Favorites of 2024

As in 2021, the time-honored ritual of making end of year lists. I found an unpublished draft for 2022 and didn't even try in 2023, but I think it's still a worthwhile activity: any amount of reflection on the year before diving into the next is a measure of appreciation for experiences had. 

This past year, I tried something new on a whim, which was making a long scroll of paper taped from multiple sheets of normal printer paper, then subdividing it into the 52 weeks of the year and adding some creative experiences for each week. After reviewing that through the past 51 weeks, there are some 293 items—not bad, more than I would have thought, almost one little spark or source of inspiration per day.

Films:

• THE ZONE OF INTEREST (starting the year off powerfully)
• ARTIE SHAW: TIME IS ALL YOU GOT (ended up arranging "Begin the Beguine" and playing it at Lowlands, also learning Artie's legendary "Stardust" solo on clarinet)
• AMERICAN FICTION (maybe not one for all time, but has its comedic moments)
• CHAN IS MISSING
• HEAVEN KNOWS WHAT (Safdie brothers)
• AMERICAN MOVIE
• DREADNAUGHT (dragon dance & drum music)
• THEY SHOT THE PIANO PLAYER
• DO NOT EXPECT TOO MUCH FROM THE END OF THE WORLD (pacing and threaded narrative)
• THE EQUALIZER 2
• EVIL DOESN’T EXIST at BAM, (chromatic chorale and abrupt cuts, twist ending)
• SORCEROR (maximum tension)
• MISHIMA (set design)
• THE KING OF COMEDY
• MIND GAME at BAM (listening to OST)
• SEVEN SAMURAI 4k restoration at Film Forum (tapestry of characters, village)
• BOOGIE NIGHTS
• PERFECT DAYS
• CLOSE YOUR EYES
• DRACULA (Coppola)
• THREE COLORS: RED
• MEGALOPOLIS
• THE PICKPOCKET (Bresson, transcendental film concept from Paul Schrader)
• CARRIE
• PEARL
• THE FOG
• TERRIFIER / TERRIFIER 2 / TERRIFIER 3 (maximal gore/carnage)
• THE SACRIFICE 4k restoration at Film Forum
• NOSFERATU (Robert Eggers remake)

Live music:

• Lorin Benedict at IBEAM
• Adam O'Farrill quartet (tonal with funky grooves, longer timescales and longer cinematic charts)
• Adam O’Farrill / Patricia Brennan duo (soothing, ambient)
• David Virelles + Eric McPherson duo (playing/improvising with collage-like pre-recorded or synthesized elements, clave/electronica/textural)
• Elias Stemeseder trio at SEEDS (small, dense units of musical material inhabited and played through, rhythmically intricate and not primarily melodic)
• Kurt Rosenwinkel THE NEXT STEP reunion band at the Vanguard
• Brad Mehldau at the Vanguard with Vicente Archer/Marcus Gilmore
• Adam O’Farrill quartet show at Close Up (landscapes, static/slow moving visual narrative)
• Matt Mitchell ZEALOUS ANGLES at The Jazz Gallery
• Andrew Cyrille Quartet at Vanguard
• Jon Starks solo set at Threes (piano midi controller + vocalizer)
• Adam’s ELEPHANT at The Jazz Gallery (3rd time this year)
• Walter Smith III Quartet at Vanguard
• Neta Raanan quintet at the Gallery
• Elias Stemeseder trio at Close Up (2nd time this year)
• Steve Long PRNCX trio house show in Ridgewood
• Tim Berne/Chris Potter at Lowlands, most packed it's ever been in this bar

Gigs:

• Steven Crammer birthday quartet (learning Alec Goldfarb's quarter tone clarinet part)
• Aaron Seeber Quartet at Smalls (first time playing there in 12 years)
• "Quadruple bass" at Lowlands (quintet with Max, Walter, Simón, Starks)
• Double drum band at Lowlands (quartet with Henry Fraser, Starks, and Kayvon)
• 3 trio live recording dates at Lowlands in April
• Mute album release in Manhattan
• Elijah Shiffer "All the Birds" at the Owl
• Canto Ostinato at the Botanical Garden on the solstice
• Two tenors (round 2) with Ben Solomon in late July
• Last-minute gig with Jochen Rueckert at Lunatico (filling in for John Ellis, finally learning Wayne's "E.S.P." for real)
• Gigs in Spain with Andres Enrique and John Chin, notably Espolón Park in Burgos
• Reuniting with Juanma in Barcelona at 23Robadors
• Trio tour to Arizona and Colorado in September
• Hosting 4 Close Up jam sessions where everyone had to sightread my original music
•  Quartets album release at Close Up with both quartets (one each set)
• Hitting with new quartet at Lowlands and trying new "dialogue" pieces in the fall

Recorded music:

• Isao Tomita's synth arrangements of Debussy and other classical composers (thanks, Christian; also see Red Bull Music Academy interview)
• Max Roach/Connie Crothers duo record, Swish (thanks, WKCR!)
• Robert Schumann's Fantasiestücke No. 1 "Des Abends" (which I later arranged, played a bunch on tour, and recorded), and also “Carnaval," Davidsbündlertänze, "Ghost Variations," “Dichterliebe” and “Liederkreis” vocal songs with piano accompaniment
• Brahms 4 Ballades
• Beethoven Piano Sonata No. 23, Mvt. 3 “Appassionata”
• Chopin Op. 35 Piana Sonata Finale (fast monophony, blurred counterpoint, later arranged and recorded for trio)
• Stanley Cowell “Departure” from Blues for the Vietcong (modal form with hits/breaks)
• Indian wedding music heard in Cancún (freely placed melody over groove)
• Hudson Mohawke “Butter” (groove/layering ideas)
• Brahms Op. 118, No. 2, of course
• Mozart “Lacrimosa” 500% slower (thanks, Jacob)
• Dan Weiss “Even Odds” 
• Elliot Carter Piano Sonata (colors)
• Ryuichi Sakamoto “Derrida” album
• “Swinging with Bud” album with Duvivier and AT
• “After Service” live Yellow Magic Orchestra album
• “Unicorn Overlord” theme music (via Jacob)
• “Capricorn Woman” by Naomi Akimoto
• “Quando, quando, quando” (John sang this at karaoke, then I randomly went on a deep dive to hear every cover version on streaming)
• “Accent on Tenor” album by Lucky Thompson (another Jacob recommendation)
• “Eddie Harris Goes to the Movies” (he plays "Be My Love" on this)
• Rahsaan Roland Kirk live at Montmartre (via WKCR)
• McCoy Tyner solo on “Revelations” (especially “Lazy Bird," another WKCR find)
• Brian Eno AMBIENT
• Charles Brackeen solo on “Abacus” from LE VOYAGE (while learning this for a gig with Peter Watrous)
• Harouni Hosono PHILHARMONY (cool production)
• PS1 nostalgic music/video playlist (many of these, literal music to my ears for when I don't feel like thinking too much while listening)
• Laurie Altman “From Somewhere,” discovering a collection of music from my mentor from my teenage years
• Brandon Seabrook’s “Object of Unknown Function” (refreshing and creative solo work that makes extensive use of studio techniques to create its own sound world) 
• BIRD IN KANSAS CITY (really the archival find of the year along with the Joe and McCoy record, full of quotes and Easter eggs as well as casually peak Bird in a maximally low-key, casual setting)
• Paul Bley/Metheny/Jaco/Bruce Ditmas (via Jacob Sacks)
• Listening and practicing with FORCES OF NATURE, the live at Slug’s record (playing the 79 or however many choruses of uptempo blues with Joe on the first track is a real workout, but imagine actually doing that every night for a week)
• Solo Sun Ra piano records (various, but there's a well-recorded one just called "Solo Piano," full of blues and atonal, rhythmically variegated improvisation — another recommendation from Jacob Sacks)
  
• On YouTube: Ornette live '71 (Dewey! Charlie! Ed Blackwell!), Roy Haynes '73 extended solo with unbelievable bass drum pedal control and wild video editing (also phenomenal Joe Henderson)

That's plenty for now. I might keep updating or draft up a complementary post with some additional notes for the year, but posting now before this ends up accidentally in drafts for eternity. 

* * * * *

Games:

• THE LAST OF US REMASTERED + PART II (especially) - nonlinear and interactive storytelling, moral ambivalence and maximizing emotional impact through the interaction/implication of the player
• ELDEN RING DLC - truly an improvement upon and tightening of the base game, extraordinary boss fights and sense of verticality/depth in the world, and I did spend multiple hours-long sessions split between weeks on the last boss
• SHENMUE - voiceacting, pacing, deliberate downtime & boredom
• SHENMUE II - not as magical as the first, as the expanded setting and cast of characters generally made the townspeople less interesting as side characters, but still fun

Remembrances:

John McNeil (1948–2024):

I studied with John privately at NEC for multiple semesters and also took his ensemble class. He gave a lot of concrete advice about practicing and playing tunes, and I know I have notebooks from a decade ago with patterns, harmonic substitutions, and lots of other practical information that made both immediate and long-lasting improvements to my musicianship. Of course, John was also hilarious and had an amazing dark, dead-pan sense of humor, much of which can only be circulated as verbal lore, but I specifically want to shout out the jam session that he co-ran in Park Slope at the Tea Lounge back in the day with Mike Fahie. I wrote a bit about it at the time, but also included a favorite memory from those sessions in my college thesis, a collection of essays about learning to play music:

On the other hand, appropriating darkness for comedic ends can be a surprisingly successful way to make light of otherwise truly dark situations. At a low-key jam session in a Brooklyn coffee shop, I was chatting with the trumpeter running the jam as he was counting the night’s take from the tip jar. As we spoke, he asked me to stick out my hand. When I did, he reached over and dropped two dimes matter-of-factly into my palm. “Who said you don’t make money playing jazz?” he said, either smirking or grimacing.

I regret not reaching out to John in the years since I finished at NEC, but I was so pleasantly heartened to hear from him out of the blue in January 2021, still in the midst of the pandemic. Subject line: "Bird Confirmation," (referring to this), first sentence: "Hey, man — great job!"

He hipped me to some hidden Bird information stowed away in the Benedetti tapes when I was in college, and during my pandemic-era deep dive into Bird's discography, I discovered that some of the things he alluded to, which I hadn't heard before, did indeed exist on tape. Thanks for everything, John.

Liu Yuan (1960–2024):

When I first moved to New York in late 2015, I was hardly working as a musician and still trying to get more of the fundamentals of my playing together. I remember distinctly the immense frustration of getting chances to play for audiences, and I ended up returning to Beijing quite often because I was able to work all the time there. One of the biggest reasons for that was a club (still around) called East Shore Jazz Club, which Liu Yuan opened in the mid-2000s. By the time I met him, he had largely stopped doing gigs, although I do remember him trying my horn (which would have been a Conn New Wonder at the time) and digging it. He was well-regarded as the saxophonist in Cui Jian's band (known as the godfather of Chinese rock music), and I was just one of many, many musicians in Beijing who benefited from having the opportunity to perform regularly at East Shore thanks to his blessing. He also gave me practical advice, including remembering to talk to the audience and putting some more air into my upper register, which I still think about regularly. I'm grateful for the support and encouragement he gave me and so many other musicians over the years.