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Friday, February 5. 2010Rhapsody StreamnotesA bunch of stuff since last time, January 6. Seem to be on a monthly schedule, which is partly driven by the way I keep track of Rhapsody-streamed Recycled Goods records. Most of the following were checked during early January when I was compiling year-end list data. Most of the records have their boosters, but overall it was patchy with only a few minor finds. Usual caveats apply: one or two plays, streamed through my computer, so judgments are quick and more/less subject to change, that is if I ever again bother. One problem doing this is the lack of documentation, which I try to make up for by searching the web, but sometimes don't find much. Another is that Rhapsody's performance is rather erratic, with the sound sometimes choppy, sometimes cut out, and "unexpected errors" too common to qualify as unexpected. Still probably worth my while. Manchester Orchestra: Mean Everything to Nothing (2009, Favorite Gentlemen/Canvasback): Atlanta group, led by Andy Hull; second album, punkish, tuneful, all the more so when they slow it down, as if they have something to say. Likely they do. B+(**) The Raveonettes: In and Out of Control (2009, Vice): A little prim as rock and roll goes, but they go for an authentic sound, plus a little extra fuzz on the guitars -- sometimes I think they want to slim the Rolling Stones back down to Buddy Holly size, but not lose anything in the process. As consistent and as suggestive as they've gotten. One cut lights up the amps, making you wonder why they don't do that more often. B+(***) The Decemberists: The Hazards of Love (2009, Capitol): Portland group, on their 5th album. AMG lists them as Chamber Pop, but my entry is Alt-Prog. This is a song cycle, a veritable rock opera, with lit themes of uncertain depth and a lot more bombast than I care for. I'm tempted by the guitar crunch and the sheer guts, but every now and then I wonder what is this shit? For instance, the keyb-keyed title tune is swamped by a kiddie chorus, but then things start to break, and something rather marvelous happens next. B+(*) The Horrors: Primary Colours (2009, XL): British rock group, second album, fundamentally sound -- AMG nabs it as a mix of shoegaze, post-punk, and goth, which is close enough. Deep-voiced, echoey lead singer probably gets the goth cred. B+(**) Wild Beasts: Two Dancers (2009, Domino): Another British group, second album, plods a bit but keeps time, singer a little eerily falsetto but in turn. Doesn't have the consistent poll pull of the big 3-5, but I've seen it come out ahead a few times head-to-head. Don't see what they see, but seems OK to me. B+(*) Baroness: Blue Record (2009, Relapse): Georgia band, has a couple of previous albums including a Red Album with similar (though redder) cover art. Basically a metal band although I don't hear them falling into the usual claptrap -- I could even imagine becoming a fan, although I can't say for sure on what basis. B+(*) Dinosaur Jr.: Farm (2009, Jagjaguwar): Alt-rock band formed in the late 1980s, part of the SST stable but they came late and I never paid much attention to them. Bombed out around 1997, then regrouped in 2007. Tuneful, run up the guitar flash, stick to medium-fast and then some. I shouldn't be so hard on it, but this is the sort of thing that turned me off rock back, well, around about the time they were just getting started. B- King Midas Sound: Waiting for You (2009, Hyperdub): Roger Robinson, from Trinidad or Tobago, barely registers with his soft-soled poetry, except on the wicked anti-capitalist "Earth a killya," which may be where he gives way to Hitomi. Kevin Martin is the beats guy. They, too, are slight. B+(**) Khaled: Liberté (2009, Wrasse): Algerian raď star, safely ensconced in Paris since well before Algeria's "troubles" in the 1990s, where he's made various moves toward and away from electropop. This is as far away as I can recall, an acoustic grind that sounds rootsy even if it isn't, and that sets off his vocal prowess. A- Why?: Eskimo Snow (2009, Anticon): Oakland rock group, led by Yoni Wolf, has a couple of albums now, an anomaly on what is otherwise an underground rap label. Sort of jangly, not quite pop, probably deeper than I'm following. B+(*) 2562: Unbalance (2009, Tectonic): Dutch DJ Dave Huismans. Electronics, fashioned into non-stop dance beats, with bits of good humor. B+(***) Tanya Morgan: Broklynati (2009, Interdependent Media): Rap group, moved from Cincinnati to Brooklyn. Three guys, with an ongoing skit about alter-ego the Hardcore Gentlemen. Not quite what you'd call "old school," but moderately old, in the middle of the mainstream that put rap on the map. B+(**) Black Moth Super Rainbow: Eating Us (2009, Graveface): Pittsburgh group, been around since 2003 with at least four albums, various EPs and singles. Long on texture, with a rather drab female voice centered, kind of like trip-hop transcribed back to alt-rock. Matos listed this, and specifically favored it over Animal Collective. Easy to say he's right, but the lack of irritation keeps them apart in my mind. A- The Rural Alberta Advantage: Hometowns (2008 [2009], Saddle Creek): Toronto group, first album, self-released before it got picked up. Basic Middle American rock and roll, maybe a little cleaner since it's Canadian like, you know, Neil Young is Canadian. B+(**) Vivian Girls: Everything Goes Wrong (2009, In the Red): Brooklyn group, three females improbably enough, a guitar-bass-drums trio that runs thin and lo-fi, and could stand to be nastier and/or more talented. B Health: Get Color (2009, Lovepump United): LA band, second album, hard, sharp, metallic toned, a bit of noise but not much fuzz. Got some exposure opening for Nine Inch Nails, which is a match, although they're not as tightly bound to their concept. B+(**) Andrew Bird: Noble Beast (2009, Fat Possum): A singer-songwriter with strengths on both counts, plus he puts his violin to good use for flavoring but doesn't lean on it too hard. Has recorded steadily since 1996. B+(*) Dan Auerbach: Keep It Hid (2009, Nonesuch): Debut from Black Keys frontman -- a band I've never been much impressed by. Stands more forthright on his own; brings out the blues riffs and posture, and tightens up the songs. B+(*) Julian Casablancas: Phrazes for the Young (2009, RCA): First solo album from former Strokes frontman. Tuneful, a nice jangly rhythm that has always been natural to the group. On the other hand, the keybs thicken around his voice, which turns out to be an annoying one. B- Brendan Benson: My Old, Familiar Friend (2009, ATO): Singer-songwriter, has several albums as well as a role in Jack White's Raconteurs supergroup. Some MOR rock moves, some pop moves, some tendency to fake gravitas by overemoting. "Feel Like Taking You Home" overran these faults, but "Put Me Out of My Misery" succumbed. B- Dan Deacon: Bromst (2009, Carpark): Synth guy, diddled around on a lot of obscure releases from 2003 to 2007, when he landed at experimental-rock label Carpark, who seems to have motivated him to get louder, jumpier, and quirkier -- i.e., more like Animal Collective, but he mostly goes overboard, which makes him much funnier. B+(**) Cymbals Eat Guitars: Why There Are Mountains (2009, Sister's Den): Brooklyn alt-rock band, shifts speed and volume a lot, makes a fair impression both up and down, most so when they run flat out. Vocalist doesn't seem to be in command. Comparisons to Pavement are not wildly off base, although they're not on that level. B+(*) The Big Pink: A Brief History of Love (2009, 4AD): Brit group, first album. Reminds me a bit of Joy Division, with less cool and more industrial clunk and a bit of shoegaze polish. Seemed promising early on, but midway the songs started getting stuffed and bloated. B+(*) Death Cab for Cutie: The Open Door (2009, Atlantic, EP): Five-cut EP, one a demo for their 2008 album, the others leftovers. Band has been around since 1999, with 5-6 albums and a huge pile of EPs. Some words worth following, support melodies all right. Never really saw the utility in EPs. B+(*) Lack of Afro: My Groove Your Move (2009, Freestyle): This showed up at the top of one (and only one) of the year-end lists, ahead of some stuff that led me to take it seriously. DJ Adam Gibbons draws on older soul/funk riffs, jacks up the beats, pulls in a rapper here, a singer there, points out an occasional riff. B+(***) Fruit Bats: The Ruminant Band (2009, Sub Pop): Chicago group, fourth album, someone named Eric D. Johnson -- evidently there are other Eric Johnsons to disclaim -- wrote all the songs. Presumably sings them too, a lovely voice that sounds like a middle American John Lennon. Tunes move along gracefully. Richly satisfying. A- The Field: Yesterday and Today (2009, Kompakt/Anti-): Swedish producer Axel Willner's second full-length album. First, From Here We Go Sublime, got a lot of attention in 2007 but I couldn't find it on Rhapsody. This time, he got picked up by a better-distributed label, but barely got noticed. Of the numerous sub-categories for electronica these days, pop ambient gets the parameters about right. Mostly catchy rhythm tracks with minor variations -- one vocal is a bit out of bounds. Very attractive at first blush, but second play didn't add much. B+(***) Lightning Bolt: Earthly Delights (2007-08 [2009], Load): Noise group, from Rhode Island, been around since 1999, with a Christgau-recommended 2001 album I bought and never managed to rate, probably because I never felt like playing it a second time. Doubt I'll feel like playing this one again either. I can handle the guitar-drums noise all right -- even like some of the drumming -- and can overlook the vocal ballast for a while, but I find wildly disorganized shit like "Flooded Chamber" really worthless. Sure, they try to make amends with "Funny Farm," which I recognized as bluegrass before looking up the title, but afterwards thought it could have been funnier. B- Nosaj Thing: Drift (2009, Alpha Pup): California DJ, known to his mother as Jason Chung. Keeps it fairly simple, with auras of churchy synth to chill it all out. B+(*) 5 Years of Hyperdub (2004-09 [2009], Hyperdub, 2CD): Label compilation, fairly narrowly focused on dubstep or ambient dub, moderately paced electronica with a fair amount of echo, vocals present sometimes but usually not a plus. Recognize a couple of artists here -- Burial, Bug, Zomby, Martyn, King Midas Sound -- but most fly well under my radar, with Kode 9 the most common unknown. Sort of thing that serves me well as background music, but never really draws me in. B+(***) Vampire Weekend: Contra (2010, XL): The first big hype of the new year -- figure I might as well not wait until the year-end lists come out. First reputation had a reputation for incorporating bits of Afropop, but this goes much further, especially in the drums. Singer may remind a bit of Paul Simon, but more flexible and less full of himself. A- Polvo: In Prism (2009, Merge): Rock band from the 1990s, where they had four 1992-97 albums plus a few EPs before giving up. Regrouped now, reportedly playing the same thing, loopy guitar-heavy textures. Nice cover art. B+(***) William Basinski: 92862 (1982 [2009], 2062): Ambient electronics, mostly tape loops that subtly nod up and down, or etching a very quiet halo around a faint piano figure. Not much, not even minimalism, but I found it entrancing. B+(**) The Very Best: Warm Heart of Africa (2009, Green Owl): Singer Esau Mwamwaya from Malawi plus the British DJ/production duo Radioclit (Johan Karlberg and Etienne Tron). Not sure how this official debut differs from last year's mix tape, Esau Mwamwaya and Radioclit Are the Very Best. It is sort of a mishmash, with South African borrowings and other, harder to identify, tacks. Gets the basic flavor across, and has some fun doing it. Group name is rather awkward. B+(**) Kid Cudi: Man on the Moon: The End of the Day (2009, Universal Motown): Young rapper from Cleveland, seems to have built a reputation in mixtapes and has some connection (I don't understand) to Kanye West. Works a man-on-moon (or man-in-moon?) concept through narration and soft-shuffle raps which get catchier as the record grows on you. B+(***) Maxwell: BLACKsummers'night (2009, Columbia): Soul singer, has the basic skills but isn't especially distinctive, on his fourth record -- first in 8 years. Evidently the title case is necessary to distinguish this from two more albums from the same sessions, to be released with the upper case sliding rightwards. Maybe should be docked just for that, but I figure he's cutting himself thin enough as it is. B+(*) Cass McCombs: Catacombs (2009, Domino): Mild mannered singer-songwriter, male, based in Baltimore, third album. Has a nice, even feel to it. B+(**) Miike Snow (2009, Downtown): Swedish group, three guys, first album. In English, of course, depends on keybs giving an alt-rock identity a plastic coat of pop gloss. Tuneful enough to work. B+(*) Mary J Blige: Stronger With Each Tear (2009, Geffen): Release date Dec. 1, too late to have any impact on year-end lists, not that it would have had much anyway -- her best Pazz & Jop finishes were: 21) Mary (1999); 30) What's the 411? (1992); and 40) No More Drama (2001). Another strong album, but I never fall for her very hard. For one thing, she makes it seem like too much work. B+(**) Chrisette Michele: Epiphany (2009, Def Jam): Second album. Sounds fresher than Blige, but not as firmly in command. About right at this stage. B+(*) Mariachi El Bronx (2008 [2009], Swami): Originally a punk band from Los Angeles, led by singer Matt Caughthran, but padded out with a mariachi horn section, as well as charango, guitarron, guests like David Hidalgo. Doesn't feel quite right, and not just because it's anglophone-friendly. B Archive file is here. Wednesday, February 3. 2010Recycled Goods (70): January 2010
