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Monday, April 21, 2025

Music Week

April archive (in progress).

Music: Current count 44070 [44035) rated (+35), 24 [33] unrated (-9).

I'm still in taking-it-easy mode, hoping that a few more days (or weeks or months) will aid in recovering from recent traumas -- I'm more optimistic about the eye surgery and the end of winter (although the last couple days have been pretty miserable) than about the world at large -- and give me time to plot a sensible path forward. I go to see the optometrist mid-week, which should give me a second opinion, some numbers, and possibly some answers on my eyes.

My impression is mostly favorable. I watch TV and go on walks without glasses. I can drive either with or without -- probably a bit better without, but with is good enough I've kept using them. I can still read, not great but no worse than before. (I've never used glasses for reading, so one question is whether they'd make a difference now.) Computer work is still iffy, so I might need some correction just for that. Many things are brighter, and that can cause some strain. It's also a good excuse not to kick myself for not getting much writing or programming done.

I did manage to publish a Loose Tabs on Thursday, and have added a couple items over the weekend, including a couple obituaries/remembrances of the late Francis Davis. I have a longstanding project to update and upgrade his Jazz Critics Poll website. That's on hold for the moment as we try to figure out what to do without him. Meanwhile, I've already collected a couple bits for the next Loose Tabs post. No regular schedule, but the outlet is there if I need it.

I'm expecting this week to be super lightweight. Aside from the doctor, I have some house work scheduled, and some shopping planned. I found some interesting things in the demo queue this week, although the A- albums (except for Dean Wareham) barely made the lower reaches the A-list. Several misses were also quite close, probably hampered by limited plays, with one becoming the first HM I posted a link to on Bluesky. I'm up to 96 followers there.

New records reviewed this week:

Benefits: Constant Noise (2025, Invada): North English duo, ominous spoken word vocals with electropop beats. B+(**) [sp]

Peter Brötzmann/Jason Adasiewicz/Steve Noble/John Edwards: The Quartet: Cafe Oto, London, February, 10 & 11, 2023 (2023 [2025], Otoroku): German saxophonist, one of the founders of the European avant-garde, recorded an enormous amount from 1967 up to his death, at 82, in June, 2023, a few months after this two-night, four set performance (140:28, available on 2-CD, with a 4-LP box and a 2-LP edit in the works), backed with vibes, drums, and bass. Hard to make fine distinctions among his work, but this seems like the sort of monumental capstone one can only imagine a career ending with. A- [bc]

Anla Courtis Ja Lehtisalo: 1972 (2022-24 [2025], Full Connect): Duo, two long-established experimental guitarists (plus long list of other instruments), both born in 1972 ("an era when sound was an experiment"), the former in Argentina, the latter in Finland (first name Jussi; "ja" here seems to be Finnish for "and"). Some remarkable rough-hewn ambient for a world on edge. A- [bc]

Christopher Dammann: Sextet (2024 [2025], Out of Your Head): Free jazz bassist from Chicago, first album, but has side-credits going back to 2014 (3.5.7 Ensemble, which I vaguely recall). Group here with trumpet (James Davis), two saxophonists (Jon Irabagon and Edward Wilkerson Jr), piano (Mabel Kwan), and drums (Scott Clark). Starts solid, stays solid, until the end when they almost break out. B+(***) [cd]

John Dikeman/Sun-Mi Hong/Aaron Lumley/Marta Warelis: Old Adam on Turtle Island (2022 [2025], Relative Pitch): Dutch, or at least Amsterdam-based, improv group, respectively: sax, drums, bass, piano. B [bc]

Trygve Fiske Sextet: The Flowers. The Dance. The Rumble and the Stumble. (2025, Slaraffensongs): Norwegian bassist, side credits from 2004, not clear how many (if any) he should be considered leader of (he's used Waldemar as middle name, and two albums are credited to Waldemar 4). This with Per Texas Johansson, Erik Kimestad Pedersen, Morten Qvenild, Oscar Gronberg, and Hans Hulbćkmo. B+(**) [sp]

Food House: Two House (2025, self-released): I've seen this co-credited to Gupi and Fraxiom, but as far as I can tell, they are Food House, not extra hangers on. Hyperpop, or bubblegum bass, or cartoon music sent schizophrenically awry. Not my thing, but probably more amusing than Skrillex. B [sp]

GFOTY: Influenzer (2025, Girlfriend): British glitch-pop singer-songwriter Polly-Louisa Salmon, goes by acronym for GirlFriend of the Year, I heard (but didn't much like) a 2016 EP, which was followed by a 2019 mini-album and now two LPs. I don't get the attraction of glitchy hyperpop but I'm not totally lost here, or totally disinterested, but this could wear thin. B+(*) [sp]

The Hemphill Stringtet: Plays the Music of Julius Hemphill (2023 [2025], Out of Your Head): Hemphill (1938-95) was an alto saxophonist, but also notable as a composer, arranger, and organizer -- a co-founder of the Black Artist Group (BAG) in St. Louis, and later of the World Saxophone Quartet, where he was de facto leader even if others, like David Murray, were better known. Some of his early recordings were duos with Abdul Wadud on cello, so the notion of forming a string quartet to play his music must have seemed natural. Two violins (Curtis Stewart and Sam Bardfeld), viola (Stephanie Griffin), and cello (Tomeka Reid). Although the notes say "all music by Julius Hemphill," a big chunk of it was originally composed by Mingus, and more was improvised. B+(***) [cd]

Jacob Felix Heule/Teté Leguía/Sanishta Rivero/Martín Escalante: An Inscrutable Bodily Discomforting Thing (2021 [2025], Kettle Hole): Percussionist, from Oakland, ten or so albums since 2004, mostly collaborations, Bill Orcutt is about as famous as they get, and another 30 or so side credits. The others play: bass, voice/electronics, sax. One 40:11 piece which gets uncomfortably noisy but then backs off a bit and haves fun with the mess. B+(***) [cd]

Homeboy Sandman & Illingsworth: Dancing Tree (2025, self-released, EP): Four tracks, 13:58. "Money don't make you rich." "You can only learn from experience/ so be curious." "Who wants to sit here and think that we can do something? It's fun to just blame somebody else." B+(***) [bc]

Homeboy Sandman & Yeyts.: Corn Hole Legend (2025, self-released, EP): Five tracks, 10:14. Nice song about Thanksgiving. B+(*) [bc]

Eunhye Jeong/Michael Bisio Duo: Morning Bells Whistle Bright (2023 [2025], ESP-Disk): Piano and bass duo, with one solo track each, but also joined for four tracks (three in the middle, plus the closer) by Joe McPhee (tenor sax) and Jay Rosen (drums). In some ways this seems slight, but every detail signifies. A- [cd]

Ingrid Laubrock: Purposing the Air (2022-24 [2025], Pyroclastic, 2CD): German saxophonist, based in New York, many albums since 1998, none like this one, where she composed music for the poetry of Erica Hunt, each set performed by a vocal-instrument duo: Fay Victor and Mariel Roberts (cello), Sara Serpa and Matt Mitchell (piano), Theo Bleckmann and Ben Monder (guitar), and Rachel Calloway and Ari Streisfeld (violin). No saxophone that I noticed, although I have little patience for this style of art song. B- [cd]

Will Mason Quartet: Hemlocks, Peacocks (2024 [2025], New Focus): Drummer, lives in Rhode Island, side credits since 2009, at least one previous album as leader, this a quartet with Anna Webber (tenor sax), Daniel Fisher-Lochhead (alto sax), and deVon Russell Gray (keyboards), on a multi-movement composition inspired by LaMonte Young. B+(**) [bc]

Joe McPhee & Paal Nilssen-Love: I Love Noise (2022 [2024], PNL): Spoken word intro: "I love noise, because it can be organized into music"; "I think my love of noise is always in the process of becoming." Such generalizations evolve into a sermon on jazz history, touching on Coltrane and Ayler, with drum accents, until McPhee ultimately (19 minutes in) lets his tenor sax take over. B+(***) [bc]

Paal Nilssen-Love Circus With the Ex Guitars: Turn Thy Loose (2024 [2025], PNL): Norwegian drummer from the Thing and many other groups, premiered this septet in a 2021 recording, replacing his guitarist with not just Andy Moor and Terrie Hessells -- who recorded as "the Ex Guitars" in Lean Left with Ken Vandermark-- but also Arnold de Boer, all of the Dutch postpunk group the Ex. The vocals (Juliana Venter, also de Boer) don't bother me here, and may even be a plus, but the pauses and quiet spots seem like a waste, especially compared to what they can do at full blast. B+(***) [bc]

Adam O'Farrill: For These Steets (2022 [2025], Out of Your Head): Trumpet player, father and grandfather were famous Cuban musicians, which he also knows a thing or two about, but he's more likely to hang out with free jazz types, collecting here a pretty stellar octet: Mary Halvorson (guitar), Patricia Brennan (vibes), David Leon (alto sax/flute), Kevin Sun (tenor sax/clarinet), Kalun Laung (trombone/euphonium), Tyrone Allen II (bass), and Tomas Fujiwara (drums). I'm struggling, as my instinct says this is too fancy, but the only thing that might keep this from becoming one of the year's top-rated albums is that it's on a tiny label few have heard of. (Note that Brennan and Halvorson have won two of the last three FDJC Polls.) A- [cd]

Samo Salamon & Ra Kalam Bob Moses Orchestra: Dream Suites Vol. 1 (2023 [2025], Samo): Guitarist and percussionist wrote three long pieces (24:46, 13:38, 17:12) for large ensembles of 19, 16. and 18, total 27 musicians, nearly all familiar names, which add marks of individuality to the collective reverie. A- [cd]

Jaysun Silver: No Excuses (2025, self-released): Punkish, lo-fi, first album after an EP, 10 short songs in 19:07, has a sense of humor (Bandcamp page says "Brooklyn's best musician" and uses tags "amazing, classic, masterpiece"). B+(*) [bc]

Skrillex: Fuck U Skrillex U Think Ur Andy Warhol but Ur Not!! <3 (2025, Atlantic/Owsla): Electronica producer Sonny Moore, from Los Angeles, gained a measure of fame for a series of 2011-14 albums, then nothing until a pair in 2023 and now this, which I am assured is "continuously engaging and hilariously silly" -- traits I didn't come remotely close to being able to confirm. B- [sp]

The Third Mind: Live Mind (2024 [2025], Yep Roc): Roots rock band, best known members are Dave Alvin (from Blasters, with a long solo career) and Victor KRummenacher (from Camper van Beethoven), with vocals by Jesse Sykes, who fronted the Sweet Thereafter for several 2003-11 albums. B+(**) [sp]

The Tubs: Cotton Crown (2025, Trouble in Mind): Welsh indie band, Owen Williams is singer-guitarist, second album. Some jangle. B+(*) [sp]

Mathilde Grooss Viddal/Friensemblet: Tri Vendur Blés Ho I Den Hřgaste Sky (2025, Losen): Norwegian saxophonist, has a half-dozen albums since 2006, leads a ten-piece group through a set of pieces based on folk themes, where the folksingers (for better or worse) seem to have the upper hand. B+(*) [sp]

Dean Wareham: That's the Price of Loving Me (2025, Carpark): Singer-songwriter, originally from New Zealand, moved to New York as a teenager, founded the bands Galaxie 500 (1988-90) and Luna (1992-2006 & 2017, overlapping several albums as Dean & Britta)), with solo albums since 2013, this his fourth, produced by the mononymous Kramer in a sonic nod to Galaxie 500. Actually reminded me more of the Go-Betweens, but calmer and in its own way weirder. The song in German is another plus for me, even before I identified it as a Nico cover. A- [sp]

Christian Winther: Sculptures From Under the City Ice (2025, Earthly Habit): Norwegian singer-songwriter, plays guitar, has a couple of previous albums. Group includes a jazz drummer I recognize, and the album eventually skews that direction, although I also wound up thinking of Arto Lindsay's skronk. B+(**) [sp]

Wolf Eyes: Wolf Eyes X Anthony Braxton (2025, ESP-Disk): The former is an electronic music duo from Detroit, Nate Young (electronics, vocals, harmonica) and John Olson (pipes, electronics) that has an insane number of albums since 1998 (Discogs says 130). The saxophonist you most likely know has even more albums, going back to 1968. I'm on record as hating his 1971 solo album, For Alto, but acknowledge that among the few people who can stand such harsh horror are huge fans -- it garnered a rare Penguin Guide Crown. This is every bit as ugly, and possibly as remarkable. B+(*) [cd]

Y: Y (2025, Hideous Mink, EP): English group, first release, 4 songs, 13:30, vocals recall Lydia Lunch, maybe because rhythm touches on New York no wave, goosed with sax riffs. B+(*) [sp]

James Zito: Zito's Jump (2024 [2025], self-released): Guitarist, based in New York, seems to be his first album -- Discogs led me to a trumpet player of that name, 1923-2014, who played in many big bands, from Tommy Dorsey to Gerald Wilson -- a mainstream quintet with Chris Lewis (tenor sax/flute), Luther Allison (piano), Rodney Whitaker (bass), and Joe Farnsworth (drums). Mostly originals, but they liked "After You've Gone" enough to include it twice. B+(*) [cd]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

Peter Brötzmann Trio: Hurricane (2015 [2025], Old Heaven Books): As with Charlie Parker and John Coltrane, I expect that the late German saxophonist's posthumous oeuvre will eventually match, in quantity if not in quality, what he released during his lifetime -- in his case a relatively long one. This was recorded at a festival in Shenzhen, with Sabu Toyozumi on drums and Jason Adasiewicz on vibraphone, for a bit of tinkle that first struck me as an oriental touch, but adds its own dimension. As for the title, this barely reaches Category 1 intensity, which is the way I prefer him. B+(***) [bc]

Charles Mingus: Mingus in Argentina: The Buenos Aires Concerts (1977 [2025], Resonance, 2CD): A tremendous bassist from the start, his genius period as a composer ran from roughly 1956-64, although he got a second wind in the early 1970s with a new quartet that went independent under the joint leadership of George Adams and Don Pullen. His health soon deteriorated, and he died in 1979 (age 56), so anything from his last few years doesn't come with great expectations. I found this one unsettling at first, but flashes of brilliance kept surfacing, most from compositions that undoubtedly have been done better elsewhere, but he had an uncanny knack for breathing fresh life into everything he touched. And for making small groups -- this one especially notable for Jack Walrath (trumpet) and Ricky Ford (tenor sax). Also, he closes both sets with his own solo piano. A- [cd]

Charles Mingus: Reincarnations (1960 [2024], Candid): The bassist, coming off a peak year that included Blues and Roots on Atlantic and Mingus Ah Um on Columbia recorded three albums for Nat Hentoff's label in 1960 -- two nearly as good as his masterpieces, plus a third set of scraps. After the revived label reissued the catalog, they found more scraps, which they fashioned into Incarnations, and more scraps here: five tracks, 48:30, with various musicians, notably Eric Dolphy (3 tracks, on flute, bass clarinet, and alto sax), and Roy Eldridge (2 tracks, on trumpet). B+(**) [sp]

Spectacular Diagnostics: Raw Game [Ten Year Edition] (2015 [2025], Vinyl Digital): Chicago hip-hop producer Robert Krums, reissue of first album, twelve tracks with nearly as many guest rappers (including Jeremiah Jae, Quelle Chris, Vic Spencer, Westwide Gunn & Conway the Machine). B+(***)

Old music:

Charles Mingus/Max Roach/Eric Dolphy/Roy Eldridge/Jo Jones [Jazz Artists Guild]: Newport Rebels (1961 [2024], Candid): Hard to parse this album cover, as the title could be the group name or vice versa, or either could be "Jazz Artists Guild," but the names are too big to ignore -- although Jones is the only one to play on all five tracks, and other notables show up on the roster here and there, including Booker Little, Kenny Dorham, Benny Bailey, Jimmy Knepper, Tommy Flanagan, Abbey Lincoln, and a couple lesser-knowns (like Peck Morrison on bass, twice), but I don't see where Roach plays. B+(***) [sp]

Charles Mingus: Charles Mingus and the Newport Rebels (1960 [2010], Candid): Another compilation from the same sessions, but of six songs, only one appeared on Newport Rebels, and while the cast of characters is similar (Dolphy, Eldridge, Flanagan, Knepper, Jones, and Richmond appear here), some new names also slip in (from the cover: Ted Cuson, Booker Ervin, Paul Bley). B+(**) [sp]

Charles Mingus: The Complete Town Hall Concert (1962 [1994], Blue Note): This was reportedly a "live workshop" of music meant to be recorded later, including two parts of a two-hour composition ("Epitaph") that was ultimately recorded by Gunther Schuller in 1989. But when United Artists released 36 minutes of this in 1962, it was widely deemed a disaster, with this later 68-minute CD merely aimed "to clean up the mess." A very big band: 7 trumpets, 6 trombones, 10 reeds (including an oboe), 2 pianists (Jaki Byard and Toshiko Akiyoshi), 2 bassists (Mingus plus Milt Hinton), Dannie Richmond on drums (but with extra percussionists), just one guitar (Les Spann). B+(*) [sp]

Phew: Phew (1981, Pass): Japanese singer Hiromi Moritani, started in post-punk group Aunt Sally, recorded this first album with members of Can (Conny Plank, Holger Czukay, Jaki Liebezeit), kept the name as an alias for more albums after 1987, including work with Anton Fier, Bill Laswell, Jim O'Rourke, and members of Raincoats, Boredoms, and Einstürzende Neubauten. This is very much part of the moment when bands like Cabaret Voltaire were being formed. Probably someone to study further. B+(***) [sp]

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

  • Alberto Pinton's Relentless: Allt Större Klarhet (Moserobie) [03-14]
  • Ryan Truesdell: Shades of Sound: Gil Evans Project Live at Jazz Standard Vol. 2 (Outside In Music) [05-30]

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Thursday, April 17, 2025

Loose Tabs

I wound up spending much of today processing and responding to the news that Francis Davis has died. Nate Chinen's piece, cited below, is beautifully written and covers much of what needs to be said. I will probably write more over the next couple weeks, but at the moment, I'm having trouble composing myself. I do much appreciate the notes I've seen so far, and will go back over them in due course. One side effect of this is that I took a good look at obituaries so far this year, and came up with the fairly long list below. The biggest surprise for me was another notable jazz critic, Larry Appelbaum, who has voted in every Jazz Critics Poll since its inception, so I counted him as another old and dear friend.

As these occasional posts are never really done, their timing is pretty arbitrary. But I figured I had enough saved up, and might as well call it a day. (Well, it slipped a day, so I wound up adding a few things, but nothing major.)

PS: I updated the section on Francis Davis below, as the New York Times proved better late than never. I've added a sidebar link to Loose Tabs, which should make it easier for me to start each one of these with some line like "it's been 11 days since my last confession." I have a draft file to collect items until next next time. While it will be updated whenever I bother to update the website, but there's no real reason to not to make the link public. (There is also one for books.) One piece I want to go ahead and share here is:

Select internal links:

Eric Levitz: [01-10] Have the past 10 years of Democratic politics been a disaster? "A conversation with Matthew Yglesias." I found this tab open from back in January, but never really got through it, and still haven't. At some point, I want to go back over all of Levitz's "Rebuild" pieces, as I think they're about half right, and the wrong half is probably the more interesting, at least to write about. Given the interviewee, this one is probably more than half wrong.

Yglesias is a very smart, very productive guy who has from the very beginning always been one step ahead of where internet punditry is going. I read all of his Vox stuff with great interest, most of what came before, but not a lot of what came after. He's always had a good feel for where the neoliberal money was going, and with his Substack newsletter, his Bloomberg columns, and his hyper-Friedmanesque One Billion Americans book, he's clearly arrived as an oracle for the cosmopolitan liberal set. Still, in glomming onto his own special donor class, he's kind of lost touch with everyone else. His prescription that what Democrats need is to give up on the left gestures of Hillary-Biden-Harris and return to solid Obama moderation is incredible on every front.

David Klion: [03-10] The Loyalist: "The cruel world according to Stephen Miller." Review of Jean Guerrero's book, Hatemonger: Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, and the White Nationalist Agenda.

Jeremy R Hammond: [03-27] How Trump Greenlighted the Resumption of Israel's Gaza Genocide.

David A Graham: [04-01] The Top Goal of Project 2025 Is Still to Come: "The now-famous white paper has proved to be a good road map for what the administration has done so far, and what may yet be on the way." Note that Graham has a 160 pp. book on this coming out April 22: The Project: How Project 2025 Is Reshaping America.

Hamilton Nolan: [04-01] Divergence From the Interests of Capital: "Trump will ultimately make rich people poorer. Why?" This is a fairly quick overview, and he didn't even get to some big things, like climate change. Just who do you think owns all that beach front property that's going to get liquidated? Who needs to be able to afford disaster insurance? What about capital investments in in things like agriculture that will have to move as climates shift? And then, when it all goes to hell, whose heads will be on the line when the mob rises up? Since Clinton, Democrats have been telling their rich donors that they're better off with Democrats in power, and they have at least 30 years of data to prove their point. But are the rich listening? Some, but most still prefer the Republicans, because by degrading and humiliating the poor, they make the rich feel more important, more powerful, richer.

Batya Unger-Sargon: [04-02] I Used to Hate Trump. Now I'm a MAGA Lefty. "The president is giving the working class its best shot at the American Dream in 60 years. That's why I support him." That's all I could read before hitting the paywall -- looks like "TheFreePress" isn't free after all.Author "appears regularly on Fox News," and has published two books: Bad News: How Woke Media Is Undermining Democracy (2021), and Second Class: How the Elites Betrayed America's Working Men and Women (2024), both on right-wing Encounter Books. For more of her spiel, look here. If you want to take this more seriously than it deserves:

Ben Ehrenreich: [04-03] You Don't Get Trump Without Gaza: "Fascism doesn't just appear. It must be invited in -- and the bipartisan repression of the anti-genocide movement did just that." This is a brilliant piece, setting up its main argument with a recap of Brecht's Arturi Ui, about the improbable rise of a Trump-like -- sure, he was thinking of Hitler, but he hadn't seen Trump yet -- to take over Chicago gangland's "Cauliflower Trust":

Rot, famously, starts at the top. Joe Biden, sleepy guardian of empire and whatever remained of the liberal world order, had stayed comatose on nearly every issue of import to his constituents. But the genocide seemed to bring him briefly and sporadically back to life. It was as if funding and propagandizing for Israel's slaughter were the only aspect of the job that still got his blood moving. He was, as Brecht wrote of Dogsborough, "Like an old family Bible nobody'd opened for ages--till one day some friends were flipping through it and found a dried-up cockroach between the pages." The rest of the political establishment, Democrats and Republicans both, didn't need to be told to follow Biden's lead. The very few exceptions -- we see you, Cori, Ilhan, Rashida -- were disciplined and marginalized.

In an extraordinary show of class unity for a nation supposedly irreparably divided on party lines, our homegrown Cauliflower Trust closed ranks. It was almost as if American upper management, regardless of religion or politics, instinctively understood that maintaining the right of an ethnocratic settler-colonial outpost to exterminate an unruly subject population was essential to its own survival. Or perhaps they were more cunning and saw a ready-made opportunity to take down the left.

The major newspapers, television networks, and virtually all the prestige magazines did their part, boosting the credibility of nearly every outrageous lie invented by Israeli military propagandists while smearing protesters as antisemites, Hamas stooges, and terrorist sympathizers. "It doesn't matter what professors or smart-alecks think," pronounced Brecht's Arturo Ui, "all that counts is how the little man sees his master." . . .

And here we are. The obscene weaponization of antisemitism helped bring actual Nazis to power.

Much more quotable here, including "The Atlantic, the thinking man's propaganda organ for the exterminatory wars of empire." I don't recall reading that particular Brecht play, but I've read many, and recognize the title. In my relative ignorance, I've been thinking of Trump more in terms of Ubu Roi, but farce, no matter how grotesque, can only last in an environment deprived of power.

Ofer Aderet: [04-04] Looking Back, Israeli Historian Tom Segev Thinks Zionism Was a Mistake: "For decades, historian Tom Segev has critically documented momentous events involving Jews, Israel and its neighbors. Recently, he has also looked back at his own life story. Now, at 80, he weighs in on the current state of the nation."

Yair Rosenberg: [04-04] Trump's Jewish Cover Story: "The Trump administration has not surgically targeted these failings at America's universities for rectification; it has exploited them to justify the institution's decimation." I have no doubt that most Jews in America -- perhaps even most of those who wholeheartedly defend Israel's decimation of Gaza -- feel uneasy about being used as the pretext for Trump's wholesale attack on freedom of speech at elite universities, but the author doesn't just say that, he repeats blatant slanders -- e.g., "those behind Columbia's encampment repeatedly cheered Hamas's murders of civilians" -- against students whose "crime" was nothing more or less than protesting against Netanyahu's continuing systematic crimes against humanity in Gaza, and the unconditional support Biden provided (a policy which Trump has continued, as he had promised to do).

Rob Lee: [04-06] We Still Live in Nixonland: An Interview with Rick Perlstein. Some interesting notes on his writing process, although it's hard to imagine the massive notes his actual books are reduced from. Still no date on the much-promised leap into the "last 25 years" (Bush II to Trump, skipping Reagan's presidency, Bush I, and the anti-Clinton insanity, which could easily fill several volumes).

Spencer Ackerman: [04-07] El Salvador and the Dark Lessons of Guantanamo: "CECOT, the Salvadoran slavery-prison now used for migrant renditions, reflects 2002-4-era Gitmo -- with some updates."

John Ganz: [04-07] Dog Eat Dog: "The books of Donald Trump." One of those "I read this shit so you don't have to," in case you ever felt the need. Also:

Andrew Cockburn: [04-07] The fix is in for new Air Force F-47 -- and so is the failure: "Just wait for the unstoppable lobby preventing any future effort to strangle this boondoggle in the cradle."

Paul Krugman:

  • [04-07] Political Styles of the Rich and Clueless: "There are none so blind as those that will not see." This is the first time I've read Krugman on Substack, and it's about par for his New York Times columns. Best line: "great power often enables great pettiness." Which itself is kind of petty given what Trump and Musk levels of power have been doing.

  • [04-10] Trump Is Stupid, Erratic and Weak.

  • [04-13] Will Malignant Stupidity Kill the World Economy? "Trump's tariffs are a disaster. His policy process is worse." This explains the formula used for calculating each nation's tariffs (aside from the 10% minimum, applied even to uninhabited islands where trade is already perfectly balanced at zero).

  • [04-16] Why Trump Will Lose His Trade War: "His people don't know what they're doing or what they want."

  • [04-17] Law Firms, Trade Wars and the Weaknesses of Monarchs: "Unrestrained presidential power will diminish America." I have no idea how these pro bono law services deals are going to work -- who is going to decide which cases they cover, and why -- but they are deeply disturbing. I don't even know what the threat was that compelled large, independent firms to cave in like they did. The gist seems to be that Trump is personally running an off-the-books slush fund, which the companies are feeding, either to gain favor or for fear of some kind of reprisal. I'm not aware of anything remotely like this ever being done before. Krugman cites two articles, which don't help much:

Richard Silverstein: [04-08] Why the world should boycott Trump's America. I understand the sentiment, but I'm not sure the logic works. Boycotts are more likely to cause self-harm than to intimidate their targets, especially ones that pile arrogance on top of a sense of victimhood. Israel is the prime example here, but the US shares both traits, plus two more novel factors: massive size, which would take an incredibly huge boycott to move, and heterogeneity (for lack of a better word), which makes it hard to focus pain on the people actually responsible for the offense. No nation is democratic enough that inflicting pain on its poor will have any real effect on its leaders. Boycotts and sanctions are more likely to rally support for the rulers, while marginalizing internal opposition, and squandering any influence and leverage you might actually have. The cases where such tactics have actually worked are few and far between. About the only thing that can be said for them is that they give one the satisfaction (or moral smugness) of doing something where there are no practical alternatives. On the other hand, if one actually does have leverage -- as, say, Japan does in hosting US bases, or the US does in supplying Israel arms -- wouldn't it be much better to use that leverage to mitigate bad behavior than to strike a mere public stance of moral merit?

Vanesse Ague: [04-09] Big Ears Festival 2025 Reminds Us to Open Ourselves to Wild and Wonderful Sounds.

TJ Dawe: [04-09] I Didn't Think Things Would Get This Chaotic When We Elected President Donkey Kong: I'm not sure whether the quality of thinking declined dramatically in 2024 or was never really there in the first place. It could just be that we were lulled into complacency, knowing that even "the most powerful person in the world" wouldn't possibly be allowed to disrupt, much less destroy, business as usual. After all, we had "checks and balances" -- not just a Constitution designed to obstruct change, but a system of campaign finance and lobbying to make sure no reform got too radical. After all, the system had proven robust enough to contain Trump in his first term. Why not let the people have some fun with the illusory power of their votes?

I'm not into politics. Never have been. That's why it was so refreshing to have a candidate who wasn't the same old same old, but a raging animated ape.

Donkey Kong might not be the most sophisticated public speaker, but it sure was entertaining to go to his rallies. None of the usual bunk about policy and budgets. Just two hours of roaring and chest-pounding. No one gets a crowd going like that monkey! Or donkey. Whatever he is.

But for all the talk from pundits about how we'd see a new side of Donkey Kong once he took office, well, not so much. Turns out we got exactly what we voted for.

Some of this I can explain through a model that I've long had about how the presidency operates. At first, the job seems overwhelming, so an incoming president is effectively a prisoner of his staff. Sure, they're supposed to be his staff, but they immediately become independent agents, able to limit and filter his choices, and each new person they get him to pick further limits his options. I could give you examples from any presidency since FDR (who, for reasons we don't need to go into here, was a rather different case from another era), but Trump I offers by far the most ludicrous examples, starting with Reince Priebus and the so-called "adults" -- at least they were able to derail some of Trump's more outrageous whims, like H-bombing hurricanes, or "solving" the pandemic by no longer counting deaths.

Still, over time, presidents reclaim the power of the office, which in principle they had all along. They tune out tasks they can delegate, and start to press for their own way on matters they care about. Even the most devious staff remind them they're in control, and they can replace anyone who doesn't suit them. Where most presidents start with administrations of old party regulars, they gradually wind up with personality cults. Clinton and Obama offer good examples of this -- which is probably why their personal successes correlate with partisan ruin -- but they at least valued competency. Trump demands even more sycophancy, but with him it's untethered to reality. Trump may be some kind of genius at political messaging -- at least in the Fox universe -- but that's all he knows and/or cares about.

This model usually works smoothly through a second term, but before that ends, the president has turned into a lame duck, and often not just metaphorically, dulling the ego inflation. Some presidents (like Wilson, Eisenhower, and less dramatically Reagan) are further slowed by health issues. But Trump, at least for the moment, is supercharged. His four years out of office have given him all the publicity he had as president but saddled him with none of the responsibility for the many things he would have screwed up. It also gave Republicans time to sort themselves out so Trump has been able to start his second term with a full slate of fanatic followers and enables. This is a combination we've never seen before, and hardly anyone is prepared for what's coming. Donkey Kong is a fanciful metaphor for what's happening. It only seems funny because we know it's not real. But it's hard to come up with anything more real that more accurately reflects the depth of thought that Trump is putting in, because nothing like this has ever worked before.

Melissa Gira Grant: [04-10] The sickening Reason Trump's Team Treats ICE Raids Like Reality TV: "This isn't only about entertainment for sadists. Kristi Noem's right-wing content creation allows the administration to terrorize more people than then can logistically deport." The one thing you can be sure of with Trump is that if he/they do something that looks bad, that's because they want it to look bad. Thinking through implications and consequences is way beyond them, but they live and breathe for gut reactions.

Timothy Noah: [04-10] The Sick Psychology Behind Trump's Tariff Chaos: "This isn't trade strategy. It's Munchausen syndrome by proxy." Clever, but groping for reasoning where little exists.

Eric Levitz: [04-10] The problem with the "progressive" case for tariffs: "Democrats shouldn't echo Trump's myths about trade." I've been somewhat inclined to humor Trump on the tariff question, not because I thought he had a clue what he was doing, or cared about anything more than throwing his presidential weight around, but because I've generally seen trade losses as bad for workers, and because I've never trusted the kneejerk free trade biases of economists. The one caution I always sounded was that tariffs only make sense if you have a national economic plan designed to take advantage of the specific tariffs. That sort of thing has been done most successfully in East Asia, but Americans tend to hate the idea of economic planning (except in the war industry), so there is little chance of doing that here. (Biden's use of tariffs to support clean energy development, semiconductors, etc., tried to do just that. How successfully, I don't know, but they were sane programs. Trump's is not.)

Nonetheless, Levitz has largely convinced me, first that tariffs are a bad tool, and second that they are bad politics. If I had to write a big piece, I'd probably explain it all differently, but our conclusions would converge. There are other tools which get you to the ends desired much more directly. As for the politics, it really doesn't pay to humor people like Trump. We went through a whole round of this in the 1980s and 1990s when conservatives were all hepped up on markets, and Democrats thought, hey, we can work with that. Indeed, they could -- markets tend to level out, making choices more competitive and efficient, so it was easy to come up with policies based on market mechanisms, like carbon credit trading, or the ACA.

Several problems there: one is that real businesses hate free markets, which is why they do everything possible to rig them, and dismantling their cheats is even harder once you agree to the market principle in the first place; second is that it shifts focus from deliberate public interest planning, where you can simply decide to do whatever it is you want to do, and the "invisible hand," which turns out to require a lot of greasing of palms; third is that when you implement market-based reforms, folks credit the market and not the reformers, so you don't build up any political capital for fixing problems. Obama got blamed for every little hiccup in ACA, most of which were the result of private companies gaming the system, and got none for delivering better health care while saving us billions of dollars, which the program actually did do.

One of the points I should have worked in above is that Trump's tariffs are not going to produce "good manufacturing jobs." Even if he does manage to generate more domestic manufacturing, it will only be in highly automated plants with minimally skilled workers, who will have little if any union leverage. And even that is only likely to happen after the companies have shaken down government at all levels for tax breaks and subsidies, along with the promise of continuing tariffs to keep their captive market from becoming uncompetitive.

I should also note that the main problem with the trade deals that Clinton and Obama negotiated had nothing to do with reducing tariffs. The real problem was that they were designed to facilitate capital outflows, so American finance capital (much of which, by the 1990s, was coming back from abroad) could globalize and protect their business interests from regulation by other countries, while ensuring that other countries would have to pay patent and copyright tribute to IP owners. The result was a vast expansion of inequality not just in the US but everywhere.

On the other hand, if what we wanted to do was to reduce inequality and improve standards of living everywhere, a good way to start would be by negotiating a very different kind of trade deal, as Stiglitz has pointed out in books like Globalization and Its Discontents (2002), Fair Trade for All: How Trade Can Promote Development (2006), and Making Globalization Work (2006).

Sasha Abramsky: [04-11] America Is Now One Giant Milgram Experiment: Back in the 1960s, Stanley Milgram "sought to understand whether ordinary Americans could be convinced to inflict pain on strangers -- in the parameters of the experiment, escalating electric shocks -- simply because a person in authority ordered them to do so." He found that they could, would, and did, which is to say they'd be as willing to follow Nazi leaders as "the Good Germans" under Hitler. This is one more facet of why the Trump/Fascism analogies continue to haunt us. Sure, Hitler was sui generis, but the history of his and others' fascist regimes has many parallels with right-wing reactionaries here and now.

Liza Featherstone: [04-11] Why Billionaire Trumpers Love This Dire Wolf Rubbish: "No, dire wolves are not 'back.' But pretending they can be brought back is a good excuse to gut regulations that protect real endangered species."

  • DT Max: [04-07] The Dire Wolf Is Back: "Colossal, a genetics startup, has birthed three pups that contain ancient DNA retrieved from the remains of the animal's extinct ancestors. Is the wooly mammoth next?"

Cory Doctorow: [04-11] The IP Laws That Stop Disenshittification: I trust I'm not alone in not being able to parse that title. The main subject is anticircumvention laws, which are extensions to IP laws (patents, trademarks, copyrights, etc.) which prevent you not only from copying and/or reselling products, they also aim to keep you from figuring out how they work, especially so you can repair them. Personally, I'd go even further, and tear down the entire IP edifice. But laws that force you to serve the business interests of monopolists are especially vile, on the level of slavery.

Melody Schreiber: [04-11] Measles Is Spreading, and RFK Jr. Is Praising Quacks: "For every semi-endorsement of vaccines, the Health and Human Services secretary seems to add several more nonsensical statements to muddy the waters."

Alan MacLeod: [04-11] With Yemen Attack, US Continues Long History of Deliberately Bombing Hospitals. The history lesson goes back to "Clinton's war on hospitals," and on into Latin America. Other articles found in this vicinity, by MacLeod and others:

  • [02-18] USAID Falls, Exposing a Giant Network of US-Funded "Independent" Media. I'm reminded here that genocide historian Samantha Power was head of USAID under Biden, which raises questions about the corruption of power (to what extent did her political career move her from critic to enabler of genocide?). Turns out, I'm not the first to have wondered (and turns out, she did):

    • Jon Schwarz: [2023-12-15] Samantha Power Calls on Samantha Power to Resign Over Gaza: "If Power, the USAID administrator, would take her own genocide book seriously, she would step down over Israel's assault on Palestine." Power didn't resign, and remained head of USAID until Jan. 20, 2025, when Trump was inaugurated.

    • Christopher Mott: [2024-01-23] The Gaza war is the final nail in the coffin of R2P [Responsibility to Protect]: "The doctrine [advocated by Samantha Power] was always a la carte, evident in the silence of the most strident humanitarian interventionists today."

    • John Hudson: [2024-01-31] USAID's Samantha Power, genocide scholar, confronted by staff on Gaza: "A prominent advisor to President Biden, Power was challenged publicly over the administration's policy, with one employee saying it has 'left us unable to be moral leaders'."

    • Jonathan Guyer: [2024-10-04] The Price of Power: "America's chief humanitarian official rose to fame by speaking out against atrocities. Now she's trapped by one."

    • Kelley Beaucar Vlahos: [2024-12-19] 'Humanitarian superstar' Samantha Power admits Gaza is a loss.

    • Robbie Gramer/Eric Bazail-Eimil: [01-19] What Samantha Power Regrets and Her Advice to the Trump Administration: "Here's an exit interview with America's top aid official after confronting a turbulent series of humanitarian crises." There's much we can deride or even ridicule here, but two quotes jump out at me: "Well I'm looking forward to hearing who my successor will be." Of course, there is no successor, as the department has been demolished. Such naivete was endemic, even among establishment insiders whose very careers depended on recognizing what was happening. And on Israel: "US policy about events on the ground, the work has mattered and the work has made a difference. Has it made enough of a difference? Without that pushing, a horrific situation would have been even worse." This sounds like something one might say about Auschwitz, which by forcing people to work allowed some to survive, as opposed to Treblinka, which was a pure killing machine that nobody escaped. But rather than dwell on the fine line between what happened and how much worse it could have been without the humanitarian anguish of the Biden administration, the more important point is that by not ending the war well before the election, Biden has left it as unfinished business for Trump, who has zero humanitarian compassion, virtually assuring that the situation will become even more dire, and ultimately even more shameful for the Israelis responsible for it, and for the Americans who enabled it.

  • [02-28] Chainsaw Diplomacy: Javier Milei's Argentina Destruction Is Nightmarish Model for Musk, DOGE.

  • [03-25] Betar: The Far-Right Hate Group Helping Trump Deport Israel's Critics: I was surprised to find that Jabotinsky's fascist group from the 1930s still exists, although it's probably a revival, like the iterations of the Ku Klux Klan.

  • Chris Hedges: [04-14] Israel Is About to Empty Gaza.

  • Robert Inlakesh: [04-17] Before Trump Bombed Yemen, Biden Displaced Over Half a Million People -- and No One Said a Word.

Jeffrey St Clair: [04-11] Roaming Charges: Who Shot the Tariffs? Short answer to his question is: the bond market. Wasn't that the same excuse Clinton gave for his lurch to the right after winning in 1992? (Although he has a long quote showing that Clinton's "lurch" was lubricated by Wall Street money at least a year earlier.) One quote: "Trump's really emphasizing the poor in Standard and Poor's, as if he wants to make Poor the new Standard." Another: "Those MAGA people are going to be so broke after Trump's tariffs start to bite they'll have to rent the libs instead of owning them." Also:

Dean Baker: [04-13] The Trump Plan: Unchecked Power to Total Jerks: Of many posts worth reading this week, we'll start with the highest-level, most self-evident title. Also see, all by Baker:

George Monbiot: [04-13] Rightwing populists will keep winning until we grasp this truth about human nature: And which truth is that? He blames economic inequality, and I have no doubt that's the underappreciated problem, but what is the mechanism by which impoverished people gravitate toward demagogues who will only make them poorer and more miserable?

Garrett Graff: [04-15] Has America Reached the End of the Road? "Donald Trump has forced the one crisis that will tell us who we are." Author calls his blog Doomsday Scenario. (Graff's book Raven Rock was about Cold War plans to preserve essential elements of government in the event of nuclear war.) I'm afraid I'm a bit jaundiced regarding posts like this: I've been watching the train wreck of American democracy at least since the mid-1960s, so I tend to be a bit impatient with people who only think to scream right now. Many similar posts on the site, if you still need to catch up (and yes, it's serious this time, not that it ever wasn't). I was steered to this one by No More Mister Nice Blog, which continues as one of the best blogs anywhere:

Ed Kilgore:

  • [04-16] Team Trump's Addiction to Overkill: This one is fairly easy: they want to be seen as making emphatic moves, because they think their fan base wants to see bold commitment. They're less into actually breaking things that will come back to haunt them. The more they overreach, the more likely they will fail, but that not only shows how hard they're working, but how deviously hysterical, and how entrenched, their enemies are.

  • [04-15] Trump Sees Defying Courts on Deportations As Good Politics. Why let details like legalilty get in the way of a good PR stunt?

  • [04-14] MAGA's Class Warfare Against Knowledge Workers Is Personal: The picture identifies Trump and Musk as "the Marx and Engels of the MAGA revolution." Note that the class doing the warring is the one on top, pushing back and kicking down at the idea that their lessers should think it their job to think for themselves.

Nia Prater: [04-16] The Trump Administration Starts Targeting Democrats for Prosecution: First up, NY Attorney General Letitia James.

Nate Chinen: [04-16] Francis Davis, a figurehead of jazz criticism, has died. This is a very substantial review of the eminent jazz critic's life and work, published before I could even compose myself to post a brief notice on the Jazz Critics Poll website. I will try to write something more in due course, but start here.

A couple more obituaries for Davis:

As I collect more of these, I'll add them to the notice here. At some point, I'll add a few words of my own, and find them a more permanent home.

Obituaries: [04-16] Back when I was doing this weekly, I wound up having enough notable obituaries to have a regular section. Since I stopped -- not just writing but reading newspapers -- I've been blissfully ignorant of lots of things I had previously tracked (not least the NBA season; I only looked up who was playing in the Super Bowl the day before, when my wife anounced her intention to watch it). However, I did finally take a look at the New York Times Obituary page today. I only decided to collect a list here after I ran across a surprise name that I felt I had to mention (long-time jazz critic Larry Appelbaum; I started the search looking for Francis Davis, whose obituary wasn't available, but should be soon). So I've gone back and combed through the page to compile a select list (or two, or three). The first just picks out people I know about, but who (in general) weren't so famous that I knew they had died. The second are more people I wasn't aware of, but possibly should have been, so I can partially compensate by bringing them to your attention. Finally, the third is just a checklist of names I did recognize but didn't include in the first two.

Second list (names I wasn't aware of but who seemed especially noteworthy):

Finally, other names I recognize (no links, but easy enough to look up; * don't have NYT obituaries but noted in Wikipedia and/or Jazz Passings), grouped roughly by categories: Actors/Movies: Richard Chamberlain, Gene Hackman, Val Kilmer, David Lynch, Joan Plowright, Tony Roberts; Music: Eddie Adcock, Susan Alcorn, Roy Ayers, Dave Bargeron, Clem Burke, Jerry Butler, Marianne Faithfull, Roberta Flack, George Freeman*, Irv Gotti, Bunky Green*, Garth Hudson, David Johansen, Gwen McRae, Melba Montgomery, Sam Moore, Mike Ratledge*, Howard Riley*, Angie Stone, D'Wayne Wiggins, Brenton Wood*, Peter Yarrow, Jesse Colin Young; Politics: Richard L Armitage, David Boren, Kitty Dukakis, Raul M Grijalva, J Bennett Johnston, Jean-Marie Le Pen, Alan K Simpson; Sports: George Foreman, Lenny Randle, Boris Spassky, Jeff Torborg, Bob Uecker, Bob Veale, Fay Vincent, Gus Williams; Writers (Fiction): Barry Michael Cooper, Jennifer Johnston, Mario Vargas Llosa, Tom Robbins, Joseph Wambaugh; Writers (Non-Fiction): Edward Countryman, Jesse Kornbluth, David Schneiderman.

Saree Makdisi: [04-17] Trump's War on the Palestine Movement Is Something Entirely New: "Never before has a government repressed its citizens' free speech and academic freedom so brutally in order to protect an entirely different country." The "different country" bit might be right, but one could counter that under Miriam Adelson they're just separate fronts for the same trust. But everything else we've seen as bad or worse in the post-WWI and post-WWII red scares, including the use of deportation and travel bans. What is most useful here is the reminder that pro-Zionists have been compiling lists and pressing academic institutions to cancel critics of Israel for a long time now.

Current count: 131 links, 7383 words (9227 total)

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Monday, April 14, 2025

Music Week

April archive (in progress).

Music: Current count 44035 [44005) rated (+30), 33 [26] unrated (+7).

I had my second cataract surgery on Tuesday. When I took the tape off that evening, it was bright and blurry, but less dramatically so than after the first eye. I had some bruising below the eye, but it seemed minor. I was more struck by how creepy the loose, aged skin of the eyelids seemed. What I had feared was the the if the right eye recovery was as slow as the left seemed, I could have diminished vision for a few weeks. (It had been about a month now, and the left eye was still blurry, although the amount of light passing through the lens was more, and bluer.) But the blurriness in the right eye cleared up right away that morning. When I went to see the doctor, he not only cleared me to drive, but told me I could drive without glasses. I drove home with glasses, deeming them close enough to what I was used to, but I've since stopped using them for walks and TV. I haven't done much driving since, but haven't had any problems.

I have an appointment to see my regular optometrist a couple weeks out, so I expect we'll get some better measurements then. The biggest question is what, if anything, the expensive toric lens in the left eye has done. It was supposed to correct for significant astigmatism -- which the right eye had very little of, so we went with the standard lens there. The expectation is that I will need glasses for reading, although in the past I've never used them. (I didn't need them at first; while my bifocals help a little, it usually suffices to hold the book a bit closer.) I've been reading OK, both with and without glasses, all through this period.

What seems more likely is that I'll want glasses for the computer screen -- a focal distance of about 30 inches (I would have guessed less, but just measured it). I seem to be having more trouble with computer work this week (or month) -- although there could be other factors at work, including psychological ones. I'm going through a period where I have very little inspiration to do much of anything, or even to assign any blame for my sloth.

Speaking of which, this week's haul is down a fair amount from the last couple weeks, although 30 albums has long been my definition of a solid week's work. Most of the A-list came late in the week, thanks to Robert Christgau's Consumer Guide. Two of those records got lower grades at first, raised more on reflection than on further listening. [PS: Also upgraded: The Delines.]

I should also mention Dan Weiss' RiotRiot Report, which I haven't really worked my way through yet -- but I'm pleased to see the Ex and YHWH Nailgun (and Mekons, rated much higher here), and probably need the extra encouragement to get to Skrillex.

I perhaps should note an unusual degree of ambivalence about this week's grades. I could just as easily have upgraded the Art Pepper and/or the Kenny Dorham live set. Instead of giving the latter a third play, I went into his back catalog, and didn't so much get diminishing returns as flagging interest. Same thing for Birchall: pick any one of his albums and it's likely to sound fabulous, but play five in a row and they all start to sound the same. I know Pepper well enough to hedge my bets. I hardly know Diblo Dibala at all.

While I have very little real work to show for last week, I did manage to go back and fill out my long-neglected Streamnotes: Year 2024 Index, from which I had skipped the last four months. I still haven't done any for 2025 yet (other than to create the empty file). I've almost always done these on the same day I opened a new monthly file, but as they take 2-3 hours each, I started putting them off. While the indexes may not be of much use to readers, they help me find old reviews (avoiding inadvertent re-reviews, or at least helping with re-grading; I've already found several records I reviewed for a second time). I'd promise to catch up this week, but this is one of those computer tasks that I'm having eye trouble with.

No plans for the upcoming week. Good chance I will publish a "Loose Tabs" later in the week. I've collected a few items for it, and they don't have a lot of shelf life. Unlikely I'll do a books post this week, although I would like to get back to it. More useful would be to get to my planning documents, especially the one for household tasks.

New records reviewed this week:

MC Paul Barman: Tectonic Texts (2025, Househusband): Rapper, still remembered for his wit and wordplay in 2000-02 albums (first, It's Very Stimulating, a 18:01 EP). Words still dance, even if a bit herky-jerk, or maybe that's the beats? B+(***) [sp]

Basic: Dream City (2025, No Quarter, EP): Trio led by guitarist Chris Forsyth, whose records date back to 1998, and percussionist Mikel Patrick Avery, released a group album in 2024 (This Is Basic), follow that up here with a 3-cut, 26:48 EP with new bassist Douglas McCombs. B+(*) [sp]

Nat Birchall Unity Ensemble: New World (2023 [2024], Ancient Archive of Sound): British tenor saxophonist, has a 1999 debut but picked up the pace around 2010, "a Coltrane devotee of the highest order," never more so than in this explicit tribute, his core group a quartet plus extra percussion, on this occasion joined by Alan Skidmore (tenor sax) and Mark Wastell (percussion). B+(***) [bc]

Nat Birchall: Dimensions of the Drums: Roots Reggae Instrumentals (2024, Ancient Archive of Sound): Another facet of the British saxophonist's work, assembling these mild-to-sublime rhythm tracks single-handedly. B+(***) [sp]

Corook: Committed to a Bit (2025, Atlantic): Singer-songwriter, started lo-fi c. 2021 that hardly matters here. Trans, which figures into subject matter too much not to mention, especially as the point seems to be to uncover common humanity without (or even with?) the distractions of gender. A- [sp]

Silke Eberhard Trio: Being-a-Ning (2024 [2025], Intakt): Alto saxophonist, trio with Jan Roder (bass) and Kay Lübke (drums). Original pieces, with a hint of freebop Monk. B+(***) [sp]

Craig Finn: Always Been (2025, Tamarac/Thirty Tigers): Singer-songwriter from Minneapolis, started in 1990s with Lifter Puller, moved to New York in 2001 and started the Hold Steady, still a going concern but since 2012 he's also been releasing solo albums, this his sixth. Not a lot of difference between the two, as the band albums feature the same detailed storytelling, and if the music is a bit mellower here, it's still cut from the same cloth. Both are nearly peerless. A- [sp]

Ayumi Ishito: Roboquarians Vol. 2 (2021 [2025], 577): Tenor saxophonist from Japan, studied at Berklee and moved to New York in 2010. Several albums since 2015, including a previous volume by this "avant-punk style" trio, with George Draguns (guitar) and Kevin Shea (drums). More guitar than sax here. B+(*) [bc]

Clemens Kuratle Ydivide: The Default (2024 [2025], Intakt): Swiss drummer, also electronics, debut 2016, second group album, quintet with alto sax (Dee Bryne), piano (Elliot Gavin), guitar (Chris Guilfoyle), and bass (Lukas Traxel). B+(**) [sp]

Andy Fairweather Low: The Invisible Bluesman (2025, Last Music): British singer-songwriter, started in Amen Corner, had a notable series of solo albums 1973-76, after which he mostly did session work and tours, ranging from Chris Barber to Roger Waters, Bill Wyman, Joe Cocker, and Eric Clapton. He's put out occasional records on his own since 2004, with 2023's Flang Dang a high point. That was an album of originals, but this one is just a set of blues covers -- probably close to what he's been playing for Clapton, and probably better than Clapton can do without him. [PS: I haven't sought out Clapton since I hated 461 Ocean Boulevard in 1974, although I did enjoy two later albums: 1994's From the Cradle, and 2011's Play the Blues, filed under Wynton Marsalis. I've only heard one other post-1974 album, 2004's Me and Mr. Johnson.] B+(***) [sp]

Myra Melford: Splash (2024 [2025], Intakt): Pianist, got on my radar c. 1990, when Francis Davis wrote a Village Voice Jazz Consumer Guide, and and gave her and Allen Lowe the pick hit slots. Trio with Michael Formanek (bass) and Ches Smith (drums/vibes). B+(***) [sp]

Gurf Morlix: A Taste of Ashes (2024 [2025], Rootball): Roots-rock singer-songwriter, used to play drums and husband to Lucinda Williams, has been on his own, producing a new album nearly every year since 2000. B+(**) [sp]

Elias Stemeseder/Christian Lillinger + Craig Taborn: Umbra III: Live Setting (2021 [2025], Intakt): Swiss pianist, German drummer, both also electronics, only surnames on the album cover so I've tended to credit them as Stemeseder Lillinger, but I usually add the missing names to the credit rather than having to rewrite them in the review. The "Live Setting" is in very small print, but seemed worth noting. Taborn plays piano here, moving Stemeseder over to spinet, synth, and effects. B+(**) [sp]

Macie Stewart: When the Distance Is Blue (2023-24 [2025], International Anthem): Pianist, sometimes prepared, also violin and voice, third album since 2020, backed by strings (viola, cello, bass). B+(*) [sp]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

Champeta w/Edna Martinez: Diblo Dibala Special ([2024], NAS): Website shows 25 programs currated and introduced by DJ Martinez, exploring the Colombian "champeta": "rhythms and influences are said to have arrived with the sailors from West Africa in the 1960s and 70s." This one focuses on the Congolese soukous star (b. 1954; best known in US for Loketo's Super Soukous (1989), but probably includes other artists, in a continuous mix aside from the branding. It's really terrific, probably improved by the editing, but is it real? Not as far as I can tell, which makes it hard to recommend. A- [os]

Kenny Dorham: Blue Bossa in the Bronx: Live From the Blue Morocco (1957 [2025], Resonance): Bebop trumpet player (1924-72), a 1951 Modern Jazz Trumpets compilation added him to Fats Navarro, Dizzy Gillespie, and Miles Davis, and he remained one of the top players into the 1960s. Hard bop quintet here with Sonny Red (alto sax), Cedar Walton (piano), Paul Chambers (bass), and Dennis Charles (drums). Strong showing, but perhaps more so for the sax. B+(***) [cd]

Paul Dunmall/Paul Rogers/Tony Levin: The Good Feelings (2009 [2024], 577): British saxophonist (here plays tenor and soprano, bass and Bb clarinet), backed with bass and drums (before the drummer died in 2011, so this is in some sense a belated tribute). B+(**) [bc]

Joe Henderson: Multiple (1973 [2025], Craft): Major tenor saxophonist (1937-2001), made his reputation in a series of now-classic Blue Note albums 1963-66, moved on to an extended run at Milestone 1968-77, had an unaccountably spotty decade-plus after that -- a couple albums on European labels, one more for Blue Note (The State of the Tenor, which pretty much was) -- before Verve picked him up in 1991, giving him the living legend treatment (but saddling him with concepts that I found less satisfying: tributes to Strayhorn, Davis, and Jobim; a big band; Porgy & Bess). I'm far less familiar with the Milestones, although he easily aced his entry in 2006's Milestone Profiles series, so I didn't even recognize this title (a Penguin Guide ***). It may have been easy to dismiss due to the then-fashionable electric keyboards/bass/guitar, congas, bits of soprano sax, flute and vocals. But a rhythm section with Dave Holland and Jack DeJohnette shouldn't be dismissed -- they also contributed one song each, to go with three by Henderson. But now you can't help but focus on his tenor sax -- the Penguin Guide line is that he always sounds like he's in the middle of a great solo -- an this is certainly a good example. But I also have to admit I'm also digging Larry Willis' funky electric piano. A- [sp]

Freddie Hubbard: On Fire: Live From the Blue Morocco (1967 [2025], Resonance, 2CD): Trumpet player (1938-2008), opened with a bang on Blue Note in 1960 and was everywhere doing everything with everyone for a few years, although nothing in my database I especially like between Blue Spirits (1965) and Red Clay (1970). Quintet here with Bennie Maupin (tenor sax), Kenny Barron (piano), Herbie Lewis (bass), and Freddie Waits (drums). While this is nice enough, and I'm always up for long takes of "Summertime" and "Bye Bye Blackbird," nothing here really turned my head. B+(**) [cd]

Rob Mazurek: Alternate Moon Cycles [IA11 Edition] (2012 [2025], International Anthem): Cornet player, started c. 1995, early on mostly for his Chicago Underground groups, later for larger groups like Exploding Star Orchestra. This came out as the label's first LP in 2014 (2 tracks, 30:45), the digital reissue adding a 20:13 bonus track. Trio with Matt Lux (electric bass) and Mikel Patrick Avery (organ). Ambient. B+(**) [sp]

Mac Miller: Balloonerism (2014 [2025], REMember Music/Warner): Rapper Malcolm McCormick (1992-2018), seventh album, second posthumous release, As with 2018's Circles, seems better dead than alive. B+(***) [sp]

Art Pepper: Geneva 1980 (1980 [2025], Omnivore): Alto saxophonist, spent much of his prime years in jail, but made classic albums when he was out in 1956 and 1960, and finally got back on track around 1975 -- an album called Living Legend -- and went on to record a huge amount of extraordinary jazz up to his death (at 56) in 1982: The Complete Galaxy Recordings is a 16-CD box which chock full of delights, a bounty more than matched by the steady stream of live shots from those years. This adds 10 tracks, 126 minutes, of previously unreleased material from his first tour of Europe, with his regular touring quartet: Milcho Leviev (piano), Tony Dumas (bass), and Carl Burnett (drums). He is terrific, as usual, mostly playing his originals, with only minor reservations for sound, the less inspired band, and the fact that there is so much similar material already available -- or maybe just that I only played it once. B+(***) [sp]

Old music:

Nat Birchall Unity Ensemble: Spiritual Progressions (2021 [2022], Ancient Archive of Sound): Tenor saxophonist, from Manchester, plays "spiritual jazz," where the spirit was embodied by John Coltrane, but extends all the way back to Africa. First group album, a quintet with Adam Fairhall (piano), Michael Bardon (bass), Paul Hession (drums), and Lascelle Gordon (percussion), where Birchall is also credited with wood flutes, singing bowls, mbira, balaphon, gunibri, and percussion. B+(**) [bc]

Nat Birchall: The Infinite (2022 [202]3, Ancient Archive of Sound): One of several solo albums, where he lays down rhythm tracks with keyboards, bass, drums, and percussion, then dubs in his tenor sax (or soprano, or bass clarinet). B+(**) [bc]

Nat Birchall: Songs of the Ancestors: Afro Trane Chapter 2 (2023, Ancient Archive of Sound): Solo again, with some organ for piano, a full range of saxophones, and two Coltrane pieces in addition to three by Birchall and one trad. B+(**) [bc]

Kenny Dorham: Blues in Bebop (1946-56 [1998], Savoy Jazz): Early sessions from 1946, with one track from Billy Eckstine's big band, more with Sonny Stitt, a few scraps from 1949 (a session with Kenny Clarke and Milt Jackson, plus a couple Royal Roost shots with Charlie Parker) and 1956 (a side-credit with Cecil Payne). Some good work here, but only the Parker cuts turned my head. B+(**) [sp]

Kenny Dorham: Jazz Contrasts (1957 [1992], Riverside/OJC): Six tracks, four with Sonny Rollins (tenor sax), who gets a small print "with" down in the corner, and probably a picture in front of a harp (actually played by Betty Glamman on three tracks, including the two with no Rollins). B+(**) [sp]

Kenny Dorham: Quiet Kenny (1959 [1986], New Jazz/OJC): Not really a ballad album, but let's say mid-tempo, the trumpet clear and articulate in a quartet with Tommy Flanagan (piano), Paul Chambers (bass), and Art Taylor (drums). CD adds a nice "Mack the Knife." B+(***) [sp]

Kenny Dorham: Jazz Contemporary (1960, Time): Original LP -- trumpet with baritone sax (Charles Davis), piano (Steve Kuhn), bass (Jimmy Garrison or Butch Warren), and drums (Buddy Enlow) -- had six tracks (39:28), but at some point four alternate takes got tacked on (at least by 2000 in Japan). Nice contrast in the horns here. B+(***) [sp]

Kenny Dorham: Whistle Stop (1961 [2014], Blue Note): This is closer to the hard bop album I was expecting, with Hank Mobley (tenor sax), Kenny Drew (piano), Paul Chambers (bass), and Philly Joe Jones (drums). B+(***) [sp]

Grade (or other) changes:

The Delines: Mr. Luck & Ms. Doom (2025, Decor): Americana band from Portlant, sixth album since 2014, Amy Boone is the singer but Willy Vlautin, who has a reputation as a novelist (seven since 2006), is the songwriter. Scant reason for excitement here, but the songs have a quiet majesty, especially when the horn arrangements kick in. [was: B+(**)] A- [sp]

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

  • Kris Adams/Peter Perfido: Away (Jazzbird) [05-01]
  • Christopher Dammann: Sextet (Out of Your Head) [02-07]
  • Satoko Fujii This Is It!: Message (Libra) [05-09]
  • The Hemphill Stringtet: Plays the Music of Julius Hemphill (Out of Your Head) [04-04]
  • Eunhye Jeong/Michael Bisio Duo: Morning Bells Whistle Bright (ESP-Disk) [03-14]
  • Melissa Kassel & Tom Zicarelli Group: Moments (MKMusic) [05-01]
  • Adam O'Farrill: For These Steets (Out of Your Head) [03-28]
  • Jordan VanHemert: Survival of the Fittest (Origin) [05-16]
  • Wolf Eyes: Wolf Eyes X Anthony Braxton (ESP-Disk) [02-14]

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Monday, April 7, 2025

Music Week

April archive (in progress).

Music: Current count 44005 [43949) rated (+56), 26 [25] unrated (+1).

My second eye cataract surgery is scheduled for tomorrow morning. While I'm optimistic longer term, after a month, my left eye doesn't seem to be much improved over its previous state. This hasn't had much adverse effect on me, probably because the right eye was always a bit better, and could compensate for the left. So I'm worried of having more debilitating vision loss after tomorrow, even if the longer term prospect is better. Accordingly, I've tried to tie up as much as I could the last few days.

That involved posting a Book Roundup on Saturday, and a Loose Tabs on Sunday, as well as today's Music Week. (Some minor updates today, generally flagged with change bars -- I've added some book covers to the Book Roundup post without marking them.) Also good that I finished reading Christopher Lasch's The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy. Much of interest there, but not as well focused on the title as I had hoped -- although posthumous books are bound to be lacking something or other. Don Malcolm wrote in to suggest I follow that with Lasch's "magnum opus," The True and Only Heaven (1991). Later for that, although maybe I can scratch something out of reviews and synopses, which would easily be more cost-effective. I have mixed views both on progress and on the conservative mores Lasch espouses, which are unlikely to be moved much by reading another 592 pages.

Meanwhile, I've started Mark Fisher's Capitalism Realism: Is There No Alternative?, which is pretty short (120 pp, although at my rate I'm still unlikely to finish it before surgery). I also have a bunch more books waiting in the wings, to read whenever I'm able. (Three, including Richard J Evans' long biography of Hobsbawm, arrived just today.) But worst comes to worst, I have a long list of TV series to watch. (Currently we're deep into Astrid et Raphaëlle.)

Worth noting that the rated counter rolled over another thousand mark (44). Odds are pretty good that I'll hit 45,000 by the end of the year, but I'm far less certain about 50,000. The full A grade for Mekons may have started as a typo, as I had A- several places in my far-from-normalized system, but when I saw it once, I chose to stick with it. The Hood and Isbell albums are upgrades, although the latter doesn't count as such, since I first encountered it this week. It led me back to Hood, and when Hood got better, so did it -- albeit differently.

I notice that I'm writing more reviews like Backxwash, where I don't explain why I like it but I do, and Black Country, New Road, where I dismiss a well-regarded album just because I can't bother to care. Neither of those reviews do anything for me as a critic, but they're data points in case you're interested. At this stage, that's often the best I can do with my attention span.

While this week has been fairly productive in terms of writing -- three posts, roughly 23k words (per wc, probably 20k using my inline word count program) -- I've gotten very little else done. I expect even less in coming weeks. One thing I've fallen behind on is my "pick hit" posts to Bluesky (actually, I've done even worse at recommending articles, which was my origijnal plan). Most of this week's batch didn't come out until today, and I still haven't done late adds Hood and Isbell, so those at least you're reading about here first.

New records reviewed this week:

2hollis: Star (2025, Interscope): Rapper Hollis Frazier-Herndon, father is drummer in Tortoise, second (or fourth) album, following EPs and mixtapes since 2020. B+(**) [sp]

Carl Allen: Tippin' (2024 [2025], Cellar): Drummer, from Milwaukee, led some albums in the 1990s but mostly side-credits -- Discogs counts 185 from 1985. Aside from one bit of guest piano, this is a trio with Chris Potter (tenor/soprano sax, bass clarinet) and Christian McBride (bass). Standard mainstream fare, but Potter is in especially fine form. B+(***) [sp]

Florian Arbenz/Michael Arbenz/Ron Carter: The Alpine Session: Arbenz Vs Arbenz Meets Ron Carter (2024 [2025], Hammer): Swiss drummer, had a couple 2000-01 records but his discography really kicked off in 2020 with Conversation series, which started as pandemic-imposed virtual encounters, usually one-on-one but sometimes more. This falls out of the series, as the bassist showed up in person, joined by the family pianist. B+(**) [sp]

Backxwash: Only Dust Remains (2025, Ugly Hag): Rapper from Zambia, Ashanti Mutinta, based in Montreal, sixth album since 2019. B+(***) [sp]

Barker: Stochastic Drift (2025, Smalltown Supersound): Sam Barker, British electronica producer, based in Berlin, second album plus several singles/EPs and a DJ mix. Less immediately fetching than his first album, Utility (2019), all the better to sneak up on you. B+(***) [sp]

Believers [Brad Shepik/Sam Minaie/John Hadfield]: Hard Believer (2023 [2025], Shifting Paradigm): Guitar-bass-drums trio, group name from the trio's 2020 album. B+(***) [sp]

Black Country, New Road: Forever Howlong (2025, Ninja Tune): British band, started with Isaac Wood as lead vocalist, but he left after two albums. The rest carried on, with a live album in 2023, and now this third studio album, the vocals now divvied up between three women. I'm not really sure what's going on here, but I do know that I don't particularly care. B [sp]

Blacks' Myths Meet Pat Thomas: The Mythstory School (2023 [2025], self-released): Duo of Luke Stewart (bass) and Trae Crudup (drums), released a couple albums 2018-19, supplemented with two "Meets" albums since, this one with the British avant-pianist (recently acclaimed for Ahmed), impressive as usual. B+(**) [bc]

Bonnie "Prince" Billy: The Purple Bird (2025, No Quarter): Singer-songwriter Will Oldham, from Kentucky, started around 1993 as Palace Brothers, then Palace Music, playing what was then called "freak folk." After releasing an album under his own name in 1997, he adopted this alias, which has been good for a couple dozen albums now. While I had heard some of his early music, I didn't initially make the connection here -- I missed the Billy the Kid reference (which I now understand is not the only one), and thought the name sounded Anglo-monarchist-folkie or at least pretentious. So this is the first of his BPB albums I've checked out. It's actually a very nice album -- "Our Home" is a choice cut, and "Guns Are for Cowards" a notable title -- not enough to send me diving, but it certainly breaks the ice. B+(***) [sp]

Xhosa Cole: On a Modern Genius, Vol. 1 (2023 [2025], Stoney Lane): British alto saxophonist, from Birmingham, third album since 2021, six Thelonious Monk covers plus an Ellington song ("Come Sunday," with a strong Heidi Vogel vocal), backed with guitar, bass, and drums, plus a guest credit for tap dance (4 tracks). B+(***) [sp]

Geoffrey Dean Quartet: Conceptions (2024 [2025], Cellar Music): Pianist, DC area, second quartet album, with bass (Harish Raghavan), drums (Eric Binder), and trumpet (Justin Copeland). B+(*) [cd]

The Delines: Mr. Luck & Ms. Doom (2025, Decor): Americana band from Portlant, sixth album since 2014, Amy Boone is the singer but Willy Vlautin, who has a reputation as a novelist (seven since 2006), is the songwriter. B+(**) [sp]

The Ex: If Your Mirror Breaks (2025, Ex): Dutch postpunk group, started 1980, many cultural and political parallels to the Mekons, but side interests run less to folk/country and more to jazz/afrobeat. Three guitars and drums, the rock component seems more amped than usual, perhaps because they dedicated this to Steve Albini. A- [bc]

Bryan Ferry/Amelia Barratt: Loose Talk (2025, Dene Jesmond): British singer-songwriter, leader of Roxy Music in the 1970s, with a solo career started as a side covers project in 1973, taking over after the first disbanding in 1982, with a band reunion 2001-11, and other side projects. In this particular one, he wrote the music for Barratt's spoken-word narration. Normally I would parse the cover as listing Barratt first, but most of the early reviews only mention Ferry, and it's easier to file the album there. I'm finding both words and music here very attractive -- not quite at the level of Laurie Anderson, but an approximation. A- [sp]

Nnenna Freelon: Beneath the Skin (2024 [2025], Origin): Jazz singer, started in church, got married, had kids, started singing professionally in her late 30s, with 15+ albums since 1992. Has done standards, including a Billie Holiday tribute, but wrote or added claim to everything here (even "Oh! Susanna"). She never impressed me much before, but she's on fire here, and the Alan Pasqua-led band provides impeccable support. [cd]

Dave Hanson: Blues Sky (2024 [2025], Origin): Denver-based pianist, co-leader of H2 Big Band, seems to be his first album as leader, although Discogs lists more than a dozen side-credits, going back to UNC Jazz Lab Band in 1987. He wrote all 10 pieces, played by a quartet with Wil Swindler (alto/tenor sax), Mark Simon (bass), and Paul Romaine (drums). B+(**) [cd]

