2009 in Review

Better late than never, right? Here, for those into lists:

Top 10 Jazz CDs

1. Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society, Infernal Machines (New Amsterdam)

2. Vijay Iyer, Historicity (ACT)

3. Steve Lehman Octet, Travail, Transformation and Flow (Pi)

4. Abdullah Ibrahim, Senzo (Sunnyside)

5. David Binney, Third Occasion (Mythology)

6. Henry Threadgill Zooid, This Brings Us To, Vol. 1 (Pi)

7. Tarbaby, s/t

8. Fly, Sky and Country (ECM)

9. The Monterey Quartet, Live at the 2007 Monterey Jazz Festival (Monterey Jazz Festival)

10. Darius Jones Trio, Man'ish Boy (AUM Fidelity)

For details, my Citypaper piece is here.

Top Ten Films

1. 35 Shots of Rum

2. The Hurt Locker

3. Revanche

4. Still Walking

5. Fantastic Mr. Fox

6. Summer Hours

7. Hunger

8. Lorna’s Silence

9. Tokyo Sonata

10. Up

The Citypaper piece is here.

I'm hesitant to make a decade-spanning list (and won't, in the case of music), but with the caveat of a deeply-flawed memory, here's a list of top films for the Aughts:

1. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
2. Mulholland Dr.
3. In the Mood For Love
4. What Time Is It There?
5. Syndromes and a Century
6. Cache
7. The Death of Mr. Lazarescu
8. Pan's Labyrinth
9. Grizzly Man
10. Shaun of the Dead

Citypaper, December 08-January 09

Bridging the holidays and into the new year, my pieces for the Citypaper included:

Dec. 18: A review, expanded from last year's Gay and Lesbian film fest, of the homo-Shakespeare farce Were the World Mine; a pick for Ari Hoenig's electric Oscillations Quartet; and a Soundadvice blurb for Tony Malaby's Cello Trio.

Dec. 25: A review of the inexplicably Oscar-reaping Kate Winslet Nazi-sex flick The Reader and my annual list of the year's top ten jazz CDs.

Jan. 1: To ring in Two-Double Zed-Nine: A list, with no explanations and all in all pretty unsatisfying, of the lackluster year's top ten films. If I get around to posting a year-end recap post, I'll probably have an amended list.

Jan. 8: A preview of the Jewish Film Fest's weekend of French fare, a Just Do It for George McGovern's chat about Abe Lincoln at the Constitution Center, and a Soundadvice blurb for the first installment of Ars Nova Workshop's Composer Portrait of Julius Hemphill.

Jan. 15: The annual Spring Jazz Calendar, and reviews of Defiance and Bride Wars.

Jan. 22: A feature on the Schuylkill Center's Ephemerality exhibit; a pick for Billy Childs and the Ying Quartet at Montgomery County Community College and a Soundadvice blurb for the Sten Sandell Trio; a review of the lackluster Brendan Fraser kid's adventure Inkheart; and a Now See This for Kafka Imagining America, a talk by translator Mark Harman.

Jan. 29: A feature on the duo of Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore and Swedish sax extremist Mats Gustafsson, a pick for the trio of Lotte Anker, Sylvie Courvoisier and Ikue Mori, and a Soundadvice blurb for saxophonist Glenn White; and a review of the lethargic gay indie Ciao.

Metro, December 18-January 18

Since I did almost nothing for the Metro over the last month, I figured I'd just lump the whole run together here. On 12/28, there was a piece on John Medeski and friends' jam-gospel supergroup The Word, but the issue isn't online. I also did a list of Philly-related jazz deaths and a BOTY for shows (cut down from the list posted on this blog), but can't seem to find it - may not have run. But on 1/10, I had a piece about the Philadelphia Orchestra's monthlong Bernstein Festival, celebrating what would have been Lenny's 90th birthday; and on 1/18, an interview with Ladysmith Black Mambazo's Albert Mazibuko. That issue isn't online yet either.

