The duo of Aurora Nealand and Tom McDermott inhabit a musical world quite different from that of Ben Goldberg, but they all share several characteristics. They are comfortable in a number of different genres. They have no problem mixing those genres. They are superb composers, whether with paper and pen or on the fly. So they get to share this post. On Live at Luthjens, Nealand and McDermott cover a wide swathe of American music (and one Polish piece) in their inimitable way, and in Plague Diary, Goldberg finds a way to while away the time productively and, at times, mesmerizingly.

Aurora Nealand and Tom McDermott
Live at Luthjens (Big Whinny Records)
A review
Aurora Nealand (vocals, clarinet, soprano sax) and Tom McDermott (piano) have been playing together in various New Orleans venues for several years, and they released an adventurous studio album, City of Timbres, back in 2016. They share a taste for well-written material across a variety of genres, from traditional jazz to the great American songbook to modern Americana. A flair for ear-dazzling improvisation and for putting their own stamp on familiar material makes their live performances a welcome carnival ride, and Live at Luthjens captures a lively and touching evening at the former dance hall turned recording studio before an appreciative audience last October. The album offers 11 tracks, all covers, that range from Hank Williams to Duke Ellington, Carol King/Gerry Goffin to Tom Waits/Kathleen Brennan, Cole Porter to Steve Goodman. McDermott’s distinctive and impressive rhythmic shenanigans and chromatic colorings are on full display, as are his monstrously inventive ruminations and incomparable chops. Nealand keeps pace on her reeds, and her vocals add a je ne sais quoi touch, an impossible blend of innocence and worldliness. Her voice, with a hint of a rasp that also colors her work on the clarinet, will never win a hyped-up TV singing contest, but it just might win your heart. They open the proceedings with a raw tune made famous by Bessie Smith, “Gimme a Pigfoot,” and then counter immediately with a tender reading of Williams’ “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.” They tap into the angst of “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime” and follow up with Porter’s “It’s All Right with Me.” McDermott remakes the song over a tresillo rhythm, then touching on tango and making an excursion into boogie before returning to the tresillo. The King/Goffin tune “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” gets the James Booker treatment, and Nealand delivers a nice reading of “Ain’t No Sweet Man.” The Waits/Brennan deep and poignant “Take It with Me” finds the duo right in the heart of the song and may bring tears to your eyes. “Maple Leaf Rag,” a tune that McDermott has been expanding for decades and which he has never played the same way twice, gets a particularly brilliant visitation (note the mention of a carnival ride above). The set closes out with a dark take on Chopin’s Mazurka Opus 68 #2, and a lively turn through Goodman’s “The City of New Orleans.” What a city New Orleans is and what a gift—that you can hear music of this caliber, authentic, imaginative, and touching, in your neighborhood on a more or less regular basis.

Ben Goldberg
Plague Diary (Bandcamp)
A review
Locked down in his home, clarinetist Ben Goldberg found himself with an excessive amount of free time, clarinets, a synthesizer that he was not completely familiar with, and some recording equipment. Let’s let him explain:

Like many musicians, when the coronavirus hit in March I lost all my work in a matter of days. I had a complicated schedule for March and April, filled with tours, festivals, and local concerts, and it all evaporated very fast. Along with losing all my paying work, I was left with the question, what about the work surrounding art? Something tells me art will be fine, even though humans are in trouble at the moment. But right now art is precluded from its important work of gathering us together. So musicians are in a weird situation. In the initial shock my thought was, I don’t know what to do but I can record music at home. So on March 19 I began recording a new song every day. I made an album on Bandcamp, available free, called PLAGUE DIARY. The philosophy is “use what you’ve got” (is there ever another option?) — for me that means clarinets, a synthesizer I can’t figure out, and rudimentary recording ability. Because it’s a diary I am trying to use the recording process as a sketchbook, and an opportunity to mess around. (“Don’t forget to mess around.” — Steve Lacy)

As I write this, he’s posted 69 pieces on his Bandcamp page and apparently intends to go one for as long as he’s cooped up with nowhere to go, which is fine by me. (He’s missed only four days, and he apologized for one of those, saying that he tried but just couldn’t come up with a song that day.) The music varies from black-and-white solo clarinet doodles (“1. March 19 2020”) to highly colored productions with several voices—multiple clarinet and synth lines rubbing against one another (“20. April 7 2020 Daniel in the Lion’s Den, etc.”). You’ll hear klezmer, blues, gospel, jazz, way-out jazz, folk, would-be chorales, and movie scores, and the pieces, which are as short as 1:22 and as long as 17:20, range from greasy to snazzy, nervous to bored, anxious to euphoric.

A repeating figure often forms the backbone of a piece, with minor alterations as things progress—a kind of spiraling development as Goldberg explores fragments. Some of the more episodic pieces constitute miniature suites. His melodic lines have a unique quality: you are never quite sure where they are going, but once they get there, you know you have arrived. It’s like watching a rivulet of water come down a hillside. It may meander this way and that, but there is an organic logic to its movement as it navigates the terrain. Ultimately, it gets where it’s going, which is the only place it could go. Same with Goldberg’s melodies.

Some favorite moments include the gamboling clarinet and star sailing of “59. May 20 2020;” “27. April 15 2020: How to Do Things with Tears,” whose clarinet line asks for lyrics; the solitude of “15. April 2 2020. For George Marsh;” the loopy, funky circus music of “18. April 5 2020;” the rabbit hole of “20. April 7 2020 Daniel in the Lion’s Den, etc.;” the nervous and sinuous “49. May 9 2020,” a collaboration with Invisible Guy (Michael Coleman on keyboards, Hamir Atwal on drums), especially the section that sounds like “Caravan” passed through some sort of time/space filter; and the upward motif of “33. April 21 2020,” which captures the exuberant sensation of tossing a bird into the air.

You can listen to the pieces for free on Bandcamp, and paying customers—name your price—can download individual tracks or the entire set. Either way, you can eavesdrop on Goldberg’s compositional process while enjoying something new every day.

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© 2020 Mel Minter