Music Week

Expanded blog post, December archive (done).

Tweet: Music Week: 55 albums, 6 A-list,

Music: Current count 39330 [39275] rated (+55), 39 [36] unrated (+0: 11 new, 28 old).

I've been known to extend the last Music Week of December to the end of the month, because the transition from year to year is such a natural breaking point, and I don't want to cheat 2022. Still, lots of things contributed to this delay, including an illness that didn't lay me up so much as it sapped my will to do anything, and a still persistent problem with internet connection that has made it hard to stream and to research. The main casualty in this has been the Jazz Critics Poll, which should have been published last week, but is now delayed . . . hopefully no later than next week. I still have much to write for it, so I won't dawdle further here.

Note that other website updates are minimal: I haven't done anything to wrap up the monthly Streamnotes; I'm a couple entries behind in the Recent Reading; and who knows what else I've left broken. One thing I can leave you with is a PJRP ballot, which I basically scraped from my 2022 list without further thought:

1. The Regrettes: Further Joy (Warner) 16
2. Tyshawn Sorey Trio + 1: The Off-Off Broadway Guide to Synergism (Pi) 15
3. Gonora Sounds: Hard Times Never Kill (The Vital Record) 14
4. Big Thief: Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You (4AD) 10
5. Dave Rempis/Avreeayl Ra Duo: Bennu (Aerophonic) 10
6. Omri Ziegele Where's Africa: That Hat (Intakt) 8
7. Charlotte Adigery & Bolis Pupul: Topical Dancer (Beewee/Because Music) 7
8. Saba: Few Good Things (Saba Pivot) 7
9. Bob Vylan: Bob Vylan Presents the Price of Life (Ghost Theatre) 7
10. Nilufer Yanya: Painless (ATO) 6

More details in the EOY lists for Jazz (73 A-list) and Non-Jazz (80 A-list). My tracking file shows 1524 records rated this year (out of 4619 listed). You might also find the EOY Aggregate interesting.

New records reviewed this week:

• $ilkmoney: I Don't Give a Fuck About This Rap Shit, Imma Just Drop Until I Don't Feel Like It Anymore (2022, DB$B): [sp]: B+(**)
• Taru Alexander: Echoes of the Masters (2022, Sunnyside): [sp]: B+(***)
• Jake Blount: The New Faith (2022, Smithsonian Folkways): [sp]: B+(**)
• Zach Bryan: American Heartbreak (2022, Warner -2CD): [sp]: B+(**)
• Call Super: Swallow Me (2022, Can You Feel the Sun, EP): [sp]: B+(**)
• Sabrina Carpenter: Emails I Can't Send (2022, Island): [sp]: B+(***)
• Melissa Carper: Ramblin' Soul (2022, Mae Music): [sp]: B+(**)
• The Casual Dots: Sanguine Truth (2022, Ixor Stix): [sp]: B+(**)
• Marc Copland Quartet: Someday (2022, InnerVoice Jazz): [sp]: A-
• Jon Cowherd Trio: Pride and Joy (2022, Le Coq): [sp]: B+(*)
• Dandy Dandie: Hypnos & Morphée (2019 [2022], Yolk Music): [sp] B+(*)
• Harold Danko: Rite Notes (2021 [2022], SteepleChase): [sp]: B+(*)
• Daphni: Cherry (2022, Jiaolong): [sp]: B+(***)
• Eli Degibri: Henri and Rachel (2021 [2022], Degibri): [sp]: B+(***)
• Hamid Drake: Dedications: Black Cross Solo Sessions 6 (2020 [2022], Corbett vs. Dempsey): [bc]: B+(**)
• Dai Fujikura/Jan Bang: The Bow Maker (2022, Punkt): [sp]: B+(*)
• Runhild Gammelsæter & Lasse Marhaug: Higgs Boson (2022, Ideologic Organ): [sp]: B+(*)
• Julia Hülsmann Quartet: The Next Door (2022, ECM): [sp]: B+(***)
• Shawneci Icecold/Fred Lonberg-Holm: Sepphoris (2022, Underground45): [cd]: B+(**)
• Shawneci Icecold/Shuishan Yu: Flowing Water: Music for Guqin & Harpsichord (2022, Underground45): [cd]: B+(**)
• Jazzanova: Strata Records: The Sound of Detroit (2022, BBE): [sp]: B
• Kassmasse: Bahil  Weg (2022, Meedo): [sp]: B+(***)
• Lady Aicha & Pisko Crane's Original Fulu Miziki of Kinshasa: N'djila Wa Mudujimu (2022, Nyege Nyege Tapes): [sp]: A-
• Little Simz: No Thank You (2022, Age 101/Awal/Forever Living Originals): [sp]: A-
• Igor Lumpert's Innertextures: I Am the Spirit of the Earth (2021 [2022], Clean Feed): [sp]: B+(**)
• João Madeira/Wagner Ramos: Meristema (2022, 4darecord): [cd]: B+(***)
• Joe Magnarelli: New York Osaka Junction (2022, SteepleChase): [sp]: B+(*)
• Majamisty Trio: Wind Rose (2021 [2022], Majamisty): [sp]: B+(*)
• Dado Moroni/Jesper Lundgaard/Lee Pearson: There Is No Greater Love (2016 [2022], Storyville): [sp]: B+(***)
• Odesza: The Last Goodbye (2022, Foreign Family/Ninja Tune): [sp]: B+(**)
• Sadistik x Kno: Bring Me Back When the World Is Cured (2022, self-released): [sp]: B+(***)
• Sault: 11 (2022, Forever Living Originals): [sp]: B+(*)
• Sault: AIIR (2022, Forever Living Originals): [sp]: B
• Sault: Earth (2022, Forever Living Originals): [sp]: B+(*)
• Sault: Today & Tomorrow (2022, Forever Living Originals): [sp]: B+(*)
• Sault: Untitled (God) (2022, Forever Living Originals): [sp]: B
• Frank Paul Schubert/Kazuhisa Uchihashi/Klaus Kugel: Black Holes Are Hard to Find (2021 [2022], Nemu): [cd]: B+(***)
• Maya Shenfeld: In Free Fall (2022, Thrill Jockey): [sp]: B+(*)
• Sowal Diabi: De Kaboul à Bamako (2022, Accords Croisés): [sp]: A-
• Special Interest: Endure (2022, Rough Trade): [sp]: B+(*)
• SZA: SOS (2022, Top Dawg/RCA): [sp]: B+(**)
• Ricardo Toscano Trio: Chasing Contradictions (2021 [2022], Clean Feed): [sp]: B+(**)
• Wako: Ut Av Det Nye (2022, Øra Fonogram): [sp]: B+(**)
• Weyes Blood: And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow (2022, Sub Pop): [sp]: B
• Jason Yeager: Unstuck in Time: The Kurt Vonnegut Suite (2022, Sunnyside): [cd]: B+(**)
• Per Zanussi & Vestnorsk Jazzensemble: Li (and the Infinite Game) (2022, Clean Feed): [sp]: B+(**)

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

• The Pyramids: AOMAWA: The 1970s Recordings (1973-76 [2022], Strut, 4CD): [bc]: A- **
• Buddy Tate & White Label: Tate's Delight (1982 [2022], Storyville): [bc]: B+(***)

Old music:

• Roland Alexander: Pleasure Bent (1961 [1962], New Jazz): [r]: B+(**)
• Willi Carlisle: Too Nice to Mean Much (2016, self-released, EP): [sp]: B+(***)
• Willi Carlisle: To Tell You the Truth (2018, self-released): [sp]: B+(**)
• Billy Harper Quintet: Destiny Is Yours (1989 [1990], SteepleChase): [sp]: B+(**)
• Ronnie Mathews With Freddie Hubbard: Doin' the Thang! (1963 [1964], Prestige): [r]: B+(**)
• Ronnie Mathews/Roland Alexander/Freddie Hubbard (1961-63 [2002], Prestige): [r]: B+(**)

Grade (or other) changes:

• Willi Carlisle: Peculiar, Missouri (2022, Free Dirt): [sp]: [was: B+(***)] A-

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

• Art Ensemble of Chicago: The Sixth Decade From Paris to Paris: Live at Sons D'Hiver (RogueArt, 2CD) [2023-01-20]
• François Carrier/Alexander von Schlippenbach/John Edwards/Michel Lambert: Unwalled (Fundacja Sluchaj)
• Fred Frith/Susana Santos Silva: Laying Demons to Rest (RogueArt) [2023-01-20]
• Gerry Hemingway: Afterlife (Auricle)
• Shawneci Icecold/Fred Lonberg-Holm: Sepphoris (Underground45) [10-02]
• João Madeira/Wagner Ramos: Meristema (4darecord) [10-16]
• Shawneci Icecold/Shuishan Yu: Flowing Water: Music for Guqin & Harpsichord (Underground45) [10-27]
• Frank Paul Schubert/Kazuhisa Uchihashi/Klaus Kugel: Black Holes Are Hard to Find (Nemu) [01-12]

