Monday, March 17, 2025

Music Week

March archive (in progress).

Music: Current count 43856 [43814) rated (+42), 25 [34] unrated (-9).

I wrote a fairly long political post over the weekend, only very indirectly occasioned by recent events, although it's impossible to totally block out Trumpism and its discontents. The actual stimulus was reading Eric Hobsbawm's 2003 autobiography, Interesting Times: A Twentieth-Century Life, specifically the part where he offers a leftist's observations on the Thatcher demolition of civil society, and the hollow Blair response. With Reagan and Clinton, that all seems pretty familiar. And while in many ways Trump is the linear descendent of Nixon, Reagan, and the Bushes -- even his utter contempt for legalities isn't unprecedented -- he now seems to be breaking things just to show that he can.

Probably thanks to reading Hobsbawm, I've been revisiting the Trump/Fascist arguments, so I wound up spending way too much time today on a John Ganz post, There Was Never Any "Fascism Debate". As I recall, there was, but the academic end was mired in arbitrary definitions, and the popular end was if anything counterproductive. After the election, I was convinced that it was a waste of time. I still think it has no potential to influence anyone's politics, and mostly serves people like me as a chance to flaunt one's historical knowledge, it is very hard for people to understand the present except via historical analogy, and there are very few antecedents who come close to Trump's extraordinary impact. While there are still quite many variations, and we're still nearer the beginning than the end of Trump's reign of terror, it's the shoe that comes closest to fitting.

The question then is what can one learn from the analogy? Very little, I suspect, about the Führer himself, but if you look at his deputies, his active and passive supporters, his mass of fans you will find unnerving similarities. Even more worrisome is how ineffectual anti-Nazi resistance was, both from the liberals and social democrats who underestimated him and even more so from the leftists who understood the threat perfectly yet were powerless to stop him. There is, as yet, little reason to be that pessimistic, or to surrender even if one were, but it is clear that Trump is doing not just the bad things we expected, but more that we didn't (or couldn't without exposing ourselves as fantasists). And that Trump's acts will not only get worse, but will leave a lasting print that may never be excised.

My post goes into some of that, but obviously much more is still kicking around in my head. I still have no plans to write about this, or much of anything else. My only addition so far to my planning documents has been to open a still-empty file on house projects. I've spent three days so far on one, which initially seemed too simple to bother writing up (although, somewhat less formally, I did mention it in the notebook): fixing up the ramp into the shed -- something I've wanted to do for years, which now merged with my wife's request to do something to keep the dog from digging under the shed. It's going very slow, and I'm exhausted today, but at least I've started to feel like I have it under control.

Recovery from eye surgery is also going slowly, and hard to gauge, with more erratic or just uncertain moments. Makes it hard to get on with life, so I've tended to let everything slip. I still haven't done the frozen file thing, and I have very little idea what new albums are coming up. The only reason I have much new jazz to report is that it's easier to pick an album out of my promo queue than it is to figure out some good prospect from the media. But I did get a boost this week from Robert Christgau's March Consumer Guide, which netted four A- records, four high B+(***), and one more B+(**), none of which were particularly on my radar. I have the three records I had previously heard -- Mdou Moctar: Funeral for Justice, GloRilla: Glorious, and Marshall Allen: New Dawn -- graded somewhat lower, after brief encounters. Incidentally, I have GloRilla's 2024 mixtape, Ehhthang Ehhthang, a notch high, and two recent Allen features -- Sun Ra Arkestra: Lights on a Satellite and John Blum: Deep Space -- at A-.

Four of the Christgau picks, plus one of my jazz albums, led me to dig into unheard back catalog, so there's quite a bit of Old Music this week. I was at one point tempted to start up a 2025 Metacritic file, as an aid in prospecting, but I wound up making little if any further changes to the 2024 file, despite my expectation of doing so. (One reason I didn't was that it was straining my eyes.) Still, like much else, up in the air for now. I have few (if any) expectations for next week. (Although I do want to get more done on the shed Tuesday, before the next cold front blows through on Wednesday. By the way, in local news last week: A highway pileup in western Kansas shows how dust storms can turn deadly; also numerous reports of fires around Kansas last week. The weather is keeping pace with all the other Trumpian weirdness, and there's no reason not to blame him for that too. Campaigning to promote disasters isn't exactly causality but is close enough to count.

