Rob Shepherd’s Favorite Albums of 2021

In some ways, 2021 can be seen as a return of music. In reality, through live-stream and various recordings, music continued to be created the year before. But 2021 felt like- to steal a subtitle of one of the albums on my top ten list- a freeing out of our constrictions. Certainly, live music returned. This allowed me to cover all three days of the Newport Jazz Festival after extensively tracking the event’s history, as well as a review of Herbie Hancock’s performance here in Austin. With Omicron (and likely soon to be other variants) now raging and canceling some events, these opportunities are even more valued.

But there was also an immense amount of albums released this year. For whatever reason, while I wrote some reviews, I instead focused on interviews over the past year. This emphasis was not by design. Instead, it came from my enjoyment of talking to the artists who created the art I value so much. This has allowed me to talk to younger artists who interest me –  Joe Dyson, Leland Whitty, Yuma Uesaka, Sara Schoenbeck, and Jacqueline Kerrod –  as well as those I have long admired – Michael Wimberly, Marcus Miller, Skerik, Christian McBride, Steven Bernstein, Dave Liebman, Sylvie Courvoisier,  Mary Halvorson, Marilyn Crispell, and Wadada Leo Smith. And I already have several excellent artists scheduled for interviews in 2022.

While I address albums in my interviews, I often try to get the artists’ impressions on their work more than interpose my own. The mere fact I talk to an artist on a specific project suggests I like their work. But, for many of the albums listed below, this is the first time I have written about them in any significant and critical way. 

10. Brandee Younger – Somewhere Different (Impulse!)

Sometimes as music writers, we tend to focus on technical prowess. We can often find meaning in what the uninitiated may hear as squeaks and screeches. With this backdrop, there is something to be said about an album that can share the magic of improvisatory music with the people who do not study it or listen to it extensively. For one unaware of the rich, though somewhat obscured, history of jazz harp, from Dorothy Ashby through Alice Coltrane to Zeena Parkins, Somewhere Different is a great entry point. Part of this comes from Younger’s continued interest in incorporating sounds from other spheres; areas that may be more familiar to the casual listener. Influences from Latin music, funk, trap, and R&B emerge throughout the album. And, of course, you cannot underscore the jazz bona fides more than having a living legend like Ron Carter joining as well. 

However, the album also leaves much for those familiar with Younger’s other works. Her immediately preceding Force Majure (International Anthem, 2020), a home-recorded duet with Dezron Douglas, perfectly encapsulated how music continued to survive during a year that shut down the rest of the world. It is a beautiful recording full of creativity. But it also shows a sense of longing to be free to explore the world outside of their living room. Poignantly, Somewhere Different seems to travel to these missed locations. The opening track, “Reclamation” is even about reclaiming peace, fun, and socialization after shut down. It has been great watching both Younger and Douglas develop as artists over the last decade, and albums like Somewhere Different suggest the best is yet to come. 

I briefly cover Younger’s performance at Newport with Dezron Douglas, Allan Menard, and Mikaela Davis here.

Somewhere Different is available through our Amazon Affiliate Store.

9. Terence Blanchard featuring the e-Collective and the Turtle Island Quartet – Absence (Blue Note)

How many times must one hear yet another cover of “Footprints” before it begins to lose its magic? Anyone can use the works of another to try to emulate the originator. True brilliance, however, comes in extracting the composer’s essence to create something new. More than anything else, what makes Absence stand out is its emphasis not on Wayne Shorter’s written notes but on who the saxophonist is as an artist; an explorer and a risk-taker. This focus masterfully guides the combined ensemble through a series of originals – some sounding nothing like Shorter’s own works, yet still evincing a connection – as well as some, mostly deeper cuts, by the man himself. Even better, such is done without sacrificing the sheer raw power of the e-Collective or the elegance of the Turtle Island Quartet.

My more detailed review of Absence can be found here. 

Absence is available through our Amazon Affiliate Store.

