Rolling Jazz Thread 2021

You also get a majority of the back catalogue as part of that deal, too.

wow this is fucking good

haha i just said fuck it on the astral spirits bandcamp too, let the amirtha kidambi/lea bertucci manipulated vocal sound record rearrange some brain cells last night

the big astral spirits hit for me last year was the luke stewart quintet album, some seriously heavy sounds there.

Just got a promo of a piano trio album led by a dude named LUIGI SALAMI. (Okay, Pier Luigi Salami - the group is called the PLS Trio - but still.)

https://relativepitchrecords.bandcamp.com/album/dromedaries-ii

seeing as calendar years are a made-up social construct I thought I'd mention this blistering album from 2020 that features the only good Kier, that is Irreversible Entanglements' Keir Neuringer.

https://intaktrec.bandcamp.com/album/togetherness-music

new Alexander Hawkins album is out today.

free on-demand livestream show with Brandee Younger and Dezron Douglas
https://www.millertheatre.com/events/brandee-younger-dezron-douglas-live-from-columbia

RIP Gino Moratti of Kitano Jazz.

Aka another NYC jazz institution seems to fall by the wayside.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCNqhzkSk58

Iris Ornig wrote a nice thing about Gino M on FB which is publicly visible.

My latest Stereogum column is up. Here's the first paragraph:

William Parker deserves a Pulitzer Prize, or at least a MacArthur Fellowship. His body of work is nearly 50 years deep at this point, and encompasses vocal and instrumental music (his own original compositions, and brilliant reinterpretations of others’ work), poetry, criticism, and journalism. His long-running bands the William Parker Quartet and its expanded incarnation Raining On The Moon; In Order To Survive; and the Little Huey Creative Music Orchestra are balanced by short-lived or one-off ensembles that may only appear for a single album or concert. In addition to work under his own name, he’s been a key member of groups led by Cecil Taylor, Peter Brötzmann, Bill Dixon, David S. Ware, Matthew Shipp, and others. Although his work hinges on a deeply individual voice, he is a community builder at heart. He and his wife, Patricia Nicholson, have run the annual Vision Festival in New York for over 20 years, and that single annual event has grown to encompass multiple performance series running all year long, many of them outdoors and free, an invitation to the public to experience high-level out jazz as just one more form of art, as physically as it is aesthetically accessible.

Cool, will check it out.

I started reading that Monk biography by Robin Kelly (found a cheap ebook version), it's good so far.

(after someone mentioned it on a thread, probably the cymbal-tapping one)

I had to read that Monk book twice; the first time, when it was new, it didn't click with me, but when I went back to it years later I loved it.

Thanks for that, unperson. Aside from the Parker, I'm most intrigued by the Formanek and Perelman.

I've had a few opportunities to listen to the latest Alexander Hawkins project now and it is really really good. Just had a brief run through and I think that rushed out Jason Moran album had me intrigued the most, it makes a nice change to read about a pianist who acknowledges DJ Screw as an influence and I liked the sound of that sample.

New World Records is putting out an incredible looking 7CD box of previously unreleased material by Julius Hemphill next Friday. Most of it is from the '70s and '80s, but there's some later stuff as well. Info here. Includes several CDs' worth of small group performances with trios and quartets, plus a whole disc of duos with cellist Abdul Wadud...to me, this is a treasure trove the equivalent of the Albert Ayler Holy Ghost box. I've requested a review copy, but if they don't send me a download I'm just gonna have to buy it.

kwhitehead covers Some Kind of Tomorrow, new Jane Ira Bloom x Mark Helias duo alb, recorded via Zoom, so had to find, set up camp in the right tempo zone to avoid lag, but they did---excerpts sounding goooood:
https://www.npr.org/2021/01/21/959199306/with-some-kind-of-tomorrow-2-jazz-musicians-improvise-together-over-zoom

xp hemphill box looks wonderful, thanks for the tip

Listening to replay of Fresh Air interview w Howard Johnson, recently RIP. Like it says in the transcript:
In the 1960s and '70s, he played on jazz recordings by Charles Mingus, McCoy Tyner, Carla Bley and Charlie Haden. He was, for the most part, self-taught. And though tuba was his main instrument, Johnson also learned to play bass, clarinet, baritone sax, flugelhorn and electric bass. He led his own ensembles, most notably the band Gravity, which consisted of six tubas and a rhythm section and released several albums.

(SOUNDBITE OF HOWARD JOHNSON AND GRAVITY'S "BE NO EVIL")

BIANCULLI: Johnson wrote arrangements for and was featured on rock albums by The Band, John Lennon, Taj Mahal and Maria Muldaur. And he helped form and then played in the original "Saturday Night Live" house band and even appeared in some of the show's musical sketches.
Stream/download: https://www.npr.org/2021/01/22/959579707/remembering-jazz-tuba-player-howard-johnson

...So when they ask me things like that, they really - what they really want is for me to take them and show them how, you know. And I really think - I mean, see there wasn't any jazz education when I came up, you know. If you lived in Ohio, you know, and were 14 or something like that, you weren't going to any Berklee. And I wasn't going to just do nothing until such time as I could get some instruction.

Well, what did the people before any of that was happening do? They listened to the music. They learned it. They found a way to learn it. I mean, you know, who gave Sonny Stitt lessons? When I was trying to understand intervals in music well enough to learn to improvise by ear, I mean, everything was an interval to me. You know, I'd hear the - a car horn or a doorbell. You know, I'd say bing-bong - ope (ph) - minor third. There we go.

Sorry, can't resist continuing that a little further (this is all right at the end, after adventures with Mingus etc. etc.)
There was nothing on the radio, maybe two hours a week of jazz on the radio. I didn't have a record collection or a record player. I just kind of had to slide around to wherever the records were and listen to little stuff that I could take off the radio and try to learn. So I had to really absorb myself into it in a way that people don't tend to do if they have - you know, if they can just go to Berklee.

(Although of course you'd have to know some stuff, some way, to get into Berklee.)

I pretty much hang on that guy’s every word, so no problem.

damn i know howard johnson really well from the taj mahal stuff

Howard Johnson plays on Gato Barbieri's Alive in New York, but it's got to be one of the worst-sounding records I've ever heard. Somehow every instrument except the sax is buried, the electric guitar is almost inaudible (except when he takes a barely-detectable solo), and there's some sort of phasing going on that makes it sound like they're playing on the beach.

I knew Johnson mostly for his contributions to some early Carla Bley records, where he even gets to sing a little.

Ok jazz sleuths, please help me with a quest -- I'm looking for a version of 'Epistrophy' that I downloaded off Audiogalaxy in the early '00s. It has a backbeat, and it's a banger. Very sparsely arranged groove, with the piano doubling the bass on very low notes, a bassline using mostly the root & minor 2nd while someone else (probably a sax) plays the melody.

It really seems like it would be a Leon Parker version, but his version of that is different (but awesome as, and I remember it well upon hearing it again). Or Matthew Shipp in the Thirsty Ear era, but I'm not seeing that he recorded it.

I used to listen to this mp3 all the time and it's driving me a little crazy.

How great is this (mostly) cymbal solo though:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubQ8UOIeIPw

Nate Chinen on Twitter:
A few weeks ago I bought Mose Allison’s ‘Wild Man on the Loose’ on LP. An album I’ve loved for ages — but when I put it on the turntable, I felt like I was hearing Motian more clearly in the mix than ever. Puzzle piece!

Then he quoted Evan Iverson:

Nobody in this Jarrett trio is
condescending to Dylan or the Byrds.
Charlie Haden began as hillbilly
countrY musician, he always liked
simple songs. Paul Motian had already
recorded in this kind of genre with
Mose Allison,and a year after this date
he joined Arlo Guthrie at Woodstock.

Jarrett talks about hearing Motian with
both Lowell Davidson and Mose
Allison. Of course, Motian played with
Bill Evans and Paul BleY as well. This
bears restating: Jarrett heard Motian
with four pianists, Bill Evans, Paul Bley,
Mose Allison and Lowell Davidson.
That's a pretty big puzzle piece,for one
can hear all four of those pianists in
Jarrett's final conception.
from https://ethaniverson.com/shades-of-jazz-keith-jarrett-charlie-haden-paul-motian-dewey-redman/

Thanks for that. I've got a couple Jarrett records and like him pretty well, but never listened to these specifically and I am loving Birth by that quartet from 1971.

I've only heard the Impulse! albums (and wrote about them myself a while ago); now I want to check them out. There's a trio disc on ECM, recorded live in 1972, that Iverson doesn't cover because it wasn't released until a couple of years ago. I've heard that; it's good.

One approach was taken by Keith Jarrett in consort with Charlie Haden, Paul Motian, and Dewey Redman.

i don't mean to be a pedant, but doesn't iverson mean "concert" here? or have i been getting that wrong all this time

Um,...

That paste had some garble ("for a better transcription click here"--wish I had): I corrected most of it, but missed one capital Y ending, and may have missed "consort" when the original was "concert" dunno tweets can be hard to look up, but see the whole essay in the link sorry. Speaking of Twitter:

Franklin Bruno
@humanfranklin
Schoenberg's harmony textbook isn't quite what I was expecting: "Let the pupil know that every living thing has within it that which changes, develops, and destroys it. Life and death are both equally present in the embryo. In between is time."

"Consort" is in the original, okay by me. (The Paul Winter Consort etc.)

Duly noting Junior Mance's passing here, as well as that of two jazz vocalists, Janet Lawson and Carol Fredette, both of whom had been living at The Actor's Home in New Jersey.

New Joshua Abrams album on Rogue Art, Cloud Script, sounding excellent this morning - and what a band! Gerald Cleaver, Ari Brown, and Jeff Parker. Decidedly more traditional approach than the recent Natural Information Society material (ie there are heads and solos, including a drum solo) but just as captivating as those great records. Parker in particular sounds fantastic - check out his gnarly solo on "Collapsing Novelty." Pity the LP appears to be sold out everywhere already.

