2013 jazz top 10

My 2013 jazz top 10 is live now at the Jazz Journalists Association site. My 2012 year-end jazz list was pretty extensive; this one is more concise, simply because I didn't spend as much time with new jazz, either on disc or out and about, as I did last year. That wasn't by design, or any indication of a large-scale shift in my tastes; jazz just wasn't as much where my listening brain was at during these past 12 months. That said: plenty of great records heard, and a handful of great shows witnessed, so let's talk about ’em.

(The Lloyd/Moran, Parks and Lonnie Smith albums aren't on Spotify; you can stream the other seven selections here.)

1. Black Host Life in the Sugar Candle Mines [Northern Spy]

I had high expectations for this record. I'd heard this band live two years back and was mightily intrigued. Life absolutely measures up. The Cleaver-as-a-leader discography is one of my favorite in contemporary jazz, and this is at least as strong a statement as Be It as I See It (discussed here). Probably stronger, because the personnel—Darius Jones, Brandon Seabrook, Cooper-Moore, Pascal Niggenkemper—is just so damn impressive. Serious kudos to Cleaver for figuring out a way to re-present the perennially underrated Cooper-Moore to the world. C-M's understated star turn on Life's concluding track, "May Be Home," is one of my favorite musical moments of the year. There's plenty of electrifying skronk on this record—some of which drags on a bit long for my tastes, that being the main reason this didn't crack my all-genres-in-play top 10—but the almost gospel-ish, soul-stirring element is what really draws me in. The quieter moments, such as the dreamy breakdown around 4:00 in "Hover," the heartbreakingly fragile "Citizen Rose" or the aforementioned "May Be Home" are pure bliss. For more on Life, see my Pitchfork review.

2. Charles Lloyd / Jason Moran Hagar's Song [ECM]

What a warm and sumptuous album this is. These two are just hanging out and playing great songs together. I'm a big fan of the Bandwagon, but I prefer Moran in a more unadorned setting, like this. There's no hook, no concept, just full engagement with the material. I'm currently revisiting one of my favorite tracks, "Bess, You Is My Woman Now," and Moran takes the most loving, unflashy solo, laying out the red carpet for Lloyd, whose presence throughout is, at the risk of sounding cliché, totally Zen-ed out. The epitome of a nothing-to-prove session. There's a little bit of modernist scrambling, but mostly this album is just songs (pop standards such as "God Only Knows" are treated as reverently as the jazz ones), with a bias toward luminous ballads. Absolutely fine by me. This is jazz you can really live with.

3. Aaron Parks Arborescence [ECM]

I would say the same of this album. I say, without shame, that both have served as cooking-dinner soundtracks for me. Is it doing a disservice to the deep beauty of Arborescence to say that it's ideal mood-setting music? I shy away from the idea of background music, but I wonder if the pianist himself would even take offense to that? He seems to really want to reach his audience here. These are mostly improvised pieces; to my ear, they're unrepentantly pretty and more classical-ish than jazzy. It's strange, but in a way, my experience of Arborescence is what I imagine the experience of The Köln Concert to be. I've never spent good time with that legendary record—no bias; I just haven't gotten around to the Jarrett solo repertoire in general—but judging by everything I've heard about Köln, Arborescence is, at least niche-wise if not style-wise, the same kind of piano record. One that, in theory, anyone could enjoy, and one that a purist might see fit to frown upon. Sometimes Arborescence is so wispy and drawn out that it almost seems to disappear, but there's real power in that ephemerality. You sit with this and you marvel at Parks's ability to simply make music, and to do so selflessly enough to make it so universal. It's hard to imagine an ear that doesn't crane toward this music as to soft morning sunlight, as mine is doing right now as I revisit it.

4. David Ake Bridges [Posi-Tone]

For me, the jazz writer of the year was Phil Freeman. He covered more of the music, in a more genuinely useful way—i.e., a way that made you want to seek out the sounds—than anyone else I read in 2013. Phil's year-end jazz round-up is essential; among the records he cited there, I got particularly into David Ake's Bridges, which I checked out a while back after reading this Burning Ambulance post. Bridges is one of those somewhat rare sessions where, going in, I'd never heard of the leader but I knew most of the other players well. The lineup is stellar—trumpeter Ralph Alessi, saxists Peter Epstein and Ravi Coltrane, bassist Scott Colley and drummer Mark Ferber—but it's what Ake, a pianist, does with the personnel that makes this album work. The compositions are maybe the tightest, most intricate and most memorable that I've heard on a jazz album this year. Ake leaves space for his sidemen to speak up—I'm listening to a great Colley solo, with commentary from Alessi, on the track "Sonomads"—but what you'll remember are these beautifully arranged, little-big-band themes, executed in a modern postbop style. Phil cited a minimalism influence, and I can definitely hear that, combined with the lusher, more meticulous end of the mid-’60s Blue Note sound—maybe a little bit of Dimensions and Extensions or The All-Seeing Eye, though Bridges is lighter in tone, funkier and more approachable, in a way that sometimes reminds me of Ravi Coltrane's own 2012 date Spirit Fiction (discussed here), which also features Alessi. Sometimes the mood gets greasier, slurrier, such as on the raucous and bluesy "Year in Review," where—as often happens on the album—the horns solo in unison. Even there, though, there's such a wonderful sense of order to this record, of a leader taking the time not only to assemble a great band but also to put together a compelling context for them to work within. I'd recommend this to any fan of well-made, composer-centric but also player-friendly small-group jazz.

5. Aaron Diehl The Bespoke Man's Narrative [Mack Avenue]

Same deal here, but in a more consciously retro idiom. As with the Aaron Parks above, I can think back to a time when I might have found a session like this—one that, God forbid, dares to hark back to that age-old connection between jazz and snappy dressing—distasteful. Now I find it to be the opposite. Anyone who writes this off due to the cover art is going to be missing on a gorgeous record. Steve Smith likened the concept here to the Modern Jazz Quartet, and he's right: That similarity is inescapable, given the piano-vibes-bass-drums instrumentation and almost obsessive polish and elegance on display in the playing and composition. But if there's retro-ness at play here, it's the most lived-in, un-gimmicky kind. There is such a nothing-to-prove quality about a piece like "Blue Nude" here; as with the Lloyd/Moran above—note that Bespoke also includes a marvelous version of "Bess, You Is My Woman Now"—Diehl just wants to play songs, to swing crisply, muse tastefully, give you a good feeling while at the same time presenting a striking portrait of who he is as a bandleader. You could hear, say, this group's reading of "Moonlight in Vermont" in passing and think it was merely "right," in the not-a-hair-out-of-place sense, but as with the MJQ, you listen closely and you're blown away by the unassuming skill, shrewdness, loving care of it all. Diehl's solo version of Ellington's "Single Petal of a Rose," burrows a little deeper; the ballads on Hagar's Song are astonishing in their unhurried composure, but this might even be more so. This record radiates love and care, for the material, yes, but also for the listener. Diehl wants to make you comfortable, not as an end in itself, but so that he can move you. The Bespoke Man's Narrative is radical in its sheer composure.

