|
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
Music DatabaseArtist Search: Website SearchGoogle: |
Blog Entries [740 - 749]Thursday, August 30, 2018 Streamnotes (August 2018)As I noted in last week's Music Week, the largest Streamnotes column ever was posted November 8, 2009, with 206 records, which at 188 I didn't come close to matching this month. On the other hand, the record covered a period of 41 days. Recently I've kept to a monthly schedule (occasionally with two posts in a month, as in Jan. 2016, Dec. 2014, Sept. 2014, Jan. 2014, Jan. 2011 -- that is, mostly during the EOY crunch. Within those single-month posts, my previous record was 185 (Nov. 2013), followed by 179 (Sept. 2015), so I barely topped that. The big difference this month has been a lot of old records, many of them long-time residents of my "unrated" list (albums I own but never graded). Back around 2002, before I started reviewing records (and much before I stopped buying them) that list was up over 900, with most of them stashed away where I wouldn't be likely to stumble across them. Of course, that's still the case, but I've found a bunch of them from streaming, and that's good enough for my present purposes. The list is down to 275 now. I'd like to knock it down under 200, but doubt I can do that just by streaming. At some point I need to start digging up things, but then I've needed to houseclean for a long time now. Made a last-minute stab at much-hyped pop records released in August. There were more of them than I expected, but I wasn't much impressed by any of them (OK, except Robbie Fulks/Linda Gail Lewis). The one I felt had the most potential was Blood Orange, but three plays weren't enough. Did quite a bit to add non-jazz to the Music Tracking File, mostly looking through AOTY lists. I'm currently listing 1497 records there (I've rated 566 of those). Unfortunately, AOTY has only noticed about 10-20 jazz records this year, so they're no help in that regard. I haven't found a good way to track new jazz releases yet. In the past I've used the review scrolls at All About Jazz and Free Jazz Collective, but they've proven really tedious. so I've yet to do that this year. Assuming we're 7 (not 8) months into the year, I'm on track to review 970 records, and find 113 A/A- new releases. That compares with, as of freeze-time last year, 1135 records (-14.5%) and 139 A/A- new releases (-18.7%). It's tempting to attribute that to slowing down (and possibly getting crankier) with age, especially given all the bad things that have happened this year, but chances are I'm in some similar slump every year at this time, only to pick up the pace once EOY lists start rolling in. Of course, that depends on things not getting even worse. I am at least thankful this summer is coming to a close. Now what? Most of these are short notes/reviews based on streaming records from Napster (formerly Rhapsody; other sources are noted in brackets). They are snap judgments, usually based on one or two plays, accumulated since my last post along these lines, back on July 31. Past reviews and more information are available here (11657 records). Recent Releases
Stefan Aeby Trio: The London Concert (2017 [2018], Intakt): Swiss pianist, trio with André Pousaz on bass and Michi Stulz on drums. Original compositions (one by Pousaz), has a deft touch which keeps everything at a moderate distance, encouraging contemplation. B+(***) [cd] Aguankó: Pattern Recognition (2018, Aguankó): Latin jazz band from Detroit, led by percussionist Alberto Nacif, "steeped in the tradition of jazz infused Son-Salsa." Seems like the real deal, just cruising right past me. B+(**) [cd] American Aquarium: Things Change (2018, New West): Alt-country band from Raleigh, NC, led by BJ Barham -- had a solo album I liked in 2016, Rockingham, but this has been his main vehicle since 2006. I'm not following the songs about drinking (or not drinking), but "The World Is On Fire" could be a new national anthem: "when did the land of the free become the home of the afraid?" is only one of many insights. B+(***) Dave Anderson: Melting Pot (2018, Label1): Saxophonist (soprano, alto), a Minnesota native, moved to Toronto then New York. Spices his 3-part "Immigrant Suite" with sitar, tabla, flute, and extra percussion (Roberto Quintero). Breezy, relatively short (33:32). B+(*) [cd] Simon Barker/Henry Kaiser/Bill Laswell/Rudresh Mahanthappa: Mudang Rock (2017 [2018], Fractal Music): Drummer, from Australia, seems to have his hands in a lot of projects, networking here with the guitarist (globe-trotter), bassist (studio denizen), and alto saxophonist (Indian parents, born in Europe, raised in the US, covers all the bases). Music "inspired by the Korean shamanic tradition," fused all sorts of ways. B+(***) [cd] Nat Birchall Meets Al Breadwinner: Sounds Almighty (2018, Tradition Disc): British tenor saxophonist, usually hews pretty closely to Coltrane, goes Jamaican in Manchester, with Breadwinner playing drums, guitars, and keyboards, and Vin Gordon on trombone. Birchall claims the writing credits (one co- for each of his guests), but they're pretty generic, with "dub" in 4 titles, "skank" in another. Of course, I love the riddim and the dub echo. Just a bit disappointed that the sax blends in so strictly. B+(**) [bc] Blood Orange: Negro Swan (2018, Domino): Dev Hynes, fourth album as Blood Orange (two earlier ones as Lightspeed Champion). Genre classifiers are very cofused here (folk? baroque pop?), but this has spots where the artist seems confused too. Vocals clear as soul, but rhythms sketchy, experimental, sometimes lost in the ether. B+(**) Steve Coleman and Five Elements: Live at the Village Vanguard, Vol. I (The Embedded Sets) (2017 [2018], Pi, 2CD): Live double, two full sets. For rock groups this sort of thing is usually slotted after the group has done considerable touring, building up a market for a retrospective, and often also because the new material is slowing down. The alto saxophonist's group is pretty much at that point: the band is solid and cohesive through a number of albums. Indeed, this sums them up nicely. B+(***) [cd] Rodney Crowell: Acoustic Classics (2018, RC1): Old songs (mostly, "Tennessee Wedding" is new, and some others have been reworked), the acoustic treatment not primitivist (no pedal steel, but lots of fiddle). B+(*) Tim Daisy: Configurations (2018, Relay): Avant Chicago drummer, first noticed when he broke into the Vandermark 5, a very busy guy ever since. Solo percussion, recorded live sans overdubs, mallet instruments like marimba and bass xylophone loom large, and that helps. B+(**) [bc] Dennis Llewellyn Day: Bossa, Blues and Ballads (2018, DDay Media Group): Jazz singer, writes some (like the lyrics here to "Zawinul & Cannonball Blues"), has a handful of albums since 1999 (some as Dennis Day). Nice mix here, with the "bossa" earning its top billing. Couple dozen musicians, only Ray Blue (tenor sax) on more than four cuts (6), best known pianist Harold Mabern (piano, 4). B+(*) [cd] Jason Eady: I Travel On (2018, Old Guitar): Country singer-songwriter from Mississippi, based in Texas, eighth album since 2005, only two barely grazing the US Country chart (40, 45). Still, very solid songwriting, sound more trad than neotrad, has a voice too. B+(***) Robbie Fulks/Linda Gail Lewis: Wild! Wild! Wild! (2018, Bloodshot): Jerry Lee's sister is 12 years his junior, 15 years older than Fulks. She cut two albums in 1969 (one with Jerry Lee), then nothing until 1990, when she found a rockabilly market in Europe. She's been touring hard ever since, with 20+ albums up through 2015's Hard Rockin' Woman. She met Fulks in Sweden through a common publicist, and one thing led to another. I'm not finding any credits: are these old songs, or do they just sound that way? is that Linda on the piano? Either way, great fun. And while I'm a sucker for rockabilly, the change-of-pace pieces work just as well. A- Ariana Grande: Sweetener (2018, Republic): Pop star, fourth album, leans heavily on Pharrell Williams for tunes, features spots by Missy Elliott and Nicki Minaj. Probably explains why here and there I thought she might be onto something, but by the end I no longer cared to figure out what. Sure, "God Is a Woman." But "Get Well Soon" doesn't. B Darrell Katz and the JCA Orchestra: Rats Live on No Evil Star (2016-17 [2018], JCA): Composer, arranger, bandleader, plays guitar on one cut here. Originally from Kansas, moved to Boston in 1975, teaches at Berklee, founded the Jazz Composers Alliance Orchestra in 1985, a big band with occasional extras, has a dozen albums, mostly with them. Always struck me as hit and miss, but this has some rousing music and one of the year's best political songs, "Red Dog Blues," with Allizon Lissance singing. B+(***) [cd] Gayle Kolb: Getting Sentimental (2018, JeruJazz): Standards singer, from Chicago, first album, age not given but she lived in Los Angeles in the early 1970s and returned to Chicago in 1974. Voice has some personality, and the band adores her. I have mixed feelings about "Wichita Lineman," but songs like "Second Time Around" suit her perfectly. B+(**) [cd] Mahobin: Live at Big Apple in Kobe (2018, Libra): Another entry in pianist Satoko Fujii's 60th birthday celebration: a two-horn quartet, with Natsuki Tamura on trumpet and Lotte Anker on sax, but the music is primarily formed by the glum landscape of Ikue Mori's electronics. B+(**) [cd] Debra Mann: Full Circle: The Music of Joni Mitchell (2018, Whaling City Sound): Jazz singer, pianist, Berklee graduate, based in Rhode Island, three previous albums, writes some, cites Jobim and Frishberg as favorites, and here dedicates a whole album to folksinger-turned-jazzbo Mitchell, covering two of her Mingus lyrics and ten other songs, closing with a "Woodstock" I found improbably touching. Dino Govoni's sax a plus. B+(**) [cd] Brian McCarthy: Codex (2017 [2018], self-released): Saxophonist (alto/soprano), postbop quartet with Justin Kauflin on piano, plus bass and drums. Four covers, including pieces by Joe Henderson and Clark Terry. B+(**) [cd] Lonnie McFadden: Live at the Green Lady Lounge (2018, Jazz Daddy): Trumpet player, song and dance man (website says "entertainer") from Kansas City, one previous album, backed by piano trio, opens with "Moten Swing" and closes with his own "Swing Like Count Basie," with a tap number for an encore. Tells stories about rehearsing "In the Basement" and performing "What a Wonderful World" on a USO tour in decidedly unwonderful Baghdad. Claims to like James Brown and "modern jazz," but you know what's in his DNA. B+(***) [cd] The Mekons 77: It Is Twice Blessed (2018, Slow Things): Reunion of the band's original 1977 lineup, with for-the-duration members Jon Langford and Tom Greenhalgh, plus four others (Kevin Lycett, Mark White, Andy Corrigan, Ros Allen) -- not sure when they left, probably not far into the 1980s. Closer to their punk roots, a time when they weren't yet the great country-ish band they became in the mid-1980s, but their vintage post-punk sound hits the spot today, as does their heartfelt politics. A- Methodist Hospital: Giants (2017, self-released): Rock band from Chicago (with cross-references to PA and FL), first album, 9 tracks, 33 minutes, no idea how to slot it -- website suggests something evolved from pop punk and sludge metal, but that isn't very helpful. First third very impressive, then holds solid. B+(***) Parker Millsap: Other Arrangements (2018, Okrahoma): Singer-songwriter from Oklahoma, niche market Americana, rocks out of the gate but gets a bit sketchy toward the end. B+(*) Nicki Minaj: Queen (2018, Young Money/Cash Money): Fourth album (counting both Pink Friday twice), four years since her third, and she's converted her flamboyance and outrage into some sort of corporate brand, the rhythms mechanical, the rappers hired guns, herself somewhere in the mix -- I suppose a video might clear that up. Still enjoy nearly everything here, but having trouble remembering any of it. B+(***) Nicole Mitchell: Maroon Cloud (2017 [2018], FPE): Flute player, from Chicago, part of a new generation of AACM activists, backed here by piano (Aruan Ortiz) and cello (Tomeka Reid), and joined by vocalist Fay Victor. Took me a while to recognize the singer: I still dislike the dark operatic opening, but by the time she gets to "No One Can Stop Us" she's fully in charge. B+(***) [cd] Mitski: Be the Cowboy (2018, Dead Oceans): Last name Miyawaki, born in Japan, father American, raised in 13 countries before settling in New York. Fifth album (counting two digital-only school projects). Big sound, more rock than pop, a few good lines and fair melodies but I'm neither impressed nor pleased. I can't begin to tell you why this has gotten such rave reviews. B Chris Monson: Seldom in the Well (2018, self-released): Canadian Guitarist (Toronto, I think), first album, sextet with trumpet (Kevin Turcotte), tenor sax (Kelly Jefferson), piano, bass, and drums. "a meditative, explosive exploration of progressive and jazz traditions": all dumped into the postbop blender. B [cd] The Necks: The Body (2018, Northern Spy): Australian piano trio -- Chris Abrahams (piano), Lloyd Swanton (bass), Tony Buck (drums) -- formed in 1985, first album in 1989, twenty-some since. Can go electric with Buck playing guitar, as happens here when they kick it up a notch 25 minutes into the single 56:40 piece. They dial it back a bit 20 minutes later. B+(**) Tami Neilson: Sassafrass! (2018, Outside Music): Country singer, born in Canada, moved to New Zealand in 2007, sixth album since then, a favorite of the country music-loving detective in The Brokenwood Mysteries. Mostly rockabilly first time I heard her (Dynamite!, but aims for soul ballads here, and her voice doesn't let her down. B+(**) Peter Nelson: Ash, Dust, and the Chalkboard Cinema (2018, Outside In Music): Trombone player, from Michigan, based in New York, first album (after an EP in late 2017), postbop, seems over-eager to showcase more variety than he needs, including some voice. I do like the trombone. B+(**) [cd] Dan Phillips/Hamid Drake: Trail of Inevitability (2017 [2018], Lizard Breath): Guitar-drums duo, based in Chicago, Phillips had a good record last year leading Chicago Edge Ensemble. Seems to have some trouble getting on track, but impressive when they do. B+(***) Dan Phillips Trio: Divergent Flow (2017 [2018], Lizard Breath): Guitarist, backed by Krzysztof Pabian (double bass) and Tim Daisy (drums). B+(**) Dan Phillips Quartet: Converging Tributaries (2017, Lizard Breath): Guitarist, his current Chicago trio -- Krzysztof Pabian on bass and Tim Daisy on drums (he also has a group based in Bangkok) -- plus Jeb Bishop on trombone. Whereas his trio albums feature his frenzied riffing, the trombone takes center stage, adding weight and drive, and letting the guitar fill in around the edges. Not that Phillips doesn't get moments to shine, but they tend to be quieter, contrasting his sweet tone against the deeper growl. A- [bc] John Pittman: Kinship (2018, Slammin' Media): Trumpet player, seems to have come out of Manitoba, winding up in Toronto. First album, also plays in the Heavyweights Brass Band. Standard hard bop quintet, Shirantha Beddage on sax, but tends to soften toward the end. B+(*) [cd] Serpentwithfeet: Soil (2018, Secretly Canadian): Josiah Wise, from Baltimore, now based in Brooklyn, r&b singer, first album after an EP. Long on ululation, flow gets tripped up. B Amanda Shires: To the Sunset (2018, Silver Knife): Singer-songwriter from Lubbock, sixth album (or eighth counting duets with Rod Picott and Jason Isbell -- she married the latter), appeared on a bunch of albums I like (including Todd Snider and John Prine). Filed her last album under country but this one rocks pretty hard, only rarely allowing her country voice to peek through. Still don't care for the opener, which suffers from prog glitz not unlike the hideous album cover, or the gruesome closer. B+(***) Sarah Shook & the Disarmers: On Audiotree Live (2018, Audiotree, EP): Alt-country singer/band, two pretty fair LPs, five cuts, 16:26. B+(*) Günter Baby Sommer: Baby's Party [Guest: Till Brönner] (2017 [2018], Intakt): Swiss drummer. Small party, just a duo with the guest on trumpet and flugelhorn. Unclear on the credits, which include bits of "Danny Boy" and "In a Sentimental Mood." The piece called "Third Shot" I recognize as Ani Di Franco's "Which Side Are You On?" although it may not have started there. B+(***) [cd] Stéphane Spira: New Playground (2017 [2018], Jazzmax): French saxophonist, plays soprano here, handful of albums including a Round About Jobim, leads a quartet here with piano/keyboard (Joshua Richman), bass (Steve Wood), and drums (Jimmy MacBride), all originals (one by Wood), recorded in NYC. Postbop, upbeat, lots of spark and dazzle. B+(***) [cd] Steve Tibbetts: Life Of (2018, ECM): Guitarist, some piano, backed by cello (Michelle Kinney) and percussion (Marc Anderson), although neither has much impact here, all very peaceful. Ten titles fit the "Life of X" ("Life of Emily," "Someone," "Lowell," "Dot," etc.). B+(*) The Tiki Collective: Muse (2018, Vesuvius Music/Slammin' Media): Large group, guitarist Eric St-Laurent listed first, with horns, strings, keyboards, flute, vibes, electric sitar, and a revolving cast of guest singers who all sound pretty much the same. Nice "Mood Indigo." Surprise standard "(Don't Fear) The Reaper." "Quizas Quizas Quizas" perked up my ears, but I kept expecting it to turn into "Fernando." B- [cd] Miguel Zenón: Yo Soy La Tradición (2017 [2018], Miel Music): Alto saxophonist, from Puerto Rico, based in New York, won a MacArthur fellowship a few years back. Has lately been leaning toward strings, and goes the whole way here, his sax coloring on top of a conventional string quartet ("featuring Spektral Quartet"). I have mixed feelings. I've never been much for strings, and they're clearly the point here. Still, rather lovely as these things go. B+(***) [cd] Recent Reissues, Compilations, Vault Discoveries
Don Drummond: Don Cosmic (1960-65 [2017], Studio One): Jamaican trombonist, played for Studio One including the Skatalites, with dozens of singles under his own name. His career ended in 1965 when he was convicted of killing his girlfriend, and was imprisoned until his death in 1969. All instrumentals, groove pieces, trombone leading like it belongs there. B+(***) The Gladiators: Symbol of Reality (1982 [2018], Omnivore): Moving out of Studio One, this album originally released on Nighthawk with the Itals backing Albert Griffiths, pinning him into a deeper rasta-roots groove, the reissue packed with extra dub versions. Dub is something I always enjoy but am rarely impressed by, so it kind of blurs things when it takes over here. B+(**) Tommy McCook & the Agrovators: Super Star/Disco Rockers (1977 [2018], Pressure Sounds): Saxophonist (1927-98), born in Havanna but moved to Jamaica at six, spending a few years in Miami before he joined the Skatalites and did a vast amount of session work for Studio One. Insrumental group, riddim classic, his horn an effective lead. B+(**) [bc] Alexander von Schlippenbach/Aki Takase: Live at Café Amores (1995 [2018], NoBusiness): Two pianists, German and Japanese, each famous before they got married. Pieces include medleys of Mingus and Monk as well as their own tunes. Remarkable throughout. A- [cd] Old Music
