My 40 favorite albums of 2019—part 1

40. Sarah Hennies, Reservoir 1 (Black Truffle)

Text from Bandcamp Daily

The first in a three-part series of pieces by percussionist and composer Sarah Hennies that revolve around the relationship between the conscious and unconscious minds—specifically how the latter can be a repository for traumatic memories—Reservoir 1 is a work for piano and a percussion trio. Hennies neatly subverts the often-supporting role of percussion in so many musical contexts by situating the rambling yet introspective piano lines (performed by Phillip Bush, with a post-Feldman-esque grace) as an almost incidental, unmoored presence. It’s almost as if the piano is detached from the episodic excursions she and her partners in the percussion trio Meridian (Tim Feeney and Greg Stuart) take, as well as alien to any fixed narrative practice. The piano, nonetheless, works beautifully with the shifting percussive sequences—peripatetic tom patterns; pulsing shakers; distant bowed drones; objects scraped, rolled, and explosively dropped—which constantly mutate, progress, and recombine. It functions as a superb and subtle framing device for the trio, and the divide underlines the conscious/subconscious subtext of the work: the percussion can’t really access the piano, but the piano seems omnipresent in the percussive sounds.

39. Julia Reidy, In Real Life (Black Truffle)

Berlin-based Australian guitarist Julia Reidy has been progressing at a rapid clip over the last couple of years and this new one arrives as a dazzling synthesis of various threads she’s pursued. While hydroplaning fingerstyle drones remain a foundation of her sound, the addition of Auto-Tuned voice and electronics are seamlessly incorporated. In the past those elements have seemed a bit awkward to me, but here they’re meticulously woven into the fabric, not as enhancements but as integral ingredients. The album’s two side-long pieces toggle between Krautrock hypnosis, post-Reich minimalism, subtle pop melody, and psychedelic cloudbursts—all masterfully contained, balanced, and paced. It’s exciting to witness this kind of development in real time, and I expect plenty of further artistic leaps in the near future.

38. Rob Mazurek, Desert Encrypts Vol. 1 (Astral Spirits)

Few improvisers work at a more feverish pace, convene more ongoing creative partnerships, and unabashedly dive into new terrain—even on weak footing—than Rob Mazurek. It makes keeping up with his work difficult sometimes, and, indeed, he dropped no less than six recordings in 2019, but Desert Encrypts Vol. 1 proves why the effort is worth it. The new quartet project was recorded live in his adopted home of Marfa, Texas with long-time drummer Chad Taylor and two new figures in the hornman’s orbit—pianist Kris Davis and bassist Ingebrit Håker Flaten—and while the leader does deploy some subtle electronics, it’s primarily an acoustic affair that allows his incredible lyric gifts to sparkle in the purest ways. The press materials say the suite is “based on observations from the desert in and around Marfa, TX. It also explores Mazurek's ongoing fascination with social, psychological, and physiological structures, both terrestrial and extra-terrestrial.” I’m not exactly sure how any of that plays out, but the band is seriously locked-in, particularly the drummer and bassist, who provide a springy, ever-morphing foundation for the leader’s clarion pocket trumpet excursions (where his post-Don Cherry sensibility sings brightly) and the kaleidoscopic solos of Davis, which always lift the proceedings whether she’s digging into ominous left-hand tremors or unspooling lithe post-minimalist patterns on a piece like the gorgeously fluttering “Encrypt IV Bird Encrypt Morning Song.”

37. Nature Work, Nature Work (Sunnyside)

(Original text for a review printed in August, 2019 issue of DownBeat)

Greg Ward and Jason Stein have made themselves integral parts of Chicago’s jazz and improvised music community, each moving easily between swing-based expression and free exploration. Alto saxophonist Ward has a strong traditional sweep, imbuing his sweetly soulful tone with an ineffable blues cry while bass clarinetist Stein harnesses his unwieldy axe to straddle post-bop lyricism and rheumy, rough hewn searching. They’ve worked together in drummer Mike Reed’s Flesh & Bone project, developing a robust bond and telepathic rapport, and their mutual love for Chicago post-bop sparkles in this superb new quartet. The indelibility of the themes they composed for Nature Work is matched by their savvy in choosing a rhythm section. Bassist Eric Revis is a muscular force that both anchors and propels the grooves while drummer Jim Black masterfully pushes and pulls against them, injecting his off-kilter time in a way that lends an irresistible tension to a familiar sound. The model is established right out of the gate with Ward’s “The Shiver,” which lurches from a nervy unison horn theme over a galloping rhythm into a slashing swing riff that recalls the brawny grit of Chicago post-bop ca. late 1950s. The high-energy solos push away from the tune’s bluesy foundation, but Stein’s statement unfurls over thrilling tug-of-war momentum between Revis and Black. There’s a bumpy, hurtling quality throughout Stein’s “Hem the Jewels,” which takes inspiration from Julius Hemphill’s distinctive, earthy music, whether the deliciously tangled bass solo that opens the performance or the darting, momentum-building solo by Ward. Chattering, pointillistic horns and unstable bass-and-drums coalesce into a nifty churn two minutes into “Porch Time,” while the chamber-like fragments that open “Opter Fopter” congeal into a floating west coast cool. Those shifts in feeling complement other sources of tension on the record, all of which add up to one of the year’s most satisfying and electrifying releases—a session rooted in tradition and utterly unhindered by it.

