Once a seed: Keith Jarrett solo, now

Last night, I saw Keith Jarrett play solo at Carnegie Hall for the second time. The first such show I saw, in January of 2011, had been, in my view, disastrous. (In short, I actually witnessed the Coughing Wars in the flesh, and they were not pretty.) I chose not to write about that concert at the time, mainly because I knew I would take no pleasure in reliving or recounting it. It's pretty clear that Jon Pareles felt the same, though in his case, he was obligated to file a review.

I'm happy to report that last night's show was far better, both musically and in terms of artist/crowd rapport. Jarrett did display some faintly curmudgeonly behavior, but it was self-aware, mild. He seemingly can't not comment on coughs overheard from the audience, but last night he framed these "incidents" (Jarrett didn't use that term; I use quotes only to indicate where I stand on the matter) as minor improprieties, interruptions to be tsk-tsked but ultimately tolerated with a wry smile. Even when he informed the audience that one coughing outburst had ended a piece prematurely, he portrayed this as serendipity, i.e, just the way things go, an attitude you'd expect him to have embodied all along given his insistence on the purity of improvisation.

I'm ambivalent about foregrounding these extramusical details, but they matter. And that's true because, these days, a Keith Jarrett solo concert is a performance on many levels, not just musical. As with all Keith Jarrett solo concerts, last night's was technically improvised, but I couldn't help feeling as though Jarrett was, on some level, working from a script. Not from a score, but from some innate sense of what these concerts are, to him, at this point in his staggeringly accomplished career. The pieces he played didn't have names, of course, but at times, I felt like I was witnessing a performance of an evening-length work called A Keith Jarret Solo Concert.

Though the mood of the show was mercifully very different from the one I saw in 2011, the rhythm, the procedure of it was quite similar. The lights dim. Jarrett, a relatively tiny figure, strides out from those almost comically large doors at stage left. He walks over to the piano with a sort of self-conscious casualness, hands in pockets. "Oh, you want me to play?" his gestures say. "Well, I suppose I could do that." He chats a bit with the crowd. Last night, Jarrett's banter often touched on his drive to NYC that day, which had apparently been long and arduous.

Then he begins playing. The pieces are on the short side, averaging about four to five minutes. They fall into roughly three categories: the bluesy, earthy, muscular vamp-driven pieces; the searching, and often inconclusive and impenetrable, exploratory pieces, which tend to sound more "modern classical" than "free jazz"; and what I'll call, for lack of a better term, the Pretty Pieces. (Thanks to my friend and colleague Sophie, also in attendance, for helping me to establish this taxonomy.) He plays; he stops; he takes his hands off the keys. And then he stands up and bows, deeply, letting his torso go fully slack, as the audience applauds. This gesture plays up the sort of humblebrag quality that A Keith Jarrett Solo Concert has. "I have scaled Improv Mountain on your behalf, audience; I brought back a mere trifle, but I hope it was to your liking." The implication of heroism, of the artist alone up there on that huge, grand stage, with only his wits and his hands to guide him, is an inescapable part of these shows, and though this unspoken but very present element can be oppressive at times, it does seem more or less accurate—i.e., there is, at base, something heroic about what Jarrett does during these performances.

The great mystery and rapture of A Keith Jarrett Solo Concert comes, in my opinion, chiefly during the Pretty Pieces I cited above. Anyone who has seen one of these performances will know the pieces I mean. There were two that stood out for me last night, the second piece of the evening and roughly the sixth—two or three before intermission. Essentially, these pieces are songs. Improvised, yes, but so exquisite in their design, in the rightness of their melodic and harmonic arc, their adornments, the economy of their motifs (the second of the two pieces I cited above started with a little twinkle of a figure in the highest register of the keyboard and, lovingly, utilized that theme throughout) that it's as if Jarrett were plucking them from a tree like pieces of perfectly ripened fruit. Sometimes he sings along, wordlessly, in that famous and, to some, infamously distracting, vocalization of his—for the record, this habit of Jarrett's doesn't really bother me at all—and the mouth sound seems to reinforce the sense that though what he's playing is in some sense brand-new, it's also a song that both he and the audience already know by heart. The Pretty Pieces tend to have the flavor of ballads—wholesome tearjerkers. Melodramatic, in a sense, but also completely disarming and true. Last night, during these pieces, I kept thinking of the Branford Marsalis composition "Hope," specifically the version that appears on Songs of Mirth and Melancholy, the saxophonist's excellent 2011 duo album with pianist Joey Calderazzo. "Hope" is an almost comically gorgeous piece—one of the most elemental and stirring melodies I've ever heard. Several of the pieces Jarrett played last night felt equally inevitable, equally transporting. Pure magic, from the second he set his hands on the keys to the second he lifted them off. I don't know about heroic, but wizardly seems apt. The idea that a musician could, seemingly at will, distill a piece this right-feeling out of the air is almost scary. What would that feel like, to be able to sit down at the instrument and just, like, do that?

A Keith Jarrett Concert gives the impression that the Muse doesn't answer every time the maestro knocks. Some of last night's pieces were more sketchlike—open-ended, even downright stunted. The gulf between these and the Ones That Work can be frustrating. Couldn't Jarrett conceivably just play a concert of all Pretty Pieces? Hard to say. I'm sure his contention would be that it's out of his hands, pun intended, whether a given piece takes flight, but the rightness of the Pretty Pieces, from note one, is tough to ignore. Yes, he does in fact make it look easy, as though the art of composing a perfect song from scratch were as simple as solving a Rubik's Cube for the thousandth time.

Near the end of the show, in a genuinely affecting moment, Jarrett walked over to the mic in between pieces and said, "Thank you for following my work." He then addressed the elephant in the room, the notion—perfectly conceivable for anyone in attendance in January of 2011—that he "hates the audience." He assured us that none of what we were hearing would've been possible without us present. "You think I play like this in my studio?" This speech too seemed like a preordained part of A Keith Jarrett Concert—a necessary display of contrition and appreciation. But it also felt sincere. It was both welcome and classy, and, for me at least, it served to clear the air. (There had, for the record, been another solo Jarrett show at Carnegie Hall between the ill-fated 2011 one and last night's concert; according to Sophie, Jarrett's demeanor and performance had been exemplary that night in 2012.)

Does A Keith Jarrett Concert grab me the way Jarrett's ’67–’76 material does (see here and here)? No. There's a wild, organic beauty to that work that moves me, revs me up to no end. These days, Jarrett doesn't seem to be walking so close to the ledge, aesthetically. He's flying blind, yes, but I do get the sense that he can, so to speak, play these concerts in his sleep, simply reaching into his endless storehouse of Keith Jarrett Pieces. I realize that it might sound like I'm selling his achievements short, but that's not my intention. I'm just saying that there's something about the "not a hair out of place" quality of his present-day improvisations that both dazzles and stonewalls me. Whereas the ’70s work—and I'm generalizing rampantly here—felt like a man meticulously constructing a stairway to the stars, via compositions that felt so infectiously personal and natural, the current work can feel like a man ascending the very same stairway, i.e., one he's already built and ascended countless other times. There's an inevitability to A Keith Jarrett Solo Concert that, to me, feels the slightest bit canned.