Ad the Voice: Maxi-Single (2007, Statik Entertainment, EP): Antonio Delgado, running for political office this year (Democrat in NY-19) but more than a decade ago recorded this rap album: ten cuts, 38:10, but four are versions of "U Scared" and two others appear twice, so only five distinct songs. I've seen a reference to a 2006 album, but this is the only one I've found. His Republican opponent thinks he'll have a field day pointing at Delgado's lyrics. I'm not fast enough to transcribe "Venom," but I'd sure vote for him. A- Arthur Alexander: Rainbow Road: The Warner Bros. Recordings (1972 [1994], Warner Archives): Country-soul singer from Sheffield, Alabama. Cut three albums: one for Dot in 1962, a second for Warners in 1972, and a third for Elektra Nonesuch just before he died in 1993. Compilation drops one song from the album, adds a few singles, moving the better songs to the fore, and ending on an unfortunate gospel note. B+(*) Lillian Allen: Revolutionary Tea Party (1986, Redwood): Dub poet, born in Jamaica but moved to New York at 18 and on to Toronto. Smart politics, fierce and feisty. A- Amy Allison: No Frills Friend (2003, Diesel Only): Singer-songwriter, daughter of Mose Allison, grew up listening to country music, drawn to the sad songs. She recorded this third album in Scotland, and picks up a wee touch of their brogue -- gloom too. Sample lyric: "I'm dreaming of the way things ought to be . . . Someone wake me up and make me face reality. Dreaming's killing me." A- Amy Allison: Everything and Nothing Too (2006, Cheater's World): Perfectly fine album. If sound was everything, might be her best. Still, if it were, I ought to be able to write more about it after three plays, don't you think? B+(***) Amy Allison: Sheffield Streets (2009, Urban Myth): Fifth album over 13 years, with nothing since. She always identified with country music, but she's rarely crafted songs as perfectly country as "I Wrote a Song About You." A- Bob Andy: Retrospective (1970-75 [1986], Heartbeat): Keith Anderson, co-founded the Paragons but left early, recording singles for Studio One and writing songs for other rocksteady artists. Discogs credits him with 98 singles, most 1967-89, but this doesn't offer a very broad sample: seven cuts from his 1975 album The Music Inside Me, four songs I can't date but seem to be earlier. B Antietam: Victory Park (2004, Carrot Top): Indie rock band from Louisville, principally marrieds Tara Key and Tim Harris, released an eponymous album in 1985, eight more through 2011, plus two Key solo albums and one as Babylon Dance Band in 1994-95. After that burst, there was a nine-year drought until this one came out. B Amédé Ardoin: The Roots of Zydeco: I'm Never Comin' Back (1930-34 [1995], Arhoolie): One of the first major cajun musicians to record, born 1898 in Evangeline Parrish, LA, only spoke French, played accordion, his vocals high and lonesome, both sound utterly classic. Died in 1942. This seems to be most of his output. Not to be confused with his cousin, Alphonse "Bois Sec" Ardoin, another major figure. A- Steve Arrington: Dancin' in the Key of Life (1985, Atlantic): Soul/funk singer, started as a percussionist in Slave before moving up, then out, recording two albums as Steve Arrington's Hall of Fame before this solo debut. B+(***) Backstreet Boys: Backstreet Boys (1996 [1997], Jive): Boy band from Florida, first US release after the same title was used in Europe and elsewhere to build their brand/market. More ballads than not, a pale take on a soul group but that works in this demographic, as does the pop glitz of the upbeat tracks. B+(**) Bad Luck: Four (2016 [2018], Origin): Seattle-based duo: saxophonist Neil Welch and drummer Chris Icasiano. Fourth album since 2009, one I filed under the drummer (although I no longer see why: Welch has 6-7 records under his own name, vs. 0 for Icasiano, although his was the name I recognized). Rockish riffs and rhythms, avant edge, nice fusion concept. B+(***) Big Sandy and His Fly-Rite Boys: Swingin' West (1995, Hightone): Western swing revival band, formed in California c. 1990, with 13 albums through 2013, this their fourth. B+(*) Black Light Burns: Cruel Melody (2007, I Am Wolfpack): Debut album from the band Wes Borland formed after leaving rap/metal band Limp Bizkit (Fred Durst was the singer there, and the band kept on without Borland.) Light industrial, some songs like the opening "Mesopotamia" downright catchy. B+(*) Black Uhuru: The Best of Black Uhuru [20th Century Masters: The Millennium Collection] (1979-84 [2004], Island): The great reggae group of the 1980s, with three singers -- Michael Rose, Puma Jones, and Duckie Simpson -- powered by Sly & Robbie, through five good-to-great studio albums, discounting their live sets and dub remixes. I didn't bother with this when it came out because I had the albums and 1993's dub-rich 2CD Liberation: The Island Anthology, and somehow missed it when I did a Recycled Goods trawl through the budget series. This is a one-stop bargain, relatively generous at 11 cuts, 50:43, but overall I still prefer Anthem and Red. A- Black Uhuru: Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1979-80 [1981], Taxi): Six of these seven tracks were originally released on Taxi (Sly & Robbie's label) in Jamaica in 1979 as Showcase, and "Shine Eye Gal" added in 1980. What happened to the record after that is confusing, with eponymous albums issued in Europe, and this title appearing belatedly in the US on Heartbeat in 1987, or maybe Virgin in 1983. Somewhat minimalist sound, clearly rooted in dub but doesn't have the finishing touches yet -- probably a plus. B+(***) Black Uhuru: Brutal (1986, RAS): Junior Reid joins the group; Puma Jones still in but seems on the way out. Less political, closer to dancehall. B+(**) Black Uhuru: Brutal Dub (1986, RAS): By this point, they had gotten into the habit of releasing dub version of each new album. Pretty much their stock set of effects. B Black Uhuru: Now (1990, Mesa): Michael Rose left after Anthem, and Puma Jones split after one more album, leaving the group (brand name) to Duckie Simpson, joined here by Don Carlos and Garth Dennis, for the first of four albums through 1994. B+(**) Blood Orange: Cupid Deluxe (2013, Domino): Second album, the one I missed (although I'm surprised; cover is certainly familiar). Plays it close, but less fractured than the new one, in some cases clear enough for pop, but somehow beyond all that. B+(***) Cachao Y Su Combo: Descargas Cubanas (1957 [1994], Panart): Cuban bassist Israel López, regarded as "co-creator of the mambo and a master of the descarga (improvised jam sessions)." These appear to be his first sessions as leader, a dozen pieces mostly named for a featured instrument. The horns are impressive, the voices a little harsh, but the real star is the percussion. A- Chic: Chic (1977, Atlantic): First album, Napster now lists them as "classic disco," with the girls on the cover and the guys -- Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards -- in the grooves. I didn't catch on until their third album, but have probably heard most of this on their two volume Rhino best-ofs. Even retrospectively, the hit barely has a gimmick, the strings are cliché, and the voices are thin. B Chic: C'est Chic (1978, Atlantic): They're learning to trust their bass/guitar lines, and with "Le Freak" even the singers perk up. Nothing else jumps out like that, but "I Want Your Love" is a worthy second single. They're getting somewhere. B+(**) Chic: Les Plus Grand Succès de Chic (Chic's Greatest Hits) (1977-79 [1979], Atlantic): Seems a little soon to cash in with a "best of" after a mere three albums, especially with the third, Risqué filling up a whole LP side (and in the US release, not reprising the actual hit). On the other hand, not exactly the same thing, with two songs in 8+ minute dance versions, others in shorter radio edits. B+(***) Chic: Real People (1980, Atlantic): Most songs are just tasty funk lines tagged with a slogan that gets repeated endlessly, with scant regard for making sense; e.g.: "26 / My baby's a 26 / On a scale of 1 to 10 she's a 26." Sure, it doesn't add up, until it does. A- Count Ossie and the Mystic Revelation of Rastafari: Grounation (1973 [2016], Dub Store, 2CD): Tokyo record store, trying their hand at the reissue business, starting with this Jamaican drummer, a founding figure in a primitivist rastafarian strain called nyabinghi -- I tend to think of it as campfire music, so far out in the sticks you can't imagine it in a studio. Pretty scattered, although the 15:08 title track and its 15:05 "Continued" are remarkable. B+(***) [bc] The Mystic Revelation of Rastafari: The Roots of Reggae (1973 [2001], Recording Arts, 2CD): Same sessions, had this sitting on my shelf for ages, the plus a booklet that turns out not to be all that useful. B+(***) [cd] Dälek: From Filthy Tongue of Gods and Griots (2002, Ipecac): Hip-hop trio from New Jersey -- rapper is MC Dälek (Will Brooks), others listed as Oktopus (producer) and Still (turntables), with additional personnel including DJ Rek. Key concept is to muscle hip-hop up with layered noise, drawing on precursors like My Bloody Valentine and Einstürzende Neubauten, and this works best when they do just that. B+(**) Delaney & Bonnie and Friends: D&B Together (1971 [1972], Columbia): Delaney Bramlett was a session musician in LA in the mid-1960s, playing in the house band for Shindig!, a TV rock showcase. He married singer Bonnie O'Farrell, formed a bluesy duo, and started recording and touring with various friends -- Leon Russell, Eric Clapton, Duane and Gregg Allman (Wikipedia also lists Gram Parsons, Dave Mason, and George Harrison; Carl Radle and Jim Gordon were everywhere). They produced a couple of great albums, but their business always was a mess, and they were headed for breakup and divorce in 1973. This was their last album, originally released on Atco as Country Life. A couple songs here that resurface on their compilations, but with the "friends" numbering close to forty, this gets pretty hot and bothered. [Guitarists: Eric Clapton, Duane Allman, Dave Mason, Steve Cropper, plus John Hartford on banjo and Red Rhodes on steel; King Curtis is one of three saxophonists; Tina Turner and Rita Coolidge are among the dozens of extra vocalists.] B+(**) DJ Muggs: Muggs Presents: The Soul Assassins, Chapter 1 (1997, Columbia): The beatmaster from Cypress Hill rounds up various artists ranging from coast to coast (from Dr. Dre to RZA/GZA, anyhow), with three Mob/Mobbs in between. Catchiest for me is Wyclef's "John 3:16," but it all flows neatly together. B+(***) Anna Domino: East and West (1984, Les Disques du Crépuscle, EP): Singer-songwriter, an army brat born in Tokyo, grew up in Ann Arbor, Firenze, and Toronto before winding up in New York and getting signed to a Belgian label. Five-cut debut, 22:55. Hard to peg. Christgau tried "hypnotic with no cosmic aspirations." B+(***) Anna Domino: East and West + Singles (1984 [2017], Les Disques du Crépuscle): CD reissue adds three increasingly catchy singles and a demo, getting us to a respectable 38:19. A- Anna Domino: Anna Domino (1986, Les Disques du Crépuscle): First full album, ten cuts (more on later reissues), leans a bit more on dance beats but that doesn't seem to be the point. Not sure what is. B+(**) Anna Domino: This Time (1987, Les Disques du Crépuscle): The last album I noticed by her, although I see now that she released three more over the next three years before she gave up (although she returned in the alt-folk Snakefarm in 1999, and again in 2011). Wouldn't say she's slipping here, but she's growing less distinctive, more solid. B+(**) [cd] Clint Eastwood & General Saint: Stop That Train (1983, Greensleeves): DJ duo, given names Robert Brammer and Winston Hislop, did two albums together, the first (Two Bad D.J.) the better, but this one adds to their shtick: catchy grooves and obvious jokes. B+(***) Alton Ellis: Alton Ellis Sings Rock and Soul (1967, Coxsone): Rocksteady singer's first album, covers as advertised given the Studio One treatment, not that all of them can handle it. B+(*) Eminem: Eminem Presents the Re-Up (2006, Shady/Interscope): Spoils after Eminem's first string of hit records, from 1999 up to his Curtain Call: The Hits collection in 2005, featuring the label exec on the first two songs plus a few more down the stretch. Of course, the idea was to showcase the label mates he collected, guys like Obie Trice, Ca$shis, Stat Quo, and Bobby Creekwater -- the only ones you're likely to have heard of are 50 Cent, Nate Dogg, maybe Lloyd Banks. One voice stands out, of course, but not because he's aiming to. B+(*) Th' Faith Healers: Lido (1992, Elektra): British experimental/noise rock group, cut this debut and one more album in 1994, with Roxanne Stephen vocals, backed by guitar-bass-drums. Dense, distorted guitar tension comes in waves, threatening to drag you under, but turns appealing when you go with it. A- Fall Out Boy: From Under the Cork Tree (2005, Island): Rock band from Illinois, second album, got a big label push here and went double-platinum. Part of the push included sending me an advance and a lot of hype. Didn't look very interesting, so I put it aside figuring I'd consider it again when they sent a final copy, which never happened. Five albums later, four chart-toppers, and I've never noted enough critical interest to make me wonder what I missed. Only the bookkeeping matter brought me back here. They sound hard and dense, enough so you don't mind not hanging on every word, possibly because you suspect there's really not much there in the first place. But then I pretty much figured that out before I didn't bother listening to them when they were "the next big thing." B- Clinton Fearon: Mi Deh Yah (2010, Makasound/Makafresh): Pointed to this by an Xgau Sez submission, proclaiming it the "best Reggae album since prime Marley, Spear, Toots, Culture and probably stronger than any single offering from any of them." Not that great, but retains much of that 1970s reggae vibe, echoing a number of period stars. Fearon played bass and sang backup in the Gladiators (1976-82, behind Albert Griffiths), before he moved to Seattle and started a solo career. Hadn't heard of him, and although Griffiths and the Gladiators rang a bell. Good tip. B+(***) The Follow: Up With the Sun (2006, Oni Music): Rock band from Columbia, MO, Troy and Amy Rickertsen on guitar and bass, plus Mat Matlack on drums. Eight albums 1997-2015, but still fairly minor. B- For a Life of Sin: A Compilation of Insurgent Chicago Country (1994, Bloodshot): Looks like a label sampler, but with catalog number BS 001 this looked forward, what you might call a vision statement. Most of these artists never recorded full albums for the label -- Jon Langford, Robbie Fulks, Freakwater, the Bottle Rockets, and the Riptones were the exceptions, with the Handsome Family the one that got away. Inauspicious, but the label developed into one of my favorites a decade later, and their reputation for left-wing alt-country remains strong enough I still check out nearly everything they release. B Heinz Geisser-Guerino Mazzola Duo: Folia/The Unam Concert (2000 [2001], Silkheart): Swiss duo, percussion and piano, recorded in Mexico City, intense, energetic free improv, loud and chaotic. B+(*) Howe Gelb: Dreaded Brown Recluse (1991, Restless): Singer-songwriter, has released 27 albums since 1985 as Giant Sand, another 23 under his own name, and has used a few more aliases along the way. This was actually the first album he put his name to. Puts a lot of emphasis on harsh guitar riffing, then he sits down at the piano and talks up some free association. B+(***) The Gladiators: Presenting the Gladiators (1969-76 [2006], Sankofa): A first gathering of twelve singles, although I can't say they're the best of the crop -- "Rainy Night in Georgia" is the one that bothers me most -- nor do they clearly present the group, other than to point out that after ska and pop failed they started to reinvent themselves as roots-rasta. B+(*) The Gladiators: Studio One Singles (1969-78 [2007], Heartbeat): A second collection of early singles for Albert Griffiths' roots-rasta group, not especially catchy but the basic riddim keeps you going. Several are followed by dub versions, or "Pt. 2" B-sides. B+(**) The Golden Palominos: Blast of Silence (Axed My Baby for a Nickel) (1986, Celluloid): Drummer Anton Fier's boho-rock "group" -- bassist Bill Laswell and what seems like an ever-expanding circle of hangers-on: twenty this time, three-quarters famous enough I don't have to rack my brain for but improbable together (not that I've done the diagramming to see just who played with whom). Less jazz, more country, not that either end stands out. On the other hand, Jack Bruce's piece sounded pretty good, but even it ran on too long. B- Stefan Grossman: Guitar Landscapes (1990, Shanachie): Folk guitarist from Brooklyn, learned fingerpicking style by studying with Rev. Gary Davis and listening to dozens of other blues masters. Early albums had titles like The Gramercy Park Sheik (1969) and The Ragtime Cowboy Jew (1970). This is one of his last -- only two more after 1990. B+(*) Guy: The Future (1990, MCA): R&B trio from New York, recorded two albums 1988-90 (plus a third for a 2001 reunion), popularized the term "new jack swing" for their funk beats and hip-hop rap-song. This is their second, a long one, which might have seemed like the future when it was released but sounds more like the past now. B+(**) John Hartford: Me Oh My, How the Time Does Fly: A John Hartford Anthology (1976-84 [2003], Flying Fish): Banjo-playing folksinger, grew up in St. Louis, developing a fixation on the Mississippi River -- his first Flying Fish album was called Mark Twang. This anthology originally came out in 1986, the CD bringing the sample to 18 tracks from 9 albums. B+(**) Jon Hassell: Vernal Equinox (1977 [1978], Lovely Music): Trumpet player, born in Memphis, studied in Rochester, Köln (with Karlheinz Stockhausen), and Buffalo -- where he ran into Terry Riley and LaMonte Young, and developed an interest in traditional musics of the world, sending him off to India to study with Pandit Pran Nath. He coined the term "Fourth World" to describe his integration of primitive exotic musics with advanced electronics, finally getting noticed with his 1980 collaboration with Brian Eno: Fourth World Vol. 1: Possible Musics. Before that, he recorded two albums: this the first, with his trumpet hovering over scattered percussion (mostly Nana Vasconcelos and David Rosenboom) and electronics. Nothing real special, but a fair proof of concept. B+(**) Jon Hassell: Earthquake Island (1978, Tomato): Second album, Hassell plays Arpstrings and Polymoog as well as trumpet, adds Badal Roy and Dom Um Romao to Nana Vasconcelos on percussion, Brazilian guitars, Miroslav Vitous on bass, and bits of voice, nonetheless making the album sound more ambient. B+(*) Jon Hassell: Power Spot (1983-84 [1986], ECM): After three of his "fourth world" albums on Eno's Editions EG, Hassell makes a brief stopover at ECM, where he planted the seeds for later jazztronica -- (a minor interest of the label, but enough to bring us Nils Petter Molvaer and Nik Bärtsch, as well as one more Hassell album in 2009. Here he seems to have given up on the exotic percussion, while doubling down on electro groove. And, as always, the trumpet provides just the right human touch to keep the machines in their place. Produced by Eno and Daniel Lanois. A- Jon Hassell: Maarifa Street (Magic Realism 2) (2005, Nyen): Ambient exotica, with Peter Freeman's programming, John Beasley's keyboards, Dhafer Youssef's oud and voice, and Abdou Mboup's drums, the trumpet present but not really in charge (at least until Paolo Fresu guests). B+(**) William Hooker Quartet: Lifeline (1988 [1989], Silkheart): Drummer, the first track a 50-minute set at the R.A.W. Jazz Festival (stands for Real Art Ways), with two alto saxophonists (Alan Michael and Claude Lawrence) plus William Parker on bass; the remaining 18:02 a different quartet with tenor sax (Charles Compo), trombone, and piano. Former includes some spoken word, with the saxes under Ornette's spell. Latter tracks have more muscle, and are better for it. B+(*) William Hooker Ensemble: The Firmament Fury (1989 [1994], Silkheart): Actually, small groups: a duo with Claude Lawrence (alto sax), trio with Charles Compo (tenor/soprano sax) and Masahiko Kono (trombone), quartet adding Donald Miller (guitar), drum solo at the end. The larger groups are better, but the drummer's solid too. B+(**) Abdullah Ibrahim: African Piano (1969 [1973], Japo): South African pianist, solo recorded in Jazz-Hus Montmartre, Copenhagen, originally released as Dollar Brand in 1970. B+(***) The Itals: Brutal Out Deh (1981, Nighthawk): Rasta vocal trio, had five years together after solo careers to get their shit together for this, their first album. B+(***) Rick James: Street Songs (1981, Gordy): Funk singer, first album went gold in 1978, but he trailed off after that, until this (his fifth) became his biggest hit. Can't say as this has aged gracefully, although "Super Freak" is twice the highlight, better at 7:05 than at 3:24. B+(*) Flaco Jiminez: Arriba El Norte (1969-80 [1989], Rounder): San Antonio-born accordion player, father a conjunto pioneer who put him on stage at age 7, has long been the most accessible of Tex-Mex stars, playing with Doug Sahm in the 1960s, the guy Ry Cooder turned to when he wanted some Chicken Skin Music, eventually a founder (with Sahm and Freddy Fender) of Texas Tornados. B+(**) Flaco Jiminez: Entre Humo Y Botellas (1982-87 [1989], Rounder): This picks up his 1980s work, a nice set that won't blow anyone away. B+(*) J-Live: All of the Above (2002, Coup d'Etat): Jean-Jacques Cadet, aka Justice Allah, day job teaching English in Brooklyn, second album (six more up to 2015). B+(*) David Johansen: In Style (1979, Blue Sky): Former singer for the New York Dolls, notorious for their makeup and poses, but actually produced two of the most vital rock