Music Week ::posted Mon, 26 Jan 2015 23:30:00 +0000:: ift.tt/1uWmd4U Music: Current count 24422 [24392] rated (+30), 497 [493] unrated (+4). Closed the count out Sunday evening, trying to get a jump on posting this early, but various distractions today will make this as late in the day as usual. To save some time, I went ahead and rushed out Rhapsody Streamnotes without having tweeted everything. The tweet reviews are meant as advance news, so seemed like a waste of time to make up lost ground below. The records that lost out: Terri Clark, Peter Evans, Porter Robinson, Les Ambassadeurs du Motel de Bamako. I was listening to the three Soundway records as I wrapped up Streamnotes, so theyre the first of next columns reviews. After that, I was just browsing around for something interesting to listen to, and noticed that Rhapsody has quite a few releases from the American Music label, which was established in the early 1940s to record the older, but then still living, generation of New Orleans jazz musicians. In the 1930s jazz moved from New Orleans-style groups -- usually five-to-seven members -- to swing, both in big bands and small groups (usually five or less), and in the 1940s jazz moved on to the more self-consciously virtuosic music known as bebop. Bucking this trend was a sudden revival of interest in traditional jazz, especially in San Francisco (with the Yerba Buena Jazz Band) and later in the 40s in England. The new trad jazz musicians were almost invariably white, but as with the folk-blues movement in the early 1960s, scholars and entrepreneurs went back to find what was left of New Orleans early jazz musicians. The unrecorded Buddy Bolden, of course, was long gone, as was Freddie Keppard (1890-1933), who at least recorded a it in the mid-1920s. But Bunk Johnson (1879-1949) was justifiably ancient, older than King Oliver (1885-1939) let alone Louis Armstrongs slightly older peers, the late Jelly Roll Morton (1890-1941) and Johnny Dodds (1892-1940), and the still active Kid Ory (1886-1973), Baby Dodds (1898-1959), and especially the trad-minded George Lewis (1900-68). The only thing I had heard by Johnson was Bunk and Lu, a compilation of sessions with Lu Watters (one of the West Coast revivalists), so the chance to hear the vastly superior sets on American Music is most welcome -- and not just as a respite from 2014. But speaking of 2014, the latest A-list finds turned out to be two very different fringe-country artists, Kelsey Waldon and Bob Wayne. There are undoubtedly more out there, but its becoming less and less obvious where to look next. Sometime between now and the end of January Ill call it quits and freeze the year-end list. After last years relatively early freeze date I added 69 records to the 2013 file. It certainly wouldnt be hard now to construct a list of 2014 releases I would like to have heard, but finding them and getting to them will be harder. And usually the pressures of the new year dim my interest in the old one. Well see what happens this time. New records rated this week: 2NE1: Crush (2014, YG Entertainment): K-pop group, four girls, title should be a hit, ballads not bad, rap some, drop in occasional hooks in English [r]: B+(**) Ballister: Worse for the Wear (2014 [2015], Aerophonic): free sax trio, Dave Rempis & Paal Nilssen-Love, Fred Lonberg-Holms cello/electronics in between [cd]: B+(***) Caleb Caudle: Paint Another Layer on My Heart (2014, This Is American Music): country singer-songwriter, fine ear and nice voice for ballads, some pedal steel [r]: B+(***) Terri Clark: Some Songs (2014, Bare Track): [r]: B+(**) Peter Evans Quintet: Destination: Void (2013 [2014], More Is More): [r]: B+(*) Fantasma: Eye of the Sun (2014, Soundway, EP): 5-cut EP with South African rapper Spoek Mathambo mixing something old, something new, else too [r]: B+(*) Alex G: DSU (2014, Orchid Tapes, EP): singer-songwriter