Music Week

Expanded blog post, April archive (in progress).

Tweet: Music Week: 44 albums, 5 A-list (4 of those old), notes on taxes, wor[l]dle games, the news I didn't report, the book I'm reading. Big week for unpacking. Nice to have your opinions solicited.

Music: Current count 37641 [37597] rated (+44), 137 [128] unrated (+9).

Another week. Surprised that the rated count held up, given that I took a day off to cook, and that it feels like I often got stuck looking for new things to play. Also spent a lot of time (4 plays) with Bouvier before I decided it didn't quite click -- easily the most tempting of an admirable bunch of B+(***) albums below. But I guess I got a solid start with the Ogun Bandcamp, which I still haven't exhausted.

Woke up this morning realizing it was already April and we hadn't done anything about income taxes. Tried calling the person who has done them for 20+ years, only to find out that she died last May, so we need to find someone else. Taxes are always a great psychic strain for me, although the relief once it's done is considerable.

I haven't had the slightest inclination to do Wordle, although my wife has a winning streak since her second game (and only loss), and has sought out variants, including the daily Quordle, which appears at midnight, interrupting our television time, so I occasionally consult. Sometimes I think of words, but mostly draw on letter frequencies, which somehow I know a bit about.

The game I have gotten into the habit of is Worldle, which also appears daily, giving you a Rorschach blob claiming to be the borders of a country or territory, which you get six guesses at. Each false guess gives you a distance and direction to the answer. Geography was my subject as a child: by age 10 or so I could rattle off not just all the states and their capitals, but the provinces of Canada and Australia, the SSRs in the Soviet Union, and virtually every nation-state on a continent. I've retained most of that, and have found most of these puzzles instantly recognizable. Today's Latvia took two guesses but less than 5 seconds (my first was Turkmenistan, off by 3224km NW, and while I don't think in metric, that seemed about right for the Baltic area, and the shape excluded every other nation in the area). Monaco took three, and much more time. Only problem has been with islands. Anguila eluded me, although it would have been easy with a map of the Lesser Antilles (I did narrow it down between Antigua and the Virgin Islands). I recognized Kerguelen (after an initial guess of Svalbard), but the name wasn't accepted, so I had to look up French Southern and Antarctic Lands. I can't say as I've ever heard of Heard and McDonald Islands (though consulting maps using directions and distances got me there in three). Christmas Island also took an open book approach, though I sort of recognized it once I got there. I view the game as sort of a two-tiered test: first of what you recognize and recall; second, if I didn't get the answer within a minute, of what you can figure out. My 8th Grade US History teacher was a big believer in open book tests, and I learned more there than I did in practically all the rest of grades 7-9 combined.

No Speaking of Which last week, as I put most of my effort into yesterday's big Book Roundup. I have zero interest or concern in the Will Smith slap that dominated our fickle media's limited attention span. Meanwhile, Republicans have been so puerile it's getting hard to dignify them with scorn. (Madison Cawthorn seemed to top them all last week, but not without stiff competition from Cruz, DeSantis, and Graham.) And Ukraine slogs on, rerunning tragedy inside the country and farce everywhere else. I'm sure I'll have more to say about that at some point. I suppose I could at least link to Jeffrey St. Clair's Roaming Charges, but it's a pretty mixed bag, more reliably on point about WWI than Ukraine. I particularly like a line in a longer Bertrand Russell quote: "The English and French say they are fighting in defense of democracy, but don't want their words to be heard in Petrograd or Calcutta."

What I wanted to mention in the Book Roundup but ran out of time for was how stimulating I've been finding Louis Menand's The Free World. The book, at least as far as I've read, consists of a series of portraits of seminal figures, starting with George Kennan, whose prescription for containment of the Soviet Union was always more nuanced than the policies of his followers. An important nuance was his insight that Stalin's efforts to secure the perimeter around Russia had nothing to do with communist ideology and everything to do with Tsarist Russia's fear and pride. We see this same attitude today with Putin asserting Russia's right to save Ukraine from itself -- as we also see Americans ignoring this crude conceit in favor of ideological and/or psychological explanations.

