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

1. 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.
2. Coco & Clair Clair: Girl (Nice Girl World)–Throbbing bass, cute tunes ‘n’ talk-singing…and the wrong girls to eff with.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. 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.
9. 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.
10. 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.
11. 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.
12. LL Cool J: The FORCE (LL Cool J Records)–I’m calling it a comeback, a strong one, though while reading Helen Zahavi’s haunting and harrowing Dirty Weekend, I have questions about his sexual politics.
13. 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.
14. 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.
15. Brandon Seabrook: Object of Unknown Function (Pyroclastic)–Roll over, Bill Orcutt, and tell Bob Quine’s dust the news.
16. 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
17. 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).
18. 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.
19. Various Artists: BACaRDi Fest EP (New Money Gang)–Almost 50 minutes of rolling South African beat-flow, if you wanna call that an EP.
20. 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

1. 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.
2. 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.

Sample the shit!