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An occasional blog about populist politics and popular music, not necessarily at the same time. LinksLocal Links Social Media My Other Websites Music Politics Others Networking Music DatabaseArtist Search: Website SearchGoogle: Recent Reading
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Blog Entries [1050 - 1059]Tuesday, December 15, 2015 Rhapsody Streamnotes (December 2015)I actually froze this file and opened a new one back on Sunday, figuring 144 records was enough for any one column (maybe more than enough). So while I've been busy as a bee between then and now, there's nothing here that hasn't been reported in a Music Week post, and I fear a few of the "reviews" are so flimsy they hardly deserve your attention. Still, hopefully some do help, and with one exception the triage is as rigorous as ever. (That one exception is Titus Andronicus' The Most Lamentable Tragedy -- the first record in many years that I didn't make it all the way through. It actually started out sounding promising, but wore down, and I got interrupted midway through. On returning, I found I didn't have the constitution to finish the slog. Can't say as it's a bad record, and you may well have more tolerance for grandiose rock operas than I do, hence the middling grade.) This time of year, I've been busy scouring the EOY lists, not so much to check up on the conventional wisdom -- needless to say it's as boring as ever (or at least as boring as a Tame Impala) -- as to sniff out some interesting outliers. That netted one popular find -- Gwenno (currently 70th on my EOY Aggregate) -- and a few others that remain obscure: John Moreland (462), Sons of Kemet, Alaska Thunderfuck. Still, I have tried checking out most of the top-ranked records (19/20, 28/30, 35/40) becoming pickier as we go down the list (41/50, 68/100, 102/200). In this column you'll find: 10. Grimes [**]; 14. Kurt Vile [B]; 16. Oneohtrix Point Never [***]; 19. Unknown Mortal Orchestra [B-]; 20. Ryley Walker [**]; 28. Chvrches [**]; 30. Floating Points [***]; 51. Torres [*]; 54. Girl Band [**]; 60. Titus Andronicus [B]; 61. Algiers [B]; 70. Gwenno [A-]; 97. JME [***]; 118. Justin Bieber [B]; 119. Gaz Coombes [*]; 130. Föllakzoid [**]; 207. Rabit [**]; 214. Sun Kil Moon [***]; 216. Pat Thomas [***]; 221. Fetty Wap [B-]; 271. Eric Church [**]; 275. Desaparecidos [A-]; 318. Chemical Brothers [**]; 330. The Fall [***]; 331. Flako [**]; 333. Georgia [**]; 377. Richard Thompson [***]; 426. Drake/Future [*]; 438. GLOSS [***]; 462. John Moreland [A-]; 523. Bomba Estéreo [***]; 558. Craig Finn [A-]. My grades vs. the EOY Aggregate ranking tend to be almost evenly distributed among my B+ levels (for the current top 100, my breakdown is 15-15-14), with slightly fewer A- (13) or B and lower grades (12: 10 B, 2 B-). That's similar to -- OK, slightly better than -- my overall grade curve this year: A/A-: 119 (13.9%); B+(***): 177 (20.6%); B+(**): 245 (28.6%); B+(*): 191 (22.3%); B/less: 126 (14.7%; B: 94, B-: 26, C+: 2, C: 3, C-: 1). I suspect the reason my curve is slightly right-shifted is due to the amount of jazz I receive, which conscience forces me to listen to records I would never bother with otherwise. (Since so much non-jazz is available on Rhapsody I'm pickier about what I listen to there.) I'd also conjecture that the more black ink I fill in on the EOY ranking, the lower that grade curve will skew. Next significant date for me will be December 28, when my Pazz & Jop ballot is due (publication date January 13, 2016). I've given very little thought to the ordering of my current Non-Jazz list, let alone how much jazz I want to slip in (Irčne Schweizer is the only lock, and I doubt I'll drop below 4th place Mike Reed). But I will be focusing on non-jazz in the next two weeks, expecting to narrow the current 52-67 A-list deficit between the Non-Jazz and Jazz lists. (This month non-jazz has a 10-6 edge, so the two lists have already narrowed a bit.) Most of these are short notes/reviews based on streaming records from Rhapsody (other sources are noted in brackets). They are snap judgments based on one or two plays, accumulated since my last post along these lines, back on November 18. Past reviews and more information are available here (7394 records). Recent Releases
Juhani Aaltonen & Iro Haarla: Kirkastus (2013 [2015], TUM): Duets, mostly tenor sax and piano, although Aaltonen starts on flute -- demonstrating why he's my first pick in polls on that generally disliked instrument; he also plays alto and bass flute -- and Haarla's second instrument is harp. B+(***) [cd] Alaska Thunderfuck: Anus (2015, Sidecar): Alias for drag queen Justin Honard, "best known for appearing on the fifth season of RuPaul's Drag Race. Music is EDM, with he/she talk-singing through many tales of makeup and nails -- not to mention pussy, can't forget that. Not really my thing, but I'm more bemused than anything else. A- Algiers: Algiers (2015, Matador): Rock group formed in Atlanta and fronted by gospel-schooled singer-guitarist Franklin James Fisher, an affect that tends to push what otherwise might have been a decent shoegaze group into excess melodrama. B Harry Allen: Something About Jobim (2015, Stunt): Following in the wake of Allen's superb Flying Over Rio, the tenor saxophonist has a smaller band here -- a piano trio led by a very lively Helio Alves. Three vocals by Joyce didn't blow me away, but she certainly qualifies as a "special guest." B+(***) Stephen Anderson/360° Jazz Initiative: Distracted Society (2015, Summit): Pianist, has at least one previous album, wrote 6 (of 9) pieces here, the others coming from his group (two from tenor saxophonist Dave Finucane, one from trumpeter Jim Ketch). Group is an octet, with a second trumpet, guitar, vibes, bass, and drums. B+(**) [cd] Asleep at the Wheel: Still the King: Celebrating the Music of Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys (2015, Bismeaux): Ray Benson's group has tried this several times before -- most successful was 1999's star-studded Ride With Bob, and the guest list is even longer (and younger) this time -- well, except for Willie, Merle, and missing link Leon Rausch. Some of my favorite music, enough so that everyone sounds great. Wish I had the whole package. A- Asylum Street Spankers: The Last Laugh (2014, Yellow Dog): String band from Austin, formed in the mid-1990s and broke up in 2010, then decided to do the end right with a nine-month 50-city farewell tour. I'm not sure they ever got out of town, but they did several last shows in Austin, raised some money for a documentary, and three years later got around to editing this CD. The impending end has them thinking a lot about religion, not that they find much to like there. Also about an impending work-life, which seems even less to their liking. A- Erykah Badu: But You Caint Use My Phone (2015, Control Freaq): First album in five years, not a huge gap by the standards of this year's great many long-term comebacks, but it rather seems like it -- maybe because styling this as a mixtape eases the re-entry. Repeated riffs on phones keep on coming, leading up to a cover of Todd Rundgren's "Hello, It's Me" featuring Andre 3000. A- Dan Ballou: Solo Trumpet (2015, Clean Feed): Truth in advertising, although the fine print shows he also plays flugelhorn, piccolo trumpet, and employs various mutes. As with most solo albums, variety helps, and so do some exceptionally dramatic spots. Ballou has a dozen-plus albums since 1998, most on more mainstream labels (actually mostly Steeplechase, a label I've never gotten anything from), but he airs it out here. B+(**) [cd] Justin Bieber: Purpose (2015, Def Jam): With new albums every year (except 2014) since he turned 15, he must think of himself as a seasoned star. but this is the first I've heard, as well as his first since turning 21. The kid's got a nice voice, which works well when he gets a bit of upbeat to work with. But his handlers saddle him with a lot of ballads, and he's not grown up enough for that. B Big K.R.I.T.: It's Better This Way (2015, self-released): Rapper from Mississippi, made his mark with mixtapes going back to 2005 but has a major label deal that should take precedence. Maybe it does, since there's not much here. B+(*) [dl] June Bisantz: It's Always You: June Bisantz Sings Chet Baker Vol. 2 (2015, self-released): Standards singer, three albums I've been able to confirm, the previous two as June Bisantz-Evans -- the one called Let's Fall in Love is probably remembered as Sings Chet Baker: Vol. 1. She can't help but sing better than than Baker, especially as she aims for his nonchalance rather than his pathos. B+(*) [cd] Raoul Björkenheim Ecstasy: Out of the Blue (2014 [2015], Cuneiform): Finnish guitarist, second album with this group (we won't humor its typographic conceits, preferring to take our ecstasy straight). Group also Finnish: Pauli Lyytinen (sax), Jori Huhtala (bass), and Markku Ounaskari (drums). Guitar and sax can joust on pretty equal footing, otherwise the sax defers, usually by bowing out. B+(***) [dl] Bomba Estéreo: Amanecer (2015, Sony Music Latin): Colombian group led by Simón Mejia, rooted in Cumbia and Salsa but with a touch of hip-hop, especially singer/rapper Li Saumet. B+(***) Boytoy: Grackle (2015, Papercup Music): Brooklyn rock trio, Saara Untracht-Oakner sings and plays guitar, Glenn Van Dyke plays guitar and sings, and there's a drummer. They cite Black Sabbath and the Ramones as influences, and while they'd probably like to synthesize them, they do what they can. Eleven short tracks, five more than their cassette-only debut, but still just 28:07. B+(***) Geof Bradfield Quintet: Our Roots (2014 [2015], Origin): Tenor saxophonist, fifth album, quintet with trumpet (Marquis Hill) and trombone (Joel Adams), bass and drums. Three originals, the rest from old blues sources -- Huddie Ledbetter (5), Willie Johnson (2), and trad. (2). There's a tendency for the postbop to bury the blues, but this can be very attractive when they swing (e.g., "Take This Hammer"). B+(**) [cd] Breakfast in Fur: Flyaway Garden (2015, Bar/None): Hudson Valley-based alt-rock group, first album, Kaitlin Van Pelt's vocals add a dream pop dimension to Dan Wolfe's shoegaze. Starts promising, but after midway tends to get lost in the ether. B+(*) Peter Brötzmann/Peeter Uuskyla: Red Cloud on Silver (2014 [2015], Omlott, 2LP): Tenor sax and drums duo, with Brötzmann also credited with clarinet, bass clarinet, and tarogato, all of which tone down the harshness of his main axe. B+(**) The Katie Bull Group Project: All Hot Bodies Radiate (2013 [2015], Ashokan Indie): Singer, writes most of her stuff but covers "Ding Dong the Witch Is Dead" here. Band leans avant with Joe Fonda -- a longtime collaborator -- on bass, George Schuller on drums, Landon Knoblock on piano/electronics, and Jeff Lederer on soprano/tenor sax. She's struggled in the past but this all flows together. B+(***) [cd] Ann Hampton Callaway: The Hope of Christmas (2015, MCG Jazz): Subtitle: "Sings the Lyrics of William Schermerhorn." That at least steers this away from the over-familiar. Schermerhorn is so obscure he doesn't have a Wikipedia page, although from the tidbits I can gather I doubt the page would be deleted should you decide to create one. He does possess a Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Original Song (actually two), and directed 82nd Annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade for television. Marty Ashby's production is nice and jazzy. B- Chaise Lounge: A Very Chaise Lounge Christmas (2015, Modern Songbook): A small swing band, led by guitarist-pianist Charlie Barnett, with a bassist who doubles on tuba, and a pleasant-voiced singer named Marilyn Older. Favors secular fare, only a couple of which you're likely to hear elsewhere, and none you're likely to be sick to death of. B+(*) The Chemical Brothers: Born in the Echoes (2015, Virgin EMI): Techno duo, back to 1995 so they've had a long good run. One cut here sounded as good as ever, but the others weren't compelling enough to send me back for another play. B+(**) Childbirth: Women's Rights (2015, Suicide Squeeze): Three women from Seattle in a punk band, as straightforward and proper as can be, as if intelligible words are all it takes to convey rage, or humor can be subversive. Only runs 27:45, but that packs in thirteen songs. B+(***) Eric Church: Mr. Misunderstood (2015, EMI Nashville): Country artist, made an arena rock move last time which backfired, reverts to form here -- maybe even overshoots a bit. B+(**) Chvrches: Every Open Eye (2015, Glassnote): Scottish electropop group, second album, a big improvement. B+(**) Scott Clark 4tet: Bury My Heart (2015, Clean Feed): Drummer, based in Richmond VA, "of native American ancestry," a theme reflected in his song titles -- "Broken Treaties," "Wounded Knee," "Little Crow's War," "Big Horn," "Sand Creek," "Remembrance" -- even the album title, a nod to Dee Brown's brilliant book, Burn My Heart at Wounded Knee. (Clark's website suggests that was the original album title.) With Bob Miller (trumpet), Jason Scott (sax), and Cameron Ralston (bass), plus bass clarinet and trombone on the first piece. Works in some trad drumbeats, and the horns can be mournful as needed, but can also run free. B+(**) [cd] The Claudettes: No Hotel (2015, Yellow Dog): Hype slots this piano-drums duo (Johnny Iguana and Michael Caskey) as Chicago/New Orleans blues but I find the pounding chords mechanical and can't get excited even by the pace: it's like woogie with no boogie. More intriguing is Nigerian-American vocalist Yana, fond as she is of "'60s French Yé-Yé classics." B Tom Collier: Across the Bridge (2015, Origin): Vibraphonist, based in Seattle, cut an album in 1991 and has several more since 2004. Frequent collaborator Dan Dean plays electric bass and guitar on three cuts; drums are split between John Bishop and Ted Poor. The biggest coup was in landing Bill Frisell (3 cuts) and Larry Coryell (4) on guitar. B+(*) [cd] Adegoke Steve Colson: Tones for Harriet Tubman/Sojourner Truth/Frederick Douglass (2015, Silver Sphinx, 2CD): Pianist, b. 1949 in Newark, studied in Chicago where he joined AACM, has a short discography. Solo piano. B+(**) [cd] Gaz Coombes: Matador (2015, Hot Fruit): Brit-pop singer, frontman of Supergrass, second solo album. Fast ones like "The English Ruse" catch my attention, but then the slow ones lose it. B+(*) Bram De Looze: Septych (2014 [2015], Clean Feed): Pianist, from Belgium, probably his first album, a septet with three saxes (Bo Van Der Werf on baritone; Robin Verheyen on tenor and soprano; and Gebhard Ullmann on tenor, bass clarinet and flute), two cellos, and drums. B+(**) [cd] Desaparecidos: Payola (2015, Saddle Creek): Conor Oberst side project, first album appeared in 2002, now this one 13 years later, but lineup seems to be the same, and they come on strong as a band -- in fact, given their political stance and how much they have to critique (or rant about), they come on as the closest any American band has come to the Clash. I'm alternately amused and agitated, which isn't a bad combination. Inspirational song title: "Left Is Right." A- Kristin Diable: Create Your Own Mythology (2015, Speakeasy): Alt-country singer/songwriter from Baton Rouge, has a handful of albums since 2004. B Jorrit Dijkstra: Neither Odd nor Even (2014-15 [2015], Driff): Alto saxophonist, plays this one solo although he works in some lyricon, analog synth, and effects pedals to get some supplementary percussion, which makes a big difference. B+(***) [cd] Jorrit Dijkstra/Pandelis Karayorgis/Nate McBride/Curt Newton: Matchbox (2014 [2015], Driff): Alto sax (plus lyricon and analog synth), piano, bass, drums; the last two were Ken Vandermark's rhythm section before he left Boston for Chicago; the last three are a long-running piano trio called Mi3. The first two run this label and share various projects like the Steve Lacy tribute band, the Whammies. But they sort of cancel each other out here -- interesting work all around, but nothing that really sticks to you. B+(**) [cd] Drake/Future: What a Time to Be Alive (2015, Cash Money): Originally a mixtape, but quickly productized into an instant chart topper. Neither artist makes much of a splash, not that the everyday patter of business planning doesn't have its own homey appeal. B+(*) Kaja Draksler/Susana Santos Silva: This Love (2015, Clean Feed): Piano and trumpet/flugelhorn duets. Trumpet tends to drone, with piano occasionally dropping out. B+(*) [cd] Joe Ely: Panhandle Rambler (2015, Rack 'Em): The bard of Lubbock has rarely sounded so clear and straightforward. Still I played this twice and as good as it sounded it didn't force me to pay enough attention to recall two songs. B+(**) The Fall: Sub-Lingual Tablet (2015, Cherry Red): Mark Smith's 1970s vintage band remains just barely post-punk, his distinctive roar and the band's crunch unabated. Indeed, why should they change? It's not as if there's nothing to get angry about. B+(***) Lorraine Feather: Flirting With Disaster (2013-15 [2015], Jazzed Media): Jazz singer, daughter of writer/impressario Leonard Feather, co-wrote all of these songs, mostly art-ballads with weepy strings. B Brian Fielding: An Appropriate Response: Volume One (2015 [2016], Broken Symmetries Music): Pianist, appears to be his first album (although note gray hair in photo), a quartet with Mike Lee on tenor sax, Andy McKee on bass, and Ali Jackson on drums. First song dedicated to Fred Hersch. Mainstream, flows nice, very listenable. B+(**) [cd] Craig Finn: Faith in the Future (2015, Partisan): The unmistakable singer/songwriter behind two of the better rock groups of the last two decades -- Lifter Puller and Hold Steady -- files his second album under his own name. The music is lighter, a bit less compelling, but that just lets the songs come through clearer. He's good enough to do that. A- The Fireworks: Switch Me On (2015, Shelflife): British noise-pop band, I reckon that means a little more frenzy than shoegaze but the tone and dynamics are similar. B+(**) Flako: Natureboy (2015, Five Easy Pieces): Dario Rojo Guerra, reportedly of German-Chilean heritage, seems to prefer styling his alias as fLako. Second album, topped at least one EOY list, nice mix. B+(**) Floating Points: Elaenia (2015, Luaka Bop): Brit electronica producer Sam Shepherd, has been recording singles as Floating Points since 2009 and has an album with a 16-piece Floating Point Ensemble, but this rates as a first