1998: The year in music

All that pop (and jazz, etc.)

by Jim Macnie

Joshua Redman

POP
1) Billy Bragg & Wilco: Mermaid Avenue (Elektra). Retooling icons can be dangerous fun, but in pasting together Woody Guthrie's scraps, the punk broadsider and earnest twangmeisters balance protest, poignancy, romance and giddiness in a way that adds dimension to everyone involved, even Woody.

2) Chicago Underground Duo: 12 Degrees of Freedom (Thrill Jockey). Initially dubious, I considered this well-intentioned pair to be dabblers, and formally I guess they are. But as the jazzbo trumpeter and post-rock percussionist tinker through emotionally graphic sound fields, they offhandedly build a bridge between Eno and the Art Ensemble. The sparse improvised structures reveal a great symmetry between daring and design.

3) Jimmy Bosch: Soneandro Trombon (RykoLatino). It's heads-up time when journeymen start making records that sound as masterful as this. The trombonist came up under New York salsa fount Manny Orquendo, and his knack for organizing charts and marshaling polyrhythms is dizzying. Pop fans still in the dark about salsa's thrills should investigate immediately: each tune has at least three distinct hooks.

4) Lucinda Williams: Car Wheels On a Gravel Road (Mercury). All props to craft, but imagination is the most valuable artistic currency. This mix of hurtful memories and cheerful wishes would be far more pedestrian without the kind of cinematic imagery that drives songs like "2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten." Stylistically common, the record's singularity is gained by a very keen mind's eye, a dedication to nuance, and that big blue voice. Jangle isn't dead. Neither is poetry.

5) Elliott Smith: XO (DreamWorks). The year's two big males made an odd set of bookends -- aren't Marilyn Manson and Smith basically the inverse of each other? I'll take the boohoo boho over the gross-out android any day, forgiving Smith his Beatles jones (maybe that's a George Martin jones) while applauding the way he turned his once sketchy indie folk into a comparatively opulent meadow of flutters and sighs.

6) Lauryn Hill: The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (Ruffhouse/ Columbia). It's just a little bit lighter than its devotees will admit, but it's just a little bit heavier than the chest-thumping of those who currently rule the hip-hop roost. With tunefulness and humanism blending to create some ruffed-up hymns, this Afrocentric hottie proves that, any way you slice it, brains are brawn.

7) Mark Ribot y Los Cubanos: Postinos (Atlantic) Like Arto Lindsay breezing through Brazil, Ribot's take on Cuban song blends romance and surrealism, his sentimental side making nice with his inner-fracturist. Deconstructionists usually get a boost when irresistible rhythms bolster their skronk, and Ribot has seldom sounded so natural or motivated.

8) Belle & Sebastian: The Boy With the Arab Strap (Matador). As a pop fan with graying temples, I figure ennui is something for unimaginative teens. But here's a circle of reflective Scots that become bolder by speaking in melancholy whispers. Catchy, evanescent and insightful, they turn moods into fully blossomed tunes.

9) Duncan Sheik: Humming (Atlantic). In a year when even Beck went singer-songwriter on us, male sensitivos are on the rise. And though it may not have gotten as much hype as Elliott Smith's gorgeous sob story, Sheik's second album forwards a similarly ambitious blend of pop and folk. With a text that evaluates the beautiful masking that is crucial to today's façade-obsessed culture, Humming turns a possible disadvantage into an extra added attraction: the record's ornate settings manage a kind of homey extravagance that perfectly suits the singer.

10) Quasi: Featuring Birds (Up). That rocksichord thing Sam Coomes found makes this post-punk keybs-and-drums treatise on breaking up ridiculously singular. Which isn't to say the songs are common by any stretch of the imagination: "Atmosphere gasses cannot remain with dirt / We purchase pleasure, pay for it with dirt," he sings as his ex (Sleater-Kinney pounder Janet Weiss) wonders which one she is, and how much was spent during their love affair. Each tune is smothered in a beautiful prickliness.