6. Matthew Shipp Piano Sutras [Thirsty Ear]

We think of Matthew Shipp as an avant-garde guy, someone on the opposite end of the spectrum from an immaculately groomed, Juilliard-trained, J@LC–anointed (complete with Wynton co-sign and Crouch liner notes) prodigy such as Diehl. And, to judge by Shipp's pugilistic stance toward the jazz maintream, he thinks of himself that way. But strip away the rhetoric and you're left with an aesthetic that's plenty approachable, plenty jazzy and, as heard on Piano Sutras, really, really satisfying. For one thing, Shipp takes the trouble to make records, as such. He's no Cecil Taylor, who for roughly the past 35 years has released almost exclusively live records, or rather others have released them. Taylor seems to have very little regard for how his music is consumed after it's made; Shipp, on the other hand, seems to only be getting better at plotting out programs that his listeners can genuinely engage with. Piano Sutras is a collection of 13 short-ish pieces. Aside from the standards, I'm not sure which are based on preconceived ideas and which were improvised on the spot, but each one seems to have a strong center and purpose—we're not just listening to Shipp jam. There are some tracks on this record that set a killer mood, that make essentially abstract, solo, sort-of-jazz piano seem like the same thing as songwriting: "Space Bubble" captures that crystalline sense of mystery that I associate with my favorite Shipp recordings (New Orbit, e.g.); "Blue Orbit" does sound like a blues, but refracted beautifully through the Shipp prism; "Cosmic Dust" comes off like a tug-of-war between Taylor and Andrew Hill. And then there are the standards, which strike me as deeply generous. I know that's a weird word to use, but the 71-second "Giant Steps" is just pure nourishing gorgeousness. "Nefertiti" is little more diffuse, but again, this is no deconstruction of, no attack on a chestnut; like the "Giant Steps," and like all great interpretations of standards, it's a celebration of the raw material. Overall, Piano Sutras is as warmly swinging as it is mad-scientist demented (see esp. "Cosmic Shuffle," which perfectly illustrates the tension between those two currents in Shipp's playing); it can be difficult, but generally, it meets you halfway. In that sense, I think Shipp has more in common with Hill than with Taylor. Thinking of Shipp as merely an iconoclast, whose output is as forbidding as his verbal critiques, does him a disservice. I like Piano Sutras because it's a record of weird solo piano that nevertheless invites you in.

7. Dr. Lonnie Smith Octet In the Beginning, Vols. 1 and 2 [Pilgrimage]

The second release from this veteran organist's own label, Pilgrimage, and the follow-up to a highly enjoyable trio set that made my jazz honorable-mentions list for 2012. Frequently, this record is the epitome of what you might estimate it to be: an exemplary soul-jazz set in the mode that Smith helped to perfect. Then, suddenly, when the leader goes off on one of his skipping-record excursions, wiggling his fingers relentlessly between two notes, or holding down a chord so long that it starts to feel like a laser beam of joy aimed at your skull, you start to realize that you're glimpsing the infinite. The band is pure fire and focus, whether the mode on display is crackling hardbop ("Turning Point"), strutting funk ("Move Your Hand," which features a beautiful Smith lead vocal) or pensive balladry ("In the Beginning"). The other soloists are generally strong; the arrangements, by saxist-flutist Ian Hendrickson-Smith; and the rhythm section—with guitarist Ed Cherry and drummer Jonathan Blake—kicks a great deal of ass. But the glory of this set is the leader himself, how hard he pushes, how, with each solo, he erases the line between music for your body and music for your spirit. You rarely hear a man so clearly convinced that his chosen instrument is a vehicle for transcendence, even salvation. Let's let Smith have the last word, via a quote from Ted Panken's informative liner notes: "I always say that the Hammond has all the elements in the world to me—the thunder and the lightning and the rainbow, the feel of the earth, the sun, the moon, the water."

8. Kirk Knuffke Chorale [SteepleChase]

I've dug cornetist's Kirk Knuffke's playing whenever I've heard him live, with bands like Ideal Bread or Merger (discussed here), as well as on recent records like Federico Ughi's self-titled quartet album, Max Johnson's Elevated Vegetation and the collaborative trio Sifter. I think Chorale is the first record I'd heard under Knuffke's own name. He's been making a bunch of cool CDs for the venerable SteepleChase label—including various collaborations with pianist Jesse Stacken—that I really need to take a closer look at, but Chorale grabbed me instantly, largely because I'm a complete sucker for anything with Billy Hart on it. Because of the unmistakable presence of Hart's drumming, its authority and weight—even when he's barely playing—he's going to be more or less a co-leader in any band in which he appears. That's definitely the case here, but Hart isn't dominating. The great thing is, no one is. Knuffke is a wonderfully patient, lyrical player, who's seemingly obsessed with the simple beauty of the line. You'll sometimes hear him going for slight timbral distortions, but mostly he's just singing, softly yet forcefully. He's not coming to the table on Chorale with a huge amount of compositional baggage. He seems to want to simply mix it up with the wonderful band he's assembled, which also includes pianist Russ Lossing and bassist Michael Formanek. What they're playing is a kind of cool-toned free jazz. In pieces like "Made," the musicians are jumping from one lily pad to the next, unbound by meter, but the interplay is so right-on—each player seeming so willing to help the others, as well as the overall sound, along. Sometimes the sound is more traditional, like on the gentle postbop dance "Standing," but the band maintains its wonderfully plush feel. Listening back now, I'm starting to hear the whole group concept of this record as an extension of Knuffke's songful cornet style, a style so self-assured that he doesn't have to raise his voice. There's not a lot of overt heat on Chorale, but the mojo bubbling beneath the surface is formidable. Like Hart, the rest of the players here know how to make their mark on a session simply by speaking clearly as themselves.

9. Harris Eisenstadt September Trio The Destructive Element [Clean Feed]

The Destructive Element is slightly heavier on the compositional emphasis than Chorale, i.e., the specific pieces here stand out as much as the overall feel, where on the Knuffke I tend to come away savoring the latter. As I indicated on last year's jazz recap, which featured a pair of new Harris Eisenstadt records (I think these were the third and fourth Eisenstadt albums that have turned up in my year-end coverage in recent years), I'm consistently impressed by this drummer-composer's ability to build bands that matter, that have something to say. A lot of jazz musicians are really fond of hatching projects, period. It's not always clear why a given composer/conceptualist feels the constant need to found their various ventures. But with Eisenstadt, I always feel like I understand why this group needs to be playing this music. That's really the case in the repertoire of the September Trio, which features two extraordinary players: pianist Angelica Sanchez and saxophonist Ellery Eskelin. I remember liking this band's self-titled 2011 debut, but I think this is better. The compositions on The Destructive Element seem to me to be Eisenstadt's love letters to his collaborators. He really seems to be working hard to give them what they need compositionally to be themselves as players. There are few things I've heard on record this year as beautiful as the ballad "Back and Forth"—Sanchez and Eisenstadt marching steadily forward as Eskelin emotes in that passion-packed yet anti-histrionic style of his. "Swimming, Then Rained Out"—an almost gospel-ish slow-burner—is another piece with the same kind of unassuming authority. All three of these players are known for venturing into various sorts of free-jazz territory, and there is a bit of hectic scramble on this record (e.g., the brief improv episodes that fall between the signpost theme statements in "Additives"). But gorgeousness is, I'd say, the chief imperative. There is so much pleasure and care and warmth and soul in these pieces—Eisenstadt working hard for Sanchez and Eskelin, and them working hard for him in turn. This isn't an all-ballads program, like they used to make back in the day, but it's definitely oriented that way, and it has the same spirit, i.e., "This is the vibe we're going to be working with, so get on board with it." I really admire that commitment, and I find myself wishing that this band would go even further in that direction on their next effort. Few working jazz groups I can think of have a more affecting, unpretentious way of singing a song together.

