At the end of each Jazz Consumer Guide cycle I have a lot of paperwork to do. Most of this is only of interest to me. I do things like moving my notes from the print and flush files for the previous cycle to the notebook, where it's easier for me to find them. The thing that takes the most work is making a pass through my "done" file -- the notes repository for all of the records that I've rated, haven't written up reviews for, but think I still might want to. Usually what happens is that the done file grows up to around 120 records. I only have space to review about 30 per column, so that's four columns worth, not even counting the new records will that will come in during the meantime. I figure that of those 120 I will at most wind up using 40, so it does no harm to cut the file back to 60-80. It just forces me to cope with reality.

The problem is, those records didn't get cut when I first rated them for a reason: usually that they're pretty good and deserve at least the Honorable Mention treatment. There are a few exceptions that I hold back for possible Dud treatment, but they are a tiny fraction. There are lots of reasons why good records don't make it to the column. I used to figure that if Francis Davis covered a record in the Village Voice I needn't merely concur, but I wound up losing track of what Davis does, so that's less of an excuse. I also tended to scratch off records that I reviewed in Recycled Goods, but I won't have that excuse any longer. I do prefer covering new jazz in Jazz CG, but I'm starting to work more old records in, and that will probably continue. So more and more, my reasons aren't all that good or clean cut. At the high end, they come down to age, lack of inspiration, and faulty memory. I also try to whittle from the bottom end, leaving only things that have some special interest. Even they tend to get cut as they get old. It's not so much that I think the timeliness is so important to the reader as I figure it shows some marginal loss of interest on my part.

When I do the surplus cut, I find that in most cases what I've already written in Jazz Prospecting suffices. But in a few cases I feel like adding a few more words, maybe even a bit of explanation. These extra notes follow:

Ralph Alessi & This Against That: Look (2005 [2007], Between the Lines): I hate pulling the plug on this, but it's one high HM I did go back and play again and again, but never managed to get anything written about it. Alessi has repeatedly distinguished himself as a sideman, and that has some relevance here. His leads are as tight and tasteful as his support work, only here they're supposed to stand out front. Complex, difficult postbop -- I can't begin to enumerate the interesting ideas. Only a couple of minor flat spots kept it from the A-list, and in any case it deserves a listen. I'm only kicking it off because I'm not up to it, and I'm getting tired of the pressure. B+(***)

Richie Barshay: Homework (2004-05 [2007], AYVA): Picked this up on the rebound along with Francisco Mela (q.v.). Both guys are drummers who can do a lot of different things, and stuff their debut albums so full of it they wind up feeling like recitals or clinics. I like this one a shade more, but never found much to say about it. He's a talent to keep an eye on. B+(***)

Tony DeSare: Last First Kiss (2006 [2007], Telarc): Slick, handsome, he's my favorite Sinatra wannabe. Young enough he may figure Prince and Carole King were part of Tin Pan Alley. Two good albums down. I'll catch him one of these days. B+(***)

Steve Lacy-Roswell Rudd Quartet: Early and Late (1962-2002 [2007], Cuneiform, 2CD): Previously unreleased work from the 1962 quartet that recorded School Days, an album that much later provided Ken Vandermark with a group name, and from the 1999-2002 reunion that recorded Monk's Dream. Both were major figures in the intervening decades, although Rudd had a rougher time, for a while making ends meet playing nostalgia bands in the Catskills. This only loses out to the space crunch: Francis Davis covered it in the Voice, I wrote it up in Recycled Goods, and it's been sitting a while. A-

Francisco Mela: Melao (2005 [2006], AYVA): I only found out about this Boston-based Cuban drummer after his album won the Village Voice Jazz Poll's debut category. One reason it won was that for a debut album it had a lot of star power: Joe Lovano, George Garzone, Anat Cohen, Lionel Loueke. Getting to it so late I never spent enough time sorting it out -- "an embarrassment of riches," I called it. Haven't touched it in a long time since. B+(***)

Golda Solomon: Word Riffs (2006, JazzJaunts): Spoken word poet with jazz accompaniment. I tracked this down looking for background after I heard her on saxophonist Saco Yasuma's Another Rain, and it's more of what intrigued me in the first place. B+(**)

Abram Wilson: Ride! Ferris Wheel to the Modern Day Delta (2007, Dune): Dune is an English label trying to break a peculiarly English form of Contemporary Jazz -- one based on hip-hop, reggae, maybe some African pop, something far hipper than any American label of similar ambitions would risk. I applaud the idea, but the realization has been more miss than hit thus far. A couple of years back saxophonist Soweto Kinch released a pretty good but deeply flawed album, while trumpeter Abram Wilson dropped a really bad one. Last year they traded places, with Kinch going deeper into hip-hop and getting lost, while Wilson rediscovered his footing in New Orleans. I wrote up Kinch as a dud. Figured I'd soften the blow with this as an HM, but didn't get it done. Sorry about that. B+(**)

Yerba Buena Stompers: Dawn Club Favorites (2001, Stomp Off): The first of five Stomp Off albums I got as background on this fine trad jazz group. Their model is Lou Watters' Yerba Buena Jazz Band, formed in 1939 at the beginning of the first great trad jazz revival, and largely responsible for it. Watters' played in San Francisco's Dawn Club, and this is what he played: same lineup, same arrangements, better sound (of course). In my review of the new The Yama-Yama Man, I singled out this and the following New Orleans Favorites as the best of the back catalog. Makes sense that if you're doing repertoire, you'd start from the top. A-

Yerba Buena Stompers: Duff Campbell's Revenge (2005, Diamondstack): Beyond from the five studio releases on Stomp Off, John Gill sent me two live sets on Diamondstack. They are scruffier sounding, a bit looser, not as articulate, but this one in particular is pretty good anyway, a nice little digest of their first four studio albums, with some stories thrown in about someone named Duff Campbell, a notable patron of San Francisco's trad jazz scene. B+(***)

The full surplus file is here.

