Damn, it's cold!
Readers in northern climes may laugh at my reaction, but temperatures here in Atlanta fell to 38° and with the wind, it felt like 35. Yes, that's still technically above freezing - water remains in liquid form - and for those of you far north, it's still above 0° F. But the 30s are cold for Georgia. especially for November, and the change from earlier this week was noticeable.
Last summer, the challenge to my walking hike routine was the heat and humidity and the dangers of heat stroke. Now the challenge is the nippy cold and fear of hypothermia. Heat and humidity might be uncomfortable, but cold is downright painful.
Anyway, it's Friday by your calendar, which means new music dropped today. I listened to some excellent new recordings and one that despite its undeniably good intentions didn't quite do it for me.
First, today marked the release of two extended tracks, Freakadelic and Late Autumn, by Jeff Parker's ETA IVtet. The two tracks combined run for nearly 40 minutes, and as you might guess, Freakadelic is the funkier track with a great driving bass line throbbing through most of the cut, while Late Autumn is more introspective and downtempo. Both tracks are outstanding and fascinating, and take the listener on quite the journey. Parker is best known as the long-time guitarist of the post-rock band Tortoise, but he also leads other bands in the jazz, post-rock and experimental arenas. From 2016 until it closed in 2023, Parker held a weekly residency at the Los Angeles club ETA (for Enfield Tennis Academy from David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest). Parker dubbed the band that emerged from those sessions the ETA IVtet, which also includes the avant saxophonist Josh Johnson, drummer Jay Bellerose, and bassist Anna Butterss (the driving force on Freakadelic). Some of the sessions were released in 2022 as Mondays at Enfield Tennis Academy, and The Way Out of Easy is scheduled to drop on December 12. Freakadelic and Late Autumn are half of that forthcoming album, and suggest a potential AOTY. I can't recommend these two tracks enough.
Jamie Saft is a jazz pianist best known for his work with John Zorn (e.g., Astaroth: Book of Angels Vol. 1 - Jamie Saft Trio Plays Masada Book Two). On today's The Jamie Saft Trio Plays Monk, Saft covers the compositions of jazz legend Thelonious Monk accompanied by Bradley Christopher Jones on bass and the great Hamid Drake on drums. It's a great jazz recording of the compositions played straight up as Saft lets the music of Monk speak on its own terms instead of overwhelming the compositions with his own ideas and inventions. A good straight-ahead jazz album of standards respectfully played by a master, but without the stuffy archive treatment of stiff traditionalists.
Roge's Curyman II, like his previous masterpiece, Curyman, sounds like late 70s tropicalia, and that's meant as the highest compliment possible. Not many musicians, even the surviving members of the Brazilian movement, play that kind of samba anymore, and Roge puts just enough of a 21st Century spin on it to keep it fresh. But aside from the outstanding production, you'd be excused for thinking you were listening to some deep cuts of Gilberto Gil or Caetano Veloso that you'd somehow missed.
The album rpm consists of tracks featuring the compositions of the late avant-garde composer Philip Jeck. Some of the tracks are performed by Jeck, some are collaborations with other artists, and some are performed by other musicians. Jeck composed and performed using antique turntables and old vinyl albums, but before you assume the music's some kind of amalgam of old-timey samples and nostalgia, I'll tell you the source materials are unrecognizable and what emerges is a startling, often piercing sound closer to Alvin Lucier than Tin Pan Alley. It's hard to explain and even harder to describe, but the best clue is that the other musicians on the album include Fennesz, Gavin Bryars, David Sylvain, Hildur Guðnadóttir, and Jah Wobble. A kind of ambient soundtrack for extreme emotional states.
Finally, A Peace of Us by Dean & Britta is Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips (Luna, Galaxie 500) performing Christmas songs. It's a just-slightly-left-of-center take on holiday music, including John and Yoko's Happy Xmas (War Is Over). Look, I'll be honest with you: I generally don't like holiday music and this album does little to convince me to change my attitude. If I'm entertaining this season and I don't want to play Mariah Carey or Bing Crosby, this record would do in a pinch, but even then I'd rather spin John Zorn's A Dreamer's Christmas, which takes traditional holiday tunes and treats them as source material for jazz improvisations, while keeping a respectfully cheery attitude.
I still haven't yet unpacked the massive, eight-disc TRANSA (speaking of Caetano Veloso) produced by the Red Hot Organization, but I'm very much looking forward to it. It includes tracks by many of my recent favorite indie and electronic performers (Helado Negro, Laraaji, Moor Mother, Mary Lattimore, Julianna Barwick, Sharon van Etten, Julien Baker, claire rousey, Ana Roxanne, Faye Webster, Frankie Cosmos, Grouper, and Joy Guidry), and there's still a 26-minute Andre 3000 cut and an 11-minute piece featuring the late Pharaoh Sanders. Can't wait to give it a listen, but I want to make sure it's at a time when I can give it my full attention.
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