{"id":3318,"date":"2021-12-07T01:25:17","date_gmt":"2021-12-07T01:25:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/?p=3318"},"modified":"2022-01-03T23:22:51","modified_gmt":"2022-01-03T23:22:51","slug":"gene-seymours-top-ten-jazz-albums-for-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/geneseymour.com\/?p=3318","title":{"rendered":"Gene Seymour’s Top Ten Jazz Albums for 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n

I\u2019m not altogether sure what it says about this year \u2013 or, rather, my year \u2013 in jazz that for the first time since I started putting these things together, a single artist dominates my annual list as William Parker does this one. It\u2019s not as though he\u2019s an overnight sensation; he\u2019s been a redoubtable and influential fixture on the progressive jazz scene since the 1970s when the music\u2019s cutting edge could be found working through its experiments in big-city lofts. But his impulse to outwork, out-produce and out-gig his peers both within and outside the (so-called) avant-garde has been especially apparent this year, not just with the significance of the ten-disc omnibus that leads the list (see below), but in the appearance during the past 12 months of at least six albums bearing his name, including three that are also on the list. (5, 6 and 10) It helps that Parker is something of a polymath: a grandmaster of the upright bass with a formidable body-of-work as a composer along with an ability to express himself on many other instruments and an accomplished, if relatively unsung poet. From reading Cisco Bradley\u2019s Universal Tonality: The Life and Work of William Parker<\/em> (Duke University Press), also published this year, one gets the impression that irrepressible curiosity and a multiplicity of interests are among the things that drive Parker forward. I\u2019m sort of thinking that most of us who have struggled throughout 2021 to recuperate in various ways from 2020 while still feeling wary and uneasy about what\u2019s happening now and whatever\u2019s ahead could profit from the example set by somebody like William Parker, who at 70 has cultivated and honed his craft to a glistening edge while retaining an active abhorrence of injustice, a profound sense of cultural history and a steadfast, self-effacing core of spiritual equilibrium.

Most of the other artists on this year\u2019s list have in different ways released albums that convey those same values. Some are declarative in expression, others more contemplative. They engage the prevailing disquiet, not (necessarily) in anger, but with a determination to face turbulence and dread with clarity and understanding. (I almost said \u201ccorrectness.\u201d I refuse to say \u201cwoke.\u201d Never mind why.)

Also: if you\u2019d somehow found my 20-something self under siege in the seventies and told me that more than a half-century later, albums headlined by both Pharoah Sanders and Archie Shepp would be included among my personal top-ten list, I\u2019d have said you were either daft or irrationally optimistic. Their octogenarian triumphs make me wonder whether, \u201cirrational optimism\u201d is a legitimate and necessary response to whatever\u2019s now threatening us all, whether from nature or from humans. It may well be that both Sanders and Shepp persist because they\u2019re both still somehow necessary to fight the power in their different ways. Feel free to suggest that in another few decades, four of Wynton Marsalis\u2019 albums will find their way to the upper half of such lists, assuming we\u2019ll still have albums, or lists, or\u2026

No. Let\u2019s not go to there. We\u2019re going to try \u201cirrational optimism\u201d for a while longer. At least, I am.