Five years ago George W. Bush made a horrible mistake: he ordered the US military to invade and occupy Iraq. It's never been all that clear why he did it. The military doctrine of preventive attacks against potential WMD threats wasn't a reason: it was invented just for Iraq, and was stretched thin by the lack of evidence that any such threat existed. Bush no doubt expected the invasion to go as swimmingly as he thought Afghanistan had gone. And there's no doubt that he anticipated a big political upside to another big victory. He had grown to relish his Commander-in-Chief role, and figured his record as War President would be his ticket to a second term. Evidence that the war was a mistake came pretty fast, as Iraq descended into chaos, revolt, and ultimately civil war, while US forces proved powerless to reconstruct basic infrastructure, provide essential security, or reconcile local political factions. Not that Bush tried all that hard: he's been preoccupied for five years now denying that what he did was a mistake.

Some of the costs of Bush's mistake are calculable: over 3000 US soldiers have been killed, and many more maimed; an uncounted number of Iraqis have died violently, probably more than a half million; close to five million Iraqis have been driven from their homes, with 1.7 million fleeing the country, the others moving from mixed to segregated neighborhoods to escape death squads; the US has spent something like $500 billion to occupy Iraq, with the long-term costs likely to be 2-4 times as much; nonetheless, most of Iraq remains unreconstructed, with basic services like sewers and electricity still far worse than before the war. Other costs are much harder to calculate, or even imagine. The war spending and its deficit financing have contributed to an economic downturn that can also be blamed on numerous other Bush policies -- much like Bush tried to cover up his Iraq mistake, his cronies tried to prop up a weak post-9/11 economy with a flood of subprime lending, floating the now collapsing housing bubble. The one success Bush could point to was that by taking so much Iraqi oil off the market he's boosted oil prices (and oil company profits) to historical highs, although that hasn't exactly been an unalloyed blessing for Americans.

Even harder to figure is how much damage to our political and moral culture so much dissembling and posturing, deceit and conceit have caused. By never admitting his mistake, Bush encourages his diehard followers to fight on to the end. From the day we invaded we should have known that it would only be a matter of time before we packed up and left. No army in modern times has invaded another country and held on to control it, and there's no reason to think either the US or Iraq should be the exception. Looking back at the Bremer year one may conclude that Bush's people screwed it up even worse than expected, but it's just as arguable that what they did was exactly what they were about: the cronyism, the corruption, the conviction that their crackpot right-wing economic theories produced (rather than stole) wealth, their naive fantasies that the natives would cower under their displays of shock and awe.

That the US is still in Iraq, with more troops than ever, shows how much of the country's resources Bush is willing to save face. He understands that to admit to a mistake discredits everything he stands for. So he hangs on, setting the table for lashing out at whoever does finally find the realism to withdraw with charges of backstabbing perfidy, hoping his followers can ride that line to redeem him and found a third Bush reich. To the American people, this would be the ultimate instance of adding insult to injury.

Some Iraq links follow.

Patrick Cockburn: Is the US really bringing stability to Baghdad? Depends on what you're willing to call stability. The civil war in 2006 created a new equilibrium with whole neighorhoods "ethnically cleansed" and millions of displaced people. To a large extent, violence is down now because people have resigned themselves to the effects of the violence last year.

The present state of Iraq is highly unstable, but nobody quite wants to go to war again. It reminds me of lulls in the Lebanese civil war during the 1970s and 1980s, when everybody in Beirut rightly predicted that nothing was solved and the fighting would start again.

Michael Schwartz: The Iraqi Brain Drain. The total number of displaced people in Iraq is close to 5 million, almost 20% of the total population. This piece reviews the history and present conditions. Last line: "As long as the United States keeps trying to pacify Iraq, it will create wave after wave of misery."

Helena Cobban: Military Occupations, Sewage, and Governance. After five years of US occupation, Baghdad's sewer system still hasn't been repaired to the state it was in before the invasion. Cobban contrasts that with 40 years of Israeli occupation of Gaza. The health situation in Gaza continues to deteriorate as Israel continues its collective punishment for the insult of last year's elections.

From other reports, it looks like Israel is getting closer to provoking a new round of terrorist attacks. The first Hamas-linked suicide bombing since well before the elections took place recently -- one of the few things, dysfunctional as it is, Palestinians can still do in response to the conditions Israel has imposed, as well as the targeted killings and more/less random shellings. Hezbollah has in turn threatened to play Israel's assassination game. It is not sure that Israel was responsible for the car bomb in Damascus that killed a Hezbollah leader -- Walid Jumblatt has been talking about doing just that sort of thing -- but if so it wouldn't be the first time Israel killed a Hezbollah leader. I don't see how either Hezbollah or Hamas stand to gain anything by getting back in the terror racket. It works for Israel because terrorist attacks grab world attention, giving Israel a free pass not only for its own violence but to avoid reckoning with all the hardship they've caused.

I shouldn't have to add this, but the war-politics axis is not a zero-sum game of morality. Atrocities on one side in no way justify injustices on the other. There's no way to balance suicide bombing or Qassam rocket attacks and the collective punishment that Israel inflicts on Gaza: they are both off the scale of acceptable behavior. But there is one significant asymmetry: if Hamas halts its violence and mistreatment of Israelis, as they have on occasion done, nothing changes; but if Israel were to halt its violence and mistreatment of Palestinians, the whole conflict would change. It's really up to Israel to take the steps necessary to end the carnage. Until they are willing to do that, it hardly matters what Palestinians do.

