Another list of music you did not ask for — 2021 edition

2020 was a nightmare, a year none of us wants to revisit outside of any rare bright moments that could lift our optimism, which, quite frankly was probably limited to the birth of new family members or the building of a new friendship in a time of isolation. 2021 was not much better. Sure, we discovered how to live with and around COVID, but the other perils of living in this modern world just seemed to close in tighter — starting with the insurrection on the US Capitol building by a bunch of lunatics fed on the adrenaline of a lie to the deepening philosophical and moral divides between us as people to the most damaging and deadly climate crises our modern world has ever seen.

Much of our expression of this time and hardship came through our art. And not all of it was dire or sorrowful. Some was optimistic and hopeful, such as the roaring inauguration poem, The Hill We Climb, by Amanda Gorman, or Esperanza Spalding’s album of healing, Songwrights Apothecary Lab. Even the great show Station Eleven, based on a book from 8 years ago but crazily prescient for today, celebrates the richness of arts and humanity over the peril of survival.

The great vibraphonist Stefon Harris has become an advocate for how music is a gateway for empathy, the most necessary human characteristic for right now if not for all time. “I want my audience to feel the connection between human beings — five brothers who are on the stage who’ve known each other for a long time, who’ve had ups and downs but who love each other. Who are vulnerable, who are willing to take chances in the moment to discover beauty.”

If nothing else, music serves that single purpose, to share a physical connection between artist and audience to feel an emotion of the moment, to be joyous or fragile, spiritual or carefree. Even with music that was composed by bands who were performing from a distance, isolated yet collaborating across virtual connections and shared files, this past year found brilliant music born from the experience of 2020 as well as from years and even decades prior that rang out and allowed us to dance alone or together, crying or singing along.

If you know me, you know how essential music is to my existence. I am not a musician — I cannot play a thing or sing a note on key — but I feed off of music of all types and styles on a daily basis. I hunt for personal music discoveries like an epidemiologist searching for a cure, and 2021 provided an immense wealth of new music to my ears, my skin and my mind that, quite frankly, I did not expect to encounter. And so, I present to you my list of favorite music from 2021 in no order other than alphabetical. This year, I include a list of remasterings of existing recordings that made old music brand new again, made brilliant by some incredibly dedicated music engineers who understand just how important it is to keep these artifacts as alive as possible.

As always, I hope you track down each of these albums and give them time and attention as well as share along your favorite finds of the past year. And here’s hoping 2022 provides better balance for us all.

Best New Music

Isaiah Collier and the Chose Few, Cosmic Transitions. In a year that saw the release of a discovered live version of Coltrane’s A Love Supreme live, Cosmic Transitions was recorded by Isaiah Collier and the Chosen Few at Van Gelder Studio on the 94th anniversary of John Coltrane’s birth. It is similar to A Love Supreme in that the ensemble is a soprano/tenor led quartet with piano, bass and drums and the suite is constructed of multiple parts speaking to a holistic idea, but while A Love Supreme was Coltrane’s ode to faith, Cosmic Transitions is an ode to one’s acceptance or self. zThis album easily ranks as not only one of my favorites of this years, but of this 21st century.

Bill Charlap Trio, Street of Dreams. This absolute dazzler of simple, classic jazz piano trio begins their record with Dave Brubeck’s standard The Duke and just dances through the night from there. This is the work of the highest level of professional musicians how love their craft and love the music they are creating. This is the record you want to bundle up in coziness, sip a Scotch and drift away to.

Toumani Diabate and the London Symphony Orchestra, Korolen. Toumani Diabate has been one of the great world beat musicians since the late-80’s, a master of the Malian instrument, the kora. He has played with Peter Gabriel, Taj Majal, Bjork and Bela Fleck among many others. Here he performs with the London Symphony Orchestra (one of two times they appear on this list) for a concert recorded in 2008 but just released this year.

Explosions in the Sky, Big Bend. This unorthodox Texas-based instrumental quartet has had their music used for soundtracks since the movie version of Friday Night Lights appropriated their crescendo building compositions in 2004. Here, EITS was approached by Texas public television to create a score for a documentary about the state’s Big Bend National Park, a place my own son spent a week in earlier year. The music feels very much of that place.

Floating Points and Pharoah Sanders with the London Symphony Orchestra, Promises. How can a single collection of notes played on a harpsichord anchor a nine-movement composition across 46 minutes? Because it lays a foundation for the spiritual jazz legend Pharoah Sanders to improvise over while the London Symphony Orchestra fills with a broad sonic landscape that pull you away from the Earth. It’s so simple yet so amazingly complex. The album also features artwork by Julie Mehretu that is on display at The Broad that was then used as a multi-media element for a larger project around this album.