I don't plan on going with three album covers indefintely, but stumbled into it last time when I added Loudon Wainwright III late, and stumbled into it again this time. I've had the Coasters comp reviewed for quite a while, and wanted to show the cheap cover and its framing of the older, better edition cover -- besides which, it's a slam dunk pick hit. Then I figured I should do something to recognize the Willie Nelson section below. The obvious pick is the One Hell of a Ride box set, but when I fetched a cover scan, the supplemental packaging had been stripped away so you were left with a featureless tan (i.e., leather-like) tallbox with a little guitar-shaped embossing and no identifying print: not much to look at here. Then I finally got around to writing up a little something on Franco. I didn't want to hold it an extra month since I had already pegged it #2 on my Pazz & Jop ballot. And it's another slam dunk pick hit, at which point I thought of dropping Nelson. Then I had another bright idea. The reason I held the Coasters back a couple of months is that I was toying with the idea of doing something much broader on Rhino's cheapo Flashback line, but never got into it -- partly because so many of the reissues are crap, but mostly because it proved nearly impossible to find necessary information on them. But it turns out that my favorite Willie Nelson compilation is another cheap Rhino set ($6.08 at cdconnection.com): Nite Life: Greatest Hits and Rare Tracks (1959-1971). I didn't include it in my research below because I had covered it way back when, but figured, what the hell, I'll throw the cover up and plug it here: nineteen early tracks, the songs Nelson built his songwriting reputation on, with every rare track as solid as the hits. That gives us three A+ album covers. Hard to top that. The Coasters: The Very Best of the Coasters (1954-60 [2009], Rhino Flashback): A cheap copy of a 1993 compilation with 15 Leiber-Stoller classics and the equally brilliant "Shopping for Clothes" -- a set that should be in every rock library, unless you're fortunate to already own 50 Coastin' Classics (or Rhino Handmade's completist 113-track There's a Riot Goin' On: The Coasters on Atco). Part of a 1993-94 series of 16 song samplers that consistently worked both ways -- as introductions to novices and special treats to aficionados -- only a few have gotten the Flashback treatment, which tarnishes the artwork and no doubt kills the useful doc. The Drifters and the Shirelles are missing but equally brilliant. A+ Franco & Le TPOK Jazz: Francophonic, Vol. 2 (1980-89 [2009], Sterns Africa, 2CD): The other shoe drops, after the first Francophonic volume proved the most definitive accounting yet of the 1953-80 rise of the Congo's greatest bandleader. His last decade was chock full of long grooves with sweet and soaring guitar lines, first-rate singers, and irresistible percussion. Booklet helps too, but is unnecessary to get into the music. A+ Nirvana: Live at Reading (1992 [2009], DGC): I might have liked Nirvana more if everyone else liked them less, but more likely I wouldn't have noticed them at all. I never could hear the mudmouth vocals through the guitar din. At most I'd get a barbed word, something about lithium, or something about a gun. Cut the grunge and it was clear that they had some talent: the demos collection Incesticide showed some songcraft, and MTV Unplugged in New York offered them a human scale. But when Kurt Cobain became a poster boy for the NRA, I couldn't care less. A quickie live comp, From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah, muddied the waters further. This new one has the virtue of being a single set, running at high volume with little to vary or personalize the sound. The only song that caught my ear was something about building a machine and watching the money roll in. B [R] In Series:"Briefly Noted" appeared for the first time in the fourth Recycled Goods column, back in May 2003. The idea grew out of a bit of "Additional Consumer News" I tacked onto the April 2003 column. I had been writing a piece on Willie Nelson for The New Rolling Stone Album Guide, and in the process had slogged my way through a bunch of Nelson reissues. I listed those with one-line synopses, paving the way for "Briefly Noted." This month Rolling Stone came back asking for an update for a new website project. I'm not sure what they're doing with the other 24 pieces I wrote, but combined they may not have more new records and reissues than Nelson has cranked out in the interim. I needed some space to sort out what I found, then thought why not do it here. Some are recycled; others are new but not that new. When I got through the obligatory ones, I looked through Rhapsody to see what else I may have missed, including the first time, and proceeded to note some of those. Admittedly, not all of them: I found no less than five different live records called On the Road Again, and four early comps called Face of a Fighter none matching Nelson's original 1978 release of 1960-vintage demos. Rhapsody lists more than 300 Nelson records, including a lot of redundant compilations and other things of uncertain provenance. (The booklet in Legacy's One Hell of a Ride has a gallery of 92 Nelson album covers. This seems to be the official list, minus at least four albums that have come out since.) Also worth noting again that I reviewed Willie and the Wheel just last month. For my money it's the best individual album he's released since Stardust. Willie Nelson: One Hell of a Ride (1954-2007 [2008], Columbia/Legacy, 4CD): The third or fourth "career spanning" box of Nelson's still unfinished career, and definitely not the last given that he's released one great album (Willie and the Wheel in 2009) and several good ones since the cutoff date, but at age 75 this sets the standard. The package is slim but the booklet runs 96 pages, with all the pictures you'll ever need, and more credits than you usually get. The songs pick their way through the years, not an obvious canon but plenty of fond memories, and less obvious ones that get by as Nelson so often does, with charm and a golden voice. A Willie Nelson: Legends of the Grand Ole Opry (1964-67 [2008], Time/Life): "Nashville was the roughest" not for lack of songs or voice, but maybe charisma, which Nelson found in Austin; nothing here he didn't do better in the studio, often in demos licensed so loosely you can find them in dozens of competing cheapo product. B Willie Nelson: Naked Willie (1966-70 [2009], RCA Nashville/Legacy): Pooh on Chet Atkins, as Nelson finally gets the chance to offer his own mixes, shorn of the string and choral treacle Atkins so loved; limiting is that they could only work on multitrack masters which appeared in the latter half of Nelson's RCA tenure, so these aren't his best songs, and sometimes he sings too forcefully once the competing dreck is removed; conversely, back on 1965's Country Willie: His Own Songs the songs and singer were so great not even Atkins could ruin them. B+(**) Willie Nelson: The Party's Over and Other Great Willie Nelson Songs (1967, RCA): Nelson's relationship songs are so devoid of feeling it's not surprising that he ultimately ditched them for a life of crime -- he breaks up so often you wonder how he ever managed to get hitched in the first place; the strings may be meant to soften the blow, but they just turn maudlin. B [R] Willie Nelson: Texas in My Soul (1968, RCA): Texas-born, you'd think Nelson might have something to say about his home state, but given the chance he opts for 11 covers, mostly dull geography -- "Dallas," "San Antonio," "Streets of Laredo," "The Hill Country Theme" -- and angst over the Alamo; Ernest Tubb provides the only saving grace. B- [R] Willie Nelson: Good Times (1969, RCA): Loneliness as existential dread, sometimes in songs arranged as sparsely as their sentiments, once or twice in songs gushing with Chet Atkins wrappers. B [R] Willie Nelson: My Own Peculiar Way (1969, RCA): The title track is wrapped up in the full-blown string treatment and nearly swamped, as is much else here; five covers are hit and miss, but his own songs hold up, and he sings them with subtle flair. B+(*) [R] Willie Nelson: Both Sides Now (1970, RCA): Joni Mitchell title song picked up fresh, with "Crazy Arms" and "Wabash Cannonball" up front to mark this as country -- not countrypolitan; more covers than usual, but the songwriter works five of his own in, including "I Gotta Get Drunk" and "Bloody Mary Morning." B+(**) [R] Willie Nelson: Laying My Burdens Down (1970, RCA): Starts promisingly, with a good title original, and survives the Atkins treatment on "Senses"; on the other hand, Nelson's "Where Do You Stand?" is overblown, and a cover called "Minstrel Man" is an atrocity three final originals are hard pressed to overcome. B [R] Willie Nelson: Willie Nelson & Family (1971, RCA): Without credits, I don't know how this relates to Willie's later Family (i.e., his band); half covers, top drawer stuff -- not that "Fire and Rain" suits him -- but he seems determined to solve the overproduction problem by singing operatically. C+ [R] Willie Nelson: Yesterday's Wine (1971, RCA): First half follows a concept about a "flawed man" charged by God to deliver the message to his fellows: down to don't dwell on the numerous bad times, and don't try to understand -- that's God's job; fills out with several remarkable songs, including his road anthem "Me and Paul." A- [R] Willie Nelson: The Words Don't Fit the Picture (1972, RCA): Title song is clunky, and everything else -- all Nelson originals, two with co-credits -- is prety scattered; the one with Waylon Jennings, "Good Hearted Woman," made its first appearance here, but made a bigger impression four years later, on Wanted! The Outlaws. B [R] Willie Nelson: The Willie Way (1972, RCA): A set of solid but unremarkable Nelson songs, supplemented with one from Kristofferson that's up to snuff, and "Mountain Dew" for its hayseed factor. B+(**) [R] Willie Nelson: Stardust (Legacy Edition) (1976-90 [2008], Columbia/Legacy, 2CD): Nelson's 1978 album of venerable Tin Pan Alley standards marked his emergence as a great interpretive singer, and was his bestseller to boot; the first disc doesn't tamper with the short original 10-cut package, so it remains as pristine as ever; the bonus cherry picks 16 similar cuts from 9 albums, a little more scattered, but better as a whole than his occasional more explicit returns to the Stardust formula. A- Willie Nelson: Pretty Paper (1979, Columbia): A quickie Christmas album, wrapped up in the original title song -- about as secular as you can do in the season -- and a slight little instrumental called "Christmas Blues"; that's all the ideas they had, so for filler they picked ten songs everyone's done, and budgeted two minutes for each -- except for "Silent Night," which as you know tends to drag on and on. B [R] Willie Nelson: Tougher Than Leather (1983, Columbia): A cowboy-gunfighter-damsel concept album, like Red Headed Stranger but more oblique, which is to say he bothered to write the whole thing -- except for a "Beer Barrel Polka" interlude, that is -- if not necessarily to figure it out; widely trashed when it came out, it actually holds up pretty well, partly because Nelson's loose narrative style has been missing ever since. B+(***) [R] Willie Nelson: Without a Song (1983, Columbia): Another mild-mannered standards rehash, done with a minimum of fuss and bother, the only thing that breaks with the genteel strum and twang is guest Julio Iglesias on "As Time Goes By," which he dispenses with his bombast. B [R] Willie Nelson: City of New Orleans (1984, Columbia): Steve Goodman's title song was good for a hit but not for emulation; Nelson prefered mopey ballads with strings, and penned only one song, defensively, "Why Are You Picking on Me?" B- [R] Willie Nelson: A Horse Called Music (1989, Columbia): A short and slight album, with a worthy Beth Nielsen Chapman hit ("Nothing I Can Do About It Now"), three originals (two recycled, "Mr. Record Man" from back in 1962), some other hit and miss stuff -- I can buy into the title track, but not "If I Were a Painting." B [R] Willie Nelson: Healing Hands of Time (1994, Liberty): Another standards album -- even if six are by Nelson himself, most are as familiar as "All the Things You Are" and "I'll Be Seeing You"; massive string orchestras aren't my idea of how to do anything, but they offset a truly remarkable voice. B [R] Willie Nelson: Just One Love (1995 [1996], Justice): Title track is a touching duet with songwriter Kimmie Rhodes; most of the filler is classic honky tonk -- "Cold Cold Heart," "It's a Sin," "This Cold War With You," "Four Walls" -- but there's also the classic novelty "Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! (That Cigarette)," and Grandpa Jones takes over to drive "Eight More Miles to Louisville" straight into the ground. B+(**) [R] Willie Nelson: Nacogdoches (1997 [2004], Pedernales): Sold exclusive at Texas Roadhouse restaurants, a scrap session, billed as jazz but really old standards including another run through "Stardust"; actually his best such record except for his original Stardust, probably because he enjoys the company and has nothing at stake. A- Willie Nelson: It Always Will Be (2004, Lost Highway): Three originals, the title song as simple and indelible as Nelson gets; a couple by other Nelsons and some choice filler, including a drinking song that claims "I've been thrown into better places than this"; three duets, with Norah Jones and Lucinda Williams attesting to Nelson's star power. B+(***) Willie Nelson & Friends: Outlaws and Angels (2004, Lost Highway): Friends include Al Green, Ben Harper, Rickie Lee Jones, Carole King, Toots Hibbert, Holmes Brothers, Los Lonely Boys, Kid Rock, Jerry Lee Lewis, Keith Richards, Shelby Lynne, Lucinda Williams, Toby Keith, and (most important) Merle Haggard; they do what they do, and have a good time doing it. B+(**) Willie Nelson: Countryman (1995-2004 [2005], Lost Highway): Ganja on the cover, but Nelson's reggae album is played straight, with two Jimmy Cliff songs and one duet with Toots Hibbert the seeds for the usual delightful riddims; the idea seems to be to cross one of Nelson's songs over like Toots did to "Country Roads"; pleasant enough, but none of the songs here catches a fire, much less inhales. B Willie Nelson: You Don't Know Me: The Songs of Cindy Walker (2006, Lost Highway): Walker wrote some 500 songs, hits for everyone from Bing Crosby to Mickey Gilley, with Bob Wills recording more than 50; if you don't know her, you probably don't know who Fred Rose is either, but you should still recognize the title song, if not from Eddy Arnold then from Ray Charles; I recognize most of the songs, and Nelson sweeps them all. A- Willie Nelson: Songbird (2006, Lost Highway): A Ryan Adams album with a better singer, but Adams' indistinct rock backdrop provides more grout than structure; Nelson wanders over a soundscape where even his own songs seem like strangers, the sole find being Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah," ending as "Sad Songs and Waltzes" turns into a gloomy Adams-arranged "Amazing Grace." B Willie Nelson/Merle Haggard/Ray Price: Last of the Breed (2007, Lost Highway, 2CD): Price is the senior honky tonker, the guy you don't instantly recognize, but he holds this collection of songs that show his age together, especially the Jesus songs; the other two make it special. A- Willie Nelson: Moment of Forever (2008, Lost Highway): The guest catalyst this time is Kenny Chesney, who duets on one song, co-wrote another, and co-produced the set, not that he actually adds much; in the end an average Nelson album, with Nelson borrowing more than he writes, his Randy Newman cover welcome and his Bob Dylan all but inevitable. B+(*) Willie Nelson: Lost Highway (2002-08 [2009], Lost Highway): Nelson's signing to Universal's alt-Nashville label seemed promising, but his seven years there produced a mixed bag, with a couple of superb vintage country sets and a maddening mess of bad ideas -- guest duets, reggae, Ryan Adams; the good albums yield good cuts, the not-so-good ones don't, and four unreleaseds just confuse, from the gender-crossing "Cowboys Are Frequently Fond of Each Other" to the homophobic "Ain't Going Down on Brokeback Mountain"; go figure. B Willie Nelson/Wynton Marsalis: Two Men With the Blues (2007 [2008], Blue Note): Neither man has the first damn reason to be blue, but both are such pros they can play along with the concept; Marsalis's band brings a little New Orleans jump to the affair, the brass brightens the room, and the singer is a class act, with songs worth hearing him sing -- not least, Merle Travis's "That's All." B+(***) Willie Nelson: American Classic (2009, Blue Note): A return to Stardust territory, vintage standards elegantly swung and sung, with Lewis Nash anchoring the mainstream band; Diana Krall and Norah Jones join for duets, the latter warming up "Baby It's Cold Outside." B+(**) Briefly NotedWilliam Basinski: 92982 (1982 [2009], 2062): An archive tape of gently oscillating subminimal electronics, sometimes wrapped in a faint halo around a repeated piano figure. B+(**) [R] Sun Ra: Interplanetary Melodies: Doo Wop From Saturn and Beyond, Vol. One (1950s [2009], Norton): A few doo wop singles from the 1950s, including a Christmas chant anyone could have improved on; a groove track called "Africa" that showed up on a 1966 album, a bunch of previously unissued material, including a fractured "Summertime"; a bit of spoken word -- stuff that kicks back and forth between quirky and too trivial to bother with. B [R] Sun Ra: The Second Stop Is Jupiter: Doo Wop From Saturn and Beyond, Vol. Two (1950s [2009], Norton): More odds than sods, as they mix a couple more known singles with a lot of tape scraps, all with vocals, though most unreleased for good reasons -- not that he ever did anything completely uninteresting. B- [R] Sun Ra: Nidhamu/Dark Myth Equation Visitation (1971 [2009], Art Yard): A series of impromptu concerts from a visit to Egypt, with Ra on his Moog and the band on instruments borrowed from the army; some solo keyb, some pieces with drums and backing vocals, a lot of odd constructions, nothing likely to blow you away, but plenty to think about. B+(*) [R] Sun Ra: The Antique Blacks (1974 [2009], Art Yard): A small group live shot that wound up on Saturn in 1978 and languished in extreme obscurity, distinguished by lots of quirky rockish synth and tuneless vocals with occasional honks and screeches from the horns; by normal people this would be desperate but, of course, there's nothing normal about it. B+(**) [R] Manfred Schoof: European Echoes (1969 [2002], Atavistic): Two LP-side-long bashes with a 16-piece avant band, distinguished not by teamwork but by blistering solos from the young men who moved the movement: saxophonists Evan Parker and Peter Brötzmann, guitarist Derek Bailey, pianists Fred Van Hove and Alexander von Schlippenbach, and ultimately the undersung trumpeter-leader. B+(***) [R] Tom Waits: Glitter and Doom Live (2008 [2009], Anti-, 2CD): One disc of songs, ground down by a grungy band that generates deep-grounded momentum and growled out by a guy who can't exactly sing but projects so much feeling it hardly matters anyway; second disc is a 35-minute stand-up routine from a guy who marvels over the perversity of the natural as well as the manmade world; it's worth listening to once, maybe again. B+(**) [R] Neil Young: Sugar Mountain: Live at Canterbury House 1968 (1968 [2008], Reprise): Transitioning from Buffalo Springfield to his solo career -- here very much alone -- Young talks a lot about songwriting and can get technical about it; his high voice is fresh, his guitar fluffs up his songs rather than plays them. B [R] Neil Young: Dreamin' Man Live '92 (1992 [2009], Reprise): No band, just just singer with guitar and harmonica -- one cut each on banjo and piano -- unplugging his countryish retreat on Harvest Moon, shortly after he wrecked his amplifiers on Arc-Weld; he can, of course, carry his tunes, and they sink ever deeper, not least the bitter closer, "War of Man." B+(***) [R] Legend: B+ records are divided into three levels, where more * is better. [R] indicates record was reviewed using a stream from Rhapsody. The biggest caveat there is that the packaging and documentation hasn't been inspected or considered. Monday, February 1. 2010Jazz Prospecting (CG #22, Part 10)Didn't finish Jazz Consumer Guide this week, but came close enough that I'm pretty certain this coming week will do it. Draft currently contains 31 graded records, 39 HMs or duds, 2517 words. About 1500 will make it into the column, with the rest left over. I have 10 graded A- records still without a review, but only a couple of those might make the cut, and maybe not that many. Lots of unwritten HM candidates. Most of what I'll be doing this coming week is re-playing them. I've decided that if I don't get a reasonably good one-liner after one play they'll go into the surplus file. Need to do a pretty severe cull anyway. The column will be full up with 2009 releases, many already on various year-end lists -- not least my own. Leftovers will be more of the same. I've only managed to grade 7 2010 releases thus far, while I have 85 in the pending queue. Also didn't get my kitchen done last week, but expect to do so this coming week. Very little left to do there. A little bit of jazz prospecting from the last two weeks. My main focus has been on writing up already-rated records, and cleaning out the replay queue. Willie Nelson revision is done -- more on that soon. Sonore: Call Before You Dig: Loft/Köln (2008 [2009], Okka Disk, 2CD): Sax trio, three guys famous for walking on the wild side, all the more dangerous together: Peter Brötzmann, Mats Gustafsson, Ken Vandermark. Two sets, one live, one studio. Impossible to deny that they bring interesting ideas into play, and after several records together they communicate readily, but the casual listener is going to hear mostly noise, and I find it rough going myself. B+(*) Mostly Other People Do the Killing: Forty Fort (2008-09 [2010], Hot Cup): Fourth album, third I've heard, led by Moppa Elliott, who takes the first notes on bass, just like Charles Mingus. Has the basic Mingus approach to horns, too, which is to put them on a roller coaster and let them run clean off the rails. Peter Evans does just that on trumpet, and Jon Irabagon's tenor as well as his alto sax defies gravity. Kevin Shea rounds out the quartet on drums, and gets a credit for electronics. Historical references are less obvious here than on the last two albums, although I might know more if only I could read "Leonard Featherweight"'s liner notes (tiny gray all-caps on a black background). I do recognize the cover art as influenced by Impulse! in the 1960s, but even that isn't obviously pegged to any one thing. They're coming out into their own. A- Opsvik & Jennings: A Dream I Used to Remember (2007-08 [2009], Loyal Label): That would be bassist Eivind Opsvik and guitarist Aaron Jennings. A publicist note pointed out that Opsvik has played with Paul Motian, Bill Frisell, and David Binney, but I associate him with A-list records by Kris Davis and Jostein Gulbrandsen. Also has three FSNT records, and a previous one with Jennings, Commuter Anthems (Rune Grammofon). Opsvik also plays keyboards, lap steel guitar, and percussion; Jennings strays past banjo to electronics, and both are credited with software and vocals. The vocals tend toward choral, which I don't find all that enticing. Otherwise, the interaction is intimate and intriguing. B+(*) Sharel Cassity: Relentless (2008 [2009], Jazz Legacy): Alto saxophonist, b. 1978 in Iowa City, IA, also plays soprano sax and flute. Second album. Solid mainstream group with Orrin Evans on piano, Dwayne Burno on bass, EJ Strickland on drums, and quite a few extra horns popping in and out -- Jeremy Pelt on trumpet, Thomas Barber on flugelhorn, Michael Dease on trombone, Andrew Boyarsky on tenor sax, Don Braden on alto flute. Slick and flashy postbop. B Prana Trio: The Singing Image of Fire (2008 [2010], Circavision): Brooklyn group, although it's not clear that Trio means a group with three members. The only real member is drummer Brian Adler, although vocalist Sunny Kim is most noticeable on 11 of 12 tracks, while piano (Carmen Staaf and Frank Carlberg), bass (Matt Aronoff and Nathan Goheen), and guitar (Robert Lanzetti) come and go. Kim sings poems by Kabir, Kukai, So Wal Kim, Hafiz, Anselm Hollo, Shankaracarya, Wang Wei, and Han-Shan. The vocals got on my nerves at first, but it actually settles down; may even be deeper than I'm inclined to credit. B+(*) Ben Wendel/Harish Raghavan/Nate Wood: Act (2009, Bju'ecords): Title all-caps on cover; spine only says "ACT" but front cover identifies the trio and their instruments: saxophone, bassoon, piano for Wendel; bass for Raghavan; drums for Wood. Not sure if my package matches the product: the print cover is pasted to a generic brown cardboard foldout wrapper, with a pasted print piece inside. On the other hand, nowhere is there "for promotional purposes only" print. I have less to say about the music, which is lean and articulate. B+(*) Rempis/Rosaly: Cyrillic (2009, 482 Music): Sax-drums duo, Chicago musicians, also play in the two-drummer Rempis Percussion Quartet. Dave Rempis is best known for his work in the Vandermark 5. He is fluid and forceful on alto, tenor, and baritone saxes, and Rosaly does a good job of playing off his energy. B+(***) Greg Reitan: Antibes (2008 [2010], Sunnyside): Pianist, second album, in a trio with Jack Daro on bass and Dean Koba on drums. Includes covers from Bill Evans, Denny Zeitlin, and Keith Jarrett, which should give you an idea. I'm impressed by both albums, but thus far don't have much to say. B+(**) Empty Cage Quartet: Gravity (2008 [2009], Clean Feed): Jason Mears (alto sax, clarinet), Kris Tiner (trumpet), Ivan Johnson (double bass), Paul Kikuchi (drums, percussion). Group has five albums together since 2006. Tiner's title piece consists of 11 sections, split up here into five chunks, separated by another four chunks of Mears's multi-sectional "Tzolkien." This stradles the notion of free and composed in attractive ways, although I'm hard-pressed to tell which is which or why it should matter. The two horns stand tall. The rhythm does a nice job of supporting them. B+(***) Andy Cotton: Last Stand at the Hayemeyer Ranch (2009, Bju'ecords): Bassist, plays guitar on one cut, grew up near Boston, studied at New School, based in Brooklyn, first album. Packaging a thin brown sleeve, looks biodegradeable. Gets lots of help, and the whole thing can be described as eclectic, but one relatively common theme is reggae -- "Shit Rock" is probably the best example, but there's also "Slow Reggie" and "C minor Reggie." Influences list starts with King Tubby; also includes "Appalachian fiddle music," which influences "Macallan's Waltz." Several cuts have vocalists, adding to the mish-mash feel even though there's nothing particularly wrong with any of them. B+(**) The Respect Sextet: Sirius Respect (2009, Mode/Avant): New York group, been together (give or take a few changes) since 2001. Several previous albums -- not sure how to count limited editions. Lineup: Eli Asher (trumpet), James Hirschfeld (trombone), Josh Rutner (tenor sax), Red Wierenga (piano), Malcolm Kirby (bass), Ted Poor (drums); most also play related instruments. Album subtitled "Play the music of Sun Ra & Stockhausen" -- presumably Karlheinz. I was briefly intrigued by Stockhausen a long time ago, but never got in very deep. His pieces here tend toward drones with a bit of classical overhang. Sun Ra, of course, is a lot more fun. B+(*) Out to Lunch: Melvin's Rockpile (2009 [2010], Accurate): New York group, led by David Levy (bass clarinet, alto sax, bansuri flute), presumably named for Eric Dolphy's legendary album. Septet, with three horns (Levy, Evan Smith on tenor sax, Josiah Woodson on trumpet) and a mostly plugged-in rhythm section (Eric Lane on keyboards, Matt Wigton on bass, Fred Kennedy on drums, and Kris Smith doing programming). Odd and interesting mix of free jazz and funk groove. B+(**) And these are final grades/notes on records I put back for further listening the first time around. Komeda Project: Requiem (2009, WM): Polish pianist Krzysztof Komeda (1931-69) certainly is a project. I've only sampled one of the dozen or so albums he has on obscure Polish labels -- now prohibitively expensive given exchange rate, I might add -- and it is really superb (Astigmatic). So this group -- led by expat Poles Krzysztof Medyna (tenor sax, soprano sax) and Andrzej Winnicki (piano), with expert NY help from Russ Johnson, Scott Colley, and Nasheet Waits -- is welcome, but I can't claim to have made any breakthroughs with it. B+(**) New Niks & Artvark Saxophone Quartet: Busy Busy Busy (2009, No Can Do): Drummer-led quartet with Fender Rhodes, guitar, and violin, but no bass, plays swanky postbop with some swing, mixed in with a sax section that can stand on its own. Has some awkward moments, but also marvelous ones when they loosen up. B+(**) Gerald Clayton: Two-Shade (2009, ArtistShare): Piano trio, debut recording, although he had the advantage of growing up in his father, bassist John Clayton's big band, and has a substantial list of side credits already. As with many mainstream piano trios, I'm at a loss for words, but he has good balance and poise, and this holds up consistently well. B+(***) Ben Allison: Think Free (2009, Palmetto): Subtler, in terms of melodies but also instrumentation, than his recent superb albums, but eventually they emerge with the precise good taste of someone assured in his thinking. Violinist Jenny Scheinman is central and critical -- her best showing since 12 Songs -- while Steve Cardenas' guitar and Shane Endsley's trumpet play off the edges. A- Donny McCaslin: Declaration (2009, Sunnyside): There are stretches here where the guitar fusion (Ben Monder) and/or the extra brass let you forget that the album is supposed to belong to the most technically gifted tenor saxophonist of his generation. That doesn't strike me as the right strategy. B+(*) Randy Brecker: Nostalgic Journey: Tykocin Jazz Suite/The Music of Wlodek Pawlik (2008 [2009], Summit): Bialystok's Podlasie Opera and Philharmonic play Pawlik's suite with unexpected flair -- you hear a lot of East European orchestras as jazz backdrops because they work cheap, but usually their classical breeding spoils the day. Helps no doubt that Pawlik's piano trio is featured, and especially that Brecker's trumpet is trusted with the highlights. He's always been a team player, but he's rarely had a team help him out so much. B+(***) For this cycle's collected Jazz Prospecting notes, look here. Unpacking: Found in the mail this week (or last):
Monday, January 25. 2010No Jazz ProspectingI know, this is getting ridiculous. Got a request last week to update my Rolling Stone Album Guide piece on Willie Nelson, and foolishly said, "sure." Turns out there are something like 16 Nelson albums since I wrote the original piece in 2003, more or less while the Bushwacking of Iraq got started: I remember going back and forth between Fela Kuti piece and my Another Day in Infamy post. I can't find a good up-to-date account of the war costs, but between Iraq and Afghanistan, it works out to close to 5,000 US soldiers dead, 40,000 injured, several hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Afghans killed, several million displaced; over one trillion dollars allocated for the wars, which will wind up costing more than three trillion once you factor in the future costs; and all sorts of other ridiculous side effects -- possibly including the financial meltdown, which was caused by the same geniuses who dreamed up the war, and maybe whatever global warming has in store for us, which I'll chalk up to opportunity costs even though it's not clear who else knew better. Jazz Prospecting will return next week, for sure. Whether Jazz CG will be done by then is less certain. The big thing I am hoping to finally get done this week is the kitchen project, which has dragged on even longer. But right now I have all of the missing pieces. Some are not in the right places, and some are not the right color, but all that seems doable. Jazz CG seems doable as well, despite my recent lack of performance. Willie Nelson, at least, is done. Saturday, January 23. 20102009 Pazz & Jop/Meta File AnalysisThe Village Voice's 2009 Critics Poll is out. A week ago I compared the 2008 results to my metafile projection, so I should do the same for 2009 now. The big difference between my metafile this year and last year's is that I sampled many more year-end lists this year. One measure of this is that the winner count this year is 224, vs. 41 last year. The correlation was actually better last year. The probable reason is that most of the extra counts come from bloggers who most likely deviate from critics in certain uniform ways: I'm guessing they're younger and play fewer records; what I'm sure of is that they're more narrowly into alt-rock. Even, I should say, since Chuck Eddy observes that the poll critics themselves are more like that than ever before. Let's start off with a table of the top 50 records from my metafile, listed in metafile rank order. The two numbers on the right are the P&J poll rank and the ratio of the two ranks: anything less than 1.0 did better on P&J, anything greater did worse.
