Constellation Records label

Feb 17 2020

Best of 2019 #03: Matana Roberts – “Coin Coin Chapter 4: Memphis”

 

The meeting point of history and mythology is as much collision as it is convergence, and there’s no better musical representation of this dichotomy than the “panoramic sound quilting” of Matana Roberts. The compositions of Coin Coin are as likely to be cryptic as they are to be clearly focused. On Memphis, it trends toward the latter, and that clarity is what makes it the most stunning offering in the series to date. The past is present in Roberts’ music, and its creative daring reflects the strength of the modern scene, even as it moves on into the future.

That’s how I summarized the latest chapter in the Matana Roberts Coin Coin series for The Bandcamp Daily.  My write-ups, and thoughts, about this music has always been brief.  It’s a necessary succinctness.  The alto saxophonist’s compositions are dense with history, with dreams, with the weight of passing time.  Attempting to parse that down is counterproductive.  My reactions to this music are ineffable, and not a little bit impenetrable.  By its nature, art becomes personal, and as we experience it, we incorporate it into our own lives, and that’s when the art no longer belongs to the artist, but becomes our own with our own context.  The chapters of Coin Coin just don’t lend to that transformational relationship.  Roberts story is hers, and it boils down to it is what it is.  It is also one of the most stunning works of 2019.

Your album personnel:  Matana Roberts (alto sax, clarinet, wordspeak, voice), Hannah Marcus (electric guitar, nylon string guitar, fiddle, accordion, voice), Sam Shalabi (electric guitar, oud, voice), Nicolas Caloia (double bass, voice), Ryan Sawyer (drumset, vibraphone, jaw harp, bells, voice), and guests:  Steve Swell (trombone, voice), Ryan White (vibraphone), Thierry Amar, Nadia Moss, Jessica Moss (voice).

Released on Constellation Records.

Music from Earth (via New York City, Chicago, Montreal, and Memphis).

I wrote about the album for The Bandcamp Daily.

Check out Roberts’ project-specific Tumblr page for more on Coin Coin and etc.

Listen | Read more | Available at:  Bandcamp – Amazon

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Dec 31 2019

Now up: Best Jazz on Bandcamp in 2019

 

And here we go.

It was pretty much an impossible task to cobble together a Best of 2019 list for Bandcamp, limited, as I was, to just 15 slots.  Too many great recordings in 2019, too few opportunities to train a spotlight on them.  Rather than do a typical ranking, I went with the approach of presenting a cohesive picture of the modern jazz landscape, a snapshot of its diversity and how that leads to new and exciting forms of expression… including many that leave the 1950’s bop sound far behind.

Some of these albums will be familiar to you from the monthly recommendations columns to already hit The Bandcamp Daily, but there are also a few that will be new to this column.  2019 was the best year ever, and this list is just a fraction of the evidence supporting that claim.

And on that note, let’s begin.

Follow this LINK to read those recommendations and listen to music from each album.

Check out past recommendations by running through my contributor archives.

Have fun going through the list!

Cheers.

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Dec 29 2019

Now up: October’s Best Jazz on Bandcamp recommendations

 

And here we go.  Let’s do some catch-up on notifications about my latest Best Jazz on Bandcamp recommendations posting on The Bandcamp Daily.  This monthly installment covers albums for October 2019.  There’s ten primary recommendations in total, plus some bonus recommendations, to boot.  There’s been no let-up on the deluge of new music in 2019, so if you were thinking about maybe settling into a prior month’s purchases, forget about it… you’ve got more excellent new music to discover.  I have been saying this same thing nearly every month, and every month it is true.  On that note, let’s begin.

Follow this LINK to read those recommendations and listen to music from each album.

Check out past recommendations by running through my contributor archives.

Have fun going through the list!

Cheers.

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