NPR Music - New Music Friday: The best albums out Nov. 8

Episode Date: November 8, 2024

NPR Music's Ann Powers and Daoud Tyler-Ameen are your guides to the most compelling albums released this Friday.Featured albums:• Ab-Soul, Soul Burger• Jamey Johnson, Midnight Gasoline• Our Girl, The Good Kind• Various Artists, Like Someone I Know: A Celebration of Margo GuryanCheck out the longer list of albums out Nov. 8 and stream our New Music Friday playlist at https://npr.org/music.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Just a quick note, this podcast contains explicit language. Well, David, we lost a giant this week. Quincy Jones at 91 left us for the next bardo. I'll tell you a funny thing about myself. When I was 12 or 13, one of my favorite movies was the First Wives Club. I don't know how it happened. You could just stop there. The climax of that movie, I don't know if you've seen it,

is Goldie Hawn, Bet Midler, and Diane Keaton, three middle-aged women who have been left by their husbands for younger women and decide to exact petty revenge. It closes with them repeating this routine that they learned in college when they were all best friends, where they sing and dance to You Don't Own Me. It's my first exposure to that song. Leslie Gore's classic. You don't own me not just one of your many toys. You don't. And then I learned some years later through a Netta Ulibee piece on NPR that that song was produced by Mr. Quincy Jones in 1963. That it had this weird connection to civil rights, most notably.

But then, you know, over time, it became refashioned as like a Me Too song. It became, you know, an LGBT-type song once Leslie Gore came out. This song that's sort of known as very linked to like second wave feminists. also had this sort of secret alliance to Quincy Jones and to black music was just a wild surprise. I mean, Ben Ratliff's obituary in The Times was really great. Talked a lot about how he embodied, you know, black social mobility and artistic mobility. And I think that's so, so true. I mean, he'd accomplished so many things during his life, published so many amazing writers, your dance, Daniel Smith, Joan Morgan. Shout out Daniel Smith. And of course, we can go all the way back to his Seattle roots and his youthful friendship with and partnership with Ray Charles.

His work with Frank Sinatra, which his arrangements completely revitalized Sinatra's career. His film scores. Obviously, everyone always talks about thriller and his huge pop breakthroughs. But he really did so much. And one thing that Quincy Jones did for me, without me knowing it at the time was kind of turned me on to jazz.

When I was in high school, I got a hold of some George Benson music. Give me the night, for example. It just, my friend Jody Rosen was like, this is one of the most inventive pop songs ever, you know. And it also is just like such a great feeling, even just thinking about that song. It makes me happy to think about it. So thank you so much for everything, Quincy.

Wow. Well, what a legacy. Hey, everyone. It's New Music Friday from NPR Music, here to talk about the best and most discussion-worthy albums out today, November 8th. I'm Daud Tyler Amin, here with Critic and Correspondent, Ann Powers. Hello, my friend. Hello, my friend.

We're actually taping on Election Day a distant past. where neither we nor anybody else has any idea how it shakes out. On today's show, the return of Country Tribor, Jamie Johnson, a modern tribute to a beloved unsung voice of 60s pop, and we get help sorting through an especially packed release date for jazz. But first, if West Coast hip-hop is having a new moment in the sun this year, there is one voice that I know a lot of millennials are really happy to have back in the mix. The TDE rapper Absol, whose new mixtape is called,

called Soul Burger. Some heavy I just had to read it. Ain't know my name I ain't had to repeat it. I'm with the bribe, blah, blah, blah, blah, all that like Kellen.

Some heavy themes ahead, just warning, death, mental health, etc. This record from Absoul follows his 2022 record, Herbert, which really plumbed the depths of an extreme chasm for him. He reflected on the 2012

suicide of his girlfriend, the singer of Laurie Joe, and his own what he called a suicidal blackout, which I believe included a suicide attempt during the early pandemic lockdown. This album is a tribute to his childhood best friend, Doberger, who was a close affiliate of the TDE crew. He died in 2022, and I believe it is his voice that you're hearing occasionally in spoken interludes throughout the album. Settle down, settle down, y'all. I'd like to tell you. I'd like to Take the time to introduce to the stage this new young brother. I like this brother. He go by the name of Soberg.

Cue the son. It begins in a pretty spellbinding way, I would say, this very naked self-decleration where he's sort of telling us where he's been in the manner of a lot of rap intro tracks, but with just this very bare, kind of gospely vocal as the only musical backing. And then when the beat finally drops, we get a couple of surprises, right? there's two samples that jumped out to my ears immediately. One is Back to Life, that iconic 90s club song by the British group Soul to Soul.

But then also the beat from Shook One's Part 2 by Mob Deep. That beat in itself contains some famous samples from Herbie Hancock and topically Quincy Jones, his track Kitty with the Bent Frame. But of course, yes, it's that weird sound that sounds like It's probably horns, but it sounds like, I don't know, like a laser printer or something. That's Quincy Jones. But since 2002, that song has been connected, I think, in a lot of people's minds with the climactic scene from 8 Mile, the M&M quasi-auto biopic, where he wins the final rap battle in the movie on top of this song's instrumental.