album. Attractive blips that can swell up impressively but usually don't. B+(***) Föllakzoid: III (2015, Sacred Bones): From Santiago, Chile, described as a "psych-pop" group: instrumental rock, throwback to some of the space themes that came out of prog/psychedelia in the 1960s, but tighter, more contained, more modest -- perhaps imagination for space music has been compressed along with the grind of life on earth. B+(**) Food: This Is Not a Miracle (2013 [2015], ECM): Eighth group album since eponymous 1999 debut, although the initial quartet gradually stripped down to constants Iain Ballamy (saxes, electronics) and Thomas Strřnen (drums, electronics), joined here by Fennesz on guitar (and more electronics) -- the electronics provide much of the tone and texture over the jazztronica beats. A- [dl] Erik Friedlander: Oscalypso: Tribute to Oscar Pettiford (2015, Skipstone): Pettiford was one of the great bassists of the 1950s, and one of the first to record on cello -- the higher range making it more audible as a lead instrument. Friedlander is one of a half-dozen prominent jazz cellists to emerge since the 1990s, so it makes sense he would look back to his heritage. Quartet with Michael Blake (sax), Trevor Dunn (bass), Michael Sarin (drums). A- [cd] Kinky Friedman: The Loneliest Man I Ever Met (2015, Avenue A): Past retirement age, the "last of the Jewish cowboys" takes it easy by only writing three songs (and only the one he got help with looks to be new). While he still likes a good joke, he also waxes nostalgic -- which turns out to be more dependable than the jokes. B+(**) David Friesen & Glen Moore: Bactrian (2015, Origin): Two veteran mainstream bassists, mostly play duets although on five cuts one or the other switches to piano. Not what you'd call rousing, but surprisingly clear and very engaging and pleasant. Title comes from the two-humped camel. B+(***) [cd] Jacob Garchik: Ye Olde (2014 [2015], Yestereve): Trombonist, has a handful of album which are all over the place, fronts what is effectively a rock band here with three distinctive guitarists -- Brandon Seabrook, Mary Halvorson, and Jonathan Goldberger, also credited with baritone guitar -- and drummer Vinnie Sperrazza. I'm not impressed so much as amused -- reminds me of the Golden Palominos (if that means anything to you). B+(**) [cd] Georgia: Georgia (2015, Domino): Georgia Barnes, daughter of Leftfield founder Neil Barnes, leans towards becoming a pop diva but doesn't neglect the family trade. B+(**) Ghostface Killah/Adrian Younge: Twelve Reasons to Die II (2015, Linear Labs): More gangsta shit. B+(**) Clark Gibson + Orchestra: Bird With Strings: The Lost Arrangements (2015, BluJazz): Alto saxophonist, like many obsessed with Charlie Parker, and unlike me entranced by Parker's more obscure "with strings" recordings. I couldn't wade my way through the notes, but will note that neither soloist nor orchestra are as shrill as in the originals, nor as pretentious. B+(**) [cd] Girl Band: Holding Hands With Jamie (2015, Rough Trade): Irish group, all male, snarling vocals over hardcore grind. A formula, perhaps; a good one. B+(**) GLOSS: Demo (2015, self-released, EP): Acronym stand for Girls Living Outside Society's Shit. Band is from Olympia so I expected some kind of riot grrrl attack, but voices sound male even if lead is named Sadie. Five songs, nothing longer than 1:53 (total 8:04). Noisey ranked this 7th on their EOY list, which is perverse obscurantism, but at first blush this is the best hardcore I've heard since OFF's First Four EPs, maybe better. B+(***) [bc] Cee Lo Green: Heart Blanche (2015, Atlantic): Former Goodie Mob rapper, recast himself as a "soul machine" then cushioned his decline with a tour as a TV celebrity, comes back louder than ever, not the same as better than ever. B+(*) Grimes: Art Angels (2015, 4AD): Canadian singer-songwriter Clare Boucher, music mostly synths with lots of upbeat pop hooks. B+(**) Gwenno: Y Dydd Olaf (2014 [2015], Heavenly): Gwenno Saunders, from Wales, first solo album after the demise of her girl group, the Pipettes. Father was a noted Cornish poet and she grew up speaking Welsh and Cornish, so title and lyrics are probably in one or the other. But the incomprehensible words are enveloped in down right gorgeous synths, and the flow is impeccable. Album was first released on Peski Records, but her new label couldn't resist. A- Brian Harnetty: Rawhead & Bloodybones (2015, Dust-to-Digital): Third volume in a series where Harnetty takes recordings from the Berea College Appalachian Sound Archive -- in this case children talking, telling stories, from the 1940s and 50s -- and dresses them up with some folkishly ambient music. Includes several instrumental tracks as a bonus, although you tend to forget why you're listening when they're on. B+(**) Brian Harnetty: The Star-Faced One: From the Sun Ra/El Saturn Archives (2013, Atavistic): Another example of Harnetty's shtick, which is to craft something novel by adding some live music to samples from some audio archive. Mostly he works off spoken word, and that looms large here -- mostly bits of interview and such. The musicians include Harnetty (keyboards), Jeremy Woodruff and Jeff Kimmel (reeds), Fred Lonberg-Holm (cello), and Aaron Butler (vibes). Although space is the place, they never quite get there. B+(*) Heroes Are Gang Leaders: The Avant Age Garde I AMs of the Gal Luxury (2015, Flat Langton's Arkeyes): A collective of poets and jazz musicians, founded by Thomas Sayers Ellis and James Brandon Lewis shortly after Amiri Baraka's death last year. Lewis has a couple of remarkable left-of-mainstream sax albums, and he's joined here by another saxophonist, Devin Brahja Waldman, bohemians like Thurston Moore and Lydia Lunch, and others I don't recognize. B+(***) [cd] Holychild: The Shape of Brat Pop to Come (2015, Glassnote): LA synthpop duo, singer Liz Nistico working over Louie Diller's instrumental tracks. Rhapsody only has 4 (of 13) tracks, so I have to hedge here, but three are terrific and "Regret You" isn't bad. B+(**) Invisible Astro Healing Rhythm Quartet: Invisible Astro Healing Rhythm Quartet (2012 [2013], Epigraph): Basically a jazz fusion group from Bakersfield, the quartet consisting of organ, electric guitar, electric bass, and drums, with the first three instruments occasionally swapped between two of three musicians. Two side-long improv pieces, cut live with "special guests" Kris Tiner on trumpet and Phillip Greenlief on tenor sax. Nothing very complicated to it, but it hits an attractive groove with jazz riffs -- "Ethiopian funk with the outer realms of cosmic jazz and atonal psychedelia," as they put it. A- [bc] Invisible Astro Healing Rhythm Quartet: 2 (2014 [2015], Trouble in Mind): Second album from the Bakersfield group, this time with even more guests: Kris Tiner (trumpet) and Phillip Greenlief (sax) return, plus producer Chris Schlarb (guitar, synth, percussion), trombone, and extra percussion. Still, the riffing over the Ethio-jazz rhythms is less pronounced, and the extra compositions aren't quite as joyful as the debut's long jams. B+(***) Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis: Big Band Holidays (2012-14 [2015], Blue Engine): A museum-quality big band wasted on utterly conventional Xmas fare -- "Jingle Bells," "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," "White Christmas" are the first three, with similar quality guest singers -- Cecile McLorin Salvant, Gregory Porter, and René Marie -- recorded live over three annual shows so you get shout-outs to the soloists. C- [cd] JME: Integrity (2015, Boy Better Know): Jamie Adenuga, British grime MC (family from Nigeria), third album, a breakthrough in the UK. I like the beats, the rapidfire sass and smarts. B+(***) Per Texas Johansson: De Lĺnga Rulltrapporna I Flemingsberg (2014 [2015], Moserobie): Swedish clarinet player, has six albums since 1996, his middle name often appearing in quotes. Quintet, with Fredrik Ljungkvist on tenor/baritone sax, Johan Lindström on steel guitar, Mattias Stĺhl on vibes/marimba, and Konrad Agnas on drums. B+(**) [cd] Kammerflimmer Kollektief: Désarroi (2015, Staubgold): German group founded by Thomas Weber in 1998, personnel have come and gone since then and I'm not sure who did what here: sounds are closer to industrial than to electronica, and much of this could be considered free improv but they also cover a punk anthem from the 1970s, "Zurück zum Beton," with a trip-hop vocal. B+(***) Elle King: Love Stuff (2015, RCA): Singer-songwriter, aka Tanner Elle Schneider, billed as retro-rock but I doubt she's looked back any further than Blondie, and she's got a kink in her voice that elicits comparisons to Amy Winehouse. B+(*) Ernie Krivda: Requiem for a Jazz Lady (2014 [2015], Capri): Tenor saxophonist from Cleveland, has more than two dozen albums since 1977, started on the avant margins but has matured into a mainstream player. Quartet backed by piano-bass-drums. The lady in question is Beverly Jarosz, a high school student murdered back in Cleveland in 1964. Lots of liner notes I couldn't see my way through. B+(***) [cd] Daniel Levin/Mat Maneri: The Transcendent Function (2015, Clean Feed): Cello and viola, respectively, chamber jazz on the cutting edge, even bleeding a bit. B+(**) [cd] Mundell Lowe/Lloyd Wells/Jim Ferguson: Poor Butterfly (2015, Two Helpins' of Collards): Lowe first recorded in 1954, a jazz guitarist with a cool tone that straddled swing and bop. He's still alive, 93 at the moment, and I don't see any indication on the package that this wasn't recorded this year. Wells is another guitarist, grew up in the same Mississippi town as Lowe, and has followed him around for decades. Ferguson plays bass and sings the closer. All rather delicate. B+(*) [cd] Doug MacDonald: Solo Plus (2014 [2015], BluJazz): A jazz guitarist with fifteen or so records since 1990, described by AMG as "bop-based . . . in the tradition of Herb Ellis, Barney Kessel, and Joe Pass." Live solo set, standards like "I Don't Stand a Ghost of a Chance With You" and "Darn That Dream" so not so much bop, not as ornate as Pass either -- just a pleasant evening. B+(*) [cd] Melanie Martinez: Cry Baby (2015, Atlantic): Barely past teenaged pop singer, does a riff on Leslie Gore for "Pity Party" and my, how fast they grow up now, and how strange they get. She teases that "you like me best when I'm crazy," and proves the point a dozen ways. B+(***) Tobias Meinhart: Natural Perception (2015, Enja/Yellowbird): Saxophonist (soprano/tenor), born in Germany (Regensburg) but based in Brooklyn, has a couple previous albums. This one is a hard bop quintet with Ingrid Jensen on trumpet and Yaco Vazquez on piano: strong, flashy, much as you'd expect. B+(**) [cd] Danny Mixon: Pass It On (2015, self-released): Pianist, worked for Betty Carter in the 1970s, was part of the Piano Choir's 1973 Strata-East album, worked with Mingus, but nothing under his own name until 2004. Mostly trio, but adds a sax toward the end and a singer for the last piece, a jingo for Minton's. B+(**) [cd] John Moreland: High on Tulsa Heat (2015, Old Omens): Singer-songwriter based in Tulsa, plays with a band but wouldn't lose much with just his guitar, his songs mostly slow, sober, reflective. Wish he had a sense of humor, but he's not unaware of irony, and he can straddle his right-wing Baptist father's world and reality. American Songwriter picked this as the record of the year. A- Gunnar Mossblad & Cross Currents: R.S.V.P. (2015, Summit): Tenor (/soprano) saxophonist, teaches at University of Toledo, group named after his 2012 album, artwork looks fusion-y but this is a very nice slice of postbop, a quintet with guitar (Jay Weik) and piano (Tad Weed). B+(**) [cd] The Nightingales: Mind Over Matter (2015, Louder Than War): Long-running (since 1981) British band, started as punk and sometimes recall that, but I'm reluctant to slot this. B+(*) Niyaz: Fourth Light (2015, Six Degrees): Los Angeles group formed by a decade ago by Iranian immigrants, most notably singer Azam Ali, offering a beguiling mix of Sufi poetry with electro-beats. B+(***) Arturo O'Farrill & the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra: Cuba: The Conversation Continues (2014 [2015], Motema Music, 2CD): Son of a famous Cuban arranger who worked with Charlie Parker in the 1950s, probably more bandleader than pianist here (especially given the length of his guest list), his musical choices not far removed from the 1950s as if he's coming full circle, and for once that seems like the right thing to do. B+(***) Eric Olsen ReVision Quartet: Sea Changes (2014 [2015], BluJazz): Pianist, couple albums, plays classical as well as jazz. This one has Don Braden on soprano and tenor sax, plus bass and drums. A little lush especially with the soprano -- perhaps the preponderance of classical composers (Bizet, Messaien, Chopin, Grieg) -- but this provides s reminder of how impressive Braden can be when he gets inspired. B+(*) [cd] Oneohtrix Point Never: Garden of Delete (2015, Warp): Daniel Lopatin, a big name in electronics perhaps because he's aiming beyond, at something like a concept album. Words exist, albeit not that prominently (or understandable). B+(**) William Parker/Raining on the Moon: Great Spirit (2007 [2015], AUM Fidelity): Originally the bassist's great two-horn quartet with Lewis Barnes (trumpet) and Rob Brown (alto sax), to which he added singer Leena Conquest on 2002's Raining on the Moon and pianist Eri Yamamoto for 2007's Corn Meal Dance. These I take to be leftover tracks from the latter, an exceptionally productive year. Parker can get corny when he writes lyrics, but this is a band and singer that can swing anything, and the horns can get much edgier. A- Tess Parks and Anton Newcombe: I Declare Nothing (2015, 'a' Records): Newcombe's group is the Brian Jonestown Massacre, founded in 1990, still going, a group I've never listened to although I did note one of their title in my database (Their Satanic Majesties' Second Request). Parks is a much younger Canadian singer who offers deadpan vocals to this unspectacular but enticing shoegaze. B+(**) Parquet Courts: Monastic Living (2015, Rough Trade, EP): With 9 tracks clocking in at 32:59, one might question the EP designation -- I checked the pricing and they're not cutting you any slack there, either. However, only one track has vocals (only 1:12), the others run long through repetition or are cut short arbitrarily, so you basically get an experimental noise album. I rather enjoyed it, but can't imagine buying a copy, or playing it again. B+(**) Nicki Parrott: Sentimental Journey (2015, Venus): From Australia, started as a retro-swing bassist who occasionally took a sly vocal turn, but now she's completed her transformation to a standards diva who also plays bass. I'm not sure I approve of the singer's newfound professionalism, but the band is up to the songs -- John Di Martino (piano), Adrian Cunningham (reeds), Alvin Atkinson (drums), and especially Frank Vignola (guitar) -- and the songs are luscious as ever. B+(**) Pittsburgh Jazz Orchestra: Joyful Jazz (2015, MCG Jazz): Another big band, directed by sean Jones and Mike Tomaro, Christmas program, usual fare. Freddy Cole is the guest singer, but they only deploy him on slow ones he can't save. C [cd] Powertrio: Di Lontan (2015, Clean Feed): Well, trio anyway: Eduardo Raon (harp), Joana Sá (piano), Luis Martins (classical guitar). Nothing powerful about them, and two plays of their ambient pseudo-tronica failed to engage or beguile me (or maybe I failed it). B [cd] Rabit: Communion (2015, Tri Angle): Houston-based garage/grime producer Eric Burton. Not sure who's singing/rapping here -- I've looked at a half-dozen reviews which barely mention the ubiquitous, rather montonous vocals. Still, produces quite a rush. B+(**) The Ragpicker String Band: The Ragpicker String Band (2015, Yellow Dog): If this was a jazz album, I'd credit it to the three named musicians on the cover: Rich Del Grosso (mandolin), Mary Flower (guitar), and Martin Grosswendt (multi-instrumentalist, which makes him the fiddle player). All sing, one of the guys with credible blues chops, especially when reprising old classics, or bemoaning Google. A- Fred Randolph: Song Without Singing (2015, Creative Spirit): Bassist, originally from Honolulu, seems to be in Bay Area; third album, moves a lot of musicians in and out in a way that I find rather busy, but his fondness of Latin rhythms pays off, and this is mostly pleasant. Not totally without vocals. B+(*) [cd] The Resonance Ensemble: Double Arc (2013 [2015], Not Two): I've seen this group described as Ken Vandermark's Polish big band, but the group is pretty international: Mikolaj Trzaska and Waclaw Zimpel join Vandermark and Dave Rempis in the reeds, the brass is mostly Scandinavian (plus Steve Swell on trombone), both drummers hail from Chicago (Michael Zerang, Tim Daisy), and a couple others I'm not sure about -- Mark Tokar on bass and Christof Kurzmann on electronics. The best of Vandermark's large groups, capable of terrific flights, although this one has some minor chinks: starts quiet, ends ugly, missteps here and there. B+(***) [bc] RMaster: New Anime Nation, Vol. 10 (2015, Anime): Not sure that RMaster really is an artist, much less the one behind these Japanese pop pieces, crafted for anime or game soundtracks. Lucas Fagen flagged this one as exceptional, although to these uncultivated ears it sounds much like I would have expected. Cute for a while, but the charm wears thin. B+(*) Rocket From the Tombs: Black Record (2015, Fire): David Thomas group, was a predecessor of Pere Ubu back in Cleveland in the 1970s, and was revived for a 2004 album following a comp of early material, a second time in 2011, and a third here (all despite continuing Pere Ubu albums). Recovers something of the sound here, but tighter and less inspired -- much like recent Pere Ubu albums. B+(*) Charles Rumback: In the New Year (2015, Ears & Eyes): Chicago drummer, seems to have a lot of side credits going back at least to 2005, and at least one previous album under his own name. Quintet here can slip from postbop to free, the two reeds meshing nicely -- Caroline Davis on alto sax and Jason Stein on bass clarinet -- and Jeff Parker plays some fine guitar. With John Tate on bass. B+(***) [cd] Richard Sears Trio: Skyline (2014 [2015], Fresh Sound New Talent): Pianist, second album, trio with Martin Nevin on bass and Evan Hughes on drums. Not avant but keeps you engaged. B+(***) [cd] Wadada Leo Smith & John Lindberg: Celestial Weather (2012 [2015], TUM): Trumpet and bass duets. Sometimes the bass seems to vanish into the woodwork, but Lindberg is always engaging (when you can hear him), and Smith dances around quite gingerly. B+(***) [cd] Sons of Kemet: Lest We Forget What We Came Here to Do (2015, Naim Jazz): British quartet, with two drummers laying down complex Africa-tinged cross-rhythms, Theon Cross laying down the funk tuba, and Shabaka Hutschings riffing on sax and clarinet. The basic template works at all speeds, but the hotter the better. A- Mike Sopko/Bill Laswell/Thomas Pridgen: Sopko Laswell Pridgen (2015, self-released): Cover only lists surnames, but this way we just have to note guitar/bass/drums here. Sopko hails from Cleveland, now based in Bay Area. Basic fusion groove, plus spot guests on keyboards, sax, and percussion -- by far the best Michael Lewis. B+(**) [cd] Ben Stapp & the Zozimos: Myrrha's Red Book: Act II (2014 [2015], Evolver): Tuba player, returns with more of his opera, Act 1 of which I found some nice things to mention despite my congenital dislike of opera. Less so here, maybe because the music throws itself more into the drama, maybe because I'm not competent enough to follow the story line, maybe because what little I did get was such a downer. B [cd] Nora Jane Struthers & the Party Line: Wake (2015, Blue Pig Music): Nashville singer-songwriter, more into Americana than either neo-trad or neo-pop country, but that shouldn't just mean that she's blander, should it? B Sun Kil Moon: Universal Themes (2015, Caldo Verde): Mark Kozelek's seventh album, sequel to his highly regarded Benji, backs even further into confessional folkie mode although the backing voices add an aura beyond the bare basics. Further play may spoil the effect, but Kozelek is interesting in ordinary ways, so much so I could imagine getting into this. B+(***) Svenska Kaputt: Suomi (2015, Moserobie): Swedish group, far from finished, promises some sort of jazz-rock fusion, but Dungen members Reine Fiske (guitar) and Johan Holmegard (drums) are happy to play jazz, while Torbjörn Zetterberg (bass) gets into the rhythm, and saxophonist Jonas Kullhammar builds up one marvelous solo after another. A- [cd] Curt Sydnor: Materials and Their Destiny (2015, Ears & Eyes): Pianist (credit here is "keyboards"), first album, "music inspired by Louis Sullivan's System of Architectural Ornament (1922)." Group adds guitar (Aaron Dugan), sax (Caroline Davis), and drums (Jordan Perlson), so comes off as fusion, although both tighter and freer than, say, the Yellowjackets. B+(**) [cd] Terakaft: Alone (Ténéré) (2015, Out Here): Another, perhaps the other, Tuareg guitar band, pretty interchangeable with Tinariwen -- less elaborate, but then the music is built on basic patterns, and at their best this group can win out by raising the energy level. But maybe not sustain it. B+(***) Pat Thomas: Pat Thomas & Kwashibu Area Band (2015, Strut): A highlife singer-bandleader from Ghana who made his mark in the 1970s and 1980s. His first internationally released studio album, evidently new arrangements of old songs. B+(***) Richard Thompson: Acoustic Classics (2014, Beeswing): Unplugged, seems to be solo, selections from his deep songbook, the ones I most quickly recognize dating from his 1970s group with wife Linda Thompson, who will forever be missed. Still, a superb guitarist, a seasoned singer, and most of these songs need nothing more. B+(***) Richard Thompson: Still (2015, Fantasy): New work, electric, produced by Jeff Tweedy, runs long (especially since I forgot to chop off the extra "deluxe edition" tracks) but possibly his best sustained performance in decades. (I have 2010's Dream Attic rated higher, but haven't given this one a full chance, and may have been hasty then.) B+(***) Tinariwen: Live in Paris (2015, Anti-): Probably the best known group from the vast expanses of the Sahara Desert, specifically from the Tuaregs of northern Mali, they have a half dozen records since 2002, most highly recommended, and this is one more. Features guest singer/drummer Lalla Badi, the "grand dame of Tamashek culture." A- Tin/Bag: The Stars Would Be Different (2013 [2015], Epigraph, EP): Duo, trumpeter Kris Tiner and guitarist Mike Baggetta, had a couple previous albums together. This, recorded in a church in Bakersfield, is short -- four tracks, 19:05 -- never able to get beyond the level of feeling one another out. B [bc] Tiny People Having a Meeting (2015, Fast Speaking Music): Not sure I'd call this a group, more like an ad hoc meeting good for one rather unique album. The principals are poet/spoken word artist Anne Waldman, Sonic Youth guitarist Thurston Moore, and drummer Clark Coolidge -- the latter two also credited with voice/text. Moore plays some rather avant guitar, which meshes well with the alto sax of Waldman's nephew, Devin Brahja Waldman, and Ambrose Bye's piano. They also picked up some text from beats Peter Orlovsky and William S. Burroughs, including something on evolution for space travel. B+(***) [cd] Titus Andronicus: The Most Lamentable Tragedy (2015, Merge): An impressive rock band, especially when they grit teeth and come straight at you, as they do here. Still, not something I'm all that interested in, especially when the passion expands into melodrama, and I read the words "rock opera." B Torres: Sprinter (2015, Partisan): Singer/songwriter Mackenzie Scott, second album, less striking than her debut although she's gaining musically. B+(*) The Dan Trudell Trio: Dan Trudell Plays the Piano (2015, self-released): Piano trio, with Joe Sanders (bass) and Matt Wilson (drums), the title indirectly acknowledging that Trudell is best known on organ. Two originals, six covers, a mix of show tunes (Arlen, Loewe), jazz standards (Ellington, Silver), and pop tunes (Stevie Wonder, Alicia Keys). B+(*) [cd] Unknown Mortal Orchestra: Multi-Love (2015, Jagjaguwar): Third album for Ruben Neilson (ex-Mint Chicks) group, formed when he left New Zealand for Portland. Most often described as psychedelic, most likely for the disjointed rhythms that underlie the cartoonish vocal effects. Perhaps an acquired taste, not that I have. B- Ken Vandermark/Paal Nilssen-Love: The Lions Have Eaten One of the Guards (2013 [2015], Audiographic): Tenor sax-drums duo, except when Vandermark plays some of the ugliest clarinet I've ever heard. I've lost track of how many records this duo has cut, and there's only so much a duo can do, so expect redundancy, and still marvel that they always think they can kick it another notch. B+(***) [bc] Ramana Vieira: Fado Da Vida (2015, Fate of Life): Born in California to Portuguese immigrants, she has turned into quite the traditional fado diva. I might even say maudlin, not that the voice doesn't string you along for a while. B [cd] Kurt Vile: B'lieve I'm Goin Down . . . (2015, Matador): Singer/songwriter from Philadelphia, fifth album, strikes me as pleasant but insubstantial, even more so given the lightweight acoustic guitar treatment here. B Waco Brothers: Cabaret Showtime (2015, Bloodshot): Chicago-based Americana band led by radical Brit expat Jon Langford, a bar band if ever there was one. Founded in 1995, they've finally decided to pad their discography with this "oft performed, never recorded" covers collection. I expected Cash, Owens, and Parsons, but not really "Interstellar Overdrive" or "20th Century Boy," and that leaves a half-dozen songs I can't even ID. B+(**) Ryley Walker: All Kinds of You (2014, Tompkins Square): Folksinger from Chicago, strong suit is his guitar, in the John Fahey tradition although he's also been known to impress British folk guitarist fans. B+(*) Ryley Walker: Primrose Green (2015, Dead Oceans): A more rock-oriented label, which Walker addresses by hiring some Chicago avant-jazz musicians -- Fred Lonberg-Holm (cello), Jason Adasiewicz (vibes), Frank Rosaly (drums); also lesser knowns like Ben Boye (keybs), Anton Hatwich (bass), and Brian Sulpizio (guitar). The result isn't jazz: more like prog-rock with a minor tendency to stretch out. Title cut suggests the Kinks. B+(**) Fetty Wap: Fetty Wap (2015, RGF 300/Atlantic): New Jersey rapper Willie Maxwell II, had a hit in 2014 called "Trap Queen," parlayed that into a big money album. Part of his name is slang for money. The other part is a tribute to Gucci Mane, which shows you how old he isn't. B- White Out With Nels Cline: Accidental Sky (2015, Northern Spy): The avant-noise improv duo (Lin Culbertson and Tom Surgall) have a half-dozen albums since 1998. Here they meet up with a first-rate jazz guitarist, who delivers more avant-noise. B+(**) Nate Wooley Quintet: (Dance to) The Early Music (2015, Clean Feed): Avant trumpet player, very prolific but he's never been spectacular -- I count 15 records either his or co-headlined or in his group Transit, with only one (led by Joe McPhee) rated high-B+. Still, this one is terrific, possibly because he built this around a more conservative composer -- 6 (of 9) tunes by Wynton Marsalis -- but also because Josh Sinton's bass clarinet does the heavy lifting and provides the right contrast for the leader's sharpest trumpet. Also helps to have Eivind Opsvik on bass, Harris Eisenstadt on drums, and the sparkle of Matt Moran's vibraphone. A- [cd] Wreckless Eric: America (2015, Fire): British pub rocker from the 1970s, moved to America and hooked up with one of our greatest singer-songwriters, is sufficiently inspired to put out his first album under his most marketable alias in more than a decade. Cover actually reads amERICa, the flag has blue stripes, and lines like "the land of milk and money" practically write themselves -- they just need his accent. B+(***) Wussy: Public Domain Volume 1 (2015, Shake It, EP): Five songs, 17:02, all by trad. and none that I recognize, lets them tap into the deep folk vein that's always informed their songwriting. Lisa Walker's voice works best here, with or without the band's pumped up sound. B+(**) [bc] X__X: Albert Ayler's Ghosts Live at the Yellow Ghetto (2014-15 [2015], Smog Veil, EP): Cleveland punk group led by John Morton (ELectric Eels) back in 1978-80 (cf. the X Sticky Fingers X compilation last year), but seems to have sprung back to life for this brief set (8 pieces, 17:40), of which 4:30 is a guitar-bass-drums hash of the avant saxophonist's tune. B+(***) Torbjörn Zetterberg & Den Stora Frĺgan: Om Liv Död (2015, Moserobie): Bassist-led sextet, the four horns give him more options than he really makes use of -- Susana Santos Silva (trumpet), Mats Ĺleklint (trombone), Jonas Kullhammar (tenor sax), Alberto Pinton (baritone sax), the two saxophonists also doubling on flute (flöjt). B+(**) [cd] Recent Reissues, Compilations, Vault Discoveries
The Stan Getz Quartet: The Steamer (1956 [2015], Classic Standard): Tenor saxophonist, with Lou Levy (piano), Leroy Vinnegar (bass), and Stan Levey (drums), the west coast group that moved Getz from his early bebop -- cf. 1950-54's The Complete Roost Recordings -- to cool, well before his bossa nova years. Everything he did with this group (1955-57) was exemplary, though this may be a shade too light. B+(***) George Lewis: The George Lewis Solo Trombone Album (1976 [2015], Delmark/Sackville): Relatively early, before the AACM star moved into electronics and obscurantism, you forget just how skilled and fluid he was. Actually, much of this sounds like he's playing two parts -- presumably overdubbed, at least on "Toneburst (Piece for Three Trombones Simultaneously)" -- but even the clearly solo parts are light and entertaining, a far cry from Braxton's earlier For Alto. A- [cd] Youssou N'Dour Et Le Super Etoile De Dakar: Fatteliku: Live in Athens 1987 (1987 [2015], Real World): Actually, a Peter Gabriel concert, with five cuts from his "warm up act" and a 10:43 "In Your Eyes" with N'Dour and the band joining in, the audience (and probably you) elevated by recognition, even though the band from Senegal was far more astonishing. A- Ork Records: New York, New York (1975-79 [2015], Numero Group, 2CD): A short-lived label founded by Terry Ork and Charles Ball which captured a small slice of the CBGB bands that moved from punk to no wave in that post-Velvets moment when New York truly seemed the center of the rock universe. This leads with Television's first single, follows it up with a marvelous Feelies single, and follows Richard Hell as a solo act. Those stars wound up going elsewhere, and later product was much less consistent -- maybe a single disc could have made a case to the label's importance, but originality loses out on the second disc to a long series of (mostly) Stones covers. Does include Alex Chilton's "Bangkok" and Lester Bangs' "Let It Blurt," and let's cut it some slack for history's sake. B+(***) Sonny Sharrock: Ask the Ages (1991 [2015], MOD Technologies): The guitarist was always hard to pin down, perhaps because he was only intermittently recorded and tended to indulge whoever was treating him. In this case, that was producer Bill Laswell, who paired him with a respectable jazz rhythm section -- Elvin Jones and Charnett Moffett -- that could break free when the moment suited them, and saxophonist Pharoah Sanders, sounding as otherworldly as ever. A- [cd] David S. Ware/Apogee: Birth of a Being (1977 [2015], AUM Fidelity, 2CD): The tenor sax giant cut two albums released in 1978-79, then managed to keep a low profile until he emerged in 1988 with his Trio's Passage to Music, a group which then picked up Matthew Shipp to become one of the top quartets in jazz history. This reissues one of those albums, originally on Hat Hut in 1979, and adds a second disc of previously unreleased material from the same session. Apogee was Ware's group through most of the 1970s -- a trio with Gene Ashton (later known as Cooper-Moore) on piano and Marc Edwards on drums, occasionally adding a bassist -- but it never recorded as such -- the Hat album doesn't mention any group name. Ware's sax is raw and reaching, and sometimes I find the intensity wearing, but the piano and drums are exceptional (adding to my sense that Cooper-Moore is the most underappreciated pianist of our time). The second disc is only slightly milder, and it's too much to listen to them end-to-end. Still, a historically important piece of a major legacy, restored after way too long. B+(***) Old Music
The Chemical Brothers: Brotherhood (1995-2008 [2008], Virgin): A best-of compilation going back to their 1995 Exit Planet Dust debut. Christgau reviewed (A-) something he called (Limited Edition) which included a "DJ-only white label vinyl" bonus disc. Discogs actually lists 24 configurations, but Wikipedia only details a 2-CD version where the second disc has ten numbered "Electronic Battle Weapon" pieces, totalling 71:49. Still, this is available as a single CD, sometimes stickered The Definitive Singles Collection. Not a real singles band, but most of these 15 dance floor anthems are crazy effective, although a couple are just crazy odd, suggesting an even better album could be carved from it. A- The Chemical Brothers: Brotherhood + Electronic Battle Weapons (1992-2008 [2008], Virgin, 2CD): Sometimes just Bonus Disc Edition, the first disc as above, the second's ten numbered "Electronic Battle Weapon" titles -- alt-versions or remixes of old album cuts. A narrower bag of tricks than the singles, but also more consistent for that. And cuts like "It Began in Afrika" are among their best. A- Loren Connors & Jim O'Rourke: Are You Going to Stop . . . in Bern? (1997 [2010], Hatology): Guitar duets, two long-term, prolific, and obscure artists. AMG lists 56 Connors records since 1984. O'Rourke is twenty years younger, but his discography starts in 1989 and he's up to 52 albums, and he shows up further down the credits list in scads more. B+(*) Tony Fruscella: Tony Fruscella (1955, Atlantic): A trumpet player who, following the footsteps of Bix Beiderbecke and Bunny Berrigan, drank himself to an early grave. This is one of his few headline albums, an elegant slice of cool jazz, much thanks to tenor saxophonist Allen Eager -- a Lester Young devotee if ever there was one. Bill Triglia plays piano. Two tracks add baritone sax and trombone. Curiously, seven (of nine) tracks were written by Phil Sunkel, another obscure trumpet player who doesn't otherwise appear here. B+(***) Brew Moore: The Brew Moore Quintet (1956, Fantasy): A tenor saxophonist who idolized Lester Young: born in Mississippi, moved to New York in the 1940s, then to the West Coast in 1954. San Francisco group here includes Dick Mills (trumpet), John Marabuto (piano), Max Hartstein (bass), and Gus Gustofson (drums). B+(**) Powerhouse Sound: Overlap (2007-08 [2010], Laurence Family): Ken Vandermark group with fully plugged-in rhythm section: Jeff Parker (guitar/electronics), Nate McBride (bass/more electronics), and John Herndon (drums). Same group made the Chicago side of the 2007 album Oslo/Chicago Breaks, one of the glories of the voluminous Vandermark catalog. This was mostly cut live in Poland and issued on hand-numbered double-vinyl (with a later Chicago radio shot for the fourth side). A- Wreckless Eric & Amy Rigby: Two-Way Family Favourites (2010, Southern Domestic): Eric Goulden was part of the Stiff Records (the object of Nick Love's "I Love My Label") stable that turned pub rock into new wave circa 1977. He's tried various band names since then -- Captains of Industry, The Len Bright Trio, Le Beat Group Electrique, Hitsville House Band -- and even tried his real name. In 2008 he hooked up with Amy Rigby for a duet album (among other things), and this is the follow up. All covers, which is disappointing for a songwriter like Rigby, and not very interesting ones either. B Wreckless Eric & Amy Rigby: A Working Museum (2012, Southern Domestic): Original material, several by each and some by both, with Amy doing the better job of getting the details right, a skill she displays as forthrightly as ever on "Do You Remember That." A- Revised GradesSometimes further listening leads me to change an initial grade, usually either because I move on to a real copy, or because someone else's review or list makes me want to check it again:
Beach House: Depression Cherry (2015, Sub Pop): [was: B+(*)] B Additional Consumer News:Previous grades on artists in the old music section (excludes other groups Wreckless Eric, Amy Rigby, and especially Ken Vandermark were in -- my database has 82 graded records under Vandermark's name, probably a couple dozen more in groups or as a headliner under other names).
