When I first assembled this playlist, it was early days of list season just after Thanksgiving, when the first dozen lists tallied in the 2018 Music Year End List Aggregate, Kamasi Washington’s sprawling spiritual jazz fusion double album Heaven And Earth lead the pack, and UK group Sons Of Kemet’s experimental, noisy, cacophonous Afro jazz funk Your Queen Is A Reptile was #7. As of this writing, Washington was pushed down to #14, and Sons Of Kemet #22, but that’s still pretty good.
Since sleekly fat, deluxe reissues have come out celebrating the 50th anniversary of the likes of The White Album and Electric Ladyland, that would be like Peter Brötzmann’s Machine Gun topping the 1968 lists (if there were any) instead of Beggars Banquet or Astral Weeks. Okay, maybe 1968 is tough to compare to, especially when you include The Pretty Things’ S.F. Sorrow and The Kinks’ The Village Green Preservation Society. The first year-end list that aggregated a wide range of critics from various publications was Village Voice’s (RIP) Pazz & Jop lists. In 1971 the top entries were Who’s Next, Sticky Fingers, Every Picture Tells A Story and Tupelo Honey. So maybe it would be like if it were instead topped by Carla Bley and Paul Haines’s avant experimental big band project, Escalator Over The Hill. Or Alice Coltrane’s (with Pharoah Sanders) Journey in Satchidananda. Mahavishnu Orchestra’s The Inner Mounting Flame impressively came in at #11, but it took years for Can’s Tago Mago, Flower Travellin’ Band’s Satori, Herbie Hancock’s Mwandishi and Fela Kuti’s Open & Close to be consider equally worthy entries to that canon.
While Ariana Grande and The 1975 are creeping up the aggregate, it is at least a little heartening to see, beyond the two jazz albums, other innovative artists get some props in various lists like Makaya McCraven, Ben Lamar Gay, Ezra Collective, Szun Waves, Al Doum & The Faryds, Maisha, Idris Ackamoor & The Pyramids and Kamaal Williams.
I put together this playlist to see how well these diverse artists play together. It turns out, pretty well! I removed Sons Of Kemet because as great as they are, they get a bit headache inducing. But there’s a lot of great stuff to explore this year beyond what you find at the top of the year-end lists. Due to a volunteer trip to an animal sanctuary, I had a late start, so it’ll be at least another week for the Fester’s Lucky 13 and year-end summary. Until then, enjoy this.
This is my background music – rhythm, repetition, texture, and a touch of space madness.
Tony Allen & Jeff Mills – Tomorrow Comes The Harvest (Blue Note)
Sly & Robbie Meet Nils Petter Molvær feat. Eivind Aarset and Vladislav Delay – Nordub (Okeh)
These two sets of collaborations are both evocative examples of the fusion of ancient riddims, Afrofuturism and contemporary jazz and techno. Tony Allen of course was the musical director of Fela Kuti’s group, and they key architect in creating Afrobeat. Detroit techno legend Jeff Mills might be a bit too respectful of Allen, but that’s fine by me, letting his drums dominate the album. Sly & Robbie are the drum and bass engine behind countless reggae classics since the 70s, and they take the riddims to Norway for a chilly jazz electro dub infusion.
Angélique Kidjo – Remain In Light (Kravenworks)
Covering an album in its entirety is a tricky proposition. Is it tribute or pisstake? Righting wrongs or a celebration? Possibly it can be all those things. White musicians appropriating from African culture is always going to be ethically wobbly territory. Despite the complicated issues, Talking Heads’ Remain In Light remains one of the greatest albums of all time, and it seems at least David Byrne has made an effort to pay it forward over the years in giving touring musicians work and through his label Luaka Bop. Whatever her intentions, Kidjo may not surpass the original, but she definitely puts her own joyful stamp on the classic.
Makaya McCraven – Universal Beings (International Anthem)
Sometimes the drummer isn’t just an employee one throws a bone “give the drummer some!” In Makaya McCraven’s case, he runs the show, and is quickly gaining a sizable following for his adventurous methods of assembling recordings of improvised live performances into ambitious art works, as in the case of his latest album. Recorded in four cities with different sets of musicians, he employs hip hop mixology techniques to tie together performances like samples into cohesive whole that reflects his international origins, growing up with a Hungarian folk musician mother and jazz drummer father who played with Archie Shepp among others. European folk, Gypsy, Gnawa, Senegalese pop, hip hop, dub reggae are all part of his jazz DNA. In an era of reactionary politics and repression, this kind of expansive multicultural creativity is an essential element protest music.