Jonathan Schwarz: Bill Kristol's Obscure Masterpiece. This starts as a review of Kristol's extraordinary record for screwing up every analysis and prediction he's ever made, then gets more interesting as Schwarz pulls excerpts from a debate between Kristol and Daniel Ellsberg that occurred a few days after Bush invaded Iraq. It includes a synopsis of US-Saddam relationships up to the war, starting with the CIA-backed coups that brought Saddam to power. It includes Ellsberg's prediction that we would wind up betraying the Kurds yet again, then points out how the US looked the other way when Turkey bombed Kurdistan. You don't need this to conclude that Kristol is a fool, but the historical review is worth rehashing. Five years later we still hear people pleading that nobody knew it would all go so wrong. The fact is that some people knew perfectly well. And some others were plain idiots.

A batch on electoral politics. (I hate it when that happens.)

Matt Taibbi: The Chicken Doves. I like his stuff, and his print-edition sidebar on Giuliani is as vicious as the G-Man deserves, but this piece on Reid, Pelosi, et al. is a bit pissy. It's not really true that the Democrats got a mandate in 2006 to end the war. Maybe they would have had they asked for one, but Chuck Shumer and Rahm Emmanuel campaigned for seats and if anything leaned against doves. I mean, if 2006 was so antiwar, how the hell did Joe Lieberman win? The result is that they don't have the votes to shut down war funding, nor do they want to act like Newt Gingrich and try to shut down all funding. I can't fault them for that, but I do agree that they've come up short, especially in terms of launching investigations into the most criminal, most corrupt administration in American history. Instead, they're investigating Roger Clemens? Even if he's an asshole Republican (which I don't know and frankly don't care one way or the other) there are a lot of folks who should be in line ahead of him. One helluva lot.

PS: One thing I was wondering about is whatever happened to the US Attorney purge scandal, but the House did vote today to hold Josh Bolten and Harriet Miers in contempt for their refusal to testify. That's something, although I doubt if we see them in jail any time soon.

Barbara Ehrenreich: Unstoppable Obama. As long as I can remember, change has been a cliché in politics, and rarely as enticing as it's assumed to be. Change, like Rumsfeld's "stuff," happens. The real political problem is usually figuring out how to ride it out. But Bush has trashed our world so thoroughly that almost any kind of change looks preferable. For the wonk set, Obama may be lacking in specifics, but on a superficial level it's hard to believe how lucky we are to have him: "As conservative commentator Andrew Sullivan has written, Obama's election could mean the re-branding of America. An anti-war black president with an Arab-sounding name: See, we're not so bad after all, world!" Another sample (emphasis original):

[W]e've achieved the moral status of a pariah nation. The seas are rising. The dollar is sinking. A growing proportion of Americans have no access to health care; an estimated 18,000 die every year for lack of health insurance. Now, as the economy staggers into recession, the financial analysts are wondering only whether the rest of the world is sufficiently "de-coupled" from the US economy to survive our demise. [ . . . ] All of us, of whatever race, want a fresh start. That's what "change" means right now: Get us out of here!

Paul Krugman: Hate Springs Eternal. Krugman's been sniping at Obama all year, usually over details of proposed policy that Obama has kept nebulous. That's usually been fair play because it lets Krugman keep pushing critical details. Here he trips up, charging that the Obama campaign is "dangerously close to becoming a cult of personality." I can't speak for Obama's supporters -- I'm more of a bemused bystander -- but I can think of plenty of reasons to be wary of Hillary Clinton. (I've listed them in previous posts.) In particular, I'm skeptical that she "is more serious about achieving universal health care" -- admittedly, she has something to prove on that score, but that may just be because she muffed it so badly last time around. Even so, the title seems way over the top. Hate is, after all, a Republican virtue. Rather, what I would feel if Clinton wins out over Obama is exactly what I heard Clinton say back when her health care plan was being chewed up by attack dogs. When asked if she would be angry if the plan was rejected, she said "no, I'd be sad for America." I would have respected her more at the time if she had said, "hell, yes, I'd be angry!" -- would have made me feel she had a stake in the fight. So if Obama's supporters get angry now, I have to respect the fact that they give a damn. But if Clinton does prevail, then fine, we'll settle for being sad, vote against McCain, and get on her case to do the right thing. If Obama wins, we'll still have to do the latter. But I figure, especially in our current poisoned political atmosphere, that Obama has an advantage in not being too specific, in pushing for intangibles like hope and character, instead of a bunch of half-assed plans like John Kerry trotted out on every question. The real problems are worse than the American people can handle right now, and it is those real problems -- not our preferred preconceptions -- that will determine what actually happens in the near future. So there's an advantage in not getting too wedded to what might be easy to sell right now. I score that one for Obama.

Arianna Huffington: End of a Romance: Why the Media and Independent Voters Need to Break Up with John McCain. One to pass along to anyone you know who still believes that McCain deserves any respect whatsoever. (Note that the piece was posted too soon to include McCain's vote in favor of the president's right to torture enemies.) Beyond the words, includes a picture of McCain hugging Bush, while the latter looks like Jesus (or a bible thumping country pastor) welcoming the sinner home. Personally, I think Huffington's too easy on him, but she has a rather checkered past as well. When McCain ran against Bush in 2000 it was McCain who was the neocon superhawk, and he had Paul Wolfowitz in his tent to prove it. McCain lost in 2000 when he didn't have the guts to stand up to the Confederate flag, then tried to make amends after the South Carolina primary. We can go on and on. It's hard to see why he gets any respect at all.

Steve Benen: Meet Mr. Vague Generalities. One more on McCain. Quotes Jonathan Chait: "On economics, he's repeatedly admitted that he knows very little. And on social issues, he doesn't even know what his own positions are." Comments are worth scanning, even though they mostly want to talk about Obama.

By the way, I send out a mail announcement when a Jazz Consumer Guide runs, or very infrequently something else of similar interest. But not often: e.g., I don't send out Jazz Prospecting announcements. The mailings are a courtesy to publicists who send me records. I just sent one out today. If you didn't get an announcement, and would like to get them, please drop me a line (look for Contact on the sidebar). The mailing list is currently hand-hacked and very klugey, so I'm not looking for a lot of recipients. In particular, if you follow the blog closely you'll get all the announcements you need here. But if you want push notices, let me know.

