Daptone Records’ illustrious history of promoting artists with a knack for avoiding the threadbare clichés that vex most soul revivalist acts is integral to the label’s success. Cochemea, a go-to Daptone saxophonist, extends the tradition with Vol. II: Baca Sewa. Rooted in percussion, the new celestial soul album is ideally suited for listeners who believe bacchanal summertime parties and introspective spiritual ruminations are two sides of the same coin. Emphasizing his indigenous North American ancestry, Cochemea’s incantatory hymns, sultry grooves and loose-limbed funk workouts manifest the breadth of human experience.
Album Review: Attacca Quartet- Real Life
Original image of Summerfest concert at Atonement Lutheran Church by There Stands the Glass.
I was among the youngest of 60 devotees of chamber music at Atonement Lutheran Church for the final concert of the annual Summerfest initiative on Sunday, July 11. A rendition of Daniel Bernard Roumain’s String Quartet No. 5, Rosa Parks was among the vital works performed. The tiny audience was dominated by geriatric- albeit admirably enlightened- nonconformists. In naming its 2019 collaboration with Caroline Shaw my #9 album of the year, I verified Attacca Quartet’s exceptional ability to resonate with relative newcomers to the classical tradition. Its latest release Real Life highlights the work of electronic-leaning composers including Flying Lotus and Tokimonsta. Only the tacky opening track “Electric Pow Wow Drum” sounds contrived. Squarepusher’s distinctive contribution “Xetaka 1” is an auspicious culture clash. The album’s best track, a relatively conventional treatment of Anne Müller’s “Drifting Circles,' subtly fiddles with studio dynamics. Classical music will limp along with or without the help of Attacca Quartet. Even so, Real Life is further proof that the artistic and social constructs preventing timid people from enjoying the style should be ignored.
Je Chante
Original image by There Stands the Glass.
Prince Charles stumped the chump. The divisive personage recently listed 13 of his favorite songs in coordination with a charitable endeavor. In a blindfold test administered by my life partner as a humiliating parlor game, I identified only six of his selections. Charles Trenet’s "La mer" was among the songs I knew. My love affair with the romantic songs of the French crooner and his country was rekindled. I’ve visited Paris just once. That won’t do. I intend to hum "Moi j'aime le music hall" and "Le jardin extraordinaire" when I return to the 5th Arrondissement in the next two or three years.
Album Review: Dyke & The Blazers- Down On Funky Broadway: Phoenix (1966-1967) and I Got a Message: Hollywood (1968-1970)
Dyke & The Blazers’ postulation that Jimmy Smith and Nancy Wilson merited shout-outs alongside James Brown and Johnny Taylor on “We Got More Soul” expanded the way I thought about music when I encountered the jubilant 1969 single in the 1980s. Yet until now, my appreciation of Dyke & The Blazers was largely limited to “We Got More Soul” and "Funky Broadway". A pair of illuminating new Craft Recordings releases- Down On Funky Broadway: Phoenix (1966-1967) and I Got a Message: Hollywood (1968-1970)- filled me in on what I’ve been missing. I didn’t know much about the group’s tragic career arc until I watched Craft’s two-minute documentary. Dyke & The Blazers may have been largely limited to emulating Otis Redding and Booker T. & the M.G.’s, but the frenetic funk documented on Down On Funky Broadway and I Got a Message is my idea of definitive party music.
Catching Up: Overlooked Albums and Songs of 2021 (so far)
Rather than compiling a conventional mid-year best-of ranking, I’m acknowledging albums and songs I initially overlooked or previously underappreciated in the first six months of 2021. Many of the selections are obscure, but millions of people were tuned into songs and albums like “No More Parties” and En Contra De Mi Voluntad long before I caught up.
Top Ten Overlooked and Underappreciated Albums of 2021 (So Far)
1. Marianne Faithfull and Warren Ellis- She Walks in Beauty
Pure poetry.
2. Jaimie Branch- Fly or Die Live
Angry improv.
3. Lambchop- Showtunes
4. Susan Alcorn, Ingrid Laubrock and Leila Bordeuil- Bird Meets Wire
Hung up.
5. Jimmy Edgar- Cheetah Bend
6. La Arrolladora Banda el Limón- En Contra De Mi Voluntad
Stupendous big band.
7. Silicone Prairie- My Life On the Silicone Prairie
Space junk.
8. Michael Wollny- XXXX
Progressive Euro-jazz.
9. Birds of Maya- Valdez
Unfiltered scuzz.
10. Elizabeth Chang- Transformations
Kirchner, Sessions and Schoenberg.
Top Ten Overlooked and Underappreciated Songs of 2021 (So Far)
1. Coi Leray- “No More Parties”
Curfew.
2. Moby, Mark Lanegan and Kris Kristofferson- "The Lonely Night"
Hurt.