Daily Log

Jotted this down for Village Voice Pazz & Jop Rip-Off Poll:

 1. The Regrettes: Further Joy (Warner) 16
 2. Tyshawn Sorey Trio + 1: The Off-Off Broadway Guide to Synergism (Pi) 15
 3. Gonora Sounds: Hard Times Never Kill (The Vital Record) 14
 4. Big Thief: Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You (4AD) 10
 5. Dave Rempis/Avreeayl Ra Duo: Bennu (Aerophonic) 10
 6. Omri Ziegele Where's Africa: That Hat (Intakt) 8
 7. Charlotte Adigery & Bolis Pupul: Topical Dancer (Beewee/Because Music) 7
 8. Saba: Few Good Things (Saba Pivot) 7
 9. Bob Vylan: Bob Vylan Presents the Price of Life (Ghost Theatre) 7
10. Nilufer Yanya: Painless (ATO) 6

Speaking of Which

Blog link.

Long time, many delays, most significant of which was coming down with Covid a week ago. It followed a couple days of socializing, something I'm clearly ill-practiced at. The wife of a cousin died the previous week. I missed the funeral, but went out to the farm to see some of the family, who had all been at the funeral. Then, next day, I fixed our usual latke holiday dinner, for a rather tightly packed crowd of nine. Two days later I tested positive. I've had all three booster shots, and got a 5-day run of paxlovid. As illnesses go, I've suffered worse, but in this politically charged time, this one feels both sad and infuriating. And there have been many compounding hardships, from record cold that broke an appliance to a dog sadly on her last legs. Plus fear of infecting my wife, which so far hasn't happened, and as such remains a constant struggle.

Still, the main side-effect has been a huge sense of disinterest in everything I've been doing, or wanting to do. The most immediate victim is the Francis Davis Jazz Poll, which won't come out on time, because I haven't gotten it together. My usual Music Week post is also delayed, perhaps indefinitely. (Certainly no guarantee it will appear tomorrow.) For some reason, this post framework has been easier to get back into than anything involving music. It started just jotting down links, and most of the ones I grabbed early are still pretty bare (and I'm unlikely to return to them). But over several days, a few comments started to form. Still, I figure this is still mostly an exercise to file away bookmarks, in case I ever feel like revisiting the history.

Beware that Covid-19 cases have been rising steadily since new cases dropped under 37,000 on Oct. 30, to 70,425 (+90%) on Dec. 22 (numbers around Christmas bounce due to reporting fluctuations).

Ben Armbruster: [12-16] Diplomacy Watch: Is the Overton window of the Ukraine war's end game shifting? Also: Connor Echols: [12-23] Diplomacy Watch: Sketching the uncomfortable path to peace. Both titles sound more optimistic than there seems to be evidence for.

• Connor Echols: [12-21] Zelensky addresses Congress, makes push for advanced weapons.

• Masha Gessen: [12-22] Volodomyr Zelensky's critical visit to Washington, DC: I have a major bone to pick here: the notion that, "The United States and its allies have not done enough to stop the war in Ukraine." The context here is Ukraine's demands for ever more powerful weapons, which the US (or as Biden shifted responsibility, the European "allies") have slow-pedalled for fears of provoking Russia into a broader war (something Putin has repeatedly, if not all that convincingly, threatened). Gessen finds this caution "obscene." But there's no reason to think that more (and fancier) weapons would "end the war." That's only going to happen in negotiation. And while one can fault the US and Europe for not doing enough to bring about negotiations -- not least by fueling fantasies that Ukraine might regain all Russian-occupied territory -- Biden et al. (especially Zelenskyy) have done one key thing, which is to show Putin that the only way out is through negotiation. Adding Patriot missiles to the mix is a big win for Raytheon, but not an essential step toward ending the war.

• Jonathan Guyer/Li Zhou: [12-21] Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy's unexpected visit to the US, explained.

• Jonathan Guyer: [12-16] This DC party invite shows all the money to be made off the Ukraine war: "A Ukrainian Embassy reception, sponsored by America's biggest weapons makers."

• Ben Freeman/William Hartung: [12-23] New Ukraine aid is a go -- and it's more than most states get in a year: "Congress just passed a $45 billion assistance package for Kyiv on the way out of the door for the holidays. We put this spending into context."

• Fred Kaplan: [12-22] The Power of Volodymyr Zelensky's Charm Offensive: "The next Congress can't slash support for Ukraine now." As Kaplan notes, Zelensky "knew all the right buttons to push." Kaplan also wrote: [12-16] Henry Kissinger Wrote a Peace Plan for Ukraine. It's Ludicrous. Actually, the "peace plan" isn't so bad. Kaplan's probably right that it isn't something Putin can accept, but I don't agree with the posture (which Kaplan seems to have adopted after his own proposals fell into history's dustbin) that until Putin is ready to sue for peace, there's no need for anyone to sketch out a possible compromise. The piece's other point is that Kissinger and his worldview, largely formed by the Congress of Vienna in 1815, is ludicrous.

• Greg Sargent: [12-23] Tucker Carlson's rage at Zelensky caps a year of getting things wrong. Bizarrely fascinating to watch right-wing jerks like Carlson lose their minds, as they try to apply old attack tropes to new cases that fit even worse -- like characterizing Zelensky at a "welfare queen." Still, the first thing this reminded me of was the counterexample of Reagan proclaiming the Afghan mujahideen as "like our founding fathers." Which led me to:

• Cathy Young: [12-22] Putin's Useful Idiots: Right Wingers Lose It Over Zelensky Visit. A term often attributed to Stalin, but vastly exercised by right-wing pundits to ridicule liberals as soft-in-the-head fools, still, it literally works in this case: the targets are certifiable idiots, and their rage and sputterings serve little purpose other than to comfort Putin. I don't doubt that one can make a case that Ukraine is corrupted by oligarchs, tainted by collaboration with fascists, and far from a liberal democracy; also that anti-Putin Democrats are having way too much fun watching Ukrainians die just to spite the guy they blame for Hillary Clinton losing to Trump in 2016. One could go deeper and critique the deep direction of US foreign policy ever since globalists started promoting US hegemony in the early 1940s. But these jerks aren't saying anything like that. They want to see Ukraine safely under Putin's illiberal thumb, and they want to see Washington's "democracy promoters" -- which, frankly, has mostly been a propaganda ploy to spread American hegemony -- rebuffed at every turn.

Dean Baker: [12-16] We Don't Need Government-Granted Patent Monopolies to Finance Drug Development: Quite frankly, they do much more harm than good.

Doug Bandow: [12-21] Ending the Syrian war, getting US troops out, and lifting sanctions: "The status quo is doing more harm than good. Let's admit failure before more people are hurt and put in harm's way." I would have been quite happy had Assad been driven into exile, or even strung up, but that didn't happen, despite the efforts of at least a dozen other countries to intervene. Realism suggests the need to reach some sort of deal where the US offers to normalize relations (including removing troops and ending sanctions), provide humanitarian aid, and use its influence to dissuade its "allies" from attacking and/or trying to subvert the Assad regime (Turkey being the most immediate threat, but Israel regularly bombs Syria), in exchange for agreement not to punish dissidents and to allow political prisoners to go into exile. Note, however, that the US has never negotiated such a deal, as it always seemed politically expedient to perpetuate "cold war" hostilities, and in the end the US never cared that much about the people it supposedly entered the conflict to help -- most were left to their own devices, then begrundingly allowed to immigrate if they made it that far.

Dave Barry: [12-25] Dave Barry's 2022 Year in Review: Getting old here, and there. Old enough I can remember a time when he was genuinely funny. Probably because less seemed to be at stake then.

Matthew Cooper: [12-22] Charlie Peters, Washington Monthly Founder and Mentor to Leading Journalists, Turns 96: Peter founded Washington Monthly in 1969. I started subscribing shortly after that. For a while, I suppose I could have followed two different political paths: one into reform-minded Democratic Party politics, which was influenced significantly by reading the policy-wonky articles in Washington Monthly, and the other into more radical left movements. Peters was a guru of the former path, but I probably stopped reading him before the McGovern loss crushed my faith in elections. But while the new left offered a convincing critique of liberal capitalism, I never found a practical politics there. I stopped subscribing to Washington Monthly after a few years, so I didn't notice when Peters was one of the first to expound a new notion of neoliberalism. I've never been clear how much his adoption of the term has in common with the "New Democrats" who made neoliberalism a dirty word. The last thing I read by him was a lament on how his native West Virginia abandoned the Democratic fold.