10. Kris Davis Massive Threads [Thirsty Ear]

This was a serious year for solo piano. In addition to Massive Threads, you've got the Parks and Shipp albums above, and a few other acclaimed discs—by Myra Melford, Bobby Avey, Geri Allen (hers was mostly solo, some duo)—that sounded intriguing to me on a first spin but that I didn't get a chance to put in good time with. This might be the most challenging of the whole crop. What I like about Massive Threads is that it sounds genuinely experimental, i.e., like a document of fresh ideas being road-tested, without coming off as ponderous. The first piece, "Ten Exorcists," is a study in what sounds like prepared-piano minimalism; I'm not sure if Davis is actually placing objects inside the piano, or simply muting the hammers with her fingers, but the net effect is something like a mini tuned-percussion orchestra. It's technically impressive, but why it works is that it sounds genuinely curious—like Davis is excited to share what she's found, rather than austerely demonstrating some rarefied technique. I feel the same of "Dancing Marlins," where she seems to really be getting down to basics with the piano, reveling in it as a sound generator, rather than an instrument with all this heavy tradition behind it. On a piece like this, she sounds almost playful, but there's clearly a heavy thought going into these exursions, as though she'd spent days and weeks homing in on a specific area of inquiry before tossing away the blueprints and hitting record. Like Craig Taborn—and I think of Massive Threads as a cousin to his Avenging Angel (discussed here), in a way—Davis is clearly a player of frighteningly advanced technique who often seems utterly ambivalent about showing it off. The idea is primary, the sense of chasing down some weird sound zone—cornering it, dissecting it, finally inhabiting it. These players are poker-faced; they can verge on Cecil Taylor's density and destabilization, but the torrential outbursts he's famous for aren't their style. With Taborn and Davis, there's more the sense that, yes, they could slay you at any moment, but they'd rather keep you, and themselves, in infinite suspense. You get on their wavelength or you turn the record off; it's that simple. As intimidating as that sounds, there's a deep, human pleasure in listening to Davis live with these ideas. "Desolation and Despair" (what a title!)—just crawling, limping along, but not maudlin or emotionally showy. She's seeking stillness on Massive Threads, just as much as she's seeking herky-jerky mobility on some of the other pieces. As with Taborn, whatever the area of inquiry, Davis is going to get to the very bottom of it, at her own pace. And that's a thrilling thing to witness.

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There are a bunch of other 2013 jazz records that I dug and hope to be able to spend more time with. These include the two Ethan Iverson–plus-contemporaries-and-veteran sessions (Tootie's Tempo, Costumes Are Mandatory), Tarbaby's Ballad of Sam Langford, Hush Point's self-titled debut, Dan Tepfer and Ben Wendel's Small Constructions and Dave Holland's Prism.

But the one formal honorable mention I feel like I need to make is of Ben Allison's The Stars Look Very Different Today, an album that came out recently and only made its greatest impact on me once I'd already filed my 2013 jazz ballot. I'm not sure that this one would've ended up displacing anything listed above, but I still probably would've given the matter serious thought if I'd had another couple weeks. Like Eisenstadt, Ben Allison has shown up on my end-of-year jazz list before; I loved Action-Refraction from 2011. I think Stars might be better. Allison is the kind of composer-bandleader that always seems to be heading further from jazz, per se, and nearer to his own personal soundworld. On The Stars, he's firmly in his own space. The instrumentation—Brandon Seabrook (it's great to compare his work here with that on the Black Host record, btw) and Steve Cardenas on wonderfully complementary guitars, and Allison Miller on drums—helps to give the record its individualized feel, but it's also the writing and the thrust of the performances. I've placed so much emphasis above on the idea of song. I have no problem repeating myself, because it so pleases me to hear a band zeroing in on that notion and getting it right. The songs here are magical—"Neutron Star," a sort of psychedelic roots-rock theme, is one of my favorite pieces of music of the year. There's great soloing on The Stars, but when I reflect on it, I think of a band laboring intensely in the pursuit of Allison's beautiful writing. Such that when they improvise, it's more like embellishment rather than departure. The thing is the singing of these wordless reveries, and the little mini idiom Allison has created here, this sort of folksy, funky, emotive, spacey-textured wordless pop that he's focusing on. He seems to want the instrumentation and the material to exist in perfect balance, so that you don't hear jazz, you hear these themes, and underlying them, the personal signatures of himself and his collaborators. I wish all "jazz" felt this personal, this generous, this simultaneously unfamiliar and inviting.

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My favorite historical releases (reissues/unearthings) of 2013 were:

Miles Davis The Bootleg Series, Volume 2: Live in Europe 1969 [Columbia/Legacy] 
Pitchfork review here.

New York Art Quartet call it art [Triple Point]
Thoughts here.


Woody Shaw The Complete Muse Sessions [Mosaic]
I'm slowly making my way through this set, and it's sounding excellent—an important document of a period (mostly ’74–’87) that's a blank spot on many jazz maps, and was on mine until not that long ago. One session that blows my mind is the December ’65 date Shaw originally recorded for Blue Note—Wikipedia says it was a demo tape; the Mosaic liners say that Alfred Lion intended to release it but backed out after he sold the company. Anyway, those five tracks are as good as you'd hope/expect given the vintage and the personnel: Joe Henderson and Joe Chambers, along with either Larry Young (on piano rather than organ, a month after the great Unity, which features Shaw and Henderson) and Ron Carter, or Herbie Hancock and Paul Chambers. I'm curious to know how Woody Shaw's general stature in jazz would look if this album had come out on Blue Note at the time it was made. Anyway, point is, it's great, and I can't wait to spend more time with this set as a whole. (Speaking of Mosaic, I really want to get my hands on that Clifford Jordan box, as well.)


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On the live front, my favorite jazz performances of the year were:

1.11.13
Eric Revis, Kris Davis and Andrew Cyrille at Winter Jazzfest
Thoughts here.

3.22.13
A Tribute to Paul Motian at Symphony Space
Thoughts here.

10.5.13
McCoy Tyner, Gary Bartz and Co. at the Blue Note
Thoughts here.

9.21.13
9.28.13
12.6.13
Milford Graves with, respectively, Evan Parker, John Zorn and Joe Lovano, at, respectively, the Stone, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Stone.
Thoughts here.

I also loved seeing Black Host at Seeds (May 29) and Roy Haynes at the Blue Note (June 27).

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P.S. Aside from Phil Freeman's excellent jazz round-up, linked above, I've really enjoyed perusing the latest installment of Francis Davis's annual Jazz Critics Poll (plus the always-fascinating data breakdown by Tom Hull), as well as Seth Colter Walls's Rhapsody list, and Ben Ratliff and Nate Chinen's jazz-heavy NYT top 10s.

Best of 2012: Jazz, part III

Here's the third and final installment of my 2012 jazz round-up. Complete, unannotated list is here, part I and an intro are here, and part II is here. And here's a thematically fitting bonus track: my Pitchfork review of the new Mingus box set on Mosaic. All-genres-in-play year-end lists coming soon!


Jim Black Trio
Somatic [Winter and Winter]

David Virelles
Continuum [Pi Recordings]

Grouping these two together might be a little bit of a stretch, but I think it makes sense. At heart, they're both unconventional piano-trio records that work hard to sustain a particular mood/feel over their respective running times.

