Notable recordings of 2018

Sometimes when my buddy Bruce Lee Gallanter, pro­pri­et­or of my favor­ite extant NYC record store, Downtown Music Gallery, is com­pil­ing an annu­al best-of fea­ture for his news­let­ter, he asks me to kick in a top ten. And because I’m undis­cip­lined this way, I give him a top thirty or thirty one. After draft­ing the list, I thought I’d do some re-listening, to make sure, and also draft some notes, a bunch detailed, oth­ers not, and hav­ing done THAT, put them up on the olé blog, which craves con­tent. If any of these items interest you, you can likely order them from Bruce’s place.

AMM, An Unintended Legacy (Matchless) Reconvening with gui­tar­ist Keith Rowe for the first time in over ten years after a break occa­sioned by dis­agree­ments over prac­tice, some aired by per­cus­sion­ist Eddie Prevost in a book of essays, this three-disc set presents three performances…it would not do to say “sounds like they picked up right where they left off,” because obsess­ive fol­low­ers of the con­glom­er­ate know it’s not even close to being that simple. Nevertheless, the set does not con­tra­dict the now-decades-old obser­va­tion that AMM record­ings are as alike and unalike as trees. The title is not iron­ic, and the record­ing com­mem­or­ates some­thing final to be sure, as Keith Rowe, liv­ing with Parkinson’s dis­ease, can no longer play gui­tar. (His October 2018 present­a­tion at the New School made his con­di­tion its sub­ject, and was per­formed on rudi­ment­ary elec­tron­ic equip­ment, and was one of the most mov­ing pieces of art I’ve ever experienced.)

Simon Barker/Henry Kaiser/Bill Laswell/Rudresh Mahanthappa,  Mudang Rock (Fractal Music) Korean-inspired jams as heavy as the play­ers would lead you to believe they would be.

Peter Blegvad Quintet, Go Figure (ReR) My old friend Mr. B is, finally, not an art rock­er, but a sing­er song­writer, and finally, a sui gen­er­is one, with a splen­did band includ­ing some art rock­ers behind him…Chris Cutler, Bob Drake, John Greaves, Karen Mantler. This record, his first col­lec­tion in almost twenty years, high­lights Peter’s humor, which, as befits sev­er­al con­tem­por­ary con­di­tions, is fre­quently mord­ant. It is also won­der­fully melod­ic, and played and sung with a warmth that’s a balm.

Peter Brötzmann/Heather Leigh, Sparrow Nights (Trust) First stu­dio record­ing of this gal­van­ic duo, he a vet­er­an of the very emphat­ic reed play­ing, she a rel­at­ive new­bie on the very emphat­ic ped­al steel gui­tar. Live, as they’ve only been chron­icled on disc before, they can and will tear the roof of the suck­er (boy did they ever at Issue Project Room in June of 2017). Here, they opt for less volume some of the time, and a ragged, invent­ive lyr­i­cism a sur­pris­ing part of the time. There’s a lot they can do.

John Butcher/Eddie Prevost Visionary Fantasies (Matchless) One of three discs Matchless released in 2018 fea­tur­ing Prevost with oth­er impro­viser. The oth­er two, The Whole Moon Rests in a Dewdrop on the Grass, with Ken Ikeda on elec­tron­ics, and Darkened, Yet Shone, with John Edwards on bass and N.O. Moore on elec­tric gui­tar, are equally extraordin­ary. I high­light this one just because, and also because I now con­sider Butcher the pree­m­in­ent liv­ing fee impro­visa­tion­al reeds play­er. The music here, start­ing with solo state­ments from each play­er before a series of duets has the qual­ity ancient archi­tec­ture in motion, a series of stone cor­ridors in which one hears the echoes of music­al notes, ves­ti­gi­al groans, ghosts perhaps.

Ceramic Dog, YRU Still Here (Noise) Angry per­son­al­ized protest music with a super-sophisticated stu­dio approach. The con­tent aside, there’s some great pro­duc­tion here; the vocal mix on “Pennsylvania 6 6666,” for instance, is very What’s Going On Marvin Gaye (not that Mark Ribot and Shahzad Ismaily have voices like Marvin Gaye in the least but you will get the idea).

