I am restless. As a teacher, I cannot teach the same lesson twice the same way (nor should anyone, but maybe I’m wrong). Last year, I tried to write more about the albums I loved on this blog but ended up very unsatisfied, plus it was a pain when it came to assembling a complete year-end list. So…I think this year, I’ll go back to my cumulative listing and let y’all follow the links and divine from those whether the records are worthy of your time…unless you just trust me. I wouldn’t. I am going to stick with closing with a Spotify playlist sampler, though I hate Spotify and, since I receive some review copies, songs from those might not yet be available–especially on this one.
New Releases:
Ale Hop & Titi Bakorta: Mapambazuko (Nyege Nyege Tapes)
Marek Pospieszalski Octet & Zoh Amba (see below): NOW! (Project financed by a scholarship from the Minister of Culture and National Heritage “Młoda Polska” & Katowice City of Music UNESCO) Note: release date = November 29, 2024
Serengeti: Palookaville(serengetiraps / self-released) Note: release date = December 25, 2024
Zoh Amba: Every album she’s released and appeared on. We saw her play live and it was a chicken-skin experience! Blazing and dynamically moody free jazz plus surprise acoustic guitar versions of new songs that both rended and expanded one’s heart. Check out the way she finishes out Myriam Gendron’s track on the playlist below!
Bob Dylan’s folk stuff: I was subbing the other day shortly after A Complete Unknown was released and I’d seen it—it sent be back to my favorites of his early period, especially the first album (what writer recently said he was electric from the first, because the electricity was in the way he sang those songs?) and “Only a Pawn in Their Game,” which I’ve always loved and repeat played to the point it was worming my ear all day)—and I casually sidled up to a table of 10th grade “advanced placement” dudes. Me: “Hey, have you guys heard of Bob Dylan?” Them (in tandem): “He’s dead, right?” I have some issues with the movie but it was entertaining and has a reason for being.
Culture and Burning Spear in the schools: Sometimes if I’m subbing for an old English-teaching comrade, they’ll let me write my own lesson and teach. A recent job was for a guy who teaches classical ideas and world religions and his students are currently studying Judaism; he asked if I could talk about Rastafarian reggae’s connections with Judaism and play some examples. They didn’t know dick about Rastafarianism or reggae, so it was a good call. We studied The Melodians’ “Rivers of Babylon,” sections of Culture’s Two Sevens Clash and aspects of Burning Spear’s Marcus Garvey. I also pushed Safiya Sinclair’s memoir of wrasslin’ to liberate herself from the clutches of her Rasta dad, How to Say Babylon. I’ve listened to reggae every day since.
Sinead O’Connor: Nicole and I watched the SNL Music special ?Love put together (apparently he was ordered by Lorne to exclude any evidence of The Replacements’ TRANSCENDENT appearance, the petty bastard) and got chills revisiting Sinead’s appearance. Listened to her all of the next day (yesterday, as it were) and kept getting chills, though I found myself wondering how much more she could have accomplished without the after-effects of the backlash (as Al Franken said, “She was kind of right,” though I’d say “She was right.”).
This year, I abandoned my usual practice of scratching out a casual intro and, month by month, building a cumulative list of my favorite new releases. I had begun to feel the itch of guilt (and envy) that fellow music fanatics were really writing about the records, so, in 2024, I tried to do that instead, while (most of the time) confining myself to a single sentence per record (again, like Jim Hart or the band [ahmed], I like to go long). I felt more satisfied–but in the end it made compiling my year-end list a real pain in the patootie pie. I think I’ll go back to gradually compiling a list in 2025, especially since those sentences seldom were anything to brag about.
Anyway, the biggest surprise to me, reflecting on my list, is that an Americana artist topped it–I’ve tired of that genre and maybe it’s related to the state of the nation–another was in my Top 20, and one, an album that regular calmed me, was just outside of that group. I played Corb Lund’s El Viejo more than any new album of the year: witty, specific, lyrically and musically unified, with deluxe-version cuts that fit right in. “Gambles” might be the theme, and not just with cash. Second, Bill Orcutt, an imaginative and frequently coruscating plectrist to whom I’d never given much of an ear, placed two albums in my top 20. Third, I really wanted these selections to be ’24 only, but I could not deny my fellow former southwest Missouri kid Chappell Roan–she dazzled, she was gloriously a lot, and I am sure someone else will open their gate to her, too. She’s earned it.
This was also, in many ways, The Year of Sun Ra–two intriguing tributes, one strong album from his eternal posthumous Arkestra, and a scad of intriguing reissues, one of them a pipe organ fantasia that successfully and inexplicably melded the Phantom of the Opera, Garth Hudson, James Booker, and Ellingtonia. It’s called Excelsior Mill and it’s a true trip. Maybe it was The Year of Sun Ra because many of us are longing for space right now.
Rough translation of numerical order to grades, if you like that: 1=A+ (that’s right, MFs); 2-20 =A; 21-50 =A-; 51-150 =B+ (grade inflation alert, but fuck–listen to them!). Excavations: 1-10 =A; 11-30=A- (I do not fuck with B+ or lower excavations.)