The Pretty Pieces, though. Those exquisite sensations. Recalling them now is like recalling a bath in a hot springs. You really can't get that feeling anywhere else. At his best, Keith Jarrett has always been a genre of one, and that singularity was on display last night. He's a complicated figure—at times, a tedious one. But his achievement, the Idea of Piano that he's brought into the world, is undeniable, and still strong. It exists, persists, and you can go see it. Admire the perfection and sturdiness of it, almost as though it were a thing growing out of the ground. It's hard not to see the full, flowering splendor every time you look, but it's worth remembering that A Keith Jarrett Solo Concert was once a seed. It came about gradually. All the years of apprenticeship. Charles Lloyd, Miles, the American and European Quartets, the Standards Trio. The decades of solo performances. (Interesting to note that the 40th anniversary of the famed Köln Concert was this past January 24.) It all fed into this, and it's all there, if you look and listen closely. A Keith Jarrett Solo Concert is not inevitable, preordained, even if it can seem that way. It happens now because Jarrett has willed it to happen, year by year, moment by moment, right up to the present.

Beacons of song: Marsalis/Calderazzo/Connick

"If you give a soloist an open solo for thirty seconds, he plays like he's coming from the piece that you wrote. Then he says, 'What the hell was that piece I was playing from?' And the next thirty seconds is, 'Oh, I guess I'll play what I learned last night.' And bang! Minute two is whoever he likes. Which is probably Coltrane."—Bob Brookmeyer (RIP), quoted in Ben Ratliff's The Jazz Ear

I think about this quote a lot when I'm hearing jazz live. Often it's because I'm thinking how much Brookmeyer's cautionary anecdote applies to the situation at hand. Last night, thankfully, this was not the case.

The show was Branford Marsalis's "A Duo of Duos" at Jazz at Lincoln Center's Allen Room (TONY preview here), during which he dueted first with Joey Calderazzo—his partner on 2011's Songs of Mirth and Melancholy, over which I've already gushed extensively—and second with Harry Connick Jr., the latter of whom didn't sing. So these were pure saxophone/piano duos, with Marsalis switching between tenor and soprano.

Getting back to the Brookmeyer observation, what impressed me most about these performances was how fully the players were engaging with the material. They weren't "soloing on tunes"; they were getting inside the songs, rooting around, exploring.

The Calderazzo portion came first, four pieces from Songs in quick succession: "Endymion," "The Bard Lachrymose," "Precious" and "Bri's Dance." Right as the pair began "Endymion," you felt like you were being sucked into a vortex. The tempo was a little quicker than on the record, the elegantly dancing melody a little more rushed. Marsalis and Calderazzo seemed eager to crack open the shell of the tune and get to its sweet meat. But again, it wasn't about leaving the song behind. As they played, I got the distinct feeling of overlap, of simultaneity. The men were talking over one another, each jumbling up the melody in his own way, with no consensus tempo. The net result was dense, hectic but also coherent. You felt that each was expounding eloquently, passionately on the same topic, reading out of the same book without agreeing beforehand what page to begin on. Each was so dialed into the material that they could just sing out together, at once.

"Soloist/accompanist" was erased pretty much from the get-go. Yes, there was traditional form at work: The pair would play the melody and dig into it a bit; then Marsalis would drop out, leaving Calderazzo to play alone, and eventually he'd reenter. Marsalis's absences definitely built tension, but they didn't summon that sinking feeling that sometimes comes when a bandleader or dominant musical voice takes a break and you're left with something puny-sounding. Calderazzo was bursting with ideas, and as soon as Marsalis would exit, he would spread out his sound to fill up the space. There was something perpetual about the way he played, as if he couldn't bear to break momentum, but he'd slide all across the spectrum of density and tempo. I kept imagining a punch-card score being run through a player piano as a curious and attentive operator tried out various settings.

And then Marsalis would reenter and suddenly there was room for the two to dance and swoop, to decide in the moment on a consensus pause, to obsess on a tangential phrase. This duo was just about pouring out, a wash of ideas, backed up by a shared familiarity with the material. I've rarely heard a less "[playing] what he learned last night" jazz concept. Marsalis and Calderazzo were interrogating these songs, needling them, pounding out their wrinkles, obsessing over them. The songs were not fodder; they were the focus, the matter at hand.

I remember "The Bard Lachrymose" flowing, almost unthinkably, at an even slower tempo than on the record. What Calderazzo and Marsalis are doing with these somber pieces (the "melancholy" portion of Songs) isn't something I can personally think of any precedent for. To call them "ballads" almost seems silly. They are studies in meditation, in living with an ever-so-gradually unfolding feeling. Last night, "Bard" just oozed out so softly and tenderly, like shadow overtaking light as the day progresses, fueled by Marsalis's perfectly honeyed soprano tone. "Bri's Dance," the most beboppish piece on Songs, concluded the set with an uptempo scamper. The pair didn't fully articulate the melody until the end; they took their time jabbing, hinting, dissecting it. Another reminder that the best jazz isn't just about blasting off indiscriminately; it's about taking flight, yet knowing where your ceiling is—and, crucially, knowing where to land.

The Connick portion of the evening was equally strong. If I have less to say about it, it's only because I knew less going in; having not heard Marsalis and Connick together before—okay, let's be frank: having not heard Connick do much of anything except sing "It Had to Be You" in When Harry Met Sally—I had no idea what I was in for. Remarkably, this duo felt just as deep.

Obviously I had preconceptions. I'll admit that I'd formed a hypothesis that the Calderazzo portion of the evening would feel weightier and that the Connick segment would perhaps be cutesy, more of a lark, more casual. And there was a casual-ness to the way it began, with Marsalis and Connick ribbing each other. (Marsalis made a reference to how Connick was currently "busy being a Broadway star," and how he hadn't "looked at a piano for months.") But this mood did not carry over into the performance. The two began with a piece called "Virgoid," which appears on their 2005 duo disc, Occasion: Connick on Piano 2 (I haven't heard it yet, but you can bet I'll be investigating), and they immediately established a tricky, vexing mood. Given the pair's shared New Orleans roots, I expected a set filled with vintagey, good-time jazz (there was a "St. James Infirmary" encore, during which Connick and Calderazzo shared the piano, but that felt anomalous), yet there was little that felt carefree about the performance. "Virgoid" in particular registered as surprisingly tense, especially from Connick's end, as though he had to keep a tight grip on the material—the arrangement featured these periodic theme statements that seemed to crop up out of nowhere—in order to keep it from spinning out of control.

I don't have the rest of the Marsalis/Connick set list on hand, but I know they played one tune that was only identified as a New Orleans favorite (again, though, it felt more cloudy than buoyant) and "Chanson de Vieux Carré" (also from Occasion) and what I think was a standard. Throughout the set, Connick consistently impressed me. I just could not get ahold of what he was up to, though I remember this pervasive feeling that I described above, this sense of murkiness, perturbedness about his playing. Whereas Calderazzo had seemed to dance tempestuously across the keys, with no filter between his feelings and his movements, Connick seemed more leaden, sluggish, fraught. And I don't mean to suggest that this was a matter of inferior technique; it seemed entirely intentional, as though he were exploring in this instrumental setting all the complex, sometimes awkward or unsightly emotions that he might have to mask when donning his "vintage-style jazz singer" guise.

