Kansas City is a small town. Even so, my version of Kansas City is vastly different from the place many of my music-minded peers call home. Rankings of 55 of my favorite recordings released by artists from the Kansas City area during the first 42 weeks of 2021 follow. A handful of highly praised albums didn’t make the cut. The omissions aren't personal. I simply prefer the titles listed below. Additionally, several albums by prominent locally based musicians are slated for release in the final weeks of 2021.

The Top 25 Kansas City Albums of 2021

1. Behzod Abduraimov- Debussy Chopin Mussorgsky

My review.

2. Pat Metheny- Road to the Sun

My review.

3. Steddy P- SOS: Toxic

4. Mac Lethal- Winter Heartbreak II

My review.

5. Pat Metheny- Side-Eye NYC (V1.IV)

My review.

6. Blackstarkids- Puppies Forever

7. Flooding- Flooding

My review.

8. Hermon Mehari and Alessandro Lanzoni- Arc Fiction

My review.

9. Verploegh and Baker- Singles

My review.

10. Samantha Fish- Faster

11. The Count Basie Orchestra- Live at Birdland

My review.

12. Liam Kazer- Due North

13. Hxxs- Channeler

14. Steve Million- What I Meant to Say

My review.

15. Tech N9ne- Asin9ne

16. Silicone Prairie- My Life on the Silicone Prairie

17. GI Gizzle and Rich the Factor- Don't Take This Personal 2

18. John Armato- The Drummer Loves Ballads

My review.

19. Melissa Etheridge- One Way Out

20. Riley Downing- Start It Over

21. Cheli Davis Smith Trio- Composite

My review.

22. Florian Arbenz, Hermon Mehari and Nelson Veras- Conversation #1: Condensed

My review.

23. Lucy Wijnands- Sings the David Heckendorn Song Book

24. Sara Morgan- Another Nail

25. Milkdrop- Thirty Eight

The Top 20 Kansas City EPs of 2021

1. Bummer- Dead Horse

2. Blob Castle- Music for Art Show

My review.

3. Big Water- ...And I’m All Out of Sh*t to F**k Up

4. The Greeting Committee- Dandelion

5. Baby and the Brain- BrainBaby

6. Rachel Cion - Wanted!

7. Rich the Factor- Mobbligated

8. Alber- Journey

My review.

9. Stik Figa- East of MacVicar Ave

10. Quiet Takes- San Fidel

11. Alyssa Murray- Half & Half

12. Sarin Reaper- Demo

13. Maal and Tom Richman- Grass

14. Cuee- Gospel

15. Lauren Anderson- Love on the Rocks

16. Connor Leimer- Like My Mind

17. Andy McKee- Symbol

18. Rory Fresco- Born Hero

19. Edison Lights- Shake This

20. Such Lovely People- Great Distinction

The Top Ten Kansas City Reissues, Reimaginings and Compilations of 2021

1. Kevin Morby- A Night at the Little Los Angeles

2. Mike Dillon- Shoot the Moon

My review.

3. Mike Dillon- 1918

My review.

4. Merlin- Electric Children: The Final Cut

5. Rich the Factor- Streets vs. Commercial: 100 Song Collection, Part 1

6. The Wild Women of Kansas City- Live at Pilgrim Chapel

My review.

7. Kansas- Point of Know Return: Live & Beyond

8. Danny Cox- Young and Hot: Live at Cowtown Ballroom

9. Whiskey Boots- #1

10. Vitreous Humor- Posthumous

Last year’s rankings of Kansas City releases are here.

William Brownlee

September 20, 2021

Grunting and Snorting

William Brownlee

September 20, 2021

Photo of pages 221-222 of John Culshaw’s Ring Resounding by There Stands the Glass.

John Culshaw writes about the incidental noise issued by conductor Hans Knappertsbusch in Ring Resounding. Sure enough, Knappertsbusch’s “grunts and snorts” are clearly audible at the opening of a 1951 recording of Parsifal.

Studying the book is part of an ongoing investigation of Wagner corresponding with my burgeoning interest in classical music. Culshaw’s detailed account of the first complete recording of Der Ring des Nibelungen is filled with delectable gossip and substantive musings.

Discovering that the disruptive ambient noise accompanying many of the classical concerts I’ve attended isn’t an aberration came as a shock. Ill-timed coughs and the creaking of seats are also part and parcel of live recordings. The non-musical sounds created by artists further altered my connection with the so-called fine art.

For instance, a pivotal moment of Deutsche Grammophon’s otherwise wonderful new recording of Krystian Zimerman’s Beethoven: Complete Piano Concertos is marred when members of the London Symphony Orchestra clamorously adjust their sheet music. And the breathing of pianist Behzod Abduraimov is clearly audible on one of my favorite albums of 2021.

