Blog Entries [60 - 69]

Monday, July 14, 2025

Music Week

July archive (in progress).

Music: Current count 44524 [44492] rated (+32), 16 [18] unrated (-2).

Last week's Music Week was delayed until Tuesday, as I was trying to wrap up my essay and a bunch of last-minute corrections for the Mid-Year 2025 Francis Davis Jazz Critics Poll. So this week's report only covers six days, although it feels like much longer. I handed my essay with standings in on Wednesday, and Arts Fuse published it on Friday, with an improved title: Sharing What We Know at Mid-Year. Jon Garelick also wrote a complementary essay, Listomania! Confessions of a Bad Voter. I unlocked the website so you could see the complete results: New Jazz Albums (441); Rara Avis (134), and all of the voters/ballots.

Once the poll went up, my next job was to get the word out, and I kind of fumbled the ball there. I did post tweets on X and Bluesky. I even posted on Facebook, and shared that with two groups there. And I blasted off a letter to the voter email list. Arts Fuse also sent out their usual notices. But that's about it. I got a couple of letters back, but not many. And when I searched for acknowledgments, I found very little (but I collected notes on what I found; see link below).

At the time, I thought the most useful thing I could do would be to write up my own blog post. I didn't expect to write a lot, but I was feeling cramped by character count limits, and somewhat nauseated by the fleeting artifice I was seeing everywhere in social media. I wound up writing well into Saturday (although the initial Friday post date still stands). I started with my original essay title, Our Second Mid-Year Critics Poll, and started out with the table of essential links. What followed was less about the poll winners and also-rans than it was about the work behind it, and how I saw that work in the present world context.

By the time I finished, I was feeling exhausted, or at least weary. I find my writing increasingly lapsing into memoir -- a feeling I need to explain everything in terms of how it affected me personally, perhaps some kind of fear of losing oneself as you get old and increasingly irrelevant, or just because I'm more aware than ever of how far estranged I feel from the majority. But I do want to make one thing clear here: I'm not disappointed with the reception the poll has received. I'm pretty satisfied with what we've done. And I'm looking forward to doing it again this fall. But I might be a bit relieved that I don't have to keep plugging it right now.

No doubt part of this is because the feedback I have gotten makes up in quality what it lacks in quantity. For instance, this email, from one of our voters, popped up while I was writing the above:

Want to compliment you for an informative Mid Year Poll. Your commentary was insightful and the results exceptionally enlightening. But most importantly, I want to thank you for your dedication to this project. Trying to imagine the countless hours you spent on this makes my head swim.

I also got one letter in the questions queue from a reader in Toronto:

Really enjoy reading your blog and getting new lines of inquiry for jazz.

Can't get into the political side too much as it drives me to the brink of madness, how human beings can be so stupid, but, I guess we're wired that way, I suppose. Social norms just took a turn somewhere back in our forebears time and it just went downhill from there.

I always keep in mind that homo sapiens were always fighting for food, lodging, etc.

Can't escape our animal instincts, it seems.

Anyway, keep up the good work and keep the polls going.

I'm sure that, even though people might not acknowledge you or your work, it is doing some good.

The jazz part is kind of like triage, where you quickly sort through the bodies to pick out a few worth rescuing, even as you know you simply don't have the time or energy to give so many others anything approaching the respect they no doubt deserve. The political/philosophical questions interest me more: I've found myself favoring "philosophical" over "political" recently, because I'm more concerned with how people think, and less so about the distribution of power -- the limits of power might be something else, leading us back to philosophy. I'm not sure my ideas have achieved any real clarity yet, but it does occur to me that much common thinking is profoundly and/or pathetically atavistic, governed by concepts that once seemed valid but are no longer viable, and in some cases plainly ridiculous.

One example is the habit of gravitating toward the leader who shows the most self-confidence in a crisis (e.g., the 90% approval ratings of GW Bush after 9/11, even though he was obviously wrong in every conceivable aspect; I saw that at the time, so why did so few others?). One thing I've thought a great deal about lately is how much the world has changed in my lifetime (which gets us back to 1950), and in the several generations before me (my parents' grandfathers fought in the Civil War, against the Slave Power). At some point I radically reoriented my own thinking to break with theirs, and to take a fresh look at the changed world. Exploring that would be the point of delving deeper into my memories, as I seem to be doing. Along the way I've heard a lot of music, so that's necessarily part of the story, but only part.

When I did another search for jazz poll references today, I only came up with one more piece: Nate Chinen: Take Five: Midsummer Magic. He mentioned that DownBeat's Critics Poll[*] came out the same day as our poll, and admitted that he hadn't voted in either of them: "it has been a challenging season for work-life balance, and I simply got overwhelmed and missed the deadlines." Chinen's essay ends early with only one album under his "Take Five": perennial poll favorite Cécile McLorin Salvant's Oh Snap, which according to my notes isn't due for release until Sept. 19 -- far enough out that no one in our poll jumped the gun (although we did get votes for several August releases)[**]. Supposedly there's more for paid subscribers: we're entering into Substack here. Although he promises he's going to vote in our year-end poll, he wouldn't be the first jazz writer to take his thoughts and bottle them up out of sight and mind.

I don't mean to grouch. I figure everyone's entitled to their own business plan. I'll be unveiling one in the next week or two, although I'm not sure it qualifies as business. I signed up for a Substack account today, and did a bit of preliminary configuration, but haven't written much less published anything yet. The name is "Notes on Everyday Life": a few of us published a political rag named that back in St. Louis in the early 1970s. I registered a domain name like that a fair while back, but I never did much with it. I have some new ideas, where the domain name hosts a sprawling pile of writing about everything, and the Substack offers a view into the pile. The main value I see is:

  1. A system for push notifications.
  2. A fairly reliable email list that I don't have to host and/or maintain.
  3. A comment system that should be fairly safe and manageable.
  4. Some statistical measures of how much interest there is in my writing.

I'm fairly agnostic about the monetization features, which I haven't set up, and may quite possibly never try to use. I'm moving slowly through the various configuration options, trying to figure out what to use, and how to use it. I think it's still premature to publish the URL and solicit subscribers. When I'm ready, I'll announce it first through Bluesky, then here. One bit that I will share here and now is the "Publication short description" -- not really a plan, just something that popped into my head when asked:

Fifty-some years ago I discovered that the personal is political, and wrote about that under this name. Now I'm trying to make it personal again, or at least anti-political.

I'll leave you to ponder what that means. I do expect to write something on it within the week.

After two mammoth weeks for A-list jazz, this week came up pretty short. Perhaps diminishing returns, or flagging energy. Maybe it's time to play something other than jazz -- despite my essay's recommendation that jazz is what the world needs in these perilous times.

[*] I'm not finding a useful link, although Chinen offered this one, which gives you a cover scan featuring Anthony Braxton, who won their Hall of Fame category this year, and touting other winners, like our 2024 album of the year (Patricia Brennan, Breaking Stretch) and rara avis runner-up (Alice Coltrane, The Carnegie Hall Concert). The most interesting claim for me is "it's the largest & most comprehensive Critics Poll in Jazz History" -- largest has been our claim for several years (177 last year; last time I counted theirs was a couple years back, at something like 113, so when I saw Frank Alkyer bragging about the size of his poll, I was skeptical. But according to Chinen, 251 ballots were cast, which is indeed impressive. I'll be interested in seeing who all voted, and how many new names they pulled off of our lists. Also how the larger electorate shifts their various standings. Aside from Brennan and Coltrane, two other major category winners (James Brandon Lewis and Mary Halvorson) have always fared better in our poll than in theirs. I've voted in DownBeat's poll for many years now, and have usually taken copious notes when doing so (see mine for 2025).

By the way, let's also link to All About Jazz's Best Jazz Albums of 2025: All-Star Break Edition. This is also AAJ's second mid-year poll: their first was hastily thrown together after I sent out invites to ours, and this one is much larger, although still only 3 albums deep per voter. I don't know whether our poll spurred these others on, but I'd be happy if it did.

[**] Substack has a Twitter-like feed called Notes. I get notifications about it sometimes, and looked at it today to investigate some stupid overgeneralization. Scrolling down, I see now that Chinen's "Take Five" is a deal where he spots five tracks "you should hear." I probably got the same link he shared, but didn't bother with it because I only focus on whole albums (well, also some EPs, which I generally disparage). I also saw a note that Chinen's "The Gig" had broken into the top 20 music Substacks. I looked their leaderboard up, and see he's slipped back to 21. Most of the top-100 "Bestsellers in Music" are musicians, although Ted Gioia ("The Honest Broker") is number one. He's a jazz critic who also listens to a lot of classical and who has never met a year he couldn't generate a top-100 list for, but he's been MIA from our poll the last couple years, a phenomenon I've alluded to. Other critics I recognize on the list: Greil Marcus (17), Piotr Orlov (45), Eugene S. Robinson (59), Will Friedwald (60), Will Hermes (65), Burning Ambulance [Phil Freeman] (98), Nelson George (99). Orlov and Freeman are the only ones there who voted in our poll, although others have in the past. There are probably some pop/rock critics on the list that I skipped over -- Josh Terry (34) is one I had a hazy recollection of and verified. Robert Christgau didn't make the list, nor did any of the other music feeds I subscribe to.

Looking at the U.S. Politics leaderboard, I see a lot more names I recognize, some that would be interesting to sample, some that would be appalling. Several people I used to read regularly are perched high on the list: Matt Taibbi (9), Paul Krugman (10), Robert Reich (11), Matthew Yglesias (14) -- but they've effectively made themselves invisible (and possibly irrelevant?) by retreating into their private lairs. I shouldn't get too judgmental about something I may wind up doing myself. Farther down, I find some possibly interesting names, and click on a couple: Amy Siskind (100), Sarah Kendzior (55). Clicking mostly gets you a feed of Notes, which are mostly graphics-heavy plugs for articles, but those two were better than most. I even clicked on a Kendzior article, and was pleased to see this: "Thank you for reading! I would never paywall in times of peril. But if you'd like to keep this newsletter going, pease consider becoming a paid subscriber. That ensures every article remains open to everyone."

I made a preliminary pass at creating a Best Jazz Albums of 2025 list. I only pulled out the A/A- albums so far, leaving the B+(***) Honorable Mention section empty, as well as the Notes section, which lists records with lesser grades. But I did manage to collect all of the still unheard albums from the Mid-Year Poll into the Recommended but Unheard list: 166/441 new music albums (37.6%), 42/110 rara avis (38.1%; poll listed 134 albums, but 24 are new reissues of albums I've previously heard, so shouldn't count here). I had previously mention that half of the albums receiving votes were ones I hadn't previously heard of. That's not disproven here, as I've spent the last month whittling that list down as it's been growing.

New records reviewed this week:

Eric Alexander: Chicago to New York (2024 [2025], Cellar Music Group): Mainstream tenor saxophonist, well establish since 1995, also plays some soprano here, leading a quartet with Mike LeDonne (piano), Dennis Carroll (bass), and George Fludas (drums). Back in prime form. B+(***) [sp]

Andy Biskin/Peter Hess/Mike McGinniss/Sam Sadigursky: Reed Basket (2025, self-released): Clarinet quartet, everyone plays Bb and bass clarinet, but you also encounter Eb, alto, and contra-alto. Biskin has a few albums going back to 2000, including such deep Americana as a Stephen Foster set and Songs From the Alan Lomax Collection. Mostly vintage fare here, I think, but I was pleased to hear "A Walk on the Wild Side" in the mix. B+(**) [sp]

Ingi Bjarni: Hope (2023 [2025], Losen): Pianist from Iceland, last name Skúlason, several albums since 2019, this a quartet with guitar (Hilmar Jensson), bass (Anders Jormin), and drums (Magnús Trygvason Eliassen). B+(**) [sp]

Jane Ira Bloom: Songs in Space (2024 [2025], Outline): Soprano saxophonist, 20+ albums since 1980, this a quartet with Dominic Fallacaro (piano), Mark Helias (bass), and Bobby Previte (drums), playing original pieces plus two standards ("I Could Have Danced All Night," "My Foolish Heart"). B+(**) [sp]

Antonio Borghini & Banquet of Consequences: Resta Chi Va (2024 [2025], We Insist!): Italian bassist, debut album 2004, group name continues from his 2023 title. With Tobias Delius (tenor sax/clarinet), Pierre Borel (alto sax), Rieko Okuda (piano), Anil Eraslan (cello), and Steve Heather (drums). This is a good setting, especially for Delius. A- [sp]

Vilhelm Bromander Unfolding Orchestra: Jorden Vi Ärvde (2024 [2025], Thanatosis): Swedish bassist, many side credits since 2008, first album as leader 2016. I count 13 musicians here, only 2 brass but an all-star sax section (Martin Küchen, Alberto Pinton, Christer Bothén, Elin Forkelid), with Alex Zethson (piano) and Mattias Ståhl (vibraphone/marimba). Intimations of grandeur, not my favorite mode, but impressive nonetheless. B+(**) [bc]

Milena Casado: Reflection of Another Self (2025, Candid): Trumpet player from Spain, studied at Berklee, based in New York, first album, produced by Terri Lyne Carrington and Morgan Guerin, hype sheet drops some big guest names without pinning down details. Some soft fusion grooves, and scattered vocals. B+(*) [sp]

Theo Croker: Dream Manifest (2025, Dom Recs): Trumpet player, from Florida, sings some, appeared in 2006 and is closing in on a dozen albums, with his electric keyb grooves he's passed over into pop jazz with some redeeming funk. B+(*) [sp]

Theon Cross: Affirmations: Live at the Blue Note New York (2025, New Soil): British tuba player, started with credits in Sons of Kemet, Moses Boyd Exodus, SEED Ensemble, and has a couple albums as leader since 2019. No date or credits I can find for this, other than "featuring standout performances by Isaiah Collier, James Russell Sims, and Nikos Ziarkas." Hard to follow, but I always loved the put-put-put of a tuba, and the sax finally emerges toward the end. B+(**) [sp]

Angel Bat Dawid & Naima Nefertari: Journey to Nabta Playa (2025, Spiritmuse): Born in Atlanta, parents were missionaries, moved to Kenya when she was 7, eventually back to Chicago. Plays clarinet and piano, electronics, sings, fourth album since 2019. Nefertari ("aka Karlsson") seems to come from England, is credited with various keyboards, flutes, vibes (and other percussion), vocals, and harp. The drags on a lot, like it should at least be interesting, but can't keep attention. B [sp]

John Ellis: Heroes (2023 [2025], Blue Room Music): Saxophonist, albums since 1996, leads a quintet through eight originals: Michael Rodriguez (trumpet), Gary Versace (piano), Reuben Rogers (bass), and Kush Abadey (drums). Ends with a nice African-style piece. B+(**) [sp]

Elliot Galvin: The Ruin (2023 [2025], Gearbox): British pianist, several albums since 2012 as well as groups like Dinosaur and side-credits. Some trio with bass and drums, some with string quartet, some with both, with Shabaka Hutchings playing bamboo flute on one track, shakuhachi on another. B+(*) [sp]

John Hart: Love Is (2023 [2024], SteepleChase): Guitarist, more than a dozen albums since 1990, trio here with Kirk Knuffke (cornet) and Carlo DeRosa (bass). More fine work, espcially from Knuffke. B+(**) [sp]

Ryan Keberle & Collectiv Do Brasil: Choro Das Aguas (2023 [2025], Alternate Side): Trombonist, has some big band experience (notably with Maria Schneider and Pedro Giraudo), his own albums start in 2007 with several rotating projects, this his second with a Brazilian group: Felipe Seviera (keyboards), Felipe Brisola (bass), and Paulinho Vicente (drums). Eight songs from Ivan Lins, plus two originals. Good spotlight for his trombone. B+(***) [cd] [07-18]

Joe McPhee: I'm Just Sayin' (2025, Smalltown Supersound): Avant-sax legend since the late 1960s, 85 now, only credited with "voice and poetry" here, his accompaniment from Mats Gustafsson, credited with "baritone and bass sax, flutes, piano mate, piano harp, organ, fender rhodes and live electronics." B+(**) [sp]

Amina Claudine Myers: Solace of the Mind (2023 [2025], Red Hook): Pianist, has also played a fair amount of organ, originally from Arkansas, moved to Chicago in the 1960s, involved in AACM, moved on to New York, recording her first albums 1979-80, but not many. Still, she got a lot of attention for last year's duo with Wadada Leo Smith, and for this solo piano effort. B+(**) [sp]

Qasim Naqvi: Endling (2024 [2025], Erased Tapes): Pakistani drummer, based in New York, known for the trio Dawn of Midi, has several albums, including a recent trio with Wadada Leo Smith and Andrew Cyrille. This is something else, synthesizer with a centerpiece vocal from Moor Mother. B+(*) [sp]

Camila Nebbia: Rastro O Vacío (2025, Lilaila): Tenor saxophonist, from Argentina, based in Berlin, has been prolific lately. Solo here, 17 mostly short pieces (only 2 over 4:03, and only 2 more over 3:07), a little rough in spots but impressively bold. B+(**) [bc]

Gilbert Paeffgen Trio: Der Mann Auf Dem Trampolin (2024 [2025], Rabbit Hill): Swiss drummer, also plays hammered dulcimer (prominent here), has mostly trio albums since 1994, this one with Claude Meier (bass) and Fabian M. Mueller (piano). B+(***) [cd]

Evan Parker/Bill Nace: Branches (2024 [2025], Otoroku): A founding figure of the European avant-garde, plays soprano sax here, his distinctive style built largely out of circular breathing. Nace is from New Jersey, mostly a guitarist, active since 2008, plays "electric two-string tashiōgoto" here, generating a lot of harmonic fuzz that seems well matched to Parker's buzz. One 40:11 piece. B+(*) [bc]

Eric Scott Reed: Out Late (2025, Smoke Sessions): Mainstream pianist, learned in his father's church, joined Wynton Marsalis in the 1990s, has several dozen albums, this the first to use his middle name, a quintet with Nicholas Payton (trumpet), Eric Alexander (tenor sax), Peter Washington (bass), and Joe Farnsworth (drums). The saxophonist is most notable here. B+(**) [sp]

Toms Rudzinskis: Interception (2023 [2024], Jersika): Alto saxophonist, from Latvia, has a couple previous albums back to 2014. Quartet with piano, bass, and drums, plus a string quartet on the side. B+(***) [sp]

Aki Takase/Daniel Erdmann/Kazuhisa Uchihashi: Tanto (2022 [2025], Innocent): Trio of piano, tenor/soprano sax, and guitar/idiophone, recorded in Japan, although the pianist has long been based in Berlin, and has a half-dozen recent albums with Erdmann. B+(***) [bc]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

Gato Barbieri: Standards Lost and Found 1 (1968 [2024], Red): Tenor saxophonist (1932-2016) from Argentina, moved to New York in the 1960s and produced an impressive series of free jazz albums for Flying Dutchman, followed by another powerful set Latin-tinged albums for Impulse! in the 1970s, but won a Grammy for the soundtrack to Last Tango in Paris and wound up recording pop-jazz fare for Herb Alpert. This is an early set, recorded after his first album, recorded in Italy with Franco D'Andrea (piano), Giovanni Tommaso (bass), and Pepito Pignatelli (drums), half of the eight "standards" from Miles Davis (3) or Herbie Hancock (1), 2 from the band (D'Andrea and Tommaso), plus "Lush Life" and "Softly, as in a Morning Sunrise." B+(***) [bc]

Gato Barbieri: Standards Lost and Found 2 (1968 [2025], Red): Same group, probably same session ("Spring 1968"), eight more "standards": covers of Charlie Parker, Ahmad Jamal, two each from Monk and Ornette, plus two Barbieri originals. B+(***) [bc]

Blackbyrds: City Life (1973-74 [2025], Craft): Jazz-funk fusion group, released seven albums 1974-80, trumpet player Donald Byrd played on their first album, was listed as producer here, the band a quintet of keyboards (Kevin Toney), sax (Stephen Johnson), guitar (Orville Saunders), bass (Joe Hall), and drums (Keith Kilgo), with other musicians thanked but not properly credited. This was their first (of three) gold records, charted at 1 (jazz), 3 (r&b), and 16 overall. This seems pretty slight, but the extras include a version of "Rock Creek Park" long enough to win me over. B+(*) [sp]

Jaki Byard: Blues for Smoke (1960 [2025], Candid): Pianist (1922-99), first recorded album but wasn't released until 1971 in Japan, later (1988?) in US. Solo, original pieces, some sparkling. Went on to record some outstanding albums -- The Last From Lennie's (1965) is a favorite, but my sampling has been limited. B+(**) [sp]

Walter Davis Jr: A Being Such as You (1979 [2025], Red): Pianist (1932-90), worked with Dizzy Gillespie, Art Blakey, Max Roach, and others; released an album, Davis Cup, on Blue Note in 1959, but nothing else until he started showing up on European and Japanese labels in 1978. He recorded two albums in Italy in quick succession, Blues Walk half trio, half added trumpet, then this set of solo piano. B+(*) [bc]

Dexter Gordon: Landslide (1961-62 [2025], Blue Note): Tenor sax great, made his mark on bebop with "The Chase" (1947), recorded major albums for Savoy in the 1950s, but really hit his stride in his 1961-65 run on Blue Note. This was cobbled together from three sessions in 1980, and is finally getting the fancy vinyl treatment. I'm streaming, and they sound like scraps, but they couldn't be anyone else's. B+(**) [sp]

Green Cosmos: Abendmusiken (1981-82 [2025], Frederiksberg): German group, recorded this one album, a quartet of Michael Boxberger (soprano/tenor sax), Benny Düring (piano), Ulrich Franke (bass), and Alfred Franke (drums/kalimba). Draws nicely on the spiritual dimension of Coltrane. B+(**) [sp]

Sun Ra: Uncharted Passages: New York Piano Soliloquies 1977-79 (1977-79 [2025], Modern Marmonic): Solo piano, nine tracks from July 1977 -- same studio and month as the solo album St. Louis Blues, but the only titles repeated here ("St. Louis Blues," "Honeysuckle Rose") are in longer versions -- plus four tracks (three standards) from a later date. Two vocals by June Tyson, which I regard as a plus. B+(**) [sp]

Sun Ra: On Jupiter (1979 [2025], Saturn/Strut): Originally released on El Saturn in 1979, credited to Sun Ra and His Arkestra, three tracks, with a live take of "UFO" added to the 2021 CD reissue. This keeps the live track, returns to the original artwork, and cuts the credit back down to just Sun Ra. B+(**) [sp]

Old music:

  • None

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

  • None

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Friday, July 11, 2025

Our Second Mid-Year Critics Poll

The Arts Fuse published our second mid-year jazz critics poll today. You can read all about it here:

I say "our" guardedly. The 2024 mid-year poll was originally my idea, although based on my experience in helping Francis Davis with his annual year-end poll, especially the last several years, as his health worsened. And while he didn't actually participate in it, he allowed my use of his name, mailing list, and website (which I had built from scratch years ago). So I could say "our" in the sense of "Francis and me," except that he died in April, so his contribution to our project has now become intangible. Still, he seemed pleased when I offered to keep his annual tradition going, in what is now our 20th year. But after his death, I only did so with the blessing and encouragement of his widow, Terry Gross, so now she, too, is a critical component of "we."

But there are larger circles of "we," without which my own efforts would be much poorer, or perhaps impossible. First there is the dozen or so volunteers so serve as my sounding board as I think my way through this fairly complex project, and who often provide invaluable help with specific tasks. Some are old personal friends, but most are voters who stepped up when I asked for help -- or in a couple cases, offered to help even before I asked, and one was a previously unknown reader who caught a mistake on the website and went on to give the whole thing a very thorough proofreading. (I am a notoriously lousy proofreader, so I really appreciate help on that score.) I won't name them all here, but Jon Garelick wrote the keynote essay, freeing me to just focus on the technical details. And William Marx finished the editing and presentation at The Arts Fuse, which gave us a professional look that I seem to be incapable of achieving.

The next larger circle of "we" is the 113 critics who voted in the poll. Without them, we would literally have had nothing to say. These are all remarkable people, who have spent countless hours searching out and listening to the deluge of new jazz, and to sharing their discoveries in print, radio, and/or digital media. It's been a pleasure and an honor to have gotten to know them, and to work with them. And that also includes dozens more who politely declined to send in their lists, mostly because they lacked time and/or felt uncomfortably unsure of their choices. (I sympathize, as a critic who's guessing so often he's gotten used to not letting uncertainty bother him.)

But "we" also extends to the hopefully much broader circle of readers, who find this and other polls interesting and useful in exploring and understanding the vast and dauntingly complex world of jazz and more or less related music. This poll is by some of us, but for all of us. Although I can't say as we ever talked about it -- Francis and I weren't exactly "pals" as one voter recently put it, so much of what we gleaned from one another was between the lines, for which now you only have my word -- but my initial take was that Francis started a poll of his friends mainly to drum up some content for his annual best-of piece, only to find to his delight that it opened doors to an ever-widening community of critics and fans.

And once he saw his creation, he deemed the poll a cause worth continuing, even at personal cost. After he left the Voice, he had no need to crank out year-end pieces. (Or perhaps I should say after the Voice left us. I also wrote for the Voice back then, and had gotten involved with the poll when their IT department scoffed at Francis's insistence on publishing complete ballots -- something they had done for Robert Christgau's much more commercially viable Pazz & Jop poll). But even in those early days the poll was finding a much broader and more demanding range of postmodern jazz than was featured in narrower (but supposedly more popular) publications like JazzTimes and DownBeat. JazzTimes ran a year-end poll of their own writers, and Francis took great interest in comparing their results to ours. Their poll skewed much more commercial than ours, even with most of their writers also voting in ours. Some of this may be ascribed to Francis vetting critics according to his own taste -- not that he didn't respect and entertain other viewpoints. (I'm probably less picky, or maybe just less discerning than he was, possibly because I'm less convinced of my own opinions, and maybe because I'm too aware of how idiosyncratic my views are to expect others to share them.)

One thing I thought about mentioning but didn't find a way to work it into my essay was how much I've missed not having Francis looking over my shoulder, overseeing the project, even batting down my crazy ideas, imparting an air of stability and dignity to the whole affair. I'm not normally inclined to defer to authority, but I held Francis in exceptionally high esteem, and wanted to please him, perhaps because I couldn't imagine actually impressing him. I especially wanted not to fail him, where an obvious metric would have been losing voters. No doubt many of my ideas annoyed him, but I rarely pressed a point, or let my frustrations sour the relationship. Over time, I got better at anticipating and internalizing his way of thinking. I'm still not smart enough to answer the question, "what would Francis think?" But I'm not totally clueless or careless either.

I had written some rock reviews in the mid-1970s, including 10-12 for Robert Christgau at the Village Voice. Some friends had egged me into sending him a sample of my samizdat, and he took me under his wing, as he did a number of bright young writers during the 1970s.[*] In some ways, Christgau was as imposing a figure even then as Davis was when I encountered him much later, but I noticed less at the time, or cared less: probably some mix of arrogance and naivete, not uncommon in one's mid-twenties but something one grows out of with age. We became friends, and remained in touch. He talked me into writing my first piece on jazz reissues in 1996, and several more pieces in the early 2000s. I talked him into letting me build him a website in 2001. I had written some Consumer Guide-style pieces back in the 1970s, and returned to the format for an oldies column I started writing for Michael Tatum in 2003, Recycled Goods. I knew nothing technical about music, so I always felt like an impostor as a jazz critic, but I knew a lot of history, I had a voracious appetite for new music, and by then I had heard enough of it to develop an ear for what was distinctive and interesting. I had pretty systematically explored many references, especially The Penguin Guide, but also the collected works of Gary Giddins and Francis Davis. So when Giddins left the Voice, I wasn't surprised that they would look to Davis to fill his shoes. (Davis had filled in when Giddins took a sabbatical, which was when I first encountered his work.) I was surprised when Christgau asked me to write a Jazz Consumer Guide, but jumped at the chance. I figured the idea was that with Davis doing the big, quality reviews, I could fill in with quantity. And with neither of us were based in New York, they could use freelancers to fill occasional live coverage. It worked pretty well until the Voice went to hell. They fired Christgau in 2006, but Rob Harvilla kept us working up to 2010, when he too split. After that it was effectively over.

By then, Francis needed me to make sure that the ballots would be published in full. He used to collect everything on his own, then dump the whole pile on me when it was done. I wound up spending more time checking his work than it would have taken me to count the ballots in the first place. Somewhere along the line, I managed to make myself indispensable, so every poll started with an email asking whether I would be available to help out, and making it seem like without me the poll would end. For reasons too embarrassing to explain here, I always was. Sometimes I would nominate a voter, or write a bit on the side, and he was usually open to that. But he was something of a control freak: not unreasoning, arbitrary, or cruel, but very much in charge. I could respect that. He was a great man, and I was pleased to be able to help him. Later, as his health failed, he needed more and more help, and eventually had to cede everything to me. But he had that commanding air about him, even as he became nearly helpless in the last poll, when I finally had effective control, and started inviting almost totally unvetted European critics just to mix things up (and make my numbers: I was proud of that record 177 in 2024). And he actually was pretty gracious, so perhaps my insecurity had gotten out of hand.

At some point along the way, one of our voters made a reference to "the Francis Davis poll," and I latched onto that idea. At first it seemed like a harmless bit of flattery, a way of keeping him engaged as he was slipping away. But he didn't object, and once thanked me for "turning him into a brand." But the name now feels like a legacy to maintain, as well as an inspiration to carry on. How long I can continue isn't clear. While Davis seemed like much the senior figure, I'm only four years younger than him. My present plan is to run a 20th Annual Poll in November, then we'll see.

I'd like to, in the meantime, significantly redesign the website. The present one, at least since 2016 or so, has been cobbled together by tacking each new year onto the end: I start with a copy of the previous year, then edit some dates, tweak the programs, and build up a new set of data files. The top level is just an index of polls. And the early years are just scattered files that originally appeared elsewhere, as they predate the software I wrote to generate the web pages. A better solution would be to consolidate the history at the top level: the bits that have changed over time can be documented as such, while the continuities only need to be written up once. I tried to write some of this up in 2022, in an essay I don't recall him as being very happy with. Since he can no longer correct me, it would be good to go back through his files to check what he was thinking: a big and no doubt fascinating project.

The second thing would be to consolidate the data in a database. This would allow us to construct queries that cross poll boundaries: for example, we could see how a critic voted from year to year, or how an artists' albums fared each year. Those are simple things I frequently wonder about, but only scratch the surface. The biggest problem here is dealing with the rule changes over time. I suspect we will also find errors made long ago, and will have to explain them one way or another. I don't have a detailed design here, but I do have a fairly good feel for the data, to help organize it in more useful form.

This is conceivably a large amount of work -- even if I don't seriously consider any of the "blue sky" notions that keep popping into my head, like community and resource development -- and I'm not sure I'm really up to it. I've always had a pretty solid work ethic (runs in my family) but I never developed the discipline to really see my ideas through, let alone to satisfy standards that have been diagnosed as perfectionist. Consequently, much of what I do is driven by my personal desire to help friends (also runs in my family), driven by their needs and limited by satisfaction -- which is probably why the Christgau and Davis websites are good enough to serve their purposes, but not nearly as good as they could (or should) be, and also why my own website (and for that matter much of my life) remains a rambling, incoherent mess.

It seems like one area where I always come up short is in getting the word out. When the essays were published on ArtsFuse, I put out my usual notices on X, Bluesky, and also one on Facebook (with further shares to two groups). I also sent mail to all of the voters (not that gmail necessarily delivered it all). I hoped people would take notice and spread the word. So when I later searched through Google, I was rather disappointed at how little I found:

I also have a few personal thanks in my inbox (4 in response to the group email, a few more elsewhere). I will likely find more in the days to come, but not much. Previous polls produced more feedback, but not a lot more. Nothing really does. Some of this is probably my fault: I don't make it especially easy to comment or to contact me. My engagement in social media is fairly minimal. Perhaps my style and airs put people off? Or maybe the world is just so saturated with demands for attention that everyone is turned off. The season may even have an effect.

I fairly regularly throw out questions on the off chance that someone might take an interest and answer, but they rarely do. At some point during my ruminations on the poll, I asked for tips on how to get noticed, and I did get one answer back on that. The suggestion was that we needed a logo, so the poll could be used as branding in the promotion of winning albums. And with this logo, we could get publicists to promote their winning albums, and thereby propagate the brand without having to pay for out own PR. I'm not dead set against this strategy. I'm on pretty good terms with quite a few publicists, and I usually try to keep them informed and interested (although I've been remiss so far in notifying them). And while I'd say I'm a "no logo" kind of guy (and not just because of the politics of this), I don't doubt that a little more graphic design would spruce up the website (and possibly seduce the aggregators into giving us a bit more presence). But I was thinking more in terms of trying to get more people (especially voters) to write up their own takes on the poll (or at least blast their own ballots out). That was part of the reason for inviting Jon Garelick to write his essay. (He's a regular Arts Fuse writer, so we already had leverage there.) I even toyed with the idea of offering interviews, which isn't really in my nature, but I know enough about the poll I could probably muddle through. Still, it's not too late to try again. After this post, I'll pivot back to publicity again.

