Music Monday, Alien Skin, Zoh Amba, and the Dopolarians

One of the best things about the end of the year is all the “best of the year” music lists. While I don’t put much stock in the rankings that these lists offer, they often alert me to music that I’ve missed for some reason (and we’ll see next week!). 

These lists also give me a nice excuse to tout some music that hasn’t appeared on them (at least not yet!). So here goes.

I was pretty excited to listen to the album Alien Skin (2022) credited to Chad Fowler, Ivo Perelman, Matthew Shipp, William Parker, and Steve Hirsh (and featuring Zoh Amba as well). As readers of this blog know, these are performers who I have very much appreciated over the past year or two. This album is a wonderful improvised studio recording released on the Mahakala label.

Hearing this album nudged me in two directions. 

First, I was excited to check out tenor sax player Zoh Amba’s recent work. Her name was new to me and when I saw it appearing next to the musicians who appeared on Alien Skin, I knew that I needed to dig a bit deeper into her discography. (Check out this short documentary on her.) This led me to her album Bhakti where she teams up with Tyshawn Sorey (whose 2022 has been really wonderful as well!) to produce something that evokes the transcendent tone and fervor of Albert Ayler, but with her own distinctly contemplative and spiritually exuberant style. (At the risk of associating a bit of her rawness to her youth, I do wonder where she’ll take her sound in the future.) 

While I was exploring Zoh Amba’s sound and performances, we were blessed with TWO releases from the Dopolarians, who are a super group, of sorts, in improvised music (featuring Chad Fowler and William Parker who appear on the Alien Skin recording alongside other similar minded musicians including the late Alvin Fielder on drums and Christopher Parker on piano). 

The first album, Sunday Morning Sermon, combines the spiritual intensity of Mingus’s prayer meetings with the improvisation of the post-Coltrane world. It’s well worth a listen.

The second album, Blue for Alvin Fielder, is an altogether different animal. Released to honor the memory of drummer Alvin Fielder (a charter member of the AACM and an Arkestra alumnus!), the album is digital only and features two tracks each runner to around 30 minutes. These tracks are explosions of joy, sorrow, prayer, and energy. I’ve found the album as irresistible as it is indescribable.  

From what I can tell, none of these albums has appeared on a best of 2022 list, which is a bit of a shame, because each of them provide stirring evidence for the continued blossoming of improvised music in the 21st century and have more than enough character, virtuosity, and energy to a compelling statement in their own right.