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As any reader of these musical posts knows, I am a big fan of free jazz. And I am a big fan of Archie Shepp. He’s still around and playing, though in his 80s. He also remains as sharp of critic of the world as ever. And I found this pretty interesting:

Shepp, along with his peers and friends, including his mentor John Coltrane, bandmate Don Cherry, and former leaders Taylor and Alice Coltrane inspire talk of god-like genius from some. But Shepp does have regrets about the way they operated. He acknowledges that his pursuit of experimental free jazz, at times, alienated the audience he wishes he could have connected with the most: black people.

Even his own family struggled to grasp some of it. “I remember my mother saying, ‘Well, honey, you’re still playing those little songs that don’t have no tune?’” he says, laughing. “So I was really aware of the fact that the things I was playing didn’t always have relevance to the audience that I want to reach.”

“We were primarily benefited from the presence of a largely white audience,” he adds. Was that hard to square because of the explicitly pro-black message of the music? “It always has been,” he says. “It was very disturbing at the beginning.”

He is, of course, correct about this. Those guys–including others not mentioned such as Pharoah Sanders and Rashied Ali–were making explicitly Black music that took an explicitly Black spirituality and applied it to the lived experience of Black Americans. But it was also hard art. And it turned out to have a lot more appeal to educated white audiences in the art community than it did for its intended members. I can only imagine how this must have felt. Of course, this has been a long issue in highly acclaimed Black music, from Muddy Waters to Public Enemy, which has sold to white audiences more than the targeted audiences. Unlike the blues though, you do still see a lot of Black artists in the free jazz scene and some in the audience, whereas with blues it’s quite frequently a single older Black person on stage surrounded by young white musicians and an all-white audience. Not sure what anyone can do about these sorts of things. But I can certainly see why Shepp would have found that tremendously frustrating and infuriating.

Sinead O’Connor has written her memoirs and I have little doubt it will be a good read. She’s had her issues and was treated horrifically in the aftermath of her Saturday Night Live appearance, but seems to be in a better place now and in some ways found all of that pretty freeing.

There’s a new biography of the contemporary jazz titan William Parker and I am excited to read it!

Celebrating gospel music of the post-Civil Rights era

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has made its choices for this year and it’s not too bad, all things considered. That’s in part because they took some shortcuts, but hey whatever. Tina Turner was an obvious selection. I don’t care about The Go-Gos, but sure, why not. Foo Fighters suck (well, not suck exactly but they are an absolutely uninteresting band), but you always have the one really bad selection. Jay-Z is uncontroversial, or should be. Todd Rundgren was probably overdue considering that every 70s guitar figure will get in eventually. And Carole King, well, surprised she wasn’t inducted as a performer beforehand. The shortcut was in the “Early Influence Award” category. Charley Patton was inducted this year in this way and, sure, absolutely. What’s amusing though is that because voters routinely make bad choices, both Kraftwerk and Gil Scott-Heron could never get through the gates. I don’t see how either of these acts are “early influence.” They aren’t, they are contemporary acts. But you know what, they both are more than well-deserving and maybe this will become a category to let in all sorts of acts that are unjustly screwed by the Hall. Sonic Youth? Early influencer! And I don’t even know what the “Musical Excellence Award” is but since LL Cool J falls short every single year, giving him this is certainly fine by me, not to mention legendary sidemen Randy Rhoads and Billy Preston.

This week’s album acquisitions

  • Pauline Oliveros, Accordion and Voice
  • Ricky Skaggs, Highways & Heartaches
  • Shovels & Rope, Little Seeds

Album Reviews:

Sleaford Mods, Spare Ribs

A bit of a hard album for me to review properly because I think it’s great due to its attitude and politics while also recognizing that it is musically limited. This veteran English band hates capitalism as much as I do. Moreover, they come out of the English punk tradition where these things are stated with the greatest possible bluntness, as opposed the relatively apolitical U.S. punk tradition. The minimalist production is intentional, but I think is more of an aesthetic choice than one representing musical limitations. This is a great album to listen to when you are pissed off at the news. Perhaps less so when you are looking for musical virtuosity. But then again, maybe not once you start digging in.

A-

Nick Cave/Warren Ellis, Carnage

The difference between this and a Bad Seeds album is a bit unclear to me. In any case, this a fairly minor album that is closer to spoken word behind atmospheric effects than anything else. I seem to be in a significant minority in not thinking this is brilliant; I’d say it is OK. And I’m fine with a minority take. By no means a bad album, but not quite for me either.

B-

Rempis/Parker/Flaten/Cunningham, Stringers and Struts

The Chicago-based saxophonist Dave Rempis is such a genius and this is a good intro into the Chicago free jazz album. With Jeff Parker on guitar, Ingebrigt Håker Flaten on bass, and Jeremy Cunningham on drums, I highly recommend it minus one thing that sometimes annoys me about contemporary free jazz. There’s a bit too much of the use of mufflers on the saxophone and the embrace of squeeky tiny sounds that I get is a break from the louder music but also really doesn’t move the music forward very usefully in my opinion. Minor critique that goes much farther than this album and, again, it’s a real good intro into the Chicago scene.

No clip from this album on YouTube, but here’s some of Rempis’ other work as a sample.

A-

Kishi Bashi, Emigrant

Theoretically, this EP was inspired by Bashi’s trip to the West during the pandemic. Well, I guess there isn’t reason to think he’s lying, though it’s hard to read anything western-inspired into this. But this is extremely mannered music, especially the singing, that feels like a not very useful return late 60s psychedelic folk. The cover of Dolly Parton’s “Early Morning Breeze,” which is not a particular favorite Dolly to me, kind of sums it up in that the combination of the extreme enunciation of every syllable and the tuning of the violin is doing a lot of work to make this sound like outre folk as opposed to being a particularly interesting interpretation of the song.