8. James Brandon Lewis Red Lily Quintet – Jesup Wagon (TAO Forms)

Jesup Wagon explores the contributions of important figures in American history. The most obvious of these is George Washington Carver, to whom the album is dedicated. But more accurately, Carver is only one such character. A close listen to Lewis’ tone and improvisational prowess also shows portraits of John Coltrane, Pharaoh Sanders, Albert Ayler, and Ornette Coleman. That is not to say the music is mired in the past. Instead, Lewis builds upon the language of ancestors to present something new. As with some of the best music, lineage serves as a guide but is not determinative. It also helps that Lewis surrounds himself with some of today’s most significant voices in creative music – Christopher Hoffman on cello, Chad Taylor on drums, Kirk Knuffke on cornet, and the incomparable William Parker on bass.

Jesup Wagon is available on Bandcamp or through our Amazon Affiliate Store.

7. Sylvie Courvoisier & Mary Halvorson – Searching for the Disappeared Hour (Pyroclastic)

Though both use strings to make sound, a piano and guitar duo is not common instrumentation. Perhaps it is out of concern that both are such powerful instruments that one may overrun the other. This would seem to be of even more concern when both artists each have a very distinctive voice. Countless people across history have played the guitar, yet there is no other guitarist who sounds even close to Halvorson. The same can be said about the piano and Courvoisier. Both artists are confident in their unique and potent sounds. With such firepower, their combined forces could have resulted in either a towering inferno or nothing but soot. Fortunately, Searching for the Disappeared Hour is the former. 

The excellent Crop Circles (Relative Pitch, 2017) gave a glimpse at their collaboration but, because of how it was structured – the songs were collected from other projects each did individually – generally found one artist taking the lead on each piece. Searching for the Disappeared Hour, however, shows both artists in full form and the brilliance that can come when they meet. With pieces composed specifically for the duo, the album allows new colors to emerge. Neither musician shies away from their rampant individualism but instead finds ways to pull the others’ expertise into their own sphere. Courvoisier’s classical leanings and Halvorson’s jazz ones are given equal weight, producing music that is indebted to both but not relegated to either.

My interview with Courvoisier and Halvorson on the album can be found here. 

Searching for the Disappeared Hour is available on Bandcamp.

6. Pino Palladino & Blake Mills – Notes with Attachments (New Deal/Impulse!)

Don Henley’s The End of Innocence (Geffen, 1989). D’Angelo’s Voodoo (Virgin, 2000). John Mayer’s Continuum (Columbia, 2006). Adele’s 21 (XL/Columbia, 2011). These four albums seemingly have very little in common but share a nexus in the skills of Pino Palladino. While the bassist has accumulated an impressive career as a sideman for a wide range of artists, Notes for Attachments marks his first outing as a leader. It was worth the wait. Palladino draws upon his richly diverse background to fuse jazz, folk, Afrobeat, hip hop, and more into a cohesive whole. To do so, he aligns himself with other artists undefined by category, including Mills, Chris Dave, Sam Gendel, and Andrew Bird. 

Notes with Attachments is available through our Amazon Affiliate Store.

5. Archie Shepp & Jason Moran – Let My People Go (ArchieBall)

There was a lot of buzz in 2021 about the new Pharaoh Sanders album with Floating Points and the London Symphony Orchestra. While I appreciate that recording (see #19), I was more enraptured by another Coltrane colleague’s album. Where Shepp’s prior work, Ocean Bridges, connected hip hop to jazz, Let My People Go looks back further to the Blues and old spirituals. With the proliferation of different styles of music, it is often easy to overlook the roots of Black American Music. But through this intimate setting, we see they remain not only relevant but essential.

My detailed review of Let My People Go can be found here. 

Let My People Go is available on Bandcamp or through our Amazon Affiliate Store.