I can say definitively that there is way more to Connick than I had known. I'm having a hard time remembering an occasion recently when I was so simultaneously intrigued and unsettled by what an improviser was playing. I just could not for the life of me pin down what he was up to. There was a good amount of classic stride in his playing, but very little bebop that I could hear and no real "avant-garde" signifiers. It just felt very other, like a branch that had stemmed off from the main trunk of jazz sometime in the ’30s or ’40s and thickened and evolved and hardened into its own idiom entirely. I'm extremely eager to study up on his work.

The aforementioned "St. James Infirmary" encore, with Connick and Calderazzo sharing the piano bench, was the evening's lightest moment, but again, it wasn't simply a letting-you-off-the-hook moment. There was a silliness to the presentation—at one point Connick was standing behind Calderazzo, more or less embracing him as he played the extreme high and low registers of the keyboard, while Calderazzo sat and handled the middle range—but the performance itself was extremely inquisitive. As with the rest of the evening, there was a sense of the wringing out of potential within a song. It wasn't just "Let's play this tune and toss it aside while we show off and play what we already know over the changes"; it was "Let's steep in this, really marinate in it, explore this confined song space." A lot of improvisers would do well to pay attention to what Marsalis is up to with these duo performances. He seems to want to remind jazz that it is not above its materials, that the songs do in fact matter, that they are the beacon of musicmaking, whether or not you're working in an improvisational setting. Calderazzo and Connick get it too. I could be wrong, but it seems to me that these players are a school unto themselves.

Best of 2011, part II: All genres, director's cut

Having annotated and expanded upon my year-end jazz list yesterday, I'd like to do the same for the all-genres-in-play top 10 I contributed to Time Out New York. The original list, with a brief blurb for each record I chose, is here. (I plan to discuss runners-up, singles, etc. in a separate post.)

A quick note re: streaming audio: I refuse to embed any player that's going to insert an ad before the track (or one that's going to provide substandard sound), so you're on your own for some of this stuff. I encourage you to search, sample and buy!

/////

1. Frank Ocean, Nostalgia, Ultra (self-released)

I might have slept on this record had it not been for my friend and former colleague Corban Goble, who spied it early on and made sure I gave it a fair shake. Like many, I was first seduced by "Novacane," a seductive jam if there ever was one; I loved its murk and throb, its combination of wit ("I took a seat on the ice-cold lawn / She handed me an ice-blue bong") and vulgarity ("stripper booty and a rack like, 'Wow'"), just the way it built and built and sucked you into its heavy-lidded vortex. (The entrance of that bloblike bass squelch at 1:12 still kills me.) At first, the rest of the record didn't click with me; as is often the case when I grow super-attached to a perfect single, I tend to hold the full album up to that standard, not just of quality, but of mood. I guess I was looking for 40 minutes of "Novacane."

I soon woke up, though, and realized that there was room for more than sordid, hazy, late-night/early-morning rumination in the Frank Ocean aesthetic. The whole album bloomed for me, and I know that this would be The One for This Year (there always is one, it seems). "Songs for Women," with its funky lope and aw-shucks appeal; "Swim Good," that steely, heartsick march to sea; "There Will Be Tears," a portrait of childhood grief intruding on young-adult consciousness; "American Wedding," an offhandedly brilliant riff on "Hotel California"; "Strawberry Swing," which, as solid as the Coldplay source material is, reaches a higher emotional pitch; the yearning neosoul slow jam "We All Try." I wouldn't hesitate to call this record a masterpiece. Listening back to it now, I know that it's etched itself on my heart. I believe this guy. He surprises and challenges me. Moreover, he's an extraordinary singer, reaching deep down for those wrenching peaks (the high note at 2:17 in "We All Try," the little flourish on the word "smile" at 2:08 in "Novacane").

I wasn't too big a fan of Watch the Throne, but Ocean's hook on "No Church in the Wild" slew me; this album is like that cameo writ large. So much feeling, atmosphere, poetry. I just couldn't bring myself to care much about the back story (Ocean's squabble with Def Jam), and truthfully, I didn't love Ocean's live show the way I would've liked (though damn, that new material sounds deep). In the end, the record stood alone: For me, Nostalgia, Ultra was without question the album of year.

2. Anthrax, Worship Music (Megaforce)

I had no particular expectations for this one, only mild curiosity. Anthrax was an MTV staple during my Headbanger's Ball–crazed youth, but I never cared much for them. "Got the Time," say, exuded a goofiness that turned me off; at the time, I wanted my metal stone-faced and scary. But what a joy to experience this band with fresh ears, and to hear them sounding so fired up on this comeback effort. I've since gone back and checked out their earlier material, and to me, Worship Music is stronger. What I love about it is the way the band transcends thrash; yes, that element is there, but the songs are guiding the way. When the band needs to dip into a power-metal bag, it does; same goes for grunge, or blast-beat-driven technicality. I'm just thrilled by how thoroughly this record rocks, how catchy the choruses are, how you can envision an entire arena pumping their fists in unison when you listen. (That didn't quite play out at September's Big 4 show, since the band went on at the ungodly hour of 4pm, but it was still pretty cool to see Anthrax at Yankee Stadium.)

For the most part, I'm on board with the recent art-school-ification of metal; plenty of good has come out of it. But Worship Music helps you remember that at heart, metal is a sweaty, for-the-people music—like turbocharged pop. Clarity and memorability and ROCKING-ness are not passé; those aspects of ’80s metal are still as powerful now as they were, when they're delivered with this much conviction and exuberance. There is so much youth in this record; it's exactly what a comeback album should be. And kudos to Joey Belladonna for an absolutely stellar vocal performance. He sells the hell out of this material. I think that in my youth, before I had caught the Dio bug, I wasn't prepared to appreciate his wailing, dramatic gifts. Now they make perfect sense. Can't wait for the next one from this rejuvenated powerhouse.



3. Branford Marsalis and Joey Calderazzo, Songs of Mirth and Melancholy (Marsalis Music)

See yesterday's jazz round-up.

4. Drake, Take Care (Cash Money/Universal)

I wasn't really ready for a new Drake album. I loved his last one, Thank Me Later, which placed at No. 2 on my 2010 best-of list. But after having been bombarded by his singles for so long, I was ready for a break; 2012 would've been okay with me. But then I heard that album 2 was coming right up, and I knew I'd have to give it a chance. The singles ("Headlines," "Marvin's Room") didn't move me when I heard them in isolation; it seemed to me like he was just going back to feed at the same trough, trying to duplicate the success of Thank Me Later. Then the record came out, and the early reactions were ecstatic. I didn't really get curious till I heard from Corban, who, awesomely, interviewed the man himself and reported that Take Care was his shoo-in album of the year. Time to listen.