Nick Hempton/Cory Weeds: Horns Locked (2023-24 [2025], Cellar Music): Two saxophonist, both playing tenor this time, in what can be considered a throwback to the days of Gene Ammons and Sonny Stitt, backed here with organ (Nick Peck) and drums (Jesse Cahill). B+(**) [sp]

Lilly Hiatt: Forever (2025, New West): Nashville-based singer-songwriter, daughter of John Hiatt, sixth album since 2012. B+(*) [sp]

Jason Isbell: Foxes in the Snow (2025, Southeastern): Former Drive-By Trucker, tenth studio album, divorced his wife and dropped the band credit. Pretty basic, real songs over acoustic guitar. Noted lyric: "[God] made man so he could watch and laugh." Probably more like that. The greater intimacy helps the new love songs. A- [sp]

Japanese Breakfast: For Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women) (2025, Dead Oceans): Indie pop band from Philadelphia, Michelle Zauner the singer-songwriter, fourth album since 2016. Probably 2nd best reviewed album this year (AOTY 83/26, behind FKA Twigs at 86/33; Lady Gaga is +1 reviews, but -5 points; Perfume Genius is +3 points, but -5 reviews). No doubt this is nice, but I've already forgotten it, and will never play it again. B+(*) [sp]

Kaisa's Machine: Moving Parts (2024 [2025], Greenleaf Music): Finnish bassist Kaisa Mäensivu, third group album, quintet with vibes (Sasha Berliner), guitar (Max Light), piano (Eden Ladin), and drums (Joe Perl). B+(**) [sp]

Kelela: In the Blue Light (2024 [2025], Warp): Singer-songwriter born in DC, parents Ethiopian, last name Mizanekristos, started singing jazz standards and progressive metal, debut mixtape 2012, has since lived in Los Angeles and London, two studio albums, this a live one from the Blue Note Jazz Club in New York, which may be why she leans into a jazzy vibe. B+(**) [sp]

Knats: Knats (2025, Gearbox): British jazz group, from Newcastle, led by Stan Woodward (bass) and King David-Ike Elechi (drums), first album -- trio picture probably adds trumpet player Ferg Kilsbly, but credits also list tenor sax (Cam Rossi) and keyboards (Sandro Shar) plus nine guest spots on individual tracks. That risks getting a bit busy for my taste. B+(*) [sp]

Kedr Livanskiy: Myrtus Myth (2025, 2MR): Russian electronica producer/singer, fourth album. B [sp]

Manic Street Preachers: Critical Thinking (2025, Columbia): One of the big Britpop bands of the 1990s -- along with Oasis, Radiohead, and Blur -- who dominated the All-Time Albums lists of the early 2000s (from UK sources; Radiohead was the only one that got much notice in the US). Fifteenth album since 1992. I'm surprised to find only 2 graded in my database, and none even listed after 2009. Title track gets my endorsement both for words and music. My interest did flag a bit by the end. B+(*) [sp]

Nicole McCabe: A Song to Sing (2025, Colorfield): Alto saxophonist from Los Angeles, several albums since her impressive Introducing Nicole McCabe (2020), adds credits here for "woodwinds, synthesizer, piano, percussion, and voice," with others (piano, bass, drums) only listed for a couple songs each. Not much voice, and I have mixed feelings about the synth percussion. B+(**) [sp]

Mekons: Horror (2025, Fire): Early postpunk band from Leeds, debut album 1979 but didn't really come together until 1985, when they soaked up some honky-tonk country and spit out Fear and Whiskey. Jon Langford ran various side projects -- notably the Three Johns, then after his move to Chicago, the Waco Brothers -- but returned periodically for group albums, some of which have been extraordinary. This sounds like another. A [sp]

Billy Mohler: The Eternal (2025, Contagious Music): Bassist, several albums since 2019, this a quartet with Devin Daniels (alto sax), Jeff Parker (guitar), and Damion Reid (drums). B+(***) [sp]

Silvano Monasterios Venezuelan Nonet: The River (2025, self-released): Pianist from Venezuela, moved to US in 1990, has several albums since 1997, recorded this in Brooklyn where he has some ringers like Alex Norris (trumpet) and Jeff Lederer (bass clarinet/clarinet). B+(**) [cd]

Patricio Morales: La Tierra Canta (2022 [2025], Northsound): Classical guitarist from Chile. B+(*) [cd]

Matthew Muńesses/Riza Printup: Pag-Ibig Ko Vol. 1 (2023 [2025], Irabbagast): Saxophone and harp duo, both musicians trace their roots back to the Philippines. Lovely in its limited way. B+(***) [cd]

Marius Neset: Cabaret (2024 [2025], ACT Music): Norwegian saxophonist (tenor, soprano, EWI), 15+ albums since 2008, backed by Elliot Galvin (keyboards), Magnus H jorth (piano), Conor Chaplin (electric bass), and Anton Eger (drums), starts with the title song, then moves around a lot. B+(*) [sp]

The Nightingales: The Awful Truth (2025, Fire): British post-punk group, principally Robert Lloyd, released three albums 1982-86, regrouped with a new album in 2006. B+(*) [sp]

Oklou: Choke Enough (2025, True Panther/Because Music): French singer-songwriter Marylou Mayniel, first album after EPs since 2014 (initially as Loumar) and a 2020 mixtape, all titles in English, a Canadian named Casey Manierka-Quaile contributed to the music. B+(**) [sp]

Organic Pulse Ensemble: Ad Hoc (2024, Ultraääni): Alias for Gustav Horneij, Finnish multi-instrumentalist (mostly sax and percussion), several albums, records solo, reportedly in one take (but that's hard to credit)identifies as spiritual jazz. B+(**) [bc]

Ben Patterson Jazz Orchestra: Mad Scientist Music (2023 [2025], Origin): Trombonist, from Oklahoma, played in and was musical director of the USAF's Airmen of Note, has run his big band since 2016. B+(*) [cd]

Perfume Genius: Glory (2025, Matador): Alias for singer-songwriter Michael Hadreas, from Iowa, seventh album since 2010, well regarded, but demands more attention than I can muster, although for the first couple tracks I thought it might be as pleasantly innocuous as Japanese Breakfast. B [sp]

Porridge Radio: The Machine Starts to Sing (2025, Secretly Canadian, EP): English indie rock band, Dana Margolin singer-songwriter, half-dozen albums since 2015, this a 4-song, 15:57 EP that's about par for their sound. B+(*) [sp]

Bobby Rush/Kenny Wayne Shepherd: Young Fashioned Ways (2025, Deep Rush/Thirty Tigers): Two blues guitarist-singers, Shepherd is the young one, but only relatively (47, albums since 1995), as Rush (91) plays more harmonica. B+(**) [sp]

Mark Turner: We Raise Them to Lift Their Heads (2019 [2025], Loveland Music): Tenor saxophonist, a rising star in the 1990s, mostly side credits of late. Even with a solo album, this seems largely attributable to Jakob Bro, who wrote the songs produced, and runs the label. B+(**) [sp]

The Weather Station: Humanhood (2025, Fat Possum): Canadian folk-rock band, mainly singer-songwriter Tamara Lindeman, seventh album since 2009. B+(*) [sp]

Yseult: Mental (2024, Y.Y.Y): Surmane Onguenet, French singer-songwriter, parents Cameroonian, second album, her first in 2015 at 21, after she was runner-up in a singing contest. I noticed her on a Shygirl feature but didn't expect this would be so scattered, touching on neo-soul, postpunk, electro, and trap. B+(**) [sp]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

Johnny Bragg: Let Me Dream On ([2025], ORG Music): R&B singer from Tennessee (1925-2004), spent most of the 1950s in prison, where he sang in the Prisonaires, and also appeared on the Marigolds' hit "Rollin' Stone" (1955). His recorded legacy is largely captured on a 2001 Relentless compilation (The Johnny Bragg Story: Just Walkin' in the Rain). This seems to be something else, "demos, band rehearsals, and live recordings that, fortunately, Bragg preserved on tape in the 1960s and 1970s." B+(*) [sp]

Erik Friedlander/ and Michael Nicolas: John Zorn's Bagatelles: Vol. 2 (2019 [2025], Tzadik): A second album separated from its original box set release, this one with two cellos playing 10 of Zorn's pieces. B+(**) [sp]

Mary Halvorson Quartet: John Zorn's Bagatelles: Volume 1 (2019 [2025], Tzadik): Originally released as the first disc in Zorn's Bagatelles 4-CD box set (2021) -- actually, the first of four 4-CD boxes, which still didn't exhaust the 300 compositions Zorn wrote for the series -- now broken out separately, and unlike most of the albums Tzadik releases of Zorn's compositions, credited to the musician(s) -- perhaps some recognition that the guitarist has arrived. Actually, she's joined here by a second guitarist, Miles Okazaki, along with Drew Gress (bass) and Tomas Fujiwara (drums). Despite his massive cache of compositions, I still have little sense of Zorn as a composer, but anyone who doubts Halvorson's chops or arranging sense should shut up. A- [sp]

Krautrock Eruption: An Introduction to German Electronic Music 1970-1980 (1970-80 [2025], Bureau B): The title of Wolfgang Seidel's recent book, reviewing the development of what we've come to call Krautrock (a term from UK music critics that caught on, probably because it was never meant as derogatory): the mostly instrumental, mostly electronic music developed from the late 1960s into the following decade by German groups like Neu, Can, Faust, Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk, Popol Vuh, Amon Düül II, etc. The book details 50 albums, but this is just a 12-track sampler, and the Bandcamp page (which is most of what I have to go on) doesn't bother with group credits, making me wonder about its utility. B [sp]

Salsa de la Bahia Vol. 3: A Collection of SF Bay Area Salsa and Latin Jazz: Renegade Queens (1991-2025 [2025], Patois, 2CD): Trombonist Wayne Wallace is the main artist behind this label, their domain noted in the title, as is their focus this time around on women artists, few I'm familiar with, but plenty good enough for a couple hours of nice background music. B+(*) [cd]

Serengeti: Mixtape 2 ([2025], self-released): Chicago rapper, lots of releases, this a housecleaning exercise, 18 "old demos and other stuff," the titles nothing but the track numbers, no dates or other info. B+(*) [bc]

Trigger: John Zorn's Bagatelles: Vol. 3 (2019 [2025], Tzadik): Trio, which released an album on Shhpuma in 2019, with two electric guitars (Will Greene and Simon Hanes) plus drums (Aaron Edgecomb). They are fantastically noisy, which seems to be as legit a take on the music as any other. B+(*) [sp]

Old music:

Xhosa Cole: Ibeji (2021-22 [2022], Stoney Lane): British saxophonist, second album, title from "Yoruba orisha (West African spirits) for 'twins', exploring the themes of duality" through a series of duets with seven percussionists, who introduce their pieces with stories and critical insights, and occasionally sing. The sax pulls it all together. A- [sp]

Miles Davis: The Lost Septet (1971 [2000], Sleepy Night): Live recording, from Wiener Konzerthaus in Vienna, Austria, from a period when the trumpet master was developing his "electric" band approach, with electric bass (Michael Henderson) and keyboards (Keith Jarrett), with soprano/alto saxophonist Gary Bartz, drummer Ndugu Leon Chandler, and percussionists Charles Don Alias and James Mtume Foreman. Davis is overshadowed by the intensity of the percussion, and perhaps even more so by the relentless Bartz. A- [sp]

TEST: TEST (1998 [1999], AUM Fidelity): New York avant-jazz quartet -- Tom Bruno (drums), Sabir Mateen (alto/tenor sax, flute, clarinet), Daniel Carter (alto/tenor sax, trumpet, flute), and Matthew Heyner (bass) -- recorded this one studio album, although some live tapes have since appeared. The jousts may seem unexceptional, but some of the subtler bits (especially the clarinet) are interesting. B+(***) [sp]

Grade (or other) changes:

Patterson Hood: Exploding Trees and Airplane Screams (2025, ATO): Drive-By Truckers singer-songwriter, released three solo albums 2004-12 along with group albums, this his fourth (not counting the pandemic-filler Heathen Songs). Too quiet to keep my attention, but interesting enough when I do notice. But my surprise at liking Jason Isbell's new album better brought me back for a revisit, and it gained a slight upper hand. [was: B+(***)] A- [sp]

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

  • Phil Haynes/Ben Monder: Transition[s] (Corner Store Jazz) [04-21]
  • Phil Haynes: Return to Electric (Corner Store Jazz) [04-21]
  • Jacob Felix Heule/Teté Leguía/Sanishta Rivero/Martín Escalante: An Inscrutable Bodily Discomforting Thing (Kettle Hole) [03-07]
  • Chris Jonas: Backwardsupwardsky (Edgetone) [03-04]: LP
  • Nancy Kelly: Be Cool (Origin) [04-18]
  • Medler Sextet: River Paths (OA2) [04-18]
  • The Reddish Fetish With the Jersey City All Stars: Llegue (F&F) [05-01]
  • Sextet: Pitch, Rhythm and Consciousness (Reva) [04-22]
  • Unity Quartet [Helio Alves/Guilherme Monteiro/Gili Lopes/Alex Kautz]: Samba of Sorts (Sunnyside) [04-18]

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Sunday, April 6, 2025

Loose Tabs

Seems like a good day to print out my accumulated file of scraps and links, making use of the one-day window between yesterday's initial attempt at a catch up Book Roundup and tomorrow's regularly scheduled Music Week, before checking out for cataract surgery on Tuesday, and whatever disoriented recovery follows that.

I quit my long-running weekly Speaking of Which posts after the election, figuring I had shot my wad trying to exercise what little influence I might have had, and realizing I had little stomach for what was almost certainly to come. I've usually done a pretty good job of following the news, but I've never been a junkie. I learned early on that the sure sign of addiction was that withdrawal was painful. My wife and her father were news junkies. We took a long car trip to the Gaspé Peninsula once -- quite literally the ends of the earth -- and I noticed how twitchy they became as they were deprived of their news routines (so desperate they clamored even for bits of radio in French they hardly understood; I, of course, had my CD cases, so I usually resisted requests for radio). This became even more clear to me when I spent 4-6 weeks in fall 2008, in Detroit working on her father's house after he passed. I only noticed that the banking system had collapsed one day when I stopped to pick up some food, and glimpsed a bit of TV news where I noticed that the Dow Jones had dropped 5000 points from last I remembered. I had no clue, and that hadn't bothered me in the least.

So I figured I could handle a break, especially in the long stretch of lame duck time between election and inauguration, when speculation ran rampant, and everyone -- morose, paranoid losers as well as the insufferably glib winners -- would only double down on their previous expectations. I had made plenty of pre-election predictions, which would be proven or disproven soon enough. I made some minor adjustments in my final post, nothing where I could that the doom and gloom wasn't inevitable, but also remaining quite certain that the future would be plenty bad. As I was in no position to do anything -- and, let's face it, all my writing had only been preaching to the choir -- I saw nothing else to do.

And I've always been open to doubts, or perhaps just skeptical of certainty. So when, just before the election, my oldest and dearest comrade wrote -- "From what you wrote, I think the Republicans/Trump are not as evil as you think, and the Democrats are not as benign as you hope" -- I felt like I had to entertain the possibility. I knew full well that most of my past mistakes had been caused by an excess of hope -- in particular, that the far-from-extravagant hopes I once harbored for Clinton and Obama had been quickly and thoroughly dashed. (Curiosly, Biden entered with so little expectations that I found myself pleasantly surprised on occasion, until his war fumbling led him to ruin -- pretty much the same career arc as Lyndon Johnson, or for that matter Harry Truman.) Of course, I could have just as easily have favored the Republicans with hope. On some level even I find it hard to believe that they really want to destroy their own prosperity, or that their wealthy masters will allow them to sink so low.

I also understood a few basic truths that advised patience. One is that most people have to learn things the hard way, through the experience of disaster. This really bothers me, because as an engineer, my job (or really, my calling) is to prevent disasters from happening, but the temptation to say "I told you so" rarely if ever helps, so it's best to start over from scratch. (FDR's New Deal wasn't a masterplan he had before the Crash. His only firm idea after the Crash was that government should do something fast to help people. He found the New Deal by trial and error, but only because he was open to anything that might work, even ideas that others found suspiciously leftish.)

The second is that what people learn from disasters is very hard to predict, as the brain frantically attempts to find new order from the break and dislocation -- which even if generally predicted often differs critically in details. What people "learn" tends very often to be wrong, largely because the available ideas are most often part of the problem. To have any chance of learning the right lessons, one has to be able to respond to the immediate situation, as free as possible of preconceptions. (By "right" I mean with solutions that stand the test of time, not just ones that gain popular favor but lead to further disasters. Japan's embrace of pacifism after WWII was a good lesson learned. Germany's "stab-in-the-back" theory after WWI wasn't.)

The third is that every oppression or repression generates its own distinctive rebellion. Again, there's little value in trying to anticipate what form it will take, or how it will play out. Just be aware that it will happen, prepare to go with (or in some cases, against) the flow. (Nobody anticipated that the response to the Republican's catastrophic loss in 2008 would be the Tea Party -- even those who recognized that all the raw materials were ready to explode couldn't imagine rational beings doing so. This is a poor example in that the disaster felt by Republicans was nothing more than hallucination, whereas Trump is inflicting real pain which even rational people will be forced to respond to, but that only reiterates my point. And perhaps serves as a warning against paranoid overreaction: the Gaza uprising of Oct. 7, 2023, was a real event which caused real pain, but Israel's lurch into genocide, which had seemed inconceivable before despite being fully overdetermined, is another example.)

So I knew not only that the worse Trump became, the sooner and stronger an opposing force would emerge. And I also knew that to be effective, it would have to come from somewhere beyond the reach of my writing. I may have had some ideas of where, but I didn't know, and my not knowing didn't matter. The only thing I'm pretty sure of is that yesterday's Democratic Party leaders are toast. The entire substance of their 2024 campaign (and most of 2020 and 2016) was "we'll save you from Trump," and whatever else one might say about what they did or didn't do, their failure on their main promise is manifest. But I'm happy to let them sort that out, in their own good time. I'm nore concerned these days with understanding the conditions that put us into the pickle where we had to make such terrible choices. And putting the news aside, I'm free now to go back to my main interest in the late 1960s -- another time when partisan politics and punditry was a mire of greater and lesser evils, when the prevailing liberalism seemed bankrupt and defenseless against the resurgent right -- which is to think up utopian alternatives to the coming dark ages.

More about that in due course. But in everyday life, I do sometimes notice news -- these days mostly in the course of checking out my X and Bluesky feeds -- and sometimes notes. They go into a draft file, which holds pieces for eventual blog posts (like this one). I used to keep a couple dozen more/less reliable websites open, and cycle through them to collect links. I still have them open, but doubt I'll hit up half of them in the afternoon I'm allotting to this. So don't expect anything comprehensive. I'm not doing section heads, although I may sublist some pieces. Sort order is by date, first to last.

Mike Konczal: [02-02] Racing the Tariffs: How the Election Sparked a Surge in Auto and Durable Goods Spending in Q4 2024: "An extra 188,500 total cars sold anticipating Trump's tariffs?" I've been thinking about buying a new car for several years now, but simply haven't gotten my act together to go our shopping. Usually, waiting to spend money isn't a bad idea, but this (plus last week's tariff news) makes me wonder if I haven't missed a window. I still have trouble believing that the tariffs will stick: popular opinion may not matter for much in DC, but the companies most affected have their own resources there. By the way, Konczal also wrote this pretty technical but useful piece: [02-14] Rethinking the Biden Era Economic Debate.

Robert McCoy: [03-11] The Right Is Hell-Bent on Weaponizing Libel Law: "The 1964 Supreme Court decision affords the press strong protections against costly defamation lawsuits. That's why a dangerous new movement is trying to overturn it." The idea is to allow deep-pocketed people like Trump to sue anyone who says anything they dislike about them. Even if you can prove what you said is true, they can make your life miserable. This is presented as a review of David Enrich: Murder the Truth: Fear, the First Amendment, and a Secret Campaign to Protect the Powerful.

Janet Hook: [03-18] Michael Lewis's Case for Government: Lewis's The Fifth Risk was one of the best books written after Trump won in 2016, not least because it was the least conventional. Rather than getting worked up over the threats Trump posed to Americans, he focused on the people who worked for the government, in the process showing what we had to lose by putting someone like Trump in charge. His The Premonition: A Pandemic Story took a similar tack, focusing on little people who anticipated and worked to solve big problems on our behalf. This reviews his new book Who Is Government? The Untold Story of Public Service, a set of profiles of government workers mostly written by his friends.

Thomas Fazi: [03-24] Europe's Anti-Democratic Militarization: "Europe is being swept up in a war frenzy unseen since the 1930s. Earlier this month, the European Union unveiled a massive $870-billion rearmament plan, ReArm Europe." The proximate cause of this is Trump, whose election lends credence to doubts that the US will remain a reliable partner to defend Europe against Russia. These fears are rather ridiculous, as the US is almost solely responsible for turning Russia into a threat, but also because the reason the US became so anti-Russia was to promote arms sales in Eastern Europe (and anti-China to promote arms sales in East Asia, the main theater of Obama's "pivot to Asia"). There are many things one could write about this hideous turn -- Europe has been ill-served by its obeisance to America's increasingly incoherent imperial aims, so the smart thing there would be to become unaligned -- but one key point is that the center-left parties in Europe have given up any pretense of being anti-war, anti-militarist, and anti-imperial, so only the far right parties seem interested in peace. Even if they're only doing so because they see Putin as one of their own, many more people can see that interventionism, no matter how liberal, is tied to imperialism, and they are what's driving refugees to Europe. You shouldn't have to be a bigot to see that as a problem, or that more war only makes matters worse. Or that "defense" is more temptation and challenge than deterrence.

Jeet Heer: [03-25] Group Chat War Plans Provide a Window Into Trump's Mafia State: "American foreign policy is now all about incompetent shakedowns and cover-ups." On the Jeffrey Goldberg "bombshell", the events he reported on, and the subsequent brouhaha, which is increasingly known as the Signal Scandal (or Signalgate), more focused on the lapse of security protocol than on the bad decisions and tragic events those involved wanted to cover up. Jeer reduced this to five "lessons":

  1. Trump is running a mafia state.
  2. Pete Hegseth is a bald-faced liar -- and it doesn't matter.
  3. The war on Yemen made no sense and was conducted without consulting Congress or allies.
  4. The Trump administration really hates Europe -- but stil wants to fight wars on its behalf.
  5. The contradictions of America First are resolved by Mafia-style shakedowns.

Some more articles on this:

Darlene Superville: [03-27] Trump executive order on Smithsonian targets funding for programs with 'improper ideology': Oh great, not only are the federal employees who act as custodians of our national history subject to arbitrary dismissal and possibly rendering, now they have to spend every day of the next four years arguing with Trump's goons about political correctness!

Liza Featherstone: [03-28] Welcome to the Pro-Death Administration: "From climate change to nuclear weapons to lethal disease, the Trump administration seems to have decided that preventing mass death isn't really government's business anymore." Title was too easy, given the anti-abortion cult's "pro-life" conceit. Still, although there are certain kinds of death the Trump administration unabashedly favors -- capital punishment, bombing Yemen, providing blank check support for Israeli genocide -- the clear point of the article is the administration's extraordinary lack of concern for public health and any kind of human welfare. What's hard to say at this point is whether this frees them from any thought about the consequences of their actions, or their thoughtlessnes and recklessness is the foundation, and carelessness just helps them going.

Saqib Rahim: [03-28] Trump's pick for Israel Ambassador Leads Tours That Leave Out Palestinians -- and Promote End of Days Theology: Mike Huckabee, who started as a Baptist minister, became governor of Arkansas, ran for president, and shilled for Fox News, has finally found his calling: harkening the "end of days." Most critics of America's indulgence of Israeli policy find it hard to talk about Christian Zionist apocalypse mongering, probably because it just seems too insane to accept that anyone really believes it, but Huckabee makes the madness hard to ignore. That he's built a graft on his beliefs with his "Israel Experience" tours is news to me, but unsurprising, given the prevalence of conmen in the Trumpist right. On the other hand, "erasing Palestinians" is just par for the course. Huckabee's own contributions there have mostly been symbolic, which doesn't mean short of intent, but as US ambassador he'll be well on his way to an ICC genocide indictment. Too many more horror stories on Israel to track, but these stood out:

Jackson Hinkle: [03-31] tweet: Entire text reads: This is one of the most evil people in history." Followed by picture a smiling (and younger than expected) Barrack Obama. I don't know who this guy is, but he obviously doesn't know jack shit about history, even of the years since his subject became president.[*] But the bigger problem is what happens when you start calling people evil. It's not just that it throws you into all sorts of useless quantitative debates about lesser or greater evils, the whole concept is akin to giving yourself a lobotomy. You surrender your ability to understand other people, and fill that void with a command to act with enough force to get other people to start calling you evil. But to act with such force one needs power, so maybe what's evil isn't the person so much as the power?

[*] Hinkle appears to be a self-styled American Patriot (note flag emoji) with a militant dislike of Israel, succinctly summed up with a picture of him shaking hands with a Yemeni soldier (Google says Yahya Saree) under the title "American patriots stand with Yemen," along with meme posts like "Israel is a terrorist state" and "Make Tel Aviv Palestine again." So I suppose I should give him a small bit of credit for not inventing Obama's "evil" out of whole cloth (like Mike McCormick, whose latest book on Obama and Biden is called An Almost Insurmountable Evil), but all he does is take sides -- his feed also features pure boosterism for Putin and Gaddafi, as if he's trying to discredit himself -- with no substance whatsoever.

Rutger Bregman: [03-31] What I think a winning agenda for Democrats could look like: This was a tweet, so let's quote it all (changing handles for names, for clarity):

  1. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez/Bernie Sanders-style economic populism. Tax the rich, expand public services, balance the budget. Skip the ideological fluff: no anti-capitalism and degrowth blabla, just good old-fashioned social democracy.
  2. David Shor-style popularism: relentlessly double down on your most popular policies. Universal Pre-K, affordable child care, higher minimum wage, cheaper groceries, cheaper college, cheaper prescription drugs.
  3. Yascha Mounk/Matthew Yglesias-style cultural move to the center: moderate on immigration, tone down identity politics, admit men & women are different, stop the obsessive language policing, explicitly distance yourself from far left cultural warriors. Reclaim patriotism. Be smart on crime: no 'defund the police' but more cops and better cops who solve more crimes. Be the party of cleaner streets, fewer guns, and public order.
  4. Ezra Klein/Derek Thompson-style YIMBY/abundance agenda. Slash red tape, defy silly rules and procedures. Declare an emergency if necessary. Shovels in the ground, make a big show of building affordable housing and clean energy (livestreams etc.). Set targets and deadlines. Be the party of progress that (visibly!) builds.
  5. Build a big tent of progressives, moderates and independents. Unite in opposition to Trump. Attack him when he engages in economic arson (tariffs etc) and democratic arson (blatant disregard for due process, civil liberties etc.), and when it highlights your strengths: competence, solutions, basic human decency.

And most importantly of all:

Win elections. Then do the right thing. (In that order.)

In other words, everybody's right, let's try it all, only, you know, win this time. The thing is, this prescription is pretty much what Harris tried in 2024, and somehow she still lost. Her approximate grade card on these five points: 70/90/90/80/90 -- sure, she could have bashed the rich more, but they reacted as if she did, and Bregman pulls as many punches on this score as she did, so it's hard to see how they could have landed; and her "big tent" extended all the way to Dick Cheney -- the people who were excluded were the ones who had misgivings about genocide (although I suppose the Teamsters also have their own reason to beef).

The problem is that even when Democrats say the right things -- many advocating policies which on their own poll very favorably -- not enough people believe them to beat even the insane clowns Republicans often run these days. Their desperate need is to figure out how to talk to people beyond their own camp, not so much to explain their better policy positions as to dispel the lies of the right-wing propaganda machine, and establish their own credibility for honesty, probity, reason, respect, and public spirit.

Unfortunately, this isn't likely to happen through introspection. (I remember describing 9/11 as a "wake-up call" for Americans to re-examine their consciences and resolve to treat the world with more respect and care -- and, well, that sure didn't happen.) As Bregman's list of oracles shows, the standard response to a crisis of confidence -- which is the result of the Harris defeat, especially for anyone who believed she was saying and doing the right hings -- isn't self-reflection. It's a free-for-all where everyone competes with their own warmed-over pet prescriptions: the names in 1-4 have been kicking their policy ideas around for years, looking for any opportunity to promote them (although only Sanders and AOC have any actual political juice, which Bregman wants to tap into but not to risk offending his neoliberal allies; 5 is another reminder to water down any threat to change).

I should note Nathan J Robinson's response here:

I see "pretend foreign policy doesn't exist in order to avoid the awkward subject of whether or not Democrats support genocide" continues to be part of the plan.

If Democrats can't figure out that war is bad, not just morally but politically, they will lose, and deserve to lose, no matter how bad their enemies are, even on that same issue. (Sure, it's a double standard: as the responsible, sensible, human party, Democrats are expected to behave while Republicans are allowed to run crazy.) If Democrats can't figure that much out, how can they convince people that public services are better than private, that equal justice for all is better than rigging the courts, that protecting the environment matters, and much more?

By the way, I've read Bregman's book Utopia for Realists, and found it pretty weak on both fronts. (Original subtitle was The Case for a Universal Basic Income, Open Borders, and a 15-Hour Workweek, which was later changed to And How We Can Get There).

I also saw a tweet where Bregman is raving about the new book, Abundance, by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson. I wrote a bit about the book for an unpublished Book Roundup, which I might as well quote here (I'll probably rewrite it later; I haven't committed to reading it yet):

Ezra Klein/Derek Thompson: Abundance (2025, Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster): I've seen many references lately to "abundance liberalism," which this seems to be the bible to. It comes at a time when Democrats are shell-shocked by the loss to Trump -- especially those who are congenitally prejudiced against the left, and still hope to double down on the neoliberal gospel of growth. I sympathize somewhat with their "build" mantra, but isn't the problem somewhat deeper than just providing cutting through the permitting paperwork? While it's true that if you built more housing, you could bring prices down, but the neoliberal economy is driven by the search for higher profits, not lower prices. Democrats have been trained to think that the ony way they can get things done is through private corporations (e.g., you want more school loans, so hire banks to administer them; you want better health care for more people, pay off the insurance companies), which is not just wasteful, it invites further sabotage, and the result is you cannot deliver as promised. Similarly, Democrats have been trained to believe that growth is the magic elixir: make the rich richer, and everyone else will benefit. They're certainly good at the first part, but the second is harder to quantify. Perhaps there are some details here that are worth a read, but the opposite of austerity isn't abundance; it's enough, and that's not just a quantity but also a quality.

I should cast about for some reviews here (some also touch on Marc J Dunkelman: Why Nothing Works: Who Killed Progress -- and How to Bring It Back; other have pursued similar themes, especially Matthew Yglesias):

Jessica Piper/Elena Schneider: [04-02] Why Wisconsin's turnout suggests serious trouble for the GOP right now: 'Democrats keep overperforming in down-ballot elections, and the Wisconsin results suggest it's not just about turnout." I knew that night that Musk's attempt to buy a Supreme Court seat in Wisconsin had failed, but I hadn't looked at the numbers, which were pretty huge.

Ori Goldberg: [04-02] tweet:

Reminder:

  1. There is no "war" in Gaza. No one is fighting Israel.
  2. Israel is engaged in eradication. The only justification Israelis need is the totality of the eradication.
  3. Eradication is a crime in every shape or form. Those engaging in it and enabling it are criminals.

I'm also seeing tweets about and by Randy Fine, a Republican who won a House seat from Florida this week. About: "AIPAC's Randy Fine calls for 5 year prison sentences for distributing anti-Israel flyers, calling it a hate crime." By: "There is no suffering adequate for these animals. May the streets of Gaza overflow with blood." I can kind of understand, without in any way condoning or excusing, where Netanyahu and Ben Gvir are coming from, but I find this level of callousness from Americans unfathomable (and note that Lindsey Graham is one reason I'm using the plural).

Sean Padraig McCarthy: [04-02] tweet:

The Zionist project is so extreme, so violent, so beyond the pale of civilization that nothing progressive can coexist with it. It will drag all your pro-worker, pro-healthcare politics into the abyss. We need anti Zionist political leaders.

Matt Ford: [04-03] Take Trump's Third-Term Threats Seriously: Don't. It's hard to tell when he's gaslighting you, because lots of stuff he's serious about is every bit as insane as bullshit like this. The first thing here is timing: this doesn't matter until 2028, by which time he's either dead or so lame a duck that not even the Supreme Court will risk siding with him. But even acknowledging the threat just plays into his paranoid fantasies, a big part of what keeps him going.

Bret Heinz: [04-03] Rule by Contractor: "DOGE is not about waste and efficiency -- it's about privatization." I'm not sure I had a number before, but "Elon Musk spent more than $290 million on last year's elections." That's a lot of money, but it's tiny in comparison to this: "Overall, Musk's business ventures have benefited from more than $38 billion in government support."

Jeffrey St Clair: [04-04] Roaming Charges: Welcome to the Machine. Tariffs, layoffs, etc. I suppose we have to provide a sublist of tariff articles, so I might as well hang it here. Personally, I've never had strong feelings on tariffs or free trade. I have long been bothered by the size of the US trade imbalance, which went negative around 1970, about the time that Hibbert's Peak kicked in and the US started importing oil. I thought that was a huge mistake, that should have been corrected with substantially higher gas taxes (which in addition to throttling consumption and reducing the trade deficit would also have had the effect of blunting the 1970s price shocks). In retrospect, a tariff would have had a similar effect, and probably stimulated more domestic production, which would have had the unfortunate side effect of making oil tycoons -- by far the most reactionary assholes in America -- all that much richer. But tariffs aren't very good for equalizing trade deficits: by targeting certain products and certain nations, they can lead to trade wars, which hurt everyone. A better solution would be a universal tax on all imports, which is keyed to the trade balance. That clearly identifies trade balance as the problem, with a solution defined to match it, and disincentivizes retaliation. Perhaps even easier would be to simply devalue one's currency, which makes imports more expensive (without the clumsiness of a tax) and exports cheaper. But no one talks about these things, probably because few of the people involved seem to worry much about trade imbalances. They have their own reasons, and they don't want to talk about them either.

The classic rationale for tariffs is to protect infant industries from competition from cheaper imports. This makes sense only if you have a national economic plan, which the US has traditionally refused to do. (Biden has actually done things like this; e.g., to promote US manufacturing of batteries, but Trump has no clue here. Republican tariffs in the 19th century effectively did this, although they never called it this.)

Nor do I regard the issue as especially major. I think the people who have sounded the alarm over Trump's tariff plans have often exaggerated the danger. While the immediate effects, like the stock market tumble, seem to justify those fears, if he stays the course, businesses will adjust, and while the damage will still be real, it won't be catastrophic. But it seems unlikely that he will hold out. The reaction from abroad just goes to show how much American power has slipped over recent decades. When Biden was sucking up to Europe and the Far East, they were willing to humor him, because it cost them little, and the predicability was comforting. Trump offers no such comforts, and is so obnoxious any politician in the world can score points against him, or become vulnerable if they don't. While backing down will be embarrassing, not doing so will be perceived as far worse. I don't think he has the slightest clue what he is doing, and I suspect that the main reason he's doing it is because he sees it as a way to show off presidential power. That still plays to his fan base, but more than a few of them are going to get hurt, and he has no answer, let alone sympathy, for them.

A few more articles (hopefully not many, as this is already a dead horse):

David Dayen: [04-04] No Personnel Is Policy: "The Trump administration is accomplishing through layoffs what it couldn't accomplish through Congress."

There are certainly plenty of more normal ways Trump is changing the government, old standbys like hiring lobbyists to oversee the industries they once worked for. But just immobilizing government through staff cuts is somewhat new, at least at the level that Trump has employed it. Prosecutorial discretion is an established way to shift government priorities. But most of these agency depopulations make it impossible for the federal government to fulfill its statutory responsibilities, even though these agencies have been established and authorized and funded by Congress. When you make these offices nonfunctional, you're not taking care that the laws are faithfully executed.

More on Musk and DOGE:

Elie Honig: [04-04] Trump's war on big law. Not that I have any sympathy for the law firms Trump has tried to shake down -- least of all for the ones who so readily surrendered -- but this is one Trump story I had little if any reason to anticipate. Trump must be the most litigious person in world history -- James D Zirin even wrote a book about this, Plaintiff in Chief: A Portrait of Donald Trump in 3,500 Lawsuits. One good rule of thumb is that anyone involved, even inadvertently, in 1% of that many lawsuits is unfit for office.

Branko Marcetic: [04-04] Trump Promised Free Speech Defense and Delivered the Opposite. Hard to believe that anyone fell for that one.

Nina Quinn Eichacker: [04-05] The End of Exorbitant Privilege as We Know it: Some technical discussion of the pluses and minuses of seeking trade surpluses, noting that the advantages aren't large, and that for an economy as large as the US the costs of running persistent deficits aren't great -- barring some unforseen disaster, which leads to this:

But what the Trump administration seems to really be trying to do is demolish that exorbitant privilege, by torching any desire from countries around the world to purchase goods from the US, and to form economic alliances that insulate them from the chaos coming from inside the US government. People ask me all the time whether I think that there's a point at which the US could have too much debt, and I've always said that something really catastrophic would have to happen for the US to be deposed as the currency hegemon of the world. Now I think we're teetering on the brink, and I hate it.

The author also notes: "Will these tariffs lead to more manufacturing? They're a painful way to get ther, with a lot of degrowth along the way."

Adam Tooze: [04-07] Chartbook 369 Are we on the edge of a major financial crisis? Trump's Chart of Death and why bonds not equities are the big story. I can't say I'm following all of this, but I am familiar with the notion that equity and bond markets normally balance each other out, so the idea that both are way out of whack seems serious. And the odds for the "Trump is a genius" explanation are vanishingly small.

Current count: 69 links, 6281 words (7446 total)

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Saturday, April 5, 2025

Book Roundup

Last Book Roundup was way back on April 25, 2024 and, well, much has happened since then. When I started looking around, I found a lot of new and urgent 2025 books -- including the first books on the 2024 elections, as well as taking stock of major events, like genocide in Gaza -- that should jump to the top of the queue. Rest assured that I'm working on them, and will have a report (or two, or maybe three) soon. But I also had a ton of stuff in my leftover draft file, so after a wee bit of thought, I decided to try to flush a bunch of those notices out first.

My usual rules call for 20 (previously 40) books in the main section, some with bullet lists for extra books related by author or subject, followed by a second "briefly noted" section, for books I don't have a lot more to say about, or feel like putting the time and effort into (reserving the option of returning to them later). I'll follow that format here, but no need to be strict on counts. One rule I will enforce is no 2025 releases (for the main books, but I did slip a few into the extended lists).

After four days of working on this, I might as well go ahead and post. One could, of course, keep working indefinitely, but what I missed can always be rolled into another post. The exception might be for books I want to slot under sectional lists. I'm thinking of doing a Loose Tabs post on Sunday, and Music Week on Monday, but holding off on another Book Roundup until late next week (at earliest, more likely a week or two later), so until I start working in earnest on the next books post, it will be relatively easy to patch changes in here (which I'll mark with change bars, unless they seem insignificant). Book cover images indicate books I've read (added to my Recent Reading, or in a few cases have bought and intend to read, but haven't gotten to yet).

Internal links to authors/subjects (+ extended lists; the numbering has no meaning other than it saves me from being tempted to count):

  1. Atossa Araxia Abrahamian [+ global wealth]
  2. Sohrab Ahmari
  3. Max Boot [Reagan]
  4. Bob Bauer
  5. Zach Beauchamp [+ global right]
  6. Patrick Bergemann
  7. HW Brands [FDR]
  8. David S Brown [+ Civil War, Alan Taylor]
  9. Philip Bump [+ generations]
  10. Ben Burgis
  11. Erwin Chemerinsky [+ courts, US Constitution]
  12. Noam Chomsky/Nathan J Robinson [foreign policy]
  13. Ta-Nehisi Coates [Israel]
  14. Joe Conason
  15. David Daley [+ anti-democracy]
  16. Jonathan Darman [FDR]
  17. Richard J Evans [+Germany, WWII]
  18. Henry Farrell/Abraham Newman [sanctions]
  19. Drew Gilpin Faust
  20. Michael R Fischbach
  21. H Bruce Franklin
  22. George Friedman
  23. John Ganz
  24. Arlie Russell Hochschild
  25. CJ Hopkins
  26. Gerald Horne
  27. Peniel E Joseph
  28. Gideon Levy [Israel]
  29. Dave Marsh [music]
  30. Clara E Mattei [+ economics]
  31. Tom McGrath
  32. Susan Neiman [+ woke]
  33. Ilan Pappe [Israel]
  34. Ilan Pappe [Israel]
  35. Paul Pierson/Erin Schickler [partisanship]
  36. Project 2025
  37. Thomas E Ricks
  38. David Rohde [+ Trump crimes]
  39. David Rothkopf
  40. Troy Senik [+ US presidents]
  41. Adam Shatz [+ Frantz Fanon]
  42. Timothy Shenk [+ progressive politics]
  43. Ganesh Sitaraman
  44. David Steinmetz-Jenkins [+ fascism]
  45. Joseph E Stiglitz
  46. Jonathan Taplin
  47. Jeffrey Toobin
  48. Geoffrey Wawro
  49. Susan Williams [+ CIA]
  50. Tara Zahra.

Atossa Araxia Abrahamian: The Hidden Globe: How Wealth Hacks the World (2024, Riverhead): The richest people in the world have such extraordinary wealth that they are effectively nations unto themselves, or at least are able to shop around for convenience ports whenever they need to stash some cash, with little regard for where they came from, or where they're going. I don't know of many books on this phenomenon, but this at least gives us a rough sketch. One of the first things Biden tried to do was to negotiate an international system to collect taxes from foreign havens. Getting agreement on principle was surprisingly easy, but implementing an actual system has been elusive. No one expects Trump, even with his nationalist rhetoric, to lift a finger on this, which gives the superrich four more years to work their graft.
More books on this sort of thing:

  • Oliver Bullough: Moneyland: The Inside Story of the Crooks and Kleptocrats Who Rule the World (2019; paperback, 2020, Griffin).
  • Oliver Bullough: Butler to the World: How Britain Helps the World's Worst People Launder Money, Commit Crimes, and Get Away With Anything (2022, St Martin's Press).
  • Brooke Harrington: Offshore: Stealth Wealth and the New Colonialism (2024, WW Norton).
  • Rob Larson: Mastering the Universe: The Obscene Wealth of the Ruling Class, What They Do With Their Money, and Why You Should Hate Them Even More (paperback, 2024, Haymarket Books): Found this late, or it could have been a lead, but it fits here.
  • Casey Michel: American Kleptocracy: How the US Created the World's Greatest Money Laundering Scheme in History (paperback, 2024, St Martin's Griffin).
  • Bastian Obermaier/Frederik Obermaier: The Panama Papers: Breaking the Story of How the Rich & Powerful Hide Their Money (paperback, 2017, Oneworld).

Sohrab Ahmari: Tyranny, Inc.: How Private Power Crushed American Liberty -- and What to Do About It (2023, Forum Books): Quasi-conservative intellectual, one of the few to focus more on the dangers of power held by capitalists than government. One result is that he gets favorable blurbs from Marco Rubio and Josh Hawley, James Galbraith and Slavoj Zizek, Michael Lind and John Gray.

Max Boot: Reagan: His Life and Legend (2024, Liveright): At 880 pages, the author assumes his subject is a man of great importance, but he was a cipher onto whom you could project whatever you wanted, which his own acts rarely contradicted, because he was just a front for a cabal of crooked, greedy bigots. After his embarrassing start as advocate and enabler for military blunders -- I recommend his 2002 book, The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power as a sobering catalog of horrors, which belies his ghoulishly cheery conclusion -- he's turned on Trump and drifted left. That he's bothered to bring this baggage along is testament to the shallowness of his thinking.

Bob Bauer: The Unraveling: Reflections on Politics Without Ethics and Democracy (2024, Rowman & Littlefield): Memoir and manifesto by former White House Counsel under Obama. His argument that "renewing American democracy begins with restoring political ethics" sounds about right, but he also asks "where does the line fall between the 'hardball' of politics and attacks on the very foundation of democracy?" While "hardball" doesn't necessarily mean abandoning ethics, politics in America sure seems to. Virtually no one gets to even run for president without sucking up to the donor class, which is just the first of many things they have to deceive the voters about. Once in office, they have more interests to serve, and more secrets to protect, so much so that their political skills are largely measured in how successful they are at lying. And then there's the pretty universal ethic of "thou shall not kill," which Obama (to pick an example who's not Bush or Trump) violated only a few days after taking office, first when he ordered Somali pirates to be killed, then drone strikes, and for the biggest brag of all, the raid that killed Bin Laden. (Bush ordered bombing of Iraq on his first day, months before 9/11, and later much more, including full blown wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Trump did more drone attacks than Obama.) Still, there is a bigger problem than the ethical lapses of politicians. It's that voters seem to prefer the least ethical candidates. No one voted for Trump because they thought he was the less corrupt, less stable, less violent choice. Trump won because voters saw him as the baddest ass in the game. Maybe if Democrats hadn't played into that game, if they had provided a genuine alternative to show that honesty, integrity, and decency actually worked -- such an ideal may not exist, but Bernie Sanders is a much better example than Obama -- Trump wouldn't have seemed so attractive.

Zack Beauchamp: The Reactionary Spirit: How America's Most Insidious Political Tradition Swept the World (2024, PublicAffairs): Vox journalist, offers comparative reporting on far-right political movements around the world, with chapters on America, Hungary, Israel, and India, plus occasional glances elsewhere. I bought a copy of this but haven't gotten to it yet, and intervening events may have made it less useful.
In case I find anything more to file here:

  • Anne Applebaum: Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World (2024, Doubleday): She mostly means Putin, and leaders of any state who still deals with him (mostly because the US has left them few alternatives). I think her warmongering has cost her whatever credibility her history books may have earned, as they are now easily dismissed as virulently anti-Russian.
  • Richard Seymour: Disaster Nationalism: The Downfall of Liberal Civilization (2024, Verso).

Patrick Bergemann: Judge Thy Neighbor: Denunciations in the Spanish Inquisition, Romanov Russia, and Nazi Germany (2019; paperback, 2021, Columbia University Press): This book came up in reference to Trump's anti-immigrant abductions, which in turn bring back memories of the postwar US Red Scares. That didn't strike me as very exact, but all of these (and many more) cases do fit under the flagrant abuse of arbitrary power. The insistence on convincing people to denounce one another is a way of testifying to that power, in the hope that it will intimidate others. The book itself has just the three historical sections, with some generalizations -- perhaps also further examples? -- in the introductory "A Theory of Denunciation" and the concluding "Denunciations: Present and Future."

HW Brands: America First: Roosevelt vs. Lindbergh in the Shadow of War (2024, Doubleday): Wide-ranging popular biographer, much of what I know about Franklin Roosevelt I gleaned from his 2008 biography, Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, which left me wondering why I, born just 5 years after Roosevelt died, heard so very little about him during my super-patriotic childhood. (I now suspect that the main point of the Red Scare, which Democrats were all too complicit in, was to wipe the New Deal from American memory. You certainly can't indict the Democrats for running on their legacy, like Republicans did with their mania for naming things after Lincoln and Reagan.) This book takes a small slice of the biography, probably occasioned by Trump's embrace of the Nazi-simp America First slogan, and inflates it to 464 pages. I must admit a bit of trepidation here: I've long admired the (mostly Republican) progressives who were later slandered as "isolationists" for their reluctance to leap into foreign wars, and I'm at least a bit skeptical that Lindbergh was really the pro-Nazi strawman he's made out to be -- although I have no problem believing that the two Freds, Koch and Trump, were. I'm also fully conscious of the downside of Roosevelt's engagement and management of the war effort -- although, once the decision to fight had become unavoidable, I doubt any other politician could have handled it as masterfully. Perhaps therein lies a lesson for Joe Biden, who didn't even have to suffer a stroke to screw up worse than Woodrow Wilson.

David S Brown: A Hell of a Storm: The Battle for Kansas, the End of Compromise, and the Coming of the Civil War (2024, Scribner): Just as we're still writing new books about WWII, we're still reading books about the Civil War. But this one looks more interesting than most, and not just because I appreciate the Kansas angle. This looks deep into the political and intellectual ferment of the 1850s, which first turned bloody in Kansas, but was rubbed raw everywhere. There are, for instance, contending chapters not just on "Bibles and Guns" but on Thoreau and Fitzhugh.
More on the Civil War, more or less:

  • William A Blair: The Record of Murders and Outrages: Racial Violence and the Fight Over Truth at the Dawn of Reconstruction (2021, University of North Carolina Press).
  • Fergus M Bordewich: Congress at War: How Republican Reformers Fought the Civil War, Defied Lincoln, Ended Slavery, and Remade America (2020, Knopf).
  • Fergus M Bordewich: Klan War: Ulysses S Grant and the Battle to Save Reconstruction (2023, Knopf).
  • Stephen Budlansky: A Day in September: The Battle of Antietam and the World It Left Behind (2024, WW Norton).
  • Robert Cwiklik: Sheridan's Secret Mission: How the South Won the War After the Civil War (2024, Harper): Details events in 1874 that led to ending Reconstruction.
  • Andrew Delbanco: The War Before the War: Fugitive Slaves and the Struggle for America's Soul From the Revolution to the Civil War (2018; paperback, 2019, Penguin Press).
  • Justene Hill Edwards: Savings and Trust: The Rise and Betrayal of the Freedman's Bank (2024, WW Norton).
  • Jon Grinspan: Wide Awake: The Forgotten Force That Elected Lincoln and Spurred the Civil War (2024, Bloomsbury).
  • Allen C Guelzo: Our Ancient Faith: Lincoln, Democracy, and the American Experiment (2024, Knopf).
  • Nigel Hamilton: Lincoln vs. Davis: The War of the Presidents (2024, Little Brown).
  • Dale Kretz: Administering Freedom: The State of Emancipation After the Freedmen's Bureau (paperback, 2022, University of North Carolina Press).
  • Edward Robert McClelland: Chorus of the Union: How Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas Set Aside Their Rivalry to Save the Nation (2024, Pegasus Books).
  • Robert W Merry: Decade of Disunion: How Massachusetts and South Carolina Led the Way to Civil War, 1849-1861 (2024, Simon & Schuster).
  • Bennett Parten: Somewhere Toward Freedom: Sherman's March and the Story of America's Largest Emancipation (2025, Simon & Schuster).
  • Stephen Puleo: The Great Abolitionist: Charles Sumner and the Fight for a More Perfect Union (2024, St Martin's Press).
  • John Reeves: Soldier of Destiny: Slavery, Secession, and the Redemption of Ulysses S Grant (2023, Pegasus Books).
  • Manisha Sinha: The Rise and Fall of the Second American Republic: Reconstruction, 1860-1920 (2024, Liveright).
  • Alan Taylor: American Civil Wars: A Continental History, 1850-1873 (2024, WW Norton): Also examines pivotal political changes in Canada and Mexico during this period. He's done this sort of comparative history before:
  • Alan Taylor: American Revolutions: A Continental History, 1750-1804 (2016; paperback, 2017, WW Norton).
  • Alan Taylor: American Republics: A Continental History of the United States, 1783-1850 (2021; paperback, 2022, WW Norton).
  • Amy Murrell Taylor: Embattled Freedom: Journeys Through the Civil War's Slave Refugee Camps (paperback, 2020, University of North Carolina Press).
  • Allen W Trelease: White Terror: The Ku Klux Klan Conspiracy and Southern Reconstruction (paperback, 2023, LSU Press).
  • Elizabeth Varon: Longstreet: The Confederate General Who Defied the South (2023, Simon & Schuster).
  • Kidada E Williams: I Saw Death Coming: A History of Terror and Survival in the War Against Reconstruction (2023, Bloomsbury).

Philip Bump: The Aftermath: The Last Days of the Baby Boom and the Future of Power in America (2023, Viking): So, what? The "baby boom" started in 1946 (a few months after WWII ended in August 1945, followed by a massive military demobilization), and "lasted until 1964" (seems pretty arbitrary, but one of the charts here shows births plateauing around 1955-62, then dropping off, more precipitously after 1964). Lots of charts here, as the author beats this horse into the ground. The division of American life into generational cohorts has generally struck me as arbitrary and useless -- the differences within each are much greater than from one to the next, although I have to admit that people born in the late 1940s grew up in a very different world from their parents -- although I'd push the start point back 5-8 years (to the first children with no real memory of the slump and war, but who were first to ride the postwar boom). I was born in 1950, so barely into the second quartile of the 20-year window, but by the time I got to college, it was already clear that opportunities (e.g., for teaching) had started to dwindle. So had our faith in good times -- especially disillusioning was the Vietnam War. These days Boomers get bad press for the world they left behind, but it's hard to see how we really inherited it: the big disaster was the Vietnam War, which was the work of the so-called Greatest Generation, as was the turn toward greed with Nixon and Reagan. Granted, the klatch of presidents born on the leading edge -- 1946 for Trump, Clinton, and Bush; Biden, from 1942, fits closer than Obama, from 1961 -- did little to stop the slide.
Some more generational screeds -- I'm omitting Bruce Cannon Gibney's A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America, which I picked apart previously, but pretty much everything here reeks of ulterior motives:

  • Jill Filipovic: OK Boomer, Let's Talk: How My Generation Got Left Behind (paperback, 2020, One Signal): Author identifies as a "millennial" and has some concerns, the most striking stat: "Millennials hold just 3 percent of American wealth. When they were the same age, Boomers held 21 percent."
  • Helen Andrews: Boomers: The Men and Women Who Promised Freedom and Delivered Disaster (2021, Sentinel). Senior editor at The American Conservative.
  • Caitlin Fisher: The Gaslighting of the Millennial Generation: How to Succeed in a Society That Blames You for Everything Gone Wrong (paperback, 2019, TMA Press).
  • Joseph C Sternberg: The Theft of a Decade: How the Baby Boomers Stole the Millennials' Economic Future (2019, PublicAffairs).
  • Jean M Twenge: Generations: The Real Differences Between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and Silents -- and What They Mean for America's Future (2023, Atria Books): A partial corrective to everything else written here, as for starters she accepts that generational changes are largely due to technology.

Ben Burgis: Canceling Comedians While the World Burns: A Critique of the Contemporary Left (2021, Zero Books): Jacobin writer, podcaster (Dead Pundits Society), wrote a short book (136 pp), "calling for a smarter, funnier, more strategic left." That sounds fine to me, but the book is long on dumb and/or offensive things attributed to supposed leftists, and who needs that? Possibly I'm in denial, thinking that such examples are best ignored.
Other books by Burgis or related:

  • Ben Burgis: Give Them an Argument: Logic for the Left (paperback, 2019, Zero Books): 128 pp.
  • Ben Burgis/Conrad Hamilton/Matthew McManus/Marion Trejo: Myth and Mayhem: A Leftist Critique of Jordan Peterson (paperback, 2020, Zero Books).
  • Ben Burgis: Christopher Hitchens: What He Got Right, How He Went Wrong, and Why He Still Matters (paperback, 2021, Zero Books): He's long dead, and longer lost, so why bring him up? I probably read him long ago, but never thought he was anyone special.
  • Michael Brooks: Against the Web: A Cosmopolitan Answer to the New Right (paperback, 2020, Zero Books): Another podcaster, d. 2020.
  • Matthew McManus: A How to Guide to Cosmopolitan Socialism: A Tribute to Michael Brooks (paperback, 2023, Zero Books).

Erwin Chemerinsky: No Democracy Lasts Forever: How the Constitution Threatens the United States (2024, Liveright): One of our most valuable experts on constitutional law, after having written a number of books against The Conservative Assault on the Constitution (a 2011 title) and in offering a A Progressive Reading of the Constitution for the Twenty-First Century (a 2018 subtitle, the title being We the People) seems to have switched tunes, seeing the Constitution as itself a big part of the problem. He's probably right, but without a political consensus in favor of a much better text, the only practical option is to defend the one we got. To do that, Democrats need to win elections, and by margins that overcome the obstacles to reform built into the old system.
More on the Constitution and the courts:

  • David Brock: Stench: The Making of the Thomas Court and the Unmaking of America (2024, Knopf).
  • Madiba K Dennie: The Originalism Trap: How Extremists Stole the Constitution and How We the People Can Take It Back (2024, Random House).
  • Jonathan Gienapp: Against Constitutional Originalism: A Historical Critique (2024, Yale University Press).
  • Leah Litman: Lawless: How the Supreme Court Runs on Conservative Grievance, Fringe Theories, and Bad Vibes (2025, Atria/One Signal). [05-13]
  • Yuval Levin: American Covenant: How the Constitution Unified Our Nation -- and Could Again (2024, Basic Books): AEI director, so a conservative viewpoint, although Gordon Wood gives this a favorable blurb.
  • Dahlia Lithwick: Lady Justice: Women, the Law, and the Battle to Save America (2022, Penguin): Legal correspondent for Slate, usually sharp.
  • Elie Mystal: Bad Law: Ten Popular Laws That Are Ruining America (2025, New Press): Nation columnist, previously wrote Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy's Guide to the Constitution (2022).
  • Michael Waldman: The Supermajority: How the Supreme Court Divided America (2023, Simon & Schuster).

Noam Chomsky/Nathan J Robinson: The Myth of American Idealism: How US Foreign Policy Endangers the World (2024, Penguin Press): On my "nightstand," not because I expect at this late date to learn much new -- I've followed him since his seminal 1967 essay "The Responsibility of Intellectuals" and his first 1969 book American Power and the New Mandarins, and no one knows more or has thought deeper about American power -- but because I'm hopeful that Robinson will bring his mass of facts and analysis into an even more coherent whole. As the Biden wars and the Harris debacle prove, Democrats are in desperate need of a complete rethink of US foreign policy. Even if they haven't quite reached the answer, these are the questions one has to face. Some other recent Chomsky books (I have 50+ on file, and am nowhere near complete):

  • Noam Chomsky: Illegitimate Authority, Facing the Challenges of Our Time (paperback, 2023, Penguin Press): With CJ Polychroniou.
  • Noam Chomsky: On Cuba: Reflections on 70 Years of Revolution and Struggle (2024, New Press): With Vijay Prashad.
  • Noam Chomsky: A Livable Future Is Possible: Confronting Threats to Our Survival (paperback, 2024, Haymarket Books): Interviews with CJ Polychroniou.
  • Nathan J Robinson: Responding to the Right (paperback, 2023, St Martin's Griffin): Essays on various right-wing ideologues.
  • Matt Kennard: The Racket: A Rogue Reporter vs the American Empire (2nd edition, paperback, 2024, Bloomsbury): UK reporter, gets a blurb from Chomsky, and a foreword by Chris Hedges.

Ta-Nehisi Coates: The Message (2024, One World): A travel memoir, with short stops in South Carolina and Senegal, but the chapter on Israel makes the strongest impression, because the parallels between Israeli and American racism are so obvious if you have any sense of one or the other. Nothing specific to Gaza, but the compulsion to grind Palestine to dust permeates all of Israel -- indeed, it's all Israel has become.

Joe Conason: The Longest Con: How Grifters, Swindlers, and Frauds Hijacked American Conservatism (2024, St Martin's Press): Veteran journalist, wrote for Village Voice, has several books, soft on the Clintons but strong on the vast right-wing conspiracy. This one includes a foreword by Clinton-nemesis-turned-never-Trumper George T Conway III (aka Mr Kellyanne Conway). [07-09] Also by Conason:

  • Joe Conason: The Hunting of the President: The Ten-Year Campaign to destroy Bill and Hillary Clinton (2000, Thomas Dunne; paperback, 2001, St Martin's Griffin).
  • Joe Conason: Big Lies: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts the Truth (2003, Thomas Dunne; paperback, 2004, St Martin's Griffin).
  • Joe Conason: It Can Happen Here: Authoritarian Peril in the Age of Bush (2007, St. Martin's Press; paperback, 2008, St Martin's Griffin).
  • Joe Conason: Man of the World: The Further Endeavors of Bill Clinton (2016; paperback, 2017, Simon & Schuster).

David Daley: Antidemocratic: Inside the Far Right's 50-Year Plot to Control American Elections (2024, Mariner Books): Author has been following Republican efforts to rig elections for some while now, with this his third exposé timed to come out in the heat of a presidential election: in 2016, he looked deep into the nuts-and-bolts of gerrymandering in Ratf**ked: The True Story Behind the Secret Plan to Steal America's Democracy; in 2020, he shifted focus to Unrigged: How Americans Are Battling Back to Save Democracy. Back to the bad guys in 2024, with his biggest book yet (464 pp), including a look at "the crucial role that Chief Justice John Roberts has played in determining how we vote." We shouldn't be surprised that Republicans hate democracy and seek to exploit every trick to subvert it. Their real agenda is sharply opposed to the best interests of most people, so the only way they can win is to misdirect voters, and even there they don't have enough faith in their con to just let the votes count. They need every cheat, every edge they can find and exploit, and they need to keep their bad faith and shabby ethics covered up. Daley helps here.
We might as well mention some more recent books on Republican efforts to undermine democracy:

  • Bill Adair: Beyond the Big Lie: The Epidemic of Political Lying, Why Republicans Do It More, and How It Could Burn Down Our Democracy (2024, Atria Books): Founder of PolitiFact.
  • Steve Benen: Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past (2024, Mariner Books). I used to find his Washington Monthly blog useful, but one or two caveats here: lately he's worked as producer for Rachel Maddow, and his first chapter here is "Russia Russia Russia." I should also mention:
  • Steve Benen: The Impostors: How Republicans Quit Governing and Seized American Poltics (2020; paperback, 2023, Mariner Books): As I didn't log this book previously (despite having bought and read it, although I can't say as I remember it well).
  • Brian Tyler Cohen: Shameless: Republicans' Deliberate Dysfunction and the Battle to Preserve Democracy (2024, Harper); "Progressive YouTuber," "gets billions of views."
  • Stephen E Hanson/Jeffrey S Kopstein: The Assault on the State: How the Global Attack on Modern Government Endangers Our Future (2024, Polity).
  • Timothy J Heaphy: Harbingers: What January 6 and Charlottesville Reveal About Rising Threats to American Democracy (2024, Steerforth): Chief investigative counsel for the House Select Committee on Jan. 6.
  • Valerie C Johnson/Jennifer Ruth/Ellen Schrecker, eds: The Right to Learn: Resisting the Right-Wing Attack on Academic Freedom (paperback, 2024, Beacon Press).
  • Katharine Stewart: Money, Lies and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy (2025, Bloomsbury).

Jonathan Darman: Becoming FDR: The Personal Crisis That Made a President (2022; paperback, 2023, Random House): Having risen to being the Democratic vice-presidential candidate in 1920, he contracted polio in 1921, was left partially paralyzed, but he found in his hardships, a humbling which many felt gave him special empathy for less fortunate Americans, he rose to new political heights, to governor of New York in 1928, and president in 1932.

Richard J Evans: Hitler's People: The Faces of the Third Reich (2024, Penguin Press): The author's three-volume history of Nazi Germany should be all anyone needs to know on the subject, but interest never seems to wane, and Evans does have a lifetime of study to draw on, so here he revisits the history through a series of 25 biographical sketches, a substantial 475 pages plus notes, where Hitler himself claims 94 pages, admitting "There is no way of beginning this book except with a biographical essay on Hitler. Without Hitler, there would have been no Third Reich, no World War II, and no Holocaust, at least not in the form that those calamitous events took."
More recent books on Germany up through WWII:

  • Harold Jähner: Vertigo: The Rise and Fall of Weimar Germany (2024, Basic Books).
  • Frank McDonough: The Weimar Years: Rise and Fall 1918-1933 (2024, Apollo): Author has several previous volumes of The Hitler Years.
  • Timothy W Ryback: Takeover: Hitler's Final Rise to Power (2024, Knopf).

I have minimal interest in the military side of WWII, so I haven't paid much attention in the past, but I'm struck by how many recent books have appeared:

  • Patrick Bishop: Paris 1944: Occupation, Resistance, Liberation: A Social History (2024, Pegasus Books).
  • Jonathan Dimbleby: Endgame 1944: How Stalin Won the War (2024, Oxford University Press).
  • James Holland: Normandy '44: D-Day and the Epic 77-Day Battle for France (paperback, 2020, Grove Press).
  • James Holland: Sicily '43: The First Assault on Fortress Europe (paperback, 2021, Grove Press).
  • James Holland: The Savage Storm: The Battle for Italy 1943 (2023, Atlantic Monthly Press).
  • James Holland: Cassino '44: The Brutal Battle for Rome (2024, Atlantic Monthly Press).
  • James Holland: Burma '44: The Battle That Turned World War II in the East (2024, Atlantic Monthly Press).
  • Nicholas Evan Saranthakes: The Battle of Manila: Poisoned Victory in the Pacific War (2025, Oxford University Press).
  • Jay A Stout: Savage Skies, Emerald Hell: The US, Australia, Japan, and the Ferocious Air Battle for New Guinea in World War II (2024, Stackpole Books).
  • Prit Uttar: Meat Grinder: The Battles for the Rzhev Salilent, 1942-43 (2022, Osprey)
  • Prit Uttar: To Besiege a City: Leningrad 1941-42 (2023, Osprey).
  • Prit Uttar: Hero City: Leningrad 1943-44 (2024, Osprey).
  • Prit Uttar: Bagration 1944: The Great Soviet Offensive (2025, Osprey).

Also some books on prominent politicians in WWII:

  • Katherine Carter: Churchill's Citadel: Chartwell and the Gatherings Before the Storm (2024, Yale University Press).
  • Giles Milton: The Stalin Affair: The Impossible Alliance That Won the War (2024, Henry Holt): The focus here is most likely on Stalin, I doubt that either Roosevelt or Stalin had the slightest doubt about being able to work together. The real problem for both was keeping Churchill from blowing the alliance up, which meant making it clear that he had no real leverage in how the war was to be run.
  • Phillips Payson O'Brien: The Strategists: Churchill, Stalin, Roosevelt, Mussolini, and Hitler: How War Made Them and How They Made War (2024, Dutton).

Henry Farrell/Abraham Newman: Underground Empire: How America Weaponized the World Economy (2023, Henry Holt): "Reveals how the United States is like a spider at the heart of an international web of surveillance and control." The original idea for spying on business transactions everywhere was to fight terrorism, but the net effect was to gain leverage that can be used for things like policing sanctions, America's favorite form of bullying. It's a unique power that the US wields, one that no other nation can counter or deter in kind, and as such can be very destabilizing.
Related books:

  • Stephanie Baker: Punishing Putin: Inside the Global Economic War to Bring Down Russia (2024, Scribner).
  • Mary Bridges: Dollars and Dominion: US Bankers and the Making of a Superpower (2024, Princeton University Press): This is deeper history, but helps explain how the US got to the point where it could abuse its financial power through sanctions.
  • Agathe Demarais: Backfire: How Sanctions Reshape the World Against US Interests (2022, Columbia University Press).
  • Bryan R Early: Busted Sanctions: Explaining Why Economic Sanctions Fail (paperback, 2015, Stanford University Press).
  • Edward Fishman: Chokepoints: American Power in the Age of Economic Warfare (2025, Portfolio).
  • Saleha Mohsin: Paper Soldiers: How the Weaponization of the Dollar Changed the World Order (2024, Portfolio).

Drew Gilpin Faust: Necessary Trouble: Growing Up at Midcentury (2023, Farrar Straus and Giroux): Memoir by the historian, who grew up in the 1950s, "a privileged white girl in conservative, segregated Virginia," and "found resistance was necessary for her survival." That brought her into the civil rights and antiwar movements, and led her to become one of our more eminent historians of the Civil War: most famously for This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War (2008).

Michael R Fischbach: The Movement and the Middle East: How the Arab-Israeli Conflict Divided the American Left (paperback, 2019, Stanford University Press): Argues that the American left split into multiple camps over the 1967 Israeli war, and that those divisions ultimately contributed to the demise of the left in later 1970s. But it's hard to tell what's cause and effect here, as there were many "divergent left-wing paths," both before and "after the storm." What I recall is that there were two small factions -- one that dropped every other left issue to embrace Israel (the editor of a mag I read at the time, The Minority of One, was in that camp), and another that was so universally anti-colonialist that it even turned against Israel (probably the larger group, as it included those who who went beyond opposing America's war in Vietnam to rooting for the Vietnamese) -- but both quickly made themselves irrelevant as the new left broadened its focus beyond civil rights and peace to include women's liberation and the environment. I would argue that the new left was pretty successful at winning the cultural struggle, but failed to achieve the political power that would be necessary to safeguard our gains. Fischbach also wrote:

  • Michael R Fischbach: Black Power and Palestine: Transnational Countries of Color (paperback, 2018, Stanford University Press).

H Bruce Franklin: Crash Course: From the Good War to the Forever War (2018; paperback, 2024, Rutgers University Press): Cultural historian (1934-2024), ran into legal and academic trouble due to his antiwar activities, wrote widely, including works on war, science fiction, prison literature, and marine ecology -- perhaps most important was M.I.A., or Mythmaking in America (1992), on the myth that Vietnam was still holding American prisoners. I picked this up after he died, partly because I was thinking of my own memoir, and sensed that he followed a parallel political and intellectual path through much common history (although he had a 16-year head start).

George Friedman: The Storm Before the Calm: America's Discord, the Coming Crisis of the 2020s, and the Triumph Beyond (2020, Doubleday; paperback, 2021, Anchor): Geopolitical forecaster, has a scheme that breaks American history up into 80-year cycles that start with strife, chaos, and upheaval -- the Revolution of 1776, the Civil War of 1861, the Great Depression/New Deal of 1933 and/or war of 1941, whatever you call what's happening now -- before we settle down and (usually) come out ahead. I have a somewhat similar scheme, but I'm skeptical about both his methods and conclusions: nothing in history works that mechanically. He also wrote:

  • George Friedman: The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century (paperback, 2010, Knopf): Includes two 2020 chapters: one on China ("Paper Tiger"), the other on Russia ("Rematch"), followed by "Crisis of 2030" and a world war circa 2050.
  • George Friedman: The Next Decade: Empire and Republic in a Changing World (2011, Doubleday; paperback, 2012, Anchor).
  • George Friedman: Flashpoints: The Emerging Crisis in Europe (2015, Doubleday; paperback, 2016, Anchor).