By the way, I added the Chills album after the initial cutover, so it's not counted in the weekly census. It is tempting to add the reissue of Studio's 2006 album West Coast, but I'm just nearing the end of a first play. I've been posting preview notes on the week's A- records on Bluesky. Initially I was able to link to Bandcamp pages, but I've run into a few snags lately, where I try to offer the best links I can find. I'm up to 35 posts and 68 followers there now. I commented on Lemieux's tweet:

I'd never heard the term before, but this is the 2nd time today I've run across "anti-anti-Trump pundits." What or who are they? The phrase suggests something different from pro-Trump pundits, or pundits who are naive, overly generous, or simply deluded about Trump. But what? And why?

Lemieux was kind enough to reply:

It generally refers to people on the left (or ostensible left) who often criticize Trump's opponents and rarely criticize Trump. But evidently at some point it becomes a distinction without a difference.

That sounds more like a troll than a pundit. I formulated a reply:

I'm well familiar with trolls who claim to be left but only appear to attack other lefties (e.g. on Israel), but "professional pundit" implies some kind of position, not just function. Still, I guess I can think of some NYT/WaPo pundits where the distinction scarcely matters.

I'm also familiar with leftists who are so focused on US sins they ignore or even get a bit myopic about the likes of Putin and Trump, but they rarely reduce to pro-Putin/Trump, so I don't mind them. But they do generate an anti-anti- dynamic, which I find unhelpful. If you have a principle, better to use it.

I thought of Matt Taibbi when writing this, but couldn't work him in under the limit. He's not really a leftist: he presents as some kind of iconoclast, balancing his left and right targets, although until 2016 his "left" targets were pretty silly (like 9/11 Truthers). After 2016, he got obsessed with the Clinton camp's anti-Russia rationalizations, which he considered a worse outrage than Trump's election. I haven't followed him since he left Rolling Stone, so I don't know where he's gone with his snark. He wasn't wrong when debunking "Russiagate," but had problems keeping the bigger picture in focus.

I did google "anti-anti-Trump": without quotes I got nothing of significance (mostly pieces about Never Trumpers), but with quotes some pieces do show up. Some titles, dates, and possibly quotes (but links only if I followed them, which mostly I did not; sorted by year from early to now):

One obvious point here is that most of these references are old (mostly from 2017), and most come from or relate to Never Trumpers (e.g., Sykes, who wrote a book, How the Right Lost Its Mind), many of whom have a major stake on maintaining their conservative bona fides. (Sure, a few have moved closer to Democrats, especially to ones they find congenial on issues of empire and economy.) Few even mention anti-anti-Trump sentiments on the the actual left, let alone name names. I suspect that if one did, they'd turn out to be sham leftists and/or simple fools.

New records reviewed this week:

Bad Bunny: Debí Tirar Más Fotos (2025, Rimas Entertainment): Puerto Rican rapper/singer, big star in his niche ("Spotify's most streamed artist of the year, 2020-2022"), sixth studio album. I've listened to, and enjoyed, most of them, without ever quite graduating to fan, which may be chalked up to my incomprehension of the language, or could suggest that the rhythm falls just short of making such concerns academic. B+(***) [sp]

Bag of Bones: No One Gets Saved (2023 [2024], 577): British avant-jazz quartet: Riley Stone-Lonergan (tenor sax, from QOW Trio), Rick Simpson (piano), Oli Hayhurst (bass), Will Glaser (drums), first group album. B+(**) [sp]

Towa Bird: American Hero (2024, Interscope): British pop/rock singer-songwriter, born in Hong Kong, "half-Filipino, half-English" started on Tik Tok playing "guitar riffs over other artists' songs," first album. B+(***) [sp]

Robert Sarazin Blake: Let the Longing Run Wild & Free (2025, Same Room): Singer-songwriter, dozen-plus albums since 1996. B+(**) [sp]

Charly Bliss: Forever (2024, Lucky Number): Power pop group from New York, Eva Hendricks the singer, third album, the others from 2017 and 2019 -- long enough ago that I had forgotten how much I liked Young Enough (about as much as I like this one). A- [sp]

The Chills: Spring Board: The Early Unrecorded Songs (2025, Fire): The late Martin Phillipps wrote the songs in the early 1980s, probably before the New Zealand group's 1988-92 breakthrough albums. No recording dates given, but Phillipps, who died at 61 in 2024, is credited with electric guitar and vocals on all songs, along with four others who joined the 2021 edition of the band, so these versions are not old demos. At 20 songs, they arguably went overboard, but half are remarkable, and we're unlikely to get more. A- [sp]

Helene Cronin: Maybe New Mexico (2025, self-released): Previously unknown country singer-songwriter from Texas, fourth album since 2013 (per Discogs; website has the first of those as an EP, along with a couple more). "We're story tellers and ocean walkers," striking ones about wastes of people and land, from a war-addled rifleman to a stripped mine. A- [sp]

