Don’t let zombie music eat your mind.
You would possibly really feel assured there’s little hazard that aggressively bland tunes will infiltrate your playlists, however a current piece in “The Honest Broker,” cultural critic Ted Gioia’s constantly perspicacious Substack column, suggests in any other case.
Previewing an upcoming investigative ebook by journalist Liz Pelly, Gioia detailed Spotify’s technique for siphoning cash away from precise musicians and composers by seeding ambient, classical, digital, and jazz playlists with hundreds of generic tracks by pseudonymous “artists.” A jazz playlist rapidly gathered some 4 dozen variations of basically the identical piece credited to nonexistent musicians with the auto-generated sounding names corresponding to Trumpet Bumblefig, Bumble Mistywill, Whomping Clover, and Qeazpoor.
“An obscure Swedish jazz musician got more plays than most of the tracks on Jon Batiste’s ‘We Are’ —which had just won the Grammy for Album of the Year,” Gioia studies, that means that Spotify can additional keep away from paying precise artists. With a lot good new music accessible, there’s no purpose to devour nameless dreck. Combat the zombies. Assist native artists and take a look at (and even buy!) some essentially the most fascinating 2024 releases by Bay Space artists.
Right here’s our roundup.
“Strange Arts,” Ian Carey Wooden Metallic & Plastic (Gradual & Regular): El Cerrito trumpeter/composer Ian Carey pays tribute to his late father, graphic artist and collage grasp Philip Carey, with a set of bumptious chamber jazz items toggling between lengthy through-composed passages and bursts of improvisation. His writing typically options vivid voicings, taking full benefit of his bandmates’ voices with alto saxophonist Kasey Knudsen, bassist Lisa Mezzacappa, drummer Jon Arkin, cellist Jessica Ivry and violinists Alisa Rose and Mia Bella d’Augelli.
“Guinga,” Natalie Cressman & Ian Faquini (GroundUP Data): The third album by the remarkably full Bay Space duo of trombonist/vocalist Natalie Cressman and guitarist/vocalist Ian Faquini basks within the luxuriant musical world of its single-monikered namesake, certainly one of Brazil’s most outstanding songwriters. A mentor to Faquini for the previous decade, Guinga performs on 5 tracks (becoming a member of the duo on three songs and Cressman alone on two), and his supremely subtle lyricism pervades the mission.
“Bridges,” Brian Ho (Cellar Music Group): San Jose organist Brian Ho’s second album “Bridges” finds him maintaining firm with guitarist Paul Bollenback and drummer Byron “Wookie” Landham, the rhythm part tandem of the late B3 legend Joey DeFrancesco. He’s greater than as much as the problem, sounding poised, soulful and confidently in management on a set that revels within the organ combo custom with out getting caught in any specific idiomatic rut.
“Esotérica Tropical,” Maria Jose Montijo (self-released): Generally known as Majo to pals and Esotérica Tropical on the bandstand, Puerto Rican-reared, East Bay-based shaman, healer, vocalist and harpist Maria Jose Montijo celebrates the pure world, ancestral ties and the sheer intoxicating energy of rhythm on her debut album. Mixing folkloric devices (harp and drums) with up to date manufacturing through Luis Maurette, Heidi Lewandowski, and Adam Partridge, Montijo crafts an intoxicating sound laced with Afro-Puerto Rican bomba percussion and incantatory vocals.
“Ghosts On the Water,” Erika Oba (self-released): That includes her working trio with bassist Christian Bastian and drummer Jeremy Steinkoler, Berkeley pianist Erika Oba’s debut album focuses on spikey unique compositions that simmer and surge with out ever boiling over. The concluding track, with particular visitor Roopa Mahadevan’s Carnatic-inflected vocals, ties the evocative mission along with a bow of uncanny remembrance.
“The Golem and Other Tales,” Sam Reider and the Human Arms (Human Arms Music): Working in an acoustic realm the place jazz, chamber music and bluegrass converge, Oakland-based pianist/accordionist Sam Reider and his all-star combo The Human Arms carry out his ingenious work impressed by Isaac Bashevis-Singer’s Jewish folktale “The Golem” with nary a reference to klezmer. That includes an excellent forged together with violinist Alex Hargreaves, alto saxophonist Eddie Barbash and fiddler and cellist Duncan Wickel, Reider artfully deploys an array of influences, creating an totally private cosmopolitan people mélange.
“It’s Here,” Anne Sajdera (self-released): San Francisco pianist/composer Anne Sajdera’s third album is a beautiful program of preparations that show her present for deploying lustrous harmonies on each unique items and requirements. Opening with a bossa-inflected tackle “Stella by Starlight” that references Stevie Marvel’s “Creepin’,” she’s in superlative firm with drummer Deszon Claiborne and bassist Gary Brown (and trumpeter Mike Olmos and alto saxophonist Jesse Levit on 4 of the album’s eight tracks).
“You Can’t Stand Still,” Patrick Wolff (Phenotypic Recordings): San Francisco saxophonist Patrick Wolff’s belated launch of this 2018 London session with legendary South African drummer Louis Moholo-Moholo, a longtime pressure on the European jazz scene, and British pianist Alexander Hawkins is a revelation. Specializing in Wolff’s originals, Bay Space pianist Adam Shulman’s “Sweet Pea (Mingus Dreams of Billy Strayhorn)” and Aboriginal Australian songwriter Ruby Hunter’s “Yarian Mi Tji,” the trio sounds limber and kinetic, ebbing and flowing with conversational intent.
Honorable point out
Listed here are one other 10 albums that may hold zombies at bay.
“Kind of Kenny,” Jason Keiser (OA2 Data)
“Original Gadjo,” Sizzling Membership of San Francisco (Sizzling Membership Data)
“Synergy,” Michael O’Neill Sextet (Jazzmo Data)
“Itkuja Suite, Invocations On Lament” Lease Romus & Heikki Koskinen (Edgetone Data)
“Vieja Escuela,” John Santos (Machete Data)
“All Species Parade,” Jenny Scheinman (Royal Potato Household)
“Technicolor Ghost Parade,” SticklerPhonics (Jealous Butcher Data)
“Bay Blue,” Patrick Wolff Quintet (Bop Metropolis Music)
“Panoply,” Denny Zeitlin (Sunnyside Data)
“Two Roads,” Dann Zinn (Ridgeway Data)