3. Celeste- "Tonight Tonight"
Undeniable pop.
4. Karol G and Nathy Peluso- “Gato Malo”
Discussion on the In My Headache podcast.
5. Armand Hammer, the Alchemist and Earl Sweatshirt- "Falling Out of the Sky"
Crash.
6. Roman Alexander and Ashley Cooke- “Between You & Me”
Closing in.
7. Anitta- "Loco"
Crazy-good.
8. Ana Lélia- "Meu Cantinho"
Gentle breeze.
9. Cuee and Joel Leoj- “Ain’t Going Back”
Amen.
10. Sir the Baptist and Anthony Hamilton- "Jesus in the Ghetto"
Can’t tell Him nothing.
My previous monthly rankings of albums, songs, concerts and films are here.
June 2021 Recap: A Monthly Exercise in Critical Transparency
Screenshot of the trailer of Lili by There Stands the Glass.
Top Ten Albums (released in June)
1. Migos- Culture III
My post-vaccination party soundtrack, 1/2.
2. Billy F Gibbons- Hardware
My post-vaccination party soundtrack, 2/2.
3. Caroline Shaw and Sō Percussion- Let the Soil Play Its Simple Part
I love the elements I love more than I loathe the elements I loathe.
4. Anthony Braxton- 12 Comp (Zim)
5. Chris Thile- Laysongs
Anxious gospel.
6. Tyler, The Creator- Call Me If You Get Lost
Goblin grows up.
7. Julian Lage- Squint
A different type of power trio.
8. Wild Up- Julius Eastman, Vol. 1: Femenine
A vital conceptualization.
9. Mac Lethal- Winter Heartbreak II
10. Angel Bat Dawid- Hush Harbor Mixtape Vol. 1 Doxology
Ancient to the (lofi) future.
Top Ten Songs (released in June)
1. Megan Thee Stallion- “Thot Sh*t”
“Lit since brunch.”
2. Little Simz- "Rollin' Stone"
Quenched.
3. Rauw Alejandro and Anitta- "Brazilera"
Carnival.
4. Moor Mother- "Zami"
Traveling the spaceways.
5. Billie Eilish- "Lost Cause"’
Dead flowers.
6. Petra Haden- "Silence"
Song for her father.
7. Becky G and El Alfa- “Fulanito”
Rhythm nation.
8. Jennifer Hudson- "Here I Am"
Aria for Aretha.
9. Bfd Da Packman- “Wendy Williams”
“Back to Walmart.”
10. Brittney Spencer- “Sober & Skinny”
You got a fast car.
Top Ten Concerts (first monthly ranking since March 2020!)
1. Irreversible Entanglements- Stephens Lake Park Amphitheatre (Columbia, Missouri)
2. Johnny Rawls- Gladstone Summertime Bluesfest
3. Bird Fleming and Bill Summers’ “Voyage of the Drum”- Dunbar Park
4. Second Nature Ensemble- Westport Coffee House
5. En Vogue- Hy-Vee Arena
6. Mike Dillon and Nikki Glaspie- 1900 Building
7. Adam Galblum Quartet- Market KC
Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli revived.
8. Kian Byrne- Second Presbyterian Church
A singer-songwriter sweats it out under the setting sun.
9. Roman Alexander- KC Live
10. The Kansas City Chorale- Rolling Hills Presbyterian Church
Docked several notches for a clergyman’s abhorrent mask-shaming.
Top Ten Movies (viewed for the first time in June)
1. Jojo Rabbit (2019)
Gesundheit!
2. Lili (1953)
A French twist on The Wizard of Oz.
3. La ciociara/Two Women (1960)
Sophia Loren and Eleonora Brown suffer unspeakable trauma.
4. Polish Wedding (1998)
Love in Hamtramck.
5. Murder, My Sweet (1944)
Psychotropic noir.
6. I Accuse! (1958)
Straightforward depiction of the Dreyfus affair.
7. Lisztomania (1975)
Richard Wagner is Satan in Ken Russell’s gonzo freakout.
8. Terri (2011)
Teen cringe.
9. The Shadow on the Window (1957)
And Jerry Mathers as the murder witness.
10. Small Town Crime (2017)
Negligible noir.
May’s recap and links to previous monthly surveys are here.
Album Review: Anthony Braxton- 12 Comp (Zim)
I binged on Anthony Braxton’s 12 Comp (Zim) this week. Rather than savoring each of the 12 concerts in the new set, I elected to plow through all 638 minutes of the recordings from 2017 in three days. My approach may have devalued the music, but it elevated even the most mundane aspects of my daily life. The work of the decorated genius demands- and merits- attentive listening. Yet I experienced it amid the footsteps of joggers, the thrum of kitchen appliances, the chatter of tree-dwelling creatures and the rumble of street traffic. I felt consecrated by the merger of hallowed and commonplace sounds.