But the logo idea got me thinking about the big difference between our poll and more famous others, ranging from small potatoes like the JJA Jazz Awards to big-time publicity rackets like the Grammys. It's not just the logo that we don't have. We also don't have trophies. Nor do we have dinners, where we can wear formal dress and hobnob with celebrities. Steve Lehman can brag about his win, but it's not going to get him a subway pass or a hot dog or much of anything else tangible. It's not even going to get him the chance to meet some of the critics who admire his work. And the further down the list you go, the less you have to brag about -- although in my book making the list at all is some kind of honor.

If someone approached me with some pro bono graphic design or publicity work, I'd seriously consider it, because I think the poll does good work, and more people should find out about it. But if someone offered to turn it into a spectacle, I'd probably just walk away in disgust. It's true that I've made a little bit of money off my work here, but that was never my reason, and I'm pretty sure that was never Francis's reason either. I've been fortunate in my later years is that I've been able to write and do what I want with virtually no regard to earning an income. That's a rare luxury in a world where there is actually very damn little correlation between the social worth of work and its remuneration. It's about as good a definition of freedom as you can find. So I don't see any point in sacrificing that just to toil in someone else's circus. I'd rather keep doing things that are actually interesting for their own sake, and helpful in a world where everyone is becoming enraged by the growing fear of forces trying to rip you off.

[*] If Trish Romano reads this, follow up your oral history of the Village Voice with one that focuses just on the music section in the 1970s. That was the golden decade for New York rock and roll, and especially for rock crit, and Christgau wouldn't have called himself "the dean of American rock critics" without sensing the centrality and importance of the moment. And delay risks running out of time. Christgau gave up the post of Music Editor early in the 1980s, which allowed him more time to work on his own writing, but the section languished -- or so it seemed to me, but having stopped writing and moved away from New York it could be that I wasn't paying attention, or had just passed the once ominous milestone of a 30th birthday.

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Tuesday, July 8, 2025

Music Week

July archive (in progress).

Music: Current count 44492 [44435] rated (+57), 18 [23] unrated (-5).

Music Week got pushed out a day this week, extending an already bountiful list even more. The reason was that I needed Monday to work on my intro essay to the Mid-Year 2025 Francis Davis Jazz Critics Poll. Voting shut down on July 4, with 113 ballots counted, yielding 437 distinct New Jazz Albums and 134 Rara Avis. About half of those albums weren't in my tracking file before polling, but are now. Nearly everything below comes from checking out albums that received votes. This has overwhelmed my ability to post links on Bluesky to newly discovered A-list albums. The idea there was to gin up interest in the coming Music Week, so there's little point in trying to catch up now. But I will note that had I heard it earlier, The Ancients would have made my ballot (published here last week). As a rule of thumb, I figure it takes an average of 3 weeks after filing a ballot to find another album that was good enough to make it -- and more like 3 days to find a contender, but this week shows how a poll can accelerate that process. I have, by the way, cobbled together a Best Jazz of 2025 file (jazz only, and only the A-list portions).

The poll should be published at The Arts Fuse this week, at which point I'll unlock all the totals and ballots on my archival website. Already you can see the voter list and unranked lists of all the albums that received votes. I'm not perfectly happy with the state of the notes files on the website, but beating them into shape has been a very tiring task, and there's little evidence that people read them anyway. The other thing I would like to do is to set up some sort of framework for data analysis, but that too will likely have to wait. The poll seems to repeatedly go through a cycle of three phases: before voting starts, no real urgency to work on it; once voting starts, no time; and once it closes, no energy left.

I tried to minimize wear and tear this time by cutting back on how much I needed to write at the end, I asked one of Arts Fuse's regular writers, Jon Garelick, to write the keynote essay, while I just write an introduction to the tables and voter list. While the website could still use more work, the essays are basically ready to go.

I had some vague ideas about trying to publicize the poll, including a fairly open invite to let other people see the results in hopes they would write their own explorations. To date, nobody's taken me up on that offer. So, as exhaustion sets in, I'll probably wait until November before going into panic mode again.

In the meantime, I have lots of other projects to work on. After I hit a minor milestone, I stopped working on the woodpile project. Not a lot more to do there: some final sorting, some cleaning, and construction of my recycling kiosk. If the heat isn't unbearable, that's probably a week. I also have parts to build a new computer for my wife. That's maybe an afternoon. But mostly I need to get back to my planning, especially for writing, but also website development.

I'm leaning towards restarting the political book project. I'm sufficiently upset with the state of the world to bring some heat. The old outlines are all in the dustbin. The new one is what I call the "weird" book, because something weird happened in the 2024 election, and I think I can make sense of it now. The trick will be to write as much as I can as fast as I can, which means almost totally off the top of my head. It will be somewhat cryptic, and will need a subsequent fact-check phase, but I want to go all the way through the ultimate utopian/dystopian scenarios. It will mostly be about how I think, and how I think you should think. History offers evidence, but we need to bring mentality and psychology to the fore, because that's where the struggle actually is.

If I can knock out 80-120 pages in 4-6 weeks, I have little doubt that it can be fleshed out into a respectable book. I may look for help then, or may struggle on my own. One difference this time is that I feel very little pressure to moderate my views to establish some sort of common front with pro-business Democrats. I can go back to my early radicalism, which offers the sharpest critique of all political parties.

And if I can't write that much, it shows I lack the willpower and discipline, and might as well give up (again). I can always go back to writing bits about music and everyday life, to running polls, to hacking on websites, to entertaining occasional guests, and sorting out my stuff. Plenty to do on those accounts, and not exactly worthless or unpleasant, either.

But before diving into that, I figure I should write up a little Loose Tabs, just to get back into the swing of things. How far out of it I've been is possibly shown by my finding an article called A Tale of Two BBBs and wondering what the Better Business Bureau has been up to lately.

In books, note that I finally finished Greg Grandin's monumental America, América: A New History of the New World. The last couple chapters were so sharply critical of US policy in the region that my next book had to be Noam Chomsky's The Myth of American Idealism (co-written by Nathan J Robinson). I haven't ordered it yet, but the next logical choice would be John Cassidy's Capitalism and Its Critics: A History From the Industrial Revolution to AI. Zachary Carter has been recommending the book, and I'm curious about how wide-ranging the critiques are.

Lately I've been taking a fairly narrow view of capitalism, as the system where owners of capital get all the profits, and thereby accrue extraordinary power. The alternative doesn't have to be a system of communal ownership. Basically, any scheme that distributes profits and/or prevents the conversion of profit to power counteracts the dangers inherent in capitalism. I can think of a dozen, at least, including ones that sustain nearly all of the benefits of personal freedom, independent firms, and open markets.

New records reviewed this week:

Rez Abbasi Acoustic Quintet: Sound Remains (2024 [2025], Whirlwind): Pakistani guitarist, grew up in Los Angeles, based in New York, albums from 1993, mostly plays electric fusion with Indo-Pak airs, but has two 2010-15 Acoustic Quartet albums with Bill Ware (vibes), Stephan Crump (bass), and Eric McPherson (drums), adding extra percussion (Hasan Bakr) here. B+(**) [sp]

Alchemy Sound Project/Sumi Tonooka: Under the Surface (2024 [2025], ARC): Credit from spine. Front cover reads more like: Under the Surface: Alchemy Sound Project Performs the Music of Sumi Tonooka. Group is basically a composers collective, with a previous album from 2018, playing one or two pieces from each of their members: Erica Lindsay (tenor sax), Samantha Boshnack (trumpet), Salim Washington (tenor sax/bass clarinet/flute), David Arend (bass, replaced here by Gregg August), and Sumi Tonooka (piano) -- also on board here are Johnathan Blake (drums) and Michael Ventoso (trombone). Tonooka, from Philadelphia, has a distinguished but not very prolific career going back to the 1980s, well deserving of this showcase. B+(***) [cd]

Arild Andersen: Landloper (2020 [2024], ECM): Norwegian bassist, one of the generation heavily influenced by George Russell in the early 1970s, has a major career. This is solo, with effect pedals but recorded live, supplementing his own pieces with standards, including "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square," "Ghosts" (Ayler), and an Ornette Coleman/Charlie Haden medley ("Lonely Woman"/"Song for Che"). B+(**) [sp]

Arashi With Takeo Moriyama: Tokuzo (2019 [2024], Trost): Free jazz trio of Akira Sakata (alto sax, clarinet some vocals), Johan Berthling (bass), and Paal Nilssen-Love (drums), fifth album since their namesake release in 2014, joined here by a second drummer, who has a long history with Sakata (both were b. 1945). Some powerful sax runs. B+(***) [sp]

Omer Avital: New York Now & Then (2023 [2025], Zamzama): Bassist, originally from Israel, long based in Brooklyn, recorded this live with trumpet/flugelhorn, two saxes, trombone, piano, drums, and justly excited crowd noise. "IDKN" seems to be his song, but sounds a lot like Horace Silver to me. And there's much more like that. Also a Lucy Wijnands vocal. A- [sp]

Sasha Berliner: Fantôme (2025, Outside In Music): Vibraphonist, from Los Angeles, debut album 2019, also credited here with synths, congas, and percussion, six tracks with Harish Raghavan (bass) and Jongkuk Kim (drums), plus keyboards (Taylor Eigsti or Lex Korten) and a couple horn spots. B+(**) [bc]

Dee Dee Bridgewater + Bill Charlap: Elemental (2025, Mack Avenue): Née Denise Garrett, from Memphis, grew up in Flint, married trumpet player Cecil Bridgewater, recorded some scarcely remembered disco albums in the 1970s, remade herself as a jazz singer with 1989's Live in Paris -- the first of a string of Grammy-nominated albums (with wins for tributes to Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday). First album since 2017, just her and the pianist for eight standards, kicking off with Ellington's "Beginning to See the Light," giving her a lot of opportunity to scat. The ballads don't, but she nails them too. A- [sp]

Alan Broadbent: Threads of Time (2025, Savant): Pianist, from New Zealand, 78, started with a big band in 1979. I first really noticed him arranging strings for Charlie Haden, but he's a fluid pianist with a number of solo and trio albums. Info on this is scarce, but it's a sextet, with names on the cover: Sam Dillon (tenor sax), Scott Wendholt (trumpet), Eric Miller (trombone), Harvie S (bass), Lucas Ebeling (drums). Lush, of course. B+(**) [sp]

Kevin Brunkhorst: After the Fire (2023 [2025], Calligram): Guitarist, UNT graduate, old enough to remember seeing the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, has a previous Bicoastal Collective album with Paul Tynan. Postbop quintet with trumpet, sax, bass, and drums. B [cd]

Nanna Carling: Melodies for Two (2024 [2025], The End): Swedish singer, also plays soprano sax, second album, part of a rather large family act that goes back to 2002, when she was 5 -- the one I'm familiar with is trombonist-singer Gunhild Carling, front and center on a 2004 album cover that also cites Max, Gerd, Ulf, Aina, and Hans, with Nanna still not listed on their 2023 album, only appearing on Idun Carling's 2024 album. Starts in the family's trad jazz vein, but loses a bit of swagger. B+(*) [sp]

Joe Chambers/Kevin Diehl/Chad Taylor: Onilu (2023 [2025], Eremite): Percussion trio, each with a long list of credits, although Diehl (leader of Sonic Liberation Front) specializes in batá drums, and Chambers plays conga and idiophones and is well established on marimba/vibraphone, which Taylor also plays, as well as mbira and piano. Title is from Yoruba, which pins down the center of their map, extending everywhere. A- [dl]

Chaos Magick: Through the Looking Glass (2024 [2025], Tzadik): Sixth album by a quartet formed in 2021 to play John Zorn compositions, consists of Matt Holenberg (guitar), Brian Marsella (Fender Rhodes), John Medeski (organ), and Kenny Grobowski (drums) -- Discogs credits the albums to non-player Zorn (common practice with him), but Tzadik credits group name. B+(*) [sp]

Etienne Charles: Gullah Roots (2025, Culture Shock): Trumpet player, from Trinidad, teaches in Miami, ten albums since 2006, several with "Creole" in the title. Leads a sextet, with a large number of guests (mostly singers, not my favorite part). B+(**) [cd]

Chris Cheek: Keepers of the Eastern Door (2024 [2025], Analog Tone Factory): Tenor saxophonist, from St. Louis, albums since 1997 as well as considerable side work. Also plays soprano here, with Bill Frisell (guitar), Tony Scherr (bass), and Rudy Royston (drums). B+(*) [sp]

Chicago Edge Ensemble: Paradoxes in Freedom (2024 [2025], Lizard Breath): Fourth group album since 2017, led by Dan Phillips (guitar), with Jeb Bishop (trombone), Josh Berman (cornet), Krzysztof Pabian (bass), Avreeayl Ra and/or Steve Hunt (drums). B+(***) [bc]

Laura Cocks: FATHM (2025, Relative Pitch/Out of Our Heads): Solo flute, not a promising proposition, but the concept is "space holding the possibility of everything and nothing, a breath that hasn't yet exhaled." Sort of, if you have the patience for that. B [sp]

Coco Chatru Quartet: Limbokolia (2024 [2025], Trygger Music): Swedish quartet, second album, group named for a "legendary Swedish adventurer, inventor and actress," bassist Håkan Trygger seems to be the principal, with 5 (of 10) song credits, "design," and his name on the label, but the other members also contribute songs: Linus Kåse (alto sax), Charlie Malmberg (baritone sax), and Daniel Kåse (drums), ending on an Ellington. B+(***) [lp]

Isaiah Collier/William Hooker/William Parker: The Ancients (2023 [2025], Eremite): Up-and-coming tenor saxophonist -- first appeared in Ernest Dawkins Young Masters Quartet (2016) -- along with relatively ancient wise men on drums and bass. Effectively a blowing session, but a really impressive one. This would have made my mid-year ballot as I gotten to it in time. A- [dl]

Eight Dice Cloth: The Songs and Arrangements of Armand J. Piron (2024 [2025], self-released): New Orleans trad jazz band, released an EP in 2015 and three numbered albums since, and now this tribute to the little-recorded violinist and bandleader (1888-1943; Discogs shows a compilation of 1923-25 recordings, not much more as a performer but lots as writer and arranger). B+(***) [bc]

Peter Evans/Petter Eldh: JazzFest (2023-24 [2025], More Is More, EP): Trumpet and bass, normally, but someone seems to be working some electronics in, perhaps in post-production. Short: 6 tracks, 21:02. B+(**) [sp]

Freedom Art Quartet: First Dance (2025, self-released): Group founded in 1991 by Lloyd Haber (drums) and Omar Kabir (trumpet/flugelhorn/sea shells/didgeridoo), released an album in 2003 (with Abraham Burton and Jaribu Shahid), returns here with Alfredo Colon (alto sax) and Adam Lane (bass), playing eight Haber originals. Fast and furious freebop. A- [bc]

Sinsuke Fujieda Group: Fukushima (2025, SoFa): Japanese tenor/soprano saxophonist, first Group album, side-credits back to 2003. Group includes piano, bass, drums, extra percussion, and violin. Starts out shades of Coltrane, replete with "spiritual jazz" hype, then gets even catchier. A- [sp]

Champian Fulton & Klas Lindquist: At Home (2025, Turtle Bay): Piano-playing standards singer, has recorded quite a bit since 2004, in a duo with a Swedish clarinetist who has very compatible tastes and skills. B+(***) [sp]

Renaud Garcia-Fons: Blue Maqam (2024, Sound Surveyor Music): French bassist, twenty-some albums since 1993. This one has vocals by Solea Garcia-Fons, with Jean-Luc Du Fraya (drums/percussion) and Stéphan Caracci (vibes/marimba). B+(**) [sp]

Nicole Glover: Memories, Dreams, Reflections (2025, Savant): Tenor saxophonist, several albums since 2015, recently appeared in the supergroup Artemis. Cover offers more names: Tyrone Allen II (bass), Kayvon Gordon (drums), adding "with Lester St. Louis" (cello). B+(**) [sp]

José Gobbo Trio: Confluence (2025, Calligram): Brazilian guitarist, based in Chicago area, With Max Beckman (bass) and Jay Ferguson (drums). B+(**) [cd] [07-11]

Mats Gustafsson/Ken Vandermark/Tomeka Reid/Chad Taylor: Pivot (2024 [2025], Silkheart): Tenor sax joust, backed by cello and drums, the principal switching off to baritone, Bb and bass clarinets, and flutes. They met in the late 1990s, when Vandermark recorded with the Aaly Trio, and were part of the sax trio Sonore with Peter Brötzmann, who was not what you'd call a moderating influence, but even he slowed down with age -- or just got more crafty. I don't hear much from Vandermark these days -- he has a subscription service neatly tucked behind a paywall -- but he is certainly still one of the greats. B+(***) [bc]

Hearts & Minds: Illuminescence (2023 [2025], Astral Spirits): Chicago trio with Jason Stein (bass clarinet), Paul Giallorenzo (keyboards), and Chad Taylor (drums), third album after a self-titled 2016 debut and a second album in 2018. B+(**) [bc]

Arve Henriksen/Trygve Seim/Andmers Jormin/Markku Ounaskari: Arcanum (2023 [2025], ECM): Norwegian trumpet player, established since 2000, in a quartet with sax, bass, and drums, also name players. B+(*) [sp]

Fred Hersch: The Surrounding Green (2024 [2025], ECM): Pianist, many albums since 1984, in his element here in a trio with Drew Gress (bass) and Joey Baron (drums). B+(**) [sp]

History Dog: Root Systems (2024 [2025], Otherly Love): Brooklyn quartet of Shara Lunon (voice/electronics), Chris Williams (trumpet/electronics), Luke Stewart (bass/electronics), and Lesley Mok (drums/percussion). Interesting words-on-noise mix, with possible roots in Patti Smith and New York No Wave. B+(***) [sp]

Chris Jonas: Backwardsupwardsky: Music From the Deserts (2022-23 [2025], Edgetone, 2-LP): Saxophonist, plays soprano and tenor, based in Santa Fe, Discogs lists a couple albums (first from 1999), but mostly group credits (back to 1991), including a saxophone quartet with Anthony Braxton and big bands led by Cecil Taylor and William Parker. Three sessions here: two trios with bass and drums, mixed in with a quartet recorded in Bologna with Luca Serrapiglio (baritone sax/contra alto clarinet). This latter session is exceptional, and mixed in as it is elevates the trio work, interesting in its own right. A- [lp]

Kaze & Koichi Makigami: Shishiodoshi (2024 [2025], Circum/Libra): One of Satoko Fujii's groups, with two trumpets (Natsuki Tamura and Christian Pruvost) and drums (Peter Orins), joined here by the Japanese vocalist, who also plays shakuhachi and more trumpet. This can get seriously noisy, or fill in with scratchy minimalism and cartoonish voice -- far from sure bets with me, but for once I find it all delightful. A- [cd]

Janet Klein & Her Parlor Boys: Mutiny in the Parlor (2024 [2025], self-released): Trad jazz singer, recorded Come Into My Parlor in 1998, and found her band name, ten or so albums later. Formula is simple enough: "12 tunes from the 1920s and 1930s that will delight and soothe your soul!" That works for me. B+(***) [bc]

Joachim Kühn: Échappée (2023 [2025], Intakt): German pianist, from Leipzig in the East, founding a trio in 1964, but moved to Hamburg in 1966 and started recording the next year. This one is solo, a double (13 songs, 96:13) drawn from five dates. B+(**) [sp]

Jim Kweskin: Doing Things Right (2025, Jalopy): Folkie, founded his Jug Band in 1963, kicking off the careers of Geoff & Maria Muldaur. Sat out the '80s and '90s, but kicked up again around 2003. Cover legend here is: The Berlin Hall Saturday Night Revue Presents: Doing Things Right with Jim Kweskin, featuring: Samoa Wilson, Cindy Cashdollar, Annie Linders, Racky Thomas, Matt Leavenworth. B+(***) [sp]

Los Angeles Improvisation Ensemble: Insubordinate Lunar Transgressions (2021 [2025], Denouement): Despite taking a name representing a city of 3.8 million people (metro area 12.9 million), this is just four musicians: primarily Louis Stewart (piano), with Robert Hardt (woodwinds), Andrew Shulman (cello), and Michael Valerio (bass), which makes it a pretty typical chamber jazz outfit: the cello in particular gives it a classical feel, without triggering my usual aversion. B+(*) [cd]

Chad McCullough/Gordon Spasovski/Kiril Tufekcievski/Viktor Filipovski: Transverse (2024 [2025], Calligram): Trumpet player, based in Chicago, ten or so albums since 2009, here with a piano-bass-drums trio he met by chance in Skopje, Macedonia, and kept in touch with. A very elegant little record. B+(***) [cd] [07-11]

Tyreek McDole: Open Up Your Senses (2025, Artworks): Haitian-American jazz singer, won a prize named after Sarah Vaughan ("only the second male to do so in its 12-year-history"), first album. Runs the gamut here with touchstones from Joe Williams and Pharoah Sanders. B+(*) [sp]

Ava Mendoza/Gabby Fluke-Mogul/Carolina Pérez: Mama Killa (2024-25 [2025], Burning Ambulance): Guitarist, strictly electric, brings hard rock volume into avant-jazz contexts, but that may be oversimplifying things: I've never really gotten into any of the half-dozen albums I've heard. This one also adds violin (they also perform as the duo AM/FM) and drums: the latter's background is in death metal bands (Hypoxia, Castrator). B+(**) [dl]

Camila Nebbia/Dietrich Eichmann/John Hughes/Jeff Arnal: Chrononaux (2024, Generate): Tenor saxophonist from Argentina, impressive last couple years, with the German pianist (specifically credited with upright), bass, and drums, for one long improv (25:37) and another longer one (63:34). Both pieces are terrific. A- [bc]

Joshua Redman: Words Fall Short (2025, Blue Note): A major label tenor saxophonist since 1993, probably more famous than his father -- Dewey Redman, remembered for key work with Ornette Coleman and Keith Jarrett as well as Old and New Dreams and his own signature albums -- but this also slipped into the poll window with scarcely a ripple. Quartet with piano (Paul Cornish), bass (Philip Norris), and drums (Nazir Ebo), with one-track guest spots for Melissa Aldana (sax), Skylar Tang (trumpet), and Gabrielle Cavassa (vocals). This one is simply very nice, including (or perhaps especially) the closing vocal. B+(**) [sp]

Claire Ritter: Songs of Lumière (2024 [2025], Zoning): Pianist, from North Carolina, record label name from Mary Lou Williams, has a dozen-plus albums since 1987, several collaborations with Ran Blake, claims over 300 compositions. Solo, originals sprinkled with a few distinctive standards. I'm not a big fan of the format, usually responding only to a lot of flash and/or a "left hand like God," neither of which apply here, but she keeps my interest throughout. A- [cd]

Kathy Sanborn: Romance Language (2025, Pacific Coast Jazz): Jazz-identified singer-songwriter, previous albums from 2011 and 2017, favors languid ballads with Brazilian airs. B+(*) [cd] [07-11]

The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters: The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters (2024 [2025], Corbett vs. Dempsey): Useful abbreviation here TSORPM, first album, quartet of Gabriele Mitelli (piccolo trumpet/electronics/voice), Mette Rasmussen (alto sax), Mariam Rezael (turntables), and Lukas Koenig (drums/amplified cymbals/bass synth), from all over but recorded in Vienna. This can be tough going, but it's not like it was ever going to be easy to stand up to the monsters. B+(***) [bc]

Something Blue: In the Beginning (2024 [2025], Posi-Tone): Mainstream label founded by Marc Free, released its first albums in 1995, has a long-established stable of players, occasionally formed into house band projects like this one, back for its third album with Art Hirahara (piano), Boris Kozlov (bass) and Rudy Royston (drums) returning from the first album; Alton Sencalar (trombone) and Willie Morris (tenor sax) from the second; and first appearances from Diego Rivera (tenor sax) and Langston Hughes II (alto sax). Title refers to the early days of the label. B+(*) [sp]

Sons of Ra: Standard Deviation (2025, Free Electric Sound): Chicago prog/fusion group, unlikely to have much appeal to Sun Ra fans (which doesn't mean that they aren't), four EPs since 2016, this their first full album. Power trio with Erik Oldman (guitar/bass/synth), Keith Wakefield (bass guitar/tenor sax/synth), and Michael Rataj (drums). Some jazz composers in their repertoire (Coltrane, Carla Bley, Don Ellis), and take an interesting change-of-pace swing at "Nature Boy." B+(*) [sp]

Tessa Souter: Shadows and Silence: The Erik Satie Project (2025, Noanara Music): English jazz singer, based in New York, sixth album since 2004, seems like I've also seen her name on critic bylines. I have very little to say about Satie, who remains inscrutable, as are her lyrics, but the ending with "Ne Me Quitte Pas" is a nice touch. Some notable musicians, too: Nadja Noordhuis (trumpet), Steve Wilson (soprano sax), Luis Perdomo (piano), Yasushi Nakamura (bass), and Billy Drummond (drums). B+(***) [sp]

Larry Stabbins/Mark Sanders: Cup & Ring (2024 [2025], Discus Music): British alto saxophonist (also bass clarinet, flutes), b. 1949, not much as leader but Discogs lists 77 performance credits since 1971 (especially with Keith Tippett). Recent duo here, with drums. B+(**) [sp]

Pat Thomas: The Bliss of Bliss (2024 [2025], Konnekt): British avant-pianist, started appearing in the early 1990s but has become very prolific of late, especially in groups he's given Arabic names to (like Ahmed and ISM). Solo free improv here, a title piece of 41:27 and two short bits. Bill James came up with the idea of "similarity scores" as a way of finding patterns among baseball careers with few if any true comparables. I'm not sure exactly how that concept would work with jazz musicians, but a rough fit would say that the most similar pianist to Thomas is Matthew Shipp, and vice versa. This is remarkable, my only reservation being my impatience with solo piano. B+(***) [bc]

Triology Featuring Scott Hamilton: The Slow Road (2024 [2025], Cellar Music Group): Trio of Miles Black (piano), Bill Coon (guitar), and Jodi Proznick (bass), not the first group to settle on this name -- (4) in Discogs -- with a previous album from 2014, joined here by the "young fogey" tenor saxophonist, now 70. Nice but not much more. B+(**) [sp]

Uroboro: As in an Unpicking of Time's Garment (2023 [2024], Discus Music): Group, one previous album, presumably English (but I'm finding too little to be sure), principally Keith Jafrate, who plays sax, opens with spoken word, and wrote all the pieces, while backed by keyboard (Matthew Bourne), guitar (Anton Hunter), bass (John Pope), and drums (Johnny Hunter), with a vocal from Sylvie Rose. A- [bc]

Jeff Walton: Pack Animals (2023 [2025], Jules): Tenor saxophonist, quartet with Santiago Leibson (piano), Ed Heath (bass), and Chase Elodia (drums). B+(**) [cd]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

Frank Kimbrough: The Call (2010 [2025], Sunnyside): Pianist (1956-2020), was at the center of a very influential cluster of postbop musicians, mostly working with Matt Baltisaris at Palmetto. Recently discovered solo tape from that period, the sort of thing that those who knew and revered him will fall for completely. B+(**) [sp]

Old music:

Nanna Carling: That's a Plenty (2022, Solters): First album, plays alto as well as soprano sax, also clarinet, and just lets the trad jazz band rip on the title cut. That's a real strength. B+(**) [bc]

Janet Klein: Come Into My Parlor (1998, Coeur De Jeanette): First album, plays ukulele and sings 26 "sweet, naughty and lovely tunes from the 1910's, 20's, and 30's," backed by John Reynolds (guitar) and Robert Loveless (mandolin, harmonica and accordion). B+(**) [sp]

Klas Lindquist: The Song Is You (2015, Do Music): Swedish clarinetist, accompanies Champian Fulton on her latest album, strikingly enough I wanted to look into his back catalog. Also plays alto sax here, in a quartet with guitar (Erik Söderlind), bass (Svante Söderqvist), and drums (Jesper Kviberg). I'm not seeing song credits, but mostly swinging standards. B+(**) [sp]

Klas Lindquist: Handle With Care (2024, Yellow Car): Fifth release as leader, some originals, more standards (including "Tea for wo," "Cry Me a River," "Stardust," "Cherokee," "Come Sunday"), just alto sax here, backed by piano, bass, and drums. B+(**) [sp]

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

  • Dawn Clement/Buster Williams/Matt Wilson: Delight (Origin) [07-18]
  • Roger Glenn: My Latin Heart (Patois) [08-22]
  • Kelly Green: Corner of My Dreams (La Reserve) [08-22]
  • Rico Jones: Bloodlines (Giant Step Arts) [07-25]
  • Peter Lin/AAPI Jazz Collective: Identity (OA2) [07-18]
  • Gilbert Paeffgen Trio: Der Mann Auf Dem Trampolin (Rabbit Hill) [05-24]
  • Pat Petrillo: Contemporaneous (Innervision) [07-11]
  • Premik Russell Tubbs/Margee Minier-Tubbs: Oneness-World (Margetoile) [08-01]

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Monday, June 30, 2025

Music Week

June archive (done).

Music: Current count 44435 [44388) rated (+47), 23 [24] unrated (-1).

This will be another premature post, put up early so I can get back to working on my major project at the moment, which is wrapping up the Francis Davis Jazz Critics Poll: Mid-Year 2025. Deadline is tomorrow, July 1. While one wants to appear hardass about deadlines, you probably know by now that I'm a big believer in counting every vote, so I've always welcomed a few late ballots. Moreover, I figure that, like normal Americans, ArtsFuse will be taking July 4 off to enjoy the holiday. As a fairly abnormal American, I'll probably be hunkered down, working, playing music, trying to drown out sounds of fireworks and gunfire I once enjoyed but now have grown to despise.

I did manage to steal a few moments to compile a Loose Tabs last week. I posted it on Friday, but kept adding things over the weekend, so the expanded version (12549 words) will appear at the same time as this post. I haven't really dumped everything I have into it: a couple things figuring I should write more on them later. I also didn't do an obituary trawl, but there have been quite a few worth noting since the last time I did a section (May 14), including Brian Wilson and Sly Stewart, and most recently, Louis Moholo-Moholo. One item of possible interest here is my list of mid-year music lists. I haven't had time to do an exhaustive list of such, but I have incorporated these lists into my metacritic file (which otherwise I've struggled to find time to keep current).

A week ago, I was impressed by how many albums our poll critics were voting for that I hadn't heard or in many cases hadn't even heard of. But as I rushed to check out the most promising -- at least those most readily accessible -- I found that most were indeed quite interesting, but few made my A- grade. That changed big time this week, with one album crashing my ballot list, and another that quite likely could if I could afford to give it another spin. (The former is by Rodrigo Amado; the latter is by another Portuguese group, Motian & More.) Still much more I haven't gotten to. I've been especially remiss on following up on download links, and I'm afraid I've also neglected two vinyl albums I was generously gifted. (They don't fit in the physical queue, and I play LPs so rarely it's rather inconvenient to even get to the turntable. I will at least get to them this week.)

What I can do for now is disclose my own ballot (which may at least inhibit me from fiddling with it further):

NEW JAZZ ALBUMS

  1. Steve Lehman Trio + Mark Turner, The Music of Anthony Braxton (Pi)
  2. Archer, Sudden Dusk (Aerophonic)
  3. Rodrigo Amado & Chris Corsano, The Healing: Live at ZDB (European Echoes)
  4. Deepstaria Enigmatica, The Eternal Now Is the Heart of a New Tomorrow (ESP-Disk)
  5. Larry Ochs - Joe Morris - Charles Downs, Every Day → All the Way (ESP-Disk)
  6. James Brandon Lewis Trio, Apple Cores (Anti-)
  7. Russ Anixter's Hippie Big Band, What Is? (self-released)
  8. Cosmic Ear, Traces (We Jazz)
  9. Satoko Fujii Tokyo Trio, Dream a Dream (Libra)
  10. Ivo Perelman & Matthew Shipp String Trio, Armageddon Flower (TAO Forms)

RARA AVIS (REISSUES/ARCHIVAL)

  1. James Moody, 80 Years Young: Live at the Blue Note March 26, 2005 (Origin)
  2. Jimmy Lyons, Live From Studio Rivbea: 1974 & 1976 (NoBusiness)
  3. Charles Mingus, Mingus in Argentina: The Buenos Aires Concerts (1977, Resonance)
  4. Horace Tapscott's Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra, Live at Widney High December 26th, 1971 (The Village)
  5. Cecil Taylor & Tony Oxley, Flashing Spirits (1988, Burning Ambulance)

At present, I have 69 ballots counted, plus another half-dozen or so in my inbox. My best guess is that we'll wind up somewhere in the 85-100 range. Last year's mid-year poll wound up with 90 ballots, far short of the 177 who voted in the year-end poll. While many critics keep running lists and/or can rattle one off the top of their heads -- which is something I try to encourage, possibly because I'm one of them -- others insist on preparation and review, so were unprepared for my late invite to a somewhat less solemn affair. Still, we already have accumulated a huge store of information on how the year is developing, and I think that anyone with the slightest concern to keep up with the state of the art will find much of interest here, both at the highly competitive tops of the charts and on the far fringes.

I will probably update this post later, or maybe offer a separate one on the poll. I've done minimal work to open up a new July Streamnotes archive, postponing the usual indexing. Other projects are worth talking about, but no time here.

New records reviewed this week:

Rodrigo Amado/Chris Corsano: The Healing: Live at ZDB (2016 [2025], European Echoes): Tenor sax and drums duo, the first of a promised series of archival tapes fallen by the wayside, but barely falls within our 10-year New Music window. Terrific straight out the gate. A- [bc] [08-01]

Benny Benack III: This Is the Life (2024 [2025], Bandstand Presents): Jazz singer, also plays trumpet, several albums since 2017, has one of those hipster styles (with a lot of scat) that I rarely enjoy (cf. Kurt Elling), but he makes it more fun than most. Live set, runs long, with Mathis Picard (piano), Russell Hall (bass), Joe Peri (drums), "with special guest" Benny Benack Jr. (tenor sax, presumably his father) noted on the cover. B+(***) [cd]

Antonia Bennett: Expressions (2025, self-released): Standards singer, daughter of Tony Bennett and actress Sandra Grant, has a couple of previous albums. Backed by a piano trio led by Christian Jacob. Caught my attention with an ebullient "Comes Love," followed by a song in French, and a jaunty "Right on Time." Several more bright spots here. B+(**) [cd]

Christer Bothén 3: L'Invisible (2024 [2025], Thanatosis): Swedish bass clarinetist, b. 1941, not a very large discography but established himself in the 1980s, and again since 2016 (notably in the new group Cosmic Ear). Also credited with "inside piano" here, in a trio with Kansas Zetterberg (bass) and Kjell Nordeson (drums), for two tracks (17:11 + 19:54). B+(***) [sp]

BROM: Чёрная голова [Black Head] (2023 [2025], Addicted Label): Russian free jazz group, Discogs lists 10 albums since 2008, longest term member Dmitriy Lapshin (bass), here with Ivan Bursov (tenor sax), Fesikl Mikensky (electronics), and Bogdan Ivlev (drums). B+(***) [sp]

Michael Buckley: Ebb and Flow (2025, Livia): Irish tenor saxophonist, has a trio album from 1998, at least one more, mainstream, nice tone, backed by piano-bass-drums. B+(**) [sp]

Terri Lyne Carrington & Christie Dashiell: We Insist 2025! (2025, Candid): Drummer, first album in 1981 was very impressive, but was followed by widely-spaced albums in 1989 and 2002 before more regular releases, which ranged enough to snag Grammys in 2012 and 2014 and top a DownBeat poll in 2020. Here she updates Max Roach's 1961 We Insist! Freedom Now Suite, with Dashiell the featured singer -- a role originally filled by Abbey Lincoln. Front cover also mentions as "featuring": Weedie Braimah (congas/djembe), Milena Casado (trumpet/electronics), Morgan Guerin (bass), Simon Moullier (vibes/marimba, Matthew Stevens (guitar); while the fine print mentions a few more names (mostly vocals), plus "special gueset" Julian Priester (trombone on one track). B+(***) [sp]

Daniel Carter/Ayumi Ishito: Endless Season (2023 [2025], 577): Saxophone duo (also trumpet, clarinet, flute, and piano for Carter), recorded this as an acoustic set, then Ishito dubbed in synth beats and effects. The latter are quite pleasing, although the straight duets hold up rather well. B+(***) [bc]

Anita Donndorff: Thirsty Soul (2022-24 [2025], Fresh Sound New Talent): Standards singer from Buenos Aires, debut album 2021, moved to New York, this draws on sessions before and after the move, includes one original, and lands on a Jobim. B+(***) [cd]

Drank [Ingrid Schmoliner/Alexander Kranabetter]: Breath in Definition (2023 [2025], Trost): Duo, prepared piano and trumpet/electronics, four tracks, with guest marimba on one, voice on another. B+(***) [bc]

Marty Ehrlich: Trio Exaltation: This Time (2024 [2025], Sunnyside): Alto saxophonist (tenor one track), has an impressive discography since the mid-1980s, tends to produce tricky postbop but returns to basic here, in what is basically a blowing session, backed only by bass (John Hébert) and drums (Nasheet Waits), not that anyone could ask for more. Group name goes back to a 2018 album. Album cover can be parsed multiple ways. A- [sp]

David Grollman/Andy Haas/Sabrina Salamone: SCRT (2025, self-released): Improv trio, drums, saxophone, violin, with some spoken word poetry written by the drummer's late wife, Rita Stein-Grollman. Beyond its own merits, the poetry provides some focus, which sharpens the surrounding music. A- [cd]

Noah Haidu: Standards III (2023 [2025], Sunnyside): Pianist, based in New York, third volume in a series recorded closely together, mostly trio with Gervis Myles (bass) and Charles Goold (drums), with some cuts substituting the more famous collaborators from the previous volumes: Buster Williams and Peter Washington (bass), Billy Hart and Lewis Nash (drums), with Steve Wilson (alto sax) on one track. Haidu also claims three songwriting credits, but they touch on standards (e.g., "Stevie W."). B+(***) [cd]

Mary Halvorson: About Ghosts (2024 [2025], Nonesuch): Guitarist, student of Anthony Braxton, started producing interesting records around 2004, got her first A- in my book with Dragon's Head in 2008, and has moved on to effective stardom in the postmodern jazz world, with a major label contract, a MacArthur "genius" grant, and a Francis Davis Jazz Critics Poll win with Amaryllis (2022). This reconvenes her stellar Amaryllis Sextet, with Adam O'Farrill (trumpet), Jacob Garchik (trombone), Patricia Brennan (vibes), Nick Dunston (bass), and Tomas Fujiwara (drums), adding saxophonists Immanuel Wilkins (alto) and/or Brian Settles (tenor) for four tracks each (three in tandem). This is dazzling as long as you keep your attention focused to pick up the myriad ever-shifting details. But it's not so compelling that I notice much without thinking to focus. I'm not sure that's even a knock. It may just be my own personal limitation. By the way, she's also having a terrific yet in side-credits. A- [cd]

Hanging Hearts: Where's Your Head At (2023 [2025], Ropeadope): Chicago-based sax trio, leader Chris Weller plays tenor and bass saxophones, with Cole DeGenova (keys, synth, synth bass) and Quin Kirchner (drums). First album was Chris Weller's Hanging Hearts (2014). B+(*) [sp]

Sun-Mi Hong: Fourth Page: Meaning of a Nest (2025, Edition): Korean drummer, based in Amsterdam, first album was Page 1 (2017). Meticulously layered post-bop quintet with trumpet (Alistair Payne), tenor sax (Nicolò Ricci), piano (Chaerin Im), and bass (Alessandro Fongaro). B+(*) [sp]

Jason Kao Hwang: Myths of Origin (2022 [2025], True Sound): Violinst, born in US but also has a solid grounding in Chinese classical music, subtitle here is "for improvising String Orchestra and Drum Set," I'm counting: 10 [more] violins, 5 violas, 4 cellos, 3 guitars, 1 bassist (Ken Filiano), and one drummer (Andrew Drury). Live set from Vision Fest, every bit as glorious as you'd expect. A- [cd] [07-07]

Jane in Ether: Oneiric (2023 [2025], Confront): Trio of Miako Klein (recorders), Magda Mayas (piano), and Billana Vouitchkova (violin, voice). Effectively a drone album. B+(*) [bc]

Sven-Åke Johansson Quintet: Stumps (2022 [2025], Trost): Swedish drummer (1943-2025), played with many avant-jazz figures since 1972, especially Schlippenbach. An earlier version of this material was recorded at Au Topsi Pohl in 2021 and released in 2022, but these are previously unreleased, from a set at Haus der Berliner 6.11.2022. Quintet with Pierre Borel (alto sax), Axel Dörner (trumpet), Simon Sieger (piano), and Joel Grip (bass). The little figures that begin and end each piece seem awkward, but each develops into a 12-17 minute extravaganza. B+(***) [bc]

Stefan Keune/Sandy Ewen/Damon Smith: Two Felt-Tip Pens: Live at Moers (2023 [2025], Balance Point Acoustics): German saxophonist (sopranino/alto), fair number of albums since 2002, mostly free jazz contexts, this one with guitar and bass on edge. B+(***) [sp]

Maruja: Tír na nÓg (2025, Music for Nations, EP): Punk/jazz band from Manchester, or post-rock in the sense of heavy instrumental riffing in place of improv, EPs from 2017 with one LP, this 4 songs, 22:07, title from Gaelic refers to underworld, the jazz component coming from a saxophone, but I'm unclear on credits, or much of anything else. B+(**) [sp]

Roscoe Mitchell: Gratitude: One Head Four People (2024 [2025], Wide Hive): Art Ensemble of Chicago founder and mainstay, plays bass saxophone here, with guitar (Sandy Ewen), bass (Damon Smith), and drums (Weasel Walter). Rather sketchy. B+(*) [sp]

Motian & More: Gratitude (2022-23 [2025], Phonogram Unit): Portuguese quartet, bassist Hernâni Faustino seems to be the leader, with José Lencastre (tenor sax), Pedro Branco (bass), and João Sousa (drums), opens with "Misterioso" (Monk), followed by four Paul Motian pieces, with "Mandeville" a very choice cut, and that's just a warm up for the finale. A- [bc]

Eva Novoa: Novoa/Kamaguchi/Cleaver Trio Volume 2 (2020 [2025], 577): Spanish pianist, from Barcelona, debut 2012 on FSNT, trio with Masa Kamaguchi (bass) and Gerald Cleaver (drums), follows a 2023 release from the same session. B+(**) [bc]

Potsa Lotsa XL: Amoeba's Dance (2024 [2025], Trouble in the East): Band led by German saxophonist Silke Eberhard, originally a quartet of brass and reeds for an Eric Dolphy tribute (2009-10), later augmented beyond Plus to XL (a tentet here). Original pieces, interesting but tends to slip away. B+(**) [sp]

The Quantum Blues Quartet: Quantum Blues (2025, Ropeadope): New fusion group: tempted to say "supergroup," as everyone involved is long established in their own right: Tisziji Muñoz (guitar), Paul Shaffer (keyboards), Jamaaladeen Tacuma (bass), and Will Calhoun (drums). B+(**) [sp]

Resavoir & Matt Gold: Horizon (2025, International Anthem): Resavoir is basically Will Miller, wide range of side credits (like from Whitney to SZA), third album since 2019, mostly plays keyboards here, while Gold plays bass, guitar, and drums, with others coming and going, bits of vocals. B [sp]

Matthew Shipp: The Cosmic Piano (2024 [2025], Cantaloupe Music): One of the major pianists in jazz history, many albums since 1988, I've written a whole Consumer Guide about his work, which was a substantial task 20 years ago and would have to be more than doubled today. Along the way, he's recorded well over a dozen solo albums, with this the latest, and this is one more. I've never been a huge solo piano fan, but this is clearly pretty remarkable, in ways that make him instantly recognizable. A- [sp]

Mark Solborg: Tungemål: Confluencia (2025, ILK Music): Danish/Argentinian guitarist, side-credits from 2001, albums from 2007, quartet here with Susana Santos Silva (trumpet), Simon Toldam (keyboards), and Ingar Zach (percussion). A little slow. B+(*) [sp]

Kevin Sun: Lofi at Lowlands (2024 [2025], Endectomorph Music, EP): Tenor saxophonist, impressive debut in 2018, has a deep understanding of history and lore. Trio with Walter Stinson (bass) and Kayvon Gordon (drums), short at 23:13, but pulls nine fragments from six live sets, and experiments: this is "Sun's initial foray into the seemingly limitless possibilities of post-production, for the first in a projected series drawn from the same sources. B+(*) [sp]

Sun & Rain: Waterfall (2022 [2025], Out of Your Head): Quartet of Nathaniel Morgan (alto sax), Travis Laplante (tenor sax), Andrew Smiley (guitar), and Jason Nazary (drums). Morgan has a fairly long list of side-credits since 2012 (69 per Discogs), but nothing under his own name. Smiley started with the avant-noise group Little Women. The others I've run across more often. B+(**) [sp]

Transcendence: Music of Pat Metheny (2025, FMR): Trio of Bob Gluck (keyboards), Christopher Dean Sullivan (electric bass), and Karl Latham (drums), playing five pieces by Metheny plus one each from Herbie Hancock and Keith Jarrett. I've never been much of a fan of Metheny's more popular albums, although I've noticed that he occasionally strays toward the margins, with mixed but sometimes interesting results. Gluck, on the other hand, has written a book on Metheny's music, and comes up with some unexpected twists. B+(**) [cd]

Terry Waldo & the Gothim City Band: Treasury Volume 2 (2025, Turtle Bay): Ragtime pianist, learned from Eubie Blake, who said that Waldo reminds him of Fats Waller. He first recorded in 1969 with his Gutbucket Syncopators, and introduced his Gotham City Band in 1984. Unclear how old these recordings are, or for that matter who's playing what, but at 80 he appears to still be active. I like modern (and for that matter postmodern) jazz just fine, but for me "real jazz" will always be pre-bop, and this really hits that mark. A- [sp]

Wheelhouse: House and Home (2024 [2025], Aerophonic): Trio of Dave Rempis (saxophones), Jason Adasiewicz (vibes), and Nate McBride (bass). Sort of the avant-garde's version of a chamber jazz group. The saxophonist remain supreme in any setting. A- [cd] [07-22]

Brandon Woody: For the Love of It All (2025, Blue Note): Trumpet player, from Baltimore, first album but on a major label, with a band of similar unknowns (keyboards, bass, drums, one vocal). B+(**) [sp]

John Yao and His 17 Piece Instrument: Points in Time (2024 [2025], See Tao): New York-based, originally a trombonist, albums from 2004, here just a big band composer/arranger (with Mike Holober co-producing). B+(**) [cd] [07-11]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

Anthony Braxton: B-X0 N0-47A (1969 [2025], BYG Actuel): Early album, 2nd in Discogs' list, 4th for Wikipedia (where the title is rendered as Anthony Braxton, the latest of many reissues deriving this title from the graph Braxton used to title his 2nd side composition. First side has two pieces by band mates Leo Smith (trumpet) and Leroy Jenkins (violin) -- all have long lists of miscellaneous instruments, including percussion, which is mostly Steve McCall. B+(**) [sp]

Marco Eneidi Quartet: Wheat Fields of Kleyehof (2004 [2025], Balance Point Acoustics): Alto saxophonist (1956-2016), born in Portland, was associated with William Parker in the late 1980s, later based in Vienna. Improv quintet with Darren Johnston (trumpet), John Finkbeiner (guitar), Damon Smith (bass), and Vijay Anderson (drums). B+(***) [bc]

Bill Evans: Further Ahead: Live in Finland 1964-1969 (1964-69 [2025], Elemental Music): Three trio sets: 1964 with Chuck Israels (bass) and Larry Bunker (drums); 1965 with Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen and Alan Dawson, with Lee Konitz (alto sax) in for the last cut; and 1969 with Eddie Gomez and Marty Morell. B+(**) [sp]

Charles Kynard: Woga (1972 [2025], We Want Sounds): Soul jazz organ player from St. Louis (1933-79), recorded for Pacific Jazz and Prestige in the 1960s, with this the middle of three 1971-73 albums for Mainstream, with a larger group -- two each trumpets and trombones, electric guitar and bass, and drums -- arranged and conducted by Richard Fritz. B+(***) [sp]

David "Fathead" Newman/Ellis Marsalis/Cornell Dupree: Return to the Wide Open Spaces (1990 [2025], Amazing/Steady Boy): Reissue of a live album recorded in Fort Worth's Caravan of Dreams, the headliners (alto sax/flute, piano, guitar) joined by James Clay (tenor sax), Dennis Dotson (trumpet), Leroy Cooper (baritone sax), Chuck Rainey (bass), and George Rains (drums) -- all cited in smaller print on the cover. B+(**) [sp]

Kristen Noguès/John Surman: Diriaou (1998 [2025], Souffle Continu): Celtic harp player (1952-2007), French but sings in Breton, released an album in 1976, several more in the 1990s. This a duo with the English saxophonist, mostly playing bass clarinet. This is really lovely, a unique item. A- [bc]

Ray Russell Quartet: The Complete Spontaneous Event: Live 1967-1969 (1967-69 [2024], Jazz in Britain): British guitarist, b. 1947, so was pretty young when these six BBC radio sessions were recorded: 6 tracks were released in 2000, expanded here to 20 tracks, 133:33, the with Roy Fry (piano), Alan Rushton (drums), and either Dave Holland or Ron Mathewson on bass. This is closer to classic bebop guitar jazz than to the avant/fusion strains developing around John McLaughlin, but is remarkably cogent and flat out enjoyable. A- [bc]

Louis Stewart: I Thought About You (1977 [2025], Livia): Irish guitarist (1944-2016), enjoying a reissues boomlet, recorded this studio session with John Taylor (piano), who was also in Ronnie Scott's band, and two Americans who were touring with Cedar Walton at the time: Sam Jones (bass) and Billy Higgins (drums). B+(**) [bc]

Sun Ra: Nuits De La Fondation Maeght (1970 [2025], Strut): Set at an art museum, opened in 1964, in France near Nice, this title is shared by much reissued live albums by Albert Ayler and Cecil Taylor. Sun Ra's original came out in two volumes in 1971, finally expanded here to over 4 hours in what is surely the most definitive packaging ever. The usual mix of marvelous and corny, much too much to sort out. B+(***) [sp]

Sun Ra: Stray Voltage (1970s-80s [2025], Modern Harmonic): This is a sampler of "Ra's electronic peregrinations during the 1970s and '80s," with or (mostly) without Akrestra. Nothing I can find on exact recording dates, but the LP cover scans suggest some juicy technical details on the synths -- I'm guessing because I can't make out the words. B+(**) [sp]

Clifford Thornton: Ketchaoua (1969 [2025], BYG Actuel): Trumpet/cornet player (1936-89), started with Sun Ra in the early 1960s, then with Pharoah Sanders (1963-67). First album as leader (although some of his earlier work eventually panned out). Four tracks, starts as an octet (with Archie Shepp, Grachan Moncur III, Dave Burrell, and Sunny Murray), but the second side slims down, ending with just cornet and two bassists. B+(**) [sp]

Old music:

None.

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

  • Antonia Bennett: Expressions (self-released) [06-13]
  • Kevin Brunkhorst: After the Fire (Calligram) [07-11]
  • Etienne Charles: Gullah Roots (Culture Shock) [06-30]
  • Lafayette Gilchrist & New Volcanoes: Move With Love (Morphius) [07-25]
  • José Gobbo Trio: Confluence (Calligram) [07-11]
  • Bonnie J Jensen: Rise (MGM Metropolitan Groove Merchants) [08-01]
  • Lili Maljic: The Nearness of You: In Loving Memory of Jim Rotondi (Pacific Coast Jazz) [09-12]
  • Chad McCullough/Gordon Spasovski/Kiril Tufekcievski/Viktor Filipovski: Transverse (Calligram) [07-11]
  • Sarah Wilson: Incandescence (Brass Tonic) [07-18]

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Friday, June 27, 2025

Loose Tabs

This is an occasional collection of newsworthy links and comments, much less systematic than what I attempted in my late Speaking of Which posts. The new name comes from my extensive use of browser tabs. When I get around to cleaning up, I often find tabs opened to old articles I might want to comment on and/or refer back to. So these posts are mostly housecleaning, but may also serve as a very limited but persistent record of what 20+ years ago I started calling "the end of the American empire" and nowadays feels more like "the end of civilization." I collect these bits in a draft file, and flush them out when periodically. My previous one appeared 23 days ago, on June 4.

I've been busy working on the Francis Davis Jazz Critics Poll: Mid-Year 2025, which may seem a bit like "fiddling while Rome burns," but quite frankly, we'd all be much better off catching up with this year's still-remarkable parade of new jazz releases, including another bounty of dusted-off oldies, than we are helplessly watching Fox and CNN regale us with what little they can grasp of the world, and how little they -- let alone the actors and ideologues they report on -- understand of it. Jazz is, after all, music for people who take pleasure in thinking about what gives them pleasure, and often who are willing to expose themselves to the frontiers of human creativity. Politics is something nearly opposite: it hurts to even think about it, in large part because it's hard to recognize as human people who are so full of greed, petty hate, and lust for power, the class of people who promote themselves as others' expense, you know, the "newsmakers."

Note that the long comment on Ezra Klein and the long intro on Israel were written a couple weeks ago -- the latter after the bombing of Iran started, but I haven't tried to update it. Most of the tweets were collected as the popped up. (I could probably build whole posts out of them, but they'd be even more scattered than this forum is.) The music stuff has also been sitting around (but I should update the mid-year lists -- or more likely, I may keep adding to that section). Most of the rest of the comments are of recent vintage, even if the articles are a bit old. No doubt I'm missing some major stories. One I'm aware of is the New York mayoral primary, as a lot of my sources are thrilled by how well Mamdani has fared and/or afraid of what establishment Democrats may try to do to sabotage him. I'm going to go ahead and post whatever I have by bedtime, then return tomorrow to my jazz poll and whatever else I have need of working on.

PS: I posted this, incomplete and scattered as it is, end of Friday, figuring I should start Saturday off with a clean state, to get back to working on the Poll. But my mailbox was empty when I got up Saturday morning, and I noticed a couple typos to fix here. (They're not flagged with change marks, which only seem to work on whole blocks.) Then I found some more loose tabs, so added a couple of those. I'll add more in my spare time throughout the day, but there's clearly much more news that fits.

Posting the update on Monday, along with Music Week. I've been extremely swamped working on Poll stuff, so apologies for all I missed or merely glossed over.

Israel: I'm loathe to group articles, but there's too much here not to, especially given the rate at which it is piling up. I've been thinking about revolution lately. It's taken me a while because first I had to disabuse myself of the idea that revolutions are good things. That idea was deeply cemented in my brain because first I was taught that the American Revolution was a good thing, overthrowing monarchy and aristocracy to establish an independent self-governing democracy. Then the US Civil War was a second good revolution, as it ended slavery. Such events, as well as less violent upheavals like the New Deal and the movements of the 1960s made for progress towards equal rights and justice for all. Moreover, one could point to revolutions elsewhere that made for similar progress, although they often seemed somewhat messier than the American models. That progress seemed like an implacable tectonic force, driving both revolution and reform. And when you put more pressure on an object than it can resist, it either bends or breaks. So I came to see revolutions not as heroic acts of good intentions overcoming repression but as proof that the old order is hard and can only give way by shattering. France and Russia are the key examples: both absolute monarchies that could not reform, so had to be overturned. China, Vietnam, and Cuba were variations on that same theme. So was Iran, which was harder to see as any kind of shift toward the progressive left.

Meanwhile, leftists became more aware of the downsides of revolution, and wherever feasible more interested in reforms, reducing militancy to ritualized non-violent protest. On the other hand, while right-wingers also protest, they are more likely to escalate to violence, probably because right-wing regimes so readily resort to violence to maintain control. The result is that revolutions are more likely to come from the right these days than from the left. Which can be awkward for people who were brought up to see revolutions as progressive.

I'm bringing this up under Israel because Israel's far-right coalition government, going back to its formation before the Gaza uprising of Oct. 7, 2023, makes much more sense when viewed as a revolutionary force. The single defining feature of all revolutionary forces is independent of their ideologies, which are all over the map, but has to do with with simple discovery that people previously denied power now find themselves free to test their limits -- which leads them to act to excess, as long as their is no significant resistance.

This may seem surprising given that Netanyahu has been in power off-and-on since the late 1990s. While his sympathies have always been with the far-right fringe of Zionism, and he's consistently pushed the envelope of what's possible in Israel and the world, he has always before exhibited a degree of caution. But since Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, who were long identified not just as outsiders but as criminals, joined his coalition, they have effectively driven Israel's agenda: the genocide in Gaza, expropriation and terrorism in the West Bank, military adventurism in Lebanon and Syria, and not starting a war with Iran. Only a truly revolutionary government can go so far off the rails so fast and so carelessly.

Once you dispense with the assumption that revolutions have to be progressive, you'll find plenty of other examples, both left and right, some (like the French) oscillating between two poles, some generated from below (like the French or Russian), some from guerrilla wars (like Cuba and Afghanistan), some were simply gifted (like the Red Army's installation of Kim Il Sung, whose decision to invade the South was not directed by Moscow, nor effectively throttled), or more relevant here Hindenburg's appointment of Hitler as chancellor (the main difference between Hindenburg and Netanyahu is that the former died soon and was forgotten, whereas Netanyahu continues as the figurehead for a regime spinning out of control.

One might note that Israel has always been a revolutionary state (more or less). Ben-Gurion was more artful than Netanyahu, but he always wanted much more than he could get, and took every advantage to extend the limits of his power. Had he believed his own rhetoric in 1947 when he was campaigning for the UN partition plan, he would have legitimated his victory in 1950, but instead he still refused to negotiate borders, biding his time while building up the demographic, economic, and military strength to launch future wars (as happened in 1956, 1967, 1982, up to this very day. When his successor, Moshe Sharett, threatened peace, he seized power again and put Israel back on its war path. He was shrewd enough to caution against occupation in 1967, but as soon as war seemed to triumph, he got swept up in the excitement. Nothing stimulates the fanatic fervor of a revolutionary like seeing what you took to be limits melt away. Just look at Hitler after Munich, or Netanyahu after his American allies encouraged his long-dreamt-of program of extermination.

We should be clear that until 2023, Israel's "final solution" was just a dream -- not that it was never acted on (e.g., Deir Yassin), but most dreams, no matter how vile, are harmlessly forgotten. We can date it way back, easily through Ben-Gurion and Jabotinsky, perhaps to the foundings of Zionism with Herzl. And we know well that settler colonialism, even when one imagines and/or professes benign intentions, is conducive to genocide -- perhaps not inexorably, but we have enough of a sample to draw that conclusion. What allowed Israeli dreams to be turned into action was the realization that the restraints which had inhibited Israeli leaders in the past had lost all force, and could be ignored with no consequences.

  • Richard Silverstein [06-06] Shin Bet's Palestinian Proxies Are Gaza Gangsters: I've read a ton of books on Israel/Palestine, but two I never got to but always wished I had are Hillel Cohen's books on Israel's manipulation of Palestinian collaborators: Army of Shadows: Palestinian Collaboration with Zionism, 1917-1948 (2008), and Good Arabs: The Israeli Security Agencies and the Israeli Arabs, 1948-1967. I imagine the series could continue up to the present day, and will whenever the relevant archives are opened. Given this history, that Israel should be organizing and even arming Palestinian gangs is hardly a surprise, but underscores more forcefully than ever the moral bankruptcy of the occupation. Another lesson that one should draw from this is the realization that if Israel wanted Palestinians to have a stable and docile government, they could easily find people to lead it, and deliver enough respect and dignity to keep those leaders democratically elected. That they don't so isn't due to the intransigent militance of the Palestinian masses, but to their conviction that they can win by grinding the Palestinians into dust.

  • Zack Beauchamp [06-13] The Israel-Iran war hinges on three big things: "It's impossible to know how this war will end. But here's how to make sense of it." Section heads: "What is Israel's objective?"; "Can Iran fight back?"; "How does Iran think about the bomb after this?" All of these points are fairly superficial: the first draws way too much on what Israel says, much of which is obviously misleading; the others ignore what Iran says, and especially the question of whether Iran wants to fight back, or even to fight in the first place. Like many critics, this piece attempts to approximate objectivity by hedging while remaining trapped in a profoundly distorted cloud of propaganda. (The word I first thought of was noosphere, but I settled for a plainer term, which puts more emphasis on its distinctly political construction. Beauchamp is not an apologist for Israel, but he is also not fully independent of a society that accepts the legitimacy of hasbara.) Beauchamp followed this piece with more:

    • Zack Beauchamp [06-22]: Three ways Trump's attack on Iran could spin out of control: "How does this war end?" Which, of course, misses the obvious point, which is that Israel doesn't want this (or any) war to end. They'd be happy to keep periodically "mowing the grass," as they did for well over a decade in Gaza, and if that ever blows back on them, they'd be happy to demolish the entire country (especially given that the prevailing winds for nuclear fallout are blowing away from Israel). The only practical limit on Israel's warmaking is financial: as long as the US is willing to foot the bills, and the American political system is effectively a wholly owned subsidiary of pro-Israeli donors, they're happy to fight on, oblivious to the consequences.

    • Zack Beauchamp [06-18] Trump doesn't have a foreign policy: "What he has instead is the promise of chaos." Instincts not reason, a blind faith that chaos will always break in your favor. He surrounds himself with people who tell him he's on a mission from God. And so far he's gotten away with pretty much everything, so doubt and worry are for losers.

    • Eric Levitz [06-23] 3 ways Americans could pay for Trump's war with Iran: "The conflict could take a toll in both blood and money." Section heads: "How Trump's war on Iran could impact the economy"; "Trump's attack has put American soldiers in harm's way"; "Trump may have made an Iranian nuclear weapon more likely." These are all pretty likely, and much more is remotely possible. Israeli/US aggression against Iran is a species of the Madman Theory, which can only work if the other side remains sane. (Indeed, that's true for all deterrence theories.) One problem here is that the more successful you are at decapitating responsible enemy leadership, the more likely you are to promote someone who's lost his marbles.

  • Chris Hedges [06-10] Genocide by Starvation. Also led me to:

  • Tony Karon [06-18] Tony Judt was right about Israel, wrong about the West. Bob Marley did warn us: "As long as we rely on the existing constellations of nation states, decolonization will remain a fleeting illusion, to be pursued but never attained."

    So, all stakeholders need to understand that they're not dealing with the America they knew 30 or 20 or even 10 years ago. The crumbling edifice has entirely collapsed, and is unlikely to return. There will be no Pax Americana, because Washington no longer sees any incentive to taking that level of responsibility for anything. As the President sounds off like a cartoon gangster from an ancient Hollywood movie threatening to murder Iran's leader and to devastate its capital. The only sure bet here is that even if it did manage to topple Iran's regime, the U.S. of today has no interest in sticking around to manage the chaos that would follow. As Trump made clear in a recent speech in Saudi Arabia, the U.S. is done with "nation-building." (And as it has proven in Iraq and Afghanistan, its unmatched ability to destroy things is paralleled by epic failure to build anything of use to it on the ruins.

    The end of the article is also worth quoting here:

    Gramsci might have called it a morbid interregnum in which the old is dying but the new is unable to be born. But as the late, great Mike Davis wrote in what turned out to be his farewell missive, "Everyone is quoting Gramsci on the interregnum, but that assumes that something new will be or could be born. I doubt it. I think what we must diagnose instead is a ruling class brain tumour: a growing inability to achieve any coherent understanding of global change as a basis for defining common interests and formulating large-scale strategies . . . Unlike the high Cold War when politburos, parliaments, presidential cabinets and general staffs to some extent countervailed megalomania at the top, there are few safety switches between today's maximum leaders and Armageddon. Never has so much fused economic, mediatic and military power been put into so few hands."

    Which means humanity only has a future to the extent that it can take power from those destructive hands, and collectively chart a different course independent of the tumor-stricken ruling classes called out by Davis.

    By the way, my favorite line in the Davis piece comes early: "In a world where a thousand gilded oligarchs, billionaire sheikhs, and Silicon deities rule the human future, we should not be surprised to discover that greed breeds reptilian minds."

  • Ahmed Ahmed/Ibtisam Mahdi [06-20] 'The Hunger Games': Inside Israel's aid death traps for starving Gazans: "Near-daily massacres as food distribution sites have killed over 400 Palestinians in the past month alone."

  • Orly Noy [06-20] Why everything Israelis think they know about Iran is wrong: "For historian Lion Sternfeld, Israel's regime change fantasies ignore realities inside Iran and risk repeating historic mistakes."

  • Jamal Kanj [06-25] Ceasefire Not Peace: How Netanyahu and AIPAC Outsourced Israel's War to Trump? This article explains a lot about Israel's policy of sowing chaos throughout the Middle East, dating it to the 1982 Yinon Plan. That's one I was unfamiliar with, but it makes a lot of sense, and is consistent with a lot of otherwise bizarre behavior, like the practice of seemingly random bombings of Syria (and Lebanon and Iraq and now Iran) just meant to inflict terror. In 1979, after the Carter-brokered peace agreement with Egypt, Israel could have negotiated similar deals with Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon, and come up with some kind of decent implementation of their promise of "autonomy" for the remaining Palestinians, but instead they lashed out at Lebanon and doubled down on repression and settlement in the occupied territories. I don't know whether the Yinon Plan was a blueprint or just a reflection of the mindset which Begin had brought to power, but which was latent in previous decades of Labor Zionism.

  • Vijay Prashad [06-25] Why the US Strikes on Iran Will Increase Nuclear Weapons Proliferation. This is pretty obvious, yet rarely seems to be factored into the war plans of the US and Israel, which invariably underestimate future risks. But there is little evidence that the US cares about nonproliferation anymore.

  • Rahman Bouzari [06-26] Against Israel's New Middle East Vision. Israel "issued an evacuation order for Tehran"?

  • Jeff Halper [06-24] Global Palestine: Israel, the Palestinians, the Middle East and the World After the American Attack on Iran.

  • Medea Benjamin/Nicolas JS Davies [06-25] How the US & Israel Used Rafael Grossi to Hijack the IAEA and Start a War on Iran. Grossi is Director General of the watchdog group that is supposed to monitor nuclear power and weapons programs around the world. This has a lot of detail on its operations and how the information they collect can be abused.

  • Richard Silverstein [06-23] Regime Change in Iran Will Not End Well.

  • Asa Winstanley [06-10] Illegal police raid on my home won't stop me covering Gaza: "The police broke the law when they ransacked my house. When will they stop harassing pro-Palestine journalists?" Winstanley is British, author of the book, Weaponising Anti-Semitism: H ow the Israel Lobby Brought Down Jeremy Corbyn (2023).

  • Branko Marcetic [06-18] Tulsi said Iran not building nukes. One senator after another ignored her: "seems like an odd thing to do unless you really want to go to war."

  • Tom Collina [06-08] Killing the Iran nuclear deal was one of Trump's biggest failures. It's not unusual for bad decisions to take years to mature into full-blown catastrophes. Not that he didn't produce enough immediate disasters, but the tragic costs of Trump's first term continue to emerge. Trump's surrender to Israel in scuttling the JCPOA, along with his let's-just-normalize-business-and-fuck-the-Palestinians Abraham Accords, as well as his signal that the US would always back Israel no questions asked, have lead directly to the current war and genocide. He bungled Ukraine and Afghanistan as bad, and probably North Korea too (although thus far Kim Jong Un has had the good sense not to embarrass him there). Back when Trump was first elected, I stressed that his presidency would result in four severe years of opportunity costs. The assumption there was that most of what he did wrong could later be reversed. That's proven difficult, and not just for lack of trying -- Biden not only didn't reverse Trump on Israel and Ukraine but made matters worse, and that's probably true, if less evident, for Afghanistan and North Korea as well. His second term is likely to be even more irreversible.

  • Jamal Abdi [06-29] How Biden Is to Blame for Israel and the US's 12-Day War Against Iran: "Biden's failure to reenter Obama's nuclear deal helped create the risk for a potentially catastrophic US war against Iran."

  • Jason Ditz [06-12] Israeli Minister Calls for Israeli Control Over Syria and Lebanon: So says Avichai Eliyahu, Heritage Minister and grandson of a former Sephardi Chief Rabbi, whose solution for Gaza is "they need to starve."

  • Jonah Shepp [06-21] 'Regime Change' Won't Liberate Iran: Not that anyone in Israel or the US cares a whit about liberating Iran. Nudging it from one orbit of misery to another, preferably lower one, is all they really care about.

  • Mitchell Plitnick [06-27]: What comes next following the US-Israeli war on Iran? Follows up on his previous article:

    • Mitchell Plitnick [06-13]: How Israel and the US manufactured a fake crisis with Iran that could lead to all-out war. I think he's right that nothing that happened has turned out very satisfactorily for any party. However, his reason for Israel starting the war needs a bit of elaboration: "The purpose of 'Iran nuclear issue' sham is and has always been to create a regime-change bloc in Washington and Brussells to force the Islanic Republic from power." "Regime change" in Iran isn't a realistic goal, but it holds out the false promise of an end to the war other than complete failure, which helps keep the Washington and Bussells blocs bound to, and subservient to, Israel.

  • Jeremy R Hammond [06-26] Lessons Unlearned from Israel's Bombing of Iraq's Osirak Reactor: "The claim that Israel's bombing of Iraq's Osirak reactor in 1981 halted or set back Saddam Hussein's efforts to acquire a nuclear weapons capability is a popular myth."

  • Elfadil Ibrahim [06-24] Israeli-fueled fantasy to bring back Shah has absolutely no juice. That the author even considers the hypothetical gives this idea far more credit than it deserves.

  • Sanya Mansoor [06-27] Israeli soldiers killed at least 410 people at food aid sites in Gaza this month: "Israeli soldiers and officers have said they were ordered to shoot at unarmed civilians waiting for food in Gaza."

Yanis Varoufakis [05-06] In the EU nothing succeeds like gross failure: The astonishing case of Ursula von der Leyen. She is president of the European Union, elected for a second term, and recipient of some big deal prize, although she's mostly been in the news lately for her cheerleading of Israel's Gaza genocide.

Eric Alterman [05-08] The Coming Jewish Civil War Over Donald Trump: "Trump is offering American Jews a kind of devil's bargain: throw in with us against the antisemitic universities and campus rabble-rousers, but pay no attention as we dismantle the traditions and institutions that Jews value." This article has a lot of useful information, especially the first section which shows pretty clearly how Trump is still an anti-semite, and how his particular brand of anti-semitism is especially ominous for American Jews.

Gabrielle Gurley [05-20] Republicans Break the Weather: "The private sector can't match the value proposition of the National Weather Service, but companies work to entice Americans to pay up anyway. What happens if they can't?"

Phil Freeman [05-22] Why Do You Hate Jazz? Who, me? This is Freeman's monthly column, with his monthly batch of 10 jazz album reviews (5 I've heard, only one A- so far: Horace Tapscott), but his intro is a review of a book by Andrew Berish, Hating Jazz: A History of Its Disparagement, Mockery, and Other Forms of Abuse (2025, University of Chicago Press). Turns out that neither Berish nor Freeman hate jazz, and of course there are things one can learn from their chronicle of people who do. But I'm not exactly psyched to find out. It's a bit like trying to survey "unhappy families": there are so many, so different, and ultimately so pointless. I should, however, check out the other five albums Freeman likes.

Adam Tooze [05-23] Chartbook 387: What fires burned at Auschwitz? On the place of the Holocaust in uneven and combined development. This is a long and very technical piece, the main point being to argue against exaggerating the size and importance of the "death factories" in comparison to much larger logistical concerns of running the war. Toward the end of the article, Tooze also mentions the Manhattan Project: "In this sense the coincidence of the Final Solution and the Manhattan project is significant, not for their identity, but because of the juxtaposition of two such incongruous projects of modern killing." Among Tooze's many recent posts, a couple more that caught my eye:

  • [06-08] Chartbook 389: Europe's zombie armies. Or how to spend $3.1 trillion and have precious little to show for it. "European militaries are repeatedly out of their depths in facing the new world created by Russia attack on Ukraine." The American solution is to spend vast additional sums on warmaking systems -- "to increase their budgets to 3.5 percent of GDP, or even 5 percent" -- but what will they get for all that money? (I was tempted to say "bang for the buck," but bang is about all they'd get.) Relevant here:

  • [06-20] Chartbook 392: Incoming from outer space: The geo-military radicalism of Iran v. Israel 2025. "It takes a conscious effort to comprehend just how extraordinary this war is."

    I don't mean by that the politics of the Iran-Israel clash: the huge international effort to anathematize the idea of an Iranian nuke; or the conflation of Israel's utterly ruthless strategy of preemption and regional dominance with anodyne assertions of its right to self-defense. I mean the strangeness and novelty of the war itself, as a war.

    Tooze focuses on technical issues, the rockets and the distances and the extreme difficulty of intercepting ICBMs, and adds this on top of the vast expansion of drone warfare, which he associates with Ukraine/Russia but was largely developed by the US since 2001. This leaves aside the more political and philosophical points, like why did anyone think this high-tech warfare would work in the first place?

  • [06-22] Chartbook 393: Whither China? - World Economy Now, June 2025 Edition: ". . . or 'Quality into quantity': how to see China's historic development through the veil of macroeconomics." Nearly everything I read about China's economy reeks of preconception and self-absorption, often in support of a transparent political agenda. This one present a ton of information -- much more than I can deal with at the moment -- without the stench, perhaps because there is no stab at a conclusion: just the observation that self-identity as a "developing country" allows for an even brighter future. "Once you are 'advanced,' you are declining."

Barry S Edwards [05-29] Why Did Americans Elect a Felon Instead of a Prosecutor: I would have started with the observation that a great many Americans actually admire criminals. As someone whose childhood was rooted in the years when the Hays Office Code was still in effect, I tend to date this to the emergence of TV shows like It Takes a Thief (1968-70) and movies like The Dirty Dozen (1967), which showed how bad people could be employed to "do good" as defined by American political powers, but said powers' culpability for criminal malfeasance goes back deeper, becoming even more obvious during the Vietnam War. But Edwards starts with mass incarceration. While that could be cited as evidence that Americans are sticklers for rules, it also exposes how arbitrary and capricious the police state is, which erodes confidence in what they call justice. In that system, it is easy to see prosecutors as cruel political opportunists, and "criminals" as their victims -- even when they're as guilty as Trump.

Also at Washington Monthly:

Jared Abbott/Dustin Guastella [05-30] What Caused the Democrats' No-Show Problem in 2024? "New data sheds light on the policy preferences of nonvoting Democrats in the last election." They add "it may disappoint some progressives," but it looks to me like data we can work with. Unlike the cartoon progressives characterized here, I don't have any real complaints that Harris didn't run on sufficiently progressive policy stances. The big problem she (and many other Democrats) had was that voters didn't believe they would or could deliver on their promises. And a big part of that was because they cozied up to the rich and put such focus on raising money that voters often felt they were an afterthought, or maybe not even that.

Sarah Viren [06-06] A Professor Was Fired for Her Politics. Is That the Future of Academia? "Maura Finkelstein is one of many scholars discovering that the traditional protections of academic freedom are no longer holding."

Ezra Klein [06-08] The Problems Democrats Don't Like to See: The co-author of Abundance defends his book and its political program, mostly from critics on the left, who see it as warmed-over, trickle-down growth fetishism that pro-business centrist ("new") Democrats have been have been peddling as the only viable alternative to whatever it is that Republicans have been peddling since Reagan or Goldwater. Unfortunately, both of these ideologies are often critiqued, or just labeled, as "neoliberalism": indeed, they have much in common, most notably the view that private sector capitalism is the only true driving force in the economy, even as it requires increasing favors from the public, including tolerance of high degrees of inequality, corruption, and deceit; the main difference is in ethics, where Democrats tend to be liberal (which is more often hands-off than helping), and Republicans tend to be laissez-faire (which is to say none, or more specifically that any pursuit of money is to be honored), not that they aren't quite eager to impose constraints on others (sometimes as "morality," often just as power). I wish we could straighten this terminological muddle out, as the net effect is to make the "neoliberal" term unusable, and the themes indescribable. This extends to "neoconservative," which has no practical distinction from "neoliberal": they are simply Janus masks, where the former is used to look mean, and the latter to look kind.

Klein's article originally had a different title: The Abundance Agenda Has Its Own Theory of Power. By the way, that link is from a reddit thread. I've never paid any attention to reddit, but the link has a number of interesting and insightful comments, including this one:

I think Ezra is largely right that the populist left needs to: a) work off of an actual coherent vision of the world and b) understand the risks of simplifying policy to simplify politics

To which someone else adds:

It's unironically even simpler than this and makes it wild that the progressives have been unable to figure out Abundance. The entire book and thesis can be boiled down to "the party of big government needs to make government actually work."

That's it. That's the whole thing. The rest of it is presenting theories for different areas that need more or less regulation, for enabling policy to take shape, etc. But that's literally the entire bag. . . .

It's not about a platform for winning elections, it's about materially making peoples' lives better so that they trust you when you say you want to do things.

One thing I've repeatedly tried to stress is that there are major asymmetries between the two big political parties. One is that while both parties have to compete to win votes -- for better or worse, most effectively by impugning the other party -- only the Democrats actually have to deliver on their promises by governing effectively. Republicans have cynically peddled the line that government is the problem, so all they are promising is to hobble it (for which they have many easy tools, including tax cuts, deregulation, corruption, and incompetence). Needless to say, when Republican administrations succeed in their sabotage, Americans are likely to vote them out, but by then they've dug enough holes that Democrats can never quite build their way out, let along deliver tangible benefits, leaving Republicans set up for the next round of political demagoguery.

So I think we should welcome whatever help Klein & Thompson have to offer toward making Democratic government more competent and fruitful. However, before one can implement policy, one has to win elections, so it's no surprise that Democrats of all stripes will focus immediately on the book's political utility. That's why Klein is perplexed: that the Democrats he was most critical of -- "blue-state governors like Gavin Newsom and Kathy Hochul and top Obama and Biden administration officials" who actually had power they could work with but have little to show for their efforts -- have embraced the "Abundance agenda," while "some of my friends on the populist left" have raised objections. He then goes on to develop his "theory of power," contrasting his own "more classically liberal" credo against "the populist theory of power," under which "bad policy can be -- and often is -- justified as good politics." This part of his argument is somewhat less than coherent -- even if I gave up my reluctance to accept his redefinition of "populism" -- and unlikely to be useful anyway.[*]

In his conclusion, Klein says:

So I don't see any contradiction between "Abundance" and the goals of the left. I don't think achieving the goals of the modern left is even possible without the overhaul of the state that "Abundance" envisions.

I haven't read his book[**], so I can't point to specifics one way or the other, but I also don't see the contradiction: there certainly are goods and services that we could use more of, and that's even more true elsewhere in the world. And it would be good to produce them more efficiently, at lower cost, and/or higher quality, which is to say that we should work on better systems and policies. But while I don't doubt that there is room for growth on the supply side, the larger problem for most people is distribution: making sure that everyone's needs are met, which isn't happening under our current system of price-rationed scarcity. A more explicit identification with the left, including more emphasis on distribution, and acknowledgment of other important issues like precarity, debt, and peace, would have improved his points about building things and trust.

It also would have made his agenda harder to co-opt by Democratic politicians who are basically bought and paid for by rich donors, who seem to be little troubled by rare it is that most of their voters ever benefit from the crumbs left over from their corruption. As Robinson points out, "They insist that their agenda is not incompatible with social democracy and wealth redistribution. But it's clearly a different set of priorities." It's a set of priorities that cause no alarm to the donor class, and may even whet their appetite, and that's why their agenda has the appeal it has, and is drawing the criticism it deserves.[***]

[*] In Kansas, where Thomas Frank and I were born, populism was a decidedly left-wing movement, mostly rooted in debt-saddled free farmers (like my great-grandfather, not that I know anything about his politics). Frank defends this view in The People, No! A Brief History of Anti-Populism (2020). Also see his especially biting critique of the business/financial wing of the Democratic Party, Listen, Liberal! Or What Ever Happened to the Party of the People? (2016). It's easy to condemn liberals as elitist when they recoil so fervently against common folk, even if in theory they believe everyone should share in their blessings. As for theories of power, there are some that make sense. The largely forgotten Rooseveltian countervailing powers is one, with faint echoes in recent antitrust and pro-union work. Anarchists have a more negative theory of power -- negative both in the sense that power is intrinsically bad, and that in almost always generating resentment and blowback it is dysfunctional. As a child, I was exposed to the saying, "power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely," and I've found that to be true.

[**] I wouldn't rule out reading the book in the future, especially if I find myself in need of boning up on certain technical issues like housing and infrastructure development. I read Klein's Why We're Polarized (2020), and found it to be worthwhile, especially for citing and digesting a lot of technical political science literature. I certainly wouldn't read him to expose him as an idiot and/or crook, as Nathan J Robinson suggests in his review below. I also wouldn't read Matthew Yglesias's One Billion Americans: The Case for Thinking Bigger (2020) for that reason, although I'd probably find even more evidence there.

[***] Aside from political agenda and policy mechanics -- various critiques on specific policies, especially their lack of concern for "intellectual property" rents, which is a major cost concern, a source of artificial scarcity -- there is a third strain of criticism, having to do with growth itself. There is good reason to acknowledge that sooner or later growth will have to slow and stabilize, or we will eventually fall victim to crashes. This was my initial reaction to "Abundance," and one I'd like to return to at some point, but while such crashes may hypothetically not be distant in the future, they could be much better managed if only people were more able to deal with immediately pressing political problems.

  • Nathan J Robinson [06-13] Abandon "Abundance": "The latest Democratic fad sidelines equality and justice in favor of a focus on cutting red tape. This is not the path forward." After having complained about the masochism of having to read the book -- even after he's repeatedly made sport of dissecting much more obvious right-wing dimwits -- at least he admits this much: "Some of what's in Abundance is both true and important." The question this raises is whether, from a practical political standpoint, it does more good to cite Abundance in support of the "true and important" bits, or to discredit Klein & Thompson for the parts they get wrong, or that they use disingenuously. Robinson focuses on the latter, but that's what you'd expect from a critic (or just a rigorous thinker). For instance, he points out their use of motte-and-bailey arguments, which allow common sense to be turned into exaggerated claims, which when challenged can retreat into common sense. (I mean, who doesn't hate red tape?) Supporters can then pick and choose among such claims. For example, "Klein might personally believe in wealth redistribution and unions, but he's offered a great program for billionaires who don't want us to talk about the predations of the health insurance industry or big corporations crushing union drives. Let's talk about zoning reform instead!" He also points out how the authors ingratiate themselves with Democratic royalists by misrepresenting critics on the left: especially, "they spend more pages criticizing Ralph Nader and the degrowth movement (both politically marginal) than they do explaining how corporate power stands in the way of, for example, a universal healthcare system."

  • Nathan J Robinson [2024-12-03] Matt Yglesias Is Confidently Wrong About Everything: "The Biden administration's favorite centrist pundit produces smug psuedo-analysis that cannot be considered serious thought. He ought to be permanently disregarded." Yglesias and Klein are bound together as co-founders of Vox, from which they both bounded for more lucrative pastures. Yglesias in particular has repeatedly been a pioneer in new ways to exploit the internet. I read a lot by him for a long time, finally losing interest when he left Vox for Bloomberg and Substack and made his bid for the Thomas Friedman market with his One Billion Americans -- which fits in here as a prototype for Abundance. Because this piece came out back in December (when I was avoiding any and all news sources), Robinson doesn't dwell on that connections, while dwelling on numerous other faux pas. (It's impossible for me to mention either Yglesias or Klein in my household without being reminded of their support for the Iraq War.) I also just discovered that Robinson wrote a review of One Billion People back on [2020-11-13]: Why Nationalism Is a Brain Disease.

By the way, Mamdani showed us how a leftist can take the Abundance arguments and build on them instead of just carping about their compromises and blind spots, see:

  • Plain English with Derek Thompson [06-23] NYC Mayoral Candidate Zohran Mamdani on Abundance, Socialism, and How to Change a Mind: An interview by the co-author of Abundance. Mamdani opens with a very precise and polished argument:

    As someone who is very passionate about public goods, about public service, I think that we on the left have to be equally passionate about public excellence. And one of the most compelling things that I think Abundance has brought into the larger conversation is how we can make government more effective, how we can actually deliver on the very ideas that we are so passionate about, and a recognition of the fact that any example of public inefficiency is an opportunity for the argument to be made against the very existence of the public sector.

    And so to truly make the case time and time again that local government has a role in providing that which is necessary to live a dignified life, you have to ensure that every example of government's attempt to do so is one that is actually successful. And I think that's what speaks to me about abundance. And I think that's the line in the speech that speaks of both who we're fighting for but also the fact that we're delivering on that fight. And it's one that is actually experienced each and every day by New Yorkers across the five boroughs.

  • Batul Hassan [06-23] Zohran Mamdani Is Proposing Green Abundance for the Many: Among other things, quotes Bernie Sanders, with his own framing: "The government must deliver an agenda of abundance that puts the 99 percent over the 1 percent."

  • Ross Barkan [03-26] Why 'Abundance' Isn't Enough: Looking for more of Sanders' thinking on Abundance, I found this, which posits Sanders as the better alternative. I don't see that one has to make the choice. But what should be clear is that inequality is the big picture problem, which cannot be ignored when dealing with smaller, more technical problems like "abundance."

Ben Rhodes [06-08] Corruption Has Flooded America. The Dams Are Breaking. I don't doubt that crypto represents yet another higher stage of corruption than ever before, but the dams broke long ago, most obviously in the "greed is good" 1980s, not that they ever held much water in the first place. "President Trump has more than doubled his personal wealth since starting his 2024 election campaign." But most of that is phony paper wealth, slathered onto his corpulence like flattery.

Henry Grabar [06-10] It's Robotaxi Summer. Buckle Up. "Waymo and Tesla offer competing -- and potentially bleak -- futures for self-driving cars in society."

Doug Henwood [06-13] We Have Always Lived in the Casino: "John Maynard Keynes warned that when real investment becomes the by-product of speculation, the result is often disaster. But it's hard to tell where one ends and the other begins." I flagged this because it seems like an interesting article, but I can't read it because it's behind their paywall. Speaking of which, some more articles I clicked on but cannot read:

  • Adam Serwer [05-27] The New Dark Age: "The Trump administration has launched an attack on knowledge itself." Starts talking about "the warlords who sacked Rome," suggesting that they were less culpable than Trump for the benighted period that followed the collapse of the Roman Empire. Maybe, or maybe not. But having read Jane Jacobs' Dark Ages Ahead (2005), I'm inclined to view Trump and his minions less as instigators of a Dark Age than as an example.

  • Adam Serwer [06-08] Musk and Trump Still Agree on One Thing: "Whatever they may be fighting about, they are both committed to showering tax cuts on Americans who already have more than they need."

Jeffrey St Clair

    [06-13] Roaming Charges: From the Halls of Montezuma to the Shores of Venice Beach: "It's becoming clearer and clearer every day that the South finally won the Civil War and the Insurrectionists won J6." Also: "The drones are coming home to roost." Also quotes Greg Grandin: "Only fools believed Trump is somehow antiwar. He's not a break with neocons but their evolution."

  • [06-27] Roaming Charges: After Midnight: "Trump mega-bombed a mountain in Iran and called it peace." St Clair doubts the effectiveness of the bombing. I don't have any particular stake in that argument. Anything that was damaged in the bombing, including the people who were killed or maimed, can be replaced easily enough. The physics and technology of nuclear weapons have been understood since the 1940s. At the end of WWII, the US rounded up all of Germany's atomic physicists and holed them up on a farm on rural England. They had spent years fiddling and fumbling in their efforts to build even a simple reactor, but what confused them was their uncertainty that it might work. Within two days of hearing about Hiroshima, they figured out a functional design. They couldn't build one. That took the Russians four more years, not because they had to figure out how it worked, but because the materials were hard to come by, and the processes complex. It took France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea even longer, but they all did it, and the timelines have more to do with motivation than with skill. A number of other nations, most obviously Germany and Japan, have demonstrated they have all the skills they need. It is, after all, easier to get a bomb to blow up than it is to keep a power plant from melting down. Iran, too, has amply demonstrated that they have the necessary skills, and for that matter the materiel. Netanyahu was probably right way back in the 1990s that Iran could produce atomic bombs from their program within 3-5 years, or 6-12 months, or whatever time frame he was projecting to panic his people and allies. That Iran never met his timelines is primarily because they didn't see the point of actually having nuclear weapons. Perhaps they were thinking that if Israel and America could see that they could, that would be enough of a deterrent to keep them from being attacked. Perhaps that thinking even worked until now. The big problem with the "madman theory" is that it assumes the other side will always be the sane one, without bothering to examine one's own sanity in contemplating such a contest. Iran's quite rational notion of deterrence failed because Netanyahu and Trump have not only called Iran's bluff, they've upped the ante, giving Iran the one necessity it was lacking: motivation. The gamble is that Iran will still realize that nuclear weapons are useless, a fool's game. They only seem to have value as a deterrent, but that no longer works against Netanyahu and Trump, who act like they're daring Iran in hopes of burying the entire country under mushroom clouds. After all, what's the point of nuclear superiority if you can't use it to extort your enemies and force them to submit to your will?

    Also linked here:

    Further down, St Clair spots a tweet by Stephen Miller:

    The commentary about NYC Democrats nominating an anarchist-socialist for Mayor omits one point: how unchecked migration fundamentally remade the NYC electorate. Democrats change politics by changing voters. That's how you turn a city that defined US dominance into what it is now.

    That's a fairly accurate description of New York City, but from the 1880s through 1910s, when borders really were open (albeit only for whites). The result was a long series of Irish-, Italian-, and Jewish-American mayors. And he's right that their descendents, mostly with Democratic mayors, led New York City to a dominant position in American finance and culture. They've also made it the richest and least affordable city in America, but even with all that wealth few New Yorkers see Republican nihilism as an attractive proposition.

Peter Shamshiri [06-16] The Politics of Eternal Distraction: "To some Democrats, everything Trump does is designed to distract you." It's taken Democrats an awful long time to realize that much of what Trump does is sheer distraction, so when they point that out, along comes someone to attack you for overstating your insight: after all, some of what Trump does is so plainly damaging that he needs this other crap to distract you from what he's really doing. I can't sort this out right now, but I'd caution against thinking that the "distractions" are the harmless parts: they often reveal what Trump is thinking, even where he doesn't have the capacity to deliver. That he even says he wants to do something profoundly stupid should make you suspicious of everything else, even if superficially plausible. But also you have to guard against getting carried away responding to every feint he throws your way. The word "distraction" can help in that regard, if immediately followed by redirecting back to something important.

Charlotte Klein [06-19] Are You a $300,000 Writer? "Inside The Atlantic's extremely expensive hiring spree." A certain amount of professional jealousy is inevitable with articles like this, and is indeed much of the interest. I mean, they could hire me for much less than any of these writers I've mostly never heard of, and I could write some genuinely interesting content -- mostly innovative engineering solutions to tricky political problems -- that won't read like everyone else's warmed-over punditry. On the other hand, I probably wouldn't want to write what they're so eager to pay for. I don't know who's footing the bills behind their current menu, but they're up to no good.

Scott Lemieux [06-19] Getting the war criminals back together: Quotes Elisabeth Bumiller seeking the sage advise of a washed up US General:

One person who sees little similarity between the run up to Iraq and now is David H. Petraeus, the general who commanded American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and led the 101st Airborne Division in the initial invasion in Baghdad. "This is clearly the potential run up to military action, but it's not the invasion of a country," he said on Wednesday.

Mr. Trump, he said, should deliver an ultimatum to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, and order him to agree to the complete dismantlement of his nuclear program or face "the complete destruction of your country and your regime and your people." If the supreme leader rejects the ultimatum, Mr. Petraeus said, "that improves our legitimacy and then reluctantly we blow them to smithereens."

Nobody's even talking about fixing Iran here. There's no warning that "if you break it, you own it." They just want to fuck it up, leave it bruised and bleeding in a ditch somewhere, washing their hands of the whole affair . . . unless they have to come back and do it again, which they probably will. Sheer nihilists, because that's the power they think they have.

Ryan Cooper [06-20] Climate Change Will Bankrupt the Country: "Climate-fueled disasters cost America almost a trillion dollars over the last year, far more than economists predicted." By "economists" he's referring to work by William Nordhaus, which he was critical of at the time and even more so now. The price tag will only continue to rise, and with it private insurance becomes increasingly untenable. While this will be bad for everyone, the ones with the most to lose are property owners and lenders, who will experience ever greater precarity, and no doubt will finally be driven to attempt to socialize their risks. This will be a huge political factor in coming years. The phrase "too big to fail" will haunt us. And while one may debate the merits of bailing out individual companies, the whole country poses a somewhat different problem: who's big enough to bail us all out?

Josh Dawsey/Rebecca Ballhaus [06-20] Stephen Miller's Fingerprints Are on Everything in Trump's Second Term: "The deputy chief of staff has played an outsize role in immigration -- and amassed more power than almost anyone else at the White House." Also on Miller:

Naomi Bethune [06-24] ICE Impersonators Proliferate Amid the Agency's Undercover Tactics: "Pretending to be an ICE agent to commit crimes is disturbingly easy."

David Klion [06-24] State of Exception: National Security Governance, Then and Now.

Carol Schaeffer [06-27] NATO Rolls Out the Red Carpet for Trump, the President Who Would Be King: "The NATO secretary general has one mission: Keep Trump happy. And to keep Trump happy, you sacrifice your difnity and treat him like a monarch." I haven't followed the recent NATO summit or anything else tied to the organization, like NATO's ringing endorsement of bombing Iran, or the recent pledges to radically increase military spending (see "#0523Tooze">Tooze above), but it appears that Europe's military elite have overcome their first-term jitters and Biden-interregnum relief with the realization that it isn't ideological for Trump: you just have to suck up and pay up. And that seems to be what's going on here. What isn't clear yet is whether their governments will go along with the charade. Being a general has been a pretty pointless job in Europe since 1948 -- or since the 1960s for those states still holding down their colonies -- but irrelevancy has led to some degree of autonomy, which seems to be at play here. And if all it takes to make Trump happy is to buy a lot of crap and scrape and bow (or curtly salute), that just feathers their nests. The risk, of course, is that some Madeleine Albright will come along and dare them to use their arms, starting wars that will inevitably turn sour, but for now, Trump is a bonanza.

  • Anatol Lieven [06-20] The 17 Ukraine war peace terms the US must put before NATO. I originally had the Schaeffer article hung under a mere mention of this piece, then rediscovered it and wrote a longer comment, so I moved this piece here. Meanwhile, I wrote something longer on this piece into the drafts file, figuring I'd return to it later. I still may, but seeing as how it's already in play, let me quote myself here:

    "Threats must be imposed if either side or both reject these demands. The time is now." I've followed Lieven closely from well before Putin's military invasion of Ukraine, and I've found him to be a generally reliable guide, but I'm scratching my head a bit here. Certainly, if they all agreed to these 17 terms, far be it from me to object. But about half of them seem to add unnecessary complications just to check off superfluous talking points. For instance, "7. Ukraine introduces guarantees for Russian linguistic and cultural rights into the constitution. Russia does the same for Ukrainians in Russia." Why should either nation have its sovereignty so restrained? The first part was part of the Minsk Accords, and turned out to be a major sticking point for Ukrainian voters. Besides, the ceasefire line effectively removes most Russian-speakers from Ukraine. And how many Ukrainians are still living in Russian-occupied territory? The arms/NATO provisions also strike me as added complexity, especially on issues that should be addressed later. In the long run, I'm in favor of disbanding NATO, but that needs to be a separate, broader negotation with Russia, not something that is partly tucked into ending the war in Ukraine. I could expand on this, but not here, yet.

Ukraine is now wrapped up in the larger question of NATO, where the question is increasingly whether Europe will continue to accept its subordinate role in the imposition of a regime of Israeli-American militarism. For now, those in power seem willing to play (and pay) along, but how long will such an attitude remain popular in supposed democracies?

No More Mister Nice Blog: This might as well become a regular feature. I've skipped over a few pieces, mostly about the NYC mayor race, which are also of interest:

  • [06-10]: Gosh, if only there were a way to test the premise that the LA protests are an "80-20 issue" favoring Republicans: "Hand-wringing Trump critics think America won't vote for a candidate who's linked to controversial protests, and they cling to this belief even though America just elected the guy who did January 6." He also offers some sound advice:

    Why can't Trump critics be advocates for their own side? Why must they echo right-wing critiques of the protest movement? Given the way most Americans consume news these days, I'm guessing that it might not register on many voters that the protestors are waving Mexican flags (and that they should see this as a moral outrage) until they start hearing about the flags from both sides. (Compare this to the war on "woke" language: I'm sure most voters have now heard the word "Latinx" far more often from centrist Democratic language police than they have from actual "woke" Democrats.)