Shirin Ghaffary: [12-16] Elon Musk's Twitter journalist purge has begun.

• Zack Beauchamp: [12-14] The 80-year-old book that explains Elon Musk and tech's new right-wing tilt: "The long shadow of James Burnham's The Managerial Revolution."

• Andrew Prokop: [12-15] Why the Twitter Files actually matter.

Melvin Goodman: [12-23] How the New York Times Mythologizes US-Israeli Relations. Something they're not alone in, but have been at the forefront of, at least since . . . well, the earliest examples in this article are from the 1950s.

Margaret Hartmann: [12-16] 7 Great Things About Trump's Incredibly Dumb NFT Announcement: You know the bar's low when the article starts with: "NFTs are the least harmful thing Trump could have announced." Other Trump trivia pieces (see Prokop below for the Jan. 6 criminal referrals, and Narea for his taxes):

• Olivia Nuzzi: [12-23] The Final Campaign: "Inside Donald Trump's sad, lonely, thirsty, broken, basically pretend run for reelection. (Which isn't to say he can't win.)" You can compare this with Nuzzi's July 14 piece: Donald Trump on 2024: 'I've Already Made That Decision': "The only question left in the former president's mind is when he'll announce." Not why? Or: do I have a chance? Or: how stupid will I look? The only thing he seems to understand is the graft another campaign makes possible.

Ben Jacobs: [12-23] Did George Santos lie about everything? And how incompetent was the media in failing to figure him out before the election? Same for whoever was supposed to do "oppo research" for the Democrats. Too little, too late, but the New York Times has more: [12-23] George Santos's Early Life: Odd Jobs, Bad Debts and Lawsuits. On the other hand, while journalists aren't much good at discovering, they are pretty adept at piling on: Joe Perticone: [12-23] George Santos's Problems Are Just Getting Started.

Ed Kilgore: [12-14] Democrats Came Shockingly Close to Keeping the House: Going into the election, my working assumption was that Democrats would win the popular vote for the House, but could lose control due mostly to gerrymanders. But it appears now that Republicans actually won the popular vote (50.6% to 47.8%, a margin of 2.8%) while winning the House by somewhat less (222-213, a margin of 2.0%). I don't know what this means, but one effect of gerrymandering is to suppress turnout by making elections less competitive ("safe" seats were often won by 70% or more), but also slanting competitive seats toward Republicans may have boosted R turnout more than D.

Siobhan McDonough: [12-22] Why are American lives getting shorter? "US life expectancy got worse during Covid-19, and then kept getting worse."

Ian Millhiser:

• [12-27] The Trumpiest court in America: "The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit is where law goes to die."

• [12-17] How an obscure Christian right activist became one of the most powerful men in America: Trump-appointed judge Matthew J Kacsmaryk, also the subject of: [12-13] A notorious Trump judge just fired the first shot against birth control.

• [12-20] America's Trumpiest court doesn't care if your right to a fair trial was violated: "The Fifth Circuit's decision in Crawford v. Cain is a monument to judicial lawlessness."

• [12-21] Sotomayor and Kagan need to think about retiring: They are 68 and 62 respectively, and Democrats face a tough map to hold the Senate in 2024, and the prospect of a Republican winning the presidency is too horrible (but not too fantastical) to contemplate, or so the reasoning goes.

Brian Murphy: [11-09] Ernie Lazar, who quietly amassed huge FBI archive, dies at 77: Late tip here from Rick Perlstein, a beneficiary of his research.

Nicole Narea: [12-21] Trump's tax returns are about to become public. What happens now?

New Republic: The Scoundrels, Ghouls, and Crooks of 2022.

Timothy Noah:

• [12-21] The American Holiday Tradition of Firing Workers for No Reason.

• [12-16] You Know Who Had Sam Bankman-Fried's Number? Charles Dickens: "In his 1854 book Hard Times, the great British novelist satirized the utilitarian underpinnings of the Effective Altruist movement."

Andrew Prokop: [12-19] The January 6 committee's case against Trump.

• Jonathan Alter: [12-24] The Final Triumph of the January 6th Committee -- Day 10. Article includes links to previous day reports. I think it's fair to say that Congress has never before investigated something and produced consistently interesting hearings, much less such a tight, coherent report.

• Sean Collins: [12-23] Read the January 6 committee's damning report on Trump's election subversion efforts.

• Ronald Brownstein: [] While holding Trump personally accountable, the January 6 committee may be letting the GOP off the hook: Well, that was part of the price to get the token Republican support that allowed the Committee to function so effectively. That said support has been purged from the GOP is itself a strong indictment of the Party. But while > 90% of the policies and attitudes that made the Trump administration so awful are fully supported by > 90% of elected Republicans, who should be opposed and eventually voted out, the tactical decisions of election denial, of lies and litigation, and ultimately of riot, were Trump's own personal contribution to a more general mindset that loathes democracy because it gives the wrong people influence in decisions that affect them. Still, while no one other than Trump could have concocted the January 6 scenario, it should disturb us that a majority (maybe not quite 90%) of rank-and-file Republicans wound up supporting and echoing his lies should be damning enough, even if not spelled out in the report.

• Ben Jacobs: [12-19] What the January 6 committee's criminal referral means for Trump. And [12-23] What we learned from the January 6 committee report.

• Nia Prater: [12-19] January 6 Committee on Donald Trump: Lock Him Up.

• Andrew Prokop: [12-21] The bill to prevent Trump from stealing the next election, explained.

• Isaac Stanley-Becker/Beth Reinhard: [12-22] Publix heiress was willing to spend $3 million on Jan. 6 rally, documents show. As another version of this article put it, "rich people are so odd."

• James D Zirin: [12-21] How Big a Deal Is the January 6th Committee's Criminal Referral?

Dylan Scott: [12-15] Ron DeSantis's vaccine "investigation" is all about beating Trump.

Dan Secatore: [12-19] What I Learned Curating Presidential Theater for Obama: "A former Obama advance man on how the hollow pageantry of political stagecraft legitimizes bad policy and distracts us from more substantive political discussions."

Stephen M Walt: [12-13] The United States Couldn't Stop Being Stop Being Stupid if It Wanted To. The "realist" blames liberals, for thinking that the rights and liberties we expect at home should be available to everyone else, but what kind of liberalism is one that extends its values at gun point? Granted, Americans like to talk about liberal values when they go to war, but that's only because it sounds better than admitting to crass imperialist aims.

Brett Wilkins: [12-20] UN Experts Decry Record Year of Israeli Violence in Occupied West Bank: "Israel's deplorable record in the occupied West Bank will likely deteriorate further in 2023."

Also, a golden oldie: Rick Perlstein: [2021-10-26] A Short History of Conservative Trolling.

Daily Log

Phil Overeem posted his top-ten list to PJRP, with Rosalia: Motomami at his top pick. I commented:

In my EOY aggregate, "Motomami" is firmly ensconced in 5th place, behind { Beyonce, Wet Leg, Kendrick Lamar, Big Thief }, closer to 2nd (-34) than to 6th (+40, Fontaines DC). I wouldn't be surprised if Lamar catches Wet Leg (currently +3).

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Daily Log

I'm trying to recollect specs on my two work computers, from various sources (none definitive).

The "north desk" machine:

• CPU: AMD FX-8350 8-core
• Motherboard: ASUS 970 Pro Gaming ATX
• RAM: 32GB SDRAM (1866)
• Graphics: ASUS Radeon 2GB ("best I could find for less than $60)
• HD: 2TB SATA
• 24X DVD Burner
• Power Supply: Corsair RM750 ($115)
• Case: Fractal Design Focus G Mid-Tower ($55?)
• Screen: HP 22-inch
• Keyboard: mechanical (new)
• Mouse: Logitech wireless (new)

The "south desk" machine, built in 2019 ($1136 for the computer itself, screen was about $329):

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 27800X 8-core ($200)
• Motherboard: ASRock X570 AMD ($200)
• RAM: 64GB G.SKILL TridentZ ($290)
• Graphics: XFX Radeon RX570 8GB ($159?)
• SSD: Intel 1TB M.2
• Lite-On 24X DVD Burner
• Power Supply: Corsair RM750 ($115)
• Case: Fractal Design Focus G Mid-Tower ($55?)
• Screen: 32-inch
• Keyboard: Logitech mechanical (later, $60?)
• Mouse: Logitech wireless (later, $20?)
• Camera: (later, $?)

