10 Linda May Han Oh – “Living Proof”
The bassist being named as the leader of the group is a new one for me, but then, it is all about coming from an oddball vantage point and making it all work anyhow. Australia’s Linda May Han Oh gets help here from trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire in bellowing out a frenetic, almost desperate jazz manuscript, as light on its feet as it is tense and expedited.
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9 Chip Wickham – “The Road Less Traveled”
Somewhat like Ernest Hemingway, multi-instrumentalist and composer Chip Wickham is a white man who relocated to Spain, to something, well, nobody was expecting. “The Road Less Traveled” is indicative of the larger LP The Eternal Now in staying true to groove-laden, textural jazz, coming across a little less improvisational than Han Oh, but, maybe, all the more inspired for its cerebral purposefulness.
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8 Jimmy Greene – “Praises”
We now fly over to the States here, for what just may be the first Connecticut artist ever featured on this site, but keeping things within jazz, unbelievably enough. Again, the mood stays light here, possessive of that neo-spirit endemic to the genre where a specific mood of hope and renewal seems to come forth, amidst all the melodic and rhythmic rubble.
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7 Sharon Mansur – “Tunnel Maze”
“Tunnel Maze”; from Israel’s Sharon Mansur, is more textural, worldly jazz that seems to naturally replenish the listener’s psyche and imbue a sense of benevolent vision. Mansur is rubber-fingered on the piano runs here, keeping things sounding professional and even intimidating, but the music goes down easy, making for a great focused listen or background work noise, whichever might be duly summoned.
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6 Posthuman – “Doublethink”
The name of the game here is textural, orchestra techno music, from UK’s Doublethink, who, on Bandcamp, claims that the album The Mind is a Heavy Burden is “loaded with samples taken from psychiatric ward recordings” and “warnings of a future they feared.” If it is, anyway, a concept album on insanity, it veers toward providing an ambient backdrop for a mental lapse, rather than noodling toward a ham-handed, laborious replica representation of one, the way some showmen might have.
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5 Joe Morris – “Diaspora Blues”
Here we keep it in the UK for more oddball dub shenanigans a la Joe Morris, a synth-happy aficionado with an ear for layering and song structure. “Diaspora Blues” is so complete with melody, physicality and feeling that the meaning of the song almost strangles you, even sans-lyrics, and a Moog run so virtuosic that it almost seems improvisational. But this isn’t jazz music! I promise!
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4 Brad Mehldau – “Tomorrow Tomorrow” feat. Daniel Rossen
Dutch pianist and composer Brad Mehldau invites in Grizzly Bear’s vocalist/songwriter Daniel Rossen (also of the auspicious Department of Eagles” for “Tomorrow Tomorrow”; and yes, the results are quite tense, which you might have expected. “Tomorrow Tomorrow” kind of reminds me of the Charlie Brown theme song, which is never a bad thing, and Rossen’s fractal, self-deprecating lyrics make the perfect foreground here, anchoring the almost aimless noodling of jazz heavy lifting happening on a instrumental level.
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3 Tommy Crane & David Binney – “The Plateau”
With Tommy Crane and drums and David Binney on saxophone, new LP The Isle opens with the gorgeous “The Plateau”; a soprano-heavy tone poem with clear, crisp drum tracking and a veritable wilderness of gorgeous synth underbelly. It’s even enough to atone for the freakish amount of jazz flooding this list, or at least amuse the listener for a few minutes and make him think he might be listening to REMOTEWORKER.
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2 Fabia Mantwill Orchestra – “Satoyama”
To round out the jazz World Cup here, we go to Germany and saxophonist/composer Fabia Mantwill, who looks on first sight like Meghan Trainor or Miley Cyrus. Things get rhythmic, textural and soothing quickly enough, though, reassuring the listener of no catering to radio, with beautiful harp runs and an ambient, easy disposition governing this music to celestial heights.
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1 Joe Morris – “The Girl in the Dream”
Lastly, we return back to our underground UK lair for some synthetic satisfaction, with “The Girl in the Dream” bouncing along with more dance-club flair than Morris’ prior offering, but still replete with bulbous emotional mood, finding a way to come across melancholy while also anchoring something that could legitimately get a room full of feet tapping.