Records To Die For

Muddy Waters: Muddy Waters Sings "Big Bill"
Muddy Waters, guitar, vocal; James Cotton, harmonica; Otis Spann, piano; Pat Hare, guitar; Andrew Stephenson, bass; Francis Clay, drums.
Chess Records LP 1442 (LP) 1960/Geffen (2015). Leonard Chess, prod.

The day after Election '24, John Atkinson asked for R2L4 picks. What music could possibly be powerful enough to deal with the comatose Blues I had fallen into? There was only one answer: Muddy Waters's first studio album for Chess Records, recorded in 1959, Muddy Waters Sings "Big Bill." The band was Muddy's great go-to Chicago electric group, highlighted by James Cotton and Otis Spann. The Chess brothers captured Muddy's vocals in all their glory. In "Just a Dream," when Waters moans "It was a dream, a dream I had on my mind. You know when I woke up this morning, not a thing could I find," it felt like he'd been in the voting booth next to me.

Miles Davis: Someday My Prince Will Come
Miles Davis, trumpet; Paul Chambers, bass; Jimmy Cobb, drums; John Coltrane, sax; Wynton Kelly, piano; Hank Mobley, sax.
Columbia CS 8456 (1961)/Analogue Productions APJ 8456 (LP). 2022. Teo Macero, prod.; Ryan Smith, remastering.

In 1961, for his seventh studio album Someday My Prince Will Come, Miles's playing was as great as it ever was, and so was the band. With his beautiful wife Frances gracing the cover, Miles feels perhaps as peaceful and grounded as that restless guy ever got. After Miles's opening solo on the title track, when 'Trane strolls in and takes over—it's as if Mount Olympus had a small jazz club on the premises. Miles mixes standards with originals (all three of the latter titled after people in his life), as he alternates between playing with his Harmon mute on and off. The 2022 LP remastering by Analogue Productions sounds beautiful.

Roger Hodgson: In The Eye Of The Storm
A&M SP 5004 (LP). 1984. Roger Hodgson, prod.; Scott Litt, James Farber, Ken Allardyce, engs.

Upon release, I listened to Roger Hodgson's first post-Supertramp solo album, 1984's In the Eye of the Storm, on an A&M BASF Chrome 120μs EQ cassette on my original Sony Walkman more times than I can count. Revisiting Storm on vinyl opens up its sunny, prog-meets–synth-pop pores. The 8-minute opener "Had a Dream (Sleeping With the Enemy)" is a seething indictment of former comrades-in-arms, replete with a pair of wicked Hodgson-wrangled guitar solos ("you know!"), while the equally lengthy closer "Only Because of You" ripples and cascades with mournful piano lines and layered harmonies. Storm is one helluva one-man-band gale force.

The Raveonettes: Whip It On
Crunchy Frog FROG 028 (EP). 2002. Sune Rose Wagner, prod., recorder, and mixer

What do you get when you cross Brian Wilson and Eddie Cochran with Mary Weiss and Nico? You get the Dutch surface-noise-pop duo The Raveonettes, that's what. Vocalist/guitarist Sune Rose Wagner and vocalist/bassist Sharin Foo share a seedy garage-rock mindmeld that instantly manifested itself on their 2002 debut 10" import EP, Whip It On. In just 21 unrelenting minutes—three chords only and all of it played in B-flat minor, no waiting—The Raveonettes are in full-on assault mode from the galloping raygun blasts of "Attack of the Ghost Riders" to the früg und drang of "Beat City." Whip it up, STAT.

Anna Butterss: Mighty Vertebrate
Anna Butterss, upright/electric bass, guitar, synth, flute, drum machine, compositions; Josh Johnson, alto saxophone, effects; Gregory Uhlmann, guitar, effects; Ben Lumsdaine, drums, guitar, drum programming; Jeff Parker, guitar
International Anthem IARC0086 (LP). 2024. Ben Lumsdaine, Anna Butterss, prods.

If you're a fan of trumpeter Jon Hassell's surreal 1980s output, the hypnotic spell of post-rock auteurs Tortoise, or serious improvisations tilted by an electronic approach, bassist/composer Anne Butterss's Mighty Vertebrate should top your list. As part of a generation weaned on electronic dance music and hip-hop, Butterss and her clan not only string out daring improvs, there are times when the grooves are so intertwined, the tones so singular, thick, and insular, you can't tell where the improv begins/ends and the programming begins/ends (it's all played live). It's trance music for non–drug users, heady improvisations for those who couldn't tell a Charles Mingus solo from an Aphex Twin beat party.

John Abercrombie, Dave Holland, Jack Dejohnette: Gateway
Abercrombie, guitar; Holland, upright bass; DeJohnette, drums
ECM 1061. 1975/2024. Manfred Eicher, prod.

Reanimating the skeleton of the Jimi Hendrix Experience with fiery improvisations and densely saturated tonal colors, Gateway, the first of two ECM albums by this trio, set the bar for today's "burnout jazz," the mantle taken in the '90s by such jazz infant terribles as drummer Jeff "Tain" Watts and guitarist David Fiuczynski. For the first Gateway, the trio simply shreds. The reissued gatefold album, part of ECM's sporadic Luminescence series, has greater resolution, intimacy, and dynamics than my original, allowing the country-fried "Back-Woods Song" to dance, "Unshielded Desire" to emote like a fire-breathing monster, and exploratory reverie "Jamala" to simply shine.