Music Week

Expanded blog post, December archive (in progress).

Tweet: Music Week: 72 albums, 9 A-list,

Music: Current count 39275 [39203] rated (+72), 36 [32] unrated (+4: 8 new, 28 old).

The rated count, and the reviews below, cover 9-10 days, which partly explains the big numbers. But even at the normal 7-day mark I was close to 50, a total that pops up mostly when I go off into deep dives of mostly-familiar old music (often with short run times), like my recent specials on Jerry Lee Lewis (58) and Loretta Lynn (63). This week was nowhere near that easy, but I was locked into a zone counting jazz critics' ballots, and they were generating long lists of things to check out.

The official deadline was end-of-business Monday, but on Tuesday I compiled a list of invited critics who hadn't voted and sent off last-ditch reminders. That produced another half-dozen ballots, bringing the total to 150. That leaves me four short of last year. I'm a bit disappointed, but it's still a respectable turnout, enough to maintain our boast of having the broadest, most comprehensive poll anywhere.

I still have a ton of work to do, starting with adding notes to explain various artifacts of the poll. The biggest problem this year was how many voters wanted to combine votes for two albums in one line, especially where labels released two albums by one artist at the same time: Mary Halvorson, Amaryllis and Belladonna (May 13, on Nonesuch; complicating this, they were released as separate albums on CD and digital, but were packaged together on vinyl); and Ahmad Jamal, Emerald City Nights: Live at the Penthouse 1963-1964 and 1965-1966 (Dec. 2, on Jazz Detective/Elemental).

This week's haul means that I've currently heard and rated 843 jazz albums this year (out of 1443 in my tracking file, a file which now includes 185 albums that got votes in the Jazz Critics Poll that I haven't yet heard, even as I'm shouldering the day-to-day work.

Needless to say, work on my Non-Jazz EOY and my EOY aggregate files has largely stalled (although not before Beyoncé took a commanding lead in the latter).

To answer a question I just got, the poll will again be published by Arts Fuse, some time between Christmas and New Years, and will be known as the 17th Annual Francis Davis Jazz Poll, in honor of its founder and guiding spirit, who I'm pleased to say is still keeping a keen eye on things.

I did manage to kick out a belated Speaking of Which on Tuesday. Buried therein is the germ of an idea on how to solve a large share of America's political problems.

I didn't get around to writing about the plan to shift the Democratic presidential primaries away from Iowa and New Hampshire and focus on South Carolina, but I recall floating an idea quite a while back to restructure primaries: run them in five Super Tuesday rounds, starting with the 10 smallest states (plus D.C.), then the next 10, etc. The bottom 10 states have too many Dakotas, but are still pretty diverse. You could even do more than 10 for the first round, so you can pick up traditional early states like Iowa, South Carolina, and Nevada. A couple new ideas could help here: the Democratic Party could run the primaries privately, mostly using mail votes (based on state registration records), so you wouldn't have to get a lot of state laws passed; the Party would be responsible for providing a neutral forum for debates, pamphlets, and get-out-the-vote efforts, in effect centralizing a lot of the fundraising tasks, and making campaigning much less prohibitively expensive; eligibility would be limited from round to round based on results.

New records reviewed this week:

• Alex Acuña: Gifts (2021 [2022], Le Coq): [sp]: B+(**)
• Adeem the Artist: White Trash Revelry (2022, self-released): [sp]: A-
• [Ahmed]: Ahad/Wahid (2022, A Cheeseboard Production, EP): [bc]: B+(*)
• Zoh Amba: O, Sun (2021 [2022], Tzadik): [dl]: A-
• JoVia Armstrong & Eunoia Society: The Antidote Suite (2021 [2022], Black Earth Music): [bc]: B+(***)
• Balance: Conjure (2020 [2022], Two Rooms): [bc]: B+(**)
• Barcelona Clarinet Players: Fantasías Barcelónicas: A Tribute to Paquito D'Rivera (2021 [2022], Sunnyside): [sp]: B+(*)
• Basher: Doubles (2021 [2022], Sinking City): [bc]: B+(*)
• Battle Trance: Green of Winter (2022, New Amsterdam): [sp]: B+(*)
• The Baylor Project: The Evening: Live at Apparatus (2022, Be a Light): [sp]: B+(**)
• Karl Berger/Kirk Knuffke: Heart Is a Melody (2022, Stunt): [sp]: B+(***)
• Ran Blake: Looking Glass (2015 [2021], A-Side): [sp]: B+(***)
• Blue Lines Trio: Chance and Change (2022, Casco): [bc]: B+(***)
• Blue Moods: Myth & Wisdom (2021 [2022], Posi-Tone): [sp]: B+(**)
• Surya Botofasina: Everyone's Children (2022, Spiritmuse): [bc]: B+(*)
• Staffan Bråsjö: Stratosfar (2022, self-released): [bc]: B+(***)
• Anna Butterss: Activities (2022, Colorfield): [sp]: B+(***)
• Frank Carlberg Trio: Reflections 1952 (2021 [2022], 577): [bc]: B+(***)
• François Carrier/Alexander von Schlippenbach/John Edwards/Michel Lambert: Unwalled (2022, Fundacja Sluchaj): [dl]: A-
• Chicago Soul Jazz Collective Meets Dee Alexander: On the Way to Be Free (2022, JMarq): [sp]: B+(*)
• Trish Clowes: A View With a Room (2021 [2022], Greenleaf Music): [sp]: B+(**)
• Theo Croker Quartet: Jazz at Berlin Philharmonic XII: Sketches of Miles (2021 [2022], ACT): [sp]: B+(**)
• Espen Eriksen Trio Featuring Andy Sheppard: In the Mountains (2022, Rune Grammofon): [sp]: B+(***)
• Extended: Without Notice (2020 [2022], self-released): [bc]: B+(**)
• Ezra Collective: Where I'm Meant to Be (2022, Partisan): [sp]: B+(**)
• Fazer: Plex (2022, City Slang): [sp]: B+(**)
• Anthony Ferrara: Cold Faded (2022, SteepleChase): [sp]: B+(**)
• Free Form Funky Freqs: Hymn of the 3rd Galaxy (2020-21 [2022], Ropeadope): [bc]: B+(*)
• Charlie Gabriel: Eighty-Nine (2022, Sub Pop): [sp]: B+(***))
• Marshall Gilkes: Cyclic Journey (2022, Alternate Side): [sp]: B+(*)
• Onno Govaert + Martina Verhoeven/Dirk Serries: Twofold (2021 [2022], A New Wave of Jazz): [bc]: B+(***)
• Pasquale Grasso: Be-Bop! (2022, Sony Masterworks): [sp]: B+(**)
• Craig Harris: Managing the Mask (2021 [2022], Aquastra): [sp]: B+(**)
• Ulf Ivarsson/Bill Laswell: Nammu (2022, Ropeadope): [sp]: B+(**)
• Keefe Jackson/Jim Baker/Julian Kirshner: Routines (2019 [2022], Kettle Hole): [bc]: B
• Ant Law & Alex Hitchcock: Same Moon in the Same World (2020-21 [2022], Outside In Music): [sp]: B+(**)
• Janel Leppin: Ensemble Volcanic Ash (2022, Cuneiform): [dl]: B+(***)
• Joyce Moreno: Brasileiras Canções (2022, Biscoito Fino): [sp]: B+(**)
• Paal Nilssen-Love Circus: Pairs of Three (2021 [2022], PNL): [bc]: B+(***)
• Jeff Parker ETA IVtet: Mondays at the Enfield Tennis Academy (2019-21 [2022], Eremite): [dl]: A-
• Pillbox Patti: Florida (2022, Monument): [sp]: B+(**)
• Ishmael Reed: The Hands of Grace (2022, Reading Group): [bc]: B+(**)
• Revelators Sound System: Revelators (2022, 37d03d): [sp]: B+(*)
• Stephen Riley: My Romance (2021 [2022], SteepleChase): [sp]: B+(***)
• Gonzalo Rubalcaba & Trio D'ÉTÉ: Turning Point (2018 [2022], 5Passion): [sp]: B+(***)
• Rich Ruth: I Survived, It's Over (2022, Third Man): [sp]: B
• James Singleton: Malabar (2022, Sinking City): [sp]: B+(**)
• Gary Smulyan: Tadd\'s All, Folks (2021 [2022], SteepleChase): [sp]: B+(**)
• SWR Big Band/Magnus Lindgren/John Beasley: Bird Lives (2021, ACT): [sp]: B+(*)
• Jamaaladeen Tacuma/Mary Halvorson: Strings & Things (2014 [2022], Jam-All Productions): [bc]: B+(**)
• Thollem: Obstacle Illusion (2021 [2022], Astral Spirits): [bc]: B+(*)
• Micah Thomas: Piano Solo (2022, LP345): [sp]: B+(**)
• Pat Thomas & XT (Seymour Wright/Paul Abbott): Akisakila/Attitudes of Preparation (Mountains, Oceans, Trees) (2018 [2022], Edition Gamut): [bc]: B+(***)
• Tess Tyler: Fractals [Vol. 1] (2022, Manners McDade): [bc]: A-
• Tess Tyler x Spindle Ensemble: Fractals [Vol. 2] (2022, Manners McDade): [bc]: B+(*)
• Johannes Wallmann: Precarious Towers (2021 [2022], Shifting Paradigm): [sp]: B+(**)
• Yellowjackets: Parallel Motion (2022, Mack Avenue): [sp]: B