I remember receiving a download of Somatic about a year ago, right in the middle of the 2011 year-end-list frenzy. Right from the first spin, I really enjoyed it, but I was worried that it would get lost in the shuffle as the year progressed; albums that come out early in January often do. (Though, interestingly, the album that ended up topping my 2012 all-genres-in-play list—to be revealed in due time—is also a record I've had my hands on since the very beginning of the year.) Fortunately, this did not occur. I saw a very good show by this band at Cornelia Street Café in February, and the record stuck with me pretty stubbornly throughout the year.

So what is Somatic, exactly? Jim Black is a musician I've come around to gradually. I first heard him at Tonic with Dave Douglas's Tiny Bell Trio, probably around 1999 or 2000, and soon after that I ran into him on records by Tim Berne's Bloodcount. I wasn't in love with his drumming at that time. I respected the skill, but the aesthetic didn't click with me; something about the way he was channeling rock seemed sort of like a knowing paraphrase rather than the result of true, head-on engagement, and I found his signature idiosyncrasies, both timbral and rhythmic, a little distracting. But as I heard more of Black's work over the years—especially the gorgeous records he made with his AlasNoAxis band (e.g., Houseplant), on which he did an awesome job of getting out of the way of his own compositions and simply letting them speak—I really turned around on him. Jim Black, the composer-bandleader, appealed to me much more than Jim Black, the sideman.

With Somatic, I think he's reached a new peak. He's stripping the aesthetic down to the bone here, uncluttering it in an admirable way. AlasNoAxis retained that rockish feel via Hilmar Jensson's guitar and the backbeat feel of some of the grooves, but that kind of allusion is less apparent here. This set of pieces feels entirely secure within itself; listening, you're not preoccupied with what the influences might have been. So yes, as I mentioned above, this is a piano trio record: Black, plus bassist Thomas Morgan and pianist Elias Stemeseder (a young Austrian player whose name is new to me). The writing is just remarkable. You get these simple, folksy, memorable themes, such as "Uglysnug" and "Terrotow," which gets stuck in my head constantly, and a bunch of moodier, more troubled-, pensive-sounding ones—like opener "Tahre" and "Chibi Jones"—and then some, like "Somatic," that seem to combine those two sensations. A lot of slow, extremely chilled-out music here, but unpredictable and unboring. "Somatic" is a good illustration of what's so compelling about this record; the composition is sort of lilting and catchy, but the playing is teeming with strange detail. Black, Morgan and Stemeseder are having a real Bill Evans Trio kind of group conversation here, drifting in and out of in-time playing, just sort of flowing where the piece takes them. This record isn't just my favorite example to date of Jim Black's writing; it might be my favorite example of his drumming as well. On "Somatic," he seems to be going for an unbelievably subtle version of the Tony Williams–on-"Nefertiti" thing, i.e., a sort of constructive disruption. The trademark sounds of his kit, those dry cymbals, the splatty bass drum, and the strange, slurred time feel—here you hear all this in a quiet and composed setting. The improvisation does threaten to heat up at times, but it's all so dynamically controlled, so essentially balladic.

This trio doesn't sound anything like the Motian/Frisell/Lovano band, but there's a similar kind of murky, liquid lyricism at work here—an experimentalism that has no time for obvious signifiers. A few pieces on the record veer off in other directions—the postboppish "Sure Are You," one of the only tracks here with what I'd describe as a jazzy rhythmic feel, and the tumbling, prog-funky "Beariere"—but overall, Somatic is a pretty remarkable feat of sustained moodcraft. If you like your jazz reflective, with a little stimulating yet unobtrusive weirdness around the edges, you will eat this record up. Every time I put it on, I feel like I've previously underestimated how good it is.



Again, David Virelles's Continuum—a very different record. Jim Black is a veteran compared to Virelles, whose name I've only started seeing around over the past couple of years. When I noticed that this Cuban pianist's working band, also called Continuum, featured Andrew Cyrille on drums—as well as Ben Street, also a member of the Billy Hart Quartet discussed in part II of this round-up—I was instantly intrigued. Cyrille's been doing awesome work in Bill McHenry's band over the past couple years (check out the recent La Peur du Vide), and he sounds incredible on Continuum. (I've written before about intergenerational jazz bands designed to showcase the work of an older drummer; you can add Virelles trio to that list.)

As Ben Ratliff pointed out in his review, Continuum is a multimedia presentation, in which Román Díaz's chant and even Alberto Lescay's painting play a central role. While I've come to enjoy those elements—and I'll admit that Díaz's vocals took some getting used to—the sound of the piano trio at the core of this ensemble is what's kept me coming back to Continuum. I love the way Virelles, Street and Cyrille groove on the funky dervish dance "The Executioner"—Díaz's subtle Afro-Cuban percussion is key here too—working up to a tense climax and giving way to a masterfully textural Cyrille solo. Some of the other pieces go for pure texture; "Threefold" is a super-quiet masterpiece, an abstracted ballad, in which Virelles and Street leave tons of space for Cyrille's pinging cymbals and rustling brush-on-snare work.

The record can be a little disorienting, since the group's approach mutates constantly; almost every piece seems to have a different sonic objective. After a few spins, though, I started to embrace the variety. This is a record that ranges from "Manongo Pablo," essentially a nimble, uptempo Cyrille drum solo set against Virelles's spacey, almost psychedelic Wurlitzer, to "Our Birthright," where a Díaz recitation over hushed accompaniment from the trio gradually transitions into a passionate, spirit-raising free-jazz episode, featuring guest horn players Román Filiú, Mark Turner and Jonathan Finlayson. (During this latter section, you really hear how valuable Cyrille is to the session; when the other players dial up the intensity, he keeps his volume and density carefully controlled, assuring that the crescendo doesn't turn into a cacophonous blowout.)

While I look forward to spending more time with Continuum, I'm not sure I'll ever understand fully what Virelles is going for here. In the liner notes, he writes about the Afro-Cuban religious practices that inspired the record, discussing the "highly complex cosmologies" that guide them and the way Díaz's verse weaves together Spanish with the "ritual languages" of Karabali, Kongo and Yorùbá-Lucumí. No translations of any of the text are provided, so in a sense, any listener not steeped in these traditions is kept deliberately on the outside. It's an intriguing and, in a weird way, almost refreshing way to present a record, i.e., clue the listener in slightly to the concepts guiding the work but don't overexplain. The result is that Continuum scans like a mystery rather than some sort of context-laden cross-cultural artifact. It's fascinating stuff.

Note that this band plays Drom tonight. They're also at the Village Vanguard from January 29 through February 3, with Filiú guesting Friday to Sunday and none other than Henry Threadgill (!) sitting in on Thursday.

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Henry Threadgill Zooid
Tomorrow Sunny / The Revelry, Spp [Pi Recordings]

As discussed on DFSBP a couple weeks back, I recently had a bit of a moment with Threadgill's three most recent Zooid releases, developing a new appreciation for the band's sound—and the ways in which it diverges from H.T.'s "classic" work. The postscript marked "Update" there features some in-the-moment impressions of this latest Zooid record, which welcomes cellist Christopher Hoffman to the fold, so I won't go into too much detail here. Tomorrow Sunny doesn't differ wildly from the bands prior two LPs—Vols. 1 and 2 of This Brings Us To—but you can hear a progression in terms of the band's deep-listening interaction. The group dynamic on tracks like "So Pleased, No Clue"—one of the sparser, shorter, less groove-oriented pieces—is stunningly sensitive. You really hear the players breathing together, completing each other's sentences, coexisting, collaboratively coaxing out the ensemble sound. In the post linked above, I wrote about how Zooid's music isn't the kind that comes to you; you have to meet it on its own terms. But once you're there—and for me, that meant shedding my desire for big, bold, super-memorable ensemble themes, so prevalent in older Threadgill—this is a very pleasurable, even sensuous record and probably my favorite Zooid statement yet.

