- led what was quite possibly the most acclaimed quartet of all time from 1961-66, making stars out of McCoy Tyner (piano), Jimmy Garrison (bass), and Elvin Jones (drums). They reached a pinnacle with 1964's A Love Supreme, after which Coltrane's searches wandered deep into the avant-garde and beyond: a year later to the mass ecstasy of Ascension, and just before his death in 1967 (he was 40) to his duo with Rashied Ali. When I first encountered this music, I intensely disliked like what often registered as cacophony, but over time I've grown to tolerate and occasionally to enjoy the legacy he created. This was one of many albums that only appeared after his death. For better or worse, this is one of his last quartet sessions: better because Tyner's solos are often brilliant, and the bass and drums follow him perfectly; worse because they don't seem all that much in sync with the leader, who seems to want to go places the group isn't ready for. Still, they're good enough, and he's great enough, that this almost works. [was: C+] B+(***) [sp]

John Coltrane: Sun Ship: The Complete Session (1965 [2013], Impulse!, 2CD): Probably not a good idea checking this out after two spins of the original album -- the outtakes aren't necessarily inferior, but the false starts are bound to be annoying, and there isn't that much really great stuff in the first place (written as I'm listening to some, which I'm pretty sure was in the first release). B+(**) [sp]

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

• Kenny Dorham: Blue Bossa in the Bronx: Live From the Blue Morocco (1957, Resonance) [04-12]
• Adrian Galante: Introducing Adrian Galante (Zoho) [04-25]
• Freddie Hubbard: On Fire: Live From the Blue Morocco (1967, Resonance) [04-12]
• Charles Mingus: In Argentina: The Buenos Aires Concerts (1977, Resonance) [04-12]
• Salsa de la Bahia Vol. 3: A Colection of SF Bay Area Salsa and Latin Jazz: Renegade Queens (Patois) [03-21]

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Monday, March 17, 2025

March archive (in progress).

Music: Current count 43856 [43814) rated (+42), 25 [34] unrated (-9).

I wrote a fairly long political post over the weekend, only very indirectly occasioned by recent events, although it's impossible to totally block out Trumpism and its discontents. The actual stimulus was reading Eric Hobsbawm's 2003 autobiography, Interesting Times: A Twentieth-Century Life, specifically the part where he offers a leftist's observations on the Thatcher demolition of civil society, and the hollow Blair response. With Reagan and Clinton, that all seems pretty familiar. And while in many ways Trump is the linear descendent of Nixon, Reagan, and the Bushes -- even his utter contempt for legalities isn't unprecedented -- he now seems to be breaking things just to show that he can.

Probably thanks to reading Hobsbawm, I've been revisiting the Trump/Fascist arguments, so I wound up spending way too much time today on a John Ganz post, There Was Never Any "Fascism Debate". As I recall, there was, but the academic end was mired in arbitrary definitions, and the popular end was if anything counterproductive. After the election, I was convinced that it was a waste of time. I still think it has no potential to influence anyone's politics, and mostly serves people like me as a chance to flaunt one's historical knowledge, it is very hard for people to understand the present except via historical analogy, and there are very few antecedents who come close to Trump's extraordinary impact. While there are still quite many variations, and we're still nearer the beginning than the end of Trump's reign of terror, it's the shoe that comes closest to fitting.

The question then is what can one learn from the analogy? Very little, I suspect, about the Führer himself, but if you look at his deputies, his active and passive supporters, his mass of fans you will find unnerving similarities. Even more worrisome is how ineffectual anti-Nazi resistance was, both from the liberals and social democrats who underestimated him and even more so from the leftists who understood the threat perfectly yet were powerless to stop him. There is, as yet, little reason to be that pessimistic, or to surrender even if one were, but it is clear that Trump is doing not just the bad things we expected, but more that we didn't (or couldn't without exposing ourselves as fantasists). And that Trump's acts will not only get worse, but will leave a lasting print that may never be excised.

My post goes into some of that, but obviously much more is still kicking around in my head. I still have no plans to write about this, or much of anything else. My only addition so far to my planning documents has been to open a still-empty file on house projects. I've spent three days so far on one, which initially seemed too simple to bother writing up (although, somewhat less formally, I did mention it in the notebook): fixing up the ramp into the shed -- something I've wanted to do for years, which now merged with my wife's request to do something to keep the dog from digging under the shed. It's going very slow, and I'm exhausted today, but at least I've started to feel like I have it under control.

