Weekly Music Roundup: More Unearthed Jazz, Angelique Kidjo, and The Carters

 Week of June 18: This week, Parquet Courts Plays Total Football, Angelique Kidjo Tackles Talking Heads, and another lost jazz album is found

PREMIERE: A Lost Jazz Album Is Found – No, Not THAT One…

Last week we heard the news of John Coltrane’s lost 1963 album. Now comes word that an early recording by some pivotal players on the downtown jazz scene in the 1970s is about to see the light of day, after being out of print and unobtainable for almost 40 years. It’s called Valley of the Search and it was recorded at the Jazz Loft in 1975. Though credited to saxophonist Alan Braufman, the recording also included notable musicians like the pianist, instrument inventor, and educator Cooper-Moore, bassist Cecil McBee, drummer David Lee and percussionist Ralph Williams. On June 29, the same day that the Coltrane album comes out, Valley of the Search will be reissued, and will be marked by a series of live performances by Braufman and Cooper-Moore: the first on August 1 in The Greene Space at WNYC/WQXR, and the second on August 3 at National Sawdust. The session has been referred to as “free jazz,” which many people find a forbidding term (and sound), but tracks like “Destiny” show the band hewing more closely to the spiritual jazz of Pharoah Sanders (and of course, before him, Coltrane). Braufman’s sax has a questing melody that seems to be flying over a landscape sketched by percussion and subtle use of Cooper-Moore’s piano. 

A Weekend Surprise From Beyoncé and Jay Z

You have to be impressed when two of the world’s biggest pop stars are able to release a new album without any leaks or online rumbling beforehand. But that’s what Jay Z and Beyoncé did this weekend. Everything Is Love was released, initially only on the Tidal, and is credited to The Carters (Jay Z’s real last name). The first single, called “Apeshit,” is notable for two things: the repeating line “I can’t believe we made it” seems to conclude the married couple’s very public troubles. Beyoncé called out Jay Z for infidelity in her withering album Lemonade, and Jay Z’s response album 4:44 was full of self-recrimination and doubt. The new single and the album suggest the king and queen are once again in harmony, which brings us to the second notable aspect of “Apeshit”: its video features Jay Z and Beyoncé at their most imperious in no less a setting than the Louvre. The suggestion that their art is of equal stature to the overwhelmingly white, male history of western culture is hard to miss. So, by the way, is Beyoncé’s final verse, a rapid-fire rap that does not take a backseat to her husband’s NFL-dissing verse before hers.

Parquet Courts Celebrate The World Cup and Total Teamwork

The essential NY rock band Parquet Courts has released a new single, just in time for the World Cup. It’s called “Total Football,” a term that was used to describe the Dutch national soccer team in the 1970's where every player except the keeper could switch positions and change fluidly to meet the needs of each situation. But Parquet Courts has more than soccer history on their minds – the song uses that Dutch team ethic as a metaphor; “collectivism and autonomy are not mutually exclusive” yells Andrew Savage at one point. The song is full of hooks, and a great, catchy moment where the band collectively shout out to artists and movements that they believe used the total football aesthetic (including the Dadaists and the Beatles). The song ends with a curious line which suggests that a certain NFL quarterback stands for personal glory at the expense of the greater good. Watch the lyric video so you don’t miss any of the verbal athletics. 

Angelique Kidjo Reimagines A Talking Heads Classic

The Benin-born, Brooklyn-based singer Angelique Kidjo has finally released her distinctive, distinctly African-flavored take on the 1980 album Remain In Light by Talking Heads. This will not be news to Soundcheck listeners: Kidjo and her band performed several of these songs in our live podcast series last year, shortly before a sold-out performance at Carnegie Hall. But a project this big doesn’t materialize easily or quickly. The multiple Grammy-winner and occasional New Sounds contributor enlisted the aid of Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend, the great Nigerian drummer Tony Allen, and numerous others to flesh out her vision of this groundbreaking group of songs, written when David Byrne and producer Brian Eno were firmly under the spell of Afropop – especially the music of Fela Kuti, propelled by that same Tony Allen. The album is a kind of magic trick: the songs are intact and recognizable even as they sound like they’ve come from another planet. The ominous and unsettling “Listening Wind” is a personal favorite – driven by the sounds of the West African balofon, a type of xylophone; but a good track to start with might be “The Great Curve,” which features the line “the world moves on a woman’s hips” – a line that the staunchly feminist Kidjo somehow invests with a world of meaning and attitude.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Spiritualized Are Still Floating In Space

The English psychedelic rock band Spiritualized gained widespread fame in 1997 with their Album Of The Year-winning LP Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space. The band’s appearances since then have been sporadic – founding member J. Spaceman (real name Jason Pierce) has been the only constant member, and the band hasn’t put out a record since 2012. But in September, Spiritualized will return with an album called And Nothing Hurt, and the first single is out now. It’s a typically gauzy, anthemic song called “I’m Your Man,” which will appeal to Beatles and Pink Floyd fans. Its video sees J. Spaceman – in full spaceman regalia – traveling through Joshua Tree and paying his respects at the memorial to Gram Parsons.

Protomartyr Deals A Winning Hand In New Single

The Detroit post-punk band Protomartyr released an EP on Friday called Consolation, a collection of four songs that includes the usual rumble of distorted guitars and singer Joe Casey’s care-worn vocals. But two of the songs also feature Kelley Deal of The Breeders, who adds a touch of poignancy to the song “You Always Win.” Despite a largely well-earned reputation for abstract but barbed songwriting, Protomartyr’s best songs have also been melodic, and on recent albums, Casey has shown a flair for songs about growing up, and growing older. “Ellen,” from 2015’s The Agent Intellect, is an almost impossibly touching song (though still loud and edgy), that imagines his dead father singing to his mother, who is struggling with Alzheimer’s. “You Always Win” seems to be cut from the same cloth, and closes the new EP on a bittersweet note.