Well it’s been…a week. Where to even begin? Rapidly rising Delta numbers; New Orleans almost washed away — again — on the 10th anniversary of Katrina; historic flooding in the remains of Ida’s path; Roe v. Wade essentially becoming outlawed in Texas, paving the way forward in other states. I know there’s something else I’m forgetting — and that’s a sad thing.
There’s that old apocryphal curse: “may you live in interesting times.” And well, we surely are a cursed generation. Back in the winter, when my pandemic blues had hit their hardest, I couldn’t bring myself to listen to roots music at all. I listened to what I “had” to for the blog and freelancing, but when left to my own devices — as listeners of the podcast know — I turned to jazz. I just couldn’t handle any more verbal input.
And so, in the interest of soothing the nerves of anyone else who is overwhelmed today, here’s a list of some of my favorite tracks from over the past few months — mostly instrumental, but not all. I don’t really have enough knowledge about jazz to give any insight into it other than “I liked this,” but as a bass player I’m finding throughout this list that I’m especially drawn to anything with a deeply rooted groove. While all of these artists (not exclusively jazz artists) are modern, you’re not going to find too much avant-garde music here. I like to think I’ve found a sweet spot between music that is challenging to my ears, and music that is melodic.
I think that following me on Spotify is a thing you can do to make sure you get a new playlist from me every Friday! You can also follow Tuesday Teardrops, a playlist of new and exciting songs that refreshes every — you guessed it — Tuesday! As always, buy music and/or merch directly from the artists because Spotify is a horrible and exploitative platform!You can support Adobe & Teardrops by buying merch or hitting the ol’ Patreon or Ko-fi links!