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Friday, January 31, 2025

Music Week

January archive (in progress).

Music: Current count 45518 [45484] rated (+34), 27 [23] unrated (+4).

I lost my mind last night. The closest I can come to a rational explanation is that a fairly ordinary cold disrupted my schedule, and I lost all sense of time. I went to bed early, perhaps just looking for warmth, and fell asleep. I slept poorly. Laura, for whom sleeping is always difficult, expressed concern, which I had trouble processing. I woke up once, expecting it to be morning, and found the world outside unaccountably dark gray. A couple hours later, the clock registered 2:30, which I decided was enough sleep. I came downstairs, found it dark outside, noticed that I missed last night's pills. I had some breakfast, and only later I noticed that the computer clock was registering 3AM. I worked on some stuff until 6AM, then figured I might as well try bed again. I slept until noon, fitfully, but I logged over nine hours. This time when I awoke it was bright and sunny, and had warmed from 16 to 32F (and later to 40).

Yesterday I started writing up a Substack post, mindful that if I didn't send another one out by the end of January my monthly stats would be wretched. I got about one paragraph into it, something about the inexorability of time, although the main subject was to be home cooking. I failed, and now in terms of monthly stats, no rush. I've signed up for a half-dozen Substacks recently, which is starting to give me a fair sampling of strategies. Michael Steinman is putting out a short piece on most days. Chuck Eddy may be even more prolific, but all I receive in the mail is a weekly index of things only his paid subscribers can read. Allen Lowe has been more erratic lately: maybe he figures he's done enough baiting and time has come to switch. Dan Weiss is the only one who has comped me a paid subscription, so I'm seeing everything there, and enjoying most of it. (I rarely bother with the interviews, but Peter Stampfel is exceptional.)

I've been ambivalent about when I would post another Music Week. I wasn't ready to write off January even though it was soon enough done with me. But in my dilapidated state, I figured this is exactly the sort of brainless busy work I could handle. The hard work, which is the reviews, are already done, and while the week is short they're still of respectable quantity. No A-list albums, which is unusual but not unheard of. (I rechecked a couple albums later, and promoted one.) Besides, it clears the deck for a fresh start in February.

Every year, I expect to recalibrate and possibly change direction. Usually, I'm thinking about focusing more on non-music writing. Before I took ill, I spent a week trying to catch up with the news, writing up 34,000 words in Loose Tabs. I found that easy and satisfying to write, although I have little evidence that anyone else got anything out of it. But feeling as I do, I don't much care. As far as I'm concerned, it could all grind to a halt.

New records reviewed this week:

Justin Bieber: Swag (2025, Def Jam): Canadian pop singer-songwriter, much-hyped debut sold millions in 2010 (when he was 16), sales have trailed off but this 7th album still went platinum, US chart peak at 2 (his first to miss the top spot). He has never gotten critical respect: I've only heard one previous album, and didn't bother with this until it appeared as the only album in the Grammy Album of the Year list I hadn't heard. Played it once. Didn't notice much, but seems like a fairly typical piece of contemporary high-budget popcraft. B [sp]

Justin Bieber: Swag II (2025, Def Jam): Counted as his eighth studio album, for 23 new songs, but CD and digital also packaged with the 21-track Swag. Adds nothing much. B- [sp]

Caitlin Cannon: Love Addict (2025, self-released): Country singer-songwriter, second album. Rather torchy. B+(*) [sp]

Cardiacs: LSD (2025, The Alphabet Business Concern): English prog rock band, formed as Cardiac Arrest in 1977 by brothers Tim and Jim Smith, produced a demo in 1977 and a cassette in 1981, five albums 1988-99, released some new material in 2007, but disbanded after songwriter Tim Smith suffered a stroke in 2008. He eventually recovered enough to work on a new album, LSD, before he died in 2020. This is supposedly that, built around 2007 recordings with Tim Smith credited with guitar and keyboards on all tracks, vocals on five, bass on "some tracks." Fast, fanciful, "psychedelic" if you must, lost (80:11), not quite awful but certainly exhausting. C+ [sp]

The Castellows: A Little Goes a Long Way (2024, Warner Music Nashvile, EP): Country sisters act, last name Balkcom, Lily the lead singer (guitar, bass, harmonica), with backing vocals from Eleanor (guitar, piano) and Powell (banjo). First EP after a couple singles: 7 songs, 22:14, several memorable. B+(***) [sp]

The Castellows: Homecoming (2025, Warner Music Nashville, EP): Second EP, 7 more songs, less memorable, but they're still pretty appealing. B+(**) [sp]

Brittany Davis/Evan Flory-Barnes/D'Vonne Lewis: Black Thunder (2025, Loosegroove): Singer, plays keyboards, second album, an improv thing backed by bass and drums. B+(***) [sp]

For Living Lovers: Natural Name (2024 [2025], Sunnyside): Duo of Brandon Ross (guitar) and Stomu Takeishi (bass guitar), both playing acoustic, second album together. B+(*) [sp]

For Those I Love: Carving the Stone (2025, September): Irish spoken word artist David Balfe, second album, holds up musically so well I find myself letting the words slip past. B+(***) [sp]

Fust: Big Ugly (2025, Dear Life): Alt-country band from Durham, North Carolina, third album, lots of fiddle. B+(*) [sp]

Vinny Golia/Ken Filiano/Michael TA Thompson: Catastasis (2025, Nine Winds): "Multi-reed virtuoso" ("piccolo, C-flute, Bb clarinte, sopranino, soprano, alto and tenor saxophones"), many albums since 1977, backed by bass and drums, with three set-sized pieces (115:38). B+(**) [bc]

Vinny Golia Quintet: Can You Outrun Them? (2024, Nine Winds): Plays four saxophones and alto flute. Opens with strong trumpet from Kris Tiner, and the pianist (Cathlene Pineda) is impressive throughout. Also with bass (Miller Wrenn) and drums (Clint Dodson). B+(***) [bc]

The Vinny Golia Quintet: Out for Blood (2025, Nine Winds): Golia plays four saxophones, panpipes and shakuhachi. Different quintet, although these are names more likely to have previous quintet albums: Michael Vlatkovich (trombone), Wayne Peet (piano), Ken Filiano (bass), and Alex Cline (drums). B+(*) [bc]

Buddy Guy: Ain't Done With the Blues 2025, Silvertone/RCA): Old-timer, left Louisiana for Chicago in the 1960s, quickly established himself as a guitar virtuoso, especially when accompanying Junior Wells (1934-98). He's recorded plenty on his own, and is still going strong at 90. B+(***) [sp]

Kat Hasty: Time of Your Life (2025, Jackie Java/Thirty Tigers): Country singer-songwriter, from West Texas, first album, after some singles (and a compilation). B+(**) [sp]

Hvalfugl: Bag Vore Řjne Strřmmer Drřmme Sagte Forbi (2025, self-released): Danish trio, "Scandinavian folk meets tranquil Nordic jazz," fourth album since 2018, with keyboards (Jonathan Fjord Bredholt), guitar (Jeppe Lavsen), and bass (Anders Juel Bomholt), plus many guests, extra long (25 songs, 81 minutes). B+(*) [sp]

Keefe Jackson/Jakob Heinemann/Adam Shead: Stinger (2023 [2025], Irritable Mystic): Tenor sax/bass clarinet, bass, and drums, from two live sets in Chicago. B+(**) [bc]

K. Curtis Lyle/Alex Cunningham: Quantum Nursery Rhymes of the Divine Horseman (2025, Storm Cellar): Spoken word artist, a founder of the Watts Writers Workshop, recorded an album in 1971, appeared on a couple more, but didn't return as leader until 2024, and now has two more albums. This has two long pieces (15:19 + 40:21), backed by violin, for better or worse. B+(**) [bc]

Miffle: Goodbye, World (self-released): Tape loops and sound collage, out of Warsaw, first album. B+(*) [sp]

Kelly Moran: Don't Trust Mirrors (2025, Warp): Originally a pianist, seven albums since 2010, last three on this electronica-oriented label, but genre is unclear: Discogs offers "electronic, classical" and "experimental, modern classical," while Wikipedia throws in jazz, dream pop, and black metal. Piano sounds prepared at first, mixes with electronics, wanders around fourth world territory, winds up in ambient (a bit of a letdown). B+(***) [sp]

Mehmet Polat Quartet: Roots in Motion (2025, Aftab): Turkish "ud" player (think of an oud with two extra bass strings), based in Amsterdam, several albums since 2014, this a quartet with piano (Franz von Chossy), bass (Daniel van Huffelen), and drums (Martin Hafizi). B+(**) [bc]

Cleo Reed: Cuntry (2025, self-released): Singer-songwriter, based in New York, studied at Berklee, second album, hard to speak of any genre. B+(*) [sp]

Jane Remover: Revengeseekerz (2025, DeadAir): Chicago hyperpop producer, latest (since 2021) of a series of aliases going back to Leroy in 2011. A lot of intense clanking, although that's not always such a bad thing. B+(*) [sp]

Rio Da Yung OG: F.L.I.N.T. (Feeling Like I'm Not Through) (2025, MINE Enertainment/Empire): Detroit rapper, hit the ground running with five albums in 2019, second this year, missed a couple years in between (prison?). Aging fast. B+(***) [sp]

Sharp Pins: Balloon Balloon Balloon (2025, K/Perennial): Chicago lo-fi power pop group led by Kai Slater, who also records as Lifeguard, somewhat reminiscent of Big Star. Third album. Second was Radio DDR, which AOTY lists as a 2024 release, but Discogs has in 2025. I've made a mess of these two records in my EOY Aggregate, not that it makes much practical difference. B+(*) [sp]

Shrunken Elvis: Shrunken Elvis (2025, Western Vinyl): Nashville-based instrumental trio, first album, consists of Sean Thompson (guitars), Rich Ruth (guitar/synth/bass), and Spencer Collum (pedal steel guitar). B+(**) [sp]

They Are Gutting a Body of Water: Lotto (Julia's War/ATO): Shoegaze band from Philadelphia, started as a solo project by Douglas Dulgarian, fourth studio album since 2018. Short (10 songs, 27:49), which seems about right. B+(*) [sp]

Colter Wall: Memories and Empties (2025, La Honda): Canadian country singer-songwriter, fifth album since 2017, has an easy-going western air. B+(**) [sp]

Jennifer Walton: Daughters (2025, Local Action): British singer-songwriter, first album after a couple of EPs. Doesn't really connect. B [sp]

The Westerlies: Paradise (2025, Westerlies): New York-based brass quartet, first record (2013) a collaboration with keyboardist-composer Wayne Horvitz, fourth album since on their own (plus a couple more collaborations), retains founders Riley Mulherkar (trumpet) and Andy Clausen (trombone), picked up Chloe Rowlands (trumpet, 2019) and Addison Maye-Saxon (trombone, here). B+(**) [bc]

Lola Young: I'm Only F**king Myself (2025, Island/Day One): British singer-songwriter, third album after My Mind Wanders and Sometimes Leaves Completely and This Wasn't Meant for You Anyway, suggesting a SFFR, although my grasp of her lyrics here is so sketchy I have no idea what's tongue and what's cheek. B+(**) [sp]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

The Bill Evans Trio: Moon Beams (1962 [2025], Craft): First piano trio release after Scott LaFaro's death, with Chuck Israels taking over on bass, along with Paul Motian on drums. Originals to open and close (including his first "Very Early"), along with six standards. [earlier edition was: B+] B+(***) [sp]

Lee Morgan: Here's Lee Morgan (1960 [2025], Craft): Hard bop trumpet player (1938-72), played with Art Blakey 1958-65, but led about 30 albums from 1956 on, most on Blue Note. This was a rare exception, one of two on Vee-Jay, later expanded with extra takes to make a 70:54 CD, but here cut back to its original 6 songs, 37:47. Quintet with Clifford Jordan (tenor sax), Wynton Kelly (piano), Paul Chambers (bass), and Blakey (drums). B+(**) [sp]

Lee Morgan: The Procrastinator (1967 [2025], Blue Note): Six tracks 40:29, from a sextet session with Wayne Shorter (tenor sax), Bobby Hutcherson (vibes), Herbie Hancock (piano), Ron Carter (bass), and Billy Higgins (drums) that was released in Japan under this title in 1978 (a US edition from 1978 combined this on 2-LP with another set, but the 1995 CD, as well as this latest vinyl release, just contains the one set). B+(*) [sp]

Those Poor Bastards: Songs of Desperation [20th Anniversary Edition] (2005 [2025], Tribulation): Country gothic band, from Madison, Wisconsin, first album, 13 total through 2024 (plus 7 EPs), mostly with titles like Satan Is Watching, Behold the Abyss, Inhuman Nature, and Old Time Suffering. B+(*) [sp]

Tony Williams: Civilization (1986 [2025], Blue Note): Drummer (1945-97), joined Miles Davis when he was 17, by which time he had already worked with Sam Rivers and Jackie McLean. Like Shorter and Hancock, he went on to lead a major fusion band in the 1970s, but he also anchored the Great Jazz Trio (with Hank Jones and Ron Carter), and picked up many notable side credits. Rather flashy postbop, not that interesting although Mulgrew Miller is impressive on piano. With Wallace Roney (trumpet), Billy Pierce (tenor/soprano sax), and Charnett Moffett (bass). B+(*) [sp]

Old music:

None.

Grade (or other) changes:

Danny Brown: Stardust (2025, Warp): Detroit rapper, sixth album since 2010. Hyperrap: too fast to follow, too glitzy to dismiss. [was: B+(***)] A- [sp]

Rechecked with no grade change:

Ale Hop & Titi Bakorta: Mapambazuko (2025, Nyege Nyege Tapes): Berlin-based Peruvian electronica with Congolese guitar. B+(***) [sp]

Rosalía: Lux (2025, Columbia): Coming off an album I did like, winning polls, still sounds like opera to me. B+(*) [sp]

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

  • Michael Aadal: Aggressive Hymns, Energetic Ballads (Losen) [02-20]
  • Christopher Hoffman: Rex (Out of Your Head) [01-16]
  • The Tomeka Reid Quartet: Dance! Skip! Hop! (Out of Your Head) [02-13]

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Wednesday, January 28, 2026

Music Week

January archive (in progress).

Music: Current count 45484 [45431] rated (+53), 23 [14] unrated (+9).

Last Music Week came out 14 days ago, on January 12. That was the day that the 20th Annual Francis Davis Jazz Critics Poll appeared, with fewer notes than I had expected. I was disappointed that I hadn't done a better job of pulling it all together, but I was also worn down, and glad to put it aside. I expected to add some more — if nothing else, in response to whatever flack the poll kicked up — but I had precious little time, or perhaps desire, to carry on.

Besides, I hadn't done one of my Loose Tabs compilations since November 24. I had stashed some 4200 words away for another column, but I had collected very little since December 1, and, well, "stuff happens." So I decided I'd take the week and fill that draft file out a bit. I have a system which serializes blog posts, so once I committed to a Loose Tabs, Music Week would have to wait. And so it did.

I finally posted Loose Tabs on January 24. By then it came up to 459 links, 31382 words. That's a lot of "stuff" that happened. I've since added a bit more, with red change bars indicating the adds. I just barely alluded to the ICE murder of Alex Pretti on Saturday. I also mentioned Trump's Davos debacle, but missed several aspects of it.

I had little trouble finding and commenting on important pieces the last two weeks, but today I find myself all but paralyzed. Music Week should be easy, given that the reviews are already written, and the introduction hardly matters.

I can say that aside from the Poll and Loose Tabs and notes on the music below, I've had to deal with three fairly big things:

  1. We finally got our new roof done (or almost done). A section of flat roof that was supposed to be a reflective light gray was done up in black. As this also serves as patio flooring, the summer heat will make this painful to walk on. The roofer suggested adding a coating to change the color. I need to do some research on this. I asked for a week to look into this, but other things got in the way. That still leaves reinstalling the air conditioner and the railing, which can't be done until the surface is fixed. I also have attic work to do to make sure the new ventilation works right.

  2. A cousin, Max Brown, died. He had a ranch near Douglas, southeast of Wichita, where he bred Black Angus cattle. But after his wife, Doris, died in 2022, he had increasing trouble, and spent his last couple years in a nursing home in Derby. I spent a couple days with his family, before and after the funeral. We go back a long ways.

  3. Then it turned cold, with lows near zero and snow on Saturday and Sunday (during most of which it was 4-5°F). Got up to about 15°F today, and maybe 33°F tomorrow, but now they're predicting back to 0°F on Friday. In recent years, we've usually gotten one cold snap like this each year. This isn't the worst we've had, but the older I get, the more painful and debilitating cold weather becomes. I'm hurting to the point where everything I think I should be doing just opens up more pain and depression.

The cold isn't ending any time soon, but we may manage to get out to the grocery store tomorrow. The one thing I still seem to be good at is cooking. I made a pan of brownies and two batches of cookies (oatmeal-raisin, chocolate chip) for the visiting cousins. Then when the deep freeze settled in, for us I went for comfort food, making my mother's chicken & dumplings one night, and meatloaf another.

Records below are all from 2025. Probably the first batch since the poll picked up in November that's mostly non-jazz. I've done a very poor job of tending to my EOY aggregate this year, so I'm often short of things to listen to — not short of albums (which far exceed anyone's capacity) but short of names I recognize as promising. And then I'm short of time to properly digest the things I do hear. It's not a very satisfactory way of working, guaranteed to come up short both on quantity and quality.

I wrote most of this, but didn't quite get it up on Monday. Since then I've been torn, even considering the possibility of holding the whole thing back until the end of the month (as I'm not ready to open a February archive, despite next Monday falling on February 2. Actually, I'm not up to much of anything. It's possible I'll update this later when I decide to close out the month. Or I could push whatever's left over back into February. I'm reluctant to announce any plans for the coming year, as the prospects all look too glum, and I'm not sure I'm up to any of them.

New records reviewed this week:

Algernon Cadwallader: Trying Not to Have a Thought (2025, Saddle Creek): Emo band from Pennsylvania, band's namesake was first mayor of their home town, released two studio albums 2008-11, first album since they regrouped in 2023. B+(**) [sp]

ALT BLK ERA: Rave Immortal (2025, Earache): British electropop duo, sisters Nyrobi and Chaya Beckett-Messam, first album after a 2023 EP. Starts in dance pop territory, but midway starts rocking out, especially on "Come Fight Me for It" and "Rabbit Run." A- [sp]

Leon Anderson: Live at Snug Harbor (2023 [2025], Outside In Music): Drummer, from Louisiana, teaches at Florida State, has some side credits back to 1998 but first album, a hard bop quintet with John Michael Bradford (trumpet), Ricardo Pascal (sax), Oscar Rossignoli (piano), and Rodney Jordan (bass). Nothing here that Art Blakey couldn't have done 60 years ago, but a pretty lively example of that era, with an enthusiastic crowd, is impossible to resist. B+(**) [sp]

Sonya Belaya: Dacha (2025, Ropeadope): First-generation Russian-American pianist/singer, based in Brooklyn, first album, after side credits with Lesley Mok and David Leon. A song cycle, presumably in Russian, "rooted in themes of loss, cultural memory, and resilience, drawing from Soviet feminist poetry, bard traditions, and Eastern European folk songs." Most of that is lost on me, but the music is haunting. B+(**) [bc]

Blawan: SickElixir (2025, XL): British DJ Jamie Roberts, based in Berlin, second album, after lots of EPs going back to 2011. Terms like "post-dubstep" and "industrial techno" crop up. B+(*) [sp]

The Bug: Implosion (2025, Pressure): British dubstep producer Kevin Martin, early projects included GOD (1991-94), Techno Animal (1991-2001), and Ice (1993-99), has 10+ albums and many singles as the Bug since 1997. Fairly minimal. B+(*) [sp]

Laura De Jongh: Fundus (2025, Klankhaven, EP): Belgian harpist, solo, 7 tracks, 24:55, "rooted in the strict, classical formation," "seeks a balance between the natural acoustics of her instrument and the amplified, distorted sound." B+(*) [sp]

Olivia Dean: The Art of Loving (2025, Capitol/Polydor): British pop/r&b singer-songwriter, second album. B+(*) [sp]

Deftones: Private Music (2025, Reprise): Alt-metal (or shoegaze?) band from Sacramento, 10th studio album since 1995, first seven albums sold well enough to collect some kind of metal, last three have charted about as well (2-5-5 in US, 5-5-2 in UK, similar elsewhere). Seemed tolerable to start, but albums like this turn into endurance tests. By the time I got to the last cut, for lack of anything more interesting to say, I added up the Spotify track plays and came up with 168 million, which is 168 million more than the next album I queued up (just using the millions; add the thousands together and the latter barely topped 1 million, but Deftones would probably pick up at least that much). B- [sp]

DJ K: Radio Libertadora! (2025, Nyege Nyege Tapes): Brazilian funk producer Kaique Vieira, second album on Uganda's farthest reaching label. "In his bruxaria universe, the beats are hard, vocals are screamed and bass is explosive, creating an overwhelming, apocalyptic sound." I'd say hyperkinetic, possibly too much, but I'm sure that's the point. B+(**) [sp]

DJ Love/DJ Danz/DJ Ericnem: Budots World: 3-Hit Combo! (2025, Eastern Margins): Budots is a electronic dance music style ("slacker" in Bisaya), originating in the Philippines (Davao City). None of these three have Discogs entries I can find (DJ Love also seems to go as Sherwin Tuna, but no joy there either). They split the songs 5/4/4. A- [sp]

Florence + the Machine: Everybody Scream (2025, Polydor/Republic): British singer-songwriter Florence Welch, sixth group album since 2009, two more long-term members of the band (Isabella Summers, Robert Ackroyd) but her principal co-writers are "additional musicians" Mark Bowen and Aaron Dessner. This sees pretty solid. B+(*) [sp]

Alex G: Headlights (2025, RCA): Singer-songwriter Alex Giannascoli, from Pennsylvania, tenth album since 2011, slightly skewed approach to songs reminds some people of Pavement, a comparison that would carry more weight if he had any songs I liked. B- [sp]

Alison Goldfrapp: Flux (2025, A.G.): British electropop singer, previously the namesake for the duo Goldfrapp (7 albums 2000-17), second solo album. B+(**) [sp]

Saya Gray: Saya (2025, Dirty Hit): Canadian pop singer-songwriter, second album with a couple of EPs. B+(*) [sp]

Gwenno: Utopia (2025, Heavenly): Singer-songwriter from Wales, father is Cornish poet Tim Saunders, grew up fluent in Cornish and Welsh, sings in both but slips in some English in this, her fourth album. B+(*) [sp]

Heartworms: Glutton for Punishment (2025, Speedy Wunderground): British singer-songwriter Josephine (Jojo) Orme, father Afghan-Pakistani, mother Chinese-Danish, first album after a 2023 EP. Pretty good. B+(***) [sp]

Heems: A Hundred Alibis (2025, Veena, EP): Das Racist rapper, solo albums since 2012 (initially as Himanshu). Six songs, 19:32. Mostly sung, draws on some Indian music, but doesn't really work. B- [sp]

The High Society New Orleans Jazz Band: Live at Birdland (2025, Turtle Bay): Seven piece trad jazz band, led by Simon Wettenhall (trumpet) and Conal Fowkes (piano), "New Orleans" is inspiration, but this was recorded in New York City, which seems to be home — the band is known for playing with Woody Allen. B+(**) [sp]

Nyron Higor: Nyron Higor (2025, Far Out, EP): Brazilian multi-instrumentalist (keyboards, guitar, bass, drums, percussion), sings some, first album, short (10 tracks, 23:51). B+(*) [sp]

Steve Hirsh: Root Causes (2023 [2025], Mahakala Music): Drummer, from New York City, based in northern Minnesota, started recording on this label in 2021, with Joel Futterman, Chad Fowler, and George Cartwright. Trio here with Eri Yamamoto (piano) and William Parker (bass). B+(***) [sp]

Hotline TNT: Raspberry Moon (2025, Third Man): New York indie/shoegaze band, fronted by singer-songwriter Will Anderson, third album. B [bc]

Hannah Jadagu: Describe (2025, Sub Pop): Singer-songwriter born in Texas, parents from Zimbabwe, moved to New York in 2020, released an EP in 2021, an album in 2023, and now this second album. B+(*) [sp]

Vladimir Kostadinovic: Iris (2024 [2025], Criss Cross Jazz): Drummer, originally from Serbia, based in Austria, debut album 2011, recorded this in New York, with Ben Wendel (tenor sax; also Chris Potter on two tracks), Alex Sipiagin (trumpet), Joe Locke (vibes), Geoffrey Keezer (piano), and Matt Brewer (bass). Nice romp for Locke. B+(**) [sp]

The Last Dinner Party: From the Pyre (2025, Island): British art rock/baroque pop group, second album, lead singer Abigail Morris, songs jointly credited. B- [sp]

Leikeli47: Lei Keli Ft. 47/For Promotional Use Only (2025, Acrylic/Hardcover): Rapper, started with mixtapes (2010-15), fourth album since 2017, title seems tentative (as does length: 11 songs, 29:56). B+(***) [sp]

MC BF & DJ Yuzak: Bebeto E Romário (2025, Mandelăo, EP): Brazilian electrofunk duo, 13 songs, 24:30. B+(**) [sp]

Monaleo: Who Did the Body (2025, Stomp Down/Columbia): Houston rapper Leondra Gay, second album, sharp in spots. B+(**) [sp]

Christy Moore: A Terrible Beauty (2024, Claddagh): Irish folksinger-songwriter (b. 1945), couple dozen solo studio albums since 1969, plus live albums and group work with Planxty (1972-83). I noted a number of his albums in my database, but my interest in Anglo-Celtic folk music — from my vantage the distinctions are insignificant — this is the first I've managed to check out. Not my thing, but this pulls me in. B+(***) [sp]

Navy Blue: The Sword & the Soaring (2025, Freedom Sounds): Underground rapper Sage Elsesser, from Brooklyn, ninth album since 2020. I was somewhat taken aback when I saw this genrefied as "Christian hip-hop." It doesn't hip or hop much, but does keep returning to themes of faith with heavenly airs. B+(***) [sp]

Nazar: Demilitarize (2025, Hyperdub): Angolan producer Alcides Simoes, second album (after Guerrilla), coined the term "rough kiduro," "translating the normally upbeat style to expose the uglier side of what he saw in Angola." B+(*) [sp]

NMIXX: Blue Valentine (2025, JYP Entertainment): K-pop girl group, singles in 2022, three albums (with variants) since 2023. Huge Spotify plays, with the title track topping 36 million. B+(**) [sp]

Robert Plant: Saving Grace (2025, Nonesuch): Former singer for mega arena rock band Led Zeppelin (1969-80), not sure why I've had so little interest in his solo career, with a half-dozen gold records 1982-93, as well as considerable success with his 1998 Jimmy Page duo and his collaborations with bluegrass singer-violinist Alison Krauss (2007, 2021). He formed this acoustic folk band in 2019 with singer Suzi Dian (credited on front cover), covering mostly blues and folk songs. B+(*) [sp]

Noah Preminger: Dark Days (2024 [2025], Criss Cross Jazz): Tenor saxophonist, was our Debut winner in 2008, has a solid mainstream career with 20+ albums since. Quartet with Ely Perlman (guitar), Kim Cass (bass), and Terreon Gully (drums), mostly playing originals (one by Perlman), with two covers (Don Cherry, Nando Michelin). B+(***) [sp]

Juana Rozas: Tanya (2025, Sony Music Argentina): Argentinian singer-songwriter, second album, "a clubby tribute to the chameleonic sounds of the Latin rave underground." B+(**) [sp]

Saint Etienne: International (2025, Heavenly): British electropop band, 13th album since 1991, Sarah Cracknell the singer, also keyboardists Pete Wiggs and Bob Stanley — the latter also fairly well known as a music journalist. This is fairly delightful, but nothing quite compelled me to upgrade. B+(***) [sp]

Ternion Q Expanded: Marbles (2025, Bju'ecords): Danish bassist, long part of Brooklyn Jazz Underground, released a Ternion Quartet album in 2017, with Silke Eberhard (alto sax), Geoffroy De Masure (trombones), and Roland Schneider (drums); returns here as a septet, adding Percy Pursglove (trumpet), Julius Gawlik (clarinets/tenor sax), and Morris Kiphuis (french horn). B+(**) [sp]

Jesse Welles: Hells Welles (2024, self-released): Folk singer-songwriter from Ozark, Arkansas, initially recorded as Jeh Sea Wells, with eight albums 2012-18, five more as Welles, then eight more starting with this one in 2024, under his almost real name (actually Wells). Starts with "War Isn't Murder," then "Payola" and "Cancer" ("so if you aren't expecting peace, why expect a cure?"). Double LP, 21 songs, just guitar and voice, and conscience. B+(***) [sp]

Jesse Welles: Patchwork (2024, self-released): A dozen more songs, opening with a nod toward Dylan. B+(**) [sp]

Jesse Welles: Pilgrim (2025, self-released): Second album of the year, after The Middle, making four in twelve months, with more to come. The songs keep coming, with the short "Philannthropist" perhaps the most pointed. B+(**) [sp]

Jesse Welles: Devil's Den (2025, self-released): Eleven more songs, something of a band, starts with "The Great Caucasian God." B+(*) [sp]

Jesse Welles: With the Devil (2025, self-released): Alternate version of the 11 songs on Devil's Den. Band seems looser, the extra space opening up for a more graceful singer, and perhaps easier focus on the words. B+(**) [sp]

Jesse Welles: Under the Powerlines (April '24-September '24) (2024 [2025], self-released): I don't quite understand what this is, let alone the rationalization, but this rolls up 63 songs (195 minutes), presumably live, starts solo reprising songs from Hells Welles, only I'm picking up more lyrics this time around. Opens with "War Isn't Murder": "The dead don't feel honor; They don't feel that brave; They don't feel avenged; They're lucky if they got graves; Try not to think about the dead, and have a nice day." Then "Cancer": "Cancer is as lucrative a business as war; So if you ain't expecting peace, then why expect a cure?" Then "Fentanyl": "Makes Johnson Johnson oxys look like little beers; Send dough tot he enforcement, they build another jail; Give money to a hammer, they're gonna buy a nail." Later: "I like to complain; You like to complain; We can all complain together." Covers Dylan and Prine, and does a fair impression of both. Also covers Jagger & Richard. A- [sp]

Jesse Welles: Under the Powerlines (October '24-December '24) (2024 [2025], self-released): 25 songs (67 minutes). B+(***) [sp]

Wolf Alice: The Clearing (2025, Columbia/RCA): British alt-rock band, originally a duo of singer Ellie Rowsell and guitarist Joff Oddie, added bass and drums, fourth album since 2015. B+(*) [sp]

Tommy Womack: Live a Little (2025, Schoolkids): Singer-songwriter from Kentucky, long based on Nashville, ninth album since 1998, most of them good-to-better. B+(***) [sp]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

Herb Geller Quartet: Barcelona Session (1990, Fresh Sound): Alto saxophonist, one of the key players in the West Coast Cool Jazz scene of the 1950s, moved to Germany in 1962, playing and arranging for big bands in Berlin (RIAS) and Hamburg (NDR), resuming his own albums around 1990. This is the rest of the session that produced Birdland Stomp, with piano (Kenny Drew), bass (Niels-Henning Řrsted Pedersen) and drums (Mark Taylor), with two guest spots each for young trumpet players Roy Hargrove and Gerard Presencer. B+(***) [sp]

Dizzy Gillespie/Sonny Stitt/Sonny Rollins: Sonny Side Up (1957 [2025], Verve): Pretty much the cutting contest you'd expect, backed by a rhythm section of Ray Bryant (piano), Tom Bryant (bass), and Charlie Persip (drums). B+(***) [sp]

Billy Harper: Trying to Make Heaven My Home (1979 [2025], MPS): Tenor saxophonist, from Houston, debut 1973, his 1975 album Black Saint keynoted an Italian label that was one of the following decade's most important. Quintet with trumpet (Everett Hollins), piano (Armen Donelian), bass (Wayne Dockery), and drums (Malcolm Pinson). He's a tower of strength here, as he usually is. B+(***) [sp]

Hüsker Dü: 1985: The Miracle Year (1985 [2025], Numero Group): Hardcore trio from Minnesota, six studio albums 1983-87, notable live albums to start and end, exceptional power and occasional pop hooks, had such a reputation at the time that I followed them, despite never really getting with the program. Label has been trawling through their live tapes recently, with this 4-LP (or 2-CD) box a big deal. Opens with a Jan. 30, 1985 set, following New Day Rising, that was reduced to an EP earlier this year, then jumps around many other shows. I recognize a bunch of songs, but doubt any are improved live. A couple covers do help. But the length wears thin. B+(*) [sp]

Agustin Pereyra Lucena: Puertos De Alternativa (1988 [2025], Far Out): Argentinian guitarist (1948-2019), albums from 1970 on, this with a mix of solo, duo, and small group tracks. B+(*) [sp]

Edison Machado: Edison Machado & Boa Nova (1978 [2025], Far Out): Brazilian drummer (1934-90), regarded as a samba pioneer, only a few albums as leader and in Bossa Tręs. Previously unreleased sextet session. B+(*) [sp]

The Lost Secret Dave Wells' Trombone City Band: Live at Carmelo's (1983 [2025], Fresh Sound): Trombonist (1931-2003), not much under his name but he started with Harry James in 1952, played in varios ubig bands (Woody Herman, Marty Paich, Russell Garcia, Jimmy Hamilton, Billy May, Pat Longo, Henry Mancini, Don Ellis), while spinning off groups like Trombones Unlimited and side-credits like Bobby Darin and Frank Zappa. Previously unreleased tape, group with six trombones, piano, guitar, bass, and drums, with 9 tracks stretching out to 80 minutes. B+(*) [sp]

Old music:

Cliff Jordan: Cliff Jordan [Blue Note 1565] (1957, Blue Note): Tenor saxophonist (1931-93), second album (after Blowin' in From Chicago, with John Gilmore), cover shows his name in red, six more names in black, and the label and number in red again. The others: Lee Morgan (trumpet), Curtis Fuller (trombone), John Jenkins (alto sax), Ray Bryant (piano), Paul Chambers (bass), Art Taylor (drums). B+(***) [sp]

Clifford Jordan: Starting Time (1961, Jazzland): Tenor saxophonist, as cover notes with Kenny Dorham (trumpet), Cedar Walton (piano), Wilbur Ware (bass), and Albert Heath (drums). Three Jordan originals, two each from Dorham and Walton, plus an Ellington cover. B+(**) [yt]

Clifford Jordan Quartet: Bearcat (1961-62 [1990], Jazzland/OJC): Tenor saxophonist, plays five originals, two overs (including "How Deep Is the Ocean?"), backed by Cedar Walton (piano), Teddy Smith (bass), and J.C. Moses (drums). B+(**) [sp]

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

  • Carl Clements and the Real Jazz Trio: Retrospective (Greydisc) [03-01]
  • The Cucumbers: As You Heard Me (self-released) [02-14]
  • Lazy Californians: Back to San Francisco (Angel Island) [02-13]
  • Shawn Lovato: Biotic (Endectomorph Music) [02-13]
  • Doug MacDonald Trio: Live in Beverly Hills (DMAC Music) [01-01]
  • Michael Moody: The Ecstasy of Love (self-released) [03-20]
  • Ron Rieder: Compositions in Blue and Other Hues (Meson) [01-01]
  • Ben Rosenblum: The Longest Way Round (One Trick Dog) [02-27]
  • Brandon Seabrook: Hellbent Daydream (Pyroclastic) [02-20]

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Saturday, January 24, 2026

Loose Tabs

Note: I accidentally dated this ahead a day. It was initially posted on Saturday, January 24, and not 25. I will add a few items, denoted by red change bars, mostly when they update pieces already here, but will save up other items in my Loose Tabs [Draft File].

This is an occasional collection of newsworthy links and comments, much less systematic than what I attempted in my late Speaking of Which posts. The new name comes from my extensive use of browser tabs. When I get around to cleaning up, I often find tabs opened to old articles I might want to comment on and/or refer back to. So these posts are mostly housecleaning, but may also serve as a very limited but persistent record of what 20+ years ago I started calling "the end of the American empire" and nowadays feels more like "the end of civilization." I collect these bits in a draft file, and flush them out when periodically. My previous one appeared ? days ago, on November 24.

I have a little-used option of selecting bits of text highlighted with a background color, for emphasis a bit more subtle than bold or ALL CAPS. (I saw this on Medium. I started with their greenish color [#bbdbba] and lightened it a bit [#dbfbda].) I'll try to use it sparingly.

I pretty much put this file on hold while I was working on the Francis Davis Jazz Critics Poll, only returning to it on January 13. Jimmy Kimmel opened his first January monologue by explaining that "we have a lot to cover," but he had only been off the air for a week. Only a couple pieces in my draft file were dated after December 5, so I've missed more than a month (actually, 7 Music Week posts have appeared in the interim). So this will be even more hit-and-miss than usual.

I was at 57 links, 4207 words when I started my catch up and wrap up. I initially pegged Friday, January 16 at my target posting date, then backed it up to Sunday, and now I'm just letting it chew up as much of the following week as it takes. I'm not in any hury to get back to Music Week, or anything else.

Finally wrapping this up on Saturday, January 25. I may add some more stuff later, but I'm basically caught up, and there is more than enough here to chew on.

I'm reposting this on January 28, along with my much delayed Music Week.

Table of Contents:

Let's start with this quote from Senator Roger Marshall's newsletter [01-21]:

President Trump's first year back in the White House has been nothing short of historic. From the moment he took office on January 20, 2025, the President set an unprecedented pace — operating under what I like to call "Trump time." Promises made, promises kept have defined this administration, starting with decisive action to secure the border, restore law and order, and put the safety of American families first. By enforcing our laws and backing those who protect us, President Trump has brought order where there was chaos and made our communities safer.

That same results-driven leadership has strengthened our economy and put working families back on solid ground. Through pro-growth policies like the Working Families Tax Cuts, fair trade, and a renewed commitment to American energy and manufacturing, the economy is moving in the right direction — creating jobs, attracting investment, and lowering costs. At the same time, the President has put us on a realistic path to healthier living, worked to bring down prescription drug prices, and restored peace through strength abroad. It has been a truly transformative year, and this is just the beginning, with the wins only continuing to pile up for the American people.

In my notebook, I originally just pulled a few select lines from this, but rather than chop it up with ellipses, I figured I should just give you the whole spiel. It's hard to find anything in this quote that is true, but it's noteworthy that this is what Republicans are telling themselves.

Topical Stories

Sometimes stuff happens, and it dominates the news/opinion cycle for a few days or possibly several weeks. We might as well lead with it, because it's where attention is most concentrated. But eventually these stories will fold into the broader, more persistent thmes of the following section.

Thanksgiving:

  • Jane Borden [11-26]: The Pilgrims were doomsday cultists: "The settlers who arrived in Plymouth were not escaping religious persecution. They left on the Mayflower to establish a theocracy in the Americas."

  • Kali Holloway [11-27]: Make Thanksgiving radical again: "The holiday's real roots lie in abolition, liberation, and anti-racism. Let's reconnect to that legacy."

Epsteinmania: Back by popular demand, as Republicans caved in and passed a law to "release all the files," leaving the cover up to the so-called Justice Department (which is a bigger oxymoron these days than the Defense Department used to be, not that renaming it the War Department is a good idea). But so far, nothing much has been revealed, and "Epstein" has mostly occurred as the reason for Trump's "wag the dog" warmaking.

  • Philip Weiss [12-19]: The New York Times ignores an essential part of the Jeffrey Epstein story — Israel: The Times article in question is The untold story of how Jeffrey Epstein got rich, which argues that "Epstein was the greatest conman and swindler that ever lived, and charmed the pants off of every powerful man he met."

    Epstein did numerous chores for Israel that investigative sites have documented and the Times does not touch: he helped Israel broker financial deals with neighbors, he had an Israeli spy living in his house for a time, and he had a close relationship with former Israeli PM Ehud Barak that included business ventures and politics in Israel.

  • Amanda Marcotte [12-21]: Epstein continues to explain everything about Trump: "From Greenland to Minneapolis, it's all rooted in his predatory ways." I don't quite buy this, but: "Like his friend Epstein — who enjoyed targeting small, helpless teenage girls — the most important thread throughout Trump's life is that he tries to feel big by harassing those who he feels can't fight back."

  • Kathleen Wallace [12-25]: Redacting our reality, one Epstein at a time.

  • Elie Honig [01-24]: How Bill and Hillary Clinton could soon become criminal defendants: This reviews their past brushes with possible criminal prosecution, but this time they may feel they're innocent and should stand on principle, as conscientious objectors.

    The Clintons almost certainly aren't going to prison, or even getting convicted. But with characteristic hubris, Bill and Hillary have walked themselves to the brink of federal charges by defying bipartisan congressional subpoenas on the Jeffrey Epstein investigation. And it's a good bet that our current Justice Department — which apparently makes critical decisions by a sophisticated litmus test that asks, "Do we like you, or not?" — will pursue criminal contempt charges.

Zohran Mamdani:

ICE stories: The last couple weeks is the point where Trump's goon squad has turned the corner from being overzealous civil servants rooting out unwanted immigrants to becoming an armed force that freely attacks ordinary Americans. They've been unleashed, with the full-throated support of Trump, Vance, and Kristi Noem, who all understand that their real problem isn't immigrants. It's Americans, especially ones that are guilty of the treason of living in cities that voted against Trump.

  • Cameron Peters [01-07]: Trump's immigration crackdown turns deadly in Minneapolis: "The fatal ICE shooting in Minneapolis, briefly explained."

  • Eric Levitz [01-08]: Trump's menacingly dishonest response to the Minnesota ICE shooting: "Trump is telling us he doesn't care why Renee Good died."

    All this is both appalling and frightening. If ICE agents know that they can kill US citizens on video — and still count on the president to lie in support of their freedom — Americans' most basic liberties will be imperiled.

