The Two Albums of 2024 That Slayed Me

This is the time of year when music scribes around the world wrack their brains to try and remember everything they listened to, and decide what was the Best. An esteemed colleague of mine recently said that there is no such thing as "the best." And he's right. He went on further to say that it's impossible to compile a list, at least in the realm of jazz music (the industry in which he works) because there are too many damn albums out there to hear in a 12-month period. Those are my words, not his. 

But I agree wholeheartedly. You know why I don't post here more often?  One big reason is because I often don't feel ready to sound off on an album without giving it several detailed listens, getting a good idea of what the performer strives to get across. That takes time away from other albums. Which contributes to my neurosis about never being able to catch up. Overthinking? Yeah, sure. But I don't have an editor here to bust my chops if I get something wrong.

Having said all that, I did compile a Year End list for both The New York City Jazz Record (for which I contribute) and for the 19th Annual Jazz Critic's Poll, which was founded by Francis Davis. Those lists can be seen in a few weeks. Right now I have decided to write about two albums that officially knocked my socks off this year. One kinda, sorta has jazz improvisation in its make-up, the other does not. But both albums need to be heard by more people. So, uh, pay attention, please.

Quivers

Oyster Cuts

(Merge) 

This Melbourne, Australia quartet has released three albums, but Oyster Cuts is their first on the US Merge label. Bella Quinlan (bass), Sam Nicholson (guitar, keys), Michael Panton (guitar) and Holly Thomas (drums) take turns singing, evoking those pre-indie rock days when it was fine for to not have one person fronting the band all the time. The hype sticker on Oyster Cuts made a comparison to Australian forefathers (and - sisters) the Go-Betweens and that was all it took for me to make a blind buy. (I had purchased several of that bands CDs earlier this year in hopes of making up for lost pop time). Little did I know that this would probably be the best blind purchase I made since springing for the Dream Syndicate's The Days of Wine and Roses, based on a review in Creem magazine. 

Quivers occupy a solid corner in the world of dreamy pop, with simple but steady grooves, delicate hooks and guitars that can jangle or wail, depending on the mood. The album opens with the lyric, "All I ever wanted was a true friend/ all I ever wanted was a friend with benefits/ all I ever wanted was transcendence."  From there, the band's take on relationships gets deeper. "There's nothing like a radio when the batteries are dying/ there's nothing like running away from someone/ Just from fear of trying." ("Grief Has Feathers"). 

My personal highpoint comes in the down tempo swell of "Screensaver" where the reverb-heavy three-chord riff never gets tired and all four band members join together on the chorus line, "I'll be yours/ I'll be yours/ I'll be your/ screensaver." It might be the year's best metaphorical take on devotion and some of the most blissful moments to come down the pike since Galaxie 500's second album. Album closer "Reckless" also offers a tutorial on how to play two chords for six minutes and keep it compelling through subtle changes in harmony and dynamics.

Oyster Cuts bowled me over so hard on the first listen that I looked up the band's contact info and sent them a gushing email that night. They were nice enough to reply soon too. Turns out I missed an earlier trip to Pittsburgh and considered driving out to eastern Pennsylvania to catch their fall tour. It didn't happen, but hopefully they'll come back this way again before too long. In the meantime, everyone should get this album. 

Here is a video the band made for the album's title track.

Wendy Eisenberg

Viewfinder

(American Dreams)

A disclaimer is probably not necessary  - because it's been explained several times in this space - but Wendy Eisenberg played guitar and banjo on a few tracks on the album by my band, the Harry Von Zells. Bias? One might say that. But Eisenberg's discography offers plenty of explanation.

The guitarist could be considered something of a musical polymath. Their discography includes solo free improvisation guitar (Its Shape Is In Your Touch), compositions played on both guitar and banjo (Bloodletting), several albums of singer-songwriter ideas crossed with a prog-like scope that never goes where it's expected (Auto, just to name one) and two albums with the punk-metal-jazz trio Editrix. Honorable mention should also be made of Eisenberg's cover of Judee Sill's "The Kiss," also released as a single earlier this year.

