The Bullpen 003

does humor belong in jazz reviews

As a reminder, this is a catch-all column for albums worth attention that I don’t want to grade, in some cases because my feelings are all over the case, in more cases because nobody wants to read, let alone write, serious reviews all the time (well, hardly anyone.)

André Roligheten: Marbles

Small-group Nordijazz led by saxist Roligheten (who per Wiki is married to the approximately 1000 times more famous Susanne Sundfør.) There’s raw tunage by the leader in all registers, there’s lots of vibraphone and atmospherics, there’s the inevitable Rollins-but-in-a-fjord, there’s one called “Whale Waltz” that sounds like whales but not a waltz. There’s “Twin Bliss”, an “I played with Motorpsycho once” banger that shows that it’s handy to be best buddies with Gard Nilssen when you want to rock out. (“Twin Bliss”, “Sonny River”, “Pyramid Dance”)

Andreas Røysum Ensemble: Mysterium

Big band Nordijazz, but this time, it’s also folk: if you ever wanted to hear the usual Trondheim-to-Oslo-plus-tributaries crew tiptoe around an atmospheric-mostly “Barbara Allen”, here’s your album. Perhaps it’s lightweight relative to the participants’ best work (or perhaps that’s just my prejudice against flute), but there’s fun to be had when Signe Emmeluth’s and Marthe Lea’s saxes get space to swirl around. Øyvind Brække’s trombone is also a highlight, to the extent that I’m willing to assume his poetry ain’t bad. (“Paoaisnorr”, “Brugata Boogie”, “Røysification”)

Angelika Niescier/Tomeka Reid/Savannah Harris: Beyond Dragons

Niescier, the avant-alto player most likely to win a triathlon, hits her marks again, earning top ten plaudits from Chris Monsen among others. While Live in Berlin remains my preferred album of hers thanks not least to Tyshawn Sorey, this is a welcome variation, with Reid’s cello providing as it often does something different for the axewoman to swing around, drummer Harris doing very well for someone early in their recording career, and Niescier working to squeeze out some extra expression in the sparer sections before returning to blow-the-house-down mode. (“Hic Svnt Dracones”, “A Dance, to Never End”, “Risse”)

Billy Nomates/Tor: Cacti

It took a while for me to get used to her switch from ranting to perfectly fine proper singing. Even if there’s necessarily lower verbal density, there’s no less intensity: as far as choruses for recovering dirty minds go, “death don’t turn me on like it used to” is topped by “I only came out of spite.” There’s also a widened range of oddball keyboards and/or electronics, perhaps tamed a bit too much (the synths on, say, the title track are de-spined and de-slimed, though she and co-producer James Trevascus hold the queso.) Still, haters of landfill sprechgesang should’ve top tenned this out of principle. (“Spite”, “Blue Bones (Deathwish)”, “Roundabout Sadness”)

Danny Brown: Quaranta

Wonder if he regrets burning the album title Old back when he was merely trentadue. The attempts at bangers seem tossed off—he barely tries to make himself heard over an obnoxious Alchemist beat—so this is mostly a declaration that he’ll own the Seniors Tour as soon as he gets his AARP card. His moral journey is by no means exceptional, but I’m still happy he went to rehab and and now has standards for treating women that are at least as high as 1991 Scarface’s.  (“Y.B.P.”, “Down Wit It”, “Celibate”)

41: 41 World: Not the Album

“I’m a G, can’t show no emotion,” says Kyle Richh, one of three Brooklyn rappers who make up this group. What makes them distinct in the current street rap scene, however, is their ability to express feelings; the caveat is that a supermajority of those feelings are “I’m horny”, but that’s a step forward given that their initial TikTok breakout was due to their ritual reenactment of a perceived enemy’s murder on the subway. (The Internet drill community’s main objection to that one was that they’d never commit such a crime.) And while their infantilization of women isn’t admirable, it’s clear it’s downstream of their being extremely juvenile themselves, to the point of sampling Soulja Boy’s “Crank That”. Wall-to-wall late adolescent heedlessness, filled with the odors of weed, sweat, and cum. (“Run That!”, “Goodbye”, “Stomp Stomp”)

