has anyone noticed Pitchfork's uptick in jazz related articles the past few months? I mean, kudos.

it makes sense now. They were apparently compiling one of their quarterly physical journals as "The Jazz Issue."

Thumbscrew: Mary Halvorson, Michael Formanek, Tomas Fujiwara

'Convallaria' out May 20, 2016


this song from the record on youtube is good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBaZzlUnbgQ

^ This is amazing. And it turns out I get to see them at the end of the month!

I hope it sounds something like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbHXuqyEfqY

that's great you get to see em. i like mary's playing a lot

That is straight up awesome

Vision fest 2016 snuck up on me this year first week of June. Some killer lineups, Thursday is probably my night to go, with Bill Cole Untempered and Steve Swell leading bands and the 10:30 set is
10:30 Garland of Blessing
Hamid Drake - drums
Kidd Jordan - sax
Cooper-Moore - piano
Michael Bisio - bass

http://www.artsforart.org/vision-21.html

William Hooker has a band this year on Friday

anyone hear the new BadBadNotGood album yet?

This band, Hyperactive Kid, are from Germany and are a trio with guitar drums and saxophone.

I haven't liked a new "jazz" band this much in a very long time. they've been around for 10 years but i didn't hear them until a few years ago.

their improvising and song writing are at a really high level.

they have a new record out this year which a ten year anniversary live show. it's very good but i'd recommend maybe getting hyperactive kid 4 first.

http://hyperactivekid.de/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6ECpSbg9pE

a good video of hyperactive kid.

bad name for a band.

a really good band.

This was the only concert I missed, the sun got me, a shame really.

I really don't want to leave my house the day after Thanksgiving, but I'm wondering how easy it'll be to get that RSD Black Friday Sun Ra CD that's coming out if I don't go that day...

time to wave goodbye to the 2016 jazz thread. See y'all in the 2017 jazz thread.

2016 jazz short list

Another year gone. Like last year I've compiled my short list of favorite jazz albums from 2017. There was actually a lot of interesting stuff this year. And I listened to plenty of it. But my short list (which like last year will not be any set number like Top 10 or Dozen or whatever, nor will it be ranked in any numbered order) is made up of the very top tier albums that I feel like totally encapsulated the year in jazz for me. These are the albums that I just kept coming back to, and that I feel like ones that I'll continue to revisit post-2016.


The Bad Plus - It's Hard
Part of the what I love so much about The Bad Plus is that they have been doing these sorts of concept albums. Whether it was an album featuring a vocalist on For All I Care, or their own take on The Rite Of Spring, or teaming up with Joshua Redman last year, the band really seems to approach albums as an album. It's Hard is completely a covers album. And I thought it was fantastic. Part of that is the choice of covers which strikes even closer to my own personal mixtape than For All I Care (which I also love) did. Their take on "Time After Time" and "The Beautiful Ones" are stunning. And any jazz album that can tackle the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Johnny Cash with the same enthusiasm is commendable.

Nels Cline - Lovers
I've been a fan of Nels Cline since the late 90's. I still kick myself for losing the CD version of Rise Pumpkin Rise that I got back when MP3.com still sold you CD's. I've heard lots and lots of Nels Cline albums over the last twenty years. And somehow Lovers feels to me like a grand statement. It is an achingly gorgeous accomplishment. An album with a cast of countless performers that manages to master the art of restraint. I'm thrilled that Blue Note took notice and released this thing to the masses. Cline has always deserved a bigger audience than he had. And this one feels like pure proof of that.

Miles Davis - Miles Ahead: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Davis purists probably hate this album, right? I mean, how can you really make any kind of 'best of' from Davis' work? You can't. And the audacity in releasing a bunch of edits of the original songs! And how you gonna end this with new tracks by Robert Glasper? The truth is these are all valid complaints, and yet part of what makes this project so interesting to me. Glasper also released an album of Davis reinterpretations this year as well. And y'know what? I found myself coming back to THIS weird album far more. Somehow, hearing these abridged versions of originals mixed with the re-enacted dialogue and the new tributes... it all has a very odd juxtaposition that is equally jarring and fascinating.

Heliocentrics - From The Deep
Man, I love this band. From The Deep is actually a collection of outtakes from (seemingly) their whole career. I guess they've been around for about a decade now, come to think of it. So this is maybe a celebration record. The thing is, for nineteen tracks that span a decade, it sure sounds cohesive. This is classic Heliocentrics spacey funk jazz. All of these tracks dance around the three minute, feeling like old dusty singles. This is serious head-nodding music. I know that I'm not ranking the records here, but this would have to be my jazz album of the year. I certainly listened to it more in 2016 than any other record on this list.

Dr. Lonnie Smith - Evolution
The first Dr. Lonnie Smith album to grace Blue Note since 1970 is a total victory lap. Here Smith is surrounded by a rather large cast of supporting players both old and new. The result is an awesomely layered soup of funk and jazz that is absolutely uplifting in nature. It also has an amazingly organic feel as if the entire thing was recorded in one amorphis jam session. This is really fantastic stuff, and definitely my favorite Dr. Lonnie Smith albums that I've heard.