Recovery from eye surgery is also going slowly, and hard to gauge, with more erratic or just uncertain moments. Makes it hard to get on with life, so I've tended to let everything slip. I still haven't done the frozen file thing, and I have very little idea what new albums are coming up. The only reason I have much new jazz to report is that it's easier to pick an album out of my promo queue than it is to figure out some good prospect from the media. But I did get a boost this week from Robert Christgau's March Consumer Guide, which netted four A- records, four high B+(***), and one more B+(**), none of which were particularly on my radar. I have the three records I had previously heard -- Mdou Moctar: Funeral for Justice, GloRilla: Glorious, and Marshall Allen: New Dawn -- graded somewhat lower, after brief encounters. Incidentally, I have GloRilla's 2024 mixtape, Ehhthang Ehhthang, a notch high, and two recent Allen features -- Sun Ra Arkestra: Lights on a Satellite and John Blum: Deep Space -- at A-.

Four of the Christgau picks, plus one of my jazz albums, led me to dig into unheard back catalog, so there's quite a bit of Old Music this week. I was at one point tempted to start up a 2025 Metacritic file, as an aid in prospecting, but I wound up making little if any further changes to the 2024 file, despite my expectation of doing so. (One reason I didn't was that it was straining my eyes.) Still, like much else, up in the air for now. I have few (if any) expectations for next week. (Although I do want to get more done on the shed Tuesday, before the next cold front blows through on Wednesday. By the way, in local news last week: A highway pileup in western Kansas shows how dust storms can turn deadly; also numerous reports of fires around Kansas last week. The weather is keeping pace with all the other Trumpian weirdness, and there's no reason not to blame him for that too. Campaigning to promote disasters isn't exactly causality but is close enough to count.

By the way, I added the Chills album after the initial cutover, so it's not counted in the weekly census. It is tempting to add the reissue of Studio's 2006 album West Coast, but I'm just nearing the end of a first play. I've been posting preview notes on the week's A- records on Bluesky. Initially I was able to link to Bandcamp pages, but I've run into a few snags lately, where I try to offer the best links I can find. I'm up to 35 posts and 68 followers there now. I commented on Lemieux's tweet:

I'd never heard the term before, but this is the 2nd time today I've run across "anti-anti-Trump pundits." What or who are they? The phrase suggests something different from pro-Trump pundits, or pundits who are naive, overly generous, or simply deluded about Trump. But what? And why?

Lemieux was kind enough to reply:

It generally refers to people on the left (or ostensible left) who often criticize Trump's opponents and rarely criticize Trump. But evidently at some point it becomes a distinction without a difference.

That sounds more like a troll than a pundit. I formulated a reply:

I'm well familiar with trolls who claim to be left but only appear to attack other lefties (e.g. on Israel), but "professional pundit" implies some kind of position, not just function. Still, I guess I can think of some NYT/WaPo pundits where the distinction scarcely matters.

I'm also familiar with leftists who are so focused on US sins they ignore or even get a bit myopic about the likes of Putin and Trump, but they rarely reduce to pro-Putin/Trump, so I don't mind them. But they do generate an anti-anti- dynamic, which I find unhelpful. If you have a principle, better to use it.

I thought of Matt Taibbi when writing this, but couldn't work him in under the limit. He's not really a leftist: he presents as some kind of iconoclast, balancing his left and right targets, although until 2016 his "left" targets were pretty silly (like 9/11 Truthers). After 2016, he got obsessed with the Clinton camp's anti-Russia rationalizations, which he considered a worse outrage than Trump's election. I haven't followed him since he left Rolling Stone, so I don't know where he's gone with his snark. He wasn't wrong when debunking "Russiagate," but had problems keeping the bigger picture in focus.

I did google "anti-anti-Trump": without quotes I got nothing of significance (mostly pieces about Never Trumpers), but with quotes some pieces do show up. Some titles, dates, and possibly quotes (but links only if I followed them, which mostly I did not; sorted by year from early to now):

