This year, too, the time has come for the tired and time-honored ritual of year-end lists. Who knows how many you’ve already consulted and what you’ve learned from them.
We know they can be a useful guide for you, and so here I am, albeit wearily, with my handful of albums: “in a pure spirit of service,” as the Christian Democrats of old used to say.
Some new readers may wonder why I’m so skeptical and wearisome; well, I’ll take this opportunity to offer a few preliminary considerations, which also serve as “instructions for using” my list.
It’s true that people only proclaim them masterpieces years (and often even decades) after their release, but it must be said that for some time now, it’s been hard to see, in an overflowing record production, something that stands out clearly from the surrounding landscape and is destined to endure, retaining the freshness and charm that certain albums released decades ago still possess.
In my opinion this does not depend so much on the value of the musicians currently on the scene, but on the way in which records are conceived and made today.
From overproduced, eclectic albums crowded with impromptu guests, featuring kaleidoscopically variable lineups, conceived more as promotional items and “demos” for the upcoming tour, one cannot expect the essentiality and concentration of certain past works, to which the musicians delivered the distillation of extensive live practice with stable and meticulously crafted lineups.
And this is to say nothing of the contribution of attentive productions capable of guiding artists, now virtually extinct. Let’s also overlook the need to elbow our way through the streaming galaxy with superficial mannerisms, which paradoxically end up leading to a general leveling.
One of the most beautiful stages in Italy: Rome, Summertime. Let’s hope the moles don’t devastate it irreparably.
As the most assiduous of you will have understood, my greatest listening emotions are gathered in the audience in front of a stage, where I’ve seen things happen that are only partially echoed in the recordings that increasingly anticipate them, contrary to what happened in the past. Therefore, many of the titles that follow represent a way of sharing with you live experiences with the bands that created them.
A final warning: the order of the citations is entirely impromptu. I’m alien to the “ranking” mentality that presupposes a “competitive” vision of this music, which was already highly inadequate in the past, but now proves completely inapplicable to a scene characterized by the absence of clearly discernible underlying evolutionary lines and by the plurality of different strands that more often diverge than intersect.
Ambrose Akinmusire – Honey from a Winter Stone
Last July’s performance in Perugia was the “concert of the year” for me. I’m comforted by the fact that I’m not alone in this opinion. This complex and carefully conceived album exudes the atmosphere of a finished and thoughtful “opera” that I miss elsewhere.
A compact and experienced jazz combo (watch out for the faithful Sam Harris on piano and keyboards) is led by the sober and meditative Akinmusire into a dialogue with a string quartet, a combination that has rarely yielded convincing results in the world of jazz.
But the Mivos Quartet is a far cry from what we’re used to hearing in European academic circles; it has a readiness and momentum only possible on the other side of the ocean. In a word, it has swing and is truly a “collective improviser” on a par with a jazz quartet.
In the current inflation of spoken word and laboratory grafts with hip hop and rap, Kookaj’s contribution shines with maturity and evolved musicality and contributes significantly to the strong drive and intensity of the entire complex musical machine conceived by Akinmusire, who steps back as a trumpeter to transfer his concentrated and tense lyricism to a practically orchestral scale. It requires an immersive listen that will be amply rewarded.
‘Bloomed’ is only the most compact piece of this vast suite; unfortunately, Kookaj is missing.
James Brandon Lewis Quartet – Abstraction is delivery
Brandon Lewis is a musician who shares Akinmusire’s bulletproof integrity, but unlike the reclusive and sometimes withdrawn Ambrose, he is very present on the scene, pursuing different paths with different formations. The quartet on “Abstraction” is perhaps the one that best expresses his poetics, as well as being an example of unity and integration unmatched in today’s erratic scene.
Brad Jones on bass and Chad Taylor on drums provide the clearest and most creative rhythms heard today. Aruan Ortiz is a musician with great personality who manages to combine a dry and incisive second voice that is the perfect counterpoint to Brandon Lewis’s ecstatic and epic sax.
Let’s be clear: no mannered or out-of-time Coltraneisms here; we’re on a different evolutionary path (Rollins’s thematic improvisation is often discernible). The quartet, and the leader in particular, have deeply assimilated those “voices of the street” that others display much more extrinsically to earn titles of contemporaneity. Here, however, we are truly contemporary.
The disastrous YouTube search engine unfortunately only shows this kilometer-long clip, which includes the entire album in a single track. “What’s the harm?” you might say… there’s a good chance your listening will be interrupted abruptly by some commercial… no comment! Channel owners who upload in this format should think about these risks…
Paul Cornish – You’re exaggerating!
Not since the Blue Note albums of the 1960s have we seen titles with an exclamation point. Which is fitting, given the substantial debut of a pianist approaching his thirties, which in jazz of all times coincides with the entry into maturity and a significant stretch of road already traveled in the spotlight. We thank Joshua Redman for introducing him to us and for highlighting him in his current quartet.
The freshness and depth of a debut work that already condenses a profound maturation that has taken place in the shadows is complemented by the marked originality of this Texan, who must have listened to and absorbed much, developing a highly original and personal style, free from the most obvious trends and influences of today’s jazz piano playing. With one exception, which he himself clearly expresses with gratitude:
‘Queen Geri’ is Geri Allen, remembered as a master by many pianists today but largely forgotten in our parts.
Franco D’Andrea Trio – Live!
One of the difficulties in conceiving these lists with notarial precision is understanding when the records are ‘released’ today. In today’s chaotic and chaotic music world, it’s not so easy to figure it out: streaming previews, partial LP previews for Record Store Day, digital formats that precede physical ones, and so on and so forth. This double CD, which is (or will be…), has already been available on streaming platforms for a few days, so you have a firsthand idea. I can already hear a few sighs… “But you’ve already told us about the trio with Roberto Gatto and Gabriele Evangelista, and also about their studio album, ‘Something Blues and More’…”
Yes, but this is the perfect opportunity to compare a truly wonderful studio album with a live concert that has visibly lifted some of D’Andrea’s 86 years and certainly the difficult times of two summers ago. I was there on the warm Ferrara night of December 21, 2024, and the atmosphere of a special occasion was immediately palpable, where the musicians clearly felt the push of an enthusiastic and engaged audience.
From here, asking Francesco Bettini (artistic director of Jazz Club Ferrara) for the recording and taking it to Parco della Musica Records was just one step away, and D’Andrea leaped forward, visibly delighted with the evening’s outcome. Besides bringing you a splendid example of telepathic understanding between three generations (the pioneer D’Andrea, one of my ever-adventurous “wild jazz musicians,” Gatto, and a true champion of the latest generation, Evangelista), these nearly 90 minutes (!!!) of music also have a different, almost didactic, value.
It’s well known that the average jazz fan grows by listening to contemporary music, only to later understand that jazz is history, primarily its own history, and only by building on it can lasting and evolutionary results be achieved.
And here we have a very modern Virgil guiding us back through the intricate jungle of 100 years of jazz. Add to this that almost all these classics represent chapters in his musical autobiography, which now spans over 60 years. Mix it all up with the usual clarity and renewed feeling of the finest trio around, and we have a fascinating textbook like the one that took us as children from the Egyptian pyramids to the fission of the atom in a hundred pages, with so many beautiful images that we still carry with us decades later.
Absolutely essential, both for its intelligence and its beauty.
A display of ‘esprit de finesse’ that would have amazed even Duke and Billy. But there’s also something for Trane’s orphans (“A Love Supreme” with a memorable intro by Evangelista) and even for Liverpool’s Fab Four (“Norwegian Wood”). The seething audience at the Ferrara evening bursts in despite the muted mix.
We’re nearing the bottom line of the list, but two things remain unresolved.
First: to avoid being insensitive to current trends, two special mentions. “Thereupon” by Fieldwork, the resurrection of a trio that hadn’t been heard from in over 15 years. Music with an unusual atmosphere, in which the hand of my beloved Vijay Iyer is clearly felt, perfectly capturing Steve Lehman’s ingenuity while avoiding the somewhat artificial intellectualism of his past. And then he mobilizes his creative drummer Tyshawn Sorey.
Sorey also reappears on “Strange Heavens” under the name Linda May Han Ho: here too, two-thirds of Vijay’s trio are in action (significantly so) alongside the aforementioned Ambrose Akinmusire, here clearly evident with his nuanced and intense soloing. I already thought Han Ho all the best as a passionate and aggressive bassist, but here she also emerges as a promising leader, capable of leading sidemen of great stature.
The trilingual stele that allowed the discovery of Egyptian hieroglyphics
Second and truly last: historical reissues, which now account for almost half of the current production. And here the criterion is only one: the wonder of a Rosetta Stone re-emerging from the sands. Put like that, the choice is obvious: any of the Strata East Records albums that Mack Avenue revived after almost fifty years of oblivion.
A still exciting artistic adventure and a model of professional self-management that deserves careful re-examination in these dark and threatening times.
It’s hard to choose among the many gems in the Strata treasure chest: so I closed my eyes and pointed. Luck isn’t so blind: Stanley Cowell with Billy Harper, Reggie Workman, and a then-beardless Billy Hart… think what we’ve been missing for 50 years…