Animal Collective beating out Phoenix wasn't unexpected. I didn't do any weighting, but had I done so Animal Collective would have easily finished on top: of the lists that I did keep rank info on, Animal Collective won 15 vs. 3 for Phoenix. More on this later, but first let's track the major movements. The biggest drops from my Meta list are: Arctic Monkeys (207/37: 5.595), Wild Beasts (147/34: 4.324), The Antlers (51/13: 3.923), Passion Pit (36/11: 3.273), La Roux (146/46: 3.174), Florence and the Machine (68/22: 3.091), Andrew Bird (81/27: 3.000), Metric (52/22: 2.364), The Horrors (65/29: 2.241), Neon Indian (112/50: 2.240), Regina Spektor (89/43: 2.070), Sunset Rubdown (77/36: 2.139), Japandroids (33/16: 2.062), Kid Cudi (101/49: 2.061). I picked up a lot of UK lists, but P&J polls relatively few UK critics. Inevitably, some UK albums didn't make much of a splash here, with Arctic Monkeys the prime example. La Roux and Florence were others. In general, a whole cluster of arty indie-rock albums following Animal Collective and Phoenix slipped, starting with Grizzly Bear (6/3: 2.000) and including Antlers, Passion Pit, Horrors, Sunset Rubdown, and Neon Indian. To get a better sense of the gains, we need to look further down the Pazz & Jop poll results. The following table lists everything from the top 100 that didn't make the metafile top 50.
The big gains were: Oumou Sangare (64/314: 0.204), Levon Helm (46/221: 0.208), The-Dream (16/71: 0.225), Loudon Wainwright III (73/314: 0.232), Maxwell (14/60: 0.233), Kylesa (71/272: 0.261), DJ Sprinkles (82/314: 0.261), Leonard Cohen (53/194: 0.273), Nellie McKay (94/314: 0.299), Bruce Springsteen (57/181: 0.315), Amadou & Mariam (55/158: 0.348), Black Eyed Peas (98/272: 0.360), Baroness (19/50: 0.380), Sunny Day in Glasgow (97/249: 0.390), Black Crowes (72/181: 0.398), Green Day (37/91: 0.407), Rosanne Cash (45/110: 0.409), Big Star (66/158: 0.418), Neko Case (3/7: 0.429), Brad Paisley (34/75: 0.453), Miranda Lambert (25/55: 0.455), Raekwon (8/17: 0.471), Lady Gaga (31/65: 0.477), Converge (24/50: 0.480), Pissed Jeans (54/110: 0.491), DJ Quik & Kurupt (62/126: 0.492), K'Naan (35/71: 0.493), Drake (78/158: 0.494), Animal Collective (1/2: 0.500), Glasvegas (100/194: 0.515), Bob Dylan (41/75: 0.547), Dâm-Funk (47/86: 0.547), Tune-Yards (70/126: 0.556), Tinariwen (59/103: 0.573), Mos Def (11/19: 0.579), Lily Allen (22/37: 0.595), Raveonettes (84/136: 0.618), Paramore (74/117: 0.632), Antony and the Johnsons (26/41: 0.634), Sonic Youth (20/31: 0.645), Ida Maria (61/91: 0.670), Avett Brothers (15/22: 0.682), Buddy and Julie Miller (87/126: 0.690), Flaming Lips (9/13: 0.692), Mastodon (18/26: 0.692), U2 (32/46: 0.696), Broadcast & the Focus Group (88/126: 0.698), Clientele (95/136: 0.699), Built to Spill (90/126: 0.714), Allen Toussaint (43/60: 0717), Vijay Iyer (49/66: 0.742), Very Best (63/84: 0.750). Only a few of these belong to the dominant alt-rock aesthetic. Nearly every hip-hop record improved -- Kid Cudi was the exception, although you might also count Brother Ali. Maxwell and The-Dream did even better. Country/Americana made gains, as did African pop, veteran rockers (which seem to include Green Day as well as Dylan and Springsteen), and Lady Gaga. A couple of top jazz records also improved, despite my focusing on jazz lists -- this didn't hold up lower down the list. You can chalk these shifts up to an older, more professional electorate. By "professional" I'm not making a value judgment -- just recognizing that newspaper and generic pub critics have to cover a wider range of popular music than bloggers, and that necessarily means some hip-hop, soul, Americana, and whoever's selling -- this year, Lady Gaga. The value judgment I'm inclined to make is that the Pazz & Jop critics promoted better records than my metafile found. Three of my ballot picks found no other supporters, but everything else I voted for gained ground. One possibility is the uniform use of a top ten standard in P&J, whereas my metafile occasionally picked up 100-deep lists. Another possibility is that my metafile undervalued Robert Christgau's real (though certainly limited) influence: those seven records were all very favorably featured in his Consumer Guide (as well as one of my three solo picks -- the other two were jazz records; I did find a few non-jazz A-list albums that haven't appeared in Christgau's CG, but none finished high enough to make my top ten ballot -- Mika's The Boy Who Knew Too Much came closest; Syran M'Benza, Fuck Buttons, Ersatzmusika, Black Moth Super Rainbow, Khaled, and Van Morrison had others; a similar number of records appeared in CG much lower than I had them -- Maria Muldaur tops that list). One thing I did with the results was to pick out all of the ballots by people who voted for my picks. Adding them up, and dropping out my picks (which swept the top six spots), I'm left with (my grades in brackets; many of these are based on Rhapsody):
Of these, Paisley, McKay, perhaps Black Eyed Peas, and certainly Wussy can be chalked up to Christgau's promotion. Some records from the alt-rock consensus leaked in, although the reordering of nos. 2-5 is significant (although I liked Case the least). For what it's worth, the critics I intersected with more than once (and therefore counted more than once) are: Leslie Berman (2), Max Berry (2), Larry Birnbaum (2), Robert Christgau (4), Banning Eyre (3), Steve Knopper (2), Frank Kogan (2), Todd Kristel (2), Tom Lane (2), Milo Miles (4), Derk Richardson (2), Ellis Widner (3), K Leander Williams (2). Glenn McDonald's voter similarity stats gives this order: Christgau (0.569), Miles (0.566), Widner, Eyre, Williams, Kristel, Richardson, Berman, Berry, Kogan, Knopper, Lane (0.366). Conversely, I came off as the voter most similar to Christgau, followed by Ted Cox, Miles, Berman, Alfred Soto, Dan Weiss, J Anthony Ware, Chris Herrington, Williams, and Ken Tucker. My "centricity" figure -- a measure of overlap with the winners -- was 0.12, tied for 506 of 696 critics. (Five voters tied with 0.00, meaning they filled their ballots with records no one else picked. Christgau came in at 470, with 0.146.) McDonald has been doing his centricity analysis for some time now, and my placement there has been pretty consistent. McDonald also has an interesting chart on album similarity, which I should return to later. Monday, January 18. 2010Jazz Prospecting (CG #22, Part 9)Still in mid-winter doldrums, but after several dry weeks, there's enough here to post. Only minor progress on Jazz CG, but it will come along soon. Mail has been generally light the last few weeks, but 2010 is starting to pile up. The Second Approach Trio With Roswell Rudd: The Light (2007 [2009], SoLyd): Russian group, has seven albums since 1999, plus various collaborations. Consists of Andrei Razin on piano, Igor Ivanushkin on bass, and Tatyana Komova singing or otherwise exercising her voice, with all three credited with percussion. Razin plays a little bit of everything, ranging from plaintive accompaniment to rough and ready avant-garde. In the latter context, Komova can hurl sounds against the wall, and is remarkably engaging at it. Rudd stopped in Moscow on his way back from a Siberian engagement with Tuvan throat singers, and he reminds you that he can hold his own in any avant-garde circus, as well as dash off a touching solo. B+(***) Albert Ammons/Henry Brown/Meade Lux Lewis/"Cripple" Clarence Lofton/Pete Johnson/Speckled Red: Boogie Woogie Kings (1938-71 [2009], Delmark): Your basic boogie woogie piano sampler with some vocals; Lofton's six cuts are the oldest; Red, with four cuts including a previously unreleased (and relatively mild) "Dirty Dozens" is the most recent; Lewis gets three sharply played cuts, plus one with the Ammons-Johnson-Lewis triumvirate. B+(**) Memphis Nighthawks: Jazz Lips (1976-77 [2009], Delmark): Trad jazz band formed at University of Illinois by clarinetist Ron DeWar, with trumpet (Steve Jensen), trombone (Joel Helleny), bass sax (Dave Feinman), guitar (Mike Miller), and drums (Bob Kornacher) -- didn't recognize any names, but all but the drummer and the leader have notable credits lists. They cut this album for Delmark, another live shot, and quit. Delmark dug up five previously unreleased cuts to fill out the CD length. In some ways this is like every other trad jazz revival project, but the horn layering is subtle and powerful, and the guitar-drums rhythm cooks. B+(***) Harry Allen: New York State of Mind (2009, Challenge): A follow-up to his Hits by Brits: I suppose Hits by Yanks would have seemed too broad, just as a London-themed album would have been too narrow. Not sure that it's such a good idea to drag Billy Joel into this, but his "New York, New York" is decidedly tender, and almost everything else swings powerfully. Half quartet, half with trombonist John Allred added -- latter half is better. B+(**) Oliver Jones/Hank Jones: Pleased to Meet You (2008 [2009], Justin Time): The younger Jones is a Canadian, 65 now, grew up under the spell of Oscar Peterson, has been a favorite of his Canadian label since 1984, with a couple dozen albums in the catalog -- titles like Speak Low Swing Hard and Have Fingers, Will Travel. The elder Jones is 90, born seven years before than Peterson, who died before this session, drafting it into something of a tribute. Piano trio plus extra piano. These things rarely work, but Oliver doesn't have to overstretch knowing that Hank's got his back, and Hank is a rare jazz genius who doesn't mind fitting in. Peterson might have tried playing both parts, and might have gotten away with it, but he couldn't have made this much piano power sound so effortless. B+(***) Scott LaFaro: Pieces of Jade (1961-85 [2009], Resonance): Legendary bassist, almost exclusively known for his work in Bill Evans' trio culminating in Waltz for Debby and Sunday at the Village Vanguard -- the most essential records in Evans' considerable discography. He died in a car wreck in 1961 at age 25, leaving no records in his own name, but has grown in stature to the point where he regularly gets substantial votes in Downbeat's Hall of Fame poll. This release gives him something for the books, but it's pretty scattered. Five tracks pick up a trio session with pianist Don Friedman and drummer Pete LaRoca -- fine work, as you'd expect from Friedman. There follows a 22:44 rehearsal tape of LaFaro with Evans, a 13:39 interview with Evans talking about LaFaro from 1966, and a 6:23 Friedman solo, "Memories for Scotty," dating from 1985. All this is interesting but in the end it strikes me that we're reading more into his premature death than his short life warranted. He's not even unique in that regard -- cf. Ray Blanton, Richard Twardzik, and others who actually did leave more to chew on, like Charlie Christian, Booker Little, and for that matter Charlie Parker. B Aram Shelton's Fast Citizens: Two Cities (2009, Delmark): Chicago sextet, with leader on alto sax, Keefe Jackson on tenor, Josh Berman on cornet, Fred Lonberg-Holm on cello, Anton Hatwich on bass, Frank Rosaly on drums. All lean avant, and they are capable of some energetic slicing and dicing, which is bracing when it works. Just doesn't work as often as it should. B+(*) Jon Irabagon: The Observer (2009, Concord): Alto saxophonist, best known for his slash and burn approach to Mostly Other People Do the Killing. Won a Thelonious Monk Saxophone prize which came with a Concord recording contract. Some evidence that Concord tried to turn him into another Christian Scott, but he outfoxed them: held out for his own songs, compromised by getting a mainstream rhythm section, but held out for a really good one, best known for working with Stan Getz: pianist Kenny Barron, bassist Rufus Reid, drummer Lewis Nash. He blows rings around them, but they never lose a step. There's even a little duo with Barron -- not exactly like Getz, but lovely. Nicholas Payton slides in on a couple of cuts. Bertha Hope takes over the piano for one of three covers, one of her late husband's songs. Another cover is from Gigi Gryce, safe common ground. B+(***) Empirical: Out 'n' In (2009 [2010], Naim): UK group, based in London, a quartet with Nathaniel Facey on alto sax, Lewis Wright on vibes, Tom Farmer on double bass, and Shaney Forbes on drums, expanded here with Julian Siegel on bass clarinet and tenor sax. The occasion for the latter is an interest in Eric Dolphy, who provides the two covers and inspiration for a Facey original, "Dolphyus Morphyus." B+(**) Andy Haas/Don Fiorino: Death Don't Have No Mercy (2005, Resonant Music): Haas is a saxophonist (alto, I believe), who also plays piri, fife, and live electronics here, didjeridu elsewhere. He first appeared c. 1980 in a Canadian rock group called Martha and the Muffins -- their Metro Music was one of my favorite records that year. Since then he's worked with God Is My