And so:
Living to Listen’s Favorite Albums of 2024:
BRAND-SPANKIN’ NEW in ‘24
1. Corb Lund: El Viejo (Deluxe Edition) (New West)
2. Hurray for the Riff Raff: The Past is Still Alive (Nonesuch)
3. Chappell Roan: The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess (Atlantic) (’23 vintage but ’24 IMPACT)
4. Doechii: Alligator Bites Never Heal (Top Dawg Entertainment / Capitol)
5. Darius Jones: Legend of e’Boi (The Hypervigilant Eye) (AUM Fidelity)
6. Ka: The Thief Next to Jesus (self-released)
7. Mdou Moctar: Funeral for Justice. (Matador)
8. [ahmed]: Giant Beauty (Fönstret)
9. Bill Orcutt Guitar Quartet: Four Guitars Live (Palilalia)
10. Jeff Parker: The Way Out of Easy (International Anthem)
11. Kendrick Lamar: GNX (pgLang/Interscope)
12. QOW Trio: The Hold Up (Ubuntu)
13. Isaiah Collier & The Chosen Few: The World is on Fire (Division 81)
14. Snotty Nose Rez Kids: Red Future (Savage Mob)
15. Swamp Dogg: Blackgrass—From West Virginia to 125th Street (Oh Boy! Records)
16. X: Smoke & Fiction (Fat Possum)
17. Tucker Zimmerman: Dance of Love (4AD)
18. Charli xcx: Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat (Atlantic)
19. Jlin: Akoma (Planet Mu)
20. Bill Orcutt: How to Rescue Things (Palilalia)
21. Kasey Musgraves: Deeper Well (Interscope / MCA Nashville)
22. Moses Sumney: Sophcore (self-released EP)
23. Red Kross: Red Kross (In the Red)
24. AALY Trio: Sustain (Silkheart)
25. Various Artists: Transa (Red Hot Org)
26. Frank London/The Elders: Spirit Stronger Than Blood (ESP-Disk
27. Beyonce: Cowboy Carter (Parkwood Entertainment)
10. Franco Luambo Mkaidi: Presents Les Editions Populaires (Planet Ilunga)
11. Rail Band: Rail Band(Mississippi Records)
12. Sun Ra: At the Showcase Live in Chicago 1976-1977 (Elemental Music)
13. Sun Ra and his Arkestra: Lights on a Satellite—Live on the Left Bank (Resonance)
14. Art Tatum: Jewels In the Treasure Box (Resonance)
15. Creation Rebel: High Above Harlesden 1978-2023 (On-U Sound)
16. Various Artists: Congo Funk! Sound Madness From The Shores Of The Mighty Congo River (Analog Africa)
17. Bill Evans: Bill Evans in Norway (Elemental)
18. Mal Waldron & Steve Lacy: The Mighty Warriors Live in Antwerp (Elemental Music)
19. Charles Gayle / Milford Graves / William Parker: WEBO (Black Editions)
20. Raphael Roginski: Plays John Coltrane and Langston Hughes (Unsound)
21. Juma Sultan’s Aboriginal Music Society: Father of Origin (Eremite)
22. Emily Remler: Cookin’ at Queens (Resonance)
23. Sister Rosetta Tharpe: Live in France—The 1966 Limoges Concert (Elemental)
24. Various Artists: Super Disco Pirata—De Tepito Para El Mundo 1965-1980 (Analog Africa)
25. Arthur Blythe Quartet: Live! From Rivbea Studios, Volume 2 (No Business)
26. High Rise: Disturbance Trip (La Musica)
27. Various Artists: Even the Forest Hums—Ukrainian Sonic Archives 1971-1996 (Light in the Attic)
28. Phil Ranelin & Wendell Harrison: Tribe 2000 (Org Music)
29. Bessie Jones, John Davis, the Georgia South Sea Island Singers with Mississippi Fred McDowell and Ed Young: The Complete “Friends of Old-Time Music” Concert (Smithsonian)
30. Love Child: Never Meant to Be (12XU)
Annnnd…I made this playlist for my freshman comp students and maybe you won’t mind it! They were allowed to collaborate (as are you!), which accounts for things not on the list:
I’ve got a cold Huey Piano Smith could write another song about, my new block-style teaching assignment is intense (but I like it), and I’ve been traveling throughout the month, so I’m scrambling to get this out on the first. You don’t want to hear me yammer anyway, even if I got to witness both Hailu Mergia and Nicole Mitchell live since last time. Thus:
Albums below in bold font strike me as possible Top Tenners in their respective categories.
NEW WORKS I DUG (in alphabetical order)
Isaiah Collier & The Chosen Few: The World is on Fire(Division 81)—Collier and band are in a serious Trane mode, and the media clips make it sound like the record was made in 2020–but isn’t it really still, and might it possibly eternally stay, 2020?
Jazz Sabbath: The 1968 Tapes(Blacklake)—Yes: early Sabbath jazzed impressively and with a wry sense of humor.
Kenneth Jimenez: Sonnet to Silence(We Jazz)—It’s a musical sonnet to silence, not of silence, and bassist Jimenez’s quartet’s noise is splendid.
Ava Mendoza: The Circular Train (Palilalia)—Is this a Year of the Guitar?
Kendrick Lamar: GNX(pgLang/Interscope)—Sounds great to me, I guess because the music I’m loving most is his cadences and the production is brightly…defiant.
Oaagaada: Music of Ogaadaa(We Jazz)—Finnish free quartet augmented by shruti box and log drum and generating serious energy that’s just contained enough for a dabbler.
Kelly Lee Owens: Dreamstate(dh2)—My friend Kevin suggested this to somebody else when I was in a low mood, I stole the suggestion, and quickly added her to (a bit lesser light, but not by much) Jessie Ware as a mood shifter.
Jeff Parker ETA IVtet: The Way Out of Easy(International Anthem)—Is this a Year of the Guitar?
Paper Jays: Paper Jays(ESP-Disk)—Rhode Island instro-combo combines the spaciness of very early Meat Puppets with the weird, itchy vibe of Penguin Café and a touch of…the Middle East?
Pascal & Baya Rays: Sonic Joy(Ultraani)—Freaky and fun Finnish funk.
claire rousay: The Bloody Lady(Viernulvier)—Ambient master writes a mysterious score for Viktor Kubal’s 1980 film The Bloody Lady doesn’t require you to watch the film to be hypnotized.
Various Artists: TRANSA(Red Hot Org)—Eight “chapters,” 46 songs, a dazzling array of performers (Larraji, Tweedy, Julien Baker, Sumney + ANOHNI, JLin + Moor Mother), consistent quality, surprising musical coherence, and good reason to worry made it easy for me to listen to this beginning to end.
Wussy: Cincinnati Ohio (Shake It)—I really like the lyrics, I’m not too sure about the music, and I can’t hear Lisa well enough.
Dwight Yoakam: Brighter Days(Via/Thirty Tigers)—Dude really cannot make a bad album (always reminds me of Tom Petty that way) and this one (despite a very corny and terrible song and thanks to my favorite-ever cover of “Keep On the Sunny Side”) is no exception: sings great, surrounds himself with a crack band, and writes solidly—and, weirdly, often BRIGHTLY.
Tucker Zimmerman: Dance of Love(4AD)—I was telling a friend the other day that, for a reason I can’t pin down that has to do with the way things are, I am tired of Americana even when it’s good…but I have a feeling I’m (and possibly you’re) gonna need this one, knocked out by a resurfaced legend who has his finger on the pulse o’things, Big Thief behind him, and his arms around a few friends.
EXCELLENT EXCAVATIONS
Black Artists Group: For Peace & Liberty, in Paris, December 1972(We Want Sound)—Too few recordings are available from a St. Louis, Missouri, gang of players who would later help fire up the NYC loft jazz movement, and this has never before been released.
Emily Remler: Cookin’ at Queens(Resonance)—This short-lived, Wes Montgomery-influenced guitarist had already raised the eyebrows of her fellow players and was poised for bigger things when she stepped on a narcotic rainbow; she is flying on these live recordings.
B. B. King: B. B. King in France(Elemental)—The most famous of the several “King”s of the blues is in exceptional form on this unearthed ‘70s set.
Sister Rosetta Tharpe: Live in France—The 1966 Limoges Concert(Elemental)—Her guitar is shorter on beautifully ugly noise than on other available live recordings, but otherwise, 51 and just seven years from passing on, she’s all the way on.
The post title is all I’m saying about the obvious.
