The 2019 NPR Music Jazz Critics Poll |
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Posted: 15 Jan 2020 at 4:46am |
New Albums1. Kris Davis At a glance, an odd candidate for consensus: Kris Davis, an improviser-composer with the instinct of an alchemist, made Diatom Ribbons by drawing inspiration from oceanic microbiology, tectonic movement and piano precursors ranging from Messiaen to Monk to Cecil Taylor. What makes her experiment feel seamless is the deep cohesion of some elite company: a core trio with Val Jeanty on turntables and Terri Lyne Carrington on drums, opening up to the earthy enlightenment of a pair of hardy tenor saxophonists (Tony Malaby, JD Allen) a couple of spark plug guitarists (Marc Ribot, Nels Cline), and a handful of others (like Esperanza Spalding, in two arresting vocal cameos). It easily could have felt like an Event album, but Davis and her wrecking crew produce something rarer: an album of volatile heat and fractured funk that mysteriously forms an alluring contour line. —Nate Chinen 2. Art Ensemble of Chicago In an age when colleges produce "factory lines" of instrumentalists that end up sounding the same, the Art Ensemble of Chicago continues to remain a singular "university of music." We Are On The Edge, a testament to this, marks the ensemble's 50th anniversary. Founding fathers Roscoe Mitchell and Famoudou Don Moye, inspiring next-generation musicians like Nicole Mitchell and Tomeka Reid, recreate their eloquent palimpsest of modern American blackness, to remain "ancient to the future." —Raul da Gama 3. Tomeka Reid Quartet The cello, in jazz, has always taken a back seat to the double bass. While Ray Brown,
Oscar Pettiford and Ron Carter have certainly helped move the
instrument forward, Akua Dixon made "jazz cello" a stand-alone category,
as a founding member of the Max Roach Double Quartet and with her group
Quartette Indigo. Now 20 years into the new millennium, with Old New,
Tomeka Reid has firmly positioned the cello in its rightful place — out
in front. On songs like "Niki's Bop," as the D.C. native engenders the
vision of AACM, underscored by
the syncopated rhythms of the DMV, she relishes a kind of unbridled
freedom, perhaps one not fully enjoyed by her predecessors. —Shannon Effinger 4. Branford Marsalis Quartet The Branford Marsalis Quartet has been working toward this record for years — a beautifully paced journey of expressive form, variegated texture, spontaneous storytelling and generous feeling delivered with the intense clarity of a working band. Joey Calderazzo and Eric Revis have been on board since 1997-98, Justin Faulkner since 2009. Gestural abstraction, rubato melody, modern swing, fresh originals, post-bop covers (Hill and Jarrett) — the band breathes as one, animating the tradition in the present tense. —Mark Stryker 5. Steve Lehman Trio & Craig Taborn The alto saxophonist extends his string of boundary-pushing albums by rediscovering the middle ground between his trio and the larger groups he has lately favored. Matt Brewer (bass) and Damion Reid return from his Dialect Fluorescent trio, while pianist Taborn harmonizes, comps, disrupts and waxes eloquent. Could be his most conventional post-bop effort, but that's only because he's pushed the envelope so far with such complete command. —Tom Hull 6. Anna Webber Over the last decade, saxophonist/flutist Anna Webber has made a habit of deploying compositional techniques more common in new music than jazz — whether translating raw data into pitch sequences or building melodies from random electronic tones — but her deep grasp on rhythm, timbre and space has allowed those excursions to swing. She's achieved an apotheosis with Clockwise, looking to the work of Xenakis, Cage, Varese, Feldman, Stockhausen and Babbitt for inspiration, deftly analyzing specific fragments of their music to build something new and elusive. Leading an agile, imaginative septet she makes heady music appeal to the rest of the body. —Peter Margasak 7. Jaimie Branch This is the best kind of sequel, adhering to the creative vision of Branch's 2017 Fly or Die while expanding its scope and showing a path forward. Her horn slashes as fiercely as ever, and she's added a new weapon to her arsenal: her voice. Raw with sorrow, fear and rage, she chants a "prayer for amerikkka," a stark graveyard blues that's part Charles Mingus, part Julius Hemphill and thrillingly new at the same time. —Phil Freeman 8. Taylor Ho Bynum 9-tette How do you compose a manifesto to ambiguity? Who would even dare? Well, the inspired Taylor Ho Bynum has. "For me, creativity doesn't come from dogmas," he said about his new album, "it comes from questioning yourself and questioning your assumptions." With a nonet (or, rather, "9-Tette") that includes other young-ish visionary all-stars — Halvorson, Reid, Fujiwara, Laubrock — plus knowing vets like bassist Ken Filiano and Bill Lowe, Bynum's music is filled with glorious contradictions: composed and free; earnest and rollicking and, to paraphrase the late, great Lester Bowie, serious and fun. —Michael J. Agovino 9. Matana Roberts Inspired by her grandmother's "pure american black folk Memphis-raised defiance," Matana Roberts explores her personal ethnography and celebrates black resilience in Coin Coin Chapter 4, the latest in a 12-part project. Weaving childhood memories with reimagined jazz standards, evocative spirituals, avant-garde contortions and vocals that conjure the American South and its ancestries of American identity and experience, this record cements Roberts' place in the jazz vanguard as an essential voice and visionary artist. —Ivana Ng 10. Chick Corea Trio Preceding their confirmation tour stop at Strathmore in suburban D.C. — on the night of the Nationals' World Series game seven, audience members nervously checking devices for updates — this simpatico trio had convinced these ears with the marvelously balanced Trilogy 2. It covers timeless luxury vehicles — Monkery ("Work," "Crepescule with Nellie"), Stevie Wonder ("Pastime Paradise") and invigorating dives into Chick's own expansive book — early trios ("Now He Sings, Now He Sobs") and gems from his original Return to Forever unit ("LaFiesta," "500 Miles High"). —Willard Jenkins The Rest Of The Top 5011. Tyshawn Sorey & Marilyn Crispell, The Adornment of Time (Pi) 104 (17) Solitary No. 1sAnthony Braxton, GTM (Syntax) 2017 (New Braxton House) But for me, this artist's most profound statement of the year was an even larger set titled GTM (Syntax) 2017. Here, a 12-person choir takes a deep dive into his "Ghost Trance Music" pieces. You could just as easily include it in a "classical recordings" list. Though the way these vocalists — many of them veterans from the composer's opera productions — improvise and blend motifs from other Braxton pieces sheds new light on prior albums that have entered the jazz canon, like "Quartet (London) 1985." —Seth Colter Walls Ran Blake and Jeanne Lee, The Newest Sound You Never Heard 1966-67 (A-Side) FKJ, Live @ Salar De Uyuni for Cercle (self-released) Binker Golding, Abstractions of Reality Past & Incredible Feathers (Gearbox) Mary Halvorson/John Dieterich, A Tangle of Stars (New Amsterdam) Jeff Williams, Bloom (Whirlwind) Rara Avis1. Eric Dolphy, Musical Prophet: The Expanded 1963 New York Studio Sessions (Resonance) While much of the material on the lovely packaged box set Musical Prophet has been previously available, not until now has the music sounded this crisp and rich. From the fiery "Burning Spear" from Iron Man, to the gorgeous, previously unreleased bass clarinet and arco bass duet "Muses for Richard Davis", these 1963 sessions further highlight the imaginative, musical genius of Dolphy, who died much too young the following year. — Chris Monsen 2. John Coltrane, Blue World (Impulse!) 106 (47) Vocals1. Jazzmeia Horn, Love and Liberation (Concord) Love and Liberation is a fresh collection of jazz ballads that showcases Jazzmeia Horn's outstandingly silky voice. Her vocal and lyrical gifts permeate her album, whether she is reciting smooth rhythmic poetry or singing to the caliber of greats like Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald. Love and Liberation is a pleasurable mesh of nostalgic stylings and a modern, neo-soulful exhibition full of grace and class. —Jordannah Elizabeth 2. Camila Meza & The Nectar Orchestra, Ambar (Sony Masterworks) 12 Debuts1. Joel Ross, KingMaker (Blue Note) KingMaker announces Joel Ross as a crown prince of jazz. From the gorgeous first moments of the vibraphonist's debut, he demonstrates as much promise as a band leader and composer as he's already proven as a sideman for artists like Makaya McCraven. The record is harmonically rich and rhythmically elaborate, but still swinging and pretty enough to go down easily. While Ross's playing shines, he is mature enough to share attention with bandmates, especially saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins. —David A. Graham 2. Angel Bat Dawid, The Oracle (International Anthem) 8 Latin1. Miguel Zenón, Sonero: The Music of Ismael Rivera (Miel Music) Zenon's well-established quartet puts listeners in the eye of a storm — the relatively calm vantage point where we can marvel at the powerful currents of sound around us. On Sonero, the deservedly acclaimed alto saxophonist turns to a cultural touchstone of his native Puerto Rico — the pioneering and influential salsa singer Ismael Rivera — and radically complicates his classic hits while retaining the essence of their crowd-pleasing appeal. —Neil Tesser 2. Guillermo Klein, Los Guachos Cristal (Sunnyside) 12
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