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):
Patricia Brennan: Breaking Stretch (Pyroclastic) – Brennan threads strands of strange vibraphone magic through all of her very impressive compositions, and this album may be her best yet.
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.
Shelby Lynne: Consequences of the Crown (Monument) – She sounds slightly bruised but very much unbowed, as well as justifies folks’ occasional comparisons between her and Dusty Springfield.
Nicole Mitchell and Ballake Sissoko: Bamako * Chicago Sound System (FPE) – I admire Mitchell so much as a thinker and conceptualist and player, but none of her previous albums have stuck with me permanently until now–Sissoko’s kora contributions are the glue that grounds her flute.
Meshell Ndegeocello: No More Water—The Gospel of James Baldwin (Blue Note) The second quietly powerful tribute Meshell’s assayed in ’24–the first honoring Sun Ra–comes at, as Lightnin’ Hopkins and others have sung, a “needed time.”
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.
Juma Sultan’s Aboriginal Music Society: Father of Origin (Eremite)* – As with Dead Moon/Pierced Arrows, I ride or die with any record featuring participants in St. Louis’ Black Arts Group; the leader’s on bass, hand drums, and other stuff, but to hear Julius Hemphill, Bobo Shaw, Philip Wilson, and Abdul Wadud on a set of 1969-1970 recordings is a treat.
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.
Living To Listen 