Recap: Best of 2015

Dec 26 2015

Bird is the Worm Best of 2015: Albums 21-25

 

Today’s post reveals the 21st through the 25th Bird is the Worm Top 30 jazz albums of 2015.

*****

BitW square avatarA Best Of album has to hit me right in my heart and provoke a strong emotional reaction. A Best Of album has to engage my head and elicit a cerebral connection. Give me some intrigue. Show me your music has got personality. Extra points are awarded for doing Something Different. I want to hear music that embraces the best qualities of creativity. Strong musicianship alone is not enough. Many excellent albums fall short of earning a slot on the list. It literally pains me when I see some of the albums that aren’t included on my Best Of lists. But I listen to a lot of music, and one of the rare downsides to encountering so much great Jazz is that some of it won’t receive the recognition it deserves. So there you have it.

No matter how diligent a listener is and no matter how thoroughly that person covers the music scene, there will always be albums that slip through the cracks. The equation of scarcity of time vs. the overflow of music always leaves a trail of victims in its wake. It’s also a matter of subjectivity. I do my best to make objectivity the guiding force of all my decisions, judging each album’s qualities without consideration for my own personal preferences… at least, as much as I am humanly able. I can say for certain, my Best of 2015 list has ended up much different than my personal Favorites of 2015 list. No attempt to encapsulate the 2015 jazz recordings landscape will be fully comprehensive, but I humbly offer up my list with a confidence that these albums represent the best that 2015 had to offer. But it’s a list that’s likely to gain some addenda with the passing of time. The process of discovery never truly ends.

As with any Best Of year, 2015 is more accurately represented by the date range of November 1st, 2014 to October 30th, 2015. This ain’t no damn pop music… there’s definitely love at first sight with these recordings, but for a Best Of list, there’s gotta be some time allowed, also, for assessing the times for acclimation, absorption and endurance of these recordings.

What you’ll read below are not reviews. They are simple one-take thoughts, reminiscences, fragments of recollections, and brief opinions about how each album struck me both now and when I first heard it or anything I just felt like noting about the album as I quickly typed up these tiny synopses. I’ve provided a link to a more formal write-up following each entry, and that’s where you go to find out what’s what about each recording. Those write-ups are accompanied with embedded audio of an album track, as well as personnel and label information, links to artist, label, and retail sites, and anything else that seemed relevant at the time I wrote about the album. Follow those links. They might just lead to your next most favorite album ever.

So, with all that out of the way…

Let’s begin.

 

21.  Mike Reed’s People Places & Things – A New Kind of Dance (482 Music)

Mike Reed's PPT - "A New Kind of Dance"Drummer Reed’s newest is an old-school throwback to when the hard bop to free avant-garde transition was new school.  When I put in one of those classic Jackie McLean Blue Note recordings, it still kicks out some serious electricity, its voltage dimmed not a bit with the passing of time.  That’s the kind of action Reed is able to generate with his quartet of alto saxophonist Greg Ward, tenor saxophonist Tim Haldeman and bassist Jason Roebke (plus guest spots from all-stars, pianist Matthew Shipp and trumpeter Marquis Hill).  There’s a bluntness and acerbity to the formulation and execution of expressions, but there’s a deep soul and a euphoric energy, too, and it’s why this music gives off an abundance of warmth and sounds, well, pretty damn cheerful.  Reed’s been making his mark by giving simultaneous views of old- and new-school bop-to-free jazz, and this is arguably his best yet.  I’m slow to wake to the day, sort of a no-dissonance-before-dinnertime kind of guy.  This album?  There’s been a few times it’s sent me off to start my day.  Great albums are able to transcend personal preferences.  That’s just one of many reasons A New Kind of Dance has earned a spot on this list.

Read more on Bird is the Work (LINK).