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

• Don Ayler: In Florence 1981 (1981 [2022], Railroad Town Music): [sp]: A-
• Donald Byrd: Live: Cookin' With Blue Note at Montreux (1973 [2022], Blue Note): [sp]: B+(*)
• Jean-Charles Capon/Philippe Maté/Lawrence "Butch" Morris/Serge Rahoerson (1977 [2022], Souffle Continu -21): [bc]: B+(***)
• Ellery Eskelin/Gerry Hemingway: From the Archives: Live at the Stone in NYC, 2010 (2010 [2022], Auricle): [bc]: B+(***)
• Ronnie Foster: Two Headed Freap (1972 [2022], Blue Note): [sp]: B+(*)
• ICP Orchestra: 30 Yr Jubileum 1997: Day 1 (1997 [2022], ICP): [bc]: B+(***)
• ICP Orchestra: 30 Yr Jubileum 1997: Day 2 (1997 [2022], ICP): [bc]: A-
• ICP Orchestra: 30 Yr Jubileum 1997: Day 3 (1997 [2022], ICP): [bc]: B+(***)
• Ahmad Jamal: Live in Paris (1971) (1971 [2022], Transversales Disques): [bc]: A-
• Jack McDuff: Live at Parnell's (1982 [2022], Soul Bank Music): [sp]: B+(**)
• Brother Jack McDuff: Moon Rappin' (1969 [2022], Blue Note): [sp]: B+(**)
• Thelonious Monk: Celebrating 75 Years of His First Recordings Revisited (1947-52 [2022], Ezz-Thetics): [bc]: B+(***)
• Thelonious Monk Quartet: Live Five Spot 1958 Revisited (1958 [2022], Ezz-Thetics): [bc]: A-

Old music:

None.

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

• Lakecia Benjamin: Phoenix (Whirlwind) [01-27]
• Fred Hersch & Esperanza Spalding: Alive at the Village Vanguard (Palmetto) [01-06]
• Mike LeDonne/Eric Alexander/Jeremy Pelt/Kenny Washington/Peter Washington: The Heavy Hitters (Cellar) [01-20]
• Tyler Mitchell Octet: Sun Ra's Journey (Cellar) [01-20]

Speaking of Which

Blog link.

I opened this during a brief lull on Friday, adding a bit here and there, but by Sunday evening I was so swamped with my collation of the 17th Annual Francis Davis Jazz Poll that it became clear that I wouldn't be able to find time to post until after Monday's deadline.l That's pushed it back two days, and will push Music Week back another, to Wednesday (at the earliest). In making a final round, I haven't limited myself to Sunday's articles, but I am trying to keep it light and manageable.

Zack Beauchamp: [12-09] The bizarre far-right coup attempt in Germany, explained by an expert: Interview with Peter Neumann. Also:

• Philip Oltermann: [12-10] The Reichsbúrger plot: sinister plan to overthrow the German state or just a rag-tag revolution?

Melissa del Bosque: [12-11] Arizona governor builds border wall of shipping crates in final days of office.

Jessica Corbett: [12-10] Kari Lake files suit to reverse her loss in race for Arizona governor: I've occasionally wondered who is the Trumpiest governor in America -- Ron DeSantis is certainly the most prominent, although Kristi Noem pops into mind -- but to be truly Trumpy, you have to lose an election and refuse to let it go. Lake is the only one other than Trump with the ego to do that, although one suspects that even she is only following the Leader.

Tim Craig: [12-10] As bitcoin plummets, Miami vows to hold onto its crypto dreams: Paul Krugman linked to this and tweeted: "Republicans have long insisted that governments shouldn't try to pick winners. So I guess they've decided to pick losers instead." He continued: "Crypto has always been a combination of technobabble and libertarian derp. But the sheer scope of the scam continues to amaze. The fact that there's still an FTX arena is the cherry on top."

Connor Echols: [12-09] Diplomacy Watch: NATO infighting continues as Putin signals long war: "Western policy on Ukraine is hitting a snag as Turkey and Hungary flex their new-found geopolitical muscles." Little here beyond the hostage swap of Brittney Griner for Viktor Bout.

More on Ukraine:

• Max Boot: [12-13] Give Ukraine the ability to strike every inch of Russian occupied territory: Because why? So Ukraine can conduct remote terror campaigns against people it claims as its own? And given that they've already attacked positions beyond the old border with Russia, why should the US make it easier to strike farther? If the only solution to the war was military, you might start to make a case, but the only solution is not military, and more and broader bombing won't help that. Boot started out as a mad neocon. While much of his political thinking as evolved, that core belief hasn't.

• Dave DeCamp: [12-12] NATO Chief Says Russia Relations Can't Be Repaired Even After Fighting. Even if you think it's unlikely or unrealistic, this is the sort of coffin-nailing statement you don't want to get stuck with. It mostly just reinforces Russia's view that NATO is a fanatic, implacable enemy and threat to your world.

• Connor Echols: [12-06] Ukraine hits targets deep inside Russia in break with Biden administration: Drone attacks on Russian two air bases way beyond Ukraine's borders.

• Jonathan Guyer: [12-08] Why Brittney Griner was released now.

• Mary Ilyushina: [12-10] Russia sends soldiers to war but ignores mental trauma they bring home. Who does that remind you of?

• Daniel Michaels: [12-11] Ukraine can win the war. But the cost may be too high for the West. Long excerpt from Wall Street Journal article. First line is dangerous thinking, and not just because no side ever wins wars any more. Second should set off some sobering reflection. One central fact is that NATO (principally but not exclusively the US) and Ukraine have different interests and aims, where Ukraine's is naturally much more near-sighted. No NATO power wants to look like they're running Ukraine as a proxy, but at some point aid needs to be conditional on joint interests.

• Connor Murray: [12-05] Russia's self-defeating move in pausing nuke talks with US: "Moscow appears to be trying to pressure Washington on Ukraine but abandoning New START would carry wider security risks."

Rhoda Feng: [12-07] The Gamification of Everything Is No Fun: Review of Adrian Hon: You've Been Played: How Corporations, Governments, and Schools Use Games to Control Us.

William Hartung: [12-09] New spending bill squanders billions on dysfunctional weapons programs: "The increase alone [$80 billion] from last year is more than what some of the world's biggest countries spend on their own defense budgets." This year's bill allocates $858 billion. More on this:

• Andrew Cockburn: [12-08] The B-21: another Air Force diva that can't deliver?

• Fred Kaplan: [12-08] There Is No Good Reason for a Defense Budget This Large: "And yet, no one is even talking about the additional $45 billion." That's beyond the DOD's request; $80 billion over last year (+10%); adjusted for inflation, it's still "the largest U.S. military budget since World War II."

• Charles P Pierce: [12-08] The Money the US Spends on its Military Is Obscene, and So Is the Way It's Legislated.

• Li Zhou: [12-07] Why Republicans are so intent on rolling back the military's Covid-19 vaccine mandate. Let me give you my theory: Most Americans were willing and even eager to get vaccinated, but a tiny minority objected, giving all sorts of cockamamie reasons that basically boiled down to them insisting on putting their personal health concerns over public ones. I'm not unsympathetic to individuals taking that stand, although in this case I think their reasoning is unsound, and because it shows their disinterest in public health. However, the military is supposedly committed not to the individuals that constitute it but to the core and the public as a whole. When one joins, one gives up a certain amount of personal freedom to support that whole, and in this context, vaccine mandates are a small personal price to pay. By the way, the military has a long history of requiring vaccinations and much more, ranging from standard hair cuts to (in my father's WWII case) circumcision. Why Republicans should choose to take up the anti-vax cause in the military has less to do with opposition to the imposition of state power -- which they often promote for causes they like -- than with the idea that anti-vax soldiers are politically sympathetic to their agenda, and their desire to grow a political column within the armed forces that might eventually be used to seize power and impose the dictatorship of their dreams. After all, soldiers who put the public welfare and a belief in the sanctity of law ahead of their personal political allegiances aren't likely to overthrow the government. By the way, it's not true that all anti-vaxxers are right-wingers. Only the ones who attempt to impose their idiot views on others are.