John Ganz: When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s (2024, Farrar Straus and Giroux): Looks like a signficant reconsideration of the rise of the far-right in the 1990s, as Republicans like Newt Gingrich gave up any pretense to offering a normal conservatism, let alone one dressed up as "kinder, gentler." He sees the Buchanan and Perot campaigns as pivotal, although we might also consider how Clinton's surrender of traditional Democratic principles and support like unions emboldened Republicans. Other factors include the end of the Cold War (and the push to remilitarize), the changing media landscape (which Fox soon came to dominate), and the seemingly intractable increase in inequality. Ganz seems to suggest that amounted to a rebuke to Reagan, but at the time it just seemed like the gloves were coming off, revealing the rottenness that had driven the Republican Party at least since Nixon. But now, of course, one also looks for harbingers of Trump.

Arlie Russell Hochschild: Stolen Pride: Loss, Shame, and the Rise of the Right (2024, New Press): Her 2016 book Strangers in Their Own Land got some press after Hillary Clinton's loss on a "6 books to understand Trump's win" list. That book was largely based on research in Louisiana. This sequel moves to Appalachia, the "second poorest congressional district in America," where Trump got 80% of the vote. No one has ever worked harder to make Trump supporters seem like decent human beings, as opposed to the "deplorables" Republicans say Democrats say they are. I never doubted that much, but it's not clear to me that replacing smug contempt with smug compassion helps much.

CJ Hopkins: The Rise of the New Normal Reich: Consent Factory Essays, Vol III (2020-2021) (paperback, 2022, Consent Factory): Playwright and novelist, based in Berlin, sees the Covid-19 pandemic as a cynical power grab to force the world to conform to a new "pathologized-totalitarian ideology": the cover superimposes a swastika over a surgical mask. The book touts rave blurbs from Robert F Kennedy Jr, Matt Taibbi, Max Blumenthal, and Catherine Austin Fitts -- the middle two formerly valuable writers who once had a sharp eye but have wigged out over Covid-19 and other suspected conspiracies. Earlier volumes:

  • CJ Hopkins: Trumpocalypse: Consent Factory Essays Vol I (2016-2017) (paperback, 2019, Consent Factory).
  • CJ Hopkins: The War on Populism: Consent Factory Essays Vol II (2018-2019) (paperback, 2020, Consent Factory).

Gerald Horne: The Counterrevolution of 1836: Texas Slavery & Jim Crow and the Roots of American Fascism (paperback, 2022, Intl Pub): 622 pp. Author has a number of books, including The Counterrevolution of 1776: Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America, which stresses how independence saved slavery in what became the United States. In 1836, Americans who had infiltrated Texas staged a revolt against Mexico, which had abolished slavery on its independence from Spain, and immediately restored slavery in the independent Texas Republic. Cover pic adds a swastika to the Texas flag. This is history where a kernel of truth is used to hook in a contemporary political argument, rather than helping us understand what happened and why.

Peniel E Joseph: The Third Reconstruction: America's Struggle for Racial Justice in the Twenty-First Century (2022, Basic Books): The civil rights movement that led to legal breakthroughs in the 1950s and 1960s is sometimes described as a "second reconstruction" -- at least in terms of federal law enforcement to secure civil rights -- but do the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020 and the paltry police reforms that followed in some places really rate that high? At this point, the most common thread running through "reconstruction" is how fragile efforts to change behavior are given widespread indifference.

Gideon Levy: The Killing of Gaza: Reports on a Catastrophe (paperback, 2024, Verso): Israeli journalist, regular dispatches as the genocide unfolded. He's done this before, e.g., in his 2010 book, The Punishment of Gaza.

  • Atef Abu Saif: Don't Look Left: A Diary of Genocide (paperback, 2024, Beacon Press): "A harrowing and indispensable first-hand account of the experience of the first 85 days of the Israeli invasion of Gaza."
  • Helena Cobban/Rami G Khouri: Understanding Hamas and Why That Matters (2024, OR Books): Seems a little late for this, as it's hard to imagine Hamas still existing as anything other than an unquestionable justification for Israel to continue its genocide against the Palestinian people. Had understanding been allowed, some sort of deal could have been made and the Oct. 7, 2023 revolt wouldn't have taken place. After the revolt had failed, as it was bound to, it would have made more sense to just stop the killing, declare Hamas extinct, and leave it to the UN to secure release of any remaining hostages. The utter destruction that continues to go on is purely a genocidal whim of Israelis who will accept nothing less, and who don't care how poorly that reflects on them as people.

Dave Marsh: Kick Out the Jams: Jibes, Barbs, Tributes, and Rallying Cries From 35 Years of Music Writing (2023; paperback, 2024, Simon & Schuster). This seems to run from 1982-2017, so starts well after my first scrapes with his writing, and well into what I thought of as his MOR rut, although I suppose I should note that many of these pieces are reprinted from CounterPunch, where his dogged class consciousness won political favor. And within his limits, I imagine he does have some worthwhile things to say.

Clara E Mattei: The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism (2022, University of Chicago Press): No doubt the original intent was liberal, in its classic sense of promoting individual responsibility, not least by offering no pity for those who fail, but the reasoning has always been to protect and flaunt the power of capital, and the effect has been to immiserate labor, driving them to revolt, or failing that, to restore order by force (which is certainly one definition of fascism). Starts with Italy and the UK in the 1920s, but the pattern has recycled since -- Argentina offers several examples.
More recent books, including more general (and more specific) complaints about neoliberalism:

  • Mehrsa Baradian: The Quiet Coup: Neoliberalism and the Looting of America (2024, WW Norton).
  • Grace Blakeley: Vulture Capitalism: Corporate Crimes, Backdoor Bailouts, and the Death of Freedom (2024, Astra).
  • Melinda Cooper: Counterrevolution: Extravagance and Austerity in Public Finance (2024, Zone Books).
  • George Monbiot/Peter Hutchinson: Invisible Doctrine: The Secret History of Neoliberalism (2024, paperback, Crown).

Tom McGrath: Triumph of the Yuppies: America, the Eighties, and the Creation of an Unequal Nation (2024, Grand Central Publishing): Young Urban Professionals is a term I recall gaining currency in the 1990s, although the phenomenon got a big boost as Reagan became president and Wall Street rekindled its love affair with greed. It's hard to know how seriously to take this, not least the name -- McGrath opens with a chapter on Jerry Rubin, who gave up antiwar activism with the end of the Vietnam war and became a stock broker, literally going from Yippie to Yuppie, one caricature to another. But the bits I've read do offer a lot of detail on the mass culture of the period, and are likely to be interesting for that alone.

Susan Neiman: Left Is Not Woke (2023, Polity): Philosopher who identifies as left picks apart the intellectual roots of "wokeism," or perhaps more importantly, reasserts the fundamental defining principles of the left. "What distinguishes the left from the liberal is the view that, along with political rights that guarantee freedoms to speak, worship, travel, and vote as we choose, we also have claims to social rights, which undergird the real exercise of political rights. Liberal writers call them benefits, entitlements, or safety nets. All these terms make th ings like fair labor practices, education, healthcare, and housing appear as matters of charity rather than justice." What I take from this is that the framing of "woke" as an issue distracts and detracts from the more universal concerns of the left. In misrepresenting the left, it also creates a useful target for the right.
A couple more books that touch on this:

  • Musa al-Gharbi: We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite (2024, Princeton University Press): If I understand this (and I'm not sure that I do), the argument here is that the people who concern themselves with woke often do so because they find it to be a useful deflection from their own elitism.
  • Umut Özkirimli: Cancelled: The Left Way Back From Woke (paperback, 2023, Polity): Argues that the left "has been sucked into a spiral of toxic hatred and outrage-mongering," which is countrary to core principles, and counterproductive.
  • Olúfémi O Táíwň: Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (And Everything Else) (paperback, 2022, Haymarket Books): The bit about "everything else" is straightforward, but why elites would bother with "identity politics" deserves some notice: does divide and conquer have something to do with it? And perhaps more importantly, it tends to let the elites escape scrutiny.

Ilan Pappe: A Very Short History of the Israel-Palestine Conflict (paperback, 2024, Oneworld): No one has written more history of Zionism and the Palestinians, and few have written as well. So while I figured I already knew everything I might find in this condensed 160 pp. primer, I was curious just to see how he would organize the key points: what to include, what to leave out. Turns out even I picked up some significant new details.

Ilan Pappe: Lobbying for Zionism: On Both Sides of the Atlantic (2024, Oneworld): A pretty extensive (608 pp) examination of the development of political influence in the UK -- leading up to the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate -- and in the US, but less (if any) on other lobbying efforts (France and Germany should be interesting case studies, as might be various other targets of interest). I've read various bits and pieces of this before, but it's nice to see them brought together, especially as without understanding this history, it's hard to understand why the US and UK have lined up so readily behind Israel's extremely self-centered nationalist agenda.

Paul Pierson/Eric Schickler: Partisan Nation: The Dangerous New Logic of American Politics in a Nationalized Era (2024, University of Chicago Press): As political scientists, they're more inclined to look at the structure and mechanics of elections and parties than to the specific reasons people have for preferring one over the other. As such, they are struck by the historically huge degree of polarization these days, and see that as a vulnerability in the system itself. That doesn't necessarily mean that they see the two parties as symmetrical: Republicans not only wish to claim the system for their own ends, but to become invulnerable by locking Democrats out.
Other recent books on political science:

  • Larry M Bartels: Democracy Erodes From the Top: Leaders, Citizens, and the Challenge of Populism in Europe (2024, Princeton University Press).
  • James M Curry/Frances E Lee: The Limits of Party: Congress and Lawmaking in a Polarized Era (2022, University of Chicago Press).
  • James N Druckman/Samara Klar: Partisan Hostility and American Democracy: Explaining Political Divisions and When They Matter (paperback, 2024 University of Chicago Press).
  • Matt Grossmann/David A Hopkins: Polarized Degrees: How the Diploma Divide and the Culture War Transformed American Politics (2024, Cambridge University Press).
  • James Davison Hunter: Democracy and Solidarity: On the Cultural Roots of America's Political Crisis (2024, Yale University Press).
  • Nathan P Kalmoe/Liliana Mason: Radical American Partisanship: Mapping Violent Hostility, Its Causes, and the Consequences for Democracy (paperback, 2022, University of Chicago Press).
  • Katherine Krimmel: Divergent Democracy: How Policy Positions Came to Dominate Party Competition (paperback, 2024, Princeton University Press).
  • Matthew Levendusky: Our Common Bonds: Using What Amdericans Share to Help Bridge the Partisan Divide (2023, University of Chicago Press).
  • Neil A O'Brian: The Roots of Polarization: From the Racial Realignment to the Culture Wars (paperback, 2024, University of Chicago Press).
  • Daniel Schlozman/Sam Rosenfeld: The Hollow Parties: The Many Pasts and Disordered Present of American Party Politics (2024, Princeton University Press).
  • Stephanie Termullo: How the Heartland Went Red: Why Local Forces Matter in an Age of Nationalized Politics (paperback, 2024, Princeton University Press).

Project 2025: Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise (2025, Heritage Foundation): This seems to be the actual title, edited by Paul Dans and Steven Groves, foreword by Kevin D Roberts. I've seen think tanks put out pre-election wish-books for a long time now -- I have one from 1992 prepared for the Clinton campaign, which I long kept handy as a guide to generic policy wonkery -- but this one blew up to become a campaign issue, mostly because the Republican vision for America is so horrific even Trump took pains to walk it back. I didn't see it on Amazon, but had no trouble finding the 922-page PDF, so knock yourself out. Although Trump disavowed this, his own campaign had an extensive series of videos detailing his agenda. They were little noticed by Democrats, but were at least as horrific, and are probably a better guide to what Trump has actually done since taking office. We should see some more substantial books on this later in 2025 (e.g., David A Graham: The Project: How Project 2025 Is Reshaping America [04-22]), but for now I'll just note a few pre-election quickies (self-published if none noted):

  • Bruno Day: Project 2025 Exposed: Trump's Mandate for Leadership and the Conservative Promise That Could Change America Forever (paperback, 2025).
  • Andrew L Dean: Project 2025 Revolution: A Blueprint for Restoring American Values, Empowering Citizens, and Reshaping Government for a Strong Conservative Future (paperback, 2025).
  • JE Fowlers: Democracy at Risk: The Dangers of Project 2025 (paperback, 2024): Offhand, this looks like the best of the critiques so far.
  • JE Fowlers: 200 Dangerous Truths About Project 2025: Exposing the Real Threat to America's Freedom and Democracy (paperback, 2024, Green Cascade Books).
  • JR Grant: Project 2025 Explained in Simple Terms: Understanding the Proposed Mandate for a Conservative Government (paperback, 2024).
  • Andrew Marshall: Project 2025 Decoded: A Complete and Unbiased Analysis of the Conservative Agenda (paperback, 2024).
  • Ryan Morales: Preventing the Fourth Reich in the USA: A Warning Against Project 2025 (paperback, 2024).
  • Simon Pierce: Project 2025: A Mandate for Authoritarian Leadership: The Heritage Foundation's Conservative Promise for a Second Trump Administration (paperback, 2025).
  • Bryan Woodward: Project 2025 Explained Chapter by Chapter: Understanding the Conservative Promise (paperback, 2024).
  • Carl Young: Project 2025: Exposing the Hidden Dangers of the Radical Agenda for Everyday Americans (paperback, 2024).

Thomas E Ricks: Waging a Good War: A Military History of the Civil Rights Movement, 1954-1968 (2022, Farrar Straus and Giroux): I've read Ricks' first book on the Bush invasion of Iraq, where he was embedded with the general command but took long enough to craft his rah-rah reporting into book form that he wound up calling it Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq. Hobnobbing with generals is what he knows, so one can appreciate why he thought he could get away with recasting the civil rights movement as military strategy, but that's bound to mess up much more than the occasional insight he produces.

David Rohde: Where Tyranny Begins: The Justice Department, the FBI, and the War on Democracy (2024, WW Norton): The author has a reputation as a competent journalist (including a couple of Pulitzer Prizes), but this, as well as his 2020 book (In Deep: The FBI, the CIA, and the Truth About America's "Deep State") has the odor of echoing Trump talking points. Looking back, I was never all that enthusiastic about the Trump impeachments, the criminal charges against Trump and his circle, and the broader prosecutions related to the Jan. 6 riot. I know damn well that the FBI pursues criminal cases for political reasons -- they've done that since before I was born (J Edgar Hoover rose to power thanks to his Red Scare prosecutions c. 1919) -- so I had little trouble recognizing the political component here, but as far as I could tell, that worked more to Trump's advantage than not. Besides, Trump never appealed against the principle of using the FBI for political purposes: he just wanted to put the shoe on the other foot, which in my mind made him more despicable than his actual crimes (at least the ones he was prosecuted for; the ones he's so far got away with may well be another story). Similarly, I don't feel terribly bad that he dropped charges and pardoned his mob, although I do worry that doing so encourages them to commit more serious crimes. And that it signals a will to use law enforcement to run roughshod over our rights isn't so much a worry as an accomplished fact. We may regret the judge who let Hitler out of jail, but he has much less to answer for than the politicians who appointed him chancellor. The law shouldn't be tasked with protecting us from demagogues. That's the job of democracy, which failed far worse in 2024 than even the courts. But back to this book, does the title refer to a different "war on democracy" than the ones under Daley above? Or is it the same war? I could imagine the book being written that way, but this one probably isn't.

  • Ryan J Reilly: Sedition Hunters: How January 6th Broke the Justice System (2023, PublicAffairs).

David Rothkopf: American Resistance: The Inside Story of How the Deep State Saved the Nation (2022, PublicAffairs): This makes a rather problematic argument that Trump was repeatedly undercut by people within his own administration, by bureaucrats defending their vested interests against Trump's disruptive impulses. He draws blurbs from Miles Taylor (who bragged about subverting Trump as Anonymous in A Warning) and Alexander Vindman (who testified against Trump's handling of Ukraine). Such people seem to be especially entrenched in the defense/security sector, which is a big part of the reason no one seems to be able to budge American foreign policy away from its habitual war footing. That they may have steered Trump away from an even worse path isn't very comforting.

Troy Senik: A Man of Iron: The Turbulent Life and Improbable Presidency of Grover Cleveland (2022, Threshold Editions). He was the only Democrat elected President between 1860 (Republican Abraham Lincoln) and 1912 (Woodrow Wilson), winning two terms in 1884 and 1892, separated by his loss in 1888 (to Benjamin Harrison, the second of four Republicans to have won the electoral college despite losing the popular vote). I expected he'd get some interest as Trump attempts to get a second term ŕ Cleveland. Aside from that, the main thing Cleveland is notable for is being possibly the most conservative president since emancipation, in the very old-fashioned sense of never wanting to change or do anything. That left him with a legacy of resistance against the imperial ambitions McKinley and Roosevelt campaigned for. It also left him with the worst depression in American history, at least up to the Great one in 1929. And while it may have been little of his own doing, his "popular vote" majorities were secured by increasing disenfranchisement of blacks in the South, where Democrats were starting to run up huge majorities and turn them into Jim Crow.
More books on miscellaneous presidents:

  • James M Bradley: Martin Van Buren: America's First Politician (2024, Oxford University Press).
  • Lindsay M Chervinsky: Making the Presidency: John Adams and the Precedents That Forged the Republic (2024, Oxford University Press).
  • Jay Cost: James Madison: America's First Politician (2021, Basic Books).
  • Christopher Cox: Woodrow Wilson: The Light Withdrawn (2024, Simon & Schuster).
  • CW Goodyear: President Garfield: From Radical to Unifier (2023, Simon & Schuster).
  • Scott S Greenberger: Unexpected President: The Life and Times of Chester A Arthur (paperback, 2019, Da Capo).
  • Christopher J Leahy: President Without a Party: The Life of John Tyler (2020, LSU Press).
  • Ryan S Walters: The Jazz Age President: Defending Warren G Harding (2022, Regnery): I've long had a soft spot for Harding, but I doubt this book will help: "a long overdue defense of the man who was Trump before Trump." He is mostly known for the Teapot Dome scandal, and for dying before he could be impeached or voted out of office. Amity Shlaes, who wrote a sycophantic book about his successor (Calvin Coolidge), also offers a blurb.
  • Randall Woods: John Quincy Adams: A Man for the Whole People (2024, Dutton).

Adam Shatz: The Rebel's Clinic: The Revolutionary Lives of Frantz Fanon (2024, Farrar Straus and Giroux): A major biography of Fanon (1925-61), born in Martinique, fought against the Vichy regime there and in Algeria, trained in France as a psychiatrist, only to become one of the most important political thinkers and writers of the anti-colonial era -- his most famous books are Black Skin, White Masks (1952) and The Wretched of the Earth (1961), which were influential in my own thinking, and have continued to resonate even to Black Lives Matter.

  • Adam Shatz: Writers and Missionaries: Essays on the Radical Imagination (2023, Verso): Probably a collection of book reviews -- why else single out Fouad Ajami? -- but looks superb.
  • Daniel José Gaztambide: Decolonizing Psychoanalytic Technique: Putting Freud on Fanon's Couch (paperback, 2024, Palgrave Macmillan).
  • Olúfémi Táíwň: Against Decolonisation: Taking African Agency Seriously (paperback, 2022, Hurst): A dissenting argument here, but more consistent with his arguments in Elite Capture op. cit.

Timothy Shenk: Left Adrift: What Happened to Liberal Politics (paperback, 2024, Columbia Global Reports): Historian, wrote a 2022 book Realigners: Partisan Hacks, Political Visionaries, and the Struggle to Rule American Democracy, which I read and liked, and he writes for some left journals. Still, I have very little idea what he thinks the problem is here, let alone what he sees as the solution. I do know that I have little patience for people who get their kicks from bashing the left, especially as most of them are attacking phantoms of their own imagination. As for the center, which may well be what he means by "liberal politics," they certainly do have two major problems, which go to the key problem of credibility: the first is the classic "which side are you on?" (which is particularly problematic for politicians who spend most of their time fundraising from the rich), and then there's "but will what you're proposing actually work?" This book was released last Oct. 8, which is to say a month before something like it became urgently needed. But I have no idea whether this is the book (or part of the book) that is needed. The one thing I do know is that he leans heavily on two "political strategists" (more like pollsters), Stan Greenberg and Doug Schoen. I've read Greenberg's RIP GOP (2019), and found him useful.
There should be more on left politics and/or Democratic campaigning:

  • Arthur Borriello/Anton Jager: The Populist Moment: The Left After the Great Recession (paperback, 2023, Verso).
  • Sasha Issenberg: The Lie Detectives: In Search of a Playbook for Winning Elections in the Disinformation Age (paperback, 2024, Columbia Global Reports).
  • G Elliott Morris: Strength in Numbers: How Polls Work and Why We Need Them (paperback, 2023, WW Norton).

Ganesh Sitaraman: Why Flying Is Miserable: And How to Fix It (paperback, 2023, Columbia Global Reports): Well, it's pretty simple: you take an industry that was once very regulated, which put a premium on safety and service, and deregulated it in ways that refocused it on cost cutting but allowed for all sorts of clever price manipulations, while allowing the industry to consolidate and eliminate choice. Arguably, most customers are ok with these tradeoffs, assuming they understand them -- which is deliberately not easy -- and those who actually do insist on a higher level of service still have recourse to paying extra, but much of what they do cannot simply be turned on or off with a checkbox. So it's likely that even those who can/would pay more for service won't be satisfied with the results.

Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins, ed: Did It Happen Here? Perspectives on Fascism and America (2024, WW Norton): I mentioned this briefly before, but since I wound up buying a copy, thought I would expand on it. Historically-minded leftists tend to obsess over what is or not fascism, partly because its complex history suggests many prospective developments, but also because the simplest definition is that the fascists are the people who want to kill you. Needless to say, right and center have different takes. For the right, fascism is what the people get for threatening to revolt: it may result from counterrevolution, as in putting down the Hungarian Revolution in 1920, or it may be imposed by worried conservative elites, as with Mussolini and Hitler. But as long as conservative order is secure, it's something you know about but have no reason to show off. As for the center, they are more confused, seeing fascists as an anomaly on the right that only concerns them when its targets expand beyond the left. Even Hitler didn't bother them much until his wars upset the liberal world order, at which point they started mocking leftists as "premature antifascists." One could just as easily call them "retarded antifascists," but I don't think anyone ever did. Leftists may see them as naive, indifferent, and/or hypocritical, but also as potential allies when the situation turns really dire. Perhaps that's the point of trying to argue that right-wing forces are not just bad but cross the line into fascism, at which point even liberals and centrists might drop their anti-left prejudices to join in a "common front"? Of course, people who don't know squat about history -- which is to say the overwhelming majority of American voters -- have no idea what we're talking about, which makes the public argument pointless or even counterproductive. Still, it's hard to turn your eyes away when you see a wreck in real time, and we're certainly in the midst of that. When you first noticed may vary: I started reading Robert J Evans in the early Bush years, even before Chris Hedges published American Fascists (2007), while others didn't notice until the Jan. 6 Putsch attempt; still others are only being blind-sided by Trump II, and even worse prospects are likely to follow. This book rounds up the usual suspects, including some academic quibblers (e.g., Robert Paxton, who denies that Franco was a fascist, which literally everyone who volunteered to fight against him in the 1930s would disagree with).
More recent books with reference to fascism (generically; for Nazi Germany see Evans):

  • Charisse Burden-Stelly: Black Scare/Red Scare: Theorizing Capitalist Racism in the United States (paperback, 2023, University of Chicago Press): Author has several more books I should probably note.
  • Umberto Eco: How to Spot a Fascist (paperback, 2020, Harvill Secker): 64 pp.
  • Jeanelle K Hope/Bill V Mullen: The Black Antifascist Tradition: Fighting Back From Anti-Lynching to Abolition (paperback, 2024, Haymarket Books).
  • Federico Finchelstein: From Fascism to Populism in History (2017; paperback, 2019, University of California Press).
  • Federico Finchelstein: The Wannabe Fascists: A Guide to Understanding the Greatest Threat to Democracy (2024, University of California Press).
  • Bruce Kuklick: Fascism Comes to America: A Century of Obsession in Politics and Culture (2022, University of Chicago Press).
  • Matthew C MacWilliams: On Fascism: 12 Lessons From American History (paperback, 2020, Griffin):
  • Mikkel Bolt Rasmussen: Late Capitalism Fascism (paperback, 2022, Polity).
  • Gavriel D Rosenfeld/Janet Ward, eds: Fascism in America: Past and Present (paperback, 2023, Cambridge University Press): Twelve fairly substantial essays, three with Trump in title.
  • Alberto Toscano: Late Fascism: Race, Capitalism and the Politics of Crisis (paperback, 2023, Verso).

Joseph E Stiglitz: The Road to Freedom: Economics and the Good Society (2024, WW Norton). As Paul Krugman likes to say, "an insanely great economist," one who's able to advise presidents and the IMF, write dozens of mostly sensible books, and keep coming back with revisions and renunciations after conventional remedies fail, without losing his credibility. Part of his secret, I think, is that he's always looked for flaws in the system -- much of his research focused on imperfect information -- and he acknowledges that economies are not just the work of people, with their highly imperfect, often illogical foibles. So he's always refining his thinking, even if ever so subtly. It's not obvious how this edition of his standard book diverges from its predecessors: perhaps a bit more emphasis on linking freedom and "the good society," and more evidence of just where neoliberalism let us down. I still have enough respect for him that my first instinct is to grab every new book, but I'm starting to wonder if that's what we really need.

Jonathan Taplin: The End of Reality: How 4 Billionaires Are Selling a Fantasy Future of the Metaverse, Mars, and Crypto (2023, Public Affairs): Having previously written a book about how Facebook, Google, and Amazon have affected our economy and culture, here he turns to the political, the peculiar mix of libertarianism and techno-utopianism that gets fused together by egos backed with many billions of dollars. Starts with profiles of Peter Thiel, Mark Zuckerberg, Marc Andreesen, and Elon Musk -- "the biggest wallets paying for the most blinding lights." This was written well before the 2024 election, where Musk became Trump's sugar daddy, and Thiel got his protégé Vance onto Trump's ticket, while Andreessen

  • Jonathan Taplin: Move Fast and Break Things: How Facebook, Google, and Amazon Cornered Culture and Undermined Reality (2917, Little Brown).
  • Jonathan Taplin: The Magic Years: Scenes From a Rock-and-Roll Life (2021, Heyday).

Jeffrey Toobin: Homegrown: Timothy McVeigh and the Rise of Right-Wing Extremism (2023, Simon & Schuster): Lawyer turned journalist, his bestselling books divided between the courts (The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court, The Oath: The Obama White House and the Supreme Court) and infamous criminals (OJ Simpson, Donald Trump), adds one to the latter column.

Geoffrey Wawro: The Vietnam War: A Military History (2024, Basic Books): 672 pages, the upshot of which is (or should be) that none of the military history mattered. It was undertaken mostly to show resolve, although on the American side, it mostly revealed contempt and cruelty for the people of Vietnam, reminding them of the need to drive the Americans out. I've read Wawro's big book Quicksand: America's Pursuit of Power in the Middle East (2010), and he's competent enough, so I don't imagine this will play out as some fantasy like Lewis Sorley's A Better War, but he is on the payroll, and he writes for that audience.

Susan Williams: White Malice: The CIA and the Covert Recolonialization of Africa (2021; paperback, 2023, PublicAffairs): CIA involvement started in the 1950s, as the prospect of independence from Britain, France, Belgium, etc., opened up the prospect of struggle that could damage business interests left behind by the former colonizers. The cover pic shows Kennedy and Johnson, and the story focuses on their plots to gain the upper hand in Ghana and Congo. But rest assured that the CIA never left Africa, even as the military has taken to larger scale intervention, with its AFRICOM. Related:

  • Stuart A Reid: The Lumumba Plot: The Secret History of the CIA and a Cold War Assassination (2023, Knopf). [10-17]
  • Leo Zeilig: Lumumba: Africa's Lost Leader (paperback, 2015, Haus Publishing).
  • Lindsey A O'Rourke: Covert Regime Change: America's Secret Cold War (paperback, 2021, Cornell University Press).
  • Hugh Wilford: The CIA: An Imperial History (2024, Basic Books).

Tara Zahra: Against the World: Anti-Globalism and Mass Politics Between the World Wars (2023, WW Norton): The world shortly before World War I was supposedly a golden age of laissez-faire, open to mass migration as well as unfettered trade. I'm skeptical of those claims, especially given that a big part of the rationale for overseas empires was to exploit the colonies. But the growing nationalism behind the war carried over into the 1920s, and turned even more bitter after the 1929 depression. This picks out a couple dozen events in the US and Europe as examples, mostly early in the period (up to 1933, with just two later, one each from 1936 and 1939).

This is my regular section on a few more books briefly noted. The idea here is to note the existence of books I don't have much more (or maybe just enough time) to comment on, especially where the books are self-explanatory:

Reza Aslan: An American Martyr in Persia: The Epic Life and Tragic Death of Howard Baskerville (2022; paperback, 2023, WW Norton).

John Berger: Hold Everything Dear: Dispatches on Survival and Resistance (2007; paperback, 2025, Verso).

Ian Bremmer: The Power of Crisis: How Three Threats -- and Our Response -- Will Change the World (2022, Simon & Schuster): Consultant (Eurasia Group), in the business of diagnosing problems he can sell solutions to.

David Browne: Talkin' Greenwich Village: The Heady Rise and Slow Fall of America's Bohemian Music Capital (2024, Da Capo).

Frank Bruni: The Age of Grievance (2024, Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster): One of those books that could be about something, or nothing at all. That he writes columns for the New York Times that I almost never read doesn't help.

Jonathan Elg: King: A Life (2023, Farrar Straus and Giroux): Big (688 pp) biography of Martin Luther King.

Anthony Fauci: On Call: A Doctor's Journey in Public Service (2024, Viking).

Gaines M Foster: The Limits of the Lost Cause: Essays on Civil War Memory (2024, LSU Press): This soft-pedals the whole Lost Cause myth as harmless sentiment, something that wouldn't be out of place in a Trump rally.

Paula Fredriksen: Ancient Christianities: The First Five Hundred Years (2024, Princeton University Press). Also wrote When Christians Were Jews: The First Generation (2018), and Paul: The Pagans' Apostle (2017).

Scott Galloway: Adrift: America in 100 Charts (2022, Portfolio): Professor of marketing at NYU and "serial entrepreneur," promises a broad, statistical overview of the American economy since 1945.

Malcolm Gladwell: Revenge of the Tipping Point: Overstories, Superspreaders, and the Rise of Social Engineering (2024, Little Brown).

Jeffrey Goldberg: On Heroism: McCain, Milley, Mattis, and the Cowardice of Donald Trump (paperback, 2024, Zando/Atlantic Editions).

Terry Golway: I Never Did Like Politics: How Fiorello La Guardia Became America's Mayor, and Why He Still Matters (2024, St Martin's Press).

David Graeber: The Ultimate Hidden Truth of the World . . . : Essays (2012, Farrar Straus and Giroux): Posthumous collection, edited by Nika Dubrovsky.

Brendan Greeves: Truckload of Art: The Life and Work of Terry Allen: An Authorized Biography (2024, Da Capo).

David Greenberg: John Lewis: A Life (2024, Simon & Schuster): 704 pp.

Yuval Noah Harari: Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks From the Stone Age to AI (2024, Random House): 528 pp.

Jonathan Healey: The Blazing World: A New History of Revolutionary England, 1603-1689 (2023, Knopf).

Robert Hilburn: A Few Words in Defense of Our Country: The Biography of Randy Newman (2024, Da Capo).

Maurice Isserman: Reds: The Tragedy of American Communism (2024, Basic Books).

Robert D Kaplan: The Loom of Time: Between Empire and Anarchy, From the Mediterranean to China (2023, Random House).

Greil Marcus: What Nails It (Why I Write) (2024, Yale University Press): Three essays (104 pp), on Titian, Pauline Kael, and Greil Gerstley (his birth name, but more likely his father).

Alexei Navalny: Patriot: A Memoir (2024, Knopf): The late Russian dissident, seeking a little distance from his American fans.

Nate Silver: On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything (2024, Penguin Press): Focus here on concepts of risk, although it sounds more like he has a gambling problem.

Timothy Snyder: On Freedom (2024, Crown): Anti-Russia historian turned anti-Russia polemicist, the new book a sequel of sorts to his 2017 On Tyranny.

John Szwed: Cosmic Scholar: The Life and Times of Harry Smith (2023, Farrar Straus and Giroux).

Michael Tackett: The Price of Power: How Mitch McConnell Mastered the Senate, Changed America, and Lost His Party (2024, Simon & Schuster).

Lucinda Williams: Don't Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You: A Memoir (2023, Crown).

Finally, a one-time section on books that I wrote something a bit more than "briefly noted," but don't feel like expanding to place in the already overloaded main section. In most cases, these are scraps that I wrote down on first perusal, then skipped over in assembling previous columns, so a big motivation here is to get them out of my system. I may, of course, return to them later, if I find some new reason to do so.

Nate G Hilger: The Parent Trap: How to Stop Overloading Parents and Fix Our Inequality Crisis (2022, The MIT Press): We expect children to learn more than ever before, basically because the world has gotten much more complicated. But we also demand exemplary character and social skills, and impose stiff penalties for failure. Schools only do some of this teaching, and often not well, at least for many students. Parents are expected not just to pick up the slack but to do much of the heavy lifting. Results are poor, partly because few parents have the skills and time, but also the competitive, individualist society we live in expects most people to fail. I was having trouble figuring out how he proposed to remedy this, but one reviewer stressed his is "a fresh way of seeing deep inequalities by race and class," and another noted he wants "policy changes to support parents and children in new ways."

Rowan Hooper: How to Save the World for Just a Trillion Dollars: The Ten Biggest Problems We Can Actually Fix (paperback, 2022, The Experiment): Science writer thinks big, but list doesn't even look all that attractive -- "Go Carbon Neutral," ok, but "Settle Off-Planet"? "Find Some Aliens"? "Turn the World Vegan"? -- let alone possible.

Yasheng Huang: The Rise and Fall of the East: How Exams, Autocracy, Stability, and Technology Brought China Success, and Why They Might Lead to Its Decline (2023, Yale University Press). Seems like an odd list, but the idea is that bureaucracy, which in China can be dated back to the introduction of civil service exams in 587 CE, values stability and stifles innovation, eventually leading to ruin, or decline, or something like that.

Peachy Keenan: Domestic Extremist: A Practical Guide to Winning the Culture War (2023, Regnery): Pearls of wisdom like: "babies are good, more babies are better; two sexes are plenty; your career is overrated; feminism is how the unpopular and undateable cope with life; mainstream American culture destroys families." Solution is parents have to reclaim their role as "bosses of their kids."

Steve Krakauer: Uncovered: How the Media Got Cozy with Power, Abandoned Its Principles, and Lost the People (2023, Center Street): That about sums it up, but note that nearly all the people they collected blurbs from are well ensconced on the right (Ben Shapiro, Megyn Kelly, Tucker Carlson, Piers Morgan, Mollie Hemingway; Glenn Greenwald these days doesn't make for much of an exception).

Matt K Lewis: Filthy Rich Politicians: The Swamp Creatures, Latte Liberals, and Ruling-Class Elites Cashing in on America (2023, Center Street). Named one of the "50 Best Conservative Columnists" 2013-15, bit the hand that fed him with 2016's Too Dumb to Fail: How the GOP Went From the Party of Reagan to the Party of Trump, but looking to make amends here by depicting the other guys -- "latte liberals, ivy league populists, insider traders, trust-fund babies, and swamp creatures" -- as the ones who are insatiably corrupt, all the while insisting "this is not an 'eat the rich' kind of book."

Brook Manville/Josiah Ober: The Civic Bargain: How Democracy Survives (2023, Princeton University Press): Fancy degrees, a stellar background in academia and business, runs his own consulting firm after being a partner at McKinsey, the sort of guy who reeks of elitism, whose commitment to democracy is pro forma because he's not worried it might change anything.

Daniel McDowell: Bucking the Buck: US Financial Sanctions and the International Backlash Against the Dollar (paperback, 2023, Oxford University Press). The US is uniquely able to impose economic sanctions on other countries because the dollar is so widely used for transactions. But when the US imposes sanctions, targets and their business partners look for ways around, and that may include alternatives to the dollar.

Todd McGowan: Embracing Alienation: Why We Shouldn't Try to Find Ourselves (paperback, 2024, Repeater): I've seen this plugged as "easily the best self-help book I have read," which makes me think I should hold it back for further research. Author has other books, and is co-editor of a series with Slavoj Zizek and Adrian Johnston.

Brian Merchant: Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech (2023, Little Brown): The history of the Luddites, who organized guerrilla raids in early 19th-century England to smash machines.

Dana Milbank: Fools on the Hill: The Hooligans, Saboteurs, Conspiracy Theorists, and Dunces Who Burned Down the House: Celebrity reporting on Capitol Hill, if you take the likes of Matt Gaetz, George Santos, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Loren Boebert for celebrities. While such show offs make for entertaining copy, there is little policy-wise to separate them from 200 other Republicans, every bit as committed to dragging us into their ruins.

Ben Rhodes: After the Fall: The Rise of Authoritarianism in the World We've Made (2021; paperback, 2022, Random House): Curious change of subtitle (from "Being American in the World We've Made"), as he seems to be admitting, if not necessarily bragging, that Obama paved the way for the far right. The main way he did so was in continuing to flout American military power, instead of working toward serious disarmament.

Carol Roth: You Will Own Nothing: Your War With a New Financial World Order and How to Fight Back (2023, Broadside Books): TV pundit, self-described as a "strategic advisor and C-level consigliere." Critique could come from the left, but as an advocate for "small business, small government, and big hair" she lands on the right, meaning that her "fight back" solutions are hopeless.

Batya Ungar-Sargon: Second Class: How the Elites Betrayed America's Working Men and Women (2024, Encounter Books): One of those titles that could have been written by someone on the left, but was left in the hands of someone else.

Richard Vinen: 1968: Radical Protest and Its Enemies (2018; paperback, 2019, Harper): Originally published in UK as The Long '68, with four central chapters on the US, France, West Germany, and Britain, before turning to themes (sexual liberation, workers, violence, "defeat and accommodation?").

Peter H Wilson: Iron and Blood: A Military History of the German-Speaking Peoples Since 1500 (2023, Belknap Press): Big subject, big book (976 pp). Author specializes in the earlier period (see books below), before Prussia started pushing everyone else around.

Current count: 57 links, 12453 words (14740 total)

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Monday, March 31, 2025

Music Week

March archive (final).

Music: Current count 43953 [43902) rated (+51), 25 [24] unrated (+1).

As I've noted often of late, my life is in some kind of limbo until I figure some stuff out, including what (if anything) I should work on writing. It's easy to blame (or credit) procrastination for a big part of that, but one part that is on some kind of schedule is eye surgery. I saw the doctor today, and he was pleased enough to schedule the second (right) eye. I go in next week, April 8. After that, my vision at least should start to clear up. I have an appointment with my old eye doctor a week or two after that, which I will have to reschedule: my annual check up, a full year after he recommended that I see the surgeon in the first place (well, actually more like the 3rd or 4th time) -- it's taken that long.

In the meantime, I spent several days working on the backyard shed. A couple of boards had come loose, and the whole structure had slipped off its mounts. It also had a lot of rot on the outside boards. Short of replacing them, my brother advised applying linseed oil and paint thinner, so I did that. I put it all back together, and screwed it firmly to the shed.

The shed itself is raised 6-inches, sitting on treated timbers. It's enough space for small critters, like rabbits, to hide, which makes it tempting for the dog to dig around. Laura wanted me to close it off, so I bought a roll of 1/2-inch hardware cloth, cut it into 8-inch swathes, and wrapped the shed with it. That involved a lot of crawling around and digging, so the wire wound up below ground level. Not fun at my age, but over four days I got through it.

I still have more to do there. I have some plastic edging I want to dig in next to the wire, which will extend the depth another 3 or 4 inches. I also need to caulk some cracks in the paneling, and repair at least one split trim board. There's a bit of overhang on the ends, and a soffit problem -- if that's the right word (I need to get on a ladder to look at that). I need to wash the siding down, and see about touching up the paint. All that can wait for a nicer day. Same for much clean up around the yard. I also need to pull the grill out, and figure out why I'm not getting all the burners to light.

Indoors, I started to work on a blog post expanding on a tweet I wrote:

It occurs to me that there are 3 kinds of Democrats: A) those concerned for everyone (left); B) those who are self-interested (elites, pace Reagan); and C) those who are nation-oriented (pace Trump). Each has good reason to be anti-R, but conflict with other-D, which weakens opposition to R.

It quickly became too much of a rabbit hole, so I wound up moving my scraps to the notebook. What got me thinking was Robert Christgau's self-reference to Patriotic Democrats. Bill Clinton's New Democrats were a reaction to losing to Reagan. Clinton accepted (and effectively validated) the core of the Reagan attack on welfare and big government, but thought he could win by doing it better. And sure, he did it better, at least for the tech and finance industries, but few of his gains trickled down to the middle class (let alone to the poor), and in the end he didn't win much.

Reagan also made patriotism a big part of his pitch, mostly because it seemed to be a more respectable way of flattering and rallying white identity. Trump even more so, especially as he rarely campaigns on his corrupt economic agenda (when he does, they're reduced to gibberish: tax cuts, drill drill drill, tariffs). All along, some Democrats have tried to out-hawk and out-jingo Reagan and the Bushes, to little a vail. But with Trump they have good reason to suspect he's a phony, and to assert themselves as much truer patriots. (Again, so far, to little avail.)

This came to a head with Russiagate and the Ukraine impeachment, which was led by the so-called Security Democrats (and was, I think, a complete disaster, but that's a long story -- one important point, little recognized, is that they helped provoke Putin's invasion of Ukraine, where they remain the most dedicated party to perpetual war. So what I'm wondering here is whether Patriotic Democrats aren't making the same mistake viz. Trump as New Democrats made viz. Reagan? I.e., validating them on points they'll seem more credible for, while aligning themselves with thanklessly bad policies, and looking less than honest in the process.

But sorting all that out, and showing that the left has better answers, is a taller order than I'm up to right now. But what it turns out I was up for was assembling a 2025 Metacritic File. I made it all the way through Album of the Year's publication list, even the metal ones I regard as completely useless. I've also gone through the reviews/lists at All About Jazz, Hip-Hop Golden Age, and Saving Country Music, and I've included Phil Overeem's list, plus all of the grades so far from Robert Christgau and myself. It is, to date at least, as comprehensive as I've ever done, resulting in 792 new music albums listed, although only a paltry 14 old music albums.

The immediate payoff started with last week's large review list, and continues below (more jazz this week, because AAJ took a long time, Overeem was a good source, and I was quicker than usual to move on some albums I got email on, like the Marsalis. I didn't really touch my demo queue again this week, because most of what I have there is still unreleased. I did continue to post on Bluesky about Pick Hit albums as they I recognized them. My preference there is to find Bandcamp links, but sometimes I have to search out substitutes. By the way, Tim Niland is doing something similar on Bluesky. If you like my tips (or even if you don't), you should follow him there. I'll be adding his listings to my Metacritic File. (He doesn't do grades, but only writes about things he likes.)

It seems highly unlikely that I'll keep this file anywhere near up-to-date, but it's something I can always fall back on when I find myself out of sorts, or just get frustrated trying to figure out what to play next.

The last two weeks have thrown the March Streamnotes archive into overdrive. I haven't done the indexing yet, but it's on my head, even before getting around to drawing up my todo list. One thing I did do was to create the 2024 frozen file. Late adds to the regular 2024 file henceforth will be marked. I've done this for many years now, but never this late before.

What I'm more likely to work on next week is a new Book Roundup. The latest one I've done was back on April 25, 2024, so nearly a year ago. I'm way overdue, and have a lot of catching up to do. Then there is the problem of all the book notes I have left over from a year ago. Most have lost their timeliness, but still should be worked in somehow.

New records reviewed this week:

Artemis: Arboresque (2025, Blue Note): Third group album from this "female supergroup," which I've been filing under pianist Renee Rosnes (although maybe I shouldn't, as the group writing is, and always has been, pretty widely divided). Now down from seven to six to five, with founders Ingrid Jensen (trumpet), Norika Ueda (bass), and Allison Miller (drums) joined by Nicole Glover (tenor sax, who replaced Melissa Aldana on the 2nd album). (The clarinet/alto sax slot, with Anat Cohen on the 1st album, Alexa Tarantino on the 2nd, has been dropped, and vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant only had two songs on the 1st.) Postbop of a high order, something I respect more than enjoy. B+(**) [sp]

Banks: Off With Her Head (2025, Her Name Is Banks): Singer-songwriter from Los Angeles, goes by her last name, first is Jillian, sixth album since 2014. B+(**) [sp]

Bdrmm: Microtonic (2025, Rock Action): From Hull, UK, dreampop/shoegaze band, third album since 2020, following EPs back to 2016. Appealing sound, seems to have come together nicely. B+(***) [sp]

Black Milk & Fat Ray: Food From the Gods (2025, Computer Ugly/Fat Beats): Detroit rapper Curtis Cross, 18 or so albums since 2002, including a previous with producer Ray Boggues from 2008. B+(**) [sp]

Booker T & the Bleeds: Ode to BC/LY . . . And Eye Know BO . . . Da Prez (2022 [2025], Mahakala Music): Saxophonist (alto/tenor), b. 1949 in Seattle, last name Williams, not the more famous MGs organ player, but I remember him from a 1988 album, Go Tell It on the Mountain, one of those rarities that makes you wonder whatever happened to him? Hehas a few more side credits (Saheb Sardib, Dennis Charles, Roy Campbell, William Hooker, Jean-Paul Bourelly), but not much lately. Featuring credit for Gary Hammon, another tenor saxophonist from Seattle, plus Mark Franklin on trumpet, and some of the label's regulars, including Christopher Parker on piano and a Kelley Hurt vocal. Mixed results: sound a bit harsh, music too. B [bc]

Anouar Brahem: After the Last Sky (2024 [2025], ECM): Oud player from Tunisia, has a dozen albums on ECM since 1991, jazz rooted in his native folk and classical music. Quartet, names on the cover: Anja Lechner (cello), Django Bates (piano), Dave Holland (bass). Very nice. B+(***) [sp]

Brother Ali: Satisfied Soul (2025, Mello Music Group): Minnesota rapper, originally Jason Newman, albino, converted to Islam, 10th album since 2000, produced by Ant (of Atmosphere). Gets personal: "I got a platinum soul, a solid-gold heart, a steel-trap mind and that's a damn good start," but beware the ego. And philosophical: "human beings are mysterious things" and "the truth isn't always what it seems." A- [sp]

Rob Brown: Walkabout (Mahakala Music (2023 [2025], Mahakala Music): Alto saxophonist, first album was a duo with Matthew Shipp in 1988, many side credits with William Parker, but has a couple dozen albums as leader. This is a trio with Brandon Lopez (bass) and Juan P. Carletti (drums). B+(**) [bc]

Burnt Sugar/The Arkestra Chamber: If You Can't Dazzle Them With Your Brilliance, Then Baffle Them With Your Blisluth Pt. Two (2022-24 [2025], Avant Groid Musica): A compilation of live performances from the year after founder Greg Tate died, recycling a title from a 2004 collection. Credits, as best I can decipher: Jared Michael Nickerson (leader, electric bubble bass), Bruce Mack (vocals), Leon Gruenbaum (keyboards), Andre Lassalle (electric guitar), Shelley Nicole (vocals), Marque Gilmore (drums), Ben Tyree (electric guitar), Lewis Barnes (trumpet), "et al," which seems to include (at least on some cuts): JS Williams (trumpet), Anthony Arington (sax), V. Jeffrey Smith (sax), Dave Smith (trombone), Paula Marcus (drums), Chris Eddleton (drums), Vernon Reid (directed four tracks). Focus seems shifted to funk, and more covers (including some rework on "Summertime"). Sample lyric: "The world's gone crazy, the least you can do is dance." B+(**) [bc]

Nels Cline: Consentrik Quartet (2024 [2025], Blue Note): Jazz guitarist, albums start around 1990, but has played in the rock band Wilco since 2004, and this is his first jazz album since 2020. Quartet, with Ingrid Laubrock (sax), Chris Lightcap (bass), and Tom Rainey (drums). Cline wrote all the pieces, his guitar laying down a foundation for the sax, in particular, to build on. A- [sp]

Doodlebug and 80 Empire: A Galactic Love Supreme (2025, Gladiator): Craig Irving, part of the jazzy rap trio Digable Planets, best known for their two 1993-94 albums (several reunions only produced a 2017 live album), not much on his own, but here teams up with Toronto-based producers, brother Adrian and Lucas Rezza. Some of this works well, and some falls flat. B [sp]

Mathias Eick: Lullaby (2024 [2025], ECM): Norwegian trumpet player, sixth album on ECM since 2009, also credited with voice and keyboard, backed with piano (Kristjan Randalu), bass (Ole Morten Vĺgan), and drums (Hans Hulbćkmo). B+(**) [sp]

Sam Fender: People Watching (2025, Polydor): English singer-songwriter, from near Newcastle, third album since 2019, all big UK hits, not so much elsewhere, gets tagged as "heartland rock," which is to say compared to Bruce Springsteen, Bob Seger, and Tom Petty -- not without reason, but I'm not sure of the point. B+(*) [sp]

R.A.P. Ferreira: Outstanding Understanding (2025, Ruby Yacht): Rapper, initials for Rory Allen Phillip, released his first albums as Milo, started using this moniker around 2019, with 2-3 albums/mixtapes per year since. B+(**) [bc]

Sullivan Fortner: Southern Nights (2023 [2025], Artwork): Pianist, from New Orleans, debut 2015, got quite a bit of attention for his Solo Game in 2023, returns here with a trio, backed by Peter Washington (bass) and Marcus Gilmore (drums). B+(**) [sp]

Rose Gray: Louder, Please (2025, PIAS): British pop singer-songwriter, first album after singles (since 2019), EPs, and a mixtape (2021). Fine dance beats, party themes. B+(***) [sp]

Billy Hart Quartet: Just (2021 [2025], ECM): Venerable jazz drummer, Discogs credits him with playing on 763 albums since 1963 (Jimmy Smith, although he appears on a couple later-released Wes Montgomery albums from 1961), including 88 albums as leader or co-leader (since 1977). I figure he was 81 here, writing 3 (of 10) songs, and leading a quartet with Mark Turner (tenor sax, wrote 3 songs), Ethan Iverson (piano, wrote 4 songs), and Ben Street (bass). B+(**) [sp]

William Hooker: Jubilation (2023 [2025], ORG Music): Avant-drummer, many records since 1977. Credits are sketchy, but this one opens solo, but also includes: Matt Lavelle (trumpet), Stevie Manning (alto sax), On Davis (guitar), and/or Adam Lane (bass), from a live date. B+(**) [sp]

Horsegirl: Phonetics On and On (2025, Matador): Indie rock band from Chicago, made up of Nora Cheng, Penelope Lowenstein, and Gigi Reece, singles from 2019, second album, produced by Cate Le Bon, spine title adds an extra "And On" for good measure. B+(**) [sp]

Vijay Iyer/Wadada Leo Smith: Defiant Life (2024 [2025], ECM): Piano and trumpet duo, Iyer also playing electric and electronics, follows a similar album from 2016. Much to notice here if you take the time, but it goes slow, and it's hard to get excited. B+(**) [sp]

Jennie: Ruby (2025, Columbia): K-pop singer-rapper Jennie Kim, from Blackpink, first solo album. I'm impressed by the rhythmic sense on the raps, less so on the production overkill on the sung numbers. B [sp]

Anthony Joseph: Rowing Up River to Get Our Names Back (2025, Heavenly Sweetness): British poet and novelist, originally from Trinidad, started recording spoken word jazz albums with the Spasm Band in 2007. His 2021 album is a favorite, not only for its title (The Rich Are Only Defeated When Running for Their Lives). This was less immediately appealing, but the bounty of words has few peers, and in the end that's also true for the music. A- [sp]

Lola Kirke: Trailblazer (2025, One Riot): Born in London, father was drummer for Free and Bad Company, moved to New York when she was five, has several albums, and a substantial career as an actor. Her 2024 EP Country Curious got her some attention from country music fans. She doesn't have the twang so common in Nashville, but her songwriting can pass -- especially "Mississippi, My Sister, Elvis & Me." B+(***) [sp]

Benjamin Lackner: Spindrift (2024 [2025], ECM): German pianist, divided time between Berlin and New York, several albums since 2008, recorded this in France, a quintet with Mathias Eick (trumpet), Mark Turner (tenor sax), Linda May Han Oh (bass), and Matthieu Chazarenc (drums). B+(***) [sp]

James Brandon Lewis Trio: Apple Cores (2025, Anti-): Tenor saxophonist, two-time poll winner, backed by Josh Werner (bass/guitar) and Chad Taylor (drums/mbira), on a rock label I get no publicity from, both LP and CD already marked "Sold Out." Terrific, as always. A- [sp]

Lolo [Mamah Diabate/Jabel Kanuteh/Stefano Pilia/Marco Zanotti]: Lolo (2025, Black Sweat): Two African griot names on the cover (Diabate, from Mali, plays djeli ngoni; Kanuteh, from Gambia, plays kora), with two Italian names (guitar/bass and percussion). B+(***) [bc]

Loot: Loot (2023 [2025], ICP): Quartet led by Dutch pianist Oscar Jan Hoogland, who composed all the pieces, with Ab Baars (tenor sax/clarinet), Uldis Vitols (bass), and Onno Govaert (drums). The label reminds us of the lamentably passed Mengelberg, and so does the opening piano, a playful trickiness that lifts everyone's spirits. A- [bc]

Jako Maron: Mahavélouz (2025, Nyege Nyege Tapes): Electronica producer from Réunion, a French island in the Indian Ocean, has a rep for building on local folklore, both on his own and in the group Force Indigčne. Rhythm tracks, simple repeated figures with a bit of dissonace. B+(***) [sp]

Branford Marsalis Quartet: Belonging (2024 [2025], Blue Note): Saxophonist, mostly tenor, major figure since he (and his brother) left Art Blakey in the early 1980s. Quartet with Joey Calderazzo (piano), Eric Revis (bass), and Justin Faulkner (drums), together since 2012 (when Faulkner joined, otherwise since 1998). Music is by Keith Jarrett, all six tracks from his 1974 album -- possibly his best ever (with Jan Garbarek, and sure, I've always been partial to saxophone) -- expanding on their 2019 cover of "The Windup." As with their previous cover of A Love Supreme, they add something of their own without challenging the original. On the other hand, he reaches further here, and comes up with more. If one took this at face value, it would be one of his best. So why not just enjoy it as such? A- [sp]

Caili O'Doherty: Bluer Than Blue: Celebrating Lil Hardin Armstrong (2025, Outside In Music): Lil Hardin played piano, joining King Oliver when he came to Chicago, met and married Louis Armstrong, reportedly convinced him to step out as a leader, and played with him on the first round of Hot Fives, contributing a few classic songs. She then left the band, then left him, and eventually (1938) they got divorced, but she kept the name, and capitalized on it. Tribute here includes vocals by Michael Mayo and Tahira Clayton (I much prefer her), and Nicole Glover on tenor sax (big solos). B+(**) [sp]

Jeremy Pelt: Woven (2024 [2025], HighNote): Mainstream trumpet player, couple dozen albums since 2002. Backed with vibes, guitar, bass, and drums, with guest synth on four tracks, vocal on one. B+(*) [sp]

Ivo Perelman/Ken Vandermark/Joe McPhee: Oxygen (2025, Mahakala Music): Saxophone trio, the former on tenor, the others credited with "winds." B+(***) [bc]

PremRock: Did You Enjoy Your Time Here . . . ? (2025, Backwoodz Studioz): Rapper Mark Debuque ("perhaps best known as one half of ShrapKnel"), but has previous albums more/less under this name back to 2010. B+(***) [sp]

Dave Sewelson/Gabby Fluke-Mogul/George Cartwright/Anthony Cox/Steve Hirsh: Murmuration (2023 [2025], Mahakala Music): Bandcamp page attributes this to the label, but since the cover lists five names, and they're all pretty well known -- baritone sax, violin, alto sax/guitar, bass/cello, drums -- we should credit them. B+(**) [bc]

Six Sex: X-Sex (2025, Dale Play, EP): Francisca Cuello, from Argentina, no albums but fifth EP since 2019, "combines elements of reggaeton, dance hall and electronic music, by mixing sensual urban rhythms with ecstatic beats." Six songs, 17:24. I was tempted to hold out for more, but came around with multiple plays. A- [sp]

Dayna Stephens: Hopium (2022 [2025], Contagious Music): Saxophonist, tenor mostly, has a dozen-plus albums since 2007 plus a lot of side work. Postbop quartet with Aaron Parks (piano), Ben Street (bass), and Greg Hutchinson (drums). B+(*) [sp]

Thomas Strřnen: Relations (2018-22 [2024], ECM): Norwegian drummer, best known for his group with Iain Ballamy, Food (8 albums, 1999-2015), including in the 76 credits Discogs lists. This was recorded in several places over several years, and it's not clear who plays where, but the credits are: Craig Taborn (piano), Chris Potter (soprano/tenor sax), Sinikka Langeland (kantele/voice), Jorge Rossy (piano). Mixed bag, but Potter (for one) doesn't disappoint. B+(**) [sp]

Trio Glossia: Trio Glossia (2024 [2025], Sonic Transmissions): North Texas trio of Matthew Frerck (bass), Joshua Cańate (tenor sax/drums), and Stefan Gonzalez (vibes/drums), first album (although Gonzalez has a bunch of side-credits, starting with his father, and Cańate appears with him in a very good Dennis Gonzalez Legacy Band album last year). B+(***) [sp]

Jesse Welles: Middle (2025, self-released): Folkie singer-songwriter, from Ozark, AR, debut 2012 as Jeh Sea Wells, went by just Welles 2018-23, reverted to actual name for 2024's Hells Welles. Title song is antiwar. B+(**) [sp]

YHWH Nailgun: 45 Pounds (2025, AD 93): NYC-based experimental rock quartet (post-punk, but even more post-no wave), first album, very short at 21:04 but 10 songs. Electronics expand the sonic palette, and the rhythm splinters into countless shards. I tend to devalue short albums, but this is remarkable, and I'm not sure how much longer it could go on and still retain its impact. A- [sp]

Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek: Yarin Yoksa = If There Is No Tomorrow (2025, Big Crown): Anatolian rock group, which is to say Turkish but based in Berlin, where orientalism passes as neo-psychedelia, fifth album since 2019. B+(**) [sp]

The Young Mothers: Better If You Let It (2022 [2025], Sonic Transmissions): Founded by Norwegian Thing bassist Ingebrigt Hĺker Flaten after he moved to Austin, originally a free jazz group but with "hard-hitting punk energy, and hip-hop rhythms," even some rap-song on this third album, with Jawaad Taylor (trumpet), Jason Jackson (tenor/baritone sax), Jonathan F. Home (guitar), Stefan Gonzalez (vibes/drums/voice), and Frank Rosaly (drums). The jazz component is sharper than the hip-hop. B+(**) [sp]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

William Hooker: A Time Within: Live at the New York Jazz Museum, January 14, 1977 (1977 [2025], Valley of Search): Live set, previuosly unreleased, where the drummer relentlessly hacks his way through the frenzied cacophony thrown up by a pair of saxophonists, Alan Braufman on alto and David S. Ware on tenor. This was early for all of them, with Hooker senior at 30, and Ware still a decade away from his great run as a leader from 1988 to his death in 2012. Only Braufman, the youngest at 26, had a significant album already released, 1975's Valley of Search (on India Navigation), but he quit shortly, only reissuing the album in 2018 (hence his label name, and this record) when he relaunched his career at 77. B+(***) [sp]

Ginger Johnson and His African Messengers: African Party [Deluxe Edition] (1967 [2025], Innovative Collective/BBE Music): Percussionist from Nigeria (1916-75), moved to London after WWII, played with jazz musicians like Ronnie Scott, recorded some singles and this 1967 album (slightly expanded here). Intense drums, wailing sax, chants, lives up to its title. A- [sp]

Music Is a Message From Space ([2025], Corbett vs. Dempsey): Various artists, but the subject is Sun Ra, who leads off with a 1:56 snip of solo vocal, "recorded by Ra at home in Chicago during the 1950s," the first side filled out with solo covers of Sun Ra tunes from Raymond Boni (guitar) and Jason Adasiewicz (vibes). Second half starts with Wolfgang Voigt's remixes of Sun Ra loops, then a solo piece by Joe McPhee (from 1970, the only solid date given here). Grade here excludes the vinyl-only bonus track from Spaceways Inc. + Zu, presumably from the album that was my first Jazz CG Pick Hit (2003's Radiale). B+(*) [bc]

Neil Young: Oceanside Countryside (1977 [2025], Reprise): Another archival release, presented as a lost album in his "Analog Originals" series, the title (with different takes?) appeared in his Archives Vol. III: 1976-1987, reflecting an LP division into ocean (solo) and country (band) sides. But the songs are familiar: three from Comes a Time (1978), two from Rust Never Sleeps (1979), three more from Hawks & Doves (1980), and remakes of two older songs (one from Harvest, the other a non-album cover. No surprise that much of this sounds great -- those are some of my favorite albums -- but this seems like an unnecessary remix, the variations fine but far from revelatory. [PS: Surprised to find this on Spotify, after Young's publicized removal of his music there back when they cut their big Joe Rogan podcast deal.] B+(***) [sp]

Old music:

Six Sex: Fantasy (2019, Dale Play, EP): Dance-pop singer-songwriter from Argentina, Francisca Cuello, "combines elements of reggaeton, dance hall and electronic music," plus sex appeal, of course, but still working on that. First EP, 5 songs, 11:38. B+(*) [sp]

Six Sex: Area 69 (2022, Dale Play, EP): Still a work in progress, but has a video. Six songs, 12:30. B+(**) [sp]

Six Sex: 6X (2023, Dale Play, EP): Some new beats and filler, stretching six songs to 15:10, to mixed effect. B+(**) [sp]

Six Sex: Satisfire (2024, Dale Play, EP): Six songs, 15:24. Stronger dance beats with fewer glitches. B+(***) [sp]

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

  • Jacob Felix Heule/Teté Leguía/Sanishta Rivero/Martín Escalante: An Inscrutable Bodily Discomforting Thing (Kettle Hole) [03-07]

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Monday, March 24, 2025

Music Week

March archive (in progress).

Music: Current count 43902 [43856) rated (+46), 24 [25] unrated (-1).

I'm stuck in some sort of limbo, and expect to be for some time. For now, I'm waiting for an appointment with the eye surgeon, later this month, where he will evaluate the operated-on left eye, and probably schedule surgery on the right. After the surgery, I was hopeful that this would clear up quickly. I'm less optimistic now. The left eye is somewhat better for distance, but still far from clear. There's a fairly significant color shift between the eyes, which suggests I'm getting more light through the left eye. I can see well enough to drive, watch TV, etc. Reading is a bit more difficult, but not impossible.

Surgery will make the right eye worse before it gets better. Right now I have doubts that the left eye will be able to compensate for the right as well as the right has for the left. In the long run, of course, it should be better, but in the really long run we're all dead. It's not like I'm looking forward to decades of improved vision. On the other hand, I've lasted much longer than I imagined at 20, when my life was a total wreck, or even at 30, or 50 (when I started looking forward to retirement). Looks like I just have to get through another 6-8 weeks. After which it will be summer, and I can complain about the heat, instead of the cold.

If I weren't in limbo, what I should be doing is working on my planning documents, to figure out what I want to do for the next year or two, so I can get on with it. I have plenty of vague ideas -- too many, really, so a big part of the process of articulating them is to help weed out those that are impracticable or just not worth the trouble.

Lacking that, I sometimes pick out some little chore and take a shot at it. For instance, my wife was worried about the dog digging under the shed -- it's a dachshund mix, and seems especially inclined to dig -- while I've been bothered by rot and displacement of the ramp I built up to the doors. We had a couple of relatively warm days early last week, so I worked on that. I treated the ramp with linseed oil to stop the rot, and replaced the rusted nails with deck screws, finally attaching the ramp to the shed so it can't get shifted any more. For defense against digging, I got one side wrapped with 1/2-inch square hardware cloth. I still have three more sides to do, plus I need to do some caulking and other repairs, but that can wait until it warms up again.

Another chore weighing on my mind was the need to update the database for Robert Chrisgau's Consumer Guide. Since he started buckraking on Substack, he's delayed his Consumer Guides from his website for nine months, so there's little pressure for me to keep them updated. I do add the monthly columns each month a day or two after they appear, but some code checks timestamps and hides them until the release date. Same thing with the database: if you try to access a CG entry less than nine months old, you'll get a link to the Substack page where, if you're a subscriber, you can read the review. With that setup, I should be updating the database regularly, but I've tended to let it slide -- in this case, well over a year.

Another thing I did last week with no planning or foresight was Loose Tabs. Although I gave up spending much of my life reading news the 2024 election, when I terminated my Speaking of Which columns, I found myself with a couple dozen browser tabs open to various articles that had caught and kept my attention. I've been noting some of those under my notebook's Daily Log headings, but I wanted to clean up, and there were so many of them that I found it easier just to dump them into a blog post. Then, of course, I wound up writing (just added the counter, so 95 links, 7389 words). Note that counter includes a greatly expanded note on Robert Christgau's March Xgau Sez Q&A, some extra Dean Baker links, and a second thought on turning minds to slop. I have no plans to do this again, but it might not be a bad idea to keep an open file to collect scraps like this (like I have, but don't use often enough, for Books). In this, I was encouraged by the reader who wrote in:

Really appreciated your latest post, your eloquence always clarifies my thinking even though I have empathized fully with the need to step away from current events. Thank you.

In looking up the X follower numbers in the Loose Tabs piece, I found myself unable to imagine what having many thousands let alone millions of followers might be like, but at my level they feel like personal friends. My Bluesky account is up to 76 followers, with 50 posts. Most of this week's posts have been Pick Hit record links. I thought that was one thing Bluesky might be good for, as (unlike X) their links to files work, and there's no real reason to hoard references to build up suspense for this post. And this week I have a huge number of good records to recommend -- possibly because it's the first week in 2025 where most of my reviews are of 2025 releases.

The Pick Hit posts have at most throwaway notes, but they include links, mostly to Bandcamp pages where you can listen to the music. The only A- record below I didn't tweet about was Saba, which I couldn't find a good link for. I've used a few other link sources in recent weeks, but I'm looking for somewhere you can actually sample the music, without having to go to a streaming service. My format have changed several times as I think about how to package this service, and it will no doubt continue to evolve. If/when I do start dipping under the A- line, I can go to "HM" for Honorable Mention. I can't imagine adding "Duds" to the mix, as I'm a pretty tolerant guy, and nothing much really offends me -- the worst I hear these days is more like a waste of time.

I expect to do more non-music posts, but the one such tweet I want to reiterate here is my response to a widely circulated (at least 1.4M Views+; I picked it up second or third hand) by Senator Mike Lee (R-UT), who wrote:

If you were raised in the U.S., you've been subjected to a relentless bombardment of Marxist propaganda throughout your entire life—at least since you started kindergarten (probably sooner).

How old were you when you first realized that?

First response I saw was from Doug Henwood, who wrote something like: "As an actual Marxist, I can assure you that isn't true." My own response reached back into memory. I started kindergarten in 1955 (there was no pre-school then, at least in working class neighborhoods in Wichita), back when the Pledge of Allegiance (with its newly-inserted "under God") was obligatory, before the Supreme Court ruled against prayers in school, and didn't exit high school until after I read the required Animal Farm, with its teacher guide dictates of which pig meant what. During that entire time, I was never given -- in school, in church, in the Boy Scouts, or on the only three TV channels that existed back then -- even the slightest hint that communists might be anything but sheer evil. Later on, I came to recognize much of what I had been told as propaganda, but none of it was Marxist. The effect was first of all to make me a true believer in "the American way of life," then as I recognized what America's leaders were actually doing, most obviously in Vietnam but all around the world, I started having doubts, and in fairly short order flipped. I started reading actual Marxists, and found deep insight into the modern world, compassion for its victims, and hope for the future. That didn't necessarily make me a Marxist. It certainly didn't make me a fanboy of Stalin or Mao, whom Marxists could critique as savagely as they did Hitler or Churchill. But, as I put it in my response:

I was 16 when I dropped out of high school. By then I suspected that everything I had been taught was wrong. Only later, after I started reading Marxists, did I come to understand how and why, and develop the tools to find truth and fend off nonsense. We need more critical theory, not less.

I probably should have said "critical thinking" instead of "theory," but the key word there is "tools." And to be fair, it wasn't just Marxists who opened my eyes. After I quit school, I tried to figure out what had gone so terribly wrong, so I read a lot of books about education. The best one was by Neil Postman & Charles Weingartner, Teaching as a Subversive Activity, where they argued that the most important thing anyone can obtain from education is a sensitive "bullshit detector." I got mine the hard way.

While Lee's argument is utter nonsense, it is not unprecedented. Back in the 1950s, unbeknownst to me, the John Birch Society was saying that same thing, trying to double down on the McCarthyism that had fallen into disgrace. But the idea is the same: they want the power to dictate what is taught, by by whom, and "Marxist" or more lately "left-wing" is just their name for whatever it is they want to ban. The right has never had any qualms about resorting to force, but often they hope that intimidation will do the trick, and that's the real intent of Lee's messaging.

As for the real effect, we'll see. People like Lee and Trump and Musk give "Marxist" and "left-wing" a lot of good publicity, because they admit that there is an alternative to their own crude, cruel, dysfunctional worldview. The left can't buy or finagle this kind of publicity. Nothing, least of all any kind of conspiracy, is pushing Americans leftward more effectively than the "irritable mental gestures" and malfeasance of the Republican Right.

But, where was I? Impulsive projects, I think. One worth mentioning is that instead of continuing to get marginal returns from adding to my 2024 Metacritic/EOY Aggregate, I created a new one for 2025. I started by plugging all of my own paltry 2025 list (and its tracking file), then I went to AOTY and picked up their 125 highest rated albums of 2025. I've also started looking at select publications, so that at this point the list is up to 256 albums -- way short of 3616 from 2024, but it's enough of a start that I've come up with a huge and varied crop of A-list albums this week, most of which I wasn't aware of a week ago. On the other hand, I did throttle back on my jazz promo queue, as I was getting into future release territory. And I haven't looked at many non-promo jazz records yet, because AOTY doesn't do a good job of tracking them. (I'll add some stuff from jazz sites later; also from sites like HHGA and SCM, which have already contributed a couple albums below.)