• The unbearable lameness of the anti-anti-Trump . . . [Week, 2015]
• Against Anti-Anti-Trumpism [National Review, 2016]
• The Anti-Anti-Trump Right [Atlantic, 2017]
• David Harsanyi*: Why the resistance is the best thing that's happened to Trump [2017] [*] author of a book subtitled The Case Against Democracy.
• Charles J Sykes: If Liberals Hate Him, Then Trump Must Be Doing Something Right [NYT, 2017]: "anti-anti-Trumpism has become the new safe space for the right." "In many ways anti-anti-Trumpism mirrors Donald Trump himself, because at its core there are no fixed values, no respect for constitutional government or ideas of personal character, only a free-floating nihilism cloaked in insult, mockery and bombast." For a "conservative" reply to Sykes, see Dan McLaughlin: Anti-Anti-Anti-Anti-Trump [National Review, 2017]; alternate title: It's OK To Be Against Trump's Critics.
• The cowardly spectacle of the anti-anti-Trump movement [Week, 2017]
• Anti-Anti-Trumpism is the Glue Holding Together . . . [New Republic, 2017]
• Steve Helmoff: The anti-anti-Trump movement gather steam [HoffPost, 2017]
• Strange Bedfellows [Crooked Media, 2017: "It is this propaganda trick that has powered the anti-anti Trump posture most of my fellow Trump-skeptical Republicans have adopted."
• Charlie Sykes: The Agony of the Anti-Anti-Trumpers [Bulwark, 2020]
• National Review's Biden Profile Is Anti-Anti-Trumpism as Art [NYM, 2020]
• Andrew O'Hehir: Waterloo for the anti-anti-Trump left (and all other normalizers) [Salon, 2020]: "Those who made their peace with Trump all made the same fatal mistake: Believing that he believed in anything."
• Why the Anti-Anti-Trumpers Need DeSantis [Bulwark, 2023]
• The Dilemma of the Anti-Trump Conservatives [Mother Jones, 2024]: "I almost feel sorry for the anti-Trump-but-more-anti-anti-Trump conservatives."
• Anti-Anti-Trump Conservatives Are Paving the Way for Authoritarianism [Democracy Americana, 2024]

One obvious point here is that most of these references are old (mostly from 2017), and most come from or relate to Never Trumpers (e.g., Sykes, who wrote a book, How the Right Lost Its Mind), many of whom have a major stake on maintaining their conservative bona fides. (Sure, a few have moved closer to Democrats, especially to ones they find congenial on issues of empire and economy.) Few even mention anti-anti-Trump sentiments on the the actual left, let alone name names. I suspect that if one did, they'd turn out to be sham leftists and/or simple fools.

New records reviewed this week:

Bad Bunny: Debí Tirar Más Fotos (2025, Rimas Entertainment): Puerto Rican rapper/singer, big star in his niche ("Spotify's most streamed artist of the year, 2020-2022"), sixth studio album. I've listened to, and enjoyed, most of them, without ever quite graduating to fan, which may be chalked up to my incomprehension of the language, or could suggest that the rhythm falls just short of making such concerns academic. B+(***) [sp]

Bag of Bones: No One Gets Saved (2023 [2024], 577): British avant-jazz quartet: Riley Stone-Lonergan (tenor sax, from QOW Trio), Rick Simpson (piano), Oli Hayhurst (bass), Will Glaser (drums), first group album. B+(**) [sp]

Towa Bird: American Hero (2024, Interscope): British pop/rock singer-songwriter, born in Hong Kong, "half-Filipino, half-English" started on Tik Tok playing "guitar riffs over other artists' songs," first album. B+(***) [sp]

Robert Sarazin Blake: Let the Longing Run Wild & Free (2025, Same Room): Singer-songwriter, dozen-plus albums since 1996. B+(**) [sp]

Charly Bliss: Forever (2024, Lucky Number): Power pop group from New York, Eva Hendricks the singer, third album, the others from 2017 and 2019 -- long enough ago that I had forgotten how much I liked Young Enough (about as much as I like this one). A- [sp]

The Chills: Spring Board: The Early Unrecorded Songs (2025, Fire): The late Martin Phillipps wrote the songs in the early 1980s, probably before the New Zealand group's 1988-92 breakthrough albums. No recording dates given, but Phillipps, who died at 61 in 2024, is credited with electric guitar and vocals on all songs, along with four others who joined the 2021 edition of the band, so these versions are not old demos. At 20 songs, they arguably went overboard, but half are remarkable, and we're unlikely to get more. A- [sp]

Helene Cronin: Maybe New Mexico (2025, self-released): Previously unknown country singer-songwriter from Texas, fourth album since 2013 (per Discogs; website has the first of those as an EP, along with a couple more). "We're story tellers and ocean walkers," striking ones about wastes of people and land, from a war-addled rifleman to a stripped mine. A- [sp]