^ I wish Rogue Art had a digital download presence on Bandcamp and weren't CD only (as far as I recall).

This is my kind of actual modern fusion, in terms of where soul/funk and jazz and open-minded pop/rock meets--lots of great players on this in add'n to the co-billed, incl. Sam Gendel and Rob Moose; very excited to hear the whole thing in mid-March, and this lead single sounds awesome, with nice touches incl. electric sitar as featured on D'Angelo's Black Messiah:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQTtUmmjqbI

Haven't even listened to this yet and I'm very excited based on the lineup, dang.

I've been having a good time today listening to Junior Mance records, and related ones from that Mickey Roker interview that James linked in the other thread (Shirley Scott, Walt Dickerson).

Ok that's a little more, idk, tasteful and ECM-ish than I was expecting? It's nice though, still curious to hear the album. But there's only about 10 secs of Chris Dave sounding like Chris Dave. Although I guess that's why he's Chris Dave, because he's a tasteful musician and doesn't always have to sound like Chris Dave.

Charles Lloyd, who mostly leaves me cold, has a new album coming out March 12. The first single is a version of Ornette Coleman's "Ramblin'," one of my favorite OC tunes because Change of the Century was the first album of his I heard and it cracked my head wide open. And this version, with Bill Frisell on guitar, is surprisingly hot. So now I think I might have to hear the whole record.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGVIrck0pNI

Cool, I'll check out in due course. Last year's 8: Kindred Spirits was solid, albeit overlong.

As I say, I'm not a big fan, but his Blue Note albums have generally been better than his ECM albums were.

a new Trio Tapestry album (Joe Lovano/Marilyn Crispell/Carmen Castladi) Garden Of Expression is out on ECM.

Lloyd always seemed to me a little bit like a so-so musician who found a way to ride the hippie train. Also not a big fan. He has his moments though.

I liked Kindred Spirit but yeah it went on

I enjoyed Lloyd's duet album with Billy Higgins, Which Way Is East? Admittedly, it's more a document of them pursuing whatever eclectic ideas cross their minds than a conventional jazz record. I never heard Lloyd's early, "hippie jazz".

The late '60s albums on Atlantic are his best work by far. (With Keith Jarrett, Cecil McBee, and Jack DeJohnette, how could they not be?)

Mentions of Lloyd remind me of my Rolling Jazz 2019 post:
Looking for Charles Lloyd on Bandcamp, found Manhattan Stories (2014), comprised of
two 1965 New York Concerts, Disc 1 recorded at Judson Hall & Disc 2 recorded at Slugs' Saloon.
A remarkable and previously unrecorded quartet featuring three jazz giants: guitarist Gábor Szabó, bassist Ron Carter and drummer Pete La Roca.
'It was a specific time and place'; Lloyd told Manhattan Stories annotator Don Heckman. 'We all felt like the boundaries were being dissolved and we could do or try anything. This is a music of freedom and wonder -- we were young and on the move.''
Which is just what the sample track, "Sweet Georgia Brown," sounds like (17' 49", but quite spritely). Especially digging the interplay of guitar and sax, bass and cymbals, also succinct solos, esp. PLR's and Szabo's---the latter bright and brittle, autumn leaves, but def not drifting. What other Szabo should I check? Used to see his LPs...
https://charleslloyd.bandcamp.com/
(That was first reposted on the Szabo thread I later found, good 'un too.)

unperson that's a fucking wild interview!

Revisited Matthew Shipp's Piano Sutras from 2013 the other night. It holds up really well; I actually get more from it now than I did at the time.

The complete Cecil Taylor concert from Town Hall in November 1973 is being released digitally in February. The final third of the show was released at the time as Spring of Two Blue J's; 20 minutes of solo Taylor on Side A, 20 minutes of the full quartet with Jimmy Lyons on alto sax, Sirone on bass, and Andrew Cyrille on drums on Side B. But prior to that, they had played a single 90 minute piece, "Autumn/Parade," which was impossible to break up for vinyl. But the engineer held onto the original tapes, and has mastered the entire thing. For a four-track live recording it sounds pretty great. Sirone can be hard to discern at times, but the other three are going at it full bore on the previously unreleased material.

Hell yeah coked up CT I’m there!

New Jeff Parker advance track "Suffolk" is v pretty minimalism. Interested to hear how it will work in the album. It's the most I've enjoyed solo Jeff Parker, I think: https://intlanthem.bandcamp.com/album/forfolks

Enjoying Shubh Saran's Inglish. Nice guitar-based Hindustani/jazz/rock fusion.

my fave recent release is the Borderlands Trio's Wandersphere. I've been in a very Paul Bley mood recently and this fits in nicely with that.

New Stereogum column up. Wynton Marsalis turned 60 last month; I had some thoughts. Also reviews of Makaya McCraven, Matthew Shipp, Irreversible Entanglements, and a bunch of other artists.

https://thisisredkite.bandcamp.com/album/apophenian-bliss

new one from Norwegian jazz-rock supergroup Red Kite

Isaiah Collier & the Chosen Few's Cosmic Transitions is a super Coltraney — it was recorded on the anniversary of his birth last year, at the Van Gelder studio ...

only just caught up with this, very nice!