All I can say is, "Whoa." It became clear after a first listen that whatever I didn't like about the album (a few corny lines here and there, an inflated sense of self-importance, that annoying faux–voice crack on the "…getting back to my ways" line on "Underground Kings," which I still can't stand), this thing was a real beast. Or, really, feast. So much to savor, so many shrewd guest appearances. Re: the latter, the Weeknd intro on "Crew Love" feels like a laser-beam of tortured (torturous?) emotion (and this from someone who isn't yet a Weekend true believer); and when I heard the Andre 3000 verse in "The Real Her" for the first time, I was straight-up shocked by its charm and effectiveness. A typically badass Rick Ross on "Lord Knows," whoever that is free-associating in a weird robot voice at the beginning of "Buried Alive Interlude" (I'm not sure it's Kendrick Lamar, who guest-raps on the track). And what to say about the fact that that's Stevie effing Wonder playing harmonica on "Doing It Wrong," elevating an already masterful song to an all-time-great level? Drake is helping me to understand something that I'm sure hip-hop devotees have known for years, even decades: that a great album in the genre is like an expertly curated revue, with multiple voices cycling in and out and everyone playing their own niche role.

As I listened repeatedly, the singles fell perfectly into place among the other tracks. Heard in context, "Headlines" and "Marvin's Room," even "Make Me Proud," which not only sounded unimpressive but downright bad to me when I heard it prior to the full record, all became new favorites. (Same goes for the Rihanna-abetted title track, wooden on a first listen but seductive and magical now.) The record is long, but only one song ("Cameras") really seems cuttable to me. I love that Drake is as committed as he is to the LP format, to making full-length sonic movies. The individual highlights of Thank Me Later might top those on Take Care, but in terms of an epic experience, there's no competition: Take Care is a world unto itself, a true journey, well worth taking in full—and repeatedly.

5. Deceased, Surreal Overdose (Patac)

Speaking of epic. Like Anthrax, another band I'd been dimly aware of since teenhood. I'd always taken Deceased for a stalwart but ultimately second-rate death-metal outfit. This album set me right in a major way. In its own way, it's as joyous and triumphant, as diverse and anthemic and rousing as Worship Music.

What drew me into Surreal Overdose is the man at the heart of Deceased: One King Fowley, who handles both drums and vocals in the studio (just vocals live). I strongly urge you to check out Fowley's first-person history of the band at the Deceased site. You'll get a sense there of the sheer delight this man takes in metal; as I discussed in a recent Time Out NY preview, he comes off as a truly kind, friendly guy (an impression I confirmed when I met him in person at the Brooklyn Deceased show back in October), and for all the darkness of the music, you can hear that good-natured-ness in Deceased.

Fowley treats his songs like mini pageants of horror. They're constructed around these gorgeous, theatrical riffs that make you feel like you're in the middle of some kind of thrilling gothic play. And Fowley plays the ghastly ringmaster so well, somehow conveying wonderful narrative flourishes even while growling vomitously. I know very little about the Grand Guignol, but the impression I have of it is similar to the feeling I get from Deceased: It's pure, gory, agonizing horror treated as stylized entertainment. You suspend your disbelief to get into songs like "Cloned (Day of the Robot)" and you actually feel moved by Fowley's borderline-cartoonish narratives.

There's something staunchly adolescent about his viewpoint (killer robot clones), but also something deadly serious: In "Kindred Assembly," "In the Laboratory of Joyous Gloom" and "Dying in Analog," Fowley is discussing topics like senility, depression and death in a very real and disturbing way. On Surreal Overdose, he's talking about emotional horror, not just the kind that involves scary monsters. The music perfectly mirrors these psychodramas; it has a real scope and sweep to it. Surreal Overdose isn't a death metal album at all; there's none of that stone-facedness to it. It's vivid, alive, varied, truly gripping. Even listening back to it now, I'm shocked by its conviction, its intensity and its sheer fun. Surreal Overdose is one of the most honest and ambitious (not to mention entertaining) works of art, musically or otherwise, that I encountered in 2011. Deceased sounds nothing like Anthrax but both take their jobs seriously: They're here to provide (and achieve) escape, pure and simple, not to wallow in inscrutable experimentalism. Long live crowd-pleasing, unabashedly theatrical metal, whatever the scale.



6. Gerald Cleaver’s Uncle June, Be It as I See It (Fresh Sound New Talent)

See yesterday's jazz round-up.

7. The Strokes, Angles (RCA)

Ripping on the Strokes has became a sport, and for those who feel like playing, the band makes it pretty easy. They're still given to whining and in-fighting in interviews, in that way that always invites those age-old "Oh, great, the famous rock & rollers are complaining again" sentiments. And there these finger-wagging notions floating around about how the Strokes should have been the ones playing a farewell show this year, not LCD Soundsystem (a band I simply cannot get into). To a degree, I can understand all this: There's something about the Strokes that can feel wimpy, spoiled, tedious.

But the thing is, they are still unbelievably good at what they do, which is creating these three-minute wonders—full of hidden surprises and endlessly scrutinizable, yet completely streamlined. It's like prog ambition mixed with garage-rock cool. In this vein, "Under Cover of Darkness" is one of the most emblematic, and best, songs the band has ever written. Yes, there are bad songs on Angles, a fact I perhaps glossed over in my Time Out review of the record. At this point, I find the languid "You're So Right" nearly unlistenable, and while I respect the curveball nature of it, the drum-less interlude track "Call Me Back" is a real buzzkill, given where it falls in the album.

Just about every other song on Angles, though, I either like very much ("Macchu Picchu," "Metabolism") or straight-up love ("Under Cover of Darkness," "Two Kinds of Happiness," the breakdown of which is like a fireball of rock, "Taken for a Fool," another song that belongs on the Strokes short list, the ridiculously fun and groovy "Gratisfaction" and "Life Is Simple in the Moonlight," one of the best chilled-out songs the band has ever issued, not to mention the source of my favorite guitar solo of 2011). In this material, the band isn't telling us much (anything?) we don't already know about them, but they are reaffirming that they're still around, and however much they claim to not enjoy being a band, their output is still the gold standard for stripped-down, attitude-heavy, pop-friendly NYC rock. I love these guys, and while Angles isn't their best, it's not even remotely a disappointment.

8. Disma, Towards the Megalith (Profound Lore)

Ah, Disma. This isn't the Anthrax/Deceased crowd-pleasing/entertaining sort of metal at all. Nor is it the introspective, inscrutable art-metal thing either. What this is, is the brutal thing, the kind of metal that satisfies your desire to be flattened by a cold, unfeeling sonic steamroller. Towards the Megalith is hands-down the heaviest album I heard all year, the sickest, the grossest. The whole thing just drips with slime and rotting vegetation. The music is pure attack, pure lumbering menace, even when the tempos are fast. And dear God, those vocals. Craig Pillard is perhaps the best low death-metal growler I've ever heard. He very literally sounds like a monster, and not a comical one. (A great side effect of Megalith has been that it's sent me back to Pillard's old band, Incantation, which has since become a serious obsession in its own right.) As conventional as it is, this music is actually scary.