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Joe Fiedler
Big Sackbut [Yellow Sound Label]

I don't know too much about the trombonist Joe Fiedler, but I have enjoyed the last couple of albums of his I've checked out: 2007's The Crab and last year's Sacred Chrome Orb, both lean trio discs geared toward showcasing the leader's charming compositions and impressive command of odd timbral effects. Big Sackbut debuts a very different project, a World Saxophone Quartet–style four-piece with three trombones (Fiedler, Ryan Keberle and Josh Roseman) and one tuba (Marcus Rojas. I like the more extroverted tracks on here, e.g. Fieder's "Mixed Bag" and a take on Willie Colon's "Calle Luna, Calle Sol," but the more measured, reflective pieces ("#11," "Don Pullen") impress me the most. For me, the real hurdle a project like this has to clear is "Does the music transcend the eccentricity of the ensemble make-up?," and I'd answer a definite yes with respect to this record. Enjoyable stuff, especially for the brass-inclined.

Here's a clip of the group doing "Calle Luna, Calle Sol" live in 2010.

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Yoni Kretzmer 2Bass Quartet
Weight [OutNow]

Another one that foregrounds an unusual ensemble make-up. Here, I'd heard everyone but the leader—Israeli tenor-saxist Yoni Kretzmer—going in; the rest of the band—bassist Sean Conly and Reuben Radding, and drummer Mike Pride—are all NYC stalwarts.  There's definitely a gritty, post-Ayler quality to Weight, but that's only a fraction of what's going on here. Kretzmer has a very classic tenor sound, raspy yet melodic—I believe I cited Dewey Redman in one of the prior write-ups; I think of him here too—and a sometimes borderline-sentimental compositional sense; on pieces like "Giving Tree," and "A Bit of Peace," these qualities clash fruitfully with the grittiness of the improvising. This push-and-pull keeps me interested. I'm all for the backbeat-driven meltdown at the beginning of "Again and Again," but I'm even more intrigued by the way the dynamics dip down to ballad level instead of continuing to blare. "Smallone," a measured interlude that sets Kretzmer against the two plucked basses and Pride's tasteful brushwork, is another standout. As with the Threadgill record, Kretzmer really lets you hear every player in the band; it's a beautifully recorded disc, and its greatest pleasure is hearing the group members carrying on a lively yet expertly controlled conversation, e.g., on a track like the sing-songy "A Bit of Peace." Everyone's really listening, here and throughout the album.



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Ted Nash
The Creep [Plastic Sax]

I'd never really checked out Ted Nash's work before this year. One of the most welcome side benefits of researching my Jazz Composers Collective profile a couple months back was getting to know various Nash projects like the Double Quartet, Still Evolved and Odeon. As with the Fiedler and Kretzmer records above, some of this past Nash work—e.g., the tango-inspired Odeon and the string-quartet-augmented Double Quartet—thrives on unconventional ensemble make-up. The Creep is something different, though. It's simply a scrappy, hard-swinging quartet record, driven by Ulysses Owens's ass-kicking drumming and the stimulating warm-cool contrast between Nash's saxophone and Ron Horton's trumpet. Much like the Dolphy/Curson/Mingus/Richmond band, this group gets a ton of mileage out of its stripped-down instrumentation, emphasizing density or sparseness, abandon or control as the situation demands. Check out "Burnt Toast and Avocado" and "Plastic Sax Lullaby" in succession and you'll see what I mean. Nash has cited Ornette (particularly his use of a plastic saxophone) as an inspiration for this record, but to continue with our overriding theme, The Creep is another no-school jazz statement. It simply does its thing (many things, really) and leaves the classification up to the listener.




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Jeremy Pelt 
Soul [HighNote]

Hat-tip to Phil Freeman for turning me on to this one. I knew Pelt's name, but little else about him, going in. I was intrigued by the idea of hearing JD Allen and Gerald Cleaver in a new context, and I wasn't disappointed at all. This is a low-key and unassuming session, ballad-heavy, clearly indebted to ’60s Blue Note fare—esp. moody Wayne Shorter records like Speak No Evil—and gorgeously recorded. (Pelt's site says that Rudy Van Gelder himself engineered this one, though, oddly, Joe Marciano's name is listed on the CD itself.)  It's a throwback record, but it's not slavish in the slightest, and the playing is outstanding, whether on the more freewheeling, uptempo tracks like "What's Wrong Is Wright" or "The Tempest"—both of these have a pretty strong mid-to-late-’60s-Miles-quintet vibe going on, with Cleaver clearly mining a Tony Williams vibe on the latter, and sounding great—or whispery slow pieces like "The Ballad of Ichabod Crane." The latter piece exemplifies one of Soul's most appealing qualities, its ability to convey chill-ness without sleepiness; in the end, this is a fairly straightforward record, but there's enough intrigue and conviction in the playing that it doesn't feel rote. Playing this again now, though, I'm reminded by its subtle magnetism—I'll definitely be returning to this one, and keeping an eye out for future Pelt releases.

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Ralph Peterson 
The Duality Perspective [Onyx]

As with Soul, I woke up to this one after reading another writer's take, in this case Ben Ratliff's review. And again, I'm very thankful for the heads-up, since I wasn't familiar with Peterson's prior work. Part of what intrigued me in the Times write-up was the description of the Fo'tet—one of two bands featured on this record—a quartet with clarinet, vibes and bass. (The sidemen are Felix Peikli, Joseph Doubleday and Alexander L.J. Tosh, respectively—all new names to me.) The combination of clarinet and vibes is one I've loved since I first heard the ’30s Benny Goodman Quartet back in college—got a nice opportunity to binge on these sides during WKCR's recent Teddy Wilson centennial marathon—and though the Fo'tet is no Swing Era throwback, the texture of the band does hint at the crisp, fresh, chamber-jazzy interplay of Goodman and Lionel Hampton. To me, this group sounds best playing more or less straightforward postbop, as on album opener "One False Move." What I like about this piece, and "Princess" as well, is the contrast between the cool sound of the clarinet-vibes frontline—and I mean that more texturally, since Peikli is a daring and passionate soloist—and Peterson's busy, churning accompaniment. He's got a rumbling, Elvin Jones quality to his swing, and he certainly smacks the kit from time to time, but his dynamics are impressively controlled; he's driving the band without overdoing it. I'd have to agree with Ratliff's assessment of the record's latter half, which features Peterson's sextet ("The sextet has its moments, but it deals in more weighed-down and conventional moods and doesn’t have as recognizable a group sound," he wrote). The title track—a lushly orchestrated ballad—is a definite winner, though: a strong showcase for Peterson's writing/arranging, that muscular yet sensitive drumming style I mentioned above and the appealing two-sax frontline of Walter Smith III and Tia Fuller. I look forward to hearing more from Peterson, especially the Fo'tet.