Co-Pilot, circulated in and around John Zorn projects, and landed with a group called Radio I-Ching. I liked their latest when I streamed it from Rhapsody, asked for a real copy, and got a lot of background material in addition. This is a duo with Fiorino, who plays guitar, lotar, banjo, and dobro. Some of this stuff is fascinating, including the stretched way out "Anthem" which you will recognize as "Star Spangled Banner," but it tends to wander especially when they get off their main instruments. B+(*) Andy Haas: Humanitarian War (2006, Resonant Music): What's it good for? Absolutely nothing. Sorry, couldn't resist. The ten tracks are named for weapons, especially ones that are more oriented toward maiming than killing -- cluster bombs ("CBU 87 Steel Rain," "BLU108B Cluster"), anti-personnel mines ("PFM-1 Green Parrot," "Valmara 69"), "White Phosphorus" and "Depleted Uranium." "AGM-142 Have Hap" is an Israeli air-to-ground missile; "MK77 Mod 5" is a US incendiary bomb, updated napalm; "BLU 113 Penetrator" is a US bunker-busting "smart bomb." Solo improvs, with shofar and fife prominent on the instrument list. Educational, I suppose, but not very enjoyable. B Andy Haas: The Ruins of America (2007-08 [2008], Resonant Music): Another solo job, which is inevitably its weak spot. Haas is credited with sax, piri, fife, live electronics and prepared loops, footnoting that the electronic sounds are processed from unnamed acoustic instruments. Two Brazilian tunes, but mostly Americana -- a lot of trad., a little Irving Berlin, the three part original title track split up into four pieces. Tends toward abstraction, deconstruction, sonic mischief. B+(*) Radio I-Ching: Last Kind Words (2005-06 [2006], Resonant Music): Andy Haas once again (sax, fife, morsing, live electronics), Don Fiorino too (guitar, lap steel, banjo, lotar), but also drummer Dee Pop, invaluable for moving things along. Otherwise similar to the earlier albums by Haas (one with Fiorino): deep Americana like "Let My People Go" and "Battle Hymn of the Republic" and "Brother Can You Spare a Dime?"; also "The Mooch" and "Caravan" and "Song for Che." B+(*) Radio I-Ching: The Fire Keeps Burning (2007, Resonant Music): The first in this series of records to break away from Andy Haas's peculiar interest in Americana, which pays immediate rhythmic dividends. Starts off with two Arab pieces (Mohamed Abdel Wahab, Hamza El Din), for good measure adding a piece of Count Ossie nyahbinghi. Second half has a jazz sequence -- Roland Kirk, Prince Lasha/Sonny Simmons, Thelonious Monk -- sandwiched between Captain Beefheart and Jimmie Driftwood. B+(**) The Hanuman Sextet: 9 Meals From Anarchy (2006, Resonant Music): Radio I-Ching -- Andy Haas (sax, raita, morsing, live electronics), Don Fiorino (lotar & lap steel guitar), Dee Pop (drums, percussion) -- plus Mia Theodoratus (electric harp), Matt Heyner (bass, erhu), and David Gould (more drums, percussion). Two covers -- one from Jamaican saxophonist Cedric Brooks, the other "Everything Happens to Me" -- plus eight joint improvs. The latter are rather scattered, but rarely short of interest. B+(**) Linda Oh Trio: Entry (2008 [2009], Linda Oh Music): Bassist, born in Malaysia, raised in Australia, based now in New York. Trio with Ambrose Akinmusire on trumpet and Obed Calvaire on drums, a nicely balanced arrangement. B+(***) These are some even quicker notes based on downloading or streaming records. I don't have the packaging here, don't have the official hype, often don't have much information to go on. I have a couple of extra rules here: everything gets reviewed/graded in one shot (sometimes with a second play), even when I'm still guessing on a grade; the records go into my flush file (i.e., no Jazz CG entry, unless I make an exception for an obvious dud). If/when I get an actual copy I'll reconsider the record. Bud Shank Quartet: Fascinating Rhythms (2009, Jazzed Media): Alto saxophonist, b. 1926, worked his way up through Charlie Barnet and Stan Kenton bands, one of the most distinctive figures in the west coast cool jazz universe; worked steadily until he cut this (presumably) last record, a live set at age 82, a couple of months before he died. Quartet with Bill Mays (piano), Bob Magnuson (bass), and Joe La Barbera (drums). Mostly well-worn covers, two possibly picked for their titles (Monk's "In Walked Bud," Jobim's "Lotus Bud"). Feels a bit rough edged, with some chatter, occasional harshness in his tone, ambling by Mays. Still, this has some awesome moments. B+(*) [Rhapsody] And these are final grades/notes on records I put back for further listening the first time around. Rez Abbasi: Things to Come (2008-09 [2009], Sunnyside): This is a great group but not quite a great record. Part of it is that guitarist Abbasi and alto saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa shine on their solos but they remain separate things. Part is that pianist Vijay Iyer doesn't shine even though he's the most talented player here. Part may be that Dan Weiss plays drums instead of tabla, which steers this toward American jazz instead of Indo-Pak. Then there is the matter of wife-singer Kiran Ahluwalia, who tries to steer the album back toward India on her four spots, leaving it a bit unhinged. Reminds me that no matter how much they like the idea of an Indo-Pak coalition, what they really like is being in the forefront of jazz back home in the USA. B+(**) Wayne Wallace Latin Jazz Quintet: ĄBien Bien! (2009, Patois): As Latin Jazz goes, this is well-ordered and consistently listenable -- especially if you're a trombone fan. The extra trombones don't hurt, but the vocals sometimes do. B+(**) Mary Halvorson & Jessica Pavone: Thin Air (2008 [2009], Thirsty Ear): Guitarist and violinist respectively; both sing some, but not well. Halvorson has occasionally played brilliantly in the past, but there's little evidence of it here, in what is roughly speaking jazz chamber anti-folk. Obliquely primitivist when they're just playing, suggesting little talent and no finesse, but something distinctive. Can't say anything nice about the vocals. (Note unusually big drop from first round.) B- Michiel Braam's Wurli Trio: Non-Functionals! (2009, BBB): Dutch pianist, plays a Wurlitzer electric piano here along with bass and drums or some such like. Something of a more modern organ groove, or a swing around from EST -- not really fusion, but more playful than serious avant-gardists like to present themselves. B+(**) For this cycle's collected Jazz Prospecting notes, look here. Unpacking: Found in the mail the last several weeks:
Thursday, January 14. 20102008 Meta File PerformanceI happened to stumble across last year's Village Voice Pazz & Jop results, and thought I should compare them to last year's Meta File, just to get an idea how closely they correlate. It's worth noting that last year I looked at far fewer lists -- the winner count was 41 vs. 224 this year -- which may or may not mean anything. The following table shows the top 46 from the Meta file, everything that counted 13 or more. The right two columns are: where the record placed in P&J, and P&J rank divided by Meta file rank. In the latter column, anything less than 1.0 did better in P&J than it did in my Meta rankings. Anything more than 1.0 was overrated by my Meta method. Because I have more ties, the norm is actually a bit more than 1.0.
The top four are pretty much dead on. The biggest drops from my Meta list are: Gnarls Barkley (114/30: 3.800), Raconteurs (70/19: 3.684), Sigur Rós (54/18: 3.000), Beck (41/13: 2.929), Bug (108/37: 2.919), Al Green (46/19: 2.421), Conor Oberst (86/37: 2.324), Lykke Li (81/37: 2.189), MGMT (17/8: 2.125), Roots (39/19: 2.053). Aside from P&J prejudice against Scandinavians, I don't see much trend there. Gnarls Barkley won the song category, so that outlet probably explains the album vote drop. The big gains here were: Erykah Badu (5/12: 0.417), Deerhunter (11/19: 0.579), My Morning Jacket (16/27: 0.593), Raphael Saadiq (19/30: 0.633), Nick Cave (9/13: 0.692), Randy Newman (12/16: 0.750). Badu broke late, and I can attest that Saadiq and Newman had records that kept gaining on you. But to get a better sense of what the Meta file missed, you need to look at the records that finished in the top 40 P&J that didn't make the above list. The first number below is the P&J finish rank, and the last number is the raw count from the Meta file. I don't have a good way of merging these in with the above, but note that 12 just missed the above list by one.
Kanye West broke real late, and was a record that initially disappointed most critics, many of whom then turned around and decided that it was pretty good after all. It's safe to say that there's no such record this year. Dylan was caught between the new/reissue division many lists impose, but he also always does better in P&J than elsewhere. Torche, Gaslight Anthem, and TI had significant jumps, but the others were within statistical range. In any comparison like this, you'd expect that the correlation would be tighter at the top, and looser at the bottom as the samples get ever smaller, and that's pretty much what you get here. Other than the surprise gains by Badu and West I don't see much out of line. I don't see any comparable records this year, although I do expect the late-arriving Ghostface Killah to do a bit better than my Meta file suggests. Mary J Blige too, but she came in late even for the P&J deadline. Historically, P&J voters have tended to provide token support for a couple of select black albums each year, which gives the sort of pattern we see here -- Badu and West significantly up, Roots and Green down. Raekwon and Mos Def are the leaders this year (at 17 and 19), but I doubt that either has the crossover support to break top-10. So I think this will go pretty much as expected. Which means, among other things, the surprises will be surprising. Tuesday, January 12. 2010Year End List WrapupI wasted the last couple of days poking through a hundred or so late-arriving year-end lists, adding count and notes to my meta file before deciding that I'm done with the research for this year. Looking back, I wish I had been more systematic, although I dread that doing so would have entailed even more work -- possibly much more. I especially wish I had kept a list of links to (some of) the lists with (some) notes on them: while most were hideously designed and sloppily conceived, there were exceptions, and a few of the more specialized lists (e.g., on electronica) might bear further scrutiny. I kept notes on most of the multi-critic publication lists, as well as a few critics of personal interest (including myself), but in most cases I just tallied up counts of references. When lists overran ten I usually kept counting -- some ran on to 100, and some of those I counted. (Jazz critic Bill Milkowski had the longest list, at 130, which I didn't count for no better reason than fatigue at the moment. It's actually a pretty good list.) I picked blogs whenever the name struck my fancy, but didn't hit anywhere near all of them. I did go out of my way to grab as many jazz, country, hip-hop, and electronica lists as possible. I didn't do the same for metal, but didn't avoid it either, winding up with a couple dozen lists. About the only thing that turned me off immediately was Christian Music, although I think I also passed on a Pop Jazz list, and can't recall seeing any New Age. In a couple of cases I dug all the way through individual voter lists (one I recall was Dusted), although sometimes I tried to amalgamate them (one count for any record listed by any voter; examples were Jazz Times and Other Music). Some prolific writers got counted multiple times (a couple I recall are Michaelangelo Matos and Geoffrey Himes). I counted all of my B+(**) ratings and all of Rober Christgau's single-* HMs, but I didn't incorporate his year-end Dean's List. I tried to track down sources that I had used in the past, but sometimes couldn't find them or make any sense out of what I found (Billboard is a prime example of the latter). I picked up a lot of reissues and compilations, hoping that those lists will provide some fodder for future Recycled Goods columns. I avoided EP and singles lists, bootlegs and mixtapes, but some survived anyway. (Indeed, the lines there are not always crystal clear.) Toward the end, I occasionally skipped albums not already on the list, figuring the returns didn't justify the work. I also found I screwed a few things up -- especially cases where an artist had multiple titles (Lady Gaga's The Fame and The Fame Monster is a case in point, all the messier because the latter has more than one configuration, including or excluding the former). I want to start here by listing the top 50. In brackets at the end of the line I include the total count and my grade -- in most cases based on a quick review from Rhapsody.