    Trump's response is also politically mindless. The administration could have declined to take a position on the killing until all facts were known. It could have left itself the option of declaring Good's killer one bad apple, whose recklessness undermined ICE's fundamental mission: to keep Americans safe.

    Instead, it has chosen to identify its broader ideological project with contempt for the lives of any Americans who gets in its way.

  • Alex Skopic [01-08]: The only "domestic terrorists" on our streets are ICE.

  • Caitlin Dewey [01-09]: How right-wing creaetors bend reality to their will: "How a scandal about day cares run by Somali Americans led to an ICE surge in Minneapolis."

  • Christian Paz [01-12]: The violent "randomness" of ICE's deportation campaign: "What ICE is doing in American cities is very distinct." Interview with David Hausman.

    ICE, specifically, is operating in a completely different way to how it has historically worked — with big shows of force in neighborhoods, seemingly indiscriminate arrests of immigrants (and citizens), and its careless treatment of bystanders and protesters.

  • Laura Jedeed [01-13]: You've heard about who ICE is recruting. The truth is far worse. I'm the proof. "What happens when you do minimal screening before hiring agents, arming them, and sending them into the streets? We're all finding out." For an update, see:

  • Christian Paz [01-15]: How right-wing influencers are bending reality in Minneapois: "The MAGA media system is going into overdrive." They're always in overdrive. At some point you just have to shut them off, and give them no respect at all.

  • Noah Hurowitz [01-14]: Federal agents keep invoking killing of Renee Good to threaten protesters in Minnesota.

  • Eric Levitz [01-14]: The Trump administration can't stop winking at white nationalists: "The government is recruiting ICE agents with (literal) neo-Nazi propaganda."

  • Ryan Cooper [01-15]: Trump's ethnic cleansing campaign in Minneapolis: "Every part of this illegal, violent occupation is based on lies."

  • Gillen Tener Martin [01-16]: Another way Republicans are overplaying their hand on immigration: "Now they're going after Americans who are also citizens of another country — like me, and Melania and Barron Trump."

  • Alain Stephens [01-16]: ICE agents are even worse at being cops than you think: "Videos of agents falling down and dropping their guns feel beyond parody. But under-trained law enforcement officers are a real danger to the public."

  • Nia Prater [01-19]: The Minneapolis siege is even worse than the videos show: Interview with Will Stancil ("over the past week, Stancil has become a mainstay of citizen patrols, tracking ICE agents around the city in his Honda Fit and sharing his experiences with his 100,000-plus followers").

  • Jacob Fuller [01-21]: We don't know how many people have been harmed by ICE: "How decades of inaction on police reform paved the road for ICE's lack of transparency."

  • Ed Kilgore [01-21]: Should Democrats try to abolish ICE or radically change it? I'm surprised to see such a notoriously middling liberal pundit even raising the possibility of abolishing ICE. I can certainly understand the impulse to abolish, and I doubt that much actual harm would ensue if it actually happened, but I've always been in the reform camp, and probably always will be. (There are, of course, things I would be happy to see abolished, like NATO, and Microsoft, but even there I could see ways of salvaging grams of value from the tons of destruction.) I certainly don't see this as a political fight I'm up for. While I have no particular beef with immigrants, I see them as tangential to what matters most, which is treating both citizens here and foreigners elsewhere much better than the US has been doing. I think it's extremely important that we treat all people decently, but that doesn't mean we should indulge them completely. Of course, Kilgore winds up on the reform side:

    There's no evidence that Americans actually want the "open borders" stance that Republicans have falsely accused Democrats of embracing in the past. Embracing it now makes little sense. The broadest and strongest position for Democrats right now is the abolition of both mass deportation and ICE terror tactics, alongside a new path to citizenship for noncriminal immigrants and fairer and more uniform enforcement of immigration laws without the sort of violence and cruelty perpetrated and celebrated by Trump, J.D. Vance, Kristi Noem, and Stephen Miller. Anyone who thinks such a position represents a surrender to MAGA needs to remember how and why these terrible people rose to power in the first place.

    On the other hand, if you do manage to abolish ICE, I could go along with that too. Kilgore cites Bunch here:

  • Maximillian Alvarez [01-22]: "No work. No spending": Minnesota workers will strike tomorrow to protest ICE: "A critical conversation with Minnesota union leaders on the eve of a massive general strike."

  • Garrett Owen [01-22]: "Gas is coming!": Border Patrol commander Bovino throws gas cannister at protesters in Minneapolis.

  • Jason Linkins [01-24]: This year's first big stupid idea: "retrain ICE": "Some things get so evil that they forfeit their right to exist. Trump's rogue paramilitary gangs are one of them."

  • CK Smith [01-24]: Another Minneapolis resident shot and killed by ICE agent: "Deadly encounters in just a few weeks, residents and officials demand accountability for ICE operations."

    I picked up this story as I was rushing to wrap up, and spent much of Saturday ignoring further reports, including a lot of video. The victim was Alex Pretti, 37, an intensive care nurse at the Minneapolis VA Health Care System. The shooter was a Border Patrol agent (not ICE, but part of the same Trump-ordered operation). I'm not going to report on this at length, but this has become a very big story, and needs a bit more than I initially provided.

    • CK Smith [01-25]: A MN nurse is dead as the government's story falls apart: "Again, officials say ICE agent acted in self-defense, but video evidence and witnesses contradict their narrative."

    • Intelligencer Staff []: Is Alex Pretti's death the breaking point? "Here are the latest developments."

    • Cameron Peters

    • Zack Beauchamp

      • [01-25]: The killing of Alex Pretti is a grim turning point: "Trump's authoritarianism is becoming less subtle — and more vicious." Groping for words, but I don't think "subtle" was ever in play. But Beauchamp wants to contrast the "subtle" arts of a Viktor Orbán vs. pure brutes like Stalin. But all right-wingers want to be brutes. The difference between Orbán and Stalin is that the latter had deep power that the head of a nominally democratic state lacked. Trump may wish he had that sort of power, but he probably doesn't — how much he does have is being tested right now.

      • [01-26]: So what if Alex Pretti had a gun? "The unbearable hypocrisy of pro-gun conservatives defending the Minneapolis killing." This isn't an angle I care much about, probably because I've long ago understood that gun advocates don't care about logical consequences of so many people having so many guns. Part of this goes back to the general conservative belief that rights are something for themselves and not for other people. (Slavery is a pretty clear cut example.) But it does seem fair to ask law enforcement how they are able to tell, in real time and under less than ideal circumstances, when and how to respect one person's right to bear arms, when not to, and what to do about it.

    • Ross Barkan [01-26]: Trump's losing war on Minneapolis.

    • Eric Levitz [01-23]: You don't need to be a liberal to oppose Trump's ICE: "You just need to care about your own constitutional rights." But you may need to be at least a little bit of a liberal to understand that your and other people's rights are connected, so that denying rights to others also affects you. That's not a concern for conservatives, who believe different groups can and should be treated differently.

    • Jeffrey St Clair [01-26]: Where the sidewalk ends, the lies begin: on the execution of Alex Pretti.

      We live in a country where you can be charged with resisting arrest without having committed a crime to be arrested for. We live in a country where even the most passive acts of defiance and resistance are an excuse to kill you. . . . Americans of conscience also find themselves in the crosshairs of their own government.

      We also live in a country where people, ordinary people, are so revolted by what's happening that they are willing to go out every day in Arctic temperatures to confront and resist the paramilitary-style forces that are terrorizing their neighborhoods, knowing the kind of violence that might be visited against them.

      Alex Pretti was one of those "ordinary" Americans. He didn't do anything to deserve being assaulted, never mind shot. He did what nurses are trained to do: help someone who had been hurt, a woman gratuitously shoved to the ground and pepper-sprayed by a CBP agent, a woman who had also done nothing to deserve this brutal treatment. Alex Pretti wasn't the "worst of the worst." He was the best of the best.

    • Branko Marcetic [01-27]: Even law enforcement officers think this has gone too far: "The impunity with which ICE and other DHS agents are carrying out violence and murders in cities like Minneapolis is so awful that now scores of law enforcement officials themselves are speaking out against it."

    • Aziz Huq [01-27]: Where is the off-ramp from all this state violence? "It's hard to think of a parallel effort in US history to build a domestic agency of violence specialists at the scale of ICE."

    • Eric Levitz [01-27]: Trump's deportation forces finally went too far. Not his opinion, mind you. He's taking his cues from "many Republican senators, governors, and influencers [who] called for a thorough investigation into Pretti's killing, as did the NRA."

  • Jelinda Montes [01-28]: Rep. Ilham Omar attacked at town hall. And Trump applauded, tweeting "She probably had herself sprayed, knowing her."

Venezuela: Marco Rubio's 2016 presidential campaign was a pretty lacklustre affair — I was tempted to say "sad," but he had no substance to feel regrets over. But later, I found there was one topic that really animated him, and that is overthrowing the Chavez/Maduro government in Venezuela. I was surprised when he appeared on Trump's short list of VP prospects, along with JD Vance and Doug Burgum. I figured Trump was sniffing for money: Burgum had his own, and Vance belonged to Peter Thiel. I wasn't sure who Rubio's sugar daddy was, but he undoubtedly had one. Nobody makes a serious run for the Republican nomination without at least one billionaire backer. (Newt Gingrich famously complained that Romney beat him 5-to-1 on that critical score.) That Rubio wound up with the Secretary of State post pretty much guaranteed that Trump would make war on Venezuela. That's just happened.

  • Paul R Pillar [11-10]: Dick Cheney's ghost has a playbook for war in Venezuela: "Trump flirting with regime change in Caracas carries eerie similarities to the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq."

  • Joshua Keating [12-12]: The global shadow economy behind Trump's latest move on Venezuela: "A black market has been growing for years. The escalation puts a new spotlight on it."

  • Vijay Prashad/Taroa Zúńiga Silva [01-03]: The US attacks Venezuela and seizes its president.

  • Cameron Peters [01-03]: How Trump went from boat strikes to regime change in Venezuela: "The US just attacked Venezela. How did we get here?"

  • Caitlin Dewey [01-05]: America's century-long interest in Venezuelan oil: "The long, fascinating history of US entanglement with the Venezuelan industry." Seems to me this piece is missing a lot of detail, both on the rise and fall of Venezuelan oil; e.g., how much light oil can Venezuela still produce? Or, is the decline due to political factors, including lost skills, or are they just running out of easy oil? I'm inclined to believe that Chavez and Maduro have mismanaged the industry, but that doesn't explain that much decline. Another thing I'd stress is that Trump's understanding of the oil industry is almost nil, so his motivations needn't have anything to do with reality.

  • Eric Levitz [01-05]: Did Trump really invade Venezuela for oil? "No. Also, maybe." If he's a rational actor: "no." But he's not, so: "maybe." At least he's not making up any cockamamie stories about "restoring democracy," ridding the people autocrats, etc. Those aren't reasons he in any way cares about. "Taking the oil," on the other hand, is a reason he can get behind. But, as Levitz notes, the American oil industry doesn't need or even particularly want Venezuela's crude (especially the heavy/expensive stuff in the Orinoco reserves). Oil prices are fairly depressed at present, so the last thing the industry wants is more supply from countries like Venezuela and Iran (and for that matter, Russia).

  • Elie Honig [01-07]: Why Nicolás Maduro is facing trial in lower Manhattan.

  • Terry Lynn Karl [01-16]: Trump's petrostate dilemma in Venezuela: "By capturing his Venezuelan counterpart Nicolás Maduro, US President Donald Trump sought to project power abroad but instead exposed his own political vulnerability. Despite his promise to restore Venezuela's oil industry, his overt resource grab is far more likely to fuel regional turmoil."

  • Francisco Rodriguez [01-16]: In what world would Trump's oil play actually help Venezuelans? "It would take major systematic changes both commercially and in government, and it's unclear whether any of that is in the works yet."

  • Benjamin Fogel [01-17]: We're now in the Sopranos stage of imperialism: "the transformation of US hegemony into naked extortion. As with the Mafia, loyalty may ultimately buy nothing, and deals can be broken at gunpoint."

  • Chas Danner [01-18]: How is Trump's Venezuela takeover going? Not as badly as it would be had the US actually invaded and tried to run things directly. The big question is whether Trump will be satisfied with Delcy Rodríguez as "acting president," and whether Rodríguez will be able to satisfy Trump without having the still intact Chavista power base turn against her. Thus far she's mostly conceding things that Maduro wouldn't have had any problem conceding. One could imagine a very different outcome in Iraq had Bush allowed a more amenable Ba'athist leader like Tariq Aziz to remain in power, rather than allowing Paul Bremer to push the entire Ba'athist elite into opposition. Similarly, the US could have tried to negotiate some form of power-sharing agreement with the Taliban in 2001 instead of driving them into a civil war they won 20 years later. This type of "occupation" would have been a novelty for the US, but the concept goes way back. When Alexander destroyed an enemy army, he usually converted the previous king into a satrap, paying him tribute but depending on him to maintain order, as his own army moved on to conquer other lands. The obvious problem with Trump in Venezuela is that his greed and power lust will overshoot, putting US forces into another quagmire.

    The strange thing is that I could see Trump's smash-and-grab foreign policy becoming very popular: the idea is to act brashly, demonstrating his dynamic leadership, then behave sensibly and even generously afterwards, avoiding the usual consequences and blowback. Of course, he didn't have to snatch Maduro to get a pretty decent deal from Venezuela. He could get similarly good deals from Iran and North Korea. He could have had a big win on Gaza, but there the problem wasn't a regime he refused to deal with, but one (Netanyahu's) that didn't take his threat seriously. His failure in Ukraine is due to the same problem: Putin has no reason to doubt that he can just string Trump along. Sure, most of these conflicts can be traced back to Trump's earlier failures, but few people would notice that, or hold him accountable. The whole "peace through strength" line is an old con that still holds many weak minds in its thrall. Hence strong moves impress, if only one can make them without paying a price for hubris.

  • William D Hartung [01-22]: Trump's doubling down on imperialism in Latin America is a formula for decline.

When war breaks out, my first instinct is to find a good history book, to help put it into context. I could use one on Venezuela, preferably by a critical thinker with leftist instincts. I always start out hopeful and sympathetic to leftist political movements, even if they often disappoint. And I distrust their right-wing opponents, who may be right on specifics but remain fundamentally committed to oligarchy and repression. Here's a list of books I've noticed, omitting earlier (often more optimistic) books on Chávez (Tariq Ali, Rory Carroll, Nikolas Kozloff, Miguel Tinker Salas, etc.).

  • Raúl Gallegos: Crude Nation: How Oil Riches Ruined Venezuela (2016, Potomac Books): WSJ reporter on "how Maduro inherited a mess and made it worse."
  • Richard Hausmann/Francisco R Rodriguez, eds: Venezuela Before Chávez: Anatomy of an Economic Collapse (2015, Penn State University Press).
  • Carlos Lizarralde: Venezuela's Collapse: The Long Story of How Things Fell Apart (2024, independent): Goes deep into history, but works backward, where the first chapter covers 1999-2019 (Chavez/Maduro), then 1922-1998 (oil), then 1498-1821 (colonial period, Columbus to Bolivar), then he returns to Chavez. Some of the missing 19th century shows up in an epilogue on "Politics Without a State, 1834-1837."
  • Carlos Lizarralde: One in Four: The Exodus that Emptied Venezuela, 2019-2024 (2025, independent).
  • William Neuman: Things Are Never So Bad That They Can't Get Worse: Inside the Collapse of Venezuela (2022, St Martin's Press): New York Times reporter, did a stint in Caracas 2012-16, critical of Trump.
  • Anya Parampil: Corporate Coup: Venezuela and the End of US Empire (2024, OR Books): Grayzone journalist, so very critical of US.
  • Joe Emersberger/Justin Podur: Extraordinary Threat: The US Empire, the Media, and Twenty Years of Coup Attempts in Venezuela (2021, Monthly Review Press).
  • Timothy M Gill: Encountering US Empire in Socialist Venezuela: The Legacy of Race, Neocolonialism and Democracy Promotion (2022, University of Pittsburgh Press).
  • Dan Kovalik: The Plot to Overthrow Venezuela (2019, Hot Books): Also wrote The Plot to Scapegoat Russia (2017), The Plot to Attack Iran (2018), and The Plot to Control the World: How the US Spent Billions to Change the Outcome of Elections Around the World (2018).
  • Francisco Rodríguez: The Collapse of Venezuela: Scorched Earth Politics and Economic Decline, 2012-2020 (2025, University of Notre Dame Press).
  • Kike Jiménez Vidal: The Collapse of Venezuela: The Untold Story of How a Rich Country Became a Failed State (2025, independent): Sees 1958-78 as a Golden Age, 1979-1998 as the Great Illusion, followed by Initial Demolition, Totalitarian Offensive, Economic Collapse, and Diaspora and Deinstitutionalization. This looks very polemical, but what I've read makes sense.
  • Javier Corrales: Autocracy Rising: How Venezuela Transitioned to Authoritarianism (2023, Brookings Institution Press): The two most reliable common code words for organizing American liberals against a foreign foe. Previously co-wrote (with Michael Penfold) Dragon in the Tropics: Venezuela and the Legacy of Hugo Chavez (2015, Brookings Institution Press).
  • Alistair Pemberton: On the Precipice: The Trump Administration and the Escalating Path Toward War With Venezuela (2025, independent): Short (45 pp), published in November.
  • Pedro Santos: USA Vs Venezuela War: What Could Possibly Go Wrong? (2025, independent).
  • Anderson M Bean, ed: Venezuela in Crisis: Socialist Perspectives (2026, Haymarket): "Writing from an anticapitalist, anti-imperialist, and anti-authoritarian perspective, this volume never loses sight of the need to stand with the Venezuelan people rather than their government — even when it claims to be struggling to build socialism." [Scheduled for 02-17]

Here's an excerpt from Gallego's Crude Nation:

Politicians, like regular Venezuelans, spend oil money generously while they still have it, because oil prices will fall eventually. And when that happens, Venezuela is usually left with little to show for it, with no savings to speak of. It soon dawned on me that Chávez and his leftist movement were really just a blip in a long history of larger-than-life leaders who promised to use oil to quickly turn Venezuela into a modern, powerful nation, only to disappoint voters in the end. For the better part of the twentieth century, Venezuela served as a cautionary tale for other nations and regions rich in natural resources, an example of the fate they must avoid.

Venezuela's troubles go beyond left and right political ideas: the world's largest oil patch hasn't learned how to properly manage its wealth. Venezuela is a country that has played and will play an important role in the global energy industry, as long as cars still run on gasoline and not on electricity, water, or cow manure. Three centuries from now, when most of the world's oil is gone, Venezuela could still be pumping crude, if no other energy source has rendered oil obsolete. Venezuela's reality is a tale of how hubris, oil dependence, spendthrift ways, and economic ignorance can drive a country to ruin. Venezuela can teach us all an important lesson: too much money poorly managed can be worse than not having any money at all.

And here's an excerpt from Vidal's The Collapse of Venezuela:

Before oil, Venezuela was a poor nation, yes, but with a real productive structure. An economy based on coffee, cocoa, and livestock farming, where value was created by labor, capital, and land. It was a country of producers, not of parasitic rentiers. Exchange was voluntary, private property was respected — the the clear limitations of the time — and the currency, though weak, was backed by the tangible production of goods.

The arrival of the oil companies wasn't a "blessing." It was the beginning of a curse. It was the equivalent of injecting a healthy but poor patient with a miracle drug that generates instant euphoria while destroying vital organs. This is what serious economists call the Resource Curse or the Dutch Disease. And what did the state do? Instead of creating the conditions for oil wealth to strengthen the private sector, it instead siphoned off revenue through concessions and centralized it in the hands of the elite in power, first under the rule of Gómez and then the military.

And then, no doubt, Chávez and Maduro. It's interesting how often revolutionaries return to the form of those they overthrew, as Stalin became another Tsar, and the Ayatollah became another Shah. I suspect the worst cases are where external pressure puts the revolutionaries on the defensive, and emboldens the old class. That's been a big part of the story in Venezuela. It also reminds us that no matter how unsavory the Chavistas are, their opponents are worse.

Iran: I haven't been following news, but my X feed blew up with tweets on Iran (protests and/or war threats) to which I ascribe very little credibility. Trying to catch up, I checked out this Wikipedia article, which tells me that anti-government protests began on December 28, spreading to many cities, and that they were met with a stiff government crackdown, including "a massacre that left tens of thousands of protesters dead." There have also been counter-protests, defending the regime. While few people doubt that the Iranian people have grievances with their government, these events are occurring against a backdrop of severe sanctions and war threats coming from Israel and the US, who are believed to support violent subversive groups within Iran, and who have long promoted propaganda against the regime. Iran has also responded by shutting down the internet. Thus we have ample reason to doubt pretty much everything we hear from anyone about what is going on. I'll pick out some representative articles below, but I don't expect to get much credible information.

  • Behrooz Ghamari Tabrizi [12-25]: Iran and the price of sovereignty: what it takes not to be a client.

    Now, the so-called 12-day war is over. Iranians have returned to the devastating perpetual violence of U.S. led sanctions and targeted assassinations by the Mossad. The Trump administration and its European allies have called on Iran to accept its defeat, surrender unconditionally, and "return" to the negotiating table. They ask Iran to dismantle its nuclear technology, halt the production of its advance missile program, cease its support of the Palestinian cause, and terminate its network of what is known as the "axis of resistance" against the Israeli and American expansionism. In other words, become a client state. Iran is one of the few remaining fronts of defiance against the American extortionist posture and the Israeli carnage that has engulfed the Middle East. That defiance comes with a very hefty price.

  • Cameron Peters [01-13]: The scariest thing about Iran's crackdown:

  • Hamid Dabashi [01-13]: How Israel and the US are exploiting Iranian protests

    : "Genuine rage over economic stagnation is being manipulated to serve western political ends."

  • Sina Toosi [01-16]: This is not solidarity. It is predation. "The Iranian people are caught between severe domestic repression and external powers that exploit their suffering."

  • Robert Wright [01-16]: The Iranian blood on Trump's (and Biden's) hands. Everything here is important and worth reading, but one could add more, especially on Israel's malign influence.

    We'll never know if the hopes for Iran that Obama's nuclear deal fostered would have been realized had Trump not intervened. Maybe commercial engagement with the world wouldn't have had any internally liberalizing effect, politically or even economically. And maybe more economic interdependence with other countries wouldn't have moderated Iran's policies toward them.

    But even if things didn't pan out on those fronts, it seems safe to say that Iran's people would be much better off economically and no worse off politically, and some now-dead protesters would still be alive. And as of today — with another war in the Middle East one distinct near-term possibility and the violent and chaotic implosion of Iran another one — that scenario doesn't sound so bad.

    It now seems pretty clear that Biden's failure to restore the Iran deal was evidence of his more subservient posture toward Israel: his failure on Iran presaged his failure on Gaza. But Obama doesn't merit much acclaim either. His rationale for negotiating the deal was that he took Israel's fears of a nuclear Iran seriously, recognizing that the only way to stop a determined Iran was to negotiate restrictions that could be enforced. On the other hand, he was careful not to resolve any other issues, let alone normalize relations, which had the effect of preserving decades of kneejerk hostility. That attitude was what made it possible for Trump to break the deal, and it gave Biden cover to keep from reversing Trump's damage.

    Three more charts of interest here: Global AI Computing Capacity (increasing quite rapidly); President Trump's Approval Rating (down markedly since the ICE shooting of Renee Good); Evening News Estimates of Iran Protest Deaths (CBS, since Bari Weiss took over, is claiming 5-24 [or 40?] times as many deaths as CNN/ABC/NBC). Also see Wright's earlier post:

    • [01-09]: Some useful Trump-Hitler comparisons (in light of Minneapolis and Venezuela).

      The joy Trump takes in the use of intimidating force extends from the domestic arena into the international arena. Indeed, it's hard to explain the escalating holiday-season campaign against Venezuela — boat bombings, then a port bombing, and finally invasion — without invoking this kind of visceral motivation. After all, Venezuela isn't the country you'd go after if drugs were your real concern. And as for oil: The basics of the administration's current plan for Venezuela — leave an authoritarian regime in place but profit from its petroleum — didn't require invading the country and snatching Nicolas Maduro; Maduro himself had agreed to that kind of deal. And, though Trump can presumably get somewhat better terms now than he'd have gotten from Maduro, there seems to be a consensus among oil experts that the foreseeable benefits are meager; with oil prices low, and Venezuela still a shaky place, US companies won't want to make the big investments required to extract oil in large quantities.

      I doubt I'll ever see a man more evidently full of pride and self-satisfaction than Trump is when he's talking about his various unprovoked international assaults — the assassination via missile strike of Iran's top general during his first term, the bombing of Iran last year, the attack on Venezuela last week. But I'm guessing that if I spoke German and combed through some recordings of Hitler in the wake of the Poland invasion I'd come close.

  • Orly Noy [01-16]: On Iran's protests, Israeli hypocrisy knows no limits: "Only moments ago, Israelis were cheering on a holocaust in Gaza — and now they dare to celebrate the valiant uprising of the Iranian people."

  • Farshad Askari [01-22]: Iran's protests have gone quiet. But the revolution isn't over. This feels like a bit of a stretch, but to the extent that the protests were real, a news blackout isn't likely to keep them away forever.

  • MEE [01-23]: Trump says US 'armada' moving towards Iran: "President warns Washington is watching Tehran closely as US naval forces move into region."

Jerome Powell: Trump, who originally appointed Powell to the post of Fed Chair, is unhappy with him, ostensibly because Trump wants him to lower interest rates, which Powell had raised as the conventional antidote to inflation. So Trump is threatening to prosecute Powell, which isn't going over well with the Fed Chair, or with the bankers who effectively have captured the Fed.

  • Cameron Peters [01-12]: Trump vs. the Fed, briefly explained: "Why Trump is making a bid to control the US economy." This is somewhat misleading. The Fed doesn't control the economy. The Fed controls the money supply. This has bearing on some important aspects of the economy, like inflation and employment. And those aspects are important enough to people who have a lot of money (especially banks) that they've long insisted on keeping the Fed free of "political interference," which is to say to keep it captured by a higher power: themselves. Thus, for instance, Bill Clinton ditched his entire economic platform after being elected in 1992, because Alan Greenspan convinced him it would unsettle the bond market, probably by threatening to wreck Clinton's economy. Clinton was the first of the last three Democratic presidents to reappoint a Republican Fed chair (as Obama did Bernanke, and Biden did Powell). Like all good Democrats, they recognize that there are higher powers in America, and behave accordingly. So sure, Trump's move is a power grab, but we shouldn't fool ourselves into thinking that Powell is on our side, or think that the "independent Fed" is really a good idea. Trump's beef with Powell is supposedly about interest rates, but also about power. The thing to understand about interest rates is that high interest rates can throttle a booming economy, and very high interest rates can strangle it; but while lower interest rates can stimulate the economy, and increase employment (especially when recovering from a recession induced by high interest rates), low interest rates can also cause inflation. So Trump's move here is exactly wrong for fighting inflation. But when the Fed makes it cheaper to borrow, not everyone benefits equally. The Fed loans money to banks, who loan money to rich people, who sometimes use it to build things, but more often (especially when it's cheap) they use it for speculation, pushing up the price of assets so as to make themselves feel even richer. And that, of course, is exactly what Trump wants to see: an asset bubble.

  • Ian Millhiser

  • Mike Konczal [01-13]: The enormous stakes of Donald Trump's fight with Jerome Powell: "The Fed is the final frontier of his quest to dominate every economic institution."

  • Thomas L Friedman [01-13] Trump's scheming to sack Powell paves the road to constitutional ruin: Sure, Friedman's an idiot, and there are hundreds of other things that he could have recognized as "the road to constitutional ruin," but this (unlike, say, genocide in Gaza) seems to be his red line.

  • Ryan Cooper [01-14]: Trump's prosecution of Jerome Powell is even crazier than it looks: "Messing with Federal Reserve independence might spark inflation, and everyone hates that." That seems like something people might say, but I'm less and less convinced that the Fed's rate control is a very practical tool for controlling inflation. The belief is largely based on memory of the Volcker recession (1979-82), based on some pretty sketchy economic theories (like NAIRU), and employed like a wrecking ball to the entire economy.

  • Robert Kuttner [01-21]: The high court sinks Trump's Federal Reserve ploy: "The administration's clumsy effort to oust Fed governor Lisa Cook is stymied again."

Major Threads

Israel: I collected a bunch of articles early on, in the immediate aftermath of the ceasefire/hostage swap. Since then, well . . . Israel has regularly violated the cease fire they had "agreed" to, and their violations haven't bothered Trump in the least. I don't have time to seriously update this section, so the few additions are at best a random sampling.

  • Jonah Valdez [11-25]: Gaza humanitarian foundation calls it quits after thousands die seeking its aid: "The aid group oversaw relief in Gaza during a period defined by the killings of Palestinians seeking food during famine." This is "the U.S. and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation." When I saw this headline, I assumed that the foundation was legit, and the headline reflected some sort of Israeli win against the world's humanitarian impulses. Now it looks like "aid" was really just bait. And sure, not just to kill Palestinians, which Israel was already doing regularly and could have escalated without resorting to such tactics. Rather, the point was to psychologically bind seeking food to the experience of terror. With the ceasefire, the need for aid is undiminished. If aid was GHF's purpose, it would still have much to do. That they're quitting suggests that their real purpose was something else.

    Rather than maintain the existing model of bringing food and supplies to individuals with most need by delivering goods directly to communities, GHF established four distribution sites. The foundation also hired two American logistics and security firms — UG Solutions and Safe Reach Solutions, led by a Green Beret veteran and former CIA officer, respectively — to oversee distribution. The result was the funneling of thousands of desperate people who traveled long distances into aid sites where long lines often devolved into stampedes. Gunfire from Israeli soldiers, or private American contractors, largely former U.S. special forces, was a near-daily reality. While some of those who survived the deadly queues managed to bring home boxes of food, the supplies failed to slow the famine conditions across Gaza which only worsened. The food provided by GHF was widely criticized by nutritional experts and aid groups as inadequate to prevent hunger and difficult to prepare (most items needed water to boil, itself a scarce resource in the territory).

  • Marianne Dhenin [11-27]: International tribunal finds Israel guilty of genocide, ecocide, and the forced starvation of the Palestinians in Gaza: "The International People's Tribunal on Palestine held in Barcelona presented striking evidence of Israel's forced starvation of the Palestinian people and the deliberate destruction of food security in Gaza." The tribunal is sponsored by ILPS (International League of Peoples' Struggle), which of course would find that, not that the evidence can really be interpreted any other way.

  • Mitchell Plitnick [11-27]: Israel is violating ceasefires in Gaza and Lebanon, and Trump is allowing it: "Israel's goals are clear enough: endless war." The Trump administration's goals, to the extent one can speak of them coherently, were to win a couple immediate news cycles, free the hostages, and set up negotions to make amends to Qatar and sell more arms to Saudia Arabia. Netanyahu, as he has so many times before, chose to bend to America's will rather than risk a break, confident that he will soon enough rebound, because Trump is just another fickle American fool.

    Israel had never heeded the ceasefire to begin with. More than 340 overwhelmingly non-combatant Palestinians have been killed since the ceasefire was put in place, and over 15,000 more structures in Gaza have been destroyed, just as flooding, overflowing sewage, rains, and the cold weather of approaching winter start to hit the already battered population.

    In just the past few days, though, Israel has killed more than 60 Palestinians in Gaza, a sign of escalation. It is no coincidence that this uptick comes on the heels of Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman's (MBS) visit to Washington where he once again insisted, much to Trump's annoyance, that if Donald Trump wanted to see a normalization deal between his kingdom and Israel, there would need to be a clear, committed path to a Palestinian state with a timeline. Whether MBS was sincere about that or not, Netanyahu has no intention of making even the slightest gesture in that direction, and the escalation in Gaza was, at least in part, his response to that part of the Trump-MBS confab.

  • Qassam Muaddi

  • Huda Skaik [11-28]: Gaza's civil defense forces keep digging for 10,000 missing bodies: "Members of Gaza's Civil Defense force describe pulling decomposing bodies from collapsed buildings, and digging in hopes that someone remains alive."

  • Connor Echols:

  • Craig Mokhiber [12-01]: How the world can resist the UN Security Council's rogue colonial mandate in Gaza. This offers "several ways that states and individuals worldwide can challenge its illegality." I'm far less concerned about the legal issues, which get an airing here, or even the political ones. The resolution is inadequate, and probably doomed to failure, but do we really want to "block the implementation"? The pre-resolution baseline was genocide. The only path away was to get Israel and the US to agree to stop, which could only happen on terms favorable to those powers, and therefore far short of justice. While a better resolution would ultimately be better for all concerned, the immediate need is to hold Israel and America to the terms they've agreed to — starting with recognition of Israel's violations of the ceasefire, and Israel's continued aggression elsewhere (beyond the scope of the Gaza resolution). Moreover, even if Israel relents and honors the ceasefire, the delivery of aid, etc., Israel still merits BDS due to its treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank and within the Green Line.

  • Philip Weiss [12-02]: The Israel lobby is melting down before our eyes: "The American Newish community is in open crisis over its support for Israel after two years of genocide in Gaza. A key issue in this crisis is a topic once considered too taboo to criticize the Israel lobby."

  • Ramzy Baroud [12-02]: The US-Israeli scheme to partition Gaza and break Palestinian will: "United Nations Security Council Resolution 2803 is destined to fail. That failure will come at a price: more Palestinian deaths, extensive destruction, and the expansion of Israeli violence to the West Bank and elsewhere in the Middle East."

  • Matt Seriff-Cullick [12-02]: Stop calling right-wing criticism of Israel 'anti-Zionism': "Recent comments by Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens have drawn more attention to right-wing critiques of US support for Israel., However, it is a serious mistake for those on the left to see this anti-Israel criticism as 'anti-Zionist.'" Response to pieces like Jeet Heer [11-07]: The return of right-wing anti-Zionism — and antisemitism. While it's generally the case that antisemites support, or at least endorse, Israel — it's local Jews they hate, and Israel offers a convenient option to rid themselves of Jews — while leftist critics of Israel are almost never antisemitic (we see diaspora Jews as our natural allies, and indeed many are among us). The primary motivators here are domestic politics, although the more Israel acts like a fascist state, the more consistent the left-right differences become. The subject here is the small schism of right-wing critics of Israel, who may well be antisemitic, but could just as well be driven by something else: especially the notion that Israel has been dragging the US into wars and/or globalization that impinges on their "America-first" fetishism. In this it helps to distinguish between pro-Israel (which is mostly about military dominance and alliance) and Zionist (which is about Jewish immigration to Israel). Right-wingers can favor Zionism while rejecting the notion that we need to send arms to Israel.

  • Joe Sommerlad [12-03]: Hilary Clinton claims TikTok misinformation is influencing young people's views on the Israel-Palestine conflict: "unreliable media on TikTok, making it difficult to have a 'reasonable discussion' about events in the Middle East." This is pretty short on details, but Clinton's remarks were delivered at "Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom's New York City summit," so her complaint seems to have less to do with "pure propaganda" than with whose "a lot of young Jewish Americans who don't know the history and don't understand" are exposed to.

  • Michael Arria:

  • Michael Leonardi [12-12]: The criminalization of solidarity: The global war on Palestinian voices and their supporters, from Israel to Italy and across the western world.

  • Eve Ottenberg [01-09]: By suspending 37 aid orgs is Israel pushing toward a final expulsion? "At the very least, the decision to cut loose every major Gaza humanitarian group could led to the utter collapse of Trump's peace plan."

  • Ramzy Baroud [01-18]: A war without headlines: Israel's shock-and-awe campaign in the west bank. I've always been skeptical of "shock and awe" as a military tactic: in order to be shocked, you have to survive, in which case whatever awe there may have been has been dissipated by the fact that it's now something you have survived. However, while a single blow dissipates, multiple poundings accumulate:

    In her book The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein defines "shock and awe" not merely as a military tactic, but as a political and economic strategy that exploits moments of collective trauma — whether caused by war, natural disaster, or economic collapse — to impose radical policies that would otherwise be resisted. According to Klein, societies in a state of shock are rendered disoriented and vulnerable, allowing those in power to push through sweeping transformations while opposition is fragmented or overwhelmed.

    Though the policy is often discussed in the context of US foreign policy — from Iraq to Haiti — Israel has employed shock-and-awe tactics with greater frequency, consistency, and refinement. Unlike the US, which has applied the doctrine episodically across distant theaters, Israel has used it continuously against a captive population living under its direct military control.

    Indeed, the Israeli version of shock and awe has long been a default policy for suppressing Palestinians. It has been applied across decades in the occupied Palestinian territory and extended to neighboring Arab countries whenever it suited Israeli strategic objectives.

    In Lebanon, this approach became known as the Dahiya Doctrine, named after the Dahiya neighborhood in Beirut that was systematically destroyed by Israel during its 2006 war on Lebanon. The doctrine advocates the use of disproportionate force against civilian areas, the deliberate targeting of infrastructure, and the transformation of entire neighborhoods into rubble in order to deter resistance through collective punishment.

    Gaza has been the epicenter of Israel's application of this tactic. In the years preceding the genocide, Israeli officials increasingly framed their assaults on Gaza as limited, "managed" wars designed to periodically weaken Palestinian resistance.

There's no way to catch up on what's been happening in Israel, so let's just jump ahead to the last week or so, where we find the genocide little inconvenienced by Trump's so-called peace plan. For what little it's worth, I don't think Trump and Netanyahu are on the same page regarding Gaza: the former is fitfully pushing his peace/corruption agenda forward, while the latter sabotages it wherever possible, knowing that even when he has to bend a bit he can outlast his dullard opponent. And while it would be nice for the world to reject them both, it's easy to think that the US is the only party capable of influencing Israel, so the best we can possibly do is to go along with Trump. Given the people involved, it's a lose-lose proposition, but one hopes that not every loss is equal. And nobody's willing to risk bucking the trend. Russia, China, and Europe have their own problems with Trump, as do lesser powers like Iran, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia. None of them care enough about the Palestinians to make a stink. Nor are they inclined to risk anything for the principle of a more rational, more just world order.

  • Paul R Pillar [01-19]: Phase farce: No way 'Board of Peace' replaces reality in Gaza: "There is no ceasefire, no aid, no Hamas disarmament, IDF withdrawal or stabilization force. Just a lot of talk about Trump-run panels with little buy-in." According to Steve Witkoff, we are already in Phase Two of Trump's 20-Point Plan.

  • Davie Hearst [01-20]: 'Board of Peace': Trump is running Gaza, and the world, like a mafia boss.

  • Michael Arria [01-22]: Trump unveils so-called 'Board of Peace': "On Thursday, Donald Trump formally announced his so-called 'Board of Peace' during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The body has been widely criticized as an attempt by Trump to undermine the UN and 'takeover the world order.'"

  • Craig Mokhiber [01-22]: A world on its knees: Trump's 'Board of Peace' and the darkness it promises: "Donald Trump's 'Board of Peace' is the result of the world bowing before the global rampage of the US-Israel Axis. Once again, the Palestinian people are being offered as sacrifices, and along with them, the entire global system of international law."

  • Qassam Muaddi [01-22]: How Israel and the US are using the 'shock doctrine' to impose a new administration in Gaza.

  • Mitchell Plitnick [01-24]: The Middle East is at a tipping point as the US fuels crisis across the region: "Long-standing crises in Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Sudan, Iraq, and Iran are deepening as the U.S. imprint on the Middle East shows no signs of weakening."

  • Michael Arria:

    • [01-22]: The Shift: Israeli-American Council summit was the latest reflection of Israel's failing brand.

    • [01-22]: Trump unveils so-called 'Board of Peace': Announced at Davos — kind of like the Balfour Declaration first appeared as a letter to the Rothschilds — "the body has been widely criticized as an attempt by Trump to undermine the UN and 'takeover the world order.'" While this article is as negative as you'd expect, you really need to read the "facts only" report in Wikipedia to get a sense of how truly deranged this organization is. Some of this was prefigured by Trump's Gaza peace plan, which led to the prisoner exchanges and Israel's half-hearted (and since oft-violated) agreement to a ceasefire and resumption of humanitarian aid to Gaza. That plan had some serious flaws, but it put the genocide on pause, and the fixes were obvious. My key points were:

      1. Israel has to leave Gaza, and cannot be allowed any role in its reconstruction.
      2. The people who still live in Gaza must have political control of their own destiny.
      3. The UN is the only organization that be widely trusted to guide Gaza toward self-government, with security for all concerned.

      I had some more points, especially on refugees, a right to exile, and reconstruction aid, but they concerned details. These three points are fundamental, and the only people who still dispute them are those who want the wars and injustices to continue. Unfortunately, their names are Netanyahu and Trump, and they are deeply invested in their atrocities and corruption. Trump's vision included a Gaza Executive Board, designed to bypass the UN, ignore the Palestinians, and keep Netanyahu and Trump involved. The Board of Peace adds additional layers: a superior Executive Board ("with a focus on diplomacy and investment"), the Board itself ("mainly leaders of countries": 60 were invited, to form an alternative to the UN, and finally its permanent chairman:

      Trump is explicitly named in the charter as the chairman of the Board of Peace. He is not subject to term limits and holds the sole authority to nominate his designated successor. Only he may invite countries to join the Board, according to the charter's delegation of the right to the chairman alone. As chairman, he also has the exclusive authority to create, modify, or dissolve subsidiary entities of the Board of Peace. All revisions to the charter, as well as administrative directives issued by the Board of Peace, are subject to his approval. Trump's chairmanship of the Board of Peace is independent of his presidency of the United States, and he has indicated that he wants to remain chairman for life.

      Also note that:

      Countries that wish to be permanent members of the Board of Peace must pay US$1 billion into a fund controlled by Trump; otherwise, each country serves a three-year term which may be renewed at his discretion.