<\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\r\n





1.) The Music of William Parker, Migration of Silence Into and Out of the Tone World, Volumes 1-10<\/strong> <\/em>(AUM)<\/strong> \u2013 On its own, this imposing gallery-without-walls is a Top-10 list. And not just for jazz, but also for world music, art songs, soundscapes and \u201cspoken poetry.\u201d Think of it also as a ginormous prism that, when held to natural light, emits wildly varying arrays of color and echo. The first volume, \u201cBlue Limelight,\u201d sets the table for its successors as Parker\u2019s musical autobiography suffused with childhood memories and dreams (\u201cCosmic Funk,\u201d \u201cA Great Day to Be Dead\u201d) and reminiscences of such colleagues as Cecil Taylor and lesser-know-but-still-legendary Hoboken trumpeter Bennie Bishop. The remaining volumes comprise a portable universe of possibility \u2013 and of orchestration: a whole disc of solo piano pieces played by Eri Yamamoto taking off from some of the composer\u2019s personal iconography (Malachi Favors, Malcolm X) and his abiding engagement with Native American history and culture; another volume, \u201cCheops,\u201d whose title track is named after an Egyptian pyramid, places in its foreground the startling range and pyrotechnics of vocalist Kyoko Kitamura with Parker not only playing bass, but also a bass dudek (an ancient Armenian double-reed instrument) and fujara (a \u201cfipple flute,\u201d tall enough to stare down a bassoon). The composer provides plenty of space for voices to lay out, notably on a volume where Lisa Sokolov does a stunning a capella recital of Parker\u2019s \u201cAfternoon Poem.\u201d Parker throughout is less of a presence on bass than he is on other such exotic instruments whose deployment emerges in all manner of settings whether they are reveries of Harlem, Mexico or the films of Fellini, Visconti, Antonioni, and other Italian filmmakers (\u201cLights in the Rain.\u201d) To find the best encapsulation of this ambitious collection, you need to go all the way back to the first volume\u2019s third track, \u201cI\u2019d Rather Be\u201d in which this titan of what is still regarded as jazz\u2019s \u201cavant-garde\u201d has a character from one his \u201ctone poems\u201d declare that she \u201cwould rather be a human being than be avant-garde [because] the most avant-garde thing you can be is a human being.\u201d


<\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n



2.) Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra Septet with Wynton Marsalis<\/strong>,<\/em>The Democracy! Suite<\/strong><\/em> (Blue Engine)<\/strong> \u2013 The leanest, tightest, toughest-minded music released under Wynton Marsalis\u2019 name in decades made its public debut in the Appel Room of J@LC\u2019s Frederick C. Rose Hall in September 2020, just about the time when the shattering events of that year were propelling the nation towards its Election Day rendezvous with destiny. There was no live audience because of the COVID-19 lockdown. But there\u2019s urgency, momentum and focus merging together in Marsalis\u2019 eight-part composition in ways not often encountered in his previous work. The first track, \u201cBe Present,\u201d is as declamatory as its title, throwing punches at the prevailing chaos without flailing. Once this group has your attention, it keeps up the pace with \u201cSloganize, Patronize, Realize, Revolutionize (Black Lives Matter),\u201d a piquant rouser upon which Marsalis\u2019 old boss Art Blakey would have pounced with polychordal brio. Of the ensemble\u2019s soloists, J@LC mainstay Walter Blanding makes his tenor sax growl deep and dissonant on this track, in case there\u2019s any doubt that Marsalis and his men are out to kick Trumpism in the teeth. But it\u2019s not all grievance and exasperation. Things perk up with \u201cBallot Box Bounce\u201d anchored by reed master Ted Nash\u2019s breezy rendering on flute of Marsalis\u2019 witty melody and \u201cThat Dance We Do (That You Love),\u201d with Blanding, Nash, trombonist Elliot Mason, pianist Dan Nimmer, drummer Obed Calvaire, and bassist Carlos Henriquez helping their leader here and elsewhere make his most emphatic case yet for jazz being the consummate expression of, and metaphor for the democratic process: individual freedom flourishing within the collective imperative. And if the resilience of that paradox isn\u2019t clear to all, or even some, Marsalis composes a movement for that, too: \u201cIt Come \u2018Round \u2018Gin.\u201d As everything, good, bad, and indifferent, always does in America.

