Ugly Beauty: The Month In Jazz Archives - Stereogum

The Closest Miles Davis Ever Came To Playing Free Jazz

Phil Freeman — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 15:24:24 +0000

Miles Davis was born in Alton, Illinois on May 26, 1926, and the Miles Davis estate and Sony Music — and probably to a lesser degree Warner Bros., which owns his last few releases — are celebrating the legendary trumpeter's centennial this year. I fully expect to see a ton of reissues, and possibly some new vault material, all year long. (It's John Coltrane’s centennial, too – he was born September 23, 1926 in Hamlet, North Carolina – and there’s a whole lot going on with his estate and archives as well.)

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Anna Butterss, From Adelaide To Enfield

Phil Freeman — Wed, 21 Jan 2026 16:33:47 +0000

Anna Butterss is an Australian-born bassist who's been living in the US for a decade and a half, and in that time has become a key supporting player on two seemingly unrelated scenes. As a member of guitarist Jeff Parker's Enfield Tennis Academy (ETA for short) quartet and the collective SML (pictured above), a collaborator with Makaya McCraven and a solo artist, they are a vital member of the LA jazz underground; as a member of Jason Isbell's touring band and a session player for Neko Case, Aimee Mann, boygenius, Kathleen Edwards, Ben Lee, and others, they help shape the sound of contemporary indie singer-songwriterism (I guess; I don't listen to that stuff).

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The 10 Best Jazz Albums Of 2025

Phil Freeman — Mon, 08 Dec 2025 14:30:00 +0000

So... what kind of a year was 2025 for jazz? Well, it marked the centennial of saxophonist Gene Ammons, drummer Roy Haynes, critic Nat Hentoff, pianist Jutta Hipp, saxophonist Art Pepper, pianist Oscar Peterson, drummer Dom Um Romão, and all-around performer Sammy Davis, Jr. Haynes almost lived to see it; he died last year at 99. The others died years ago. But if you've never listened to Haynes' Out Of The Afternoon, or Ammons' Boss Tenor, or Pepper's Meets The Rhythm Section, it's never too late to catch up.

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Billy Hart, Moving In All Directions At Once

Phil Freeman — Mon, 17 Nov 2025 18:50:52 +0000

Billy Hart doesn't like the term jazz. Throughout his recently published autobiography, Oceans Of Time, he uses the phrase "America's classical music." And, I mean, if anybody's earned the right to define their music on their own terms, it's Billy Hart.

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Makaya McCraven, On The Record

Phil Freeman — Tue, 21 Oct 2025 13:15:38 +0000

The distinction between composition and improvisation has always been fraught territory in the discourse surrounding jazz; some artists have argued that all music begins as improvisation, and what makes it "composition" is notating the ideas after you've played them. Even the classical composers who are held up as Western music's greatest artists started out fucking around at the piano, testing ideas, rejecting them, playing something else, then settling on one melodic snippet as the best and writing it down, and gradually constructing a symphony or a concerto in that way. (And even then, classical concertos often leave room for cadenzas — flourishes at the end of a movement — that are meant to be improvised by the performer on the night.)

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Joni Mitchell, Jazz Artist?

Phil Freeman — Thu, 25 Sep 2025 15:00:56 +0000

Is Joni Mitchell a jazz artist? Short answer: No. Long answer: No, but...

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Chicago Underground Duo Return, Having Never Really Left

Phil Freeman — Wed, 20 Aug 2025 17:45:15 +0000

Almost 30 years ago, a new sound began bubbling up in small venues around Chicago — jazz clubs sometimes, but punk clubs and arts centers and other less defined spaces too. Cornet player Rob Mazurek was one of a small coterie of players, some of whom were members of the dubby "post-rock" (remember when that was a thing to aspire to be?) group Tortoise, and others who were experimenting in other ways, but all of whose music was blurring and erasing the boundaries between jazz, rock, electronic music, modern composition and improvisation.

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Nicole Glover Reflects

Phil Freeman — Wed, 23 Jul 2025 14:47:07 +0000

Nicole Glover is always thinking. The 36-year-old saxophonist, who grew up in Portland, OR, speaks the way she plays: with confidence and without hesitation. Every question I asked when we spoke by phone earlier this month generated a thoughtful, multi-paragraph response, and her approach to her music is as considered as her solos.

