Dreams of Kirina | Baaba Maal | Playing For Change from Playing For Change on Vimeo.

While talking over our favored music from last year, Mali’s Tinariwen came up. Their 2009 record, Imidiwan (Companions) made two of our three top lists. In this group, we don’t let discrepancies like this alone. The holdout stated Imidiwan ’sounded like their other records.’

Sure. I replied, “If Sophia Loren had an identical twin sister, she’d likely be as beautiful as her sister. You wouldn’t say, ‘oh she’s just a repeat of her sister’s beauty.’ ”

To which my muso bud replied, “Oh, I don’t think Sophia Loren is that beautiful.” Jeezum! He offered Jennifer Connelly as exemplar. I offered, again, my analogy. (Tinariwen home)

Here’s my top list of African music from 2009. I could add a bunch too, given reissues and other worthy candidates not listed. It was an extraordinary year because just about every African artist I closely track put out new music last year. Abdullah Ibrahim would top this list if his superb Bombella–my favorite single record of 2009–didn’t already top the improv list.

+Amadou & Mariam – Welcome to Mali
Baaba Maal – Television
Bassekou Kouyate and Ngoni Ba – I Speak Fula
Culture Music Club – Shime
Extra Golden – Thank You Very Quickly
Fanga – Sira Ba
Ghana Special –Modern Highlife Afro Sounds Ghana Blues
Jimi Tenor and Tony Allen – Inspiration Information 4
Kimi Djabate – Karam
Mulatu Astatke & The Heliocentrics – Inspiration Information
+Orchestre National de Barbès – Alik
+Oumou Sangare – Seya
Salif Keita – La Difference
+Staff Benda Bilili – Tres Fort , Tres Fort
+Tinariwen – Imidiwan:Companions
Tony Allen – Secret Agent

(+Where to start…)

No musician is more represented, or over-represented, in my archives than Le Sony’r Ra, ne Sun Ra. I know why this is so. It’s because Sun Ra’s raucus avant-swing brings with each helping some measure of surprise, of jaw dropping delight. It helps the cause of surprise the flow of newly discovered recordings, formally released or illicit, is apparently to be ceaseless.

Obviously, in a case like this, meeting my desire for ‘ra’ surprise crosses over into mild obsession. Fortunately, Transparency Records aims to satisfy those of us so afflicted. In 2008, they delivered a 28 CD set, The Complete Detroit Jazz Center Residency, that is both well over the top of any normal concept of documentation, and, a nirvana of surprise.

My informed guess would be Sun Ra is the most recorded musician ever. Okay, maybe the Grateful Dead–another dependable source of surprise–grab the ring. (Who knows?) Still, the immense Sun Ra opus is manageable for the neophyte. I’d say to begin to deal with it, one only need deal with 20 records or so. Even this task would require a starting point, and, let’s suppose it is possible to identify the one cornerstone platter no music lover should be without.

I’d nominate two records, Blue Delight (1989), and, Live at Montreux (1976). One or the other… I could nominate twenty more too. Don’t get me started. If the 28 discs of Detroit were boiled down to a single disc, (or two!) I could nominate it. Certainly, the Detroit set is only for obsessives and deluded completists. Still, only the matter of its vastness intervenes in any sensible recommendation. For me, the set is essential and loaded with surprise.

As the two Rolling Stone covers demonstrate, Sun Ra and Neil Young gaze, resolutely, out into the cosmos. Young weighed in with a modest 8 CD set last year, Neil Young Archives, Vol. 1: 1963-1972. It was long anticipated and worth the wait. because Young has permitted live recordings to stream into the open source, if you’re torrent-savvy, you can indulge yourself in his own endless live opus. Electrified Neil Young is the only heavy metal I return to again and again.

Vol. 1 reprises the classic ‘first period’ of Young’s career. There are too many alternates which sound too close to the original versions. Otherwise, the set is chock full of prime Neil Young music. The first disc, with the earliest tracks and demos, is especially rewarding.

Incidentally, Neil’s first four Reprise records have recently been remastered and reissued. Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere and After the Gold Rush have desert island status in my book. (Neil Young home page…weird + myspace)

English folkie Bert Jansch collaborated with Mike Nesmith on his 1974 gem,L.A. Turnaround. Nesmith brought along his colleague, pedal steel guitarist Red Rhodes too. By this time, Nesmith was three years into his travels down his own distinctive country-rock byway. Jansch had left Pentangle and returned to a solo career.

I don’t know the back story behind L.A. Turnaround, one of Jansch’s finest–among many fine–records. Much to my surprise, there are on youtube a series of clips of sessions featuring Jansch and Red Rhodes. The setting is a country cottage in Britain. The sessions are marvelous and intimate. Eventually, Nesmith would augment tracks cut in the impromptu studio with contributions from L.A. session men, guitarist Jesse Ed Davis and fiddler Byron Berline, as well as Brits, including bassist Klaus Voorman, and drummer Danny Lane.

The three youtube clips comprise a beguiling mini-documentary.

(L.A. Turnaround was reissued last year. Amazon)

Bert Jansch

Given my ingrained biases in the–for me–narrow realm of pop music, a recording being a throwaway isn’t a bad thing. It just means a favored artist isn’t advancing their artistry via a recording. Such a holding action may provide a lot of pleasure. For some artists this lack of advancement is their default. For example, last year Richard Thompson released a live record, Sweet Warrior. It’s a very fine, even stirring, slab of ‘more of the same.’ It’s a bit shy of being a throw-away too.

Los Lobos is one of my favorite rock bands over 25 years. As gritty proponents of rootsy Chicano folk and rock and roll, their artistry long ago achieved a dependable consistency. As well, Los Lobos is an awesome live band; right up there with contemporaries, The Allman Brothers, Pearl Jam, Neil Young, Derek Trucks, Richard Thompson, Little Feat, and others.

However, their 2009 release, Los Lobos Does Disney sits squarely in the throwaway box. This is so in spite of its not being more of the same because the record’s line-up of songs is exclusively drawn from the repertoire of Disney ‘classics.’ This wasn’t a bold move. Los Lobos versions of Disney mostly secure the classic Los Lobos aesthetic. But, the problem is that where this isn’t the case, the music is whimsical beyond belief! How whimsical?

To the point of being fey, and it’s this that doesn’t sit well for this listener. Even felicitous touches in arrangements, such as the pumping organ on Grim Grinning Ghosts, are subsumed by the odd material. And, there are many such touches. Los Lobos are terrific players and singers, but here their talent is wed, mostly, to weird material.

When their classic rock and roll approach dominates, as it does on the fuzz drenched The Ugly Bug Ball, it comes as a relief. Yet, this tune is truly a lesser moment of more of the same. Only Bare Necessities really works the concept to a complete success. Not In Nottingham is an enjoyable ballad. Three pleasurable tracks suggests Los Lobos Does Disney is a well executed misstep.

It can be contrasted with power poppers Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoff’s second record of classic rock covers,Under the Covers, Volume 2. Here, the pleasures are modest but at least the duo’s rendering of a different stripe of novelty tunes, classic FM radio chestnuts, is respectful and much more than dutiful.

I chuckled as I listened because Sweet and Hoffs may constitute the slickest bar band of all time as they cover Fleetwood Mac, Todd Rundgren (twice,) Tom Petty, Raspberries, Derek and the Dominoes, Big Star, and other pop luminaries. They don’t reach for revelations and it’s all way too shiny, yet when they nail it, as they do on Big Star’s Back of a Car, their sincerity trumps the undeniable display of craft.

There is one moment of revelation: in the iconic up-shifting modulation between Yes’s Your Move and All Good People, Sweet breaks out a romping Moby Grape-esque chunk of prime guitar psych, and it’s as if I was hearing one of my least favorite bands, Yes, for the first time. Bread’s Everything I Own is the other highlight. Hoffs, a splendid singer, basically makes this forgotten MOR staple her own. Otherwise, this record lands in throwaway territory, albeit its pleasures are many. Some of its moments might end up on a wedding mix tape if I ever get called to do one.

Sid & Susie aka Matthew Sweet/Susanna Hoffs on myspace

Los Lobos

Every new year between 1974 and 1986 I prepared a listing of the previous year’s best jazz records. I used my evaluation to merchandise records at the store and support broadcast on the radio. At the time, it seemed my sense of the previous year had to be credible for the simple reason that I was in a good position to mightily sample the year’s jazz releases. The record companies were generous in recognizing my dual role. My base sample was large, usually numbering several hundred records.

This comes to mind because this year I have for the first time since then gone to the considerable trouble to assess listening highlights for the past year. The biggest challenge was going back to figure out what actually came out last year. Then, armed with a raw list, in January I mined for recordings I had missed and was interested in.

Between the fan blogs and forums, and, the old line critics, I apprised myself of other critical views. Just a few steps in this direction had me reflecting on how much the critical culture around music has come to–paradoxically–accept and deny the ramification of the internet in its year-end recaps. In a follow-up post, or two, I’ll delve into this. It’s suffices to suggest that the old style critical culture has not grasped how prolix the wider musical culture has become. On the other side, the smart musical mobs do not grasp, and likely have no good reason to grasp, what were the precedents to today’s iTunes and share-ism.

One way the old and new school may be bridged is to consider the consequence of share-ism: as music sales have imploded, exposure has increased. This means that the critic is no longer positioned as a gatekeeper by their main advantage, that the critic can sample more music than the dedicated fan. Where this really is evident is in the new school muso’s ability to deeply ’sample’ on the margins. This comes about because the unit cost of exposure has plummeted. This is in contrast to the old line critic who seems to still be wed to taking stock of what gets pushed their way. Whereas the informal and amateur culture is advantaged more by pulling music into their orbits. Think about it!

Meanwhile, my own list simply reflects what I really enjoyed. I make no other claim. Some of the music below represent long standing guilty pleasures. *marks one recording in each broad genre that I’d tell you to leap into first. I’ll be highlighting individual recordings in the future.

*Asleep At the wheel – Asleep & Willie country-folk
Levon Helm – Electric Dirt country-folk
Michael Hurley – Ida Con Snock country-folk
Buddy & Julie Miller – Love Snuck Up country-folk
Lhasa De Sela – Lhasa country-folk
*Celer – Breeze of Roses electronic
Sunn O))) – Monoliths & Dimensions electronic
Burkhard Beins – Structural Drift electronic
Stephen R. Smith – Cities In Decline electronic
Monolake – Silence electronic
*Abdullah Ibrahim – Bombella improv
Sun Ra – In Detroit improv
Pierre Dørge & New Jungle Orchestra – Whispering Elephants improv
Keith Jarrett – Testament improv
Louis Moholo-Moholo – Sibanye: Duets with Marilyn Crispell improv
Martial Solal – Live at the Village Vanguard: I Can’t Give You Anything But Love improv
Cyro Baptista & Banquet of the Senses – Infinito improv
Wadada Leo Smith & Jack DeJohnette – America improv
Bill Dixon – Tapestries for Small Orchestra improv
Kenny Barron – Minor Blues improv
David S. Ware – Shakti improv
Gretchen Parlatro – in a Dream improv
*Or the Whale – s/t pop
Neil Young – Live Archive v.1 pop
J.D. Souther – If the World Is You pop
Ry Cooder – I, Flathead pop
The Band of Heathens – One Foot in the Ether pop
*Allen Toussaint – Bright Mississippi R&b
Los Cenzontles – American Horizon r&b
Buckwheat Zydeco – Lay Your Burden Down r&b
*Staff Benda Bilili- Tres Fort , Tres Fort world
Lucas Santanna – Sem Nostalgia world
Orchestre National de Barbès – Alik world
va – Brazilika world
Tinariwen – Imidiwan:Companions world
Oumou Sangare – Seya world
Amadou & Mariam – Welcome to Mali world
Culture Music Club – Shime world

(139 recordings I enjoyed from last year – below the fold)