Jose González, Local Valley. This is González’ first solo record since 2015, and you can sense an evolution in his sound. There’s more depth, more themes, more Spanish language, and all three make for a more immersive listening experience from an artist who was already addictively listenable.

Helado Negro, Far In. This is one of the true ouputs framed by COVID. Roberto Carlos Lange, better known as Helado Negro, traveled to Marfa, Texas with his artist wife for what was intended to be a two-week stay to work in March 2020 but turned into an extended six-month isolation. So, he used that time to create a beauty soundscape devoted to his love for his wife and the place they called home filled with reflections on his Latinx heritage. This feels and sounds of not only now but the future as well.

Vijay Iyer, Uneasy. I am not a Vijay Iyer devotee, but this record has such drive, such purpose. Like Ron Miles’ I Am A Man from 2018, this powerful trio is playing with statement — they have things to say. The compositions are largely pulled from Iyer’s portfolio of work over the past two decades that were explored as part of a 2011 Summerstage production. They are being revisited in the wake of racial tensions and political rifts that led to Wall Street protests, Black Lives Matter, Me Too, Friday’s for Future and so many other movements that put America’s “greatness” to question, the world’s as well. While equity is on trial thematically, there is no doubt of the equity of talent and showcase among these three players. I am especially happy to see the spotlight on Linda May Han Oh continue to shine brightly and the interplay between Iyer and Tydshawn Sorey clearly demonstrates a long and familiar musical relationship. These are masters playing masterfully.

James Brandon Lewis and the Red Lily Quintet, Jesup Wagon. This is the most complex work of the year. James Brandon Lewis is one of the current leaders of a very strong jazz movement globally. He stands shoulder to shoulder with Christian McBride, Shabaka Hutchings, Kamasi Washington, Esparana Spalding, Vijay Iyer, Joel Ross, Jason Moran and Christian Scott Atunde. Here, he creates an entire work focused on the work — the innovation — of George Washington Carver and his endeavor to bring knowledge and best practice to farmers across the south via the Jessup Wagon, his mobile agriculture laboratory he developed as a professor at Tuskegee Institute. The music and its associated spoken work poetry (by James) and liner notes by Robin D. G. Kelley explores the intention, struggle, harvesting, decimation, rebuilding and success of not just an agricultural institution but of enlightenment of a connection between education and farming, science and art. This is not a work for a single background listen but one of multiple focused efforts to really unpack all that lies within it. It is giant and it is vital.

Charles Lloyd & the Marvels, Tone Poem. Charles Lloyd is one of the living pioneers of jazz (he provided Keith Jarrett his first real job), standing alongside Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Sonny Rollins, Pharoah Sanders and Benny Golson as one of the few giants still with us. While Rollins and Golson have essentially hung it up, Lloyd, Shorter, Herbie and Pharoah remain productive, prolific even. This album reconvenes Lloyd with a favored group of collaborators that go by the name of The Marvels and include Bill Frisell, Reuben Rogers, Eric Harland and Greg Leisz. They put some great spins on works from Ornette Coleman, Thelonious Monk and Gabor Szabo. This is the first and only new album to be produced by the original Tone Poet, Joe Harley (a name given to Harley by Lloyd himself), as a Blue Note Tone Poet release, a series of remasters that sound as good as they come (see the remasters list below). This sounds amazing.

Shai Maestro, Human. This is the record that snuck up on me the most. I was not familiar with Maestro (although I should have been as he has been leading groups since 2011 and his work with Avashai Cohen before that) but after reading a highly positive review of this new release, I checked it out and became sucked in the same way I am by musicians like Joshua Redman and Chick Corea. It sounds sterling as all ECM recording do, but with weight. It feels earnest and grounded. And it closes with a shockingly upbeat and joyful version of Ellington’s In a Sentimental mood, a tune you find yourself looking to return to again and again.

Menagerie, Many Worlds. This Australian-based jazz ensemble sounds like they fell straight out of the great early 70’s heyday of Strata East and Black Jazz Records. This is the third record from the nonet led by Lance Ferguson, and it has an almost gospel quality of elevating your emotional sense through music. The title track on the a-side and Hymn of the Turning Stone on the b-side are especially glorious. Listen to this now!

Leo Nocentelli, Another Side. This session happened in 1971. Nocentelli was deep in his role as the guitarist of seminal Big Easy funk band, New Orleans’ house band if you will, The Meters. But he was enraptured with the music coming from James Taylor and Joni Mitchell and Bill Withers. So he had a chance to record a session with the man who “owned” The Meters and their time and in a night laid this music down. And then he forgot about it — likely out of anger at the man who controlled his music and this recording. And then everyone forgot about it. And then Katrina hit and the studio where this was recorded and the tapes were thought to be held was washed away. And then a resolute music producer stumbled upon some boxes of master tapes at a sale in Southern California and in those boxes he found Nocentelli’s solo debut. And he mastered it back from non-existence and it is glorious. The songs fit both in 1971 and now, holding up as well as any great song from those Laurel Canyon legends. This is easily the year’s most listenable “new” album.

Allison Russell, Outside Child. Hailing from Montreal, Russell opens her debut album with a track named for her hometown and sings it with Quebecois majesty. It sounds simultaneously romantic and mysterious, untrustworthy even. “I was your child, Montreal/You would not let me come to harm” she sings, and then you realize this record is going to take you someplace — but where?. And then you hear Persephone and you realize what horror Russell has experienced and is sharing. Yet it does not sound horrific. It sounds bright, hopeful, understanding that the abuse has turned into her chance to reflect. “My petals are bruised, but I’m still a flower.” Indeed. The record follows a path that mimics life — ups and downs, glipses of light leading to deeply dark moments, only to find redemption with its final song, Joyful Motherfuckers. “Grandma always told me, love will conquer hate.”

Dr. Lonnie Smith, Breathe. The things that jumps out about the final album from Dr. Lonnie Smith before he passed away this winter is his collaboration with Iggy Pop on a couple of spectacular covers, including Sunshine Superman. But Iggy’s not the only vocalist on this set — Smith’s “daughter” Alicia Olatuja also wails out a glorious gospel song from Smith’s pen, Pilgrimage. The rest is actually the best, Smith and his band playing at Smith’s 75th birthday celebration concert in New York in 2017. You can boogie to Bright Eyes all day and night long. A fitting sendoff from one of history’s greatest Hammond B-3 organists. Godspeed, Dr. Lonnie, and thank you for this final gift.

Sons of Kemet, Black to the Future. Shabaka Hutchings is approaching the realm of Coltrane so rapidly, deservedly so. He seems to not only understand his stature within the global musical landscape, but thrives in it at a still very young 37. This is a record intended to provoke, and it does, coming out of the gate with a spoken word piece called Field Negus. “Babylon burn down is my jam, mate/It’s my ringtone/We are rolling your monuments down the streets like tobacco/Tossing your effigies into the river, they weren’t even worth a pyre.” But this record is so much more than lyrics reclaiming rights. It’s a global amalgamation of music born from Black experiences and heritages. It classifies as jazz but carries direct sounds from Africa, the Caribbean, New Orleans, refugee camps, South America…everywhere. It is musicians playing everything woodwind and percussion. It explodes equally musically and thematically.

Kaidi Tatham, An Insight to All Minds. From the funk-fueled organ and piano riffs to the outer space cover art, this record oozes Herbie Hancock and the Headhunters. But it’s a modern homage, with beats and synth sounds that are more current hip-hop than 70’s fusion. And then you get some Afro-Caribbean beats. This is great anytime music, too. Road trip — check. Dinner party — check. Background? Sure. Foreground? It’ll make you move. It could single-handedly be the soundtrack to an entire season of Insecure.

Typhoon, Sympathetic Magic. Typhoon has only made great albums. Their last work, Offerings, was colossal recording of four movements exploring the notion of humanity and existentialism and my favorite album from 2018. This record is much more simple, mainly from necessity. Typhoon historically has been an 11-piece ensemble that lived together in a communal style in Portland, playing and recording together to create their unique sound and chemistry. And then band leader Kyle Morton has a relapse of his Lyme disease only to recover and find Covid descend upon him and his musical family. The band also changed a bit, contracting down to a smaller unit for Offerings, while also finding the members growing beyond the core. So, with the ensemble split apart, they recorded this in shifts, each member playing their part in Morton’s basement studio, masks on, or at their own home. This album is about those moments of being apart and understanding self and other, as Morten has stated. This is about being empathetic.

The Weather Station, Ignorance. No other recording form the past year spoke more to the current times than this latest work by Canadian Tamara Lindeman. Her songs address issues of solitude, isolation, longing, anxiety, climate, uncertainty, all weighted with a sense of hope, of something better to come. Lindeman’s work as The Weather Station is typically stripped to more basic folk-rock stylings, but here she has built a full band, with brass and winds, bringing on a jazz-hue like Joni Mitchell or Talk Talk. The second song, Atlantic, perfectly encapsulates this album, starting with the words, “’My god,” I thought. ‘What a sunset.’”, only to be followed a few phrases later with “I should get all this dying off my mind. I should know better than to read the headlines.” How many of us had these exact same thoughts this past year?

Wild Up, Julius Eastman Vol. 1: Femenine. This might be the mightiest new recording of 2021. Julius Eastman was a Black, gay, classical music phenom who performed his own work at his conservatory graduation. This piece, composed in the early 70’s, was based on a simple, repeated sound, much like the Floating Points/Pharoah Sanders work, but on vibes. This repeated rhythm heralds the remainder of the orchestra like a town crier, with the rest of the ensemble building and ebbing like a community town hall debate. Wild Up gives this austere framework such depth and impact, elevating this to one of the most engrossing listens in ages. They pay the highest respect to Eastman’s brilliant work, and to him.