albums of 1973-74. Second solo album. Still sounds much like his old band, which of course always sounded like him, but only the title cut stands out. (Well, also "Wreckless Crazy.") B+(**) David Johansen: Here Comes the Night (1981, Blue Sky): Third solo album, seems to be distancing himself, maybe losing touch, although in the end he comes up with a great song the Dolls couldn't have done: "Heart of Gold." B+(***) David Johansen: Live It Up (1982, Blue Sky): Starts with an Animals medley, moves on to the Four Tops, winds up with two NY Dolls songs, mostly tapping his superior solo debut for filler. Puts on a hot show. B+(**) David Johansen: David Johansen and the Harry Smiths (2000, Chesky): Having run his retro-swing Buster Poindexter concept into the ground, Johansen takes advantage of the 1997 6-CD reissue of Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music to dig deeper into folk-blues. He makes for a credible blues singer, and the band is up to the task. B+(*) Freedy Johnston: The Trouble Tree (1990, Bar/None): Singer-songwriter from Kinsley, KS, first album. I had an aunt who taught fourth grade there, so I asked her about Johnston and she recalled the family, but not teaching him -- came off a farm south of town, which never struck me as very good land (though probably better than my family's homestead in nearby Hodgeman County). The guitar -- indeed, his whole demeanor -- seems tougher here than on later albums: a strong showing, probably took a while to sink in. A- Freedy Johnston: Never Home (1997, Elektra): Fifth album, after such masterpieces as Can You Fly and This Perfect World, one more exceptional collection of songs -- he makes it seem easy, but it surely isn't. A- Freedy Johnston: Right Between the Promises (2001, Elektra): Cover shows him standing on asphalt in front of cheap hotel rooms, looking markedly older but still slinging his guitar. Some more good songs, a couple of relative dull spots. B+(**) Freedy Johnston: The Way I Were (1986-92 [2004], Bar/None): Early demos, on the label that released his first two albums. B+(***) Darius Jones Quartet: Book of Mae'bul (Another Kind of Sunrise) (2012, AUM Fidelity): Alto saxophonist, tremendous talent but can get way too noisy for my taste. He does manage to keep this one under control, mostly by listening to pianist Matt Mitchell, who does a lovely job. Also with Trevor Dunn (bass) and Ches Smith (drums). B+(**) Kid Creole and the Coconuts: To Travel Sideways (1993 [1995], Atoll): August Darnell's new wave Caribbean fantasy band, beyond brilliant 1980-83, or -85 or later (I was a huge fan of 1991's You Shoulda Told Me You Were). Still, after Sire lost and Columbia dropped them, their 1990s albums became hard to find, with this and its successor only appearing in the US after fans in France and Japan got first shot. For once, feels like coasting, or maybe that's the title concept. Especially unsettling is "The Anniversary Medley," with its laconic versions of their own classics. B Kid Creole & the Coconuts: Kiss Me Before the Light Changes (1994 [1995], Atoll): Partial return to form, at least beatwise. B+(**) Kid Creole & the Coconuts: The Conquest of You (1997, SPV): Released originally in Germany, with a US reissue in 2005. This one's a complete return to form, with tremendous rhythm, wit, elegance, and plenty of dancing coconuts. Even some rap. A- Kid Creole & the Coconuts: Lost Paradize Edits (1980-83 [2012], ZE): Remixes, picking up sixteen songs from four years and four brilliant albums, hardening the beats and raising the noise level, neither of which help. B+(*) Joachim Kühn: I'm Not Dreaming (1983, CMP): German pianist, discography starts in 1969, mixed group here with trombone (George Lewis), cello, percussion, and Herbert Försch on marimba and pipe organ. Always an impressive pianist, the trombone adds something interesting, less sure about the rest. B+(*) Joachim Kühn: Dynamics (1990, CMP): Solo piano, often impressive. B+(**) Lambchop: How I Quit Smoking (1996, Merge): Lo-fi alt-country band from Nashville, Kurt Wagner the frontman, shows a modest touch as it plods through these light but endearing tunes. B+(*) Christine Lavin: Good Thing He Can't Read My Mind (1988, Philo): Folk-based singer-songwriter, fifth album, a free thinker with a sense of humor, still rather prim -- several years away from titles like Getting in Touch With My Inner Bitch and I Don't Make This Stuff Up, I Just Make It Rhyme. B+(**) The Leaves: Hey Joe (1966 [1993], One Way): Garage band from Los Angeles, title cut was a minor hit, earning them a slot on Nuggets. They recorded two albums: this the first plus five extra tracks for the CD reissue. B+(*) The Leaving Trains: Favorite Mood Swings (Greatest Hits 1986-1995) (1986-95 [1997], SST): Post-punk band from Los Angeles, released seven albums and a couple of EPs on SST, this wrapping them up in one neat package, missing one early and two later albums. First half doesn't really grab you, but a stretch near the end is much more impressive -- including two cuts from an EP I like, Loser Illusion Pt. 0. B+(***) Ray Lema: Kinshasa-Washington D.C.-Paris (1983, Celluloid): From Congo, moved to US then to France in 1982, a journey nicely summed up here, on one of his first albums. Plays keyboards, so not as guitar-centric as most soukous, but the rudiments are there, and he adds some flair. B+(*) Laurie Lewis: Restless Rambling Heart (1986, Flying Fish): Singer-songwriter from California, got into folk music through festivals in Berkeley, picked up the fiddle in addition to guitar and string bass, graduated into bluegrass. Second album, the twang barely acquired, but quite lovely. B+(***) Bob Lind: You Might Have Heard My Footsteps: The Best of Bob Lind (1966-67 [1993], EMI): Singer-songwriter, had what turned out to be a novelty hit in 1965 ("Elusive Butterfly"), parlayed that into the two Jack Nitzsche-produced produced albums collected here, a better-known album on Verve Folkways (The Elusive Bob Lind, not here), and a 1971 swansong on Capitol. Nitzsche wrapped his folkie guitar in anonymous strings, occasionally adding orchestral effects. B Shane MacGowan and the Popes: The Rare Oul' Stuff (1994-97 [2001], ZTT): Former frontman of the Pogues, basically a punk rock group with a lot of Irish brogue. After they broke up, his new band offered a hint and a joke for two albums, 1994-97, and this odds-and-sods collection, mostly singles, EP cuts, and live bits. B+(**) Maroon: The Funky Record (1987 [1988], Arb): Rap duo -- Will E.P. (William Pfaum) and MK Chilly Dog (Martin Kierszenbaum) -- met in Ann Arbor, recorded this one album. Christgau liked it, I bought a copy (evidently the first release, without cover art), never graded it, don't know whether I still have the copy. Skinny beats, quirky smartass humor, and, yes, funky. [Looks like there's a 30th anniversary "Special Edition" with extra cuts, but I haven't heard them.] A- [sc] Loreena McKennitt: An Ancient Muse (2006, Verve/Quinlan Road): Canadian singer-songwriter, plays piano, harp, and accordion; draws her music from local Mennonite traditions, from her Irish and Scottish heritage, and from various world musics, especially Middle Eastern. Seventh album, first after a nine-year gap. Opening "Incantation" didn't sound promising, but the Celtic harp offers a nice surrounding for her voice, and every little bit of beat helps. B+(**) Ras Michael & the Sons of Negus: Nyabinghi (1974, [2006], Charly): Michael George Henry, First album, group basically a drum circle to which the leader chant-sings refrains that are scarcely removed from nursery rhymes. In later albums like Rally Round he/they got really good at this. [Included in a 1998 Trojan reissue along with Dadawah: Peace & Love. B+(**) Ras Michael: Know Now (1989, Shanachie): Fifteen years in, he's developed into a seasoned performer, kept the faith, but lost something in the drums. B+(*) Mighty Diamonds: Right Time (1976, Virgin): Jamaican vocal trio, first album, I missed it at the time, figuring that Island had a lock on the best reggae groups. Or maybe I just thought the young men on the cover looked too cute. Still, they're right with Jah and deeply concerned for the world. A- Charles Mingus: Shoes of the Fisherman's Wife . . . (1959-71 [1988], Columbia): Had to cobble this compilation together from other sources, with six tracks from 1959 (with two Ellingtons) and the title track (continues, ". . . Are Some Jive Ass Slippers") from a 1971 big band project. Not an essential pairing, but the title piece does sound better here than in the 1972 album Let My Children Hear Music). B+(**) Roscoe Mitchell/Brus Trio: After Fallen Leaves (1989 [1994], Silkheart): Swedish group -- Arne Forsén (piano), Ulf Åkerhielm (bass), Gilbert Matthews (drums) -- recorded a couple of albums (1984-92) on their own, three with guest saxophonists (the others: Charles Tyler, John Tchicai). Starts with Mitchell on flute as if they're trying to spin some chamber jazz. Stronger when he moves to alto sax, better still when all hell breaks loose, then for some reason they quiet down. B+(*) Pablo Moses: Pave the Way (1981, Mango): Reggae singer, also a producer (if memory serves), hit-and-miss although 1983's In the Future is a keeper. This was his third album, the one previous, but better distributed as Island/Mango cornered (actually, built) the US market for reggae. B+(*) Pablo Moses: Pave the Way Dub (1998, Tabou): Dub remixes of the 1981 album, the nine titles renamed (usually not by much, stretched out a bit, vocals trimmed but not absent. Doesn't help much, but doesn't hurt either. B+(*) Pablo Moses: Pave the Way + Dubs (1981-98 [2004], Young Tree, 2CD): Combines both slices. B+(*) Art Neville: His Specialty Recordings: 1956-58 (1956-58 [1992], Specialty): Founder of the Meters (1965) and the Neville Brothers (1977), his only recordings under his own name a few singles -- one on Chess when he was 18, a few in the 1960s on Instant and Cinderella, but principally these twelve cuts (plus 8 demos for 20 cuts, 46:54). Once you get past the demos, this sounds pretty classic -- indeed, the most recognizable songs were hits for others, but his voice suits them perfectly. A- [cd] Mojo Nixon: Whereabouts Unknown (1995, Ripe & Ready): Born Neill Kirby McMillan Jr., genres listed as cowpunk and psychobilly, basically a comic who knows some choice blues chords. He cut six albums with Skid Roper 1985-90, my favorite 1989's Root Hog or Die, then called his next group the Toadliquors. Somehow, this solo album didn't even make his page in Wikipedia, but it finds him in a particularly fiery mood. I suppose I should distance myself from his paean to armed insurrection ("You Can't Kill Me"), but verbal outrage is his shtick. Sample lyric (referring, I think, to the first George Bush): "I ain't gonna be George Pussy's whore / You can't make me kill another man / . . . My free will just ain't willin'." A- Mojo Nixon: Gadzooks!!! The Homemade Bootleg (1997, Needletime): Rocks hard and rolls harder, can be simplistic ("I Like Marijuana") or crude ("The Poontango") or downright scatological ("Amsterdam Dogshit Blues"), and includes too many alcohol songs (although "Are You Drinkin' With Me Jesus" is a keeper). Even lifts a melody from the Velvet Underground. B+(**) No-Man: Schoolyard Ghosts (2008, K-Scope): British group, formed in 1993 with a dozen albums through 2012, this next to latest. Tempted to call this dream pop, almost ambient, plaintive vocals on a softly shimmering backdrop. B+(*) Johnny Osbourne: Truth and Rights (1979 [1980], Heartbeat): Jamaican reggae crooner, released a couple dozen albums 1979-91 (one earlier, one later), starting at Studio One with this fine effort. B+(**) Ozric Tentacles: Sunrise Festival (2007 [2008], Snapper): British instrumental rock band, started releasing cassettes in 1985 with a steady stream of albums through 2013, one in 2015, a tour in 2017. Strikes me as prog, quite a bit of liftoff, neither cheesy nor pretentious, but otherwise of little utility. B Paul Pena: Paul Pena (1972, Capitol): Singer-songwriter, grandparents immigrated from Cape Verde Islands, born with congenital glaucoma and blind by age 20, produced this debut album two years later, another in 1973 that didn't appear until 2000. Pena recorded nothing more until the late 1990s, when he learned Tuvan throat singing. By then, his health was failing, and he died at 55 in 2005. This has been out of print until it finally appeared on digital in 2011. Not easy to pigeonhole, especially up front, but by the time he gets to "Something to Make You Happy," he's got it. A- Buster Poindexter: Buster Poindexter (1987, RCA): David Johnansen put this novelty act together a decade after the New York Dolls broke up and he went solo. Mostly covers from the 1940s or earlier, songs he loves but they don't necessarily love him. B Buster Poindexter: Buster's Spanish Rocketship (1997, Island): Johansen's fourth (and last) BP album -- haven't heard Buster Goes Berserk or Buster's Happy Hour, but they mostly look like jump blues with an increasing set of originals compositions. All original pieces here, but the retro concept persists, fleshed out with rhumba rhythms and show-tune sets. Clearly, a lot of work went into this, but my patience wore out midway. B Portastatic Featuring Ken Vandermark & Tim Mulvenna: The Perfect Little Door (2001, Merge): Indie rock band, a side project for Superchunk singer-guitarist Mac McCaughan, recorded eight albums, a bunch of EPs and singles 1993-2009. With five cuts, this one is counted as an EP, but runs 33:39. The featured guests play sax and drums, avant-garde stars in Chicago but you'd hardly guess that here. First four cuts Vandermark barely provides some shading, but he does lead off the fifth, "When You Crashed," with a terrific (if not very far out) solo, accompanied by Mulvenna's jazz drums, before the guitar fades in, and after four minutes the leader's voice. B+(**) The Posies: Amazing Disgrace (1996, DGC): Power-pop band from Seattle, cut three albums for Geffen in their heyday, from 1990 to this one, before dropping back to minor labels, solo projects, and various regroupings. Their harmonies have a certain sweetness, but they don't seem to be very happy about anything -- while still clinging to the notion that "there has to be an upside." B+(*) Quodia: The Arrow: A Story in Seven Parts (2007, 7d Media): Comes with a DVD, which probably makes more explicit this "synthesis of music, theater, video art, and animation; a psychedelic contemporary parable." On its own you get spoken voice, sometimes backed with percussion (nice), sometimes melodramatic synths and cello (not so), even a bit of choir voice (ugh). Trey Gunn is the main voice. Regina Spektor does one piece I could do without. B- Ride Your Bike: Bad News From the Bar (2007, Deep Elm): Colorado band, Mike Getches the singer-songwriter, released two albums. Has a distinctive voice, emotional command, more than a few things to say. B+(**) Hal Russell-Joel Futterman Quartet: Naked Colours (1991 [1994], Silkheart): Alto saxophonist, born in Detroit 1926 as Harold Luttenbacher, was a protean figure in the Chicago avant-garde with his free jazz NRG Ensemble and his post-rock group, the Flying Luttenbachers (both figured in Ken Vandermark's early discography). Futterman is a pianist with Chicago connections and a Cecil Taylor fetish, and they're backed here by Jay Oliver (bass) and Robert Adkins (drums). B+(**) Hal Russell NRG Ensemble: The Finnish/Swiss Tour (1990 [1991], ECM): Group dates back to 1981, with two saxophonists (Russell and Mars Williams), Brian Sandstrom (trumpet, guitar, bass), Kent Kessler (bass), and Steve Hunt (drums/vibes), with several players trying on the didgeridoo. Kinda all over the place, but terrific when the avant-squall finds a hard beat (choice cuts: "Raining Violets," "Linda's Rock Vamp"). B+(***) Hal Russell: Hal's Bells (1992, ECM): Solo album. Not sure how much was overdubbed, but I can't imagine anyone playing sax and trumpet at the same time -- Russell was known as a saxophonist (tenor and soprano here) but majored in trumpet in college, so he dusted that off here, and breaks up the horn stretches by playing a lot of percussion instruments: especially vibraphone and marimba but also drums (he started there at age 4) and bells. B+(**) Shaggy: Pure Pleasure (1993, Virgin): Orville Richard Burrell, from Jamaica, moved to New York, joined the Marines for the first US invasion of Iraq, "perfected his signature singing voice in the Marine Corps." Back in Jamaica, he cut a dancehall version of the old ska hit "Oh Carolina" -- I've seen the two versions used to bookend a pretty definitive history of Jamaican music. As the 1980s progressed, reggae riddims hardened into dancehall beats, and Shaggy's gruff voice sealed the deal, making him a big star. B+(**) The Shangri-Las: Greatest Hits (1964-66 [1993], Charly): Girl group, initially two pairs of teenaged sisters (later a trio when the elder one got pregnant), produced by Shadow Morton. Cut two albums, two top-five singles ("Remember (Walking in the Sand)" and "Leader of the Pack"), 4 more top-twenty (including "Give Him a Great Big Kiss," later covered by the New York Dolls). Many "best-of" compilations -- the most generous is Mercury/Chronicles' 25-cut The Best of the Shangri-Las (1996), but this 20-cut edition is the one I happened to pick up. Choice non-hits: "Sophisticated Boom Boom," "He Cried." The early filler is just that, but the latter songs make you wish they had hung on. B+(**) The Shangri-Las: The Best of the Shangri-Las (1964-67 [1996], Mercury): I thought I'd isolate the eight songs on this 25-cut compilation not on Charly's Greatest Hits. Not much plus/minus here, and nothing essential dropped out (4 songs, like "The Boy"). B+(**) Shapes and Sizes: Shapes and Sizes (2006, Asthmatic Kitty): Canadian indie band, from Victoria, BC, later moved to Montreal. First of three albums, couple of singers, Caila Thompson-Hennant the best known (Cecile Believe, Mozart's Sister, a couple other bands). Kind of prog-ish. B- Pete Shelley: XL-1 (1983 [1995], Grapeview): Singer (guitarist) in the Buzzcocks, one of the better punk/new wave groups to emerge in late-1970s Britain, cut four solo albums 1980-86, of which this is the third. Tightens up the dance beats, not uncommon for new wavers in the 1980s. B+(**) Jo-El Sonnier: Cajun Roots (1994, Rounder): Cajun singer-songwriter, plays accordion, close to 30 albums since 1967, goes for roots revival here, sounding timeless. B+(***) Steel Pulse: Reggae Fever (1980, Mango): Reggae group from England (Birmingham), third album, released as Caught You in UK but Reggae Fever in US and Canada. B+(**) Steel Pulse: The Best of Steel Pulse [20th Century Masters: The Millennium Collection] (1978-91 [2002], Hip-O): Twelve cuts, front-loaded from their three Island records, one song each from three of their next five plus a stray single. I don't doubt their rasta cred or their political acumen, but they've always struck me as a little urbane, but I like how this winds up with "Taxi Driver." B+(***) Steel Pulse: Rastanthology (1978-96 [1996], Wise Man Doctrine): Presented as a 20-year history, later dubbed Vol. 1 after the 2006 Rastanthology II: The Sequel. Picks up six cuts from the early Island/Mango records, more from later labels, mixed up with no regard to chronology, and ends with a delightful cover of "When You're in Love With a Beautiful Woman" (Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show) -- no idea when it was recorded, but it came out as a single the year after it appeared here. A- [cd] Jason Stein & Tim Daisy: Alive at Woodland Pattern Book Center (2014, Relay): Bass clarinet and drums, from Chicago, improv duo here recorded live in Milwaukee. Digital only, so probably figured why not? B [bc] Stew: The Naked Dutch Painter . . . and Other Songs (2002, Smile): Mark Stewart, from Los Angeles, founded a group called the Negro Problem in 1997, did five albums through 2012, overlapping five solo albums from 2000-05, this in the middle of all that. B+(*) Sway and King Tech: Wake Up Show Freestyles, Volume 2 (1996, All City): Bay Area hip-hop duo, best known as DJs for the Wake Up Show, radio (I guess), eventually compiled eight volumes of "best freestyles" (1994-2004). Various artists, maybe a dozen I've heard of, closer to two dozen I haven't, done to the same beats, but they work fine. B+(**) Television: The Blow-Up (1978 [1982], ROIR, 2CD): Before I moved to New York, I had read reams about CBGB and the new bands starting out there, with Television the most instantly legendary. After I moved, they were the one band I never managed to see live, so I always figured I missed something there. I did happen to