Music Notes

I had the privilege of seeing Tomeka Reid’s A Tribute to Ellington project last week at Firehouse 12 in New Haven. The great (genius, one might say) cellist was commissioned to write some tribute music to the Duke. Amusingly, she admitted that she had no idea why she was asked to do this. She thought maybe it was because she grew up in DC too. But she honestly said she didn’t know. So she decided to write a bunch of music thinking about collaborators, both Ellington’s great band and her own best friends, who she asked to be in this project with her. Those collaborators include Taylor Ho Bynum on cornet, Anna Webber on tenor sax and flute, Mikel Patrick Avery on drums, Silvia Bolognesi on bass, Matthew Miller on trombone, Paul Barrels on viola, and a vocalist who came up for one piece whose name I did not catch, unfortunately.

I have seen Reid and Bynum a bunch of times and Webber on a couple of projects, but none of the rest. In fact, I didn’t even know the names of the rest of the musicians before this. So that’s always good, expanding the palette a bit by learning the favorite musicians of your favorite musicians. So I will keep these folks on my mind. Anyway, the music didn’t really feel like it had much of a connection to Ellington per se, unlike the Jason Moran Ellington project I discussed awhile back, but I didn’t much care for that anyway. I went because I knew the musicianship would be great and indeed it was. As it happened, since this is such a small space, I sat closest to Bynum and Webber, which was cool, though I couldn’t see Barrels at unless I really craned my head. So it was fun to watch them work and their reactions to the music. It started with a pretty intense little jam before Bynum took the lead. Then pretty much everyone got their solo times over the show, though Avery remained pretty much backing up everyone instead of taking big leads himself. Nothing wrong with that of course. Anyway, it was an excellent example of the greatness of contemporary jazz, which I maintain is as good today as it has been in the century plus that the music existed.

Other news and notes:

I saw Joel Harrison for the first time at Big Ears, and it’s not only a great festival for fans, it’s a great festival for musicians. I’ve read this sort of thing before from musicians after the festival, but never something that went quite into this as much as Harrison:

It is one of the only music events I’ve ever been to where I feel at home. Why? I want to try to describe this in a way that will be useful to the non-musician and musician alike.

Big Ears, more than any festival in the world, defines “American music.” For me, anyway. I know…those are two big words, “American… music.” What do I mean by that? American music is a great river, many streams feed it, some from black music, some Caucasian music, some from Latin music, even Native American music, and increasingly from music from all over the world. The result is a sum that is the envy of the world. It has inspired millions. Charley Patton swam in this river, Bill Monroe, too—as does Stevie Wonder and Terry Riley. It’s not a rivulet from a single source, but a great river from multiple sources. I swim in that river. I’m incapable of staying in one of the streams for long. This is the river that is under threat by the current administration. What I look for in music is this abundance whose most profound achievement results in subtle, or ecstatic, or uproarious mystery. It’s surprisingly rare. Often, I feel as if I’m living inside a trope or a genre when I hear music. In the big river you hardly know where you are. You’re lost in the current. It’s a beautiful feeling, there’s something bigger than any single conversation going on. It’s a Milky Way of sound rather than a single planet.

Years ago John Zorn pointed out that there is no name for the music that he plays. Nor for mine, I’d add. It’s not like we need one. And yet…we are often homeless except at a place like Big Ears. Well, not John Zorn per se, but the many of us who share his boundless enthusiasms who are, shall we say, less known.

Yes, the phrase “American music” is insubstantial and vague, and surely open to jingoism. But… I struggle for the words to describe the depth of what I’m talking about.

Let’s take one of the events at Big Ears that moved me the most: Meshell Ndegocello’s James Baldwin Project. I wept after this performance it was so deep. There is no way to pigeonhole it. It defined the big river. First of all, the lyrics are transcendent, mostly coming from one of our great American writers. The musicianship was extraordinary. There wasn’t a single extra note in these arrangements, rather a deep, slow conversation, punctuated by silence. The music was rather simple harmonically which allowed a sort of trance state to exist, with hypnotic but never predictable rhythms. Meshell’s voice is wonderful. But Justin Hicks, who shares the vocals, is possibly the most extraordinary singer I have ever heard. One note from this fellow is like a double rainbow. The keyboardist was a master of orchestration and color. Chris Bruce played spare, clear guitar that spoke more to me than the flurries of notes heard elsewhere in the festival. This music has meaning and a message. But you’re never pounded by the message. It’s subtle, it’s delivered with sugar, which makes it penetrate even deeper into your core. There’s nothing forced about the music, it takes its time, it explores, blues, funk, jazz, singer-songwriter, and never settles on one of them. It was majestic and mature.

