This consensus Top 10 for 2014 speaks to the diversity of this year’s great music. From classic rock to deep soul, from jazz to roots to hip hop, the Official™ Something Else! tally moves with a blithe ease between genres, generations and generic dogma. Where else could the updated hippy vibe of David Crosby stand cheek to jowl with D’Angelo’s flinty topicality and Lucinda Williams’ ageless hill-country drawl? That’s just the tip of the iceberg as we gathered around the watercooler to pick the best of the best …
No. 10 — MATTHEW SHIPP – ROOT OF THINGS (JAZZ): There are thoughtful pianists who play from the brain and passionate pianists who play from the heart. Matthew Shipp’s distinction has been that he’s always been a thoughtful pianist who plays from the heart. He is one of the last truly original piano improvisers; no one since him can match his depth without sounding too much like someone else.
S. Victor Aaron: Like prior Matthew Shipp Trio recordings, Root extends Shipp’s unique qualities to a three-man unit. Also like those prior releases, they find new ways of standing apart.
Mark Saleski: I was reminded that Shipp thinks Stanley Crouch is a horse’s ass. I bring up Crouch (though I sort of hate to do it) because of the straight-jacketed rules he tends to apply, preserving what feels like historical correctness. Not here. Instead, Shipp visits straight-ahead (for Shipp, that is) environments as well as more “out” constructs … often during the same song. Historical correctness be damned!
No. 9 — GHOST OF A SABER TOOTH TIGER – MIDNIGHT SUN (ROCK): An enormous leap forward in both focus and experimental verve, this Top 10 for 2014 album sounded like the embodiment of what Syd Barrett might have stumbled upon, had he not been lost in a drug-fueled maze of his own making. At the same time, there was a flinty post-modernism to the proceedings. Forget Sean Lennon’s obvious parental influences. With Midnight Sun, he and Charlotte Kemp Muhl created a world unto themselves.
S. Victor Aaron: Whereas Barrett tended to come off as fragile and thin, the Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger brings the full band to bear — busting at the seams with heavy tones from guitars, Muhl’s organ and Tim Kuhl’s discriminating drums. A song like “Long Gone” descends into the metal bombast waiting at the end the chorus, something that simply wasn’t envisioned by Barrett.
Stephen Lewis: Every song on Midnight Sun contains some sort of musical anomaly that sends the listener on a sonic search to reveal more secrets. Lennon and Muhl have again successfully combined art, commentary with diverse sonic accompaniment in an original way that subscribes to no genre except that developed in their own imaginations.
No. 8 — DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS – ENGLISH OCEANS (ROCK): The evolution of the Drive-By Truckers from a hillbilly punk band of the Pizza Deliverance days to an eloquent, unfiltered voice for the rural South continues here. Their potent one-two composing punch of co-frontmen Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley only gains more nuance on English Oceans, while never really losing the raw punch of their rough ‘n’ rowdy early sides.
S. Victor Aaron: As the class of Southern Rock, the Drive-By Truckers are a tight, road-tested unit led by two masterful, persuasive songwriters who might not have even hit their ceilings yet. Whether English Oceans is the apex or on its way there, it’s another essential entry in a catalog that’s already full of essential entries.
No. 7 — BRIAN BLADE FELLOWSHIP – LANDMARKS (JAZZ): This wasn’t just the return of Brian Blade nor a return of the Brian Blade Fellowship, it was also a return to the historic Blue Note label that was home for the first two Fellowship albums. Part of this “Fellowship brand” means that Blade doesn’t do a lot of the showy drum stuff in his band; he prefers to emphasize the down-home harmonic charms of these songs and a lot of band democracy. Together, they made something special.
Nick DeRiso: Perhaps the best example of why this is Top 10 for 2014 — “He Died Fighting,” which finds Brian Blade and the Fellowship Band creating the kind of complex collective improvisation that can only be absorbed over multiple listens. Months later, it’s still revealing new outbursts of feeling and intellect.
S. Victor Aaron: The down-home harmonic charms of these songs and a lot of band democracy quietly defies the rules of what great jazz is supposed to be like. A welcome return of Blade’s tastefully understated unit.
No. 6 — PAUL RODGERS – THE ROYAL SESSIONS (R&B): Paul Rodgers’ trip to Memphis to record quickly took on all of the religious overtones of a pilgrimage. That’s how strong his connection is with these R&B classics. The former frontman with Free, Bad Company and Queen ended up taking on 10 of them, including a handful closely associated with Otis Redding, and his gift — taken perhaps for granted after so many permutations away from these core influences — is revealed anew.
Nick DeRiso: You always sensed a foundational love for this kind of gritty soul, but that embedded passion often found itself awash in other, more contemporary sounds. This Top 10 for 2014 entry stripped all of that away, leaving Paul Rodgers to front a grease-popping house band of long-time Memphis sidemen, guys who played on the original sides featuring Al Green and the like.