      Trump has already withdrawn the invitation to Canada, after Prime Minister Mark Carney crossed him at Davos. The 7 initial members of the BoP Executive Board include Tony Blair and six Americans (Marco Rubio, Steve Witkoff, and Jared Kushner, along with billionaire Marc Rowan, Trump adviser Robert Gabriel Jr., and the India-born president of the World Bank, Ajay Banga). Four of them are also on the Gaza Executive Board (Witkoff, Kushner, Blair, and Rowan), along with representatives of several states (Egypt, Qatar, Turkey, UAE), two token UN representatives, and Israeli billionaire businessman Yakir Gabay.

      This is off-the-charts hubris even for Trump. It's hard to see how anyone else with an iota of intelligence and/or self-respect can even entertain such a notion. While hardly anyone is optimistic about this organization, it's also hard to find anyone who fully gets just how totally fucking insane the proposition is. This is just a quick sampling:

Russia/Ukraine: This has become the forgotten war. It's been a stalemate for several years, prolonged initially because Biden had no desire to negotiate, continued because Trump has no "art of the deal," and because Putin isn't losing enough to cut his losses. One thing that isn't clear to me is how intense the war has been in 2025. It does seem to have been much less intensely reported, perhaps because Trump sees less value in demonizing Russia so has cut back the propaganda effort, perhaps because an exhausted media has had to turn to many other conflicts.

  • Jackie Abramian/Artin Dersimonian [01-01]: Listening to what regular Ukrainians are saying about the war: "A number share their views on how to end what they are calling the 'conveyor belt of death.'"

  • MarkEpiskopos [01-06]: Despite the blob's teeth gnashing, realists got Ukraine right: "As usual, critics are still trying to launder their abysmal policy records by projecting their failures and conceits onto others." On this evidence, I'm not very impressed by the "realists" either.

  • Stavroula Pabst [01-07]: US capture of Russian-flagged ship could derail Ukraine War talks: "Experts say this could also give Europeans permission to seize Moscow's ships and kill relations." Refers to this, which suggests the target wasn't Russia but Venezuela:

  • Tamar Jacoby [01-07]: Germany's rearmament is stunning: "The country is determined to strengthen its armed forces in the wake of Moscow's aggression and Washington's volatility, but doing so doesn't come easily to a nation chastened by its past." I'm old enough to think that rearming Germany and Japan is backsliding of the worst sort, but the US has pursued both for decades now, and has customarily been indulged, mostly as a form of tribute. The US has few worries, given continued occupation of bases and control of the supply chain: US weapons are fragile and inefficient, which makes them both lucrative and harmless. But it's also a stupid waste on the part of the countries that indulge us, and it could easily become worse if/when Germany and Japan find they can no longer trust the US (which is certainly true with Trump). By the way, Jacoby's main beat is Ukraine, where Europe tends to be more hawkish than Trump (if not more hawkish than Biden). Recent pieces:

    • [10-23]: Can Europe turn tough talk on Russia into action? "Facing the Russian threat with less help from America, the continent forges closer ties to beef up defense."

    • [11-25]: Three lessons from Trump's latest plan for Ukraine: "Whatever emerges from US-Ukrainian talks in Geneva, nothing good is likely to come from this recipe for appeasing Moscow." But paranoia over "appeasement" is a recipe for perpetual war. This derives from the notion that the conflict is purely a power contest between Russia and NATO, both of which are unlikely to be phased by costs which are largely suffered by Ukrainians. We need to refocus this on finding a better outcome for the people involved.

  • Anatol Lieven [01-15]: If Europe starts attacking Russian cargo ships, all bets are off: "The consequences will be negative, from shattering the order it claims to defend all the way up to a possible nuclear confrontation."

Trump's War and Peace: We might as well admit that Trump's foreign policy focus has shifted from trade and isolation to war and terror.

  • Pavel Devyatkin [10-30]: Reckless posturing: Trump says he wants to resume nuke testing: "The president thinks he is signaling power to Russia and China but this could be the most dangerous gambit yet."

  • Jack Hunter [12-31]: 4 ways Team Trump reminded us of Bush-Cheney in 2025: "From WMDs to bombing Iran, the president who consistently mocked the GWOT is now pushing the same old buttons."

  • Vijay Prashad [12-02]: The angry tide of the Latin American far right. I know little about this, but the news, especially from nations that had leaned left of late (like Bolivia and Chile) seems grim. Popular anger against the establishment should favor the left, but periods of ineffective power only seem to revitalize right-wing politicians whose own period of power should have thoroughly discredited them.

  • Joshua Keating:

    • [12-02]: Why is Trump suddenly so obsessed with Honduras? "As the US considers strikes on Venezuela, another Latin American country has caught the president's attention."

    • [12-27]: Why is the US bombing Nigeria? "Humanitarian intervention, MAGA-style."

    • [01-06]: What is the "Donroe Doctrine"? "Trump's new approach to Latin America is a lot like America's old one." Evidently the New York Post coined the term "Donroe," which is where it should have died. My own coinage, which I haven't seen elsewhere (even though it's pretty obvious) is Bad Neighbor Policy — a reversion to the pre-FDR era that at the time was most often referred to as "Gunboat Diplomacy," or as Smedley Butler put it, "a racket." Of course, you can't exactly go back. America's old attitude toward Latin America was formed from a sense of racist superiority. Trump's is tinged with envy, especially for caudillos like Bolsonaro, Millei, and Nayib Bukele, who exemplify the abuse of power Trump aspires to. If Maduro really was the "narco-terrorist" of his indictments, Trump would probably love him.

  • Elie Mystal [12-03]: Pete Hegseth should be charged with murder: "Nop matter how you look at the strikes on alleged 'drug boats' — as acts of war or attacks on civilians — Hegseth has committed a crime and should be prosecuted."

  • Eric Levitz [12-03]: The twisted reason why Trump is bombing Venezuelan boats: "For this administration, war crimes are a feature, not a bug."

  • Blaise Malley [12-04]: Trump's USIP [United States Institute of Peace] rebrand wields an olive branch as a weapon: "Trump's name was added to the independent institute after his administration purged staff." It's now the "Donald J. Trump United States Institute of Peace," in honor of "the greatest dealmaker in our nation's history."

  • Andrew Ancheta [12-04]: Washington's gallery of puppets: "From Venezuela to Iran, the United States can always find ambitious would-be leaders willing to advocate regime change. But they don't have their countries best interests in mind."

  • Cameron Peters [12-04]: Trump's war crimes scandal, briefly explained: "War crimes allegations are engulfing the Pentagon after a deadly strike in the Caribbean."

  • Eldar Mamedov [12-30]: Five restraint successes — and five absolute fails — in 2025: "Trump's promise of an 'America First' realism in foreign policy has delivered not a clean break, but a deeply contradictory picture." I will note that the "successes" are relative and marginal, while the failures are Iran, Venezuela, Syria, Israel (which they soft-pedal, but is really much worse), and "Congressional derelict in of duty on War Powers."

  • Zack Beauchamp [01-05]: Donald Trump was never a dove: "How critics of American interventionism fell for a myth." These are all important points. I'd add several points. One is that while some "critics of American interventionism" defected to Trump (e.g., Tulsi Gabbard), in some ways the bigger problem was how so many supporters of American interventionism fell for the myth and flocked to support Harris (e.g., the Cheneys), and the welcome she showed them cemented her credentials as a warmonger (relatively speaking). My second point is that while Trump might not be as enthusiastic about war as some conservatives (e.g., Hitler, Netanyahu), he shares with virtually every other conservative a lust for violence in the support of power, and this is what in a pinch predisposes him to start wars that people with more democratic instincts would wish to avoid. My third point is that it was his opponents (Harris and Hillary Clinton, who both felt more need than Biden felt to signal "commander-in-chief toughness") who let Trump get away with his "man of peace" con. It shouldn't have been hard to expose Trump, but they didn't know how or dare try.

    The truth is that an unconstrained Trump, acting on his longstanding hawkish impulses, could cause all sorts of chaos in his remaining three years. While US military interventionism is very precedented, Trump's particular brand of it — naked pre-modern imperialism backed by a modern globe-spanning military — is not.

    Americans should be prepared for things to go very, very wrong.

  • Eric Levitz [01-06]: The one line that Trump's foreign policy still hasn't crossed: "After Venezuela, how far could Trump really go?" He's referring to sending large numbers of American troops into a hostile country. That may be a matter of time — the argument that he can't control a nation like Venezuela without putting troops in is hard to resist once you've decided that control you must — but for now it is also a matter of design. Trump is basically just a gangster, seeking tribute, employing extortion to get it. He will break any nation that resists. He won't promise to rebuild the nations he breaks. If they don't fall in line he'll just break them again. This, by the way, isn't an original idea. The neocons c. 2000 were very big on this idea, which like much of their mindset was based on Israel. Rumsfeld pushed this line viz. Iraq, but Bush couldn't let all that oil go to waste, so he set up a crony government and spent a debilitating decade trying to defend it, to little avail. I'm not going to argue that Trump is too smart to make that mistake again, but his basic attitudes — favoring hard power over soft, never making amends, complete disregard for however his acts impact other people — are consistent with Israel's ultra-nationalism writ large, on a global scale.

  • Ben Freeman/William Hartung [01-08]: The reality of Trump's cartoonish $1.5 trillion DOD budget proposal: "This dramatic escalation in military spending is a recipe for more waste, fraud, and abuse." While promoting "waste, fraud, and abuse" is by far the most likely rationale between any Trump increase in spending, one shouldn't overlook the name change from Department of Defense to Department of War, which would seem to imply a mission change way beyond ordering new stationery.

  • Michael Klare [01-08]: Plunging into the abyss: "Will the US and Russia abandon all nuclear restraints?" The New START treaty lapses on February 6, which is the last of the historic arms reduction treaties that Reagan and Bush negotiated with the Soviet Union in the 1980s. I don't know to what (if any) extent Putin wants to unshackle Russia from the agreements of the Soviet era, but several times during the Ukraine conflict he's threatened to use nuclear weapons should the US/Europe/Ukraine overstep imaginary "red lines." A sane US president would take this as a signal to tone conflict down, settle disagreements, and restore peaceful coexistence, but Trump isn't one, and in this regard I can't say much better of Biden and Obama. The neocons have been chafing at any sort of restrictions on American power since the 1990s, and they have a powerful lobbying ally in the nuclear industry, which has been pushing a $1.5 trillion "modernization" of an arsenal the only purpose of which is apocalypse. Not only is Trump's sanity open to question here, he is blatantly using the threat of US military and economic power to extort submissive behavior, including tribute, from friends and foes alike. He has crossed the fine line between legitimate business sharks and gangsters. And nowhere is that more dangerous than in unleashing an unbridled nuclear arms race.

  • Cameron Peters [01-09]: Trump's Greenland push, briefly explained: "Is Trump really serious about Greenland?" I doubt it, but we suffer from this cognitive limit, where we find it hard to comprehend that other people believe things that make no sense whatsoever. The real question with Trump isn't is he serious? It's can he get away with it? And he's getting away with a lot of crazy shit no one took seriously when he first broached it. Sometimes he does it as distraction — it's probably no accident that Greenland is back in the news after Venezuela. But once he floats an idea, it then becomes a test of his power, and he's always up for that. He certainly doesn't want or need Greenland for bases or business, as the US already has free access to all that. There's no reason to think he wants the people. The only reason I can come up with is that he looked at a Mercator map, which shows Greenland as huge, but also it would add a bit of visual symmetry with Alaska, like a pair of huge Mickey Mouse ears floating above the face of America. Maybe he also thinks that Canada will surrender once it sees itself surrounded on three sides. Or maybe he's just recycling 19th century fantasies of ever-expanding American imperialism? Is he really that stupid? Well, he's also embraced the idea of tariffs, which comes from the same period, and is every bit as discredited as colonialism and slavery — another old idea he's disconcertingly fond of.

    Other pieces on Greenland, some taking this seriously:

    • Fred Kaplan [01-08]: Trump is talking about taking over Greenland. The world is taking him seriously. He dismisses security concerns, and minerals, but does bring up an idea that has occurred to me: that Trump is easily fooled by the distortion of Mercator projection maps, which make Greenland look much larger and more strategic than it actually is. He notes alarm about US reliability, not just in Europe but in South Korea and Japan. "The world is very worried, and we should be too."

    • Ryan Cooper [01-08]: Donald Trump's degenerate plans for Greenland: "The worst president in history wants conquest for its own sake, even if it opens America up to nuclear attack."

    • Joshua Keating [01-08]: Can anyone stop Trump from seizing Greenland? "Europeans and Greenlanders are strongly opposed to an American land grab. But their options are limited." I can think of a few options if anyone wants to take this seriously:

      1. Expel the US from NATO. Cancel all existing US arms orders, and replace them (if needed) with European products (reverse engineering US ones if that helps, but most US weapons, like the F-35, are crap). Free from NATO, Europe could probably cut a better deal with Russia over Ukraine, etc., which might save them from having to re-arm. (I suspect that Russia fears independent European re-armament more than they do US global adventurism, which in any case is more focused on China.)
      2. Sanction the Trump family personally, including seizing their properties in Europe, and impounding their funds. This could be selectively extended, but they don't need to sanction all American businesses, or boycott American companies.
      3. Have the ICC file charges against Trump and his chief operatives, and not just over Greenland.
      4. Pull the plug on Israel. This can involve sanctions and trade restrictions.
      5. Overhaul intellectual property laws, to phase out American claims in Europe, or at least to tax exported royalties. I'm pretty certain that Europe would come out ahead if most or even all such laws were abolished. [PS: See Dean Baker [01-19]: Time for Europe to use the nuclear option: Attack US patent and copyright monopolies.]
      6. Shut down US bases in Europe, as well as agreements that allow US vessels to dock, planes to land or overfly, etc.

      It's time for Europeans to realize that the US isn't their friend, and that Trump in particular cannot be trusted and should not be appeased. Literally fighting to defend Greenland may be out of the question. And fueling a guerrilla operation to drive the Americans out, like happened in Afghanistan and Vietnam, could be a lot more trouble than it's worth. So sure, "options to stop it are limited," but so is America's desire to paint the map with its colors. And note that most of what I just suggested would be worth doing even without Trump's provocation in Greenland. The main thing that Trump is doing here is to drive home the point that after so many years of "going along to get along" America has led Europe into a dark and dreary cul de sac. Realization of that was bound to happen sooner or later. Trump will be remembered as the accelerant in the great bonfire of the Americas.

    • Pavel Devyatkin:

    • Lois Parshley [01-16]: The tech billionaires behind Trump's Greenland push.

    • Sam Fraser [01-17]: On Greenland, Trump wants to be like Polk: "The president's motivation isn't security or money, it's manifest destiny."

    • Kevin Breuninger/Luke Fountain [01-17]: Trump says 8 European nations face tariffs rising to 25% if Greenland isn't sold to the US.

    • Anatol Lieven [01-18]: Trump's new 'gangster' threats against Greenland, allies, cross line: "The president declares that he will tariff the life out of countries if they do not obey him."

    • Jeffrey Gettleman [01-19]: Read the texts between Trump and Norway's Prime Minister about Greenland: "In the exchange on Sunday, Norway's leader sought to 'de-escalate' the growing conflict over Greenland and Trump's latest tariff threat."

    • Jonathan Alter [01-21]: Greenland and the Benjamins: "There's a method behind Trump's madness and it's colored green." Greenland has lots of physical assets, and very few people to claim them, which makes the land ideal for Trump's kind of graft. Sure, this fits roughly into "an 19th and 18th century imperialism tradition, where big countries and big businessmen use these smaller and weaker countries to extract resources." But that's only part of the hustle:

      The new way they want to do this, ultimately, is through what are called crypto-states. The reason that Trump pardoned the former president of Honduras, who was a drug dealer, was because he and other conservatives in Honduras, plus Peter Thiel (JD Vance's mentor) and like-minded free-enterprise authoritarians (no longer a contradiction in terms) in the U.S., favor the establishment of an island state off the coast of Honduras that would be backed by non-transparent crypto and free of any regulation by the Honduran government.

      The goal now is to do the same with other countries, to create crypto-states attached to the Marshall Islands, Nigeria, Panama (one of the reasons Trump is going after the canal) and Greenland.

      These crypto-states would be unregulated, yielding huge profits not just for crypto bros, but for companies trying to extract resources, and for the politicians (and their families) who helped them do so.

    • Pavel Devyatkin [01-21]: Trump's threats against Greenland: When "national security" becomes imperial expansion: "America has become the threat its own allies need protection from."

    • Lukas Slothuus [01-21]: Trump's Greenland push is about global power, not resources: Interesting info here on mining on Greenland, which seems like a very long-term proposition at best. I don't really buy the "global power" argument either, at least beyond the matter of Trump ego.

    • Matt Stieb [01-25]: Will Trump's Greenland deal come with any actual benefits: Evidently, on his way home from Davos, Trump backed down from his Greenland threats and claimed victory with some kind of nebulous deal. Malte Humpert tries to explain.

    PS: An old friend of mine wrote on Facebook:

    I don't always agree with what President Trump says, but I trust him to do the right thing. As a 20 year military veteran, I know that Greenland is a vital part of our global defense. This share shows a long history of our involvement in Greenland. I believe Trump wants some form of alliance, treaty or more to secure our defense as well as the citizens of Greenland.

    I wrote a comment on this, but when I returned to Facebook, the post had disappeared:

    I never trust Trump to do the right thing. Even when he gets boxed in and forced to make a decent gesture, as when he finally told the Jan. 6 rioters to go home, he makes plain his discomfort. But the argument that there is some defense necessity for seizing Greenland is a flat out lie. The US already has all the alliances and treaties needed to build any imaginable defense network in Greenland. Moreover, the way he's going about this threatens to break NATO apart, which if you buy any of the US "defense" dogma is a much bigger risk than any possible gain in Greenland. I don't know what Trump's real reason for his aggressive pressure on Greenland is, because nothing I can think of makes much sense (even given his clearly deranged mind), but one thing I am sure of is that it has nothing to do with defense.

  • Peter Kornbluh [01-13]: Trump's predatory danger to Latin America: "The United States is now a superpower predator on the prowl in its "backyard."

  • Leah Schroeder [01-14]: Trump's quest to kick America's 'Iraq War Syndrome': "Experts say the 'easy' Venezuela operation is reminiscent of George H.W. Bush's 1989 invasion of Panama, which in part served to bury the ghosts of Vietnam." Not a very precise analogy, not least because it involves forgetting that the Panama operation wasn't as fast and easy as they'd like to remember. But even there, the key to success was getting out quickly — a lesson they ignored in invading Afghanistan and Iraq. But thus far, Venezuela is a far more limited operation than Panama was. It's more akin to the "butcher and bolt" small wars Max Boot writes about in his 2002 book, The Savage Wars of Peace, which was meant to affirm that "small wars" always work out fin, so don't worry, just fly off the handle and let the chips fly. Of course, at that point Afghanistan was still a "small war" in its "feel good" days, and Iraq was just another hypothetical cakewalk. Thus far, there is a big gap between what the US has done in Venezuela and Trump's talk about running the country. If he's serious, and with him it's impossible to tell, he's not going to kick anti-war syndrome, but revive it.

  • Edward Markey [01-15]: Donald Trump's nuclear delusions: "The president wants to resume nuclear testing. Is he a warmonger or just an idiot?"

  • Valerie Insinna [01-16]: First Trump-class battleship could cost over $20 billion: That's the CBO estimate, with follow-on ships in the $9-13 billion range.

    • Alfred McCoy [01-20]: Trump's foreign policy, the comic book edition: "How to read Scrooge McDuck in the age of Donald Trump." Refes back to Ariel Dorman's famous Marxist critique of capitalism, How to Read Donald Duck (1971). Plus ça change, . . .

    • Mike Lofgren [01-21]: The Trump-class battleship: Worst idea ever: "It's not just ruinously expensive; it would weaken the Navy." This opening is pretty amusing, but it's also rather sad to see critics resort to Bush-Obama-Biden madness to argue against Trump madness:

      It is virtually impossible to name a single initiative of Donald Trump's that isn't either supremely stupid or downright satanic. From dismantling public health to pardoning criminals who ransacked the U.S. Capitol to brazen international aggression, Trump and his toadies seem hell-bent on destroying the country. With help from Pete Hegseth and other Trump lackeys in the Pentagon, the president has set his sights on weakening the military that Republicans claim to love so fervently.

      I agree that they're "hell-bent on destroying the country," but I'd caution against confusing the country with the Navy. What I see in the battleship is a probably futile attempt to take a real and inevitable decline in strength and dress it up as egomaniacal bluster, especially as the latter's existence will surely tempt the egomaniac-in-chief to use it.

  • Peter Kornbluh [01-21]: Is Cuba next? "As the US attempts to reassert its imperial hegemony across the hemisphere, Havana is clearly in its crosshairs."

Trump Regime: Practically every day I run across disturbing, often shocking stories of various misdeeds proposed and quite often implemented by the Trump Administration -- which in its bare embrace of executive authority we might start referring to as the Regime. Collecting them together declutters everything else, and emphasizes the pattern of intense and possibly insane politicization of everything. Pieces on the administration.

  • Matt Sledge [11-26]: This commission that regulates crypto could be just one guy: an industry lawyer: "Mike Selig had dozens of crypto clients. Now he will be a key industry regulator."

  • Zack Beauchamp [12-03]: The dark reality behind Trump's new anti-immigrant policies: "His administration is now openly advancing a worldview built by white nationalists in the 2010s."

  • Umair Irfan [12-04]: Trump's anti-climate agenda is making it more expensive to own a car: "The president hates EVs. But is policies are making gas cars more expensive too."

  • Dylan Scott [12-05]: RFK Jr.'s anti-vax committee is recklessly overhauling childhood vaccine policy: "America's vaccine playbook is being written by people who don't believe in them."

  • Sara Herschander [12-05]: 200,000 additional children under 5 will die this year — thanks to aid cuts: "The historic increase in global child deaths, explained in one chart."

  • Cameron Peters [12-10]: The "Trump Gold Card," briefly explained: "A fast-tracked green card — for $1 million." Of course, where there's gold, platinum is sure to follow.

  • Merrill Goozner [12-17]: Trump's concepts of a non-plan on health care: "The so-called Great Health Care Plan would do next to nothing to lower overall costs or premiums paid by individuals, families, and employers."

  • Christian Paz [12-18]: Is the Trump administration just a reality TV show? "What influencers can tell us about Trump's second term." Inerview with Danielle Lindemann

  • Avishay Artsy/Noel King [12-21]: What does Trump's AI czar want? "David Sacks, Trump's go-to adviser on all things tech, may help decide who wins the AI race between the US and China." I seriously doubt there is an actual race, except perhaps to determine which vision of the future bottoms out first. A race implies a set of common goals. In America, the goal is what it always is: to build shareholder value for the companies that control the technology. In China, that may be part of it, but they may also have other factors to consider. Sacks is also "crypto czar," so he's no doubt up on all kinds of scams.

  • Dylan Scott [12-29]: The year measles came back.

  • Sophia Tesfaye [12-31]: Project 2025 has been a success — with the help of the press: "Too often, mainstream journalists treated Project 2025 as a claim to be adjudicated rather than a document to be analyzed. They asked whether it was 'Trump's plan' instead of examining how likely its proposals were to be implemented by a Trump administration staffed with its authors." Related here:

    • Amanda Becker/Orion Rummler/Mariel Padilla [12-22]: How much of Project 2025 has actually been accomplished this year? Quite a bit, but I think the key thing was how quickly and forcefully Trump seized control of and politicized the federal bureaucracy — something that conventional rules should have made very difficult. The key thing here was not just the policies being defined, but the personnel being lined up for a blitzkrieg. I don't think that DOGE was part of the Project 2025 plan, but it built on the model of seizing executive control, including the power to fire people and impound funds, thereby gaining an unprecedented amount of political control. So even if the media had recognized that Project 2025 was the master plan, and debunked Trump's denials of relationship or interest, they still would have come up short in anticipating the threat. I think that's because they had little insight into just who the Republicans were, and how committed they were to what they saw as their mission to save America and remold it in their own image. They knew full well that had Harris won, a good 80% of the issues she campaigned on would never have gotten off the ground — as indeed had been the case with Clinton, Obama, and Biden. Democratic campaign failures are not just due to the perfidy of the politicians. It's also because to change anything significant, they have to buck a lot of established but well hidden power centers (especially business lobbies). Republicans don't have that problem, and can easily ignore countervailing forces like unions, so they're able to move much more forcefully than Democrats or the media could ever imagine.

  • Miles Bryan [01-02]: How the US shut the door on asylum-seekers: "One of the most consequential changes to immigration in the US under Trump, explained." Interview with Mica Rosenberg, of ProPublica. I have several thoughts on this, including a certain amount of sympathy with the feeling that the US should limit the number of people it gives asylum to. But sure, I disapprove of the callousness and cruelty that Trump is campaigning on. There should be a universally recognized right to exile. One thing this would do is provide a firmer standard of applicability than the notion that anyone who has fears should be eligible for asylum. Also, from the exile's viewpoint, it shouldn't matter where they move, as long as the conditions that led to exile no longer exist. A right to exile doesn't mean a right to move to the US, or any other specific country. You could come up with a formula to make the distribution more equitable. You could also allow rich countries to pay other countries to fulfill their obligations. But this also sets up some criteria for rich countries to calibrate aid in ways that generate fewer exiles. That could include reducing gang crime, overhauling justice systems, promoting civil liberties, reducing group strife, restricting guns, better economic policies with wider distribution of wealth. The main forces driving people to emigrate are war, repression, economics, and climate change. Asylum policy, for better or worse, only treats the symptoms, not the problems. If Trump was serious about reducing the number of asylum seekers, he'd change his foreign policy (especially viz. Venezuela, but Somalia is another glaring example) to help people stay where they are.

  • Cameron Peters [01-05]: Trump's big change to childhood vaccines, briefly explained.

  • Arwa Mahdawi [01-13]: Stephen Miller wants us to fear him. Speaking of Miller:

  • Umair Irfan [01-14]: Trump's EPA is setting the value of human health to $0: "The agency's new math to favor polluters, explained." The whole idea of trying to run a cost-benefit analysis on public health hazards has always been fraught with moral hazard: who can, or should, say how much government or business should spend to save a life, or one's heath? There's no valid answer, and much room for debate in adjusting the cost-benefit models, there are two answers that are certainly wrong: infinity, which would make it impossible to do anything, no matter how unlikely the risks, and $0, which would allow everything, no matter how grave the risks. Trump's cronies just picked one of the wrong answers — the one that best fits their model of corruption. This is one of the worst things Trump has done to date. Moreover, this is going to have longer term consequences beyond the Trump administration: any project approved under these rules will be all that much harder, and more expensive, to kill in the future, and the sunk costs will be unrecoverable.

  • Cameron Peters [01-14]: The latest on Trump's weaponization of the DOJ, briefly explained: "A big week for Trump's DOJ doing what he wants."

  • Emma Janssen [01-16]: The student loan report the Trump administration didn't want published: "CFPB's whitewash of the report comes on the heels of repeated attempts to fire virtually the entire staff and defund the agency. . . . The bulk of the deleted content from Barnard's report focuses on the struggles borrowers face and the private student loan companies that exacerbate them."

  • Ryan Cooper [01-20]: How Trump doomed the American auto industry: "Ford and GM made a big bet on electrification. Then Trump plunged a knife into their backs."

    Almost all of the EV subsidies in the IRA were repealed, as part of Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Now, thanks to that betrayal, plus Trump's lunatic trade and foreign policy in general, the American auto industry is bleeding out. . . .

    Contrary to the triumphalism of various EV critics, all this horrendous waste does not mean that the global EV transition is now in question. As I have previously detailed, in 2025 a quarter of global car sales were EVs, led by Southeast Asia, where the EV share of new car sales in several nations has soared past the 40 percent mark, with many more nations just behind. China, the largest car market in the world, went from almost zero to more than half in just five years. America's failure to gain a serious toehold in EV production — particularly very cheap models — is a major reason why the Big Three's share of the global auto market has fallen from nearly 30 percent in 2000 to about 12 percent today, while China's share has risen from 2 percent to 42 percent.

  • Brandon Novick [01-23]: Encouraging crime: settlement rewards Medicare Advantage fraud.

  • Spencer Overton [01-23]: 12 ways the Trump administration dismantled civil rights law and the foundations of inclusive democracy in its first year.

  • Corey G Johnson [01-24]: Complaint accuses Trump's criminal attorney of "blatant" crypto conflict in his role at DOJ: "Todd Blanche ordered changes to crypto prosecutions while owning more than $150,000 in digital assets."

Donald Trump (Himself): As for Il Duce, we need a separate bin for stories on his personal peccadillos -- which often seem like mere diversions, although as with true madness, it can still be difficult sorting serious incidents from more fanciful ones.

  • David Dayen [10-28]: Here's what Trump's ballroom donors want: "A comprehensive rundown of Prospect reporting on the companies that gave to Trump's monument to himself on the White House grounds."

  • Cameron Peters [12-02]: Trump's confounding pardon of a drug lord, briefly explained: "The former president of Honduras was convicted of trafficking cocaine. Why did Trump pardon him?"

  • Rebecca Crosby & Noel Sims [12-04]: Trump Jr.-backed startup receives $620 million Pentagon loan. This is followed by a related piece, "Trump family crypto scheme runs into trouble."

  • Jason Linkins [12-06]: Hey, does anyone want to talk about Donald Trump's infirmities? "He's clearly slipping, mentally and physically, but the political press suddenly finds it less newsworthy that we have a woefully aging president."

  • Constance Grady [12-08]: The Kennedy Center Honors continue Trump's vengeance on liberal Hollywood.

  • John G Russell [12-12]: Sgt. Trump: The art of implausible deniability: Starts by quoting Sgt. Schultz from Hogan's Heroes ("I know nothing"), a claim I've heard Trump saying many times.

    One would think Americans would have had enough of Trump's falsehoods. Credited with telling 30,573 lies during his first term, he repeats them so relentlessly that the media, numbed by their frequency, no longer bothers to keep count.

    Lies may endure forever, but liars themselves are mortal. At 79, Trump's days in political power are numbered, yet the damage he has wrought will outlast him. We must brace ourselves for a post-Trump America, one that, I fear, may prove as corrosive as his current reign. The Pandora's box he has opened has unleashed a flood of white supremacism, misogyny, xenophobia, and transphobia, leaving Hope to cower meekly inside. Whether that pestilence can ever be contained again remains uncertain, particularly as it thrives on post-Obama white racial resentment and dreams of restored hegemony.

    I'm less concerned about the "Pandora's box," which I believe remains long-term decline even without the inhibitions that before Trump made it less visible, than by how difficult it's going to be to restore any measure of public trust. It is for this reason that Democrats along Clinton-Obama-Biden lines have been shown to be total failures. Most of what Trump has been able to do has been made possible by the view that Democrats cannot be trusted. One result is that it will be even harder for Democrats to regain that trust.

  • Christian Paz:

    • [12-12]: Trump's support is collapsing — but why? "How Trump's winning coalition is unraveling in real time." This is mostly theories, with three offered to explain parts of the "coalition" that have gone wobbly:

      1. Low-propensity voters
      2. Affordability voters
      3. "New entrant" voters

      But aren't these all just variants on the theme of people who simply didn't know any better? That such voters exist at all is an indictment of the Harris messaging campaign, and the conflicted, confusing, and apparently corrupt stances of many Democrats. For Democrats to regain a chance, they're going to have to campaign for votes, and not just expect Republicans to drive voters into their arms, while they raise cash and spend it on ads nobody can relate to. One more point here: "affordability" isn't the only issue that Trump misled voters on and has since proven them to be naive at best and more likely stupid: what about all the folks who thought they wee voting against the Biden-Harris war machine?

    • [12-29]: The most volatile group of voters is turning on Trump: "There's a new line dividing young Americans." New polling shows: "Younger Gen Z men are more pessimistic about the state of the nation." They're also "slightly less likely to disapprove of Donald Trump," but the numbers there are from 64% to 66% for their 23-29 elders.

  • Garrett Owen [12-18]: Kennedy Center board vote to rename venue after Trump: "The president's hand-picked board voted to add his name to the performing arts venue."

  • Heather Digby Parton

    • [12-18]: Trump's primetime speech was a master class in gaslighting: "The president's false claims about economic conditions are the latest indication that he's in serious trouble."

    • [12-21]: Trump's crackdown on the left has decades of precedent: "The Justice Department's plans to target leftist organizations is taking alarming shape." This was in response to Trump's NSPM-7 (a presidential memorandum on "Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence"), targeting the phantom "antifa organization" or maybe just the general idea that fascism — or Trump, since he's the prime example of fascism these days — should be opposed. (For more, see Trump's orders targeting anti-fascism aim to criminalize opposition.) The "decades of precedent" reflects how easy it's always been to red-bait supporters of labor unions, civil rights, world peace, and freedom of speech, but is that still the case? Trump repeats the magic words about "radical leftists" endlessly, but who still listens to them? His true believers, and a few shell-shocked liberals whose cowardice and lack of principles helped the red-baiters run roughshod over decent, reform-minded people.

    • [01-01]: Trump's cultural coup is doomed to fail: "Artists are protesting Trump's Kennedy Center takeover — and creating art in defiance of his repression."

    • [01-08]: War has become fashionable again for the GOP: "The right's detour into pacifism under Trump was never going to stick."

    • [01-15]: Trump is something worse than a fascist: She's pushing for "tyrant": "an ancient word that should nonetheless be familiar to anyone who recalls the founding ideals of this country." But finding the perfect epithet is not the real point: each one illuminates (or doesn't) some facet of a more complex and fractious whole. The question is whether it helps you understand the problem Trump presents. But once you do understand, they're all pretty much interchangeable.

  • Ron Flipkowski:

    • [12-26]: 25 worst villains of the Trump admin: "The most difficult part of this exercise was only picking 25." Nonetheless, your favorites are here, with Stephen Miller at 1 ("the easiest selection"), followed by Howard Lutnick, Pete Hegseth, Russ Vought, and Todd Blanche, with Kristi Noem and Tom Homan down at 8 and 9.

    • [12-27]: 500 worst things Trump did in 2025: "A comprehensive list": This is just the first 100, which still leaves us in February, with more than 300 employees of the National Nuclear Security Admin fired then reinstated after they realized "no one has taken any time to understand what we do and the importance of our work to the nation's national security. Also: "After JD Vance met with the co-leader of Germany's far-AfD party, one German expert here in Munich said: 'First, America de-Nazified Germany. Now, America is re-Nazifying Germany.'"

  • Zack Beauchamp [12-16]: Trump's war on democracy is failing: "And it's his own fault." Author diagnoses something he calls "haphazardism." I think he's trying to impose reason on madness. Trump doesn't really care whether he kills democracy as a concept, as long as it falls into place and does whatever he wants. Maybe if he did have a master plan to destroy democracy, he'd do a more effective job of it. But actually, he's pretty much succeeding, even if he suffers occasional setbacks by making it look inept and, well, haphazard. And while haphazardism isn't as ruthlessly efficient as, well, Hitler, its incoherence offers a bit of deniability that lets people so inclined to cut him some slack. One can say something similar about Israel and genocide. Ineptness and inefficiency seems to be part of the plan, but both in terms of intent and practice, that's exactly what they're doing. Just not as efficiently as, well, Hitler.

    Beauchamp spends a lot of time quoting the following piece, which I'd argue is a good example how focusing on ideological terms like "democracy" and "authoritarianism" misses the mark:

    • Steven Levitsky/Lucan A Way/Daniel Ziblatt [12-11]: The price of American authoritarianism. Levitsky splits hairs arguing that Trump is running an "authoritarian government" but not an "authoritarian regime," because Trump's "systematic and regular abuse of power" is "likely to be 'reversed' in the near future." That's a novel definition of "regime," the only purpose being to posit a hypothetical system even worse than Trump's. I tend to use "regime" to describe any government, however stable or fleeting, that flaunts and abuses its power. Trump may not do that 100% of the time, but he's gone way beyond any previous norms, which is why I'm more inclined to say "regime" than "administration." What's new with Trump isn't ideology but an opportunism that is rooted in a gangster mentality: the power has long been there when presidents want to abuse it, but Trump has done so to an unprecedented degree. That's because gangsters believe in force, don't believe in limits, and pursue wealth and power until someone stops them.

  • Cameron Peters [01-06]: Trump's January 6 victory lap: "Five years later, the White House is still rewriting January 6."

  • Dustin DeSoto/Astead Herndon [01-07]: How Trump brought the World Cup to America: "The Trump-FIFA connection, explained."

  • Moustafa Bayoumi [01-13]: 2026 is already pure chaos. Is that Trump's electoral strategy? The key argument here is that Trump wants to take the challenge of making himself the central issue in the 2026 Congressional elections. This shows a degree of partisan commitment that recent Democratic presidents never even hinted at. Trump understands that he needs loyal Republicans to implement his extremist programs, whereas the Democrats rarely tried to do anything Republicans didn't buy into. It also expresses confidence that Trump's charisma is so strong he can motivate his most clueless voters to come out and vote as he directs. That's a big ask given that Democrats have been much more motivated in midterms where Republican presidents were the issue (e.g., in 2006 and 2018). It also depends on Trump being much more popular in November 2026 than he is now, or ever has been.

  • Sasha Abramsky [01-16]: The week of colonial fever dreams from a sundowning fascist: "The news was a firehose of stories of authoritarian behavior. We can't let ourselves drown."

  • New York Times Editorial Board [01-17]: For Trump, justice means vengeance: Well, where do you think he ever got such a stupid idea? It's almost impossible to watch a cop or law and order show and not be told that the good guy's chief motivation is "to get justice" for someone. And that almost always boils down to vengeance. I've never managed to read John Rawls' much-admired A Theory of Justice, which evidently ties justice to a concept of fairness, but I'm probably fairly close in asserting that the point of justice is to restore one's faith in the fair ordering of society. That suggests to me that the pursuit of justice can never be attained by simply balancing off injustices. Any punishment the state metes out must make the state appear to be more just than it appeared before. Vengeance doesn't do that. Vengeance just compounds injustice, in the vain hope that somehow two wrongs can make a right. Ergo, Trump's pursuit of vengeance (or redemption, as he often calls it), is anti-justice.

    PS: In looking up Rawls, I see that Robert Paul Wolff wrote Understanding Rawls: A Reconstruction and Critique of A Theory of Justice (1977). That's out of print, but probably the place to start. I read several of Wolff's books early on — A Critique of Pure Tolerance, The Poverty of Liberalism, In Defense of Anarchism — probably before I went to college. Those books showed me that it was possible to derive intuitively correct moral postulates from reason alone, and that in turn convinced me to use reason to try to find my way out of schizophrenia (at least as Bateson defined it). More than anything else, I owe those books my life, and what little I have accomplished in the 55 years since I read them.

    By the way, here's a brief quote from Wolff's A Credo for Progressives:

    The foundation of my politics is the recognition of our collective interdependence. In the complex world that we have inherited from our forebears, it is often difficult to see just how to translate that fundamental interdependence into laws or public policies, but we must always begin from the acknowledgement that we are a community of men and women who must care for one another, work with one another, and treat the needs of each as the concern of all.

    In my formulation of this, "complex" is of critical importance, as the more complex life becomes, the more trust matters, and that in turn depends on justice, in the sense of confirming that the world is ordered in a fair and reasonable manner.

  • Melvin Goodman [01-19]: Donald Trump, poster child for megalomania:

    Megalomaniac: Someone with an extreme obsession for power, wealth, and self-importance, characterized by grandiose delusions of being more significant or powerful than they are, often linked to a tenuous grip on reality.

    "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed — and hence clamorous to be led to safety — by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." H.L. Mencken, "Baltimore Evening Sun," 1920.

    The mainstream media continues to describe Donald Trump as an "isolationist," or a "neo-conservative," or more recently as an "imperialist." These terms are irrelevant; the term that should be applied is "megalomaniac" or "narcissist." These terms fit Trump and help to understand the threat he poses to the peace and security of the United States and much of the global community.

    As he notes, "Trump's narcissism has been on display for decades. What turns narcissism into megalomania is power.

  • Harold Meyerson [01-20]: 25th Amendment time for Mad King Donald: "His narcissism has become psychotically megalomaniacal." I expect a regular stream of 25th Amendment pieces, but the chances of his hand-picked cabinet of cronies taking his keys away are extremely slim, even if he was basically a good sport, which he isn't. His staff are even less likely to move against him (as we saw with Biden). And sure, this article mentions Mad King George III, but not that he ruled for 43 years after he lost the American colonies in 1776.

  • Ed Kilgore [01-22]: Trump only accepts polls that proclaim his greatness. Trump polls seem to be part of Kilgore's beat:

  • Trump in Davos:

    • Sasha Abramsky [01-23]: At Davos, the world watched the rantings of a despot: "President Donald Trump has turned his back on the liberal world order — and Europe is unlikely to follow." While I don't doubt that Europe would be wise to break with Trump, I'm not optimistic, either that they will, or that they'll opt for something better. Right now, Europe is much more hawkish over Ukraine than the US is. While Obama did most of the dirty work in Libya, it was largely at Europe's behest — Libya meant little to the US (or Israel), but much to France and Italy. More generally, while Europe is more "social democratic" than the US, in theory at least, the EU is pretty completely in thrall to neoliberal ideologists, and the continent is chock full of revanchist right-wing parties, making it more likely that an anti-US backlash will come from the right than from the left.

    • Heather Souvaine Horn [01-23]: Trump's terrifying Davos speech is a wake-up call to the global elite: "The World Economic Forum has long suggested that its annual lavish party is about saving the world. Trump just shredded that myth."

    • Sasha Abramsky [01-23]: At Davos, the world watched the rantings of a despot: "President Donald Trump has turned his back on the liberal world order — and Europe is unlikely to follow."

