Things we like: Tyshawn Sorey, Marco Oppedisano, Eric Klerks

The pandemic has changed the way we disseminate and consume music because, well, tours are cancelled and music venues are closed (and where they aren't, there's risk from gathering in the time of new, more communicable strains of the virus). From professional quality livestreams to sophisticated home recording setups to camera video uploaded to social media, creatives from around the world continue to shout to the Universe, "I'm alive!" Here are some of the ways music has been helping me get through this "time like no other."

This past weekend, we caught a livestream from NYC's Village Vanguard, that venerable jazz joint where Coltrane, Rollins, Evans, et al. once made records. Tyshawn Sorey, my pick for musician of the century (so far), was filling the Paul Motian slot behind the traps in a trio with Joe Lovano and Bill Frisell. From the mid-'80s on, the trio's music was marked by spaciousness (no bass, lots of melodic unisons) and watercolor lyricism, but with a sting in its tail. In this context, Sorey still thinks like a composer, attacking his small Gretsch kit with a variety of implements (sticks, beaters, brushes) for maximum timbral variety, exercising admirable restraint in the quiet places, making an abstract blues swing, upping the ante to freedom music/erupting volcano levels where Lovano has no choice but to dig in and leave some blood on the stage. Best music I ever heard on my coffee table.

Early on in the pandemic, Queens-based guitarist-composer Marco Oppedisano (whom I first heard on guitar compilations like The $100 Guitar Project and Clean Feed's I Never Metaguitar, Four) posted a series of improvised solo miniatures, often played at the end of virtual lessons, that were an object example of how to be endlessly inventive while sitting down. They were a source of inspiration and a reminder that you can be creative wherever you are with what you have available. During the pandemic, Marco got certified to teach music in NYC public schools, and started a career where he was forced to improvise under suboptimal conditions. But he continued with his work in electroacoustic composition, using only an electric guitar and bass. His latest release, "Klang," appears on the second installment of a five-volume anthology, Walk My Way, curated by Nick Vander, that's intended to showcase "the incredible musical range of the guitar, as well as the imaginative possibility of guitarists around the world." Marco's piece exemplifies these traits, using chiming harmonics as a percussive element, overlaying layers of texture, sighing volume swells, and sounds that highlight the instrument's physicality, weaving a skein of psychedelic-sounding modality through the mix.

Finally, Eric Klerks is an LA-based guitarist and bassist with a jazz background (he once worked as a personal assistant for Charlie Haden!) who played in the last incarnation of the reunited Magic Band, performing Captain Beefheart's music with John "Drumbo" French. His YouTube vids (included in my YT Beefheart video playist) were a great help to me in getting started on the Trout Mask Replica project, as were his thoughts on practice (basically, that you're not shooting for any particular goal or achievement, just spending time with the instrument in the moment where you are today). He's also been conducting guided mindfulness meditations that I've found useful via his Facebook and Instagram pages. Eric plays in Android Trio with former Magic Band members Max Kutner (who was in the last Grandmothers of Invention lineup we saw at the Kessler) and Andy Niven, and they have a record in the works with ex-Frank Zappa multi-instrumentalist Mike Keneally that I can't wait to hear. He also has a solo project, La Sirene, that covers the whole waterfront, from jazzy explorations to swamp blues, as exemplified by this eponymous track.