Best Remasters

This year also saw a veritable treasure trove of remastered music, as the vinyl sector continues a crazy ascendance in popularity and sales. This has both been a blessing and a curse for music addicts like myself. So much music is getting reissued looking to leverage the moment for a fast profit, leaving a great number of crappy sounding reissues, especially on Record Store Day(s). But, thanks to those still dedicated to making things as best as they can be, stewards like Joe Harley, Chad Kassem, Kevin Gray, Ryan Smith and Bernie Grundman are working with labels like Blue Note, Universal Music, Pure Pleasure, Vinyl Me Please and many others to bring these great recordings back to fully analog musical life. Here are my picks for this year’s best remasters. If you’re looking to build out a vinyl collection, this is a great place to start.

Hasaan Ibn Ali, Metaphysics. Another found recording long thought lost. Omnivore Recordings

Curtis Amy & Dupree Bolton, Katanga!. The finest of an incredibly fine 2021 lot of releases by Joe Harley and the Blue Note Tone Poet team. Blue Note Tone Poet

The Church, Starfish. One of the ‘80’s best, now with a whole bunch of archive tracks. Intervention Records

Creative Arts Ensemble, One Step Out. A brilliant spiritual jazz recording by a group that sprouted from Horace Tapscott’s Pan Afrikan Arkestra. Pure Pleasure Records

Miles Davis, Kind of Blue UHQR. The finest pressing yet of the finest recording ever. Acoustic Sounds

Dyke & The Blazers, Funky Broadway the Phoenix Years. A greatest hits comp from one of Phoenix’s original and greatest RnB bands. Legend is the term “funky” came from these guys, and the Broadway referenced here is Broadway Rd. in Phoenix, not New York or anywhere else. Craft Records

Dexter Gordon, One Flight Up. One of the few pre-1965 Blue Note sessions not recorded in New York or by Rudy Van Gelder. The A-side is an 18-minute bit of perfection, Tanya. Blue Note Tone Poet

Andrew Hill, Passing Ships. This was a previously unreleased-on-vinyl gem unearthed by Joe Harley and could possibly be the finest recording ever by Andrew Hill. Blue Note Tone Poet

Harold Land, Westward Bound!. One of the few really great Record Store Day gets. Harold Land may be the most underrated tenor sax players ever. Reel to Reel

Yusef Lateef, Eastern Sounds 1Step. This sold out in minutes and I’m still not sure how I managed to sneak one of these out. Yusef Lateef blending the sounds of American jazz and Eastern music to perfection. Craft Records

Pat Metheny and John Scofield, I Can See Your House From Here. Way outside the typical kind of Tone Poet releases, this is such a brilliant record with Metheny taking the right side and Sco on the left. Blue Note Tone Poet

Thelonious Monk, Palo Alto: The Custodians Mix. This is the unburnished mastering of the concert recorded by the high school custodian in 1968. It outshines that produced version that came out a year ago. Impulse!

Music Inc, Live at Slugs Vols I and II. These two recordings are the genesis of one of the greatest jazz labels ever — Strata East. One doesn’t get one or the other…one must have both. Pure Pleasure Records

Charles Rouse, Two is One. Thelonious Monk’s long-standing sax player did not have a deep discography of recordings as a lead, and this is my favorite, given a glistening remastering by Pure Pleasure. Pure Pleasure Records

Wayne Shorter, The All Seeing Eye. Shorter, arguably one of the greatest music composers in American history, created this album with a purpose to better understand the meaning of life. Blue Note Tone Poet

Horace Tapscott & Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra, Live at Century City Playhouse 9/9/79. An incredible artifact released by the reincarnation of Nimbus West with Tapscott and his South Central LA apprentices venturing north of the 10 for a rare concert. Nimbus West

Ken Wheeler and the John Dankworth Orchestra, Windmill Tilter. There is an amazing vinyl community of Instagram, and I learned of this release through that. Thank goodness. Decca Records

Tony Joe White, Black and White. This is who Elvis wanted to be when he wanted to be a country-rock god. Acoustic Sounds

Story of Tribe Records. A nearly complete set of Tribe Records essential spiritual jazz recordings, only missing Marcus Belgrave’s Gemini II. The work done by Vinyl Me Please and Now Again Records was impeccable. Vinyl Me Please

The Verve Acoustic Sounds remasters. I’ll be honest, I have not purchased a lot of these because I own original pressings, but every single one I hear is superb, and the catalog they are releasing, including two of my all time favorite albums in Oliver Nelson’s Blue and the Abstract Truth and Gil Evans’ Out of the Cool, is filled with must owns. Acoustic Sounds