    • Margaret Hartmann [01-21]: The 12 stupidest moments from Trump's Davos speech.

  • Margaret Hartmann: She's been busy of late, as her main theme is "Trump's stupidest moments":

We should also make brief mention of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney's Davos speech, which provided a stark contrast and a rare moment of opposition to Trump:

Democrats:

  • Timothy Shenk [09-29]: Democrats are in crisis. Eat-the-rich populism is the only answer. Much here on Dan Osborn, whose independent campaign for a Senate seat from Nebraska in 2024 fell 7 points short, in a state where Trump beat Harris by 20. His pitch: "a blistering assault on economic elites, a moderate stance on cultural issues and the rejection of politics as usual." But he also talks about Mamdani, and what they have in common. This is the first piece in a series, which doesn't look all that promising — devoted Israel war hawk Josh Shapiro is "the future of the Democrats"?

  • Zach Marcus [11-12]: Draining the online swamp: "Instead of accepting the existing digital political battlefield as inevitable, Democrats should challenge it as a root cause of our dysfunctional politics, and vow to be the party that cleans it up." When I saw this article, I was hoping for something rather different, but this is a big subject, with many components, and eventually some things that I would focus on do show up in the fine print. But the key points are: (1) the online cybersphere is indeed a swamp, where money functions like water in physical swamps, and could just as well be drained; (2) Democrats should see draining this swamp as a political opportunity, not with a view toward biasing politics in their direction, but because the swamp is imposing hardships on literally everyone. A large book could be written about this: abuse comes in many forms, but it mostly comes down to attempts to profit: to sell or solicit, directly or through by exploiting information. One should take care, as few politicians do, not to impose their own moral and political stances. But any serious effort to cut back the scams and fraud is bound to be popular, and how hard can it be to have a significant impact? What is hard is getting Democrats to see that they need to do a much better job of serving their voters than their current focus, which is raising money from the exploiters.

  • Virginia Heffernan [12-05]: No, progressives don't want "purity." They just want some courage. "When left-leaning Democrats complain about corporate influence, it's not a 'purity test.' It's a demand for a better politics."

  • Elizabeth Warren [01-12]: Elizabeth Warren's Plan for a Revived Democratic Party: "The Massachusetts senator argues that, in order to prevail in the midterms, the party needs to recover its populist roots — and fighting spirit."

  • Erica Etelson [01-15]: Democrats really can compete in rural America: "The results for the 2025 election cycle send a powerful message regarding strategies that connect outside of urban centers." Given who they're running against, Democrats should be able to compete in literally every district in America.

  • Perry Bacon [01-21]: Abigail Spanberger's first move as Virginia Gov. was a masterstroke: "Even moderate Democrats can be boldly anti-MAGA. Other centrist Democrats should follow her example." What she did was move to force the resignation of several Republican appointees to university boards. That's the sort of thing Trump has done like crazy, and the people she's replacing are the sort of partisan hacks Trump has been appointing.

Republicans: A late addition, back by popular demand, because it isn't just Trump, we also have to deal with the moral swamp he crawled out of:

Economy and technology (especially AI): I used to have a section on the economy, which mostly surveyed political economics. Lately, I run across pieces on AI pretty often, both in terms of what the technology means and is likely to do and in terms of its outsized role in the speculative economy. I suspect that if not now then soon we will recognize that we are in a bubble driven by AI speculation, which is somewhat masking a small recession driven largely by Trump's shutdown, tariffs, and inflation. In such a scenario, there are many ways to lose.

  • Robert Wright [01-23]: Which AI Titan should you root for? He makes something of a case for Demis Hassabis ("head of Google's DeepMind"). While the technology is difficult enough to understand, the business models are even harder to grasp, because they are based on very large bets on very strange fantasies of world domination. In this world, even a tiny bit of self-conscious scruples seems to count for a lot. Still, this is shaping up as a race to the bottom, where even tiny scruples will be quickly discarded as signs of weakness.

  • Jez Corden [11-29]: OpenAI is a loss-making machine, with estimates that it has no road to profitability by 2030 — and will need a further $207 billion in funding even if it gets there. I'm not even trying to follow things like this, but somehow found the tab open, and decided to note before closing. My impression is that most tech companies over the last 30-40 years have been overvalued without a realistic profit path, but a small number of survivors seem to be reaping the monopoly rents the speculators hoped for. Still, it wouldn't be hard to deflate them if we had the insight and political will.

  • Robert Kuttner [12-01]: Sources of America's hidden inflation: "How market power jacks up prices, and how Trump's policies add to the pressure." I've been alluding to this often of late, so it's nice to see so many of these points being made.

  • Ronald Purser [12-01]: AI is destroying the university and learning itself: "Students use AI to write papers, professors use AI to grade them, degrees become meaningless, and tech companies make fortunes. Welcome to the death of higher education." I'm not sure this is the right analysis, and not just because I don't have much love for the old meritocracy that is being wrecked, and not just becuase it never secured much merit in the first place. The "system" has always been crooked, which is something folks with the right skills or hunches have always been able to take advantage of. AI changes the rules, which means that different strategies and different people will win, and some of that will seem unjust. I personally know of a recent case in Arkansas where an AI program was used by a school to detect possible AI use and falsely accused the bright daughter of a friend of cheating. We had a long and fruitless discussion after this on how can someone so charged prove that the AI program is wrong, but the more important question is why does it matter? Which gets us back to politics: in your hypothetical meritocracy, do you want the "merit" (for more people) or the "ocracy" (to empower and enrich the few)? The stock bubble behind the AI companies assumes that AI can be monopolized (kept artificially scarce) allowing its masters extraordinary powers over everyone else. Does anyone but a few monomaniacal entrepreneurs actually want that? Much more that can be unpacked here.

    As for the death of higher education, Jane Jacobs analyzed that in her 2004 book, Dark Age Ahead, where higher education was one of the five "pillars of civilization" she identified decay in (the others were: community and family; science; government; and culture. In education, she blamed the focus shifting from learning to credentialism. I think that shift largely happened in the 1980s, when conservatives decided that education should be reserved for elites, and enforced that by jacking up the costs to ordinary people, creating scarcity and desperation, while the rewards for avarice became ever greater. While AI may be useful as a tool for learning, its applicability to scamming credentialism is much more obvious. I'm not someone who believes that technology is "value neutral," but the values of the politico-socio-economic system do have profound effects on how any given technology is used.

  • Eric Levitz [12-17]: Can money buy Americans happiness? "The real cause of America's 'vibecession.'" Part of a series on The case for growth ("supported by a grant from Arnold Ventures"), the point of which is that the "degrowth movement" is wrong, because, well, "more is more." These arguments seem shallow to me. Sure, there are areas where growth would still help. But there are other areas where all you really need is better distribution. And there are other areas where we already have too much, and would be better off slowing down, or even reversing course. To my mind, "degrowth" is a useful conceptual tool, one that moves beyond the kneejerk notion that growth fixes everything. Some (not all) more pieces in the series:

    • Andrew Prokop [12-12]: Why America gave up on economists: "Both parties have turned their backs on traditional economic advice. Is the country paying the price?" Seems like a lot of false equivalence here. Republicans use economists to ratify their schemes, and sometimes applaud a crackpot idea that they can use (e.g., the Laffer Curve), but they make little pretense of following economics, and will readily dispose of any arguments that question their pet projects (like Trump's tariffs). Clinton and Obama, on the other hand, sought out neoliberal economists and gave them a lot of power, because they start from shared pro-business principles. Biden too, except that a few past figures (like Larry Summers) have been discredited. Prokop offers an example where Democrats supposedly have broken with economic orthodoxy, but I've never seen any evidence of it: price controls. (Unless he means rent control, which is a way to address certain market failures?)

    • Bryan Walsh [12-06]: Breaking free of zero-sum thinking will make America a wealthier country: "The affordability crisis is a growth crisis." Title is true. Subtitle is false, stuck in a mindset that sees growth as a panacea. That so much is unaffordable is only partly due to scarcity (which in many cases is deliberately imposed). It's mostly due to systematic maldistribution.

    • Marina Bolotnikova [12-19]: We need to grow the economy. We need to stop torching the planet. Here's how we do both. "Let's fix the two massive efficiency sinks in American life." She identifies those two "sinks" as "animal agriculture" and cars, and spends most of the article attacking them (and implicitly those of us who like and want them), all the while insisting that vital growth would be much better elsewhere.

  • Ryan Cooper [12-23]: Bari Weiss is the propagandist Donald Trump deserves: "The would-be dictator would get a much better class of censor if his regime didn't hoist the biggest morons in the country in to leadership positions." I'm reminded of an old adage attributed to David Ogilvy: "First-rate people hire first-rate people. Second-rate people hire third-rate people." That's far enough down the slope to make the point, although with Trump and his flunkies, perhaps you should denote inferior classes. Trump seems to hire people who are unfit for any other job. Sure, Weiss only indirectly works for Trump, but his worldview infects his supporters.

  • James Baratta [01-08]: Ransomware recovery firms share in the hacking spoils: "Incident response firms negotiate with hackers while also processing payments to them, leading to potential betrayals of their clients' trust." Sounds like the principal-agent problem, or more specifically the risks of trusting agents who are also paid by other sources (which is most of them these days, even without considering self-interest conflicts). Needless to say, the problem is worse in high-inequality societies, especially where marginal variations take on considerable importance. The greater the inequality, the harder it is to trust anyone. America is more inequal now than ever before, which is reflected in the dissolution of trust.

  • Adam Clark Estes [01-10]: AI's ultimate test: Making it easier to complain to companies: "Imagine actually enjoying a customer service experience." Sure, it could work, sometimes. I like the idea of being able to get answers without having to interact with workers, but I've rarely connected with something the robots could actually answer or handle, so we spend a lot of time thrashing, which is aggravating to me, but of course neither the machine nor the company care. AI is mostly used these days to insulate companies from human contact with customers, and to train customers into expecting less service. Perhaps if we had competitive companies, such tactics would be self-limiting, but more and more we don't.

  • Constance Grady [01-10]: Grok's nonconsensual porn proble is part of a long, gross legacy: "Elon Musk claims tech needs a 'spicy mode' to dominate. Is he right?"

  • Harold Meyerson [01-19]: A new low for American workers: "The share of American income going to labor is at its lowest level since measurements began."

  • Jeffrey Selingo [01-20]: The campus AI crisis: "Young graduates can't find jobs. Colleges know they have to do something. But what?" Starts with a young college graduate who applied to 150 jobs, to no avail. "How much AI is to blame for the fragile entry-level job market is unclear." The author sees an analogy to his own college years, 1991-94, when the Internet suddenly became a big thing, causing disruptions as colleges had to scramble to seem relevant — as they are doing now with programs like "AI Fluency." I'm afraid I don't have any insight here. AI still strikes me as a lot of hype wrapped around a few parlor tricks, most of which have very little relevance to the core economy of goods and services. But then no one can see the future, or even the present. All we can do is look back, and try to imagine what that portends. But the 1990s analogy reminds me of Robert Reich's 1991 book The Work of Nations: Preparing Ourselves for 21st Century Capitalism, where he came up the the idiotic idea that we didn't need manufacturing jobs anymore, because we'd just get high-paying jobs as "symbolic manipulators" and everything would be wonderful. His buddy Bill Clinton read that and saw it as a green light to implement NAFTA. We're still reeling from the consequences of Reich's fantasy. (Clinton may have realized what would happen to US manufacturing, and simply not cared, but was he prescient enough to anticipate the damage to Mexican agriculture, the subsequent explosion of emigration to the US, and the repercussions for American jobs and politics?) About the only thing I'm sure of viz. AI is that if Reich's cornucopia of "symbolic manipulator" jobs had occurred, AI would devastate them, because symbolic manipulation is literally all that AI does and can ever do. Sure, it may, like all stages since the dawn of computing, contribute some productivity, but we'll still depend on real people doing real work for everything we need to sustain life.

Miscellaneous Pieces

The following articles are more/less in order published, although some authors have collected pieces, and some entries have related articles underneath.

Spencer Kornhaber [05-05]: Is this the worst-ever era of American pop culture? "An emerging critical consensus argues that we've entered a cultural dark age. I'm not so sure." I don't recall why I opened this loose tab — possibly because the article opens with a quote from Ted Gioia, who used to be a reliable Jazz Critics Poll voter but abandoned us as he became a Substack star. So, unable to read the piece, I asked Google to summarize it, and got this gibberish back:

Spencer Kornhaber's "Is This the Worst-Ever Era of American Pop Culture?" argues that modern pop culture suffers from stagnation, cynicism, isolation, and attention rot, driven by nostalgia-focused economics (IP, old music catalogs), identity politics stifling creativity, technology fostering loneliness, and algorithmic distractions eroding focus, leading to a "gilded age" of superficially polished but shallow content. While acknowledging real problems like AI and pandemic disruptions, Kornhaber explores this "narrative of decay" in music, film, and art, but also discusses potential counter-narratives and signs of hope. . . .

Kornhaber suggests these issues create a paradox: a Gilded Age where prestigious shows look amazing but lack substance, and where technological abundance paradoxically leads to cultural scarcity and decline. He questions if it's truly the worst era, but details the significant challenges facing creators and consumers, pointing to a breakdown in cultural progress and originality.

Google also offered a link to:

My own thought on this is that culture increasingly became wedded to big business over the 20th century, but the bindings have started to fall apart, as artists are becoming less dependent on capital, and capital is less able to profit from art. As a consumer, or just as a person with the luxury of some leisure time beyond what it takes to satisfy baser needs, I don't see this as, on balance, a particularly bad thing. While capitalism promoted art in the 20th century, there is every reason to expect art to continue being created even without the profit motive. The art will be different: it will be smaller, less flashy, more personal, more in tune with people's feelings, as opposed to the ubiquitous sales schemes of the culture industry. I can think of numerous examples, especially in jazz — which is much more vital as an art than as a business.

On the other hand, I'm pretty vigilant about picking the music I listen to, the video I see, the links I follow, and so on. So I'm inclined to think I'm relatively immune to the effects found in Kyle Chayka: Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture, but it's hard to be sure, and they've certainly warped the size and shape of everyday culture. It's hard to maintain any semblance of control when you're constantly bombarded by too any options: a state which reduces both creators and consumers while extracting maximal shares for the platform.

Lulu Garcia-Navarro [10-18]: The culture wars came for Wikipedia. Jimmy Wales is staying the course. Interview, airs out numerous political attacks on Wikipedia, mostly from people who don't understand facts, or who understand them all too well. Kurt Andersen linked to this, and commented: "Reading this Jimmy Wales interview reminded me in our Fantasyland age what a remarkable and important creation it is. True pillar of civilization. Runs on only $200 million a year. Requires out support. So I'm finally donating." By the way, Wales has a book, The Seven Rules of Trust: A Blueprint for Building Things That Last.

Current Affairs [07-16]: Rent control is fine, actually: "Regulating rent prices is often called 'bad economics.' But it isn't. The effects of rent control are complex." Unsigned, but substantial article, covering most of the bases. A still more obvious point is in the very name: although "rent" is a word most often used regarding housing, the word itself has more general economic significance, in that it represents any profits in excess of free competition. It is, in other words, a market failure, which can only be constrained by regulation.

Alex Skopic [10-09]: This is why you don't let libertarians run your country: "In Argentina, President Javier Milei has screwed the economy up so badly he needs a $20 billion bailout. That's because his 'free market' economics don't actually work."

Even more so than Donald Trump to his north, Milei was the kind of erratic crackpot you can see coming a mile off. This was a man who dressed up in a superhero suit to sing sad ballads about fiscal policy, "floated legalizing the sale of human organs" on the campaign trail, and told reporters he takes telepathic advice from his dogs, who are clones of his previous dog. You didn't need any special insight to know he wasn't leadership material. But even those personal foibles would be inoffensive, even charming, if Milei had a sound economic agenda. More than the psychic dogs or the yellow cape, the really unhinged thing about him was that he took libertarianism seriously, aiming to slash the functions of the Argentinian state wherever he could. Now, Milei is facing a spiraling series of crises, from unemployment to homelessness to the basic ability to manufacture anything. He should serve as a big, red alarm bell for people far beyond Argentina's shores — because right-wing leaders in the U.S. and Britain are explicitly modeling their economics on his, and if they're not stopped, they'll lead us to the same disastrous end point.

Bad as this sounds:

Dean Baker: This is mostly catching up, but doesn't include every post, especially in December, but most are worth noting:

  • [12-08]: In search of Donald Trump's booming economy: "Trump's claims of historic economic success collapse under data showing rising costs, declining manufacturing, and no evidence of his imagined investment boom."

  • [12-13]: Jeff Bezos uses the Washington Post to promote inequality: "The Washington Post's defense of massive CEO pay illustrates how billionaire-owned media justify inequality despite weak evidence that it benefits workers, shareholders, or society." Refers to a column by Dominic Pino [12-11]: Starbucks's CEO was paid $95 million. It could be worth every cent. The rationale is: "Brian Niccol's compensation history reflects a turnaround skill that can mean billions of dollars."

  • [12-21]: How many manufacturing jobs has Trump actually lost? "More comprehensive employment data show manufacturing job losses under Trump may be worse than standard monthly reports suggest."

  • [12-23]: Donald Trump wants us to pay more for electricity because he is angry at windmills: "Trump's move to cancel wind projects will increase power costs, kill jobs, and slow the clean energy transition."

  • [12-27]: Washington Post's Trumpian ideology boils over: "A critique of Washington Post editorials that distort healthcare and EV economics to align with Trump-style ideology."

  • [12-28]: Did Mark Zuckerberg throw $77 billion of our money into the toilet? "Mark Zuckerberg's $77 billion Metaverse gamble wasn't just a corporate misstep, but a massive diversion of talent and resources with real economic costs as Big Tech now pours even more money into AI." I think what he's saying here is that when a company blows a huge amount of money, that's not just a book loss for the investors, it's also an opportunity loss for everyone. I'm not sure where he wants to go with this, but I'm tempted to say that tech companies aren't necessarily good judges, especially as so many of their schemes are little better than scams.

  • [01-05]: Venezuela will pay for its own reconstruction: "Comparing Iraq in 2003 to Venezuela today shows that Trump's claims of an easy, self-financing intervention are far less believable than Bush's already-failed promises." While the analogies are too obvious to ignore, the differences may matter more. In 2003, there were real fears of running low on oil, so bringing more oil to market could be seen as a general economic gain, even if the oil companies would prefer to just drive the prices up. But we have a glut of oil right now, and that's with Venezuela, Iran, and Russia largely out of the market. So I wouldn't bet on Trump wanting to reconstruct Venezuela, regardless of who plays for it.

  • [01-05]: Walz pulls out: chalk up another one for racism, coupled with Democratic Party and media ineptitude: "Tim Walz's exit shows how exaggerated fraud claims, media failure, and racialized politics can end Democratic careers."

  • [01-07]: Trump's United States as number three: "Trump's threats and economic bluster ignore the reality that the US is now only the world's third-largest economy and increasingly isolated from larger democratic blocs." Behind China and Europe (EU + United Kingdom, Switzerland, and Norway). Lots of smaller economies are also gaining ground: add them together and the US could slip a notch. Baker cites several examples where Trump's tariffs failed because the US simply didn't have the economic muscle to enforce them. That leaves American superiority in arms, which may explain why Trump is becoming increasingly trigger-happy, but converting that to genuine economic power may be difficult:

    Ordinarily, the old line about herding cats would apply here, but a government that claims it can do anything it has the military force to do can help focus minds. Hitler managed to bring together Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin. Trump may have a comparable effect in uniting the world today.

  • [01-08]: Donald Trump's $6 trillion tax hike and increase in military spending: "Trump's $600 billion military plan would be financed by higher tariffs that raise prices for US consumers." But surely it wouldn't just be tariffs paying for this. Income taxes are a more practical option. If that's impossible, and it goes straight to the deficit, won't it ultimately be paid for with inflation? And what about opportunity costs? Imagine spending that kind of money on something actually useful. Then, of course, there are risks: the chance that some of these extra weapons will be used in wars, and everything that entails. Risks on that level cannot even be hedged against.

  • [01-09]: Jobs report and remembering Renee Good "The official response to the killing of Renee Good — marked by falsehoods from Trump administration figures — signals a dangerous erosion of accountability for state violence."

  • [01-12]: Three bad items and three good items in the December jobs report: "The December jobs report shows a softening labor market, with higher underemployment offset by lower unemployment and slightly faster wage growth."

  • [01-12]: Donald Trump, Mineral Man, vs. sodium batteries: "Trump's mineral strategy is undermined by China's move toward sodium batteries that make lithium less critical."

  • [01-13]: The billionaires and the November election: "Markets barely reacted after Trump moved to threaten the independence of the Federal Reserve."

  • [01-14]: Trump takes responsibility for post-pandemic inflation: Trump's attempt to blame Biden for inflation nearly a year into his term undercuts his own record and exposes the lagged effects of Trump-era policies."

  • [01-15]: Can the AI folks save democracy? "The AI stock bubble is sustaining Trump's political support — and its collapse could change US politics fast."

  • [01-16]: We're paying the tariffs #53,464: "Import price data confirm that Trump's tariffs are largely a tax on Americans, not foreign countries.

  • [01-19]: Trump wants to hit us with a huge tax hike for his demented Greenland dreams: "Trump's Greenland fixation would hit Americans with a massive tariff tax while serving no real security or economic purpose."

  • [01-19]: Time for Europe to use the nuclear option: Attack US patent and copyright monopolies: "Trump's Greenland obsession would raise prices for Americans, while Europe has a far more effective response by suspending US patent and copyright protections." As I noted under Greenland above, this is the kind of medicine that's actually good for you.

  • [01-21]: Patent applications drop 9.0 percent in 2025: not good news: I doubt the signal here is as strong as Baker thinks, but that Trump is having a negative impact on research and development is almost certainly true, and only likely to get worse. The obvious one is that many (most?) engineers in America are immigrants, and Trump is trying to drive them away. He's also undermining education, and any sort of culture of innovation. His tariffs help companies profit without having to compete, and amnesty for criminals will only make fraud more attractive. But I don't feel sad here, because I think patents are bad in general. By the way, Baker also has a section on "The Imagined Crisis: China Running Out of People." This is, of course, wrong on many levels.

  • [01-23]: Spending under Trump: drugs up, factories down. Trump claims "he lowered drug prices 1,500 percent and we're bringing in $18 trillion in foreign investment." The former is mathematically impossible, and the latter is nearly as absurd. And that's without even going into the question of what foreign investment does to a country: mostly it means that they own it, and now you're working for them.

  • [01-24]: Mark Carney: world hero: a take on the Canadian Prime Minister's Davos speech, also noted elsewhere.

  • [01-25]: When it comes to the stock market, Trump is a loser.

  • [01-26]: Doing well by doing good: dump your American stocks.

  • [01-27]: Donald Trump's $300 billion temper tantrum over Canada: "Feel like paying another $2,400 a year in taxes because an old man suffering from dementia got humiliated? . . . Donald Trump is threatening to impose a 100 percent tax (tariff) on items we import from Canada.".

Ray Moulton [12-30]: Children and helical time: Starts with a chart which asserts that half of your subjective experience of life occurs in childhood, between age 5 ("start of long term memory") and 20 ("midpoint of subjective life"). The math is just a log function. The question is whether this intuitively makes sense. I'm not sure it does, and not sure it doesn't. Perhaps that's because most of the story is focused on kids, and I only know about being one, not about having them, or even much about living vicariously through other folks' kids. But I do feel that, in thinking about memory, I feel an intensity of focus between ages 5-20 that I lack for anything that came after then

Ian Millhiser: Vox's legal beat reporter, author of Injustices (2015). If he writes a sequel, it will be twice as long and only cover 10 years. Some more pieces filed elsewhere.

Pete Tucker [12-04]: How the game is played: Pull quote talks about how the Koch network put Antonin Scalia's name on the George Mason law school, and added something called "the Global Antitrust Institute" ("which works to ensure that Big Tech isn't broken apart like the monopoists of over a century ago"). But the article itself starts with a long prelude on Stephen Fuller, a Washington Post-favored pundit whose "quotes came cloaked in academic objectivity, owing to his dual titles as an economics professor at George Mason University and leader of the school's Center for Regional Analysis" (later renamed the Stephen S. Fuller Institute).

Jeffrey St Clair:

  • [12-12]: Gaza Diary: They bulldozed mass graves and called it peace. The only things that are dated here are the number of Palestinians killed since the "cease fire," and the amount of money the US has spent in aid to Israel, including military operations in Yemen, Iran, and the wider region (then pegged at $31.35-$33.77 billion since 2023-10-07).

  • [12-19]: Roaming Charges: The politics of crudity and cruelty: Starts with a story about Rob Reiner, which leads into his murder, followed by Trump's tweet, where Reiner "passed away, together with his wife," after long suffering from "the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME." As St Clair notes:

    This is evidence of a sick mind: petty, petulant, crude and sadistic . . . but but also one that likely needed help writing this depraved attack on two people whose blood was still wet from having their throats slit by their own tormented son, since the words "tortured" "unyielding" and "affliction" don't come naturally to Trump's limited lexicon.

    Some more notes (and I'm writing this nearly a month after the fact):

    • In the last five years, the wealthiest 20 Americans increased their net worth from $1.3 trillion to $3 trillion. Whether the economic policies are those of the neoliberals or the Trump Republicans, the same people keep making out.

    • David Mamet has always been a jackass, but whatever's below rock bottom, he just hit it . . . [Reference to Mamet's piece, "Why Dr King, Malcolm X and Charlie Kirk were modern prophets."]

    • Erika Kirk, already a millionaire before the Lord Almighty claimed her husband, has raked in another $10 million+ since Charlie ascended to the heavens, according to a report in the Daily Mail. It really is the prosperity gospel!

    • John Cassidy, writing in the New Yorker, on how the Trump family ventures have cashed in on his presidency:

      As the anniversary of Donald Trump's return to the White House approaches, keeping up with his family's efforts to cash in is a mighty challenge. It seems like there is a fresh deal, or revelation, every week. Since many of the Trump or Trump-affiliated ventures are privately owned, we don't have a complete account of their finances. But in tracking company announcements, official filings, and the assiduous reporting of several media outlets, a clear picture emerges: enrichment of the First Family on a scale that is unprecedented in American history . . . in terms of the money involved, the geographic reach, and the explicit ties to Presidential actions — particularly Trump's efforts to turn the United States into the "crypto capital of the world" — there has never been anything like the second term of Trump, Inc.

  • [12-25]: Goodbye to language: the year in Trumpspeak. The earth's atmosphere is divided into various layers — troposphere, stratosphere, ionosphere (which now seems to be subsumed into the mesosphere) — as the density of air changes various physical properties. Perhaps we could subdivide the media into analogous layers. One would be the Trumposphere: the fantasy realm where only what Trump says — and to some extent what others say about Trump, although that's reported mostly to keep the focus on Trump — and this seems to account for at least a third of all "national" news. This is a long piece which offers pretty comprehensive documentation of 2025 in the Trumposphere. It is horrifying, or would be if you weren't so used to it by now.

  • [12-05]: Roaming Charges: Kill, kill again, kill them all: Starts with this:

    Pete Hegseth is a producer of snuff films. The media-obsessed, if not media-savvy, Hegseth has produced 21 of these mass murder documentary shorts in the last three months, featuring the killings of 83 people — if you take his word for it. Hegseth introduces these kill shots like Alfred Hitchcock presenting an episode of his old TV show — without the irony, of course. There's no irony to Pete Hegseth. No intentional irony, that is. It's all bluster and protein-powder bravado to titillate the Prime-time Fox audience as they nibbled at their TV dinners. . . .

    The irony, lost on Hegseth, is that these are the precise kinds of videos that ethical whistleblowers like Chelsea Manning used to scrape from the secret vaults of the Pentagon and ship to Wikileaks. Videos of crimes committed by US forces. In his dipsomaniacal mind, Hegseth seems to believe these snuff films are proof of the power and virility of the War Department under his leadership. In fact, each video is a confession. The question is: will he be held to account and who will have the guts to do it?

  • [01-09]: Roaming Charges: An ICE cold blood. Opens with:

    Many of the people who have spent the last five years denouncing the killing of Ashli Babbitt for raiding the Capitol in an attempt to overturn an election are celebrating the murder of Renee Nichole Good, a terrified mother killed by masked men from unmarked cars who chased her down a neighborhood street and shot her in the face. . . .

    These kinds of raids, while shocking to most Americans, are familiar to many immigrants from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, countries still haunted by the death squads funded, armed and trained by the CIA. Horrors that they fled and have now reappeared like ghosts from the past here on the streets of Chicago and Minneapolis and Los Angeles. They know all too well that collateral damage is a feature of all paramilitaries.

    With the murder of Renee Good, ICE has now advanced from scaring the hell out of American citizens to killing them.

    Also lots of good information here on Venezuela, including "The New York Times interviews Beelzebub [Elliott Abrams] on Venezuela, who, surprise!, wants more kidnappings and bloodshed." He also notes that Israel has violated the ceasefire 969 times over 80 days, "including the killing of 420 Palestinians, the wounding of 1,141 and allowing only 40% of the aid tracks mandated by the truce into Gaza." Also: "Israel has killed more than 700 relatives of Palestinian journalists in Gaza." Also:

    • Stephen Miller: "We live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time." Almost invariably, people who have lived by this "iron law" have tended to come to rather unpleasant ends. [I would have unpacked this view rather differently. One of the maxims I learned early was "power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Even if one starts with good intentions, the resort to power perverts them, and ultimately becomes an obsession with obtaining and defending ever more power. And that, of course, produces a backlash, which if unsuccessful drives the powerful to ever greater atrocities. Whether such people die in a bunker like Hitler or in bed like Stalin isn't really the issue. Either way, their memory is cursed by our wish to have stopped them earlier. Of course, if you don't start with good intentions, you descend faster, as Miller has done.]

    • Of course, there was something deeply wrong with this country long before Donald Trump came to power. Imagine playing a New Year's Day football game just down the road from Ground Zero in Nagasaki, as a celebration of an atomic blast that killed 70,000 people only five months earlier?

  • [01-16]: Roaming Charges: What a fool believes:

    • It's revolting, but hardly surprising, that a woman (Kristi Noem) who thought bragging about the time she shot her puppy in the head for disobeying a command and dumped its body in a gravel quarry would advance her political career, also thinks it's entirely justified to shoot a mother of three in the head for "disobeying" confusing commands from her ICE agents.

    • Trump has sent 13.6% of all ICE agents to Minneapolis, a city that represents .13% of the population of the United States.

  • [01-23]: Roaming Charges: Are we not men? No, we are DAVOS: "But a funny thing happened on the way to Davos":

    The stock market collapsed. The Prime Minister of Canada cut a trade pact with China and urged other countries to do the same. Denmark told Trump to fuck off (literally). Unhelpfully for Trump, the Russians chose this week to publicly endorse his scheme to snatch Greenland from the Danes. The European Union, usually so timid and fractious, resisted his impetuous bullying and threatened to join military exercises in defense of Greenland and levy retaliatory tariffs of their own against the increasingly frail US economy.

    Trump landed a deflated man. During his nearly incoherent speech at the World Economic Forum, Trump looked morose and sounded peevish. The words slurred, the fraying sentences trailing off into the ether. His insults lacked fire and punch. He rambled aimlessly. His cognitive decline, never a fall from alpine heights to begin with, was on full public display.

    Was this the fearsome tyrant, so many had trembled in obeisance before? He looked like an old man, frail in body, infirm in mind. Not the new Sun King of his cult-stoked fantasies, but a patriarch deep into his autumn, struggling to find the words for retreat. Trump's strategy (if you can call it that) for cultivating more enemies than friends was always doomed to backfire on him. The only question was how long it would take and how many he'd drag down with him.

    So, Trump backed down. The intemperate bombast was spent, replaced by wheezing and stammering. He backed down on invading Greenland. He backed down on imposing new tariffs against European nations. He backed down in front of the elites he both despises and envies.

    Bullet points:

  • Bari Weiss memo to CBS News reporters and anchors: "Yes, Trump referred to Greenland as Iceland 7 times in his speech, but make clear that he referred to Greenland as Greenland 13 times."

  • This week, there was another death in ICE custody. That's 6 in the last 18 days, one every 72 hours — not counting the people they shoot in their cars.

Matt McManus [01-02]: Why Fascists always come for the Socialists first: "Here's why the left poses such a threat to them." This is a long and very well researched and thought out piece. I've long been skeptical of the usefulness of labeling anyone fascist, but I've changed my thinking somewhat over the past year. I think the key thing is that we mostly understand events through historical analogy. Those of us on the left were quick to pick up the early warning signs of fascism, but as long as alternative explanations were possible, most people resisted the diagnosis. What's different now is that we've reached the point where fascism is the only close historical analogy. Sure, there are minor minor deviations, but no other historical analogy comes close. The point of identifying Trump as a fascist is less to check off a list of similarities than an assertion that we take him very seriously as a threat to our world. While many other comparisons may occur to us, none quite match our fear of fascism.

Eric Levitz [01-12]: The fiction at the heart of America's political divide: I don't quite understand why someone who recognizes and basic difference between left and right can twist himself in such knots of nonsense as the Hyrum and Verlan Lewis book The Myth of Left and Right. Levitz shows he understands the difference when he writes:

The ideological spectrum was born in France about 237 years ago. At the revolutionary National Assembly in 1789, radicals sat on the left side of the chamber and monarchists on the right, thereby lending Western politics its defining metaphor: a one-dimensional continuum between egalitarian revolution and hierarchical conservation. The more a faction (or policy) promoted change in service of equality, the farther left its place on this imaginary line; the more it defended existing hierarchies in the name of order, the farther right its spot.

There are some corollaries, but that's it: hierarchy on the right, equality on the left. Perhaps the most obvious corollary is that the right's defense of hierarchy is inherently unpopular, so they are quick to defend it with violence. The left, on the other hand, has become increasingly opposed to violence. This should be simple, but Levitz, like most political analysts, likes to muddy the waters by saddling left and right with arbitrary positions on other issues that don't intrinsically divide between hierarchy and equality. He doesn't fully accept the Lewis case that parties are just competing interest groups whose policy differences follow group rather than ideological dynamics, but he readily assumes that all Democrats are leftist and all Republicans are on the right.

Robert P Baird [01-15]: The crisis whisperer: how Adam Tooze makes sense of our bewildering age: "Whether it's the financial crash, the climate emergency or the breakdown of the international order, historian Adam Tooze has become the go-to guide to the radical new world we've entered." There's more here — Tooze has moved from academia into the public intelligentsia racket as impressively as anyone else I can think of, and that includes Jill Lepore, Paul Krugman, and Stephen J Gould — but let's start with the section on Biden Democrats that Jeffrey St Clair pointed me to:

It was notable, then, that after joining the Brussels panel, Tooze didn't waste much time before stating flatly that the Biden team had "failed in its absolutely central mission, which was to prevent a second Trump administration". Not only that, he argued, but the dismantling of the liberal world order — something discussed with much rueful lamentation at the conference — had been hastened, not hindered, by the Biden veterans on stage. As he'd written a few months earlier, Tooze saw Biden no less than Trump aiming "to ensure by any means necessary" — including strong-arming allies — "that China is held back and the US preserves its decisive edge".

"I feel the need to say something," [Katherine] Tai said, when Tooze was finished. She recalled a parable Martin Sheen had delivered in front of the White House during the 25th anniversary celebration of The West Wing, the haute-liberal political fantasia that remains a touchstone for professional Democrats. Sheen's story concerned a man who shows up at the gates of heaven and earns an admonishment from St Peter for his lack of scars. "Was there nothing worth fighting for?" St Peter asked the man. Tai turned the question on Tooze: "Where are your scars, Adam? I can show you mine."

Recalling this exchange several months later, Tooze was still flabbergasted. "I'd be silly if I didn't admit that it was a bruising encounter," he told me recently, in one of three long conversations we had over the past year. Nevertheless, he said, "it confirmed my underlying theory about what was going on. These were a group of entirely self-satisfied American liberal elites who were enacting a morality tale in which Sheen and The West Wing and that whole highly sentimental vision of power and politics is a central device. She says this, I think, meaning to sound tough, like, 'I'm the warrior. Who are you? You're just some desktop guy.' Which just shows how little she understands what I'm saying, which is: 'You people are a bunch of sentimental schmucks who don't understand that you lost. If you had any self-respect, you would not be on any podium again, ever, sounding off about anything. Because comrades, if we were in the 30s, I would have taken you out and shot you. You fail like this, you don't get to come back and show off your wounds.'"

That's a bit extreme for me: the 30s aren't exactly remembered for best political practices, and even as a lapsed Christian I'm still inclined to forgive sins that are sincerely repented. But Tai and her other Biden hands not only haven't repented for their failures, they're still in denial, blind-sided by events they thought they were handling just fine. (In this, the Queen Bee of denial remains Hillary Clinton, which is why she has absolutely nothing to contribute to the party she once led.) The piece has much more on Tooze — enough to convince me to order his book Crashed. It also summarizes a critique of him by Perry Anderson.

Kate Wagner [01-21]: The Line, a Saudi megaproject, is dead: "It was always doomed to unravel, but the firms who lent their name to this folly should be held accounable." I knew nothing about this project, so found the Wikipedia entry to be helpful background. Also see the longer List of Saudi Vision 2023 projects, of which NEOM (including The Line and Trojena) was by far the most expensive. This reminds me of some of the Shah's extravagant projects shortly before the revolution overthrew his regime. I've been thinking a bit about Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf states in relationship to the "resource curse" theory, which explains so much of what went wrong with Venezuela. Saudi Arabia doesn't look like the economic basket case we find in Venezuela and Iran, but perhaps that's just because they've been able to keep selling oil, and thereby able to keep their own bubble economies from collapsing. They've managed this by being very submissive to the US and western capitalism, while they've managed political stability at home through a generous welfare state for their citizens, combined with the large-scale import of "guest" workers. Still, their oil wells generate so much money that they wind up investing in a lot of extravagant schemes — the Line is relatively benign, at least compared to the jihad-fanning, gun-running, war-mongering adventurism in Yemen, Syria, Sudan, Libya, Afghanistan, etc. In terms of GDP, these petrostates are among the richest in the world, but one can't help but feel that there is rot and mold just under the surface, and that whole edifices could suddenly collapse (as they did in Iran, Iraq, Libya, and Venezuela). Also that the risk of that happening is much sharper with megalomaniacs in charge like Mohammed Bin Salman, and especially as Trump turns the US into a pure gangster state.

Chas Danner [01-24]: All the terms you need to know for the big winter storm: "From frost crack to Arctic blast to thunder ice."

Music end-of-year lists: I started collecting these when they were few and far between, and didn't keep it up. See the AOTY Lists for more. Also the Legend for my EOY Aggregate. While substantial (2776 albums), I've done a very poor job of keeping this file up to date, as is obvious when you compare this year's legend (116 sources) to the one from 2024 (610 sources). While I'm likely to add more data to this year's EOY aggregate, I'm unlikely ever again to match the 2024 total.

Of course, the most important EOY list [for me, anyhow] is: The 20th Annual Francis Davis Jazz Critics Poll: See the essays on ArtsFuse, by yours truly except as noted:

On listmaking:

  • Album of the Year: 2025 music year end list aggregate: Rosalia edging out Geese (413-404) was a surprise, especially as a late-breaker among two albums I didn't especially are for, but both the landslide wins over two of my A- records — Wednesday (203) and CMAT (187) — and a following mixed bag: my A- records were by Clipse (6), Lily Allen (11), Billy Woods (14), Water From Your Eyes (27), Big Thief (29), Sudan Archives (32), Tyler Childers (43), and Rochelle Jordan (50). One interesting note here is that they systematically devalue unranked lists, allowing 5 points each if the list is 10 albums or less, 3 for 25 or less, and 1 for ore than 25 albums; ranked lists are given 10 points for 1st place, 8 for 2nd, 6 for 3rd, 5 for top 10, 3 for top 25, 1 for other. That's a bit more generous to unranked lists than my own scheme for my EOY aggregate, and also offers a bit more spread for 1-2-3 albums, but the basic logic is similar.

Some miscellaneous music links:

  • Tom Lane [01-20]: 2026 Rock Hall Nominee Predictions: Something I have no opinion about, not least because I have no idea who's in or out, what the eligibility rules are, and therefore who's missing, even though hall of fames are something that has always fascinated me. My rough impression is that the R&R HOF has always been too lax in its selections, unlike virtually every other HOF. (In jazz, DownBeat's HOF is hopelessly backlogged, and their peculiar Veterans Commitee rules have actually made the missing seem to be more glaring.) Only one on this list I'd be tempted to vote for is B-52s, although Beck had a couple of very good albums, my early dislike of De La Soul may have been misguided, and I wouldn't scoff at Oasis or Luther Vandross (although I wouldn't pick them either). Speaking of B-52s, I wonder whether Pere Ubu is in, and if not why not? [Not: eligible in 2001.] They're linked in my mind because I saw both bands at Max's Kansas City in the late 1970s, back when they both only had singles (and really great ones at that).

  • RiotRiot [01-28]: RIOTRIOT's official 2026 Grammys predictions: I'm not sure I ever took the Grammys seriously, but certainly not after Robert Christgau skewered them in 2001's Forever Old. But this suggests they're not a total wasteland, for someone who knows where to look.

  • Nathan J Robinson [01-20]: Jesse Welles is the antidote to everything that sucks about our time. I was tipped off to the folksinger-songwriter recently, and will review albums in the next Music Week.

Books:

  • Sasha Abramsky: American Carnage: How Trump, Musk, and DOGE Butchered the US Government: "follows eleven federal workers, in eight government agencies, from the time they were told they were fired in the early weeks of Donald Trump's second presidential administration through to the summer of 2025. . . . Their stories, which show a country in a profound moment of crisis and dislocation, are America's stories. What happened to them — the bullying, the intimidation, the deliberate removal of financial stability — also happened to hundreds of thousands of other employees."