    I'll say it again: If your critique of Democrats/liberals/progressives echoes right-wing critiques, shut up. You're just an extra megaphone for the right, which doesn't need any help getting its messages out. . . . So please stop the tone policing, and stick up for your side.

    My bold.

  • [06-11]: Trump came into office wishing a mf'er would: "Two commentators I respect . . . believe that Donald Trump is militarizing Los Angeles out of weakness. I don't think that's true."

  • [06-13]: Everyone knows that only Republicans are normal!: "They're engaging in totalitarian repression, obviously, but they claim they're freeing people." Exmaples of Republican "normalcy" follow.

    Republicans struggle with the idea that anyone could possibly want to live in a place where people are of very different ethnic backgrounds, speak different languages, and have different religious beliefs (or non-beliefs), just as they struggle with the idea that anyone could be unalterably gay or bi or pan or trans just because they aren't. They struggle with the idea that anyone would want to live in a city where you can do most of your errands in a fifteen-minute radius, because they're used to long drives whenever you have to run errands. Increasingly, they're selling the message that everyone wants a marriage consisting of a male breadwinner and a stay-at-home "tradwife" who gives birth to large numbers of children, after marrying young (and preferably as a virgin), and they can't believe anyone really wants a life that's different from that.

    It is true that Republicans have chosen to represent an imagined majority: a large bloc of people who can be characterized as "true Americans" and flattered as "patriots." They can be treated as a socially and economically cohesive bloc, with some sleight of hand added to line them up behind the true economic powers. This has always been true: it was built into the design of the Republican Party in the 1850s, when white, protestant free soil farmers and small-time business and labor actually formed something close to a majority of voters. That's baked into the initials GOP, which writers (including me) find irresistible because we tire of overly repeating words, especially "Republican." (It's effectively a proprietary pronoun. One of the many asymmetries of our warped politics is that Democrats don't have an equivalent pronoun or alias.) Republicans are skating on thin ice here: their "majority" is thinning out, haphazardly reinforced as various ethnic groups become honorary whites, and various sects are accepted as close enough to protestants (the new term is "Judeo-Christian," with "Abrahamic" in the wings, held back by the political opportunism of anti-Islam bigotry.) But the larger risk Republicans run is that they don't represent their voters at all well. They lie to them, they steal from them, they double-cross them whenever they see an opportunity to make a quick buck. On the other hand, Democrats are developing their own nascent myth of a majority built on diversity, equity, tolerance, mutual respect and aid, and solidarity.

  • [06-14]: Trump's muddled, on-and-off militarism won't split the GOP at all.

  • [06-18]: Jeb Bush was right about Trump and "chaos". Cites a piece by Jamelle Bouie ([06-18: Maybe Trump and Miller Don't Understand Americans as Well as They Think They Do), regarding Trump's polling slump.

  • [06-21]: Your right-wing neighbors still don't believe the Minnesota shoter was a conservative ideologue: I haven't yet cited any articles on the June 14 assassination of Democratic politicians in Minnesota, but the basic facts are available on Wikipedia (2025 shootings of Minnesota legislators), not for lack of interest or alarm but mostly a matter of timing. That right-wingers have worked overtime to twist the stories into unrecognizable shapes is unsurprising: if anything, it's standard operating procedure, and the examples are as telling as their penchant for gun-toting vigilantism. One of the most fundamental differences between right and left is that only the former believes that violence works, and will resort to it readily (and will lie about it afterwards, because that's even more part of their nature). Two earlier pieces on the shootings:

  • [06-22]: To your right-wing neighbors, this will be Trump's war only if it works. Cites a Joshua Keating article ([06-21]: This time, it's Trump's war) I had initially skipped over.

  • [06-23]: Will Democrats be too high-minded to respond to young people's war fears? I don't know what he means by "high-minded." What Democrats need to do is convey the view that any time Americans pull the trigger that represents a failure of American foreign policy, regardless of whether you hit the target or not. Of course, from 2021-25, Biden was the one demonstrating incompetence by not preventing war situations from developing and/or spreading. But why show Trump the slightest leniency when the voters cut them no slack?

  • [06-26]: In New York, I'm enjoying this billionaire freakout.

  • [06-28] The Supreme Court's Republicans know our side will never use the power they've potentially given us: The Supreme Court "ruled that lower-court judges can't protect even fundamental constitutional rights using nationwide injunctions."

    The Supreme Court's Republicans aren't worried that the shoe might be on the other foot someday because they know the shoe will never be on the other foot. This is why they're willing to give Donald Trump nearly unlimited power: they know that any Republican would use the power in ways they like and no Democrat would ever use it in ways they dislike. They're giving powerful weapons to Trump and future party-mates because they know the enemy -- Democrats -- will never use those weapons.

Tweets:

  • Alan MacLeod [06-05]: The most American leading ever: Kids could end up in foster care over lunch debt, Pennsylvania school district warns parents

  • Adam Serwer [06-08]: Don't let Trump and Musk's feud obscure their fundamental agreement: Both men and the party they own are committed to taking as much as possible from Americans who need help in order to give to those who have more than they could ever want. [link to his Atlantic article: Musk and Trump Still Agree on One Thing]

    For years, commentators have talked about how Trump reshaped the Republican Party in the populist mold. Indeed, Trumpism has seen Republicans abandon many of their publicly held commitments. The GOP says it champions fiscal discipline while growing the debt at every opportunity. It talks about individual merit while endorsing discrimination against groups based on gender, race, national origin, and sexual orientation. It blathers about free speech while using state power to engage in the most sweeping national-censorship campaign since the Red Scare. Republicans warn us about the "weaponization" of the legal system while seeking to prosecute critics for political crimes and deporting apparently innocent people to Gulags without a shred of due process. The GOP venerates Christianity while engaging in the kind of performative cruelty early Christians associated with paganism. It preaches family values while destroying families it refuses to recognize as such.

    Yet the one bridge that connects Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush to Donald Trump is slashing public services while showering tax cuts on the rich. This is the Republican Party's most sacred, fundamental value, the one it almost never betrays. Whatever else Trump and Musk may fight about, they are faithful to that.

  • Nathan J Robinson [06-09] goddamnit so many @curaffairs readers have requested a review of "Abundance" that now I'm having to write it. why do our readers want me to suffer[?]

    I commented: Why, compared to idiots you love writing about (like Peterson & Rufo), is Klein a sufferance? Maybe it takes more work to accept and build on what he offers than to trash it as not enough or some kind of sellout, but the idea that Dems need to build/deliver isn't wrong.

    When I clicked on post, I got a pop-up saying: "Want more people to see your comment? Subscribe." The days when social media companies were happy just to profit off our free content are obviously over. Now in their pay-to-play racket they view everyone as an advertiser, which will tend to reduce every comment to the credibility level of advertisements (i.e., none: advertising has been proudly post-truth for over a century, and indeed was born that way).

  • Richard D Wolff [06-09] US liberals also enabled Trump. They let the right enlist them against the left after 1945. As the GOP right-turned authoritarian, a unified liberal-left opposition would have been real and powerful, unlike today's liberal-vs-left split opposition.

  • Isi Breen [06-09]

    Has anyone written an article about how Abundance is a swan song for Obama's presidency? That it's less about doing anything new and more about getting back to the last time it seemed like the party had its shit together?

    Problem here is how can anyone still think that the Democrats had their shit together under Obama? He promised "change" and shrunk it down to virtually nothing. He lost Congress after two years, and never won it back, giving him an excuse to do even less than he was inclined to do. Even the articulateness he was famed for before he ran deserted him. (Or was it some kind of race to the bottom with the dumbing down of the American people?) I have dozens of examples, but one specific to "abundance agenda" is that Obama refused to pursue any stimulus projects that weren't "shovel-ready." (Reed Hundt, in A Crisis Wasted, has examples of things proposed but rejected because Obama and his locked-in advisors like Summers and Emmanuel wouldn't consider anything that smacked of long-term planning.)

  • Kate Wehwalt [06-13]:

    It's crazy how in 40 years the internet made everyone stupid and ruined the entire world

    Nah. It just made you more aware of how stupid people already were.

  • Kim, Bestie of Bunzy [06-19]

    Watching this man try to get rid of imaginary raccoons he thought were invading reminds me of what white people are currently trying to do [to] America to get rid [of] immigrants they think are invading

    This comes with a 0:43 video, where the captions read: "My dad had raccoons in his tree house. Nobody has been up there in years. He tried to get rid of them with a combination of . . . smoke bombs and firecrackers. Anxiously watching for fleeing raccoons . . . [the tree house catches fire and is destroyed]. No raccoons were seen or found." Much more of interest in Kim's feed. I didn't expect (i.e., couldn't have imagined) this one:

    Israeli Interior Minister Ben-Gvir accuses Mossad chief Barnea of starting a war: - Why did you provoke Iran! Barnea: - I didn't know Iran had such rocket capabilities!

    The head of Mossad "did not know"

    I've been imagining that Ben-Gvir was the architect of the war, and conjuring up rationales for him doing so. Netanyahu has been complaining about Iran's rockets ever since Israel pivoted against Iran after the 1990 Gulf War neutralized Iraq as Israel's chief bête noire (more like a boogeyman meant to frighten the US and make it subservient to Israel -- a card they've played many times, and which you still see working as US politicians clamor for war against Iran). What this suggests is not that they were unaware of Netanyahu's propaganda, but that neither Ben-Gvir nor Barnea believed Israel's own propaganda, which they both used for their own purposes. Long-range rocket attacks were a significant part of the 1980s Iran-Iraq war, with Iraq using Soviet Scuds and Iran building their own (after exhausting their US-built rockets). Extending their range to reach Israel would have been easy, and didn't cross an obvious red line, like nuclear bombs would have. Still, to be a nuclear threat, as Netanyahu has long insisted Iran is, you both need warheads and some way to deliver them: Iranian rockets have always been an obvious part of the equation. (Same for North Korea, which has even larger rockets.) Israel has routinely blamed Iran for every rocket from Gaza, Lebanon, and/or Yemen, so claiming now that you didn't know Iran had "such rocket capabilities" is an admission that you thought the rockets from Gaza, etc., weren't serious threats. They were just propaganda foils.

  • Pessimistic Intellect, Optimistic Will: Includes graphic of a press release by Hakeen Jeffries ("Democratic Leader"). Second and third paragraphs are solid points, although I wouldn't say that the kind of diplomacy the US needs to engage in at the moment is "aggressive": how about "serious"? or "constructive"? or just something that suggests you're not insane? However, before he could allow himself any of that, first Jeffries had to recite his pledge of allegiance:

    Iran is a sworn enemy of the United States and can never be permitted to become a nuclear-capable power. Israel has a right to defend itself against escalating Iranian aggression and our commitment to Israel's security remains ironclad.

    Not only is none of this true, and as articulated is little short of psychotic. Still, the real problem with always putting this pledge first isn't that it suggests you cannot think clearly. It's warning other people that you cannot or will not do anything about Israel's behavior because you're not even in charge of you own thoughts let alone actions.

  • Matthew Yglesias [06-22]:

    Every president of my lifetime except Joe Biden actually started wars, but somehow he ended up getting lambasted from the right and the left for providing military supplies to allies as if that made him the greatest warhawk in American history.

    No one I'm aware of has tried to sort out a ranking of "greatest warhawks in American history," but even if one did, not being the "greatest" wouldn't be much of a compliment. Biden needed not just to not start new wars, but to end them. He not only didn't do the necessary diplomacy to end the wars in Ukraine and Israel/Gaza, what diplomacy he did do, combined with his unflinching supply of arms and money to support the war efforts, made it possible for the wars to extend and spread. (Ukraine is slightly different, in that sending arms there can be justified by the need to counter Russian aggression, but also in that there are clear opportunities for diplomatic resolution. Support for Israel, given their long history of aggression and domination, is impossible to justify.) And while you might credit Biden with ending the Afghanistan war, once again he failed to show any diplomatic skill or interest. His popularity sunk not because he ended the war, but due to the ineptness of his withdrawal. The only thing you can say for him is that he was painted into an untenable corner by predecessors, but it's hard to see where he even tried to right their wrongs.

  • Ian Boudreau [06-26] Responding to a tweet noting that "mamdani's win has made the ny times, the washington post, fox news, trump, third way, and the democratic establishment very mad" citing a Washington Post Editorial Board article: "Zohran Mamdani's victory is bad for New York and the Democratic Party: New York cannot take its greatness for granted. Mismanagement can ruin it."

    Wow, mismanagement of New York City - what a genuinely terrifying prospect! Siri who is the current mayor of New York City?

    I don't have the bandwidth to deal with what looks to Wichita like a remote mayoral primary, but is obviously big news for the media centers and for the electorally-oriented left. It's quite possible that left candidates are much better at articulating problems and proposing solutions than they are at administering and implementing, but couldn't that just as easily be due to the obstacles entrenched powers can throw into the way, including their cozy relationship with the establishment press? One thing for sure is that whatever management skills conservatives think they have aren't helped by the evils of their ideology.

    Jamelle Bouie adds: "i think i would take the hysteria over mamdani's ability to govern more seriously if half these people hasn't endorsed eric adams."

    Ryan Cooper quotes Paul Krugman: "centrist Democrats often urge leftier types to rally behind their nominees in general elections. I agree. Anyone claiming that there's no difference between the parties is a fool. But this deal has to be reciprocal."

  • Don Winslow [06-28]:

    16 million Americans are about to lose their health insurance because 77 million Americans voted for this shit.

Mid-Year Music Lists: I usually collect these under Music Week, but it's probably easier here.

Current count: 146 links, 12549 words (14967 total)

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Monday, June 23, 2025

Music Week

June archive (in progress).

Music: Current count 44388 [44357) rated (+31), 24 [27] unrated (-3).

I've got a ton of work to do today, and tomorrow, and probably well into the near future. Music Week is one part of that work, the one that's most tightly scheduled -- is supposed to be done each and every Monday -- but not as important as urgent work on the Francis Davis Jazz Critics Poll: Mid-Year 2025. I sent a batch of invitations out to my jazzpoll [at] hullworks.net list a week ago (back on June 13) offering July 1 as the deadline for submitting lists. I had meant to do list and website maintenance before the mailing, but things got out of hand, so I figured I should go ahead and send out what I had to the list I had (210 members), and catch up later. I'm still working on that. So what I figured I'd do here is to post a Music Week stub, so I can scratch that off my todo list today, and update it later, at which point (probably not today) I'll have more definitive news on the Poll, possibly other projects as well.

I'm omitting the reviews for now. They're all in the June archive. (The Bandcamp pages for my pick hits are also linked on my Bluesky feed.) It wouldn't be a lot of work to dig them out at this point, but their absence underscores that this is just a stub. On the other hand, I thought I could use this space to organize my thoughts on what I need to do today on the Poll. Otherwise I just have this cloud of thoughts clashing around in my brain -- which needless to say is already agitated over the beyond-insane Netanyahu-Trump attack on Iran, probably not the worst thing either has done but the most performatively pointless exercise in self-delusion . . . well, I can't think of a comparison.

But back to basics: Of those 200+ invites, I've received and counted 20 ballots so far. I'm not sure how that compares with past polls, but it doesn't give me a lot of confidence that the invites have been received much less taken seriously. I like this particular mail list because with it all I have to do is compose one message and hit "send" and it goes to everyone. But the list has been a massive headache in the past, because many email providers regard the messages as spam, so they get routed to rarely-checked spam folders and sometimes flat-out rejected. Moreover, it's impossible for me to monitor how much mail is delivered and read, which allows considerable operating room for my paranoia. I had some hope that this year would be better because the list is hosted on a new server and the vendor has a system for maintaining its reputation. But again, I have no metrics showing that is the case. (That is something I need to look into, but that will also be take a lot of time.)

I have an alternate method for sending out invites, which is to use the Thunderbird MailMerge utility to generate individualized emails, which I can then send out one-by-one -- a process which takes several very tedious hours. These messages are much more likely to be delivered. Given the large number of people who never got invites because I hadn't updated the list, I've reluctantly decided I have to do this again this week. I should also resend invitations to the initial list members who have not voted. The largest piece of work here was to figure out who's missing from the two lists. That much I largely got done yesterday -- leaving aside the question of whether invitations should be extended to new people (which is not something I'm terribly worried about). That leaves for today:

  1. I need to edit the standard long-form invitation to produce a short-form version. The short-form gets straight to the point, trying to be less intimidating, with less emphasis on the fine points of rules and points, and fewer links that can add to spam scores. The short-form will be the basis of today's mass mailing.

  2. I need to check a couple more website files, to make sure the information in them is consistent and coherent. At this point I'm not going to worry about the "-notes" files, which try to provide very detailed explanations of everything. I will still need to work on them after today. I also need to make a programming change to reflect the decision to sort totals on votes and tie-break with points, a reversal from past polls, but that can wait, as the totals aren't public yet. The key point here is that when someone receives an invitation, they need to be able to access the website for further information, including a reference copy of the invite. That's the point of the update.

  3. Next thing is to write an email message based on the short-form invite, and run it through MailMerge, which will generate and queue up about 300 messages. (Although the program can send the mail, my ISP will start rejecting messages if sent too quickly. There may be a delay mechanism, but it's unclear how to tune it. Plus there is an advantage to not sending everything automatically.) I can then go through the folder and delete messages to people who don't need them. I can also individually edit the messages, not that I want to. The sent messages can also be used as templates for later invites. I usually send 5-8 messages in series, then take a break for a minute or two before sending the next batch. It takes several hours to send 200 messages.

  4. Next I will compose and send a message to the jpadmin mail list, which consists of volunteers who have taken an interest in the Poll. I write to them whenever I do a website update and/or have significant news to share and/or want them to look at something. In this case, it will be the updated website, and the prospective voter list. I can send further invites based on their feedback, as well as my own further research.

  5. Finally, I will need to update this Music Week post. More then. Maybe I'll get around to mentioning other projects. Perhaps I'll even come up with my own ballot.

Update [06-24]: I've added the reviews, below. I managed to send the first batch of additional Poll invites (34 recent voters not on initial mail list) out Monday night. I got two ballots back Tuesday morning, plus a couple other notes. Second batch (50 people we've invited in the past but haven't voted) went out today, in dribs and drabs to avoid angering the mail gods. I've heard from one person (a gmail user) on the initial list who never got the original invite, so I should probably proceed with sending individual reminders to everyone on the initial list who hasn't voted. Unfortunately, there is no real way to identify list members who haven't actually seen their mail.

I'll send a notice to the email list after I post this and update the website -- either late tonight or first thing tomorrow. I've held back pending expected updates to the website, but just a week before deadline we need to start beating the drums to get the ballots in. Besides, work on the website can be a perpetual, neverending task, especially as I don't get enough feedback to get a good sense of what is adequate and what needs improvement. That leaves me forever going back over various pieces, finding little details that can use a little tweaking. Meanwhile, my many other projects have been on hold the last few days. I need to balance better. Hopefully the ballots wil l roll in without much further sweat or angst on my part.

Big project last week was sorting and storing the wood pile. To that end, I've built the new racks in the shed, and moved most of the wood out of the basement and the house, so it's in the target area, if not necessarily in its final resting place. So it's coming along, and will get a test in the next week or so, when I try to build my recycling kiosk. The bigger question is whether the extra space I opened up in the basement will finally allow me to sort the tools and hardware. If I can do that, I can reclaim even more space in the basement and garage.

Unfortunately, my most likely diversion for the next couple days will be to turn the Loose Tabs scratch file into a blog post. I have two major sections long written, and I probably have 20-30 tabs I need to wrap up and close. While I've avoided most news, my chance encounters of late have been very disturbing. But perhaps there's no way to avoid having to deal with that. I'm also almost 500 pages into Greg Grandin's monumental America, América: A New History of the New World, and can recommend it highly -- although I suspect that there's still a lot he glosses over and/or simply skips. I'm reminded of the contrast between the treatments of the 1848 revolutions between Hobsbawm and Christopher Clark: the latter wrote 896 pp on all of the various revolts and reactions, which Hobsbawm dispensed with in less than ten pages (split over two books, with 1848 as the dividing line) which basically boiled down to: some stuff happened, but it amount to anything. Grandin has a similar eye for focusing on significance.

New records reviewed this week:

Sophie Agnel/John Butcher: Rare (2024 [2025], Les Disques Victo): French pianist, released a solo album in 2000, a couple dozen albums since are nearly all shared with other free jazz figures, this the second I see with the British saxophonist. B+(**) [sp]

Sophie Agnel: Song (2022-24 [2025], Relative Pitch): Solo piano, seven songs simply numbered, 41:05 total. B+(*) [sp]

Yves Brouqui: Mean What You Say (2024 [2025], SteepleChase): French guitarist, has several albums since 2002, including a tribute to Horace Silver. This is a quartet with piano (Spike Wilner), bass, and drums, playing three originals, seven standards, including "Besame Mucho," "Caravan," and the title piece from Thad Jones. B+(**) [sp]

Gerald Clayton: Ones & Twos (2025, Blue Note): Pianist, debut 2009, father and uncle are famed as the Clayton Brothers as well as individually (John, Jeff). Title refers to two LP sides and a "turntablist concept" I neither understand nor can hear. Clayton also plays synths and organ, with trumpet (Marquis Hill), vibes (Joel Ross), flute (Elena Pinderhughes), drums (Kendrick Smith), and percussion/post-production by Kassa Overall. B [sp]

Michel Doneda/Lê Quan Ninh/Núria Andorrà: El Retorn De L'Escolta: A La Memòria De Marianne Brull (2023 [2024], Fundacja Słuchaj): French soprano saxophonist (also sopranino here), has a substantial discography going back to 1985, but little I have heard. One 53:32 piece with two percussionists. Brull (1935-2023) was a Swiss-born publisher of anti-Franco literature, who eventually wound up living in Barcelona. B [bc]

Signe Emmeluth/Ingebrigt Håker Flaten/Axel Filip: Hyperboreal Trio (2023 [2025], Relative Pitch): Alto sax, bass, drums trio. Distinctive tone, reminds me of Jackie McLean. B+(***) [bc]

Alon Farber Hagiga: Dreams | Dream (2024 [2025], Origin): Israeli saxophonist (soprano/alto/tenor), came to my attention in 2005 with a FSNT release as Hagiga Quintet but had previous albums back to 1996, and continues to use the band name for this sprightly quartet, backed with piano, bass, and drums. B+(**) [cd]

Paul Flaherty: A Willing Passenger (2021 [2025], Relative Pitch): Avant-saxophonist, discography starts in 1982, is fairly substantial by now but he remains a pretty obscure figure. Bandcamp page has a story about a revelatory 2005 duo set with drummer Chris Corsano as part of a protest against GW Bush's second inaugural, called "Noise Against Fascism." This one is solo, alto & tenor, which can be rough going and is unforgiving: as I was my grading of Braxton's legendary For Alto (a D: "perhaps the ugliest thing I've ever heard"). B+(*) [bc]

Danny Grissett: Travelogue (2025, Savant): Mainstream pianist, tenor so albums since 2006, frequent side work (especially with Tom Harrell and Jeremy Pelt). Trio with Vicente Archer (bass) and Bill Stewart (drums), playing his originals and a couple standards. B+(**) [sp]

Kneebody: Reach (2025, GroundUP Music): Jazz group founded by former Eastman students Adam Benjamin (keyboards), Shane Endsley (trumpet), and Ben Wendel (tenor sax), plus Nate Wood (drums, also bass after Kaveh Rastegar left in 2019; this is their first album without him), debut 2005. Not exactly what I would call fusion, but doesn't distinguish itself clearly. B [sp]

Littorina Saxophone Quartet: Leaking Pipes (2024 [2025], NoBusiness): Four saxophonist from the Baltic Sea region: Maria Faust (alto), Mikko Innanen (alto, soprano, baritone), Fredrik Ljungkvist (soprano, tenor), and Liudas Mockunas (sopranino, soprano, bass, lugging the latter on the cover pic). All contribute pieces, and they keep them sweet and succinct. B+(***) [cd]

K. Curtis Lyle/George Sams/Adi Du Dharma Joshua Weinstein/Damon Smith/Ra Kalaam Bob Moses/Henry Claude: 29 Birds You Never Heard (2022 [2024], Balance Point Acoustics): Spoken word by the poet, who has a previous album from 1971, two new ones in 2024, a book from 1975, not much more I can find, but he's been around, knows a lot, and has his way with words. Also with music here, backed by trumpet (Sams), bass (Weinstein & Smith), percussion (Moses & Claude). Reminds me of Conjure. A- [bc]

Joe Magnarelli: Concord (2024 [2025], SteepleChase): Mainstream trumpet player, started on Criss Cross in 1998, has close to 20 albums, lots of side credits where he frequents big bands (going back to Buddy Rich and Toshiko Akiyoshi, recently with Mike Holober and Dannyh D'Imperio). Quartet with Victor Gould (piano), Paul Sikivie (bass), and Rodney Green (drums), half originals, half standards. B+(**) [sp]

Mark Masters Ensemble: Dance, Eternal Spirits, Dance! (2024 [2025], Capri): Big band arranger/leader, debut was Early Start in 1984, features tenor saxophonist Billy Harper playing his own compositions -- they go back, at least to 1991. B+(***) [cd]

Mark Masters Ensemble: Sam Rivers 100 (2023 [2025], Capri): Big band tribute to Sam Rivers (1923-2011), playing his songs on his centennial birthday, with tenor saxophonist Billy Harper again prominent among the soloists. B+(***) [cd]

Camila Nebbia/Kit Downes/Andrew Lisle: Exhaust (2025, Relative Pitch): Tenor saxophonist from Argentina, has been prolific since 2015, joined here with piano and drums. B+(***) [bc]

Ivo Perelman & Matthew Shipp String Trio: Armageddon Flower (2024 [2025], TAO Forms): Avant-saxophonist from Brazil, based in New York, albums start around 1989, recording pace picked up considerably, probably 8-12 albums per year over the last decade. The pianist is his most frequent collaborator, stating with a duo in 1996, plus a trio that year adding William Parker. The string section here consists of Parker and Mat Maneri (viola), who also has duos and trios with Shipp and/or Parker going back to the late 1990s. A- [cd]

Andrew Rathbun: Lost in the Shadows (2025, SteepleChase): Canadian tenor saxophonist, based in Brooklyn but teaches in Kalamazoo, started on Fresh Sound New Talent in 1999, has been a regular here since 2006. Tenth album, a quartet with Nate Radley (guitar), Jay Anderson (bass), and Billy Drummond (drums). B+(**) [sp]

Felipe Salles: Camera Obscura (2024 [2025], Tapestry): Saxophonist (soprano/tenor plus various clarinets/flutes) from Brazil, teaches at UM Amherst, debut 2007. Original pieces, backed by piano (Nando Michelin), bass, drums, and string quartet. B+(**) [cd]

Frank Paul Schubert/Dieter Manderscheid/Martin Blume: Spindrift: Trio Studies (2022 [2025], Jazz Haus Musik): German saxophonist (alto/soprano), with bass and drums. Group has a 2020 album Spindrift, and it was a close judgment call whether to take "Spindrift" as the group name here, or as part of the title (the three artist names follow on a second line; I took the colon on the top line as a hint). B+(***) [sp]

Julian Shore Trio: Sub Rosa (2024 [2025], Chill Tone): Pianist, albums since 2009, trio with bass (Martin Nevin) and drums (Allan Mednard), playing originals plus a couple covers, including one from Brian Wilson. B+(**) [cd]

Ches Smith: Clone Row (2024 [2025], Otherly Love): Drummer, also vibes and electronics, roughly a dozen albums since 2006, last couple on this label have polled well, more side credits, many in interesting circles (Tim Berne, Marc Ribot, John Zorn). Quartet with two guitarists (Mary Halvorson and Liberty Ellman) plus bass (Nick Dunston). Some remarkable guitar herein, tricky rhythms, etc., so not sure what's holding me back. B+(***) [cd]

Ches Smith: The Self (2023 [2025], Tzadik): "One of the most versatile and in-demand percussionists in the Downtown scene" is a plausible boast. Solo, credit reads: drums, vibraphone, timpani, glockenspiel, chimes, tam-tam, percussion. B+(*) [sp]

Inés Velasco: A Flash of Cobalt Blue (2025, self-released): Composer, from Mexico, studied at Berklee, based in New York, first album, arranged for big band, with narration (title comes from a poem) by Jorge Esquinca and a vocal by Catey Esler. B+(*) [cd]

Dan Weiss Quartet: Unclassified Affections (2024 [2025], Pi): Drummer, composer, many side credits, has led albums since 2008, mostly postbop confections I didn't much care for -- although his 2024 album, Even Odds, proved the exception. He goes for interesting chemistry here, matching last year's poll-winning vibraphone player, Patricia Brennan, with former MOPDTK trumpet player Peter Evans and guitarist Miles Okazaki. B+(***) [cd]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

Misha Mengelberg/Sabu Toyozumi: The Analects of Confucius (2000 [2025], NoBusiness): Piano and drums duo, recorded in Japan, on the latter's home turf. Coming in my playlist right after dazzling piano from Cecil Taylor and Irène Schweizer, this took a bit longer to sort out, but in the end he won me over. I suppose it's a bit like comparing Monk and Peterson (or maybe even Tatum), an analogy he would most likely find flattering. A- [cd]

Irène Schweizer/Rüdiger Carl/Johnny Dyani/Han Bennink: Irène's Hot Four (1981 [2025], Intakt): Swiss pianist (1941-2024), an astonishing player, especially in her duos with various free jazz drummers -- the ones with Bennink are among the best, but not alone. She started in the 1970s with Carl playing saxophones, clarinet, and accordion. A- [sp]

Cecil Taylor/Tony Oxley: Flashing Spirits (1988 [2025], Burning Ambulance): "Pioneering avant-garde pianist" (1929-2018), holds the record for most 4-star albums in Penguin Guide, partly because they're so consistent they're hard to sort among, partly because at any given moment the one you're listening to is likely to sound uniquely brilliant. It's easy to pick 1988 as his peak, not least because he recorded so much in Berlin that year. Duo with drums, one of many that year but Oxley was the one he worked with most in later years, and good reasons for that. A- [bc]

Old music:

Kenny Burrell With Art Blakey: On View at the Five Spot Café (1959 [1960], Blue Note): Guitarist, made his debut in 1956, recorded intensively through the 1960s and regularly up to 2016, at which point he was 85. Live album here was expanded for its 1987 CD, and has just reappeared in a 2-CD/3-LP Complete Takes set, but this stream just covers the 1960 LP release. With Tina Brooks (tenor sax), Ben Tucker (bass), the featured drummer, and either Bobby Timmons or Roland Hanna on piano. B+(*) [sp]

K. Curtis Lyle: The Collected Poem/For Blind Lemon Jefferson (1971, Mbari): Poet, from Los Angeles, in 1966 a founding member of the Watts Writers Workshop, later moved to St. Louis, where he met Julius Hemphill, who accompanies him on this, the only album attributed to him before two new ones in 2024. (Turns out he has a few side credits on albums by Hemphill, Baikida Carroll, and Oliver Lake.) B+(**) [yt]

Grade (or other) changes:

Wolf Eyes X Anthony Braxton: Live at Pioneer Works, 26 October 2023 (2023 [2025], ESP-Disk): Edit to artist credit/title/recording date, reflecting some fine print I had missed. Original review is here. May deserve a revisit. Turns out this is not their only recording together. B+(*) [cd]

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

  • Jacob Garchik: Ye Olde 2: At the End of Time (Yestereve) [08-29]
  • The Haas Company Featuring Jerry Goodman: Thirteen (Psychiatric) [08-01]
  • Mary Halvorson: About Ghosts (Nonesuch) [06-13]
  • Jason Kao Hwang: Myths of Origin (True Sound) [07-07]
  • Kaze & Koichi Makigami: Shishiodoshi (Circum/Libra) [07-11]
  • Billy Lester Trio: High Standards (Ultra Sound) [09-12]
  • Los Angeles Improvisation Ensemble: Insubordinate Lunar Transgressions (Denouement) [03-26]

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Wednesday, June 18, 2025

Music Week

June archive (in progress).

Music: Current count 44357 [44332) rated (+25), 27 [32] unrated (-5).