4. Wadada Leo Smith – A Love Sonnet for Billie Holiday (TUM)

After a nearly six-decade career of exploring music’s outer bounds, Wadada Leo Smith does not have to prove anything to anyone. But he keeps pushing his artistic vision into new areas. With Love Sonnet, the best of several excellent recordings he released this year, the trumpeter finds himself in a trio with drummer Jack DeJohnette and pianist Vijay Iyer. While Smith has performed in various arrangements over the years with both artists, it is their first outing as a trio and the first direct musical dialogue between DeJohnette and Iyer. This combination of the familiar and foreign allows new colors to emerge through the recording. Iyer’s “Deep Time No. 1” brings in influences from electronic music, including a sampled Malcolm X speech, while the collaboratively penned closer “Rocket” finds the trio at their funkiest. 

The first part of my interview with Wadada Leo Smith on this album, and so much more, can be found here. And part two here.

A Love Sonnet for Billie Holiday is available through our Amazon Affiliate Store.

3. Natural Information Society with Evan Parker – Descension (Out of Our Constructions) (eremite)

A single seventy-five-minute composition performed live and featuring unusual instrumentation. If Younger’s Something Different was a good entry point for the unaccustomed, Descension is a fervent yell to accept the music as it is or go elsewhere. And I thank it for that. Like its counter-titled namesake, John Coltrane’s Ascension (Impulse!,1965), this album is not easy upon first approach but continued listening is greatly rewarded. Of particular note is the Natural Information Society’s ability to transverse cultural divides. Leader Joshua Abrams’ guimbri, a three-stringed lute, originates from North Africa. Lisa Alvarado’s harmonium has ties to India and the Middle East. Jason Stein’s bass clarinet is a quintessentially European creation. Together with drummer Michael Patrick Avery, the group creates a hypnotic groove that underscores the similarities among all people across the globe without allowing one influence to dominate. Oh, to make things even more fun, give a pivotal figure in European free improvisation more or less free reign to perform what strikes him in the moment. 

The album is never predictable or rigid. The piece will often shift in new directions without you noticing. And even the subtleties of the recording seemingly have meaning. For instance, one can view the distorted applause at the end of the album as a commentary on the state of live music over the last two years. 

Descension (Out of Our Constrictions) is available on Bandcamp or through our Amazon Affiliate Store.

2. Kenny Garrett – Sounds from the Ancestors (Mack Avenue)

Over the past four decades, Kenny Garrett has released several excellent recordings. The saxophonist’s 20th release as a leader stands out even among his prior discography. A significant driving factor behind its success lies in its ability to sketch a compelling narrative arc across the history of Black music by showcasing the intersectionality of different sounds and musical ideas.

I have long asserted that you can only fully understand the rise of hip hop if you view it within the context of the history of jazz. Though the roots of “jazz” date back to the late 19th century, the form really took off with the rise of bebop in the 1940s and 1950s. This movement, led overwhelmingly by young Black men mostly from urban areas, emphasized the creative possibilities inherent in improvisation and pushing boundaries. If you jump forward two or three decades, the common trope is that somehow jazz “died.” That perspective is deeply flawed but, like all theories, has some underpinnings. By the 1970s, not many young artists were directly digging into the historical tradition of jazz. Instead, many within the same demographic group that a generation earlier invented bebop, abandoned the form in favor of some new experiments with sampling. And since, many have supported a misconception that some great chasm exists between “hip hop” and “jazz.” Even with the rise over the past twenty years in jazz-hip hop hybrids, the assumption is often that the two are somehow divided in a meaningful way. 

“It’s Time to Come Home,” the first track of Sounds from the Ancestors, directly undermines these views. It begins with a fairly straight-ahead sounding theme underscored by West African and Afro-Latin influenced percussion. Vocals in Yoruba are added. While the rhythm section and piano continue throughout the tune, Garret’s usually ebullient phrasing begins to dissipate and turn into just a series of staccato squeals. After listening to these deconstructed sounds, it begins to sound like a DJ scratching a record. The implication throughout is that jazz and hip hop are less divided than one may think; both come from the same African roots and represent much of the same thing, just with slightly different aesthetic emphasis. In case someone missed the message, the bandleader makes these connections undeniably clear on “Hargrove” by finding a space between his own music, the old spiritual “Wade in the Water,” Coltrane’s “Ascension” from A Love Supreme (Impulse!, 1965), and the funky hip-hop influence R&B of Roy’s RH Factor. With “When the Days Were Different” brings cheerful gospel-inspired phrasing into the equation while “For Art’s Sake” finds a commonality between the music of Art Blakey and afrobeat legend Tony Allen. Ancestors is more than just another beautiful recording by Garrett, though it is that as well; it is a call for unity and an end to divisions. After the events of the last two years, this message is perhaps more important than ever.

