Blog Entries [170 - 179]

Sunday, April 23, 2023

Speaking of Which

Supposedly Obama's motto as president was "don't do stupid shit." Republicans this week, perhaps more than ever before, proved themselves to be his polar opposite.

Sad to hear of the death of Fern Van Gieson (1928-2023), a dear friend we met twenty-some years ago through the Wichita Peace Center.

Also passing this week was Australian comedian Barry Humphries, better known as Dame Edna Everage. I can't say as I've ever been much of a fan, but this reminds me how common, innocent, and downright silly drag has been going back longer than I can remember. Republicans want to vilify and criminalize drag. While it's always possible that their schemes are just some cynical plot hatched from Frank Luntz's polling, the deeper implication is that their fears are rooted in deep insecurities, as well as a defective sense of humor, and a general loathing not just for people who are a bit different, but also for people who are a bit too similar.

Top story threads:

Kevin McCarthy v. America: I don't have time to write more, but this reminds me of the scene in Blazing Saddles where the black sheriff escapes a lynching by threatening to shoot himself.

Trump: No new indictments. E. Jean Carroll's defamation case against Trump is scheduled to start on April 25, with or probably without Trump's presence. I skipped over a bunch of articles on how Trump is polling (he seems to be burying DeSantis).

  • Isaac Arnsdorf/Jeff Stein: [04-21] Trump touts authoritarian vision for second term: 'I am your justice': He goes on: "And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution." "The former president is proposing deploying the military domestically, purging the federal workforce and building futuristic cities from scratch." The latter are to be called "freedom cities": "with flying cars, manufacturing hubs and opportunities for homeownership, promising a 'quantum leap in the American standard of living.'" Stephen Moore wants to build them with tax incentives and deregulation, as well as a "super police force that keeps the place safe." Some ideas do suggest Trump input, like "classical-style buildings, monuments to 'true American heroes,' and schools and streets named 'not after communists but patriots.'"

  • Sophia A McClennen: [04-22] Sick of Trump? Try laughing at him. Author wrote a book on the subject: Trump Was a Joke: How Satire Made Sense of a President Who Didn't (Routledge, rather pricey at $35.96 paperback). Author previously wrote [02-01] Donald Trump is the worst kind of fool.

  • Luke Savage: [04-20] Donald Trump's NFTs Are the Perfect Symbol of American Capitalilsm in 2023.

Other Republicans: If you want an intro here, refer back to the top.

Guns: OK, this is the week I finally gave up on trying to rationalize a right to guns. Take them away. Consider "my cold dead fingers a taunt." I'm the first to admit that banning something people really want doesn't make it go away, but in this case it would certainly make it harder for a lot of very stupid people to do vicious things that are completely unjustifiable. Jeffrey St Clair (more on his piece below) offers a quick rundown:

In one 24-hour period last weekend, there were at least 15 mass shootings in the US, including 4 shot in Northridge, California, 6 in Louisville, 36 in Dadeville, Alabama, 6 in Cyrus, Minnesota, 3 in New Orleans, 6 in Paterson, NJ, 5 in Wiainai, Hawaii, 4 in Detroit, another 3 in Louisville, 4 in Phoenix, 3 in Los Angeles, 3 in Charlotte, 4 in Newark and 3 in Cincy.

This week in America . . .

  1. A teenage boy was shot for ringing the wrong doorbell.
  2. A teenage girl was shot for entering the wrong driveway.
  3. A cheerleader was shot for going up to the wrong car.
  4. A six-year old girl shot for rolling a ball into the wrong yard.

Globally, 87% of the children killed by gunfire were shot in the USA.

He also offers stats for mass shootings in US by year, rising from 272 in 2014 to 415 in 2019, then to 610-690 from 2020-22. This year's total of 164 in 108 days is actually a bit behind the recent pace (although 554 would be the 4th most ever). [PS: Others insist Frequent shootings put US mass killings on a record pace.] Further down, he also notes that "Boston cops shot two dogs this week while serving a warrant against a man for . . . driving without a license." I'm beginning to feel wistful for the threatened dystopia of a "world where only criminals have guns." For one thing, that would make it easier to identify the criminals. Some of these stories below (and by Sunday there'll no doubt be more):

The Courts:

Fox: Just before the trial opened, Dominion Voting Machines agreed to settle their defamation suit with Fox, for a whopping $787 million (they had originally sued for $1.6 billion, so about half that).

Next up, Mike Lindell: But even before he faces his own Dominion lawsuit, there's this:

Earth Day:

  • Elizabeth Kolbert: [04-22] It's Earth Day -- and the news isn't good: "New reports show that ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica are melting faster than anticipated, and other disasters loom."

  • Kate Aronoff: [04-18] Is Jimmy Carter Where Environmentalism Went Wrong? "Carter's austerity was part of a bigger project. It didn't really have much to do with environmentalism." There is a lot to chew on here, but also more stuff the author doesn't mention, like the "Carter Doctrine" that committed the US to securing oil shipping lanes in the Persian Gulf -- the second of two major decisions in the 1970s to keep gas cheap (the other being Nixon's refusal to conserve oil after production peaked in 1969, leading to a trade deficit in 1970 that has only grown ever since).

  • Liza Featherstone: [04-20] Nixon Was the Weirdest Environmentalist: "Richard Nixon, the original culture warrior, helped establish Earth Day and poured millions of dollars into conservation, despite his own ambivalence about the environmental movement." There was a brief period 10-20 years ago when some liberal pundits thought it would be clever to rehabilitate Nixon as a closet progressive, largely on the basis of a series of bills that he signed after Democrats in Congress passed them, including the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, and OSHA. But the best you can say for Nixon is that he recognized that government needed to move left to even begin to deal with some pressing problems (and with the Cuyahoga River burning down bridges, the environment was the most obvious one). But Nixon rarely if ever cared about solving problems (one fine example of his indifference was making Donald Rumsfeld head of the EEOC). He just didn't want to lose any political power by taking the wrong side of an issue, and the one thing he really did care about was power.

Buzzfeed, Twitter, etc.:

Ukraine War:

  • Connor Echols: [04-21] Diplomacy Watch: US ignores calls for negotiations at its own peril: "Huge swathes of the world want the war in Ukraine to end as soon as possible. Can Washington afford to disregard them?" Brazilian president Lula da Silva "sparked a controversy" when he said the US "needs to stop encouraging war and start talking about peace." A US spokesman replied that "Lula's comments amounted to little more than 'Russian and Chinese propaganda.'" The Americans aren't even to the stage of pretending they' care about peace. Granted, Russia isn't at that stage either, but why should that stop the US from offering the prospect of a future where the present conflict is dead and buried? Failure to do so suggests that the real US goal isn't to defend Ukraine but to destroy Russia -- which is the belief, and fear, of most hawkish Russians. The Ukrainian position that they'll only talk after Russia fully withdraws is similarly unhelpful.

    Echols also interviewed John Sopko in: [02-21] Afghanistan watchdog: 'You're gonna see pilferage' of Ukraine aid. No doubt. It happens everywhere else -- the Pentagon is notoriously unable to keep track of their own allocations. Opponents of US support for Ukraine have latched on this, hoping to discredit the war effort by taint of scandal (see Kelly Beaucar Vlahos: [04-20] Republican lawmakers to Biden: no more 'unrestrained aid' to Ukraine. It doesn't mean there should be no aid, but it's always important to stay vigilant against corruption (Afghanistan and Iraq being prime examples, but same thing was endemic in Vietnam).

  • Joshua Frank: [04-21] Will the West Turn Ukraine Into a Nuclear Battlefield? Specifically, he's talking about the use of depleted uranium shells, which are effective for penetrating tank armor, but are also radioactive and toxic ("depleted" means they are pure U-238, after the slightly more fissile U-235 isotopes have been removed). Depleted uranium was used extensively by the US in Iraq in 1991 and 2003, where it caused cancer, both in Iraqis and in US troops.

  • Jen Kirby: [04-22] So what's the deal with Ukraine's spring offensive? While it can be said that both sides are refusing to negotiate based on the hopes that they can still improve their territorial positions with an offensive once conditions permit, Ukraine's hopes are slightly better grounded: they made net gains around Kharkiv and Kherson in the fall; they've withstood Russian efforts to capture Bakhmut (in one of those classic "destroy the village to save it" operations); they've gained tanks and other weapons for offensive operations. A year ago, Russia was on offense, and Ukraine was pinned down, focusing on defending its capital, Kyiv, while giving ground in the south, including Kherson and Mariupol. I question whether their offensive will be much more successful than Russia's, especially when it comes to areas that have been effectively part of Russia since 2014, but it's not unusual for people to have to learn their limits the hard way.

  • Branko Marcetic: [04-21] Why is Facebook censoring Sy Hersh's NordStream report?

  • Kelley Beaucar Vlahos: [04-17] Lieven inside Ukraine: some real breaks, and insights.

Other stories around the world:

Other stories:

Kenneth Chang: [04-20] SpaceX's Starship 'Learning Experience' Ends in Explosion: Elon Musk's biggest erection yet blew up a few minutes after liftoff, but somehow nearly every article has followed the company line that the disastrous failure is really just a "learning experience." It's true that there is a hip management culture in Silicon Valley that sees taking risks as something to be encouraged, and it's always important to learn from mistakes, but you usually want to keep your test cases small and discrete, and do them in ways you can easily observe. Piling several billion dollars worth of hardware up and blowing it up 24 miles into space is far from ideal, which makes the spin seem a bit desperate.

Jay Caspian Kang: [04-21] Has Black Lives Matter changed the world?: "A new book makes the case for a more pragmatic anti-policing movement -- one that seeks to build working-class solidarity across racial lines." The book is by Cedric Johnson: After Black Lives Matter.

Rebecca Leber: [04-19] Why Asia's early heat wave is so alarming: This should probably be the biggest story of the week. With no further references in my usual sources, I looked more explicitly and found:

Will Leitch: [04-18] The Sports-Betting Ads Are Awful, and They're Not Going Away. Just because something is legal (in the sense of not being illegal), doesn't mean you should be able to advertise it everywhere (or for that matter, anywhere). One critical thing that distinugishes advertising from free speech is that it almost always appears as a sales proposition -- this is every bit as true for political as for deodorant ads -- which means that mistruths should be prosecuted as fraud. Still, the gray areas, where they dance around the truth, or say one thing while implying another (like when big pharma ads list side-effects while everyone keeps smiling), is often worse. I think this is basically true for everything, but gambling has got to be one of the worst things you could possibly advertise. It's not just that gamblers lose (while foolishly led to believe they won't), or that the people who take their money are among the most undeserving and unscrupulous of racketeers, but that the very idea that one should so disrespect one's hard-earned labor destroys the soul.

I should add a personal note: When I was a child, I noticed that most TV shows were sponsored ("brought to you by") big corporations, which splashed their names about, taking full credit for things I enjoyed, and mostly selling things I could imagine my family buying. Then I saw a list of America's biggest companies, and noticed that insurance companies were huge, but hadn't been buying TV advertising. So I wished that they would share some wealth and contribute to my entertainment . . . until they did, and I was shocked and disgusted by their sales pitch. That's when I decided some things should not be advertised. Of course, lots of services couldn't be advertised back then, like lawyers. Later, cigarette advertising was banned, and that turned out all to the good.

Back in the 1970s, I wound up doing a fair amount of work behind the scenes in advertising. I read numerous books on the subject (notably David Ogilvy). I came to respect the craft, creativity, art, and science of the industry -- the latter was built on the social sciences, which was my major in college, and something I viewed with an especially critical eye. Of course, I also came to be repulsed by the whole business. While there needs to be ways for honest businesses to make the public aware of their products and services, our current system of advertising does much more harm than good. And depending on advertisers to support essential public services like journalism (see Robinson below) does even more harm. So ban it all. But sports betting would be a particularly good place to start.

Jasmine Liu: [04-21] On the Road With the Ghost of Ashli Babbitt: "Jeff Sharlet saw close up how the far right has used grief and bitterness to grow its ranks." Interview with Sharlet, whose new book is: The Undertow: Scenes From a Slow Civil War.

Samantha Oltman/Brian Resnick/Adam Clark Estes/Bryan Walsh: [04-21] The 100-year-old mistake that's reshaping the American West: "What happens if the Colorado River keeps drying up?" Introduction to a new batch of articles.

David Quammen: [04-23] Why Dead Birds Are Falling From the Sky: Another pandemic may be just around the future (or if you're a bird, already here).

Nathan J Robinson: Also look for Buzzfeed above.

  • [04-17] We Can't Overstate the Danger of Tom Cotton's "Might Makes Right" Foreign Policy: The Arkansas Republican Senator has a new book out, called Only the Strong: Reversing the Left's Plot to Sabotage American Power, arguing that "Democrats are insufficiently militaristic" (an argument Robinson derides as "laughable," citing examples from Truman to Obama). Given that US foreign policy is already massively, if not admittedly, tilted in the direction that Cotton advocates -- naked projection of power for purely selfish ends, the only thing extra he's advocating is that US power should be utterly shameless (regarding purely self-interested motives) and unapologetic (regarding collateral damages) -- a foreign policy which was only seriously attempted by Germany and Japan in WWII (although Israel seems to think in those terms, which is why American neocons are so enamored, but somewhat more limited given their lack of size). While there is something to be said for cutting out the hypocrisy about democracy and freedom -- things Cotton has no desire to preserve domestically, let alone anywhere else -- such frankness would make it even harder to command alliances, and would only increase the resolve of those inclined to resist US dictates. Cotton seems to think that the only thing that has held kept his strategy from dominating is the pathetic wobbliness of lily-livered Democrats.

  • [04-19] Homelessness Is an Entirely Solvable Problem: "Whether we let people have houses is a choice we make." Also: "Shocking, I know. The more expensive a place is, the more people struggle to afford housing, and the more they struggle to afford housing, the more likely they are to be unhoused."

  • [2022-02-11] On Experiencing Joe Rogan: This is a bit old, but probably all you need to know.

Priya Satia: [04-18] Born Imperial: The lingering ghosts of the British Empire. Review of Sathnam Sanghera: Empireland: How Imperialism Has Shaped Modern Britain.

Jeffrey St Clair: [04-21] Roaming Charges: In the Land of Unfortunate Things: Opens with a bit about Dr. Bruce Jessen ("the CIA's torture shrink"), before moving on to the Dominion-Fox settlement, which winds up noting Rupert Murdoch's lobbying the British to nuke China rather than giving up Hong Kong, and on to other topics. "[US Supreme Court Justice Clarence] Thomas isn't being bribed to make decisions; he's being rewarded for the fact that he'd make these decisions without being bribed. So would Alito." This is actually a common model, but is more conspicuous with Supreme Court justices, as their lifetime appointments don't allow a tasteful wait until retirement. Clinton and Obama earned their post-presidential fortunes for their service to an oligarchy they made all the richer.

Michael Tomasky: [04-23] Here's the Gutsy, Unprecedented Campaign Biden and the Democrats Need to Run: Here's the guy who thought Obama would be transformational. (Or was that Robert Kuttner? Similar thinkers who get a bit myopic when they get their hopes up.) The one thing Tomasky is right is that Democrats need to win big in 2024 in order to get a chance to deliver on whatever it is they campaign on, big or small. And while I'm reasonably comfortable that Biden can beat Trump, DeSantis, Pence, or the lower echelon of GOP apparatchiki, he's not very good at explaining why a solid majority of Americans should vote for him, and he's not what you'd call charismatic. The only thing that distinguishes him from the next 20-30 contenders is that he's acceptable to both the party rank-and-file and to the moneybags who'd sabotage the election to make sure no one too far left got in.

Still, two problems here. One is that the laundry list of bills isn't all that big or helpful. Free opioid clinics and adding dental coverage to Medicare are tiny compared to Medicare for All. New laws to limit monopolies and to encourage unions could help, but will take some time to gain traction. Why not a Worker's Bill of Rights, which would combine some of these things (minimum wage, overtime) with some other recent proposals (like parental leave and prohibiting NDAs) with some more ideas that are overdue (like rebalancing arbitration systems)? What about a Reproductive Health Act, which would guarantee the right to abortion, and also provide universal insurance for pregnancy and early infancy? And why not combine marijuana legalization/regulation with pain clinics that could finally make some headway on opioids (not that pot is a panacea here; sometimes opioids are needed, but legal ones, administered under care with counseling)? And there's still a lot more work to do on infrastructure, climate change, and disaster relief. And if you really want to wow minds, why not work for world peace, instead of dedicating US foreign policy to arms sales (like Trump did, although one can argue that Biden is even better at it)?

Still, I doubt that policy ideas, no matter how coherent and bold, are the key to winning elections. Sure, eventually you have to do something worthwhile (which is why Republican regimes never last: they get elected in a wave of good feeling, then invariably spoil it within 8-12 years), but first you need to get people (who don't understand much about policy) to trust you to do the right things, and not just sell out to private donor interests. Granted, like the campers running from a bear, the Democrat should only have to be faster than the Republican, but appearing less crooked is trickier than you'd expect, as proven by Hillary Clinton's loss to Trump on just that issue.

Brian Walsh: [04-19] Are 8 billion people too many -- or too few? Wrong question, as the writer (if not the titlist) realizes. No time for a disquisition here, but the goal should never be to see how many people you can cram into Malthusian misery, but to figure out how to reduce the misery of those who we do have, then try to sustain that.

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Monday, April 17, 2023

Music Week

April archive (in progress).

Music: Current count 40031 [39968] rated (+63), 54 [58] unrated (-4: 26 new, 28 old).

Not only hit but blew right past the 40,000 rated albums mark this week. I noted the moment in a tweet on Friday (4/14). The database introduction and genre breakdown is here. Most of this framework dates back to the early 2000s, when I was scouring the album guides for prospects. Perhaps some of the genres should be divided up more, especially by time, but I keep thinking that a better solution would be a better tagged database -- a project that always seems to be slipping away into the future.

Records below are primarily non-jazz: probably the first week all year. I added a lot of stuff to my 2023 tracking file, so I've had a lot to pick from. Given how many records by reputable artists I heard, I'm surprised that so far hit the A- mark -- especially the three A records from Robert Christgau's April Consumer Guide (which I played at least three times each). Some of those I had played earlier (recently: Willie Nelson, 100 Gecs; others way back: Oranj Symphonette, Wayne Shorter. By the way, my pick of the Shorter Blue Notes is Night Dreamer, although the one I really recommend is The Classic Blue Note Recordings (2-CD, 2002). My Shorter list is here. Beyond that, his albums with Art Blakey and Miles Davis are often great, and his albums with Weather Report never are.

Seems like a lot of musicians have been dying recently, but few as notable as Ahmad Jamal (1930-2023). He almost exclusively recorded in trios, something I'm not a big fan of, but if you look at my list, you'll find A- records scattered over four decades, and also notice that I missed a lot in between.

Technically, the Christian McBride album missed my cutoff, but I decided to include it here because I thought I should have more good new releases, and because it shows you what Marcus Strickland can do when he's not recording his own albums.

Rough day today, especially with eyes and allergies. Former will probably clear up (though cataract surgery is likely in the future), and latter will probably get worse.

Wrote another monster Speaking of Which over the weekend. Kicked out a tweet this morning when I saw a particularly laughable op-ed:

I see Robert M Gates has an op-ed called "US needs to relearn how to tell its story to the world." Actually, the US needs a better story. Like, one that doesn't start with: sanction our enemies, buy our arms, and if you do, we'll excuse any human rights offenses.

The US had a better (but still imperfect) story before WWII, when an elite group of foreign policy wonks decided that America should save the world by running it, or alternatively that America should save colonialism by converting it to global capitalism, allowing natives to hold "independent" political posts subject to the tight credit controls of the World Bank and IMF.

New records reviewed this week:

100 Gecs: 10,000 Gecs (2023, Dog Show/Atlantic): St. Louis duo, Dylan Brady and Laura Les, second album, hyperpop (I'm told), turns the corner from mostly annoying to occasionally amusing. Blessedly short: 26:53. B+(*) [sp]

100 Gecs: Snake Eyes (2022, Dog Show/Atlantic, EP): Even shorter: three tracks (5:53), with Skrillex on the middle one, in case they ran short of bubblegum. B+(*) [sp]

Arooj Aftab/Vijay Iyer/Shahzad Ismaily: Love in Exile (2023, Verve): Pakistani singer, based in Brooklyn, several previous albums, working here with piano and bass, both also on synths, all three credited on all six songs. Not quite mesmerizing, but tries. B+(**) [sp]

Florian Arbenz/Greg Osby/Arno Krijger: Conversation #9: Targeted (2023, Hammer): Swiss drummer, released a couple albums in 2001 but has been most prolific since 2020, when he hit on his "Conversation" series as a pandemic lockdown workaround. Trio with alto sax and organ. Osby has been terrific of late -- last year's album with Tyshawn Sorey topped my list -- and the organ kicks off to a strong start. B+(***) [bc]

Florian Arbenz/Jorge Vistel/Wolfgang Puschnig/Oren Marshall/Michael Arbenz: Conversation #8: Ablaze (2022, Hammer): After a lockdown series of mostly duos and trios, the Swiss drummer convened a quintet, with group pic on the back cover. Others play trumpet, sax, tuba (!), and piano, with Vistel and Puschnig bringing a song each, and a cover of "Freedom Jazz Dance." B+(***) [bc]

Gina Birch: I Play My Bass Loud (2023, Third Man): British painter, photographer, moviemaker, played in the Raincoats and Red Krayola, released this debut solo album at 67. It has some of the off-kilter quirkiness of her groups, and some lessons of age. Bass isn't as loud as advertised. B+(***) [sp]

Bktherula: LVL5 P1 (2022, Warner, EP): Atlanta rapper Brooklyn Rodriguez, fourth album, albeit a short one (10 tracks, 20:57). B+(*) [sp]

Peter Brötzmann/Heather Leigh/Fred Lonberg-Holm: Naked Nudes [Brötz 80th at ADA 2021] (2021 [2023], Trost): Legendary German avant-saxophonist (alto/tenor), as part of his 80th birthday celebration in Wuppertal, a trio with frequent collaborators of late, on pedal steel guitar and cello/electronics. I'd hate to suggest that he's slowing down, but the background is kind of thick. B+(*) [bc]

Tom Collier: Boomer Vibes Volume 1 (2023, Summit): Born 1950, plays keyboards and drums as well as vibraphone, picks eleven songs from the 1960s (not checking, but being his age that's how I know them), offering versions that are slightly more than muzak, and slightly less than pop. B+(*) [cd]

Miley Cyrus: Endless Summer Vacation (2023, Columbia): Pop star since her teens, semi-famous father had a fluke country hit, eighth album since 2007 and still just 30. Some striking songs, but inconsistent as always. B+(**) [sp]

Jesse Davis: Live at Smalls Jazz Club (2022 [2023], Cellar): Alto saxophonist from New Orleans, established himself with seven 1991-2000 albums on Concord, but recording dates have been scarce since then. Live set here with Spike Wilner (piano), Peter Washington (bass), and Joe Farnsworth (drums), doing standards and hard bop favorites. B+(**) [sp]

Angel Bat Dawid: Requiem for Jazz (2019-20 [2023], International Anthem): Angel Elmore, based in Chicago, fourth album, plays clarinet but I don't see her in the credits here (beyond "composed, arranged, conducted & mixed"), divided between the ArkeStarzz (15-piece band including a string quartet), the Choruzz (4 singers), Special Cosmic Guests (including Marshall Allen, dubbed in later), Dancers, Set Design, and Visualz. I suppose I should be impressed by all the high-minded artfulness employed here, but some things still strike me as just plain pretentious. B [sp]

Michael Dease: The Other Side: The Music of Gregg Hill (2022 [2023], Origin): Trombonist, started in big bands with Illinois Jacquet in 2002, debut 2010, teaches at Michigan State. Joins here the wave of artists recording pieces by Michigan composer Hill. B+(*) [cd]

Lana Del Rey: Did You Know That There's a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd (2023, Interscope/Polydor): Singer-songwriter Elizabeth Grant, ninth album since 2010, all but the first charting high, but only the second (Born to Die) selling multi-millions. Long (16 songs, 77:43), co-produced and often co-written by Jack Atonoff. Low-key, but possibly of more than passing interest. B+(**) [sp]

Marc Ducret: Palm Sweat: Marc Ducret Plays the Music of Tim Berne (2022 [2023], Screwgun/Out of Your Head): Guitarist, born in Denmark, debut 1986, has played on at least 20 Tim Berne albums. As there seems to be a push to get others to play Berne's compositions, he's a natural. Sparsely accompanied by various horns (trumpet, alto flute, trombone) and cello, no drums, the music is stripped down and prickly. B+(***) [cd]

Bokani Dyer: Radio Sechaba (2023, Brownswood): Pianist-singer, born in Botswana, based in South Africa, has a half-dozen albums since 2010, has one foot in jazz but this sounds more like soul music. Ends with a nice instrumental. B+(**) [cd] [05-12]

Vince Ector Organotomy Trio +: Live @ the Side Door (2020 [2023], Cabo Verde): Drummer, has a couple albums, side credits back to 1995 (Charles Earland, which eventually led to a Charles Earland Tribute Band). Leads a quartet here, with Pat Bianchi (organ), Paul Bollenback (guitar), and Justin Jones (sax, presumably the +1). B+(**) [cd]

El Michels Affair & Black Thought: Glorious Game (2023, Big Crown): New York funk/soul instrumental band led by Leon Michels, eighth album since 2005, lands a world class MC this time, working over some loops with occasional guest spots. A- [sp]

Emperor X: Suggested Improvements to Transportation Infrastructure in the Northeast Corridor (2023, Dreams of Field, EP): Singer-songwriter Chad Matheny, gave up graduate study in physics to focus on music, self-released debut 1998, eleven albums and nine EPs. Six songs, 18:14, each tied to a regional transportation authority (from WMATA to MBATA). B+(**) [bc]

Nick Finzer: Dreams Visions Illusions (2022 [2023], Outside In Music): Trombonist, based in New York, albums since 2012. Postbop sextet, with Lucas Pino (tenor sax/bass clarinet), Alex Wintz (guitar), Glenn Zaleski (piano), bass, and drums. B+(**) [cd]

Robbie Fulks: Bluegrass Vacation (2023, Compass): Alt-country singer-songwriter, debut 1996, has done collaborations with Linda Gail Lewis and the Mekons, and covers of Michael Jackson and 13 Hillbilly Giants. This one he wrote all but one song (Delmore Brothers). B+(***) [sp]

Girl Scout: Real Life Human Garbage (2023, Made, EP): Swedish group, Emma Jansson the singer, rocks some but doesn't reduce to punk or riot grrrl. Might even pass as winsome. Five songs, 15:35. B+(**) [sp]

The Hold Steady: The Price of Progress (2023, Positive Jams): Craig Finn's band since 2003, ninth studio album (plus a few solos on the side). It's getting hard to tell their (or his) albums apart, but they're infrequent enough that each comes as a revelation: the stories interest, the words command your attention, his talkie voice is clear enough, and the music just fits. A- [sp]

JPEGMafia x Danny Brown: Scaring the Hoes (2023, AWAL): Producer-rapper Barrington Hendricks, fifth album since 2016, adding rapper Daniel Sewall here, whose discography goes back to 2010. Sounds like they threw everything into a blender, but instead of pureeing that shit, they just sent it flying everywhere. B+(*) [sp]

Larry June and the Alchemist: The Great Escape (2023, Empire): San Francisco rapper Larry Hendricks, half-dozen albums since 2017, hooks up with prolific LA producer Dan Maman. B+(*) [sp]