*****

22.  Oded Lev-Ari – Threading (Anzic)

Oded Lev-Ari - "Threading"Threading continues to fascinate me.  Composer Lev-Ari’s debut has a wide arc of expressions and influences, and rather than bundle it all up into one singular point of view, instead, he provides the album a sense of cohesion with a subtend of tasteful classicism… even when the music is at its most modern.  Contemporary classical, jazz improvisation and refined pop music are the primary ingredients that inform his wide arc of creativity.  The album presents itself as a series of photos, of still-lifes of jazz that Lev-Ari has been envisioning ever since he planned to record his first album.  The imagery on this recording is potent, and nine months since it was first released, its strength shows no sign of dwindling.

Read more on Bird is the Worm (LINK).

*****

23.  Charles Lloyd – Wild Man Dance (Blue Note)

Charles Lloyd - "Wild Man Dance"Jazz giant Charles Lloyd has gone through the changes in his many decades as a vital force in the evolution of jazz, and while the different studio sessions always will provide an artist the chance to refine or revolutionize his or her particular sound at any point in time, nothing lays bare the genuine amount of experience earned from sincere creative endeavors quite like getting up on stage and just letting loose.  This live performance recording is just stunning.  I remember being blown away the first time I heard it, and as I went through and revisited the candidates for this year’s Best Of list, when I came back around to it, Wild Man Dance had lost none of its intensity or power.  Several long-form pieces, many which incorporate his forays into Greek music, and they all just crackle with electricity.  A great live performance recording makes you feel as if you’re truly there in person.  The very best make you insanely jealous of those who really were in the audience.  I am insanely jealous of those people.  Don’t go thinking it’ll be any different for you.  Joining Lloyd and his tenor sax on this set are pianist Gerald Clayton, bassist Joe Sanders, drummer Gerald Cleaver, and Sokratis Sinopoulos & Miklos Lucaks adding lyra and cymbalom.  2015 seemed to have an abundance of extraordinary live performance recordings.  This one is arguably the best of the batch.

Read more on Bird is the Worm (LINK).

*****

24.  Mario Rom’s Interzone – Everything is Permitted (Traumton)

mario rom interzone "everything is permitted"This trumpet-bass-drums trio slams their foot on the gas pedal from the first note and never really lets up.  Even a turn with a ballad possesses a sense of urgency.  The thing of it is, they display a lyrical precision that brings huge clarity to all the wild motion.  That kind of beat writer era storytelling style fuses well with their Burroughs theme.  It also leads to some serious imagery that’s sharp as a knife, and as alluring as a full moon and a night sky of stars.  A definitive personality to this one… it doesn’t change up much, but gives evidence of all kinds of depth.  If you’re into a trumpet-led album, you’re not likely to find a more fun ride than this in 2015.  That said, trumpeter Rom’s counterparts, Herbert Pirker on drums and Lukas Kranzelbinder on double bass, contribute as much to the lyricism as the session leader, and it’s very easy to find yourself immersing yourself in any one of the instrument’s trajectories at any one moment in time.

Read more on Bird is the Worm (LINK).

*****

25.  Underpool Collective – Underpool 4 (Underpool)

Underpool 4The under-the-radar Underpool organization serves as performance space, recording studio and music label for improvising musicians from the Barcelona scene.  Their “collective” series brings together different musicians, each armed with one of their own compositions and prepared to contribute to those of their collaborators.  The result is a wonderfully diverse array of modern jazz expressionism, as well as a nifty mix of composition plans and in-the-studio improvisation.  They’ve released four of such collaborations thus far, each a gem, but it’s the fourth of the series that shines brightest.  You get some free jazz dissonance, some Brian Blade Fellowship melodic brilliance, some straight-ahead bop (both old-school and modern), some folk-jazz and any number of other permutations of what gets categorized as modern jazz these days.  The sense of musicians coming together and jelling on each of their counterpart’s compositions is seriously palpable, and embodies so much of what is great about jazz and the way it is able to capture life fully as it exists in the present moment.  On this session, your musicians are Àlvar Monfort on trumpet, Lucas Martínez on tenor sax, Jordi Matas on guitar, Abel Boquera on keyboards and Pep Mula on drums.  Follow the link below and get acquainted with this outfit… it’s one excellent album after the other.