….

This idea about us being a polyglot nation is an endangered idea right now. I’m not going to start raving about the mess we’re in. That’s for others to do. But I will say this.

We, my fellow artists, BIG EARS, are an antidote. The beauty, the love, the unity we strive to create stands against warring factions, vicious backbiting, infantile sloganeering, draconian grandstanding, bilious billionaires, and medieval rhetoric that seeks to whitewash our past. If you want to feel better about life, if you want your spirit cleansed, visit Knoxville next March.

I’m obviously no musician, but in terms of spirit cleansing, I couldn’t agree more.

The jazz critic Francis Davis died. He was the kind of guy I can’t understand too much, a celebrator of jazz’s past while worrying that it doesn’t have a future. Given how closely this guy was connected to a certain kind of vocal jazz in his writings, Sinatra especially, I guess I can see why he’d be concerned about his kind of jazz being a bit endangered.

Here’s a harpist demanding more music written for the instrument.

Pioneers of computer music.

The Berlin R&B scene. Hmmm…Nobody brings the rhythms and the blues like the hun.

Non-Sonic Youth Thurston Moore playlist.

I’m excited for the new Julien Baker/Torres album, two queer songwriters doing country music. Neither are really country musicians but they are both southerners who grew up around it. Since many of their fans are not country music afcioniados, they have some Spotify playlists with their influences. Here’s “Cuntry, Vol. 3”. Pretty good playlist there.

Once again, the lineup for Newport Jazz Festival is a combination of people who aren’t really jazz and people who play some pretty mid music in terms of vision. The thing has always been pretty conservative and I guess that’s just never going to change. I can’t go this year because I’m going to be out of town that weekend, but if I could, I’d probably go to just see Janelle Monae and whoever else is playing that day, which other than the Tyshawn Sorey Trio is kind of unexciting for me. Terence Blanchard would be good to see, sure.

Everything about Coachella seems pretty awful to me, but the fact that major stories about the billboards that go up around it exist definitely doesn’t help me change that feeling.

Gloria Gaynor, alive and very much kicking.

Some interesting notes from the Denver Jazz Festival, which has a decent lineup, to the point that I’d pay to go if I was there at that time.

The Bottle Rockets are a band worth thinking about from time to time.

This week’s playlist:

1. Kate and Anna McGarrigle, Matapedia
2. Richard and Linda Thompson, Shoot Out the Lights
3. West African Cosmos, self-titled
4. Fiona Apple, Fetch the Bolt Cutters
5. Dilly Dally, Sore
6. Charley Crockett, $10 Cowboy
7. Sleater-Kinney, No Cities to Love
8. Don Rigsby, Empty Old Mailbox
9. Elizabeth Cook, Welder
10. Bill Callahan, Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle
11. Leonard Cohen, I’m Your Man
12. Talking Heads, Fear of Music
13. The Internet, Feel Good
14. The Magnetic Fields, 69 Love Songs, disc 3
15. Merle Haggard, Down Every Road, disc 3
16. U.S. Girls, Heavy Light
17. Cracker, From Berkeley to Bakersfield, disc 1
18. Wussy, Attica
19. Buddy Tabor, Abandoned Cars and Broken Hearts
20. Drive By Truckers, The Dirty South
21. Mount Moriah, Miracle Temple
22. Loretta Lynn, Fist City
23. Robert Earl Keen, Gringo Honeymoon
24. Bonnie Prince Billy, Greatest Palace Music
25. Miles Davis, A Tribute to Jack Johnson
26. Eric Dolphy, A Night in Copenhagen
27. L7, Bricks Are Heavy
28. The Who, Who’s Next
29. Chris Stapleton, Traveller
30. Ray Price, Night Life
31. Margo Price, Midwest Farmer’s Daughter
32. Tanya Tucker, Delta Dawn
33. Will Oldham, Guarapero: Lost Blues 2
34. Dewey Redman, Tarik
35. Sharon Van Etten, Are We There
36. Eels, Blinking Lights (and Other Revelations), disc 1
37. Tomas Fujiwara, Triple Double
38. Charlotte Adigéry and Bolis Pupul, Topical Dancer
39. Yo La Tengo, I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One
40. Sonic Youth, Daydream Nation
41. Big Thief, Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You
42. Chris Acker, Famous Lunch
43. Tom Waits, Bone Machine
44. Steve Earle, El Corazón
45. The Grateful Dead, Europe 72, disc 2
46. Smog, Supper
47. Norman Blake, Old and New
48. Old 97s, Too Far to Care
49. Run the Jewels, RTJ 3
50. Kate and Anna McGarrigle, Dancer with Bruised Knees
51. Roky Erickson, The Evil One
52. Drive By Truckers, English Oceans
53. Bois Sec Ardoin, Allons Danser
54. John Coltrane, Africa/Brass
55. Parquet Courts, Sunbathing Animal
56. Vijay Iyer Trio, Break Stuff
57. The Dillards, Back Porch Bluegrass
58. Johnny Paycheck, On His Way
59. Gillian Welch, The Harrow and the Harvest
60. Neil Young, Live Rust