The master list – the contenders – all of interest

Abdullah Ibrahim – Bombella
Abner Jay – Abner Jay
Allen Toussaint – Bright Mississippi
Amadou & Mariam – Welcome to Mali
Anouar Brahem – The Astounding Eyes of Rita
Asleep At the wheel – Asleep & Willie
Baaba Maal – Television
Basseko Kouyate & Ngoni Ba – I Speak Fula
Bassekou Kouyate and Ngoni Ba – I Speak Fula
Ben Allison – Think Free
Benny Golson – New Time, New ‘Tet
Bill Dixon – Tapestries for Small Orchestra
Bjork – Voltaic
Bobby Sanabria: Kenya Revisited Live
Branford Marsalis – Metamorphosen
Buckwheat Zydeco – Lay Your Burden Down
Buddy & Julie Miller – Love Snuck Up
Burkhard Beins – Structural Drift
Caetano Veloso – Zii e Zie
Cecil Taylor – The Last Dance V1&2
Celer – Breeze of Roses
Celer – Four Pieces
Chas Smith – Nokadai
Corey Wilkes & Abstrakt Pulse – caves from the Ghetto
Cowboy Junkies – Trinity Revisited
Culture Music Club – Shime
Cyril Neville – Brand New Blues
Cyro Baptista & Banquet of the Senses – Infinito
Cyrus Chestnut – Spirit
David S. Ware – Shakti
David Sylvian – Manafon
Delbert McClinton – Acquired Taste
Diana Jones – Better Times Will Come
Dinosaur Jr – Farm
Drive By Trukcers – Austin City Limits
Ellen Jewell – Sea of Tears
Elvis Costello – Secret, Profane And Sugarcane
Extra Golden – Thank You Very Quickly
Fanga – Sira Ba
Fred Anderson – Staying in the Game
Gary Louris/Mark Olson — Ready for the Flood
Geoff Muldaur & The Texas Sheiks – Texas Sheiks
Gerald Cleaver/William Parker/Craig Taborn – Farmers by Natu
Ghana Special –Modern Highlife Afro Sounds Ghana Blues
Graham Parker – Live in SF 1979
Gretchen Parlatro – in a Dream
Harmonica Shah – If All You Have Is A Hammer
Henry Threadgill Zooid – This Brings Us To, Vol. 1
J.D. Souther – If the World Is You
James Moody – 4A
Jayhawks – Music From the North Country
Jesse Winchester – Love Filling Station
Jessica Williams – The Art of the Piano
Jimi Tenor and Tony Allen – Inspiration Information 4
Joe Lovano: Folk Art
John Campbell – Good to Go
Jon Balke & Amina Alaoui – Siwan
Jon Hassell – Last night the moon came dropping its clothes in the street
Keith Jarrett – Testament
Kenny Barron – Minor Blues
Khan Jamal – Impressions of Coltrane
Kid Loco – The Remix Album
Kimi Djabate – Karam
Klaus Voormann & Friends – A Sideman’s Journey
Kristina Train – Spilt Milk
Laura Viera – Troubled By the Fire
Levon Helm – Electric Dirt
Lhasa De Sela – Lhasa
Los Cenzontles – American Horizon
Louis Moholo-Moholo – Sibanye: Duets with Marilyn Crispell
Lucas Santanna – Sem Nostalgia
Lustmord – The Dark Places Of The Earth
Luther Allison – Songs From the Road
Luther Dickinson & the Sons of Mudboy – Onward & Upward
Lyle Lovett
Madeleine Peyroux – Bare Bones
Mahsa and Marjan Vahdat – I Am Eve
Manassas – Pieces
Martial Solal – Live at the Village Vanguard: I Can’t Give You Anything But Love
Matthew Shipp – Harmonic Disorder
Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs – Under The Covers Vol. 2
Michael Hurley – Ida Con Snock
Michael Hurley – Parsnips
Miranda Lambert – Revolution
Monolake – Silence
Mulatu Astatke & The Heliocentrics – Inspiration Information
Muslimgauze – Cobra Head Soup
Neil Young – Live Archive v.1
No Blues – Lumen
Novalima: Coba Coba (Cumbancha) Perú
Or the Whale – s/t
Orchestre National de Barbès – Alik
Orchestre National de Jazz – Around Robert Wyatt
Otis Taylor: Pentatonic Wars and Love Songs
Oumou Sangare – Seya
Pierre Dørge & New Jungle Orchestra – Whispering Elephants
Ran Blake – Driftwoods
Rashied Ali – Judgment Day v2
Rashied Ali Quintet – Live in Europe
Red Molly – Love & Other Tragedies
Richard Thompson – Live Warrior
Robert Henke – Indigo_Transform
Rosanne Cash – The List
Roswell Rudd – Trombone Tribe
Ry Cooder – I, Flathead
Said the Whale
Salif Keita – La Difference
Samba Toure – Songhai Blues
Shelley King – Welcome Home
Sleeping Me – lamenter
Son Volt – American Central Dust
Sonny Landreth – Levee Town (extras)
Staff Benda Bilili- Tres Fort , Tres Fort
Stefon Harris/Blackout – Urbanus
Stephen R. Smith – Cities In Decline
Steve Kuhn Trio with Joe Lovano – Mostly Coltrane
Steve Roach -Dynamic Stillness
Sun Ra – In Detroit
Sunn O))) – Monoliths & Dimensions
Susana Baca – Seis Poemas
Tam Echo Tam – Dawn
The Band of Heathens – One Foot in the Ether
The Bottle Rockets – Lean Forward
The Doors – The Complete Matrix Club Tapes
The Stone Coyotes – A Rude Awakening
The Subdudes – Flower Petals
Thomas Koner – La Barca
Tinariwen – Imidiwan:Companions
Tinsley Ellis – Speak No Evil
Tom Harrell – Prana Dance
Tony Allen – Secret Agent
Trilok Gurtu – Massical
Trio 3 + Geri Allen – At This Time
va – Brazilika
va – Tudo Ben
va – Chicago Blues: A Living History
Wadada Leo Smith & Jack DeJohnette – America
William Parker – Petit Oiseau
Willie Nelson – Naked Willie

