Tag: writing

A Moment of Silence for January 2026—Then Let It Blast! Some Records (and Books) That Kept My Head Up During the Horror

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I retreated into music and books this month. The books I chose to help me find answers and a path forward; the music I explored to stay connected.

As usual with Januaries past, new so-called pop (and semi-pop) music oozed out slowly. Jazz, as is its wont, continued to issue forth like a live Sonny Rollins calypso solo. You will see evidence of such in my list, though maybe my perception is due to my leanings (jazz has been a more reliable stimulant to me than anything as I’ve grown suddenly into my sixties).

Also as usual, I am restless when it comes to formatting this blog, and this year, along with tracking my favorite new releases, I’ve decided to return to documenting older purchases I’ve recently returned to and the books I’m currently reading. In this post, I shamefacedly shine light on a few albums I should have pushed harder last year, especially one by the great Memphis singer of bluesy rhythm and blues (the blues? what are those?), Talibah Safiya. She has a new one in the February chute that I paid for the privilege of sampling early—see below. Verdict: it, too, is terrific—she has a gift for soft grit, something like legendary trumpeter Clifford Brown’s tone of “soft fire” (can’t remember what musician described it thus). The other most notable “coming soon” release is the product of the ever-sublime, ever-simply complex music partnership of bassist.cellist Tomeka Reid and guitarist Mary Halvorson.

I will always supply links to my recommendations. I would post a playlist, but I am not thrilled with the connections of any streaming platform, and, if the recommendation has a Bandcamp link, you can play tracks from there.

If the urge strikes you, check out my education Substack, The Overeem (Failed) Farewell to Teaching Tour, which almost always makes contact with the world of music even though I can’t play an instrument and I’ve taught English for the last 42 years. My other WordPress blog, the original Overeem Farewell to Teaching Tour, has deeper and broader reaches, especially as it traces every day of my final year of public school teaching (2012-2014) as well as my wife Nicole’s and my winding trek through peak COVID (March 2020-March 2021). For rock and rollers, it also includes school-related pieces on Dead Moon (played at my school), Bobby Rush (housed the audience at my school), and Chuck Berry (provoked a parent to question my principal about my morals).

Keep your eye on the ball, don’t turn away from life, and don’t panic. Freedom is a constant struggle, but it doesn’t have to be this horrible. Be the opposite of what they are. And get your feet in the street if the situation calls you to it.

SPOTLIGHT ALBUM OF THE MONTH

Mark Lomax II: The Unity Suite (CFG Multimedia)

Dr. Lomax and his combo continue to deliver spiritual jazz of considerable power—you can meditate to it, but it hits your body as well. His music is disciplined and devout, yet it celebrates and inspires freedom, not to mention the title adjective—we need all of that right now.

Other Favorite New Albums, January 2026 

Julianna Barwick & Mary Lattimore: Tragic Magic (In Finé)

Dry Cleaning: Secret Love (4AD)

Art Edmaiston & Chad Fowler: Memphis Mandala (Mahakala Music)

fakemink: The Boy who cried Terrified . (EtnaVeraVela EP)

Fanfare Ciocarlia: Devil’s Tale (Asphalt Tango)

Al Green: To Love Somebody (Fat Possum EP)

Javon Jackson: Jackson Plays Dylan (Solid Jackson/Palmetto)

Joyce Manor: I Used to Go to This Bar (Epitaph)

Tomeka Reid: dance! skip! hop! (Out of Your Head Records)

Ren: Vincent’s Tale (self-released…I think) 

Talibah Safiya: Eternal (self-released…I think)

SAULT: Chapter 1 (Forever Living Originals)

Noé Sécula & Jorge Rossy: A Sphere Between Other Obsessions (Fresh Sounds)

Alan Silva Celestrial Communication Ensemble: 2000-06-24 Amherst (Eremite)

Slutworld: Slut Intent (self-released EP)

Harriet Tubman & Georgia Muldrow: Electrical Field of Love (Pi Recordings)

Twisted Teens: Blame the Clown (Jazz Life)

2025: Gone But Too Cool for Me to Have Forgotten

C-MAT: Euro-Country (CMATBABY)

Griot Galaxy: Live on WUOM 1979 (Two Rooms)

Anthony Joseph: Rowing Up the River to Get My Name Back (Heavenly Sweetness)

Talibah Safiya: a lil’ more Black Magic (High Water)

Vintage Albums I Deeply Enjoyed

79rs Gang: Fire on the Bayou (Urban Unrest / Sinking City)

79rs Gang: Expect the Unexpected (Sinking City)

Collocutor: Continuation (On the Corner)

The Killer Shrews: The Killer Shrews (Enemy)

Donal Lunny: Donal Lunny’s Definitive Moving Hearts (Warner Ireland)

The Supreme Angels: If I’m Too High (Nashboro)

The Supreme Angels: The Supreme Angels (Nashboro)

Hey! I Read, Too! 