  • Sven Beckert: Capitalism: A Global History:

    • Nelson Lichtenstein [12-04]: Sven Beckert's chronicle of capitalism's long rise. Review provides what looks like a good summary of the book, which is huge and sprawling. Most interesting point to me is that he starts early and looks everywhere:

      "There is no French capitalism or American capitalism," writes Beckert, "but only capitalism in France or America." And there is also capitalism in Arabia, India, China, Africa, and even among the Aztecs. In his narrative of merchants and traders in the first half of the second millennium, Beckert puts Europe on the margins, offering instead a rich and, except for specialists, unknown account of how the institutions vital to commerce and markets, including credit, accounting, limited partnerships, insurance, and banking flourished, in Aden, Cambay, Mombasa, Guangzhou, Cairo, and Samarkand. These are all "islands of capital," a recurrent metaphor in Beckert's book. For example, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Aden was host to a dense network of merchants who played a pivotal role in the trade between the Arabian world and India. It was a fortified, cosmopolitan city of Jews, Hindu, Muslims, and even a few Christians.

      Capitalism spread from these "islands of capital," initially through trade but increasingly through war, especially where forced labor proved advantageous for producing fungible goods.

    • Seven Beckert [11-04]: The old order is dead. Do not resuscitate. The "old order" he is referring to is what is commonly alled "the neoliberal order" ("and that held sway until very recently"):

      Capitalism is a series of regime changes. Thinking about what unites them will help us better navigate the current reverberations and think more productively about the future. All these transitions, and perhaps the present one as well, were characterized by the inability of the old regime, in the face of economic crisis and rebellions, to reproduce itself. All featured disorientation, and an elite belief that a few tweaks to the old order would allow it to continue. All confronted a world in which the previous economic regime felt like the natural order of things — slavery in the mid-19th century, laissez faire in the 1920s, Keynesian interventionism in the 1960s and market fundamentalism in the 2000s.

      Not once was the old regime resurrected. Instead, capitalism forged ahead in entirely new directions. We had better accept this about today, as well.

      Unclear what his answer is here, or even whether he has one. He sees critiques of neoliberalism both on the left and on the right. He notes that "China was never beholden to the neoliberal agenda." Also that "the politicization of markets is rapidly making a comeback," for which he offers both Trump and Biden examples.

  • Marc J Dunkelman: Why Nothing Works: Who Killed Progress — and How to Bring It Back:

    • Sean Illing [01-12]: How America made it impossible to build: "A system built to stop government from doing harm stopped it from doing anything." An interview with Dunkelman. I'm someone who's strongly oriented toward building things, so I should be sympathetic to books like this (the more famous one is Abundance), but I often choke when I see actual project proposals (especially things like new sports stadia). One thing I agree with here is "the trust problem is enormous." That's largely because projects are being driven by private greed-or-glory-heads, and depend on public finance from politicians beholden to their sponsors. What we need instead are more projects driven by consumer/user groups, with compensation for anyone adversely affected, and some clear criteria for when the downside exceeds the benefits. If you could do that in a system that most people could trust, ticking off the checkboxes could go much quicker (and if they don't tick off, the reasons will be clear, and not just a game of who bribes whom).

    • Miles Bryan/Astead Herndon [12-28]: Ezra Klein's year of Abundance: We've kicked this around before, so might as well file it here. Klein notes in here that his original title was "Supply-Side Progressivism," which makes more explicit that this is a pitch to business that at best hopes to trickle down some more general value.

  • Eoin Higgins: Owned: How Tech Billionaires on the Right Bought the Loudest Voices on the Left:

    • Ed Meek [08-02]: How to buy left-wing journalists: Review of Owned, where the most prominent journalists mentioned are Matt Taibbi and Glen Greenwald.

      Higgins follows Taibbi's investigation into Hunter Biden's laptop (a favorite target of MAGA supporters). The Biden administration, with Twitter's cooperation, may have suppressed information about wrongdoing in these files, but Taibbi never really found anything substantial. Meanwhile, he was critiqued by the left, relentlessly, for investigating what partisans saw as a trivial distraction. This led to Taibbi's move to Substack, where he has a big following. Higgins points out that Substack was funded by Andreessen (founder of Netscape) as a way to move liberal journalists out of mainstream publications. Along with creating a space for independent voices, Owned posits that the right wing has been very effective at manipulating and creating new media to influence Americans to support Republicans. Substack was part of that divide-and-conquer strategy.

      I read Greenwald's initial 2006 book, How Would a Patriot Act?, but didn't follow up with later books, and haven't tried since he bowed out of The Intercept. I read Taibbi as long as he was in Rolling Stone (but Rolling Stone itself is paywalled these days), then followed him on Twitter. I read most of his books up through 2019's Hate Inc.. He's always had a weakness for both-sidesing (e.g., singling out "9-11 Truthers" as a left-equivalent of the right's paranoid tendencies), but his critical views of the right remained sharp. If he was still freely available, I'd check him out. I don't consider him to be a traitor/enemy, like David Horowitz.

      I hadn't read that point about Substack before, but there is considerable logic to it. Yglesias and Krugman are prime examples, although their former publications are also paywalled these days. I've rarely looked at their Substacks, but so far have managed to see everything I've looked at. The bigger point is that they're trying to price any sort of critical commentary out of the reach of most folks. This follows the same general logic as the move to quell student demonstrations in the 1980s by making college much more expensive: on the one hand, you exclude the riff-raff; on the other, you saddle those who survive the gauntlet with a lifetime of debt, forcing them to keep their nose to the grindstone, which is to say work for the increasingly dominant rich. They probably didn't plan on Google and Facebook sucking up all of the advertising revenue, but that's what's given them the chance to starve out any sort of free press.

    • Will Solomon [2025-01-05]: How tech billionaires bought the loudest voices on the left and right: An early review of Eoin Higgins: Owned.

    • Eoin Higgins [12-27]: Yes, I'm being sued by Matt Taibbi: This is the story that got me looking at Higgins' book, so that's why I'm digging up links from a year ago. I don't see a lot more, at least recent, on his Substack (and sure, he has one) to stick around, but a couple titles are Marjorie Taylor Greene makes her move and Weasel World comes to Minnesota.

  • Gene Ludwig: The Mismeasurement of America: How Outdated Government Statistics Mask the Economic Struggle of Everyday Americans: Former Treasury official under Clinton, a connection that gets him a nice blurb from Hillary here, set up a nonprofit in 2019 "dedicated to improving the economic well-being of low- and middle-income Americans through research and education," starting with his 2020 book, The Vanishing American Dream: A Frank Look at the Economic Realities Facing Middle- and Lower-Income Americans.

    • Jared Bernstein [10-03]: Measuring the Vibecession: "Why top-line federal statistics miss the economic pain average Americans feel." Biden's best economic adviser reviews Ludwig's book, quibbling that the standard measures aren't "mismeasurement" but merely incomplete. For instance, the Consumer Price Index is an average, which masks different impacts among various groups. Unemployment understates underemployment and other precarity.

  • Harriet Malinowitz: Selling Israel: Zionism, Propaganda, and the Uses of Hasbara:

  • Olivia Nuzzi: American Canto: A journalist of some fame and ill repute, wrote a memoir, teasing dirt on an affair with RFK Jr.

    • Scaachi Koul [12-02]: Olivia Nuzzi's book has the audacity to be boring: "Never mind the dogshit writing, the self-mythologizing, the embarrassing metaphors. How can you make this story so incredibly dull?"

      Historians will study how bad this book is. English teachers will hold this book aloft at their students to remind them that literally anyone can write a book: Look at this, it's just not that hard to do. Three hundred pages with no chapter breaks, it swerves back and forth through time, from Nuzzi's interviews with Donald Trump over the years to her combustible relationship with fellow annoying journalist Ryan Lizza to her alleged affair with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as he was running for president himself. Reading it is like spending time with a delusional fortune cookie: platitudes that feel like they were run through a translation service three times.

  • Tim Wu, The Age of Extraction: How Tech Platforms Conquered the Economy and Threaten Our Future Prosperity:

    • Rhoda Feng [12-10]: The internet's tollbooth operators: "Tim Wu's The Age of Extraction chronicles the way Big Tech platforms have turned against their users."

      The process by which companies metastasize from creators into extractors goes something like this: First, they make their platform "essential to transactions"; next, they hobble or buy rivals; then, they clone winners, lock partners in, and finally ratchet up fees for both buyers and sellers. The convenience we prize — our one-click orders, our autoplay queues — becomes, in Wu's mordant phrase, "a long slow bet on laziness": a wager that users will tolerate almost any indignity rather than face the costs of leaving.

      If the platform extraction model has become the dominant template of 21st-century capitalism, Wu emphasizes that it is by no means confined to technology. Since the 2008 financial crisis, investors have begun platformizing entire industries and reorganizing them around centralized ownership and predictable revenue streams.

      He offers examples from health care and housing, showing that this is not just a high-tech issue. But right now, big future bets are being placed on tech monopolists:

      According to a recent report by Public Citizen, Trump's return to power has brought a bonanza for Big Tech. Of the 142 federal investigations and enforcement actions against technology corporations inherited from the previous administration, at least 45 have already been withdrawn or halted. The beneficiaries read like a who's who of Silicon Valley: Meta, Tesla, SpaceX, PayPal, eBay, and a constellation of cryptocurrency and financial technology firms.

      Since the 2024 election cycle began, tech corporations and their executives have spent an estimated $1.2 billion on political influence — $863 million in political spending, $76 million in lobbying, and a further $222 million in payments to Trump's own businesses. The return on investment has been immediate: a sweeping "AI Action Plan" directing the Federal Trade Commission to review and, where possible, rescind consent decrees that "unduly burden AI innovation." Among the cases at risk are investigations into OpenAI and Snap for generative AI harms and antitrust cases against Microsoft.

    • Tim Wu [10-25]: Big Tech's predatory platform model doesn't have to be our future.

A few end-of-year books lists:

  • Connor Echols [12-26]: The 8 best foreign policy books of 2025:

    • Seth Harp: The Fort Bragg Cartel: Drug Trafficking and Murder in the Special Forces
    • Francisco Rodriguez: The Collapse of Venezuela: Scorched Earth Politics and Economic Decline, 2012-2020
    • William D Hartung/Ben Freeman: The Trillion Dollar War Machine: How Runaway Military Spending Drives America into Foreign Wars and Bankrupts Us at Home
    • Emma Ashford: First Among Equals: US Foreign Policy in a Multipolar World
    • Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man/Sarah Leah Whitson: From Apartheid to Democracy: A Blueprint for Peace in Israel-Palestine
    • Kenneth P Vogel: Devils' Advocates: The Hidden Story of Rudy Giuliani, Hunter Biden, and the Washington Insiders on the Payrolls of Corrupt Foreign Interests
    • Charles L Glaser: Retrench, Defend, Compete: Securing America's Future Against a Rising China
    • Hussein Agha/Robert Malley: Tomorrow Is Yesterday: Life, Death, and the Pursuit of Pece in Israel/Palestine

  • Constance Grady [12-16]: The 10 best books of 2025: In addition to The 9 best books of the year so far (from back in July).

Some notable deaths: Mostly from the New York Times listings. Last time I did such a trawl was on November 24, so we'll look that far back (although some names have appeared since):

Tweets: I've usually used this section for highlighting clever responses and/or interesting ideas, but maybe I should just use it to bookmark some of our leading horribles.

  • Molly Jong-Fast [11-29]: Cites quote from OpenAI is a loss-making machine, with estimates that it has no road to profitability by 2030 — and will need a further $207 billion in funding even if it gets there: "All of this falls apart if humans don't adopt the tech. This is why you've seen Meta cram its lame chatbots into WhatsApp and Instagram. This is why Notepad and Paint now have useless Copilot buttons on Windows. This is why Goodle Gemini wants to 'help you' read and reply to your emails."

    Imagine if they just subsidized newspapers and magazines the way they're subsidizing this slop

  • Doug Henwood [01-06]: Recalls a Michael Ledeen quote, from 1992:

    "Every 10 years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business."

  • Tom Carson:

      [01-16]: Minneapolis or no Minneapolis, it's ridiculous and insulting to say MAGA supporters are a bunch of Nazis. A good many of them, perhaps a majority, are innocuous Nazi sympathizers, Nazi enablers, Nazi-neutral in a Too Soon To Tell kinda way, Nazi-curious thanks to The Night Porter or Ilsa, She-Wolf of The SS, or else plain dimwits who used to go into daily comas during history classes back when they still had 'em at good old Lowenbrau High. There, does that clear everything up? We may be angry, but that doesn't give us a license to be unfair.

    • [01-18]: Some of you stunned people have caught on over the years I'm not the world's biggest Trump fan. I know, I know, strange but true. But that's not the most urgent business at hand. The bottom line is that he's gone drooling loco, stone crazy, beyond barking mad, Old Yeller would sue for plagiarism AND libel if they hadn't shot him and Rin Tin Tin's gone MAGA and won't take the case, pretty soon Merriam-Webster will redefine "white as a sheet" as the penultimate step in the Republican Party before canonization. He's beyond Renee Good and Evel Knievel, I stole that from Nietzsche but never trust a Kraut who can't even take charge of his own mustache, let alone Poland, at least Hitler knew how to dress for success. He's beyond delusional and so deep in transactional the last man up his butt will have to bring along a comb to tart up the President's hair. Arse brevis but hair longa as Mussolini only wished with his drying Fred Trumpth I mean dying breath, chump. Siri where's the nearest gas station he's all hung up on learning to fly and you alone can fix it. He's as goofy as the Black Plaque his dentist can't find a final ablution for, probably a Jew ya know, you'd be getting long in the tooth yourself if we hadn't taken care of those with the pliers, Dr. Rosenfeld. He's non compos Mentos (he needs candy), looney as Looney iTunes, more gaga than a gag order shutting Kristi Noem up for Christ's sake, just plain nuts as the 101st Airborne used to say at Bastogne only this time we'll get creamed, no sugar. He's got so many screws loose a whorehouse madam would go bankrupt. And none of the earthworms in baggy boxcar suits and red ties overrunning the WH, the Capitol, and SCOTUS are going to do a blessed thing about it, so you can rest easy in this green land, Mr. President. With love to Allen Ginsberg, your fellow citizen, Tom.

    • [01-22]: The interview I'm hoping to see, and who knows but I may get my wish. Q: "General Spackleheimer, are you concerned about the President's mental state?" SPACKLEHEIMER: "Well, I'm not a psychiatrist, so I don't have any standing to attest to that as a licensed mental-health expert, of course. That said, it's kind of jazzy to remember I DO have standing as a professional soldier who's got so many medals the Army had to tailor a special jacket that currently reaches to my knees, and I'm as tall as Fred Gwynne on stilts. So yeah, he's fucking nuts. I mean loco, [gestures with his former saluting hand], zoom!, you know? I mean, we're so deep in the shithouse all the cows are on strike."

    • [01-25]: I'm a government/Washington D. C. brat and I'd like to think I can recognize what a well-run Federal agency answerable to the public looks like. So if anybody out there thinks ICE agents are a) only hired if they meet rigorous standards qualifying them for law-enforcement and public-safety duties, b) adequately supervised by competent professionals who understand the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, c) adequately overseen by a Congress alert to its responsibilities as the public's watchdog and ready to restrict or deny taxpayer dollars to ICE unless the agency submits to agreed-on guardrails that protect citizens' rights and safety, d) adequately backstopped by a rough popular, legislative and judicial consensus regarding said agency's purpose and necessity, e) adequately restrained by the consequences they'll face if they go rogue, and f) adequately trained in any field other than brutality, street brawling, and terrorizing their fellow Americans with threats of harassment, sanctioned violence, and Mob-style murders of absolutely anyone who gets in their way or just bugs the shit out of them, lemme know.

Original count: 459 links, 31382 words (38692 total)

Current count: 502 links, 34089 words (42119 total)

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Sunday, January 12, 2025

Music Week

January archive (in progress).

Music: Current count 45431 [45382] rated (+49), 14 [9] unrated (+5).

I published a year-ending Music Week on December 31, or at least that's how I timestamped it. My only coincidentally a New Years resolution was to not publish another until the 20th Annual Francis Davis Jazz Critics Poll was published. The task of wrapping it up was potentially endless, and I had to focus to get it done. My initial plan was to aim for Monday, January 5, but I was nowhere near ready. That should have been the first Music Week of 2026, but I had virtually no records to report, and couldn't bother even filing a placeholder. I plugged on, eventually aiming for the week of January 12. I circulated drafts of essays on the website, and eventually caught the attention of ArtsFuse editor William Marx. He figured they were good enough to go, and so around noon today I relented, and he published them. I sent him lots of corrections during the day, and he kept up with them. Finally, I updated the website, removing the block that kept people from seeing the results and ballots. I added a table of contents, which I should be able to just cut-and-paste here:

I had planned on beefing up the articles with extra notes from voters and other readers, and indeed published a few. Even before the weekend, I resolved not to hold the essays back until I was satisfied with the comments. Marx agreed that we could add them after publication, and that's my current plan. Ergo, I added this paragraph:

These articles were initially published on January 12, 2026. They are subject to further revision. In particular, we would like to supplement these essays with additional comments that help explain and elaborate on the poll. We welcome additional comments, which you may submit to 25comments @ hullworks.net.

The email address is a temporary one I can kill off once it's served its purpose. Anything that gets to me will work just as well. I wrote some more about what I'm looking for here.

I also made this point in an email I sent out widely:

I plan on doing some more editing, adding some more interesting points, and correcting whatever I screwed up. In particular, I have more Notes to add, and invite everyone to send in more. There's an email address for that purposes, but any route that reaches me should work.

I hope you will read and enjoy what we've collectively created. I also hope you will write or talk about it in your own media. Let me know if there is anything I can do to help.

Francis always viewed this as a community project and service. In this all I've tried to do is to live up to his example.

I throw these pleas out regularly — I made one on Substack over the weekend, called Editing Help Wanted — and very rarely get anything back. I suppose on some level it helps me just to articulate such needs. If I've learned anything from this poll cycle, it's that time marches on inexorably, regardless of our desires or intentions. And that at some point that becomes very depressing.

Anyhow, while the moment of needing editing help has passed — not that my essays couldn't use more editing, but having been published that's not so much my problem any more.

I'm rushing this out tonight so you can get the notice of the poll while it's news. And also so I don't have to work on this, or any other, post for a week or so. This week is not really going to be mine anyway. A construction crew is showing up tomorrow morning to tear the roof off the sucker, and slap a new one on. It's a big job, not so much because the house is huge as because it was designed to make roofing work as inconvenient as possible: most of the roof is two stories up, but there are smaller bits around the sides and there's something like a skirt between the first and second floors. There's also a carport/patio, which has its own unique obstacles. This could very well take the rest of the week, and I'll still have a railing to put up, and work in the attic to do.

But the roofing job has been hanging over us for several months now, so it will be a huge relief to get it done. As is getting the poll done. Not sure what comes next, but I hope it's more interesting and less wearing than 2025 has been. I should refrain from saying much more about the future. And just feel fortunate to have gotten this far.

Lots of records below. Almost all jazz. First part of the period I tried listening to previously reviewed records, so reviewed next to nothing. Then I switched gears and started picking off records I had missed (and the poll has revealed much more I haven't gotten to yet).

New records reviewed this week:

Sophie Agnel: Learning (2023-24 [2025], Otoroku): French pianist, placed three records in the poll this year, started with a solo album in 2000, come up with another here. An especially striking panorama of sound. B+(***) [bc]

Brigitte Beraha's Lucid Dreamers: Teasing Reflections (2024 [2025], Let Me Out): British jazz singer-songwriter, albums since 2002, third group album, with Alcyona Mick (piano/synth), George Crowley (tenor sax/bass clarinet/electronics), and Tim Giles (drums/electronics). As is often the case with originals, I'm slow on the uptake here, but I am impressed by the jazz feel. B+(***) [sp]

Blue Moods: Force & Grace (2024 [2025], Posi-Tone): Mainstream label house band project, third album, each focuses on a composer, this one on Freddie Hubbard, after the first two addressed Charles Mingus and Duke Pearson. With Diego Rivera (tenor/soprano sax), Art Hirahara or Jon Davis (piano), Boris Kozlov (bass), and Vinnie Sperrazza (drums). B+(**) [sp]

Silvia Bolognesi & Eric Mingus: Is That Jazz? Celebrating Gil Scott-Heron Live (2024 [2025], Fonterossa): Italian bassist, has a fairly wide range of projects since 2005. Music by Brian Jackson and Scott-Heron, with Mingus handling the words, punching hard and adding a few of his own. B+(***) [bc]

Silvia Bolognesi: Jungle Duke (2024 [2025], Caligola): Italian bassist, leads a group where Chicago saxophonist Nick Mazzarella is listed as "featuring" through an Ellington program, mostly early pieces from what's sometimes called the "Bubber Miley era," although "Dreaming Suite" incorporates a couple later works ("Ko-Ko," "Such Sweet Thunder"). B+(**) [sp]

Jakob Bro/Wadada Leo Smith/Marilyn Crispell/Andrew Cyrille: The Montclair Session (2022 [2025], Loveland Music): Danish guitarist, 20+ albums since 2003, including 8 on ECM, has been developing relationships with some top players, including this all-star trio on trumpet, piano, and drums. B+(*) [sp]

Jakob Bro/Wadada Leo Smith/Marcus Gilmore: Murasaki (2025, Loveland Music): Guitar/trumpet/drums trio, takes a while for the trumpet to develop, impressive when it does. B+(**) [bc]

Jakob Bro & Midori Takada: Until I Met You (2024 [2025], Loveland Music): Danish guitarist, playing acoustic, with percussion, piano, and marimba. Takada, from Japan, has been around the world, starting in classical with a solo debut in Berlin, moved on to Africa and Indonesia, with a 1983 album "considered an essential recording of minimalist music in chime with the peak period ambient and fourth world musics explored by Jon Hassell, Don Cherry and Brian Eno." B+(**) [sp]

Jakob Bro Large Ensemble: New Morning (2023 [2025], Loveland Music): Eleven-piece group, up from his Nonet in 2007 (added electric bass and keyboards; Bill McHenry took over tenor sax from George Garzone). B+(*) [sp]

Jakob Bro & Joe Lovano with Larry Grenadier, Thomas Morgan, AC, Jorge Rossy & Joey Baron: Live at the Village Vanguard (2023 [2025], Loveland Music): Bro (guitar) and Lovano (tenor sax) recorded a Paul Motian tribute together in 2021. Lovano had played in Motian's trio, along with guitarist Bill Frisell. The tribute album slotted Bro for Frisell, doubled up on drums, and added two double basses plus one bass guitar (AC, aka Anders Christensen). So this is the same band live, reprising/revising most of their originals, working in a couple more Motian pieces. B+(***) [bc]

John Butcher/Phil Durrant/Mark Wastell: Around the Square, Above the Hill (2024, Confront): British avant-saxophonist, prolific since 1989, here with mandolin/electronics and drums, all three having intersected many times over the years. B+(*) [bc]

Caelan Cardello: Chapter One (2025, Jazz Bird): Pianist, from New Jersey, first album only if you over look Rufus Reid Presents Caelan Cardello, trio plus tenor sax (Chris Lewis) on three tracks. B+(**) [sp]

Dena DeRose: Mellow Tones (2024 [2025], HighNote): Jazz singer, plays piano, debut 1998, cover says "with special guest Ed Neumeister," but the trombonist only plays on the first and last tracks, leaving seven trio tracks with bass (Martin Wind) and drums (Matt Wilson). The trombone is, indeed, a plus, but she's always in command. B+(**) [sp]

Erez Dessel: Pro Fake No Reject (2024 [2025], Corbett vs. Dempsey): Young pianist, first album, solo. B+(*) [bc]

Nick Dunston: Reverse Broadcast (2022 [2025], Carrier): Bassist, has several albums, notable side credits with Mary Halvorson, Tyshawn Sorey, Ches Smith, and Anna Webber. One 40:34 piece, with "processed radios" ahead of bass on his credits list, and cover credits for Wet Ink Ensemble, Katherine Young, Charmaine Lee, Nina Guo, Lester St. Louis,and Weston Olencki. Some interesting moments, but not a concept I enjoy. B [bc]

Nick Dunston: Colla Voce: Praylewd (2025, Out of Your Head): "These long-form electronic pieces, crafted from album samples, serve as a non-linear introduction or follow-up to COLLA VOCE, reflecting cyclical themes of time, life, and death." B [bc]

El Infierno Musical: II (2025, Klanggalerie): Austrian saxophonist Christof Kurzmann is listed as composer here, reprising a group originally assembled for a 2011 tribute to Argentinian poet Alejandra Pizarnik. Only Ken Vandermark remains from the 2011 group, joined by Dave Rempis on sax and flute, so Kurzmann's credit is reduced by computer and vocals. Group is rounded out with two cellists (Katinka Kleijn, Lia Kohl) and drums (Lily Finnegan). The saxes are well behaved, the drums wide-ranging, and the spoken word interesting. B+(**) [bc]

Kurt Elling/Christian Sands: Wildflowers Vol. 3 (2025, Big Shoulders): Jazz singer, since his 1995 Blue Note debut probably the most famous and most widely admired male in the arena, but while recognizing his technical mastery, I've never liked his records (and this is number 20 for me). Not that the distinction matters much, but as he's gotten older (58 now), his voice seems to have deepened and slowed down, which makes him seem less pretentious, but not really better. This is his third short album (5 tracks, 28:03) backed by piano: Christian Sands here, after Sullivan Fortner and Joey Calderazzo. B- [sp]

Extraordinary Popular Delusions: The Last Quintet (2023 [2025], Corbett vs. Dempsey): Late, probably the last record recorded by Chicago saxophonist Mars Williams, struck by cancer and dead within three months. Quintet adds a second saxophonist, Edward Wilkerson Jr., plus Jim Baker (piano), Brian Sandstrom (bass), and Steve Hunt (drums), with everyone supplementing their primary credits, including digeridoo (Wilkerson), toys (Williams), and "miscellaneous paraphernalia" (Hunt). Group name goes back to a 2010 quartet (minus Wilkerson, who may have been added for backup, and may have been the lead early, but Williams certainly got his licks in later). Song titles may have come from Kim Stanley Robinson, but the Mars featured here was in the room. A- [bc]

Fred Hersch/Rondi Charleston: Suspended in Time: A Song Cycle (2025, Resilience Music Alliance): Full cover credit is "Music by Fred Hersch/Lyrics by Rondi Charleston." She sings, he plays piano, backed by string quartet and two bassists. B+(*) [sp]

Art Hirahara: Peace Unknown (2021 [2025], Posi-Tone): Pianist, from San Francisco, based in New York, has 20+ albums since 2000, playing (along with Boris Kozlov on bass and Rudy Royston on drums) on nearly everything his label has released since 2020. Here he lines up their headliners: Diego Rivera (tenor sax), Alex Sipiagin (trumpet), Patrick Cornelius (alto sax), and Michael Dease (trombone), with Markus Howell (alto sax) on two tracks. They can sound like a big band, which isn't necessarily a plus. B+(*) [sp]

Johnny Iguana: At Delmark: Chicago-Style Solo Piano (2025, Delmark): Real name Brian Berkowitz, from Philadelphia, moved to New York, then to Chicago in 1994, where he's mostly played in blues bands, and has a previous album called Chicago Spectacular: A Grand and Upright Celebration of Chicago Blues Piano. Opens flexing his fingers on "Bass Key Boogie," then throws you his first change up: "Heart of Gold." Then come five originals, slipping in "You Never Can Tell" and ending with Jay McShann. B+(**) [sp]

Chris Ingham Quintet: Walter/Donald (2025, Downhome): British pianist-singer, has written many reviews and several books (Billie Holiday, Beatles, Frank Sinara), nothing I can find to suggest he's related to Keith Ingham, has previous project records on Hoagy Carmichael and Dudley Moore. This one reprises 11 Steely Dan songs, and is dubbed "A Becker/Fagen Songbook Volume 1." With Harry Greene (sax/guitar), Paul Higgs (trumpet), bass, and drums. B+(*) [bc]

Italian Surf Academy + Denver Butson: Ennio Morricone Is Dissolving (2024 [2025], 41st Parallel): Italian guitarist Marco Cappelli, from Naples, with Damon Banks (bass) and Dave Miller (drums), fourth album since 2012; Cappelli's various projects include an Acoustic Trio, a Derek Bailey Tribute Band, an Extreme Guitar Project, work with Adam Rudolph and Evan Parker. Butson is a Brooklyn-based poet, who recites the title poem, with the group's music weaving bits of Morricone soundtrack into the guitar jam, in one remarkable 28:54 piece. A- [bc]

Martin Küchen/Mathias Landćus: Müćm (2023 [2024], SFÄR): Swedish duo, saxophone (tenor/sopranino) riffing over beats from analog synths and a drum machine, with various effects, minimal preparation, and no overdubs. (Landćus usually plays piano, but not here.) B+(***) [bc]

Mathias Landćus/Nina de Heney/Kresten Osgood: Dissolving Patterns (2023 [2025], SFÄR): Swedish pianist, 24 albums since 1996, trio with bass and drums. B+(**) [bc]

Hanna Paulsberg Concept & Elin Rosseland: Himmel Over Hav (2023 [2025], Grappa): Norwegian tenor saxophonist, fifth group album since 2012, Rosseland a Norwegian singer who started in the 1980s. B+(*) [bc]

Hery Paz: Fisuras (2024 [2025], Porta-Jazz/Carimbo): Cuban saxophonist, based in New York, several albums since 2004, starts with tenor but credit reads "woodwinds, claves & voice), backed by Joao Carlos Pinto (keyboard/electronics), Demian Cabaud (bass/flute/bombo legüero), and Pedro Melo Alves (percussion), recorded live with Maria Monica ("all live visual sorcery"). Very strong in spots. B+(**) [bc]

Marcelo dos Reis/Flora: Our Time (2025, JACC): Portuguese guitarist, more than a dozen albums since 2012, group name refers to one from 2023, same trio here: Miguel Falcăo (bass) and Luis Filipe Silva (drums). B+(***) [bc]

Juan Romeros Manuella Orkester: Lua Armonia (2025, Supertraditional): Argentinian-Swedish percussionist, better known as Juan Romero, based in Stockholm, 30+ years of side credits, including Fire! Orchestra and Cosmic Ear recently. Group with sax (Julia Strzalek), trumpet (Goran Kajfes), keyboards, bass, and drums, cuts a subtle groove. B+(**) [sp]

Akira Sakata/Giotis Damianidis/Giovanni Di Domenico/Aleksandr Škorić/Paal Nilssen-Love/Petros Damianidis/Tatsuhisa Yamamoto: Hyperentasis: Live in Thessaloniki (2023-25 [2025], Defkaz): Two albums (91:23), the second recorded on the Japanese alto saxophonist's 80th birthday, both with the Damiandis brothers (guitar and bass), piano (Di Domenico), and drums (Škorić on the first, the others on the second). B+(***) [bc]

Boz Scaggs: Detour (2025, Concord): Singer-songwriter, recorded a 1965 album, appeared in Steve Miller Band (1968), went solo in 1969 and gold in 1974 but the hits faded after 1980. Tried a standards album in 2003 (But Beautiful) and has several now — I liked 2015's A Fool to Care. Doesn't seem to have the voice for these songs, but acquits himself fairly well anyway. B+(**) [sp]

Noura Mint Seymali: Yenbett (2025, Glitterbeat): Singer, plays ardine (some kind of harp), from Mauritania, comes from a long line of Moorish griot, of which her step-mother Dimi Mint Abba is extra famous. B+(***) [bc]

Vinnie Sperrazza/Jacob Sacks/Masa Kamaguchi: Play Elmo Hope (2024 [2025], Fresh Sound): Drums, piano, bass, part of a series of nine albums, starting with Play Cy Coleman in 2013, with the trio going back to 2010. B+(**) [sp]

Kandace Springs: Lady in Satin (2025, SRP): I've never liked Billie Holiday's 1958 album, and have no desire to ever hear it again: I hated the string arrangements, and the singer, whose recent Verve recordings were often still remarkable, sounded like death warmed over. But the album does have admirers, so I was tempted to overreact to this project, but some respect is due. Springs isn't Holiday, but is an impressive singer, and Orquestra Clássica de Espinho is fine as such things go. B+(*) [sp]

Ben Stapp: Uzmic Ro'Samg (Live Solo Tuba) (2025, 577): Tuba player, came to my attention with a 2008 trio album, shows up on occasional records (Steve Swell, Joe Morris, William Parker). Solo records are always tough, especially for monophonic horns, which tend to sound naked without the warm harmonics of a bass, and to lag without the prodding of a drummer, and the heavier instruments are especially slow and hard to maneuver. Still, this is intriguing and entertaining, no matter how you tune in or out. Includes some sousaphone, pedals, and effects. B+(**) [dl]

David Virelles: Igbó Alákorin (The Singer's Grove) III [Theatrical Cut] (2025, El Tivoli Productions): Cuban pianist, moved to Canada in 2001, first album there 2007, later on to New York with records on Pi and ECM. First two volumes of this title were combined on a single CD in 2018, an exploration of old Cuban themes and techniques developed with orchestra and vocals. This is more rudimentary, or perhaps primitive, with solo piano and UDO Super 6 synthesizer, some recorded direct to wax cylinders, introducing a playback sound reminiscent of vintage sound recordings. Or maybe some of this really is old ("a series of rare danzones by Antonio Maria Romeu from the 1910s"). There is also a (Director's Cut) version with lots of extra material. B+(***) [bc]

Gabriel Zucker: Confession (2023 [2025], Boomslang): Pianist, composer, based in New York, has two previous albums on ESP-Disk, also credited with synths, electronics, and voice here. Group includes guitar-bass-drums plus string quartet, but there are also a dozen more guest spots, and I doubt that accounts for all of the voices. He has a remarkable c.v., including his Rhodes scholarship and work "on homeless services and healthcare access at the Department of Veterans Affairs." I've seen him described as a "maximalist," which runs counter to my own instincts, perhaps why I shrugged off his 2018 album with the conclusion, "dramatic, I guess." First play of this didn't fare any better, but second play revealed a profusion of details each interesting alone. As for the whole, it's way over my head. B+(**) [cd]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

3 Concerts Per A A.T.: In Der Kestner Gesellschaft Hannover (1998 [2025], Corbett vs. Dempsey): A collection from a concert series dedicated to Catalan painter Antonio Tŕpies, organized by Günter Christmann, whose trio fills the center section, following pieces by Yoshukazu Iwamoto, Evan Parker, and Fred Van hove, and followed by other pieces to Udo Grim, Trevor Wishart, and Pi-Hsien Chen. B+(*) [bc]

Rashied Ali Quintet Featuring Frank Lowe: Sidewalks in Motion (2001 [2025], Survival): Drummer (1933-2009), originally Robert Patterson, most famous for playing on John Coltrane's most avant-garde works (1965-67), played with Lowe (tenor sax) on a notable 1973 duo, Discogs lists 9 Quintet albums 1967-2007 but only regular is Joris Teepe (bass, after 2000). Also here: Jumaane Smith (trumpet), and Andrew Bemke (piano). B+(***) [sp]

Derek Bailey/John Stevens: The Duke of Wellington (1989 [2025], Confront): Guitar (1930-2005) and drums (1940-94) duo, both important in the British avant-garde (Stevens was a founder of Spontaneous Music Ensemble). Like much of Bailey's work, this can be difficult. But I am quite taken with the drums. B+(*) [bc]

Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers: Strasbourg 82 (1982 [2025], Gearbox): Legendary drummer, took over the Jazz Messengers from Horace Silver in 1956, and through 1965 developed a reputation for introducing brilliant new talent. After that the rosters are less notable, at least until the 1977-82, when Bobby Watson, Wynton Marsalis, Branford Marsalis, Donald Harrison, and Terence Blanchard passed through. This particular date with Blanchard (trumpet), Harrison (alto sax), Billy Pierce (tenor sax), Johnny O'Neal (piano), and Charles Fambrough (bass) reminds you what hard bop sounded like in the early 1960s. B+(***) [sp]

The Bottle Tapes (1996-2005 [2025], Corbett vs. Dempsey, 6CD): Chicago had a storied avant-jazz scene back in the 1960s, when AACM was founded, but got a second jolt in the 1990s when Ken Vandermark moved in from Boston and started organizing his groups, many drawing on top European free jazz players. From 1996 he and John Corbett organized weekly sets at the Empty Bottle, where a steady stream of Europeans could gig with locals, while being treated like jazz royalty. This collects 41 tracks from their tapes, including a couple pieces that run quite long — Peter Brötzmann for 41:16; Alexander Schlippenbach with Evan Parker, Paul Lytton, and Conrad Bauer for 55:01 — some short, most in the 10-23 minute range. Solo pieces include pianists Misha Mengelberg and Irčne Schweizer, clarinetists François Houle and André Jaume, and drummer Milford Graves. Remarkable stuff, especially the hard-hitting saxes. There must be tons more where this came from. A- [dl]

Kenny Burrell With Art Blakey: On View at the Five Spot Café: The Complete Masters (1959 [2025], Blue Note): Guitarist, started recording in 1956, many albums up to 2016, live album originally appeared in 1960 with five tracks, with piano (Bobby Timmons or Roland Hanna), bass (Ben Tucker), drums (Blakey), and some fine tenor sax (Tina Brooks), which later reissues have diluted (7 tracks here, out of 14). B+(**) [sp]

Jacques Coursil: Black Suite (1969 [2025], BYG): French trumpet player (1938-2020), parents from Martinique, had a very interesting life, where he entered traveled around Maruitania and Senegal from 1958 (befriending Leopold Senghor), moved back to Paris, then to New York in 1965 (where he played with Sun Ra, Sunny Murray, and Frank Wright). Back in Paris he recorded this haunting suite with Arthur Jones (alto sax), Anthony Braxton (contrabass clarinet), Burton Greene (piano), Bob Guérin (bass), and Claude Delcloo (drums). He dropped out of music, taught for 30 years, then picked it up again. B+(***) [sp]

Miles Davis: The Musings of Miles (1955 [2025], Craft): Quartet with Red Garland (piano), Oscar Pettiford (bass), and Philly Joe Jones (drums), his first 12-inch LP (6 songs, 35:46) after several 10-inch albums. Somehow escaped my attention, unless it got swept up in the many compilations of his Prestige sessions. Two originals, three standards, "A Night in Tunisia." Nothing really stands out, other than hints of potential. [PS: I do have the 8-CD Chronicle: The Complete Prestige Recordings, long ago deemed a B+. That box includes the 4 much better LPs this group plus John Coltrane recorded in 1956 to work off their contract and move on to Columbia.] B+(**) [sp]

Yusef Lateef: Golden Flower: Live in Sweden (1967-72 [2025], Elemental Music): Tenor saxophonist (1920-2013), was named Bill Evans before he converted to Islam and changed his name, around 1950. First records in 1957, became increasingly interested in African and Oriental music, playing a lot of flute, including many exotic variants. Two sets, the first with Lars Sjösten (piano), Palle Danielsson (bass), and Albert "Tootie" Heath (drums); the second with Kenny Barron (piano), Bob Cunningham (bass), and Heath again. I love the high-powered sax romps. Flute not so much. B+(***) [sp]

Spiritual Jazz 18: Behind the Iron Curtain: Esoteric, Modal, and Progressive Jazz From Central and Eastern Europe (1962-1988) (1962-88 [2025], Jazzman): Well into an anthology series that started in 2008, with Spiritual Jazz: Esoteric, Modal and Deep Jazz From the Underground 1968-77, which collected 12 tracks from artists only a few I had barely heard of (Lloyd Miller, Mor Thiam, Salah Ragab, Ronnie Boykins). I expected this bunch to be even more obscure, but Krzysztof Komeda, Tomasz Stanko, Zbigniew Namyslowski, Ernst-Ludwig Petrovsky, and ringer Bernt Rosengren are pretty major figures. I've never quite understood what "spiritual jazz" means, other than "sounds like Coltrane," which is a pretty surefire prescription. B+(***) [sp]

Old music:

Jacques Coursil Unit: Way Ahead (1969, BYG): Recorded a month after Black Suite, minus Anthony Braxton, so a quartet with alto sax (Arthur Jones), bass (Bob Guérin), and drums (Claude Delcloo). Some fine trumpet. B+(**) [yt]

Italian Surf Academy: Barbarella Reloaded (2017, Mode Avant): Italian guitarist Marco Cappelli's avant surf rock fusion group, second album, inspired by the movie or possibly the comic book, with JD Foster on toy keyboards, Luca Lo Bianco on bass guitar, and Francesco Cusa on drums. [No recording date on this album, but probably recorded earlier.] B+(*) [sp]

Italian Surf Academy: Fake Worlds (2016 [2022], 41st Parallel): Guitarist Marco Cappelli's avant-surf-fusion trio, with Damon Banks (bass) and Dave Miller (drums), described as later than Barbarella Reloaded although the latter wasn't released until after this was recorded. Front cover bills this with three categories: Spaghetti Western, Tex Mex, Exotica (with the doc connecting Ennio Morricone to Martin Denny). B+(**) [sp]

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

  • Eddie Allen's Push: Rhythm People (Origin) [01-16]
  • Michael Dease With the MSU Jazz Trombones: Spartan Strong (Origin) [01-16]
  • Gil Livni: All In (OA2) [01-16]
  • Kate Olsen: So It Goes (OA2) [01-16]
  • Paul Ricci: The Path (Origin) [01-16]
  • Mattias Svensson: Embrace (Origin) [01-16]

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Wednesday, December 31, 2025

Music Week

December archive (closed).

Music: Current count 45382 [45342] rated (+40), 9 [3] unrated (+6).

This was originally published as a placeholder. It has since been updated with all records up through December 31.

