'09, the first six months: an album round-up

Normally, I wouldn't do this, but since I haven't posted any "Music of the Week" for a while, and my 2009-list updates have been sloppy at best, I thought I'd post a top 20 records Jan. to June 2009 now.

1. Abdullah Ibrahim: Senzo (Sunnyside)
2. UGK: UGK4Life (Jive)
3. The Fully Celebrated: Drunk on the Blood of the Holy Ones (AUM Fidelity)
   
4. Matthew Shipp: Harmonic Disorder (AUM Fidelity)
5. Wussy: Wussy (Shake It)
6. David S. Ware: Shakti (AUM Fidelity)
7. Art Brut: Art Brut vs. Satan (Cooking Vinyl)
8. Sonic Youth: The Eternal (Matador)
9. Steve Lehman Octet: Travail, Transformation, and Flow (Pi Recordings)
   
10. Dinosaur Jr.: Farm (JagJaguwar)
    
11. Darren Johnston: The Edge of the Forrest (Clean Feed)
12. The-Dream: Love vs. Money (Def Jam)
13. Yeah Yeah Yeahs: It's Blitz (Interscope)
14. White Denim: Exposion (EM/Tunecore)
15. Lily Allen: It's Not Me, It's You (Regal/EMI)
16. Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band: Outer South (Merge)
17. Gerald Cleaver, William Parker, Craig Taborn: Farmers by Nature (AUM Fidelity)
18. Japandroids: Post-Nothing (Unfamiliar/Tunecore)
    
19. K'Naan: Troubadour (EMI/Virgin)
20. Staff Benda Bilili: Tres Tres Fort (Crammed)
    

Last goodbyes to MJ from the blogosphere

Darcy James Argue, Visionsong, Do the Math, Frank Kogan, Simon Raynolds, Le Matos (who's right on the money, just consider those R.I.P.s.) And I'm sure those are just the tip of the ice berg.

A side note:

Minutemen's "Political Song for Michael Jackson to Sing" is one of my favorite songs of theirs. Although the stories vary as to the intent behind it, the main story goes that Mike Watt wrote MJ a letter with the lyrics hoping he'd use them in a song thinking he should use his immense popularity to speak about more, eh, important issues. I'm not sure Watt actually thought it would happen (though I disagree with those who claim the Minutemen were poking fun at him), but somewhere in my mind I can hear an aggressive synth bass and hectic drumming with MJ spitting the lyrics "organizing-the-boy-scouts for murder is wrong" - see e.g. "They Don't Care About Us".

In my opinion, tho', MJ was at his least intriguing when he tried to address social or political issues in his music - "Earth Song" and "Heal the World" never did it for me, and "They Don't..." is more interesting for it's rhythmic complexity and MJ's delivery of the lyrics rather than the actual lyrics themselves - tho' admittedly the repeated chores fits like a charm.

None of those songs reach the heights of "Ben", "Don't Stop Til You Get Enough", "Off the Wall", "Wanna Be Starting Something", "Beat It", "Thriller", "The Girl Is Mine", "Smooth Criminal", "In the Closet"...

MJ & Sky Saxon, R.I.P.

Speechless.

Meltdown 2009 reports + Vision 2009

I've been asleep at my post regarding the Ornette Coleman curated (and sadly not attended by yours truly) Meltdown festival. There's a review of the Roots with mr. Coleman-gig in today's Guardian, and few more bits here. Yet to read any reviews of gigs by David Murray and the Roots, or his gig with the Gwo-Ka Masters. Add to those gigs by James Blood Ulmer, Yo La Tengo and Marc Ribot plus guests, but they've probably been covered by someone, somewhere.

Meltdown isn't the only ace festival that has been going on these past few weeks; this year's Vision Festival finished on Monday 15th. I'm searching for reviews as I type...

FAN no. 2

Crouch, Coleman & tradition

Excellent post on the Pi Recordings blog by one Rafiq on the problems and limitations of the teachings of Stanley Crouch and his followers, especially as it regards the problem of the "jazz tradition", as Crouch would have it, using Coleman as an example.

Music of the Week 23/09

• The Fully Celebrated: Drunk on the Blod of the Holy Ones (AUM Fidelity)
• Steve Lehman Octet: "Echoes" (Travail, Transformation, and Flow, Pi Recordings)
• Dinosaur Jr.: "Over It" (Farm, JagJaguwar)
• Pixie Lott: "Boys & Girls"
• Dolly Rockers: "Gold Digger"
  

Koko Taylor, R.I.P.

More @ Idolator.

Steve Lehman Octet - Threadgillian stuff

In what looks to be a decent year for large ensemble jazz records - Darcy James Argue's Secret Society and Hypnotic Jazz Ensemble, to name but two - the preview from Steve Lehman Octet's new record posted by Destinatio: Out! the other day sounds especially promising. The track, "Echoes", does the trick of sounding at once very contemporary and modern, especially in the way the horns and bass riff and in Tyshawn Sorey's hip-hop influenced drumming, while at the same time echoing (right!) the works of past masters. I have to agree with Ben Ratlif in hearing a similarity with Henry Threadgill's music in the ways the riffs and beats are orchestrated. Steve Lehman himself has a wail that is reminiscent of the great Eric Dolphy both because of his gruff tone and in how his solo leaps out and swirl around the rest of the music. I'm very much looking forward to hearing more of this record.

Travail, Transformation and Flow is released by Pi Recordings and is available from, among others, Jazz Loft and amazon.com (see below).

I mentioned that the talented Tyshawn Sorey plays on the record. In this Q&A he reveals himself as a man with diverse (and almost impeccable) tastes. Beefheart, Nirvana, Braxton and Prince. Gotta love it.

eMusic is growing

As reported in the NY Times yesterday, eMusic have struck a deal with Sony Music and will soon be able to offer (older) Sony records and songs as a part of the download site's ever growing catalogue. Very good news indeed, what with eMusic being my preferred place for legal downloads (I still prefer physical records, but eMusic's cheap enough to both download an mp3-version and buy the CD/LP if I feel it's good enough). They have good writers working for them too.

Now, if they only could do something about their frustrating search engine: a search for, say, William Parker gives you a dozen or so hits, including separate entries for William Parker Quartet and Trio, instead of one main entry with sub-entries. Maybe I should offer my services...