Jules Kamga: "Africa Gounyok"

This one’s worth the price for the cover alone, with Jules looking every bit the rocker, wearing an AC/DC shirt with Fender in hand, flashing the peace sign.  The music, then, will come as a bit of a surprise if you’re expecting anything resembling rock.  This record is instead full of pop bounce, traditional sounds, and lots of funk.  Kamga earns the guitar hero pose from the sleeve, pulling off knotty fusion riffs and beautiful solos, all over some deeply bouncing grooves, especially on the songs “Fa-Mo”, “Simo” and the title track.  There’s a really nice mix of dance-oriented material and smooth, melodic soul numbers, all underscored by the roots influences of Cameroon.  Spin the uptempo jams from this LP at a club, and watch the crowd lose their shit.

The Eight Minutes: "An American Family"

Fantastic family band soul on the always-excellent Perception label.  Unlike a lot of other artists on the Perception/Today roster who were based in NYC, The Eight Minutes hail from Chicago, which must have been the absolute epicenter of kid-driven family soul acts in the early ‘70’s.  The Five Stairsteps, Brighter Side Of Darkness, The Imaginations, The Next Movement, etc…the list goes on.  The group shines on this LP, and in terms of funkiness and groove, this is a lot closer to The Sylvers than the lighter novelty sound of some of their contemporaries.  The great Patrick Adams wrote a few of the songs, although he didn’t produce the record.  From the heartbroken opener of “Next Time He’ll Be Good” through to the hypnotic, percussive workout “Take My Love Don’t Set Me Free” that ends the LP, every song hums with Windy City soul, pocket, and melody.

Kashmere Stage Band: "Zero Point"

No words.  Sound and fury.  All descriptions fall short.  This rarer-than rare LP defies categorization, and to know that it was made by a bunch of high school students is simply absurd.  How does one ever go about making music like this, and when they’re a teenager no less?  Yes, it’s funk, and jazz, and soul.  There are of course blueprints being followed here, considering that many of the tunes are covers.  Yet where said blueprints might amount to a faded carbon copy in lesser hands, here they transcend their origins to become something else completely.  This version of “Scorpio” holds the rare distinction of possibly besting Dennis Coffey’s original, and the break on it is untouchable.  Then there’s “All Praises,” a band original and maybe the best song I’ve ever heard, complete with another killer break.  So yeah.  This is heat you’ll burn your hands on.

PRINCE...and goodbye, 2016.

This will probably be my last entry here for a while, and possibly my last entry in this series, period.  It’s been fun challenging myself within the blogosphere, yet more and more I find I am far too occupied with the business of life to spend much time here.  Which, of course, is not a negative thing.

I thought about several directions and/or approaches I could take with this entry, my usual preference being to write about the best albums of the year.  While 2016 was an unbelievably good time for music, there were so many great records released, I’m not really sure I can narrow it down to a workable “top 20” list, as I’d be neglecting too many necessary selections.  From Childish Gambino to Solange to Tribe Called Quest and so on and so forth, 2016 was a year where revolutionary consciousness fully entered the mainstream again, and I couldn’t be more thrilled.  Yet it also marked the loss of someone who almost certainly had more of a creative and personal impact on me than any other individual from the world of popular music.

Prince.

When Bowie died earlier in the year, I immediately went to work, learning songs of his, putting together a tribute show, and writing an entry here very shortly after his passing.  But Prince?  I’d lived with and inside his music obsessively for most of my adult life, and I can truly say that he is one of the most fundamental reasons I write, play and perform my own music today.  When I found out he was gone, the air left the room.  That evening, myself, my wife, and a very small circle of friends gathered at the house, ostensibly for what I suppose was a sort of Irish wake for the Purple One, listening to his records and even jamming a few of his songs live.  I am thankful for everyone in that room on that night, because I felt as though something had been torn from the very essence of who I am.

When I first heard Prince, I didn’t get it.  His genius was so far beyond my realm of understanding, I may as well have been trying to wrap my head around nuclear physics.  It wasn’t until one of my oldest and closest friends took me aside, and said, “Dylan.  Listen.”  He played me “Bambi,” “Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad,” and “Lady Cab Driver.”  I was a serious lead guitar fanatic in those days, and so, as you can imagine, that kind of sealed the deal for me.