Album Reviews:

Lilly Hiatt, Forever

Lilly Hiatt fucked her life up flatter than hammered shit with all the booze and drugs, but being the daughter of John, she had certain advantages in salvaging her musical career once she cleaned up, which I do not begrudge her at all since someone of her talent needs to be working. Her album Trinity Lane was absolutely fantastic, a tremendously honest look at her life without being too confessional or navel-gazing, sometimes the weakness of Margo Price’s admittedly also excellent Midwest Farmer’s Daughter, which came out around the same time and was also about someone screwing up their life and getting it together. Hiatt’s follow up, Lately, was really more pretty decent than great and I own it but it’s not a frequent listen. So I was interested to hear her new album, which I figure would be pretty determinant on what the rest of her career might look like. For comparison, the same is true with Price, whose had a pretty OK follow up album and then has had a couple of duds since it turns out she just wants to be Stevie Nicks, which is a lot less interesting than being Loretta Lynn. Hiatt just wants to be Lilly Hiatt though, which gives her a big artistic advantage, if less cultural cache and cross over appeal to the pop market.

From the first crunchy guitar notes and the attitude heavy vocals, Hiatt looks to own this release. And she mostly does. It’s not Trinity Lane, but maybe nothing can be. It is better than Lately though, I feel confident saying that. If you are looking for an honest set of songs, delivered with plenty of rock and roll attitude and guitars but really still being more singer-songwriter fare in the end, this is a good collection.

B+

Ambrose Akinmusire, Honey from a Winter Stone

Akinmusire was all over Big Ears but I didn’t get a chance to see him. Most of that was about scheduling, but I also don’t really know his work, so I figured I’d better check out his new album. I don’t regret not seeing him, because I saw so much other awesome stuff. But now that I heard the new album, I really wish I had made that time. This is easily the album of the week and probably will be a top 10 album album from 2025 in the end. Here’s one way to look at this–this is something like Kamasi Washington but far better and more interesting. I’m not the first one to note that he and Washington have a lot of similar interests–bringing in hip hop and string quartets and doing crazy things and making accessible music too, often all the same time. But the difference is, quite frankly, that Washington is well known only because he has Kendrick Lamar in his back pocket, whereas Akinmusire is the better musician with a far more expansive vision of what his own music can be. This goes everywhere and yet stays firmly under his control. Whereas, for example, a Jon Irabagon can do this and is a super interesting musician but sometimes it goes off the rails a bit, Akinmusire keeps the train moving ahead firmly and constantly riveting your attention on what you are hearing. Kokayi, who I saw at Big Ears, is on this project as well, which is why he was at Big Ears to begin with. That adds a whole other level of super fun to the project. Cool stuff.

A

Draco Rosa, Reflejos de Lo Eterno

I hadn’t heard this Puerto Rican singer before, but I need to hear more. It’s nice to hear some music out of there that isn’t salsa. Which is not to speak against salsa, but it’s not the only music that should be generated out of a place. This isn’t exactly what I’d call folk music, but it has strong singer-songwriter vibes, just from the Caribbean instead of Greenwich Village or something. These are songs of love and loss, with a really good backing band that doesn’t overwhelm or show off too much. Will listen again for sure.

