|
An occasional blog about populist politics and popular music, not necessarily at the same time. LinksLocal Links Social Media My Other Websites Music Politics Others Networking Music DatabaseArtist Search: Website SearchGoogle: Recent Reading
Music DatabaseArtist Search: Website SearchGoogle: |
Monday, July 21, 2025 Music Week
Music: Current count 44557 [44524] rated (+33), 16 [16] unrated (-0). I never really bought the idea of a Reagan Revolution. Although the long-term consequences of the 1980 election were profound, the immediate impact was fairly mild, in part because they still felt the need to disguise what they were doing, in part because the institutions that came out of the New Deal, WWII, and the postwar era up through Johnson and in some cases even Nixon were still pretty robust. Reagan himself remained a sunny tonic, personally much more popular than his policies, although I never even for a moment fell for him. My stock line about the 1980s was that the only growth industry in America was fraud. No surprise that the president himself was one huge, paper-thin charlatan, but he got away with it, mostly because the media and Democrats like Clinton and Obama wanted in on the graft. On the other hand, the first six months of Trump's second coming does feel like revolution, especially if, like me, you've gotten past the old left sentiment that revolutions advance us toward more just societies. A more clinical view of revolution is that it's a time when the old order turns brittle and cracks, allowing some new parties a sudden rush to unconstrained power. I've been thinking about these issues for most of my life, and I think I have a distinctly different take on the moment. I came out of the 2024 election with the sense that something profoundly weird had just happened. At this point, I think we can start to clarify what that was, why it happened, what it means, and where it's likely to go. I don't know that I can write all that up, but my plan is to give it a few weeks and see what comes out. Worst case I add it to all the other failed book outlines I've cranked out since the 1990s (or maybe the 1970s, when I had lots of book ideas, but definitely not the 1980s, when the only one was a threaded novel about what killed my wife). I have some ideas about how to put it together. But first, after my immersion in the Francis Davis Poll, I figured I should take a few days and knock out a Loose Tabs piece. I did, after all, have some scraps saved up, plus a good number of open tabs. That wound up taking up all of last week. This week, I have this Music Week today, and some (probably pointless) medical tests tomorrow, but after that I intend to knuckle down, with several other tasks available for breaks. Some of this is leftover or continuing house work. I figure I should start doing some preliminary Poll work in September: reviewing voter lists, rebuilding the website. The only other thing I feel like mentioning here is that I've set up a Substack newsletter, which I'm calling Notes on Everyday Life -- a name that some friends used for an underground/new left tabloid circa 1972-74. I've held a domain name to that effect for some time now, perhaps hoping to reunite the band, but these days it seems to just be me. My idea now is to demolish the current WordPress blog on the website and replace it with some kind of Mediawiki, that I can use for a topic sort of my scattered writings. I don't know how soon that can happen -- unlikely in the next month or two, unless I can find some help -- but while I see it as eventually related to the newsletter, it's not a precondition. The newsletter, at first anyway, will offer periodic reports on my projects and thinking. I hope to send my debut "hello world" post out by the end of the week, but I'm pleased to note that I already have two subscribers, so I can rest assured that someone will read whatever I come up with. As this is the first time I've actually mentioned it, perhaps some more of you will sign up by the time I roll out? To keep thing simple, I haven't set up a paid tier, nor am I likely to anytime soon now. I started a planning document, but it's way too messed up to share at this point. I will have one at some point, as I figure things out. Meanwhile, I'd welcome any questions and/or comments. I will say that what I'm looking/hoping for with Substack is:
Those are all points that I didn't see any other easy method of implementing on my own. They mostly address my insecurity as a writer, which goes to motivation. I'm not a fan of the basic Substack paradigm, which is: everyone go into your own room and mount a soapbox no one else will ever notice. If I had a grant (not as a content provider, but as an ISP) I'd design something very different. Still, I probably wasted a lot of time considering alternatives, which only started to differentiate once one had commercial ambitions. One nice thing from Substack so far: I wrote a comment to Robert Christgau's Xgau Sez, and was surprised to get 9 likes and 1 thoughtful reply -- 2-3 times the best I do on X or Bluesky. The comment was about grading A+ records, and took a bit of research to prepare for. The research led me to add (or revalue) grades in my database for several items I had missed. As both of our databases were constructed over many decades of listening, both have a fair number of obsolete editions -- long out-of-print and/or superseded by later editions, often with new names/covers (like the Motown set). I never bothered listing the Ray Charles set before, because it was so long gone, but I did have (and love) it -- it was basically my first real overview of his work (although I certainly knew singles from much earlier). However, one of the things you can do with our datasets is explore similarities and divergences, as I did in my notebook. Having the same albums in both facilitates that. I've gone out of my way to listen to most of his A-list albums. I have a list somewhere of items I still haven't heard, which must run well over 100, but the A+ subset is small, so I figured I should close out that gap. I drew a line, however, at doing cover graphics, in each case for its own reason, which you can probably guess. First non-jazz A- records this week in quite a while, to some extend diminishing returns after all the jazz finds that surfaced in the Poll, but also because I needed a break. Four (of five) come from the June and July Consumer Guides, and they are all strong records by old-timers. The fifth (James McMurtry) could also have been, as Christgau has gone A- or higher on him 5 times since 2004. In this case, however, I got my tip from Christian Iszchak, who also pointed me to Hailey Whitters, Youssou N'Dour, and Little Simz. I still expect to write up some notes on the DownBeat Critics Poll, but for reasons unknown I haven't gotten my hard copy of the magazine yet. I have found a link to the online edition, but figured I'd wait until I could see better. I mentioned this in yesterday's Loose Tabs (which also includes a couple other music-related sections). I inevitably find more items to add there, but haven't had time today to make more than a couple minor edits. PS: I was playing Hailey Whitters' Corn Queen when I initially posted this. A few minutes later, I decided to bump the album up a notch, from B+(***) to A-. I think I caught all the tables, but didn't edit do a thorough edit, so things like the A-list count may be off. The Springsteen album was another late add, not reflected in the rated count, but included in the A-list count. New records reviewed this week: Michael Arbenz Meets Andy Sheppard: From Bach to Ellington: Live (2025, self-released): Swiss pianist, studied classical, twin brother of drummer Florian Arbenz, has a couple albums from back around 2001. His brother got real active during the Covid lockdown with various long-distance encounters, and he eventually got sucked into several of those, then spun out on his own, with an album on Ellington, and another called Classicism. Duo with a British saxophonist, perhaps best known for collaborations with Carla Bley (notes also mention Gil Evans and George Russell, which makes for a nice trifecta). B+(**) [bc] Elia Aregger Trio: Live (2025, Unit): German guitarist, seems to be his/their first album, with Marius Summer (bass) and Alessandro Alarcon (drums). B+(*) [sp] Willi Carlisle: Winged Victory (2025, Signature Sounds): Folk/country singer-songwriter, based in Arkansas, fifth album since 2018 (counting a recent self-released set of covers I should probably check out). Minor tidbit from his bio that looms surprisingly large here is that his father was a "polka musician." That's just one of many oddments I find amusing but can't quite make sense of. Possibly worth a revisit, but not yet. B+(***) [sp] Dawn Clement/Buster Williams/Matt Wilson: Delight (2024 [2025], Origin): Pianist, sings some, several records since 2003, most recently in Esthesis Quartet, also played on Matt Wilson's