As someone who traveled 500 miles to attend a Braxton concert in 2018, I realize I’m an atypical listener. Even so, it’s amazing how some of his most challenging music is transformed into semi-easy listening after just a few hours. My life partner didn’t once complain about the continual onslaught. She may share my sense that the spectral sounds are divinely inspired. The interstellar chamber music documented on 12 Comp (Zim) is a self-contained universe. Akin to an alien life form derived from unknown biological building blocks, Braxton’s drummer-less band exists apart from established Earth-bound categories.
The sonic wavelengths created by a core group that includes an accordionist, a pair of harpists and a tuba player operates within a system of recondite rules outside the realms of classical, jazz and popular music. Figuratively and literally, it’s a lot. I would be content spending the remainder of 2021 decoding 12 Comp (Zim). Corresponding video documentation would aid in the analysis. Yet Quartet (Standards) 2020, an even bigger box of Braxton with a very different set of collaborators, was also released this month. The Braxton binge is just beginning.
The Thrill of the Crowd
Original image of Johnny Rawls in Gladstone, Missouri, by There Stands the Glass.
After attending 11 concerts in the last 16 days, it’s safe to say I’m back at it. And I still feel as if I’ll never catch up. Why am I compelled to venture out several night a week? Sure, I’m a music fiend, but that’s not the only reason I’m willing to drive four hours to catch a 40-minute performance. Even when the environment is less than ideal, being amid a crowd of vivacious music fans brings me joy. Seeing drunken revelers and serious soul-blues fans share an improvised dance floor with sugar-fueled children and their accommodating mothers at the Gladstone Summertime Bluesfest last night greatly enhanced my appreciation of Johnny Rawls’ headlining appearance. In those sublime moments I feel as if everything is right in the world.
Concert Review: En Vogue and Delynia Jannell at HyVee Arena
Original image of electric billboard by There Stands the Glass.
The view from the cheap seats at HyVee Arena on Saturday, June 12, was like looking at a Verzuz stream from the wrong end of a set of binoculars. Even so, I relished the concert by nineties hitmakers En Vogue and opening act Delynia Jannell.
Being amid approximately 1,500 festive R&B fans who’d paid for the privilege of being in what was once the upper tier of the former Kemper Arena represented a bracing return to normalcy. I’ve loved En Vogue since “Hold On” hit the airwaves in 1989. I was thrilled to check in with old favorites in a new epoch.
Even from my poor vantage point, watching original En Vogue members Terry Ellis and Cindy Herron and 2003 addition Rhona Bennett accentuate 14 songs in 60 minutes with Supremes-style choreography over backing tracks was heavenly. The sound wasn’t great, but I’ve encountered far worse this month.
I’ve seen Delynia Jannell open for several touring acts, but she was better than ever leading a seven-piece backing band on Saturday. The Kansas City veteran’s compelling stage patter and solid covers of hits by the likes of Chaka Khan, Ledisi and Deniece Williams primed the audience for En Vogue.
En Vogue setlist: Free Your Mind; Lies; Give It Up, Turn It Loose; Whatta Man; I’m Good; My Lovin’ (You’re Never Gonna Get It); Reach 4 Me; Yesterday; Giving Him Something He Can Feel; Whatever; Don’t Go; Rocket; Don’t Let Go (Love); Hold On
Woulda Shoulda Coulda: Reflections on Mac Lethal's Winter Heartbreak II
Mac Lethal possessed the talent, intelligence and wit to become a star in the first decade of the millennium. Questionable career choices derailed the rapper’s chance to attain the sort of double-edged fame later achieved by the late Mac Miller. The Kansan born David McCleary Sheldon is well aware of the missed opportunities. He mercilessly beats himself up throughout Winter Heartbreak II.
I’m all too familiar with several of the forms of anguish Mac details on his latest album. In addition to sharing an unbecoming Midwestern accent and a similar series of deflating professional disappointments, I’ve also experienced the need to repair relationships and address substance abuse issues among family and friends in the corner of the world I share with Mac. The grim tone of Mac’s self-described “depression party” is lightened by relatable punchlines. Acknowledging the need to adjust to diminished expectations, he insists “I’m trying to win yard-of-the-month- f*ck a Grammy!”
Longtime listeners will recognize the lyrical themes and musical constructs. Winter Heartbreak II may not be entirely fresh, but Mac recycles only his best bits. Aside from a bout of tongue-twisting rat-a-tat rapping, he avoids the gimmicky YouTube stunts that seem to have dominated his professional focus in recent years. Winter Heartbreak II probably won’t make Mac many new converts. But I expect I’m not the only day-one fan thrilled by his potent return to form.