I became a man possessed.  I bought every record, sought out every concert, watched every film.  With each subsequent album of his I dug into, I realized more and more the scope of his accomplishments, the versatility of his song-craft, the endless innovation of his musical virtuosity.  Yet more intensely than that, I started to understand things about myself that previously had felt confusing, or convoluted, or in disarray.  People speak frequently about Prince’s penchant for extreme sexuality, and while there’s no denying that aspect of his persona, it was his emotional vulnerability and sensitivity that drew me in.

After this initial flood of catalytic musical inspiration, I went deeper.  The time period where I became a Prince fanatic coincided with the time period where I began finding my own path as a musician, and so after a few years of woodshedding and playing with various bands, I struck out on my own, with a formidable arsenal of Prince covers at the ready.  Learning how to play his songs—solo, and on a bass, no less—led me to new places in terms of my interpretation of Prince and the increasingly large space his music occupied in my life.  Eventually, it opened the door for me to begin writing my own songs, and while the number of influences that pushed me in that direction is ridiculously crowded and diverse, I think I can authoritatively say that, without Prince, I never would have started writing.  Never would have had the confidence.  Never would have thought that I could bare my soul over on-the-one funk.  Never would have spit game at a girlfriend over my own grooves.  Never would have believed that who I was, and who I wanted to be, were valid or viable choices.

Years passed.  Prince became part of the wallpaper of my life, B-Sides and bootlegs overflowing in the crates.  No band that I led would ever play a show without doing at least 2-3 Prince songs in our set.  At Dolly and I’s wedding, our bridesmaids and groomsmen danced down the aisle to “I Wanna Be Your Lover.”  We all wore purple.  My friend Barry—also gone now—and I would talk for hours about our favorite deep cuts, why he liked “Under The Cherry Moon” and why I didn’t, why I felt the need to include “She’s Always In My Hair” on every single mix I ever made.  (That’s an easy answer…it’s my favorite Prince song, of all time, ever.)  I’d play shows with my friend Julian, a frequent Prince impersonator, and he’d bring the house down no matter the venue or crowd, in the style of old-school showmanship that Prince perfected and that seems so rare now.  All this is to say, Prince and his music took on a life of their own within my life, which I know was also the case for so many others throughout the world.  How beautiful, and unlikely, is that?  Some kid from Minneapolis brings the world closer together?

Then—just like that—he was gone.  A magnificent source of love, and hope, was suddenly absent from the universe.  So distant then did immediately seem the days of my own youth, when his music was my solace from all the stillborn relationships, the murky waters of immaturity, the ecstatic sunshine-filled excesses, the dark nights of the soul. 

I can now only say thank you, and I am not quite sure if those words are enough.  I couldn’t have made it here without you, Prince.  I am still figuring out my path through this strange and bitter world, and feel so woefully inadequate at times that I don’t know where to turn.  Then I play one of your records, and it all sort of drifts away, and I hear it as though I’m listening for the first time, and all the heartbreak and joy and love and pain feel exciting again, and I sing and dance and laugh and cry, and I miss you terribly and I never knew you.  I write this for you now and thank you is not enough.

The Farewell Of The Thin White Duke, AKA “my life with Bowie in 5 songs.”

I saw another piece of writing this week that was discussing the enormous outpouring of love, support, commentary, analysis, astonishment, etc. in the wake of David Bowie’s unexpected passing last Sunday, and how it was difficult to offer anything new to the dialogue—so overwhelming was it all, so much of everything already said.  I certainly have no revelations to give, and so instead will simply write about what Bowie meant to me personally.  The best way I can do this is to tell the story of how I came to love Bowie and his music, through five pivotal songs of his that coincide with very specific times in my own life.

It took me a long time to get to Bowie, as far as my musical tastes were concerned.  Sure, I’d first seen him in Labyrinth like a million other ‘80’s kids, and while his appearance in that film was memorable, I was a child and not yet curious enough to pursue the matter further.  As far as his songs and albums went, well…I grew up in a household dominated by folk music, and so David Bowie, like so many other rock artists, didn’t register on my radar at all.  Mine was an existence of softly fingerpicked acoustic guitars and introspective lyrics, not androgynous superstars and electric bombast. 

It wasn’t until many years later, in my early ‘20’s, that his themes of pride despite—no, because of—alienation really started to resonate with me.  Also, as a catalogue completist, Bowie offered that rare thing that other favorites like The Beatles and Parliament-Funkadelic did, that is, every album was a sonic and lyrical journey, and no two records sounded quite the same as each other.  Once I began to immerse myself, I was hooked, and never looked back.  As the years passed, David Bowie became for me like many of my other still-living creative influences—someone I took for granted, someone who would always just be, you know, around.  In fact, Bowie may have felt more like that than most, as he had so doggedly and determinedly invented and built upon his own mystique, to the point where the average observer such as myself began to think such a creature could be nothing less than superhuman, nothing short of immortal.  And yet when I woke up Monday morning, he was dead.  Dead, but not gone.

1.  “Five Years,” from The Rise & Fall Of Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders From Mars.  I imagine this must have been a lot of folks’ entry-level initiation into Bowie-world, kicking off as it does the legendary Ziggy LP.  Ziggy wasn’t the first album of his I picked up, but it may as well have been, so momentous were its shockwaves.  However, “Five Years” is significant to me not because of its Ziggy association, nor its tale of the impending apocalypse, but because it always happens to come on when I’ve reached these peak transitional points in life, all occurring at a rate of just about, you guessed it, five years.  Leaving Olympia, WA for my hometown of Omaha, not quite in defeat but not sure of anything, driving towards Tugboat Annie’s on the Puget Sound with my old friend Graham, and singing the chorus while faintly tearing up.  Resigned to, and even content with, the approach of my dreaded thirties, having started careers as both a musician and teacher by that point, while managing to marry a woman so incredible she doesn’t mind my endless hours of pontification about subjects such as, I dunno, David Bowie and his song “Five Years.”  Tears streaming down my face mere days ago, as I watched the man himself perform the song on The Old Grey Whistle Test, thinking of how this tune has accidentally marked such crucial points in my own experience, while realizing that the face on the screen—that gaunt, slightly sad, slightly bemused face—is no more, at least not as we've known it.

2.  “Young Americans,” from Young Americans.  When I first committed myself to investigating David Bowie’s music, to see what all the fuss was about, I didn’t know where to start.  I bought Aladdin Sane and it left me cold, which, oddly enough, it still does to this day, and is the only Bowie album I own that I feel that way about, though I dig certain tracks (“Panic In Detroit” is the biz!).  So, wanting to give it another try, I copped the Young Americans LP, and though I was initially startled at the difference in the sound (hardcore glam to Philly soul is more than a bit of a jump), I immediately liked it, and remember smiling so much it hurt, especially when listening to the title track.  I can’t even speak about the song “Young Americans” objectively, so ingrained is it in my psyche at this point.  I learned it myself, played it at countless open mics and actual shows, and even used to do a hyper-exaggerated version as a sort of alarm clock to awaken my always-sleeping cousin when I would go to his house in Omaha, at top volume and with excessive ridiculousness.  The lyrics to this song are unbelievable, some of the most soulful and devastating Bowie ever wrote, and in my own days as a “young American,” I felt like he was singing about me and everybody I knew, directly addressing and even mocking our contradictions, our over-inflated sense of self-importance, our fickle love lives and our days as pimps and hustlers, all at once. 

3.  “1984,” from Diamond Dogs.  I was constantly listening to David Bowie when I lived in Omaha from ’05-’07, and I started digging into the Diamond Dogs LP right at the beginning of that period, living in the basement of the house I grew up in, not re-adjusted at all to midwest sensibilities or midwest weather.  That being the case, the desolate future-now tone of Diamond Dogs felt more appropriate than ever, and I took a special shine to the Shaft-meets-Brecht funk of “1984.”  Keep in mind that these were also the George W. Bush years, and while the concepts of Big Brother and double-speak certainly weren’t new to the American political landscape, they were now being taken to new heights—or is it depths?—and seemed to have freshly sinister undertones that wormed away at anyone paying attention during those dreary times.  To numb myself from it all, I’d throw this cut on at maximum levels, drowning out everything else that was and wasn’t, ‘til none of it mattered other than that razor-sharp guitar and airtight groove, with Bowie singing so woefully and passionately he could have been in the damn basement with me.  Well, he was, I suppose, or at least his records were, and what more can one ask of an artist, really, in moments of confusion and distress?  Bowie was everywhere for me in those days, he filled up the empty spaces and the awkward silences with joy and fervor and maybe not hope, but something close.  Something more real than hope, even…pragmatic funk and fearless rock. 

4.  “Stay,” from Station To Station.  There are two reasons I have such fondness for this particular track.  One is the lyrics, which expertly summarize the kind of romantic entanglements I frequently found myself in in my early ‘20’s, before I wised up and stopped messing around with women who, for the most part, were of extremely limited substance.  The whole chorus, if it can even be called a chorus, of “stay/that’s what I meant to say or do something”…I found myself in that situation far too many times, not being assertive enough to capture the moment and then, of course, losing said moment.  The other reason is that this has got to be the absolute funkiest cut that Bowie ever did, with the guitar conversations of Carlos Alomar and Earl Slick riding over the slick groove laid down by bassist George Murray and drummer Dennis Davis, all creating a whirlpool of pocket.  David Bowie always surrounded himself with superb musical talent, but the Station To Station-era band is easily my favorite, so absolutely next-level was their interplay and sense of rhythmic intensity.  Many evenings were spent bouncing around my apartment in South Omaha to this song, all by my lonesome and completely content with that reality.  Well, mostly content, anyway. 

5.  “Blackstar,” from Blackstar.  And so we shall end at the end.  I bought Blackstar before Bowie’s death, but hadn’t had a chance to listen to it before I found out.  I took it to school with me on that Monday morning, more than a little shaken by the news, and forced myself to listen as I readied myself for the week ahead.  While it was extremely difficult to listen in an objective and/or emotionally removed sense—especially considering the bleak, letter-from-a-dying-man tone—the one thing I kept thinking was, despite all that context, the music I was listening to was still taking me somewhere, it was still new and fresh, it was innovative and dark and harsh and abrasive and beautiful, but it never ceased to be anything less than one helluva ride.  That blinding force of intentional creative provocation, I think, is what Bowie intended to convey throughout his career, though he of course made a few missteps here and there, as any artist does.  Yet he never really compromised his art, and always stayed true to his own muse, regardless of what the buzz may have been about each given album and song.  He killed Ziggy Stardust at the height of that character’s popularity, and became a blue-eyed soul auteur instead.  When the Thin White Duke had outlived his usefulness, he retreated to Berlin and created, with Brian Eno, what is perhaps the most transcendent and influential work of his career.  As the eighties loomed he returned to (relatively) straightforward rock and then pop, and continued to dance around all of the aforementioned styles for the next thirty years, never stopping, never phoning it in, never losing that starry-eyed sense of imagination and possibility that made all of his work such a joy to listen to, for those with open minds and ears.  Finally he gave us Blackstar, and while it’s tempting to say this last statement is frighteningly somber, it is at the same time adventurous, and restless, and—I keep coming back to this word as I’m thinking about Bowie—fearless.  So as I move forward in a world without David Bowie, I internalize his fearlessness as strength and comfort, and though the stars look very different today, they remain, and are perhaps brighter than I’ve seen them in quite some time.

Best of 2015.

1.  Oddisee—“The Good Fight.”  For me, Oddisee’s latest is significant in how anthemic and cathartic it was for me when I first heard it—political, self-reflective hip-hop with melodic grooves and hooks for days.  Essentially, the very antithesis of most hip-hop you hear on the radio anymore.  This album got me inspired and ready to act, while keeping the roots of heart and mind firmly intact.  Honestly, it’s quite surprising to me that this record came and went so quietly, as it has such classic, soulful appeal.  Whatever…regardless of what the charts say, this was my top choice this year.  The rest of this list isn’t really in order, but Oddisee’s “The Good Fight” is absolutely number one.

2.  Bilal—“In Another Life.”  Bilal just keeps it coming with the creativity.  Another album full of wild detours and excursions, this time produced by soul-soundtrack savant Adrian Younge.  The pairing works incredibly well, with Younge adding a sort of live grit and grease to the music that can’t always be found on Bilal’s other, more radio-friendly R&B releases.  This is a record for those days when all you want to do is hide out and listen.  An experience to get lost in.

3.  Kendrick Lamar—“To Pimp A Butterfly.”  I doubt I can say much about this album that hasn’t already been recycled ad infinitum by the music press for much of the last year.  So, I’ll just say, straight-up, this record is revolutionary, and new, and exciting, and difficult.  It’s somewhat necessary to spend days wrapping your head around it.  But whatever you do, do NOT ignore it.  The present and future are embedded in its footsteps.