Sitka Sun – Sitka Sun (The Long Road)
Al Doum & The Faryds – Spirit Rejoin (Bongo Joe)
Szun Waves – New Hymn To Freedom (Leaf)
Tenderlonious – The Shakedown Featuring The 22archestra (22a)
Maisha – There Is A Place (Brownswood)
Ezra Collective – Juan Pablo: The Philospher EP
There is an amazing variety of artists with different takes on jazz fusion in 2018, including Oakland based bassist/arranger Patrick Murphy, who’s debut Sitka Sun is a deft fusion of jazz, Afrobeat and psych. Italy’s psychedelic Al Doum & The Faryds, London’s Szun Waves who take a progressive electronic approach, and Tenderlonious, the flautist who works with Afrobeat, Latin jazz, funk and electronica. Ezra Collective’s “Pure Shade” was a highlight on this year’s Brownswood compilation We Out Here, who also mix Afrobeat with jazz funk. Their labelmates Maisha came out with an impressively ambitious spiritual jazz debut.
Goatman – Rhythms (Rocket)
Goatman is a solo project from one of the anonymous masked members of Sweden’s Afrobeat/kosmische/psych band Goat. This might as well be a Goat album, as it’s completely in line with their gradual drift away from fuzz psych guitars and toward a variety of global musics, including a variety of African sources, Eastern and reggae.
Kosmischer Läufer – The Secret Cosmic Music Of The East German Olympic Program 1972-83: Vol. 4 (Unknown Capability)
Camera – Emotional Detox (Camera)
Minami Deutsch – With Dim Light (Guruguru Brain)
Mildlife – Phase (Research)
Kosmischer Läufer’s fourth volume completes The Secret Cosmic Music Of The East German Olympic Program project, a massive undertaking spanning six years in which Martin Zeichnete supposedly unearthed motivational films and music used to put athletes into meditative states to subconsciously plant into them the tendency for WINNING. I think it’s all made up, but there’s always some lingering doubt, because who knows what those crazy Commie teams did in the 70s! East Germany did progress from earning 66 medals at the 1972 Olympics (3rd overall) to 90 in 1976 (2nd), and 126 in 1980 (2nd). Of course they also were accused of doping during that period too. But it’s cool to think music has a part in it. Germany’s Camera and Japan’s Minami Deutsch offer up more convincing 70s style kosmische. Melbourne’s Mildlife create an endlessly smoove fusion of jazz, space rock and psych prog.
More!
Pharaoh Overlord – Zero (Ektro/Hydra Head)
Vaudou Game – Otodi (Hot Casa)
Bixiga 70 – Quebra cabeça (Deckdisc)
Strategy – Dub Mind Paradigm (Khaliphonic)
Scientist & Hempress Sativa – Scientist Meets Hempress Sativa In Dub
Tangents – New Bodies (Temporary Residence)
Here Lies Man – You Will Know Nothing (RidingEasy)
Sunwatchers – Sunwatchers II (Trouble In Mind)
Kamasi Washington – Heaven And Earth (Young Turks)
Elephant9 Greatest Show On Earth Rune Grammofon
Vive La Void – Vive La Void (Sacred Bones)
Jungle By Night – Livingstone (ND)
Idris Ackamoor & The Pyramids – An Angel Fell (Strut)
Kamaal Williams – The Return (Black Focus)
L’Éclair – Polymood (Beyond Beyond Is Beyond)
Andy Rantzen – Blue Hour Vol. II (Ken Oath)
Caudal – Fight Cry Fight (Drone Rock)
Ben Lamar Gay – 500 Chains (International Anthem)
Ben Lamar Gay – Downtown Castles Can Never Block The Sun (International Anthem)
Seun Kuti & Egypt 80 – Black Times (Strut)
Nicklas Sørensen – Solo 2 (El Paraiso)
Space Afrika – Somewhere Decent To Live (Sferic)