I'm skeptical that I'll do a very good job of keeping this up to date, but it is useful in providing answers to the question of what to play next? (As this week goes to show.)

I did finally finish with Eric Hobsbawm's Interesting Times this morning. Coming after his tour de force four-volume history of the world 1789-1991, this has been a really extraordinary experience, doing much to help me frame my own understanding of the world. I've written up two posts based on quotes from the book (Hobsbawm Today and Hobsbawm Again), and will probably do another one soon based on a very insightful section on America. I have a lot of things I should read, but the one I'm inclined to check out first is Christiopher Lasch: The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy (1995, but seems like a pretty good title for 2024).

PS: Overheard from the news room (i.e., my wife's den): Q: "Are you making the same mistake that Biden made?" A: "No, of course not." No fucking idea what they're talking about, yet people can talk like this on TV and think we should take them seriously. Reminds me of a "Get Fuzzy" comic strip, where Rob asks "do you smell something?" and Satchel (the dog, and not normally the sharpest tool in the shed) gives a real answer: "About 857 things. Can you be more specific?"

New records reviewed this week:

Nils Agnas: Köper Sig Ur En Kris (2023 [2025], Moserobie): Swedish drummer, leads a quartet with Max Agnas (on two pianos) and Mauritz Agnas (bass) -- relationship unspecified but likely [cousins; they, but not Nils, are in a group called Agnas Bros.] -- and saxophonist Jonas Kullhammar, in his usual very fine form, playing four jazz tunes (Ornette Coleman, Joe Henderson, two from Carla Bley) and "Over the Rainbow." Quaint line on the hype sheet: "The only foreign musician he has performed so far with is the great Zoh Amba" (who's all of 24 now). A- [cd]

Yazz Ahmed: A Paradise in the Hold (2025, Night Time Stories): British trumpet player, born in London, father from Bahrain, fourth album since 2011, billed as "spiritual jazz," draws on Arabic elements, has many vocals, is hugely ambitious. I like parts of it (especially the trumpet), but have little interest in others (vocals, of course, but also ponderous instrumental sweeps). B [sp]

Annie & the Caldwells: Can't Lose My (Soul) (2023 [2025], Luaka Bop): Singer Annie Brown Caldwell and her family band, from West Point, Mississippi, no previous records I can find, but they've playing and shouting this gospel/blues revival for a long time -- "twenty years" is suggested, which makes sense because the shot of disco is fully incorporated into their legacy. A- [sp]

Ichiko Aoba: Luminiscent Creatures (2025, Hermine): Japanese folk singer-songwriter, Discogs lists 15 albums since 2010. She plays guitar, electric piano, chimes and shells, with various backing including piano/guitar (Taro Umebayashi), strings, bits of harp and flute. B+(*) [sp]

Willow Avalon: Southern Belle Raisin' Hell (2025, Assemble Sound/Atlantic): Country singer, presumably writes her own songs, second album. B+(**) [sp]

Jarod Bufe: Brighter Days (2024 [2025[, Calligram): Tenor saxophonist, has a previous (2018) album on OA2, label seems to have taken over the Chicago department of Seattle-based Origin (Calligram founders Geof Bradfield and Chad McCullough both had records on Origin/OA2). Mainstream/postbop quartet, with Tim Stine (electric guitar), Matt Ulery (bass), and Jon Deitemyer (drums). All originals, rich tone, sinuous groove, nicely done. B+(***) [cd]

Ethel Cain: Perverts (2025, Daughters of Cain): Alias -- or maybe fictional personage is better? -- for Hayden Anhedönia, who released three EPs 2019-21 and a 2022 album, Preacher's Daughter, and announced this as an EP, but at 89:20 (9 tracks) that's one bit of confusion we can avoid. Although this wouldn't lose much but tedium if it were edited much shorter. Little happens. There are few words. The drone is mild enough for background, but doesn't offer much. B [sp]

Clipping.: Dead Channel Sky (2025, Sub Pop): Hip-hop group from Los Angeles, fifth album since 2014, Daveed Diggs is the rapper (he has a couple solo albums, as well as an acting career, but is probably best known as Thomas Jefferson in Hamilton). Guitar and drums, as well as electronics, amp up the noise level, which sounds terrific as the words fly by. A- [sp]

Cymande: Renascence (2025, BMG): British funk band, mostly musicians with Afro-Caribbean roots, released several albums 1972-74, was revived in 2006 and again in 2012, this their sixth album overall (first since 2015, second since 1981). Protest songs over sinuous grooves, something that never seems to go out of style. B+(**) [sp]

Marie Davidson: City of Clowns (2025, Deewee): Canadian electronica producer, from Montreal, half dozen albums since 2014. Mostly spoken vocals over sharp beats with synth frills, gaining momentum as you go. A- [sp]

The Devil Makes Three: Spirits (2025, New West): Bluegrass trio with roots in Vermont, formed in Santa Cruz with their debut album in 2002, singer-songwriter Pete Bernhard moved back to Vermont while banjo player Cooper McBean moved to Ausin, but they kept working together, picking up bassist Morganve Swain for this album. B+(*) [sp]

Ex-Vöid: In Love Again (2025, Tapete): British power pop band, second album, principally Lan McArdle and Owen Williams, previously in the band Joanna Gruesome (2013-15). B+(*) [sp]

Lorraine Feather: The Green World (2022-24 [2025], Relation): Jazz singer, father was famous jazz journalist (and more) Leonard Feather (1914-94), recorded her first albums in 1978 but didn't really get her career going until after 2000. She wrote lyrics here, mostly to music by co-producer Eddie Arkin (guitar) or Russell Ferrante (piano), with strings prominent (Charlie Bisharat on violin), and a bit of Marcus Strickland saxophone. It took me a little while to let this develop. B+(***) [cd] [03-28]

FKA Twigs: Eusexua (2025, Young/Atlantic): British electropop singer-songwriter Tahliah Barnett, third album since 2014, all sizable hits, also has a mixtape and three EPs. B+(*) [sp]

John Glacier: Like a Ribbon (2025, Young): British rapper, second album, has an underground vibe that slips past you a bit too easily. B+(*) [sp]

Tim Hecker: Shards (2020-22 [2025], Kranky): Electronica (mostly ambient?) producer from Canada, 20+ albums since 2001, presents this one as a stopgap compilation, "all material written 2020-22 for the Projects Infinity Pool, The North Water, Luzifer and La Tour" -- i.e., soundtrack work. Seven pieces, 31:09, some sparkly, some subdued, nice enough. B+(**) [sp]

Lady Blackbird: Slang Spirituals (2024, Foundation Music Productions/BMG): Jazz singer-songwriter Marley Munroe, based in Los Angeles, second album, has muscled up the production to the point where it's no longer recognizable as jazz, but so far she's making the power work. B+(***) [sp]

Jeffrey Lewis: The Even More Freewheelin' Jeffrey Lewis (2023 [2024], Don Giovanni/Blang): Folkie singer-songwriter from New York, or "anti-folk," probably not a distinction that needs existence, started 20+ years ago drawing comics and singing "crass songs," has much more of a bond with Peter Stampfel than with Dylan, so the title and album cover here seem like misdirection, or maybe just a temporary lapse of ideas. Good thing the songs come with a surplus. Also that the band rocks harder than Dylan ever did, but the two soft/slow ones at the end ("100 Good Things" and "The Endless Unknown" are if anything better. A- [sp]

Damon Locks: List of Demands (2024 [2025], International Anthem): Sound and visual artist, vocalist for post-hardcore Trenchmouth, joined Exploding Star Orchestra and founded Black Monument Ensemble, spoken word and electronics here on his fourth album (first as solo leader). I can't say that I've followed the words close enough for them to really speak to me, but I get the gist, and the music may bring me back for more. A- [sp]

Brandon Lopez: Nada Sagrada (2023 [2025], Relative Pitch): Bassist, has been very busy since 2017 or so, rounded up an unruly septet of various strings (including electric harp and gayageum), electronics, and two drummers (Gerald Cleaver and Tom Rainey) for one 39:12 piece. B+(***) [sp]

Tate McRae: So Close to What (2025, RCA): Pop singer-songwriter from Canada, third album, started as a dancer, winning awards and a ballet scholarship. Mostly upbeat dance fare. Sounds fine to me, as far as that goes. B+(***) [sp]

Mogwai: The Bad Fire (2025, Rock Action): Scottish post-rock band, 11th album since 1995, last 4 cracked top-10 in UK but little chart action in US. Mostly instrumental, a bit of shoegaze lustre but not too heavy, some vocals, pleasant enough, but for what? B+(*) [sp]

Panda Bear: Sinister Grift (2025, Domino): Noah Lennox, a co-founder of Animal Collective, eighth solo album since 1999. I've often had trouble with their records, but this one is too easy-going not to just enjoy. I've seen it tagged as "tropical rock," and other references to beaches. This time I get the vibe. B+(*) [sp]

Saba & No I.D.: From the Private Collection of Saba and No I.D. (2025, From the Private Collection): Chicago rapper Tahj Malik Chandler, four albums 2014-22, working with Chicago producer Ernest Wilson, who started in 1992 with Common Sense, moving on to Nas, Jay-Z, Kanye West, and stray cuts with Ghostface Killah, Rihanna, and Beyoncé. Title is very offhand, suggesting there's so much more behind it they can't bother with real titles. Beats are super, flow is terrific, lots of ideas. A- [sp]

Moonchild Sanelly: Full Moon (2025, Transgressive): South African (Xhosa) dance-pop singer, touches kwaito and amapiano but in her long list of genres -- her own preference seems to be "future ghetto funk" -- reminds me most of dancehall. I ascribe no import to her "trademark teal hair" or garish makeup, but as dance pop this is pretty otherworldly. A- [sp]

Shygirl: Club Shy Room 2 (2025, Because Music, EP): British electropop singer-rapper Blane Muise, has a 2022 album and a bunch of EPs, including 2024's Club Shy, a remix thereof, and now this 6-song sequel (14:46), all but the first with its own "Feat." -- Bambii, Jorga Smith, and PinkPantheress are the ones I recognize (although Yseult is one I should check out). B+(***) [sp]

Skaiwater: #gigi (2024, GoodTalk/Capitol): British rapper, Jamaican descent, non-binary, based in Los Angeles, first album, 34:23, stutter-step beats that stumble here and there. B+(**) [sp]

Skaiwater: #mia (2025, GoodTalk/Capitol, EP): Eight track, 22:42 sequel to debut album #gigi. B+(*) [sp]

Songhoy Blues: Héritage (2025, Transgressive): Saharan blues band from Timbuktu in Mali, moved to Bamako when a jihadi group took power there, and wound up recording Music in Exile in 2015. Fourth album. Steady going. B+(***) [sp]

Squid: Cowards (2025, Warp): British band, Ollie Judge the lead singer/drummer, third album, says "post-punk" or "experimental rock" but is pretty eccentric, in ways that alternately attract or repel me. B+(*) [sp]

Sharon Van Etten: Sharon Van Etten & the Attachment Theory (2025, Jagjaguwar): Singer-songwriter, guitarist, from New Jersey, based in Los Angeles after a stretch in New York, seventh studio album since 2009, first to name a band. B+(*) [sp]

Chris Varga: Breathe (2024 [2025], Calligram): Vibraphonist, from Chicago but moved to Seoul in the 1990s, recording this, his second album, on a return visit, a postbop quintet with Geof Bradfield (tenor sax), Dave Miller (guitar), Clark Sommers (bass), and Neil Hemphill (drums), playing eight of his own pieces. B+(*) [cd]

Sunny War: Armageddon in a Summer Dress (2025, New West): Singer-songwriter Sydney Ward, born in Nashville, grew up in Los Angeles but returned to hawk her unique Afro-Americana. Fifth album since 2014, second on the label. B+(*) [sp]

Reggie Watkins: Rivers (2024 [2025], BYNK): Trombonist, from Pittsburgh, debut album 2004, only a few more since, including tributes to Maynard Ferguson and Jimmy Knepper. Thirteen original pieces, backed by piano-bass-drums, for a very nice presentation of his horn. B+(***) [cd] [03-28]

Michael Wollny Trio: Living Ghosts (2024 [2025], ACT): German pianist, 30+ albums since 2002, ninth trio album, live from Saarländischer Rundfunk, four 12-20 minute sets, with Tim Lefebvre (bass) and Eric Schaefer (drums). Varied, but very present. B+(***) [sp]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

Plastikman: Musik (1994 [2024], Nova Mute): British techno producer Richie Hawtin, third album under this moniker (his most common alias, preceded by F.U.S.E. and his own name). Space vibes, with a couple of false finishes. B+(**) [sp]

Studio: West Coast (2006 [2025], Ghostly International): Swedish electronica duo, Dan Lissvik and Rasmus Hägg, reissue of their only album, although they had singles 2001-07 and a couple of compilations. Album proper has six very strong songs (57:45), on CD or vinyl, with the digital tacking on six bonus tracks -- mostly redundant versions. Just judging the former. A- [sp]

Yo La Tengo: Old Joy (2006 [2025], Mississippi, EP): Short soundtrack (6 songs, 25:56) for a 2006 film by Kelly Reichardt, although there is some suggestion that this is a new recording, with Smokey Hormel playing guitar, pretty much solo. Nice, as far as it goes. [PS: Moved to reissues, as it appears this music was released in 2008 as part of They Shoot, We Score.] B+(*) [sp]

Old music:

Bantou Mentale: Bantou Mentale (2019, Glitterbeat): Liam Farrell, born in Dublin, based in Paris, started out as a rock drummer, moved toward hip-hop in the 1990s, and later to African music, mostly plays bass and guitar synth here, a group with three expats from Kinshasa, including a vocalist identified as Apocalypse. First of two group albums. Electroclash seems the right word here. B+(**) [sp]

Bantou Mentale: Congo Animal (2020, Glitterbeat): Less clash here, that disorienting sense of glass and metal crashing against walls to form sheets of sound. That allows the rhythm tracks to come to the fore, where they belong, a steadiness that holds all the other sounds in balance. A- [sp]

Paul Dunmall Sun Ship Quartet/Alan Skidmore/Julie Kjćr/Stĺle Liavik Solberg/Mark Wastell: John Coltrane 50th Memorial Concert at Cafe OTO (2017 [2019], Confront): English tenor saxophonist, not generally known as a Coltrane afficionado, but he did release two tribute albums in 2012-13, so had some prep going into this live set, recorded on the 50th anniversary of his death. Opens with the trio of Kjćr (flute), Solberg (bass), and Wastell (drums) on a long 21:22 title, followed by Dunmall's Quartet (with Howard Cottle on tenor sax, Olie Brice on bass), and Tony Blanco on drums) playing the album Sun Ship (37:07; recorded 1965, released 1971). Finally, the two groups merge, with Skidmore (a third tenor sax) piling on for three more tracks (44:16), ending with a bit of "Ascension." I should admit that late Coltrane gave me a lot of discomfort when I first heard his records -- Sun Ship is still a C+ in my database, and while Ascension is an A-, that was certainly a much later regrade. These days this music is still not quite easy listening, but for me at least it does go down much smoother. My caveats have more to do with sound, but I can't fault the sentiment. B+(***) [bc]

The Dunmall album led me to reexamine:

John Coltrane: Sun Ship (1965 [1971], Impulse!): The great, and hugely influential, saxophonist -- tenor, but his soprano on "My Favorite Things" led most later tenor saxophonists to double up -- led what was quite possibly the most acclaimed quartet of all time from 1961-66, making stars out of McCoy Tyner (piano), Jimmy Garrison (bass), and Elvin Jones (drums). They reached a pinnacle with 1964's A Love Supreme, after which Coltrane's searches wandered deep into the avant-garde and beyond: a year later to the mass ecstasy of Ascension, and just before his death in 1967 (he was 40) to his duo with Rashied Ali. When I first encountered this music, I intensely disliked like what often registered as cacophony, but over time I've grown to tolerate and occasionally to enjoy the legacy he created. This was one of many albums that only appeared after his death. For better or worse, this is one of his last quartet sessions: better because Tyner's solos are often brilliant, and the bass and drums follow him perfectly; worse because they don't seem all that much in sync with the leader, who seems to want to go places the group isn't ready for. Still, they're good enough, and he's great enough, that this almost works. [was: C+] B+(***) [sp]

John Coltrane: Sun Ship: The Complete Session (1965 [2013], Impulse!, 2CD): Probably not a good idea checking this out after two spins of the original album -- the outtakes aren't necessarily inferior, but the false starts are bound to be annoying, and there isn't that much really great stuff in the first place (written as I'm listening to some, which I'm pretty sure was in the first release). B+(**) [sp]

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

  • Kenny Dorham: Blue Bossa in the Bronx: Live From the Blue Morocco (1957, Resonance) [04-12]
  • Adrian Galante: Introducing Adrian Galante (Zoho) [04-25]
  • Freddie Hubbard: On Fire: Live From the Blue Morocco (1967, Resonance) [04-12]
  • Charles Mingus: In Argentina: The Buenos Aires Concerts (1977, Resonance) [04-12]
  • Salsa de la Bahia Vol. 3: A Colection of SF Bay Area Salsa and Latin Jazz: Renegade Queens (Patois) [03-21]

 

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Thursday, March 20, 2025

Loose Tabs

I spent most of Monday and Tuesday working outside on my shed. I got the screening done on the door side, and got the ramp treated with linseed oil and firmly attached to the shed -- it had been loose all these years, slid out of place, and was rotting around the edges, so work I've long been meaning to do. I expected a cold front on Wednesday to disrupt my work. We got some rain when it came through, and a tiny bit of snow when it settled down towards freezing.

I was plenty sore from the work, and wanted no part of the cold, so I resolved to stay inside and fiddle with trivial computer tasks. I updated software, which involved rebooting and restarting Firefox. I found I had a bunch of extra tabs open to various articles that looked promising, so I thought, why not just plug them into one of my Daily Log notebook entries, so I can close them. Then it occurred to me that it would be a bit easier just to create a blog post for them. It wouldn't be part of a series, just a scattered one-shot, like my recent Hobsbawm posts. I didn't finish in one day, so took a second. So this is it.

Pieces are sorted by date, with some clusters underneath a lead article. The tabs were mostly opened based on links from X or Bluesky, or sometimes from mail. I've made very little effort to sort through my usual array of sources. I've rarely looked for further articles, and haven't singled out any topics I wanted to pick on. I don't have any real agenda here. I'm just seeing where the wind blows me.

Select internal links:

Ryan Cooper: [01-06] Bluesky Proves Stagnant Monopolies Are Strangling the Internet: I kept this open, and eventually followed its advice and signed up to Bluesky, although I have to admit I'm not hugely impressed by Cooper's case.

David Dayen: [01-17] The Essential Incoherence of the End of the Biden Presidency: "One reason the president goes out with low approval ratings is that his agenda was internally contradictory."

Stephen Semler: [01-24] How the most unpopular US president got reelected. Picky editor that I am, I would have changed that to "elected a second time." Let's start with a quote:

Winning wasn't Harris's primary concern; winning without the left and anti-war movement was. At first glance, this might not seem like a big deal -- the left's numbers aren't overwhelming, and the anti-war movement's numbers are depressingly underwhelming. However, this overlooks the widespread appeal of their core ideas, particularly among working-class voters.

And it's no wonder: working-class well-being is acutely compromised when an administration prioritizes warfare over promoting the general welfare. In contrast, those in the top income brackets are far more insulated from such trade-offs. If your goal is to win as many votes as possible, compromising on policy with leftists and peace activists is essential, even if you find them annoying.

If there was ever a time for a Democratic candidate to invite those groups to the table, it was 2024. But Harris shut them out, ignoring an abundance of polling and well-being data practically begging her not to. Her choice ultimately led millions of would-be Democratic voters to stay home on Election Day, sealing her fate and, by extension, the rest of ours.

Semler focuses more than I would on economic effects of war -- coming out of WWII, many Americans (especially Democrats) saw guns and butter not as exclusive but as linked, although the effect has steadily reduced over time, especially participation. On the other hand, the risks associated with foreign wars have grown, and support for politicians who have blundered into wars has dwindled. Even if Biden wasn't in his 80s, his inability (or unwillingness) to end wars in Ukraine and Israel/Palestine cast doubts on his competency.

Semler does make points about the end of pandemic relief measures as a contributor to widespread economic hardship. Democrats did a very poor messaging job around them: first in not taking adequate credit for the measures -- which Trump only agreed to because the stock market was tanking -- and in not blaming Republicans for loss. Granted, they were meant to be temporary, but most worked well enough they should have been refashioned into more permanent programs. Had Democrats campaigned on them in 2022, they might have gotten a more favorable Congress, and extended them further, leading to a better story for 2024. A better Congress (including ending the filibuster) could also have implemented measures for limiting price gouging and excessive interest rates -- failing to do so, which one could blame squarely on Republicans (and a couple lobbyist-owned "Democrats"), had a big impact on the 2024 election. Instead, Democrats campaigned on the status quo as their big accomplishment, instead of as a work in progress where the big obstacle is too many Republicans in power.

Semler's big thing is making charts ("visualizing politics through a class lens"). Some more recent posts:

Rhoda Feng: [01-28] Pulled in All Directions: Review of Chris Hayes: The Siren's Call: How Attention Became the World's Most Endangered Resource. I don't watch his TV show, but I have read his two previous books -- Twilight of the Elites: America After Meritocracy (2012) and A Colony in a Nation (2017) -- and in both cases was impressed by his ability to take big subjects and focus them into tight arguments. This could be another one, but the topic risks being too amorphous to focus on -- I'm reminded of James Gleick's Faster, another great idea that the author, coming off a series of brilliant books, couldn't quite handle. Unclear from the review how much he made out of it, but picking Apple as a villain was a start I can relate to.

Thomas Frank: [02-19] Why the Democrats Fear Populism: Interview by Nathan J Robinson, of the author of What's the Matter With Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America (2004), which taunted Republicans for never delivering on their promises (and inadvertently turned them into a more more dangerous party), and Listen, Liberal: What Ever Happened to the Party of the People? (2016), which chided Democrats for their own failures to deliver promised change (much less successfully), and which tried to remind Democrats that populism was originally a party of the left. Like Frank, I'm a history-minded Kansan, so I know the Populist Party, and have deep sympathies for them -- unlike your fancy elites (including Hofstadter), who tried to write the people off as bigots and fools.

Eric Levitz: [03-01] The twisted appeal of Trump's humiliation of Zelenskyy: "Why some conservatives took pride in a national disgrace." I don't think there is any issue where mainstream Democrats think they have a bigger popular advantage over Trump than Ukraine/Russia -- and are more wrong about it. Most Americans want to see the war end, either because they understand that war is bad for everyone or because they realize that a prolonged stalemate is all risk with no possible reward. But Ukraine has become an issue that the so-called Defense Democrats are very passionate about, and not just because many of them blame Putin for Hillary Clinton's 2016 loss. They had already pivoted against Putin from back when Clinton was Secretary of State, seeing the vilification of Putin as their meal ticket to another profitable Cold War, but with Putin's "election interference" and Trump's surprise win, they increasingly came to see Trump and Putin in each other's image. While Republicans had few problems with using Russia as a threat to sow fear and sell arms to Europe, they started to react when Democrats made Zelenskyy out to be their hero in impeaching Trump.

While Biden and Zelenskyy generally escaped blame for Putin's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, and Biden had little trouble getting Republican votes to funnel massive amounts of arms to Ukraine, Biden's nonchalance about ending the war eventually trademarked the Democrats as the war party, paving the way for Trump's 2024 comeback win. Although there was no reason to think that Trump would be anything but worse than Harris on Israel/Palestine -- anyone who voted against Harris on that count did so from sheer spite, in total disregard for what was well known by then about Trump and his backers -- it wasn't unreasonable to hope that Trump would be able to put the Russia/Ukraine war to rest. That he hasn't done so shows us that he's as deluded in his own way about the war as Biden is in his. But also that he'd rather play the conflict for his fans than to do anything serious about it.

By the way, I think Levitz's explanations for Trump's "twisted appeal" are off base. Trump's performance -- and let's face it, the whole thing was staged as such -- appealed to his base because they want to see Trump in full bully mode. That's big part of why they voted for him. And Trump knows that his berating of Zelenskyy will drive Democrats crazy, reinforcing their commitment as the war party. (Which, needless to add, has once again worked like a charm, as when Slotkin spent a big part of her Trump rebuttal speech on Ukraine when she could have attacked Trump on firmer grounds.) I really doubt that Trump cares one whit about Bannon's Putin-friendly International Brotherhood of Fascists. (Bannon may well make good money off his hustle, but the autocrats themselves are mostly content to rule their own roosts: after all, their real enemies are their own people.)

Needless to say, just because Levitz misunderstands Trump doesn't make Trump right. (The right doesn't love Putin or Modi or Millei, not like they love Trump; at most, they envy that they are able to do things to their enemies that Americans cannot. They probably don't love Netanyahu either, but the envy there is really severe.) As diplomacy, Trump's performance was a complete disaster. He could have worked Zelenskyy over in private, then took a deal to Putin that could have let everyone come off smelling, well, not great but a good deal less rotten. As it is, he's squandered a big part of his influence with Zelenskyy, while exposing himself to the argument -- which admittedly doesn't bother him, because it's central to his Trump Derangement Syndrome defense -- that he's in Putin's pocket. Not only has he blown his chance to act as the great mediator -- and probably pick up a Nobel Peace Prize, like Teddy Roosevelt did for brokering the end of the Russo-Japanese War in 1905 -- he's given both Zelenskyy and Putin fresh angles to break up NATO, or at least to cut the US out of the equation. (Which would be a big deal, as the whole reason for NATO these days is to sell overpriced US arms to countries that don't need them. And arms sales was a major focus of Trump I, although Biden far exceeded him in that regard.)

Some more articles from Vox, which used to be my primary go-to source, but often these days I can't read at all:

  • Eric Levitz: [03-18] This is why Kamala Harris really lost: "TikTok is making young voters more Republican?" I read this in the newsletter, but can't read it as a link, so we'll skip it for now. The gist of it is that the higher the voter turnout, the more dumb, uninformed, and often just careless or even contemptible people vote, and the latter favor Trump by large margins. I noticed this some time ago, but now there is more data to back it up. I'll write more about this, and possibly much more of Levitz's "The Rebuild" newsletter series, which is an important subject, even if he often mangles it. PS: Levitz's main source is David Shor, interviewed by Ezra Klein here: [03-18] Democrats Need to Face Why Trump Won. Also see [03-18] "Angry Moderate" Sounds Okay to Me. I don't want to get carried away with quoting, but here's a teaser: "How hard is it for moderate and progressive Democrats to find common ground when the Trump administration is doing things like this?" [Linked article title: Proposal would force millions to file Social Security claims in person]
  • Zack Beauchamp: [03-19] The Trump right's pro-Israel antisemitism: "The MAGA movement loves Israel -- but is increasingly hostile to Jews."
  • Eric Levitz: [03-20] The left's misguided critique of abundance liberalism: "Cutting red tape is a social justice issue."

Kenny Stancil: [03-05] The Case for a Shadow Cabinet: "High-energy progressives can provide a compelling daily account of everything going wrong and coordinate opposition to the Trump-Musk nightmare." I've mentioned this before -- I loved the idea first time I heard of it as regular practice in the UK -- and endorse it once again. One thing I would do is instead of staffing it with Congressional office holders, I'd set up non-profit foundation (which, sure, one would have to guard against donor capture) and hire experts and staff for each position. Democrats need a go-to person on each issue, all the more so as Trump "floods the zone" with his bullshit.

  • Kim Phillips-Fein: [2019-03] The Bitter Origins of the Fight Over Big Government: "What the battle between Herbert Hoover and FDR can teach us." Stancil offered this piece as an example of how a president-elect used that position against a lame duck.

  • An Impeachment Drive Would End in Failure. It Might Be Worthwhile Anyway. Argues "Yes, there should be a well-maintained web page listing all of Trump's impeachable offenses since January 20, and it should be the basis for a House effort to impeach Trump that, ideally, would be sponsored by every Democrat in the House." Actually, I don't care whether anyone in the House sponsors the articles, as past experience suggests not only that they have no chance of conviction but that they can be weaponized against Democrats. But it would be good to have a website with all the proper legalese and supporting documents that anyone can link to. You could set up a court with judges, moving cases through various stages with prosecutors and defenders filing briefs, as some cases are likely to be stronger than others. Of course, no need to limit it to Trump, although his entire administration reflects back on him.

Stephen Prager: [03-05] You Really Can Just Do Things: "When Republicans take power, they abuse it. When Democrats take power, they refuse it." I've probably see a hundred pieces urging Biden to use executive powers to just sign an order, which he failed to do out of some respect or fear for some "norm" somewhere. One thing we're likely to see more and more of is arguments that Democrats should be willing to do any arbitrary crap that Republicans try, but the brands are so asymmetric that it's not even clear that's a good idea, let alone that it would work. Much will now depend on whether the Republican-packed courts will side with Trump, especially on cases where there is no precedent that they should. Democrats don't have that margin for error. Even though Biden did less than many Democrats wanted, much of what he did do didn't get past the courts.

Scarlet: [03-06] Party of None: How Democrats Lost the Working Class: Part One: A Brief History of the Democratic Party; and [03-14] Part Two: The Well Funded Road to Hell.

Jeffrey St. Clair: [03-07] Roaming Charges: Political Personality Crisis in America: He's the one "pundit" I have been reading consistently during the long winter of discontent. Here he starts with a Max Horkheimer quote, after a title that recalls the late David Johansen.

John Ganz: [03-07] The Juggler: "Understanding Trump's Economic Moves." Title comes from a line from Marx, about Louis Napoleon III, also the subject of his "history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce":

Driven by the contradictory demands of his situation, and being at the same time, like a juggler, under the necessity of keeping the public gaze on himself, as Napoleon's successor, by springing constant surprises -- that is to say, under the necessity of arranging a coup d'état in miniature every day -- Bonaparte throws the whole bourgeois economy into confusion . . . produces anarchy in the name of order, while at the same time stripping the entire state machinery of its halo, profaning it and making it at once loathsome and ridiculous.

Dean Baker: [03-14] Trump Tariffs and the Dollar as the World Reserve Currency. This is a bit wonkish, but good if you're interested. Also [03-20] The Masses Were Saying Things Were Good, Not the Democrats, a title which confused me, but the first paragraph got me interested (with the last line after the ellipsis):

The best way to get published in an elite media outlet is to say that the people were right in thinking things were bad in 2024, and the Democrats were wrong in trying to tell people things were good. Both parts of that line are wrong, but hey, when did outlets like the New York Times ever care about accuracy? . . .

It would be good if news outlets showed a little more skepticism towards people who claim to know about people's well-being, but have no data to support their claims.

PS: I should also have mentioned this article by Baker (either here, or elsewhere where I mention Ezra Klein's interview with Daniel Shor): [03-18] Ezra Klein, David Shor and Elite Excuses: The Hermetically Sealed TikTok Influencer. Klein claims that the New York Times bears no responsibility for Trump's win because most Times readers voted for Harris, so Trump must have won elsewhere. Baker disagrees, and points out numerous cases where the Times distorted Biden's record on Afghanistan and the economy, framing issues in ways that could extend way beyond their direct readership. While looking at Baker's articles, also note:

  1. [03-21] Patent Monopolies: The Biggest Tax No One Knows About "I have to give the right lots of credit here, they transfer more than $1 trillion a year, an amount close to half of after-tax corporate profits, from the rest of us to those in a position to benefit from govdernment-granted patent and copyright monopolies, and no one even talks about it."
  2. [03-21] Donald Trump Declares April 2 "Tax Day": Tariffs.

Kayla Gogarty: [03-14] The right dominates the online media ecosystem, seeping into sports, comedy, and other supposedly nonpolitical spaces: "A new Media Matters analysis found 9 out of the top 10 online shows assessed are right-leaning." That supposedly was a big part of Trump's success, but Trump would be the natural beneficiary of rage-fueled pitches to folks with little grasp of issues and little concern for their effects on others. I've seen arguments that we need to create our own counterprogramming to fill this space without own bullshit. On the other hand, consider:

  • John Ross/Nathan J Robinson: [03-17] MeidasTouch Turns Democrats' Minds to Slop: I don't have time or interest in podcasts or videos (or whatever this is), but I did watch a couple episodes, and they don't seem nearly a dumbed down as what I've run across on the right[*]. (One was aimed at Fox, but mostly to quote Trump officials, so not exactly head-to-head comparisons.) One thing I don't doubt that that there's an untapped market for anti-Trump snark. What's questionable is whether it helps, or like most partisan programming, just fortifies the base.

    [*] Rereading this, I'm tempted to ask how could they be? If you know and care about the real world, as anyone on the left by definition does, you cannot help but be more coherent and accurate than the insane drivel that is routinely spouted by the right. The notion that there is any left media approach that "turns Democrats' minds to slop" assumes a false symmetry between left and right that anyone on the left should realize is not just wrong but fundamentally so. (Not to say that there are no Democrats with minds full of slop.)

John Ganz: [03-17] There Was Never Any "Fascism Debate". Maybe not a debate in the proper sense, but there certainly was a lot of blathering, with lots of people spouting their pet theories while talking past one another. Even this article, which is subtitled "They Refused to Engage," manages to slip past its supposed opponents without landing even glancing blows. I don't know why I keep being drawn into this question, but after kicking this article around, I finally broke down and ordered Did It Happen Here? Perspectives on Fascism and America, a 2024 book edited by Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins, even though it's missing as much as it includes. (I ordered the cheaper pre-election hardcover as it appeared to be identical to the post-election paperback, although the post-election case has gotten much more compelling.) So I'll probably write more about this in the future -- indeed, I probably already have elsewhere.

One side comment here for now: after Scott Lemieux mentioned "professional anti-anti-Trump pundits," I recalled Dan Nexon's comment here on "the anti-anti-Trump left," I started wondering what the hell (or more specifically, who) they were talking about. I don't have a good answer (although I made some notebook notes in researching). Provisional conclusion is that no such people exist, as least in significant quantity. It's possible that some confusion is caused by two other groups: right-wing trolls who react to criticism of Trump by belittling the critics (e.g., by diagnosing them with Trump Derangement Syndrome), possibly because they can't think of any credible defense of Trump; and those who are so focused on the evils of US foreign policy that they ignore or (naively, I suspect) defend Trump's schizophrenic posturing. The trolls may be "professional pundits" (in the sense of getting paid to spout nonsense), but they are not from the left. I have doubts about the others, too, but the solution is not to simply counterattack but to respond with clear thinking.

Of course, you don't have to be a leftist to oppose Trump. Pretty much everyone has plentiful reasons if only they can cut through the thicket of propaganda and bullshit to see them. We leftists are just much quicker to seeing Trump and his followers for the danger they present, because we sense immediately that they want to kill us, while non-leftists are often in denial until it's too late. There only was one Hitler in history, and he set an impossible standard for other would-be Führers to live up to, but once you allow that there can be a current generalization beyond the historical specifics of his club with Mussolini, you can start to discern the type, and to see analogies take shape, evolve, and permutate. And within that framework, you can anticipate actions, ask questions, consider how best to stop him (and realize how important it is to do so). Nobody is going to change their mind about Trump just because you -- or for that matter, John Kelly -- call him a name. But you might decide that he's crossed some line and become so dangerous that you need to overcome your reluctance to form a Common Front to stop him. And you might recall that even that sacrifice isn't guaranteed to work.