be in Robert Christgau's apartment when he first played Marquee Moon -- I watched him open his mail, and he cleared the turntable to play it immediately -- and while it sounded good to me, his reaction was far more famiiar, and ecstatic. The main reason I never saw them was that they broke up after two albums. (Indeed, Richard Hell split before the first, leaving only one 45 with his credit.) Not sure who initiated this project (originally an 85-minute cassette, split onto 2CD in a 1999 reissue), but Christgau and John Piccarella wrote the liner notes -- for some unknown reason we never managed to get them up on Christgau's website, so I've yet to read them. Christgau's argument is that this documents them as "a great guitar band." Second half is best in that regard, as they stretch "Little Johnny Jewell" and "Marquee Moon" out to 14-minutes each, then close with a blistering Stones cover ("Satisfaction"). Their Dylan cover isn't as well chosen. B+(***) Television: Television (1992, Capitol): After two albums, the band broke up, with Tom Verlaine recording seven solo albums 1979-92 to Richard Lloyd's three. Then they regrouped for this one-shot, broke up again, with neither artist recording much more. As songwriter and vocalist, this fits easily into Verlaine's solo progression, although Lloyd's slight edge in guitar solos may seem like a renovation.. B+(***) Steve Tibbetts: Steve Tibbetts (1976 [1995], Cuneiform): The guitarist's first album, a duo with Tim Weinhold on percussion, the leader actually credited with: "instruments, tape effects, vocals, and engineering." Several sources put him in fusion, which I had never heard but figured might be an early thing. Still, this started out sounding almost as pastoral as his latest, until midway when he started adding electronics and picking up speed. The blurb describes this as "an unholy mix of finger-style guitar Americana with the psychedelic spirit and effects of Jimi Hendrix." I can't say as he earns either end of that spectrum, but the closer ("How Do You Like My Buddha?") is one terrific piece of music. B+(**) [bc] Steve Tibbetts: Yr (1980 [1988], ECM): Second album, originally released in 1980 by Frammis, reissued after the guitarist had moved on to ECM. Tibbetts plays guitar, keyboards, mandolin, dobro, sitar, kalimba, and "easy percussion" -- leaving the trickier bells and bongos to Tim Weinhold and Marc Anderson, plus tabla by Marcus Wise or Steve Cochrane. I do here more echoes of Fahey this time, wrapped in exotic percussion, and it becomes more fun when he turns it up (e.g., "You And It"). B+(**) Big Joe Turner: Rhythm & Blues Years (1952-59 [1986], Atlantic): Blues shouter from Kansas City, most of his early work was with boogie-woogie pianists like Pete Johnson. Was past 40 when Atlantic signed him and pointed him toward rock and roll, although only two of his songs broke out of R&B to the pop charts ("Corrine, Corrinna" and "Honey Hush"). I've long recommended his 14-cut Greatest Hits (on Atlantic), which doesn't intersect with this 32-track companion set. Nothing here really strays from the blues fold, but then it never did. B+(***) UB40: Signing Off (1980, Virgin): British reggae band, multi-racial, from Birmingham (like Steel Pulse), first album. Beats draw on dub. Some of the catchier tunes I know from their 1980-83 compilation, which was the point we started paying attention to them. B+(***) UB40: Present Arms (1981, Virgin): Second album, also flows into 1980-83 but stands a bit more on its own. Trademark style: after the songs they just slip into an extended groove, which satisfies as well. A- UB40: UB44 (1982, DEP International): Third album. The group is named after one UK welfare form, and the album title comes from another. This was a big hit in the UK, but seems awful subtle here. Again, the most impressive songs are so familiar I must have picked them up from 1980-83. The others follow in the group's neatly tended groove. [PS: Picked these three albums out of something called 5 Album Set, which finishes up with albums I knew well at the time: Labour of Love and Geffery Morgan, A and B+ respectively. Doule be a real bargain.] B+(***) Laura Veirs: Saltbreakers (2007, Nonesuch): Singer-songwriter, raised in Colorado, lives in Portland with husband-producer Tucker Martine with some jazz connections -- Eyvind Kang on viola, Keith Lowe on double bass, Bill Frisell on electric guitar (one cut). First album 1999, this her seventh. B+(*) Wailing Souls: Wild Suspense (1979, Mango): Another Jamaican vocal group, primarily Winston Matthews and Lloyd McDonald (with Garth Dennis here), originally formed in 1964 by Joe Higgs as the Renegades. They cut singles for Studio One, an album in 1975, then got this second one picked up by Island. Deep rasta roots, fine harmonies, first-rate studio band including Sly and Robbie. The 1995 reissue adds a bunch of dub remixes. I'm tempted to dock it a notch for trailing off, but while less interesting, it still has a certain charm. A- Wailing Souls: Wild Suspense + Dub (1979, Mango): B+(***) Caron Wheeler: Beach of the War Goddess (1993, Capitol): British soul singer, started in Brown Sugar and Afrodiziak, and most notably in Soul II Soul. Released a solo album, UK Blak, in 1990, then this one -- helped out by the odd rap. Runs long, but I liked "Naughty Eyes." B+(*) Andrew W.K.: I Get Wet (2001 [2002], Island): Initials short for last name Wilkes-Krier, born in Stanford, CA, grew up in Ann Arbor, father a famous legal scholar, went to elite prep schools, was serious about music from an early age. Still, his debut album is a straight-laced rip on arena rock party anthems -- a pretty good one. B+(***) Mia X: Unlady Like (1997, No Limit): Rapper Mia Young, from New Orleans, second album, a rare woman in this game at this time, which she handles by toughening up, and working in guest males. B+(*) X-Ecutioners: Built From Scratch (2002, Loud): Hip-hop group, four DJs (perhaps I should say turntablists?), raps pretty basic over basic beats and oodles of scratches. Theme seems to be "A Journey Into Sound," although you also get "Feel the Bass" and "Play That Beat" and "Let It Bang." B+(**) Miguel Zenón: Looking Forward (2001 [2002], Fresh Sound New Talent): The alto saxophonist's first album, fairly large group, mostly Latin specialists -- Diego Urcola (trumpet), David Sanchez (tenor sax), Luis Perdomo (piano), Ben Monder (guitar), Hans Glawischnig (bass), Antonio Sanchez (drums), plus two percussionists. Ambitious compositions go light on Latin tinge, aren't overly fancy, but don't really sink in either. Does have his sound set. B+(**) Tappa Zukie: In Dub (1976 [1995], Blood & Fire): David Sinclair, most commonly known as Tapper Zukie but his Discogs page some three dozen variations, and I'm finding chaos and confusion everywhere I look for him. His 1973 debut Man Ah Warrior is well regarded but has thus far escaped my review. Instead I found this, which is remarkably bright and spry for a dub album -- tuneful even. 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: Guy: Guy (1988, MCA): After listening to their second album, I figured I probably underrated their debut. More harmony, less funk. Underrated? A bit. [was: B] B+(*) David Johansen: David Johansen (1978, Blue Sky): First solo album, sounds like most of the songs were ready for a third New York Dolls album, and while such a thing would have been a step down from the first two, this fills the bill nicely now. Gave it another chance because I remembered more songs from it than is usual for B+ records. [was: B+] A- NotesEverything streamed from Napster (ex Rhapsody), except as noted in brackets following the grade:
Ask a question, or send a comment. Monday, August 27, 2018 Music Week
Music: current count 30216 [30165] rated (+51), 275 [310] unrated (-35). Running on a new server. I ordered the replacement from Hosting & Designs non Tuesday. Everything is kind of a blur now, but I think it was late Friday afternoon when I was finally able to log in and start configuring accounts and rebuilding websites. Unfortunately, we had a miscommunication on setting up the nameservers, so I didn't get DNS running properly until Saturday evening. I now recall that I made the same stupid error when we set up the initial server eight years ago. By Saturday night I had rebuilt four websites I had active copies of: hullworks.net, tomhull.com, carolcooper.org, and caroladibbell.com (the latter lost some pages that had been managed by WordPress). I'm still digesting a lot of server details -- I'm getting a lot more status email than I ever did before. The first message, even before I got my login directions, was a notice that hackers tried to login and have been blocked. I expected the Russians would chomp at the bit, but the first blocked address was from China, the second from the US, then half a dozen other countries (Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Colombia, France, Thailand) before Russia showed up. I've been saving those notices, and have 30-40 blocked IPs so far. Nothing very troubling so far, but I can't say as I understand it all. One thing that happened last time was that some of my website software broke because the security setup blocked some of the PHP functions I was using. So far that does not appear to have happened. Still, the server has moved from PHP 5 to PHP 7, and that transition broke a lot of things when I changed my local server several months back. I'd appreciate it if you'd be on the outlook for breakage and let me know so I can get it fixed. This particular server change does not affect robertchristgau.com, but I'm still mid-stream in dealing with similar issues there. I still have four more websites to set up, but three are basically empty stubs, and I'm waiting on some configuration info for the fourth. So, I figured those could wait a bit, and like God, I decided to take a day of rest. Well, of doing some of my own writing. I came up with Weekend Roundup, but didn't actually get it done until late afternoon Monday. Then, of course, there's this. After which, I'll have to do my first partial update of my website. Shouldn't be a problem, but I've been running into a lot of Murphy lately. My plan to start writing short, single-topic news/politics posts got put on hold with the server crash. The planned outlet is one of the WordPress websites I haven't set up yet. Still seems like the right thing to do, especially after juggling a half-dozen topics in Weekend Roundup. I wound up rather flummoxed by the Korea piece, which ran on through 16 paragraphs, leaving me thinking: it was too long, it didn't cover everything that needed to be covered, and it didn't come to a real conclusion. I have an idea for a simpler piece: a simple op-ed, on "Trump should start by ending the Korean War now." Then save the stuff on how American mental attitudes lead us to such stupid and arrogant policies. Another piece might be on McCain. I said pretty much what I wanted to say, but it doesn't feel like I made the points in proper order. And I added a couple of points today that could have been woven into the main piece. On the other hand, I probably understated the extent to which McCain has been a media creation, and what this says both about us and the media. Those two issues overwhelmed the week, but another half-dozen items deserve deeper, more focused treatment. I also have thoughts on Masha Gessen's book, The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia: not so much about the political system in Russia as the overall mindset which supports Putin, and how common that mindset is even in the United States. I'm reminded of much here, ranging from the classic studies by Arendt, Adorno, and Fromm (which Gessen cites) to Chris Hedges' still-important American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America (2012). Much to write about there. Not much to say about the music below. The new jazz queue had shrunk to almost nothing a couple weeks ago. It's back up to 20 records now, but most of them have September-October release dates, so they didn't seem very urgent. August is relatively slow for new releases. Several weeks ago I made an effort to catch up with many of the 2018 releases that showed up on mid-year lists, so I doubted more research now would yield much. But also, a couple weeks ago I started streaming records I have long listed as U (unrated) in my database. Some were old LPs I had long ago but never jotted down a grade for. Most were used CDs I bought at closeout sales c. 2000-2004, when I was still buying a lot of CDs on spec, before I started getting all the promos I could handle. And some were promos I received but didn't find time to get to (mostly non-jazz from 2006-07; pending counts from 2005-17 are: 6, 20, 14, 6, 4, 8, 8, 2, 1, 0, 1, 0, 2). My unrated list peaked over 900, but I've been slowly knocking it down for many years now. I took a big chunk out of it last week, dropping under 300 for the first time since I've been counting, winding up at 275. Early in the week I worked off the database rock files. Later on I just pulled all the unrateds out regardless of where they came from. I also started collecting a list of Christgau A-list records I hadn't heard (or at least graded), and occasionally tried something there. Three of this week's six A- records came from Christgau's A-list (Amy Allison's No Frills Friend, Chic's Real People, and Paul Pena). Two came from my unrated CDs (Amédé Ardoin, Art Neville). The other Amy Allison record I just picked up when I was in the neighborhood. I'll probably continue the tactic another week or so, but at this point half of what I look up isn't on Napster. On the other hand, I do presumably have physical copies of these records, somewhere, and I've started to find and play some (Art Neville was one). On the other hand, I'm likely to have a lot of distractions the next couple of weeks. The new server and the Christgau website still need a lot of work. I'm trying to wrap up one last pass through the Notebook, this time to collect all of the non-jazz reviews and most of the non-review scraps I've written on music. The former I hope to hand over to Michael Tatum, in the hopes that he can fix my mistakes, flesh out the many places where I'm too cryptic (or evasive), and fill in the numerous gaps. I doubt the latter has any value as a book, but it should make it easier to find scraps that can be used elsewhere. I'm currently in 2009, so about half of the way through. When I'm done, I will have hacked the notebook into nine volumes, ranging from 800 to 1,800 pages each -- should run close to 15,000 pages in total. It's most of what I have to show for nearly two decades of ranting and raving "on the web." August ends on Friday, so if nothing major breaks I'll post a Streamnotes by then. Currently the draft file includes a very low 32 new records, 3 recent compilations, 137 old records, and 2 grade changes, so 173 total records. That's a pretty big month -- I should check whether I've ever topped it. (Let's see: the most ever for a column was 206 on November 8, 2009, but that covered 41 days after September 28; the most on a monthly schedule was 185 for November, 2013, followed by 179 for September, 2015. The most so far this year was 165 in February, followed by 163 in July and 157 in January. Not much chance I'll top 206, but 185 is possible, and 179 is likely.) 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, August 26, 2018 Weekend RoundupLaura and I were invited to a discussion on "the ethics of nuclear weapons" at the UU Church last night. My late sister was a member of that church, so it was nice to see a number of her old friends there. We didn't really prepare for the official topic, but instead spent most of the time talking about Korea. I wasn't very pleased with the way the discussion went: mostly, it turned on one person's argument, an intractable set of beliefs I'd sum up as follows:
This is probably a pretty common cluster of beliefs, at least among people who are old enough to have swallowed whole the dominant American propaganda line of the late Cold War era, and the self-congratulatory platitudes that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union. (At the time, I likened this to a wrestling match, where one fighter collapses of a heart attack in the ring, and the other pounces on top of the carcass to claim victory.) As with most myth, there are kernels of fact buried in the fantasy. During WWII, the Soviet Union avoided a two-front war by signing a non-aggression treaty with Japan, allowing them to concentrate their war effort against Germany. After Hitler fell, Truman lobbied Stalin to declare war on Japan. The Soviet Union complied, and two weeks before the US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Soviet troops invaded the Japanese puppet regime in Manchuria, pushing into Korea. When Japan surrendered, the US and the Soviet Union agreed to partition Korea (a Japanese colony since 1910) at the 38th Parallel. Both powers installed presumably loyal dictators: Kim Il Sung in the North, Syngman Rhee in the South. Both dictators harbored ambitions of unifying Korea under their own rule, and started to arrest anyone they suspected of sympathy for the other. In June 1950, faced with massive arrests of communist sympathizers in the South, Kim's forces invaded the South in an attempt to seize power there. The South's forces were initially overwhelmed, but the US organized a counterattack and by October had almost completely conquered the North. At that point, Chinese "volunteers" infiltrated North Korea, and forced US forces to retreat, eventually establishing a stalemate along what in 1953 became the armistice line, flanked on both sides by a demilitarized zone. With both sides claiming the right to rule the whole of Korea, neither side was willing to declare the war ended, or to normalize relations. However, 65 years later, despite much ill will from both sides, that border has held, with neither side showing any active interest in restarting a war which in 1950-53 had been utterly devastating. Since 1953, North and South Korea have evolved in very different ways. The South eventually overthrew the US-installed dictatorship, and developed into a flourishing democracy, with a strong export-driven economy dominated by huge industrial combines. The command economy in the Communist North grew rapidly through the 1960s, but stalled after that, while the government itself, with its hugely expensive military sector, grew increasingly isolated and paranoid. The US and its allies had always shunned relations with North Korea, and the North became even more isolated as the Soviet Union collapsed and China focused increasingly on trade with the West. From the 1990s on, the only times North Korea managed to get any attention from the US was when they threatened to develop nuclear weapons -- something they have now succeeded at, including ICBM rockets that can deliver nuclear warheads to the continental US. This raises a whole bunch of questions. To start at what's more logically the end, why does the US care whether North Korea has nukes? No nation has used nuclear weapons since 1945, when he US destroyed two Japanese cities, killing some 250,000 people, but that happened in a context that we haven't come close to reproducing since: at the end of a genocidal World War which killed over 50 million people and left two continents devastated, and at a time when the bombs were new, poorly understood, and possessed by only one nation, one which had no reason to fear retaliation. America's nuclear monopoly ended in 1947, when the Soviet Union tested its first atomic bomb, shortly followed by the UK (which had collaborated in the Manhattan Project), and in the 1960s by France and China -- and later still by Israel, India, Pakistan, South Africa (since dismantled), and North Korea.. Many other nations possess the know how and wherewithal to build nuclear weapons -- the most obvious are Germany and Japan, which build their own nuclear power plants (actually a good deal more difficult than bombs: starting a nuclear reaction is much easier than keeping it from blowing up) -- but others have given serious thought to the prospect. The reasons should be obvious, but we in the US have blind spots here. Such weapons are very expensive to develop, and even more so to maintain. They threaten, but have no practical utility. There are only two real reasons to develop them: one is ego -- the idea that mastering nulear power shows the world that a nation is a truly modern world power -- which seems to be the main motivation for the UK and France, and has figured into the calculations elsewhere. The other is to provide a deterrent against attack by a