2007, Year in Review

As the calendar quickly runs out of days, time again to look back over the year just passed. As for the sheer numbers, I caught nearly 400 films this year, listened to somewhere around 550 new CDs, saw around 200 shows. And now for the bests of the batch:

Top 10 Jazz CDs
My list for the Citypaper with small write-ups for each is here, but the quick list run-down is:
1. Maria Schneider Orchestra - Sky Blue (artistShare)
2. Chris Potter Underground - Follow the Red Line: Live at the Village Vanguard (Sunnyside)
3. Human Feel - Galore (Skirl)
4. Theo Bleckmann/Ben Monder - At Night (Songlines)
5. Nels Cline Singers - Draw Breath (CryptoGramphone)
6. David Torn - Prezens (ECM)
7. Amir ElSaffar - Two Rivers (Pi Recordings)
8. Exploding Star Orchestra - We’re All From Somewhere Else (Thrill Jockey)
9. Michael Brecker - Pilgrimage (Heads Up)
10. David Murray Black Saint Quartet - Sacred Ground (Justin Time)

Top 10 Non-Jazz CDs
This is my list for Citypaper's BOTY rock/pop list, and is pretty unsatisfactory, but it turns out I missed hearing quite a bit outside the jazz world this year. Anyway, here's the list, one of which I'll be writing a little blurb for in next week's CP Top 21 list:

1. Battles - Mirrored (Warp)
2. Tin Hat - The Sad Machinery of Spring (Hannibal)
3. EL-P - I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead (Def Jux)
4. Big Business - Here Come the Waterworks (Hydra Head)
5. Dirty Projectors - Rise Above (Dead Oceans)
6. Sleepytime Gorilla Museum - In Glorious Times (The End)
7. Andrew Bird - Armchair Apocrypha (Fat Possum)
8. Dalek - Abandoned Language (Ipecac)
9. Pelican - City of Echoes (Hydra Head)
10. Illuminea - Out of Our Mouths (High Two)

Top 10 Films
This is exclusive to the blog, as is the following list of shows. For films, I'm sticking to things that opened in Philly in 2007 for qualifications; hence the Tsai Ming-Liang, which I didn't get to see until this year's Philly Film Fest. And I've seen There Will Be Blood, which would be on the list except it doesn't open here until January, so check back in a year:

1. I Don't Want to Sleep Alone (Tsai Ming-Liang)
2. The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford (Andrew Dominik)
3. I'm Not There (Todd Haynes)
4. No Country For Old Men (Joel & Ethan Coen)
5. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Julian Schnabel)
6. Eastern Promises (David Cronenberg)
7. Zodiac (David Fincher)
8. Paprika (Satoshi Kon)
9. The Host (Bong Joon-Ho)
10. Superbad (Greg Mottola)

Performances of the Year
Screw the 10s. These were all great. In chronological order:
2/9: Chris Potter Underground @ Chris' Jazz Cafe
2/10: Rova::Orkestrova @ Intl House
3/4: Borbetomagus @ Intl House
3/26: ICP Orchestra @ Houston Hall
4/1: PIMA Group: What a Quaint Scene We Were That Night @ CEC
4/24: Buffalo Collision @ Rose Recital Hall
5/5: Gene Coleman & Jack Wright @ The Rotunda
6/10: Big Four @ Rose Recital Hall
6/29: Fred Lonberg Holm's Valentine Trio/Louis Moholo & Marshall Allen @ Intl House
7/21: The Melvins (performing Lysol) @ Slim's, San Francisco
9/13: Ellery Eskelin/Vincent Courtois/Sylvie Courvoisier @ Rose Recital Hall
9/20: Joelle Leandre/Globe Unity Orchestra @ Malcolm X & Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial Ctr
9/20: David Murray & Kidd Jordan's All-Stars @ Creole, NYC
10/11: Claudia Quintet @ Philadelphia Art Alliance
11/17: Tiger Okoshi @ Kimmel Center
12/17: Angelica Sanchez Quartet w/ Marc Ducret @ Intl House

With honorable and, yes, very nostalgic mention going to Van Halen, 10/3 at the Wachovia Center. Might as well jump.

Happy new year, I'll try and keep the rest of the month updated but if not, see you in '08.
Shaun

Citypaper, December 20

In this week's CP: my top ten list of the year's best jazz CDs (more best lists to follow shortly in a subsequent post); a feature review of Tamara Jenkins' long-awaited sophomore feature, The Savages, and a short review of Tim Burton's adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd; and a pick for the sax/bass duo of Ivo Perelman and Dominic Duval.