Jason Kush: Finally Friday (2021 [2023], MCG Jazz): Tenor saxophonist, teaches at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, seems to be his first album, a quartet with piano-bass-drums. Has a big sound and likes to soar, so it helps that the rhythm section gives him steady support. B+(***) [cd]

Julian Lage: The Layers (2022 [2023], Blue Note, EP): Jazz guitarist, six more tracks (24:44) from the sessions of last year's View With a Room, with Jorge Roeder (bass), Dave King (drums), and/or Bill Frisell (guitar) -- two are duos. B+(**) [sp]

Las Vegas Boneheads: Sixty and Still Cookin' (2023, Curt Miller Music): Trombone-heavy band, traces its history back to 1962, but has only recorded since Curt Miller took over, with their debut in 2017, and this their sophomore effort. Mostly standards, closing with "I Thought About You," "Cherokee," and "Gians Steps." B [cd]

Mark Lewis: Sunlight Shines In (2019 [2023], Audio Daddio): Saxophonist (alto/tenor, also flute), (9) at Discogs, from Tacoma, debut album 1979, original pieces, backed by piano, bass, and drums, with Nolan Shaheed on trumpet. B+(**) [cd]

Brandon Lopez: Vilevilevilevilevilevilevilevile (2023, Tao Forms): Avant-bassist, side credits start around 2012, has been very prolific of late. This is solo, impressive enough within the obvious limits. B+(**) [cd]

Rob Mazurek Exploding Star Orchestra: Lightning Dreamers (2023, International Anthem): Trumpet/electronics player, albums back to 1994, juggles several groups, eighth album with this one since 2007, now an octet, with Jeff Parker (guitar), Craig Taborn and Angelica Sanchez (keyboards), Damon Locks (voice/electronics), Gerald Cleaver (drums), Mauricio Takara (electronics/percussion), and Nicole Mitchell (flute). B+(**) [sp]

Christian McBride's New Jawn: Prime (2021 [2023], Mack Avenue): Bassist, from Philadelphia, established himself as the premier mainstream jazz bassist with his 1994-2000 Verves. Introduced this group on his 2018 album, with Josh Evans (trumpet), Marcus Strickland (tenor sax/bass clarinet), and Nasheet Waits (drums), with all four bringing songs. This one adds covers of Larry Young, Ornette Coleman, and Sonny Rollins; each, in its way, sharpening the edges. A- [sp]

Francisco Mela Featuring Cooper-Moore and William Parker: Music Frees Our Souls Vol. 2 (2020 [2023], 577): Cuban drummer, went to Berklee in 2000, early records more obviously Latin, but has knocked out several free jazz sets recently. This has Cooper-Moore on piano and Parker on bass, for two side-long improvs, plus a couple spare bits for the digital. B+(***) [dl]

Gurf Morlix: Caveman (2022, Rootball): Singer-songwriter, from Buffalo before Texas and Los Angeles; was drummer, producer, and more to Lucinda Williams 1985-96, has a steady stream of records since 2000. When I went to look this up in my 2022 tracking file, I noticed that it was missing (meaning that I missed it and also that it hadn't appeared on the hundreds of EOY lists I tracked), but that his 2021 album was there, indicating that the same thing happened before. This is another solid collection of songs. B+(**) [sp]

Gurf Morlix: I Challenge the Beast (2023, Rootball): Nine more songs, most comfortably within the blues idiom. B+(***) [sp]

Willie Nelson: I Don't Know a Thing About Love: The Songs of Harlan Howard (2023, Legacy): Ten songs written by Howard (1927-2002), two (one of which will be recognized as such) co-credited to Buck Owens, delivered in an economical 31:11. Songs are a mixed bag. Singer, of course, is great. B+(**) [sp]

Billy Nomates: Cacti (2023, Invada): British singer-songwriter Tor Maries, got a big jump on her 2020 debut with her connection to Sleaford Mods. Little sonic evidence of that here, especially first half, but gets more interesting on the way out. B+(**) [sp]

Grant Peeples: A Murder of Songs (2023, self-released): Folksinger-songwriter, ninth album since 2008, one memorable title: Okra and Ecclesiastes. Pieced together while dodging the pandemic. Could be more pointed politically, and/or could be funnier, but any song that reminds me of John Prine (as "Elizabeth" does) helps. B+(**) [sp]

Caroline Polachek: Desire, I Want to Turn Into You (2023, Perpetual Novice): Singer-songwriter, started in the group Chairlift, second album under her own name. B+(*) [sp]

Quasi: Breaking the Balls of History (2023, Sub Pop): Portland duo of "former spouses" Sam Coomes (vocals, guitar, keyboards, bass) and Janet Weiss (vocals, drums), started in 1993, with both also engaged in other bands (most notably, Weiss in Sleater-Kinney), this their tenth album (albeit first since 2013). Just when I was ready to shitcan this, I heard some organ I liked. When it got awful again, a bass riff caught my ear. Up and down like that, but in the end, not worth the aggravation. B- [sp]

Joakim Rainer Trio: Light.Sentence (2021 [2023], Sonic Transmissions): Norwegian pianist, last name Petersen, first album after several side-credits, a trio with Alexander Piris (bass) and Rino Sivathas (drums). B+(**) [sp]

Rent Romus/Heikki Koskinen: Itkuja Suite, Invocations on Lament (2022 [2023], Edgetone): Two saxophonists: the former also credited with flute, melodica, and voice; the latter with e-trumpet and kantele. Fine print adds: "featuring Life's Blood Ensemble and Heikki Lantinen." The former is Romus's working group; the latter the vocalist who pulls this toward opera: the point of the "invocations on lament," something I could do without. B+(*) [cd]

Ryuichi Sakamoto: 12 (2023, Milan): Japanese pianist, died a couple months (age 71) after this album was released. counted as his 12th album (although some sources credit him with more than 20, plus his work in Yellow Magic Orchestra. Minimal ambiance, aiming at serenity. B [sp]

Cécile McLorin Salvant: Mélusine (2023, Nonesuch): Jazz singer, her last four albums (2015-22) topped the Jazz Critics Poll vocal category, though her MacArthur Genius Grant was a bigger milestone. Born in Miami, father Haitian, mother French, has used the latter language frequently in the past, but this album -- based on medieval French folk tales and music, with five original pieces -- is almost all in French (with some Kreyňl and a bit of English). I've been duly impressed, but never really enjoyed her records. B+(*) [sp]

Sleaford Mods: UK Grim (2023, Rough Trade): British rap-punk duo, vocalist Jason Williamson and Andrew Fearn, grim since 2007, with twelve albums as consistent as the Fall. B+(***) [sp]

Peter Smith Trio: Dollar Dreams (2022 [2023], Real Magic): Pianist, from Los Angeles, has a couple previous albums. Trio with Mike Gurrola (bass) and Reggie Quinerly (drums), playing six Smith originals and four standards. B+(**) [cd]

Bruce Springsteen: Only the Strong Survive (2022, Columbia): Covers album of soul songs from the 1960s and 1970s, panned by one reviewer as "pretty much Bruce does karaoke," but done with surpassing care, with Ron Aniello's production, clusters of horns and backing vocals, and a string section (on 10/15 cuts). Not bad, but I can't imagine ever wanting to hear it again, least of all as a goof. [PS: Soon as I wrote that line, "7 Rooms of Gloom" came on, followed by "What Becomes of the Brokenhearted" and "Someday We'll Be Together," which along with the earlier "I Wish It Would Rain" are some kind of camp.] B [sp]

Marcus Strickland Twi-Life: The Universe's Wildest Dream (2023, Strick Music): Saxophonist (soprano/alto/tenor, also bass clarinet), albums since 2001, played with Dave Douglas 2005-10, third album under this Afro-futurist project name (which originally dates back to his 2006 album). With Mitch Henry (keys), Kyle Miles (bass), and Charles Haynes (drums), plus guest vocals on three tracks. B+(*) [bc]

Lucas Traxel: One-Eyed Daruma (2023, We Jazz): Swiss bassist, has a couple dozen side-credits since 2012, first album under his own name, a trio with Otis Sandsjö (tenor sax) and Moritz Gaumgärtner (drums). B+(***) [sp]

The Tubs: Dead Meat (2023, Trouble in Mind): London band (not the Norwegian one), first album after an EP), a rock band with a bit of jangle pop. B+(*) [sp]

Luis Vicente 4tet: House in the Valley (2021 [2023], Clean Feed): Portuguese trumpet player, very active since 2012. Quartet with John Dikeman (tenor sax), Luke Stewart (bass), and Onno Govaert (drums), on two (or four) long pieces (67:16). The saxophonist has long struck me as a rather blunt instrument, hitting especially hard here. B+(**) [sp]

Waco Brothers: The Men That God Forgot (2023, Plenty Tuff): Mekon Jon Langford's Chicago bar band, more cowpunk when they were founded in 1995, own label now named for one of the songs on that debut. Tenth album, after a break of seven years. B+(**) [sp]

Yaeji: With a Hammer (2023, XL): Kathy Yaeji Lee, born in New York, of Korean parents, produces electronica and sings, first studio album after a couple EPs and a mixtape. B+(*) [sp]

Young Fathers: Heavy Heavy (2023, Ninja Tune): Scottish trio, one (Alloysious Massaquoi) born in Liberia but moved to Edinburgh when he was four, another (Kayus Bankole) has parents from Nigeria. Slotted hip-hop based on their two early mixtapes, but four albums later they're unclassifiable. B+(***) [sp]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

Jeff Johnson: My Heart (1991 [2023], Origin): Bassist, b. 1954 in Minneapolis, long time in Seattle, debut 1986, has been a central figure in this label's sessions. Early quartet with John Gross (tenor sax), Art Resnick (piano), and Billy Mintz (drums). Skirts around the edges of postbop. B+(**) [cd]

JuJu: A Message From Mozambique (1972 [2023], Strut): Afrocentric jazz group founded in San Francisco by saxophonist Plunky Nkabinde (originally James Branch), with other African-sounding names: Ken Shabala (Kent Parker, bass/flute), Lon Moshe (Ron Martin, flute/vibes), Al-Hamel Rasul (Tony Grayson, piano), Babatunde (Michael Lea, congas/drums), and Jalango Ngoma (Dennis Stewart, timbales). A little rough, but could still get filed as spiritual jazz now, but at the time tried to fuse avant with black power community. Group evolved into Oneness of Juju. A- [sp]

Old music:

Mose Allison: The Word From Mose Allison (1964, Atlantic): Subtitle: "The Songs of Mose Allison: Words of Wisdom from the Jazz Sage." Jazz singer-pianist (1927-2016), white boy from Mississippi, invented a hipster sound that is still very distinctive. He recorded several albums for Prestige 1957-59, for Columbia (1959-61), and more for Atlantic 1962-76, then staged a comeback with Blue Note after 1987. I've only sampled him, but this LP is as consistently fine as his compilations. A- [sp]

Mose Allison: Mose Allison Sings (1957-59 [2006], Prestige): Compilation originally released in 1963 with 13 tracks, later expanded to 16. I can find all but two on albums, but Prestige often held material back to release later albums once its artists moved on. Penguin Guide recommends a 2001 reissue called Mose Allison Sings and Plays, which goes all the way to 23 tracks. Just four originals here, twelve covers, all with various bass and drums, done with his trademark light touch. B+(***) [sp]

Derek Bailey/George Lewis/John Zorn: Yankees (1982 [1983], Celluloid): Guitar, trombone, alto/soprano sax (plus clarinet and game calls). All improvised, the sort of abstract noise I rarely get into. It did have me wondering who the three baseball players on the cover were. Presumably New York Yankees, but I don't see any insignia. One song was named for Enos Slaughter (mostly a Cardinal, but finished his career with New York), but doesn't look like him. B [r]

Jeppe Zeeberg: It's the Most Basic Thing You Can Do on a Boat (2014, Barefoot): Danish pianist, half-dozen albums since 2014, this his debut, backed by bass and drums, two of each listed. Could be split into two trios, but in full fury it does sound like they're all playing. B+(***) [sp]

Jeppe Zeeberg: Riding on the Boogie Woogie of Life (2015, Barefoot): Second album, piano with alternate keyboards (synth, spinet, organ), again with the doubled-up bass and drums. B+(**) [sp]

Jeppe Zeeberg: The Four Seasons (2017, Barefoot): First large group album, his pairs of bass and drums (with Henrik Olsson also playing guitar) augmented by four horns (sax/clarinet, trumpet, trombone, and tuba). It can get to be a bit much. B+(*) [sp]

Jeppe Zeeberg: Eight Seemingly Unrelated Pieces of Piano Music (2018, Barefoot): Danish pianist, half-dozen albums since 2014, this one solo, also playing synthesizer, pipe organ, percussion, and electronics. He promises variety, and delivers: a stride piece to open, some organ ambiance, a crashing free piece ("A Regular Guy in Japan"), and another, then ends with "something jolly." He's most impressive flat out, but it helps that he doesn't stay there. A- [bc]

Jeppe Zeeberg: Universal Disappointment (2019, self-released): Various lineups, some he's not credited on, except as composer, arranger, etc. The eclecticism is getting a bit much. B [sp]

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

  • Richard X Bennett & Matt Parker: Parker Plays X (BYNK) [05-13]
  • George Coleman: Live at Smalls Jazz Club (Cellar) [05-19]
  • Les DeMerle: Sound 67: Once in a Lifetime (1967, Origin) [04-21]
  • Lauren Henderson: Conjuring (Brontosaurus) [04-21]
  • Jeff Johnson: My Heart (1991, Origin) [04-21]
  • Jason Keiser: Shaw's Groove (OA2) [04-21]
  • John Pizzarelli: Stage & Screen (Palmetto) [04-21]
  • Alex Weitz: Rule of Thirds (Outside In Music) [04-28]

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Sunday, April 16, 2023

Speaking of Which

While writing this, I threw out the following tweet:

Thinking about major patterns in American history: one is that progressive change often leads to reaction, which in turn inevitably falls into dysfunction and catastrophe, necessitating further progressive change.

First pass omitted "often" and "inevitably," but I had more characters to work with. I was thinking about adding a clause to the effect that the trick will be to sell progressive change so broadly and deeply that reaction won't be able to take root. Past progressive periods have had lasting impact, even once power shifted to opposing forces. Often, as in FDR's successful switch of focus to WWII or in LBJ's Vietnam War debacle, power shifted mostly due to other factors. Republicans have often been granted grace periods on the assumption that they wouldn't really do the awful things they campaigned for -- at least that they wouldn't do them to their own voters. On the other hand, reactionaries are directly responsible for their disastrous turns, because the stratified societies and repressive governments they favor are inherently destabilizing and suicidal.

This meme showed up in my Facebook feed, forwarded by a dear friend who's not known for lefty politics. Title is: "Shocking Things Liberals Believe." The list:

  • People working 40 hours a week should not live in poverty.
  • CEOs should not receive 3,000 times the pay of their workers.
  • Wall Street gangsters should go to prison when they steal.
  • No child should ever have to worry about being shot at school.
  • No one, especially veterans, should be homeless.
  • There should not be subsidies for profitable corporations.
  • Equal rights and equal pay should be the benchmark for all Americans.
  • Politicians should not dictate medical decisions for women.
  • Lobbyists should not be allowed to bribe our representatives.
  • Companies should not be permitted to trash the earth for profit.
  • Healthcare should be given to all, not be a luxury for rich people.
  • Everyone should have access to higher education.

That's certainly not an exhaustive list, but nothing there I'd nitpick much less argue against. I'm not sure I'd describe liberals thusly, but if liberals are serious about protecting their idea of individual liberty, they need to get behind an agenda that does a much better job of securing basic rights, including Roosevelt's "freedom from want" and "freedom from fear," than America does now.

Top story threads:

Trump:

Other Republicans:

  • Ryan Cooper: [04-13] Republicans' Self-Inflicted Budget Impasse: "The GOP discovers that shouting lies on television is not a good way to figure out how to tax and spend." Further down: "It turns out to be quite difficult to operate a political party made up of 75 percent crack-brained yahoo attention hounds, whose voters are 'egged on by a media apparatus that has trained its audience to demand the impossible and punish the sell-outs who can't deliver,' in the words of Alex Pareene." Pareene also wrote (back in 2017): "Donald Trump today is a cruel dolt turned into a raving madman by cable news and Breitbart.com." Yeah, but four years later he's much further gone.

  • Gabriella Ferrigne: [04-14] New docs reveal racist messages by man Abbott wants to pardon in BLM protester killing: "Daniel Perry repeatedly made racist comments and discussed plans to kill people."

  • David French: [04-13] How Tennessee Illustrates the Three Rules of MAGA: I hadn't seen this formulation before: "First, that before Trump the G.O.P. was a political doormat, helplessly walked over by Democrats time and again. Second, that we live in a state of cultural emergency where the right has lost everywhere and must turn to politics to reverse this cultural momentum. And third, that in this state of emergency, all conservatives must rally together. There can be no enemies to the right." Like so much Republican drivel, it's hard to pick which thread to unravel first. But sure, I suppose you can divide the public sphere into economics and culture. The focus on culture is convenient for many Republicans because it distracts from the main thrust of Republican policy going back to Reagan, which has been economic: to shift power and wealth from labor and customers to business, leading to a massive increase in inequality. It's easy to understand why Republicans don't want people thinking about economics, except insofar as they can fob blame off on Democrats (gas prices works for this, even though most of the executives who profit from higher prices skew hard Republican). Culture change, on the other hand, happens irrespective of politics, which feeds into both their victimization complex and their sense of desperation.

  • Gabrielle Gurley: [04-13] Tennessee Republicans Step Up Attacks on Democratic Cities: "States rights" supposedly tries to bring government closer to the people, but Republicans only want to decentralize power when the net flow is in their favor. That's led to many cases of Republican-controlled states limiting what mostly Democratic cities can do. Tennessee got a reminder of that when the state legislature expelled representatives from Memphis and Nashville, only to have them returned to office.

  • Josh Kovensky: [04-16] Texas GOP Struggles Over What Crisis to Manufacture at Border. The state legislature is pushing a bill that would declare that Texas is being invaded from Mexico, authorizing a "state-run Border Patrol Unit, empowered to deputize and train citizens, and to 'repel' and 'return' undocumented migrants seen crossing the border" (or, as critics dubbed it, a "vigilante death squads policy").

  • Eric Levitz: [04-13] Why the GOP Can't Moderate on Abortion Pill Bans: A big part of this is tactics: they decided to equate abortion with murder, which created a strong force dragging the law toward conception. And they threw in a few more axioms which, again, couldn't be compromised. And they billed themselves as the champion of the fetus, building up what is essentially a single-issue voting bloc, one they cannot afford to lose. They did pretty much the same thing with guns, so again they're incapable of compromise. Any time you adopt a moral absolute, you can only move toward that pure point. Any deviation is seen as a sign of weakness, and Republicans can't bear to show that. Their whole self-image is built up around resolute strength, no matter how stupid that gets.

  • Jason Linkins: [04-15] It's Really Quite Simple: Republicans Hate Young People. Scott Walker blames "liberal indoctrination," but it's conservatives who are legislating curricula and banning books. And banning abortion: "Everywhere you look, Republicans are finding it very difficult to actually run on the post-Roe dystopia they've engineered -- so much so that they're now trying to get people to just stop talking about it."

  • Nicole Narea: [04-11] Why these Democrats are defecting to the GOP: "Three Democratic lawmakers in Louisiana and North Carolina switched parties recently."

  • Heather Digby Parton: [04-14] Republicans, facing devastating fallout from "Dobbs effect," refuse to quit abortion bans.

  • Bill Scher: [04-14] Why DeSantis Should Take a Pass on the 2024 Presidential Election: "The idea that the Florida governor could cinch the GOP nomination by running as a competent, no-drama Donald Trump is fundamentally flawed." [For a counter argument, see: Ross Douthat: [04-15] Why DeSantis Has to Run.] I wouldn't presume to offer advice, but I do think that last week's Frank Luntz argument that Republicans want Trumpy policies without Trump's personality, which is DeSantis in a nutshell, is exactly wrong -- something which I think DeSantis realizes, which is why he keeps trying to fabricate media outrages like attacking Disney perks and trafficking refugees from Texas to Martha's Vineyard. I doubt he'll succeed, but if he has the money lined up, he might as well run. (Not that he needs to rush it, as he's already getting the sort of press few candidates other than Trump get.) If Trump beats him then loses, he'll have a case that it should have been him. If DeSantis gets the nomination, 2024 against Biden is probably his best timing.

  • Dylan Scott: [04-13] Republicans want to force doctors to mislead patients about reversing abortions: Kansas, in particular, though why anyone would go to the trouble of taking a dose of mifepristone then change their mind and try to get the effect reversed is hard to imagine. The much more likely explanation is that Republicans just want to make the lives of women seeking abortions as miserable as possible. By the way, there's more evil brewing in the KS legislature, despite the fact that voters overwhelmingly rejected their anti-abortion constitutional amendment.

  • Kyle Swenson: [04-16] Iowa to spend millions kicking families off food stamps. More states may follow.

  • Michael Wines: [04-14] If Tennessee's Legislature Looks Broken, It's Not Alone.

  • Li Zhou: [04-12] The return of two expelled Tennessee Democrats is a powerful rebuke to Republicans.

Matters of (in)justice: The long-brewing Clarence Thomas scandal got so big last week I moved it out into its own section. And, of course, other stories that could be filed here got slotted under Trump or Other Republicans. Still much to report:

Clarence Thomas:

Matters of economy:

  • Dean Baker: [04-13] Can Jerome Powell Pivot on Interest Rates, Again? Reminds us of why Baker thought Powell deserved a second term, and offers hope that as inflation abates he will "buck the conventional wisdom" and lower interest rates to keep the economy strong. I felt that Biden made a mistake -- as did Obama and Clinton in renominating the Republican Fed chairmen they inherited -- in not picking a more reliable ally, and so far I feel vindicated in my position.

  • Miles Bryan: [04-14] The real reason prices aren't coming down: "Excuseflation"; another new word here is "greedflation." Let me try: for many years now, at least since the Bork reformulation of antitrust rules in the 1980s and the mania of mergers and leveraged buyouts, markets have been becoming less competitive, which means companies could demand higher monopoly rents. But it didn't always happen, because price gouging ticks people off, and threatens a backlash. However, the pandemic produced a lot of supply-side glitches, which eventually coalesced into a plausible excuse for raising prices. When the expectation of higher prices sat in, the companies that could raise them without losing significant market share did so. To the extent this is true, the Fed isn't tackling the real causes of inflation. They're just trying to beat it with their stick.

  • Meg Jacobs: [04-13] The Forgotten Left Economics Tradition: "In the Progressive and New Deal eras, there was a markedly different response to rising prices, and a different usage of economic theory." I missed this one in last week's batch of American Prospect economics articles (under Stiglitz).

  • Robert Kuttner: [04-12] Will the Fed Wreck an Improving Economy? Fed chairman Jerome Powell says he's trying to control inflation, but sometimes he gives the impression that the statistic he's tracking to decide when to let up isn't inflation itself but unemployment. Kuttner also wrote: [04-13] A Revolution in Cost-Benefit Rules: "How Biden's new team at the Office of Management and Budget is reversing several decades of pseudo-technical right-wing mischief."

Ukraine War: As far as I can tell, the leaks don't amount to much. Granted, there are details they'd rather you not know, or not talk about, and there are things they should find embarrassing, but they don't amount to much.

  • Blaise Malley: [04-14] Diplomacy Watch: Biden administration in 'damage control' after intel leaks: "Leaders in Kyiv 'suspicious' of Washington's commitment to Ukrainian counteroffensive." Little diplomacy to report, other than that Pope Francis and Lula da Silva came out in favor, while Charles Kupchan and Richard Haass have "laid out a plan" to get to negotiations later while escalating now. It amazes me that serious people can make such arguments. The only question on negotiation is figuring out what each side really needs and what they can reasonably give up. The big points -- that Putin's invasion failed, that neither side can prevail on the battlefield, that the US and NATO will resist any further Russian expansionism, and that sanctions aren't a very effective deterrent -- should be pretty clear by now. The only real stickler is territory, and there the offer has been obvious from the start: let people in each disputed territory vote to decide on their fate. There are a lot of technical problems with this: chiefly, what are the boundaries of the territories in dispute, how refugees from those territories can vote, timing, etc. But fair-minded people can solve technical problems. Granted, neither side qualifies yet, and that's something each needs to work on. But what won't work is thinking that if only "we" (and this applies to either "we") can grab a bit more leverage, we'll be able to bend the other side to our will. Even unconditional surrender only works when the winning side tries to do the right thing (as the US mostly did after WWII, but as France/UK didn't do after WWI).

  • Chas Danner: [04-14] What Secrets Are in the Leaked Pentagon Documents -- and Who Leaked Them?

  • Robyn Dixon: [04-15] Breaking up with Russia is hard for many Western firms, despite war: "Only a small percentage of the hundreds of companies that promised to leave Russia after its invasion of Ukraine have exited." The Kyiv School of Economics "follows 3,141 foreign companies through its Leave Russia project, reports that only 211 companies have exited -- fewer than 7 percent."

  • Marc Fisher: [04-15] A new kind of leaker: Spilling state secrets to impress online buddies.

  • Anatol Lieven: [04-10] Pentagon leak reinforces what we already know: US-NATO in it to win: "But revelations about American and European boots on the ground are new, and could prove a dangerous and so far unexplained wrinkle."

  • Ashleigh Subramanian-Montgomery: [04-10] Even the Treasury Department admits sanctions don't work. As the last section puts it: "Time for a sanctions rethink."

Elsewhere around the world:

Other stories:

Dean Baker: [04-15] Quick Thoughts on AI and Intellectual Property: I haven't sorted through all of this, but I'll add a few more thoughts. A lot of what passes as creativity is really just the ability to pull disparate ideas out of the ether and reconfigure them in pleasing ways. AI may be hard pressed to come up with anything truly original, but it could swamp the market for "creative" recombination: all it needs to do is scan a lot of source material, then apply a few rules for sorting out what works and what doesn't. If you gave AI copyright standing, you could wind up with an automated trolling machine that would tie up honest work in endless litigation. If you don't, well, humans could use AI to vastly increase their production of copyrightable works, and they could become just as litigious. Either way, it's a mess, but the whole realm of "intellectual property" is a big legal mess even before you add AI to the mix. And as Baker knows, the whole system of enforcement is dead weight on the creative process.

David Dayen: [04-14] The Feinstein Affair: Senate Gerontocracy Reaches Absurd Heights: "Old senators, old rules, and old traditions all are cutting against what should be a simple task of confirming judges."

EJ Dionne Jr: [04-16] Gun absolutists don't trust democracy because they know they're losing: The NRA held another convention last week, attended virtually or physically by a phalanx of Republican presidential hopefuls (Pence, Trump, and Asa Hutchinson in person; DeSantis, Nikki Haley, and Tim Scott on video). "The nonsense floated in Indianapolis -- based on the idea that our national addiction to high-powered weaponry has nothing to do with America's unique mass shooting problem -- speaks to a deep ailment in our democracy." Oh, by the way:

Karen Greenberg: [04-11] The Wars to End All Wars? In his introduction, editor Tom Engelhardt reminds us that he started TomDispatch in 2002 to protest the "unnerving decision of President George W. Bush to respond to the disastrous terror attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon by invading Afghanistan," adding "even then, it seemed to me like a distinctly mad act." What's strange is that even though most observers admit that twenty-plus years of "war on terror" have hurt America more than they've helped, we seem to be further away than ever from a world where demilitarized peace is possible. Greenberg, who first got drawn into the legal morass of Guantanamo (I read her 2009 book, The Least Worst Place: Guantanamo's First 100 Days), has a 2021 book, Subtle Tools: The Dismantling of American Democracy From the War on Terror to Donald Trump, which connects the dots between 9/11 and such Trump abuses his Muslim ban, border policing, his killing of Iranian General Soleimani, his reaction to BLM protests, and his post-election insanity.