Good Trouble. Great rhythm section here. B+(**) [cd] Marco Colonna: Icarus Falling: To Mosab Abu Toha (2025, self-released): Saxophone trio, the leader, with a fairly long list of credits since 2011, on baritone, with Renato Ferreira (tenor) and Simone Alessandrini (soprano), the album dedicated to the Palestinian poet. B+(**) [bc] Big Chief Bo Dollis Jr. & the Wild Magnolias: Chip Off the Old Block (2025, Strong Place Music): As Mardi Gras Indians go, my top pick has always been the Meters-powered The Wild Tchoupitoulas (1976), but the Wild Magnolias, led by Bo Dollis (1944-2015), beat them to the punch in 1974, and they were fun too. Both groups still exist, the Tchoups lately led by Flagboy Giz, with the somewhat more prolific Magnolias backing Bo Jr. B+(*) [sp] Lafayette Gilchrist & New Volcanoes: Move With Love (2025, Morphius): Pianist, based in Baltimore, first came to my attention with David Murray around 2004 but seems to have had albums as early as 1999. Has a previous live album with this group from 2011, and another in 2018 (billed as "EP," but the 5 tracks add up to 54:50). This was live, no date given, an octet with trumpet, trombone, tenor sax, guitar, bass guitar, drums, and percussion, plus two extra saxophones on 4 (of 6) tracks: the one that repeatedly caught my ear was Christian Hizon's trombone, amid much good-natured funk and revelry. B+(***) [cd] [07-25] Kali Trio: The Playful Abstract (2022-23 [2025], Ronin Rhythm): Swiss trio of Raphael Lohrer (piano), Urs Müller (guitar), and Nicolas Stocker (drums), each with related electronics, third album, follows the rhythm-centric schema of producer Nik Bärtsch. B+(*) [sp] Hélène Labarrière: Puzzle (2025, Jazzdor): French bassist, more than a dozen albums since 1988, this a quintet with Catherine Delaunay (clarinet), Robin Fincker (sax), Stéphane Bartelt (guitar), and Simon Goubert (drums). Some very powerful stretches here, but rough in spots. B+(**) [bc] José Lencastre/Flak: Cloudy Skies (2025, Phonogram Unit): Portuguese duo, tenor sax and guitar, the latter aka João Pires de Campos -- the latter started in the rock band Rádio Macau in 1984, but since moved into jazz with String Theory and numerous collaborations. B+(**) [bc] Adrianne Lenker: Live at Revolution Hall (2024 [2025], 4AD): Singer-songwriter, leader of Big Thief, has several albums on the side, 2024's Bright Future was widely touted as one of the year's best. I had a lot of difficulty with it, something I summed up as "hard to hear," meaning it took much more effort than it seemed to reward, while conceding there was something in it for those who stuck with it. That goes double for this live spinoff, "audio from 3 days of the 2024 Bright Future tour," an intimate live setting with all the ambiance (and audience), an unobtrusive band (maybe just piano and violin), some songs (if you can hear them, which for me is random enough to suspect there may be more if I bothered), running on through 43 tracks to 126 minutes, digital only (aside from limited edition double-cassette). B+(**) [sp] Peter Lin/AAPI Jazz Collective: Identity (2024 [2025], OA2): Trombonist, born in Louisiana, traces his heritage back to Taiwan, AAPI stands for Asian-American and Pacific Islander, a quintet with Erena Terakubo (alto sax/flute), Mike Bond (piano), Daseul Kim (bass), and Wen-Ting Wu (drums), plus guest spots for Mỹ Tâhn Huynh (vocals, 3 tracks) and Brandon Choi (trumpet, 4 tracks). Nice swing feel, vocals included. B+(***) [cd] Little Simz: Lotus (2025, Little Simz): British rapper Simbi Ajikawo, sixth album since 2015. Good reputation, and I've been impressed in the past, but seems like a lot of work to connect with this. What am I missing? B+(*) [sp] David Lord: Forest Standards Vol. 4 (2022 [2024], BIG EGO): Guitarist, fourth album since 2018, with alto sax (Alex Sadnik), bass clarinet (Brian Walsh), bass (Billy Mohler), and drums (Chad Taylor). B+(*) [sp] Emi Makabe: Echo (2025, Sunnyside): Japanese singer-songwriter, based in New York, second or third album, also plays shamisen and flute, filed under jazz but I'm not feeling it (even though I'm impressed with the credentials of the band, a trio of Vitor Gonçalves, Thomas Morgan, and Kenny Wollesen, with guest spots for Bill Frisell and Jason Moran). A bit of spoken word sounds promising. B [sp] James McMurtry: The Black Dog and the Wandering Boy (2025, New West): Singer-songwriter from Texas, father a famous novelist, started recording his songs in 1989, may have