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Sunday, April 24, 2016

The New York primaries were held last week. Hillary Clinton won a huge win with 58.0% of the vote, giving her 139 delegates to Bernie Sanders 108. On the Republican side, Donald Trump won with his first majority in a primary all year, a big one with 60.4% of the vote vs. 25.1% for John Kasich and 14.5% for that sworn enemy of "New York values" Ted Cruz. Trump got 89 delegates, Kasich 4, and Cruz 0, so this primary went a long ways to putting Trump back on track for a first ballot win at the Republican Convention. Still, it's worth noting that Trump only got 19.5% of the votes cast on Tuesday. Sanders got 28.4%, and Clinton got 39.2% -- together the Democrats got 67.7% of the total vote, a big change from earlier primaries where Republicans generally got more votes than Democrats.

I looked at 538's What Went Down in the New York Primaries, and one thing I checked was the Clinton-Sanders split by congressional district. What I found was that Clinton ran especially well in New York City, and was much stronger in districts represented by Democrats (she won 17 of 18, only losing around Albany). Sanders, on the other hand, won 5 (of 9) districts represented by Republicans, and did better than his state average in the other four (also in Democratic districts in Buffalo and Rochester, plus the 6th in Queens and the 18th in Westchester). What this suggests is that the party machine and its patronage network held firm for Clinton. Of course, one thing that helped the machine was that the primary was closed (way in advance of the vote), so independents, which Sanders has regularly won this year, often by large margins, couldn't vote.

I came out of this feeling pretty down, not so much because I expected a Sanders win -- I did think it might be closer, but knew Clinton had a lot of structural advantages there -- but because it underscored how difficult it's going to be to dislodge the Party's power structure. Sanders could win in Republican areas because he appealed especially to people deprived of power, but the Democrats so controlled New York City that the oligarchy -- especially the nabobs of Wall Street -- owned the Party. And what made matters worse for me was that while this smackdown was going on, I was reading Thomas Frank's Listen, Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People?, where his big point is that the Democrats ever since Carter had courted educated professionals (following Chris Hedges, he calls them the Liberal Class), often at the expense of the workers and unions who had previously been the most effective supporters of the Democratic Party -- the net effect is that the Democrats are as much in bed with big business as the Republicans, making them preferable only in that they'll try to defend certain liberties and civil rights, and work a bit less hard at destroying the middle class. That explains the sort of marginal differentiation that is supposed to convince us that we need Clinton to save the world from Trump or Cruz, even though there is no reason to think she'll even try to do the things that need to be done to reverse the increase in inequality and the rot in practically everything else. So while the horserace watchers saw New York as the primary that virtually cinched Clinton's nomination, it looked more to me like the end of any hope for change.

Next Tuesday's primaries promise to be more of the same. Clinton is favored in Connecticut (56.2-41.3%, closest poll Clinton +6), Maryland (63.3-33.9%, closest +13), and Pennsylvania (58.9-38.2%, closest +6); I don't see any polling on Delaware and Rhode Island, but I'd expect them to be similar to Maryland and Connecticut (although there is one Delaware poll with Clinton +7, suggesting much closer than Maryland). Trump is also expected to mop up: 45.2-31.7-21.3% in Connecticut (Kasich over Cruz), 40.3-30.6-27.1% in Maryland (Kasich over Cruz), and 41.1-29.4-27.4% in Pennsylvania (Cruz over Kasich -- looks like a second straight brutal week for Cruz).

Looking further ahead, Clinton should keep on winning: 52.7-44.4% in Indiana (May 3), 56.8-41.7% in California (June 7), 51.0-41.4% in New Jersey (also June 7). Trump continues to lead in the Republican races (with Cruz getting a bit closer): 38.1-37.5-22.2% (T-C-K) in Indiana, 41.9-33.5-23.4% (T-C-K) in California, and 50.4-23.4-17.2% (T-K-C) in New Jersey.

Meanwhile I have to share the following image. Just think, with three-hundred million people in America, this is the best we can do?

Back in 1776 there were only four million people in America, yet somehow we managed to find a wide range of capable leaders. Now we find that the only possible surrogate for one Clinton is another, and that the best the opposition party can come up with is their former party pal. Hard to see any significant differences among this crowd, yet both Trump and Clinton have managed to convince most of their followers that the other is the Devil incarnate, and those followers are hysterical as expected. Still, the odds of a comparably jovial post-election photo are pretty high -- especially if Clinton wins and reverts to form, serving the billionaire class.

Some scattered links this week:

• Gerald Friedman: Orthodox Economics Has Become a Place Where Visions Die and Hopes Are Banished: Subhed: "Why liberal economists dish out despair." Friedman was the economist who analyzed Bernie Sanders' platform and concluded that it would lead to a growth rate that the US economy hasn't seen in over fifty years. He was, in turn, attacked by economists like Christine Romer and Paul Krugman for suggesting that such growth rates were even possible. Basically, they regarded Friedman's calculations as proof that Sanders was fantasizing. (In fairness, a few economists like James Galbraith defended Friedman.) Much of interest here:

  There is, of course, a politics as well as a psychology to this economic theory. If nothing much can be done, if things are as good as they can be, it is irresponsible even to suggest to the general public that we try to do something about our economic ills. The role of economists and other policy elites (Paul Krugman is fond of the term "wonks") is to explain to the general public why they should be reconciled with stagnant incomes, and to rebuke those, like myself, who say otherwise before we raise false hopes that can only be disappointed. But this approach leaves liberals like Hillary Clinton with few policy options to offer in response to the siren call of demagogues like Donald Trump. And it makes the work of self-proclaimed "responsible" elite economists that much more pressing. They have to work even harder to persuade the public that nothing can be done to head off the challenge of Trump and other irresponsible politicians who capitalize on the electorate's appetite for change. They have to slap down critics like myself. "Responsible" elite economists have to keep the party of "good arithmetic" from overpromising at all costs.

  Were the orthodox classical economists correct, then of course their politics would follow. But what if they are wrong? What if government action could, in fact, raise growth rates or narrow disparities? What would be the expected value of a higher GDP growth rate? Would it be worth some academic debate, even if it leaked into the public realm? Might this debate even serve a socially useful function by giving voters an alternative to the xenophobic political economy of Donald Trump? Many Americans believe that government action can improve economic conditions, especially for workers, and many of these support Trump because they see him as the only candidate who is even willing to consider government action to help working Americans. These voters can look long and hard at the "responsible" Clinton platform for some policy, for any policy to raise growth rates and narrow income disparities. But they won't find it, because policy elites have closed their minds to the possibility of change.

  This reminds me that Krugman has repeatedly defended Democratic Party compromises (e.g., ACA, Dodd-Frank) as adequate and satisfactory (even if not ideal) solutions, while implying that little more can be done, and that when Sanders argues otherwise, he's out on some lark beyond anything that is economically possible. This gets me wondering whether there were any Keynesians during the 1930s, even after it had become clear that government spending was working to bring the economy out of the Great Depression, who could imagine what a radical expansion -- one aimed not just as restoring the pre-depression equilibrium but achieving a whole new level of prosperity -- might accomplish. That experiment was (perhaps unwittingly) done with the total mobilization for WWII. What Sanders is proposing goes way beyond repairing the damage done by Bush's bubble. What's lacking is political will, not the "laws of economics," and the net effect of Krugman's (and others') naysaying is to help suppress that political will.

  I don't doubt that there are long-term issues with sustaining economic growth, but it's also clear that the US economy is performing way below what it's capable of, and a crash program of public works -- not just to fix our sorely degraded infrastructure -- would make a big difference (even Krugman understands that much, although his argument doesn't go nearly as far as Sanders or Friedman). The infrastructure work would also move a huge current liability into the asset column, and would improve future productivity, but there's much more value to be gained from spending on public works. One area where Sanders may be overly optimistic is how to pay for this: it's not clear to me that simply "soaking the rich" with higher taxes will raise enough revenue (not that that's not worth doing in its own right), especially if one implements other reforms to reverse increasing inequality. Most likely we would need some sort of broad-based consumption tax (in addition to more progressive taxes on profits and estates), but that's almost a technical issue compared to the broader question of vision.

  I should also remind you of Philip Mirowski's big book, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste: How Neoliberalism Survived the Financial Meltdown (2013), which is largely about how mainstream economists throttled (well, more like strangled) any serious political change following a severe crisis which pretty clearly proved that their understanding of the economy was faulty.

• Emmett Rensin: The smug style in American liberalism: Much I agreed with here, and much that rubbed me the wrong way. I believe that good politics derives from respect for everyone, notably people who grew up differently from yourself, who consequently have different world views. However, that doesn't mean you can't or shouldn't disagree with some of those world views. It's just that the ones you should reject are the ones where respect isn't reciprocal or generalizable. Many people, for instance, think they should be privileged over other groups of people, and that is a creed that is based on disrespect for the unprivileged, that cannot be generalizable. We can all, for instance, settle for equality, which is what makes it such a fundamental principle of political society. Given all this, smugness is inappropriate and often counterproductive. Yet it is pretty much impossible to engage in political discourse without at some point appearing to someone as smug. And consequently, Rensin's examples are all over the range from sensible to outrageous. There are some ideas -- the gold standard, for instance, or creationism -- that are so indefensible many of us skip past re-litigating them and resort to derision, even if that leaves the impression of smugness. Similarly there are people -- e.g., Sen. Jim Inhofe on climate change (fresh on my mind because I read a quote from him today) -- who having repeatedly clung to indefensible positions have lost the right to be taken seriously, even though such instant rejection smacks of smugness. At some point you have to realize that it's not practical to re-argue everything from first principles every time it comes up (though it is useful to be able to cite someone who has thought the issue through). Still, I don't disagree with the following:

  It is impossible, in the long run, to cleave the desire to help people from the duty to respect them. It becomes all at once too easy to decide you know best, to never hear, much less ignore, protest to the contrary.

  At present, many of those most in need of the sort of help liberals believe they can provide despise liberalism, and are despised in turn. Is it surprising that with each decade, the "help" on offer drifts even further from the help these people need?

  Even if the two could be separated, would it be worth it? What kind of political movement is predicated on openly disdaining the very people it is advocating for?

  The smug style, at bottom, is a failure of empathy. Further: It is a failure to believe that empathy has any value at all. It is the notion that anybody worthy of liberal time and attention and respect must capitulate, immediately, to the Good Facts. [ . . . ]

  The smug style did not arise by accident, and it cannot be abolished with a little self-reproach. So long as liberals cannot find common cause with the larger section of the American working class, they will search for reasons to justify that failure. They will resent them. They will find, over and over, how easy it is to justify abandoning them further. They will choose the smug style.

  One thing that Rensin has stumbled onto here is that the relationship between liberalism and the working class has been fraught with difficulty throughout American history, perhaps only bound together by accident of the egalitarian words of the Declaration of Independence and the power shifts of the New Deal. Liberalism has always focused on individuals, defined as free and equal as opposed to the old orders of aristocracy (and peasantry or slavery). As such, liberals sought to advance people one-by-one based on merit, whereas socialists sought to "level up" the working class to share in the entire nation's wealth (mostly created by the labor of the working class). As such liberals -- Chris Hedges and Thomas Frank speak of a distinct "liberal class" rooted in highly educated professionals -- have tended to accept inequities, provided that opportunities were more or less equal -- all the more so in times of increased inequality, such as ours.

  Indeed, at this point I suspect that the only thing that keeps the liberal class and the working class -- which is a pretty fair first approximation of the Clinton-Sanders contest -- from splitting the Democratic Party in two is their shared horror at the prospect of Republican rule. It will be interesting to see whether the dominant liberal faction makes any serious nods toward the white working class (with Republicans like Trump and Cruz, blacks and Latinos are pretty much locked in).

• Yusef Munayyer: Wanted: A US Strategy in the Middle East:

  In 2006, as Israel and Hezbollah were engaged in what would be a 34­day war, the longest of any Arab­Israeli war since 1948, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reflected on the region's volatile dynamics calling them "the birth pangs of a new Middle East." She further stated, "We have to be certain that we are pushing forward to the new Middle East not back to the old one."

  Indeed, there was something new in the Middle East that Dr. Rice was observing then. For the first time, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan all seemed to align with Israel in the war and condemned Hezbollah in a very overt way. Earlier in the year, Al-Qaeda in Iraq launched the first major salvo in what became a sectarian war in Iraq when it bombed the Shi'a Al­Askari Mosque in Samarra. The Iraq war had made this regional realignment, which we have seen develop further in the years since, come into fruition.

  The invasion of Iraq in 2003, and the subsequent dismantlement of the Iraqi state had many devastating implications for the region. Perhaps most significant was the fact that it shattered any semblance of regional order in the Middle East and the long­standing modus vivendi between Riyadh and Tehran. Saddam had been a bulwark against Iran and a buffer that limited Iranian influence from reaching the Arab Gulf countries and the Levant. With Saddam gone, the US fired the starting pistol in a regional power struggle between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Militias, insurgencies, sectarianism and bloodshed would characterize this power struggle.

  Today, more than a decade into this contest, the labor pains have subsided and a demon child called ISIS, nurtured from embryo to beast in the womb of a failed Iraqi state, has not only learned to walk but is running amok across the Middle East, North Africa and beyond.

  Munayyer's big point is that while the US thought it had all the power in the world, it had no real idea what it wanted to do with that power, and consequently wound up thrashing, unable to decide on goals, or even friends and enemies (actually, both camps tended to be defined by their opposite in ways that wound up contradicting one another). And in this context US power turned out to be far less than super (let alone hyper). Munayyer sees the 2003 invasion of Iraq as pivotal, but the 1990 war was nearly as bad, and the US had made a muddle of its strategy ever since Carter declared the Persian Gulf a "vital US interest," or Nixon looked to Saudi fundamentalism as a bulwark in the Cold War, or LBJ had no interest in brokering an end to the Arab-Israeli wars despite having friends on both sides. And all through America's Orientalists never showed the slightest interest in the welfare of the region's people, least of all their desires for free societies and modern economies.

Also, a few links for further study (briefly noted:

• Dean Baker: Patently Absurd Logic on Budget Deficits and Debt: Time did a cover story attempting to rile up hysteria about the federal deficit again, so Baker knocks it down plank by plank -- stuff you should already know by now, but I'm flad he's also talking about patents:

  There is one other point about treating the debt as a serious measure of generational equity. Interest payments on debt are just one of the ways in which the government makes commitments for the future. When the government grants patent and copyright monopolies, it is also making commitments that carry into the future. Patent and copyright monopolies allow the holders to charge prices for the protected items that are hugely higher than the free market price. They are in effect a tax that is privately collected by drug companies, software companies, the entertainment industry and others.

  These payments are in fact enormous relative to the interest burdens that get the deficit hawks so excited. In the case of prescription drugs alone, the difference between what we pay for patent protected drugs, compared to drugs being sold at free market prices, is in the neighborhood of $360 billion a year. That's equal to 2 percent of the GDP, twice the size of the current interest burden on the public debt.

• Jesse Eisinger: Why Haven't Bankers Been Punished? Just Read These Insider SEC Emails: Follows longtime SEC lawyer James Kidney. Ends with:

  Kidney became disillusioned. Upon retiring, in 2014, he gave an impassioned going-away speech, in which he called the SEC "an agency that polices the broken windows on the street level and rarely goes to the penthouse floors."

  In our conversations, Kidney reflected on why that might be. The oft-cited explanations -- campaign contributions and the allure of private-sector jobs to low-paid government lawyers -- have certainly played a role. But to Kidney, the driving force was something subtler. Over the course of three decades, the concept of the government as an active player had been tarnished in the minds of the public and the civil servants inside working inside the agency. In his view, regulatory capture is a psychological process in which officials become increasingly gun shy in the face of criticism from their bosses, Congress, and the industry the agency is supposed to oversee. Leads aren't pursued. Cases are never opened. Wall Street executives are not forced to explain their actions.

• Rebecca Gordon: Exhibit One in Any Future American War Crimes Trial: Author of a new book titled American Nuremberg: The US Officials Who Should Stand Trial for Post-9/11 War Crimes. Previously wrote Mainstreaming Torture: Ethical Approaches in the Post-9/11 United States (2014, Oxford University Press). This excerpt focuses on the torture of Abu Zubaydah, which surely qualifies although I'd say that the decisions to invade and start decades-long wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are far more serious crimes.

• William Hartung: What a Waste, the US Military: Given all the evil that the US military perpetrates, the fact that they do such a lousy job of managing their bloated allowance ranks rather low on in my view, but it's always worth a reminder that their lack of care and foresight starts at home, well before they use it to screw up the rest of the world.

• Matt Karp: Against Fortress Liberalism; Lily Geismer: Atari Democrats; Rick Perlstein: The Chicago School: three essays from Jacobin magazine, which we recently subscribed to. On the other hand, they also published a hatchet job by Jonah Walters on "hippie-hating hawk" Merle Haggard that totally misses the boat. (Kathleen Geier fumes here, and Eric Loomis gets down to brass tacks in a reply titled Walking on the Fighting Side of Me.)

• David Swanson: US Wars Are Not Waged Out of Generosity or for Democracy: Interview by Mark Karlin with the author of War Is a Lie, originally written in 2010 and now out in a 2nd edition paperback (Just World Books), and founder of the World Beyond War website.

  In 2006, Republicans believed they'd have to end the wars, and Democrats were elected to congressional majorities with that mandate. Rahm Emanuel then openly told The Washington Post that the Democrats would keep the wars going for two more years in order to run "against" them again in 2008. The Democrats took the chairs of committees and proceeded to do nothing with them. And people who identified with the Democratic Party in 2007 began obsessing with the 2008 presidential election, at the expense of ending the slaughter in 2007 or 2008.

  Endless, lawless war at massive expense was clearly established as a bipartisan norm. Entire presidential debates in 2016 have passed by without a single mention of the world outside the United States. No candidate has been asked whether 54 percent of discretionary spending on militarism is too much, too little or just right. Young people have grown up in this climate and accepted in some cases -- just like most old people -- all the propaganda or at least the part that maintains that we are powerless to stop wars. Corruption by war profiteers and general cultural taboos contribute: The big environmental groups won't take on the biggest destroyer of the environment, the big civil liberties groups won't touch the biggest cause of rights violations etc. But the fact is that a massive movement against war is extremely active and broad in comparison to what the media suggests.

  For an excerpt from the new edition of War Is a Lie, see Fear of ISIS Used to Justify Continued Military Intervention in Middle East.

• How Hillary Clinton Became a Hawk: As Secretary of State, Clinton was consistently more hawkish than President Obama. Indeed, she's always been quick to resort to military force. Long story, including a possibly apocryphal story about Clinton wanting to join the Navy.

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Monday, April 18, 2016

Music: Current count 26515 [26475] rated (+40), 418 [425] unrated (-7).

Big bump in the rated count this week -- first time in well over a month to top 30 and did so by a bunch. Had a replenished jazz queue to work through, and until I got to the Clean Feeds they didn't require a lot of attention. Also noticed on Rhapsody a clutch of new records by artists I recognize as worth checking out (Hayes Carll, The Coathangers, Mayer Hawthorne, Parquet Courts, Sturgill Simpson, plus Kanye West finally appeared). Also had Jason Gubbels' list, and a couple Christgau Expert Witness columns (one on blues and another on alt-rock -- I had already written up Parquet Courts but not Coathangers or the new Tacocat, and my endorsement of Full Communism isn't just political).

Of the eight B+(***) records below, two were Christgau A- records (Tacocat, Kanye West). I gave up on them after two or three plays, without being certain more plays wouldn't help. Same thing for the Sturgill Simpson album, possibly an even better prospect. I'm having similar indecision with the new PJ Harvey, but save that for next week.

