Looking back at another year of jazz showed there is no let up in the quality of the genre, nor its sense of forward movement (if you’re listening to the right artists) so with last year in the can, I present a Best of 2018 list of modern and mainstream jazz releases that I can proudly recommend the most.
Limiting the selections to those records I took the time to review leaves out a lot of records that are otherwise worthy, but having only a casual acquaintance with the music isn’t good enough to make a list with high confidence. It’s not always fair but it sure does simplify the selection process. Click on the links nested in the artist/album names to get the full-blown story on these choice entries …
BEST OF 2018 ALBUM OF THE YEAR
Thumbscrew – Ours and Theirs: After a bit of a sabbatical, quality progressive music label Cuneiform Records surprised everyone when in the spring of 2018, they announced a walk-back on their intention to go the year (and possibly longer) without any new releases. What’s more, the artist entity breaking this stretch of inactivity was the highly creative Mary Halvorson/Michael Formanek/Tomas Fujiwara trio Thumbscrew.
I cheered this move loudly, but the music contained inside these two albums gave me even more reason to whoop it up. Two, you say? Why yes, Thumbscrew dropped two albums on us and since they have a ying-yang connection to each other, I’m calling them both the ‘singular’ album of the year.
Ours is a collection of new originals, the chores shared equally among the three. The democracy spills over into limelight as they all stand out running through a docket of songs that gives no fricks about whether it swings, rocks, grooves or just goes off the deep end. It’s exactly what you’d expect from three highly regarded musicians who earned their high regard by doing things differently.
Theirs is their first ‘covers’ album and this one might be the bigger treat of the two because their handling of other people’s tunes isn’t what you’d expect from them. That’s because Thumbscrew eschewed their usual abstract, craggy approach and played these borrowed tunes in ways that make them easier to recognize. Yet, it still enwraps the listener by doing all the little things so well. Tone, timbre, precision and even an element of surprise are done with the utmost taste and discretion.
Halvorson usually gets the most buzz these days and she’s participated in a whole host of good releases from last year (including her own Code Girl). But the best Halvorson bet of 2018 is the pair of records where this guitarist is shining at an equal level with the elite bassist Formanek and the ace drummer Fujiwara.
BEST OF 2018 – THE BEST OF THE REST:
Avi Granite – Orbit: You know that great musicianship and creativity are always in store for Avi Granite 6’s strong return but little else can be anticipated, and that’s the main joy of Orbit.
Caroline Davis – Heart Tonic: You won’t gain any academic knowledge about the human heart from listening to ‘Heart Tonic,’ but it’s clear that Davis invested all of hers into it.
David Ake – Humanities: The pianist and composer Ake put decades of experience and education behind ‘Humanities,’ making this one of the best mainstream jazz releases of the year.
John Coltrane – Both Directions at Once, The Lost Album: This long-forgotten set of recordings is nonetheless as gratifying as many other John Coltrane albums from the Impulse! era; indeed, it holds its own against the entire, history-making discography.
Jason Stein’s Locksmith Isidore – After Caroline: The return of Jason Stein’s Locksmith Isidore with After Caroline is a welcome one because these guys don’t slouch for a second in taking on Stein’s challenging material.
Kind Folk – Why Not: Here’s a new jazz supergroup from Four rising stars of New York’s modern jazz scene that lives up to the promise the first time out because they thrive in the opportunity to function as a democracy.
Devin Gray – Dirigo Rataplan II: The big accomplishment of the first Dirigo Rataplan was in Gray’s insight in conceptualizing ways to get the most out of his fellow musicians and himself. That’s the same kind of brilliance found on Dirigo Rataplan II.
Andrew Cyrille, with Wadada Leo Smith and Bill Frisell – Lebroba: The freewheeling Lebroba is a solid entry in Cyrille’s lengthy catalog, and could be considered a solid entry in the catalogs of Smith and Frisell, too.
Michael Leonhart Orchestra – The Painted Lady Suite: Not everyone is cut out to take on such an ambitious, large band project but one look at Michael Leonhart’s background makes it undeniably clear that he could. Still, he went beyond what even his vast skill set would suggest.
< S. Victor Aaron’s Best of 2018 (Non-Jazz) ||| S. Victor Aaron’s Best of 2018 (Experimental/Avant-garde)>
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