Adam Morgan: A Danger to the Minds of Young Girls—Margaret C. Anderson, Book Bans, and the Fight to Modernize Literature (One Signal)

Sivina Ocampo: The Promise (City Lights)

József Debreczeni: Cold Crematorium (St. Martin’s Press)

Orlando Reade: What In Me Is Dark—The Revolutionary Afterlife of Paradise Lost (Astra House)

It Will Not End Here: My 25 Favorite Records of 2025 (if you don’t give me any more time to think about it)

Childers deserves to chill.
Thunder-nakas.
Love, Commitment, and Improv.

It’s New Year’s noonish, and I have to come to a conclusion about the records that got me through this growing mess. 2026 ain’t gonna be much better, I’m afraid—maybe in the music universe, but not on the ground, so to speak. I may have short-changed December; if you didn’t see my December 1st long-list, it’s here. A few December releases did make my Top 25 line-up.

If you have followed this blog for awhile, you’ve already noticed I am a bit restless about formatting. This year, I just alphabetized records most of the year and used an asterisk system to indicate my level of enthusiasm (I am not a critic; I am merely an enthusiast who measures records by the degree to which my short hairs stand up while playing an album). I also did not separate out archival digs or reissues. I vote in the Francis Davis Memorial Jazz Critics Poll, but below, I did not weed out jazz (however, I will share my poll ballot, which would change if I resubmitted it today). To paraphrase Duke Ellington, there’s only two kids of music: good and bad. Seldom this year did I write at much length about albums; if I mentioned them at the top of the post, that indicated that I really cared. Also, my perspective about ordering records is very subjective: my life experiences, prejudices, 42-year-career as an English teacher, my 63-plus years hanging out in the middle of the country, my commitment to being a married man but also to seeking new aesthetic territory to open my mind—those are the determiners, and I respect yours, as different as they may be. Finally, I’m a hardcore Heraclitian (?): you can never step in the same river twice, because you are mutating by the moment and the river just keeps on running. Apply that to a piece of music you’re listening to for, say, the 157th time; I have Professor Longhair’s Crawfish Fiesta on right now, two days after hearing the combo’s unique drummer Johnny Vidocovich play live 40-some years after that record got waxed, and damn right I’m different than I was at 19 and my ears are way better after that show. Anyway…the point is, I’m not asserting that these are rankings that you should mind, my friends.

Thoughts: I have been invulnerable to Americana / folk / alt-country whatever since, oh, 2016. To be honest, even though many artists categorized as such are en resistance, and even though I am a Midwestern white guy one generation removed from the family farm, I just have not wanted to hear what those white (mostly) guys have had to say. Childers (intense vocals conjuring Gary Stewart—read Jimmy McDonough’s new bio of that one), The Delines (really downbeat and sharp writing from off the grid or hanging by the fingernails from it), Tommy Womack (a lifelong struggler apparently indomitable despite not being in denial), and I’ll throw in octogenarian Irish folk legend Christy Moore (fighting his own fight at home but aware of the threats to the world at large) changed that. [ahmed], Los Thuthanaka, and a vintage Hüsker Dü live set were aural fists in the face to creeping (ok, faster than creeping) repression. Among my peers, few have sung the praises of Colombian folk goddess Karol G but that album outjukes Bad Bunny’s. If Danny Brown can get his whole health together, so can I. Death was a constant presence in my personal life in ’25, so Brotzmann’s stunning final live sessions of autumnal free jazz—if he was ever too much for you, this is where to get on board—empowered me. I liked woods’ and Fanon’s reimagining of woods’ original version way more, because it seemed to deliberately tackle the problem folks occasionally have with woods’ tracks. And I’ll stop with a big plug for Natural Information Society’s perfectly-titled album: I saw the group perform the piece (on the album, in multiple versions) live and was completely mesmerized by their militantly disciplined minimalism across nearly an hour’s playing (36 minutes in its long version here). Apologies to Sudan Archives, Lil’ Wayne, C-MAT, and maybe-just-maybe Geese for not giving your work the time it very likely deserved