Elahe Izadi/Jeremy Barr/Sarah Ellison: [04-16] The Dominion vs. Fox defamation case is finally going to trial. As much as I hate defamation lawsuits in general, this one is exposing grievous malfeasance and public harm in a forums that will be hard to ignore. Key line here: "But First Amendment advocates aren't convinced that a Fox loss is bad for journalism -- and think Dominion has a much stronger case than most defamation plaintiffs." Also quotes Floyd Abrams: "The journalistic sins, which have already been exposed here, are so grievous and so indefensible that a victory for Fox will be hard to explain to the public." Also:

Paul Krugman: [04-11] Inequality Ahoy! On the Meaning of the Superyacht. Krugman used yachts as a measure of inequality in his book The Conscience of a Liberal (2007), contrasting how much yachts had shrunk during the "great compression" of the 1930-60s, compared to the Gilded Age extravagances of J.P. Morgan. Well, yachts are back now, bigger and gaudier than ever, including the one Clarence Thomas has enjoyed. Also on yachts:

Eric Levitz: [04-10] Blaming 'Capitalism' Is Not an Alternative to Solving Problems. Basically, a brief for social democratic reforms as opposed to the belief that only a revolution can root out the core problem that is capitalism. I've long felt that revolutions only occur the old system is too rigid and brittle to adjust to popular pressure, and therefore shatters. Russia in 1917, for instance, was less the "weak link of capitalism" than an autocratic regime locked into a disastrous war and incapable of reforming. A second point is that violence begets violence, and the more violence continues beyond revolution, the more doomed a revolution is to recapitulate the old regime. Levitz cites a bunch of statistics to show that very few Americans are disposed toward revolution, but the more relevant point is that the American political system is flexible enough to reform, if not to a point we can recognize as social democracy, than at least enough to preclude the violent rupture of revolution. (Of course, if you allow Trump and the Republicans sufficient power, all bets are off.)

On the other hand, while "blaming capitalism" isn't a practical political program, it does give one some clarity. Capitalism may tout free markets and free labor and maybe even freedom as an ideal, but it simply means that the profits go to the owners of capital -- a class who of necessity seek insatiably to maximize their returns, not least by manipulating the political system. Every word in that sentence is important, but "insatiable" (i.e., the felt need for infinite growth) is the crux of the problem, as it leads to two things that destabilize and destroy their world: a class system and environmental degradation. It is, of course, possible to limit those catastrophes through political reform, but doing so detracts from pure capitalism. This is why true capitalists regard anything that stands in the way of their quest for profits as socialism, a betrayal of all they believe in.

Adam Nagourney/Jeremy W Peters: [04-16] How a Campaign Against Transgender Rights Mobilized Conservatives: And elevated a political issue that could easily have been ignored into a defense of basic human rights. I've often wondered how many people we're talking about: "About 1.3 million adults and 300,000 children in the United States identify as transgender." That's about 0.5% of the US adult population, and 0.4% of 0-17 children (up to 1.4% of 15-17 children). That's not a lot of people to get so worked up about. But that's the point of the issue: it's a symbolic issue that a few Republicans seized on as a way to revitalize the cause of religious bigotry. And by the way, they've done more to publicize and promote acceptance of transgender people more quickly than any positive movement could.

By the way, if you'd like to meet some transgender people, take a look at: These 12 Transgender Americans Would Love You to Mind Your Own Business. This is part of a series I entered through What Happened to America? We Asked 12 People in Their 70s and 80s. The latter cohort was pretty evenly divided politically (although neither Donald Trump nor Diane Feinstein fared very well). But no Republicans in the transgender group.

Charles P Pierce: The Esquire columnist comments on a number of stories I've filed elsewhere:

Ben Schwartz: [04-14] How Woke Bob Hope Got Canceled by the Right: "The conservative comedian spoke out for gay rights and gun control, and got boycotted and ostracized by friends on the right, including Ronald Reagan." I'm a little surprised to see Hope labelled a conservative. Sure, he was of a generation when it was easy to get jingoistic about America, and I got tired of his USO shows, as he continued to associate with a military that had gone off the rails in Vietnam, but he always seemed like a decent-enough guy. And one thing was pretty unique about him, which is that nearly all of his characters were shameless cowards. He was, in this, the antithesis of John Wayne, who really was a conservative asshole.

Jeffrey St Clair: [04-14] Annals of the Covert World: The Secret Life of Shampoo: "The surveillance state is both more sinister and much sillier than most of us imagine."

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Monday, April 10, 2023

Music Week

April archive (in progress).

Music: Current count 39968 [39927] rated (+41), 58 [52] unrated (+6: 30 new, 28 old).

I wrote a pretty long Speaking of Which yesterday. If you missed it, I suggest that you at least read the introduction, which starts to explain the psychotic breakdown Republicans suffered last week. There was a time when Republicans claimed to be the "law and order" party, as well as being staunch "defenders of freedom." But in following their single issue bets (e.g., on guns and abortion) to their logical ends, they've entered into territory that can only be called psychotic.

But don't get me started again here. Read the piece. And it wouldn't hurt to like, reply, and/or forward the tweet. View count is currently 127, whereas my Music Week tweets regularly top 300, probably because they do get the occasional like and retweet.

This week's haul continues recent week trends: lots of old jazz, mostly suggested by my Penguin Guide unheard 4-star list. I finished Z with John Zorn. (His Tzadik records were on Rhapsody for a while, but were taken down several years ago, and are well nigh impossible for me to come by these days.) That leaves eight various artists comps, which came from early editions of the Guide (as they stopped covering them), so they are probably impossible to find. That still leaves 615 albums unheard on the list.

Probably worth another pass, but most of them fall into big clusters: old comps of classic artists (Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, Duke Ellington, Teddy Wilson; the French Classics label has disappeared from Napster), that I largely skipped because those editions are out of print, and in most cases I've heard other editions; lots of obscure free (AMM, Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, Cecil Taylor) and (mostly British) trad jazz records; boxes not deemed cost-effective; other labels that refuse to play ball with the streaming rackets (like Tzadik); and back catalog the cooperating labels haven't gotten around to (Concord is one that particularly bothers me). I did just find a Mose Allison album I had missed. Still unlikely I'l whittle the list down much more.

The Live at Dreher set led me to file separate grades for the earlier editions, especially as one appears under Mal Waldron and the other under Steve Lacy. Not really separate grades, as the four discs just delight on and on. But no point picturing the older edition covers.

Rated count could pass 40,000 next week. I'm currently 32 short, which is a fairly average week's work for me. Main thing that may distract me is that we're in the brief season between too cold and too hot, so it would be opportune to do some house/yard projects. In house it's mostly decluttering, starting with my desk.

I finished Michael Tomasky's The Middle Out: The Rise of Progressive Economics and a Return to Shared Prosperity, which is one of the best recent books directly tied to current Democratic Party politics. In that same vein, I also recommend Ryan Cooper's How Are You Going to Pay for That? Smart Answers to the Dumbest Questions in Politics. Both books err on the side of optimism, as they lay out sensible policies that could be implemented and that could make a big difference going forward. Next up is a much more pessimistic book, one that predicts doom of civilization between 2070 and 2100: Brian T Watson's Headed Into the Abyss: The Story of Our Time and the Future We'll Face. If I ever write my book, it will land somewhere in the middle of this triangle. I wrote a Book Roundup piece on Watson a while back:

Brian T Watson: Headed Into the Abyss: The Story of Our Time, and the Future We'll Face (paperback, 2019, Anvilside Press): I could imagine writing a book like this, which starts with a long laundry list of systemic problems (Capitalism, Technology, Webworld, Politics, Media, Education, Human Nature, The Environment, Human Population, Transportation, Miscellaneous Forces) then winds up showing how any (let alone all) of them are unlikely to be solved (that chapter is called "Possible Reforms and Their Likelihood"). I'd shuffle the deck a bit -- in the 1990s, when I started thinking along these lines, I started with resources and environment, but back then I at least had some faith in reason to see a way through technical obstacles, but that idea has taken a beating ever since. So I see no more reason to be optimistic than the author, not that I would deny that the very act of looking into the abyss implies a certain unreasoned hope. Missing here is recognition of the unknown: e.g., no mention of pandemic a mere year before Covid-19 hit. While climate was most likely mentioned under Environment or Population, it's at least as much a headline as "Webworld." Another big topic is war: both as a cause of destruction and as a likely consequence, in both its conventional and annihilationist modes. Bibliography is just a list of mostly familiar books relevant to each chapter.

After I wrote that, I ordered a copy, then managed to lose it. Last week I found it, under a pile of crap. I've just started the chapter on capitalism, and it's not as sharp as it could be if he had a better understanding of Marx and Keynes (and Michael Hudson and George Brockaway, or maybe even Naomi Klein), but he's still hitting plenty of salient points. It will be interesting to see what he comes up with under "Human Nature." Can he, for instance, explain the schizophrenia of the current Republican Party?

New records reviewed this week:

AVA Trio: Ash (2021 [2023], Tora, EP): Giuseppe Doronzo (baritone sax/mizmar), Esat Ekincioglu (bass), Pino Basile (frame drums/cupaphon), though I omitted some wrinkles (percussions, effects, voice). Two pieces, 21:26. Down and dirty soundscape. B+(*) [bc]

Daniel Bingert: Ariba (2023, Moserobie): Swedish, nominally a bassist, but defers here to Torbjörn Zetterberg and limits his playing to Moog. Second album. Band includes Per Texas Johansson (tenor sax/bass clarinet), Jonas Kulhammar (alto sax), and Charlie Malmberg (piano/baritone sax), as well as trumpet, bass, and drums. Has a loose, playful chemistry, coming into a nice, soft landing. A- [cd]

Canadian Jazz Collective: Septology: The Black Forest Session (2022 [2023], HGBS Blue): Individual names on the cover: Derrick Gardner (trumpet/flugelhorn), Lorne Lofsky (guitar), and Kirk MacDonald (tenor sax), joined here by four more, playing clarinet, piano, bass, and drums. All eight pieces are by the three named. Postbop with a nice flow. B+(*) [cd]

Kaze & Ikue Mori: Crustal Movement (2021-22 [2023], Libra): Japanese-French group, with Satoko Fujii (piano), Natsuki Tamura (trumpet), Christian Pruvost (trumpet/flugelhorn), and Peter Orins (drums), seventh album since 2010, joined here by the famous Japanese noisemaker. Another pandemic paste project, with live overdubs, billed as "a visceral, richly textured hybrid," which it certainly is. A- [cd]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

The Birth of Bop: The Savoy 10-Inch LP Collection (1944-49 [2023], Craft, 2CD): The $99.99 edition reproduces five 10-inch LPs that Savoy released in 1952-53, but this is also available on 2CD (30 songs, 84:00), and digital. Savoy is mostly remembered for Charlie Parker's early sides (only one here, "Romance Without Finance," with vocal), and perhaps Dexter Gordon (three tracks here), so this was meant to spread the spotlight. Two times I turned away from reading the paper to see who was playing, and both were trombone player Kai Winding (remembered these days mostly for his "Jay Jay and Kai" duets). Ends with a cut by Morris Lane called "Blowin' for Kicks," that pretty effectively sums up the moment and the style. B+(***) [sp]

D.B. Shrier: D.B. Shrier Emerges (1967 [2023], Omnivore): Tenor saxophonist (1938-2017), from Philadelphia, only released this one five-track album, expanded here with five more live tracks. Opens with a Gigi Gryce bopper, then shows some range by turning in a credible ballad. Then he shows he's paid attention to Coltrane, a bit before everyone else. The extra tracks run hot, as well they should. A- [sp]

Old music:

Ralph Reichert Quartet With Randy Sandke: Reflections (2002 [2004], Nagel Heyer): German tenor saxophonist, did a PG 4-star album with Jack Walrath I haven't been able to find, has a few more items in his catalog. Quartet with piano (Buggy Braune), bass (Andreas Henze), and drums (Wolff Reichert), joined by the American trumpet player. Mostly standards, nicely done. B+(**) [sp]

The Ralph Reichert/Jerry Tilitz Quintet: Back to Back (2002 [2006], Nagel Heyer): Tilitz is a trombonist, sings some, from New York, but this was recorded in Hamburg, with Reichert on tenor sax, backed by piano-bass-drums. Tilitz wrote three (of 8) pieces, with five standards (ranging from "Crazy Rhythm" to "Lush Life" to "Alfie" -- the latter two with Tilitz vocals). B+(***) [sp]

Miroslav Vitous: Journey's End (1982 [1983], ECM): Czech bassist, moved to US in 1966 to study at Berklee, but soon was playing with Miles Davis, which led to him co-founding Weather Report in 1970, but fusion wasn't really his thing. He started recording for ECM in 1979, and eventually moved back to Europe. This was recorded in Norway, a quartet with John Surman (reeds), John Taylor (piano), and Jon Christensen (drums). Surman is remarkable here, but the way the bassist keeps the momentum building has a lot to do with that. A- [sp]

Philipp Wachsmann/Paul Lytton: Some Other Season (1997 [1999], ECM): English violinist, b. 1944 in Uganda, more than dabbles in electronics, has been tied to the European avant-garde since 1976. Duo here with the drummer, who also produces live electronics. B+(**) [sp]

Mal Waldron/Reggie Workman/Billy Higgins: Up Popped the Devil (1973 [1974], Enja): Pianist (1925-2002), emerged in the late 1950s, most famously accompanying Billie Holiday, but had a long career moving from bop to free jazz. Trio with bass and drums here. Carla Poole plays flute on one track. B+(**) [sp]

Mal Waldron & Steve Lacy: Live at Dreher Paris 1981 (1981 [2003], Hatology, 4CD): Piano and soprano sax duo, sets from four nights, most pieces run 10-13 minutes with a couple topping 17. They play six Waldron pieces, eight by Lacy, and nine by Thelonious Monk, who provides a reference hook that Lacy has often returned to throughout his career. Remarkable music, hard to pick among the discs, so the earlier 2-CD sets should do just as well. A- [sp]

Jack Walrath: Master of Suspense (1986 [1987], Blue Note): Trumpet player (b. 1946), born in Florida but grew up in Montana, joined Mingus late in the game, who remains a prominent influence -- especially in the more tumultous pieces, clashing with Carter Jefferson (tenor sax), Kenny Garrett (alto sax), and Steve Turre (trombone). Things calm down for two guest vocals, where Willie Nelson sings "I'm Sending You a Big Bouquet of Roses" and "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry." And this closes with a ballad that could be his bid for a "Duke Ellington's Sound of Love." A- [sp]

Jack Walrath: Unsafe at Any Speed (2014 [2015], SteepleChase): I hadn't heard anything by him since 2002, but turns out he has five 2008-15 albums on SteepleChase, so I have some backfilling to do. Original pieces, texture and flow much influenced by Mingus, with Abraham Burton (tenor sax) strong as ever, backed by piano (George Burton), bass (Boris Koslov), and drums (Donald Edwards). B+(***) [sp]

Priska Walss/Gabriela Friedli: Intervista (2000-02 [2003], Intakt): Swiss trombonist, also plays alphorn, in a duo with the Swiss piano-organ player. Neither has much more discography, but they did a 1998 album as Duo Frappant. B+(***) [sp]

Cedar Walton: Roots (1997 [1999], Astor Place): Pianist (1934-2013), started appearing on albums in 1958, joined Art Blakey in 1962, always had a knack for working with horns (most importantly in Eastern Rebellion). Group here is billed as a trio (Walton, Ron Carter, and Lewis Nash) with special guests -- Joshua Redman (tenor sax), Terence Blanchard (trumpet), and Mark Whitfield (guitar), three tracks each -- but there's also an "added ensemble." B+(***) [sp]

Weather Report: The Best of Weather Report (1973-80 [2002], Columbia/Legacy): Fusion group, principally Joe Zawinul (keybs) and Wayne Shorter (tenor/soprano sax), ran from 1970-86, with various bassists (most notably Jaco Pastorius 1976-82), drummers (Peter Erskine (1978-82), and percussionists (except 1978-80). Nice account of a band I never much cared for, mostly because they kick the rhythm up. B+(**) [r]

Weather Report: Live in Tokyo (1972, Columbia, 2CD): Live double, 88:29, only released in Japan until 2014, four (of five) cuts medleys. Band at this point was Zawinul, Shorter, Miroslav Vitous (bass), Eric Gravatt (drums), and Dom Um Romăo (percussion). A couple things stand out here: the bassist keeps a lot of tension in the pulse, and Shorter is playing exceptionally free. B+(**) [sp]

Eberhard Weber: The Colors of Chloë (1973 [1974], ECM): German bass/cello player, first record, did much to define ECM's sound in the 1970s, working here with flugelhorn, piano, drums, voice (Gisela Schäuble), and extra celli. B+(*) [sp]

Eberhard Weber: Yellow Fields (1975 [1976], ECM): This quartet is more substantial, with electric keyboards (Rainer Brüninghaus) and drums (Jon Christensen) more prominent, but also Charlie Mariano (soprano sax, shenai, nagaswaram) in fine form. B+(***) [sp]

Eberhard Weber: Pendulum (1993, ECM): Nominally a solo bass album, but doesn't sound like that, with some adroit fingerpicking suggesting guitar, punctuated by impossibly low notes. Actually he's not playing a standard double bass. He calls his instrument a "special bass," which curiously involves "effects" but remains "absolutely 'synthesizer-free.'" No word on overdubs, other than that the changes of effect couldn't be reproduced in real time. B+(***) [sp]

Bobby Wellins: The Satin Album (1996, Jazzizit): Scottish tenor saxophonist (1936-2016), played in Stan Tracey's quartet in the early 1960s, his own albums start in 1978. This is a ballad album, with Colin Purbrook (piano), bass (Dave Green), and drums (Clark Tracey). Nice and easy. B+(**) [sp]

Bobby Wellins Quartet: Don't Worry 'Bout Me (1996 [1997], Cadillac): Live at Vortex in London, with piano (Graham Harvey), bass (Alec Dankworth), and drums (Martin Drew). Standards plus an original to close. B+(***) [r]

Kate Westbrook: Cuff Clout (2001 [2004], Voiceprint): Née Kate Barnard (1939), married pianist-composer Mike Westbrook, sings (as does John Winfield, listed on cover as "featuring," here), wrote all the texts here, to music (originally commissioned in 1994) mostly by band members. Possible subtitle: "a neoteric music hall." Possible band name: the Skirmishers. Some remarkable music, but the vocals strike me as rather operatic, even if sometimes the reference is Weill. B+(**) [r]

Mike Westbrook Trio: Love for Sale (1985 [1990], Hat Art): British pianist (b. 1936), started producing albums in 1967. He is much admired by Penguin Guide, but my own sampling has been limited and not always enjoyable -- partly because I don't share his interest in classical composers, opera, and art song. The latter is mostly the province of his wife, Kate Westbrook, who joins here with credits that start with "design concept" and include vocals, tenor horn, bamboo and piccolo flute. So this isn't a conventional piano trio. The pianist is also credited with tuba and voice, and the third is Chris Biscoe (alto clarinet and alto/baritone/soprano sax). After an original that sounds Brechtian comes "Lush Life" and the title song (with a German lyric, so "Käufliche Liebe"), each striking in its own way. Even more so is a dense and brooding "Buddy Can You Spare a Dime," which is where the tuba is perfect. That's followed by texts from Blake and Brecht ("Seeräuber Jenny"), the originals "Sonnet" and "Crazy for Swing," the grim "Weltende," and a couple songs in French about shipwrecks. A- [r]

Mike Westbrook: Westbrook-Rossini (1986 [1988], Hat Art): Penguin Guide duplicates this title for a Zürich live performance that is just long enough to require a second CD. Neither album is clearly credited to the British pianist, but I can't think of a better way to handle it. This one, which arranges for septet (five horns, piano, and drums, with Kate Westbrook singing some) various famous opera pieces by Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868), adding odd bits here and there. B+(*) [sp]

Mike Westbrook: Westbrook-Rossini, Zürich Live 1986 (1986 [1994], Hat Art, 2CD): Live rendition of the previous album, same group, runs a bit longer (83:55) resulting in the split over 2-CD. Some extra bright spots. B+(**) [r]

Mike Westbrook: Glad Day: Settings of William Blake (1997 [1999], Enja, 2CD): Lyrics by the poet (1757-1827), voiced by Phil Minton, Kate Westbrook, and the Senior Girls Choir of Blackheath Conservatoire of Music and the Arts; the leader's music played by three saxophonists, piano, bass, and drums (Kate also plays tenor horn and piccolo). B+(**) [r]

Mike Westbrook: Chanson Irresponsable (2002 [2003], Enja, 2CD): A front cover banner and the back cover credit this to The New Westbrook Orchestra, but spine and front cover slug as above, with four more names in smaller front cover type: Chris Biscoe (reeds), Matthew Sharp (voice), Kate Westbrook (voice), and Peter Whyman (reeds), with music by the leader and lyrics by his wife. Other musicians appear on trumpet, tenor sax, baritone sax, and drums, with spots of strings, bass, and French horn. B+(*) [r]

Mike Westbrook: After Abbey Road (1996-2009 [2019], Westbrook): Westbrook was commissioned to do a new presentation of the Beatles' Abbey Road for its 20th anniversary in 1989. That produced the album Off Abbey Road, but when I searched, I found this later (1996) performance -- finished off with a 2009 recording of "She Loves You." Abbey Road has long been my least-favorite Beatles album, and stretching it out ("Here Comes the Sun" runs to 15:41, "Because" to 13:26) and blowing it up hardly help. John Winfield and Kate Westbrook sing. B- [r]

Gerald Wilson: The Artist Selects (1961-69 [2005], Pacific Jazz): Big band arranger (1918-2014), moved from Mississippi to Detroit when he was 16, played trumpet for Jimmie Lunceford in 1939, led some groups in the 1940s, but recorded little until the 1960s, when Pacific Jazz released eleven of his resurgent big band albums. That's where these 16 tracks come from. B+(**) [r]

Gerald Wilson Orchestra: New York New Sound (2002 [2003], Mack Avenue): After his 1961-69 run on Pacific Sound, Wilson didn't release anything else until 1981, after which he slowly rebuilt his career into a Grammy-winning juggernaut. One thing that helped was recruiting all-star bands. On most cuts, the trumpet section here is: Jon Faddis, Eddie Henderson, Sean Jones, and Jimmy Owens, with Clark Terry sitting in on two tracks. The saxes: Jimmy Heath, Frank Wess, Jerry Dodgion, Jesse Davis. Piano is split between Kenny Barron and Renee Rosnes. His son, Anthony Wilson, plays guitar, joined on one track by Oscar Castro-Neves. B+(***) [r]

Steve Wilson Quartet: Four for Time (1994 [1996], Criss Cross): Alto/soprano saxophonist, b. 1961, was signed to Blue Note in the 1980s, but only appeared as a sideman. Quartet here with Bruce Barth (piano), Larry Grenadier (bass), and Leon Parker (drums), who between them wrote five (of eight) songs. Covers of "Perdido" and "Woody'N You" try to close strong. B+(***) [r]

Norma Winstone: Edge of Time (1971 [1972], Argo): English jazz singer (b. 1941), first album, following features with Michael Garrick and Mike Westbrook, eventually recognized with a MBE. Band includes many notables of the early English avant-garde, like Kenny Wheeler, Paul Rutherford, Mike Osborne, and Alan Skidmore, John Taylor. That's a lot of firepower for a singer to maneuver around. B+(***) [r]

Nils Wogram: Root 70 (2000 [2001], 2nd Floor): German trombonist (b. 1972), group name and title could be parsed variously, but Root 70 would more/less remain as his group name, at least up through an 8-CD box in 2020. Quartet with Hayden Chisholm (alto sax/bass clarinet), Matt Penman (bass), and Jochen Rückert (drums). A- [r]

Nils Wogram: Odd and Awkward (2000 [2001], Enja, 2CD): First disc is a sextet, with Chris Speed (tenor sax/clarinet), Hayden Chisholm (alto sax/clarinet), Cuong Vu (trumpet), Steffen Schorn (bass clarinet/baritone sax/alto flute/contrabass clarinet), and Jochen Rückert (drums). Second disc adds piano (Simon Nabatov) and bass (Henning Sieverts) for an octet. Music doesn't strike me as all that odd, and certainly not awkward. B+(***) [sp]

Nils Wogram's Root 70: Getting Rooted (2003, Enja): Same quartet as on the namesake album (Spotify lists this one as Root 70, but Discogs has the above title, and it's clearly not the Penguin Guide recommendation; title is also pretty clear on the cover). Same quartet, similar bounce, gets a little rough at the end. B+(**) [sp]

Bojan Z Trio: Transpacifik (2003, Label Bleu): Serbian pianist Bojan Zulfikarpasic, moved to Paris 1988, debut album a quartet in 1993. Opens on electric here, with Scott Colley (bass) and Nasheet Waits (drums), recorded in Brooklyn. B+(**) [r]

Monica Zetterlund: Swedish Sensation (1958, Columbia): Swedish jazz and pop singer (1937-2005), first album, standards in English, backed by Gunnar Svenssons Orkester (with Arne Domnerus) or (two tracks) Donald Byrd Quartet. [Penguin Guide recommends Swedish Sensation! The Complete Columbia Recordings, 1958-60, which adds eight EPs to this album, spread over 2-CD.] B+(**) [r]

Grade (or other) changes:

Steve Lacy & Mal Waldron: Live at Dreher Paris 1981, Round Midnight Vol. 1 (1981 [1996], Hat Art, 2CD): A- [sp]

Mal Waldron & Steve Lacy: Live at Dreher Paris 1981, The Peak Vol. 2 (1981 [1996], Hat Hut, 2CD): A- [sp]

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

  • Mark Dresser: Times of Change (Pyroclastic) [05-05]
  • Marc Ducret: Palm Sweat: Marc Ducret Plays the Music of Tim Berne (Screwgun/Out of Your Head) [03-10]
  • Champian Fulton: Meet Me at Birdland (Champian) [04-07]
  • Jason Kush: Finally Friday (MCG Jazz) [03-03]
  • The Adam Larson Trio: With Love, From New York (Outside In Music) [04-07]
  • Luiz Millan: Brazilian Match (Jazz Station) [04-21]
  • Rent Romus/Heikki Koskinen: Itkuja Suite, Invocations on Lament (Edgetone) [04-04]
  • Emilio Solla/Antonio Lizana: El Siempre Mar (Tiger Turn) [05-19]
  • Ramana Vieira: Tudo De Mim/All of Me (self-released) [05-01]

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Sunday, April 9, 2023

Speaking of Which

The Republican Party had what can only be described as a psychotic breakdown last week. Trump's arrest and arraignment was the big story. It could be read as a cautionary note that his contempt for law and order will not prevail, and indeed the muted response on the streets of New York suggests that he's on his way to being forgotten. But his post-arraignment speech at Mar-A-Lago, and the reactions of virtually all Republican speakers, show that the Party faithful still follow his lead. Not since the Confederate Secession of 1860-61 have so many showed such contempt for American and its people.

Many examples follow. Nor are they limited to the uncritical base of Trump supporters that are increasingly dubbed MAGAs, the slogan's former aspirations having turned into our current nightmare. We've long known that Republicans mentally divide the country into good and evil camps. But this week's stories show them acting on their prejudices, using whatever power they have to punish what they see as evil, and to pardon what we normally regard as criminal behavior when it's done by their side. Trump is an example, but an even purer one is Texas Governor Abbott's promise to pardon the murderer of a Black Lives Matter protester. The decision of Tennessee Republicans to expel two black Democrats from the state legislature was equally blatant.