A-

Wyndham Baird, After the Morning

Pretty bold to open an album as a little known songwriter with a cover of Hag’s “If We Make It Through December.” But I hadn’t really read anything about this album since I put it on my to listen list. Then I realized what was up–he doesn’t want to be a songwriter who tosses a cover in. He wants to be Ramblin’ Jack Elliott. We don’t have a lot of American song interpreters these days. I wish we had more. This guy? That’s what he is. And I have to say, while it took me a few songs, by the time we got to his version of “Raglan Road,” which I mostly know from a Peter Rowan version, I found myself deeply moved by his plaintive vocals and fairly straightforward guitar picking. The guy can really get at the sorrow of the American songbook with his voice. This is unlikely to be for everyone, but if you are the kind of person this is for, then you might fall in love with it.

A-

Red Rockers, Condition Red

Let’s go deep into the archives for the rerelease of the 1981 Red Rockers debut full length album. These classic New Orleans punk guys sure sound great today. This was a pretty openly revolutionary band. I mean, the first track is in fact called “Guns and Revolution” and it goes from there. “White Law” seems particularly appropriate for a New Orleans band, ranting against racist cops and racist jurors. All attitude, in that old school punk way. These guys aren’t quite as smart as Gang of Four and aren’t quite as great as The Clash, but I mean, that’s an awfully high bar. Red Rockers soon went much more mainstream, both less punk and less political, but this initial album definitely feels of a time and place and is a quite successful example of that moment.

A-

Orquesta Akokan, 16 Rayos

I loved the debut of this Cubano ban but had missed their 2021 follow up. For me, this was highly enjoyable but maybe not great. Not surprisingly, they aren’t really breaking new ground but moving deeper into their genre music and there’s most certainly nothing wrong with that. In fact, I can’t say a single negative thing about this album except for the fact that it did not change my life.

B+

Fall Out Boy, So Much (for) Stardust

Here’s a band I always avoided. I can see why upon listening. I guess it’s appealing in a broadly populist way if you are an idiot, but it’s impossible to take either the earnest vocals or the cheesy rock arrangements remotely seriously. Then there is their cover of “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” which was a terrible song when Billy Joel released it and is somehow even worse. Good lord, who the fuck would listen to this shit? It’s not hard for me to imagine why people who listen to lots of music I don’t like. But this? I don’t get what the audience is this for this claptrap? Ethan Hawke, I guess, who appears on a track for some reason, just talking about his father. His father might have been a terrible person, but did he deserve being mentioned on this album? Who deserves credit here is me, for actually listening to this entire album.

D-

Jessy Lanza, Love Hallucination

I tried to get into an earlier Lanza album, Oh No, picking it up years ago, but never really succeeded despite giving it a few shots. So I decided to hear this one. But I still struggle with the dance hall vibe here. Unlike Fall Out Boy, it’s not because it’s shitty. It’s just because it’s not really my bag. But within the pop dance thing she’s doing, she’s clearly a solid songwriter at worst and a quite good one at best. She can be pretty warm in her vocals at times too. I enjoyed this as much as I am ever going to enjoy this sound.

B-

Tyler Childers, Rustin in the Rain

I’ve been kind of on the fence with this guy, who so clearly wants to be Jason Isbell but more popular with mainstream country audiences. And I’m still not sure. He’s a perfectly competent country singer with folk influences. But when I hear his cover of “Help Me Make It Through the Night” here, I have to compare with the extremely long history of great Kristofferson covers. And this doesn’t rate very highly in that list. Again, if I saw this at a bar, I’d be like hey, decent cover there. But it really isn’t more than that and that’s how I end up feeling about Childers more generally. Perfectly pleasant modern country, much better than Nashville mainstream radio shit, but lacking in comparison to a lot of other, better, artists.

B

Suzy Bogguss, Prayin’ for Sunshine

The 2023 album from an always welcome country singer and songwriter who doesn’t get the attention she deserves, or hasn’t since the 90s anyway. This isn’t a great album really, but it sure is a solid warm album of good songwriting.

B

As always, this is an open thread for all things music and art and none things politics.