And so to hammer that point home, in the back half of this song, we get some bars from Absol. that are direct interpolations of Eminem's, you know, I am white, I am a bum, I do live in a trailer with my mom verse, this preemptive strike where he's sort of roasting himself and stealing his opponent's ammunition. Here, the burns, the self-burns are, I am broke, I am on drugs, I did jump off a bridge. It's really heavy stuff, but it's delivered in a way that feels really energizing, I think. Spells, you know what's saying? What's going on?

Hey, oh, Arnie, can I keep it going? Absolutely my check. Can I talk my shit? Can I keep it real real quick? I am broke. I am on fucking drugs. Don't know. I'm paying rent with my baby's moms.

I take a 7.6 two for top dog. I did jump off a bridge on the Lamo Boulevard. I'm blessed. But question why God would have mercy on a junkie. Biggest lie I ever told is that it ain't about the money. I'm dripping. I'm still. Absolutely.

I'm such a graceful rapper. And I love the way his mind jumps from one reference to another. For all of the heaviness of this record, I feel like there's a kind of a, I'm not going to say joy, the most overused word in the English language, but there's a kind of delight in just enjoying his wordplay,

at least for me. You're right to sort of focus on the skill and the technique. Those are the things that, to me, keep it from being a bummer. People were hyped about Herbert because he had been like just in the cut for a minute before that. Right, right.

And it seems like he really likes to work. And so to hear him like, flexing and exercising his muscle and his craft. It's such a big deal. When he showed up on stage at the popout, Kendrick Lamar's Juneteenth concert, all of the things that that signal, Tyler, the creator, getting this really rapturous reception

and Steve Lacey being in there, being included in that cohort, even though he's sort of a parallel taste. But the moment that I saw people on social media being the most excited about was this dawning realization that we were going to see black hippie reunited on stage. The sort of supergroup

of Kendrick Lamar, Schoolboy Q, J-Rock, and Absol. Kendrick sort of very quickly distinguished himself as the breakout star, you know, as often happens in groups. Which I think Absol himself would be happy to admit. Yeah, but Absol has often been the least visible in that conversation. And like I said, to be fair, he's taken some long breaks from rapping and from public life in the past decades. So I think knowing what he in particular has been through in recent years just made it extra special for people. to see them all together and just, you know, kind of having the time of their lives. He's got some huge names on here, you know.

Yeah. We both loved what Vince Staples does. Vince Staples shows up on a song called California Dream and just reaffirms his bona fides as just like one of the most reliable guests you can get on a hip hop track. The wordplay again on that song, the combination of humor and a sort of steelyness. What does he say? Call me what you want? Just don't call the police.

Or deader in jail. somewhere in between. Vince was a Long Beach Crip. I mean, he knows that life. One other song that I want to focus on here before we move on is a track called Crazier. Jid is the feature here, or J-I-D.

The start of the show for me is this beat produced by Cal Banks. It's these like distorted Tom sounds or maybe 808s, I don't know, that kind of stand in for more clear, like, kick, snare, hat elements and kind of imply a beat and imply

a baseline. The weird sort of deep echoiness of it and the fact that you can't really like grab onto anything really feels in line with the, you know, with the lyrics. Yeah, the sort of like manic repetition that both Jid and Absal are are sort of conjuring on. It's very like virtuosic rapping on a technical level, but they also are able to conjure the feeling like rambling and disconnected from reality. Is this the one where he, where, where, One of them says, I'm JZier. Jayzier, like Jayzee? I love that.

I love that. That's good. Science is great but God greater. More wabier. We made it this far. Tip the bartender. Sign the autograph for the waiter. All the talk is getting radical and racier.

We ain't forgot the path nor the past, no erasure. I'm locking in a focus like a laser and we lap dog niggas who lazier. By the day, it's getting crazier and crazier and crazier and crazier and crazier and crazier and crazier and crazier and crazier and That is the mixtape Soulberger from the TDE rapper Ab Soul. His past few years have been kind of a comeback story, and I'm told that is also the case in for our next artist. But why don't we travel from South Central to my neck of the woods? That guitar song, that lonesome twang from Jamie Johnson.

It wasn't always music, but the times when it was music, still the greatest moments in my life So, Daryl, that voice, does it just like reach out to you and pull you in and a giant hairy bear hug? Are you feeling it? I mean, that is a voice that says this person has lived. And specifically, Jamie Johnson has lived for 14 years

without putting out a new album, although he's been on the road, he's been out there, touring, he wasn't off hiding somewhere in his home state of Alabama. But he is back with this great new record. I love this record. It is classic country from one of the Titans, the 21st century Titans.