There are a number of stories below on abortion politics. A Trump judge in Texas ruled invalid the FDA approval 23 years ago of a drug commonly used to induce abortions in early pregnancy. This is an unprecedented ruling, from a judge who is notorious for putting political ideology above the law -- an increasingly common practice among Republican judges. If upheld, this would force women even in states where abortion rights are assured to endure more invasive and expensive procedures. There are other abortion law stories in Idaho, Florida, and Kansas. We should be clear that these are not debates about philosophy or religion. These are attempts by one Party to use the law to deprive Americans of their rights, using the police and courts to intervene in the most private of affairs. Republicans may hate law when it holds them accountable, but they sure like to use it to punish others.

I could have assembled a comparable gallery of cruel Republican bills and maneuvers to harass and defame trans people, or indeed anyone who blurs their expectations of gender identity. As Nicole Narea and Fabiola Cineas point out below, their campaign is broad and coordinated, deceitful and inflammatory. It seeks to take away rights, to impose the police and courts in highly personal matters. It attempts to legitimize hatred, and it almost inevitably will wind up inciting violence.

This last point, of course, brings us back to Trump. From the very beginning of his 2016 presidential campaign, starting with his description of Mexican immigrants as "rapists and murderers," he has repeatedly encouraged his followers to commit violence and mayhem. The two most memorable Jan. 6 soundbites remain his "will be wild" and "hang Mike Pence." We are fortunate that new Trump fanboys have gone as far as Cesar Sayoc (who sent 16 mail bombs targeting Trump critics), but that hasn't dampened Trump's enthusiasm. Nor is it just Trump. Many Republicans pose with guns in their ads, some stalking liberals like they're in a video game, and the MAGA base eats that up.

This psychosis has been coming for a long time. Verbally it's been a fixture at Fox from the beginning. Bush's post-9/11 swagger was built on his presumed "license to kill." Conservative journalist wrote a book about his 2004 campaign called Voting to Kill. Obama and Biden abetted this toxic attitude by continuing Bush's wars, especially by claiming the scalps of Osama Bin Laden and Aymin al-Zawahiri, but it was the Republican-fueled lust for guns that brought the violence home. More than three times as many Americans have been killed by guns so far this year as were lost on 9/11, yet Republicans are so close-minded on the subject that they expelled legislators in Tennessee to shut them up. (We'll see how well that works.)

While gun terrorism is still infrequent enough it comes as a shock, other aspects of Republican governance are harder to ignore. I don't have time to list them all, but Republicans have perverted the fundamentals of democracy, our understanding of education, the notion that law should be just, and much more.

Top story threads:

Trump: Following last week's indictment, Trump was arrested and arraigned in New York on Tuesday, and managed to behave himself until he got home to Mar-A-Lago, and threatened the DA, the presiding judge, their families, and the whole country. It's too bad we can't just charge him with being a psychopath, and be done with it. Also see the Jeffrey St Clair entry below, especially the statistics on misdemeanor prosecutions in New York.

  • Ryan Cooper: [03-27] Donald Trump Deserves to Be Indicted: "But not just for the Stormy Daniels affair; the most corrupt president in American history has gotten away with far too much." Written pre-indictment, but good to start off with a reminder why this matters.

  • David Dayen: [04-06] Our Two-Tiered Justice System and the Trump Indictment: "Corporate crime enforcement in America has been pathetic for decades. One prosecution of a guy screaming to be prosecuted doesn't change that."

  • Christopher Fettweis: [04-03] Ripping up Trump's 'battle plan' of attack on Mexico's cartels: "Chasing drug gangs and an endless rotation of kingpins into the cities and mountains -- do we really want another Afghanistan?" No. We shouldn't even want a repeat of the Pancho Villa Expedition, when US forces under Gen. Pershing invaded Mexico in March 1916 and spent 11 months trampling around northern Mexico, failing to catch a single "bandit." Of course, a repeat would be a much bigger mistake now: the area is much more populated now, everyone is much better armed, and the risk to civilian targets is much greater. The article gives many reasons why this wouldn't work, without even getting into the basic fact that American businesses have massive investments in Mexico that would suddenly become vulnerable, to disruption or worse.

  • Richard Fausset/Danny Hakim: [04-08] Georgia Looms Next After Trump's Indictment in New York.

  • Shirin Ghaffary: [04-05] Trump is no longer the social media king: "Why the former president's arrest was a whimper, not a roar, on Twitter, a platform designed for these moments." This may have less to do with refugee Trump than with Twitter itself, which Chip Goines tells us, "Twitter as a breaking news platform for news junkies like me is terribly broken at this point."

  • Melissa Gira Grant: [04-04] The Weird Religious Fervor of the Trump Faithful:

  • Maggie Haberman/Jonathan Swan: [04-08] Trump and His Lawyers: A Restless Search for Another Roy Cohn: The picture they released of Trump inside the court room mostly exposes how peculiar he is as a defendant. He sits in the middle of no less than four lawyers. Normally one would suffice, or two for the actual trial, but it's like he wants to impress upon the prosecution that he's got deeper pockets than they have. But the key quote here comes from William Barr, who "shook his head at the sight of the defense table on Tuesday," adding "Lawyers inevitably are sorry for taking on assignments with him."

  • Martin Pengelly: [04-09] Trump's indictment and the return of his biggest concern: 'the women'. Pengelly also co-wrote, with Maya Yang: [04-06] New York judge in Trump arraignment reportedly receives 'dozens' of threats.

  • James Poniewozik: [04-05] For Once, Donald Trump Did Not Enjoy the Show: "The ex-president's indictment put him in the rare position of being forced onto a public stage not of his own choosing." Last line: "As a TV draw, Donald Trump holding court is no competition for Donald Trump sitting in one."

  • Nia Prater/Chas Danner: [04-05] Trump Attacks Judge and His Family: "His Mar-a-Lago speech was relatively short but packed with grievance." Various "live updates" pieces, including important links to: Ankush Khardori: [04-04] Prosecuted: What to make of the criminal case against Donald Trump; and Ben Jacobs: [04-04] Trump's Indictment Has Become His Platform. The former leads me to think that if/when the case is tried, Trump will be convicted (although a hung jury is not inconceivable), but that odds are not good that a conviction won't be overturned on appeal (there are technical grounds for that, but also the court system is littered with Trump appointees, who scarcely need grounds for anything they do).

  • Joan Walsh: [04-06] There Was No Trump Violence This Week. But What's Coming? To answer, she interviews Jeff Sharlet, author of The Undertow: Scenes From a Slow Civil War. Cites a review of the book, by Adam Fleming Petty: [03-21] Exploring the crowds that gather for Trump -- and dream of civil war.

  • Amy B Wang: [04-06] Trump ally Jordan issues subpoena to former N.Y. prosecutor: That would be Mark Pomerantz, who resigned after accusing Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg of sandbagging the case against Trump, and wrote a book, People vs. Donald Trump: An Inside Account. Jordan has been threatening to subpoena Bragg -- a move that would be blatantly illegal, but Pomerantz would seem to be fair game. Jordan will no doubt argue that the DA's office was on a "witch hunt" to get Trump, while Pomerantz will counter that Trump was so obviously guilty he should have been charged earlier, and possibly for more. One note here that I somehow missed is that Trump gave Jordan a Presidential Medal of Freedom in January 21 after Jordan refused a subpoena to testify before the Jan. 6 Committee. Of course, those medals were permanently tarnished back when Bush gave them to the three stooges of the Iraq War (Tommy Franks, George Tenet, and Paul Bremer). Trump has found even less worthy people to give the medal to. (List here, including conservative totems Antonin Scalia, Rush Limbaugh, and Arthur Laffer, as well as megadonor Miriam Adelson and Truth Social CEO Devin Nunes; nonetheless, Trump only handed out a below-average 24 medals, 14 of which were to athletes/sports figures. Obama was most generous, with 117 medals over 8 years. Biden has awarded 17 so far, 0.63 per month, compared to 0.50 for Trump, 1.22 for Obama, 0.86 for Bush, 0.93 for Clinton, 0.81 for GWH Bush, 0.93 for Reagan, 0.71 for Carter. The medals started with Kennedy in 1963. Two people turned the medal down, both from Trump: Bill Belichick and Dolly Parton.)

  • Frank Luntz: [04-09] How to Make Trump Go Away: The GOP's language guru runs his focus groups and searches for a narrow path, concluding: "Republicans want just about everything Mr. Trump did, without everything Mr. Trump is or says." No doubt Luntz is one smart cookie, but I think he's got that exactly wrong. They don't know or care what he did, but they want his attitude and his mouth, his style. They want to piss off their nominal enemies, and nobody does that better. Luntz explains: "In 2016, the campaign was about what he could do for you. Today, it's about what is being done to him. If he becomes increasingly unhinged, or if his opponents focus on his tweets, his outbursts and his destructive personality, a sizable number of Republicans could choose someone else, as long as they prioritize core, time-tested priorities like lower taxes, less regulation, and less Washington." But those "core priorities" are killing us. Trump, almost uniquely, gives his followers someone else to blame for Republican failures.

And Other Republicans: Note that there was so much here that I wound up having to move several clusters of links into their own sections.

Tennessee:

Abortion: I started out collecting these under the stupid Republican stories section, but a couple stories are big enough to merit their own section. Still, no mistaking that this is what you get when you elect Republicans.

A couple elections: The highly partisan state supreme court election in Wisconsin was won handily by a liberal Democrat, although the state legislature is so severely gerrymandered that they could conceivably impeach the winner out of spite (just as in Tennessee, they're expelling duly elected representatives they dislike). And in the nonpartisan Chicago mayor election, the more progressive candidate edged out a win against a guy the New York Times insists on calling "the moderate": his most conspicuous positions are in favor of undermining the public school system with charter schools, and of blind, reflexive support of the Chicago police union -- how do those positions, which align more closely with Republicans (think Nancy DeVos and Bernie Kerik), qualify as "moderate"?

Ukraine War:

Israel:

Elsewhere around the world:

  • Zack Beauchamp: [04-08] Meet the MAGA movement's new favorite autocrat: El Salvador's president, Nayib Bukele, whose draconian "anti-gang" measures have resulted in the world's highest incarceration rates (edging out you-know-who). Before this, the only thing I knew about him was his advocacy of BitCoin, which he has made legal tender.

  • Ryan Grim: [04-07] To help end the Yemen war, all China had to do was be reasonable: "With Joe Biden nowhere to be found, China's diplomacy set the stage for Saudi concessions and cease-fire talks." But what about the arms sales the US will be missing out on?

Other stories:

Sam Bell: [03-30] Democrats Slashed Medicaid and Food Assistance Because We Didn't Fight: So why is this our fault? The measures in question were smartly added to the CARES pandemic relief bill, which passed because Trump and the Republicans were panicking over the 2020 stock market collapse, and they needed Democratic support because Democrats controlled the House. But even though the policies were generally popular, Democrats didn't have sufficient majorities to keep them going. It may have been a tactical mistake to have conceded them instead of alternatives, but it's unlikely a demonstration or letter-writing campaign would have made any difference.

Paul Buhle: [03-30] Staughton Lynd: The Perils of Sainthood. Activist-scholar (1929-2022), this focuses on his book My Country Is the World: Staughton Lynd's Writing, Speeches and Statements Against the Vietnam War.

Matthew Cappucci: [04-07] Earth has second-warmest March even before arrival of planet-heating El Nińo: "It was the 529th consecutive month to feature temperatures above the 20th-century average." More climate change:

Kyle Cheney/Josh Gerstein: [04-07] Appeals court ruling puts hundreds of Jan. 6 felony cases in limbo. The authors previously wrote about a similar case: [03-07] Judge tosses obstruction charge against Jan. 6 defendant. By the way, Rachel Weiner reads this case somewhat differently: [04-07] Jan. 6 rioters can be prosecuted for obstructing Congress, court rules.

Kate Conger/Ryan Mac: [04-07] Twitter Takes Aim at Posts That Link to Its Rival Substack. I know some people who mostly use Twitter to post links to their articles on Substack. In fact, I mostly use it to notify readers of new pieces on my blog. Matt Taibbi posts 5-10 tweets linking to each and every one of his Substack pieces. He now says he will be leaving Twitter. More on Twitter:

Hannah Crosby: [04-08] How Many More Years of Living Dangerously: "The National Flood Insurance Program can't keep pace with the challenges posed by climate change and insuring oceanfront homes in Scituate, Massachusetts."

Timothy Egan: [04-03] What we can learn from the Midwestern war against the Klan 100 years ago. It's only been 100 years, but we're unlikely ever again to witness 25,000 hooded klansmen marching through Washington, DC. On the other hand, that anyone still considers this history relevant to now is disturbing. It may still be interesting that what destroyed the 1920s Klan wasn't repression, or that racism went out of fashion, but internal power struggles: to the end, assholes be assholes.

Amanda Holpuch: [04-07] New Mexico Police Fatally Shoot Man After Responding to Wrong House. The person they killed was armed, not that he had a chance to defend himself. So tell me again how the Second Amendment works? Note that they were able to fill up a whole sidebar under "New Mexico Gun Violence."

Heather Souvaine Horn: [03-31] Fight Climate Change by Doing Less: "Resist the misconception that sustainable living means more work." Spend less. Work less. Why make this any more complicated than it has to be?

Sarah Jones: [04-08] Children Are Not Property: "The idea that underlies the right-wing campaign for "parents rights." It's hard for me to read this without trembling, as it reminds me of psychic trauma from my own childhood that still haunt me. I wouldn't even concede that "only the unborn are spared the right's cruelty." (Remember the title of Adam Serwer's book: The Cruelty Is the Point.) I'd add that the old term for "property in people" is slavery.

Joshua Kaplan/Justin Elliott/Alex Mierjeski: [04-06] Clarence Thomas and the Billionaire: This is a major report on how Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has been the beneficiary of numerous gifts, especially from Republican megadonor Harlan Crow. You know, for many years conservatives complained that seemingly solid Republicans would be nominated to the Supreme Court, then somehow transform into starry-eyed liberals. Eventually, they came up with a way to keep Justices true: they pay them, under the table or off on the side, especially by doling lucrative jobs out to their families. No one has raked in more cash this way than Ginni Thomas. And here we find her husband skating around the world in private planes and superyachts. Some further comments:

Mike Masnick: [04-07] Mehdi Hasan Dismantles the Entire Foundation of the Twitter Files as Matt Taibbi Stumbles to Defend It. Includes video of a 30-minute interview, which I haven't watched yet. Given that Taibbi's work on the Twitter dump is mostly behind his paywall, and that the hype he's been giving it on Twitter rarely makes much sense, I haven't made any real effort to follow the story. But the article here seems to demolish if not everything at least the hype about its importance. Hasan, by the way, has a new book out, called Win Every Argument: The Art of debating, Persuading, and Public Speaking. Trashing Taibbi should help promote that book.

Elie Mystal: [03-22] Corporate America Is No Longer Pretending to Care About Diversity: Following the outcry over the murder of George Floyd, many companies resolved to hire DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) officers. A new study shows that "the attrition for DEI officers was 33 percent at the end of 2022, compared with 21 percent for non-DEI roles."

Nicole Narea/Fabiola Cineas: [04-06] The GOP's coordinated national campaign against trans rights, explained: The key word here is "coordinated." This is not an issue I'm inclined to get involved in, but Republicans have taken such a vile stand that we're being forced to respond. It wouldn't be hard to come up with ten more examples:

Nicole Narea/Ian Millhiser/Andrew Prokop: [04-06] The multibillion-dollar defamation lawsuits against Fox News, explained. As a general rule, I hate defamation lawsuits, which tend to be attacks on free speech, brought on by rich blowhards who want to stifle criticism. For example, when Trump first ran for president, one of his greatest hopes was to change the law so he could sue more people who prickled his thin skin. This one is a little different, inasmuch as it is helping to expose the inner workings of Fox and its right-wing propaganda machine. Whether Dominion deserves billions can be debated, but anything that helps reveal Fox for what they really are should be applauded. Also:

Richard Sandomir: [04-08] Mel King, Whose Boston Mayoral Bid Eased Racial Tensions, Dies at 94: A legend a bit before my time in Boston, so I wanted to note him but didn't have much to say. Title point is certainly true, at least compared to his opponent (Raymond Flynn). Among my friends, he is regarded as a pathbreaking progressive. As Linda Gordon put it: "How I wish Mel King was with us now. I'm not sure I know of another activist/politician I have more respected and loved."

Nicholas Slayton: [04-07] 'How to Blow Up a Pipeline' and the Case for Radical, Direct Action on Climate: "A new film considers what to do when those in power fail to take the problem seriously." The film is about "a diverse group of activists banding together to blow up an oil pipeline in West Texas." Look, I don't approve, and I emphatically reject that people who would do such a thing are coming at the problem from the left, but it's only a matter of time until things like this happen, with some frequency. In Kim Stanley Robinson's The Ministry for the Future, which is set in the future but not very damn far, extraordinary things we call "ecoterrorism" happen frequently -- e.g., hypersonic missiles blowing up tankers -- and are shown to contribute significantly to the powers around the world finally addressing the problem. To set such violence in motion, you need three factors converging: (1) the perception that climate change is destroying our way of life; (2) the common, routine resort to violence as a way of coping with problems; and (3) the demonstrated failure of normal politics to address the problem. If I had to put a bet on how far each of these has progressed, it would be somewhere between 30% and 60%. The Ukraine War, to pick one example, has boosted each of these factors. (The NordStream pipeline could conceivably have been an ecoterrorist operation, except that there was little reason: it was already shut down, and it was a difficult target, when many other targets would be much easier -- like the one in the movie.)

Also on this:

  • Kate Aronoff: [04-05] Is Environmental Radicalism Inevitable? "It would be ludicrous, Malm acknowledge, to expect saboteurs to systematically dismantle the fossil fuel economy one homemade incendiary at a time. In this and other work, he's emphasized that only states can do that. Both he and the film's protagonists, accordingly, articulate eco-terrorism as a kind of DIY market signal meant to force states' hand into doing something they otherwise wouldn't."

  • Peter C Baker: [04-05] Will We Call Them Terrorists? A review of How to Blow Up a Pipeline. "We do not know how the future will see us."

Jeffrey St Clair: [04-07] Roaming Charges: Broken Windows Theory of Political Crime: "People griping about the trivial nature of the charges against Trump seem to have forgotten that the aggressive enforcement of trivial offenses has been the hallmark of American policing for 40 years, put into vicious deployment by Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani with Trump cheering him on. With hundreds of thousands of people arrested and jailed for minor offenses like subway fare evasion, loitering, jaywalking, or selling single cigarettes, isn't it time we applied the Broken Windows Theory to political crimes and hold to account the people who enforced it on others?"

St Clair quotes Stephen Miller asking "What is Donald Trump's crime?" Miller's answer is: "His crime is refusing to bow or bend to the corrupt and rotten foreign policy establishment that is used to always getting their way in this country." Nice way of trying to hide a lie (Trump's refusal to bow or bend") behind a truth that is rarely acknowledged. But St Clair show how little resistance Trump offered to the "foreign policy establishment" (he even added a few wrinkles that were uniquely his own):

Let's review: Trump appointed the Deep State's top torturer to run the CIA, put 1000s of troops on the ground in Syria and stole their oil, broke Obama's drone strike record, sanctified Israel's illegal annexation of the Golan Heights, separated children from their parents at the border, extracted pledges of higher military spending from NATO countries, plotted to kill Julian Assange then indicted him on espionage charges, wanted to bomb and invade Mexico . . .

Some head-scratchers here, including most of his section on the extramarital sex lives of various presidents (which Harding had, but I doubt it was as described). One link struck me as strange: Oregon will become 1st state in nation to allow children who enroll in Medicaid at birth to stay to age 6. This is some kind of great liberal accomplishment?

Joseph Stiglitz: [04-03] How Models Get the Economy Wrong: "Seemingly complex and sophisticated econometric modeling often fails to take into account common sense and observable reality." There are a lot of smart points in this piece, but mostly they read as refutations of dumb platitudes. Here's a line I like: "Can it possibly be the case that the most efficient use of our limited research resources should be directed toward making an ever-better advertising machine (the business model underlying Facebook and Google) aimed at better exploiting consumers through discriminatory pricing and targeted and often misleading advertising?" Capitalism sometimes gives us things we want, even if we didn't know that we wanted them, but in this example it's pursuing and refining something we don't want at all, something designed only to make our lives more miserable. Further down, after disposing of the NAIRU model, he points out that advocates of the model wrongly attributed inflation to excess aggregate demand, when it was "clearly the result of a series of pandemic-induced supply-side shortages and demand shifts." This is part of a series of articles on bad models:

  • Robert Kuttner: [04-07] Is Economics Self-Correcting? "Economists are made to learn long-discredited modeling, and then the safe way to win promotion and tenure is to publish articles in the same genre."

  • Rakeen Mabud/David Dayen: [04-03] Hidden in Plain Sight: "The distorting power of macroeconomic policy models."

  • Philip Rocco: [04-06] Prisoners of Their Own Device: "Once computed, the 'hard numbers' found in CBO's baseline tables conceal all the assumptions and uncertainties involved in producing them."

  • Elizabeth Warren: [04-04] How Policymakers Fight a Losing Battle With Models: "Reforms are needed to ensure that inaccurate budgetary math doesn't take precedence over maximizing long-term prosperity."

Matt Stoller: [04-06] Federal Reserve Independence Is the Problem: "A weird, secretive, and unaccountable institution organizes our society, and nobody wants to talk about it." I remember Clinton complaining about how the "fucking bond market" runs the country, but then he turned around and nominated Alan Greenspan for two more terms as Fed Chair. Like Clinton, Obama and Biden both reappointed Republican Fed Chairs, who then turned around and screwed them.

From my Twitter feed:

Dare Obasanjo: Carnage4Life Kyle Rittenhouse was a turning point where Republicans started openly celebrating murdering people whose politics you disagree with.

Turning literal murderers into heroes because you dislike the politics of the victims and government officials normalizing it is a dark place.

Tikun Olam @richards1052 Latest poll shows Likud would lose 12 seats from its current 32 if election was held today. An utter disaster. Opposition parties led by Gantz and Lapid would double their seats to 50.

Also this meme: "The road to fascism is lined with people telling you to stop overreacting."

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Monday, April 3, 2023

Music Week

April archive (in progress).

Music: Current count 39927 [39873] rated (+54), 52 [56] unrated (-4: 24 new, 28 old).

I'm continuing to focus on the unheard Penguin Guide 4-star albums list, and having pushed my pass into the V's, I might as well continue to the end. I ran into a bit of trouble with Martial Solal, John Surman and Sun Ra, as the Penguin Guide recommendations didn't line up with what I could find to stream. I dealt with this by breaking things up or selecting playlists from available sources, which led to some extra entries in "grade (or other) changes." In some cases, credits have shifted (Billy Myers and Dick Mills have given way to Martial Solal; John McLaughlin to John Surman, Mr. Sun Ra to Sun Ra), so entries get broken up. Reissues get shuffled around all the time, so it shouldn't be a surprise that it's impossible to keep them aligned with what's available now or what was available at any past point.

Still, when I'm working off a check list, the temptation to check things off is too much to resist. Nowadays, you might as well go straight to the John Surman box (Glancing Backwards) rather than try to find the Sequel set the Penguin Guide reviewed. The extra in the box is the first The Trio album, which is one of the best things British jazz ever produced. As for Sun Ra, the series of twofer CDs Evidence produced in the 1990s are prime targets for scroungers, but almost everything has been reissued in digital by reverting to the original LP configurations (as is whatever new vinyl is available). This reshuffling has produced some redundancies in my Sun Ra listing.

I should mention that Henri Texier's Izlaz seems to be available these days in a two-CD package with Colonel Skopje. I reviewed the latter long ago as a B, didn't bother to listen to it again just to compromise on the package. Sometimes I went off on tangents: Warren Vaché's Zephyrs seem pretty much of a piece; Petter Wettre seemed to demand further research. Vienna Art Orchestra was particularly frustrating, with nine 4-star albums I looked for but couldn't find, while I checked out three albums not even on my list (some remarkable music, but too many vocals, and too much Strauss).

I did finally add some unheard albums to my tracking file, but haven't delved in as yet. My desk is still a mess, and the demo queue remains far from sorted, so the best new jazz this week won't be available until 4/28 (Dave Rempis) or 5/12 (Javier Red). Sorry about that, but it was nice to pull out something from the queue that I really liked.

Another substantial Speaking of Which yesterday. I started off by writing the introduction, as soon as I saw Jeffrey St Clair's Roaming Charges. I regard gun control as a losing political issue, so I cringe whenever one of these shootings happens and the same old song plays out. Granted, it makes Republicans look not just stupid but pathological. It also makes Democrats look like scolds and enemies of freedom, and that's neither good for politics nor for policy. Still, I see no problem in talking about why people are so enamored with guns, especially the connections between America's war culture and the way too common desire to attack social and cultural problems with guns.

After the intro, I started gathering other stories. I wasn't surprised that Trump dominated the news. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to sort out what I collected, so a better structure would have helped, and there may be some redundancy. I was surprised that I didn't pick up anything on Trump's post-indictment fundraising, but after a quick search, I've added some links today. (Latest haul figure is $7 million, which is simultaneously too much and too little for a needy billionaire.)

Kind of lost in the noise is Trump's request for battle plans to attack Mexico. Were it not so stupid, it would have deserved its own section. Meanwhile, I collected quite a bit on casual attacks on Syria and Iran, as well as the worsening situation in Israel. I didn't make the comparison of Ben Gvir's new National Guard to the SA lightly, nor my comment about the genocide countdown clock.

I'm continuing to monitor my Twitter statistics. It's pretty regular that announcements of "Music Week" columns gather 300-350 views, but "Speaking of Which" has been steadily falling since 209 on Feb. 27, and rarely gets more than 115. I don't know what the Facebook situation is: the Expert Witness notices go to a group with 372 members, but I only get feedback from a dozen or so each week, and usually just likes, often no comments at all. I don't use my regular account for notices. I'm toying with the idea of doing a Substack as a cheap hack to push pieces out via email. I don't expect to make any money out of it, but it might be nice to provide a venue independent of the rotting social media swamp. No immediate plans.