Shirin Ghaffary: [12-09] What the Twitter files don't tell us: "The documents are ammo for conservatives, even if they lack crucial context." Elon Musk selected Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss to orchestrate these leaks, figuring they'd give them the political spin he wanted. Also on this:

• Eric Levitz: [12-10] The 'Twitter Files' Is What It Claims to Expose.

Margaret Hartmann: [12-08] Donald Trump Cost Lara Trump Her Fox News Gig: "Nepotism giveth, and nepotism taketh away."

Eric Herschtal: [12-08] How the Right Turned "Freedom" Into a Dog Whistle: "A new book traces the long history of cloakroom racism in the language of resistance to an overbearing federal government." Review of Jefferson Cowie: Freedom's Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power.

Ellen Ioanes: [12-10] Iran's months-long protest movement, explained. Also:

• Jonathan Guyer: [12-12] Why the protests in Iran are so hard to understand.

Ed Kilgore: [12-13] Is DeSantis More Electable Than Trump?: This is not a question Democrats should fret over. Better or worse? Perhaps, but best to prepare against the union of their two sets of views, which is often worse than any divergences you might be able to discover. (And note that Trump's deviances from Republican orthodoxy are like subatomic particles: tiny, unstable, and very short-lived.) No real need to go down this rabbit hole, but:

• Susan B Glasser: [12-08] Trump's 2024 campaign so far is an epic act of self-sabotage.

• Charles P Pierce: [12-13] Ronald DeSantis Sics a Mighty Crew of Quacks on Vaccines: Trump at least went along with the vaccine development program, while DeSantis was doing his best to end lockdowns and spread the disease. And that spread has somehow only burnished his brand? "Once again, it is gobsmacking that in the midst of an ongoing pandemic, there is a serious war against the cure, much less that there are politicians with national ambitions who think they can profit from it." For another recent Pierce on DeSantis: [11-30] The Ghoulish Hubris of Letting People Die and Calling That Bravery. No More Mister Nice Blog [12-13] has more: Ron DeSantis's assault on public health is being treated as a horserace story.

Keren Landman: [12-06] The US has never recorded this many positive flu tests in one week: "And health care systems are getting crushed . . . again."

Rebecca Leber: [12-10] The weird Republican turn against corporate social responsibility: "Companies say they want to acknowledge environmental impacts. Republicans are mad about that." It used to be easy to think that Republicans are simply shills for big business, and that they'll reflexively support anything that adds to corporate bottom lines. The reality is more complex and more nuanced than that -- much more than I can unpack here, but whatever the political and ideological underpinning may be, for all practical purposes it just seems like Republicans really want a world that is even more dystopian than the one they've already created.

Eric Levitz: [12-08] Climate Hawks Should Have Given Joe Manchin His Pipeline: Because Manchin's "permitting reform" bill would have made it easier not just to build his pet pipeline but to install more wind power and transmission lines, which are currently bogged down in the permit process.

Neal Meyer/Simon Grassmann: [12-12] The Case for Proportional Representation. This is a "response" to another piece, by Benjamin Studebaker: [06-16] Proportional Representation Is a Terrible Idea That the Left Should Not Embrace. From a practical standpoint, I'm not sure exactly that they are proposing (or opposing), but I had a related idea a couple weeks back, and this gives me a chance to jot it down. My idea wasn't to divide the number of representatives up proportionately, but to keep districts (including states) and award weighted votes to the top two (or possibly more than two, subject to some minimum threshold) representatives. With a two-party system, each district would have two representatives: one Republican, one Democrat, with their voting weight set by the election split (rounded up for the winner, down for second place). The Senate could also be organized this way, with or without factoring the state population in. (Obviously, factoring it in would eliminate one big problem with the Senate.) I'm not sure what you'd do about executives (other than reduce their power). Think about it: this would solve a lot of problems, starting with gerrymandering; it would give more people a stake in representative government (living in Kansas, I can testify that at present "my" representatives are totally fucking useless); it would also reduce the incentive people have to invest in campaigns, given that most districts can only be swayed by a few percentage points. What this has to do with "left" political strategy is beyond me, but a more functional democracy seems likely to be a good thing.

Ian Millhiser:

• [12-07] Amy Coney Barrett appears likely to block the GOP's latest attack on democracy: "Moore v. Harper, one of the scariest election cases in the Supreme Court's modern history, probably won't end in catastrophe." Grasping at straws. Still, for an argument that is patently ridiculous, the decision is scary close.

• [12-13] A notorious Trump judge just fired the first shot against birth control: "In retrospect, it was inevitable that this particular judge would come for contraception."

Françoise Mouly: [12-02] Remembering the artist Aline Kominsky-Crumb, a trailblazing funny woman: Dead, at age 74.

Nathan J Robinson: [12-12] Why We Need Book Reviews: "Books are where the knowledge is. A flourishing democracy depends on a culture that care about and talks about books." Amen to that. Given that my own reading capacity is so starkly limited, I find that it also helps to have a map to books I (mostly) haven't read.

Paul Rosenberg: [12-10] How the New York Times helped Republicans win the House: "The Gray Lady told America that rising crime and worsening inflation were driven by Democrats. None of it was true." Among other things, quotes Dean Baker: "In short, the media decided that we had a terrible economy, and they were not going to let the data get in the way."

Storer H Rowley: [12-05] Biden Faces Netanyahu and Israel's Most Right-Wing Government. One imagines that Democrats including Biden should take offense at the rampant racism and the callous contempt for human rights and peace, but they've tolerated (and for all practical purposes endorsed) such behavior in increasing amounts for decades. It's hard to see why that changes now, although we are seeing more articles like Uriel Abulof: [11-25] "Have I Just Met the Jewish Hitler?"

Barbara Slavin: [12-10] When will the US learn that sanctions don't solve its problems? "Harsh economic penalties rarely, if ever, work to change a targeted regime's behavior; so why do we still use them?" Could have filed this under Ukraine, but it's a much more general problem. In Russia's case, sanctions -- even if ineffective -- may be justifiable as a way to do something in response to invasion short of escalating the war. One might also imagine scenarios where the threat of sanctions might work to deter undesired behavior, but that's only likely to work if you're threatening to take away something a country depends on: South Africa is the poster case, and Israel might work the same way (at least that's the hope of the BDS movement). And relieving sanctions can be useful as a diplomatic bargaining chip, but only if you're willing to bargain and withdraw the sanctions: Iran and North Korea should be success examples here, but aren't, because ultimately preferred to nurse their grudges over allowing other nations any degree of normal freedom.

Jeffrey St Clair: [12-09] Roaming Charges: The Mask of Order.

Emily Stewart: [12-13] FTX's implosion and SBF's arrest, explained. This has become much bigger news than I care to go into. One wonders, for instance, if the decision to prosecute Brinkman-Fried isn't an attempt to whitewash the rest of the crypto racket, much like Bernie Madoff became the fall guy for a much larger and deeper financial scandal. But, what the hell:

• Current Affairs: [11-14] The Entirely Predictable Collapse of FTX Exposes the Failures of Regulators and Journalists: Interview with Stephen Diehl.

Li Zhou: [12-06] Raphael Warnock is officially Democrats' 51st senator. Here's why that matters. On the other hand, days later the other shoe dropped: Christian Paz: [12-09] How Kyrsten Sinema's decision to leave the Democratic Party will change the Senate. She's registering as an Independent, and says she won't caucus with the Republicans, so that probably means that for organizational purposes Democrats will retain a 51-49 advantage, but now dependent on three independents (also Angus King and Bernie Sanders). More on these stories:

• Jonathan Chait: [12-09] Kyrsten Sinema Is Playing Chicken: "Declaring herself an independent is a way to force the Democratic Party into embracing her."

• Branko Marcetic: [12-10] The Key to Understanding Kyrsten Simena Is That It's Always about Kyrsten Sinema.

Music Week

Expanded blog post, December archive (in progress).

Tweet: Music Week: 44 albums, 10 A-list,

Music: Current count 39203 [39159] rated (+44), 32 [33] unrated (-1: 4 new, 28 old).

I sent a deadline reminder to Jazz Critics Poll invitees on Friday, and get a deluge of ballots back, bringing the total to 55. Took a long time to get them all counted, so yesterday's Speaking of Which was exceptionally short, mostly limited to links I might want to look back at later. Actual deadline is still a week away: December 12. We got 156 ballots last year, and I sent out more than 200 invites this year, so I expect a lot more work coming in.

