Diggin’ You, Like An Old Soul Record

Back in the day, albums by Stevie Wonder, Earth Wind & Fire, the Isley Brothers or Marvin Gaye were more than just 40 minutes of musical distraction.  They were incantations producing altered states of joy and pain.  This was the pinnacle of R&B – free from the church and the constraints of radio air play.  The best products of this era (think Wonder’s Fulfillingness First Finale) had the sweep and ambition of the White Album.  

Shangri-La, gone forever, right? No way. Here are four old school classics -- all made in the last dozen or so years -- that deliver on that R&B promise. Listen up. 

Jill Scott, Who Is Jill Scott, Words & Sounds, Vol. 1

This millennial release was Scott’s debut and it established her as R&B royalty with a debt to Gil Scott Heron and spoken word artists like The Last Poets.  This is the sound of “Neo-Soul” before it got swept up in the tidal wave of hip-hop, but it’s gritty all the same.  “Getting’ In The Way” has this classic refrain: “You better back down before you get smacked down; you better chill.”  Don’t mess with Jill.

Angie Stone, Black Diamond 

Black Diamond dropped a year before Scott’s debut and while it is steeped in hip-hop (think TLC’s Waterfalls from the same era), there’s not a rapper in sight.  Ironic, since Stone broke out first as a rapper, but here she’s a damn soul queen singing her way through this set of tightly produced R&B gems and a brilliant cover of Marvin Gaye’s “Trouble Man.” You’ll get the idea from “No More Rain In This Cloud,” which would have been at home on Ann Peebles’ 1974 classic I Can’t Stand the Rain.

Betty Wright & The Roots, Betty Wright – The Movie

Fast forward to 2011 and the album that Betty Wright, the “Clean Up Woman,” made with The Roots.  Ignore the title; there’s no movie, just “grow folks’ music” (as she calls it) to luxuriate in.  But what music!  By now the rappers are ubiquitous (Lil Wayne and Snoop drop by here), but Betty more than holds her own with tracks that have the deep groove of her original Miami hits.  Check out "In the Middle of the Game." There’s no “neo” about this soul.

Robert Glasper Experiment, Black Radio

 I saved the best, most adventurous, for last. Glasper is a jazz pianist with an impeccable pedigree (outings with Blanchard, Hargrove and McBride) and a conviction that “jazz needs a big ass-slap,” to re-energize it.  And in 2013, this Grammy winning disc did some of the same ass-slapping that Herbie Hancock and Donald Byrd did with Headhunters and Black Byrd. Start with “Afro Blue” with Eryka Badu sitting in.  But don’t stop there; stream the whole ass-slapping thing. 

Rewind: Tourist Class

St Germain, Tourist

Jazz happened for me in 1970 with Miles Davis' weird electric experiment, Bitches Brew.  It baffled me, with John McLaughlin's staccato guitar, Wayne Shorter's otherworldly sax and, everywhere, Davis' echo-plexed trumpet. This was Davis' fusion masterpiece and it would be another four years before I heard and fell for the "cool jazz" that had won Davis reknown in the '50's.

For a time I was mesmerized by Bitches; I loved its shifts, from dark to light, from stillness to

motion. If there was story here -- hinted at by John Berg's Afro-psychedelic cover -- I never cracked the code.  But it forever changed how I listened to music.

Fifteen year-old Tourist sounds nothing like Bitches Brew; by most lights, it isn't a jazz record at all.   But in its shiftiness and indecipherability, it reminds me of Davis' record. Now a "lounge music" classic, Tourist is a rapid fire journey through genres and world music styles from the changing collective that producer Ludovic Navarre calls St. Germain.


Tourist plainly touched a global nerve;  I've heard its tracks in shops and bars from Williamsburg to Amsterdam to Johannesburg.  A homebrew of dub, some deep house, gospel sounds, a little French-fried pop, Grover Washington- and Latin influenced jazz, it never lets you rest.  It's aural caffeine.

We now live in a world where this kind of disruptivness is celebrated.  Tourist invites you to go with it on tracks like this down-tempo classic, "Sure Thing":

Or on "So Flute," which starts like Herbie Mann on speed -- in a good way:

Pack your bags.





Coachella To Go



A weekend in the Palm Desert is not in the cards for me just now, but that doesn't stop me from daydreaming about Coachella and the wide ranging lineup there.  Which makes the perfect excuse for this playlist of new favorites from their performers list, and a celebration of a sooner-than-expected reunion among last weekend's sets.