You know much about Jamie Johnson? I don't. And honestly, when I first saw a picture of him, sort of assumed he was a little bit more of a scene elder. I was shocked to realize that he's only 49 because he has this mass of long gray hair and this beard

that sort of reaches down past his belly. He's not into the manscaping or whatever those modern those 2024 country stars. So no, tell me about him. Where he comes from and how we get to this new record, Midnight Gasoline. Yes. Well, okay, so Jamie Johnson

he broke through in Nashville in 2008 with his second album, which is called That Lonesome Song. And he was instantly country royalty after that. He had already been writing songs, a lot of hits in Nashville. Most notably, he was a writer on to me, one of the best country songs of the early 2000s, but to many, one of the worst, or at least one of the most made fun of. Yes, I am talking about Trace Atkins' classic song, Honky Tunk, badonka-dunk. Oh, that was him? Yeah, he has a credit on that song.

So, Jamie Johnson has this breakthrough. He had this ballad in color that was a huge, massive hit. It won song of the year at both the CMA and the ACM Awards that year, which is very unusual. And, you know, what people loved about him was this classic sound and also his incredible writing skills, you know, both things. But take note, this is 2008. This is before our current wave of,

you know, neo-outlaws before Sturgel, Simpson came around, before Chris Stapleton came around, Jamie Johnson was the standard bear for that kind of sound. Chris Stapleton is a co-writer on this album. I know all those guys admire Jamie Johnson so much. In fact, let's hear a little bit of one of the songs

Chris Stapleton co-wrote, along with a legendary swamp rocker Tony Joe White. This is Saturday night in New Orleans. I know Swamp Down, Sal. As a little town just across a punch of train. Somewhere around sundown, a crowd starts forming every night. It's Saturday night in New Orleans. As I said, Johnson hadn't recorded new material for a very long time.

He suffered a concussion in the early 2000s. That that actually impacted his ability to write, which is really sad. And I know what that's like. You do, actually. You've been through it. Actually, can we talk about that for a second? Because, like, what he said is so interesting. He said he hadn't lost the ability to write, but he didn't feel his creativity was sparking in the same way.

Like, he wasn't able to be as imaginative as what he said. Apart from just the inconveniences of being, you know, post-concussion, being just, like, sensitive to light and sound and having a shorter fuse and, you know, having headaches and being tired and all of that stuff, is that you're short. is that your short-term memory, I think, gets really constrained because you burn cognitive energy a lot faster. And I think short-term memory is where a lot of the magic of songwriting lives. That moment where your mind is sort of running away almost faster than you can write everything down and where you're still open to lots of possibilities. He apparently found a neuroscientist in Arizona that helped him recover some of those skills. So the concussion was part of it.

He got sober during this period of time, so that was probably part of it too. He maybe had some struggles around his business side as well. That might have kept him out of the studio. But back to the concussion thing, wordplay is everything to Jamie Johnson. I want us to talk about a song that you actually noticed who the co-writers were when we were talking about this. Let's talk about that song, what you answer to. If you ask my daughter, I'm just. Daddy, if you ask her mama, I'm a fool.

If you ask old Bill, he calls me buddy. It's kind of like a scumbum-bum anthem, but it has this desire to correct the record where appropriate, right? Yeah. He says, some things are so dead on, but some things could not be farther from the truth. And it's like, what's the line in Ocean's 11? You're a thief and a liar. I only lied about being a thief. Right, right, right.

I'm not saying I'm great. Right. We should mention the hook on this. It ain't what they call you. It's what you answer to. And the whole song is like a litany of what his ex-wife calls and what the people he owes money to calls him, what, you know, the law calls him, all this stuff. And you were the one, as I said, David, who figured out the co-writer. So let's talk about that a little bit.

Yeah, a great surprise to spot these in the liner notes. AJ and Jeremy Popoff, the two brothers who are the singer and guitarist of the band Lit, who you'll remember from the song My Own Worst Enemy. Right, right. If you bought an electric guitar between 1999 and 2001, I think that song came pre-installed. Can we hear a little bit of it, come on, share a little, share a little of it. See, that's kind of country. That's kind of country. And we were talking with our editor, Jacob Gans, before we got on the mic today. And he was saying he thinks Litt was like the most country of the pop punk band.

Well, this is a, I mean, this is a point that you made very ably and something that I'd never thought about before. As somebody who's listened to more pop punk than I have country. But there's a little bit of a kind of natural resonance in the, I guess, the things that those two groups find funny. And the kinds, the kinds, the, the, the, the kinds. the kinds of wordplay that they choose to sort of balance a song's idea on. It's this combo of like storytelling first, but also wordplay. Another song in this album shows off the wordplay too. It's called What of You? And it's about meeting someone that first moment when you meet someone. But I love how in this song, which Johnson co-wrote with a bunch of his Nashville buddies, I just love the way the phrase, what of you, turns into what of,

you. Like, and so the way that what of you, which is like, I'm looking at you across the bar, what an amazing view. You're just so beautiful. Turns into like, okay, is this going somewhere? What of you? Are you into me? That, that's just beautiful. And the setting for this song, which is kind of this like faux Spanish kind of Jimmy Buffett setting, not really, not Caribbean at all, but it's got this like slightly Spanish thing going on in it. The mellow seduction. I just love it. Yeah. And then when the line I've seen the lights of Paris comes in, we get maybe a concertina. Some very French-sounding instrumental part sneaks in. I'm glad you brought up the production, just to finish the story of how he got back in the studio.