I'm holding out for the last day of 2025 to wrap up my December archive. Even that won't give me a full week after last week's delayed-until-Thursday Music Week. But while most months transition on the last Monday, I've long liked to give December a tidy calendar completion. My only worry this time is that I won't find time tomorrow to do what I couldn't possible do today. Still, let's save the date.

The main reason I wanted to post this early is to give you an update on the 20th Annual Francis Davis Jazz Critics Poll. I wound up counting 167 ballots. This is net down 10 from 2024. The actual number of 2024 voters who didn't vote in 2025 was minus 30, but we picked up 12 new voters, and 8 previous voters who had missed 2024. My impression is that the drop was mostly attributable to too many people having too much crap going on in their lives. Every year I vow to work harder and smarter to get more votes out. In some ways I thought I did this year, but the numbers didn't add up.

Still, we got good results, from a terrific group of critics, who've once again been a pleasure to work with. We've voted for 569 new jazz albums and 206 rara avis — a good third of those are albums I hadn't heard. (I've been frantically trying to catch up since I started getting ballots back, but steadily losing ground. I have them marked somewhere, but not easy to count. I can confirm that that among 2025 releases, so far I've heard 1351 albums (of which 838 are jazz, somewhat loosely defined.) My own Best Jazz Albums of 2025 list has grown to 89 ranked A-list (new, +6 late-2024 adds; the old music section is up to 28 + 2). The album counts are probably a bit more than my usual year, yet I've never felt further behind. Still, I would be much further behind without the poll.

The next step for me is to prepare the essays to accompany the poll results when Arts Fuse publishes them in a few days. (I'm aiming for Jan. 5, which is scary soon, but also promises the end of one difficult period, and the start of a hopefully better one.) The big difference this year is that Francis Davis is no longer with us. I have no illusions of being able to fill his shoes. And I'm notoriously bad at pressure deadlines, so I've come up with a scheme to finesse the essays: I'm going to write the frameworks, which will explain what the poll does and what each table is, and then hang some comments on the end. I've asked for help especially with the comments. I've gotten some, and will hustle up some more. And in a pinch, I figure I have quite a bit of old writing I can recycle. So instead of losing myself in deep thought about the structure of an essay, I can just slap on some scattered notes.

At least that's the theory. To make it work, I need to solicit comments, and that's the purpose of this partial Music Week. I've written this pitch several times already, so I'm just going to pick one draft up and edit it a bit:

I'm asking anyhow who cares to to send me little paragraph-sized bits of writing that I can mix into my framework. If it works out, we'll have more viewpoints, and more insights, than I could ever muster on my own. (If it doesn't, we'll just have shorter essays, and you can figure out the data yourself.) The problem, beyond the usual one of getting anyone to do anything except for cash, is that we have very little time, and most of you won't be able to see the poll data, let alone the essay outlines, until after my deadlines. But it shouldn't be hard to guess what I'm looking for:

  1. Five essays correspond to our five categories (New, Old, Vocal, Latin, Debut), which is to say albums, and maybe artists or labels. I could use one small blurb on each of the probable winners (and you can probably guess who they are) and a few on other albums that have been unjustly ignored (and again, your guess is probably a good one).

  2. The "In Memoriam" essay will mostly be a list of people who died in 2025, with basic one-line identifiers. If you want to say a bit more about someone in particular, this is your chance. [A very quickly selected list is here; for a much more substantial list, see Jazz Passings.]

  3. Our founder and namesake, Francis Davis, died in April. I want to have a piece on "Francis Davis & His Poll," so I would welcome comments, stories, even complaints there.

  4. We do a list of critics who voted, so that will be in its own piece this time. The list for this one is on the website. I don't expect many comments to this, but if you have one, we have a place for it.

  5. I'm not looking for comments on the state of the world, business, the arts, etc., but you're welcome to try. (We don't have an article planned to hang such things on, but it wouldn't be hard to set me off. I left it out because I figured we could get away without one, and I wasn't sure Arts Fuse would even want one. On the other hand, I'll have plenty to say about such things later on.)

These comments will be integrated into the articles, in a final section, where each one will be introduced by the author name (in bold). It will look rather like a panel discussion transcript. The comments will be edited, and you will get a chance to see and revise the edits. We'll decide what to publish, and not. We're looking for comments that add insight to the articles. We're not looking for flattery, or controversy. Be critical if you have a point, but if you want to trash someone, find your own forum for that.

You don't have to have voted to submit comments. You may submit something from previously published work. We're assuming that anything submitted is clear for our use. It is possible that we will add late comments in a revised edition of the essays, but deadline for publication is Jan. 4, and earlier is better.

If your comment is dependent on some data, please ask. One such example is data analysis. For instance, if you wanted to calculate "centrism" for a critics comment, you will need data, and we'll consider providing it. We may solicit some comments. We may write out own to try to fill what we perceive as gaps. We may scrounge around looking for suitable material. If you wish to join us in this project, just let me know. I run an email list called jpadmin, and its members get more access (as well as more whiny email from me).

The best way to send comments in email addressed to 25comments AT hullworks.net.

I also want to encourage people to write about the poll on their own media. Let me know if I can help facilitate that.

One thing I've had no time to do during poll time has been to write anything for my Notes on Everyday Life newsletter. I got up Christmas morning, and wrote a fairly long entry into my online notebook, reminiscing about Christmases from my childhood up to the present day. About midway through it occurred to me that I had something that might be worth publishing, so I started tuning it up a bit. A couple days later, I posted it as Christmas 1950-2025 (archived copy here). I had last week's dinner pic, but I couldn't find anything from back in the day, so I appealed to my brother's family — they had taken most of the old family photos when they moved to Washington. My nephew found an old slide of me in front of an unlit Christmas tree, next to the parachute drop, which was the ultimate project from the Erector Set, one of my best remembered Christmas presents. No date given, but I was probably 9 at the time (1959), plus or minus a year but probably not two. The metal box it came in is to the lower left, and our b&w tv is in the corner. I think that was our second tv, probably bought around 1957, to be replaced with a color model around 1962-63 (in a wider, dark brown cabinet). The windows faced west, to the front of the house, so blinds and curtains were necessary to block out the afternoon sun. The room had two easy chairs for my parents, facing the tv, and a couch along the north wall. When we ate dinner, I sat in the one spot in the dining room that offered a clear view of the tv, which would be tuned into Huntley-Brinkley at our 5:30 dinner time.

I tried to wrap this up after midnight, but couldn't cope, and left it for morning. Dec. 31 brought an expansion of this week's A-list from the three NoBusiness albums to seven widely varied but still all jazz records. One thing to ponder at this point is that only one of the seven received any poll votes (Joe Alterman, one vote by Sanford Josephson). The NoBusiness package and the Rick Roe were late arrivals. (The other two NoBusiness releases, Oliver Lake and Bobby Naughton, did receive Rara Avis votes. Arkady Gotesman would have made my ballot had I heard it in time.)

While I got very little essay writing done yesterday, I did finally manage to start reading past Francis Davis essays (as well as a couple of min), which is giving me a lot to think about. I noticed, for instance, that Davis rarely flinched from political issues, even in years when their impact was much less overwhelming than at present. Also that many of his pieces were pretty short (whereas some of mine were extravagantly long). I've gotten very little back on the comment front, which will probably turn out to be a bust (but is still an interesting concept).

I expect to do better today, and better still tomorrow. At some point the dam will burst, and I'll have more words than I know what to do with. For instance, I should be able to do something with this letter I found (from 2022, by Francis, in response to a proposal to move the poll, from a voter who has since parted ways):

Voters and readers alike look at the results and I think assume the poll conducts itself. It doesn't. Having now conducted 16 of them, I can say it's hard work (even now with Tom shouldering most of the load). The work typically begins with finding a host publication . . . and still another is having to browbeat so many critics into voting. . . .

I like to think that if I do drop out, Tom or someone else will take over, though I'm just vain enough to worry it won't be the same thing without me. (For one thing, it might skew too much to one school of jazz, to the exclusion of the consensus I've striven for each go-round.) But whoever wants to continue the poll, assuming I decide not to, has my blessing.

One question this raises in my mind is: is there any consensus any more? is consensus even possible? and even if it is, would that be a good thing? Of course, I'm not going to try to answer those questions. Just to raise them may be all we can do.

Needless to say, I'm way behind on my indexing. I used to laugh it off when people would comment about all my "hard work," but this is the year when it's finally gotten hard. I'm looking forward to working on something else. Or just cleaning up the residual mess, which is substantial.

New records reviewed this week:

Marshall Allen: The Omniverse Oriki (2023 [2025], High Two): Alto saxophonist, turned 100 last year, around the time that New Dawn was being touted as his "debut" album: a lie, or at least a ridiculous rationalization that proved so attractive that I wound up rejecting a dozen poll votes for him in the Debut category. The idea that one can always start afresh is as seductive as ever, but to promote it you have to overlook 70+ years of real, substantial accomplishment. True he spent most of his career just playing in Sun Ra's Arkestra, but after its namesake passed in 1993, Allen not only took over but put his name on the revitalized ghost band (at least 6 albums since 1999). Moreover, he's increasingly played with other ad hoc groups: Discogs has him on the slugline of 28 more albums, and has him playing on 400. Allen also got votes (including one Debut) for his Ghost Horizons album, but this one, where Allen's trio meets up with Kevin Diehl's bata drums and a Lucumi chorus led by Joseph Toledo escaped attention. It is a little darker and drabber than their early work as Sonic Liberation Front, but we're all getting older (even Allen), and the expanding universe is still getting emptier. A- [bc]

Joe Alterman Feat. Houston Person: Brisket for Breakfast (2023 [2025], self-released): Pianist, from Atlanta, blurb cites praise from Ahmad Jamal, Les McCann,and Ramsey Lewis, and he has a McCann tribute among his nine albums since 2009. He seems to be a fine mainstream pianist, with a bass/drums trio playing standards, but my interest is the saxophonist, approaching 90 when this was cut. It's a delight, not least when the pianist breaks loose. A- [sp]

Ashé Mystics: Fizzy Bubble Hummm (2025, High Two): Another new Kevin Diehl group, "Ashé" a Yoruba word previously used in a Sonic Liberation Front title (Ashé a Go-Go, from 2005). Trio with Joshua Marquez and Julius Masri, both described as "multi-instrumentalist," the former more focused on guitar the latter drums. B+(***) [bc]

Olie Brice: All It Was (2024 [2025], West Hill): British bassist, based in London, has led a bunch of album since 2015, with many more side credits. Quartet with Rachel Musson (tenor sax), Alexander Hawkins (piano), and Will Glaser (drums). B+(***) [bc]

Cortex & Hedvig Mollestad: Did We Really? (2025, Sauajazz): Norwegian group led by Thomas Johansson (trumpet) — with sax, bass, and drums — "(17)" at Discogs, which credits then with 9 albums since 2011, including this one with the guitarist. B+(**) [bc]

Lao Dan/Vasco Trilla: New Species (2024 [2025], NoBusiness): Chinese musician, trained in traditional flutes, regarded as a master with a number of albums since 2018, picked up tenor sax and branched into free jazz, although credits line here includes "diy flute, dizi (Chinese flute). Duo with Spanish drummer recorded in Shenzhen, bridges their worlds effectively. A- [cd]

Lao Dan: To Hit a Pressure Point (2024 [2025], Relative Pitch): Solo tenor saxophone on 7 (of 9) tracks, with suona ("a loud, high-pitched Chinese double-reed woodwind") on one, and "effects" on the other — the last track, which finally achieves a level of intensity unexpected in solo work. B+(**) [sp]

Dieuf-Dieul De Thičs: Dieuf-Dieul De Thičs (2024, Buda Musique): Mbalax group from Senegal, two albums of their early work from 1981 were compiled by Teranga Beat and released 2013-15. The group split up in 1983, but regrouped in 2015, touring Europe in 2017. This is billed as their first studio album, but unclear when it was recorded. (One credit is that it was recorded by Christian Hierro, whose technical credits only go back to 2004.) B+(***) [sp]

Editrix: The Big E (2024 [2025], Joyful Noise): Fringe jazz guitarist Wendy Eisenberg (guitar), sings in this post-punk trio with bass (Steve Cameron) and drums (Josh Daniel), third album since 2021. B+(*) [bc]

Effie: Pullup to Busan 4 More Hyper Summer It's Gonna Be a Fuckin Movie (2025, Sound Republica, EP): Korea rapper, 2nd EP, 6 songs, 13:23, topped a New York Times EOY list, call it "hyperpop" if you like, all glitchy and senseless. B [sp]

Peter Evans, Mike Pride: A Window, Basically (2022-25 [2025], Relative Pitch): Avant trumpet and drums duo. This is often terrific. B+(***) [bc]

Feeo: Goodness (2025, AD 93): British electronic composer Theodora Laird, first album after some singles, sings, which provides most of the focus here, posing as secular gospel, ethereal and insubstantial. B [sp]

Frode Gjerstad/Alexander von Schlippenbach/Dag Magnus Narvesen: Seven Tracks (2024 [2025], Relative Pitch): Norwegian alto sax/clarinet player, Discogs lists 174 performance credits since 1983, notably his groups Detail and Circulasione Totale Orchestra, plus many collaborations ranging from Han Bennink to Ken Vandermark. Trio with the legendary pianist and a drummer who has previous duo albums with each. B+(***) [bc]

ICP Orchestra: Happy Birthday → Naar Zee Z.O.Z. (2025, ICP): The gang's all here, on the occasion of what would have been founder-pianist Misha Mengelberg's 90th birthday, with Guus Janssen filling at the piano, and possibly only drummer Han Bennink still here from the Instant Composer Pool's 1967 Tentet debut.. B+(**) [bc]

Instant Arts Quartet: Lingua Franca (2023 [2025], High Two): Philadelphia-based percussionist Kevin Diehl, best known for leading Sonic Liberation Front, with bass (Pete Dennis) and two horns: Terry Lawson (tenor sax) and Matt Lavelle (trumpet, alto/bass clarinet), with some switches to bamboo flute, gong, and bells. The horns spin freely, relentless conflict and communication, as no one's writing harmony lines here. A- [bc]

Fabia Mantwill Orchestra: In.Sight (2025, GroupUP Music): German saxophonist, sings some, second album, orchestra is loaded with strings, has half a big band's load of horns, adds harp and mallets, uses guitar but no piano, has guest spots for kora, accordion, and lap steel. B+(**) [bc]

Dave McMurray: I Love Life Even When I'm Hurting (2025, Blue Note): Saxophonist from Detroit, discography starts around 1980 with Griot Galaxy and Was (Not Was), has involved a lot of prominent studio work (B.B. King, Bob Dylan, Gladys Knight, Rolling Stones, B-52s, Iggy Pop, Bootsy Collins, John Sinclair, Mitch Ryder, Brian Wilson, Nancy Wilson, Geri Allen, Kid Rock), with occasional records as a leader (3 1999-2003 albums on Hip Bop, Blue Note since 2018). I like the grit in his saxophone here. I'm less impressed with his vocalists (Herschel Boone, Kem). B+(*) [sp]

Otherworld Ensemble: Soul Bird (2025, Edgetone): Septet, principally Heikki Koskinen (e-trumpet, piano, tenor recorder, ocarina, birch bark horn, bird calls) and Rent Romus (alto & soprano saxes c-flute, bird calls), with all but Vinny Golia adding to the bird calls chorus. B+(**) [cd]

Zeena Parkins: Lament for the Maker (2024 [2025], Relative Pitch): Harpist, from Detroit, straddles avant-classical and avant-jazz, several dozen albums since 1987, also electronics here, performing four pieces (12:43 to 17:18), one she composed, others by Laetitia Sonami, John Bischoff, and James Fei. B+(*) [sp]

Anaďs Reno: Lady of the Lavender Mist (2025, Club44): Standards singer, born in Switzerland, moved to New York when she was 2, second studio album after a fine set of Ellington & Strayhorn songs in 2021. She wrote a lyric here, again for an Ellington tune. Featuring Peter Bernstein (guitar), with bass (David Wong) and drums (Joe Farnsworth). B+(**) [sp]

Crystabel Efemena Riley: Live at Ormside (2025, Infant Tree): British drummer, noticed her in the duo @xcrswx (with Seymour Wright) and the group X-Ray Hex-Tet, first name credit is this 17:52 drum solo. B+(*) [bc]

Diego Rivera: West Circle (2023 [2025], Posi-Tone): Mainstream tenor saxophonist, born in Ann Arbor, long taught in East Lansing, has close to a dozen albums since 2013, also plays soprano on two tracks here. Wrote 7 (of 10) songs, with one by his pianist (Art Hirahara), two covers one from Herbie Hancock. With label regulars Boris Kozlov (bass) and Rudy Royston (drums). Strong form, as usual. B+(**) [sp]

Herb Robertson/Christopher Dell/Christian Ramond/Klaus Kugel: Blue Transient (2024 [2025], Nemu, 2CD): Trumpet, vibes, bass, and drums. Trumpet player got his start with Tim Berne in 1983, also played a lot with Mark Helias and Gerry Hemingway, died in December 2024, so not much after this. The others are German, 8-14 years younger, but they've made the rounds, with Dell having the highest profile. B+(***) [cd]

Rick Roe: Wake Up Call: The Music of Gregg Hill (2025, Cold Plunge): Tenth album I've heard since 2017 of Hill's compositions, all by Hill's former Michigan State students (Roe, Michael Dease, Randy Napoleon, Rodney Whitaker, and the younger, lesser-known Techno Cats). I always figured these were vanity projects, notable mostly because no other composer with no real performance credits has done so much promotion. But this postbop with an extra shot of swing is a consistent delight, especially the tenor sax of Marcus Elliot, but also some slick piano, with Robert Hurst on bass and Nate Winn on drums. A- [cd]

Joris Roelofs/Guus Janssen/Han Bennink: Rite of Spring (2025, ICP): French-born, Amsterdam-based saxophonist, plays bass clarinet here, has played with Vienna Art Orchestra and ICP Septet, joins the latter's pianist and drummer for a delightful set of standards (mostly Monk), with one original, two from Janssen, and one from ICP founder Misha Mengelberg. B+(***) [bc]

Sophie Tassignon: A Slender Thread (2025, Nemu): Belgian singer-songwriter, sometimes writes lyrics to others' music, sometimes writes music to other lyrics, sometimes just arranges, sings, dubs in electronics. Interesting, but leans too classical for my ears, and not just because the lead composer is someone named Bach. B+(*) [cd]

Ziv Taubenfeld/Helena Espvall/Joăo Sousa: You, Full of Sources and Night (2024 [2025], NoBusiness): Bass clarinet, cello, drums trio, the former an Israeli based in Lisbon with a half dozen albums since 2016. The combination works especially well. A- [cd]

Thalin, Cravinos, VCR Slim, Pirlo & Iloveyouangelo: Maria Esmeralda (2024, Sujoground): Brazilian rappers, at least the first three, as individual piece credits tend to follow the headline order. There is a whole scene here I'm basically clueless to. I can't follow, and had to turn this up to get any clarity, but sonically someone suggested DJ Shadow, and this feels like it may be even heavier. B+(***) [sp]

Luís Vicente: Live in Coimbra (2020 [2025], Combustăo Lenta): Portuguese trumpet player, has a lot of work since 2012, solo here, which is always a sketchy proposition. B+(*) [bc]

Luis Vicente/John Dikeman/William Parker/Hamid Drake: No Kings! (2022 [2025], JACC): Trumpet, tenor sax, bass, and drums, one 68:02 live improv from Bimhuis, the title (I suspect) slapped on post facto. B+(***) [bc]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

Han Bennink & Misha Mengelberg: ICP010 (1971 [2025], ICP): Dutch avant-garde drummer and pianist, played together as early as 1961, sharing a credit on Eric Dolphy's Last Date (1964), co-founders (with Willem Breuker) of Instant Composers Pool in 1967, this the label's 10th release (1972), titled Instant Composers Pool at the time. B+(*) [bc]

Michel Doneda & Frederic Blondy: Points of Convergence (2014 [2025], Relative Pitch): French soprano saxophonist, also plays sopranino here, many albums start in 1985, this a duo with piano. Long album (8 tracks, 106:28), takes a while to kick in — 6th track, when the piano starts punching hard. B+(**) [bc]

Bill Evans: Haunted Heart: The Legendary Riverside Studio Recordings (1959-61 [2025], Craft): The pianist's 1956-63 The Complete Riverside Recordings ran 12-CD, but this narrowly focuses on the two studio albums he made with his most famous trio, with Paul Motian (drums) and Scott LaFaro (bass), which came to an abrupt end when LaFaro was killed in a car crash, just a month after the live sets they are most famous for (Sunday at the Village Vanguard and Waltz for Debby, which eventually grew into their own 3-CD box). CD reissues of the two albums added extra takes, and this adds still more, reaching 43 tracks, running 212 minutes. That's a lot more than seems necessary. B+(***) [sp]

Arkady Gotesman: Music for an Imaginary Ballet (2000-25 [2025], NoBusiness): Lithuanian drummer, b. 1959, credits since 1990, some as Arkadijus Gotesmanas, including early work with Vyacheslav Ganelin and Charles Gayle. This "summation of a thirty-year journey" impressed first with its earliest recording, a duo with saxophonist Liudas Mockunas, then skips around, including 2025 live sets with Jan Makismovic's trio and a duo with Martin Küchen, bits with Ganelin and Gayle, Ned Rothenberg and Nate Wooley, a drums duo with Mark Sanders, and more, held together by his own relentlessly creative percussion. A- [cd]

Oliver Lake: Live From Studio Rivbea 1975 & 1976 [Rivbea Live! Series, Volume 4] (1975-76 [2025], NoBusiness): Alto saxophonist, from St. Louis, early in a long and distinguished career, two sets (17:06 and 55:52) with Michael Gregory Jackson (guitar) and Fred Hopkins (bass), different drummers (Phillip Wilson and Jerome Cooper), plus trumpet (Baikida Carroll) on one long second set cut. B+(***) [cd]

Bobby Naughton Trio: Housatonic Rumble: Live at Charlie's Tap (1985 [2025], NoBusiness): Vibraphonist (1944-2022), from Boston, several obscure albums, side-credits with Leo Smith and Roscoe Mitchell. Engaging trio with Joe Fonda (bass) and Randy Kaye (drums). [cd]

Archie Shepp and the Full Moon Ensemble: Live in Antibes (1970 [2025], BYG): Tenor saxophonist, a major avant-garde figure starting out from 1963 (New York Contemporary Five), mostly on Impulse, but had several albums released in the French Actuell series 1969-70, with this live set originally appearing in two volumes. With Clifford Thornton (trumpet/piano), Allen Shorter (flugelhorn), Joseph Déjean (gitar), and Claude Delcloo (drums). Quite a bit of piano here, by Shepp as well as Thornton. B+(**) [yt]

Alan Silva and His Celestrial Communication Orchestra: Luna Surface (1969 [2025], BYG): Best known as a bassist, born in Bermuda, grew up in New York, played with Sun Ra in 1964, also Cecil Taylor, Sunny Murray, and Albert Ayler before this (first or second album), plays violin here, as does Leroy Jenkins. Large group, from a session which produced a bunch of albums under various leaders. Notable here that there were two bassists, Beb Guérin and Malachi Favors, and that the sax section included Anthony Braxton and Archie Shepp. Intense, tough going, but short (28:20). B+(**) [sp]

Old music:

Chuck Redd: All This and Heaven Too (2002, Arbors): Vibraphonist, also known as a drummer, has several albums and more credits since 1996, mostly on or adjacent to this retro-swing label, often working with Charlie Byrd and Ken Peplowski. A name I barely recognized when he made news recently for canceling a "Trump-Kennedy Center" Christmas Eve performance, so I thought a refresher would be in order. (I also see that the Cookers canceled their New Years Eve gig at TKC.) Mostly trio here with Gene Bertoncini (guitar) and George Mraz (bass), playing old standards and early bebop (Charlie Parker, Thad Jones). Rather sedate, although it picks up a bit when Peplowski (tenor sax/clarinet) guests. B+(*) [sp]

Joris Roelofs/Han Bennink: Icarus (2018 [2023], ICP): Duo, the former playing bass and Bb clarinet, the latter mostly drums, but also credited with "balk, C clarinet, piano." B+(**) [bc]

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

  • Naseem Alatrash: Bright Colors on a Dark Canvas (Levantine Music) [02-27]
  • Lao Dan/Vasco Trilla: New Species (NoBusiness) [11-08]
  • Kris Davis and the Lutoslawski Quartet: The Solastalgia Suite (Pyroclastic) [01-09]
  • Maja Jaku: Blessed & Bewitched (Origin) [10-17]
  • Oliver Lake: Live From Studio Rivbea 1975 & 1976 [Rivbea Live! Series, Volume 4] (NoBusiness) [11-08]
  • Luke Marantz/Simon Jermyn: Echoes (Chill Tone) [01-09]
  • Bobby Naughton Trio: Housatonic Rumble: Live at Charlie's Tap (1985, NoBusiness) [11-08]
  • Otherworld Ensemble: Soul Bird (Edgetone) [09-30]
  • Rick Roe: Wake Up Call: The Music of Gregg Hill (Cold Plunge) [12-19]
  • Brad Schrader: Late Nights With Brad Schrader (self-released) [11-20]
  • Dave Stryker: Blue Fire: The Van Gelder Session (Strikezone) [01-09]
  • Ziv Taubenfeld/Helena Espvall/Joăo Sousa: You, Full of Sources and Night (NoBusiness) [11-08]
  • Vance Thompson: Lost and Found (Moondo) [01-16]
  • John Vanore & Abstract Truth: Easter Island Suite (Acoustical Concepts) [02-06]
  • Gabriel Zucker: Confession (Boomslang) [11-21]

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Thursday, December 25, 2025

Music Week

December archive (in progress).

Music: Current count 45342 [45282] rated (+60), 3 [1] unrated (+2).

Music Week has been delayed this week because I've been working on the 20th Annual Francis Davis Jazz Critics Poll. Deadline for voting was Sunday, the date of our own annual Hannukah dinner, so I wound up the day with a mailbox full of late ballots, which took me a couple more days to get through. I cooked again on Christmas Eve. It was a smaller affair, but still consumed a lot of time. I was disappointed in the turnout, so I grubbed a few last-minute ballots, to finish with 167. That's down 10 from 2024, but still a pretty solid showing, especially given that the most obvious difference this year is the degree of wear and tear that practically everyone is feeling under increasingly trying circumstances.

Next up will be adding footnotes and adjustments to the website, so we can be clear about records that cross categories and years. Also some proofreading. But the big part will be interpreting the data in the form of essays and comments. I'm hoping the essays will be fairly minimal: just the facts, because I'm not there's that much more we can really conclude. But I'm open to all sorts of people offering comments on jazz and the world c. 2025. The most important thing about the poll is that it brings together many different takes on the year. I doubt it would help for me to try to distill them all into my own personal viewpoint.

Still, I doubt that there is any practical way to get anywhere near all the viewpoints one would like to be able to share. That requires a level of engagement with the world that I simply don't have the skills or temperament to do. So I see myself as just some kind of caretaker for a bigger project that will never be able to really reveal itself. It's been really frustrating, but it's also been a really nice change of pace to be able to deal with so many fine critics on such a personal level.

Expect the next Music Week on December 31. While I normally aim for Mondays, I like to end December cleanly on the last day of the year. That was my original target date for handing the poll package over to ArtsFuse to publish. Given how the weekend breaks, and how everything this year has taken longer than one hoped, I think the more realistic date is January 5.

Next year we'll start thinking about resolutions for doing things differently.

New records reviewed this week:

@xcrswx: Moodboard (2025, Feedback Moves): British duo of Crystabel Elemena Riley (human/drum-skin) and Seymour Wright (sax), the latter especially notable for his work in Ahmed but he's done a fair amount since 2001. Focus on percussion here. B+(***) [bc]

David Amram: Honors Guthrie and Ochs: Old Souls (2025, Guthrie Legacy): A familiar name, but one I haven't thought of in ages, and can't quite place, even with the help of references which show he was born in 1930, and worked with Aaron Copland, Dizzy Gillespie, Jack Kerouac, Pete Seeger, Patti Smith, and many more. His discography includes soundtracks, string quartets and symphony orchestras, odes to Lord Buckley and Langston Hughes. Here he and his quintet offer jazz arrangements of six folk songs for a leisurely and delightful 29:15. A- [sp]

Ancient Infinity Orchestra: It's Always About Love (2025, Gondwana): Fifteen-piece "spiritual jazz ensemble" with reeds and strings but no brass, led by composer Ozzy Moysey. Second album. B+(*) [sp]

Believe: Spirits of the Dead Are Watching (2023 [2025], Relative Pitch): Debut group album, from "four of Australia's most experienced and dedicated improvisers," names I am at best only marginally acquainted with, on alto sax (Peter Farrar), piano (Novak Manojlovic), bass (Clayton Thomas), and drums (Laurence Pike). Even tempered, constantly engaging, a fine album among scores of other more/less equally fine albums. B+(***) [sp]

The Brunt [Gerrit Hatcher/Dave Rempis/Kent Kessler/Bill Harris]: Near Mint Minus (2023 [2024], Aerophonic): Chicago free jazz group, two tenor saxophonists (Rempis also plays alto/baritone), backed by bass and drums. Hatcher has several records back to 2017. B+(***) [bc]

Albert Cirera & Tres Tambors: Orangina (2025, UnderPool): Catallan saxophonist (tenor/soprano), has produced a substantial body of work since 2007, has two previous Tres Tambors albums (2012 & 2017), and a previous title song that goes back at least to 2013. Leads a quartet, but only one drummer (Oscar Doménech), with Marco Mezquida (piano/rhodes) and Marko Lohikari (bass). B+(**) [bc]

DJ Travella: Twende Dance Classics (2025, Nyege Nyege Tapes, EP): Tanzanian beatmaker Hamadi Hassani, released an album in 2020 called Dr. Mixondo, returns here with four fast ones ("hyper-melodic floor fillers", short at 8:45. B+(***) [sp]

Pierre Dřrge/Kirk Knuffke: Songs for Mbizo: Johnny Lives Forever (2024 [2025], SteepleChase): Danish guitarist, albums since 1979, notably with his swing-oriented New Jungle Orchestra. South African bassist Johnny Dyani (1947-86) landed in Denmark, and made a big impression on Dřrge, who responded with his 1987 tribute album, Johnny Lives. This one features the cornet player, backed by bass (Thommy Andersson) and drums (Martin Andersen). B+(***) [sp]

Pierre Dřrge New Jungle Orchestra: Jazzhus Montmartre Live (2023 [2025], SteepleChase): Danish guitarist, named his large band in 1982, affectionately recalling Duke Ellington's "jungle band" and possibly Django Reinhardt's "hot club," and he's sustained it for 40+ years. Discogs lists this as their 27th album. Currently a nine-piece group, mostly playing the leader's originals. B+(**) [sp]

Kahil El'Zabar's Ethnic Heritage Ensemble: Let the Spirit Out: Live at "Mu" London (2024 [2025], Spiritmuse): Group started with Three Men From Chicago in 1981, the constant for 40+ years has been the percussionist, group size has varied but Corey Wilkes (trumpet) and Alex Harding (baritone sax) have been members since 2007 and 2019, joined here by Ishmael Ali (cello). Live set, includes such standards as "Summertime" and "Caravan." B+(**) [sp]

Phillip Golub/Lesley Mok: Dream Brigade (2023 [2025], Infrequent Seams): Piano and drums duo, both started c. 2020 and are making a name for themselves, but already they want to sell the album title as group name. B+(**) [sp]

Gregory Groover Jr.: Old Knew (2025, Criss Cross): Tenor saxophonist, real name as far as I can tell (middle name George), father was pastor at an A.M.E. church in Boston, got a degree from Berklee, second album, 10 originals plus one piece by Jason Moran, hot shot band: Joel Ross (vibes), Paul Cornish (piano), Harish Raghavan (bass), and Kendrick Scott (drums). B+(***) [sp]

Scott Hamilton: Looking Back (2024 [2025], Stunt): Retro-swing tenor saxophonist, impressive debut in 1977, a steady player especially of standards ever since. Quartet here with Jan Lundgren (piano), Hans Backenroth (bass), and Kristian Leth (drums), ten tracks referencing sax giants and other musicians Hamilton has played with, occasioned by his 70th birthday. Curious lack of info on the record (like release date and song credits), despite a fair number of reviews. B+(**) [sp]

Jim Hobbs/Timo Shanko: The Depression Tapes (2024 [2025], Relative Pitch): Alto sax and bass duo, were both founders of the Fully Celebrated Orchestra in 1989 but this is their first duo album. B+(**) [sp]

Julia Hülsmann Quartet: Under the Surface (2024 [2025], ECM): German pianist, steady stream of albums since 2000, fifth Quartet album since 2013: Marc Muellbauer (bass), Martin Abrahamsen (drums, new here), started with a trumpet player, but switched to tenor sax (Uli Kempendorff) in 2019. This one adds Hildegunn Řiseth (trumpet, goat horn) on five tracks. B+(***) [sp]

Simon Jermyn/Otis Sandsjö/Petter Eldh/Lukas Akintaya: Obsany (2023 [2025], Elastic): Irish bassist, fifth album since 2007, based in Berlin after 11 years in New York, quartet there with sax, electric bass, and drums, adding Michaël Attias (sax) on three tracks. Nice record, tails off a bit. B+(**) [sp]

Steve Johns: Mythology (2024 [2025], SteepleChase): Drummer, has a 2002 album, a few more since. Leads a postbop group with guitar (John Hart), piano (Greg Murphy), vibes (Monte Croft), and bass (Joris Teepe), playing four of his own originals, three from Teepe, one from Hart, and two standards (sung by Croft, who also plays some harmonica). Discogs credits him with four albums 1989-93, and a 16 year credits gap before he picks up again in 2020, but he's the player you notice most here. B+(*) [sp]

Laura Jurd: Rites & Revelations (2024 [2025], New Soil): British trumpet player, debut 2012, probably best known for her group Dinosaur (3 albums 2016-20). Quintet with folk musos Martin Green (accordion) and Ultan O'Brien (violin/viola), along with Ruth Goller (electric bass) and Corrie Dick (drums). The folk music is vital, and the jazz just builds on it, like Miles on funk. A- [sp]

Kokayi: Live at Big Ears: The Standard Knoxville, TN (2025, Why!Not): Bandcamp page threw me with "no, not the Washington, D.C.-born iconoclast who helped establish the city as a hip-hop landmark," but Discogs has the same artist (Carl Walker) I had previously filed under rap working with Steve Coleman in 1995 and Ambrose Akinmusire in 2025, so while playing this I moved him from rap to jazz vocals. I can hear the Bobby McFerrin and Jon Lucien the liner notes cite, but also echoes of Swamp Dogg and Coltrane. B+(***) [sp]

Sarathy Korwar: There Is Beauty, There Already (2025, Otherland): US-born, India-raised, London-based percussionist, has a handful of albums since 2016, thoughtfully tying his whole world together. This is an enchanting, otherworldly groove album, with a bit of vocal aura and a few words. A- [sp]

Mon Laferte: Femme Fatale (2025, Sony Music Latin): Singer-songwriter from Chile, based in Mexico, 10th album since 2003. Sounds like something I might like much more if I could understand the lyrics and focus better on the music. B+(**) [sp]

Stian Larsen/Colin Webster/Ruth Goller/Andrew Lisle: Temple of Muses (2022 [2025], Relative Pitch): Norwegian guitarist, has several free improv albums, here with sax, bass, and drums. Liked the edginess at first, but seemed to tail off toward the end. B+(*) [sp]

Tony Miceli: Nico's Dream (2024 [2025], SteepleChase): Vibraphonist, side-credits at least as far back as 1991 but counts as his first album. With guitar (Paul Bollenback), bass, and drums. Zips right along. B+(**) [sp]

Wolfgang Muthspiel/Scott Colley/Brian Blade: Tokyo (2024 [2025], ECM): Austrian guitarist, has close to 30 albums since 1989, some fusion-oriented, some more introspective. His 2006 duets with Blade are a high point, and their work with the bassist goes back at least to 2000. B+(**) [sp]

Max Nagl Quintett: Phasolny (2025, Rude Noises): Austrian alto saxophonist, albums since 1988, quintet with trumpet (Martin Eberle), trombone (Phil Yaeger), piano, and bass, but no drums, which gives it a chamber jazz effect, albeit with rather brassy. B+(**) [sp]

Gard Nilssen Acoustic Unity: Great Intentions (2024 [2025], Action Jazz): Norwegian drummer, credits pick up around 2007, notably Cortex (2011-20). Lately he's focused on two groups: Acoustic Unity (this is their 5th album since 2015), and Supersonic Orchestra (2 albums since 2020). Core group is a trio with André Roligheten (sax), Petter Eldh (bass), fortified here with two more "featured" saxophonists (Kjetil Mřster and Signe Emmeluth) as well as Jonas Alaska (vocals/guitar). This has its moments, but they don't all line up. B+(***) [sp]

Arturo O'Farrill & the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra: The Original Influencers: Dizzy, Chano & Chico [Live at Town Hall] (2023 [2025], Tiger Turn): Pianist and bandleader, has largely cornered the market for Afro-Cuban jazz in New York, the far from missing link between his famous father — the Chico in the "original influencers" list, along with Dizzy Gillespie and Chano Pozo mdash; and his soon-to-be famous sons Adam and Zack (trumpet and drums here). First half is a party with a lot of vocals. Second takes "Manteca" and turns it into a suite. Both are fun, but neither is wholly successful. B+(**) [sp]

Ivo Perelman/Nate Wooley/Matt Moran/Mark Helias/Tom Rainey: A Modicum of the Blues (2024 [2025], Fundacja Słuchaj): Brazilian tenor saxophonist, released 6-12 albums annually, I've heard over 100, many quite good, but it's gotten hard to keep up. Most are fairly minimal duos or trios, which gives him ample opportunity to blow. Quintets like this are rare, with trumpet, vibes, bass, and drums. Only the last track realizes the group's potential. B+(***) [dl]

Ivo Perelman/Nate Wooley: Polarity 4 (2025, Burning Ambulance): Tenor sax and trumpet duo, the fourth entry in a series of albums by the duo going back to 2020. B+(*) [bc]

Ivo Perelman/John Butcher: Duologues 4 (2025, Ibeji): Tenor sax duo (with some soprano?), adds to an ongoing Perelman series, on top of many previous duos. My download calls this London Silhouettes, but while the email links to this series, I cannot find further evidence of the title. I couldn't bring myself to deal with Perelman's massive Reed Rapture in Brooklyn, figuring the twelve duo discs would turn into an endurance contest and wash out into some kind of meaningless B+. But even with the inevitable limits of all-saxophone groups, this is remarkably steady and engaging work. A- [dl]

Rich Perry: Dream (2024 [2025], SteepleChase): One of a dozen or more fairly major mainstream tenor saxophonists to emerge in the 1990s — Beautiful Love (1995) is a good example. Still very much in that vein here, backed by piano (Gary Versace), bass (Jay Anderson), and drums (John Riley), playing three originals plus covers from Parker (2), Shorter, Silver, and Ellington. B+(***) [sp]

Emma Rawicz: Inkyra (2024 [2025], ACT Music): Tenor/soprano saxophonist, several albums since 2022, rather overwhelming postbop group with Gareth Lockrand (flutes), David Preston (guitar), Scottie Thompson (keyboards), Kevin Glasgow (electric bass), and Jamie Murray (drums). B [sp]

Dave Rempis/Nico Chkifi: Aula (2023 [2025], Aerophonic): Alto/tenor sax, a very strong players since he broke in with Vandermark 5, in a duo with the Belgian drummer, recorded in Liege. Seems rather par for the course. B+(**) [bc]

Dave Rempis/Russ Johnson/Jakob Heinemann/Jeremy Cunningham: Embers and Ash (2024 [2025], Aerophonic): Saxophonist (soprano/alto/tenor here), quartet with trumpet, bass, and drums, live set from the Hungry Brain in Chicago. This freewheeling two horn, no piano/guitar improv is often thrilling, especially with such strong and thoughtful players. A- [bc]

Dino Saluzzi: El Viejo Caminante (2023 [2025], ECM): Argentinian bandoneon player, now 90, records start around 1972, joined ECM in 1983, recording regularly through 2011, third album since. Here he is joined by two guitarists: his son, José Maria Saluzzi on classical guitar, and Jacob Young on acoustic steel-string and electric guitars. Very nice mix. B+(**) [sp]

Loren Schoenberg and His Jazz Orchestra: So Many Memories (2025, Turtle Bay): Tenor saxophonist (b. 1958), bandleader, Discogs gives him a lot of "acting, literary & spoken" credits — especially on Benny Goodman, but he's expert on everything swing, as much a scholar as a musician. He had five albums under this byline 1987-98, reviving it here (where he plays piano) on discovering, as the subtitle puts it, "Unheard Eddie Sauter Arrangements for Red Norvo and Mildred Bailey," to which the cover adds "featuring Kate Kortum & Warren Wolf." B+(***) [sp]

Dave Sewelson/Steve Hirsh/Steve Swell/Matthew Shipp/William Parker: Muscle Memory (2022 [2025], Mahakala Music): Baritone sax and trombone stars, a piano-bass duo that was good enough for David S. Ware, and a drummer who knows a label owner who can't get enough of improv sessions like this. B+(***) [bc]

Skerik/Brian Haas/James Singleton/Simon Lott: Compersion Quartet (2024, Royal Potato Family): Tenor saxophonist Eric Walton, from Seattle, many side credits since 1991, mostly in fusion groups, including some of the more interesting ones, like Critters Buggin, Mylab, and Garage a Trois. Here With piano/harpsichord, bass/trumpet, and drums, with ample effects. B+(*) [sp]

Sonic Chambers Quartet: Kiss of the Earth (2024 [2025], 577): Two saxophonists, Byron Asher and Tomas Majcherski, with the latter doing most of the writing, backed by bass and drums. Not so obvious at first, but the New Orleans connections have a way of coming out. B+(**) [dl]