If you haven’t had a chance to do so through other portals, you should check out the rock and roll high school story I’d never gotten around to writing since it happened on March 30, 2005: the Hood-Cooley-Isbell Drive-By Truckers playing an unplugged concert at the high school where I was working (I’d only asked their people if one of those guys could talk to our rock and roll club). I have a Substack on top of this (why?), and there you will find Part 1 and Part 2 of the tale. You’ll get a kick out of it, I think.
This seemed a sluggish month for music (I was personally and professionally too busy to be sluggish myself), but then it came on at the tail end. In fact, it’s still coming on as I type this and try to catch up with some last-second drops.
Yep–still trying (and only succeeding via ridiculously adhered clauses) to write one-sentence reviews. I’ve got multiple jobs, people! And I like to read and play with cats when I’m home!
Note: Speaking of work, my popular music-infused Stephens College freshman composition class is reading the great music writer Ann Powers’ alternate history of American pop, Good Booty (please read it and her new and intriguing Joni Mitchell bio Traveling Traveling Travelingyourself), and I talked Ann into an interview for my students’ edification. If you’re interested in hearing it–she ranges widely and always eloquently–click this link (it was a Zoom interview, and since my students could not participate due to the class’ on-line asynchronous nature, I had to record it for them).
OCTOBER2024 NEW RECORDINGSI HEARD (alphabetically ordered)
BOLDED = Damn good!
Amy & The Sniffers: Cartoon Darkness (Rough Trade) – The Internet seems to be underwhelmed by this record, but I respect punk pizzazz, and this has it–along with humor, shit-smearing, joy, and self-effacement.
The Belair Lip Bombs: Lush Life (Third Man) – For some reason (maybe it’s that I’ve never seen Johnny Depp and Jack White in the same photo), I don’t trust Third Man, but I read “power pop” in one review, and…yeah, maybe.
Church Chords: elvis, he was Schlager (Otherly Love) – Dark horse indie-rock / experimental AOTY candidate, from a label to keep your eye on, featuring wry vocals and sweet-memory-tickling musical stylings fired by these guitarists: Jeff Parker, Nels Cline, and Brandon Seabrook, the latter of whom often drags Dock Boggs into the 21st century.
Day Dream: Duke & Strays (Corner Store Jazz) – Last post I bemoaned my late discovery of the master drummer Phil Haynes, so, though I asked myself if I needed to hear another Ellington/Strayhorn tribute with predictable song choices, I tried it, and its sideways and intriguing interpretations, performed live, dazzled me–very much due to Haynes’ playing.
EELS: Being Dead (Bayonet) – Listened to out of obligation, repeat-played out of fixation, this “joyous and unexpected trip helmed by two true-blue freak bitch besties holed up in a lil’ house in the heart of Austin, Texas” (see Bandcamp) proves indie rock is far from dead.
Flagboy Giz and The Wild Tchoupitoulas: Live from the French Quarter Fest (Injun Money) – I will always investigate Mardi Gras Indians action, I’m thrilled to hear these chants “bounce”d, I’m glad Flagboy’s name is pronounced with a hard “g”…now, if someone will tell me where to get a hard copy (downloads are hard enough to find).
Joe Fonda: Eyes on the Horizon (Long Song) – Master jazz bassist (Fonda) and indefatigable pianist (Satoko Fujii) pay tribute to eminence grise of free improv trumpet, Wadada Leo Smith–who’s on trumpet.
Phillip Golub: Abiding Memory (Endectomorph) – Alternating lightly dancing drum rhythms with moments of composed tension that don’t disrupt the album’s flow, Golub’s writing does justice to the title.
Mickey Guyton: House on Fire (Capitol Records Nashville) – Of course it would have been hard for Guyton to top Remember My Name, which featured about a decade’s worth of songwriting, and there’s always the sophomore slump to consider, but honestly, though it doesn’t have the occasional quiet bite of its predecessor, this one satisfies–pleasurable artistic solidity.
Rich Halley 4: Dusk and Dawn (Pine Eagle) – A time-tested quartet led by a Julius Hemphill-inspired, very underheard saxophonist is worth your time–the expressive balance achieved by the group and the sensitive production make this a treat for the mind’s ear.
High Vis: Guided Tour (Dais) – Sadly, I’d not heard of this London group, because I’m always hunting for living punk rock, and, though I need to listen backwards through their work, along with Amyl & The Sniffers (see above) this album made me really happy and really amped.
Judas Priest: Invisible Shield (Deluxe Edition) (Sony) – This truly enjoyable and deeply admirable album’s inclusion is dedicated to my late brother-from-another-mother Mike Rayhill (The Jimbobs, The Luvhandles, The Balls), who would have loved it (and, to be clear, I do, too–thanks, Chuck Eddy).
Messiah in Glytch: Geisha in the Machine (FPE EP) – I had heard nothing about this explosive, confrontational, complex little record, but the MC’s handle and the album title intrigued me, and FPE takes chances on challenging artists–and MIG is one: highly recommended to hip hop heads needing some socio-political bars, boom-bap, and in-your-face flow.
more ease & kaho matsui: computer & recording works for girls(Full Spectrum) – I dig that title, and it’s more delightful–and calming–than the title portends.
Mount Eerie: Night Palace (self-released) – I’ll be honest: I signed up for the Bandcamp listening party for this album yesterday, had not closely listened to Phil Elverum since he traced his family tragedy on A Crow Looked at Me, and was prepping for an interview (see above) while participating in said party…but the many musical moments and lyrical snatches that caught me up short make this sound like a Top-Tenner
PYPY: Sacred Times (Goner) – I shall quote my best friend of 45 years, my former bandmate, my first and best tutor in punk rock, and former webmaster of The Rawk and current overseer of the Facebook group of the same name, Mark Anthony: “This is kicking my ass today! Stuck somewhere between Pylon and Romeo Void with a healthy dose of skronk and early 80’s techno?”
Walter Smith III: three of us are from Houston and Reuben is not (Blue Note) – A first-class mainstream jazz session by saxophonist Smith, aided and abetted by the always thoughtful, fluent, and interesting Jason Moran on piano.
Tyler, The Creator: CHROMAKOPIA (Columbia) – I have half-followed Tyler since his Odd Fellows days, but at some point–often several points–during each release, he’s put me off–until this one, another record with punk pizzazz (both instrumental and verbal) that doesn’t even need its excellent guest spots to be really good and that drew this comment from my former student, DC resident, and Creator adept Erin Datcher: “He’s wearing the mask on the cover to signal that he’s telling the truth this time.”
Andrew Hill Sextet Plus 10: A Beautiful Day Revisited (Palmetto) – This very welcome reissue from the fearsome pianist and composer originally earned its title, and now does even more, thanks to Palmetto’s touch.
Charlie Parker: Bird in Kansas City(Verve) – With a few of one foot’s toes in the past and the other’s whole stepping into the future, and thanks to guitarist Efferge Ware’s chopping, Freddie Green-influenced guitar on the closing tracks, Parker is captured here sounding like a 1939 Basie escapee–as fully Kansas City-bred as he ever sounded.
