2011

Thanks to my return to school and other blogging obligations I've been pretty quiet around these parts lately. Which is too bad, since I would have loved to take the time to comment on the latest jazz internet controversies.* I've still got three album reviews in the queue that I have barely started, but alas. I resolve to blog more at some point, but that's as much of a commitment as I'll make for now.

As always, I will list some of my favorite music of the year (jazz and non-jazz) below. I can never listen to anything approaching a comprehensive list of the music released in a given year, but suffice it to say these albums below made me take notice this year.

Ambrose Akinmusire - When The Heart Emerges Glistening
Gretchen Parlato - The Lost And Found
Ben Williams - State of Art
Joe Lovano Us Five - Bird Songs
Orrin Evans - Captain Black Big Band

And my favorite non-jazz of 2011:
Bon Iver - Bon Iver
Cults - Cults
Feist - Metals
Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues
The Roots - Undun
St. Vincent - Strange Mercy
Tune-Yards: w h o k i l l
Kurt Vile - Smoke Ring For My Halo
Wye Oak - Civilian

And one final farewell to Paul Motian, Sam Rivers, Bob Brookmeyer, Andre Hodeir, Hitch, Mad Dog, Hubert Sumlin, Pete Rugolo, Al Davis, Fred Shuttlesworth, The Big Man, Gil Scott-Heron, Harmon Killebrew, Sidney Lumet, Pinetop Perkins, and anyone else I have left out.

Here's to a happy 2012.

*Especially the jazz/Black American Music debate. I'm all for moving beyond the word "jazz," which is way too small a word to encompass all the music stuffed under its umbrella. But suffice it to say, anyone who calls himself the savior of anything (as Nicholas Payton does vis-a-vis "Archaic Pop") sets off my bullshit detectors immediately. I'm glad someone is not afraid to write candidly about the racial aspects of American music, but maybe one day the internet can handle a complex discussion like this without devolving into a pissing match within a few minutes...

Friday Album Cover: Best of 2010

Inspired by the good folks at Accujazz, I decided to throw in my 2 cents and list my favorite album covers of 2010, with some commentary where applicable. As I've mentioned before, good album art cannot make up for bad music, but a good cover can give an album I like some extra juice. Below are my picks.

Jason Moran

TEN

 

A throwback to the classic Blue Note album covers of the 1960s, with sans serif typography and a minimalist design. What's not to love?

The rest of my picks after the jump.

One last thing about year-end lists

When compiling my own year-end compendium, I forgot one important fact: Francis Davis does the same thing for the Village Voice, and his ranking of albums culls from a larger list of critics than mine, so I must defer to him. Not that I mind letting someone else do the yeoman's work...

2010 In Review

Tomorrow I'm off to Miami for the holiday, so I will leave you with my year-end roundup. As the usual disclaimer goes, since I am but an amateur critic, I only review a handful of albums released in a given year, so be sure to check out the best-of lists of the more than capable critics after the break. But before that, here are the albums which I enjoyed the most in 2010, in alphabetical order by artist:

• The Bad Plus: Never Stop
• Vijay Iyer: Solo
• Jason Moran: TEN
• Paul Motian: Lost in a Dream
• Polar Bear: Peepers
• Christian Scott: Yesterday You Said Tomorrow
• The Wee Trio: Capitol Diner Vol. 2

Also, some of my favorite nonjazz of 2010:

• Beach House: Teen Dream
• The Black Keys: Brothers
• Broken Social Scene: Forgiveness Rock Record
• Spoon: Transference
• Vampire Weekend: Contra
• The Walkmen: Lisbon
• Kanye West: My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
• The Whigs: In The Dark

And below the break, the compilation of critics' lists. [more]

Time Marches On

Another year has come and gone. Just in case you missed it, below are links to my end-of-year and end-of-decade lists. See you in 2010...

Some Good Albums from 2009
Some Good Albums from the 2000s
Some Great Books from the 2000s

Some Good Albums From 2009

As I said last year, my status as an amateur critic and holder of a day job means I cannot review more than a tiny fraction of the new music that gets released in a given year, so I will leave the year-end lists to the more than capable critics listed below (to be updated as more lists pop up).