Thomas Strřnen/Time Is a Blind Guide: Off Stillness (2021 [2025], ECM): Norwegian drummer, group name refers back to a 2015 album, same instrumentation with Hĺkon Aase (violin) and Ole Morten Vagan (bass) returning, plus replacements at piano (Ayumi Tanaka) and cello (Leo Svensson Sander). B+(*) [sp]

Yuhan Su: Over the Moons (2024 [2025], Endectomorph Music): Vibraphonist, from Taiwan, moved to US in 2008 to study at Berklee, based in New York, fifth album since 2012. Opens in dazzling form, with saxophonists Alex LeRe and Anna Webber, Matt Mitchell on piano, Yingda Chen on guitar, electric bass, drums, and electronics. Lags a bit when they try to mix it up, like with flutes. B+(***) [sp]

Things of This Nature: Things of This Nature (2025, Mahakala Music): Quartet, four musicians I'd never heard of — Caylie Davis (trumpet), Chris Ferrari (woodwinds), Shogo Yamagishi (bass), JJ Mazza (drums) — evidently quite young ("One has to have childhood memories of the Obama administration to create some of this music"). Strong first impression, but the common tendency in first albums to show off everything you can do (including the flute) scatters and winds down. B+(*) [sp]

Ken Vandermark: October Flowers for Joe McPhee (2025, Corbett vs. Dempsey): Solo, inspired by McPhee's 1976 solo album Tenor, and various collaborations since 1996. He also plays baritone sax, Bb and bass clarinet, 11 compositions each named for flowers. B+(**) [bc]

Rufus Wainwright With the Pacific Jazz Orchestra: I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Wainwright Does Weill (2025, Thirty Tigers): He's never been the singer or songwriter his father is, nor am I sure he actually lives up to the camp he aspires to, but Weill's songs are still magnificent, and it matters that he cares. B+(*) [sp]

Wrens: Half of What You See (2023 [2025], Out of Your Head): On paper I figured this group was led by Jason Nazary, the drummer who produced and took most of the technical credits, but the album is dominated by rapper Ryan Easter, who also plays some trumpet, while cellist Lester St. Louis and pianist Elias Stemeseder work their skewed electronics. Interesting in every direction. A- [dl]

X-Ray Hex Tet: X-Ray Hex Tet (2023 [2024], Reading Group): One-shot sextet, recorded live at the Taktkos Festival in Zürich, with Seymour Wright (alto sax), Pat Thomas (piano), Billy Steiger (violin), Edward George (words/electronics), and drummers Crystabel Riley and Paul Abbott. B+(*) [bc]

Yes Deer: Everything That Shines, Everything That Hurts (2025, Superpang): Scandinavian free jazz trio, three 2014-18 albums, founders Karl Haugland Bjorá (guitar) and Anders Vestergaard (drums) return here with new saxophonist Signe Emmeluth for two half-title tracks, total 32:30. Rough, a bit too much for my taste, but very much the point here. B+(**) [bc]

Zanussi 3: A Keen Beast (2019 [2025], Sauajazz): Norwegian bassist Per Zanussi, 80+ side credits since 1995, some in short-lived groups I recall, recorded 4 Zanussi 5 albums, strips that down to a basic trio here, with Kristoffer Alberts (sax) and Per Oddvar Johansen (drums). B+(***) [sp]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

Charlie Hunter/Bobby Previte/Skerik/Steven Bernstein: Omaha Diner (2013 [2025], SideHustle): Guitar, drums, sax, trumpet, released this as an eponymous group album in 2013, the idea being to "play the hits" — or deconstruct them, as they see fit. B+(*) [sp]

Ibex Band: Stereo Instrumental Music (1976 [2025], Muzikawi): Ethiopian band, went through several iterations during the 1970s before the political situation deteriorated. Discogs shows them mostly backing singers, especially Mahmoud Ahmed and Aster Aweke, but they recorded this one instrumental album. The familiar background to much 1970s Ethiopian pop, growing into defining groove. B+(***) [bc]

Masabumi Kikuchi: Hanamichi: The Final Studio Recording Vol. II (2013 [2025], Red Hook): Japanese pianist (1939-2015), survived the fire bombing of Tokyo, got a scholarship to Berklee, worked with Terumasa Hino, Gil Evans, is perhaps best known for his Tethered Moon trio with Gary Peacock and Paul Motian. Solo piano here, following an initial volume released in 2023. B+(**) [sp]

Mujician: In Concerts (1993-2010 [2025], Jazz in Britain): Long-running (1988-2011) British avant-jazz quartet, with Keith Tippett (piano), Paul Dunmall (tenor/soprano sax), Paul Rogers (bass), and Tony Levin (drums). This compiles four live improv sets, one early (Cheltenham, 1993), one late (Birmingham, 2010), and two from the middle (Vienna, 2003). B+(***) [bc]

Yusuf Mumin: Journey to the Ancient ([2025], We Want Sounds): Saxophonist, from Cleveland, played in Black Unity Trio in 1968, recorded this undated, uncredited "spiritual jazz" tape a bit later, with Munim also playing cello and flute, with drummer William Holmes. B+(*) [bc]

Charles Tyler Ensemble: Voyage From Jericho (1974 [2025], Frederiksberg): Alto saxophonist (1941-92), started with Albert Ayler in 1965, recorded his debut for ESP-Disk in 1966, has a hole in his discography from 1967-75, when this album appeared, but was quite active (albeit little known) from then up to his death. Backed by bass (Ronnie Boykins) and drums (Steve Reid), with trumpet (Earl Cross), and on two tracks, Arthur Blythe takes over on alto sax, moving Tyler to baritone. B+(*) [sp]

Mal Waldron: Candy Girl (1975 [2025], Strut): Pianist (1925-2002), first gained fame as accompanist for Billie Holiday, but that was just a drop in the bucket of a career that extended another 40 years, producing numerous highlights, like his work with Eric Dolphy, Steve Lacy, and Chico Freeman; duos with Archie Shepp and David Murray; an outstanding series of albums on Soul Note. This, well, is something else, a jazz-funk groovefest with electric keyboards (Frank Abel as well as Waldron), bass, and drums, the reissue adding alternative versions to push the total over the one hour mark. B+(*) [sp]

Jessica Williams: Blue Abstraction: Prepared Piano Project 1985-1987 (1985-87 [2025], Pre-Echo Press): Pianist (1948-2022), mastered classical but moved quickly on to jazz, recorded regularly 1976-2014, with some remarkable trio albums. These "lost" tapes are solo sessions. The piano preparations are fairly mild here, producing unexpected tones but no great dissonance, developed with considerable skill. B+(***) [bc]

Old music:

Keith Tippett: The Unlonely Raindancer (1979 [2019], Discus Music): British avant-pianist (1947-2020), first record 1972, this a solo, released on 2-LP in 1980, showed up on a poll ballot but the only reissue I could find is this one. I'm not much of a solo piano fan, but he's always been a remarkable player, as is amply demonstrated here. B+(**) [sp]

Keith Tippett: Blueprint (1972 [1973], RCA): This was the pianist's first album, with Roy Babbington (bass) and either Keith Bailey or Frank Perry (percussion), with wife Julie Tippett[s] on 4 (of 6) tracks (guitar, mandolin, recorder, voice). B [yt]

Unpacking: Postponed until next week.

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Wednesday, December 17, 2025

Music Week

December archive (in progress).

Music: Current count 45282 [45259] rated (+23), 1 [4] unrated (-3).

I'm barely holding it together, although considering the circumstances one could argue that I'm doing remarkably well. Most of my time is taken up by the Francis Davis Jazz Critics Poll. We are now less than one week away from the deadline, and I've counted about 40% as many ballots this year as we wound up with last year. That's probably bodes well, but is laced with a big shot of uncertainty. That became increasingly nerve-racking as Francis Davis faded into the background, and is all the more acute now that he's gone. But it's still not just his poll any more. I worry about wrecking it, but also suspect that if I didn't do it, no one else would. So after 19 years, consider this a bonus round.

Tabulating the results is pretty easy. I have a system, some software I wrote back when I knew how, and I've developed a support network which provides a set of checks and balances. The real nightmare is figuring out what to write once the voting ends and winners are determined. I've toyed around with many schemes to offload my possibly self-imposed burden. What I've come up with this year is a scheme where I (or possibly someone else) writes a short, somewhat schematic introduction, followed by a list or table of data, and a few comments, some by me but most (hopefully) from ohers. Even if it winds up just being me, the format relieves much of the (possibly self-imposed?) pressure of having to come up with a coherent argument. Which, come to think of it, seems right, given that years are arbitrary time slices.

I've written the idea up here. I'm allowing for the possibility of non-voters commenting, and for using quotes from previously published work. I'm looking for insight, not just reaction and opinion. But it's ok if the insights are scattered, as is the world. If you have something to say, feel free to use the email address in the file. Perhaps I'll add a form. I will add more guidelines, more specific suggestions, and possibly some results to prime the pump. But all of this will have to happen between now and the publication of the results, first week of January (if all goes well).

Light load of albums this week. (The delay to Tuesday didn't help, except to add a newly discovered A- album. Otherwise, the cutover was early Monday, but I had little more time to wrap things up.) I can't blame this on the poll, which keeps me tied to the computer, and feeds me new finds to check out. Rather, my niece came to visit, which among other activities allowed me to cook dinner. I also had house projects, and signed a deal to get a new roof. The main reason this post is late is that I've been working in the attic getting ready for the roofers. I'm hoping they will do their thing later this week, but I'm less and less optimistic. Holidays are upon us, and weather is often precarious. Besides, it seems like literally everything is taking much longer than anyone imagined. More expensive, too.

One thing that's taken longer than expected has been for me to file my own jazz ballot. I've done very little rechecking — although the top two albums still sound great, and nothing else I pegged at A- has caused me any regrets — and I've found very little new that has forced me to reconsider. Still, I've wound up tweaking the list a fair bit from last week's draft. But let's make this one official:

New Jazz Albums:

  1. Steve Lehman Trio + Mark Turner: The Music of Anthony Braxton (Pi)
  2. Miguel Zenón Quartet: Vanguardia Subterranea: Live at the Village Vanguard (Miel Music)
  3. Archer: Sudden Dusk (Aerophonic)
  4. Fieldwork: Thereupon (Pi)
  5. Sheila Jordan With Roni Ben-Hur & Harvie S: Portrait Now (Dot Time) **
  6. Ivo Perelman & Matthew Shipp String Trio: Armageddon Flower (TAO Forms)
  7. Rodrigo Amado: The Bridge: Further Beyond (Trost) **
  8. Isaiah Collier/William Hooker/William Parker: The Ancients (Eremite) **
  9. أحمد [Ahmed]: سماع [Sama'a] (Audition) (Otoroku) **
  10. Motian & More: Gratitude (Phonogram Unit) **

Rara Avis (Reissues/Historical):

  1. James Moody: 80 Years Young: Live at the Blue Note March 26, 2005 (Origin)
  2. Jimmy Lyons: Live From Studio Rivbea: 1974 & 1976 (NoBusiness)
  3. Anthony Braxton: Quartet (England) 1985 (Burning Ambulance) **
  4. Charles Mingus: Mingus in Argentina: The Buenos Aires Concerts (1977, Resonance, 2CD)
  5. Griot Galaxy: Live on WUOM 1979 (Two Rooms) **

Vocal Jazz:

  1. Sheila Jordan With Roni Ben-Hur & Harvie S: Portrait Now (Dot Time) **
  2. Maria Muldaur: One Hour Mama: The Blues of Victoria Spivey (Nola Blue)
  3. Colin Hancock's Jazz Hounds Featuring Catherine Russell: Cat & the Hounds (Turtle Bay)
  4. Anthony Joseph: Rowing Up River to Get Our Names Back (Heavenly Sweetness) **
  5. Dee Dee Bridgewater + Bill Charlap: Elemental (Mack Avenue) **

Latin Jazz:

  1. Miguel Zenón Quartet: Vanguardia Subterranea: Live at the Village Vanguard (Miel Music)
  2. Karol G: Tropicoqueta (Bichota/Interscope) **

Debut Albums:

  1. Colin Hancock's Jazz Hounds Featuring Catherine Russell: Cat & the Hounds (Turtle Bay)
  2. Nils Agnas: Köper Sig Ur En Kris (Moserobie)
  3. Thomas Morgan: Around You Is a Forest (Loveland Music)

The ** notation carried over from my year-to-date file, representing something I downloaded or streamed. In past years I've been known to discriinate against such records, but I'm giving up here. Part of this is that I get less and less in the mail — especially since Trump turned European imports into a nightmare, although the labels there have been cutting back for a long time, at least since our "run like a business" post office started being run like venture capital prey. Perhaps some is that I can't play CDs in our new car.

I've listened to quite a few jazz albums this year (760, vs. 409 non-jazz), but one thing I haven't managed to do is to go back through the download links I've saved up and see what I'm missing there. At this point I doubt I ever will. There is just literally too much to listen to.

New records reviewed this week:

Allo Darlin': Bright Nights (2025, Slumberland): Indie pop group, started in London by Australian singer-songwriter Elizabeth Morris as a solo project, morphing into a band. Fourth album since 2010. B+(**) [sp]

Bruno Angelini/Sakina Abdou/Angelika Niescier: Lotus Flowers (2024 [2025], Abalone): French pianist, b. 1965 in Marseille, has more than a dozen albums since 2003, composed all of the pieces here, many dedicated to prominent civil rights leaders, joined by two saxophonists (tenor and alto). B+(**) [sp]

Gregg Belisle-Chi: Slow Crawl: Performing the Music of Tim Berne (2024 [2025], Intakt): Guitarist, based in Brooklyn, has several albums since 2015, including two duos and a trio with saxophonist Berne, and now a second solo album of his compositions. I have little sense of most jazz musicians as composers, probably because very few of them manage to get their pieces played by others. Berne has found a capable ambassador here. B+(**) [sp]

Jim Black & the Schrimps: Better You Don't (2024 [2025], Intakt): Drummer, b. 1967 in Seattle, has over 200 side credits since 1989, Tim Berne's Bloodcount and Dave Douglas's Tiny Bell Trio were important in the 1990s, he led Alasnoaxis 2000-13, this is his second Berlin-based Schrimps album, with bass (Felix Henkelhausen) and two saxophonists (Asger Nissen on alto and Julius Gawlik on tenor). B+(***) [sp]

The Close Readers: Trees of Lower Hutt (2025, Austin): New Zealand singer-songwriter Damien Wilkins, has more than a dozen novels and short story collections since 1990, also recorded three pretty good albums 2010-14, comes up with another one here. Sounds a lot like the Go-Betweens. B+(***) [sp]

Convergence: Reckless Meter (2019 [2025], Capri): Postbop sextet from Colorado, released three albums 1998-2003, led by John Gunther (tenor sax), with original members Greg Gisbert (trumpet), Eric Gunnison (piano), Mark Simon (bass), and Paul Romaine (drums), plus newcomer Mark Patterson (trombone), each credited with at least one song. B+(*) [sp]

De La Soul: Cabin in the Sky (2025, Mass Appeal): Hip-hop group from Long Island, instant sensations with their 1989 debut, 3 Feet High and Rising. I didn't much care for them until their 2000-01 albums, but a collection of 1998-2001 singles is pretty great. Only three albums since 2004, the first without Maseo, this one finished after Dave (Trugoy the Dove) died in 2023 (he has six lead vocals here). B+(***) [sp]

Hamid Drake & Pat Thomas: A Mountain Sees a Mountain (2019 [2025], Old Heaven Books): Drums and piano duo, recorded live in Shenzhen, China, and released on a label there. Some terrific piano here, but Drake makes everyone he plays with sound better. A- [bc]

Effie: Pullup to Busan 4 More Hyper Summer It's Gonna Be a Fuckin Movie (2025, Sound Republica, EP): Korea rapper, 2nd EP, 6 songs, 13:23, topped a New York Times EOY list, call it "hyperpop" if you like, all glitchy and senseless. B [sp]

Fred Frith/Mariá Portugal: Matter (2023 [2025], Intakt): British avant-guitarist, active since the 1970s, here in a duo with the German-based Brazilian drummer, who has a few albums since 2015. A bit of vocal toward the end. B+(***) [sp]

Julius Gawlik: It's All in Your Head (2024 [2025], Unit): German tenor saxophonist (also clarinet), first album as leader, also plays in Jim Black & the Schrimps, and NDR Big Band. Quartet with Evi Filippou (vibes), Phil Donkin (bass), and Jim Black (drums). B+(***) [sp]

Dave Gisler Trio: The Flying Mega Doghouse (2025, Intakt): Swiss guitarist, several albums since 2010, this a trio with bass (Raffaele Bossard) and drums (Lionel Friedli). B+(*) [sp]

Jimmy Greene: As We Are Now (2024 [2025], Greene Music Works): Tenor saxophonist, some soprano, mainstream, started on Criss Cross in 1997, 13th album, backed by piano-bass-drums, plus extra guitar, organ, and/or percussion on some tracks, and a Javier Colon vocal. B+(**) [sp]

Hamell on Trial: Dirty Xmas (2025, Saustex): No standards here, all originals, dirty is open to interpretation, so evidently is Xmas. B+(**) [sp]

Nakibemebe Embaire Group and Naoyuki Uchida: Phantom Keys (2025, Nyege Nyege Tapes): Ugandan group, released an eponymous album in 2023, specialize in embaire, which is often described as a xylophone, but is made up of hollow logs arrayed in the dirt, large enough to be a team sport. Uchida is a Japanese DJ, credited here with the mix, which leaves it sounding like a lot of wooden mallet percussion. The group has a 2023 eponymous album, which I reviewed back then, and don't find significantly different. B+(**) [bc]

Otherlands Trio [Stephan Crump/Darius Jones/Eric McPherson]: Star Mountain (2025, Intakt): Bass/alto sax/drums trio, all name players, joint credits but Crump has the inside track, with the new group name evidently spun off from Borderlands Trio, with McPherson and Kris Davis. Jones seems a bit subdued here, at least by his usual standards. B+(**) [sp]

Out Of/Into [Joel Ross/Gerald Clayton/Kendrick Scott/Matt Brewer/Immanuel Wilkins]: Motion II (2025, Blue Note): House label supergroup, second album, six originals developed during a tour, unclear where or when or why but song credits are widely distributed in the band. Fitting that the mallets whiz gets first mention. B+(**) [sp]

Keith Oxman: Home (2024 [2025], Capri): Tenor saxophonist, mainstream, based in Denver, has a dozen-plus albums since 1995, this a nice, relaxed quintet with trumpet, guitar, bass, and drums, playing original pieces. B+(**) [cd]

Wayne Wilkinson: Holly Tunes (2025, self-released): Guitarist, from Colorado, has a handful of albums since 2007, this is billed as a trio with bass and drums, plus "special guest" Thomas J. Dawson Jr. (piano, strings, organ). Standards done so inoffensively I didn't even notice most of them. B- [cd]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

Luke Bell: The King Is Back (2013-16 [2025], All Blue/Thirty Tigers): Country singer-songwriter, more western than southern, died young (32 in 2022), leaving three albums 2012-16, plus now this 28-track collection of engaging and entertaining scraps. Could be trimmed down, but he was an interesting character while he lasted. A- [sp]

Fred Frith: Fred Frith and the Gravity Band (2014 [2025], Klanggalerie): British avant-guitarist, made his mark with his highly abstract Guitar Solos (1974), has played in prog rock groups like Henry Cow and Art Bears as well as in jazz and more classical-oriented ensembles. This group refers back to his 1980 "dance music" album Gravity, most obviously with a "Dancing in the Streets" medley. B+(**) [bc]

Fred Frith/Shelley Burgon: The Life and Behavior (2002-05 [2025], Relative Pitch): Guitar and harp duo. The latter has some recordings with Trevor Dunn from the period, and scattered side credits since, ranging from Braxton to Björk to Eyvind Kang to William Tyler. Within limits, but "telepathic synchronicity" isn't just a boast. B+(***) [sp]

Charles Mingus: Mingus at Monterey (1964 [2025], Candid): Live album, self-released in 1965, had a checkered history of reissues up to the early 1980s when Fantasy/Prestige got hold of it, but even they let it slip from sight after 1987. Opens with a quintet — Lonnie Hillyer (trumpet), Charles McPherson (alto sax), Jaki Byard (piano), Dannie Richmond (drums) — playing an Ellington medley, culminating in 13:35 of "A Train" (with John Handy added on tenor sax), then moves on to "Orange Was the Colour of Her Dress, Then Blue Silk" (13:38). Then they add extra horns for a new piece, "Meditations on Intgegration" (24:45). B+(**) [sp]

Thelonious Monk: Bremen 1965 (1965 [2025], Sunnyside): Radio shot, with a live audience, part of a European tour that has produced other similar documents (one from Olympia was recorded the day before, and another from Olympia a couple months later). Quartet with Charlie Rouse (tenor sax), Larry Gales (bass), and Ben Riley (drums) was in peak form, with the once-quirky tunes confirmed as classics. A- [bc]

Old music:

Fred Frith: Gravity (1979-80 [1980], Ralph): British guitarist, started c. 1973 in left-prog Henry Cow, played on important albums by Robert Wyatt and Brian Eno (and on less important but still memorable ones by Tom Newman, Jade Warrior and Art Bears), while releasing his own pathbreaking Guitar Solos (1974) and, by 1980, hooking up with Henry Kaiser, Eugene Chadbourne, Lindsay Cooper, and the Residents. He cut this smorgasbord of deranged dance music on the latter's label, with dozens of side credits I don't recognize, including a tap dancer, lots of handclaps, and four names Discogs places under "Other [criticism]" — worth noting that at the time, I still regarded him as less notable than Simon Frith, his critic brother (and I followed the names I dropped above, although I wasn't much of a Residents fan). B+(***) [yt]

Grade (or other) changes:

Lily Allen: West End Girl (2025, BMG): British singer-songwriter, fifth studio album since 2007, 7 years since number four, a stretch of time covering a marriage and a divorce, so easy subject matter, which she handles adroitly. Music doesn't have quite the same zip as the earlier albums, so I hemmed and hawed, figuring I didn't want to picture her in middle age. But she's still many times smarter than most other pop stars, and that extends past her words into her music. [was: B+(***)]: A- [sp]

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week (not yet counted):

  • Herb Robertson/Christopher Dell/Christian Ramond/Klaus Kugel: Blue Transient (Nemu) [09-16]
  • Sophie Tassignon: A Slender Thread (Nemu) [06-27]

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Tuesday, December 9, 2025

Music Week

December archive (in progress).

Music: Current count 45259 [45223] rated (+36), 4 [3] unrated (+1).

We're less than two weeks away from the Dec. 21 deadline for the 20th Annual Francis Davis Jazz Critics Poll. I have 54 ballots counted, which feels like good progress, although the pace will still have to pick up to match last year's 177 voters. I've only invited a little more than a dozen new critics, and I've only gotten one ballot back from that bunch, but we've gotten a few ballots from people who missed in 2024. It helps me to get your ballots in early, not least because I worry a lot about turnout.

One person who hasn't submitted their ballot yet is me. I did the cutover on Monday, early enough to post, but I wanted to include my ballot picks, and didn't figure that out. Actually, I still haven't figured it out for sure, but what follows is where my list stands at the present moment:

New Jazz Albums:

  1. Steve Lehman Trio + Mark Turner: The Music of Anthony Braxton (Pi)
  2. Miguel Zenón Quartet: Vanguardia Subterranea: Live at the Village Vanguard (Miel Music)
  3. Archer: Sudden Dusk (Aerophonic)
  4. Sheila Jordan With Roni Ben-Hur & Harvie S: Portrait Now (Dot Time) **
  5. Fieldwork: Thereupon (Pi)
  6. Isaiah Collier/William Hooker/William Parker: The Ancients (Eremite) **
  7. Colin Hancock's Jazz Hounds Featuring Catherine Russell: Cat & the Hounds (Turtle Bay)
  8. Ivo Perelman & Matthew Shipp String Trio: Armageddon Flower (TAO Forms)
  9. Cosmic Ear: Traces (We Jazz) **
  10. Rodrigo Amado: The Bridge: Further Beyond (Trost) **

Rara Avis (Reissues/Historical):

  1. James Moody: 80 Years Young: Live at the Blue Note March 26, 2005 (Origin)
  2. Jimmy Lyons: Live From Studio Rivbea: 1974 & 1976 (NoBusiness)
  3. Anthony Braxton: Quartet (England) 1985 (Burning Ambulance) **
  4. Charles Mingus: Mingus in Argentina: The Buenos Aires Concerts (1977, Resonance, 2CD)
  5. Griot Galaxy: Live on WUOM 1979 (Two Rooms) **

Vocal Jazz:

  1. Sheila Jordan With Roni Ben-Hur & Harvie S: Portrait Now (Dot Time) **
  2. Colin Hancock's Jazz Hounds Featuring Catherine Russell: Cat & the Hounds (Turtle Bay)
  3. Maria Muldaur: One Hour Mama: The Blues of Victoria Spivey (Nola Blue)
  4. Anthony Joseph: Rowing Up River to Get Our Names Back (Heavenly Sweetness) **
  5. Dee Dee Bridgewater + Bill Charlap: Elemental (Mack Avenue) **

Latin Jazz:

  1. Miguel Zenón Quartet: Vanguardia Subterranea: Live at the Village Vanguard (Miel Music)
  2. Karol G: Tropicoqueta (Bichota/Interscope) **

Debut Albums:

  1. Colin Hancock's Jazz Hounds Featuring Catherine Russell: Cat & the Hounds (Turtle Bay)
  2. Nils Agnas: Köper Sig Ur En Kris (Moserobie)
  3. Thomas Morgan: Around You Is a Forest (Loveland Music)

I haven't logged this yet. I want to give it a day or two to settle before making it official. (I'll update this post when I do, but I don't want to hold it up or do something rash.) I'm surprised to note that two Rara Avis albums are new discoveries this week (although the Braxton has been long in hand; I've just been slow getting around to it), after a couple months with nothing (but SML) coming close. I'm not especially happy with these lists: everything I recheck from my A-list sounds really good, but I spend so little time with new records that even obvious favorites never really sink in, like albums used to do before I started spreading myself so thin. I will note a couple things:

  1. I still prefer Amado's 2016 tape The Healing: Live at ZDB over the new Further Beyond, but rather arbitrarily went with the latter. It's pretty close, and much more likely to get traction in the poll. While I often maintain that I don't care who wins, I do think a bit more recognition of the 21st century's greatest tenor saxophonist is in order. Something only slightly more qualified could also be said about Ivo Perelman and Dave Rempis (Archer).
  2. The ** are residue from my year file, indicating something I downloaded or streamed. In the past, I've been known to ban such records from my ballot, but that's getting harder to insist on, and I'm becoming less materialistic.
  3. I file Muldaur under rock, thanks to her 1973 breakout hit, as opposed to her folk music in the 1960s and her turn toward blues in the 1990s. So I overlooked her in sorting out my jazz list, but she deserves some props as a jazz singer, especially when she works with New Orleans-style jazz bands. Her album is actually number one on my combined 2025 list, ahead of Lehman. I don't feel it's jazzy enough to list in the New Jazz Albums list, but at the very least she deserves a Vocal Jazz mention. (So far, my vote is the only one.)
  4. One can also argue whether the Anthony Joseph album is jazz, but it appeals to me like jazz does. I can say the same for Karol G under Latin.
  5. I haven't looked below the A- cusp to try to fill out Latin and Debut, but have done so in the past, and may yet do so this year. The idea behind the special categories is to get people to dig deeper. My shortfall suggests I should. Good chance I have five or more B+(***) records in each.
  6. I am conflicted about voting for Zenón in Latin Jazz. I've been in the middle of too many fights over which of his records are more canonically Latin Jazz than others. I also wonder if there isn't an element of stereotyping in his many category wins. On the other hand, this is a very good album, possibly his best.
  7. Hancock is clearly eligible for Debut, but Russell even more clearly is not, and she's the force that lifts the album. Under Francis Davis rules, the album wouldn't be eligible. Under my more relaxed rules, it is. I'm inclined to vote for it on the off chance that it may get a couple more votes, but it doesn't really fit the concept. Nor does Morgan, who had 150+ album credits before putting his name first, and wouldn't have been eligible under old rules.
  8. I've allowed a Debut vote for Heat On, but didn't vote for it. The only way it qualifies is if you threat it as Lily Finnegan's solo debut, but her name doesn't appear on the cover. That pushes the concept a bit too far for my taste, but (as I said) I did allow someone else to do it.

What I really recommend is that you look at my EOY lists (only compiled this week, and subject to constant revision for the next year or so): Jazz [76+6 A-list new, 26+2 A-list old; 161+15 B+(***) new, 28+4 B+(***) old], and Non-Jazz [90+2 A-list new, 8+2 A-list old; 100+1 B+(***) new, 15+2 B+(***) old].

Biggest surprise so far is that I already have more non-jazz than jazz A-list albums. Usually this time of year jazz is about 30% ahead, with non-jazz only catching up after I've finished poll work and got a chance to catch up with the EOY lists. A big part of the reason I have so much this year is that I've been following HHGA's The Best Hip Hop Albums of 2025 as they've updated it throughout the year.

  1. Saba & No I.D.: From the Private Collection of Saba and No I.D. (From the Private Collection) **
  2. Apathy: Mom & Dad (Dirty Version/Coalmine) **
  3. Billy Woods: Golliwog (Backwoodz Studioz) **
  4. Public Enemy: Black Sky Over the Projects: Apartment 2025 (Enemy) **
  5. Clipping.: Dead Channel Sky (Sub Pop) **
  6. Brother Ali: Satisfied Soul (Mello Music Group) **
  7. Buck 65: Keep Moving (Handsmade) **
  8. Kae Tempest: Self Titled (Island) **
  9. Anthony Joseph: Rowing Up River to Get Our Names Back (Heavenly Sweetness) **
  10. Chance the Rapper: Star Line (self-released) **
  11. Clipse: Let God Sort Them Out (Roc Nation) **
  12. Dave: The Boy Who Played the Harp (Neighbourhood) **
  13. Blueprint: Vessel (Weightless) **
  14. Open Mike Eagle: Neighborhood Gods Unlimited (Auto Reverse) **
  15. Sumac and Moor Mother: The Film (Thrill Jockey) **
  16. Chuck D: Chuck D Presents Enemy Radio: Radio Armageddon (Def Jam) **
  17. Queen Herawin: Awaken the Sleeping Giant (Matic) **
  18. MindsOne: Stages (Fort Lowell) **
  19. Recognize Ali & Tragedy Khadafi: The Past the Present and the Future (Greenfield Music) **
  20. Vinnie Paz: God Sent Vengeance (Iron Tusk Music) **
  21. Stress Eater: Everybody Eats! (Silver Age '24) **
  22. KRS-One: Temple of Hip Hop Global Awareness (R.A.M.P. Ent Agency) **
  23. Apollo Brown & Bronze Nazareth: Funeral for a Dream (Escapism) **
  24. Aesop Rock: I Heard It's a Mess There Too (Rhymesayers) **
  25. Wu-Tang X Mathematics: Black Samson, the Bastard Swordsman (36 Chambers/DNA Music) **

Discounting two titles I picked up from my jazz list plus one late discovery from 2024, that's still about 25% of my non-jazz list. I've also done a better-than-usual job of following Saving Country Music this year, so my country list (broadly speaking) is nearly as long:

  1. Bill Scorzari: Sidereal Days (Day 1) (self-released)
  2. Helene Cronin: Maybe New Mexico (self-released) **
  3. Amanda Shires: Nobody's Girl (ATO) **
  4. Hayes Carll: We're Only Human (Highway 87) **
  5. Margo Price: Hard Headed Woman (Loma Vista) **
  6. James McMurtry: The Black Dog and the Wandering Boy (New West) **
  7. Cam Pierce: A Thousand Lonely Horses (self-released) **
  8. Sam Stoane: Tales of the Dark West (Cloverdale) **
  9. Willie Nelson: Oh What a Beautiful World (Legacy) **
  10. Sunny Sweeney: Rhinestone Requiem (Aunt Daddy) **
  11. Tyler Childers: Snipe Hunter (Hickman Holler/RCA) **
  12. Willie Nelson: Workin' Man: Willie Sings Merle (Legacy) **
  13. Jubal Lee Young: Squirrels (Reconstruction) **
  14. Gurf Morlix: Bristlecone (Rootball) **
  15. Hailey Whitters: Corn Queen (Pigasus/Big Loud) **

Of course, one could make this list longer with country-adjacent singer-songwriters like Hamell on Trial, Jeffrey Lewis, Patterson Hood, Jason Isbell, Neil Young, Todd Snider, and Dylan Hicks, as well as bands like Mekons, Wednesday, and Delines. And not a lot more than accent and branding separates these artists from others. Plus there's a lot more good country further down the list — same for hip-hop and everything else, especially jazz, where nearly everyone is remarkably skilled and inventive, so list placement has become inescapably quirky and personal. The years when most people shared the same listening experiences are long gone.

This is going to be another trying week for me. We have another guest this week, so that will take up much of my time. I'll try to keep up with the poll tasks. I need to start writing bits and pieces for the final package. It's also beginning to look like the big roof project could fall apart. The weather isn't helping, especially with the latter. It's going to be arduous until the poll appears in the first week of January. After that is unfathomable.

I have an idea for my next Substack piece, but finding the time will be difficult. Actually, I have a bunch of ideas. Just too many other commitments in the meantime.

New records reviewed this week:

Tarun Balani: ڪڏهن ملنداسين Kadahin Milandaasin (2024 [2025], Berthold): Indian drummer, from New Delhi, has a few albums since 2012. Title is in Sindhi, translates as "when will we meet," refers to a grandfather he never knew and a father who died in 2024, uprooted when Sind (Karachi) found itself on the Pakistani side of the 1947 partition. Quartet, recorded in Brooklyn, with Adam O'Farrill (trumpet), Olli Hirvonen (guitar), and Sharik Hasan (piano/synthesizer). B+(***) [bc]

Kenny Barron: Songbook (2025, Artwork): Pianist, b. 1943, recorded some fine albums for Muse starting in 1973, came to my attention backing Stan Getz on People Time (1991), Discogs credits him with 98 albums and 770 performance credits, starting in 1960 with Yusef Lateef, then his brother, saxophonist Bill Barron. But while he's justly famous for his albums, he may have had even more impact as an educator: the number of famous pianists who cite him on their resumes must run well past 100. One thing he's not especially noted for is accompanying singers (unlike, say, Tommy Flanagan, or Ran Blake), but there have been a few (catching my eye, up to 1991, are Maria Muldaur, Sheila Jordan, and Jay Clayton; next screen adds Helen Merrill, Abbey Lincoln, Dianne Reeves, and lesser names). This is billed as his "first album to fully feature vocals." At first, I figured this was would just be a showcase for singers — he lined up eight, some famous (Cécile McLorin Salvant, Kurt Elling, Catherine Russell), some "up and coming" (Tyreek McDole, Ekep Nkwelle, Kavita Shah) — with his piano trio — Kiyoshi Kitagawa (bass) and Johnathan Blake (drums) — tying them together. But it turns out they're all singing his music, with new lyrics by Janice Jarrett. So it takes longer to sink in than standards, and the scattered voices depersonalize it a bit. But the piano is superb. B+(***) [sp]

George Cartwright & Bruce Golden: South From a Narrow Arc (2025, self-released): Avant-saxophonist, also plays guitar, b. 1950 in Mississippi but long based in Minnesota, albums since 1979, best known for his 1981-2003 group Curlew, has more on his own, some (both old and new) with the Arkansas-based Mahakala label. Second duo album with Golden ("percussion and lots lots more plus the cover"). Scratchy at first, remains testy. B+(*) [bc]

Che: Rest in Bass (2025, 10K): Young Atlanta rapper Chase Shaun Mitchell (b. 2006), second album. Pitchfork called this "the platonic idea of rage rap — diced-up lines and constant distortion, with enough vulnerability to balance the outrageous hedonism." Maybe if you focus, but why sort the clutter? B+(**) [sp]

Silvana Estrada: Vendrán Suaves Lluvias (2025, Glassnote): Mexican singer-songwriter, has a couple albums, sounds vaguely folkie. B+(*) [sp]

Al Foster: Live at Smoke (2025, Smoke Sessions): Drummer, side credits start in 1964 with Blue Mitchell, Discogs counts 515 album credits, notably played with Miles Davis 1972-85, not many albums as leader (first in 1978, three with this label since 2019), but this comes from two live sets celebrating his 82nd birthday, four months before he died. Stellar quartet with Chris Potter (tenor/soprano sax), Brad Mehldau (piano), and Joe Martin (bass). B+(***) [sp]

Billy Hart: Multidirectional (2023 [2025], Smoke Sessions): Drummer, b. 1940, has more than a dozen albums under his own name (starting in 1977), scores more slugline credits, and hundreds of side credits (Discogs says 817, with Jimmy Smith in 1964 not his first gig but a break out). Earlier this year, he released a studio album with this quartet: Mark Turner (tenor sax), Ethan Iverson (piano), and Ben Street (bass). Here's they're back for a live set (five songs, 47:05). B+(***) [sp]

James K: Friend (2025, AD93): "Experimental musician and visual artist from NYC," Jamie Krasner, debut EP in 2013, fourth album, sings over beguiling electronic beats. B+(**) [sp]

Led Bib: Hotel Pupik (2025, Cuneiform): British fusion group, ninth album since 2005, led by drummer Mark Holub, with Liran Donin (bass) and two saxophonists (Pete Grogan and Chris Williams). B+(*) [dl]

Nick León: A Tropical Entropy (2025, Tra Tra Trax): South Florida electronica/hip-hop producer, fifth album since 2016. B+(*) [sp]

Los Thuthanaka: Los Thuthanaka (2025, self-released): Electronic musician Elysia Crampton, born in California, grew up in Virginia, first album released as E+E in 2008, followed by several in 2015-18 before adopting the name Chuquimamani-Condori, drawing on her Bolivian heritage, here in a duo with brother Joshua Chuquimia Crampton. I'm finding this uncomfortably loud and abrasive, but it's easy to seel the appeal if you're tuned into the energy. B+(**) [bc]

Paul Marinaro: Mood Ellington (2022 [2025], Origin): Standards singer, born in Buffalo, based in Chicago, has a couple of previous albums from 2015, tackles 25 pieces from the Ellington songbook, arranged in three sets, backed by a nine-piece band plus a phalanx of violins. Good singer, songs not always well suited, arrangements hit and miss. B+(**) [sp]

Fred Moten & Brandon López: Revision (2025, TAO Forms): Wikipedia describes Moten as a "cultural theorist, poet, and scholar whose work explores critical theory, black studies, and performance studies." His bibliography is split between "academic" and "creative," with the latter extending now to three albums since 2022, the first two with López (bass) and Gerald Cleaver (drums), this just with bass. I doubt I gave this one enough time. B+(***) [sp]

Charles Owens Trio: The Music Tells Us (2024, La Reserve): Tenor saxophonist, b. 1972, which distinguishes him from another saxophonist, b. 1939 (played with Buddy Rich and Mongo Santamaria in the late 1960s, has 149 credits at Discogs). This one debuted in 1999 with quartet including Omer Avital and Jason Lindner, who led his next two credits. Discogs has a few more albums, but his Bandcamp has a different batch, and I've seen reference to, but haven't verified, a box of 2003 live recordings that appear on neither (some digitals are on Amazon). Trio with Cameron Ralston (bass) and Koli Shepsu (drums), mostly standards, starts with "Body and Soul" and ends with "A Flower Is a Lovesome Thing," with stops along the way for "Nature Boy" and "Tomorrow Never Knows" (the most interesting, and surprising, piece here). Owens also plays some piano (Nord Stage 3) here. B+(***) [sp]

Aaron Parks: "By All Means!!" (2025, Blue Note): Pianist, albums since 2000, has a trio with Ben Street (bass) and Billy Hart (drums), adding Ben Solomon (tenor sax) here, to nice effect. B+(**) [sp]

Revolutionary Snake Ensemble: Serpentine (2025, Cuneiform): Boston group led by saxophonist Ken Field, fifth album since 2003, modeled after New Orleans brass bands but somewhat removed. B+(***) [dl]

Joanne Robertson: Blurrr (2025, AD 93): British singer-songwriter, from Blackpool, based in Glasgow, also a painter and poet, sixth solo album. B+(*) [sp]

John Scofield/Dave Holland: Memories of Home (2024 [2025], ECM): Guitar and bass duo, both legends: Holland left Miles Davis to record one of the greatest avant-jazz albums of 1972 (Conference of the Birds), then developed into one of the definitive postbop composer-bandleaders; Scofield picked up the fusion banner in 1981 and brought it to a new level of intricacy and sophistication. Not their first meeting, but their first duo album together. A- [sp]

Smerz: Big City Life (2025, Escho): Norwegian duo, Catharina Stoltenberg and Henriette Motzfeldt, second album, electronic beats, trip-hop vocals. B+(**) [sp]

Omar Sosa: Sendas (2025, Otá): Cuban pianist, b. 1965, moved to Ecuador in 1990, lived in US for a while, eventually wound up in Spain. Solo, mostly downbeat, a couple of vocals. B+(*) [sp]

Adrian Younge [Presents]: Something About April III (2025, Jazz Is Dead): Los Angeles-based composer-producer, started in "psychedelic soul," ventured into soundtracks, has lately mostly worked the Jazz Is Dead franchise with Ali Shaheed Muhammad, which usually features still-living-but-long-forgotten 1970s jazz figures, raising more questions than they answer. On his own, Younge's debut album was 2011's Something About April, to which he added a 2016 sequel. Here he hopes his increasing mastery of his trade — "a 30-piece orchestra, analog synthesizers, breakbeats and Brazilian vocalists" — will make the third time the charm. He may be right, but I'm not sure anyone else cares. B+(*) [sp]

Adrian Younge: Jazz Is Dead 23: Hyldon (2025, Jazz Is Dead, EP): The guest star here is Brazilian singer-songwriter Hyldon De Souza Silva (b. 1951), whose albums started in 1975, for a twist on the producer's "psychedelic soul" roots. Eight songs, 24:40. B+(**) [sp]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

Anthony Braxton: Quartet (England) 1985 (1985 [2025], Burning Ambulance): The alto saxophonist, who started in AACM in Chicago, cut a Penguin Guide crown-winning solo (For Alto) that was so ugly even I can't stand it 55 years later, got a major visibility boost when Arista signed him in the late 1970s, got a long-term teaching gig at Wesleyan whence he has had several students lauded with genius grants (Mary Halvorson most famously). Now past 80, he continues to add to the hundreds of albums in his discography, which is only starting to be fleshed out with old tapes. One thing that helped solidify his reputation was his 1980s quartet, with Marilyn Crispell (piano), Mark Dresser (bass), and Gerry Hemingway (drums), which ranks among the great quartets in jazz history — peers include Coltrane's in the 1960s, and Ware's 1990s (with any of its drummers, but let's say Guillermo E. Brown). Their 1985 tour of England produced three 2-CD sets at the time, from Coventry (the Penguin Guide pick), Birmingham, and London (my pick). This digital-only release collects four more shows, each with two 36-47 minute sets, from successive nights in Sheffield, Leicester, Bristol, and Southampton. Playing them end to end is liable to feel like drowning, but any time you come up for air, you're likely to notice something simply brilliant. Ends with a bonus set drawn from soundchecks, including bits of standards. A- [dl]

Don Cherry/Latif Khan: Music/Sangam (1978 [2025], Heavenly Sweetness): Trumpet player (1936-95), originally from Oklahoma City, gained fame in Ornette Coleman's Quartet, moved to Europe and expanded his horizons even wider, including this duo with tabla player (1942-89) from Delhi, during a first encounter in Paris. B+(**) [sp]

Griot Galaxy: Live on WUOM 1979 (1979 [2025], Two Rooms): Jazz band from Michigan, spanned 1972-89, recorded albums in 1982 and 1985, had another live set released in 2003. Names I first recognize here are Jaribu Shahid (bass) and Tani Tabbal (drums), who were Sun Ra veterans but I know them mostly from James Carter's 1990s Quartet. Here they're backing two saxophonists, Faruq Z. Bey and Anthony Holland. Strong sax interplay, outstanding rhythm section, some spoken word. A- [bc]

Old music:

Tarun Balani: The Shape of Things to Come (2020, Berthold): Indian drummer, same group as his 2025 album: Adam O'Farrill (trumpet), Sharik Hasan (piano/synthesizer), Olli Hirvonen (guitar). Bold title, reminiscent of Ornette Coleman but "things" are vague where "jazz" was specific, and attached to a short album (5 songs, 31:08). The title piece, which leaps out of the modal matrix, for a moment anyhow, suggests that the future is bebop. B+(**) [bc]

Daniel Carter/Gary Hassay/William Parker: Emanate (2013 [2015], self-released): No credits on the site, but Rick Lopez has the lowdown, crediting Carter with tenor/soprano sax, clarinet, flute, and trumpet, Hassay with alto/soprano sax and vocal, and Parker with bass and tuba, and setting the date and location as Easton, PA. B+(**) [bc]

Gary Hassay + Paul Rogers: To Be Free (2004 [2006], Konnex): Free jazz alto saxophonist, just died (1947-2025), based in Allentown, PA, which was close enough to New York to get him some connections (e.g., with William Parker) but keep him obscure. Still, Discogs credits him with 18 albums since 1996, adding one side credit for his 1999 Ye Ren album (actually just a duo with Parker). Very little of his work is available on Spotify, but most of it is available on Bandcamp, including this remarkable duo with the British bassist — best known for numerous albums with Paul Dunmall, but in exceptional form here. I'm not so sure about the bit of Tuvan throat singing. A- [bc]

Gary Hassay/Dan DeChellis/Tatsuya Nakatani: Beauty (2007, Konnex): Alto sax/piano/drums trio, one with several albums together, although the credits seem to have been missing on the original release, and are blurred ("saxophones/keyboards/percussion") on Bandcamp. Seems like they think quieter is prettier, but this is more striking when they break loose. Includes another "taste" of throat singing. B+(**) [bc]

Gary Hassay/Dan DeChellis/Tatsuya Nakatini: Ritual Joy (2009 [2010], Konnex): Another trio album, with a 57:44 live set ("Haunting Said That") and a 7:36 "Thank You" (order flipped for the 2015 digital). B+(**) [bc]

Gary Hassay/Michael Bisio: My Brother (2011, Konnex): Duo, Hassay playing tenor sax here, with the bassist who had worked with everyone on the New York avant scene when William Parker wasn't available. B+(**) [bc]

Gary Hassay/Dan DeChellis/Tatsuya Nakatini: Seven Pieces (2015, self-released): Trio (alto sax/piano/drums), no information on when/where this was recorded, but probably within the 2007-10 window of their other albums. Pieces are untitled and numbered. B+(*) [bc]

Gary Joseph Hassay/Janet Young: What Remains (2016, Dbops Music): Hassay starts using his middle name here, playing saxophones, throat-singing, and also credited with singing bowls and tuning forks, an interest shared by Young, also credited with gongs. The vocals finally lost it for me. B- [bc]

Charles Owens Quartet: Eternal Balance (1999, Fresh Sound New Talent): Tenor saxophonist, first album, with Jason Lindner (piano), Omer Avital (bass), and Daniel Freedman (drums), three originals and four standards. B+(***) [sp]

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

  • Negative Press Project: Friction Quartet (Envelopmental Music) [01-30]

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Wednesday, December 3, 2025

Music Week

December archive (in progress).