Jonah David: Waltz for Eli (2024 [2025], Swish Tap): Drummer, first album as leader, side credits back to 2004 but mostly with Matisyahu. Varied lineups, most with sax, piano (or organ), and bass, guitar on three tracks, vocals (Anna Perkins) on two, trumpet (Jeremy Pelt) on one. B+(*) [cd]

FACS: Wish Defense (2025, Trouble in Mind): Chicago post-punk band, name a tribute to Factory Records, so think Joy Division/New Order with edges less honed, or if you remember them (as I do) the 2007-15 band Disappears, where all members of this trio -- Brian Case (guitar/vocals/keybs), Jonathan van Herik (bass), and Noah Leger (drums) -- got their start. My main caveat is that their sound is so consistent it's hard to pick the better albums out from the also-rans, not that I'm sure there really are any. A- [sp]

Satoko Fujii Tokyo Trio: Dream a Dream (2024 [2025], Libra): Super-prolific Japanese pianist, this one a trio with bass (Takashi Sugawa) and drums (Ittetsu Takemura), drags a bit in spots, but is brilliant often enough. A- [cd]

Funkrust Brass Band: Make a Little Spark (2024, self-released): New York band, 20-piece group (at least at one point), "mixes post punk, disco, EDM, metal, funk, Balkan brass and New Orleans second line, with snazzy uniforms, choreography, megaphone vocals, and all-original music." Two earlier (2017-19) albums fall short of LP-length, and their collection of demos and remixes isn't much longer, but this one counts, and I'm a sucker for a good tuba section. A- [sp]

Future: Mixtape Pluto (2024, Freebandz/Epic): Atlanta rapper Nayvidius Wilburn, 17 mixtapes since 2010, first studio album was Pluto in 2012. I've never quite understood the difference, nor can I tell you what distinguishes trap from hip-hop, but if you set up a 2x2 plot on those two axes even I could assign this to the trap/mixtape quadrant. B+(**) [sp]

Freddie Gibbs: You Only Die 1nce (2024, ESGN): Rapper, actual last name Tipton, debut 2013, sixth solo studio album. Title refers back to his 2017 album, You Only Live 2wice. B+(**) [sp]

Muriel Grossmann: MGQ Live in King Georg, Köln (2022 [2025], Powerhouse): Austrian saxophonist (tenor, soprano, alto here), a "spiritual jazz legend" -- which mostly means she's moved by the holy spirit of John Coltrane -- with her quartet: Radomir Milojkovic (guitar), Abel Boquera (organ), and Uros Stamenkovic (drums). B+(***) [sp]

Patterson Hood: Exploding Trees and Airplane Screams (2025, ATO): Drive-By Truckers singer-songwriter, released three solo albums 2004-12 along with group albums, this his fourth (not counting the pandemic-filler Heathen Songs). Too quiet to keep my attention, but interesting enough when I do notice. B+(***) [sp]

Lady Blackbird: Slang Spirituals (2024, Foundation Music Productions/BMG): Jazz singer-songwriter Marley Munroe, based in Los Angeles, second album, has muscled up the production to the point where it's no longer recognizable as jazz, but so far she's making the power work. B+(***) [sp]

Ben Markley: Tell the Truth (2024 [2025], OA2): Discogs credits him with three 1976-81 albums, but another source has him born in 1981, and when you click on "Credits" those three albums vanish (replaced by two others from 1975-77), with his plausible credits starting in 2007, and own albums in 2009. He has six of the latter, including a couple big band efforts, plus one by Live Edge Trio. He's a pianist, and composed all originals, for this postbop quintet with Wil Swindler (alto sax) and Steve Kovalcheck (guitar), plus bass and drums. B+(*) [cd]

Mdou Moctar: Tears of Injustice (2025, Matador): Tuareg singer-guitarist from Niger, steady stream of albums since 2013, started getting some notice after Matador signed him/them in 2021, especially for the 2024 album Funeral for Justice. This is an acoustic remake, recorded after a coup made return problematical for touring musicians. I've made no effort to decipher the words or politics -- the coup itself was notable here for sending US troops in Niger packing, which I took to be good news all around, but I have no idea what the actual impacts there are. In any case, the words mean nothing to me, but slowing them down and quieting the guitars seems as valid as ever. B+(***) [sp]

Isabelle Olivier: Impressions (2024 [2025], Rewound Echoes): French harpist, a dozen albums since 1997, takes title and inspiration from Coltrane, but her "genre melding" touches on folk themes filtered through euroclassical. B+(**) [cd] [03-21]

