One Hand Clapping, a set of 1974 live recordings by Paul McCartney and Wings, charmed me upon its release last month. Having adored Wings’ Band on the Run as a child in 1973, I figured One Hand Clapping would be my favorite archival recording of the year. Then I heard WEBO. Recorded at the New York City venue Webo in 1991, the 121-minute document documents the third performance by saxophonist Charles Gayle, bassist William Parker and drummer Milford Graves. The incendiary free jazz might have inflicted irrevocable psychological damage on me in 1973. The direction of my life almost certainly would have been altered had I been in attendance at Webo in 1991. In 2024, I’m all in.
June 2024 Recap: A Monthly Exercise in Critical Transparency
Screenshot of the trailer for Opéra national de Paris’ production of Gaspare Spontini’s La Vestale by There Stands the Glass.
The Top Ten Albums of June
1. Bilal- Live at Glasshaus
With Common, Robert Glasper, Burniss Travis and Questlove.
2. Linda Thompson- Proxy Music
There Stands the Glass review.
3. Nduduzo Makhathini- uNomkhubulwane
South African spiritual jazz.
4. Kaitlin Butts- Roadrunner!
Oklahoma!
5. Marsha Ambrosius- Casablanco
A chaotic pileup of jazz, hip-hop and R&B.
6. William Parker- Heart Trio
With Cooper-Moore and Hamid Drake.
7. Tarbaby- You Think This America
Orrin Evans, Eric Revis and Nasheet Waits.
8. Rod Fleeman- Live at Green Lady Lounge, Volume 3
Plastic Sax review.
9. Charli XCX- Brat: and it’s the same but there’s three more songs so it’s not
Impudent pop.
10. Peso Pluma- Éxodo
Extravagant excess.
The Top Ten Songs of June
1. Staples Jr. Singers- "I've Got a Feeling"
A good old feeling.
2. Menahan Street Band- "Tropical Man (TV Mix)"
My song of the summer.
3. Spice- "2085 Tea"
“Look back pon tings.”
4. Heems featuring Vijay Iyer and Sid Vashi- "Manto"
Partition blues.
5. Kaytranda featuring Channel Tres- "Drip Sweat"
Steam bath.
6. Nikka Costa- “Dance ‘N Forget”
She would die 4 U.
7. Leigh-Anne- "Nature"
U.K. pop reggae.
8. Val Fleury- "Technically"
Facts.
9. 42 Dugg featuring Sexyy Red- "N.P.O."
Ha ha!
10. Silverada- "Doing It Right"
She’s actin’ single, he’s drinkin’ doubles.
The Top Ten Performances of June
1. Makaya McCraven at Liberty Hall
Plastic Sax review.
2. Nick Shoulders at Third Place Lounge
There Stands the Glass review.
3. Flatland Cavalry at Grinders KC
Instagram clip.
4. Adam Larson at the Blue Room
Plastic Sax review.
5. Lionel Richie and Earth, Wind & Fire at the T-Mobile Center
There Stands the Glass review.
6. Yo-Yo Ma at Parade Park
Instagram clip..
7. Deanna Ray Eberhart at Ward Parkway Presbyterian Church
Instagram clip.
8. Galaxxu and the Extemporaneous Music and Arts Society at Charlotte Street Foundation
Instagram clip.
9. Rod Fleeman at Green Lady Lounge
Instagram clip.
10. Yo-Yo Ma, Joel Thompson and Ralph Yarl at Helzberg Hall
Instagram snapshot.
The previous monthly recap is here.
January 2022 Recap: A Monthly Exercise in Critical Transparency
Screenshot of the trailer of The Face of Another by There Stands the Glass.
Top Ten Albums (released in January)
1. The Weeknd- Dawn FM
2. Andrew Cyrille, William Parker and Enrico Rava- 2 Blues for Cecil
3. Earl Sweatshirt- Sick!
4. Tony Malaby’s Sabino- The Cave of Winds
5. Silvana Estrada- Marchita
Not unlike peak k.d. lang.
6. Modern Nature- Island of Noise
Jazz-stained freak-folk.
7. Lise Davidsen and Leif Ove Andsnes- Edvard Grieg
8. John Mellencamp- Strictly a One-Eyed Jack
9. Pan Daijing- Tissues
Industrial opera.
10. FKA twigs- Caprisongs
Peculiar pop.
Top Ten Songs (released in January)
1. The Smile- "You Will Never Work in Television Again"
Static.
2. Big Boss Vette- "Heavy"
The weight.
3. Christina Aguilera- "La Reina"
I knew she had it in her.
4. Barbara Hannigan- "Youkali"
Well done Weill.
5. Che Noir- "Split the Bread"
Food for thought.
6. The Streets- "Wrong Answers Only"
“I am a God: I can turn wine into vomit.”
7. Banda Los Recoditos- "Me Siento a Todo Dar"
Drinking and dancing.
8. Love Regenerator featuring Sananda Maitreya- "Lonely"
Terence Trent D’Arby!
9. Sebastián Yatra featuring Rosario and Jorge Celedón- "Dharma"
Dance, laugh, cry.
10. Benny the Butcher and J. Cole- “Johnny P’s Caddy”
The Butcher arrives.
Top Ten Movies, Television Broadcasts and Streaming Programming (viewed for the first time in January, in lieu of live music)
1. The Face of Another/他人の顔 (1966)
Freaky Japanese psychological thriller.