The secret weapon here might actually be the production. Towards the Megalith sounds full and loud and clear. The drums actually sound real. For all the putrid-ness of the music, there's a big, round pleansantness to the way it's rendered on tape. You really sink into this album. There have been weeks this year where I've wanted to listen to nothing else. It invites you even as it repulses you, freaks you out. Re-spinning it now, I'm again totally sucked in by its unholy girth and crunch. You feel the weight of the ages in this; it's primordial and massive and it swings like a motherfucker. In terms of death metal at large, Megalith is not really anything new, but it does feel like something perfected, a revisitation of an old sound, with all fat stripped away and with all intensity heightened. It's like a new model of an old car: The basic design is the same, but all the little quibbles you might've had with the old model don't apply here. In terms of what it's trying to achieve—a sensation of suffocating heaviness and unrelenting brutality—Towards the Megalith is essentially a perfect album.

9. New Zion Trio, Fight Against Babylon (Veal)

See yesterday's jazz round-up.

10. Ben Allison, Action-Refraction (Palmetto)

And once again, see yesterday's jazz round-up.

Best of 2011, part I: Jazz

Since I didn't annotate the 2011 top 10 I submitted to the Jazz Journalists Association (and Francis Davis's annual Jazz Critics Poll), I thought I'd provide some commentary here. For each entry, I've either linked to a purchase page or embedded a streaming player that allows you to click through and buy MP3s. Thank you to the publicists and musicians who have submitted music to me this year; I've done my best to keep tabs on it all, and as usual, I've had a blast.

1.Branford Marsalis/Joey Calderazzo Songs of Mirth and Melancholy (Marsalis Music)

As you can see from my 2011 jazz halftime report, published back in June, this one grabbed me early on. Now that the year is winding down, I'm happy to report that it didn't let go. There's no embeddable stream of this record, but I implore you to sample it here, especially the tracks "Endymion," "Face on the Barroom Floor" and "La Valse Kendall." When mentioning my interest in this album to friends, I've received a few raised eyebrows, which pains me. As I discuss in a Time Out NY preview of Marsalis January 9, 2012 "A Duo of Duos" gig at Jazz at Lincoln Center (during which he'll perform with both Calderazzo and Harry Connick, Jr., the latter of whom won't be singing), Marsalis's celebrity still overshadows his art. It's a trite point at this stage, but the prejudices persist: He's the saxophone player your mom likes.

And I'm not trying to say that moms wouldn't love Songs of Mirth and Melancholy. But what I am trying to say is that this is an extremely deep record. There's so much grace and poetry to this session. I don't know enough about the connections between jazz and chamber music (or chamber music itself) to know how unprecedented Songs is, but I can't think of another jazz recording I've heard that mixes raw beauty and virtuosic refinement the way this album does. I like Marsalis's quartet with Calderazzo just fine, but in the end, it is an updating of a known quantity (post-Coltrane small-group jazz); this, on the other hand, feels like new terrain to me, or at least extremely underexplored terrain. Again, if you're a Branford skeptic, please spend some time with this album and let me know what you think. I can't imagine you won't be at least a little surprised and impressed with what you hear.

Three quick notes:

A) Strangely, the opening track on here, "One Way," a whimsical, rompy, bluesy type piece, does very little for me; if it weren't for this quibble, Songs might have beat out Anthrax for the No. 2 spot on my TONY all-genres-in-play top 10 list.

B) Purchasing this record digitally from Amazon is a good idea, because you get a meaty 16-plus-minute bonus track, "Eternal."

C) The Marsalis Music YouTube channel is streaming a series of making-of vids.

2. Gerald Cleaver's Uncle June Be It as I See It (Fresh Sound New Talent)

Again, I kept coming back to this record. There's a tenderness and a lushness to Clever's writing that I just adore.—at times, the colors and emotions remind me of Andrew Hill's big-band classic, A Beautiful Day. I've always enjoyed Cleaver's drumming, but after spending time with this record, I'm most excited by him as a bandleader. (As I witnessed a little over a week ago, there's more where this came from!) He's writing rich, painterly music and putting it before improvisational geniuses like Craig Taborn. Don't miss this one. Here's one of my favorite tracks:



I should note here that as with the Marsalis disc, the opening track of Be It as I See It, the noisy, backbeat-driven stomp "To Love," doesn't grab me. I like the contrast between this and the more delicate material that makes up the bulk of the session, but I found myself wanting to skip it on repeated listens (and believe me, there were many).

3. New Zion Trio Fight Against Babylon (Veal)

This one came out of nowhere and knocked me on my ass. The idea—a jazz/reggae hybrid—did not entice, and I'd never quite clicked with the work of bandleader Jamie Saft before. I never imagined that this record could be so patient or mysterious. As I indicated in my TONY top 10, there's a methodical languidness here that could slow your metabolism. Listening to this album, and I recommend playing it in its entirety while driving or cooking or engaging in some other focused activity, is like going swimming in a murky ocean filled with jellyfish, both gorgeously iridescent and subtly menacing. It's such a trip to hear jazz bass pro Larry Grenadier get all trancey on the riffs, and drummer Craig Santiago blows me away with his taste and precision. As for Saft, all I can say is that this record is an absolute piano feast. He isn't playing jazz and he isn't playing reggae; this one is closer to classical music, but really he's just playing wide-open music, flowing in the moment. The track below isn't my favorite from the record, but it's the only one streaming on Bandcamp. Go to the Veal site to order MP3s or a CD.



4. Ben Allison Action-Refraction (Palmetto)

I've largely slept on Ben Allison's work in the past; even though this one is a covers record, I can still say that it's converted me into a bona fide fan. Before hearing this, I wasn't familiar with any of the songs (aside from a Monk piece) that Allison and his band interpret here (including works by Donny Hathaway, Samuel Barber and PJ Harvey), but that turned out to matter very little. The band really savors these melodies, delivers them on silver platters, tweaking them a bit but never engaging in any sort of pat "deconstruction" or irreverence.

If there's a twist here, it's in the fascinating make-up of the band, which includes Jason Lindner on both piano and sci-fi synths, the wonderfully fluid guitarist Steve Cardenas (and on two tracks the noise-courting daredevil Brandon Seabrook), the grittily passionate reedist Michael Blake (a player I'd heard of for years without really checking out) and the alternately sensitive and pummeling drummer Rudy Royston (whom I knew from JD Allen's fine trio). The players really draw you into these songs, especially the Hathaway ("Someday We'll All Be Free"), which is like this swelling vortex of melody. Covers records are always in danger of feeling gimmicky, superfluous or just plain boring. This one holds my attention straight through, though, and keeps me coming back. It's a motley assemblage of pieces turned into something cohesive by the magic of meticulous arrangement and smart curation. Plus, the textures (keyboards, guitars, etc.) feel contemporary without giving you that pesky sense of jazz musicians trying too hard to convey that they're down with rock. You can stream (and buy!) the record via this handy embed:



5. Honey Ear Trio Steampunk Serenade (Foxhaven)

Like the New Zion disc, this one hit me pretty much out of nowhere. I'd heard a bit of drummer Allison Miller's work, but saxist Erik Lawrence and bassist Rene Hart were new names to me. This is a really special saxophone trio, brimming with guts and tension, but also with a love for the songfulness of jazz. The level of ambition isn't the same, but part of me wants to compare this to something like Henry Threadgill's Air—a more accessible version, let's say. But there's a similar drive to create a true group sound, to make variety a priority, to mingle the harsh with the pretty. As with the Allison, there's a contemporary sheen to this one, expressed via Hart's electronic effects and Miller's scrap-metal-style percussion, but again, it feels honest and ungimmicky. Overall, this album is just a very strong statement of purpose; Honey Ear Trio clearly wants to be a proper band, not just a steadily gigging saxophone trio. They're taking in rock, reggae, maybe a little electronica, freebop, Aylerish catharsis, Paul Motian Trio openness and producing something diverse but not scattershot. As with the aforementioned JD Allen Trio, there's also a welcome drive to make this music work on record—not just to play, but to edit, to make each track feel like a concise song rather than a meandering jam. I'm excited to hear more from this band. Here's a track:



6. Jeremy Udden's Plainville If the Past Seems So Bright (Sunnyside)

There seems to be a movement brewing of pastoral, song- and melody-driven jazz. Some of the tracks on the Allison get at that vibe, and in a TONY preview on saxist Jeremy Udden's Americana-infused Plainville band, I also cited projects by bassists Eivind Opsvik and Chris Lightcap. (Another group in this vein that intrigues me is Bryan and the Aardvarks.) For me, If the Past Seems So Bright crystallized this whole trend; in its own unassuming way, it seemed like a definitive statement. Some of the rockier, brasher material on here (the very Neil Young–ish "Leland") didn't gel for me, but when this band is speaking in its own voice, such as on the stunning opening track "Sad Eyes," I find it absolutely mesmerizing. As on the Allison record, Plainville is singing songs without words, in which the improvisational accents humbly serve the melody. The dreamy, rootsy prayers on here can really cut into you; again, we're talking about ungimmicky fusion, where the material and not the stylistic conventions are calling the shots. Here's "Sad Eyes" (though I'm having a hard time not embedding "Thomas," which gets me every time):



7. Bill McHenry Ghosts of the Sun (Sunnyside)

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a tad disappointed by the fact that the first new Bill McHenry–led small-group album in four years (he has put out other records in the interim, including joint ventures with Ben Monder and John McNeil) was a collection of outtakes, pieces recorded during the same sessions that produced 2007's Roses. But after spending good time with this one, I realized that it would be pointless to resist its charms; Roses was such an enchanting record, and this is more of the same. The band is a dream: Monder, bassist Reid Anderson, and yes, the dearly departed Paul Motian. Crazily, the album came out one day before Motian's death. No one record could serve as a Motian epitaph, but there was a mystery and wonder about Ghosts that made it feel like a worthy final statement, a perfect summation of how he'd passed his strange, flickering, mirage-like torch to a younger generation. McHenry clearly got what Motian was about (and vice versa) just about as well as anybody, and this record's curious mixture of haunting beauty ("Ms. Polley") and insidious chaos ("William III") seemed as indicative of the drummer's aesthetic values as of the leader's. The track I haven't been able to get out of my head is "La Fuerza" (since I myself had to look this up, I might as well share that it means "power" or "might"):



8. Craig Taborn Avenging Angel (ECM)

Speaking of mystery… This is most definitely a major statement from a complicated, hard-to-pin-down artist, and that's likely what you're seeing it pop up on so many top 10 lists. (Steve Smith, Nate Chinen, Ben Ratliff and Seth Colter Walls all included it in their all-genres-in-play round-ups, and it topped David Adler's jazz list) I spent a ton of time with this album, both in the immediate wake of my Heavy Metal Bebop interview with Taborn, and beyond. At times, Avenging Angel seemed so daunting—like you would've have to intimately know every significant piano statement of the last several hundred years, and a lot more than that, to truly grasp it—that it exhausted me. And admittedly, there is a ton here to digest, but there's also an almost sacred kind of beauty here—lonely and remote. I'll defer to my TONY preview from June, in which I likened one track ("This Voice Says So") to "stepping out of a spaceship onto an ice planet." You always feel like you're grasping for another metaphor here, because the music is so vast-seeming, almost inhumanly patient and genre-impervious. Virtuosic, sure, but that's almost beside the point; Avenging Angel seems to go beyond mere virtuosity into some kind of alien realm of higher intelligence. It's not a record you'll pull out every day, or even every year, but you can't deny that it's some kind of awesome benchmark. No stream for this one, but you can hear some tracks at the ECM site.

9. Wadada Leo Smith's Organic Heart's Reflections (Cuneiform)

Another mammoth statement, though more in sheer length than in daunting-ness. As I've learned over the past few years, Leo Smith is by far the most accessible of the AACM giants, and maybe the most sheerly pleasurable. I loved the 2008 Golden Quartet disc, Tabligh, but this might be my favorite Wadada album yet, a sprawling set of avant-leaning funk, with an emphasis on the funk. I have never heard drummer Pheeroan akLaff drop such fat, greasy beats as he does here; right from the start of this two-disc behemoth, he's sliding and swaggering. Smith's electric work in this vein will always be indebted to Miles, but the vibrancy and clarity of the textures he conjures in his large-ensemble work are absolutely his own. This record is just swimming in swirls of guitar, keyboard, brass; it's a blissed-out soup of color. And it's got a real flow to it; balancing the backbeat passages are these rubato ruminations, free-floating texture pieces that show off the chamber-style improv know-how of players like keyboardist Angelica Sanchez and bassist John Lindberg. This is definitely one of those "Play it for a friend who's wary of avant-garde jazz" records. There's a lot of adventure here, but little abrasiveness; Wadada has been on a real roll lately (abetted by the stalwart Cuneiform label), and what he seems to be aiming for is the kind of experimentalism where you can shed the facade of stone-faced imposing-ness and just get down to feeling, moving, emoting. Your samples are at Amazon.

10. TIN/BAG Bridges (MabnotesMusic)

Like New Zion and Honey Ear, another very pleasant 2011 jazz surprise. I had heard the two members of TIN/BAG before (trumpeter Kris Tiner in Empty Cage Quartet, and guitarist Mike Baggetta at the head of his own bands), and I may have even sampled a bit of this duo in the past. But it was instantly clear to me that this one was going to make a stronger impression than anything I'd heard previously. As with Honey Ear Trio, TIN/BAG is taking pains to speak in its own language, and the tongue they've honed is a very subtle and distinctive one. You've only got trumpet and guitar here, and there's very little effort made to fill up the empty spaces. This is intimate music, more cozy than lonely—much more modest in scope than, say, the Marsalis/Calderazzo. The two play together beautiful, with Tiner's pillowy lines dancing over Baggetta's plush, chiming notes. Their work is almost unfailingly beautiful, but it's not merely polite; there's a sense of real daring to the project—stripping all distractions away and making the most of what's left. (There are references to yoga in the liner notes, which makes perfect sense when you hear the record.) There are no drums here, of course, but in a way, you could view this band as a descendant of the Frisell/Motian/Lovano trio. There's a similar willingness to step out into the abyss, with only the warm, beating heart of song to guide you. The quietude of Bridges can really pull you in if you let it. Hear for yourself:



/////

In the interest of concision, and so as not to dilute the list of truly standout releases above, I'll name just four honorable mentions:

Jerome Sabbagh with Ben Monder and Daniel Humair I Will Follow You (Bee Jazz)

Some very focused and engaging freeform trioism. Some prior thoughts in the 2011 halftime report. (Interestingly, Paul Motian subbed for Humair at the NYC release party for this album in April, and subsequently hired Sabbagh and Monder for a week at the Vanguard in September; I'm kicking myself that I didn't make it out to hear them.) Stream it here.

