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An occasional blog about populist politics and popular music, not necessarily at the same time. LinksLocal Links My Other Websites Music Politics Others Networking Music DatabaseArtist Search: Website SearchGoogle: Recent Reading
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Blog Entries [280 - 289]Monday, March 14, 2022 Music Week
Music: Current count 37510 [37465] rated (+45), 146 [149] unrated (-3). I wanted to close this off Sunday evening to get it out of the way, but yesterday's political post ran well into the evening, and I had had unpacking to do. I also had a programming task to do, and that (plus other errands) wiped out Monday afternoon, and into the evening. Don Malcolm requested the change: that I add A- albums to the A/A+ breakouts in the ratings database. He noted how rarely I used A/A+ in recent years, and argued that expanding the selection would be more useful. That made sense to me, and I figured it would be an easy change, but hadn't reckoned with the re-learning curve on a set of programs I originally hacked together 20+ years ago (mostly make and shell scripts, using awk and sed, but the biggest one is in C++, which I'm especially rusty in). And while the change turned out to be as simple as I expected (changing 14 to 13 in two places), I found other issues that needed attention:
One thing I noticed but didn't do anything about was the granularity of the files. I haven't, for instance, generated new files for rock or jazz after 2020. I've spent enough time today looking at the code that I have a pretty good idea how to do that, but still don't see the need. A better solution would be to move all of the data into a real database, which could then be sliced and diced as thin as one might desire. Big job, though. Moving on, another fairly large batch of new records this week, with the majority (34 of 41, so 83%) 2022 releases. A-list items are both numerous and diverse. One source was Robert Christgau's Consumer Guide. (Pleased to see Fimber Bravo and A Gift to Pops there -- records I stuck my neck out in touting. Also Big Thief, but everybody knew about that. I also gave an A- to Playboi Carti, over a year ago.) Other tips came from all over the place, or from nowhere at all. No time for a 2021 summary. I've done some minor maintenance on the usual lists, but I've gotten over spending any significant time on them. I'm thinking now I'll turn from this to do a fairly quick Speaking of Which (most, but not all, on Ukraine), then get back to working on a Book Roundup. Draft file for the latter has 32 books at the moment, plus 212 books in the scratch file (mostly unwritten), so I have enough for a post (maybe two: standard is 40 blurb notes + another 30-60 listings). Just finished Astra Taylor's first book, The People' Platform. I bought it several years ago on a friend's recommendation, but didn't pick it up until recently, after I read her second book, on democracy. One thing I'm impressed by is the breadth of her reading, and her ability to make connections between a wide range of sources. (My Book Roundups help me fake it, but give me a ballpark idea of what she's drawing on.) Like David Graeber, her politics developed out of Occupy Wall Street, but she strikes me as both more flexible and more innovative. I have a new collection by her, Remake the World: Essays, Reflections, Rebellions, so that's the obvious thing to pick up next. Still, the books exercise is suggesting a lot more I'd like to read. New records reviewed this week: 75 Dollar Bill: Live Ateliers Claus (2016-19 [2021], self-released): Saharan-influenced instrumental rock duo -- Rick Brown (percussion) and Che Chen (guitar) -- started around 2013, one of those artists who released a lot of live tapes during the pandemic, leaving us with too much material available, and no easy job of sorting out which albums are more valuable than others. This combines two sets, one a duo from 2016 (22:34), the other from 2019 (50:21, with Andrew Lafkas on bass). B+(**) [bc] Charlotte Adigéry & Bolis Pupul: Topical Dancer (2022, Deewee/Because Music): Born in France, grew up in Belgium, traces her ancestry back to Nigeria (Yoruba) via Martinique and Guadeloupe. First album, after a couple EPs and a "self-meditation" cassette. I know less about Pupul, other than that he's collaborated with her on singles, and has a couple of his own. Spare but danceable beats, words mostly in English, like: "Don't say 'we need to build a wall'/ Say, I'm a world citizen, I don't believe in borders" A- [sp] Melissa Aldana: 12 Stars (2021 [2022], Blue Note): Tenor saxophonist, from Chile, father a jazz saxophonist (Marcos Aldana), sixth album since 2010. Quintet with Lage Lund (guitar), Sullivan Fortner (piano), bass, and drums. Postbop, nice tone and flow. B+(***) Brandon Allen: The Stanley Turrentine Project (2022, Ubuntu Music): Tenor saxophonist, originally from Australia, based in London since 2000, has a previous Gene Ammons Project, also a Monk-oriented Mysterioso Quartet. Backed here by piano (Will Barry), bass (Conor Chaplin), and drums (Dave Ingamells). Song selection is a little corny ("Can't Buy Me Love," "Little Green Apples," "The Fool on the Hill"), but he powers through them, like T would do. B+(**) Benji.: Smile, You're Alive! (2021, SinceThe80s): Atlanta rapper, toured with EarthGang, joined Spillage Village in 2020, appearing on several tracks on their Spilligion album. Some sources co-credit Spillage Village here, but I only see Benji.'s name on the cover. B+(**) [sp] Tim Berne/Gregg Belisle-Chi: Mars (2021 [2022], Intakt): Alto sax and guitar duo, the latter having released a set of solo takes on Berne songs last year. B+(**) [sp] Mary J. Blige: Good Morning Gorgeous (2022, 300/Mary Jane Productions): Big star, thirty years past "What's the 411?"; five years since her last (13th) studio album. She's settling in nicely here, perhaps stronger than ever, less urgent, the few high points lifting an impeccable consistency. I doubt I've ever fully appreciated her before, as my only previous A- grade was for Herstory, Vol. 1, so this may not be her best ever, but it's the one that got me. A- Broken Hearts & Dirty Windows: Songs of John Prine (2021, Oh Boy): A year after Prine's Covid death brought forth a flood of eulogies that approached what he deserved, his label limps on with a small stable of good-but-not-Prine songwriters. So with another product shortfall, why not invite a second volume of tribute covers? Eleven years after Vol. 1, it's not like they're going to the well too often (though they probably won't stop until they do). And they did draw bigger and better names this time, without coming close to running out of songs. A- [sp] James Brown: Song Within the Story (2021 [2022[, NGP): Guitarist, from Toronto, fourth album, the last one Sevendaze in 2009 -- or so the hype sheet says. Searching for him is well nigh impossible, like trying to identify a small asteroid backlit by the sun. (Discogs has at least 83 James Browns and no Sevendaze. Google produced some results after adding "guitar" and "toronto" to the name.) Original material, with bass and drums, plus tenor sax (Mike Murley) on 3 (of 10) tracks. Respectable postbop, solid support, Murley's always a plus. B+(**) [cd] Caroline: Caroline (2022, Rough Trade): British post-rock group, first album, Casper Hughes plays guitar and sings. B [sp] CMAT: If My Wife New I'd Be Dead (2022, AWAL): Irish singer-songwriter Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson, first album. Strong singer, thinking about "Nashville" and cowboys. B+(***) [sp] Elvis Costello & the Imposters: The Boy Named If (2022, Capitol): Band name he's used since 2002, long-taken to mean "not the Attractions." Here, the opener ("Farewell, OK") sounds like a throwback to his youth, but soon enough he's orating again, albeit with a harder guitar edge ("Magnificent Hurt" is another example). So, yeah, better than he's been in quite some while (aside from Spanish Model, which recycled some of his best old songs en espańnol, hot enough he called that group The Attractions). B+(*) Kit Downes/Petter Eldh/James Maddren: Vermillion (2021 [2022], ECM): Piano/bass/drums trio. British pianist has more than a dozen albums since 2009. Swedish bassist, based in Berlin, has a comparable discography, and wrote five originals here, as did Downes. Album closes with a Jimi Hendrix tune, "Castles Made of Sand." B+(*) Erin Rae: Lighten Up (2022, Good Memory): Last name McKaskie, singer-songwriter, third album, easy on the ears. B+(*) [sp] Julieta Eugenio: Jump (2021 [2022], Greenleaf Music): Tenor saxophonist, from Argentina, based in New York, first album, backed by bass (Matt Dwonszyk) and drums (Jonathan Barber). Eight originals, two standards, tone and phrasing remind me of Coleman Hawkins. A- [cd] Fanfare Ciocarlia: It Wasn't Hard to Love You (2021, Asphalt Tango): Romanian brass band, which probably means Romani [confirmed], formed in the late 1990s with albums in 1998 and 1999 (World Wide Wedding). Starts with a Bill Withers cover, strange enough to make you hungry for more, then lapses into more traditional fare: upbeat party music. A- Wolfgang Flür: Magazine 1 (2002, Cherry Red): Percussionist from classic German "krautrock" group Kraftwerk (1973-87), not a lot since then, but after Florian Schneider's 2020 death, he looks to reclaim the franchise sound. He does so, and rather humorously, helped by a series of guests like U96, Midge Ure, Carl Cox, and Juan Atkins. B+(***) Keeley Forsyth: Limbs (2022, The Leaf Label): British singer-songwriter, better known as an actor before her 2019 debut album. Slow, overdramatic, again. B [sp] Foxes: The Kick (2022, PIAS): British dance pop singer-songwriter Louisa Rose Allen, third album. Sounds a bit like Madonna, except for a shortfall of hit songs. B+(*) Satoko Fujii & Joe Fonda: Thread of Light (2021 [2022], FSR): Piano and bass duo, latter also plays cello and flute. They've played together before (I'd be hard pressed to count the times, but at least 5 times), and each has well over 50 albums with others (many notable). B+(***) [cd] Tomas Fujiwara's Triple Double: March (2019 [2022], Firehouse 12): Drummer, an Anthony Braxton student, runs the Firehouse 12 club and label in New Haven. Second album for his Triple Double group: two each trumpets (Ralph Alessi and Taylor Ho Bynum, latter on cornet), guitars (Mary Halvorson and Brandon Seabrook), and drums (Fujiwara and Gerald Cleaver). Some tremendous talent here, a little rough to start out, with both the horn and guitar jousts fast and furious. Ends with a long and remarkable drum duo, dedicated to Alan Dawson, the patron saint of New England drummers. A- [cd] Gordon Grdina's Haram With Marc Ribot: Night's Quietest Hour (2022, Attaboygirl): Guitarist from Vancouver, also plays oud (exclusively here, with Ribot on guitar). He's often incorporated Arabic elements into his music, but dives deep here, with a large group of mostly Canadian luminaries playing a mix of Arabic (ney, riq, darbuka) and jazz instruments (sax, clarinet, trumpet, two violins). Extended jams on five more/less trad Arabic songs, with vocals by Emad Armoush. B+(***) [cd] Gordon Grdina: The Music of Tim Berne: Oddly Enough (2022, Attaboygirl): Compositions by Berne, played solo by Grdina on his range of instruments: electric/midi guitar, classical, acoustic, oud, and dobro. Interesting pieces and effects, although I'm not sure I'll ever be able to recognize Berne's compositions. B+(***) [cd] Imarhan: Aboogi (2022, City Slang): Saharan guitar band, Tuareg, from the Algerian side of the border with Mali and Niger, a groove that has repeatedly been embraced by westerners with no clue to the language. Third album. Strikes me as a bit muted, which may mean they're hoping you'll understand what they're saying, not just how they say it. B+(**) Calvin Johnson Jr.: Notes of a Native Son (2022, self-released): Saxophonist from New Orleans, plays soprano and tenor, opens with "I'm Walkin'" and "Summertime," some originals in the middle, closing with "Lift Every Voice and Sing." B+(*) [cd] Ryan Keberle Collectiv Do Brasil: Sonhos Da Esquina (2021 [2022], Alternate Side): Trombonist, this music grew out of 2017 and 2018 trips to Brazil (not clear when this was recorded). Quartet with Felipe Silveira (piano), Thiago Alves (bass), and Paulinho Vicente (drums). B+(**) [cd] [03-18] Rokia Koné & Jacknife Lee: Bamanan (2022, Real World): Singer-songwriter from Mali, nicknamed "the rose of Bamako," has appeared in Les Amazones d'Afrique, releases her debut album with co-credit to Irish producer Garret Lee. B+(***) [sp] Cate Le Bon: Pompeii (2022, Mexican Summer): Cate Timothy, singer-songwriter from Wales, sixth album since 2009, has recorded in Welsh as well as English. B+(*) [sp] Mark Lomax, II: Prismatic Reflections No. 1 (2021 [2022], CFG Multimedia): Drummer, based in Columbus, Ohio, impressed me on numerous occasions though I've always given much of the credit to saxophonist Edwin Bayard. But here he's alone, a whole album of drum solos. B+(***) [sp] Brandon Lopez/Ingrid Laubrock/Tom Rainey: No Es La Playa (2021 [2022], Intakt): Bass/sax/drums, reading cover clockwise from top. B+(***) [sp] Lump: Animal (2021, Chrysalis): British electropop duo, singer Laura Marling (who has 7 albums since 2008) and producer Mike Lindsay (of Tunng and Throws), second album, clever and comfortably appealing. B+(**) Myra Melford's Fire and Water Quintet: For the Love of Fire and Water (2021 [2022], RogueArt): Pianist, her 1990 debut was a Francis Davis Jazz Consumer Guide Pick Hit in 1990 (along with an Allen Lowe album, both unknown to me at the time but major figures ever since). Quintet brings together several recent alliances: Ingrid Laubrock (tenor/soprano sax), Mary Halvorson (guitar), Tomeka Reid (cello), Susie Ibarra (drums). B+(***) [cd] [04-01] Dolly Parton: Run, Rose, Run (2022, Butterfly): Title ties in to what's described as her first novel, for which she shares credit with James Patterson, who has written at least 200 since 1976 -- most, it appears, with co-authors, the most famous (and notorious) Bill Clinton. She did write all the songs this time (no Patterson credits there), a solid batch with prim neo-trad arrangements (lots of credits there). B+(**) Eric Person Featuring Houston Person: Blue Vision (2018 [2022], Distinction): Alto/soprano saxophonist, debut 1993, mainstream player, inevitably ran into the elder tenor saxophonist and hit it off (no relation). They play together on 4 (of 7) tracks here, in a quintet with Pete McCann (guitar), organ (Adam Klipple), and drums (Tony Jefferson). The other three tracks cut back to trio. B+(**) RXK Nephew: Slitherman Activated (2021, Towhead): Rapper from Rochester, aka RX Nephew, possibly Kristopher Kevon Williams, popped up around 2019 but exploded in 2021, reportedly releasing some 400 songs, yet still barely recognized (this album didn't make my EOY Aggregate, but another one did, barely: Crack Dreams, not in Discogs but several volumes of Crack Therapy are). Fast and feverish, hard to keep up. Not on the album is his 9:44 "American Tterroristt," which takes a rebelious instinct so far as to praise Trump -- a bit too far, I'd say. B+(**) Sevdaliza: Raving Dahlia (2022, Twisted Elegance, EP): Iranian singer-songwriter, based in Rotterdam, two previous albums, usually sings in English, backed with electronics. Six songs (one a remix), 26:08. B+(*) [sp] Sarah Shook & the Disarmers: Nightroamer (2022, Abeyance): Country-rock singer-songwriter with a working band, third album, I liked her debut on Bloodshot, but expected more. B+(**) Slum of Legs: Slum of Legs (2020, Spurge): From Brighton, UK, a "queer, feminist noise-pop DIY band," first album after a couple singles, made my 2020 tracking list, so not totally unheralded. Sextet, everyone credited with lots of things, but the basics: Tamsin (vocals), Mich (drums), Maria (violin), Kate (guitar), Emily (synths), Alex (bass guitar). The violin raises the texture, if not the spirit, above punk. A- Walter Smith III/Matthew Stevens/Kris Davis/Dave Holland/Terri Lyne Carrington: In Common III (2021 [2022], Whirlwind): Tenor saxophonist, third album in this series, all quintets, all with guitarist Stevens, the other spots shifting each time -- this piano/bass/drums combo easily the most famous. B+(**) Stromae: Multitude (2022, Mosaert): Belgian singer, rapper, and songwriter Paul van Haver, father Rwandan (Tutsi), third album, first two were bestsellers in Europe and Canada. Sings mostly in French. B+(**) Omri Ziegele Where's Africa: That Hat (2021 [2022], Intakt): Swiss saxophonist (alto, also plays nai), group named for a 2005 album with Irčne Schweizer, since then he's used the name for several groups, including this trio with Yves Theiler (piano) and Dario Sisera (drums). The African interest shows in the rhythms, but also in the social feel, not least when Ziegele puts down his horn and sings. A- [sp] Old music: Brandon Allen: The Gene Ammons Project (2016, RT Jazz): Tenor saxophonist, has a new album called The Stanley Turrentine Project, the second in a likely series that starts here, with one of my favorites. B+(**) Broken Hearts & Dirty Windows: Songs of John Prine (2010, Oh Boy): Probably looked like stopgap product at the time: Prine was five years past Fair and Square, and six years shy of For Better, or Worse, with only a singalong with Mac Wiseman and In Person & on Stage in between. Maybe they figured he could use some reassurance of what a great songwriter he was. Still, the artist line up was so-so: starts with Justin Vernon, Conor Oberst, My Morning Jacket, Josh Ritter, Lambchop. More promising are Drive-By Truckers and Those Darlins, but I wouldn't say they deliver more. B+(**) Lump: Lump (2018, Dead Oceans): Short (7 tracks, 31:56, including audio credits) debut album from the duo of Laura Marling and Mike Lindsay. Ambient electronics, shaped around Marling's lyrics and voice. B+(*) Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:
Ask a question, or send a comment. Sunday, March 13, 2022 Speaking of Rick ScottFlorida Senator Rick Scott is chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. A couple weeks ago he released a manifesto -- a policy agenda and an ideological justification -- defining what Republicans want to accomplish if they can win control of the Senate in 2022. Of perhaps I should say what they'd do if they had the power to do it, which will take more than a mere Senate majority. You can read about it here. (The full plan is here, hyperbolically titled An 11 Point Plan to Rescue America: What Americans Must Do to Save This Country.) I'm especially struck by the deep paranoia in the preamble:
Let's start by returning to basics. The political terms Left and Right came from the early days of the French Revolution. In the assembly, supporters of the monarchy and aristocracy sat on the right, while opponents -- the people who coined the slogan "liberty, equality, fraternity" -- sat on the left. Those labels stuck with us, because while titled aristocracy is pretty much a relic of the past, the right has adapted to defend hierarchy in whatever form (usually wealth), while the left, having liberated us from many forms of hierarchy (aristocracy, slavery, and to a large extent discrimination based on sex and/or race) continues to champion greater equality. Left and right is one of many axes that can be used to plot political tendencies, but it is especially important in times of great inequality, like ours. Politics is, after all, the practice of power, and power tends to follow (and in the hands of the right reinforce) inequities in wealth. There is some disagreement as to what equality means to the left: most agree on equal rights and treatment under laws that are decided in a democracy where every person has an equal vote, but not everyone would extend democracy to the workplace (aside from certain rights, like a minimum wage, and a right to join unions). And while most on the left support progressive taxation, only a few think it's possible to level incomes and savings. However, those differences rarely matter to those on the right, who see any limits on wealth or the prerogatives of the rich as an attack on all they hold dear (i.e., their perch in the hierarchy). And when you're as far to the right as Scott is, that puts most of America on the left. And while Scott is an outlier by historical standards, it should be recognized that he speaks for the majority of Senate Republicans, and as such for the majority of the Party. Sure, Scott makes a further qualification when he charges "the militant left," but that's an oxymoron -- in America at least, the left is profoundly anti-violence, action limited to dissenting speech, the occasional demonstration, and campaigning for votes -- using a term that is most often used posthumously to describe people killed by occupying forces (e.g., in Israel/Palestine, or by the US in Iraq and Afghanistan; I expect the Russians to follow suite in Ukraine). Scott's trying to add an air of menace to "the left," but his examples only show how far out he's perched on the right. Most corporations are well to the right of center -- they do, after all, control most of the nation's wealth. Sure, some marketers try to present themselves as anti-racist, which drives far-right culture warriors (like Scott) crazy -- cf. Vivek Ramaswamy's recent book, Woke, Inc., or Glenn Beck's hysterical The Great Reset: Joe Biden and the Rise of Twenty-First Century Fascism (sure, pun intended). And news media and Hollywood are companies too, their owners well up the wealth hierarchy. Academia is nominally non-profit, but easily swayed by rich donors, as is a government which reports more to donors and lobbyists than to the public. Also note that those supposedly left-controlled institutions all have pockets that are totally aligned with the far right, like Fox News, the Koch Network academies and "think tanks," the Federalist Society-selected 6-3 Supreme Court majority. But it's never enough, because the more they get, the more extreme they become. How extreme is indicated by the list of things they claim the left wants to "change or destroy" -- the implication is always destroy, as they dogmatically insist that any change is intent on destruction. As someone who's pretty far out on the left -- for a crude estimate of how far, I voted for Nader in 2000, so if the left is all D+G voters, I am at least in the leftmost 4.7%; I voted for Kerry over Nader (and several other leftist candidates) in 2004, so I'm not in the leftmost 1.0%; I explained that decision here -- I thought I'd go down this laundry list and see how menacing my own views are:
It bears repeating that Scott's list consists of a bunch of buzz phrases that have been tuned to elicit emotional responses from their followers, and possibly befuddlement from anyone not in on their jargon. Most are so anodyne you might think we have more common ground than is commonly supposed. On the other hand, Scott omits a long list of things we do want to change (or even, rarely, destroy -- one I can think of is the patent system, but most Democrats haven't figured that out yet, as they look for band-aid solutions to exorbitant drug prices). I wouldn't trust him to list them anyway, as he clearly has no grasp of who we are or what we believe. The introduction is followed by a page of bullet points meant to illustrate the dire threats facing America. They're short enough I can quote them (in bold, followed by my notes -- if missing, just assume I'm laughing, or aghast):
Remember, this is a list of what Republicans regard as the worst problems facing America: nothing about inequality, climate disasters, a globe-straddling military that constantly sucks us into wars and other conflicts, environmental degradation, predatory and monopolistic businesses, loss of labor rights, loss of privacy (including the right to make reproductive decisions), mass incarceration, racism (except as affects white people), inadequate health care, rising personal debt (mostly due to shortchanging education and health care), the growing assault on public health laws and workers, declining life expectancy. But if it sounds like all Scott is doing is complaining, read on to the "11 Points": Republicans have bad ideas too (some staggeringly so). In the following, the bold is quoted from the top-line summary, followed by brief comments, usually referring to the following details.
The preamble to the U.S. Constitution starts with a number of good reasons why the Founders felt that we needed a strong and honest federal government:
Given the vagaries of politics, that promise hasn't always been realized, but we have never before seen as systematic an assault on the founding principles of this nation as we see in Scott's 11 Steps. They're seeking to impose a thought control regime, from pre-school on, including the explicit banning of anything socialist or "woke." This will be enforced by police, who will not be held to account for any abuses of power or even lapses of judgment. They will undermine the ability of the government to regulate business and markets, destabilizing an economy that will shrink substantially as they eviscerate government, which will be hampered by shrinking trade, and which will likely collapse completely when the government is forced to default on its debts. The foreign policy planks are likely to plunge the US into further wars abroad, and while having a nation of morons armed to the gills may deter anyone else from invading here, it's likely to deteriorate into an even more gruesome civil war. And in all this "doom and gloom" I'm sure I'm skipping over other calamities (e.g., natural and manmade disasters caused by neglect to critical infrastructure and the hubristic ignorance over climate change). And somehow Scott thinks his plan is what it takes to "rescue America." More like finish it off. I used to joke that Newt Gingrich's famous 1994 publicist stunt should have been called "The Contract on America." But what Gingrich aimed for was pretty placid compared to the wrath and fury Scott seeks to unleash. And it's not that the Republican Party is all that much crazier now than it was back then. It's sobering to read how deranged its leading "thinkers" were in 1994, or even in 1980 when Reagan ran, or even in 1964 when Goldwater was nominated. What's changed isn't so much the Republicans as the ability of the nation to keep chugging along as they did their worst. That's harder to do now because the wounds and scars are mounting up. Yet somehow, Republicans seem to be able to escape scrutiny, let alone blame, for their many mistakes over the last 40+ years, and having gotten away with their act so far, they see no reason to change. They claim to have exclusive claim to patriotism and religion, even though there is no lack of Democrats with equal claims. They claim to represent business, even though business invariably grows more under Democrats. They claim to represent aggrieved workers, even though most of the problems workers have were brought on by Republicans. They talk about things like deficits and energy independence, even though the numbers are strictly opposed. They claim to be "color blind," but where's the evidence for that? They lie, they cheat, and they steal, yet the monied media never holds them accountable. So what's to stop them from doubling down and doing even worse? At least back when GW Bush was president (and Karl Rove was his "brain"), they tried to disguise their sinister plots (remember Healthy Forests?). Yet during the 40-year era from Reagan to Trump, they managed to change America a lot, in ways almost always for the worse, but in ways they wanted. Inequality is greater now than ever before. In the world, America is more loathed but also more feared than ever before. And even when they crashed the economy, it bounced back more profitable than ever for the very rich. And even when they blew trillions on wars that accomplished nothing, they kept building back their arsenal. So why are soldiers like Scott so miserable? Why do they sound so desperate? Won't they ever be satisfied? It seems: no. They're in it for the fight, so they're going to keep kicking no matter how badly they got you down. Like the scorpion, it's their nature. Reminds me of an old Mort Sahl joke. He explained that Charlton Heston once said he hopes that his children will some day live in a fascist America. Sahl added: "if he were more perceptive, he'd be a happy man." Ask a question, or send a comment. Monday, March 7, 2022 Music Week
Music: Current count 37465 [37418] rated (+47), 149 [144] unrated (+5). It normally takes most of a day from when I take a snapshot of the rated count the week's record list to when I've finished writing my piece and am ready to post it. During that day, I keep listening to new records, normally saving them for the next week, but seeing as how last week was the end of the month and for my purposes 2021, I was sorely tempted to fold any 2021 records into my frozen file. That convinced me to move on to 2022 releases, and I've pretty much kept that up all week (I wound up with 5 2021 releases below, several from December, plus one 2020 release in the new section, and a 2002 in the old). I was aided in this search by several Expert Witness posts, and I wound up taking a look at AOTY's top-rated 2022 albums. The result was a rare bonanza of exceptional records: in addition to the 10 A- albums, there's 12 more stuck at B+(***). Good chance a couple of those could benefit from more attention (also a fair chance that a couple might slide down a notch). I'm posting this Music Week earlier than usual because I want to get it done and out of the way. I expect to be indisposed for a few days, and hope that's it. My earlier thoughts about doing some sort of statistical survey of 2021 will have to wait. I can say that my 2021 release rated count comes to 1451. Not a record, but a pretty respectable number, and a good deal more than I expected early in 2021. I started to write a "Speaking of Which," mostly (but not all) on Ukraine, but didn't come close to getting it done. If you're curious, the draft is in the notebook. Perhaps I'll pick it up again later this week. One thing that kept me from working on it was that I finally started researching for a new Book Roundup. I wrote two of them back in April 2021. Needless to say, a lot of interesting books have come out in the meantime. I probably have enough to post now, but I'm still digging. Good chance I'll wind up with two posts again, but hard to predict when. New records reviewed this week: Andy Bell: Flicker (2022, Sonic Cathedral): British singer-songwriter, guitarist, solo albums start in 2020, as he was turning 50. He is best known for the group Ride (1988-96). In between he did production work and played in various bands, including a brief stint with Oasis, and with Noel Gallagher's post-Oasis group Beady Eye. Long record, lots of graceful pop songs and easy listening. B+(***) Big K.R.I.T.: Digital Roses Don't Die (2022, BMG): Rapper Justin Scott, from Mississippi, acronym for "King Remembered in Time," fifth studio album, twice as many mixtapes back to 2005. B+(**) Big Thief: Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You (2022, 4AD): Indie band from Brooklyn, singer-songwriter is Adrienne Lenker (who also has a couple solo albums), fifth group album since 2016, a big one (20 songs, 80:13). Impressive album, one that will be on many mainstream EOY lists, but I probably won't stick with long enough. A- Binker & Moses: Feeding the Machine (2021 [2022], Gearbox): British duo, saxophonist Binker Golding and drummer Moses Boyd, fifth album together. Not exactly a duo here, as Max Luthert is credited with electronics, but he hasn't earned marquee credit yet. B+(**) Michael Bisio Quartet: MBefore (2020 [2022], Tao Forms): Bassist, albums since 1987, many side credits, especially with Matthew Shipp and Joe McPhee. Unconventional, almost chamber-ish quartet, with vibes (Karl Berger), viola (Mat Maneri, and drums (Whit Dickey). B+(***) [cd] [03-25] Black Country, New Road: Ants From Up There (2022, Ninja Tune): English art rock band, second album, first was one of the more critically acclaimed debuts of 2021, and this one currently sets as the top-rated 2022 release at AOTY (89 on 29 reviews, with Metacritic giving it a 92). I can't hear it, probably because the texture and flow seems so variable, but like the debut I'll admit that it has something going for it. Singer Isaac Wood quit the band after this was recorded. No idea what that portends. B+(*) Sarah Borges: Together Alone (2022, Blue Corn Music): Singer-songwriter from Boston area, eighth album since 2005, had a couple of those on bluegrass-oriented Sugar Hill, returns to her first label here. B+(*) George Cartwright/Dave King/Josh Granowski: Stick Insect (2021, Mahakala Music): Sax/drums/bass trio, Cartwright best known for the 1980-2003 group Curlew, King more famous as the Bad Plus drummer. I'd never heard of Granowski, but he's got an "upright metal bass" that could pass for a nasty guitar. This runs long (110:20) and far, with moments that will turn your head, and others that just make you wonder. B+(**) [bc] Conway the Machine: God Don't Make Mistakes (2022, Griselda/Interscope): Buffalo rapper Demond Price, mixtapes going back to 2014, second studio album. B+(***) EarthGang: Ghetto Gods (2022, Dreamville/Interscope): Atlanta hip-hop duo, Olu (aka Johnny Venus) and WowGr8 (aka Doctur Dot), involved in Spillage Village, fourth album. B+(**) Equiknoxx: Basic Tools (2021, Equiknoxx Music): Jamaican hip-hop collective, fourth mixtape, recorded in New York and UK (Birmingham/Manchester) as well as Kingston. B+(**) [bc] Fulu Miziki: Ngbaka EP (2022, Moshi Moshi, EP): Group from Kinshasa, based in Kampala, one source says they were founded in 2003 by Piscko Crane as an "eco-friendly, Afro-futuristic" punk band, but that source also has this as their "debut EP" (6 songs, 20:27). Name translates as "music from the garbage," which is also the source of their instruments and costumes. Electronics leads the way. A- Joel Futterman/Chad Fowler: Timeless Moments (2022, Mahakala Music): Piano and stritch duets, the latter reed instrument long associated with Roland Kirk, and later David S. Ware. Futterman is from Chicago, although I associate him more with Memphis. He plays a little like Cecil Taylor, often with saxophonists who can get a bit out of hand: Jimmy Lyons, Hal Russell, Kidd Jordan, Ike Levin, and now Fowler, who runs his label out of Hot Springs, Arkansas. B+(**) [bc] Robert Glasper: Black Radio III (2022, Loma Vista): Pianist, from Houston, signed by Blue Note in 2005 and touted for his hip-hop influence, supposedly the leading edge of a new generation of jazz stars. Despite undeniable chops, I don't think he ever lived up to the hype. The jazz content here is negligible, with all but the last song offering featured spots for rappers (including Killer Mike, Big KRIT, Common, and Q-Tip) and/or singers (like Ledisi, Jennifer Hudson, Gregory Porter, Lalah Hathaway, Musiq Soulchild). B+(*) Alexander Hawkins/Mirror Canon: Break a Vase (2021 [2022], Intakt): British pianist, group a sextet with Shabaka Hutchings (tenor/soprano sax, flute), guitar (Otto Fischer), bass, drums, and percussion. B+(**) Homeboy Sandman: There in Spirit (2022, Mello Music Group, EP): New York rapper Angel Del Villar, underground, favors EPs, this one 7 songs, 21:54. B+(**) Hurray for the Riff Raff: Life on Earth (2022, Nonesuch): Folkie singer-songwriter Alynda Segarra, moved from the Bronx to New Orleans, eighth album since 2008. B+(***) Tony Karapetyan Trio: Point of View (2020 [2022], Jazzist): Bassist-led trio with piano (Yuri Barsukov) and drums (Peter Ivshin), first album, featuring German trumpet player Sebastian Studnitzky on several cuts. B+(*) Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio: Cold as Weiss (2022, Colemine): Soul jazz trio, fourth album, the leader on organ, Jimmy James on guitar, and newcomer Dan Weiss -- evidently not the Dan Weiss (famous NYC drummer) nor even the other Dan Weiss (beloved critic with the Dan Ex Machina sideline), but he does share most of the writing credits here. Bright and funky. B+(*) Los Bitchos: Let the Festivities Begin! (2022, City Slang): Globe-trotting instrumental surf rock group, four women who met in London, one British, the others from Australia (Serra Petale, the main writer), Sweden, and Uruguay. B+(***) Maisha: Open the Gates (2019 [2020], Brownswood): London-based jazz group led by drummer Jake Long. I was aware of their 2018 debut and a 2020 Night Dreamer set backing Gary Bartz, but didn't notice that what Discogs calls EPs are more like albums: their 2016 Welcome to a New Welcome ran 29:33, and this one 33:21. Credits unclear, but Binker Golding joined for the title cut, and it sounds like it. B+(***) [bc] Tyler Mitchell Featuring Marshall Allen: Dancing Shadows (2022, Mahakala Music): Bassist, joined Sun Ra Arkestra in 1985, which continues under the direction of the 97-year-old saxophonist, featured here, though helped out by two more saxophonists in the sextet: Chris Hemingway (tenor) and Nicoletta Manzini (alto). B+(***) Mitski: Laurel Hell (2022, Dead Oceans): Mitskui Miyawaki, born in Japan, father a US State Department official who toted her around the world before settling in New York. Sixth album since 2012. B+(*) Mostly Other People Do the Killing: Disasters Vol. 1 (2020 [2022], Hot Cup): Pennsylvania-born bassist first recorded under this group name in 2004, and for many years the pianoless quartet, with its irreverent and often fanciful survey of the jazz tradition, was one of the decade's most consistently exciting groups. Over time, the imposing horn players dropped out -- first Peter Evans (trumpet), then Jon Irabagon (tenor sax) -- as pianist Ron Stabinsky joined. It doesn't seem like the same group as a piano trio, but this batch of Pennsylvania disaster-inspired tunes (most famously from Jonestown to Three Mile Island) is pretty lively. The closing take of "Wilkes-Barre" leaves me with Monk rattling around my head. A- [cd] Kojey Radical: Reason to Smile (2022, Atlantic): British rapper Kwadwo Adu Genfi Amponsah, parents from Ghana, has a couple albums but this is a step up. Sings more, especially towards the end, and smiles a lot. B+(***) Saba: Few Good Things (2022, Saba Pivot): Chicago rapper Tahj Malik Chandler, co-founder of Pivot Gang, associated with Smino, Noname, and Chance the Rapper. Third album. Underground, inches along with purpose and feeling. A- Dave Sewelson: Smooth Free Jazz (2021, Mahakala Music): Baritone saxophonist, pushing 70, longtime member of the Microscopic Septet, also William Parker's big bands, aside from a 1979 album only recently started releasing albums under his own name -- I recommend both Music for a Free World and More Music for a Free World. Quartet, with lap steel guitar (Mike Neer), bass, and drums. Nothing slick or conventionally smooth here: he loves the grit of the low notes, and when he sings "Nature Boy" over an extended vamp, he exhibits a voice to match. The record ends with a 3:12 "radio version," versus the original 19:30. A- [bc] Kenny Shanker: Vortex (2019 [2022], Wise Cat): Alto saxophonist, soprano on one cut, has a couple previous albums including a 2011 debut on mainstream Posi-Tone. Backed by guitar, piano, bass, drums, with trumpet (Bill Mobley) on three tracks. Nice postbop sound. B+(**) Spoon: Lucifer on the Sofa (2022, Matador): Indie band from Austin, Brit Daniel singer-songwriter, 10th studio album since 1996. Like all their records, this had a tight, pleasing guitar grind, and a humane exterior. Not a style of music I've much cared for of late, but a fine example. B+(***) Superchunk: Wild Loneliness (2022, Merge): Indie rock band from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, led by singer-guitarist Mac McCaughan (also in Portastatic, has a couple solo albums), 12th album since 1990. I've never paid them much heed, even when Christgau declared What a Time to Be Alive "the most affecting political album of our brutally politicized era." Impeccable, as solid as I can imagine a mainstream rock record this year. And while I'm not picking up much politics, "Endless Summer" has a point hard to miss. A- Tanya Tagaq: Tongues (2022, Six Shooter): Inuk singer-songwriter from Canada, fifth studio album, tied to her novel Split Tooth, dark and arty with real dramatic flair. Unique, though distantly related to Björk. B+(**) The Weeknd: Dawn FM (2022, XO/Republic): Canadian alt-r&b singer-songwriter Abel Tesfaye, something of a sensation in 2011 with his debut mixtape, has regularly topped charts with his studio albums. I've found his albums increasingly sluggish, but he found a beat here, and even his voice has brightened up. B+(***) Babes Wodumo: Crown (2021, West Ink): South African singer, Bongekile Simelane, first album was called Gqom Queen, after the genre, after the beats sound ("minimal, raw, repetitive, with heavy bass sound"). Beats captivating, range narrow, probably a good show. B+(***) Lady Wray: Piece of Me (2022, Big Crown): R&B singer Nicole Wray, released her debut album Make It Hot in 1998, but didn't follow it up until 2016. In between, she joined a duo in England called Lady, so adopted the new name. Third album, perhaps more retro than nu. Her voice has an intriguing grin, and she turns experience into a plus. A- [sp] Nilüfer Yanya: Painless (2022, ATO): Singer-songwriter, born in London, father Turkish, mother of Irish-Barbadian descent, second album, likes her guitar more than most pop stars. A- Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries: Peter Brötzmann/Milford Graves/William Parker: Historic Music Past Tense Future (2002 [2022], Black Editions): German tenor saxophonist, a founding father of the European avant-garde, taped at CBGB's in New York with local drummer and bassist. B+(***) Pere Ubu: The Lost Band: Live at Metro Cabaret, Chicago (1993 [2022], Ubu Projex): Avant-punk band from Cleveland, formed 1975, David Thomas the singer and only continuous member (except for 1982-88 band hiatus). This particular band consisted of Jim Jones (guitar), Garo Yellin (cello), Tony Maimone (bass), and Scott Krauss (drums). As Thomas says: "It was a brilliant version of Pere Ubu, doomed by uncertainty in the business end of things." Maimone (who joined the band in 1976) left, then Krauss (an original member) and Yellin (a brief tenure, the only one with cello, and without keyboards, making him the secret sauce here). Especially striking is "The Story of My Life" (the title of their 1993 album). A- [bc] Owiny Sigoma Band: The Lost Tapes (2015-19 [2021], Brownswood): Luo band rooted in Kenya but based in London, released their first album in 2011. This picks up some tracks recorded with singer Charles Owoko before his death in 2015, adding later tracks. B+(**) Cecil Taylor: The Complete, Legendary, Live Return Concert: The Town Hall, NYC November 4, 1973 (1973 [2022], Oblivion): At the time, the definitive avant-garde pianist, leading a strong quartet with Andrew Cyrille (drums), Jimmy Lyons (alto sax), and Sirone (bass). Three pieces: "Autumn/Parade" weighing in at 88:00, and two versions of "Spring of Two Blue-J's," first part done solo, second quartet. [PS: Napster has a version edited down to 30:51; Spotify has the whole thing.] A- [sp] Old music: Jim Black Alasnoaxis: Splay (2001 [2002], Winter & Winter): Drummer, originally from Seattle, group named for his 2000 album, group with Chris Speed (tenor sax/clarinet/keyboards), Hilmar Jensson (guitar), and Skuli Sverrisson (bass). B+(**) Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:
Ask a question, or send a comment. Monday, February 28, 2022 Music Week
Tweet: Music Week: 43 albums, 4 A-list, Music: Current count 37418 [37375] rated (+43), 144 [139] unrated (+5). Rated count is down a bit (although still high by historic standards). Feels like I've been working as hard as ever, but I've been having more trouble deciding what to listen to next, so I guess I've had more dead air. [PS: The actual list below is sightly larger than the count, as I moved records I reviewed while working on this post up, so that the frozen 2021 list aligns with this post and the February Streamnotes archive. Yes, my freeze date is later than usual this year, but the deed has been done.] The A-list was down even more, but I promoted two reissues at the last minute. The only problem with the Cuba compilation(s) is that I wasn't able to listen to the whole thing(s), so I'm extrapolating from Spotify playlists that are about 1/3 short. Also, I assume the booklets are up to snuff, as they usually are with this label, but haven't seen them, leaving me more ignorant than I should be. The Tony Williams disc combines two Blue Note albums I previously rated A- and B+. I came out of this not sure why I didn't have the grades flipped, but the piano/vibes pieces on the former probably get better, and Sam Rivers delivers instant pleasure. Speaking of Rivers, Rick Lopez has converted and expanded his extraordinary Sam Rivers Sessionography into a gorgeous 720-page book. To order a copy ($55 postpaid in US, inquire for foreign shipping) or otherwise make a donation go to the PreSale Page. Back in 2014, Lopez published The William Parker Sessionography, which (in HTML form) I had found invaluable in researching my Consumer Guide to William Parker, Matthew Shipp, et al.. I raved about his work there, and was delighted to see myself quoted for a blurb ("treasure trove of information, some of the finest scholarship available on the internet today"). It's not often I say something quotably laudatory, but I'm proud to be associated with his work. Late posting of this (Tuesday afternoon, but official date is still in February) is mostly because I finally took the time to update my indexing. I had fallen four months behind, and a side effect is that I caught myself re-reviewing several records. I've always known that my slapdash system is prone to errors, and the ones I've dealt with run the gamut. Worse, as I fix them, they leave discrepancies in other (usually more temporary) sources. At some point, a monumental re-engineering of the website would seem to be in order. But I doubt I'll ever get to that (although I did receive an intriguing letter expressing interest in working on such a thing). I expect to wrap up the EOY aggregates and associated lists this week. It would have been nice to tie it all together by now, but I still have a few odds and ends to attend to. Maybe next week I'll be able to provide some sort of statistical summary for 2021. On Saturday I posted a rather long Speaking of Ukraine, which is still largely relevant to understanding the conflict, even if there isn't much you can do about it. I later tried to rewrite a bit on sanctions, but didn't achieve the desired clarity. Let's see if I can do better here:
I basically wasted Sunday on Facebook, writing comments on Ukraine and plugging my piece. As far as I know, these had no effect whatsoever, and none of the posts appeared again in my Facebook feed. I don't know where where Facebook comments go to die -- probably just into the AI grinder to figure out new and even more inept ways of getting under your skin with targeted advertising -- but mine often wind up in my notebook: I was pleased that I came up with a little story and point each time, rather than just linking to my piece. Of course, I have thousands of pages of these gems archived now -- so much so that even my wife's eyes glaze over when asked to pick a few out. Like a fish, struggling just sets the hook deeper. One comment I can find again, because I copied it into a post of my own, so it shows up in my (mostly public) timeline. I wrote it in response to a right-wing relative's meme echo, which read: "Those of you that voted for Biden, here's your chance to brag! What has he done so far that you're most excited about." The half-dozen comments preceding mine didn't offer a single word of support, so I figured someone should step up. I've never not been critical of a Democratic President -- my first was JFK and LBJ (Vietnam!), although retrospectively I blame Truman for the Cold War and Korea, as well as for facilitating the right's first efforts to smash unions and deregulate banking -- and I wound up writing twice as much (not all but mostly critical) in my notebooks on Obama as I had on the more obviously reprehensible Bush. (My critiques of the Carter and Clinton presidencies are less well documented, but rest assured that they were often scathing. I now believe I was especially prescient about Clinton and Iraq, which paved the way for Bush.) But Biden is so maliciously assaulted by so many people who clearly know nothing and care nothing about the world we live in that I felt the need to speak back. And given the terms of the question, it was easy to construct an answer, and necessary to share it. (By the way, special thanks to Art Protin for the "1 share.") Sure, I may come to regret the "I still love Joe Biden," but that was something I felt the people I was responding needed to hear. And I did care enough about them to go with "all them nay-sayers" instead of the first word that popped into my mind: assholes. Fat lot of good it did me. The only written reply read "you're definitely in the wrong place. I didn't even waste my time reading bc I can tell you are a spoon." (Spoon?) The rest were stock memes, like a picture of a crack pipe captioned "moments before this comment was made." So much for reasoned dialogue with the right. I don't like shilling for a party that's only half-right half the time, but the Republicans are so far off the deep end they're giving us no other option. I don't have much enthusiasm for another Speaking of Which later this week, but getting "mugged by reality" is becoming a regular occurrence. By the way, I should note that I'm not soliciting "followers" on Facebook. I only joined up because my less-than-sociable niblings were there, as well as a smattering of other relatives, and I wanted to check up on them. I added a few old friends, and eventually agreed to a few music-interested acquaintances, the minimal requirement being people I had personal correspondence with. (Of course, if you do think you qualify, by all means send me a "friend request.") I rarely post on Facebook, and when I do it's usually just food pics (which seem to be more popular than anything I have to say about politics or music). I do, on occasion, post and/or comment in the Expert Witness Facebook group, which can be (but rarely is) used as a discussion forum for my Music Week posts. A better way to follow my writing is through Twitter. I also run a generally quiescent email list about websites (mostly the Robert Christgau site, and my own), so if you want in on that, mail me. Or you can always ask a question. New records reviewed this week: 75 Dollar Bill Featuring Barry Weisblat: Social Music at Troost Vol. 1 (2017 [2021], self-released): Guitar-percussion duo Che Chen and Rick Brown, started out around 2014, instrumental music with a Saharan flair, have been self-releasing a lot of live tapes since the pandemic hit. This one has Weisblat sitting in, on electronics including violin processing. Three tracks, 38:33. B+(***) [bc] 75 Dollar Bill Featuring David Watson: Social Music at Troost Vol. 2 (2027 [2021], self-released): Guest this time plays bagpipes (both large and small), for one 36:15 piece. The bagpipes aren't that alien to the group's guitar sound, but they are still bagpipes. B+(*) [bc] Beauty Pill: Instant Night (2021, Northern Spy, EP): DC band, led by Chad Clark, two albums (2004 and 2015), title song was written in 2015 while watching Ann Coulter predict that Donald Trump would become president, but not released until October 2020, in fear that he might be re-elected. Four songs, 14:05. B+(*) Dahveed Behroozi: Echos (2021, Sunnyside): Pianist, from California, grew up in San José, first album, a trio with Thomas Morgan (bass) and Billy Mintz (drums). Original pieces (including one by Morgan). B+(*) John Blum/Jackson Krall: Duplexity (2018 [2020], Relative Pitch): Piano and drums duo. Both musicians have fairly long but not very prolific careers -- e.g., both have records that share credit lines with William Parker (Krall from 1997, Blum from 2009). Two LP-timed pieces. A bassist might have rounded the performances out, but they're quite striking as is. B+(***) Bruiser Wolf: Dope Game Stupid (2021, Bruiser Brigade): Rapper, first album, don't know much about him but label was founded by Danny Brown. Comic voice, cosmic humor. B+(*) [bc] Glenn Close/Ted Nash: Transformation (2021, Tiger Turn): Actress, tied with Peter O'Toole for the dubious distinction of most Oscar nominations without a win (8). Discogs credits her with 6 albums since 1984, but none solo. Here she gives dramatic readings, as do several others, all variously tied the title, notably Eli Nash's transgender reveal. They are backed by a big band led by the alto saxophonist but intersecting with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra (including Wynton Marsalis on trumpet), a group Nash has long played in. The music is striking, deep, and elegant. B+(***) [sp] Conway the Machine: La Maquina (2021, De Rap Winkel): Buffalo rapper Demond Price, related to Westside Gunn (half-brother) and Benny the Butcher (cousin), prolific since 2015. B+(**) Cryptic One & Jestoneart: Pirata (2021, Centrifugal Phorce): Bandcamp page lists artist as "PIRATA," but I say why waste artist credits on the cover for an eponymous group? Words by Cryptic, sounds by Jestoneart. Dramatically and sonically, shades of MF Doom. B+(***) [bc] Daggerboard: Daggerboard & the Skipper (2020-21 [2022], Wide Hive): Daggerboard is group with a previous album, led by Erik Jekabson (trumpet) and Gregory Howe (keyboards, from Throttle Elevator Music), with Ross Howe (guitar), Mike Hughes (drums), some vibes, and a string section. The Skipper is veteran bassist Henry Franklin. B+(*) [cd] Deafheaven: Infinite Granite (2021, Sargent House): Started as a metal band in San Francisco in 2011, second album Sunbather was widely acclaimed, with their fifth album they seem to have become "post-metal" or even "shoegaze." Gets heavy enough I have little interest in listening, but no doubt they have skills, and the songs have sonic details of interest. B+(*) The Delines: The Sea Drift (2022, Jealous Butcher): Portland band, fourth album, singer is Amy Boone, songwriter is Willy Vlautin, who plays guitar and has a reputation as a novelist. Slow, immersive, comfy. B+(**) Dialect: Under~Between (2021, RVNG Intl): Electroacoustic producer Andrew PM Hunt from Liverpool, Dialect(19) at Discogs, previously recorded as Outfit. B+(*) [bc] Jon Durant & Stephan Thelen: Crossings (2020 [2021], Alchemy): Two guitarists, one based in Portland, the other in Zürich, reaching out over the pandemic lockdown. Functions as ambient, but on more levels than the genre is used to. B+(**) [bc] Gabby Fluke-Mogul: Threshold (2020 [2021], Relative Pitch): Violinist, based in New York, one of three debut albums that appeared in 2021. Solo improv, on the cutting edge of what can be an unpleasant instrument. B+(*) Colleen Green: Cool (2021, Hardly Art): Indie pop singer-songwriter from Los Angeles, fifth album since 2011. Mostly catchy, sometimes cool. B+(**) Daniel Herskedal: Harbour (2021, Edition): Norwegian tuba player (also bass trumpet), 10+ records since 2010, backed by Eyolf Dale (piano/celesta) and Helge Norbakken (drums/marimba). B Hinda Hoffman Meets Soul Message: People (2021 [2022], Know You Know): Standards singer, fourth album since 1995 (3rd appeared in 2017). Group is led by Chris Foreman on organ, with guitar, drums, and alto sax (Greg Ward). Songs range from "All of You" to "Angel Eyes," with nods to "People" and "Please Send Me Someone to Love." Mostly upbeat, with some salsa. B+(*) [cd] Ethan Iverson: Every Note Is True (2022, Blue Note): Pianist, was establishing himself as a major player when he got sidelined with the semipop Bad Plus trio, which he left in 2017. Back with a new trio here, with Larry Grenadier (bassist for Brad Mehldau all those years) and Jack DeJohnette (drummer for Keith Jarrett even longer). Should be a big deal, but hard for me to focus on it. B+(**) Durand Jones & the Indications: Private Space (2021, Dead Oceans): Retro-soul group, from Indiana, third album, not sure how this will hold up over time, let alone in direct comparison with similar 1970s groups (like the Stylistics and the Chi-Lites), but for 2021 it's exceptionally lovely without being overly lush, and I'm really enjoying that. A- Topaz Jones: Don't Go Tellin' Your Momma (2021, New Funk Academy/Black Canopy): New Jersey rapper, previous album from 2016, this one accompanied by a 35-minute film I haven't seen, but it seems to be well regarded. Nice flow here, has a lot to say. B+(**) Menahan Street Band: The Exciting Sounds of Menahan Street Band (2021, Daptone): Instrumental r&b band, has three albums backing Charles Bradley, three more on their own. Way short of "exciting." B- Mimz & Dunn: Infinite Lawn (2021, self-released): New York rappers, former sometimes billed as Mimz the Magnificent, but I can't find Discogs or much else on either. Underground vibe but messed up. B [bc] Mother Nature and BoatHouse: SZNZ (2021, Closed Sessions): Mother Nature is a Chicago hip-hop duo (Klevah Knox and TRUTH -- that's about all I know), and BoatHouse is the label's in-house producer. They make a well-meaning racket. B+(***) [bc] Kim Nalley Band With Houston Person: I Want a Little Boy (2022, Kim Nalley Productions): Standards singer, leans toward blues, fifth album after the last two assayed Nina Simone and Billie Holiday. The saxophonist is spectacular. Maria Muldaur helps on the first of two title song takes, as if Nalley wasn't sexy enough. B+(***) [cd] New Age Doom: Lee "Scratch" Perry's Guide to the Universe (2021, We Are Busy Bodies): Vancouver-based "experimental drone metal band," duo of drummer Eric J. Breitenbach and multi-instrumentalist Greg Valou. Third album. Some sources co-credit album to The Upsetters, or to Perry himself (credited with vocals). Other musicians listed include Dan Rosenbloom (trumpet) and Donny McCaslin (sax). Not quite metal, nor dub nor dancehall, but a gloomy fog obscuring all. B+(**) Sergio Pereira: Finesse (2022, Sedajazz): Brazilian guitarist, moved to New York in the 1980s, third album (I'm aware of, after Swingando and Nu Brasil). Various lineups, with vocals by Pereira and Paula Santoro. B+(*) [cd] Raxon: Sound of Mind (2021, Kompakt): Egyptian DJ based in Barcelona, Ahmed Dawoud, "long awaited debut album" after many singles/EPs since 2009. Strong beats. B+(***) [bc] Stĺhls Trio: Källtorp Sessions Volume Two (2017-18 [2021], Moserobie): Swedish vibraphonist, albums since 2001 (as Stĺhls Blĺ), side credits include Angles and Trondheim Jazz Orchestra. Also plays soprano sax in this trio with bass and drums, significantly adding guest Mats Ĺleklint (trombone). B+(***) [cd] Natsuki Tamura: Summer Tree (2021 [2022], Libra): Japanese trumpet player, married to pianist Satoko Fujii, credited with voice here on one (of four) tracks -- the few small bits of piano turn out to be Tamura, who is also credited with wok. Rough start, better when the trumpet takes over. B+(*) Stephan Thelen: Fractal Guitar 2 (2019-20 [2021], Moonjune): Guitarist, composer, mathematician, born in California, based in Zürich, has recorded since 2002, often as Sonar. This follows a remarkable 2019 album, six pieces with 3-6 guitarists each, percussion, sometimes keyboards. Groove helps, but doesn't just sweep you along. Every detail is fascinating. A- [bc] The Underflow: Instant Opaque Evening (2020 [2021], Blue Chopsticks): Avant-jazz trio: David Grubbs (guitar), Mats Gustafsson (baritone sax, flute, electronics), and Rob Mazurek (piccolo trumpet, electronics, percussion, voice). Long, never quite coheres. B Martin Wind/New York Bass Quartet: Air (2021 [2022], Laika): Four bassists, Wind credited as lead on all cuts save one, the others: Gregg August, Jordan Frazer, Sam Suggs. With some guests to move things along (drummers Matt Wilson and Lenny White) or brighten a bit (Gary Versace on piano, organ, and accordion). Title tune from J.S. Bach, other classics include a "Beatles Medley," with pieces by Charlie Haden, Pat Metheny, Joe Zawinul, and a couple Wind originals. B+(*) [cd] Yeule: Glitch Princess (2022, Bayonet): Natasha Yelin Chang, from Singapore, aka Nat Cmiel (non-binary), glitch pop auteur, second album (after 3 EPs), strikes me as obscure but not uninteresting. Skipped the 284-minute ambient track closing the digital edition. B+(**) Denny Zeitlin/George Marsh: Telepathy (2019 [2021], Sunnyside): Pianist, in his 80s now, has recorded regularly since 1964. Marsh is a percussionist, side credits with David Grisman, has recorded a number of albums with Zeitlin going as far back as 1973. Duo, but Zeitlin's synthesizers broaden the sound spectrum. B+(**) Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries: Cuba: Music and Revolution: Culture Clash in Havana Cuba: Experiments in Latin Music 1975-85 Vol. 1 (1975-85 [2021], Soul Jazz, 2CD): Compiled by Gilles Peterson & Stuart Baker, reportedly with extensive liner notes, tied to a large format book release. Several bands are famous even here (Irakere, Los Van Van), failure to recognize more is probably my bad. Good, sometimes great, music, possibly classic, but not enough to really go on. [playlist: 15/23 tracks] B+(***) [sp] Cuba: Music and Revolution: Culture Clash in Havana Cuba: Experiments in Latin Music 1973-85 Vol. 2 (1973-85 [2021], Soul Jazz, 2CD): More of the same, same caveats, but so far I'd give this one a slight edge. [playlist: 15/22 tracks] A- [sp] Anthony Williams: Life Time & Spring Revisited (1964-65 [2022], Ezz-Thetics): Drummer, died young at 51 but started young too, playing professionally with Sam Rivers at 13, Jackie McLean at 16, joining Miles Davis's second legendary quintet when he was 17, and recording these two Blue Note albums (total 77:21) before he turned 20. They're a bit mixed, but tenor saxophonist Rivers stellar on most (7/10) tracks, with Wayne Shorter joining in on three. Two other tracks feature Herbie Hancock, one of those with Bobby Hutcherson. The other one is a 5:00 drum exercise. A- [bc] Old music: Cleveland Eaton: Plenty Good Eaton (1974 [2020], Black Jazz/Real Gone Music): Bassist, played many other instruments, and sings some here, led a half-dozen albums 1973-1980, side credits mainly with Ramsey Lewis and later with Count Basie Orchestra (1980-92). Fairly large group, including violin, electric piano, guitar, horn section, at times seem swept up in disco groove or funk thang. B+(*) Sheila Jordan & Arild Andersen: Sheila (1977 [1978], SteepleChase): Voice and bass duo, a format she used very effectively later. Her debut Portrait of Sheila appeared 1962, but she only started recording regularly with Roswell Rudd's fabulous Flexible Flyer in 1975. Some remarkable bits here, but could use a little more swing in the bass. B+(***) [sp] Sheila Jordan & E.S.P. Trio: Sheila's Back in Town (1998 [1999], Splasc(H)): Twelve songs from seven dates in a tour of Italy, backed by Roberto Cipelli (piano), Attilo Zanchi (bass), and Gianni Cazzola (drums), with extra strings on three tracks. B+(**) [sp] Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:
Ask a question, or send a comment. Saturday, February 26, 2022 Speaking of Ukraine[PS: Added some further thoughts on sanctions to the Bennis comment.] A couple days ago I thought I had figured a way out of the Ukraine crisis that should satisfy all but a handful of inveterate hawks and neo-nazis. The solution was so obvious I was wondering how I could get a prestige op-ed slot to change the course of history. Of course, it's practically impossible for someone with no credentials and barely 500 Twitter followers to get an airing. But without the benefit of my idea, history shifted the opposite direction, as Russia attacked Ukraine, transforming a threat of war into a cold fact. Or did it? All sides are so preoccupied with propagating their political stances that it's hard to find credible reports of what's actually happening. Nonetheless, while even limited war leaves wounds that are more anguishing and scars that linger longer than mere threats, short of total annihilation the only way this ends is in some sort of agreement. And while war may alter "facts on the ground," the only possible viable solutions are ones that are rooted in justice, and that hasn't changed. For what it's worth, I didn't see Putin's recognition of the breakaway Ukraine oblasts of Donetsk and Lughansk as much of a problem. All that move did was signal that revival of the 2015 Minsk II Agreement, which neither side had implemented to the other's satisfaction, was not going to work. The idea behind Minsk was troublesome in the first place: the Donbas would in theory remain part of Ukraine but "autonomous," giving Russia a potentially subversive base inside Ukraine. A much simpler and cleaner solution would be to cut Donbas and Crimea free of Ukraine, and accept their annexation by Russia. That would leave Ukraine free both of Russian claims and of a substantial Russophile political base, allowing the rest of the country to align itself with Europe -- presumably what the rest of the country wants. Of course, one shouldn't simply hand over territory because an aggressive neighboring regime demands it. That would justify charges of appeasement, and encourage further encroachments. However, the principle should be respect for self-determination: the people in a contested area should have the right to decide which nation to align with, or independence, by a fair and internationally supervised election. Moreover, people on the losing side of any such ballot should be able to move, on relatively favorable terms. Such disputes happen often enough that this mechanism should be established as a basic principle of international law, where nations which respect these procedures are recognized as law-abiding, and those who do not should be subject to sanctions. Russia's motivation for acceding to such procedures would include the expectation that US-imposed sanctions would be lifted. It seems very likely that such a vote in Crimea and Donbass would favor annexation by Russia, while similar votes in other parts of Ukraine would not. It should be hard for anyone to argue against such an expression of popular will. Beyond that, the US, Russia, NATO, and Ukraine need to meet and work toward reducing threats, including nuclear and cyber. The US, as by far the world's most exorbitantly armed nation, has a lot to offer in terms of threat reduction, and all people and nations would benefit from such diplomacy. Of course, such talks should extend to other sectors, including US-China, India-Pakistan, Israel-Iran, Korea, etc., but substantial progress can be made in regional agreements. One can, for example, imagine NATO freezing its membership, unwinding deployments, and reducing exercises in tandem with Russia reducing its threats. The principle of self-determination can be applied elsewhere: Georgia also has Russian-backed breakaway provinces; the former Yugoslavia still has issues over Kosovo and the Bosnian Serb enclave; Northern Ireland might wish to join Ireland to undo the effects of Brexit. The most dangerous territorial dispute is probably China's claim to Taiwan. This would give China a non-violent way of pursuing reunification, encouraging it to make itself more appealing, rather than more threatening. Admittedly, all along I assumed that Putin was a rational leader pursuing limited goals in the face of increasingly virulent hostility from the US, whose foreign policy is largely driven by a huge arms industry and monstrous ideological conceits -- most conspicuously a desire to indulge Israel's settler-colonial project, with its roots resonating with America's own 19th century project. While I still reject blanket statements that Putin is evil, that he's engaged in a crusade to destroy democracy, and that he has designs on restoring and extending Russia's empire of yore, I must admit that he has some glaring flaws and blind spots, which have led him to overestimate the value of force and fail to appreciate how badly his use of force makes him look. I've been critical of the Biden administration in the run up here: their unwillingness to consider limiting NATO and pressing Ukraine on Minsk II implementation, their use of scare tactics to rally public opinion (in Ukraine, Europe, and US), especially their "intelligence" leaks predicting imminent invasion that sounded more like taunts, their use of character assassination making eventual settlement even harder to achieve. Smart negotiators leave one with an honorable exit path, but they've boxed Putin into a corner where he had no choice but to strike back or admit defeat, so they've effectively provoked his bad behavior. On the other hand, the fault is ultimately his, and I suspect it will eventually topple him from power. I don't see that as a plus -- "the devil you know" and all that -- but I also don't see it as tragic either. Putin has done terrible things as leader of Russia, which is a big part of why he's gotten into this mess. The real question is whether the US can come out of this with a generous, constructive approach to world order -- something far removed from the arrogance that developed after the Cold War, that drove us into the manifest failures of the Global War on Terror. Looking around Washington it's hard to identify anyone with the good sense to change direction. [Note that the area held by separatists is only about half of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, although it does contain the main cities. Delineating areas for such elections is bound to remain controversial.] The following are some Ukraine links (note dates, as events move fast and people have a hard time separating fact from fiction from pure fantasy). [2/14] David K Shipler: How America's Broken Promises May Lead to a New Cold War: What's with the future tense? It now appears that the US never stopped its scheming around the old Cold War: it only briefly shifted tactics to appear less threatening around 1990 when Gorbachev was desperately trying to reform the Soviet Union. The US didn't orchestrate everything that followed, but did repeatedly take advantage of disconnects and mishaps to isolate and impoverish Russia, not least by promoting anti-Russian sentiment in territories that been subservient and still had reason to be friendly. Expansion of NATO was a big part of the schema, not because NATO wanted to take advantage and finish Russia off but because NATO needed an enemy to justify itself (and all those purchases of American arms), and Russia was the easiest enemy to paint. It helps here to realize that NATO is basically a scheme for the US to assume control of Europe's armies (somewhat less than formally). The only way Russia can escape the NATO vise would be to give up its army, which means its independence -- a humiliation no Russian leader could survive. On [2/25], Shipler followed up with: A Russian Tragedy, noting that "Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine is also an assault on his own people." Shipler notes how a "sense of persecution echoes into Putin's current remarks." It may be impossible to imagine the world as seen through someone else's eyes, but it might help to try. [2/15] Masha Gessen: How the Kosovo Air War Foreshadowed the Crisis in Ukraine: Sees 1999 as a turning point in post-Cold War US-Russia relations, one still remembered in Moscow as an affront, as well as a model for how one nation (or coalition, as the bombing was nominally the work of NATO) can terrorize another into submission. As the war started in earnest, Gessen followed up with: The Crushing Loss of Hope in Ukraine [2/23], and also: Russia's Last Independent TV Channel Covers the Invasion of Ukraine. [2/21] David Remnick: Putin's Preparations for Ukraine: "The autocrat has been trying for decades to end what he sees as a prolonged period of Russian humiliation." Follows up Gessen's note on Belgrade, 1999, with a broader historical accounting. Putin's original motive may indeed have been the humiliation Russia faced following the breakup of the Soviet Union, but note how US politicians and media have striven to humiliate Putin personally, under Obama since 2009, and both for and against Trump since 2016. On [2/26] Remnick also published the more polemical Putin's Bloody Folly in Ukraine. [2/21] Nonzero Newsletter: Why Biden didn't negotiate seriously with Putin. This is a good idea for an article, and his two major points are reasonable, but I think he messes up on some details. First is the Munich "appeasement" charge. It's been used hundreds of times since 1938 to derail negotiations, without examining what actually happened then and why, let alone what else could have been done about it. The author offers two differences between 1938 and now, which may be true but aren't the ones that matter (that Hitler was crazy but Putin is not, and that Hitler's demand was territorial, but Putin was more concerned with Ukraine's possible NATO membership). The more important difference is that in 1938 the world was dominated by global empires (which the UK, France, and effectively the US, had, with Japan gaining ground, and Germany shut out), whereas today such empires are politically and economically untenable. The consequence of that was that Hitler didn't just want the Sudetenland, he wanted a whole domino chain of additional territories. Sure, maybe Putin wants more than just the Donbas, but his appetite is necessarily limited in ways that Hitler's wasn't. Just because "appeasing" Hitler didn't work doesn't mean that a similar concession to Putin would only make him more voracious. It might not only have avoided this week's war, it would have given the world time to work on reducing the humiliation Russia has been subjected to since the end of the Soviet Union (a defeat in some minds as serious as Germany's war-and-empire loss). The counterfactual also fails: had Chamberlain held firm, would Hitler not have invaded Czechoslovakia? Or Poland? Or Russia? The UK had no troops that could defend Eastern Europe from Hitler. All they could have done was threatened to declare war, which in fact Chamberlain did after Poland. The only effect that declaration had was to move France up Hitler's checklist, force the evacuation of British forces at Dunkirk, and open Britain up to bombing. Yet, somehow the myth of Munich persists: that all it takes to stop an aggressor is a resolute show of strength. Thus the US showed its mettle by refusing to concede anything in negotiations, daring Putin to put his own strength on display. The second reason for not negotiating seriously is the "Putin can't be reasoned with" meme. Some people have psychological theories to support this, while others just rely on facile analogies (like Putin = Hitler, or Putin = Evil). But more likely is the arrogant notion that the US holds all the trump cards, so the only thing Russia can do is back down. After all, they've backed down at each NATO expansion. They've demurred at not implementing the Minsk II agreement. They've watched as the US has wooed Zelensky into becoming a puppet. And if ever they do object, just slap more sanctions on them, and they'll come begging for mercy. Diplomacy may be a lost art, but who needs it when you can get away with extortionate demands? Besides, isn't it comforting to know that when appeasement or its opposite doesn't work, it will be someone else suffering the costs? [2/22] Patrick Cockburn: Russia-Ukraine is an Information War, So Government Intelligence Needs More Scrutiny Than Ever: More lessons from Iraq than current reporting on Ukraine, but lessons are advised -- and the full extent of deceits from all sides over Ukraine will take some time to work out. Another lesson from Iraq: Putin's Advance Into Ukraine Compares with Saddam Hussein's Invasion of Kuwait . . . a Disaster for Russia. This is a point I sympathize with, but needs to be taken with a couple caveats. First, Saddam was able to put down both popular uprisings and internal division to keep control over Iraq, and there is no reason to think that Putin is less skilled or ruthless in his exercise of power. Second, Saddam ultimately succumbed to a much greater foreign threat, but not even the US is at all ready to invade and occupy (or just blow to kingdom come) Russia. One more Cockburn piece: Russophobia Leads Us to Assume the Worst of Russians -- and Assuming They're Demonic Could be Dangerous. [2/22] John Judis: A Dissenting View on US Policy toward Russia: He was right to worry that Ukraine "could signal the beginning of a Cold War II," but it would be more accurate to say that Cold War II brought us to the war in Ukraine, a pretty vivid reminder of why such Cold Wars should be avoided as assiduously as hot wars. Even during Cold War I, the Soviet Union sent troops into Hungary and Czechoslovakia to quash rebellion and shore up their control over their frontier provinces. What's different here is that it took Putin eight years to conclude that he had to act, making the final decision more unexpected. But after decades of painting him as an unreformed KGB agent, as a ruthless political dictator who kills his opponents, is it really so surprising that he would rise to the part? [2/23] Ken Klippenstein: Saudi-Russia Collusion is driving up gas prices -- and worsening Ukraine crisis. Russia and Saudi Arabia are two of the world's three largest oil and gas producers, and unlike the US (the other one), their finances are strictly dependent on keeping prices high. So while the US has been cranking up anti-Russian propaganda, Russia has been ingratiating itself to the oil barons of the Persian Gulf. While Europe as fallen in line behind the US on Ukraine, support has been less forthcoming from supposed allies in the Middle East: see, [2/25] Matthew Petti: US-backed Middle East states cozy up to Russia during Ukraine invasion. Nor is it just the Saudis looking for a windfall. See Kate Aronoff: Vultures Are Circling the Ukraine Crisis. [2/23] Eric Levitz: Which Russia-Ukraine Take Is Right for You?:] Useful primariy as a compendium of many of the dumb things people are saying as they try to fit events into their preconceived agendas. Note that none of these positions match mine, although I'm not so far from the "anti-war realist" position represented by Anatol Lieven (see articles below). He also refers to what he calls a "far left yet objectively pro-imperial oligarchy" position, and links to a 2014 piece on something called World Socialist Web Site which, well, I don't know who the hell they are, but it should be possible to be very critical of US/NATO foreign policy without supporting or defending Russia. For example, see [2/25] David Broder: Stop Pretending the Left Is on Putin's Side. Also [2/23] Branko Mercetic: With Putin's Ukraine Incursion, Hawks in Washington Got Exactly What They Wanted. Levitz has more on Trumpy-Right posturing, but also see Alex Shephard: Trump and His Putin Apologists Blame "Woke" Democrats for Invasion of Ukraine. It wouldn't actually be hard for the right to construct a critique of how Biden's handling of Ukraine and Russia has cornered Russia into lashing out irrationally -- especially to link the conflict back to Obama's (and Hillary Clinton's) pivot against Russia, especially to the Democrats' anti-Russia scapegoating for the 2016 election and their subsequent impeachment of Trump. They could even try to argue that Trump tried to restore an element of respect and balance to the relationship, but that he was heckled at every turn by warmongering Democrats and their media allies. But that would require a modicum of critical thought, but their brain rot (and their reflexive demonology) prevents them from even approximating coherence. [2/24] Zack Beauchamp: Putin's "Nazi" rhetoric reveals his terrifying war aims in Ukraine: As you know, Nazis are pure evil, so we can't have any of that. -- even though of late the term gets bandied about so often, over such trivial concerns as mask mandates, that it's on the verge of losing all meaning. But students of Ukraine recall that there were once real Nazis there -- at least, Ukrainian who hated Russians (and Jews) enough to collaborate with German invaders. One can't say how many Ukrainian nationalists are neo-Nazis these days, but it's an easy charge to hurl, and one invading Russians are likely to apply indiscriminately. Worse, it implies that they have designs not just on the rulers of Ukraine but on the people. Beauchamp also wrote [2/25]: Why the US won't send troops to Ukraine. Something about nuclear weapons, but one could also argue that US troops are incapable of not making any situation worse, even without resorting to WMD. [2/24] Jen Kirby/Jonathan Guyer: Putin's invasion of Ukraine, explained. Not every point I would make, but a good general backgrounder, noting the confusion sowed by breakup of the Soviet Union, the renascent Cold War driven largely by the expansion of NATO, and the eight years of tensions following the anti-Russian coup in Ukraine and the subsequent pro-Russian revolt. Kirby also wrote [2/25]: US sanctions will squeeze Russia -- but they're unlikely to stop war in Ukraine. As many people have pointed out, Russia has considerable experience with US sanctions by now, and the new sanctions have been widely broadcast as threats, so they've had time to prepare and plan. Also, while sanctions have a "trickle down" effect hurting everyday lives, states that have largely insulated themselves from democratic control just tend to hunker down and redouble their convictions. In the great wave of anti-communist reform from 1989-91, the only regimes that didn't fall were the ones the the US had fought hot wars with and/or subjected to crippling sanctions and blockades -- something also true of non-communist states that had run afoul of US grudges, like Iraq and Iran. On the other hand, the mere threat of sanctions can unnerve countries with a large, globally-connected private sector, such as Apartheid South Africa. That's also why Israel is so agitated over the BDS movement, even though it has virtually no state support in the US and Europe, and even though it's a much more civil way to oppose the injustices of Israel's Apartheid regime than any others. Sanctions against Russia right now are certainly preferable to more military options, but the US has a bad track record of understanding both what they are useful for and what their limitations are. One can only hope to achieve limited reforms -- which certainly do not include regime change -- with them, and they only have a chance of working if they can be repealed and lifted. But Americans tend to view them more as a way of expressing disapproval without risking military reprisal, and as such as a safe form of aggression (hence the threat rhetoric well in advance of Russia's "special operations"). And since disapproval is usually located in leaders (like Putin) and political systems, it's hard for Americans to rewind them. Hence they remain irritants, leading to future hostilities. [2/24] Robin Wright: Putin's Historic Miscalculation May Make Him a War Criminal: Sure, as far as I'm concerned it does. I'd say pretty much every time any national leader starts shooting or bombing across borders they're committing war crimes or some sort. However, wouldn't that also apply to Saudi Arabia (bombing Yemen), the US (Somalia), and Israel (Syria), just to pick examples from the last few days I saw in a meme? But in the real world, nobody gets prosecuted for war crimes, unless they've been totally defeated, in which case the trials are regarded as mere "victor's justice." Even then, it's often more constructive to have some kind of "truth and reconciliation process" than something that simply looks like revenge. And in the case of Putin, it's possible that his own people might sack him, but until then the only way to bring this war to a close is to negotiate with him, and that is hardly helped by calling him names. This article has a bunch of examples, including the inevitable "others compared him to Hitler" -- lead example there is professional anti-Russia agitator Michael McFaul -- and an even more fanciful comparison to Stalin and Mao ("ruthless megalomaniac with a giant imperialist agenda" -- that from Nina Krushcheva, who really should know better). [2/25] Anatol Lieven: Ukraine: What Russia wants, what the West can do: "For those who understand Moscow's establishment and view of their country's vital interests, none of this should be a surprise." Lieven has written numerous pieces on Russian/Ukraine over the last weeks and months: you can reach many of them through this link (and the "Load More" buttons). As he points out, Putin's appetite only grows with apparent victories on the ground, but prospects for occupying Ukraine beyond the Russian-speaking regions are fraught with danger, and there is little way to maintain a pliant government without enforcing troops. Hence, Ukraine is a trap for Russia, much like Afghanistan and Iraq were traps for the US, so the only way to secure gains is to negotiate for them. I've linked to this before, but Lieven's long paper from Jan. 4 remains immensely useful: Ending the Threat of War in Ukraine: A Negotiated Solution to the Donbass Conflict and the Crimean Dispute. Also see American Prospect's interview with Lieven: Worse Than a Crime; It's a Blunder. [2/25] Phyllis Bennis: Respond to Putin's Illegal Invasion of Ukraine with Diplomacy, Not War. And remember that sanctions may be war by other means, but are acts of war nonetheless. Still, this is one instance where I don't mind them, and am even a bit hopeful that they might work. They give the US and other concerned nations a means of responding without adding to the conflagration, making matters even worse. I'm also curious to see effective they might be, given the extraordinary globalization of finance in the world. It may even be the case that Russia is especially vulnerable to sanctions on individual oligarchs, precisely because they've exported so much of their wealth. Also note [2/25] Marcus Stanley: Why sanctions on Russia are necessary. [2/25] Ilya Matveev: The Putin Regime Is Straining Under Its Own Contradictions: Interview by Rafael Khachaturian with the editor of Openleft.ru. Not much on the war per sé, but quite a bit on the economic stagnation that has afflicted Russia since 2010 (after a decade of strong growth under Putin, following the disastrous Yeltsin 1990s). Matveev and Ilya Budraitskis also wrote: Ordinary Russians Don't Want This War. [2/25] Jeffrey St. Clair: Roaming Charges: Insane in the Ukraine. Usual batch of scattered bullet points, many worth reading, as well as unrelenting scorn for American hypocrisy over other nations bombing and pillaging. He also cautions against reading too much into Putin's vow to "de-Nazify" Ukraine ("after all, he hasn't done much to de-Nazify Russia"). [2/26] Jason Horowitz: Putin's Aggression Leaves His Right-Wing Fan Club Squirming: A quick survey of world luminaries on the far right, folk like Nigel Farage, Marine Le Pen, Jair Bolsonaro, and Silvio Berlusconi, although Donald Trump only appears in a picture with Putin. Reminds you that despite the infantile red-baiting Americans habitually lapse into, Putin's international appeal has always been on the right, both for his "strong man" persona and for his knee-jerk conservatism. Also that when push comes to shove, nationalists tend to drift apart, as they discover that being from different nations matters. This is, by the way, one place where comparisons to Hitler are apt. People forget how widely the right admired Hitler in the first years after seizing power, before he launched the genocidal wars that he's now remembered for. The New York Times has a piece Maps: Tracking the Russian Invasion of Ukraine. As of 11:55 pm ET, 2/26, Russian forces are shows as pushing close to Kyiv and Kharkiv and not quite in either. Unclear whether this is due to restraint or resistance. Russia appears to have moved faster in their breakout from Crimea, but the largest city they appeared to have captured is Kherson, an Oblast capital with less than 300,000 people. (At least that's the only one I recognized. Melitopol has a population of about 150,000.) There doesn't appear to have been any advance from the breakaway areas of Luhansk and Donetsk, although Russian troops have entered north of Luhansk. I don't have much to report on antiwar protests within Russia, but there is a Wikipedia page on the subject, with extensive footnotes, and a box there with links to other pages on the conflict and war. Normally, I'd follow this up with scattered links of interest, but the above has taken quite enough of my time, and the other stories can wait. Needless to say, events here are changing very rapidly. For instance, initial sanctions did not include barring Russia from the SWIFT financial system, but there are now reports of this happening. Ask a question, or send a comment. Tuesday, February 22, 2022 Music Week
February archive (in progress). Tweet: Music Week: 53 albums, 8 A-list, Music: Current count 37375 [37322] rated (+53), 139 [141] unrated (-2). Music Week delayed a day this week, as I spent much of Sunday and Monday cooking birthday dinner for my wife (Laura) and nephew (Ram). I thought I had some scallops in the freezer, and I've been wanting to make coquille saint-jacques, so crafted a French-ish menu around that. I also noticed a brandade recipe, and had some salt cod in the refrigerator, and just enough lead time to soak it. I also had some chicken liver I needed to use, so decided I'd start the meal with spreads on crostini: the brandade (salt cod and potatoes), chopped liver, sardine rillettes, and eggplant-olive tapenade. For sides, I thought I'd go with simple for brightly-colored dishes: glazed carrots, baby spinach sauteed in butter, slow roasted cherry tomatoes, and mashed celery root. Plate looks like this. For dessert, a very intense flourless chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream. Each dish was exquisite in its own way. I didn't have much time (or, frankly, desire) to follow political matters last week, so missed Putin's speech where he announced Russian recognition of independent republics of Donetsk and Luhansk. But as I understand it, this still doesn't come close to the threat of invasion the Biden administration has been breathlessly hyping. Anatol Lieven reports: Putin's move on Donetsk, Lugansk is illegal but falls short of new 'invasion'. Given many precedents I can think of, I'm not sure that complaints about illegality are meaningful or helpful. This did lead me to a useful historical paper Lieven dated Jan. 4, 2022: Ending the Threat of War in Ukraine: A Negotiated Solution to the Donbass Conflict and the Crimean Dispute. I have two further comments on this: 1) I would personally be happy to resolve Donbass and Crimea by allowing either or both to be annexed by Russia, subject to a fair election (based on current population, which most probably tilts pro-Russian). 2) I regard Biden's aggressive and self-righteous rhetoric as reckless and dangerous, but I will allow that it may have made it harder for Russia to invade or to pressure Ukraine (while scaring the hell out of Ukrainians, in the hope of bullying them into being more pro-west and anti-Russian); one problem is that it risks exposing US "intelligence" as totally dishonest and incompetent; another is that it leaves Putin very few options to step back without being humiliated. One political thing I'm more inclined to write about later this week is the manifesto Sen. Rick Scott is circulating about what to expect if Republicans win Congress in 2022. For a rundown, see If McConnell Disapproved of Rick Scott's Neo-Bircher Agenda, It Would Never Have Been Released. Consider how disconnected from reality one has to be to write something like this:
I've considered myself a (not-very-militant) member of the left since about 1967, when I found a book called The New Radicals (edited by Paul Jacobs and Saul Landau), and with it a label and context for much of what I believed. And for my whole life since then, I've never had reason to think that my fellow leftists had any power whatsoever in any of the forums Scott lists. Never once. Nor is redefining and silencing our style. The only way Scott's sentence makes any sense is if you read it as a complaint that the views of Scott and his cohort have become so completely unhinged that they've lost so much support in the halls of power that they now fear persecution. probably because in their bones they know that if they had that same power, that's what they would be doing. The document continues with a list of things that the left wants "to change or destroy," so it would be easy (and possibly clarifying, or maybe just funny) to write up a point-by-point rebuttal. Of course, it would be a pointless exercise if Scott were really as marginal a figure as his rants suggest, but he is a US Senator from the 3rd most populous state in the US, and chairman of the US Senate Republican Campaign Committee, so it seems he should be taken seriously. Despite losing a day from my usual week, we have a substantial list of records below, again mostly 2021 releases, many of which showed up on lately perused EOY lists. The blues albums came from AMG's genre lists (I previously had about half of them). I made a special search for hip-hop lists, which pushed Tyler the Creator into 3rd, displacing Olivia Rodrigo, and bumped Lil Nas X to 15th. I was surprised to find a lot of those lists touting Kanye West (up to 48) and Drake (up to 119) -- respectively, C+ and B for me. A set of lists at Wicked Sound helped, although none were labeled hip-hop or rap (closest was "beats"). The A- item in the "Old Music" section was offered up as a download by a reader, as a tangent to another discussion. Takes me back to my childhood, although it's actually better than I remembered. I guess that's one way to get me to write about something hard to find. (I'm still mostly using Napster, but also finding some things on Spotify that I can't find on Napster -- just not much.) New records reviewed this week: 42 Dugg: Free Dem Boyz (2021, 4PF/CMG): Detroit rapper Dion Marquise Hayes, fourth mixtape. Like his voice, and the beats got some bounce. B+(*) The Allergies: Promised Land (2021, Jalapeno): British electronic/remixing duo (DJ Moneyshot, Rackabeat) from Bristol, fifth album since 2016, by this evidence hip-hop, more vintage/funk than UK norms. Guest spots for rappers include Dynamite MC, Andy Cooper, Marietta Smith, and Lyrics Born. B+(***) Wayne Alpern: Secular Rituals (2022, Henri Elkan): Composer, originally from Detroit, based in New York, "his musical scholarship and theoretical expertise focuses on Schenkerian analysis and 20th-century music." Music here is "digitally created," patterns somewhere between minimalism, new age, and Krautrock. B+(**) [cd] Aminé: TwoPointFive (2021, Republic/CLBN): Rapper Adam Aminé Daniel, from Portland, parents from Ethiopia, several albums since 2017, title here reflects on OnePointFive (2018). Short album (12 tracks, 27:20), nice and tight. B+(***) Pat Bianchi: Something to Say: The Music of Stevie Wonder (2021, Savant): Organ player, albums since 2006, leads a quartet with Paul Bollenback (guitar), Byron Landham (drums), and (sometimes) tenor saxophonist Wayne Escoffery. You'd think Wonder's songs would work out better, but they rarely do. B Selwyn Birchwood: Living in a Burning House (2021, Alligator): Blues singer-songwriter, from Tampa, plays guitar and lap steel, fifth album (third on Alligator). B+(*) Pi'erre Bourne: The Life of Pi'erre 5 (2021, SossHouse/Interscope): Rapper Jordan Jenks, born in Kansas but grew up in South Carolina, second studio album after a pile of mixtapes (including the first three in the Life of Pi'erre series). B+(***) Leon Bridges: Gold-Diggers Sound (2021, Columbia): Retro-soul singer, third album since 2015. B+(*) The Buttshakers: Arcadia (2021, Underdog): French retro soul group, led by American singer Ciara Thompson, fifth album since 2010, extra gritty. B+(**) [bc] Daniel Carter/Avi Granite: Together Song: The Improvisations of Daniel Carter and Avi Granite Vol. 1 (2018 [2021], Pet Mantis): Duets, three improv pieces (35:59), Granite plays guitar, Carter various wind instruments (flute, clarinet, tenor/soprano sax, trumpet). B+(*) Curly Castro: Little Robert Hutton (2021, Backwoodz Studioz): Philadelphia rapper, several albums since 2013, part of groups ShrapKnel and Wrecking Crew, tapped for featuring spots here. Looks back to the Black Panthers, and finds a long tradition of radicalism. B+(***) Steve Cropper: Fire It Up (2021, Provogue): Famous r&b guitarist, backed Stax stars from the late 1960s, playing in their "house band," famous in their own right as Booker T. & the M.G.'s. His career as a leader has been spotty, although his 2011 Dedicated: A Salute to the 5 Royales is a high point. Solid original blues set here, where he shares most writing credits with Jon Tiven (bass/sax/keyboards) and Roger C. Reale (vocals). B+(**) [sp] Damu the Fudgemunk: Conversation Peace (2021, Def Pressé): DC rapper Earl Davis, better known as a hip-hop producer, Discogs credits him with 23 albums since 2008, including one from 2020 that featured Archie Shepp. This is the first volume in the label's KPM Crate Diggers series, where various hip-hop producers are invited to rumage through the KPM Music library. Good choice, spinning the beats into a perfectly inconspicuous flow, adding thoughtful raps from Raw Poetic, Insight, Nitty Scott, Blu, and Damu himself. A- Richard Dawson & Circle: Henki (2021, Weird World): English progressive/freak folk singer-songwriter, albums since 2005, plus long-running Finnish band Circle (for which Discogs lists 54 albums since 1992). I was more impressed before I realized the band they remind me of is Jethro Tull. B Dijon: Absolutely (2021, R&R Digital/Warner): Singer-songwriter, last name Duenas, born in Germany, grew up in Maryland, first album after a couple EPs. Stressful. B Drake: Certified Lover Boy (2021, OVO/Republic, 2CD): Canadian rapper Aubrey Graham, goes by his middle name, hit platinum with his debut and remains profitable, although seems like he gets little respect. Sure, this shows up in the middle-third of several hip-hop EOY lists, perhaps a nod to his sales, or to his liberal use of guests (12 of 21 songs here). Typical example: "Way 2 Sexy," built on the Right Said Fred sample handed over to Future and Young Thug. I like it, but it's not close to great. Same can be said often enough that one could imagine editing this down to a perfectly acceptable mid-B+ album. Still, one wonders what Drake's personal contribution is, other than signing the checks. B Kahil El'Zabar Quartet: A Time for Healing (2021 [2022], Spiritmuse): "Chicago's legendary jazz shaman," a percussionist who sometimes sings too much, leads a group with Cory Wilkes (trumpet), Isaiah Collier (reeds), and Justin Dillard (keyboards), everyone also adding to the percussion. Some lovely music, but so subdued his "We'll Get Through This" doesn't come close to convincing me. B+(**) [bc] EST Gee: Bigger Than Life or Death (2021, CMG/Warlike/Interscope): Rapper from Louisville, George Stone, has a couple mixtapes but this is his first big label shot. Whiff of gangsta, but steadying himself. B+(**) Flying Lotus: Yasuke (2021, Warp): Steven Ellison, LA-based electronica producer, has had some crossover success, but this is soundtrack work, "music from the Netflix original anime series." Which means scattered, with dark and/or dramatic swells, not that the sounds aren't often remarkable. B+(**) [bc] Sue Foley: Pinky's Blues (2021, Stony Plain): Blues singer-songwriter, originally from Canada, based in Austin when she released Young Girl Blues in 1992. Sixteenth album, leads with a pretty mean guitar instrumental, and keeps the heat up, especially on her "Hoochie Coochie Man" rewrite, "Hurricane Girl." Closes with another guitar romp: "When the Cat's Gone the Mice Play." A- Four Tet: Parallel (2020, Text): Electronica producer Kieran Hebden, many albums since 1999, most under this name but he's also used his own name, particularly for collaborations with the late jazz drummer Steve Reid. Ten numbered pieces, one 26:46, two under 1 minute, adding up to something significant. B+(***) GA-20: GA-20 Does Hound Dog Taylor: Try It . . . You Might Like It! (2021, Karma Chief/Alligator): Boston blues band, second album, guitarist Matthew Stubbs, singer-guitarist Pat Flaherty, and drummer Tim Carman, play 7 songs penned by Taylor plus 3 more. First impression is that they add not much. Second is that's fine. B+(**) Micah Graves: Pawns (2021 [2022], self-released): Pianist from Philadelphia, also plays electric and synths, third album. Energetic fusion, not especially interesting, and the vocals don't help, but the saxophonists do: most likely Yesseh Furaha-Ali, or maybe Dick Oatts (the only name I recognize, but only one cut). B- [cd] Curtis Harding: If Words Were Flowers (2021, Anti-): Soul singer-songwriter from Saginaw, Michigan, third album. B+(***) H.E.R.: Back of My Mind (2021, RCA): Initial for Having Everything Revealed, real name Gabriella Wilson, first studio album after EPs and certified gold compilations of same. Major sprawl: 21 songs, 79:18. B+(**) Heritage Orchestra/Jules Buckley/Ghost-Note: The Breaks (2021, Decca): British classical orchestra ("40 or so of the brightest and best young classical musicians in London"), with Buckley conducting, sometimes composing, and leading forays into "heavy jazz and funk." Ghost-Note is an American funk band, sharing several musicians with Snarky Puppy. Program includes pieces like "Get on the Good Foot" and "Dance to the Drummer's Beat," with various feature spots. The breaks themselves are sharp as ever, the orchestral background enthusiastic but a bit thick. B+(**) [sp] Javon Jackson: The Gospel According to Nikki Giovanni (2021 [2022], Solid Jackson): Tenor saxophonist, emerged in the 1990s, recording for mainstream Criss Cross, then Blue Note. The poet curated this collection of old gospel tunes, singing one, reading some poetry on another. B+(***) Jazz Spastiks: Camera of Sound (2021, Jazz Plastic): Underground hip-hop beatmakers, based in Scotland, dozen-plus albums since 2010. Focus is on the beats and scratches, rather old school, but nearly half the pieces have guest rappers (most quite good, like Wee Bee Foolish), with skits sprinkled about like DJ Shadow fragments. Group name in appropriate on all counts. A- [bc] Karkhana: Al Azraqayn (2021, Karlrecords): Jazz group with members from Beirut, Cairo, Istanbul, and Chicago (Michael Zerang), sixth album since 2015, includes some oud but more electric guitar and bass, with organ/synthesizer (Maurice Louca) signaling fusion which they then rip apart -- yes, they can break free and get noisy. Credits include Umut Caglar (reeds/flute) and Mazen Kerbaj (trumpet/electronics). A- The Adam Larson Trio: With Love, From Chicago (2021 [2022], Outside In Music): Chicago tenor saxophonist, with bass (Clark Sommers) and drums (Dana Hall), with Sommers writing 4 songs, to 3 for Larson and 3 covers (including a Monk). B+(***) [cd] Rick Margitza: Sacred Hearts (2021, Le Coq): Tenor saxophonist, a fairly major figure from his 1989 Blue Note debut to his last Palmetto album in 2001, rarely heard from after he moved to Paris in 2003. French group, with Manuel Rocheman (piano), guitar, bass, drums, percussion, some vocals and handclaps. Still has a lovely tone. B+(**) Mas Aya: Mascaras (2021, Telephone Explosion): Solo project by Toronto percussionist-producer Brandon Miguel Valdivia, mostly electronics with vocal samples from Nicaragua, and one song written and sung by Lido Pimienta. B+(**) Otis McDonald: Beats Vol. 3 (2021, Track Tribe): Name adopted, Elton John-style, from Shuggie Otis and Michael McDonald, which doesn't inspire me with confidence -- but neither does Joe Bagale. In 2015 he released 30 tracks copyright-free via YouTube, which have since been downloaded over 5 million times. Not sure if this is that or just more: his only album in Discogs is People Music from 2019, but he has more stuff on Spotify. Functional, and varied enough. B+(*) Mathias Modica: Sonic Rohstoff (2021, Kryptox): German DJ/producer, seems to have a long list of groups and aliases (especially as Munk, from 2000-14). Plain keyb at first, changes gear around "Le Sud" with the entry of a saxophone and background vocals (but also a better beat). Too bad nothing else comes close. B+(*) Gary Numan: The Intruder (2021, BMG): British synthpop pioneer, I remember his 1978-79 albums as a big deal, although I stopped paying attention after 1980's Telekon. But he kept releasing records, making this one his 21st. A bit overblown, but as catchy as ever. B+(**) Joy Oladokun: In Defense of My Own Happiness (2021, Amigo/Verve Forecast/Republic): Singer-songwriter, grew up in Arizona, parents Nigerian immigrants, moved to Los Angeles, then Nashville. Not country, but her straightforward songwriting is at home there. Especially catchy: "I See America." A- Rev. Peyton's Big Damn Band: Dance Songs for Hard Times (2021, Family Owned): Country/blues band from Brown County, Indiana; 11th album since 2004, the "big" band a trio with Breezy Peyton on washboard and Max Senteney on drums and bucket, the Reverend playing antique guitars and singing. Rough and rambunctious, with "Too Cool to Dance" so perfect the Blasters could sue, and "Come Down Angels" a hymn that seeks not just to raise the rafters but rip them asunder. A- Zilla Rocca: Vegas Vic (2021, Three Dollar Pistol Music): Philadelphia rapper, associated with Wrecking Crew, albums since 2008, called his 2019 album Future Former Rapper then went on a tear. Sounds a bit like Atmosphere, but more political. B+(***) Jacob Sacks/David Ambrosio/Vinnie Sperrazza: Trio Trio Meets Sheila Jordan (2021 [2022], SteepleChase): Label founded in 1972 in Denmark by Nils Winther, drawing mainly on American bebop expats and tourists, and remains a major outlet for mainstream players, especially Americans. But they have virtually no web presence, so it's often hard to get discographical details. The singer is 92, and hasn't recorded much lately, so one wonders when this was recorded [March 2021]. One also wonders about the artist attribution, but Trio or "trioTrio" is so generic I decided to go with the musician names, also on the cover. Jordan is not in her best voice, and the songs are old ones, not that I mind her hearing her memoir of "The Bird" again, and I still get a kick out of "all God's children got bebop." The clincher is a brave and touching reading of her 1984 title song, "The Crossing." A- Jared Sims: Against All Odds (2021 [2022], Origin): Tenor saxophonist, big sound, has several albums, this one a quartet with guitar (Steve Fell), bass (Keala Kaumeheiwa), and drums (Luther Gray). One cut features his wife, Amy M. Alvarez, with poetry. B+(**) [cd] Steve Slagle: Ballads: Into the Heart of It (2021 [2022], Panorama): Alto saxophonist, albums since 1982, many in a group co-led by guitarist Dave Stryker. This one with Bruce Barth (piano), Ugonna Okegwo (bass), and Jason Tiemann (drums), with orchestrations by Richard Sussman and Randy Brecker guest spots. I'm iffy on the strings, and the fiery closer suggests that ballads might not be their forté. B+(*) Sv1: Health (2021, Curiosity Shop, EP): Electronica producer Samuel Vaille, from Texas, singles since 2019, seems to be his longest effort to date (8 tracks, 24:13). Ambient tableaux with glitches, so not so ambient. B+(**) [yt] Deanna Witkowski: Force of Nature (2021 [2022], MCG Jazz): Pianist, has several albums back to 1999, doesn't sing here but has been known to. She also wrote a book last year, about Mary Lou Williams, and this record is a tribute, offering a nice slice of her songbook (including parts of Zodiac Suite) as well as Witkowski's title piece. Mostly trio, with Clay Jenkins' trumpet a plus on 4 (of 12) tracks. Closes with "Stompin' at the Savoy" and "My Blue Heaven." B+(***) [cd] Carolyn Wonderland: Tempting Fate (2021, Alligator): Blues singer-songwriter, originally from Houston, now in Austin, albums back to 2001, labels obscure, plays lots of instruments but her guitar really rips. She wrote six songs, including the political "Fragile Peace and Certain War." Covers from John Mayall, Billy Joe Shaver, Bob Dylan (featuring Jimmie Dale Gilmore), and Garcia/Hunter (which finally proved too much). Dave Alvin produced. B+(**) W.R.D. [Robert Walter/Eddie Roberts/Adam Deitch]: The Hit (2021, Color Red): The name partners play organ, guitar, and drums, with side credits for sax (Nick Gerlach) and bass (Josh Fairman), but they aren't immediately obvious. B+(*) [bc] Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries: Emmanuel Abdul-Rahim: Harlem (1988 [2021], Acid Jazz): American percussionist, born in New York, original name Juan Amalbert, living in Denmark since 1977, where this was recorded. With saxophonist Ed Epstein, piano (Karsten Sřrensen), guitar, bass, more percussionists, so the Latin is more than a tinge. B+(**) [bc] Doug Carn: Infant Eyes (1971 [2021], Black Jazz/Real Gone Music): Pianist, first album, resurfaced recently with a volume in the Jazz Is Dead series. Leads a sextet here, also playing organ. Draws on major jazz figures of the 1960s, writing one original plus lyrics to four more, sung by wife Jean Carn. After three albums together, she went on to a successful soul/disco career. Striking voice, though I find I'd rather listen to George Harper's saxophone. B+(**) Rudolph Johnson: Spring Rain (1971 [2021], Black Jazz/Real Gone Music): Tenor saxophonist from Ohio, played with Jimmy McGriff, first album, nothing in his discography after 1976 (d. 2007). Backed by piano-bass-drums. After a wobbly start, finds a nice soul jazz groove. B+(*) Roots: Roots (1975 [2021], Frederiksberg): South African jazz group, first of two albums released in 1975, with alto saxophonist Barney Rachabane, with Duke Makhasa (tenor sax), Dennis Mphale (trumpet), piano/organ (Jabu Nkosi), bass (Sipho Gumede), and drums (Peter Morake), with Gumede writing 3 (of 6) songs. B+(***) [bc] Old music: Charles Mingus: Mingus Plays Piano: Spontaneous Compositions and Improvisations (1963 [1997], Impulse): Deserves his rep as the leading bassist of his generation on chops alone, but he's possibly even more famous as a composer and bandleader. He's also, evidently, a fine pianist, not that his solo doodling is going to rank high in his discography. B+(*) Charles Mingus: Mingus at the Bohemia (1955 [1990], Debut/OJC): I think of 1956 as being his watershed year, but he had accomplished a lot before then. He had played with Kid Ory, Red Norvo, Duke Ellington, and Charlie Parker. He founded Debut Records with Max Roach, and recorded enough material there to eventually fill up a 12-CD box. This is a live set, a quintet with George Barrow (tenor sax), Eddie Bert (trombone), piano (Mal Waldron), and drums (Roach or Willie Jones). His compositional style is already clear. CD adds two alternate takes. B+(***) Roy Rogers: Roll On Texas Moon (1945-52 [1986], Bear Family): Leonard Slye (1911-98), from Cincinnati, gained fame as a singing cowboy in the 1930s, most notably in Sons of the Pioneers, and moved on to films and TV -- I remember his 1951-57 The Roy Rogers Show better than the dates suggests, and I saw him and Dale Evans performing at the Seattle World's Fair, in what was probably my first concert. So I've always had a soft spot for him, but the records I've found were spotty at best. Clifford Ocheltree recommended this one. The one place where he slows to a ballad reveals him as a fairly ordinary crooner, but as long as he keeps the pace up, he's very pleasing. A- [dl] Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:
Ask a question, or send a comment. Monday, February 14, 2022 Music Week
February archive (in progress). Music: Current count 37322 [37256] rated (+66), 141 [142] unrated (-1). Rating total probably reflects fixing some bookkeeping errors, but still list 62 records below, so I kept busy. Spent some time adding to the EOY Aggregate, picking up a pretty good country list from The Boot, and a bunch of lists from Bandcamp, where links to music were especially handy. Also got some fresh suggestions from Robert Christgau's February Consumer Guide (although the Yard Act EP was in Jason Gross's Ye Wei Blog list). Still confused whether it's Iamdoechii or just Doechii, and what the labels are (if any). Then there's another album I didn't get from anyone: Bean on Toast. But he's put out a record every year for quite some time, so I wondered whether he had another one -- and lo, he did. Note that Saturday's Speaking of Which has an extra PS I wrote Sunday and posted today. I responded to a reader letter, and thought it made most sense to share what I wrote there rather than saving it up for a Questions & Answers. I actually wrote a bit more at the time, but was satisfied with my ending as presented. Still, here's another useful iteration:
It should be noted that the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft is one of the few media outlets doing consistently good work on Ukraine, and not just their area specialist, Anatol Lieven (though I'll point out that he's not nearly as critical of NATO as I am). His latest pieces are: Russia sanctions bill is a 'single barrel sawed-off shotgun', and Why are we evacuating diplomats from Ukraine? You might also scan through Branko Marcetic's interview with Volodymyr Ishchenko: A Ukrainian Sociologist Explains Why Everything You Know About Ukraine Is Probably Wrong. They also have an important article on Biden's $7 billion Afghan heist. In the years right after WWII, America developed a reputation as a generous victor, investing money and (more importantly) allowing political freedom to its vanquished enemies in Germany and Japan (while turning on US allies in the Soviet Union, and leaving a mixed legacy in colonized Asia and Africa). In the years since, the US has rarely prevailed in wars, and has often held long and bitter grudges against those who had defied us and the people we once claimed to support. The US debacle in Afghanistan was so total that the only decent thing left to do would be to provide the new government of Afghanistan the means to help its people, but once again we see bitterness getting the upper hand. Like many people, I wish American foreign policy could be a force for good in the world, but all we ever see is the bullying, cajoling, arrogance, and petty-mindedness. This calls for a time out. (Still, story after story rolls in showing the US military trying to flex its muscles: e.g., Israeli jets escort US bomber to Gulf in fresh show of force to Iran; also: Israeli offiials rushing to evacuate citizens from Ukraine by Tuesday, where by "citizens" they mean an estimated 10-15K Ukrainian Jews they're hoping the Russians will drive into their arms.) One last thing I should note is that this marks my 3000th blog post, going back to when I initially set up Serendipity (aka s9y) -- was it 2003? I haven't used Serendipity for quite some while, but kept the numbering scheme when I started hand-crafting blog posts (at the time, I called it my "faux blog"). That would work out to 3/week, a rate I have rarely hit over the last 5-10 years, but there was a patch early on where I tried to post something new every day. Not all of those posts are available in the current archive (which starts at 2156), but the redundant copies in the notebook have survived, and I've compiled most of them into a number of book files. There's a lot of writing: a quick wc on the notebook shows 14,820,257 words. Too bad my sloppy organization makes them so hard to find. New records reviewed this week: Adeem the Artist: Cast Iron Pansexual (2021, self-released): "Seventh-generation Carolinian, a makeshift poet, singer-songwriter, storyteller, and blue-collar Artist." Was born Adem Bingham, songs signed Adeem Maria, uses they/them pronouns, has a wife named Hannah, picks and sings country, minus any of the conventional tropes. Mostly songs about gender, but more firmly rooted in humanity. Notable lyric: "everyone's looking for Jesus/ or anyone else they can hang." A- [bc] Adia Victoria: A Southern Gothic (2021, Atlantic): Singer-songwriter from South Carolina, last name Paul, third album, T-Bone Burnett listed as executive producer, more atmospheric than rootsy. B+(**) Arca: Kick II (2021, XL): Alejandra Ghersi, born in Venezuela, studied in NYU, based in Barcelona, albums since 2013, Kick I appeared in 2020, this is the first of four additional volumes that appeared in late 2021. Has a flair for the dramatic. B+(*) Arca: Kick III (2021, XL): Second of four albums released in quick succession, after an initial album in 2020. Not without interest, but on the cusp of becoming really irritating. B Arca: Kick IIII (2021, XL): Artwork progresses from a big surrounded by mechanical interventions to a machine shaped like a body with bits of skin suggesting sex. The music is less irritating, but coud be that Ghersi is working too fast to notice. B Arca: Kick IIIII (2021, XL): Starts with a slow one, a bit of ambient music neither here nor there. It's not that a change of pace isn't welcome -- it could even lead to something substantial, as the artwork has shifted from mechanistic to monumental -- but it's hard to start caring once you don't. B Angela Autumn: Frontiers Woman (2021, self-released, EP): Country singer-songwriter, from Pennsylvania, based in Nashville, Bandcamp page shows 2 singles and 2 EPs, although this one is getting close to album length (7 songs, 28:08). Plays banjo as well as guitar. B+(*) [bc] Beans on Toast: Survival of the Friendliest (2021, Beans on Toast Music): British folksinger-songwriter Jay McAllister, has released an album every December 1 since 2009, except for 2020, when he figured we needed two. He loves "This Beautiful Place" and the "Humans" that inhabit it. His rues the loss of "The Commons" (wasn't that 19th century?), but insists "Not Everybody Thinks We're Doomed," and prescribes: "if you want to be happy/ you're going to have to learn to be kind." B+(**) [sp] Leah Blevins: First Time Feeling (2021, Crabtree): Country singer-songwriter, first album after an EP. Boot review says: "voice reminiscent of Dolly, the eye for storytelling of Prine, and the caustic wit of fellow Kentuckian Kelsey Waldon." Doesn't quite live up to any of those plaudits, except maybe the voice. B+(*) Andrew Boudreau: Neon (2021 [2022], Fresh Sound New Talent): Pianist, originally from Nova Scotia, grew up in Montreal, studied in Boston, based in New York. Debut, leads a quartet of his Boston chums, with Neta Raanan (tenor sax), bass, and drums. Nicely paced postbop. B+(***) [02-28] Big Chief Monk Boudreux: Bloodstains & Teardrops (2021, Whiskey Bayou): From New Orleans, joined the Wild Magnolias in 1970, parted company in 2001, first album in a decade, fairly straight blues. B+(*) Bo Burnham: Inside (The Songs) (2021, Imperial Distribution): Comedian, started in stand-up, expresses himself through songs. Fourth album, first three released through Comedy Central. This was a lockdown project, solo, with video if you care (I don't). Tackles some burning subjects, as well as some silly ones, but isn't that funny, nor all that musical. One line I jotted down: "I am a special kind of white guy." Not really. B- Chapel Hart: The Girls Are Back in Town (2021, self-released): Two sisters, Danica and Devynn Hart, and cousin Trea Swindle, from Poplarville, Mississippi, a country vocal group who happen to be black, but have so much fiddle, twang, and yee-haw they couldn't be anything else. Second album, imbued enough in the culture to write a credible answer song ("You Can Have Him Jolene"). I doubt they'll enjoy singing "Grown Ass Woman" forever, but they can turn a phrase: "so stand up for what you believe on/ just don't stand up on me." B+(*) Circuit Des Yeux: Io (2021, Matador): Alias for singer-songwriter Haley Fohr, born Indiana, based in Chicago, seventh album since 2008. Heavy, arty, operatic. C+ Crazy Doberman: "Everyone Is Rolling Down a Hill" or "The Journey to the Center of Some Arcane Mystery and the Entanglements of the Vines and Veins of the Cosmic and Unwieldy Millieu Encountered in the Midst of That Endeavor" (2020 [2021], Astral Spirits): Collaborative improv group, started as a quartet in Indiana but metastatized around 2017, with Discogs listing 38 albums since then. B [bc] Dinosaur Jr.: Sweep It Into Space (2021, Jagjaguwar): Venerable indie band, not one I've ever found interesting (although I did like a solo album by leader J. Mascis), debut 1985, 15th studio album. B+(*) Doss: 4 New Hit Songs (2021, LuckyMe, EP): Aimee Bowen, debut EP 2014, this is her second, nothing in between. Tiny, whispery vocals, big electopop beats. I don't quite hear hits, but "Puppy" comes close, and the rest could float an album. B+(***) [sp] Rory Feek: Gentle Man (2021, Gaither Music Group): Country singer-songwriter from Atchison, KS. Formed a duo with his second wife, Joey + Rory, which ended when she died of cancer in 2016. First solo album, several touching songs about his late wife, a Dylan cover that sounds richer and more nuanced than the original, and a bit more, just trying to move on. B+(***) Fiddlehead: Between the Richness (2021, Run for Cover): Indie garage band from Boston, Pat Flynn the singer, teaches high school history as his day job. Second album, dense, 1980s emo feel, short (10 songs, 25:06). B+(*) [sp] Fred Again: Actual Life (April 14-December 17 2020) (2021, Atlantic): British singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, electronica producer. First album after singles and an EP. B+(**) Fred Again: Actual Life (February 2-October 15 2021) (2021, Atlantic): Presumably the dates are when these pieces were recorded, so they act as some kind of journal. Probably progress too, but not quite to next level. B+(**) Mark Fredson: Nothing but Night (2021, self-released): Singer-songwriter, originally from Washington, based in Nashville, sings high and lonesome, drawing more on soul than on country. B+(*) Dori Freeman: Ten Thousand Roses (2021, Blue Hens Music): Folkie singer-songwriter from Virginia, fourth album. Seems like she's lost some roots. B+(*) Amos Gillespie: Unstructured Time for Jazz Septet (2021 [2022], self-released): Alto saxophonist, based in Chicago, website claims six other albums since 2012, but some of the credits are unclear. Fair to say he's a composer first, and not afraid to try some unusual twists and turns. Way too fancy for me, though I'm impressed by several stretches, including most of the sax solos. Alexandra Olavsky's occasional vocals are another mixed bag. B+(*) [cd] [02-22] Corey Harris: Insurrection Blues (2021, M.C.): Blues singer-songwriter, emerged 1995 in a Taj Mahal groove, probably peaked two years later with Fish Ain't Bitin'. I lost track of him after disliking his 2002 album, so I've missed out on a steady stream of albums as he got older and grizzlier. B+(**) [sp] Iamdoechii: Oh the Places You'll Go (2020, Doechii, EP): Discogs identifies her as Jaylah Hickmon, from Tampa, but hasn't gotten to this 7-track 21:37 album, let alone a 4-track successor I'm having trouble locating. Not interested in Instagram much less Tik Tok, I have to make do with press like: "She is finest identified for her hottest monitor 'Yucky Blucky Fruitcake.'" And: "Iamdoechii's estimated internet price is $10 million." Dubious spot is a lecture on "God" that starts conceited and turns egalitarian. Real reservation is that it isn't real yet, but I wish it were. A- Iamdoechii: Bra-Less (2021, Doechi, EP): Turns out Spotify filed this under Doechii, which probably makes more sense as artist name, but cover reads as above. Four tracks, 14:25. The harder raps are less distinctive, but remain credible. Wouldn't be a bad idea for some capitalist to combine these two (and possibly some more singles?) into a tangible product. B+(***) [sp] IKOQWE: The Beginning, the Medium, the End and the Infinite (2021, Crammed Discs): Side project by Angola-born, Lisbon-based producer Pedro Coquenăo (aka Batida), with Angolan rapper Luaty Beirăo. B+(***) Jaguar: Madremonte (2021, El Palmas Music): Duo, two Colombians based in Switzerland, Raúl Parra and Paulo Olarte, foundation is probably cumbia but they also "imbibe" salsa, rock, zouk, and champeta in their dance floor fusion. B+(*) [bc] Darren Johnston: Life in Time (2021 [2022], Origin): Canadian trumpet player, based in San Francisco, albums since 2007, most previous ones on avant-labels. Quartet with Geof Bradfield (sax/bass clarinet), who wrote 4 (of 10) songs to Johnston's 6, plus bass and drums. The interaction of the horns is always fresh and spirited. A- [cd] [02-18] Kalabrese: Let Love Rumpel: Part 1 (2021, Rumpelmusig): Swiss musician Sacha Winkler, credited with "drums, vox, synth" in touring group Rumpelorchestra but group is only credited on one cut here (video available). Touted as "unconventional dance music," which gets it misfiled as electronica. Beyond category, so they invented their own. B+(**) [bc] Kondi Band: We Famous (2021, Strut): Sorie Kondi, singer and thumb piano player from Sierra Leone, with producers Chief Boima (also from Sierra Leone but based in US) and Will LV (UK-born). B+(**) [bc] Howie Lee: Birdy Island (2021, Mais Um Discos): Chinese DJ, "future music from downtown Beijing," Discogs lists 5 albums and 7 singles/EPs since 2010. Draws widely, beats better than ambiance. B+(*) [bc] LNS & DJ Sotofett: Sputters (2017-20 [2021], Tresor): Techno producers Laura Sparrow (from Vancouver, first album after some singles) and Stefan Mitterer (from Norway, prolific since 2011), with a guest shot by E-GZR. Described as "a hybrid of warped electro and psychedelic hypnosis," this reminds me of what I first liked about techno: dance beats, stretched and fucked with without ever losing step or sparkle. A- [bc] L'Orange: The World Is Still Chaos, but I Feel Better (2021, Mello Music Group): Hip-hop producer Austin Hart, from and based in North Carolina, many albums since 2011, most co-credited with guest MCs. This uses narration by Andreea Dinag & Sora the Troll, and credits nine more for "additional vocals." Scattershot. B+(**) [bc] Doug MacDonald and the L.A. All-Star Octet: Overtones (2021 [2022], DMAC Music): Guitarist, started in 1981, has been very active of late. Composed all eight pieces. I don't recognize most of the all-stars, but the saxophonists are notable (Kim Richmond, Ricky Woodard), as is pianist Bill Cunliffe. And they do get a big enseble sound with deceptively easy flow. B+(***) [cd] [02-15] Ava Mendoza: New Spells (2021, Relative Pitch/Astral Spirits): Guitarist, based in Brooklyn, first appeared in 2008, got a lot of attention last year for her work on William Parker's Mayan Space Station. Solo here, metallic, rather brittle. B [bc] Meridian Brothers/Conjunto Media Luna: Paz En La Tierra (2021, Bongo Joe): Expecting a meeting of cumbia groups, surprised to see this described as a duo of Eblis Alvarez (percussion, bass, vocals) and Iván Medellin (accordion, choir). B+(**) [bc] Mesh: Mesh (2020 [2021], Born Yesterday, EP): Philadelphia post-punk group, EP has five tracks (12:04), songs like "CIA Mind Control" and "UR Dead." B+(*) [bc] Mike.: The Highs. (2021, 4TheHomies): As far as I can figure, this is not the rapper Michael Bonema, who has at least six albums since 2016 as MIKE. According to AllMusic, this is Michael Francis Seander Jr., from Providence, RI, formerly known as Mike Stud (or Mike the Stud). At least it's not listed by Wikipedia or Discogs under "Mike(408)," and doesn't appear on Mike's Bandcamp. I suppose the periods (and lower case) are meant as differentiation enough, but since I first ran into him, I've found MIKE the most Google-unfriendly artist ever -- a complaint this only adds to. Still, a substantial (23-track) effort, flows nice, sings more than he raps. B+(**) The Notwist: Vertigo Days (2021, Morr Music): German rock group, debut album 1991, ninth studio album, probably influenced by classic Krautrock bands but I also hear traces of New Order. B+(**) Bill O'Connell: A Change Is Gonna Come (2021 [2022], Savant): Pianist, albums since 1978, some Latin-oriented, this one more hard bop, with saxophonist Craig Handy leading the way, backed with bass, drums, and (4 of 10 tracks) extra percussion. Seven originals, plus Coltrane, Cooke, and "My Foolish Heart." B+(**) [cd] Mathis Picard: Live at the Museum (2019 [2021], Outside In Music): Pianist, French-Malagasy, based in New York, seems to be his first album, venue is the National Jazz Museum in Harlem, likes to mix up classical and stride. Five originals, two pieces by Willie "The Lion" Smith, one by John Lewis, bits by John Williams and Maurice Ravel. B+(**) [cd] Queen Esther: Gild the Black Lily (2021, EL): Usual sources don't offer a birth name or date or location, but do note that she grew up with gospel, showtunes, countrypolitan, and opera, and has been working since 1996: not just singing but also writing for and acting on stage (including the libretto for The Billie Holiday Project). This is her fourth album since 2004, not counting sidework with James Blood Ulmer, JC Hopkins, Elliott Sharp. I filed her under blues because her first album was called Talkin' Fishbowl Blues, but this album starts with a banjo-driven cowgirl song, followed by an a cappella "John the Revelator," then came close to losing me with an Eagles cover, but won me back with songs like "Lonesome Road" and "She Thinks I Still Care." A- R2Bees: Back 2 Basics (2021, Ziiki Media): Hip-hop duo from Ghana, where rapping over highlife beats is called hiplife. Fifth album since 2009. B+(*) Scotch Rolex: Tewari (2021, Hakuna Kulala): Japanese electronica producer Shigeru Ishihara, based in Berlin, has used various aliases including DJ Scotch Bonnet and DJ Scotch Egg, hooks up with an Ugandan label not but similar to Nyege Nyege. Most cuts feature various MCs, meaning hip-hop with metal thrash, or metal tightly bolted to a beat. B [bc] Shanique Marie: Gigi's House (2021, Equinoxx Musiq): Jamaican singer-songwriter, surname Sinclair, aka Shanz, first album after several singles and an EP, short one (8 songs, 30:18). B+(*) [bc] Hayley Williams: Flowers for Vases/Descansos (2021, Atlantic): Pop singer, fronted the band Paramore, which released five albums 2005-2017. Second album on her own, solo, produced by Daniel Jammes. Spanish translates as "breaks." Introspective, comforting, seems like it might grow on you. B+(***) Mars Williams: Mars Williams Presents an Ayler Xmas Vol. 5 (2020-21 [2021], Astral Spirits): Saxophonist, also credited with suona and toy instruments, leads a septet through three pieces (37:10) pieced together from Albert Ayler compositions sprinkled with more/less recognizable Christmas tunes. He's been doing one of these each year. Works because Ayler had a knack for turning free jazz into hymns. B+(**) Yasmin Williams: Urban Driftwood (2021, Spinster): From Virginia, a "finger-style composer and guitarist," also playing harp-guitar, kalimba, and other instruments, "often with the guitar on her lap." Third album, written during lockdown and "influenced by the Black Lives Matter protests." B+(**) Yard Act: The Overload (2022, Island): British indie band, from Leeds, first album, vocals declaimed, sometimes reading like a manifesto (not unlike Art Brut), but they're on the right side of politics and, one hopes, history. A- Yard Act: Dark Days (2021, ZEN FC, EP): Initial 4-song, 13:14 EP, came out almost a year before their debut album, no songs repeated. Expect the title song to lead off a future greatest hits album, while the rest fill up a decent "odds and sods." B+(***) Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries: Bush Tetras: Rhythm and Paranoia: The Best of Bush Tetras (1980-2019 [2021], Wharf Cat, 2CD): Repeats 11 (of 14) 1980-83 songs, adds 17-20 (depending on configuration) extra tracks, mostly from reunion bands, with their more conventional crunch. Package comes with a 40-page booklet, but hard to find the dates online. B+(**) J Dilla: Welcome 2 Detroit [The 20th Anniversary Edition] (2001 [2021], BBE, 2CD): Hip-hop producer James Yancey (1974-2006), from Detroit. Starts with the original album's 16 tracks (40:56), padded out with extra beats, instrumentals, demos, mixes (30 tracks, 77:07). De trop, of course, the beats fading into background and the rappers rarely standing out, but it holds up well enough. B+(***) [bc] Willie Dunn: Creation Never Sleeps, Creation Never Dies: The Willie Dunn Anthology (1968-84 [2021], Light in the Attic): Canadian singer-songwriter (1941-2013), mother was Mi'kmaq, and much of his work identifies with Canada's First Nations. He released three albums 1971-84, the latter two on the German Trikont label, which also released a live compilation in 2004. Few dates provided here, but 19 (of 22) songs appeared on those three albums, although later versions are possible. Seems like a subject for further research, and better documentation. B+(***) Ron Everett: The Glitter of the City (1977 [2021], Jazzman): Trumpet player from Philadelphia, also credited with vocals (3 tracks) and piano (2 of the piano tracks). Ultra rare, part of the label's "Holy Grail" series, a mixed bag with Tahira singing the title song over a bossa beat, other pieces freer (or just rougher). Reissue adds three previously unreleased jams (34:58). B [bc] The Notwist: The Notwist (1991 [2021], Subway): German group, first album, reissue remastered but no extras beyond the original 13-song album (32:57). Songs in English, written by guitarist-vocalist Markus Acher, with brother Micha on bass and Martin Messerschmid on drums. No Krautrock influence I can detect: post-punk, maybe proto-metal, but ultimately headed elsewhere. B+(*) Bunny Scott: To Love Somebody (1975 [2021], Freestile): Jamaican singer William Clarke, better known as Bunny Rugs (although he's used other aliases), lead singer-songwriter for Third World -- one of the first wave of reggae groups to get US distribution, but also one of the least impressive. He released this one album as Scott, others after 1995 up to his death in 2014. At this point, reminds me of how fertile that period was, but leans heavily on covers, and I could really do without this "Sweet Caroline." Lee Perry produced, which especially helps with the dub-oriented bonus tracks. B+(*) [bc] Spitboy: Body of Work (1990-1995): All the Songs (1990-95 [2021], Don Giovanni): All-female anarcho-punk band from (or near) San Francisco, released an LP in 1993, split another in 1995 with Los Crudos, scattered EPs and singles. This gathers up 26 tracks, full of anger and spirit, few if any great, but attitude counts. B+(*) [bc] Sun Ra: Lanquidity [Definitive Edition] (1978 [2021], Strut, 2CD): Originally released 1978 on Philly Jazz, reissued 2000 on Evidence with the same 5 tracks (43:16). Not much new here, as the original "1978 Philly Jazz Commercial Pressing" is on the first disc, followed by "1978 Philly Jazz Alternate Version" -- main difference there is that "That's How I Feel" runs an extra 4:05. Arkestra with 15 musicians focused more on texture than showing off. B+(***) [bc] Old music: Bush Tetras: Boom in the Night: Original Studio Recordings 1980-1983 (1980-83 [1995], ROIR): New York post-punk/no wave band formed 1979 in New York, with Adele Bertei vocalist (soon replaced by Cynthia Sley), debut single "Too Many Creeps," band broke up without an album but reunited in 1995, again in 2005 and 2021. ROIR issued 14 early cuts in 1989 as Better Late Than Never, those same cuts appearing in different order here (coincident with the 1995 reunion). I recall owning at least one of their singles, but never saw them. Not a great band, but I'm finding this holds up quite well. B+(***) Joey + Rory: The Singer and the Song: The Best of Joey + Rory (2008-16 [2018], Gaither Music Group): Married country duo, last name Feek, Rory had a background as a songwriter, and has a hand on 8 (of 20) songs here. They recorded four albums (one Xmas) on Vanguard/Sugar Hill, four more on Farmhouse/Gaither -- the latter include Country Classics and Hymns That Are Important to Us as time was running out. This compilation favors the latter, perhaps exclusively (a couple early songs are rendered live, leaving only one that appears to derive from their debut). Both have appealing voices, but could use better songs. E.g., "Jesus Lovees Me" shouldn't be sung by anyone over eight, and "The Bible and the Belt" deserves its own place in Hell. B The Rough Guide to Blues Women: Reborn and Remastered (1920-35 [2016], World Music Network): Twenty-five songs, one each from all the major "classic female blues" stars of the 1920s, starting with Mamie Smith's "Crazy Blues" (1920), plus another dozen or so I've barely heard of. After 1930 their numbers thinned -- I count 4 1931-35 releases here -- as jazz and blues went their separate ways. No view of the booklet, which despite expert selection probably leaves a lot to be desired. A- Grade (or other) changes: Al Dexter: Pistol Packin' Mama (1942-49 [1999], ASV): Most people only ever hear his title hit (if that), but you really should hear more. I must have initially knicked this for filler or running out of gas, but it's one I've often returned to, so the grade should reflect that. [was: B+] A- Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:
Ask a question, or send a comment. Saturday, February 12, 2022 Speaking of WhichPS: Added a further note on Ukraine, in response to a reader comment. It was written on Sunday, 2/13, and posted on Monday, to continued US hysterical warnings about imminent invasion, Ukrainian please to not panic, and Russian denials that it has any such plans. I had no desire whatsoever to post anything today, even though my morning perusal of the Wichita Eagle has been a growing source of consternation. I started to write a Notes on Everyday Life piece yesterday on an extremely offensive op-ed from the Heritage Foundation, but stalled after two paragraphs. Today brought several more outrageous pieces, including a strong prediction that this will be the week Russia finally invades Ukraine. Reason and sanity says they won't, but the time framework -- which you may remember simply repeats what they said a week ago -- but it's clearly meant less as prophecy than as a taunt. But what finally provoked me to start writing was a tweet: possibly the most dishonest and provocative I've ever seen, made worse (and brought to my attention) by being retweeted by a friend who should know better. It is by Michael McFaul, whose credentials I will get to in a minute. Here's what he said:
McFaul is an academic, a professor at Stanford and a fellow at the Hoover Institution, the Cold War think tank that gave us George Schultz and Condoleezza Rice. He spent 2012-14 as Obama's Ambassador to Russia, and is widely credited as "the architect of the Russia Reset." Which, regardless of intentions, left the relationship much more antagonistic than ever since the Soviet Union ended. In short, no one should know better than to claim that Putin is "completely unprovoked" and "with no justification" behind his threats -- not that he's ever actually said he intends to invade Ukraine. I'm not saying I agree with Putin's complaints or think he's in any significant way justified, but it's foolish to deny that he has his reasons. It's also disingenuous to pretend that the US and its NATO/EU allies haven't done anything provocative. Admission of that much, and a willingness to acknowledge interests one can compromise on, are key to negotiating a solution, which is the only way this ever ends (with or without bloodletting, which would be far worse). As a diplomat, McFaul must realize that, but here he's clearly decided to be no more than a cheerleader and propagandist. The "largest invasion in Europe since 1939" line is hyperbole, probably meant to pattern Putin on Hitler, while skipping over the later German invasions of Benelux, France, Norway, and the really big one in 1941, when the Germans marched through Ukraine and deep into Russia. It also skips over details like D-Day, and pertinently the Soviet interventions in Hungary and Czechoslovakia, as well as NATO's various forays into Yugoslavia. But it's also meant to imply that any Russian move into Ukraine will be massive. That's possible, but isn't necessarily true, and hasn't happened. I'm not one to minimize threats, but it would be smarter not to precipitate them. The rest is psych warfare over Twitter, which should be beneath him. He's already dismissing disagreements as "snide and snarky," and his "may not age well" is a rather strange curse for something as perishable as tweets. As for "parlor games," he's the one trying to play it out on Twitter. What else could he mean? I'm also disturbed by the stat line: 33.6K likes, 6,833 retreats, 1,177 responses. Those are large numbers I almost never see. Of course, the replies include some people pointing out his arrogance and recklessness and deceit, but they also include many further variations, like: "It's quite terrifying, especially when one considers that the aggressor has vast nuclear powers" (presumably Russia, but you can read it otherwise); and "We need to have the US military use brutal force if the Russian army crosses the border. No appeasement." (Probably means "no mercy," but stuck on one of the propaganda words.) One story that has been underreported is here: Ben Freeman: Army of Ukraine lobbyists behind unprecedented Washington blitz. Ukrainian agents, some paid by oligarch Victor Pinchuk, have been flooding Washington with money to grease the skids for various deals, mostly involving sending arms to Ukraine. And this doesn't even touch on the money being spent in Europe and in Kyiv, where Zelensky was elected on a reconciliation platform but has since turned into some kind of anti-Russia hard-liner. Of course, no Washington politician is more committed to lobbyist aims than Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), who says: I want all Russians to feel the pain. Perhaps it's deterrence to promise sanctions after a Russian invasion, but Menendez wants to do it now, in a peculiar mixture of provocation and sadism. Some other Ukraine pieces that are helpful:
Since I'm here, a few more brief links: Jacqueline Alemany: Some Trump records taken to Mar-a-Lago clearly marked as classified, including documents at 'top secret' level. Zach Beauchamp: The Canadian trucker convoy is an unpopular uprising. In Canada, anyway, where the obvious involvement of right-wing Americans isn't winning any friends. On the other hand, it's very popular with the American right: Eric Levitz: Why conservatives celebrate the Canadian truckers. Side burn on Fox: "Few willing to recognize the network's bad faith remain unaware of it." Also: Alex Shephard: Fox News Can't Get Enough of Canada's Freedom-Loving Truckers. And then there's: Timothy Bella: Rand Paul urges truckers to disrupt Super Bowl and come to D.C.: 'I hope they clog up cities'. And dozens of them get shot in "road rage" incidents? Garrett Epps: Donald Trump Promised He Wouldn't Nominate a Black Woman to the Supreme Court: I initially misread the title, as I wanted to note that I thought Biden's campaign promise to nominate a black woman was an unforced tactical mistake. I have no problem with him doing so, and there are clearly some much more qualified than the Federalist Society hacks Trump nominated. But why give Republicans a talking point, as opposed to their usual practice of inventing them from scratch? I'd also note that Republicans are every bit as inclined toward quota systems as Democrats, as was shown by their eagerness to appoint a black man to replace Thurgood Marshall, and a white (but not Jewish) woman to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg. But evidently the title was right: Trump made his own unforced tactical mistake. But as is so often the case, wasn't called for it. Michael Hudson: America's Real Adversaries are Its European and Other Allies: "The US aim is to keep them from trading with China and Russia." I could have filed this under Ukraine, as it has a lot to do with the confrontation there. I suspect that China is already a lost cause: if forced to choose between trading with China and the US, a lot of countries would opt for China, and that number is likely to increase. Trade with Russia is much less diverse, but its concentration in oil and arms suggests why the US is agitated. Turkey is considering Russian arms. Germany wants a gas pipeline. Ukraine is a wedge for disrupting deal like that. But the more there are, the harder the bonds will be to break. As readers of Gabriel Kolko will recall, a big driver of the post-1945 Cold War was American desire to supplant British and French colonial regimes. We called them allies, but the main point was that they were under our thumb. Along these lines, see: Eve Ottenberg: Bigotry Unbound: The US Media's Anti-China Propaganda Blitz. Fred Kaplan: Why Every President Is Terrible at Foreign Policy Now: Explains that foreign affairs have "become too chaotic for any White House to master," but I think the crux of the problem is that the US doesn't have any sense of the need to balance other people's interests, that the US is saddled with a military that is spread all around the world but isn't competent to do anything but blow shit up, and its heads are still stuck in the mindset that says they're "the indispensable nation" -- the one that should be able to tell everyone else what to do. This has produced all sorts of contradictions: e.g., the US is for democracy and human rights, but not when the violators are "allies" like Israel or Saudi Arabia; the US wants to limit climate change, but not at the expense of any profits; the list can go on practically forever. Eric Levitz: The Democratic Party's "Mask Off" Moment. "The American people are sick of the pandemic and the public-health mandates. Unable to end the former, Democrats are now moving to roll back the latter." I'm not applauding this, but I'm not terribly bothered either. Personally, I'm one of the worst people in the world when it comes to following orders, so I generally hate mandates (though not on masks, and even less so on vaccines, which I've never had a problem with, going all the way back to Salk and Sabine). I suspect one problem with mandates is that they seem to push responsibility for a public crisis back on individuals, which is rarely effective let alone fair. The backlash against mandates is taking aim not just at coercion but at the whole concept of public health, and that's a collateral casualty I don't want to risk. One good thing about this piece is that it mentions a number of public policy changes that could help instead of taking it all out on recalcitrant people. Another problem is political vibes: Democrats are easily associated with an overweening "nanny state" -- a vast generalization on the trope of scolding you for not eating your broccoli. I don't think that's as bad as incarcerating, beating, and/or reducing people to penury, which are approaches Republicans seem inordinately fond of, but I generally don't like it either, and don't expect others to. Liam Stack: A Jewish Teacher Criticized Israel. She Was Fired. And here's the Heritage Foundation op-ed I was going to write about: Kevin Roberts: It's Time to Win the War Against Big Tech: It may seem strange to see America's premier right-wing think tank, that bastion of capitalist cant, attacking America's most profitable business sector, but never underestimate right-winger's ability to get peeved over slights to their political omniscience. They liken the big tech companies to the Chinese Communist Party, repeatedly call them totalitarian, and even offer that antitrust laws should be enforced against them. But when you get down to details, the real rub seems to be:
Those suspensions almost all have to do with disinformation about Covid and vaccines, a form of mental illness that indeed seems to afflict Republicans much more than Democrats. They go on to complain about Amazon banning a book and a video, and add that Spotify and others "have now joined their trillion-dollar industry leaders in discriminating against customers and entrepreneurs who insist on thinking for themselves. Just ask Joe Rogan." I'm not sure which is worst, the suggestion that Rogan "thinks for himself," or the ignorance of not knowing that Spotify is still paying Rogan millions to air his stupidity. Even more priceless is their characterization of their true enemies, the ones who have hoodwinked these companies through their "bullying abuses or totalitarian impulses": "the bigoted, bellicose progressivism now ascendant on the elite left." That's so wrong on so many levels you could emblazon it on a tee-shirt and wear it for a joke. I haven't heard anything so fatuous since Spiro Agnew slunk off in disgrace. Heritage's solutions start with some reasonable antitrust planks, but don't go far enough, and wander off on tangents. Stripping the Section 230 liability protection would do nothing but allow rich people with political grudges to sue the companies, possibly creating enough of an annoyance to curtail reasonable free speech. What they don't suggest is the obvious real solution, which is to create free software and services for social media, which are prohibited from collecting and profiting from user data, and as such actually serve their users instead of nefarious entrepreneurs. For a while I thought I was the only person thinking along those lines, but such a scheme features in Kim Stanley Robinson's novel, The Ministry for the Future. Another important idea there is the shift to employee-owned companies. It seems like conservatives were right about one thing, anyway: the only solution to the world's major problems is a sharp political move to the left. Of course, they're against that. Much as they're against public health services protecting us from pandemics. When they exclaim "give me liberty or death," they aren't kidding. PS: Regarding the McFaul tweet in the intro and my following digression, a reader wrote:
Perhaps my examples of post-1939 invasions were "silly," but we should understand that the only reason McFaul mentioned 1939 was to make Putin look like Hitler, implying that Putin has designs beyond Ukraine, as Hitler did beyond Poland -- and therefore, with Chamberlain's "appeasement" at Munich as the ever-present cautionary lesson, we had better stop him sooner than have no choice later. The "completely unprovoked and with no justification" line dismisses any other possible interpretation: for instance, that Ukraine's pivot to Europe might hurt Russia's economy (Ukraine has long been a major trading partner, on terms that have tended to favor Russia), or that the increasing imposition of sanctions and trading limits aren't an even greater threat to Russia's security and welfare. The line also absolves the US, its NATO allies, and various private sector entities engaged in Ukraine from any consideration let alone responsibility. I don't blame Ukrainians for looking to Europe for a more prosperous future, and I don't have a problem with businesses trying to exploit opportunities -- aside from arms industries with their political ties -- but one should consider how this looks to Russia, especially given past antipathy (which has proven remarkably easy for US propagandists to exploit). I don't disagree with your assessment of Putin, although I have a more nuanced view of how to deal with him. Stalin was one of the worst actors in the 20th century, but Roosevelt managed to keep him happy enough to do most of the heavy lifting in defeating Germany. There's a Henry Stimson quote I'd have to look up about the importance of extending trust, which distinguished him as the wisest of Washington's famous "wise men." Later Americans consistently misunderstood and misjudged Russia, which led to wrecking the careers of reformers (Krushchev and Gorbachev) while, when they finally got the chance, installing a grossly incompetent (Yeltsin), resulting in a horrific decade (among other measures, life expectancy declined 10 years). Putin's main claim to fame was to have stabilized Russia after that debacle, which has included keeping even more reactionary politicians out of power. There are people in Russia who want to restore the borders of the Empire, but Putin is not one. And as right-wing authoritarians go, Putin has managed to keep a formal democracy intact, even though he has jealously guarded his power base, using tactics that I in no way condone much less approve. What makes Putin dangerous is not his contempt for democracy, or his association with oligarchs, or his alliances with America's outcasts. It's that his rather limited indulgences in military power have thus far been relatively successful, making him all the more likely to bite off more conflict than he can handle. The most despicable thing he did was re-igniting the Chechen War, which was his ticket to power. I suspect that the charges that he was responsible for terrorist attacks on Moscow apartment buildings are credible. He certainly used those attacks as a pretext for going to war, much as McKinley, Wilson, LBJ, and GW Bush seized upon similar events as pretexts for wars they were already leaning into. (The difference being there was no reason to think the Americans had plotted the pretexts, although they often misrepresented them -- the "sinking of the Maine" was a self-inflicted accident, and the Tonkin Gulf "attacks" were nothing such.) After a year, Chechnya was demolished, with 20-0 thousand killed, but reintegrated into Russia. Putin's interventions in Georgia and Crimea could also be counted as wins. Russia repelled Georgian efforts to re-capture the breakaway provinces of Abkhazia and South Osetia, but made no further efforts to occupy Georgia, leaving the status quo ante. They did annex Crimea after a local revolt seceded from Ukraine, but they didn't move to annex the breakaway Donbass region. It's not clear whether they simply took advantage of local disruptions or had a hand in orchestrating them, but their efforts in Ukraine have thus far been limited to territories with Russian ethnic majorities. One may question both their motives and scruples in these situations, but Putin's ambitions are limited and circumspect (unlike, say, Stalin's efforts to subdue Finland following the 1939 Pact with Hitler). As Hitler, Saddam Hussein and GW Bush have shown, nothing predicts future war disasters more than believing that past wars have been successful. Meanwhile, the US and its agents and allies have been relentless with their anti-Putin propaganda, including sanctions mean to incur economic harm, both on select oligarchs and on the Russian people as a whole. This, in turn, has been helpful in expanding the US arms cartel, aka NATO. Perhaps most disturbing to me has been the explosion of cyberwarfare, which both Russia and the US (and China and Iran and North Korea and Israel and others) seem to regard as carte blanche to fuck with each other -- the only risk seems to be more of the same, which they're already doing anyway. I don't much credit Putin for the US election of Donald Trump, which can be blamed on any number of factors (the dark money of the Koch network and the brazen lies of Fox are the most obvious, although I'm still most critical of the Democratic Party and their poor choice of candidate; what I am disgusted by is the latter's incessant whining, less because it's dishonest and evasive than because it helps the hawks drum up sentiment for more hostilities). As usual, consequences rarely match expectations. Putin got few favors from Trump, and much ill will from across the US political spectrum, which is one reason Democrats (like McFaul and Menendez) are leading the charge. Whether Putin's been chastised by the experience isn't clear, which is one reason he's so dangerous. On the other hand, he doesn't become less dangerous by repeatedly kicking him and Russia while they're down. The US needs to fundamentally rethink how we do foreign policy. We need to find ways to work constructively with other nations -- in particular on problems like climate change, which we can't solve by partitioning the world -- which means we need to become less confrontational and more respectful. I don't know of anyone with a soft spot for Putin. I do know people who consider him less of a threat to world peace than the leaders of the country that spends more than 50% of the world's total military expenditures, the country that has troops and 800+ bases scattered around the world, the country that has (or works for people who have) business interests everywhere, a country that does a piss poor job of taking care of its own people and has no conception of the welfare of others, a leadership that so stuck in its own head that it can't tell real threats from imaginary ones, that projects its own most rabid fears onto others and insists on its sole right to dictate terms to the world. Ask a question, or send a comment. Tuesday, February 8, 2022 Music Week
February archive (in progress). Tweet: Music Week: 55 albums, 5 A-list, Music: Current count 37256 [37201] rated (+55), 142 [132] unrated (+10). I wrote a little over 6,000 words last week for a Speaking of Which post. Several motivations behind it, other than the obvious political points (most of which should be obvious to you all, but often aren't). These pieces provide a catalog of links I might want to go back to. They provide markers in time for when events took place. And they're sort of a laboratory for breeding bits of prose for future use. Note that in terms of the later, I've never felt proprietary about my language. If you see something you wish to repeat, or feel you can improve on, by all means go ahead and do so. Ran a day late posting this, mostly because I got distracted with the idea that I might make one last pass on the EOY Aggregate: I was about half through my straggler pass of Metacritic's Top Ten Lists, and I did manage to get to the bottom of it, as well as Acclaimed Music Forums: EOY 2021 (at least through Feb. 1), but I didn't get through my last bit of due diligence: a Google search for "best|favorite albums of 2021." (I'm down to page 8. In past years I usually go 20-30 deep before giving up.) I haven't been taking notes beyond my list index, but I can reconstruct a couple based on still-open tabs:
Aside from a bit of new jazz, this week's records fell out of various EOY lists, although they started to dry up toward the weekend. Most of this week's A-list are revisits. All three are records I gave B+(***) to first time around. A couple records that started lower got a boost, but not to A-. Several more (not noted) stuck where they were. One of the new records I belatedly got around to was by Caetano Veloso, a Brazilian star I've long admired but rarely understood. My sampling so far has been light, so I'm especially delighted to see this new consumer guide to Veloso by ace Brazil Beat critic Rod Taylor. [PS: New Yorker also has a long piece on Veloso: Jonathan Blitzer: How Caetano Veloso Revolutionized Brazil's Sound and Spirit.] Still too early to summarize the EOY lists, but I can note: The 2021 music tracking file currently shows 1317 rated albums, combining 2021 releases with a few earlier ones from December 2020 (or earlier for records that missed the 2020 music tracking file). That seems like a lot, but is down from my 2020 count of 1627. I entered 2021 thinking I was bound to slow down, so I'm only surprised that the 2021 count isn't lower. Next year's will surely be less. The EOY A-lists are currently at 74 for jazz and 68 for non-jazz (that adds up to 138, as 4 records are counted in both splits. I'd normally freeze the latter file by now, and call 2021 done, but haven't brought myself to do it. Only 10 (19% of 52) new records this week are 2021 releases. I will do the freeze by the end of February, but I'm not feeling any urgency to get into 2022. As the rated totals show, I'm in no danger of running up my 2021 stats. New records reviewed this week: Arca: Kick II (2021, XL): Alejandra Ghersi, born in Venezuela, studied in NYU, based in Barcelona, albums since 2013, Kick I appeared in 2020, this is the first of four additional volumes that appeared in late 2021. Has a flair for the dramatic. B+(*) AZ: Doe or Die II (2021, Quiet Money): Rapper Anthony Cruz, from New York, at 50 returns with a sequel to his 1995 debut, his first album since 2009. B+(**) Baby Keem: The Melodic Blue (2021, PgLang/Columbia): California rapper Hykeem Carter, first album after a couple mixtapes and EPs (mostly under his given name). B+(*) [sp] James Blake: Friends That Break Your Heart (2021, Republic): British singer-songwriter, seemed like electronica when he broke in in 2010, fifth album plus a bunch of EPs. I've never quite felt the appeal. B Nathan Borton: Each Step (2021 [2022], OA2): Guitarist, originally from Wichita, based in Michigan, studied under Randy Napoleon and Rodney Whitaker, who plays here, along with Xavier Davis (piano), and Keith Hall (drums). Four Borton originals, the last called "Grant's Groove," following Grant Green's "Grantstand." B+(**) [cd] Fimber Bravo: Lunar Tredd (2021, Moshi Moshi): From Trinidad, based in London, plays steel pan, released a soca album back in 1990, most recent album Con-Fusion in 2013. Opens with "Can't Control We," placing steel pan in a tradition of defiance rooted in Africa and stoked by slavery and repression. But the steel pans don't star here: they're embedded in the very fabric of life. A- Burial: Antidawn EP (2022, Hyperdub): William Bevan, British ambient producer since 2005, mostly produces EPs but with five songs stretched out to 43:27 this is EP in title only. Always the risk with ambient, but this one seems deliberate: "Antidawn reduces Burial's music to just the vapours." Maybe, but they don't waft away quickly enough. B- Burial + Blackdown: Shock Power of Love EP (2021, Keysound, EP): William Bevan and Martin Clark, two pieces each, one a Blackdown remix of a Joseph Whittle (Heatmap) piece), total 27:33. Why am I not surprised that the Blackdown pieces have a lot more energy? Still, the Burial's closer has a bit of the old magic. B+(**) Tré Burt: You, Yeah, You (2021, Oh Boy): Folkie singer-songwriter from Sacramento, second album, on John Prine's label, but his voice reminds me more of Dylan. B+(**) Combo Lulo: Neotropic Dream (2021, Names You Can Trust): Brooklyn group, thirteen musicians plus singers on three tracks, play "Caribbean music," mixing cumbia instrumentals with dancehall reggae, or maybe they're just fucking with you. B+(***) Common: A Beautiful Revolution Pt. 2 (2021, Loma Vista): Rapper Lonnie Rashied Lynn, 14th album since 1992, relegates his 2020 album to Pt. 1, although both are short enough (34:18 + 38:23) they've already been reissued together. B+(**) Ifé: 0000+0000 (2021, Discos Ifá): Yoruba priest Otura Mun (originally Mark Alan Underwood, from Indiana), based in Puerto Rico (after moving there from Texas). B+(**) Femi Kuti & Made Kuti: Legacy + (2021, Partisan, 2CD): Fela Kuti's Afrobeat lives on, with son Femi and grandson Made each leading a disc's worth of songs. Femi's songs are as political as ever: not just "Stop the Hate" and "Privatisation" but "Na Bigmanism Spoil Government" and "You Can't Fight Corruption With Corruption." Made is more into "Free Your Mind" and "We Are Strong," and takes the music in that direction. B+(***) [sp] SG Lewis: Times (2021, PMR): British singer-songwriter, electropop producer, initials for Samuel George, singles/EPs since 2015, first full album. Nicely rooted in the disco era. B+(**) Amber Mark: Three Dimensions Deep (2022, PMR): Singer-songwriter born in Tennessee, father Jamaican, mother German, lived in Miami, India, Germany, New York. First album after a mini and a well-regarded EP. This will probably get slotted as r&b, but it's both straighter and stranger than that. Complicated world we live in. B+(***) Stephen Martin: High Plains (2021 [2022], OA2): Tenor saxophonist, based in Kansas City, appears to be his first album, quartet with Peter Schlamb (vibes/piano), bass (Ben Leifer), and drums (David Hawkins). Leads off with a piece by Leifer, with two originals by Martin, covers from other saxophone touchstones Benny Golson, Joe Henderson, and Frank Foster. B+(*) [cd] Maxo Kream: Weight of the World (2021, Big Persona/RCA): Houston rapper, name Emekwane Ogugua Biosah Jr., father Nigerian, third album after several mixtapes. Easy rolling trap beats. B+(**) Nas: Magic (2021, Mass Appeal, EP): Longtime rapper Nasir Jones, mine-tracks, 29:16, dropped on Xmas Eve as a stopgap or throwaway between King's Disease II and a promised "KD3." Old school: "we don't want money in a bag/we want it in a bank." B+(**) Sebastian Noelle/Matt Mitchell/Chris Tordini/Dan Weiss: System One (2021, Fresh Sound New Talent): German guitarist, based in New York, fourth album since 2016, backed by well-known New York musicians on piano, bass, and drums. B+(**) Okuté: Okuté (2021, Chulo): Afro-Cuban rumba group, drums and voices darting every which way, "raw and unfiltered." B+(***) Dave Rempis/Avreeayl Ra Duo: Bennu (2021 [2022], Aerophonic): Alto/tenor sax and percussion, 21 minutes per side (21:04 for first two pieces, 20:58 for last one). First time either had played in person in several months, so they sort of ease into it, relishing the circumstances. There is a point where they turn it on, as you know they can, but they mostly take it easy, which make clear how consistently inventive they are. A- [dl] Rüfüs Du Sol: Surrender (2021, Rose Avenue/Reprise): Australian electropop group -- Tyroe Lindqvist (guitar/vocals), Jon George (keyboards), James Hunt (drums) -- fourth studio album since 2013. Swelling sheets of sound, wraps you up. B+(**) Samo Salamon: Dolphyology: Complete Eric Dolphy for Solo Guitar (2021 [2022], Samo, 2CD): Slovenian guitarist, has recorded a lot since 2004. Eric Dolphy, on the other hand, had his brilliant career limited to 1960-64. Same concept as several others have done with Monk, but his songs are nowhere near as distinctive, which in some ways just reduces this to a virtuosic solo ehxibition. B+(***) [cd] The Smudges: Song and Call (2021 [2022], Cryptogramophone): String duo, Jeff Gauthier (violin) and Maggie Parkins (cello), a bit on the bracing side, which helps. B+(*) [cd] [02-18] Martial Solal: Coming Yesterday: Live at Salle Gaveau 2019 (2019 [2021], Challenge): French pianist, b. 1927, one of the major players to put France on the jazz map in the 1950s, still interesting at 92, even solo. B+(***) Omar Sosa/Seckou Keita: Suba (2021, Bendigedig): Cuban pianist, moved to Ecuador in 1990s, spent some time around San Francisco, wound up in Barcelona. Second duo album with the Senegalese singer and kora player. B+(**) [sp] Earl Sweatshirt: Sick! (2022, Tan Cressida/Warner, EP): Rapper Thebe Neruda Kgositsile, born in Chicago, father a noted South African poet, mother a law professor ("critical race theorist"). Fourth studio album (but short: 10 tracks, 24:05). B+(*) C. Tangana: El Madrileńo (2021, Sony Music): Spanish rapper, real name Altón Álvarez Allaro, previously dba Crema, fifth album since 2011. B+(*) Ben Thomas Tango Project: Eternal Aporia (2021 [2022], Origin): Vibraphone player, also plays bandoneon here, with clarinet, bass, cello on five tracks, piano and violin on two of those. All original compositions. Tango, of course. B+(*) [cd] Torres: Thirstier (2021, Merge): Singer-songwriter Mackenzie Scott, fifth album since 2013. Latest gripe: "Everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die to get there." B Caetano Veloso: Meu Coco (2021, Sony Music Brasil): Brazilian singer-songwriter, started the tropicalismo movement in the late 1960s, politically charged and rhythmically daring, Discogs lists 64 albums since 1967. I've only heard a few, and usually need a strong shot of rhythm to get interested -- something a reknowned wordsmith doesn't always offer. But there is at least a scattershot of it here. B+(***) Immanuel Wilkins: The 7th Hand (2022, Blue Note): Alto saxophonist, major debut in 2020, second album, quartet with Micah Thomas (piano), Daryl Johns (bass), and Kweku Sumbry (drums), plus guest spots. Even more ambitious: "hour-long suite comprised of seven movements that strive to bring the quartet closer to complete vesselhood." I'm underwhelmed, although he remains an impressive player. I also recall that I underrated his debut. B+(*) [sp] Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries: Arv Garrison: Wizard of the Six String: Classic and Rare Recordings 1945-1948 (1945-48 [2021], Fresh Sound, 3CD): Jazz guitarist (1922-1960), recorded very little under his own name -- 6 tracks here, closing out the third disc, but several more tracks appeared under his wife's name, bassist-singer Vivien Garry. So this is mostly side credits, some famous ("Moose the Mooche," "Yardbird Suite," "Ornithology," and "A Night in Tunisia" from Charlie Parker Septet; other spots with Dizzy Gillespie, Howard McGhee, Lionel Hampton, Les Paul, Frankie Laine, and Leo Watson/Vic Dickenson -- my favorite), some air shots with iffy sound. Also available as separate volumes, where the second is probably the best, but together they offer a more compelling portrait of a young musician navigating an era of tumultuous change. B+(**) Jimmy Gourley: The Cool Guitar of Jimmy Gourley: Quartet & Trio Sessions 1953-1961 (1953-61 [2021], Fresh Sound): Guitarist, born in St. Louis, played with Lee Konitz in a high school band in Chicago, moved to France in 1951 and stayed there. Early tracks here with Henri Renaud and Buddy Banks (a bassist, leading a quartet with Bob Dorough and Roy Haynes), ending with two quartets he led, the last two cuts recorded in Poland with Kryzstof Komeda on piano. B+(**) It's a Good, Good Thing: The Latin Soul of Fania Records: The Singles (1967-75 [2021], Craft, 4CD): New York-based salsa label founded by Johnny Pacheco and Jerry Masucci in 1964 (Masucci bought Pacheco out in 1967, and died in 1997, the catalog eventually owned by Concord). Even in its 87-track, 4-CD version, this has got to be a small slice of Fania's singles: "soul" is the distinction sought here. Early on that refers to a sort of salsafied Motown sound. Later on they dig into r&b covers: I first noticed this with Ralph Robles doing "Maybe," which was pretty authentic, but they quickly got ridiculous with "Spinning Wheel" and "Stand." Still, the point seems to be the culture crash: if you want salsa, Fania can easily top this, and if you want soul, look elsewhere. Title also available as a 27-track, 2-LP set: a more sensible length, but maybe not the point. B+(**) [sp] Michael Gregory Jackson: Frequency Equilibrium Koan (1977 [2021], self-released): Guitarist, best known for a 1976 album called Clarity (with David Murray, Oliver Lake, and Leo Smith, but not nearly as good as the names imply), which he used as a later trio name. Here he leads a quartet with Julius Hemphill (alto sax), Abdul Wadud (cello), and Pheeroan aKLaff (drums), which is as edgy but more together. B+(***) [bc] Noertker's Moxie: Walking on Blue Eggshells in Billville (2001-20 [2021], Edgetone): Bassist Bill Noertker, has 13 previous albums under this group name, celebrating their 20th anniversary with three CDs selected from bi-monthly live performances at the Musicians' Union Hall in San Francisco. Specific dates aren't provided, but the lineups vary considerably: most common band member is Annelise Zamula (flute/tenor sax) at six (of 9) tracks; drummer Jason Levis appears on five, with three drummers dividing the rest. No other instrument appears on more than five tracks (piano and flute, two musicians each). B+(**) [cd] Noertker's Moxie: More Fun in Billville (2001-20 [2021], Edgetone): Eight more pieces, similar lineups, similar results. B+(**) [cd] Noertker's Moxie: Pantomime in Billville (2001-20 [2921], Edgetone): Eight more pieces, again widely scattered, not sure if the selection flags a bit, or I'm just losing a bit of interest. B+(*) [cd] Peter Stampfel & the Dysfunctionells: Not in Our Wildest Dreams (1994-96 [2020], Don Giovanni): The band is a Chicago group led by Rich Krueger long before he became semi-famous. Evidently some of this was released in 1995, but this reissue has more, two sets each in Chicago and New York. Several songs from Have Moicy!, one "massacred," and a bunch of standards, massacred worse. B+(*) [sp] Neil Young: Carnegie Hall 1970 (1970 [2021], Reprise): Seems like a long time ago, but coming off his third solo album, he already had lots of still-familiar songs. Solo, acoustic, folksinger mode. Struck me as tedious at first, but I softened up. In particular, I found "Ohio" very touching, and resonant at the moment. B+(**) Old music: The Al Cohn-Zoot Sims Quintet: You 'N Me (1960 [2002], Verve): Tenor saxophonists, half of Woody Herman's famous "Four Brothers" sax section, played together often in the late 1950s, occasionally later on. With Mose Allison (piano), Major Holley (bass), and Osie Johnson (drums), playing three Cohn tunes, one from Sims, and various standards. The saxophonists are typically fine, but on "Angel Eyes" they (or someone) tries to vocalize the horn parts, to not-even-comic effect. B+(*) Al Cohn: Rifftide (1987 [1988], Timeless): Recorded in Holland, backed by a local piano-bass-drums trio (Rein de Graaff, Koos Serierse, and Eric Ineke). Six standards, including the title piece from Coleman Hawkins, ending up with two originals. B+(***) Dennis Gonzalez/Yusef Komunyakaa: Herido: Live at St. James Cathedral, Chicago (1999 [2001], 8th Harmonic Breakdown): Avant trumpet player from Dallas, responsible for the music here, backing and complementing the Pulitzer-winning poets' meditations. Backed by Mark Deutsch (baantar/electric bass/sitar), Susie Ibarra (percussion), and Sugar Blue (harmonica). [Reissue 2021, details uncertain.] B+(***) [bc] Grade (or other) changes: Doja Cat: Planet Her (2021, Kemosabe/RCA): Amala Dlamini, rapper/singer from Los Angeles, third album, big, flashy pop production, first half (plus closer "Kiss Me More") as strong as any 2020 pop album. Sags a bit in the middle, and I'm not wild about the song delicately titled "Ain't Shit." [was: B+(*)] A- Silk Sonic [Bruno Mars/Anderson .Paak]: An Evening With Silk Sonic (2021, Aftermath/Atlantic): A pop star in decline since his 2010 debut, and a rapper with a pop streak, a combination that must have seemed natural when they were hanging on the road. Not sure why it seemed so off when I first played it, but it showed up on a lot of otherwise solid EOY lists, and I found myself enjoying a video. Not as consistent as I'd like. Secret weapon: MC Bootsy Collins. [was: B-] B+(**) Spillage Village: Spilligion (2020, Dreamville/SinceThe 80s/Inerscope): Atlanta-based hip-hop collective, several names I recognize from solo projects (EarthGang, JID, Mereba, 6lack), others I probably should. Christgau pick as the 3rd best album of the year after the one this was released in (September 25). I've replayed this several times, but doubt I'll ever get it, whatever it may be. [was: B+(*)] B+(***) Morgan Wade: Reckless (2021, Ladylike): Country singer-songwriter from Virginia, second album. Great voice, solid (and then some) songs. I played this during a stretch with a lot of more idiosyncratic country albums, so its virtues stood out less. But it only gets better. [was: B+(***)] A- Wild Up: Julius Eastman Vol. 1: Femenine (2021, New Amsterdam): Eastman was a commposer, pianist, vocalist, and dancer, who grew up in upstate New York, lived 1940-90, anticipated elements of minimalism but didn't dare make it boring. This major work first appeared in 1974, and was revived by two groups in 2021 (the other is by Ensemble O/Aum Grand Ensemble). Led by cellist Seth Parker Woods, handful of albums since 2014, I count 17 musicians plus voice, with less electronics and more horns (including sax solos), making it more dramatic, more fun. [was: B+(***)] A- Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:
Ask a question, or send a comment. Sunday, February 6, 2022 Speaking of WhichOnce again, I had kept a few articles in tabs that I felt like commenting on, then made a round of my usual sources and found a few more. I'm about half way through Barbara Walter's How Civil Wars Start, and How to Stop Them. Too early to say much, other than that her structure make sense, and her evidence of how other civil wars developed is persuasive. That even includes characterizing social media (Facebook in particular) as "the accelerant" -- a position I've been reluctant to endorse. It's easy enough to see that there are forces on the right that want to spark a civil war. And it's certain that said forces will resort to terrorism if they don't get their way. On the other hand, like most of the left, I trust the system to be resilient enough to curtail their offenses. I never for a moment thought that the Jan. 6 mob would succeed. But then I also wasn't shocked that they would try. Their character has been clear for years now -- certainly going back to the "Tea Party" reaction to Obama in 2009. The people most deeply offended by the mob are the ones who were most naive about them, and more generally about Trump and the Republicans, in the first place. The question as to whether the left will fight back should the right seize power is moot at present, but should be considered by establishment powers as a risk should they be tempted to throw in with the Trump mob (as some have already done). The Weimar German ruling class thought they could control Hitler, but he eventually brought them to destruction. (The German people survived, albeit at great loss, but the aristocratic class of the Reichs didn't.) The basic fact is that it's very hard to sustain dictatorial rule indefinitely, and not very difficult to disrupt it. While in some ways the tools of repression have advanced, they still depend on popular acquiescence, which is hard to maintain when it violates people's innate sense of justice. In the long run this limits what either right or left can do politically -- not that I worry about the left, as we are motivated primarily by out sense of justice. As I was trying to wrap this up, I ran across this tweet thread from Steve M. @nomoremister:
I ran across a piece (or two or three) on this and decided not to bother, as jerks will be jerks, and that's about all I have to say about vaccine and mask mandates and the jerks who whine about them. I happen to be related to a Trumpy trucker who was very psyched by this, but a commenter dampened his enthusiasm by pointing out that states have laws designed to prevent truck convoys -- otherwise they'd basically turn into rolling traffic jams -- so it couldn't happen here. But yeah, as a piece of political theater, this is right up the Republicans' alley, and harder for Democrats to laugh at than their yacht parades. And now Steve M. has a longer piece on this: The Canadian Truck Blockade Is Coming to America in Less Than a Month. Coronavirus in the US: Latest Map and Case Count: Case counts are down 57% over 14 days, which still puts them higher than they ever were before Dec. 31, 2021. Hospitalized is down 228%, but deaths are up 21%, to 2,597 (pushing the total to 901,009), which is more than there ever were except for the January 2021 peak. The regional map shows most improvement from northeast Ohio and Maryland to Maine, except for middle Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, the worst spots (aside from Alaska) are the belt from Oklahoma to the Carolinas, extending NE to West Virginia and SE to Florida. Unvaccinated remain 20X more likely to die than vaccinated. Also note: US Has Far Higher Covid Death Rate Than Other Wealthy Countries. The charts also show that the margin is widening, and that this can be attributed to lower vaccination rates. For more on this, see David Wallace-Wells: Why Are So Many Americans Still Dying of COVID?. Barbara Caress: The Dark History of Medicare Privatization: This is mostly about "Medicare Advantage" ("a costly, unaccountable cash cow for private insurance companies that is swallowing traditional Medicare"), but it remind me that one problem with selling Medicare-for-All is that Medicare as currently constituted still leaves a lot to be desired. This is less of a problem for Bernie Sanders, as his bill seeks not just to extend Medicare but to fix most of its limitations, but it does make it harder to sell to people who don't know any better. As for the privatization schemes, I would have thought that their utter failure to deliver cost savings would have discredited them by now, but evidently they've become powerful profit centers: largely as government has increased their subsidies, even as they profit from shifting liabilities, both by cherry-picking patients and by denying more of their claims. David Dayen/Rakeen Mabud: How We Broke the Supply Chain: "Ramp[ant outsourcing, financialization, monopolization, deregulation, and just-in-time logistics are the culprits." Or, more plainly, short term profits. Moreover, the people who broke it all profit both when their system works and when it doesn't. "Corporate profit margins are at their highest level in 70 years," "a little bit of inflation is always good in our business," and "inflation is being enhanced by exploitation, with companies seeing a 'once-in-a-generation opportunity' to raise prices." You might also take a look at Dayen's December, 2021 article: The Inflation-Fighting Bill You Don't Know About: "An overwhelmingly bipartisan effort would finally crack down on the ocean shipping cartel." Also Robert Kuttner: The Supply Chain Mess, which points out how "Biden is finding creative ways to get things unstuck." These are much more sensible reforms, much better targeted to the real problems, than the Fed's classic solution for inflation, which is to lay people off to reduce demand (while giving loaners a windfall, further suppressing demand by increasing debt). Neel Dhanesha: Paleontologists study the past. This one has a warning for the future. Interview with Thomas Halliday, author of Otherlands: A Journey Through Earth's Extinct Worlds. I went through a period where most of what I read was books on paleontology and geology: John McPhee and Stephen Jay Gould were the "gateway drugs" but I got to the point where I could read pretty technical textbooks. After my first wife died, I found the idea of deep time comforting. But I moved on to other sciences in the 1990, and returned to politics and economics after 2001, so I haven't kept up -- other than the occasional paleoclimatology take on climate change. This book looks like an effort to systematize what scientists know about earth history for a readership accustomed to crisis and catastrophe. What's hard to tell at this distance is whether this record will calm or alarm current readers. But one thing you can bet on is that uniformitarianism, a doctrine that was just beginning to crack back when I was reading, is giving way to a new catastrophism, just right for the times. I may have to check this out. Sean Illing: Why good messaging won't save Democrats: "Dan Pfeiffer on the Democratic brand and how to revive it." Another frustrating klatch on "why we suck so bad." For instance, Pfeiffer says: "I think we've spent too much time demonizing Fox News for its propaganda. There's this visceral reaction from a lot of people in our donor community. They don't want to be labeled propagandists in that way." Fox News is the single most important cog in the Republican machine, making sure that all the faithful have the right spin on all that matters. You don't have to demonize it to expose what they're doing, but you can't just ignore it because criticizing it makes "Democratic billionaires" uncomfortable. He goes on to complain that "the biggest problem with the [Terry] McAuliffe campaign was that it treated voters like idiots." I don't know where he got that analysis from, but sounds like Fox News. One of the main things they do is pounce on any blip to present it as a deep, unforgivable insult to their viewers (who often are idiots, and proud of it). Murtaza Hussain: Killing of ISIS Leader Shows That US Forever Wars Will Never End: Biden probably sees this as his "Bin Laden killing" moment, still stuck in the mindset that trophy murders are a viable war metric, except that with US troops gone from Afghanistan and Iraq, all this really does is remind people that the US military is still engaged in dark, unreported corners, and hasn't learned much of anything from two decades of failures. We should remember that wars only end with armistice agreements. The US refusal to admit defeat and learn to work with de facto regimes in Syria and Afghanistan is pure spite, resolving nothing, continuing a long series of grudges, going back to North Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, Iran, and Iraq. Also see Fred Kaplan: Are We Winning Yet? "The big, often unaddressed question is how effective these operations are . . . The answer, it turns out, is that, most of the time, they're not very effective after all." Umair Irfan: Will climate change melt the Winter Olympics? "It will be hard to host the Winter Games when winter isn't cold." It's been pretty cold here the last couple days, but it was over 50F less than a week ago, and will be again less than a week hence, so Wichita isn't much of a place for winter sports. (Of course, it never was a candidate, not so much because it didn't get cold as for lack of mountains.) Even now, Beijing looks like a pretty iffy proposition, with all skiing events dependent on artificial snow. There's a chart here that projects that only 5 (of 15) possible sites will be reliably cold in the 2080s (with Beijing and Vancouver, among recent sites, not even making the chart). Of course, they could consider more reliably colder spots, like Thule, Fairbanks, or Murmansk, but the main determinants of late seem to have been money and vanity. Ed Kilgore: Trump's Long Campaign to Steal the Presidency: A Timeline: "The insurrection was a complex, yearslong plot, not a one-day event. And it isn't over." Starts in 2016 with Trump's complaints about counting votes, asserting his claim that he would have won the popular vote but for the crooked system, then the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, which Kris Kobach led into oblivion. One could go back even further, and add a great many details. I'm not sure when Republicans first realized they could game the system, working it to advantage, but it certainly goes back as far as when Trump prankster Roger Stone apprenticed under Nixon. But they've become increasingly brazen about it of late, mostly because they've proven it works, and they haven't been held accountable. Republicans routinely win more House and Senate seats than their voting share, and that's sometimes been enough to tilt control of Congress. Four presidential elections went to losers of the popular vote, and all have been Republicans: two back in the 19th century as black people were being disenfranchised, and two in recent history (Bush in 2000 and Trump in 2016, the latter losing by three million votes). Those "wins" enabled the aggressive implementation of an unpopular right-wing political agenda, leading to endless war, greater inequality, and two major recessions. This was happening before Trump started his 2016 campaign, but Trump's unique contribution was his utterly shameless attack on the already hollow institutions of democracy. And the assault continues, as every Republican-controlled state has moved to make it harder to vote, and in several cases to exert greater political control over how votes are to be counted. Democrats have tried to respond by waxing eloquent over defending the traditional institutions of American democracy, but in looking only at the latest offenses, they've tended to overlook the real rot at the heart of politics: money. Their myopia over money can be explained by that fact that several successful Democrats (e.g., Obama and the Clintons) have excelled at raising money -- but fatally compromised their administrations in its pursuit, leaving theadbare legacies. This allows Republicans to attack Democrats for corruption and ineffectiveness, while offering more of the same, more shamelessly craven. As Republicans have normalized anti-democratic beliefs, they've freed themselves from having to pretend that they care about voters, leaving themselves exhilaratingly free to indulge their fantasies and prejudices. We should be clear that unless they are stopped, their victory will not merely spell the end of quaint institutions Americans have long taken pride in, but the very notion of "government of, by, and for the people." Caroline Kitchener: Republican-led states rush to pass antiabortion bills before Supreme Court rules on Roe: "Lawmakers in at least 29 states, anticipating a new legal landscape, have filed measures to restrict abortion." Eric Levitz: No, Democrats and Republicans Aren't Equally Anti-Democratic: This is framed as a response to a Ross Douthat column, which sought to muddy the waters by contending that "the modern Republican Party is also the heir to a strong pro-democracy impulse" and that "contemporary liberalism is fundamentally miscast as a defender of popular self-rule." This is at best shallow contrarianism rooted in rather dated sleight of hand. Sure, Nixon imagined a "silent majority," but he didn't exactly trust them to run the country. Rather, he connived to trick them into backing his own presidency, in the most blatant model of mass manipulation of the time, a practice all subsequent Republican leaders have followed. And sure, the idea of "liberal elites" has a long pedigree, at least to FDR's "brain trust" and JFK's "best and brightest." But even at their most paternalistic and condescending, the latter have always embraced the notion of a public interest, and sought to make government work more effectively for virtually everyone. Republicans disposed of such notions no later than the 1980s, substituting the creed that only self-interested individuals exist, that they are in competition, and that politics is a means for advancing the interests of some people (supporters of the Republican Party) against the rest. If playing on popular prejudices helps the GOP gain power, so much the better, Same for lying, cheating, stealing -- their manifesto reduced to three plain words. But parties are not fixed ideologies. They represent shifting alliances, and the period of elite domination of the Democratic Party seems to be if not ending at least opening up, mostly because the "New Democrat" faction failed on two major counts: to deliver programs much needed to help the party base, and to effectively counter Republican schemes. (It's possible that elite domination of the GOP is also waning as the Party sinks ever deeper into Trumpian incoherency, but thus far that has had little practical effect.) Despite Douthat's best efforts, the increasing dispute over the very essence of democracy is helping to divide the parties and clarify their differences, as Democrats realize they need to reform themselves to become more credible and effective defenders of democracy. Also:
Anatol Lieven: Leaked drafts of NATO, US responses to Russia are surprisingly revealing: I said most of what I have to say on Ukraine and NATO in my January 27 piece, NATO Pushes Its Logic (and Luck). The main thing I would like to add is more detail on how the current threat was almost totally orchestrated by the US and UK through a series of "intelligence" leaks meant to embarrass and corner Putin. (I can hear Robert Sherrill from his grave intoning "military intelligence is to intelligence as military music is to music.") Since I wrote my review, nothing on the Russian side has escalated other than rhetoric at the UN, although on the US end we've seen a steady series of reports on arms and/or troops moving closer to the conflict zone, while Ukrainian citizens have been training in the latest tactics for fighting guerrilla warfare. Presumably that's being advertised as a deterrent, but the appearance of an armed (most likely right-wing) militia in Eastern Europe is never a good sign. Lieven's uncovered a few leaks of his own, which help separate the posturing from the real concerns. Not least, they show how the US is orchestrating NATO ("you should talk to the organ grinder, not his monkey"). But they also show an easily solvable problem, as long as cooler heads don't allow themselves to be painted into a corner. Also on Ukraine:
Carlos Lozada: How Trump's political style smothered the last substance left in the GOP: A review of this week's big Trump book, Jeremy W Peters' Insurgency: How Republicans Lost Their Party and Got Everything They Ever Wanted. Of course, the rot predates Trump, which is why the party was ready to embrace him. It occurred to me in reading this that the real architect of Trumpism was Roger Ailes, and Trump was just the actor picked to fill the part. One interesting point here is the update to the Republican three-legged party model: social conservatives, economic conservatives, and national defense, to which is added "stylistic conservatives": "voters cared just as much, if not more, about the way a candidate talked as they did about what specific issues the candidate supported. The more aggressive, unfiltered, and politically incorrect, the better." They saw transgressive speech as a sign of commitment, candor, and integrity, and Trump delivered. I got a sense of déjŕ vu here, recalling other conservatives that put style -- latent and in some cases actual violence -- above all else. They called themselves Fascists, and would have been disappointed in Trump (the epitome of "all hat and no cattle"), but proto-fascists these days delighted in Trump, and thanks to Fox News they lived in their own bubble world. Viet Thanh Nguyen: My Young Mind Was Disturbed by a Book. It Changed My Life. A personal response to the recent spate of book banning (e.g., Maus in Tennessee). I'm old enough to recall a time when lots of books were banned. I know that as a teenager I often refused "required" readings (Huckleberry Finn was one -- I especially hated the misspellings meant to be colloquial), and sought out "banned" ones (mostly because I grew up with a severe deficit of info on sex and drugs). Maybe banning works for some people, but it's mostly about parents and self-important guardians feeling morally superior -- which they rarely are. Ashley Parker, et al: 'He never stopped ripping things up': Inside Trump's relentless document destruction habits: "Trup's shredding of paper in the White House was far more widespread and indiscriminate than previously known and -- despite multiple admonishments -- extended throughout his presidency." I doubt this qualifies as a shocking revelation or as one of the grosser malfeasances of Trump's presidency, but in its extreme pettiness it reveals most clearly Trump's imperious conceit of being above and beyond the law. Might as well hang more Trump outrage here:
Trita Parsi: Washington ignores Amnesty Israel 'apartheid' report at its peril: "Not holding partners to account for human rights abuses makes them burdens rather than assets to the US." This is, of course, standard operating procedure: cite the reports of Amnesty International and other human rights organizations that criticize countries you hold grudges against, while ignoring the same sources on "allies" -- the simplest definition of which is nations which buy US military arms. (By the way, it's increasingly obvious that the US military-industrial complex has become, as Tom Engelhart put it, "a scam operation." See William Hartung: Mission (Im)possible -- and You're Paying for It.) Heather Cox Richardson: January 27, 2022: Seems like this should have a better title, like "The Best Economic Growth Since 1984." Of course, like 1984, the upsurge in 2021 has more than a little to do with the depression of the previous year (years for 1984). But while the 1984 growth, fueled by tax cuts and deficit spending, petered out as wages fell flat and the newly-deregulated savings and loans went bust, Biden's focus on infrastructure and labor development augurs well for the future (and would even more so if more of the program got passed). Joshua Rothman: Can science fiction wake us up to our climate reality? A profile of Kim Stanley Robinson, author of many books, recently The Ministry for the Future on how responsible citizens (and a few eco-terrorists) solved the climate change crisis, with a new book (The High Sierra: A Love Story) coming out this summer. David Siders/Natalie Allison: Trump's 'circular firing squad' threatens GOP midterm gains: Well, one hopes, but censoring Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger doesn't really rise to the metaphor here. As purges go, they're a mere drop in the bucket, and you don't have to be Joe Stalin to understand that their example will help keep many more others in line. The days of Reagan's "11th commandment" ("never speak ill of a fellow Republican") are long gone, as the powers in the party, perhaps just in fear of mass ferment at the party base, have decided the most important thing is to maintain message discipline, driving the Party ever farther to the right. Sure, that could, in theory, turn into a suicide pact, but they've already managed to push it so far without feeling major repercussions it's hard to see why this one little step should make any difference. Also see:
Margaret Sullivan: Jeff Zucker's legacy is defined by his promotion of Donald Trump. The disgraced CNN President resigned last week, though not for the sensationalist idolatry that promoted Trump as a ratings bonanza even before Fox started sucking up to him. Also: Alex Shephard: Jeff Zucker Was the Most Craven TV Executive of the Trump Era. Adriana Usero: How an out-of-context Jen Psaki clip led to days of Fox coverage. The point here isn't just that Fox distorts and lies. It also defends itself relentlessly by portraying any attempt to point out its lies and distortions as a scurrilous attack on Fox and their viewers. The first order result is that Fox viewers are trained to never believe anything they hear from mainstream media. The second order result is that no one should ever trust anything that Fox broadcasts. This credibility gap is the purest driver of polarization today. David Von Drehle: George Packer's opus on Afghanistan is a scorching indictment of Biden: Review of Packer's essay in The Atlantic (which, behind a paywall, I haven't read). Packer was an early promoter of Bush's war in Iraq (which he later regretted), and now seems to have been even fonder of Obama's "the right war" in Afghanistan. Packer's opening line line was more balanced: "It took four presidencies for America to finish abandoning Afghanistan." (Actually, it took eight, starting with Jimmy Carter's decision to bankroll a "holy war" there.) Biden was the only one who got us out, and this is the thanks he gets? Sure, it wasn't pretty, and some part of that was because Biden tried to keep up the pretense that US intervention in Afghanistan had some redeeming virtue, but in the end he knew what he had to do, and did it. I'd call that courage. And I'd add that Packer has squandered whatever good will he earned from second-guessing himself on Iraq. He remains a soppy, fair-weather imperialist to the end. Laura Vozzella: Youngkin campaign attacks high school student on Twitter. Big man, the governor. Jenny Gross/Neil Vigdor: ABC Suspends Whoopi Goldberg Over Holocaust Comments: File this under "much ado about nothing." As usual, one has to wade through a lot of posturing to find the actual "wrong and hurtful comments." The first here was that Goldberg "said the Holocaust was about 'man's inhumanity to man' and 'not about race.'" Her first point was a little wishy-washy but plainly correct, so what's the problem? The second was technically wrong, but it turns on how one understands race. It is unlikely that any Nazis in the 1930s doubted that Jews belonged a different and inferior race. But is it really fair to fault an American black woman for race is about white-over-black instead? She made that clear when she added, "This is white people doing it to white people, so y'all going to fight among yourselves." OK, that wasn't helpful, but does her "wrong and hurtful comments" really just turn on identifying Jews as white? While Jews have been significantly more likely than Christian whites have been to recognize racism as a wrong and to support equal rights for all -- and have thereby become targets of white supremacists -- they've never had the same "skin in the game" as black people. But nowhere here is Goldberg denying or belittling the Holocaust. So why jump all over her? It's hard not to see this as a power grab, an effort to control language for political gain. That Goldberg was suspended, even after a full apology, suggests that the power is working. I could add that the reason it works is because the argument is structured in such a way that if you question it in any way, all you're doing is exposing yourself as an anti-semite. The article quotes an ADL spokesman as scolding Goldberg: "the Holocaust was about the Nazi's systematic annihilation of the Jewish people -- who they deemed to be an inferior race. They dehumanized them and used this racist propaganda to justify slaughtering 6 million Jews. Holocaust distortion is dangerous." The problem here is that what's presented as a correction is itself a distortion. Sure, nothing stated is wrong, but this omits mention of millions of non-Jews killed by the Nazis. When I was growing up and first learning about Nazi Germany in the 1960s, the figure commonly cited was 10 million killed in Nazi concentration camps (out of about 50 million killed in the entirety of WWII). Over the next decade or two, the non-Jews were stripped from memory and everyone started using the six million figure. This shift in focus suited Israel, which used it (and its exclusive claim to represent the Jews of Europe) to claim reparations from a repentant Germany. It also suited US Cold War aims in that it minimized the leading role the left (including communists) had played in opposing and resisting the Nazi war machine. (On the other hand, not all Americans were pleased with the ploy. By rewriting German war aims as racist instead of imperialist -- the overarching ideology that promoted and was promoted by racism -- white supremacy in the US was cast into doubt.) None of which should deflect one from understanding that the Nazi obsession with slaughtering every Jew possible was anything but one of the world's most spectacularly evil instances of "man's inhumanity to man." Nor does the fact that Germany accelerated the extermination in the waning days of the war lessen the extreme cruelty and viciousness the Nazi regime inflicted on Jews (and all other political opponents) in the early days of the regime -- a time when conservatives in the US, UK, and elsewhere were still much enamored with Herr Hitler. (That era's conservatives were, with few if any exceptions, much given to race theories, at least those that flattered their own sense of superiority. Their racism only gradually faded well after their champion had been disgraced, and in some cases still seems to linger.) I'd also like to add that when I started reading into the history of WWII and Nazi Germany -- one particularly eye-opening book was Simon Wiesenthal's The Murderers Among Us, but also the concentration camp plays by Peter Weiss and Rolf Hochhuth -- I was instantly struck by the parallels between Nazi racism and the racist treatment of black and native people in America (although it took me a few more years to put them into the context of European imperialism). Only much later did I discover that Hitler based his racial theories on American models -- James Q Whitman's Hitler's American Model details this -- and that he viewed his drive for "Lebensraum" in the east as inspired by America's genocidal conquest of the old west. I should also note while Israel's dominant political faction has sought to capitalize on the Holocaust -- the book here is Norman Finkelstein's The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering -- no one should use that to generalize against all Jews (or even all Israelis). The threat of anti-semitism in today's world is indeed dire, and not lessened by co-existence with numerous other hateful, demeaning, and destructive beliefs. When I first though of writing on this, I was thinking I'd use Tim Wise: Whoopi Goldberg's Suspension Is Ridiculous as a jumping off point, but while he has a number of valid points, I searched in vain for the offending quote. It also turned out that I disagreed with his main point, summed up in the subhed: "meanwhile, Ron DeSantis is out here refusing to condemn Nazis in his own state." I'm not really offended when a head of state refuses to take a podium and condemn any citizen group, and I'd be tempted to give them more credit when the media tries to goad them into it. Of course, the problem with De Santis (and Trump, who has also refused to disparage his own Nazi supporters) is that this isn't a principle of decency with them. They're more than eager to condemn people they dislike, and they've made it clear that they can't stand vast swathes of the public, so the real question is why they seem to think that Nazis should be the exception. I also read Aja Romano: Can Whoopi Goldberg's public history lesson actually do some good?, which makes some interesting points, and adds context, both on the long history of anti-semitism and on Goldberg's generally constructive handling of past gaffes. Still much to nitpick here. Romano frames Goldberg's comments as "indicative of a growing cultural ignorance of the Holocaust," and notes sensibly this is "in part because of the passage of time and cultural memory loss," but continues "also in part due to the blatant manipulation of World War II history by the modern white supremacist movement and other bad actors who practice Holocaust revisionism and denial." Really? I understand that some such texts exist, but does any other historian take them at all seriously? No doubt there is a lot of ignorance on the subject, given time, geography, and political blinders, but no one who actually reads up on the history doubts the scale, intention, or methods of the Holocaust. What is up for debate is how the Holocaust fits in the broader context of history. Ironically, the ones most insistent that we never forget either the Holocaust or the long and disgraceful history of anti-semitism and racism that led up to it seem to have little interest in remembering the broader context of that legacy: and not just the millions of non-Jews the Nazis also killed, but the deep history of imperialism, of war, and of conservative repression of the left -- or as Goldberg put it, "man's inhumanity to man." PS: I thought I was done with this, but have since found more insightful commentary worth citing:
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