With all this, I had little time to review my own prospective ballot. However, I might as well practice what I preach and settle on a ballot now (with extra mentions for context:

New albums:

1. Tyshawn Sorey Trio + 1 [With Greg Osby]: The Off-Off Broadway Guide to Synergism (Pi) **
2. Dave Rempis/Avreeayl Ra Duo: Bennu (Aerophonic) **
3. Omri Ziegele Where's Africa: That Hat (Intakt) **
4. Marta Sanchez: SAAM (Spanish American Art Museum) (Whirlwind)
5. Rodrigo Amado: Refraction Solo: Live at Church of the Holy Ghost (Trost)
6. Andrew Cyrille/William Parker/Enrico Rava: 2 Blues for Cecil (TUM)
7. Tomas Fujiwara's Triple Double: March (Firehouse 12)
8. Avram Fefer Quartet: Juba Lee (Clean Feed) *
9. Wadada Leo Smith: The Emerald Duets (TUM, 5CD)
10. Dave Sewelson: Smooth Free Jazz (Mahakala Music '21) **
11. Rob Brown/Juan Pablo Carletti: Fertile Garden (NoBusiness)
12. Luke Stewart's Silt Trio: The Bottom (Cuneiform) **
13. Manel Fortiá: Despertar (Segell Microscopi)
14. David Murray/Brad Jones/Hamid Drake Brave New World Trio: Seriana Promethea (Intakt) **
15. Fred Hersch: Breath by Breath (Palmetto)
16. Thumbscrew: Multicolored Midnight (Cuneiform) **
17. Arild Andersen Group: Affirmation (ECM) **
18. Darren Johnston: Life in Time (Origin)
19. Mostly Other People Do the Killing: Disasters Vol. 1 (Hot Cup) *
20. Sun Ra Arkestra Directed by Marshall Allen: Living Sky (Omni Sound) **

Historical (Reissues and Archival):

1. William Parker: Universal Tonality (2002, Centering/AUM Fidelity, 2CD)
2. Horace Tapscott Quintet: Legacies of Our Grandchildren (1995, Dark Tree)
3. Sam Rivers: Caldera [Sam Rivers Archive Project, Volume 6] (2002, NoBusiness)
4. Cecil Taylor: The Complete, Legendary, Live Return Concert: The Town Hall, NYC November 4, 1973 (1973, Oblivion) **
5. Dave Brubeck Trio: Live From Vienna 1967 (Brubeck Editions)
6. Bill Evans: Morning Glory: The 1973 Concert at the Teatro Gran Rex, Buenos Aires (Resonance) **

Vocal Jazz:

1. Gerry Hemingway: Afterlife (Auricle)
2. Moor Mother: Jazz Codes (Anti-)
3. Jacob Sacks/David Ambrosio/Vinnie Sperrazza: Trio Trio Meets Sheila Jordan (SteepleChase) **

Debut:

1. Julieta Eugenio: Jump (Greenleaf Music)
2. Zoh Amba: O, Sun (Tzadik)
3. Mali Obomsawin: Sweet Tooth (Out of Your Head)

Latin Jazz:

1. Felipe Salles/Zaccai Curtis/Avery Sharpe/Jonathan Barber: Tiyo's Songs of Life (Tapestry)
2. Miguel Zenón: Música De Las Américas (Miel Music)
3. Kalí Rodríguez-Peña: Mélange (Truth Revolution)

Aside from Historical, this mostly corresponds to my highly volatile Best Jazz of 2022 list. My Historical votes have varied from the list for several years now, mostly because I value archival albums over reissues (especially the often-excellent Ezz-Thetics series), and because I value physical CDs over downloads and streaming. That worked against Cecil Taylor, and in favor of Sam Rivers (although I could just as well have picked Dave Brubeck, so there may be some mystery factor at work there).

The Vocal category may also call for some explanation. The Hemingway album has vocals throughout, but isn't jazz in any broadly conventional sense -- you just hear little bits that suggest a jazz sensibility, which is to be expected from one of the great jazz drummers of the last 40 years. Camae Ayewa unconventional in other ways: a poet who first turned to rap then to jazz, her record is more explicitly jazz, but her vocals aren't. I found myself wanting to file several records last year on both lists, as I did Hemingway and Moor Mother this year. On the other hand, if you want a real, classic jazz singer, try Sheila Jordan.

Meanwhile, other projects -- like the EOY Aggregate -- are languishing. I doubt that will change until the end of the year.

If you're sitting on a Jazz Critics Poll invite, please fill it out and send it in. If you're not, but think you should be and want to fill one out, holler at me. I'm running out of time and energy to vet new voters, but we do have another week left.

New records reviewed this week:

• Rodrigo Amado: Refraction Solo: Live at Church of the Holy Ghost (2021 [2022], Trost): [cd]: A-
• Kate Baker & Vic Juris: Return to Shore: The Duo Sessions (2019 [2022], Strikezone): [sp]: B+(***)
• Jeb Bishop/Pandelis Karayorgis/Damon Smith: Duals (2021-22 [2022], Driff/Balance Point Acoustics, 3CD): [dl]: B+(**)
• Michael Blake: Combobulate (2022, Newvelle): [dl]: B+(***)
• Emmet Cohen: Uptown in Orbit (2022, Mack Avenue): [sp]: B+(**)
• Allen Dennard: Flashback (2022, Allen Dennard Music): [sp]: B+(*)
• Dopolarians: Blues for Alvin Fielder: Live at Crosstown Arts, Memphis (2022, Mahakala Music): [bc]: B+(**)
• Dopolarians: Sunday Morning Sermon (2022, Mahakala Music): [bc]: B+(**)
• Dezron Douglas: Atalaya (2021 [2022], International Anthem): [bc]: B+(***)
• Mats Eilertsen: Hymn for Hope (2020 [2021], Hemli): [sp]: B+(***)
• Fractal Sextet: Fractal Sextet (2020-22 [2022], Alchemy): [sp]: A-
• Satoko Fujii: Hyaku: One Hundred Dreams (2022, Libra): [cd]: A- [12-09]
• Forbes Graham/Jeb Bishop/Pandelis Karayorgis/Nate McBride/Kresten Osgood: Water Lilies (2022, Driff): [dl]: B+(***)
• Mark Guiliana: The Sound of Listening (2022, Edition): [sp]: B+(**)
• Mats Gustafsson & Nu Ensemble: Hidros 8: Heal (2016 [2022], Trost): [bc]: A-
• Jo Harrop: The Heart Wants (2021, Lateralize): [sp]: B+(**)
• Gerry Hemingway: Afterlife (2020-22 [2022], Auricle): [sp]: A-
• Ifsonever: Ifsonever (2022, Jazz & Milk): [bc]: B+(***)
• George V Johnson Jr: Walk Spirit Talk Spirit (2022, Your Majesty): [sp]: B+(**)
• Max Johnson Trio: Orbit of Sound (2021 [2022], Unbroken Sounds): [sp]: B+(***)
• Pandelis Karayorgis Trio: The Hasaan, Hope & Monk Project (2021-22 [2022], Driff): [dl]: B+(**)
• Ruben Machtelinckx + Arve Henriksen: A Short Story (2022, Aspen Edities): [bc]: B+(***)
• Hermon Mehari: Asmara (2022, Komos): [sp]: A-
• Raul Midón: Eclectic Adventurist (2022, Artistry/Mack Avenue): [sp]: B+(*)
• Per Møllehøj/Kirk Knuffke/Thommy Andersson: 'S Wonderful (2022, Stunt): [sp]: B+(**)
• Hedvig Mollestad & Trondheim Jazz Orchestra: Maternity Beat (2021 [2022], Rune Grammofon): [sp]: B+(*)
• Ra Kalam Bob Moses/Damon Smith: Purecircle (2021 [2022], Balance Point Acoustics): [sp]: B+(**)
• Qasim Naqvi/Wadada Leo Smith/Andrew Cyrille: Two Centuries (2021 [2022], Red Hook): [sp]: B+(***)
• Oxbow & Peter Brötzmann: An Eternal Reminder of Not Today: Live at Moers (2018 [2022], Trost): [bc]: B+(***)
• Nicholas Payton: The Couch Sessions (2022, Smoke Sessions): [sp]: B+(**)
• Dafnis Prieto Featuring Luciana Souza: Cantar (2021 [2022], Dafnison Music): [sp]: B+(***)
• Scenes: Variable Clouds: Live at the Earshot Jazz Festival (2021 [2022], Origin): [cd]: B+(***)
• Patrick Shiroishi: Evergreen (2021 [2022], Touch): [bc]: B+(*)
• Tom Skinner: Voices of Bishara (2022, Brownswood/International Anthem/Nonesuch): [bc]: A-
• Cory Smythe: Smoke Gets in Your Eyes (2021 [2022], Pyroclastic): [cd]: B
• Tyshawn Sorey Trio + 1 [With Greg Osby]: The Off-Off Broadway Guide to Synergism (2022, Pi, 3CD): [dl]: A
• Stephan Thelen: Fractal Guitar 3 (2021-22 [2022], Moonjune): [bc]: A-
• Rodney Whitaker: Oasis: The Music of Gregg Hill (2022, Origin): [cd]: B+(**)
• Eri Yamamoto Trio: A Woman With a Purple Wig (2022, Mahakala Music): [bc]: B+(*)
• Jeong Lim Yang: Zodiac Suite: Reassured (2021 [2022], Fresh Sound): [bc]: B+(***)
• The Zebra Street Band: Shirwku (2021 [2022], Trytone): [cd]: A-