I voted in Downbeat's annual critics poll last week. I'm not going to do a separate post on this -- I was exhausted after it took more than 24 hours to I finish the 16 pages of ballots (with 50-some questions), on top of the usual aggravations and frustrations. Still, you can scan through my worksheet if you like. I suppose I should mention that I build each year's worksheet on the last, which helps with consistency (and jogs my increasingly damaged memory) but lets me get by without giving many questions much fresh thought. And this all the more true in categories I don't have any real thoughts -- fresh or received -- on, like Composer, Arranger, or various minor instruments (e.g., I almost never notice electric bass or keyboards, so trying to come up with three names there is even harder than trying to whittle down thirty or more luminaries on acoustic bass or piano).

I will mention that my HOF pick was George Russell. Downbeat's Hall is excessively restrictive and therefore woefully underpopulated, so there is a long list of worthies to pick from (and many more not even on Downbeat's prospect list). (By contrast, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is too large, not that the judges there have picked up all who deserve a slot.) Still, Russell is a giant among the uninducted, but he never has gotten the credit he deserves. For instance, when you think of Latin-Bebop, you recall Dizzy Gillespie (not the writer of "Cubana Be Cubana Bop"). When you think of modal jazz, you come up with Miles Davis and John Coltrane (not the guy who wrote the big book that showed how it is done). When you think of jazz workshops, you get Mingus (not Russell). Most likely you can't think of anyone who pioneered electronics in jazz. Or recall that Russell was the mentor of nearly a dozen important Scandinavian (mostly Norwegian) jazz musicians who started out in the early 1970s. When Russell returned from Norway, got a job at New England Conservatory where he was one of the architects of modern jazz education. The people who vote in Downbeat's Readers Poll are never going to put all that together, but you'd think that jazz critics would know at least this much.

Of course, many do, but they have other concerns, and the competition is stiff. It took Lee Konitz 65 years to get in last year, after finishing in the top three for nearly a decade -- leapfrogged many times recently by guys who finally got voters' attention the year before by dying (2006: Jackie McLean, 2007: Andrew Hill, 2009: Freddie Hubbard, 2011: Abbey Lincoln, 2012: Paul Motian, 2013: Charlie Haden, 2014: Jim Hall; Hank Jones won in 2008 then died in 2010; the only other living musician in this stretch was Muhal Richard Abrams in 2010; Russell died in 2009, got a boost then, but not enough). I have no idea who will win this year, but Paul Bley is probably the top choice among the recently deceased, and Anthony Braxton is the obvious pick among the living (and still very active).

I decided to write two names in, not so much because they were my next picks -- these rank lists are nowhere near that precise -- as hoping that they'll be picked up in future ballots: Mal Waldron and Jimmy Rushing. Waldron (1926-2002) is most famous as Billie Holiday's pianist, but he had a brilliant career as a leader and composer, made a remarkable move from postbop to avant-garde with his later group records like The Git Go and Crowd Scene, but perhaps his best records were duos with Steve Lacy, Marion Brown, and Jackie McLean (Left Alone '86). Rushing (1901-72) was the greatest of the Kansas City blues shouters, starting with Walter Page and Bennie Moten and following Count Basie to New York, where he cut many great albums -- a personal favorite from the year before he died is the out-of-print The You and Me That Used to Be.

This has nothing to do with music, but I should note and lament the passing of Dewane Hixon (1933-2016). He was a cousin, the oldest son of my mother's slightly older sister Edith. They moved from Oklahoma to Modesto, California in 1952, so we didn't see them much -- we drove to California in 1956; Edith, with two other sons (but I think not Dewane) came through Wichita around 1958. Dewane had a job working for an aircraft dealer and came to Wichita once for some training. He had a story about beating a traffic ticket when the cop stopped him and asked to see his pilot's license -- he whipped one out. I don't remember his father, Otis Hixon, who died from something heart-related in 1967, but relatives often said that Dewane reminded them of Otis, particularly as a practical joker. Dewane settled near Phoenix, and Edith moved there. After my mother died in 2000, we drove to Phoenix to see Edith, and spent quite a bit of time with Dewane. Edith died that December, at 89, the last of eight siblings. I went back to Phoenix two more times in the next few years. Always stopped to see Dewane, tell jokes, argue politics, and reminisce. He had a delivery service business, and was still working it last I heard last year. About half my cousins on my mother's side have passed now: all are older than me, the oldest survivor 90. Even stranger to lose that generation than my aunts and uncles before them.

Let me also note that I continue to be learn things from Thomas Frank's Listen, Liberal, which I quoted from in yesterday's post. The next few pages after yesterday's quote add to the list of Bill Clinton's "counter-scheduling" practices -- the crime bill, welfare reform, the "grand bargain" he was working on with Newt Gingrich to privatize a big chunk of Social Security. Frank focuses on how these acts reflect a deeper shift in the Democratic Party from a working-class base to one based on well-to-do professionals, one that may be socially liberal but cares little about inequality. Thus far -- I've gotten to be a shamefully slow reader, as well as one who can only focus for a few pages at a time, so I'm only about half-way through a short book -- he hasn't drawn out the political conclusions: e.g., how by undermining traditional Democratic groups Clinton was able to capture the party for his own personal purposes, which include fronting his wife's candidacy. But given what Frank shows, that part is pretty obvious.

In some ways I find Frank's book even more shocking than Jane Mayer's Dark Money. If it was just the Kochs and their ilk that had set out to undermine American democracy, there would be plenty of popular reaction. But when you turn the opposition over to "leaders" like the Clintons, there's no telling what they won't surrender (supposedly to defend you).

Recommended music links:

• Milo Miles: Top 33 of 2015: And, yes, I added this to my EOY Aggregate (I previously had Milo's JCP ballot; only one dupe here: Maria Schneider).

New records rated this week:

• Hayes Carll: Lovers and Leavers (2016, Highway 87): [r]: B+(***)
• Cavern of Anti-Matter: Void Beats/Invocation Trex (2016, Duophonic): [r]: B+(***)
• Chimurenga Renaissance: Rize Vadzimu Rize (2014, Brick Lane): [r]: B+(*)
• Chimurenga Renaissance: Girlz With Gunz (2016, Glitterbeat, EP): [r]: B+(*)
• The Coathangers: Nosebleed Weekend (2016, Suicide Squeeze): [r]: A-
• Shemekia Copeland: Outskirts of Love (2015, Alligator): [r]: B+(*)
• Daria: Strawberry Fields Forever: Songs by the Beatles (2016, OA2): [cd]: B+(*)
• Flatbush Zombies: 3001: A Laced Odyssey (2016, Glorious Dead): [r]: B+(**)
• Michael Formanek/Ensemble Kolossus: The Distance (2014 [2016], ECM): [dl]: B+(***)
• James Freeman: Echoes of Nature III (2016, Edgetone): [cd]: B-
• Matthew Fries: Parallel States (2015 [2016], Xcappa): [cd]: B+(*)
• Alexander Hawkins/Evan Parker: Leaps in Leicester (2015 [2016], Clean Feed): [cd]: A-
• Jean-Brice Godet Quartet: Mujô (2013 [2016], Fou): [cd]: B+(***)
• Mayer Hawthorne: Man About Town (2016, Vagrant): [r]: B+(**)
• Kamaiyah: A Good Night in the Ghetto (2016, self-released): [r]: B+(**)
• Roberto Magris: Need to Bring Out Love (2016, JMood): [cdr]: B+(**)
• Daniel Meron: Sky Begins (2015 [2016], Rabbit Rabbit Rabbit): [cd]: B
• Moodymann: DJ-Kicks (2016, !K7): [r]: B+(**)
• Roy Nathanson: Nearness and You (2015 [2016], Clean Feed): [cd]: B+(*)
• New Zion w. Cyro: Sunshine Seas (2016, Rare Noise): [cdr]: B+(**)
• Noertker's Moxie & the Melancholics: Curious Worlds: The Art & Imagination of David Beck (2016, Edgetone): [cd]: B+(*)
• Parquet Courts: Human Performance (2016, Rough Trade): [r]: A-
• Restroy: Saturn Return (2016, Milk Factory): [cd]: B+(*)
• Eric Revis Trio: Crowded Solitudes (2015 [2016], Clean Feed): [cd]: A-
• Rent Romus/Teddy Rankin-Parker/Daniel Pearce: LiR (2014 [2016], Edgetone): [cd]: B+(***)
• Mikael Seifu: Zelalem (2016, RVNG Intl, EP): [r]: B+(*)
• Sturgill Simpson: A Sailor's Guide to the Earth (2016, Atlantic): [r]: B+(***)
• Esperanza Spalding: Emily's D+Evolution (2016, Concord): [r]: B
• Mavis Staples: Livin' on a High Note (2016, Anti-): [r]: B+(**)
• Starlite Motel: Awosting Falls (2014 [2016], Clean Feed): [cd]: B+(*)
• Tacocat: Lost Time (2016, Hardly Art): [r]: B+(***)
• Twenty One 4tet: Live at Zaal 100 (2015 [2016], Clean Feed): [cd]: B+(**)
• Kanye West: The Life of Pablo (2016, Def Jam/GOOD Music): [r]: B+(***)

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries rated this week:

• The Ex: The Ex at Bimhuis (1991-2015) (1991-2015 [2015], Ex, 2CD): [bc]: B+(***)
• Ella Fitzgerald: Jazz at the Philharmonic: The Ella Fitzgerald Set (1949-54 [2016], Verve): [r]: B+(*)
• The Rough Guide to Bottleneck Blues [Second Edition] (1926-40 [2016], World Music Network): [r]: B+(***)
• The Rough Guide to the Blues Songsters: Reborn and Remastered (1926-35 [2015], World Music Network): [r]: A-

Old music rated this week:

• The Ex: 30 (1980-2006 [2009], Ex, 2CD): [bc]: B+(***)
• The Ex: Catch My Shoe (2010, Ex): [bc]: B+(**)

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

• Bobby Avey: Inhuman Wilderness (Inner Voice Jazz): June 24
• The Dynamic Les DeMerle Band: Comin' Home Baby (Origin)
• Nick Fraser: Starer (self-released): April 29
• Alex Goodman: Border Crossing (OA2): April 15
• Keefe Jackson/Jason Adasiewicz: Rows and Rows (Delmark)
• Scott Neumann/Tom Christensen: Spin Cycle (Sound Footing): May 6
• Sebastian Noelle: Shelter (Fresh Sound New Talent): advance, June 3
• The Oatmeal Jazz Combo: Instant Oats (LGY)
• Sonny Rollins: Holding the Stage: Road Shows Vol. 4 (1979-2012, Okeh)
• Nana Simopoulos: Skins (Na): June 20

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Sunday, April 17, 2016

Quickly, some scattered links this week:

• George Monbiot: Neoliberalism -- the ideology at the root of all our problems: The term is scarcely ever used in the US, where right-wing pundits insist that Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher (pictured at the top) are regarded as purely conservative folk heroes. Yet the term was coined at a 1938 conference featuring Austrian economists Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek, who used it to articulate an extreme belief in free markets in opposition to "collectivism" -- a term they felt rounded up all the evil political movements of the era: nazism, communism, and most importantly social democracy. The term soon fell out of use: in the US the ideas mostly appealed to red-baiting right wingers who preferred to call themselves "conservatives"; in Britain, the term has mostly been picked up by its opponents, since it seems to tie together both the Conservative and Liberal parties, as well as describe where the "New Labour" party faction went so terribly wrong. Of course, the same ideas infected the Democratic Party, particularly through Carter's deregulation mania, Clinton's embrace of "free trade" deals and "small government," continuing through Obama (whose signature plans, like health care reform and a "cap-and-trade" greenhouse gas market were originally hatched in neoliberal "think tanks"). Still, I wonder if it isn't too pat to catalog every instance of self-serving capitalist greed and dignify it with an innocuous ideological label. Monbiot notes that neoliberal policy directives have failed so often their underlying theories have achieved zombie status, then complains that "The left has produced no new framework of economic thought for 80 years. This is why the zombie walks." The zombie walks because the rich have rigged the system. What we need isn't another framework; it's countervaling power.

  Much quotable here; this is just a sample:

  The greater the failure, the more extreme the ideology becomes. Governments use neoliberal crises as both excuse and opportunity to cut taxes, privatise remaining public services, rip holes in the social safety net, deregulate corporations and re-regulate citizens. The self-hating state now sinks its teeth into every organ of the public sector.

  Perhaps the most dangerous impact of neoliberalism is not the economic crises it has caused, but the political crisis. As the domain of the state is reduced, our ability to change the course of our lives through voting also contracts. Instead, neoliberal theory asserts, people can exercise choice through spending. But some have more to spend than others: in the great consumer or shareholder democracy, votes are not equally distributed. The result is a disempowerment of the poor and middle. As parties of the right and former left adopt similar neoliberal policies, disempowerment turns to disenfranchisement. Large numbers of people have been shed from politics.

  Monbiot has a new book, How Did We Get Into This Mess? (Verso). He also cites another interesting title, Andrew Sayer: Why We Can't Afford the Rich (Policy Press, paperback in May). Also links to Paul Verhaeghe: Neoliberalism has brought out the worst in us.

• Michael Specter: Life-Expectancy Inequality Grows in America:

  It will surprise nobody to learn that life expectancy increases with income. Coming, however, in the midst of a Presidential campaign in which the corrosive effects of income inequality have been a principal debate topic, the data and its implications for public policy are particularly striking: the richest one per cent of American men live 14.6 years longer on average than the poorest one per cent. For women, the average difference is a just over ten years.

  The gap appears to be growing fast. The researchers, led by Raj Chetty, a professor of economics at Stanford University, analyzed more than 1.4 billion federal tax returns, as well as mortality data from the Social Security Administration, from the years 2001 to 2014. In that period, the life expectancy of the richest five per cent of Americans increased by roughly three years. For the poorest five per cent, there was no increase.

• DR Tucker: Ship of Fools: The fourth down of five straight rants about "Bernie or Bust"-ers ("who still insist that under no circumstances will they vote for the 'corporatist' Hillary Clinton if she defeats Bernie Sanders for the Democratic presidential nomination"). After five paragraphs of imagining Trumpian hell, he concludes:

  The inconvenient truth is that the "Bernie or Bust" crowd is indistinguishable from right-wing fundamentalists in their loathing of compromise and their refusal to recognize that sometimes people can make bad decisions in good faith. Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton and Al Gore are neither evil nor corrupt. Neither is Bernie Sanders, for that matter . . . but what does it say about those who only recognize morality in the latter, and malevolence in the former?

  First, he probably should have stopped at "evil" and not brought up "corrupt": if there's anything the Clintons have done consistently throughout their political careers, it's been to cozy up to moneyed interests -- be they Tyson and Walmart in Arkansas, or Goldman Sachs and Citibank in New York. Maybe it's legal for a company that was saved by billions of dollars of federal bailouts to pay you $650k for one little speech, but it's hard to say there's nothing corrupt about it. Second, are we really talking about compromises, or simply different goals? When the Clinton's concocted their health care scheme, were they backing off from a single-payer approach just enough to secure passage, or were they trying to pitch fat business opportunities to the insurance companies and HMOs? If you want an example of a compromise, take Sanders supporting Obama's ACA even though he clearly was aware of and wanted something better. I'm not saying that the Clintons don't compromise, let alone that they have no principles to compromise. But I do think it's fair to say that their principles and aims are very different from those of people who prefer Sanders. Probably very different from their own supporters too.

  It's pathetic that Tucker can't tell the difference between Sanders supporters and right-wing fundamentalists. Also that he doesn't recognize that most Sanders supporters aren't died-in-the-wool leftists. The least of Clinton's problems is that those "Bernie-or-bust"-ers will wind up voting for Jill Stein. Two much bigger problems are that Clinton won't campaign on anything that materially promises to help the lives of the voters who have been energized by Sanders' campaign and/or that she's already lost so much credibility that many people won't trust her. And again, her problem isn't with confirmed leftists, who are hypersensitive to the perils of fascism and accustomed to settling for "lesser evils." Her problem is the vast mass of Americans who can't tell the difference between the two parties, either because they're uninformed or because they're all too aware that changing the guard in Washington hasn't made any appreciable difference in their own lives.

  Worse still is Tucker's Running Up That Hill, where he urges the DNC to ban Sanders from speaking at the Democratic Convention:

  Why should Clinton genuflect to someone who a) explicitly said she doesn't have what it takes to be president, b) called for a primary challenge to the current Democratic President, and c) is not a Democrat?

  Speaking of concessions, a compelling case can be made that if Sanders suspends his campaign after losing badly in this Tuesday's New York Democratic primary, he should be excluded from speaking in any capacity at the Democratic convention. It would be rather divisive to give a prominent speaking position at that convention to someone who seems to believe that the Democratic Party has prostituted itself to economically powerful johns and contracted the social disease of "corporatism." If Sanders addressed the convention and repeated his campaign rhetoric, would he not offend convention attendees who regard certain elements of Sanders's shtick as a tone-deaf and tacky trashing of President Obama? [ . . . ] Those who are thinking dispassionately will not be offended by the exclusion of Sanders from the convention, and will understand the reasons why he wasn't invited to speak.

  Didn't the DNC try to suppress dissent (or do I mean democracy?) once before -- in 1968? As I recall, that didn't work out so well. A sane person would see the convention as an opportunity to bind the Party divided by the primaries back together, but Tucker seems to prefer laying waste to those who had challenged party orthodoxy, thereby exacerbating the split in the Party. I suppose he could point to Pat Buchanan's speech at the Republican Convention in 1992 as an example where such a concession backfired. (If you recall that speech, it's probably because Molly Ivins allowed that "it probably sounded better in the original German.") Nonetheless, I can't imagine Sanders following suit -- especially after the votes are counted -- unless Clinton follows Tucker's advice and pushes him out. And if she's that thin-skinned, she's unprepared for the job ahead.

  PS: I wouldn't have read these pieces had they not appeared in the otherwise admirable Washington Monthly blog, which Tucker has totally hijacked for his rants. Please bring back Katherine Geier.

• Corey Rubin: Magical Realism, and other neoliberal delusions: Among many other thoughts, this on the obsolescence of the DLC political style:

  Though I'm obviously pleased if Sanders beat Clinton in the debate, it's the other two victories that are most important to me. For those of us who are Sanders supporters, the issue has never really been Hillary Clinton but always the politics that she stands for. Even if Sanders ultimately loses the nomination, the fact that this may be the last one or two election cycles in which Clinton-style politics stands a chance: that for us is the real point of this whole thing.

  I'm always uncertain whether Clinton supporters have a comparable view. While there are some, like Jonathan Chait or Paul Starr, for whom that kind of politics is substantively attractive, and who will genuinely mourn its disappearance, most of Clinton's supporters seem to be more in synch with Sanders's politics. They say they like Bernie and agree with his politics; it's just not realistic, they say, to think that the American electorate will support that.

  Which makes these liberals' attraction to Clinton all the more puzzling. If it's all pure pragmatism for you -- despite your personal support for Bernie's positions, you think only her style of politics can win in the United States -- what are you going to do, the next election cycle, when there's no one, certainly no one of her talent or skills and level of organizational support, who's able to articulate that kind of politics?