Phil Ranelin & Wendell Harrison: Tribe 2000 (Org Music) – As good a place as any to catch up with an excellent and often-steaming Detroit jazz duo–and scene.
Various Artists: Even the Forest Hums—Ukrainian Sonic Archives 1971-1996 (Light in the Attic) – Beyond keeping the people of Ukraine on your mind, this wide-ranging and surprisingly pop-sounding compilation (LITA advertises it as “folk, rock, jazz, and electronic”) invites you into the country’s music, both pre- and post-Soviet collapse.
After several years of just keeping cumulative, priority-ordered lists of my favorite new and excavated recordings here, and feeling guilty that I usually wasn’t writing (or saying) much, I decided in January to take a new approach, which I’ve enjoyed–but it’s been hell on my long-term memory. I feel I’m sure to have left something I loved out of the lists below, even after arduously scrolling through past posts. Maybe I’ll go back to listing in 2025 if I haven’t flexed my passport. On the positive side, I’ve abjured the priority ordering in favor of alphabetical, since I’d begun to suspect my Top 10s and 20s of the past had become somewhat calcified by June or July; saving the priority ordering for the end of the year forces me to have to re-evaluate records a little more carefully. On the other hand, who but I really cares?
Thusly, firstly:
MY 30 VERY FAVORITE NEW RECORDS FROM 2024 SO FAR
(Alphabetical…BUT * = Potential Top 10er; $ = Vying for #1)
Covid finally caught up with me. I had not received the most recent booster (I’d been advised to wait), but I suppose it was inevitable, and at least I have a measure more immunity. The virus was a different bitch each of the five days I was on my back: uncontrollable 101.5-102.5 fever, deep hacking (including ugly music exploding from me without warning) to the point I could barely put a cough lozenge back there, 160 BPM heart rate (plus some A-Fib, which I’ve already had a procedure to prevent) for nearly 12 hours, an inability to sleep for more than an hour at a time (two night actually), and some rounds of deep lethargy, a state I despise with every fiber of my being. BUT: such a state enabled me to listen to the entirety of Allen Lowe’s Louis Armstrong’s America (see below–four consistently interesting discs of varied and original jazz compositions played by instrumentalists of unique voice many of you have not heard of–and in Lowe’s own liner notes) and the entire three-volume, seven-disc oeuvre of the mysterious international improvisatory jazz unit called [ahmed]–they’re like The Necks with something to be angry about. And such a state is just what fascinating music exists to sweep away. Fittingly, I came around just in time to see AACM stalwart Kahil El’Zabar’s Ritual Trio (featuring a fragile but still musically fetching Ari Brown on saxophone) energetically open the 66th year (!!!) of St. Louis’ New Circle Jazz Series, and, in spite of a surprisingly rough recovery week, caught alto saxophonist Vincent Herring’s “Something Else!” jazz band here in Columbia, which featured Nicole’s and my favorite saxophonist, the (sometimes too) ebullient master of the reeds James Carter.
I did get to listen to and evaluate some new stuff. All things below are listed alphabetically, but I’ve bolded the ones that are really fine. I’m still limiting myself to single-sentence reviews because I am busy with other things. And soon to come will be my update–for what it could possibly be worth to you–of my 10 or 15 or 20 favorite albums of this entire scary year.
New
BASIC: This is Basic (No Quarter)—A pleasing labor of love, in tribute to a widely-felt too-basic ’80s album featuring the corruscating guitarist Robert Quine.
Coco & Clair Clair: Girl (Nice Girl World)–Throbbing bass, cute tunes ‘n’ talk-singing…and the wrong girls to eff with.
Kris Davis: Run the Gauntlet (Pyroclastic)–The pre-eminent pianist in Stateside improvisatory jazz waxes her first trio record in awhile, which is also showcase for master drummer Johnathan Blake.
Doechii: Alligator Bites Never Hea l (Top Dawg Entertainment / Capitol)–I’m no one to play women against each other–that’s a chump’s game–but rap’s a battle-art no matter who’s spittin’, so maybe team Doechii up with Coco & Clair on an EP and turn ’em loose on some victimizers or some fakes.
El Khat: Mute (Glitterbeat)—At a local record party, a friend played me this Berlin-based Yemeni band’s previous record and I was immediately hooked by its hypnotic clanking and addictive Middle Eastern rhythms; I’ve since acquired their entire catalog–solid!–and this new one might be their best.
Etran de L’Air: 100% Sahara Guitar (Sahel Sounds)–This Agadez wedding band keeps getting better–my esteemed music-enraptured colleague behind the superb Substack newsletter RiotRiot prefers them to Mdou Moctar–and the title speaks for itself.
Fastbacks: For WHAT Reason? (No Threes)–Rock and roll lives, though if you listen through the bright, fast guitar-propelled music, it hasn’t been easy.
Ingebrigt Haker Flaten & (Exit) Knarr: Breezy (Sonic Transmissions)—Flaten and his excellent band (Exit Knarr) follow up the stunning compositions and free playing of their debut by upping the ante with continued inventive writing and the well-timed skronks of guitarist Jonathan Horne.
Floating Points: Cascade (Ninja Tune)–The Pharoah Sanders record didn’t end up knocking my socks off, so, in sampling this as an obligation, I was pleased to find the beats delighted and brightened me.
GALVEZTON: Some Kind of Love (A Tribute to the Velvet Underground) (La Izquierda)–The Feelies did this last year, on a record of pretty much the same title, and the vocals killed it for me, which they DO NOT here…plus I’m fascinated by why these Texans even waxed it.
Darius Jones: Legend of e’Boi (The Hypervigilant Eye)(AUM Fidelity)–Jones’ saxophone playing on this soon-come release is emotionally powerful but carefully controlled, and it’s the strongest of what will be eventually nine installments of his “Man’ish Boy” epic (according to the notes) as well as my favorite saxophone record of the year.
Allen Lowe & The Constant Sorrow Orchestra: Louis Armstrong’s America (Constant Sorrow)–No important music chronicler has ever composed and played this well, though I am tempted to boil the four discs down to a master cut and see if it strikes me more deeply.
Satoko Fujii Quartet: Dog Days of Summer (Libra)–Fujii can play piano and compose in any configuration, including fusion, which this kinda is, and though the bassist occasionally exerts too much enthusiasm, I continue to marvel at her flexibility and dream of witnessing her live.
Brandon Seabrook: Object of Unknown Function (Pyroclastic)–Roll over, Bill Orcutt, and tell Bob Quine’s dust the news.
Patrick Shiroishi: Glass House (Otherly Love)—I kid you not, this lovely sax-and-soundscape record is on par (for me) with In a Silent Way, Another Green World, Private Parts, and Ocean of Remembrance as magically calming records to meditate or get to sleep to if you’re troubled
Snotty Nose Rez Kids: Red Future (Savage Mob)—I await anyone’s answer why this trio of First Nations smart-allecks and advancers of tradition aren’t more lauded in the hip hop world…other than that they’re First Nations rappers (they’re a trip love, too).