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Joshua Redman, Reluctant Jazz Elder

Phil Freeman — Wed, 25 Jun 2025 16:36:33 +0000

Saxophonist Joshua Redman has been on the jazz scene for over three decades. He made his debut on his father Dewey Redman's 1992 album Choices and released his own self-titled album on Warner Bros. the next year.

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Why Do You Hate Jazz?

Phil Freeman — Thu, 22 May 2025 13:28:29 +0000

I started listening to jazz when I was around 15. My entry point was a common one: Miles Davis' Kind Of Blue, which I bought on cassette for $5.99. I also heard John Coltrane's A Love Supreme early on, after which I started gradually, haphazardly picking up albums here and there with no real method or guide; I would just hear about something somewhere — and this was pre-internet, and I wasn't reading jazz magazines, so I was mostly limited to what I found out about from Rolling Stone or Spin — and try to find it in my local record store or grab something from my local library.

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David Murray Takes Flight

Phil Freeman — Mon, 21 Apr 2025 19:35:42 +0000

David Murray turned 70 in February. That feels wrong somehow, not because I'm unaware that time only moves in one direction but because Murray doesn't fit the mold of an elder statesman. Since his arrival in New York in the mid-'70s, he's been on a unique creative path, releasing a torrent of material — his Discogs page lists close to 300 credits — in contexts ranging from solo recitals to big bands to collaborations with musicians from all corners of the globe. He never seems to stop moving, and he's never stayed on a single path for any length of time. Typically, when a jazz musician gets this far into their career, they settle down. Even fire-breathing radicals get predictable. But Murray is still taking chances, as his new album Birdly Serenade proves.

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Nels Cline Is Not A Jazz Guitarist

Phil Freeman — Tue, 25 Mar 2025 16:50:26 +0000

I first heard Nels Cline in 1999, when he and drummer Gregg Bendian released Interstellar Space Revisited. The original Interstellar Space album was a set of four saxophone-drums duos played by John Coltrane and Rashied Ali, recorded in February 1967 but not released until September 1974. It's volcanic and meditative at once; Coltrane takes his music about as far out as it can go, and Ali is with him all the way, delivering explosive rattling runs but also settling into a mellow, even gentle pulse at times, like wind blowing through a field.

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Sullivan Fortner Embraces Music’s Past And Its Future

Phil Freeman — Wed, 19 Feb 2025 19:11:08 +0000

Pianist Sullivan Fortner is originally from New Orleans, but is one of the most respected and creative players in New York at the moment. He’s recorded with trumpeter Theo Croker, vocalist Jazzmeia Horn, guitarists Peter Bernstein and Lage Lund, drummer/producer Kassa Overall, and others, most notably singer Cécile McLorin Salvant. He’s been part of her band for about a decade, first appearing on her 2017 album Dreams & Daggers and subsequently on 2018’s The Window, 2022’s Ghost Song, and 2023’s Mélusine.

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Introducing Jason Palmer

Phil Freeman — Tue, 21 Jan 2025 17:47:18 +0000

Jason Palmer is a trumpeter you should know but probably don't. Based in New England, he's been releasing albums as a leader since 2007. He also played with saxophonist Noah Preminger's group for a while and was featured prominently on Matana Roberts' Coin Coin Chapter Two: Mississippi Moonchile in 2013. But despite making consistently high-quality records and demonstrating some intriguing personality quirks — he's apparently a big fan of female R&B singers, having recorded albums paying tribute to Minnie Riperton, Janelle Monaé and Anita Baker — the Jazz IndustryTM has never gotten behind him and given him the big push.

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The Best Jazz Albums Of 2024

Phil Freeman — Mon, 16 Dec 2024 20:00:07 +0000

If you think about it a certain way, one of the defining qualities of jazz is earnestness. This is one of the reasons why jazz and metal have so much in common, and so often appeal to the same listeners. Both forms can be totally absurd. Think of the most lurid, squiggly fusion, or the blare of a thoroughly unsubtle big band record; aren't they the equivalent of, say, DragonForce? But metal's awareness of its own absurdity does not translate into ironic distance from what they're doing. And the same is true of jazz. People will play the most ridiculous, over-the-top shit with a totally straight face. Even when a jazz group exhibits a certain amount of wit — think of the Bad Plus in their original incarnation, the version that covered "Smells Like Teen Spirit"; or Mostly Other People Do The Killing, and the way their sleeve designs imitated famous jazz album covers — it's done out of love, not mockery.