36. Jamila Woods, Legacy! Legacy! (Jagjaguwar)

Young Chicago singer Jamila Woods grabbed my attention with her second album, cleverly and meaningfully engaging in a kind of role-play experiment, placing herself in shifting situations inspired by a laundry list of personal heroes—all of them paradigm-shifting African-American musicians, painters, and writers. She lets her imagination go and effectively locates some essential quality or spirit in each of her of dedicatees, from the insouciance of Miles Davis, the working-class grit of Muddy Waters, or the fiery independence of Betty Davis. She manages to simultaneously transmit those individualistic qualities while erecting a comprehensive vision of Black art in the 20th century. She does all of this while creating a gorgeously hazy strain of R&B built on hip-hop with vocals that deploy the elastic phrasing of jazz—hushed, smeared, and assured. The record is deep, and it surely augurs a substantial body work down the road.

35. Michael Kiwanuka, Kiwanuka (Interscope)

The British singer Michael Kiwanuka has the presence, rasp, and soul that has keep me attuned to everything he’s done, which coupled with his knack for 70s soul tropes that collide strings, brass and heavy grooves a la the Chicago aesthetic of Charles Stepney and Donnie Hathaway. His third album isn’t perfect—while the single “Rolling” is catchy and its stuttering beat fantastic, the energy-sapping bridge emits a weird kind of creepy jam band vibe that seems designed to trigger a sea of lighters—but when it’s good, it’s very good. Apart from his gorgeous voice the arrangements consistently collide old-school aesthetics with contemporary production techniques, as strummed acoustic guitars get tangled in post-hip-hop  breaks.

34. Hanna Hartman, Gattet (Firework Edition)

This year I discovered and devoured the electro-acoustic music of Berlin-based Swedish composer Hanna Hartman, and her latest collection suggests she’s got no shortage of ideas. Two of the three works here feature acoustic instruments—“Black Bat” embeds the rheumy contrabass clarinet of Theo Nabicht in a violently tactile world of tears, splatters, bird sounds, explosions, cries and more, while “Fracture” surrounds the bassoon of Dafne Vicente-Sandoval with what appear to be footsteps, wind, synthetic gurgles, crackling, machine hums, metallic clangs, etc.—although “Crush” is no less rewarding or gripping because it lacks one. Hartman is a meticulous weaver of sound, and according to an informative Philip Clark feature in the Wire this past fall she’s been recording and amassing a huge catalog of hyper-specific recordings going back decades, and somehow she has mental access to them for something a new piece she’s working on might require. While it’s fascinating to learn where some of the sounds come from—in the Wire piece she describes rolling a ball in potato starch, noting that you need “exactly the right weight, and you must also have a lot of potato starch,” to say nothing of an excellent contact microphone—that’s hardly necessary to be knocked out by these worlds she creates. Obviously her processes relate to musique concrete, although she downplays any connections. Whatever—just dig into this remarkable experience.

33. Pancrace, Fluid Hammer (Penultimate Press)

The second album from this elusive French quintet might not have hit me quite as hard as its eponymous 2017 debut—it’s hard to be stunned like that twice! —but its more active, driving, and generally piercing follow-up is nonetheless plenty gripping. The biggest shift here is the appearance of a portable organ-like instrument they constructed called the “orgànus” (a spatialized and MIDI controlled pipe organ) to fill the void left by the church organ they used on the debut recording, made at the Saint Pancrace Church in the tiny Alsatian village of Dangolsheim. Built by group member Léo Maurel, this new device exerts a strong presence, weaving its way into a dense sound collage featuring Uilleann pipes, synthesizers, the Baroque violin of Prune Bécheau (who I was lucky enough to see in a duo with bassist Joel Grip in October), various toys, bodhran, and whistles. The various components collide and blend in manners both calming and visceral, but the music rarely answers all of the questions it asks, keeping the listener thrillingly off-balance. I assume the music is all improvised, but the musicians have honed such a singular aesthetic that whether the sounds are produced spontaneously or following some kind of score becomes irrelevant. Despite repeated encounters I’m still scratching my head. That’s a good thing.

32. Oya Sextett, Live! (Signal and Sound)

This one turned up very late in the year, giving me little time to consider it for earlier lists I compiled. The sextet is led by Swedish pianist Sebastian Bergström, who was part of the wonderful, widely overlooked trio Correction, so naturally I’m not surprised by his good taste in putting together a band committed to interpreting the indelibly soulful, bracing music of the Blue Notes axis—which arrives in the wake of the justifiably celebrated reissue of drummer Louis Moholo-Moholo’s classic 1978 octet debut Spirits Rejoice! The band is killer, with some of the most inspired younger players on the Swedish scene—saxophonists Elin Forkelid and Anna Högberg, trumpeter Niklas Barnö, drummer Konrad Agnas, and bassist Ville Bromander—and while the sextet might not have a particularly original conception in essaying these works, it does a wonderful job validating the unwavering vitality, gravitas, and emotional candor of tunes by Chris McGregor, Dudu Pukwana, Johnny Dyani, Mongezi Feza, Moholo-Moholo, and one-time Jazz Reveller Ndaba Majola (the only non-Blue Note member represented here, although his tune “Amaxesha Osizi” has long been part of Moholo-Moholo’s own rep). Recorded live at Stockholm’s inimitable Glenn Miller Café this past October, the bright arrangements regularly make the sextet sound much larger and fuller than it is, with all sorts of exciting counterpoint and cross-rhythms to say nothing of superb improvising throughout. According to the liner note essay by Kei McGregor—the son of Chris—Bergström had contacted him several years ago in search of sheet music for the Fezi tune “Sonia.” All indicators suggest the pianist has brought serious rigor to the project, and his band goes all in, reinforcing the universal power of this material. The double gatefold vinyl includes a CD with five of the seven tracks included, in addition to a CD-only reading of Dyani’s “Ithi Gqi,” here spelled “Ithiqi.” Check out excerpts from the recording below.

31. Jeremy Udden, Three in Paris (Sunnyside)

Original text for a review printed in October, 2019 issue of DownBeat:

Saxophonist Jeremy Udden is a musician of sterling clarity, imparting an airy translucence into each of his projects, whether the cool polyphony of the quartet Hush Point or the pastoral Americana of his quintet Plainville. That uncluttered directness is front-and-center on his first trio recording, which celebrates the influence of soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy—one of the most economical figures in jazz history—with whom he briefly studied. As the title suggests, Udden made the album in Paris with long-time collaborator Nicolas Moreaux on bass and long-time Lacy drummer John Betsch. Only four of the album’s ten pieces were penned by Lacy, but his spirit presides over the whole collection. The gorgeously measured sense of space on the trio’s reading of Don Cherry’s “Roland Alphonso,” an homage to the great ska saxophonist, sets the tone from the outset—the vibe is chill but focused, with the rhythm section calmly providing a relaxed platform for the leader’s unhurried, deeply melodic blowing. Moreaux is selfless throughout, functioning as a nimble, mahogany-toned anchor while Betsch regularly enhances his time-keeping with masterfully placed snare bombs and tom flurries. Udden’s phrasing is more rounded and plush than his hero’s sere austerity, and he freely employs some explicit bebop runs even when departing from the changes, as on a ravishing duet with Betsch on Lacy’s “Who Needs It?” A version of “Bone” toggles masterfully between the arch sing-songy theme and an explosive double-time exploration, with some wordless moaning in the coda conveying Lacy’s dry humor. Udden’s own themes—“Hope” and “Folk Song 2”—transmit the same sort of spare elegance expressed in Lacy’s compositions, but even when interpreting Ellington’s lush “Azure” or the standard “Lazy Afternoon” Udden’s trio achieves a powerful leanness, cutting away all fat and leaving only the most sublime, gut-punching lucidity.

Today’s playlist:

Catherine Lamb, Shade/Gradient (Black Pollen Press)

Claudio F Baroni, Motum (Unsounds)

Jacob Anderskov, Mysteries (ILK)

Peter Garland, The Landscape Scrolls (Starkland)

Neneh Cherry, Broken Politics (Smalltown Supersound)