Blog Entries [420 - 429]Sunday, July 19, 2020
Weekend Roundup
Featured headline this week: Griff Witte/Ben Guarino:
It's not only coronavirus cases that are rising. Now covid deaths are,
too. When I posted last week's headline,
Florida shatters single-day infection record with 15,300 new cases,
denialists responded that it wasn't a problem, because the death rate
hadn't risen. That wasn't very clever. Bad as the disease is, it does
take a week or two to kill, and that sort of lag time has followed the
infection curve from the very start. Moreover, infections continue to
rise: see Hannah Knowles/Derek Hawkins/Jacqueline Dupree:
Coronavirus updates: Halfway through the year, the pandemic's only
intensifying in many states.
I probably scraped the cartoon on the right from Twitter. It
seemed to capture the moment and the person exceptionally well.
Not sure who did it. Google shows several Pinterest lists it's
on, and various Twitter threads. I didn't care for the meme that
attributed Covid-19 deaths to Trump's inaction in and before
March -- I figured any politician would have been blind-sided --
but it's harder to excuse him from the second peak (if that's
all it is) we're going through now. But that's secondary here,
to the all-important stroking of Trump's fragile ego. Of course
he's incompetent: Republican orthodoxy demands that government
fail whenever called on in an emergency. But why does he have
to be so needy? He's an embarrassment, and that's finally,
albeit still slowly, sinking in even to the people who hitched
their hopes to his dumb luck.
On the other hand, I believe that there is more behind America's
abysmal failure to contain the Covid-19 pandemic than just the
buffoon in the White House. There's a Lincoln Project widget I've
seen on
Twitter
that provides a running bar graph of total Covid-19 cases in OECD
countries. It starts with South Korea as the highest country, then
Japan and Italy have their moments, but the USA soon overtakes and
buries the rest. Still, the rise of the UK to second place is as
steady. For an explanation of this, Pankaj Mishra takes a
more unified view of Anglo-America in:
Flailing states. Writing for an English audience who hate being
left out, Mishra glosses over differences which are evident even in
the chart. The UK does still have a functioning, albeit not especially
well funded, public health system, which even Boris Johnson showed
some appreciation for after they saved his life. Still, every march
to the right in America has been felt in the UK. Some samples:
Anglo-America's dingy realities -- deindustrialisation, low-wage work,
underemployment, hyper-incarceration and enfeebled or exclusionary
health systems -- have long been evident. Nevertheless, the moral,
political and material squalor of two of the wealthiest and most
powerful societies in history still comes as a shock to some. In a
widely circulated essay in the Atlantic, George Packer claimed
that 'every morning in the endless month of March, Americans woke up
to find themselves citizens of a failed state.' In fact, the state
has been AWOL for decades, and the market has been entrusted with the
tasks most societies reserve almost exclusively for government:
healthcare, pensions, low-income housing, education, social services
and incarceration. . . .
The escalating warning signs -- that absolute cultural power
provincialises, if not corrupts, by deepening ignorance about both
foreign countries and political and economic realities at home --
can no longer be avoided as the US and Britain cope with mass death
and the destruction of livelihoods. Covid-19 shattered what John
Stuart Mill called 'the deep slumber of a decided opinion,' forcing
many to realise that they live in a broken society, with a carefully
dismantled state. As the Süddeutsche Zeitung put it in May,
unequal and unhealthy societies are 'a good breeding ground for the
pandemic.' Profit-maximising individuals and businesses, it turns out,
can't be trusted to create a just and efficient healthcare system, or
to extend social security to those who need it most. . . .
The pandemic, which has killed 130,000 people in the US, including
a disproportionate number of African Americans, has now shown, far
more explicitly than Katrina did in 2005 or the financial crisis in
2008, that the Reagan-Thatcher model, which privatised risk and shifted
the state's responsibility onto the individual, condemns an unconscionable
number of people to premature death or to a desperate struggle for
existence. . . .
However, after the most radical upheaval of our times, even the
bleakest account of the German-invented social state seems a more
useful guide to the world to come than moist-eyed histories of
Anglo-America's engines of universal progress. Screeching ideological
U-turns have recently taken place in both countries. Adopting a
German-style wage-subsidy scheme, and channelling FDR rather than
Churchill, Boris Johnson now claims that 'there is such a thing as
society' and promises a 'New Deal' for Britain. Biden, abandoning
his Obama-lite centrism, has rushed to plagiarise Bernie Sanders's
manifesto. In anticipation of his victory in November, the Democratic
Party belatedly plans to forge a minimal social state in the US through
robust worker-protection laws, expanded government-backed health
insurance, if not single-payer healthcare, and colossal investment
in public-health jobs and childcare programmes.
Mishra skips around, through quite a few countries for examples,
including a bit on how democracy doesn't guarantee anything. What
does work is having a government which sees its role to provide
for the public welfare of all, and having a society which looks to
the government for justice, security, help, and improvement, again
for all. Democracy, by giving everyone an equal stake, should lead
to healthier, more equal societies, but democracy can be corrupted
and conned by privileging money, as we've seen. What the pandemic
has done has been to split the world open according to how inequal
nations are, with the most inequal ones paying the harshest price.
This comes as no surprise to recent critics of inequality, such as
Richard Wilkinson/Kate Pickett, The Spirit Level: Why Greater
Equality Makes Societies Stronger. Even mainstream Democrats
seem to have some intuitive understanding of this, as evidenced by
their relief proposals. On the other hand, people who are totally
oblivious to the problem of inequality have been utterly gobsmacked
by the pandemic -- none more so than Trump.
Some scattered links this week:
David Atkins:
Why is Trump sending stormtroopers into Portland?
In one of the most alarming developments of Trump's presidency, dozens
of federal agents in full camouflage seized protesters and threw them
into unmarked cars, taking them to locations unknown without specifying
a reason for arrest. It appears that at least some of the agents involved
belonged to the US Customs and Border Protection (colloquially known as
Border Patrol), an organization that obviously has no business whatsoever
conducted counterinsurgency tactics against peaceful American protesters
in Portland, Oregon. Neither the mayor of Portland nor the governor of
Oregon wanted them there; in fact, they specifically requested that they
leave.
Atkins asks why Trump is doing this, and rolls out some theories,
saving the "ridiculous" but "also likely closest to the truth" for last:
But if Fox News were the sum of your reality, you would believe that
emergency action needed to be taken before the residents started to
erect a Thunderdome and the services of Snake Plissken would be required.
You would send in the troops despite the potential cost out of a belief
that relieved Americans would be desperately grateful for your embrace
of "law and order" (even if it were heavy on the "order" and light on
the "law.") You would do whatever it took to bring the situation to heel,
and figure the public approval would follow from the new Pax Trumpiana.
After all, Fox News declared it must be so.
Atkins followed this post up with a more speculative one:
Trump may use DHS stormtroopers to stop people from voting.
I don't see how he can do this, at least on a scale that might sway
the election, without generating a huge backlash. More on Portland:
Ryan Bort:
So long, Jeff Sessions: Trump's former attorney general lost the
Republican Senate primary to Tommy Tuberville, who was endorsed by
Trump. John Bresnahan/Ally Mutnick:
Kansas Republican Rep. Steve Watkins charged with voter fraud.
Watkins' father is also being investigated for campaign finance
violations. Philip Bump:
In a pair of interviews, Trump highlights white victimhood. Megan Cassella:
America's hidden economic crisis: Widespread wage cuts. Jane Coaston:
The Lincoln Project, the rogue former Republicans trying to take down
Trump, explained. More on Lincoln Project:
Sean Collins:
Rep. John Lewis, civil rights leader and moral center of Congress, has
died at 80: "He is remembered as a Freedom Rider, voting rights
champion, and the 'conscience of the Congress.'" Also on Lewis:
Sumner Concepcion:
5 key takeaways from Trump's lengthy off-the-rails interview on Fox
News:
- Doubling down on his claim of the coronavirus "disappearing" someday
- Defending the Confederate flag
- Piling on more attacks against Biden
- Griping about his inability to hold rallies amid the COVID-19 pandemic
- Refusing to guarantee he will accept the results of the November
election
The last was the more-or-less new one. But it's worth nothing that he
did the same thing in 2016, and he trapped Hillary Clinton into declaring
that she would accept the results, and true to her word, she gave up
meekly and vanished from sight. Igor Derysh:
Trump Victory Committee paid nearly $400,000 to Trump's Washington hotel
in second quarter. "Trump's properties have earned well over $20
million in political spending since he took office, per CPR data." I
suppose his defense is "that's chump change," but the thought counts.
Trump says it's "terrible" to question why Black people are killed by
police: "So are white people": He refers to "white people" five
times in 20 seconds, per the CBS tweet. Question: "Why are African
Americans still dying at the hands of law enforcement in this country?"
Trump's complete answer: "So are white people. So are white people.
What a terrible question to ask. So are white people. More white
people by the way. More white people." Maybe he could have recovered
a bit by adding, "Bottom line, police kill more people of all races
than they should. And sure, statistics say they're more likely to
kill a black person than a white, but the answer isn't to make them
discriminate more carefully based on race. The answers is for them
to kill a lot fewer people." Still, when your first thought to a
question about discrimination against black is to bring up "white
people," you're a racist. QED. Tom Engelhardt:
Donald J Trump, or Osama bin Laden's revenge. Starts with a
stroll through Trump's sculpture "garden of heroes" (which
Masha Gessen wrote up in sufficient detail last week, then
considers the fate Osama bin Laden hoped we would have in leading
America into "the graveyard of empires" in Afghanistan. David S Fogelsong:
With fear and favor: The Russophobia of 'The New York Times':
"Disregarding all past experience, journalists, politicians, and
foreign policy experts have simply assumed that the claims of
Russian bounties for killing American troops are true. They -- and
we -- should know better." Matt Ford:
The Supreme Court's unconscionable rush to kill a prisoner.
The federal government ended its 13-year moratorium on executions on
Tuesday morning by killing Daniel Lewis Lee at the federal death chamber
in Terre Haute, Indiana. Lewis is the first in a series of federal
prisoners slated to die in the next few days as part of a renewed push
by the Trump administration to carry out death sentences at the federal
level, even as the practice falls out of favor nationwide.
Melissa Gira Grant:
The dark obsessions of QAnon are merging with mainstream conservatism:
"With Republican candidates and Trump embracing the strange, child
trafficking-fixated movement, it can no longer be dismissed as merely
a conspiracy theory." Maggie Haberman:
Trump replaces Brad Parscale as campaign manager, elevating Bill
Stepien. Parscale got a lot of credit for Trump's 2016 win with
his Facebook operation, so naturally got promoted to head the whole
campaign operation, finding himself in way over his head.
Jeff Hauser/Max Moran/Andrea Beaty:
Better policy ideas alone won't stop monopolies. Outlines the
obstacles antitrust enforcement faces, especially in the courts but
also in the bureaucracy. But the conclusion I'd draw from this is
that that's why better policy ideas are needed. Why not develop some
policies that would prevent monopolies from forming in the first
place? Ending patents, promoting open source software and research,
giving employees more power on boards and as owners, making it much
more difficult to acquire companies (e.g., limiting debt financing
of purchase price), allowing bankrupt companies to return under
employee management, publicly-sponsored non-profit cooperatives --
those are all things that would help. Certainly way better than
waiting for monpolies to form and trying to prosecute the worst
offenders. Mara Hvistendahl:
Masks off: How the brothers who fueled the reopen protests built a
volatile far-right network. On Ben Dorr and brothers Aaron, Chris,
and Matthew. When Trump was elected, we saw an outpouring of protests
styling themselves as the Resistance. It seems inevitable that when/if
Trump loses, the right will organize its own Resistance -- smaller but
more menacing, much like the Dorrs here. I expect thay'll make the Tea
Party look like a polite afternoon klatch. Tyshia Ingram:
The case for unschooling: "Why the hands off alternative to
homeschooling might get parents through the Covid-19 pandemic."
I was intrigued by this because my own experience with the school
system was mostly negative. My impression is that schooling has
become even more demanding and oppressive since then, especially
with "No Child Left Behind"'s focus on testing. So my initial
reaction when schools shut down this Spring was that maybe kids
could use a break. On the other hand, to make this work, I don't
doubt that children and adolescents need access to and support
from people who do have decent educations. My parents weren't
much help, but after I dropped out of high school I found my own
way. Would certainly be easier today with the Internet. By the
way, after I dropped out, I spent a lot of time reading about
education. The term "unschooling" comes from John Holt, who was
one of the pioneering writers I read back then. Teaching as a
Subversive Activity, by Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner,
was my favorite. Elahe Izadi/Jeremy Barr:
Bari Weiss resigns from New York Times, says 'Twitter has become its
ultimate editor': I can't say as Weiss was even on my radar, but
she was prominently mentioned in the Harper's letter controversy,
and evidently decided to exploit that moment of fame by "canceling"
herself. She was evidently most famous as the main pro-Zionist voice
on their opinion staff, not that the Times' biases there are likely
to change in the near future. Some reaction:
Henry Olsen:
McCarthyism is back. This time, it's woke. The Weiss resignation
(and/or
Andrew Sullivan's resignation from New York Magazine) stirred up
a hornet's nest of outrage among Washington Post opinion writers --
scroll down for links from Matt Bai, Hugh Hewitt, Kathleen Parker,
Megan McArdle, and Jennifer Rubin -- but this is about as off the
deep end as any. Olsen has no more grasp of McCarthyism than Clarence
Thomas did of lynching when he decried having to face unflattering
testimony. Although I am glad that McCarthyism is still being viewed
as something bad. For a better grounded use of the term, see
Peter Beinart:
Trumpism is the new McCarthyism. Sullivan's farewell letter,
which doubles as promo for his new subscription newsletter, is
here. Avi Selk:
A New York Times columnist blamed a far-left 'mob' for her woes. But
maybe she deserves them. In any case, the talking point will set
her up for lucrative ventures further right. Alex Shephard:
The self-cancellation of Bari Weiss: "Like much of her writing,
the New York Times editor's resignation letter is long on accusation
and thin on evidence." As Shephard concludes, her resignation will
"make the perfect ending for her next book." Philip Weiss:
Bari Weiss leaves the 'NYT' and that's bad for Zionists: "Weiss
is such a gifted careerist that even this moment feels like shtik:
Bari Weiss playing her own persecutino for the greater glory of Bari
Weiss." Jen Kirby:
Israel's West Bank annexation plan and why it's stalled, explained by
an expert: Interview with Brent E Sasley ("a professor at the
University of Texas at Arlington and an expert on Israeli politics").
Ezra Klein:
What a post-Trump Republican Party might look like: Interview with
Oren Cass, who was a Romney consultant and author of The Once and
Future Worker: A Vision for the Renewal of Work in America, on "why
conservatives need to challenge free-market economic orthodoxy." He
doesn't say much about the Republican party (either the financiers or
the rank-and-file), but does offer a bunch of dubious economic ideas.
Some such rethinking is in order (although few ideas have fared worse
than supply-side focus), but even if Trump loses badly, I don't see
many Republicans (either rich or poor) taking the hint to rethink
economic policy. Rather, they'll try to pin their loss on media focus
on Trump's gaffes, limiting them as much as possible to Covid-19.
Most importantly, the real power base behind the GOP -- which is
Fox News -- will pivot to attack mode, and try to gin up another Tea
Party, as they did in 2009. And once again, they'll do that not for
tactical reasons but because they have to fill up 24/7 of air time,
and outrage sells, and it doesn't matter to them if their market is
a hopeless minority -- just so it's big enough to be profitable. Andy Kroll:
The plot against America: The GOP's plan to suppress the vote and
sabotage the election. Paul Krugman:
Why do the rich have so much power? Nancy LeTourneau:
The pandemic is making Republican lawmakers much more vulnerable:
All of that is happening as the news of a potential landslide in the
2020 election continues to build. There's been a lot of talk about how
several incumbent Republican senators are extremely vulnerable in their
quest for reelection. But today, the Cook Political Report made some
changes to their House ratings -- with 20 seats moving towards the
Democrats. . . .
So when Greg Dworkin's friend
suggested that this wasn't so much an election as a countdown, it
resonated deeply. The hope that we can turn things around in a few months
is palpable. But what will happen over those months is terrifying. The
clock is ticking.
Perhaps the saddest part of all of this is that it begs the question:
"Why did it have to get this bad?" I'm sure that future historians will
write volumes in an attempt to answer that question. But something is
deeply wrong with our democratic republic when it takes a pandemic costing
the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans to get us to wake up and
smell the stench emanating from the president and his congressional enablers.
Dahlia Lithwick:
Mary Trump's book shows how Donald Trump gets away with it: "The
problem with a fraud as big as this president is that once you start
collaborating with him, it's impossible to get out." I must admit I'm
enjoying the reviews of niece Mary Trump's book, Too Much and Never
Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man, not
least because it seems so close and personal, even if the title could
apply equally to nearly every silver-spooned baby boomer in the land.
Lithwick writes:
Donald Trump ogled his own niece in a bathing suit and sought to fill
one of his books with hit lists of "ugly" women who had rebuffed him;
Donald Trump paid someone to take his SATs; Maryanne Trump Barry, a
retired federal appeals court judge, once described her brother as a
"clown" with no principles; Donald Trump was a vicious bully even as
a child; Freddy Trump -- the author's father -- died alone in a hospital
while Donald went to a movie. The details are new, and graphic, yes, but
very little about it is surprising: The president is a lifelong liar and
cheater, propped up by a father who was as relentless in his need for
success as Donald Trump was to earn his approval. . . .
But as it became clear that Donald had no real business acumen -- as
his Atlantic City casinos cratered and his father unlawfully poured secret
funds into saving them -- Mary realized that Fred also depended on the
glittery tabloid success at which Donald excelled. Fred continued to prop
up his son's smoke-and-mirrors empire because, as Mary writes, "Fred had
become so invested in the fantasy of Donald's success that he and Donald
were inextricably linked. Facing reality would have required acknowledging
his own responsibility, which he would never do. He had gone all in, and
although any rational person would have folded, Fred was determined to
double down." . . .
And as Mary Trump is quick to observe, the sheer stuck-ness of his
enablers means that Trump never, ever learns his lesson. Being cosseted,
lied to, defended, and puffed up means that Donald Trump knows that, "no
matter what happens, no matter how much damage he leaves in his wake,
he will be OK." He fails up, in other words, because everyone
around him, psychologically normal beings all, ends up so enmeshed with
his delusions that they must do anything necessary to protect them.
Trump's superpower isn't great vision or great leadership but rather
that he is so tiny. Taking him on for transactional purposes may seem
like not that big a deal at first, but the moment you put him in your
pocket, you become his slave. It is impossible to escape his orbit
without having to admit a spectacular failure in moral and strategic
judgment, which almost no one can stomach. Donald Trump's emptiness
is simply a mirror of the emptiness of everyone who propped him up.
More:
German Lopez:
Florida now has more Covid-19 cases than any other state. Here's what
went wrong. "The percentage of positive tests is now nearly 19
percent," which means they're not testing enough (recommended maximum
is 5 percent), not too much. More Covid-19 stories:
Nick Martin:
Ivanka Trump and Lockheed Martin want you to reach for the stars and
stop collecting unemployment. Actually, "find something new" isn't
a totally stupid idea. It seems likely that the economy will eventually
adapt to Covid-19 and look different than the one before the pandemic.
As such, those who can shift their trajectories toward emerging careers
will benefit both for themselves and for the future society. Extended
unemployment compensation and benefits could help. But companies like
Lockheed Martin are just trying to scam the program for themselves. Dylan Matthews:
Trump reduced fines for nursing homes that put residents at risk. Then
Covid-19 happened. Jane Mayer:
How Trump is helping tycoons exploit the pandemic: "The secretive
titan behind one of America's largest poultry companies, who is also
one of the President's top donors, is ruthlessly leveraging the
coronavirus crisis -- and his vast fortune -- to strip workers of
protections." Sara Morrison:
Lawmakers are very upset about this week's massive Twitter breach:
Maybe because the folks who got hacked are rich and famous?
Everything you need to know about Palantir, the secretive company coming
for all your data.
Palantir is also controversial because its co-founder and board chair,
Peter Thiel, is controversial. Thiel, who was one of Facebook's first
outside investors and maintains a position on its board of directors,
has seen his share of criticism over the years, but the libertarian
billionaire really came into the public eye in 2016 when he revealed
himself as the money behind Hulk Hogan's privacy lawsuit against Gawker
(which would ultimately kill the site) and an early Trump supporter.
As most of liberal Silicon Valley's big names publicly came out against
Trump, Thiel was one of relatively few public figures who supported his
candidacy. After speaking at the Republican National Convention, he gave
the Trump campaign $1.25 million, and when Trump won the election, New
York magazine said he was "poised to become a national villain." Thiel
has been rewarded for his support: He was chosen to be a member of the
president's transition team; in the early days of the Trump presidency,
Politico dubbed Thiel "Donald Trump's 'shadow president' in Silicon Valley";
and Thiel's chief of staff and protégé, Michael Kratsios, served as the
White House's chief technology officer from 2017 until this month, when
he was named acting undersecretary for research and engineering at the
Department of Defense.
The article notes that "Palantir even sued the US Army in 2016 to
force it to consider using its intelligence software after the Army
chose to go with its own," and "won the suit, and then it won an $800
million contract." Elie Mystal:
The Trump administration is on a capital punishment killing spree:
"After 17 years, attorney general Bill Barr has resumed federal executions --
and the conservative on the Supreme Court approve." Terry Nguyen:
Boycotts show us what matters to Americans.
Tina Nguyen:
Trump keeps fighting a Confederate lag battle many supporters have
conceded. I thought Nikki Haley made a courageous move in ditching
the Confederate flag after a mass shooting in Charlestown while she
was governor, but it became merely savvy when literally no one tried
to save the flag. As a northerner whose ancestors came to the US well
after the Civil War, you'd expect Trump to have even less interest in
the Confederacy. But some polling here shows not only that a majority
of Americans view the Confederate flag as a racist symbol, there is
no significant difference between North and South -- but there is one
between Republicans and Democrats. John Nichols:
Why the hell is the Supreme Court allowing a new poll tax to disenfranchise
Florida voters? Anna North:
America's child care problem is an economic problem. Subhed bullet
list:
- More than 41 million workers have kids under 18. Almost all of them
lost child care as a result of the pandemic.
- In normal times, inadequate child care is the equivalent of a 5
percent pay cut for parents. Now it's much worse.
- By late June, 13 percent of parents had cut back hours or quit
their jobs
- 80 percent of moms say they're handling the majority of homeschooling
responsibilities in their families
- And about 16 percent of parents are taking care of kids alone,
without a partner
- Add to that parents needing and looking for jobs: More than 11
percent of women are unemployed right now
- Meanwhile, 40 percent of child care programs say they will have
to close permanently without outside help
- More than 250,000 child care workers have lost their jobs
- When it comes to schools, the news is just as grim: At least 3
of the country's biggest school districts will be partially or fully
remote in the fall
- With fewer options for child care, parents could lose hundreds
of thousands of dollars over their lifetime
- Trump has offered zero solutios to solve the problem
All originally in bold. Thought that would be too much clutter, but
kept one that seemed to stand out. JC Pan:
In defense of free stuff during (and after) the pandemic: "The mass
expansion of public goods is long past due, so pay people to say home,
give them free health care, and stop charging tuition." Alex Pareene:
Throw the bums out: "We are in the midst of a world-historic failure
of governance. Why isn't anyone in charge acting like they are responsible
for it?" Picture is Andrew Cuomo, and his "three-dimensional foam mount
repreenting the pandemic's toll on the state." I'm not one inclined to
defend Cuomo, but I really doubt a random reshuffling of politicians
would do us any good. There may be exceptions, but in damn near all of
the country, there's a big difference between Republican and Democratic
"bums." Heather Digby Parton:
Trump's unhinged Rose Garden campaign rally: His sideshow act is getting
truly pathetic: "He can't hold rallies, so he forced the press corps
to sit through one. Then he said Joe Biden will ban windows." Kim Phillips-Fein:
Rethinking the solution to New York's fiscal crisis. Abraham Ratnet:
Trumpism is an aesthetic, not an ideology -- and it will survive Donald
Trump. I'm half convinced: ideology involves too much thinking for
Trump followers. But at least I can imagine an ideology. I'm finding it
much harder to come up with a Trump aesthetic. Sure, there's no great
shortage of Trump kitsch, from his Goya pandering to his gold toilets,
but is that really an aesthetic? I've long been wary of efforts to
ideologize and/or aestheticize politics, not least because the Nazis
and Fascists put so much effort into doing just that. (I don't like
lumping them, but in this regard one could also include various
Communist parties -- with Korea the most comprehensive.) But with
Trump's followers, what you mostly get are Trilling's "irritable
mental gestures" -- well, sometimes physical gestures as well. All
they have is a psychology, and sure, that will survive Trump, not
because Trump invented it but because Trump was as mired in it as
they are. He never was the leader of a movement. He just caught the
spotlight as the guy acting out most flagrantly. David Roberts:
Michael Scherer/Josh Dawsey:
From 'Sleepy Joe' to a destroyer of the 'American way of life,' Trump's
attacks on Biden make a dystopian shift. Jon Schwarz:
Political correctness is destroying America! (Just not how you think.)
What he means is that the right, and for that matter the center, work at
least as hard at patrolling use of language among their followers. You
don't have to spend much time watching Fox News to see that everyone in
every time slot echo the same talking points, offering the same spin on
and definition of events and ideas. The modern term for this is message
discipline. The exclusive association of PC with the left goes back to
the Leninist Communist Parties, where approved speech was deemed to be
correct, and because correct implies fidelity to a higher authority, like
nature or reality (or God or Party). The use in recent America has been
far more haphazard, mostly as people have sought to avoid and deplore
slurs, occasionally resorting to indirect or infelicitous phrases. This
is contentious because parties on all sides understand that controlling
the language used to define an issue often determines the outcome. But
it also becomes pedantic when debates reduce issues to terminology --
itself a common, if unappealing, debate technique. Schwarz provides many
examples of Republicans dictating their followers' speech, as well as a
few where mainstream Democrats have joined them (e.g., deference to God
and Country, to the military and the police). Still, I'm not sure that
calling this PC is helpful. For example, insisting that climate change
is a hoax is more properly propaganda, its message discipline enforced
as dogma. It is in no sense of the word correct.
Dylan Scott:
Alex Shephard:
Donald Trump Jr wages a culture war on the publishing industry:
"He evidently believes that he can make more money self-publishing --
especially if he portrays the move as a rebuke of liberal elites."
Trump has a new book, to be released during the Republican convention,
Liberal Privilege: Joe Biden and the Democrat's Defense of the
Indefensible
(sic?).
David Sirota:
Wall Street is deeply grateful for the Supreme Court's recent little-noticed
ruling.
Chief Justice John Roberts has created the most conservative court in
modern history: In just the last few weeks, his court has helped financial
firms bilk pension funds, strengthened fossil fuel companies' power to
fast-track pipelines, limited the power of regulatory agencies that police
Wall Street, and stealthily let Donald Trump hide his tax returns. As a
reward for Roberts's continued defense of the wealthy and powerful, much
of the national media has obediently depicted him as a great hero of
moderation, because he sort of seemed to snub Trump in a handful of
other rulings.
Roger Sollenberger:
Fox News peddled misinformation about the coronavirus 253 times in
five days. Well, that's what you get for counting. Emily Stewart:
The PPP worked how it was supposed to. That's the problem.
"America's plan to save small business in the pandemic was flawed
from the start." Matthew Avery Sutton:
The truth about Trump's evangelical support: Review of recent books
on evangelical Christians: Kristin Kobes Du Mez: Jesus and John Wayne:
How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation;
Sarah Posner: Unholy: Why White Evangelicals Worship at the Altar
of Donald Trump; and Samuel L Perry/Andrew L Whitehead: Taking
America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States.
Derek Thompson:
A lot of Americans are about to lose their homes: "The current
housing crisis could get messy quickly, but fixing it shouldn't be
complicated, if Congress intervenes." Paul Waldman:
If you aren't filled with rage at Trump, you aren't paying attention.
Before the pandemic, Trump was one of the worst presidents in our history.
But now he has laid waste to our country, with his unique combination of
incompetence and malevolence -- and he's not done yet. Once we finally rid
ourselves of him, it will take years to recover. But as we do, we should
never for a moment forget what he was and what he did to us. And we should
never stop being angry about it.
Same thing could have been said about Bush in 2008, but Obama chose
not to remind people of the wars and recession and environmental and
climate degradation and collapsing infrastructure and education and
increasing inequality he was to no small extent responsible for. He
not only let people forget the perils of electing Republicans, he let
them transfer blame to his own party and self, allowing Republicans
to stage a resurgence which led to Trump in 2016. Alex Ward:
Libby Watson:
The Democrats' baffling silence as millions of Americans lose their
health insurance: "Five million have lost coverage amid the
pandemic -- a number that's expected to triple by year's end. But
the party leadership isn't reacting as though it's a crisis." Moira Weigel:
The pioneers of the misinformation industry: Book review of Claire
Bond Potter: Political Junkies: From Talk Radio to Twitter, How
Alternative Media Hooked Us on Politics and Broke Our Democracy;
and Matthew Lysiak: The Drudge Revolution: The Untold Story of How
Talk Radio, Fox News, and a Gift Shop Clerk with an Internet Connection
Took Down the Mainstream Media. "Potter, a professor at the New
School, keeps a (mostly) neutral, academic distance from her subjects,
while Lysiak has written a sympathetic biography that moves at the
speed of a screenplay." Erik Wemple:
Tucker Carlson whitewashes the racism of his show and his former top
writer. Erica Werner/Jeff Stein:
Trump administration pushing to block new money for testing, tracing
and CDC in upcoming coronavirus relief bill. This seems beyond
stupid. It's part of negotiations on a follow up to the CARES act,
which expires at the end of the month (more on it below). Trump is
also insisting on a payroll tax cut, which seems especially dumb
given the more pressing needs of the unemployed, and "another round
of stimulus checks" (same problem, plus until the virus is contained
there won't be much economy to stimulate). Richard D Wolfe:
Why government mostly helps people who need it the least . . . even
during a crisis. Mostly on the stock market, which the Fed and
the Trump administration have struggled mightily to re-inflate after
the panic in March, even though an overvalued stock market is useless
to fighting the pandemic or even re-opening the economy. Trump thinks
it makes him look good, and maybe it does to people who own a lot of
stocks. The re-inflated stock market is a big part of the reason the
share of wealth owned by billionaires has increased dramatically while
virtually everyone else has suffered. Matthew Yglesias:
Li Zhou:
Congress is running out of time to extend expanded unemployment
insurance. Also on CARES:
Ask a question, or send a comment.
Monday, July 13, 2020
Music Week
July archive
(in progress).
Music: Current count 33607 [33567] rated (+40), 225 [212] unrated (+13).
Trumpet player Eddie Gale (78) died last week. He had a spotty
recording career, but always came up with something interesting
when he appeared. He achieved a measure of fame for his role on
Cecil Taylor's 1966 album Unit Structures, then followed
that with two excellent albums on Blue Note: Ghetto Music
(1968) and Black Rhythm Happening (1969). He had a revival
c. 2004 with reissue of his albums on Water and a new one, Afro
Fire.
I added a lengthy midyear list by
Stephen Thomas Erlewine to my
metacritic file (code SE).
He added first mentions of 10 new albums (mostly country), plus a
bunch of
reissues and vault music.
He shows some favor there for lavish box sets, and also seems to get
good service from Ace, Bear Family, Cherry Red, and Omnivore. I'm so
jealous.
Robert Christgau published his
July Consumer Guide mid-week. I was originally pleased to see that
for four 2020 releases I had previously rated A- got the same grade from
him (Chicago Farmer, Bob Dylan, Hinds, Waxahatchie), and that the other
new records I had graded lower also got lower grades from him (Terry
Allen, Jason Isbell). That also left some things I hadn't heard (or in
some cases hadn't heard of), but further digging revealed that I had
given the Daniele Luppi/Parquet Courts EP a B+(***) back in
January 2018. I played
most of the rest, still procrastinatig on the Sonic Youth bootleg
(one of way too many for my purposes, although I may reconsider when
I get around to formatting Joe Yanosik's
Consumer Guide for
his corner of my website) and Joe
Levy's Uprising 2020 playlist (not my idea of a real thing,
although so immediately relevant to the times I expect to listen
to it).
I got to the Thiago Nassif and Moor Jewelry A- records after my
cut-off, but figured why make you wait, especially given that there
are other ways to find my grade. Usually takes me 8-16 hours to catch
everything up after my break, so I always listen to a few records
during that time. (Four more in the scratch file at present, not
counting these two.)
Quite a bit of unpacking below, many from Lithuania. Also got a
hard copy of Luis Lopes' Believe, Believe, which I had given
a B+(***) to based on streaming. I looked for records by the late
bassist Simon H. Fell. Found quite a few, but mostly Bandcamp with
most tracks missing, so didn't manage to review much. Took a dive
into pianist Hampton Hawes, thanks to a
question. I will answer that (and
whatever else comes in) later during the week. I've gotten into a
rut where I start each day off by playing something classic, then
when I settle down in front of the computer, find it easier to
dial up something to stream. I'll make a conscious effort to
catch up a bit next week.
New records reviewed this week:
Anteloper: Tour Beats Vol. 1 (2020, International
Anthem, EP): Duo, Jaimie Branch (trumpet) and Jason Nazary (drums),
did an album in 2018 (Kudu), add 4 cuts (22:38) here. Mostly
electronics for both of them, although her riffing over the beats
is pretty surefire.
B+(*)
Arca: Kick I (2020, XL): Venezuelan electronica
producer Alejandra Ghersi, born in Caracas, lived in Connecticut
for a few years before returning, wound up in Barcelona. Fourth
album. Arch, arty, arcane. Doubt it's something I would ever grow
to like much, but there's something pretty unique about it.
B+(*)
Bananagun: The True Story of Bananagun (2020, Full
Time Hobby): Australian group, first album, elements of jangle pop.
B+(*)
Beauty Pill: Sorry You're Here (2020, Taffety Punk
Theatre Company): Washington DC band, principally Chad Clark, released
an EP in 2001 leading up to a 2004 album, then nothing until 2015, and
LP/EP releases this year. Mostly electronics, some spoken word or other
trip-hoppy vocal shadings, quietly impressive if not quite convincing.
Does make me wonder if I underrated their 2015 album. [PS: Not much.]
B+(***)
Beauty Pill: Please Advise (2020, Northern Spy, EP):
Five songs (22:31), all proper with vocals, electronics give way to
guitar.
B+(*)
Clint Black: Out of Sane (2020, Blacktop/Thirty Tigers):
Country singer-songwriter, 1989 debut a big hit, twelfth album (skipping
two Xmas joints). I hadn't heard anything by him since a dreadful 2004
album (his eighth and last top-10 country chart). This one sounds good
enough, not that better songs wouldn't help.
B+(*)
Clem Snide: Forever Just Beyond (2020, Ramseur):
Vehicle for singer-songwriter Eef Barzelay since 1998, not the first
band named from William S. Burroughs. Plain-spoken, not sure you can
even call it Americana, leans on God (per the title), not sure that
qualifies one way or the other, but leaves me out.
B+(**)
Jeff Cosgrove/John Medeski/Jeff Lederer: History Gets Ahead
of the Story (2018 [2020], Grizzley Music): Drums, organ, and
saxophones/flute. Ten songs, all by William Parker -- a bit surprising,
given the lack of avant frills. Parker's long struck me as a composer
who likes to keep it simple, which is why his tunes hold up in such a
different context.
B+(***) [cd] [07-17]
Dream Wife: So When You Gonna . . . (2020, Lucky Number):
London-based girl group, lead singer Rakel Mjöll originally hailing from
Iceland, has a couple cute quirks to her voice, which give way to smart
lyrics and occasional philosophical depth, like how uniquely woderful
now is, and why her body is hers alone.
A-
Baxter Dury: The Night Chancers (2020, Heavenly):
English singer-songwriter, son of the late new wave genius Ian Dury,
sixth album since 2002, talks his way through most songs, against
swank orchestra and chorus. Bears signs of inheritance, raised in
an evolved culture, which makes what he does seem inevitable rather
than extraordinary.
B+(*)
Field Music: Making a New World (2020, Memphis
Industries): English band, first album 2005, seventh album, fond
of keyboards.
B+(*)
Khruangbin: Mordechai (2020, Dead Oceans): Houston
group, bass-guitar-drums, all sing but not very much, group name a
Thai word for "flying thing" (e.g., airplane), suggested by Laura
Lee, whose interest in Asian music led her to learn Thai. Third album,
wouldn't call it exotica but they do amble in their own orbit.
B+(*)
King Krule: Man Alive! (2020, True Panther Sounds):
English singer-songwriter Archy Marshall, fourth album, third as King
Krule. Has a rep for drawing on punk and hip-hop, but mostly comes up
with Nick Cave dark tones.
B
Stephen Malkmus: Groove Denied (2019, Matador):
The genius behind Pavement (1992-99), followed that up with seven
albums declining credited to Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks (2001-18),
goes completely solo here, playing all instruments and singing (such
as he does -- can't say practice makes perfect, but it does help).
Can't say as this had any appeal to me when it came out, but has
its own unique sloughed off charm. Also, a bit of groove.
B+(**)
Stephen T. Malkmus: Traditional Techniques (2020,
Matador): Another solo joint, title no less ironic, middle initial
a quirk I'd like to suppress in the filing, but probably can't.
B+(*)
Moor Jewelry: True Opera (2020, Don Giovanni):
Collaboration between lapsed poet Moor Mother (Camae Ayewa) and
noise producer Mental Jewelry (Steven Montenegro), who did a
previous EP called Crime Waves. Ten cuts (25:59), could
pass for punk but is much more expansive.
A-
Thiago Nassif: Mente (2020, Gearbox): Brazilian
singer-songwriter, plays guitar, drums, trumpet, electronics;
shares production duties with Arto Lindsay, who helps out as do
a couple dozen others, for a mix of tropicalia, no wave, and
ever so catchy skronk.
A-
Carlos Niño & Miguel Atwood-Ferguson: Chicago Waves
(2018 [2020], International Anthem): Labels in Chicago, musicians from
Los Angeles, DJs, play various instruments, have worked together at least
since 2007. Improvised set, recorded live.
B+(*)
Pearl Jam: Gigaton (2020, Monkeywrench/Republic):
Grunge band from Seattle, always figured they were Dave Clark 5 to
Nirvana's Beatles, not that I ever liked Nirvana as much as I did
DC5. Bought one album Christgau liked (Vitalogy), gave it a B+,
never played it again, or anything else by this group. Didn't even
list anything by them after 2000 (five albums, chart peaks 5 or
better), and only played this after it became the top black line in my
metacritic file (Baxter Dury is next, followed by Khruangbin and King
Krule). Not bad, nor especially interesting, and by the end I was
reminded of how tedious Eddie Vedder's voice is.
B
Margo Price: That's How Rumors Get Started (2020,
Loma Vista): Country singer, grew up in Illinois, moved to Nashville
at 20, waited tables and worked the ropes, releasing a pretty good
album in 2016. This makes three, new label, fancier production,
rocks harder, soars higher, says less.
B+(*)
Tenille Townes: The Lemonade Stand (2020, Columbia
Nashville): Canadian country singer-songwriter, from Alberta, last
name Nadkrynechny. Third album, first from Nashville.
B+(**)
The Weeknd: After Hours (2020, Republic): Canadian
r&b singer Abel Tesfaye, had an early star-making mixtape in 2011
(House of Balloons), has developed into a best-selling falsetto
crooner -- remarkably consistent, at least until the closer drags its
butt.
B
Gillian Welch & David Rawlings: All the Good Times Are
Past & Gone (2020, Acony): Title often truncated, but
the cover bears me out. Folkies, her sixth album since 1996, he's
been around the whole time but this seems to be the first with him
named, and he does get more leads. Ten tracks, all acoustic covers,
two Dylan, two trad., one Prine, "Jackson."
B+(**)
X: Alphabetland (2020, Fat Possum): Los Angeles punk
band, a big deal in some quarters 1980-82, last charted in 1987, one
more album in 1993, have reunited occasionally since 2004, this their
first new album in 27 years. Memorable names: DJ Bonebrake (drums),
Exene Cervenka (vocals), John Doe (bass, vocals), Billy Zoom (guitar,
sax, piano). Eleven short songs, adds up to 27:00. They've done a
remarkable job keeping their sound preserved.
B+(*)
Yonic South: Wild Cobs (2019, La Tempesta, EP):
Postpunk band from "Stanzini, Shitaly" (or Brescia, Italy), first
EP (4 songs, 16:27), crisp but they do like to riff.
B+(**)
Yonic South: Twix and Dive (2020, La Tempesta, EP):
Four more songs (13:40), "from Oasis covers and Anfield soundtracks
to psych noise ballads and Techno Viking dedications," ending with
a bit of patter extolling "this beautiful arena" -- how can you get
more anachronistic than that?
B+(**)
Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:
Nublu Orchestra Conducted by Butch Morris: Live in Bergamo
(2008 [2020], Nublu): Band named for a club on Avenue C in New York,
goes back further but debuted with eponymous 2007 album, where various
musicians would gather and improvise under the direction ("conduction")
of Morris. This was the seventh to be released, "Conduction No. 175,"
in Italy, with ten musicians, out of 199 through June 20, 2011. (Morris
died in 2013.) One 34:27 piece, plus three encores (16:18). Not a dull
moment.
B+(***)
Old music:
Simon H. Fell: The Exploding Flask of Muesli: Electroacoustic
& Electronic Works 1994-2002 (1994-2002 [2013], Bruce's
Fingers): Not sure how representative this is of the late bassist's
work, as most of his work is hard to find. I'm not even sure how much
there is -- a "selected discography" on his website lists 90 albums
(1985-2015). Interesting moments, but feels like a sideline.
B+(*)
Simon H. Fell: Le Bruit De La Musique (2015 [2016],
Confront): Solo bass, a single 37:19 piece.
B+(*)
Hampton Hawes: Everybody Likes Hampton Hawes: Vol. 3: The
Trio (1956 [1990], Contemporary/OJC): Bebop pianist (1928-77)
from Los Angeles, father a minister, mother a church pianist, made
a big splash with his 1955 Trio album, adding two more in
this series, with Red Mitchell (bass) and Chuck Thompson (drums).
B+(**)
Hampton Hawes Quartet: All Night Session! Volume 1
(1956 [1991], Contemporary/OJC): The first of three volumes from a
November 12, 1956 session, with Jim Hall (guitar), Red Mitchell (bass),
and Bruz Freeman (drums). Five pieces, stretches out a bit.
B+(***)
Hampton Hawes Quartet: All Night Session! Volume 2
(1956 [1992], Contemporary/OJC): Seven more songs. Lively piano and
delicate guitar (Jim Hall).
B+(**)
Hampton Hawes Trio: The Séance (1966 [1990],
Contemporary/OJC): With Red Mitchell (bass) and Donald Bailey (drums),
another smart and lively session.
B+(***)
Hampton Hawes: Trio at Montreux (1971 [1976], Jas):
With Henry Franklin (bass) and Mike Carvin (drums).
B+(**)
Hampton Hawes/Cecil McBee/Roy Haynes: Live at the Jazz Showcase
in Chicago: Volume Two (1973 [1989], Enja): Piano, bass, drums.
Six songs, three over ten minutes -- none of the entries at Discogs quite
match the digital (dated 1998), nor do any credit the vocal (which is
just as well forgotten).
B+(**)
Hampton Hawes: Something Special (1976 [1994],
Contemporary): Less than a year before his untimely death, another
quartet with guitar (Denny Diaz), bass (Leroy Vinnegar), and drums
(Al Williams). Excellent piano, especially on tunes like "St. Thomas."
B+(***)
William Parker: In Order to Survive (1993 [1995],
Black Saint): Bassist, used this album title for a group name later
in the 1990s, and again for a 2019 live album, signifying a quintet
with Lewis Barnes (trumpet), Rob Brown (alto sax), Cooper-Moore
(piano), and a drummer (Denis Charles plays on 3 cuts here, Jackson
Krall on the 4th). This particular album also has Grachan Moncur III
on trombone. The dazzling opener runs 38:47, with three more pieces
bringing the total to 72:03.
A-
William Parker/Giorgio Dini: Temporary (2009, Silta):
Bass duo, with a short "Intermezzo" with Parker on shakuhachi.
B+(*)
Jessie Ware: Glasshouse (2017, Interscope): Third
album, skipped it after having been unimpressed by her first two.
Opener is overbearing, but "Selfish Love" is a choice cut. Maybe
"Sam" too, but as a ballad to her baby it won't break through on
the dance floor.
B+(*)
Grade (or other) changes:
Beauty Pill: Beauty Pill Describes Things as They Are
(2015, Butterscotch): Panned this, then Maura Johnston put it top-10
and Robert Christgau gave it an A. Sure, something more there, but
one still has to dig deeper than I'm ever likely to do.
[was: B] B+(*)
Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:
- Conrad Bauer/Matthias Bauer/Dag Magnus Narvesen: The Gift (NoBusiness): cdr (lp only)
- Adam Caine Quartet: Transmissions (NoBusiness)
- François Carrier/Masayo Koketsu/Daisuke Fuwa/Takashi Itani: Japan Suite (NoBusiness)
- Vincent Chancey: The Spell: The Vincent Chancey Trio Live 1987 (NoBusiness) *
- DUX Orchestra: Duck Walks Dog (With Mixed Results) (1994, NoBusiness): cdr (lp only)
- Falkner Evans: Marbles (CAP)
- John Fedchock NY Sextet: Into the Shadows (Summit) [07-17]
- Agustí Fernández/Liudas Mockunas: Improdimensions (NoBusiness): cdr (lp only)
- Gato Libre: Kaneko (Libra) [07-10]
- Sue Anne Gershenzon: You Must Believe in Spring (self-released) [08-01]
- Keys & Screws [Thomas Borgmann/Jan Roder/Willi Kellers]: Some More Jazz (NoBusiness): cdr (lp only)
- Luís Lopes Humanization 4tet: Believe, Believe (Clean Feed)
- Sam Rivers: Richochet [Sam Rivers Archive Project, Volume 3] (1978, NoBusiness)
- Jason Robinson & Eric Hofbauer: Two Hours Early, Ten Minutes Late: Duo Music of Ken Aldcroft (Accretions)
- Benny Rubin Jr. Quartet: Know Say or See (Benny Jr. Music)
- Threadbare [Jason Stein/Ben Cruz/Emerson Hunton]: Silver Dollar (NoBusiness)
Ask a question, or send a comment.
Sunday, July 12, 2020
Weekend Roundup
Today's headline:
Florida shatters single-day infection record with 15,300 new cases.
I don't generally like linking to video, but
here's Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis bragging about how safe Florida
is (video seems to be from May 20), and how the alarmists have been
disproven.
Some scattered links this week:
Zeeshan Aleem:
The Goya Foods free speech controversy, explained: "Goya Foods' CEO
says his speech is being suppressed by a boycott. It's not." I don't
care much one way or the other, but when corporate spokespeople make
inflammatory political comments, which is their right if not evidence
of good sense, others have a right to get upset and withhold their
business. For past examples, look at what right-wing pundits had to
say about Nike. While I don't care much, I did include this link
because I wanted to add this tweet from Charles M Blow:
Once more: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS CANCEL CULTURE. There is free
speech. You can say and do as you pls, and others can choose never
to deal this you, your company or your products EVER again. The
rich and powerful are just upset that the masses can now organize
their dissent.
Jay Ambrose:
Slavery is not all that America is about: Another right-wing pundit,
can't find much about him but he started appearing in the Wichita Eagle
recently, sandwiched between Cal Thomas and Marc Thiessen. This piece
is especially wretched. It starts:
The New York Times last year came up with a project to debase America,
to say this country is about nothing but slavery, that the institution
has determined everything we are, that it instructs us to this day on
the maltreatment of Black people. The Revolutionary War was fought to
keep it going, and the pretenses of liberty and equality have been just
that, pretenses. Slavery even fashioned a capitalism that maintains its
evils and built our economy, we learn.
Black Americans are the real purveyors of the ideas of liberty and
equality, not racist whites, we are also instructed in the so-called
1619 Project that started with a bunch of essays in The Times Sunday
magazine. . . .
The really scary thing is The Times has so arranged things that a
book of the project's contents will be taught in public high schools.
That will help to further dislodge future generations from any
understanding of how our values fought slavery instead of bowing to
it, that many have understood that slavery and Jim Crow are our vilest
faults without saying we have no virtues.
It is certainly important to recognize our faults but also to
acknowledge, as Black American pundit Thomas Sowell has pointed out,
that Black Americans were making far more progress on their own
initiative before some liberal politicians in the 1960s entered in
to do misconceived things for votes and guilt atonement.
The key word here is "debase": Ambrose thinks the only reason for
writing about slavery is to make America look bad. He further surmises
that if schoolchildren were exposed to this history, they'd -- well,
I'm just guessing here -- grow up with some kind of guilt complex
about being American. And why would that be such a bad thing? Well --
another guess, but less of a leap -- they might doubt their conservative
leaders about how virtuous America has always been. Maybe 1619 Project
tilts a bit too hard the other way, but their view hasn't been given
much airing, and it uncovered a lot of forgotten (or ignored) history.
The last part of the quote is even more scurrilous. It's true that
blacks were making progress before the 1964 Civil Rights Act: that's
why the Act was passed, to secure as well as to advance that progress.
And if some whites voted for it for "guilt atonement," they often did
have much to feel guilty about. But one should also mention that many
felt anger about the extremely public violence segregationists used to
deny Americans rights we supposedly all cherish. The implication that
the Civil Rights Act ended that progress is ludicrous. Progress since
then has been erratic and sometimes glacial, but the obstacles have
always come from conservatives like Ambrose, who feel my guilt and
take no responsibility for their ancestors or, indeed, their racist
selves.
Ambrose's one attempt to argue with the 1619 historiography is his
citation of Gordon Wood ("who says there is not a single quote anywhere
to be found of a colonist saying the war could save slavery"). Wood is
my "go to" historian of the Revolution and the early republic (at least
since Richard B. Morris passed), so I respect his criticism of the 1619
Project, but find that he invalidates very little of its historical
contribution. See:
An interview with historian Gordon Wood on the New York Times' 1619
Project. Dean Baker:
Is it impossible to envision a world without patent monopolies?
Elisabeth Rosenthal, at the
New York Times, thinks not.
While her points are all well-taken, the amazing part is that she
never considers the simplest solution, just don't give the companies
patent monopolies in the first place. The story here is the government
is paying for most of the research upfront. While it has to pay for
it a second time by giving the companies patent monopolies.
There is no reason that the government can't simply make it a
condition of the funding that all research findings are fully open
and that any patents will be in the public domain so that any vaccines
will be available as a cheap generic from the day it comes on the
market. Not only does this ensure that a vaccine will be affordable,
it will likely mean more rapid progress since all researchers will
be able to immediately learn from the success or failures of other
researchers.
I'd go further and add that even when government does not fund
the research, prospective patents are not necessary to encourage
research and development and are often counterproductive. Moreover,
the efficiencies within any given country from publicly funding
research and publishing findings others can freely build upon
would be multiplied many times over if adopted everywhere. One
more point is that ending patents would significantly change the
dynamics of "free trade" pacts, which often are more preoccupied
with forcing adherence to an international tribute system to
owners of "intellectual property," even at the expense of free
trade. Zack Beauchamp:
What the police really believe: "Inside the distinctive, largely unknown
ideology of American policing -- and how it justifies racist violence." Jamelle Bouie:
Maybe this isn't such a good time to prosecute a culture war Ronald Brownstein:
Trump's America is slipping away: "He's trying to assemble a winning
coalition with a dwindling number of sympathetic white voters." Nixon,
with Kevin Phillips crunching the numbers, figured that if he could add
Southern whites and Northern ethnics (mostly Catholics) to the Republican
core he'd have a coalition capable of winning for decades. He came up
with the basic pitch in 1972, and Reagan clinched the deal in the 1980s
before, well, they proved basically incompetent at running the government.
Since then they've mastered the mechanics of tilting elections their way,
and they've repeatedly doubled down on the demagoguery, recovering quickly
from the inevitable setbacks when their record came into focus. Trump is
still using the Nixon/Reagan coalition plan. He won in 2016 by hitting it
hard, while facing a uniquely compromised opponent running on a lacklustre
record of indifference to average Americans. And no, he has no new ideas
on coalition-building, even though (as the article points out) the numbers
have shifted significantly away from his favor. Kate Conger/Jack Healy/Lucy Tompkins:
Churches were eager to reopen. Now they are confronting coronavirus
cases. David Dayen:
Just one week to stop a calamity. Technically, two weeks until the
federal "stimulus" payments expire, but the Senate is adjourned for
another week, so no discussion until then. Matt Ford:
Fear of a Forever-Trump administration: "There doesn't seem to be
much faith in the peaceful transition of power, if the burgeoning canon
of postelection pulp horror is any guide." I think we've gotten carried
away with projecting Trump's authoritarian tastes and temperament into
a threat to end democracy. While Trump himself may be so inclined, and
while his personality cult gives him some leeway to act out, I don't
see any ideological or institutional support for such a change. What
I do see is a Republican Party dedicated to bending the rules, trying
to tailor the electorate to its taste and scheming to grab pockets of
power that will allow them to survive momentary lapses. I also see
many people who are willing to follow any crackpot who flatters them
and promises them dominance over myriad threats. Least of all is
Trump's personal cult, which while substantial is still a minority
taste, and more generally an embarrassment even to his sponsors. If
fascism does come to America, they'll pick a more agreeable (and more
competent) front man than Trump. Masha Gessen:
A theme park of Donald Trump's dreams: Trump's executive order to
establish a National Garden of American Heroes. It includes an initial
list of people to be represented in stone. It's a peculiar list, with
a judicious selection of women (Susan B Anthony, Clara Barton, Amelia
Earhart, Dolley Madison, Christa McAuliffe, Betsy Ross, Harriet Beecher
Stowe, Harriet Tubman) and blacks (Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther
King Jr, Jackie Robinson, Tubman, Booker T Washington), without any
Confederate leaders or ideologues, but the only 20th century president
is Ronald Reagan, and the only Supreme Court Justice is Antonin Scalia.
As Gessen notes, the only writer is Stowe, and there are no artists or
scientists. Also, no Indians (but also no Andrew Jackson or George
Armstrong Custer, although Davy Crockett made the list). I'll add that
there are no major business figures, and the only inventors are the
Wright Brothers. Also, one name I had to look up: Joshua Lawrence
Chamberlain (a governor of Maine). Other relative obscurities are
McAuliffe (the much touted teacher-astronaut blown up by NASA) and
Audie Murphy (a WWII soldier who capitalized on his Medal of Honor
to become a minor Hollywood actor). As Gessen sums up: "a skeletal,
heroic history, with a lot of shooting, a lot of flying, and very
little government." Brittany Gibson:
One billionaire vs. the mail: "A new report details Charles Koch's
50-year war on the US Postal Service." David A Graham:
Donald Trump's lost cause. Stanley B Greenberg:
The Tea Party's last stand. "The right wing's current pathetic
defense of President Trump contrasts sharply with the Tea Party
revolt against the election and re-election of President Barack
Obama." The Tea Party only worked as an attack vehicle. They never
had any program to advance. They simply meant to oppose whatever
it was Democrats wanted, starting with recovery from the recession.
Even today, Trump appeals to them not for any program but because
Trump is the embodiment of their nihilistic worldview. Greenberg
writes: "President Trump is trapped by a pandemic and protests
that only magnify his insecurity and weak hold on his own party --
and by his need to provoke a Tea Party to make its last stand."
But the Tea Party can't save Trump, because they can't turn their
intensity into votes. On the other hand, Trump's demise won't be
their end. They will find even more to hate in the next wave of
Democrats. The open question is whether the media will take them
seriously next time around, allowing them to magnify their impact.
A big part of the reason they were able to pull that off in 2009
was Obama's efforts to "reach across the aisle" and "heal the
divide" -- by their very existence they proved Obama wrong. Better
to dismiss them as the whiny dead-enders they are. Glenn Greenwald:
How the House Armed Services Committee, in the middle of a pandemic,
approved a huge military budget and more war in Afghanistan.
Jonathan Guyer:
How Biden's foreign-policy team got rich: "Strategic consultants
will define Biden's relationship to the world." Jack Healy/Adam Liptak:
Landmark Supreme Court ruling affirms Native American rights in
Oklahoma. Sean Illing:
Is evangelical support for Trump a contradiction?: "A religious
historian explains why Trump wasn't a trade-off for American evangelicals."
Interview with Kristen Kobes Du Mez, author of Jesus and John Wayne:
How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation.
According to Du Mez, evangelical leaders have spent decades using the
tools of pop culture -- films, music, television, and the internet --
to grow the movement. The result, she says, is a Christianity that
mirrors that culture. Instead of modeling their lives on Christ,
evangelicals have made heroes of people like John Wayne and Mel
Gibson, people who project a more militant and more nationalist
image. In that sense, Trump's strongman shtick is a near-perfect
expression of their values.
That doesn't even sound like values to me, but I've long noted
a division among Christians between those who care for and seek
to help their neighbors and those who wish to consign them to hell.
The prevalence of revenge fantasies in American culture certainly
feeds that tendency. Umair Irfan:
Why extreme heat is so alarming for the fight against Covid-19.
Interesting that the focus here isn't about global warming, even
though the impetus is a 120F forecast for Phoenix, which would be
a record high (tying the third highest temperature ever in Phoenix,
the highest being 122F). On the other hand, Arizona is the worst
Covid-19 hotspot in the nation, and probably the world. Remember
how Trump was talking about the virus vanishing when it warms up? Jen Kirby:
Ezra Klein:
Masha Gessen on the frightening fragility of America's political
institutions: Interview, based on Gessen's new book Autocracy:
Rules for Survival.
Bonnie Kristian:
The real story about Russian bounties on US troops isn't whether Trump
knew about it,
Robert Kuttner:
Dave Lindorff:
Why the high dudgeon over alleged Russian bounties for Taliban slaying
of US troops: This was my second thought on hearing of the story,
but I've been waiting for someone else to quote: "Paying for scalps
has a venerable tradition in the US. Ask any Native American." My first
thought was that the US did something damn similar when the Russians
occupied Afghanistan. Maybe not bounties per sé, but the CIA certainly
pressed its client mujahideen to focus on inflicting blood losses on
Russia.
Martin Longman:
The spiraling downward trend of Donald Trump's political life:
"My best guess is that for the rest of the campaign, every day is
going to be worse for Trump than the last. And that means every
day will technically be the worst day of Trump's political life."
Annie Lowrey:
The pandemic proved that cash payments work: "An extra $600 a week
buys freedom from fear."
Farhad Manjoo:
I've seen a future without cars, and it's amazing. When I was
growing up, cars meant everything. Even now, when our car use as
atrophied to the point I've only filled it up once since March, I
can't imagine doing the things we need to do without one. On the
other hand, when I was growing up, I had an aunt who didn't drive,
and today I have a nephew who doesn't drive, and both managed to
deal with the trade-offs. Before I could drive, I was able to get
around most of Wichita on bike. And I've had a couple of stretches
without a car: two years at college in St. Louis, and three years
living in Manhattan. Manjoo's article actually limits itself to
Manhattan, where the cost/benefit ratio of having a car is higher
than anywhere else in America, and the externalities of others' cars
are even greater. His idea is freshly illustrated, but I'd like to
point out that it isn't new: Paul and Percival Goodman wrote it up
c. 1950, and included it in Paul Goodman's Utopian Essays &
Practical Proposals (1962). Even now, Manjoo concedes: "With
a population that is already quite used to getting along without
cars, the island is just about the only place in the country where
you could even consider calling for the banishment of cars."
Dylan Matthews:
Congress's Covid-19 rescue plan was bigger than the New Deal. It's about
to end.
Terrence McCoy:
They lost the Civil War and fled to Brazil. Their descendants refuse to
take down the Confederate flag. "It's one of history's lesser-known
episodes. After the Civil War, thousands of defeated Southerners came to
Brazil to self-exile in a country that still practiced slavery." Somehow
I missed this story, although I did know about the "loyalists" who left
America for Canada during/after the Revolution, "fundamentalist" Mormons
to settled in Mexico, and Nazis who made their way to Paraguay and other
South American countries. I'd guess some Confederates landed in Cuba as
well, given that Cuba was the last place in the America to abolish
slavery, and that slaveholders in the 1850s were so anxious to annex
it as a slave state.
John Merrick:
Mike Davis tried to warn us about a virus-induced apocalypse. He
did so in a book called The Monster at Our Door: The Global Threat
of Avian Flu (2005). Now he returns with a "substantially expanded
edition," The Monster Enters: Covid-19, Avian Flu and the Plagues
of Capitalism. By the way, that last bit didn't come from nowhere.
That was the subject of his 2001 book Late Victorian Holocausts:
El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World.
Ian Millhiser:
Lee Moran:
GOP state lawmaker: 'I want to see more people' get coronavirus.
Sean Murphy:
Health official: Trump rally 'likely' source of virus surge.
Ellen Nakashima:
Trump confirms cyberattack on Russian trolls to deter them during 2018
midterms.
Nicole Narea:
Ella Nilsen:
How Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders joined forces to craft a bold,
progressive agenda.
Osita Nwanevu:
Ashley Parker/Philip Rucker/Josh Dawsey:
Trump the victim: President complains in private about the pandemic
hurting him.
Callers on President Trump in recent weeks have come to expect what
several allies and advisers describe as a "woe-is-me" preamble.
The president rants about the deadly coronavirus destroying "the
greatest economy," one he claims to have personally built. He laments
the unfair "fake news" media, which he vents never gives him any credit.
And he bemoans the "sick, twisted" police officers in Minneapolis,
whose killing of an unarmed black man in their custody provoked the
nationwide racial justice protests that have confounded the president.
Gone, say these advisers and confidants, many speaking on the
condition of anonymity to detail private conversations, are the usual
pleasantries and greetings.
Instead, Trump often launches into a monologue placing himself at
the center of the nation's turmoil. The president has cast himself in
the starring role of the blameless victim -- of a deadly pandemic, of
a stalled economy, of deep-seated racial unrest, all of which happened
to him rather than the country.
Andrew Prokop:
The past 24 hours in Trump legal issues and controversies, explained:
"Supreme Court decisions, closed-door testimony, and developments for
Michael Flynn and Michael Cohen."
Nathan Robinson:
Trump's Mount Rushmore speech was a grim preview of his re-election
strategy.
Jeffrey Sachs:
Keynes and the good life. Review of two recent books: Zachary D
Carter: The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy, and the Life of John
Maynard Keynes, and James Crotty: Keynes Against Capitalism:
His Economic Case for Liberal Socialism.
Dylan Scott:
Covid-19 cases are rising, but deaths are falling. What's going on?
Alex Shephard:
Mary Trump diagnoses the president: "A dark new family history from
Donald Trump's niece may be the most intimate psychological portrait of
him yet." Her book is Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created
the World's Most Dangerous Man. She also happens to be a clinical
psychologist, so sure she goes there. After considering the pathetic
demise of Trump's older brother (Fred Trump Jr., Mary's father):
Donald was the one Trump child who lived up to Fred Sr.'s expectations
(he would also be the only one Fred Sr. would remember when suffering,
late in life, from dementia). While the other Trump children gained
little from their extremely wealthy father for most of his life (Maryanne,
who became a federal judge, at one point was reduced to begging her mother
for spare change), Donald was endlessly rewarded for his mendacity and
aggression in the rough-and-tumble world of New York real estate. Fred
Sr. showered his son with money, allowing him to create the illusion that
he was self-made, a brilliant dealmaker. This phony personal brand would
be the foundation of Donald's successful presidential campaign.
Seems like I've heard that story before: sounds a lot like spree
killer Andrew Cunanan in The Assassination of Gianni Versace,
although Trump's money saved him from taking such a murderous turn.
The review continues:
But Donald, in Mary's telling, was the most wounded of the Trump
children. He was also the most pathetic. He became profoundly needy
as a result of childhood neglect but lacked the means of processing
his emotions. He got stuck in an endless feedback loop of
self-aggrandizement and self-loathing, seeking out sycophants to
assure him that he really was great -- even though, deep down, he knew
he was unloved and incapable of executing even the most basic tasks.
This too is a familiar story: the basis of the recurring Seth
Meyers features of
exclusive access to the tiny voice in the back of Trump's head.
David Sirota:
Trump's Labor Secretary is reaching cartoonish levels of supervillainry.
Eugene Scalia.
Bhaskar Sunkara:
Stop trying to fight racism with corporate diversity consultants:
"Inclusivity seminars and books like White Fragility protect power;
they don't challenge it. We're being hustled."
Margaret Talbot:
The study that debunks most anti-abortion arguments.
Jeffrey Toobin:
Why the Mueller investigation failed: "President Trump's obstructions
of justice were broader than those of Richard Nixon or Bill Clinton, and
the special counsel's investigation proved it. How come the report didn't
say so?" This is a substantial article covering the Mueller investigation
and Attorney General William Barr's handling of the report. Presumably
it's related to Toobin's new book, True Crimes and Misdemeanors: The
Investigation of Donald Trump, out August 4.
According to the Administration, Mueller and his team displayed an
unseemly eagerness to uncover crimes that never existed. In fact, the
opposite is true. Mueller had an abundance of legitimate targets to
investigate, and his failures emerged from an excess of caution, not
of zeal. Especially when it came to Trump, Mueller avoided confrontations
that he should have welcomed. He never issued a grand-jury subpoena for
the President's testimony, and even though his office built a compelling
case for Trump's having committed obstruction of justice, Mueller came
up with reasons not to say so in his report. In light of this, Trump
shouldn't be denouncing Mueller -- he should be thanking him.
David Wallace-Wells:
America is refusing to learn how to fight the coronavirus.
Laura Weiss:
How America exports police violence around the world.
Philip Weiss:
Conor P Williams:
To DeVos, the virus is an excuse to strip public money from public
schools: "The policy is in line with conservative goals of converting
public dollars into private K-12 scholarships." More on DeVos:
Robin Wright:
Trump's impeachment revenge: Alexander Vindman is bullied into
retiring.
Matthew Yglesias:
There's also this:
A letter on justice and open debate. It appeared in Harper's,
and was signed by 152 people, mostly authors, between a third and
a half names I readily recognize. Unfortunately, half of those I
recognize mostly for their support of American (and often Israeli)
military ventures abroad and/or their propensity to attack the left
(often including Sanders supporters within the Democratic Party).
This adds an air of disingenuity to what otherwise appears to be
an innocuous (albeit deliberately vague) defense of free speech.
The middle paragraph could offer some clues if you could map the
unnamed censorious forces seeking to punish the unnamed actors for
their unspecified offenses: although Trump is the only named threat,
I wouldn't be surprised to find many more worried by what the left
might provoke than by what the right actually does, and some may
even fear winding up on the wrong side of justice. Take Yascha
Mounk's tweet, for example:
If the crazy attempts to shame and fire people for signing this
reasonably anodyne letter don't convince you that our current
intellectual atmosphere is deeply unhealthy, then you're more
invested in parroting the propagandistic line of the moment
than in acknowledging the truth.
Tom Scocca replied:
The use of "shame and fire" here is the whole damn game. Treating them
as interchangeable is, in fact, a cynical attack on free discourse.
Osita Nwanevu's piece on "reactionary liberalism" (see above) fits
in here, without actually making the connection. Many of the signatories
fit that mold, and they're the main reason people like myself have taken
exception to the letter. I actually share a wariness about overly harsh
and arbitrary punishments.
Also relevant here is Alex Shephard:
The problem with Yascha Mounk's Persuasion, which does discuss the
Harper's letter.
Persuasion has the feel of a club of no-longer-coddled elites, banded
together in an attempt to maintain their status in a rapidly changing
world. At this point, it doesn't seem to be about changing minds. It
may be dressed up as a new institution for promoting a free society,
but so far its cause célèbre is the process by which op-eds are
published. Liberalism deserves better.
Ask a question, or send a comment.
Monday, July 6, 2020
Music Week
July archive
(in progress).
Music: Current count 33567 [33526] rated (+41), 212 [211] unrated (+1).
I've been ambivalent about adding mid-year lists to the
metacritic file.
Last couple years I actually started with those lists, but this
year I've been collecting ratings pretty extensively, so the
current file should provide you with a fairly accurate account
of critical consensus on records so far. More importantly, the
method should continue to work week in, week out through the
end of the year. Right now, the ratings (with points in braces,
and, where available, my grades in brackets):
- Run the Jewels: RTJ4 (Jewel Runners/RBC/BMG) {58} [A-]
- Fiona Apple: Fetch the Bolt Cutters (Epic) {54} [A-]
- Waxahatchee: Saint Cloud (Merge) {46} [A-]
- Bob Dylan: Rough and Rowdy Ways (Columbia) {40} [A-]
- Phoebe Bridgers: Punisher (Dead Oceans) {38} [**]
- Dua Lipa: Future Nostalgia (Warner) {34} [A-]
- Lucinda Williams: Good Souls Better Angels (Highway 20) {34} [A-]
- Haim: Women in Music Pt III (Columbia) {33} [**]
- Perfume Genius: Set My Heart on Fire Immediately (Matador) {31} [*]
- Caribou: Suddenly (Merge) {30} [**]
- Tame Impala: The Slow Rush (Interscope) {28} [*]
- Drive-By Truckers: The Unraveling (ATO) {27} [A-]
- Thundercat: It Is What It Is (Brainfeeder) {27} [B]
- Jessie Ware: What's Your Pleasure? (Interscope) {26} [***]
- Shabaka and the Ancestors: We Are Sent Here by History (Impulse!) {25} [A-]
- Soccer Mommy: Color Theory (Loma Vista) {25} [***]
- Yves Tumor: Heaven to a Tortured Mind(Warp) {25} [**]
- Charli XCX: How I'm Feeling Now (Asylum) {25} [***]
- Moses Sumney: Grae (Jagjaguwar) {23} [B]
- Gil Scott-Heron: We're New Again: A Reimagining by Makaya McCraven (XL) {22} [**]
- Grimes: Miss Anthropocene (4AD) {22} [***]
- Lady Gaga: Chromatica (Interscope) {21} [***]
- Pearl Jam: Gigaton (Monkeywrench/Republic) {20} []
- Jehnny Beth: To Love Is to Live (Caroline) {19} [*]
- Cornershop: England Is a Garden (Ample Play) {19} [A-]
- Destroyer: Have We Met (Merge) {19} [*]
- Halsey: Manic (Capitol) {19} [***]
- Laura Marling: Song for Our Daughter (Chrysalis/Partisan) {19} [**]
- Mac Miller: Circles (Warner) {19} [A-]
- Rina Sawayama: Sawayama (Dirty Hit) {19} [B-]
- US Girls: Heavy Light (4AD) {19} [B-]
- Hayley Williams: Petals of Armor (Atlantic) {19} [*]
Well, it's skewed somewhat. Some of the lists I monitor are from
friendly sources, and that moves the consensus a bit toward things
that are more likely to interest me. Also, I don't skip sources that
focus exclusively on metal or classical, though I occasionally pick
up samples of each from elsewhere. The idea is less to sample public
opinion than it is to sift through it to find things that might be
interesting to review. And while this top-32 (despite the numbers,
everything from 24-32 are tied). But I also feel entitled to add in
some points myself (matching the points for Robert Christgau's grades;
all other sources are treated as one point each mention as noted in
the legend).
I skewed the results further by adding in mid-year lists scraped
from the Expert Witness Facebook group, comments to a July 2 post.
I picked up lists from:
Steve Alter,
Kevin Bozelka,
Jeffrey D. Callahan,
Joey Daniewicz,
Chris Gray,
Paul Hayden,
Eric Johnson,
Tom Lane,
Brad Luen,
Eric Marcus,
Greg Morton,
Stan Piccirilli,
Harden Smith,
John Speranza,
Thomas Walker, plus a few bits from others I had already been
following (especially
Chris Monsen). In compiling these lists, I've omitted records that
didn't qualify by my relaxed 2020 standards (which include all
December 2019 releases and any other 2019 releases that didn't
appear in my 2019
EOY aggregate). Also
note that the lists almost always identify records by artist name
only, so I had to guess here and there. (Old releases I didn't
tally were:
Constantinople & Ablaye Cissoko,
Kefaya + Elaha Soroor,
Jeffrey Lewis & the Voltage,
Post Malone,
Red Velvet,
Matana Roberts,
Kalie Shorr.)
All this skewing probably contributed to me grading 10 (of 32)
records A-, 6 more B+(***). If you subtract my points, Christgau's,
the Expert Witness lists, Monsen,
Phil Overeem, and
Tim Niland, the list would run:
Phoebe Bridgers {33},
Run the Jewels {32},
Fiona Apple/Haim {31},
Perfume Genius/Waxahatchie {30},
Caribou {28},
Bob Dylan/Tame Impala {27},
Thundercat {25},
Dua Lipa {24},
Yves Tumor/Charli XCX {22},
Moses Sumney {21},
Pearl Jam/Soccer Mommy {20},
US Girls/Jessie Ware {19}.
The new records below mostly came from the Expert Witness lists --
expecially from Monsen (6). The other big block is a bunch of records
by the late Freddy Cole. I've long recommended two later records --
The Dreamer in Me (2009) and Freddy Cole Sings Mr. B (2010) --
so I was especially surprised to find my favorite among the rest was
his 1964 debut. Milt Hinton and Osie Johnson are names I know well, but
this also made me want to explore saxophonist Sam "The Man" Taylor.
He recorded quite a bit, but only has one compilation on Napster, and
I passed on it due to lack of discography.
Ennio
Morricone (91) has died. He was possibly the most famous soundtrack
composer of the last 50-60 years. I've always harbored an active dislike
for soundtrack albums, which is probably why I've never delved into his,
despite much enjoying his music in the context of the movies. I can
recommend his 1987 compilation on Virgin, Film Music, Volume 1.
Another recent death was English bassist Simon H. Fell (61), another
musician I've heard very little from. I dutifully listed 12 of his titles,
all highly touted by Penguin Guide, in my shopping list/database,
but never found a one of them, so I've only heard one more recent album --
SFE (2011, Clean Feed) [B+(***)]. That's not likely to change much.
I see that selections from most of his albums are available on
Bandcamp, but none complete enough for me to review.
I am toying with the idea of taking notes on fractional albums, since
that would seem to offer a way to glimpse much of the work that I find
currently inaccessible. I currently use U to designate records that I
possess a copy of but haven't graded yet. I'm tempted to add a new U+
for records I've only heard part of but would like to hear more, and
U- for records I've heard enough of to doubt any further interest. One
reason I haven't done this is that I'm not sure how the programs would
deal with the introduction of a new grade. I wouldn't want to count
U+ or U- albums as graded, or as ungraded (a number I've been trying
to whittle down, without much success lately).
One question in the queue, which I'll probably get to this week.
By all means,
please ask more.
New records reviewed this week:
6lack: 6pc Hot Ep (2020, Interscope, EP): Atlanta
rapper Ricardo Valentine, two albums, came up with this 6 song,
18:48 EP. Starts impressive, drags at the end.
B+(*)
Juhani Aaltonen/Jonas Kullhammar/Christian Meaas Svendsen/Ilmari
Heikinheimo: The Father, the Sons & the Junnu (2019
[2020], Moserobie): Two tenor saxophonists, the former also playing
flute, the latter baritone sax, with bass and drums. Order from spine.
Cover interleaves names with title, tagging Kullhammar as father and
the much older Aaltonen as Junnu. Two masters. And while I prefer his
sax, Aaltonen's flute remains impressive as ever.
A- [cd]
Aardvark Jazz Orchestra: Faces of Souls (2015-19
[2020], Leo): Long-running Boston group, first two records (1993-95)
under leader Mark Harvey's name, but group seems to date back to
1972 ("48 years"). Harvey started out on trumpet, but plays piano
here, and composed everything. This was cobbled together from four
sets, so the personnel shifts a bit, but you usually get around 15
musicians, playing dirge-like suites. A group I should explore.
B+(*)
Aksak Maboul: Figures (2020, Crammed Discs): Belgian
experimental pop group, principally Marc Hollander and Vincent Kenis,
recorded two 1977-80 albums, released an earlier shelved one in 2014,
recently revived for a new album. In the meantime, Hollander runs
Crammed Discs, and Kenis produced their Congotronics albums.
Long, complex, more Euro than African, may grow on you, but hard for
me to pass a snap judgment.
B+(**)
James Carney Sextet: Pure Heart (2020, Sunnyside):
Pianist, from Syracuse, New York, based in New York City, eighth
album since 1993. With Stephanie Richards (trumpet), Oscar Noriega
(bass clarinet/alto sax), Ravi Coltrane (tenor/soprano/sopranino
saxes), Dezron Douglas (bass), and Tom Rainey (drums). Sophisticated
postbop, the rhythm section never finding the beat nor losing it
completely, the horns swooping in and out of the chaos.
B+(***)
Drakeo the Ruler: Thank You for Using GTL (2020,
Stinc Team): Rapper Darrell Caldwell, from Los Angeles, resume
starts with "first arrested at the age of 12." Has been in and
out of jail ever since, recording several mixtapes when he got
out. He was acquitted of murder in 2019, but the charges were
refiled as "criminal gang conspiracy," and he was still in jail
when he recorded this, using GTL (Global Tel Link)'s ICS (Inmate
Calling Service), with JoogSZN producing. Feels claustrophobic,
lots of pressure, little hope.
B+(**)
Hegge: Feeling (2020, Particular): Norwegian bassist
Bjørn Marius Hegge, who wrote all but two songs -- Jonas Kullhammar
(tenor sax) and Vigleik Storaas (piano) wrote those; also in the band:
Martin Myhre Olsen (alto/soprano sax) and Håkon Mjåset Johansen (drums).
Upbeat, playful even.
B+(***)
Derrick Hodge: Color of Noize (2020, Blue Note):
Bass guitarist, third album (fourth counting R+R=Now), side credits
with Terence Blanchard, Robert Glasper, and a few more.
B
John Pål Inderberg Trio: Radio Inderberg (2019 [2020],
AMP Music): Norwegian baritone saxophonist, albums date from 1995,
including a couple with Lee Konitz. Trio with bass (Trygve Waldemar
Fiske) and drums (Håkon Mjåset Johansen). Mostly trad pieces, some
by group, covers of Konitz, Monk, and Lars Gullin.
B+(***)
Edward "Kidd" Jordan/Joel Futterman/William Parker/Hamid Drake:
A Tribute to Alvin Fielder: Live at Vision Festival XXIV
(2019 [2020], Mahakala Music): Fielder (1935-2019) was a drummer,
born in Mississippi, a charter member of AACM, only one record as
leader but a fair number, especially with Jordan (tenor sax) and/or
Futterman (piano), who are the stars in this 45:03 blow out. Kidd's
closing comments are every bit as good.
B+(***)
Machine Girl: U-Void Synthesizer (2020, 1818199 DK2):
Real name: Matt Stepheson. Seventh album since 2014. Tags: electronic,
breakcore, death metal, drum and bass, footwork, hardcore, juke, jungle,
punk, thrash metal. More annoying than not, although "Scroll of Sorrow"
has some redeeming merit.
B-
Nicole Mitchell/Lisa E. Harris: EarthSeed (2017
[2020], FPE): Flute player from Chicago, has recorded a lot since
2011, often overcoming my wariness of her instrument. Lyrics are
drawn from Octavia E. Butler's dystopian novels, sung by Harris,
an operatic soprano I often find unbearable, and Julian Otis. Not
without the occasional patch of musical interest.
C-
Noshir Mody: An Idealist's Handbook: Identity, Love and Hope
in America 2020 (2020, self-released): Guitarist, originally
from Mumbai, based in New York since 1995. Several previous albums,
one in the group EthniFusion. Kate Victor sings.
B [cd]
Hedvig Mollestad: Ekhidna (2020, Rune Grammofon):
Norwegian guitarist, full name adds Thomassen, six Trio albums since
2011, this just under her name, with new bass and drums, keyboards
(not very noticeable), and Susana Santos Silva on trumpet (fiery).
The fast ones are as fierce as ever. Two change-of-pace stretches
threw me at first.
A-
Willie Nelson: First Rose of Spring (2020, Legacy):
"Seventhieth solo album" (per Wikipedia), two new originals (co-written
with producer Buddy Cannon). All good, nothing great, seems like he's
hit a plateau he can sustain until he drops.
B+(***)
Pere Ubu: By Order of Mayor Pawlicki: Live in Jarocin
(2017 [2020], Cherry Red): Last year's The Long Goodbye was
supposedly the end of the road for this band, which started out in
1975 in Ohio, and produced one of my all-time favorite albums --
The Modern Dance (1978). Singer David Thomas keeps the sound
together as others have come and gone. One feature here is that they
went back to the 1970s for the song list. Great songs, but it's all
rather messy.
B+(**)
Francis Quinlan: Likewise (2020, Saddle Creek):
Singer/songwriter, from New Jersey/Pennsylvania, first solo album,
formerly fronted Hop Along.
B+(*)
Jorge Roeder: El Suelo Mio (2020, T-Town): Peruvian
bassist, based in New York, has side credits with Brad Shepik, Julian
Lage, Shai Maestro, and others. First album as leader, solo, 13 pieces
in the 2:20-5:05 range.
B+(*)
Randy Rogers & Wade Bowen: Hold My Beer, Vol. 2
(2020, Lil' Buddy Toons): Two Texans play trad country, lots of fiddle
and pedal steel, name dropping Jones and Haggard. Five years after
Vol. 1. Typical line: "I got a warm beer and a cold woman/ wish
it was the other way around."
B+(*)
Claire Rousay: A Heavenly Touch (2020, Already Dead):
Based in San Antonio, "a person who performs and records," exploring
"queerness, human relationships, and self-perception through the use
of physical objects and their potential sounds." Discogs lists 8 albums
since 2019, some with jazz connections. Mostly found sounds, road noise,
dog barks, booms, a bit of "Tenderly" wafting through the breeze.
B
Sault: Untitled (Black Is) (2020, Forever Living
Originals): UK group, oft described as "elusive," released two albums
in 2019 that reminded me of prime Chic. No such comparisons possible
here, although the political moment does occasionally come to the
fore. "Don't shoot/ guns down."
B+(***) [bc]
Øyvind Skarbø/Fredrik Ljungkvist/Kris Davis/Ole Morten Vågan:
Inland Empire (2016 [2020], Clean Feed): Drums, tenor
sax/clarinet, piano, bass. Recorded in Norway, everyone contributed
pieces and shared credit on the title track.
B+(**)
Stephane Spira/Giovanni Mirabassi: Improkofiev (2020,
Jazzmax): Soprano sax and piano, quartet with bass (Steve Wood) and
drums (Donald Konyomanou), plus flugelhorn on one track. Title is a
suite with "excerpts from violin concerto no. 1." Other pieces cover
Erik Satie and Carla Bley.
B+(**)
Grant Stewart Quartet: Rise and Shine (2019 [2020],
Cellar Live): Mainstream tenor saxophonist, young enough his oldies
are more likely post-bop than pre-bop. Backed by Tardo Hammer (piano),
Peter Washington (bass), and Phil Stewart (drums). Includes a vocal
(Lucy Yeghiazaryan) for the radio programmers.
B+(**)
Jessie Ware: What's Your Pleasure? (2020, Interscope):
British dance-pop diva, fourth album, starts retro-disco, ending up
more new wave.
B+(***)
Bobby Watson: Keepin' It Real (2020, Smoke Sessions):
Alto saxophonist, from Kansas City, broke in with Art Blakey in the
late 1970s, widely acclaimed in the 1980s including a Penguin Guide
crown for Love Remains (1986), recorded for Blue Note and Columbia
in the 1990s, flirting with fusion (Post-Motown Bop was a good
title, but not much of an album). Floundered before landing here, a
label which encouraged him to revert to his inner Bird. With Josh Evans
or Giveton Gelin (trumpet), Victor Gould (piano), Curtis Lundy (bass),
Victor Jones (drums). Calls the group New Horizon, probably because
his head's still stuck in the 1990s.
B
Westside Gunn: Flygod Is an Awesome God II (2020,
Griselda): Buffalo rapper Alvin Worthy, used FLYGOD as an alias, also
title of his 2016 album, also appears on several mixtapes including
this one's 2019 predecessor.
B+(*)
Hailey Whitters: The Dream (2020, Pigasus): Country
singer-songwriter from Iowa, second album, Wikipedia pegs her sales
at 300. Started off just guitar and voice, which seemed to be her
metier, so I was surprised when the drums kicked in. Plain-spoken,
common touch, could amount to something.
B+(**)
Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:
The Mark Harvey Group: A Rite for All Souls (1971
[2020], Americas Musicworks, 2CD): Trumpet player, based in Boston,
best known as the founder of Aardvark Jazz Orchestra ("now in its
48th season"). This group was founded in 1969, ran for a few years,
left one 1972 live album before this "long lost recording" came to
light. Started "playing hard-bop and jazz-rock," but this is mostly
free, with scratchy sax (Peter Bloom), lots of percussion, some
spoken word.
B+(***) [cd] [07-17]
Old music:
Freddy Cole: "Waiter, Ask the Man to Play the Blues": Freddy
Cole Plays & Sings Some Lonely Ballads (1964, Dot): Twelve
years younger than his famous brother, Nat "King" Cole, also plays piano,
cut his first single in 1952 but no LP until this set, the only one to
appear before his brother's death. Close to the mark, a small jazz combo
playing cocktail blues, but a path his brother never quite took. With
Sam Taylor on tenor sax, Milt Hinton and Osie Johnson in the rhythm
section.
A-
Freddy Cole: The Cole Nobody Knows (1973, First Shot):
Third album (second was On Second Thought), third label, backed
with guitar/bass/drums, recycled the title cut from his first album in
a closing medley.
B
Freddy Cole: One More Love Song (1978, Poker):
Backed by an anonymous big band, arranged by Jerry Van Rooyen and
Tony Nolte. Nice voice.
B
Freddy Cole: I'm Not My Brother, I'm Me (1990 [2004],
High Note): But he keeps the distinctions subtle, mostly that he was
approaching 60 here, whereas brother Nat died at 45. The voice is damn
close, he plays similar piano, in a guitar-bass trio (Ed Zad and Eddie
Edwards). His best original ("Fried Potatoes") echoes "Frim Fram Sauce"
(but with a little more meat). He works in a short medley and offers
a touching tribute, setting up the title song, which he aces.
B+(***)
Freddy Cole: This Is the Life (1993 [2003], Savoy Jazz):
Originally released on Muse, beginning a long, career-defining relationship
that continued on High Note. One plus here is the supporting cast: six
musicians plus Cole on piano, most notably Houston Person on tenor sax.
Mostly ballads, tends toward smooth, clearly enjoys the title song.
B+(**)
Freddy Cole: To the Ends of the Earth (1997, Fantasy):
Between the demise of Muse and the founding of High Note, Cole recorded
five 1995-98 albums for Fantasy. Produced by Todd Barkan, who employed
big band numbers (including help from Cyrus Chestnut on piano) while
still making it sound intimate.
B+(**)
Freddy Cole: Love Makes the Changes (1998, Fantasy):
Todd Barkan produced again, with Cedar Walton helping with piano and
arranging, with Eric Alexander and Grover Washington on sax. Four
originals, Among the covers, Billy Joel's "Just the Way You Are" is
likely to enter the standards canon.
B+(***)
Freddy Cole: Le Grand Freddy: Freddy Cole Sings the Music of
Michel Legrand (1994-99 [1999], Fantasy): Eleven songs from
the French composer, nine with lyrics by Alan Bergman. Many of the
same musicians from earlier Todd Barkan albums, including Cedar Walton
and Cyrus Chestnut on piano, and Grover Washington Jr. on tenor sax.
B+(**)
Freddy Cole: This Love of Mine (2005, High Note):
First album with Joe Fields' new label, which served him well for
the rest of his career. Typical songs, strong voice, lets John
DiMartino handle the piano and most of the arranging. Eric Alexander
and Fathead Newman play tenor sax.
B+(***)
Freddy Cole: He Was the King (2016, High Note):
Finally, enough distance to record an explicit treat to his brother.
Most I recall clearly as Nat "King" Cole hits, but the only Cole
credit is to Freddy's title song, previously recorded in 1990,
where it leads into "I'm Not My Brother, I'm Me." Harry Allen
and Houston Person play tenor sax.
B+(*)
Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:
- Gregory Dudzienski Quartet: Beautiful Moments (OA2) [07-17]
- Bartosz Hadala Group: Three Short Stories (Zecernia)
- Jeremy Levy Jazz Orchestra: The Planets: Reimagined (OA2) [07-17]
- Quinsin Nachoff: Pivotal Arc (Whirlwind) [08-07]
- Owl Xounds Exploding Galaxy: The Coalescence (ESP-Disk)
- Soft Machine: Live at the Baked Potato (Moonjune)
Ask a question, or send a comment.
Sunday, July 5, 2020
Weekend Roundup
The Wichita Eagle doesn't publish a paper edition on Saturdays any
more, so I had to scrounge around for something to read with breakfast.
Picked up the 4 June 2020 London Review of Books, and started
reading Eliot Weinberg's lead article, "The American Virus":
As confirmed American coronavirus deaths pass 67,000, the president
declares, in an interview with Fox News held inside the Lincoln
Memorial, where events are traditionally banned: "They always said
nobody got treated worse than Lincoln. I believe I am treated worse."
A Twitter wit writes that, for the massive marble sculpture looming
above, "It was the second worst thing Lincoln ever watched."
Internal White House documents predict three thousand American
deaths a day by the end off May. The president weeets: "Getting great
reviews, finally, for how well we are handling the pandemic." He
retweets that the Trump Turnberry golf course has been named by
Golf World magazine as the best golf course in the UK and
Ireland for 2020. . . .
Republicans continue the fight against voting by mail. (The
president has said that if this were universally allowed, "you'd never
have a Republican elected in this country again," though he himself
mails in his ballot.) In Wisconsin in April, the Republican-majority
Supreme Court had demanded that voters appear in person, leading to a
spike in infections. In Texas, which permits voting by mail for the
ill, the attorney general rules that fear of Covid-19 is an "emotional
reaction . . . and does not, by itself, amount to a 'sickness.'"
Signs at the many protests at state capitols against the lockdown,
where crowds wave Confederate and "Don't Tread on Me" flags and
(legally) carry assault riffles:
- FAKE CRISIS
- COVID-19 IS A LIE
- MY RIGHTS DON'T END WHERE YOUR FEAR BEGINS
- FAUCI IS NOT OUR PRESIDENT
- MY BODY MY CHOICE
- JESUS IS MY VACCINE
- KEEP TEXAS FREE FROM TYRANNY
- GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME COVID-19
- SOCIALISM SUCKS
- SACRIFICE THE WEAK: REOPEN
- ARBEIT MACHT FREI
- A WANT A HAIRCUT
In the ten days after the Republican governor of Georgia, Brian
Kemp, reopens gyms, spas, hair salons, tattoo parlours and other
essential services, confirmed coronavirus cases in the state rise by
42 per cent.
Of course, this is one news, but not very old. The death count has
nearly doubled since this was written (132,000 on Saturday; the 67,000
figure dates to April 25). The anti-lockdown demonstrations receded as
all states followed Georgia in re-opening non-essential businesses,
mostly with the same increase in infections. One thing that hasn't
changed is Trump's fetish for large statues, once again selecting a
large stone Lincoln for his July 4 spectacle. (See: Jordan Muller:
Trump seeks to claim the mantle of history in fiery Mount Rushmore
address.)
But the Fourth of July celebrations were a side show. The big article
this week is Derek Hawkins/Marisa Iati/Jacqueline Dupree:
Seven-day average case total in the US sets record for 27th straight
day.
Some scattered links this week:
Kate Aronoff:
David Atkins:
Universal basic income continues to gain mainstream support due to
COVID-19. By the way, I just finished Rutger Bregman's Utopia
for Realists: How We Can Build the Ideal World, which starts with
UBI, which pointed out that the idea was widely considered in the early
1970s: he cites Nixon's interest, but my recollection is more McGovern.
I recall reading several books on it back then, especially by Robert
Theobald (1929-99), best known for Free Men and Free Markets
(1963). For a new piece on UBI: Luke Savage:
Want to fight poverty? Give poor people money.
Why a movement like Trumpism doesn't have a future. The takeaway
from the Mt. Rushmore speech:
It is no accident that the same president who delivered this revanchist,
defensive Fourth of July message also could not articulate a single
second-term policy priority in front of a friendly interviewer. The
gauzy haze of nostalgia that it activates in the conservative mind can
be good at whipping up certain kinds of votes, but it cannot serve as
the basis for a coherent policy platform. It can encode certain
sentiments -- that America should be primarily for white evangelical
Christians and run primarily by older white men -- but those sentiments
are not only deeply unpopular, they run contrary to the actual words
of most of the country's founding documents and the majority of the
last century's constitutional jurisprudence.
Trump has failed on policy at every level because his vision is
difficult to translate into legislation, and when articulated almost
impossible to enact democratically. As a substitute for literally
Making America White Again, building a big wall, enacting travel bans
on certain countries or putting migrant children into cages is not
only unpopular and villainous, it's also difficult to do legislatively
and simply ineffectual in accomplishing the task. That's why these
sorts of right-wing populist jabs have historically been culture war
red meat designed to keep the bigots distracted while the rich people
in charge made off the loot in the form of subsidies and tax cuts. So
has it been also with Trump: his base gets to feel like they owned the
"libs," but in actuality the only structurally significant outcomes
have been tax cuts and giveaways for rich corporate executives and
a raft of corporate-friendly judges. Meanwhile, everyone else gets
the shaft economically -- including his own downwardly-mobile
supporters. . . .
Trump's vision has no future at all and cannot be negotiated or
compromised with. Even if it weren't morally repulsive, it would
still be a dead-end for what politics is supposed to be all about:
solving problems. During more frivolous times that might not be
seem like such a big deal: after all, in 2016 many people voted
for Trump out of a sense of "let's see what happens" bored amusement.
Many thought that the country essentially ran itself, so why not
put a showman in charge? Well, we've now seen what happens.
The Trump administration is giving up on fighting the pandemic:
The term narrowly considered, meaning the political operatives in and
near the White House: the conscious, political direction. But the term
is more often used to refer to the whole executive branch, which still
harbors countless anonymous bureaucrats who are merely doing their jobs,
or trying to (despite political obstacles). Mike Baker/Jennifer Valentino-DeVries/Manny Fernandez/Michael
LaForgia:
Three words. 70 cases. The tragic history of 'I can't breathe.' Dan Balz:
Trump turned July Fourth into a partisan event. The damage could be
long-lasting. William J Barber/Phyllis Bennis:
The police and the pentagon are bringing our wars home. Medea Benjamin/Nicolas JS Davies:
Trump's record on foreign policy: Lost wars, new conflicts, and broken
promises. Matt Bruenig:
The racial wealth gap is about the upper classes. James Bruno:
Netanyahu wants to annex the West Bank. Will Joe Biden stop him?
Argues: "The Democratic nominee needs to be clear: the move would come
with real consequences if he's elected." I doubt that: annexation will
be baked into "the facts on the ground" by the time Biden can take
office, and he has never shown any evidence of standing up to (or even
questioning) Israel. Moreover, while the US has given lip service to
a "two-state solution" for a long time, the US has never really done
anything to make it happen. The problem Netanyahu faces most immediately
is losing European support to BDS -- that would be a "real consequence."
Longer term, Israel risks losing its bedrock Democratic Party base --
not Biden directly, but people Biden will ultimately depend on, and
who will eventually follow him. Netanyahu may think annexation will
be the great finale of his career, but it will leave his successors
in an impossible situation, as a pariah nation with an unassimilable
and rebellious underclass. On some level, he must realize that every
Black Lives Matter placcard that's appeared all around the world the
last few months can easily be repurposed to point a finger at him.
Jonathan Chait:
Trump blames losing campaign on listening to 'woke Jared': "Trump
decides to ignore his son-in-law and focus on voters who fear he isn't
racist enough." Jane Coaston:
Social conservatives feel betrayed by the Supreme Court -- and the GOP
that appointed it. EJ Dionne Jr:
A vicious culture war is all Trump has left. Also: Zeeshan Aleem:
Trump is going all in on divisive culture wars. That might not work this
time.
In his speeches this weekend, Trump positioned himself as a guardian
of American identity, depicting protests against police brutality and
racism -- which have slowed significantly in recent weeks, and have
been largely peaceful -- in paranoid and cartoonish terms as a "fascist"
threat to the republic.
It should be noted that Trump's claims of the existence of "far-left
fascism" are fundamentally incoherent: fascism is a right-wing form of
ultranationalism calling for a rebirth of a nation or race, and that
has nothing to do with liberal and left-wing calls for an end to police
brutality and racism. But that didn't stop Trump from making it the
central message of his speeches, which aimed to sensationalize the
issue of protests and statue-toppling.
Speaking at Mount Rushmore, amid peaceful protests led by members
of the Sioux Nation meant to underscore the fact the monument was built
on stolen and sacred land, Trump promised that the South Dakota monument
"will never be desecrated." And he went on to describe the ongoing
re-evaluation of public symbols of racism in American life as a threat
to civilization.
W Ralph Eubanks:
The Confederate flag finally falls in Mississippi. M Steven Fish/Neil A Abrams/Laila M Aghaie:
Make liberalism great again: "Liberals around the world have let
right-wing authoritarians claim patriotism as their own, with disastrous
consequences. It's time to take it back." This is a long article, only
given a cursory glance, partly because while I'm not unsympathetic to
those who would like to present a progressive agenda in the context of
America's oft-stated, rarely-realized ideals -- cf. Jill Lepore's This
America: The Case for the Nation, backed by her longer These Truths:
A History of the United States, or (much better) Ganesh Sitaraman's
The Crisis of the Middle-Class Constitution -- I don't find it
very satisfactory to go to all that trouble only to end up with another
paean to old-fashioned, left-hating liberalism. But also, deep down, I
just don't care much for the idea of patriotism, which has been left to
the right to debase as knee-jerk militarist idolatry precisely because
both liberals and the left (who are really just liberals who emphasize
that universal rights means everyone, not just individuals) feel any
real need to limit their horizons to a single nation. Consequently,
much of the framing pushed here sounds like bullshit, more or less on
the same level as the right-wing's patriotic claims. Nima Gerami:
To defeat systemic racism, America must end endless war. Well,
America's systemic racism predates "endless war," even the sporadic
imperial wars against Mexico (1848) and Cuba/Philippines (1898),
which it colored and conditioned -- one can trace it back to the
Indian wars of the 17th century. Still, every new war gins up yet
another wave of racism, as we've seen clearly in Korea, Vietnam,
and the Middle East (despite the efforts of Bush et seq. to exempt
"our allies" in and around Saudi Arabia). By the way, "endless
war" perpetuates much more than racism. Most obviously, there's
gun violence. Also see:
Amy Goldstein:
Voters in deep-red Oklahoma approve Medicaid expansion. I have no
doubt this would pass in Kansas if the voters are given the chance.
Almost passed in the legislature this year, spoiled only by Senate
majority leader Susan Wagle refusing to schedule a vote. Graig Graziosi:
Trump ally Herman Cain who attended Tulsa rally hospitalized with
coronavirus. Of course, he didn't necessary get the virus there.
He also traveled to "a lot of places" that week, including hotspot
Arizona. Related?
Miranda Green:
It will take years to undo the damage from Trump's environmental
rollback: "Even if Democrats win back the White House and the
Senate, it will be a long struggle to restore the regulations the
Republican-controlled EPA has erased." Glenn Greenwald:
House Democrats, working with Liz Cheney, restrict Trump's planned
withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan and Germany. Jason Crow (D-CO)
co-sponsored the amendment with Cheney. This particular amendment was
approved 45-11, opposed by 8 Republicans and 3 Democrats. Ryan Grim:
National Review is trying to rewrite its own racist history.
One thing I've long been struck by is how virulently racist 1950s
conservatives were, especially William F Buckley. (Nancy McLean's
Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's
Stealth Plan for America has many examples.) Barry Goldwater
denied that he was a racist when opposing civil rights laws --
something I could never square with his supposedly principled
positions on individual freedom, but which made sense given how
inextricably the 1950s conservative project was bound up with
the support of segregation and white supremacy. Gabrielle Gurley:
This time, it's the Democrats' infrastructure week: "House Democrats
steered an ambitious transportation and infrastructure plan through the
chamber. Structured more like a wish list, it's dead on arrival in the
Senate." Bob Harris/Jon Schwarz:
Carl Reiner's life should remind us: If you like laughing, thank FDR
and the New Deal. The comedian died at 94 last week. He got his
start in a WPA class for would-be actors. The New Deal had a number
of programs to support the arts in the 1930s. A similar effort would
be a great idea today, but doesn't seem to be on anyone's agenda. It
is currently impossible for most musicians to make their usual living
performing, but they could be paid to record music and make it freely
available over the Internet. Jeet Heer:
Trolling Trump, the Lincoln Project also peddles militarism:
"The Never Trump super PAC makes entertaining ads that get under
the president's skin -- but progressives should take a closer look
at their agenda." When asked about the maxim that "the enemy of my
enemy is my friend," Richard Stallman noted that was, at best, an
heuristic. I doubt it's even that useful. It's easy to get seduced
by people who hate Trump for totally wrong reasons, like for making
conservatives look bad, or for failing to be a monomaniacal hawk
like John Bolton.
Writing in The Atlantic, conservative writer Andrew Ferguson,
no fan of the president,
criticized the Lincoln Project for fighting Trump with Trumpian
means. He described the ads as "personally abusive, overwrought,
pointlessly salacious, and trip-wired with non sequiturs."
This ethical critique has merit, but the real problem with the
Lincoln Project is political. To the extent that the ads articulate
any political vision, it is a desire to return to the hard-line
military aggression of the George W. Bush era.
On Tuesday, the Lincoln Project released an ad addressing
accusations that Trump hasn't protected American troops in
Afghanistan from a bounty on their lives supposedly placed by
the Russian government. The ad, titled "Betrayed," features Dr.
Dan Barkhuff, a physician and former Navy SEAL. "Months ago,
Donald Trump learned the Russians were paying a bounty for dead
American soldiers in Afghanistan and chose to do nothing about
it," Barkhuff said. "Any commander in chief with a spine would
be stomping the living shit out of some Russians right now --
diplomatically, economically, or, if necessary, with the sort of
asymmetric warfare they're using to send our kids home in body
bags." He added, "Mr. Trump, you're either a coward who can't
stand up to an ex-KGB goon, or you're complicit. Which is it?"
The article cites a bunch of liberals who applauded this ad.
On some level, I don't care why people decide to oppose Trump,
but I do worry about people who encourage Biden to be even more
hawkish than Trump, both because it's the wrong stance to take
and because I'm convinced that Hillary Clinton's commander-in-chief
posturing and long history of applauding belligerence cost her
the 2016 election. Biden's record is little better, which is all
the more reason to downplay his past mistakes. For some better
advise, see: John Nichols:
Anti-war groups push Biden and the Democrats to rethink foreign
policy. Sean Illing:
How Black Lives Matter fits into the long history of American radicalism:
Interview with Michael Kazin. Umair Irfan:
The "Godzilla" Saharan dust cloud over the US, explained: "The giant
dust cloud is part of a system that feeds the ocean, fertilizes the
rainforest, and suppresses hurricanes." Mugambi Jouet:
The Trump cult is loyal to an ideology, not the man: "A rise in
extreme polarization culminated in Trump -- and likely won't be
vanquished by Biden." This is an idea that's going around, but it
doesn't make much sense to me. Although some of Trump's followers --
someone like Steve Bannon -- could conjure up something that looks
like an ideology, Trump couldn't begin to articulate it. He's just
a rich guy who likes being in front of the camera, spouting the
received prejudices and irritable mental gestures he's picked up
watching Fox. His fans share those prejudices, and appreciate that
he's able to say what they can't -- they may even think that he's
fighting for them, but he's really just stroking his own ego. Once
he's gone, others will try to pick up the mantle, but I don't see
how anyone else can keep his movement together. On the other hand,
I doubt Trump will fade away like GW Bush did. He's going to rule
right-wing media until he dies or is incapacitated, so, sure, his
cult will be with us for a while. But it won't be an ideology. Jen Kirby:
Ezra Klein:
Natasha Korecki/Marc Caputo:
A Sun Belt time bomb threatens Trump's reelection: "Rising Covid-19
caseloads in Florida, Arizona and Texas raise fresh doubts about the
president's reelection prospects." Favorite line here: "Trump's campaign
accuses Democrats of exploiting tragedy." Josh Kovensky:
Trump admin scales back mandate that health insurers cover Covid tests.
Michael Kranish:
New York court sides with publisher of explosive book by President
Trump's niece. Kranish previously wrote about the book:
Mary Trump once stood up to her uncle Donald. Now her book describes a
'nightmare' of family dysfunction. Martin Longman:
What if Trump decides not to seek a second term? "It's not as crazy
of an idea as it sounds" -- but, really it is. Trump filed for reëlection
the day after his inauguration. Running for a second term is the only
thing he's actually wanted to do as president. He lets his underlings run
everything else, at least until they become too embarrassing, in which
case he makes them find more pliable and less competent replacements. So
what if he's going to lose? He stayed true to his blindest and dumbest
followers, and he certainly knows how to monetize whatever treachery
undid him. As for the Republicans, it's too late for them to find a
credible replacement. Sure, they could go with Mitt Romney, and piss
off his base. Or they could elevate Mike Pence, and bore them to death.
In any case, they're stuck with Trump's record, which is arguably worse
than the man himself (not that such distinctions matter to most of us).
Longman also wrote:
What happens when Trump stops believing he can win reelection?
Problem there is that the "chaos and malevolence" is coming anyway.
Trump can't help himself (not that he would if he could). Related:
Robert Kuttner:
Trump to Trump: You're fired!. Also not going to happen. Although
I did imagine that he might resign after getting reëlected, to get a
jump on cashing in. Or maybe after getting trounced, to give Pence a
presidential legacy, although he'd really just be running out the
clock, like a third-string quarterback. German Lopez:
Just 2 states meet these basic criteria to reopen and stay safe:
New York and Rhode Island meet 4 (of 5) criteria; 21 states and DC
meet 2 or 3; 27 states 0 or 1. Only 2 states and DC have "a sustained
two-week drop in coronavirus cases": Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
Eric Margolis:
The coming ecosystem collapse is already here for coral. Alan MacLeod:
In 'Russia bounty' story, evidence-free claims from nameless spies became
fact overnight. A story claiming "Russia secret offered Afghan militants
bounties to kill U.S. troops" was planted in the New York Times and picked
up everywhere, including among liberals who figured they could spin it into
their favored story lines: that Trump is a Putin puppet, or (more plausibly)
incompetent and indifferent. My initial reaction was that the story was a
crock, meant purely to sabotage the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and/or
to ratchet up cold war tensions with Russia, and nothing since then -- an
investigation that found one soldier who might have been affected, or a
"confirmation" from the Taliban -- has changed my mind. There are lots of
good reasons for being critical of Russia, but this one makes no sense.
For more:
Louis Menand:
This fourth of July, consider Trump's lobster fib.
It's not hard to understand Trump. It is hard to understand the people
in his Administration who enable the blather and the misinformation,
who spin-cycle it to bleach out the most offensive or dangerous
implications, and who parrot it dutifully. For the first two years of
Trump's Presidency, some of these people were known as "the adults in
the room." To an admittedly remote observer, those people looked
indistinguishable from opportunists willing to suppress their opinions
in the hopes of becoming Presidential puppet masters. They were dreaming.
All of them have departed with their reputations scarred.
Stephen Miles:
It's bad politics for Democrats to be hawkish on foreign policy.
Cites Elliot Engel ("one of only two dozen House Democrats out of 1888
who ultimately voted against the Iran deal"), defeated in last week's
primary, as a cautionary example, but the point should be made much
more generally. Hawkish Democrats are especially suspect, not least
because they usually frame their interventionist appeals as acts of
humanitarianism, and such crises are numerous and inevitable. Besides,
there's nothing many Americans hate more than "helping" unappreciative
others. Republicans may be more supportive of funding America's imperial
overreach, but they usually withhold actual war until they can gin up
a popular desire for spite and revenge -- something Americans do believe
in. Ian Millhiser:
Jeanne Morefield:
'Never in my country': COVID-19 and American Exceptionalism.
Senator Bernie Sanders' reasonable suggestion that the U.S., like Denmark,
should nationalize its healthcare system is dismissed as the fanciful pipe
dream of an aging socialist rather than an obvious solution to a human
problem embraced by nearly every other nation in the world. The Seattle
healthcare professional who expressed shock that even "Third World
countries" are "better equipped" than we are to confront COVID-19 betrays
a stunning ignorance of the diversity of healthcare systems within
developing countries. Cuba, for instance, has responded to this crisis
with an efficiency and humanity that puts the U.S. to shame.
Indeed, the U.S. is only beginning to feel the full impact of COVID-19's
explosive confrontation with our exceptionalism: if the unemployment rate
really does reach 32 percent, as has been predicted, millions of people
will not only lose their jobs but their health insurance as well. In the
middle of a pandemic.
Over 150 years apart, political commentators Edmund Burke and Aimé
Césaire referred to this blindness as the byproduct of imperialism.
Both used the exact same language to describe it; as a "gangrene" that
"poisons" the colonizing body politic. From their different historical
perspectives, Burke and Césaire observed how colonization boomerangs
back on colonial society itself, causing irreversible damage to nations
that consider themselves humane and enlightened, drawing them deeper
into denial and self-delusion.
Anna North:
Roe v. Wade isn't safe: "The Supreme Court just struck down an anti-abortion
law. Here's why access is still at risk." JC Pan:
Democrats can't quit their addiction to big-money donors: "The
urgency of beating Trump in November has once again set campaign
finance reform on the back burner." After 2008 would have been an
ideal time for Democrats to clamp down on money in campaigning, but
Obama had raised significantly more money than McCain, and was
looking forward to repeating his dominance in 2012, and members of
Congress in both parties were united in their ability to raise more
funds than their opponents. Further complication comes from a Supreme
Court firmly committed to protecting corruption in at least two ways:
equating money with free speech, and making it virtually impossible
to convict anyone of taking bribes. Daniel Politi:
Washington NFL team launches review of racist nickname: You mean
the Redskins? I remember that name being questioned fifty years ago.
On the other hand, the proposed replacements, starting with Warriors,
are often worse. John Quiggin:
Trumpism after Trump. More notes and conjecture than an argument.
Quiggin has also signed up to write a book on
The Economic Consequences of the Pandemic. If, as he assumes,
Biden will be the next president, with a workable majority in
Congress, the real question has less to do with rump Trumpism than
his third assumption: whether "mainstream Democrats recognize the
need for radical change, and Biden will align with the mainstream
position as he always has done." Quiggin's book will presumably
argue for "radical change" under those conditions. David Roberts:
House Democrats just put out the most detailed climate plan in US political
history: "A new select committee report is perfectly in tune with the
growing climate policy alignment on the left around standards, investments,
and justice." Paul Rosenberg:
The secret of his success: Donald Trump's six weird tricks for authoritarian
rule: Interview with Jennifer Mercieca, author of: Demagogue for
President: The Rhetorical Genius of Donald Trump. Daid Rothkopf:
'The most ignorant and unfit': What made America's worst ever leader?
Starts with a convenient quote from Michelle Obama: "Being president
doesn't change who you are, it reveals who you are." Rothkopf sifts
through various historian surveys of the worst presidents ever -- poor
lists, if you ask me, prejudiced against the mediocrities of the 19th
century while omitting Nixon and the Bushes, whose only saving graces
were to be followed by even worse Republicans -- but ultimately settles
on a past leader more temperamentally (and cognitively) suited for
comparing Trump to: George III. Theodore Schleifer:
America has almost 800 billionaires, a record high. Well, 788, up
12% from a year before, or 27% (from 620) in 2016. That's 0.0002409% of
the US population (328.2 million). Maybe it would be fairer to divide
by US households (128.58 million): 0.00061284%, or 1 in every 163,174
households. That's an unimaginably tiny fraction of the total -- about
2 people in Wichita (who happen to be Charles Koch and Phil Ruffin,
something you may know even if you're not from here). But those 788
billionaires control $3.4 trillion in assets, up 14% since the end of
2018. Andrea K Scott:
The removal of a Theodore Roosevelt statue is a good first step in
rethinking America's monuments. Melody Schreiber:
The climate crisis will be just as shockingly abrupt. Dylan Scott:
How Trump gave insurance companies free rein to sell bad health plans.
"Obamacare wasn't repealed. Trump's deregulation is eroding it anyway."
I an think of few things that are more injurious than insurance plans
that don't actually protect you from unexpected health care expenses.
One thing Obamacare did so was establish minimum standards of coverage --
although they also allowed huge deductibles and co-payments, so a great
many people wound up paying more out of pocket, but at least they had
some coverage for major expenses. Trump is just a co-conspirator to
fraud.
Why a Covid-19 drug costs $3,100. This piece doesn't provide a very
good explanation -- it mostly muddies the water with insurance variations
like deductibles -- and the section "is this a fair price for remdesivir
as a Covid-19 therapy?" is mostly nonsense. (For instance, Gilead figures
that if their drug reduces hospital stays 3-4 days, their "value proposition"
should reap a significant percentage of the saved hospital costs.) Bottom
line is that Big Pharma is built on patents and extortion pricing. This
is an example, not an exception.
David Dayen:
Time to seize drug patents.
The entire pharmaceutical sector has been raising prices during the
pandemic: 245 drugs hiked up between January and June according to
Patients for Affordable Drugs, including 61 being used for COVID-19
treatment and another 30 in use in clinical trials. . . . Hilariously,
Gilead's stock fell in Monday trading because investors thought they
should charge more.
If remdesivir were sold at the cost of production, it would cost
$10, not $3,120. The "value" of the drug comes with the reduction in
admission length, and the savings to hospitals and patients. But even
that value, based on the known science, shouldn't go too far past $400,
according to the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review. You could
say that Gilead needs to recoup its research and development costs, but
of course the U.S. government financed much of that research.
Donald Shaw:
Biden sides with Big Pharma against affordable coronavirus vaccine
plan [Marh 19]. David Sirota:
The US public paid to develop this COVID-19 drug. It will cost $3,000
a dose. Title seems to have the price wrong ($3,100 for a 5-day
course of treatment, not per dose).
Similarly, bipartisan legislation passed in 1980 created so-called
march-in rights that empower the government to authorize another
company -- or the government itself -- to produce a lower-priced
generic version of a high-priced medicine.
The problem, of course, is that the government's health care
apparatus is controlled by former pharmaceutical industry executive
Alex Azar.
Robert J Shapiro:
Trump's bungled pandemic response is crushing American incomes:
"New data shows the costs of the administration's failure to stem
the coronavirus outbreak."
The only force staving off desperate conditions for many households
was the one-time checks the government sent most Americans and the
temporary expansion of jobless benefits.
Now with the resurgence of COVID-19 infections, Congress has little
choice but to approve another round of checks and extend the generous
unemployment benefits. If Congress does approve a lot more help, millions
of American households will still face financial peril -- and if Congress
fails to step up again, tens of millions of Americans could confront
financial ruin.
As a dose of reality, the new income data show that our current
conditions are roughly three times as severe as the Great Recession.
All personal income fell 4.2 percent in May and 3.0 percent over the
three months from March through May. It took nine months for personal
income to fall that much during the Great Recession. Wage and salary
income actually increased by 3.3 percent in May, as the payroll grants
under the CARES program kicked in and businesses began to reopen. Even
so, wage and salary income fell 7.9 percent from March through May,
again more than during the entire Great Recession.
The reason that total personal income fell "only" 3.0 percent over
the three months -- the steepest drop on record -- while total wage and
salary income fell an astounding 7.9 percent in three months was due
almost entirely to those government checks and jobless benefits. After
setting aside government transfers, the BEA reports that total personal
income fell 7.5 percent in three months.
Apa Sherpa (as told to Emily Atkin):
I've climbed Everest 21 times. It's not the mountain it used to be.
Matt Shuham:
"Nothing is normal here": Trump campaign claims its NDA applies to
Omarosa's WH work. Jeffrey Toobin:
John Roberts distances himself from the Trump-McConnell legal project:
But (see Millhiser above) he still strikes me as a team player, casting
the deciding vote to uphold Republican voting restrictions. Occasional
votes that seem independent could just as well be calculated to retain
a shred of integrity for a Court that will increasingly curtail democracy,
especially if people don't panic and stop the flow of Federalist Society
judges. Nahal Toosi:
Human rights groups turn their sights on Trump's America. Sina Toosi:
How John Bolton and Mike Pompeo thwarted Trump's plan to get a deal with
Iran. More Bolton (not that you need any):
Alex Ward:
Donald Trump is vulnerable on China. So is Joe Biden. They're both
wrong, too, although that's not what they perceive as each other's
faults. Liz Essley Whyte:
Trump's favorite weapon in the coronavirus fight: Deregulation:
Well, his favorite weapon in every fight, regardless of aptness.
"Instead of addressing this crisis head-on, the Trump administration
appears to be exploiting the chaos of the pandemic by rolling back
critics civil rights regulatory protections and environmental
safeguards." Appears? Colin Woodard:
Woodrow Wilson was even worse than you think. Robin Wright:
To the world, we're now America the racist and pitiful. Matthew Yglesias:
Ask a question, or send a comment.
Monday, June 29, 2020
Music Week
June archive
(finished).
Music: Current count 33526 [33485] rated (+41), 211 [216] unrated (-5).
Last Monday of the month, so spent most of the day doing bookkeeping
for the monthly roll-up (link above). Five weeks this month, so the
total is up -- 193 records, or 194 if you count the Hal Singer regrade,
which I slipped into "old music" instead of "grade changes" for context.
About half old music, with dives into records I had missed when a new
one (or a death or a
reader question) tempted me to look
further or some other reference).
Speaking of questions, I field ones about David Murray and James
Carter, and duck one on jazz books, in
my latest batch. Use
the form to ask me more.
Recommended music links: No systematic search, but these
are a few things I had open:
Songwriter
Johnny Mandel (94) also died this week.
New records reviewed this week:
Al Bilali Soudan: Tombouctou (2020, Clermont Music):
Group, from northern Mali, their isolated town more commonly (these
days) spelled Timbuktu. Second album (at least from this NY label,
which specializes in music from the Sahara Desert), vocals shouted
over a swell of harsh strings and drums, a combo that feels so right
it overcomes my instinct to dismiss it as unbearable.
A-
Jehnny Beth: To Love Is to Live (2010, Caroline):
Stage name for French singer-songwriter Camille Bethomier, moved
to England in 2006, first solo album after recording as John &
Jehn (2007-10) and Savages (2013-16). A flair for the dramatic --
perhaps prefigured as her first solo project covered David Bowie
songs, and her first solo tour opened for PJ Harvey.
B+(*)
Don Braden/Joris Teepe Quartet: In the Spirit of Herbie
Hancock: Live at De Witte (2019 [2020], O.A.P.): Mainstream
tenor saxophonist, made something of a splash in 1995. Second album
with the Dutch bassist, who arranged 4 (of 6) Hancock songs, the
leaders adding one song each, plus a cover of "Yesterdays." With
Rob Van Bavel on piano and Owen Hart Jr. on drums.
B+(***)
Phoebe Bridgers: Punisher (2020, Dead Oceans):
Singer-songwriter, from Los Angeles, second album, also a principal
in (so far) one-album groups Boygenius (with Julien Baker and Lucy
Dacus) and Better Oblivion Community Center (with Conor Oberst).
Mostly ballads, surprised I noticed as many lines as I did, even
wrote down "it's amazing to me how much you can say when you don't
know what you're talking about." My pleasure spots were mostly in
the drums, and there aren't enough of them, but the acclaim may
well be deserved. "I Know the End" winds up most impressively.
B+(**)
Daniel Carter/Matthew Shipp/William Parker/Gerald Cleaver:
Welcome Adventure! Vol. 1 (2019 [2020], 577): Leader plays
tenor sax, trumpet, and flute, backed by a rhythm section that's great
on paper and bound to Carter by decades of friendship. Big splash up
front, tails off a bit toward the end.
B+(***)
Caterpillar Quartet: Threads (2019 [2020], ESP-Disk):
Brooklyn group, unknowns to me: Ken Kobayashi (drums), Henry Raker
(alto sax), Steve Holtje (piano, synthesizer), Jochem van Dijk (bass
guitar, effects). Postbop with some edge, blunted a bit by the soft
landing.
B+(**) [cdr] [06-26]
Whit Dickey Trio: Expanding Light (2019 [2020], Tao
Forms): Drummer, long associated with Matthew Shipp, played in David
S. Ware's Quartet for a while. Trio here with Rob Brown (alto sax)
and Brandon Lopez (bass). Brown is consistently terrific here.
A-
Beth Duncan: I'm All Yours (2020, Saccat): Subtitled
(back cover) "Duncan sings Tabilio" -- all songs by Martine Tabilio.
Third album for the singer. No idea about the "Dutch-born, Oakland-based"
songwriter. Jackam Manricks arranged.
B [cd] [07-24]
Bob Dylan: Rough and Rowdy Ways (2020, Columbia):
Old man, not much voice left, his songcraft ever more dependent on
slow blues shuffles. I never put much faith in his Nobel-certified
rhymes, and my ears aren't sharp enough to catch many lines here.
But every time I play this, "Crossing the Rubicon" mesmerizes for
7:22, and my interest remains piqued through the relaxed 9:34 of
"Key West (Philosopher Pirate)," and well into the even longer
"Murder Most Foul" (16:54). Probably just a mid-B+ before, but
I'll take it.
A-
John Finbury: Quatro (2020, Green Flash Music):
Composer, based in Massachusetts, website shows four previous albums.
This is mostly a vehicle for singer Magos Herrera, backed by piano
(Chano Domínguez), bass (John Patitucci), and drums (Antonio Sanchez).
Group suggests a Latin tilt, as do 4 (of 7) song titles in Spanish.
Can't say as I noticed that from playing.
B [cd]
Jean-Marc Foussat/Daunik Lazro/Evan Parker: Café Oto 2020
(2020, Fou, 2CD): French guitarist, plays synths and electronics here,
solo on the first disc, with two saxophonists on the second: Lazro on
tenor and baritone, Parker on soprano. Both are interesting, but more
is better.
B+(**) [cd]
Wendy Gondeln/Mats Gustafsson/Wolfgang Voigt: The Shithole
Country & Boogie Band (2016-18 [2020], Corbett vs. Dempsey):
Artists listed as "featuring" under the title, which could be the band
name if this really was a band, which doesn't seem to be the case.
Saxophonist Gustafsson seems to have laid down the initial tracks
(including piano mate and live electronics), then handed them off to
Gondeln, who added her bits (violin, electronic treatments and more)
and passed them on to Voigt (editing and mix), with some guitar and
lap top guitar provided by "special guest" Martin Siewert.
B+(***) [bc]
CeeLo Green: CeeLo Green Is Thomas Callaway (2020,
Easy Eye Sound): Seems to be an unwritten law that hip-hop aliases
will eventually revert to using given names, at least in a title.
Callaway started in Goodie Mob in 1991, went solo in 2002, sixth
album here, not counting his detour as Gnarls Barkley. First two
were pretty great, but he slipped from there, raps never, and his
soul ballads tend toward the grandiose and melodramatic.
B
Haim: Women in Music Pt. III (2020, Columbia): Three
sisters -- Alana, Danielle, and Este Haim -- from Los Angeles. Third
album, the others named differently. Producers Rostam Batmanglij and
Ariel Rechtshaid share most writing credits, and Paul Thomas Anderson
does their videos. Makes for a consistent well-oiled MOR pop machine.
B+(**)
Hinds: The Prettiest Curse (2020, Mom + Pop): Girl
band from Madrid, Spain, originally the Deers. Third album, sounds
like a crowd cheering section adding to their wall of sound. Messy
good fun.
A-
Jason Kao Hwang: Human Rites Trio (2019 [2020],
True Sound): Violinist, born in America but studied Chinese classical
music and added it to his jazz mix. With Ken Filiano (bass) and
Andrew Drury (drums). Sample title: "Battle for the Indelible
Truth."
A- [cd] [07-01]
Jumpstarted Plowhards: Round One (2019, Recess, EP):
Postpunk "group" -- joint effort between Tod Cofelliere (F.Y.P, Toys
That Kill, Underground Railroad to Candyland) and Mike Watt (bassist,
has a long and checkered career that started with the Minutemen).
Eight songs, eight different drummers, 18:49.
B+(*)
Corb Lund: Agricultural Tragic (2020, New West):
Country singer-songwriter from Alberta, topics range from grizzly
bears to Oklahomans including whiskey and lots of horses. Jaida
Dreyer joins in a duet, arguing for gin instead.
B+(**)
Benjamin Moussay: Promontoire (2019 [2020], ECM):
French pianist, three trio albums since 2002, this one a solo.
B+(**)
Bobby Previte/Jamie Saft/Nels Cline: Music From the Early 21st
Century (2019 [2020], RareNoise): Drums, keyboards, guitar, all
pieces jointly credited. All three have checkered histories dabbling
in fusion as well as more avant pursuits, so this foray into jazzed-up
noise makes sense. Of its time, if not quite the Zeitgeist.
B+(*)
Sonar With David Torn: Tranceportation (Volume 2)
(2019 [2020], RareNoise): Swiss ensemble, Stephen Thelen and two
others play tritone guitar/bass, plus there's a drummer. Ninth album
since 2012, third with guitarist Torn, also credited with loops.
Disciplined and understated, not a note out of place. May, given
more time, be as good as (Volume 1).
B+(***) [bc]
Alister Spence: Whirlpool: Solo Piano (2019 [2020],
Alister Spence Music, 2CD): Australian pianist, eighth album since
2012, has a couple recent albums with Satoko Fujii, is a less
commanding figure solo, but remains interesting.
B+(*) [cd] [07-24]
Dan Willis and Velvet Gentlemen: The Monk Project
(2018-19 [2020], Belle Avenue): Saxophonist (tenor, soprano, baritone,
EWI, duduk, zurna), several albums including Velvet Gentlemen
(2006), tackles eight Monk tunes. Band mostly electric instruments,
most notably Pete McCann on guitar and Ron Oswanski on Fender Rhodes.
Sounds a bit off, and not in a particularly Monkian way.
B [cd] [07-17]
Adrian Younge & Ali Shaheed Muhammad: Jazz Is Dead 001
(2020, Jazz Is Dead, EP): Hip-hop producers, Younge's discography
exploded from 2009, his trademark recycling 1970s beats for old style
feel, sometimes claiming artist co-credit (as with two Ghostface Killah
releases). The duo have several records together, starting with a 2016
soundtrack. Idea here is to tap into "the masters," each gets one track:
Roy Ayers, Gary Bartz, Brian Jackson, João Donato, Doug Carn, Marcos
Valle, Azymuth, The Midnight Hour. Eight tracks, 29:51, the only one
over 3:05 is with Azymuth (9:27).
B+(*)
Adrian Younge & Ali Shaheed Muhammad: Jazz Is Dead 002:
Roy Ayers (2020, Jazz Is Dead, EP): Just Ayers this time,
resulting in much confusion as to how this is credited/titled. I've
heard a fair amount of Ayers but this funk mix is too contemporary
for me to recognize him here. Eight tracks, 26:01. Choice cut is
"African Sounds," which despite the label brings forth some jazz.
B+(**)
Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:
Willem Breuker/Han Bennink: New Acoustic Swing Duo
(1967-68 [2019], Corbett vs. Dempsey, 2CD): First album released by
the Instant Composers Pool (ICP label), a scratchy, tetchy duo,
sax (and other reed instruments) and drums (and other percussive
objects). Reissue adds a previously unreleased Live in Essen
tape, equally worthy, ends better.
B+(***)
Grayson Capps: South Front Street: A Retrospective 1997-2019
(1997-2019 [2020], The Royal Potato Family): Singer-songwriter from
Opelika, Alabama; got a degree in theatre from Tulane, living in New
Orleans until Katrina blew him back to Alabama. Ten albums 2005-17.
B+(*)
Neil Young: Homegrown (1974-75 [2020], Reprise):
Vault album, recorded between On the Beach and Zuma,
country-ish, no especially strong songs (although the title one is
catchy enough), feels like it never got past the demo stage. Still,
interesting that it's getting reviewed more enthusiastically than
any recent new Young release, or even his other archive projects.
Twelve songs, 35:08.
B+(**)
Old music:
Al Bilali Soudan: Al Bilali Soudan (2012, Clermont
Music): First album, group from Timbuktu, Mali, four members on the
cover. Fairly crude thrash and ululation, ultimately proving more
agreeable than you'd first suspect.
B+(**)
Don Braden Quintet: The Time Is Now (1991, Criss Cross):
Tenor saxophonist, first album, with Tom Harrell (trumpet/flugelhorn),
Benny Green (piano), Christian McBride (bass), and Carl Allen (drums).
Three originals, three standards, jazz tunes from Herbie Hancock and
Jackie McLean.
B+(**)
Don Braden: Organic (1994 [1995], Epicure): Two dates,
one with Jack McDuff on organ and Winard Harper on drums, the other
with Larry Goldings and Cecil Brooks III, plus Russell Malone (guitar)
on most tracks, with scattered spots for Tom Harrell (trumpet/flugelhorn
on 3), Fathead Newman (tenor sax on 2), Leon Parker (percussion on 1).
B+(**)
Don Braden: Brighter Days (2001, High Note): Quartet,
with Xavier Davis (piano), Dwayne Burno (bass), and Cecil Brooks III
(drums). Tone seems a bit off.
B+(*)
Milt Buckner & Hal Singer: Milt & Hal [The Definitive
Black & Blue Sessions] (1966 [2004], Black & Blue):
Organ player (1915-77), in a relaxed, bluesy set with tenor saxophone
(more on Singer below), with Johnny Letman (trumpet), Tiny Grimes
(guitar), and Wallace Bishop (drums). Singer had moved to Paris in
1965
B+(**) Hyphy Hitz (2004-07 [2007], TVT): Bay Area hip-hop
compilation, no names I recognize although several have substantial
careers with dozens of records (Messy Marv, Keak Da Sneak, Mac Dre,
Twisted Black, Balance, Mistah F.A.B.). Fast-paced, overstated,
self-consciously ridiculous (or stupid seems to be the preferred term).
[PS: I see that Tommy Burns, aka Twisted Black, "was sentenced to life
in prison after found guilty of conspiracy to sell crack cocaine." He
was 30 at the time. His sentence was appealed and reduced to 30 years.]
B+(***) [dl]
Pharoah Sanders: Izipho Zam (My Gifts) (1969 [1973],
Strata-East): Three-cut blowout, a more avant group than the one that
cut Karma a month later, with Sonny Sharrock (guitar) the main
addition. Leon Thomas sings the opener, adds to the percussion section
(with Chief Bey on African drums and Billy Hart conventional). Title
cut runs 28:50.
B+(***) [yt]
Hal Singer: Rent Party (1948-56 [1994], Savoy Jazz):
Tenor saxophonist from Tulsa, survived the 1921 Massacre as a 2-year-old,
still kicking at 100. Had a big r&b hit with "Corn Bread," leading
off here. Recorded into the 1980s, and occasionally since. I was reminded
of him when he showed up on a recent list of
15 Essential Black Liberation Jazz Tracks, but I had to hear these
oldies first. Jukebox singles, the vocals pure rock and roll, the sax
always honking.
A-
Hal Singer With Charlie Shavers: Blue Stompin' (1959
[1994], Prestige/OJC): After sax r&b faded, Singer landed this
mainstream date with the trumper near-great and a rhythm section that
could swing hard -- Ray Bryant (piano), Wendell Marshall (bass), and
Osie Johnson (drums) -- blowing away them blues.
[Was: B+] B+(***)
Hal Singer: Blues and News (1971, Futura): Small
French label, cover notes "featuring Art Taylor [drums] and Siegfried
Kessler [piano/flute]," omitting Jacques Bolognesi (trombone), Jean-Claude
Andre (guitar), and Patrice Caratini (bass). One piece by Kessler ("Blues
for Hal"), five by Singer, including "Malcolm X" -- the piece cited in
the link above.
B+(**)
Hal Singer/Jef Gilson: Soul of Africa (1974, Le Chant
Du Monde): Another French album for the tenor saxophonist, sharing the
credit line with the French pianist (1926-2012, actual name Jean-François
Quiévreux). Group includes Jacky Samson on bass and a lot of percussion,
including vibes and a group called Malagasy Rhythm. "The High Life" is
a highlight, comparable to Dudu Pukwana's In the Townships.
A-
Hal Singer: Senior Blues (1991, Carrere): Recorded in
France, backed by piano trio (Bernard Maury, Eric Vinceno, Eddie Allen),
title cut a Horace Silver tune. Another very solid album.
B+(**)
Hal Singer & Massimo Faraò Trio: We're Still Buddies
(2001 [2005], Azzurra Music): Faraò is an Italian pianist, couple dozen
albums since 1995, with Paolo Benedettini (bass) and Bobby Durham (drums).
Singer was 82 at this point, relaxed and lucid. Durham sings two songs,
not very well.
B+(*)
Hal Singer: Challenge (2010, Marge): Ninety years old,
seems likely to be his last album, recorded in Paris, but his pick up
band for once is American, young, and pretty famous: Lafayette Gilchrist
(piano), Jaribu Shahid (bass), Hamid Drake (drums), plus Rasul Siddik
(trumpet) on two tracks, and David Murray (tenor sax) everywhere. The
latter more than earns his "featuring" credit, but the two-sax work
early on is pretty thrilling.
A-
Grade (or other) changes:
Hal Singer With Charlie Shavers: Blue Stompin' (1959
[1994], Prestige/OJC): See above.
[was: B+] B+(***)
Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:
- Ricardo Grilli: 1962 (Tone Rogue) [07-10]
Ask a question, or send a comment.
Sunday, June 28, 2020
Weekend Roundup
Late-breaking tweet from @realDonaldTrump: "Nobody wants a Low IQ
person in charge of our Country," trying to deflect from the obvious
by adding that "Sleepy Joe is definitely a Low IQ person!" Sure, he's
never struck me as especially bright, but it's rather clever that
the Democrats are nominating someone Trump cannot attack without the
slanders reflecting back on him.
Trump's approval rate at 538 is down to 40.6%, with 56.1% disapprove.
That's the biggest split I can recall.
Onion headline:
Officials warn defunding police could lead to spike in crime from
ex-officers with no outlet for violence. When I mentioned this to
my wife, she already had examples to cite. Article cites "L.A. police
chief Michel Moore" as saying:
The truth is that there are violent people in our society, and we need
a police department so they have somewhere to go during the day to
channel their rage. If these cuts are allowed to continue, we could
be looking at a very real future where someone with a history of
domestic abuse is able to terrorize their spouse with impunity
instead of being occupied testing out new tactical military equipment
or pepper-spraying some random teens. The fact that these dangerous
attackers and killers are being gainfully employed by the LAPD is
the only thing standing between us and complete chaos.
By the way, there is a
new batch of questions
and answers, not all on music. Ask more,
here.
Some scattered links this week:
Zeeshan Aleem:
Hannah Allam:
Vehicle attacks rise as extremists target protesters. Isaac J Bailey:
We don't need to cancel George Washington. But we should be honest about
who he was. I agree with that. Washington, and for that matter Thomas
Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe are not just important figures
in American history, but can also still be inspiring. In some respects, I
could argue the same for Andrew Jackson and Woodrow Wilson, to pick two
highly problematic characters who have received some critical attention
recently. Nor am I much bothered by statues of Christopher Columbus,
although I can't think of any redeeming qualities he had. Again, the
history should be made clear, but I'm not sure the icons matter much.
The Confederates are one exception I'll grant: the sooner we get rid
of these tokens of white supremacy, the better. And I hope some day the
deliberately orchestrated plot to names things after Ronald Reagan gets
unrolled. Nothing good can be linked back to his legacy. And if you
don't want to melt all that "art" down, perhaps store it in a musty
museum somewhere -- as long as it's treated with the solemnity of
Auschwitz. By the way, I'm totally cool with
John Wayne airport could get a new name that doesn't celebrate a
homophobic white supremacist.
Riley Beggin:
Steve Benen:
How the GOP gave up on governing in order to keep winning elections:
Excerpt from Benen's new book, The Impostors: How Republicans Quit
Governing and Seized American Politics. More on this "no governing"
meme below. Charles M Blow:
Can we call Trump a killer? Argues for "his culpability in the
neglectful handling of the coronavirus." That's a distinction I don't
find terribly interesting, but there are other cases where the evidence
is undeniable, like the assassination of Iranian Gen. Qasem Suleimani,
which Trump has bragged about. You might object that all US presidents
order killings abroad, but that's no excuse let alone comfort. Obama
got his first taste of blood when he ordered the killing of a Somali
pirate, and that just opened the floodgates, leading to hundreds of
drone killings and the summary execution of Osama Bin Laden, as well
as the Air Force's casual slaughter of bystanders. You might object
that the sheer numbers lost to Trump's delayed Covid-19 reaction and
premature re-opening far exceed the drone kill count (perhaps not the
military offensives), and besides here we're talking dead Americans,
but negligence is always messy to prove. On the other hand, where has
Trump not been negligent and careless? The Mexico border and Puerto
Rico are two cases that leap to mind, and I expect you can find bodies
there, too. On the other hand, calling him Killer is too likely to be
taken as flattery. I'll wait for the ICC indictments. Max Blumenthal:
Jim Bovard:
The Korean War atrocities no one wants to talk about. Technically,
the Korea War is America's longest running war -- 70 years this week --
because the US never had the decency to acknowledge that it was pointless
and over. But that's hardly the only thing the US remains in denial over.
More on Korea:
Khang Vu:
Trump is wrecking South Korea's relationship with North Korea. Max Balhorn:
How South Korea's pro-democracy movement fought to ban "murderous tear
gas". Doug Bandow:
We should celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Korean War by leaving:
"The US doesn't need to protect the south any more." More pointedly, the
US is keeping South Korea from negotiating its own separate peace -- as
such, the US presence is more threatening than reassuring. Dan DePetris:
Don't tie peace on the Korean Peninsula to denuclearization in the
North. We have managed to live with "hostile" powers possessing
nuclear weapons since 1950, and none have used those bombs against
us (unlike what the US did to Japan in 1945, when the US still had
a monopoly on such terror). The only thing that makes North Korea
different is that we've insisted on not formally ending the war
which de facto ended in 1953. The only way to lessen the threat is
to reduce the degree of hostility, which at present mostly takes
the form of crippling economic sanctions against the North, and
to open up formal lines of communication and trade. Recognizing
that North Korea has nuclear weapons and the rocketry to deliver
them is at this point common sense. Morever, it's clear that the
only reason they bothered to develop such useless weapons is to
force the US to recognize that they're too dangerous not to treat
with the basic respect that normal nations routinely show each
other. For more, see the Reckford article below, which also cites
the failure of sanctions against Cuba and Venezuela to produce
any results imagined as favorable to the US. Jessica Lee:
The Korean War started the trend of endless wars for America. How
do we change course?
The United States is not equipped to solve every global problem. No
nation is. In the case of the Korean War, our failure to close that
chapter of history has allowed mistrust to fester for so long that
détente seems impossible, despite the fact that lowering tensions
would protect U.S. interests in the region better than the status quo.
Owen Miller:
Uncovering the hidden history of the Korean War. Kap Seol:
The US didn't bring freedom to South Korea -- its people did. Seong-ho Sheen:
To have any chance at ending the Korea War, America must become more
flexible. Louie Reckford:
Why Trump's 'maximum pressure' campaigns are a maximum failure. John Cassidy:
Donald Trump's big problem with senior voters. Kyle Cheney/Leah Nylen:
Prosecutor says he was pressured to cut Roger Stone 'a break' because
of his ties to Trump. Sarah Churchwell:
American Fascism: It has happened here.
American fascist energies today are different from 1930s European fascism,
but that doesn't mean they're not fascist, it means they're not European
and it's not the 1930s. They remain organized around classic fascist tropes
of nostalgic regeneration, fantasies of racial purity, celebration of an
authentic folk and nullification of others, scapegoating groups for economic
instability or inequality, rejecting the legitimacy of political opponents,
the demonization of critics, attacks on a free press, and claims that the
will of the people justifies violent imposition of military force. Vestiges
of interwar fascism have been dredged up, dressed up, and repurposed for
modern times. Colored shirts might not sell anymore, but colored hats are
doing great.
Max Cohen:
Bernie's student army learns to live with Biden. Given time (and
Trump), stories like this were bound to appear. Aaron Ross Coleman:
Protesters win a new investigation into Elijah McClain's death. Nancy Cook/Adam Cancryn:
Trump team weights a CDC scrubbing to deflect mounting criticism.
Does he know anything about management other than "you're fired"? Ranjani Chakraborty:
What "defund the police" really means. Fabiola Cineas:
These protests feel different because they're shifting public opinion:
Interiew with Megan Ming Francis.
As she points out in her book, Civil Rights and the Making of the
Modern American State, the NAACP from 1909 to 1923 mobilized
state-building by first shifting public opinion, then creating change
within political and legal structures. And according to polls, opinion
is already shifting: In 2015, just 51 percent of Americans believed
racism is a big problem in the US; now 76 percent of Americans do.
The menacing symbolism of the noose: "Noose incidents are uncoincidentally
on the rise as protesters continue to demand justice for Black lives." Eli Clifton:
The hedge fund man behind pro-Trump media's new war on China.
Huayi Zhang, associated with Robert Mercer. Jason Ditz:
Tiffanie Drayton:
Global protests reveal that white supremacy is a problem everywhere.
John Feffer:
What will it take to defeat Trumpism? "Learning lessons from the end
of the Confederacy, Nazi Germany, and Saddam's Iraq" -- a mixed bag of
examples, all three thoroughly defeated militarily (Iraq least decisively),
then allowed to reconstitute themselves (the Confederacy most along its
original, white supremacist lines). It's much easier for a foreign power
to defeat a malevolent faction (slaveholders, Nazis, Baathists) than it
is to keep those ideas from re-emerging in the defeated populace. Still,
the relative success in de-Nazifying Germany has more to do with ethnic
unity (vs. the black-white divide in the South, and the Sunni-Shiite-Kurd
divide in Iraq), and the annihilated value of Nazism for the resurgence
of German capitalism. (A big part of the reason Germany recovered so well
was the imposition of worker participation in corporate boards, which has
mostly kept German corporations from turning into predatory profit-scrapers
like their American and British counterparts.) Still, I wonder whether
Feffer isn't making too much out of Trumpism. Given the incoherence of
its leader and the ineptness of its followers, it's likely after defeat
to break down into its constituent parts and crawl back into the woodwork,
festering, waiting for its next charismatic revival.
Feffer notes that "in West Germany in 1947, 55% of those living under
the US occupation believed that 'National Socialism was a good idea badly
carried out.'" The occupation of Germany at that time was still pretty
harsh, and poverty was widespread, but after the Bundesrepublic gained
independence in 1949, and the economy boomed with the European Coal and
Steel Community in 1952, Nazi sympathies faded away. The only sure way
to get rid of Trumpism is to fix the problems it arose to fight, or show
that those problems aren't real. Russell Arben Fox:
The coronavirus in Kansas: The first 100 days. Covid-19 cases have
continued to rise, with Sedgwick County topping 1,000 cases. For more,
see John Handy/Andy Tsubass Field:
Kansas communities see dramatic spikes in coronavirus cases. Andrew Freedman/Matthew Cappucci:
Historic Saharan dust event fouls air along Gulf Coast as next blast
enters Caribbean. Susan B Glasser:
Trump retreats to his Hannity bunker: "Beaten by the pandemic and
down in the polls, a President and his propagandist create an alternate
reality." Amy Goldstein/Emily Guskin:
Almost one-third of black Americans know someone who has died of covid-19,
survey shows: Compare to 9% of white Americans. Alex Henderson:
Respected marketing guru explains how Trump could 'monetize' a loss to
Biden in November -- and make millions of dollars from his far-right
MAGA base: Donny Deutsch. Eoin Higgins:
Why a socialized system like Medicare for All beats for-profit healthcare
in one chart of covid-19 infection rates. Gil Hochberg:
An anti-colonialist Zionist? Remembering Albert Memmi: "The great
prophet of anti-colonialism embraces Zionism without ever questioning
its colonial implications." Memmi was born in Tunisia, was Jewish,
wrote The Colonizer and the Colonized (1957) and many other
books, was "asked to leave" when Tunisia became independent, lived
in France until dying at age 99. Also on Memmi:
Jack Holmes:
There is no plan. There is no second-term agenda. Takeaway
from a Hannity interview, but just because Trump couldn't think of
an agenda doesn't mean there won't be one. Trump has long delegated
odious tasks like thinking and doing to the little people (mostly,
it seems, Pence and Kushner).
The fact is that the Republican Party hasn't been much interested
in governing the country for some time. They want to deregulate
industries whose executives pay the campaign bills, and cut taxes
on the donor class, and knuckle immigrants, but the idea of drawing
up a comprehensive set of policies to make life better for the broader
American public has long been anathema. (The Democrats often govern
incompetently, and with too much regard for the preferences of powerful
interests over those of working people, but they do seek to govern the
country.) Trump is merely the most garish expression of this, turning
the nation's highest governing office into a rolling circus act while
shredding the institutions of democracy, and while the termites of the
state go to work behind the scenes.
This thing about the Republicans not being interested in governing
has been making the rounds lately, and rather misses the point. The
Republicans are obsessed with grabbing and monopolizing power, but
they actually have a very narrow definition of governing. Their aim
is to use power to accumulate more power, so they mostly see the
government as a vast patronage machine that can be used to reward
their supporters and punish their enemies, and that's about it. The
closest thing any Republican had to a vision was Tom DeLay's K Street
Project, where they demanded that lobbyists support their culture war
in order to qualify for graft favors. But fear seems to drive them
even more than greed: by seizing power, they deny it to their mortal
enemies, the Democrats, who if given the opening would surely also
use their power to reward their supporters and punish their enemies.
That view isn't fair because Democrats habitually try to rule for the
benefit of everyone, whereas Republicans are much more discriminating
in who they help and hurt. Where Republicans most obviously fail is
in trying to govern in a crisis. They don't plan, they don't prepare,
their graft becomes visible, and quite often they simply don't care.
Trump is the worst ever in this regard, but you have to go back
generations to find competent Republican administrators. A big part
of this can be traced back to how the Republican campaign machinery
is designed expressly to do nothing but attack Democrats. Trump has
no agenda for a second term because he doesn't even comprehend what
he's been doing in his first term -- except, that is, relentlessly
attacking his numerous enemies. That's all he's got to campaign on.
Sean Illing:
"It's ideologue meets grifter": How Bill Barr made Trumpism possible.
Interview with David Rohde, author of a
New Yorker profile on Barr. Christopher Ingraham:
New research explores how conservative media misinformation may have
intensified the severity of the pandemic. Umair Irfan:
Why it's so damn hot in the Arctic right now. Related:
Alex Isenstadt:
Roge Karma:
4 ideas to replace traditional police officers. Ezra Klein:
Trump's reality TV presidency is being crushed by reality. Draws
a lot on Stuart Stevens, Mitt Romney's chief campaign strategist in
2012 and author of It Was All a Lie: How the Republican Party
Became Donald Trump, talking a lot about the incompetency and
incoherence of Trump's government. One thing Stevens says: "To me,
the only thing remotely like it is the collapse of communism in the
Soviet Union, because the dissonance between what the party was and
what it said it was was just so great."
In praise of polarization: "How identity politics changed the
Democratic Party -- for the better." Without the guiding hand of
identity there wouldn't be polarization, a subject that Klein flogged
to death in his book, Why We're Polarized. Carolyn Kormann:
A disastrous summer in the arctic. Paul Krugman:
Nicole Lafond:
Barr joins Trump effort to will antifa into existence with new 'anti-gov
extremists' task force. Eric Levitz:
The 'V-shaped' recovery has died of coronavirus. Wasn't going to
happen anyway, because the panic and lockdown changed buying habits
in ways that simply re-opening wouldn't (and couldn't) undo. Perhaps
at some point, if the stimulus remains robust and is widely distributed
people will feel a desire to spend some of their savings on big-ticket
items, but that's a while off. More likely, the Republicans will kill
off stimulus (except for the stock market) and we'll get a double-dip
recession instead. (Was tempted to say W-shaped, but still not sure of
the eventual upstroke.) Ryan Lizza/Laura Barron-Lopez/Holly Otterbein:
Why Biden is rejecting Black Lives Matter's boldest proposals:
"Activists want to defund the police. Biden won't even legalize pot."
This stuff doesn't bother me, at least not like his Venezuela tweet
did. He'll drag his feet, but he's at least somewhat open to reason.
And given the gauntlet that any sort of reform has to run, he'll
likely be there at the end, not leading but also not obstructing,
and that's probably where his broadest supporters want him. German Lopez:
Robert Mackey:
Josh Marshall:
Princeton drops Woodrow Wilson from name of public policy school.
Wilson was president of Princeton before moving into politics, so this
particular naming was an obvious choice at the time, and I doubt it's
being given up lightly. Wilson did several notably progressive things
as president. He also started two wars with Mexico, engaged in a lot
of "gunboat diplomacy" in the Caribbean, led the US into WWI, and ran
a very aggressive campaign against war dissenters -- notably jailing
presidential candidate Eugene Debs. He represented the US personally
in the talks leading to the Treaty of Versailles, making a promise
that David Fromkin turned on its head for his essential book on the
post-WWI Middle East: A Peace to End All Peace. Well into the
Cold War era, he was revered by Democrats for his internationalism,
and his opponents' isolationism is still a dirty epithet. Many of
these things should be giving us doubts about his legacy, but the
one that's finally catching up with him is explained by Dylan
Matthews in his 2015 article:
Woodrow Wilson was extremely racist -- even by the standards of his
time, which was written after Princeton students started objecting
to his name heading Princeton's School of Public and International
Affairs. Madeline Marshall:
Why America's police look like soldiers: "Why are the police bringing
military assault rifles to protests?" Dylan Matthews:
How police unions became so powerful -- and how they can be tamed. Media Matters: This could be an ongoing series, but for
now just a taste of how Fox et al. are handling the debacle:
Ian Millhiser:
Nicola Narea:
Ella Nilsen:
Progressive Black candidates swept key races on Tuesday. Results
don't look quite that weeping, although
Middle school principal Jamaal Bowman unseats Eliot Engel in New York
was a big story (and not close, despite Engel endorsements from NY Dem
leaders, not to mention AIPAC). Anna North:
Ricardo Nulla:
The coronavirus surge that Texas could have seen coming. Chad Painter:
1960s coverage of Stonewall shows that mainstream press has always
struggled to cover protests: "New Yorkers reading the local,
mainstream papers wouldn't have known that a new civil rights
movement was unfolding." William J Perry/Tom Z Collins:
Who can we trust with the nuclear button? No one. Cameron Peters:
Trump is holding a rally in one of the country's worst Covid-19 hot
spots: Next stop (Tuesday, June 23): Phoenix, Arizona, where
"cases in the state have increased by 174 percent over the past
three weeks, and the Arizona Health Department reported a record-high
3,600 new cases on Tuesday alone." Craig Pittman:
Can Trump beat the Florida convention curse? I didn't know there
was one -- Nixon won after Miami Beach conventions in 1968 and 1972;
the Democrats also did Miami Beach in 1972, McGovern losing to Nixon;
and Romney lost after being nominated in Tampa in 2012 -- but Trump
is bound to bring out the worst in the state. Andrew Prokop:
John Quiggin:
Modern monetary theory: Neither modern, nor monetary, nor (mainly)
theoretical?: Review of the MMT-based Macroeconomics
textbook by William Mitchell, Randall Wray and Martin Watts. Anita Rao/Pat Dillon/Kim Kelly/Zak Bennett:
Is America a democracy? If so, why does it deny millions the vote?
A series of articles in the Guardian on "the fight to vote":
Robert Reich:
Donald Trump's re-election playbook: 25 ways he'll lie, cheat and
abuse his power: "From now until November, opponents of the most
lawless president in history face a fight for democracy itself."
Things like postponing the election remain to be seen, and would
be hard to pull off. "Coddle dictators" sticks in my craw. Ever
since WWII, US foreign policy has supported dictators who were
deemed good for business, while opposing ones (and, by the way,
democracies) who weren't (e.g., Iran, Guatemala, Chile). The only
way Trump deviates from this is that he needs "good for business"
to be good for him personally. Whether the US cherishes or ignores
human rights depends strictly on which side of the good/bad ledger
a country falls. David Roberts:
Corey Robin:
Forget about it. The author continues to be shocked that others
can still be shocked by the latest Trumpian outrages, given how many
comparable examples even a cursory remembrance of history offers up.
I've been reading and writing about conservatism since the summer of
2000, when I interviewed William F. Buckley Jr., Irving Kristol, and
Norman Podhoretz for a Lingua Franca article. I was surprised
to hear how discontented these elder statesmen were now that the Cold
War was over. It was almost as if they longed for the United States --
or at least themselves -- to be back in the grip of murderous anxiety,
ready to embark on a terrible rampage. Since then, what has always
struck me is how turbulent and intemperate, how savage and ferocious,
the dream life of the right truly is -- even among, especially among,
its most staid figures.
When Trump became a contender for the White House, I saw him as an
extension or fulfillment of the conservative movement rather than a
break with it. Almost everything people found outrageous and objectionable
about his candidacy -- the racism, the contempt for institutions, the
ambient violence, the hostility to the rule of law -- I'd been seeing
in the right for years. Little in Trump surprised me, except for the
fact that he won.
Whenever I said this, people got angry with me. They still do.
For months, now years, I puzzled over that anger. . . . Historical
consciousness can be a conservative force, lessening the sting of
urgency, deflating the demands of the now, leaving us adrift in a
sea of relativism. But it need not be . . . Telling a story of how
present trespass derives from past crime or even original sin can
inspire a more strenuous refusal, a more profound assault on the
now. It can fuel a desire to be rid of not just the moment but the
moments that made this moment, to ensure that we never have to face
this moment again. But only if we acknowledge what we're seldom
prepared to admit: that the monster has been with us all along.
Charlie Savage/Eric Schmitt/Michael Schwartz:
Russia secretly offered Afghan militants bounties to kill US troops,
intelligence says: "The Trump administration has been deliberating
for months about what to do about a stunning intelligence assessment."
This is supposedly a big deal, but sounds like a total crock. While
Afghan government and Taliban have continued to attack each other,
US fatalities in Aghanistan have dwindled to practically nothing --
not just since Trump signed a cease-fire with the Taliban, but you
have to go as far back as 2014 to find a month with 10 US fatalities.
So if Russia is paying a bounty, they're not finding many takers,
and it's not costing them much. It seems much more likely that the
whole story was hatched by "deep state" figures to try to scuttle
the Taliban peace deal, to reverse US troop withdrawals, to gin up
anti-Russian sentiment for a new Cold War, and (what the hell) to
make Trump look bad by drawing out the Trump-Putin buddy meme.
This left me wondering whether the US had actually paid bounties
for dead Russians during the 1980s, when inflicting casualties on
Russians was the explicit goal of US support for Afghan mujahideen.
I tried googling that, but all I got were echoes of the NY Times
piece, like the Guardian's
Outrage mounts over report Russia offered bounties to Afghanistan
militants for killing US soldiers (and not wanting to be left
out or devalued,
Russia offered bounty to kill UK soldiers). Similar articles
were all over the supposedly liberal press (Google it yourself:
these are from the first two pages): ABC, Chicago Tribune, CNBC,
CNN, LA Times, MSNBC, NPR, Reuters, Time, USA Today, Vox, Washington
Post, Axios. Some bought the story but tried to put the focus on
Trump, as in Jacob Kuntson:
Trump denies report he was briefed on alleged Russian bounties on US
troops (my favorite line here was "The report was confirmed by
the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and CNN," meaning that those
organizations picked up and ran the story); also Bob Brigham:
Trump remained silent as Putin paid to kill US soldiers;
Peter Wade:
Back from golfing, Trump denies knowing about Russian bounties to
kill US soldiers. Isaac Sebenius/James K Sebenius:
How many needless Covid-19 deaths were caused by delays in responding?
Most of them. David Smilde:
Joe Biden should not try to out-hawk Trump on Venezuela. Biden's
tweet on Venezuela is one of the few things that genuinely disurb me
about his nomination. It is factually inaccurate -- Trump may "admire
thugs and dictators" but not Nicolas Maduro; he clearly loathes Maduro,
and is using the power and influence of the United States to overturn
Maduro's election victory and replace him with a pliable puppet. I"m
not even sure that Maduro qualifies as a "thug and dictator" -- not
that I doubt that power is seductive and tends to corrupt, but as far
as I can tell, most of Venezuela's problems have been imposed by the
US, and their propaganda is formulaic and suspect as usual. Biden's
vow that he "will stand with the Venezuelan people and for democracy"
shows, to put it charitably, how completely he has been taken in by
the propaganda. If you want a definition of "thug and dictator," what
about someone who would impose a puppet government on another nation?
If Biden had any respect for democracy abroad, he wouldn't be casting
his lot with Trump and the oil moguls on this issue. And if he had
even the slightest self-awareness of how much havoc and misery US
intervention in Latin America has caused, he would grasp the folly
of trying to force American views on others. Nor do you have to go
back to Monroe and Wilson for examples: the recent coups in Bolivia
and Brazil are currently creating human rights disasters that reflect
back on us. Biden needs to break with that legacy, not echo it. Emily Stewart:
The Georgia legislature finally passes a hate crime bill in the wake
of Ahmaud Arbery's death. When signed, that will leave only three
states without hate crime laws (the others are South Carolina, Wyoming,
and Arkansas). Rachel Stohl:
Defense industry cheers as the Trump administration is poised to loosen
restrictions on drone exports. Critics complain that "the Trump
administration appears to be sacrificing long-term security goals for
short-term economic gain" -- i.e., for the arms merchants, not for
those who foot the military budget. Of course, if selling arms leads
to an arms race, the industry would see long-term economic gains as
well, and we would all wind up less secure. Lawrence H Summers/Anna Stansbury:
US workers need more power: Good title, but don't fear, he's not
really offering much. No talk about co-determination, let alone making
companies fully employee-owned, which is the direction we should be
moving in. Matt Taibbi:
On "White Fragility": Review of Robin DiAngelo's book, "a few
thoughts on America's smash-hit #1 guide to egghead racialism,"
one of which is it "may be the dumbest book ever written." I
rather doubt that, if for no other reason than that I recall
Taibbi's review of Thomas Friedman's The World Is Flat. Michael Tomasky:
Biden's journey left. Nick Turse:
Pentagon war game includes scenario for military response to domestic
Gen Z rebellion. "Gen Z" is defined as those born after 1996. Peter Wade:
Trump can't name one thing he'd prioritize if re-elected: Good. Paul Waldman:
Alex Ward:
The head of US broadcasting is leaning toward pro-Trump propaganda.
Biden would fire him. Michael Pack, head of US Agency for Global
Media (USAGM), which runs "Voice of America, Middle East Broadcasting,
Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and the Office of
Cuba Broadcasting," so is already neck-deep in the propaganda business.
Pack, a close ally of former top Trump strategist Steve Bannon, began
his three-year tenure just this month and wasted no time making dramatic
changes to reshape the agency. Last week, within hours of introducing
himself to employees, he purged four top officials from the agency's
media organizations. The two chiefs of Voice of America (VOA), the most
prominent outlet in the agency, had already resigned earlier over Pack's
appointment.
Related:
The real villain of John Bolton's Trump book is John Bolton. More
Bolton book:
How Trump's China obsession could derail nuclear arms control, in one
tweet: "Bolton makes clear President Trump's foreign policy is
absolutely terrible -- but Bolton's is much, much worse." /Nicole Narea:
The US military will stay on the US-Mexico border, even with migration
falling. Matthew Yglesias:
Trump is rescuing Maine lobstermen from himself, and blaming Obama:
"The lobster bailout, explained."
Martha McSally's bailout proposal for the travel industry, explained:
"The Arizona senator wants to give each US adult $4,000 to go on vacation --
but only if you're not too poor." The bottom line is that this is another
Republican tax cut for the rich, albeit limited and dressed up funny.
Trump's reelection polling is looking really bad. Why does he always
have to note: "After all, Michael Dukakis was up by 17 points in mid-July
1988"? Not only is that a bummer, there are lots of reasons why this year
is nothing like that year.
Trump's catastrophic failure on testing is no joke: "The president
is continually more focused on good numbers than good policy."
Why it feels like there are a lot more fireworks this year. No,
I hadn't noticed. I don't think I've heard a single firework bang so
far this month, or maybe this year. No doubt I will hear some closer
to the 4th, but probably less than usual. The old Lawrence Stadium
used to shoot off fireworks at least once a week, but they tore it
down, built a new ballpark, and have yet to play a single game there.
Wichita is not traditionally hostile to fireworks -- although the
Fire Dept. had a lot more say in the matter when I was growing up
than in recent years. I went out driving one July 4th and identified
at least 20 places that were shooting off major fireworks (of course,
the big one was downtown, which we could watch from out front lawn).
Then I drove down Main St. toward where I grew up, and it looked like
a war zone with all the debris. My mother especially loved fireworks,
but I'd be just as happy never to see or hear any ever again. Li Zhou:
Ask a question, or send a comment.
Monday, June 22, 2020
Music Week
June archive
(in progress).
Music: Current count 33485 [33449] rated (+36), 216 [215] unrated (+1).
Don't feel like writing much here. Started the week thinking I'd
track down some records by the late Keith Tippett, but quickly got
sidetracked by Stan Tracey, an older British pianist who did some
duet records with Tippett c. 1977. I then picked up some old World
Saxophone Quartet records, adding them to my
David Murray Guide.
I probably should have done this anyway, but someone on Facebook
commented on my missing Revue, which he teased was some
kind of consensus pick as the greatest jazz album of the decade.
The old Gary Bartz records came after reviewing his new one. I
should note that Harlem Bush Music, which combines the
two albums before Juju Street Songs, was previously A-.
Didn't do much on new records this week. Started most days with
golden oldies, then when I sat down at the computer, switched over
to old jazz rather than going through my new queue. Best reviewed
new records this week were by Bob Dylan and Phoebe Bridgers -- who
got more favorable reviews than Dylan this week (32 to 22 in my
metacritic file.) I'll
check out both soon, but was more curious about Black Eyed Peas
(AOTY critic score 50/1, user score 83/30). Not great, but much
better than that, with a choice cut called
News Today.
New records reviewed this week:
Ambrose Akinmusire: On the Tender Spot of Every Calloused
Moment (2020, Blue Note): Trumpet player, from Oakland,
sixth album since 2008 (30+ side credits), quartet with Sam Harris
(piano), Harish Raghavan (bass), and Justin Brown (drums). Good
player, wide range, still he's never blown me away.
B+(**)
Gary Bartz and Maisha: Night Dreamer Direct-to-Disc Sessions
(2019 [2020], Night Dreamer): Alto/soprano saxophonist, long career
starts in early 1960s, led albums since 1967. Backed by drummer Jake
Long's British band (minus saxophonist Nubya Garcia), on five songs
(35:20), vamping freely over an appealing rhythm.
B+(***)
Black Eyed Peas: Translation (2020, Epic): Seems like
they had a perfectly functional hip-hop/funk album on tap for summer
release, then wound up adding a most atypical and remarkable topical
song, "News Today."
B+(***)
Chromeo: Quarantine Casanova (2020, Chromeo, EP):
Canadian electropop duo, six albums since 2004, threw this together
quick, donating proceeds to Know Your Rights Camp's COVID-19 Relief
Fund. Five topical songs -- "Chlorox Wipe," "6 Feet Away," "Stay in
Bed (And Do Nothing)," "'Roni Got Me Stressed Out," and "Cabin Fever" --
18:01, padded out with instrumentals of same (another 16:41).
B+(**)
Orrin Evans and the Captain Black Big Band: The Intangible
Between (2020, Smoke Sessions): Pianist, raised in Philadelphia,
couple dozen albums since 1995, including at least four with his big
band, twenty strong. Didn't really mesh for me until "Tough Love,"
where the narration gave the musicians something to get worked up
about.
B+(**)
Fra Fra: Funeral Songs (2020, Glitterbeat): Group
from North Ghana, voices and percussion, billed as "field recordings"
so hard to say how old these are. Pretty raw.
B
Mike: Weight of the World (2020, 10k): New York rapper
Michael Bonema, remains nearly impossible to google despite at least
six albums and more singles and EPs since 2015. Partly, I suppose,
because his beats and rhymes are so far underground one rarely notices
them.
B+(*) [bc]
Aaron Parks: Little Big II: Dreams of a Mechanical Man
(2019 [2020], Ropeadope): Pianist, from Seattle, half-dozen albums
since 2008 (plus a couple as a teenage prodigy). Quartet with guitar
(Greg Tuohey), bass, and drums, plays some electric keyboards, strong
focus on beat and flow.
B+(**)
Perfume Genius: Set My Heart on Fire Immediately
(2020, Matador): Singer-songwriter Mike Hadreas, fifth album since
2020. I've never gotten anything from his records, but he has a
story, and if you're young and male you might appreciate someone
who's had it even rougher than you and tried to make something
beautiful out of it. Which, in a way, he has.
B+(*)
Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever: Sideways to New Italy
(2020, Sub Pop): Australian jangle pop group, second or third album,
when they turn wistful they sound a bit like the Go-Betweens, but it's
hard to figure out why (beyond Australian, obviously).
B+(**)
Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:
Misha Mengelberg/Peter Brötzmann/Evan Parker/Peter Bennink/Paul
Rutherford/Derek Bailey/Han Bennink: Groupcomposing (1970
[2018], Corbett vs. Dempsey): Piano, three saxes, trombone, guitar,
drums. One 42:38 piece split for LP. Feels improvised.
B+(*) [bc]
Old music:
Gary Bartz Ntu Troop: Juju Street Songs (1972-73
[1997], Prestige): Alto saxophonist, a powerful bebop player with
a taste for funk rhythms, formed this group in 1969, recording
seven LPs through 1974. This combines the 4th (Juju Street
Songs) with the fifth (Follow, the Medicine Man) on
one long CD. Quartet on the first, with Stafford James (bass),
Howard King (drums), and Andy Bey (electric piano/vocals). Second
adds guitar and replaces Bey on 2 (of 7) tracks. The vocals don't
help the jazz, but the jazz adds to the funk. From a time when
the world seemed big enough for both.
B+(**)
Gary Bartz Ntu Troop: I've Known Rivers and Other Bodies
(1973, Prestige): Double album, from a live performance at Montreux,
quartet with Hubert Eaves (keyboards), Stafford James (electric and
acoustic bass), and Howard King (drums), with Bartz vocals -- well
enough that the title cut could find a home on an obscure funk best-of.
Still more impressive when he blows.
B+(***)
Gary Bartz: Shadows (1991 [1992], Timeless): Cover
lists Willie Williams (tenor sax), Benny Green (piano), Christian
McBride (bass), and Victor Lewis (drums).
B+(**)
Gary Bartz: The Red and Orange Poems (1994, Atlantic):
Quintet, with Eddie Henderson (trumpet), Mulgrew Miller (piano), Dave
Holland (bass), and Greg Bandy (drums), plus extra percussion on two
tracks.
B+(**)
Joe Harriott Quintet: Swings High (1967 [2004],
Cadillac): LP released by Melodisc in 1970, reissued by Cadillac on
LP in 1989, CD in 2004, and "glorious downloadasound" in 2020. I'm
crediting the CD here, but listening to the digital, and will list
it as a 2020 reissue in the list(s). Recent covers add featuring
credits for Phil Seaman (drums) and Pat Smythe (piano) -- not all
that famous, but sure, more so than Stu Hammer (trumpet) and
Coleridge Goode (bass). Vibrant hard bop, even if it sounds a bit
old-fashioned compared to his other 1960s work.
B+(**) [bc]
Dudu Pukwana & Bob Stuckey: Night Time Is the Right Time:
60s Soho Sounds (1967-68 [2010], Cadillac): Alto saxophonist
from South Africa, left for Europe in 1964, settling down in London,
ranged from kwela to avant-garde. Stuckey plays organ throughout: 9
tracks with Pukwana, guitar, and drums, plus 4 tracks with different
guitar and drums.
B [bc]
Keith Tippett Tapestry Orchestra: Live at Le Mans (1998
[2009], Edition, 2CD): Big band effort, for better (parts really swing
hard) and worse (gets messy and loses direction. I count 18 pieces
(including tuba, two drummers, and Paul Dunmall's bagpipes), plus 3
singers.
B
Stan Tracey: Showcase (1958, Vogue): British pianist,
toured with Cab Calloway and Ronnie Scott in the 1950s. First album.
The leader plays vibraphone on three tracks, piano on nine, backed
by bass/drums, plus guitar on three tracks. Standards, few out of the
ordinary.
B+(*)
The Stan Tracey Quartet: Jazz Suite: Inspired by Dylan
Thomas's Under Milk Wood (1965, Columbia): He composed
this album based on a 1953 BBC broadcast of the play. Quartet
with Bobby Wellins (tenor sax), Jeff Clyne (bass), and Jack Dougan
(drums). A 1976 recording added narration, but you don't miss the
story line here. Widely regarded as a classic of British jazz --
beautiful at first, then gets even better.
A
Stan Tracey/Keith Tippett: Supernova (1977 [2008],
Resteamed): Piano duo. Tracey (1926-2013) was a generation older,
more conventional (cited Ellington and Monk as his main influences)
but worked with a number of avant-garde musicians (e.g., Evan Parker).
Tracey and Tippett intersected several times in the late 1970s. This
live tape from ICA in London is a good example.
B+(**)
The New Stan Tracey Quartet: For Heaven's Sake (1995
[1996], Cadillac): As the pianist gets older, the band gets younger:
Gerard Presencer (trumpet/flugelhorn), Andrew Cleyndent (bass), and
Clark Tracey (drums). Tracey and Presencer each wrote one song, the
rest standards, three sharp ones by Monk.
B+(***)
Stan Tracey: Solo : Trio (1997 [1998], Cadillac):
Five solo piano tracks, six trio with Andrew Cleyndert (bass) and
Clark Tracey (drums). Ellington and Monk are touchstones.
B+(***)
Stan Tracey & Danny Moss: Just You, Just Me
(2003 [2004], Avid): Moss (1927-2008) was a tenor saxophonist, played
other reeds, recorded with Ted Heath 1952-56, probably ran into
Tracey there. He liked standards, so that's what they play here --
most from Ellington and his crew.
B+(***)
Stan Tracey Quartet: Senior Moment (2008 [2009],
Resteamed): Pretty lively album for 82, the pianist is joined by
Simon Allen (saxes), bass, and drums.
B+(**)
Stan Tracey Quintet: The Flying Pig (2013 [2014],
Resteamed): Seems to be his final record, released shortly after
his death at 86 in December 2013. With Mark Armstrong (trumpet),
Simon Allen (saxes), Andy Cleyndert (bass), and Clark Tracey (drums).
B+(***)
Ben Webster/Stan Tracey: Soho Nights Vol. 1 (1968
[2008], Resteamed): Live shot from Ronnie Scott's, tenor saxophonist
backed by a local piano trio: Tracey, Dave Green (bass), Tony Crombie
(drums). Tracey was already pretty well known by then, and given his
Ellington love an inspired choice.
B+(***)
Ben Webster/Stan Tracey: Soho Nights Vol. 2 (1964
[2012], Resteamed): An earlier quartet, with Rick Laird (bass) and
Jackie Dougan (drums), also at Ronnie Scott's in London. Webster
sounds especially debonair here, and the pianist is an ideal
accompanist.
A-
World Saxophone Quartet: Steppin' With the World Saxophone
Quartet (1978 [1979], Black Saint): If this was their only
album I'd use the names on the cover as the artist credit: Hamiet
Bluiett (baritone sax/flute), Julius Hemphill (alto/soprano sax),
Oliver Lake (alto/soprano sax), David Murray (tenor sax/bass
clarinet). But they recorded 20+ albums, starting with a 1977
debut on Moers, then five albums on Black Saint, a major label
move to Nonesuch, then from 1996 on Justin Time (like Murray).
Hemphill dominates, writing 4 tracks vs. 1 each for Lake and
Murray, but the whole approach to harmony was his -- something
he pursued on his other records, but kept especially pure here.
I've always found their limited monophonic range unpleasant, but
this is more dynamic than most.
B
World Saxophone Quartet: W.S.Q. (1980 [1981], Black
Saint): Hamiet Bluiett steps up here, with two short pieces (or five,
as his "Suite Music" is broken into five parts), vs. 3-2-1 for Hemphill,
Lake, and Murray.
B+(*)
World Saxophone Quartet: Revue (1980 [1982], Black
Saint): Hemphill wrote four pieces, the whole first side. The others
split the second, with Murray offering "Ming" and "David's Tune,"
and Lake and Bluiett offering hymns. Hemphill's side is the more
cohesive, which doesn't necessarily make it better.
B+(*)
World Saxophone Quartet: Live in Zürich (1981 [1984],
Black Saint): Bluiett riff pieces open and close, brief at 1:40 and
1:30. In between it's all Hemphill, six substantial pieces, played
slow and soft enough to focus on complex harmony rather than indulging
in the thrash that gladiators are prone to.
B+(*)
World Saxophone Quartet: Live at Brooklyn Academy of Music
(1985 [1986], Black Saint): More of a group effort, with Murray's "Great
Peace" longest at 14:58, but Hemphill gets the last word.
B
World Saxophone Quartet: Four Now (1995 [1996], Justin
Time): Julius Hemphill became ill, stopped playing, left the group in
1990 (between Rhythm & Blues and Metamorphosis), and
died in 1995 (age 57). (He continued composing. His 1993 Five Chord
Stud, played by six other saxophonists, perhaps the best of his
sax choir records, and a sextet in his name recorded a good Live in
Lisbon in 2003. He had a profound influence on many saxophonists,
notably Tim Berne and Allen Lowe.) The other three sax giants kept WSQ
going through 2006, running through a series of alto replacements
(Arthur Blythe was the first, but it's John Purcell here) and adding
other musicians as opportunity arose. The cover notes: "With African
Drums" (Chief Bey, Mor Thiam, and Mar Gueye). They make a difference,
inspiring a vocal on the Thiam's closer, "Sangara."
B+(**)
World Saxophone Quartet: Takin' It 2 the Next Level
(1996, Justin Time): The four saxophonists (Hamiet Bluiett, Oliver
Lake, David Murray, and John Purcell) get a full rhythm section for
backup this time: Donald Blackman (keyboards), Calvin X Jones (bass),
and Ronnie Burrage (drums). All but Jones contribute pieces, and
they're all over the place.
B
World Saxophone Quartet: 25th Anniversary: The New Chapter
(2000 [2001], Justin Time): After a decade of trying new things, back
to the well -- just four saxophonists harmonizing, no bells or whistles
(or African drums). Before this came their look back, Requiem for
Julius, their tribute to founder and visionary Hemphill. Here they
look forward, dressed on the cover in white tuxes, John Purcell way out
front, pictured with saxello but credited with alto. Once again, I get
it, but don't especially enjoy it.
B
Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:
- Jeff Cosgrove/John Medeski/Jeff Lederer: History Gets Ahead of the Story (Grizzley Music) [07-17]
- Dan Willis and Velvet Gentlemen: The Monk Project (Belle Avenue) [07-17]
Ask a question, or send a comment.
Sunday, June 21, 2020
Weekend Roundup
All in all, not a very good week for Donald Trump. It started off
with Supreme Court rulings that the 1965 Civil Rights Act prohibits
discrimination against LGBTQ people, and that Trump's revocation of
the DACA program was invalid because the Trump administration failed
to explain why. The marches continued, as did the police outrages
provoking more demonstrations, but also a few reform stories, and
even some indictments and/or dismissals that show that, despite the
fury of Trump and the right, protest is getting somewhere. Trump
spent much of the week threatening and/or suing his former national
security director and his niece for writing books showing some of
the many ways he is incompetent and/or vile. And just as we're still
processing his recent purge of federal inspectors for trying to do
their jobs, he goes off and fires a US attorney who had opened
investigations of some of his cronies. He's finding Covid-19
infection rates still on the rise in nearly half of the states,
including virtually all of the "red" ones in the South. He expected
to finish the week on a high after resuming his campaign rallies in
one of those states, only to find the Tulsa arena half-empty (and
considerably less than half-masked). It's hard to see how that turns
into a win.
Even before the rally, most polls show Trump losing badly to Joe
Biden. See Nate Silver:
Our new polling averages show Biden leads Trump by 9 points nationally,
which shows a bunch of 2016 Trump states flipping: Michigan, Florida,
Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona, North Carolina, Ohio, Georgia, but
not quite Iowa (where Biden is -0.6) or Texas (-0.7). Trump's approval
rating is 41.4% (vs. 55.2% disapprove). The generic congressional ballot
is at 48.4% Democrats, 40.4% Republicans. Of course, too early to count
your chickens. The one thing I'm most certain of is that the rest of the
2020 campaign season is going to be the nastiest in American history.
Quite a few sublists below, usually starting with the first piece
I found on a subject, so you'll have to scour around to find ones of
personal interest. In fact, quite a lot of everything.
Some scattered links this week:
Sasha Abramsky:
Zeeshan Aleem:
Katelyn Burns:
Seattle's newly police-free neighborhood, explained. Marc Caputo/Matthew Choi:
Klobuchar shuts down VP speculation, urges Biden to pick woman of
color. Article describes this as "a blow to the chances of
Massachusetts' Sen Elizabeth Warren," but that assumes that someone
who didn't rate high enough to still be a contender has somehow
gained influence by pissing in the punch bowl on the way out.
Leaves me with the feeling that not only does she want to torpedo
the much more progressive Warren, she also can't bear losing to
her fellow midwestern prospects (most often mentioned are Gretchen
Whitmer, Tammy Baldwin, and Tammy Duckworth). Matthew Chapman:
Trump claims his niece signed an NDA, threatens to sue her over tell-all
book: report. The niece is Mary L Trump, PhD, the book Too Much
and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous
Man. Also:
Fabiola Cineas:
The disappearance and death of activist Oluwatoyin Salau, explained.
Sean Collins:
Police killings can be captured in data. The terror police create
cannot.
Jesselyn Cook/Nick Robins-Early:
Inside the dangerous online fever swamps of American police: "Cops
have a far-right media ecosystem of their own, where they post racist
memes, spread disinformation and call for violence against antifa."
Daniel Denvir:
Donald Trump is a menace to American democracy. But he didn't come out
of nowhere. "His rise was only possible because of a Republican and
Democratic political consensus that has ravaged American politics and
society for a generation." Long article, touches on a lot of things.
It's certainly true that politics have become more polarized, especially
on the very ideological and aggressive right, and Trump in many ways is
a logical extension of where the right was already going. Still, I wonder
if it might be more fruitful to look at how businessmen have become more
imperious and arrogant (and, no coincidence, much richer) over the last
30-40 years. Trump may seem like a major break with previous politicians,
but how different is he from the last few generations of CEOs/financiers?
(Insert long list of names here, like Jack Welch, Carl Icahn, Charles Koch,
Sheldon Adelson, etc.) Trump's instincts are certainly authoritarian, but
they strike me as more like despotic monarchs, who grew up in worlds where
everyone deferred to them, and fascist (or mafia) strongmen, who came to
power by snatching it, and kept it by intimidation.
Tom Engelhardt:
The age of disappointment? Or how the American century ends. These
TomDispatch articles get reproduced on various websites, often with
slightly different titles. AlterNet calls this
The American century is ending decisively with a pyromaniac in the
White House.
Mara Gay:
Why was a grim report on police-involved deaths never released?
Elena Goukassian:
Who really was Roy Cohn?: Interview with Ivy Meeropol, who directed
a new documentary on Trump's mentor, including his role in getting her
grandparents executed, in what Alan Dershowitz thinks "was one of the
greatest miscarriages of justice ever in this country."
Constance Grady:
Black authors are on all the bestseller lists right now. But publishing
doesn't pay them enough.
Glenn Greenwald:
Jeff Halper:
Israelizing the American police, Palestinianizing the American people.
Elahe Izadi/Paul Farhi:
The standoff between owners and journalists that's eviscerating Pittsburgh's
biggest newspaper. Newspapers are businesses, owned by rich people, who
are often tempted to impose their political views on their reporters -- here
the signal is the charge of "bias." Free press is a nice concept, but doesn't
exist in America -- least of all, evidently, in Pittsburgh.
Sarah Jones:
Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein:
Letting private equity billionaires rob worker retirement funds: "A
new Department of Labor rule allows private equity to get into 401(k)
plans. One expert estimates a $13.7 billion annual wealth transfer from
workers to Wall Street tycoons."
The government can afford anything it wants: Review of Stephanie
Kelton: The Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of
the People's Economy. I must admit that I've never understood
MMT, although I have noticed that the predictions of "deficit scolds"
have rarely (if ever) come true -- so it wouldn't surprise me if
there is more flexibility for deficit spending than is commonly
assumed (e.g., by those bemoaning how Bernie Sanders could ever pay
for his proposals). Consider:
"The problem we have today," Kelton writes, "is that economic policy
is often prescribed by people who, despite holding advanced degrees
in economics, possess no real understanding of how our monetary system
works." The idea is that a basic understanding of how money works, of
MMT precepts, could empower any citizen to fight for a better world.
But this will only happen once we reconcile what the country is capable
of and what the people are willing to do. "Austerity," Kelton writes,
"is a failure of imagination." So what kind of society do we want to
imagine, if we unshackle ourselves from the language of taxpayer-funded,
deficit-diminishing government? Are we willing to stop shoveling resources
into the military (and its domestic paramilitary offshoot, police
departments) and start diverting them to working-class communities?
If everyone deserves to be safe, housed, and prosperous, let's instruct
the Federal Reserve to start marking up some different accounts.
Seung Min Kim:
Top State Department official resigns in protest of Trump's response to
racial tensions in the country: Mary Elizabeth Taylor, assistant
secretary of state for legislative affairs..
Jen Kirby:
Remember Brexit? It's still not over.
The 7 most disturbing allegations about Trump in John Bolton's forthcoming
book. Bolton didn't get to start any major wars during his brief tenure
as Trump's national security adviser, but at least he got a book out of it,
The Room Where It Happened, and enough publicity that it's likely
to be a bestseller (assuming a
Trump administration lawsuit fails to quash it), setting himself up
for a return to the limelight should Tom Cotton or Marco Rubio or some
similar reptile become president. Subheds (which really aren't more
disturbing than what you already know):
- Trump asked Xi for help with his electoral prospects -- as
if he ever thought about anything else.
- Trump told Xi to go ahead with the internment of Muslims in
China -- as if Xi cares what he thinks.
- Trump learns about nukes . . . Trump didn't know that the UK
has nuclear weapons, but (unlike the US) they've never used them.
- . . . and about geography -- well, Finland used to be part of
Russia, and the US actually did land marines in Venezuela, and later
effectively owned its oil industry.
- Trump wanted to withdraw from NATO with a dramatic made-for-TV
scene
- Trump had some issues with the Constitution -- like wanting
to execute "scumbags" who rat him out; this is a polite way of saying
he doesn't understand why a president shouldn't be able to do things
any self-respecting mob boss would.
- Meddling in Ukraine, yes, but so many other things
More reaction to Bolton:
Nancy LeTourneau:
John Bolton didn't tell the truth when it mattered most: "Instead,
he kept his mouth shut until he could cash in on a book deal." This is
the popular line among people who are eager to grasp at any cudgel to
attack Trump, but we should be clear that Bolton always had his own
private agenda, and it always included concern for his bottom line.
Even before his book deal, Bolton has long made an unseemly amount of
money by consistently hewing to the most hawkish line allowed at any
given moment, even as each of his arguments has proven disastrous.
That he occasionally finds Trump insufficiently belligerent is more
of an indictment of him than of Trump. That he occasionally finds
Trump to be stupid, vain and petty just shows that he can marshal
ordinary perceptions into passages that make himself look smarter
and more principled, if only by comparison. Theodore J Boutrous Jr:
Why Trump's lawsuit against John Bolton will fail. Jonathan Chait:
Trump: I didn't realize Bolton supported Iraq War until after I hired
him: "A small slip-up in the vetting process"? What vetting process?
Did Trump ever make his own concerns known? Bolton not only supported
the Iraq War, he never stopped defending it. It's impossible to imagine
a job interview, even by someone as inattentive and uncurious as Trump,
failing to raise red flags. Matthew Chapman:
Trump is determined to get John Bolton jailed. Matt Ford:
John Bolton: American coward. Andrew Gawthorpe:
There are no heroes in the John Bolton v Donald Trump story. Josh Gerstein/Kyle Cheney:
'The damage is done': Judge denies Trump administration request to block
Bolton book: "but he warned the former national security adviser
could face criminal charges." John Hudson:
Bolton book exposes rare fissures between Trump and Pompeo. Steven Nelson:
Trump: I should have fired John Bolton for botching North Korea nuclear
talks. Yes you should have. No you didn't. Moreover, it was totally
obvious when you appointed him that he would do everything he possibly
could to make sure no agreement was reached. Same could be said of your
boy Mike Pompeo, although he did a slightly better job of pretending he
was with the program. Trump should rifle back through what remains of
his memory and identify all the people who recommended Bolton to him,
and fire them too. By the way, I wouldn't say that Trump's own words
were especially eloquent or insightful, but for once their pith finds
a deserving target:
"When Wacko John Bolton went on Deface the Nation and so stupidly said
that he looked at the 'Libyan Model' for North Korea, all hell broke
out," Trump tweeted Thursday. "Kim Jong Un, who we were getting along
with very well, went 'ballistic,' just like his missiles -- and
rightfully so."
Trump added that Kim "didn't want Bolton anywhere near him."
"Bolton's dumbest of all statements set us back very badly with
North Korea, even now. I asked him, 'what the hell were you thinking'"
He had no answer and just apologized. That was early on, I should
have fired him right then & there!" Trump wrote.
William Rivers Pitt:
It's Trump vs Bolton, and I'm rooting for a meteor. Frank Rich:
The folly of Trump's Bolton lawsuit. Zoë Richards:
WH trade adviser slams Bolton book as 'deep swamp revenge porn':
Peter Navarro. Eugene Robinson:
John Bolton is a weasel in a party of weasels. Jennifer Rubin:
Trump's Bolton problem is nothing compared with Senate Republicans'
woes: "We knew Trump violated his oath. Now we're certain Senate
Republicans did, too." Jon Schwarz:
John Bolton is telling the truth, but let's not forget his horrible,
dangerous career. Tierney Sneed:
DOJ goes all in on trying to block release of Bolton book.
Ellen Knickmeyer:
US drops planned limit for toxin that damages infant brains.
Bonnie Kristian:
Another General wants forever war in Iraq: Meet CENTCOM Commander
Gen. Kenneth F McKenzie Jr.
Jill Lepore:
The history of the "riot" report: "How government commissions became
alibis for inaction."
Nancy LeTourneau:
The ongoing struggle between two American ideals: liberty and equality:
"Inside the biggest fault line between the two parties in American politics
today." The conservative mind-trick here is defining liberty as something
that only a few people can enjoy because it's taken at the expense of
others. But you never can get to "liberty and justice for all" that way,
which makes me wonder if it isn't better to think of liberty as something
equality makes possible. Even conservatives should be satisfied defining
liberty as the ability to choose one's course of action without being
compelled by economic constraints. Why can't everyone enjoy such freedom?
The real "fault line" has nothing to do with liberty, which all pursue,
but with equality, which conservatives deny and despise. Sure, they have
their rationalizations, but even if true -- and I'd argue they are not --
why would a democracy prostrate itself to their vanity?
Why are conservatives so threatened by equality? Subhed says "It's
the toxic and irrational fear that more freedom for LGBTQ Americans
infringes on their own," but isn't that just a way of admitting that
they believe that their freedom comes at the expense of other people?
And not just LGBTQ -- there's also race, class, sex. They believe that
unions are picking their pockets. Each plank is rooted in a sense of
privilege, and a belief that force can safeguard their privileges.
After all, we might all agree to be equal, but there can never be
agreement (hence there can never be peace) that one class is entitled
to rule over all others.
How Republicans convinced themselves that Trump will win in a landslide:
"Delusional thinking often goes unchallenged when you're living inside
a cocoon." Also:
John Hinderaker:
The landslide of 2020? Someone recommended this link as the funniest
thing he had read in quite some time. Doesn't quite qualify as a review of David
Horowitz's Blitz: Trump Will Smash the Left and Win because he
admits that he hasn't read the book, but he believes Horowitz ("one of
the most perceptive observers of the current scene") blindly.
The current environment reminds me of 1972, and a conversation I had
then with a friend who was, like me at that time, on the left. The
contest then was between Nixon and McGovern, and my friend said,
"Nixon will win because he is for America, and McGovern is against
America." He and I didn't see it that way, but we knew that was how
the race was coming across to most voters. That is true in spades
this year: McGovern was wrong about a lot of things, but he was a
sincere patriot. Today's Democrats, in contrast, really are
against America.
The cognitive disconnect in the last sentence is so hard to
process that the simplest explanation is that people who utter it
are stark raving insane. Yet we hear this line repeated endlessly
on the far right, especially since Obama won the presidency in
2008. (Sometimes at book length, as in David Limbaugh's The
Great Destroyer: Barack Obama's War on the Republic -- the
most explicit title from a long list I compiled in 2012, which
I summed up as "uninspired and empty.") The thing is, there's
never been a shred of evidence that Obama or any other mainstream
Democrat wanted to harm America. Maybe you can accuse a few fringe
leftists (maybe even myself) with being insufficiently obeisant
to the militarized symbols of American power, but Obama, Biden,
the Clintons, Pelosi, Shumer, et al., have become the last true
believers in American exceptionalism: the steadfast belief that
this country remains a beacon of light, of hope and opportunity
for the rest of the world. Even those of us who have become
thoroughly disenchanted with America's long history of racism,
militarism, colonialism, corruption, and economic plunder, tend
to express our concerns by referring to the historical moments
when Americans seemed to aspire to something better, and we can
frame our solutions in terms which promise to help the majority
of Americans. But while we believe that further left solutions
would be better for Americans than what mainstream Democrats
have done, the fact is that when given the power, Democrats have
made the economy more prosperous, have reduced the harm done to
less fortunate Americans, have blundered into fewer wars, have
treated the environment better, and have responded to disasters
more effectively, than Republicans have done. So how can people
like the author here say such things? I considered the possibility
that their definition of America was just so exclusive -- as Todd
Snider put it, "conservative Christian, right-wing Republican,
straight, white, American males" -- that maybe their paranoia was
grounded in something real. But I know many such people, and I've
never seen them actually hurt by things Democrats have done (even
where they've felt outraged). So, I have to conclude, the depths
of their delusion far exceeds my ability to explain. David Siders:
'We're thinking landslide': Beyond DC, GOP officials see Trump on glide
path to reelection: Quotes Phillip Stephens, a GOP county chairman
in NC: "The more bad things happen in the country, it just solidifies
support for Trump. We're calling him 'Teflon Trump.' Nothing's going to
stick, because if anything, it's getting more exciting than it was in
2016. We're thinking landslide." Paul Waldman:
Trump supporters already know he will definitely win by a landslide.
Martin Longman:
Two stories that show why Trump's unfit for office.
The are two lightly reported stories in the news that really highlight
the norm-breaking and criminality of the Trump administration. One
involves the nation's inspectors general and the other the administration's
treatment of science. Anyone who might care about these subjects is most
likely already in Biden's camp, but they should get wider circulation
because they ought to inform how people will vote.
The stories Longman cites (though neither are isolated incidents):
Joe Macaron:
The 'Caesar Act' has no teeth and is not about Assad. Evidently
"Caesar" is an anonymous photographer who documented human rights
abuses by the Syrian military police, providing the basis for a
report (known as "The Caesar Report") written by ICC prosecutors,
and hence a law which allows the US (sworn enemies of the ICC) to
levy sanctions on Syria, adding fuel to America's psychotic love/hate
relationship with Syria. While I would have been pleased if the
Assad regime had fallen and disappeared in Syria, at this point
continued war is far worse for all concerned. Instead of figuring
out ways to inflict further pain, the US would be well advised to
make peace with Assad, and use whatever good will that produces to
help the Syrian people recover from the war the US (and its nominal
allies) did so much to protract. Related: Shahed Ghoreishi:
The next US administration must fix our broken Syria policy.
Notice that at this point no one has any hopes the present
administration can fix anything.
Dylan Matthews:
A new paper finds stimulus checks, small business aid, and "reopening"
can't rescue the economy.
Bill McKibben:
How public opinion changes for the better.
Peter Miller:
Policing or occupation? Crowd control practices in the US and Palestine.
Ian Millhiser:
Peter Montague:
Trump wants to create election chaos by killing the Post Office:
On March 30, Trump spilled the beans himself when he said, if it were
easier to vote in the U.S., Republicans would never get elected. The
president made the comments as he dismissed a congressional Democrat-led
push for reforms such as vote-by-mail, same-day voter registration and
early voting to help states run elections safely during the COVID-19
pandemic. "They had things, levels of voting that if you'd ever agreed
to it, you'd never have a Republican elected in this country again,"
Trump said. "We don't want anyone to do mail-in ballots," the president
said in May.
Sara Morrison:
The Trump administration's flawed plan to destroy the Internet as we know
it: "Following the president's lead, Republicans are trying to chip
away at Section 230."
Yascha Mounk:
Is Donald Trump a danger to democracy? Review of new books by Masha
Gessen (Surviving Autocracy) and Eric A Posner (The Demagogue's
Playbook: The Battle for American Democracy From the Founders to Trump),
by the author of The People Vs. Democracy: Why Our Freedom Is in Danger
& How to Save It (2018). All concerned are fond of analogies, so
their books run the gamut. I think it's important to make a distinction
between Trump with his authoritarian impulses and the Republican Party's
greedy schemes to subvert democracy. Trump is reprehensible but dangerous
only to the extent that the Party supports and defends him. The real
threat is the Party, but I suspect that the authors would rather indict
individuals than look into the profoundly anti-democratic beliefs of
modern (or, indeed, any) conservatism.
Ellen Nakashima/Shane Harris:
Elite CIA unit that developed hacking tools failed to secure its own
systems, allowing massive leak, an internal report found.
Nicole Narea:
Trump fires the US attorney investigating his allies: "Attorney
General William Barr tried to fire Geoffrey Berman on Friday, but
he refused to step down. So the president stepped in."
Jonathan Chait:
Barr trying to purge the last prosecutor who can still investigate
Trump. Josh Marshall:
A remarkable turn of events:
The Trump administration, with its most effective enforcer, Bill Barr,
is looking at an uphill reelection campaign, a range of still unfolding
civic catastrophes, and trying to make the most of its executive power
while it still holds it. Abusing the powers of office look like the
clearest path to retaining those powers past next January. But since
the rampant abuses are now adding to the marked deterioration of support
for Trump's presidency the incentives for bad acting only grow more
perverse, the need to keep doubling down or upping the ante only grows.
As I noted above, Berman's public refusal is itself a sign of Trump's
ebbing power. It all points to a perilous six months of mounting
instability, wrongdoing and criminality in which Trump, his lieutenants
and toadies see the need to keep rolling the dice, fomenting chaos in
the hopes some version of it works in his favor.
Renae Merle:
Trump's pick to run Manhattan US attorney's office defended prominent
Wall Street firms for years: Jay Clayton, previously SEC chairman,
another obvious perch for serving his past (and future?) clients.
Terry Nguyen:
Aunt Jemima and the long-overdue rebrand of racist stereotypes.
Anna North:
Morgan Palumbo/Jessica Draper:
Knockout in Washington: "A monumental lobbying battle over American
foreign policy -- How the Saudis, the Qataris, and the Emiratis took
Washington." I'm tempted to argue that the US hasn't had a coherent
foreign policy since the end of the Cold War. Maybe GW Bush thought
he had one with his Global War on Terrorism. Maybe Obama thought his
"Pivot to Asia" would fill the void left by abandoning the hapless
GWOT. But really, US foreign policy just reverted to what it had been
before rabid anti-communism added its ideologial veneer: favors for
interest groups with business abroad. Before WWII, those favors were
for US companies, especially in Latin America. More recently, the
companies became multinationals, and sovereign nations got into the
act, all working through the usual lobbyists. Trump's innovation was
to drop the pretense that foreign policy was ever about anything but
money. So if Saudi Arabia, for instance, wants to bomb a neighboring
country, or kill an American journalist, all they really have to do
is to make sure the checks clear, and America will be their ally.
Steven Pearlstein:
The Fed is addicted to propping up the markets, even without a need.
Why, exactly, the Fed feels it necessary to inject more dollars into
the corporate credit market is hard to fathom. The interest rate at
which investment-grade companies can borrow on the bond market is now
below 4 percent, about as low as anyone can remember. And the pace of
bond issuance so far this year, at over $1.2 trillion, has been double
that of last year's torrid pace. Indeed, there's so much capital
sloshing around that investors are lining up to lend money to companies
such as Boeing and Macy's and the cruise-line operator Carnival, although
these companies' revenue has plummeted with along revenue in much of
the travel and retail sectors. . . .
The best explanation for this confidence is the widespread belief
on Wall Street that the Fed will do "whatever it takes" -- that is,
print money to buy as many bonds as necessary -- to keep credit flowing
to the business sector, no matter the risk. By placing a floor under
bond prices, the Fed makes it possible for over-indebted, sales-starved
companies to borrow even more to cover operating losses, or refinance
existing loans, allowing them to avoid, or at least delay, the day when
they cannot pay their bills.
Cameron Peters:
Trump's executive order on police reform, explained.
Brad Plumer/Nadja Popovich:
Emissions are surging back as countries and states reopen.
Ari Rabin-Havt:
Mitt Romney is not your friend.
Adam K Raymond:
One of the officers who shot Breonna Taylor is getting fired.
Rebecca Rivas:
Feds dismiss incitement charge against Michael Avery. As near as
I can tell, Avery (a "Ferguson activist") was charged for making posts
on Facebook criticizing St. Louis police. Greg Magarian commented,
"Winning malicious prosecution suits is nearly impossible, but Avery
should go for it, and [prosecutor Michael] Reilly should have this
abomination hung around his reputational neck for the rest of his
professional life." Another piece from the St. Louis American that
Magarian pointed me to: Chris King:
New video shows Florissant cop swerve to hit fleeing man with SUV.
King's follow up story:
Florissant cop charged with felony assault, armed criminal action.
David Roberts:
A national US power grid would make electricity cheaper and cleaner.
Dylan Scott:
David K Shipler:
The racial stereotypes infecting American police departments.
David Sirota:
Republicans are hypocrites. They happily 'de-funded' the police we
actually need.
Emily Stewart:
One of America's worst acts of racial violence was in Tulsa. Now, it's
the site of Trump's first rally in months. More pieces on Tulsa,
past and present (some before and some after Trump's event):
Zeeshan Aleem:
Trump falsely suggests wearing a mask at his Tulsa rally could be
harmful: "He anticipated a 'wild evening' where 'people do what
they want.'" Russell Berman:
The 'Silent Majority' didn't show up for Trump. Bob Brigham:
"Pitiful turnout": Trump mocked for "hilariously weak" attendance at
Tulsa comeback rally. Matthew Chapman:
Six Trump campaign staffers in Tulsa test positive for COVID-19 ahead
of indoor rally. Eugene Daniels:
Trump campaign blames protesters for disappointing turnout at Tulsa
rally. Robin Givhan:
Trump's rally looked like his vision of America. Limited and pitiless.
It was a long, rambling performance with the president lamenting that
he surely must have saluted some 600 times and by God, it was so hot
that day and the ramp was like an ice-skating rink and he was wearing
leather sole shoes. As far as he was concerned, he really should have
been cheered for making it down that ramp unscathed instead of being
mocked in the media. So perhaps it made him feel better when the Tulsa
crowd -- his crowd -- applauded after he theatrically drank a
glass of water onstage with only one hand and didn't dribble any of it
on his tie.
It was Trump's crowd. Everything is his. Everything is because of
him. "We -- I -- have done a phenomenal job," he said about
the federal government's response to the pandemic. "I saved hundreds
of thousands of lives."
Virginia Heffernan:
Trump's Tulsa rally is shaping up to be a coronavirus petri dish inside
a wrecking ball. Astead W Herndon:
Black Tulsans, with a defiant Juneteenth celebration, send a message to
Trump. Annie Karni/Maggie Haberman/Reid J Epstein:
How the Trump campaign's plans for a triumphant rally went awry:
"Instead of offering President Trump a glide path back into the campaign
season, Saturday's rally in Tulsa has become yet another flash point
for a candidate who has repeatedly displayed insensitivity about race." Paul Krugman:
Tulsa and the many sins of racism: "The ugly story didn't end with
the abolition of slavery." Eric Lach:
Donald Trump's empty campaign rally in Tulsa. Taylor Lorenz/Kellen Browning/Sheera Frenkel:
TikTok teens and K-Pop stans say they sank Trump rally: "Did a successful
prank inflate attendance expectations for President Trump's rally in Tulsa,
Okla.?" Osita Nwanevu:
This is how Trump plans to beat Biden: "In his latest campaign kick-off
rally, the president maps his desperate plan to overcome the national crisis
he enabled and win re-election." Caitlin Oprysko:
Trump accuses critics of attempting to 'Covid Shame' upcoming rally.
Mary Papenfuss:
Dr Anthony Fauci warned White House that Tulsa rally would be dangerous.
Amber Phillips:
5 takeaways from Trump's Tulsa rally:
- Trump elevates violent rhetoric against protesters
- 'Kung Flu,' a testing slowdown and other flippant comments
about the coronavirus
- No attempt to salve racial tensions
- Explaining 'the ramp and the water'
- Weaving old with the new for a 2020 campaign pitch
Randy R Potts/Victor Luckerson:
A Trump visit lays bare two Tulsas, a mile and a universe apart. Bret Schulte:
How Tulsa's Republican mayor found himself at the center of America's
debate on race. Walter Shapiro:
Trump is terrorizing America: "His reelection campaign is going to be
all about one thing: fear. The Tulsa rally was just the beginning." Brent Staples:
The burning of Black Wall Street, revisited: "Nearly a century after the
Tulsa Race Massacre, the search for the dead continues." Marc A Thiessen:
Trump must reach out to black voters. His Tulsa rally is the place to
start. I don't normally read him, even given that his columns
inevitably appear in my home town paper. In fact, he strikes me as
the single most reprehensible political pundit in America. So I can't
tell you whether this is more tone-deaf than usual. But I can assure
you that Trump didn't deliver the hoped-for breakthrough message in
Tulsa.
Matt Stieb:
Facebook removes Trump ads with Nazi symbol used to identify political
prisoners. This story is so weird on many levels that I skipped over
it many times before noting it.
Matt Taibbi:
Why policing is broken: "Years of research on brutality cases shows
that bad incentives in politics and city bureaucracies are major drivers
of police violence."
Astra Taylor:
A new group of leftist primary challengers campaign through protests
and the coronavirus.
Zephyr Teachout/Shaoul Sussman:
Amazon's private government: "A new patent cements the company's
aims to use its power over sellers to consolidate control." Hard to
tell right now how big a deal this is, but several questions leap to
mind: Should this technology even be patentable? If so, isn't it
dangerous to assign it to an unregulated private company? If the
service is really valuable, wouldn't it be much better to build
it as a public utility? Many parts of Amazon (e.g., Marketplace),
already raise this question.
The patent, for a form of blockchain ledgering technology, will
allow Amazon to oversee the collection of an unprecedented amount
of data about the business operations of its sellers, including
their entire supply chain. In essence, the patent fulfills Amazon's
plans to create a private regulatory regime, where it uses proprietary
information to create a "certification" bureaucracy: a private,
for-profit alternative to the Food and Drug Administration, the
Environmental Protection Agency, and the Federal Trade Commission.
Unlike governmental agencies, however, it will have no public
oversight, and can use its certifying power to squeeze sellers
and consolidate control.
Brands and companies that use Amazon's technology would have
to list the manufacturers, couriers, and distributors they use.
Those entities will have to corroborate that they indeed sell to
the brand. Amazon will know where and when every single sweater,
earplug, and frying pan sold on its platform was made, and by
whom. The patent states: To certify an item, a verifiable record
for the item indicating, for example, what materials were used
to make the item, where the item was made, who made the item,
when the item was made, and so forth, is needed.
Jason Tidd:
Kris Kobach's guns stolen from truck at Wichita hotel. Kobach is
running for US Senate. He says he always carries a gun for protection,
and he left a few more in his car, planning on campaigning at some
shooting event. "There were 255 guns reported stolen from vehicles in
Wichita in 2019." Kobach may be the dumbest person running for Congress
in Kansas this year, but don't sell his main rival, Roger Marshall,
short. See Abigail Abrams:
GOP Congressman says the poor 'just don't want health care.'
Alright, he was quoted out of context. The full quote was: "Just like
Jesus said, 'The poor will always be with us.' There is a group of
people that just don't want health care and aren't going to take care
of themselves." Marshall, by the way, is a M.D., whose recent publicity
stunt was to prescribe hydroxychloroquine for himself and his family.
Latest piece on his is:
Roger Marshall was convicted of reckless driving in 2008. Here's how
it was erased. Turns out it helps to have the son of a business
partner in the prosecutor's office.
Craig Timberg:
As Trump warns of leftist violence, a dangerous threat emerges from
the right-wing boogaloo movement.
Alex Ward:
Adam Weinstein:
Florida man leads his state to the morgue: "Ron DeSantis is the
latest in a long line of Republicans who made the state a plutocratic
dystopia. Now he's letting its residents die to save the plutocrats."
Also:
Philip Weiss:
Trump is pushing annexation as political tool to cast Dems as anti-Israel,
says J Street expert: Interview with Neri Zilber. /James North:
It sure looks like Trump and Adelson have cut a deal on annexation.
Sheldon Adelson, the Israel-loving, Iran-war-craving casino baron,
talks to Donald Trump all the time, and for good reason, he and wife
Miriam are the biggest Republican donors, poised to give as much as
$200 million this year. Now that the White House appears to be lying
down for the Israeli government as it moves to annex portions of the
West Bank despite a growing chorus of international condemnation,
the focus should be on Adelson. He has always been a strong supporter
of Israeli expansion, a man who says, "There's no such thing as a
Palestinian."
So far, the Adelsons have gotten everything they've wanted from
our transactional president: tearing up the Iran deal, moving the
embassy to Jerusalem, defunding Palestinians, recognizing the Golan
annexation, treating settlement expansion as legitimate, even a
presidential medal of freedom for Miriam, etc. Right up to yesterday --
a Trump attack on the ICC in the name of Israel. As Trump once said
when a Republican rival was getting Adelson's money, Adelson wanted
a "perfect little puppet."
Sean Wilentz:
The disgrace of Donald Trump: "Was the battle of Lafayette Square
the beginning of the end of his presidency?" Why call it a battle?
Doesn't that imply two sides were fighting? (As opposed to one side
using excessive force to drive people who were legally and peaceably
assembled away.) As a historian, Wilentz can think of past events
like Herbert Hoover's routing of the "Bonus Marchers" during the
Great Depression, which was one of many things that led to Hoover's
1932 defeat.
Stephanie Wykstra:
The fight for transparency in police misconduct, explained: "New
York's repeal of section 50-a -- which allowed police to shield misconduct
records -- is a big win for activists, but there is more work to be
done."
Matthew Yglesias:
The End of Policing left me convinced we still need policing:
Critique of Alex Vitale's book. I've cited several Vitale pieces and
interviews recently. I agree, although (as with ICE) I also think that
some organizations are so rotten it might make sense to restart from
scratch. The best thing I see coming out of the "defund" argument is
a rethinking about what police should (and should not) be doing. But
we're still stuck the the trials of the modern world. We need laws,
and we need order, and we need a system to enforce that as fairly and
as charitably as possible. In short, we need reform, but we still need
to come out the other end with something, even if it too is imperfect.
More pieces:
Donald Trump is defunding the police: "He's proposed cuts in budget
after budget, and is holding up needed fiscal aid." Meanwhile, it's the
Democrats who are pushing federal aid to cities and states hit hard by
revenue shortfalls
But the larger and more significant budgetary context is that the HEROES
Act passed by House Democrats and stalled by Senate Republicans appropriates
$900 billion to state and local governments.
With that kind of fiscal support, cities that don't want to defund
their police departments wouldn't have to. And cities that do want to
experiment with shifting funding out of law enforcement and into mental
health, drug treatment, and youth services will have the opportunity
to do that.
Republicans, meanwhile, have characterized this idea as a "blue state
bailout" and say Congress should instead consider changes to bankruptcy
law that might allow states to shed their pension obligations in bankruptcy.
Li Zhou:
Ask a question, or send a comment.
Monday, June 15, 2020
Music Week
June archive
(in progress).
Music: Current count 33449 [33418] rated (+31), 215 [214] unrated (+1).
British avant-pianist
Keith Tippett
died last week, at 72. He was a major figure, although having never
sorted out his scattered discography, I can't say how major. I can
say that on occasion he rivaled Cecil Taylor for explosive invention.
One issue is that while he recorded several albums with Mujician
as a title, he also led a group (with Paul Dunmall, Paul Rogers, and
Tony Levin) by that name through seven 1990-2006 albums. Another is
that he dabbled in a wide range of music, especially along the prog
rock fringe. He married pop singer/actress Julie Driscoll in 1970,
and she changed her name to Julie Tippetts (meanwhile, her husband
dropped the 's'), continuing a long career that veered far from the
pop charts. She survives him. Also on Tippett:
I'll look into Tibbett a bit more next week, but as I'm writing
this I've headed off on a Stan Tracey (1926-2013) detour.
One other death last week I should note somewhere is
Carl
Brewer, a former two-term mayor of Wichita. He was a moderate
black Democrat, always seemed to be in tune with local business
leaders but always seemed like a decent guy, never had a whiff of
scandal, and never embarrassed us. (I'd like to say never did
anything blatantly stupid, but I have to question his support for
Lyndy Wells in the latest mayoral election.) People I know who
knew him liked him a lot. None of those traits were common among
the recent run of Wichita mayors.
Robert Christgau published his
Consumer Guide: June, 2020, with an A+ for Run the Jewels RTJ4
(an A- here last week); an A for the Wussy album below; A- for Princess
Nokia's Everything Is Beautiful, Serengeti's Ajai, and a
Fats Domino live album I previously gave good but somewhat lower grades
to; an A- for a Malian record I haven't found; a B+ for the Hamell on
Trial album below; and a few more things -- I tried Westside Gunn, and
even went back two previous releases, but nothing really stuck with me.
I'm not conceding that I screwed up, but I've often had trouble catching
rap lyrics (especially given limited plays), and that may be at work
here.
Christgau asked me for some info on David Murray (occasioned by an
Xgau Sez question), so I
pasted a chunk of my
Jazz Guides into an email. It occurred
to me that I could add that to my Village Voice
David Murray Guide (2006).
The file turned out to be a mess, so I cleaned it up from "unpublished
draft" and notes to incorporating the
published edits. But rather than appending the more extensive
reviews, I created a
separate file. I also used
the occasion to pick up a few records I had missed, as well as Kahil
El'Zabar's new one, just out. Started a list of "other records" as a
self-check, but haven't gotten very far with it.
After all my pleading, I only have
one question answered
this week. More, please.
I did get one more piece of mail via
the form: Piotr wrote in to inform me
that he's created a Wikipedia page for
Tom Hull (critic). It's a very substantial page, with a lot of
biographical detail, all properly footnoted (most based on my
RockCritics.com interview). I've written him with a few corrections
and clarifications, so no need to itemize them here. Besides, most make
for slightly better myth than reality.
Two of the three new jazz A-list records this week were reviewed the
old-fashioned way, from CDs. Probably helped get them the attention they
deserve. I missed the A- Murray album because it was a mere Penguin
Guide ***, but turns out it features El'Zabar as the magic beans.
Found the old Joe Harriott records after noting the new vault release.
Been wanting to hear them for a long time, but none match Free
Form (1960).
By the way, I've been keeping the
metacritic file reasonably
up to date. Run the Jewels' RTJ4 made a strong run for the top
spot, but is still one point behind Fiona Apple's Fetch the Bolt
Cutters. At AOTY and Metacritic, the latter has slightly higher
scores, but fewer reviews. Waxahatchie's Saint Cloud is third,
then there's a substantial point gap before you get to Caribou, Dua
Lipa, Perfume Genius, Tame Impala, Thundercat, Yves Tumor, Lucinda
Williams, Charlie XCX, Shabaka and the Ancestors, and Soccer Mommy.
New records reviewed this week:
AuB: AuB (2020, Edition): British quartet, "pronounced
ORB," tenor saxophonists Tom Barford and Alex Hitchcock, backed with
bass and drums, most also credited with synthesizers.
B+(*)
César Cardoso: Dice of Tenors (2020, self-released):
Portuguese tenor saxophonist, third album, a tribute with such sax
standards as "Giant Steps" and "St. Thomas." Octet, with Jason Palmer
(trumpet), Miguel Zenón (alto sax), trombone, vibes, piano, bass,
and drums.
B+(*)
Elysia Crampton: Orcorara 2010 (2020, Pan): Electronica
producer, originally from California, has some interesting records. This
is an ambitious piece that comes off way too heavy for my taste.
B
Whit Dickey: Morph (2019 [2020], ESP-Disk, 2CD):
Second of four drummers in David S. Ware Quartet (1993-96), cut
his first record with Matthew Shipp in 1992 and remains his most
regular trio partner. Dozen albums as leader since 1998, with this
his second straight 2-CD affair, although it could just as easily
be split into two releases, each disc even having its own title.
The first, Reckoning, is a duo with Shipp, the piano so
dense I didn't notice that there was no bassist. The second,
Pacific Noir, adds Nate Wooley (trumpet), with one of the
more impressive outings of his career.
A- [cd]
Dion: Blues With Friends (2020, Keeping the Blues Alive):
Last name DiMucci, lead singer in white doo-wop band the Belmonts, put
his (first) name out front around 1960, scored big hits for a few years,
had some success with a folkie phase up to 1965, has tried other things
to avoid just being an oldies act, most recently blues (e.g., 2007's
Son of Skip James). Eighty now, looks and sounds younger (not
necessarily a compliment for blues musicians), lists 17 friends on the
cover four 14 songs, ceding lead vocals twice (Van Morrison and Paul
Simon, but Billy Gibbons and Bruce Springsteen just play guitar).
B+(*)
Kahil El'Zabar Ft. David Murray: Kahil El'Zabar's Spirit
Groove (2019 [2020], Spiritmuse): Chicago percussionist, leads
a quartet with Murray on tenor sax, Justin Dillard on keyboards, and
Emma Dayhuff on bass. The leaders have history, but it's been a while
since their 1997-2000 albums. Both have slowed down, gotten sentimental,
which is why I forgive El'Zabar's singing, and treasure what's left of
the saxophonist's chops -- not awesome, but still inspiring.
A-
Hamell on Trial: The Pandemic Songs (2020, self-released):
R-rated folksinger, decided to fight pandemic boredom by writing 15 songs
in 15 days, cut this down "the best 9 I think," about disease and masks
and social distancing and murder and mayhem and MAGA hat fans getting
what's coming to them ("got no problem with that"). Runs 30:11.
A- [bc]
Daniel Hersog: Night Devoid of Stars (2019 [2020],
Cellar Live): Trumpet player from Vancouver, doesn't play here,
composed all but one piece and leads a multifaceted big band, with
Frank Carlberg (piano) and Noah Preminger (tenor sax) the ringers.
Didn't really catch my attention until "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes"
came wafting through, after which a lot of intricate details began
to emerge.
B+(**) [cd]
Norah Jones: Pick Me Up Off the Floor (2020, Blue Note):
Singer-songwriter, plays piano, famous father Ravi Shankar, grew up in
Texas with mother Ann Jones after age 7, eighth album since 2002 (the
mega-selling Come Away With Me). I'm reminded how appealing her
voice is.
B+(*)
Ute Lemper: Rendezvous With Marlene (2020, Jazzhaus):
German singer-actress, first recorded appearance was on the original
Vienna production of Cats, quickly found her niche with Ute
Lemper Singt Kurt Weill and Life Is a Cabaret, so of course
she has a Marlene Dietrich songbook -- she's lived it for decades, but
specifically cites "a 3-hour phone call and exchange between Marelene
and Ute in 1988 in Paris" as the basis for this production. I found
the theatricality a turn off at first, but ultimately was won over.
Mostly in German, bits of French and English, often sliding from one
to another line by line -- the German bits of "Blowing in the Wind"
are genius, as is the intro to "Falling in Love Again."
B+(***)
Madre Vaca: Winterreise (2020, Madre Vaca): "Dynamic
collective of artists, three "founders" among the eight musicians here:
Jarrett Carter (guitar), Jonah Pierre (piano), and Benjamin Shorstein
(drums). Music is by Franz Schubert, words by Wilhelm Müller (not a
big deal), arrangements by Shorstein. Starts semi-classical and moves
toward Latin.
B [cd]
Rudresh Mahanthappa: Hero Trio (2020, Whirlwind):
Alto saxophonist, major, decided to do an album of covers here, not
clear whether it's the band or the subjects (Charlie Parker, Stevie
Wonder, John Coltrane, Keith Jarrett, Johnny Cash, Ornette Coleman,
Charlie Parker again, and again) who are the heroes. Trio with
François Moutin (bass) and Rudy Royston (drums), the rhythm section
from his quintet Bird Calls -- probably the most popular and
my least favorite of his albums. This one is more fun, probably
because his Parker is so upbeat. Recorded avant le deluge, but
couldn't be timelier.
A- [06-19]
Stephen Riley: Friday the 13th (2018 [2020],
SteepleChase): Mainstream tenor saxophonist, from North Carolina,
roughly one album per year since 2005. Quartet with Kirk Knuffke
(trumpet), Jay Anderson (bass), and Billy Drummond (drums): all
standards, most from 1950s/60s jazz musicians. Horns do a nice
job of shading each other.
B+(***)
Dua Saleh: Rosetta (2020, Against Giants, EP):
Minneapolis Rapper, born in Sudan, came to US as a child. Second
EP (6 tracks, 17:36). Rejoined by Psymun, scoring the music, which
slips by without quite registering.
B+(*)
John Scofield: Swallow Tales (2019 [2020], ECM):
Guitarist, playing songs by Steve Swallow, who joins on electric bass,
along with Bill Stewart on drums. Tricky songs, nice tone.
B+(***)
Sara Serpa: Recognition (2019 (2020), Biophilia):
Vocalist, eighth album including three duos with Ran Blake, this
mostly music composed for a film, originally appearing silent with
live music. With Zeena Parkins (harp), Mark Turner (tenor sax),
and David Virelles (piano). High, lonesome soprano, tends to be
arty and/or arch, but the variety helps. Choice cut: "Queen Nzinga."
B+(**) [cd]
Walter Smith III/Matthew Stevens/Micah Thomas/Linda May Han
Oh/Nate Smith: In Common 2 (2020, Whirlwind): Tenor
saxophonist, debuted in 2006, Bandcamp page co-credits this (and
2018's In Common) to guitarist Stevens, but the others (new
on this volume) follow in same type, on piano, bass, and drums.
B+(*)
Westside Gunn: Hitler Wears Hermes VII (2019, Griselda):
Alvin Worthy, from Buffalo, seventh mixtape in this name series (plus
several more, albums, bunch of EPs).
B+(*)
Westside Gunn: Flygod Is an Awesome God (2019, Griselda):
Third album, title a sequel to his debut Flygod.
B+(*)
Westside Gunn: Pray for Paris (2020, Griselda): Rapper
Fourth album. Sounded promising, but lost me about half way through --
probably in a skit.
B+(*)
Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:
Joe Harriott Quintet: Jazz for Moderns (1962 [2020],
Gearbox, EP): Jamaican alto saxophonist (1928-73), moved to UK in 1951,
short but innovative career, developed what he called "free-form" but
also played vigorous bebop. This is a previously unreleased BBC set,
4 tracks (13:17), with Shake Keane on trumpet, Pat Smythe on piano,
plus bass and drums.
B+(**)
Wussy: Ghosts (2006-19 [2020], self-released): Odds
and sods mixtape, two tracks previously unreleased, the others from
EPs, singles, and side-projects, available as a free download, "created
to thank Wussy fans." Fans who love everything the band does seem to be
delighted with this. I was most impressed by the live "Shunt," a song
from one of their better albums.
B+(***) [bc]
Old music:
The Channels Featuring Earl Lewis: Golden Oldies
(1956-59 [2014], Essential Music Group): New York doo-wop group,
sometimes lead singer Lewis got top billing, not sure how long
they lasted, but Discogs' singles listing gets iffy after 1959.
No big hits, sound varies, padded out with covers.
B+(*)
Joe Harriott & Co. Feat John Dankworth & Tubby Hayes:
Helter Skelter: Live, Rare and Previously Unreleased Recordings
1955-1963 (1955-63 [2017], Acrobat): Alto saxophonist, 44
when he died in 1973, enough of a legend that there's still interest
in rediscovering and repackaging his work -- e.g., the 2-CD Killer
Joe (Giant Step) and the 4-CD The Joe Harriott Story
(Proper). This combines four sets, starting with a lively 1955 EP,
ending with some unreleased live shots (Dankforth and Hayes appear
on 4 tracks from Paris 1963, as does Humphrey Lyttelton and Kenny
Ball). The big band cuts aren't that interesting, although they
rise to the occasion in "A Night in Tunisia."
B+(**)
The Joe Harriott Quintet: Abstract (1961-62 [2015],
J. Joes J. Edizioni Musicali): The alto saxophonist's breakthrough
album was Free Form in 1961, followed by this adventurous
venture. Recorded in two sessions, "Oleo" the only non-original.
Quintet with Shake Keane (trumpet), Pat Smythe (piano), bass and
drums, plus bongos on two cuts.
B+(***)
The Joe Harriott Double Quintet: Indo-Jazz Suite (1966,
Atlantic): Cover credit continues: "under the direction of John Mayer."
Mayer (1929-2004), was an Anglo-Tamil composer, born in Calcutta, wrote
all four pieces (35:38), played violin and harpsichord, directing the
Indian musicians including sitar player Diwan Motihar (whose 1967
Jazz Meets India was another pioneering world jazz fusion work).
Seems a bit tame now, but was pathbreaking then.
B+(***)
Ranee Lee: Seasons of Love (1997, Justin Time): Jazz
singer, born in Brooklyn but based in Montreal since 1970, recording
a dozen albums 1980-2009. Tenor saxophonist David Murray gets a "with
special guest" credit on the cover, but only plays on 4 (of 12) songs.
Otherwise backed by piano, guitar, bass, and drums, all very deliberate.
B+(*)
David Murray: Let the Music Take You (1978, Marge):
Tenor saxophonist, early quartet, with Lawrence "Butch" Morris (cornet),
Johnny Dyani (bass), and George Brown (drums), live shot from Rouen,
France. Strong performance, wobbles a bit.
B+(***)
David Murray: Intergoogieology (1978, Black Saint):
The tenor sax great's first album on the Italian label that first
established him as a star (and, more than any other label, rescued
the American avant-garde by providing an outlet for their work).
Quartet with Morris, Dyani, and Oliver Johnson (drums), plus Marta
Contreras vocals on two (of four) tracks. "Blues for David" is the
only cut that really catches fire.
B+(**)
David Murray: The London Concert (1978 [1999], Cadillac,
2CD): Quintet in August, Morris again, plus locals on piano-bass-drums.
Album appeared as 2-LP in 1979, reissue adding two long songs (46:27).
B+(***)
David Murray Quartet: A Sanctuary Within (1991 [1992],
Black Saint): With Tony Overwater (bass), Sunny Murray (drums), and
Kahil El'Zabar (percussion, voice, thumb piano) -- names featured on
the cover, each bringing a song (Sunny 2, leaving 5 for Murray). His
sax runs are often brilliant, and El'Zabar can chant "song for the
new South Africa" as long as he keeps the beat.
A-
Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:
- Juhani Aaltonen/Jonas Kullhammar/Christian Meaas Svendsen/Ilmari Heikinheimo: The Father, the Sons & the Junnu (Moserobie)
- Beth Duncan: I'm All Yours (Saccat) [07-24]
- Jason Kao Hwang: Human Rites Trio (True Sound) [07-01]
- Noshir Mody: An Idealist's Handbook: Identity, Love and Hope in America 2020 (self-released) [07-03]
- Corey Smythe: Accelerate Every Voice (Pyroclastic)
- Stephane Spira/Giovanni Mirabassi: Improkofiev (Jazzmax) [06-19]
- Lou Volpe: Before & After (Jazz Guitar)
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