Read more on Bird is the Worm (LINK).

*****

 

Tomorrow’s post reveals the 2015 Bird is the Worm #16–#20 albums of the year.

Check out the entire Best of 2015 List

Cheers.

***

By • Jazz Recommendations - 2015 Releases, Recap: Best of 2015 • 0

Dec 25 2015

Bird is the Worm Best of 2015: Albums 26-30

 

Today’s post reveals the 26th through the 30th Bird is the Worm Top 30 jazz albums of 2015.

*****

BitW square avatarA Best Of album has to hit me right in my heart and provoke a strong emotional reaction.  A Best Of album has to engage my head and elicit a cerebral connection.  Give me some intrigue.  Show me your music has got personality.  Extra points are awarded for doing Something Different.  I want to hear music that embraces the best qualities of creativity.  Strong musicianship alone is not enough.  Many excellent albums fall short of earning a slot on the list.  It literally pains me when I see some of the albums that aren’t included on my Best Of lists.  But I listen to a lot of music, and one of the rare downsides to encountering so much great Jazz is that some of it won’t receive the recognition it deserves.  So there you have it.

No matter how diligent a listener is and no matter how thoroughly that person covers the music scene, there will always be albums that slip through the cracks.  The equation of scarcity of time vs. the overflow of music always leaves a trail of victims in its wake.  It’s also a matter of subjectivity.  I do my best to make objectivity the guiding force of all my decisions, judging each album’s qualities without consideration for my own personal preferences… at least, as much as I am humanly able.  I can say for certain, my Best of 2015 list has ended up much different than my personal Favorites of 2015 list.  No attempt to encapsulate the 2015 jazz recordings landscape will be fully comprehensive, but I humbly offer up my list with a confidence that these albums represent the best that 2015 had to offer.  But it’s a list that’s likely to gain some addenda with the passing of time.  The process of discovery never truly ends.

As with any Best Of year, 2015 is more accurately represented by the date range of November 1st, 2014 to October 30th, 2015.  This ain’t no damn pop music… there’s definitely love at first sight with these recordings, but for a Best Of list, there’s gotta be some time allowed, also, for assessing the times for acclimation, absorption and endurance of these recordings.

What you’ll read below are not reviews.  They are simple one-take thoughts, reminiscences, fragments of recollections, and brief opinions about how each album struck me both now and when I first heard it or anything I just felt like noting about the album as I quickly typed up these tiny synopses.  I’ve provided a link to a more formal write-up following each entry, and that’s where you go to find out what’s what about each recording.  Those write-ups are accompanied with embedded audio of an album track, as well as personnel and label information, links to artist, label, and retail sites, and anything else that seemed relevant at the time I wrote about the album.  Follow those links.  They might just lead to your next most favorite album ever.

So, with all that out of the way…

Let’s begin.

 

26.  Jeremy Udden & Nicolas Moreaux – Belleville Project (Sunnyside Records)

Jeremy Udden Nicolas Moreaux - "Belleville Project"This is an example of folk-jazz at its best.  A collaboration between birds-of-a-feather, saxophonist Udden and bassist Moreaux is full of dreamy melodies, rhythmic chatter made from the stuff of rushing forest streams, and a small-town languor where the idleness of a back porch chair is a potent form of meditation.  Joined by fellow folk-jazz savants Robert Stillman (on sax & organ), Pierre Perchaud (on acoustic & electric guitars and banjo) and drummer RJ Miller, all of whom have charted out similar territory in the jazz-folk sub-genre on their own excellent recordings.  This music is just as intoxicating rolling out a thick, pretty melody as it is raising the pulse with some volatility and adding some edginess.  There’s a lot of different expressions of jazz & folk fused into one, and this particular example is one of the more compelling.

Read more on Bird is the Worm (LINK).