My coverage of his performance of songs from the album at this past summer’s Newport Jazz Festival can be found here. 

Sounds from the Ancestors is available through our Amazon Affiliate Store.

1. Kaidi Tatham – An Insight to All Minds (First Word)

Over the last several years, much attention has been given to the London scene. Nubya Garcia, Ashley Henry, Daniel Casimir, and Shabaka Hutchings are some of the many talented artists coming from there. While Kaidi Tatham is not generally as well known, at least in the US, as some of his colleagues, he should be. During his career thus far, Tatham has performed with a wide range of talented artists including Ethiojazz legend Mulatu Astatke, DJ Jazzy Jeff, Slum Village, and Amy Winehouse. Twenty years ago, Tatham pioneered broken beat – a fusing of electronic music, 1970s jazz fusion influences, disco, 1980s contemporary R&B, funk, hip hop, and 1980s new wave – with Bugz in the Attic. This diverse background has given Tatham a unique and compelling approach to music which is evident on his third solo album under his own name, An Insight to All Minds. 

The album’s depiction of a lone Black astronaut floating in space is a perfect summation of the album. Like the navigator, Tatham is by himself, alone in an unsettled terrain. While a few rappers visit, Tatham plays every instrument on the album. Piano, synthesizer, flute, guitar, bass, drums. All of them. But because his background is so expansive, you would never guess there is a single mind behind all of the magic. A hallmark of the album is how the artist is untethered to stylistic conventions and willing to take risks by combining ideas. “Try n follow” sounds like some room between the Headhunters and 1970s CTI recordings while the immediately following “Intergalactic Relations” begins with a 1980s electro sound that morphs into a laid-back R&B infused groove. “Carry it Mongo Man” takes Latin rhythms and fuses them with orchestral sounding synths and an upbeat keyboard line that at times recalls Weather Report. 

But one can’t overlook Tatham’s piano playing. Even with all the synthesized sounds and heavy beats which recur throughout the album, once you get him behind the traditional 88 keys, he forms beautiful melodies which shine through as if emerging from his surroundings. This is particularly apparent on the title track and on “Dsxswc.” With Tatham’s openness towards all sounds and mastery of the keys, An Insight to All Minds makes it clear why he’s even once been dubbed  “the UK’s Herbie Hancock.”

An Insight to All Minds is available on Bandcamp or through our Amazon Affiliate Store.

11. Steven Bernstein’s Millennial Territory Orchestra – Tinctures in Time (Royal Potato Family)

Bernstein has released several fine works over the years. Tinctures in Time is among his best. He’s a strong composer and the song “Angels” particularly pulls at the heartstrings.  

The first of my two-part conversation with Steven is available here. The second part is available here. 

12. Henry Threadgill Zooid – Poof (Pi)

Speaking of master composers, it is hard to find one better than Henry Threadgill. He continues to write intriguing works for his now two-decade-old Zooid ensemble. While I would personally first recommend In for a Penny, In for a Pound (Pi, 2015) to those unfamiliar with his work with Zooid, Poof is a nevertheless welcome addition to the band’s repertoire. 

John Chacona’s more detailed review of Poof can be found here. 

You can also find my recent two-part interview with Threadgill for The Jazz Gallery here and here.

13. Yuma Uesaka & Marilyn Crispell – Streams (Not Two)

There is a tendency to think that free music must be a fast flurry of notes or abrasive sounds. While Streams has these moments, it also masterfully uses space and silence to get its point across. Uesaka is an artist to watch. His pairing with Crispell is hopefully the first of many.

My interview with Yuma and Marilyn can be found here. 

