All My Children

My life partner jokes that I have dozens of children besides our biological offspring. I maintain paternal associations with dozens of people born decades after me. Three such youths are the members of Blackstarkids. My status as a day-one advocate of the Kansas City band led to our ongoing association.

Ty Faizon issued Mango Marai & The Saturn Star four weeks ago. The mixtape has three primary themes: drugs (I don’t approve), self-defensive justifications (Ty shouldn’t worry about what other people think) and music obsessiveness (my favorite element). It’s my kind of mess.

I love Ty’s flow, emo-esque sincerity and production. He and I esteem the sonic worlds created by Q-Tip, Kanye West and Pharrell Williams. The distinctive presence of TheBabeGabe is also welcome. Gabe’s new single "PSA" lives at the intersection of jazz, punk and hip-hop. It sounds like home.

Album Review: Bad Bunny- Debí Tirar Más Fotos

A winter storm deposited a foot of snow on the Kansas City area over the weekend. Trapped inside their homes with little better to do, neighbors monitored my progress as I shoveled on Monday, January 6.  My driveway never seemed so long.

Between the debilitating cold and a thin layer of ice, success didn’t seem probable. What doubters couldn’t know is that I was powered by the album Bad Bunny released a few hours earlier.   

Debí Tirar Más Fotos is a 62-minute survey of the past fifty years of Puerto Rican music. While it’s still loaded with the gaudy decadence associated with Bad Bunny, Debí Tirar Más Fotos is the most sophisticated album yet from my 2020 Artist of the Year. For every allusion to contemporary pop there’s a reference to vintage Fania Records.

I managed to clear a thirty-foot path from my garage to the street during the first two plays of Debí Tirar Más Fotos. An impressed neighbor sent a congratulatory text as I thawed out during the third of what’s certain to be dozens of rotations of Debí Tirar Más Fotos in 2025.

Concert Review: Kristina Reiko Cooper and the Kinnor Philharmonic at White Theatre

Original image by There Stands the Glass.

I often joke that disruptive people fiddling with paper at worship services and concerts sound as if they’re practicing origami. I suppressed a smile when I turned to see who was incessantly crinkling a program at White Theatre on New Year’s Day. A kid was actually engaged in an elaborate origami project.

Nevertheless, I glared at the noisemaker until his mother made him cut it out. I didn’t want anything impinging on my appreciation of cellist Kristina Reiko Cooper’s extraordinary playing on Mieczyslaw Weinberg’s dramatic “Fantasy for Cello & Orchestra” with the Kinnor Philharmonic. Having paid $19 for the concert, I intended to get my money’s worth.

The disruption by the crafty kid was merely a preview of the casual audience behavior. Many members of the audience of about 400 behaved as if the event was an outdoor picnic. A Tootie-worthy outburst compelled Cooper to momentarily pause during reading of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s “Variations on a Rococo Theme.”

Yet Susan Goldenberg’s invocation of Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning after intermission helped me take the tantrum in stride. By the time a rendition of "Hatikvah" concluded the concert, I’d resolved to be more patient with inevitable irritants in the new year.

Album Review: ØKSE- ØKSE

I took only occasional peeks at The Free Jazz Collective in 2024. That’s gonna change. I was simultaneously intrigued and alarmed when the site’s editors named the self-titled release by ØKSE its 2024 album of the year on New Year’s Day. I’d been unfamiliar with the Norwegian band. What a terrible oversight! ØKSE has much the same intent as Sunny Five’s Candid, the skronky missive that’s my favorite jazz album of 2024. The avant-garde all-stars in Sunny Five create a rarified form of punk-jazz. Rather than punk, ØKSE melds underground hip-hop with American improvised music. In addition to their impeccable artistic merit, both albums robustly disprove the fallacious notion that the entirety of the jazz realm has become tired, tame and trifling. Candid and ØKSE are as vital as any music released in 2024.

Bibliomania: My Year in Books

Original image by There Stands the Glass.