• Daniel Larson: The Libyan War and Obama's 'Worst Mistake': When asked one of those self-flagellating questions, Obama offered that his worst mistake was "Probably failing to plan for the day after what I think was the right thing to do in intervening in Libya." I can think of several worse ones. One was not fixing the Bush tax cuts when he had the votes to do so right after the 2008 election. (Sure, I understand that he didn't do so because raising taxes in a recession would have seemed contractionary, and because he wanted to play up his bipartisanship, and because they were due to sunset in a few years anyway, but they would have cut into the swollen deficits that caused so much alarm, in turn leading to austerity cutbacks that really were contractionary. Moreover, he could have floated tax rebates to counter the increases short-term, so they would have been neutral or better while improving the long-term outlook.) Another was pretending that the US had succeeded in Iraq when his belated withdrawal was complete, which left him open to the charge that his withdrawal turned Bush's victory into the rise of ISIS. I could come up with a few dozen more before getting into Libya, where in retrospect the intervention has come to look like a worse decision than the aftermath. As Larson puts it:

  I don't think this was Obama's biggest mistake, but it is revealing that he remains convinced that this lack of post-Gaddafi planning is worse than the far greater error of intervening in Libya in the first place. As we saw last week, this has become the self-serving rallying cry of Libyan war supporters. The only error interventionists are capable of recognizing is that of doing "too little." They can't admit that the intervention itself is a mistake without fully acknowledging their bad judgment in supporting it. [ . . . ]

  Obama knew at the time that there was absolutely no political support in the U.S. or anywhere else for a prolonged mission in Libya. Promising not to start an open-ended mission in Libya is what made the war politically viable here at home. The public would tolerate bombing for eight months and then writing off the country, but there wouldn't be similar patience for a new occupation in yet another Muslim country with the costs and casualties that would likely entail.

  It was not an oversight by the intervening governments when they left Libya to its own devices. That was part of the plan, such as it was, from the very beginning. So it is hard to take Obama seriously when he faults himself for not committing the U.S. to a larger, costlier role in Libya when he and the other allied leaders deliberately decided against doing that. They made that decision because they wanted a low-risk intervention on the cheap, and they certainly weren't prepared to make a long-term commitment to police and rebuild Libya. But they were willing to help throw the country into chaos and to destabilize the surrounding region and declare victory when the regime change they supposedly weren't seeking had been achieved.

  One last point is that the US intervention didn't end when the bombing did. Obama may not have planned for the aftermath, but the CIA blundered in anyway, which is how that Benghazi! fiasco happened.

I want to close with a fairly long quote from Thomas Frank's new book, Listen, Liberal: Or What Ever Happened to the Party of the People? (pp. 89-91):

[Bill] Clinton's wandering political identity fascinated both his admirers and biographers, many of whom chose to explain it as a quest: Bill Clinton had to prove, to himself and the nation, that he was a genuine New Democrat. He had to grow into presidential maturity. And the way he had to do it was by somehow damaging or insulting traditional Democratic groups that represented the party's tradition of egalitarianism. Then we would know that the New Deal was really dead. Then we could be sure.

This became such a cherished idea among Clinton's campaign team that they had a catchphrase for it: "counter-scheduling." During the 1992 race, as though to compensate for his friend-of-the-little-guy economic theme, Clinton would confront and deliberately antagonize certain elements of the Democratic Party's traditional base in order to assure voters that "interest groups" would have no say in a New Democratic White House. As for those interest groups themselves, Clinton knew he could insult them with impunity. They had nowhere else to go, in the cherished logic of Democratic centralism.

The most famous target of Clinton's counter-scheduling strategy was the civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, the bête noir of centrists and the living embodiment of the poilitics the Democratic Leadership Council had set out to extinguish. At a 1992 meeting of Jackson's Rainbow Coalition, with Jackson sitting to his left, Clinton went out of his way to criticize a controversial rapper called Sister Souljah who had addressed the conference on the previous day. The exact circumstances of Clinton's insult have long been forgotten, but the fact of it has gone down in the annals of politicking as a stroke of genius, an example of the sort of thing that New Democrats should always be doing in order to discipline their party's base.

Once Clinton was in the White House, counter-scheduling mutated from a campaign tactic to a philosophy of government. At a retreat in the administration's early days, Bill's chief political adviser, Hillary Clinton, instructed White House officials how it was going to be done. As Carl Bernstein describes the scene, Hillary announced that the public must be made to understand that Bill was taking them on a "journey" and that he had a "vision" for what the administration was doing, a "story" that distinguished good from evil. The way to dramatize this story, the first lady continued (in Bernstein's telling), was to pick a fight with supporters.

You show people what you're willing to fight for, Hillary said, when you fight your friends -- by which, in this context, she clearly meant, When you make them your enemy.

NAFTA would become the first great test of this theory of the presidency, with Clinton defying not only organized labor but much of his own party in Congress. In one sense, it achieved the desired results. For New Democrats and for much of the press, NAFTA was Clinton's "finest hour," his "boldest action," an act befitting a real he-man of a president who showed he could stand up to labor and thereby assure the world that he was not a captive of traditional Democratic interests.

But there was also an important difference. NAFTA was not symbolism. With this deed, Clinton was not merely insulting an important constituency, as he had done with Jesse Jackson and Sister Souljah. With NAFTA he connived in that constituency's ruin. He assisted in the destruction of its economic power. He did his part to undermine his party's greatest ally, to ensure that labor would be too weak to organize workers from that point forward. Clinton made the problems of working people materially worse.

One effect of Clinton's NAFTA push was that the unions were unable to muster effective support for Clinton's signature health care bill. Then in 1994 the Republicans gained control of Congress and Clinton never again had to worry about the Democrats pushing some progressive reform through Congress. And by crippling the unions, Clinton was able to consolidate his control of the Democratic Party machine, something which kept Democrats weak in Congress (except for 2006-2010, when Howard Dean was Party Chairman) and set up Hillary's campaigns in 2008 and this year. (Sure, Obama beat Hillary in 2008, but welcomed her people into his team, got rid of Dean, and restored presidential crony control of the Party machinery, making Hillary a shoe-in this year -- at least until the rank-and-file weighed in.)

The bottom line here is that most people's interests should align with the Democrats -- they damn sure don't line up with the Republicans -- yet the Democrats don't get their votes, because party leaders like the Clintons, despite whatever they may promise during a campaign, cannot be trusted to support them.

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Friday, April 15, 2016

I started writing this up as a Weekend Roundup bullet item, but decided to let it stand [almost] on its own.

Tom Hayden: I Used to Support Bernie, but Then I Changed My Mind: The famed 1960s New Left radical, a founder of SDS, defendant at the Chicago 8/7 trial, and moderately successful California politician, explains:

I intend to vote for Hillary Clinton in the California primary for one fundamental reason. It has to do with race. My life since 1960 has been committed to the causes of African Americans, the Chicano movement, the labor movement, and freedom struggles in Vietnam, Cuba and Latin America. In the environmental movement I start from the premise of environmental justice for the poor and communities of color. My wife is a descendant of the Oglala Sioux, and my whole family is inter-racial.

What would cause me to turn my back on all those people who have shaped who I am? That would be a transgression on my personal code. I have been on too many freedom rides, too many marches, too many jail cells, and far too many gravesites to breach that trust. And I have been so tied to the women's movement that I cannot imagine scoffing at the chance to vote for a woman president. When I understood that the overwhelming consensus from those communities was for Hillary -- for instance the Congressional Black Caucus and Sacramento's Latino caucus -- that was the decisive factor for me. I am gratified with Bernie's increasing support from these communities of color, though it has appeared to be too little and too late. Bernie's campaign has had all the money in the world to invest in inner city organizing, starting 18 months ago. He chose to invest resources instead in white-majority regions at the expense of the Deep South and urban North.

I'm surprised to see Sanders depicted as having "all the money in the world," but checking Open Secrets I was even more surprised to see that he has managed to collect $139 million so far -- more than Ted Cruz ($119 million, including $52 million PAC money), still less than Hillary Clinton ($222 million, including $62 million PAC; Sanders has made a big point about not having a dark money PAC). Most of Sanders' money came in February ($42M) and March ($44M), well into the primary season. Until that happened, he was mostly dependent on volunteer efforts. I know, for instance, that he's had an active supporter group here in Wichita for over a year, and they would be pretty surprised to find he's rolling in all that money. They did, however, organize Sanders' second-largest victory margin to date -- although he's since won bigger elsewhere. As primary season unfolded, the money understandably went to critically competitive states. And Clinton, who started with (and still has) much more money, had somehow locked up the Deep South where most Democrats are black -- maybe she had made the investments Hayden charges Sanders with neglecting. (Still, isn't it interesting that a seasoned politician like Hayden sees money as the essential element in securing the loyalties of black and Latino votes? The implication is that those votes are tied to group elites in a way that approximates the old political machines.) And even more than cash, the big advantage that the Clintons brought into this election was a well-oiled patronage machine. The clearest evidence that established patronage matters is Clinton's 469-31 superdelegate lead. (Sanders' contributions have averaged $27-30, which works out to five million-plus donations though there are repeaters -- I know that my wife has donated $27 several times, probably putting her over $100 by now. Beyond her PAC money, Clinton has also gone after small donations, and claims more than one million donors. Sanders has more, "nearly two million donors" (Hillary Clinton Touts One Million Donors, While Bernie Sanders Approaches Two).

I've been somewhat mystified why Clinton enjoys such a large lead over Sanders among black voters. It's certainly not based on a sober examination of positions and issues, and I doubt if it has much to do with personal style. The best I've been able to come up with is that even with growing economic inequality and the decimation of the middle class all across America, most blacks have improved their lot, and see their solidarity with the Democratic Party as having helped them out. This isn't an unreasonable stance, and no doubt if/when Clinton wins she'll owe blacks and Latinos big time -- but she'll also owe bankers and the war industry, and in the end I suspect their investments will pay off better.

If Hayden was just a cog in the Democratic Party machine, I could see his choice: indeed, it would be as unremarkable as it's been for hundreds or thousands of Party hacks all across America. But Hayden was one of the most prominent figures in the New Left in the 1960s. One might argue that choosing Clinton over Sanders shows that he's not really much of a leftist, but more likely, I suspect, he's just proving one of the major critiques of the New Left: that it was run by people who came from privileged backgrounds and saw their role as to advocate for other people who had been denied their good fortune. That's not bad per se, but in practice shifted much of the left's focus from class to minority and identity issues like race (and sex and sexual orientation). They've done good work on all those fronts, but while they were off helping others the right smashed the unions that propped up the middle class and created vast inequality -- so much so that young people in America today have less reason to expect to live out their lives in comfort and freedom (e.g., free of debt) than any past generation for at least a century.

The upshot is that we have a guy who's spent more than fifty years working towards radical political change yet can't recognize it when it's actually happening, just because it's not coming from where he's been expecting it. The irony is that the Old Left that Hayden rejected had made the same mistake, expecting the working classes to rise up even after labor unions had won them middle-class jobs and social security, enough to buy homes (and cars, etc.) and send their kids to college and retire comfortably -- enough luxury they could even afford to look down on the less fortunate. Hayden, like much of the New Left, rebelled against the white working class as much as against the Old Left. I suspect that's because he was never of it, whereas those of us who grew up there were better able to notice when things went sour.

A few other quick links, limited to the elections. Next up is the New York primary, where 538's "projected results" favor Clinton 57.8-39.6%, although I only see one (of eight) April polls where she has that kind of margin -- 10-12% is typical. I don't expect Sanders to win, but wouldn't be surprised if it turns out to be much closer. (Friends who watched here -- I didn't, but baked them some cookies -- tell me Sanders had a very good debate last night.) On the Republican side it's Trump-Kasich-Cruz: 52.9-24.4-20.4%. You'd think that Trump's first majority win plus a third-place Cruz finish would turn the post-Wisconsin punditry around, but I doubt it. (Although I see that Josh Marshall is already out front there.) Trump, by the way, is polling well ahead in the April 27 primaries (Connecticut, Maryland, Pennsylvania) -- as is Clinton (although Connecticut is closer, and a couple of Pennsylvania polls show her lead there down to +6 or +7).

By the way, while I was not listening to the debate, I somehow imagined Hillary saying:

Well, sure, I'm for everything that Senator Sanders is for, but I can assure you that under my administration none of that will actually get done, because I expect to spend the entire four years embroiled in one stupid scandal after another. And as I'm sure you're aware, no one -- certainly not Senator Sanders -- has more experience surviving stupid scandals than I.

Meanwhile, some brief links:

• Jeff Merkley: Why I'm Supporting Bernie Sanders: The first endorsement of Sanders by a US Senator (Merkley represents Oregon).

  I grew up in working-class Oregon. On a single income, my parents could buy a home, take a vacation and help pay for college. My father worked with his hands as a millwright and built a middle-class life for us.

  My parents believed in education and they believed in the United States. When I was young, my father took me to the grade school and told me that if I went through those doors, and worked hard, I could do just about anything because we lived in America. My dad was right.

  Years later, my family and I still live in the same working-class community I grew up in. But America has gone off track, and the outlook for the kids growing up there is a lot gloomier today than 40 years ago.

  Many middle-class Americans are working longer for less income than decades ago, even while big-ticket expenses like housing, health care and college have relentlessly pushed higher.

  It is not that America is less wealthy than 40 years ago -- quite the contrary. The problem is that our economy, both by accident and design, has become rigged to make a fortunate few very well off while leaving most Americans struggling to keep up.

  And as economic power has become more concentrated, so too has political power. Special interests, aided by their political and judicial allies, have exercised an ever-tighter grip on our political system, from the rise of unlimited, secret campaign spending to a voter suppression movement.

• David Jameson: Bernie Sanders Has His Own Shadowy Donors -- And They're Nurses: The Open Secrets page above shows that Sanders, despite his principled opposition to PACs, does have a tiny bit of "dark money" on his side (less than 1% of Clinton). This seems to be the explanation:

  In fairness to Sanders, there are differences between a super PAC like that of National Nurses United and one like Priorities USA, a group aligned with Clinton. Most of the money in the nurses super PAC likely comes from the dues that individual workers pay to their union, in small amounts each paycheck.

  In contrast, 98 percent of the money raised by Priorities USA Action in the second half of 2015 came from donors giving $100,000 or more, as The Huffington Post recently reported. And 90 percent of its money came from donors forking over at least $1 million.

• Dean Baker: Bernie Sanders: Enemy of the World's Poor?:

  A popular theme in the media in recent days is that the world's poor would face disaster if Bernie Sanders ended up in the White House.[1] The story is that Sanders would try to protect jobs for manufacturing workers in the United States. The loss of these jobs has been a major source of downward pressure on the wages and living standards of a large portion of the working class over the last four decades.

  While saving manufacturing jobs here may be good for U.S. workers, the media line is that by trying to block imports from the developing world, Sanders would be denying hundreds of millions of people their route out of poverty. This story may be comforting for elites in the U.S. and Senator Sanders' political opponents, but it defies basic economics and common sense.

  The article goes on to tear the argument apart. No need to repeat the critique here, but I have to ask who would even bother to credit credit this line of thinking? Are there really people who think that Americans are so well off the government should devote itself to subsidizing the world's poorer countries? And that the best way to do that is to encourage businesses to set up sweatshops abroad? Practically every poll every taken shows that the number one (and pretty much the only) government program that a huge majority of Americans want to cut is foreign aid. It doesn't happen because (a) foreign aid doesn't really amount to much, and (b) regardless of its effect on foreign countries (and their people) aid (including trade rules) benefits certain influential Americans (usually big corporations), sometimes to the detriment of other Americans (often workers, although you can equally cast the weakening of domestic labor markets as a benefit to business interests).

• Jason Horowitz: Bernie Sanders Campaign Suspends Jewish Outreach Coordinator for Vulgar Remarks About Netanyahu: The "vulgar remarks" were in a since-deleted Facebook post during the height of Netanyahu's Gaza slaughter last year. Those offended by the comments were were a couple of bigwigs who have never uttered a remotely critical word about Israel -- which is to say people whose touch with reality is sadly compromised. This sort of thing happens all the time to all sorts of candidates, and the standard reaction is to duck rather than fight -- even when the charge is baseless it's not something the candidate personally did and it's not something he or she wants to be distracted with. (One of the more famous examples I recall was when Obama's campaign fired Samantha Power for saying something rude about Hillary Clinton. Power was eventually given a prominent job in Obama's administration, in Clinton's State Department.) Worth noting that Sanders said some things in Thursday's debate that the Israel lobbyists would have found even more troubling (if not quite so conveniently objectionable):

  In Thursday night's debate, though, Mr. Sanders advocated a critical discussion of Israel that, while popular with his young liberal base, was unlikely to please the Jewish establishment figures who had sought to hold a common line on Israel in Democratic politics. Mr. Sanders criticized Mrs. Clinton's pro-Israel orthodoxy, called the Israeli army's use of arms against Palestinians "disproportionate" and argued that "we have to say that Netanyahu is not right all of the time."

• Charles Pierce: Bill Clinton Fundamentally Doesn't Understand What Black Lives Matter Is About:

  But this is the second election in a row in which he is turning out to be one of his wife's clumsiest surrogates. I would make the modest suggestion to him that This Is Not About You. If you want to defend your record, write another massively unreadable book. If you want someone to defend your record ably, ask your wife. She seems to know how to do it best.

  I've long wondered whether Hillary's chances of becoming president wouldn't have improved had she divorced Bill after leaving office in 2001. There are many things I don't look forward to should she win, but he is high on the list. (Of course, she could divorce him then, but I figure she figures at least he's a good earner.) Maybe when The Good Wife runs its course we'll get a tangentially related but expert opinion.

  Pierce also has a piece on Thursday's debate: We Saw Bernie Sanders' Greatest Weakness Last Night: "At leas, that's what the Clinton camp is hoping you'll believe this morning." The "weakness" was that he said something unapproved (and virtually unheard of) about the Israel-Palestinian conflict:

  As somebody who is 100% pro-Israel, in the long run -- and this is not going to be easy, God only knows, but in the long run if we are ever going to bring peace to that region which has seen so much hatred and so much war, we are going to have to treat the Palestinian people with respect and dignity.

  As Pierce put it, "In response, HRC went full pander."

• John Judis: I am worried about Hillary Clinton again: After the debate:

  I don't understand why she can't put the Goldman, Sachs question behind her. I initially assumed that she either didn't have transcripts or that what she said was the usual milquetoast stuff politicians offer up. But her continued refusal to provide transcripts (which I now assume must exist) suggests that there must be something damning in them.

  I assume the transcripts will be anti-climactic. One's first reaction is likely to be: "Goldman Sachs is supposed to be smart about money, but they paid $650k for this?" If I was a shareholder I'd consider suing management. Maybe management could come back and explain that it wasn't just the speech they were buying, it was also a bribe. But wouldn't that make their lawyers a bit uneasy? Not to mention Clinton's lawyers. And doesn't the value of a bribe depreciate real fast when it becomes public knowledge. Perhaps better to say that part of the extraordinary value-added of a Clinton speech is its exclusivity. But why keep it exclusive unless, you know, it's some sort of, uh, favor? Judis goes on:

  I also think her refusal to answer straightforwardly questions about social security caps, carbon taxes, Libya and a $15 minimum wage makes her appear scripted at best. Like the Goldman non-answer, these kind of responses sow doubts about trust and credibility.

  For more along these lines: Anis Shivani: Half-truth Hillary finally exposed: This was the debate where Bernie Sanders changed the Democratic Party for good.

• Aaron Bycoffe: A Huge Number of GOP Leaders Aren't Endorsing This Year: Partly because so many of the candidates they endorsed early (e.g., Marco Rubio) were rejected by the base voters, and partly because no one wants to be associated with the finalists in the GOP's race to the bottom (well, except for Chris Christie).

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Monday, April 11, 2016

Music: Current count 26475 [26446] rated (+29), 425 [414] unrated (+11).

Count up a bit, but that's mostly because I got into a run of listening to the legendary Dutch anarcho-punk group Ex, finding virtually all of their catalog easily accessible on Bandcamp. I discovered this cache when Ethiopian saxophonist Getatchew Merkuria (or Merkurya) died and I went off looking for his old Éthiopiques volume -- one I had long hoped to listen to. I also recalled that he had done a live album with the Ex (one I thought I had heard, but evidently not), as well as an A- record with Either/Orchestra (Éthiopiques 20: Live in Addis). I've long been interested in Ex, but it hasn't been easy coming across their records. Before this binge, my ratings were:

• The Ex: Aural Guerrilla (1988, Fist Puppet): B+
• The Ex: Singles, Period: The Vinyl Years 1980-1990 (1980-90 [2005], Ex): A-
• The Ex: Instant (1995, Ex, 2CD): A-
• The Ex: Turn (2004, Touch & Go, 2CD): A-
• The Ex & Brass Unbound: Enormous Door (2013, Ex): A-

Perhaps I should also include some jazz-oriented records that guitarist Terrie Hessels (aka Terrie Ex) has done:

• Ab Baars/Terrie Ex: Hef (2002, Atavistic): B+
• Lean Left: The Ex Guitars Meet Nilssen-Love/Vandermark Duo, Volume 1: (2008 [2010], Smalltown Superjazz): A- -- Terrie Ex and Andy Moor
• Lean Left: The Ex Guitars Meet Nilssen-Love/Vandermark Duo, Volume 2 (2008 [2010], Smalltown Superjazz): B+(***)
• Offonoff: Slap and Tickle (2009, Smalltown Superjazz): B+(*) -- group with Massimo Pupillo and Paal Nilssen-Love
• Paal Nilssen-Love/Terrie Ex: Hurgu! (2013, PNL): B+(**)

This preoccupation with the Ex has taken up so much time (and I'm still a few records short of done) that I haven't done anything in recognition of the recent deaths of Merle Haggard and Tony Conrad. The one thought I have on Haggard is that I'll always be grateful to my old friend Harold Karabell for prodding me to look beyond Hag's "Fightin' Side" jingoism. I have 25 of his records graded in my database, which leaves me far short, especially on the early LPs, but that's still quite a few. As for Conrad, I'm looking at his Early Minimalism box still sitting on my unplayed shelf over a decade after a publicist generously sent it to me. Safe to say, he's due.

I also want to note the recent death of a non-musician here, Manfred Menking. Born in Germany (East Prussia) in 1934, he survived bombing in WWII, fled west in advance of the Soviet army in 1944. He studied to become a doctor, was offered a Fulbright scholarship to complete his pediatric residency in Ohio. In 1973 he moved to Wichita, where one of his patients was my nephew. He was devoted to peace, working with Physicians for Social Responsibility and Wichita's Peace and Social Justice Center -- where we met him shortly after moving here in 1999. He was charming, delightful, very kind. It was a pleasure to have known him.

There was an uptick of incoming mail last week. Most importantly the long-awaited package from Portugal arrived -- probably a replacement after I complained last week. Probably just a temporary blip, but with my general slowdown this is the first time in a long time I've felt behind.

I commented on a Tom Carson tweet a couple days ago. Carson responded in an email that Robert Christgau forwarded to me, part of which noted that I don't allow comments on the blog. I've been using a piece of blog software called Serendipity. It has a reasonably nice feature set, but having used it for more than a decade, I'm stuck with an older version (which I've hacked on a bit), and more importantly I've been stuck on a server that isn't up to handling the now large (and somewhat bloated) database. I tried turning comments on for a while, but I didn't get much valuable feedback, partly because people had trouble with the interface. Spambots, on the other hand, seemed to sail through, and the maintenance got to be too much. Then I ran into database performance problems, so I hacked what I called a "faux blog" in parallel to the Serendipity one, and I've been updating both for some time now. I use the latter for links I post, because it's more likely you'll be served the page, but it doesn't have some nice features, like RSS, of comments.

However, because the "faux blog" is just a collection of hand-edited web pages, I can insert comments into those pages. The only thing is that you have to email them to me, and I have to decide it's worth the trouble, and we all have to wait until I update the site (which usually happens when I have something new to post, or sometimes when I've screwed up and need to fix something fast).

So I've added Carson's letter and a rather long-winded response to my Candidate Analogies post. Not sure whether this will become standard practice or is just a one-shot. I should note that I've bumped into Carson numerous times over the years. Back in the 1970s, he submitted an unassigned review of Brian Eno's Another Green World which Voice music editor Christgau liked enough to consider running alongside the review he had assigned me to write. Carson was one of the organizers of the Christgau 60th birthday Festschrift, Don't Stop 'til You Get Enough, and he edited my piece there (A Rock & Roll Critic Is Something to Be). He also offered invaluable editing advice when I wrote a "mass letter" as the 2004 election approached -- let's see, where is that thing? Oh, here. I've only read him erratically -- a big compilation of his writings would be most welcome, or maybe several as his political writings are matched by his culture critique (he long did a TV column for Esquire) -- and he's usually not only a sharp thinker but has retained a rock critic's ear for hook lines: possibly the most radical thing I've ever read was his conclusion to an essay (which I can't find now) on 1945 pointing out that winning WWII was the worst thing that ever happened to the United States.

I should also mention his novel, Gilligan's Wake -- perhaps the only novel I've read since 2001, partly because I could imagine him writing it just for me -- or more precisely because he presented a vision of 20th century America in myriad dazzling details that I was uniquely prepared to appreciate. Perhaps too much Alger Hiss, and too kind to Bob Dole, but brilliance abounds -- one bit that seems perfect is Mary Ann's self-healing hymen, maintaining her virginity no matter how much she screws around, a knack shared with America, the only country in the world that can fuck you over while remaining as pure and innocent as ever.

I've been struggling to get anything read recently, only finishing Jane Mayer's invaluable Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right a couple days ago. I should write something about the book, which updates and deepens Max Blumenthal's 2009 book Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement That Shattered the Party while paying particular attention to the Kochs and their financial and political networks, but no telling when I'll get around to it. Meanwhile, I came across Carson's review of Daniel Schulman's Koch family bio, Sons of Wichita, so thought I'd pass it along: The Brothers Koch: Family Drama and Disdain for Democracy.

New records rated this week:

• Africaine 808: Basar (2016, Golf Channel): [bc]: B+(***)
• Matt Criscuolo: The Dialogue (2016, Jazzeria): [cd]: B+(**)
• Jane Monheit: The Songbook Sessions: Ella Fitzgerald (2015 [2016], Emerald City): [cd]: B+(*)
• Pet Shop Boys: Super (2016, X2): [r]: A-
• Ernie Watts Quartet: Wheel of Time (2016, Flying Dolphin): [cd]: B+(**)
• Steve Wiest and Phröntrange: The High Road (2016, Blujazz): [cd]: B-

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries rated this week:

• The Jim Cullum Jazz Band/William Warfield: George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess Live (1992 [2016], Riverwalk Jazz, 2CD): [cd]: B+(***)
• Soul Sok Sega: Sega Sounds From Mauritius 1973-1979 (1973-79 [2016], Strut): [r]: B+(***)

Old music rated this week:

• The Ex: Disturbing Domestic Peace (1980 [1992], Ex): [bc]: B+(**)
• The Ex: History Is What's Happening (1982, Ex): [bc]: A-
• The Ex: Tumult (1983 [1993], Ex): [bc]: B+(***)
• The Ex: Blueprints for a Blackout (1984 [1992], Ex): [bc]: B+(*)
• The Ex: Pokkeherrie (1985 [1995], Ex): B+(***)
• The Ex: 1936, the Spanish Revolution (1986, Ex, EP): [bc]: B+(**)
• The Ex: Too Many Cowboys (1986 [1987], Ex): [bc]: B+(***)
• The Ex: Hands Up! You're Free (1983-86 [1988], Ex): [bc]: A-
• The Ex: Joggers & Smoggers (1989, Ex, 2CD): [bc]: B+(*)
• The Ex: Dead Fish (1989 [2004], Ex, EP): [bc]: B+(*)
• The Ex + Tom Cora: Scrabbling at the Lock (1991, Ex): [bc]: B+(***)
• The Ex + Tom Cora: And the Weathermen Shrug Their Shoulders (1993, Ex): [bc]: B+(**)
• The Ex: Mudbird Shivers (1995, Ex): [bc]: B+(***)
• The Ex: Starters Alternators (1998, Touch & Go): [bc]: B+(**)
• Ex Orkest: Een Rondje Holland (2000 [2001], Ex): [bc]: B+(*)
• The Ex: Dizzy Spells (2000 [2001], Touch & Go): [bc]: A-
• Gétatchèw Mérkurya: Éthiopiques 14: Negus of Ethiopian Sax (1972 [2003], Buda Musique): [r]: A-
• Getatchew Merkuria/The Ex & Guests: Moa Anbessa (2006, Terp): [bc]: A-
• Getatchew Merkuria/The Ex & Friends: Y'Anbessaw Tezeta (1960-2012 [2012], Terp, 2CD): [bc]: B+(***)

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

• Antonio Adolfo: Tropical Infinito (AAM): May 23
• Daria: Strawberry Fields Forever: Songs by the Beatles (OA2): April 15
• Matthew Fries: Parallel States (Xcappa): June 3
• Jean-Brice Godet Quartet: Mujô (Fou)
• Alexander Hawkins/Evan Parker: Leaps in Leicester (Clean Feed)
• Louis Heriveaux: Triadic Episode (Hot Shoe)
• Julie Kjaer 3: Dobbeltgaenger (Clean Feed)
• Roy Nathanson: Nearness and You (Clean Feed)
• New Zion w. Cyro: Sunshine Seas (Rare Noise): advance, April 20
• Phil Palombi: Detroit Lean (Xcappa): May 24
• Noah Preminger: Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground (self-released): May 6
• Restroy: Saturn Return (Milk Factory): May 6
• Eric Revis Trio: Crowded Solitudes (Clean Feed)
• Carol Saboya: Carolina (AAM): May 23
• Starlite Motel: Awosting Falls (Clean Feed)
• Yves Theiler Trio: Dance in a Triangle (Migros)
• Twenty One 4tet: Live at Zaal 100 (Clean Feed)
• WorldService Project: For King and Country (Rare Noise): advance, April 29

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Saturday, April 9, 2016

I wanted to reply to this tweet by Tom Carson, but no way to unpack so much misunderstanding in 144 characters:

Bernie is the lefty Goldwater, Hils is the lefty Nixon. I suspect I'll end up voting for Nixon, but I've seen this movie before.

First, very obvious point: left and right are never symmetric, let alone mirror images of one another. Granted, the core issue can be viewed as a continuum: people on the left believe that all people are fundamentally decent, that everyone shares equal rights and deserves respect and fairness, while people on the right hold that for civilization to exist and survive society must be organized as a hierarchy, with those favored by great wealth lording over the hapless masses, using whatever force is needed to maintain order. Unpack this a bit and you'll see that left and right are inhabited by fundamentally different kinds of people. So when you say "X is the lefty Y" the main thing you're saying is that X is so profoundly different from Y that analogies can only be superficial.

Even so, the only linkage I can imagine Carson making between Goldwater and Sanders is that he thinks Sanders, if nominated, will lose as badly this year as Goldwater did in 1964. Leaving that for the moment, it's hard to see much similarity -- even in the funhouse mirror of centrist punditry. Most obviously, Goldwater was extremely rigid in his adherence to principles -- most scandalously in his opposition to using the federal government to secure civil rights systematically denied by a dozen-plus state governments -- whereas Sanders has always been flexible and pragmatic (e.g., in supporting Obamacare even though he knew it wasn't the best, or even a very good, solution). And Goldwater was so fanatic in his opposition to Communism he couldn't be trusted not to start a thermonuclear war. Sanders elicits no such fears -- which isn't to deny that neocon warmongers fear him.

As for the Nixon-Clinton mashup, I reckon that the association here is that both are unscrupulous opportunists willing to say and do anything that seems to work to their personal advantage. No doubt that both Clintons have been opportunistic at times, often siding with rich and powerful interests against the very people they depend on for votes. Nothing unusual about that, but you have to question how far left they really are on the left-right line I plotted above. I don't really consider them lefties at all.

Still, for all the times the Clintons have been slagged as liars -- Christopher Hitchens' book on them was titled No One Left to Lie To: The Values of the Worst Family -- I'm hard pressed to recall specific deceits (aside from the Lewinsky blow jobs, and blaming Arafat for the Camp David failure, the latter a big one), as opposed to grandstanding (like the Sista Souljah slam) or plain old bad policy choices (like NAFTA, or repealing Glass-Steagall). I don't doubt that the Clintons are greedy, ambitious, and vain -- willing to use office to get rich, and to use their wealth to build a political machine to seek further office. Still, the scandals that have dogged their rise have been remarkably hollow.

On the other hand, Nixon holds a unique place in American history, not just for bad policy and malign intentions but for actual crimes against American democracy as well as egregious crimes against world peace -- sure, the later have since become routinized and Nixon didn't invent them all, but the scope of his crimes was breathtaking -- and for a while shocking, although his obsession with winning at all costs and his cynicism at manipulating people's fears has since become baked into the American pie. If Carson wanted to pose a true conundrum, he might have posed a choice between the real right-wingers Goldwater and Nixon. I have no more answer there than I would have had if asked who is the best (in the sense of least awful) of this election's crop of Republican presidential aspirants.

Carson at least is right to place Nixon on the right, avoiding the recent revisionism trying to rehabilitate him as some kind of closet liberal. I suppose the main impetus behind this has been to show how far the right has stooped since Nixon's time, but doing so forgets (and forgives) the fact that the rotten impulses that have permeated today's right owe more to Nixon's craven realpolitik than to Goldwater's so-called principles.

If you do have to make predecessor analogies, you might try casting Trump as Nixon and Cruz as Goldwater. With the latter pair you at least know what you're up against and start organizing against it, although the prospect of itchy trigger fingers is always a threat. But with the Nixon-Trump pair, you don't know shit -- just that it's likely to be pretty nauseating and the sickness they sow is likely to return again as precedent, possibly for even worse.

I suspect that what worries Carson about Sanders has less to do with Goldwater's 1964 loss than McGovern's in 1972, thanks in no small part to Nixon's dirty tricks. McGovern wasn't fundamentally more liberal (let alone lefty) many other Democratic candidates -- Hubert Humphrey in 1968, Walter Mondale in 1984, Michael Dukakis in 1988, John Kerry in 2004, Barack Obama in 2008 -- but he lost bad, due I think to a combination of factors. One is that the media has always had it in for anyone who might rock the boat (Roosevelt was the exception, but he came along after the boat had already capsized, and Obama got something of a pass for the same reasons). McGovern also ran afoul of the Democratic Party's patronage-focused elites, especially their hawk faction, and also the rump Wallace voters -- all of whom chose Nixon's dirty tricks over the most decent and honest politician the Democrats ever nominated.

All those losses by self-avowed liberals -- a string that really starts with Adlai Stevenson in 1952 and 1956 -- have left centrist pundits with the stunted thought that Americans refuse to lean left. If Sanders is further to the left than McGovern (or anyone else on that loser-laden list) what's to stop the entire establishment banding together to stop him? (Billionaire self-promoter Michael Bloomberg has already vowed to run a spoiler third-party campaign if Sanders is nominated.) That seems like a fair question, but I'm not sure the coincidences it is based on really supports the conclusion. Several things have changed since, say, McGovern won and lost:

1. The Cold War is not only over, it's rapidly becoming ancient history. Before 1990 the ideological struggle between capitalism and communism allowed the right to question the patriotism of anyone even remotely on the left, and more often than not Democrats joined in on the red baiting, often to their own detriment. Moreover, with continued abuse the old slurs have lost their potency.

2. The long period of post-WWII affluence left a large segment of the middle class basically feeling satisfied with their lot and to be hopeful of their future prospects, making it easier to identify with the system. The shift toward increasing inequality after 1980, and the subsequent hollowing out of the middle class, have finally reached a point where the system is no longer viewed as fair or hopeful -- and recognizing that loss of opportunity has finally become unavoidable for young adults.

3. The mass media of the post-WWII years, which did so much to homogenize public discourse, has fragmented into more limited but more partisan media, allowing each of us to customize our own bubble of information. This both pulls many of us in a more partisan way and leaves many others so poorly informed that they drop out of the political system.

4. Unlimited political spending has pushed the Republican Party far to the right, so they pose a much greater threat to our liberties, security, and well being than ever before. In fact, they threaten us so severely that it's becoming increasingly hard for centrist Democrats to break ranks, as many did against McGovern in 1972, not to mention William Jennings Bryan in 1896-1908.

These point don't guarantee that Sanders can defeat a full bore Republican assault, but they offer some reasons to think that he might do much better than McGovern did. The similarity to McGovern that I worry more about is Sanders' exceptional integrity and public spirit, which at least in McGovern's case was overwhelmed by Nixon's dark money and dirty tricks. The one thing we can be sure of is that in this year's election the Republicans and their dark money sponsors won't hesitate to go places Nixon only dreamed of. The voters could very well reject such tactics, but the Republicans have had no small measure of success thus far at manipulating people to vote against their own interests and desires.

Hillary Clinton has relied heavily on arguments that she's much more electable than Sanders is. The most common argument here is that she can attract a broader slice of the left-right spectrum, allowing her to pick up moderate/centrist voters Sanders can't reach while keeping the left captive, if only as the lesser evil. There are several problems with this formulation: most people don't fit comfortably, let alone mechanically, on a left-right axis, but bring other factors into play, including several where Clinton may compare poorly against Sanders -- for instance, integrity and credibility. Sanders has stood firm with his principles much more consistently than Clinton, and a good part of the reason for that is that he's much less tainted by association with private interests -- e.g., he's never spoken to Goldman-Sachs, much less for $650K. One thing that's clear from primary results so far is that Sanders has done much better among (presumably centrist) independents than Clinton has.

Indeed, in head-to-head polls Sanders regularly outperforms Clinton against virtually any Republican candidate, suggesting that for whatever reason Sanders is the more electable Democrat. Yet some Clinton supporters, even ones who admit to being closer to Sanders on the issues, persist in their belief that Clinton is more electable. Aside from ideology, the other reason they commonly give is the claim that Clinton has already had to face so many attacks from right-wingers that she has been thoroughly vetted, whereas Sanders has yet to feel the full fury of the Republican hate machine. That may be true but glosses over several things, including that Clinton has more points on which she is compromised, and that she's not exactly unscathed by all those attacks -- her unfavorability polls are exceptionally high.

On the other hand, I think there is one area where Clinton does have a substantial advantage over Sanders, and that is her ability to raise dark money and use it to underwrite the same sort of vicious mudslinging right-wingers can be counted on doing. So when the campaign gets dirty, as it's sure to do, she's arguably in a much better position to fight that kind of fight. Whether that's an argument in her favor is hard to say, but it's certainly a reasonable position -- the counter is that if Sanders could win without PACs and dark money that might help break the grip big money has on the political system, and our democracy would be much better for it.

Still, Clinton wooing big money donors and playing the dark money game won't be enough to make her Nixon, even a hypothetical lefty version. Nor will it make her a right-winger, even though it would indebt her to people who are on right of center, at least in terms of equality. And having done all of that, I wonder how much energy or will she is going to be able to muster to start to reverse the nation's long slide into oligarchy. At some point things get so bad that lesser evils don't cut it. If Sanders' popularity shows anything it's that many Democrats believe we've passed the point where yesterday's palliatives are all it takes.

It's normal for people to reach for historical analogies when trying to understand today's issues, but it can also lock you into illusions and blind you to opportunities. And sometimes produce outright absurdities. My original response to Carson's tweet just touched on one small aspect of this post, which is that real people don't necessarily gravitate toward the middle when faced with real choices:

Hell, even my George Wallace/George McGovern-voting mother knew one key thing about politics: never vote for Nixon.

Continue reading . . .

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Monday, April 4, 2016

Music: Current count 26446 [26420] rated (+26), 414 [410] unrated (+4).

Rated count up a bit this week, probably because I only spent one day and a couple nights working on my sister's house. Also because I wrapped up a Rhapsody Streamnotes. Still, short of the 30-milestone that constitutes a productive week. On the other hand, seasonal allergies hit with force, and I barely sleepwalked my way through yesterday's abbreviated Weekend Roundup. But at least I had Jason Gubbels' unranked list of 40 recommendations, New Music 2016: First Quarter, to start wading through. Thus far everything I've checked out has been pretty good, although I've mostly left them at B+(***) -- aside from the Margo Price find, the closest of the HMs was the Heliocentrics album, where I talked myself out of an A- by re-reading my review. (An edit of my Willie Nelson review also resulted in downgrading Summertime. The Rihanna upgrade occurred after at least five replays.)

Not much new jazz coming in, and not much good among what does show up. I usually start the day with a CD from the queue, and several days I haven't had anything to follow it up with. Only seven actual CDs in the list below (and, OK, they're better than I remembered: 3 ***, 3 **, 1 *; as I recall, the previous week's CDs left a lot more to be desired, and today's mail doesn't look very promising). One big disappointment is that a month after I got the promo material by email I still haven't received the March package from Clean Feed. Mail is often slow from Portugal, but it would hugely bum me out if they drop me. (Not that I wouldn't look up what I could on Rhapsody.)

I did get an invite to vote in Downbeat's annual Critics Poll today. I've also gotten a record number of personal pleas to vote for them, something I'm pretty good at forgetting instantly. (I mind less when I get past-year lists from publicists because they help me identify things that fell through the cracks -- I don't think I've gotten any of them this year, but have in the past, and they're a regular year-end ritual.) I'll take the time to vote later this week -- I've never managed to plod through the ballot in just one day, so it's a big commitment -- and I'll publish an annotated ballot once I do. Aside from albums, which follow that aggravating April-March annual skew, this year's should be much like last year's ballot. I'd argue that having an extra three months to let the old calendar year (2015 in this case) settle down would be worth more than pretending we're already on top of the first quarter of 2016. (For that matter, the Readers Poll, which skews three months later, could also benefit from a settling-down period.)

Well, one ballot change is that since last year's HOF pick, Lee Konitz, finally won, George Russell will move up as my top pick. A second big annoyance about the poll is the HOF bottleneck. Downbeat has 141 inductees into its Hall of Fame (starting with Louis Armstrong in 1952). Compare this with the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, which has 312 inductees (749 people) since 1986. Now, you can argue that that's too many, and make a pretty good case by pointing to the 2016 crop (Cheap Trick, Chicago, Deep Purple, Steve Miller, and NWA). But fewer than five of the names in the Downbeat HOF (which basically expands at 2 per year, plus they've recently added a Veterans Committee which helps a bit) raise an eyebrow (rockers Frank Zappa and Jimi Hendrix, although I can't begrudge the latter; some others I wouldn't have voted for but can (sort of) understand -- Glenn Miller, Red Rodney, Maynard Ferguson, Joe Zawinul, Chick Corea, Michael Brecker, Pat Metheny), maybe a "veteran" who seems a bit obscure (Jimmy Blanton, Paul Chambers, Baby Dodds). On the other hand, just working from last year's ballot, the list of non-inductees includes: Han Bennink, Paul Bley, Anthony Braxton, Jaki Byard, Don Byas, Don Cherry, Jack DeJohnette, Jimmy Giuffre, Benny Golson, Grant Green, Dave Holland, Abdullah Ibrahim, Illinois Jacquet, John McLauglin, Tito Puente, Sam Rivers, Pharoah Sanders, Tomasz Stanko, Cedar Walton, Randy Weston, Phil Woods.

And that must mean that the following didn't even qualify for the ballot (and this list could grow much longer): Rashied Ali, Henry "Red" Allen, Mildred Bailey, Billy Bang, Chris Barber, Gato Barbieri, Chu Berry, Carla Bley, Ruby Braff, Cab Calloway, Sid Catlett, June Christy, Buck Clayton, Arnett Cobb, Cozy Cole, Vic Dickenson, Harry "Sweets" Eddison, Art Farmer, Tommy Flanagan, Bud Freeman, Slim Gaillard, Herb Geller, Lars Gullin, Al Haig, John Hicks, Budd Johnson, Leroy Jenkins, Wynton Kelly, Louis Jordan, Sheila Jordan, Eddie Lang, George Lewis (either/both), Albert Mangelsdorff, Misha Mengelberg, David Murray, Herbie Nichols, Anita O'Day, Evan Parker, William Parker, Houston Person, Louis Prima, Don Pullen, Don Redman, Charlie Rouse, Jimmy Rushing, Luis Russell, Alex von Schlippenbach, Irène Schweizer, Bud Shank, Sonny Sharrock, Archie Shepp, Stuff Smith, Horace Tapscott, Lucky Thompson, Stanley Turrentine, Mal Waldron, David S. Ware, Barney Wilen, Gerald Wilson. Just saying, a lot of (to use an old Downbeat phrase) talent deserving wider recognition.

RIP: Argentine saxophonist Gato Barbieri (1934-2016), and Ethiopian saxophonist Getatchew Mekurya (1935-2016).

New records rated this week:

• Ralph Alessi: Quiver (2014 [2016], ECM): [dl]: B+(***)
• Beauty School: Residual Ugly (2015, Humbler): [bc]: B+(*)
• Big Ups: Before a Million Universes (2016, Exploding/Tough Love): [r]: B+(***)
• Michael Blake: Fulfillment (2016, Songlines): [r]: B+(*)
• Bombino: Azel (2016, Partisan): [r]: B+(***)
• Jaimeo Brown Transcendence: Work Songs (2016, Motema): [r]: B+(***)
• The Ian Carey Quintet + 1: Interview Music (2015 [2016], Kabocha): [cd]: B+(***)
• Tim Daisy: Relucent: Music for Marimba, Radios and Turntables (2016, Relay): [bc]: B
• Stephen Davis/Ralph Alessi/Kris Davis: Sugar Blade (2015, Babel): [r]: B+(**)
• Eli Degibri: Cliff Hangin' (2014 [2016], Blujazz): [cd]: B+(*)
• Dressy Bessy: Kingsized (2016, Yep Roc): [r]: B+(**)
• Marty Elkins: Walkin' by the River (2014 [2016], Nagel Heyer): [cd]: B+(***)
• The Heliocentrics: From the Deep (2016, Now-Again): [r]: B+(***)
• Russ Johnson: Meeting Point (2014, Relay): [bc]: B+(**)
• La Sera: Music for Listening to Music To (2016, Polyvinyl): [r]: B+(**)
• Matt Lavelle's 12 Houses: Solidarity (2014 [2016], Unseen Rain): [cd]: B+(**)
• Steven Lugerner: Jacknife: The Music of Jackie McLean (2015 [2016], Primary): [cd]: B+(***)
• Iggy Pop: Post Pop Depression (2016, Loma Vista): [r]: B+(*)
• Margo Price: Midwest Farmer's Daughter (2016, Third Man): [r]: A-
• Rocco John Quartet: Embrace the Change (2015 [2016], Unseen Rain): [cd]: B+(**)
• Steel Bridge Trio: Different Clocks (2015, Relay): [bc]: B+(*)
• Gwen Stefani: This Is What the Truth Feels Like (2016, Interscope): [r]: A-
• Vox Arcana: Caro's Song (2014 [2015], Relay): [bc]: B+(*)
• Christopher Zuar Orchestra: Musings (2014 [2016], Sunnyside): [cd]: B+(**)

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries rated this week:

• Punk 45: Chaos in the City of Angels and Devils: Hollywood From X to Zero & Hardcore on the Beaches: Punk in Los Angeles 1977-81 (1977-81 [2016], Soul Jazz): [r]: B+(***)

Grade changes:

• Willie Nelson: Summertime: Willie Nelson Sings Gershwin (2016, Legacy): [r]: [was B+(*)] B
• Rihanna: Anti (2016, Roc Nation): [r]: [was B+(**)] A-

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

• Matt Cirscuolo: The Dialogue (Jazzeria): April 4
• The Jim Cullum Jazz Band/William Warfield: George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess Live (2016, Riverwalk Jazz, 2CD): June 1
• James Freeman: Echoes of Nature III (Edgetone)
• Roberto Magris: Need to Bring Out Love (JMood)
• Daniel Meron: Sky Begins (Rabbit Rabbit Rabbit): April 26
• Jane Monheit: The Songbook Sessions: Ella Fitzgerald (Emerald City)
• Noertker's Moxie & the Melancholics: Curious Worlds: The Art & Imagination of David Beck (Edgetone)
• Rent Romus/Teddy Rankin-Parker/Daniel Pearce: LiR (Edgetone)
• Ernie Watts Quartet: Wheel of Time (Flying Dolphin): April 15

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Sunday, April 3, 2016

Started to work on this, then got so waylaid by allergies my brain froze up. Of course, trying to write about whether Trump is a fascist is a question that begs so much backtracking it's easy to get lost.

Worth noting here that the Wisconsin primary is Tuesday. Cruz has long been favored over Trump and Kasich: the latest 538 poll averages are 44.1-32.1-21.4%, and since it's mostly winner-take-all Trump is likely to fall short of the delegate count to stay on track for a first ballot win -- so expect some pundit talk about Trump stumbling, but Trump is a lock for a big win in New York on April 19, and has a good chance of scoring his first greater than 50% win there (538's poll average is 52.1-24.0-21.8%, with Cruz second and Kasich third).

More interesting is the Democratic primary, which 538 still gives to Clinton, but the poll averages have narrowed to 48.8-48.6%, with Sanders leading in five of the seven most recent polls. At this point I expect Sanders to win there, but it won't be a landslide. 538 is still showing Clinton with a huge lead in New York, 61.0-37.0%, but the last two polls there have Clinton +12 and +10, a far cry from the 71-23% outlier 538 still factors in. Clinton also has big leads in the other April primaries (65.9-30.5% in Pennsylvania, 70.6-27.0% in Maryland); also in California and New Jersey on June 7.

Some scattered links this week:

• Steve Coll: Global Trump:

  Trumpism is a posture, not a coherent platform. [ . . . ]

  Trump hasn't indicated that he would definitely pull out of treaty commitments to Europe and Asia. He seems to think that his threats and his pleas of poverty will soften up allies so that, once in the White House, he can close some of those great deals he often talks about. For "many, many years," he told the Times, the U.S. has been the "big stupid bully and we were systematically ripped off by everybody," providing military security without adequate compensation.

  Like a hammer viewing everything as a nail, Trump desperately wants to reconceive foreign relations as something that can be fixed by a flamboyant and shrewd deal maker -- i.e., by himself. He reminds me of a guy who was brought in to become CEO of a troubled company I used to work for. The company had racked up massive losses over several quarters, staving off bankruptcy only because they had sold a lot of bonds a few years earlier -- they didn't need the bonds but sold them "because they could" and just sat on the cash until they burned it all up. Anyhow, this new CEO (I don't even remember the name now) had the huge ego you get in jobs like that, so the first thing I decided to do was to renegotiate all of the company's supplier contracts, just because he figured he was a better negotiator than his predecessor. Turned out that he never successfully renegotiated a thing: all he did was piss off suppliers the company was already in arrears to, companies that no longer saw us as viable long-term customers. America isn't in as bad shape as my company was, but if Trump follows through and tries to shake down traditional allies, he's not likely to net much other than bad will. (Japan, for instance, pays us for defense because it's a pittance compared to our trade deficits. Maybe they'll pay a bit more, but the US market isn't what it used to be, nor is the US commitment to defend them.)

  Coll has a pretty rosy view of American military spending abroad -- surprising for someone who's mostly covered the Middle East for the last twenty-some years:

  Trump also argues that reduced defense spending abroad would free up funds for investment at home. We do need to rebuild bridges, airports, railways, and telecommunications. But defense spending isn't stopping us from doing so; the problem is the Republican anti-tax extremists in Congress, who refuse to either raise revenues or take advantage of historically low long-term interest rates. In all probability, the U.S. can afford its global-defense commitments indefinitely, and an open economy, renewed by immigration and innovation, should be able to continue to grow and to share the cost of securing free societies. The main obstacle to realizing this goal is not an exhausted imperial treasury. It is the collapse of the once-internationalist Republican Party into demagoguery, paralysis, and Trumpism.

  That, of course, is pretty much the Clinton position, one that argues that America is still great, has never been anything else. Such platitudes are baked into the Belt Area foreign/security policy professional class. They even seep into Stephen M Walt: No, @realDonaldTrump Is Not a Realist.

• Tierney Sneed: How Trump Ticked Off Anti-Abortion Groups by Trying to Prove His Creed: So Trump commits this gaffe, realizes his error (or more likely has it pointed out to him), and walks it back within hours.

  For months, the major concern the anti-abortion movement had with Donald Trump was that he was too wobbly on the issue. But on Wednesday, Trump staked out an abortion position so extreme that he blew up years of abortion foes' careful messaging.

  Trump's remark at an MSNBC town hall that an abortion ban should carry a punishment for women who seek out the procedure sent anti-abortion activists immediately scrambling to correct the damage.

  "Mr. Trump's comment today is completely out of touch with the pro-life movement and even more with women who have chosen such a sad thing as abortion," Jeanne Mancini, the president of March for Life Education and Defense Fund, said in a statement rushed out about an hour after Trump's remarks were first broadcast. "No pro-lifer would ever want to punish a woman who has chosen abortion. This is against the very nature of what we are about."

  In practical terms this should be treated as a wash -- like a muons which appears in a high-energy burst then vanishes within microseconds -- except that I think it shows two things:
  1. Trump understands the logic of the anti-abortion movement, which is about little more than punishing women (for sexual licentiousness, or getting raped, or just being poor), much as he understands punishment as the essential means of disciplining errant children and other rabble. No doubt being a major league misogynist helped Trump on this score.
  2. The much alleged "political correctness" police on the left are pikers compared to those who dictate orthodoxy on the right: the latter turned Trump around in hours, whereas Trump held firm on his assertions that "Mexicans are rapists" and his embrace of support from the KKK and outright Fascists. Sure, one might argue that this proves that the offenses he held firm on reflected deeply held beliefs, whereas his anti-abortion stance was never more than pure political opportunism. But I doubt he has any bedrock beliefs beyond his obsessions with the media spotlight and making money off that.

  Also see Here's How a Republican Is Supposed to Answer That Abortion Question Trump Flubbed, which shows how Ted Cruz handled the same question. The summary:

  See, Donald? That's how you do it. When someone asks you about abortion penalties after the overturn of Roe, here's what you do:

  You attack the questioner.

  You attack the media.

  You attack Barack Obama.

  You tell them what a swell pro-life person you are.

  You do everything except answer the question.

• Olivia Ward: Is Donald Trump actually a fascist? I'll add that leftists like myself are hypersensitive to fascist airs, and apply the label broadly to any right-winger who threatens violence, glories in empire, and/or seeks to reverse liberal progress (which they often decry as decadence and decay). Trump loosely qualifies, but so does Cruz and Kasich and most Republican activists, especially anyone who thinks America enjoyed a golden age under Calvin Coolidge or William McKinley (or Jefferson Davis). What makes Trump seem exceptional is the way he draws the sort of people who historically have supported fascism: racists, xenophobes, ultra-nationalists, those who want to use state power to enforce religious morality, those who hate unions, those who are contemptous of democracy (and other people), those who are prone to violence and hung up on patriarchy, those who feel the need to follow a charismatic and forceful leader. So it's not so much that Trump started out as a fascist as that by style and temperament he's been anointed as the Führer of the fascists, a role he hasn't shirked.

• Susan Sarandon Lives in a Very Small World: A not-very-smart critique of the "scandal" caused when Sarandon said that some Sanders supporters won't vote for Clinton against Trump, and that her own view was "I don't know. I'm going to see what happens." I wrote more about this piece then tore it up. Two points are that Sanders' popularity shows that there is much more quasi-left in America than anyone gave us credit for, and that transitioning from voting for one candidate who wants changes you want to another one who wants to defend the status quo (or somewhat mitigate the damage the goons on the other side are plotting) isn't likely to be smooth or automatic: perhaps if Clinton wins the nomination she should campaign for Sanders' supporters instead of veering to the right so to come off as slightly saner than Trump or Cruz, assuming everyone else will fall in line. At any rate, it's premature to worry about Sanders' supporters breaking ranks. As for the ad hominem attacks about Sarandon "living in a very small world," I think her political engagement is admirable and far-sighted, showing much more awareness of other people than is common in her tax bracket.

• Brief links:

  • Andrew J Bacevich: Ted Cruz Embodies the Degeneration of Foreign-Policy Conservatism

  • Russ Belville: Hillary's Supporters Really Sweating Over Bernie or Bust: Flowchart helps explain one-on-one polls, particularly that Sanders fares decisively better than Clinton against Kasich.

  • Zoë Carpenter: Women Are Already Punished for Trying to End Their Pregnancies

  • Matthew Duss: How Donald Trump Is Beating the Neoconservatives at Their Own Game

  • Thomas Frank: The Inequality Sweepstakes: From his new book, Listen, Liberal, or What Ever Happened to the Party of the People?, which I have a copy of next in line.

  • Jacob S Hacker/Paul Pierson: Why Trump Can't Break the GOP

  • Mike Konczal: 42 Trump Takes in 2000 Words

  • Jonathan Martin/Nate Cohn: Electoral Map Is a Reality Check to Donald Trump's Bid: One stat here is that the GOP frontrunner is viewed favorably by 19% and unfavorably by 57% -- an unprecedentedly miserable showing.

  • Mark Mazzetti: A CIA Grunt's Tale of the Fog of Secret War: On Douglas Laux, one of the geniuses who helped arm the "Syrian rebels."

  • Bill McKibben: Global Warming's Terrifying New Chemistry: Mostly on methane and fracking.

  • Robert Pollin: Bernie Sanders Will Make the Economy Great Again

  • Katha Pollitt: Half of the Abortion Clinics in Ohio Have Closed. And Kasich Is a 'Moderate'?

  • Olivier Roy: Radicalisation is not the result of failed integration

  • Nate Silver: It's Probably First Ballot or Bust for Donald Trump at the GOP Convention

  • Douglas Starr: Why Are Educators Learning How to Interrogate Their Students?

  • Benjamin Wallace-Wells: Sanders, Trump, and the Rise of the Non-Voters

  • George Zornick: Ted Cruz's Radical New Proposal: Patrol and 'Secure' Muslim Neighborhoods: "It's not clear what he even means," but it does make him sound like an asshole (which seems to be the desired effect).

  Ask a question, or send a comment.

  Wednesday, March 30, 2016

  ---

  Rhapsody Streamnotes (March 2016)

  Slowed down this month, but looking at the list I don't think I have much to apologize for: 120 records is the fewest this year, and the elapsed time is the longest between columns in quite some while, but neither by much. Of the 91 new records, 73 are 2016 releases, so 80.2%. I don't think I ever consciously decided to move on, but I ran out of 2015 CDs some time back (OK, I still have a cassette tape I can't play, and that Kansas reunion album), and I've been keeping my dwindling new jazz queue close to empty.

  I'm still not doing any serious 2016 prospecting. I do have a m2016 file but it's mostly tracking what I've heard (or unpacked), with only a handful of unheard items added to remind myself to look them up. This is a big cutback from the m2015 file, which I updated every week from AMG and other release sources, then added stragglers from EOY lists (the lines difference is 7250 to 320). In the near future I expect to add Jason Gubbels's first quarter list, and maybe some other more/less trusted sources (I have been listening to almost everything Robert Christgau and Michael Tatum have recommended, aside from the Kanye West mixtape that snuck past me).

  The Old Music section continues to be haphazard, with most records picked up as background when I was considering new (or in the case of Larry Young new-old, which featured Nathan Davis) work. I suppose Horace Parlan is an exception: my favorite Parlan album is the 1977 duo he did with Archie Shepp, Goin' Home, and when I noticed it on Rhapsody I had brief hopes that I might find more albums on the Steeplechase label. That didn't really work out, but I did find a couple old Blue Notes I wanted to check out.

  ---

  Most of these are short notes/reviews based on streaming records from Rhapsody (other sources are noted in brackets). They are snap judgments based on one or two plays, accumulated since my last post along these lines, back on February 25. Past reviews and more information are available here (7920 records).

  ---

  Recent Releases

  Raul Agraz: Between Brothers (2013-15 [2016], OA2): Trumpet player, from Venezuela, first album, long list of musicians but recorded over several sessions -- the song-by-song credits average about nine per cut (not counting the extra strings). Latin big band, doesn't strike me as special. B [cd]

  Melissa Aldana: Back Home (2015 [2016], Wommusic): Tenor saxophonist, won a Monk prize which got her a record out on Concord, well regarded in 2014 and not without merit. But I prefer this fairly mainstream sax trio, with Pablo Menares on bass and Jochen Rueckert on drums. Nothing especially fancy, four originals, two pieces each from the band, Kurt Weill's "My Ship." B+(***) [cdr]

  Anderson .Paak: Malibu (2016, OBE/Steel Wool/ArtClub/Empire): Brandon Paak Anderson, who previously did business as Breezy Lovejoy, from Oxnard, CA. Second album, sings and raps, the beats skewed out a bit stoned. Seems to have worked as a "marijuana farmer" some while back, then did a stint as homeless, so he can do down and out and get through it somehow. A-

  Ehud Asherie: Shuffle Along (2015 [2016], Blue Heron): Pianist, born in Israel but moved to Italy when he was three, then to New York at nine, where he hung around Smalls and took lessons from Frank Hewitt. Career has moved from bop to swing, and takes a further step back here with his "solo piano interpretations from [Eubie] Blake and [Noble] Sissle's 1921 Broadway musical" -- best known for "I'm Just Wild About Harry," given two treatments here. B+(***) [cd]

  Audio One: What Thomas Bernhard Saw (2014 [2015], Audiographic): Ten-piece Ken Vandermark group, third album for this project. With all the alumni, I'm tempted to describe this more of a souped-up Vandermark 5 (Dave Rempis and Mars Williams join in on reeds, Jeb Bishop returns on trombone, and Tim Daisy is the drummer) than a big band project per se, The four Vandermark dedications are tightly conceived even though they each expand to 15-20 minutes. Band includes cornet (Josh Berman), another sax (Nick Mazzarella), vibes (Jason Adasiewicz), viola (Jen Paulson), and bass (Nick Maori, both acoustic and electric). A- [bc]

  Kenny Barron Trio: Book of Intuition (2015 [2016], Impulse): Pianist, now in his 70s, has many dozens of albums since 1973, also a very distinguished career as an educator. Trio with Kiyoshi Kitagawa (bass) and Johnathan Blake (drums). B+(**)

  Steve Barta: Symphonic Arrangement: Suite for Flute and Jazz Piano Trio (2015 [2016], Steve Barta Music): Cover recalls composer-pianist Claude Bolling's original 1975 album (headlined by flautist Jean-Pierre Rampal). Barta rearranged, giving the leads to Hubert Laws (flute) and Jeffrey Biegel (piano). Not something I care enough to compare versions of, but it passed by pleasantly enough. B [cd]

  B.J. the Chicago Kid: In My Mind (2016, Motown): AMG says "Contemporary R&B" -- means Bryan James Sledge sings in a context more or less defined by hip-hop, although the son of church choir directors and the former backup for Stevie Wonder also has much fondness for the sweet ballad. Sprawling album, runs over an hour and could use some editing, but if I listened to it enough to figure out where I might forget why. A-

  Michael Blake: Fulfillment (2016, Songlines): Tenor saxophonist (sometimes soprano), from Canada but based in New York, recorded this "conceptual" project -- a suite based on "a tragic immigration incident in Vancouver in 1914, when a Japanese freighter carrying several hundred East Indian immigrants (almost all Sikh) was turned away using exclusionist, racist laws." Recorded with a Vancouver-based group -- JP Carter, Peggy Lee, Chris Gestrin, Ron Samworth, André Lachance, Dylan van der Schyff -- the lyrics may help detail the story but disrupt the flow, which can be quite dramatic without them. B+(*)

  Cristina Braga & Brandenburger Symphoniker: Whisper (2015 [2016], Enja): Brazilian harpist with the Orquesta Sinfónica do Teatro Municipal do Rio de Janeiro, also sings, backed by Modern Samba Quartet and a German symphony orchestra, with guitarist-vocalist Dado Villa-Lobos as a "special guest." Brazilian pop with serious classical airs, not a direction I'm inclined to favor. B- [cd]

  Renato Braz: Saudade (2005-15 [2016], Living Music): Brazilian crooner, plays guitar but isn't credited with writing these songs -- cue in the usual suspects -- but aside from the live "bonus track" at the end they all sound like mopey ballads to me. Recorded over a decade, guest spots for Dori Caymmi and Ivan Lins, various bands including the Paul Winter Consort and the Dmitri Pokrovsky Ensemble. C [cd]

  Andy Brown Quartet: Direct Call (2015 [2016], Delmark): Guitarist from Chicago, had a solo album last year, follows it up with piano trio-plus-guitar (no horns), Jeremy Kahn the pianist. Swing lines -- starts with "The Jeep Is Jumpin'" -- keep it nice and unthreatening. B+(*) [cd]

  Rich Brown: Abeng (2015 [2016], self-released): Electric bassist, based in Toronto, album has a logo for Canada Council for the Arts but no label ID. Luis Deniz shows impressive range on alto sax, backed by Chris Donnelly or Robi Boros on piano, drums, extra percussion, with phat bass tones everywhere. B+(**) [cd]

  Oguz Buyukberber/Tobias Klein: Reverse Camouflage (2015 [2016], TryTone): Clarinet duets, both musicians also switching off to bass or contrabass clarinets. Both are based in the Netherlands, the former born in Turkey, the latter in Germany and better known for ICP Orchestra. Avant, tone can get on your nerves at points. B+(**) [cd]

  Rex Cadwallader/Mike Aseta/Arti Dixson/Tiffany Jackson: A Balm in Gilead (2015 [2016], Stanza USA): Piano-bass-drums trio plus soprano diva, intentional culture clash as the trio busts up mostly trad ballads while the singer puts them into a shrill straitjacket. Title song, "Deep River," "This Little Light of Mine," "Motherless Child," "Elijah Rock," "Every Time I Feel the Spirit," couple more, feathered out a bit by five "Trialogue" pieces, where the singer shuts up while the trio does something interesting. I can't stand opera, but get her sense of flow. Not something I enjoy. B- [cd]

  Taylor Cook: The Cook Book (2015 [2016], self-released): Saxophone player from British Columbia, based in Toronto, employs some twenty musicians to spice up his schmaltz, not always to good effect. Still, I always enjoy "On the Sunny Side of the Street." B [cd]

  Patrick Cornelius: While We're Still Young (2014 [2016], Whirlwind): Alto saxophonist (also soprano and flute), has a handful of records since 2006, this one a rather fancy postbop octet, mostly name players who do a lot of bobbing and weaving. B+(*) [cd]

  Cowboys & Frenchmen: Rodeo (2015, Outside In Music): Postbop quintet, led by two saxophonists (Owen Broder and Ethan Helm), with piano, bass, drums, the group named after a short film by David Lynch. B+(*) [cdr]

  Tim Daisy: Relucent: Music for Marimba, Radios and Turntables (2016, Relay): Chicago drummer, the last in the Vandermark 5 and a regular in post-V5 groups with Vandermark and/or Dave Rempis. This is solo, a tape collage of soft percussion and ambient sound. Not much, really. B [bc]

  Dawes: All Your Favorite Bands (2015, Hub): Well, don't know about you, but all my favorite bands are much better than this Poco wannabe. (What? You don't remember Poco?) B-

  Daveed Diggs: Small Things to a Giant (2012 [2015], Deathbomb Arc): Rapper from Oakland, came up in the underground group Clipping; first album on his own, a real tour de force, smart and snappy with rapidfire raps, the speed and dexterity which won him a Grammy for the roles of Thomas Jefferson and Marquis de Lafayette in Hamilton, but even more impressive as himself. A- [bc]

  The Dominican Jazz Project (2015 [2016], Summit): Pianist Stephen Anderson seems to have been the catalyst if not the leader here, connecting with various musicians on visits to the Dominican Republic, like Guillo Carias (clavietta), Sandy Gabriel (tenor/soprano sax), Guy Frömeta (drums), and Carlos Luis (vocals, guitar). A mixed bag with multiple appeals. B+(*) [cd]

  Drive-By Truckers: It's Great to Be Alive! (2014 [2015], ATO, 3CD): I put this off on the theory that 3:16:13 of anything is too much to pay attention to streaming -- which didn't keep my ears from perking up for the line that goes, "and all them politicians, they all lyin' sacks of shit" (I was writing about Donald Trump at the moment, although it could just as easily have been Marco Rubio, or Hillary Clinton). A couple decades worth of songs, redundant if you've followed them, but terrific as background noise, nicely unified by the live sound and occasional patter. On separate discs I imagine the length will only become more tolerable. A-

  Florian Egli Weird Beard: Everything Moves (2014 [2016], Intakt): Swiss quartet, has a previous album without the leader-saxophonist's name on the cover. Egli is backed by guitar (Dave Gisler), electric bass, and drums. Most compelling when they put a litle rock muscle into the rhythm, but the first word in the booklet is "Gelassenheit" -- serenity. B+(***) [cdr]

  Marty Elkins: Walkin' by the River (2014 [2016], Nagel Heyer): Standards singer, from New Jersey, third album, with guitarist Howard Alden swinging, both piano (Steve Ash) and organ (Joel Diamond), and a stellar turn by Jon-Erik Kelso on trumpet. B+(***) [cd]

  Moppa Elliott: Still Up in the Air (2015 [2016], Hot Cup): Solo bass album by the leader-composer behind Mostly Other People Do the Killing, easily the most consistently awesome jazz group of the past decade. The pieces are all called "Sequence" and some number up to fourteen, but not the complete set. B+(**) [cd]

  Darren English: Imagine Nation (2014 [2016], Hot Shoe): Trumpet player, first album, leads a hot boppish quartet with Kenny Banks Jr. on piano, sometimes adding Greg Tardy on sax, switching up on two tracks where Carmen Bradford sings standards ("What a Little Moonlight Can Do" and "Skylark"). Brings two extra trumpets in for the finale, a mad race through "Cherokee." B+(*) [cd]

  Piere Favre: DrumSights NOW (2015 [2016], Intakt): Drummer, from Switzerland, will turn 80 next year, old enough to have played with Albert Nicholas in the 1950s but best known (in my household at least) for three superb duo albums with pianist Irène Schweizer. His own discography has several albums with drum quartets, so I imagine he sees DrumSights as a successor group to his Singing Drums. Joined here by Chris Jaeger, Markus Lauterberg, and Valeria Zangger, the group plays as one -- which makes this seductive album slightly less than the sum of its parts. B+(***) [cdr]

  David Fiuczynski: Flam! Blam! Pan-Asian MicroJam (2015 [2016], Rare Noise): Guitarist, nicknamed "The Fuze" as if his music was fusion enough. Has close to ten albums since 2000, including group efforts as Screaming Headless Torsos. Goes for exotica here, including microtonal keyboards, a Chinese oboe and percussion, and three cuts with alto saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa. Should be interesting, but nothing quite works out right. B [cdr]

  Socrates Garcia Latin Jazz Orchestra: Back Home (2015 [2016], Summit): Composer-arranger-guitarist, from Dominican Republic, teaches at University of Northern Colorado, leads a big band with the usual horns and extra guitar and percussion through a set of originals, concluding with his three-part "Dominican Suite for Jazz Orchestra." B [cd]

  Danny Green Trio: Altered Narratives (2015 [2016], OA2): Pianist, from Southern California, fourth album since 2009, plays postbop with classical touches and a little Latin tinge. Augments his trio here with a string quartet for the middle cuts, expanding the sound so much I initially suspected an orchestra. Not the sort of thing I'm disposed to like much, but his sweep and flow is remarkable and the sensation just overwhelms you. B+(***) [cd]

  Jeff Guthery: Black Paintings (2015 [2016], self-released): Drummer, inspired by Goya paintings, backed by several jazz notables -- Kenny Werner, George Garzone, Bruno Råberg, David Fiuczynski -- and the East Coast Scoring Orchestra giving it a distinctly euroclassical air, maybe something Nutcracker-ish (at least when Garzone isn't soloing). B- [cd]

  Hanami: The Only Way to Float Free (2015 [2016], Ears & Eyes): Chicago quartet, guitarist Andrew Trim wrote all the pieces and effectively leads, flanked by two horns -- Jason Stein on bass clarinet and Mai Sugimoto on alto sax and clarinet. Charles Rumback is the drummer. B+(***) [cdr]

  Lafayette Harris Jr.: Hangin' With the Big Boys (2013 [2016], Airmen): Pianist, mainstream guy with a soul and funk background, nearly ten albums since 1993. Opens with two covers, then six originals, one by his alto saxophonist Caleb Curtis, and two more covers. The "big boys" include Houston Person -- tenor sax on five cuts -- Antoine Drye on trumpet, and three vocals by Jazzmeia Horn and/or Noël Simoné Whippler. Nice, relaxed, soulful set -- Person's marvelous solo on "The Very Thought of You" bumped this up a notch. B+(**) [cd]

  Julian Hartwell: The Julian Hartwell Project (2015, self-released): Pianist, first album, hype sheet clearly attributes the album to the titular group but I usually go with the name leader. High octane octet: sax, trumpet, trombone, two basses, guitar, drums, a lot of firepower for a high energy postbop set. B+(**) [cd]

  Joseph Howell: Time Made to Swing (2015 [2016], Summit): Clarinetist, from California, second album, quartet with accordion (Cory Pesaturo), bass, and drums. Standards, starts with "On the Sunny Side of the Street" then veers into Parker ("Confirmation") and Monk ("Let's Cool One"). High energy, the accordion beefs up the sound, the clarinet races. B+(***) [cd]

  The James Hughes/Jimmy Smith Quintet: Ever Up & Onward (2015 [2016], self-released): Hughes (alto/tenor/soprano sax) and Smith (trumpet, cornet, flugelhorn) lead a hard bop quintet with Phil Kelly on piano, fifty-some years after the genre's heyday. Still can't call it retro, since it's pretty much the baseline postbop is built on, just without the cleverness that sometimes passes for innovation. B+(*) [cd]

  Vijay Iyer/Wadada Leo Smith: A Cosmic Rhythm With Each Stroke (2015 [2016], ECM): Piano-trumpet duo, both major figures, so you'd expect something big. What you get, though, is pretty tepid, with the piano fading into the background as Smith does his slow-solo thing -- similar to his solo albums, perhaps toned down a bit with Manfred Eicher watching. B+(**) [cdr]

  Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra With Wynton Marsalis: The Abyssinian Mass (2013 [2016], Blue Engine, 2CD): Featuring Damien Sneed, organist and conductor of Chorale Le Chateau, a red-robed vocal group which judging from the pictures outnumbers the big band by about five-to-one. Marsalis composed the music, drawing liberally on the gospel tradition and smattering the libretto with plagiarism from The Bible, and the Reverend Dr. Calvin O. Butts III adds some down home preaching. Where I grew up, mass meant something huge and heavy, and I can't say as I've encountered music so massive before. I try not to begrudge Christians their faith, but it can't be a good thing when it's reduced to two-plus hours of gloria in excelsis Deo, or in their down home vernacular, "glory to God in the highest." Comes in oversized packaging with a thick booklet and a DVD, all the better to remind you that in America generous donors are always willing to pay for trivialized amenities -- especially the kind that worship power. C- [cd]

  Krakauer's Ancestral Groove: Checkpoint (2015 [2016], Table Pounding): Clarinetist David Krakauer, plays jazz with klezmer roots and branches: the rhythm generating a lot of energy and the clarinet threatening to screech. Band is built around electric guitar (Sheryl Bailey) and bass (Jerome Harris), and employs a sampler, plus a guest spot for Marc Ribot. B+(***) [cd]

  Kyle: Smyle (2015, Indie Pop): Yet another singer-rapper from southern California, this one from Ventura. AMG lists this as his only album, then refers to another one (Beautiful Loser) -- maybe has something to do with also/previously calling himself Super Duper. Funny enough some pieces almost qualify as standup. B+(***)

  Julian Lage: Arclight (2015 [2016], Mack Avenue): Guitarist, regarded as a Wunderkind, subject of a documentary at age 8, performed on the Grammy Awards at 13, joined the faculty at Stanford at 15. Still in his twenties, has continued to receive critical praise and plaudits although I'm not sure why. This is a trio with Scott Colley and Kenny Wollesen, originals with four covers, all nice stuff. B+(*) [cd]

  Kendrick Lamar: Untitled Unmastered (2013-16 [2016], Top Dawg Entertainment): Eight tracks, no titles but recording dates, 34:06, presumably outtakes, sketches, throwaway experiments, released online because, well, what the hell? As someone who's never really got either of his widely accalimed studio masterpieces, I'm even more lost here. But nothing here is going to disabuse you of the notion he's a genius, even if it doesn't quite convince me. B+(***)

  Tom Lellis: The Flow (2015 [2016], Beamtime): Jazz singer, AMG lists seven albums since 1979, plays keyboards but Dave Kikoski is the primary pianist here, leading a trio plus Jeremy Steig on flute and a long list of guests. Four originals, plus Lellis lyrics to several others -- mostly jazz pianists and his Brazilian heroes. Neither his voice nor his chops impress much as he slips and slides around too tricky melodies. C-

  Charles Lloyd & the Marvels: I Long to See You (20B-15 [2016], Blue Note): Tenor saxophonist (also plays some flute), became very popular in the mid-1960s and continues to be one of the most highly regarded jazz musicians. Group here features guitarist Bill Frisell and steel guitarist Greg Leisz, along with Reuben Rogers on bass and Eric Harland on drums -- "Shenandoah" is a near-textbook example of Frisell's feel for Americana. Second half includes guest vocals by Willie Nelson and Norah Jones. Feels to me like he's coasting, but he does have entertaining friends. B+(**)

  Los Bonsáis: Nordeste (2015, Elefant, EP): Noise-pop duo from Asturias in northwest Spain, soft shoegazey fuzz, attractive but not very substantial, especially as they squeeze ten songs into 14:28. B+(*)

  Jon Lundbom & Big Five Chord: Make the Magic Happen (2015 [2016], Hot Cup, EP): Guitarist, band includes two saxes -- Jon Irabagon (alto) you know, Balto Exclamationpoint (tenor and his homemade "balto! saxophone") I don't recognize (although previous member Bryan Murray had also been credited with the less emphatic "balto saxophone") -- plus Moppa Elliott (bass) and Dan Monaghan (drums). Basically the same avant brew Lundbom has been mixing up since 2009 -- my pick is still the 2CD Liverevil (2014) -- so what's new this year (aside from the exclamation mark) is a marketing gimmick: the music is to be split up into four 30-minute digital EPs, the first out now, the others in April, June, and September. You can buy them "a la carte" or as part of a subscription, or you can pre-order a "beautifully packaged" 4CD box available September 30, which includes the downloads as they become available. B+(***) [cdr]

  Jon Lundbom & Big Five Chord: Bring Their 'A' Game (2015 [2016], Hot Cup, EP): The second of this year's four EPs, available April 1 -- for promo purposes I got them both at the same time, popped both into the changer, and can't tell them apart. Would make a fine single album were they so inclined. B+(***) [cdr]

  Loretta Lynn: Full Circle (2016, Legacy): Now 83, she hasn't produced albums with any regularity since the 1980s, with her latest comeback the Jack White-produced Van Lear Rose (2004). This one was organized by John Carter Cash and Patsy Lynn Reynolds. As with Cash's father, they set Loretta down several years ago to record the old songs, of which this is the first batch. She doesn't have as iconic a voice as Cash, but she's sounding pretty good here. B+(**)

  Kirk MacDonald: Symmetry (2013 [2016], Addo): Tenor saxophonist, from Canada, not sure where but he has a dozen albums since 1990, most recorded in Toronto. Hard bop quintet with trumpet (Tom Harrell), piano (Brian Dickinson), bass (Neil Swainson), and drums (Dennis Mackrel). Unexceptional except for the trumpet player, who rewards whatever attention you can muster. B+(*) [cd]

  Gabriela Martina: No White Shoes (2015 [2016], self-released): Singer-songwriter, born in Lucerne, Switzerland, studied at Berklee, based in Boston, first album (after an EP). All originals (except "A Night in Tunisia"), backed by guitar-piano-bass-drums with a splash of soprano sax and a dash of extra percussion. B [cd]

  Meridian Brothers: Los Suicidas (2015, Soundway, EP): Colombian pseudo-group, principally Eldris Álvarez, here joined by organ player Jaime Llano Gonzalez, who works "foreign rhythms such as foxtrots or waltzes" into more traditional Colombian fare like cumbias, bambucos, and pasillos -- although not without raising the notion that it's all a bit odd. Eight cuts, 29:01. B+(**)

  Hendrik Meurkens: Harmonicus Rex (2010 [2016], Height Advantage): Harmonica player, from Germany but mostly plays Latin jazz, originally made his mark playing vibraphone. This is fairly mainstream -- Jimmy Cobb is the drummer, with Dado Moroni on piano, Marcus Panascia on bass, and four spots each for Joe Magnarelli (trumpet/flugelhorn) and Anders Bostrum (alto flute). Nice showcase for his instrument. B+(*) [cd]

  Dave Miller: Old Door Phantoms (2015 [2016], Ears & Eyes): Guitarist, first album, fusion thing with Fender bass (Matt Ulery), keyboards (Ben Boye), and drums (Quin Kirchner). The guitar is sometimes snazzy, but more often than not they rely on volume to try to get their point across (whatever it is). B- [cd]

  Naked Truth: Avian Thug (2013 [2016], Rare Noise): Fusion quartet, not a "supergroup" but not unknowns either -- Graham Haynes (electrified cornet), Lorenzo Feliciati (electric bass, guitars), Roy Powell (organ, analog synths, prepared piano), and Pat Mastelotto (acoustic & electric drums). Some interesting wrinkles, but doesn't leave me thinking they've broken any ground. B+(*) [cdr]

  Willie Nelson: Summertime: Willie Nelson Sings Gershwin (2016, Legacy): Generally a fine standards singer, mostly by sticking to basics and shying away from melodrama. Still, he has trouble getting the feel of these songs, his sly stutter far less pleasurable than, say, the broad showboating of Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald -- their takes readily come to mind whenever I hear these songs, but I can think of hundreds of versions I prefer, if only because unlike Nelson's they swing. Duets with Cyndi Lauper and Sheryl Crow are low points. B

  Angelika Niescier/Florian Weber: NYC Five (2015 [2016], Intakt): Polish alto saxophonist, half-dozen albums since 2002, teamed with the German pianist and a pick up band in New York: Ralph Alessi (trumpet), Christopher Tordini (bass), and Tyshawn Sorey (drums). Three tunes by each of the leaders, bursting with energy -- especially strong showing by Alessi. B+(***) [cdr]

  Kat Parra: Songbook of the Americas (2016, JazzMa): Vocalist, based in San Francisco, fifth album, mostly does Latin standards, this albums mambos and cha-chas, boleros and tangos no exception. Some guests, including Tuck & Patti, help out (if you call their efforts help). B [cd]

  Christian Perez: Anima Mundi (2015 [2016], CPM): Guitarist, from Argentina, mixes classical with Latin percussion and bandoneon, decorated by flute or piccolo. B [cd]

  Roberta Piket: One for Marian: Celebrating Marian McPartland (2015 [2016], Thirteenth Note): Jazz pianist, early albums (from 1997) on mainstream labels, has more than a dozen. Makes sense she would take McPartland as a hero. She gets ample support here for a lush tribute: Steve Wilson (alto sax, flute), Virginia Mayhew (tenor sax, clarinet), Bill Mobley (trumpet, flugelhorn), Harvie S (bass), Billy Mintz (drums), with Karrin Allyson singing one tune. B+(*) [cdr]

  Leslie Pintchik: True North (2015 [2016], Pintch Hard): Pianist, from Brooklyn, has a handful of albums since 2003, mainstream, with the usual touchstones (notably Bill Evans). Trio work is quite nice here, although most of it adds extra percussion from Satoshi Takeishi, so it's trio only in spirit. Also, about half of the tracks add horns -- Steve Wilson (alto/soprano sax), Ron Horton (trumpet/flugelhorn -- and they expand on the spirit. B+(***) [cd]

  Alberto Pinton Noi Siamo: Resiliency (2015 [2016], Moserobie): Pinton's a multi-reed player from Venice, credited here with baritone sax, clarinet, and bass clarinet. "Noi siamo" is just Italian for "we are." Leads a quartet here with Niklas Barno (trumpet) Torbjorn Zetterberg (bass), and Konrad Agnas (drums), recorded live in Stockholm. A real barnburner. A- [cd]

  Richard Poole/Marilyn Crispell/Gary Peacock: In Motion (2014 [2016], Intakt): Piano trio, drummer listed first for no reason I've figured out other than that he usually gets listed last -- in my database I find him so listed behind Patrick Battstone and Coat Cooke, and his discography has a few more examples. Aside from a Peacock standard, everything here is joint-credited, presumably improvised. No complaints about the drummer, but the others are more famous for good reasons, evident here even when they're not especially flashy. B+(***) [cdr]

  Iggy Pop: Post Pop Depression (2016, Loma Vista): Band pictured and named on the cover, with Joshua Homme (Queens of the Stone Age) listed first. Singer comes through loud and clear, but everything else seems unsettled. B+(*)

  Pram Trio: Saga Thirteen (2015 [2016], self-released): Piano trio: Jack Bodkin (piano), Mark Godfrey (bass), Eric West (drums). Godfrey and Bodkin split six compositions, total 30:51. the sort of thing that often gets marked EP these days. B+(*) [cd]

  Quantic: The Western Transient: A New Constellation (2015, Tru Thoughts): British techno producer Will Holland, has a substantial stack of records. This one is kept at arms length as "Quantic Presents the Western Transient." Discogs lists this as "smooth jazz," which is too prejudicial, but the record doesn't put up much of a fight. B

  Quttinirpaaq: Dead September (2015, Rural Isolation Project): Austin, TX noise group, name presumably derives from the Canadian national park, located on the northern tip of Ellesmere Island, as far north as you can go in Canada. Third album, sheets of guitar playing "bleeding-noise industrial electronic rock . . . sounds like punk rock thrown violently into a paper shredder with no fucks given." I bailed out four cuts in, so cut it some grade slack. C+

  Bonnie Raitt: Dig In Deep (2016, Redwing): Her best in quite some while -- my database nominates 1973's Takin' My Time but I've missed things and reacted badly to Michael Tatum's nominee, 1991's Luck of the Draw. She hasn't aged in the manner of blues singers, but there's nothing urgent here -- she's clear and articulate and has learned to pace herself, making this seem so natural you'd think she's been doing it so well all along. A-

  Ratatet: Arctic (2015 [2016], Ridgeway): Bay Area group: Paul Hanson (bassoon), John Gove (trombone), Dillon Vado (vibes), Greg Sankovich (keyboards), Jeff Denson (basses, vocals), Alan Hall (drums), with Hall the leader/composer/arranger. Another postbop variant, the instrumentation setting them apart. B [cd]

  Scott Reeves Jazz Orchestra: Portraits and Places (2015 [2016], Origin): Big band, leader plays alto flugelhorn but that's rather beside the point. Steve Wilson gets a "featuring" credit on the cover, and there are a handful of names I recognize in the band, like pianist Jim Ridl and vocalist (2 cuts) Sara Serpa. B- [cd]

  Logan Richardson: Shift (2013 [2016], Blue Note): Alto saxophonist, born in Kansas City but based in Paris, 2006 debut (aptly named Cerebral Flow) impressed me, but this is only his second album since -- a big label affair with big names in the band, especially Jason Moran (piano) and Pat Metheny (guitar). So much talent cannot be denied, but doesn't fit together all that well either. Cover song from Bruno Mars. B+(*)

  Rihanna: Anti (2016, Roc Nation): Mostly crawl along, not a good sign for dance-pop or even bump-and-grind, though often the oblique rhythms suggest something interesting is lurking about, and occasionally I get hooked -- "Love on the Brain" never fails. A-

  Alfredo Rodriguez: Tocororo (2015 [2016], Mack Avenue/Qwest): Cuban pianist, based in US since 2009, third album, co-produced by Quincy Jones. Many vocals, some pieces quite beguiling in an almost childish way. B+(**) [cd]

  Sidestepper: Supernatural Love (2016, Real World): British producer Richard Blair, learned to love Latin music living in Colombia, and brought back that fondness for a more conventional electronica treatment. B+(*)

  Sirius Quartet: Paths Become Lines (2015 [2016], Autentico): String quartet, "blending the precision of classical music and the energy of 'compromvisation,'" appeared on an album with Ivo Perelman I liked, well, more than this. Mostly grates on my ears, though some passages are interesting, and I don't doubt their chops. B+(*) [cd]

  Gwen Stefani: This Is What the Truth Feels Like (2016, Interscope): Blonde bombshell singer, a cover favorite of Blender magazine back in the day, which included two 2000-02 albums fronting No Doubt, and two 2004-06 solo albums. A decade later this is her third album, done with four production teams and an average of four writers per song, which for a pop album with hip-hop touches is about par for the course. I can't say much for her old work, but pretty much every song here clicks for me. A-

  Zhenya Strigalev: Never Group (2015 [2016], Whirlwind): Alto saxophonist, based in London, don't know if he's native. Has a couple previous albums, but this is the first I've heard of him, and I botched the credit/title during unpacking. Core group is a trio with Tim Lefebvre on bass and Eric Harland on drums, and several additional musicians have guest spots. B+(**) [cd]

  Henry Threadgill Ensemble Double Up: Old Locks and Irregular Verbs (2015 [2016], Pi): Not a Zooid album (an error I made in unpacking). In fact, Threadgill doesn't play; he's only credited with composition (four pieces, called "Part One" through "Part Four"). The ensemble does double up on piano (Jason Moran and David Virelles), alto sax (Roman Filiu and Curtis MacDonald), and bass substitutes (Christopher Hoffman on cello and Jose Davila on tuba), but only one drummer (Craig Weinrib). Impressive group, way beyond the star pianists. The composer gives them plenty to chew on, and they come up with one surprise after another. A- [cd]

  The U.S. Army Blues: Live at Blues Alley (2015 [2016], self-released): Aka The United States Army Band "Pershing's Own," commanded by Col. Thomas Rotondi, Jr. I suppose I should be more generous to America's premier exemplar of state socialism, especially when they do something that doesn't involve killing and mayhem, but the lavish production grates at me as much as the mediocre music. A full blown big band (actually overblown with a fifth trumpet). To turn the late Robert Sherrill's book title around, military music is to music as military justice is to justice. C [cd]

  Marcos Varela: San Ygnacio (2012 [2016], Origin): Bassist, from Houston, first album, wrote two (of eleven) pieces, picking up a few more from the veteran band: George Cables (piano) and Billy Hart (drums) are the core, with other rotating in for a few cuts -- Logan Richardson (alto sax), Dayna Stephens (tenor sax), Clifton Anderson (trombone). Rowdy, upbeat postbop, caught me at a bad time. B [cd]

  Vox Arcana: Caro's Song (2014 [2015], Relay): Chicago trio, sort of an avant chamber group with clarinet (James Falzone) and cello/electronics (Fred Lonberg-Holm) along with Tim Daisy forgoing his drums his recent fascination with marimba and radio sampling. B+(*) [bc]

  Wildhoney: Sleep Through It (2015, Deranged): Baltimore shoegaze group, Lauren Shusterich the singer, with two guitarists (Joe Trainor, Marybeth Mareski), bass, and drums. LP length, 10 cuts -- not easily differentiated but they do have a coherent, shimmering sound -- 32:13. B+(*)

  Wildhoney: Your Face Sideways (2015, Topshelf, EP): EP came out in October after their debut album in January, stretches six cuts to 25:57, but that's mostly due to the 12:29 "noise drone" at the end. Actually, my first thought was ethereal, but it's really too glossy for that, strangely attractive. First five songs could be one for all I could tell. B+(*)

  Jeff Williams: Outlier (2015 [2016], Whirlwind): Drummer, British, has a half dozen albums since 1994. Quintet, with tenor sax (Josh Arcoleo), guitar (Phil Robson), piano/keyboards (Kit Downes), and bass (Sam Lasserson, both double and electric). I hear a lot of mainstream postbop that is expert but uninteresting, but this has some bite and resonance to it without breaking avant ground. B+(***) [cd]

  Wussy: Forever Sounds (2016, Shake It): Cincinnati alt/indie band, active since 2005, leader Chuck Cleaver had a notable earlier band called the Ass Ponys but picked up a dimension adding Lisa Walker to the band. This comes off both denser and spacier than their average album, which is reliably meaty -- though I can't say as I'm picking up many lyrics this time. But then I've always been slow getting them. A-

  Michiyo Yagi/Joe McPhee/Paal Nilssen-Love/Lasse Marhaug: Soul Stream (2013 [2015], PNL): On the drummer's label, but the key player is Yagi on Japanese instruments (an electric 21-string koto and a 17-string bass koto). McPhee adds ballad tones on pocket trumpet, alto and tenor sax, and Marhaug is responsible for electronics and "other objects," while the drummer has a fairly easy day. B+(*) [bc]

  Michiyo Yagi/Lasse Marhaug/Paal Nilssen-Love: Angular Mass (2011 [2015], PNL): As above, minus Joe McPhee, which is to say this is like stripping off the human mask and revealing the wires and contraptions underneath, not just raw but murky and inconclusive as well. B [bc]

  La Yegros: Magnetismo (2016, Soundway): Mariana Yegros, from Argentina, based in Buenos Aires and France, a foudner of something called "electro cumbia" -- evidently no longer a Colombian exclusive. B+(***)

  Youth Worship: LP1 (2015, Self Harm): Alt/indie group from New York, first album, released between two EPs. Songs have a certain snappiness to them, and they bring more than the usual noise to the fore. B+(***)

  Tom Zé: Vira Lata Na Via Láctea (2014, self-released): Brazilian singer-songwriter, well into his 70s, came to notice in the US when David Byrne compiled his early work into two volumes in his Brazil Classics series. I never warmed to those volumes, with their disjointed rhythms and strange shape shifting, but I've enjoyed his later (more moderate, I think) work starting with 1998's Com Defeito de Fabricaçao, and this one continues in their vein, catchy despite its improbability. A-

  Omri Ziegele Noisy Minority: Wrong Is Right (2015 [2016], Intakt): Alto saxophonist, from Switzerland, sixth album since 2002, his Zürich group Noisy Minority normally a trio with Jan Schlegel (electric bass) and Dieter Ulrich (drums, bugle), joined here by trombonist Ray Anderson -- adds another sonic layer, solo contrast, and (I suspect) some funk to the uneven grooves. A bit of spoken word early on suggests a direction they didn't take. A- [cdr]

  Recent Reissues, Compilations, Vault Discoveries

  Cheryl Bentyne: Lost Love Songs (2003-11 [2016], Summit): Standards singer, best known as part of Manhattan Transfer but has fifteen albums on her own. This one collects songs from three albums that only appeared in Japan: The Lights Still Burn (2003), Moonlight Serenade (2003), Songs of Our Time (2011). Torchy, gorgeous, "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow" sticks in your head long after the record ends. B+(***) [cd]

  Borah Bergman/Peter Brötzmann/Frode Gjerstad: Left (1996 [2016], Not Two): A remarkable avant pianist whose recording career spanned from 1975 nearly to his death in 2012, paired with two avant saxophonists in one of those live matches -- this one from the Molde International Jazz Festival -- that represent a typical day's creation until years later, once he's gone, it gains an air of poignancy. B+(**) [bc]

  DJ Katapila: Trotro (2009 [2016], Awesome Tapes From Africa): DJ mixtape from Ghana, beats mostly from modern electronica but hot enough to pass muster in a land reknowned for rhythm, the vocals a bit on the squeaky side, which I suppose could mean they've been jacked up like everything else. B+(***)

  William Hooker: Light: The Early Years 1975-1989 (1975-89 [2016], NoBusiness, 4CD): A trawl through the avant drummer's early oeuvre. First disc starts with him solo, a failed soul singer backed only by his own percussion. Then comes two monster pieces with saxophonists: a 26:48 trio with David Murray (1975), and a 19:27 duo with a young and even more visceral David S. Ware. Second disc is more obscure, ending with a 16:07 trio with two saxophonists (Jameel Moondoc and Hasaan Dawkins). Third jumps ahead to 1988, a previously unreleased trio with Roy Campbell on trumpet and Booker T. Williams on tenor sax. Fourth gives you a set with Lewis Barnes (trumpet) and Richard Keene (reeds) and a 16:18 drum solo. All avant, very underground, and while the horns make a lot of noise, there's very little filler -- I think just one cut with bass, no piano or guitar -- so the drums always ring clear. A- [cd]

  Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra: All My Yesterdays (1966 [2016], Resonance, 2CD): Jones was a veteran bebop trumpet player, elder brother of Hank and Elvin, better known as a composer than for his chops although his early records are remarkable. Lewis was a big band drummer who came to prominence with Stan Kenton and Woody Herman. In 1966 they put together a big band to play regular gigs at New York's Village Vanguard, a band which survived leader deaths in 1986 and 1990. This goes back to the band's first gigs, and it's hard to exaggerate how vibrant they sound. A- [cd]

  Meridian Brothers: Devoción (Works 2005-2011) (2005-11 [2013], Staubgold): Nominally a Colombian band, although this collection of early sides seems to be the solo work of Eblis Álvarez. It certainly doesn't sound like a group effort: the music barely supports the idiosyncratic vocals in something more credible as psychedelic than the stuff the Rough Guide folks uncover. Reminds Christgau of Tom Zé, and I can hear that. A-

  The Rough Guide to Cumbia [Second Edition] (1975-2012 [2013], World Music Network, 2CD): Successor to the label's 2000 edition, a new batch of (mostly) old songs, the last two dating from 2008-10, most of the others hard to pin down (two also show up in compilations from 1960-76 and 1948-79, so they could be older than I'm sure of). The cumbias have a marvelous bounce, passed effortlessly from band to band. Also includes a "bonus CD": The Rough Guide to Los Corraleros De Majagual, an important cumbia group dating back to 1962. B+(***)

  The Rough Guide to Latin Disco (1975-2014 [2015], World Music Network): At least these New York tracks are relatively easy to locate: two-thirds date from the 1975-80 disco heyday, with Joe Bataan and Salsoul Orchestra scoring two tracks each. The others date from 2002 forward. The disco feint has a whiff of sellout to it and never really scaled the heights of disco ecstasy, but not for lack of energy, or chops. B+(*)

  The Rough Guide to Merengue Dance ([2009], World Music Network, 2CD): The national style of Dominican music, closer in feel to cumbia than to salsa -- the ubiquitous accordion has something to do with that. The difference getween "merengue" and "merengue dance" seems to be speed, though I can't imagine dancing to any of these barnburners, even before I got old and decrepit. No idea on dates: I decided to just kick back and enjoy this one. Bonus disc is Mambeao by Carlitos Almonte, one of the accordion wizards. Seems to be unavailable separately. A-

  The Rough Guide to Psychedelic Cumbia (1969-2014 [2015], World Music Network): First few cuts seem to date from the 1970s or a bit earlier but then there's a big jump to recent (although I only tracked about half of the songs down, and even old ones are likely to have recent youtube videos. Never clear what "psychedelic" means, but these are mostly instrumental vamps with extra but not super fancy percussion. B+(***)

  The Rough Guide to the Best Arabic Music You've Never Heard (2008-14 [2015], World Music Network): No artist names I recognize (admittedly, not a very high hurdle), but all appear to be relatively recent, and they range fairly widely over the Arabic-speaking world. Still, easier to pick out "you've never heard" than "the best" -- not least because it's hard to find a unifying theme here. B

  Larry Young: In Paris: The ORTF Recordings (1964-65 [2016], Resonance, 2CD): Organ player, broke out of the soul jazz groove when he moved to Blue Note in 1965 -- his album Unity (with Woody Shaw, Joe Henderson, and Elvin Jones) is a masterpiece, one of those Penguin Guide crown recordings. These lavishly documented, previously unreleased recordings are transitional, most from a quartet led by tenor saxophonist Nathan Davis -- a Kansas City native who moved to Paris in 1963 -- with Shaw, in blistering form, and drummer Billy Brooks. Young keeps those cuts simmering, but you don't wind up with a very good sense of how. Also includes a couple earlier cuts with various French musicians, including one with Young playing piano. B+(***) [cd]

  Old Music

  Anderson .Paak: Venice (2014, OBE/Steel Wool): First album for the Afro-Korean-Californian singer/rapper, sorts out his sound on moderately interesting songs, mostly about sex. B+(**)

  Nathan Davis: Happy Girl (1965 [2006], MPS): First album, basically the same group -- Woody Shaw (trumpet), Billy Brooks (drums) -- as on Larry Young's In Paris but with Young playing piano (less distinctively) and Jimmy Woode added at bass. Opens with a flute piece ("The Flute in the Blues"). B+(*)

  Drive-By Truckers: Gangstabilly (1998, Soul Dump): First album, with Patterson Hood doing most of the writing, Mike Cooley chipping in "Panties in Your Purse," both on guitar and vocals, plus pedal steel, upright bass, and drums, "the most country of any of our albums," although their attitude already cutting against the grain -- on the one hand, the hip-hop allusion of the title, on the other a song called "Demonic Possession" based on a Pat Buchanan speech (perhaps the one Molly Ivins thought "might have sounded better in the original German"). B+(***)

  Drive-By Truckers: Alabama Ass Whuppin' (1999 [2000], Second Heaven): Live album, recorded over several dates in Athens and Atlanta, Georgia; repeats five songs from their debut, three from Pizza Deliverance, adds three songs including a wicked tale about "The Avon Lady" and a breakneck cover of Jim Carroll's "People Who Died," also working a little Lynyrd Skynyrd into "Steve McQueen." I had my doubts on the song with too much Jesus (too little sex), but toward the end they aimed for "live and loud" and got there. B+(***)

  Drive-By Truckers: Ugly Buildings, Whores, and Politicians: Greatest Hits 1998-2009 (1998-2009 [2011], New West): Not sure that any of these songs qualify as hits, but the seven source albums showed slow, steady progress up the charts, hitting 50 in 2006 and 37 in 2008 (figures topped by three later albums, the highest at 16). Nor is the band so hit-and-miss you need a compilation (I have six of those albums at A-, with Gangstabilly a very near miss). Nor am I sure this improves on any of the six (or for that matter the odds and sods collected as The Fine Print). But the songcraft is very much there. A-

  Kendrick Lamar: Overly Dedicated (2010, Top Dawg Entertainment): First mixtape, a year before Section.80 turned enough ears to get him on my radar, but following four mixtapes as K-Dot, an alias he still self-refers to here. Maybe half of this seems generic to the craft, but the other half is so spry and bubbly it bursts the seams. A-

  Horace Parlan: Movin' & Groovin' (1960, Blue Note): Pianist, worked with Sonny Stitt and later Charles Mingus in the 1950s, had a terrific run with Blue Note in the early 1960s, starting with this trio -- Sam Jones on bass, Al Harewood on drums. B+(**)

  Horace Parlan: Up & Down (1961 [2009], Blue Note): The pianist leads a hard bop quintet here with Booker Ervin (tenor sax), Grant Green (guitar), George Tucker (bass), and Al Harewood (drums). Opens with the guitarist in fine form, but Ervin tends to go with the flow rather than blast out of it, as he would a couple years hence. B+(***)

  Bonnie Raitt: Bonnie Raitt (1971, Warner Brothers): Had a show biz father and a pianist mother, raised a Quaker, went to Radcliffe and majored in social relations and African studies, took a semester off, was befriended by a blues promoter, learned to play bottle-neck, and was discovered opening for Fred McDowell. First album, two originals buried in the middle of a mess of blues although she led off with a Stephen Stills song the label might have figured for a single but didn't bother releasing. B+(***)

  Bonnie Raitt: Streetlights (1974, Warner Brothers): Fourth album, Jerry Ragavoy producing, no original songs, no blues, wonder whether she/they would have touched John Prine's "Angel From Montgomery" had he not also been on WEA at the time (as were her opening songwriters, Joni Mitchell and James Taylor). B

  Bonnie Raitt: The Glow (1979, Warner Brothers): Still kicked around from producer to producer, this time landing with Peter Asher -- not much of a roots/blues afficionado. Starts with two Isaac Hayes songs, not a bad move. B

  Bonnie Raitt: Green Light (1982, Warner Brothers): I buy that she's having more fun here, mostly due to upbeat rockers -- some suggesting she's been listening to Dave Edmunds. B+(**)

  Bonnie Raitt: Nine Lives (1986, Warner Brothers): Her last album for Warners, one that sat on the shelf a couple years before she recut half of it to make it more hit-worthy. Christgau, who cares much more about her than I do, regards it as her worst (runner up: 2002's Silver Lining). I find it perfectly ordinary -- something she's done several times. B-

  Bonnie Raitt: Road Tested (1995, Capitol, 2CD): Only two (of nine) of her Warners albums went gold, but her first three albums for Capitol went platinum (2-7x) -- less familiar to me with Longing in Their Hearts not even on Rhapsody -- leading to the profit-taking of this live double, reclaiming large swathes of her early songbook. Strikes me as perfunctory, but does make a whole out of the parts. B+(**)

  Bonnie Raitt: The Best of Bonnie Raitt on Capitol 1989-2003 (1989-2003 [2003], Capitol): First three albums went platinum, cashing in on all the hard work the past decade while Warners paired her with one ill-suited producer after another. I'm not a fan of those albums (at least of the two better-regarded ones I've heard), but looking back I have to admit that her Grammy-grabbing MOR move produced some exquisite schmaltz. This collection goes down so easy you scarcely notice it -- beyond the warm feeling it leaves you with. What you do notice are the Road Tested remakes of old blues. A-

  The Larry Young Trio: Testifying (1960 [1992], New Jazz/OJC): Organ player, born in Newark, first album, cut when he was still 19. Mostly trio with Thornel Schwartz (guitar) and Jimmie Smith (drums), plus two cuts with Joe Holiday on tenor sax. Two original pieces (plus Holiday's "Exercise for Chihuahuas"), standards and blues, not his breakthrough sound but impressive for the genre. B+(***)

  Larry Young: Groove Street (1962 [1995], Prestige/OJC): Third album, 21 now, expands his trio -- Thornel Schwartz on guitar and Jimmie Smith on drums -- with Bill Leslie on tenor sax. Prestige was notorious for quickly cutting slapdash albums and I figure this was one, where the order of the day was "groove." B+(**)

  Additional Consumer News:

  Previous grades on artists in the old music section.

  • Nathan Davis: London by Night (1987, DIW): B
  • Drive-By Truckers: Pizza Deliverance (1999, Ghost Meat): A-
  • Drive-By Truckers: Southern Rock Opera (2001, SDR): A-
  • Drive-By Truckers: Decoration Day (2003, New West): A-
  • Drive-By Truckers: The Dirty South (2004, New West): A-
  • Drive-By Truckers: A Blessing and a Curse (2006, New West): A-
  • Drive-By Truckers: Brighter Than Creation's Dark (2007 [2008], New West): A-
  • Drive-By Truckers: The Fine Print: A Collection of Oddities and Rarities 2003-2008 (2003-08 [2009], New West): A-
  • Drive-By Truckers: The Big To-Do (2010, ATO): B+(***)
  • Drive-By Truckers: Go-Go Boots (2009-10 [2011], ATO/Red): A-
  • Drive-By Truckers: English Oceans (2014, ATO): B+(**)
  • Kendrick Lamar: Section.80 (2011, Top Dawg Entertainment): B+(**)
  • Kendrick Lamar: Good Kid, MAAD City (2012, Aftermath): A-
  • Kendrick Lamar: To Pimp a Butterfly (2015, Top Dawg/Aftermath/Intgerscope): A-
  • Horace Parlan: On the Spur of the Moment (1961 [1998], Blue Note): A-
  • Horace Parlan: Happy Frame of Mind (1963 [1988], Blue Note): A-
  • Horace Parlan: Blue Parlan (1978 [1979], Steeplechase): B+
  • Horace Parlan: Glad I Found You (1984, Steeplechase): B+
  • Bonnie Raitt: Give It Up (1972, Warner Brothers): A
  • Bonnie Raitt: Takin' My Time (1973, Warner Brothers): A-
  • Bonnie Raitt: Home Plate (1975, Warner Brothers): B+
  • Bonnie Raitt: Sweet Forgiveness (1977, Warner Brothers): B
  • Bonnie Raitt: The Bonnie Raitt Collection (1971-86 [1990], Warner Brothers): B+
  • Bonnie Raitt: Nick of Time (1989, Capitol): B
  • Bonnie Raitt: Luck of the Draw (1991, Capitol): B-
  • Bonnie Raitt: Fundamental (1998, Capitol): B+
  • Bonnie Raitt: Silver Lining (2002, Capitol): B
  • Bonnie Raitt: Souls Allike (2004 [2005], Capitol): B
  • Bonnie Raitt: Slipstream (2012, Redwing): B+(**)
  • Archie Shepp/Horace Parlan: Goin' Home (1977 [1985], Steeplechase): A
  • Archie Shepp/Horace Parlan: Trouble in Mind (1980, Steeplechase): A-
  • Larry Young: Young Blues (1960 [1994], New Jazz/OJC): B+
  • Larry Young: Into Something (1964 [1998], Blue Note): B+
  • Larry Young: Unity (1965 [1999], Blue Note): A
  • Larry Young: Of Love and Peace (1966 [2004], Blue Note): A-
  • Larry Young: Mother Ship (1969 [2003], Blue Note): B+
  • Larry Young: The Art of Larry Young (1964-69 [1992], Blue Note): B

  Notes

  Everything streamed from Rhapsody, except as noted in brackets following the grade:

  • [cd] based on physical cd
  • [cdr] based on an advance or promo cd or cdr
  • [bc] available at bandcamp.com
  • [sc] available at soundcloud.com
  • [os] some other stream source
  • [dl] something I was able to download from the web; may be freely available, may be a bootleg someone made available, or may be a publicist promo

  Ask a question, or send a comment.

  Sunday, March 27, 2016

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  Music Week

  Music: Current count 26420 [26400] rated (+20), 410 [411] unrated (-1).

  Another short week, but at least I found a few recommendables this week, thanks, I must admit, to slipstreaming other critics. You can read more substantive reviews of Kendrick Lamar's 2010 mixtape and Anderson Paak's new one (also HM Kyle) by Robert Christgau, of Bonnie Raitt (and BJ the Chicago Kid -- a tip he fed me a couple weeks ago) by Michael Tatum, and Audio One by Tim Niland. Tatum also has an excellent review of Hamilton (a record he likes a lot and I rather admire, although I'll mention that I was blown away by Daveed Diggs' Small Things to a Giant), a Willie Nelson review I don't buy at all (his awkward avoidance of any hint of swing couldn't keep other versions -- I've heard thousands -- from crowding my mind; above all Ella and Louis Again), and a cursory HM for Lyrics Born's Real People, my (and Laura's) favorite album of 2015.

  I suppose I need to revisit Rihanna's Anti, which I gave two stars to a couple weeks back, before Tatum's A- and Christgau's A. (I had Erykah Badu's You Caint Use My Phone, A- by Tatum and two stars by Christgau, as an A- back in December. Tatum also reviews Archy Marshall's A New Place 2 Drown, an A- for me in February.) Hopefully by the time I post Rhapsody Streamnotes, no later than the end of the month.

  Aside from two advances from the Swiss label Intakt, one of the worst weeks for the new jazz queue ever. One problem is that the queue got down to one record before I added in this week's haul. (Audio One was sampled from Bandcamp, as were the Borah Bergman and Paal Nilssen-Love albums.) Got email from the publicist today that the Vijay Iyer-Wadada Leo Smith album A Cosmic Rhythm With Each Stroke is "out NOW." Not a high water mark in either catalog, but the only ECM record I've been able to play in my CD player for several years now, so I suppose it's worth a mention. Reminds me I have more ECM links to download -- most promising is a new record by Nik Bärtsch.

  Thought I'd go back and catch up on the old Bonnie Raitt records I had missed (including three Christgau A-). Her debut was pretty good, but it seemed somewhat less than several contemporary groups she evoked -- e.g., Delaney & Bonnie, Joy of Cooking -- and for that matter the two albums she followed it with (Give It Up and Takin' My Time). I didn't get much out of the others, although with Longing in Their Hearts (1994) still missing I decided to give The Best of the Capitol Years a chance, and it makes a pretty good case for her MOR period.

  I'm not sure why I've never cared much for Raitt, given how pivotal my one brief encounter with her had been (this would have been in 1973, or maybe 1972). Carl Boggs was a Poli Sci professor at Washington University, a lefty and a big fan. He came up with the idea of hiring Raitt to do a concert meant to be a benefit for paying down legal bills of one of the guys arrested for burning down the Wash U ROTC building before I got there. I was in a student group called Notes on Everyday Life -- we published a very underground tabloid -- so he used us to get the concert staged on campus. I had little to do with this other than filing the paper work, and almost missed the concert: I hooked up with my first girl the night before (or was it two?) and we only got out of bed to make the show, so I was pretty dazed that night. But I'm pretty sure it was the first concert I ever went to, not that I remember any of it. We went to the the party at Boggs' house afterwards. I saw Raitt there -- in fact, almost smashed into her -- but was far too shy to even say hello. (She was probably the first celebrity I had ever gotten that close to. What I remember was her looking very tired, and short.) That may also have been the first time I smoked pot -- I was very late getting to any of these milestones. When the party pooped out, we wound up getting breakfast with eight or ten others. Then my girlfriend and I went back to her house, to bed. Had these events played out in different order I might have credited Raitt for turning me into a human being. As it was, she was at most a distraction. I only listened to her albums much after the fact.

  ---

  New records rated this week:

  • Anderson .Paak: Malibu (2016, OBE/Steel Wool/ArtClub/Empire): [r]: A-
  • Audio One: What Thomas Bernhard Saw (2014 [2015], Audiographic): [bc]: A-
  • Cristina Braga & Brandenburger Symphoniker: Whisper (2015 [2016], Enja): [cd]: B-
  • Rex Cadwallader/Mike Aseta/Arti Dixson/Tiffany Jackson: A Balm in Gilead (2015 [2016], Stanza USA): [cd]: B-
  • Florian Egli Weird Beard: Everything Moves (2014 [2016], Intakt): [cdr]: B+(***)
  • Darren English: Imagine Nation (2014 [2016], Hot Shoe): [cd]: B+(*)
  • Piere Favre: DrumSights NOW (2015 [2016], Intakt): [cdr]: B+(***)
  • Jeff Guthery: Black Paintings (2015 [2016], self-released): [cd]: B-
  • The James Hughes/Jimmy Smith Quintet: Ever Up & Onward (2015 [2016], self-released): [cd]: B+(*)
  • Kyle: Smyle (2015, Indie Pop): [r]: B+(***)
  • Gabriela Martina: No White Shoes (2015 [2016], self-released): [cd]: B
  • Naked Truth: Avian Thug (2015 [2016], Rare Noise): [cdr]: B+(*)
  • Pram Trio: Saga Thirteen (2015 [2016], self-released): [cd]: B+(*)
  • Bonnie Raitt: Dig In Deep (2016, Redwing): [r]: A-
  • Marcos Varela: San Ygnacio (2012 [2016], Origin): [cd]: B
  • Michiyo Yagi/Lasse Marhaug/Paal Nilssen-Love: Angular Mass (2011 [2015], PNL): [bc]: B
  • Michiyo Yagi/Joe McPhee/Paal Nilssen-Love/Lasse Marhaug: Soul Stream (2013 [2015], PNL): [bc]: B+(*)

  Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries rated this week:

  • Borah Bergman/Peter Brötzmann/Frode Gjerstad: Left (1996 [2016], Not Two): [bc]: B+(**)

  Old music rated this week:

  • Anderson .Paak: Venice (2014, OBE/Steel Wool): [r]: B+(**)
  • Kendrick Lamar: Overly Dedicated (2010, Top Dawg Entertainment): [r]: A-
  • Bonnie Raitt: Bonnie Raitt (1971, Warner Brothers): [r]: B+(***)
  • Bonnie Raitt: Streetlights (1974, Warner Brothers): [r]: B
  • Bonnie Raitt: The Glow (1979, Warner Brothers): [r]: B
  • Bonnie Raitt: Green Light (1982, Warner Brothers): [r]: B+(**)
  • Bonnie Raitt: Nine Lives (1986, Warner Brothers): [r]: B-
  • Bonnie Raitt: Road Tested (1995, Capitol, 2CD): [r]: B+(**)
  • Bonnie Raitt: The Best of Bonnie Raitt on Capitol 1989-2003 (1989-2003 [2003], Capitol): [r]: A-

  ---

  Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

  • The Ian Carey Quintet + 1: Interview Music (Kabocha): April 8
  • Eli Degibri: Cliff Hangin' (Blujazz)
  • Matt Lavelle's 12 Houses: Solidarity (Unseen Rain): May 6
  • Steven Lugerner: Jacknife: The Music of Jackie McLean (Primary): April 22
  • Kat Parra: Songbook of the Americas (Jazzma): April 29
  • Rocco John Quartet: Embrace the Change (Unseen Rain): May 6
  • Sirius Quartet: Paths Become Lines (Autentico): April 13
  • Steve Wiest and Phröntrange: The High Road (Blujazz)
  • Christopher Zuar Orchestra: Musings (Sunnyside): April 1

  Ask a question, or send a comment.

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