Big announcement that kinda fits in this thread:

My site/label is putting on an online streaming event, the Burning Ambulance Festival, on January 1, 2022. It will begin at noon ET on our Bandcamp page and feature performances by the following (running order TBD):

• saxophonist Rodrigo Amado (Portugal)
• Code-Switch (JD Allen, saxophone; Eric Revis, bass; Nasheet Waits, drums) (USA)
• saxophonist Caroline Davis (USA)
• saxophonist Muriel Grossmann (Germany)
• pianist Karin Johansson (Sweden)
• organist Susanne Kujala (Finland)
• saxophonist José Lencastre (Portugal)
• Massacre (Anton Pomonarev, saxophone; Anton Obrazeena, guitar) (Russia)
• cornet player Rob Mazurek (USA)
• trombonist Peter McEachern (USA)
• guitarist Ava Mendoza (USA)
• bassist William Parker (USA)
• trumpeter Steph Richards (USA)
• Senyawa (Rully Shabara, vocals; Wukir Suryadi, instruments) (Indonesia)
• saxophonist Patrick Shiroishi (USA)
• drummer Tyshawn Sorey (USA)
• electronic musician Submerged (Estonia)
• pianist Lisa Ullén (Sweden)
• percussionist Shirazette Tinnin (USA)
• pianist Eli Wallace (USA)

Tickets cost $20 and can be purchased here; they include a download of the compilation I put out last year, Eyes Shut, Ears Open, which contains exclusive tracks from Mats Gustafsson, Burnt Sugar, Melissa Aldana, and a bunch of other people. Hope you'll watch!

Wow!

Hell yeah man. But it first I thought it was Fred Frith’s Massacre and got even more excited!

Cool, unperson!

The new Ava Mendoza record is pretty good, tho I haven't spun it more than once.

NYC Bassist Tyler Mitchell To Release Dancing Shadows CD Jan 28 Via Mahakala Music, Featuring Legendary Alto Player & Arkestra Director Marshall Allen

Tyler Mitchell and Marshall Allen go way back — and way out. Having worked together in the Sun Ra Arkestra in the mid 1980s, the two resumed their partnership again over the past decade, with Mitchell rejoining the Arkestra after exploring other paths. That group carries on the Sun Ra name today under the direction of Allen, now 97, yet what they have in common goes far beyond the music of one man. Inspired by their former boss, the two are finding new common ground, cross-pollinating their experiences with both free and arranged jazz, and harvesting a new album in the process, Dancing Shadows.

Joining Mitchell and Allen on the new Mahakala Music release are Chris Hemmingway (tenor sax), Nicoletta Manzini (alto sax), Wayne Smith (drums) and Elson Nascimento (percussion), and the sextet can deliver both horn arrangements and free passages with aplomb. In so doing, the album fulfills a vision that Mitchell has had for years.

Having studied bass with Donald Rafael Garrett (John Coltrane, Archie Shepp, Rahsaan Roland Kirk) and Malachi Favors (Art Ensemble of Chicago), Mitchell has always straddled the worlds of conventional and avant garde jazz. He was still in his mid-twenties when he made the jump from his native Chicago to New York and landed a gig with the Arkestra in 1985. While his restless nature soon took him elsewhere, he can be heard on two Sun Ra albums from that period. “Reflections in Blue and Hours After, we recorded both of those at the same time,” Mitchell recalls. “Sun Ra was doing a lot of standards and Fletcher Henderson arrangements.” Even then, he was exploring the possibilities of combining free jazz with less chaotic settings.

Indeed, Mitchell distinguished himself as one of the nation's premiere hard bop bassists in the years that followed. By 1988, he was adding his distinctive fat sound to Art Taylor's Wailers, and later he worked with Jon Hendricks, Shirley Horn, and George Coleman. By the turn of the century, “I went down to Mexico, Cuba and Central America for about ten years. And when I came back in 2010, 2011, I joined the Arkestra with Marshall. And Marshall's just such a great player. So I said, 'You've got to do a project with me one day!' I was just waiting for this moment to come. Oh man, it's beautiful, man! Everything just came so natural with Marshall. He's a master, man. He's from before be bop; he's from the swing era, you know?”

In fact, almost a century of music-making has given Allen an insight into nearly every facet of jazz. Leaving his native Louisville, Kentucky during World War II, he played clarinet and alto saxophone with the U.S. Army's 17th Division Special Service Band, spent the late '40s working with James Moody, then studied at the Paris Conservatory of Music. By 1951, Allen had returned to the U.S. and in 1958 joined Sun Ra's Arkestra, with whom he's been associated ever since. With James Spaulding initially being Ra's main alto player, Allen was encouraged to cultivate other talents over the years, including flute, oboe, piccolo, and EVI (a brass- and wind-based controller for synthesizer). Moreover, the Arkestra was the perfect ensemble for Allen to perfect his expressive, non-chordal approach, full of howls and birdsongs.