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Eric Revis's 11:11
Parallax [Clean Feed]

Was a little apprehensive about including this one on my year-end list, mainly because it only showed up in the mail a few days before I filed. But I knew that (A) the band featured here—the sidemen are Ken Vandermark, Jason Moran and Nasheet Waits—was too special to overlook and that (B) the record wasn't really going to be eligible for 2013 consideration. Definitely still digesting this one, so my impressions are a little sketchy. But I will tentatively say that Parallax lives up to my high expectations. (I remember seeing this band listed on the Jazz Gallery schedule a few years back, and after missing that gig, I eagerly awaited a recording.) Revis is, in his own way, one of the most eclectic players I know. I've been seriously impressed by his playing with Tarbaby, Bill McHenry's current working quartet, Peter Brötzmann (the 2011 Vision Festival featured a Revis / Brötzmann / William Parker trio), and Branford Marsalis—a pretty wide range of contexts—and I remember really digging his last leader record, Laughter's Necklace of Tears, when I checked it out a while back.

Like that LP, Parallax is an eclectic and challenging set. Revis doesn't just put together bands and let them rip; he assembles real programs' worth of music. This album features muscular, trancelike solo bass ("Percival," e.g.); dramatic, tightly orchestrated pieces like "Dark Net" and "MXR," which almost come off as proggy chamber jazz; entropic yet sensitive free-jazz pieces ("I'm Going to Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter," "Celestial Hobo," "ENKJ") that really show off the potent group dynamic this quartet has achieved; and at least one piece ("Winin' Boy Blues") that sounds like a riff on the kind of stylized retro vibe that Moran and Waits often explore in the Bandwagon. Skimming back through the tracks now, I'm realizing that I can't wait to give this record a few more focused spins. Revis has put together a fascinating group here—one that can breathe free-form fire when called upon to do so, e.g., "Hyperthral," or groove hard and tough, e.g., "Split"—and he really seems to be wringing all the potential he can out of these players.




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Harris Eisenstadt
Canada Day III [Songlines]

  










Canada Day Octet [482 Music]

Harris Eisenstadt has been a mainstay of my year-end lists over the past few years—I particularly dug 2008's Guewel and 2010's Woodblock Prints. He's prolific, but he's always worth checking in with. I'd overlooked Eisenstadt's Canada Day band in the past, maybe because it's his most conventional-sounding ensemble, a quintet with saxophone, trumpet, vibes and bass. As with previous Canada Day releases, the writing on III is very clean, clear and lyrical, sometimes with a shade of playful quirk.  The pieces seem designed to show off the sidemen, specifically the extraordinary frontline of saxist Matt Bauder and trumpeter Nate Wooley; both can veer into abstract/abrasive territory—fans of Wooley's work in freer contexts will recognize what he's up to on "Nosey Parker"—but what impresses me most here is when they're playing in this sort of soft, murmuring style—as on "Song for Sara"—and mingling their sounds with Chris Dingman's vibes. It's a very pleasant and accessible group texture, but far from conventional, which seems to be a hallmark of Eisenstadt's work overall. Don't meant to short-shrift the Canda Day Octet record record when I say that it's more or less a companion piece. Eisenstadt's writing for this expanded group is just as sharp as it is for the core band—the multipart "Ombudsman" suite, which really takes advantage of the larger ensemble, is magical—and again, Bauder, Wooley and Dingman are the stars here. Both these discs are highly recommended.

Here's some live footage of the octet.


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40Twenty  
40Twenty [Yeah Yeah]

David Ambrosio has shown up a couple times on this list already, on the Schuller and Yamamoto records, and the other three here are familiar names, all of whom lead their own projects. (Garchik's The Heavens is definitely one to check out.) This is a subtle one that I might have overlooked if it wasn't for Nate Chinen's recent shout-out. I like how this record manages to sound both weird and composed at the same time, as when the band plays an expertly controlled form of free jazz on Ambrosio's "One Five," or a slurry Monkish march on Sacks's "Jan 20." With only trombone in the frontline, the group has a kind of drollness about it, a vibe that's also reinforced in the writing, but there's some really heated, energized playing on tracks like Garchik's "Gi." Like many of the other projects on this list, 40Twenty is taking what it needs from various jazz strains without aligning itself to any of them. "Jan 20" sounds almost throwbacky—appropriate since the band's name is a nod to the grueling nightclub gig schedules of yore—while "Plainchant" is as delicate and austere as the name would suggest. The feel of the latter piece captures what I enjoy about this record—the way both its beauty and its oddness feel muted, sort of far off. 40Twenty is more elusive than most of the records cited above, but it's worth taking the time to get close to it.



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P.S. The best jazz performances I saw this year, with links to coverage, where applicable:

Miguel Zenón Quartet
January 6; Zinc Bar (Winter Jazzfest)

Craig Taborn Trio
April 6, 8; Village Vanguard

Darius Jones Quartet
June 12; Roulette (Vision Festival)

Marc Ribot Trio
June 29; Village Vanguard

Ethan Iverson / Ben Street / Albert "Tootie" Heath
August 26; Village Vanguard

Bob Stewart Quintet
November 10; Central Park (Jazz and Colors)

Henry Threadgill Zooid
November 24; Roulette

Mandance: Tarbaby at Undead Jazzfest

I spent the first couple hours of Undead Jazzfest 2011 channel-flipping. I took advantage of the staggered set times and jumped between venues to catch about 15 minutes of several different acts. I enjoyed watching Tyshawn Sorey deploy the gravity blast in his sparse, cryptic trio with Kris Davis and Ingrid Laubrock; hearing the often mercilessly abstract Nate Wooley play a straightforwardly beautiful solo with Harris Eisenstadt's Canada Day quintet; eavesdropping on Marc Ribot's ragged and poignant unaccompanied set. But then Tarbaby started playing and there was no need to think about OPTIONS, the blessing and the curse of the Jazzfest experience (whether Winter or Undead). I put the remote down.

I had heard this collective—pianist Orrin Evans, bassist Eric Revis (who sounded incredible alongside Peter Brötzmann at Vision Festival XVI) and drummer Nasheet Waits (for my money, one of the greatest living jazz drummers), augmented with various guests such as alto hero Oliver Lake, who fronted the group last night—on its 2010 sophomore album, The End of Fear. I'll admit to having initially been baffled by Tarbaby's conceptual/satirical slant (the record features a lot of overdubbed voices, speaking on the topic of jazz convention—and by extension, race— and creating a strange push-and-pull with the music); in short, it's the kind of record with a good deal of fuss and context, which tends to turn me off. As so often happens, I set the album aside intending to give it a second chance, but that chance never came about.

I can see now that no matter how good the record was, it wasn't going to prepare me for the shock (I think that's a fair word) of seeing Tarbaby live. The combined power of these musicians was damn near scary: I felt like I was watching Led Zeppelin, where every player can detonate on their own, but together they were simply volcanic.

The first piece built slowly, with Evans worrying an impish high-register phrase while the rhythm section got its bearings. Lake strode to the mic and began zipping off his trademark turbo-avant-bebop lines, and the music swelled. The band was like a tiny creature drawing air into its lungs and doubling in size with each breath, until—by the middle of this initial number—it was a writhing, hulking beast.

I wish I could put before you the loudness and the weight these four gave off during the course of the set. It's that creeping feeling of "Wow, these players are obviously playing at about 1/10 their full strength right now—if they let it entirely off the leash, we're going to be in some serious trouble." And soon, we were, and it was glorious. This was classic inside-outside jazz, sliding in and out of swing time, always inviting the turbulence while courting the form. And all four players projecting such mightiness, just at the border of macho and yet imbued with so much soul and wit and graciousness. Postbop, I guess I'd call it, though a particularly boisterous and totally un-arty strain of it.