Thalin, Cravinhos & VCR Slim: Maria Esmeralda (Sujoground)–Brazilian rap of the first order…though I don’t really know enough to know that for sure, I just stayed locked in.
Various Artists: BACaRDi Fest EP (New Money Gang)–Almost 50 minutes of rolling South African beat-flow, if you wanna call that an EP.
Dustin Wong & Gregory Uhlmann: Water Map (Otherly Love)–An engrossing tour of, as one listener puts it, “A river, a cavern, for the mind’s ear.”
New-Old
Unholy Modal Rounders: Unholier Than Thou 7/7/77 (Don Giovanni)—An absolutely essential, impossibly lively, lovably louche–and highly educational–pair of performances led by the mad vocals and scratch-that-itch fiddle of the legendary Peter Stampfel.
Raphael Roginski: Plays John Coltrane and Langston Hughes(Unsound)–Lots of guitar this month, but so be it, and Roginski’s 2015 album–guitar-only but for a few guest vocals–does justice to the title, which I was certain it would not and could not.
August was a great musical month for us, but new records had little to do with it. Chappell Roan really blew up–deservedly so, but too late for the 2024 list since her record came out in ’23–and I found out her parents were students at Parkview High School in Springfield, Missouri, when I was teaching there. In fact, I was her dad’s student council sponsor, though I don’t remember him very well. We have played that 2023 record a lot and can’t wait for the next one. We also snagged tickets to several concerts scheduled for Columbia’s fabled “We Always Swing!” Jazz Series–check out the schedule, which might be the best in the series’ long history and which was shrewdly enriched by incorporating the sharp ear and skills of Dismal Niche‘s Matt Crook. Also, I discovered a St. Louis jazz series I didn’t know about–it’s only in its 66th year!–and bought tickets to the on-a-serious-roll AACM vet Kahil El’Zabar’s show as well as Nicole Mitchell’s (the best album of her long career is listed below). I’ve built an asynchronous composition class for freshmen around Ann Powers’ alternate American pop history Good Booty here at Stephens College, student writing is just coming in, and it looks promising. Finally, I substitute-taught for a friend at Hickman High School, my old stomping grounds, and he allowed me to construct my own lesson to fit his objectives: we reviewed aspects and “non-negotiables” of poetry by examining the question, “Can song lyrics be poetry with the music and vocals excised?” Students vehemently agreed as we listened to a few songs; I’m usually on the other side of the fence there. I also snuck in a lesson about blackface minstrelsy; Missouri officialdom ain’t so fond of any kind of black history, but Hickman has always been a mental cut above the state it occupies.
OK, my favorites, with my commentary continuing to be limited to single–and I hope simple–sentences (* indicate older recordings brought back to the present in some way):
Melissa Carper: Borned in Ya (Mae Music / Thirty Tigers) – First full album by a member of the Wonder Women of Country Music (Carper, Kelly Willis, and Brennen Leigh) since their outstanding EP appeared earlier this year, and it’s a legit doozy, mixing witty originals with soulful covers of standards that aren’t actually country.
Dead Moon: Dead Ahead (Mississippi Records)* – I very seriously ride or die with Dead Moon, the last of the great garage bands; Mississippi Records has been dedicated to keeping all their work in print, and this was their final record, which I’d call autumnal except the Coles would return a decade later with the more explosive band Pierced Arrows.
Phil Haynes: 4 Horns or What?—The Complete American Recordings (Corner Store Jazz)* – I hadn’t heard of Haynes, received a physical copy of this three-CD rerelease + live show, ignored it, then played it out of obligation–only to have my doors blown off by the power of Haynes’ drumming and writing and his employment of some amazing horns (specifically Ellery Eskelin and John Tchicai on saxophones).
Ka: The Thief Next to Jesus (self-released) – The Brownsville, NY, rapper carefully–and lyrically–examines the minefield of Christianity many of us, but specifically Black Americans, are trying to negotiate in these difficult times on perhaps the finest of his many intriguing albums.
OKSE: OKSE (BackwoodzStudioz) – As with Superposition (see below), I am at the beck and call of the sharp-eared Norwegian music writer Christopher Monsen–I have even tried to coin the term “Monsen Bucks” to designate how reliably I shed dollars when he raves–who was the first to hip me to this Danish/Swedish/Haitian/American rap-jazz combo that lured none other than Billy Woods onto their fascinating disc.
Ryuichi Sakamoto: Opus (Milan) – I am not a classical music buff, but this is one of the saddest records I have ever heard, and I mean that as a high compliment.
Moses Sumney: Sophcore (self-released EP) – When I first heard Sumney a few years back, I figured him for a kind of innovator–of depressive r&b or something like that–but the words didn’t hold me like the music and his vocals, and they definitely do here.
Superposition: II (We Jazz) – Another Chris Monsen whisper-in-my-ear, this Finnish group is the latest Scandinavian jazz unit to make me seriously consider traveling to the region and exploring the clubs.
Cecily Wilborn: Kuntry Gurl Playlist (self-released) – This very solid album is not as raw as the title seems to imply, but it’s very high-quality country music with rhythm and blues flavor, Ms. Wilborn can sing and write fetchingly, and I’m intrigued that, though she claims West Memphis, she mentions zydeco and trail rides.
Kathryn Williams & Withered Hand: Willson Williams (One Little Independent Records) – I knew nothing about Kathryn Williams and, for some reason, despite enjoying Dan Wilson’s /Withered Hand’s previous work, thought another contributor might water his very unique yearning, spiritual thing down–but damned if this doesn’t catch me up just as short, and movingly.
‘Twas hard to squeeze in extended and deep listening this month, what with a long and much-needed vacation in Dauphin Island, Alabama, and difficult family matters, but I hung in there. The beach, two rounds of fresh shrimp off a Bayou Le Batre fishing boat, ample portions of Blue Moon, tons o’ time spent with my very best friends and my beloved (I was the house DJ but stuck to old favorites from our past for the most part–along with Fox Green’s new album*), two great audiobooks that cut the feeling of a long-ass drive in half [Tommy Orange’s Wandering Stars and James McBride’s The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store (still only 67% finished, so don’t send me any spoilers)], and a late-breaking political surprise have done wonders for my mood. And just finishing Ann Powers’ neat Joni Mitchell book led to that estimable music critic’s possible engagement with an upcoming class of mine, during which the students will read, write, and talk about Powers’ equally sterling tome, Good Booty! I need to quit being so emo on this blog….
OK, to the music: lots of new jazz, a clear-cut AOTY possibility which may surprise my handful of readers (don’t sleep on Corb Lund*!), a face-punch of an envoi from X, a fresh blues/r&b voice from (of all places) Memphis. Dig in!