So Jamie had been hanging out with his friend Toby Keith, who died recently of stomach cancer. They were writing a song together. They were writing a song together, and he said they were like on the phone. and kind of making a plan to get together and finish the song, and shortly after that Keith passed away. And that's what made Jamie Johnson realize I got to get back in the studio. None of us know how long we have. So that was his motivator. And then he went out to Cash Cabin,

which is the studio that John Carter Cash, Johnny Cash's son, runs in Hendersonville. He brought in all his people. He brought in his original production crew, the beautifully named, and again, back to the word play, they call themselves the Kent Hardly Playboys. The Kent Hardley Playboys. I didn't even get it until he said it out loud.

It's so good. So he brought them in and recorded a bunch of songs with them, and then he brings in Dave Cobb, like I mentioned, who's been such a miracle worker for so many artists. And apparently he's recorded lots more tracks. So that's exciting, too. We're going to have more music beyond this from J.B. Johnson. Why don't we go out with the title track, Midnight Gasoline, which to me has one of the more poignant images on the record.

These windshield wipers make it all too clear. I'm nothing but a memory. Over. That's all you had to say about us. No breaking down. No breaking up on my shoulder. Goodbye. Never even crossed your door. That is why I'm on this trip, trying to get old.

That is the album Midnight Gasoline by Jamie Johnson. Much more new music to share with you right after the break. Up next on New Music Friday, a quick detour across the pond to check in with the British band Our Girl after a notable absence. Our Girl's first album in six years is called The Good Kind. Our Girl is a trio from London by way of Brighton. Sof Nathan is the singer-gatarist. You might also know her from the band The Big Moon. Joshua Tyler is the bassist, and Lauren Wilson plays drums.

And a thing that I enjoy about the story of this album is that it was kind of made twice. They put a lot of prep and rehearsal into their idea of what the record was going to be, which was basically sort of a note-perfect live album. They sort of mimicked the contours of their live performance, tried to get as tight as possible. And then as soon as they listened back to it, they could kind of tell that just something was off, something was missing. So they went to the home studio of Fern Ford, that's Sof Nathan's bandmate from the Big Moon, and they spent, I think, three times as long there than they had on the original sessions, just pulling the takes apart and adding new parts, adding post-production techniques to kind of fill in the gaps. And you can really hear it. This is a really, really atmospheric interior. sounding record that I think it takes place in sort of, I mean, I would say within the mind, but there's also a, it's not a record about solitude. To me, it feels really like it's a record

about relationships and about community and the things that are sort of unspoken between people who love each other. So I want to look at the song, what you told me, because it feels really emblematic of everything that I think this record is doing. It begins with the lines, I can't know what it's like this aching on your mind and body all the time if I could lend you mine. And so we get right away this idea that because I love you, if you feel something, I feel it too. It's a sympathetic vibration that moves both of our bodies or if it doesn't literally, you know, please know that I wish it could so that I could take some of the weight off of you. Right, exactly.

If something is wrong with my baby, something is wrong with me. I love this closing image in the song too We stayed up late yesterday to be awake together Now you're sitting on my bedroom floor playing your guitar I know it's so great It's like that final image It's like a little movie or something I love that

Another song that feels A little bit more express about The identity stuff That I think is running through all of this record Is Who Do You Love And this line My small world's good to me But I saw it shake

when I came clean feels, I mean, I got a big pang from that one because I think it's, you know, it's applicable to lots of things. The idea that, you know, the world that you inhabit has certain protections that are sort of built into your experience and sometimes greater freedom lies on the other side of giving up some of those protections and disclosing your full self to the world. And so to me, I hear this as a song about queer community, about the ways that, like, those secrets can feel protective. But if you're prepared to go through the sort of destabilizing gauntlet of giving some of those secrets up, you may find that a fuller version of you is waiting on the other side and know that your friends will help you. Absolutely. That's a great interpretation. I think the song on here that, that, that, gets at a similar theme that I love is called relief. And that song, which seems, which again,

Seth Nathan's not a super direct lyricist. Like, you know, she's not laying it out. No, no, no. It's very illiptical. It's evocative. She's an evocative storyteller. At the end of that song, which I believe is about someone coming to terms with their identity and their place in the world and in community and what it means for others' expectations of them. Just the final, the final few bars of it where she's singing, what a relief it is to know you, what a relief to say, I adore you. It just feels like this incredible moment of catharsis.

And the music matches it. Things get louder and I think a little faster, and it's just sort of like this rush of blood. And then this very sweet moment, we get the sound of cheering and applause in the studio. Which is always nice when that happens. It's a fun thing to hear on record. That is the album The Good Kind from the band Our Girl.