Jonah David: Waltz for Eli (2024 [2025], Swish Tap): Drummer, first album as leader, side credits back to 2004 but mostly with Matisyahu. Varied lineups, most with sax, piano (or organ), and bass, guitar on three tracks, vocals (Anna Perkins) on two, trumpet (Jeremy Pelt) on one. B+(*) [cd]

FACS: Wish Defense (2025, Trouble in Mind): Chicago post-punk band, name a tribute to Factory Records, so think Joy Division/New Order with edges less honed, or if you remember them (as I do) the 2007-15 band Disappears, where all members of this trio -- Brian Case (guitar/vocals/keybs), Jonathan van Herik (bass), and Noah Leger (drums) -- got their start. My main caveat is that their sound is so consistent it's hard to pick the better albums out from the also-rans, not that I'm sure there really are any. A- [sp]

Satoko Fujii Tokyo Trio: Dream a Dream (2024 [2025], Libra): Super-prolific Japanese pianist, this one a trio with bass (Takashi Sugawa) and drums (Ittetsu Takemura), drags a bit in spots, but is brilliant often enough. A- [cd]

Funkrust Brass Band: Make a Little Spark (2024, self-released): New York band, 20-piece group (at least at one point), "mixes post punk, disco, EDM, metal, funk, Balkan brass and New Orleans second line, with snazzy uniforms, choreography, megaphone vocals, and all-original music." Two earlier (2017-19) albums fall short of LP-length, and their collection of demos and remixes isn't much longer, but this one counts, and I'm a sucker for a good tuba section. A- [sp]

Future: Mixtape Pluto (2024, Freebandz/Epic): Atlanta rapper Nayvidius Wilburn, 17 mixtapes since 2010, first studio album was Pluto in 2012. I've never quite understood the difference, nor can I tell you what distinguishes trap from hip-hop, but if you set up a 2x2 plot on those two axes even I could assign this to the trap/mixtape quadrant. B+(**) [sp]

Freddie Gibbs: You Only Die 1nce (2024, ESGN): Rapper, actual last name Tipton, debut 2013, sixth solo studio album. Title refers back to his 2017 album, You Only Live 2wice. B+(**) [sp]

Muriel Grossmann: MGQ Live in King Georg, Köln (2022 [2025], Powerhouse): Austrian saxophonist (tenor, soprano, alto here), a "spiritual jazz legend" -- which mostly means she's moved by the holy spirit of John Coltrane -- with her quartet: Radomir Milojkovic (guitar), Abel Boquera (organ), and Uros Stamenkovic (drums). B+(***) [sp]

Patterson Hood: Exploding Trees and Airplane Screams (2025, ATO): Drive-By Truckers singer-songwriter, released three solo albums 2004-12 along with group albums, this his fourth (not counting the pandemic-filler Heathen Songs). Too quiet to keep my attention, but interesting enough when I do notice. B+(***) [sp]

Lady Blackbird: Slang Spirituals (2024, Foundation Music Productions/BMG): Jazz singer-songwriter Marley Munroe, based in Los Angeles, second album, has muscled up the production to the point where it's no longer recognizable as jazz, but so far she's making the power work. B+(***) [sp]

Ben Markley: Tell the Truth (2024 [2025], OA2): Discogs credits him with three 1976-81 albums, but another source has him born in 1981, and when you click on "Credits" those three albums vanish (replaced by two others from 1975-77), with his plausible credits starting in 2007, and own albums in 2009. He has six of the latter, including a couple big band efforts, plus one by Live Edge Trio. He's a pianist, and composed all originals, for this postbop quintet with Wil Swindler (alto sax) and Steve Kovalcheck (guitar), plus bass and drums. B+(*) [cd]

Mdou Moctar: Tears of Injustice (2025, Matador): Tuareg singer-guitarist from Niger, steady stream of albums since 2013, started getting some notice after Matador signed him/them in 2021, especially for the 2024 album Funeral for Justice. This is an acoustic remake, recorded after a coup made return problematical for touring musicians. I've made no effort to decipher the words or politics -- the coup itself was notable here for sending US troops in Niger packing, which I took to be good news all around, but I have no idea what the actual impacts there are. In any case, the words mean nothing to me, but slowing them down and quieting the guitars seems as valid as ever. B+(***) [sp]

Isabelle Olivier: Impressions (2024 [2025], Rewound Echoes): French harpist, a dozen albums since 1997, takes title and inspiration from Coltrane, but her "genre melding" touches on folk themes filtered through euroclassical. B+(**) [cd] [03-21]