Used books apparently aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on. I took advantage of the pricing anomaly in 2024 by purchasing hundreds of undervalued books at thrift shops and library sales in 2024. Diligent bargain hunting put me well on my way to assembling one of the finest general-interest libraries in my zip code. Yet I own only half the 111 books I read in 2024. Because purchases made during my scavenger hunts are on a best-title-available status, I’m still dependent on library loans. My intellectual improvement regimen is rigorous regardless of the source. I balanced weighty non-fiction studies with literary classics by Baldwin, Balzac, Conrad, Dickens, Fitzgerald, Ibsen, Machiavelli, Maugham, Raleigh and Wharton. Even so, I’m not too proud to admit my affection for lightweight fare such as popular histories written by Erik Larson and Candice Millard. A sampling of my year in books follows.

Favorite book: Sophocles- The Three Theban Plays: Antigone, Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus (fifth century B.C.)

Most entertaining book: Giovanni Boccaccio- The Decameron (1353)

Most impactful book: George Antonius- The Arab Awakening (1946)

Most relevant book: Walter Isaacson- Elon Musk (2023)

Nicest surprise: Thomas More- Utopia (1516)

Biggest disappointment: Ann Patchett- Tom Lake (2023) 

Best spiritual book: C.S. Lewis- The Screwtape Letters (1942)

Best music book: Robyn Hitchcock- 1967 (2024)

Best short story collection: Flannery O'Connor- A Good Man Is Hard to Find (1955)

Best poetry collection: Rainer Maria Rilke- Poems from the Book of Hours (1941)

Best audiobook: Elizabeth Strout- Olive Kitteridge (2008)

Most disturbing book: Gabriel García Márquez- One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967)

Longest book: Henry Fielding- The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling (1749, 1,000 pages)

Most ambitious project: beginning Will Durant’s 11-volume The Story of Civilization series

I conducted the same exercise in 2023 and 2022.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: There Stands the Glass’ Artist of the Year

Original image of the view from Mozart’s second home in Salzburg by There Stands the Glass.

I’m a walking advertisement for music tourism. I’ve wheeled trips to North American cities including Chicago, Knoxville, New York, Portland and Toronto around a variety of concerts and festivals in recent years. I expanded my range in 2024.

As a natural progression of my snowballing obsession with classical music, I traveled to Austria to visit the two cities most associated with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Treks to the genius’ childhood homes in Salzburg left me breathless. Attending worship services in Mozart-affiliated churches in Salzburg and Vienna provided even more meaningful experiences.

More significantly, I felt at home in Vienna, a subdued city filled with cafés, bookshops and classical music. Even though I don’t speak the language, wear fashionable clothes or smoke cigarettes, I’m aligned with the Viennese. I’m sympathetic to their bookish stoicism, cultural elitism and judgemental temperament. 

I discovered my aesthetic home thanks to Mozart. That’s just one of the many reasons Mozart is my artist of the year. Honorable mentions: Zach Bryan, Anna Butterss and Nick Shoulders. Previous recipients of There Stands the Glass’ Artist of the Year designation are Hilary Hahn (2023), Joyce DiDonato (2022), Pat Metheny (2021) and Bad Bunny (2020).

Album Review: Lucibela- Moda Antiga

During a set break at a Marvin Gruenbaum gig, members of my extended family named their ideal dinner party music. I usually turn to the gypsy jazz of Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli. Others cited Édith Piaf and David Grisman. As usual, my daughter won the discussion by mentioning Lucibela. She and I sat in the front-row at a poorly attended 2022 concert by the Cape Verdean vocalist in Portland. Inspired by the reminder of that wonderful evening, I discovered Lucibela released her third album last month. The gorgeous Moda Antiga will play the next time I host guests.

Album Review: Elephant9 with Terje Rypdal- Catching Fire

Traveling salesmen and airplane pilots bought houses in a shiny subdivision fifteen minutes south of Kansas City’s new airport in the 1970s. Their spouses tended to be school teachers and travel agents. Abetted by basements offset from the remainder of split-level homes, their children ran wild in 1976.

Boys sorted themselves by sports agility and musical taste. Bespectacled and shrimpy, I tried to determine if I most loved hard rock (Aerosmith!), pop (Elton John!) or soul (Stevie Wonder!). The majority of my peers were devotees of prog rock.

“Carry On Wayward Son” and “Crystal Ball,” current hits by the Midwestern bands Kansas and Styx, were ubiquitous. Albums by Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Genesis and Yes were accentuated by lava lamps and sound-triggered novelty lights in approximately every fifth or so residence in the neighborhood.