One more album before our lightning round, and it's a throwback of sorts. Anne, talk to me about Margot Gurian. Yeah, this is actually a tribute to Margot Garian. It's called Like Someone I Know, a Celebration of Margot Gurian with a bunch of artists that we love out on subpop. But you might be asking yourself, who is Margo Grin and why does she deserve a tribute album? and therein lies a tale. So Geryn is one of those 60s cult faves, you know, kind of like Judy Sill or Karen Dalton,

she's a woman singer-songwriter that people have rediscovered in this century. Only her story and her music are a little different. She was a jazz devotee and a pop songwriter writing for lots of different people back in the kind of mid-60s. And then she heard God Only Knows by the Beach Boys. And it completely changed her life. Before she heard that song, she wasn't really interested in what was happening in like rock at all. But she heard that song and she decided to go psychedelic, basically.

And she made this record called Take a Picture. It came out in 1968. And I don't know. Maybe we should listen to something from that record, like maybe the title track, just to get a sense of what Margo Green. his own music sounds like... Sunny day just in my... What is the name for this sound?

That's a good... Yeah, that's a good question. It's a really know it when you see it kind of thing. That's what makes it so unique. It became a huge cult phenomenon and over the years it's been discovered and rediscovered by different people and this record collects some of those artists who are in debt to Geryan and some of the bigger names on this. record. We talked about Claro. Betoine is on this record. Frankie Cosmos does a track with the Australian.

Yeah, I like that one. Margo Price, who maybe people didn't realize they think of Margo as a country record, but I love her track on this California shake. Yeah. There's a little blues in that guitar. I know. I like that Margo's sort of like splitting the difference in between the origin and the destination. I'm assuming that's Jeremy Ivy, her husband, who's quite the psych pop artist himself. I don't know, you ask what would this music be called. I want to call it psychedelic pop, you know, but maybe we should just call it lollipop. I think that's what it is, lollipop. I'll take it.

One of the voices that I personally was most curious about on this record was June McDume. Oh, yeah. I learned of for the first time earlier this year because of her guest appearance. on Emmanuel Wilkins album, Blues Blood. She co-wrote a couple of the songs on that album, she sings on it, she duets with Cecile McLaren Salvant, and here she covers the song, Thoughts, starts out with this sort of wordless vocalizing,

and then we get this crusty keyboard sound, like a busted speak and spell. One track that stood out for me was by the Brooklyn-based artist Barry, Barry's version of the song Love. It's a very, very much an uncanny Valley kind of project. You know what I mean, David? Because they are paying tribute to a sound. It's not like, say, if there's a Joni Mitchell tribute or a Bob Dylan tribute, you can do those songs in so many different ways. They've been done in so many different ways. But this is about like, we love this sound that she got. And we might love the songs as songs too, but how do we interface with and

and sort of either recreate or go beyond that sound. There's a lot of those like strawberry fields drum fills that sound like a drum kit falling down the stairs, but it's all very controlled. And yeah, Barry is, I mean, it's probably the most modern sounding thing here. And yet the underlying song, this is the interesting thing about this kind of juxtaposition, the underlying song is so simple in certain ways that it winds up having kind of a timeless feel anyway. That's a key aspect of Margot Gurean's genius.

I think. She wrote these fairly simple songs, but then she took it, I don't know, it's just like she drops some acid or something. I don't know that she actually did. There's sort of a nursery rhyme like logic to the lyrics that then gets pulled a little inside out by the sophistication of the music. That is the tribute collection, like someone I know, a celebration of Margo Geryon. As always, there is more new music out this week than we can pop up. possibly hope to cover in depth. Other artists with new music out today include primal scream, widespread panic, Garfunkel and Garfunkel. Yes, that is the duo of Art and his son Art Jr. I guess I kind of took the legacy block there. Ann, who do you got? Well, I have a couple of

interesting soundtracks. Claire Roussay, who's one of our favorite uncategorizable artists, has composed a score for the 1980 animated film The Bloody Lady, which is by the Czech Animerization. actor Victor Kubal, and that film is about the legendary murderer Elizabeth Bathory, so this is a very interesting combo of elements. And the Speaker's Corner Quartet, one of my favorite new jazz funk soul, whatever combos out of England, has done the soundtrack to Mr. Loverman, which is a BBC show, which poignantly highlights LGBTQ life in black British communities. And finally, this is a band camp find. The English folk pop artist Ellie Gowers has such a lovely voice and a great songwriting sensibility. And she's releasing an EP called You the

Passenger. I've also been looking forward to the new record from Max O'Creme. He's a rapper from Houston who had a real breakthrough moment in 2021 with his second album, Weight of the World, which explored the effects of two major changes in his life, becoming a public fit. after the release of his major label debut and also the death of his brother, who was killed in 2020. Maxo has this really unmistakable voice. It's very muscular, but with this casual kind of shuffly flow that is very tough not to not along to, even when he's talking about some pretty dark stuff.