Juan Perea: Lightkeeper (2022-24 [2025], Zoho): Pianist, based in Chicago, seems to be his debut at 68, kicks off with "Oye Como Va," followed by seven originals and a reprise. Eric Marienthal plays notable alto sax on three cuts. B+(*) [cd]

Jim Snidero: Bird Feathers (2024 [2025], Savant): Alto saxophonist, 28th album over 40 years, decided to mark the occasion with a collection of Charlie Parker tunes, although he slipped four standards into the mix: "These Foolish Things," "Embraceable You," "The Nearness of You," "Lover Man" -- not songs I associate with Parker, but the liner notes explain the connections. Trio with Peter Washington and Joe Farnsworth, an exemplary mainstream rhythm section, as rooted in swing as in bop. Very nicely done, without a hint of danger or irony. B+(***) [cd]

Mitch Towne: Refuge (2024 [2025], Cross Towne): Organ player, Discogs lists 8 side credits back to 1999, but this seems to be his first album as leader, a trio recorded in Omaha with Tetsuya Nishiyama (guitar) and Jeffery Johnson (drums), playing six originals and a piece by Kenny Kirkland. B+(*) [cd] [04-04]

University of Nevada Las Vegas Jazz Ensemble 1: Let the Good Times Roll (2024 [2025], Vegas): Chances are pretty much any music school in the country could assemble a band like this (I've run across similar efforts from UNT and Toronto). No real reason to search them out, or to get snippy about talented students playing repertory (or their first stabs at originals). But this one is pretty enjoyable, thanks largely to song selection (starting with the title). I wouldn't even mind hearing more vocals, at least from ringer guest Laura Taylor, whose "Alright, Okay You Win" is a highlight. B+(**) [cd]

Wavy Bagels With Driveby: A Carfull (2024, Break All): Queens rapper Jackie Mitchell and producer Oscar Torres Jr., each with one other recent album. B+(**) [sp]

WDR Big Band: Bluegrass (2025, MCG Jazz): Westdeutscher Rundfunk, founded 1956 when the Köln radio station split off from Hamburg's NDR (Norddeutscher Rundfunk) and pivoted to jazz, where they've proven a ready source for big band backing. Discogs credits them -- usually as WDR Big Band Köln (or Cologne) -- with 104 albums since 1981, many under the names of guest directors (most prominently: Lalo Schifrin, Vince Mendoza, and Bob Mintzer -- at the helm here) or guest stars. Mintzer arranged ten more or less recognizable bluegrass tunes here, and solos on tenor sax and EWI, with Darol Anger (violin) and Mike Marshall (mandolin) guest stars. A nice exercise unlikely to have any lasting impact in either world. B+(*) [cd]

Rodney Whitaker: Mosaic: The Music of Gregg Hill (2024 [2025], Origin): Mainstram bassist, from Detroit, many side credits since 1985 (Roy Hargrove, Orrin Evans, Wynton Marsalis), over a dozen own albums, in 2019 he kicked off a now extensive series of albums of the compositions of Gregg Hill, back here with what may be the best one yet, largely thanks to stellar performances by Terell Stafford (trumpet/flugelhorn) and Tim Warfield (tenor/soprano sax), with Rick Roe (piano) and Dana Hall (drums). Also four vocals by Rockelle Whitaker, which I'm less enthusiastic about but they do add another dimension to Hill's work. B+(***) [cd]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

None

Old music:

Helene Cronin: Restless Heart (2014, self-released, EP): First album, six songs, 22:28. Sounds nice enough, but no songs really stand out. B+(*) [sp]

Helene Cronin: Belong to the River (2015, self-released, EP): Second album, just a bit longer (7 songs, 24:43), but her sound is striking from the start, as are several of the songs -- including a couple I might object to on politico-philosophical grounds but are too observed to get upset over ("Dangerous," on hazards as childhood learning experiences, and "Lucky Me," on how soldiers make you free). B+(**) [sp]

Helene Cronin: Old Ghosts & Lost Causes (2019, self-released): First full album, 11 songs, 42:23. Good songwriter, but tends to stay understated. B+(*) [sp]

Helene Cronin: Landmarks (2023, self-released): Second full album, 12 songs, put extra effort into the songs, and developed a real band sound. B+(***) [sp]

