June 2020 Recap: A Monthly Exercise in Critical Transparency

The absence of Ambrose Akinmusire, Armand Hammer, Hum, Norah Jones, Ingrid Laubrock/Kris Davis, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Sara Serpa, Teyana Taylor, Kahil El’Zabar and 6lack on the following lists reflects the crushing avalanche of outstanding music released in the past four weeks.

Top Five Albums
1. Moor Mother and Nicole Mitchell- Offering
My review.
2. Brad Mehldau- Suite: April 2020
Quarantine-era solo piano from the modern-day Gershwin.
3. Bob Dylan- Rough and Rowdy Ways
God might smite me if I failed to recognize the prophet.
4. Bobby Watson- Keepin’ It Real
My review.
5. Run the Jewels- RTJ4
A timely torrent of rage.

Top Five Songs
1. Beyoncé- “Black Parade”
Ankh charm.
2. City Girls- “Jobs”
I won’t apologize.
3. Megan Thee Stallion- “Girls in the Hood”
Another hot girl summer.
4. John Legend featuring Rapsody- “Remember Us”
Hot buttered corn.
5. John Prine- “I Remember Everything”
Tears.

Top Five Livestreams
1. Alicia Keys and John Legend- Verzuz battle
2. Bang on a Can Marathon- Iva Bittová, Roscoe Mitchell, Terry Riley, etc.
3. A Night For Austin- James Taylor, Alejandro Escovedo, Bonnie Raitt, etc.
4. Roots Picnic- Roddy Ricch, Lil Baby, Black Thought, etc.
5. Kandace Springs- Blue Note at Home

I conducted the same exercise in May, April, March, February and January.

(Screenshot of Alice Coote in the Metropolitan Opera’s production of Hansel and Gretel by There Stands the Glass.)

Album Review: Moor Mother and Nicole Mitchell- Offering

I walked out on Moor Mother at the Big Ears Festival last year.  After enduring 20 sweaty minutes of what I perceived as self-indulgent industrial art-rock in an overcrowded room, I bolted for another option.  Her compelling work with the Art Ensemble of Chicago aside, I’ve remained skeptical of the artist also known as Camae Ayewa.  I have no reservations about Nicole Mitchell.  Her set with Tomeika Reid and Mike Reed at Big Ears was transcendent.  And like Ayewa, she performs in the current incarnation of the Art Ensemble of Chicago.  Consequently, I didn’t know what to expect of Offering, a recording of the pair’s ostensibly improvised 2019 collaboration at Le Guess Who festival in the Netherlands.  The spoken word of Ayewa simmers with quiet intensity.  While Mitchell also plays flute, the electronics manned by both women regularly veer into musique concrète freakouts.  Ayewa is affiliated with the Black Quantum Futurism collective.  The label encapsulates the aesthetic of an album designed to captivate daring listeners who admire the most challenging works of John Cage, Amiri Baraka, Alice Coltrane and Angel Bat Dawid.

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)

Album Review: Nicole Mitchell- Maroon Cloud

I almost bailed on Nicole Mitchell’s Maroon Cloud after ten disorienting minutes.  Acclimating to the maelstrom created by the flutist’s drummer-less quartet is challenging.  The initial rough sledding serves to heighten the ultimate payoff.  Mitchell, vocalist Fay Victor, pianist Aruán Ortiz and cellist Tomeka Reid revive the most experimental aspects of the Sun Ra Arkestra and the Art Ensemble of Chicago.  Victor insists that “sometimes a sound represents eternity” on “Sound.”  She’s right.  Maroon Cloud has all the earmarks of a timeless avant-garde album.


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I created an four-minute audio feature about Lajon Witherspoon of Sevendust for KCUR.

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I reviewed the Marcus Lewis Big Band’s Brass and Boujee album at Plastic Sax.

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I write weekly concert previews for The Kansas City Star.

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I yakked about Open Spaces on KCUR.

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The American Jazz Museum held a press conference to promote a Randy Weston concert in 2010.  Only a television cameraman and I showed up.  Here are my notes documenting the odd event.  The jazz legend died Saturday.

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I relate to the locale of the Netflix series Ozark as much as the next Midwestern yokel.  Return, the forthcoming album by William Blackart, acts as a supplemental soundtrack to Ozark.  The Arkansas based singer-songwriter makes hardscrabble roots-rock in the vein of John Moreland.  Blackart’s current tour of Arkansas, Oklahoma and Missouri includes a stop at the Westport Saloon in Kansas City on September 26.

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I didn’t want to invest time in Cyrus Chestnut’s Kaleidoscope, but there’s just no denying a piano trio album that ranges from Erik Satie to Deep Purple.

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Bruce Soord of the Pineapple Thief didn’t make much of an impression on me when I heard him open a concert for Steven Wilson in 2016.  Dissolution, the new album by the Pineapple Thief, does little to alter that perception.  RIYL: second-tier Roger Waters, dyspeptic pomp, a poor man’s Peter Gabriel.

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)

Lemmy Kilmister, 1945-2015

Motörhead knew only one song.  Thankfully, it was a great one.  The running time of my collection of physical copies of Motörhead albums and CDs is more than six hours.  Talk about overkill... 

I never had any use for Hawkwind, but Lemmy Kilmister’s Motörhead meant a lot to me.  I came upon the Ramones and Motörhead at about the same time.  Like a lot of self-conscious teenagers, I had been under the foolish impression that image had meaning.  Lemmy and his partners in crime helped me to understand that the barriers between punk and metal were artificial constructs.

My bones were rattled at several Motörhead performances.  The group’s 2006 concert at the minor league baseball stadium in Kansas City, Kansas, is ranked #19 on my 2009 list of The Best Shows of the Decade.

Kilmister died last week.


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I reviewed Tech N9ne’s Strangeulation for KCUR.

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Natalie Cole has died.  Her live version of ”Something Got a Hold On Me” is my favorite Cole performance.

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Craig Strickland has died.  The member of Backroad Anthem last performed in the Kansas City area at Kanza Hall on Jan. 15, 2015.

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Nicole Mitchell’s Artifacts is the first entry on what’s sure to be a long list of unintentional omissions from my Top 50 Albums of 2015 post.   Check out the skronky combination of flute, fiddle, bass and drums on ”The Clowns”.

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The soundtrack for The Revenant is RIYL: Tangerine Dream, isolation, Nico Muhly.

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Posted without commentary: footage of Osa Johnson, the native Kansan who traveled the world with her husband Martin, dancing to jazz with African pygmies.

(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)