1 Stone Roses – One Love 5:03
2 Quantic – Blackstone Rock 4:09
3 Eleventh Dream Day – Dream of a Sleeping Sheep 3:15
4 Radiohead – These Are My Twisted Words 5:31
5 Double Naught Spy Car – Someone’s Creeping In My Yard 5:20
6 Kings of Leon – Spiral Staircase 2:55
7 Ben Watt & Robert Wyatt – A Girl in Winter 03:43
8 Rain Parade – This Can’t Be Today 04:00
9 Grateful Dead – Cosmic Charlie 03:01
10 Henry Kaiser – Cold Rain And Snow 04:50
11 Kaleidescope – Taxim 11:23
12 Anton Fier – Bait And Switch 05:34

Mallard – Rockpalast 1974
13. Back On The Pavement 3:36
14. One Day Once 3:23
15. Reign Of Pain 4:39
16. A Piece Of Me 4:07
17. Mama Squeeze 4:08

There I was trying to figure out how to flesh out a CD started out with a 19 minute set from Captain Beefheart exiles Mallard. It was rendered 25 years ago and Mallard’s weird psych/pop isn’t much like anything around these days.

Eventually I started plucking post-rock and other stuff and ended up with the present comp. It hangs together as a 40 year longitudinal slice of post-rock and psych. (40 years given the presence of Kaleidescope and the Grateful Dead, circa 1968.)

Tip for viewing: the work is 21 minutes long. If you have a nice multi-media set-up this benefits from being toggled to full screen–the toggle is to the left of the audio level slider.

I made an HD DVD version and it looks glorious. This obviously is Flash pumped to the max.

Thanks to Leonardo Solaas. He programmed the online interactive-at-initiation art generator, Dreamlines. All the visuals are due to the artistry implicit in his visionary programming and how the program mixes in real-time images taken from the web.

If you manage to sit through the entire experiment, you’ll learn the keywords I used at the end.

Meanwhile, the dark ambient soundtrack uses an outtake of mine, Aspirational Slim Case.

It’s easy to peg records I really enjoyed last year. I’m not–usually–a very close listener. Sometimes I have to work to recognize something extraordinary. …usually, I don’t have to work hard at all.My own immediate ‘belly’ response is decisive in most cases.

When I auditioned Willie Nelson’s new recording with venerable Texas little big band Asleep At the Wheel, I wasn’t expecting the big upside. But then about six or so minutes into the experience I’m vibing to Fan It and realizing all-of-sudden-like, ‘this fantastic!’ No record last year plastered the smile on my soul like this one did.

Willie Nelson is legendary, iconic, all that, and his record last year Willie and the Wheel is simply one of the best records he’s ever made. (Willie & the Wheel home)

If you ask me what I found so pleasurable, I would tell you the record is just great singin’ and playin’ from beginning to end. Heck, it’s kind of like pairing Art Tatum with Ben Webster. You want some analysis to back my sense up? Come on!

Nice web video of the band courtesy of Austin City Limits.

Revenue.

Blog has been on hiatus due to technical problems with the hoster. This happened just as I was putting together my favorite tune o’ 2009 compendium. Such a task is formidible simply because I don;t go about my listening habit with much sense of what came out when, besides tracking the handful–no, two handfuls– of artists I follow closely.

Steve Lacy, (Wikipedia) who passed away in june, 2004, is one of those artists. In fact, I’d like to hear every note he ever played. (Steve Lacy @Senators.fr)

Something special, and even a bit unusual:

On the end of an era,

“I think records were just a little bubble through time and those who made a living from them for a while were lucky. There is no reason why anyone should have made so much money from selling records except that everything was right for this period of time. I always knew it would run out sooner or later. It couldn’t last, and now it’s running out. I don’t particularly care that it is and like the way things are going. The record age was just a blip. It was a bit like if you had a source of whale blubber in the 1840s and it could be used as fuel. Before gas came along, if you traded in whale blubber, you were the richest man on Earth. Then gas came along and you’d be stuck with your whale blubber. Sorry mate – history’s moving along. Recorded music equals whale blubber. Eventually, something else will replace it.”

Brian Eno excerpt from interview with Paul Morley, On Gospel, Abba, and the Death of the Record (Guardian, OK Jan. 17-2009)