NotesEverything streamed from Rhapsody, except as noted in brackets following the grade:
Ask a question, or send a comment. Monday, December 14, 2015 Music Week
Music: Current count 25944 [25911] rated (+33), 381 [383] unrated (-2). Didn't bother with a Weekend Roundup yesterday. I figure there will be plenty of opportunities in the future, and had something better -- at least more constructive -- to do. When we lived in Boston, we used to be regularly invited to Hannukah parties, which aside from anecdotes that were more historical than religious was mostly an excuse to pig out on latkes -- fried potato pancakes. Since then I've learned to fry up my own latkes, and we throw a nice little dinner party every year sometime around the holiday, and last night was this year's occasion. The latkes are pretty straightforward, although my recipe has strayed from the one I reference in Claudia Roden's The Book of Jewish Food. What I did last night was:
I suspect you can get away with four (instead of five) eggs (Roden's recipe calls for one, and makes onions optional). The mix did get to be a little soupy toward the end. I don't use any flour to bindn the latkes together (matzo meal is traditional; potato starch is gluten-free and probably better), but the extra egg works fine. In past dinners I served the latkes hot out of the pan, which is nice for the guests but means the dinner is done before the cook can sit down. Also, I like to make some side dishes, which start out on the table and tend to get eaten while the guests are waiting for latkes. Latkes are traditionally served with sour cream and applesauce. I bought sour cream and served it in several dishes. I made applesauce, improvising on Roden's recipe:
My favorite way to eat latkes is with sour cream and a slice of cured salmon. For the latter, I bought a pound of Scottish salmon cut from the tail. Following Roden's recipe, I packed the salmon with 1.5 tbs. kosher salt in a freezer bag, and stored it in the refrigerator for 12 hours (actually, a little longer). Take it from the bag, rinse it off, and test it for saltiness. If it's too salty, you can soak it in cold water for as long as it takes. Slice and serve. That's all it really takes, but over the years I've added some side dishes. I usually serve some herring -- alas, from the Nathan's jars, as it's been a long time since I've been able to buy matjes or schmaltz herring locally -- and chopped liver (I used to use Roden's recipe, but now prefer Ottolenghi's Jerusalem). For yesterday's menu I got carried away and added some vegetable salads/spreads:
Most of the spreads were made the night before -- the eggplant, etc. were roasted the night before that -- so the actual cooking on Sunday was fairly light, and actually relaxing in that I let it displace everything else I usually do -- Weekend Roundup, a day and a half of rating records. Rated count this week is still quite respectable, and you'll find a very wide range of interesting music listed below. I also reduced the 2015 jazz queue to virtually nothing (just that cassette; even nabbed four Xmas albums below, only one even marginally recommended), although incoming mail has since added a few stragglers -- a critic's work is never done. Most of the non-jazz records below were found on EOY lists, although few of them panned out. However, the best stuff continues to come from trusted critics: two string band obscurities recommended by Robert Christgau (Have Moicy 2 continues to elude me), a drag queen thing Lucas Fagen likes, a mixtape Jason Gubbels praised in Spin. I toyed with picking on Peter Gabriel over the Youssou N'Dour concert, but in the end decided I'd rather be grateful. The Sharrock reissue is an upgrade from my original B+. I can't argue that the new album is any better (although I do prefer the new cover), but I played it many times while cooking, enough to appreciate some of the nuances in the drums and sax. Or maybe I just appreciate getting a physical copy? That doesn't happen often with reissues. I got delayed in posting this as I was trying to bring the EOY aggregate files up to date -- even thinking I'd comment on them a bit. I currently have 162 lists counted (see legend). You can look at the current state of the New Music and Old Music lists. I will briefly note that the top three albums (Kendrick Lamar, Sufjan Stevens, Courtney Barnett) seem secure and unlikely to change. The next three are very close together (Jamie XX, Tame Impala, Father John Misty). After Julia Holter, three albums have nudged their way into the top ten (Björk, Grimes, Vince Staples), displacing Kamasi Washington and Sleater Kinney (I think Björk was previously 10th). In the next ten, the top gainers are Oneohtrix Point Never (16), Blue (17), and Carly Jepsen (18) -- up from 22, 30, and 20 last week. Very few new jazz lists this week, so the top jazz records have dropped relative to everyone else. Francis Davis' Jazz Critics Poll results are due to be published Dec. 21, so I'll be able to add more then. The total number of new albums so far is 1986. The Old Music list is much sparser, only 171 deep at present, with a tie between Legacy's Miles Davis and Bob Dylan Bootleg Series entries. One note I might as well mention here. This was originally written a few days ago as a comment to a Facebook post by a Witness bemoaning that he had looked through three EOY lists (Rolling Stone, Spin, and Paste) and hadn't seen any mention of Ezra Furman, Heems, or Paris. However, for some reason (maybe tardiness) the comment bounced, so I thought I'd make it public here:
One more bit of news is that I've actually frozen the December Rhapsody Streamnotes file. I'll try to get it indexed and posted tomorrow -- the way things have been going, probably late evening. New records rated this week:
Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries rated this week:
Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:
Ask a question, or send a comment. Tuesday, December 8, 2015 Music Week
Music: Current count 25911 [25871] rated (+40), 383 [388] unrated (-5). Running a day late here: internet went down ("for maintenance," says Cox) last night, which not only prevent posting, it also threw a wrench into my writing. But also various distractions kept cropping up, not least the fact that there's always something new to be added to the EOY Aggregate File. Another big week, despite some down time, or perhaps I mean diverted time. The deadline for the Jazz Critics Poll was Sunday, so the most urgent thing I had to do was to straighten out a very unruly list of sixty-plus poorly sorted A- new jazz albums. Almost as badly sorted were my shelves, so while I replayed a few better-remembered candidates. Ultimately I came up with something I'm reasonably pleased with, but I don't have much confidence that the same list would have resulted from extensive A:B comparison rounds. It helped, somewhat perversely, to start toting up some EOY jazz lists, especially those at JJA. The net effect there was to reassure me that I couldn't do worse. This has less to do with the ordinariness of the leaders -- Maria Schneider's The Thompson Fields, Vijay Iyer's Break Stuff, Rudresh Mahanthappa's Bird Calls, Steve Coleman's Synovial Joints, as well as Kamasi Washington's crossover hit The Epic, all more-or-less B+ records -- than with the rather frequent inclusion of more mediocre postbop fare. I've managed to whittle my ungraded 2015 new jazz queue down to 10 titles (plus the non-jazz Kansas album): 4 of those arrived last week, 3 are Xmas titles, 1 is a cassette I no longer have the means to play. Even though the ballot is in, there will be more discoveries, probably sooner rather than later. I just discovered this week that AUM Fidelity -- a label I used to have such good relations with that now I regard their lack of service as proof of my inability to keep going -- has just released old music by David S. Ware (Birth of a Being from 1977) and not-so-old music by William Parker (Great Spirit from 2007). At least I found those two on Rhapsody -- their other Parker set, the 3-CD box of For Those Who Are Still (recorded 2011-13) doesn't seem to be on Rhapsody. I found out about the AUM Fidelity releases from Tim Niland's EOY list. He also voted for new records I haven't heard by Paul Dunmall/Tony Bianco, The Thing, John Zorn, plus a Sonny Rollins oldie. I rated 5 of his 7 other picks A-, so there's a good chance the ones I haven't heard would rate well. In past years it usually takes 1-3 days before I find another A- record, and 1-3 weeks before I find a record that would have bumped the 10th pick on my ballot off the list. That hasn't happened yet, but it's just a matter of time. Anyhow, here's my Jazz Critics Poll ballot:
I didn't have any A-list vocalist albums, but the William Parker album is all songs with vocals, and Leena Conquest is terrific there. The Ernest Dawkins album also has some vocals, and there may be a couple more marginal cases (Rent Romus, Mort Weiss). HM vocal albums are not rare but tend to be eccentric:
I have the Gary McFarland Legacy Ensemble rated slightly above Gard Nilssen, but I figured the latter was more in spirit with "debut album" -- a new performer as opposed to a new ad hoc group of veterans. I don't do a good job of keeping track of debuts, although Introducing Katie Thiroux is at least one more on the A-list. I expect Kamasi Washington to easily win the debut category. I've been impressed by his work elsewhere (Phil Ranelin, Gerald Wilson), but didn't get enough out of streaming The Epic to dig further. (I made a second pass after I wrote the above. No doubt Washington can bust a solo, but I don't enjoy the choral settings, even though not all were annoying. Also, the third disc starts real strong, including an amusing take on "Cherokee." He's clearly capable of more consistently elevated albums, but unless you put a lot of weight on the grand gesture this isn't one.) I almost picked Ivo Perelman's Callas for the "Latin jazz" album, before I recalled Allen's superior album. Band is Brazilian, and he's been working this vein for years. I've come up so lean in this category before that I've picked other Perelman albums -- he is Brazilian but plays avant-jazz. Indeed, I usually have a handful of Spanish and Portuguese players I could fall back on, but always seem to have trouble coming up with conventional clave-base picks. The HM list does have two such picks:
There's a lot of classic Latin jazz that I really like, so I'm always a bit surprised that so few new records measure up. Makes it look like I'm prejudiced against the stuff, but realistically, how much new hard bop or soul jazz measures up either? I'm not an avant purist, but it tends to dominate my list because it still offers surprises even if the bleeding edge doesn't move much. Nine A- records this week, but only releases this year, only five new records, four picked up via Rhapsody. Could be that the agitprop of Desaparecidos or the Bob Wills tribute just hit personal soft spots -- I'm certainly a sucker for the latter. The Chemical Brothers' best-of has been on my search list for some time. It comes in two versions, so I wound up grading it twice, but using only the 2-CD version cover. Part of the George Lewis grade is sheer pleasant surprise: I've only heard a handful of solo trombone records, usually avant but limited by the instrument. The Getz and Ware reissues are every bit as good, but I came up with quibbles. The problem with The Steamer is that every other album by the Getz's coast quartet is better -- 1955's West Coast Jazz especially. As for Ware, I was a bit exhausted by the session's unrelenting fierceness. I was steered toward Sons of Kemet by comments comparing it favorably to Kamasi Washington's The Epic. Needless to say, I agree, but I'd also say the same about the group's 2013 album, Burn. Among the high HMs, the ones that came closest were the Fall and the Resonance Ensemble: in both cases I settled for the lower grade rather than give them an extra spin to see if they'd get better. Overlap was one of three good records I picked up from the Catalytic Sound Bandcamp site. The two others are high HMs and might have been higher had I not compared them against memories of previous similar projects. Still more there I haven't gotten to -- especially several multi-disc projects. Good chance I'll post a Rhapsody Streamnotes column before the coming week is out. Draft currently showing 120 records. New records rated this week:
Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries rated this week:
Old music rated this week:
Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:
Ask a question, or send a comment. Sunday, December 6, 2015 Weekend RoundupVery busy with other stuff today, so these are abbreviated -- mostly links to pieces I happened to have left open, and scattered comments when I had something quick to say.