The coolest boys moved beyond prog rock. They formed jazz fusion bands inspired by the likes of Billy Cobham, Jan Hammer, Jaco Pastorius and Terje Rypdal. The best of their jam sessions sounded a lot like Catching Fire.

Released in October, Catching Fire is a 2017 live collaboration between the storied Norwegian guitarist Rypdal and his countrymen in Elephant9. The ridiculously overblown attack is a refreshing blast from the past. I almost wish the Ramones and the Sugar Hill Gang hadn’t come along to render the excessive pomp obsolete.

All Life Long: The Top Albums, EPs and Reissues of 2024

I listened to nothing but tinny opera recordings from the 1950s during several glorious days in the past twelve months. Inspired by a few of the reissues listed below, I also went on extended vintage gypsy jazz jags, took deep dives into 1960s free jazz and wallowed in 1970s funk. While I prize each of the 2024 releases ranked here, little of the new music affected me as much as the sounds of the distant past I hadn’t previously encountered. What now? My interests continue to change with such rapidity that I can’t foresee what will capture my attention in 2025.

The Top Fifty New Albums of 2024

1. Kali Malone- All Life Long

2. Jlin- Akoma

3. JPEGMAFIA- I Lay Down My Life for You

4. Pygmalion- Mozart: Requiem

5. Zach Bryan- The Great American Bar Scene

6. Sunny Five- Candid

7. Future and Metro Boomin- We Don’t Trust You and 

We Still Don’t Trust You

8. Grupo Frontera- Jugando a Que No Pasa Nada

9. Caroline Shaw- Leonardo da Vinci: Original Score

10. Bilal- Live at Glasshaus and Adjust Brightness

11. Nduduzo Makhathini- uNomkhubulwane

12. Willie Nelson- Last Leaf on the Tree and The Border

13. Sarah Davachi- The Head as Form’d in the Crier’s Choir

14. Sault- Acts of Faith

15. Philip Glass- Solo

16. Anja Lechner- Bach Abel Hume

17. Brad Mehldau- After Bach II and Après Fauré

18. Fred Hersch- Silent, Listening

19. Oren Ambarchi- Ghosted II

20. Denzel Curry- King of the Mischievous South, Vol. 2

21. Vince Staples- Dark Times

22. Kaitlin Butts- Roadrunner!

23. Borderlands Trio- Rewilder

24. Jack White- No Name

25. Willi Carlisle- Critterland

26. Linda Thompson- Proxy Music

27. Tord Gustavsen Trio- Seeing

28. Moor Mother- The Great Bailout

29. Tomeka Reid, Isidora Edwards and Elisabeth Coudoux- 

Reid/Edwards/Coudoux

30. Blackstarkids- Saturn Dayz and Heaven On Urf

31. Rogê- Curyman II

32. Nala Sinephro- Endlessness

33. Samara Joy- Portrait

34. John Adams- Girls of the Golden West

35. Common and Pete Rock- The Auditorium Vol. 1

36. Betty Bryant- Lotta Livin’

37. The Smile- Wall of Eyes and Cutouts

38. Barbara Hannigan and Bertrand Chamayou- Messiaen

39. Véronique Gens- Paysage

40. Ahmed- Wood Blues

41. Jessica Pratt- Here in the Pitch

42. SML- Small Medium Large

43. Kevin Puts- The Hours

44. Tarbaby- You Think This America

45. SleazyWorld Go- More Than a Shooter

46. Andrew Cyrille, Kit Downes and Bill Frisell- Breaking the Shell

47. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds- Wild God

48. Ryuichi Sakamoto- Opus

49. Kendrick Lamar- GNX

50. The Wiener Philharmoniker with Lise Davidsen- Sommernachtskonzert at the Schönbrunn Palace

The Top 25 EPs of 2024

1. Drug Church- Prude

2. Mike and Tony Seltzer- Pinball

3. Laura Cannell- Firelore

4. Little Simz- Drop

5. Shabaka- Possession

6. Peter Schlamb- Pliable Consciousness

7. Regional Justice Center- Freedom Sweet Freedom

8. Shredders- Serious Dudes

9. Benoît Delbecq- Triple Fever

10. Krystle Warren & The Academy- Extended Play

11. Wilco- Hot Sun Cool Shroud

12. Khatia Buniatishvili- Labyrinth: Ephemera

13. Knocked Loose- You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To

14. Anysia Kym- Truest

15. Leonhard Baumgartner, Svenja Dose, Margarita Pochebut, Oscar Jockel- Mozart: Serenade in C Major, K. 648 “A Very Little Night Music”