The book follows with pieces on George Orwell, James Burnham (and C. Wright Mills), Jean-Paul Sartre (and Simone de Beauvoir), Hannah Arendt, and David Riesman. I thought that Riesman's critique of Arendt was particularly timely: "Might Arendt be mistaking the ideology of totalitarianism for the lived reality? Might she be imagining that totalitarian systems are more coherent and all-powerful than they really are? . . . Riesman's suggestion that underneath the ideological swagger, the Soviet Union was a klutzy bureaucracy run by thugs was just the kind of inability to take totalitarianism seriously that she had written her book to warn against." Riesman also has a critique of democracy, where polling is mudied by people insisting on having opinions even when they know nothing, but ignorance itself is some kind of virtue. Still makes for messy politics -- which corresponds rather well to history.

Next up was Clement Greenberg and Jackson Pollock, so finally we get into art. I barely recognized Greenberg's name, but found I could unpack a lot of my own experience from his "Avant-Garde and Kitsch" essay. This was, after all, the world I was born into, even if it took a while for their ideas to sink down to the lower-class Wichita I was desperate to escape. But isn't the avant-garde a vector you can trace back to bourgeois revolution (even as the bourgeoisie themselves elected for kitsch)? And isn't part of the motivation the feeling of superiority you get from mastering the rare and esoteric in a world that is otherwise leveling? I got into avant-garde art and left-wing politics more/less simultaneously, and reconciled the two by insisting that nothing prevents leftists (or anyone) from also enjoying the avant-garde, but experience suggests it's not often that easy.

Quite a bit of unpacking this week. Most pleasant surprise was a package of 577 Records that don't appear to be out yet (although they look like product. On the other hand, it seems like it's gotten much harder to stream their records, so my coverage has gotten spottier.

New records reviewed this week:

• Nia Archives: Forbidden Feelingz (2022, Hijinxx, EP): [sp]: B+(**)
• Lynne Arriale Trio: The Lights Are Always On (2021 [2022], Challenge): [cd]: B+(**) [04-08]
• Aaron Bazzell: Aesthetic (2022, self-released): [cd]: B+(**) [04-22]
• David Binney: A Glimpse of the Eternal (2021 [2022], Criss Cross): [r]: B+(*)
• Bouvier: Blachant (2022, Renewell): [cd]: B+(***) [04-13]
• Club D'Elf: You Never Know (2022, Face Pelt): [r]: B+(**)
• Avishai Cohen: Naked Truth (2021 [2022], ECM): [r]: B+(**)
• Armen Donelian: Fresh Start (2022, Sunnyside): [cd]: B+(**)
• Jacob Garchik: Assembly (2021 [2022], Yestereve): [cd]: B+(***) [05-13]
• Giacomo Gates: You (2022, Savant): [r]: B+(***)
• Aldous Harding: Warm Chris (2022, 4AD): [r]: B+(**)
• Walker Hayes: Country Stuff: The Album (2022, Monument): [r]: B
• Benji Kaplan: Something Here Inside (2021 [2022], Wise Cat): [cd]: B+(*) [05-06]
• Kyle: It's Not So Bad (2022, self): [r]: B+(*)
• Loop: Sonancy (2022, Cooking Vinyl): [r]: B+(***)
• Yuko Mabuchi: Caribbean Canvas (2022, Vista): [cd]: B+(**)
• Paul Messina: Blue Fire (2021, GVAP Music): [cd]: B-
• Maren Morris: Humble Quest (2022, Columbia Nashville): [r]: B+(***)
• Josh Nelson/Bob Bowman Collective: Tomorrow Is Not Promised (2021 [2022], Steel Bird Music): [cd]: B+(**)
• The Nu Band: In Memory of Mark Whitecage: The Nu Band Live at the Bop Shop (2018 [2022], Not Two): [r]: B+(***)
• Danilo Perez: Crisálida (2022, Mack Avenue): [r]: B
• Dave Rempis/Elisabeth Harnik/Michael Zerang: Astragaloi (2020 [2022], Aerophonic): [cd]: A-
• Huerco S.: Plonk (2022, Incienso): [r]: B+(*)
• Mark Turner: Return From the Stars (2019 [2022], ECM): [r]: B+(***)
• Years & Years: Night Call (2022, Polydor): [r]: B+(**)