Also, a few links for further study (even more briefly noted):
Ask a question, or send a comment. Monday, November 30, 2015 Music Week
Music: Current count 25871 [25829] rated (+42), 388 [399] unrated (-11). We've had a very pleasant autumn here in Wichita, but the weatherfolk forecast a turn toward miserable for Thanksgiving through the weekend. Objectively I doubt it ever got that bad, at least here. A cold front went stationary along a diagonal which probably extended from Amarillo to Chicago, but which cut across Kansas just north of Wichita. Along this front, wave after wave of rain/sleet/snow-storms slid northeast. In northwest Kansas this was the fourth blizzard of November, although in Wichita we never saw more than an isolated flurry. North and west of Wichita, the rain froze into a thick coat of ice on everything, and there were reports of power outtages in Hutchinson. In Wichita all I noticed was rain, which froze overnight, making driving and walking treacherous. Our solution for that was to stay hunkered down in a warm house. I like to cook when it's miserable out, so made cacciatore on Friday, and braised some pork ribs with garlic-ginger-scallions and fermented black beans on Sunday. On Thanksgiving we did go out, to a hotel buffet with some friends. Although I've rarely cooked on Thanksgiving, that was the first time we ever took that option. The meal was fairly good as I skipped past the usual fare and found other things more to my taste -- a very moist baked salmon, a nice succotash, some salads, a slice of ham. But the desserts were mediocre: I sampled the pecan pie and carrot cake, and watched others leave half-picked-over slices of cheesecake. I thought I could have done better on each of those, and for that matter on the bread pudding which no one even bothered to taste. Wasn't overfilling, and we weren't stuck with any leftovers, so those are pluses. Should warm up a bit over the next few days, not that there is anything here to melt, but we should be able to get out and around. Experienced another earthquake last night, just before I went to bed. It measured 4.7, located just over the Oklahoma border northwest of Enid. Heard the house groan, then watched various things sway back and forth for 20-30 seconds. I thought I felt a couple of smaller quakes after I went to bed, but I don't seen them in the USGS log: there was a 3.0 near Edmond 2 hours later, and since then a 3.1 and a 2.7 west of Perry and a 3.2 east of Cherokee, all in Oklahoma and unlikely to be felt here. That's quite a bit of seismic activity for one day. Idaho, Wyoming, and Washington had one quake each in that period (2.6, 3.4, and 3.0 respectively). Puerto Rico had two. California none, although they had a 2.6 at Gilroy the day before. Earthquakes in Kansas and Oklahoma were unheard of as recently as five year ago. They are clearly caused by injection wells, which are drilled in declining oil fields to dispose of the large amount of water that is being pumped up along with the last drops of oil. I think the largest earthquake to date in Oklahoma was a 5.7 -- big enough to do some actual damage (where last night's earthquake was merely creepy). Pushed quite a few records through the mill last week. Eleven came from my new jazz queue, but those were the most promising 2015 releases there. I also picked up two Mali groups and Craig Finn from Christgau's Expert Witness, and tried out a few Black Friday Special nominees from correspondents. Most other records popped up in EOY lists: John Moreland was in the top ten at American Songwriter; Flako topped the list at Bleep; Gwenno and Ryley Walker were on several lists (and Kurt Vile and Unknown Mortal Orchestra were on way too many lists). Still too early to say much about EOY lists, but here's the top 20 in my EOY Aggregate File:
Stevens is up from 3rd last week, and Lamar is up from 5th. I still expect Lamar to pull away. I've factored in a couple long lists from user-rating sites (Rate Your Music, Sputnik Music), although I don't think they have had much impact. No jazz lists yet: the British mag Jazzwise has published a list of 20 albums (I think) but all I have seen is the top three, and I decided that's not enough to count. Some lists come out in sections. I should be patient, but in one case I've already counted [21-40], while waiting for the top 20. Would have more, and more comments, but it's gotten late. New records rated this week:
Old music rated this week:
Grade changes:
Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:
Ask a question, or send a comment. Sunday, November 29, 2015 Weekend RoundupNot much time to collect things today, but here are a few links on the week's newsk:
Also, a few links for further study (briefly noted; i.e., I don't have time for this shit right now):
Ask a question, or send a comment. Friday, November 27, 2015 Turkey GibletsOld-timers will recall that Robert Christgau ran what he called a Turkey Shoot every Thanksgiving from 1988 to 2005. For most of that time he limited his pans of bad albums to one "dud" per month, so he tried to collect his reviews over the year. Even so, the pains of listening to so much unpleasant music built up, so when he left the Village Voice and retooled his Consumer Guide for a series of blog formats, he dispensed with the turkeys, and even the duds. I've heard it said that you have to write some negative reviews to establish credibility for your positive reviews. I even tried that for a while with my Jazz Consumer Guide, and learned two things: one is that the negatives are easier to write, and second is that people respond to them more (at least I always got more feedback on them). Still, I've always had the nagging suspicion that my distaste for a record is as much (maybe more) a reflection of my own limits as of the record's. Actually, I'm sure that's sometimes the case, but I also suspect that some records really are awful, and that it's rarely worth the time to clearly distinguish one from the other. So I mostly look for good records, and as a matter of conscientious bookkeeping note the records that for one reason or another don't make the grade. Still, a few years ago I noticed some folks complaining about Christgau no longer writing up his Turkey Shoots, so I came up with the idea of spreading the agony around by crowdsourcing a set of turkey reviews. I published the first one of these in 2012, and another in 2013. One reaction that I got from the former was that some writers would have been willing to contribute but only wanted to write about their finds, so for 2013 I added a second column, the Black Friday Special. Last year and this year I tried to talk other people into taking over this project. I failed both times, so that's your loss. I also tried rounding up some bare overrated/unappreciated lists, and didn't get much response there either (although I'll share what I did get below). That leaves me with my own subjective impressions, plus some underdeveloped data. Actually, I do have one piece of "objective" data: a list of "most overrated albums of 2015" posted at ILXOR (I'm adding my grades, where known, in brackets):
There's no formal explanation of the methodology here: just one snippet of data which makes me think they're subtracting the user score from the critic score at Album of the Year. For instance, Fifth Harmony has a critic score of 74 (based on 5 reviews) and a user score of 54 (based on 36 ratings), so it comes out +20. Sleater-Kinney has a critic score of 90 and a user score of 78, so it is +12. James McMurtry is (85 - 75 = 10). Kendrick Lamar is (94 - 88 = 6). I only checked the top 20 critics scores (plus Fifth Harmony) and they come out pretty much in this order (7 of the top 20 made the overrated list, which by my figures would also include Bassekou Kouyaté). One obvious problem here is that high critic scores are simply more likely to lead the user scores (20 of the top 20 do, with Jamie XX closest at +1, but also with the second lowest critic score, 84). Grade distribution on both scales probably makes this effect more extreme. (Users grade on a 100 point scale, where critic grades are quantized rather arbitrarily.) Other problems relate to sample size and selection: e.g., note that while Mbongwana Star and Sleater-Kinney are both +12, the latter has approximately four times the number of data points (critics: 26/7, users: 352/76). In any case, some of the user scores are so high that the record can't possibly be considered a turkey; e.g., Kendrick Lamar at 88, or even Sleater-Kinney at 78. In fact, I'd argue that Lamar's 94 critic score isn't out of line with a user score of 88, although Sleater-Kinney's drop from 90 to 78 does appear to harbor a problem: I'd argue that critics are very prone to overrating comeback albums (No Cities to Love came out 10 years after The Woods). No secret I'm not a fan of the band, but I'm not being petty in thinking that this particular record is rather overrated. Indeed, I think what we've seen so far in EOY lists shows that the record is underperforming relative to its initial (back in January) reviews: its top ranks so far are { 10, 11, 14, 23, 34, 35 }, although the record does occur on virtually every list I've tallied so far, making it tied for 12th overall. It should finish higher -- the early UK list bias hurts it a little while helping other records which will eventually fade -- but it's unlikely to come in 2nd (behind Lamar) as its critic scores had projected. Still, no matter how much other people overrate it, I don't consider No Cities to Love anywhere near turkey level. Looking at the EOY Aggregate data, the following strike me as most suspicious (again, with my grades, where known, in brackets; order comes from the aggregate score, not some measure of turkey-ness):
That doesn't include every B record in the EOY List Aggregate (but it does pick the top few), nor does it include some unlisted but fairly well known records I've run across, but mostly it doesn't include a lot of things I haven't bothered chasing down. (I did include Low, which I've never graded higher than B, and 2 (of 4) times graded lower.) But those dozen records would in my mind make a fair Turkey Day repast. Of course, crowdsourcing would have added more informed opinions, including some folks who actually get paid for listening to bad music -- and therefore pay more attention, and take more offense, at it than I do. Michael Tatum, for instance, has panned several records that I gave low B+ grades to after a cursory listen, including (first my, then his grades in brackets; I'm using his B- as a threshold here -- he listens deeper and gets more annoyed than I do, therefore grades lower):
I have very little invested in my grades of these records -- I certainly didn't play them enough to let them get annoying. I omitted Björk [C-] and Beach House [B-] from Tatum's list as I had already picked on them. He also panned some records I haven't listened to:
I got a couple other lists: Lucas Fagen went straight at the records that are dominating EOY lists:
Jason Gross also picked:
I rather enjoyed the Grimes [B+(**)] and Staples [B+(***)] albums, but again dealt with them superficially. Each appears on only a single list to date, but are certainly well known and widely regarded artists. I doubt that the Grimes will poll as well as well as her debut, but I liked it better -- more pop, which often rubs critics the wrong way. I figure Staples will do better as US lists come in -- should be one of the top 3-5 US hip-hop albums this year. I'm not convinced it's that good -- I seem to be having a lot of trouble hearing mainstream rap on Rhapsody -- although I know people who are into it. I haven't heard Adele or Newsom, but the others were mentioned above. Tame Impala is a group I regard as too perfunctory to get worked up about, and I'm even more blasé over Kurt Vile: when I see records like those on EOY lists I wonder how much listening the listsmiths have actually done. Still, my impression is that there are a lot fewer bland-outs and a lot less mopeyness on this year's lists than several years ago. Also the wave of prog shit that seemed overwhelming back in 2009 (Animal Collective, Grizzly Bear, Dirty Projectors) has returned to the margins -- sure, this year we still have Father John Misty, Panda Bear, and UMO, but at a more tolerable level. Actually, the big thing that happened in 2015 was that a lot of long-departed groups have followed Sleater-Kinney's lead and come back from long hiatuses: my favorite thus far is New Order. I'm not up to reconstructing the list, but I don't doubt that the return of so many older musicians has helped to make this year seem more comforting to old ears like mine. I also asked for candidates for a Black Friday Special: records that aren't widely known but should be -- at least, records that might appeal to those of you who aren't stuck in one musical rut. My correspondents wrote back:
Tempest and Tagaq were 2014 releases, although the latter -- an electronica-charged Inuit throat singer whose record was the toast of Canada at 2014 list time but unknown elsewhere -- wrangled a US reissue in 2015, so I'd say give her another shot. I have Tempest and Lyrics Born at A, Graves/Laswell and Songhoy Blues at A-, Tagaq at high B+, and the others on my search list. I thought about trying to construct some lists from ongoing lists-in-progress, especially from Chris Monsen and Phil Overeem, but I'll leave that to you. You'll also find many A-list obscurities in my in-progress jazz and non-jazz files. Rather, my one last list come from Robert Christgau. The following are 2015 releases he reviewed in Expert Witness, graded A- (or better), and are things that virtually no one else has noticed (at least they're not in my EOY Aggregate file yet; my grades in brackets):
Less than half of those came as total surprises to me (Kruth, Paranoid Style, Paris, Rubin, Slutever -- well, I wasn't aware Anderson, LaVere, Lewis, or Tinariwen had new records but had I been I would have checked them out). I was more than vaguely aware of Trumpet, and had actually reviewed Tal National. Other 2015 A-list records according to Christgau: Sleater-Kinney, Ata Kak, Heems, Lupe Fiasco, Kendrick Lamar, Rae Sremmurd, James McMurtry, Courtney Barnett, Nellie McKay, Young Fathers, Mountain Goats, Miguel, Hop Along, Go! Team, Yo La Tengo, Boz Scaggs, Leonard Cohen, Jamie XX, Shamir, Future, Jason Isbell, Mbongwana Star, Bassekou Kouyaté, Craig Finn, Lost in Mali. Ask a question, or send a comment. Monday, November 23, 2015 Music Week
Music: Current count 25829 [25787] rated (+42), 399 [420] unrated (-21). Total was goosed early in the week by finding some more bookkeeping omissions. A more accurate rated count is probably a bit over 30 (indeed, there are 33 new ratings below, although I haven't double checked to make sure that's right either). I threw away Tuesday cooking, and lost Friday afternoon to a doctor thing. Otherwise I worked pretty hard. I'm late posting this on Monday because I've dusted off last year's EOY List Aggregate scripts and started to accumulate data for 2015. Thus far I have nine lists counted (see the Legend for a full list and links to the source lists; beware that I have only made the most cursory of corrections to the text there and will have to clean it up later). Seven of the first nine lists are from the UK, and five of those are from record stores (each, by the way, running 100 records deep: Drift, Fopp, Piccadilly, Resident Music, Rough Trade). We also have the two big glossy UK rock mags (Mojo, Uncut), and two more specialized US mags (metal-oriented Decibel and Americana-focused American Songwriter). The very early returns looks like this:
I've fiddled with the formula a bit this year to provide extra points for higher placement (5 for 1, 4 for 2-5, 3 for 6-10, 2 for 11-20, 1 for > 20), and I figure I'll use that consistently for all top-tier lists (all so far count as such). Holter currently tops 3 lists (Mojo, Piccadilly, Uncut), Stevens 1 (Drift), Bjork 1 (Rough Trade), Public Service Broadcasting 1 (Fopp), Algiers 1 (Resident). The top records from American Songwriter (Chris Stapleton) and Decibel (Horrendous) don't appear on any other lists. Barnett ranks no higher than 3 on any list but appears on 8 of 9, 7 in the top 10, the other 12th. The probable favorite, Kendrick Lamar, also appears on 8 lists, but only twice in the top 10 (2 on Mojo, 2 on Uncut). The list with neither Barnett nor Lamar is Decibel's, which only has two albums that also appear on other lists: Deafheaven (2), Killing Joke (1). Last year I wound up collecting data from 676 lists. I don't expect to come close to that this year, but still it's safe to say that returns are less than 1% in. Also that some identifiable skews are present -- e.g., Sleaford Mods won't finish ahead of Sleater-Kinney once the US lists take over. I've included my grades in brackets for reference. I'm rather surprised to see this top-40 (actually 44) has 8 records (18.2%) I've rated A- (and only 2 B-, and none lower) -- usually I disagree more, often finding no correlation at all between my grades and other people's lists. I currently have 30 of these 44 albums rated, so 68.2% (which includes some things today that will show up in next week's report). Rhapsody Streamnotes came out on Wednesday, so some of today's list managed to sneak into that file (like the Ivo Peelmans). I should be closing in on my 2015 prospect list, filling out the last slots in my 2015 jazz and non-jazz lists, but surprisingly two of my A- records this week date from 2012-13: one is the Wreckless Eric/Amy Rigby album that eluded me in the past, but which I found now while looking for Eric's new album; the other is by a Bakersfield CA jazz group with a new record, but I noticed an older one, checked it out, and liked it better. Group name is: Invisible Astro Healing Rhythm Quartet. New records rated this week:
Old music rated this week:
Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:
Ask a question, or send a comment. Sunday, November 22, 2015 Weekend RoundupMuch blather this week about the existential threat posed to the United States by the prospect of allowing 10,000 Syrian refugees to resettle here. Some demagogues like Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush insisted that we only allow Syrian Christians to enter (7.8% in 1960, the last Syrian census to bother to count sectarian identity, although a 2006 estimate bumps this up to 10%). Others insisted on a vetting process to weed out terrorist infiltrators, evidently unaware that a rather onerous one already exists. Dozens of Republican governors, including our own Sam Brownback (who recently displaced Bobby Jindal as the least popular sitting governor in the US), issued executive orders to help stanch the deluge of Syrian/Arab/Muslim immigrants. Donald Trump not only opposed all immigration, but went further to entertain the idea of a federal registry of Muslims in America. He finally received some backlash for that (rather casual) statement, but it appeals to a base distinguished only by the depths of their ignorance. I'm seeing reports that "only 49% of GOP voters in Iowa think that the religion of Islam should even be legal." Reading Wikipedia's piece on Islam in the United States would help alleviate this ignorance. You will find, for instance, that about 1% of the American population is Muslim (2.77 million). Also, Muslims are immigrating to the US at a rate of about 110,000 per year. So 10,000 extra Syrians represents less than 10% of the current immigration rate, about 0.36% of the total Muslim population (1 in 277). If everyone shut up and just let this happen, no one would ever notice anything. The problem, though, is that by making a big stink about it, you're not just barring 10,000 Syrians, you're sending a message of hate and fear to 2.77 million Americans. How does that help? About one-fourth of the Muslims in America are African-Americans, notably political leaders (including two members of Congress) and many prominent athletes and musicians. Most others are first or second generation immigrants, but some date back to immigrants from the 1880-1910 era, and some can trace their families back to the colonial era. The piece has numerous examples, plus a section on "Religious freedom" that shows that Americans were aware of Islam when they declared freedom of religion in the US Constitution. One minor point I wasn't aware of is that the first country to recognize the United States as an independent country was the Sultanate of Morocco. It's worth adding that the US had generally good relationships in the Arab world up through WWII. In the first world war, Woodrow Wilson had refused to join Britain and France in declaring war on the Ottoman Empire, and he later declined an Anglo-French proposal that the US occupy Turkey when they were divvying up the spoils of war. Before then, the US was primarily known for its missionary schools like the American Universities in Beirut and Cairo. (The Presbyterians who founded those schools restricted their missionary work to Christians so as not to offend Muslim authorities, but welcomed Muslims to study and respected them, allowing the Universities to develop as intellectual centers of liberal, nationalist, and anti-colonial thinking.) Arab/Muslim respect for America only eroded after the US sided with Israel's colonialist project and replaced Britain as the protector of the aristocracies that claim personal ownership of the region's oil wealth. US good will in the Arab world was built on a reputation for fairness and mutual respect, but has since been squandered in an anachronistic, foolhardy attempt to grab the spoils of empire. In some sense, we've gone full circle. The first significant number of Muslims to appear in colonial America were brought here from Africa, and they proved to be especially difficult to manage as slaves. Islam was then and now a religion that stood for justice and fought back against injustice. It should not be surprising that today's right-wing sees imposing Christianity on Muslims as key to ending their disobedience, as that was precisely what their forebears the slaveholders had done. After all, the prime directive of conservatism is to defend hierarchy by forcing everyone into their "proper" place. Of course, that was easier to do before conservative institutions like slavery and the inquisition were discredited, but the more we live in a world where people with money think they can buy anything, the more we see even the hoariest fantasies of conservatism come back to haunt us. Some scattered links this week:
Also, a few links for further study (briefly noted; i.e., I don't have time for this shit right now):
Ask a question, or send a comment. Wednesday, November 18, 2015 Rhapsody Streamnotes (November 2015)A substantial list of albums this month as we're approaching the end-of-year, with an above-average 15 new A-list entries (from an above-average 117 "new" albums). Good chance there's some seasonal effect here, as we tend to accumulate more information toward the end of the year. This was prepared without the benefit of any actual EOY lists -- usually the first one out comes from Rough Trade in the UK, and, just rechecking, it has arrived here). As I have in the last couple years, I've split my 2015 list up into jazz and non-jazz files, not because I think they should be judged separately as because my own professional stature gives me access to a lot more jazz than non-jazz -- indeed, my share of the latter would be pathetic except for my ability to stream records on Rhapsody (and, rarely, other sources). This discrepancy is, I think, even more glaring this year than in past years. Looking at my music tracking list, I see that thus far I've rated 540 jazz records vs. a mere 249 non-jazz. More than anything else, that explains why I only have 42 A-listed non-jazz records, vs. 60 jazz. I need to replay some records and shuffle my lists -- a lot of the ordering is pretty haphazard. The first serious deadline will be December 6, when ballots are due for Francis Davis' Jazz Critics Poll, sponsored again this year by NPR. I have about 40 unrated 2015 jazz records in the queue right now, so I need to focus on those. I also need to take a closer look at the music tracking list above, which currently lists over 1000 of this year's jazz releases. In past years I tried to prioritize them a bit, to come up with a search list I described as "estimated to have a 2% (or better) chance of making the A-list if/when I finally hear them." Pure guesswork, of course, but one clear example is Jack DeJohnette's Made in Chicago (ECM). Old music is down this month (28 records vs. 122 recent releases; it was 47 vs. 77 last month; 109 vs. 70 in September). Some back catalog was suggested by current releases -- in the case of Last Exit I was vainly looking for ESP's new Iron Path reissue -- while others were arbitrary inspirations (Marty Grosz, John Law, John Tchicai). Most of these are short notes/reviews based on streaming records from Rhapsody. They are snap judgments based on one or two plays, accumulated since my last post along these lines, back on October 24. Past reviews and more information are available here (7250 records). Recent Releases
The 14 Jazz Orchestra: Nothing Hard Is Ever Easy (2015 [2016], self-released): Big band, arranged and conducted by Dan Bonsanti, only thirteen musicians listed (4 reeds, 3 trumpets, 2 trombones, 4 rhythm). Featuring credit for tenor saxophonist Ed Calle (strong performance), with Will Lee, Mark Egan, and Marko Marcinko listed as special guests. All cover material, Dorsey to Pastorius with Curtis Mayfield and the Beatles from the pop world. B [cd] Laurie Anderson: Heart of a Dog (2015, Nonesuch): Christgau pegs this as her best ever, a comparison which bumps up against United States Live and Home of the Brave and Strange Angels, just to pick two albums I have at full A and a third at A+. Compared to them (especially the latter) this strikes me as short on music -- most is spoken word over some very minimally ambient electronics. Still, fascinating wordplay, on death and love and spying and a fox terrier, ending with a bit of the late Lou Reed, unplugged. A- Dennis Angel: On Track (2014 [2015], Timeless Grooves): Flugelhorn player, third album. Scads of musicians on the back cover, including an utterly wasted "special guest" (Kenny Barron, on piano), but just below Angel you get Gottfried Stoger (tenor sax) and timeless groovmeister Jason Miles (keyboards, synths, strings, also producer). B- [cd] ASAP Rocky: At.Long.Last.ASAP (2015, Polo Grounds/RCA): New York rapper Rakim Mayers, second album (not counting the much hyped mixtape), still preoccupied with the almighty $, although that too is an oversimplification. B+(**) Bathysphere: Bathysphere (2015, Driff): Unconventional big band, 15 pieces (4 reeds, 6 brass including cornet and tuba, piano, 2 basses, drums, Andrew Neumann on analog electronics), jointly led by Jorrit Dijkstra (alto sax, lyricon, analog synth) and Pandelis Karayorgis (piano). Many avant luminaries, with the piano unusually prominent (more a solo than a rhythm instrument), and various bits for everyone else. B+(**) [cd] Beach House: Depression Cherry (2015, Sub Pop): Baltimore duo, with Victoria Legrand's plain vocals over basic keyboards, a lo-fi group that's become comfortable in its surroundings -- probably not at the beach. B+(*) Beach House: Thank Your Lucky Stars (2015, Sub Pop): Big improvement here, or so it seems to me -- these songs were cut about the same time as the better-reviewed Depression Cherry so they're practically outtakes, but the limited things this duo do have never meshed so effortlessly. B+(***) Beach Slang: The Things We Do to Find People Who Feel Like Us (2015, Polyvinyl): Philadelphia post-punk band, churns up a lot of guitar slag and makes something resembling songs out of it, probably more impressive than it seems. B Tony Bennett & Bill Charlap: The Silver Lining: The Songs of Jerome Kern (2015, Columbia): Downbeat's readers just picked Bennett for the magazine's Hall of Fame, a choice I'm not unhappy with, though not one I'd ever make myself. A glance at my database reminds me that I've never A-listed any Bennett album (though I've only rated 15, and wouldn't be surprised if I missed one). The one I had highest hopes for was The Tony Bennett/Bill Evans Album (1975), especially after a reviewer (in Crawdaddy, if memory serves) touted it as "the ultimate make-out album." Not really, but it did much to restore Bennett's jazz cred (his first album was called Jazz, and he worked with Basie before Sinatra did). This singer-piano pairing -- actually Charlap mostly uses his trio, and Renee Rosnes subs on a couple cuts -- will be likened to the Evans album, but Charlap is both more supportive and less distinctive, while Bennett, content to let his voice be its own reward, takes it easy even when the music dictates swing. B+(*) Josh Berman Trio: A Dance and a Hop (2015, Delmark): Cornet player from Chicago, third album, also appears in Michael Zerang's group (below). This is a straight free-leaning trio with Jason Roebke on bass and Frank Rosaly on drums mixing it up. A- [cd] Randy Bernsen: Grace Notes (2015, Jericho Jams): Guitarist, pop-funk-fusion guy I guess, dates back to Blood, Sweat & Tears; first own album came out in 1986, Mo' Wasabi. This features and was produced by bass guitarist Jimmy Haslip (Yellowjackets). Five originals, covers from Lennon-McCartney, Haslip-Ferrante, and Freddie Hubbard. Not bad as groove records go, mostly due to the bass support. B [cd] Nat Birchall: Invocations (2015, Jazzman): Tenor saxophonist from Britain, has a half-dozen albums since 1999. Seems like John Coltrane is the most emulated (not to mention imitated) tenor saxophonist in the world since 1970, but no one's got the whole deal -- not just tone but flow, feel, rhythm, invention, and for that matter band -- down as pat at Birchall. If he's missing anything, it's conflict, which gives him a serenity beyond. A- Bizingas: Eggs Up High (2015, NCM East): Second album from a group that calls itself an "art-rock, free-prog jazz quartet." I file them under trombonist Brian Drye (also credited here with synthesizer, organ, piano, and compositions), with Kirk Knuffke (cornet) a second horn, Jonathan Goldberger on guitar, and Ches Smith on drums and electronics. I wouldn't push the rock angle too hard -- they lose something when the beat straightens out. B+(**) [cd] Björk: Vulnicura (2015, One Little Indian): Seems to be one of her best-regarded albums, although I've given up on trying to understand, let alone like, her. Sounds like another strings-drenched passion play, most engaging when the synth-beat breaks up, least when it all coagulates. B Blackalicious: Amani, Vol. 1 (2015, OGM): Hip-hop group from the Bay Area (actually Sacramento), first album in 10 years and now projected to come out in three volumes. Like fellow traveler Lyrics Born's first in five years, their comeback leaps over and often stomps on the the state of the art, which has gone pretty slack. A- Bobby Bradford-Frode Gjerstad Quartet: The Delaware River (2014 [2015], NoBusiness): Cornet and alto sax/clarinet, respectively, the quartet filled out by Ingebrigt Hĺker Flaten on bass and Frank Rosaly on drums. Same formula as Bradford's great quartet with John Carter but, unfortunately, no John Carter. B+(**) [cdr] Leon Bridges: Coming Home (2015, Columbia): Retro soul singer, b. 1989 but aims for early Sam Cooke. Doesn't hit it, but a couple songs could be passed off as obscure period gems -- not enough to make him memorable, but most weren't. B+(*) Sarah Buechi: Shadow Garden (2015, Intakt): Swiss singer-songwriter, writes mostly in English, has several albums including one previous one on Intakt with this same piano trio -- Stafan Aeby, André Pousaz, Lionel Friedli. The songs don't fall into any tradition I recognize, but are strangely seductive. B+(***) [cd] Sarah Buechi: Flying Letters (2013 [2014], Intakt): Earlier record by same group, the piano trio named on the cover. Steps a little more awkwardly into the songs, sometimes close to spoken word, giving them an artier air. B+(*) Joăo Camőes/Jean-Marc Foussat/Claude Parle: Bien Mental (2015, Fou): Viola (violon alto), electronics (dispositif électro-acoustique), and accordion, respectively. Foussat has been working along these lines for a while now, but this is the most interesting sonic mix he has come up with yet. B+(***) [cd] Joăo Camőes/Rodrigo Pinheiro/Miguel Mira: Earnear (2015, Tour de Bras): Viola, piano, cello -- Pinheiro is leader of RED Trio, whose 2010 eponymous debut made my A-list. The strings give this a "chamber jazz" feel, although it is also more abstract. B+(**) [cd] The Chills: Silver Bullets (2015, Fire): New Zealand group, had two great albums 1990-92, and not much since, with this their first studio album since 1996 (2013's Somewhere Beautiful was a live album). This gets the sound back, maybe even pumps it up a bit (maybe too much). A- Romain Collin: Press Enter (2013 [2015], ACT): French pianist, attended Berklee, has a couple albums. Credits organized as a trio with Luques Curtis and Kendrick Scott, plus some extras, with Laura Metcalf's cello perhaps a constant. B+(**) [cd] Dani Comas: Epokhé (2014 [2015], UnderPool): Guitarist, splits this into three parts of three songs each, the first solo, then duo and trio with Jordi Matas (bass) and/or David Xirgu (drums). Ambient but intriguing. B+(**) [cd] Caroline Davis Quartet: Doors: Chicago Storylines (2013 [2015], Ears & Eyes): Alto saxophonist, has a previous album, based in New York but spent eight years in Chicago and developed an interest in history there. She interviewed thirteen Chicago jazz musicians and packed their reminiscences around her original pieces -- Mike Allemann (guitar), Matt Ferguson (bass), Jeremy Cunningham (drums). Lovely pieces, interesting raps. B+(***) [cd] Guy Davis: Kokomo Kidd (2015, M.C.): Mild-mannered gentlemanly bluesman, son of Ossie Davis, has a dozen albums since 1995. This has some interesting yarns and curious filler, not prime material but true to form. B+(*) Deerhunter: Fading Frontier (2015, 4AD): Kind of a prog band but they've moved mainstream and have a big following -- which they mostly deserved last time out (Monomania, although their previous album, Halcyon Digest, polled better). This is less challenging than either of those, prettier actually, some kind of plateau. B+(***) Destroyer: Poison Season (2015, Merge): Band vehicle for Canadian singer/songwriter Dan Bejar going back ten albums to 1998, although he's also part of New Pornographers and the duo Hello, Blue Roses. B+(*) Giovanni Di Domenico/Peter Jacquemyn/Chris Corsano: A Little Off the Top (2013 [2015], NoBusiness): Piano-bass-drums trio, free jazz, a fine example of the art. The pianist has put out a lot of material over the last few years, but this is only the second disc to come my way. B+(***) [cdr] John Dikeman/William Parker/Hamid Drake: Live at La Resistenza (2014 [2015], El Negocito): Dikeman plays alto and tenor saxophone. He was born in Nebraska in 1983, grew up in Wyoming, tried New York, then Cairo and Budapest before settling into Amsterdam. A rather squawky free player, he has a group called Cactus Truck that I've yet to be impressed by. This is a standard free sax trio cut live in Ghent, Belgium -- the sort of thing Parker and Drake could do in their sleep, but never do. B+(***) [cd] Marcelo Dos Reis/Luis Vicente/Théo Ceccaldi/Valentin Ceccaldi: Chamber 4 (2013 [2015], FMR): Guitar, trumpet, violin/viola, cello, two credited with voice although you can't exactly say they sing -- it's more of a background effect, part of a montage which despite the joint improv doesn't really move around that much. B+(**) [cd] Marcelo Dos Reis/Angélica V. Salvi: Concentric Rinds (2013 [2015], Cipsela): Guitar and harp, both trying their hand at prepared instruments, at least for part of this. Makes for some surprising sounds, and they keep the pace so moderate they can't possibly throw you off. B+(*) [cd] Kirsten Edkins: Art & Soul (2013 [2015], self-released): Saxophonist (tenor, soprano, alto), first album, produced by Bob Sheppard, with Larry Goldings on organ and piano, guitarist Larry Koonse sprucing up a couple of tracks, and dabs of trumpet and trombone here and there. Mainstream, swings hard, touches on soul jazz without getting stuck. B+(*) [cd] Empress Of: Me (2015, Terrible/XL): Lorely Rodriguez, from Los Angeles, second album, electropop, pleasurable moments. B+(*) Robin Eubanks Mass Line Big Band: More Than Meets the Ear (2015, ArtistShare): Trombonist, ten albums under his own name, side credits include Dave Holland's groups. Got a research grant at Oberlin and used that to assemble a conventional big band (plus organ and percussion and an extra trombone): his own credits include electric trombone (presumably what we're hearing on "Blues for Jimi Hendrix") and percussion pads. B+(*) [cdr] Carlos Falanga: Gran Coral (2014 [2015], UnderPool): Drummer, from Spain, second album, leading a guitar-piano trio, with Marco Mezquida again making a strong impression on piano (see his solo album below) and Jordi Matas adding tasty licks on guitar. B+(**) Sergi Felipe: Whisper Songs (2011, UnderPool): Spanish tenor saxophonist, leads a quintet with Hugo Astudillo on alto sax, Alfred Artigas on guitar, plus bass and drums. The instrumentation is designed to flow together seamlessly, and that's pretty much what it does. B+(*) [cd] Sergi Felipe/Whisper Songs: Bombú Es Libre En El Espacio (2013, UnderPool): Intent here is probably that the title of his first album be the group name, but might as well file it under the tenor saxophonist's name. Same lineup, again the guitar moderates the horns, not that they have any ambitions to be heard. B+(*) [cd] Garrison Fewell: Invisible Resonance Trio (2013 [2015], Creative Nation Music): I received a copy of this album, but when I got it the disc was badly cracked, unplayable. Trio with Roy Campbell, who died in 2014, on trumpet, and Luther Gray on drums. Sadly, I just noticed that the guitarist, perhaps best known for his work with the late John Tchicai, died earlier this year. A rather relaxed session, with Campbell exploring the cosmos and the others tagging along. B+(***) Amina Figarova: Blue Whisper (2015, In + Out): Pianist, born in Azerbaijan, based in New York, has ten or so albums since 1996. Several pieces here were commissioned by Jazz at Lincoln Center, nicely orchestrated postbop. I could do without the flutes and vocals, but she alternates between two ace tenor saxophonists: Marc Mommaas and Wayne Escoffery. B Clare Fischer: Out of the Blue (2015, Clavo): I don't see a recording date, but pianist Fischer died in 2012 after a long career going back to the mid-1950s with close to fifty albums. This was produced and annotated by Brent Fischer, who ends his liner notes with: "I'm eagerly