Blog Entries [620 - 629]Sunday, August 18, 2019
Weekend Roundup
Too late to write an introduction now. Maybe I'll add a postscript
later.
Some scattered links this week:
Zeeshan Aleem:
William Astore:
Militarization has become our national religion: "As attitudes toward
war grow dangerously worshipful in the US, quitting our endless wars
becomes all the more difficult." Zack Beauchamp:
Trump's transparent attempt to manipulate American Jews. Peter Beinart:
Jared Bernstein:
Trump's trade policy is a disaster. Here's what the next president should
do. I would stress that the US should switch sides and work against
patent rents rather than furthering them. This is part of what Bernstein
means by "more stakeholders," as rent-seeking corporate interests have
dominated American "trade" strategy. Jamelle Bouie:
America holds onto an undemocratic assumption from its founding: that some
people deserve more power than others. By the way, this piece is part
of something called
The 1619 Project, a set of articles occasioned by the 400th anniversary
of the introduction of slavery in what became the United States. Peter Branner:
The Anthropocene is a joke: "On geological timescales, human civilization
is an event, not an epoch." Well, yeah, but there's more to it than "inflates
our own importance by promising eternal geological life to our creations."
As an event, human activity over the last 10,000 (or for that matter 250)
years has had more impact on more of the earth than just about any "event"
in the geological record -- comparison to the K-T asteroid could go either
way. That it will last for millions of years like past eras and epochs may
be a conceit, but geologists 65 million years from now will find us easier
to find than K-T was for us. It may be a joke, but it's one we're very
much stuck inside of. Ronald Brownstein:
The limits of Trump's white identity politics. Alexia Fernández Campbell:
Damian Carrington:
World's nations gather to tackle wildlife extinction crisis.
Meanwhile, Trump's trying to accelerate it. Zak Cheney-Rice:
Steve King's views on rape are inseparable from his racism. Also:
Tara Goldshan:
Steve King says without rape and incest, there wouldn't "be any population
of the world left"; also Ryan Bort:
Steve King devised an insane formula to claim undocumented immigrants are
taking over America; and Tessa Stuart:
Steve King's view of rape and incest is not abnormal among GOP
lawmakers (I think they mean "unusual"). Jelani Cobb:
How the trail of American white supremacy led to El Paso Jason DeParle:
How Stephen Miller rode an anti-immigration wave to the White House:
"Behind Mr. Miller's singular grip on the Trump anti-immigrant agenda
are forces far bigger than his own hostility toward the foreign-born." Sadanand Dhume:
Modi's decision on Kashmir reveals a brittleness in India. Related:
Krishnadev Calamur:
Modi's Kashmir decision is the latest step in undoing Nehru's vision.
John Feffer:
Is America crazy? "Mass shootings, economic inequality, a racist
president: have we grown dangerously accustomed to a country gone mad?"
The GOP's sinister new nationalism: "The party's assault on "globalists"
and "cosmopolitans" pushes against internationalism when it's needed most."
Conor Friedersdorf:
Trump's hate makes the 'squad' stronger. Jim Golby/Peter Feaver:
It matters if Americans call Afghanistan a defeat. But it will take
years to sort out, not just to see what happens after US/NATO troops
make their long-procrastinated but inevitable departure, but also due
to how various interest groups choose to spin it. It should be easier
to agree that it was a mistake, but even now few Americans recognize
that the post-9/11 decision to overthrow the Taliban was profoundly
wrong. Emma Goldberg:
This is how Israeli democracy ends. Jeffrey Goldberg:
He's getting worse: "Trump is turning the American presidency into a
platform for the wholesale demonization of minorities."
I watched the video recording of the rally in Panama City shortly after
reading the El Paso killer's so-called manifesto. It is a document littered
with phrases and rhetorical devices injected into mainstream discourse by
the president and his supporters -- talk of a "Hispanic invasion,"
accusations that Democrats support "open borders," and the like. As Trump
faces the possibility that he will lose the presidency next year, he may
become more enraged, and more willing to deploy the rhetoric of violence
as a way to keep his followers properly motivated. The Panama City speech
was an important moment in Trump's ongoing effort to make the American
presidency a vehicle in the cause of marginalizing and frightening racial
minorities; the killings are a possible (and predictable) consequence of
such rhetoric.
Michelle Goldberg:
With Trump as president, the world is spiraling into chaos: Attacks
"Donald Trump's erratic, amoral and incompetent foreign policy." Actually,
I find his "amoral" a refreshing change from the sanctimonious posing of
other presidents, both Cold War and later. I think that his ability to
suspend moral judgments has made it possible to negotiate with Kim Jong-un
and the Taliban where others had been unwilling. Sure, he doesn't have
much to show for his efforts -- "erratic" and "incompetent" take a toll.
Also, On the other hand, he seems to have never met a dictator he doesn't
like, he still falls back on spouting moral cant when faced with leftist
governments like Cuba and Venezuela. Tara Golshan:
Bernie Sanders versus the "corporate media," explained. Adam Gopnik:
After El Paso and Dayton, three ways to think about mass shootings.
Everything that Donald Trump does as a demagogue involves, in classic
demagogic fashion, giving license to others to act on their impulses
without shame. And the fact that he, in a classic demagogic move, then
recoils from the consequences of his words does not make them less
empowering. Trump's rote condemnation of bigotry, during his brief
comments at the White House on Monday morning -- seemingly authored
by some other hand, and delivered with his usual insincerity, right
down to his naming the wrong Ohio city -- cannot permit him to escape
responsibility for what his more spontaneous words may have wrought.
But also:
Second distinction: there is a difference between those who fight to
make gun control impossible and those who use guns to kill people.
The majority of the first, much larger group often view weapons as
powerful symbols of personal autonomy. (The deaths of innocents are,
seemingly, a price necessarily paid for that idea of freedom.) . . .
People who oppose gun control at every turn often cite the sense of
control and power that weapons provide, regardless of how false that
sense may be. The vast majority of those people will never shoot anyone,
but they help put lethal weapons in the hands of those who will.
Rebecca Gordon:
How the US created the Central American immigration crisis. David A Graham:
Trump didn't make the storm, but he's making it worse: "The president
didn't put any of the globe's authoritarians in office, but he's encouraged
their worst instincts." He lists a few cases, with Bolsonaro in Brazil a
glaring omission (perhaps because he can't be sure the US had nothing to
do with installing him), or Putin in Russia or Johnson in the UK. Nor does
he mention cases where Trump has tried to destabilize governments with the
aim of replacing them with friendlier autocrats (Iran, Venezuela, Cuba) --
places where Trump clearly is intent on making storms.
Neither a Chinese crackdown in Hong Kong nor Modi's move in Kashmir nor
blocking Omar and Tlaib would have been unimaginable without Trump as
president, but each incident shows how Trump's indifference to democratic
norms, and his sometimes open antagonism toward them, shapes world leaders'
behavior. These recent examples are part of a much longer record. Trump
implicitly endorsed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's antidemocratic
power grab. He has lifted up Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi as he
cracks down on dissent and centralizes power. He has ostentatiously refused
to blame Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the murder of the journalist
(and U.S. resident) Jamal Khashoggi, citing the importance of American arms
sales to Saudi Arabia. Trump has declined to speak out against abuses and
outrageous statements like those of Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte.
He has coddled Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Polish President
Andrzej Duda as they crack down on dissent.
Obama warned Trump -- but he didn't listen: "The 44th president became
a devotee of unilateral presidential actions -- and then saw many moves
quickly reversed once he left office." Many of Trump's executive orders
should prove equally easy to undo, although reversing the effects may be
difficult or impossible (e.g., his pardons). Conn Hallinan:
Rivers of dust: The future of water and the Middle East. Dominic Holden:
Trump's latest proposal would let businesses discriminate based on LGBTQ
status, race, religion, and more. Umair Irfan:
Russian cities are still chocking under smoke from massive Siberian
wildfires. Satellite images show that the smoke has spread into
and beyond Alaska. Neil Irwin:
How the recession of 2020 could happen: "The freeze-up in business
confidence, caused in part by the trade war, could wind up affecting
consumer confidence." Sarah Jones:
The NRA is in trouble, but don't count it out yet. Peter Kafka:
The CBS and Viacom merger, explained. Actually, that's the link
I followed. Title here is different. Isabel Kershner/Sheryl Gay Slotberg/Peter Baker:
Israeli decision on Omar and Tlaib inflames politics in two countries.
Ed Kilgore:
Primary voters are focused on beating Trump, so the candidates are,
too. I appreciate policy wonkery as much as anyone (probably more
than most), but I've been saying all along that candidates need to
distinguish themselves by two things: prove themselves to be the most
effective critics of Trump and his Republican masters and toadies,
and show their commitment not to their personal campaigns but to
rebuilding the Democratic party top-to-bottom. The primaries should
simply be a contest over those two points. It would appear that one
candidate who's belatedly figured (half of) this out is Beto O'Rourke:
see Alexander Burns:
Beto O'Rourke's new approach to 2020: 'taking the fight to Donald
Trump'. Kilgore writes:
One of the many, many neurotic fears Democrats took away from
the 2016 election is that Trump hypnotized Hillary Clinton into focusing
on his unsavory character instead of promoting her own potentially popular
policies and agenda, which undermined her ability to mobilize her base
or to persuade swing voters.
I've often faulted both Obama and the Clintons for putting themselves
above the party and running highly personalized campaigns that left them
saddled with Republican majorities rendering them unable to deliver on
most of their campaign promises. To some extent, this suggested that the
"New Democrats" were ashamed of the party's past -- a concession which
hurt the party but allowed them some distance, which proved beneficial
to liberal donors (and ultimately made the candidates rich).
Unfortunately, Kilgore's buzzword is "electability," which is often
defined as whoever caters most flagrantly to the indecisive center.
That seems to be an even thinner slice of the electorate this year
than usual -- e.g., the latest Fox poll shows Biden to be running
just 2% better vs. Trump than Sanders is. That's not much gain for
sacrificing most of your platform.
Trump's state-by-state approval rating should scare the MAGA out of him.
Do conservative evangelicals like Trump not despite but for his hatefulness?
Well, duh! Of course, we're only talking about those evangelicals who
do like Trump. I've long noted a division among my evangelical brethren
between believers who want to help their fellows and who take delight
in damning those they dislike to hell. The latter have been easy prey
for Republican strategists, but they've long been disappointed by how
little the GOP has delivered. For them, Trump is the Hand of God, set
upon the Earth to vanquish the heathen. For more, see Emma Green:
Why some Christians 'love the meanest parts' of Trump: Interview
with Ben Howe. Green also wrote:
What conservative pastors didn't say after El Paso, and
Trump has enabled Israel's antidemocratic tendencies at every turn.
It's filibuster -- or bust -- for Democrats in the near future. Catherine Kim:
Jeffrey Epstein's death and America's jail suicide problem: "Suicide
is the leading cause of death in jails." Related: Jeanne Theoharis:
I tried to tell the world about Epstein's jail. No one wanted to listen.
Jen Kirby:
Carolyn Kormann:
The Trump administration finds a new target: endangered species. Paul Krugman:
From Trump boom to Trump gloom: "The smart money thinks Trumponomics
is a flop." Eric Levitz:
PR Lockhart:
Why police violence needs to be treated as a public health issue. German Lopez:
The Trump Justice Department's war on progressive prosecutors, explained.
Jane Mayer:
"Kochland" examines the Koch Brothers' early, crucial role in climate-change
denial. The author who reported extensively on the Kochs in
Dark Money: The hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the
Rise of the Radical Right, reviews Christopher Leonard's new book
on the Kochs: Kochland: The Secret History of Koch Industries
and Corporate Power in America.
Because the Kochs opposed the candidacy of Donald Trump, in 2016,
many have assumed that they are antagonistic to the Trump Administration.
To the contrary, Leonard writes, with the help of allies such as
Vice-President Mike Pence, "the politics that the Kochs stoked in
2010 became the policies that Trump enacted in 2017." Whether announcing
his intention to withdraw from the Paris climate accord, placing shills
from the oil and coal industries at the head of federal energy and
environmental departments, or slashing taxes on corporations and the
ultra-wealthy, Trump has delivered for the Kochs. "Kochland" quotes
Charles Koch telling his allied political donors, in 2018, "We've made
more progress in the last five years than I had in the previous fifty."
Syreeta McFadden:
What Toni Morrison knew about Trump: "In her 1993 Nobel Prize acceptance
speech, the late author cautioned against the distraction of the 'political
correctness' debate." Bill McKibben:
Don't burn trees to fight climate change -- let them grow. Timothy McLaughlin:
Hong Kong's protests have cemented its identity. Claire Cain Miller:
Why the US has long resisted universal child care. Doesn't really
explain why beyond listing some rationalizations for not having it, but
does point out the costs and loss of opportunity that lack entails. Abdulla Moaswes:
What's happening in Kashmir looks a lot like Israel's rule over
Palestine. Bob Moser:
Texas is bracing for a blue wave in 2020. Yes, Texas. Steven Mufson/Chris Mooney/Juliet Eilperin/John Muyskens:
2°C: Beyond the limit: "Extreme climate change has arrived in America.
Maps plot temperature changes from 1895 to 2018, showing that while nearly
everywhere has gotten hotter, the biggest changes are widely scattered --
these are places where we are already living in the long-feared (and rapidly
approaching 2°C future. Charles P Pierce:
Kansas stepped down as the craziest state there is. Tennessee stepped up.
Not that he doesn't still have things to say about Kansas . . . and
Mississippi. Adam K Raymond:
Truck drives through crowd of ICE protesters outside Rhode Island prison.
Brian Resnick:
The Endangered Species Act is incredibly popular and effective. Trump
is weakening it anyway. Frank Rich:
Trump is panicked that his trade war will start a recession. David Roberts:
Fracking may be a bigger climate problem than we thought.
The GOP's climate change dilemma: "It's Frank Luntz vs. Grover Norquist
in a battle for the GOP's future." Doesn't it always boil down to soundbites
and clichés? Luntz's polling shows that the GOP is losing the public debate
on climate change (plus he "had a come-to-Jesus moment on climate change
when he was forced to evacuate his Los Angeles home in the face of the
Skirball Fire in 2017"), so he's trying to fashion some wording in favor
of a carbon tax (the oil industry's proferred token solution -- not that
they're seriously in favor of it, but at least it's worse for coal).
Norquist, on the other hand, has kept the party hostage to his "no new
taxes" pledge, so he's not having any of it. Aaron Rupar:
Dominic Rushe:
Top US bosses earn 278 times more than their employees. Robert Scheer:
Democracy dies without alternative media: Interview with Peter
Richardson, who wrote
A Bomb in Every Issue: How the Short, Unruly Life of Ramparts Magazine
Changed America and
American Prophet: The Life and Work of Carey McWilliams. Eric Schlosser:
Why it's immigrants who pack your meat.
The immigration raid last week at seven poultry plants in rural Mississippi
was a perfect symbol of the Trump administration's racism, lies, hypocrisy,
and contempt for the poor. It was also a case study in how an industry with
a long history of defying the law has managed to shift the blame and
punishment onto workers.
Daniel Shapiro:
Israel's massive self-own: "Trump's racism and Netanyahu's dependency
have driven a bulldozer through the bipartisan consensus." Matt Shuham:
Richard Silverstein:
Trump is the only reason Netanyahu banned the US congresswomen. They'll
both regret it. Emily Stewart:
Cardi B's very on-brand love for Bernie Sanders, explained. Also,
with Tara Golshan:
Cardi B and Bernie Sanders's video, and her longstanding interest in
politics, explained. Andrew Sullivan:
The limits of my conservatism. More like vanities: like all "Never
Trump conservatives," Sullivan does a lot of whining, blaming the left
for his former comrades drinking the Trump Kool-Aid, and warning that
more good conservatives will turn into vile reactionaries if the left
keeps bullying them. More proof that conservatives always shoot left
even when they recognize that the real enemies are to their right. (On
the other hand, liberals have rarely had a problem with attacking the
left, or with seeking allies among reactionaries for that purpose.)
This gets pretty incoherent (e.g., "many leftists somehow believe that
sustained indoctrination will work in abolishing human nature, and
when it doesn't, because it can't, they demonize those who have failed
the various tests of PC purity as inherently wicked"). Scrolling down,
two further notes on "Are We Rome? Cont'd" and "Trump and Israel: A
Special Relationship" make better reasoned points. Matt Taibbi:
Emily Tamkin:
Ilhan Omar is already changing Washington: "Banned by Isrel and
demonized by Trump, she's been fighting business as usual in Congress'
hidebound foreign policy club." Glenn Thrush:
Obama and Biden's relationship looks rosy. It wasn't always that simple.
Alex Ward:
"A shameful, unprecedented move": Democrats react to Israel blocking Omar
and Tlaib's trip.
The US isn't the only major economy facing a possible recession: "Japan,
Germany, the UK, and Brazil are seeing signs of trouble too." Also mentioned:
South Korea, Italy, Hong Kong, Singapore, Argentina, Mexico, China.
What caused Russia's radioactive explosion last week? Possibly a
nuclear-powered missile. Ben Westhoff:
The brazen way a Chinese company pumped fentanyl ingredients into the
US: Still, reminds me of the Opium Wars, and how what goes around
comes around. Matthew Yglesias:
Trump's plan to buy Greenland, explained.
Pete Buttigieg's plan to use immigration to revitalize shrinking
communities, explained: "Place-based visas could help America's
declining cities." I can add that literally the only places in
Western Kansas that are not shriveling up are towns with a lot of
immigrants (e.g., Garden City and Dodge City). It's also true that
an exceptionally high percentage of doctors in rural Kansas are
foreign-born. On the other hand, immigrants would almost always
be better off moving to areas that are growing and generating new
opportunities. [PS: The map in the DeParle article above shows
significant increases in foreign-born population almost everywhere
in Western Kansas -- not just in areas that haven't lost population.
On the other hand, the map shows relatively little change (<25%)
in many large cities known for immigrants like Los Angeles, Phoenix,
El Paso, and Miami.]
The yield curve inversion panic, explained.
Trump's China tariff climbdown, explained.
Immigration makes America great. Leaving aside the silly matter of
what constitutes greatness, there is little wrong here, and it's useful
to be reminded of these facts periodically. America is fortunate that
there are still people who want to move here.
Ask a question, or send a comment.
Monday, August 12, 2019
Music Week
Music: current count 31902 [31860] rated (+42), 259 [259] unrated (+0).
Running late again, mostly because I've been fiddling with the
2019 Metacritic file,
adding extra points for high grades (not just midyear list picks)
for most of the publications tracked by
Album of the Year. The specific lists are noted
here: in most cases one
point for grades scored 80+, although for some relatively generous
publications I've used 90+ (e.g., for AllMusic Guide, I'm counting
4.5 star records, but not 4.0 star ones). My latest project there
has been to add points for
All About Jazz grades of 4.5+ stars (4 stars is probably their
median grade; at any rate it's very common). I've worked my way
back to March 26, and the work has slowed down as I've had to check
more release dates to separate 2019 releases out from the earlier
ones (mostly late 2018's, but sometimes they review older releases).
AOTY doesn't track AAJ (or any other jazz sources), so this has
started to generate some jazz coverage. I should probably do
Downbeat next.
Many of this week's picks are things I stumbled onto from various
lists, and they're a pretty patchy group. I've finally started adding
the final/latest Christgau EW reviews to his database, so a couple
records (like the Diana Gordon EP) were suggested there -- which, by
the way, led me to find Taana Gardner's disco classic (one of very
few Christgau-rated A records I missed). Phil Overeem's latest list
(link last week) led me to several things, including the George Jones
United Artists Rarities, which sent me on a minor dive with
a side of Little Jimmy Dickens.
The bigger dive this week was into the works of
Jon Lundbom and
Bryan Murray. This
started with Balto Beats and swept up pretty much everything
I had missed. (I had heard their often excellent records on Moppa
Elliott's Hot Cup label, but missed almost everything else.)
The other smaller dive was into country singer-songwriter Tyler
Childers. I initially graded his new one B+(***), but wondered if
I shouldn't revisit 2017's Purgatory -- graded B+(**) by me
at the time, but later a Christgau A-. Both of my initial reviews
admitted that more spins may be called for, and it didn't take many.
