Clean Feed Releases for April, 2014

Now listed on the Clean Feed site:

In Memory of Things Yet Seen
Eric Revis Quartet 

Wire Quartet
Rodrigo Amado Wire Quartet 

II
Lawnmower II 

The Visible Ones
Matthieu Donarier / Albert van Veenendaal 

Salvation Modes
Sei Miguel 

In Memory of… will be Revis’ third for the label, and based on the other two, one I’m really looking forward to hearing. Stef’s Free Jazz Blog already has a review of it. I also have high hopes for the new Rodrigo Amado; I thought Searching for Adam from 2010 was really strong.

2013 NPR Jazz Critics Poll

The results of Francis Davis' annual poll, which this year is being hosted by NPR Music, are now online. There's also a separate article by Mr. Davis with his thoughts on the results and his personal choices. Here are my comments, which I posted at the end of his article:

"I was surprised that Without A Net (Wayne Shorter) was the #1 album, but I suppose I shouldn’t be. I knew that a large portion of the jazz audience was looking backwards, but I didn’t realize so many critics were as well. It’s not a bad album, but it’s not anywhere near his best work or the best of what was released in 2013. As for the rest of the poll, there’s a lot to like, but I was also puzzled that Functional Arrhythmias (Steve Coleman) rated so highly, as I think Coleman’s last couple of releases were much stronger. In fact, I thought Jonathan Finlayson’s Moment and the Message was a better take on M-Base concepts. But kudos to Mr. Davis for some of his personal choices, particularly for calling attention to records from Myra Melford, Eric Revis, and Taylor Ho Bynum..."

The individual choices of each critic, including mine, have also been posted separately.