Rolling Jazz Thread 2021

I had no idea that existed, thanks!

Tarriona "Tank" Ball from Tank and the Bangas (a UK group I've never listened to)

They're a New Orleans band

https://lionmilk.bandcamp.com/album/o-t-s

new live jazz thing from a younger LA crew

I liked his quarantine solo Rhodes album, will check that out, thanks

Still need to check those Brandee albs on bandcamp, thanx for reminders.
Following up on their well-received 2017 ESP-Disk’ album backing poet Amina Baraka, The Red Microphone added guitarist Dave Ross to its roster and went into the studio with Ivan Julian (guitarist of punk icons Richard Hell & the Voidoids). A few other veterans of the downtown NYC jazz scene joined in to help accompany the provocative, political poetry of John Pietaro, who doubles on voice and drums.
credits
released April 23, 2021
And I Became Of The Dark is so much thee 2020a incarnation of a certain kind of 1960s ESP-DISK, a funky, stimulating harvest of beatnik wordage, hipster humor and jazz resources, maybe with some busking experience to keep it engaging and freewheeling. The combo, incl. several multi-instrumentalists and a couple of guests, who don't overstay their welcome, on viola and bari, is always tight and exuberant; don't know how much of the de facto arrangements come from good drummer Pietaro, who is also listed as musical director, but they are usually worth listening around his voice when need be. He's better the closer he gets to actual singing and emphatic chanting, but even when he's just intoning, he never gets in the way that much. "Revenge of the Atom Spies" is perfect opener, should be the single. Gotta check their album with Baraka, which I think is on the ESP-DISK bandcamp. Nu Cantu En Esperanto!
https://theredmicrophone.bandcamp.com/

My wife designed the CD for the Baraka album. It's a good one.

omg edicated to Saint Escrava Anastacia.
credits
released June 19, 2021

All instruments, vocalz, and synths performed, produced, recorded, arranged & mixed By Angel Bat Dawid.
https://intlanthem.bandcamp.com/album/hush-harbor-mixtape-vol-1-doxology
First encounter w this, and don't know of course if it will seem as amazing now that I know what to expect (nothing like what I did expect from several titles, which is prob the point), but so far it's immediately compelling, often beguiling, with an eerie, tranquil intensity, and some shifting surfaces and perimeters (for inst, what's happening to the vocals going around the room---"I know I should be grateful"---in " 'Goree,' or Slave - Stick"---we also get the improbably redemption of overt Auto Tune sometimes, or maybe keys, emphasizing the inflection (of male group vocals? Or herself treated?) that suggests a African-Hebraic-Isalmic chain, rattling a little (the clarinet encourages this). One of the most affecting tracks is her untreated, a capella , "Bet"--followed, in a plausible way, by a calmly killer finale trilogy. None of this is an onslaught of sounds though; each room is only as full as need be. Seems like a rec to fans of adventurously historical clarinetists John Carter and Matana Roberts (her Coin Coin series, and maybe all of his Roots and Folklore: Episodes in the Development of American Folk Music, although the album from that I'm thinking of, and most familiar with, is Fields).

I haven't pulled the trigger on that one yet. I am slowly coming around to the idea that I like the idea of Dawid a lot more than I like listening to her actual records.

I feel that way about the International Anthem roster (except Irreversible Entanglements).

The Heat Warps, the site that's posting every available bootleg of electric Miles, has a great interview with Lonnie Liston Smith.

Yeah, that 2019 Brandee Younger album on bandcamp is really satisfying; thanks for the link. Looking fwd to the August release. Speaking of jazz harp, several of Dorothy Ashby's albums have been reissued fairly recently, and here's a good 58 minute survey of her career, ranging from late 1950s bop/modal contexts to late 1960s outings influenced by mysticism and soul. Stream, also download, with Chrome's Sound Pirate, for inst:
https://indianapublicmedia.org/nightlights/fantastic-jazz-harp-dorothy-ashby.php

So, over on A catch-all thread for the current jazz scene in London, including Shabaka Hutchings, Yazz Ahmed, Moses Boyd, Nubya Garcia, Camilla George, Theon Cross, Zara McFarlane, Daniel Casimir, SEED Ensemble, , I was carrying about Nérija trombonist(-composer-arranger) Rosie Turton's own recent refreshingly airy, fluid, robust, succinct (even w remixes) EP, Expansions and Transformations, Part I & II: https://rosieturton.bandcamp.com/---which led me to Jennifer Wharton's Bonegasm, which is four trombomnes, piano/Fender Rhodes, bass, and drums: promising, but so far seeming overloaded sometimes, on {defensively titled?) Not A Novelty, their second album, so they've had a while to get it together, although maybe it's Second Album Slump; I haven't tried the debut yet. Or maybe it's just me, esp. re the leader's bass trombone, which is very much with us--I had a similar problem with the tuba on some of Your Queen Is A Reptile, but loved Black To The Future right off.
Still, I'm already struck by this Bonegasm ballad all the way through:https://jenniferwharton.bandcamp.com/track/twinkle
And the finale, with Kurt Elling! They should do much more with him, whom I've never heard like this:
https://jenniferwharton.bandcamp.com/track/the-day-i-tried-to-live Especially like it when he "blah-blah-blaah" 's the trombones dogging his depressed heels.

That's fun I guess, but don't come at me with four trombones unless you're a trombone shout choir (also ugh, that name):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1QnzTnhcw0

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

Yeah, that's better!

My favorite jazz releases of the first half of 2021:

Jaimie Branch, Fly or Die Live
Anthony Braxton, Quartet (Standards) 2020
Broken Shadows, s/t (reissue)
Fire!, Defeat
Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders & The London Symphony Orchestra, Promises
Amaro Freitas, Sankofa
Cameron Graves, Seven
Hearth, Melt
Julius Hemphill, The Boyé Multi-National Crusade for Harmony
Vijay Iyer/Linda May Han Oh/Tyshawn Sorey, Uneasy
James Brandon Lewis Red Lily Quintet, Jesup Wagon
Damon Locks Black Monument Ensemble, Now
Charles Mingus, Mingus at Carnegie Hall (reissue)
Hafez Modirzadeh, Facets
Hedvig Mollestad Trio, Ding Dong. You’re Dead.
Monder/Malaby/Rainey, Live at the 55 Bar
Jason Moran/Milford Graves, Moran/Graves Live
Bheki Mseleku, Beyond the Stars
Ivo Perelman Trio, Garden of Jewels
Wadada Leo Smith/Douglas R. Ewart/Mike Reed, Sun Beans of Shimmering Light
Sons of Kemet, Black to the Future
Cecil Taylor Ensemble, Göttingen
Various Artists, Indaba Is
Various Artists, J Jazz: Deep Modern Jazz from Japan Volume 3
Various Artists, Spiritual Jazz 13: Now

Liking the Julian Lage album

Oh he’s got a new one? Hadn’t noticed. He is great. Like that he made good on his prodigy origins.

Big ears and not just fast fingers.

Wonder who else is playing in it, maybe usual suspects

yeah Lage album is more than decent decent, can hear echoes of Johnny Smith in his playing style.

Hafez Modirzadeh, Facets

^^^

this is the one is my personal fave of the year.

only meant one decent!

Another call for Facets - absolutely stunning album, formally innovative but beautiful with it.

The Ahmed album needs more love. Pat Thomas can do no wrong.

And while we're talking Ahmed, that group's saxophonist, Seymour Wright, has just dropped a wild new footwork-inspired album with Paul Abbot. A glorious antidote to polite and tasteful jazz/improv approaches to electronic music.

https://www.cafeoto.co.uk/shop/xt-deorlaf-x/

So as seen in this video, Justin Brown, best known to me as a member of Ambrose Akinmusire's long-running quartet, is now a member of ex-Circle Jerks frontman Keith Morris's throwback hardcore band OFF!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bI5t6wxUhN4

Haha that rules, love an overqualified punk drummer.

WT…?

Is that Angelo Moore as their manager, too?

And David Yow of Jesus Lizard as the priest.

Fantastic. Great cover of a pretty ropey Metallica song, imo. I love Off!

was lucky enough to see a free outdoor concert by Jaimie Branch's Fly or Die at the Walker Art Center this last Friday

what a band! the drummer Chad Taylor is a monster. She has such a great/weirdo stage presence

highly recommended if you get the chance

On July 9, 1971 at 7:30 p.m., CBS aired a one-hour special, "Louis Armstrong 1900-1971," hosted by Walter Cronkite. It only aired once and has never appeared online--until now! Here is Lucille Armstrong’s copy, digitized for all to enjoy 50 years later.https://t.co/7SGCZCuiik

— Louis Armstrong (@ArmstrongHouse) July 9, 2021

Wow

that is amazing

Okay, Dezron Douglas joining Trey Anastasio's solo, non-Phish band is not something I would have predicted.

https://trey.com/welcome-dezron/

Get that money!

Yeah, good for him!

New podcast coming on Friday — I talked to clarinetist Don Byron, who had a whole lot of shit to say about what is and is not "real" jazz, why his instrument is not seen as an "authentically" black instrument, etc., etc. It's a really interesting conversation I think people are gonna like, but I had to throw a content warning into my introduction because about halfway through it Byron drops an N-bomb with a hard R, and I wanted to make sure people were ready for that shit.

Speaking of clarinet, seems like there are still seats for Ken Peplowski at Birdland tonight so I may head over in a bit.

This is great!

Also somebody prove to me that the cover of Don Friedman’s Circle Waltz is not a Picasso-esque centerfold.

This guy has great comedy chops too!

https://williamparker.bandcamp.com/album/mayan-space-station

William Parker: bass, compositions
Ava Mendoza: electric guitar
Gerald Cleaver: drums

very cool band is this and on first listen I'm very much enjoying it.

The sample track is very cool, like Parker doing noisy psych-rock.

Digging that, thanks for the tip.

Yeah, it's a good one. Mendoza's great; she did an album with Damon Smith on bass and William Hooker on drums in 2018 that I liked a lot.

Lol nice to see that Gerald Cleaver bought that album on Bandcamp.

yeah Mendoza is a great guitarist and there are a couple of her more noise type albums I liked in recent years as well.

My latest Stereogum column is up. Here's what I ultimately had to say about that new/old Alice Coltrane album:

In the late ’80s, the LA-based publisher Amok Books put out the Amok Assault Video, a compilation of racist old cartoons, news stories about cattle mutilations, footage of an animal control officer being attacked by a dog, R. Budd Dwyer’s suicide on live TV, a guy talking about the occult messaging behind She-Ra, and a lot more. It began with a segment from Eternity’s Pillar, Alice Coltrane’s public access cable TV show which she filmed at her California ashram. She wasn’t doing anything particularly bizarre; she was just discussing her beliefs and offering a metaphysical lecture to the viewer. But that was how Coltrane’s mystical/spiritual side was seen for years, by those who were aware of it at all: as a kind of weird joke for hip underground types to smirk at. These days, of course, her reputation has been thoroughly rehabilitated. Almost her entire catalog is back in print in one form or another, including the devotional music she recorded in the ’80s and ’90s and sold at the ashram and through a few New Age bookstores. Tracks from three of those releases (1987’s Divine Songs, 1990’s Infinite Chants, and 1995’s Glorious Chants) were reissued on a Luaka Bop compilation in 2017. But her first devotional release, 1982’s Turiya Sings, has always been the hardest to find. It was only ever available on cassette, except for a bootleg German CD. Which is too bad, because it’s a great record. Her synth and Wurlitzer organ are combined with harp and strings, and she sings in Sanskrit, but with a gospel-ish flavor. Now, Turiya Sings has been reissued… sort of. Coltrane’s son Ravi has found tapes of the basic tracks, before the strings and synthesizers were added, and released it. It’s nice; it has an intimate feel, like you’re in her house and she’s playing these songs just for you. Her voice is soft and maternal, and the organ swells all around. But this isn’t the finished product. After John Coltrane died, Alice released Infinity, an album on which she took recordings by his quartet and filled out the arrangements with strings, new keyboard solos, and in some cases overdubbed bass, replacing Jimmy Garrison with Charlie Haden. A lot of people bitched about the strings, but Coltrane herself responded, “‘Were you there? Did you hear [John’s] commentary and what he had to say?’ … We had a conversation about every detail; [John] was showing me how the piece could include other sounds, blends, tonalities and resonances such as strings.” Similarly, the strings and synths were key to Turiya Sings’ power, sending the music into wild otherworldly realms, and bringing it back down to earth this way feels a little like an attempt to sand down Alice Coltrane’s edges, so she can be “appreciated” instead of respected for what she was: a sonic visionary who made music in service of the divine.

https://mattmitchellkategentile.bandcamp.com/

this humungous 5-cd Snark Horse album is too fucking big! On the other hand it does sound very good though.

Herlin Riley is in town this week, should be able to catch him at least twice.