4.  Kamasi Washington—“The Epic.”  Spring-boarding directly from Kendrick Lamar, there’s this album by sax player Washington, who guested on “To Pimp A Butterfly.”  This album plays like it’s 1972 and you’re hanging with Miles Davis and Wayne Shorter for an afternoon—and you will need the whole afternoon, since it’s three discs long.  “Epic” barely even suffices as a descriptor for this music, which practically explodes with expansiveness and inventiveness.  And while it does explore funk from time to time, the reason it’s so important to the evolution of jazz is because it swings.

5.  Blackalicious—“Imani, Vol. 1.”  The return of Blackalicious, and what a return it is!  The crew’s trademark combination of West Coast funk and tongue-twisting raps remains firmly in place, with a few new sonic and lyrical seasonings.  Gift Of Gab and Chief Xcel bring joy through beats, consciousness through awareness, love through music.

6.  Lianne La Havas—“Blood.”  Joni Mitchell meets Prince-style funk on this wild, lovely effort.  La Havas mixes acoustic guitars with bass-heavy grooves while musing about family, love and darkness, and comes up with an absolute stunner of an album in the process.  Rocked this one for days on end during the summer.

7.  Mark Ronson—“Uptown Special.”  Sure, “Uptown Funk” isn’t much more than a rehash of the kind of boogie-funk pioneered by bands like The Time, Zapp and Lakeside thirty years ago.  However, the album itself offers a surprising amount of variety, from funk-pop heavily influenced by Steely Dan, to the James-Brown-on-steroids tribute “Feel Right,” to fusion instrumentals featuring Stevie Wonder (!) on harmonica.  The kind of record where it’s important to look past the hit single for deeper, more interesting treasures.

8.  Jill Scott—“Woman.”  Jill Scott goes retro.  Kinda.  The songs here owe a bit more to soul revival acts like Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, yet Scott keeps just enough of the sparkling neo-soul touches of her previous work around, so as to create a highly enjoyable, unique hybrid.  Then of course, there is Jill Scott’s voice, which is easily among the greatest of her generation.  Miles and miles of poetic, funky soul goodness.

9.  Van Hunt—“The Fun Rises, The Fun Sets.”  Van Hunt has always been a personal favorite of mine, and the curious, creative spirit that has informed all of his work shows no signs of flagging on “The Fun Rises.”  Edgy, crunchy guitar and bass figures slam headlong into aching piano ballads and clever wordplay, with Hunt’s cutting, swooping, soulful voice leading the charge.  A must-have for anyone claiming to have lost faith in the innovative possibilities of modern music.

10.  Hiatus Kaiyote—“Choose Your Weapon.”  This highly unlikely collective of avant-funk Australians simply has to be heard to be believed.  I’ve told many of my musician friends that, as a musician myself, I listen to these tunes over and over again, trying to figure out how they wrote/performed these very challenging rhythms and melodies so gracefully, and yet with such ridiculous complexity.  Funky, intense, and deceptively smooth.  Also—completely brilliant.

Best Of 2014.

What a year.  I often feel, when I write these year-end wrap-ups, that I’m bemoaning the bitter depths of the past twelve months, wallowing in the valleys and not paying enough attention to the peaks.  This year, though, the view from the mountaintop was fairly consistent, due mostly to me finally finding full-time, contracted employment as a teacher, as well as some self-recognition of hard-won, long-sought inner peace.  There are always places and goals to move onward and upward towards, obviously, and that hasn’t changed for me…my hustle and grind is as strong as ever.  I’m not one to rest on my laurels, meager though they may be, but there’s no problem taking in the view once in a while.  What I mean to say by all this, I suppose, is that things are good—great, even, something I rarely like to say out loud because of my irrationally Irish melancholic fears—and I’m quite eager to see what happens from here.  All thanks go to my wife Dolly, who I’d be who-knows-where without.  Stay up, stay positive, and stay close to the truest souls around you.  They will never let you down.

In no particular order, here are my picks for the best records that were released this year…

 1.  Curtis Harding—“Soul Power.”  Part of the retro-soul revival in a sort of peripheral sense, I suppose, but Harding does his own thing with that sound.  He has a bit more of a rock flavor to his songwriting, and thus avoids the pitfalls of being a sound-alike to acts like Sharon Jones and The Dap-Kings.  Edgy and different.