Matana Roberts Coin Coin Chapter One: Gens de Couleur Libres (Constellation)

A deeply ambitious and at times straight-up harrowing statement. I've been following the Coin Coin project since around 2006, when I profiled Roberts for TONY (sadly, I can't locate the piece in the online archives at the moment), and I'm glad to see it finally starting to get a proper documentation. From Ellington to Roach to Mingus to the Sharrocks—Roberts is taking it all in. Stream it here.

Ellery Eskelin Trio New York (Prime Source)

Harris Eisenstadt September Trio (Clean Feed)

Two featuring the saxist Ellery Eskelin, a perpetual sleeper fave of mine, whom I never feel like I've investigated fully enough. I'm happy with my TONY preview of Trio New York, in which I contrasted this new group—featuring organist Gary Versace and none other than Gerald Cleaver on drums—with Eskelin's previous signature trio, the Andrea Parkins/Jim Black band. Hear some samples here.

Eisenstadt, who topped my 2008 jazz top 10 with Guewel and ranked again in 2010 with Woodblock Prints, made another strong showing with a disc featuring Eskelin and Angelica Sanchez (who might be the MVP of Wadada's aforementioned Heart's Reflections). As usual with Eisenstadt, you're getting something abstracted yet focused, something beauty-forward, settings that confer deep respect for his bandmates. I'm looking forward to spending more time with this one, and I hope the project continues. Hear samples at Amazon.

/////

I listed just two reissues: the landmark Miles Bootleg Series set, which I reviewed for Pitchfork, and the exemplary International Phonograph, Inc., edition of Julius Hemphill's fun, raw, expansive, eclectic opus Dogon A.D.

/////

And finally, here's my chronological list of best 2011 live shows (as with the list of recordings above, only jazz was in play), outfitted with links to coverage.

J.D. Allen's VisionFugitive, conducted by Butch Morris at Le Poisson Rouge
(Winter Jazzfest) - January 7
(feat. Gregg August, Rudy Royston)

Dan Weiss Trio at Cornelia Street Café - January 10
(Thomas Morgan, Jacob Sacks)

Wayne Shorter Quartet at the Town Hall - February 9
(Danilo Pérez, John Patitucci, Brian Blade)

Wynton Marsalis Quintet/Septet at Frederick P. Rose Hall - March 31
(Quintet: Walter Blanding Jr., Dan Nimmer, Carlos Henriquez, Ali Jackson; Septet: Victor Goines, Wessell Anderson, Vincent Gardner, Marcus Roberts, Reginald Veal, Herlin Riley)

The Bad Plus with Joshua Redman at the Blue Note - April 21

Matthew Shipp/Darius Jones at Jazz Standard - April 27

Ari Hoenig Group at Smalls - June 20
(Gilad Hekselman, Shai Maestro, Orlando Le Fleming)

Tarbaby with Oliver Lake at Le Poisson Rouge (Undead Jazzfest) - June 23

Bill McHenry Quartet at Village Vanguard - November 11
(Orrin Evans, Eric Revis, Andrew Cyrille)

Gerald Cleaver's Black Host at Cornelia Street Café - December 10
(Darius Jones, Cooper-Moore, Brandon Seabrook, Pascal Niggenkemper)

Halftime report: 10 strong 2011 jazz releases

Last week, several top jazz writers took a minute to survey the year in recorded jazz thus far. (The Undead Jazzfest, which starts tonight—TONY preview here, full schedule here—serves as a handy peg, dividing the calendar more or less in half.) Here's a 25-strong list from Jim Macnie, and 25 plus change from Patrick Jarenwattananon.

To some, these midyear round-ups might seem like overkill; you may even question the value of the ubiquitous year-end polls. But I'm with Jim, who defended the practice in his own wry way ("We all love our horse races and we all love our listicles."). As for me, I'm just really happy that so much jazz is still being recorded and released on albums, and I'm doubly happy that so much of it is being sent to me. As a fan, it's only natural to want to celebrate the bounty and take stock, whether that's yearly, biyearly or daily.

In that spirit, here's an alphabetical list of 10 2011 jazz releases I'm digging. (For reference, here's my 2010 midyear list.) I try to get into a zen frame of mind re: such lists, i.e., not to choose but to be chosen. Great records exude a subtle magnetism and they keep pulling you back. You can't always identify them on the first spin, but they call to you. Playing them, there's a perpetual sense of unfinished business. They are unknowable or at least elusive. That doesn't rule out straightforward appeal, but there has to be something drawing you back. These have all had that effect on me.

Ben Allison Action-Refraction (Palmetto)
This is a record of covers (plus one original). Most of the pieces are new to me (or, like Monk's "Jackie-ing," only vaguely familiar), so I came to them fresh. I just love the sound of the band: funky and sassy and full, and with a rock edge (e.g., on P.J. Harvey's "Missed"), though not trying too hard to mimic rock, which can be a major red flag. My favorite tune is a reading of Samuel Barber's "St. Ita's Vision," which has a psych-happy, retro-synth sheen that—as I suggested in a Time Out NY preview—puts me in a Clockwork Orange frame of mind. You can stream the whole album on Allison's site.

Gerald Cleaver's Uncle June Be It As I See It (Fresh Sound)
If I remember correctly, I received this album right after I finished compiling my best-of-2010 lists. I recall liking it then, but I was worried it would get lost in the shuffle as the year wore on. Fortunately, that hasn't come to pass; this one is a keeper. Don't let the noisy opener, "To Love," throw you: This a sensitive, gently colorful record. The second piece, "Charles Street Sunrise," absolutely knocks me down with its chamberish beauty—like something off Andrew Hill's A Beautiful Day. Some tracks thrive on chaotic vocal overdubs and other programmatic content (alluding to Cleaver's family history), but the sweet ones are the ones that grab me. Like the Allison, the whole disc is streaming online via Cleaver's Bandcamp page. Check out "Fence & Post: Statues/UmbRa," which features a breathtaking Craig Taborn piano solo. (I should also nod respectfully to Out of This World's Distortions, a deep new Aum Fidelity effort from Farmers by Nature, Cleaver and Taborn's trio with William Parker.) I caught a nice live set by this band at Cornelia Street Café a few months back; hope Cleaver takes Uncle June to the stage again soon.

Eric Harland Voyager, Live by Night (Sunnyside)
This one originally came out last year, but apparently Sunnyside is reissuing it in July. The disc showed up in the mail a few days ago and it instantly caught my ear: fiery, chops-forward postbop (in the second-great-Miles-quintet vein) with a great sense of pacing (check out the solo "intermezzos" from pianist Taylor Eigsti). Lots of swagger here and a whiff of hotshot fusion, via Julian Lage's guitarwork. Hadn't heard too much of Harland before (I remember seeing him with Don Byron's Ivey-Divey trio a few years back, subbing for Billy Hart, who in turn subbed for him during the second half of the set), but he's been front and center this year, via this record and the cool James Farm collective. Wish I could've caught that latter group live this past weekend.