Maxo Cream's new album is called Personification. But that is still not all. After the break, we'll check in with NPR Music's jazz critic Nate Chenen for a scene report on the sound of jazz this season, and a few of the new releases that are on his radar, including some new artists, some lifers, and an unearthed vintage performance from Miles Davis. That's after this. Welcome back to New Music from NPR Music. I'm David Tyler Rameen here with Anne Powers, and joining us now, out of Motown, Philly,

Nate Chenen, editorial director at member station WRTI and NPR's resident jazz critic. Hello, sir. What's up, y'all? Hey, Nate. Nate, we asked you to join us for this last segment of the show because in addition to the albums we've spoken about already today, there are a bunch of really interesting jazz records out this week, stuff that I know I at least would have missed without a little bit of expert guidance.

So let's get right into some music. What do you want to talk about first? You know, there is a singer that a lot of people have not heard of yet, but I think that she's about to break through. Her name is Venetia Gould, and her new album's called She's Not. shiny, she's not smooth. I love that title so much. I instantly love this record before I even heard it. As I was, as I knew I was coming on, you knew it, you said I was going to love it. I said, this one's got Ann Powers written all over it. It totally does. She's got such, such a presence,

so much like attitude and sass, you know. She writes her own material. It's like really swinging and connected to the band. But she is working with some interesting ideas in here, ideas about propriety and, like, what is expected of a woman in our culture and, like, how you can push against that, you know, in ways that feel both, like, subversive and then also maybe a little, like, self-preservationist, you know?

Well said. Yeah. Well, here, I love this record. You're totally right. It's toe up my alley. It's definitely jazz, you know. I mean, it's in the jazz mode. But the sass, the attitude we're talking about.

And some of her vocal stylings connect to the blues, you know? And early blues queens, like I'm definitely feeling some Bessie Smith in this vibe. Like, where do you place her just even her historical influences? Because even the song titles, I could see them on a 1920s blues queen. compilation. You know, it's funny, earlier this year, we marked the centennial of Dinah Washington, and I was thinking at the time, like, nobody emulates Dinah the way that, you know, so many people go for Ella or Billy or Sarah, right? And I was like, where are our Dinah torchbearers? And I really should have remembered that Venetia is in that legacy, you know?

God, that's such a good call, totally, because Dinah also walks between genres and Right, right. And there's that, like, I mean, there are songs on this album that are, like, really sensuous. And, like, you know, where she is coming on to someone. There's a song on here titled Cute Boy. It's like an Empower's theme song, by the way. In this song, she's literally, like, stepping to someone and saying, like, excuse me, like, you're not even my type, but you're looking fine. Let's start a conversation here and maybe a little more.

I love it. I love it. Cute boy. Has anybody ever called you a cute boy? I must have me. You're not my type, but in that suit, boy. You're so hard to ignore. Oh, boy. Do you think she would mind if we just had a drink or two?

Nothing more between me and you. She has you at home. But while you're here, please excuse me for being so forward. It's my second martini. I've had a long day. And I was hoping that maybe you try to remember me and the day and the way that I called you a two boys. Up next, a band that's a familiar presence to me, but has taken a sort of unfamiliar shape in the past couple years.

That sound fair? It definitely does. This is the Bad Plus, which has an album out called Complex Emotions on Mac Avenue Records. It's their first for the label, but I don't even know what number album this is for the band. It's been around basically since the turn of the century, but it's been through a few iterations.

It originated as a piano, bass, drum, trio with Ethan Iverson on piano, Reed Anderson on bass, and David King on drums. Then in 2017, Ethan Iverson left the band. He was replaced by another

very fine pianist, Orrin Evans, and it had a couple of seasons with Oren in the piano chair, and then Oren left, and they decided to reconfigure not as a piano-based drums trio, but now as a quartet

with Chris Speed on saxophone. and Ben Monder on guitars. Now, that's a whole lot of history that I just threw into the mix here. I think we should just hear what this new configuration sounds like. Let's do it. What do you want to play?

This is a track called Deepwater Sharks. You know, Nate, it's so interesting listening to this song, thinking about a band where the lynchpin is the rhythm section. And things have changed around the rhythm section, right? bass player, Reed Anderson, and the drummer, Dave King. Yeah, they've always been the core of this band.

And, you know, what they have is this, like, very, like, muscle car kind of momentum. But also an incredible finesse, right? And between them, the ability to write these, like, often beautiful and even anthemic compositions. One thing that's interesting about the evolution of this band is, you know, they kind of were famous right out of the gate for being a piano trio that played like Nirvana and David Bowie. Yeah. You know?

Right. Jazz rock. Yeah. So, and in the piano, you had this kind of translation from like guitar band energies to the palette of a piano, you know, acoustic piano trio. And so it's an interesting shift here because Ben Mondar, the guitarist in this, in this new which has a previous album or two, you know, like they've been doing this for a little while. But Monder is a guitarist who has access to the entire palette of like, you know, rock distortion.

He's actually, he appears on David Bowie's Black Star, in fact. Oh, cool. I forgot that. Yeah. I totally forgot that. Yeah, he's like one of the special effects on that album, you know? Right on. And Mondar is, he's an incredible guitarist.