Music: Current count 45223 [45202] rated (+21), 3 [1] unrated (+2).

We had guests from Boston Monday-Wednesday, so I paid them attention, neglecting everything else, especially surveying new music. Actually, the disruption started earlier, as I had to work around the house to get guest rooms ready. One thing that involved was clearing or hiding our construction projects. Monday I made a fairly substantial dinner, consisting of chicken cacciatore, potatoes dauphinois, caponata, horiatiki salad, a green beans with pancetta and parmesan (and, since I was short of pancetta, a lot of speck), with tiramisu for dessert. It's a menu I had suggested to my nephew for his birthday, as something fairly easy but still spectacular (although I think I had a chocolate cake in mind, that being a birthday). Next day we went out to George's Bistro for something fancier and more expensive. Didn't see many sights, but not much you can really do in Wichita in December.

I've fallen several days behind my email in tabulating the Francis Davis Jazz Critics Poll. I invited another dozen-plus prospective voters, and just got a ballot back from one of them. I currently have 35 ballots counted, which seems pretty good with 18 days left until the Dec. 21 deadline. That's just gauging from memory: at times like this I wish I had sequence data from previous years, so I can more accurately gauge progress-to-date. We're at a bit less than 20% of last year's 177 ballots, so I need to get a good deal busier in the next 2.5 weeks.

Still time to invite more people, if I can find time to vet them. Recommendations welcome. (Most I've received recently have been very good.) The other big thing I have to figure out is the package articles. I had the thought of trying to commission some extra views of the data, but I'm having so much trouble finding time for what I minimally have to do that the extra work of recruitment and editing may prove beyond my reach. But, in case anyone is interested, some articles I'd like to see include:

  • I'll probably write one of my typical Nuts & Bolts articles.
  • Francis Davis normally would write one of his "state of the union" essays which would serve as an introduction to the whole poll. I doubt anyone can fill his shoes, which is one reason I'm pushing for multiple pieces, but let's list it here in case anyone feels like rising to the challenge.
  • I'd like to see a tribute piece on Francis and his conception and interest in the poll. I know a lot about the mechanics and history, but I'm far less certain about what he thought and wanted, and why he stuck with it so long, against so many obstacles.
  • The special categories could each be given their introduction articles. I'd particularly like to see someone explain and defend Francis' concept of those categories (I'm not a big believer in them myself).
  • I'd like to see one or more outside takes on the poll, especially a view from Europe.
  • The obituaries list could use a proper introduction.
  • I've thought about asking for comments, like in the Pazz & Jop polls. Problem is, I tried this once, got a very weak response, and wound up not only throwing the whole thing away but learning I don't have the skills and temperament to manage such a project. If we did such a thing, and got a good response, it would easily break down into obvious subsets (top 10, outliers, state of the world). It would be nice to have a section of remembrances of Francis.

I've toyed with the idea of taking some of my money and offering it for pieces, but there's so little to go around I'm not sure that's even a good idea. Plus it's becoming increasingly clear that I'm being stretched to the breaking point this year. I'd be interested in any reader comments here (although I'm not very optimistic about getting any). I will at least run these ideas past the voters and admin helpers later this week, and try to make decisions next week.

The other thing I want to stress here is my hope that other people will write and/or broadcast (or is that podcast?) about the poll in their own venues after it comes out. If I can be helpful in that regard, please let me know. The poll is not a commercial venture. It's not an excuse to throw a gala, to hobnob with the stars, to hand out trophies. I'm not sure that it even matters who wins what. But the exercise matters, both in clarifying our own thinking and in communicating our experiences and expertise to other people. It helps us find our bearings in an immensely complex and confusing world. And that the process is relatively free of commercial pressures and ambitions should be taken as good.

I ran my cutover Wednesday evening, and started to write this. I got almost this far, before I ran out of gas and decided to give it another day. My album count is short because I've spent so much time on other things. Even so, I've failed to make any progress on my own EOY lists, and very little on my EOY Aggregate, which has suddenly fallen very far behind. Much of today was spent catching up with email, which has brought the ballot count to 40. The number of New Jazz records with votes is up to 241, with Rara Avis at 53. I also found myself adding occasional items to the Loose Tabs draft file.

I got my monthly stats report from Substack, which showed +4 subscribers (to 81), and -143 post reads (102; looks like I only posted once in November). So that's feeling like a fiasco. My mostly remedial home projects are feeling even more hopeless, especially as I'm caught between the grinding wheels of contractors and insurance companies. We were fortunate to mostly be spared the costs of inflation in 2023-24 — sure, we knew about food, but we don't need that much, and nothing else had much impact. But now I'm finding that a new roof costs three times as much as it did in 2006, and while insurance pretty much covered that 2006 roof, today's is covering less than half. And the real problem there isn't even money: it's leverage. There are still lots of cheap things, where we have lots of competitive choices, but where we don't, we're really getting screwed. Needless to add, having a government built on fraud and predatory practices doesn't offer much hope, let alone protection.

With guests gone, and construction pending (I hope), I've started to line up a lot of things to listen to, so I imagine the rest of the year will be chock full of very quick and dirty reviews. But when I looked as the Jazz Passings list, I noticed saxophonist Gary Hassay among the recently departed (1947-2025): a name I recall fondly, and felt I should delve into deeper. Reviews next week, but I went ahead and added the cover scan for To Be Free (2005) to the otherwise paltry A-list above right. But he didn't record a lot, and I have trouble getting into the throat singing.

I'm still happy to send out invitations when I run across a worthy name. I'm frustrated when I can't figure out an email address. (I spent some time today looking for Brent Burton, and I noticed that Mike Jurkovic has a list at AAJ.) I see that Fred Kaplan and Nate Chinen have already published lists, but haven't submitted ballots.

Well past midnight now, and if I don't file this tonight, I may never get it done. So basta per ora!

New records reviewed this week:

أحمد [Ahmed]: سماع [Sama'a] (Audition) (2025, Otoroku): British quartet, formed 2017 in tribute to bassist Ahmed Abdul-Malik, with Pat Thomas (piano), Seymour Wright (alto sax), Joel Grip (double bass), and Antonin Gerbal (drums). Sixth album, follows the box set Giant Beauty, which got a lot of attention in 2024. Four pieces (66:04). Can grate in spots, but impressive or maybe I mean awesome. I've listened to a fair amount from Thomas recently, but Wright, with 60 credits since 2002, could use further research. A- [bc]

Lina Allemano Four: The Diptychs (2024 [2025], Lumo): Canadian trumpet player, divides her time between Toronto and Berlin, side credits since 1996, albums since 2003, mostly "Fours," this one with alto sax (Brodie West), bass (Andrew Downing), and drums (Nick Fraser). Two two-horn interplay can take off. B+(***) [bc]

Mia Dyberg/Axel Filip: Hobby House (2025, Relative Pitch): Danish alto saxophonist, a dozen or so albums since 2016, this a duo with drums. B+(**) [sp]

Ryan Ebaugh/Matt Crane/Cameron Presley: Detergent (2024 [2025], Scatter Archive): Tenor sax, drums, guitar; the former seems to be younger, with a couple recent albums; the others older, with side credits starting in the 1990s, albeit mostly in bands with names like Carpet Floor (Crane) and Upsilon Acrux (Presley). Raw and harsh, which is the point. B+(***) [bc]

Rachel Eckroth & John Hadfield: Speaking in Tongues (2023 [2025], Adhyâropa): Piano and drums duo (well, long list of keyboards and percussion instruments), former has 7 previous albums since 2005, latter has a 2022 album and dozens of side credits back to 2004 (they knew each other in college). B+(***) [sp]

Anna Högberg Attack: Ensamseglaren (2024 [2025], Fönstret): Swedish alto saxophonist, plays in Fire! Orchestra, several other groups, this one was originally a quintet in 2016 but is up to 12 members here. B+(**) [bc]

Hamilton de Holanda Trio: Live in NYC (2024 [2025], Sony): Brazilian bandolin player (using a 10-string mandolin here), dozens of albums since 1998, upbeat trio here with Salomăo Soares (keyboards) and Thiago "Big" Rabello (drums), plus guest spots for Chris Potter (tenor sax), who makes the most of every opportunity. B+(**) [sp]

Kelsey Mines/Erin Rogers: Scratching at the Surface (2022 [2025], Relative Pitch): Bass and sax (tenor/soprano) duo, weaving together contrasting tones. B [sp]

Kelsey Mines/Vinny Golia: Collusion and Collaboration (2025, Relative Pitch): Golia plays piccolo and contrabass flutes, Bb clarinet, and sopranino saxophone, in a duo with the bassist, who also contributes "expressive vocal textures." B [bc]

Oneohtrix Point Never: Tranquilizer (2025, Warp): Electronica producer Daniel Lopatin, one of the bigger names in the business since his 2006 debut. B+(**) [sp]

PainKiller: The Great God Pan (2024 [2025], Tzadik): Avant-grindcore fusion band, founded 1991 with John Zorn (alto sax), Bill Laswell (bass guitar), and Mick Harris (drums, from Napalm Death), released three studio albums (plus one live) through 1994, has been revived several times since — sometimes with different drummers, but Harris returns here. One of many Zorn projects I've missed, so I'm surprised that the drumming is far from bombastic, and while the sax can cut to the quick, it's far from relentless, and could even be called ambient. B+(**) [yt]

Rin Seo Collective: City Suite (2024 [2025], Cellar Music): Korean composer/conductor, based in New York, first album, group a crackling 14-piece big band, to call these complex and dynamic pieces "impressions of New York" undersells them severely. B+(***) [sp]

Shifa: Ecliptic (2023 [2025], Discus Music): British trio of Rachel Musson (sax), Pat Thomas (piano), and Mark Sanders (drums), third album, a single 45:57 improv piece. B+(***) [bc]

Slash Need: Sit & Grin (2025, self-released): Canadian group, "lyrics by Dusty Lee" (except for a Fang cover), eight songs, 32:28. Industrial beats, harsh gloom feels real. B+(***) [sp]

Jason Stein/Marilyn Crispell/Damon Smith/Adam Shead: Live at the Hungry Brain (2023 [2025], Trost): Bass clarinetist, many albums since 2008, some exceptional, leads a live improv set here with piano, bass, and drums. B+(***) [bc]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

Khan Jamal: Give the Vibes Some (1974 [2025], Souffle Continu): Vibraphone player (1946-2022), born in Florida as Warren Cheeseboro but mostly associated with the avant-garde in Philadelphia, first appeared with Sounds of Liberation in 1972, and with many other free jazz notables over the years. Three duet pieces here — one with Clint Jackson III (trumpet), two with drums (Hassan Rashid) — plus a marimba solo. B+(***) [bc]

Roland Kirk Quartet: Domino: Live at Radio Bremen TV-Studios 1963 (1963 [2025], MIG): Title invites confusion with his 1962 Mercury album, Domino, with both sessions here leading off with the title tune. He plays everything, his songbook extending to Mingus. Backed by George Gruntz (piano), Guy Pedersen (bass), and Daniel Humair (drums). Package appears to come with a DVD, but I'm only hearing audio. B+(**) [yt]

Stephen McCraven: Wooley the Newt (1979 [2025], Moved-by-Sound): Drummer (b. 1954), first of only a handful of albums as leader, but played extensively with Archie Shepp and Sam Rivers, and is father of Makaya McCraven. Recorded in Paris with two saxophonists (Sulaiman Hakim and Richard Raux), piano (Michel Graillier), and bass (Jack Gregg). B+(***) [sp]

Barbara Thompson's Paraphernalia: Live at Leverkusen 1994 (1994 [2025], Repertoire): British saxophonist (1944-2022); notable early side credits with Howard Riley, Michael Gibbs, and Colosseum (whose drummer she married). Debuted her fusion group Paraphernalia in 1978, which became her main (but not only) outlet into the 1990s, when health issues slowed her down. B+(**) [sp]

Old music:

Khan Jamal Quartet: Dark Warrior (1984 [1995], SteepleChase): Vibraphonist, recorded this in Denmark with Charles Tyler (alto/baritone sax), Johnny Dyani (bass), and Leroy Lowe (drums), adding a little funk quotient. B+(***) [sp]

Grade (or other) changes:

Patricia Brennan: Of the Near and Far (2024 [2025], Pyroclastic): Vibraphonist, from Mexico, based in Brooklyn, follow up to her poll-winning Breaking Stretch, has had a big year already with appearances on new albums by Mary Halvorson (A-), Dave Douglas (**), Tomas Fujiwara (A-), Adam O'Farrill (A-), Dan Weiss (***), Arturo O'Farrill (***), and Kalia Vandever (***). Original pieces, a large group conducted by Eli Greenhoe, with piano (Sylvie Courvoisier), guitar (Miles Okazaki), bass (Kim Cass), drums (John Hollenbeck), electronics (Arktureye), three violins and a cello. Seemed nice enough, even with an excess of strings, but poll votes persuaded me to revisit. Starts off sparkling, which is admittedly the adjective mallet instruments were designed to evoke. Ends in ambient territory, but pretty lush. [was: B+(***)] A- [cd]

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

  • Convergence: Reckless Meter (Capri) [12-05]
  • Keith Oxman: Home (Capri) [12-05]

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Wednesday, November 26, 2025

Music Week

November archive (final).

Music: Current count 45202 [45155] rated (+47), 1 [12] unrated (-11).

This is a couple days late. While I'm nowhere near as likely as my father was at my age to nod off, I'm finding it nearly impossible to get any serious work done after midnight, or even much before. So when I find myself failing a self-imposed deadline, increasingly I leave it for a fresher tomorrow.

Last week, I resolved to publish Loose Tabs before my next Music Week. Since I number my blog posts — this goes back to the convention of an earlier generation of blog software called "s9y" (or "serendipity") — it becomes awkward to change directions. Besides, I didn't want to change. I had no desire to hold back comments on the elections past Thanksgiving. On the other hand, it didn't wrap up easily. Sunday passed unfinished. I finally posted 10292 words on Monday. I figured I'd do Music Week on Tuesday, and didn't even get started until after midnight. I was sharp enough then to effect my cutoff, but not to write an introduction. I punted again, and didn't get started until 9 PM Wednesday. We're now in a Cinderella race to see if I can post this tonight before I turn to pumpkin.

I suppose I should mention that these delays aren't just good old fashioned writer's block, which I am often prone to. I spent prime time Saturday shopping for wood for my attic project: 5 sheets of plywood, 26 2x4s, 4 sheets of foamular, 4 sheets of underlayment, 48 feet each of 2x6 and 1x4 for the railing frame. On Sunday, we started using some of that, decking the center swath of the attic: not a huge part of the project, but a critical staging ground for further work. And Monday I made dinner for guests returning from a trip to Wales and Bosnia. I had little time to prepare, so I went with something simple but flexible and usually quite good: a big phat thai, with a water chestnut salad on the side, and for dessert the oatmeal stout cake, but substituting store-bought butter pecan ice cream. I was distracted enough on Monday I left nearly all of my email for Tuesday. Which during poll season takes some time to get through.

The 20th Annual Francis Davis Jazz Critics Poll is coming along nicely. By the time I finally caught up with my email, I had 24 ballots counted, with 149 new jazz albums named, and a surprise (to me, anyhow) leader. I've made little progress on a second round of invites, but have asked my email lists for recommendations. I just haven't had time to check out the 200-300 extra names I already have collected, let alone look for new ones. Still, I'm sure there are some good people we're missing.

I'm afraid I'm feeling kind of schizzy about the poll. On the one hand, I want to push it to succeed beyond all expectations, and on the other I'm tempted to drop it and walk away. The obvious facts are that it's going to run my life between now and the first week of January, and that I'm not going to be able to get anywhere near as much done on or with it as I would like. And there's very little I can do about any of that.

One thing I do know is that the next week is going to be especially unproductive. We're going to try to work on the house tomorrow, and get as much done as possible before it gets much colder and possibly snowy this weekend. But I'm also going to try to cook something: just a trad family meatloaf using stuff I don't have to shop for. Then on Monday we'll have guests from Boston for a couple days. I'll need to cook something on Monday. Should be another good excuse to push Music Week back toward the middle of the week.

How much I can listen to by then is anyone's guess, but I should at least run across more jazz albums I hadn't heard of. Aside from the Kirk set and maybe SML, this week's top records were complete surprises. Hopefully I can get my ballot settled by next week. The first step is to assemble the jazz and non-jazz EOY files.

PS: I did manage to finish posting this well after midnight Wednesday, but forgot to mention something fairly important: my server will be down for much of Monday, December 1, due to a data center migration by my provider (Shock Hosting; by the way, they've been terrific so far, providing much improved performance for much less cost). They offered to move me ahead of time, but I didn't move in time, and basically decided to ride out the storm. This will affect several other websites that I host: Hullworks (mostly jazz poll); Notes on Everyday Life (still nothing); Carol Cooper; Carola Dibbell; Barbara Howe. This won't affect Robert Christgau, which is hosted elsewhere, or places like my Substack.

I also noticed and corrected some fairly severe typos in yesterday's updates to last Monday's Loose Tabs. I also misplaced the Peter Beinart book cover from the Recent Reading roll. That should now be fixed. I'm about one-third of the way through the book. It offers a pretty succinct, level-headed detail of what Israel has done to Gaza, and some measured explanation of why so many American and Israeli Jews have been so myopic about Israel's actions. I am hopeful that the remainder will draw out the self-harm that such myopia is causing. If you are Palestinian, or identify with them, I don't expect you to care, but the ability to recognize the suffering of even your enemies is a good trait to cultivate.

Even though this is a holiday, I have a lot of work to do today. And not a hell of a lot to be "thankful" for, but we do what we can.

New records reviewed this week:

Annahstasia: Tether (2025, Drink Sum Wtr): Singer-songwriter from Los Angeles, last name Enuke, first album. Showed up on a jazz vocals list, but she's more folkie, maybe a touch of Joni Mitchell, deeper voice. B+(*) [sp]

Bitchin Bajas: Inland See (2025, Drag City): Chicago group, primarily a side project for Cooper Crain (of Cave), with Dan Quinlivan and Rob Frye, with more than a dozen albums since 2010, including collaborations with natural Information Society, Bonnie Prince Billy, and Olivia Wyatt. This is their basic instrumental groove album. B+(***) [sp]

Lena Bloch/Kyoko Kitamura: Marina (2022 [2025], Fresh Sound New Talent): Russian saxophonist, tenor and soprano, moved through Israel and Europe to the US, winding up in Brooklyn. Several albums since 2014. Kitamura is a vocal improviser, also based in Brooklyn, with several albums since 2012, plus notable work with Anthony Braxton and William Parker. They are backed by piano (Jacob Sacks), bass (Ken Filiano), and drums (Michael Smith). B+(**) [cd]

Kara-Lis Coverdale: From Where You Came (2025, Smalltown Supersound): Canadian electronica composer/producer, based in Montreal, has a half-dozen albums since 2014. This one feels like soundtrack fodder, atmosphere undergirded by dramatic structure, but little fun. B [sp]

Peter Evans/Being & Becoming: Ars Ludicra (2024 [2025], More Is More): Trumpet player, first caught our attention in Mostly Other People Do the Killing, was also the first to leave that group. Third group album, with Joel Ross (vibes/synth), Nick Jozwiak (bass/synth), and Michael Shekwoaga Ode (drums), plus some guest flute on one track. B+(***) [sp]

Irving Flores Afro-Cuban Sextet: Armando Mi Conga (2025, Amor De Flores Productions): Pianist from Mexico, based om Sam Doegp, has a couple previous albums, recorded this one in New York with some Latin jazz luminaries, including Giovanni Hidalgo (congas), Horacio "El Negro" Hernandez (drums), John Benitez (bass), and Brian Lynch (trumpet). B+(*) [sp]

Satoko Fujii Quartet: Burning Wick (2025, Libra): Japanese pianist, well over 100 albums, this is more/less her core group, with Natsuki Tamura (trumpet), Hayakawa Takeharu (bass), and Tatsuya Yoshida (drums). B+(***) [cd]

Marcus Gilmore: Journey to the New: Live at the Village Vanguard (2024 [2025], Drummerslams): Drummer, has a lot of side credits since 2005 (Clark Terry, Vijay Iyer) but this counts as his debut. Sextet billed as a collective, with Morgan Guerin (EWI), David Virelles (piano), Emmanuel Michael (guitar), Rashaan Carter (double bass), and Burniss Travis (electric bass and sound design). B+(*) [bc]

John Gunther: Painting the Dream (2024 [2025], Origin): Saxophonist (soprano, tenor, flute, bass clarinet, electronics), from Denver, second album, trio with Dawn Clement (piano/rhodes, electronics, sings some) and Dru Heller (drums). Original pieces (except one from Ron Miles), into expressionism. B+(**) [cd]

Carrie Jackson: Jersey Bounce (2025, Arabesque Jazz): Standards singer, from New Jersey, has an r&b/gospel background, has a 30-year career, only one previous album I've found on Discogs, possibly more. Big voice, swings, backed by Radam Schwartz (organ), bass, drums, guitar, trombone (Ku-Umba Frank Lacy) and tenor sax (Rodrigo Romero). B+(**) [sp]

Jung Stratmann Quartet: Confluence (2025, self-released): Korean pianist Sujae Jung and German Wolf Robert Stratmann, based in New York, have a couple previous releases (but not on Discogs), working here with Steve Cardenas (guitar) and Marko Djordjevic (drums). B+(*) [cd] [12-03]

KeiyaA: Hooke's Law (2025, XL): Singer-songwriter Chakeiya Richmond, from Chicago, started playing alto sax and into jazz before switching to neo-soul, self-releasing her debut album in 2020. Second album, a very tricky thing. B+(*) [sp]

Lagon Nwar: Lagon Nwar (2025, AirFono): French group, with Reunionese singer Ann O'aro and Burkinabe drummer-singer Marcel Balboné, along with saxophonist Quentin Biardeau and bassist Valentin Ceccaldi, came to my attention on a jazz list but could have been Afropop. B+(***) [sp]

Seth MacFarlane: Lush Life: The Lost Sinatra Arrangements (2025, Verve): Probably better known as an actor than singer, possibly better known still for his work with cartoons like Family Guy and American Dad, but he has ten or so albums since 2011, citing Sinatra as his model. That gave him a chance to look through Sinatra's library, where he found unused arrangements, mostly from Nelson Riddle, of songs perfectly at home there. He lives in them comfortably, close enough for all practical purposes. B+(***) [sp]

Nicolas Masson: Renaissance (2023 [2025], ECM): Swiss saxophonist (tenor/soprano), ten or so albums since 2002, this a quartet backed by Colin Vallon (piano), Patrice Moret (bass), and Lionel Friedli (drums). B+(**) [sp]

Camila Nebbia/Gonçalo Almeida/Sylvain Darrifourcq: Hypnomaniac (2025, Defkaz): Tenor saxophonist from Argentina, has been pumping a lot of records out recently — this is the 10th I've heard since 2020, found while looking for yet another. Backed with bass and drums. Starts and ends strong. B+(**) [bc]

Camila Nebbia/Marilyn Crispell/Lesley Mok: A Reflection Distorts Over Water (2024 [2025], Relative Pitch): Tenor sax, piano, and drums trio. Another typically strong free sax record. B+(***) [bc]

Camila Nebbia/Michael Formanek/Vinnie Sperrazza: Live at Blow Out (2024 [2025], Soundholes): Tenor sax, bass, and drums, live from a club in Oslo, recorded by Stĺlke Liavik Solberg, three numbered pieces where the opener runs 29:02, the rest add up to another 12:50. Superb once again. B+(***) [bc]

Ninajirachi: I Love My Computer (2025, NLV): Australian electronic DJ/producer Nina Wilson, stage name cites a Pokémon character. First album after singles (starting 2017), EPs and a mixtape. Credit is for sampler and production, but music has vocals throughout, with a cartoon metallic thrash that reminds one of Skrillex, and possibly Avalanches. B+(**) [sp]

Jake Owen: Dreams to Dream (2025, Good Company): Country singer, from Florida, eighth album since 2006, fine voice and trad airs. B+(**) [sp]

Recognize Ali & Stu Bangas: Guerilla Dynasty 3 (2025, 1332/Brutal Music/Greenfield Music): Underground rapper Nii Ayitey Ajin Adamafio, from Ghana, working sith Boston-based producer Stuart Hudgins. B+(**) [sp]

Recognize Ali & Tragedy Khadafi: The Past the Present and the Future (2025, Greenfield Music): Producer started as Percy Chapman, then MC Percy, then Intelligent Hoodlum (for a 1993 album), then adopted his current moniker around 2000, working with Killah Priest and Capone-N-Noriega. Old style turntablism, underground, Muslim, political, encyclopedic. Some helpful advice: "love 'em, pray for 'em, but fuck 'em." A- [sp]

Dave Rempis/Jason Adasiewicz/Chris Corsano: Dial Up (2025, Aerophonic): Saxophonist (the whole gamut) with two more strong live sets, one from Chicago, the other Milwaukee, both with vibes and drums. Some terrific saxophone, as usual, but the vibes don't help much. B+(***) [cd] [12-26]

Bobby Rozario: Healer (2024-25 [2025], Origin): Young guitarist, so presumably not the only one in Discogs (1965 credit with Sam Butera, a few more including Bette Midler and Phil Cody). But not his first album: I have one from 2023 in my database, which I liked. Long list of supporting musicians here, including some Latin Jazz eminences, and some vocals. He fits in well, and ties them together. B+(**) [cd]

Scheen Jazzorkester & Stĺle Storlřkken: Double Reality Beyond Space and Time (2024 [2025], Grong): All compositions by Storlřkken, a "synth wizard" from Norway with occasional albums as far back as 2002 and many side credits since 1991, including work with Motorpsycho, Supersilent, Elephant9, and Krokofant. The 12-piece big band, with 10 previous albums since 2013, gives him a lot to work with. A- [cd]

SML: How You Been (2024-25 [2025], International Anthem): Second group album by Anna Butterss (bass), Jeremiah Chiu (synths), Josh Johnson (sax/electronics), Gregory Uhlmann (guitar), and Booker Stardrum (drums), most with notable parallel solo work. Recorded live in various venues. The intense rhythm pieces are super appealing. The ambient pieces slightly less. A- [sp]

Split System: No Cops in Heaven/Pull the Trigger (2025, Legless, EP): Actually, just a single, two songs, 6:13. Garage punk band from Melbourne, mostly singles since 2022, but Discogs shows a live album and two compilations, which I've heard but hadn't remembered — both graded B+(***). B+(**) [bc]

Split System: Live in Stockholm 2023 (2023 [2025], Legless): Australian punk group, fast and furious, they have a bunch of singles since 2022, enough to field 16 songs here, averaging a bit less than 3 minutes. I wasn't really in the mood, but this is intense, relentless, and as consistent as any punk album I've heard in quite some while. A- [bc]

Kevin Sun: Lofi at Lowlands (二) (2024 [2025], Endectomorph Music): Tenor saxophonist, quickly (2018) established himself as one of the best, has lately taken to experimentation with postproduction on his improv trio tracks. He released one EP-length (23:13), batch in May, and returns here with a slightly longer (7 tracks, 29:28) edition, with the Chinese for "(2)" added to the title. (I missed the number on the previous EP, so need to go back and correct that. Parens might have helped.) I don't much like the concept here, but he's a terrific musician, and this starts off quite engaging. B+(**) [sp]

Chad Taylor Quintet: Smoke Shifter (2024 [2025], Otherly Love): Drummer, has anchored Chicago Underground Duo (etc.) since 1998, has led a few albums and played on 150 more, including powerhouses from Fred Anderson to James Brandon Lewis. Quintet with Jonathan Finlayson (trumpet), Bryan Rogers (tenor sax), Victor Vieira-Branco (vibes), and Matt Engle (bass). Exciting at first, but winds up in a bit of a postbop rut. B+(**) [sp]

Maxine Troglauer: Hymn (2024 [2025[, Fun in the Church): Bass trombonist from Germany, first album, with a fairly major contribution by Peter Evans (trumpet, pocket trumpet), backed by piano, bass, and drums. B+(**) [sp]

Carolyn Trowbridge: Found Memories (2025 [2026], self-released): Austin-based vibraphonist, side-credits since 2009, first album as leader, quintet with flute (Alex Cole), guitar, bass, and drums. B [cd] [01-09]

Jeff Tweedy: Twilight Override (2025, dBpm): Singer-songwriter, started with Uncle Tupelo (1990-93), since then has led Wilco (14 albums through 2024) while recording occasionally under his own name (4 albums 2017-20), now this, which actually a triple running nearly 2 hours. First song I noticed was the very last ("Enough"), at which point I saw I had the damn thing on shuffle (which I've started to use in the car, but generally abhor). I turned shuffle off, and picked up from about 7 songs in, so I may have missed one or two, and heard some others twice. Enough good songs here that a single-CD might bump it up a notch or two, but nothing bad to drag it down, and this is about where I usually land with him. B+(**) [sp]

Kalia Vandever: Another View (2025, Northern View): Trombonist, based in New York, fourth album, quartet with Mary Halvorson (guitar), Kanoa Mendenhall (bass), and Kayvon Gordon (drums). Nice, steady record. [sp]

Kenny Wheeler Legacy: Some Days Are Better: The Lost Scores (2024 [2025], Greenleaf Music): Trumpet (actually mostly flugelhorn) player from Canada (1930-2014), moved to England in 1952, put in some years with the bop generation there (Tubby Hayes, Ronnie Scott) before participating in the founding of the UK avant-garde, only to wind up as an esteemed postbop composer on ECM. So this big production — featuring the Royal Academy of Music Jazz Orchestra, Frost Jazz Orchestra, and a long list of "special contributions" including saxophonists Evan Parker and Chris Potter — isn't much of a surprise. B+(**) [sp]

Stephane Wrembel: Django New Orleans II: Hors Série (2025, Water Is Life): French jazz guitarist, has had Django Reinhardt on his mind since he titled his 2005 debut Gypsy Rumble. Since then he has five Django Experiment albums, and more including a previous Django New Orleans (2023). Whereas the previous one was mostly traditional New Orleans pieces (plus "Dinah," "Caravan," and one Reinhardt), this one branches out, with Piazzolla, Jobim, Gainsbourg, and "Nature Boy," plus a couple originals. Sarah King sings, and the cross-cultural spicing is tasty, including pandeiro, sousaphone and washboard. B+(***) [sp]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

Ray Barretto Y Su Orquesta: Celia · Ray · Adalberto: Tremendo Trio! (1983 [2025], Craft): Unclear how to parse the cover, which top left starts with the first names of the stars (Cruz, Barretto, Santiago), and bottom right cites the band, which gains the upper hand on the back cover, then loses it to "Celia, Ray & Adalberto" on the label. Credits, at least on Discogs, mention the principals only in passing: the congalero/bandleader Barretto directed/produced; Santiago for backing vocals (but not for his leads, which are every bit as prominent as Cruz's). In the end, the music belongs to the band, as the singers barely stand out. B+(*) [sp]

Rahsaan Roland Kirk: Live in Paris (1970): Lost ORTF Recordings (1970 [2024], Transversales Disques): Tenor saxophonist, also played manzello and strich, often at the same time (he's also credited with soprano, alto, flute, and clarinet here). At this point he was well into his Atlantic period, which was less consistent than the early-1960s work on Mercury, but continued to stretch out in the spiritual and cultural space Coltrane opened up. Sextet with trombone, piano, bass, drums, and percussion. Strong form here. B+(***) [bc]

Rahsaan Roland Kirk: Vibrations in the Village: Live at the Village Gate (1964 [2025], Resonance): Previously unreleased sets originally recorded for a documentary, with Kirk playing his usual everything, backed by bass, drums, and revolving pianists (Horace Parlan, Melvin Rhyne, Jane Getz). B+(***) [cd] [11-28]

Rahsaan Roland Kirk: Seek & Listen: Live at the Penthouse (1967 [2025], Resonance, 2CD): This one sprawls onto a second CD, but isn't that much longer (84 minutes vs. 78). Group is more obscure, with Rahn Burton (piano), Steve Novosel (bass), and Jimmy Hopps (drums). But the medleys are brighter here, the originals on the second disc cook, and his vocal to close is an unexpected delight. A- [cd] [11-28]

Makaya McCraven: PopUp Shop (2015 [2025], International Anthem, EP): Drummer, side credits from 2003, own albums pick up around 2012. This is one of four simultaneous EPs (also available on 2-CD as Off the Record), a fusion swing set with guitar (Jeff Parker), bass guitar (Benjamin J Shepherd), and vibes (Justefan). Five songs, 21:40. B+(**) [sp]

Makaya McCraven: Hidden Out! (2017 [2025], International Anthem, EP): Six songs, 23:14, from two sets in June, one with guitar (Jeff Parker) and double bass (Junius Paul); the other with trumpet (Marquis Hill), sax (Josh Johnson), and Paul again. This moves into our "new" (as opposed to "vault") timeframe, which just goes to show how arbitrary such dates are. B+(*) [sp]

Makaya McCraven: The People's Mixtape (2025, International Anthem, EP): Four pieces, 21:10, with Marquis Hill (trumpet), Junius Paul (bass guitar), Joel Ross (vibes), and Jeremiah Chiu (modular synth). B+(***) [sp]

Makaya McCraven: Techno Logic (2017-25 [2025], International Anthem, EP): Five pieces, 22:17, mostly with Theon Cross (tuba, electronics) and Ben LaMar Gay (cornet, voice, percussion, synths, electronics, diddley bow), with later overdubs by McCraven. B+(**) [sp]

Makaya McCraven: Off the Record (2015-25 [2025], International Anthem): This rolls all four EPs up into a single CD packaged — a compilation, but as I recall released a week before the constituent EPs, so should we treat this as "new music" and the EPs as reissues? — which is handy for those of us who prefer what now seems to be considered archaic (or at least dépassé) technology. I can't speak to whether that makes a difference in how one hears this music, but I can imagine broader patterns emerging. As it is, I'm just extrapolating from the streamed EPs. I've read somewhere McCraven considers himself a "beat scientist." That seems fair. B+(**) [sp]

François Tusques/Intercommunal Free Dance Music Orchestra: Aprčs La Marée Noire: Vers Une Musique Bretonne Nouvelle (1979 [2025], Souffle Continu): French pianist, recorded his debut Free Jazz in 1965, recorded Intercommunal Music in 1971, leading to the group which registered four volumes 1974-82, and possibly a couple more albums like this one. Front cover has no artist credit, so I'm following Discogs. Back cover has three lines of credits, with "Sonneurs Traditionnels" in between. The Celtic component comes from bombarde (an oboe) and binioů koz (a small bagpipe) but you also get darbuka (a middle eastern drum) and congas. A- [bc]

X-Cetra: Summer 2000 [Y2K 25th Anniversary Edition] (2000 [2025], Numero Group): Pre-teen girl group from Santa Rosa, CA, three 11-year-olds, one just 9, singing over trip-hop tracks by Achim Treu, produced by Robin O'Brien (mother of two members, with a real but obscure discography of her own, centered around home taping experiments). Original 8-song CDR is expanded here to 11 songs, 28:21. As I understand it, they aimed for something like the Spice Girls, but what I hear is closer to Kleenex/Liliput. A- [sp]

Old music:

Stephane Wrembel: Django New Orleans (2022 [2023], Water Is Life): French guitarist, a Django Reinhart specialist, put this band together in New York to record traditional New Orleans pieces ŕ la Hot Club de Paris. Sarah King sings several of them, starting with "Dinah." She has a voice suited to the period, but really excels on "Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho." B+(***) [sp]

Grade (or other) changes:

Cecil McBee: Mutima (1974 [2025], Strata-East/Mack Avenue): Bassist, hasn't led many albums but side-credits start in 1963 and per Discogs number 463, was especially busy in the 1970s with Pharoah Sanders and Sam Rivers, slowing down around 2000. Opens with a long bass solo, followed by a short vocal bit (not to my liking, and no credit I can see), then a sextet piece with trumpet (Tex Allen) and two saxophonists (Allen Braufman and George Adams). Second side opens with another long bass solo, and again ends with a group blast. [was: B] B+(*) [sp]

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

  • Scheen Jazzorkester & Stĺle Storlřkken: Double Reality Beyond Space and Time (Grong) [11-10]

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