well that frikkin year couldn’t end fuckin fast enough could it? Lord, what a cruel, cruel joke.
a three-hundred-sixty-five-day punchline without a laugh for the little guy. a running obit. everything grey like dickens. duke’s indigo faded to Beijing smog and wildfire smoke.

w/o getting deep into the existential weeds, it was a fuck of a year and the election was just the tip of the iceberg. o we fucked that up big time. but I and thousands of others tried to deliver you Bernie, but you went with reality TV. the battle of the two dying white behemoths and wooooo fuckin hoooo you got what you paid for. suck it up my droogies. it’s gonna get a lot darker. this grey is gonna look like a sunny day in Bali soon.

so, if like everyone else, you couldn’t shake the oppressive gloom and gloaming, here’s the music that helped me through. I doubt any of it registers with the mighty poop top ten or twenty or whatever meta data they mine from these masturbatory exercises. I just know this music wasn’t extrapolated from the anthems of the fuck machine.

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Laurie Anderson: Heart of a Dog – This is just too good. Deep, wry meditations on where we’re at and where we’re going. Suddenly there were cameras and soldiers everywhere. This one hasn’t left my side. Available on DVD too. Equally good.

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David Bowie: Blackstar – Wasn’t it just like Bowie to die first and lead the way?

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Erroll Garner: Ready Take One – If you’ve forgotten what joy is, give this one a listen. Garner’s first all new, archival release in too many years.

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Case, Lang, Veirs – If you find anything wrong w/this, go tell someone who’ll listen. I just want to be with you / not bracing / for what comes next.

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Charles Mingus: The Complete 1960 Nat Hentoff Sessions – Whoa! If anyone knew how to cut through the bullshit of celebrity, ego, and human design, Mingus did. And this proves it.

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RoseAnne Fino: An Airing of Grievances – Hudson Valley’s own keeps getting better n better n the way she turns the roiling rhythm of “Sympathy for the Devil” into her own scorched earth “Touch Me” is nothing short of inspiring. I live beneath a bridge / where a garbage trucks tells me when it’s morning. Yeah, welcome to America. Absolutely restored my faith in two guitars, bass n drums. Piano too.

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DeJohnette, Coltrane, Garrison: In Moment – Lots of car rides to doctors. Lots of anxiety and asshole drivers. Here were my moments of calm amid the turbulence.

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Hiromi: Spark – More incredible music with the Trio Project. Anthony Jackson – bass, Simon Phillips – drums. Music so free of the fuck machine I would follow it off any cliff.

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Bill Evans Trio: Some Other Time, The Lost Session from the Black Forest – Not learning to play piano will be my greatest, though only, regret. The whispers and secrets that Evans could glean and reveal from the great 88 was, still, and always will be mesmerizing. Germany ’68 w/Eddie Gomez and Jack DeJohnette.

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Peter Erskine Trio: As It Was – This four disc retrospective from ECM just overflows with pianist John Taylor’s Evan’s like grace and melodic sense. Palle Danielsson’s bass opens the sky. More moments of calm amidst the campaign bludgeoning.

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Peter Wolf: A Cure for Loneliness – Bronx boy makes good again n again n again.

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Bruce Springsteen: The Ties That Bind: The River Collection – Sure we’ve had most of these on bootleg for decades but wow, here it all is. The show in Albany in February kicked ass too. Still waiting for the complete Nebraska set.

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Kate Bush: Before the Dawn – Just released. Live from 2014. It’s Kate is all I’m gonna say. If that ain’t enough, go read Salon or something.

And finally:

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Bob Dylan: The 1966 Live Recordings – You have no idea how often I went back to Highway 61 this year. This total immersion into the madness delivered me from the real time insanity that threatened to engulf me whole.

postscript 1: The Mr Gabriel Mr Sting show @ Jones Beach 6/24 was impossibly good despite the drunken Russian hecklers. The music resonant. Lasting. Emily’s pain for the moment gone with “In Your Eyes.” I wish I could find a decent bootleg.

postscript 2: Chick Corea/Brad Mehldau 11/18 & Corea, Coltrane, Laws, Wooten, & White, 12/4 Blue Note: Sublime, instant, historic music.

postscript 3: South Park and Bob’s Burgers still kill it. Like I said last year, if I had a daughter I’d want her to be Louise. Bruce’s book and the bio of Morris Levy kills also.

postscript 4: Haven’t had the courage to cue up Cohen’s You Want It Darker. I will.

Thanks to Emily for 25 years. . . .

good luck everybody

mj