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Justice For George Coleman

Phil Freeman — Mon, 18 Nov 2024 20:30:18 +0000

Being the saxophonist in a Miles Davis band was never the easiest job in the world. Even if he liked you, he often led by challenging his musicians, giving them enigmatic or even contradictory instructions. Once, when saxophonist Gary Bartz complained that he didn't like what Keith Jarrett was playing behind him, and asked Davis to rein the keyboardist in, the trumpeter instead told Jarrett that Bartz loved was he was playing and wanted to hear more of it. When John Coltrane earnestly explained to Davis that he was having trouble figuring out how to end his solos, Davis replied, "Try taking the horn out of your mouth." Dave Liebman, Davis' saxophonist for a period in the early '70s, felt lost within the band's stormy sound (two electric guitars, deep funk bass, multiple percussionists, Davis's own piercing one-finger synth stabs) and asked what his role was; the trumpeter replied that audiences liked to watch a saxophonist's fingers move while he played.

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Tyshawn Sorey Wishes You’d Just Listen

Phil Freeman — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 14:43:21 +0000

In 2018, I met up with Tyshawn Sorey at the Guggenheim Museum in New York for an interview that involved me playing a series of records for him and soliciting his thoughts. We listened to everything from Anthony Braxton, Roscoe Mitchell, and Eric Dolphy to Metallica, Redman, and Autechre. And at one point, after listening to a recording of Eric Dolphy's "Jim Crow," a piece that was more 20th century classical than "jazz," we discussed something that has plagued jazz musicians for almost a century: the respective roles of composition and improvisation.

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Nubya Garcia’s Jazz Odyssey

Phil Freeman — Tue, 24 Sep 2024 13:20:20 +0000

Nubya Garcia's moment seems to have come at last. And it's weird to say "at last" about someone who's only in her early thirties, but I've been listening to her music for the better part of a decade.

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Wayne Shorter Lives!

Phil Freeman — Mon, 19 Aug 2024 20:19:14 +0000

An interview with Mike Smith about his new book In With The In Crowd: Popular Jazz In 1960s Black America. Plus: a Wayne Shorter-heavy selection of jazz's best new releases of the month.

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Lakecia Benjamin Is Getting The Push

Phil Freeman — Tue, 23 Jul 2024 18:51:40 +0000

I don't know if you've noticed, but alto saxophonist Lakecia Benjamin has been blasting through the jazz world like a comet the last couple of years. She's been around for a while — her debut, Retox, was released in 2012, and her next album, Rise Up, in 2018 — but her third, Pursuance: The Coltranes, was her first truly great record. Its 13 tracks were all written by John and Alice Coltrane, including pieces from throughout both artists' careers like "Syeeda's Song Flute," "Liberia," "Central Park West," "Going Home," and "Turiya And Ramakrishna." The music was performed by a stunning array of guests, from bassists Ron Carter and Reggie Workman (both of whom played with the Coltranes) to harpist Brandee Younger, vocalists Dee Dee Bridgewater and Georgia Anne Muldrow, violinist Regina Carter, trumpeter Keyon Harrold, and more. But Benjamin was always the focus, her sharp and fluid lines cutting through in a way that bridges multiple genres and generations.

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Nasheet Waits Steps Into The Spotlight

Phil Freeman — Tue, 25 Jun 2024 13:07:22 +0000

Nasheet Waits is second-generation jazz royalty. His father was percussionist Freddie Waits, who was a studio drummer for Motown Records before making his name in the jazz world. The elder Waits played on records by a stunning array of artists including McCoy Tyner, Freddie Hubbard, Andrew Hill, and Bill Dixon, among others, and was a founding member of Max Roach's pioneering all-percussion ensemble M'Boom.

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Last Exit, Still The Heaviest Jazz-Metal Band Ever

Phil Freeman — Wed, 22 May 2024 18:27:46 +0000

Plus: Kamasi Washington's Fearless Movement and more of the month's best new jazz releases

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Kenny Garrett Vs. AI

Phil Freeman — Tue, 23 Apr 2024 15:20:53 +0000

Alto and soprano saxophonist Kenny Garrett is an explorer. He's constantly seeking new situations, new sources of inspiration, and new ways to expand the boundaries of his own musical conception.

