Music Notes
By 
I’ve seen so much live music lately, but I am going to hold back discussing several of these shows for a week so I can talk about going to the Long Play Festival in Brooklyn last weekend. This is a big festival put on by Bang on a Can, the contemporary classical collective based there. They do great work and this is the second year of this festival. Thought I’d check it out. Now, I like a lot of contemporary classical music, but that’s not really the reason I went. I went because they fill out the schedule with some great free jazz and then some other music that revolves around various forms of experimental, particularly electronic stuff that I don’t care about much.
I caught 10 sets over 2 days. I honestly thought I’d see a bit more but sometimes, your brain is just full.
I started out on Saturday by seeing two contemporary classical shows, mostly because they were the only shows playing at those times, but honestly I wanted to check out some of this anyway.
First was the British composer and trombonist Alex Paxton, who had a couple of pieces performed by Oberlin Contemporary Music. Mostly, I thought this was pretty great. Paxton is a composes big music, with a lot of noise. That always makes my rock and roll heart feel good to start with. It’s very postmodern, in the sense of mashing everything up. Sometimes it is the strings, other times the musicians play video game music from their phone. Sometimes it’s a big brass attitude, sometimes one of the musicians walks over and eats an apple into a microphone. So sure, it can get a bit too cute, but at least irony means you aren’t taking the music that seriously, which is my kind of thing. Paxton is also a fantastic trombonist and so I enjoyed him playing.
The second set was the Dutch composer Peter Adriaansz with the New York debut of the Dutch group Ensemble Klang. They performed a composition named Environments. This was a quite minimalist thing. There was a horn section. They flew across the Atlantic to play about 25 notes over an hour. Still, this more rhythm based group did bring to the table what minimalism does the best, which is slowly immersing you in repetitive sound that eventually envelops it. I was less of a fan of though, largely because of the texts that Adriaansz uses as voice overs. The first is Robert Pirsig, reading from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance about a trip across Minnesota and into the Dakotas and the changing landscape. I didn’t mind this so much, though I wondered what exactly it meant to a Dutch guy. The second text was the Beat Alan Watts talking about consciousness. I don’t know, whatever. Do people still take the Beats seriously? Overall, it was fine, though not my favorite thing.
Then the jazz started.
The third set I saw was Darius Jones’ fLuXkit Sextet. That consists of Jones on sax, Yuniya Edi Kwon on violin, Ledah Finck on violin, Christopher Hoffman on cello, Chris Lightcap on bass, and Ches Smith on drums. I have seen Lightcap many times (5, I would guess) and I’ve seen Smith once before this, but I had never seen Jones and that made me excited. It was a fantastic set. Obviously the string dominated performance makes for a different thing than a lot of jazz, but they are great. Ches Smith just beats the living shit out of the drums. He’s like the Dave Lombardo of jazz. Jones is a tremendously generous composer and like Miles, doesn’t overwhelm everyone else with a lot of notes. So he only played the sax relatively sparingly, which I thought added to its power. At the end of the show, he started shouting to the Lord, which at the very least gets to how emotional he found it all. It was a pretty wow experience.
Next was the saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins with the pianist Jason Moran. I don’t know Wilkins’ too well, but Moran has become a legend. He’s often seen as somewhat more accessible than a lot of free jazz guys and some of his projects are. This is not one of them. These were Wilkins’ compositions I think and this sax/piano duet was lovely, if you like challenging atonal compositions that have a lot of space between notes. I like that kind of thing and so while might not have been my favorite performance of the whole festival, it was pretty damn good.
Then I closed Saturday with something real special. Marc Ribot was scoring a live showing of Chaplin’s The Kid. The thing about this is that although Ribot is one of the all time guitar gods, when you are watching a film as great as The Kid, you end up kind of forgetting that you are also hearing Ribot play! This is what’s supposed to happen of course. Ribot provided a fairly straightforward guitar soundtrack here and it worked so well. Also, are you aware that Jackie Coogan was later Uncle Fester on The Addams Family? I am sure many of you are, but I wasn’t!