<\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n


3.) Veronica Swift, This Bitter Earth<\/em> (Mack Avenue)\u2014<\/strong> For Swift, the classic pop song repertoire is more than an arena for her fearsome vocal agility. It is also a mode of interrogation, an agency of dissent. Think of how her sister Millennial phenom Cecile McLorin Salvant assembled a concept album of standards, 2015\u2019s For One to Love<\/em>, illuminating the often-casually toxic quirks of the male gaze. The title track of Swift\u2019s latest album, which until now seemed the sole property of Dinah Washington, signals thoughtful and passionate engagement with the anxious present. She applies shading and intensity to the Clyde Otis dirge, which at once contains its majesty while maximizing its power. It\u2019s an exquisite balancing act that sets the table for the creative and virtuosic renditions of stage musical standards and such Brill Building oddities as \u201cHe Hit Me (And It Felt Like a Kiss),\u201d Carole King and Gerry Goffin\u2019s disquieting dissection of abusive love, which she sings to the stark accompaniment of Armand Hirsch\u2019s guitar. She carries this inquiry into questionable behavior between the sexes to such grand old war horses as \u201cAs Long as He Needs Me\u201d from \u201cOliver!\u201d and \u201cHow Lovely to Be a Woman,\u201d from \u201cBye Bye Birdie,\u201d whose effervescent interpretation barely conceals the gimlet-eyed contempt for its implicit sexism. She trains her sights on racism with Rodgers and Hammerstein\u2019s \u201cYou\u2019ve Got to Be Carefully Taught,\u201d which is immediately, but no less trenchantly (or imaginatively) countered with that same duo\u2019s \u201cGetting To Know You.\u201d Her range of concerns is as deep and wide as her vocal resources, taking in Bob Dorough\u2019s bopping \u201cYou\u2019re the Dangerous Type\u201d and Dave Frishberg\u2019s \u201cThe Sports Page,\u201d cheekily summing up why so many of us seek refuge in scores and highlights from the exasperations of whatever \u201chard news\u201d delivers. The present spreads all over This Bitter Earth<\/em>. But Swift\u2019s mesmerizing chops remain Beautiful and True in any time frame.<\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n



4.) Floating Points & Pharoah Sanders featuring the London Symphony Orchestra,<\/strong> Promises<\/strong><\/em> (Luaka Bop)<\/strong> \u2013 OK. John Coltrane\u2019s Ascension<\/em>, right? Pharoah Sanders was one of the eleven musicians who played on that landmark 1965 album that drew a line in the sand between those who were totally onboard for the Free Jazz rocket flight and those who wanted no part of it. After a six-decade career which he began as an avatar for \u201coutside\u201d saxophone inventions, Sanders, now 81, aligned himself with British electronic music artisan Sam Shepherd, alias Floating Points, who composed a nine-part suite he and Sanders recorded with the LSO not long before everything locked down. So, what does the tempestuous Ascension,<\/em> which I\u2019ve routinely characterized (in a good way) as a \u201csonic maelstrom\u201d or a \u201cpolyphonic orchestrated abstraction\u201d have in common with a sequence of suggestive, near-pastoral impressions? (A glibly convenient, if not terribly useful shorthand description might be, \u201ctrance music with soul.\u201d) For one thing, both works take off from a simple progression of notes that become an ongoing riff: Ascension<\/em> takes off from five while Promises<\/em> sets sail from seven. Each work also wears its own brand of inscrutability, daring you to poke around its layers, resisting any effort towards \u201cunderstanding\u201d what makes each of them tick. With Promises,<\/em> there are tensions winnowing throughout between space and time, declaration and insinuation, abandonment and resolve. Sanders\u2019 voice, downier, warmer, but every bit as probing and incantatory as it was when he was in his mid-twenties, is what carries you along the contours laid out by Shepherd\u2019s keyboards and the LSO\u2019s strings. (At various points, you hear the saxophonist\u2019s gentle singing voice seeping into the mixture with his own non-verbal lyrics.) On the whole, the album delivers nowhere near the same kind of intensity associated with Ascension. <\/em>It is a far subtler, more enchanting, and comparably provocative experience that coerces repeated listening in search of more secrets, not resolutions necessarily, just more secrets.