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

• Geri Allen/Charlie Haden/Paul Motian: Live at the Village Vanguard (Unissued Tracks) (1990 [2022], DIW): [sp]: B+(**)
• Derek Bailey: Domestic Jungle (1990s [2022], Scatter): [bc]: B+(***)
• Joyce With Mauricio Maestro: Natureza (1977 [2022], Far Out): [sp]: B+(**)

Old music:

• Julieta Eugenio: Unaccompanied Saxopohone Vol. 1 (2020, Greenleaf Music, EP): [bc]: B+(**)

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

• Zack Lober: No Fill3r (Zennez) [2023-02-24]
• Simon Moullier: Isla (self-released) [2023-02-17]
• Simona Premazzi: Wave in Gravity: Solo Piano (PRE) [2023-02-17]
• Jim Snidero: Far Far Away (Savant) [2023-02-03]
• Jeong Lim Yang: Zodiac Suite: Reassured (Fresh Sound New Talent) [10-29]
• The Zebra Street Band: Shirwku (Trytone) [08-01]

Speaking of Which

Blog link.

This week's column will be the schematic one I thought I was going to write last week. How do I know? Well, I didn't open this file until 6:00 PM, and I still have other work to get done by bedtime.

Dean Baker: Evidently Baker has been banned from Twitter (see: Left-Wing Twitter Accounts Criticizing Elon Musk Are Being Suspended for "Platform Manipulation and Spam", yet Elon Brings One of America's Most Prominent Nazis Back to Twitter, as Hate Speech's Rise on Twitter Is Unprecedented).

• [11-29] OMG, a Right-Wing Jerk Can Buy Twitter! Media Concentration Matters.

• [11-14] Crypto Meltdown Is a Great Time to Eliminate Waste in Bloated Financial Sector.

Charles Bethea: [12-04] Will Republicans who have soured on Trump turn out for Herschel Walker? I don't think we're talking about a very big group here, but if you're a Republican and Walker is the only candidate on the ballot, would you bother to vote? Especially when a victory means Walker will be in the public eye, as a "leading light" of the GOP, for six more years?

Christopher Byrd: [12-04] Cory Doctorow wants you to know what computers can and can't do: "A conversation about the 'mediocre monopolists' of Big Tech, the weirdness of crypto, and the real lessons of science fiction."

Patrick Cockburn: [12-05] The Cruel, Dishonest and Shameful Story of Britain's Last Colony May Be Coming to an End: The Chagos Archipelago, in the Indian Ocean.

Connor Echols: [12-02] Diplomacy Watch: Divisions flare in the West as winter looms: "As energy prices rise and temperatures drop, European publics are feeling squeezed by the Ukraine's war's secondary effects." More on Ukraine:

• Kyle Anzalone: [12-02] Zelensky Looks to Ban Christian Denomination With Ties to Moscow. Orthodox Christianity is divided into a number of Patriarchates, including one in Moscow that Russia has often attempted to use for political influence.

• Andrew Cockburn: [12-01] Oil Is Today's Rhubarb: "Sanctions always fail, as the Chinese could have told us long ago."

• James Carden: [11-30] Writing the Ukraine War history, as it happens: "Three new books dissent from the orthodoxy, helping to illuminate key aspects of the conflict and the crisis between Russia and the west." Still, none of these look like what we need, which is a carefully reported history of American and European efforts to break Ukraine away from Russia and bring it into their orbit, going back to 1991 but especially from 2014 forward, and how this has played off against Russia's vanities and perceived threats, and even more importantly what happened with the change of stance from when Biden replaced Trump as president, and how that affected first Zelensky and then Putin.

• Ellen Ioanes: [12-03] Biden and Putin just said they're open to talks. Don't count on it happening soon.

• Anatol Lieven: [12-01] Beyond the cameras, Macron-Biden meeting tougher than it looks.

• Kelley Beaucar Vlahos: [11-29] NATO again dangles membership in front of Ukraine. Related here: Caitlin Johnstone: [11-30] NATO Exists to Solve the Problems Created by NATO's Existence. Had I a chance to edit this, I would have suggested replacing "Solve" with "Perpetuate."

• Robert Wright: [12-02] Biden can help Zelensky, and Ukraine, by pushing for peace.

Omar Guerrero: [11-28] Why the Right Can't Boogaloo.

Margaret Hartmann: [10-30] Trump Was Tricked Into Dining With Too Many Antisemites: The story of his life, in a nutshell. A downside of wearing his prejudices and ignorance on his sleeves is that he's amazingly easy to con into saying and/or doing something disgusting. You'd think that with his money and exposure, he'd take some precautions, but the only people willing to work for him are ones as debased as he is -- and even then they're often playing a long game to find the most propitious moment to sell him out (e.g., Omorosa, Michael Cohen, Stormy Daniels).

More on Trump and/or antisemitism:

• Zach Beauchamp: [12-01] The deep roots of antisemitism's resurgence in America.

• Chas Danner: [12-04] Trump Admits the U.S. Constitution Is Against Him: "He wants to get rid of the parts that prevent him from overturning the 2020 election."

• Matt Ford: [12-02] Judge Aileen Cannon's Reign of Error Is Over.

• Nicole Narea: [11-29] Donald Trump's long history of enabling white supremacy, explained: "Trump's dinner with white supremacist Nick Fuentes was much more than a gaffe."

Ellen Ioanes: [12-04] What Congress can do with Trump's tax returns.

Paul Elliott Johnson: How the Right Developed Its Victim Complex: "Once a party that touted rugged individualism, today's Republicans have an ever-expanding list of grievances and complaints about perceived wrongs."

John Limbert: [12-01] Iran's clerics have declared war on their own people: "A tight, privileged fraternity of religious leaders has monopolized power in Tehran since 1979. It's now backed itself into a corner." More on Iran:

• Vivian Yee/Farnaz Fassihi: [12-04] Iran Has Abolished Morality Police, an Official Suggests, After Months of Protests.

Ian Millhiser:

• [12-04] The deranged Supreme Court case that threatens US democracy, explained: "Moore v. Harper is a test of whether this Supreme Court can ever be trusted with power."

• [11-29] A rogue Trump judge has thrown the Supreme Court into disarray.

Lily Sánchez: [11-23] On Slowing Down to Cook.

Jeffrey St Clair: [12-02] Roaming Charges: Railroaded, Again: He's very unhappy, but not surprised, about Biden and the Democrats ending the railroad strike.

Michael D Swaine: [11-28] Here's how the US shouldn't respond to China protests: "Washington has a habit of getting involved in ways that make things worse for demonstrators on the ground." More on China:

• Jonathan Guyer: [11-30] What makes China's wave of protests different this time.

• Yanzhong Huang: [12-04] China's Struggle With Covid Is Just Beginning.

• Jen Kirby: [12-01] China's Covid narrative is backfiring.

• Kelsey Piper: [11-30] l How "zero-Covid" changed China -- and the world.

The story above that needs the most unpacking is the way US media has lined up behind the idea that China's anti-Covid strategy was a disaster, even though America's schizophrenic response to the pandemic resulted both in a per capita death rate 600 times as high, while China's economy has continued to grow faster than America's. One might argue many sides of this issue, but those facts do not prove that China has less regard for the health and welfare of its people than we do -- if anything, quite the opposite. Yet the implication seems to be politicians who actively sabotaged pandemic response were somehow being heroic. For a prime example, see Charles P Pierce: [11-30] The Ghoulish Hubris of Letting People Die and Calling That Bravery.

Nov 2022