Steve Coleman and Five Elements, Live At the Village Vanguard Volume 1: The Embedded Sets (Pi) First time in a long time that a record from this genu­ine con­tem­por­ary jazz hero — an enga­ging and invent­ive com­poser, play­er, and par­tic­u­larly here, bandlead­er — has grabbed me so hard.

Andrew Cyrille, Lebroba (ECM) The mas­ter drum­mer with gui­tar­ist Bill Frisell and trum­peter Wadada Leo Smith. Rich, deep stuff that gets rich­er and deep­er with each listen. The way the play­ers respond to each oth­er in these unhur­ried but some­times spec­tac­u­larly intric­ate med­it­a­tions is a priv­ilege to earwitness.

DKV Trio, Latitude 41.88 (NOTTWG) Quicksilver free jazz spec­tacle with soul; bleat­ing, blar­ing, honk­ing from Ken Vandermark on the reeds, tum­bling gym­nastics from drum­mer Hamid Drake, a racing pulse from Kent Kessler on bass. Unlike a trio like Air, which some­times made you think you were listen­ing to some­thing wholly oth­er than what they were, this unit spe­cial­izes in rest­less but non-metamorphic invention.

Kevin Drumm, Inexplicable Hours (Sonoris) Electronic drones, field record­ings, and oth­er like mater­i­als make for a col­lec­tion of wary quietude.

Wendy Eisenberg, The Machinic Unconscious (Tzadik) Inner Space Power Trio Extraordinaire: gui­tar­ist Eisenberg is joined by Trevor Dunn on bass and Ches Smith on drums. Lot and lots of what Beefheart called “nerve” gui­tar. Gratingly cool.

Jurg Frey, 120 Pieces of Sound (Elsewhere) The new label Elsewhere, foun­ded by Yuko Zama, has a close affil­i­ation with Erstwhile, and here it issues a sort-of sequel to Frey’s epic com­pos­i­tion “l’ame est sans retenue,” released on a multi-disc set on Erst back in 2017. That piece is a les­son in both hear­ing and listen­ing. This one-disc present­a­tion is a trifle less daunt­ing — the title track’s pieces are indi­vidu­al chords held for short dur­a­tions, struck by a small ensemble and sur­roun­ded by silences. It’s both halt­ingly beau­ti­ful and pecu­li­arly charming.

Bill Frisell, Music Is (Okeh) A superb solo gui­tar col­lec­tion, replete with loops and some little touches of that Line 6 DL 4 box that Mary Halvorson gives such a workout to…all BF com­pos­i­tions, some of them very vin­tage indeed. A friendly record, but not a com­pla­cent one, one into which he pours almost the entirety of what he knows as a jazz play­er into a sound that lays down a bed of impres­sion­ism atop which he impro­vises with a clean, pre­cise attack.

Satoko Fujii/Joe Fonda, Mizu (Long Song) Protean piano/bass impro­visa­tions: search­ing, ener­get­ic, tense and exuberant.

Gosta Berlings Saga, Et Ex (Sony) Swedish post-prog combo that’s more Univers Zero that Jaga Jazzist but nev­er­the­less very snappy with a var­ied ton­al palette and some guest METAL DUDE vocals.

Mary Halvorson & Bill Frisell, The Maid With The Flaxen Hair, A Tribute To Johnny Smith (Tzadik) Lyrical, lov­ing and a little cockeyed.

Harriet Tubman, The Terror End Of Beauty (Sunnyside) The title track could be Pharoah Sanders sit­ting one out dur­ing the record­ing ses­sions for Ask The Ages. On the oth­er tunes, though, gui­tar­ist Brandon Ross evokes McLaughlin and Sharrock, as Christgau says. Although I think he does so  without ever sound­ing too much like either of them. Bassist Melvin Gibbs of course is Melvin Gibbs. Drummer JT Lewis is…well, the whole band is three bold play­ers being their own selves and kick­ing against the pricks.