New records reviewed this week:

Konrad Agnas: Rite of Passage (2021 [2023], Moserobie): Swedish drummer, family well stocked with musicians, has a couple albums with lead credits but this is the first as leader and composer. Also plays synthesizer, with Per Texas Johansson (reeds), Johan Graden (piano/organ), and Torbjörn Zetterberg (bass). B+(***) [cd]

Dave Askren/Jeff Benedict: Denver Sessions (2022 [2023], Tapestry): Guitar and saxophone, backed by vibes, bass, and drums. They've had several albums together, going back at least to 2005, including a big band led by Benedict. B+(**) [cd]

Hailey Brinnel: Beautiful Tomorrow (2023, Outside In Music): Wrote two songs but is mostly a standards singer, with trombone (prominently pictured) her side instrument. Voice is sweet with a bit of sour, delectable on fare like "Tea for Two" and "Candy." Band includes Terell Stafford on trumpet and Chris Oatts on sax. B+(***) [cd]

Mark Feldman/Dave Rempis/Tim Daisy: Sirocco (2022 [2023], Aerophonic): Violin, saxophones (alto/tenor/baritone), and drums, the latter two a long-running Chicago duo, Rempis one of the most consistent free jazz players around. A- [cd] [04-28]

MUEJL [Michel Stawicki/Uygur Vural/Elisabetta Lanfredini/Joăo Madeira/Luiz Rocha]: By Breakfast (2022 [2023], 4DaRecord): Sax, cello, voice, bass, clarinet. Instrumentation favors chamber jazz, the voice arty and arcane. B+(*) [cd]

Javier Red's Imaginary Converter: Life & Umbrella (2023, Desafio Candente): Pianist, from Mexico, based in Chicago, second album, with Jake Wark (tenor sax), Ben Dillinger (bass), and Gustavo Cortinas (drums). Cover text: "Spreading empathy, understanding, and love for Autism." No idea what that means, but the music has an inner tension that is constantly shifting and refocusing. Remarkable. A- [cd] [05-12]

Natsuki Tamura/Ittetsu Takemura: Lightning (2022, Libra): Trumpet and drums duo, two pieces, 38:32, some uncredited vocal, some runs I can't help but be amused by. B+(**) [bc]

Petter Wettre: The Last Album (2021, Odin): Norwegian saxophonist, rarely specifies but tenor is his main horn, started out around 1996 as a young man with a hot hand, offers a lot of excuses -- mostly economic, including the new old saw that "the full length album has had its time" -- for quitting, but decided his "swan song" should be a luscious set of ballads ("since ballads has been avoided before"). Quartet, with Fred Nardin (piano), Viktor Nyberg (bass), and Francesco Ciniglio (drums). Nice enough, but I suspect he could do better if he gives himself another chance. Meanwhile, still a lot I haven't heard. B+(**) [sp]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

Steve Swell's Fire Into Music: For Jemeel: Fire From the Road (2003-04 [2023], RogueArt, 3CD): Trombonist (b. 1954), played a lot of different things early on but moved to the front of the avant-garde in the late 1990s, and is the first person I think of for polls and such these days. He released an album in 2004 called Fire Into Music, co-credited to Hamid Drake (drums), Jemeel Moondoc (reeds), and William Parker (bass), and took that group out on the road for the three superb concerts collected here. A- [cd]

Old music:

Kenny Baker and Warren Vaché: Ain't Misbehavin' (1996-97 [1998], Zephyr): Baker's a British trumpet player (1921-99), was lead trumpet in Ted Heath's post-WWII orchestra, led his own groups from 1954 on. He's looking much older than the American, who sticks to cornet, backed by Brian Lemon (piano), Howard Alden (guitar), bass, and drums. Standards, few as upbeat as the title, but slow is just sublime. A- [sp]

Billy Byers & Martial Solal: Jazz on the Left Bank & Réunion ŕ Paris (1956 [1998], Fresh Sound): Two LPs on one 72:13 CD, credits on each just listed the whole bands, but Byers and Solal are the common denominator, and wrote most of the songs (Byers 4-1 on the former, Solal 5-1 on the latter; Benoit Quersin played bass on both albums; for the others, see the breakouts below). Byers (1927-96) was a trombonist and arranger for many post-WWII big bands, later working for Quincy Jones and Count Basie. Solal (b. 1927) was just starting out on his brilliant career. The combination plays nice at first, then adds solo power. B+(***) [sp]

Dick Mills/Billy Byers/William Bouchaya/Martial Solal/Wessel Ilcken/Benoit Quersin: Jazz on the Left Bank (1956 [1957], Epic): Band members as listed on front cover (trumpet, trombone, tenor sax, piano, drums, bass), although Byers wrote four songs, Solal one, and both were listed in the Fresh Sound reissue as arrangers. [per Billy Byers, above] B+(**) [sp]

Jim Snidero: The Music of Joe Henderson (1998 [1999], Double-Time): Alto saxophonist, steady stream of albums since 1985, leads a sextet through eight pieces by Henderson (1937-2001). With Joe Magnarelli (trumpet), Conrad Herwig (trombone), David Hazeltine (piano), Dennis Irwin (bass), and Kenny Washington (drums). B+(***) [sp]

Martial Solal: Réunion ŕ Paris (1956 [1957], Vogue): Discogs credits this to the pianist, but album cover lists all names: Billy Byers (trombone), Allen Eager (tenor sax), Jimmy Deuchar (trumpet), Benoit Quersin (bass), and Kenny Clarke (drums). Probably helps that the pianist is more clearly in charge, but Deuchar and Eager add solo power. [per Billy Byers, above] B+(***) [sp]

Martial Solal: Improvise Pour France Musique (1993-94 [1994], JMS, 2CD): Solo, de trop, but masterful as long as you can sit still. B+(***) [sp]

Martial Solal With Peter Erskine and Marc Johnson: Triangle (1995, JMS): Piano trio, you know who plays what, Johnson and Erskine contribute one song each, to eight for the pianist. B+(**) [sp]

Martial Solal Trio: Balade Du 10 Mars (1998 [1999], Soul Note): Another piano trio, with Marc Johnson (bass) and Paul Motian (drums). B+(**) [sp]

South Frisco Jazz Band: Sage Hen Strut (1984, Stomp Off): Trad jazz band, founded in Orange County, California, its name a tribute to Lu Watters' Yerba Buena Jazz Band, led by cornetists Dan Comins and Leon Oakley, with clarinet/sax, trombone, piano, banjo, tuba, and washboard/percussion. B+(***) [sp]

South Frisco Jazz Band: Broken Promises (1987, Stomp Off): Eighteen good ol' good ones (well, sixteen, plus two Mike Baird originals). Recorded in Alameda, so maybe they moved north. Dan Comins sings a couple. B+(***) [sp]

Bobo Stenson/Anders Jormin/Jon Christensen: Reflections (1993 [1996], ECM): Piano-bass-drums trio. B+(***) [sp]

Sun Ra: St. Louis Blues: Solo Piano (1977 [1978], Improvising Artists): Solo piano, in his own zone but very much of this world, adds "Three Little Words" and "Honeysuckle Rose" to the title track and four originals. B+(***) [r]

Sun Ra: We Travel the Spaceways/Bad & Beautiful (1956-61 [1992], Evidence): Two albums on one CD, since split back up for digital. Front cover credits Sun Ra and His Myth Science Arkestra, back cover Sun Ra and His Solar Arkestra, spine just Sun Ra, which is good enough for me. Former was pieced together from several sessions, latter came from one session that wasn't released until 1972. First one starts with one of those ditties that makers you think these guys can't be serious, then settled down and eventually finds its groove. Second album, highlighted by a cover of "Just in Time," is more consistent. B+(**) [r]

John Surman & Friends: The Dawn Sessions: Where Fortune Smiles/Live at Woodstock Town Hall (1971-75 [1999], Sequel, 2CD): English groups from the brief moment when fusion and free jazz were intertangled. The first was credited to guitarist John McLaughlin, with Surman (reeds), Karl Berger (vibes), Stu Martin (drums), and Dave Holland (bass) on the credit line. The second was a duo of Martin (also synthesizer) and Surman. While McLaughlin impresses as expected, the revelation is the saxophonist, fresh and fiery to an extent never reproduced in his many later ECM albums. B+(***) [sp]

John Surman: Glancing Backwards: The Dawn Anthology (1970-75 [2006], Sanctuary, 3CD): Easy enough to nitpick the second half of this, which is still far more aggressive and heartfelt than the often expert work he followed with in his long run with ECM. However, the first half, released in a double-LP simply called The Trio (with Barre Phillips and Stu Martin), is a landmark of British free jazz, one that erases all those caveats. And having them all together defines an era. A- [sp]

Ralph Sutton: Ralph Sutton at Café Des Copains (1983-87 [1990], Sackville): Old-fashioned stride pianist (1922-2001), first records 1950, a signature title is Last of the Whorehouse Piano Players (1989, with Jay McShann), but these solo performances are livelier, downright delightful. A- [sp]

Ralph Sutton: More Ralph Sutton at Café Des Copains (1988-89 [1994], Sackville): As advertised, but some confusion over dates. Not much of a drop off, although the applause strikes me as more tepid. B+(***) [sp]

Ralph Sutton/Kenny Davern: Ralph Sutton & Kenny Davern (1980 [1998], Chiaroscuro): This looked like an ideal pairing, and it's a delight: the clarinet soars, and the piano produces so much rhythm you don't notice the absence of a bassist (although you do notice Gus Johnson on drums). Three vocals, one each, with Johnson's "Sweet Lorraine" a highlight. A- [sp]

Martin Taylor: In Concert: Recorded at the Manchester Craftsmen's Guild (1998 [2000], Milestone): British guitarist, grew up on Django Reinhardt and wound up playing with Stephane Grappelli (13 albums, 1981-99), as well as several dozen of his own, from 1979 on. Solo, a live set in Pittsburgh, a dozen standards. Really lovely. B+(***) [r]

John Tchicai: Grandpa's Spells (1992 [1993], Storyville): Danish saxophonist (1936-2012), father Congolese, moved to New York in 1964 and played with Albert Ayler and John Coltrane (Ascension) as well as New York Art Quartet and New York Contemporary Five, then back to Europe, where he played with ICP, Brotherhood of Breath, Pierre Dřrge, and many others. This is a quartet featuring Misha Mengelberg (piano), with Margriet Naber (synth) and Peter Danstrup (bass). Hard to miss Mengelberg here. A- [sp]

Henri Texier Transatlantik Quartet: Izlaz (1988, Label Bleu): French bassist, albums from 1976, group here includes Aldo Romano (drums), plus two Americans: Joe Lovano (tenor/soprano sax, clarinet, percussion) and Steve Swallow (electric bass). The saxophonist was just getting started, but excels, guided by the bassists. A- [sp]

Jean Thielemans: Man Bites Harmonica (1957 [1958], Riverside): Belgian harmonica player (1922-2016), better known as Toots, also played guitar and accordion (his first instrument), was initially influenced by Django Reinhardt, but joined a 1949 jam session with Charlie Parker, and played with Benny Goodman on a 1949-50 European tour. This New York session followed his 1955 debut. Names on the front cover: Pepper Adams (baritone sax), Kenny Drew (piano), Wilbur Ware (bass), and Art Taylor (drums). He plays harmonica on six tracks, guitar on the other three. B+(**) [r]

Toots Thielemans: Live (1974, Polydor): Various live albums with various dates, but this seems to be the favored Penguin Guide album. Leader plays guitar and harmonica, with more guitar by Joop Scholten, plus Rob Franken (electric piano/organ), bass, drums, and percussion. Sound strikes me as a bit off. B+(**) [sp]

Radka Toneff: Winter Poem (1977, Sonet): Norwegian jazz singer (1952-82), father from Bulgaria, first album. She wrote original music for five poems (Sylvia Plath, Robert Creeley, and three by Nikki Giovanni), and bassist Arild Andersen wrote music for two more Creeley poems. More striking still are the covers, a torchy "All the Sad Young Men" and a very striking "Mr. Bojangles." Group is mostly strings, with piano (Lars Jansson) and guitar (Jon Eberson). B+(**) [sp]

Mel Tormé: The Duke Ellington & Count Basie Songbooks (1960-61 [1984], Verve): Reissue of his 1962 album I Dig the Duke, I Dig the Count, with six songs each, loosely speaking. Big band, Johnny Mandel arranger. B+(***) [r]

The Trio: Conflagration (1971, Dawn): Originally John Surman (saxes), Barre Phillips (bass), and Stu Martin (drums), released a very strong eponymous double album in 1970, joined by a long list of names for this sequel: Harold Beckett (trumpet, Mark Charig (cornet), Chick Corea (piano), Nick Evans (trombone), Malcolm Griffiths (trombone), Dave Holland (bass), John Marshall (drums), Mike Osborne (alto sax/clarinet), Alan Skidmore (soprano/baritone sax/flute), Stan Sulzmann (clarinet/flute), John Taylor (piano, Kenny Wheeler (trumpet). Overkill perhaps, invigorating if you're into that sort of thing. A- [sp]

The Trio: Meet the Locals (1998 [1999], Resonant): Different group, this one from Norway, first of two albums, led by tenor saxophonist Petter Wettre, with Ingebrigt Hĺker Flaten (bass) and Jarle Vespestad (drums). A terrific sax trio album. A- [sp]

The Trio: In Color (1999 [2000], Resonant): Second album, later editions attribute this to Petter Wettre Trio, adding Dave Liebman for five (of 10) tracks. B+(***) [sp]

Gianluigi Trovesi Octet: From G to G (1992, Soul Note): Italian alto saxophonist (also alto/bass clarinet), debut 1978, octet also includes Pino Minafra (trumpet, etc., including voice and "noises"). Jaunty pieces like "Hercab" have the most appeal. B+(***) [r]

Warren Vaché and Brian Lemon: Play Harry Warren: An Affair to Remember (1995 [1997], Zephyr): Cornet and piano duo. Harry Warren songs, including two takes of "Nagasaki," and a couple vocals -- uncredited, but Vaché sings some elsewhere. B+(***)

Warren Vaché/Tony Coe/Alan Barnes Septet: Jumpin' (1997 [1999], Zephyr): Cornet with two English saxophone/clarinet players, all inclined to straddle the swing-to-bop eras, backed by guitar, bass, and drums. Standard fare, from two Ellington pieces to "Giant Steps." B+(**) [sp]

Warren Vaché & Alan Barnes: Memories of You (1997 [1999], Zephyr): Cornet and alto/baritone sax, backed with guitar (Dave Cliff), piano (Brian Lemon), bass, and drums. B+(**) [sp]

Warren Vaché & Tony Coe: Street of Dreams (1997 [1999], Zephyr): Coe playe tenor and soprano sax. Otherwise, this is the same deal, same group, similar batch of songs. I give it a slight edge, mostly based on Coe's ballad tone. B+(***) [sp]

Warren Vaché/Allan Vaché: Mrs. Vaché's Boys (1998 [1999], Nagel Heyer): Cornet (with some flugelhorn) and clarinet, backed by piano (Eddie Higgins), guitar (Howard Alden), bass (Phil Flanagan), and drums (Ed Metz Jr), mostly playing 1930s swing classics (three Ellingtons, one Goodman). More Ellington would be better, especially more like the blazing "Cottontail." B+(***) [sp]

Warren Vaché: I Can't Get Started: Warren Vaché Meets Derek Watkins Again! (2000, Zephyr): Watkins (1945-2013) was a British trumpet player, mostly played in big bands but released two 1995 records on Zephyr: Over the Rainbow, with the Brian Lemon Quartet, and Stardust, his previous meeting with Vaché. No info on this album, which seems to have escaped notice at Discogs and AMG. Release date isn't authoritative, and session date probably earlier. Still a lovely record. Nice guitar. B+(***) [sp]

Kid Thomas Valentine: Kid Thomas in California (1969 [1994], GHB): Old-time trumpeter (1896-1987) from New Orleans, sings some, developed his style in the 1920s and stuck with it. His 1962 Ragtime Stompers album with George Lewis was a Penguin Guide crown album, and this one, with Capt. John Handy, Big Bill Bissonnette, Dick Griffith, and other stalwarts, plus two Carol Leigh vocals, doesn't fall much short. A- [sp]

Tom Varner: Martian Heartache (1996 [1997], Soul Note): From New Jersey (b. 1957), plays French horn, albums from 1985. This is a group with two saxophones (Ed Jackson on alto and Ellery Eskelin on tenor), bass (Drew Gress), and drums (Tom Rainey), plus guest spots for guitar (Pete McCann, 3 tracks) and vocals (Dominique Eade, the closer, the only cover, a trad folk song). B+(***) [sp]

Joe Venuti and Dave McKenna: Alone at the Palace (1977, Chiaroscuro): Violin and piano duo. Venuti (1903-78) first achieved fame in the late 1920s with guitarist Eddie Lang, who died in 1933. Their string-based swing had a parallel in France with Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli. In both cases, the violinists went on to long solo careers. McKenna (1930-2008) is an old-fashioned pianist, who often got by playing solo because he generated so much rhythm. They're an ideal pairing here. A- [sp]

Vienna Art Orchestra: Suite for the Green Eighties (1981 [1990], Hat Art): Experimental big band, founded 1977 by composer-director Nicholas Rüegg, disbanded 2010 after releasing 35 albums, mixing jazz and classical in improbable combinations. Here Rüegg conducts 11 musicians plus vocalist Lauren Newton in three pieces (32:02) plus the five-part title piece (38:01). B+(**) [sp]

Vienna Art Orchestra: Quiet Ways: Ballads (1996 [1997], Amadeo): Nine songs, each with a different guest vocalist, starting with Helen Merrill on "What's New." B+(**) [sp]

Vienna Art Orchestra: All That Strauss (2000, TCB): Mostly nine pieces from Johan Strauss (1825-99), with one by brother Josef Strauss and two by brother Eduard Strauss, including waltzes and polkas. Live recording, cover looks like Johan Strauss playing tenor sax. The arrangements are suitably extravagant, far removed from a classical recital. B+(*) [sp]

Petter Wettre Quartet: Pig Virus (1998, Curling Legs): Saxophonist, from Norway, his Trio albums encouraged further research. First album, a quartet with Hĺvard Wiik (piano), Terje Gewelt (bass), and Per Oddvar Johansen (drums). Another powerful album. B+(***) [sp]

Petter Wettre Quintet: Household Name (2002 [2003], Household): Saxophone, with piano (Hĺvard Wiik) and guitar (Palle Pesonen), bass and drums. Well enough, but more piano and guitar means less saxophone. B+(**) [sp]

Petter Wettre/Dave Liebman: Tour De Force (2000 [2004], Household): Live set, following the Trio In Color sessions that Liebman crashed -- same bass and drums here, both saxophonists playing soprano, with Wettre also on tenor. B+(**) [sp]

Grade (or other) changes:

Stu Martin/John Surman: Live at Woodstock Town Hall (1975 [1976], Pye): [sp]: B+(***)

John McLaughlin/Dave Holland/John Surman/Stu Martin/Karl Berger: Where Fortune Smiles (1971, Dawn): [sp]: [was: B+] B+(***)

Sun Ra and His Myth Science Arkestra: We Travel the Space Ways (1956-60 [1960], El Saturn): [r]: B+(*)

Mr. Sun Ra and His Arkestra: Bad and Beautiful (1961 [1972], El Saturn): [r]: B+(**)

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

  • Chet Baker: Blue Room: The 1979 Vara Studio Sessions in Holland (Jazz Detective, 2CD) [04-28]
  • Tom Collier: Boomer Vibes Volume 1 (Summit) [03-10]
  • Das Kondensat: Andere Planeten (WhyPlayJazz) [04-07]

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Sunday, April 2, 2023

Speaking of Which

I opened this file by linking to Jeffrey St Clair's latest "Roaming Charges" piece (way down below), because any time he writes one of his scattershot columns, I feel duty-bound to link to it. Not that we see eye-to-eye on everything. I could certainly do without the gratuitous sniping at Bernie Sanders (even if he occasionally has a point). But he's never tried to critique both parties from some imaginary point in the middle, so when he does hold Democrats to account, he never tries to blur the distinction by making Republicans seem a bit less evil.

[PS: Although further down he berates Biden as "old, tired, powerless, out of ideas and lacking any genuine outrage," then turns around and says, "One thing you have to admire about Trump is that he didn't give up pursuing his agenda, no matter how debased it was . . . people liked that he was a fighter." That strikes me as unfair to Biden, who evinces far more outrage than I think is politically savvy, and inaccurate on Trump, who never had an agenda to fight for, aside from symbolic gestures like the wall, and whose ineffectiveness had more than a little to do with his lack of compassion or conviction. Anyone who values Trump as a fighter has a fleeting grasp of reality.]

I may be more inclined to pull my punches for the sake of partisan solidarity, but I have to respect his principles, not least because they come with important insights. This week's column starts with one so important it needs to go here, on top, before you get distracted with what's likely to be a veritable tsunami of political bullshit. (I'm writing this on Friday, before collecting the rest, so it'll be easy to check my prediction.) He opens as follows (my bold):

The US is not going to solve its gun violence epidemic until it addresses its war violence epidemic. There's a reason the AK-15 has become the weapon of choice for post-Gulf War shooters. Blame guns if you must, but start with the war culture that has indoctrinated so many people to crave them, not, I suspect for self-protection, but for the projection of power in a society where the individual is left with so little.

For three decades, we have saturated our society with government-sponsored violence, where every type of killing is officially sanctioned, including that of children. We've committed infanticide with impunity from Kandahar to Belgrade. The sniper and the drone have become cultural icons, grotesque symbols of the American imperium.

Predictably, the chickens that have come home to roost haven't only been the relatives of the victims, but also the children of perpetrators, nurtured on fear, bloodshed and high-capacity ammo. They've been reared to see people in uniform -- from Mosul to Memphis -- kill with impunity. The lessons seem to have taken root.

I've said the first sentence before, probably many times. The rest just drives home the point, not that you couldn't add volumes more.

I have no fondness for guns, and wouldn't mind if they were totally banned. (I don't mind people who hunt, as many of my recent ancestors did, but even there I could imagine a program where people rent hunting guns when they obtain their in-season licenses. Among other things, it would match guns to game. I could also see letting people target shoot, but renting the guns there, too. Again, you'd get a better match. And, really, it wouldn't be any more onerous than having to rent shoes at the bowling alley -- I assume they still do that, as it's been a while.) But politically that's not going to happen, at least any time soon, at least as long as many people feel like they need to own guns, and are willing to live with the inevitable costs. What anti-gun people need to do is to shift some mind, to get people to realize that they don't need (and shouldn't want) guns.

A big part of the reason for my indifference or resignation to the dearth of gun control is that I really don't like the instinct that drives so many people to ban anything they don't like. That was the driving ideology behind prohibition, including the war on drugs, and creates bad side-effects as well as not working very well. I suppose there are limits to my preference for never banning anything: we still have bans on fully-automatic machine guns and artillery, and it makes sense to keep tight regulation on toxic chemicals and explosives. And while I'd cut way back on criminal penalties for drugs, I'd like to see enough regulation to keep them from being commercialized.

I have a somewhat similar position on immigration. I think most immigration is driven not by wonderful economic opportunities in America, but by the spread of violence that is largely backed or motivated by America's global projection of power, and by the global financial system that continuously works to extract profit from the rest of the world (often protected by American arms). If you want to limit immigration, the most effective thing would be to reduce the fear and hunger elsewhere that drives people here. (Needless to say, you can substitute Europe for America in the preceding sentences and still make perfect sense. And Europe and America are linked in that way, such that the political/economic powers in each no longer discriminate in favor of own interests.) So my argument to anyone who wants to restrict immigration is to start by reforming the foreign policies that drive people to come here. Oh, and by the way, also climate policies, given that changing climate is likely to be the biggest driver of migration in coming decades.

Of course, I know people (my wife, for one) who want no limits on immigration, as they believe that every person should have the right to live wherever they see fit. I don't have a strong argument against that position, but I can see a sensible one. Borders act as baffles, which aren't impermeable but do so some extent allow nations to work on their own problems independently of other nations and pressures. While America may look like some kind of paradise to outsiders, it isn't. We have a lot of work to do to make it more livable and vital for the people who already live here, and adding more people makes it harder.

Sure, maybe not a lot: I accept that the long-term benefits of adding immigrants are real, that the short-term costs aren't as bad as is commonly assumed (or wouldn't be if we didn't allow them to be exploited so badly), and that the idea that America's culture will be undermined by unassimilable aliens is a fantasy. On the other hand, we're hard pressed now to build the political will to make the changes we so sorely need, and there's little reason to think that higher immigration levels might help. Note that the biggest turn to the left in American history was during the 1930s, when immigration was close to nil. On the other hand, recall that 5 (of 16) Republican presidential candidates in 2016 had at least one foreign-born parent.

What I do see as priorities on immigration are that people who have been here for quite some time need to be accepted and documented, and not be treated as "illegals"; also that migrants who do come to America need to be treated humanely and efficiently, not just for their own sakes but because the way we've been treating them just makes us all that much more barbaric.

Top story threads:

Trump: The former president pulled away from the pack this week, by getting indicted, by Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, in a case that involves the famous "hush money" payment to porn star Stormy Daniels, or perhaps more technically the hidden audit trail of the payment, but with the indictment (still sealed) of 30 items, it seems likely that the charges will go further into an extensive pattern of corrupt business practices. You might start by watching Jimmy Kimmel, because, as he insists, Trump's indictment is "historic and it's funny." He only had an hour or two to prepare (poor Seth Myers missed it completely), but he makes some good points. Also, once again, I love it that virtually his whole audience is excited by the news. I'm so used to being in a fringe minority that I find it very heartening to see a crowd of normal people clearly aware of just how horrible Trump has been (and still is).

  • Nicole Narea/Ian Millhiser: [03-31] Your biggest questions about Trump's indictment, answered: "Here's what happens next."

  • Zack Beauchamp: [03-31] The best precedent for Trump's indictment is (gulp) Israel: Sure, no nation has more experience with indicting its political leaders, but Trump hasn't pushed his situation nearly as far as Netanyahu has. To make the two analogous, Trump would have to win in 2024, and make every day January 6 all over again.

  • Igor Derysh: [03-31] Trump reportedly "caught off guard" by 34-count indictment -- melts down all night on Truith Social. My instinct is to be agnostic about indicting Trump (or anyone else, at least anyone I've heard of), not just because "innocent until proven guilty," and not just because I never care much for the details, but also because I don't have much faith that justice works in America. If Trump acted like a normal defendant, which is to say hid behind lawyers who exercised some care not to inflame the situation, that would probably be the end of my interest. After all, why get heavily invested in something (like his impeachments) that isn't likely to pan out. On the other hand, when he squirms like a stuck pig, that's something I can enjoy. Not that I usually go in for Schadenfreude, but regardless of whether he's ultimately a convicted felon, he's clearly a malign political force, and quite simply a bad person. Perhaps the squirming is just the mark of a thin-skinned, narcissistic egomaniac, but it feels like at least a taste of justice.

    By the way, Salon is having a lot of fun consulting various "experts" on whatever it is they know about the Trump indictment. Examples as of [04-02]: Experts: Bragg has "very strong case"; Expert: Indictment won't help Trump; Expert: Charges show Trump not a "king"; Experts rip DeSantis' extradition threat; Haberman: Ex-Trumpers "quietly cheering"; Legal experts: Trump will fight back; Right freaks out over Trump indictment. Also, a while back [02-24] "Threatening a prosecutor is a crime": Experts say Trump's Truth Social post could badly backfire.

  • Chris Hedges: [03-31] Yes, Donald Trump has committed many crimes -- but that's not why he faces prosecution: "Like Richard Nixon, Trump is being punished for his sins against the dominant order, not his most serious ones." Mostly true: if I had to rank his crimes, I'd start elsewhere, but suppressing the Storm Daniels story a week before the 2016 election may have been one that was necessary to secure his win, making the later crimes possible. There's no doubt that the story was juicy enough the media would have gone crazy with it, possibly drowning out the last round of Clinton email hoopla. Sure, most of his supporters would have laughed it off, but he won the electoral college by a very slim margin.

    The part that's untrue is that he is being tried for upsetting "the dominant order." That's an odd, imprecise term, but most of the rich and powerful were perfectly happy with all the perks and favors Trump cut them. Even when they found him embarrassing, they were more worried that he'd get voted out and the gravy train would stop (although, let's be real, most of them know how to extract favors from Democrats as well). While Trump occasionally said things that were off base, he did so little on his own that he never was much of a threat. In particular, his much bruited antiwar sentiments led to ever larger defense budgets and an acceleration of random drone attacks, while he tore up many more treaties than he negotiated. And while it's true that most Democrats came to really despise him, the few cases they brought -- including two politically-doomed impeachments -- were constructed narrowly and solidly based. We haven't seen the Manhattan DA case yet, but given how reluctant Alvin Bragg was to charge Trump, he probably has a solid case.

    Since Hedges mentioned Nixon, let's talk about him for a minute. Maybe I was just at an impressionable age when he became president, but I've always thought he was the most evil politician in American history. He's the only one I've truly hated, and I still blame much of what I deplore most in Reagan, Bush, and even Trump on him. When I was trying to figure out what I thought about capital punishment, he was my test case: if we can't execute Nixon, where's the justice in executing anyone else? It really just reduces to a power dynamic: states kill the people too powerless to stop them, and let the rest go free. I remember thinking about death, and concluding that as long as Nixon goes first, I'm willing to deal with it. Yet basically what happened was that after Nixon resigned, and after Ford pardoned him, he became harmless. He didn't become a hermit. He wrote his self-serving books, and enjoyed the rest of his life in relative comfort, but he never really bothered us after that. So, sure, it wasn't justice that Nixon never had to pay for his crimes. But it was effective, just to keep him away from the levers of power that made his crimes so calamitous.

    Now maybe the same thing could have happened with Trump, but here he is, running for president again, threatening revenge on everyone who slighted him over the years, inspiring and exhorting his coterie of followers to build new crimes on top of his. Never mind remorse, he is utterly without shame or conscience. He still describes himself as "the most innocent man in American history." It is quite possible that had he meekly retired into his mansion, none of the charges -- and now that the ice is broken, I have little doubt that there will be more -- would have been brought. You can object that makes them political, but Trump is the one who made them political: he is the one who made them urgent and necessary. Had he simply retired, he would have been as harmless as Nixon. But by fighting on, several prosecutors decided they had to make clear to the public what kind of man (what kind of criminal) he really is.

    Hedges' other implication: that one shouldn't be prosecuted for a lesser crime once one has committed a greater one, is too ridiculous to address. I rather doubt that's even the rule in divinity school, where Hedges studied, but I'm dead certain that no lawyer in America would try to use that as a defense.

  • Ben Jacobs: [03-31] Trump's indictment has united the Republican Party in apocalyptic rage. Well, they see every rage as apocalyptic.

  • Samaa Khullar: [03-31] Manhattan DA accuses GOP of "unlawful political interference" in Trump case: If you want to talk about "unprecedented," tell me the last time a committee of Congress tried to insert itself into a state or local prosecution, demanding to expose and interrogate a case before it has been tried? I like the British term for this sort of thing: "attempting to pervert the course of justice." Khullar also wrote: [03-31] Fox News stokes fears of political "violence" over Trump indictment.

  • Tori Otten: [03-31] Republicans' Only Defense Against the Trump Indictment: George Soros: Mostly in the context of the "Soros-backed Manhattan District Attorney." I shouldn't have to explain the anti-semitic tropes of singling Soros out everywhere. And it's not like left-leaning pundits are going around deriding Republicans as "Koch-backed" or "Adelson-backed" (even though both of those guys, at least before the latter died, held conventions attended by dozens of Republicans hoping to kiss the ring). [OK, full disclosure, back when he was a Congressman, I did refer to "Mike Pompeo (R-Koch)," but that connection was much more direct than Soros ever gets to anyone, and I was contrasting Pompeo to "Todd Tiahrt (R-Boeing)."]

  • Andre Pagliarini: [04-01] What the Right-Wing Freakout Over Trump's "Banana Republic" Indictment Is Really About. Meanwhile, Jair Bolsonaro return to Brazil, and his own possible prosecution for a wide range of crimes.

  • Ramesh Ponnoru: [04-02] Trump's indictment will warp our politics for years to come: I only mention this piece only because it strikes me that Trump's indictment may well be viewed as belonging to the "warp for years to come" that started with Republican attempts to use civil and criminal suits against Clinton in the 1990s. If this seems to be harsher on Trump, it's because he's left so much more evidence to prosecute him with -- and possibly because his "lock her up" campaign slogan amounted to taunting.

  • Andrew Prokop: [03-30] Donald Trump has been indicted. The hush money case against him, explained. The story, updated many times, from a staple post. But until people see the actual indictment, it's hard to speculate on how strong the case is. Prokop also wrote: [04-01] How to tell when an investigation is politicized. His criteria seem to be: how similar is this to the Kenneth Starr prosecution of Clinton? He doesn't really know, but that isn't stopping him from spreading FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt). Of course, anything involving Trump is bound to be politicized, as Trump will blame political motives, and likely realizes that his offenses are seen as part of his political persona. This leads to a second question which Prokop doesn't ask: should people with political motives be exempt from prosecution? As someone long identified as a leftist, I can't think of any such precedent. I'm especially annoyed by the line: "if they can go after Trump, they can go after anybody." Where have these people been? They've been going after anybody for well over a century. It's only people like Trump who felt themselves above the law, immune from prosecution.

  • Alex Shephard: [03-30] Did Trump Do Worse Things? Sure. But This Indictment Is a Great Start. Shephard also wrote: [03-31] A Field Guide to the Right's Hysterical and Desperate Response to Trump's Indictment. I always get a kick out of the line (attributed here to Vivek Ramaswamy, but I've probably heard it 20 times so far): "If they can do it to Trump, they can do it to you." Of course, if you committed the same crimes Trump is charged with, they always could have "done it to you" -- and wouldn't have given it a second thought. What's new is that they're even, finally doing it to Trump.

  • Perry Stein/Shayna Jacobs: [03-31] Trump lashes out against New York judge who will hear his criminal case.

  • Asawin Suebsaeng/Adam Rawnsley: [03-29] Trump Asks Advisers for 'Battle Plans' to 'Attack Mexico' if Reelected.

  • Michael Tomasky: [03-31] What Trump and Republicans Don't Understand About the Law.

  • Brett Wilkins: [03-31] 'This P*ssy Grabbed Back': Stormy Daniels Speaks Out After Trump Indictment.

  • Li Zhou: [03-31] The indictment adds to a long list of times Republicans have backed Trump. List is admittedly "non-exhaustive."

  • Inspirational tweet (sure, we're all criminals, which makes it so unfair when any of us get charged):

    Lauren Boebert: If they charge President Trump for his crimes, they could charge any of us for our crimes. The rule of law means nothing to these people.

  • PS: I was later surprised that I didn't come up with anything on Trump's post-indictment fundraising. A quick search revealed:

Other Republicans: DeSantis, McCarthy, and the rest simply couldn't keep up last week.

Israel: If we were keeping something like the "doomsday clock" on the question of when does Israel turn genocidal, I wouldn't put it a few minutes before midnight (like the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists does), but this week it definitely moved past noon.

Syria, Iraq, Iran, etc: A couple late items on the 20th anniversary of the Bush invasion of Iraq, but also a sudden rash of articles about the region (mostly about blowing it up).

Ukraine War: Both sides continue to publicly build up their cases that they cannot be defeated, and that they can continue to fight indefinitely. We're supposed to be impressed by that?

  • Blaise Malley: [03-31] Diplomacy Watch: Privately, experts ask White House 'what's the longer-term gameplan?'

  • David Atkins: [03-29] Trump, DeSantis Say They Just Want Peace in Ukraine. Don't Fall for It. I started to write something about this piece, then tore it up, because it's too easy to get sucked into a rathole about the insincerity of "fascists for peace." But I came back to it, because I hate the idea of attacking anyone for "just wanting peace," even characters as execrable as the headline. I also hate the practice of dredging up the reluctance of many Americans to get involved in WWII, even if Charles Lindbergh and "the original 'America First' crowd" were Nazi symps (except to point out that Trump's father attended a notorious 1939 pro-Nazi rally in Madison Square Garden). Having read a lot of history on the subject, I'm probably more attuned to incipient fascism than most, but Nazi/Fascist charges only obscure the causes and stakes of the Ukraine war (as, for that matter, do high-minded paeans to democracy), and act mostly as pro-war recruiting signals. (For example, this page provides links to two 2014 pieces by Ed Kilgore: Russia as the New Fascist Threat, and Ukraine and the Sudeten Analogy. Kilgore, of course, is one of those liberals whose neverending "search for monsters to destroy" led him to support the Bush War in Iraq.)

    I also object to the assumption that the real (or only) reason Trump, DeSantis, and other Republicans have for opposing US support for Ukraine -- if that's what they're doing; describing Ukraine as "a regional conflict" doesn't reflect the official line but isn't all that inaccurate -- is that they are Putin fans/fools. There is a long and honorable tradition in American politics, going back to George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, and articulated most famously by John Quincy Adams, of military entanglements around the world. This tradition was unfairly lampooned as "isolationism" during the intoxication of WWII and the rise of the Cold Warriors afterwards, but we now have 75 years of evidence suggesting that restraint and peaceful diplomacy and commerce would have been a wiser course. Granted, Trump's actual presidency gives us no reason to believe that he understands what it takes to avoid the wars he claims not to believe in. Indeed, history will record that he made a complete botch of Ukraine during his four years as president.

  • Jonathan Guyer: [03-29] What US weapons tell us about the Russia-Ukraine war: As the chart makes clear, arming Ukraine is overwhelmingly an American project. What isn't clear is how much arms like tanks are meant to advance a negotiating position or just an offensive hoping to reclaim Russian-occupied territory, because neither Ukraine nor the US seems to have a coherent negotiating position.

  • Fred Kaplan: [03-27] What Putin's Latest Nuke Announcement Really means: "It's all just for show -- but it could backfire."

  • Ivan Nechepurenko/Anatoly Kurmanev: [04-02] Influential Russian Military Blogger Is Killed in St Petersburg Bombing.

  • Jake Werner: [03-31] What Biden means when he says we're fighting 'global battle for democracy': So, you see, he's hosting this Summit for Democracy, which among other oddities included a panel featuring Narenda Modi and Benjamin Netanyahu, leaders in legislating ethnocracies, which deny fundamental rights to minorities, while still pretending to practice democracy.

  • Joshua Yaffa: [03-31] The unimaginable horror of a friend's arrest in Moscow: Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was arrested and charged with espionage. Even if true, it's hard to imagine that reporting on Russia is more damaging than descending into hostage-taking. For more, see Connor Echols: [03-30] Ex-CIA official: No way detained WSJ reporter is a US spy. Also Jonathan Guyer: [03-30] The first US journalist was just arrested in Russia since the Cold War.

Other stories:

Dean Baker: [04-01] The Social Security Scare Story Industry: One of those scare stories showed up in my local paper. I'm not surprised at how few people actually understand how Social Security works, but you'd think the ones who write on it for major news chains would show some initiative. The real future problem with Social Security and Medicare is whether we elect politicians who understand the need to take care of the elderly and infirm, or we elect a bunch of jerks (i.e., Republicans) who don't care and can't be bothered. Baker also wrote: [03-29] The Silicon Valley Bank Bailout: The Purpose of Government Is to Make the Rich Richers #63,486. I don't think he's actually counting, but feels like the right ballpark.

Shirin Ghaffary: [03-31] Elon Musk wants to fill your Twitter feed with paid accounts: As of April 15, "Twitter will only recommend content from paid accounts in the For You tab, the first screen users see when they open the app." That sounds like it will be 100% advertising. The alternative to "For you" is "Following," which actually gives me something more like what I expected: tweets from people I follow, plus ones those people forward. I've been looking at my own view stats, and I'm pretty disgusted with what I'm seeing: my tweets announcing "Speaking of Which" posts are ultimately viewed by a bit less than 15% of my followers. "Music Week" announcements get more views, but still only about 50% of my followers (or that's what the total works out to: they usually get a retweet or two, so that helps the spread). Consequently, I'm questioning the whole utility of the platform. And I suspect that that in a few weeks a blue checkmark will be recognized as a stigma instead of as proof of authenticity. They're really just pissing on their brand.

  • Drew Harwell: [04-02] Twitter strikes New York Times' verified badge on Elon Musk's orders: "The Times and other news organizations say they won't pay for the icon, which [was originally] designed to protect against impersonation." Evidently, they haven't removed all the blue checks yet, probably to obscure the question of how many suckers have paid up, but after the Times publicly refused to pay up, Musk decided to make an example of them.

  • Prem Thakker: [03-31] Sorry Elon, No One Cares About Losing Their Blue Checkmark on Twitter. There's a list here of famous publishers opting out. This flows into a another piece: "Twitter Admits It's Been Forcing Elon Musk on Your Timeline." I recently clicked on "Following" instead of the default "For you," and the Musk tweets have (so far) vanished.

William Hartung: [03-26] The Pentagon's Budget from Hell: Congress Has Been Captured by the Arms Industry: "The ultimate driver of that enormous spending spree is a seldom-commented-upon strategy of global military overreach, including 75 U.S. military bases scattered on every continent except Antarctica, 170,000 troops stationed overseas, and counterterror operations in at least 85 -- not, that is not a typo -- countries (a count offered by Brown University's Cost of War Project."

Sean Illing: [03-30] The media wants the audience's trust. But is it being earned? Interview with Brian Stelter, who wrote Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News, and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth. Illing has a point: "So it's not that Fox doesn't have a right-wing bias; it's that it primarily exists to flatter the delusions of its audience, and they do it even when they know it's bullshit." That's an insight that could apply to other media companies, which are all defined by their ability to corral and exploit a predictable audience. But Fox's audience is more deluded than most, and it's easy to push their buttons. Moreover, they've captured a political party, which means they can make much of the news they report, and give their audience a rooting interest.

Robert Kuttner: [03-28] What Comes After Neoliberalism? "We are winning the battle of ideas. We have a long way to go before we win the politics." I hear an echo here of one of my pet ideas: I believe that the New Left won the "battle of ideas" in the 1970s, resulting in sweeping changes to how we think about war, race, sex, the environment, and consumer rights, but part of that constellation of ideas was a profound mistrust of power, as well as a sharp critique of the previous generation of liberals (especially those who brought us the Cold War and the hot war in Vietnam), so very little effort got made to secure liberation with political power. (The New Left was also divided on labor unions, which after Taft-Hartley had largely abandoned the struggle to organize poor workers, and which mostly exercised their power within the Democratic Party to support the warmongers.) The result is that we've seen much erosion on these fronts, even though there's little popular support for the reaction.

A big part of this erosion can be ascribed to elements in the Democratic Party who tried to craft a "kindler, gentler" version of neoliberalism -- with scant success, given that any time they tried to make something decent out of market solutions, Republicans were there to wreck their efforts. (Clinton claimed he had crafted a good welfare reform bill, only to find it passed by a Republican Congress wrapped up in "a sack of shit." Obamacare didn't fare much better.) It's true that there are new ideas gaining purchase among Democrats (some even embraced by Biden, who the neoliberal faction settled on as their "anybody but Bernie" candidate), but it's premature to claim that they've gained the upper hand over neoliberalism.

What is clear, though, is that neoliberalism has failed, both as an economic doctrine and as a political movement. As for the terminology problem, I'm inclined to go with democracy: we need a political order that puts people ahead of profit, that puts industry and commerce to work for the betterment of everyone. The key to doing that is to give everyone more rights, so they can take back the state and redirect it for the general welfare. The Republicans ran on exactly that platform in 1860: "Vote yourself a farm; vote yourself a tariff!"

Jack McCordick: [03-29] How Big Business Hijacked Freedom: Interview with Naomi Oreskes and Erik M Conway, authors of The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market. Telling that the issue that originally set the NAM (National Association of Manufacturers) off was their opposition to child labor laws.

Ian Millhiser: [03-30] The lawsuit that threatens everything from cancer screenings to birth control, explained: "A notoriously partisan judge has launched a new attack on one of Obamacare's key provisions." More on the courts:

  • Matt Ford: [03-30] It's 2023, and Conservatives Are Still Trying to Sue Obamacare Out of Existence. Judge Reed O'Connor "struck down a major part of the Affordable Care Act on Thursday. . . . O'Connor was the favored destination of such suits for years: He has found the ACA to be unconstitutional, either in whole or in part, at least four times now, leaving the appellate courts to clean up his many messes."

Charles P Pierce: He cranks out several posts every day, most worth reading (many I could have filed in various spots above):

Paul Rosenberg: [04-02] What crisis of democracy? Scholar Larry Bartels says the real crisis is corrupt leaders: Shorter title: "Maybe we just elect bad people." Interview with Bartels, who wrote Democracy Erodes From the Top: Leaders, Citizens, and the Challenge of Populism in Europe. Focus is on European leaders like Viktor Orban and Giorgia Meloni, but key point applies to American political leaders as well, especially Donald Trump, who didn't exactly run as an authoritarian but exercised his power as arbitrarily and capriciously as he could get away with, resulting in a quite striking erosion of democratic norms and expectations.

Jason Samenow: [03-26] How Mississippi's tornadoes unfolded Friday night and why they were so deadly: I read this piece with considerable interest, having grown up in what used to be called "tornado alley": roughly an oval from a bit south of Oklahoma City to a bit north of Wichita, spreading out maybe a hundred miles east and west. After a large tornado wiped out the small town of Udall, about 20 miles southeast of Wichita, when I was 5 or 6, Kansas got its act together and built a pretty robust tornado warning system. The frequency of tornados declined over the last decade or two, shifting east and south, but until then the grim statistic was that despite getting many fewer tornados than Kansas, the state with by far the most tornado deaths was Mississippi. That's what happens when your state hates you. I haven't looked at those stats recently, but with the climate shift on top of America's most decrepit state government, the situation can only have grown worse (despite the fact that at the national level, weather forecasting has gotten markedly better). More tornado reports this week:

Kelefa Sanneh: [03-27] How Christian is Christian nationalism? This is a question that I, as someone who doesn't believe in, and for that matter distrusts, both Christianity and nationalism, am indifferent to, yet perversely curious about. The latter is probably because I once had what I felt to be a pretty sound grounding in at least one strain of Christianity, and I suspect that most self-professed Christian nationalists have a very different understanding. This piece reviews a couple books: Paul D Miller's The Religion of American Greatness: What's Wrong With Christian Nationalism; and Stephen Wolfe's The Case for Christian Nationalism.

Dylan Scott: [03-31] The number of uninsured Americans is about to jump dramatically for the first time in years: "Starting April 1, states will begin removing millions of people off Medicaid's rolls as a pandemic-era program that kept them enrolled expires."

Jeffrey St Clair: [03-31] Roaming Charges: Spare the AR-15, Spoil the Child. Beyond the Nashville shooting story (noted in introduction), see the excruciating long list of failures in America's so-called justice system, as well as a few obvious comments about the ICC, and numerous other stories that should make you stop and think. Much more, including a link to hear Pharoah Sanders in 2011.

I don't feel like elevating this to the "major story" section, but if I catch more links on guns, hang them here:

  • Hannah Allam: [03-27] The radicals' rifle: "Armed groups on the right and left exploit the AR-15 as both tool and symbol." Left? Well, they found some, and they've bought guns to defend against "real threats," by which they mean the gun nuts on the right.

  • Ben Beckett: [03-31] The Right Is Flat-Out Admitting It Doesn't Care About Gun Violence. The right don't care whether you, or your children, live or die. The right don't care if you're miserable. The right thinks the world can go to hell, and they'll carry on as oblivious as ever.

  • Emily Guskin/Aadit Tambe/Jon Gerberg: [03-27] Why do Americans own AR-15s: Polling as to why misses the obvious category (although some of the given categories are subsets): "because I'm an asshole." Other factors are largely as expected. Note that only 8% of US adults overall have served in military, but 28% of AR-15 owners have, as have 18% of other gun owners. Hunting is not a reason for 52% of AR-15 owners. The other 48% are lying and/or assholes (the two are not exclusive).

  • Alex Horton/Monique Woo/Tucker Harris: [03-27] Varmints, soldiers and looming threats: See the ads used to sell the AR-15. One ad reads: "Consider your man card reissued."

  • N Kirkpatrick/Atthar Mirza/Manuel Canales: [03-27] The Blast Effect: "This is how bullets from an AR-15 blow the body apart.

Jonathan Swan/Kate Kelly/Maggie Haberman/Mark Mazzetti: [03-30] Kushner Firm Got Hundreds of Millions From 2 Persian Gulf Nations: Now, this is how you do graft. Moreover, it's unlikely that he'll ever get prosecuted for the "stupid shit" that keeps tripping Trump up.

Li Zhou: [03-30] Why train derailments involving hazardous chemicals keep happening: "another train has derailed and caught fire in Minnesota." Also:

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Monday, March 27, 2023

Music Week

March archive (final).

Music: Current count 39873 [39836] rated (+37), 56 [50] unrated (+6: 28 new, 28 old).

Rated count is down because I lost a day when last week's post didn't appear until late Tuesday. Otherwise, it's the same drill: I've been picking off old jazz records from my unheard Penguin Guide 4-star list, going from Perry to Scott this week. The exception is a Bobby Hutcherson record that Hank Shteamer included in his Twitter list of 10-best classic Blue Note records. I commented there, but also copied the lists into my notebook, as one of my self-check exercises. For Hutcherson, may I suggest Dialogue (1965), Happenings (1966), Oblique (1967), and/or Medina (1968-69 [1998]). Had I been more thorough, I would have checked out The Kicker (1963) and Total Eclipse (1967) -- both Penguin Guide 3.5-stars.

Elsewhere, Shteamer reminded me of the death of Ethiopian pianist Tsegué-Maryam Gučbrou (99). Her Ethiopia Song is one of the best volumes in Buda Musique's Éthiopiques series (Vol. 21).

My demo queue has grown to 28, so I need to whittle that down a bit. One problem is that I need to do a major desk clearing first, and some resorting of the queue box. Another is that only 7 of those records (25%) have been released so far, and until recently it was closer to zero. Also, I'll note that I've been sitting non a lot of download offers, which I've started to collect in their own folder, in case I decide I need to look something up.

Two of this week's three new albums were found while looking for something old. Although I updated my 2023 tracking file to reflect what I've heard or have in the queue, I haven't added any records yet that I want to get to, so I'm pretty ignorant of (or maybe just oblivious to) 2023 releases, at least so far. Once I do, it will be easier to figure out what to play next.

This closes out Streamnotes for March. I'll catch up with the indexing later. At last month's rate (193 records), I should crack the 40,000 rated albums level in late April (3 or 4 weeks from now).

I published another Speaking of Which yesterday. Main news today is that Netanyahu delays judicial overhaul plan, backtracking after unprecedented strikes and protests. Key word is "delays," as Israel's current ruling coalition of past and future criminals still want their "get out of jail" cards. For important background, see: Richard Silverstein: Facing Israeli Army Mutiny, Defense Minister Calls to Halt Regime Change Agenda. Silverstein also wrote (posted today): Does Netanyahu Have an Exit Strategy.

A couple more points: Netanyahu made it clear that he's delaying because his junior coalition partner Itamar Ben Gvir gave him permission, making it clear who's calling the shots in the right-wing government. Also, the price for Ben Gvir's delay permission appears to be approval of a new "national guard" under direct control of the National Security Minister (that's Ben Gvir). See Critics slam Netanyahu's alleged OK for national guard: 'Private Ben Gvir militia'. Maybe if they can provoke Palestinians to start an armed uprising, they'll be able to kill off what's left of Israel's democracy as an "emergency measure."

Meanwhile, in America we have another mass shooting in an elementary school: 3 Children and 3 Adults Killed in Shooting at Nashville Elementary School. You know, of course, that Tennessee governor Bill Lee just signed laws to ban drag performers ("protects children") and to loosen restrictions on who can carry guns where. Also, that this guy represents in Congress the district the shooting took place in. Cue the Clash (I was thinking of the "killers in America" line, but sure, all of it).

New records reviewed this week:

Bára Gisladottir: Silva (2023, Sono Luminus): Icelandic double bassist, first album as far as I can tell, uses electronics to process bass sounds, for a dark ambiance. B+(**) [cd]

Rich Perry: Everything Happens (2021 [2022], SteepleChase): My Penguin Guide notes stop around 2002, but he had a very solid decade before that (one 4-star and five 3.5), and he's continued to record regularly since, so I have quite a bit of catching up to do. I thought I'd start with his latest, another quartet, with Gary Versace (piano), Jay Anderson (bass), and John Riley (drums), playing seven originals and longer covers of "Comes Love" and "Everything Happens to Me." B+(**) [sp]

Chris Potter: Got the Keys to the Kingdom: Live at the Village Vanguard (2022 [2023], Edition): Tenor saxophonist. Three things about him: he was just 21 when Introducing was released in 1992, so he's been about a decade younger than almost all of the other major saxophonists who emerged in the 1990s; seems like every year or two, I hear a monster sax solo somewhere I'm not expecting one (like on a Diana Krall album), and it turns out to be him; despite undeniable chops, his studio albums rarely blow me away -- on the other hand, the two A- albums I credit him with were live sets at the Village Vanguard. So after his lockdown solo and trio productions, on top of the wet blanket ECM threw over him, he deserves a chance to break loose. And he does here, with Craig Taborn (piano), Scott Colley (bass), and Marcus Gilmore (drums). B+(***) [sp]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

None.

