My favorite recordings of 2015

It’s a tradition for reviewers to draw up a Top 10 at the end of a calendar year. It’s also a tradition in an online music community that I’ve belonged to for about as long as I’ve been writing for the Green Man Review, and that’s the list I’m using here. With the usual disclaimers – the choice of 10 as well as the limits of a calendar year are pretty arbitrary when it comes to music, and my selections might’ve been different on a different day – here it is.

10. Kamasi Washington – The Epic
This release is epic in many ways. Three CDs holding nearly three hours of music; sweeping themes; homage to many previous eras of jazz, from bop and hard bop to soul jazz, funk and beyond; and not least Washington’s use of a large string section and vocal choir as backdrops for his big jazz ensemble. Here’s a live performance of the album’s opening number, the audacious “Change Of The Guard.”

9. Terry Adams – Talk Thelonious
The pianist for the rock group NRBQ has always wanted to make an album of Thelonious Monk’s music, and now was the time. He gathered some of the musicians he’s been working with for many years, they held two rehearsals and then recorded a live date in Burlington, Vermont, in 2012. The result is a wildly entertaining slate of Monk music, much of it like you’ve never heard before. Take a listen to “Gallop’s Gallop.”

8. Eliza Carthy & Tim Eriksen – Bottle
I equally love Eliza Carthy and Tim Eriksen, and both have similarly hardcore attitudes toward the folk music of their native lands – Carthy the UK and Eriksen the USA. It’s a natural fit. Eriksen’s craggy, in-your-face mid-range voice blends delightfully with Carthy’s earthy alto, and his eclectic range of skills with stringed instruments complements her drop-dead, inimitable fiddling. The surprise was the pairing on several songs, of Eriksen’s distorted electric guitar with Carthy’s fiddling and vocals, as on this one, “Cats and Dogs (You Seaman Bold).”

7. Anna & Elizabeth – S/T
Anna Roberts-Gevalt and Elizabeth LaPrelle make absolutely amazing music in the Appalachian tradition. Deceptively simple arrangements and unadorned vocals and a deep understanding of the music combine to make this debut recording utterly beguiling. Lots of others thought so too, including NPR, which had them do a “Tiny Desk Concert,” which included this demonstration of the lost art of the “crankie.”

6. 3hattrio – Dark Desert Night
This trio from southern Utah makes beautifully stark, evocative country-folk music. What does it evoke? The red-rock desert country where they live, around Zion and Bryce Canyon national parks. Songs like “Sand Storm” (played here at the 2015 Moab Folk Festival) can be both literal and metaphorical.

5. Lady Lamb – After
The songs on Aly Spaltro’s sophomore release are a melange of singer-songwriter confessional-type lyrics played in an indie-rock setting. She plays a chiming, clean electric guitar that can leap from folksy fingerpicking to full-throated power-pop roar in the space of a heartbeat. You’ll be hard pressed to find a catchier song this year than the opener “Vena Cava” a meditation on the inevitability of heartbreak, the gentle folksy verses punctuated by rocking refrains that revel in singing as a means of empowerment. Here’s a rough-but-right live version:

4. Terakaft – Alone
An off-shoot of the global powerhouse Tuareg band Tinariwen, Terakaft emphasizes the rock in West African blues-rock a bit more. And its melodies are friendly and hummable for those steeped in Western traditions. This is desert rock as power pop. Here’s a promo video.

3. Vacilando – While They Were Dancing
John Shepski’s slow, melancholy songs, played with sensitivity and passion by his Portland, Oregon, band Vacilando on this EP quickly rose to the top ranks of my playlist this year. Post-modern production with lots of ambient sounds highlight the isolation and ennui in the lyrics of songs like “Down All Day” and “Everyone She Talks About.” Here’s a suitably grainy performance video of those two songs at Portland’s Mt. Tabor Theater.

2. Calexico – Edge of the Sun
Joey Burns, John Convertino and Co. take on themes of global consequence such as immigration, surveillance and climate change, and marry them to matters of personal urgency. Memory, dreams, the need for intimacy and the healing power of art filter through all of these songs, which soar on Burns’s durable melodies and Convertino’s powerfully subtle drumming. This in-studio performance of “Cumbia De Donde” gives a good idea of the energy and versatility of this band.

1. Anat Cohen – Luminosa
It’s not necessarily the “best” jazz album of the year (that would probably be Vijay Iyer’s Break Stuff), but this list isn’t about “best,” it’s about what affected me the most. Anat Cohen’s Luminosa gave me more pleasure than any other record this year. I liked her previous release Claroscuro a lot, but this one with its heavy dose of Brazilian choro continues to knock me out every time I listen to it. I love her interpretation of the electronica track “Putty Boy Strut” (see video below) and her sensual bass clarinet on “Cais,” and her homage to Baden Powell, and the strutting soul-jazz tenor work on “The Wien Machine” – and every other track.