hostile power: for the Soviet Union, that was the US; for China the US and/or the Soviet Union; for India and Pakistan, each other (although India and China had a border war in the 1960s); for Israel, much larger neighboring Arab countries. South Africa developed their bombs when they were the last white colonial appendage left in Africa, and they dismantled them when the apartheid regime gave up. North Korea, of course, has lived under the threat of US nuclear weapons since the 1950-53 war started. At that time, there were loud voices in the US calling for using A-bombs there. It isn't clear whether those calls were ever seriously considered, but one might argue that the threat of Soviet retaliation quashed the idea. And ever since then US politicians have repeatedly threatened North Korea with their "all options are on the table" rhetoric. (Insert insane Trump tweet here.) Given all this, a rational observer would conclude that the sole reason North Korea developed nuclear weapons and missile delivery capability was to deter a possible US attack. If the US had no such plan, on what possible grounds could the US object? Yet the string of US presidents from Clinton through Trump have repeatedly thrown tantrums when faced with the prospect that North Korea might do to us what we could do to them a thousand times over. Rather, they've turned the issue of North Korea's potential capability into a test of American power -- one that has clearly failed now. Still, this is only a problem because American arrogance and obstinacy has made it one. Trump could unilaterally dismiss this problem by declaring that the United States has no desire ever to attack or impose its will on North Korea, but remains confident that it can respond to North Korean aggression -- even one employing nuclear weapons. Of course, Trump won't do this, because his administration is prisoner to a couple of serious misconceptions about how the world works. Most important, they think that a strong military posture makes us safe, and that from that position of strength they can dictate terms the rest of the world will have to comply to. The former is a stock line of American political debate which goes back as far as the 1790s when Alexander Hamilton wanted to build up the US Navy -- ostensibly for defense but more to poke our noses into excluded colonies (in the 1800s this was rechristened the Open Door policy; one door it opened was the rise of Japanese militarism, culminating in WWII). In point of fact, America is secure because we're a big, rich country that no other power can intimidate, let alone conquer. On the other hand, spreading US forces all around the world just invites resistance, making the US look unjust and vulnerable. Attempting to dictate terms further sets us up for failure, as we've seen all around the world: Cuba, Vietnam, all over the Middle East, Venezuela, Ukraine, Korea. But while most of the Korea problem is strictly in the heads of politicos in Washington -- note that John Bolton is the worst possible person to be directing national security -- two other questions need to be asked: What does North Korea want? And what does South Korea want? I don't doubt that Kim Il-sung never forgot his dream of reuniting Korea under his rule, he found it increasingly difficult to mount any sort of serious challenge, and died in 1994 with the country in crisis. His son and successor, Kim Jong-il, was 9 when the war started, so it remained a living memory for him, he took over during a famine and was preoccupied to his death in 2011 with consolidating his family hold on power, which he did through a quasi-religious personal cult combined with a major militarization of society. However, his successor, Kim Jong-un, wasn't born until 1983, long after the war, his formative years marked by the collapse of the Soviet Union, the market reforms of China, and the rise of South Korea to affluence: very different circumstances that should prefigure a different approach. I think it's fair to say that no one in America really understands how politics works in North Korea -- especially what sort of factions/coalitions exist and how power shifts between them -- but I think it is telling that Kim Jong-un hasn't adopted the Great/Dear Leader persona of his ancestors. He has continued the process of introducing market reforms started by his father, but those have been hampered by trade limits imposed by US and UN sanctions. It makes sense that he thinks that if he can end the sanctions, he can lead North Korea into an era of much greater prosperity. He just needs to be able to do that without surrendering political power. (Again, China is the model.) And it's long been speculated that more than deterrence North Korea's doomsday assets might be the one trading card the US might pay attention to. In short, what North Korea wants is security, continuity for the regime, and economic opportunity. In order to give up major defense forces, Kim has to be convinced that the US and South Korea aren't going to take advantage of his weakness and attack or try to subvert his regime. Trump has as much as said that he would take that deal. (He'd even be willing to consummate with a Trump golf resort on one of North Korea's beaches.) The problem doesn't seem to be where both want to wind up, but Trump's so enthralled by the notion that America has the power to bully others into submission that he's unwilling to take the obvious first step in suspending the sanctions (even after Kim suspended all bomb and missile testing -- the rationale for the sanctions in the first place). As for South Korea, it looks like the "happy solution" of the South absorbing the North into a single country and economy has lost much of its previous sentimental appeal. The two nations have been separate for 65 years, and the South has done very well as a result. It would be nice not to have the military threat the North poses hanging over them -- e.g., the thousands of pieces of artillery that could reduce Seoul (metro population 25.6 million) to rubble in hours. Moreover, they must realize that all these years the US has been "protecting" them from the North, the US has also been taunting the North, making their own lives more precarious. Beyond that, of course, opening up the North to travel and trade would be a plus. Throughout the recent negotiations, the Moon government has been the essential intermediary between North Korea and the US, flattering both to reduce tension and get things done. Moon is in a position where he could force the US to accept whatever deal he and Kim agree to. At the meeting we had some discussion of how the "German model" might apply to Korea. South Korea has about twice the population of the North (51-25 million), but about 60 times the GDP ($41,388 per capita vs. $1,800), a much tougher merger case than Germany, where the West had approximately 4 times the population (63-16 million) but only six times the GDP ($15,714 per capital vs. $9,679 in the East. Moreover, only an American would see German reunification as a "happy ending": it was very difficult, very expensive, and hasn't worked out all that well (25 years later, East German GDP is still just 67% of West). The "cold shock" models for converting previously Communist economies in Russia and Eastern Europe fared even worse in most cases. Nobody knows how to merge two economies so different, least of all anyone who thinks it's possible. Of course, most Americans can't even conceive of such a problem. But then they also have shown themselves to be remarkably indifferent to the harm their government thoughtlessly inflicts on other people. In fact, Republicans don't even seem to care about the harm their ideological policies and corrupt politics inflict on most Americans. Some Korea links:
Some scattered links this week:
Ask a question, or send a comment. Monday, August 20, 2018 Music Week
Music: current count 30165 [30119] rated (+46), 310 [325] unrated (-15). Server still down, so I'm writing this for posterity -- not for immediate consumption. Working in seclusion like this made it seem more appropriate to continue using Napster to look up albums in my database as unrated (things I have physical copies of, or had, but they're often difficult to locate in my clutter). I started this a couple weeks ago with reggae and rap, then I started with the rock lists: currently up to rock-90s, although I skipped some 2CD sets along the way, and couldn't find others. The old music list below is mostly '80s. Along the way, I started to compile a list of Christgau A-list albums I missed. Mostly this came into play only after I had an unrated album by an artist: e.g, I had two unrated Anna Domino albums, but Christgau had preferred her first, so I checked it out too; David Johansen (I had Buster Poindexter unrated, but had missed two A- records, and wound up checking out a couple more; another case where I went fairly deep was Freedy Johnston. I had one unrated Kid Creole album, and went further there just to satisfy my own curiosity. On the other hand, after Christgau's A- picks from Steve Arrington and Rick James didn't make the grade, I didn't feel compelled to look further. I figure I'll keep doing this for a while. August is always a slow month for new music -- indeed, most of the new jazz in my queue doesn't officially released until September -- so I don't feel much pressure to keep up. And with so much shit breaking all around me, focusing on the unrated list saves me from having to do a lot of research. It also, as this week shows, makes it much easier to keep the rated count up. Also, mixing in the Christgau picks where convenient makes it likely to find some A-list records of my own. (Lido and Never Home were Christgau picks, but Christgau didn't even review The Conquest of You and Whereabouts Unknown, so they came as big surprises.) Along the way, I also took the time to reconsider a couple of records that I had previously rated, but seemed like I might have underestimated way back when. David Johansen was a special case because I recalled a number of songs there with the sort of detail I often have trouble mustering for A-list albums these days. New records rated this week:
Old music rated this week:
Grade (or other) changes:
Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:
Ask a question, or send a comment. Monday, August 20, 2018 Weekend RoundupHere's a lead story for the week: Kofi Annan, former UN secretary general, has died at 80. Annan had the misfortune of being Secretary General at a time when the US decided to stop giving lip service to international institutions and go its own way with its own ad hoc "coalitions of the willing." He is remembered for consistently and presciently warning the US against Bush's invasion and occupation of Iraq. Nor was that the last time Annan failed tragically in the cause of peace. In 2012, the Arab League appointed him to mediate in Syria's civil war, but the US refused to participate, letting the war continue another six-plus years. See, e.g., Michael Hirsh: The Syria Deal That Could Have Been:
Philip Gourevitch: Kofi Annan's Unaccountable Legacy is far more critical of Annan, especially for the international failure to intervene in the Rwanda genocide. I don't doubt that Annan tended to blame the peacekeeping failures that plagued the UN during his tenure (and long before and ever since) on the members, who left the UN with few options. Still, one can counter that US interventions in Somalia and Kosovo fared no better, and probably made matters even worse. Some scattered links this week:
Ask a question, or send a comment. Monday, August 13, 2018 Music Week
Music: current count 30119 [30076] rated (+43), 325 [337] unrated (-12). Server crashed Thursday and has been down since, so I don't have anywhere to post this. Latest message says: "We are trying to get your server online today. Thank you again for your patience." Evidently it was damaged by a power surge, and it took a couple days for them to get the undamaged servers up. Second message had something about disk drives, suggesting they have some slow and tedious salvage method. Presumably the worst-case scenario is starting again from scratch on a new server -- probably faster, maybe a bit cheaper. Most of the websites are cloned or backed up elsewhere, so I don't expect much permanent loss -- although a couple have been managed to someone else, and I don't know the state of his backups. Reconfiguring all of the domains and accounts (8-10) isn't something I remember how to do, so will be a bit of a slog. Of course, this situation is somewhat worse coming a couple months after my local server crashed, costing me a lot of data loss. I've been able to rebuild my local copies of websites from the server, but differences in software revisions have caused a lot of code to break. I haven't been doing full updates since then, so things have gotten a bit precarious. (Robert Christgau's website is on its own virtual server, so is still up. I updated about 95 files recently, but still have a bunch more to work on before I can do a complete resynch.) I've been taking it easy since the disruption, trying to avoid panic and depression. So far, so good, but I imagine the cumulative weight of all this stress will take a toll. I'm sure not as confident in my mastery of this technology as I thought I was. Meanwhile, been playing music. Continued my scan through my reggae list, especially seeking out albums I previously owned and marked as U in my database. Wound up with just two U records left (both by Big Youth). Decided to play some Jon Hassell after that, starting with two albums I used to own but never got registered in the database, then picked up a couple more that Christgau had liked. Finally, moved on to U-rated rap albums, having a bit less success at finding them (still unrated: M.O.P.'s Handle Ur Bizness [EP], Twice Thou's The Bank Attack, MTV: The First 1000 Years: Hip-Hop. Moving on to the rock lists next. Maybe at some point doing this I'll knock the unrated list down to something I can print out and physically search for. Meanwhile, actually made a dent in the new jazz queue. I haven't been getting much, and most of what's been in the mail recently has September (or later) release dates, so didn't seem like a rush. Also took a look at Dan Phillips, who had sent me a download link for his latest a few months back. I downloaded it, but wound up reviewing it from Napster. Also found it and more on Bandcamp. I didn't go all completist on him, but did find one from 2017 I liked even more than the new one. (His Decaying Orbit, credited to Chicago Edge Ensemble, was also on my 2017 Jazz List.) Other main thing I've been doing has been to collect the political bits from my notebook. I created one book file for 2001-2008 (766k words, 1590 pages), another for 2009-2012 (708k words, 1768 pages), and I've just filled out a third for 2013-2016 (675k words, 1666 pages). Most likely I'll do the same thing for post-2016. At the same time, I've collected various non-music, non-political notes into a sidecar file (currently 324k words, 780 pages): autobiographical bits, notes on friends and family (many deceased), work on the house, computers, cooking, movies and television I've watched, pets, various maladies. Should be useful for the long-procrastinated memoir, but mostly it's gotten me reviewing the late stages of my life. Not sure whether I should be proud of all the work I've put into writing since Laura told me she'd rather I do that than start that home automation business, or ashamed of all the time I've wasted while not making any sort of tangible living. Probably will depend on whether she (or anyone else) can carve all this writing up into several worthwhile books. At some point I'll share these files -- assuming that at some point I get a working server, or come up with some other suitable outlet. PS: Occurs to me that I should make one more pass through the notebook to pick out the music writings that I didn't already stick in to the jazz guide books. Some good material there, especially from the Expert Comments period. Unfortunately, also a lot of lists and statistical analysis that are likely to be of little if any general interest. I wish someone else would take a crack at that, not least because such a person would start with a different vantage point. Also, I already have way too much to work with already. 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, August 12, 2018 Weekend RoundupHaven't made my transition to posting on Notes on Everyday Life: partly inertia early in the week, but my server vanished from the web Thursday evening and still (late Sunday) hasn't come back. Not being able to do anything about this -- ISP says they've had a "power problem," adding that some hard drives were damaged and "we are attempting to slave primary drives on several servers," evidently a slow process -- I went ahead and assembled a Weekend Roundup, not that I have anywhere to post it. Some scattered links this week:
Ask a question, or send a comment. Monday, August 6, 2018 Music Week
Music: current count 30076 [30033] rated (+43), 337 [344] unrated (-7). I made my usual last-minute push just before publishing July Streanotes on Tuesday, and for once found some A-list records at the last minute. After that, I resumed my mop-up of old Silkheart jazz (leaving about fifteen titles that I couldn't find on Napster; they are all on Bandcamp, but only a few songs each, so can't really be reviewed), and wandered on as the spirit moved me (e.g., found a Darius Jones album I missed). Finally, I spent the latter half of the week listening to old reggae. Two things steered me toward reggae. One was the Nat Birchall Meets Al Breadwinner album, which I found a review of on Bandcamp Daily. The review started with Birchall, but went on to mention and link to a half-dozen older reggae titles, including a Skatalies album (Foundation Ska) I knew and recommend, a Count Ossie album similar to (possibly overlapping) one I have but never graded, and a Tommy McCook set I didn't know. I played a couple of those (still, especially, want to check out the Don Drummond), and they led to others. The other thing that steered me toward reggae was an Xgau Sez letter which argued that Clinton Fearon's Mi Deh Yah was one of the five greatest reggae albums ever. I doubted this. I had never even heard of Fearon (former bassist/backup singer for the Gladiators, which I only knew of through anthologies). Also, the competition starts with four A+ records -- Natty Dread (Bob Marley), Two Sevens Clash (Culture), Anthem (Black Uhuru), Making History (Linton Kwesi Johnson) -- and includes full A albums by the Abyssinians, Black Youth, Cedric Im Brooks, Burning Spear, Jimmy Cliff, Joe Higgs, Ras Michael, Pablo Moses, Niney, Augustus Pablo, Sly & Robbie, Toots & the Maytals, UB-40, and Bunny Wailer. (Dozens more with A- records, including: Ken Boothe, Dennis Brown, Junior Byles, The Chantells, Count Ossie, Desmond Dekker, Dillinger, Leonard Dillon, Clint Eastwood, Winston Hussey, Gregory Isaacs, Macka-B, Tommy McCook, Freddie McGregor, Junior Murvin, Mutabaruka, Lee Scratch Perry, Prince Far I, Ernest Ranglin, Rebel MC, Max Romeo, Skatalites, Steel Pulse, Peter Tosh, U-Roy, Willi Williams, Delroy Wilson, and Yellowman. Admittedly, this list is all 20th century, as I skipped more recent artists, but they're few and far between.) Still, I figured it was worth checking out, so did, then followed up with some Gladiators. That got me looking at my Reggae file, and I honed in on two sets of records: ones I had ungraded copies of, and a few that Christgau had A-listed but I hadn't heard. That added up to quite a few albums. Of course, it's much easier to deal with an ungraded album by streaming it than by tracking down the physical copy. I've done that a few times in the past, and should do it more often in the near future. The unrated count was up around 800 when I started tracking it in the notebook (Feb. 2003), soon jumped over 900, peaked at 1157 (July 2004), rising dramatically on record-buying binges, especially trips out of town and close out sales as Wichita's last decent record stores bit the dust. But after I started getting jazz promos in the mail, my shopping atrophied, and the unrated count slowly dropped: dipping under 1000 in Dec. 2004, 900 (Mar. 2005), 800 (July 2007), 700 (July 012), 600 (Dec. 2012), 500 (Dec. 2014), and 400 (Mar. 2015), with plenty of bumps along the way. Still, with streaming it's been easier (and often more interesting) to look up new records than to dig through my mess to find unrated physical product. (I do have some unrated shelves, but a lot of records on the unrated list are folded into other collections, if indeed I still own them. Still, would be gratifying to knock the number down to whatever the current queue float amounts to. As I am writing this, the only unrateds left in the reggae file are two Big Youth albums. 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:
Miscellaneous Album Notes:
Ask a question, or send a comment. Sunday, August 5, 2018 Weekend RoundupI'm thinking this will be the last Weekend Roundup, at least in its current form. I've been going through my old notebooks, collecting my scattered political rants and writing into LibreOffice files which I hope to mine for a book (or three or five). I started the notebook in 2001, and kept it going as a backup when I refocused my writing into blog form. My first Weekend Roundup appeared on September 1, 2007, so I've been doing this pretty much weekly for more than ten years. The concept dates back even further, as I did irregular posts that were basically collections of links plus comments. (For a while, I called them Weekly Links.) In 2014, I ran into server performance problems with the blog, and started a backup/sidecar mechanism I called "the faux blog" -- a set of flat files that a new script could organize into a LIFO (last in, first out) blog format. After that server company went out of business, I fell back to using the "faux blog" exclusively. This made it more of a conscious job to make new posts -- I basically had to update the whole website -- so I found myself falling back into a rut: Weekend Roundup on Sunday, Music Week on Monday, pretty much nothing else (except for the now-monthly Streamnotes). Anyhow, going back through the notebooks, I noticed two things after I started Weekend Roundup: the frequency and atomicity (focus on a single discrete topic) of my posts diminished; on the other hand, the overall amount of material I posted exploded (nearly doubled) -- partly, maybe even mostly, because I was quoting more. In some sense, the latter meant that I was using the notebook as originally attended, as a repository for notes. However, now that I am finally trying to mold 15-20 years of writing into a more coherent, longer-lasting body of work, it occurs to me that I might be better off returning to a proper blog platform, where I can do short posts, on discrete points of interest, and post them immediately without having to carry the overhead of website maintenance. Fortunately, I already have a usable blog set up, Notes on Everyday Life. The name recycles a tabloid some friends published in 1972-74 in St. Louis, a mix of counterculture and new left theory. Ten or more years back I realized that my writing had two distinct audiences -- one into music, the other politics -- so I speculated that placing them in separate domains might make them more accessible. I registered the domains -- the music would go into Terminal Zone, also named for a 1970s publication -- and did some work building the websites, but neither survived my first great server crash. I've long harbored vague ideas of reviving both, even pipe dreams of hosting a community of kindred spirits, but at the moment, this seems like a sensible step. I've been finding myself caught in a bind where I'd come up with something more to say than I could squeeze into a tweet but not enough to add a whole blog post to the current website. Needless to say, that still leaves room for posting Weekend Roundup here: basically as a weekly digest of smaller blog posts. And until I get my head into the new scheme, here's one more gathering of the links:
Ask a question, or send a comment. Tuesday, July 31, 2018 Streamnotes (July 2018)Second largest monthly haul this year. As with February, the trick is chasing down a lot of old jazz records on Napster (100 then, 60 this month, for totals of 165 and 163). Most of these are short notes/reviews based on streaming records from Napster (formerly Rhapsody; other sources are noted in brackets). They are snap judgments, usually based on one or two plays, accumulated since my last post along these lines, back on June 30. Past reviews and more information are available here (11469 records). Recent Releases
Against All Logic: 2012-2017 (2018, Other People): Nicolas Jaar, electronica producer from Chile based in New York, used this alias (sometimes abbreviated A.A.L.) for a couple of EPs 2013-14, but this period compilation seems to be new (previously unreleased) work. Nothing ambient here: hard dance beats with heavy samples and shrill vocals, sometimes over the top -- meant to be fun, mostly is. B+(***) Amen Dunes: Freedom (2018, Sacred Bones): Damon McMahon, released his first record as Inouk in 2004, one under his own name in 2006, and since 2009 five as Amen Dunes. Singer-songwriter fare, slight whine in his voice but not in the music. B+(*) Tucker Antell: Grime Scene (2017 [2018], OA2): Tenor saxophonist, leads a quartet with guitar and organ nodding toward soul jazz, plus Jason Palmer on trumpet for 5/8 cuts. B+(**) [cd] Arctic Monkeys: Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino (2018, Domino): In which Alex Turner tries his hand as a cocktail bar crooner, segueing into a tryout for a horror show. C+ John Bailey: In Real Time (2017 [2018], Summit): Trumpet player, debut at age 52 but he has side credits going back to 1988. Quintet with Stacy Dillard on tenor/soprano sax, John Hart on guitar, Cameron Brown on bass, and Victor Lewis on drums. Sharp, upbeat, makes a splash, two Brazilian covers (Nascimento and Gil). B+(**) [cd] Barker Trio: Avert Your I (2017 [2018], Astral Spirits): Drummer Andrew Barker, led a sax-piano trio I liked back in 2003 but only rarely heard from since. Another sax trio here, with Michael Foster (tenor, soprano, electronics) and Tim Dahl (electric bass). Intense, screechy. B+(*) [bc] Beach House: 7 (2018, Sub Pop): Dream pop band from Baltimore, principally Victoria Legrand (vocals/keyboards) and Alex Scally (guitar/keyboards). Seventh album, settling into a middle-aged groove that suits them, without going bland. B+(**) Beats Antique: Shadowbox (2016, Antique): Oakland group, world fusion although Middle Eastern dub hits the high points, founded over a decade ago by belly dancer Zoe Jakes, David Satori, and Tommy Cappel. Interesting concept, somewhat scattered results. B+(***) Big Freedia: 3rd Ward Bounce (2018, Asylum Worldwide, EP): Frederick Ross, of New Orleans, "the undisputed Queen Diva of Bounce Music." Loud, lots of bounce. Four cuts, 14:33. B Big Heart Machine: Big Heart Machine (2017 [2018], self-released): Eighteen-piece big band (standard horns; vibraphone, piano, guitar, bass, and drums in the rhythm section), conducted by Miho Hazama, compositions by Brian Krock (alto sax), produced by Darcy James Argue. Nothing strikes me as special, not that they didn't put a lot of effort into it, and they did at least achieve big band volume. B [cd] Binker and Moses: Alive in the East? (2017 [2018], Gearbox): British duo, Binker Golding (tenor sax) and Moses Boyd (drums), although there are also guests here and there, including Evan Parker (tenor/soprano sax, pretty hard to miss). Sounds like guitar on one track, but the closest credit seems to be harp (Tori Handsley. Rather scattered, would take some time to sort out, but much is terrific, not least the drums. A- [bc] Andy Biskin: 16 Tons: Songs From the Alan Lomax Collection (2018, Andorfin): Clarinet player, has mostly worked with traditional and early American melodies, like his exploration of Stephen Foster. By "the Alan Lomax Collection" he means ancient folk songs that Lomax recorded in his tours of the 1930s South and Appalachia, starting and ending with "Sweet Betsy From Pike." His group evokes another Americana tradition: brass bands, although here he's joined by three trumpets, and nothing else but drums, which gives it an odd, postmodern air -- I'm tempted to say Ivesian, but I'm not confident I'm expert enough to make that stick. B+(**) [cd] Leon Bridges: Good Thing (2018, Columbia): Retro soul singer, still in his 20s, second album, got his sound down pat. B+(*) Justin Brown: Nyeusi (2015-17 [2018], Biophilia): Drummer, from Oakland, also plays keyboards here, probably his first album although he's played with various jazz groups (also Thundercat and Flying Lotus). With Jason Lindner and Fabian Almazan on keyboards, Mark Shim on "wind controller," and Burniss Travis on bass. [Packaging did not include CD -- evidently some kind of "environmentally friendly" inconvenience.] B Jarod Bufe: New Spaces (2017 [2018], OA2): Tenor saxophonist, based in Chicago, first album, a quartet with Tim Stine on guitar, Matt Ulery on bass, Jon Deitemeyer on drums. Starts quite impressive, doesn't quite sustain but remains very listenable. B+(***) [cd] Burna Boy: Outside (2018, Atlantic): Damini Ogulu, from Nigeria, combines hip-hop, dancehall, and Afropop, in a rather mixed bag. Includes a feat. Lily Allen, but not as good as his on her album. B+(*) Camila Cabello: Camila (2018, Syco/Epic): From Cuba, moved to Miami at age 5, appeared on The X Factor and failing there was pooled into Fifth Harmony. First solo album. Fairly generic pop, gaining strength on the ballads, ease when she lets up a bit. B+(**) The Carters: Everything Is Love (2018, Parkwood/Roc Nation): Shawn Carter, better known as Jay-Z, and his wife, the even more famous Beyoncé, in concept at least resolving the marital issues that fueled their respective last albums. Beats more in his domain than in hers, but maybe I'm just much more familiar with his work -- I never really got into her recent records, and didn't like the early ones at all. Of course, being filthy rich they can hire whatever extra talent they need (note Pharrell Williams on the single). Still can't complain about that. B+(***) Neko Case: Hell-On (2018, Anti-): Singer-songwriter, born in Virginia, moved to Vancouver in 1994, joined the alt/indie group New Pornographers there and has stuck with them while running a solo career that started alt-country but hasn't sounded like that for well over a decade (even in her folkie harmony group with K.D. Lang and Laura Veirs). But her versatility makes her anonymous, a chameleon with no distinct identity. Clearest example here is a duet Eric Bachmann wrote and dominates. B+(*) Brent Cobb: Providence Canyon (2018, Low Country Sound/Elektra): Country singer-songwriter from Georgia, third album. B+(**) The Coup: Sorry to Bother You: The Soundtrack (2018, UMGRI Interscope): Boots Riley, Oakland rapper, called his first group the Mau Mau Rhythm Collective, changing the name to the Coup in 1992. We last heard from the in 2012 on Sorry to Bother You, a title Riley recycled for his film debut this year. I don't know much about the movie ("a bananas satirical comedy about code-switching and exploitative capitalism"), but his soundtrack offers nine in-your-face pop songs, with Tune-Yards adding jangly noise to the infectious "Hey Saturday Night," Janelle Monáe adding cyborg cool to two more songs, and guest raps from Killer Mike and E-40. Short (35:46), tight, explosive. A- Tomasz Dabrowski Ad Hoc: Ninjazz (2018, ForTune): Polish trumpet player, backed by a Japanese piano trio visiting Warsaw: Hiroshi Minami (piano), Hiroki Chiba (bass), and Horishi Tsubo (drums). Opens up with solo trumpet, then the trio jumps in very aggressive. Tails off midway, running out of steam. B+(*) [bc] The End: The End (2018, RareNoise): Norwegian group, two major saxophonists (Mats Gustafsson and Kjetil Møster), Anders Hana on baritone guitar, Greg Saunier (drums/voice), and Sofia Jernberg (voice). The noise level, even without the vocals, exceeds what I find tolerable. And the vocals are way over the top. D+ [cdr] Florence + the Machine: High as Hope (2018, Virgin EMI): Singer Florence Welch and keyboardist Isabella Summers, group name a contraction of Florence Robot and Isabella Machine, with a couple others since 2007, and more here. B+(*) Future and Young Thug: Super Slimey (2017, Epic/300 Entertainment/Freebandz): Atlanta rappers, mixtape came out last October to scant notice. Reviews I've seen complain about lack of chemistry. Indeed, it comes off as fairly anodyne, not so slimy after all. B+(*) Future: Beast Mode 2 (2018, Epic/Freebandz): Classified as a retail mixtape, name checks a 2015 mixtape. Low key but catchy "sing-rap blues." A- Ben LaMar Gay: Downtown Castles Can Never Block the Sun (2010-18 [2018], International Anthem): Producer, I guess, "has been creating music professionally for over 20 years now," as Gay, Ben Lamar, or other permutations of his full name, working in the interstices of "jazz, blues, hip-hop and electronic." This is compiled from eight years of unreleased work, with a couple dozen musicians floating in and out. He's credited with cornet, synth, voice, flute, and "other instruments." More pastiche than jazz, often interesting, but would take quite some effort to sort out. B+(**) Freddie Gibbs: Freddie (2018, ESGN/Empire, EP): Rapper Frederick Tipton, from Gary, IN, styled the artwork after Teddy Pendergrass, but not so similar beyond that. Ten tracks, 25:02. B+(**) Gorillaz: The Now Now (2018, Parlophone): Originally a cartoon sketch by Jamie Hewlett, their first album (way back in 2001) brought Britpop-going-world maestro Damon Albarn together with estimable hip-hoppers known as Dan the Automator, Del the Funkee Homosapien, and Kid Koala. But six albums in, only Albarn remains, which with all the synth washes isn't much different than you'd expect had Blue stuck together. Evidently the cartoon still has more brand appeal. B- Maria Grand: Magdalena (2018, Biophilia): Tenor saxophonist, from Switzerland, based in Brooklyn, also sings some though credits are unclear, crediting Jasmine Wilson and Amani Fela with spoken word; also guitar (Mary Halvorson), piano (David Bryant and Fabian Almazan), bass, and drums. [received packaging without CD] B+(**) Grouper: Grid of Points (2018, Kranky, EP): Liz Harris, I've been filing her under electronica from first notice, but that's not a good fit, especially here. Nor is "ambient" or "dream pop" (Wikipedia's suggestions), although "ambient dream pop" might work. The central instrument here is piano, with voice (don't know if her own) arranged like an aura. Seven cuts, 21:52. B Grupo Mono Blanco: ¡Fandango! Sones Jaroches de Veracruz (2018, Smithsonian Folkways): I don't see any recording dates, even in the substantial booklet PDF. The group (translates as White Monkey) was formed in 1977, its leader, Gilberto Gutiérrez, born in 1958, looking in photographs younger (but not a lot) than his present age. I've seen some evidence of a 2004 album called ¡Fandango! credited to Mono Blanco y Stone Lips, but there's no mention of Stone Lips here. The music is a regional folk style ("jarocho" from Veracruz, which seems to have more African influence) that goes back at least to the mid-1800s. Voice(s), guitar-like instruments, percussion, nothing rushed. B+(***) Rich Halley 3: The Literature (2017 [2018], Pine Eagle): The letter suggested "something different," but I didn't look at the fine print before putting on what appeared to be his usual tenor sax trio. I didn't notice the difference until I heard "Mood Indigo" wafting through, although I should have picked up earlier that they were doing standards: Monk, Davis, Coleman, and Jimmie Rodgers came earlier, with more Monk and Coltrane, Mingus and Sun Ra, a boisterous "Motherless Children" to follow. Terrific. A- [cd] Haley Heynderickx: I Need to Start a Garden (2018, Mama Bird): Folkie singer-songwriter from Oregon, first album after a couple of EPs, acoustic guitar style harkens back to John Fahey, eventually finds a band -- the title song is choice, partly because its actual title is "Oom Sha La La." B+(**) Nipsey Hussle: Victory Lap (2018, All Money In/Atlantic): LA rapper, Ermias Asghedom, started out with a series of Bullets Ain't Got No Name mixtapes. First studio album, with guest spots for Pugg Daddy, Kendrick Lamar, The-Dream, Cee-Lo Green, a bunch more. Hard and dense, almost impenetrable. B+(*) Susie Ibarra: Perception (2017, Decibel Music): Percussionist, credits musicians as DreamTime Ensemble, has a chamber jazz feel even with the drums: piano/guitar, violin, cello, electronics, voice (Claudia Acuña). B The Internet: Hive Mind (2018, Columbia): Neo-soul group from Los Angeles's Odd Future orbit, fourth album, lead singer Sydney Bennett (aka Syd the Kyd, or just Syd on her solo debut), with a guitarist named Steve Lacy co-writing most of the songs and singing some. Pretty laid back, low-key, something you might get comfortable with, not turned on. I'm tempted to call it ambient groove. B+(**) Juice WRLD: Goodbye & Good Riddance (2018, self-released): Jared Higgins, 19-year-old rapper from the Chicago suburbs, based in Los Angeles. They grow up so fast these days. B+(*) Kids See Ghosts: Kids See Ghosts (2018, GOOD/Def Jam, EP): The third entry in Kanye West's parade of seven-cut productions, with West forming a duo with Kid Cudi. Title track has some appeal, as does the Louis Prima sample. Seven cuts, 23:50. B+(*) Seun Kuti & Egypt 80: Black Times (2018, Strut): Youngest son of Fela Anikulapo Kuti, wound up running his legendary father's band -- fitting because he's a dead ringer, playing alto sax, singing, writing and leading irresistibly bouncy political rants. If they run shorter than his father's side-long essays, that's because he has even more to complain about, and hope for. A- Kyle: Light of Mine (2018, Atlantic): Rapper Kyle Thomas Harvey, from Ventura, CA, first studio album after a couple of mixtapes. Has a charming light touch both rapping and singing. A- Jeremy Ledbetter Trio: Got a Light? (2018, Alma): Pianist, from Toronto, with Rich Brown on bass and Larnell Lewis on drums, with a couple of guest vocal spots. Trained in classics, is "musical director and producer for calypso superstar David Rudder," plays in a Latin jazz band called CaneFire. Album ranges widely, chops impressive, still nothing seems to stick. B [cd] Jennifer Lee: My Shining Hour (2018, SBE): Bay Area singer-songwriter, last name Sevison, wrote 11/13 songs, covering Harold Arlen and Abel Zarate. Three previous records. Long credits list, most for only a track or two, adding to the eclecticism. B [cd] Peggy Lee: Echo Painting (2017 [2018], Songlines): Cellist, from Vancouver, should be well known by now but Google still brings up the singer, even when you add "cello" to the search string. Ten-piece band here, four horns and five strings (including guitar and pedal steel). Mostly orchestral, taken at an even stroll, but on a couple of tracks guitarist Cole Schmidt goes berserk, bringing lots of noise. As a bonus track, Robin Holcomb does a nice job of singing "The Unfaithful Servant." B [bc] Charles Lloyd & the Marvels + Lucinda Williams: Vanished Gardens (2017 [2018], Blue Note): The tenor saxophonist's group includes Bill Frisell (guitar), Greg Leisz (pedal steel and dobro), Reuben Rogers (bass), and Eric Harland (drums), although it drops down to just Lloyd and Frisell on the last two tracks. So it lists a bit toward Americana, taking on a roughened and battered air with the guest vocalist (on 5 of 10 songs, 4 her own, one from Jimi Hendrix) -- not enough to take command, leaving you with a rather pretty curio. B+(***) Nicolas Masson/Colin Vallon/Patrice Moret/Lionel Friedli: Travelers (2017 [2018], ECM): Swiss saxophone/clarinet player, backed by pianor-bass-drums. A bit atmospheric, the way the label likes them. B+(**) Pete McCann: Pay for It on the Other Side (2017 [2018], McCannis Music): Guitarist, from Wisconsin, based in New York, discography goes back to 1998, often impressive but goes a bit over the top here, with Henry Hey's organ the main amplifier, Matt Clohesy on electric as well as acoustic bass, John O'Gallagher on alto sax, and Mark Ferber on drums. B+(*) [cd] Lori McKenna: The Tree (2018, CN/Thirty Tigers): Singer-songwriter, folk division, with possibly the clearest, most immediately appealing batch of songs in a twenty-year career. Does tail off a bit toward the end. A- Joachim Mencel Quintet: Artisena (2015 [2018], ForTune): Polish pianist, also plays hurdy-gurdy, "inspired by traditional Polish dances" (not to mention Chopin). With violin, guitar, double bass, and drums. Nice chamber jazz feel. B+(*) [bc] Shawn Mendes: Shawn Mendes (2018, Island): Teen pop star from Canada, still just 19 on his third album, all three number ones both in Canada and the US. Co-wrote all of the songs, co-produced most, some quite striking ("Nervous," "Like to Be You") but even the bare ballad "Perfectly Wrong" is captivating (with a swell the hook). Has a soul voice, verging on falsetto but not committed to it. B+(***) Migos: Culture II (2018, Quality Control): Three Atlanta rappers, had