1) Joshua Redman, “LongGone” / Could you field a better jazz quartet in 2022 than Joshua Redman, Brad Mehldau, Christian McBride and Brian Blade? Go ahead. I dare you. These old friends, all hall-of-fame level players, live up to their collective reputation, delivering the jazz record of the year.
2) Sudan Archives, “Natural Brown Prom Queen” / Brittney Parks delivers one of the most spiritual, sensual records of the year; a seamless mingling of pop, R&B, electronica, folk music and more. You can hear traces of everyone from Lauryn Hill to Alice Coltrane here. But the lasting impression is the way Parks wields texture and voice to craft an immersive listen.
3) JPW, “Something Happening / Always Happening” / Jason Woodbury ranks quite high among my favorite thinkers and conversationalists on music. In his writing and podcasting, the technical serves the spiritual and vice-versa. Great critics and essayists don’t always make great musicians, but Jason shows off his all-around skillset with two releases this year—his work as guitarist for Kitimoto sounding through “Vintage Smell” and, now, his solo effort.
There are many descriptors to float toward “Something Happening”: Psychedelic rock, a sort of jammy, trippy vein of folk. To me, it’s interior soul music. The gentleness and attention inside Jason made manifest in melody and rhythm.
4) Seth Wieck, “My Wife Doesn’t Like These Sonnets” for Ekstasis / My friend Seth Wieck weaves a beautiful, apt surprise into one of his latest poems. What begins as a meditation on the nature of things, both outside our walls and inside our relationships, becomes an even more intimate slice-of-life, a humorous and ultimately glorious peek into one couple’s rooted love.
5) Katie Rose Yen, “Love is walking in the dark” for Fathom / Perhaps of a piece with Wieck’s poem, this exquisite piece treads back through the footsteps of faith that one covenant and two people take, “each of you giving up on deciphering ancient constellations and instead making up your own.” Its kicker, turning over the notion of heavenly inside jokes, is something to savor.