2.  St. Vincent—“St.Vincent.”  St. Vincent has been on my radar for a couple of years, but this is the first album of hers I bought, and wow.  I was not disappointed.  Great songwriting and vocals alongside experimental sonics, wildly distorted guitars, and even a touch of funk here and there.  Shockingly brilliant.

3.  Ghostface Killah—“36 Seasons.”  The Wu-Tang Clan’s most consistent solo artist is back again, this time with a concept album and a live band (The Revelations).  I dig Ghostface as always, but the live sound is what really did it for me.  The Revelations are well-named, and provide GK with just the right kind of gritty soul and funk background over which to drop his astounding, acerbic rhymes.  True school hip-hop, in an era where the term hip-hop has nearly lost its meaning altogether.

4.  Prince—“Art Official Age.”  The Purple One made yet another comeback this year.  How many has he had?  5?  10?  I’ve lost track, and it doesn’t matter anyway.  The only difference for me is that “Art Official Age” is easily his most high-quality release in ages, at least since “3121,” and possibly since “Diamonds And Pearls” (an album which “Age” frequently resembles from time to time).  Prince’s songwriting is at its pop-savvy, genre-bending best, and though the “concept” of the LP is a bit flimsy, it certainly forced him to push his already-out-there creative boundaries.  Perhaps not the kind of comeback that some expected, but when has Prince ever danced to the beat of a drum other than his own?  Quite frankly, that aspect of his personality is one of my favorite things about the guy.

5.  The Roots—“...And Then You Shoot Your Cousin."  If you’ve followed The Roots’ career from their early days up until now, the band that made “Organix” over twenty years ago is practically unrecognizable from the one that made this album.  The group, and Questlove in particular, have been on a rather dark journey over their past few records, mirroring the rather dark world we currently live in.  “Cousin” is more of the same, with very little optimism and quite a bit of venom, which is interesting when considering these guys are one of the most popular and likeable bands on late night TV.  For me, I respect immensely that, on the one hand, they can be a dynamite and upbeat media sensation, but on the other, that they will always stay vehemently true to their creative vision on wax.  Even though it’s not always an easy listen, The Roots haven’t lost me yet with their artistry, and probably never will.

6.  Jesse Boykins III—“Love Apparatus."  There are few pleasures as exquisite as swimming in a sonic sea of smooth R&B, and Jesse Boykins III has smoothness to spare.  Even on the moments where he stretches the groove’s musical possibilities and goes further towards the fringe, the smoothness is still there.  His voice is a subtle instrument that croons and caresses the lyrics, which have their own quirky strangeness about them.  If you dig the sound of modern soul and neo-soul, this is for you.

7.  Jose James—“While You Were Sleeping."  Easily the best underground soul artist in the game right now.  Here, Jose James takes the seductive foundation he built with last year’s “No Beginning No End,” and adds a heavier, almost Hendrix-esque psych-soul vibe to the mix, with the results being a head-nodding, hypnotic feast of an album.  Always looking forward to what’s next from this cat.

8.  Takuya Kuroda—“Rising Son.”  While we’re on the subject of Jose James, it’s worth noting that he produced this shimmering jazz-funk-fusion album for trumpeter Takuya Kuroda, only further proving the case for his depth and versatility.  James mans the studio controls here with the same kind of warmth and bass-heavy vibe he uses on his own material, and it benefits the whole in spectacular fashion.  Meanwhile, Kuroda has a smooth, fluid, lyrical tone that has to be heard to be believed, and even covers a couple of Roy Ayers jazz-funk classics, featuring James himself on lead vocals for “Everybody Loves The Sunshine.”  Music like this proves that jazz is alive, well, and in good hands, contrary to some contemporary narratives mourning its disappearance.  You just have to know where to look.

9.  Paolo Nutini—“Caustic Love.”  Not since the days of the Average White Band has Scotland produced such a fine, authentically gritty blue-eyed soul and funk act.  Hard-edged, rockish soul-funk that keeps the momentum going all the way through the record, with great raspy vocals from Nutini.  A left-field treasure.