I remember Evans's whirlwind piano flourishes, delivered with classic showman's flair, thundering-herd-of-elephants solos from Waits, Revis's cathartic shout in the middle of what I think was the piece "Brews" (the band quickly fell in line, punctuating the end of every phrase with a collective vocal outburst). Energy-wise, the performance reminded me of any number of free-jazz blowouts I've witnessed, but the crucial difference was that there was a SHAPE and an architecture at play. The quartet worked with relatively brief pieces, a repertoire it knew cold—mostly originals, I believe, in addition to an awesome version of "Awake Nu" from Don Cherry's Where Is Brooklyn?—and as it pushed and pulled and pummeled and caressed these compositions, you felt a guiding logic underneath. A point to it all.

As recently as last week, Ethan Iverson of the Bad Plus reiterated that "The future of jazz lies in bands." Tarbaby is definitely, definitely what he meant, and I really hope they get their due soon (someone please book them for a week at a club!) because they are every bit as impressive as TBP, the Bandwagon (of which Waits is also a member) or any of the other more high-profile collectives. That irreverent energy that left me cold on my initial brush with The End of Fear, as though the band were sharing a joke I didn't get, made perfect sense live; it translated as a rare camaraderie. Not the annoying in-jokeyness ("See what I did there?") that sometimes haunts outside-the-box jazz, but a very genuine sense of play—playing with fire really.

It's quite possible that Tarbaby is the most virile jazz band on earth. Again, that flirting with machoness, that cutting-contest mentality, but instead of just stringing solos together, these men were building something, sharing in their own gloves-off kind of way. What a joy to see Oliver Lake, a man who will turn 70 next year, romping around alongside three considerably younger players (their median age is about 40), and there being no sense of tedious reverence for the old guy. Everyone was scrapping together, trading blows. It's enough to make you sad that some older players don't test their mettle against younger generations, and the same goes with younger players who don't get in the ring with older ones. I've definitely written this before (I remember singling out the example of Darius Jones, who was brave enough to tap Cooper-Moore and Bob Moses for his Aum Fidelity debut), but it's such a crucial thing in jazz. It's risky, sure—for the old as much as the young—and not everyone is ready for it. But Oliver Lake is currently playing at an astonishingly high level. Make no mistake, he is a living master, and since he gigs in New York all the time—he'll be back at Undead on Sunday with his Organ Quartet—you are remiss if you don't go check him out. If at all possible, check him out with Tarbaby.

I hope someone makes a live record of this band, or better yet a live DVD. I'm frantically wanting to demonstrate to my friends who weren't at last night's show how great they are. I know I'm going to go back to The End of Fear with fresh ears, but when you get down to it, Tarbaby exists in an undocumentable realm. Regarding it on record is like playing with an action figure of a T-Rex. This is the kind of sweet, jovial thunder that you have to hear in nature.

P.S. Hypocritical as it may seem, here's a Tarbaby + Lake live clip that gives you a little taste of the wildness.

P.P.S. Here's Tarbaby's self-titled 2009 debut (which I haven't heard yet) on CD Baby.

2010 jazz top ten

A list of my ten favorite jazz CDs from the nearly bygone year is now posted at the Jazz Journalists Association website. An annotated log of my choices is below. Links lead to various locales (labels, artists, CD Baby, Amazon, iTunes, etc.)—in each case, I simply chose the site with the most previewable music.

1. Dan Weiss Trio - Timshel (Sunnyside)
I reviewed this record for Time Out New York back in March, and I still don't feel like I have a handle on it, which, to me, is a great thing. You can know a lot about Weiss (that he used to moonlight in the doom-metal band Bloody Panda and that he has adapted tabla techniques to the drum set) and still not scratch the surface of what makes Timshel special. This is music—jazz, I guess, but that's beside the point—of stillness and mystery and rapturous beauty. I hope I never get to the bottom of it.

2. Chris Lightcap's Bigmouth - Deluxe (Clean Feed)
There's a picture of a schmancy old car on the cover of this record, which might lead you to believe that the music inside would be gaudy. Instead, Deluxe is all subtlety: Taut, vampy rhythms undergirding a mist of saxophones. Craig Taborn's keyboards and Gerald Cleaver's drums provide lift and color. It's a lush, pillowy sound, but full of mood and intrigue. Again, I need way more time to wrap my head around this one and I can't wait to do so.

3. Harris Eisenstadt - Woodblock Prints (NoBusiness)
Drummer Harris Eisenstadt made my favorite jazz record of 2008, the West African–inspired Guewel. I think this new one—a limited-run LP release and download—is even better. Like the Lightcap, this is an extremely lush record and a tender one. It's not even close to a "drummer" record—it's basically a chamber outing, marked by a carefully chosen instrumental palette, featuring clarinet, bassoon, French horn and tuba. Eisenstadt knows exactly what he wants out of the players and he gets it—a deep sense of stateliness and composure in the ensemble passages (and there are a lot) balanced with gutsy passion from the soloists. To me, Eisenstadt is easily one of the finest young bandleaders in jazz and Woodblock Prints testifies to that fact. (P.S. I saw this entire album performed live and it was gorgeous.)

4. Jason Moran - Ten (Blue Note)
This album is bulging with magic and mastery. Over the past few weeks, I put together a lot of iTunes playlists, culling all my 2010 top-ten candidates, jazz and otherwise, for shuffled consumption. Every time a track from Ten came up, I'd stop whatever I was doing and marvel at Moran and his Bandwagoneers—their ability to convincingly express both the core of the blues and the flurry of modernism within the same piece is breathtaking. If ever an artist has done right by his teacher, Moran is making the late, great Jaki Byard proud.

5. Mike Pride's From Bacteria to Boys - Betweenwhile (Aum Fidelity)
As I noted when contributing to this invaluable From Bacteria to Boys video roundup at (((unartig))), I'd primarily understood Mike Pride up to this point as a connoisseur of the jarring gesture. Betweenwhile offers something quieter, a place to really get lost. Airy jazz filled with smoke and funk and fire and simmer. The whole album plays like a loving showcase for the talents of Pride's sidemen: the bite of altoist Darius Jones, the sumptuousness of pianist Alexis Marcelo, the patience of bassist Peter Bitenc. There's so much sublimated deep feeling in this record that no sudden movements are necessary. It's corny to talk about artists "maturing," but you can't hold Betweenwhile up to Pride's back catalog and not feel that he really and truly has.

6. The Cookers - Warriors (Jazz Legacy Productions)
There's a lot of glitz, and even cockiness, in the work of this all-star band, a pack of hardbop lifers. Billy Hart was the draw for me, but I grew to love what they all had to say: Billy Harper, Eddie Henderson, George Cables and the rest. This is about taking what went on in, say, the early- to mid-’60s and really getting inside it, luxuriating in the tried-and-true forms and the warmth of modern recording and digging into some absolutely fantastic original tunes that stick with you just like your old Blue Note favorites. This is PRO jazz, conventional jazz, but jazz driven by a pulsating heartbeat. Besides, a record that features Billy Hart is disqualified from the realm of boringness.

