Shabaka and The Ancestors :: Live at the NTS Live at Jazz Cafe (2017). Sorry, I don’t know much else about this show. The Youtube page doesn’t include any further information or setlist.
Oh well.
Enjoy.
No one could have predicted a year like 2020. The live music industry is on life support. Bandcamp came through just about better than anyone else to support music. And there was a ton of great music released this year.
Per the norm, I do not rank albums. Music is not a competition and my taste is not your taste. So, after lots of thought and list-shuffling and winnowing, these are the 75 albums that really stood out for me. My original list was quite a bit longer (and you can always keep up in real-time by following the Yearly Bookkeeping page), so I can tell you that this list provides a great overview of my music listening for this crazy year.
Here are my favorite 75 albums of 2020.
The Visual List:
The Alphabet List:
Live at Tubby's by 75 Dollar Bill Little Big Band
Shaman! by Idris Ackamoor & The Pyramids
Time is A Gift Which We Share All The Time by Afriquoi
Rejoice by Tony Allen and Hugh Masekela
Live by Angel Bat Dawid & Tha Brothahood
Fu Chronicles by Antibalas
Fetch The Bolt Cutters by Fiona Apple
Roy Ayers JID002 by Roy Ayers, Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad
Ex-Voto by Jamie Barnes
Please Advise by Beauty Pill
Crash Test Kid by Sammy Brue
Long In The Tooth by the Budos Band
Regresa by Buscabulla
Shadow Talk by Café Racer
Echo Mine by Califone
Gold Record by Bill Callahan
Have We Met by Destroyer
I Just Wasn't Made For These Set Times by Dire Wolves (Just Exactly Perfect Sisters Band)
Rough and Rowdy Ways by Bob Dylan
Afternoon Tea at Six by Eishan Ensemble
Acoustic Storm Sessions by Elkhorn
Kahil El’Zabar’s Spirit Groove by Kahil El'Zabar & David Murray
Wake Up! by Hazel English
Shore by Fleet Foxes
A Hero’s Death by Fontaines D.C.
Peoples Motel Band by Chris Forsyth and Garcia Peoples
SOURCE by Nubya Garcia
Nightcap at Wits' End by Garcia Peoples
Big Dark Bright Futures by Growing Concerns Poetry Collective
Women In Music Pt. III by Haim
Infinity Of Now by the Heliocentrics
National Freedom by Lonnie Holley
Muerto, Carcel o Rocanroll by Huntingtons
Beginners by Christian Lee Hutson
Reuinions by Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit
Babani Koné by Babani Koné
Mutation by Les Freres Smith
2020 by Magik Markers
Eno Axis by H.C. McEntire
Joshua Massad & Dylan Aycock by Joshua Massad & Dylan Aycock
Microphones in 2020 by the Microphones
Circles by Mac Miller
Dimensional Stardust by Rob Mazurek/Exploding Star Orchestra
Annual by Modern Nature
Getting Into Knives by the Mountain Goats
Staunch Honey by David Nance
Three by the Necks
Rob Noyes & Sam Moss by Rob Noyes & Sam Moss
We No Be Machine by Onipa
Jams From The Sun by Oregon Space Trail of Jazz
High Upon The Mountain by Pacific Range
Suite For Max Brown by Jeff Parker
Summerlong by Rose City Band
RTJ4 by Run The Jewels
Landwerk demos by Nathan Salsburg
Acoustic by Oumou Sangaré
Untitled (Black Is) by Sault
We Are Sent Here By History by Shabaka and the Ancestors
The Don of Diamond Dreams by Shabazz Palaces
Ocean Bridges by Archie Shepp, Raw Poetic & Damu the Fudgemunk
Companion Rises by Six Organs of Admittance
Shall We Go On Sinning So That Grace May Increase? by The Soft Pink Truth
Optimisme by Songhoy Blues
Swirling by Sun Ra Arkestra
Oh Yeah? by Sunwatchers
Wooden Flower by Tambourinen
Folklore by Taylor Swift
Nomad by Tengger
Sun Racket by Throwing Muses
Siftorde by Tidiane Thiam
New Vanitas by William Tyler
The Great Mountain by Waterless Hills
Eau’d To A Fake Bookie Volume 3 by Wet Tuna
Strange to Explain by Woods
Homegrown by Neil Young
Volume 04 of some of Holiday at the Sea’s favorite 2020 music. I chose 75 albums this year and the playlists total 74 songs since “Microphones in 2020 by the Microphones” is 45 minutes long and I didn’t want to include the whole album as part of a mix.