2. Jeopardy! (2022)
Amy Schneider’s remarkable 40-game streak ends.
3. Handsome Serge/Le Beau Serge (1958)
Très barbare.
4. Buffalo Bills vs. Kansas City Chiefs (2022)
The NFL is made for TV.
5. Mary Lou Williams and Carline Ray- At Les Mouches (1978)
6. The Lost Daughter (2021)
Grief in Greece.
7. The Royal College of Music’s Die Zauberflöte (2021)
8. The Catered Affair (1956)
Ernest Borgnine, Bette Davis and Gore Vidal.
9. Winter JazzFest (2022)
A handful of the virtual performances are stunning.
10. From Vienna: The New Year's Celebration 2022
Life goal.
Links to previous monthly surveys begin here.
Album Review: Andrew Cyrille, William Parker and Enrico Rava- 2 Blues for Cecil
Forgoing live music as part of an interminable effort to avoid the virus hasn’t been all bad. I’ve hunkered down with books in recent weeks. Many of the biographies and novels I spend hours reading every evening conclude with end-of-life reflections about lessons learned and meanings gleaned.
Similar ruminations dominate 2 Blues for Cecil. A trio of avant-garde elders- drummer Andrew Cyrille, 82, bassist William Parker, 70, and trumpeter Enrico Rava, 82- brood over the legacy of the late iconoclast Cecil Taylor on the album recorded 11 months ago in Paris.
More than a meditation on loss, 2 Blues for Cecil is a profound exploration of the essence of time and space. Yet tracks like "Ballerina" don’t function as background music. Reading is impossible even during the most serene moments of the riveting 2 Blues for Cecil.
Album Review: William Parker and Patricia Nicholson- No Joke!
The pleasures provided by year-end music lists are manifold. I relish the opportunity to display my (obviously superior) taste and disparage the (clearly inferior) selections of others. Yet the most rewarding aspect of combing through entries is encountering undiscovered sounds. Even though I listen to about two dozen new albums in their entirety every week, I only learned of No Joke! when I peeked at a rough draft of a colleague’s best-of 2021 list. Released three weeks ago by the illustrious ESP-Disk record label, the date led by the prolific bassist William Parker and his wife, the poet, choreographer and activist Patricia Nicholson, is a spiritual and musical companion to Irresistible Entanglements’ free jazz tour de force Open the Gates. Indignant and cacophonous, No Joke! is a dead serious call to action.
Space Jams: An Appreciation of Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey
Original image by There Stands the Glass.
I envy Deadheads. Not only are they part of an interactive community open to all like-minded enthusiasts of the Grateful Dead, their single-minded obsessiveness simplifies their leisure time. I fret over whether to invest four hours in a production of Parsifal (the last “major” opera I have yet to see), investigate the new 10-hour William Parker boxed set, luxuriate in Whodini’s "Five Minutes of Funk" or brace for a round of Kansas City punk. Deadheads merely have to decide which vintage show they’d like to hear next.
A fresh slate of old Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey recordings arouses a related form of reassuring nostalgia in me. The first two of the scheduled five albums were released on May 7. The previously unreleased 2008 studio album Winterwood is a cheeky update of Ellingtonian swing and juke-joint boogie-woogie. The Spark That Bled: Tour '05 includes live interpretations of compositions by the Flaming Lips and Charles Mingus, a representative reflection of the ensemble’s sensibilities.
A corresponding 27-minute documentary champions the manic intensity, wild eclecticism and unlikely evolution of the band from Oklahoma. I’ve long flirted with full-on fandom. I interviewed front man Brian Haas for Plastic Sax in 2009. The band’s ambitious concept album Race Riot Suite was my favorite album of 2011. Come to think of it, I could do a lot worse than listen exclusively to Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey. Deadhead? No man, but I’m perilously close to becoming a Fredhead.
Album Review: Dopolarians- The Bond
Original image by There Stands the Glass.
The extended quarantine, along with the savage relentlessness of time, enhances my appreciation of past experiences. While it didn’t seem significant 20 years ago, I’m immensely gratified I had the foresight to catch a set led by the esteemed saxophonist Kidd Jordan at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival in 2001. And joining an audience of a few dozen for a set by the Brian Blade Fellowship during the Kansas City Jazz & Heritage Festival in 2017 now seems like an impossibly glorious dream.
Jordan, 85, didn’t participate in the recording of The Bond, the new album led by his band Dopolarians. And following the passing of the eminent drummer Alvin Fielder, Jr. in 2019, Blade joined saxophonist Chad Fowler, trumpeter Marc Franklin, pianist Christopher Parker, bassist William Parker and vocalist Kelley Hurt for the deeply spiritual free jazz date.
Blade and Parker are renowned masters, but their lesser known band mates in the latest version of Dopolarians are worthy collaborators. Unlike similar recordings in which free-form vocalizing is a distracting hindrance, Hurt’s contributions enhance the sacrosanct tone. The six culturally cognizant musicians strive for- and repeatedly attain- spiritual epiphanies. There’s almost no chance Dopolarians will ever make an appearance in Kansas City, but I’m confident the stars will align to provide me with another unforgettable experience in a more hospitable environment.
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I catch up with three Mike Dillon albums at Plastic Sax.