• David R. Adler
• AllMusic.com
  
• Jason Crane
• Destination: Out
  
• Phil Freeman
• Ted Gioia
• Peter Hum
• Josh Jackson
• Fred Kaplan
• David Leonard (NY Observer)
  
• Howard Mandel
• NPR Jazz
• PopMatters
• Ben Ratliff
  
• RVAJazz
  
• Hank Shteamer
• Karl Stark
  
• Jacob Teichroew
• Michael J. West
  

Meanwhile, here are a few of my favorites from 2009, which was not a bad year for jazz, all things considered.

• Vijay Iyer Trio: Historicity
• Robert Glasper: Double Booked
• The Bad Plus: For All I Care
• Joe Lovano Us Five: Folk Art
• Fly: Sky & Country
  
• Medeski Martin & Wood: Radiolarians II
• Darcy James Argue's Secret Society: Infernal Machines

Also, let me give one final farewell to George Russell, Rashied Ali, Hank Crawford, John Patrick Diggins, John Updike, Ian Carr, Mark Fidrych, Bud Shank, George Tiller, Ed McMahon, Ali Akbar Khan, Les Paul, and anyone else I may have forgotten.


Photo of Joe Lovano at Newport 2009 via A Blog Supreme

List: Best of the Aughts

As we approach the end of the decade, requisite best-of lists are popping up, so I thought I would add my two cents. As I mention in my annual year-end roundups, my status as an amateur critic and holder of a day job means I cannot review more than a tiny fraction of the new music that gets released in a given year. With that in mind, the list below is necessarily incomplete, so I will supplement it with other best-of lists from professional critics as well as crowd-sourced lists. Feel free to list your favorites in the comments.

Some Good Albums from the 2000s (in alphabetical order by artist)

• The Bad Plus: These Are The Vistas
  
• Ornette Coleman: Sound Grammar
  
• Steve Coleman: Resistance Is Futile
  
• Jack DeJohnette with Bill Frisell: The Elephant Sleeps But Still Remembers
  
• Dave Douglas: Strange Liberation
  
• Robert Glasper: Double Booked
• Happy Apple: Youth Oriented
  
• Andrew Hill: Dusk
  
• Dave Holland: Prime Directive
  
• Vijay Iyer Trio: Historicity
• Charles Lloyd: Rabo De Nube
  
• Medeski Martin & Wood: Tonic
  
• Brad Mehldau: House on Hill
  
• Motian/Lovano/Frisell: I Have The Room Above Her
  
• Jason Moran: Modernistic
  
• Scolohofo: Oh!
  
• Wayne Shorter: Footprints Live!
  
• Trio Beyond: Saudades
  

And here are some other end-of-the-decade lists by people who listen to far more music than I do (updated as I find them).

• A Blog Supreme
  
• All About Jazz Bulletin Board
• Jazz Chronicles (James Hale)
• Peter Hum
  
• Fred Kaplan
• Lament for a Straight Life (Jim Macnie)
• Music and More (Tim Niland)
  
• NPR's All Songs Considered (not just jazz)
• Times Online
  
• 91.5 WUML, Lowell
  

Image via Circulations

Some Good Albums From 2008

Since I am not a professional reviewer, and since I have not listened to nearly as much new music as I would have liked to, I will not be making a year-end "Best Of" list. Instead, here are a few recordings from 2008 that I liked. The list may not be exhaustive, but there are plenty of places for those kinds of lists on the internet. If you're looking for a year-end list with more depth, go here, here, here, or here. In the meantime, my three favorites of 2008, in no particular order...

1. Charles Lloyd, Rabo de Nube
2. Medeski Martin & Wood, Radiolarians 1
3. Pat Metheny, Tokyo Day Trip

Also, here are five albums I missed in 2008 (because I am a busy man), but still want to check out:

1. Kenny Garrett, Sketches of MD: Live at The Iridium
   
2. Brad Meldau, Brad Mehldau Trio: Live
3. Eric Dolphy, At The Five Spot, Vol. 1 (Re-release)
4. Dave Holland Sextet, Pass It On
5. James Carter, Present Tense

And a fond farewell to Johnny Griffin, Arthur C. Clarke, Bo Diddley, Albert Hofmann, Paul Newman, Studs Terkel, Mitch Mitchell, and anyone else I may have forgotten...

Happy New Year.