Juan Perea: Lightkeeper (2022-24 [2025], Zoho): Pianist, based in Chicago, seems to be his debut at 68, kicks off with "Oye Como Va," followed by seven originals and a reprise. Eric Marienthal plays notable alto sax on three cuts. B+(*) [cd]

Jim Snidero: Bird Feathers (2024 [2025], Savant): Alto saxophonist, 28th album over 40 years, decided to mark the occasion with a collection of Charlie Parker tunes, although he slipped four standards into the mix: "These Foolish Things," "Embraceable You," "The Nearness of You," "Lover Man" -- not songs I associate with Parker, but the liner notes explain the connections. Trio with Peter Washington and Joe Farnsworth, an exemplary mainstream rhythm section, as rooted in swing as in bop. Very nicely done, without a hint of danger or irony. B+(***) [cd]

Mitch Towne: Refuge (2024 [2025], Cross Towne): Organ player, Discogs lists 8 side credits back to 1999, but this seems to be his first album as leader, a trio recorded in Omaha with Tetsuya Nishiyama (guitar) and Jeffery Johnson (drums), playing six originals and a piece by Kenny Kirkland. B+(*) [cd] [04-04]

University of Nevada Las Vegas Jazz Ensemble 1: Let the Good Times Roll (2024 [2025], Vegas): Chances are pretty much any music school in the country could assemble a band like this (I've run across similar efforts from UNT and Toronto). No real reason to search them out, or to get snippy about talented students playing repertory (or their first stabs at originals). But this one is pretty enjoyable, thanks largely to song selection (starting with the title). I wouldn't even mind hearing more vocals, at least from ringer guest Laura Taylor, whose "Alright, Okay You Win" is a highlight. B+(**) [cd]

Wavy Bagels With Driveby: A Carfull (2024, Break All): Queens rapper Jackie Mitchell and producer Oscar Torres Jr., each with one other recent album. B+(**) [sp]

WDR Big Band: Bluegrass (2025, MCG Jazz): Westdeutscher Rundfunk, founded 1956 when the Köln radio station split off from Hamburg's NDR (Norddeutscher Rundfunk) and pivoted to jazz, where they've proven a ready source for big band backing. Discogs credits them -- usually as WDR Big Band Köln (or Cologne) -- with 104 albums since 1981, many under the names of guest directors (most prominently: Lalo Schifrin, Vince Mendoza, and Bob Mintzer -- at the helm here) or guest stars. Mintzer arranged ten more or less recognizable bluegrass tunes here, and solos on tenor sax and EWI, with Darol Anger (violin) and Mike Marshall (mandolin) guest stars. A nice exercise unlikely to have any lasting impact in either world. B+(*) [cd]

Rodney Whitaker: Mosaic: The Music of Gregg Hill (2024 [2025], Origin): Mainstram bassist, from Detroit, many side credits since 1985 (Roy Hargrove, Orrin Evans, Wynton Marsalis), over a dozen own albums, in 2019 he kicked off a now extensive series of albums of the compositions of Gregg Hill, back here with what may be the best one yet, largely thanks to stellar performances by Terell Stafford (trumpet/flugelhorn) and Tim Warfield (tenor/soprano sax), with Rick Roe (piano) and Dana Hall (drums). Also four vocals by Rockelle Whitaker, which I'm less enthusiastic about but they do add another dimension to Hill's work. B+(***) [cd]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

None

Old music:

Helene Cronin: Restless Heart (2014, self-released, EP): First album, six songs, 22:28. Sounds nice enough, but no songs really stand out. B+(*) [sp]

Helene Cronin: Belong to the River (2015, self-released, EP): Second album, just a bit longer (7 songs, 24:43), but her sound is striking from the start, as are several of the songs -- including a couple I might object to on politico-philosophical grounds but are too observed to get upset over ("Dangerous," on hazards as childhood learning experiences, and "Lucky Me," on how soldiers make you free). B+(**) [sp]

Helene Cronin: Old Ghosts & Lost Causes (2019, self-released): First full album, 11 songs, 42:23. Good songwriter, but tends to stay understated. B+(*) [sp]

Helene Cronin: Landmarks (2023, self-released): Second full album, 12 songs, put extra effort into the songs, and developed a real band sound. B+(***) [sp]

FACS: Negative Houses (2018, Trouble in Mind): After a pretty impressive 2010-16 run, Disappears bassist Damon Carruesco departed, breaking up the band. But the other three musicians regrouped, with second guitarist Jonathan van Herik moving over to bass, adopting this new name connected to Factory Records -- UK home of Joy Division, which rather more dramatically turned into New Order. This first album preserves their sound, but it's mired in trauma. B+(*) [sp]