14. Nicholas Payton – Smoke Sessions (Smoke Sessions)

A deceptively straight-ahead date. The presence of George Coleman and Ron Carter is notable but the inclusion of Karriem Riggins is inspired. Riggins brings a new layer to the record by mixing in cues from his hip hop background. It reminds a listener that while Carter is an acclaimed jazz bassist, he could also get down with groups like A Tribe Called Quest.

15. BADBADNOTGOOD – Talk Memory (XL)

BBNG remains strong, even after the departure of band lynchpin Matthew Tavares. Arthur Verocai’s lush string arrangements certainly help.

My conversation with BBNG saxophonist Leland Whitty is available here. 

16. Sara Schoenbeck – Sara Schoenbeck (Pyroclastic)

My favorite debut album of the year (if one does not count Notes with Attachments). A compelling study in the intimacy of dialogue in a duo setting. “Lullaby” with Nels Cline has been on particularly heavy replay. 

My conversation with Sara is available here. 

17. Logan Richardson – Afrofuturism (Whirlwind)

Whether the rueful cries of a community in Tulsa or the yearning for artistic freedom, the Blues serves as a central organizing principle on Afrofuturism. By attaching newer sounds to this elder form, Richardson provides a deeper meaning to the Afrofuturist concept and, in the process, produces an album that is a memorable guidepost for future artists.

Click here for my more detailed review of Afrofuturism

18. Tyshawn Sorey & King Britt – Tyshawn/King (The Buddy System)

Sorey is already an acclaimed percussionist in avant-garde circles. With Tyshawn & King, he explores an area newer to him, Intelligent Dance Music. It is a fascinating and memorable experiment.

19. Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders, and the London Symphony Orchestra – Promises (Luaka Bop)

Any new work with Pharoah Sanders is worth celebrating. The addition of cues from electronic and classical music is also welcome. Though I wish Shepard used Sanders more on the album.

20. Charles Lloyd and the Marvels – Tone Poem (Blue Note)

Lloyd remains among the top saxophonists of his generation. He always takes a broad view of music and often has surprises up his sleeves. In this case, exploring the compositions of his late friend, music pioneer Ornette Coleman.

My coverage of Lloyd at the 2021 Newport Jazz Festival can be found here. A review of his immediately preceding album, 8: Kindred Spirits (Live from the Lobero) is available as well.

21. Joe Lovano Trio Tapestry – Garden of Expression (ECM)

If Trio Tapestry (ECM, 2019)  nourished the group’s winding artistic vines, Garden of Expression, shows those plants’ buds fruitfully opening.

My more detailed review of Garden of Expression can be found here. 

22. Joe Dyson- Look Within (self-release)

A deeply personal and touching album from an artist who should be receiving better recognition than he currently does (though, hopefully, his touring with Pat Metheny will change that). His debut borrows equally from the traditions of jazz, gospel, and R&B

My interview with Joe is available here. 

23. Bryan Murray & Jon Lundbom – Beats by Balto! Vol. 2 (Chant)

While the intersection between jazz and hip hop has been heavily trodden, the one between avant-garde improvisation and sampling, less so. Beats By Balto! Vol. 2 is a strong offering to the area, with a particular emphasis on hip hop’s ‘80s and ‘90s golden age. 

24. Graham Haynes vs Submerged – Echolocation (Burning Ambulance)

Phil Freeman’s Burning Ambulance has been a fascinating multimedia – journal, blog, podcast- project for a long time now. He most recently branched out into being a record label. One of the label’s best releases, Echolocation finds cornetist Graham Haynes doing what he does best, exploring a space between electronic music and jazz. Pairing him with drum ‘n’ bass producer Kurt Glück-Aeg, aka Submerged was a bold and wise choice. 

25. Michael Arthur Holloway – Strange Cargo (Self-Release)

Calling itself “Noir-Jazz”, the artist’s intent to focus on a dark and moody aesthetic is clear. At the same time, however, it paints a vivid picture of the beauty of the Oregon coast, from the massive rain-covered forests to the serene shoreline.

Stay tuned as we continue our season of lists. Agree or disagree with the choices above? Please comment below.