Also found two relatively crude earlier releases, which really
brought his songwriting into focus. A couple more spins of the
live EPs will raise could that grade as well, but the best songs
are repeats from the debut -- probably still the best place to hear
them.
One minor note: I've taken the time lock off the
August Streamnotes
draft file, which is where the monthly archive winds up. I won't
do any indexing of the file until the end of the month, nor am
I likely to be citing the URL in my weekly posts (although it's
appeared in the notebook since I went weekly). But the naming
convention is likely to be consistent moving forward, and you
might spy something for the next Music Week there (e.g., the
records I'm listening to as I'm writing this).
New records reviewed this week:
Leila Bordreuil/Michael Foster: The Caustic Ballads
(2016, Relative Pitch): Cello and saxophone duo. Abstract, scratchy.
B+(*) [bc]
Tyler Childers: Country Squire (2019, Hickman Holler/RCA):
Alt-country singer-songwriter from Kentucky, impressed a lot of folks
(including me belatedly) with his 2017 Purgatory and should get
similar attention for this one. Another batch of strong songs, with a
lot of fiddle in the band.
A-
The Cinematic Orchestra: To Believe (2019, Domino):
British group, founded by Jason Swinscoe in 1999, only their fourth
studio album (first since 2007, not counting two soundtracks). My
first sources filed this under jazz, but while there may be some
improv in the mix, this strikes me more as prog rock, with bits of
electronica, turntablism, and soundtrack pastiche. Nonetheless,
pretty appealing.
B+(**)
Mark De Clive-Lowe: Heritage (2018 [2019], Ropeadope):
Keyboardist, from New Zealand, spent time in Japan, Boston (Berklee),
and London before settling in Los Angeles. Recorded live over three
nights at Blue Whale in Los Angeles, a fairly nice groove record that
doesn't demand much.
B+(*)
Mark De Clive-Lowe: Heritage II (2018 [2019], Ropeadope):
More from the same sets, titles nearly all in Japanese. More of the same,
with interest on the decline.
B
Elephant9: Psychedelic Backfire I (2019, Rune Grammofon):
Norwegian fusion band founded in 2006, a bass-drums-keyboards trio,
I'm sure I've run across the names elsewhere but they've never stuck
in my mind (Nikolai Haengsle Eilertsen, Ståle Storløkken, Torstein
Lofthus). Pretty upbeat.
B+(*)
Elephant9 With Reine Fiske: Psychedelic Backfire I
(2019, Rune Grammofon): Fiske plays guitar, has joined the fusion
group before. That guitar makes a difference here.
B+(**)
Diana Gordon: Pure (2019, self-released, EP): Previously
known as Wynter Gordon, r&b singer-songwriter, has a 2012 album plus
a half-dozen EPs. Five cuts. Has a single here, some promising filler.
B+(*) [yt]
Harbinger: Extended (2018 [2019], OA2): Piano trio,
met in New Orleans: Oscar Rossignoli (from Honduras), Matt Booth (from
Pittsburgh), and Brad Webb (home turf). All three write, especially the
drummer (5/10 pieces).
B+(**) [cd]
Mike Holober/The Gotham Jazz Orchestra: Hiding Out
(2017 [2019], Zoho, 2CD): Pianist, based in or around New York, works
almost exclusively with big bands like the Westchester Big Band and
this one -- recorded in Mt. Vernon, but stocked with some of the city's
finest. Two long, multi-part pieces, plus two takes of "Caminhos
Cruzados." Some delightful stretches.
B+(***) [cd]
Anne Mette Iversen's Ternion Quartet: Invincible Nimbus
(2018 [2019], Bju'ecords): Danish bassist, in New York 1998-2012, where
she was a founder of Brooklyn Jazz Underground, now based in Berlin.
Second Ternion Quartet album, with Silke Eberhard (alto sax), Geoffroy
De Masure (trombone), and Roland Schneider (drums). Eberhard impresses
when they speed up. They lose something on the slower ones, although
that's where the trombone especially shines.
B+(***)
Mark Kavuma: The Banger Factory (2019, Ubuntu Music):
Trumpet player, based in London, second album. With a saxophone or two,
guitar, vibes, piano and/or organ, bass, drums, sometimes sounding like
yesteryear's hard bop, occasionally with a postbop twist.
B+(*)
LSD: Labrinth/Sia/Diplo Present . . . LSD (2019, Columbia):
British producer Timothy McKenzie, released an album in 2012, joins here
with the Australian pop singer and American DJ. Nu soul vibe, but works
so erratically it's hard to be sure, or care.
B-
Lage Lund: Terrible Animals (2018 [2019], Criss Cross):
Norwegian guitarist, studied at Berklee and Juilliard, won a Monk Prize,
based in New York, eleventh album since 2007, quartet with piano (Sullivan
Fortner), bass (Larry Grenadier), and drums (Tyshawn Sorey).
B+(*)
Jon Lundbom/Bryan Murray: Beats by Balto! Vol. 1 (2018
[2019], Chant): Some dispute on artist credit, with Bandcamp page favoring
Balto Exclamationpoint (Murray, responsible for the beats, also plays
various saxophones), while others list the guitarist first. Also in the
group is Jon Irabagon (alto/mezzosoprano/slide saxophones), giving them
three free-wheeling leads. The beats provide a platform, setting the
leads free without letting them fly off the rails.
A-
Moutin Factory Quintet: Mythical River (2019, Laborie
Jazz): Brothers François and Louis Moutin, bass and drums, in a postbop
quintet, with alto/soprano sax, guitar, and piano. Something wrong with
my copy, but nothing I've heard makes me want to figure out what --
certainly not the promise of vocal credits.
B- [cd]
Simon Nabatov Quintet: Last Minute Theory (2018 [2019],
Clean Feed): Russian pianist, moved to New York in 1979, studied at
Juilliard, close to four dozen albums since 1989, mostly avant duos
and trios on Leo. Lots of fire power here, with Tony Malaby (tenor/soprano
sax), Brandon Seabrook (guitar), Michael Formanek (bass), and Gerald
Cleaver (drums).
B+(**)
Ola Onabulé: Point Less (2019, Rugged Ram): Born in
London, spent ten years of childhood in Nigeria before returning home.
Eight or more albums since 1994. Bits of soul and jazz here, nothing
that makes me want to sort it all out.
B [cd]
Mario Pavone Dialect Trio: Philosophy (2018 [2019],
Clean Feed): Bassist-led piano trio, with Matt Mitchell and Tyshawn
Sorey. Live set from Firehouse 12. Pavone originals, one joint credit,
two Annette Peacock covers.
B+(***)
Alberto Pibiri & the Al Peppers: The Nacho Blues
(2019, Alberto Pibiri Music): Italian pianist, based in New York, has
at least one previous album. This one is a tribute to Herb Alpert, with
Dan Blankinship on trumpet, Daniel Foose (double bass), and Brian Floody
(drums). Mix of originals and standards, none of which remind me of
Alpert -- except, perhaps, for a bit of jauntiness.
B+(*) [cd]
The John Pizzarelli Trio: For Centennial Reasons: 100 Year Salute
to Nat King Cole (2019, Ghostlight): Son of retro-swing guitarist
Bucky Pizzarelli, plays guitar himself and sings, lately fluffing up his
catalog with various tributes. This is his third round with Cole, the
others in 1994 and 1999. Trio with Konrad Paszkudzki on piano and Mike
Karn on double bass. Fourteen well-worn songs, nicely swung, voice close
enough to Cole's sweet spot.
B+(**)
Noah Preminger: After Life (2018 [2019], Criss Cross):
Tenor saxophonist, made a strong impression when he first appeared
(c. 2008), built on that, then coasted. Postbop quintet with Jason
Palmer (trumpet), Max Light (guitar), Kim Cass (bass), and Rudy
Royston (drums), playing originals plus a bit of Händel.
B+(**)
Jenny Scheinman/Allison Miller: Jenny Scheinman & Allison
Miller's Parlour Game (2019, Royal Potato Family): Violin and
drums, have several fine albums together in Miller's Boom Tic Boom.
Quartet with Carmen Staaf (piano) and Tony Scherr (bass). Has some
moments, but fewer than expected.
B+(***)
Fabrizio Sciacca Quartet: Gettin' It There (2019,
self-released): Bassist from Italy, studied at Berklee, based in
New York, seems to be his first album, with Donald Vega (pianist,
from Nicaragua), Billy Drummond (drums), and Jed Levy (alto sax).
Satisfying just as a piano trio, the sax unnoticed until it is.
B+(**) [cd]
Paul Silbergleit: January (2018 [2019], Blujazz):
Guitarist, based in Milwaukee, has at least two previous albums
(his debut was Silberglicity, from 1996). Mainstream quartet
with bass, drums, and tenor sax (Eric Schoor). No spectacle, but
grows on you.
B+(**) [cd]
Paul Zauner's Blue Brass feat. David Murray: Roots n' Wings
(2019, PAO/Blujazz): Austrian trombonist, handful of albums with variants
of this group, an octet here including his guest star. Zauner played some
with Murray in the late 1980s. Good to hear him here, but two other saxes
and trumpet vie for attention.
B+(***) [cd]
Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:
Tyler Childers: Live on Red Barn Radio I & II
(2013-14 [2018], Hickman Holler, EP): Country singer-songwriter
from Kentucky, self-released his debut (Bottles and Bibles)
in 2011, also these two live EPs, compiled following his 2017
breakthrough Purgatory. Eight tracks, 29:28.
B+(***)
George Jones: United Artists Rarities (1962-64
[2019], EMI Nashville): Twelve songs, three listed as alternate
takes, no idea how they got picked or how they fit within (or
beyond) the 13 Jones LPs United Artists released 1962-65. Part
of my confusion is that the title is recycled from a 6-cut EP
released on Record Store Day 2012. Songs aren't very memorable,
but the voice is.
B+(***)
Masayuki Takayanagi New Directions Unit: April Is the
Cruelest Month (1975 [2019], Black Forms Editions):
Pioneering Japanese avant guitarist, cut his first record in 1961,
died 1991. Quartet with Kengi Mori (alto sax/flute/bass clarinet),
bass/cello, and percussion. Three cuts, 37:04. I've grown more
tolerant of noise squalls over the years, but this is still a bit
much.
B-
Old music:
Balto!: Balto! (2016, self-released): Google isn't
any help here, as the word/name has multiple referrents, including
a roots Americana band, but this here is Bryan Murray, credited with
tenor, alto and balto! saxophones, pipeapone, trumpet, drums, keyboard,
programming and sampling. Fond of noise, given to vamps.
B+(**) [bc]
Balto!: Two Cans of Soup (2017, self-released, EP):
Solo balto! sax ("alto sax fitted with a bari mouthpiece and plastic
reed") and looper. Website description: "I made this shit" (5 tracks,
19:51).
B- [bc]
Balto!: Taco Cat Poops (2018, self-released, EP):
Free download, five cuts, 24:12, title in emojis. Presumably solo,
with electronics and percussion as well as noisy saxophone.
B+(**) [bc]
Balto Exclamationpoint/Plaidworthy: If the Big Hurt
(2015, self-released): Canonical artist name on Bandcamp, but this is
the only album cover I've seen it spelled out on. Sax and drums duo,
relatively straightforward, which is a plus.
B+(***) [bc]
Baltbom!: ¡!Baltbom!¡ (2015, self-released): Duo: Jon
Lundbom (guitar) and Bryan Murray (aka Balto!, playing his personally
modified Balto! saxophone). Seventeen short pieces, a mixed bag, but
the 1:12 closer ("Boys") has a fun country twist.
B+(*) [bc]
Baltsticks!!: Play You, Play Me (2016, self-released):
Bryan Murray again (saxophones, vocals, talzmer, pipeaphone, irish
whistle, recorder, mandolin), in a trio with Plaidworthy (drums and
vocals) and Magbooch Spooner (synths). More rhythm here, almost works
as jive.
B+(*) [bc]
Bryan and the Haggards/Eugene Chadbourne: Merles Just Wanna
Have Fun (2012 [2013], Northern Spy): Third album by saxophonist
Bryan Murray's Merle Haggard tribute band, the first with guest vocalist
(also on banjo and dobro). Chadbourne doesn't have the expected voice,
but at least he articulates the songs the band seems intent on murdering.
The band, with Jon Irabagon (saxes), Jon Lundbom (guitar), Moppa Elliott
(bass), and Danny Fischer (drums) -- think bebop-terrorists Mostly Other
People Do the Killing gone to seed -- give you even less of what you
expect. Still, comes together midway, and likely to get even better
with more plays.
A- [bc]
Tyler Childers: Bottles and Bibles (2011, Hickman
Holler): First album, eight songs (30:29), minimal production, but the
songs are so bleak they don't want to cheering up. Message: "that coal
is gonna bury you." On love: "I feel like a Hank song, since she went
away." And when the bibles and bottles start fighting, the whiskey wins.
A-
Little Jimmy Dickens: 16 Biggest Hits (1949-65 [2006],
Columbia/Legacy): Just short of five feet tall, I knew him from his
1965 crossover novelty hit "May the Bird of Paradise (Fly Up Your Nose),"
but also as the only musician I ever heard my father mention. He was
thinking of Dickens' first hit, "Take an Old Cold Tater (And Wait),"
probably to make a point about what a poor country boy he was. Dickens
recorded a lot of singles between those two, but few charted (10 from
1949-65, 8 here, only 1 from 1951-61). While he liked a crude joke,
and rarely missed an opportunity to make fun of himself, the filler
here mostly consists of shitkickers like "Hillbilly Fever" and "Salty
Boogie," and the odd ballad can be poignant.
B+(***)
Taana Gardner: Heartbeat (1981, West End, EP): Disco
singer, cut an album in 1979, but is better known for this later single,
the two versions adding up to 16:17 (hence, an EP in my book). Probably
wouldn't have bothered but this is one of the very few Christgau full-A
records I hadn't found. Stumbled on this by accident, so figured I had
to give it an ear. And while I'm not so blown away, I can imagine putting
it on repeat for hours on end.
A-
George Jones: Sings the Hits of His Country Cousins
(1962, United Artists): Second of thirteen quickie albums Jones cut
during his 3-year stint at United Artists. A dozen covers, some usual
suspects from Roy Acuff and Eddy Arnold to Hank Williams and Bob Wills
with some less orthodox picks: "Peace in the Valley" gets bogged down
in the choir, but Burl Ives' "A Little Bitty Tear" is the sort of fluff
Jones imbues with depth.
B+(***)
George Jones: My Favorites of Hank Williams (1962,
United Artists): Fourth UA album, an obvious choice, a subject he
previously visited for Mercury. Twelve songs, all short (28:14 total),
played and sung so straightforwardly it winds up feeling a bit hollow.
B+(*)
George Jones: Sings Like the Dickens! (1964, United
Artists): Near the end of his UA contract, a tribute to Little Jimmy
Dickens -- not an obvious choice fifteen years after Dickens' breakout,
and a year shy of his one crossover moment. Odd choice of songs too:
only four from 16 Biggest Hits, none trademarks. Pappy Daily's
production is as corny as ever, but the voice is magnificent.
B+(**)
Jon Lundbom: Big Five Chord (2003 [2004], self-released):
Guitarist, first album, took this title as his group name for most later
albums (at least through 2019's Harder on the Outside). With Jon
Irabagon (alto sax), Dominic Lalli (tenor sax), Moppa Elliott (bass), and
Justin Wake (drums). Five originals, plus covers from Syd Barrett and
Dr. Seuss. This drops some hints of where the band is headed.
B+(*)
John Lundbom & Big Five Chord: All the Pretty Ponies (A
Live Recording) (2004 [2005], self-released): Two personnel
changes: Bryan Murray joins on tenor sax, starting a long association,
and Andrew Bain takes over on drums. They come out loud, making up in
attitude what they sacrifice in coherence.
B
Bryan Murray: What You Don't Forget (2007, Jazz
Excursion): Saxophonist, first album, a fairly impressive free jazz
outing with guitarist Jon Lundbom plus bass (Michael Bates) and drums
(Chris Carroll).
B+(***)
John Pizzarelli: P.S. Mr. Cole (1996-97 [1999], RCA):
The guitarist-singer's second Nat King Cole tribute, after 1994's
lukewarm Dear Mr. Cole. With Ray Kennedy on piano, brother
Martin Pizzarelli on double bass, and a couple of spots for Harry
Allen (tenor sax). Less famous songs than on the first and latest
tributes (e.g., "I Like Jersey Best").
B+(***)
Grade (or other) changes:
Tyler Childers: Purgatory (2017, Hickman Holler):
Saving Country Music's favorite record of 2017. Gave it a spin,
loved the trad sound, complaind that "the songs don't manage to
stick." Obvious now it just needed another listen.
[Was B+(**)] A-
Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:
- Steve Lehman Trio/Craig Taborn: The People I Love (Pi): August 30
- Dave Miller Trio: Just Imagine (Summit): October 4
- Bill O'Connell and the Afro Caribbean Ensemble: Wind Off the Hudson (Savant)
- Mike Pachelli: High Standards (Fullblast): September 1
- Houston Person: I'm Just a Lucky So and So (HighNote)
- Lyn Stanley: London With a Twist: Live at Bernie's (A.T. Music)
- Tucker Brothers: Two Parts (self-released): October 3
Ask a question, or send a comment.
Sunday, August 11, 2019
Weekend Roundup
Again, spent a little over two days collecting what seems to be a
bottomless series of links that show various aspects of the same basic
fact: that Donald Trump is like all other conservatives in the sense
that he believes some people (like himself) are innately superior to
other people, and that the political system should be rigged to favor
superior people over inferior ones, but even among conservatives, as
an individual he is exceptionally ignorant, abusive, vain, and corrupt.
Most weeks I take pains to remind you that what's wrong with him is
just a reflection of his political beliefs, and we need to focus on
the broader right-wing and not just on him. Still, this week he was
such a flaming asshole that it's hard to get beyond the horror and
disgust he reeks of.
Some scattered links this week:
Gary Abernathy:
Trump is not a racist. His voters aren't either. Nothing here
convinces me of the title, and I doubt that's even the author's intent.
Rather, he's saying that Trump and many of his voters don't think of
themselves as racists, but the more they're called racists, the more
likely they are to start identifying that way. I can see the logic
here, even relate it to a personal incident. I had a boss once who
complained that I had a "bad attitude" and, well, my attitude got
much more pronounced after that. Still, we have a fair amount of
empirical experience with calling Trump and Republicans racist, and
thus far their response is almost always to deny rather than embrace
it. Sure, they get upset and irritated, and some try to turn the
tables and paint themselves as victims of racists, but as long as
they're defensive they aren't that much of a threat. Moreover, the
real problem with racism isn't that some people identify as racists.
It's that lots more people practice racism, often without giving
it much thought. Those people need to know that they're going to
get called out on their racism when it's evident -- something that
even the President hasn't been immune to lately. For more on Trump's
history of being called racist, see Philip Rucker/Ashley Parker:
The brand label that stokes Trump's fury: 'Racist, racist, racist.' Josh Barro:
The Trump boycotts pose a grave danger to the Equinox and SoulCycle
businesses. Also: Alex Abad-Santos:
SoulCycle instructors are as mad about its investor's Trump fundraises
as its riders are; Lizzie Widdicombe:
Equinox members take a stand against Trump (sort of);
Ilana Novick:.
Billionaire Trump supporter Stephen Ross can't have it both ways. Jo Becker:
The global machine behind the rise of far-right nationalism. Julie Bosman/Kate Taylor/Tim Arango:
A common trait among mass killers: hatred toward women. Perrie Briskin:
Why we should let more foreign doctors practice in America. Jason Burke:
Norway mosque attack suspect 'inspired by Christchurch and El Paso
shootings'. Cristina Cabrera:
CBP chief forced to explain why ICE raids haven't targeted Trump's
companies. Alexia Fernández Campbell:
John Cassidy:
Jonathan Chait:
Zak Cheney-Rice:
The sleight of hand at the heart of Trump's appeal. Helena Cobban:
On "humanitarian intervention". William Cummings:
'Only in the Panhandle': Trump chuckles when audience member suggests
shooting migrants. Cora Currier:
Pushing out the border: How the US is waging a global war on migration.
