Near the end of a year in which the idea of genre continued to collapse and/or shift on its axis, I find myself in a New York performance space on a Thursday evening watching a hip-hop band play a straight-up jazz show, or maybe it's a band that's been inaccurately filed in the hip-hop section playing what I'm inaccurately describing as straight-up jazz. Or maybe it's both. STANDING ON THE CORNER, wrote the NEW YORKER's BRIANA YOUNGER in January—which seems so many verses and choruses ago—"makes the kind of music that sounds like genres rising up in rebellion." SOTC's shows are as different from each other, I'm told, as the show I'm experiencing at THE KITCHEN is different from either of the revolving-door New York collective's two albums. There's a trumpet, a saxophone and a bass clarinet. There's a cello and an upright bass. There's a conductor (bandleader GIO ESCOBAR) who sometimes adds electronic waves and squiggles, which are the only obvious signs on this particular night of hip-hop DNA, unless you choose to think, as you take this all in, of the energies of jazz and hip-hop that have been coursing through each other for the past several years (or decades), and actually how could you not think of that? There are pieces of a couple drum kits suspended on wires, asymmetrically, from the ceiling. For one song, there are two stilt walkers dancing through the crowd. The effect is pointedly theatrical and aesthetically arresting. The performance is billed as "The Ghosts of the Night Flock: A Standing on the Corner Art Ensemble Holiday Performance Extravaganza," and I'm hearing improvised meditations on "SILENT NIGHT," "THE FIRST NOEL" and maybe another Christmas Carol or two as waves of purposeful themes and variations ebb and flow through this small chamber ensemble. There are silences, there is joy and there's plenty of room for contemplation in between. This may be the best show I've seen in 2019 (which is why you should never make year-end lists before the year has actually ended, the several hundred people who did all these notwithstanding). There's reason to believe none of this will ever be repeated. There's reason to believe I'll want to see Escobar and his crew follow other roads as often as time and space allow in 2020, a year that seems so close and so many more genres away. It can't come soon enough... The state of New York has granted $3.75 million toward the building of the UNIVERSAL HIP HOP MUSEUM in the Bronx... PUBLIC ENEMY, JOHN PRINE, SISTER ROSETTA THARPE, IGGY POP, ROBERTA FLACK, ISAAC HAYES and CHICAGO will receive GRAMMY Lifetime Achievement Awards... YO LA TENGO, which began its annual eight-night run of Hanukkah shows at New York's BOWERY BALLROOM Sunday night, picks holiday classics you might not know (but should)... Bonus quote of the day, from MATISYAHU: "The real reason Jews don't have more Hanukkah music is that historically, American Jewish singer-songwriters were too busy making Christmas music"... RIP ABBEY SIMON... This is the last regular edition of MusicREDEF in 2019, but look out for a series of special editions over the holiday break: artists of the year (Dec. 27), in memoriam 2019 (Dec. 30) and the decade in review (Dec. 31). We'll continue to share stories via our Twitter feed in the meantime, and we'll return to our daily routine on Monday, Jan. 6. Wishing you a happy holiday season filled with music and joy.