Sooner or later I want to replace this with a real mail list manager, which you can sign up for and manage directly. Until then, I just wanted to point out what I'm doing and give people notice on how to make up for my own clumsiness.

Of course, if you're on the list and want off, let me know.

My Jazz Consumer Guide column appeared in the Village Voice this week. This is the 15th such column, going back to July 2004, covering a total of 459 records. Historically, they've been running every three months. The previous one came out on October 23, so this time it's been a little over three months. I have a lot of stuff left over, and should make it a point not to take so long next time. Certainly, there's no shortage of worthwhile jazz records, and no need to take so long to get to them. Many of the records this time have been out close to a year, and have been languishing in my files for much of that time. I really should push to speed up the columns. If we can get them up to a 2-month schedule instead of what we've been doing, the time delays would significantly lessen. As it is, I already have a full column's worth of A-list records piled up (not that I have them all written up yet). The following are A-list leftovers (not secrets if you've been reading my Jazz Prospecting blog):

• The Harry Allen-Joe Cohn Quartet: Music From Guys and Dolls (Arbors)
• Bloodcount: Seconds (Screwgun)
• Miles Davis: The Complete On the Corner Sessions (1972-75, Columbia/Legacy)
• Ted Des Plantes' Washboard Wizards: Thumpin' and Bumpin' (Stomp Off)
• Keith Jarrett/Gary Peacock/Jack DeJohnette: My Foolish Heart: Live at Montreux (ECM)
• Brent Jensen: One More Mile (Origin)
• Alex Kontorovich: Deep Minor (Chamsa)
• Rafi Malkiel: My Island (Raftone)
• Myra Melford/Mark Dresser/Matt Wilson: Big Picture (Cryptogramophone)
• MI3: Free Advice (Clean Feed)
• Mostly Other People Do the Killing: Shamokin!!! (Hot Cup)
• William Parker/Raining on the Moon: Corn Meal Dance (AUM Fidelity)
• Art Pepper: Unreleased Art, Vol. 1: The Complete Abashiri Concert (1981, Widow's Taste)
• Art Pepper: Unreleased Art, Vol. II: The Last Concert (1982, Widow's Taste)
• Alvin Queen: I Ain't Looking at You (Enja/Justin Time)
• Louis Sclavis: L'Imparfait des Langues (ECM)
• Joan Stiles: Hurly-Burly (Oo-Bla-Dee)
• McCoy Tyner: Quartet (McCoy Tyner Music/Half Note)

That's actually more than I can fit into a column, plus I'm already finding more A-list items in this cycle (a couple of these are scoops, as they are part of next week's Jazz Prospecting):

• Nik Bärtsch's Ronin: Holon (ECM)
• Mike Ellis: Bahia Band (Alpha Pocket)
• Grupo Los Santos: Lo Que Somos Lo Que Sea (Deep Tone)
• Maceo Parker: Roots & Grooves (Heads Up)
• Ari Roland: And So I Lived in Old New York . . . (Smalls)
• Steve Reid Ensemble: Daxaar (Domino)
• Matthew Shipp: Piano Vortex (Thirsty Ear)
• Horace Silver: Live at Newport '58 (1958, Blue Note)
• Mike Walbridge's Chicago Footwarmers: Crazy Rhythm (Delmark)

In the cycle for this week's column, I wrote up Jazz Prospecting notes for 259 albums (down from 269 the previous cycle). These notes are collected here.

I don't have the surplus file done yet, but will soon go through my leftovers and cut them back to more reasonable dimensions. Then I'll put up a post and note some of the cuts. The big problem, as always, is space and time -- not enough of either. But there's also a small problem, which is that I always seem to be hurting for pick hits and, especially, duds. Pick hits are probably just a matter of time: I don't spend enough time with good records to get to really love them -- I don't think I've played a record daily for a month since the Pet Shop Boys' Very. The only reason I wound up playing the Chris Byars more than any other last year (by a pretty big margin, in fact) was that I had so much trouble knocking out my short review. That it held up to all those plays is certainly a point in its favor, but in the end I couldn't quite nudge it over the line to a full A. That's really the standard I look for in pick hits, and I haven't been finding it. On the other hand, I've set some pretty strict standards for the grade, which are easy enough to check out by looking at my database Jazz A/A+ List. One thing that went into them is the notion of standing the test of time, which is hard for a new record to assuredly do.

The problem with duds is much knottier. The first problem is that I don't find that I get many bad or even mediocre jazz albums. In 2006 I wound up giving B- or lower grades to 41 out of 502 records, 8.1%. In 2007 I got a bit meaner, picking on 44 out of 511 records, 8.6%. Even if you throw in the grade B records (85 in 2006, 96 in 2007) you only get 25.0% and 27.8%. Due to some psychological quirks, I'm probably better than most people at seeing other people's points of view, and as such in finding merit in things I'm not especially attracted to -- as such I hand out a lot of low but polite B+(*) grades which someone more harshly judgmental might downgrade. It may also be the case that some bad records have been avoiding me. But I'm also convinced that there's not a lot of bad jazz albums out there, probably because there's not enough money to be made on them -- aside from pop jazz, which does do a pretty good job of avoiding me.