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The Black Art Jazz Collective Rolls On

Phil Freeman — Tue, 19 Mar 2024 17:55:09 +0000

The Black Art Jazz Collective came together in 2013, with saxophonist Wayne Escoffery, trumpeter Jeremy Pelt, trombonist James Burton III, pianist Xavier Davis, bassist Dwayne Burno, and drummer Johnathan Blake. Burno died suddenly in December of that year, though, and the other members recruited Vicente Archer to replace him.

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Vijay Iyer, A Man Without Boundaries

Phil Freeman — Tue, 20 Feb 2024 20:03:06 +0000

I've been listening to Vijay Iyer's music for almost 20 years. We first met in 2006, when I was the editor of the world music magazine Global Rhythm and he had just released Raw Materials, an album of duos with saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa. They came up to the magazine's offices and I interviewed them together. It was a very interesting conversation; what struck me the most was something Iyer said about cultural identity, that Asian-Americans "become the boundary by which American identity is defined… we are always the people who are on the either-or side of the American fence."

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Ethan Iverson Is Hustling

Phil Freeman — Thu, 18 Jan 2024 18:30:59 +0000

Pianist Ethan Iverson released his first album, School Work, in 1993, when he was 20. In about 1997, he started playing with bassist Reid Anderson, and at the turn of the millennium, they connected with drummer Dave King and formed the Bad Plus. That trio was one of the breakout jazz groups of the early 21st century, releasing 13 albums in 16 years and selling a surprising number of records along the way. They were a lot of listeners' gateway into jazz, particularly because of their habit of arranging pop and rock songs like Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and Black Sabbath's "Iron Man" for piano trio. But once the covers got people in the door, they heard tightly arranged, high-energy original compositions by all three members.

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The 10 Best Jazz Albums Of 2023

Phil Freeman — Wed, 13 Dec 2023 17:23:07 +0000

2023 has been a transitional year for jazz. We lost one of the genre's most brilliant composers and performers, Wayne Shorter; free jazz flamethrowers Peter Brötzmann and Charles Gayle; genteel pianist Ahmad Jamal; bassist, composer and Spike Lee's father Bill Lee; singer Tony Bennett; trombonist Curtis Fowlkes; bassist Richard Davis; pianist and composer Carla Bley; saxophonist Mars Williams, known to some as a modern free jazz hero and others as the dude from the Psychedelic Furs; and some people I consider jazz-adjacent, like Brazilian singer Astrud Gilberto and guitarist Jeff Beck, who made a series of excellent fusion albums in the mid '70s. And while Shabaka Hutchings is still alive, he announced his intention to quit playing the saxophone, and disbanded all of his current groups: Sons Of Kemet, The Comet Is Coming, and Shabaka And The Ancestors.

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So You’ve Heard André 3000’s Flute Album — Now What?

Phil Freeman — Tue, 21 Nov 2023 15:20:19 +0000

Did you listen to André 3000's 90-minute collection of semi-ambient flute jams, New Blue Sun? I did, and I... didn't hate it! I mean, he stacked the deck by featuring some of the most interesting players in LA on it, including percussionist/multi-instrumentalist Carlos Niño, keyboardist Surya Botofasina, and others. (Niño has just released an album with South African keyboardist/singer Thandi Ntuli that's discussed below, and he put out his own album, (I'm Just) Chillin', On Fire, back in September — André 3000 is one of many guests on that record.) But the music on New Blue Sun is surprisingly blissful, if somewhat meandering, and I think the album could have a real half-life beyond the initial social media explosion if Sony mails a copy to every acupuncturist in the US for in-office play.

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A Guide To John Zorn & Tzadik Records, Now On Streaming Services

Phil Freeman — Thu, 19 Oct 2023 18:15:47 +0000

John Zorn turned 70 in September. And, as if he's decided to celebrate by giving everyone else a gift, his label, Tzadik, has made its catalog available on streaming services. There was no PR announcement, because Tzadik has almost never done PR for any of its activities, but word spread quickly among the devoted, and now there are hundreds of albums' worth of adventurous, boundary-breaking music to listen to that had previously been available only to CD buyers. (They sold MP3s via iTunes and Amazon, too, but you get my point.)