<\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n


5.) William Parker, Painter\u2019s Winter<\/em> (AUM)<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n



6.) William Parker, Mayan Space Station<\/em> (AUM)<\/strong> \u2013 Two very different trios make the case for Parker\u2019s mastery of both his principal instrument and of guiding small bands of any size towards expansive and productive interplay. With electric guitarist Ava Mendoza setting off harmonic firestorms propelled by the equally combustible drummer Gerald Cleaver, Mayan Space Station<\/em> is redolent of the riveting mosaics of amplified sound forged in trios led by the late Sonny Sharrock. Parker\u2019s bass playing does as much breakaway running as his two partners, though most of the time he\u2019s content to drive this vehicle forward and let their younger people go off. The acoustic trio on Painter\u2019s Window<\/em> that includes multi-instrumentalist Daniel Carter and drummer Hamid Drake seems a lot more composed. But their collaboration is just as intense and deeply committed with Carter\u2019s solos on trumpet, saxophones and flute unfurling intricate patterns as Drake\u2019s percussive momentum shifty enough to keep up with the indefatigable bassist. Besides Parker, the only quality these two discs share is narrative drive that\u2019s both refined and rugged.<\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n



7.) Kimbrough<\/em> (Newvelle)<\/strong> \u2013 Frank Kimbrough died just before last New Year\u2019s Eve at 64, setting off a still-resounding wave of shock and grief from generations of jazz musicians who played with or studied under him. Among these artists, Kimbrough was beloved as a \u201cpianist\u2019s pianist,\u201d a droll and ubiquitous presence on the New York City scene, an archivist tending diligently to the legacies of Herbie Nichols and Thelonious Monk, a crucial member of the critically acclaimed Maria Schneider Orchestra, a devoted teacher who mentored aspiring musicians at NYU and Julliard, and a gifted, uncompromising, and prolific composer. It is mostly to that latter aspect of Kimbrough\u2019s life and work that this extensive, ambitious tribute album was recorded almost six months after his death. There are 61 tracks featuring 67musicians in 55 different combinations. Any random sample of the players involved \u2013 Ben Allison, Fred Hersch, Michael Blake, Dave Douglas, Craig Taborn, Joe Lovano, Matt Wilson, Helen Sung, Noah Preminger, among many others \u2013 is enough to suggest the breadth and depth of Kimbrough\u2019s influence on his peers and ex-pupils alike. The compositions they play, sometimes on one take and in different versions (\u201cReluctance\u201d is rendered in solo and quartet form) offer so many revelations as to suggest decades to come of workshops, repertory orchestrations and ensemble performances of Kimbrough\u2019s mostly unsung work spreading out to concert halls and colleges here and abroad. In the immediate aftermath of Kimbrough\u2019s passing, one of his heartbroken friends wondered whether it marked the end of an era or the beginning of a new one. This album\u2019s release reinforces my belief that it\u2019s more the latter. I\u2019m sure Frank would agree.<\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n



8.) Archie Shepp & Jason Moran, Let My People Go (<\/em>Archieball)<\/strong> \u2013 There was always something of the old-time spiritual revivalist in Shepp, even as far back as the mid-1960s when he emerged as one of the more stridently political of the emerging tenor saxophonists inspired and nurtured by John Coltrane. At 83, Shepp doesn\u2019t let his phrasings wail with the sustained force he exerted on such classics as 1966s Mama Too Tight,<\/em> 1972\u2019s Attica Blues<\/em> or (my all-time favorite) 1975\u2019s A Sea of Faces<\/em>. His mature style relies more on space and timing, the vocalizing more contained, but no less intense. In this collaboration with the mighty, simpatico pianist Jason Moran, Shepp sings with and without the tenor or (mostly) soprano sax with a depth of feeling that releases itself in bursts, especially in the \u201csorrow songs\u201d such as \u201cGo Down, Moses\u201d and \u201cSometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child.\u201d Shepp\u2019s stark, weathered vocals allow you to hear each line and word with a deeper sense of desolation and yearning on these spirituals and Moran\u2019s own spare and impeccably timed comping provides an elegant frame for Shepp\u2019s arias. On the other tracks, Shepp and Moran are more conversational, their measured, lively exchange of themes and ideas inspiring fresh ways of engaging such familiar standards as Ellington\u2019s and Strayhorn\u2019s \u201cIsfahan,\u201d Monk\u2019s \u201cRound Midnight,\u201d Coltrane\u2019s \u201cWise One,\u201d Shepp\u2019s own \u201cUjamaa,\u201d and, in an especially multi-layered rendering, Moran\u2019s own \u201cHe Cares.\u201d Shepp\u2019s patented blurts, bleats and squawks flare up over the cushions of chords Moran sets loose or holds back whenever the occasion demands. It often sounds as though both are collaborating on separate dramas with their synchronistical dialogue weaving seamlessly into place. One remembers that back in those 1960s, Shepp was, among other things, a playwright.

