Music Notes

Last Friday, I was lucky enough to see the Jon Irabagon Quartet at Firehouse 12 in New Haven. It’s not quite Firehouse 12, somehow this amazing club is actually going through renovations to make it somehow even better and more beautiful than it already was, so they had it at another space a few blocks away. Anyway, it’s always great to see a band of this quality in action. Chris Lightcap, who I am a big fan of, was on bass and he was the only one I had seen before. Matt Mitchell was on piano and keyboards (often with one hand on each), and Dan Weiss on drums. One thing I like to do at these jazz shows is to really watch one musician in action. It’s a bit less satisfying to do this with the horn players because I can’t really see their physical technique in action that easily. But in this case, I was following Weiss’ work and it’s just really special to be this close to a great musician and watch them work. Now, this wasn’t my favorite show of all time; it didn’t move my spirit like my favorite of this genre of music. But it most certainly was a very worthy show and I was quite happy to get the chance to see this band.

The biggest music news this week is the death of Naomi Judd, at the age of 76. Even more sad, it seems that her mental illness, which is well-documented from her life of very real trauma, finally got her and it was a suicide. You can not be the biggest fan of The Judds, which represented the country music of the not great times of the 80s and early 90s, and respect the lives of these amazing women. Even sadder, today is the day she and Wynonna are being inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Other losses include the German electronic composer Klaus Schulze and the blues guitar legend Guitar Shorty.

Elizabeth can certainly promote her own work, but I will mention that I pretty much agree with her ranking of Yo La Tengo albums up and down the line. I would probably put I Am Not Afraid Of You and I Will Beat Your Ass (the most ridiculous album of all time given the band) higher than #5, maybe even up to #2, but it’s not as if it’s a clear call here.

George Jones definitely liked his cocaine. And he hung out with a lot of very sketchy guys. Here’s a wild story about some lost recordings that were caught up in a cocaine deal and were used as part of bail by the people who made them.

Good interview with John Darnielle in The New Yorker. However, he makes the critical mistake that everyone makes, which assumes that any song Johnny Cash sung is a Johnny Cash song, in this case “Sam Hall,” which is an ancient Irish song that Cash happened to cover in 1965.

Another great Bandcamp list, this of new contemporary classical releases.

A discussion of Bonnie Raitt’s Sweet Forgiveness album.

All country music festivals should ban the treason flag.

Album Reviews:

Deafheaven, Infinite Granite

As I discussed last week, my tolerance for metal is very low. I think much of the problem is the ridiculously overwrought “singing” that accompanies so much of it. So it was quite interesting to listen to this Deafheaven album form last year. Deafheaven used to be mostly a black metal band and has now evolved into being more of a shoegaze band. The biggest difference is really in the singing style. When the singer here is singing like a regular person, the band sounds something like a shoegaze version of The War on Drugs, with long drawn out and nearly jammy songs. It doesn’t work incredibly well, but it’s certainly alright. Then a couple of time the singer returns to the metal style of singing and it’s just an eyeroll. This album is basically fine and an interesting experiment in genre blurring. Just not totally my thing.

B-

Artifacts: Tomeka Reid/Nicole Mitchell/Mike Reed, …And Then There’s This

This is such a great trio. Reid is probably the most important cellist in modern jazz, Mitchell is a brilliant flautist, and Reed is a super drummer. Several years ago, they released a tribute album to the great AACM musicians of the past such as Anthony Braxton, Henry Threadgill, and Leroy Jenkins, playing some of their great tunes. This follow-up consists of original recordings that are written by each of the three musicians. Two are direct tributes to greats–Alvin Fielder and Joseph Jarman. Others are compositions in the style of the AACM. What is striking about this album is the compositional nature of it, where it is really more quiet than you might think and really a quite nice set of songs. Very good work.

A-

Steve Coleman and Five Elements, Live at the Village Vanguard, Vol 1

I’ve always wanted to see Coleman but never have had the chance. This 2018 live release has been quite well-reviewed so I finally got around to hearing it. It’s quite long–2 discs and over 150 minutes, which is a lot. That’s really the one down side of this release–it could be one good disc. Otherwise, it’s very fine. I know it’s weird to say that jazz releases shouldn’t be as long, but in fact, they often should not be as long as they are. More on the merits of the music itself, it’s a bit more accessible than some of Coleman’s work, not that I mind his more difficult pieces at all. Having people such as Jonathan Finlayson on trumpet, Miles Okazaki on guitar, Anthony Tidd on bass, and Sean Rickman on drums certainly makes for a cracker jack band. It is true that some of the tunes, repeated on both discs, go in quite different places and that’s great. It’s still a lot.

B+

Tommy Emanuel & David Grisman, Pickin

A perfectly nice picking session from 2017 between two masters. The extent to which listening to this is more than background music is up to you. Despite the greatness of both Emanuel and Grisman, for me this is pretty easily moved into the background.

B

Emma-Jean Thackray, Yellow

Some enjoyable throwback spiritual jazz. This was a strongly religious and fairly funky version of jazz big in the 70s. It fits current ears well. The attempt here is to bring psychedelics back into the music. I don’t know if that means she was using them (the answer to is almost certainly yes) or just trying to channel them. In any case, I’m not sure it succeeds in repeating a psychedelic experience on album, but it’s certainly an enjoyable listen. I don’t know how many jazz songs we need as paeans to weed, but you know, whatever.

B+

This is an open thread for all things music and art and not a goddamn word about politics.