looking forward to showing you more new Fischer material when it appears out of the blue!" This has the range of a retrospective, including guest spots for vocalists and drummer Peter Erskine. Fischer has long struck me as peripheral to jazz, but he does have a charming way with Latin rhythms. B+(*) [cd] Florence + the Machine: How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful (2015, Island/Republic): Brit singer/songwriter Florence Welch plus an arena-scaled band, or possibly some mechanical approximation -- I don't much care one way or the other, nor do I follow her literary appreciation. Nor do I know the Tom Hull who is co-credited with two of her songs. B Brandon Flowers: The Desired Effect (2015, Virgin EMI): Singer for the Killers, an alt/indie band of no particular distinction, evidently still extant although three members have produced side projects. This is an impressive piece of production craft, mostly mid-tempo with hints of grandeur, the singer wrapped in background harmonies. B+(**) Robert Forster: Songs to Play (2015, Tapete): Second post-Go-Betweens album, a solid batch of songs although they take some time to sink in, partly because they move further from the group sound than the songs on Intermission. B+(**) Rich Halley 4: Eleven (2014 [2015], Pine Eagle): Tenor saxophonist from Oregon, has had a terrific run of albums lately, most with this same quartet: Michael Vlatkovich (trombone), Clyde Reed (bass), and son Carson Halley (drums). When he takes charge this is another one, but I have a few minor quibbles -- unison themes, slow patches. B+(***) [cd] Tigran Hamasyan: Luys I Luso (2014 [2015], ECM): Pianist from Armenia, returns for an album of sedate piano and choral music, featuring the Yerevan State Chamber Choir, conducted by Harutyan Topikyan. B- [dl] Alfred 23 Harth/Jörg Fischer/Marcel Daemgen: Confucius Tarif Reduit (2014 [2015], Spore Point): I'd call this a free sax trio, but instead of bass Daemgen is credited with "electronics, synthesizer," and Harth's credit reads "reeds, pocket trumpet, voice, dojirak." B+(**) [cd] Angel Haze: Back to the Woods (2015, self-released): Rapper Raykeea Wilson, released her "major label debut" at the end of December 2013, too late to get noticed, and has to follow that up with a mixtape, not as immediately appealing, but the world's a treacherous place, and she's tough enough to get through it. B+(***) Carlos Henriquez: The Bronx Pyramid (2015, Blue Engine): Bassist for Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, from the Bronx, first album. He doesn't have the full band here -- just Michael Rodriguez (trumpet), Felipe Lamoglia (tenor sax), Robert Rodriguez (piano), Ali Jackson (drums), lots of percussionists, and a guest vocal from Rubén Blades. B+(**) Holly Herndon: Platform (2015, 4AD): More electronica producer than singer, first half of the album manages to juggle an avalanche of samples. She then breaks the mood with a whispered word piece before returning to the thrash, a bit more abstractly. B+(**) Hiatus Kaiyote: Choose Your Weapon (2015, Flying Buddha): Australian "alt r&b" group, second album. Singer Nai Palm does have some diva moves, and the rhythm is so slippery they slide right past me -- neither of those are compliments, although they leave some room for disagreement. B- Keigo Hirakawa: And Then There Were Three (2014 [2015], self-released): Piano trio, with Eddie Brookshire (bass) and Fenton Sparks (drums), plus a vocal (Wenbi Lai) on one track. The pianist teaches at the University of Dayton, and has a couple previous albums. Originals except for two closing tracks: one from Bud Powell, the other "Precious Lord." Bright, upbeat, overwhelms you. B+(*) [cd] Mike Holober: Balancing Act (2015, Palmetto): Pianist, mostly associated with big bands like the Westchester Jazz Orchestra, has a septet-plus-singer here ranging from highly orchestrated (including flute) to monster sax solos (Jason Rigby and Dick Oatts. The vocalist is Kate McGarry. B+(**) [cd] Hot Jazz Jumpers: The Very Next Thing (2015, On the Bol): Sounds like an exceptionally noisy trad jazz group at first, but the trad fare ranges from "You Are My Sunshine" to "Jock-A-Mo" and sometimes slips into surrealism. Two singers (Miles Griffith and Betina Hershey), Nick Russo on guitar/banjo/resonator, David Pleasant on drums, and other part-timers. Eventually the weirdness turns annoying, especially on the "Russo Griffith Free Improv." Haven't watched the Bonus DVD. B Sam Hunt: Between the Pines: Acoustic Mixtape (2015, MCA Nashville): Nashville singer, his 2014 debut Montevallo one of the year's most overrated discs. Nice gesture that he decided to throw out this freebie, reprising some earlier songs Hunt wrote, on the anniversary of his hit. Nice, but not much better. B Aaron Irwin Quartet: A Room Forever (2015, self-released): Fourth album, plays clarinet here although I have him listed under alto sax. With no drums this could pass as chamber jazz, but trombone (Matthew McDonald) and bass (Thomson Kneeland) give it some heft, and Pete McCann slips his guitar into the mix, tying it together. B+(*) [cd] Janet Jackson: Unbreakable (2015, Rhythm Nation): Seven years since her last album, Discipline, one of the few I didn't bother to check out (coming as it did after the C+ 20 Y.O.). Tempting to say this rights a slumping career, but it merely doesn't wrong it further. Above all it shows that competency can be enjoyed by anyone with the budget. B+(*) Guus Janssen: Meeting Points (1989-2014 [2015], Bimhuis): Dutch avant pianist, has had a notable career with 1997's Zwik a particular high point. This is previously unreleased material from scattered groups, although six (of nine) tracks date from 2011 or later. Two piano-drums duos, a duo with Lee Konitz, but the most interesting are four small groups with Michael Moore (clarinet or alto sax). B+(***) [cd] Jeff Jenkins Organization: The Arrival (2014 [2015], OA2): Organ trio, with Dave Gorbus on Godin guitar and Alwyn Robinson on drums. A soul jazz throwback, pretty impeccable as those things go. B+(*) [cd] Khat Thaleth [Third Line]: Initiative for the Elevation of Public Awareness (2013, Stronghold Sound): Arabic rappers (from all over: Lebanon to Tunisia"), lyrics (I gather) politically focused, "a third electric and energized approach to looking at politics in the Arab world." Beats are fairly minimal although the traditional tones and modes sometimes leak through, and the mixes shift around a lot -- probably a plus, since I doubt that anyone here is much of a star. A- Martin Küchen/Johan Berthling/Steve Noble: Night in Europe (2014 [2015], NoBusiness): Sax-bass-drums trio, the leader playing tenor, alto, and sopranino, recorded live at Glenn Miller Café in Stockholm. Küchen has mostly worked in larger groups like Angles (also Exploding Customer, All Included, and Trespass Trio), so this is a chance to hear him in a relatively informal improv bash. B+(***) [cd] Martin Küchen/Jon Rune Strřm/Tollef Řstvang: Melted Snow (2014 [2015], NoBusiness): Another Küchen sax trio, this one with locals (not that Berthling and Noble are much more famous) and short enough for a vinyl-only release. Not much reason to choose between them, unless you're some sort of vinyl junkie. B+(***) [cdr] Nancy Lane: Let Me Love You (2015, self-released): Standards singer, first album. Mostly picks lesser-known songs, including one in French, but there's also "Cry Me a River," "All of You," and "What Is This Thing Called Love." Looks, and sounds, a bit like Diana Krall. Don't know anyone in the band, but they rotate seamlessly between piano and guitar backing, and several trumpet and sax spots are well chosen. B+(***) [cd] Adam Larson: Selective Amnesia (2015, Inner Circle Music): Tenor saxophonist, from Illinois, based in New York, plays postbop, has a couple albums, this a quintet with guitar (Matthew Stevens), piano (Fabian Almazan), bass, and drums. B+(*) [cd] Emma Larsson: Sing to the Sky (2014 [2015], Origin): Singer/songwriter (6 of 9 songs are originals), second album, backed by piano trio (Shedrick Mitchell, Eric Revis, Billy Drummond) and saxophonist Kenneth Whallum III. B [cd] Ingrid Laubrock: Ubatuba (2014 [2015], Firehouse 12): Avant saxophonist from Germany, has about 15 records since 1998 and plays on a lot of other's albums, especially with Kris Davis, Mary Halvorson, and/or Tom Rainey. This group has four horns, with Tim Berne on alto sax, Laubrock moving between alto and tenor, Ben Gerstein on trombone and Dan Peck on tuba, plus Rainey on drums. B+(**) [cd] Martin Leiton: Poetry of Sound (2014 [2015], UnderPool): Bassist, from Barcelona, has at least one previous album. This is a trio with Marcel-li Bayer (alto sax, tenor sax, bass clarinet) and Oscar Doménech (drums). Understated, crawls along at an even pace, nearly hypnotic. B+(**) [cd] Daniel Levin/Rob Brown: Divergent Paths (2012 [2015, Cipsela): Duets, cello and alto sax, both a little abstract and dry. B+(*) [cd] Jeffrey Lewis & Los Bolts: Manhattan (2015, Rough Trade): Comic book artist, folksinger too, although a dozen albums in he rocks harder, still crams a lot of words in, with more than a few in Yiddish. A- John Lindberg/Anil Eraslan: Juggling Kukla (2011 [2015], NoBusiness): Well known American bassist, a founder of String Trio of New York with several dozen albums under his own name, duets with Turkish cellist Eraslan. Inevitably has some hard-to-hear spots, but also much of interest. B+(**) [cdr] Luis Lopes/Jean-Luc Guionnet: Live at Culturgest (2011 [2015], Clean Feed): Guionnet is a prolific, fairly well known French alto saxophonist -- Discogs credits him with 35 albums since 1998, although that includes quite a few albums where, like this one, his name appears second or later on the credit line. I'm much more familiar with the Portuguese guitarist: he's come up with a distinctly non-fusion electric guitar style. Two long improvs here, much of it pretty ugly, although if you can stand it you might also find a tingle of excitement. B- Lyrics Born: Real People (2015, Mobile Home): Tokyo-born rapper Tsutomu ("Tom") Shimura, came up through the Berkeley underground in the duo Latyrx and a handful of his own albums. This one rocks out on the title cut, then busts several of the hottest raps I've heard this year. Catchiest too. A [cd] Roy McGrath Quartet: Martha (2014 [2015], JL Music): Tenor saxophonist, born in Puerto Rico, based in Chicago, seems to be his second album. Also plays in salsa/Latin jazz and funk groups, but this is a mainstream sax quartet -- can't read the red-on-green credits, but they're competent, and I'm a sucker for the sax leads. B+(**) [cd] Marco Mezquida Mateos: Live in Terrassa (2015, UnderPool): Pianist, from Barcelona, has a couple previous albums as Marco Mezquida. This is solo. The cover shows him from high above at a grand piano, with no cover, surrounded on all sides by rapt listeners in uncomfortable chairs, and the recording feels that intimate. But what makes it work for me is the rhythmic undertow. B+(***) [cd] Kristine Mills: Bossa Too (2015, InkWell Publishing): Singer-songwriter from Houston, fourth album, backed by Itaiguara Brandao (electric bass, acoustic guitar), piano, drums, some extra percussion. Slips a couple Jobims in with her originals. Appropriately light and frothy. B [cd] Matt Mitchell: Vista Accumulation (2015, Pi, 2CD): Pianist, has built a reputation playing in key groups (Tim Berne, Darius Jones, Dave Douglas, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Claudia Quintet), now presents his third album as a sprawling double (96:10), a quartet with Chris Speed (tenor sax, clarinet), Chris Tordini (bass), and Dan Weiss (drums). Rather dark and brooding, sorry to say, although those who stick with it will continue to be impressed. B+(**) [cd] The Monash Art Ensemble/George Lewis: Hexis (2013 [2014], Jazzhead): Pianist Paul Grabowsky founded the Australian Art Ensemble in 1994, and added students from the Monash University of Music to form this group. Lewis is the AACM trombonist, has a mixed discography that can stray far from his instrument. The combination is a stark, radical take on third stream. B+(**) Ŕlvar Montfort/Lucas Martinez/Jordi Matas/Abel Boquera/Pep Mula: Underpool 4 (2014 [2015], UnderPool): Trumpet, tenor sax, guitar, keys & synth, drums -- another postbop configuration (see Underpool 3). At one point Martinez tries to drag this into the avant-garde, but the group doesn't follow. B+(*) [cd] Jack Mouse & Scott Robinson with Janice Borla: Three Story Sandbox (2015 [2016], Tall Grass): Mouse is a drummer, playing a long list of percussion instruments here. Robinson plays an equally long list of reeds, giving us a minimal but fairly varied two-man band. Borla sings. B+(*) [cd] Larry Ochs/Don Robinson Duo: The Throne (2011 [2015], Not Two): Sax-drums duo, Ochs playing tenor and sopranino. The latter if piercingly ugly but strangely captivating. The tenor also pushes the limits of avant-ugly, but most often is invigorating, and the stretches where they slow down are most captivating. The drummer doesn't play off the riffs so much as roll with them. A- Paris: Pistol Politics (2015, Guerrilla Funk, 2CD): Oscar Jackson Jr., rapper from San Francisco, dropped his first album in 1990 and has always worn politics on his sleeve. I should make a point of checking out his early albums when he had major label deals, but the first I heard was 2003's Sonic Jihad on his own label, then even better his "featuring" role on Public Enemy's Rebirth of a Nation (2006). This is his first album in six years, and he's got a lot to talk about, with a natural flow meant to make his words clear, and perfunctory beats to keep it moving. A- [cd] Peaceful Solutions: Barter 7 (2015, self-released): Kool A.D. (originally of Das Racist) and Kassa Overall (originally a jazz drummer), aka Kool & Kass, now dba the title of their first album together. The title is presumably a play on Young Thug's Barter 6, itself a play on the still-unreleased Tha Carter V. Obviously, "the world's greatest rapper" (these days "the real one") doesn't spend a lot of time on titles. Nor on rhymes, although he lands a few anyway, and the beats render even the groaners amusing. A- [bc] Pol Pedrós/Noč Escolŕ/Albert Cirera/Rai Paz/Paco Weht/Ildefons Alonso: Underpool 3 (2014, UnderPool): Barcelona-based jazz label. I originally figured this for a sampler, but while the writing credits are scattered, it seems to be the same group on all tracks. Respective instruments are: trumpet, alto sax, tenor sax, guitar, bass, and drums. Seems like a formula for postbop, and is. B+(*) [cd] Ivo Perelman/Matthew Shipp: Complementary Colors (2015, Leo): Tenor sax and piano duo, two avant players with intertwined histories going back at least to 1996. The focus on color keeps this on the quiet side, which is not really what either player is known for. B+(***) [cd] Ivo Perelman/Mat Maneri/Tanya Kalmanovitch: Villa Lobos Suite (2015, Leo): Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959) was a famed Brazilian composer, the inspiration for but not the author of this music. The credits here are shared by the trio, with the tenor sax receding behind the two violas. Interesting music, but the tone does rub me the wrong way. B+(**) [cd] Ivo Perelman/Matthew Shipp/Whit Dickey: Butterfly Whispers (2015, Leo): Avant tenor sax-piano-drums trio, one that previously cut 2012's The Clairvoyant -- one of the Brazilian saxophonist's finest albums. This struggles a bit to reach that level, but eventually cranks it up a notch from the Perelman-Shipp duo, which is what adding a good drummer should do. A- [cd] Oscar Perez: Prepare a Place for Me (2015, Myna): Pianist, from Queens, played in church and listened to Cuban folk music, studied under Danilo Perez and Sir Roland Hanna, has a couple previous albums. Piano trio with a Latin lilt, plus alto saxophonist Bruce Williams on five (of nine) cuts: a nice addition but you don't notice his absence. B+(**) [cd] Roots Manuva: Bleeds (2015, Big Dada): Brit rapper Rodney Smith, seems to have lost the grime/dub beats he started out with a decade-and-a-half ago. B Michael Sarian & the Chabones: The Escape Suite (2014-15 [2015], self-released): Trumpet player, from Canada, second album, septet with two saxes, trombone, electric piano and bass -- allows a lot of texturing with little open space. B+(**) [cd] Maria Schneider Orchestra: The Thompson Fields (2014 [2015], ArtistShare): A protégé of Gil Evans, she very quickly grew into damn near every critic's favorite composer/arranger (except, I guess, mine). Probably my bad, not that I'm in any hurry to go back. But this is so richly layered, so sumptuous, I feel like there should be some dazzling visuals to subsume this into the background -- probably a nature doc, since that seems to be her thing. B+(**) [cd] Matthew Shipp Trio: The Conduct of Jazz (2015, Thirsty Ear): Piano trio, with Michael Bisio on bass and Newman Taylor Baker on drums. Shipp seems to have lost interest in his jazztronica phase, but he draws on that experience when he breaks out the heavy, tumbling rhythmic runs that set the pace here. A- [cd] Herb Silverstein: Younger Next Year (2015, self-released): Otolaryngologist, actually more of an otologist, based in Sarasota, Florida, also plays piano, writes his own songs, and has close to a dozen albums. Quintet with sax and guitar, seems like the sort of music you could hear in his waiting room. B [cd] Slobber Pup: Pole Axe (2015, Rare Noise): Avant-noise group, second album, Jamie Saft (organ, keyboards) and Balasz Pandi (drums) also in the similar Metallic Taste of Blood, joined here by Joe Morris (guitar) and most importantly saxophonist Mats Gustafsson (a newcomer to the group). B+(**) [cdr] Spanglish Fly: New York Boogaloo (2015, Caco World Music): New York group dedicated to reviving boogaloo, a funk-novelty variant (simplification?) of salsa that broke some hits in the 1970s. Still, not purists, as indicated by a preponderance of English lyrics. B+(*) Speedy Ortiz: Foil Deer (2015, Carpark): Guitar band from Northampton, MA, the female singer (Sadie Dupuis) offerng a bit of pop glow even while the jerky rhythm undermines it. B+(*) Martin Speicher/Peter Geisselbrecht/Jörg Fischer: Spicy Unit (2014 [2015], Spore Print): Reeds (alto/sopranino sax, clarinet), piano, drums. Fischer has been sending his records in regularly, mostly engaging avant encounters, but this is the first one that really clicked -- mostly thanks to the pianist's own higher order percussion. Never noticed Geisselbrecht before, but he makes a huge impression here, which Speicher's coloring complements. A- [cd] Spinifex: Veiled (2015, Trytone): Dutch quintet, has been around ten years but I'm not finding a discography -- one previous album was Hipsters Gone Ballistic (2013). Despite the presence of two horns -- Gijs Levelt on trumpet and Tobias Klein on alto sax -- the sound is dominated by guitars: Jasper Stadhouders plus Gonçalo Almeida on bass. Fusion closer to punk: if McLaughlin's goal was beyond, these guys are in your face. B+(**) [cd] The Spook School: Try to Be Hopeful (2015, Fortuna Pop): Scottish garage pop group, upbeat, like group harmony and that old rock and roll romp. B+(**) Chris Stapleton: Traveller (2015, Mercury Nashville): Has a fledgling rep as a tunesmith but picks two drinking songs off the rack and had help on most of the rest. Mid-tempo with the weight of the world on his shoulders, much of which he put there. B+(**) Statik Selektah: Lucky 7 (2015, Showoff/Duck Down Music): Patrick Baril, DJ/producer from Boston, parades a couple dozen rappers past you, not that they sound different enough to county. B+(**) Ike Sturm + Evergreen: Shelter of Trees (2014 [2015], Kilde): Bassist, from Wisconsin, third album, serves as Music Director for the Jazz Ministry at Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan. Evergreen seems to refer to the whole band, including three female singers for a bit of choral effect. Loren Stillman's alto sax is a bright spot. B- [cd] Sun Ra Arkestra Under the Direction of Marshall Allen: Babylon Live (2014 [2015], In+Out): A ghost band, but dedicated not so much to a songbook as to an attitude and some spectacle, which may be why the vocals loom larger than on Sun Ra's own albums. Overseeing the effort is the 90-year-old saxophonist, the last living link to the '50s Arkestra, maybe even the '80s one. B+(**) Survival Unit III: Game Theory (2010 [2013], Not Two): Joe McPhee on alto sax and pocket trumpet, backed by two Chicagoans: Fred Londberg-Holm (cello, electronics) and Michael Zerang (percussion). Third of four recordings since 2006, they've survived longer than McPhee's early Survival Unit II (1971; I haven't found any evidence of a Survival Unit I, with McPhee's earliest recordings in 1968). McPhee speaks out in the final piece, breaking the mood to add a political dimension to the struggle. B+(**) Survival Unit III: Straylight (2014 [2015], Pink Palace): Fourth group album, a live set at Krannert Art Museum in Chicago, with two 20+ minute pieces and a 6-minute closer. Two surprises: one is that Joe McPhee plays soprano instead of tenor sax, and that his pocket trumpet is listed first; the other is Fred Lonberg-Holm playing some very aggressive guitar in addition to his usual cello and electronics. B+(***) [bc] Total Babes: Heydays (2015, Wichita): Four blokes from Ohio -- what did you expect? A punkish group that doesn't neglect the hooks or the grind ("Circling" is an example of both). But then they let up on the gas. B+(**) U.S. Girls: Half Free (2015, 4AD): Only "Girls" band I've run across with actual females in it -- at least leader Meg Remy. Dense and rather erratic art-pop, playing it after Björk makes me see that source but that's only part of an approximation. Impresses me a bit, but I can't say as I like it. B Manuel Valera & Groove Square: Urban Landscape (2015, Destiny): Cuban-born pianist, more than ten albums since 2004, has a New York band that expertly mixes postbop with Cuban touches: John Ellis (reeds), Nir Felder (guitar), John Benitez (bass), either E.J. Strickland or Jeff "Tain" Watts (drums), plus some guests. B+(**) [cd] Jacob Varmus Septet: Aegean: For Three Generations of Jazz Lovers (2013 [2015], Crows' Kin): Trumpet player, fourth album, songs commissioned by Apostolos Georgopoulas, who recapitulated the history of the post-WWII jazz mainstream in his liner notes -- the model for the songs themselves. Group includes Hashem Assadullahi on alto/soprano sax, Pete McCann on guitar, two pianists (although it isn't clear they ever play together, bass, and drums. Has a nice flow and spots that stand up to its models. B+(**) [cd] Luke Vibert: Bizarster (2015, Planet Mu): British electronica producer, has also worked as Plug and Wagon Christ and a few less common names. This has a nice snap to it and amuses me, which is about all the sense I can hope to make out of this kind of music. B+(***) Lou Volpe: Remembering Ol' Blue Eyes (Songs of Sinatra) (2015, Jazz Guitar): Guitarist, first record looks to be 1985's Easy Jammin, and that's pretty much what you get here -- except that by combing through Sinatra's songbook he came up with a fine list of songs. Done with keyboards, bass, drums, and percussion -- no horns or vocals -- this work as elevator music but is much better. B+(**) [cd] Doug Webb: Triple Play (2014 [2015], Posi-Tone): Tenor saxophonist, studio guy from Los Angeles who moved up front around 2009 and now has six albums for this mainstream-oriented label. A fast bebop joust with Joel Frahm also playing tenor, with Brian Charette avoiding any hint of soul jazz on organ, and Rudy Royston on drums. I've considerably softened my distaste for bebop from twenty years ago, but this threatens to bring it all back. B- Carrie Wicks: Maybe (2015, OA2): Singer, third album, mostly co-writes originals but covers three standards here. Backed by piano trio: Bill Anshell, Jeff Johnson, Byron Vannoy. Interesting nuance to her voice -- "Ghost of a Perfect Flame" hits the spot. B+(**) [cd] Webb Wilder: Mississippi Moderne (2015, Landslide): Roots rocker, grew up in Mississippi listening to the Brit Invasion, has bounced around between Austin and Nashville, recording close to a dozen albums since 1986. Perhaps he's getting some Grammy notice now because he's gotten to be as old as his music. B+(*) Patrick Williams: Home Suite Home (2015, BFM): A composer-arranger, studied at Duke and Columbia, moved to Los Angeles in 1968, "wrote the scores for over 60 feature films and countless television assignments," cut a big band album in 1973 and has ten (or so) more since. This is another big band, many familiar names from the LA session world, with the title three-part suite, two vocal features (one for Patti Austin, a duet for Frank Sinatra Jr. and Tierney Sutton), and a couple titles I'm fond of: "A Hefti Dose of Basie (to the Memory of Neal Hefti)" and "That's Rich (for Buddy)." B+(*) [cd] Dave Wilson Quartet: There Was Never (2015, Zoho): Tenor saxophonist, based in Lancaster PA, has a handful of albums, this a quartet with Bobby Avey (piano), Tony Marino (bass), and Alex Ritz (drums). Six originals plus "Cassidy" (Grateful Dead), "God Only Knows" (Beach Boys), and "Summertime" (everyone). Plays fast with a commanding tone, the sort of thing that usually blows me away but somehow this doesn't. Runs a business buying and selling brass instruments -- clearly something he loves. B+(*) [cd] Michael Zerang & the Blue Lights: Songs From the Big Book of Love (2014 [2015], Pink Palace): Chicago drummer, played in Ken Vandermark's pre-5 Quartet and shows up on a lot of important albums. This group recalls the early V5 with two saxophonists: founder Mars Williams and his replacement Dave Rempis, plus V5 bassist Kent Kessler and cornetist Josh Berman for extra sparks. Terrific sax runs. A- [bc] Michael Zerang & the Blue Lights: Hash Eaters and Peacekeepers (2014 [2015], Pink Palace, EP): Billed as a "companion release to Songs From the Big Book of Love, a bit long for as EPs go (six cuts, 33:51, but released on cassette and discounted). Heavier on themes, which beefs them up and slows them down a tad, but they do impress. B+(***) [bc] Recent Reissues, Compilations, Vault Discoveries
John Carter: Echoes From Rudolph's (1976-77 [2015], NoBusiness, 2CD): Clarinet and soprano sax, mostly trio with Stanley Carter on bass and William Jeffery on drums. The first disc offers a pretty good sample of Carter as improviser. Seems like much of the second disc is given over to bass solo, which is interesting in its own right. Maybe Carter did need Bradford? B+(**) [cd] Hamid Drake/Michael Zerang: For Ed Blackwell (1995 [2015], Pink Palace): One 42:46 composition for two drum sets, in honor of the late drummer (1929-92), best known for playing in Ornette Coleman's legendary quartet from 1960, a lineup later resurrected as Old and New Dreams (with Dewey Redman instead of Coleman). This goes well beyond drum solos, almost to a system. B+(***) [bc] Free Jazz Group Wiesbaden: Frictions/Frictions Now (1969-71 [2015], NoBusiness): Early free jazz quartet from the center of West Germany, no one who later became famous although each of the players has 5-10 other credits -- Michael Sell (trumpet), Dieter Scherf (alto sax, oboe, piano, exotic flutes and such), Gerhard König (guitar, flute), Wolfgang Schlick (drums). They cut two albums which sound like they could have come much later, perhaps because Americans don't appreciate how early a linkage was established between European free jazz and "third world musics" -- perhaps because Europeans were more conscious of their states' colonial legacies. B+(***) [cd] Erroll Garner: The Complete Concert by the Sea (1955 [2015], Columbia/Legacy, 3CD): A fine pianist from Pittsburgh, fast and idiosyncratically unique, he became a popular celebrity when his 1956 Concert by the Sea album went gold. Cut live in Carmel, CA, heavily edited to 41:19 LP length, Garner led a trio with Eddie Calhoun on bass and Denzil Best on drums, the album seemed to have a magic lift. Sixty years later, the label has stretched it out, offering the unedited concert, with 11 extra tunes on two discs, plus a third disc remaster with a 14:10 post-concert interview. It's all rather redundant, but I like the raw concert at least as much as the tailored product -- indeed, I can't imagine how they could have left "Caravan" off the latter. A- [cd] Sun Ra: The Magic City (1965 [2015], Enterplanetary Koncepts): Billed as "Full Stereo Edition," I doubt this exists in anything but digital form. Indeed, a lot of old and obscure Sun Ra has been coming out in digital-only releases -- the original LPs were very limited runs, and the CDs that Evidence releasec c. 1993 are becoming hard to find. Some of their furthest out space shit, only intermittently connecting with terrestial like myself. B+(**) Old Music
The Chills: Kaleidoscope World (1982-84 [1989], Homestead): Early singles compilation, well before Martin Phillips' group's 1988 debut (but compiled a year later). Pop gems in the rough, but very rough -- interesting that the catchiest track is the instrumental. B+(*) Guy Davis: Juba Dance (2013, M.C.): Cover adds "featuring Fabrizio Poggi" -- an Italian harmonica player who inspires Brownie McGhee rhythms in Davis even when he's playing higher and sweeter than Sonny Terry. B+(**) Robert Forster: Intermission: The Best of the Solo Recordings 1990-1997 (1990-97 [2007], Beggars Banquet): The Go-Betweens broke up in 1989 and regrouped with 2000's The Friends of Rachel Worth. In between principal songwriters Grant McLennan and Robert Forster released four albums each. The idea of compiling best-ofs came after McLennan's death in 2006, before Forster could resume his solo career. It's possible to find a package with one CD by each, but in the digital world they're separate. While McLennan's albums were more immediately appealing, this adds up to a good solid half a Go-Betweens album (maybe more). Maybe I should reconsider the source albums? A- Erroll Garner: Body & Soul (1951-52 [1991], Columbia): Twenty songs collected from three piano trio sessions with John Simmons on bass and Shadow Wilson on drums. The times are uniformly within the range for 78s (2:21 to 3:45). Mostly standards, bright and fast, sometimes een showing his tenuous link to Art Tatum. B+(***) Erroll Garner: The Erroll Garner Collection, Vol. 2: Dancing on the Ceiling (1961-65 [1989], Emarcy): The second slice of a five-volume compilation of previously unreleased performances by Garner's piano trio, with Eddie Calhoun and Kelly Martin. B+(**) Marty Grosz and His Honoris Causa Jazz Band: Hooray for Bix! (1957 [1958], Good Time Jazz): An old-fashioned rhythm guitarist and sometime singer, born in Berlin in 1930 but escaped the Nazis as a toddler -- his father was famed caricaturist Georg Grosz -- and grew up as a devotee of trad jazz. First album, in fact his only one until 1983, and it's a delight. Cornetist Carl Halen gets a "featuring" notice on the front cover, although clarinetist Frank Chace is equally worthy. Songbook honors Beiderbecke, the songs as sweet as ever. A- Marty Grosz with Destiny's Tots: Sings of Love and Other Matters (1986, Jazzology): One of several group names he's used -- the Orphan Newsboys is probably the best known -- but some of the key players (especially pianist Keith Ingham) are frequent associates. Grosz sang a bit on his debut, but this is where he learns how to make his rather ordinary voice work (good example: "Until the Real Thing Comes Along"). He also does a little stand up with his tale of how Edward Elgar discovered "The English Blues." A- Marty Grosz: Songs I Learned at My Mother's Knee & Other Low Joints (1992 [1994], Jazzology): This comes from three sessions with as many groups, though they're all pretty much equivalent. B+(**) Marty Grosz and the Collectors Items Cats: Thanks (1993, Jazzology): New band name but mostly the same cats -- Keith Ingham on piano, Peter Ecklund on cornet, Dan Barrett on trombone, Bobby Gordon on clarinet and Scott Robinson on reeds. B+(**) Marty Grosz: Keep a Song in Your Soul (1994, Jazzology): Again split between two sessions/bands, but brighter from the start, often delightful. B+(***) Marty Grosz and His Sugar Daddies: On Revival Day: Live at the Atlanta Jazz Party! (1995, Jazzology): Another fine trad jazz group, with Peter Ecklund (trumpet), Bobby Gordon (clarinet), Ingham, and others. On the other hand, this seems rather subdued, especially on the usually rousing Andy Razaf title song. B+(**) Marty Grosz Quartet: Just for Fun! (1996, Nagel Heyer): Recorded live in Hamburg with what looks like a Brit trad jazz pickup group: Alan Elsdon (trumpet), John Barnes (clarinet), and Murray Wall (bass). Nothing special, but the record does pick up as the leader's tongue loosens up. [PS: Wall, b. 1945 in Australia, has played on at least two other Grosz albums. Elsdon and Barnes are English.] B+(*) Marty Grosz: Left to His Own Devices (2000 [2001], Jazzology): With Randy Reinhart on cornet, Scott Robinson and Dan Block on clarinet and sax, Greg Cohen on bass, and Mike Peters on guitar. Relatively tame, perhaps because the obscurities aren't up to it. B+(*) Marty Grosz & His Hot Puppies: Rhythm Is Our Business (2000-01 [2003], Sackville): A quintet with Randy Reinhart on trumpet and Frank Roberscheuten on clarinet (and various saxes), with the leader's trademark strum and sly vocals, more small group swing than trad, climaxing in a 10:17 medley: "Rhythm for Sale/He Ain't Got Rhythm/I Got Rhythm." B+(***) Last Exit: Last Exit (1986, Enemy): Normally when I see an eponymous group album with the individual musician names on the cover, I list it under them, but this was such a unique group I prefer to keep their albums together. The musicians: Sonny Sharrock (guitar), Peter Brötzmann (saxes), Bill Laswell (electric bass), and Ronald Shannon Jackson (drums). Laswell's rockish beat keeps it all on an even keel. Sharrock can not only joust with the sax, he often comes out on top. A- Last Exit: Köln (1986 [2005], Atavistic): A live set on saxophonist Brötzmann's home turf, which may help explain why he comes out swinging. Still, he doesn't dominate this like he does his own albums, probably because the guitar both competes and undercuts the sax. B+(***) Last Exit: The Noise of Trouble: Live in Tokyo (1986, Enemy): Another live one, another continent, the added treats including a Jimmy Reed blues sung by Shannon Jackson, and a couple of gate crashers: Japanese alto saxophonist Akira Sakata, who knows his way around the avant-garders, and pianist Herbie Hancock, who doesn't. B+(**) John Law Quartet: Exploded on Impact (1992 [1993], Slam): British avant pianist, with Alan Wilkinson (alto/baritone sax), Roberto Bellatalla (bass), and Mark Sanders (drums). Rhapsody only has two (of five) cuts (and the shorter ones at that: 19:17/55:47), so I probably shouldn't bother, or at least I should hedge a bit. A volatile combination, one that (here at least) ends much too soon. B+(***) John Law: Extremely Quartet (1996 [1997], Hat Art): British pianist, trained to play baroque but broke free in the mid-1980s and has thirty or so albums -- well regarded in Penguin Guide but hitherto someone I've missed out on. Very strong group here -- Paul Dunmall (tenor and soprano sax), Barry Guy (bass), and Louis Moholo (drums) -- and the saxophonist manages to play with some restraint, not obliterating the fascinating piano runs. A- John Law Quartet: Abacus (2000 [2001], Hatology): Pianist, with Jon Lloyd (alto/soprano sax), Tim Wells (bass), and Gerry Hemingway (drums). The first cut delivers the off-kilter thrash you expect, but then they try to show their flexibility and resourcefulness, including some slow melodic stuff that's nice and all that but detracts from the rush they're capable of. B+(***) Grant McLennan: In Your Bright Ray (1997, Beggars Banquet): Final album, distilled essence of his Go-Betweens sound but none of the songs really jump out, like they're supposed to. B+(*) Grant McLennan: Intermission: The Best of the Solo Recordings 1990-1997 (1990-97 [2007], Beggars Banquet): Like Robert Forster, McLennan released four solo albums during their break from the group they'll always be remembered for, the Go-Betweens. But McLennan was the more natural songwriter, and he was the one I followed, A-listing two of these four albums. Not sure this is better, but "Lighting Fires" tops Fireboy, and two cuts I missed from In Your Bright Ray above made the grade this time. A- John Tchicai: Cadentia Nova Danica (1968, Freedom): Danish alto saxophonist, father from Congo, first album but he had previously appeared with New York Art Quartet and on Albert Ayler's New York Eye and Ear, and also in 1968 he appeared on the first Instant Composers Pool album. I count nine musicians, with Karsten Vogel joining Tchicai at alto sax (and composing two of the pieces; Tchicai wrote two, and arranged a South American folk song), three percussionists (Giorgio Musoni on African drums), and Max Bryel switching between piano and baritone sax. Rough and tumble, but when it all connects pretty amazing. A- John Tchicai and Cadentia Nova Danica: Afrodisiaca (1969, MPS): A year later Tchicai's group peaked out at 26 musicians for the 21:45 title cut, written by trumpeter Hugh Steinmetz, part of the sudden explosion of avant-orchestras in Europe (starting with Globe Unity and ICP in 1967, plus LJCO in 1970. One of those glorious messes some people remember as stone classics. Still, the musicians thin out on the back side, and with them the excitement. B+(**) John Tchicai-Irene Schweizer-Group: Willi the Pig: Live at the Willisau Jazz Festival (1975 [2000], Atavistic): Quartet with Buschi Niebergall on bass and Makaya Nishoko on drums backing alto (or soprano) sax and piano for one long improv, originally split over two LP sides. Fine outing for Tchicai, but it's the pianist who makes it special. A- John Tchicai & Strange Brothers: Darktown Highlights (1977, Storyville): Quartet live from Jazzhus Montmartre in Copenhagen, with Simon Spang-Hanssen (tenor sax), Peter Danstrup (bass), and Ole Rřmer (drums). Stretches out a bit more than in the earlier albums. B+(***) John Tchicai: Put Up the Fight (1987, Storyville): Another quartet, but a very different with more of a groove focus, Brent Clausen playing vibes/guitar/synth, Peter Danstrup on bass guitar/synth, and Ole Rřmer drums. The regular beat does let the sax soar, and the vibes provide some sparkle. B+(*) John Tchicai: Darktown Highlights/Put Up the Fight (1977-87 [2012], Storyville, 2CD): Only print on the cover is "John Tchicai" but the best available discography settled on this title, one disc each for two Storyville albums, per above. B+(**) Additional Consumer News:Previous grades on artists in the old music section.
NotesEverything streamed from Rhapsody, except as noted in brackets following the grade:
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