with heart on sleeve, not without pop resonance; ten songs, so short they dont add up to LP [r]: B+(*) Gold-Bears: Dalliance (2014, Slumberland): Atlanta twee-punk group, no sharp edges with explicit vocals buried under guitar roil [r]: B+(**) Tom Guarna: Rush (2014, BJU): jazz guitarist, quintet with Joel Frahm on sax and Danny Grissett on piano, postbop set, a little ripe [r]: B Barry Guy New Orchestra: Amphi/Radio Rondo (2013 [2014], Intakt): two long pieces for large free ensemble, many name players with knack for dense chaos [r]: B+(*) Ali Jackson: Amalgamations (2013 [2014], Sunnyside): drummer-led group (or groups), leans on his LCJO chums (like Wynton Marsalis), plays up Latin tinge [r]: B+(**) Amira Kheir: Alsahraa (2014, Sterns): woman from Sudan, basic instrumental backing, typical of the arid Saharan milieu [r]: B+(*) Kiasmos (2014, Erased Tapes): Icelandic techno duo with Olafur Arnalds (semi-famous), built on loops, approaches ambient but wont shake dance beat [r]: B+(*) The Juan MacLean: In a Dream (2014, DFA): formula works fine: danceable beats, a swish of disco, singers equally functional [r]: B+(***) Meridian Brothers: Salvadora Robot (2014, Soundway): Colombian group, started in salsa but evolved into something else, maybe psychedelia [r]: B+(**) Porter Robinson: Worlds (2014, Astralwerks): [r]: B Reg Schwager: Delphinus (2014, Jazz From Rant): Canadian jazz guitarist, richly melodic paired with Don Thompsons piano, not quite lush but like that [cd]: B+(**) Jacques Schwarz-Bart: Jazz Racine Haïti (2012 [2014], Motema Music): tenor saxophonist, dice-ups with Etienne Charles trumpet sparkle, but singers dominate [r]: B+(*) Skyzoo & Torae: The Barrel Brothers (2014, E1/Empire): nothing to say about this rap record except that I enjoyed a second spin [r]: B+(**) Kelsey Waldon: The Gold Mine (2014, self-released): Kentucky singer, from cotton country not coal but knows down-and-out happens way too much [r]: A- Bob Wayne: Back to the Camper (2014, self-released): real outlaw country, tales of crime that give me the willies, heaven and hell just a joke [r]: A- Nate Wooley/Dave Rempis/Pascal Niggenkemper/Chris Corsano: From Wolves to Whales (2014 [2015], Aerophonic): avant pianoless quartet, sax soars, trumpet? [cd]: B+(**) Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries rated this week: Les Ambassadeurs du Motel de Bamako (1975-77 [2014], Sterns Africa, 2CD): [r]: A- Muwei Power: Sierra Leone in 1970s USA (1975-76 [2014], Soundway): lost and found, multi-voiced, some highlife guitar, horns, lots of percussion [r]: B+(***) Old records rated this week: Bunk Johnson: In San Francisco (1943-44 [1994], American Music): real negro jazz treated as a rare artifact in a SF museum, its innovators still real [r]: B+(*) Bunk Johnson: 1944 (1944 [1991], American Music): New Orleans trumpet legend gets a new set of teeth, returns revitalized with the same old chops [r]: A- Bunk Johnson: 1944 Second Masters (1944 [1992], American Music); mostly alternate takes, a bit more relaxed, plus some previously unreleased blues [r]: B+(***) Bunk Johnson: 1944/45 (1944-45 [1994], American Music): more fine sessions from the leading light of the Dixieland revival [r]: B+(***) Bunk Johnson: Bunks Brass Band and Dance Band 1945 (1945 [1992], American Music): like they did it in the old days before Louis Armstrong rewrote the book [r]: A- Unpacking: Found in the mail last week: Richie Goods & Nuclear Fusion: Three Rivers (Richman): February 17 Ted Kooshian: Clowns Will Be Arriving (Summit) John Mills: Invisible Designs (Fable): February 17 John Petrucelli Quintet: The Way (self-released): February 10 Katie Thiroux: Introducing Katie Thiroux (BassKat): February 3 [Forwarded by the MyLeftBlogosphere news engine. 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Posted on: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 08:00:07 +0000