Recorded in 2024
Note:If listed as “self-released,” know that I tried.
[ahmed]:Giant Beauty(fonstret) – When I came back from vacation, news of this somewhat mysterious multi-national improvisatory unit’s five-disc exploration of bassist Ahmed Abdul-Malik’s work piqued me as deeply as I can be piqued, then I discovered they were damned serious about their journey and exciting in making it–then, while prepping this post, I listened to their 2023 Abdul-Malik quest Super Majnoon and it might just be better.
Charles Gayle / Milford Graves / William Parker:WEBO(Black Editions) – Gayle could wail, Graves kept all collaborators on their toes with his nimble mind, feet, hands, and heart (both men have gone to meet ‘Trane), and Parker remains simply the reigning master bassist in jazz, so this 1991 concert–the trio seldom recorded together–is special.
John Escreet:the epicenter of your dreams(Blue Room Music) – The above two records roar, and with everything going on in our world they might be too much; however, the fleet inventiveness of Brit pianist Escreet, who’s worked with players ranging from Dr. Tyshawn Sorey to Floating Points, might be more up your alley, especially with Mark Turner, a kind of 21st century Lester Young, flowing beside him on tenor.
Fox Green*: Light Over Darkness(self-released) – I once yelled in a garage band in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and, if we’d been able to stay together over time, considering what we have otherwise ended up doing with our lives, I’d like to think we could have (only) come within spitting distance of this smart Little Rock Americana-rock unit–and have been proud of that.
Boldy James & Conductor Williams: Across the Tracks(self-released) – I’ve tried with Detroiter James’ last few albums, and they’ve just taken me halfway there, so it’s funny that, among other things, cameos from very young guest MCs put this over for me.
Janel Leppin: Ensemble Volcanic Ash—To March is to Love(Cuneiform) – This is cellist/composer Leppin’s second excellent album of 2024–the first was the wonderfully spacy New Moon in the Evil Age, a duet with her husband Anthony Pirog on which she also sings–and its wide-ranging sounds are anchored by the justifiably ubiquitous bassist Luke Stewart, who along with Leppin is making a run at Jazz Musician of the Year.
Corb Lund*:El Viejo(New West) – This is an AOTY-worthy country concept album about gambling–not simply with a hand of cards–and Lund’s writing (he has occasional assistance) and his band’s living-room playing are astoundingly sharp.
Charles McPherson:Reverence(Smoke Sessions) – Along with Bobby Watson, McPherson is one of the last of the great Charlie Parker torch-carriers, though here he demonstrates that he’s learned plenty of other moves in his eighty-five years on the most recent of a shining run of records…and I get to see him live in a few months!
Moor Mother: The Great Bailout (Deluxe Edition) (Anti-) – Camae Ayewa never takes a historical prisoner, and this is one of two excellent and musically complex Afrofuturism-meets-Europastism records of 2024 (the other being Red Hot Org / Kronos Quartet’s Sun Ra tribute Outer Spaceways Incorporated)–but for that you have to get the deluxe version.
David Murray:Francesca(Intakt) – Twenty years ago, poring over jazz record guides and hunting down a myriad of terrific Murray releases on DIW, I just knew this guy couldn’t keep up such prolific musical fecundity for much longer….
Pet Shop Boys: Nonetheless(Parlophone) – The limited series It’s a Sin, which I took in several years ago, sent me back to luxuriate in the power, wit, and effervescence of the first PSB albums, and, though the world has taken a toll on the last of those, and though “wit” seems too light a word for the wisdom on display here, they remain…unbowed.
Roberto Ottaviano:Lacy in the Sky with Diamonds(Clean Feed) – Jazz fans familiar with the other Steve Lacy probably won’t think that’s a terrible title–the band’s aim in this tribute is to write the mighty soprano saxophonist’s name in the sky, and they nail it, especially the leader.
Red Kross:Red Kross(In the Red) – They definitely still got it, and I really hear prime Raspberries in this one.
Rempis / Adasiewicz / Abrams / Damon (coming in October):Propulsion(Aerophonic Records) – All four of these men are superior improvisors, but Jason Adasiewicz, who last year transformed AACM star Roscoe Mitchell’s compositions into something completely different on an album of his own, is the star, laying a calming bed of imaginative, evocative vibes underneath the others’ blooms of sound.
Chappell Roan:The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess(Atlantic) – Straight outta Willard, Missouri, an unfettered soul that has not a little in common with none other than Little Richard–yeah, I said it!
Christopher Rountree / Wild Up:3BPM(Brassland) – Though I was a bit disappointed in Wild Up’s fourth volume of Julius Eastman tributes/interpretations, I still buy sound-unheard anything with which they associate their name, and founder Rountree’s debut, enlisting the group’s help, tops it.
Taliba Safiya:Black Magic (self-released EP) – The Memphis blues again–with a vengeance.
SAULT:Acts of Faith(self-released) – Now you’ll have to lean on Soulseek or your pals for it, or wait–I never can with them–and you’ll have to believe me when I say it’s near the top of the group’s pretty solid catalog, thanks to a Mayfieldian streak running through its 32 unbroken minutes.
Ren:Sick Boi(renmakesmusic.com) – Unlike Eminem, Ren’s really ill; also unlike Eminem, Ren’s really ill.
Takkak Takkak: Takkak Takkak(Nyege Nyege Tapes) – It’s hard to keep up with releases from this Kampala label, and I’ve tried, but out of them all, turned up loud, this one thumps so hard and weird I immediately played it twice.
Natsuki Tamura & Satoko Fujii:Aloft(Libra) – Tamura (trumpet) and Fujii (piano) are married in more ways than one; they’ve made several duet albums and their telepathy is well-honed here.
X:Smoke & Fiction(Fat Possum) – The band thanks the original Ramones by first name in the notes, open with what sounds like a tribute, then proceed to say so long to us and their partnership in style: Zoom zooming, Bonebrake cracking the skins hard, and John and Exene harmonizing like yesterday was tomorrow. (The LP version was released early, without a lyric sheet, or I’d comment on those–what I could pick up seems appropriately bittersweet.)
New Archival Excavations (a somewhat paltry selection, but I welcome tips):
Bessie Jones, John Davis, the Georgia South Sea Island Singers with Mississippi Fred McDowell and Ed Young:The Complete “Friends of Old-Time Music” Concert(Smithsonian) – The musical Bessie many know best is Smith, the Mississippi bluesman they may be most familiar with John Hurt, but Jones was one of the greatest folk-gospel singers of all-time, and McDowell, best known as the source of The Rolling Stones’ “You Got to Move,” played spiritual tunes with as much–possibly more–stinging fire than he did blues.
Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre: Rivbea Live! Series, Volume 1(No Business) – AACM stalwart meets primo NYC Loft-era setting for serious fireworks.