<\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n


9.) Julian Lage, Squint<\/em> (Blue Note)<\/strong> \u2013 Anyone whose curriculum vitae includes gigs with Nels Cline, Charles Lloyd, John Zorn, Bela Fleck, Gary Burton, David Grisman and Yoko Ono should have your attention from the jump. And Lage (pronounced \u201clahzh,\u201d as in \u201clozenge\u201d) goes all out on his first release with the fabled Blue Note label to show he can do anything and everything he wants to with a guitar, whether it\u2019s a neoclassical a cappella solo (\u201cEtude\u201d), straight-ahead swing (\u201cBoo Blues,\u201d the title track), classic covers (Johnny Mandel\u2019s \u201cEmily,\u201d Gene Autry\u2019s \u201cCall of the Canyon\u201d), country-rock (\u201cDay and Age,\u201d \u201cTwilight Surfer\u201d). Clearly Lage knows more than a little about a lot of different genres. But he makes his best impression as a player not by leading with his learning or virtuosity, but by gently asserting and maneuvering his own sensibility into each piece. It helps to have a rhythm section of bassist Jorge Roeder and drummer Dave King as smart and attentive to his needs as any great piano trio. Indeed, Lage\u2019s trio has drawn comparisons to Bill Evans\u2019 deathless 1961 Village Vanguard threesome both for the seamless interaction between the principals and the insinuating lyricism. Other influences raise their hands for attention in Lage\u2019s style from Chet Atkins to Pat Martino. But Lage, who first gained notice as an eight-year-old prodigy, is still just getting started and with greater name recognition an all-but-inevitable result from Squint , one gets a little tingly over what he\u2019ll be able to do with even broader resources available to him.

<\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n

10.) William Parker & Matthew Shipp, Re-Union 2021<\/em> (Rogue Art)<\/strong> \u2013 Though Parker and Shipp have worked together on several projects with larger groups, this Re-Union<\/em> marks only the third time they\u2019ve played together as a duo. Their respective personalities blend so well together that it\u2019s surprising they haven\u2019t \u201cre-unioned\u201d more often. As with most friends\u2019 conversations, one of them starts out with something small: a thread, a fragment, a half-baked suggestion, the punch line of a joke neither knows about (yet), any of which could make the other either carry the thought towards a tentative conclusion or veer off into another topic entirely. Which is how I\u2019d best characterize the 22-minute title track that kicks things off. If you\u2019re able to keep up with the exchange, you can start taking measure of the two personalities and how they are or aren\u2019t alike. Shipp\u2019s eccentric, enigmatic combinations of chord clusters follow their own logic while Parker\u2019s austere, but fluid bass lines follow him along when they\u2019re not shoving him in an altogether different direction. Neither seems particularly worried about whether the other lands, though the unwary listener should always be alert for shifts in direction, temperament, maybe an impromptu lull in their transaction before picking up the previous thread or finding a new one. They\u2019re both free spirits in different ways \u2013 but not so free-spirited that they forget you\u2019re listening. So be ready when Parker decides to pick up his bow to assert himself more or Shipp re-doubles his efforts to deepen his attack. Think of it as just another afternoon of eavesdropping at the coffee house when voices are raised without warning, but nobody\u2019s mad at anybody.
In this spirit, we leave the last words to both these gentlemen.<\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n