10.  The Budos Band—“Burnt Offering.”  The Budos Band returns with more of its trademark Afro-Beat, except that this time around, they’ve been listening to more Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin than Fela.  The group gets very hallucinogenic on this release, and slams heavy metal guitar and bass atop its roiling, percussive backdrop, making for a welcome and surprising creative leap forward from their tried-and-true sound.

11.  Big K.R.I.T.—“Cadillactica."  The last major-label Big K.R.I.T. album left me cold, and wondering what all the fuss was about.  Well, this one left no questions in my mind.  Southern hip-hop at its finest, still gut-level and street-level, but with a meditative, thoughtful, pensive outlook that does sound a bit like a throwback to the halcyon days of OutKast.  Outa-space, soul-driven grooves well worth checking out.

12.  Theo Croker—“Afro-Physicist.”  More dope modern jazz and jazz-funk from a thoroughly modern trumpeter, although, believe it or not, I think I like this one even better than the Takuya Kuroda album.  Croker’s a more technically gifted and versatile player, and when he does funk and fusion, he rocks a whole lot harder.  All that, plus he does an impossibly lovely trumpet-and-vibes cover of one of my all-time Stevie Wonder deep cuts, “Visions.”  The rare fusion-styled record that wears its funk credentials on its sleeve while sacrificing none of its jazz credibility, evidenced by the fact that the whole project was produced by collaborative partner and jazz legend Dee Dee Bridgewater.  Spectacular.

13.  Lee Fields—“Emma Jean."  Lee Fields continues to evolve and build upon his core sound with this release.  The hard funk and retro-soul of his previous records is here, but there is also a slow-burn balladry that is absolutely breathtaking, a new hybrid of sorts.  Possibly my favorite so far from this latter-day renaissance man.

14.  D’Angelo And The Vanguard—“Black Messiah.”  Speaking of renaissance men.  D’Angelo dropped this LP as a surprise, last-minute release at the end of the year, and for me anyway, it did not disappoint.  He should have included a lyric sheet with the physical release, as his vocals are impenetrably garbled on every track, but it almost adds to the mystery of the project, literally fourteen years in the making.  The music is unbelievable, trading in influences from Sly to Badu to Prince, but always following D’Angelo’s own unique, enigmatic muse.  This album puts me in a trance-like state when I listen to it, and in the storied tradition of many other classic “grower” records, presents something new each time I hear it.  Dense, layered, next-level funk.

15.  Kelis—“Food.”  I love love LOVE this record…definitely my personal favorite of 2014.  Who knew that Kelis of “Milkshakes” and “Bossy” fame had an LP like this in her?  Written on the heels of her breakup with Nas, Kelis and TV On The Radio’s Dave Sitek crafted something indescribable, which sparkles with its songwriting, lyricism, and use of a live band.  Kelis’ vocals drive the message and the music home, and though you can hear the hurt in her voice, you can also hear the resolve.  This album struck me in the way that a Beatles or a Funkadelic record might; it’s on that level.  Truly a masterpiece.

16.  Various Artists—“I'm Just Like You:  Sly's Stone Flower."  A fascinating document of Sly’s early experiments with the Rhythm King drum machine, tried out with various artists and on his own.  This material is the missing link between the “Stand!” and “There’s A Riot Goin’ On” albums, which in and of itself makes it necessary from a historical standpoint.  The fact, however, that the quality of the songs is so high reveals something more crucial, that is, that Sly’s creativity during this period was as fertile and innovative as ever.

17.  Bob Dylan & The Band—“The Complete Basement Tapes."  An insanely dense treasure trove compiling “all” of the legendary Basement Tapes sessions (how are we ever really going to know if they found them all?).  Everything and the kitchen sink (almost literally) is on this, from Dylan and The Band goofing around on old standards and throwaway originals, to the presence of all-time classics, most of which were first recorded  by other artists, but can be heard here in all their rugged, ethereal glory.  Definitely not for the fair-weather follower, but any true Dylan fanatic will need this.

18.  The J.B.'s—“These Are The J.B.'s."  I must say I found it a bit disingenuous that this was advertised as a completely “new” album, as the title track and “The Grunt” both appeared on the “Food For Thought” LP, albeit in edited form.  However, the previously unreleased jams are indeed worthy, and show a snapshot of the Bootsy Collins-led JB’s in peak form, leading the listener to wonder what might have been had this particular incarnation of the band not disintegrated.