7. Weasel Walter Septet - Invasion (ugEXPLODE)
In a past DFSBP post, I praised the evolution of Weasel Walter's improv chops. But to make a great, replayable record, you've got to offer something extra and the Weas has done that here. Each of the five tracks has its own identity, from bouncy Mingus-gone–No Wave ("Flesh Strata") to disarmingly sensitive Company-style free play ("Cleistogamy"), and most importantly—as with the Pride record—all of the performances flaunt the gifts of Walter's supporting cast. Henry Kaiser is an absolute star here. I've never been a huge fan of his before—or, to be fair, dug too deep into his catalog—but he's spellbinding on Invasion, offering a crackly electric zone-out on "Nautilus Rising (part 1)" and eerie distended folk on "Cleistogamy," his contribution to the latter sounding more to me like Robbie Basho than Derek Bailey, Kaiser's avowed "sensei." Overall, Invasion is a great example not just of experimental music-making but of experimental RECORD-making. The compositional (yes, there is bona-fide writing/direction/structure at play here) variety, the excellent recording quality and the brilliant auxiliary musicians all add up to an album you want to hear again when it's over.

8. The Bad Plus - Never Stop (E1)
One thing I love about the Bad Plus, and about this album in particular (definitely the TBP record I've enjoyed most) is how little the band's output squares with Ethan Iverson's unfailingly perceptive and eloquent jazz criticism. After reading Iverson, you might think his band might fixate so much on its jazz-history obsession that it would have a hard time forging ahead and developing its own vibe. That is so not the case, though, and you really hear that on Never Stop. It's just a record of MUSIC, so disarmingly alive and emotive and hard-grooving and fun to listen to. The band's image has a certain archness to it that again can be misleading. You might even take a track like "Never Stop," with its pounding disco groove and twinkly melody, as a slice of ironic nostalgia. But you listen harder, to that track and to the full record, and you realize you're entirely mistaken. The Bad Plus goes straight for simplicity and directness and feeling, and if it often ends up sounding more like pop or indie rock than jazz at a given time, then so be it. For all of Iverson and his bandmates' obsession with jazz, they're thrillingly game for jettisoning its baggage (traditional swing, say, as Iverson pointed out in an interview I read or listened to but can't re-locate now) whenever it suits their compositions. A piece like "Beryl Loves to Dance" here could move anybody—it truly doesn't matter what you call it, and that's rare. It's that wide-open quality that made Never Stop one of the year's most refreshing listens.

9. Jon Irabagon - Foxy (Hot Cup)
I've spilled an insane amount of ink on this record, and Jon Irabagon in general, in 2010. A Time Out profile is here, and a much more in-depth piece is on the way via Burning Ambulance. The salient fact is that Jon Irabagon shocked me in 2009 with I Don't Hear Nothing but the Blues, and then he turned around and shocked me in a whole different way with Foxy. Instead of expressing his perverse, almost maniacal improvisational idiosyncrasies on their own weird terms, as he did on Blues, he decided to apply them to straight-ahead jazz here, and the results are, in their own way, ten times weirder. Sure, Foxy something of a gimmick, something of an endurance test, but it's also an absolute joyride. Just ask Barry Altschul.

10. Chicago Underground Duo - Boca Negra (Thrill Jockey)
Like the Moran, another album that grabbed my attention every time the iTunes roulette wheel landed on it. Like the Bad Plus, another album that orbits jazz without using it as a crutch. Like the Walter, another extremely weird release—the handiwork of an ensemble that's as resolutely unconventional as the Cookers are by-the-book—that nonetheless invites repeated listens. Rob Mazurek and Chad Taylor are going for mood, for soundscape, and they've got that part down, down, down. There's a late-night murk to this album—surely inspired by Bill Dixon, Mazurek's frequent collaborator in the years prior to his recent sad passing—that you just want to live in. But there's also that now-classic Chicago post-rock vibe, executed as appealingly as I've heard it done in quite a while. Boca Negra is a surprising blend of the stylish and the substantive.

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My list also included ten honorable-mention releases, many of which nearly made the top ten:

Newman Taylor Baker - Drum Suite Life (Innova)
Solo drums: unadorned and extremely tasty. Time Out preview.

Amir ElSaffar and Hafez Modirzadeh - Radif Suite (Pi)
Loosey-goosey, Ornette-ish freebop, some of the best I've heard that doesn't involve Ornette or his right-hand men. Time Out blog post.

John Escreet - Don't Fight the Inevitable (Mythology)
State-of-the-art inside/outside jazz with a good-kind-of-ridiculous supporting cast.

Tomas Fujiwara and the Hook-Up - Actionspeak (482)
A shrewdly uncategorizable statement: too elegant and meticulous for "outside"; too thorny and restless for "inside." Instead, just really good.

Fred Hersch Trio - Whirl (Palmetto)
Impossibly delicate and songful piano jazz.

Sam Newsome - Blue Soliloquy (self-released)
Ear-bending sound experiments, but with tons of feeling.

Mario Pavone: Orange Double Tenor - Arc Suite t/pi t/po (Playscape)
Another inside-outside winner, brimming with vigor and constructive quirk.

Kurt Rosenwinkel and OJM - Our Secret World (Word of Mouth)
Postfusion concertos, sleek and radiant.

Rova Sax Quartet and the Nels Cline Singers - The Celestial Septet (New World)
Draped in Rova's edgy finery, the Singers sound handsomer than I've ever heard them.

Greg Ward's Fitted Shards - South Side Story (Nineteen Eight)
Happy, hyperambitious prog-fusion-funk-jazz, spiced with charmingly ’80s-ish synths.

Ten strong 2010 jazz releases

I can't tell if it's an unusually great year for jazz albums, or if I'm just making more of an effort to survey what's out there. Either way, I've heard some killer recorded jazz in 2010. Here are a few full-lengths I'm really feeling. Obviously we've got a few months to go before year-end-poll time, so just consider this as an informal "Don't sleep on these" list, in no particular order apart from the fact that No. 1 is a clear favorite. (One or two of these—the honorable-mentioned Sam Newsome, e.g.—may be late-2009 releases that didn't make their way to me till after the new year.)

Anything crucial that I'm missing?

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1. The Cookers Warriors (Jazz Legacy Productions)

2. Weasel Walter Invasion (ugEXPLODE)

3. Harris Eisenstadt Woodblock Prints (NoBusiness)

4. Jason Moran Ten (Blue Note)

5. Geri Allen Flying Toward the Sound (Motéma Music)

6. The Bad Plus Never Stop (E1 Music)

7. Mike Pride's From Bacteria to Boys Betweenwhile (Aum Fidelity)

8. Jon Irabagon Foxy (Hot Cup)

9. John Escreet Don't Fight the Inevitable (Mythology)

10. Mario Pavone Arc Suite T/Pi T/Po (Playscape)

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Honorable mention:

Jeff Davis We Sleep Outside (Loyal Label)

David Weiss and Point of Departure Snuck In (Sunnyside)

Vijay Iyer Solo (ACT Music)

Louis Sclavis–Craig Taborn–Tom Rainey Eldorado Trio (Clean Feed)

Rudresh Mahanthappa and Bunky Green Apex (Pi)

Paul Motian Trio with Jason Moran and Chris Potter Lost in a Dream (ECM)

Newman Taylor Baker Drum-Suite-Life (Innova)

Sam Newsome Blue Soliloquy (self-released)

James Moody 4B (IPO)

Chris Lightcap's Bigmouth Deluxe (Clean Feed)

Amir ElSaffar–Hafez Modirzadeh Radif Suite (Pi)

Rova and Nels Cline Singers The Celestial Septet (New World)

Stéphane Furic Leibovici with Chris Cheek and Lee Konitz Jugendstil II (ESP-Disk)

Mike Mainieri Crescent (NYC)

Kurt Rosenwinkel and OJM Our Secret World (Word of Mouth)