I’m cataloging the albums I add to my Apple Music library each month. I’m not sharing any singles, just the LPs and EPs. I review each album in a couple of paragraphs (for the most part), but I can recommend virtually all of them, since the albums I don’t like get removed from my library as soon as the judgment is made.
If you missed previous posts, here are the ones for January and February.
This month, I’ve arranged the albums by the order of release date, with the older albums at the top.
Live at the Regal
By B.B. King
I can’t remember where, but I came across a list of the Best Live Albums of All Time, and B.B. King’s Live at the Regal was the only one on the list I hadn’t heard before. So I added it to my library.
B.B. is at the height of his powers here. The crowd is on fire, and his voice is as great as ever. From the opening notes of “Everyday I Have the Blues” to the closing squelch at the end of “Help the Poor,” Lucille sounds great, as she always does under the fingers of her blues master.
My only complaint is that, since this was recorded in 1964, most of the songs come in under four minutes, with a couple of them lasting less than three minutes and one stretching only as long as a minute and forty-five seconds. When B.B. and Lucille sound this great, and the band is cooking, my modern ears want songs that last seven to ten minutes. Alas, wax records could only hold so much noise.
Ampgrave
By Lullabye Arkestra
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again until the end of time: my favorite band is Do Make Say Think. Lullabye Arkestra was formed by Justin Small, the drummer of Do Make Say Think, and bassist Katia Taylor. Sometimes, the band is nothing more than a duo; at other times, it contains over 20 musicians playing everything from keyboards to a full horn section. The vocals come from punk rock, and Taylor’s bass is angry and strong, but the instruments are anthemic, rocking, and rolling.
This album from 2001 is fantastic, but some of it might scare off the normies.
Two for Joy
By Ruby Rushton
This experimental jazz quartet from the U.K. contains a rotating cast of musicians led by saxophonist and flutist Ed Cawthorne. They fuse jazz, Afrobeat, hip-hop, and electronics into a groove that digs into your bones. Cawthorne was originally a DJ who often sampled jazz in his work. In 2007, he taught himself soprano saxophone, and instead of sampling jazz, he began creating it. After hooking up with other musicians who could push and expand his sound, Ruby Rushton gained prominence on the scene. Two for Joy was recorded live in a single day, and it showcases the tremendous musicianship of this fantastic quartet.
Raw Cause
By 1000 Kings
Released in 2018, Raw Cause is the one album this month that I just keep coming back to. The opening number, “The Drop,” is infectious and joyous, and the band doesn’t let you go as it moves its way through the next seven tracks.
If you’ve read my previous posts this year, you know I’ve been falling hard for the many iterations of Shabaka Hutchings. His bands The Comet is Coming, Shabaka and the Ancestors, and Sons of Kemet have totally upended the music I’ve listened to this year.
Well, guess who plays saxophone with 1000 Kings?
Shabaka strikes again!
Brahja
By Brahja
Brahja, from 2019, is the other album I keep coming back to from March. Led by the multi-instrumentalist Devin Brahja Waldman, this jazz cooperative of mostly Montreal musicians creates an atmospheric saxophonic masterpiece grounded by cymbals, piano, bass, and synthesizer. The band had been playing together for over a decade before recording this album in a de-sanctified church in Quebec, and their ability to play off each other and build whole sonic environments that swirl in and out of each other’s solos proves once again that time is the best maestro.
Ginger Ale (EP)
By SOYOUZZ
This 2019 EP of five songs delivers just over 22 minutes of funky grooves put together by a group of six young musicians from Montpellier, France. If you like Herbie Hancock’s more infectious grooves, hop aboard SOYOUZZ’s rocket of a debut release. You won’t be able to stop your head from bopping. The horns hit together like the best of Maceo’s bands. The guitar rips deep into the funky bassline, and the electronica comes at you like so many meteors, flung from all directions and perfectly aimed to make you bop.
There’s not a single sleeper on the EP. It’s a perfect album for cooking a multi-course meal in your kitchen with a glass of red wine sloshing around as you dance.
Resavoir
By Resavoir
Another album from 2019, Resavoir’s self-titled debut revealed this experimental indie jazz collective as one to watch. The Chicago band’s leader, trumpeter Will Miller, has lent his sound to artists such as Lil Wayne and A$AP Rocky while finding influence in post-rock and indie rock. He developed this album by sketching out songs at his house, then reworking them with his Chicago friends, adding harp and saxophone to his drums, guitar, keys, and trumpet.
This is a relatively mellow album compared to some of the albums above—the second song, also titled “Resavoir,” has the calls of seagulls on it, for example—and there’s a distinct lack of funk, but that’s not what Miller is going for here. Instead, we get a full mid-tempo sound that supports his well-composed flights of fancy.
If SOYOUZZ’s Ginger Ale is great to cook too, this one makes great background music for cleaning the house.
Solo Ballads
By Pasquale Grasso
Do you like the idea of a classically-trained Italian-born jazz guitarist who was once named the Jazz Ambassador of the United States and toured on behalf of the embassy to places such as Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Cyprus, Lithuania, and Ukraine applying his incredible fingers to jazz standards such as “Embraceable You,” “Over the Rainbow,” and “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes,” rendering them unfamiliar while also turning them into the perfect versions of their pure selves?
If so, give this one a listen.
You’ve cleaned your house to Resavoir, cooked the meal to SOYOUZZ, and now it’s time to sit down and eat with the one you love, romancing them with candlelight, pasta, red wine, and Pasquale Grasso.
Could We Be More
By Kokoroko
Another U.K. based jazz and Afrobeat band, Kokoroko is an eight-piece group formed in 2014 and named itself after a Nigerian Urhobo word that means “be strong.”
That strength is present from the banging first notes of Could We Be More. The percussion brings the West African vibe, but as the band explained in an interview, “What would our traditional [West African] music sound like coming from London, where there is a massive melting point of cultures? And what would it sound like if it came through our perspective? We can’t escape London being a part of our musical DNA: it’s what we grew up listening to. It’s our sound. It belongs to us.”
Kokoroko, along with having the best band name of this month’s additions to my library, does something unique with its vocals. The voice is another instrument in the mix, not the lead.
If you enjoy Fela Kuti filtered through London, you’ll dig these folks.
Cowboy Carter
By Beyoncé
I listened to Cowboy Carter on the day of its release. That morning, I had to be in the car for 90 minutes, driving through the early spring landscape of the Valley of Vermont, perhaps one of the more beautiful regions east of the Mississippi River. The sun rose over the Green Mountains, burning the morning fog off the lake, river, and fields as I drove past, but not even the beauty of nature could compare to the sound of Beyoncé coming out of my speakers.
She calls this her country album, but the whole concept of musical genres cannot begin to cover what she does on this album.
Cowboy Carter is another entry in an incredible discography that includes Lemonade, The Lion King: The Gift, and I AM…SASHA FIERCE, reminding all those TayTay fans that Queen Bee is not done with her throne.
Frameworks
By Scheen Jazzorkester, Cortex, & Thomas Johansson
Thomas Johansson is a Norwegian jazz trumpeter and composer. For this album, he brings together two of his ensembles—Scheen Jazzorkester and Cortex—for a night of live music in the winter of 2022.
The band contains two trumpets, tenor, alto, and baritone saxophones, trombone and bass trombone, two double basses, two sets of drums, and an electric organ.
More than anything, the sound reminds me of Charles Mingus’ compositions, with some fantastic trumpet solos thrown in. I enjoyed the album, but I didn’t find myself coming back to it.
Happiness Bastards
By The Black Crowes
First, let’s get real. This is not a “Black Crowes” album. It’s an album by the band’s two founding members, Chris and Rich Robinson, the singer and lead guitarist, respectively, a pair of brothers who didn’t talk to each other for about 15 years and who finally started playing music again back in 2019. The Robinson brothers are accompanied by their long-time bassist, Sven Pipien, who joined the band on their fifth album in the late nineties, and three new members: a rhythm guitarist, drummer, and keyboardist.
So, this isn’t the band that released the first three seminal Crowes albums, Shake Your Money Maker, The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion, and Amorica.
But the Robinson brothers have always been the heart and soul of this southern rock outfit, and it’s nice to have them playing music again. Chris Robinson’s instantly recognizable voice sounds better than ever, and Rich’s blues-rock-influenced guitar stylings still have the power to get your toes tapping.
It may not be the original band, but for the Black Crowes to put out this solid of an album exactly forty years after their founding is quite the accomplishment, and the brothers should be celebrated for their work.
Speak to Me
By Julian Lage
Julian Lage is one of my favorite guitarists of all time. If he releases an album, I’m downloading it on Day One and playing it non-stop on my Writing playlist for at least a week straight.
Speak to Me sees him playing with his latest trio of Jorge Roeder on bass and David King on drums, but they’re joined on a few of the tunes by Patrick Warren on piano and keys, Levon Henry on reeds, and Kris Davis on piano.
The album covers a broad range of styles and genres. It opens with an acoustic “Hymnal” played on a Spanish guitar before waking up with the electric guitar and horns on “Northern Shuffle.” Warren’s rock sensibilities keep the rhythm moving, bringing a 1950s vibe to the piano’s driving force. The third track, “Omission,” has a folk-rock sound to it, with Western-style guitars calling up images of wild horses roaming the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.
This is one of Lage’s most accessible albums. It’s all instrumental, sure, but it’s not jazz, not rock, not classical. It’s everything, played beautifully in six minutes or less.
Visions
By Norah Jones
I’m a sucker for Ms. Jones. I’ve had a crush on her since her debut smash, Come Away With Me, was released in 2002. Her latest album, Visions, doesn’t stray far from what she’s great at. Her songs mix sensibilities from jazz vocalists, pop, and adult mid-tempo rock.
But you don’t listen to Norah Jones for musical extravagance or genre-bending instrumentation experiments.
You listen because her breathy voice evokes your heart to love, grieve, and soar.