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

• John Coltrane Quartet: Song of Praise: New York 1965 Revisited (1965 [2022], Ezz-Thetics): [bc]: B+(***)
• Sun Ra Arkestra: Nothing Is . . . Completed & Revisited (1966 [2022], Ezz-Thetics): [bc]: B+(***)

Old music:

• Elton Dean Quintet: Welcomet: Live in Brazil, 1986 (19868 [2017], Ogun): [bc]: B+(***)
• The Dedication Orchestra: Spirits Rejoice (1992, Ogun): [bc]: B+(***)
• The Dedication Orchestra: Ixesha (Time) (1994, Ogun, 2CD): [bc]: B+(***)
• Radu Malfatti/Harry Miller: Bracknell Breakdown (1977 [1978], Ogun): [bc]: B+(*)
• Chris McGregor's Brotherhood of Breath: Live at Willisau (1973 [1994], Ogun): [bc]: A-
• Chris McGregor: In His Good Time (1977 [2012], Ogun): [bc]: B+(**)
• Chris McGregor's Brotherhood of Breath: Procession: Live at Toulouse (1978 [2013], Ogun: [bc]: A-
• Harry Miller: Children at Play (1974, Ogun): [bc]: B+(*)
• Harry Miller: Different Times, Different Places (1973-76 [2013], Ogun): [bc]: A-
• Harry Miller's Isipingo: Family Affair (1977, Ogun): [bc]: B+(***)
• Harry Miller: In Conference (1978, Ogun): [bc]: B+(**)
• Harry Miller: Different Times, Different Places: Volume Two (1977-82 [2016], Ogun): [bc]: B+(***)
• Louis Moholo/Evan Parker/Pule Pheto/Gibo Pheto/Barry Guy Quintet: Bush Fire (1995 [1997], Ogun): [bc]: B+(**)
• Louis Moholo-Moholo Meets Mervyn Africa/Pule Pheto/Keith Tippett: Mpumi (1995 [2002], Ogun): [bc]: B+(*)
• Louis Moholo-Moholo/Stan Tracey: Khumbula (Remember) (2004 [2005], Ogun): [bc]: A-
• Louis Moholo-Moholo Unit: An Open Letter to My Wife Mpumi (2008 [2009], Ogun): [bc]: B+(*)
• Louis Moholo-Moholo Unit: For the Blue Notes (2012 [2014], Ogun): [bc]: B+(*)

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

• Pepper Adams With the Tommy Banks Trio: Live at Room at the Top (1972, Reel to Real) [04-23]
• Mike Allemana: Vonology (Ears & Eyes) [04-15]
• Dave Brubeck Trio: Live From Vienna 1967 (Brubeck Editions) [04-15]
• Dan Bruce's Beta Collective: Time to Mind the Mystics (Shifting Paradigm) [04-29]
• Daniel Carter/Evan Strauss/5-Track/Sheridan Riley: The Uproar in Bursts of Sound and Silence (577) [??-??]
• Natalie Cressman & Ian Faquini: Auburn Whisper (Cressman Music) [04-15]
• Sture Ericson/Pat Thomas/Raymond Strid: Bagman Live at Cafe Oto (577) [??-??]
• Heroes Are Gang Leaders: LeAutoRoiOgraphy (577) [06-17]
• Amanda Irarrázabal/Miriam van Boer Salmón: Fauces (577) [??-??]
• Josean Jacobo Trio: Herencia Criolla (self) [03-04]
• Ben Markley Big Band With Ari Hoenig: Ari's Fun House (OA2) [04-15]
• Jessica Pavone/Lukas Koenig/Matt Mottel: Spam Likely (577) [??-??]
• Rich Pellegrin: Passage: Solo Improvisations II [04-15]
• Kali Rodriguez-Peña: Mélange (Truth Revolution) [03-04]
• Ches Smith: Interpret It Well (Pyroclastic) [05-06]
• Somi: Zenzile: The Reimagination of Miriam Makeba (Salon Africana) [03-04]
• SSWAN [Jessica Ackerley/Patrick Shiroishi/Chris Williams/Luke Stewart/Jason Nazary]: Invisibility Is an Unnatural Disorder (577) [??-??]
• The United States Air Force Band Airmen of Note: The 2022 Jazz Heritage Series (self-released)
• Jordan Vanhemert: Nomad (Origin) [04-15]