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Aaron Diehl Revives Mary Lou Williams

Phil Freeman — Thu, 21 Sep 2023 13:21:26 +0000

I've been quietly obsessed with pianist Aaron Diehl for a few years now. I first noticed him on singer Cécile McLorin Salvant's 2017 double CD Dreams And Daggers, where his somewhat old-timey style was ideally suited to the songs she had chosen and arranged into a long suite with narrative flow and dark irony. And he got plenty of space in the spotlight; he wasn't just there to support her vocals. (Check him out on "Devil May Care," streaming further down.) But that was their third album together, and he also had four records out as a leader — 2009's Live At Caramoor and 2010's Live At The Players, independent releases which I've never been able to track down, and 2013's The Bespoke Man's Narrative and 2015's Space Time Continuum on Mack Avenue. On Bespoke, he combined original compositions with versions of tunes by Duke Ellington, George Gershwin, and Modern Jazz Quartet vibraphonist Milt Jackson…and an arrangement of the third movement of Maurice Ravel's Le Tombeau de Couperin.

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Remembering jaimie branch

Phil Freeman — Mon, 21 Aug 2023 18:06:04 +0000

Trumpeter jaimie branch died one year ago this week, on August 22, 2022. The news hit the younger, hipper quarters of the jazz scene like a sledgehammer to the sternum. She'd already been on the scene for 15 years or more, but had really started to make an impact with the 2017 release of her first album under her own name, Fly Or Die. The album, which laid clarion-call trumpet lines atop thick grooves courtesy of bassist cellist Tomeka Reid, bassist Jason Ajemian, and drummer Chad Taylor, was old and new at once. The band's playing reminded me of the work of Julius Hemphill, and Branch herself had some of the abstraction of Bill Dixon, but she was much more in-your-face than he ever was. I chose Fly Or Die as the best jazz album of 2017, and I stand by that.

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Chief Adjuah Puts Down The Horn

Phil Freeman — Mon, 24 Jul 2023 18:37:16 +0000

Chief Adjuah, formerly known as Christian Scott, has been one of the most exciting musicians around for close to two decades. Since releasing his debut as a leader, 2006's Rewind That, and particularly the following year's Anthem, he's been traveling a path that incorporates jazz, electronic music, trap, and all the percussive and rhythmic traditions of his native New Orleans. Since signing with Ropeadope a little over a decade ago, he's put out a string of records that exist within a new genre he calls "stretch music," best exemplified on his 2017 trilogy of Diaspora, Ruler Rebel, and The Emancipation Procrastination.

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Mingus In The ’70s

Phil Freeman — Fri, 23 Jun 2023 17:04:10 +0000

Charles Mingus might be the ultimate example of someone who's "jazz famous." Within jazz circles, he's revered, but he should be as well-known as Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, or John Coltrane. His name should be as familiar as theirs to people who know almost nothing about jazz, but it's not, for a variety of reasons. He had a volcanic temper that was at one time or another turned on almost everyone in his personal and professional life — bandmates, record labels, managers, wives (he had four), even audiences. He famously destroyed a bass onstage at the Five Spot in response to heckling from the crowd, and punched trombonist Jimmy Knepper in the mouth during a rehearsal, knocking out one of his teeth and ruining his embouchure.

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Two Generations Of South African Jazz

Phil Freeman — Tue, 23 May 2023 13:02:44 +0000

Bokani Dyer is not just a leading figure in contemporary South African jazz, he's also a living link to its history. His father, saxophonist Steve Dyer, was part of Medu, a radical multi-disciplinary arts collective composed of exiled South Africans as well as members and sympathizers from other countries. From their base in Gaborone, Botswana, Medu's "cultural workers" (their preferred term) produced films, staged concerts, mounted art exhibitions, conducted creative workshops, and organized public health campaigns. They produced newsletters and propaganda posters intended to critique South Africa's apartheid government and promote Black consciousness more broadly. The group formed in 1977, peaking in 1982 with the Culture And Resistance Festival And Symposium, a week-long program of concerts, exhibitions, workshops and speeches which drew a lot of attention internationally, but also inspired increased surveillance and harassment from the South African government. On June 12, 1985, the exile community where Medu had its headquarters was attacked by the South African Defense Force; 12 people were killed, including four members of Medu, which disbanded in the wake of the attack.