I saw five additional sets on the second day of the festival. This started with William Parker’s The Blinking of the Ear, which is the bassist’s latest big project. In fact, he doesn’t even play the bass here. Rather, he plays some west African string instruments. One is kind of like a kora, but with a lot fewer strings. The other was something like a ngoni, but not. I am not sure. Anyway, the rest of the band was Cooper-Moore on a homemade instrument that was this string over a board tuned in some funky way that he could pluck or use a drumstick on, Eri Yamamoto on piano, Griff Spex on spoken word, Anne Marie Sandy as a mezzo soprano vocalist, Jason Kao Hwang on violin, Charles Burnham on violin, Gabby Fluke Mogul on violin, and Melanie Dyer on viola. I made a couple of recordings of these shows. It’s kind of beyond description. Parker is such a genius and as he has aged, his music has grown and grown and now is almost genre-less. He’s a major composer of his own doing things no one else ever has. This was my 5th Parker show. I’ve seen Cooper-Moore three times and Hwang twice. Everyone else was the first time.
That was amazing enough. But then I went on to see the DoYeon Kim Quartet. Kim is a Korean gayageum player, which is a sort of Korean zither. She applies this traditional instrument to free jazz instrumentation, playing with Tom Rainey on drums, Anna Webber on sax and flute, and Henry Frazier on bass. I had see Rainey once before, but none of the others. It was pretty remarkable. Kim is an intense performer, both in terms of her gayageum, especially when bowing it (sawing it really), and her loud vocals. This was just cool stuff.
In fact, when the next band came up, the Malian duo Yacouba Sissoko on kora and Moussa Diabaté on ngoni, Sissoko started by saying he had no idea who he had just seen but that was an amazing show and I agreed fully! Sissoko himself was great, though it would have been more fun with his whole band. He lives in New York and the band plays around the city, so not sure why it was just the two of them, but they were really fun in any case. The songs are quite political, though not in English. But he explains them.
My fourth show was my favorite of the festival. This was the trumpeter Rob Mazurek and the drummer Chad Taylor in a duo in the basement of this record shop. It was so cool, both in terms of space and music. The two musicians are in the center of the room facing each other and everyone else surrounds them in a circle. So it’s very immersive. Also, these guys just kick ass. I had seen them both once before, but this was a next level performance. I was standing above and behind Taylor and watching him perform like that was astounding. Then Mazurek was doing his trumpet, but also his electronic stuff and his vocals and shaking very percussive instruments and it was just cool as hell.
I wanted to set the next set there too, so I wandered upstairs and caught a minute of the show up there, which was one of the guys from Matmos and someone else doing a project they call the Soft Pink Truth. I ordered a beer, listened to a minute, was like OK this is club music for nerds, and immediately went back downstairs.
That last set was Raw Poetic and Damu the Fudgemunk, the pioneering hip hop duo who have played with free jazz guys forever. I always wanted to see them and it was good, though maybe not great. Chad Taylor stuck around on the drums and then there were a bunch of other guys, but I am not sure who. The theme certainly works and the DJing from Fudgemunk was great. Like a lot of hip hop, I tend to believe it wears better on record than live, but it was still great to see.
I was so tired after this. I was going to go see the Bang on a Can All-Stars perform Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians, with Reich there. But I was just emotionally done. I needed food and rest and I did that instead. No regrets. Cool ass festival. Hope to be there next year.
Other music news:
Duane Eddy died. I had no idea he was still alive. But don’t let that get in the way of remembering this total great of the 1950s. Fantastic guitarist, huge influence on many people, starting with John Fogarty and Bruce Springsteen. Who else is still around from the 50s rock scene? Wanda Jackson is the only one I can think of. Well, I guess Pat Boone, but he doesn’t count. Shows you that the bad die old.
Also, pour one out in remembrance of Bill Holman, the legendary jazz arranger and saxophonist who was one of the last connections to the jazz of the 50s. I personally recommend his Brilliant Corners album, one of the best interpretations of Monk on record.
Sam Ash, one of the last of the physical music chains, is closing the rest of its stores.
Many congrats to Tyshawn Sorey for winning the Pulitzer Prize in Music, for a piece honoring Wadada Leo Smith no less. I haven’t heard the piece, which I obviously must fix.
I really enjoyed Joanna Biggs’ essay on Madonna in the New York Review of Books. Again, it’s nice that the NYRB has moved beyond thinking that classical and opera are the only forms of music that matter.