I started the file early last year, tracking reviews as they came out in places like Blender and Rolling Stone, adding in AMG's monthly Editor's Choices and several other convenient sources (which exclude webzines like Pitchfork and Pop Matters that aren't convenient at all). So the early leader was Yeah Yeah Yeahs, but as soon as the year-end lists started accumulating, Phoenix pulled out front, followed closely by Animal Collective. For a while Animal Collective even pulled ahead, only to lose the lead in the last week. As it turns out, the top three or four records were joined on most of the same lists, with Animal Collective almost invariably finishing above the others: of the lists I noted, Animal Collective scored 15 first place finishes, Phoenix 3, Grizzly Bear 2, Dirty Projectors 2. Those lists also tended to intersect with Passion Pit, Antlers, Atlas Sound, Horrors, and Wild Beasts. (Possibly others: I don't have the data organized to check, so I'm mostly working from memory. One needs to distinguish here between single author lists and multi-input lists. The latter would show a lot of intersection with Yeah Yeah Yeahs and St Vincent, but often from different sources. On the other hand, hardly anyone who picked Wild Beasts didn't also go for Animal Collective and/or Grizzly Bear.) In his year end essay, Robert Christgau makes a distinction between "young people's records" (specifically listing Phoenix, Animal Collective, Grizzly Bear, and Dirty Projectors) and old folks' records (Leonard Cohen, Willie Nelson, Loudon Wainwright III, Marianne Faithfull, and Neil Young were in his top 20; they averaged 9 counts each in my accounting, which is arguably biased in their favor). That's an easy conclusion when you're 67, or 59 in my case -- I made a similar comment when I first tried to write up my sense of Animal Collective. I certainly haven't listened to Animal Collective, Grizzly Bear, or Dirty Projectors enough to register more than my limited amusement with the first and initial distaste for the latter two. I'm inclined to give them credit for being alien, mostly because I don't see how so many conscientious critics can warm to them unless there's something coherent to them that I haven't been able to discern. I know from my own experience that records that defy your expectations take a while longer to sort out. One indication that there might be more here comes from Nate Chinen's 10, where he mixes Dirty Projectors and Grizzly Bear in with 5 hip jazz picks (Steve Lehman, Henry Threadgill, Vijay Iyer, Fly, and Darcy James Argue) along with 3 more scattered non-jazz, non-rock picks (Brad Paisley, Rihanna, Oumou Sangare). Ben Ratliff, the other New York Times jazz critic, also included Dirty Projectors in his 10 (along with Lehman and Iyer, some more idiosyncratic jazz records, Bill Callahan and Raekwon). Still, my first encounter doesn't seem to promise much, and it doesn't seem cost effective to proceed. About the only musician I forced myself to listen to enough to eventually come around on was Charlie Parker. There are other records on the list that I can imagine growing on me: XX, Antlers, Fever Ray, Horrors, Flaming Lips. But most of the these work in ways I feel I understand well enough. On the other hand, Phoenix (and Neko Case and Florence and Bat for Lashes and maybe St Vincent) strikes me as just ankle deep, pleasant but uninteresting and inconsequential, with dozens or more antecedents every bit as worthwhile. Putting them so far up the list suggests the idea that the critics are just ignorant and/or lazy. Certainly, it's a big stretch to expect young critics to bring forth the specific backgrounds to contextualize Cohen or Nelson/Wills or Wainwright/Poole. Christgau represents the first and last generation to span the whole history of rock, starting with Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley when they were brand new. Eight years younger, I learned my Berry and Buddy Holly songs from the Beatles and the Stones, and couldn't quite take Presley seriously after his movies and army tour. It wasn't hard for me to recover the history I missed, at least back to King Oliver and Bessie Smith, and doing so gave me a new appreciation of figures I had known from my childhood, like Nat Cole and Presley. Recorded pop music doesn't go back much past 1920, so I've experienced a little more than half of everything in real time. Anyone who grew up listening to Nirvana has a big disadvantage -- all the more so because the world keeps getting more and more complicated. One measure of how complicated the world has become is that my meta list adds up to 3137 new records plus 626 recycled ones. Critics are notoriously obscurantist, but there's more going on here than the desire to identify with something no one else knows about. I didn't keep a close count, but it looks like I consulted approximately 600 lists, so the top three showed up on 30-35% of the lists, numbers 8-14 around half that. Only 27 records showed up on 10% of the lists; 70 records on 5%. I'm a little surprised that the lists are as concentrated as they are: the top groups are popular, but not very, and once you get into the blogs it gets hard to blame it all on hype. Still, it must start there: why, after all, should so many people think that a group as slight as Phoenix is worth taking seriously? I don't know how writers decide which artists to take seriously and which not, but there must be some parameters here. One thing of interest is that the top 13 are all artists who emerged this decade, with several first albums (XX, Girls, Pains, you can also count Fever Ray). The list breaks at Flaming Lips and Wilco, and there's not much more in the top 50: Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr, Yo La Tengo, U2, the list's four rappers. Most groups do have an active span of less than ten years, but I don't recall past lists being skewed like this. Four hip-hop records (Raekwon, Mos Def, Jay-Z, Doom) seems light for the top 50. Not much more further down either: Kid Cudi (51), K'Naan (69), POS (86), Brother Ali (94), Tanya Morgan (119), DJ Quik & Kurupt (122), UGK, Wale, J Dilla, Eminem, Slaughterhouse, Ghostface Killah -- the latter would have topped 10 mentions if the album dropped sooner, but Black Eyed Peas didn't do any better with a big headstart. The few hip-hop lists I found reiterated these same names and not much more. The first two or three showed up in most of the magazine lists, but that was about it. All sorts of pop/dance music suffered poorly on the list. The most talked-about artist of the year -- at least she dominated Salon's Breakfast Club -- was Lady Gaga. But even if you added her two records into one tally, she would have wound up tied with M Ward at 64, just behind soul leader Maxwell. No world music albums came close: Christgau predicted that Amadou & Mariam will finish Pazz & Jop top 40, but I have it down at 150. Unless you count Somali rapper K'Naan, the top world album was Very Best at 82, followed by Tinariwen and Mulatu Astatke (picking up some jazz voters). Oumou Sangare, which I had in my top 10, didn't crack 10 mentions. Ghana Special did fairly well among the reissues, but I can come close to attributing all of Franco's mentions to personal friends. I was on the lookout for world music lists, but I found very few. Same thing for country. Unless you count the Avett Brothers at 22 (and I can't imagine why), the top country album was Miranda Lambert at 56, followed by Brad Paisley at 79, then Justin Townes Earle, Rosanne Cash, Steve Earle, Buddy and Julie Miller, Patty Loveless, and George Strait -- the latter two with just 11 mentions (and, actually, subpar albums), then superb albums by Willie Nelson/Asleep at the Wheel and Loudon Wainwright III. Again, I looked for lists, and did a better job of finding them, but they turned out to be awfully narrow. Good records by John Anderson and Tanya Tucker were all but ignored. Hits were ignored too. One more list here: new records (excluding 2008 releases and items on my reissue/vault music list) on Christgau's "Dean's List" that tallied less than 15: Loudon Wainwright III, Leonard Cohen (13), Black Eyed Peas (10), Wussy, Serengeti, Oumou Sangare, Nellie McKay, Willie Nelson/Asleep at the Wheel (10), Marianne Faithfull, Ghostface Killah (10), Moby (13), Neil Young, Richard Hell, Coathangers, Hold Steady, Glasvegas (13), Death Cab for Cutie (EP), Modest Mouse (EP), Fruit Bats (10), Patterson Hood (10), Goran Bregorovic, Rhett Miller, Deer Tick (11), God Help the Girl (14), An Horse, New York Dolls, Living Things, Occidental Brothers Dance Band International, Shakira (14), Béla Fleck, Kronos Quartet, The Lonely Island, Lady Sovereign, Group Bombino, Staff Benda Bilili. I originally thought of drawing the line at 10, but found so many notable 10-14 records. There are more in the 15-19 range: PJ Harvey/John Parish, Tegan and Sara, Tune-Yards, Mulatu Astatke/Heliocentrics, White Denim, Amadou & Mariam. Above that there Jay Reatard (22), Brad Paisley (28), K'Naan (29), Dark Was the Night (33), Miranda Lambert (34), all out of the top 50. (That leaves 14 records in the top 50.) Doesn't look like he has very long coattails, does it? I can't find offhand any previous analysis comparing my meta lists to Pazz & Jop poll results. As I recall, they matched fairly closely. P&J will poll slightly more voters than I looked at lists, but the ballots are capped at 10 records each, so the final tally tends to run 1600-1800 records. Christgau expects some degree of shift to older, more mainstream artists, even holding out a chance that Yeah Yeah Yeahs -- a young group that's perfectly comprehensible to anyone schooled since 1970 -- might win. If so, you should see Wilco move up from 15 toward 10; Sonic Youth from 31 toward 20; U2 from 49 toward 40; Bob Dylan from 74 toward 50. A second effect you should see would be records with high rankings gaining against records with broad support. Most clearly, that favors Animal Collective, and possibly its followers, over Phoenix. It's hard to say who else benefits down list, but I think Lily Allen will wind up moving from 37 toward 30. The ballot deadline is also later than deadlines for most year-end lists. One record this favors is XX. It could also help Ghostface Killah and Mary J Blige emerge from nowhere, but both are probably too late. Hip-hop records are likely to gain a bit, but not much. Lambert and Paisley are also likely to gain, although cracking the top 40 will be tough. Metal bands like Mastodon, Converge, and Sunn O))) have never done well, so I expect them to slip. The UK polls can be discounted, which will knock Arctic Monkeys way down, and may also hurt Bat for Lashes and Florence, less so Camera Obscura. The main point of these polls isn't who wins but what you can learn from them. One thing is that they help point out records worth checking out. Another is that they tell you something about the people writing about music. It would be nice to have some better data on who those people are, but the picks themselves tell you something. If only you can puzzle it out. Monday, January 11. 2010No Jazz ProspectingMiserable week here. Bitter cold, which has never bothered me quite so much. Did manage to finish H.W. Brands' 800-page Franklin Roosevelt biography, Traitor to His Class. Fiddled with year-end list stuff, which I expect to wrap up today. That meant streaming a lot of stuff from Rhapsody: a couple of finds (Fruit Bats, Black Moth Super Rainbow, Khaled) and near-finds (2562, Lack of Afro), some hyped albums that weren't as bad as I expected (Horrors, Wild Beasts, Decemberists, Baroness, Health, Dan Deacon, Big Pink, Andrew Bird), some that were worse (Dinosaur Jr., Brendan Benson, Julian Casablancas). Will post that later this week. Sorry about the jazz. I've played things but just haven't felt like writing about them. Jazz Consumer Guide is in same state it's been in for 3-4 weeks now: full up, needs some tweaking including a few records I've put off too long. Have a lot of new stuff to listen to, but closing out this column is mostly figuring out what to do with what I've already sorted out. Could take a week, maybe two, but can't be committed until I get started. Safe to say the likely publication date has slipped well into February. Warmed up to about 40F today, so that's a relief. Finished my data file on year-end lists. Will write up something on that soon, once I make sure it all looks right. Thursday, January 7. 2010List ThingsGeoffrey Himes: The Himes 100: As a list, the 100 records are nicely distributed with jazz and pan-country especially well represented, but also Mika, K'Naan, Tinariwen, the Decemberists, Prince, a couple of classical albums (including a new John Adams). His jazz is more mainstream than mine, and he praises country albums I regard as disappointments (Steve Earle, George Strait, Patty Loveless), but he's on target often enough I wonder about the ones I don't know. Also not just a list: he writes something sensible about every entry, which is rare in the world (and more than I've ever attempted). Country Music Critics' Poll - The Results: Geoffrey Himes seems to have coordinated this. Based on 77 critics. Don't have individual ballots. Miranda Lambert's Revolution beat down Brad Paisley. Dolly Parton's box won the reissue category. Jazzhouse Diaries: Many top-ten lists from Jazz Journalists Association writers, some going well beyond ten (e.g., Bill Milkowski, who doesn't stop until 130). Metacritic: Best of 2009: A relatively good summary of much of the year-end lists action, including links to many polls, Larghearted Boy's list of lists, and Acclaimed Music's spreadsheet. A couple more lists:
Should have kept more of these things. I had a Michaelangelo Matos list at one point, but can't find it now. (Here's part of it.) Wednesday, January 6. 2010Rhapsody Streamnotes: Year End EditionSpent way too much time during December collating year-end lists, but they gave me some hints as to what I've been missing. In years past I used to scrounge around used shops to scrounge up a few things to take a risk on. Much easier (and cheaper) to dial them up from Rhapsody, at least when I can find them. Usual caveats apply: only one or two plays leading to a snap judgment, which might be a bit generous but more often is cautious. Usually this quenches my curiosity, but on sometimes I've sought out records that I first encountered this way, and a couple of those I've bumped my rating on. Certainly the critics who are pushing Phoenix [a previous B+(*)], Animal Collective, Grizzly Bear, and Dirty Projectors to the top of the polls have listened to them more than I ever will. I don't doubt that greater exposure will make them seem less alien, and might even lead me to grant them some technical points, but I've listened enough to not care: I will always have better things to play. This and previous sets are archived here. Animal Collective: Merriweather Post Pavilion (2009, Domino): Mojo and Uncut have already tagged this as the best album of 2009, and it's currently tied for second in my barely started meta poll tabulation (behind Yeah Yeah Yeahs). The group has been up there before, and will probably be reckoned a signature group of the decade. If so, 2000-09 will be the decade where I've finally lost touch with the rock critic consensus -- not that I was a big fan of Nirvana in the 1990s or U2 in the 1980s, but I mostly understood what they were about. Animal Collective is not just unappealing -- they're damn near unlistenable. Still, I'm hedging (as I did with Strawberry Jam): I do hear the chopped-up late-Beatles hooks, layered with too many voices, and I find my foot inexplicably tapping to "Brother Sport." I can't imagine listening to this enough for all the rough edges to mesh, but I can imagine someone else doing so -- someone much younger than I am. B+(*) Otis Gibbs: Grandpa Walked a Picketline (2008 [2009], Thirty Tigers): Singer-songwriter from Indiana, filed as folk because his music -- guitar and voice -- is so primitive, and also because he has some politics. Title song credits union support with helping both his grandparents' and parents' lives, but there's nothing dogmatic about that, nor about the more personal topics. B+(***) Dailey & Vincent: Brothers From Different Mothers (2009, Rounder): Opening notes are so bluegrass they could be Flatt and Scruggs. Principals are Jamie Daley and Darrin Vincent. Old fashioned values, including modesty and piety, not necessarily humor. B+(**) Phosphorescent: To Willie (2009, Dead Oceans): That would be Willie Nelson, who wrote 7 of 11 songs. Pseudo-group, actually singer-songwriter Matthew Houck, from Athens, GA, on his fourth album. Rather scattered given such a tight concept, but then it may be what he likes most about Nelson is his off-handedness. Pedal steel helps, and there's some but not enough of that. B+(*) Alela Diane: To Be Still (2009, Rough Trade): Another singer-songwriter doing business without her last name (Menig), like Jemina Pearl. Billed as "nouveau psych folk" -- means nothing to me, but she