16. Thirdface- Ministerial Cafeteria

17. Melt-Banana- 3+5

18. Badbadnotgood- Mid Spiral: Chaos

19. Joan Shelley- Mood Ring

20. Doris- The Saver

21. Carminho- At Electrical Audio

22. Herbert Blomstedt and Gewandhausorchester- Mozart: Serenade in C Major, K. 648 “A Very Little Night Music”

23. Ramona and the Holy Smokes- Til It’s Over

24. Meth Math- Chupetones

25. Snorri Hallgrimsson- Longer Shadows, Softer Stones

The Top 25 Reissues and Reimaginings of 2024

1. Alice Coltrane- The Carnegie Hall Concert

2. funk.BR: São Paulo

3. Paul McCartney- One Hand Clapping

4. Miles Davis- Miles in France 1963 & 1964: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 8

5. Charles Gayle, William Parker and Milford Graves- WEBO

6. Emahoy Tsegué Maryam Guèbrou- Souvenirs

7. Robyn Hitchcock- 1967: Vacations in the Past

8. McCoy Tyner, Joe Henderson, Henry Grimes and Jack DeJohnette- Forces of Nature: Live at Slugs

9. Rail Band- Rail Band

10. Sonic Youth- Walls Have Ears

11. Flatland Cavalry- Flatland Forever

12. Jakob Bro- Taking Turns

13. Mal Waldron and Steve Lacy- The Mighty Warriors Live in Antwerp

14. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan- Chain of Light

15. Alejandro Escovedo- Echo Dancing

16. The Ohio Players- Observations In Time: The Johnny Brantley/Vidalia Productions

17. Ron Miles- Old Main Chapel

18. Jack Bruce- Smiles & Grins, Broadcast Sessions 1970-2001

19. William Baskinski- September 23rd

20. Gastr Del Sol- We Have Dozens of Titles

21. Art Tatum- Jewels in the Treasure Box: The 1953 Chicago Blue Note Jazz Club Recordings

22. DJ-Kicks: Honey Dijon

23. Bryan Ferry- Retrospective: Selected Recordings 1973-2023

24. Dolly Parton and Family- Smoky Mountain DNA: Family, Faith and Fables

25. Charlie Parker- Bird in Kansas City

My fifty favorite performances of 2024 are ranked here. My fifty favorite songs of 2024 are listed here. And my top albums and songs of 2023 are here.

The Top Fifty Performances of 2024

(Original image of Vasily Petrenko and Isata Kanneh-Mason at Helzberg Hall by There Stands the Glass.)

Just because I’m no longer paid to review concerts doesn’t mean I stopped going out. The 157 music performances I’ve attended so far in 2024 represent an unprecedented financial outlay. The out-of-pocket figure would have been even more breathtaking had I been able to bring myself to acquire exorbitantly priced tickets to sold-out appearances in the Kansas City area by Bad Bunny, J. Cole and Grupo Frontera. Visiting the bucket list venues Wigmore Hall, Wiener Hofmusikkapelle and Wiener Staatsoper and catching the Jesus and Mary Chain, Makaya McCraven, Negativland and Jah Wobble for the first time was worth the expense. Unless I live longer than anticipated, the investment will have been worth it.

1. Militarie Gun, Pool Kids, Spiritual Cramp and Spacing at recordBar
My review.

2. Peter Schlamb, Matt Otto, Matt Villinger, Sebastian Arias and Zach Morrow at the Ship
My review.

3. Véronique Gens and Susan Manoff at Wigmore Hall (London)
My Instagram snapshot.

4. Jeffrey Osborne at Ameristar Casino
My Instagram clip.

5. Nick Shoulders at Third Place Lounge
My review.

6. Mike, 454, Niontay and El Cousteau at recordBar
My Instagram clip.

7. Wiener Staatsoper’s “Carmen” (Vienna)
My Instagram snapshot.

8. Flatland Cavalry at Grinders KC
My Instagram clip.

9. Makaya McCraven at Liberty Hall
My review.

10. Peter Schipka, Choralschola der Wiener Hofburgkapelle, Wiener Sängerknaben and Wiener Staatsoper at Wiener Hofmusikkapelle (Vienna)
My Instagram clip.