If you have a New Yorker subscription, be sure to read the profile of Maggie Rogers, an interesting artist whose work I respect more than love, but who has embarked on her own life path as she has dealt with an unusual path to stardom.
Been awhile since we had an old-school hip hop beef. But Kendrick is so superior anyway to that schmuck Drake that I don’t know why he even bothers.
Excited for new Fontaines DC album!
Playlist for the last two weeks:
- Blood Lemon, self-titled
- Drive By Truckers, American Band
- Elizabeth Cook, Aftermath
- Ornette Coleman, This is Our Music
- Ralph Stanley & The Clinch Mountain Boys, Hills of Home
- The Tony Rice Unit, Manzanita
- Louvin Brothers, Tragic Songs of Life
- Bill Frisell, Unspeakable
- Mitski, Bury Me at Makeout Creek
- Jess Williamson, Time Ain’t Accidental
- Marty Robbins, Saddle Tramp
- Jimmie Dale Gilmore, After Awhile
- Riddy Arman, self-titled
- Bruce Cockburn, High Winds White Sky
- Aimee Mann, Mental Illness
- Rodney Crowell, Texas
- Camera Obscura, Desire Lines
- Traffic, John Barleycorn Must Die
- Kevin Morby, This Must Be a Photograph
- Alejandro Escovedo, Gravity
- Dim Lights, Thick Smoke And Hillbilly Music: Country & Western Hit Parade, 1956
- Richard Thompson, Mirror Blue
- Sleater-Kinney, The Hot Rock
- Dolly Parton, Just Because I’m a Woman
- Centro-Matic, Navigational
- Chris Stapleton, Starting Over
- Robert Earl Keen, What I Really Mean
- Angela Easterling, Common Law Wife
- Adrianne Lenker, Bright Future
- Erika Wennerstrom, Sweet Unknown
- Eric Taylor, self-titled
- Willie Carlisle, Critterland
- Buck Owens, The Complete Capitol Singles, 1967-1970
- Millie Jackson, Caught Up
- Townes Van Zandt, Live at the Old Quarter, disc 1
- Johnny Paycheck, On His Way
- Top Country Hits of the 1960s
- Doug Sahm, Doug Sahm and Band
- Drive By Truckers, Southern Rock Opera, disc 1
- Dolly Parton, Just Because I’m a Woman
- Margaret Glaspy, Emotions and Math
- Warren Zevon, Excitable Boy
- Ashley McBryde, Presents Lindeville
- Angelica Garcia, Cha Cha Palace
- Charlotte Adigery and Bolis Pupul, Topical Dancer
- Old Crow Medicine Show, Tennessee Pusher
- Wussy, Funeral Dress II
- Hank Williams, 20 Greatest Hits
- LCD Soundsystem, This is Happening
- Medeski, Martin, and Wood, It’s a Jungle in Here
- Amanda Shires, Down Fell the Doves
- Bob Wills, Tiffany Transcriptions, disc 2
- Tom T. Hall, The Storyteller
- Miles Davis, In a Silent Way
- Iron & Wine, The Shepherd’s Dog
- Sleater-Kinney, Call the Doctor
- Ralph Stanley & the Clinch Mountain Boys, Hills of Home
- Kate & Anna McGarrigle, Dancer with Bruised Knees
- Colombia: The Golden Age of Discos Fuentes
- Terry Allen, Lubbock (On Everything)
- Tom Russell, Road to Bayamon
Reviews
Laura Veirs, Phone Orphans
A bit of a stylistic turn for Veirs back to some straightforward folkie songs. This might make her latest album a bit less dynamic than her best work, but it remains a touching set of songs from this veteran songwriter who really should be more popular than she is.
B+
Ava Mendoza, New Spells
A 2021 solo guitar release for this shredder of all modern jazz shredders. I can be a bit hit or miss with her solo work, some of which seems to veer into dumb rock with bad vocals (she really can’t sing). But this is an equivalent to Mary Halvorson’s astounding solo guitar album Meltframe. Mendoza is a complete master of the instrument and she brings a completely different vibe to it than Halvorson, with those most obvious rock influences. If you like awesome guitar, you will like this album.