Nowadays, when Allen leads the Arkestra, Mitchell says he “covers all the different styles in jazz when we do a concert. It's not just swing, it's not just free. It covers a little bit of everything. We mix it all up, with some free stuff and old Fletcher Henderson stuff, to rhythmic songs with different kinds of layers. That's why this record has got a little bit of everything.”

The compositions of Sun Ra himself are the perfect vehicle for this eclecticism, especially those from the earliest years of the Arkestra, and the album includes “Interstellar Low Ways,” “Angels & Demons at Play,” “Dancing Shadows,” “Carefree,” “Enlightenment” and “A Call for All Demons.” Yet this is no slavish reproduction. As Mitchell points out, “Marshall was on all those records back in the day. But he chose not to sit and play the same arrangements. He preferred to put something fresh on top. A new line. He didn't want to just do his line again, like back in the '50s. He wanted to create on the spot.”

The set is rounded out with a Thelonious Monk tune, “Skippy,” two by the alto player Manzini and three by Mitchell himself. His contributions spring directly from his impressions of his fellow players. “Nico” and “Nico Revisited” refer to Manzini's nickname. “We did a couple of takes on the song, and they were so similar, yet so different. That's why I called the other one 'revisited',” says Mitchell. His third was inspired by Allen, but actually begins with only Mitchell's bass.

“I had him directing me,” says Mitchell. “He directed me so I could go off into it. 'Marshall the Deputy' is the title — that's what Sun Ra used to call him. It was a play on words: You've got the marshall and you've got the deputy. In fact there's a song called 'Deputy Motel' that he wrote for Marshall.”

All in all, Mitchell is pleased with the ensemble, which he put together with a particular kind of freedom in mind. “I thought the voicings from the horns would do all the chords I needed,” he reflects. “Sometimes a piano can really lock a person in, you know? It locks you up where you can't get out and be free. But when the piano and guitar are gone, I can play a lot of different notes. A lot of different things that ordinarily would clash with the piano.”

Mitchell was especially keen to try some of the Sun Ra tunes with a smaller band than the Arkestra. “The tenor player, Chris Hemmingway, joined the band just recently, and he turned out to be really good. Nicoletta is one of Marshall's proteges. She put a lot of arrangements together, and put in a lot of stuff to make it really happening. The horns kept things from really sounding too out there. The way they blew around the music really kept a cohesiveness around each song, where it wasn't just a soloist blowing. The shape of the song was always there. And then the drummer and the percussionist both play with the Sun Ra band, so they knew the music I wanted to do. It really paid to have somebody who knew the songs. I just did them a little different.”

And then there was Allen. “Marshall will improvise on the spot. And if a song's too nice and neat and clean and all too perfect, he'll come and just mess it all up. You don't want it to be all too perfect. He likes to have the chaos. Because he believes there are no wrong notes, you know? His philosophy is, you play one note, you make a mistake, and then say something right. Then make another mistake. Say something wrong. He hears the song like that. 'Play something wrong! Now play something right! Now play something wrong!' I just let Marshall do his thing. Everybody else had special things they had to play, arrangements to follow, but Marshall, I just let him do what he does. I really had no instructions for him except to direct us. We do a lot of free stuff, and use a lot of space chords and all that. I need him to direct us. Other than that, I just want him to fill in all the right places, and put his signature on it.”

The final product is the perfect synthesis of freedom and constraint, hard bop and pure sonic texture. The listener is never lulled into complacency. And this goes for Mitchell himself: “Each song's got a different vibe,” he says, “and I still listen to the music. I usually don't like to listen to what I've done. I don't like to keep hearing myself. But this particular record really holds my attention.”

SINGLES & RELEASE CALENDAR

January 11 - "Dancing Shadows" Single + Album Announcement

January 28 - Full Album

LINKS
Tyler Mitchell: Website
Mahakala Records: Website || Twitter || Facebook || Instagram || Bandcamp

ALBUM CREDITS


Marshall Allen – sax and evi
Tyler Mitchell – bass
Chris Hemmingway – tenor
Nicoletta Manzini - alto sax
Wayne Smith – drums
Elson Nascimento – percussion

CONTACTS
US Press: Gabriel Birnbaum, Gabe at clandestinepr dot com
Radio: Evan Welsh, radio at clandestinelabelservices dot com

Tyler Mitchell featuring Marshall Allen
Dancing Shadows

Release date: Friday, January 28th 2022

Airplay Date: Friday, January 28th 2022

1. A Call For All Demons

2. Angels and Demons

3. Care Free

4. Dancing Shadows

5. Enlightenment

6. Interstellar Loways

7. Marshalls the Deputy

8. Nico Revisited

9. Nico

10. Skippy

11. Space Travelers

12. Spaced Out

Newish William Parker, Mayan Space Station, is really really excellent. Gerald Cleaver is especially killing it on the drums.

That's the guitar-heavy fusion one? I remember liking it.