strums her guitar and sings along, and this works best when she slides into an organic groove. B+(*) Holly Williams: Here With Me (2009, Mercury Nashville): Related: half-sister of Hank III, daughter of Hank Jr., granddaughter of the real deal. Doesn't have her brother's pipes, brains, or attitude; about par with her father, except on attitude. No threat to the family legend. B DJ Quik & Kurupt: Blaqkout (2009, Mad Science): A couple of west coast rappers, been around quite a while, only thing I've heard is Quik's 1991-2000 Greatest Hits, which aren't that great. But this is cartoony, with lots of whizzy synth and crunky chorus, which is the only way to redeem titles like "Cream N Ya Panties," "Whatcha Wan Do," "F**k Y'All," and "Hey Playa!" (Couldn't play the title cut.) B+(***) BLK JKS: After Robots (2009, Secretly Canadian): Rock group from South Africa, not totally lacking African roots, but not very evident either. Most cuts are heavy handed, clunky, with rapid-fire drums and metallic dross, but it's not all like that: the closer, "Tselane," offers a tinkling repetitiveness that is rather nice. B- Grizzly Bear: Veckatimest (2009, Warp): Currently running second in my year-end poll metacount, behind Phoenix and barely ahead of Animal Collective. No idea why. Rhapsody lists it as "lo-fi," which certainly isn't true. Christgau denies that it is "chamber pop," and makes that case without solving the puzzle with "folk-prog." One reason it's so hard to peg is that there's so little substance to hang anywhere. It's easy enough to listen to, and the harmonies sweeten it up a bit. Didn't notice a word, which doesn't mean there were none. Does mean they weren't very witty, or incisive, or loud. B- Mayer Hawthorne: A Strange Arrangement (2009, Stones Throw): Alias for Andrew Cohen, a DJ/producer from Ann Arbor, who presumably does the lead vocals, using his best Marvin Gaye accent. Maybe even dubs his backing vocals, which are pretty much in the same slightly disconcerting voice -- helps that most are slow, but "The Ills" is an exception that works well enough. There's a niche market operating lately for rediscovered soul obscurities, and these prim and proper Motown arrangements fit the bill. They're fake, slight next to the classics, but it's not like you'd rather listen to neo-soul. B+(*) Boo Hewerdine: God Bless the Pretty Things (2009, Navigator): English singer-songwriter, been around since 1989 when he cut an album with Darden Smith that AMG thinks highly of. Nice, clear guitar-plus-voice, thoughtful songs, sincere singer. B+(*) Sufjan Stevens: The BQE (2009, Asthmatic Kitty): I thought his 50 albums for 50 states concept was too ambitious, but after Michigan and Illinois I was looking forward to more, even if Indiana came next. But then he got sidetracked, releasing outtakes from Illinois, then Christmas songs, and now some sort of quasi-classical soundtrack presumably immortalizing the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. He almost makes the hokey grandeur of classical music work. B Dirty Projectors: Bitte Orca (2009, Domino): Lo-fi, alt, indie, experimental rock group (AMG's styles), running about number 5 in my year-end meta poll. First three songs aren't unlistenable, but they're not music either -- at least not any form I can follow, which is hard to fathom in a band that enjoys some substantial amount of critic mass. Fourth song, "Stillness Is the Move," has something going for it -- sort of a falsetto soul thing. One other song struck me as having an interesting drum track, but little else meshes here. Fans point out the vast number of ideas they work with, and that may be true, but they strike me as so alien as to be uninteresting. And it's not like I'm a critic with little breadth or bandwidth. C+ Tegan and Sara: Sainthood (2009, Vapor/Sire): Canadian duo, identical twins, surname Quin. Fifth album since 1999. Always had sort of a cult following, which probably meant that they started out low-tech and folkie. But they've grown into rock beats and riffs -- here they sound a bit like the Bangles, only more serious, and better organized, both good signs, especially for the future. A- Veda Hille: This Riot Life (2008, Ape House): A real find, one of those rare things that Christgau discovered even though virtually no one else noticed. AMG lists 4 previous albums going back to 1998; Christgau says she has a dozen. A singer-songwriter from Vancouver, plays piano, composes for theater, crafted a song cycle here. Not sure what it's all about, but from the start it feels right, sharply arranged, smartly worded -- closest analogue I can come up with is Kate Bush only more consistent and less bombastic. A- Joe Nichols: Old Things New (2009, Universal South): Hunky country singer, has recorded quite a bit since 2002 but this is the first I've heard of him. Straight neotrad, classic themes: has drinking problems and marital problems but has better things to do than see a shrink. B+(***) James McMurtry: Live in Euorpe (2009, Lightning Rod): Alt-country singer-songwriter, son of the famous novelist, cut his first literate album in 1989, but didn't really connect until his last two Bush-fueled albums. Live album seems to be one of those CD-DVD packaging vehicles, as if anyone needed such a thing. I'm only listening to the 42-minute CD, which is solid but strikes me as rather placid -- at least compared to what I'd imagine. B+(*) Shakira: She Wolf (2009, Epic): Second play gained enough that I suspect this hasn't peaked. Early on she sounds like herself, showing that she has a distinctive sound and stance rather than an instinct for opportunism. Then songs like "Good Stuff" and "Gypsy" kick in. Maybe more -- wasn't keeping track, and didn't notice if two Spanish titles are really in Spanish. A- Ghostface Killah: Ghostdini: Wizard of Poetry in Emerald City (2009, Def Jam): Oh, wow. Aside from a song extolling love at first sight to a pregnant lady married to some other guy, this flows at its simplest and runs right over you more than once -- "Guest House" is as compelling a piece of hip-hop as I've heard in years (and it's not like I'm an easy sell for gangsta). Dirtiest sex I've heard in at least that long, too. (Maybe another weak one or two -- some evidence of guest star blight, but overall more likely to go up than down.) A- Eminem: Relapse (2009, Aftermath/Interscope): This stops being funny around the second skit, not that there weren't hints before. A couple of reviewers gave this the benefit of a doubt when it came out, but it lost interest so completely that it has scarcely shown up on a single year-end list. Not without talent, but too many songs apply it by rote, and not enough give you any reason to care. B- Brother Ali: Us (2009, Rhymesayers Entertainment): Albino rapper from Minneapolis, original name Jason Newman. First album was his best because he had absolutely no pretensions. He's still uncomfortable with them, but coming off a live album he's living in a different world now, which means one further removed from the one we live in. Still has good intentions, not to mention beats. B+(**) Atlas Sound: Logos (2007-09 [2009], Kranky): Solo project second album by Bradford Cox (b. 1982), originally of Deerhunter, a self-described ambient-punk band from Athens, GA. Has some elements of the year's dominant aesthetic -- I'm tempted to group Animal Collective et al. as chaotic picaresque -- but with only one auteur it never gets too chaotic to follow. Which leaves atomistic picaresque, with occasional twang. B+(*) The Flaming Lips: Embryonic (2009, Warner Bros.): Oklahoma City band, been around since mid-1980s, with more than a dozen albums, but this is the first I've heard. First two cuts live up to their "noise pop" reputation, then they do a spacey ballad that goes on much too long, followed by more emphatic noise. This sort of cyling goes on and on, the pop coming from sweet hooktones, the noise coming from odd directions. More plays would help sort this out, but I don't know if they'll ever even out. One song called "Watching the Planets" -- on the noisy end of the spectrum, hit me hard enough to jot it down on my schematic (and probably worthless) year-end songs list. B+(**) Fever Ray (2009, Mute): Solo project from Karin Dreijer, more commonly half of the Knife -- a Swedish brother-sister duo with a 2006 album (Silent Shout) Christgau likes but I somehow missed. Gloomy at first, beatwise, obscure vocals, sort of thing that could grow comfortable on you but isn't likely to ever amount to much. B+(*) Florence & the Machine: Lungs (2009, Island): English singer Florence Welch and a lot of overtracked mechanical backup. AMG likened her to contemporaries like Lily Allen and Kate Nash, but her voice is closer to Shakira's, and you can extend that analogy by trying to imagine what you'd wind up with if you stripped Shakira of the Latin groove and Lebanese sass and 30-40 points of IQ, and put what's left in an overproduced Kate Bush straightjacked. Well, it's something like that. B Future of the Left: Travels With Myself and Another (2009, 4AD): Punkish Welsh band, rooted in a group called Mclusky that I never bothered with. Sounds basically solid but not much in the way of revelation or even critique. Remember when the History of the Left included the Mekons and the Gang of Four? The Beautiful South even? B+(*) Elvis Perkins: Elvis Perkins in Dearland (2008 [2009], XL): Singer-songwriter (actor, photographer), uses a bit of harmonica which gets him compared to Dylan (doesn't take much, does it?). Too much keyb for a real folkie; probably to many horns, too. Tends toward melancholy. B Mastodon: Crack the Skye (2009, Reprise): Heavy metal has gone from the fringes to the arena and back again. When I look as "best metal" lists these days few names are even remotely familiar, but this group seems to be the one breakout threat. Fourth album since 2002; second on a major label. Reportedly a concept album about Tsarist Russia, an ancien regime that managed to make Lenin and Stalin look good. Mixed feelings here: the heavy crunching beat and neatly layered guitar flash are sharp enough I could go for an instrumental album of this. The vocals are thick and dreary, not quite histrionic. Didn't get the story line, probably just as well. [Only 5 of 7 songs available.] B Camera Obscura: My Maudlin Career (2009, 4AD): Scottish group, sextet, fronted by singer Tracyanne Campbell who also claims all the writing credits. Fourth album, something of a commercial breakthrough, with a rich pop sound and a friendly tone. Was enjoying it until the synths got a bit out of hand. The fake horns aren't so bad. B+(*) Passion Pit: Manners (2008 [2009], Frenchkiss): Boston group, second album, fronted by Michael Angelikos, whose falsetto vocals and keyboards are reinforced by much more of the same. Gives them an inveterate pop sound, which they crank up and twist into strange shapes. I could imagine getting sick of them, especially if the initially annoying "Sleepyhead" doesn't come around. But for most of the album the ekstasis is pretty infectious. B+(*) La Roux (2009, Cherry Tree): French name, English group, eponymous first album, with Elly Jackson the photogenic singer, mostly keyboards in the straightforward electropop. B+(*) The Low Anthem: Oh My God, Charlie Darwin (2009, Nonesuch): Rhode Island group, looks like their third album, but the first on a label with any distribution. AMG classifies them as folk, but they're more like American history buffs who work Americana themes into a more sophisticated rock matrix -- sure, not nearly as sophisticated as Sufjan Stevens, but who is, and why the hell would one want to be? Leadoff song reduces the title to "Charlie Darwin," using a weird falsetto that may explain the album title. It's a feint toward opera, which the rest of the album works hard to undo. B+(***) Dâm-Funk: Toeachizown (2009, Stones Throw, 2CD): Aka DJ Damon Riddick, reportedly whittled this down from five LPs, although that's not much of a reduction, and there's more here than anyone can handle in a sitting. Funk grooves, some exceptional, all pretty listenable. Doesn't cut any new ground -- seems to use old gear and favor a 1980s sound, which is fine with me. B+(**) Holly Beth Vincent: Minnesota California (2009, Holly Beth Vincent): Former singer in Holly and the Italians, a punkish new wave group from the early 1980s. A correspondent described this as an "odds and sods" collection, but I couldn't find any discographical info, so for now will treat it as new. (After a 25 year hiatus, Vincent dropped an album in 2007.) Early pieces are band-backed, workman-like but catchy. Later ones tend to be less formal, and more interesting. B+(**) God Help the Girl (2009, Matador): Basically a Belle and Sebastian spinoff, with singer Catherine Ireton. Music is mostly strings, or some such approximation -- a bit cloying at times, but often painless and sometimes inspired. Wish all the songs were as inspiring as the one about "playing a decent song at last." B+(***) A Place to Bury Strangers: Exploding Head (2009, Mute): Basically a heavy metal reduction, dull stuff, rocksteady beat, lots of volume and some ambient noise. Very simple, which is why it works. Advisers say "play it loud" but I've found you don't have to crank anything up to get that effect: the record is so intrinsically loud it amplifies itself. Not sure how often I'd feel like playing it, but half a second spin only reinforced my initial reaction. A- Pissed Jeans: King of Jeans (2009, Sub Pop): Hardcore band from Allentown, PA. Couple of previous albums. Mostly thrash and roar, but holds your attention on the rare occasion when they cut back to the bare minimum. B+(*) JJ: JJ N° 2 (2009, Sincerely Yours, EP): Swedish duo, looks like their second album, but at 9 songs in 27 minutes doesn't quite count. Has a light, slippery pop feel, but flexes into a delightful little groove on "Intermezzo" -- probably a throwaway. B+(*) Manic Street Preachers: Journal for Plague Lovers (2009, Columbia): One of the big British groups of the 1990s that (except for Radiohead) never broke in the US, partly because leader Richey James Edwards vanished shortly after their peak album, 1994's The Holy Bible. Trying to get something back here by using a batch of Edwards' lyrics. Sharp at best, but does seem to drag a bit here and there. B+(*) Bat for Lashes: Two Suns (2009, Astralwerks): Alias for or group led by British and/or Pakistani singer Natasha Khan, on her second album drawing comparisons to Björk and/or Siouxsie Sioux. I don't understand a bit of it, other than that she's conceptually schizophrenic, with a little soft-beat art rock that is mostly pretty listenable. B- Lady Gaga: The Fame Monster (2009, Interscope): Packaged variously, either as an EP with eight new songs or as a deluxe repackaging of the initial album, The Fame. I note that she gets a lot more press attention than critical respect, but there's a long history of that with dance music sex bombs (e.g., Madonna). Seems sort of average -- in beats, voice, and posture -- for this niche, which puts her far above Christina Aguillera but doesn't exactly make her Betty Boo. [Note: Played what seems to be one of the 2-CD editions -- it's always hard to tell with Rhapsody. I suspect that if I sorted this out carefully the old album might be a notch better than the new part of the new album, which probably represents haste in pimping product rather than lack of development.] B+(*) Dark Was the Night (2009, 4AD, 2CD): New music compilation, a multi-artist effort for the Red Hot organization that has been pushing CDs against AIDS since 1990's Red Hot + Blue. Title comes from a Blind Willie Johnson song, given a cautious, wordless take by Kronos Quartet. I don't recognize all of the artists here, and don't much like many of the ones I do recognize, but don't much dislike anything I hear here -- even the Dirty Projectors' lead-off song. On the other hand, nice pieces like the one by Yo La Tengo don't go very far -- they mostly take it easy. B+(*) Girls: Album (2009, True Panther): AMG's 11th group with this name. Wonder if any of them are female -- this one consists of two guys from San Francisco. Songs hop from one stylistic notch to another, with little in common other than that when they get loud they effect a shoegaze guitar jangle. Good chance the songs will all cohere given time, and there's no reason not to give them a shot. Some chance they'll even make sense aesthetically -- not that that matters when you can always plead postmodernism. [Note: Album proved impossible to find on Rhapsody until a link showed up from their blog. Part of that is their lack of originality in naming themselves or it.] A- Fuck Buttons: Tarot Sport (2009, ATP): All instrumentals, mostly hard beats and guitar fuzz; nothing fancy in that, but I felt the groove all the way through, and was occasionally amused by little filips around the lines. What more can you ask for? [Note: Another impossible to search album, listed under f*ckbuttons.] A- Drake: So Far Gone (2009, Young Money, EP): Seven songs, clocks in a little over 30 minutes. Read somewhere this was extracted from a mixtape of the same name. Canadian rapper, sometime actor, keeps a thick bass underground groove, likes the green stuff. B+(**) Wale: Attention Deficit (2009, Interscope): DC rapper, parents came from Nigeria, so he shortened his original first name, Olubowale. Impressive at first, with phat beats, sober rhymes, a little commercial push, but drags in spots, especially when female backing singers take over. B+(*) Rihanna: Rated R (2009, Def Jam): Looking more jaded on the cover than anyone only 21 is entitled to much less deserves. Voice strikes me as cold and worn, too, and I gather the lyrics are rough lived -- Christgau's line was "constructing a person of interest." Much more consistent than Good Girl Gone Bad, although I would have been happier had they quit before "The Last Song." B+(*) Tuesday, January 5. 2010Recycled Goods (69): December 2009