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Are GoGo Penguin Jazz?

Phil Freeman — Mon, 17 Apr 2023 16:55:51 +0000

Are GoGo Penguin jazz? Their first album, Fanfares, came out just over a decade ago, in November 2012; it was released on Gondwana, a label run by trumpeter Matthew Halsall, whose own music is quite beautiful spiritual jazz. They stayed with Gondwana for their 2014 breakthrough release, v2.0, but then signed with Blue Note for 2016's Man Made Object, 2018's A Humdrum Star, and 2020's self-titled release, which was followed the next year by the remix album GGP/RMX.

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Jazz Means “I Dare You”

Phil Freeman — Tue, 14 Mar 2023 12:41:26 +0000

Wayne Shorter died this month at 89. Although he stopped playing live a few years ago due to health issues, he'd been doing some really fascinating work up until the end, including composing the opera (Iphigenia) in collaboration with Esperanza Spalding — with sets designed by Frank Gehry! He'd also been leading a quartet with pianist Danilo Perez, bassist John Patitucci, and drummer Brian Blade since the turn of the millennium, one of the longest-running bands in jazz.

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Concentrate And Convey The Idea

Phil Freeman — Tue, 21 Feb 2023 19:21:41 +0000

One of the last live jazz performances I attended, on February 1, 2020, was by a one-off group called Ghidorah that appeared at the Jazz Gallery for two nights and has to my knowledge never reconvened since. They were structured like the three-headed monster that was their namesake, with bassist Eric Wheeler and drummer Rodney Green in back and a trio of tenor saxophonists (with one or another occasionally doubling on soprano or bass clarinet) up front: JD Allen, Stacy Dillard, and the man who put the project together, Marcus Strickland. They played two sets each night, and at the show I caught, Strickland began things with a short discussion of the history of the tenor saxophone and a roll call of legends, including Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Don Byas, John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins, and paying special tribute to Jimmy Heath, who had died less than two weeks earlier, on January 19.

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From The Dancehall To The Battlefield And Beyond With Jason Moran

Phil Freeman — Thu, 19 Jan 2023 17:45:54 +0000

It all starts with Europe — James Reese Europe, to be exact

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The 10 Best Jazz Albums Of 2022

Phil Freeman — Tue, 13 Dec 2022 18:15:31 +0000

2022 started off really well. A bunch of great albums came out in January, including alto saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins’ The 7th Hand; bassist Luke Stewart’s The Bottom; the Matthew Shipp/Michael Bisio duo Flow Of Everything; 2 Blues For Cecil by the trio of trumpeter Enrico Rava, bassist William Parker, and drummer Andrew Cyrille; John Zorn and Bill Laswell’s first collection of duos, The Cleansing; and Historic Music Past Tense Future, an archival recording by Peter Brötzmann, Parker, and Milford Graves. I hosted a streaming event on New Year’s Day, the Burning Ambulance Festival, that included performances from bassist William Parker, saxophonists Muriel Grossmann, Rodrigo Amado, and Patrick Shiroishi, pianist Lisa Ullén, drummer Gard Nilssen’s trio Acoustic Unity (see the list below), and many other musicians from the worlds of jazz, avant-garde improv, noise, and electronic music. In February, my book Ugly Beauty: Jazz In The 21st Century, which I’d spent most of 2021 writing, came out. The year held incredible promise.

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You Gotta Learn

Phil Freeman — Tue, 22 Nov 2022 15:00:09 +0000

I've known trumpeter Jeremy Pelt for a little over a decade at this point. I started listening to his music in 2009 or 2010 and interviewed him for the first time in 2011. We've spoken on several occasions since — he's one of the more than three dozen artists profiled in my book Ugly Beauty: Jazz In The 21st Century, which came out in February (available everywhere now! makes a great gift!). He puts out an album every year; this year's offering was Soundtrack, his third release with pianist Victor Gould, vibraphonist Chien Chien Lu, bassist Vicente Archer, and drummer Allan Mednard. Back in April, I called it "high-level (mostly) acoustic jazz in the tradition of Seventies power trumpeters like Woody Shaw, Freddie Hubbard, non-disco Donald Byrd, and Marcus Belgrave," and I've come back to it over and over in the months since its release.

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