But even within this small sliver of records that I think are really not much good, most are by unknowns and are hardly worth writing about. I toyed with dudding Ed Johnson's album just because it's so bad, but wound up not caring. But the effect of weeding out records by people hardly anyone has ever heard of is that the dud slot becomes a big game hunt. I wind up looking for off albums by artists who most folks regard as major figures. I find a few, but there aren't many. Here's the featured dud list to date:

• James Carter: Gardenias for Lady Day (Columbia) B-
• Michael Brecker/Joe Lovano/Dave Liebman: Saxophone Summit: Gathering of Spirits (Telarc) C+
• Chick Corea Elektrik Band: To the Stars (Stretch) C
• Branford Marsalis Quartet: Eternal (Marsalis Music/Rounder) B-
• Chris Botti: When I Fall in Love (Columbia) B-
• Javon Jackson: Have You Heard (Palmetto) C+
• Herbie Hancock: Possibilities (Hear Music) C
• Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra: Don't Be Afraid . . . The Music of Charles Mingus (Palmetto) B-
• Taylor Eigsti: Lucky to Be Me (Concord) B-
• Kenny G: The Essential Kenny G (1986-2004, Arista/Legacy) C
• The Matt Savage Trio: Quantum Leap (Savage) C+
• Warren Vaché and the Scottish Ensemble: Don't Look Back (Arbors) B-
• Turtle Island String Quartet: A Love Supreme: The Legacy of John Coltrane (Telarc) C+
• Soweto Kinch: A Life in the Day of B19: Tales of the Tower Block (Dune) B-
• Chris Potter 10: Song for Anyone (Sunnyside) B

That list pretty much does what I aimed for, and looking back the grades and comments still seem on the mark. Carter, Lovano, Vaché, and Potter have also scored JCG A-list records. Liebman, Corea, both Marsalis brothers (the LCJO dud was for Wynton), Jackson, and Hancock all have A-list records further back in my database. Brecker doesn't, but he got an HM for Pilgrimage, and almost everyone but me regards him as a titan, some as a god. G and Botti are bestselling pop jazz icons. Eigsti, Savage, and Kinch were small fries with a lot of hype, and they each represented something bigger than themselves: Eigsti the Concord marketing machine, which was trying to fashion jazz star breakthroughs like the mainstream pop world does; Savage the notion of genius in the form of child prodigies; Kinch some form of hip-hop fusion. The Turtle Islanders cover a multitude of sins: overdogs with their Grammys, pop panderers, plus they took on some of the sacred texts of jazz repertoire and made a godawful mess of them.

Actually, the success of this list is one of the things that make it so daunting. Would it be de trop to pick on Hancock (The River) or Corea (his Bela Fleck collaboration) again? Mark Murphy's record was truly horrible, but it's not like I've ever liked his work. Maria Schneider has become big enough game, but is that in itself reason enough to go after her? I don't much like any of her albums, but I don't much dislike them either: for me they're just kind of bland and uninteresting, a reaction at odds with what pretty much everyone else seems to be having. Until I have something worth saying, I don't feel up to taking her on -- maybe I'm even a bit gunshy around her. (Francis Davis told me he was "shocked" when I put Concert in the Garden on an extra duds list.)

One thing for sure is that three of the last four Duds were unhappy picks. Vaché and Potter both play well against backgrounds I dislike, Potter especially so. Kinch is a guy I hope will get it together and do well. Looking forward, there's not much I want to get into. Aside from Schneider, Eric Alexander and David Hazeltine have a pair of records that are well off their usual standards, but when I played Alexander I came up empty. I thought about Nicole Mitchell's Black Earth Ensemble: an overwrought B by a talented and charismatic young musician on a weak instrument. She's likely to emerge as a Regina Carter-level star sometime soon, but it's premature to hold that against her. The Kurt Elling record is probably down to my standards, but no worse than anything else he's done -- may even be his best. Sean Jones? Matt Shulman? I've already moved Fathead Newman's latest to the "flush" file, figuring as bad as it is, it's still better than the last one I dudded.

While writing this, I came up with an idea for restructuring the column, and kicked if off to the Voice. Get rid of the big review "dud of the month" and expand what I write in the "duds" list, including grades so the difference between a B and a D is clear. We'll see what they think of the idea. When Robert Christgau first came out with this format circa 1990 he called his idea for the revamped Consumer Guide "The A List" -- the whole point was to spend full time finding good records, which he felt he wasn't getting to because he was having to spend so much time listening to crap. The "Dud of the Month" was added later, at Eric Weisbard's insistence. Weisbard figured that critics should get nasty at least some of the time, if for no other reason than to show they don't fall for everything. Of course, Christgau never had the problems I'm laying out here. I assure you that if I was covering hard rock, singer-songwriters, rap, and Nashville I wouldn't either.

Last few months I've been collecting links to interesting pieces, adding comments, and posting them once-weekly. Some lose their timeliness. Sometimes I lose track. The Tom Lantos bit below is a good example of something that should come out sooner, and in general I don't see much value in collecting longer posts without common threads. So we'll try this change. I'll probably queue up and post at the end of the day. (That at least was the theory last night, but I didn't quite get this done then.) And I'm not likely to have things every day (although I do feel a tinge of gratification when I manage to fill in a monthly calendar). But here's a start.

Steve Clemons: Tom Lantos' Israel-Palestine Shift. Congressman Tom Lantos (D-CA) died today, age 80. For decades, at least on matters relating to Israel, he has been one of the most intransigently hawkish members there, pretty much AIPAC's man on the House floor. Clemons argues here that lately Lantos has moderated his positions -- e.g., arguing for diplomatic efforts to reduce tensions with Iran. I can't tell you whether there's any truth to that, let alone whether it might have made any difference. But one thing that strikes me as a repeated theme in Israeli history is how many key Israeli figures seemed to be moving toward some sort of peace position as they faded from the scene and died off. David Ben Gurion, who created the conflict by driving 700,000 Palestinians into exile and establishing the policies preventing their return, had by 1967 opposed any further expansion of Israel, and would certainly have traded the territories captured then for political recognition by the Arab states -- the current official position of the Arab League. Moshe Dayan, who led the expansion in 1967, was key to returning the Sinai to Egypt in 1979, and would have gone further if he had the power (by then Menachem Begin was Prime Minister; by then even Begin had moderated from his 1948 position when he was responsible for the worst massacres of Palestinians). Yitzhak Rabin, who had key roles in 1948 and 1967, was working towards extending his possibly cynical Oslo Accords when he was assassinated. I'm not certain that one can add Ariel Sharon to this list, although he had withdrawn from Gaza before his stroke, and it's unlikely that he would have stupidly invaded Lebanon in 2007 like his successor (or like he himself did in 1982). I suppose this could be taken as evidence that there is a God and that God wants Armageddon. Personally, I'm not so pessimistic about the universe. But it does make me pessimistic about human nature. One thing all of these oldtime warriors believed was that time was on the side of Israel, that all they had to do to win was wait. They were wrong. They waited, they died, they got bupkes, or worse: their lot was inherited by people who would fair even worse.