Old music:

Bobby Hutcherson: Components (1965 [1966], Blue Note): Only album in Hank Shteamer's top-ten Blue Notes list I hadn't heard. Half-written by Hutcherson (vibraphone/marimba), half by drummer Joe Chambers, with Freddie Hubbard (trumpet), James Spaulding (alto sax/flute), Herbie Hancock (piano), and Ron Carter (bass). B+(***) [sp]

Rich Perry: Doxy (1998 [2000], SteepleChase): Tenor sax trio, with George Mraz (bass) and Billy Hart (drums). Jazz staples, starting with Monk, including Evans and Coltrane, ending with the Sonny Rollins title piece, with an 11:59 "How Deep Is the Ocean" among the standards. B+(***) [sp]

Rich Perry: O Grande Amor (1999 [2000], SteepleChase): Quartet with George Colligan (piano), Doug Weiss (bass), and Daren Beckett (drums). Title song from Jobim, one original, the rest standards including nods to Bill Evans and Jimmy Rowles. After the samba, he has so much pent-up energy he really lets loose on the closer, even though it's only "Stella by Starlight." B+(**) [sp]

Rich Perry Quartet: Hearsay (2001 [2002], SteepleChase): It's a little annoying that Discogs makes you go to "Rich Perry Quartet" for his eight quartet albums, given that the quartets are all different. This one is pianoless, with Steve Lampert (trumpet), Dennis Irwin (bass), and Jeff Hirshfield (drums). Another change is all original pieces, though Perry only wrote two, Lampert the other six. B+(***) [sp]

Enrico Pieranunzi/Marc Johnson/Joey Baron: Current Conditions (2001 [2003], CAM Jazz): Major Italian pianist, albums go back to 1975, Discogs lists nine albums with this particular trio (one in 1987, the rest 2001-09). B+(**) [sp]

Jean-Michel Pilc Trio: Together: Live at Sweet Basil (1999 [2000], Challenge, 2CD): French pianist, moved to New York in 1995, one of his first recordings was this trio with François Moutin (bass) and Ari Hoenig (drums). Looks like it was originally released in two separate volumes, then combined in one package, but I can't find a separate date for the combination. I could try to review the volumes separately, but the energy builds and compounds, making the double more persuasive than either half (but if I had to choose, I'd give the edge to Vol. 2). A- [sp]

Paul Plimley/Trichy Sankaran: Ivory Ganesh Meets Doctor Drums (1996-98 [1998], Songlines): Canadian pianist, duo with Indian percussionist Sankaran (originally from Tamil Nadu, educated in Madras, but based in Ontario), credited here with mridangam and kanjira. The rhythm is a steady draw, but that just sets the piano off. A- [sp]

Valery Ponomarev: Live at Sweet Basil (1993 [1994], Reservoir): Russian trumpet player, moved to New York in 1973, played with Art Blakey 1977-80, and has since organized a tribute big band. Follows the hard bop formula here, with Don Braden (tenor sax), John Hicks (piano), Peter Washington (bass), and Victor Jones (drums). B+(***) [sp]

Michel Portal: Dockings (1997 [1998], Label Bleu): French clarinet player (also bass clarinet, alto sax, and bandoneon here), albums since 1969. Group here includes trumpet (Markus Stockhausen), piano (Bojan Zulfikarpasic), electric bass (Steve Swallow), bass (Bruno Chevillon), and drums (Joey Baron). The latter moves this along nicely, and I do love the bass clarinet. A- [sp]

Chris Potter Quartet: Sundiata (1993 [1995], Criss Cross): Second album recorded, although Concentric Circles was recorded less than a week later and rushed ahead on Concord, where he was a star through 1998. Quartet with Kevin Hays (piano), Doug Weiss (bass), and Al Foster (drums), playing six originals plus "Body and Soul" and "Airegin" -- no pressure there. B+(***) [sp]

Quartett: No Secrets (1988, New Albion): One-shot quartet, with Jay Clayton (vocals/effects), Julian Priester (trombone), Gary Peacock (bass), and Jerry Granelli (drums). I rarely care for voice mixed into free jazz, but Clayton is adept, and the contrast with trombone works nicely. B+(**) [sp]

Freddy Randall & His Band: My Tiny Band Is Chosen: The Parlophone Years 1952-1957 (1952-57 [2017], Lake): English trumpet player, led a trad jazz band up to 1958, appears occasionally after 1963. Penguin Guide recommended an earlier compilation from this label and period, but only three songs reappear here. B+(**) [r]

The Recyclers: Visit (1995 [1997], Babel): Mostly French group, released four albums 1994-97. In this one, the core group is a trio -- Steve Argüelles (drums), Benoît Delbecq (piano), and Noël Akchoté (guitar) -- joined on several tracks (8/15) by François Houle (contra-alto clarinet), Kenneth Newby (suling), Billy Jenkins (guitar), and Wolter Wierbos (trombone). B+(**) [sp]

Buddy Rich: Compact Jazz: Buddy Rich (1955-61 [1987], Verve): Drummer (1917-87), mostly led big bands from 1945 on, but there are a few smaller groups here (e.g., a quintet with Sweets Edison, Sonny Criss, and Jimmy Rowles). Nice, varied sampler, with one vocal (Rich singing "Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea," with Edison and Ben Webster). [r]

Howard Riley: Flight (1971, Turtle): British avant pianist, first two albums are superb, including the Penguin Guide crown album, The Day Will Come. He followed them up with this trio, with Barry Guy (bass) and Tony Oxley (drums), all very young, with major careers ahead. Oxley is especially vital here. A- [yt]

Howard Riley: Feathers With Jaki (1984-88 [1996], Slam): Two tracks (21:43) of piano duets with Jaki Byard, originally released as Live at the Royal Festival Hall, plus the album Feathers, a piano trio with Mario Casrtronari (bass) and Tony Marsh (drums). While the duo is interesting, the trio packs more punch. B+(***) [r]

Howard Riley: Consequences (2003 [2005], 33 Records): Solo piano. Still impressive. B+(***) [r]

Howard Riley: Short Stories (Volume Two) (2004-06 [2006], Slam, 2CD): Even more solo piano. B+(**) [r]

Max Roach: With the New Orchestra of Boston and the So What Brass Quintet (1993-95 [1996], Blue Note): Drummer (1924-2007), one of the first to get the hang of bebop (Kenny Clarke was first, then Art Blakey and Roach; it's hard to find any decent pre-1950 bebop records with anyone else). Guest star here for a 50:43 piece composed by Fred Tillis, conducted by David Epstein, and played by the New Orchestra of Boston, followed by a 12:13 piece played by the So What Brass Quintet (two trumpets, trombone, French horn, and tuba). B+(**) [sp]

Max Roach: To the Max! (1990-91 [1992], Enja, 2CD): Forty-some years into a multifaceted career, he's recapitulating, opening with his Chorus and Orchestra, reprising his M'Boom percussion, assembling a quartet -- with Cecil Bridgewater (trumpet), Odean Pope (tenor sax), and Tyrone Brown (bass) -- and then doubling it, with a couple tracks on his own. B+(**) [yt]

Renee Rosnes: Art & Soul (1999, Blue Note): Canadian pianist, played with Joe Henderson and Wayne Shorter in the late 1980s, recorded for Blue Note 1990-2002 (and a couple times each: one duets with husband Bill Charlap, the other in the supergroup Artemis). This is a trio with Scott Colley (bass) and Billy Drummond (drums), plus percussion (Richard Bona) on two tracks, with Dianne Reeves singing two songs. B+(**) [sp]

Jim Rotondi: Iron Man (2005 [2006], Criss Cross): Trumpet/flugelhorn player, originally from Montana, studied at UNT, moved to New York, later to Austria. Leads a quintet here with Jimmy Greene (tenor/soprano sax), Steve Nelson (vibes), Doug Weiss (bass), and Bill Stewart (drums). B+(***) [r]

ROVA Saxophone Quartet: Bingo (1996 [1998], Victo): Saxophone quartet, started in 1977 with Jon Raskin, Larry Ochs, Andrew Voigt, and Bruce Ackley, with Steve Adams (who previously played in Your Neighborhood Saxophone Quartet) replacing Voigt by 1990. Possibly one of their better pure quartets. [Spotify only has 3 (of 6) tracks.] B+(**) [sp]

Paul Rutherford/Philipp Wachsmann/Barry Guy: ISKRA NCKPA 1903 (1992 [1995], Maya): English avant-trombonist, formed the band Iskra 1903 in 1972 as a trio with guitarist Derek Bailey and bassist Guy: their albums (Chapter One: 1970-1972) were collected by Emanem on 3CD. This revival replaces the guitar with Wachsmann's violin. B+(**) [bc]

Samo Salamon Quartet: Ornethology (2003 [2004], Samo): Slovenian guitarist, probably his first album, quartet with Achille Succi (alto sax/bass clarinet), Salvatore Maione (bass), and Zlatko Kaucic (drums). A- [sp]

Samo Salomon Sextet: Ela's Dream (2004 [2005], Splasc(H)): Achille Succi (alto sax/bass clarinet) and Zlatko Kaucic (drums) return from his quartet, with new bassist Paolino Dalla Porta, the group fortified with Kyle Gregory (trumpet) and Dave Binney (alto sax). Most impressive when Binney goes on a tear. B+(***) [sp]

Marit Sandvik: Song, Fall Soft (1995, Taurus): Norwegian jazz singer, first album, Discogs co-credits this to Jazz I Nord but that's not clear from the cover, which just lists the musician names: Řystein B Blix (trombone), Jřrn Řien (piano), Konrad Kaspersen (bass), and Trond Sverre Hansen (drums). Three originals (co-written with Řien), a Sandvik lyric to a Wayne Shorter piece, and seven standards. B+(***) [sp]

Michel Sardaby Trio: Night Cap (1970, Disques Debs): Pianist, b. 1935 in Martinique, moved to Paris in 1956. Early album, a trio with Percy Heath (bass) and Connie Kay (drums), playing five originals and "Satin Doll." Near perfect. A- [yt]

Dave Schnitter: Sketch (2001 [2004], Omix/Sunnyside): More often David, b. 1948 in Newark, tenor saxophonist, played with Art Blakey and recorded four albums for Muse 1976-81, a bit more after 1996, with this one of the few items one can find. Quartet with James Zollar (trumpet), bass, and drums. B+(***) [sp]

Irene Schweizer/Maggie Nichols/George Lewis/Joëlle Léandre/Günter Sommer: The Storming of the Winter Palace (1986-88 [1988], Intakt): Piano, vocals, trombone, bass, and drums. I've never been a fan of vocals in this sort of music, but Nichols fits in better here than elsewhere. B+(***) [sp]

Jimmy Scott: Dream (1995, Sire): Jazz singer (1925-2014), a genetic disorder stunted his growth and left him with a high voice, joined Lionel Hampton in 1949, had some success with Savoy into the early 1960s, recorded an album for Atlantic in 1970, had a comeback with All the Way in 1992, followed by this album. Nine standards, taken at a snail's pace, his voice unique and affecting, just enough support from a rhythm section stocked with stars (Milt Jackson, Junior Mance, Ron Carter), tasteful guest spots including two bits of saxophone (Patience Higgins, Red Holloway. A- [sp]

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

  • Matt Barber: The Song Is You (MB) [04-15]
  • Bokani Dyer: Radio Sechaba (Brownswood) [05-12]
  • Marc Jordan: Waiting for the Sun to Rise (Linus Entertainment) [04-23]
  • Le Boeuf Brothers: Hush (Soundspore) [04-21]
  • MUEJL [Michel Stawicki/Uygur Vural/Elisabetta Lanfredini/Joăo Madeira/Luiz Rocha]: By Breakfast (4DaRecord) [02-03]
  • Taiko Saito: Tears of a Cloud (Trouble in the East) [04-28]

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Sunday, March 26, 2023

Speaking of Which

Started this on Friday, but by Sunday evening I'm getting really sick and tired of it all. Nearly done with Nathan J Robinson's The Current Affairs Rules for Life: On Social Justice & Its Critics, and I'm getting tired of it too. Not that it's a bad book, but that I so rarely use terms like "social justice" (or for that matter, "socialism") that debate over their use hardly matters to me. Similarly, the long opening section where he tries to rebut conservative writers by taking them seriously wasn't a lot of help. (The chapter on Jordan Peterson was especially hard, as the main point that he writes verbose nonsense was proven by reproducing way too much of it.) Still, I do some of this myself in the Shields comment, which exasperatingly was the last item written here.

The Simmons-Duffin piece is one of the most important below.

Top story threads:

Top stories for the week:

The Fed, Banks, and the Economy: Just a couple notes here. I hardly need to remind you that I thought Biden made a big mistake in reappointing Jerome Powell.

Trump/DeSantis: Maybe we should start merging their names, like Benifer or Brexit? A lot of pieces that could be better sorted, possibly eliminating some redundancy. The race to the bottom makes you wonder how either will ever recover, but the American mainstream media hardly has any attention span at all.

  • James Bamford: [03-23] The Trump Campaign's Collusion With Israel: "While US media fixated on Russian interference in the 2016 election, an Israeli secret agent's campaign to influence the outcome went unreported." This is a big story, but for many of us it's anticlimactic: of course, Israel actively sticks its nose into American politics. I never had any doubt that Israel was more deeply involved in the Trump campaign than Russia could dream of being. All you need to know is that Republican mega-donor Sheldon Adelson was also Netanyahu's main backer. What this article adds to such common knowledge is that it involves more spies, and it makes the quid pro quo explicit for Israel's support of Trump.

  • John Wagner/Hannah Allam: [03-24] Trump warns of 'potential death & destruction' if he's charged in hush-money case.

  • Laura Jedeed: [03-22] Trump Asked Supporters to Take to the Streets. This Was the Sad Result. "Outside a courthouse in New York City, it was difficult ot tell who had come to protest the pending indictment of the former president and who had come to troll." Tori Otten adds: [03-21] The Pro-Trump Protest Was So Small Organizers Are Pretending They Wanted It to Be "Low-Key".

  • Dan Solomon: [03-24] Why Is Donald Trump Kicking Off His 2024 Campaign in Waco? "During the thirtieth anniversary of the Branch Davidian tragedy, no less." Sounds like an homage to Reagan's launching his 1980 campaign at the site of the 1964 murder of three civil rights workers, except that the appeal is less to plain racists than to even crazier militants (the late Timothy McVeigh would surely be impressed).

  • Zack Beauchamp: [03-22] Yes, Trump's indictment could cause a constitutional crisis. Just look at Israel. I don't really get either point. Israel doesn't have a constitution: Ben Gurion didn't want to pin himself down on principle, plus he like the idea of keeping British colonial law around without really owning it. And Israel has a history of sending politicians to jail. Netanyahu has avoided that fate by exploiting the fundamental weakness of democracy in Israel, and that's come as a shock to a lot of Israelis -- even ones who don't have a problem with Netanyahu's politics. But an indictment of Trump isn't even that.

  • Matt Ford: [03-24] Florida's Attempt to Muzzle the Press Could Hurt Fox News the Most: "Ron DeSantis and the Republican legislature want to make it easier to sue journalists. But right-wing outlets will be the ripest targets if defamation laws are loosened." Still, this is a pretty appalling bill.

  • Susan B Glasser: [03-23] Trolled by Trump, Again: "Thoughts after a week or waiting and waiting for the indictment that the former President promised."

  • Ed Kilgore: [03-26] Donald Trump Thinks America Is a Sh*thole Country: "In Waco, he denounced America more than any alleged super-patriot ever." With quotes so long, the article practically wrote itself. No Trump quotes (just one from a "conservative columnist" defending DeSantis) in Kilgore's [03-25] Can America Survive a Second Trump Presidency, Emotionally? I don't know about emotionally, but he makes a good case that we're in for a serious cognitive breakdown if Trump wins, because he's so far out of whack from everything we're disposed to believe about America.

  • Nicole Narea: [03-25] Would Trump's indictment help or hurt his 2024 campaign? Four "political strategists and pollsters" comment. They're split, but none of their opinions are very convincing.

  • Heather Digby Parton: [03-24] Donald Trump in Waco: It's a signal to the darkest elements of the far right. For more background, see Tara Isabella Burton: [03-23] The Waco tragedy, explained.

  • Areeba Shah: [03-23] Ex-prosecutor warns Trump to get a new lawyer over potential "conflict of interest" in Stormy case. It turns out that Trump lawyer Joe Tacopina previously represented Daniels on the same case. It's amusing to compare his press statements then to now.

  • Walter Shapiro: [03-23] The Trump Indictment Is Bringing Out the Worst in People. Here's a List of Them.

  • Alex Shephard: [03-23] Ron DeSantis Looks Like a Loser: "The Florida governor and presumptive presidential candidate is falling in the polls and making the same mistakes as Trump's past rivals." As James Baker once put it, "we don't have a dog in that fight." The thing is, DeSantis has adopted the Trump policy world in toto, assuming that it holds sway in the party. But Trump's hold over the Republican base has nothing to do with policy -- policy is just something Trump hands over to the donors and party operatives, in exchange for not getting in the way and cramping his style. His hold is his style, and DeSantis doesn't even have a style, much less one that can win against Trump. So if Trump implodes, which always seems like a possibility, is his successor going to be a cardboard cutout with Trump policies, or something else which we haven't seen yet, because nobody dares imitate Trump yet?

  • Kenny Stancil: [03-24] Critics say DeSantis move to expand "Don't Say Gay" exposes law's true intentions. As originally sold, it only covered grades K-3, where it seemed to be prohibiting virtually nothing. Having gotten away with that, extending it to grades 4-12 is something else.

  • Michael Tomasky: [03-26] Why Trump '24 Is Far More Dangerous Than Trump '16: Argues he's added two new "arguments" this time "that make him a much bigger threat to the republic than he was in 2016: revenge and apocalypse." Revenge I get: he started 2016 with his bad ideas about how to "make America great again," but he's so self-centered, and so thin-skinned, that all he can remember now is the people who have wronged him. But apocalypse? Tomasky quotes him: "Our opponents have done everything they can do to crush our spirit and break our will. But they've failed. They've only made us stronger. And 2024 is the final battle. That's gonna be the big one. You put me back in the White House, their reign will be over, and America will be a free nation once again." No doubt a Trump win in 2024 would be a major bummer, but only an incredibly concentrated ego could imagine that it would be so fateful. If he wins, we'll resist him, like we did in 2017, though perhaps more desperately, given that in many respects time is running out.

    I come from a long line of "Revelations scholars" -- people who while away their hours scouring the Bible for signs that the world is coming to an end, where all die but the elect are rewarded with heaven, while the rest are dispatched to hell. I've never understood such macabre fascination, nor the strange politics such a mindset breeds. We increasingly live in a world of plenty, where most people could escape the hardships and misery of the past. And while human justice may never be as perfect as God's is presumed to be, it could be vastly improved here and now, while we're still alive to enjoy it. Alas, not if Trump or his disciples can help it.

Climate: I'm still surprised at how little comment the U.N. report has resulted in.

  • Kate Aronoff: [03-24] Why Optimism Can't Fix Our Climate Politics: "This week's U.N. report shows how hard it is to save the world when capitalism is working against you." Aronoff also wrote: [03-17] Who Is Biden Trying to Please With His Middle-Ground Energy Policy? "He's pissing off environmentalists, and oil executives are still donating to Republicans."

  • Ketan Joshi: [03-21] The U.N.'s Disturbing New Climate Report Is a Call to Battle.

  • Hannah Ritchie: [03-21] We need the right kind of climate optimism: "Climate pessimism dooms us to a terrible future. Complacent optimism is no better." Aronoff cites, and critiques, this piece in her article above. It's tempting to fight back here with the Gramsci quote ("pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will"), but even that strikes me as a panacea. Optimism doesn't work -- doesn't mean anything, whether complacent or contingent -- and isn't even necessary. Maybe I'm betraying my Calvinist upbringing, but you do what you can, what after due consideration you think right, and that may or may not suffice, but as long as you act, it doesn't matter how you feel about it. In fact, feelings can just get in the way. Or perhaps you should consider the second law of thermodynamics: entropy is going to win, but if you work hard enough, you might be able to hold it back a while. Indeed, isn't that the model for life?

Israel: A couple items, no attempt to go deep, but one bit of context comes from a Peter Beinart tweet: "Yes, it's beautiful to see Israelis fighting a fascist government. But we can't forget that if this was a Palestinian protest in Tel Aviv against Israeli fascism, the protesters would likely end up j ailed, maimed or dead."

Ukraine War: Unless war breaks out with China, this remains the most serious story in the world, at least in the short term, yet the media is still asking, not what they can do to impress on everyone how urgent a peaceable solution is, but on furthering the propaganda aims of whoever they're most aligned with. Meanwhile, I filed some non-Ukraine pieces here, because they involve the broader neo-Cold War scenario.

  • Connor Echols: [03-24] Diplomacy Watch: The heavy price of a new cold war: Blinken wasted no time in condemning Xi Jinping for meeting with Putin in Moscow, even though Xi's public remarks were all in favor of a negotiated peace. Although I get the feeling that Zelensky is more hard-line than Biden, at least he doesn't go out of his way to butt heads with China. The US seems to view pushing China into an alliance with Russia as a positive step.

  • Gilbert Achcar: [03-17] There's No Settlement of the War in Ukraine Without China. Actually, there's no settlement without the US and Russia, assuming they can come to a settlement that is acceptable to Ukraine (possibly with the threat of bouncing some blank checks). China might have a bit of influence with Russia, if they want to press it, but the US is mostly reacting negatively to Chinese diplomatic efforts, and there's not much China can do about that. Still, it's good to have China in the mix.

  • Dave DeCamp: [03-22] Seymour Hersh: CIA Planted Nord Stream Cover-Up Story in the Media. (Hersh's article is: The Cover-Up.) Imagine the New York Times falling for such a thing. DeCamp also wrote: [03-23] Pentagon Leaders Say New Budget Will Help Prepare for War With China.

  • Connor Echols: [03-21] UK to send controversial 'depleted uranium' rounds to Ukraine: "The weapons are exceptionally good at breaking through armor but carry risks of long-term harm to civilians." I think the risks are well documented, especially in Iraq, where the US used uranium bullets extensively. "Depleted" means most of the U-235 isotopes have been removed, leaving the only slightly more stable but still radioactive and toxic U-238. There's nothing to stop Russia from reciprocating.

  • Fred Kaplan: [03-22] The Big Takeaway From Xi's Summit With Putin: Not a very clear one, but it boils down to: China will not help Russia fight its war, but China will also not help America strangle the Russian economy. So while China professes to want peace, it will not pressure Russia to surrender on America's terms.

  • Peter Rutland: [03-24] Why pushing for the break up of Russia is absolute folly. I'd go a step beyond this in insisting that the US has no right, and should have no desire, to interfere in the internal politics of any other country. (And yes, I would include Israel as a country we shouldn't interfere with, although the billions we give them to help finance their colonial project is also a form of interference.)

  • Justin Scheck/Thomas Gibbons-Neff: [03-25] Stolen Valor: The U.S. Volunteers in Ukraine Who Lie, Waste, and Bicker.

  • Trita Parsi: [03-22] The U.S. Is Not an Indispensable Peacemaker. I was going to wonder how long it's been since the US was any kind of peacemaker, but the first paragraph here starts with the 1978 Camp David Accords, where the US helped end conflict between Israel and Egypt, not least by promising each a substantial future stipend. Parsi also mentions the 1993 Oslo Accords, where the settlement was less generous, and the 1998 Good Friday Agreement over Northern Ireland. More recent deals are harder to find, mostly because the US has been too intimately involved in creating the conflicts. China, on the other hand, is large enough to offer a steady hand and some economic perks, much like the US once did. Hence the Saudi-Iran deal.

  • Kelley Beaucar Vlahos: [03-24] US launches airstrikes in Syria after American killed in drone attack: The US still has 900 troops in Syria. It's hard to think of any rationale for keeping them there, other than to provide targets for triggering pointless reprisal attacks like this one.

Iraq: A few more pieces related to the 20th anniversary.

  • Gordon Adams: [03-25] Has America's 'Vietnam syndrome' ever gone away? What a strange thing to ask. The phrase was a supposed ailment caused by completely sensible efforts to learn lessons from the mistakes made in Vietnam. Those who wielded the phrase wanted to deny those lessons (as they advised caution and concern for consequences), which they saw could limit the future use of US military power. So they devised a series of tests, where they meant to show that the US military could engage and win, without generating the popular outcry they blamed for their failures in Vietnam: hence, Grenada, Panama, Kuwait, Afghanistan, Iraq. By the end, what returned wasn't "Vietnam syndrome"; it was reality, where people fight against alien invaders, even American ones. If Ukraine seems to be working out better, it's because the roles are reversed. This time, the US is supporting a people trying to dislodge a foreign invader, much as the Soviet Union supplied arms and support to the Vietnamese defending themselves against an encroaching empire.

  • Anthony DiMaggio: [03-24] 20 Years of Iraq Denialism: The New York Times Continues to Get It Wrong on U.S. Empire: A response to last week's article, 20 Years On, a Question Lingers About Iraq: Why Did the U.S. Invade?

  • Melvin Goodman: [03-24] Still Spinning the Iraq War 20 Years Later.

  • Branko Marcetic: [03-23] For Putin, Iraq War marked a turning point in US-Russia relations: "Leaked diplomatic cables show an increasingly skeptical Moscow, souring by the day on Washington's determination to impose its will."

  • Jeffrey St Clair: [03-23] Selling the Iraq War: a How-to Guide. Essay adapted from his book, Grand Theft Pentagon, provides a lot of detail on the PR firms the Pentagon and CIA hired to promote the invasion of Iraq, as well as the revolving door between those firms and their clients. For instance, I recall Ahmed Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress, but forgot (or never knew) that they were set up as a front by John Rendon, who had previously shilled for the Kuwaiti royal family.

  • Jeffrey St Clair: [03-24] American Dream, Global Nightmare: On the Origins of the Iraq War: Mostly consists of a piece from 2003, which is exceptionally detailed on the impact of sanctions and periodic bombings between 1990 and 2003. As the introduction notes, "One of the problems with commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Iraq War is that the Iraq War didn't start 20 years ago. It had been going on for more than a decade before Shock and Awe." He also includes a long list of quotes from 2001 to 2017, "a kind of oral history of the war (mostly) from the perpetrator's point of view."

Other stories:

Zack Beauchamp: [03-24] India's ruling party just kicked a major rival out of Parliament -- and sparked a new crisis: Narenda Modi's government "has rewritten election rules in its favor, assailed the rights of the Muslim minority, jailed anti-government protesters, and reined in the free press." Now they expelled Congress Party leader Rahul Gandhi, after he was convicted of defaming the "Modi community" and sentenced to two years, for making what's generally understood to be a joke in a campaign speech. You'd think the "cancel culture" decriers of the US right would be up in arms over this attack on free speech, but Modi is a member of Steve Bannon's International Fraternity of Fascists, so I guess not. (That, by the way, was a joke, as well as an admission that I'm not traveling to India any time soon.)

Kyle Chayka: [03-24] The TikTok hearings inspired little faith in social media or in Congress. By the way, the New Yorker cartoon shows two people sitting on top of a flooded house, one looking at a phone, with the caption: "Looks like Congress might finally do something about TikTok."

Ellen Ioanes: [03-25] America's hypersonic arms race with China, explained. The problem with hypersonic missiles is that they can't be defended against. They make previously defensible targets, like aircraft carriers, vulnerable. Moreover, building more of your own hypersonic weapons doesn't change this. Hence, an arms race only makes you more vulnerable.

Ian Millhiser:

Win McCormack: [03-17] The Thucydides Trap: "Can the United States and China avoid military conflict?" I don't know. Suppose maybe they're overthinking this a bit? Before Britain, there never was a world hegemon, and even at its peak, Britain had rivals and blind spots. After WWII, the US took over and had more size and a bit more range, but still counted Russia and China as rivals, and the international working class as a threat. After 1990, some Americans thought they were had won, coining terms like hyperpower, but then they got tripped up in places as backward as Afghanistan. And then, while Russia imploded, China pulled it self up and came to be viewed as a formidable rival. Over the past 20 years, has any subject collected more stupid and histrionic verbiage than US-China? What makes this especially strange is that while Americans see a rivalry for power, Chinese are much more likely to think in terms of defense of autonomy. Of course, China is not the only nation threatened by American hubris, so it's always possible that they could create alliances with other nations so-threatened. I wouldn't bet against them, especially given how American power has been crushed by inequality and militarism. The best answer is to give up on the dreams of ruling the world (perhaps most explicit in Henry Luce's "American Century" of 1941, and in the Iraq hawks' Project for a New American Century). Pretending that trap is as old as Thucydides is nothing but an evasion.

Timothy Noah: [03-22] GOP's Idea of Youth: Little League? Proms? Try Working in a Slaughterhouse and Marrying at 10. "Republicans have declared war on children, and Democrats should talk more forthrightly about it."

Nathan J Robinson:

  • [03-23] Bernie Sanders Keeps Us Focused on What Matters: Review, sort of, of Sanders new campaign memoir/political manifesto, It's OK to Be Angry About Capitalism.

  • [03-13] Every Libertarian Becomes a Socialist the Moment the Free Market Screws Them: "If the rich customers of Silicon Valley Bank deserv to be protected from economic hardship by the government, what about the rest of us?"

  • [03-04] Why Centrism Is Morally Indefensible: Review of Tim Urban's big book, What's Our Problem? A Self-Help Book for Societies. Urban seems to like to explain his ideas with drawings, so Robinson reproduces a few (of some 300). One is called "The Illiberal Staircase," which descends from "Liberal Environment" to "Even Worse Shit" as it becomes "More Dictatorship-y." They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but all this diagram is exhausted after 26 (including the less "worse shit" I skipped over).

  • [03-24] The Problem With AI Is the Problem With Capitalism. Something I saw about AI last week reminded me of Robert Reich's The Work of Nations (1991), where he reassured us that American workers need not worry about trade sucking manufacturing jobs overseas, because all those lost jobs will be replaced by higher-paying jobs as "symbolic manipulators." (Clinton was so enamored with Reich's reasoning that he picked Reich as his Secretary of Labor, to preside over the great NAFTA exodus.) I can think of a lot of jobs that AI won't be able to degrade much, but it should easily wipe out "symbolic manipulators" -- as if Reich's thesis hadn't been demolished enough already.

Jon A Shields: [03-23] Liberal Professors Can Rescue the G.O.P.: A self-described conservative professor of government begs his liberal colleagues to assign readings from Edmund Burke, David Hume, and Adam Smith, so their impressionable young students will get some exposure to "good conservative thinking." After all, "It's hard to imagine how the next generation of Republican leaders will become thoughtful conservatives if all they've ever been tutored in is its Trump-style expressions." After all, he pairs his assignments with "books by progressive authors" (but doesn't name any in the article). Still, the conservative cause he leads with is the defense of marriage. I don't have a problem with marriage; in fact, I recommend it. My problem is with a legal system that penalizes people who aren't married, and one that traps people (mostly women). Lots of conservative "virtues" are just that, and people who embrace them deserve respect. But that changes when they're used to attack and/or degrade other people who don't conform to conservative ideals -- of which the one that really matters is the belief in a hierarchical social and economic order. Give that a fair hearing, and most people will reject it. As for the rest, lots of complaining and pleading: conservatives are powerless because most professors are liberals, and students are mostly liberal too, so conservatives feel left out. Boo-hoo.

Selena Simmons-Duffin: [03-25] 'Live free and die'? The sad state of U.S. life expectancy: As the chart shows, life expectancy is dropping, so fast that the last two years have wiped out all previous gains since 1996, which had been trailing most "comparable" countries at least since the 1980s. Pandemic is only the most obvious cause: it caused a drop pretty much everywhere, but nowhere near as much as in the US. Moreover, other countries have started to bounce back, but not the US. As noted elsewhere, Republicans not only decided that deaths due to pandemic are acceptable, they've vowed never to allow public health officials to do their jobs again. Still, many other factors add to the problem, and most of have a Republican political component. It's as if they read Hobbes' description of 17th century life as "nasty, brutish, and short," and said, "yeah, that's freedom."

Paul Street: [03-24] Lost and Found: The Republicans Haven't Lost Their Conservative Minds: Review of Robert Draper: Weapons of Mass Delusion: When the Republican Party Lost Its Mind. Every time I look at Draper's book, the thing that strikes me as most odd is how he only looks as far back as the 2020 election to date his subject moment ("when the Republican Party lost its mind"), when evidence of deep irrationality and dangerous psychoses has been plain for anyone to see for decades. For example, Dana Milbank's The Destructionists sees Gingrich as pivotal. David Corn's American Psychosis goes back earlier still, to McCarthyism, the Birchers, and Goldwater. Street's a little effusive with the F-word, but I can still figure out what he's talking about.

Prem Thakker: [03-24] Michigan Becomes First State in 58 Years to Repeal Anti-Union "Right-to-Work" Law: But the law in question was only passed in 2012, when Republicans temporarily seized control of state government.

David Wallace-Wells: [03-17] The idea that pandemic response went too far is no longer confined to the margins: Republicans all across the country are trying to pass laws to make sure that public health officials can never again use their offices to protect public health. Linked to by Dean Baker, who has his own point to add: [03-17] NYT Can Trash Trumpers for Leaving Us Less Prepared for Next Pandemic, but Not Drug Companies. Baker also wrote: [03-16] The Cult of Intellectual Property Has Taken Over Our Leading News Outlets.

Sharon Zhang: [03-24] GOP is seeking rich, self-funding candidates as party is outraised by Democrats: If this is true, it flips what has long been standard policy of the two parties. Republican elites are famous for recruiting ambitious young lawyers to run for office, much like they hired help for their businesses (Richard Nixon and Bob Dole are famous examples; Nelson Rockefeller and Pierre DuPont were the exceptions). Meanwhile, Democrats have pined for candidates who could pay their own way, and generally blackballed anyone who couldn't.

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Tuesday, March 21, 2023

Music Week

March archive (in progress).

Music: Current count 39836 [39787] rated (+49), 50 [48] unrated (+2: 22 new, 28 old).

I want to write more about the weekend posts, but let's get the music out of the way first. Old Music continues to work through the Penguin Guide unheard 4-star list, which netted six A- records and eleven high B+'s. Also a fair amount of new music, mostly because I started looking for records I knew existed (three from Christgau Consumer Guides, and several more I received PR on but had been waiting, hoping that a CD might appear in the mail: most obviously, previous chart-toppers East Axis and James Brandon Lewis). More finds there from Intakt and Mahakala Music, which are on Spotify. Four five more A- records there, plus seven high B+, so a big haul this week.

Minor bookkeeping news: I've finally decided I should start a tracking file. It's not even caught up yet, and I doubt I'll pursue it aggressively, but it's clear that it would help as a prospect list, and it will eventually be necessary if/when I do another Francis Davis Jazz Poll. I still don't plan on doing any metacritic/EOY aggregate lists this year (or ever again), but eliminating the tracking file seems to be a bit too much.

I thought I'd dust off a few of my old blog pieces around from the first year of the Bush War in Iraq. We saw a bunch of pieces last week on the 20th anniversary of the war, and there's always a temptation to say "I told you so." I've always been a bit proud of my opposition not just to the Iraq war and to the Afghanistan war that preceded it and made it not just possible but probable.

But also I can claim to be one of the few people who saw the writing on the wall as early as 1989, when I got a letter from a generally apolitical cousin accepting the assertion that Saddam Hussein was really "another Hitler." That was part of GHW Bush's war propaganda, and it implied that Americans couldn't let it go until he was dead. It was a particularly stupid thing to say, especially given that the deal with the Saudis and most of the UN was to simply clear Iraqi troops out of Kuwait, then let them be. That solution never sat well with Cheney, Powell, and the other "vulcans" in Bush's war entourage, not so much because they admired FDR's resolve as because they thought letting him go made America look weak. Their whole idea was that America should be so strong, so imposing, that the rest of the world would fall meekly in line. Yet, for thirteen years and counting, they took Hussein's very existence as a grave insult.

Even if you hadn't figured that out by 1990, when US troops twiddled their thumbs while Hussein brutally suppressed a Shiite revolt egged on by Bush just a few miles away, it should have become clear through the machinations of the Project for a New American Century in the 1990s, which Clinton not only went along with but accented with his sanctions, "no fly zone" and periodic bombings of Iraq. I was so upset with Clinton over Iraq that I wrote letters urging conviction even though the charges he was impeached over were bogus. He was dangerous and needed to be stopped (not that Gore was clearly better).

It took until Sunday night before my Speaking of Iraq was ready to post. I wrote a fairly long introduction, edited and annotated the blog posts (nothing substantial, but the originals were posted immediately, so could use some tuning), then added a pretty comprehensive reading list at the end, which both puts the year in context and provides a rough update to the present. My blogging at the time was pretty sporadic, so I missed a bunch of details, but in the end, I was pretty pleased with the piece, both as an "I told you so" and for the deeper analysis underlying it. So I tweeted my usual announcement, and also put up a Facebook post (something I rarely do; my Facebook is mostly limited to food pics and family matters).

Then, well, nothing happened. Neither post showed up in my feed, and when I tracked down Twitter a day later, I found that fewer than 10% of my followers had seen it. I wrote that story up in the introduction to yesterday's Speaking of Which. While I could have rested on my first post of the weekend, a couple things suggested I should spend Monday collecting links and commenting, instead of rushing out this Music Week. Aside from unfinished business in the introduction, I wanted to note many of the other Iraq 20th anniversary articles, especially ones that spurred me to make further points. Plus, for future reference, I took note of many other stories, even if just barely (like the climate report, the anti-abortion madness, and the long-anticipated Trump indictment -- which he's playing up like a campaign stunt).

There was lots more I skipped, especially the rather fascinating story of bank bailouts and the Fed's quixotic campaign against inflation -- which like everything the Fed does was initially meant to help banks. (It is, after all, a fully captured regulatory agency.) Also, the first week in many with nothing on Israel, but more will surely follow. Smotrich is back to claiming that Palestinians don't exist, and that both banks of the Jordan River are "ours." As always, see Mondoweiss for the latest.

One thing I've been thinking about is the comparison between Iraq and Ukraine. Both, regardless of previous complaints, were clear acts of aggression, wars that everyone should condemn. There's another similarity that's been little commented on: both invasions started with a separatist toehold -- there is little difference between the Kurdish area in Iraq pre-2003 and Crimea/Donbas in Ukraine pre-2022. But there are two big differences. One is that no other nation nor the UN stepped in to help Iraq repel American aggression, whereas the US and NATO have jumped in, and largely taken over, the fight against Russian aggression. Consequently, many people -- including many on the left whose first instincts are for peace -- have come to support the armed response. Second, the antiwar movement has been squashed brutally in Russia, where it is most needed. Due to these two factors, and the isolation Russia was subjected to before it started the war, it's been impossibly hard to formulate an antiwar movement in the US and Europe.

Back in 2003, I took heart in the size of the prewar antiwar protests, both in the US and in Europe, and expected a movement to build from there. That didn't happen, for reasons I can't fully explain (I can think of lots of reasons, but none fully convincing). And while most Americans readily admit that Iraq and Afghanistan have been disasters, the lessons we should have learned from those wars haven't sunk in. We're still stuck in the same mindset that led to those wars, which is one reason the hawks then are still hawks now (the Kagans are an especially good barometer). It's dismaying that they haven't been stripped from power, but the simplest reason is that no one else has come up with a different approach to take their place.

The Patrick Cockburn quote near the top of yesterday's post is revelatory. Putin actually beat Bush to the War on Terror, and he's survived longer because until Ukraine he never overplayed his hand.

Next irregular post will probably be a Book Roundup.

New records reviewed this week:

Sarah Bernadette: Sad Poems on My Phone (2023, Blujazz, EP): Singer-songwriter from New Jersey, studying at Berklee, has a couple of previous EPs and a live album on her Bandcamp. Three songs, 16:18. Middle one ("Do You Know What Betrayal Is?") makes me think of Annette Peacock. B [cdr]

Jim Black & the Schrimps: Ain't No Saint (2022 [2023], Intakt): Drummer, modeled this band on Tim Berne's Bloodcount, which he was a member of in the late 1990s, starting afresh with young musicians I've never heard of: Asger Nilssen (alto sax), Julius Gawlik (tenor sax), and Felix Henkelhausen (bass). Gets the sound right (minus Berne's later addition of guitar), and keeps the rhythm well lubricated, as he always does. A- [sp]

Ludovica Burtone: Sparks (2020 [2023], Outside In Music): Italian violinist, seems to be her first album (although she has a number of side-credits). String quartet with Fung Chern Hwei on second violin, backed by a Marta Sanchez-led piano trio, with guests, including vocalist Sami Stevens on one cut, saxophonist Melissa Aldana on another. Vigorous and varied. B+(**) [cd]

Sara Caswell: The Way to You (2019 [2023], Anzic): Violinist, from Indiana, only her third (fourth?) album since 2000 but has appeared fairly regularly with others. Backed with guitar (Jesse Lewis), bass (Ike Sturm), drums (Jared Schonig), plus vibes (Chris Dingman) on 4 (of 9) tracks. B+(***) [cd]

Che Noir: Noir or Never (2023, Poetic, EP): Buffalo rapper Marche Lashawn, has a couple albums, new one is a shorty (9 songs, 22:41). B+(**) [sp]

Andrew Cyrille: Music Delivery/Percussion (2022 [2023], Intakt): Drummer, born 1939 in Brooklyn of Haitian immigrants, joined Cecil Taylor in 1965, many records since then. This is solo. B+(**) [sp]

DJ Black Low: Impumelelo (2023, Awesome Tapes From Africa): South African amapiano producer Sam Austin, second album. B+(***) [sp]

East Axis: No Subject (2023, Mack Avenue): Quartet, three holdovers from their 2021 album (which topped my list): Gerald Cleaver (drums), Kevin Ray (bass), and Matthew Shipp (piano). Allen Lowe's sax slot now belongs to Scott Robinson, so they've replaced an avant player who knows tons about old jazz with a trad player who's been known to swing free (and one who plays a wider range of instruments: tenor sax, alto clarinet, tarogato, trumpet, and slide cornet). B+(***) [sp]

Christoph Irniger Pilgrim: Ghost Cat (2022 [2023], Intakt): Swiss tenor saxophonist, fifth group album, several more on the side. Quintet, with names on the cover: Stefan Aeby (piano), Dave Gisler (guitar), Raffaele Bossard (bass), and Michael Stulz (drums). B+(**) [sp]

Floy Krouchi/James Brandon Lewis/Benjamin Sanz: Cliffs (2022, Off): Two French musicians I had never heard of invited the saxophonist for a week in the south of France, where they came up with this totally unheralded album. Not as expansive as Lewis's own work, but in many ways a better showcase for his prodigious skills. A- [sp]

Bill Laurance & Michael League: Where You Wish You Were (2022 [2023], ACT): Piano and oud/guitar duo, compositions evenly divided (with 4/11 shared credits). B+(**) [sp]

Joëlle Léandre: Zurich Concert (2022 [2023], Intakt): French bassist, tries her hand at a solo album, with her vocals. B+(**) [sp]

Leap Day Trio: Live at the Cafe Bohemia (2020 [2023], Giant Step Arts): Drummer Matt Wilson, saxophonist Jeff Lederer, and bassist Mimi Jones, group assembled for a Leap Day Eve concert, where Wilson and Lederer have played on many of each other's albums. B+(***) [sc]

James Brandon Lewis Trio: Eye of I (2021 [2023], Anti-): Tenor saxophonist, consistently impressive since his 2011 debut, won Jazz Critics Poll for Jesup Wagon in 2021. Seems to be making a bid here for a broader rock audience, what with the new label, and liner notes by Thurston Moore. Nominally a trio with Chris Hoffman (cello/loops) and Max Jaffe (drums), but Kirk Knuffke adds his cornet on two tracks, with the latter bleeding into a closer, where the Trio gets mashed up against the another trio called the Messthetics -- guitarist Anthony Pirog plus the rhythm section from Fugazi. The resulting piece, "Fear Not," is a triumph, but I'm less sure of the rest, including covers from Cecil Taylor and Donny Hathaway. A- [sp]

Andrew Moorhead: Interleaved (2022 [2023], OA2): Pianist, first album, nominally a trio with bass (Marcos Varela) and drums (Ari Hoenig), although much of this is layered electronics. B [cd]

The Necks: Travel (2023, Northern Spy): Long-running (since 1989) Australian trio, with Chris Abrahams on piano and organ, Lloyd Swanton (bass guitar/double bass), and Tony Buck (drums/guitar). Double LP, each side a densely patterned texture (17:14 to 20:50). B+(**) [sp]

Aymée Nuviola: Havana Nocturne (2022 [2023], Worldwide): Cuban singer, a half-dozen albums since 2008. Cover adds a featuring credit for pianist Kemuel Roig. B+(**) [cd]

Christopher Parker & the Band of Guardian Angels: Yeah Yeah! (2019 [2023], Mahakala Music): Pianist from Little Rock, wife Kelley Hurt sings, recorded this in Brooklyn with Daniel Carter (winds) and Jaimie Branch (trumpet), backed by William Parker (bass) and Gerald Cleaver (drums). Piano is impressive. The others are all over the place. B+(**) [sp]

Ivo Perelman/Joe Morris: Elliptic Time (2021 [2022], Mahakala Music): Brazilian tenor saxophonist, extremely prolific, comes out with another duo, this with guitar. I've fallen behind in my Perelman listening: I missed his 9-CD Brass and Ivory Tales, haven't gotten to my download of his 11-CD Reed Rapture in Brooklyn, and I'm sure there are others. This, however, is the right combination for a reasonable stretch of time. A- [sp]

Dave Sewelson/William Parker/Steve Hirsch: The Gate (2022, Mahakala Music): Baritone saxophonist, best known for his work with Microscopic Septet and in William Parker's Little Huey Orchestra, but he ventured out on his own in 2018 with Music for a Free World, and it's been all aces since. Just a basic trio with bass and drums here. B+(***) [sp]

Steve Swell/Joe McPhee/Chris Corsano: Sometimes the Air Is (2022 [2023], Mahakala Music): Two horn (trombone and tenor sax) trio, with drums. Label promises "aggressively beautiful music," which this certainly is, though after several such albums I'm having trouble distinguishing. B+(***) [sp]

Stephen Ulrich: Music From This American Life (2023, Barbčs): Guitarist, led an instrumental folk-rock group called Big Lazy from 1999, first album under his own name, backed by drummer-producer Dean Sharenow and (more faintly) keyboards. B+(***) [sp]

Nadia Washington: Hope Resurgence (2023, New): Singer-songwriter, plays guitar and many other instruments, nine songs ("six years in the making"), doesn't fit any genre (least of all jazz), although I wouldn't be surprised to find a church back story. Skillful, and annoying, in more ways than I can list. B- [cdr]

Wednesday: Mowing the Leaves Instead of Piling 'Em Up (2022, Orindal): Indie shoegaze band from Asheville, NC, with a couple albums under their belt. Nine covers, including a couple country songs (Roger Miller, Gary Stewart), Chris Bell's "I Am the Cosmos," and others closer to niche, and therefore less interesting. MJ Lenderman joins for the back side. B+(*) [sp]

Yo La Tengo: This Stupid World (2023, Matador): Indie band, goes way back, many albums, guitar remains distinctive (as much so as Sonic Youth), and that's the payoff in most of the songs here (in what they describe as their "most live-sounding" Yo La Tengo album in years"). Lyrics and vocals less so, but I've never been a stickler on that account. A- [sp]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

None.

Old music:

Stefon Harris/Jason Moran/Greg Osby/Mark Shim: New Directions (1999 [2000], Blue Note): At least one source credits this to The Blue Note New Directions, others just to New Directions, but the four names are on the cover, young stars at the label with a couple notable records out each, and more to come. Not on the cover: bassist Tarus Mateen and drummer Nasheet Waits. One song each from Harris, Moran, and Osby, but everything else comes from Blue Note artists from the early 1960s -- newly arranged, as if recovering the mojo of a classic period might be the way forward. No lack of chops here. B+(***) [sp]

Butch Morris: Homeing (1987 [1989], Sound Aspects): Cornet player (1947-2013), credits from 1977, known for his process of conducting improvisers (conduction). Live from Berlin, a fairly large group: 11 pieces, including violin (Jason Hwang), French horn, oboe, vibes, and electronics, plus voice (Shelley Hirsch). B+(**) [sp]

New Winds: Potion (1997 [1998], Victo): Group founded by JD Parran (clarinet), Ned Rothenberg (alto sax/bass clarinet), and Robert Dick (various flutes, down to bass) in 1989, recorded two albums for Sound Aspects (1989-91), then two more for Victo (1995-98), this the last. The winds are augmented here by Herb Robertson (trumpet/flugelhorn). B+(**) [sp]

New Winds: Digging It Harder From Afar (1989-94 [1995], Victo): Not sure which of this dates from when, but the three principals -- JD Parran, Ned Rothenberg, and Robert Dick -- have been in for the duration, and there's little to distract from the open airiness of the deep flutes, clarinets, and bass saxophone. Only other credit is Gerry Hemingway on one track, for electronics. B+(***) [sp]

David Newton: 12th of the 12th: A Jazz Portrait of Frank Sinatra (1995, Candid): Scottish pianist (b. 1958), albums from 1990 (mostly trios), accompanied Stacey Kent 1997-2003. His second solo album here, standards, and while Sinatra didn't write any, there's no doubting over a list that starts with, "My Kind of Town," "I've Got the World on a String," "I Fall in Love Too Easily," "Witchcraft," "The Lady Is a Tramp," and ends with "In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning." It's all very nice, but odd in that I rarely notice the songs unless I concentrate. B+(**) [sp]

Anita O'Day: Anita O'Day's Finest Hour (1954-62 [2000], Verve): Jazz singer (1919-2006), joined Gene Krupa's band in 1941 and had her first hit ("Let Me Off Uptown," featuring Roy Eldridge, reprised here). Part of a series of 34 albums, released 2000-03. Variety helps here, with small groups mixed in with the big band tracks (only two led by Billy May), showing how well she could acquit herself even with minimal backup (a highlight is a "God Bless the Child" with just Barney Kessel (guitar). A- [r]

The Original Dixieland Jazz Band: The First Jazz Recordings 1917-1921 (1917-21 [1998], Timeless): White "jass" band from New Orleans, led by cornet player Nick LaRocca, jumped the line to be the first to record, which they followed up with widely acclaimed tours to New York and London. To a large extent, they defined the 1920s as "the jazz age," although today we tend to favor the great soloists who emerged later, like Louis Armstrong and Coleman Hawkins. Still, they were a fine band, and remain a model for still-vibrant trad jazz bands. Penguin Guide prefers the sound here to RCA's The 75th Anniversary collection [1992], although they seem to have gotten the title wrong. B+(***) [sp]

Greg Osby: Zero (1998, Blue Note): Alto saxophonist, albums from 1987, got a boost when he joined Blue Note in 1993, and lapsed back into obscurity after his last album there (2005), although he sounded better than ever on last year's Tyshawn Sorey Trio + 1. Jason Moran plays piano piano/organ/electric, with Kevin McNeal (guitar), bass, and drums. B+(***) [sp]

Greg Osby: Inner Circle (2002, Blue Note): Alto sax-led quintet with Jason Moran (piano), Stefon Harris (vibes), Tarus Mateen (bass), and Eric Harland (drums). Moran is sharper sticking to piano, breaking the rhythm up more, but the slow ones hold Osby back a bit. B+(***) [sp]

Greg Osby: St. Louis Shoes (2003, Blue Note): Jazz standards, opens with "East St. Louis Toodle-Oo" and closes with "St. Louis Blues," but jumps from the opener straight into "Shaw Nuff" and Monk, before cycling back to "Summertime" and "The Single Petal of a Rose." Nicholas Payton's trumpet adds an authentic touch, but most pieces are stretched 5-8 minutes, so there are plenty of tangents. With piano (Harold O'Neal), bass (Robert Hurst), and drums (Rodney Green). B+(**) [sp]

Oslo 13: Off Balance (1987 [1988], Odin): Large Norwegian band, led by pianist Jon Balke, released four albums 1983-93 (a derivative group without Balke called itself 1300 Oslo for one more album in 2001). With Nils Petter Molvaer on trumpet, two trombones, and an impressive array of saxophonists. B+(***) [sp]

Tony Oxley: Ichnos (1969 [1971], RCA): British drummer, from Sheffield, his 1969 debut (The Baptised Traveller) a Penguin Guide crown album. Difficult free jazz, one cut percussion solo, two quartet, two sextet: young players at the time, now regarded as giants of the genre: Evan Parker (soprano/tenor sax), Kenny Wheeler (trumpet/flugelhorn), Paul Rutherford (trombone), Derek Bailey (guitar), and Barry Guy (bass). B+(**) [yt]

Tony Oxley: 4 Compositions for Sextet (1970, Columbia: Second album out, although it was recorded after Ichnos. Aside from Jeff Clyne taking over at bass, same sextet: Evan Parker, Kenny Wheeler, Paul Rutherford, Derek Bailey. Unruly, but a bit better thought out than Inchos. B+(***) [yt]

Tony Oxley/Derek Bailey: Quartet (1993 [2008], Jazzwerkstatt): Drums and guitar, quartet filled out by Pat Thomas (piano/electronics) and Matt Wand (sampler). I've always had trouble getting a handle on Bailey, who seems to crave chaos, or at least breaking things. Teaming up with a drummer seems like his zone. B+(***) [sp]

Tiny Parham: Tiny Parham 1928-1930 (1928-30 [1996], Timeless, 2CD): Pianist (1900-43), born in Canada, grew up in Kansas City, moved to Chicago in 1925, picked up the nickname because he was the opposite of tiny. Cover notes as featuring: Punch Miller (cornet), Charles Johnson (clarinet/alto sax), Milt Hinton (bass tuba). The latter, along with banjo, violin, and washboard, contributes much to the sound. Much more than you need, especially with all the extra takes, but a good example of those years. B+(***) [sp]

Evan Parker/Keith Rowe: Dark Rags (1999-2000 [2000], Potlatch): Duo, Parker plays tenor sax, Rowe guitar and electronics. Recorded on two consecutive nights starting with the eve of Y2K. Dark indeed. B+(***) [yt]

Evan Parker Trio & Peter Brötzmann Trio: The Bishop's Move (2003 [2004], Victo): Festival set in Victoriaville, one 73:31 piece, a clash between two premier avant-saxophone trios. Parker's trio, with Alex von Schlippenbach (piano) and Paul Lytton (drums), goes way back. Brötzmann picked up William Parker (bass) and Hamid Drake (drums) for the occasion. I'm not normally happy with blowouts, but this is exceptional in many ways. Schlippenbach, especially, is outstanding. Even the breather, a Parker bass solo offered an hour in, is a highlight. A- [sp]

Evan Parker/Barry Guy/Paul Lytton: Zafiro (2006, Maya): Avant sax (soprano/tenor)-bass-drums trio, all three played in Guy's London Jazz Composers Orchestra in 1972, often since. Live set from Barcelona, as solid as any they've done. A- [bc]

Evan Parker/Matthew Wright/Adam Linson/John Coxon/Ashley Wales: Trance Map +: Crepuscule in Nickelsdorf (2017 [2019], Intakt): Parker (soprano sax) and Wright (turntable/live sampling) above the line, the others (bass/electronics, turntable/electronics, electronics) below, with "Trance Map +" larger and brighter and on the spine, whereas "Crepuscule in Nickelsdorf" is the 7-part song title (58:47). Coxon and Wales are better known as Spring Heel Jack. B+(**) [sp]

Partisans: Max (2004 [2005], Babel): British group -- Phil Robson (guitar), Julian Siegal (tenor/soprano sax, bass clarinet, cuica), Thaddeus Kelly (bass), Gene Calderazzo (drums) -- produced three albums for Babel in the 2000s, two more on Whirlwind to 2019. This one is dedicated to Max Roach, with guest trumpet, percussion, and organ (three tracks each). A- [bc]

Rich Perry: Beautiful Love (1994 [1995], SteepleChase): Tenor saxophonist, originally from Cleveland, in New York since 1976, second album, trio with bass (Jay Anderson) and drums (Victor Lewis), playing standards. The mid-1990s were a golden age for mainstream saxophonists. While Perry got less notice than many others, he shows he belongs here. A- [sp]

The Rich Perry Quartet: What Is This? (1995 [1996], SteepleChase): With Fred Hersch (piano), Jay Anderson (bass), and Tom Rainey (drums). Starts with an original called "Squishy," includes one of Hersch's tunes, the rest standards ending with "Epistrophy." B+(***) [sp]

Rich Perry Quartet: So in Love (1997 [1998], SteepleChase): Different but very comparable group: Renee Rosnes (piano), Peter Washington (bass), and Billy Drummond (drums). Seven standards, three edging over 10 minutes. He keeps sounding better. A- [sp]

Cecil Taylor/Bill Dixon/Tony Oxley: Cecil Taylor/Bill Dixon/Tony Oxley (2002, Victo):n Piano, trumpet, drums, a live improv set from the festival in Victoriaville. They go back quite a ways: Dixon was on famous Taylor albums in the late 1960s, Oxley has been Taylor's most frequent drummer for almost that long. B+(**) [sp]

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

  • Canadian Jazz Collective: Septology: The Black Forest Session (HGBS Blue) [03-31]
  • Yelena Eckemoff: Lonely Man and His Fish (L&H Production, 2CD) [04-28]
  • Vince Ector Organotomy Trio +: Live @ the Side Door (Cabo Verde) [03-17]
  • Nick Finzer: Dreams Visions Illusions (Outside In Music) [04-14]
  • Bára Gisladottir: Silva (Sono Luminus) [01-27]
  • Las Vegas Boneheads: Sixty and Still Cookin' (Curt Miller Music) [04-01]
  • Steve Smith and Vital Information: Time Flies (Wounded Bird) [05-05]
  • Ben Wendel: All One (Edition) [04-21]

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