a commercial breakthrough with last year's Culture so decided to do it again, then thought it might be clever if Culture II was not just a sequel but twice as long. Wears on your patience, especially as they only have one distinctive beat framework to squeeze everything into. B+(**) Nas: Nasir (2018, Mass Appeal/Def Jam, EP): Part of producer Kanye West's 7-song EP series, with West co-writing all of the songs (along with Mike Dean and rapper Nasir Jones). B+(**) Adam O'Farrill's Stranger Days: El Maquech (2018, Biophilia): Trumpet player, brother Zach (drums, both here and with Adam in the O'Farrill Brothers), son of Arturo, grandson of Chico. Quartet with Chad Lefkowitz-Brown (tenor sax) and Walter Stinson (bass). [Packaging did not include CD.] B+(*) Old Crow Medicine Show: Volunteer (2018, Columbia Nashville): Country string band, formed 1998 in Harrisonburg, VA; topped the bluegrass charts with 2004's O.C.M.S. and have been a folk-bluegrass institution ever since. Motto: "I ain't gonna change my sound/when I get to Nashville town." Ain't gonna start thinkin' either. B+(*) Oneohtrix Point Never: Age Of (2018, Warp): Daniel Lopatin, from Massachusetts, parents from Russia, makes electronica, though not much beat here, some vocals (by Lopatin and/or guests), the sonic squiggles interesting but he seems to be all over the place. B+(*) Houston Person & Ron Carter: Remember Love (2018, HighNote): Tenor sax and bass duets, both major players since the early 1960s, with a couple of previous albums together -- their Chemistry was my favorite jazz album of 2016. Ballads here, even slower than usual, possibly suggesting that they're losing a step, or maybe just playing for their own pleasure (others might prefer fewer/shorter bass solos). B+(***) Charles Pillow Large Ensemble: Electric Miles (2017 [2018], MAMA): Alto saxophonist, from Virginia, not a lot under his own name but shows up in a lot of New York area big bands. Figured as we're approaching the 50th anniversary of Bitches Brew, Miles Davis's pioneering fusion music should get the treatment. Shows that may not have been such a good idea -- that not everything sounds better with more brass.. B [cd] Pocket Aces: Cull the Heard (2016 [2018], Creative Nation Music): Trio, names listed alphabetically -- Aaron Darrell (bass), Eric Hofbauer (guitar), Curt Newton (drums) -- all pieces jointly credited, but Hofbauer is by far the best established, and effectively the lead. Nothing splashy, just tight, prickly probing at what may possibly be a melody. B+(**) [cd] Post Malone: Beerbongs & Bentleys (2018, Republic): Austin Richard Post, from Syracuse, second album (first: Stoney), described as "a rich kid whose parents essentially paid his way into music," which leads to a lot of other dumb shit -- odds appear to be 50-50 that he'll turn into Kid Rock. Still, he makes a strong first impression, singing more than rapping but with a rapper's focus on the words, and not just slinging them out. B+(**) Allen Ravenstine: Waiting for the Bomb (2018, Morphius/ReR Megacorp): Keyboard player, best (almost totally) known from Pere Ubu, concocts a bunch of sonic tableaux that can be ominous, or just spooky. B+(*) John Raymond & Real Feels: Joy Ride (2018, Sunnyside): Flugelhorn player, originally from Minneapolis, based in New York, has a couple previos records including 2016's John Raymond & Real Feels. Trio with Gilad Hekselman (guitar) and Colin Stranahan (drums). Postbop, moderate pace, nice resonance between the horn and guitar. B+(**) Dave Rempis/Tomeka Reid/Joshua Abrams: Ithra (2017 [2018], Aerophonic): Chicago trio, Rempis plays alto and tenor sax, matched against cello and bass, which tend to slow him down without providing an effective counterpoint. Still remarkable in its own way. B+(**) [cd] Dave Rempis/Jasper Stadhouders/Frank Rosaly: Icoci (2017 [2018], Aerophponic): Stadhouders plays guitar and electric bass, giving this a little more boost than the sax/strings trio. Drummer helps, too. B+(***) [cd] Rhio: A Rhio Good Thing (2018, Beso): Standards singer, also does four songs by "long-time partner" and producer Leigh Crizoe. Standards start with "I Want a Little Sugar in My Bowl," pass through Phil Ochs and Jobim, and end with "Hoy Quiero Aprender." Probably just my mood, but I found "God Bless the Child" especially touching -- not an emotion her voice suggests. B+(*) [cd] Roller Trio: New Devices (2018, Edition): British jazz-rock trio from Leeds: James Mainwaring (sex), Chris Sharkey (guitar/bass, replacing Luke Wynter), Luke Reddin-Williams (drums). B+(*) Royce Da 5'9: The Book of Ryan (2018, EOne): Detroit rapper, Ryan Montgomery, formed a duo with Eminem in 1998 called Bad Meets Evil, briefly joined D12, then went solo in 2002 (regrouping as Bad Meets Evil for a 2012 EP). Recorded two more duo albums as PRhyme, returning here for his seventh solo. Some good politics. "Caterpillar Remix" (with Eminem and Logic) is a blast. B+(*) Dori Rubbicco: Stage Door Live! (2017 [2018], Whaling City Sound): Standards singer, cover says "backed by the John Harrison Quintet," meaning pianist John Harrison III, and not quite all of the six musicians listed. Standards lean towards '70s rock, which works much better on something like "Twisted" (which they can swing) than "Imagine" (which they can't). B+(**) [cd] Saba: Care for Me (2018, Saba Pivot): Chicago rapper Tahj Malik Chandler, second album after some mixtapes, worked with Chance the Rapper (who appears here). Might be onto something, but listening conditions make it hard to sort out. B+(***) [sp] The Jamie Saft Quartet: Blue Dream (2017 [2018], RareNoise): Pianist, got an early start on organ and keyboards so his emergence as a conventional pianist has been a revelation. Quartet is fairly mainstream with Bill McHenry (tenor sax), Bradley Christopher Jones (bass), and Nasheet Waits (drums), leaning to ballads, but not that simple. Three covers, including a whiff of "Sweet Lorraine." A- [cdr] Rafal Sarnecki: Climbing Trees (2017 [2018], Outside In Music): Polish guitarist, based in New York, has at least one previous album. Music, with Lucas Pino on tenor sax/bass clarinet and Glenn Zaleski on piano, has a whimsical quality, but I don't care for the scat vocals (Bogna Kicinska). B Ty Segall: Freedom's Goblin (2018, Drag City): Garage rocker from Laguna Beach, CA, tenth album since 2007. Revealed a T-Rex fetish on an EP mid-way, and I'm hearing echoes all over this record. Not as catchy, nor as cutesy, which matters less on the rare track when Segall cranks up the noise. Overkill at 19 tracks, 74:48. B Ty Segall & White Fence: Joy (2018, Drag City): The latter's Blogspot is titled "White Fence/Art Collective." Discogs lists ten albums since 2010, including two with Segall. I don't know what they sound like on their own, but their first album was on Make a Mess Records, before they moved on to Woodsist, Castle Face, and Drag City. Here they stoke Segall's T-Rex fetish, making it less pop and more cleverly underground, generally a plus. B+(*) Shame: Songs of Praise (2018, Dead Oceans): British post-punk band, debut album. Have some rage issues and not a lot of range, but can construct a satisfying song; e.g., "Friction." B Aaron Shragge & Ben Monder: The World of Dew (2018, Human Resource): Trumpet and guitar duo, Shragge playing something he calls the Dragon Mouth Trumpet, as well as flugelhorn and shakuhachi. Melodies are inspired by various zen poets, also Charles Bukowski. B+(*) [cd] Sibarg Ensemble: Cipher (2016 [2018], self-released): Based in California, led by Iranian vocalist Hesam Abedini, with a mix of Iranians and American jazz musicians (bassist Kyle Motl is the one I recognize), lyrics from classic poems including Rumi and Omar Khayyam. B+(**) [cd] Marc Sinan/Oguz Büyükberber: White (2016 [2018], ECM): German guitarist, mother "Turkish-Armenian," has several previos albums, two previous credits on ECM, in a duo with the Turkish clarinetist (also electronics), with several pieces including 1916 field recordings made in German detention camps of Armenian prisoners of war. B Skee Mask: Compro (2018, Ilian Tape): Munich DJ Bryan Müller, second album, attractive breakbeats with the occasional splash of ambient. Nothing spectacular, but quite attractive. B+(***) Sloan: 12 (2018, Yep Roc): Alt-rock band originally from Halifax c. 1992, since relocated to Toronto, add pop hooks to their guitar jangle, impressing some friends back in the 1990s but always sounding rather generic to me. Still going, title probably signifies their 12th studio album, only the second I've checked since 1993. Perked my ears a bit mid-way, but lost my interest toward the end. B Snail Mail: Lush (2018, Matador): Singer-songwriter Lindsey Jordan, first album, young (19), takes her guitar seriously. Band adds bass and drums, and producer Jake Aron through in some unobtrusive bells and whistles. B+(*) SOB X RBE: Gangin (2018, Empire): Acronym for Strictly Only Brothers x Real Boi Entertainment. From Vallejo, CA, four members: DaBoii, Yhung T.O., Slimmy B, and Lul G. Group had a turn on Black Panther. Wouldn't call this gangsta, but it's pretty ghetto. Would like it better if it weren't so, uh, parochial. B Sophie: Oil of Every Pearl's Un-Insides (2018, MSMSMSM/Future Classic): Singer-songwriter, electronica producer, DJ. First proper album, after a 2015 compilation of singles and odd bits that attracted a following but mostly just confused me. (Among other things, I took Sophie to be an alias for Samuel Long. Now I see that her name is Sophie Xeon, from Scotland, although that still looks a little suspicious.) Broken beats, smashed up shrouds of sonic fuzz. Best song contrasts "Whole New World" with "Pretend World," and I'm as confused as ever. B+(***) Jason Stein's Locksmith Isidore: After Caroline (2017 [2018], Northern Spy): Bass clarinetist, based in Chicago, has a couple albums under this group name, a trio with Jason Roebke (bass) and Mike Pride (drums). Stein struck me as awkward and tentative when he first appeared, but he's turning into a powerhouse. A- [bc] Sunflower Bean: Twentytwo in Blue (2018, Mom + Pop): Alt/indie trio from Long Island, two lead singers -- Julia Cumming (bass) and Nick Kivlen (guitar) -- and a drummer. "Musical Influences" section on their Wikipedia page is an amusing mish-mash, but Tame Impala is the one they named a song for. B+(*) The Thing: Again (2017 [2018], Trost): I usually take promo copies that look like this as actual releases -- many releases these days are done up with minimal packaging -- but I see from Discogs that my copy is a promo: back cover is different, and I didn't get the Brian Morton liner notes. Three tracks, timed for vinyl (39:06). Group cut their eponymous debut in 2000 (one of their best), the little known (back then) rhythm section now stars in their own right (Ingebrigt Håker Flaten and Paal Nilssen-Love), with saxophonist Mats Gustafsson bringing the noise. There are limits to how much thrash and squeal I can stand in free jazz, and he can easily cross that line, but he generally doesn't here -- even with Joe McPhee helping on the middle track. Still not easy listening, but easier here to appreciate their talent. A- [cdr] Toronto Jazz Orchestra: 20 (2017 [2018], self-released): Big band, founded in 1998 to play repertory, including works by Stan Kenton, Gil Evans, Thad Jones, and Bob Brookmeyer. Josh Grossman directs, and for their 20th anniversary wrote most of the material -- plus a cover of Brad Mehldau's arrangement of "Dear Prudence." B+(*) [cd] Turnstile: Time & Space (2018, Roadrunner): Hard rock group from Baltimore, tight enough some regard them as punk, with only three songs approaching 3 minutes (total 13: 25:15) but the howl is closer to metal, and I'd guess they know their math, but don't want to show off.. B+(*) Underworld & Iggy Pop: Teatime Dub Encounters (2018, Caroline, EP): English EDM duo, started in Cardiff in 1980, sound eternally vital, at least on the opener. Pop toasts along, a role he was born to play, again best on the opener. Three songs top 7 minutes, total for all four 27:28. B+(**) Verve Jazz Ensemble: Connect the Dots (2018, Lightgroove Media): New York group, postbop I guess (although not by much), handful of albums, organized here in various configurations from trio to septet, with drummer Josh Feldstein the leader, Steve Einerson on piano, Elias Bailey on bass, and Tatum Greenblatt (trumpet) and Jon Blanck (tenor sax) the principal horns. Sounds like most people expect jazz to sound like. B [cd] Kobie Watkins Grouptet: Movement (2017 [2018], Origin): Drummer, from Chicago, father played drums in church, has a previous album, side credits mostly with Bobby Broom. Basic hard bop quintet, with tenor/soprano sax (Jonathan Armstrong), trumpet (Ryan Nielsen), piano/Fender Rhodes, and bass. Watkins originals, plus one by Nielsen, and closes with a swinging cover of "Manteca." B+(**) [cd] The Weeknd: My Dear Melancholy (2018, XO/Republic, EP): R&B singer from Toronto, Abel Tesfaye, one of the first artists to build his career on free mixtapes, since going on to release three studio albums and this mini (6 tracks, 21:50). Has his sound down so tight it's gotten to be difficult to discern any difference in his songs (or albums). B+(*) Tierra Whack: Whack World (2018, UMGRI/Interscope, EP): Rapper from Philadelphia, formerly known as Dizzle Dizz, debut consists of 15 songs, each exactly 1:00 long, most cryptic, some funny. Easiest to find with a video, which fills each minute with wonder and awe. B+(***) Dr. Michael White: Tricentennial Rag (2018, Basin Street): New Orleans trad clarinet player, fifteen or so albums since 1983, this one marking the 300th anniversary of his home town's founding. Classic songs, some vocals (trumpet player Leon "Kid Chocolate" Brown), lots of brass (from cornet to sousaphone) and banjo, Steve Pistorius on piano. B+(**) Buster Williams: Audacity (2017 [2018], Smoke Sessions): Bassist, from Camden [NJ], father was a jazz musician, got his start as a teenager playing with Jimmy Heath, then Gene Ammons/Sonny Stitt. Cut his first album in 1975, with fifteen more since, plus hundreds of side credits. Sax-piano quartet, six original pieces plus one each from his band: Steve Wilson (sax), George Colligan (piano), and Lenny White (drums). B+(*) Kamaal Williams: The Return (2018, Black Focus): Keys, based in Loncon, first solo album after his Yussef Kamaal duo with Yussef Dayes and a pile of singles/EPs as Henry Wu. Jazz-funk trio, with Pete Martin on bass and Joshua McKenzie (MckNasty) on drums. B+(**) Florian Wittenburg: Four Waves (2018, NurNichtNur): German composer, works with electronics but also credited here with organ and vibraphone, employs a bit of help this time. Oriented a bit more toward jazz than avant-classical or ambient, but with a good deal of overlap. B+(***) [cd] Wye Oak: The Louder I Call, the Faster It Runs (2018, Merge): Alt/indie duo from Maryland, named after the state tree, with a half-dozen albums since 2007: Jenn Wasner (vocals) and Andy Stack (drums), both also credited with guitar, bass, and keyboards, plus they've added a regular bassist for the road. Nice pop vibe. B+(*) Years & Years: Palo Santo (2018, Polydor): British synthpop band, second album. Beats danceable, vocal harmonies soft. As for content: "The album and its imagery will continue the concept of a genderless dystopian society populated by androids known as Palo Santo." So maybe their soullessness is just artifact? B YoshimiO/Susie Ibarra/Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe: Flower of Sulphur (2018, Thrill Jockey): First two are drummers, the former also known as Yakota Yoshimi. Lowe, whose aliases range from Rob Lowe to Lichens, adds electronics and voice, shadings that can color or distract from the drums. B+(**) Recent Reissues, Compilations, Vault Discoveries
Don Cherry: Home Boy (Sister Out) (1985 [2018], Wewantsounds): Trumpet player, made his mark in Ornette Coleman's legendary quartet, later in their three-quarter reunion Old and New Dreams. In between, he enjoyed a remarkable career, mostly in Europe, mixing avant-jazz and world music, expanding everyone's mind. This was cut in Paris in 1985, a mixed bag of funk beats, reggae, African percussion, spoken word, a soul ballad (sung by Cherry), sea shells, some proto-industrial disco. Can't say it all works, but gives you a taste of the breadth of an extraordinary love for the world. B+(***) [bc] Erroll Garner: Nightconcert (1964 [2018], Mack Avenue): Piano trio with Eddie Calhoun (bass) and Kelly Martin (drums), a previosly unreleased midnight set at the Royal Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. Sparkling standards served with the pianist's usual flourishes. Fine sound. Piano jazz fans will be thrilled. A- Dexter Gordon Quartet: Tokyo 1975 (1973-77 [2018], Elemental Music): From the tenor saxophonist's exile years in Denmark, four previously unreleased tracks from his first-ever tour of Japan, with Kenny Drew (piano), Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen (bass), and Albert "Tootie" Heath (drums); sly vocal on "Jelly, Jelly, Jelly" presumably Gordon. CD adds one earlier and one later track with slightly different personnel, both superb. B+(***) Millie Jackson: Exposed: The Multi-Track Sessions Mixed by Steve Levine (1972-79 [2018], Ace): Levine's a British producer, active since 1975, his most famous act Culture Club. Jackson's an r&b singer with some good albums and minor hits in the 1970s, best known risqué (cf. Live and Uncensored). Her heyday coincided with disco, so her music was danceable, but never as slick as strings Levine's remixes enmesh her in. Still, sometimes she breaks free. B Woody Shaw: Tokyo '81 (1981-85 [2018], Elemental Music): Six tracks from the trumpeter's Tokyo gig, with Steve Turre (trombone), Mulgrew Miller (piano), Stafford James (bass), and Tony Reedus (drums), capped by a 14:48 "Sweet Love of Mine" credited to Paris Reunion Band (an octet with Shaw and Dizzy Reece on trumpet, Slide Hampton on trombone, Johnny Griffin and Nathan Davis on sax), recorded in Den Haag in 1985. B+(**) Old Music