After two months of working overtime I came up short this month, which is liable to happen with schedules but no plans. One reason was the need to spend time on year-end lists, so it seemed fitting that I might fill this column out with some of the year's best new records. Needing to draw the line somewhere, I restricted myself to tributes and live albums -- new albums of old songs. That left out my year's rave -- Lily Allen's It's Not Me, It's You -- and plenty more, but it gives you plenty to chew on. Karrin Allyson: By Request: The Best of Karrin Allyson (1993-2007 [2009], Concord): Kansas girl, started out with a clean, wholesome take on songbook standards, and wrote a bit -- her sole original here, "Sweet Home Cookin' Man," fairly stands out. I'm not sure that I like her 1996 "Cherokee," but her scat and Kim Park's slurred alto sax show her trying to do something interesting with the jazz tradition. Same can be said for her efforts to play off Coltrane. On the other hand, her early and recurring interest in Brazilian pop yields little -- she identifies "O Pato" as one of her signature songs, which makes it all the harder to put aside. Sort this chronologically and and it becomes clear that her career has been tailing off. After eleven albums, good time to catch her breath and take stock. B+(*) Leonard Cohen: Live at the Isle of Wight 1970 (1970 [2009], Columbia/Legacy): Seems like an afterthought appearing after Cohen's marvelous Live in London (2009), where he has songs -- especially from his 1988-92 albums I'm Your Man and The Future -- that project to full stadium weight. This shows many of the same tactics, such as starting a song off by reciting a verse. His songbook was much slimmer then, and far less familiar to me, but there was far more to it than the now canonical trio of "Bird on a Wire," "Goodbye Marianne," and "Suzanne" -- all present and account for here. So this is intriguing more in retrospect than it ever was momentous -- a rough diamond whose matter of fact sexuality and self-amusing turn of phrase are still striking. B+(***) [R] Warne Marsh & Lee Konitz: Two Not One (1975 [2009], Storyville, 4CD): Lennie Tristano's two most famous disciples on their first visit to Denmark, playing three nights at Montmartre in Copenhagen in early December and a fourth just after Christmas, plus a couple of studio sessions. Some feature tenor saxophonist Marsh in trio and quartet settings, but most add Konitz's slippery alto sax for a quintet. Storyville has been dipping into these tapes for years, but the effect of piling them up is cumulative, especially as they plot their own paths through well worn standards. A- [R] Big Jay McNeely: Nervous (1949-59 [1995], Saxophile): A tenor saxman with a honking bold sound but not much finesse and no interest in bebop filigree, McNeely blasted the jukeboxes in the 1950s, with occasional hits but no real albums to speak of. Someone with access to the scattered scraps could put a terrific 2-CD sampler together, maybe even a Proper 4-CD Box. Rhapsody has six reissues up dated 2009, labelled Jay McNeely Masters, but I haven't found them anywhere for sale. In any case, I picked this one because it matches a compilation I could find a little discographical information on, and it turns out to be a fair sample of his work: 19 cuts, 6 live, a couple alternates. A few have vocals and "Roadhouse Boogie" turns on inspired wicked sharp jive. The live "Body and Soul" was so uninteresting that McNeely wandered into another melody, but his jump blues are really acrobatic, and most of the album burns white hot. B+(***) [R] Briefly NotedMaria de Barros: Morabeza (2009, Sheer Group): Born in Senegal, grew up in Mauritania, and has lived and moved all over, but she maintains allegiance to the Cape Verdean music of her parents, and of Cesaria Evora; lithe Portuguese soul music, familiar from Brazil but just a shade different. B+(**) Chris Knight: Trailer II (1996 [2009], Drifter's Church): Carries on from The Trailer Tapes, more demos from just before Knight's debut album; just voice and guitar, focusing straight on the sharply observed songs -- most good enough they're on his first two albums. B+(***) [R] Kottarashky: Opa Hey! (2009, Asphalt Tango): Bulgarian techno, sampling trad instruments paced through gypsy grooves, steadied with more conventional electronics and served up as if the future looks bright. B+(***) Roscoe Mitchell: The Solo Concert (1973, AECO): Art Ensemble of Chicago saxophonist goes solo, with squeaky soprano, thudding bass, several weights in between; he moves cautiously, picking out logical paths and sonics, nothing too straight or all that crooked, just raw thought. B+(*) [R] Panama! 2: Latin Sounds, Cumbia Tropical and Calypso Funk on the Isthmus 1967-77 (1967-77 [2009], Soundway): Rough, upbeat singles soaking up the main currents of the region, drawing on Cuba, Trinidad, Colombia, maybe even some gringo rock and soul, or maybe just digging deeper into the worldview of a country torn in half due to a geologic fluke and the yankee boot. A- [R] Year-End Bonus: Old Wine, New BottlesNot that nothing new struck my fancy this year, but a lot of the year's better records recycled old songs in one form or another. Leonard Cohen: Live in London (2008 [2009], Columbia, 2CD): The songbook leans heavy on two 1988-92 albums that thrust the Canadian poet-turned-chansonnier back into the limelight as an aging rake with a whiff of revolution: I'm Your Man and The Future, the latter noting events in Tianamen Square and promising that democracy will come to the USA. It's repertoire now, along with three survivors from his early songbook and a few latecomers, all things that anyone who's paid the least attention knows by heart. Cohen presides gracefully, modestly introducing his band and his chorus (Sharon Robinson and the Webb Sisters) time and again, and situating himself some 100 floors below Hank Williams in the "tower of song" -- no doubt in one of the more comfortable circles of hell. And he draws his loudest reaction to an offhand remark about his "golden voice" -- a rare case of irony remade into prophecy. A+ Willie Nelson/Alseep at the Wheel: Willie and the Wheel (2009, Bismeaux): Ray Benson's band started in 1969 in the bluegrass hills of West Virginia, but found western swing when they landed in Austin, and have been dallying with it ever since. Their 1993 Tribute to the Music of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys was too respectful, but their 1999 Ride With Bob caught the spirit, with no small amount of help from guests like Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson -- although they were outnumbered by by the Vince Gills and Tim McGraws, the Dixie Chicks and the Squirrel Nut Zippers. Here they just settle on Willie, who's a lot more comfortable in the saddle here than he's been in years. A Loudon Wainwright III: High Wide & Handsome: The Charlie Poole Project (2009, 161, 2CD): Poole was a banjo playing songster who lived fast and died young, cutting enough singles from 1925-30 to fill three (County) or four (JSP) CDs. He never wrote a song, but he owned plenty of them, drawing on trad. and W.C. Handy and anyone else who caught his fancy. Columbia/Legacy released a 3-CD box in 2005 (You Ain't Talkin' to Me) that attempted to discern his magic by mixing in other singer's versions, a scholarly trick that, like everything Poole touches, turned out to be endlessly listenable. Wainwright's approach is to not only remake old Poole songs but write a few new ones hoping Poole would have taken them. Certainly the title cut was the anthem Poole never had. The spouse-ready "The Man in the Moon," sung by Maggie Roche, might have taken him aback. A Jonatha Brooke: The Works (2008, BDR): Mostly Woody Guthrie lyrics, plucked from the hundreds he never found melodies for; she rises to the occasion, braving the wilds, displaying a surprising appetite for danger, and not necessarily just to the heart. A Ralph Carney's Serious Jass Project (2009, Akron Cracker): Nouveau trad jazz, which means not only do they merge old Dixieland with Ellingtonian swing, and for good measure they tap into r&b honker Big Jay McNeely, who was never considered serious or jass in his heyday, but sixty years on is one of the good ol' good 'uns. A- Rosanne Cash: The List (2009, Manhattan): Selections from a list dad jotted down of songs everyone should know; she's so used to writing her own you might be surprised how authoritative her renderings are. A- Marianne Faithfull: Easy Come Easy Go (2009, Decca): Hal Wilner's jazz buddies fit right in, and his taste in songs helps out, especially the pairing of Dolly Parton's "Down From Dover" with an English accent that never suggests Tennessee; I would have pared back the guest list, but Keith can stay. A- The Hold Steady: A Positive Rage (2009, Vagrant): Does what a live album should do: distills a remarkable four-album catalog into a superb show, cranks up the energy a notch, adds a little personal touch, especially at the end. A- [R] Nellie McKay: Normal as Blueberry Pie: A Tribute to Doris Day (2009, Verve): Day was always an icon to normalcy, starting at a time when a return to normalcy was something most Americans desired; McKay turns that normalcy into something strangely hip, partly by uncovering the jazz roots behind the big blands, partly because normalcy is its own reward. A- Van Morrison: Astral Weeks: Live at the Hollywood Bowl (2008 [2009], Listen to the Lion): A faithful rendition, except for a voice wisened through forty years wear, and a growing sense that what was once mysterious is now just miraculous. A- Maria Muldaur & Her Garden of Joy: Good Time Music for Hard Times (2009, Stony Plain): Two new Dan Hicks songs fit in with the Depression-era oldies, about failing banks and two-timing preachers, but while she recognizes that "the panic is on," she's two steps ahead of the mob, fighting to pick herself up, and have a good time in the process. A- Tanya Tucker: My Turn (2009, Saguaro Road): Starting out as Nashville jailbait, she's always sung songs over her age, but past 50 leaves her with timeless classics -- Hank Williams, Lefty Frizell, Faron Young, George Jones, Don Gibson, Buck Owens, Merle Haggard -- nailing them all. A- [R] Legend: B+ records are divided into three levels, where more * is better. [R] indicates record was reviewed using a stream from Rhapsody. The biggest caveat there is that the packaging and documentation hasn't been inspected or considered. Monday, January 4. 2010No Jazz ProspectingJust didn't happen last week. Did some work on the Village Voice Jazz Critics Poll (see here for results and ballots); fiddled with my own year-end list meta rankings, which have tightened up to a dead heat between Animal Collective and Phoenix; and listened to some stuff for Recycled Goods and another Rhapsody report, which should get posted soon. Now that the holidays are over, I should be able to concentrate better on finishing off that Jazz Consumer Guide column. I would be more confident but the cold weather has been really bothering me, and the forecast is for sub-zero later this week. Arizona is starting to look like a good idea. Wednesday, December 30. 2009Village Voice Jazz Critics PollWhen Gary Giddins left the Village Voice back in 2004, Robert Christgau had to figure out some way to fill giant shoes. He tapped Francis Davis to fill in with monthly essays, me to mop up with a quarterly Jazz Consumer Guide, and Nate Chinen to fill in some live coverage. One idea that Davis brought in was to run an annual jazz critics poll. The fourth such poll appeared today, with 99 critics voting for 576 records. Davis wrote a summary article, and as I've done several times in the past, I wrote a sidebar "second opinion" piece. The links are:
One technical problem loomed large here, which is the amount of work it would take to be able to post all of the individual ballots. This was made all the more critical by a snafu which caused last year's ballots to disappear from the Voice website. This year they farmed the job out to me. I hacked together something quick and dirty, splitting the ballots up into five flat files. I also added a longer totals file (possibly more such files to come): In my article, I ran out of space for everything I wanted to mention honorably, so I proposed ending my piece with a link to a longer list. I culled this list from my working year-end list, taking a snapshot limited to jazz releases: One reason for publishing the whole thing is to provide some context for the top ten list. I always complain about how it only scratches the surface, but here that's visible: that top ten amounts to just 1.47% of 681 records considered. (Admittedly, the 89 unrated records were considered mostly by not being deemed critical enough to stuff into my CD player, but some I did play and didn't make up my mind on, and some arrived at the last minute when I was already swamped.) The list also shows that my access to reissues is pretty limited and arbitrary: only 86 records. I figure a typical year has about 2000 new jazz releases, so I'm hearing over 30% of them. There are about 1000 reissues, of which I'm hitting less than 10%. Those are figures I worked up 3-4 years ago, and they're probably still close to accurate. I wanted to build a list of records I know I didn't get -- what Rumsfeld called the "known unknowns" -- but didn't get far enough to show it with any confidence. Something else to work on. For comparison, you might also look at JazzTimes' poll: The JazzTimes poll tapped 40 critics, vs. 99 for the Voice poll. Of these 19 were in both polls, so the differences were 21 unique JazzTimes voters (53%) vs. 80 Voice (81%). Still, the results were similar, with the Voice's top 8 finishing in JT's top 12, and JT's top 6 finishing in the Voice's top 8: VV's big gainer was Jim Hall-Bill Frisell (30 to 9), while JT's gainer was Gary Burton-Pat Metheny (38 to 8). There is some reason to think that VV's separate categories for Latin and Vocal suppressed the overall results for category winners Miguel Zenón (8 to 3) and Gretchen Parlato (28 to 8). The Voice has more voters with avant interests, but they tend to scatter their votes so widely that they have little effect on the upper echelons of the poll. (VV voters listed more than twice as many distinct albums as JT voters.) On the other hand, behind every avant-gardist who finished more or less high is a well-known publicist (Fully Altered and Improvised Communications placed 7 records on JT's 50 and 10 on VV's 40), with Linda Oh's self-released debut the obvious fluke. I've heard 46 of 50 JT records: the exceptions are Dee Alexander, SFJazz Collective, Linda Oh, and Stanley Clarke. I've heard 48 of 50 on the VV list: I missed Linda Oh and Von Freeman. I had 3 of the Voice's top 10 at A- (Iyer, Lehman, Toussaint); the rest down in the B+ range (although Argue and Zenón were streamed and could have benefitted from more play). The best finish from my top ten list was Bill Frisell at 11, followed by David S. Ware at 35, and a couple of my top ten votes had no other support (Brad Shepik, Hairy Bones, Dennis González). The latter two got virtually no promo, which isn't decisive but is critical. Tuesday, December 29. 2009Tatum Guest ListI asked Michael Tatum to write up a year-end top-ten list for a guest post. He started off with two of my top three, but wound up with five records that didn't make my A-list: five that I've only heard on Rhapsody and probably need to take more seriously. Tatum writes:
Nothing here that's not on Christgau's list, but aside from jazz I don't have much either: Ghostface Killah, Mika, Metric, Shakira, Syran Mbenza, Ersatzmusika, and some of the rootsier things that I'm partial to -- Maria Muldaur, Tanya Tucker, Rosanne Cash, Buddy & Julie Miller. And I'll be real surprised if Ghostface and Shakira don't figure in the next CG. On the other hand, the only records on Tatum's list that are faring well (top 10-15) in the polls are the XX and Wilco, with Lily Allen and Sonic Youth in the next tier, and Paisley in the top 2-4 country records. |
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