He's a super fluid technician on the fretboard, and he's also this sort of sonic sculptor. And then Chris B, the tenor saxophonist, he has a much more, like, vocal quality. So he's almost at times like a lead singer. The band really does now feel a little more like a rock band that has all this jazz knowledge, versus a jazz trio that is translating rock energies

into, you know, piano trio. I just have to say I saw Dave King play with Julian Lodge in Oslo last spring, and they staged this battle royale, just the two of them, that was like the raucous thing I've seen. Yes. I don't know, this decade maybe. Nice, nice. It was killer.

He's that, man, Dave King. Yeah, well, you know, I think that another thing that has to be said here is that the bad plus really cemented its sort of bandness, like a long, long time ago. You know, Dave King and Reed Anderson knew each other in high school, right? And they, along with Ethan Iverson, all came from the Upper Midwest. They had a similar frame of reference. And their relationships with Chris Speed and Ben Monder also, like, go back a really long time. And so this is like a social bond.

as much as it is a musical bond. And I think the secret ingredient to the longevity of this band is, it really is that, like, human connection that they all have. Ethan Everson leaving kind of feels akin to Janet Weiss, leaving Slater Kinney a couple years later, just because it was a trio with such specific trio energy.

And so turning away from piano as an anchor, it's like, I'm sure to some people at the time, it felt like heresy. It was like, what is the bad plus without that feeling? But it kind of makes sense. It does. And I think it's interesting. First of all, I think the Janet Weiss analogy is really spot on because Slater

Kenny has continued to go on. But like, I'm sure for longtime listeners, and maybe you feel this way, it's not the same. It'll never be the same. It's not. It'll never be the same. Respect, respect it Corrin and Kerry, but it's not the same bad. And I should say that during the interoper. when Orrin Evans was in the piano chair,

it was a really noble kind of nod to continuity, right? Because you still had the sound of those chords hitting the piano with that sort of emphatic, percussive, block chord, like, you know, the style that Ethan really kind of devised

for the context of the band. Orrin had to learn that style and then put his own spin on it. And so you could kind of see a future in which the piano chair in the bad plus was this thing that would, you know, it could have gone to, it could have gone to like a young player just out of Juilliard or something. You know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah. It could have easily just become a rotating chair that like the next great young piano player like jumps in there. Like the drummer and spinal tap, kind of. With a little less combustion perhaps. Yeah. So in a way, it's really, it's a courageous thing they did in some of, ways to say like, you know what, we've done that. This is the bad plus now. Okay, up next,

why don't we wind back the clock a little? We've got something of an archival recording from Keith Jarrett. Is that right? Yes. Keith Jarrett, in 1992, he played a very special engagement at a little spot in the Delaware water gap in the Poconos called The Deerhead Inn. And he made an album that was released a couple years later called At the Deerhead Inn. What I think nobody really knew is that they recorded enough material for a whole other album. And that's now out. It's called the Old Country. Let's hear a bit of that album. This is a standard titled All of You. Nate, I'm so glad you brought this record. It's just, it's beautiful. And one thing I love about this recording is it really retains the feeling of a night out. Like, I could place myself in the club.

The pacing, the way the set moves. It's just captivating that way. And I know this club has a special place in Jared's heart and his history. Yeah, yeah, very much so. Keith Jared grew up around Allentown, Pennsylvania, and he had his very first gig with a piano trio at the Deerhead Inn

when he was a teenager. Now, skip ahead. By 1992, he's world famous. he pretty much only plays like big concert halls and festivals and, you know, routinely sells them out. So this was

an extreme undersell, if you will. Very, very special homecoming. Not only that, it was a reunion. So at the time, he had a working trio with Gary Peacock on bass and Jack D. Jeanette on drums. But for this

gig, he brought Gary Peacock and his old partner, Paul Motion, and they hadn't played together in, I think, 16 years at this point. So there's another layer of historical resonance here. Gary Peacock and Paul Motion were members of the Bill Evans Trio in 1964. And, you know, it's really delicious to listen to this Deerhead recording and hear the moments when they actually kind of lock into that vibe. You can hear some of that on the ballads especially.

For instance, this beautiful songbook tune, I fall in love too easily. The bottom line is there's something very, very special about the rapport that these musicians have. It's really amazing. I love this album a lot. All right, that's Keith Jarrett. Why don't we close out with a banger, Miles Davis.

Tell me about how this recording came to be and where it comes from. Well, this is a, boxed set titled Miles in France, 1963 and 1964. It features the Miles Davis Quintet, but a particular edition of the band. So he had formed a rhythm section, really like a Hall of Fame Rhythm section with Herbie Hancock on piano, Ron Carter on bass, and Tony Williams on drums. And then in his front line, he had a tenor saxophonist named George Coleman. Now this band is well known to jazz fans.

