It's Friday

And let’s talk about the borders of jazz and hip-hop and electronic music and time and space, or maybe let’s just listen to the new albums by MAKAYA MCCRAVEN and the COMET IS COMING. It's a good day for this sort of thing, which means it’s a good day for music.

Drummer/composer/producer McCraven runs improvised live performances through hip-hop post-production and editing tools. On the years-in-the-making IN THESE TIMES, he applies the technique to a large ensemble that, over the course of several sessions, included the likes of harpist Brandee Younger, guitarist Jeff Parker, vibraphonist Joel Ross, trumpeter Marquis Hill, bassist Junius Paul and himself. “These Times” appears to have a number of possible meanings. The 11 songs stitch together performances that took place across physical time and distance. They intentionally employ complex meters and malleable tempos—“hard times, challenging times, difficult times,” in McCraven’s own words, which suggest metaphoric meanings on top of the literal ones. And yet the results sound unusually organic and seamless, as if challenging those challenging times. You might find yourself thinking of, say, watching the sun rise or set, not on a random morning or evening, but the first time it’s ever happened. You may be aware you’re listening to jazz, and you may not.

Likewise with the Comet Is Coming, the trio of saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings, keyboardist Dan Leavers and drummer Max Hallett, aka King Shabaka, Danalogue and Betamax. The jazz-leaning saxophonist and his electronic-leaning bandmates alternately pull each other toward a middle ground of fusion consensus and push each other to explore their respective corners. “This trio seems intent on humanizing the EDM beat while actually upping its power, not diluting it,” the New York Times’ Giovanni Russonello wrote in a preview of their fourth album, “Hyper-Dimensional Expansion Beam.” You may, as a result, be aware you're listening to EDM, and you may not.

Also today: new music from DaBaby, Alex G, Brandi Carlile (an acoustic remake her 2021 album “In These Silent Days” called “In The Canyon Haze”), Willow, wifisfuneral, CKay, Kelsea Ballerini, Nikki Lane, Jake Blount, Dr. John (country standards recorded shortly before his death in 2019), Muni Long (third album by R&B singer formerly known as Priscilla Renea), Protoje, Vieux Farke Touré & Khruangbin, Abel Selaocoe, Cam’ron & A-Trak, Lucki, DreamDoll, the Smithereens (album of unreleased tracks recorded in 1993), Beth Orton, Death’s Dynamic Shroud, 5 Seconds of Summer, Billy Idol, the Wonder Years, Lande Hekt, the Casual Dots (first album in 18 years from band with members of Slant 6, Bikini Kill and Deep Lust), Blackstarkids, the Soft Moon, Ken Mode, Tim Burgess, Iceage (rarities), Nils Frahm, Caroline Shaw & Attacca Quartet, John Luther Adams, Daniel Lanois, Angelica Sánchez, Boney James, Silvana Estrada, Marisa Anderson, Maddie & Tae, Sunny Sweeney, Daniel Tashian, Benjamin Tod, the Tallest Man on Earth, Arkells, Maya Hawke (of “Stranger Things”), Sofie Royer, Editors, James & the Shame... And a collection of spiritual dance tracks from the ‘70s and ‘80s tracks by Nigerian highlife bandleader Alhaji Waziri Oshomah.

Rest in Peace

Uncategorizably prolific drummer/composer/producer ANTON FIER, whose résumé included memberships in the Golden Palominos (which he founded), the Lounge Lizards and the Feelies and associations with Bill Laswell, John Zorn, Herbie Hancock, Pere Ubu, Bob Mould and countless others. "A truly mythic NYC specimen," tweeted the Numero Group. Cleveland had a claim on him, too. He was one of a kind, or maybe, more accurately, 20 or 30 of a kind... Original Doobie Brothers drummer JOHN HARTMAN, one of the nine Doobies inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2020... Zimbabwean percussionist LANCELOT MAPFUMO, a long-running member of his brother Thomas’s pioneering chimurenga band, the Blacks Unlimited... Nashville session guitarist RAY EDENTON, a member of Music City's fabled A-Team... Montreal rapper YOUNG A STUNNIN, who was shot to death in his home city Tuesday night. He’s at least the 32nd musician murdered worldwide in 2022... Jazz radio DJ ERIC JACKSON, known as the Dean of Boston Jazz Radio. He was on the air for more than 50 years, most of that time at WGBH-FM.