Living to Listen’s Top 25 for ’25 

  1. Tyler Childers: Snipe Hunter (RCA / Hickman Holler)
  2. The Delines: Mr. Luck & Ms. Doom (Jealous Butcher) 
  3. [ahmed]: Sama’a [Audition] (Otoroku) 
  4. Los Thuthanaka: Los Thuthanaka (Studio Pankara)
  5. Hüsker Dü: 1985—The Miracle Year (Numero Group) 
  6. Karol G: Tropicoqueta (Bichota)
  7. Sabrina Carpenter: Man’s Best Friend (Island)
  8. Bad Bunny: DeBI TiRAR MaS FOToS (Rimas Entertainment)
  9. Danny Brown: Stardust (Warp)
  10. Peter Brotzmann: The Quartet (Otoroku) 
  11. August Fanon & billy woods: Gowillog (reimagined) (BackwoodzStudioz)
  12. Steve Lehman: The Music of Anthony Braxton (Pi Recordings)
  13. Christy Moore: A Terrible Beauty (Claddagh) (11/2024 release in Ireland, so I’m counting it)
  14. Natural Information Society: Perseverance Flow (Eremite)
  15. Mary Halvorson: About Ghosts (Nonesuch)
  16. Amina Claudine Myers: Solace of the Mind (Red Hook) 
  17. Ale Hop & Titi Bakorta:  Mapambazuko (Nyege Nyege Tapes) 
  18. Sharp Pins: Balloon Balloon Balloon (K / Perennial Death)
  19. Various Artists: The Bottle Tapes (Corbett vs. Dempsey)
  20. Cosmic Ear: TRACES (We Jazz) 
  21. Lily Allen: West End Girl (BMG)
  22. Tommy Womack: Live a Little (Schoolkids)
  23. doseone & Height Keech: Wood Teeth (Hands Made EP)
  24. Dijon: Baby (R&R )
  25. De La Soul: Cabin in the Sky (Mass Appeal) 

My Jazz Critics Poll Ballot (FWIW)

Best New Jazz Albums of 2025

  1. [ahmed]: [Sama’a] (Audition) (Otoroku)
  2. Peter Brotzmann: The Quartet (Otoroku) 
  3. Cosmic Ear: TRACES (We Jazz) 
  4. Mary Halvorson: About Ghosts (Nonesuch) 
  5. Steve Lehman: The Music of Anthony Braxton (Pi Recordings) 
  6. Amina Claudine Myers: Solace of the Mind(Red Hook) 
  7. Deepstaria Enigmatica: The Eternal Now Is the Heart of a New Tomorrow (ESP-Disk)

  8. William Hooker: Jubilation (Org Music) 
  9. OTHERLANDS TRIO: Star Mountain (Intakt)
  10. Joe Chambers, Kevin Diehl, Chad Taylor: Onilu(Eremite)

Rara Avis (reissues and/or music recorded in 2015 or earlier)

  1. Various Artists: The Bottle Tapes (Corbett vs. Dempsey)
  2. Rahsaan Roland Kirk: Jump Up & Down Fast—Vibrations in the Village, Live at the Village Gate (Resonance) 
  3. Cecil Taylor / Tony Oxley: Flashing Spirits (Burning Ambulance)
  4. Marco Eneidi Quintet: Wheat Fields of Kleylehof (Balance Point Acoustics / Botticelli) 
  5. Shamek Farrah & Sonelius Smith: The World of the Children (Strata-East) 

Best Jazz Vocal Albums

  1. Silvana Estrada: Vendran Suaves Lluvia (Glassnote)
  2. Laura Ann Singh: Mean Reds (Out of Your Head)
  3. Lena Bloch: Marina (Fresh Sounds)

Best Latin Albums

  1. Roger Glenn: My Latin Heart (Patois) 
  2. Miguel Zenon: Vanguardia Subterranea (Miel Music) 
  3. Aruan Ortiz: Creole Renaissance (Intakt)