always had a knack for storytelling but real breakthrough was in 2005 with Childish Things, and he's rarely disappointed since. This took a bit, but "Sons of the Second Sons" caught my attention -- not many other songs about primogeniture, but the word I noticed was "genocide" (as in "products of genocide" leading up to "in search of a Caesar"). A- [sp] Youssou N'Dour: Éclairer Le Monde - Light the World (2025, self-released): Senegalese superstar, 41st album (by one count). B+(***) [sp] Pat Petrillo: Contemporaneous (2024 [2025], Innervision): Drummer, has a previous Pat Petrillo Big Rhythm Band album (2022), gets more with less here. Ambition is: "a mashup of Snarky Puppy and the Brecker Brothers, jamming with Weather Report at Grover Washington Jr's backyard barbecue in Philly." When those are your terms, it's hard, and perhaps pointless, to quibble over whether you succeeded or not. B+(*) [cd] Public Enemy: Black Sky Over the Projects: Apartment 2025 (2025, Enemy): I noticed that Chuck D had a new album out in May, and gave it a cursory spin, but wasn't aware of this one until it showed up in Christgau's Consumer Guide. The sound is definitely there, and they have lots to be angry about, so this seems right for the times. "God ain't on your side . . . this time!" A- [sp] Stefan Schultze/Peter Ehwald/Tom Rainey: Public Radio (2024 [2025], Jazzwerkstatt): German pianist, several albums since 2011, one previous with this trio (tenor sax, drums), more group work with Ehwald. Front cover lists Ehwald first, but most other sources start with the pianist. B+(**) [sp] Bruce Springsteen & E Street Band: Land of Hopes & Dreams (2025, Columbia): Live "EP" from a May 14, 2025 concert in Manchester [UK] (31:39, 4 songs + 2 "introductions"), rushed out for a moment of clarity, against the tide. I wince at the bit about "allies," and I feel less chauvinist and less righteous, but I can still join in saying: Amen. A- [sp] Dlala Thukzin: 031 Studio Camp 2.0 (2025, Dlala): South African amapiano DJ, Discogs comes up short but Wikipedia lists eight albums since 2020, and this is the fifth in my file. B+(***) [sp] Tropos: Switches (2024 [2025], Endectomorph Music): Brooklyn-based quartet, at least one previous album, all members contribute songs: Ledah Finck (violin), Yuma Uesaka (clarinet/bass clarinet), Phillip Golub (piano), Aaron Edgcomb (drums). B+(**) [sp] Hailey Whitters: Corn Queen (2025, Big Loud/Pigasus): Country singer-songwriter from Iowa, fourth album since 2015, second to get some big label distribution. This is catchy, appealing, with solid songs and sound. A- [sp] Sarah Wilson: Incandescence (2024 [2025], Brass Tonic): Trumpet player, "(12)" in Discogs, three previous albums (2006, 2010, 2021), sings some but not here, a postbop sextet with alto sax, trombone, guitar, bass, and drums. B+(*) [cd] Neil Young and the Chrome Hearts: Talkin to the Trees (2025, The Other Shoe/Reprise): After 3-4-5-? retreaded new albums in the last year, he surprises us with a really new one. Not that the music sounds very new, but the lyrics (or rants, if you prefer) are ripped from today's headlines (and some fine print). No doubt this belongs in his voluminous second tier, but three plays in and that seems good enough. A- [cd] Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries: Manu Dibango: Dibango 82 (1982 [2025], We Want Sounds): Saxophonist from Cameroon (1933-2020), played in Paris with Joseph Kabasele before leading his own groups, scoring a big hit in 1972 with "Soul Makossa." Previously unissued session. B+(**) [bc] John Lee Hooker: The Charcot Sessions (1969 [2024], Southern Echoes): Major blues guitarist-singer, d. 2001, sources divided on his birth (1912 or 1917), by which time he seemed even more ancient than he was -- a topic of a running joke in Robert Christgau's reviews. He did his major work starting with "Boogie Chillen" in 1948, and he just got deeper as he aged until he became such a monument he could build albums out of casual duets (e.g., The Best of Friends). These Paris sessions were previously released on obscure labels (America, Carson, Blue Moon; most on a 1970 French LP I Wanna Dance All Night), collected together here for 2-CD or 3-LP. Nothing spectacular, but consistent as ever. B+(***) [bc] Grace Potter: Medicine (2008 [2025], Hollywood): Singer-songwriter from Vermont, solo debut 2002, also recorded as Grace Potter & the Nocturnals (2005-13), went unnoticed by me until her 2023 album Mother Road made my A-list. This