*****

27.  Matt Owens – The Aviators’ Ball (All Made Up Records)

Matt Owens - "Aviators' Ball"This is a seriously captivating album.  The changing influences and forms of expression are like scenery changes in a theater production… transformations that can be subtle or massive, yet each time occurs with the seamless, unbroken flow of dialog, cohesive and with a clear perspective.  Matt Owens’ debut brings in a couple trumpeters, a couple pianists, percussionists, a small army of vocalists, a wind quintet and a string quartet for this jazz-classical-pop project, and despite putting a lot of variables into play, it often comes off as a deceptively simple production.  Its storybook nature flirts with the sense of an epic journey, and yet when it’s over, it’s easy to find yourself regretting that it all ended so soon.  Zoe Kyoti’s rendition of her composition “Monsoon” is about as gorgeous a tune as you’ll encounter, but Riognach Connolly’s haunting yet almost casual rendition of the traditional folk song “Black Is the Colour (Of My True Love’s Hair)” is arguably the stand-out vocal performance of the year.

Read more on Bird is the Worm (LINK).

*****

28.  Till Martin Quintet – The Gardener (Unit Records)

Till Martin - "The Gardener"I’m really enjoying how jazz musicians seem to be increasingly availing themselves of chamber music influences as another component of their modern jazz compositions.  Tenor saxophonist Martin’s 2015 release is an excellent example of how the addition of instruments like cello and viola can fit seamlessly into the mix, adding a boost of harmonic warmth and melodic depth without changing the face of the project and turning everything into just another jazz with strings recording.  The melodic implications, too, are endless, and it’s a big reason why so many of the tracks on this recording can, in one instance, ring truly of in-the-moment beauty, and in the next go off on an extended melodic trail that you hope never comes to an end.  Joining Martin on this journey are violist Andreas Höricht, pianist Christian Elsässer, cellist/bassist Henning Sieverts and drummer Bastian Jütte.  This is music to get lost in.

Read more on Bird is the Worm (LINK).

*****

29.  Charenée Wade – Offering: The Music of Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson (Motema)

Charenee Wade - "Offering"It’s a remarkable thing how vocalist Wade is able take the emotionally charged poetry & music of Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson and make it resonate with a power and sincerity that sounds as if the words and notes originated from her own heart, mind and soul.  The battle of light and darkness of the originals is fully unveiled on Wade’s renditions of these 1970s pieces, resulting in music that is both intellectually challenging and supremely tuneful.  Vibraphonist Stefon Harris is as much responsible for the amazing shadowplay that goes on here, and his voice on vibes is no less arresting than Wade’s vocal arrangements.  Add to the mix a strong cast of bassist Lonnie Plaxico, guitarist Dave Stryker, pianist Brandon McCune and drummer Alvester Garnett (plus a number of guests), and it’s easy to see why the album’s central theme is able to capture the spirit of both past and present.

Read more on Bird is the Worm (LINK).

*****

30.  Valia Calda – Valia Calda EP (Self-Produced)

Valia Calda - "Valia Calda EP"It’s been nearly a year since I first heard this debut from the Valia Calda quintet, and I find their mix of modern post-bop, free improv and Greek and Balkan musics just as arresting now as I did the first time this EP’s opening notes grabbed my ear.  Without missing a beat, the music goes from a late-night jazz club cool to an ambling post-bop to a Frisellian eeriness to Mediterranean seaside ease, and the individual expressions are just as compelling as the transitions between influences.  That they’re able to make this much progress to achieving a singular sound on their debut is no small feat, and hopefully this recording is a precursor to even bigger steps in that direction.  But regardless of what the future may bring, this recording stands quite capably on its own merits.

Read more on Bird is the Worm (LINK).

*****

 

Tomorrow’s post reveals the 2015 Bird is the Worm #21–#25 albums of the year.

Check out the entire Best of 2015 List

Cheers.

By • Jazz Recommendations, Recap: Best of 2015 • 0

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