No. 5 — NELS CLINE SINGERS – MACROSCOPE (JAZZ): The primary vehicle for Cline’s unbounded imagination and indulgence into widely diverse music forms, the Nels Cline Singers’ genre-hopping journey on Macroscope includes stops in Rural America, India and (yes) Smooth Jazz Land. But even when things sound pretty, as with the latter, there’s always a sense of danger lurking just around the corner.
S. Victor Aaron: The Singers take chances on every track, and the gambles consistently pay off. Nels Cline shows so many sides of himself on guitar that it’s difficult to imagine it’s all coming from the same guy, while Scott Amendola’s loose, pliable drums and Trevor Dunn’s attentive bass provide the optimal rhythm section.
No. 4 — SETH WALKER – SKY STILL BLUE (ROOTS): Seth Walker has been remarkably consistent with quality singing, songwriting, and — oh, yeah — guitar playing through a trio of albums. The difference here is producer Oliver Wood’s discreetly increased emphasis on guitar. Walker was savvy enough to know to dish out his tasty licks in bite-size portions, leaving ’em wanting a little more. There’s plenty of good singing over good tunes to keep everyone satisfied, anyway.
Preston Frazier: I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say Sky Blue Sky is a musical treasure. Seth Walker combines bluesy vocals, expertly subtle guitar playing and moving songwriting to create another highlight for his career and 2014’s musical landscape.
S. Victor Aaron: This one shows the benefits of Seth Walker’s continual tweaking of his sound and it’s paid off in this completely solid album of roots music. Oliver Wood is doing quietly what T-Bone Burnett does with much fanfare.
No. 3 — DAVID CROSBY – CROZ (ROCK): At its best, this Top 10 for 2014 record combined Crosby’s most identifiable personal attributes with propulsive, boldly current musical vehicles. But it didn’t ignore his past or make the awful mistake of conventionalizing Crosby, either — something that doomed his most recent album, the slickery Thousand Roads.
Nick DeRiso: David Crosby sounded like himself again: Persistently hopeful, sometimes hard to get, always involving. Over a career which hasn’t produced many solo efforts at all, much less albums with this measure of consistency, that remains a very rare, very welcome thing. The longer you listen, the more time you give it, the better it plays.
S. Victor Aaron: The creation of an artist comfortable with his legacy, one who’s continuing to make music because he is moved to do it. The sympathetic instrumentation and signature David Crosby vocal arrangements are the strengths of the record and the intricacies to be found here are many.
No. 2 — D’ANGELO – BLACK MESSIAH (R&B): Calling this late-breaking moment of genius “R&B” is, of course, selling it decidedly short. After all, D’Angelo has been brilliantly blending old-school soul and contemporary hip-hop for some time. Same here, as he blended the vocal and intellectual prowess of Marvin Gaye with the nervy musical rawness of early Prince — while fast-forwarding all of those sturdy influences into today’s sounds, and today’s topics.
Nick DeRiso: Black Messiah had a kind of ripped-from-the-headlines currency, and not just via its lyric sheet. This was new music that contextualized the present even as it embraced the past. Timely in its message, nervy in its conception, it amounted to D’Angelo’s masterwork. So far, at least.
S. Victor Aaron: His realness comes not just in music but also in the message. Though conceived and made before the grand jury verdicts out of Ferguson and New York, D’Angelo bumped up Messiah from its scheduled early 2015 release because with lyrics speaking to race and violence, he felt it was music perfectly in sync with the spirit of this moment. And it is.
No. 1 — LUCINDA WILLIAMS – DOWN WHERE THE SPIRITS MEETS THE BONE (ROOTS): Lucinda Williams sings with the dust of ages on her boots, her sleeves frayed from years of struggle — struggle with heartbreak, with trying to get by, with determinedly telling it like it is. These characters, these scenes, these lessons, all of them are better for having Lucinda Williams’ voice to convey their devastating truths.
Nick DeRiso: She does a great job of inhabiting the J.J. Cale cut, too. A perfectly calibrated, almost 10-minute tribute, “Magnolia” closes out this Top 10 for 2014 item with broken Stonesy grandeur and quietly mournful space. Listen as Lucinda Williams settles into it like a cracked and comfortable leather seat, letting this lonesome moment happen, and thus remembering the then-recently deceased singer-songwriter in the best way possible — by breathing new life into the work he left behind.
S. Victor Aaron: It’s difficult to find fault with any Lucinda Williams album; she invests so much craftmanship while carving out a niche within roots music where she finds equal comfort within blues, folk, country and rock. By carefully pacing herself in producing new material, she had been able to keep the quality at a consistent level. Or is that really the reason?
JUDAS PRIEST, Redeemer of Souls … JOHN OATES, Good Road to Follow … WADADA LEO SMITH, The Great Lakes Suite … BOB DYLAN AND THE BAND, Basement Tapes: Complete … CHICAGO, Now: XXXVI … PINK FLOYD, Endless River … TOTO – 35th Anniversary Tour: Live in Poland … MIKE BLOOMFIELD, From His Head to His Heart to His Hands … OZ NOY, Twisted Blues Vol. 2, … THOMPSON, Family.
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