On the other hand, while Israel may keep drifting to the right, it's unlikely that Americans (Democrats anyway) will keep drifting with them. One reason Lantos was so effective was that no one wants to fight with a Holocaust survivor. The Republican right has its own reasons for supporting the Israeli right, and those reasons are increasingly inimical to values more and more Democrats (more and more Americans) are holding. It's still de rigeur for Democrats to support Israel, but it will make a world of difference whether you support Israel for peace and justice or you support Israel for nationalist domination and war. As such, the idea that Lantos was becoming more moderate may further realignment of the Democrats, whereas the moderation of the Israelis I referred to were literally dead ends.

David Grossman: The blind giant of the Middle East. Actually, I found Grossman's diatribe against Ehud Olmert over the Lebanon war that killed Grossman's son too turgid to get into -- I don't doubt that Israel has lost its way, but I also don't think it was on the right road in the first place. Rather, I want to point out one of the "choice" letters, by Chad Bagley. The other, by Gadi Ben-Yehuda, isn't bad either, but appeals to idealism where Bagley cites good old fashioned pragmatism (I was tempted to say American, but I don't see much of it hereabouts any more):

This is a thoughtful article but I think that it tries to hold on to the myth of the State of Israel as an ideal gone wrong. Perhaps it's time to entertain the heretical idea that perhaps -- just perhaps -- creating a Jewish state in a land that had been occupied by Muslims for millennia wasn't such a judicious idea to begin with. The fact is that the State of Israel was not an organic creation. Anyone really wanting to look at the situation honestly has to concede that Israel was created by the US and Britain as a solution to a refugee problem; refugees that for economic and anti-Semitic reasons neither the US nor Britain wanted to assimilate at the time. Did anyone at the time really think that establishing a theocratic state that worshiped Yahweh that was surrounded by other theocratic states that worship Allah -- both of which firmly believe that the land was deeded to them in perpetuity by their respective gods -- were really going to get along?

As other letters in this thread have said, it's time to take a pragmatic approach and stop supporting a genocidal state that imposes apartheid on its minority. The US needs to put its foot down and give Israel their marching orders (of course that also means getting rid of the pretension that Israel is a sovereign state. Face it, any country whose citizenry receive six times more federal aid per capita than the residents of any American state need to give up the silly notion that they can make their own policy).

Unfortunately, the US foreign policy is heavily influenced by a theocratic leaning cabal that believes in the same kind of scriptural hooey that fuels this hogwash between the Jews and the Muslims (The supreme irony is that the Christofascists who have made this truly bizarre alliance with Israel are doing so because they see the destruction of Israel as a fulfillment of prophesy. After all, how can Israel be destroyed if it isn't on the map? The Zionist boosters think this is a hoot but hey, why look a gift horse in the mouth).

Unless all sides can take a rational approach without basing their foreign policy on old political tracts (i.e. scripture) there will be no solution except the solution that has reigned supreme for the past 50 years: bloodshed and ethnic hatred.

Two or three points I'd like to add to this. The first is that Israelis are themselves divided over what to do, so the problem is less getting the US to tell Israel what to do than to get the US to line up in ways that support Israelis who are willing to live peaceably and equitably with non-Jews in the region. The US is not sending the right message by structuring so much aid for military purposes, just to take the most obvious example. The US has a bigger problem in understanding that the occupation or any institution of unequal treatment will never solve and will only cause conflict. This should be easy enough to understand: all people can agree to equal treatment; only a part of the people will ever agree to unequal treatment. One need only ask oneself why.

Another point is that the root cause of Israel and all of the strife that has come out of it was the unwillingness of world powers and the world in general to settle displaced Jews in their own lands. In order for Israelis to accept equality Jews must be treated equitably elsewhere. Zionism depends on antisemitism. Take antisemitism away and Zionism has no rationale to exist. It should be quite practical to monitor both that non-Jews in Israel and its subject territories are treated equitably and that Jews outside Israel are also treated equitably, with the powers of the world united to reinforce such behavior. To make that happen the US would have to commit to equal treatment (which is, after all, a fundamental principle of American law) and to build cooperative world organizations to work through (forsaking our own selfish interests for common goals -- aye, there's the rub: the American national religion, after all, is the resolute belief that our pursuit of our individual and national self-interests is ultimately best for everyone).

Spent the whole week listening to new jazz. Started with singers, partly by accident, then by chain of reasoning, or maybe because they go fast. Didn't get much in the mail, so for once the queue shrunk, clearing a couple of annoying piles off my desk. It would still take another three, maybe four, such weeks to catch up, but finally making some progress. I have 60% of the next column written, plus enough identified A-list and honorable mention material to fill up the rest. Also have a couple of possible pick hits, but those aren't locked in. Don't know what to do about the dud slot, which is getting to be a huge pet peeve. I should hold off writing more on that until the pending column comes out, but as usual the hint is on Downbeat's cover. I like the magazine, but I think the only duds they've missed so far have been my bottom feeders (Kenny G and Chris Botti) and a couple of longshot pianists (Taylor Eigsti and Matt Savage). I also don't recall picking any after the cover appeared, so chalk it up to karma somehow.