Anyways, enjoy!
Tracklisting:
“Solace” by Adrian Younge And Ali Shaheed Muhammad
“Theme For Cecil” by Idris Ackamoor and The Pyramids
“Venom” by The Heliocentrics
“Slow Bones” by Tony Allen & Hugh Masekela
“Eurasia” by Tengger
“Galaxy 1000” by Rob Mazurek and the Exploding Star Orchestra
“Two” by Joshua Massad & Dylan Aycock
“The Message Continues” by Nubya Garcia
“Makoma” by Onipa
“Ju$t” by Run The Jewels
“The Coming Of The Strange Ones” by Shabaka and the Ancestors
“Wet” by Shabazz Palaces
“No Talk Talk” by Les Freres Smith
“Strange To Explain” by Woods
“Go Away” by Jeff Parker
“Pray Up Stay Up” by Sault
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Since you, dear friends, trust my musical explorations, I know you remember my recent post about Shabaka and the Ancestors: Soul Jazz For The End of Days.
Between Shabaka and the Ancestors, Sons of Kemet, and The Comet is Coming, I dig the musical universe of Shabaka Hutchings in a way I have dug a musical universe in quite a while. While Shabaka and the Ancestors scratch my soul/spiritual-groove-roots-jazz itch, The Comet Is Comet channels my Quarantine angst with electronics, pulsating beats and skreeking skronks and some of the most evocative playing I’ve heard in a while.
The group’s Facebook page says:
“The Comet is Coming to destroy illusions. It will manifest new realities, perceptions, levels of awareness and abilities to coexist. It is a musical expression forged in the deep mystery. It is the overcoming of fear, the embracing of chaos, the peripheral sight that we might summon the fire.
Through the transcendent experience of music we reconnect with the energy of the Lifeforce in hope of manifesting higher realities in new constructs. Because the end is only really the beginning.”
Late last year, the group recorded an NPR Tiny Desk Concert, performing tracks from Trust in the Lifeforce of the Deep Mystery.
Setlist:
"Super Zodiac"
"Summon The Fire"
"Blood Of The Past"
Musicians:
King Shabaka: saxophone;
Danalogue: synthesizer;
Betamax: drums
Visit the official Shabaka Hutchings website.
Visit the official website for The Comet Is Coming.
Follow The Comet Is Coming at Facebook.
Visit The Comet Is Coming’s Bandcamp page.
Purchase The Comet Is Coming’s Music at Amazon.
Visit Shabaka and the Ancestors’ Bandcamp page.
Follow Shabaka and the Ancestors at Facebook.
Bandleader Shabaka Hutchings has made a name for himself as an adventurous player in the adventurous London jazz scene. Perhaps most well known for his role in Sons of Kemet, or The Comet Is Coming, Hutchings recently released his sophomore release with Shabaka and the Ancestors, We Are Sent Here By History.
While Hutchings is the constant between the three projects, each has its own unique personality. Shabaka and the Ancestors finds Hutchings collaborating with a group of South African artists. The album’s page at Impulse Records says:
“We Are Sent Here by History’ is a meditation on the fact of our coming extinction as a species. It is a reflection from the ruins, from the burning. a questioning of the steps to be taken in preparation for our transition individually and societally if the end is to be seen as anything but a tragic defeat. For those lives lost and cultures dismantled by centuries of western expansionism, capitalist thought and white supremist structural hegemony the end days have long been heralded as present with this world experienced as an embodiment of a living purgatory.”
The album is out now on Impulse! Records.
Watch the band live at North Sea Jazz 2017: