Music Notes
By 
I saw the drummer Pheeroan akLaff last Friday at Firehouse 12 in New Haven, my last live show for the next month, but it’s been an amazing spring of live music for me. Plus the reason for the time off from live music is a few weeks researching in a couple of small western college towns, so that brings a different appeal. Now, I’ve never actually heard any of his solo music. What I do know him for is being the drummer on those amazing Sonny Sharrock Band albums in the late 80s and early 90s. I had seen him once before, as part of a Wadada Leo Smith project. But still, I didn’t totally know what to expect. Also, I had not seen any of the other musicians in his Global Mantras Quartet, which includes Sumi Tanooka, piano; Keith Witty, bass; Brian Jawara Grey, percussion; and Jay Rodriguez, saxes and flutes. It turns out he and Grey have been playing together for 50 years and they sure can interact during a show effectively with their different styles of percussion. This project is an older one, going back to 1998 and combining his interest in Asian cultures with the Black experience. I don’t really know if these were original musicians on the project or not.
What I do know is that the show was pretty fantastic. And what it made me think of was the layers of breaking through in the jazz world. Other than the Jason Morans and Mary Halvorsons of the world, no one is making much money in jazz. These people play with the best jazz musicians in the world. But quite commonly, if there’s a new quintet, let’s say, there’s one or two people who I don’t know and then I’m like, OK, let’s watch out for that person. So you slowly build knowledge of who these people are. But let’s face it–there are a few A name pianists or drummers out there. On piano these days, you have Vijay Iyer and Craig Taborn and Matthew Shipp and a few others. Moran of course, but he’s really above playing on other people’s projects much by now. On drums, you have Tyshawn Sorey and Gerald Cleaver and Johnathan Blake and maybe still Hamid Drake though you don’t hear much from him these days which makes me wonder about his health. But there’s a few top flight people at all the instruments. OK, but then there’s so many amazing players who aren’t getting those gigs and are trying to do anything to get a bit of that attention, as limited as it is. Since I didn’t know any of the other players in this band, I was just wondering about their trajectories. They aren’t kids up there. And yet they plug away, making their art, usually to not very many people. For this show, ak-Laff had actually lived in New Haven in the late 70s when he was just getting started so there was a bit of a built in audience there and that was cool.
Anyhow, just some musings on the issue.
Other News:
Sufjan Stevens is mostly pretty quiet these days and it turns out he’s gone through a lot of really tough stuff, including a severe health issue and the death of his partner. Here’s a rare interview with him on the 10th anniversary of Carrie & Lowell, which is both about his mother and stepfather and about Oregon.
John Moreland hates Zach Bryan enough after agreeing to record with him that Bryan has actually pulled their collaboration after Moreland claims Bryan tells racist jokes and was a dick to everyone around him. Not surprised. Other musicians are starting to tell stories on social media of what an asshole Bryan is. Total wanker.
Morgan Wallen is a right wing piece of shit and so are most of this fans.
Buying used books and albums is not an ethical dilemma. Buy them!
Interesting sounding new country rock band out of Abilene.
Congress may be worthless, but they can pass bills to support the music industry still.
Art Pepper playlist on Bandcamp.
Playlist:
- Algiers, The Underside of Power
- Bill Callahan, Rough Travel for a Rare Thing
- Kendrick Lamar, DAMN
- Father John Misty, I Love You Honeybear
- Willie Nelson and Ray Price, San Antonio Rose
- Leyla McCalla, The Capitalist Blues
- Jenny Owen Youngs, Avalanche
- John Prine, self-titled
- Priests, The Seduction of Kansas
- Mates of State, Mountaintops
- Vincent Neil Emerson, The Golden Crystal Kingdom
- Dale Watson, From the Start
- Iron & Wine, The Shepherd’s Dog
- Yo Yo Ma & the Silk Road Ensemble, Silk Road Journeys: Beyond the Horizon
- Mitski, Laurel Hell
- The Beatles, Magical Mystery Tour
- Bonnie Prince Billy, The Letting Go
- Stoney Edwards, Blackbird
- Rilo Kiley, Under the Blacklight
- The Waco Brothers, Going Down in History
- Anthony Braxton, Five Pieces
- John Moreland, Big Bad Luv
- Fontaines D.C., Dogrel
- Lydia Loveless, Nothing’s Gonna Stand in My Way Again
- Marianne Faithful, Broken English
- Cat Power, Sun
- X, Los Angeles
- Idles, Joy as an Act of Resistance
- Smile Machine, Bye for Now
- H.C. McEntire, Lionheart
- Yaya Bey, Remember Your North Star
- Wussy, Funeral Dress
- Johnny Paycheck, Slide Off Your Satin Sheets
- Dave Douglas, High Risk
Album Reviews:
Sammy Volkov & Dana Wylie, The Day Had to Come
A Canadian country duo in the style of George & Tammy or Gram & Emmylou. Let me tell you too, Volkov can really belt it out, in classic country crooner style. Maybe his voice is a bit thinner than Marty Robbins or Ray Price, but he knows how to use it. Or maybe since they live in Alberta, this is more Ian & Sylvia. Once you get past liking the style (and really, you should like the style), it all relies on the songwriting, which is…good enough. These are some pretty standard country subjects–love, loss, dying. But the real reason to hear this is the fun interplay of the two vocals.
B
Erik Truffaz, Clap!
Truffaz is a Swiss trumpet player signed to Blue Note and this is his second album of covers of compositions for movies, mostly French. I can’t really speak to the original music. As for this album, it is more than capable modern jazz with a pretty broad appeal I would think to jazz fans who really like the 50s and 60s. For me, it’s reasonably enjoyable without being all that interesting. It grooves pretty good at times and that made me fine “Requiem por un con” a particularly enjoyable cut.
B
IKOQWE, The Beginning, the Medium, the End and the Infinite
Oh, what, another Angolan electro-hip hop album, I know how sick everyone is of these by this time…..In all seriousness, this is pretty cool. It’s a mix of the Angolan-Portuguese electronic musician Batida, who I know from other work, and the Angolan activist and rapper Ikonoklasta. This is basically taking hip hop beyond what you’ve heard before and turning into something that is both deeply Angolan and deeply immersed in the global electronic scene. This could go very wrong–so often this kind of thing ends up filing the interesting edges off one or both sides of the equation. But this is a creative rethinking of music that just sounds fantastic. I might the hip hop a bit more centered than it sometimes is, but that’s a minor critique.
A-
The Soundcarriers, Through Other Reflections
I suppose not horrible new proggy folk. It’s reasonably listenable in the way that early Midlake albums were listenable. If you dream for the days of Pentangle and early Tull, this will be for you. It’s not really for me, but it’s actually OK music.
B-
Amanda Gardier, Auteur: Music Inspired by the Films of Wes Anderson
Gardier is a saxophonist and a Wes Anderson fan. So she made music about it. This includes Dave King on drums (who you know from The Bad Plus), Charlie Ballantine on guitar, and Jesse Wittman on bass, as well as Gardier and her alto. Can you tell the music is inspired by Anderson? Not really, not to my ear. But it’s solid enough contemporary jazz. Why this was the week to hear jazz inspired by movies, I do not know.
B
Joyce Manor, 40 Oz. to Fresno
If I had to spend time in Fresno, I’d probably want to drink a 40 too. But whereas this title suggests a country album, this is actually a punk band from Torrance. It’s not that interesting though. It’s basically updated 90s pop punk. I never much cared for those bands so I don’t totally care for this either. Get some attitude boys. Turn up those guitars. At least it is short.
C-
Junglepussy, JP5000
A quick EP from this veteran New York rapper with a great name. This is some mellow hip hop and only five tracks, the kind of thing that either is a one off or from someone desperate for a release or who really is in control of their powers. Luckily, Junglepussy is in the second category. The beats are great and the lyrics are from someone who is not only smarter than the people they hate, but is also just over them and so barely bothers with their foolishness.
A-
Joelle Leandre, Lifetime Rebel
I listen to a lot of Rogue Art albums, one of the leading labels for experimental jazz, but it is really suspicious of streaming so it only puts a fraction of the album on Bandcamp and that’s it. Well, this is a 4 CD set of various works by this legendary French bassist, released last year. The different discs are with different bands so it’s hard to get a true sense of the whole thing this way. But still, about an hour of this in total is available, which is enough to have some conversation about it. The first disc is her with the pianist Myra Melford and the flutist Nicole Mitchell. The second has Craig Taborn on piano and Mat Maneri on viola. The third is with Ingrid Laubrock on sax, Steve Swell on trombone, Joe Morris on guitar, Jason Hwang on violin, Maneri on viola, and Fred Lonborg-Holm on cello. The last album is her with the Black Power jazz poet Fred Moten on vocals. I’ve seen almost all of these people live, but not Leandre. C’mon Big Ears, bring her over!
Anyway, this album has much more of a new classical music feel than jazz per se, but what’s really the difference in the 2020s? The boundaries between the two styles are so thin now. Leandre herself played with John Cage back in the day. Whatever you want to call this, there’s some great playing throughout. The album itself comes from her week at the Vision Festival in 2023, where she was the honored artist. Again, while I wish I could hear more, I loved everything I heard, music that is challenging and embracing at the same time. And hey, the Moten piece is inspired by 1741 New York slave rebellion, so sign me up and he takes shots at how terrible Ken Burns’ jazz film was so double sign me up. Moreover, backed only with Leandre’s bass, the recording sounds perfect, like you wouldn’t even want a second instrument there.
A
Nate Wooley, Henry House
From the world of Pauline Oliveros’s deep listening world comes these five long compositions from the trumpeter Wooley. This is the kind of work that requires a lot of patience. What it reminds me of more than anything is the kind of music playing in a video installation at an art museum. So, yeah, it’s basically 80 minutes of slow drones combined with bits of spoken word about a man struggling with life, I guess you’d call it. It’s not really a difficult listen per se. But it does demand your attention, through the slow percussion, through the chorus, through the spoken word stuff, through what trumpet there actually is. Say this, it’s fascinating.
B+
As always, this is an open thread for all things music and art and no politics allowed.