Yeah, Ava Mendoza on guitar. https://williamparker.bandcamp.com/album/mayan-space-station

saw Jeff Parker last weekend and he had copies of his new album "Forfolks" for sale.

it's very very good, very different from his recent stuff. it's all solo guitar, some loop pedal constructions, some more dronely stuff, some trad jazz verging on as close as he gets to wes montgomery, all very delicate and hypnotic. another triumph.

show was great as well.

Ill Considered sounded p good on first listen:
https://illconsidered.bandcamp.com/album/liminal-space

In the end, I wanted a bit more shaping of the noise in Mayan Space Station.

Forfolks sounding pretty nice this morning, more up my alley than his last one.

whoa, the Ill Considered album gets super heavy

Loving Forfolks. The solo version of La Jetee/Jetty at the end is a nice bonus.

Have we talking about the Roy Brooks "Understanding (Live)" record here?

It's a fucking scorcher, so good.

yeah banging album is that

speaking of shit hot drummers I've been listening to Ed Blackwell Trio - Walls-Bridges a lot recently, that's another good one!

jeff parker forfolks is so lovely

Yep. Fell asleep to it last night

"Fell asleep to it" isn't the ringing endorsement you think it is. It's about what I expected, though, and probably the main reason I haven't listened yet.

I was tired as fuck and not especially happy and it took me out nicely

It is questionable qua jazz, but this record (discovered from the Aquarium Drunkard list) is some lite-cosmic, dusty jazz piano stuff, I really like it. https://kafarimusic.bandcamp.com/album/blanket-of-black

That Roy Brooks record is HOT. Liked the Jeff Parker but can't really remember anything about it - must revisit.

Not heard of them before, but Web Web and Max Herre (Web Max) has a new album that is an ode to the spiritual jazz of Yusef Lateef:

https://webweb.bandcamp.com/album/web-max

Listening to two albums from 2000 and 2001, Boom Bop and Trance Atlantic (Boom Bop II) by guitarist Jean-Paul Bourelly, whose work I have never previously connected with — he's a sort of psychedelic blues guitarist who floated between jazz world and the Black Rock Coalition in the '90s, never fully putting one foot firmly in either camp. These two discs are sort of acid blues mixed with North African music, but Archie Shepp and Henry Threadgill are there, too, and Reggie Washington is on bass. Really good stuff, kind of Laswell-ish without Laswell. Both available on Bandcamp: http://bourelly.bandcamp.com

Yeah this Roy Brooks one is sick.

Totally fun 2021 reissue from Downtown NYC '96,keeping me on my toes

Sleevenote 2
Working with Spanish Fly was an extraordinary experience for me as I most often work with classical music in my choreography. Their music, however, has the perfect pulse for a ballet. It's charged with an "in
Your face" attitude mixed with a sense of yearning. I began to see Images of characters right away. “Night Creatures” we called them.
Young people sliding up Avenue A, full of quirks and obsessions.We gave them names: the Snake Lady. the Sisters, the Lovers. These Characters became our guides. They lead us to Our themes and choices of style.
Lighting designer Mark Stanley created a set of massive Venetian Blinds which opened to reveal the dancers. This gave the work a
sense of spying, of voyeurism.
credits
released April 1, 2021

Steven Bernstein . trumpet, slide trumpet, cornet, crooning
Marcus Rojas : tuba, tubapercussion, tubasinging
Tronzo : slide guitar, cup guitar, prepared guitar
with Ben Perowsky : drums, percussion

FLY BY NIGHT" COMMISSIONED BY THE SAN FRANCISCO BALLET ASSOCIATION.
CHOREOGRAPHED BY CHRISTOPHER D'AMBOISE.

PREMIERED FEBRUARY 28,1996 AT CENTER FOR THE ARTS AT YERBA BUENA GARDENS.
BACKGROUND VOCALS ON TONGUE SANDWICH:
SPANISH FLY, HAL WILLNER, VICKI STANBURRY, LAURIE GALLUCCIO, AMANDA REISMAN
https://stevenbernstein.bandcamp.com/album/fly-by-night

Well, the dance was in Yerba Buena, yeah, but you know where the music is coming from---now I'm craving some Lounge Lizards, Jazz Passengers reissues---also something new from John Lurie World Orchestra.

Listening to two albums from 2000 and 2001, Boom Bop and Trance Atlantic (Boom Bop II) by guitarist Jean-Paul Bourelly, whose work I have never previously connected with — he's a sort of psychedelic blues guitarist who floated between jazz world and the Black Rock Coalition in the '90s, never fully putting one foot firmly in either camp. These two discs are sort of acid blues mixed with North African music, but Archie Shepp and Henry Threadgill are there, too, and Reggie Washington is on bass. Really good stuff, kind of Laswell-ish without Laswell. Both available on Bandcamp: http://bourelly.bandcamp.com

Boom Bop was wonderful. Thanks for the tip!