Jess Williamson: Time Ain’t Accidental

Instead of my usual “good but it’s folk” review for good-but-it’s-folk albums, I’ll bring up a questionably relevant question I’ve been asking myself: who do I prefer as a songwriter, Jess Williamson or Noah Kahan? Is it better to try to be ““literary”” and not quite live up to that (me,I wouldn’t namedrop Raymond Carver unless I was implying worlds at a 2000s Jenny Lewis level), or to stick (pun intended? it is now) to the physical and emotional territory one knows and describe it vividly if literally? Is it better to have strong melodic lines that facilitate expression but don’t quite become objects of admiration in themselves, or to have, like, hooks? And I guess I’m talking myself into answering Kahan, though I think I still prefer Williamson’s album because singing does matter. (“Hunter”, “Stampede”, “Something’s in the Way”)

Max Koch: Ten Bulls

More Deutscherjazz, led by a lapsed doom metal guitarist, whose four compositions are so solid that the one Ornette doesn’t stick out (aside from maybe Koch’s “Fifteen Minutes of Fame”, which lasts sixteen and a half: how unpünktlich.) Nothing’s unusually heavy about his playing: he’s proficient in the modern post-postbop style, with funny scales that keep the center defined so things don’t get noodly. Tenor Max Hirth often has the role of literalizing the songs: “Sneezes in a Row” doesn’t quite sound like sneezes, but he could still use some of that good EU pseudoephedrine. Pianist Max Arsava (did the Bundesbank’s austerity extend to given names as well) does busywork underneath: a lot of notes, not too loud. And I think that by now the Germany gags are as run into the ground as Thomas Müller at the 2022 World Cup, so anyway, good album. (“Ten Bulls”, “Sneezes in a Row”, “Sidetrack”)

StayC: Teenfresh EP

Now that the NewJeans wing of K-pop has earned a Strange New Respect from Western cool hunters, it’s important for longtime non-cool fans like me to continue standing up for the tooth-decaying stuff, like these six tracks counting three versions of “Bubble”, which include (and sound like) not just the words “bubble bubble bubble” but “punch me like an 808”. Also: empowerment bromides, saccharine harmonies, and sure, one not entirely unsuccessful attempt to be cool with the contemporary R&B arrangement of “Be Mine”. Still, cool is good and all, but the joy of “do the single again in English and with chipmunked vocals” shouldn’t be undervalued. (“Bubble”, “Not Like You”, “Be Mine”)

Troye Sivan: Something to Give Each Other

Haven’t we done this before? Well-constructed Australian puts together a creditable Commonwealth-mostly dance-pop career despite being, in a narrow technical sense, not that great a singer, but in a less pedantic, more holistic sense, still being not that great a singer. Regardless, this is good, if not Fever (2001) good, and it is a sign of progress that he’s openly gay no matter how much he has to be yelled at to make his videos diverse. Points for being cheap enough to use the “Shooting Stars” hook; points off for the video not just doing the meme. You can still get your kit off in outer space, Troye: just ask Kylie. (“Got Me Started”, “Rush”, “Can’t Go Back, Baby”)

***

Preferred Oscar winners, even though it’s boring when the Academy and I agree on what the best American movie of the year is:

Picture: Oppenheimer

Director: Glazer, The Zone of Interest

Actress: Lily Gladstone

Actor: Cillian Murphy

Supporting actress: Da’Vine Joy Randolph

Supporting actor: Ryan Gosling, no matter how bad the optics are

Original screenplay: Past Lives

Adapted screenplay: Oppenheimer

Cinematography: Killers of the Flower Moon

Animation: Across the Spider-Verse