FACS: Negative Houses (2018, Trouble in Mind): After a pretty impressive 2010-16 run, Disappears bassist Damon Carruesco departed, breaking up the band. But the other three musicians regrouped, with second guitarist Jonathan van Herik moving over to bass, adopting this new name connected to Factory Records -- UK home of Joy Division, which rather more dramatically turned into New Order. This first album preserves their sound, but it's mired in trauma. B+(*) [sp]

FACS: Lifelike (2019, Trouble in Mind): Second album, unless 6 songs, 29:22 demotes it to EP status (as Spotify thinks). A bit slow off the mark, but the last song holds up for 8:21. B+(*) [sp]

FACS: Void Moments (2020, Trouble in Mind): Third album, 7 tracks, 30:34. Solid sound, doesn't develop much. B+(*) [sp]

FACS: Present Tense (2021, Trouble in Mind): Fourth album, 7 tracks, 35:14. Having commented above on how consistent the appeal of Disappears was, and noting the continuity of their latest album, I now have to admit that they fell into a sustained rut -- although their previously heard fifth proper album, Still Life in Decay (2023) did start to step back up. B+(*) [sp]

FACS: Maggot Brain 020324 (2024, self-released): Back cover reads: "Smashed Plastic Anniversary 20192024." Live set as dated, celebrating their 5th anniversary, released as a "Bandcamp exclusive," which included a limited vinyl run. I found this first when looking up "Wish Defense" -- the title song of their 2025 album, which first appeared here. Good dry run for the new album. B+(***) [bc]

Funkrust Brass Band: Dark City (2017, self-released): First album, or EP if you're bothered by the 26:57 run time for seven songs. Not sure how many musicians are in this edition, but the concept is fully evolved, backed with ample brass. B+(***) [sp]

Funkrust Brass Band: Bones and Burning (2019, self-released, EP): Second outing for the "20-piece post-apocalyptic disco-punk brass band playing all original music with megaphone vocals, heavy tuba bass lines, thundering percussion and searing brass melodies." But with just four songs, 18:10, we'll count it as an EP. B+(***) [sp]

Patterson Hood: Killers and Stars (2004, New West): Drive-By Truckers singer-songwriter since 1998, they were just taking off when he released this modest solo effort. B+(*) [sp]

Laura Taylor: Cry Me a River: A Tribute to Julie London (2000 [2001], Quicksilver): Standards singer, based in Las Vegas, details scarce, but after hearing her as an emeritus guest on the UNLV big band album I wanted to hear more. Discogs lists backing vocal credits back to 1978 (mostly with Diana Ross), but no jazz until 1989-90 with Steve Kuhn. AMG co-credits this to guitarist Joe Lano, but his name doesn't appear on the cover. Back cover has him under "featuring," along with Tom Warrington (bass). The songs are taken at a crawl, which suits them all. B+(**) [sp]

Laura Taylor: My Funny Valentine: Memories of Chet Baker (2002, Staying Power): Not as memorable a songbook, but enough to work with, especially with Steve Kuhn (piano), Eddie Gomez (bass), and Lewis Nash (drums). She makes no effort to match Baker's voice or phrasing, other than by taking even the slightest songs slow, which she can do because her own voice is so exquisite. B+(***) [sp]

Laura Taylor: Mountain Greenery (2006, Staying Power): I'm not finding any credits for this (even the duet partner in "Straighten Up and Fly Right") but the arrangements are varied, including drenching strings for the "Porgy and Bess Medley" -- one suggestion is that she picked out instrumentals for her Vegas act, making this some kind of ritzy karaoke. I didn't recognize the title song, but Rodgers & Hart wrote it, with Mel Tormé and Ella Fitzgerald covers. Nothing else, least of all "One Note Samba," got past me. B+(**) [sp]

Laura Taylor: Have Mercer on Me: Laura Taylor Sings Johnny Mercer (2010, Staying Power): A great and varied song book, which she handles with considerable aplomb. No idea who plays on this, but there is some nice sax, as well as piano trio. B+(***) [sp]

Laura Taylor: Dancing in My Feet (1979, Good Sounds): Evidently she did start off as a disco singer, with the title single the theme song for a TV show, Disco Magic. This was produced by T.K. Productions in Florida, presumably related to Terry Kane's TK Records label -- best known for KC & the Sunshine Band and George McRae's "Rock Your Baby" -- although this came out on another Miami-based label. This is a better-than-expected disco obscurity, with the title song recommended for anthologistsm, but I'm also impressed with the ballad "Sad Is the Song." B+(**) [sp]

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

  • Samo Salamon/Ra Kalam Bob Moses Orchestra: Dream Suites Vol. 1 (Samo) [04-10]
  • Reggie Watkins: Rivers (BYNK) [03-28]

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