James Bay, Let It Go - A folky and soulful young Brit, Bay sounds nothing like Van Morrison but recalls him all the same.

Chris Stapleton, Tennessee Whiskey - There's room at Coachella for old school country and Stapleton -- son of Kentucky coal miner -- is as real as they come.





HÆLOS, Dust - Straight outta East London with a debt to Bjork.

Låpsley, Silverlake - It just isn't fair to have your shit this much together at 19. 

DJ Koze, Cicely - German techno, there's a novel idea.  This percolates like an overboiling pot.

LCD Soundsystem, I Can Change - Who believed James Murphy would stay "retired"?  This gem was from his "final" effort.

R.I.P.





January Gems

Deep winter is a time for crackling fires, rich food, and red wine.  For me, the ideal musical accompaniment are songs that weave a spell with a narrative or mood that commands attention.  Like these four new tracks.








Anderson.Paak - Am I Wrong - Because Mardi Gras is coming and your Stevie Wonder albums are all scratchy and stuff.

 

Raury, Friends - An irresistible hook and a stutter straight from "m-m-m-my generation."

Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Can't Keep Checking My Phone - Someone you care about needs to hear this beat and this advice.

Elaquent, Far Away - Chill people.

Best Singles of 2015

The infectious stuff I couldn't get enough of in 2015:

The Weekend, I Can't Feel My Face - MJ should sue.

The Chemical Brothers, Wide Open -  Beck's coming with us. Put the top down.

Carly Rae Jepson, Run Away With Me - The "Call Me Maybe" girl could secretly be Grimes.

Boxed In, Mystery - Everybody, double time.

Ryley Walker, Primrose Green - This must have been left off the Dead's "Europe 72."

Eryka Badu, Cel U Lar Device - She's covering Drake's Hotline Bling, but in her Badu way.

City and Color, Lover Come Back - Heartbreak in technicolor.

El Vey, Return to the Moon - Matt Berringer in a rare lighter moment.

Alabama Shakes, Don't Wanna Fight - A nasty little groove with a Stones "Black and Blue" era bite.

Matt Simons, Catch and Release - Pure pop pleasure.

Jamie XX, Loud Places - "I feel music in your heights." The peak.

Best Albums of 2015

In a year of some strikingly original music, the choices seemed somehow easier this year.  My musical DNA is on display in all these albums:  the long shadow of Prince and Sly; the pulse of early electronic sounds by Kraftwerk and Eno; the pounding noise of the Clash and the Ramones;  and the California pop of the Beach Boys and mid-period Fleetwood Mac.  It's all in the mix, made endlessly new to make the world understandable -- and danceable.

In no particular order:

Tame Impala, Currents - An irresistible blend of R&B and electronica proving once again that we're all from somewhere else originally.

Deerhunter, Fading Frontier - The perfect melancholy of the Beach Boys "In My Room," except that now there's weed and the internet in the room.

Sleater-Kinney, No Cities to Love - Hunger makes them modern girls.

Bob Moses, Days Gone By - Like floating on a raft in a swimming pool, McCarron Pool in Brooklyn that is.

Father John Misty, I Love You Honeybear - If this generation has a James Taylor, it might be him.

Lizz Wright, Freedom and Surrender - If this generation has a Roberta Flack, it might be her.

Thundercat, The Beyond/Where the Giants Roam - Sixteen minutes of perfect trip-hop, from the Flying Lotus branch of the tree.

D'Angelo and the Vanguard, Black Messiah - Searing and salving, D'Angelo came blazing back.

Courtney Barnett, Sometimes I Sit and Think, Sometimes I Just Sit - Because the best rock has a sense of humor. 

Jaime XX, Colours - The DJ/producer/percussionist as auteur, visionary as Jimi Hendrix at his peak.  No shit, really.

Stay tuned: best singles of 2015 coming right up.

Sitting In

Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me

After it won the National Book Award in November, it can't be news to you that Coates has written a sobering book about what it means to be a Black American in 2015.  It's time to read it.

I devoured it in August in a five hour fever dream and was at a loss.  It's a complex work full of anger and pessimism, a tale of promising lives cut short even when you play by the rules.  Composed as a letter to his 15 year old son, there's not much light and even less hope.  What could I do with this?  "Live with it," turned about to be the answer.

Now with campuses across the country having a noisy conversation about race, Coates' missive offers some much needed perspective about the institutionalized inequality we have yet to address. Don't be making that face.  Listen for a minute.