Best of 2024: Jazz, Latin, and Global
Last year's finest releases from the lands of jazz, Africa, Brazil, and Mexico
Of last year’s releases in what is my narrowest category, only Moor Mother made it into my Top 25. But eight of the reviews below are new, including a few I discovered by doing the work of digging through my playlist one last time. Perhaps you missed them, too - if so, you will thank me later! Earlier reviews are featured first, and you can listen to most of these things here or below.
A Song For Friday
Jamaaladeen Tacuma - The Hillville Jam “With Kris Kruda’s guitars providing both chicken-scratch rhythm and bluesy riffing and soloing, Tacuma lays back and just lets the funk flow.”
Resavoir - Love Theme From Spartacus “Check out Resavoir’s live-in-the-studio spin through this timeless composition…”
Record Roundup: 2024 Jazz, Latin, and Global In Focus
Ten Sides of Jazz
Tomeka Reid, Isidora Edwards, and Elizabeth Coudoux - Reid/Edwards/Coudoux “No frills but plenty of thrills as the three cellists engage in telepathic interplay on four improvised tracks.”
Space - Embrace The Space “…a high-wire act with true compositional integrity. Embrace it.”
Dave Harrington, Max Jaffe, Patrick Shiroishi - Speak, Moment “…I can easily say this is my favorite project of the many they’ve each been a part of. The moment has spoken.”
LATRALA - LATRALA “Drawing from a deep well that includes electric Miles, Sly Stone, The Meters, and those Bobby Hutcherson albums arranged by Bayeté, the mood is frisky, funky, and as richly layered as a slice of tiramisu.”
Low Leaf - Red Moon “…you may hit repeat more than once to keep the feeling flowing.”
Jahari Massamba Unit - YHWH Is Love “…some of the most head-nodding sounds this side of the Bud Powell trio. Let it dig into you.”
John Lurie - Painting With John (Music From the Original TV Series) “…moves from wacky to thorny to lyrical with the practiced flair of a master.”
Moth Cock - HausLive 3: Chicago Twofer “Non-stop free jazz madness presented with the single-mindedness of a desperately preserved ritual.”
Group Listening - Walks “…finds them mapping out a neighborhood where jazz, classical, and electronic are all living in well-appointed homes with no fences between them.”
Tyshawn Sorey and Adam Rudolph - Archaisms “Traversing moods from delicate to spiky, every note is played with conviction and style.”
On the Brazilian Side
Fer Loki - Todos Os Caminhos Levam A Todos Os Caminhos “…Fer Loki expertly blends acoustic and electric guitars, organ, and simple percussion to present his fine, knotty songs.”
Two Sides of Sahara
Etran de L’Äir - 100% Sahara Guitar “Part of the delight is how they shift from the fanfare that opens many songs and seem to stumble into the groove, driven by those skittering drums.”
Mdou Moctar - Funeral For Justice “…this is a superb album, as much driven by Moctar’s savage six-string mastery as his anti-colonial politics…”
New Reviews
Jazz Adjacent
Patricia Brennan - Breaking Stretch Silly me, for wanting more of the sublime sounds of Maquishti, Brennan’s 2021 album for vibraphone and electronics. I mean, sure, who wouldn’t want more of what a track like Episodes, with its “woozy electronics” that “transform the vibe's tones into gooey lozenges of sound that you may find yourself reaching for in the air,” was giving? But that attitude almost caused me to miss this smoking hot jazz album.
The compositions are always intriguing and they are embodied with energy and style by a great band to accompany Brennan’s vibraphone with electronics and marimba, including Jon Irabagon (alto and sopranino saxophones), Mark Shim (tenor saxophone), Adam O’Farrill (trumpet, electronics), Marcus Gilmore (drums), Mauricio Herrera (percussion), and Kim Cass (bass). Between the Latin leanings and the occasional doses of spaced-out electronics, Brennan has cooked up a distinctive brew indeed.
Duo Extempore - Ordinary Places There’s nothing ordinary about the approach Nicole Brancato (piano) and Evan Jagels (bass) took in creating this smart and whimsical album. Using field recordings of “everyday places” as the “third member of the trio,” they improvised to sounds ranging from wind chimes and rain to motorcycles to coffee shops. The results are an investigation into the nature of the sounds around us that John Cage would have loved. In the end, what makes it work and bear repeated listening is the duo’s light touch and the sense of infinite possibilities.
