Mid-year picks: 30 + 10 favorite album releases from January through June, 2024

A two week long vacation led to an unplanned two week blip in the Listening Booth posting schedule. Coinciding with that blip, I received and invitation from Tom Hull to provide ballots for the first Mid-Year Jazz Critics Poll. This gave me an excuse to look back at the music of the previous six months, and as I did last year, atone for the lack of posts by covering the highlights in the slot that is normally dedicated to the “Midweek pick”.

As I have mentioned before in relation to such “favorite lists” both here and on my previous blog, ranking music in any strict sense doesn’t come natural to me. Throughout the many years I’ve been writing about music in a professional manner, I’m increasingly finding that I discover so much great music that triggers my mind, body and soul in such a myriad of ways, that singling out one such instance above the others would not only be unfair the the music in question, but not really an honest response to my experience with it.

Of course, I still connect more with some albums more than others. So I agree those instances are worth highlighting. Also, for potential readers of this post that might find some of the music listed here intriguing, I realize there is a utility in getting recommendations. As such, the list is roughly ordered by such criteria. That said, all of these come highly recommended.

While there are certainly more albums I could recommend, I have stopped at 30 favorites here. Most of these releases I have covered in writing either for Musikkmagasinet, in Jazznytt, or on this Substack. For those instances, I’ve added and asterisk. Below those 30, a short list of other musical favorites that do not necessarily fit as comfortably into the “big tent” jazz/improvisation field that I cover in a professional manner, but that I have nonetheless thoroughly enjoyed these past six months.

New albums:

• Ivo Perelman / Mark Helias / Tom Rainey: Truth Seeker (Fundacja Słuchaj)*: A glorious album by three brilliant, now veteran, musicians, constantly searching yet with a distinct forward outlook and movement. The music is at times rough and rowdy, yet they move through it with amazing fluidity and grace, discovering truth in their empathetic, free-flowing, supple interplay.

• [Ahmed]: Giant Beauty (fönsteret): Among the most fascinating groups working today, [Ahmed]’s re-arragemants and re-imaginantions of the music of Ahmed Abdul-Malik goes beyond one’s wildest expectations. Here, five 40 plus minute long pieces spread across 5 CDs, if you were lucky to grab a copy. Or just go for the downloads.

• Mary Halvorson: Cloudward (Nonesuch)*: I wouldn’t necessarily say this is a better album than this group’s excellent debut, Amaryllis, one of my favorite albums of 2022, but in Cloudward I hear an increased sense of focus, thrust, even punch, in Halvorson’s compositions, while still leaving plenty of room for this excellent sextet to collectively and individually add both heft and nuance, color and shade to this riveting music.

• Eirik Hegdal Eklektisk Samband: turnchest (Particular Recordings)*: Norwegian multi-reedist, bandleader, composer and arranger Eirik Hegdal has assembled a group of collaborators both old and new(-er), with the seeming task that any idea is valid. The results is a fascinating collage of various musical forms and ideas. Since they’re not shy about naming influences themselves, like Carla Bley, Kate Bush, and Mitlon Babbit, I’ll add that I hear echoes of the likes of The Microscopic Septet, Aksak Maboul, even Pere Ubu in places. Eclectic? Sure. Does it work? You bet.

• Tomeka Reid Quartet: 3+3 (Cuneiform)* The strings and drums quartet’s third album, three compositions, two long, one short, relatively speaking. Perhaps their best to date, which is saying something.

• Aki Takase Japanic: Forte (BMC Records)

• Alan Braufman: Infinite Love Infinite Tears (Valley of Search)*

• Flukten: Flukten (ODIN Records)*

• Luke Stewart's Silt Trio: Unknown Rivers (Pi Recordings)*

• James Brandon Lewis Quartet: Transfiguration (Intakt Records)*

• Amina Claudine Myers & Wadada Leo Smith: Central Park’s Mosaics of Reservoir, Lake, Paths and Gardens (Red Hook Records)*

• Matt Wilson: Good Trouble (Palmetto)*

• Fay Victor Herbie Nichols SUNG: Life Is Funny That Way (TAO Forms)*

• Fully Celebrated Orchestra: Sob Story (Relative Pitch)*

• Signe Emmeluth's Amoeba: Nonsense (Moserobie Music Production)*

• James Brandon Lewis & The Messthetics: The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis (Impulse!)*

• Amalie Dahl’s Dafnie: Står op med solen (Sonic Transmission Records/Aguirre Records)

• Erlend Albertsen Basspace: Name of the Wind (Dugnad rec)*

• I Am Three: In Other Words (Leo Records)*

• Frank London & The Elders: Spirit Stronger than Blood (ESP-Disk)*

• Janel Lappin's Ensemble Volcanic Ash: To March Is to Love (Cuneiform)*

• Signe Emmeluth: Banshee (Motvind)*

• The Choir Invisible (Charlotte Greve, Vinnie Sperazza, Chris Tordini): Town of Two Faces (Intakt Records)

• Oren Ambarchi / Johan Berthling / Andreas Werliin: Ghosted II (Drag City Records)

• Olie Brice / Rachel Musson / Mark Sanders: Immense Blue (West Hill Records)*

• Nils Økland Band: Gjenskinn (Hubro)*

• Ivo Perelman, Chad Fowler, Reggie Workman, and Andrew Cyrille: Embracing the Unknown (Mahakala Music)

• Joel Ross: nublues (Blue Note)*

• Jonas Cambien: Maca Conu (Clean Feed)*

• Fire!: Testament (Rune Grammofon)

“Other”:

• Waxahatchee: Tigers Blood (Merge Records)

• Deerlady (Mali Obomsawin, Magdalena Abrego): Greatest Hits (5729715 Records DK)

• Gastr Del Sol: We Have Dozens of Titles (Drag City)

• Yard Act: Where’s My Utopia? (Universal/Island Records)

• Mach-Hommy: #RICHAXXHAITIAN (Mach-Hommy Inc.)

• Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru: Souvenirs (Mississippi Records)

• Kim Gordon: The Collective (Matador)

• Fox Green: Light Over Darkness (Fox Green)

• Adrianne Lenker: Bright Future (4AD)

• il sogno del marinaio: Terzo (Imporved Sequence)

While I have not been able to go to many concerts so far this year, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention some of the mesmerizing live music I experienced during this year’s edition of Vossajazz in Voss in late March. Gigs like Signe Emmeluth’s Amoeba, whose latest album, Nonesense, is included in the list above; the catchy and free wheeling David Murray, Ingebrigt Håker Flaten and Paal Nilssen-Love trio; William Parker’s Mayan Space Station trio, who lifted off from the sounds of their glorious debut album and played an hour or so of truly transcendental music; and perhaps best of all, Ole Morten Vågan’s Mirror Image, a really exciting octet of voice, fiddle, reeds, drums and percussion, with bassist Vågan at the center, with music that dug deep into riffs and vamps with increased intensity, such as in their rollicking cover of Joe Lovanos’s “In The Land Of Ephesus”, and then proceeded to blow the proverbial the roof off the sucker. Fingers crossed they’ll record soon, or at least do an expanded tour, because this is music that more people deserve to hear.