I can't say it better than this guy does on Bandcamp:
Philip Graham---Oh how I do love this stately, swinging tumble of harmony and melody. The album seems like a slowed down, trippy echo of Duke Ellington’s “The Second Line” from New Orleans Suite.It's not really all that slow: every track has satisfying internal dynamics, which go with the mixing of emotions, rhythms, incidents, shades of this and that--yeah, Ellingtonia and NOLA and Downtown hipsters have come this far:
'Tinctures in Time' is the first original music Steven Bernstein has ever written for the Millennial Territory Orchestra, which prior to this recording had exclusively been a vehicle for his arrangements of other people's songs, from Count Basie to Prince. Most of the album was composed in 2019, a tough period for Bernstein: Henry Butler had recently passed, and there was a series of serious injuries and death in his immediate family. Like a lot of people do, Bernstein got through it by working. "I was spending a lot of time on planes, going to visit people in hospitals," he says. "So what else am I going to do with my time? I ended up with all this music."

"The tincture of time" is a phrase Bernstein's father, a doctor, uses for when there's nothing to be done but wait for something to heal; the relevance of time as healer for Bernstein himself is clear. He altered the phrase so it makes a little reference to a favorite Sly Stone tune. And "tinctures," Bernstein says, also refers to "things that people take to give feelings of euphoria." It's why he also calls this collection of compositions "cannabis music." But it's not some foggy notional bank of sands through the hourglass: everybody's very responsive, just never hyper (a tad outcat at times).Enough funk in there, also a soul anthem, not oversold, and sometimes I think Ben P. is playing a tabla?
Steven Bernstein - Trumpet, Slide Trumpet & Flugelhorn
Curtis Fowlkes - Trombone
Charlie Burnham - Violin
Doug Wieselman - Clarinet, Tenor Saxophone
Peter Apfelbaum - Tenor Saxophone
Erik Lawrence - Baritone Saxophone
Matt Munisteri - Guitar, Banjo
Ben Allison - Bass
Ben Perowsky - Drums
https://stevenbernstein.bandcamp.com/album/tinctures-in-time-community-music-vol-1

https://artsfuse.org/244710/the-2021-jazz-critics-poll-only-the-best/

James Brandon Lewis Red Lily Quintet, Jesup Wagon (Tao Forms) 388.5 points (53 ballots)
Vijay Iyer-Linda May Han Oh-Tyshawn Sorey, Uneasy (ECM) 225 (34)
Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders & the London Symphony Orchestra, Promises (Luaka Bop) 195 (28)
Charles Lloyd & the Marvels, Tone Poem (Blue Note) 182.5 (25)
Wadada Leo Smith’s Great Lakes Quartet, The Chicago Symphonies TUM 169 (24)
Henry Threadgill Zooid, Poof (Pi) 164 (32)
Ches Smith & We All Break, Path of Seven Colors (Pyroclastic) 143 (23)
Artifacts [Tomeka Reid-Nicole Mitchell-Mike Reed], . . . And Then There’s This (Astral Spirits) 132 (24)
Sons of Kemet, Black to the Future (Impulse!) 123 (21)
William Parker, Mayan Space Station (AUM Fidelity) 117.5 (23)
Kenny Garrett, Sounds From the Ancestors (Mack Avenue) 116 (19)
Anna Webber Idiom (Pi) 113 (17)
Irreversible Entanglements, Open the Gates (International Anthem) 98 (17)
Johnathan Blake, Homeward Bound (Blue Note) 91.5 (17)
Various Kimbrough (Newvelle) 89 (12)
Amir ElSaffar Rivers of Sound, The Other Shore (Outnote) 83 (12)
Archie Shepp & Jason Moran, Let My People Go (Archieball) 76 (12)
Makaya McCraven, Deciphering the Message (Blue Note) 76 (11)
William Parker, Migration of Silence Into and Out of the Tone World (Centering/AUM Fidelity) 76 (9)
Craig Taborn, Shadow Plays (ECM) 74 (10)
Anthony Braxton, 12 COMP (ZIM) 2017 (Firehouse 12) 72 (9)
Sylvie Courvoisier & Mary Halvorson, Searching for the Disappeared Hour (Pyroclastic) 71.5 (18)
Julian Lage, Squint (Blue Note) 70 (16)
David Sanford Big Band Featuring Hugh Ragin, A Prayer for Lester Bowie (Greenleaf Music) 70 (9)
Adam O’Farrill, Visions of Your Other (Biophilia) 69 (14)
Bill Charlap Trio, Street of Dreams (Blue Note) 69 (13)
Ben Goldberg, Everything Happens to Be (BAG Productions) 68 (13)
Wadada Leo Smith-Jack DeJohnette-Vijay Iyer, A Love Sonnet for Billie Holiday (TUM) 67 (13)
Pat Metheny, Side-Eye NYC (V1.IV) (Modern) 66 (10)
Miguel Zenón-Ariel Bringuez-Demian Cabaud-Jordi Rossy, Law Years: The Music of Ornette Coleman (Miel Music) 63.5 (12)
Steve Coleman and Five Elements, Live at the Village Vanguard Volume II (MDW NTR) (Pi) 63.5 (10)
Hafez Modirzadeh, Facets (Pi) 60 (10)
Dave Holland, Another Land (Edition) 59 (12)
Andrew Cyrille Quartet, The News (ECM) 58.5 (12)
Jason Moran, The Sound Will Tell You (Yes) 58 (10)
Joe Lovano & Dave Douglas Soundprints, Other Worlds (Greenleaf Music) 57 (10)
East Axis [Matthew Shipp-Allen Lowe-Gerald Cleaver-Kevin Ray], Cool With That (ESP-Disk) 56.5 (11)
Brandee Younger, Somewhere Different (Impulse!) 54.5 (12)
Patricia Brennan, Maquishti (Valley of Search) 52.5 (11)
Damon Locks & Black Monument Ensemble, Now (International Anthem) 50.5 (8)
Dr. Lonnie Smith, Breathe (Blue Note) 50 (8)
Chick Corea Akoustic Band, Live! (Concord Jazz) 50 (6)
The Cookers, Look Out! (Gearbox) 49 (7)
Natural Information Society & Evan Parker, Descension (Out of Our Constrictions) (Aguirre/Eremite) 49 (6)
Nicholas Payton, Smoke Sessions (Smoke Sessions) 47 (6)
(tie). Tim Berne-Chris Speed-Reid Anderson-Dave King, Broken Shadows (Intakt) 44 (7)
(tie). Caroline Davis, Portals, Volume 1: Mourning (Sunnyside) 44 (7)
Matthew Shipp, Codebreaker (Tao Forms) 43 (7)
Gerry Gibbs Thrasher Dream Trios, Songs From My Father (Whaling City Sound) 42 (9)
Darius Jones, Raw Demoon Alchemy (A Lone Operation) (Northern Spy) 41 (7)
Rara Avis (Reissues/Archival)