_BY.ALEXANDER - MEMORIES FOR SALE- - -AT- - -> 66 GREENE ST SOHO NY This album by the man born Alexander Grant is so good that I won’t hold it against him for having delivered more than one Imagine Dragons song into the world. A very successful producer, sometimes known as Alex Da Kid ("Love The Way You Lie" by Eminem and Rihanna is one of his), his first solo project, 2020’s 000 CHANNEL BLACK, was released on Blue Note Records. This new album is self-released and incorporates elements of hip hop and pop while richly drawing on traditions from jazz and his native Bristol, England.
Grant’s studio skills are put to good use, giving everything a warm, lush sound, with the piano and double bass especially recorded with care. The title track and "BYA" are paradigmatic of the album, each establishing a mood via piano and bass before introducing electronic beats and vocal sections. "BYA" also includes muted trumpet, enhancing the noir mood as a sultry female vocalist intones phrases in French. It’s marvelously atmospheric, as is the entire album.
He has guests on several songs, including rappers like 070 Shake and ASAP Ferg, but none of the superstars he’s worked with, who might diffuse the power of Grant’s vision. It’s refreshing that an artist who knows as much as can be known about creating a hit single has made this very personal, expansive, and adventurous album. It might not make him wealthy like those Imagine Dragons singles, but it’s a valuable gift for all who listen.
Sylvie Courvoisier - To Be Other-Wise On 2023’s Chimaera, the brilliant Swiss-born, New York-based pianist and composer debuted a new sextet to realize her compositions to stunning effect. To follow up that sprawling collection, she went solo for the first time since 2007, giving us this wildly varied set of pieces, each one created in homage to an inspiring figure in her life - or figures in the case of Chilling (for my three cats). Besides the feline friends and her dad, the pieces are dedicated to composers like Olivier Messiaen and Conlon Nancarrow and collaborators like Mary Halvorson and Ned Rothenberg.
The piano is Courvoisier’s playground throughout, with some songs, like Twisting Memories (For Sarah Turin), pure expressions of her dazzling and dynamic technique, while others, like the Nancarrow and Halvorson tributes, feature extended techniques and preparations resulting in what sounds like two or three players at once. The gauntlet has been thrown - who will pick it up and create a piece with the subtitle (For Sylvie Courvoisier)?
Mexican Mixture
Sanje - De Repente Otra Voz Mexican-born Santiago Mijares has been working behind the scenes as a player, producer, and composer in scenes ranging from cumbia to indie rock for over a decade. Here, he puts everything he’s learned along the way into a series of fun and adventurous songs that revel in the freedom of serving no musical master but himself. From Carlos, a tender folk song laced with angular guitar, to the sly groove of the title track, with its trippy backing vocals and expansive finale, Sanje serves each song perfectly. He might be getting more calls to work his magic for other artists now, but in a just world, he would have less time for them.
Whole World Is Africa
Mwami - Olympean This Ugandan singer, songwriter, and producer calls himself the “East African vanguard,” and this unclassifiable collection proves that’s no empty claim. Whether the featherweight Afrobeat of boy scout or the swank, whispery ballad called daisy, there’s always the sense of a wider conceptual world beyond the well-crafted tracks. This is conveyed through movie quotes and other spoken word features, including one by the brilliant composer Nyokabi Kariuki, creating quite a journey for the listener. Mwami is up to something that feels very new and well worth taking the time to get to know.
Dogo Du Togo & The Alagaa Beat Band - Avoudé As you might have guessed, Massama Dogo is a native of Togo, a narrow corridor of a country with Ghana to the west and Benin to the east. Dogo is from Lomé, specifically, which probably provided a wealth of musical inputs as most port cities do, and now lives in the U.S., but makes it clear that traditional Togolese melodies and rhythms form the basis of his sound.
To the uninformed ear, however, that sound is defined by Dogo’s liquid yet biting guitar, his warm, declarative vocals, and a sense of the bittersweet buried in the polyrhythms. That the most celebratory song here is called Xenophobia speaks volumes about Dogo’s approach and experience. The Alagaa Beat Band is there for all of it, too, with Tsikwol’s burbling bass being especially notable. Dogo Du Togo is keeping the party going in 2025 with a remix album. Don’t miss a second chance to get to know this exciting artist.
You can find more of this sort of thing in this archive playlist and keep up with 2025’s entries here.
From The Archives
Best Of 2023: Jazz, Latin, and Global
Best Of 2022: Jazz, Latin, and Global
Best Of 2021: Jazz, Latin, and Global
Best Of 2020: Jazz, Latin, and Global
Best Of 2019: Jazz, Latin, and Global
Best Of 2018: Jazz, Latin, and Global
Great roundup, Jeremy. Excited to check all of this out.