Henry Kaiser, The Deep Unreal: Solo Guitar 2017 (Metalanguage) Beyond mad-scientist vir­tu­os­ity, bey­ond assault-with-intent on con­ven­tion­al gui­tar lan­guage, Kaiser is now a peer­less cre­at­or of aur­al nar­rat­ive. The first track, one of three that go over 20 minutes, is called “The Story of My 2017 Austral Spring At The McMudo Intake Jetty” and it is that story. The final, fourth track is less than three minutes and called “First You Fall In Love With Antarctica And Then It Breaks Your Heart”

Henry Kaiser/Max Kutner, Wild Courses (Iluso) This double-twelve-string excur­sion may be my favor­ite Kaiser duet record since…could it be…With Friends Like These, the stun­ning 1979 first sum­mit with Fred Frith?

Manna/Mirage, Rest of the World (New House) Old school down to earth Maryland art rock in opposition.

The Necks, Body (Northern Spy) Starts out like a reg­u­lar Necks record…that steady pulse and hum and percolation…then…oh hell, I don’t want to spoil the won­der­ful sur­prise a little over 20 minutes in.

Brandon Seabrook Trio, Convulsionaries (Monofonous Press) Rather than a bassist and drum­mer, BS’s trio com­prises as bassist and cel­list — hey, just like Don Shirley! Seabrook’s play­ing some­times evokes Derek Bailey going through Sharrock’s amp. Lotta banging for a record with no per­cus­sion. Definitely bracing. 

Soft Machine, Hidden Details (MoonJune) In which the form­a­tion long known as Soft Machine Legacy drops the “Legacy,” because they’ve earned the right to. Tricky, not too tricky, lots of exem­plary play­ing, cool and a little hot. Caught them at Iridium in October dur­ing what will likely be their last tour, and they were splendid.

Tyshawn Sorey, Pillars (Firehouse 12) An unusu­al series of son­ic events. Where Henry Threadgill’s work (see below) high­lights rhythmic MOVEMENT, this long piece (about four hours on three CDs), as its title sug­gests, encom­passes play­ing with­in stas­is, or as much stas­is as the passing of time itself affords/allows, which is, para­dox­ic­ally, none. The music then intends, among oth­er things, to wrestle with that paradox.

Stephen Thelen, Fractal Guitar (MoonJune) Just what the title makes it sound like. Lotsa intric­ate pat­terns, nifty atmo­sphere, fero­ciously detailed solo­ing (from the likes of David Torn and Henry Kaiser among others).

Henry Threadgill, Double Up/Dirt…and More Dirt (Pi) Two dif­fer­ent ensembles, two dif­fer­ent ideas. Double Up deals with sound in unmit­ig­ated and unapo­lo­get­ic motion, par­al­lel lines of notes run­ning at dif­fer­ent speeds, anec­dotes in rhythm. Dirt con­veys a rather dif­fer­ent sense of motion, like pages of a book turning.

Thumbscrew, Theirs/Ours (Cuneiform) The pro­tean trio (Mary Halvorson on gui­tar, Michael Formanek on bass, Tomas Fujiwara on drums) released a set of oth­er people’s tunes and a set of their own tunes. Lots of super deep cuts on Theirs, and some­what sur­pris­ingly (although I couldn’t tell you exactly why) noth­ing even resem­bling a pop nod or move. The least obscure is Wayne Shorter’s “Dance Cadaverous.” (My only com­plaint is that the CD artwork/design makes the song list hard to read.) On Ours MH’s com­pos­i­tions and per­form­ances provide melod­ic juice and son­ic char­ac­ter; she’s play­ing gui­tar just like a‑ringing a bell that goes a bit funny some­times. Formanek grounds things while Fujiwara floats like a but­ter­fly while flirt­ing with what seems to be a rock back­beat. Neat stuff. Formanek’s com­pos­i­tions are a little more wide-open spaces, while Fujiwara’s are post­cards from walking/waking dreams

Mark Turner/ Ethan Iverson, Temporary Kings (ECM) Tenor and piano duets (mostly). Delicacy, sens­it­iv­ity, dia­logue both dra­mat­ic and humorous

Dan Weiss, Starebaby (Pi) Intricate and heavy, a beguil­ing mix of acous­tic and amp­li­fied timbres (two keybs, often but not always elec­tric, bass and gui­tar always elec­tric, drummer/leader who plays loud).  Knotty and omin­ous but nev­er oppress­ive. Jazz-rock of a sort that can sound men­acing and play­ful simultaneously.