I really don’t have much to write this month. My mind feels paralyzed; at least my ears are working. Also, I am behind due to being distracted by non-new musical explorations, as you will see. Thus, I am just going to make three lists (this will help me get to THIS faster, too–I need it and I hope it’s great, but I can’t really listen to it until I’m done here).
The 20Best Albums Released in 2024 That I First Heard This Month (in alphabetical order, but * = really kicking my butt)
*Alan Braufman: Infinite Love Tears (The Control Group / Valley of Search)
Jonas Cambien: Macu Conu (Clean Feed)
Charli xcx: BRAT (Atlantic)
*Cosmic Psychos: Go the Hack (Goner Records reissue)
Janel [Leppin] and Anthony [Pirog]: New Moon in the Evil Age (Cuneiform) (The “Janel disc” rools, although they are both on all of it.) (Wait, I said I wasn’t writing.)
*Kronos Quartet: Outer Spaceways Incorporated (Red Hot Org)
*Corb Lund: El Viejo (New West)
*Willie Nelson: The Border (Sony Music)
*Nestor: Teenage Rebel (Napalm Records/Handels GmbH) (I would have hated this in my 20s, in its way its allegiance to the laws of 1980s hard rock–passionate allegiance!–is stunning.) (I’m writing!)
Ngwaka Son Systeme: Iboto Ngenge (Eck Echo Records)
Hermeto Pascoal & Grupo: Pra voce, Ilza (Rocinante Records)
OLD REGGAE ALBUMS I’D NEVER HEARD BEFORE WERE MY JUNE SALVATION!
It was all triggered when I rather randomly chose to read Alex Wheatle‘s memoir, Sufferah. Wheatle’s childhood experiences inspired one of the best episodes of Steve McQueen’s limited series Small Axe, all of which I thoroughly loved. Reggae songs were extremely important to Wheatle’s survival as a youth, and he mentioned so many I didn’t know (and I’m pretty well-informed) that I made a playlist as I read (which I accidentally deleted yesterday!). Unsurprisingly, the best of those songs led me to research the albums from which they came via two excellent out-of-print reggae guides, one by Lloyd Bradley, the other by Randall Grass, both acknowledged genre adepts. While researching those, I bumped into non-Wheatle-related records I’d somehow missed. That resulting research led me willy-nilly to Discogs, where–oh hell, I’ll just take a picture. This is the life of a music fanatic folks!
This was a tough month. I was finishing up teaching and getting ready to start up again, very fatigued; trying to organize scholarship awards in memory of a too-soon-departed friend; playing Cecil Taylor albums every day very loudly (Nicole hadn’t finished teaching yet, so I was home alone with six cats and the stereo turned to 11), thanks to Phil Freeman’s outstanding upcoming biography In the Brewing Luminous (read my pal Ken Shimamoto’s outstanding review here); experiencing unusual trouble really getting into new albums (I can hear my current Conservatory students and my lovable provocateur Kevin Bozelka whispering, “Get into singles, get lit, and sing some karaoke, Phil!”); and…also being more than a bit depressed about the state of the country and this world, my mom having to be in an assisted living facility, and already having 62 trips around the sun under my belt while, with Sandy Denny on heavy rotation, wondering in vain who really knows where that time has gone. I couldn’t even imagine getting this done.
BUT the indefatigable Adeem the Artist–why could I not muster the energy to go see them when they were playing a little club here, after all they’ve done for humanity in just three albums?–Mdou Moctar‘s defiant guitar and words, and a wonderfully weird Sun Ra excavation jolted me into action. I hope you all are not having the same struggles. But I bet you are having some of them.
(I would also like to thank, along with the above artists, my current students in an alleged “rock and roll” class at Stephens College for delighting me with their work and commentary–enjoy their “Top 5 Album” lists below.)
These records made me happy in May.
Adeem The Artist: ANNIVERSARY (Thirty Tigers /Four Quarters) From the personal to the public, this pansexual writer continues to vividly capture the complications and cruelties that are us–they could stand to work on the melodies, though, but I’ll settle.
Anitta: Funk Generation (Republic / Universal) This Brazilian temptress is edging toward “force of nature” status, and I think the label may have misspelled the first word of the album title.
Creation Rebel: High Above Harlesden 1978-2023 (On-U Sound) I am pretty new to the Creation Rebel experience–I knew not of their Prince Far I and Adrian Sherwood connections–but the inexpensiveness and cover photo, plus a reggae jones that I can never quite dampen, pushed me forward with the following result: I’ve listened to the entire six-disc box three times and, thanks to some pit-stops in space and other non-Caribbean locations, they hold one’s attention.
Billie Eilish: HIT ME HARD & SOFT (Dark Room / Interscope)I listened to it and heard a remarkable stylistic tour de force for one so young (including a very welcome opening-up of her voice and one of the most vivid, longing, and funny oral sex songs I’ve ever heard); many others listened and heard a scattershot record, so…whom do you trust more, me or the many?
Ibibio Sound Machine: Pull the Rope (Merge)2017’s Uyai lifted me so much I still have a poster of Eno Williams up in my office, but she and they have struggled to match that one since, though this comes awfully damn close.
Vijay Iyer, Linda May Han Oh, and Tyshawn Sorey: Compassion (ECM)A bracingly calming (is that a possible state of being?) set by three relatively young masters–I can simply listen to Sorey and be entranced–and maybe that’s what they mean by “compassion”: couldn’t we all stand to be braced by calm?
Matt Wilson’s Good Trouble: Matt Wilson’s Good Trouble (Palmetto)I received a review copy of this and, for some reason, the cover photo (which is fine) left me in a mood of obligation when I slid it into the CD changer, but I found it exciting: a) John Lewis’ title concept we still need to be reminded to mind; b) Wilson’s one helluva a drummer; c) the saxophonists–Jeff Lederer and Tia Fuller–are on fire; and d) they cover Prime Time Ornette (“Feet Music”!) with panache.
Joe McPhee (with Ken Vandermark): Musings of a Bahamanian Son (Catalytic Sound)Anyone who’s followed my blog for long knows I ride or die with this 84-year-old multi-instrumentalist, imaginative noise-maker, and cultural envoy from Poughkeepsie–but damned if I expected he’d release a terrific album of original poetry (with some honking assists by long-time buddy Ken Vandermark) that any young gun will have trouble topping this year.
Mdou Moctar: Funeral for Justice (Matador) I have been to many concerts in my life, and heard some amazing guitar players–including Sonic Youth’s at their absolute peak–but the 10+-minute wildfire I saw Moctar start in a little cafe in Columbia, Missouri, in 2019 tops them all, and this AOTY candidate’s his first one that gets within spitting distance of that (oh, and the translations are worth reading, as the album title has probably already tipped you).
Rapsody: Please Don’t Cry (We Each Other / Jamla Records)I’ve actually been longing for a new Rapsody record for awhile, as perhaps many of you have, and, for the patient–it’s a bit of an epic–the wait’s been worth it, especially because one of the best rappers alive tempers her wrenching reportage of her mental health struggles with a very combative spirit.
Sun Ra: Excelsior Mill (Sundazed / Modern Harmonic)The Sun One, in a perfect sound-image of the Phantom of the Opera, playing “the biggest pipe organ in the South” at Atlanta’s title club with just a bit of percussional help from the Arkestra–if you think that over 40 minutes of that would have to be a bit much, you’re just wrong, as it is an astonishing aural trip–complete with wry quotes, Ellingtonian choo-choo noises, phantasmagoria, and (of course space) travel–that was by far my favorite trip of any kind in May.
Sun Ra: Pink Elephants on Parade (Modern Harmonic)Most readers who know the work of Sun Ra and His Arkestra also know they would occasionally knock out a Disney cover, and, while this could actually benefit from a little more weirdness, it’s fun for the whole family, unlike most Arkestra records.
Students in Stephens College’s outstanding Conservatory are taking an asynchronous online course with me that’s stubbornly titled “Rock and Roll History” by the school. It’s actually built around Berklee neuroscience professors Susan Rogers and Ogi Ogas’ book This is What It Sounds Like, which examines what brain science tells us about our connections to music, most fascinatingly through establishing a listening profile that asks the reader to truly examine their attractions. The neat thing–to me, anyway–is that students bring their own musical passions to the course and don’t have to endure me cramming “historically significant works” down their throats. To try to keep a toe in the titular pool, every week they are required to ask me a question about “rock and roll history”–and I ask them one. I often go to great lengths to answer their questions (it’s actually the lecture section of the course) and they (wisely) go to lesser lengths to answer mine.
Last week, I asked them to assess Billie Eilish’s new album (their takes resemble very closely the current critical division on that subject), plus post their Top 5 albums. When I ask students about their jams, I’m consistently amazed, considering how much music I listen to and how widely I range to do so, how little I really know about. For your pleasure, here are their lists (for their amusement, I bolded the relatively few albums they’ve chosen that I’ve actually heard). Mine (at least at the time of my posting them) are at the end–they change daily, if not hourly.
Student 1
(I am only naming the students if I have their permission, and I’m still waiting for some of those.)
A Letter To My Younger Self – Quinn XCII
Inside – Bo Burnham
Death of a Bachelor – Panic! at the Disco
Off to the Races – Jukebox the Ghost
The Greatest Showman – Various Artists
Student 2
Cowboy Carter – Beyonce
GUTS – Olivia Rodrigo
Emails I can’t send – Sabrina Carpenter
The Rise and Fall Of a Midwestern Princess – Chappell Roan
IGOR – Tyler, The Creator
Student 3
Obviously – Lake Street Dive
SOUR – Olivia Rodrigo
Emails I Can’t Send – Sabrina Carpenter
Oh the Places You’ll Go – Doechii
Stick Season – Noah Kahan
Student 4
The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology – Taylor Swift
Songs I Wrote in My Bedroom – Anson Seabra
cemeteries and socials – Paris Paloma
Now That I’ve Been Honest – Maddie Zahm
EPIC: The Underworld Saga – Jorge Rivera-Herrans
Student 5
Shrek the Musical
Hadestown
The Lightning Thief
Come from Away
Something Rotten!
Student 6
evermore – Taylor Swift
Muna – Muna
The Rise and Fall of a MidwestPrincess – Chappell Roan
the record – boygenius
The Tortured Poets Department – Taylor Swift
Claire McLewin
Build a Problem – Dodie
Demidevil – Ashnikko
WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?– Billie Eilish
Typical of Me EP – Laufey
Midwest Kids Can Make It Big – Lauren Sanderson
Student 8
Misadventures – Pierce the Veil
The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess – Chappell Roan
How to Be a Human Being – Glass Animals
After Laughter – Paramore
SOUR – Olivia Rodrigo
Sawyer Nevins
Julie Is Her Name – Julie London
Latin ala Lee – Peggy Lee
Tragic Kingdom – No Doubt
Under the Pink – Tori Amos
Les Demoiselles de Rochefort – Michel Legrand
Student 10
ORQUÍDEAS – Kali Uchis
Gemini Rights – Steve Lacy
Willow – Willow
Volcano – Jungle
Portals – Melanie Martinez
Student 11
Montero – Lil Nas X
Call Me By Your Name Soundtrack – Sufjan Stevens and Various Artists
Something To Give Each Other – Troye Sivan
Night Work – Scissor Sisters
I Disagree – Poppy
Student 12
WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO? – Billie Elilish
RAZZMATAZZ – I DON’T KNOW HOW BUT THEY FOUND ME
American Boys – Don McLean
The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess – Chappell Roan
Now, Not Yet – Half•Alive
Izzy Porzillo
AAAH!BA – Brian David Gilbert
SCREAMING IN THE MIRROR – Sunday Cruise
Big Man Says Slappydoo – GUPPY
LOUDMOUTH – VIAL
Am I Pretty? – Sunday Cruise
Makenzie Schutter
Impera – Ghost
The Connect: Déjà vu – Monsta x
How to: Friend, Love, Freefall – Rainbow Kitten Surprise
Who Am I? – Palewaves
Inside – Bo Burnham
Kaley Sikora
Next to Normal – Tom Kitt & Brian Yorkey
THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT: THE ANTHOLOGY – Taylor Swift
Happier Than Ever – Billie Eilish
Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 – Dave Malloy
Love Me Forever – Pinkshift
Paige “Blue” Trew
When the World Stopped Moving: The Live EP – Lizzie McAlpine
Prelude to Ecstasy – The Last Dinner Party
Sunset Season: EP – Conan Gray
Through the Tides – Fish in a Birdcage
Waterfall – Fish in a Birdcage
Student 17
Into The Woods – 2022 Broadway Cast Recording
Faith In the Future (Deluxe) – Louis Tomlinson
The Comeback – Zac Brown Band
Portraits – Birdy
Kid Krow – Conan Gray
Student 18
Where Owls Know My Name – Rivers of Nihil
The Violent Sleep of Reason – Meshuggah
Masego – Masego
It Is What It Is – Thundercat
Remember That You Will Die – Polyphia
My Lists (of course I had to make two)!
My five favorite albums when I was 19:
The Clash: London Calling
Bob Dylan: Highway 61 Revisited
Public Image Limited: Second Edition
Gang of Four: Entertainment
John Coltrane Quartet: A Love Supreme
My five favorite albums at 62 (these change from day to day–I have thousands of them):
Professor Longhair: Crawfish Fiesta
Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys: The Tiffany Transcriptions, Volume 3–Basin Street Blues
Carmen McRae: As Time Goes By-Alone-Live at the Dug
Joni Mitchell: Blue
Tie: The Velvet Underground: 1969 Live / The Flying Burrito Brothers: The Gilded Palace of Sin
Living To Listen 