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Daily Log

Elias Vlanton posted a meme on Facebook with a picture of Zelensky and the caption: "So proud I destroyed half my country just to agree to the terms Russia demanded before they invaded." Jackelin Rodriguez immediately responded: "He didn't destroy it, Russia did. But he could have avoided it." Elias agreed, adding: "He, like the United States, are guilty of contributory negligence. To bleed Russia, the United States is heroically willing to sacrifice to the last Ukrainian life." After various other comments, most defending Zelensky, I managed to post my slightly more nuanced comment:

I'm not aware of any such agreement, nor am I all that clear as to what Russia had demanded (and only presumably would have agreed to) before the invasion. Reasonable observers like Fred Kaplan and Anatol Lieven (both cited in my blog posts) have laid out possible agreements that would be mutually advantageous (at least compared to what's actually gone on), but thus far neither side has agreed to the necessary compromises. And while Ukraine and Russia are negotiating in Turkey, I suspect that Putin's bigger concern is with the US, which is the real source of NATO expansion, sanctions, and economic and political ostracism of Russia -- things that will not automatically change if Russia and Ukraine agree on some mix of division and/or autonomy and/or neutrality. And unless there is some hope for change there, it's not clear why Putin should stop doing the one thing he can still get away with, which is to pound Ukraine. It's not clear to me how much blame Zelensky deserves for provoking Putin, especially given that Russia's demands are often unreasonable (many go back to the tsarist-era conceit that what's good for Russia is good for their neighbors and subjects -- an imperialist view that Americans are not exempt from, having extended their "indispensable nation" shtick to the far corners of the globe), and his invasion is inexcusable (a judgment I've also made about a number of US invasions). Still, having been attacked, I'm not going to reproach him for fighting back. It would, however, be a tragic mistake if that's all he does.

Dru Thomas commented:

Well, Elias, you and I appear to completely disagree about the role Zelensky has played during this vicious, empire-greedy invasion by Putin. It is rather unfathomable when I think of the dear Elias I knew fifty years ago.

I've known Elias for 50 years now, so I figured I must have known Dru as well. Her last name was Lipsitz then, married to George, who when I first met him had graduated from Wash U but hadn't decided yet to go on to graduate school. After a year or so, he enrolled in UMSL, where George Rawick was teaching. He eventually got his Ph.D, rose through academia, and published a dozen or more books. George and Dru broke up in 1979, after I had left St. Louis.

Elias fielded a question from one of his former high school students:

The primary Russian foreign policy objective for the last 25 years has been to prevent NATO and the US placing troops along the Russian border. Imagine if Mexico had agreed to join a military pact with Russia, do you think we would allow them to put Russian missiles in Mexico? Zelensky refused to agree before the Russians invaded to make Ukraine non-aligned. Now, after the avoidable happened, he has agreed to it. The US encouraged the Ukrainians to believe they would be protected with the West, which was never really the US intention. The US all along wanted to weaken Russia at the cost of the last Ukrainian. Zelensky should have known better.

Dru responded to this:

Elias Vlanton, methinks your view of Russian aims is too myopic and one-dimensional. Granted, Russia does not want an expansion of NATO on its doorstep, but to believe Putin has no aims at reconstituting empire seems shortsighted at best. And to lay blame for this invasion, which is riddled with war crimes, on Zelensky strikes me as profoundly anti-democratic, particularly given the response of the Ukrainian people and their will to fight Russia. Somehow I don't remember this criticism aimed at the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese who suffered terrible losses and yet had a much stronger, and understandable will to fight and free their nation of outside interference from the French and the Americans. Yes, you and I agree on many of criticisms of the US, both during the Vietnam war and most likely during the period of post-World War capitalist triumphalism ushered in by collapse of the Soviet Union and the domestic and foreign policies Reagan embraced -- and subsequent administrations have little questioned. Nonetheless, to view Putin, his ambitions, his contempt for and punishment of any opposition voices, and his clear viciousness and brutality mostly through a lens that lays criticism and blame on the US seems singularly wrong-headed and shaped by agenda rather than the reality of the situation.

Mar 2022