They recorded a live album called Four and More, a studio album called Seven Steps to Heaven. But really, it's been overshadowed in a way because George Coleman, when he left the band, was replaced by one Wayne shorter. And with the addition of Wayne, then you have all the pieces in place, arguably, and I would say my pick

for Best Band of the 20th century. How about that? How about that? All genres. Best band of the 20th century. I'm just going to say that. Take that, Beatles. You know, I will say that

this box set it furthers the case that the George Coleman era of the Miles Davis Quintet should not be slept on because he was a monster. He fit right in. It's not the, you know,

the Valhalla edition with Wayne, but it's not trying to be. It's a different thing. And there's so much incredible playing in this set. Let's hear their take on a theme that probably everyone knows,

which is So What, the first track on the album Kind of Blue. It sounds a little different in this version. So Nate, my high school jazz band played So What. It was probably about a quarter of

the tempo heard here. So what journey has that song taken in between kind of blue in 59 and this performance in the early 60s? Well, you know, it's interesting. When this band came together in 1963, I think it was Tony Williams' idea to like take some of those earlier tunes, you know, and it hadn't been that long, but Miles wasn't playing tunes like, so what. And Tony was like, let's pull some of those themes. You know, even earlier tunes like milestones, right? But let's do it.

Let's bring it into a more contemporary frame. And, you know, Tony, remember, was, like, very young. Oh, my gosh. The Wunderkins. Full of fire, you know? And so you hear this, like, like, Bronco charging out of the gate energy. Yeah. And Herbie and Ron, like, all these guys were, like, they were really keen on bringing, like, state of the art thinking and action and reinventing.

and reinvention to the table. And Miles, to his credit, always, was like, you know, he was willing to subject himself to that. Like, I've got these crazy young geniuses in my band, and they are pushing me to the absolute limit, you know, and I like that. I like that feeling. And I will say that the trumpet playing throughout this set

is some of the greatest that you'll ever hear from Miles Davis. I like to think about Miles Davis in France, In general, it's such an important place for him. I'm obsessed with his soundtrack to the movie, the Louis-Mal movie, Elevator to the Gallows. Yes, sincere Polish food. Yes, exactly. And so I wonder if the Franco-Fieldia, the Franco, whatever,

how does that factor into these recordings? Well, you know, I can't speak for Miles necessarily, but I will say that he played more in France than any other place outside the United States. his initial trip there during the time that he made that soundtrack and and had a love affair with Juliet Greco. Julia Greco. You know, it was really eye-opening for him. I mean, like a lot of African-American musicians of that era, this was like his first taste of, you know, I won't say non-discriminatory, but a far less discriminatory environment, right, than the way.

one he faced at home. I think that these concert recordings, which are mostly from the festival at Antib, clearly he's very comfortable. Also, the audiences, they treated him and greeted him as a hero, you know, and so the band, it was a new sound for him that he brought to these festival performances, and they were, you know, really, really welcomed. So, Nate, just to put you on the spot a little bit. What can we take away from, is there anything that we can extrapolate from hearing these four releases about just things that are resonating in jazz recordings right now? Well, you know, when I think about this year, I will say that it's been a really incredible year for archival discoveries, you know, and I feel like maybe we always say that. It's always true.

Yeah. But this year, you know, in addition to the Miles and Keith Jarrett, you know, there's There's an incredible studio album by the trumpeter Roy Hargrove called Cresol Grand Terre. I've been playing that a lot. There is a really fabulous McCoy Tyner and Joe Henderson album recorded at Slugs in 1966 called Forces of Nature. Full disclosure, I wrote the liner notes for that one. That's coming out later this month. And Blue Note also did a really, really fantastic. tone poet repressing of the Sunny Rollins album A Night at the Village Vanguard.

And then, you know, like more and more, Yusuf Lateef, Bill Evans, Nat King Cole, I mean, on and on, right? There's always fresh evidence for the argument that there was a golden age of jazz recordings and jazz performance, right? And the thing is, you can pick when that golden age was. That's a great point. Maybe it was the 50s, maybe it was the 60s, the 70s, the 70s. this Hargrove record is from the 90s, you know? Right, right. So I will say yes to all of that,

but I will also point out that we listen to this Bad Plus record, this Venetia Gould record. There's still so much energy and vitality, reinvention, hybridism. There's so much happening right now on the contemporary scene, and you can't really point to one sound and say, that's it.

To me, that's the most exciting thing, is that things are humming sort of on every frequency, you know. And so I will say what I often say, which is like, if you're going to talk about the golden age, make sure that you're paying attention to what's happening outside your window. Yeah. I love that. Sage advice.

We'll have to leave it there for now. But Nate, thanks so much for joining us. Would you come back in a couple of months, do this with us again? I think we'd really be up for that. You couldn't keep me away. Okay. All right. All right.

It's a date. That is it for this week's new music Friday. On our radar next week, new music from John Batiste, Mary J. Blige, a reanimated Lincoln Park, and an expanded 20th anniversary issue from the late MF Doom. In the meantime, you can send your feedback on today's episode to all songs at npr.org. Leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe to our newsletter at npr.org slash music newsletter. And remember, you can get this show sponsor-free and support our work by joining NPR

Music Plus. Go to plus.npr.org slash NPR Music or search for NPR Music and Apple Podcasts to sign up. Today's episode was produced by Simon Rentner. Our editor is Jacob Gans. I'm Diyud Tyler Amin. I'm Ann Powers. And I'm Nate Chenen.

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