And while I don’t want to dive too deep into identity politics stuff when talking about music, since it often ends up looking like tokenism, it is a good thing for the world that perhaps the two greatest American guitarists working today are both relatively young women. It doesn’t hurt on this front either that the single greatest guitarist in the world right now is Mdou Moctar, a Malian man (actually from Niger). Turns out that if you give guitars to people who aren’t white dudes, they can do interesting things with them!
A
Brian Setzer, The Devil Always Collects
It’s a Brian Setzer album. I hardly need to go farther. Perfectly fine retro rock, enjoyable enough if you aren’t thinking too hard about it. And why would you think hard about it? The lyrics are dumber than normal though, which doesn’t help. Fun cover of “Girl on the Billboard,” which Del Reeves had a huge hit with back in the day and has been covered by a million people over the years (Wylie and Wild West has a particular favorite version of this song). The album itself completely fine and you already know what it is without hearing it.
B-
Jeremy Ivey, The Dream and the Dreamer
Mr. Margo Price has a bit of mixed recording career, with some truly fantastic songs and some very strong albums and then some work that is mixed, blasé, and/or not that interesting. Actually that’s more or less Margo’s career too. This is his 2019 album. The Dream and the Dreamer is a fairly typical entry. Ivey doesn’t have a great voice, but he has an excellent delivery of the voice he does have. He can really you bring you in to his songs. If there’s a problem here, it’s that there’s about half an excellent album and then some OK cuts. You can do worse than this of course. The best songs are the political ones, which can often be the case with him. He’s a good political songwriter, which is a very different thing than saying that he is a good songwriter because he’s political. As an counterexample, I love Iris Dement’s politics, but her political songs are terrible, while her songs about family and love and loss are astounding. Margo produced it and while she works cheap, I’m not sure that as a producer, she’s what she is as a singer.
B
Brandee Younger, Brand New Life
People really like Younger, the harpist who works in the intersection between jazz and R&B. Here, she throws some respect to one of the pioneering harpists to do this, Dorothy Ashby, who worked a lot with Stevie Wonder. among many others. This is a combination of Ashby’s work and then a few of Younger’s own originals. That’s fine and all. But some of this sounds like muzak versions of R&B songs. Like, what is going on here? I mean, this was a very well-reviewed album, but I am really struggling to explain why. I thought it was not only boring but kind of insipid. I think this really hit home the most with the album’s closer, Stevie’s “If It’s Magic,” one of the many great songs from Songs from the Key of Life, though not a particular favorite of mine. Performed to honor Ashby’s work with him, it literally sounds like it belongs on the soundtrack for walking through Macy’s. Not for me.
C
Current Affairs, Off the Tongue
I’m not sure this Scottish post-punk band is breaking new ground here. But as a lover of post-punk, I enjoyed the hell out of this. High-energy, short songs, with political edges and that jag you like a knife in the back. A bit like a punkier version of Cocteau Twins (I did not make that comparison, but it works with the vocals). Good.
B+
Kacey Musgraves, Golden Hour
For as much as I like what Musgraves stands for in country music, I’ve never been super into her music. But I figured I’d check out her 2018 album, give her another try. And again, it’s fine. She’s a solid songwriter, she sure likes to sing about weed, but whatever. She can sing a good kiss-off song and she doesn’t put up with any shit in her life or her music or her politics, which has led her down some interesting paths that make her more oppositional to Nashville than she could be. But the music remains very mainstream Nashville, which is much better for the women than the dudes (largely because the women have to work harder and are smarter than the men who can sing bullshit list songs about all the things they like on the weekend and idiots will lap it up), but still, it begins to sound the same. And that’s where I remain on the fence with Musgraves–it sounds so similar to so much of the higher quality work by modern country women, but affects me with less power.
B
Kali Uchis, Orquiedas
Another excellent album from this Colombian American who sings in both Spanish and English, bringing huge influences from music from around the Americas to her work. This is pure Latin American pop from a woman who can sing angry about relationships, no matter which language she works in on a given song. Yes, like much of popular music today, it’s essentially a pastiche of whatever you want to draw from over the last half-century or more, though in this case, more 90s to the present. But that’s the moment we are in and we can’t necessarily expect someone to completely reinvent music without the context in which that can happen. For an album that so openly draws from this past, it’s a very strong selection.
A-
As always, this is an open thread for all things music and art and none things politics.