When I put on headphones and queue up Beethoven, Debussy or Wagner, I’m no longer surprised when the ostensibly pristine and often ethereal sounds are accompanied by grunts, snorts, murmurs and heavy breathing. The humanizing revelation is one more indication classical music and opera aren’t nearly as arrogantly inhospitable and formidably precious as they initially appear.

The art of opera has nothing to do with obscene galas. Culshaw hoped his landmark recordings would make the form more equitable: “The sickness of opera has been, and is, that it is a very expensive and exclusive closed shop… Richard Wagner abhorred this attitude a hundred years ago, and we are only now beginning to make the slightest progress towards a change.”

William Brownlee

January 23, 2021

January 2021 Recap: A Monthly Exercise in Critical Transparency

William Brownlee

January 23, 2021

Screenshot of Gilette Barbier in Lourdes by There Stands the Glass.

Top Ten Albums

1. Alexander Hawkins- Togetherness Music

My review.

2. Patricia Brennan- Maquishti

Concussed.

3. R.A.P. Ferreira- Bob’s Son

My review.

4. Miguel Zenón and Luis Perdomo- El Arte Del Bolero

My review.

5. Behzod Abduraimov- Debussy Chopin Mussorgsky

My review.

6. Caroline Shaw- Narrow Sea

Experimental gospel.

7. Sleaford Mods- Spare Ribs

My review.

8. Estelle Revaz and the Geneva Chamber Orchestra- Journey to Geneva

Startling interpretations of compositions by Frank Martin and Xavier Dayer.

9. Rich The Factor- Mobbligated

Straight off Kansas City’s grimiest assembly line.

10. Shame- Drunk Tank Pink

Queasy.

Top Ten Songs

1. Anavitória- "Terra"

Brazilian wall of sound.

2. Selena Gomez- "De Una Vez"

The pop star shares my affection for Bad Bunny.

3. Morgan Wallen- "Quittin' Time"

Remember Clint Black? Morgan Wallen does.

4. Chai- "Action"

“It’s going to be ok.”

5. Saweetie and Doja Cat- "Best Friend"

Cruisin’.

6. Flee Lord, Eto and Westside Gunn- "Ain't Hit Nobody"

Knockout.

7. Julien Baker- "Hardline"

Darkness, darkness.

8. Olivia Rodrigo- “Drivers License”

Teen spirit.

9. Rhye- "Come In Closer"

Sade sounds better than ever.

10. Anuel AA and Ozuna- "La Maria"

Rap it soft and it’s almost like praying.

Top Ten Films

1. Lourdes (2009)

Dogma and disability in France.

2. Say Amen, Somebody (1982)

Anointed! My new all-time favorite music documentary.

3. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (2020)

Superb rendering of August Wilson’s estimable play.

4. The Little Foxes (1941)

Superb rendering of Lillian Hellman’s estimable play.

5. Fitzcarraldo (1982)

A wondrous shipwreck.

6. Gräns (2018)

Uninhibited Swedish fairytale.

7. The Blues Accordin’ to Lightnin’ Hopkins (1967)

Mojo workin’.

8. Little Joe (2019)

Cautionary fable about GMOs.

9. Jazz on a Summer’s Day (1959)

Incredibly, I’d seen only excerpts.

10. The Falcon and the Snowman (1985)

Drugs, treason and the NSA.

Links to previous installations of my monthly recap series begin here.

William Brownlee

January 12, 2021

Molto Agitato

William Brownlee

January 12, 2021

I attempted to sleep in a different room in my home last night. The slight variances in the hum, buzz and whoosh of appliances, wind, passing vehicles and furnace were just different enough to forestall sleep. Much as I was thrown off by the ambient noise, I’m obsessed with the varied sonic textures of three solo piano recordings released in the first couple weeks of 2021.

The splashy sound of Behzod Abduraimov’s Debussy Chopin Mussorgsky resembles a raging torrent on the precipice of a waterfall. The more conventional sound field of Beethoven: Piano Sonatas, a compelling new recital by MinJung Baek, possesses the resonance of a concert hall. The treated instrument played by Raffaele Grimaldi on John Cage: In a Landscape/Dream/Haiku sounds more like a harp than a piano on “Dream.” Elsewhere, the 21-minute EP emphasizes the manipulated components of the apparatus.

Jason Moran further advances pianistic evolution on his forthcoming solo album The Sound Will Tell You by applying “a filter to allow the sound (to) cast a shadow” on some tracks. The wealth of possibilities inherent in the seemingly staid instrument remains staggering. I intend to have sweet dreams about the only live ticket I’m holding: a fourth-row center seat I purchased at a steep discount for a rescheduled Daniil Trifonov concert in 2022.

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I review Blob Castle’s La Tierra Se Está Doblando at the Kansas City jazz blog Plastic Sax.