Ahmed Abdullah Quartet: Liquid Song (1987, Silkheart): Trumpet player, born Leroy Bland, played in New York's loft scene in the 1970s, joined Sun Ra in 1976. Not a lot under his own name, but I've filed two A-listed group albums there (Melodic Art-Tet and the Group's Live), as well as his own Tara's Song. With Charles Brackeen (tenor sax), Malachi Favors (bass), and Alvin Fielder (drums). Follows and adds something to the his mentor's avant-swing vision. A- Ahmed Abdullah: Ahmed Abdullah and the Solomonic Quintet Featuring Charles Moffett (1987 [1988], Silkheart): Not sure why drummer gets the featuring credit, other than that he wrote two of eight pieces (Abdullah penned the rest). Quintet is rounded out with David S. Ware (tenor sax/stritch), Masuhjaa (guitar), and Fred Hopkins (bass). (Masujaa, aka Hugh Riley, also has side-credits with Ronald Shannon Jackson and Henry Threadgill from 1987-2004.) B+(***) Bob Ackerman Trio: Old & New Magic (1993, Silkheart): Saxophonist, credit plural (also clarinet and flutes), not a lot under his own name but has recorded with Dennis Gonzalez and Pam Purvis and popped up recently (well, 2012) in the Essex Improviser's Collective. A serious student of the instrument -- even owns his own saxophone shop -- with several titles referring to Coltrane, Hodges, Carter, and Bartok. Backed by Wilber Morris on bass and Dennis Charles on drums. B+(***) Gene Ammons & Dexter Gordon: The Chase! (1970 [1996], Prestige): Title track is Gordon's famous bebop romp with Wardell Gray, one of the most legendary sax duos in jazz history. Meanwhile, Ammons made a specialty out of sax jousts, mostly with Sonny Stitt, so this seems like a natural pairing. Not all fast stuff, which given that Ammons is an all-time great ballad artist (and Gordon isn't too shabby) is jake. Even the original 4-track LP was split between two run-of-the-mill rhythm sections. Bonus cuts, pushing the CD to 70:49, include a Vi Redd vocal on a Billy Eckkstine song. A- Binker and Moses: Dem Ones (2014 [2015], Gearbox): British improv duo, Binker Golding (tenor sax) and Moses Boyd (drums), just the two of them with no overdubs. Good basic combination, nice intro without the added complication of guests. B+(***) [bc] Binker and Moses: Journey to the Mountain of Forever (2016 [2017], Gearbox, 2CD): First disc recapitulates their first album, with more interesting tenor sax/drums duets. Second disc anticipates their third by adding a mixed bag of guests: Byron Wallen (trumpet), Tori Handsley (harp), Sarathy Korwar (tabla), Yussef Dayes (drums), and Evan Parker (tenor/soprano sax), but not yet to such dramatic effect. B+(**) [bc] Thomas Borgmann/Wilber Morris/Denis Charles Trio: The Last Concert: Dankeschön (1998 [2000], Silkheart): Saxophone trio, with bass and drums. Trio recorded several albums in 1997-98 before Charles died, a couple weeks after this set. (Morris died in 2002.) While Borgmann is a very solid improviser, this especially serves as a reminder of the unsung skills of the ill-fated rhythm section. B+(***) Charles Brackeen: Bannar (1987, Silkheart): Avant saxophonist, tenor but leads off with soprano here, from Oklahoma, fairly short discography with a 1968 debut, three more as a leader in 1987, a few side credits from 1973 (Don Cherry) through 1989 (Dennis González, who plays trumpet here). Quartet with Malachi Favors (bass) and Alvin Fielder (drums). One vocal, extolling love for Allah. B+(*) Roy Campbell Pyramid: Communion (1994, Silkheart): Avant-trumpet player, from Los Angeles, a leader of Other Dimensions in Music and the Nu Band until his death in 2014, recorded three albums with his Pyramid Trio -- this is the first -- with William Parker on bass and various drummers (Reggie Nicholson here). B+(**) Roy Campbell Pyramid Trio: Ethnic Stew and Brew (2000 [2001], Delmark): Third album, third drummer, with Hamid Drake (replacing Zen Matsuura of Ancestral Homeland). The world focus extends to "Impressions of Yokohama," where William Parker plays shakuhachi, but also ranges from the ancient "Imhotep" to the breaking news of "Amadou Diallo" (you know, shot 47 times by New York police, an event repeated many times since, but still unmatched for savagery). A- Daniel Carter/William Parker/Roy S. Campbell Jr./Rashid Bakr: Other Dimensions in Music (1989 [1995], Silkheart): Pretty clearly intended as a group from the start, and should be credited as such for four later albums up to 2011 (Campbell died in 2014), but the names are spread out across the top of the cover: sax (alto and tenor, also flute and trumpet), bass, trumpet (flugelhorn, recorder), drums. Four long pieces (15:27-22:58), exploring without discovering much. B+(*) Andrew Cyrille: What About? (1969 [1992], Affinity): Drummer, from Brooklyn, family Haitian, joined Cecil Taylor Unit in 1964, developing into one of the avant-garde's most remarkable drummers. First album, originally released in BYG's Actuel series in France. Five pieces, solo percussion, of marginal interest, nonetheless remarkable. B+(*) Andrew Cyrille & Maono: Metamusicians' Stomp (1978, Black Saint): Quartet with two horns -- Ted Daniel on trumpet and David S. Ware on tenor sax -- plus Nick DiGeronimo on bass. Ware seems rather restrained here, but within those limits sounds uniquely like himself. B+(***) Andrew Cyrille: Special People (1980 [1981], Soul Note): Same quartet, although the bassist's name is given as Nick De Geronimo here (DiGeronimo seems to be correct, although I can't find either name elsewhere). The bassist is actually pretty active here, although the horns (especially Ware) get the glory. B+(***) Andrew Cyrille-Richard Teitelbaum Duo: Double Clutch (1981 [1997], Silkheart): Teitelbaum plays keyboards and electronics, not much under his own name, but he's played in drummer Cyrille's group, also with Anthony Braxton. With neither a proper leader, they takes a while to find themselves. B+(*) Andrew Cyrille Quintet: Ode to the Living Tree (1994 [1995], Venus): Recorded in Senegal with an all-star group: David Murray (tenor sax/bass clarint), Oliver Lake (alto sax), Adegoke Steve Colson (electric piano), Fred Hopkins (bass). Two Cyrille pieces, one each by Murray and Colson, plus a 19:12 slice from "A Love Supreme." Loud, raucous even, still feels cluttered and slipshod. B- Ernest Dawkins New Horizons Ensemble: South Side Street Songs (1993, Silkheart): Chicago saxophonist (alto, tenor, flute) improvises joyous avant-street music, mostly quintet steeped in Sun Ra and AACM, with trumpet (Ameen Muhammad), guitar (Jeff Parker), bass (Yosef Ben Israel), and drums (Avreeayl Ra) -- album cover drops one of the latter while adding trombonist Steve Berry (one cut). B+(***) Ethnic Heritage Ensemble: Ancestral Song: Live From Stockholm (1987 [1988], Silkheart): Chicago drummer Kahil El'Zabar's long-running project, first heard on 1981's Three Gentlemen From Chikago (saxophonists Henry Huff and Edward Wilkerson were the other two), most recently in 2014 celebrating their 40th anniversary. Trombonist Joseph Bowie replaces Huff here -- like Wilkerson, also adding to the percussion. The live mix has the loose informality that has always been the group's signature. B+(***) Ethnic Heritage Ensemble: Ka-Real (1997 [2000], Silkheart): Up to a quartet here, with Atu Harold Murray an extra percussionist (earth drums, talking drum, flute), and Ernest Dawkins taking over Wilkerson's sax slot. Of course, Dawkins and trombonist Joseph Bowie also contribute to the percussion. B+(**) Joel Futterman Quartet: Vision in Time (1988 [1990], Silkheart): Pianist, originally from Chicago but moved to Virginia Beach in 1972, retaining his avant inclination, maintaing ties with AACM pioneers like Joseph Jarman (tenor sax/bass clarinet) here. CD drops down to piano trio for a couple of bonus cuts. The latter are interesting enough, but blot out my impressions of Jarman, who should be key here. B+(**) Joel Futterman Trio: Berlin Images (1991, Silkheart): Unconventional piano trio, with Raphé Malik on trumpet and Robert Adkins on drums. The piano still dominates, taking pounding solos and breaks between jousts. B+(***) The Joel Futterman/'Kidd' Jordan Quintet: Nickelsdorf Konfrontation (1995 [1996], Silkheart): Recorded live in Austria, with Futterman's trio (Jordan on tenor sax and Alvin Fielder on drums) augmented by Mats Gustafsson (tenor/baritone sax) and Barry Guy (bass). [Napster edition abridged.] B+(*) The Joel Futterman/'Kidd' Jordan Trio With Alvin Fielder: Southern Extreme (1997 [1998], Drimala): Piano-sax-drums trio, Futterman originally from Chicago but long resident in Virginia; the others from Louisiana and Mississippi, but the drummer also has a Chicago connection (played with Sun Ra in the 1950s and was an early AACM member). Seems to be Jordan's debut, although he's the same age as Fielder and 11 years older than Futterman, who recorded his first back in 1979. Given that most centers of jazz in the US Southeast tend to mainstream or even retro, this is extreme indeed. B+(**) Joel Futterman and Ike Levin: Live in Chicago (2007 [2017], Charles Lester Music): Futterman's model as a pianist is no doubt Cecil Taylor -- a connection made even more obvious when he recorded a series (1984-91) of albums with Jimmy Lyons. He got similar results with all the others -- Hal Russell, Kidd Jordan, Raphé Malik (trumpet), and again here with Levin, a tenor saxophonist from Chicago who replaced Jordan in 2004. Here they drop down to a duo for a live set, two pieces: "Rhizome" (51:26) and "Renewal" (9:03). Nice that they can slow it down for an occasional respite, and that it's lovely when they do. B+(***) Charles Gayle Trio: Spirits Before (1988 [1989], Silkheart): Tenor saxophonist, originally from Buffalo, moved to New York City in the 1970s, spending many years there homeless, playing on the streets. Cut his first albums for this Swedish label -- three in one week, including this trio with Sirone on bass and Dave Pleasant on drums -- then finally got some attention in 1991 with Touchin' on Trane (FMP), a Penguin Guide crown album. Sounds pretty typical of his 1990s work, but no one could have known that at the time. Rather, one heard echoes of Ayler's holy ghost, with newfound urgency. B+(***) Charles Gayle Trio: Homeless (1988 [1989], Silkheart): Same trio, recorded the same two days as Spirits Before, the CD fleshed out with two extra tracks beyond the LP's four -- originals except for "Life Every Voice" (although it's not much more recognizable). aB+(**) Charles Gayle Quartet: Vol. 1: Translations (1993 [1994], Silkheart): With two bassists -- William Parker (also cello and half-size violin) and Vattel Cherry (also kalimba and bells) -- and drums (Michael Wimbley), with Gayle credited with bass clarinet and viola in addition to tenor sax. I'm not sure when Gayle developed his signature interest in scratchy strings, but it's the dominant motif here. While his sax struggles mightly against that backdrop, it rarely breaks out. B+(*) Dennis Gonzalez New Dallas Sextet: Namesake (1987, Silkheart): Avant trumpet player from Dallas, second album after his superb debut Stefan, a little messier but packed with power -- a second trumpet (Ahmed Abdullah), two saxes (Charles Brackeen and Douglas Ewart, also on clarinet and flute), with Malachi Favors (bass) and Alvin Fielder (drums). B+(**) Dennis Gonzalez New Dallasangeles: The Desert Wind (1989, Silkheart): Septet, presumably with some musicians from Los Angeles although the recorded this in Dallas. Trumpet, trombone, two saxes (Charles Brackeen and Michael Session), cello, bass, and drums (Alvin Fielder, who composed one piece). Seems torn between fancy and free, not all that satisfactory either way. B+(*) Dexter Gordon/Wardell Gray: Citizens Bop (1946-52 [1994], Black Lion): Two tenor saxophonists, early boppers, played together often in the late 1950s -- most famously on "The Chase" and "The Steeplechase" (the name later taken by the Danish label that welcomed Gordon in 1964), but it looks like the duo are only together on the 1952 session here (7 tracks), with Gray alone on four tracks from 1946 and one from 1947. These sessions were first released in 1966 by Fontana as The Master Swingers!, and indeed they swing more than bop. B+(**) Dexter Gordon: Dexter Blows Hot and Cool (1955 [2010], Essential Jazz Classics): Originally a 9-track album for Dootone -- along with Daddy Plays the Horn (also 1955), Gordon's only albums between 1953-1960 -- picked up five bonus tracks from two months earlier, with different piano and drums but same bassist (Leroy Vinnegar). B+(***) Dexter Gordon: The Resurgence of Dexter Gordon (1960, Jazzland/OJC): After producing outstanding records for Savoy and Dial 1947-53, Gordon only released two 1955 albums until this Cannonball Adderley-produced comeback shot, launching his second prime period. (A third one can be mapped from his return to the US in 1976, although he recorded regularly while in Denmark, especially for the SteepleChase album named for him. Sextet, the rest of the band nothing special (best known are Dolo Coker on piano and Lawrence Marable on drums), but the saxophone is ummistakable. B+(**) Dexter Gordon: Body and Soul (1967 [1988], Black Lion): Recorded live in Copenhagen with his usual quartet: Kenny Drew (piano), NHØP (bass), and Albert Heath (drums). Five covers, 9:31-13:25 stretches of four standards and Lou Donaldson's "Blues Walk." B+(**) Dexter Gordon: The Tower of Power (1969 [1993], Prestige/OJC): Still in Copenhagen, but Back on an American label for the first of eight albums through 1973. Quartet with Barry Harris (piano), Buster Williams (bass), and Tootie Heath (drums), plus James Moody for the opening double sax chase. B+(**) Dexter Gordon: More Power! (1969 [1994], Prestige/OJC): Same quartet, same session, and keeping with the "more" theme five cuts (instead of four), two (instead of one) with James Moody joining in. Seems like he can crank out records at this level whenever he gets the chance. B+(**) Dexter Gordon: The Jumpin' Blues (1970 [1994], Prestige/OJC): New quartet, recorded in New York: Wynton Kelly (piano), Sam Jones (bass), Roy Brooks (drums). Leans heavily on bop standards and lights them up. B+(***) Dexter Gordon: The Panther! (1970 [1992], Prestige/OJC): Another quartet -- not sure he ever enjoyed sharing the set with a trumpet -- and a relatively good one, with Tommy Flanagan (piano), Larry Ridley (bass), and Alan Dawson (drums). Includes a long "Body and Soul," and a relatively short "The Christmas Song" -- especially nice where corny was more likely. A- Dexter Gordon: Ca' Purange (1972 [1973], Prestige/OJC): Spoke too early about Gordon eschewing trumpets, as he's joined here by Thad Jones (also on flugelhorn), with Hank Jones on piano, Stanley Clarke on bass, and Louis Hayes on drums. Four pieces, just 31:25, with the saxophonist playing even less. B+(***) Dexter Gordon: Generation (1972 [1973], Prestige/OJC): Formal attempt at a Hard bop quintet, the saxophonist joined by trumpet Freddie Hubbard), piano (Cedar Walton), bass (Buster Williams), and drums (Billy Higgins) -- impressive on paper, but nothing special. CD adds a second take of "Milestones." B+(*) Dexter Gordon: Tangerine (1972 [1975], Prestige/OJC): Looks like leftovers, with three tracs from the Ca' Purnage quintet, plus one from the Generation quartet, appearing a couple years after Gordon left Prestige. B+(**) Dexter Gordon Quartet: The Apartment (1974 [1975], SteepleChase): Ubiquitous Danish bassist Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen managed to break into this superb lineup of Americans in Copenhagen: the tenor saxophonist, Kenny Drew (piano), and Tootie Heath (drums). B+(***) Dexter Gordon Quartet: Something Different (1975 [1980], SteepleChase): What's different is guitarist Philip Catherine instead of a piano player. NHØP is on bass, Billy Higgins drums. B+(***) Dexter Gordon Quartet: Biting the Apple (1976 [1977], SteepleChase): Recorded in a New York studio about a month before his live Homecoming at the Village Vanguard. Backed by Barry Harris, Sam Jones, and Al Foster. B+(***) Dexter Gordon: Homecoming: Live at the Village Vanguard (1976 [1977], Columbia/Legacy, 2CD): I remember this as a big deal at the time, and even managed to wrangle a free ticket to one of the sets, but remember little other than the hulking presence of the saxophonist. Backed by Woddy Shaw (trumpet), Ronnie Matthews (piano), Stafford James (bass), and Louis Hayes (drums) -- some sources also credit Rene McLean (sax), but most don't. Starts in a good mood, working in one of his trademark quotations early. Shaw is in especially fine form, further inspiration for the conquering hero. A- Grupo Mono Blanco: Soneros Jarochos: The Arhoolie Recordings 1989-1990 (1989-90 [2006], Arhoolie): Clearly dated, produced by Chris Strachwitz on a trip to Veracruz, with five musicians but only four on the cover, the only constant between here and the new(er) Smithsonian record the leader Gilberto Gutierrez Silva. The harp gives this a distinctly percussive sound, but sometimes it sounds like the microphone got left in the wrong room. B+(***) Jim Hobbs Fully Celebrated Orchestra: Peace & Pig Grease (1993 [1994], Silkheart): Alto saxophonist from Indiana, possibly his first album -- although Babadita has a lower catalog number, and is attributed to the more generic Jim Hobbs Trio, even though this group is the same trio, with Timo Shanko (bass) and Django Carranza (drums). Touches on Ornette; 10:08 "Ice on Fire" really takes off. [PS: cover scan shows recorded January 19-20, 1993] A- Jim Hobbs Trio: Babadita (1994, Silkheart): Alto sax trio, with Timo Shanko (bass) and Django Carranza (drums), same as his Fully Celebrated Orchestra group -- don't have a recording date, but seems likely this came earlier. Also don't have song credits, but "A Posse" is pure Ornette Coleman -- only one of several distinct impressions he makes. B+(***) William Hooker/Billy Bang: Joy (Within)! (1994-95 [1996], Silkheart): Drums and violin (with Bang playing flute on the title tune), from two live sets at Knitting Factory, about a year apart. Seems marginal at first, until Bang finds his magic, and the drummer manages to keep up. B+(***) 'Kidd' Jordan Quartet: New Orleans Festival Suite (1999 [2002], Silkheart): Avant saxophonist from New Orleans, plays tenor, with Joel Futterman on piano (also soprano sax), William Parker (bass), and Alvin Fielder (drums). Jordan was a well-kept secret until Katrina, when he was evidently discovered among the wreckage -- he even managed to play cameos in Tremé (at one point, Wendell Pierce's trombonist blurts out, as Jordan and Donald Harrison enter, "here come the real jazz musicians"). Two half-hour pieces plus an 11:58 closer, nothing sweet to it, the sax caustic, the piano explosive. B+(***) Steve Lacy Sextet: The Gleam (1986 [1987], Silkheart): One of the soprano saxophonist's favorite configurations, with at least six Sextet albums from 1974-92. Group includes Steve Potts (alto/soprano sax), Bobby Few (piano), Jean-Jacques Avenel (bass), Oliver Johnson (drums), and Irène Aebi (violin/vocals). I dislike Aebi's vocals so much I usually dock Lacy's albums one notch per song. Not so bad here, but much better when she lays out (or just plays violin). B+(*) Steve Lacy: 5 x Monk 5 x Lacy (1994 [1997], Silkheart): Soprano saxophone, solo, five Monk songs, five originals, both sets deliberate and methodical. B+(**) Jimmy Lyons/Andrew Cyrille: Something in Return (1981 [1988], Black Saint): Alto sax/drums duo, both played in Cecil Taylor's most legendary group, but hardly need any help or outside inspiration here. Warms up with a sly take on "Take the A Train," followed by two pieces each, winding up with a joint improv, the extraordinary 15:41 "Fragments I." A- Jackie McLean Featuring Dexter Gordon: The Meeting (1973 [1990], SteepleChase): The first of two albums from two nights at Montmartre Jazzhus in Copenhagen, originally The Meeting Vol. 1 followed by The Source Vol. 2, with the volume numbers dropped on reissue, as more tracks were added. The saxophonists were backed by local residents Kenny Drew (piano), Niels Henning Ørsted Pedersen (bass), and Alex Riel (drums), with Drew writing three (of five) pieces. McLean earns his top billing. B+(***) Alexander von Schlippenbach: Globe Unity (1966 [1967], SABA): Album attributed to the pianist (his first), recorded a month after the Berliner Philharmonie concert that launched his famous free jazz ensemble. Cast of thirteen, including two drummers (Jackie Liebzeit, Mani Neumeier), two bassists (Peter Kowald, Buschi Niebergall), three brass (cornet, trumpet, tuba), five reeds (including Peter Brötzmann and Willem Breuker, plus Gunter Hampel on bass clarinet and flute) -- most very young at the time (Schlippenbach was 28). This could be taken as the founding document of the European avant-garde: might even lead to the conclusion that instead of evolving piecemeal, it erupted in a big bang. A- A Tribe Called Quest: Revised Quest for the Seasoned Traveller (1989-91 [2018], Jive/Legacy): Released in 1992, remixes of songs from their first two albums and/or period singles "If the Papes Come" was the flip of "Can I Kick It?"). Not sure whether the goosed up mixes increase the appeal or complicate a vibe that was too subtle for me to grasp back then. Either way, some first rate songs. B+(***) Assif Tsahar Trio: Ein Sof (1997, Silkheart): Tenor saxophonist, born in Israel, moved to New York in 1990. Seems to be his second album (after Shekhina in 1996, on Eremite), a trio with William Parker (bass) and Susie Ibarra (drums). Terrific energy out of the gate, but does wear you down a bit. B+(***) David S. Ware Quartet: Great Bliss Volume 1 (1990 [1991], Silkheart): Pictured on cover playing flute, which he does on 7/8 tracks, more than tenor sax (2), saxello (3), or stritch (1). His quartet, which first recorded in 1988, features Matthew Shipp (piano) and William Parker (bass), with Marc Edwards the drummer. Lots of potential here, at least on the tenor sax tracks, where Ware is a commanding presence, and Shipp's comp rumble is already unique. B+(**) David S. Ware Quartet: Great Bliss Volume 2 (1990 [1994], Silkheart): Flute tracks down to two, vs. saxello (1), stritch (2), and tenor sax (3). B+(**) David S. Ware Quartet: Oblations and Blessings (1995 [1996], Silkheart): Drummer -- the only position that changed over the Quartet's 15-year run -- now Whit Dickey, no doubt brought in by pianist Matthew Shipp, whose trios started with and still feature Dickey. Ware has settled on tenor sax. B+(***) 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: A Tribe Called Quest: People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm (1990, Jive): Rechecked this after the remixes above, figuring I had almost certainly underrated it -- if only because I could still recall a number of songs (probably thanks to The Anthology, which came out in 1999 after they broke up). Of course, the remixes have a bit more punch, but the flow here shows they were really onto something, and it just took me way too long to appreciate what. (And no, not 28 years: I have their next three albums at A-, a slight drop for the 4th, and also highly recommend The Anthology and their 2016 reunion album. A- NotesEverything streamed from Napster (ex Rhapsody), except as noted in brackets following the grade:
|