I made the cutover in reasonable time on Monday, but didn't get anything written until late, so this will be posted late. Big thing I've been doing is a fairly massive reorganization of what I refer to as the woodpile. We did a major renovation of the kitchen/dining area roughly 15 years ago, and it produced a lot of scrap wood that's been piled up in the basement ever since. Moreover, there is quite a bit of wood in the garage: one wall as a rack for stick lumber, and the opposite wall has a cage that I built that holds 4x8 sheets (plywood, MDF, underlayment, paneling, etc.), and there are lesser scraps of everything. As the woodworking tools are mostly in the garage, I wanted to move the wood from the basement to the garage and a nearby shed. That's involved building more storage for odd bits. I've averaged several hours a day on this for a couple weeks. Progress is slow, as everything gets harder the older one gets. But I'm hopeful of getting the wood sorted and moved by the end of the week. Next step beyond that will be building a kiosk that can be used as a staging area for recycling. Other storage projects are likely to follow, as well as a serious effort to sort the tools and hardware. And books and CDs, which are by far the largest categories.

Meanwhile, I've sent out a round of invitations to the Francis Davis Jazz Critics Poll: Mid-Year 2025. I'm still way behind on cleaning up the website, and perhaps more urgently on checking the mailing lists, which I suspect are missing a number of 2024 voters. I have three ballots counted so far, but another 10-12 sitting in my inbox. Deadline is June 30, so we still have a fair amount of time. I'm already finding new records I wasn't aware of. [PS: Trying to close this Tuesday evening, I have 10 ballots counted, with 2 more uncounted, and a similar number of promises, plus 2 notes from usually reliable voters regretting (or perhaps just thinking) they'll skip this round. Thus far we have votes for 106 albums (75 new, 31 old), 29 of which weren't previously in my tracking file, which previously stood at 502 jazz albums. The 2024 jazz tracking file wound up with 1572 albums.]

Two upgrades this week from Robert Christgau's Consumer Guide. I already had the Buck 65 and Willie Nelson albums at A-, and Tune-Yards at B+(*). I still have more work to do there (Arcade Fire, Ghost Wolves, Girl Scout, Justin Golden, Eli "Paperboy" Reed, Bruce Springsteen). I've added the MY lists at AOTY into my Metacritic file, but haven't yet gone looking for more trouble. One list I'm aware of but haven't catalogued yet is the set from RiotRiot: Albums (30-11); Albums (10-1); and Songs.

I got rained out on Tuesday. We had a pretty severe storm blow through around 5 AM, which took down a lot of small limbs. The rain finally let up when I got up around 9, so after breakfast I opened the garage/shed up to work, but wound up spending a couple hours just picking up limbs, cuting them up, and packing them into the newly emptied trash can. I quit when I ran out of space, having not even started on the back yard. I broke for lunch, counted a few ballots, kept meaning to get back to it, until I heard thunder and had to pack everything back up. Still raining as I write this.

Tomorrow's going to be disrupted by a dentist appointment, and whatever I feel like doing after as opposed to coming home to work. I did manage to listen to some stuff today, kicking off with three straight A- albums under old music. They're not in Music Week yet, but are in the June archive if you care to go there (link up top). What I will do is refer you to the Loose Tabs draft file, which has two long sections, one on Israel as a revolutionary experience, another on the "abundance" political pitch.

So much shit is happening in the world these days that it's hard to just ignore it all, especially when it's so easy to see the delusions people in power are acting on. There is absolutely no sense to be made out of Israel's attack on Iran, nor is there any sense to be made out of Trump's willingness to take credit for starting the war. Netanyahu is effectively demanding that Iran finally fulfill his prophecy and build and use the nuclear weapons he claims he's trying to safeguard against. Still, the only realistic defense against nuclear war is peace, which is the one option Netanyahu is unwilling (or unable) to consider. Sure, it's possible that Iran will never take the bait, but who's going to admit that just proves how wrong Netanyahu has always been.

The real message that Israel is sending is their intention to do things so horrific that other nations will be so repulsed they may be driven to unthinkable measures just to stop them. The last time any nation has worked so hard to turn the world against them was Germany and Japan in starting WWII. (Even there, it is sobering to note that it wasn't genocide against Jews that motivated the UK, USSR, and USA to fight Germany and Japan, but direct attacks against their own imperialist interests.) It will be much harder for Israel to provoke devastating reaction this time, because most sensible people are wary of entering into war, especially to stop an arsenal of nuclear weapons. That seems to be part of their calculation for aggression.

When we look back at all this, we should realize that BDS was an opportunity to peacefully but firmly remind Israel that there must be limits to abusing the powers of a nation to inflict suffering on one's own people and others. It failed because Israel was able to organize corrupt support from the US and Europe, and in doing so, especially with "blank check" support from Trump and Biden, has only fed the arrogance of Israeli politicians, including some who were until recently regarded as criminals within Israel -- not a coincidence that America installed another escaped criminal as president.

PPS: Just as I was getting ready to post this late Tuesday evening, the internet went out, pushing this post into Wednesday. It stayed out all night, but was working by noon today. By then, I took a look at what I had written, and decided to add a few more words on Israel and Trump. One more point: both are convinced that the harder they get hit, the more their people will rally to their support -- a conceit that makes they especially reckless, especially given their inability to see that Iran's leaders understand that just as well. It was, after all, Hitler who turned Stalin and Churchill into heroes, erasing their long and lamentable histories of misrule.

New records reviewed this week:

Aya: Hexed! (2025, Hyperdub): British electronic music producer, last name Sinclair, second album under this name, released a previous one as Loft. Leans into metal toward the end. B [sp]

Hannah Cohen: Earthstar Mountain (2025, Bella Union/Congrats): Singer-songwriter from San Francisco, based in New York, fourth album since 2012. B+(*) [sp]

Michika Fukumori: Eternity (2023 [2025], Summit): Japanese pianist, moved to New York in 2000, fourth album since 2004, a trio with Steve Whipple (bass) and Adam Nussbaum (drums). Opens with seven originals, then stretches out with some covers (Kurt Weill, Fats Waller, a mashup of Chopin and Jobim, "Be My Love"). B+(***) [cd]

Ms. Ezra Furman: Goodbye Small Head (2025, Bella Union): Singer-songwriter, led band albums 2007-11, solo efforts since then, some seemed notable at the time although I can't say as I recall any of them. Too much of a mixed bag for me to try to sort out, but some interesting stuff if you care. (One track reminds me that Furman wrote a 33-1/3 book about Lou Reed's Transformer album.) B+(**) [sp]

Alexander Hawkins: Song Unconditional (2024 [2025], Intakt): British pianist, quite a few albums since 2008, this one solo. B+(**) [sp]

Izumi Kimura & Gerry Hemingway: How the Dust Falls (2025, Auricle): Japanese pianist, based in Ireland (which she's incorporated into past work), a second duo with the drummer -- they also have two trios with Barry Guy, all recommended. B+(***) [cd]

James Brandon Lewis Quartet: Abstraction Is Deliverance (2024 [2025], Intakt): Poll-winning tenor saxophonist, well-established quartet with Aruán Ortiz (piano), Brad Jones (bass), and Chad Taylor (drums) -- their fifth album. This starts out sounding like a hitherto unknown Coltrane masterpiece. It doesn't develop much beyond that level, but how much can anyone ask for? A- [sp]

Carol Liebowitz/Nick Lyons: The Inner Senses (2023 [2025], SteepleChase LookOut): Piano and alto sax duo, both very measured and precise. B+(***) [cd]

Lifeguard: Ripped and Torn (2025, Matador): Indie/postpunk band from Chicago, Asher Case the singer-bassist, second album. B [sp]

Ramon Lopez: 40 Springs in Paris (2024 [2025], RogueArt): Spanish drummer, moved to Paris in 1985, has dozens of co- and side-credits since 1992, including a solo album in 1998. This, again, is solo. B+(**) [cdr]

Momma: Welcome to My Blue Sky (2025, Lucky Number/Polyvinyl): Dream pop band, led by Etta Friedman and Allegra Weingarten (both guitars, vocals, "additional instrumentation"), fourth album since 2018. Pretty much what I imagine the new Garbage album will sound like. B+(**) [sp]

Greg Murphy: Snap Happy (2024 [2025], Whaling City Sound): Pianist, eighth album since 2004, mostly trio with Obasi Akoto (basses) and Steve Johns (drums), plus guitar (Mark Whitfield) on three tracks, and a vocal (Sy Smith) on one. B+(**) [cd]

Billy Nomates: Metalhorse (2025, Invada): English singer-songwriter Tor Maries, first album (2020) was clearly influenced by Sleaford Mods, third album here is much more easy-going. B+(**) [sp]

Ploy: It's Later Than You Think (2025, Dekmantel): British tech house producer Sam Smith, second album, other releases and mixes going back to 2016, hits a nice spot and sticks there. B+(**) [sp]

Scowl: Are We All Angels (2025, Dead Oceans): Postpunk band from Santa Cruz, Kat Moss is the singer, second album after a couple of EPs. This has some real heft. B+(***) [sp]

Sherelle: With a Vengeance (2025, Method 808): Last name Thomas, first album after several singles/EPs/DJ mixes. Experts tab this as a cross between footwork and jungle. I'm not one, but that sounds about right. One vocal piece shows some potential that could be extended, but the hard fast beats suffice. B+(***) [sp]

Bartees Strange: Horror (2025, 4AD): American singer-songwriter, grew up in Oklahoma, originally Bartees Cox Jr., third album. B+(*) [sp]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

African Jazz Invites O.K. Jazz (1961-70 [2025], Planet Ilunga): Vintage Congo soukous, designed for 4 LP sides, 28 tracks total, two batches credited to L'O.K. Jazz (Franco Luambo), one to L'African Jazz (Joseph Kabasele, aka Le Grande Kallé), the batch called "The African Jazz school - Style Fiesta 1961-1970" the only one with pieces that stretch beyond 3:00. B+(***) [bc]

Dave Burrell/Sam Woodyard: The Lost Session: Paris 1979 (1979 [2025], NoBusiness): Avant pianist, known on occasion to look back with delight, at the moment he was coming off an excellent Plays Ellington and Monk and a Lush Life I haven't heard, and would later go on to The Jelly Roll Joys. Here he's in a duo with Ellington's longtime drummer, whose name rarely shows up in sluglines. Mostly originals, some of which could be vintage rags, but they work in "Lush Life," "Sentimental Lady," and "Embraceable You." A- [cd]

Jimmy Lyons: Live From Studio Rivbea: 1974 & 1976 (1974-76 [2025], NoBusiness): Alto saxophonist (1931-86), best known for his work with Cecil Taylor, but his own albums are almost all worth checking out, and this one is crackling: two improv sets (27:52 and 26:10), the first with Karen Borca (bassoon), Hayes Burnett (bass), and Henry Letcher (drums), the second with Syd Smart (drums) and Burnett again. A- [cd]

Motoharu Yoshizawa/Kim Dae Hwan: Way of the Breeze (1993 [2025], NoBusiness): Japanese bassist (1931-98), credited here with "homemade electric vertical 5-strings bass," duo with Korean free jazz percussionist (1933-2003), who takes charge early with one of the most striking drum solos I've heard lately. Gets more complicated further on. A- [cd]

Old music:

Docteur Nico: Dieu De La Guitare (1954-70 [2018], Planet Ilunga): Famed Congolese guitarist Nicolas Kasanda (1939-85), started with Joseph Kabasele's L'African Jazz, split in 1963 with Rochereau to lead L'Orchestra African Fiesta. He left a couple hundred singles under variations of his nickname. B+(***) [bc]

Muriel Grossmann: Universal Code (2022 [2023], RR Gems): Saxophonist (soprano/alto/tenor), born in Paris, parents Austrian, based in Ibiza, heavily influenced by Coltrane's spiritual jazz tangent, a formula hard to resist. I missed this one, backed with guitar (Radomir Milojkovic), organ (Llorenç Barceló), drums (Uros Stamenkovic), and bass (Gina Schwarz, 3 of 9 tracks). B+(**) [bc]

Resilient Vessels: Live at the Cell (2020 [2021], RR Gems): Live set, from a residency organized by visual artist Josh Werner, who also plays bass here in a quartet with James Brandon Lewis (sax), Patrick Holmes (clarinet), and Ches Smith (drums). Pretty scintilating -- an element I missed in Lewis's new, but otherwise excellent, album. A- [bc]

Grade (or other) changes:

Robert Forster: Strawberries (2025, Tapete): Australian singer-songwriter, one of two in the Go-Betweens (1978-90), went solo after that, and seems to have excelled at recapturing the group's sound since Grant McClennan's death in 2006. This hits the spot more often than not. [was: B+(***)] A- [sp]

Lambrini Girls: Who Let the Dogs Out (2025, City Slang): British punk duo, started by others but here a duo of Phoebe Lunny (lead vocals/guitar) and Lilly Macieira-Bosgelmez (bass guitar/backing vocals), plus drums. First album after several singles and an EP I liked, 11 songs (29:25). This got enough hype I noticed it right away, but obviously didn't pay enough attention. Sound alone should have been good for a boost, even before deciphering the earned rage. [was: B+(*)] A-

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

  • Alchemy Sound Project/Sumi Tonooka: Under the Surface (ARC) [06-27]
  • Ryan Keberle & Collectiv Do Brasil: Choro Das Aguas (Alternate Side) [07-18]
  • Wheelhouse: House and Home (Aerophonic) [07-22]

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Monday, June 9, 2025

Music Week

June archive (in progress).

Music: Current count 44332 [44300) rated (+32), 32 [23] unrated (+9).

I published a Loose Tabs on Wednesday, June 4. I've added an article index, which is useful if you want to link to a specific section. I've fixed a couple typos, edited a tiny bit, and added some more reviews of the Jake Tapper book, although nothing I find all that revealing. [PS: I added some more reviews/notes on 06-10.] If I did have to do the research, the question I'd want to find an answer to is how the people advising Biden fail to recognize that his persistent low polling after leaving Afghanistan -- which should have been a big plus after 20+ years of repeated failure -- was a problem that Biden simply wasn't articulate and/or empathetic enough to talk his way out of.

I've really avoided working up any new material since posting, so the current scratch file doesn't have much, and isn't likely to for a while. There is so much really dreadful crap going on that it's hard to know where to begin, and harder still to decide when to stop. I will say that overhearing some 10-15 minutes of Fox News spin on Trump's deployment of national guard to quell "riots" in California was enough to convince me that Trump is picking this fight because he believes it generates reactions that he believes will help him (and hurt Democrats) politically. And it's not really even immigration policy where he thinks he has the advantage. What turns him and his fans on is the action, underscored by the performative cruelty. It doesn't really matter how many people he deports -- Biden and Obama generally topped his counts -- but how people perceive his commitment and toughness.

Not much to say about music here. I got a lot of the records below from Phil Overeem's list, plus the latest batch of reviews by Dan Weiss, and what I've picked up from the first few mid-year lists that I've factored into my metacritic file:

New today and not counted yet: The Fader; Paste; Spin. Rolling Stone started off their list in typical form: "What a year it's been for great music -- as opposed to, say, everything else." But looking at my metacritic file, I'm not all that impressed: while my tastes rarely align with the critical consensus, the current top five strike me as exceptionally weak: FKA Twigs (*), Bon Iver (**), Japanese Breakfast (*), Horsegirl (**), Lady Gaga (***). Beyond that: Julien Baker & Torres (***), Mogwai (*), Black Country New Road (B), Lambrini Girls (*), Sharon Van Etten (*). Granted, I have five A- records between 14-20 (Lucy Dacus, The Delines, Craig Finn, Billy Woods, Jason Isbell). But my scale is skewed to favor records I like (also Robert Christgau and some of his close followers), and he has all but the thus-far-unreviewed Woods at A- or higher.

Speaking of mid-year polls, I'm thinking about running a jazz critics one, as I did in 2024. If so, I really should get invites out this week, with a June 30 deadline and an early-July publication date. Setting up the website should be easy enough, and firing off the mail list is easy if it works. (Last year it didn't work very well, but I have a new server this time, and supposedly it comes with a better reputation, although over-aggressive spam filters are still a risk.) One good reason for doing this would be to force me to do some prep work for the end-of-year poll.

Downside is that a lot of people who will vote in the annual poll aren't really up for a mid-year poll. But we got 90 ballots last year -- albeit only after a lot of laborious nagging -- and that produced some very useful information. And while I'm unimpressed with the non-jazz so far this year, this seems to be shaping up as a typically solid year for new jazz releases (although maybe not yet for rara avis). I haven't split my 2025 list into jazz and non-jazz yet, but I have a healthy 56 A/A- albums so far, which on first pass are evenly split 28-28.

I've been putting a fair amount of time into household tasks, which will continue for the foreseeable future. Big project this week has been to clean and reorganize the garage and shed, where along with much junk I have a lot of scrap lumber. I'm making slow but fairly steady progress, but it's taking a lot of time from my listening and writing, so things like the planning documents have been suffering.

PS: It's agreed that I'll run a Francis Davis Mid-Year Jazz Critics Poll. I'll set up a website for managing the poll in the next day or two. It should appear here, under the archive website. The minimal job there is to copy the old 2024 Mid-Year directory, delete the old albums/votes, and edit the rest of the files to reflect the year change, any rule changes, and whatever other notes seem helpful. The idea is that voters should be able to refer to the website to answer any questions about the poll, so I'm trying to make it as clean and clear as possible. A simple copy from last year is a start, but still leaves a lot more that should be done.

I have an admin maillist with a dozen or so people who volunteered to help out with last year's poll. Next thing on my todo list is to write them and get them engaged. I'm contemplating a couple of minor rule changes, which I will write up and request for feedback. There isn't a lot of easily distributable work to do -- the one big thing is qualifying and communicating with voters -- but it helps me to write up my ideas and plans, to have a sounding board and get advice, and to watch over how it all works, especially to catch errors before they get out of hand. If you would like to volunteer, please let me know. (Thus far it's only voters, so if you're not one, convince me. Also if you want to vote, convince me. And if you know of someone who hasn't been voting but wants to and should be included, also let me know.)

I also have two email lists for voters: one easy for me to use, but which has had poor deliverability in the past; the other is a lot more work, but is more effective. I'll write up an invite and send it to the former list by the end of the week. When I do that, I'll also post a note on the blog, and on my Bluesky and X accounts. Deadline for ballots will be June 30. I need to review the lists, and make sure they are complete and up to date (as best I can). I'll keep track of letters and ballots as they come in, and I'll probably send nag notes a couple days ahead of deadline to whoever I haven't heard from.

ArtsFuse will publish the results and an essay or two in early July. Complete results, including individual ballots, will be on the archive website, as usual.

New records reviewed this week:

Yugen Blakrok: The Illusion of Being (2025, IOT): South African rapper, third album since 2013. B+(***) [sp]

Car Seat Headrest: The Scholars (2025, Matador): Indie band from Virginia, principally singer-songwriter Will Toledo, 13th album since 2010 per Wikipedia (first 8 were DIY, so 5th album on Matador since 2015 is more like it, with one of those a dupe from early days). Billed as a "rock opera," running 70:32 (or 127:47 deluxe), so no surprise that that I'm not able to focus enough to follow or care, but this is pretty consistently listenable, and may merit more serious consideration. B+(**) [sp]

Central Cee: Can't Rush Greatness (2025, CC4L/Columbia): British rapper Oakley Caesar-Su, first studio album after a couple mixtapes. Can't just idle around either. B+(**) [sp]

Sarah Mary Chadwick: Take Me Out to a Bar/What Am I, Gatsby? (2025, Kill Rock Stars): Singer-songwriter from New Zealand, based in Melbourne, 11th album since 2012 (per Discogs), one noted by Christgau in 2021. This one barely, with slow speak over spare piano, barely registers . . . until "I'm Not Clinging to Life," where she fights back. Interesting character, but music not so much. B [sp]

The Convenience: Like Cartoon Vampires (2025, Winspear): Indie rock guitar/drums duo from New Orleans, Nick Corson and Duncan Troast, second album, moves along. B+(**) [sp]

Cosmic Ear: Traces (2025, We Jazz): New free jazz group, mostly well known Scandinavians remembering and revering Don Cherry: Christer Bothén (bass/contrabass clarinet, ngoni, piano); Mats Gustafsson (tenor sax, flutes, clarinets, electronics, organ, harmonica); Goran Kajfes (trumpets, electronics); Kansan Zetterberg (bass, ngoni); Juan Romero (percussion, berimbau, congas); with "special guest" Manane N Lemwo (kangnan). A- [sp]

Amalie Dahl: Breaking/Building Habits (2024 [2025], SauaJazz): Danish alto saxophonist, based in Oslo, has several albums with her group Dafnie, this a quartet with guitar (Viktor Bomstad), vibes (Viktoria Holde Søndergaard), and drums (Tore Ljøkelsøy). The percussion is especially striking here. A- [bc]

Dickson & Familiar: All the Light of Our Sphere (2024 [2025], Sounds Familiar): Glenn Dickson (clarinet) and Bob Familiar (synthesizer) create ambient music that is complex and radiant, and possibly a bit tiresome. B+(**) [cd]

DJ Shaun-D: From Bubbling to Dutch House (2025, Nyege Nyege Tapes): As best I can tell, a Dutch electronica producer, born in The Hague, father Dutch, mother "Caribbean," may have some records as Shaun D and/or DJ Shaun -- De Schuurman, whose 2024 Bubbling Forever has much the same appeal, cites him as an influence, so presumably he's a bit older. B+(***) [sp]

Rocio Giménez López/Franco Di Renzo/Luciano Ruggieri: La Forma Del Sueño (2023 [2025], Blue Art): Pianist, from Argentina, fifth album since 2017, with bass and drums, playing a selection of jazz classics from Rollins, Parker, Coleman, Coltrane, Peacock, Monk, and Ellington. B+(***) [sp]

K. Curtis Lyle/Jaap Blonk/Alex Cunningham/Damon Smith/Kevin Cheli: A Radio of the Body (2024, Balance Point Acoustics): Lyle is a poet, originally from Los Angeles, was a founder of the Watts Writers Workshop in 1966, moved to St. Louis and recorded an album in 1971 with Julius Hemphill, but that seems to be all until this and another 2024 album. Blonk is a well-known Dutch vocalist and electronics/sound artist, and the others play violin, bass, and drums. B+(***) [sp]

Madre Vaca: Yukon (2025, Madre Vaca): Originally a quartet from Jacksonville, sixth album, now styles itself as a collective, but still a quartet on this sixth album, with three founders -- Jarrett Carter (guitar), Jonah Pierre (keyboards), and Benjamin Shorstein (drums) -- joined by Thomas Milovac (bass), who wrote 3 (of 8 songs; Carter 3, Pierre 2). B+(***) [cd]

Mean Mistreater: Do or Die (2025, Dying Victims Productions): Hard rock/heavy metal band from Austin, second album, cover couldn't be anything else even if the most conspicuous metal is just calcium. Janiece Gonzalez is the singer, with two guitars, bass, and drums. B+(*) [bc]

Ela Minus: Día (2025, Domino): Singer-songwriter from Colombia, studied at Berklee, now based in Brooklyn, second album, electropop (more or less), the catchiest refrain going "I'd love to save you but you've got to save yourself." B+(**) [sp]

MonoNeon: You Had Your Chance - Bad Attitude (2025, Floki Studios): Bassist Dywane Eric Thomas Jr., from Memphis, more than a dozen albums since 2012, some experimental/jazz, but this one is a set of eight idiosyncratic funk tunes (29:30) -- imagine Swamp Dogg starting with Prince instead of Muscle Shoals. B+(*) [bc]

Joe Morris/Elliott Sharp: Realism (2023 [2025], ESP-Disk): Two guitarists, the former also credited with "effects," the latter with "electronics," both have been on the fringe since it was called "avant-garde" (hype sheet says since 1983 and 1979, respectively). This sums their life's work up admirably. A- [cd]

Mourning [A] BLKstar: Flowers for the Living (2025, Don Giovanni): Cleveland group, formed 2015 by RA Washington and LaRoya Kent, fifth album, has soul and gospel in its history, jazz and electronics in its toolkit. B+(**) [sp]

Nao: Jupiter (2025, Little Tokyo): English neo-soul singer-songwriter Neo Jessica Joshua, fourth album since 2016. Choice cut: "Happy People." B+(***) [sp]

The Onions: Return to Paradise (2025, Hitt): Pop/rock band from Columbia, Missouri, (3) in Discogs, second album after a 2015 debut, the kind of band that would cover "Wonderful Wonderful" as surfer or maybe bubblegum but owes more to Les Baxter than to Chuck Berry. C+ [bc]

Sverre Sæbo Quintet: If, However, You Have Not Lost Your Self Control (2025, SauaJazz): Norwegian bassist, has a couple side credits but this looks to be his first as leader. All original pieces, quintet with three horns -- Heidi Kvelvane (alto sax/clarinet), Aksel Røed (baritone/tenor sax/clarinet), Andreas H. Hatzikiriakidis (trumpet) -- and drums (Amund Nordstrøm). B+(**) [bc]

Samia: Bloodless (2025, Grand Jury): Indie pop singer-songwriter, full name adds Najimy Finnerty, after parents who are actors of some note. Third album. B+(***) [sp]

The Sharp Pins: Radio DDR (2025, K/Perennial Death): Young (20) singer-songwriter from Chicago, also records as Lifeguard Dwaal Troupe, and A Towering Raven; this, after a couple DIY releases, seems to be the jangle pop project. My first impulse was to reject it, but then I started hearing things -- derivative, perhaps, not enough to stick with, but there could be something here. B+(*) [sp]

Deborah Silver/The Count Basie Orchestra: Basie Rocks! (2025, Green Hill): The singer has a previous album from 2016 called The Gold Standards, which are indeed good ol' good 'uns. The ghost band is directed by Scotty Barnhart these days, but no names jump out at me, at least until I find Patience Higgins in the "additional musicians," but the featured musicians are well known, including George Coleman and Wycliffe Gordon. I also recognize the songs, which run (chronologically) from "A Hard Day's Night" to "Every Breath You Take," most swung mightily to little avail -- "Tainted Love," "Band on the Run," "Joy to the World," and "Fly Like an Eagle" are beyond help, and "Paint It Black" is worse. Only song where they came up with a revealing new take was "Life's Been Good." B [cd]

Um, Jennifer?: Um Comma Jennifer Question Mark (2025, Final Girl): New York-based indie rock duo, Fig and Eli, offer "love-drunk and hate-fueled hallucinations," but also "a whimsical view of transness." B+(**) [sp]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

The Bitter Ends: The Bitter Ends (2022 [2025], Trouble in River City): St. Louis garage rock band, although I'd pinpoint their origins in 1960s punk, still richer melodically than 1970s punk or 1980s hardcore because they listened to AM and knew a hook when they stole one, but were definitely heading toward a rowdier and noisier future, with no real sense of how postmodernism would relativize everything. Most of this would fit right into Nuggets. Originally self-released, so technically a reissue. A- [bc]

Mazinga: Chinese Democracy Manifest: Greatest Hits, Vol. 2 (2024 [2025], Rubber Wolf?): Punk band from Ann Arbor, Discogs credits them with one previous album (1999), some singles/EPs (1997-2000, 2008). Bandcamp has some more singles/EPs from 2012 and 2024, as well as a 1996-2008 compilation. This looks like another comp: I can source 5 (of 10 songs) to 2024 releases, leaving 5 more unaccounted for (total 26:11). B+(***) [sp]

Sweet Rebels: The Golden Era of Algerian Pop-Raï: The Ecstatic Electro Sound of Original Raï Cassettes 1986-1991 (1986-91 [2025], We Want Sounds): Algerian music, dates back to the 1920s but developed explosively in the 1980s, especially in Oran, before Islamic fundamentalism and civil war tore Algeria apart (1991-2002), driving many musicians abroad. I was first introduced to the music with Earthworks' 1988 compilation, Raï Rebels, which includes several of the artists here, in this compilation of eight rare cassettes that works just as well. B+(***) [bc]

Old music:

Amalie Dahl/Henrik Sandstad Dalen/Jomar Jeppsson Søvik: Fairytales for Daydreamers (2022 [2023], Nice Things): Danish alto saxophonist, based in Oslo, free jazz with bass and drums. A 43:41 piece called "Chapter I" and a 12:05 encore called "Chapter II." B+(*) [sp]

Amalie Dahl: Memories (2023, Sonic Transmissions): Alto saxophonist, first solo album, four tracks, 32:15. B+(*) [sp]

Amalie Dahl/Jomar Jeppsson Søvik/Henrik Sandstad Dalen: Live in Europe (2023 [2024], Nice Things): Two trio sets a week apart, one from Prague (March 3), the other Brussels (March 10). B+(**) [sp]

Andy Haas/David Grollman: Act of Love (2023, Resonant Music, EP): Saxophone and percussion duo, Grollman also credited with balloon and voice -- reading poems written by his late wife, Rita Stein-Grollman, who died early 2023 from "the cruelties of the [Early Onset] Alzheimer's Disease." Short (7 tracks, 17:34) and rather harrowing, or perhaps cathartic. B+(*) [bc]

Les Rallizes Denudés: Blind Baby Has It's Mothers Eyes ([2003], bootleg): Japanese experimental noise band, formed in 1967, active through 1988 and again from 1993-96, parts of their discography have appeared on Temporal Drift since 2021, including a live tape I've heard, Citta' '93, and evidently there is much more in the works: AOTY has a list of "86 Bootlegs (+7 unsorted dates/audience recordings), of which this item has been singled out by Phil Freeman for a AMG review (****), and which popped up on a Phil Overeem list, and is accessible on YouTube (full album, no track information or dates, 54:06). Presumably this was recorded somewhat earlier -- shortly before or after their hiatus is a fair guess. The historical uncertainty and lack of commercial packaging bothers me, as that's necessarily a part of my job reviewing, so I'm inclined to hedge. Also I'm not wild about the closing amplifier feedback, but for a long while, you could describe this as drawing a line from the Velvet Underground through Pulnoc and on toward oblivion, and that's interesting both as concept and revelation. B+(***) [yt]

Mazinga: Mazinga (1999, Reanimator): Ann Arbor punk group, first album after a couple singles/EPs, recorded less after 2000, with more singles/EPs in 2008, 2012, and 2024. Fifteen fast ones, 37:30, including a cover of "Mongoloid" (Devo), although I'm less happy that it's followed up with one called "That Yellow Bastard," but the closer ("No Rewards") helps. B+(*) [bc]

Deborah Silver: The Gold Standards (2016, Deborah Silver): Last heard fronting the Basie ghost orchestra in their romp through a batch of rock-era pop songs that will never become jazz standards, she presented the voice and phrasing of a capable standards singer, so I thought I'd check out this debut (and so far only other) album, where the standards are indeed golden -- "The Nearness of You," "Ain't Misbehavin'," "Slow Boat to China," "My Heart Belongs to Daddy," "I Could Write the Book," etc. Alan Broadbent plays piano and arranged for a big band that's short on brass but long on reeds. She's about as good as I expected, but still this comes up a bit short. B+(*) [sp]

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

  • Benny Benack III: This Is the Life (Bandstand Presents) [06-27]
  • Dave Burrell/Sam Woodyard: The Lost Session: Paris 1979 (NoBusiness) [05-02]
  • Ran Blake/Claire Ritter: Eclipse Orange (2019, Zoning)
  • Anita Donndorff: Thirsty Soul (Fresh Sound New Talent) [06-06]
  • Noah Haidu: Standards III (Sunnyside) [06-06]
  • Izumi Kimura & Gerry Hemingway: How the Dust Falls (Auricle) [05-20]
  • Litorina Saxophone Quartet: Leaking Pipes (NoBusiness) [05-16]
  • Jimmy Lyons: Live From Studio Rivbea: 1974 & 1976 (NoBusiness) [05-02]
  • Misha Mengelberg/Sabu Toyozumi: The Analects of Confucius (2000, NoBusiness) [05-02]
  • Claire Ritter: Songs of Lumière (Zoning) [01-01]
  • Jeff Walton: Pack Animals (none) [06-27]
  • John Yao and His 17 Piece Instrument: Points in Time (See Tao) [07-11]
  • Motoharu Yoshizawa/Kim Dae Hwan: Way of the Breeze (1993, NoBusiness) [05-02]

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Wednesday, June 4, 2025

Loose Tabs

This is an occasional collection of newsworthy links and comments, much less systematic than what I attempted in my late Speaking of Which posts. The new name comes from my extensive use of browser tabs. When I get around to cleaning up, I often find tabs opened to old articles I might want to comment on and/or refer back to. So these posts are mostly housecleaning, but may also serve as a very limited but persistent record of what 20+ years ago I started calling "the end of the American empire" and nowadays feels more like "the end of civilization." I collect these bits in a draft file, and flush them out when periodically. My previous one appeared 21 days ago, on May 14.

I started this shortly after the last one, but added very little to it during the last week of May, before trying to wrap it up on June 3 (bleeding into June 4). Rereading the older material led to some editing and expansion, while the latter material is as slapdash and disorganized as ever, and I'm undoubtedly leaving more scraps on the table than I can possibly deal with in the moment.