C+

Vijay Iyer Trio, Uneasy

It takes quite a bit for me to really get into the piano trio, a mainstay of jazz but one which I often find a bit on the dull side. But as always, one can leave it to Vijay Iyer to create a tremendous album of accessible and yet experimental music.

A

Mourn, Self-Worth

I was lucky enough to get on the Mourn train right as their first album came out. I’ve watched these young Barcelona punks grow as a band, as songwriters and as musicians. It’s been up and down–slight sophomore slump album under a bad contract (the oldest story in music), excellent third album, some personnel changes, and now a solid fourth album from a band reaching maturity. As some reviewer once said about Mourn, they really seem to be both pissed off and having a great time simultaneously. That was the case when I saw them live a few years ago as well. What’s different now from the first album is that they can pull off a 4 minute song and the writing has moved beyond boys sucking. This is a very solid work.

A-

Anthony Coleman, Catenary Oath

Coleman is an incredibly talented pianist who frequently brings strong Jewish influences into his jazz. That’s the case here too. But even more than piano trios, I find solo piano jazz albums about the least interesting subgenre. There are a few exceptions to this–Matthew Shipp or Myra Melford come to mind–but even with a player as great as Coleman, some of it tends toward being a bit boring to me. I can’t think of a piece on here–the Ellington covers or the originals–where I wouldn’t want to hear this with a bigger group, even just a trio. So perhaps I am evaluating this more on my personal aesthetic preferences than the music itself, but it’s not like those can easily be separated. Anyway, those of you who love solo piano will no doubt feel a bit differently than I.

B

Lori McKenna, The Tree

While McKenna can occasionally dip into the small-town stereotypes of modern country music (especially for someone from the Boston burbs), by and large she’s an outstanding songwriter who has provided others with hits and who has recorded a series of excellent albums herself. This is her 2018 effort and is filled with very fine work. A particular favorite is “You Can’t Break a Woman,” about a wife who has had to get used to her drunken, stoned husband and the emotional damage that causes. That’s the kind of storytelling she excels at. Add to that a very fine voice. Very solid country music.

A-

Sad13, Slugger

Ever since I discovered that Speedy Ortiz frontwoman Sadie Dupuis had a side project, I’ve tried to figure out why. Does she want to make even less money? In any case, this is the first Sad13 album, from 2016. I still don’t see why this isn’t just a Speedy Ortiz album, but in any case, this is another really strong release filled with songs about love, breakup, consent, gender nonconformity, telling stupid guys not to be jealous because she has male friends, etc. Plus lots of catchy hooks. Dupuis is just one of the best frontwomen working today, the descendant of Juliana Hatfield and Liz Phair and Kathleen Hanna. Good stuff.

A-

Kelley Stoltz, Ah! (etc)

Enjoyed this solid guitar-pop album from this veteran. I’m not super familiar with his back catalog, but he’s been around forever and if this is any guide is just one of those solid songwriters who can craft a good song in his sleep, even if the entire effect of the album doesn’t blow you away. It’s just good music in the best way. Not great music. Good music.

B+

Filthy Friends, Emerald Valley

Peter Buck and Corin Tucker decided to make a couple of albums with a side project and some solid session players backing them. It’s fine. I’ve never thought Corin’s work outside of Sleater-Kinney had the urgency it needed and I do feel that way here. I also think I don’t need to hear her sing anymore new songs about why we should protect our ancient forests from logging. I obviously agree with the politics, but the song doesn’t really work. This is fine, not more than that. Certainly the playing is proficient though.

B

Mdou Moctar, Afrique Victime

The great Nigerian guitarist has another fine release. Nothing is going to match seeing him live–seriously, if you have a chance, do so. But this is a very good album that mostly revolves around colonialism and the awful things that have happened to Africans. You don’t need to speak much French to know what this album title suggests. Musically, it’s a little more constrained than one might hope, but how do you replicate that live experience on the album. The positive difference here compared to his live performances is that the lyrics are clearer.

A-

Mary Timony, Mountains: 20th Anniversary Edition

Not being sure that I’ve ever actually heard this before, I thought I’d check this classic out since it’s been re-released twenty years later with a few additional cuts. Timony was already pretty beloved in 2001, but this album was savaged at the time for dumb lyrics. But I mean, look, she might have been reading a bit too much fantasy at this time and maybe there isn’t as much guitar as you’d like from this legend, but it’s still a very good album. The savage reviews seem to miss the point and are a lot more dated than the music. I mean, I hate fantasy literature, but c’mon, there are a lot dumber lyrics out there than what Timony wrote here. There’s a Washington Post interview with her about the re-release and I think this gets to the heart of what was going on in 2001.

More importantly, the advent of streaming platforms has also dissolved once-fortified genre distinctions, whereas “at the time, genre lines were thicker. Now all music kind of exists at the same time, all genres and eras on the Internet,” Timony says. “People’s brains are just more open to stuff. Now ‘Mountains’ doesn’t sound as weird. And it’s not that weird really, but at the time it was not cool in our little indie rock universe.”

Right–it’s really interesting how much times have changed. In 2001, you not only listened ONLY to your kind of music, but other kinds of music were THE ENEMY. “I don’t listen to rap” or “I don’t listen to country” was the way things were. You listened to sad-sack pop, not heavy metal because those were both scenes and THEY DID NOT CROSS. Today, it’s all one giant jumble of music. Everyone listens to everything. Personally, I like it a lot better these days. What it meant in 2001 though is that if someone like Timony threw a giant curveball, it wasn’t just an album you might not like, it was a betrayal of who you were.

A-

As always, this is an open thread for all things music and art and none things politics (including OT politics comments, knock it off people)

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