Music Monday: The New Music
- Feb 13, 2023
- 2 min read
I know that I’ve been kind of looking in the musical rearview mirror lately and I did promise last week to post on some more contemporary stuff. So here’s your dose of contemporary music in rotation at the Caraher casa.
First, I’ve mentioned in the past how much I dig James Brandon Lewis. His 2021 Jesup Wagon with the Red Lily Quartet remains one of my favorite albums of that year. This year, he released — digital only — Eye of I with Chris Hoffman on Cello and Max Jaffe on percussion. Kirk Knuffke’s cornet sneaks onto a couple tracks as does the Fugazi spawned Messthetics. The entire album feels anchored in the blues and soul traditions while not so grounded as to avoid some brilliant flights by Lewis which soar above the paired down accompaniment on some tracks and a busy, noisy, din on others.
Plus the label, ANTI-Records is streaming the entire joint on YouTube. If you dig it and dig that approach, buy a copy from Bandcamp here.
I was pretty excited to see a new Lakecia Benjamin album come out in January. Check out the opening track from Phoenix (2023).
Angela Davis, sirens, and a saxophone that comes straight from a very urgent place. Like so many modern contemporary jazz albums, there’s a ton of special guests, featuring, and so on to keep the albums sound diverse. At times, some of the very special guests distract me from Benjamin sax, which is disappointing only because I feel like it can always hold its own. But I get that a proper party takes a village. Check the album out here.
I don’t really know Derrick Gardner and his band, The Jazz Prophets, but I really like his new album Pan Africa (2023). I especially like that he plays Jackie McClean’s Appointment in Ghana, which isn’t exactly a jazz standard, but fits kind of obliquely into an album of post-bopish African-tinged jazz.
This album many not stand out quite like Eye of I does, nor does it have the outright swagger of Phoenix, but it is really good music and I haven’t been able to remove it from my playlist. Check out the rest of it here.
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