PS: Posting this Wednesday afternoon, without the "index to major articles" or postscript, which I may try to add later. More loose tabs still open, and I'm finding more all the time, but I desperately need to break off and do some other work, and keep this from becoming an infinite time sink.

Index of major articles below (* for extended -- multi-paragraphs and/or sublist; ** for lots more; this is especially useful if you want to link to a specific section):

Ben Smith [04-27] The group chats that changed America. Evidently there's a whole world of private group chats dominated by billionaires -- Mark Andreessen's name keeps popping up -- where the affairs of the world are being hashed out (e.g., Group chats rule the world), far removed from public political discourse. Should we be surprised that these people are mostly fatuous assholes, with their experience of the world completely removed from almost everyone's daily life?

Jill Lepore [04-28] A Hundred Classics to Get Me Through a Hundred Days of Trump: "Each morning before the day's decree, I turn to a slim book, hoping for sense, or solace." I'm not sure that the framing of short, classic books helps much, although any connection to the known world could have helped one get through the days. But the history of those 100 days seemed pretty well thought out, until I got to this:

Trump won the Presidency in a free and fair election with a mandate to curb inflation, restrict immigration, cut taxes, support small businesses, and reverse progressive overreach, especially in employment and education. From his first day in office, he set about dismantling much of both the federal government and the Constitution's system of checks and balances. By declarations of national emergency, by executive order, and by executive action -- and frequently in plain violation of the Constitution -- Trump gutted entire departments of the federal government. He defied the federal judiciary. He rescinded funds lawfully appropriated by Congress. He lifted regulations across industries. He fired, forced the resignations of, or eliminated the jobs of tens of thousands of federal employees. He hobbled scientific research. He all but criminalized immigration. He denounced the arts. He abandoned the federal government's commitment to public education. He revoked civil rights and shuttered civil-rights programs, deriding the goals of racial equality, gender equality, and L.G.B.T.Q. equality. He made enemies of American allies, and prostituted the United States to the passions of tyrants. He punished his adversaries and delighted in their suffering. He tried to bring universities to heel. He bent law firms to his will. He instituted tariffs and toppled markets; he lifted tariffs and toppled markets. He debased the very idea of America. He created chaos, emergency after emergency.

Trump felled so much timber not because of the mightiness of his axe but because of the rot within the trees and the weakness of the wood. Many of the institutions Trump attacked, from the immigration system to higher education, were those whose leaders and votaries knew them to be broken and yet whose problems they had failed to fix, or even, publicly, to acknowledge. Now is not the time to admit to these problems, leaders -- from Democratic Party officials to C.E.O.s, intellectuals, university presidents, and newspaper editors -- had advised, for years, because this is an emergency. They refused to denounce the illiberalism of speech codes, the lack of due process in the #MeToo movement and Title IX cases, mandatory D.E.I. affirmations as a condition of employment, and the remorseless political intolerance of much of the left. Even after Trump won reëlection on a promise to destroy those institutions, they refused to admit to their problems, presumably because his victory made the emergency even emergencier.

This starts off ok, although "free and fair" aren't the first words I'd choose to describe the 2024 election. And while Trump had campaigned on that issue list, his promises were rarely more specific than "Trump will fix it." Sure, a lot of people placed blind faith in his leadership, but nearly as many recoiled from the prospect in horror. If by mandate you mean popular support for his actual policies, that's quite a stretch. The second half of the first paragraph does provide a nice thumbnail sketch of what he actually did, but it was virtually all by executive fiat, and cost him a good 5 points in approval rating.

The second half goes awry with the list of "leaders," which could be designated the Establishment Democrats. While it is certainly true that they refused to admit some obvious problems -- the main ones I would group as Inequality and War -- they seemed pretty satisfied with the status quo, and campaigned on keeping things as they currently were, or were going. The word "emergency" causes much confusion here. They used the word to gain a bit of legal leverage to go around an obstructionist Congress that they couldn't win and hold, partly due to gerrymandering but mostly due to poor political messaging. On the other hand, Trump used the word to describe a purely imaginary existential terror, which only he can fix because only he can right the propaganda machine that sold the idea to the gullible masses, but which he has little intention of fixing once he discovered the extra powers presidents can claim during "emergencies."

Still, where does the second half of the second paragraph come from? So we're going to blame the failure of the Establishment Democrats to defend their ivory towers and executive suites from Trumpian chaos on "the remorseless political intolerance of much of the left"? The left has never been in any position to dictate establishment policy. If they bought into #MeToo or D.E.I., it's because they had their own reasons. Perhaps they saw them as sops to the left, or to the people the left tries to advocate for? Or maybe they were just diversions from the more important matters of Inequality and War, which produced much of the rot Trump is inadvertently disrupting.

For what it's worth, I don't especially disagree with the anti-woke critique, just with the blame heaped on the left for pushing the anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-ableist, etc., lines too far. If for some reason the powers-that-be overreact and "cancel" some racist/sexist/whatever jerk, why do we have to be the ones condemning illiberalism and demanding due process? Why do we have to pull our punches and defend free speech for Nazis? (And note that the ACLU actually does that, as that is their mission, and most of us support them for that.) I'm open to engaging in the left's perpetual practice of self-criticism, but sure, I can get a bit squirmish when admonished for the same faults by smarmy liberals, and even more so by outright fascists, possibly because they find it impossible to criticize the left without projecting their own sense of superiority.

But while much of what Trump has done in his first (and by no means his last) 100 days should be simply and resolutely undone, I wouldn't advise reflexively undoing everything. I don't doubt that there are bureaucrats who shouldn't be taken back, and dead wood programs that we're better off without, as well as much more that would benefit from a fresh rethink. I wouldn't rush to restore DEI programs, but I would restore the DOJ Civil Rights Division's enforcement budget, and encourage them to be more vigilant. I doubt you can undo his pardons, but you could add some more to spread out the effect: we should be more generous in forgiving those who trespass against us. And while I can't point to any even inadvertent blessings from Trump's foreign policy shake up, that's one area where a Biden restoration shouldn't even be contemplated.

At some point, it might be interesting to take Lepore's essay and strip it down to the plain history, skipping all of the Swift and Coleridge and Whitman fluff. Even knowing it's happened, such plain words are likely to still be sobering, shocking even. Lepore's idea may be that we can always look back to civilization. But perhaps civilization isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Scott Lemieux [05-04] Thelma and Louise economics: Starts with a long quote from Maia Mindel [05-01] Check Your Exorbitant Privilege!, which includes the Thelma & Louise ending scene video, in case you need that reference explained. Lemieux adds: "The biggest problem with Trump's trade war is that it's based on nostalgia for something that can't be reconstructed." And he ends with Trump: "We were losing hundreds of billions of dollars with China. Now we're essentially not doing business with China. Therefore, we're saving hundreds of billions of dollars. It's very simple."

Brad Luen [05-04] Top 50 albums of the Fifties: The jazz list here is so good I'm hard-pressed to supplement it. The pop and rock, country and blues hit the obvious high points with best-ofs limited to 1950s releases (some since superseded; Lefty Frizzell is an obvious omission). The Latin and "Old World" lists give me something to work on.

Mitch Therieau [05-06] Can Spotify Be Stopped? Which raises, but doesn't answer, the question of why should it be stopped? I'm pretty skeptical of tech giants, but I subscribe to Spotify, and it gives me pretty good value. There are things about it that I don't like, and there is much more I just haven't taken the trouble to understand. I could imagine something much better, but most of the complaints I hear have to do with shortchanging artists and labels, and I don't really see that as my problem, or even as much of an economic problem. This is a review of Liz Pelly's book, Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist

Nate Weisberg [05-06] Inside the Trump Assault on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: "An agency lawyer and union representative opens up about the Trump/Musk rampage on the CFPB, what happens next, and why he's still optimistic." I think it's hard for people to recognize the extent to which the Trump administration has not only turned a blind eye to fraud and other white collar crime but has actively promoted it.

Samuel O'Brient [05-10] Bill Gates' major decision draws shocking response: He's says he's not only going to give away his fortune, but dissolve his foundation within 20 years. I've had very little kind of even nice to say about him or his company -- at least since 1984, when they had a good chance to hire me but passed because, like Trump, they "only hire the best people," and explicitly decided I wasn't one. But I'll save those sour grapes for the memoir. The Windows monopoly came later, as it was barely a demo program at the time: both the technical decisions that made it crappy software, and the business dictates that turned it into a profitable monopoly. So I've always viewed his philanthropy as whitewashing blood money. But dissolving his fortune shows a sensibility to human limits I never gave him credit for, one that appears to be as rare in high tech these days as it was a century ago among the Rockefellers and Mellons of yore. More radical still is the idea of dissolving a foundation, a major loophole in estate tax law that encouraged moguls to leave permanent monuments to themselves. I've long felt that foundations should be required to dispense all of their net income plus a fixed percentage of their endowment each year, so that they have limited lifetimes.

Joshua Schwartz [05-12] The hidden costs of Trump's 'madman' approach to tariffs: "The downsides of his trade policies are symptoms of a larger strategic flaw." Much to think about here, but my initial thoughts settle on how much I hate game theory. The madman theory assumes that your opponent is more rational than you are -- or at least is rational enough to avoid catastrophe -- so why can't you just reason with them and work out something sensible? And why make it some kind of contest of estimated power, when you know that even winning that game is at best temporary as the loss creates resentment that will eventually come back to bite you?

Jacob Hacker/Paul Pierson [05-13] How the economic and political geography of the United States fuels right-wing populism -- and what the Democratic Party can do about it. The authors have written a number of worthy books on American politics, including (at least these are the ones I've read and can recommend): Off Center: The Republican Revolution and the Erosion of American Democracy (2005); The Great Risk Shift: The Assault on American Jobs, Families, Health Care, and Retirement (2007); Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer -- and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class (2010); American Amnesia: How the War on Government Led Us to Forget What Made America Prosper (2016); Let Them Eat Tweets: How the Right Rules in an Age of Extreme Inequalilty (2020). This will probably turn into another one, but it's going to take some more work. I think the "density divide" is a mostly illusory artifact of other factors. (Democrats have gotten very bad at talking to anyone other than well-educated pan-urban liberals.) Even more inexplicable is "plutocratic populism." What passes for "right-wing populism" these days is basically the substitution of false issues for real ones. That Republicans can get away with this is partly due to their clever efforts, but also to the Democrats' chronic ineptitude at talking about real issues and exposing and deflecting the nonsense they face. Also from this group:

Sharon Zhang [05-13] DNC Moves to Oust David Hogg After He Says Party Isn't Standing Up to Trump. He's 28, and has made the DNC nervous by organizing a PAC calling for primarying against ineffective elders, so they approved a complaint from a 61-year-old woman who lost, citing the election as a violation of the party's "gender parity" rules. (Why do Democrats have rules that are so easily lampooned?) They also voided the election of Malcolm Kenyatta to a vice-chair slot, who seems to be less controversial but collateral damage.

Nathan J Robinson [05-14] The Myth of the Marxist University: "Academia is not full of radicals. There just aren't many Republicans, perhaps because Republicans despise the academy's values of open-mindedness and critical inquiry." I don't feel like really sinking into this, but I could probably write a ton. One thing is that in the early 1970s, I actually did have significant exposure to explicitly Marxist academics: there were a half-dozen in just the sociology department at Washington University, and a few more I knew of in other departments. That was an anomaly, and the Danforths were already moving to dismantle the sociology department when I left. They fired my main professor there, Paul Piccone, and as far as I know never got another academic posting. I knew a few more Marxists elsewhere, mostly through Piccone, and many of them had a rough time, despite being very worthy scholars. Marxists had two strikes against them: one was that they were on the wrong side politically, as universities have traditionally been finishing schools for the upper class (a role they've largely reverted to, not least by making them unaffordable to the masses); and secondly, they demanded critical thinking, which made them not just subversive, but smarter than more conventional thinkers. I can't quite claim that there's no such thing as a dogmatic Marxist -- many academics in the Soviet Union were just that, and ridiculous as a result -- but most of us saw Marxism not as an ideology but as a step on the way towards better understanding the world (and sure, of changing it for a better future.

Since my day, especially since the collapse of the Soviet Union, there seems to have been a concerted effort to poison the wells and salt the earth of academia to deny any sort of legitimacy to Marxian thought -- a campaign effective enough that even Robinson, who isn't afraid of declaring himself a socialist, shies away from admitting any sort of Marxist sympathies. In some ways this doesn't matter. While the Marxian toolkit is exceptionally powerful, there are many ways to get to the truth of a matter. But we should recognize that the right's agenda isn't just to stamp out a heresy. It is to shut down critical thought, and turn the universities back into a system for training cadres who accept and cherish the inequalities and injustices of the present system. Understanding Marxism will hobble their agenda, but even if one remains ignorant of Marx and his followers, inequality and injustice will drive a good many people to resist, to question, to research, and ultimately to reinvent the tools they need to defend themselves.

Some more Current Affairs:

Marci Shore/Timothy Snyder/Jason Stanley [05-14] We Study Fascism, and We're Leaving the U.S.: Three Yale historians pack up and leave Trumpland, in what looks less like a principled stand than a book promotion -- I'm not familiar with Shore (a specialist in Polish and Ukrainian intellectual history), but I've read books by Snyder (The Road to Unfreedom) and Stanley (How Fascism Works), and consider them useful (although, like most "threat to democracy" alarms, they fail to consider how little actual democracy they have left to defend -- a better book to read on this is Astra Taylor's Democracy May Not Exist but We'll Miss It When It's Gone).

I've pondered the fascism question quite a bit, and have no doubt that there are common ideas and attitudes among Trump and other Republicans, which become genuinely perilous when given power -- as has happened with Trump's election, and with his subsequent power grabs. When we look for historical insights, it is hard not to recall the early days of fascism: while the differences are considerable, few other analogies convey the gravity of what's happening, or the consequences should it continue.

David Klion [05-15] I Thought David Horowitz Was a Joke -- but He Foreshadowed the Trump Coalition: I wrote about Horowitz's obituary last time, but I figured this article is worth citing anew. One thing that could use a deeper look is the hustle that moved him into a position of prominence (editor at Ramparts) on the new left, and which found much more lucrative support when he moved to the far right (e.g., his son as Marc Andreessen's VC fund partner). Of course, it's not just hustle. More than that it's the ability to make yourself instrumental for people with the power to make you rich.

Jeffrey St Clair:

  • [05-16] Roaming Charges: Sturm und Drang Warnings. Opens with a flurry of videos of ICE agents brutally attacking "suspects." Then there's "Trump grants white South Africans refugee status," with a picture that prompted Julie K Brown to quip, "I've never seen refugees with so much luggage." Much more, including this:

    There's not a single Congressional district where the support for slashing Medicare is more than 15%. Of course, this doesn't matter to MAGA. Unlike the Democrats, they sought power in order to use it, especially for malign unpopular policies, and they don't fret about the future political consequences. Imagine a party who won power and then fulfilled their promises for englightened popular policies, instead of worrying how it might piss off Wall Street?

    Of course, there is no such party. The Democrat establishment is Wall Street's first line of defense against any policy agenda that might restraint capital and/or redistribute wealth, regardless of how popular such programs might be.

  • [05-23] Roaming Charges: White Lies About White Genocide: Starts with Richard Burton (more likely the 19th century imperialist explorer than the Welsh actor): "The more I study religions, the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself."

  • [05-30] When the Dead Speak and the Living Refuse to Listen. Emphasis added:

    The problem with writing about Gaza is that words can't explain what's happening in Gaza. Neither can images, even the most gut-wrenching and heartbreaking. Because what needs to be explained is the inexplicable. What needs to be explicated is the silence in the face of horror.

    Israel has been brazenly upfront about its plans to subdue Gaza, depopulate it of Palestinians, and seize the Strip for itself. Israel will not change. It hasn't deviated from this genocidal course since October 8, 2023. For 19 months, every Palestinian has been a target because Israel wants Gaza cleansed of Palestinians. Therefore, everyone can be bombed. Everyone can be starved. Everyone can be denied medical care and the mere essentials of life.

    I would have added to the second bold bit, "and no one else can change it." Or maybe I mean "will," but the distinction between "can't" and "won't" isn't likely to be tested.

Maureen Dowd [05-17] The Tragedy of Joe Biden: Talk about "loose tabs": a horrible piece, open way too long, as I was thinking of tucking it in under some of those Jake Tapper book reviews that I must still have open somewhere. [PS: Have since added a few, but not a full reckoning.]

  • Jake Tapper/Alex Thompson [05-13] How Joe Biden Handed the Presidency to Donald Trump: "At a fateful event last summer, Barack Obama, George Clooney, and others were stunned by Biden's weakness and confusion. Why did he and his advisers decide to conceal his condition from the public and campaign for reëlection?" This is a chunk from their book.

  • James Kirchick [05-20] All the President's Enablers: "Three books on Joe Biden's presidency jointly paint a devastating portrait of an ailing, geriatric leader surrounded by mendacious aides and grasping family members." Review of Tapper's book, along with the campaign tomes by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes (Fight) and by Chris Whipple (Uncharted) -- how weird that both books include "Wildest" in their subtitles?

  • Jennifer Szalai [05-13] A Damning Portrait of an Enfeebled Biden Protected by His Inner Circle: A review of Tapper's Original Sin, which "depicts an aging president whose family and aides enabled his quixotic campaign for a second term."

  • Ravi Hari [05-14] Joe Biden's memory lapses sparked concern among aides, new book reveals.

  • Michelle Goldberg [05-16] How Did So Many Elected Democrats Miss Biden's Infirmity?

  • Benjamin Hart [05-22] Jake Tapper Dissects Bidenworld's 'Big Lie': An interview with Tapper. One tidbit here is about how Mike Donilon, who seems to be the most culpable person in Biden's entourage, made about $4 million on failed campaign.

  • Andrew Rawnsley [05-22] Who's to blame for the Biden tragedy?

  • John Koblin [05-23] Everyone Now Has an Opinion on Jake Tapper: "A book the CNN host co-wrote has received positive reviews and appears to be a sales hit. But it also has generated intense scrutiny of him and his work."

  • Scott Lemieux [05-24] Joe Biden winning the 2020 nomination was probably suboptimal, but it was not an elite conspiracy: Evidently Tapper is pushing the line that it was. Looking at the list of candidates and their money suggests that something screwy was going on, especially with the donors (two of whom spent lavishly and ruinously on themselves).

  • Lloyd Green: [05-25] Original Sin: How Team Biden wished away his decline until it was too late.

  • Carlos Lozada [05-20] Biden Is a Scapegoat. The Democrats Are the Problem. Of course it is. It's always "THE DEMOCRATS." Even though straw polls often show generic Democrats beating generic Republicans, when actual Democrats lose, it's always the fault of "THE DEMOCRATS." There's such a mismatch between what they say and what they actually do, that it's hard not to suspect them of deceit, corruption, ulterior motives, and sheer sophistry. For some reason Republicans manage to avoid or belittle such suspicions, even while engaging in much more egregious misbehavior -- for some reason that seems to build up their brand as badass action figures, while for all of their behind-the-scenes machinations, supposedly brilliant Democratic operatives keep squandering tons of cash and losing elections that should be easy.

  • Norman Solomon [05-13] The Careerism That Enabled Biden's Reelection Run Still Poisons the Democratic Party: Original Sin "reveals top White House aides lying to journalists and trying to gaslight the public over Biden's decline." What should also be clear is that journalists sleepwalked through all four Biden years: they were blinded by naive bipartisanship, allowing Republicans to drive the few stories they bothered with, which meant that they constantly sniped at Democrats over bullshit (which did include Biden's age)) while ignoring real problems, like war and inequality, that Biden was helpless at, or in some cases simply uninterested in.

  • Stanley B Greenberg [05-29] The Real Original Sins: "What do Democrats need to do to win back voters' trust?"

  • Branko Marcetic [05-23] Will Democrats Learn From the Biden Disaster? Probably Not. Author wrote the only serious (not just left, which counts for a lot) pre-2020 election book on Biden (Yesterday's Man: The Case Against Joe Biden) and has covered him extensively as president, so I expected him at least to review Original Sin, and was surprised how hard this piece was to find. As he points out, "In hindsight, many of the most cynical theories about what was going on in the Biden White House turned out to be true." And: "The careerism, elite myopia, and poor judgment that led the party establishment to run an ailing man the entire country could see was plainly unfit to be president don't seem to have gone anywhere."

  • New Republic:

    • Michael Tomasky [05-19] What the Democrats Need to Learn From the Biden Cover-Up Fiasco: "As much as covering up the president's infirmity was a scandal for all involved, the Democrats' mortal sin was the one that was right out in the open." Which one? Presumably the Harris succession, which was consecrated with hardly a whiff of debate, locked in (like so much in the Democratic Party) by the donor elite, who didn't dare risk running a candidate with ideas of proven popularity.

    • Alex Shephard [05-21] Was It Really a "Cover-Up" if We All Knew the Truth About Biden? I think he's wrong here. Nobody knew the truth, possibly including Biden. How could they? Biden was sheltered, with his inconsistencies and lapses explained away by people in a position to know better, but influenced by political exigencies they never acknowledged. In this void, Republicans spread all sorts of charges and innuendos, which lacked credibility because they're extremely biased liars -- as was obvious from every charge based on policy differences. The problem was that Biden's people got caught in their competency lie, which not only discredited them but gave Republicans credit for their whole kit and caboodle. Nor was competency the only lie Democrats got trapped by: ending the war in Gaza was the big one, but there were dozens more, especially their crowing about how great the economy was when some factors were hitting many people hard (like high interest rates).

    • Osita Nwanevu [05-23] The Democrats Are Having a False Reckoning Over Joe Biden: "Party elites aer considerably more responsible for their woeful state of affairs than the former president." Probably true, but he is their leader, and his reputation in tatters exposes their own desperation and malfeasance.

PS [06-10] In my initial compilation of the above reviews, I hoped to find some left critiques, which I expected would minimize the personal -- Biden's "infirmity" and the fickleness of his aides -- and instead focus on the administration's deeper failure to recognize and react to voter discontent. I even expected this would go overboard in stressing policy disagreements -- we do after all care a lot about policy -- the most obvious recognition/reaction would have been to admit to problems but blame most of them on Republicans and the much broader corruption that has kept honest and caring Democrats from implementing even the most modest of reforms. One might go on to point out that Biden has turned out to be one of the weakest links in the defense of Democracy, due to his lame communication skills, his checkered and opportunistic past, and his lack of empathy. But, sure, those are just talking points someone like me could rattle off without ever opening the book. What I suspect reading the book might add is details about how president, aides, donors, lobbyists, and the media interact, especially given the problem of a marginally incompetent central figure who many are inclined to defer to and to pamper like a monarch. (Needless to point out, the same dynamics are already evident in the Trump administration, where the bias towards destruction and chaos makes incompetence and intemperance a greater threat, and therefore a more urgent lesson.)

However, aside from Solomon, I didn't find much. So I tried to get more explicit, and googled "left critique of jake tapper original sin." That kicked off the AI engine, which suggests that AI (chez Google, at least) has little clue who or what the left is, what we think, or why we care. Rather, they come up with this list of "common points of contention" (I'm numbering and condensing their wording slightly; brackets for my reactions):

  1. Bias and Perspective: presents a biased, negative view of Biden, possibly due to Tapper's own politics [why not just to flog a dead horse to sell more books? does Tapper have any politics that might overrule self-interest?]
  2. Focus on Decline: which could be seen as unfair or overly critical, by those who support Biden's policies and leadership [on the other hand, denial of the obvious was seen by opponents as proof of the Democrats' bad faith and hypocrisy, which ultimately did more harm]
  3. Lack of Nuance: fails to acknowledge Biden's accomplishments [given how little difference nuance makes, this just comes off as sour grapes; is it even true? the easiest thing in the world would be to concede that Biden did some good things while failing at others]
  4. Emphasis on Negative Aspects: focus on "cover-up" and his "disastrous choice" to run again is over-exaggerated [so the author is accused of hyping his book?]
  5. Misrepresentation of Facts: the book misrepresents or misinterprets certain facts or event so support its narrative [something all books do to present a coherent argument, and all reviewers who reject the argument carp on]
  6. Impact on Democratic Party: the negative portrayal of Biden could be harmful to the Democratic Party, especially if it discourages voters [as compared to the harm that not reporting this story has already done?]

I've added a few more reviews (Hari, Rawnsley, Green, Greenberg) to the section. We now have the extra perspective provided by the 2024 election results, after which Biden has become historically disposable, although for some still useful as a scapegoat. Several reviews quote David Plouffe complaining Biden "totally fucked us." None seem eager to point out that Plouffe, "senior adviser to the Harris campaign," fucked us as well.

Nicholas Kristoff [05-17] The $7 Billion We Wasted Bombing a Country We Couldn't Find on a Map: The price tag comes from Yemen Data Project and Defense Priorities. Given the multi-trillion dollar price tags on Iraq and Afghanistan, this number seems like a pittance. While the cruelty, waste, and ineffectiveness are obvious, I don't get why any journalists would write like this:

I understand American skepticism about humanitarian aid for Yemeni children, for the Houthis run an Iran-backed police state with a history of weaponizing aid. Yet our campaign of bombing and starvation probably strengthens the Houthis, making their unpopular regime seem like the nation's protectors while driving them closer to Iran.

How would Kristoff know how unpopular the Houthis are? They must have some kind of popular base, otherwise they wouldn't have been able to displace the Saudi- and American-backed police state that they overthrew. As for their alliance with Iran, what other option did we give them? And would Iran be such a problem if we weren't so obsessed with cutting Iran off and pushing them away?

Dave DeCamp [05-19] Trump's 'Golden Dome' Missile Shield Expected to Cost $500 Billion: That's a wild guess that nobody believes. The only chance it has of working is if no one tests it. The cost of a working system is unimaginable, because any conceivable system can just as easily be circumvented, and anticipating how many ways, and handling all of them, adds orders of magnitude to the cost. Israel's Iron Dome works because Israel is small, and has weak enemies, with primitive technology. Even so, to say it "works" is pretty generous, given Oct. 7, 2023. (If it worked so well then, why is Israel still at war 18 months later? I know, "rhetorical question"! They're at war to kill Palestinians and render Gaza uninhabitable, and the attack was just an excuse for something they wanted to do anyway. In this context, Iron Dome may have helped sucker Hamas into an attack that was more a gesture of unhappiness than a serious attempt to hurt Israel.)

Taking Iron Dome and gold-plating it isn't going to make it work better (but it will make it more expensive, which is largely the point to advisers like Elon Musk). Reagan's Star Wars plan in the 1980s never turned into anything more than graft, and there's no reason to expect more here. The waste is orders of magnitude beyond insane, but worse than that is the attitude it presents to the rest of the world: we dare you to attack us, for which we will show you no mercy, because we really don't care how many of you we kill to "defend ourselves." Every time I see something like this, I recall the scenario laid out in one of Chalmer Johnson's books, where he talks about how easy it would be for someone like China to put "a dumptruck full of gravel" on top of a rocket and blast it into low earth orbit, destroying all of America's communications satellites -- which would wipe out much of our internet service, weather forecasting, GPS, and pretty much all of the command and control systems the US depends on for power projection around the globe. That wouldn't make it possible for China to conquer America, let alone to replace the US as "global hegemon," but it would undermine America's capability to fight wars in China's vicinity. That was all with technology China had 20 years ago. Note that North Korea, which the US has given much less reason to be cautious, has that same technology today. But someone like Trump is going to think that a Golden Dome protects him from such threats, so he's safe from having to make any peace gestures. After all, look at how much peace the Iron Dome gave to Israel.

Kyle Chan [05-19]: In the Future, China Will Be Dominant. The US Will Be Irrelevant. Dean Baker recommended this "very good piece," adding "it's not good for the home team. Trump's loony fantasies are not a way forward." Chan is a Princeton-based expert on "technology and industrial policy in China," so he's looking for nail he can hammer. China has a real industrial policy, and while it's tolerated quite a bit of inequality, it's ultimately rooted in a civic desire to raise the entire country out of poverty and into everyday wealth. The US has no such policy, nor for that matter much civic desire. Chomsky summed up the American system succinctly: one where profits are privatized, while liabilities are socialized. That reduces all of us to marks, where entrepreneurs (and mobsters) are free to rob everyone (even each other) blind. When Trump became president, he didn't change from private taking to public service. He just realized that being president gives him leverage to take even more, and unlike his predecessors, he has no scruples to get in his way. (Also that his courts have promised him immunity, although one wonders how much he can flaunt this being-above-the-law thing?)

The issue I have with this piece is the concept of "dominant," and for that matter the horse race illustration, which seems like a lot of projection. What China can and will do is reduce a lot of the dominance the US has long exercised over the global economy and its politics -- including the part known as "exorbitant privilege." What China cannot do is to replace us and become the same kind of "global hegemon" the US has been. Americans can't conceive of a world without a ruler, so they assume that if they lose power, it must be to someone else -- someone less benign than we are.

The US gained its power during WWII, when its economy, planned and directed by the most socialist government in American history, blossomed, producing widespread prosperity for most Americans, while the rest of the world was reduced to ruins. That disparity couldn't last, but as long as the US didn't abuse its power -- and at first its "open door" policies were much preferable to the old colonial extracters -- many nations were inclined to follow along. The main problems came when countries tried to assert their independence, especially if they ran afoul of America's championing of capital, with or without any form of democracy. The nations we habitually describe as enemies are mostly struggling for independence.

PS: Consider this chart from a Richard D Wolff [06-02] tweet, which shows "GLobal average net favorability of the US and China, which a decade ago was running pretty steady with the US around +20 and China around -7, but the US rating sunk fast with Trump to -1.5, while China has improved to +8.8.

Jodie Adams Kirshner [05-20] The Sun Sets on West Virginia's Green-Energy Future: "President Biden's Inflation Reduction Act was finally bringing jobs and industry back to the state. But not for long." The picture here shows Trump grinning with a couple other suits, backed by grim men in hard hats -- presumably coal miners -- and flags. Even if Trump manages to bring coal back, and the economics of that are unlikely, they will do so with automation instead of workers, few of whom will benefit. West Virginia's flip to the Republicans is sad and pathetic.

Theodore Schliefer [05-20]: Democrats Throw Money at a Problem: Countering GOP Clout Online: This is probably true, up to a point:

Democrats widely believe they must grow more creative in stoking online enthusiasm for their candidates, particularly in less outwardly political forms of media like sports or lifestyle podcasts. Many now take it as gospel that Mr. Trump's victory last year came in part because he cultivated an ecosystem of supporters on YouTube, TikTok and podcasts, in addition to the many Trump-friendly hosts on Fox News.

This mentions some projects vying for donors: Chorus, AND Media, Channel Zero, Project Echo, Double Tap Democracy. And notes that one was founded by "Rachel Irwin, who led a $30 million influencer program last cycle for Future Forward, the biggest Democratic super PAC." I'd love to see a full accounting of the $1B-plus that the Harris campaign burned through to such underwhelming effect. My guess is that tons of money have already been spent along these lines, to very little effect, largely because the donor-friendly messaging was didn't gain any traction with voters. Perhaps the donors themselves are the problem, and we'd be better off with shoestring-funded grass roots projects which at least have some integrity?

This piece came to my attention via Nathan J Robinson, who suggested putting some of that money into his magazine, Current Affairs, "if you genuinely want to build media that effectively challenges the right and is not just telling Democrats what they want to hear." (Which, by the way, is definitively not today's lead article: Lily Sánchez [05-19] We Still Need to Defund and Abolish the Police. What we really need is some better way to make the police work for us, to solve our problems, and one thing for sure is that requires some funding -- not necessarily for the things we currently fund, but something. "Defund the police" is a joke hiding behind a slogan, but damn few people are likely to go for the slogan, and the joke isn't even very funny -- least of all to people who are routinely victimized by crime, which if you count fraud is pretty much everyone. What they're basically saying is that the police are so dysfunctional you could get rid of them and wouldn't be worse off.)

But Robinson is right: the left press gives you much more bang for the buck than the grant-chasing opportunists who try to pawn themselves off as consultants. Politics today is much more about who you fear and hate than who you like let alone what you want. Republicans understand this, so they fund all manner of right-wing craziness, even when they get embarrassing, because they turn lots of people against Democrats, and they know two things: they can use that energy, and they don't need to fear that it will go too far, because they're convinced they can control it. (Granted, they are not always right, Hitler being a case in point.)

