Monday, August 21, 2017


Music Week

Music: Current count 28563 [28538] rated (+25), 378 [378] unrated (+0).

First, I want to single out a link from yesterday's Weekend Roundup that I added late, barely scanned, and didn't much comment on: Heather Boushey: How the Radical Right Played the Long Game and Won. I see now that I got it way out of my usual alphabetical-by-author order, but that's not worth correcting. It's a book review. The book is Nancy McLean's Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America. It's primarily about an economist who Charles Koch knows well even if you or I didn't: James McGill Buchanan. I've bought a copy of the book, and intend to read it soon. (I figured I'd read the new paperback of Rosa Brooks' How Everything Became War and How the Military Became Everything first, in honor [horror?] of Trump's new Chief of Staff, John Kelly.) Anyhow, if I hadn't been so rushed, I would have singled out this quote:

In the United States, promising and then delivering services and protections for the majority of voters provides a path for politicians to be popularly elected. Buchanan was concerned that this would lead to overinvestment in public services, as the majority would be all too willing to tax the wealthy minority to support these programs. So Buchanan came to a radical conclusion: Majority rule was an economic problem. "Despotism," he declared in his 1975 book The Limits of Liberty, "may be the only organizational alternative to the political structure that we observe."

Buchanan therefore argued for "curbing the appetites of majority coalitions" by establishing ironclad rules that would curb their power. . . . He knew that the majority would never agree to being constrained. He therefore helped lead a push to undermine their trust in public institutions. The idea was to get voters to direct their ire at these institutions and divert their attention away from increasing income and wealth inequality.

This is all stuff I had figured out, so the only surprise is the extent to which it was designed, and I suppose the frankness with which it was articulated as a strategy to subvert democracy and impose despotism. My own discovery started with the observation that while rich people strongly favor Republicans and poor people strongly favor Democrats in every state all across the nation, richer states tend toward Democrats (the exceptions are Alaska and Utah) while relatively poor states go Republican. The latter happens because people in those states have learned better than o expect help from their elected government, because governments long controlled by reactionaries have long disabused them of their hopes and faith in democracy.

People in richer states have more faith in government, because public institutions there serve them better, not least because a more efficient, more supportive state helps build the economy. (The Republican capture of Wisconsin is offering a real time example of turning a rich state into a poor one.) Of course, Republicans didn't need Buchanan's theorizing to understand that the first step in turning a popular program into one seen as worthless was rendering it incompetent: Richard Nixon provided a classic example of this when he put Donald Rumsfeld in charge of the Office of Economic Opportunity. Still, no one ever came out and said that's what Nixon and Rumsfeld were up to and why. They simply set up a situation which later Republicans could exploit by arguing that the OEO was a waste of money, that government never could have alleviated poverty in the first place. What Buchanan, and McLean's book, give us is the smoking gun: they show how disaster was planned, and why a few extraordinarily greedy people made it happen.

They also remind us that this is a program to subvert democracy and install despotism in its place. Once you grasp this struggle in those terms, you can see clearly how critical stealth and deception have been to their program, and start to see through them.

I've read a couple of pieces on Afghanistan in anticipation of Trump's big speech tonight. General themes: many antiwar quotes from his campaign, bits on how the hawks are delighted to have gotten rid of Bannon, and pretty much universal agreement that he's going to double down on the war and make things worse rather than better. The only twist I've heard of is a plan to coerce whoever's in charge of Pakistan this week to do its dirty work else face the wrath of America supporting India to bring Pakistan to heel -- as if nuclear brinksmanship in Korea wasn't bad enough.

Nothing really to quote yet. Meanwhile, here's Matt Taibbi misunderestimating Trump again: Why Trump Can't Quit the Alt-Right. Taibbi talks about how Trump's "secret technique" worked so well during the campaign: "He continually keeps his enemies off-balance by alternately playing the menace and the raving buffoon" -- then notes that the buffoon bit doesn't work so well for an actual president. I expect that Trump will stick to the teleprompter tonight, and therefore look semi-coherent, which in some quarters will pass as "presidential" given that he's doing what so many other presidents before him have done: blundering into a wider, deeper, and even dumber war.