John Coltrane, A Love Supreme: Live in Seattle (1965, Impulse!) 184 points (on 77 ballots)
Lee Morgan, The Complete Live at the Lighthouse (1970, Blue Note) 74 (39)
Julius Hemphill, The Boyé Multi-National Crusade for Harmony (1977-2007, New World) 74 (31)
Roy Hargrove & Mulgrew Miller, In Harmony (2006-07, Resonance) 64 (34)
Hasaan Ibn Ali, Metaphysics: The Lost Atlantic Album (1965, Omnivore) 61 (27)
Roy Brooks, Understanding (1970, Reel-to-Real) 55 (30)
(tie) Louis Armstrong, The Complete Louis Armstrong Columbia & RCA Victor Studio Sessions 1946-66 (Mosaic) 28 (11)
(tie) Charles Mingus, Mingus at Carnegie Hall [Deluxe Edition] (1974, Atlantic) 28 (11)
Sheila Jordan, Comes Love: Lost Session 1960 (Capri) 27 (15)
Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers, First Flight to Tokyo: The Lost 1961 Recordings (Blue Note) 27 (14)
Vocals

Veronica Swift, This Bitter Earth (Mack Avenue) 17
(tie) Gretchen Parlato Flor (Edition) 9
(tie) Sara Serpa, Intimate Strangers (Biophilia) 9
(tie) Jen Shyu & Jade Tongue, Zero Grasses: Ritual for the Losses (Pi) 9
(tie) Jazzmeia Horn and Her Noble Force Dear Love (Empress Legacy) 7
(tie) Esperanza Spalding, Songwrights Apothecary Lab (Concord) 7
(tie). Mary LaRose, Out Here (Little (i) Music
(tie) Kate McGarry + Keith Ganz Ensemble, What to Wear in the Dark (Resilience) 6
(tie) Theo Bleckmann and the Westerlies, This Land (Westerlies Music) 4 (tie) Samara Joy, Samara Joy (Whirlwind) (tie) Roseanna Vitro Sing a Song of Bird (Skyline) 4
Debuts

1) Patricia Brennan, Maquishti (Valley of Search) 21
2) Samara Joy, Samara Joy (Whirlwind) 11
3) Sara Schoenbeck, Sara Schoenbeck (Pyroclastic) 9
4) Malcolm Jiyane Tree-O, Umdali (Mushroom Hour Half Hour) 4

Latin

1) Miguel Zenón & Luis Perdomo, El Arte Del Bolero (Miel Music) 23
2) Arturo O’Farrill, . . . Dreaming in Lions . . . (Blue Note) 21
3) Eliane Elias, Mirror Mirror (Candid) 8
4) (tie) Carlos Henriquez, The South Bronx Story (Tiger Turn) 7
4) (tie) Ches Smith & We All Break, Path of Seven Colors (Pyroclastic) 7
6) (tie) Rubén Blades y Roberto Delgado & Orquesta, Salswing! (Rubén Blades Productions) 4
6) (tie) Arturo O’Farrill & the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra, Virtual Birdland (Zoho) 4

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BY: FRANCIS DAVIS

oops, sorry about Jazz Critics poll layout. That's top new albums, followed by other categories- reissues/archival; vocals; debuts; Latin jazz

Shall I start a new thread?

Yes, please!

There already is one.

Rolling Jazz Thread 2022