REISSUES
The Kinks: Something Else (ESM)
The Complete Capitol and Atlantic Recordings of Jimmy Giuffre (Mosaic)
Charlie Feathers: Get With It (Revenant)
Various Artists: Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era 1965-1968 (Rhino)
The Complete Jazz at the Philharmonic on Verve 1944-1949 (Verve)

SINGLES
Madonna: "Ray of Light" (Maverick)
Fatboy Slim: "The Rockefeller Skank" (Astralwerks)
Dwight Yoakam: "Things Change" (Reprise)
Beastie Boys: "Intergalactic" (Grand Royal/Capitol)
Beenie Man: "Who Am I" (2 Hard)

JAZZ
1) Steve Wilson: Generations (Stretch). The tunes are cunning: light and seductive on the outside, elaborate and alluring within. The solos teem with innuendo: it's a guessing game as to what aspect of the pieces will be further developed. The young reed player, now a member of Chick Corea's Origin ensemble, has created a prime example of mainstream jazz accommodating a wealth of provocative ideas.

2) Sherman Irby: Big Mama's Biscuits (Blue Note). Teeming with the give-and-take that defines jazz, the synergy between the musicians is utterly reflexive, as if there was no premeditation taking place. Without sacrificing intricacy, the alto saxophonist creates a kind of guilelessness that upends jazz's longstanding passion for elaboration. Some records of late -- wait, better make that numerous records of late -- present the aura of a board meeting. Irby's second outing is closer to a picnic.

3) David Berkman: Handmade (Palmetto). The sub rosa pianist put together a great band -- Tom Harrell, Steve Wilson, Brian Blade, Ugonna Okegwo -- and waxed ultra-judicious in his quest for balancing the in and out. But that prudency didn't bar tornadoes from blowing through town, nor did it mask the leader's skills at rebuilding after the storm.

4) Joe Lovano: Trio Fascination (Blue Note). A trove of themes and rhythms novel enough to nudge the players away from the tedium of convention. At times it sounds huge, a likely result of Elvin Jones's husky virtuosity and the leader's barreling lines. But other moments seem reductive, as if the musicians were distilling a grand statement to its bare bones. Lovano continues to make keenly intellectual music with a fierce emotional resonance.

5) Michael Formanek: Am I Bothering You? (Screwgun). It's not often a bass recital seems as important as records with interplay, but the wily soloist concocted a date so rife with invention -- melodies, extrapolations, riffs, dirty old plunks -- that it seems right to certify its improvisational smarts and conceptual chutzpah. One of the most nuts 'n' bolts takes on virtuosity I've ever heard.

6) Joshua Redman: Timeless Tales (For Changing Times) (Warner Bros.). His spins on pop tunes both ancient and modern gives a heave-ho to any and all expectations: these updates are distinct. But for me, it's the sheer level of interplay that earns Josh's most elaborate record ever a spot hereabouts. Listen to Redman, Mehldau, Blade and Grenadier respond to each other and you'll have an imperial take on what jazz exchange is all about.

7) Ben Allison: Medicine Wheel (Palmetto). The New York bassist proves he's also a New York composer. That's not riff writer. Nor is it tunesmith. That's composer: a person whose talent for melodies, voicings, pulses and textures finds ways to venture toward three or four places at once. Dynamics are stressed, easy conclusions are skirted, the music is always in flux. Can you say kaleidoscopic?

8) Uri Caine: Blue Wail (Winter & Winter). Long known as Don Byron's piano partner, Caine has recently earned props for his vivid reimagining of Mahler's music. On Blue Wail, he sidesteps elaborate arrangements and lets fly with a push 'n' shove blowing session with James Genus and Ralph Peterson that deflates heavy notions and commits to tidbits of adventure. Ripe for being embraced by a wider audience, Caine's a pro at rectifying schisms between jazz camps -- the epitome of enterprising modern mainstream.

9) Greg Osby: Banned In New York (Blue Note). Leading a band that spills and hurtles and bounds without sacrificing focus or losing its cool, the alto saxophonist treats extrapolation as consolidation, a tack that becomes addictive with repeated listenings. He's a structuralist who dedicates himself to making some of the most flexible music of the day. A newcomer could drop into Osby's latest stuff and feel as if they were getting the whole ball of wax: keen experimentation, reassuring grooves, near-manic enthusiasm.

10) Sephardic Tinge: Morenica (Tzadik). Pianist Anthony Coleman's trio makes its music bend, veer and twist in a number of ways, and what becomes obvious as its second album unfolds is how spry the unit is. Brilliantly sequenced, the program churns with singular episodes: tense moments leap into soothing invocations, Jewish prayers breaking bread with blues grooves. Flow is everything here, and Coleman's impressive vision surges adamantly.