Ari Hoenig Lines of Oppression (Naive)
Speaking of hotshot fusion… I saw this band live at Smalls this past Monday and was floored, as I have been by Hoenig & Co. in the past. You should go hear them (Hoenig, bassist Orlando Le Flemming and guitarist Gilad Hekselman, with one of several pianists—the other night it was the marvelous Shai Maestro) in the flesh, but this record gives you a good taste. This band plays tricky, unapologetically flashy daredevil jazz that brims over with the joy of challenge. (I think of my math-rock survey, and the idea of the obstacle course.) Each player always goosing the other. This isn't really about subtlety as much as high-wire interactivity, and I can see it turning some people off, but for me it feels like watching great college basketball or something—a constant rush. Very catchy tunes too, most of them Hoenig originals. Check out some samples at Amazon ("Arrows and Loops" will not leave my brain) and a recent live set via Soundcheck.

Honey Ear Trio Steampunk Serenade (Foxhaven)
Another one that blindsided me. Had heard of drummer Allison Miller before, but had not checked out much of her work. Saxist Erik Lawrence and bassist Rene Hart were totally new to me, though. This cooperative trio plays like a dream, subcategories be damned. Something about the way they operate reminds me of Old and New Dreams, not that there's anything Ornette-ish about the music, but I get a sense of free-jazz-informed players working in a kind of autumnal mode, embracing that tradition as well as meat-and-potatoes swing and soul, all at once. They groove when they want (hinting at reggae, electronica, rock), fray at the seams when they want, always exuding a loose, gracious vibe. I get a strong Dewey Redman sensation from Lawrence (apparently a longtime sideman type dude who works with Levon Helm, among others)—tender yet never too far from a grizzly-bear outburst. I can't imagine a debut record sounding more assured than this. Stream here. (Let me say that it's great to see jazz artists embracing the excellent Bandcamp platform—it's the best way to go.)

Branford Marsalis and Joey Calderazzo Songs of Mirth and Melancholy (Marsalis Music)
Darius Jones and Matthew Shipp released a killer classical-inflected duo disc, Cosmic Lieder, earlier this year, and they sounded even better live. But this sax/piano session, on which the classical element is an even bigger factor, is the one I can't stop playing. I'm not an expert on Branford's music (I will say that I've been digging Crazy People Music majorly of late), but I have some sense that it's the norm for him to be preoccupied with classical repertoire/vibe (see the Branford piece in Ben Ratliff's The Jazz Ear). This CD takes that and runs with it: There is a Brahms piece here, but moreover, the whole thing is dripping with stately elegance, way more reminiscent of chamber music than jazz. The poise and lyricism heard on pieces like "The Bard Lachrymose" and "Endymion" really gets me—it's pretty, yes, but it's something way more than that: almost prayerful. Simply put, I know of no other record that sounds like this. For me, it's one of the biggest surprises of 2011. Some samples here.

Jerome Sabbagh/Ben Monder/Daniel Humair I Will Follow You (Bee Jazz)
As with the Harland, this is another one whose release date is a bit vague. Apparently, it originally came out in 2010, but I definitely didn't receive it last year, and moreover, I remember a CD-release party (with Paul Motian in for Humair) going down only a month or so ago. (Speaking of, did anyone catch that show? I was dying to see it, but couldn't get there.) Anyway, a lot of what's here is free jazz. It isn't Free Jazz, however; it's lunar-landscape free jazz, WTF free jazz, free jazz that isn't afraid to get weird, without getting dense or loud or heated, or signifying "freedom" in any of the obvious ways. Ben Monder is a good person to have in your band if you want to go down this road (see Bloom, with Bill McHenry). So is Humair, a veteran French drummer who I only remember hearing alongside Steve Lacy, not to mention Sabbagh, a beautifully supple tenor player who often works in a boppier mode. If you like your improvisation textural and hear-a-pin-drop sensitive, with no conventions taken for granted—along those lines, the Frisell/Motian/Lovano trio isn't a bad reference point, though this might even venture deeper into innerspace—you will love this CD. Check out samples here.

Wadada Leo Smith's Organic Heart's Reflections (Cuneiform)
Speaking of the unfinished business mentioned above, I can't wait to get back to this one. This release is a monster: two robust CDs' worth of new music for a 14-piece band. Wadada has been on a serious roll in recent years; Tabligh from 2008 was a particular favorite. Heart's Reflections really ups the ante, though, re: its treatment of Wadada's patented current mode of marrying the funky and the meditative. In terms of those respective poles, two supporting players nearly steal the show: Drummer Pheeroan akLaff (sounding downright nasty) and keyboardist Angelica Sanchez (grabbing me even more here than she did on her recent solo album, A Little House). There's definitely some electric Miles here, as is often the case with Wadada, but he's busted into a whole new realm with this wide-spectrum project. Gorgeously recorded and every bit as essential as Tabligh or other great later-period Wadada efforts such as the self-titled Golden Quartet debut and the Jack DeJohnette duo America (both on Tzadik). Destination: Out has a preview; Amazon has samples of each track.

Craig Taborn Avenging Angel (ECM)
It's probably best that I saved this for last, and maybe even that I didn't have access to it before I interviewed Mr. Taborn on the topic of metal a few months back. Simply put, this album is spellbinding and mystifying. Maybe it's that I just don't know the reference points that would unlock it, but I've noticed other reviewers regarding it with a kind of perplexed awe (check out Ratliff's take). By way of an illustration, here's a bit of my TONY preview: "At their best, these performances function like environments: Listening to 'This Voice Says So,' which builds gradually from an ethereal three-note theme, feels like stepping out of a spaceship onto an ice planet—vast and iridescent, but with a lurking malevolence. 'Glossolalia' takes elegant ascending lines and scrambles them into the sonic equivalent of Web-browser error code." What I'm trying to express is that you can't access this record via genre (jazz, classical, whatever); for me, it only made sense when I dropped the frameworks and just listened, when I let the sound pictures happen. I've spun it countless times, and it has retained an unknowable quality, as well as a powerful intrigue—the most I could really ask of a record. You really should hear it. Add Taborn's solo show at the Rubin last week to the list of gigs I was very bummed not to be able to attend. I read a few dropped-jaw accolades (Macnie, Panken), but I'm yearning for a fuller description. Anyone?

/////

Five honorable mentions: Sir Roland Hanna Colors from a Giant's Kit (was planning on including this in the above, but it slipped my mind—you need this record; beyond masterful/gorgeous solo piano, again with a strong classical flavor); Matana Roberts Coin Coin Chapter One: Gens De Couleur Libres (some thoughts via TONY); Shane Endsley and the Music Band Then the Other (playful yet state-of-the-art 21st-century quartet jazz; Taborn also in great form here); Matthew Shipp Art of the Improviser (heavy-duty two-disc set, one trio and one solo); Tin/Bag Bridges (haven't spent good time with this trumpet/guitar duo set, but I love what I've heard; check it out on Bandcamp).