11. Rev. Dwight Frizzell’s Heliophonie at Charlotte Street Foundation
My review.

12. Rev. Dwight Frizzell’s Bridge at Charlotte Street Foundation
My Instagram clip.

13. Ema Nikolovska at the Folly Theater 
My review.

14. Childish Gambino and Willow at the T-Mobile Center
My review.

15. Lawrence Brownlee at the Lied Center
My review.

16. Joe Lovano, Marilyn Crispell and Carmen Castaldi at Wigmore Hall (London)
My review.

17. Sandbox Percussion, Soowin Kim and Gloria Chen at Lincoln Performance Hall (Portland)
My review.

18. Isata Kanneh-Mason with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at Helzberg Hall
My review.

19. Rod Fleeman Trio at Green Lady Lounge
My Instagram clip.

20. UMKC Opera’s “Marriage of Figaro” at White Theater
My review.

21. Yo-Yo Ma and the Harmony Project at Parade Park
My Instagram clip.

22. David Lord, V. Vecker and the Extemporaneous Music and Arts Society at Farewell
My review.

23. Jah Wobble’s Invaders of the Heart at Mississippi Studios
My review.

24. Nick Shoulders and Chris Acker at Knuckleheads
My Instagram clip.

25. Lionel Richie and Earth Wind & Fire at the T-Mobile Center
My review.

26. Khatia Buniatishvili at Helzberg Hall
My Instagram snapshot.

27. Willi Carlisle at the Folk Alliance Conference
My Instagram clip.

28. UMKC Opera’s Puccini’ Suor Angelica at the James C. Olson Performing Arts Center
My Instagram snapshot.

29. Negativland at recordBar
My Instagram clip.

30. Isidore String Quartet at Zhou B Art Center
My Instagram snapshot.

31. Joyce DiDonato with the Kansas City Symphony at Helzberg Hall
My review.

32. Adam Larson Quartet at the Blue Room
My review.

33. Kansas City Symphony’s “Matthias Pintscher conducts Symphony Dances: West Side Story and Rachmaninoff” at Helzberg Hall
My review.

34. Dave Alvin and Jimmie Dale Gilmore at the Aladdin Theater (Portland)
My Instagram clip.

35. The Lyric Opera of Kansas City’s “Roméo et Juliette” at Muriel Kauffman Theatre
My review.

36. Rick Bartlett at Ricky B’s (Louisville)
My Instagram clip.

37. Drug Church at recordBar
My Instagram clip.

38. Steve Hackett’s “Genesis Revisited” at the Uptown Theater
My Instagram clip.

39. Steve Cardenas, Forest Stewart and Brian Steever at Westport Coffee House
My review.

40. Alber’s “By the Sea” at Charlotte Street Foundation
My Instagram snaphot.

41. Jackie Myers, Matt Otto and Bob Bowman at the Market at Meadowbrook
My Instagram clip.

42. Dunedin Consort’s “St. John Passion” at Atonement Lutheran Church
My Instagram snapshot.

43. Jeremy Denk at the Folly Theater
My review.

44. Bachathon XLV at Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral
My Instagram snapshot.

45. The Psychedelic Furs, the Jesus and Mary Chain and Frankie Rose at the Uptown Theater
My Instagram snapshot.

46. Beppe Gambetta at the 1900 Building
My Instagram snapshot.

47. Seth A Davis, Kwan Leung Ling, Aaron Osborne and Evan Verploegh at 7th Heaven
My Instagram clip.

48. Danielle Nicole at Records with Merritt
My Instagram snapshot.

49. Ernest Melton, Parker Woolworth, Jordan Faught and Jalen Ward at In the Lowest Ferns
My review.

50. Sleater-Kinney and Palehound at the Truman
My Instagram clip.

Last year’s concert ranking is here.