Part of the problem is that very little (if any) of what we grasp of current events can be perceived as such. It is filtered through our memory and far-from-perfect understanding of history. Here one big problem is that most people don't remember much, and much of what they've been told is wrong. Even the history of Nazi Germany, which is about as famous and notorious as anything 80-90 years old can be, is recalled by very few people, and most who have even an inkling do so through distorted clichés -- like the oft-repeated capitulation at Munich. But those of us who do know some history are likely to start wondering whether Jan. 6 wasn't Trump's Beer Hall Putsch -- an unlikely thought at the time, but where else have we seen the coddling of criminality by the courts, leading to installation in power arranged by rich elites and the abuse of that power not just to "violate norms" but to run roughshod over law and order? Maybe you can find some better-fitting obscurity, but no other analogy gets the blood pumping faster than fascism.

PS: I also ran across this (partly because Bessner seemed to be tagged as an anti-anti-Trump leftist):

  • Daniel Bessner/Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins: [2024-04-18] Liberals' Heated Fascism Rhetoric Sidesteps Self-Reflection.

    The fascism framework is inherently backward-facing, always either relying on historical comparisons to validate its analogy or fixating on a return to the alleged "norms" that existed before Trump's presidency. In other words, the single-minded identification of fascism prevents liberals from developing an attractive vision for the United States' future. Even if Biden defeats Trump in November, absent such a vision the Democratic Party will be stuck in the rut of cosplaying apocalyptic scenarios every time a Trump-esque candidate runs for office, with little extra energy to devote to hammering out a compelling political alternative.

  • Daniel Bessner: [02-20] Donald Trump Is Dismantling Liberal Internationalism: Bessner is interviewed by John-Baptiste Oduor, following Vance's speech at the Munich Security Conference. It's hard for anyone who has long been critical of US foreign policy not to have mixed feelings about the "America First" retrenchment that Trump and Vance are presenting. America's ability to direct the world has long been diminishing, its good sense even faster, so some sort of retreat has long been in the cards, but Trump's preference for bluster and erratic bullying and his lack of skill let alone interest in diplomacy are likely to add danger to any change.

Connor Echols: [03-18] Oligarchy in overdrive: "Two months into his second Term, Trump is making mere plutocracy seem quaint." There's a chart here where 48% of "likely voters" say the US is moving toward oligarchy.

Matt K Lewis: [03-17] Democrats have four theories to beat Trump. Wish them luck: Actually, wish them better theories. I'm a sucker for clickbait like this because I've thought a lot about tactics over the past year, both upside and downside of November 5. And while I don't claim to have the answers, it's pretty clear to me that these aren't them:

  1. Cross your fingers and wait for Trump to self-destruct
  2. Work hard
  3. Stop being culturally out of touch
  4. Pray you can find a rock star

Eventually, rather than picking one, he throws his hands into the air and calls for a combination of all four. But read the fine print and watch them disintegrate: "This is the Tik Tok era, baby." "If they want to win, they need to talk like normal human beings again." "Politics is now show business, and Trump understands this. He's not a candidate -- he's a spectacle." Democrats need "someone like The Rock, Mark Cuban or Stephen A. Smith." (Link added for Smith, because I had to look him up, which in itself makes me doubt he's a "rock star.") And remind me again how effective Cuban was on the campaign trail with Harris?

Joel Swanson: [03-18] What Are We Allowed to Say? "How Trump's Department of Education has made it harder for me to teach Jewish Studies." The idea, of course, is to make it difficult to teach anything that goes against the Trump party line. The campaign against anything or anyone that remotely smacks of Woke or DEI is just the first front of attack, an easy way to show who's the boss now, without having to split many hairs. I didn't say "any" here, because as this article points out:

This directive, however, came with a large asterisk: We are still permitted to educate students about antisemitism. Antisemitism education, in other words, receives a special carve-out from broader anti-DEI policies. Jews get to be the special minority group receiving temporary protection from the government.

This is problematic for both obvious and subtler reasons. (Designating Jews as a privileged class sets them up for further backlash, as the author notes in his discussion of "the court Jew," although I can think of further examples; doing so to deflect criticism of genocide is disingenuous and even more likely to backfire.) Among other things, this article pointed me to several other pieces worth noting:

Kenny Stancil: [03-19] DOGE Is Going to Kill a Lot of Americans: I haven't been following news and/or opinion site for months now, but based on rare sampling it's possible that The American Prospect has been the most reliable source of solid news about the extraordinary damage the Trump administration is inflicting on the American people. Some headlines:

Robert Christgau: [03-19] Xgau Sez: March, 2025 (also here): I mention this for the lines: "I'm a patriotic democrat/Democrat. So is almost everyone I know except a few out-and-out leftists." I must be one of the latter, because I hardly qualify for the former -- I haven't made a show of being patriotic since Boy Scouts (although I did eventually concede to stretch my legs at ball games -- it's not like I need to make a point at every opportunity), and I only registered capital-D when I realized there was no alternative. Still, nice to be acknowledged and respected, even though I'm not sure I've ever swayed his position on an issue.

On the other hand, I haven't tried all that hard, because I don't think we're far apart in principle. When he describes Trump as a "vindictive, pathologically resentful, racist greedhead," he's not just accurate, but speaking from values we share. When he says "barely literate" and "evil" I understand but would have put it differently. There are plenty of literate fools, notably his VP. I make a distinction between ignorance (what one doesn't know) and stupidity (what one knows that is wrong), and Trump is off the charts in both dimensions. But what bothers me most is that Trump has somehow managed to turn his mental defects into some kind of superpower: not only does it do no good to expose his idiocy, it seems to make him stronger.

As for "evil," that's a word I'm very wary of: it's been used way too often not just to decry bad acts from bad intentions, but to imply that the only recourse is to kill the evil-doer. The characterization of Saddam Hussein, or Putin, or all Palestinians, as evil has often been an argument for war, and an excuse to avoid negotiation, because how can peace coexist with evil? While acts can be judged on their own merits, intentions are much harder to understand, and people who throw the word around rarely seem to make much effort. On the other hand, as a writer, I sometimes find myself looking for some succinct word to sum up bad acts committed for no good reason, and "evil" is pretty tempting. Is Trump evil? Well, he certainly does a lot of bad things for bad reasons, and the more power you give him, the worse he gets, so it's easy to see why people might think that.

The one thing I would caution on is against confusing the person with the power. When I was a tyke, I learned that "power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Maybe the problem with Trump isn't so much that he is evil as that his accession to power -- first his wealth, then his fame, then his votes, and now his cult of the Unitary Executive Theory -- has allowed his fairly common animal spirits to overflow and to instigate bad acts, unfettered by his dearth of heart, soul, and brains. While I don't believe that Evil exists as a force on its own, Trump is as worthy of the word as anyone. (The historical standard for Evil is probably Adolf Hitler, who as a person, disregarding historical details, differs from Trump mostly in having considerably more brains. Whether Trump turns out worse or not so bad is still undetermined, but the main variable is power.)

Unwinding from that aside, the "vindictive . . . evil" quote actually came in response to a different question, one where the reader concluded, "I'm truly concerned for your soul," after "And you have no idea how despicable and damaging your ideologies are or how deficient your understanding." I'm tempted to say zero -- this reads like a quantitative question -- but perhaps the more important point to make is that ideas and understanding are personal, so only affect oneself, and as such have negligible effect. Ideology is not something everyone has a personal edition of. An ideology is a set of beliefs that is presented to others. That, too, tends to have little if any impact, unless one's arguments are extremely persuasive -- which is almost always because they are already widely shared -- or because one has the power to impose ideology on others. The obvious example (and certainly uncontroversial) example here is Stalin, but as far as ideology goes, in America most power is soft, proportional to one's fame, money, and institutional clout. Judging from metrics like X followers, Christgau can reach about 10 times as many people as I can (8000 vs 600), but Christgau has a pretty small following, compared to other people on the left I follow, like Astra Taylor (35k), Robert Wright (49k), and Nathan J Robinson (125k). Someone who's actually famous, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, has 12.7M followers, so 20 for every one who follows Robinson. And she trails way behind Musk (219M) and Trump (102M, plus more on his own network -- 10 million?), but at their level, the more important advantages are in money and clout (including lawyers and lobbyists on call, media contacts and influencers, direct and indirect hires, extending in Trump's case to the whole CIA).

The only thing the letter writer has to worry about Christgau (or for that matter, the whole left, from top to bottom) is that our "ideology" might make more sense to ordinary voters than the much more widely disseminated fulminations of the rich and powerful.

PS: Here's an extra paragraph I wrote earlier but decided I didn't need in place. An earlier draft was more nitpicky about Christgau's terms, which reminded me of a common complaint about leftists who obsess over language (often derided as "political correctness," "virtue signaling," and/or "cancel culture"): I don't think it helps to go around "correcting" the language of people who have basic good intentions. Doing so makes you look snide and morally supercilious, and risks adding you to the list of grievances of people who could, if you didn't make such a point of insulting them, become allies. The right-wing reaction to "political correctness," "woke," etc., is a cynical scheme to politically exploit the tendency of some people on the left to criticize others over language. But just as I don't feel like correcting those who should have spoken better, I also don't blame those who do insist on correcting for their excess principle-driven zeal. To pick one obvious example, while I personally try to speak very carefully about Israelis and Palestinians, I can't blame any Palestinian for overstepping my mark, because deep down the complaint they're trying to express is a valid one.

James K Galbraith: [03-19] Trump's Economics -- and America's Economy: "You can't make America great again by wrecking the government."

Jasmine Mooney: [03-19] I'm the Canadian who was detained by ICE for two weeks. It felt like I had been kidnapped: "I was stuck in a freezing cell without explanation despite eventually having lawyers and media attention. Yet, compared with others, I was lucky." I have no idea how many stories like this are coming to light -- Mahmoud Khalil's is by far the most publicized one, probably because the Trump goons figure that targeting a Palestinian gives them the best possible spin on a policy they intend to target far more broadly, and indiscriminately. The Wikipedia page on Khalil notes: "Several journalists and human rights organizations have noted similarities between this law and McCarthyism." No doubt, but this is much more similar to the CIA "renditions" of suspected terrorists on foreign soil -- except that it's being done here in America to legal residents. McCarthyism, as far as I know, never involved kidnapping. It was a systematic program of slander, meant to bully people into "naming names," encouraging discrimination against those named, and thereby spreading the slander, aiming at isolating and marginalizing the entire political left, solidifying support for the anti-communist Cold War, and dividing and demoralizing the labor movement. The Trumpist campaign against DEI and other signs of "wokeness" has more in common with McCarthyism, at least as concerns its individual targets, although the political agenda is much the same. Related here:

Vijay Prashad: [03-20] Israel's Hellish Attack on the Palestinians on 18 March: Opening paragraph:

On 18 March 2025, Israel unilaterally broke the ceasefire agreement and bombed several sites in Gaza. It is estimated that at least 400 Palestinians, mostly civilians, died by Israeli bombs. Journalists in Gaza report that of those dead, 174 are children. Once more, entire families have been wiped out. The head of the United Nations organisation for Palestine (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, said that the Israelis have fuelled 'hell on earth'. Amnesty International's Secretary General Agnčs Callamard described the situation as 'the hellish nightmare of intense bombardment'. The word 'hell' is on everyone's lips. It defines the situation in Gaza at present.

Within days of the Gaza uprising of Oct. 11, 2023, I concluded that Israel has crossed whatever line separates genocide from whatever it is you call the state of menace and siege that existed in Gaza from the 2006 withdrawal until then: "occupation" didn't seem right, with no ground presence, and no semblance of control, but the barriers Israel erected between Gaza and the world, along with the threat of instant death always present (and periodically illustrated, lest anyone doubt Israel's resolve). Baruch Kimmerling got the concept right in his 2003 book, Politicide: Ariel Sharon's War Against the Palestinians, but it takes some effort to realize just how thin the line is between stripping a people of all political rights and killing them. It now seems clear that as soon as Sharon sealed the border Gaza was fated to end this way. The only question was timing. When would some small group of Palestinians to flip their switch from patient cruelty to frenzied slaughter? Or when would the pervasive racism of Israelis finally erode their inhibitions against committing genocide? The Oct. 11 revolt was marginally larger and more invasive than previous acts of desperation, but that hardly explains the qualitative shift in Israel's behavior. Under Netanyahu, Israel was already aching to take it all, to finish Gaza off once and for all. They hardly debated at all.

Since the uprising I wrote about the genocide every week until I shut down Speaking of Which after the November election. (By the way, my original term was the more literal "prison break," but the desperation behind it reminded me more of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1944, when doomed Jews finally fought back against Nazis -- I won't even claim any irony to the sides, as that had flipped 20, 40, possibly 60 years ago.) Since then, I haven't even checked out my most reliable source, Mondoweiss. I knew what to expect, including that the nominal ceasefire of Biden's last days in office wouldn't last once Trump returned. In particular, I predicted that Trump would approve of the eventual forced transfer of the last Palestinians in Gaza to somewhere. (Ok, I wasn't thinking of Uganda, but sure, I get the joke, even if I don't laugh.) And yes, even on this, his absolute worst issue, I already miss Biden. So this article just explains one small bit. I don't feel any need to search out more, although I did have one open tab, so I might as well slot it here:

Current count: 95 links, 7389 words (8661 total)

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Monday, March 17, 2025

Music Week

March archive (in progress).

Music: Current count 43856 [43814) rated (+42), 25 [34] unrated (-9).

I wrote a fairly long political post over the weekend, only very indirectly occasioned by recent events, although it's impossible to totally block out Trumpism and its discontents. The actual stimulus was reading Eric Hobsbawm's 2003 autobiography, Interesting Times: A Twentieth-Century Life, specifically the part where he offers a leftist's observations on the Thatcher demolition of civil society, and the hollow Blair response. With Reagan and Clinton, that all seems pretty familiar. And while in many ways Trump is the linear descendent of Nixon, Reagan, and the Bushes -- even his utter contempt for legalities isn't unprecedented -- he now seems to be breaking things just to show that he can.

Probably thanks to reading Hobsbawm, I've been revisiting the Trump/Fascist arguments, so I wound up spending way too much time today on a John Ganz post, There Was Never Any "Fascism Debate". As I recall, there was, but the academic end was mired in arbitrary definitions, and the popular end was if anything counterproductive. After the election, I was convinced that it was a waste of time. I still think it has no potential to influence anyone's politics, and mostly serves people like me as a chance to flaunt one's historical knowledge, it is very hard for people to understand the present except via historical analogy, and there are very few antecedents who come close to Trump's extraordinary impact. While there are still quite many variations, and we're still nearer the beginning than the end of Trump's reign of terror, it's the shoe that comes closest to fitting.

The question then is what can one learn from the analogy? Very little, I suspect, about the Führer himself, but if you look at his deputies, his active and passive supporters, his mass of fans you will find unnerving similarities. Even more worrisome is how ineffectual anti-Nazi resistance was, both from the liberals and social democrats who underestimated him and even more so from the leftists who understood the threat perfectly yet were powerless to stop him. There is, as yet, little reason to be that pessimistic, or to surrender even if one were, but it is clear that Trump is doing not just the bad things we expected, but more that we didn't (or couldn't without exposing ourselves as fantasists). And that Trump's acts will not only get worse, but will leave a lasting print that may never be excised.

My post goes into some of that, but obviously much more is still kicking around in my head. I still have no plans to write about this, or much of anything else. My only addition so far to my planning documents has been to open a still-empty file on house projects. I've spent three days so far on one, which initially seemed too simple to bother writing up (although, somewhat less formally, I did mention it in the notebook): fixing up the ramp into the shed -- something I've wanted to do for years, which now merged with my wife's request to do something to keep the dog from digging under the shed. It's going very slow, and I'm exhausted today, but at least I've started to feel like I have it under control.

Recovery from eye surgery is also going slowly, and hard to gauge, with more erratic or just uncertain moments. Makes it hard to get on with life, so I've tended to let everything slip. I still haven't done the frozen file thing, and I have very little idea what new albums are coming up. The only reason I have much new jazz to report is that it's easier to pick an album out of my promo queue than it is to figure out some good prospect from the media. But I did get a boost this week from Robert Christgau's March Consumer Guide, which netted four A- records, four high B+(***), and one more B+(**), none of which were particularly on my radar. I have the three records I had previously heard -- Mdou Moctar: Funeral for Justice, GloRilla: Glorious, and Marshall Allen: New Dawn -- graded somewhat lower, after brief encounters. Incidentally, I have GloRilla's 2024 mixtape, Ehhthang Ehhthang, a notch high, and two recent Allen features -- Sun Ra Arkestra: Lights on a Satellite and John Blum: Deep Space -- at A-.

Four of the Christgau picks, plus one of my jazz albums, led me to dig into unheard back catalog, so there's quite a bit of Old Music this week. I was at one point tempted to start up a 2025 Metacritic file, as an aid in prospecting, but I wound up making little if any further changes to the 2024 file, despite my expectation of doing so. (One reason I didn't was that it was straining my eyes.) Still, like much else, up in the air for now. I have few (if any) expectations for next week. (Although I do want to get more done on the shed Tuesday, before the next cold front blows through on Wednesday. By the way, in local news last week: A highway pileup in western Kansas shows how dust storms can turn deadly; also numerous reports of fires around Kansas last week. The weather is keeping pace with all the other Trumpian weirdness, and there's no reason not to blame him for that too. Campaigning to promote disasters isn't exactly causality but is close enough to count.

By the way, I added the Chills album after the initial cutover, so it's not counted in the weekly census. It is tempting to add the reissue of Studio's 2006 album West Coast, but I'm just nearing the end of a first play. I've been posting preview notes on the week's A- records on Bluesky. Initially I was able to link to Bandcamp pages, but I've run into a few snags lately, where I try to offer the best links I can find. I'm up to 35 posts and 68 followers there now. I commented on Lemieux's tweet:

I'd never heard the term before, but this is the 2nd time today I've run across "anti-anti-Trump pundits." What or who are they? The phrase suggests something different from pro-Trump pundits, or pundits who are naive, overly generous, or simply deluded about Trump. But what? And why?

Lemieux was kind enough to reply:

It generally refers to people on the left (or ostensible left) who often criticize Trump's opponents and rarely criticize Trump. But evidently at some point it becomes a distinction without a difference.

That sounds more like a troll than a pundit. I formulated a reply:

I'm well familiar with trolls who claim to be left but only appear to attack other lefties (e.g. on Israel), but "professional pundit" implies some kind of position, not just function. Still, I guess I can think of some NYT/WaPo pundits where the distinction scarcely matters.

I'm also familiar with leftists who are so focused on US sins they ignore or even get a bit myopic about the likes of Putin and Trump, but they rarely reduce to pro-Putin/Trump, so I don't mind them. But they do generate an anti-anti- dynamic, which I find unhelpful. If you have a principle, better to use it.

I thought of Matt Taibbi when writing this, but couldn't work him in under the limit. He's not really a leftist: he presents as some kind of iconoclast, balancing his left and right targets, although until 2016 his "left" targets were pretty silly (like 9/11 Truthers). After 2016, he got obsessed with the Clinton camp's anti-Russia rationalizations, which he considered a worse outrage than Trump's election. I haven't followed him since he left Rolling Stone, so I don't know where he's gone with his snark. He wasn't wrong when debunking "Russiagate," but had problems keeping the bigger picture in focus.

I did google "anti-anti-Trump": without quotes I got nothing of significance (mostly pieces about Never Trumpers), but with quotes some pieces do show up. Some titles, dates, and possibly quotes (but links only if I followed them, which mostly I did not; sorted by year from early to now):

One obvious point here is that most of these references are old (mostly from 2017), and most come from or relate to Never Trumpers (e.g., Sykes, who wrote a book, How the Right Lost Its Mind), many of whom have a major stake on maintaining their conservative bona fides. (Sure, a few have moved closer to Democrats, especially to ones they find congenial on issues of empire and economy.) Few even mention anti-anti-Trump sentiments on the the actual left, let alone name names. I suspect that if one did, they'd turn out to be sham leftists and/or simple fools.

New records reviewed this week:

Bad Bunny: Debí Tirar Más Fotos (2025, Rimas Entertainment): Puerto Rican rapper/singer, big star in his niche ("Spotify's most streamed artist of the year, 2020-2022"), sixth studio album. I've listened to, and enjoyed, most of them, without ever quite graduating to fan, which may be chalked up to my incomprehension of the language, or could suggest that the rhythm falls just short of making such concerns academic. B+(***) [sp]

Bag of Bones: No One Gets Saved (2023 [2024], 577): British avant-jazz quartet: Riley Stone-Lonergan (tenor sax, from QOW Trio), Rick Simpson (piano), Oli Hayhurst (bass), Will Glaser (drums), first group album. B+(**) [sp]

Towa Bird: American Hero (2024, Interscope): British pop/rock singer-songwriter, born in Hong Kong, "half-Filipino, half-English" started on Tik Tok playing "guitar riffs over other artists' songs," first album. B+(***) [sp]

Robert Sarazin Blake: Let the Longing Run Wild & Free (2025, Same Room): Singer-songwriter, dozen-plus albums since 1996. B+(**) [sp]

Charly Bliss: Forever (2024, Lucky Number): Power pop group from New York, Eva Hendricks the singer, third album, the others from 2017 and 2019 -- long enough ago that I had forgotten how much I liked Young Enough (about as much as I like this one). A- [sp]

The Chills: Spring Board: The Early Unrecorded Songs (2025, Fire): The late Martin Phillipps wrote the songs in the early 1980s, probably before the New Zealand group's 1988-92 breakthrough albums. No recording dates given, but Phillipps, who died at 61 in 2024, is credited with electric guitar and vocals on all songs, along with four others who joined the 2021 edition of the band, so these versions are not old demos. At 20 songs, they arguably went overboard, but half are remarkable, and we're unlikely to get more. A- [sp]

Helene Cronin: Maybe New Mexico (2025, self-released): Previously unknown country singer-songwriter from Texas, fourth album since 2013 (per Discogs; website has the first of those as an EP, along with a couple more). "We're story tellers and ocean walkers," striking ones about wastes of people and land, from a war-addled rifleman to a stripped mine. A- [sp]

Jonah David: Waltz for Eli (2024 [2025], Swish Tap): Drummer, first album as leader, side credits back to 2004 but mostly with Matisyahu. Varied lineups, most with sax, piano (or organ), and bass, guitar on three tracks, vocals (Anna Perkins) on two, trumpet (Jeremy Pelt) on one. B+(*) [cd]

FACS: Wish Defense (2025, Trouble in Mind): Chicago post-punk band, name a tribute to Factory Records, so think Joy Division/New Order with edges less honed, or if you remember them (as I do) the 2007-15 band Disappears, where all members of this trio -- Brian Case (guitar/vocals/keybs), Jonathan van Herik (bass), and Noah Leger (drums) -- got their start. My main caveat is that their sound is so consistent it's hard to pick the better albums out from the also-rans, not that I'm sure there really are any. A- [sp]

Satoko Fujii Tokyo Trio: Dream a Dream (2024 [2025], Libra): Super-prolific Japanese pianist, this one a trio with bass (Takashi Sugawa) and drums (Ittetsu Takemura), drags a bit in spots, but is brilliant often enough. A- [cd]

Funkrust Brass Band: Make a Little Spark (2024, self-released): New York band, 20-piece group (at least at one point), "mixes post punk, disco, EDM, metal, funk, Balkan brass and New Orleans second line, with snazzy uniforms, choreography, megaphone vocals, and all-original music." Two earlier (2017-19) albums fall short of LP-length, and their collection of demos and remixes isn't much longer, but this one counts, and I'm a sucker for a good tuba section. A- [sp]

Future: Mixtape Pluto (2024, Freebandz/Epic): Atlanta rapper Nayvidius Wilburn, 17 mixtapes since 2010, first studio album was Pluto in 2012. I've never quite understood the difference, nor can I tell you what distinguishes trap from hip-hop, but if you set up a 2x2 plot on those two axes even I could assign this to the trap/mixtape quadrant. B+(**) [sp]

Freddie Gibbs: You Only Die 1nce (2024, ESGN): Rapper, actual last name Tipton, debut 2013, sixth solo studio album. Title refers back to his 2017 album, You Only Live 2wice. B+(**) [sp]

Muriel Grossmann: MGQ Live in King Georg, Köln (2022 [2025], Powerhouse): Austrian saxophonist (tenor, soprano, alto here), a "spiritual jazz legend" -- which mostly means she's moved by the holy spirit of John Coltrane -- with her quartet: Radomir Milojkovic (guitar), Abel Boquera (organ), and Uros Stamenkovic (drums). B+(***) [sp]

Patterson Hood: Exploding Trees and Airplane Screams (2025, ATO): Drive-By Truckers singer-songwriter, released three solo albums 2004-12 along with group albums, this his fourth (not counting the pandemic-filler Heathen Songs). Too quiet to keep my attention, but interesting enough when I do notice. B+(***) [sp]

Lady Blackbird: Slang Spirituals (2024, Foundation Music Productions/BMG): Jazz singer-songwriter Marley Munroe, based in Los Angeles, second album, has muscled up the production to the point where it's no longer recognizable as jazz, but so far she's making the power work. B+(***) [sp]

Ben Markley: Tell the Truth (2024 [2025], OA2): Discogs credits him with three 1976-81 albums, but another source has him born in 1981, and when you click on "Credits" those three albums vanish (replaced by two others from 1975-77), with his plausible credits starting in 2007, and own albums in 2009. He has six of the latter, including a couple big band efforts, plus one by Live Edge Trio. He's a pianist, and composed all originals, for this postbop quintet with Wil Swindler (alto sax) and Steve Kovalcheck (guitar), plus bass and drums. B+(*) [cd]

Mdou Moctar: Tears of Injustice (2025, Matador): Tuareg singer-guitarist from Niger, steady stream of albums since 2013, started getting some notice after Matador signed him/them in 2021, especially for the 2024 album Funeral for Justice. This is an acoustic remake, recorded after a coup made return problematical for touring musicians. I've made no effort to decipher the words or politics -- the coup itself was notable here for sending US troops in Niger packing, which I took to be good news all around, but I have no idea what the actual impacts there are. In any case, the words mean nothing to me, but slowing them down and quieting the guitars seems as valid as ever. B+(***) [sp]

Isabelle Olivier: Impressions (2024 [2025], Rewound Echoes): French harpist, a dozen albums since 1997, takes title and inspiration from Coltrane, but her "genre melding" touches on folk themes filtered through euroclassical. B+(**) [cd] [03-21]

Juan Perea: Lightkeeper (2022-24 [2025], Zoho): Pianist, based in Chicago, seems to be his debut at 68, kicks off with "Oye Como Va," followed by seven originals and a reprise. Eric Marienthal plays notable alto sax on three cuts. B+(*) [cd]

Jim Snidero: Bird Feathers (2024 [2025], Savant): Alto saxophonist, 28th album over 40 years, decided to mark the occasion with a collection of Charlie Parker tunes, although he slipped four standards into the mix: "These Foolish Things," "Embraceable You," "The Nearness of You," "Lover Man" -- not songs I associate with Parker, but the liner notes explain the connections. Trio with Peter Washington and Joe Farnsworth, an exemplary mainstream rhythm section, as rooted in swing as in bop. Very nicely done, without a hint of danger or irony. B+(***) [cd]

Mitch Towne: Refuge (2024 [2025], Cross Towne): Organ player, Discogs lists 8 side credits back to 1999, but this seems to be his first album as leader, a trio recorded in Omaha with Tetsuya Nishiyama (guitar) and Jeffery Johnson (drums), playing six originals and a piece by Kenny Kirkland. B+(*) [cd] [04-04]

University of Nevada Las Vegas Jazz Ensemble 1: Let the Good Times Roll (2024 [2025], Vegas): Chances are pretty much any music school in the country could assemble a band like this (I've run across similar efforts from UNT and Toronto). No real reason to search them out, or to get snippy about talented students playing repertory (or their first stabs at originals). But this one is pretty enjoyable, thanks largely to song selection (starting with the title). I wouldn't even mind hearing more vocals, at least from ringer guest Laura Taylor, whose "Alright, Okay You Win" is a highlight. B+(**) [cd]

Wavy Bagels With Driveby: A Carfull (2024, Break All): Queens rapper Jackie Mitchell and producer Oscar Torres Jr., each with one other recent album. B+(**) [sp]

WDR Big Band: Bluegrass (2025, MCG Jazz): Westdeutscher Rundfunk, founded 1956 when the Köln radio station split off from Hamburg's NDR (Norddeutscher Rundfunk) and pivoted to jazz, where they've proven a ready source for big band backing. Discogs credits them -- usually as WDR Big Band Köln (or Cologne) -- with 104 albums since 1981, many under the names of guest directors (most prominently: Lalo Schifrin, Vince Mendoza, and Bob Mintzer -- at the helm here) or guest stars. Mintzer arranged ten more or less recognizable bluegrass tunes here, and solos on tenor sax and EWI, with Darol Anger (violin) and Mike Marshall (mandolin) guest stars. A nice exercise unlikely to have any lasting impact in either world. B+(*) [cd]

Rodney Whitaker: Mosaic: The Music of Gregg Hill (2024 [2025], Origin): Mainstram bassist, from Detroit, many side credits since 1985 (Roy Hargrove, Orrin Evans, Wynton Marsalis), over a dozen own albums, in 2019 he kicked off a now extensive series of albums of the compositions of Gregg Hill, back here with what may be the best one yet, largely thanks to stellar performances by Terell Stafford (trumpet/flugelhorn) and Tim Warfield (tenor/soprano sax), with Rick Roe (piano) and Dana Hall (drums). Also four vocals by Rockelle Whitaker, which I'm less enthusiastic about but they do add another dimension to Hill's work. B+(***) [cd]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

None

Old music:

Helene Cronin: Restless Heart (2014, self-released, EP): First album, six songs, 22:28. Sounds nice enough, but no songs really stand out. B+(*) [sp]

Helene Cronin: Belong to the River (2015, self-released, EP): Second album, just a bit longer (7 songs, 24:43), but her sound is striking from the start, as are several of the songs -- including a couple I might object to on politico-philosophical grounds but are too observed to get upset over ("Dangerous," on hazards as childhood learning experiences, and "Lucky Me," on how soldiers make you free). B+(**) [sp]

Helene Cronin: Old Ghosts & Lost Causes (2019, self-released): First full album, 11 songs, 42:23. Good songwriter, but tends to stay understated. B+(*) [sp]

Helene Cronin: Landmarks (2023, self-released): Second full album, 12 songs, put extra effort into the songs, and developed a real band sound. B+(***) [sp]

FACS: Negative Houses (2018, Trouble in Mind): After a pretty impressive 2010-16 run, Disappears bassist Damon Carruesco departed, breaking up the band. But the other three musicians regrouped, with second guitarist Jonathan van Herik moving over to bass, adopting this new name connected to Factory Records -- UK home of Joy Division, which rather more dramatically turned into New Order. This first album preserves their sound, but it's mired in trauma. B+(*) [sp]

FACS: Lifelike (2019, Trouble in Mind): Second album, unless 6 songs, 29:22 demotes it to EP status (as Spotify thinks). A bit slow off the mark, but the last song holds up for 8:21. B+(*) [sp]

FACS: Void Moments (2020, Trouble in Mind): Third album, 7 tracks, 30:34. Solid sound, doesn't develop much. B+(*) [sp]

FACS: Present Tense (2021, Trouble in Mind): Fourth album, 7 tracks, 35:14. Having commented above on how consistent the appeal of Disappears was, and noting the continuity of their latest album, I now have to admit that they fell into a sustained rut -- although their previously heard fifth proper album, Still Life in Decay (2023) did start to step back up. B+(*) [sp]

FACS: Maggot Brain 020324 (2024, self-released): Back cover reads: "Smashed Plastic Anniversary 20192024." Live set as dated, celebrating their 5th anniversary, released as a "Bandcamp exclusive," which included a limited vinyl run. I found this first when looking up "Wish Defense" -- the title song of their 2025 album, which first appeared here. Good dry run for the new album. B+(***) [bc]

Funkrust Brass Band: Dark City (2017, self-released): First album, or EP if you're bothered by the 26:57 run time for seven songs. Not sure how many musicians are in this edition, but the concept is fully evolved, backed with ample brass. B+(***) [sp]

Funkrust Brass Band: Bones and Burning (2019, self-released, EP): Second outing for the "20-piece post-apocalyptic disco-punk brass band playing all original music with megaphone vocals, heavy tuba bass lines, thundering percussion and searing brass melodies." But with just four songs, 18:10, we'll count it as an EP. B+(***) [sp]

Patterson Hood: Killers and Stars (2004, New West): Drive-By Truckers singer-songwriter since 1998, they were just taking off when he released this modest solo effort. B+(*) [sp]

Laura Taylor: Cry Me a River: A Tribute to Julie London (2000 [2001], Quicksilver): Standards singer, based in Las Vegas, details scarce, but after hearing her as an emeritus guest on the UNLV big band album I wanted to hear more. Discogs lists backing vocal credits back to 1978 (mostly with Diana Ross), but no jazz until 1989-90 with Steve Kuhn. AMG co-credits this to guitarist Joe Lano, but his name doesn't appear on the cover. Back cover has him under "featuring," along with Tom Warrington (bass). The songs are taken at a crawl, which suits them all. B+(**) [sp]

Laura Taylor: My Funny Valentine: Memories of Chet Baker (2002, Staying Power): Not as memorable a songbook, but enough to work with, especially with Steve Kuhn (piano), Eddie Gomez (bass), and Lewis Nash (drums). She makes no effort to match Baker's voice or phrasing, other than by taking even the slightest songs slow, which she can do because her own voice is so exquisite. B+(***) [sp]

Laura Taylor: Mountain Greenery (2006, Staying Power): I'm not finding any credits for this (even the duet partner in "Straighten Up and Fly Right") but the arrangements are varied, including drenching strings for the "Porgy and Bess Medley" -- one suggestion is that she picked out instrumentals for her Vegas act, making this some kind of ritzy karaoke. I didn't recognize the title song, but Rodgers & Hart wrote it, with Mel Tormé and Ella Fitzgerald covers. Nothing else, least of all "One Note Samba," got past me. B+(**) [sp]

Laura Taylor: Have Mercer on Me: Laura Taylor Sings Johnny Mercer (2010, Staying Power): A great and varied song book, which she handles with considerable aplomb. No idea who plays on this, but there is some nice sax, as well as piano trio. B+(***) [sp]

Laura Taylor: Dancing in My Feet (1979, Good Sounds): Evidently she did start off as a disco singer, with the title single the theme song for a TV show, Disco Magic. This was produced by T.K. Productions in Florida, presumably related to Terry Kane's TK Records label -- best known for KC & the Sunshine Band and George McRae's "Rock Your Baby" -- although this came out on another Miami-based label. This is a better-than-expected disco obscurity, with the title song recommended for anthologistsm, but I'm also impressed with the ballad "Sad Is the Song." B+(**) [sp]

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

  • Samo Salamon/Ra Kalam Bob Moses Orchestra: Dream Suites Vol. 1 (Samo) [04-10]
  • Reggie Watkins: Rivers (BYNK) [03-28]

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