Chas Danner/Margaret Hartmann:
Everything we know about Jeffrey Epstein's death: A news blip I would
barely have noticed until I needed somewhere to hang the extra links:
Brady Dennis/Andrew Freedman:
Here's how the hottest month in recorded history unfolded around the
world. EJ Dionne Jr:
On guns and white nationalism, one side is right and one is wrong. Kayla Epstein:
Climate change isn't an intangible future risk. It's here now, and it's
killing us. Steven Erlanger:
Are we headed for another expensive nuclear arms race? Could be.
Main problem with this "logic" is that the fix is already in: the
intent to spend more than a trillion dollars to stockpile new bombs,
regardless of whether anyone else shows up for the race. Helena Bottemiller Evich:
'It feels like something out of a bad sci-fi movie': "A top climate
scientist [Lewis Ziska] quit USDA, following others who say Trump has
politicized science." Mary Fitzgerald/Claire Provost:
The American dark money behind Europe's far right.
A recent openDemocracy investigation found that America's Christian
right spent at least $50 million of "dark money" to fund campaigns and
advocacy in Europe over the past decade. (By the measures of US political
financing, this may not seem like a vast sum, but by European standards
it's formidable. The total spend on the 2014 European elections, for
example, by all of Ireland's political parties combined was just $3 million.)
Ben Freeman/Nia Harris/Cassandra Stimpson:
The military-industrial jobs scam: $750 billion for the Pentagon,
a record haul, but the "stubborn truth" is that more money begets fewer
jobs. Also at TomDispatch:
Conor Friedersdorf:
Grace Gedye:
Can journalism be saved from the tech giants? There's a problem
here -- advertising revenues that previously supported newspapers and
magazines have been sucked up by Google and Facebook, undermining the
business viability of a free press -- but I don't see this "solution"
as helping much. The proposal is to allow content-providers to band
together to negotiate better terms with the tech giants. Seems to me
that the real problems are deeper than revenue distribution, starting
with the very model of depending on advertising to support journalism.
We're actually going through a period where the marginal distribution
cost of journalism has dropped to virtually nothing, which should make
it cost-effective to dramatically expand production, but we're stuck
with a business model (advertising + subscriptions) that drags both
consumers and content-producers into a death spiral. The obvious way
out of this is to free distribution while finding some other way to
pay for content creation. In the long run, that way needs to be public
funding, the trick being to come up with schemes that are responsive
to diverse consumers, that are professional, and that are fair and as
free as possible of corruption. That's a tough sell in a period when
virtually everything is politicized, but we've tried commercializing
everything, and have the present political mess to show for it. Shirin Ghaffary:
Trump's executive order on social media bias is a distraction: "Trump
is reportedly drafting an executive order on tech bias against conservatives,
even though there's no proof this bias exists." Tara Golshan:
Joe Biden accidentally said "poor kids" are just as bright as "white
kids": "The former vice president immediately corrected himself
to say "wealthy kids." Or, as Jim Newell put it:
In Iowa, Joe Biden's mouth keeps getting away from his brain; also
Matt Stieb:
Joe Biden gaffes his way through Iowa. Constance Grady:
The Dayton, Ohio, shooter reportedly kept a "rape list" of potential
victims. Joan E Greve:
New York Times changes front-page Trump headline after backlash.
On Trump's Monday teleprompted speech, original headline read "Trump
urges unity vs. racism." Later changed to "Assailing hate but not
guns." Trump objected to the change: Allyson Chiu:
Trump lashes out after New York Times amends 'bad' headline about
his response to mass shootings. Both articles have scans of
both cover pages, and various tweets. As Jamil Smith put it: "This
is the 'Dewey Defeats Truman' of racism." For more: Aaron Blake:
Why the New York Times's Trump headline was so bad. Jeff Halper:
The meaning of Israel's massive housing demolitions in East Jerusalem.
Mehdi Hasan:
These 7 prominent conservatives have nothing i common with white supremacists,
nothing at all: What we used to call "satire." FYI: Ben Shapiro,
Tucker Carlson, Donald J Trump, Stephen Miller, Laura Ingraham, Candace
Owens, John Cornyn. Fred Kaplan:
Trump's new arms race makes the Cold War era look rational and restrained.
"The secretary of defense is keen to test a type of missile that no one
has requested for more than 30 years, without knowing where it would be
stationed or why it's particularly needed." Ed Kilgore:
Is beating Trump the best Democrats can hope to achieve in 2020?:
I don't mind some prudent skepticism, but this guy is trying hard to
be a major killjoy. People, especially Democrats, need to understand
that the difference between even the minimal Democratic agenda and
Trump/Republicans is something that matters a lot, and they have to
get serious about implementing that agenda. That means: first of all
they have to win big, they have to make aggressive use of the power
they gain, and they have to make the Republicans the shadow government
of the super-rich own their failures, so they can build and run again
and again until they succeed. The Democratic candidate should be the
one who makes the strongest case for doing all that, as opposed to
someone who's just marginally better than Trump.
Nadler makes it clear House is already in 'impeachment proceedings'.
Related: Quinta Jurecic:
Impeachment, but without the moral clarity. Jen Kirby:
The Trump administration adds even more sanctions to try to push out
Venezuela's Maduro. Ken Klippenstein:
Leaked FBI documents reveal Bureau's priorities under Trump. Josh Kovensky:
In new interview, Bill Barr sees Dirty Harry, Death Wish as justice done
right. Paul Krugman:
China tries to teach Trump economics: "If you want to understand the
developing trade war with China, the first thing you need to realize is
that nothing Donald Trump is doing makes sense."
Tariff tantrums and recession risks: "If the bond market is any
indication, Donald Trump's escalating belligerence on trade is creating
seriously increased risks of recession."
Trump's China shock.
Trump, tax cuts and terrorism: "Why do Republicans enable right-wing
extremism?" I would say it's because they've found a successful political
strategy in provoking strong, irrational responses from their base, and
they have few if any scruples about anyone acting on those impulses. Race
is just one of those nerve points, but it's been successfully exploited
by Nixon (his "Southern strategy"), Reagan ("welfare queens"), Bush I
("Willie Horton"), and no one's hit it harder than Trump. It's not the
only one, but when you play it and follow with guns and war and general
contempt for law and civility, it's not hard to figure out what happens
next.
But racism isn't what drives the Republican establishment, and my guess
is that a majority of the party's elected officials find it a little bit
repugnant -- just not repugnant enough to induce them to repudiate its
political exploitation. And their exploitation of racism has led them
inexorably to where they are today: de facto enablers of a wave of white
supremacist terrorism.
Michael Kruse:
How San Francisco's wealthiest families launched Kamala Harris. Jason Lemon:
Nearly all of Mexico's gun violence is committed with illegal firearms
coming from US, officials say. Helen Lewis:
To learn about the far right, start with the 'manosphere': "The sexist
world has become a recruiting ground for potential mass shooters." Jonathan Lis:
The only way to stop the catastrophe of a no-deal Brexit? Revoke article
50. PR Lockhart:
Ferguson changed how America talks about police violence. 5 years later,
not much else has changed. German Lopez:
Sebastian Mallaby:
How economists' faith in markets broke America: Review of Nicholas
Lemann's Transaction Man: The Rise of the Deal and the Decline of
the American Dream, and Binyamin Appelbaum's The Economist's
Hour: False Prophets, Free Markets, and the Fracture of Society.
Dylan Matthews:
Stop blaming mental illness for mass shootings: "It's about the
guns." Dana Milbank:
A worried nation wonders: How can we keep Wayne LaPierre safe?
The longtime head of the National Rifle Association, it turns out, is
worried sick about his personal safety in this gun culture.
After the Sandy Hook massacre in 2012, he and his wife bravely waited
out the uproar on the
pink-sand beaches of the Bahamas, part of $542,000 in private jet
trips and personal items the NRA bought for him. And now, thanks to some
delightful reporting by my Post colleagues Carol D. Leonnig and Beth
Reinhard, we know that last year's Parkland massacre left LaPierre so
fearful for his personal safety that he tried to have the NRA buy him
a $6 million French-chateau-style mansion with nine bathrooms in a gated
Dallas-area golf course community.
He told associates he was worried about his safety and thought his
Virginia home was too easy for potential attackers to find.
Ultimately, the financially stressed NRA didn't buy LaPierre the
mansion. That's too bad, because, as the saying goes: "The only thing
that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a French chateau."
Rani Molla:
Trump says Google is biased against conservatives. Here's how search
actually works. One thing that remains unmentionable here is whether
or to what extent advertisers influence Google search results. That's
certainly my impression as a long-time user. Robert Myers:
The 'warspeak' permeating everyday language puts us all in the
trenches. John Nichols:
Beto O'Rourke is doing what Donald Trump is simply incapable of:
"The Texan is demonstrating real leadership in the wake of a horrific
mass shooting by unequivocally condemning racism." I'm less impressed.
I've seen his expletive-filled clip responding to "What can Donald
Trump do?" several times, and while he's fumbling on, the only answer
I can think of is "resign." Ella Nilsen:
Trump's sudden push for a possibly doomed background check bill,
explained. Helaine Olen:
Trump's speech was like a hostage video. Mark Osborne:
Florida white supremacist arrested for threatening shooting at Walmart,
police say. Also: Tom Winter/Dennis Romero:
FBI arrests Las Vegas man who allegedly wanted to shoot Jews, LGBTQ bar
patrons. Keith Payne:
The truth about anti-white discrimination: "Many white Americans feel
that discrimination against whites is on the rise. Experiments suggests
otherwise." By the way, I took a semester of psych during my brief tenure
in high school, and learned a few things there. One key concept was
projection: the tendency people have to impute their own beliefs and
feelings to other people. We see projection everywhere. Especially we
see white racists assuming that non-whites are racist against them. In
50 years since then, I've seen non-whites who were wary and cautious
and sometimes even bitter, but I've never seen any say or do the sort
of things I've seen white racists do hundreds of times. Jeremy W Peters/Michael M Brynbaum/Keith Collins/Rich Harris/Rumsey Taylor:
How the El Paso killer echoed the incendiary words of conservative media
stars. Daniel Politi:
Elderly Washington couple dies in murder-suicide blamed on worries over
medical bills: Another shooting guns weren't responsible for. Tom Porter:
FBI agents are reluctant to pursue white nationalist extremists because
they don't want to target Trump's base, former counterterrorism official
says. Andrew Prokop:
Andrew McCabe and Peter Strzok are both suing the Justice Department:
"The two former FBI officials filed separate lawsuits this week, alleging
improper political retaliation."
The polls are in, and here's who won the second Democratic debate:
The most interesting of the polls was one by
HuffPost/YouGov, which offered separate percentages for whether the
debate performance improved or worsened opinion on the candidate. The
difference produce a net change: Warren (+44), Buttigieg (+24), Booker
(+20), Castro (+17), Yang (+13), Sanders (+12), Klobuchar (+8), Gillibrand
(+7), Inslee (+4), Gabbard (+3), Biden (+2), Bennet and O'Rourke (-4),
Harris (-5), Bullock and Williamson (-6), de Blasio (-14), Hickenlooper
(-15), Ryan (-17), Delaney (-30). Compare this to last week's pundit
rankings, which accorded wins to Biden (for not doing as poorly as last
time) and Delaney (for talking a lot even though no one much liked what
he had to say).
Democrats' confusing debate over an "impeachment inquiry," explained.
Jennifer Rubin:
Democratic candidates grasp the moral seriousness of this moment. Aaron Rupar:
Sigal Samuel:
Rosa Schwartzburg:
The 'white replacement theory' motivates alt-right killers the world
over. Somini Sengupta/Welyl Cal:
A quarter of humanity faces looming water crises. This strikes me
as an even more acute threat to humankind than climate change, not that
the latter doesn't have something to do with it. Also: Christopher
Flavelle:
Climate change threatens the world's food supply, United Nations warns.
Also by Sengupta:
Earth's food supply is under threat. These fixes would go a long way.
Matt Shuham:
'Ruthless': How it feels when the Trump administration guts your agency.
Richard Silverstein:
Expanding fight against Iran, Israel opens new military front in Iraq.
Ali H Soufan:
I spent 25 years fighting jihadis. White supremacists aren't so different.
Emily Stewart:
David Swanson:
Long after Hiroshima: Last week marked 74 years since the people
charged with "thinking about the unthinkable" cavalierly went ahead
and just did it. Maybe the bigger number next year will motivate some
attention, like the 75th anniversary of D-Day (although it's harder
to spin Hiroshima as a day to celebrate American chauvinism). Maybe
the scuttling of arms control treaties and the trillion dollar scam
to "renovate" America's nuclear bomb arsenal will bring out some
protest. Matt Taibbi:
Who's afraid of Tulsi Gabbard?. Giacomo Tognini:
Here are the Democratic presidential candidates with the most donations
from billionaires: Buttigieg (23), Booker (18), Harris (17), Bennet
(15), Biden (13), Hickenlooper (11), O'Rourke (9), Klobuchar (8), Inslee
(5), Gillibrand (4), Delaney (3). Warren has 2, tied with Bullock. Sanders
has 0 (tied with Castro, De Blasio, and Ryan). One each for Gabbard, Yang,
and Williamson. Not listed is Tom Steyer, who like Donald Trump is his
own billionaire. (See: Jessica Piper:
Billionaire Tom Steyer spends more than $7 million on ads in first
month.) Peter Wade:
Alex Ward:
Richard Wolffe:
Trump could renounce white nationalism -- but he can't pretend he
cares. Personally, I couldn't care less whether "a president
can offer comfort at times like these." I think it's stupid and
wasteful for the president to scurry around to disaster zones --
in fact, that it causes more problems than it solves. Of course,
it's even worse with a guy who's stupid, arrogant, and incapable
of empathy. Embarrassing is the word -- one that applies to Trump
literally every day. Matthew Yglesias:
Trump's Twitter rant about the Federal Reserve and the dollar,
explained.
Billionaire Trump donor explains he's in it for the tax cuts, not the
racism.
Trump's designation of China as a currency manipulator, explained.
As is typically the case with Trump administration moves, it's not
entirely clear what the administration is trying to accomplish here,
in part because the administration doesn't do briefings in a well-organized
way and in part because various players in the administration are often
not on the same page. . . . And in this particular case, it's extremely
unlikely the IMF will do anything, because China is not, in fact,
manipulating its currency in any traditional sense. It's essentially a
policy of the US government stamping its feet while it figures out what
it wants to do next.
Joe Biden's rivals should attack him with some "Republican talking
points": Obviously, not the one about Biden being too far to the
left, but: "Joe Biden is old"; "Joe Biden is very establishment";
"the Biden family has made money off of politics."
Video games don't cause violent crime: "Research indicates that,
if anything, it's the opposite." Stephen Zunes:
Biden is doubling down on Iraq War lies.
Not news, but let me note in passing a few more historical links on
intellectuals who had some influence on me:
Ask a question, or send a comment.
Monday, August 5, 2019
Music Week
Music: current count 31860 [31831] rated (+29), 259 [257] unrated (+2).
I continue to be surprised at the pro-gun memes showing up in my
Facebook feed. Consider this screed (from kin in Arkansas, if that
matters):
"When I was in high school we had gun racks in trucks,
and they had guns in them, and they were loaded. We even had fist
fights! But never once did someone get pissed and go get a gun to
shoot someone. We don't have a gun problem people, we have a people
problem, a sin problem, a lack of heart and soul problem, a lack of
respect for human life problem ,or even a mental health problem. . . .
but we DO NOT have a gun problem! I think it's easier for some people
to blame an inanimate object instead of taking responsibility."
This starts off with an anecdote which may have been true in the
author's personal experience but is far from the general rule. Then
it offers up a list of suspect people, blaming them and exculpating
the guns they use to commit crimes. We watch a lot of crime stories
on TV, and they invariably come down to motive and opportunity. Lots
of people have motives that some people have killed for, but they
don't do so because they never had the opportunity (or they had some
scruples that inhibited them from striking out). Guns may do nothing
on their own (there's a Steve Earle song called "The Devil's Right
Hand" that argues otherwise), but when someone picks one up, they
offer the opportunity of killing someone else, even at a distance.
The basic idea behind gun control is to keep guns out of the hands
of people who might use them criminally. One might argue that the
government isn't smart or fair enough to make those decisions, but
reasonable people could surely agree in minimal lists of guns that
no one should have and people who should not have guns.
The problem there is finding reasonable people, especially among
those on the right who have been propagating these stupid gun memes.
Admittedly, there are people who would like to outlaw all guns, but
they aren't numerous, and aren't in any position to reject reasonable
compromises. My own position is that I dislike guns, and don't see
any good reason for the vast majority of Americans (including myself)
to own any, but I'm pretty resistant to the idea of outlawing things
just because lots of people dislike them -- alcohol, drugs, and sex
are cases we should have learned better than. On the other hand, I
can occasionally see a case for prohibiting or strictly regulating
some things that are especially dangerous, and I could understand
wanting to include guns in that category.
Of course, there are some things that government is even more inept
at dealing with than guns, and oddly enough they show up on the list of
things pro-gun people like to blame gun violence on. Foremost is mental
illness, which heads up Trump's list of scapegoats (along with ubiquitous
things like violent video games). The fact is we don't do a very good
job of treating (or even identifying) mental illness in this country,
partly because we don't try (and conservatives are even more lax in this
regard), but also because nobody's really very good at it. A rigorous
system that tried to quarantine crazy people to keep them away from
guns would be orders of magnitude more expensive and more hurtful than
one that prohibited guns from all but the certifiably sane. Yeterday's
meme blaming gun violence on drugs diagnosis without a solution.
I didn't mean to go down this rathole, but it just opened up -- as
is so often the case. What I did want to do is quote a Barbara Ehrenreich
tweet:
The mental illness we really have to fear is narcissism.
It makes dumb, loathsome people feel virtuous and smart. Gun ownership
is another form of narcissism. It makes little men feel big.
I'll also add this one from Adam Serwer, on Trump's Monday morning
backpedal:
Trump sounds like a robot when condemning white supremacy
and like himself when he's attacking religious and ethnic minorities
because one is him pretending and one is him being himself.
Moving on, we have a week's worth of new music for you below. I
added some grade data to my
mid-year list aggregate,
checking sites that hadn't produced lists and (usually) according
one point for each record rated 80+ (based on AOTY lists. This had
the surprise effect of boosting Sharon Van Etten's Remind Me
Tomorrow to first place, 48-47 over Billie Eilish (gain from
last week was 10-4). The only other notable shift was Weyes Blood,
up from 15 to 10. Biggest drop was probably James Blake, 10-14.
Much of what I listened to last week came from looking at these
lists. My other major source was
Phil Overeem's July honor roll -- most impressively the MexStep
record that came out mid-December, with no one noticing it in 2018
lists.
New batch of q&a from Robert Christgau up tonight:
XgauSez.
New records reviewed this week:
Iggy Azalea: In My Defense (2019, Bad Dreams/Empire):
Australian rapper, scored a crossover pop hit in 2014, doubles down
on her hard edge here.
B+(***)
John Bacon/Michael McNeill/Danny Ziemann: Refractions
(2017 [2019], Jazz Dimensions): Drums, piano, bass, alphabetical order
but consistently applied, playing seven Thelonious Monk pieces. Not as
distinctive as the originals, but refracted in subtle and interesting
ways.
B+(***) [cd]
J. Balvin & Bad Bunny: Oasis (2019, Universal Music
Latino): Colombian singer José Balvin and Puerto Rican rapper Benito
Martinez, common denominator reggaeton.
B+(**)
B.J. the Chicago Kid: 1123 (2019, Motown): Bryan James
Sledge, from Chicago but now 34, third album, raps some, sings more,
opens with exceptional groove and flow but piles up when he slows down.
B+(*)
Chance the Rapper: The Big Day (2019, self-released):
Chicago rapper, surname Bennett, reissued his debut mixtape 10 Day
a while back and it was the freshest, most stimulating thing I've heard
all year. He's older now (26), married, has a new child, has doubled
down on his Christianity, and has chops enough to run this out to 77
minutes without interest flagging.
A-
Chuck Cleaver: Send Aid (2019, Shake It): First album
at age 60, a short one at that (10 tracks, 26:51), but hardly a newbie,
as leader of Ass Ponys in the 1990s and, more famously, Wussy ever
since. More Americana twang than I expected. Also more clang.
B+(***)
Chick Corea/The Spanish Heart Band: Antidote (2019,
Concord): Pianist, born in Massachusetts, Italian/Spanish descent,
started in the late 1960s playing both avant, then fusion, then in
1976 discovered flamenco among his roots in one of his better known
albums, My Spanish Heart. Here he returs to that diversion,
with a similarly large band (8 pieces, fewer strings, plus vocals
and tap dance). He repeats two songs, adds similar fare, lathers
the rhythms with extra lushness. It might have sounded enticingly
exotic way back when, but more like corn and shlock now.
B-
Default Genders: Main Pop Girl 2019 (2019, self-released):
Jaime Brooks, given name James, self-described as "a careless man's
careful daughter," previously half of duo Elite Gymnastics, second
album under this moniker. Mostly electronics, love the beats, like
the fuzz, hardly caught any lyrics (some processed, else buried).
B+(**) [bc]
Pablo Embon: Reminscent Mood (2018-19 [2019],
self-released): Guitarist, originally from Argentina, now based in
Israel, where he picked up some Middle Eastern airs to go with his
Latin lilt.
B- [cd]
Empath: Active Listening: Night on Earth (2019,
Get Better): Philadelphia group, noisy pop, drummer from a similar
(if less successful) group called Perfect Pussy. Short but not as
deliberately elemental as punk: 9 songs, 27:12.
B+(*)
Filthy Friends: Emerald Valley (2019, Kill Rock Stars):
Side project of semi-famous musicians still working in more-or-less famous
bands -- currently Corin Tucker (Sleater-Kinney), Peter Buck (REM), Scott
McCaughey and Kurt Bloch (both Young Fresh Fellows), Linda Pitmon (The
Baseball Project, along with Buck and McCaughey). Second album since they
first recorded on an anti-Trump comp (30 Days, 30 Songs).
B+(**)
Fred Frith: All Is Always Now: Fred Frith Live at the Stone
(2007-16 [2019], Intakt, 3CD): English guitarist, started c. 1974 on
the avant fringe of rock playing prepared guitar solos, but labels and
company eventually slotted him under jazz (again, the avant fringe).
Massive, wide-ranging trove of live performances from John Zorn's New
York club, various duos and trio (one cut with a guest making four),
most (16/23 tracks) from 2013-14.
B+(***)
From Wolves to Whales: Strandwal (2017 [2019],
Aerophonic, 2CD): Quartet formed in 2014, second album, last names
also listed on cover: Nate Wooley (trumpet), Dave Rempis (alto sax),
Pascal Niggenkemper (bass), Chris Corsano (drums). Remarkable spots
embedded in leisurely table-setting, not that the latter stretches
out too long. Both discs are relatively short (39:07, 41:33), and
could easily have been edited down to one (perhaps too long).
B+(***) [cd]
Rhiannon Giddens With Francesco Turrisi: There Is No Other
(2019, Nonesuch): Folksinger/banjo player from Carolina Chocolate Drops,
third solo album. Turrisi is from Italy, based in Dublin (where this was
recorded), plays piano, accordion, frame drum, tamburello, lute, cello
banjo, daf, and colascione. Shows how worldly Americana can be.
B+(***)
Charles Wesley Godwin: Seneca (2019, self-released):
Singer-songwriter from West Virginia, first album. Coal country stories,
shrinks and pills.
B+(*)
Maxo Kream: Brandon Banks (2019, Big Persona/RCA):
Houston rapper, Emekwanem Ogogua Biosah, Jr., father Nigerian.
Second album, solid, could catch on.
B+(**)
MexStep: Resistir (2018, Third Root): Rapper from
San Antonio, don't know any personal details, nor have I dug deep
enough to say much about Third Root (perhaps a collective and/or a
label). Produced by Marco Cervantes and Adrian Quesada, with various
feat. guests. Scratches are old school, tejano flashes add color,
and the politics is up front.
A-
The Paranoid Style: A Goddamn Impossible Way of Life
(2019, Bar/None): Singer-polemicist Elizabeth Nelson plus band, drops
interesting words that make me want to get more out of the lyrics,
but I struggle and flail. Maybe I'd try harder if I liked the music
more, but I find it rushed, not that the album (11 tracks, 29:49)
seems too short.
B+(***)
Pink: Hurts 2B Human (2019, RCA): Eighth album, almost
20 years in. Played this right after Betty Who, and was immediately
blown away by how huge the opener ("Hustle") sounded. More varied, less
consistent, peaks midway with the title cut (feat. Khalid), ends with
a ballad that shouldn't work but does ("The Last Song of Your Life").
B+(***)
Dave Rempis/Joshua Abrams/Avreeayl Ra + Jim Baker: Apsis
(2018 [2019], Aerophonic): Leader plays alto, tenor, and baritone saxes,
backed by bass, drums, and piano/electronics. Baker adds a lot here,
even if the net result is just another saxophone tour de force. The
soft landing cinches it.
A- [cd]
Herlin Riley: Perpetual Optimism (2017 [2019], Mack
Avenue): Drummer, fourth album as leader, long tenure with Wynton
Marsalis. Mostly quintet with trumpet (Bruce Harris), alto sax (Godwin
Louis), piano (Emmet Cohen), and bass (Russell Hall). Lively beat.
Two vocals, presumably Riley, one a pretty jazzy "Wang Dang Doodle."
B+(*)
Sasami: Sasami (2019, Domino): Surname Ashworth,
singer-songwriter from Los Angeles, played keybs in Cherry Glazerr,
first album. Dream pop, atmospheric, not quite as chilly as the cover.
B+(*)
Betty Who: Betty (2019, AWAL): Australian pop singer,
Jessica Anne Newham, third album. Maturing, which is part of her appeal,
as long as she doesn't lose the beat.
B+(**)
Mark Wingfield & Gary Husband: Tor & Vale
(2018 [2019], Moonjune): Guitar and piano duo, Wingfield the writer,
also credited with "soundscapes." Runs long, occasionally passing
something of interest.
B [cd]
Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:
The Tubby Hayes Quartet: Grits, Beans and Greens: The Lost
Fontana Studio Session 1969 (1969 [2019], Decca): British
tenor saxophonist, a star there from 1957, although his discography
fades after 1967 and he died in 1973 at 38. Replete with multiple
takes, the rhythm section is nothing special, but the saxophonist
is in fine form.
B+(**)
Old music:
Bob Moses: When Elephants Dream of Music (1982 [1983],
Gramavision): Drummer, later adopted the preface Ra-Kalam (several
variants), second or third album, a big band/kitchen sink production,
with scattered vocals (including bit parts for Jeanne Lee and Sheila
Jordan). Echoes of Ellington and/or Africa.
[Reissued 2019 on Ra-Kalam with +4 tracks.]
B
Pink: Funhouse (2008, LaFace): Fifth album, first
one I was warned off of, still sold seven million copies. Big pop
production, hook-filled songs, was probably more fun at the time.
B+(**)
Pink: Greatest Hits . . . So Far!!! (2000-10 [2010],
LaFace/Jive): A pretty solid rule of thumb is that insisting on a "so
far" on a "greatest hits" album is career death. Whether that counts
here depends on what you think about her next album, 2012's The
Truth About Love (sold 7 million copies, a Christgau A, a middle
B+ from me). Even within the five albums distilled here, this is
front-loaded, probably the better place to start, and gets heavier
over the decade. Still, she didn't fold as hard as other victims of
the "so far" curse. While her later albums never touched the early
ones, she still has her moments -- at least three songs on the new
album would fit "Fuckin' Perfect" here.
A-
Olaf Polziehn Trio Featuring Harry Allen: American Songbook
Vol. 2 (2003, Satin Doll): German piano trio with Ingmar Heller
(bass) and Oliver Mewes (drums), plus the ideal tenor saxophonist for
such a retro-swing outfit.
B+(**)
Olaf Polziehn/Ingmar Heller/Troy Davis/Harry Allen: American
Songbook Vol. 3 (2006, Satin Doll): Same deal, different drummer,
the saxophonist listed as "special guest" on the cover but same sized
type. Also includes some cello from the pianist's wife, Julia.
B+(*)
Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:
- Corey Christiansen: La Proxima (Origin): August 12
- Harbinger: Extended (OA2): August 12
- New York Voices: Reminiscing in Tempo (Origin)
- Alberto Pibiri & the AI Peppers: The Nacho Blues (Alberto Pibiri Music)
- Paul Silbergleit: January (Blujazz)
- Paul Zauner's Blue Brass feat. David Murray: Roots n' Wings (PAO/Blujazz)
- Miguel Zenón: Sonero: The Music of Ismael Rivera (Miel Music); August 30
Ask a question, or send a comment.
Sunday, August 4, 2019
Weekend Roundup
Starting this early (Friday), hoping to avoid the last-minute crunch.
Not really news, but CNN's Democratic presidential debates got a lot of
attention from the punditocracy this week. As usual, I didn't watch in
real time (although my wife did, so I overheard some), but caught the
"highlights" later (among the comics, Colbert was most informative).
Let's group the links here, rather than clutter up the main section:
David Axelrod:
Elizabeth Warren is running a brilliant campaign. Zack Beauchamp:
4 winners and 3 losers from the second night of the July Democratic
debates: With German Lopez, Dylan Matthews, and Andrew Prokop.
Winners: Joe Biden ("Well, this one's complicated"); Elizabeth Warren
and Bernie Sanders ("weren't there, but they loomed large anyway");
Cory Booker; single-payer activists. Losers: Kamala Harris; CNN,
again; the DNC.
3 winners and 4 losers from the first night of the July Democratic
debates: With German Lopez, PR Lockhart, Dylan Matthews, and
Ella Nilsen. Winners: Elizabeth Warren; John Delaney; the Republican
Party ("several of the major issues were framed by the moderators in
terms Republicans would love"). Losers: the policy needs of black
voters; CNN; Beto O'Rourke.
Marianne Williamson isn't funny. She's scary. Picks on her views
on depression and illness, which are not exactly tangential to either
her career as a "self-help guru" or her political aspirations. As for
funny, my take so far (and I know or care nothing about her career)
is that she does a nice job of filling a niche in the Democratic Party
that no one even imagined before: a soft focus on morals and emotions,
like Ben Carson among Republicans. That role is unimagined because
most Democrats try hard to be rational and grounded in reality, but
sometimes she seems to be onto something at a primal, instinctive
leve. Of course, much of what she says is, as Beauchamp puts it,
"extremely vague and hard to parse, but managed to at times banal
and at other times deeply weird." Ryan Bort:
Jake Tapper and CNN totally botched the health care discussion. Alexia Fernández Campbell:
What Biden doesn't get about immigration.
Democrats aren't going to win working-class voters this way, says labor
union president: "Democrats have to speak about how they are going
to take the shitty jobs that exist in this economy and make them good
jobs." Isn't that usually just a matter of making them pay better?
When Robert Reich was auditioning to become Clinton's Secretary of
Labor, he came up with the rationalization that it didn't matter if
American factories shut down, because unemployed workers could always
be retrained to become high-paid "symbol manipulators." Ever since
then, the only answer neoliberal Democrats had to declining working
wages and standards was to offer more education (and debt). But no
matter how much money we plow into education (and I don't doubt that
we should spend a lot more than we've been doing), we'll still have
shitty jobs we'll need people to do. But we can decide whether we
respect and value the people who do those jobs enough to accord them
a decent wage and fair and equal rights -- a status we used to call
"middle class." Interview with Mary Kay Henry. John Cassidy:
Tim Dickinson:
Can Joe Biden sell 'no we can't'? "The triumph of the progressives
on night one of the Detroit debates portends trouble for the former
vice president." FiveThirtyEight:
John F Harris:
Democrats are veering left. It might just work. Cites Stanley
Greenberg, who wrote a book about how Reagan "captured many working
class Democrats who believed their party's liberalism was out of step
with their lives. But now he "believes that the urgency voters feel
for shaking up the status quo means there's less risk for candidates
and the party in going too far than in not going far enough." For a
contrary point, Harris cites Rahm Emanuel, whose fear and loathing
of the left is even greater than his readiness to sell out Democratic
voters. Greenberg has a book coming out in September: R.I.P. G.O.P.:
How the New America is Dooming the Republicans. Umair Irfan:
2020 Democrats are getting more confrontational with the fossil fuel
industry. Sarah Jones:
John Judis:
The Democrats need to get their act together. Ed Kilgore:
Gravel '20 is done.
Why you can't ignore Marianne Williamson: "Mock her all you want, but
Marianne Williamson speaks to people horrified by Trump who aren't satisfied
with policy papers."
Trump outperformed his popularity in 2016. That might not happen in 2020.
As I mentioned somewhere else here, many voters saw Trump as a solution
to a very tangible problem in Hilary Clinton. Maybe they hated whatever
it was they thought she stood for (and there was grounds for that from
the right and also from the left), or maybe they just didn't want to
subject themselves to four years of pompous clichés, inane backbiting,
and petty pseudo-scandals blown way out of proportion. Maybe they even
recognized the unfairness of the vitriol, but still, the only way to
make it go away was to vote her down. But since 2016, he's dominated
public consciousness, becoming the source of our public embarrassment
to a much grosser extent than she ever was or could be. There will, of
course, be a block of people that loves him no matter what, and another
that despises him, but in between there's a slice that can break one
way or another. If in 2016 they broke for Trump because they wanted
to flip off the status quo and avoid its scandals, those exact same
rationales suggest they'll break against him in 2020. That's probably
not enough to seal his fate. I can imagine at least one other slice
breaking the opposite way: people who support the status quo, even
as it's been warped by Trump's malign rule. Moreover, I expect Trump
will have a lot more money, and a much more professional campaign
behind him this time, in lockstep with a pretty unified Republican
Party. But still, the tables have turned on those last-minute impulse
voters. Jen Kirby:
Pete Buttigieg says he'd withdraw troops from Afghanistan in his first
year. Eric Levitz:
Here's who won (and lost) the second Democratic debate, night two:
In rank order: Joe Biden, Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, Tulsi Gabbard,
Andrew Yang, Julian Castro, Michael Bennet, Jay Inslee, Bill de Blasio,
Kamala Harris.
Here's who won (and lost) the second Democratic debate, night one:
In rank order: Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Marianne Williamson,
Pete Buttigieg, Steve Bullock, Amy Klobuchar, John Delaney, Tim Ryan,
Beto O'Rourke, John Hickenlooper.
What Andrew Yang gets wrong (and right) about robots. German Lopez:
Robert Mackey:
Josh Marshall:
Obama looms over the primary in invisible ways. Dylan Matthews:
The presidential debates wasted too much time talking about stuff only
Congress can do: "The president has a lot of power -- so why wouldn't
the candidates talk about it?" Ella Nilsen:
Jay Inslee points to Democrats' real problem: Mitch McConnell:
"Even if the Democrats win the Senate, the filibuster stands in the
way of their big plans." Anna North:
Joe Biden's 1981 views on child care haven't aged well. Gillibrand called
him out on it. Charles P Pierce:
Andrew Prokop:
Max Read:
Is Andrew Yang the doomer candidate? Frank Rich:
The Democratic debates were built to fail. Rolling Stone:
Winners and losers on night 2 of the second Democratic debates.
Winners: Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, Jay Inslee, Andrew Yang.
Losers: Michael Bennet, Bill de Blasio, Tulsi Gabbard. Treading water:
Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Julian Castro.
Winners and losers on night 1 of the second Democratic debates:
Winners: Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Marianne Williamson ("go
ahead, laugh"), Steve Bullock. Losers: John Delaney, Hickenlooper,
Beto O'Rourke, Amy Klobuchar. Treading water: Pete Buttigieg, Tim
Ryan. Aaron Rupar:
"Your question is a Republican talking point": CNN frames debate questions
around right-wing concerns: "Republicans weren't onstage during the
Democratic debate -- but were living rent-free inside moderators' heads."
Dylan Scott:
The messy health care discussion at the second Democratic debate,
explained. Emily Stewart:
Benjamin Wallace-Wells:
At the Democratic debate, Joe Biden defends the party's past. Alex Ward:
The 2 veterans on the Democratic debate stage made a big promise about
Afghanistan: That would be Tulsi Gabbard and Pete Buttigieg, who
want out. Lawrence S Wittner:
The Democratic debates need more questions about nuclear war. Matthew Yglesias:
The weird controversy over Democrats "criticizing Obama" at this week's
debate, explained.
Democrats are skipping the most important health care debate: "should
this even be the priority?"
Personally, I think the Medicare-for-all people are 100 percent correct.
The current American health care system is bad and wasteful, and replacing
it with something like the Canadian system would be a good idea. But the
policy world is full of good ideas, and not every good idea can be your
top priority. Prioritizing health reform has not, in the past, been an
extraordinarily successful strategy for new presidents.
I agree with the first line here, and would add that any presidential
candidate who disagrees is not just wrong (in all their arguments and
rationalizations) but a coward to boot. On the other hand, if I was in
charge and didn't have the votes, I'd write up a good single-payer bill
and hold it in reserve, while trying to pass a bunch of less ambitious
reforms to the ACA framework. If the reforms are thwarted, either by
politics or by the courts, you can always fall back on the single-payer
bill, and that case would become more compelling. Meanwhile, there is
a lot that can be done, and not just by throwing more money at the
blood-sucking insurance companies. The long-term answer is not just
single-payer (cutting the for-profit insurance companies out of the
system) but reducing the profit motive in the provider system. (You'll
never wring all the profit-seeking out of the system, but non-profit
hospitals were a lot more cost-effective than HCA is.) One thing that
could be done would be to build up government-supported non-profits
that could compete against the profit-seeking companies. (The "public
option" under ACA is one example, but non-profit options wouldn't have
to be directly under government bureaucracy.) One might, for instance,
change bankruptcy law to allow failed hospitals and service providers
to be reorganized with public support and employee control. Another
idea I've been kicking around would be to offer a bare-bones universal
insurance (e.g., through the Medicare provider network) that would
cover an initially small set of emergencies and illnesses. This would
make private insurance supplemental (rather than primary), reducing
its cost while allowing it to fit more customized needs. (You can see
how this works with Medicare supplemental plans. Medicare at present
does most of the heavy lifting, but still leaves a lot of deductible
nonsense that makes supplemental insurance attractive. That could
change if Medicare-for-All improved a lot, but that's going to be a
hard battle to fight -- especially all at once.)
3 winners and 4 losers from the Democrats' two-night debate extravaganza:
Winners: Cory Booker (Yglesias thinks "neoliberal shill" is a compliment);
Joe Biden; the Great Winnowing. Losers: knowing what powers the president
has; comprehension of what is in these health care plans; all these housing
plans; policy criticism of Donald Trump.
America deserves a debate between Joe Biden and his main progressive
critics: "Elizabeth Warren versus John Delaney is not the drama we've
been craving."
Elizabeth Warren's vision for changing America's trade policy, explained.
Lots of non-campaign news this week, but Donald Trump's flagrant
racism caught the most attention, climaxing with two mass shootings
which, despite pro forma denials, appear as the proof in the pudding.
Checked my Facebook feed shortly before filing this, and was rather
surprised to find as many/maybe more pro-gun memes than anti, not
that the former make any sense. One, for instance, links to a piece
titled "Every Mass Shooting Shares 1 Thing in Common, NOT Guns": I
didn't follow, but the picture shows a pile of pills. I doubt that,
but even if lots of mass shooters popped pills, by definition every
single one used a gun. All of those were forwarded by acknowledged
friends. (Of course, I do also have anti-gun friends. They may even
be in the majority, but lose out in this comparison because they tend
to post their own thoughts instead of just propagating someone else's
propaganda.)
Some links on this and other stories:
Tim Alberta:
'Mother is not going to like this': The 48 hours that almost brought down
Trump: "The exclusive story of how Trump survived the Access Hollywood
tape." An excerpt from the book, American Carnage: On the Front Lines
of the Republican Civil War and the Rise of President Trump. Ends
with this memorable debate exchange:
Donald Trump: If I win, I am going to instruct my attorney general to
get a special prosecutor to look into your situation. Because there
have never been so many lies, so much deception.
Hilary Clinton: Everything he just said was absolutely false. It's
just awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is
not in charge of the law in our country.
Donald Trump: Because you'd be in jail.
Trump later claimed "that debate won me the election." It was a lucky
punch, but it landed because more people wanted to see her fail than so
feared Trump they were willing to live with her constantly in their minds
for the next four (or eight) years. It was not a moment American voters
would be proud of. AP:
Police: Rookie Texas officer shoots at dog, kills woman. David Atkins:
Andrew J Bacevich:
Dean Baker:
Peter Beinart:
The real reason so many Republicans love Israel? Their own white supremacy.
Related: Jonathan Ofir:
Racism is at the center of Israeli settler-colonialist venture: a
review of Ronit Lentin's book, Traces of Racial Exception: Racializing
Israeli Settler Colonialism. Ofir also wrote this update on changing
alignments in Israeli politics:
Israeli pols merge parties, and the right-wing seems stronger than
ever. Phyllis Bennis:
What the House anti-BDS resolution reveals about the Palestine solidarity
movement. Related: Omar Barghouti:
Why Americans should support BDS. Jared Bernstein:
We can't fund the progressive agenda by taxing the 1% alone: "The
tricky politics of taxing the 1%, the middle class, and everyone in
between." Basic point here is well taken. To do everything we'd like
to see the government do requires that tax revenues be increased.
While current tax rates leave a lot of leeway for increasing taxes
on the very rich, that's not necessarily enough -- especially moving
forward, especially if we do other things to diminish inequality.
It may also be easier to increase a range of taxes by a small amount
than it would be to increase one tax (income) by a lot. For instance,
the easiest way to fund the sort of basic health insurance I outline
elsewhere here would be to tack it onto the payroll tax that already
funds Medicare, even though that's the most regressive tax we use
these days. It would also be good to implement a small VAT (basically,
a national sales tax), which is also regressive but could be scaled
up to raise significant revenue as needed. One fact worth recalling
is that not every tax has to be progressive -- you can compensate
with more sharply progressive tax rates on incomes and estates,
which is all you really need to bring the 1% back into mainstream
America. Democrats need to be wary of falling for Republican talking
points, which is what they're doing when they deny any tax increases
on the middle class. They need to convince people that the returns
on their taxes will be worthwhile -- which is basically what FDR did
when he designed the payroll tax to fund Social Security. Max Blumenthal:
Behind the guise of adversarial journalism, CNN's Jake Tapper is taking
America to war. Barbara Boland:
Unqualified UN Ambassador is the perfect weak link: "Don't be
surprised if Kelly Craft's lack of experience is exactly what Bolton
and Pompeo wanted for their war cabinet." Bryce Covert:
Right-wing troika: "The Republican Party's 50-state strategy."
Review of Alexander Hertel-Fernandez's book, State Capture: How
Conservative Activists, Big Businesses, and Wealthy Donors Reshaped
the American States -- and the Nation. Chas Danner:
Jesse Eisinger:
How Trump's political appointees overruled tougher settlements with big
banks. Henry Farrell:
Don't ask how to pay for climate change. Ask who. Tara Golshan:
Rep. Will Hurd's retirement reflects GOP's biggest electoral struggle
in the House: Trump. Benjamin Hart:
Trump seems thrilled that someone broke into Elijah Cummings's house.
Sheldon Himelfarb:
The next election will require a new kind of vigilance.
The 2020 race has now begun in earnest, with the Democrats having their
first primary debates last month [June]. Lurking in the background is
something that once seemed inconceivable in modern-day America: the
threat of election-related violence.
As the Southern Poverty Law Center said earlier this year in an annual
report, there has been a rise in domestic terrorism, hate crimes, and
street violence. It's no surprise, then, that on June 26, Reddit -- the
fifth-most trafficked website in the U.S. -- announced it was "quarantining"
a popular message board with 750,000 followers because of active discussions
involving violence against political figures. . . .
Perhaps the biggest harbinger of election violence is the proliferation
of disinformation, rumors, and hate speech. All of which are spreading
further and with greater velocity than at arguably any other moment in
American history.
Rachel Hodes:
What 'abolish ICE' really means: "It's about asking whether we need
an immigration system that terrorizes the least dangerous people in this
country." Related: Emily Ryo:
How ICE enforcement has changed under the Trump administration. Eric Holthaus:
Greenland is melting away before our eyes. Umair Irfan:
- b>Ellen Knickmeyer/Brady McCombs:
Opponent of nation's public lands is picked to oversee them.
Markos Kounalakis:
Donald Trump's dangerous empathy deficit. Paul Krugman:
Trump's trade quagmire (wonkish).
Why was Trumponomics a flop? "Neither tax cuts nor tariffs are
working."
But why has Trumponomics failed to deliver much besides trillion-dollar
budget deficits? The answer is that both the tax cuts and the trade war
were based on false views about how the world works.
Republican faith in the magic of tax cuts -- and, correspondingly,
belief that tax increases will doom the economy -- is the ultimate policy
zombie, a view that should have been killed by evidence decades ago but
keeps shambling along, eating G.O.P. brains.
The record is actually awesomely consistent. Bill Clinton's tax hike
didn't cause a depression, George W. Bush's tax cuts didn't deliver a
boom, Jerry Brown's California tax increase wasn't "economic suicide,"
Sam Brownback's Kansas tax-cut "experiment" (his term) was a failure.
A racist stuck in the past: "In Trump's mind, it's still 1989."
Krugman picked 1989 because "that was the year he demanded bringing
back the death penalty in response to the case of the Central Park
Five," but for most of us that was just one year in a long continuum
of viciousness (racist and otherwise). Bess Levin:
As deficit explodes, GOP demands emergency tax cut for the rich:
"Twenty senators have urged the Treasury to give the wealthy another
tax cut via executive order." Gideon Levy:
What Israel's demolition of 70 Palestinian homes was really about. Dahlia Lithwick:
It's never "too soon" to talk about preventing mass shootings. It's
always too late. Martin Longman:
How to campaign when nothing is possible. I suppose if I was a
do-nothing "moderate" I'd take some comfort from this, realizing
that even such a committed and principled radical as Bernie Sanders
would preserve more status quo than another four years of Trump.
If the Republicans maintain their majority in the Senate, the new Democratic
president will not be enacting one iota of their top shelf legislative
agenda. There will be nothing major on health care or college loans or
immigration or climate change. Even judges will be only confirmed in the
most belated and begrudging manner, and only if they've never said anything
on the record that conservatives find irritating. All legislative progress
that can be made will come as the result of leverage over must-pass bills,
and the leverage will only be truly significant so long as the Democrats
retain control of the House of Representatives. But navigating government
shutdowns and threats of national default in order to attach a few things
to appropriations bills is not going to turn many of a candidate's
campaign promises into reality. . . .
Yet, even if the Democrats win the trifecta and eliminate the legislative
filibuster, they'll still have huge problems passing legislation. Even
assuming that Nancy Pelosi can push the president's agenda through her
chamber (and this is doubtful for some of the policies the candidates
are pushing), there are senators (like Michael Bennet of Colorado, for
example) on the record opposing much of the progressive candidates'
agenda. . . .
I absolutely understand that people are hungry for change. People are
sick to death of Congress and want to break this gridlock. But it's a
problem that is beyond the power of any candidate or any rhetoric to fix.
On the other hand, while a left-committed candidate like Sanders or
Warren might not get much more accomplished than mediocrities like Biden,
Klobuchar, or Bennet, they would try, and be seen as trying, and their
frustation and dedication would sustain the Party's slow drift to the
left. And that would generate more creative discussion of real problems --
the solution to which is only to be found further left.
Business leaders flock to Trump for protections against socialism.
Cites his previous piece,
What if big business falls in completely with Trumpism? Annie Lowrey:
Andrew Marantz:
The El Paso shooting and the virality of evil.
The national conversation will now turn, as it should, to gun control,
to mental illness, and to the President's practice of exacerbating
racial tensions, which has been one of his avocations for decades and
now appears to be his central reëlection strategy. But there's also a
more specific question: what can be done about the fact that so many
of these terrorists -- in Pittsburgh, in Poway, in Christchurch, in
El Paso -- seem to find inspiration in the same online spaces? Each
killer, in the moment, may have acted alone, but they all appear to
have been zealous converts to the same ideology -- a paranoid snarl
of raw anger, radical nationalism, unhinged nihilism, and fears of
"white genocide" that is still referred to as "fringe," although it's
creeping precariously close to the mainstream.
Hilary Matfess:
The progressive case for free trade. Related: Daniel Block:
Free trade for liberals. This piece focuses more on European problems,
and vainly posits that an alliance with American liberals would help
"protect democracy, fight inequality, and save the environment." Lots
of problems here, starting with the fact that US trade policy -- even
under Democratic presidents -- has always been the province of business
interests, and while those interests may like to tout "democracy" as a
propaganda riff, fighting inequality and saving the environment never
really was their thing. Moreover, any "Atlantic Alliance" is at present
bound to reek of those nations' colonial/imperial pasts. On the other
hand, other alliances have always been possible: internationalism was
the hallmark of the labor movement at least since 1848, and could be
again. But it will take some kind of political revolution before the
US and Europe can see trade as a tool for promoting the welfare of all
people. Anna North:
The movement to decriminalize sex work, explained. Richard Parker:
When hate came to El Paso. Charles P Pierce:
Elaina Plott:
'We're all tired of being called racists'. I'm getting tired of
having to call them racists, too. Maybe they should do a better job
of keeping their racism to themselves? Daniel Politi:
Nicholas Powers:
When Trump calls people "filth," he's laying the groundwork for genocide.
Andrew Prokop:
From condemning "white terrorism" to condemning video games: Republican
responses to El Paso shooting. Jennifer Rubin:
There is no excuse for supporting this president. Looks like the
Washington Post is piling on; e.g. EJ Dionne Jr:
On guns and white nationalism, one side is right and one is wrong;
Max Boot:
Trump is leading our country to destruction. Needless to say,
Trump's holding up his end of the feud. See: Jonathan Chait:
Trump directs government to punish Washington Post
owner. Philip Rucker:
'How do you stop these people?': Trump's anti-immigrant rhetoric looms
over El Paso massacre. Also: Ayal Feinberg/Regina Branton/Valerie
Martinez-Ebers:
Counties that hosted a 2016 Trump rally saw a 226 percent increase in
hate crimes. Coincidence? Aaron Rupar:
Adam Serwer:
White nationalism's deep American roots: "A long-overdue excavation
of the book that Hitler called his "bible," and the man who wrote it."
That would be Madison Grant, author of the 1916 book The Passing of
the Great Race.
Raja Shehadeh:
The use and abuse of international law in the occupied territories:
Review of Noura Erakat's book, Justice for Some: Law and the Question
of Palestine. Matt Shuham:
Kobach used private border wall's email list to fundraise for Senate
campaign: "This email could run afoul of campaign finance laws."
Richard Silverstein:
Trump donor, Elliott Broidy, paid Dennis Ross $10,000 to publish pro-Saudi
op-ed in The Hill. Matt Simon:
The bizarre, peaty science of Arctic wildfires. Danny Sjursen:
US troops are back in Saudi Arabia -- this will end badly. Jordan Smith:
As Trump fans the flames of anti-abortion rhetoric, Kansas offers a
cautionary tale. Yves Smith:
Hospitals squeal over Trump proposal to disclose insurance company
discounts. Felicia Sonmez/Paul Kane:
Republicans struggle to respond in wake of El Paso, Dayton shootings.
Matt Taibbi:
The rise and fall of superhero Robert Mueller. Nick Turse:
Violence has spiked in Africa since the military founded AFRICOM,
Pentagon study finds. Alex Ward:
Will Wilkinson:
Conservatives are hiding their 'loathing' behind our flag: "The molten
core of right-wing nationalism is the furious denial of America's unalterably
multiracial, multicultural national character." Robin Wright:
The rhetoric and reality of Donald Trump's racism. Matthew Yglesias:
Today's budget deal proves once again Republicans never cared about the
deficit. Nothing really new here: I still recall when Nixon declared
himself a Keynesian. With their tax giveaways, Reagan, Bush, and Trump
didn't even have to admit as much. They merely understood that the rules
are different when the Republicans are in power or in opposition. That's
only hypocrisy if you pretend there's a general principle involved.
The critical thing, however, is that if not for hypocritical Republican
opposition, we could have been running these higher deficits in 2011,
2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015. And if we had done that, the economy could
have recovered faster from the Great Recession, the unemployment rate
could have fallen more rapidly, and hundreds of billions of dollars of
national income that is now irretrievably lost could have been earned.
The Federal Reserve's interest rate cut, explained.
America's dual housing crisis, and what Democrats plan to do about it,
explained: "A crisis of low incomes and a parallel crisis of tight
supply."
Trump is approving an anti-competitive merger that will cost you money:
"But he seems to have made money off the deal personally." The merger
of Sprint and T-Mobile, currently the 3rd and 4th largest mobile phone
networks. Li Zhou:
The new bipartisan Senate bill aimed at making Big Pharma lower drug
prices, explained.
Ask a question, or send a comment.
Monday, July 29, 2019
Music Week
For all of this month's reviews, see
Streamnotes (July, 2019).
Music: current count 31831 [31798] rated (+35), 257 [259] unrated (-2).
Got a good start last week, even while I delayed posting
Music Week,
then lost most of three days with company and cooking, before
partially recovering while I wrote up
Weekend
Roundup. The reason for last week's delayed posting was that
I was tied up in one of my favorite wastes of time:
compiling several dozens
of mid-year ("so far") best-of lists. I've scoured through
66 lists, where each
mention counts as one point regardless of rank (most lists are
unranked, and many are are short compared to EOY lists, so this
scheme is just easier to build the EOY list aggregate on top of.
I've also included letter grades for
Robert Christgau and
myself (although only so far
for records mentioned on other lists), using { A = 5, A- = 4,
B+/*** = 3, ** = 2, * = 1 }. This introduces a slight skew, but
it's diminished as I've added more lists. And since I'm actually
more interested in using this as a tool to guide my own listening
than as some sort of value-free social science research, I've
included a few lists from friends and allies, including at least
one I scraped off the unlinkable Facebook. (I suppose it might be
possible to link to it, but common decency suggests otherwise.)
One thing I found odd is that I literally didn't find a single
jazz list. Maybe I'll write one up later this week. The other thing
I'm tempted to do is to add in points for AOTY 80+ ratings. For a
few years I actually collected those ratings, but gave it up 2-3
years ago as too much work. On the other hand, some record of those
ratings would round out the picture.
Without further ado, here are the top 30 records (so far), with
point counts in braces and my grades in brackets:
- Billy Eilish: When We All Fall Asleep Where Do We Go? (Darkroom/Interscope) {43} [A-]
- Lizzo: Cuz I Love You (Nice Life/Atlantic) {40} [A-]
- Tyler the Creator: Igor (Columbia) {38} [**]
- Vampire Weekend: Father of the Bride (Columbia) {38} [**]
- Sharon Van Etten: Remind Me Tomorrow (Jagjaguwar) {38} [*]
- Solange: When I Get Home (Saint/Columbia) {37} [*]
- Ariana Grande: Thank U Next (Republic) {33} [**]
- Big Thief: UFOF (4AD) {32} [A-]
- Little Simz: Grey Area (Age 101) {32} [A-]
- James Blake: Assume Form (Polydor) {25} [B-]
- Carly Rae Jepsen: Dedicated (604/School Boy/Interscope) {25} [***]
- Jenny Lewis: On the Line (Warner Bros) {24} [*]
- Charly Bliss: Young Enough (Barsuk) {23} [A-]
- Jamila Woods: Legacy! Legacy! (Jagjaguwar) {23} [A-]
- Stella Donnelly: Beware of the Dogs (Secretly Canadian) {22} [***]
- Slowthai: Nothing Great About Britain (Method) {22} [***]
- Weyes Blood: Titanic Rising (Sub Pop) {22} [B-]
- Dave: Psychodrama (Neighbourhood) {20} [A-]
- Flying Lotus: Flamagra (Warp) {20} [**]
- Fontaines DC: Dogrel (Partisan) {19} [***]
- Megan Thee Stallion: Fever (300 Entertainment) {19} [***]
- Anderson .Paak: Ventura (Aftermath/12 Tone Music) {19} [***]
- Better Oblivion Community Center (Dead Oceans) {18} [*]
- Denzel Curry: Zuu (Loma Vista) {18} [**]
- The National: I Am Easy to Find (4AD) {18} [**]
- Maggie Rogers: Heard It in a Past Life (Capitol) {17} [**]
- Billy Woods & Kenny Segal: Hiding Places (Blackwoodz Studioz) {17} [***]
- Nilufer Yanya: Miss Universe (ATO) {17} [A-]
- Rico Nasty/Kenny Beats: Anger Management (Sugar Trap) {16} [**]
- Kevin Abstract: Arizona Baby (Question Everything/RCA) {14} [**]
- Julia Jacklin: Crushing (Polyvinyl) {14} [B]
Cutoff just above {13}: PUP, Quelle Chris, Toro Y Moi; {12}: Malibu
Ken, Khalid, Bassekou Kouyate; {11}: 2 Chainz, Chemical Brothers, The
Comet Is Coming, Aldous Harding, Priests, Todd Snider. Highest ranked
records I haven't heard: {10}: Holly Herndon: Proto, Jessica Pratt:
Quiet Signs; {8}: Deerhunter: Why Hasn't Everything Already
Disappeared?; {6}: Baroness, Gary Clark Jr., Flume, Foals, Cate Le
Bon, Mark Ronson, Yola. I didn't bother with metal lists, so only noted
35 records as such, 0 heard by me. The overall list collected 745 titles
(only 64 jazz, 50 heard by me).
I can't draw many conclusions from this data. The point scheme tends
to keep any record from breaking out, with the top nine records (down
to Little Simz but not James Blake) on most of the same lists. My guess
is that if I had consistent ranking information Tyler, Vampire Weekend,
and/or Solange would advanced a bit (also Weyes Blood, which topped two
lists). Indeed, without the RC/TH grade points, Tyler would have come in
first, with 36 points, vs. Eilish (34), Vampire Weekend/Van Etten (33),
Lizzo (32), Grande (28), Blake (25), Big Thief/Little Simz (24).
I will probably add a few more lists as I find them. For instance, I
have two specialized lists at Noisey open in tabs now
(33
Essential Albums You Probably Missed So Far in 2009 and
The 37 Best Ambient Albums of 2019 So Far) but held them back in case
I found a more general list there. I may also, as noted, come up with a
way to factor some grading data into the list.
Most of the non-jazz albums I've listened to in the last two weeks were
suggested by these lists. They haven't been especially reliable, but have
generated a couple surprise finds (e.g., Christina Barbieri and Queen Key
last week). But two of this week's top records came on CDs from a
friendly publicist. I dragged my feet on the Bill Evans and Wes Montgomery
label best-ofs, thinking I'd prefer to hear the original albums they were
selected from. Finally broke down and graded them last week, then found
some of the missing records (badly misfiled by Napster). We're still
missing the latest releases -- Evans in England and Montgomery's
Back on Indiana Avenue: The Carroll DeCamp Recordings. Turns out
that the compilations do a good job of picking hilights from the series,
and help round out a view of the artists beyond their masterworks (still
Sunday at the Village Vanguard and Incredible Jazz Guitar).
I wanted to write a few words about DownBeat's Critics Poll
results, but don't have the time (or possibly the stomach) for that
right now. I missed the official deadline to vote, but was able to
submit
a ballot, which evidently
was counted (my name is in the voter list, and they sent me a T-shirt).
On the other hand, the disconnect between my votes and the charts is
almost complete. Their HOF picks were especially paltry: I can sort
of understand Nina Simone, who could be a great singer on occasion,
but released a lot of bad-to-worse albums; but the Veterans Committee
picks of Scott LaFaro and Joe Williams are hard to imagine. I might
be OK with Williams if Jimmy Rushing was in, but even then he wouldn't
be an obvious pick. LaFaro died at 25, having played with Bill Evans
for two years, and with Ornette Coleman for considerably less. I've
been touched by some of his work, but I have no idea how to compare
his tiny discography against that of many other bassists not in the
DBHOF. (On the other hand, the similarly short-lived Jimmy Blanton
is in, as are such obvious contemporaries as Oscar Pettiford, Paul
Chambers, Milt Hinton, Ray Brown, Ron Carter, and his predecessor
with Coleman, Charlie Haden.)
Forthcoming week relatively open. Hope to get some work done on
the Christgau website.
New records reviewed this week:
James Blake: Assume Form (2019, Polydor): British
singer-songwriter, started in electronica but never offered much in
the way of beats -- at any rate I've never understood his appeal.
Comes and goes here.
B-
Whit Dickey Tao Quartets: Peace Planet/Box of Light
(2018 [2019], AUM Fidelity, 2CD): Drummer, has a long association with
Matthew Shipp, including a stint in David S. Ware's famous Quartet.
Two quartets, one disc each: the first with Rob Brown (alto sax), Shipp
(piano), and William Parker (bass); the other with Brown, Steve Swell
(trombone), and Michael Bisio (bass). Noticed last year that multi-disc
releases fare well in EOY polls, which may explain why they seem to be
becoming the rule, leaving me with the problem of deciding whether to
grade the stronger or weaker disc. Swell is impressive enough here, but
Brown doesn't do much working around him. On the other hand, Brown is
terrific on the first, probably because Shipp sets him up so well.
B+(***)
Julia Jacklin: Crushing (2019, Polyvinyl): Australian
singer-songwriter, second album.
B
Judy and the Jerks: Music for Donuts EP (2019, Thrilling
Living, EP): "Over the past half-decade Hattiesburg, MS has become a
perhaps unlikely center of the international punk scene." Inspired by
the Circle Jerks ("kin in not just name alone"). This group has even
less song sense, trying 6 times, giving up after 7:54.
C+ [bc]
Aubrey Logan: Your Mom's Favorite Songs (2019, Resonance,
EP): Carole King, Aretha Franklin, lesser knowns, sung with more panache
than the cover/title implies. Just barely old enough to have spared us
Your Granny's Favorite Songs. Six tracks, 23:15.
B+(*)
Charlie Marie: Charlie Marie (2019, self-released,
EP): Nashville singer-songwriter, originally from Rhode Island, second
five-cut eponymous EP separated by a live LP from a B&B in
Charleston, SC. Full band, impressive sound and voice.
B+(**) [bc]
The Mauskovic Dance Band: The Mauskovic Dance Band
(2019, Soundway): Dutch group, principally Nic Mauskovic, first album
after several EPs, a mix of "no-wave dance punk, Afro-Caribbean rhythms
and space disco."
B+(**)
MC Frontalot: Net Split, or the Fathomless Heartbreak of Online
Itself: Damian Hess, day job web designer, started rapping about the
Internet in 1999, leading to his 2005 debug album, Nerdcore Rising.
Seventh album. Haven't followed his arc, but his love affair with tech
isn't turning out the way he expected.
B+(**)
Nots: 3 (2019, Goner): Memphis punk trio -- Natalie
Hoffmann (vocals/guitar), Charlotte Watson (drums), Meredith Jones
(bass) -- minus the keyboards from their debut. Third album, strong
and catchy riffs, tone seems a bit off.
B+(**)
Nubiyan Twist: Jungle Run (2019, Strut): British
group, 12 pieces, groove pieces, hit and (mostly) miss.
B-
Karen O & Danger Mouse: Lux Prima (2019, BMG):
Orzolek, born in Korea, father Polish, grew up in New Jersey, singer
for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, second solo album. Producer pulls consistently
interesting music together.
B+(**)
Old Man Saxon: Goldman Sax (2019, Saxon Kincy, EP):
Rapper, know very little about him, based in Los Angeles (or Denver,
according to Bandcamp page). Third EP (7 tracks, 21:02).
B+(**)
William Parker/In Order to Survive: Live/Shapeshifter
(2017 [2019], AUM Fidelity, 2CD): Quartet, named for the bassist's 1995
album with Rob Brown (alto sax) and Cooper-Moore (piano), recorded
several albums in late 1990s with Susie Ibarra on drums. Parker went
with Hamid Drake on drums for his post-2000 pianoless quartets (with
Lewis Barnes on trumpet and Brown on alto sax). He kept Drake when he
reconvened IOTS in 2012, and in 2016 recorded a 2-CD album to showcase
the two quartets (Meditation/Resurrection). The star has always
been Cooper-Moore, who remains as distinctive as ever.
A-
Joel Ross: KingMaker (2019, Blue Note): Vibraphone
player, first album, major label but no one I've heard of in the band
(Immanuel Wilkins on alto sax, plus piano-bass-drums), aside from
guest vocalist Gretchen Parlato (one track, just enough for radio).
Strikes me as rather conventional (more Milt Jackson or Joe Locke
than Stefon Harris).
B+(*)
Mavis Staples: Live in London (2018 [2019], Anti-):
Selected from two nights, including a birthday wish, reprises songs
from her neighborhood even if I don't particularly recognize them
as hers (Curtis Mayfield, Little Milton).
B+(**)
Wreckless Eric: Transience (2019, Southern Domestic):
Eric Goulden, British, part of the Stiff Records stable as pub rock
gave way to punk and new wave, probably the main reason I habitually
misspelled "reckless" for decades, tried various other aliases until
he found himself in Nashville and married Amy Rigby. Not nearly her
equal, but plods along agreeably on his own.
B+(*)
Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:
Bill Evans: Smile With Your Heart: The Best of Bill Evans on
Resonance (1968-69 [2019], Resonance): Selected from four recent
(since 2012) caches of previously unreleleased trio tapes, with Eddie
Gomez on bass and either Marty Morell or Jack DeJohnette on drums.
Consistently fine work, well selected (as far as I can tell).
A- [cd]
Jazz Piano Panorama: The Best of Piano Jazz on Resonance
(1968-2011 [2019], Resonance): Label sampler, a mix of new mainstream
releases and older archival material (Jaki Byard, Bill Evans, Tommy
Flanagan, Gene Harris), closing with Marian Petrescu doing about as
note-perfect an Oscar Peterson as you could ever hope for.
B+(*) [cd]
Wes Montgomery: Wes's Best: The Best of Wes Montgomery on
Resonance (1956-66 [2019], Resonance): Nice selection from
five previous sets of archival material. Guessing at dates, since
In the Beginning starts in 1949, but the guitarist's career
doesn't really pick up steam until 1956-58 -- his breakthrough was
1960's Incredible Jazz Guitar, and through Smokin' at the
Half Note in 1965 he redefined jazz guitar so successfully that
even today most American jazz guitarists seem to be in his thrall.
As with Charlie Parker, I've long been a skeptic, but those bookends
are too brilliant to be denied, and this more scattered selection
comes close enough.
A- [cd]
Sing a Song of Jazz: The Best of Vocal Jazz on Resonance
(1956-2018 [2019], Resonance): Sampler, label best known for archival
tapes although they've released a few new artists, especially standards
singers. The latter are in the majority here, the most impressive Aubrey
Logan's new take on "A Natural Woman," mixed in with older fare from
Sarah Vaughan, Shirley Horn, and Debbie Andrews (credited, justly so,
to Wes Montgomery).
B [cd]
Neil Young + Stray Gators: Tuscaloosa (1973 [2019],
Reprise): Another archival tape in what promises to be an endless
series, recorded early on the tour that produced the live album
Time Fades Away, this is the first one I've heard that feels
totally superfluous. The great songs are greater elsewhere, and
the rest, well, who cares?
B-
Old music:
The Legendary Bill Evans Trio: The 1960 Birdland Sessions
(1960 [2005], Fresh Sound): Radio shots, from four dates, sound leaving
something to be desired, narration excessive. The piano trio, with Scott
LaFaro on bass and Paul Motian on drums, would peak a year later with
Waltz for Debby and Sunday at the Village Vanguard, and
end with LaFaro's tragic death a few weeks later. Not the pianist's best
work, but worth focusing on LaFaro.
B+(***)
Bill Evans: Some Other Time: The Lost Session From the Black
Forests (1968 [2016], Resonance, 2CD): Trio with Eddie Gomez
(bass) and Jack DeJohnette (drums), recorded at MPS in Villingen,
Germany, previously unreleased.
B+(***)
Bill Evans: Another Time: The Hilversum Concert (1968
[2017], Resonance): Piano trio, with Eddie Gomez (bass) and Jack DeJohnette
(drums), recorded at Netherlands Radio Union in Hilversum, Netherlands.
B+(***)
Franco, Josky, Matalanza Du T.P. OK Jazz: A Paris 1983 Missile
(1983 [1996], Sonodisc): One of Joe Yanosik's favorites from his deep
dive into Le Grand Maitre's oeuvre. Pure guitar paradise.
A [dl]
Wynton Kelly Trio/Wes Montgomery: Smokin' in Seattle: Live at
the Penthouse (1966 [2017], Resonance): With Ron McClure on bass
and Jimmy Cobb on drums, only the bassist changed from the group that
recorded the famous Smokin' at the Half Note (which Pat Metheny
credits as the greatest guitar album ever) less than a year prior. This
only hits that level in the last three cuts, leaving me a bit unsure of
the first two-thirds.
B+(***)
Wes Montgomery: In the Beginning (1949-58 [2016],
Resonance, 2CD): The label picked up a trove of unreleased Montgomery
recordings in 2012, and have gradually been making them available.
Two chunks here originally appeared in 2014 on vinyl, attributed to
Wes Montgomery & the Montgomery-Johnson Quintet, with brothers
Buddy (piano) and Monk (bass) plus two Johnsons: Alonzo "Pookie"
(tenor sax) and Robert "Sonny" (drums). Aside from a 1955 set, not
clear when most of the tracks were recorded, but they cover years
when the guitarist was 24-33, before his first (1958) album. Mixed
bag, including a couple of vocals.
B+(**)
Wes Montgomery: Fingerpickin' (1957-58 [1996], Pacific
Jazz): Reissues the album The Montgomery Brothers and 5 Others
along with the title track and three more from a later date in Los Angeles.
Four cuts add Pookie Johnson on tenor sax and a 19-year-old trumpeter
named Freddie Hubbard. Wes is developing his style, but the focus seems
to be on Buddy Montgomery's vibes.
B+(**)
Wes Montgomery: Far Wes (1958-59 [1996], Pacific
Jazz): Compiles two more Montgomery Brothers albums, most with Harold
Land (tenor sax) and Tony Bazley (drums): Montgomeryland, and
Wes, Buddy and Monk Montgomery.
B+(*)
Wes Montgomery: One Night in Indy (1959 [2016],
Resonance): The guitarist on the verge of fame, playing for the home
town folks, backed by pianist Eddie Higgins' trio (Walter Perkins on
drums, "bassist unknown"). Starts with a 9:14 "Give Me the Simple
Life" -- my favorite piece from the new best-of, and moves on through
"Prelude to a Kiss" and four shorter pieces. Higgins impressed me as
much as the guitarist.
A-
Kristi Stassinopoulou/Stathis Kalyviotis: NYN (2016,
Riverboat): Greek duo, have worked together since 1989, mostly on local
labels (aside from a previous Riverboat album in 2012), seemingly
rooted in folk but sped up and filled out.
B+(**)
Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:
- Moy Eng/Wayne Wallace: The Blue Hour (Patois)
- Pearring Sound: Nothing but Time (self-released): October 4
- Fabrizio Sciacca Quartet: Gettin' It There (self-released): September 1
Ask a question, or send a comment.
Sunday, July 28, 2019
Weekend Roundup
Lots of links below -- probably more than usual, although as always
I feel like I'm leaving a lot of stuff untouched. Some topics I only
decided late in the game to break out (Boris Johnson under Mackey,
impeachment under Reich, Iran under Simon/Stevenson) could have picked
up more links had I acted earlier and more consciously. I meant to write
more on Mueller under Alksne when I first found the piece, but by the
time I got to it I had scattered Mueller links all over the page.
Some scattered links this week:
Cynthia Alksne:
No knight on a white horse: "House Democrats have spent the last two
years waiting for someone else to solve the Trump conundrum." Josh Barro:
The T-Mobile/Sprint merger remedy makes no sense. David Barsamian:
Noam Chomsky: Life expectancy in the US is declining for a reason. Zack Beauchamp:
Russell Berman:
Robert Mueller kept his promise:
Democrats can't say Robert Mueller didn't warn them.
For months, the former special counsel told them in every way he could --
in private negotiations, in his sole public statement on his investigation,
through letters from the Justice Department -- that he did not want to
testify before Congress, and that if he did, his appearance would be a
dud.
Today, Mueller fully delivered on that promise.
Alexia Fernández Campbell:
Puerto Ricans pushed out a sitting governor for the first time in history:
"The massive protests worked." Related: Zeeshan Aleem:
Puerto Rico's week of massive protests, explained. Leticia Casado/Ernesto Londono:
Under Brazil's far right leader, Amazon protections slashed and forests
fall. Also: Alexander Zaitchik:
Rainforest on fire: "On the front lines of Bolsonaro's war on the
Amazon, Brazil's forest communities fight against climate catastrophe."
For a comment, see David Wallace-Wells:
Could one man single-handedly ruin the planet? John Cassidy:
Jonathan Chait:
Zak Cheney-Rice:
Gareth Cook:
The economist who would fix the American dream: "No one has done
more to dispel the myth of social mobility than Raj Chetty. But he has
a plan to make equality of opportunity a reality." Adam Federman:
How science got trampled in the rush to drill in the Arctic. Related:
William deBuys:
The 'drill, baby, drill' crowd wants access to this arctic reserve. Crystal Marie Fleming:
The composure and civility of "the Squad" against Trump's attacks. Kathy Gilsinan:
Dan Coats spoke truth to Trump. Now he's out. Oh? Now? Gilsinan
also wrote
Don't expect Mark Esper to contain Trump (you know, the new Secretary
of Defense), and
The impossible job of speaking truth to Trump. Coats' replacement is
John Ratcliffe, a Texas Congressman in the press last week for
his attacks on Robert Mueller. James Gleick:
Moon fever: On the Apollo 11 moon landing, 50 years ago. Danny Goldberg:
Goodbye to free-thought icon and merry prankster Paul Krassner. Tara Golshan:
David A Graham:
Ali Harb:
How Iranian MEK went from US terror list to halls of Congress. William D Hartung:
Trump's Saudi arms vetoes, deconstructed. Nathan Heller:
Was the automotive era a terrible mistake? Edward Hellmore:
'Unprecedented': more than 100 Arctic wildfires burn in worst ever season:
"Huge blazes in Greenland, Siberia and Alaska are producing plumes of smoke
that can be seen from space." Umair Irfan:
108 degrees in Paris: Europe is shattering heat records this week.
Sarah Jones:
An other person has died after rationing insulin. Jones had previously
warned (Jan. 31, 2019):
Rising insulin costs are a life-or-death political crisis.
I've been rather
taken aback by these stories. My first wife had diabetes. I never
remembered any particular problem with insulin expense, but she died
over 30 years ago, so I've been out of touch. Best explanation I've
found for recent insulin pricing is here:
8 reasons why insulin is so outrageously expensive. The big one
here is patents, which is the public's way of saying: rape me, pillage,
take it all. There's no good reason why governments should create or
even allow patents. Take them away, and the problems with biologics
and biosimilars will become purely technical -- real, but much more
manageable. And if private industry cannot find the motivation to
bring the price of insulin back to a reasonable level, governments
could finance non-profit manufacturers aiming at the lowest possible
cost. Moreover, the cost savings go way beyond direct costs. Failure
to properly regulate blood sugar levels leads to all kinds of further
expense -- my wife being an especially dramatic example of what all
can go horribly wrong. Ben Judah:
The millennial left is tired of waiting: "Saikat Chakrabarti,
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's chief of staff, is working to build a
generational movement." Peter Kafka:
Facebook will pay the US government a $5 billion fine for privacy failures --
but it won't have to change the way it does business. Ed Kilgore:
Catherine Kim:
The Trump administration is bringing back federal executions. Natalie Kitroeff/David Gelles/Jack Nicas:
The root of Boeing's 737 Max crisis: A regulator relaxes its oversight.
Ezra Klein:
The case for a universal basic income, open borders, and a 15-hour
workweek: Interview with Rutger Bregman, author of Utopia for
Realists.
How "Medicare Extra" gets to universal coverage without single-payer:
Didn't make much sense of this in a quick read. I'm skeptical that you
can actually achieve universal coverage while requiring so much paperwork,
and using a means-tested sliding scale that guarantees pinch points. Or
I suppose you could pitch this as system that defaults to single-payer
but allows people to opt out to select inferior private insurance -- with
the added costs of public subsidies to the private insurance companies
(if not direct, then at least by allowing them to piggyback on universal
negotiated pricing). But then you have to ask yourself: why go through
this charade of pretending that private for-profit insurance companies
can compete meaningfully against a non-profit single-payer service. Lucas Koerner/Ricardo Vaz:
Western media losing enthusiasm for failing coup in Venezuela. Paul Krugman:
Trump's secret foreign aid program: "He's giving away billions to
overseas investors." Amanda Cohen Leiter:
Justice John Paul Stevens and the slow evolution of the law. Christopher Leonard:
How an oil theft investigation laid the groundwork for the Koch playbook:
"In the late 1980s, Charles Koch faced a federa probe, rallied all of his
resources to fight it off and came away with lessons that would guide the
Kochs for decades." Leonard has a book coming out Aug. 13: Kochland:
The Secret History of Koch Industries and Corporate Power in America.
Daniel Lippman:
'It's a disaster over there': Commerce reaches new heights of dysfunction:
"Under Secretary Wilbur Ross, the department is chaotic and adrift."
Related: Matt Stieb:
Wilbur Ross is falling asleep in Commerce Department meetings. Martin Longman:
Robert Mackey:
Donald Trump praises Boris Johnson, who once called him "unfit to hold the
office of President of the United States". Also on Johnson:
Chase Madar:
Ilhan Omar's anti-semitism is becoming a load-bearing myth for American
politics. Madeline Marshall:
How Trump took over America's courts. Jonathan Martin/Maggie Haberman:
Trump relies on populist language, but he mostly sides with corporate
interests: Trenchant reporting from the New York Times. Jane Mayer:
The case of Al Franken. - Middle East Eye:
Israel destroys Palestinian homes in biggest demolition push since
1967. Also: Michelle Nichols:
US blocks UN rebuke of Israeli demolition of Palestinian homes.
Alec MacGillis:
Jared Kushner's other real estate empire in Baltimore. Related:
Beatrice Dupuy:
Jared Kushner's family company faces more than 170 Baltimore violations.
George Monbiot:
From Trump to Johnson, nationalists are on the rise -- backed by billionaire
oligarchs. Anna North:
Al Franken needs to stop comparing his resignation to death. Ilhan Omar:
It is not enough to condemn Trump's racism. Andrew Prokop:
Robert Reich:
The real reason we need to impeach Trump immediately: Actually, he
offers close to a dozen, but they're just examples of a more fundamental
contempt Trump holds for law and order:
Every child in America is supposed to learn about the Constitution's
basic principles of separation of powers, and checks and balances.
But these days, every child and every adult in America is learning
from Donald Trump that these principles are bunk.
More impeachment talk:
David Roberts:
Ohio just passed the worst energy bill of the 21st century: "A corrupt
bailout for dinosaur power plants that screws renewable energy in the
process." Also: Ryan Grim/Akela Lacy:
Ohio Republicans balked at a nuclear bailout, so the industry elected new
Republicans -- and walked away with $1.1 billion. Jacob Rosenberg:
"Love it or leave it" has a racist history. A lot of America's language
does. I've always heard "love it or leave it" as "be complacent, or
get banished," because you're not entitled to your own opinions, or in
any way to criticize your government, and if you dissent, you're not
entitled to keep living your life where you grew up. Racism is one of
many things that we weren't allowed to question (and the "back to Africa"
movement was largely a concession to this dictate), but there are a great
many more things that triggered this demand -- in my time, most memorably,
America's imperialist war against Vietnam. Aaron Rupar:
David E Sanger/Catie Edmondson:
Russia targeted election systems in all 50 states, report finds:
I don't doubt Russian machinations, nor excuse them with the fact that
the US routinely and methodically attempts to interfere and influence
elections in Russia and damn near everywhere else. But one should bear
in mind that Republicans are much more active underminers of democracy.
And that the common interest that Russia and Republicans share is their
dedication to oligarchy. Kori Schake:
The bill for America First is coming due: "Two of America's closest
treaty allies have announced military efforts explicitly designed to
exclude the US." As Trump's foreign policy becomes more arbitrary and
erratic, it's inevitable that other countries will go their own way --
in this case, UK and Australia, reverting to their basest imperialist
roots. Not a good sign, although anything that reduces the American
bootprint on the world's neck can't be all bad. Schake directs a UK
security think tank, IISS, and her recent pieces offer various hints
at how Trump's vacuous foreign policy is perturbing America's former
clients. For example, see:
A Middle East peace plan built in un-American principles, and
Worse than Obama's red-line moment: taunting Trump for not bombing
Iran ("Trump has now shown himself just as willing as President Obama
to make empty threats that damage American credibility").
Eric B Schnurer:
Facebook doesn't just need to be broken up. It needs to be broken into.
"To create real competition, let other social networks operate on the
architecture Mark Zuckerberg built." I haven't digested this yet, but
my general response to proposals to attack web service monopolies is to
provide public funding to stand up open source alternatives. This subject
is worth a much deeper discussion. Adam Serwer:
Steven Simon/Jonathan Stevenson:
Iran: The case against war. More recent pieces on Iran:
Danny Sjursen:
Could Donald Trump end the Afghan War? Maggie Stevens/Derek Willis:
How conservative operatives steered millions in PAC donations to
themselves. Emily Stewart:
Elizabeth Warren sees "serious warning signs" of an economic crash.
Warren's piece:
The coming economic crash and how to stop it. Another important
Warren piece:
End Wall Street's stranglehold on our economy. Yves Smith
writes about this latter piece:
Elizabeth Warren seeks to cut private equity down to size. Matt Taibbi:
The Iowa circus: "Clown Car II: The Democrats. God help us." He wrote
a great campaign book once, but it wasn't his 2016 effort (Insane Clown
President: Dispatches From the 2016 Circus -- it was his 2004-based
Spanking the Donkey: Dispatches From the Dumb Season). But clearly
he's just running on auto-pilot now, not even considering whether to
revamp his circus metaphors -- it's like he's forgotten that there's a
distinction between a sequel and a parody.
Banks sued for LIBOR collusion -- again!.
The myth of Robert Mueller, exploded. Siva Vaidhyanathan:
Anya van Wagtendonk:
Katrina vanden Heuvel:
The transpartisan revolt against America's endless wars. Alex Ward:
Peter Wehner:
George Will changes his mind -- but stays true to his convictions:
Proving his convictions were always the problem with him. While it's
tempting to admire people who are so consistently dedicated to wrong
principles that they occasionally stand up against more opportunistic
evils, they're ultimately not that useful, and never reliable. This
turns into a puff-piece interview, not unlike Wehner's previous
David Brooks's journey toward faith. Wehner's own mission is to
rescue evangelical Christianity ffrom the shame of association with
Donald Trump. That's a decent and noble endeavor, but misses the
problem in favor of a bogus solution. Kelly Weill:
MAGA bomber's lawyers blame Trump, Sean Hannity for his radicalization.
Related, from Oct. 27, 2018: Rick Wilson:
Of course Donald Trump inspired Cesar Sayoc's alleged terrorism. Philip Weiss:
Ilhan Omar's case for foreign influence is more convincing than
Mueller's. Matthew Yglesias:
New GDP data confirms Trump's tax cuts aren't working. Seems to me
they're doing exactly what they were intended to: help the rich get even
richer, and weaken the government by piling up debt, which they can later
use as a cudgel against spending by a future Democratic government. Sure,
tax cut propagandists trotted out a few macroeconomic rationalizations,
but they were such obvious horseshit at the time that their thorough
debunking here offers no surprise and scant comfort. Or, as
Eric Levitz reviews the same issue:
The Trump tax cuts worked (as a scam):
In the Trump era, Republicans have become masters of rationalizing the
indefensible. But even they couldn't defend running up the deficit (and
clamping down social spending) to boost corporate profits at a time when
such profits were already high. Thus, they insisted that the president's
tax cuts would neither increase the deficit nor benefit the wealthy much
at all. . . .
There was little empirical evidence to support this argument when
Republicans were making it two years ago. There is even less today. In
May, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) found no sign that the
Trump tax cuts made any discernible contribution to growth, wages, or
business investment. Corporations did not plow their windfalls into
exceptionally productive and innovative ventures. Instead, they mostly
threw their handouts onto the giant pile of cash they were already
sitting on, and/or returned it to their (predominantly rich)
shareholders. . . .
If you take Republicans at their word -- and assume that they earnestly
believed they could massively increase business investment by slashing
corporate rates -- then the Trump tax cuts have been a miserable failure.
If, however, you assume that the party's goal was always to prioritize
the bottomless avarice of its megadonors over the pressing needs of the
American people -- without paying a huge political price -- then the
president's signature legislation has worked like a charm.
Democrats should run on the popular progressive ideas, not the unpopular
ones.
Mueller's testimony matters even if he doesn't say anything new.
Al Franken did the right thing by resigning.
Ask a question, or send a comment.
Tuesday, July 23, 2019
Music Week
Music: current count 31798 [31749] rated (+49), 259 [262] unrated (-3).
I had a lot of stuff I wanted to write about this week, but never
found the time, and it doesn't look like that'll change over the next
several days. Therefore, let's just dump this out, and try again next
week.
New records reviewed this week:
100 Gecs: 1000 Gecs (2019, Dog Show): Dylan Brady
and Laura Les (aka osno1), electropop so cartoonish I've seen it
classified as bubblegum bass. Annoying to start, eventually found
some kind of groove.
B
Jay Anderson: Deepscape (2018 [2019], SteepleChase):
Bassist, has appeared on close to 250 albums since breaking in with
Woody Herman in 1978, and has led a few. Opens and closes solo, the
tracks in beween with Billy Drewes (bass clarinet/alto/soprano sax),
Kirk Knuffke (cornet), and Matt Wilson (drums), sometimes adding
harmonium (Frank Kimbrough) and/or percussion (Rogerio Boccato).
B+(**)
Caterina Barbieri: Ecstatic Computation (2019, Editions
Mego): Italian composer, based in Berlin, "working in the fields of
analog and digital synthesis and minimalism." Fourth album. All synth,
rooted in minimalism but building something more out of such basics.
A-
Michael Bisio/Kirk Knuffke/Fred Lonberg-Holm: Requiem for a New
York Slice (2018 [2019], Iluso): Bass/cornet/cello, the strings
on the scratchy side. Dedicated to the late Mike Panico (1965-2018), a
founder of Relative Pitch Records.
B+(*) [bc]
Black Midi: Schlagenheim (2019, Rough Trade): British
experimental rock band; two guitars, bass and drums; three credited
vocalists, but the main guy is pretty distinctive; first album after
some singles. Most similar band I recognize is Pere Ubu, but I don't
instantly love them. Still, not a comparison I make lightly.
B+(**)
Blood Orange: Angel's Pulse (2019, Domino): British
r&b singer Dev Hynes, started as Lightspeed Champion, fourth album
under this moniker. Mix of soft soul with edgier moments.
B+(**)
Daniel Carter/Tobias Wilner/Djibril Toure/Federico Ughi: New
York United (2016 [2019], 577): Best known for his work with
William Parker, Carter plays a range of horns -- alto sax, tenor sax,
flute, and trumpet -- against Wilner's jazztronica (electronics, synths,
beats), backed with bass and drums.
B+(***)
Cheekface: Therapy Island (2019, New Professor Music):
Los Angeles band, Greg Katz the singer-guitarist, backed by bass and
drums. Reminds me somewhat of the Dead Milkmen. Not as funny, but not
for lack of trying.
B+(**)
Stef Chura: Midnight (2019, Saddle Creek): Singer-songwriter
from Michigan, second album, doesn't neglect the guitar.
B+(*)
Flying Lotus: Flamagra (2019, Warp): LA producer,
filmmaker, more of the latter but better known for his records and
his work with other artists (e.g., Thundercat, Kamasi Washington).
I've usually found his records too scattered, and this 26-cut,
66:57 mess certainly is. Still, lots of good bits in the mix.
B+(**)
Future: Future Hndrxx: The Wizrd (2019, Epic/Freebandz):
Rapper Nayvadius Wilburn, from Atlanta, did an album Hndrxx in
2017 and refers back here. Not as clear as I'd like, but runs long and
steady.
B+(**)
Hilliard Greene: Spirituals (2019, Unseen Rain):
Bassist, long stretch as Jimmy Scott's music director, member of
the group the Jazz Expressions, has recorded on several notable
free jazz records (like Billy Bang's Da Bang). Had a solo
album in 2003, again here, a deep roots exploration. Some voice,
just enough to identify "Couldn't Hear Nobody Pray."
B+(*)
Augie Haas: Dream a Little Dream (2019, Playtime Music):
Trumpet player, from Wisconsin, based in New York, has a couple previous
records, plays and sings standards here, the songbook expanded to inlude
doo-wop ("Earth Angel," "Stay") and soft rock ("Love Me Tender," "Stand
by Me," "Blackbird"). Backed by Carmen Staaf (piano/organ), bass, drums,
and a lot of strings. Not a great singer, but you'll probably find
yourself blotting him out by singing along.
B+(**) [cd]
Rich Halley: Terra Incognita (2018 [2019], Pine Eagle):
Tenor saxophonist, from Oregon, cover pictures are all rugged high desert,
but he trekked to Brooklyn to record this, with Matthew Shipp's regular
piano trio (Michael Bisio and Newman Taylor Baker). Shipp has played with
a lot of avant saxophonists. He seems more content than usual to lay back
and fill in. Halley opens fierce, the group chemistry only really
developing with the long off-speed closer, appropriately titled "The
Journey."
A- [cd]
Aldous Harding: Designer (2019, 4AD): Singer-songwriter
from New Zealand, third album. Easy listening, but not without its
beguiling passages.
B
Randy Houser: Magnolia (2019, Stoney Creek): Country
singer-songwriter from Mississippi, fifth album. Big gestures, deep
emotions, strong voice.
B+(**)
Jelena Jovovic: Heartbeat (2018 [2019], self-released):
Jazz singer-songwriter from Serbia, moved to South Africa, later Austria.
First album, wrote lyrics to several jazz melodies, music and lyrics to
the rest. Only picks up a bit toward the end.
B- [cd]
Juice Wrld: Death Race for Love (2019, Interscope):
Los Angeles rapper Jarad Higgins, second album. Key lyric: "I don't
want anyone to think I'm an asshole." Still, the whine wore me out.
B-
Steve Lacy: Apollo XXI (2019, 3Qtr): No relation to
the late saxophonist. This one (Steve Thomas Lacy-Moya) hails from
Compton, sings alt-r&b, plays guitar and bass. Best known from
the Internet, but released an EP (Steve Lacy's Demo) in 2017,
now this debut album. Some funk, some glitz, nice beats.
B+(*)
Lady Lykez: Muhammad Ali EP (2019, Hyperdub, EP):
MC from North London, title track a remix with Lioness rapping and
Scratchclart producing, who returns for two more rapid-fire bits.
D'Lux produced the change of pace. Four cuts, 13:43.
B+(*) [bc]
Alex Lahey: The Best of Luck Club (2019, Dead Oceans):
Budding power pop star, from Australia, likes her guitar riffs but drops
back to keyboards for the slower ones. Second album. Good advice:
"Don't Be So Hard on Yourself."
B+(**)
Lil Nas X: 7 (2019, Columbia, EP): Atlanta rapper
Montero Lamar Hill, leads off with a remix of his breakout single,
"Old Town Road," with Billy Ray Cyrus adding to the country twang.
Six more songs plus the original single, total 18:44.
B+(*)
Maluma: 11:11 (2019, Sony Music Latin): Colombian
pop star, fourth album, noticed him on Madonna's latest, and she
returns the favor here ("Soltera"). That's the only song I can
follow, so I'm mostly going by sound: beats good, strings less.
B+(**)
Mannequin Pussy: Patience (2019, Epitaph): Punk group
from Philadelphia, principally singer-guitarist Marisa Dabice. Third
album, assuming you count short ones (this one packs 10 cuts into 25:37).
B+(**)
Rico Nasty/Kenny Beats: Anger Management (2019, Sugar
Trap, EP): Rapper Maria-Cecilia Simone Kelly and producer Kenneth
Blume, nine hard and fast tracks, 18:40. Much anger, barely managed.
B+(**)
Jai Paul: Leak 04-13 (Bait Ones) (2013 [2019], XL):
British songwriter/producer, of Indian descent, had a couple singles
and was working on an eponymous album when a set of his demos were
leaked, to some acclaim and the artist's horror. He litigated to get
the leaks suppressed, shelved the project, and has scarcely been
heard from since. This is the first official release of the leaked
material, with most pieces labelled "(unfinished)." Most definitely,
but flashes here and there do match the fuss.
B+(**)
PUP: Morbid Stuff (Rise): Canadian band, name an
acronym for Pathetic Use of Potential, Stefan Babcock the singer,
backed by guitar-bass-drums. Third album, advertised as punk, but
don't really hear it. Not that they don't rock.
B
Queen Key: Eat My Pussy (Again) (2019, Machine
Entertainment Group): Chicago rapper Ke'Asha McClure, first album
(following last year's Eat My Pussy EP), reminds one of
CupcakKe -- her more "mature" work as opposed to her salacious
debut Cum Cake, but then Key is a year older, and judging
from her forced rhymes and slack beats not as talented. Still, she
remains fearless and defiant in a world where trust is hard to come
by, and takes her pleasure where she can.
A-
Resavoir: Resavoir (2015-19 [2019], International
Anthem): Chicago project, written, arranged, and produced by Will
Miller (trumpet, keyboards, sampler). A vast orchestra, flows nice,
sometimes lovely, spoken word helps, choral voices less.
B [bc]
Maggie Rogers: Heard It in a Past Life (2019, Capitol):
Singer-songwriter, first album, has won some prizes. I could see her
developing into some kind of pop star, but may be too adult too early.
B+(**)
ShitKid: [Detention] (2019, PNKSLM): Swedish punk
auteur Åsa Söderqvist, morphing into a band with the addition of
bassist Lina Ericsson, the fleshed out sound revealing itself as
old-fashioned rock and roll. Short album by most standards (8 cuts,
23:54), but long by theirs.
B+(*)
Skepta: Ignorance Is Bliss (2019, Boy Better Know):
British grime MC, Joseph Adenuga Jr., called his first (2007) album
Greatest Hits without having any. Scored a breakthrough last
time, and is pretty steady here.
B+(**)
Sote: Parallel Persia (2019, Diagonal): Ata Ebtekar,
Iranian, born in Germany, based in California, handful of records,
this a mix of Iranian acoustic instruments (santoor, tar, tombak)
and electronics, fast and frenzied, maybe even cartoonish.
B+(*) [bc]
Emily A. Sprague: Water Memory (2017, self-released):
Electronica composer, from the Catskills but based in Los Angeles.
Ambient, sheets of synthy sound, simple and eloquent.
B+(*)
Emily A. Sprague: Mount Vision (2019, self-released):
Similar, less watery, more engaging.
B+(**)
Supa Bwe: Just Say Thank You (2019, Freddy Got
Magic/Empire, EP): Chicago rapper Frederick Burton, "Bwe" reportedly
pronounced "boy/boo/buoy," second solo project, 7 cuts, 20:06, has
something to say about entropy.
B+(*)
Kate Tempest: The Book of Traps and Lessons (2019,
Republic): British poet, spoken word artist, seems to have lost the
beat from her breakthrough 2014 album (Everybody Down), making
her less of a rapper, more of a preacher (or maybe just a scold).
B+(*)
Yves Theiler Trio: We (2018 [2019], Intakt): Swiss
pianist, second trio album with Luca Sisera (bass) and Lukas Mantel
(drums). All originals, most strong on rhythm.
B+(**)
Turning Jewels Into Water: Map of Absences (2019,
FPE): Percussion duo, a mix of Val Jeanty (from Haiti, aka Val-Inc)
and Ravish Momin (from India, has done some jazz records I admire,
with or without his group Tarana). Scattered voices and electronics
flesh out the intensive beats.
B+(***)
Turning Jewels Into Water: Which Way Is Home? (2018,
FPE, EP): Introduced the duo last year, with five cuts, 21:01. Same
intensity, maybe a bit more abstract.
B+(**) [bc]
Faye Webster: Atlanta Millionaires Club (2019, Secretly
Canadian): Singer-songwriter, based in Atlanta, various sources slot
her in folk or country (note the pedal steel), but her slight voice and
melodies don't fit there, any more than the token rap makes her trap.
B
The Yawpers: Human Question (2019, Bloodshot): Denver
band, Americana as deep as their Whitman-honoring name, can be astute,
can be catchy, can push their luck a bit too hard.
B+(**)
Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:
Johnny Shines: The Blues Came Falling Down: Live 1973
(1973 [2019], Omnivore): Bluesman, originally from Memphis, inspired
by a chance meeting with Robert Johnson, moved to Chicago in 1941, cut
a few records in 1946-52 but didn't really get on track until the late
1960s. Recorded this intimate solo set in St. Louis.
B+(**)
Grade (or other) changes:
Rodrigo Amado/Chris Corsano: No Place to Fall (2014
[2019], Astral Spirits): Tenor sax and drums duo, improv pieces in a
Lisbon studio. The drummer likes to kick up a racket, so this runs
hard and fast. Back in June I tentatively reviewed this based on 2/5
Bandcamp cuts. Later got the CD, which burns bright the entire 48:53.
[Was B+(**)] A- [cd]
Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:
- Ezra Weiss Big Band: We Limit Not the Truth of God (OA2): August 16
- Mark Wingfield & Gary Husband: Tor & Vale (Moonjune)
Ask a question, or send a comment.
Monday, July 22, 2019
Weekend Roundup
We spent much of the past week arguing not about whether Donald Trump
is a racist -- some might prefer not to discuss it, but hardly anyone
doubts or denies such an abundantly settled fact. A week ago we faced
what struck me as an artificially inflated schism between Party leaders
like Nancy Pelosi and the more determined reformers in "the squad," but
that division vanished instantly thanks to their common enemy -- Trump,
for starters, and the racism he and his party so naturally indulge in.
Pelosi may be jealous of the squad's popularity with the Democratic base,
and she may be overly concerned with her reputation as a Washington power
broker. But the fact is that since the 2018 election, the right-wing
media has been most obsessed with raising alarms over the squad. Given
that context, Trump's tweets strike me less as recurring racist bluster
(to which he's certainly prone) than as confirmation that the Republicans'
campaign strategy for 2020 will be to try to turn every local election
into a referendum on Ilhan Omar. Pelosi knows that better than anyone,
because Republicans have tried for years to make her the public face of
Democratic-Socialist-Liberal dread.
Most important piece below is Matthew Yglesias's
Trump's racism is part of his larger con. I didn't quote from it,
but could have quoted the entire piece. Just read it.
Some scattered links this week:
Peter Beinart:
By Republican standards, almost nothing is racist.
Jared Bernstein:
What economists have gotten wrong for decades: "Four economic ideas
disproven by reality." This starts with the so-called "natural rate of
unemployment" ("NAIRU" to its fans):
The natural rate of unemployment that AOC questioned is one such idea
(more on that below). There are three others worth singling out:
- that globalization is a win-win proposition for all, an idea that
has deservedly taken a battering in recent years;
- that federal budget deficits "crowd out" private investments; and
- that the minimum wage will only have negative effects on jobs and
workers.
Economists and policymakers have gotten these ideas wrong for decades,
at great cost to the public. Especially hard hit have been the most
economically vulnerable, and these mistakes can certainly be blamed
for the rise of inequality. It's time we moved on from them.
By the way, not every economist bought into these ideas, even in
their heyday.
George P. Brockway (1915-2001) was especially critical of NAIRU
(see his short collection Economics Can Be Bad for Your Health
as well as his masterpiece, The End of Economic Man). John
Quiggin wrote about much of this in Zombie Economics: How Dead
Ideas Still Walk Among Us (2010). By the way, when Joe Biden
became Vice President, he picked Bernstein as his economic adviser.
I'm not a Biden fan, but that was a smart and gutsy pick at a time
when Obama was hiring economists like Larry Summers. Back in 2008,
before his appointment, Bernstein wrote an insightful book called
Crunch: Why Do I Feel So Squeezed? (And Other Unsolved Economic
Mysteries).
Jamelle Bouie:
The joy of hatred: "Trump and 'his people' reach deep into the
violent history of public spectacle in America."
Aleia Fernández Campbell:
The House just passed a $15 minimum wage. It would be the first increase
in a decade.
John Cassidy:
There is nothing strategic about Trump's racism.
Jonathan Chait:
Welcome to the post-post-corruption era of the Republican Party.
Takes a detour from its original subject -- Labor Secretary Alexander
Acosta's temporary and more permanent replacements (the former a Jack
Abramoff associate, the latter Antonin Scalia's son, Eugene) -- to
review the Party's checkered history both for and against corruption.
Conservatism never fails, Rick Perlstein archly observed at the time;
it is only failed. . . . It is almost impossible to overstate how much
weight conservatives placed on corruption as their diagnosis of failure.
This conviction led straight to their Obama-era posture as a "reformed"
party of pure fiscal conservatism. . . . Pizzella may not lead the agency
for long, and by Trump-era standards, of course, his offenses barely
register as scandals at all. The Trump administration is shot through
with corruption, from petty grifts like Cabinet members abusing their
expense accounts to legislation written by and for lobbyists. The
president himself is taking payoffs from corporate lobbyists and foreign
governments through his Washington hotel and other properties.
The party's whole post-Bush backlash against corruption and deficit
spending, and the notion that those values are antithetical to conservatism,
has been forgotten. ("Nobody is a fiscal conservative anymore," Rush
Limbaugh casually declared. "All this talk about concern for the deficit
and the budget has been bogus for as long as it's been around.") Having
fulfilled its use by giving Republicans a reason to absolve their ideology
of any role in Bush's failure, they discarded it.
Republicans baffled why Trump keeps saying racist things.
Jane Coaston:
The Trump racism spin cycle.
Jelani Cobb:
Donald Trump's idea of selective citizenship.
Chas Danner:
Trump shows yet again that he can't even pretend to reject racism.
Tom Engelhardt:
Planet of the surreal: Turning 75 in the Age of Trump.
Eric Foner:
The Supreme Court is in danger of again becoming 'the grave of liberty'.
Masha Gessen:
The weaponization of national belonging, from Nazi Germany to Trump.
By turning unspoken assumptions into hateful rally chants, Trump is not
merely destroying the norms of political speech but weaponizing them. He
is cashing in on the easy trick of saying out loud what others barely
dare to think. But his supporters are also enforcing the prohibition on
his opponents' taking part in the conversation -- as when House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi was reprimanded for calling Trump's speech "racist" on the
House floor. Trump has initiated a radical renegotiation of belonging in
this country and then monopolized it. This is what happens first: a
political force seizes the power to define themselves as insiders and
certain others as intruders. This is done in the name of protection of
the motherland, which the newly marginalized are said to hate. Everything
else follows.
Trump, Pelosi, and the Squad are fighting over who belongs in government.
Susan B Glasser:
"I'm winning": Donald Trump's calculated racism.
Michelle Goldberg:
Tara Golshan:
Mark Sanford is willing to run against Trump for president if people start
talking about the debt.
Emily Holden:
Trump drilling leases could create more climate pollution than EU does
in a year.
Caroline Houck:
Mark Esper, President Trump's pick for defense secretary, explained:
Key point: "former top lobbyist from Raytheon."
Ed Kilgore:
Trump's racism is pushing away the voters he needs in 2020. I don't
really buy this. Past history shows that Trump's economic beneficiaries
(almost exclusively stock and business owners) care very little about
his race messaging. On the other hand, people who have no economic stake
in his policies but support him for cultural reasons need reinforcement,
which comes not so much because they identify with racism as that they
fear and loathe the sort of people who get offended over such. That's
in a nutshell why his support figures have increased (marginally, for
sure) as nearly every Democrat/Independent has been blasting him.
Susan Collins's approval rating dives as reelection contest approaches.
Catherine Kim:
New polling indicates Republicans actually like Trump more following
racist tweet controversy.
Jen Kirby:
Paul Krugman:
Eric Levitz:
PR Lockhart:
The racism in Trump's attacks should be impossible to deny.
German Lopez:
Cory Booker's latest criminal justice reform bill takes aim at life
imprisonment.
Ella Nilsen:
House votes to hold AG Barr and Commerce Secretary Ross in contempt of
Congress over census citizenship question.
Anna North:
How 4 congresswomen came to be called "the Squad".
Jeremy W Peters/Annie Karni/Maggie Haberman:
Trump sets the 2020 tone: like 2016, only this time 'the Squad' is here.
Charles P Pierce:
Andrew Prokop:
Jonah Raskin:
Paul Krassner, 1932-2019: American satirist. I should note that I
started reading The Realist shortly after I dropped out of high
school, so Krassner played an outsized role in my discovery that there
are other ways of understanding the world than had been drilled into
my tiny brain by the official guardians of virtue.
Aaron Rupar:
Jeffrey D Sachs:
America's economic blockades and international law: I'm not sure who
Sachs thinks has been calling Trump an isolationist, but at least he
rejects that label. What's different about Trump isn't the degree the US
engages with other countries but the terms of alliance and intervention.
From FDR through Obama, the US has generally tried to find agreement on
areas of mutual interest, often trading economic help for joint security.
Trump's intent is to put American (by which he often means his personal)
interests first, reducing everyone else to paying tribute for some degree
of privilege within the US-directed world order. If it seems like little
has changed under Trump, that's mostly because the US position at the
top of the informal world order has, at least since WWII, been rooted
in the relative size and wealth of the American economy (although these
days it has largely transformed itself into global financial networks,
which nation states have little effective power to regulate). Where his
predecessors preferred to build alliances based on mutual interest, all
Trump sees is the power to extract profit. In the past, NATO was presented
as a trade: member countries would open themselves up to global capitalism,
and in turn would receive security guarantees. (Indeed, the "carrot" of
capital investment was probably more decisive to expansion of NATO into
Eastern Europe than fears of Russian aggression.) On the other hand, Trump
views NATO as a protection racket, and wants to do what any gangster/boss
would do: raise the tribute. As an authoritarian, Trump much prefers his
sticks to carrots, much as he'd rather be feared than befriended (not that
he minds having friends, as long as they are properly submissive). Short
of risking his bloated military, the most powerful stick he has at his
disposal is the economic blockade (sanctions), which he's employed more
aggressively than ever before (e.g., North Korea, Iran, Venezuela). So
far, nothing disastrous (for the US, anyway) has come of this. None of
the targeted countries have submitted, but few (if any) nominal allies
have yet decided to buck US authority and circumvent the sanctions, so
Trump appears to be in control. However, you have to wonder how long
China, Europe, Russia, India, Japan, etc., will continue to kowtow to
a thin-skinned, thankless bully like Trump.
William Saletan:
Is Trump a racist or a narcissist? Here's a puzzle even Saletan can
solve: "He's both." But aren't those just facets of an even broader and
deeper sociopathy?
Theodore Schleifer:
A plan to fix inequality would target CEOs who make 100 times more than
their employees: CEO pay has been a useful metric for measuring
inequality for several decades now, but the most one can hope for by
narrowly targeting it is to muddy the metric. CEO's represent a small
sliver of the very rich, and as such a small sliver of the money that
a more general program could tax. I think it's long been clear that
the main reason boards have moved so strongly to increase CEO pay has
been the desire to make CEO's act more like owners and less like
managers: to focus more on short-term profitability, while allowing
more risks to long-term stability.
Emily Stewart:
Elizabeth Warren's latest Wall Street enemy: private equity.
Matt Taibbi:
CNN's debate lottery draw is a new low in campaign media: "If you
cover elections like reality shows, you will get reality stars as
leaders."
Robin Wright:
Iran's eye-for-an-eye strategy in the Gulf.
Matthew Yglesias:
Ask a question, or send a comment.
Monday, July 15, 2019
Music Week
Music: current count 31749 [31726] rated (+23), 262 [262] unrated (+0).
Slow getting this out, with Monday wiped out by a house emergency
(water heater broke down). Had a nagging sore throat much of the week,
but right now mostly feel exhausted. Relatively mild summer so far,
but looks like triple digits coming soon and probably persisting.
Next couple weeks will probably be worse.
Rated count cut off Sunday evening, but I've added unpacking since
then, so the numbers are a little out of whack.
Second straight week with an unusually low rated count (24
last week).
Again, spent some time on the Resonance anthologies without writing
any reviews, and also found a higher-than-usual split of A- records,
plus high B+ that merited extra plays. Most of the finds this week
come from Chris Monsen's
Jazz favorites list, plus a few more from Phil Overeem's
Halfway to Listville. The easiest one was John McPhee's Nation
Time: I skipped over it when I was catching up with Corbett vs.
Dempsey's
Bandcamp a few
weeks back, as I had already given Corbett's 2000 reissue a full A,
and hadn't noticed the extra cuts. No reason to repurchase if you
have the Atavistic release, but the bonuses are just that.
Had a minor role in helping Joe Yanosik publish his magnum opus
A Consumer Guide to FRANCO.
I have a
Guests section on my website, which I've
used a few times but never really tried to promote. I've long thought
that a better solution would be to set up guest areas on my
Hullworks website, perhaps as
sub-domains, which could be spun off should the guests decide to pony
up for a domain name. I'm in a position where I can host those as
well. I also considered hanging Joe's piece at
Terminal Zone -- long my pet
idea for a music-themed website (named for the
zine Don Malcolm and I published
back in 1977). In the end, I went with the path that involved the
least thought and work.
When Joe first mentioned his Franco project to me, I glanced at
Napster's Franco offerings, and spent a
week
digging around. My own (much more limited) set of Franco grades are
here. You can also look
up what
Robert
Christgau has written.
I might as well mention two projects that I've started but haven't
gotten very far on. I've started to add recent reviews to the two large
book manuscript files I have on jazz. Rather slow work, but I've added
99 pages up to January, 2019, pushing the 20th century jazz guide over
800, and the 21st over 1700. Files are backed up online, in ODT format.
I've also started collecting mid-year lists, as I did last year. This
uses the EOY list aggregate format, and most likely will eventually
evolve into a full EOY list aggregate later this year. Only have four
lists compiled so far (about a third of those collected on
AOTY). I'm
surprised there aren't more, but haven't really looked yet. The
current aggregate is
way too sparse to draw any real conclusions from. One issue here
is that I'm only awarding 1 point for each list mention. (Two
reasons: one is that so far many of the lists are unranked; the
other is that it makes it easier to clean up with I replace the
midway lists with EOY lists.) The other point I should note here
is that I'm factoring in my graces (A: 5, A-: 4, ***: 3, **: 2,
*: 1), which currently results in quite a bit of skew. E.g., 6
of the top 8 records now are ones I've graded A- (Billy Eilish,
Lizzo, Charly Bliss, Big Thief, Little Simz, Jamila Woods), and
the other two (Carly Rae Jepsen and Vampire Weekend) were ***
and ** respectively. Expect my picks to slip as I add further
lists, while records I like less will make inroads (Solange is
the surest shot; maybe also Tyler the Creator, Sharon Van Etten,
Jenny Lewis). Record that I haven't heard with the most list
mentions so far: Flying Lotus' Flamagra.
New records reviewed this week:
Maria Faust/Tim Dahl/Weasel Walter: Farm Fresh (2019,
Gotta Let It Out): Alto saxophonist, from Estonia, based in Denmark,
several albums since 2014, this trio gets a buzz from Dahl's electric
bass, running through 10 pieces in 37:43.
B+(***)
Fire! Orchestra: Arrival (2019, Rune Grammofon):
Started as a trio with Mats Gustafsson (baritone sax), John Bethling
(bass), and Andreas Werlin (drums), then grew massive, up to 28 members,
now down to 14: two vocalists (Mariam Wallentin, who wrote most of the
lyrics, and Sofia Jernberg), a string quartet, trumpet, four reeds
(arranged by Per Texas Johansson), and keyboards. Starts easy, swells
to staggering, slows back down to some kind of lament. I'm baffled by
it all, aside from a dirge with familiar lyrics, "At Last I Am Free."
B
Alex Fournier: Triio (3028 [2019], Furniture Music):
Bassist, from Toronto, second album, calls this his "flagship project,"
actually started as a quartet and has since grown to six, with alto
sax (Bea Labikova), trombone (Aidan Sibley), guitar, piano, and drums.
Starts with piano trio, the horns sneaking in and expanding the sound
into a very sophisticated postbop harmony.
B+(***)
Lafayette Gilchrist: Dark Matter (2016 [2019],
self-released): Pianist, first noted in David Murray's Black Saint
Quartet, haven't heard much from him since his stretch with Hyena
ended in 2008. Solo here, strong on rhythm, which is usually what
works for me.
B+(***) [cd]
GoldLink: Diaspora (2019, Squaaash Club/RCA): Rapper
(or more often singer) D'Anthony Carlos, second album, major groove
at least half the way through.
B+(***)
Bjørn Marius Hegge: Ideas (2019, Particular): Norwegian
bassist. Title may extend to the fine print: "for Axel Dörner, Rudi Mahall,
Hans Hulbaekmo and Håvard Wiik" -- no credits, but that's presumably the
band here (trumpet, bass clarinet, drums, piano).
A-
Megan Thee Stallion: Fever (2019, 300 Entertainment):
Rapper Megan Pete, from Houston. First mixtape, after two EPs and a
few singles. Trap beats, splashy, cover looks like it's rising out of
1970s blaxploitation movie, hot and steamy.
B+(***)
Nature Work: Nature Work (2018 [2019], Sunnyside):
Freewheeling quartet, Jason Stein (bass clarinet) and Greg Ward (alto
sax) up front, Eric Revis on bass and Jim Black on drums. Impressive
at full speed, loses me a bit when they slow down, but that doesn't
happen often.
A-
Gard Nilssen Acoustic Unity: To Whom Who Buys a Record
(2019, Odin): Norwegian drummer, third album with this trio, featuring
André Roligheten (sax/bass clarinet) with Petter Eldh (double bass).
All three contributed pieces, with Nilsen having a hand in most. Slows
a bit toward the end, without losing interest.
A-
Pere Ubu: The Long Goodbye (2019, Cherry Red): Great
post-punk band from Ohio, not sure how much beyond vocalist David Thomas
remains, but they can still do weird and murky, even if the rust squeaks
here and there. [CD comes with a second, live disc, I haven't heard.]
B+(**)
Santana: Africa Speaks (2019, Concord): Guitarist
Carlos Santana in group form, eponymous first album appeared in 1969,
still kicking 50 years later (dozens of personnel changes along the
way, but the early-'70s core group reunited in 2013 (Neal Schon, Gregg
Rolie, Michael Carabello, Michael Shrieve). They were a big thing in
their heyday, a group I never listened to after growing sick of
Abraxas at a party that had nothing else to offer. So while
he/they recorded 14 albums through 1979, I'm a bit surprised to find
a steady stream of albums since (by decade: 7, 4, 2, 5). back for
50th anniversary with loud drums, bubbling percussion, wailing vocals,
and great gobs of trademark guitar.
B
Bruce Springsteen: Springsteen on Broadway (2018,
Columbia, 2CD): Mostly solo, acoustic guitar, sixteen signature
songs with a lot of talk along the way, probably derived from his
well-regarded autobiography -- could just as well be reviewed as
an audiobook, albeit with exaggerated gestures. I've never been
much of a fan, but I have to respect (maybe even admire) what he's
made of his life.
B+(**)
Bruce Springsteen: Western Stars (2019, Columbia):
Turns his eyes to the vast open spaces of the old west, then fills
them up with loping melodies and swelling string arrangements. Some
of the latter aren't so bad, and some are. Stories too, none amusing
enough to get me to notice.
B-
Zhenya Strigalev/Federico Dannemann: The Change (2018
[2019], Rainy Days): Saxophone and guitar, with Luques Curtis (double
bass) and Obed Calvaire (drums) keeping them on track. Mostly a fusion
grind, the guitarist more impressive but the richer tones of the sax
no doubt help. Strigalev sings one song, which only Robert Wyatt could
get away with.
B+(*) [cd]
Gebhard Ullmann Basement Research: Impromptus and Other Short
Works (2018 [2019], WhyPlayJazz): Leader plays tenor sax and
bass clarinet, recorded the album Basement Research in 1993,
and has kept the name for low-pitched groups ever since. This 25th
anniversary project has Julian Argüelles on baritone sax, Steve Swell
on trombone, Pascal Niggenkemper on double bass, and Gerald Cleaver
on drums.
B+(***)
Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:
Dexter Gordon: At the Subway Club 1973 (1965-73 [2019],
Elemental Music, 2CD): Five long cuts, 95:57, as advertised, recorded
on tour at Subway Jazz-Club in Cologne, the tenor saxophonist backed
by Irv Rochlin (piano), Henk Haverhoek (bass), and Tony Inzalaco (drums),
plus four extra cuts from earlier European tours, different personnel,
none previously released.
B+(**)
Clifford Jordan Quartet: Glass Bead Games (1973 [1974],
Strata East; [2019], Pure Pleasure): Actually, two quartets led by the
tenor saxophonist, both with Billy Higgins on drums, piano/bass duties
split between Stanley Cowell/Bill Lee and Cedar Walton/Sam Jones. Piano
equally impressive, leader makes it all seem so natural.
A-
Eero Koivistoinen: The Front Is Breaking (1976, Love;
[2017], Svart): Finnish saxophonist (tenor/soprano/sopranino), liked
to play free over funk-fusion grooves. Starts impressive, but not so
much when he lays out.
B+(*)
Joe McPhee: Nation Time (1970 [2018], Corbett vs. Dempsey):
Second album, plays tenor sax and trumpet, with Mike Kull (piano/electric
piano), Tyrone Crabb (bass/electric bass/trumpet), and percussion (Ernest
Bostic and Bruce Thompson). Original release was on CjRecord in 1971, the
18:30 title cut on one side, two more (22:12) on the other, as was the
2000 Atavistic Unheard Music Series reissue in 2000. This reissue adds
three extra cuts, for a total of 65:00. The original album was one of
the greatest artifacts of its era, a feat of radical boogaloo, the beat
(especially on "Shakey Jake") just regular enough to drive us to ecstasy.
The extras aren't as monumental, but hold up pretty well.
A [bc]
Harry Mosco: Peace & Harmony (1979 [2019], Isle of
Jura): Nigerian singer-guitarist, last name Agada, member of the Funkees,
used the alias Mr. Funkees for his first solo album (Country Boy),
that name also appearing on cover here. Opens with disco, gets funky,
goes reggae for the title cut, dubs out, returns to the dance floor. Not
what you'd call an original thinker.
B+(*)
Woody Shaw Quintet: Basel 1980 (1980-81 [2019], Elemental
Music, 2CD): Previously unreleased live set from Switzerland, with Carter
Jefferson (tenor/soprano sax), Larry Willis (piano), Stafford James (bass),
and Victor Lewis (drums), plus one later track (10:44) with just trumpet,
piano (Mulgrew Miller), and drums (Tony Reedus). Pretty spectacular.
A-
Sonic Youth: Battery Park, NYC, July 4th 2008 (2008 [2019],
Matador): Live shot, a year before their last album (The Eternal),
two years after Rather Ripped, both solid entries in their 25-year
run, although I can't say as I remember much from either. I do recall
their sound, compressed and sharpened here. Blew me away at first, then
faded into the ether.
B+(***)
Bruce Springsteen: The Live Series: Songs of the Road
(1977-2013 [2018], Columbia): The first of three wide-ranging live
compilations, released as digital downloads, loosely organized by
theme. These are the car/road songs, with 8 (of 15) from 1977-80,
from "Thunder Road" to "Cadillac Ranch."
B+(**)
Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:
- John Bacon/Michael McNeill/Danny Ziemann: Refractions (Jazz Dimensions): August 1
- Mike Holober/The Gotham Jazz Orchestra: Hiding Out (Zoho): August 9
- From Wolves to Whales: Strandwal (Aerophonic): August 26
- Dave Rempis/Joshua Abrams/Avreeayl Ra + Jim Baker: Apsis (Aerophonic): August 26
Ask a question, or send a comment.
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