Not much to say about music this week. Rated count is down a bit as I missed a day-plus cooking. Following my citation of Tim Niland's blog last week I checked out several Clean Feed and Hatology releases. Roots Magic makes two A- records I didn't get from Clean Feed (along with Eric Revis' Sing Me Some Cry, last week). I spent a lot of time on the Beth Ditto record that Robert Christgau likes -- I previously gave Waxahatchee's Out in the Storm an A-, Ivy Tripp B+(**), Paramore B+(***), and Valerie June B+(**), so we're fairly close this week. By the way, it wasn't really Ditto's solo debut: she released a quality EP in 2011, which I thought an A- at the time (and you all know how I tend to downgrade EPs).

The old music mostly came from trying to look for 2000 releases I had missed, although I poked around a bit more, not really finding anything very important. The 2000-03 period predates my Jazz Consumer Guide column, and therefore is the least well covered period as I try to collect my Recorded Jazz in the 21st Century: A Consumer Guide.

Jason Stein's album cover appeared, without mention, in last week's Music Week: I graded the record A- after I close my listings, but before I finished writing the post. Same thing this week with the new Chris Speed Trio album, Platinum on Tap.


New records rated this week:

  • Big Bold Back Bone: In Search of the Emerging Species (2015 [2017], Shhpuma): [r]: B
  • Jane Ira Bloom: Wild Lines: Improvising Emily Dickinson (2017, Outline, 2CD): [cd]: B+(***)
  • Beth Ditto: Fake Sugar (2017, Virgin): [r]: B+(***)
  • Miles Donahue: The Bug (2015 [2017], Whaling City Sound): [cd]: B+(*)
  • Floating Points: Reflections - Mojave Desert (2017, Luaka Bop): [r]: B+(*)
  • H. Hawkline: I Romanticize (2017, Heavenly): [r]: B
  • Ray Wylie Hubbard: Tell the Devil I'm Gettin' There as Fast as I Can (2017, Bordello/Thirty Tigers): [r]: A-
  • Max Johnson: In the West (2014 [2017], Clean Feed): [r]: B+(*)
  • Steve Langone Trio: Breathe (2016 [2017], Whaling City Sound): [cd]: B+(**)
  • Rob Mazurek: Chants and Borders (2016 [2017], Clean Feed): [r]: B+(**)
  • Rob Mazurek: Rome (2014 [2017], Clean Feed): [r]: B+(*)
  • Marcus Monteiro: Another Part of Me (2017, Whaling City Sound): [cd]: B+(***)
  • Platform: Flux Reflux (2017, Clean Feed): [r]: B
  • Roots Magic: Last Kind Words (2016 [2017], Clean Feed): [r]: A-
  • Matthew Shipp: Invisible Touch at Taktlos Zürich (2016 [2017], Hatology): [r]: B+(***)
  • Jason Stein Quartet: Lucille! (2017, Delmark): [cd]: A-

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries rated this week:

  • Albert Ayler: European Radio Studio Recordings 1964 (1964 [2016], Hatology): [r]: B+(**)
  • Albert Ayler Quartet: Copenhagen Live 1964 (1964 [2017], Hatology): [r]: B+(**)
  • Albert Ayler: Stockholm, Berlin 1966 (1966 [2011], Hatology): [r]: B+(***)

Old music rated this week:

  • Jeremiah Cymerman: Purification/Dissolution (2011-12 [2012], 5049): [bc]: B
  • Jeremiah Cymerman/Christopher Hoffman/Brian Chase: Pale Horse (2013 [2014], 5049): [bc]: B+(*)
  • Jeremiah Cymerman/Evan Parker/Nate Wooley: World of Objects (2013 [2014], 5049): [bc]: B-
  • George Garzone: Moodiology (1998 [1999], NYC): [r]: B+(**)
  • George Garzone: The Fringe in New York (2000, NYC): [r]: B+(**)
  • George Garzone: Among Friends (2009, Stunt): [r]: B+(***)
  • Flip Phillips: Celebrates His 80th Birthday at the March of Jazz 1995 (1995 [2003], Arbors): [r]: B+(***)
  • Flip Phillips: Swing Is the Thing (2000, Verve): [r]: B+(**)


Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

  • Mike Downes: Root Structure (Addo): September 27
  • David Lopato: Gendhing for a Spirit Rising (Global Coolant, 2CD): September 8
  • Wadada Leo Smith/Natsuki Tamura/Satoko Fujii/Ikue Mori: Aspiration (Libra): September 8

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