The beauty of Viewfinder comes from the way that Eisenberg virtually brings all of these influences together in a song cycle that chronicles the experience of getting Lasik surgery on their eyes. After years of enduring virtually every complication from bad eyesight, the procedure literally gave them a new perspective on life and everything around them. 

In lesser hands, this could be a flimsy or heavy-handed concept full of clunky metaphors. But Eisenberg doesn't brings some heft in the blend of the music and the subject matter. "Lasik" opens the album with guitar urgently pedaling a single note while the lyrics candidly discuss getting the procedure, answered by pensive trombone lines. When that tension finally breaks, they strum tense chords, with piano splashing in the background before returning to that single note. 

Four songs in, "Afterimage" presents 22 minutes of improvisation which moves from loosely-structured and calm to free. It could be considered a break from the program but in other ways, the mood fits appropriately. Again, Eisenberg's guitar starts off in the distance, giving trumpeter Chris Williams and trombonist Zekereyya el-Magharbel much of the blowing space, before things open up. It's only on the penultimate track, "Viewfinder," that the guitar locks into a dirty skronk of a riff that feels like a signature Eisenberg sound (one that would be at home with Editrix, for instance). In between, they deliver a compelling blend of strings and vocals that present different nuances with each listen.  

If Viewfinder weren't enough, Eisenberg released two other albums this year - Accept When (Astral Spirits), a collaboration with saxophonist Caroline Davis, and If a Body Meet a Body, a trio album as part of Squanderers with David Grubbs and Kramer. 

 Here is a video of "Lasik" 

CD Review - Jeff Lederer - Guilty!!!

Jeff Lederer

Guilty!!!

(Little [i] Music) www.littleimusic.com

I hope Jeff Lederer is okay. He released this politically-charged, this-might-cost-me-some-fans-but-if-they-can-t-handle-it-screw-them album on October 7 (my birthday), commenting on the absurdity of the political climate, not limited the presidential race that was running whole hog at the time. Then a month later, the stupidity of the country reared its ugly head, assuring us the village might be burned in order to save it. What did Lederer think? And now, is he worried that The Man might come after him and this album?

The saxophonist is no stranger to wild concepts. In the past, Lederer has combined Albert Ayler compositions with sea shanties, to a rollicking effect. He also paired up songs from Ayler's infamous New Grass album with Shaker hymns on Heart Love (2018). Last year's Schoenberg On the Beach dug into the music of Arnold Schoenberg. Considering the year that 2024 was turning into, a set of politically-charged jazz tunes isn't out of the question.

Guilty!!! overflows with bold moves. They begin with the cover, an homage to Jackie McLean's 1965 Blue Note album It's Time! which had ten rows of exclamation points following the title. This one has the titular word written 34 times, one for each felony conviction that the current President-elect was handed earlier this year. That number continues in the title track, a composition co-written with trombonist Curtis Hasselbring, who transformed a recording of Adam Schiff reading the word 34 times, turning it into a melody. Unsettling and unnerving at first blush, once the ear knows what to expect, the focus shifts to the melodic introduction of the song and the groovy brass and sax horn tune that follows. The group can't resist repeating the 34 words again at the end, but they deliver it more like a Minor Threat lyric.

Samples of different members of Congress appear throughout the album, creating scenes that might be closer to Kramer's samples on early Bongwater albums than any jazz album. "Buttigieg vs. Sanders" includes both of those men, the tune reflecting on a time when both came close to getting a nomination a few elections ago. "Cheapening the Process" spears George Santos, "Deportation Operation" was inspired by a speech from our new leader and "We The People" draws from Senator Katie Britt's whispery, misleading rebuttal to President Biden's State of the Union. Though the voices play a big part of each track, they don't overshadow the music, which takes the idea of an acoustic brass (and reed) band to places where it rarely ventures. Stewart and Wilson create some steady foundations that give the horns a chance to go wild.

Along with the original musical commentary, Lederer also brings in a few non-originals with related issues. John Carter's "And She Speaks" touches on violence against Black woman, with some free vocals from Mary LaRose which feel a bit unsettling. Charles Mingus's "Fables of Faubus" updates the names of those who were speared in the lyrics, though LaRose, drummer Matt Wilson and the band come off a tad closer to a Wait Wait Don't Tell Me panel than a group of pissed off jazz musicians. (In other words, it's a little too lighthearted.) But the blowing can't be beat. 

The general tone of Guilty!!! places in league with other albums born during times of civil unrest. If it might not be quite as heavy as Max Roach's We Insist! Freedom Now Suite, the closing interpretation of Ayler's "Truth is Marching In," evokes another bold statement - Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra. That album closed with a one-chorus version of "We Shall Overcome," following a musical recreation of the chaotic Democratic Convention of 1968. The message was clear - at least to these ears: We're beaten down but we're not giving up. We shall overcome in the end. 

With "Truth Is Marching in" Lederer is delivering a similar message. Despite the bullshit out there, the truth will get us through, as long as we're willing to let it march in. Lederer and Knuffke intone the opening melody with Stewart and Hasselbring poking at it, and then Wilson leads the procession. 

Maybe this overstates the idea, but maybe the times call for it. 

Who knows, maybe Lederer could be our next president. I mean, if we learned anything this past November, it's that anyone can be president. 

CD Review: Peter Lenz - Breathe: Music for Large Ensembles

 

Peter Lenz 

Breathe: Music for Large Ensembles

(gamsbART) peterlenzmusic.bandcamp.com/album/breathe-music-for-large-ensembles

With 21 musicians under his direction, Peter Lenz exploits their sonic potential in the opening seconds of "Between Lines," the first track on Breathe. A broken chord begins in the upper range with trumpets and saxophones, spilling down slowly over a couple octaves to the trombones. Then drummer Jim Black goes into a joust with the ensemble, going wild over the stop-start horns that could accompany an onscreen slugfest (albeit one out of an episode of Batman perhaps), before everyone arrives at the song's theme. 

And that all takes place in the first 21 seconds. 

Lenz, known initially as a drummer who has lead the band Lithium, reveals a great amount of depth in writing for the orchestra (two tracks), chamber ensemble (one track) and big band (two). He makes sure that each section gets used appropriately, bringing distinct color to the composition and the nuances of his writing. The ensemble create a sound that feels both lush and aggressive as "Between Lines" builds to a climax where Keisuke Matsuno's guitar erupts in skronk, again driven by Black. 

The other orchestra piece, "Von Inneren Grenzen" ("of internal boundaries") is inspired by a 2015 refugee crisis in Europe and a Bertold Brecht poem. Lenz wrote original lyrics, sung by Efrat Alony in a manner that works more like another instrument, complementing the chords that the orchestra stacks up before Jacob Garchik (trombone) solos, with more guitar scrapes lurking beneath the surface.  

Of the two big band pieces, "Eleanor" borrows from the Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby" but skillfully avoids the pitfalls of most attempts at dressing up the Beatles in jazz clothes. Traces of the original melody surface early on, and might be missed. But when the song's original chorus comes out at the end, Lenz lets the natural pathos of the melody (and perhaps the memory of the lyrical storyline) carry it. 

The 15-minute title track could arguably be considered the album's centerpiece. A chamber ensemble of four strings, two reeds, trombone, bass and drums play the four-part work that combines Chris Speed's penetrating clarinet tone, ostinatos, bent notes that play up frequency vibrations, along with more tender moments. 

Breathe became a bit of a collaborative project with Lenz's wife Violeta Puerta Cana, who created illustrations for each composition, all included in the package. The album was recorded after Lenz had been diagnosed with cancer. Despite minimal rehearsal and a rush to get everything getting completed within a series of days, the players don't cut any corners. Here's hoping that Lenz will rebound, as he sounds like he's just getting warmed up with this type of work.