Jazz CG #15 should be out in the Village Voice mid-week. Don't know what the final cuts are, but I cut down the amount I sent in, so it shouldn't be too bad. I still need to trim back the done list (currently 118 deep; probably should be more like 60) and polish off the surplus file. I figure I could start closing out Jazz CG #16 after as little as two more weeks. Historically, I've run a column every three months and slipped a bit lately (13 to 14 was 3 days short of 4 months; 14 to 15 will also be 3 days short of 4 months). Slips getting slotted into the Voice are the main reason -- one that's unlikely to change, so the only way to speed up would be for me to shorten my cycle. The number of good records to write about would support a two month cycle. I don't know whether the Voice would, but I haven't pushed it hard enough yet to force an answer.

One anomaly below is that I spend a lot of time bitching about Flash websites. I suspect that musicians like Flash because it's good for pushing music out -- same reason they like MySpace, which provides them with a Flash widget for music. That's also one of the reasons I hate Flash: I'm always playing something else when I look up a website, and don't want it to start interfering with my sound. There are lots of other things I hate about Flash, but the reason I got rid of it is that it enables viruses that damage my browser and lose me a lot of work. Since the web was invented, there has been a struggle going on between page designers and users over control of the screen. Flash does offer occasionally useful things, but it tips the balance of power way to the side of the design fascists. A lot of my complaints could be lessened by Flash if they just made their widgets more user friendly: let us turn sound off as a default, let us stop an animation, let us kill and cover up a whole widget, give us some more effective control against untoward behavior. Flash doesn't let us do such reasonable things; the only recourse we have is to disable it. The main reason I go to an artist website is to get some info. That can be done better in HTML than in Flash. It's fine with me if you have straight HTML pages with Flash widgets for only the things Flash is good for. It's also OK to have parallel Flash and HTML paths like Dynamod provides. But this idea that everything has to be Flash hurts me, and ultimately hurts you. It's not browsable, not searchable, and downright irritating. Maybe now that I've said this here, I won't have to repeat it over and over again in the notes, as I did here.

Kat Parra: Azucar de Amor (2008, Patois): Singer, from California, currently somewhere in the Bay Area. Does a mixed bag of Latin music, sambas and mambos, Afro-Cuban and Afro-Peruvian, charangas and danzóns, salsa, with a special interest in Sephardic whatever -- she sings in Ladino, as well as Spanish, Portuguese, French, and (not on her list, but I guess this is a given) English. Second album. It's easier to nitpick the English and/or the slow ones -- she does "Misty" as a bolero but it still sounds like a pretty ordinary "Misty" to me. Her "mystic Sephardic ballad" is appropriately dreamy, something called "Esta Montanya D'Enfrente." B

Libby York: Here With You (2007 [2008], Libby York Music): Singer, from Chicago but spent the 1980s in New York, studying with Abbey Lincoln and Judy Niemack. Started singing professionally at 35, and now had 3 albums in her mid-40s. Sings standards ("You Go to My Head," "But Beautiful," "Azure Te," "Flamingo"). Mid-range voice with precise intonation, able to wrap old chestnuts in fine leather or lace. Guitarist Howard Alden gets credit for arrangements, but yields to Russell Malone on three cuts. Renee Rosnes gets credit as Production Assistant ("the world's most overqualified"), but no piano, a clever omission which leaves plenty of room for Warren Vaché's delectable cornet -- much better than his duet on "Walkin' My Baby Back Home," which is sort of winning nonetheless. B+(***)

Wendy Luck: See You in Rio (2006, Wendy Luck Music): Singer, also plays flute. Third album. AMG classifies her as new age, which indicates the flute came first. Sort of a wispy blonde voice, attractive enough, unmannered and carefree on lightweight Brazilian fare. One long quasi-classical flute feature, "Bachianas Brasilieras No. 5" by Heitor Villa-Lobos, is neither here nore there. B-

Something for You: Eliane Elias Sings & Plays Bill Evans (2007 [2008], Blue Note): For starters, I still find Evans impenetrable, which isn't to say I'm immune to his charms, although he really has to be doing something special to overcome my resistance. Pianist Elias manages to evoke the same conflicted responses, so she must be doing something right. In general, she's a better pianist than singer. (Except when she's doing Jobim. Maybe Astrud Gilberto skewed the field so far that even Elias seems vibrant by comparison, or maybe she's just so much more at home there.) But the paleness in her voice suits the half-plus songs with vocals here, although only "Detour Ahead" really catches my ear. Bassist-husband Marc Johnson played with Evans, and managed to borrow Scott LaFaro's bass for a couple of songs, so he's beyond reproach. Joey Baron is exceptionally quiet, never reminiscent of Paul Motian. No idea whether Evans fans will like this or not. I find it charming, but can't claim I understand why. B+(***)

Katie Bull: The Story, So Far (2006 [2007], Corn Hole Indie): An adventurous jazz singer, citing Jay Clayton and Sheila Jordan as influences, working with mostly avant musicians like Michael Jefry Stevens and Joe Fonda. Fourth album, a very ambitious song suite, with a DVD (unviewed) documenting her performance art. You can use her cover of "Twisted" for calibration: it is looser and quirkier than Annie Ross (or Joni Mitchell, even), and those traits pop up every now and then in her originals. Problem is I don't find myself caring, even when she taunts Bush for not finding any WMD. B

Jamie Leonhart: The Truth About Suffering (2008, Sunnyside): Singer-songwriter, sharing some/most credits with pianist-husband Michael Leonhart. Born in New York, granddaughter of a cantor. Debut album, not counting a self-released EP that AMG lists first. Doesn't sound all that jazzy, but at least one jazz vocal niche is pure marketing accident: a few club dates, a jazz label, who knows? Sounds better when I listen closely, and I can't say that I gave it a fair hearing. Not something I'm much interested in. B

Patrick Arena: Night and Day (2008, Arenamusic): Singer, based in Western PA, maybe from there too, as his CV indicates he studied drama at Duquesne 1970-72, from which I also deduce he's over 50. Spent some time in NYC. Teaches voice. His strikes me as soft-toned, unmannered, with limited range, although he can modulate the volume. A couple of originals and some peculiar covers, like "I'm Always Drunk in San Francisco." C+

Elli Fordyce with Jim Malloy: Something Still Cool (1999-2006 [2007], EF Music): Fordyce is a singer based in NY, b. 1937, with her first album. (I saw one website that had her born in 1974 with 6 albums, but nothing else I see gives that any credence. Scott Yanow's liner notes ask: "How can the singer possibly be 70 when her voice can pass for 40?") She likes the cool jazz of the 1950s, explaining that she hired trumpeter James Magnarelli for his fondness for Chet Baker. Malloy is another singer; has an album of mostly 1950s bop standards called Jazz Vocalist. He appears in duets on 5 songs, and they make a nice pair. Two cuts with just David Epstein on piano. The rest, including all the duets, have Harry Whitaker's piano trio, some with Magnarelli and/or percussionist Samuel Torres added. Good liner notes; solid craftsmanship. B+(*)

Diane Schuur: Some Other Time (2008, Concord): Singer. Has about 20 albums since 1985, but this is the first I've heard. Arguably she's the most famous jazz singer I'd never heard before -- she's had a couple of Grammys and 12 albums on Billboard's Top Ten Jazz Albums lists, but popularity tends to be suspect in this niche and Penguin Guide doesn't acknowledge her at all. Standards, well worn ones at that, like "Nice Work If You Can Get It," "Blue Skies," "Taking a Chance on Love," "My Favorite Things." One cut is rather strangely pulled from a 1964 archive, at which point she would have been 11, and that segues into an apparently new "Danny Boy." Small group with piano (Schuur on two cuts, Randy Porter elsewhere), guitar (Dean Balmer), bass and drums. She's an articulate singer with a finely honed neutral voice, assured. Given surefire songs and sensible, swinging even, arrangements, she makes a strong impression. B+(**) [Feb. 26]

Keefe Jackson's Project Project: Just Like This (2007, Delmark): Jackson plays tenor sax and bass clarinet. He moved to Chicago from Fayetteville, AR in 2001. Has an earlier record I haven't heard by a small group called Keefe Jackson's Fast Citizens. Project Project is a large improv-oriented band: 5 brass, 5 reeds, bass and drums. Loose, rowdy, occasionally rapturous solos, nothing that stands out much from any number of similar configurations. B+(*)

Mike Walbridge's Chicago Footwarmers: Crazy Rhythm (1966-2007 [2007], Delmark): Born 1937 in Los Angeles, Walbridge moved from trumpet to sousaphone in his high school band, moved to Chicago after a stint in the military, joined the Original Salty Dogs, and founded the Chicago Footwarmers Hot Dance Orchestra in 1958, playing tuba. That trad jazz never changes is proven by the near-seamless pairing of a 1966-67 9-track LP with 8 new tracks from 40 years later. What holds it together is fellow Salty Dog Kim Cusack, who plays clarinet and alto sax on both sessions. He goes back even further, recording most frequently with James Dapogny, Ernie Carson, and Bob Schulz, although he also has a nice 1967-2007 pair of credits with Jim Kweskin and Maria Muldaur. While the 1967 sessions have extra piano, the most distinctly satisfying thing about this record is its elemental foursquare structure -- clarinet over tuba, banjo with drums -- as basic as trad jazz gets. A-

Sabertooth: Dr. Midnight (2007, Delmark): A quartet consisting of two saxophonists, Cameron Pfiffner and Pat Mallinger, with Pete Benson on organ and Ted Sirota on drums. Group formed in 1990 and has long held an after hours gig at Chicago's Green Mill Lounge. A previous self-released Live at the Green Mill album came out in 2001. The new one suggests they haven't gone anywhere. The two saxophonists can cut it, but Pfiffner likes to relax with his piccolo, Matlinger prefers a Native American flute, neither strong suits. Mostly originals by the saxophonists, but the best thing here is by "traditional," mostly because Sirota gets to shake a Latin beat. Strikes me as spotty, a problem with gigs: live you recall the good spots, on record you dread the rest. B-

Out to Lunch: Excuse Me While I Do the Boogaloo (2007, Accurate): Gratuitous AMG slam du jour: they label this group/record country. The hype sheet references Medeski Martin & Wood, Groove Collective, Club D'Elf, and others, summing up: "James Brown soul to dub influenced reggae, from jazz to house." I guess "acid jazz" doesn't buy you much these days. Actually, I find them a little soft and wobbly for any of those comparisons. The leader is Brooklyn saxophonist David Levy, who hails from Canada and passed through New England Conservatory. Levy's credit list here starts with bass clarinet and clarinet, which has something to do with the soft touch. Josiah Woodson plays trumpet and flute; Petr Cancura tenor/soprano sax and clarinet; Eric Lane keybs; two bassist alternate, and there are drums and electronics. Debut album, although AMG lists one from 2003 that probably doesn't belong here. B

Free Form Funky Freqs: Urban Mythology: Volume One (2007, Thirsty Ear): Guitar improv from Vernon Reid, with Jamaldeen Tacuma reverbing the funk bass and G. Calvin Weston on drums, with extra beeps, bonks and warps plugged in by Reid, but -- they swear -- no guitar, bass, or drum overdubs. Accept it for what little it is and you'll have a nice time. Don't hold your breath for Vol. 2. B+(*)

Steve Reid Ensemble: Daxaar (2007, Domino): Album cover claims "(recorded in africa)" in small bold print against an outline of the continent. The title is evidently an archaic spelling of Dakar, the capital of Senegal, where Reid picked up trumpet (Roger Ongolo), guitar (Jimi Mbaye), bass (Dembel Diop), kora (Isa Kouyate, also spelled Koyate, while kora is also spelled korah), and percussion (Khadim Badji), studio pros wi