After the annus horribilis of 2020, this year unfolded in a fog of trepidation and uncertainty. The only thing outside my family I knew I could depend on for emotional sustenance was music. Old friends like Miles Davis, Duke Ellington and Dinah Washington kept my spirits up, while each new album that arrived via snail mail or email offered at least a few minutes of diversion.
Reluctant pessimism steadily contended with efforts to maintain guarded optimism, a struggle that was undermined by the drumbeat of losses in jazz and beyond. Before taking stock of my favorite 2021 releases by Bay Area artists, let’s have a moment of silence for departed masters who made significant contributions to the Bay Area scene, including vocalist Jewlia Eisenberg, bassists Dean Reilly, Paul Jackson, James Leary and George Ban-Weiss, guitarist John Finkbeiner, saxophonist Sonny Simmons, trumpeter Al Molina, drummers Jerry Granelli, Dottie Dodgion and Colin Bailey, Digital Underground’s Gregory “Shock G” Jacobs, and Steve Gaines, aka Baba Zumbi, MC for the Bay Area rap group Zion I.
Last week the toll grew exponentially heavier with the death of Denise Perrier, the San Francisco jazz and blues singer who embodied class on and off stage. In her final months she was working on a farewell album produced by saxophonist Howard Wiley, a project I hope I’ll be able to add to next year’s roundup. In the meantime, here are my picks for the best Bay Area releases, in alphabetical order.
Keshav Batish, “Binaries In Cycle” (Woven Strands Productions): One of the year’s most impressive debut releases, Santa Cruz-reared drummer/composer Keshav Batish’s album focuses on his singular melding of jazz and North Indian classical music. Recorded in 2020 as part of Kuumbwa Jazz Center’s virtual performance series, the concert introduced pianist Lucas Hahn and bassist Aron Caceras, Batish’s musical collaborators since middle school, and made exceptional use of Israeli-born alto saxophonist Shay Salhov, an already well-established player.
Dahveed Behroozi, “Echos” (Sunnyside Records): San Jose pianist Dahveed Behroozi’s second album is marked by mysterious harmonies and quiet melodies that take unanticipated turns. The superlative trio features East Bay-raised Thomas Morgan, one of New York’s most sought after bassists, and the brilliant drummer Billy Mintz. The music is restless and unsettled, and it’s a project that offers up surprises with each listen.
Bobby Black, “70 Years of Swinging Steel” (Little Village): A labor of love by engineer/producer Myles Boisen, this album offers a delightful introduction to pedal steel maestro Bobby Black and his late brother, guitarist Larry Black. Ranging across six decades, the anthology includes country music, jazz, and country rock delivered with precision and estimable taste. In his mid-80s, Black is still going strong.
Bryan Dyer, “Power of One” (self): With five tracks and less than 20 minutes of music, this EP delivers a maximum amount of soul in a minimum of time. As the title suggests, Bryan Dyer’s voice supplies most of the sounds, from bass lines to his velvety falsetto. A veteran of some of the best Bay Area vocal ensembles, he makes hits like “Rainy Night In Georgia” and “Wanna Be Starting Something” his own.
Aaron Germain, “Bell Projections” (Aaron Germain Music): A first-call bassist, Oakland’s Aaron Germain reveals his facility for the guitar family on an album of intricate, mostly through-composed original pieces featuring his multi-tracked fretwork. Created over the course of six years, the album includes a stellar cast of collaborators to fill out his concise, bejeweled tunes, including multi-reed wizard Paul McCandless, flutists Nester Torres and Mary Fettig, and percussionists Michael Spiro, Carlos Caro, and Ami Molinelli.
Ben Goldberg, “Everything Happens To Be” (BAG Productions): Guitarist Mary Halvorson, bassist Michael Formanek, and drummer Tomas Fujiwara have recorded prolifically as the collective trio Thumbscrew, and their loosey-goosey grooves are an ideal fit for this set of originals by Goldberg, a composer with a gift for hide-and-seek melodies. Tenor saxophonist Ellery Eskelin gamely joins in the search.
Daggerboard “The Last Days of Studio A” (Wide Hive Records): Recorded just days before the closure of Fantasy Studios, this dispatch from keyboardist Gregory Howe’s Berkeley label maintains a chilled-out late-night vibe that feels more like a celebration than an elegy. Directed by trumpeter Erik Jekabson, who wrote the tunes and arrangements, the session includes Kasey Knudsen on alto and tenor saxophones, drummer Mike Hughes, keyboardist Mike Blankenship, and the great Roger Glenn on vibes.
Jacqui Naylor, “The Long Game” (Ruby Star Records): Working with her music and life partner, guitarist, pianist and arranger Art Khu, San Francisco jazz vocalist Jacqui Naylor has honed a wondrously idiosyncratic repertoire, a book they effectively expand here by recasting standards by Kurt Weill (“Speak Low”) and Charlie Chaplin (“Smile”) and rock hits by David Bowie (“Space Oddity”) and Peter Gabriel (“Don’t Give Up”). Working with bassist Josh Evans and drummer Josh Jones, her longtime collaborators, Naylor interpolates her original songs, which stand up well amidst the reimagined material.
Larry Ochs and Donald Robinson “A Civil Right” (ESP-Disk): A founding member of ROVA Saxophone Quartet, tenor and soprano saxophonist Larry Ochs has worked and recorded widely with drummer Donald Robinson since the 1990s, but in recent years their duo has emerged as a consistently revelatory setting. Ochs is a dogged sonic searcher and Robinson keeps the pulse and feel unpredictable by steadily alternating between sticks, mallets, and brushes.
Sarah Wilson “Kaleidoscope” (Brass Tonic Records): A trumpeter and vocalist deeply informed by jazz but also inspired by indie rock, avant-pop and Afro-Caribbean grooves, Sarah Wilson pays tribute to half a dozen mentors on her third album. Piano great Myra Melford is one of them, and she sounds like she’s having a ball on this celebratory session. With a superlative cast featuring drummer Matt Wilson, violinist Charles Burnham, bassist Jerome Harris, and guitarist John Schott, “Kaleidoscope” offers an intoxicating view with every turn.
Honorable mention
Here are another 10 albums worth a listen or five.
The ArtErik Quartet, “The Silver Fox” (Kilkhabart Music)
Todd Dickow, “Live at the Baked Potato!” (Summit)
Dillbilly, “Chaparral” (Waxsimile Productions)
Rebecca DuMaine and the Dave Miller Trio, “Someday, Someday” (Summit Records)
The Flatland Quartet, “Songs From the Urban Forest” (Gold Lion Records)
Raffi Garabedian, “Melodies In Silence” (Bandcamp)
“Homeroom: Music From and Inspired by the Hulu Documentary,” (Omnivore Recordings)
Hafez Modirzadeh, “Facets” (Pi Recordings)
Ray Obiedo, “Latin Jazz Project Vol. 2” (Rhythmus Records)
Denny Zeitlin and George Marsh, “Telepathy” (Sunnyside Records)