one was recorded as a solo album in 2008 by T-Bone Burnett, but shelved, with 8 of 12 songs appearing on her 2010 Grace Potter & the Nocturnals album. Pretty solid album. B+(***) [sp] Old music: Billie Holiday: Ken Burns Jazz: The Definitive Billie Holiday (1936-58 [2000], Verve): I found this on Christgau's A+ list, and was surprised to find it not even in my database -- I thought I had all of the Ken Burns Jazz titles. If you want a single-disc career-spanning overview, this should do the job, but by the time this came out, I may not have seen the point. I was by then inclined to eschew mixing her early Columbias (1936-42) and late Verves (1952-58) -- both have their virtues, as distinct as early and late Elvis, but still as unbalanced -- while respecting but not loving much of her in-between Commodore and Decca sides, and flat out hating the terminal Lady in Satin. Straddling worked brilliantly for the Burns edition of Ella Fitzgerald, but I'm less happy with this one. [NB: Spotify skips 3 songs.] A- [sp] KADEF: KADEF (2023, RR Gems): Acronym for: Karma, Agape, Discernment, Enactment, Freedom. Montreal group, suggested genre: Gnawa Jazz Krautrock, the former drawing on vocalist Zaid Qoulail, and possibly from various combinations of guembri, qraqeb, and/or oud, but I filed it in jazz under producer Devin Brahja Waldman (saxes, drums, electric bass), a familiar name from many other projects. B+(***) [sp] Motown Classics: Gold (1960-72 [2005], Motown, 2CD): A Christgau A+: no need for me to recheck it, as it's just a repackage of 2000's Motown: The Classic Years, which I keep handy in my travel cases and replay frequently, only slightly favoring the first CD. Just barely tiptoes into the 1970s, where you can see signs of, uh, maturity: "Ball of Confusion," "War," "The Tears of a Clown," "What's Going On," "Papa Was a Rolling Stone." They (especially Stevie Wonder) weren't done, but it's a good dividing line. A+ [cd] Grade (or other) changes: Ray Charles: A 25th Anniversary in Show Business Salute to Ray Charles (1954-71 [1971], ABC): Not technically a grade change, as I never wrote down the previous grade: I have a section in the scratch file for LPs I used to have and think I remember well enough to assign a grade to. I rarely use it, especially as these days it's usually possible to recheck such an item using streaming. This one went out of print almost immediately. I bought a copy as a gift -- actually, I owed an apartment mate some money, and offered to pay it off over time in expertly-selected LPs, so I also enjoyed my purchases for a while. This was, at the time, canonical, with a superb selection both from Atlantic and from ABC, plus a few later cuts that were probably weaker but didn't spoil the deal. When CDs came around, the Atlantics got the full box treatment, while the Charles-owned ABC masters showed up in half-assed compilations -- my favorite was called Uh Huh: His Greatest Hits, named after his Pepsi commercial jingle (I don't recall whether it was included), but I have several more (often marred by his Beatles covers). This was an A+ for Christgau at the time, and that's how I remember it, but after all these years, I should hedge a bit. I've never gotten into building my own playlists, let alone burning them, but I could see doing that with Charles, and probably coming up with something much like this one. A [ex-lp] Chuck D: Chuck D Presents Enemy Radio: Radio Armageddon (2025, Def Jam): Public Enemy majordomo retains his signature sound, which sounds as hard-edged as ever, but the impact is blunted by the radio concept, which chops and screws everything. That, at least, was my initial take. Play it more and find more. And while this isn't especially long (35:50), it's so jam-packed I doubt one could ever get to the bottom of it all. [was: B+(*)] A- [sp] Louis Jordan: Five Guys Named Moe: Vol. 2 (1939-55 [1992], MCA): Another Christgau A+ item, I originally capped this at A in deference to its predecessor, simply The Best of Louis Jordan, which came out on 2-LP in 1975 and on CD in 1989, and still is my first call pick. But both volumes are in my travel cases, and this one never fails to delight me. [was: A] A+ [cd] PinkPantheress: Fancy That (2025, Warner, EP): British pop singer-songwriter Victoria Walker, one album, second mixtape, just 20:28. Seemed slight, but sustains multiple replays, getting better without overwhelming. [was: B+(*)] B+(***) [sp] Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:
|
