[pdf] I'm Not Crazy, I'm Just Not You: The Real Meaning of The 16 Personality Types

-Mondays at The Enfield Tennis Academy-, x2 LPs of long-form, lyrical, groove-based free improv by acclaimed guitarist & composer Jeff Parker's ETA IVtet is at last here. Recorded live at ETA (referencing David Foster Wallace), a bar in LA’s Highland Park neighborhood with just enough space in the back for Parker, drummer Jay Bellerose, bassist Anna Butterss, & alto saxophonist Josh Johnson to convene in extraordinarily depthful & exploratory music making. Gleaned for the stoniest side-length cuts from 10+ hours of vivid two-track recordings made between 2019 & 2021 by Bryce Gonzales, -Mondays at The Enfield Tennis Academy- is a darkly glowing séance of an album, brimming over with the hypnotic, the melodic, & patience & grace in its own beautiful strangeness. Room-tone, electric fields, environment, ceiling echo, live recording, Mondays, Los Angeles.

The sixth album by New York's Holmes Brothers is another all-spirituals set - though not in the traditional sense of the word. Produced by pop singer Joan Osborne (before she was a superstar, Osborne woodshedded with the Brothers and developed a fine rootsy singing style of her own), who was there in the Manhattan trenches with the band, this set goes a long, long way to capturing raw, excruciating grooves. With the a trio of singers as soulful as any group Memphis or Motown ever produced, the Holmes Brothers take it to the gut each and every time. This set opens with Ben Harper's "Homeless Child," and let's just say after the deep, grease-fire funk the vocalizing creates, Harper should never play it again…

Presumably the Bad Plus wanted to make a very specific statement when they titled this album Prog. Although there is no confusing its music for what has typically passed for progressive jazz or progressive rock in decades past, Prog embodies the true meaning of the word: it takes music forward - not just theirs, but music itself. How they do that is relatively simple, despite the music's complexity: they go where they want to go, where others have yet even to consider going. That means throwing out conventional notions of what a jazz piano trio can and should do. That the Bad Plus is comprised of three exemplary musicians - pianist Ethan Iverson, bassist Reid Anderson and drummer David King - is never in doubt. Their chops are on display at every turn - and there are many turns, unexpected and exhilarating ones that produce seismic shifts without losing focus…