“I’m so close,” poet Camae Ayewa, a/k/a Moor Mother, intones on “Lágrimas del Mar” off of Irreversible Entanglements’ Open the Gates (International Anthem/Don Giovanni, 2021). The hope in her voice is so palpable you can almost see her eyes widen with expectation. “I’m so close to the good news, the silver and gold, the daily bread.” A […]
Has there ever been a musician whose musical imagination is as universal and as omnivorous as William Parker’s? Perhaps Alexander Scriabin, a composer and virtuoso instrumentalist whose unfinished “Mysterium” was conceived to be performed over a week’s time by an orchestra, choir, dancers, visuals, and incense in the foothills of the Himalaya. Or possibly Don […]
Remember the old “Saturday Night Live” parody of the “60 Minutes” Point/Counterpoint debate, the one remembered for the line “Jane, you ignorant slut”? Things didn’t get that heated on the December 3, 2021, edition of WBGO’s excellent “Jazz United” podcast, but co-hosts Nate Chinen and Greg Bryant revealed a definite difference of opinion in their […]
As some artists approach their late careers they become ruthless self-editors, paring down their style to remove everything that is unnecessary or extraneous. Because the unnecessary is seldom granted admission to Henry Threadgill’s compositional world, Poof (Pi Recordings, 2021), the sixth recording from his Zooid band, and the first since 2015, is about something different. […]
During her recording career thus far, Jen Shyu has drawn on a deep well of song, fable, and poetry from various Asian traditions. Often these incorporate each culture’s native languages. The music on Zero Grasses: Ritual for the Losses (Pi, 2021), her extraordinary new release similarly builds upon traditional Javanese music, Japanese katari, and East […]
Dave Brubeck and Bill Evans were the twin Great White Hopes of jazz piano at the apex of the Pax Americana. Born on opposite coasts at the opposite ends of the 1920s, both men achieved great popular success. Brubeck, the elder of the two, became a cult figure on college campuses during the 1950s and […]
Here it is, a “Best Of” list for the worst of years. Alright, that’s a bit jokey; the fact is that 2020 produced an extraordinary efflorescence of great music. Lilacs out of the dead land of pandemic-ravaged, polarized America. This list was culled from a larger list of superb recordings, 20 of them in all. […]
Jazz fans can be a disputatious lot, yet if there’s something on which we all can agree it’s this: the four clarion quarter notes that begin Louis Armstrong’s 1928 Okeh recording of “West End Blues” herald the birth of jazz as we know it. The foundational elements of the jazz DNA as we know it–flashing […]
Geography isn’t destiny, but it might explain some things about pedal steel guitarist Susan Alcorn and her new release, Pedernal (Relative Pitch Records, 2020). Alcorn is based in Baltimore, a place where the strange, unexpected and contradictory thrive. It is the birthplace of Edgar Allan Poe, Frank Zappa and John Waters, who wrote, “You can […]
The title cut of Emi Makabe’s debut full-length release, Anniversary (Greenleaf Music, 2020), is a graceful, bittersweet waltz about the kind of partings and reunions that form the bar lines in the lives of touring musicians. It’s a spare duet for voice and bass made all the more poignant by the empathetic accompaniment of the […]
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