- Briano Eno, Dieter Moebius, Hans-Joachim Roedelius – Cluster & Eno. The product of an extended collaboration in a rural German retreat, this 1977 album still stands as one of the better things any of these electronic-music luminaries have done. It’s more melodic and interesting than the pure background of the ambient music Eno would develop a few years later, and more consistently beautiful than much of Cluster’s previous work. These delicate miniatures are more attractive to me than the more rock-like songs on their follow-up effort, After The Heat.
- Andrew Hill – Smokestack. Although Andrew Hill’s run of mid-60s albums on Blue Note is some of my favorite jazz ever recorded, I did not really appreciate this one the first few times I encountered it. It’s an oddball lineup — piano, two basses, drums — and the compositions are dark and twisty. Listening to it again recently, I abandoned all previous reservations; it’s great stuff, a distillation of Hill’s inimitable style.
- Geri Allen – Etudes. Another pinnacle of modern jazz piano, with brilliant accompaniment from Charlie Haden and Paul Motian. Her version of “Lonely Woman” sounds perfectly natural on piano, a real accomplishment; Ethan Iverson calls it “the first truly acceptable version of Ornette Coleman’s most famous ballad with piano in the lead.”
- Vin Gordon – African Shores. The British saxophonist Nat Birchall is not the only jazz musician to have fallen in love with reggae music. But he may be unmatched in his commitment to playing reggae in a respectful idiomatic style, without letting jazz preoccupations with individual virtuosity get in the way of the music. He produced and played on this new late-career album by the great Jamaican trombonist Gordon, who delivers indisputably excellent instrumental reggae throughout.
- Pete Rock – Center Of Attention and The Original Baby Pa. A time capsule from the golden age of hip-hop: these albums were recorded in 1995 but went bafflingly unreleased at the time. Pete Rock’s beats are excellent, and provide many fine headnodding moments in his classic style, even if the rapping is not always as interesting as the production.
- Makaya McCraven – Universal Beings E&F Sides. The sequel to one of the best jazz recordings of 2018, and very much more of a good thing. The casual vibe and accessible rhythms of this project disguise McCraven’s radical rejection of the usual strategies of the jazz avant-garde: there are few extended solos or complex compositions here. Instead he favors a collective groove, atmosphere and interlocking parts.
The Tangled Woof 