FACS: Lifelike (2019, Trouble in Mind): Second album, unless 6 songs, 29:22 demotes it to EP status (as Spotify thinks). A bit slow off the mark, but the last song holds up for 8:21. B+(*) [sp]

FACS: Void Moments (2020, Trouble in Mind): Third album, 7 tracks, 30:34. Solid sound, doesn't develop much. B+(*) [sp]

FACS: Present Tense (2021, Trouble in Mind): Fourth album, 7 tracks, 35:14. Having commented above on how consistent the appeal of Disappears was, and noting the continuity of their latest album, I now have to admit that they fell into a sustained rut -- although their previously heard fifth proper album, Still Life in Decay (2023) did start to step back up. B+(*) [sp]

FACS: Maggot Brain 020324 (2024, self-released): Back cover reads: "Smashed Plastic Anniversary 20192024." Live set as dated, celebrating their 5th anniversary, released as a "Bandcamp exclusive," which included a limited vinyl run. I found this first when looking up "Wish Defense" -- the title song of their 2025 album, which first appeared here. Good dry run for the new album. B+(***) [bc]

Funkrust Brass Band: Dark City (2017, self-released): First album, or EP if you're bothered by the 26:57 run time for seven songs. Not sure how many musicians are in this edition, but the concept is fully evolved, backed with ample brass. B+(***) [sp]

Funkrust Brass Band: Bones and Burning (2019, self-released, EP): Second outing for the "20-piece post-apocalyptic disco-punk brass band playing all original music with megaphone vocals, heavy tuba bass lines, thundering percussion and searing brass melodies." But with just four songs, 18:10, we'll count it as an EP. B+(***) [sp]

Patterson Hood: Killers and Stars (2004, New West): Drive-By Truckers singer-songwriter since 1998, they were just taking off when he released this modest solo effort. B+(*) [sp]

Laura Taylor: Cry Me a River: A Tribute to Julie London (2000 [2001], Quicksilver): Standards singer, based in Las Vegas, details scarce, but after hearing her as an emeritus guest on the UNLV big band album I wanted to hear more. Discogs lists backing vocal credits back to 1978 (mostly with Diana Ross), but no jazz until 1989-90 with Steve Kuhn. AMG co-credits this to guitarist Joe Lano, but his name doesn't appear on the cover. Back cover has him under "featuring," along with Tom Warrington (bass). The songs are taken at a crawl, which suits them all. B+(**) [sp]

Laura Taylor: My Funny Valentine: Memories of Chet Baker (2002, Staying Power): Not as memorable a songbook, but enough to work with, especially with Steve Kuhn (piano), Eddie Gomez (bass), and Lewis Nash (drums). She makes no effort to match Baker's voice or phrasing, other than by taking even the slightest songs slow, which she can do because her own voice is so exquisite. B+(***) [sp]

Laura Taylor: Mountain Greenery (2006, Staying Power): I'm not finding any credits for this (even the duet partner in "Straighten Up and Fly Right") but the arrangements are varied, including drenching strings for the "Porgy and Bess Medley" -- one suggestion is that she picked out instrumentals for her Vegas act, making this some kind of ritzy karaoke. I didn't recognize the title song, but Rodgers & Hart wrote it, with Mel Tormé and Ella Fitzgerald covers. Nothing else, least of all "One Note Samba," got past me. B+(**) [sp]

Laura Taylor: Have Mercer on Me: Laura Taylor Sings Johnny Mercer (2010, Staying Power): A great and varied song book, which she handles with considerable aplomb. No idea who plays on this, but there is some nice sax, as well as piano trio. B+(***) [sp]

Laura Taylor: Dancing in My Feet (1979, Good Sounds): Evidently she did start off as a disco singer, with the title single the theme song for a TV show, Disco Magic. This was produced by T.K. Productions in Florida, presumably related to Terry Kane's TK Records label -- best known for KC & the Sunshine Band and George McRae's "Rock Your Baby" -- although this came out on another Miami-based label. This is a better-than-expected disco obscurity, with the title song recommended for anthologistsm, but I'm also impressed with the ballad "Sad Is the Song." B+(**) [sp]

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

• Samo Salamon/Ra Kalam Bob Moses Orchestra: Dream Suites Vol. 1 (Samo) [04-10]
• Reggie Watkins: Rivers (BYNK) [03-28]

Ask a question, or send a comment.

-- next