But Democrats don't get this: first, they fear the left, perhaps even more than they fear the right (e.g., Bloomberg spent $500M to stop Sanders, but only $25M to support Harris over Trump); and second, they don't see the value in using the left against the right (possibly because they think their muddled programs, like ACA, by virtue of being more "centrist," have broader appeal than something like Medicare for All, or maybe just because they don't dare offending their donors). To some extent they are right: media bias is such that Hillary Clinton was seen as more dishonest and more corrupt than Donald Trump, but it's hard to fight that with candidates as dishonest and corrupt as the Clintons.

The only Democrat who realized he could use the left was Franklin Roosevelt. He saw unions as a way to organize Democratic voters, but he also thought that capitalism could survive a more equitable distribution of profits, and that the nation as a whole would be better that way. Meanwhile, union leaders like John L Lewis saw that communists were among his best organizers, so he used them as well, while cutting deals that fell far short of revolution. All that went out with the Red Scare, since which liberals have been much more concerned with distancing themselves from the left than from the right -- even though the "democratic wing of the Democratic Party" has always been happy to fall in line behind their modest corporate-blessed reform efforts (while the trans-Democratic left has, since FDR's day, been vanishingly marginal).

The one thing Trump might be good for is to finally bury the hatchet between pragmatic Democrats and the more idealistic left. We need both. We need the left to push us to do good things. We need the pragmatists to figure out ways do them that don't provoke counterproductive backlash.[*] And both, but especially the left, need to expose the right for what they are, in terms so clear that no one can deny their truth.

[*] Note that they don't have a very good track record on this. Even after they got all of the affected lobbyists to sign off on Obamacare, severely limiting the system, Republicans generated a huge backlash just to exploit the political opportunity.

Andrew Day [05-20] Cut Israel Off — for Its Own Sake: There are lots of good reasons for taking this position. Even American Conservatives can do it. Even people who seriously love Israel and care for little else are coming around. That just leaves the mass murderers in Israel, their paranoid, brainwashed and/or just plain racist cohort, and their sentimental fools -- probably not paranoid, but brainwashed and/or racist, for sure -- in the west. More Israel, and here I'm more concerned with the growing sense of futility than with the daily unveiling of more atrocities (for some atrocities, look further down):

  • Ori Goldberg [05-12] Israel Is Spiraling: "The government's genocidal fervor is ripping through the carefully constructed layers of self-delusion that power this country."

  • Kenn Orphan [05-21] Palestine is the litmus test for every value the West holds dear. "And we are failing miserably."

  • Yakov M Rabkin: [06-03] Will Israelis Repent for Gaza Genocide? Re-Humanization Takes Courage.

    Jewish tradition teaches that it is never too late to change course, to repent, and to make amends. Of course, to make such a sharp turn requires courage. A well-known Jewish insight is quite clear about it: "Who is the greatest of all heroes? He who turns an enemy into a friend." Most people in Israel vehemently reject as "exilic" this traditional Jewish wisdom that upholds peace as the supreme value. They see in it only "comfort of the weak." But, in fact, this is what real strength is all about.

  • Taya Bero [06-01] Why is a pro-Israel group asking the US to investigate Ms Rachel? I never heard of her before I started seeing tweets highlighting her Gaza statements, but evidently she's a big deal in some quarters. While the Trump administration hopes to chill free speech across the entire opposite political spectrum (see Magarian below), Israel is the one subject that has already moved to active suppression. It's tempting to say that's because it's the hardest to make light of.

    Not that this particular government has any scruples about banning speech, assembly, or anything else they find disobedient.

  • Melody Ermachild Chavis: [06-02] Gaza's Destruction Injures Israel Forever: Maybe it seems perverse to focus on the self-harm Israel is responsible for, when there are much more obvious victims -- vast numbers of Palestinians, of course, but also a few widely scattered Jews who get caught up in blowback or (at least as likely) "friendly fire."

    Some Israeli soldiers have themselves tried for years to warn of exactly what I am pointing out. Former soldiers founded the NGO Breaking the Silence, which has published testimony of Israeli soldiers revealing the brutal ways the occupation is sustained. Today, they are saying that if anyone thinks they are being a friend to Israel by defending its actions in Gaza or by staying silent, they are not. Friends don't let friends commit war crimes.

    Eventually, every war ends. And when this one ends, Israel's young men and women will return from combat bringing with them the wounds we can see and those that cannot easily be seen. They, and Israel, will be changed forever.

  • Ibrahim Quraishi [06-02]: "These Could Be Our Children:" Israeli Women Opposing the War, an Interview.

  • Gary Fields [06-03] Never Again?

    It is now imperative to acknowledge what people of conscience the world over know to be true: The State of Israel is operating a Death Camp for the Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip. By forcibly confining the Palestinians of Gaza within impassable bounds, while at the same time slaughtering and starving them within this confined space, the State of Israel has made a mockery of the slogan, "Never Again."

Sandeep Vaheesan [05-21] The Real Path to Abundance: "To deliver plentiful housing and clean energy, we have top get the story right about what's standing in the way." Review of Ezra Klein/Derek Thompson: Abundance, in which he finds much to nitpick, before moving on to more general problems. Among the most cutting:

It's not insignificant that Klein and Thompson's attacks echo the Trumpist agenda they disclaim. The affluent undoubtedly have more time and resources to spend advocating for their interests than the poor. But instead of calling for steeper progressive taxation and anti-monopoly policies that would rein in the power of the affluent, Klein and Thompson focus single-mindedly on red tape. Instead of calling for expanded state capacity to expedite environmental reviews (as they do for some government projects, like California's High-Speed Rail Authority), they suggest we should ditch environmental review entirely. And instead of making the case for strengthening and broadening democratic participation in land use policy, they imply we should simply jettison it altogether. . . .

This vision is undemocratic in both form and function. Diminishing public power over land use decisions means greater private control, which in turn means more deference to the whims of the market and more discretion for corporate executives and financiers -- in short, more oligarchy. That is exactly what Trump and Elon Musk are hoping to achieve by taking the chainsaw to federal agencies, and that is why, as Republican pollster Patrick Ruffini puts it, they are "hitting the professional-managerial class -- and hitting them hard." These points of overlap with Trump's agenda also matter politically.

Also related here:

  • Dean Baker [05-27] Why Are the Abundance Boys Scared to Talk About Patent Monopolies? He later expanded this to [06-01]: My Abundance Agenda. Nothing here questions the value of producing more, but stresses that it does make a lot of difference just how you go about doing it.

  • Ed Kilgore [05-29] The Abundance Agenda Revives an Old Democratic Rivalry: "Helping the public sector get tangible things done may be the only way to protect progressive interest and identity groups from MAGA." Huh? This looks like (and he's quoting Jonathan Chait) anti-left Democrat think they've found a cudgel in the "abundance agenda" to beat down the left, who they continue to identify not in class but in identity terms. This assumes two things: that the "abundance agenda" will be massively popular once one has the power to implement it; and that its appeal will be so obvious that Democrats advancing it will be able to win the elections they need to implement it. There is little evidence for either. I agree that Democrats have to promote policies that will attract massive political support, and that once they have the power, they need to deliver substantial tangible benefits. I don't doubt that increasing production is part of the solution, but unless it can produce useful goods and services, and be directed where needed, it's just another scam for supply-side trickle-down.

Greg Grandin [05-22] The Conquest Never Ends: Tie-in to the author's new book, Greg Grandin: America, América: A New History of the New World, which I've just started, but also ties in to Israel's echo of the Conquest in Gaza. Subheds here: "Conquest, Then and Now"; "From Cortés to Hitler"; and "The End of the End of the Age of Conquest," which sees Trump's ambitions to expand American power from Greenland to Panama alongside Israel's clearing of Gaza and Putin's invasion of Ukraine as a deliberate reversal from the decolonization movement that followed the demise of the German and Japanese empires in WWII. Of course, there are differences, not least being that Israel is operating shamelessly in plain sight, but as Grandin points out, the Spanish broke new ground in documenting their destruction and enslavement through the then-novel medium of the printing press.

Also at TomDispatch:

  • William D Hartung/Ashley Gate [05-27] The Coming of a Values-Free Foreign Policy: "Donald Trump has ripped off the human rights veneer that once graced US foreign policy." Or that tried to hide the disgrace of US foreign policy? While on the one hand I'm pleased to cut the hypocrisy, there was something comforting in the thought that Americans felt the need to pretend they were doing good in the world. With Trump, it's all transactional, and much of that is directed into his personal accounts.

  • Alfred McCoy [05-25] How American Soft Power Turned to Dust in the Age of Trump: "Why the world's richest nation is killing the world's poorest children."

  • Juan Cole [05-29] Trump of Arabia: "Is Trump's Axis of the Plutocrats Marginalizing Israel?" I don't see how anyone can doubt that pro-Israel donors are getting their money's worth out of Trump. His support for clearing Gaza out is undoubtable, and he'll probably wind up negotiating a mass evacuation. Similarly, he has no concerns or scruples about whatever Netanyahu wants to do in the occupied West Bank. On the other hand, he seems less inclined than Biden to let Israel dictate his foreign policy beyond Israel's immediate borders. Happy as he is to cash Israeli checks, he realizes that the real money is in oil, and that oil-rich Arabs are eager to grease his skids. There are even rumors that he'll resurrect the Iran nuclear deal he scuttled in his first term. Others have noticed this, although they keep trying to imagine less crass motives:

  • Todd Miller [06-01] Donald Trump's Border World in the Age of Climate Change: "The United States, the world's largest historic carbon emitter, had already been spending 11 times more on border and immigration enforcement than on climate finance and, under President Trump, those proportions are set to become even more stunningly abysmal."

  • Liz Theoharis/Aaron Scott/Moses Hernandez McGavin [06-03]: The Christian Nationalist Mission to Banish Trans People.

Mike Lofgren [05-24] Pete Rose, Donald Trump and the corruption of literally everything: "Our president's meddling in baseball history: Another reminder that he ruins everything he touches." Aside from Rose, the other names are ancient, with only Joe Jackson likely to receive any HOF consideration at all (some other names I recognize: Eddie Cicotte, a near-HOF quality pitcher also part of the Black Sox scandal, as were Happy Felsch, Chick Gandil, Fred McMullin, Swede Risberg, Buck Weaver, and Lefty Williams; also: Benny Kauff, Lee Magee, Cozy Dolan; others I didn't recall: Joe Gedeon, Gene Paulette, Jimmy O'Connell, William Cox; I was surprised that Hal Chase was not on the list, but no one in MLB history has been so notoriously corrupt for so long -- probably not HOF caliber, but pretty comparable to a couple others who have been inducted; see Wikipedia for details on these and others). I always hated the way sports writers lionized Rose, so I tended to denigrate him. (I suppose Charlie Parker was another one I underrated because everyone else seemed to overrate him.) If I had to rank Rose, I'd put him somewhere just below Paul Waner, but well above Lloyd Waner. That Trump would favor Rose seems typical of both (sure, I'm less certain that Rose would reciprocate, but I wouldn't rule it out).

  • George F Will [05-15] Pete Rose and Donald Trump, what a double-play combo: Will is categorically wrong on everything in politics, except that he hates Donald Trump, probably for the same reasons Churchill hated Hitler. Will's one saving grace is that he knows a lot about baseball, and writes about it intelligently and well. So when I wanted to compare notes on Rose and Trump, I landed here, where the key line is his description of Rose as "a monster of self-absorption." QED, I'd say.

Kenneth P Vogel [05-27] Trump Pardoned Tax Cheat After Mother Attended $1 Million Dinner: "Paul Walczak's pardon application cited his mother's support for the president, including raising millions of dollars and a connection to a plot to publicize a Biden family diary." Add his name to the list of examples "of the [Trump's] willingness to use his clemency powers to reward allies who advance his political causes, and to punish his enemies."

Yasha Levine [05-28] A Letter to My Fellow Jewish Americans: Starts with the killing of two Israeli embassy employees in Washington DC, by a shooter identified as Elias Rodriguez, predictably spun as "a pure act of antisemitism," because what other reason can there be for wanting to strike back at Israel?

So I want to say this to many of my fellow Jews in America: I know you are desperate to justify and deflect your support for Israel's actions. . . . This denial may work on you, but it has little power in the larger world. You've been sheltered for far too long, thinking that you and your children would never bear the cost of your political decisions. But here is the thing: What happened in Washington DC . . . there is a lot more of the same kind of violence coming our way. And it's all your fault. . . . Give up your biblical-nationalist fantasies before it's too late. We all live in one world. We're all connected. Continuing on this path will only bring ruin and death.

Jack Hunter [05-29] The great fade out: Neocon influencers rage as they diminish: "Mark Levin leads a dwindling parade of once important voices now desperate to stop an Iran deal. MAGA world is increasingly tuning out." They may be receding, but like a flood they've left their filth everywhere, deep in every crevice of the national security hive mind. Cleaning them out is going to take much more diligence than scatterbrained posers like Trump and Vance can muster.

Steve M [05-30] The New Sanewashing: Assuming Trump Has Ideas, Not Just Resentments and Personality Defects. This cites three examples, all from the New York Times within the week:

I sympathize with reporters who habitually seek to find some "method in the madness," but even if some in Trump's orbit would like to dignify his outbursts with some kind of underlying concept, Trump himself shows little interest in rationalization. As M puts it: "Trump's only idea here is: 'You're criminals. We're not.'" As for the Wong articles, "Donald Trump, geostrategist? Nahhh." His notion of a new tri-polar world order may be more realistic than the Clinton-Obama-Biden "indispensable nation" hypothesis, but even so he's way behind the curve, where even the lesser BRICS nations are charting their own courses, and Europe is only humoring American vanities as long as the demands (like buying F-35s) aren't too onerous.

More from No More Mister Nice Blog:

  • [05-27] Democrats Need to Run on Their Policies' Coattails: Introduces Jess Piper, a Democratic Party activist who blogs as The View From Rural Missouri. (She doesn't say where, but in Applebaum and Joplin she gets there by driving south for four hours, so that puts her north of Kansas City, near the Iowa border. Joplin's 2.5-3 hours south of KC, and 3.5-4 hours east of Wichita. Piper is overly impressed with Anne Applebaum's Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World, and for that matter with Heather Cox Richardson, who she reads "every morning," but unlike them shows little evidence of clamoring for foreign wars -- not least because she sees enough evidence of autocracy in Missouri to prioritize fighting it here.) Missouri is a former swing state that has turned into a Republican lock, but in recent years they've approved a number of referenda favoring issues like a $15 minimum wage and abortion rights -- issues that their elected Republicans then seek to nullify. The pitch: Democrats need to become recognized as champions and protectors of programs that are already popular. Which suggests they need to run on them, not just away from other Republican talking points.

  • [05-28] Elissa Slotkin Almost Gets It. I could nitpick my way through this, but let's just say that Democrats need to find a leader who can channel Bernie Sanders' critique, in all of its intensity and passion along with his own unassailable credibility and integrity, yet not panic the donor class into self-destruction and caricature. Slotkin has some of what's needed, but isn't there yet.

    By the way, Sanders blew his chance in 2020, by running to the left to stave off Warren instead of ingratiating himself with the party centrists. I don't particularly blame him for sticking with his instincts: Trump did the same thing, but he didn't offend the donor class the way Sanders did (he was, after all, one of them, whereas Sanders is not). But the real reason Sanders beat Warren was not because he was farther left but because he had much broader appeal. I blame the "smart money" people for not seeing that what they needed to win wasn't ideological purity but someone who could get votes by credibly painting Trump as crooked and monstrous. On the other hand, they should have known that Sanders was at most a mild reformist, and even his most strenuous efforts would be tamed by the lobbyists and bureaucrats in their pockets, protecting their business interests. One almost suspects that the reason Bloomberg et al. panicked so was because they realized that the left critique of their ridiculous wealth was too right to permit any scrutiny.

  • [05-29] That Origin Story for Trump's War on Higher Education Leaves Out a Few Facts: "Pro-Gaza campus protests are a pretext now. The war [he means Trump's war, or assault, on academia] would have happened anyway, because the right can't tolerate the existence of any institution it can't control."

  • [05-31] Do Trump's Poll Numbers Improve Every Time We Beat Him? Here he develops a couple ideas from a Ross Douthat column, on Trump's ability to survive his own self-made crises:

    I worry that many Americans are having a reptile-brain response to Trump's push-and-pull on tariffs. Obviously, MAGA Nation is happy no matter what he does:

    But I worry that there's a psych-experiment quality to this:

    1. Trump arouses anxiety with new tariffs. Markets tumble.
    2. Trump removes/suspends all or some of the tariffs he imposed. Markets rally.
    3. Even though we're no better off than we were before step 1, voters feel as if progress is being made. Trump's poll numbers go up.

    Trump's poll numbers aren't terrible anymore because he's constantly doing things, and constantly telling us he's doing things. Biden did things that would have paid off in the long run, but most voters didn't know what he'd done because he was a terrible public communicator, and because Democratic presidents generally assume the public will simply know what they've done.

    Trump's decent poll numbers suggest that roughly half the country just wanted a president who seemed forceful, no matter what he was doing -- and if they don't like the specifics, they believe there are still guardrails to save them.

  • [06-01] Trump Probably Doesn't Believe Biden Was Killed (but He Wants to Kill Biden's Presidency): Another example of how Trump doesn't just disregard truth but sees its violation as a stimulant, and how his fans find his lies all so very funny.

  • [06-02] Stephen Miller Was Already Trying to Memeify the Colorado Attack Just Hours After It Happened: Well, sure, I agree that "Israel's brutality in Gaza is no justification for this." I am, however, a bit confused by this group (Run for Their Lives) and the final line: "US supporters of the Israeli hostages say they're scared but have vowed to keep demonstrating." In Israel, hostage supporters demonstrate against the government, which clearly has no interest in freeing the hostages (and indeed, would rather they had been killed than captured). But in the US, who are they demonstrating for or against? The simpler, clearer message here is to call for a cease fire and an end to the genocide, which would almost certainly lead to the hostages' release, as that message could be supported by both friends and critics of Israel. But if, as suggested here, the group's demonstrations are strictly against Hamas, their purpose here is nothing more than to rally support for Israel's genocide: the hostages are pawns of Israel as much as of Hamas. The meme, by the way, is something about "suicidal migration" ("a powerful term," "a term we should use more"). It's stupid, but sometimes that's the best they can come up with.

  • [06-03] Democrats Aren't Doomed, Though They Should Be Less Doomed. This starts with Nate Cohn [06-03] Should Republicans Have Won in a Landslide?: "The question of whether Donald Trump cost conservatives a more decisive victory is a useful one to consider." This strikes me as fairly idle speculation, based on very little understanding of why Trump won and/or Harris lost. One thought that I do have is that while Trump may have had more negatives than many other Republicans, he alone was able to campaign on pure emotional energy (redemption, revenge, etc.). Any other Republican would have pulled the focus back toward policy, and Republican policies are notoriously unpopular -- which is a big part of why even Trump ducked Project 2025. And that's just the Republican side. Any chance that Democrats might run stronger candidates with better messaging? It's not like there's no room for improvement there.

Howard Dean [05-31] How Democrats can pull off a win under a GOP trifecta: Dismantle the "legal" drug cartel: Dean's leadership of the DNC produced major wins in 2006 and 2008, so Obama replaced him with a cronies who went on to squander Democratic majorities in Congress and in the States, leaving Obama as the only major Democrat to survive. I haven't noticed him name in ages, so I jumped on this. Not what I expected, but he has a good case against the rackets that manage pharmacy benefits. Just how Democrats can fight them without a power base isn't clear, but it should be a campaign issue.

Gregory P Magarian [05-31] Three ways the government can silence speech without banning it. "Among the present administration's chosen tools: making institutions stop or change their advocacy to get government benefits; inducing self-censorship through intimidation; and molding the government's own speech to promote official ideology."

Melvin Goodman [06-02]: Marco Rubio: The Secretary of Statelessness: One of the few hopes I have for Trump is the utter destruction and humiliation of Rubio, which seems to be well underway. He was the most unsavory of Trump's 2016 opponents, and by far the most ambitious of the 2024 cabinet picks, which is to say the one guy who still thinks he can outsmart and use Trump.

Tareq S Hajjaj [06-02] Aid massacre: Israeli forces kill 75 Palestinians at U.S.-run aid distribution center: "The Americans and Israelis set a huge trap for us to lure us here and kill us." Hajjaj had previous reports on the aid center from May 27 ("It looked like a large prison": Chaos ensures at U.S.-Israeli-backed aid distribution site in Gaza) and May 29 (Palestinians describe being treated like animals as chaos breaks out again at U.S.-run aid site in Gaza). Also:

Blaise Malley [06-03] "Shameful, vindictive erasure": Hegseth orders removal of Harvey Milk's name from Navy ship: "announcing the renaming during Pride Month was intentional." One thing about the Trump administration is that no chance to offend is too petty for them.

Cheyenne McNeill [06-03] "Disgusting abomination": Elon Musk attacks "big, beautiful" spending bill: Needless to add, while vomiting the usual clichés about "this massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill," he also took exception to the removal of several cuts that would have specifically benefitted his companies. For more on this, see:

Tweets:

  • Jeffrey St Clair [05-17]: I've read this headline story [from Haaretz: Prominent French rabbi receives death threats over criticism of Israeli policy in Gaza] three times and it's giving me a migraine . . . The Rabbi's getting death threats for opposing a policy of starving children to death. Who's the real anti-Semite? The Rabbi or the Zionists threatening her life?

  • Moira Donegan [05-18]: In what might be the logical endpoint of American Zionism, the Heritage Foundation has declared that pro-Palestinian activism is not just antisemitic, but is in fact a shadowy global conspiracy . . . led by Jews. [Link to NYT piece: The Group Behind Project 2025 Has a Plan to Crush the Pro-Palestinian Movement. Identified among the leaders of a global "Hamas Support Network" are "Jewish billionaires such as the philanthropist George Sorow and Governor JB Pritzker of Illinois."]

  • Tony Karon [05-20] Imagine if Gary Lineker[*] had said this? Or any New York Times editor, or Democratic Party politician? Even Israel's Zionist parliamentary 'left' is making clear that Israel is not a "normal" state; it's a psychotic genocidal regime that must be stopped.

    In an interview with Israeli public radio yesterday, the leader of Israel's Democrats party, Yair Golan, said: "A sane country doesn't engage in fighting against civilians, doesn't kill babies as a hobby and doesn't set for itself the goals of expelling a population."

    [*] I had to look up Lineker, an English sports broadcaster (former soccer player) who has been blackballed by BBC for expressing "political views," although as far as I can tell not very radical ones.

  • Aaron Rupar [05-20] Tim Scott on crypto legislation: "This bill must go forward because it's good news for the American people, especially the ones living in poverty." [Rupar adds: "let them eat shitcoins"]

  • Mark Jacob [05-20]: Trump and RFK Jr. say today's kids are "the sickest generation in American history." Is that just a feeling? Here are some facts: About 46% of children born in the U.S. in 1800 did not live to see their 5th birthday. In 1900, the figure was 24%. Now it's under 1%. [Link to New York Times article by Sheryl Gay Stolberg/Dani Blum: Kennedy and Trump Paint Bleak Picture of Chronic Disease in U.S. Children: "A highly anticipated White House report blames a crisis of chronic illness on ultraprocessed foods, chemical exposures, lifestyle factors and excessive use of prescription drugs, including antidepressants."]

  • Alejandra Caraballo [05-22] This [the Republican budget bill] passed 215-214. We're going to lose our healthcare because 3 senior Dems have died this year. We lost Roe because Ginsburg didn't retire. We lost the election because Joe ran for reelection. Our country is being destroyed because geriatric Dems can't retire and let go of power. [What power? More like personal ego perks.]

  • James Surowiecki [05-26] [Linking to a Bernie Sanders ad and tweet, saying "75% of Democrats want the party to move in a more progressive, pro-working class direction. Is the Party leadership listening? Or will they continue with their ideology of maintaining the status quo?"]

    Joe Biden was the most pro-working-class president in 60 years, and working-class voters did not care.

    Nathan J Robinson replied: "one reason they didn't care is because half the time he could barely speak in complete sentences." Of course, the more obvious riposte was that the bar was pretty low, and Biden didn't deliver on most of the gestures he made, that he didn't make that many, and that few of them were bold enough to get attention. No doubt his inability to speak coherently about what he wanted was part of the problem. But also after a long career in the business-as-usual center of the Democratic Party, he didn't want much. But even if you buy Surowiecki's assertion, what about Harris? Biden may have been on the minds of those who hated him, but the name on the ballot was Harris, and how much working class support, or even rapport, did she offer? Clearly there was a block of voters who felt enough of a bond with Biden to vote for him over Trump, but didn't feel the same about Harris or Clinton, and they seem to have been the swing voters. It's unfair, and dumb, that Biden could win those voters when a pair of educated and wonky women with essentially the same platform could not, but the answer isn't to whine. It's to present a critique and a vision that voters (and not just donors) can get behind.

Current count: 169 links, 12807 words (15319 total)

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Monday, June 2, 2025

Music Week

June archive (in progress).

Music: Current count 44300 [44276) rated (+24), 23 [22] unrated (+1).

Rated count well down this week. Main reason was I spent two days cooking, which are documented in the notebook here and here, and on Facebook here (second dinner just merited a comment to the initial post). Both came out of a desire to use up leftovers from an earlier and more ambitious Thai/Burmese dinner (cf. Facebook and notebook). I feel like I'm done with that sort of thing for a while, but am generally pleased with the food. While I"m conscious of my physical and (to some extent) mental decline, this is one area where I'm still capable of producing exemplary results. In some respects, perhaps better than ever: while I've always been able to follow complex recipes, I'm much better than I used to be at fixing mistakes and improvising enhancements.

Only two A- records this week, but a whopping 10 B+(***): seemed for a while like everything was landing there. Good chance a couple of those could have benefitted from the extra plays I gave Ochs and Truesdell -- not that my third play of Madre Vaca today has moved the needle beyond B+(***). I've struggled a bit picking out new records to check out, but a new list from Phil Overeem as well as the latest from Dan Weiss should help. A big part of finding as much as I do comes from knowing who to lean on.

My count of Bluesky followers was stuck at 102 for a week, then dropped before recovering. I haven't been posting much, but got to one of this week's two pick hits today. I skipped Truesdell because I couldn't find a playable link, although the previous volume, Lines of Color (an A- in 2015) seems to be on Soundcloud. Some info on the new album is here. Still, my forecast is for below-average reviewing for the next few weeks. While I'm unlikely to do much cooking, I have a lot of tasks around the house to attend to, and other things that will take me away from the computer. When on the computer, I hope to make more progress on my planning documents. I'm generating a lot of ideas -- far more than I can possibly act on, I'm afraid, but much that strikes me as worthwhile.

I also lost an afternoon last week when Robert Christgau's website got shut off. It took a good deal longer than it should have to fix, due to various miscommunications between Christgau, me, and the vendor. It's been resolved, and shouldn't recur. It reminded me that the tech stuff is more fun than the writing, not least because it can reach a successful conclusions, whereas writing never feels really done. (Cooking in this regard is more like programming, and possibly more satisfying.)

One thing I need to think about is whether to run a Mid-Year Jazz Critics Poll. Target publication should be July 1, so this is about when I should send invites out. I don't quite feel up to it. Related to this is that we haven't had further discussions since Francis Davis passed. I haven't felt the need to move on, so haven't pressed the issue, it would be unfortunate to miss the opportunity.

I've avoided doing any work on Loose Tabs, but the last one came out on May 14, and the scratch file turns out to have a lot more in it than I remembered (4800 words), which is probably enough to dump out on its own -- especially as it's already becoming dated: only two tweets and a Roaming Charges since May 20, nothing since May 26. On the other hand, I wouldn't be surprised to find a dozen or maybe even two open tabs (which I need to clean up, as I'm already getting snap complaints). So expect something on that front later this week, even if I don't put much more work into it.

I got my books from the big April 25 Book Roundup. I finished Pankaj Mishra's The World After Gaza before they came, so read Gideon Levy's The Killing of Gaza in the meantime. While Mishra went deep into the psyches that allowed and ultimately rationalized the genocide -- territory I was generally familiar with from Norman Finkelstein and Idith Zertal, although it resonates with books by dozens of other writers, and is more systematic than anything before -- Levy just batters you with a series of weekly columns, each with new details of the same old brutality, and many redundant salvos of his opinion that most Israelis have lost all sense of what they're doing, and ultimately of their own humanity. It was hard reading, but thankfully ended after less than six months, leaving it to the reader to fill in the following year, same as the old but even more craven.

After that, I moved straight into Greg Grandin: America, América: A New History of the New World, despite its daunting length. I'm still in the first section, but I'm already impressed by the novelty of describing the Spanish Conquest through the words of its dissidents, and not just Bartolomé De Las Casas. To get a sense both of the book and of its relevance today, see Grandin's TomDispatch piece, The Conquest Never Ends.

New records reviewed this week:

Tunde Adebimpe: Thee Black Boltz (2025, Sub Pop): Singer-songwriter born in St. Louis, parents from Nigeria, was lead vocalist in TV on the Radio (2004-14), first solo album. I've heard the band albums, but don't remember them at all (even the two I graded A-), but this is probably in the same ballpark, but with less ballast, which I'd guess makes it less impressive but more appealing. At least that's how this one leans. B+(**) [sp]

Aesop Rock: Black Hole Superette (2025, Rhymesayers): Rapper Ian Bavitz, ten albums and more since his 1998 mixtape. B+(***) [sp]

Jon Balke: Skrifum (2023 [2025], ECM): Norwegian pianist, two dozen or so albums since 1991, this one solo. B+(*) [sp]

Bon Iver: Sable, Fable (2025, Jagjaguwar): Singer-songwriter Justin Vernon, fifth album since 2007, all well received, this one currently tied for 2nd place in my Metacritic file (with Japanese Breakfast, behind FKA Twigs). I've never seen the point, but the soul/funk effects have some appeal. This repackages Sable, his 2024 3-song 12:17 EP, on one CD, supplemented with the longer Fable (9 songs, 29:20) on a second. B+(*) [sp]

Miley Cyrus: Something Beautiful (2025, MCEO/Columbia): A pop star of some renown, 7 of her previous 8 albums (since 2007) have charted top-five. Big production, hits intermittently. B+(**) [sp]

Robert Forster: Strawberries (2025, Tapete): Australian singer-songwriter, one of two in the Go-Betweens (1978-90), went solo after that, and seems to have excelled at recapturing the group's sound since Grant McClennan's death in 2006. This hits the spot about half of the time. B+(***) [sp]

Joe Lovano: Homage (2023 [2025], ECM): Tenor saxophonist, backed here by what was once known as Tomasz Stanko's "young Polish trio": Marcin Wasilewski (piano), Slawomir Kurkiewicz (bass), and Michal Miskiewicz (drums). Starts with a piece by Zbigniew Seifert, followed by five Lovano originals. No shortage of talent here, but also no interest in raising the temperature from a dull chill. B+(**) [sp]

The Pete McGuinness Jazz Orchestra: Mixed Bag (2025, Summit): Originally a trombone player, sings, composes (4 of 11 here), arranges for big bands. Early albums include a Glenn Miller Project. Fourth album with this group (not his first big band). B+(**) [cd]

Ava Mendoza: The Circular Train (2024, Palilalia): Electric guitarist, approaches free jazz from an experimental rock framework, or maybe vice versa, which is one approach to fusion (or two?). Solo. Sings two songs. Covers "Irene, Goodnight." B+(*) [bc]

Larry Ochs/Joe Morris/Charles Downs: Every Day → All the Way (2023 [2025], ESP-Disk): Tenor/sopranino sax, bass, drums; the former best known for his work in ROVA, but has a long history of bracing free sax work, to which this is an excellent addition. A- [cd]

Bill Orcutt Guitar Quartet: HausLive 4 (2024 [2025], Hausu Mountain): Guitarist, credits his first inspiration to Muddy Waters, started in rock bands like Trash Monkeys and Harry Pussy, but by 2009 was mostly doing solo improv, expanding to duos and sometimes more. recording Music for Four Guitars in 2021, then finding some extra guitarists to play it live -- the others here are Wendy Eisenberg, Ava Mendoza, and Shane Parrish. B+(**) [bc]

PinkPantheress: Fancy That (2025, Warner, EP): British pop singer-songwriter Victoria Walker, one album, second mixtape, just 20:28. B+(*) [sp]

Preservation Brass: For Fat Man (2025, Sub Pop): This seems to be different from the Preservation Hall Jazz Band founded by Allan Jaffe in the 1960s and led by his son Ben Jaffe since 1989, but shares ties to the New Orleans jazz institution. Fat Man is the late drummer Kerry Hunter, who is credited as playing here. Six brass (including sousaphone), two reeds (tenor sax and clarinet), two drummers and a percussionist, and some vocals, playing trad jazz with considerable grit and polish. B+(***) [sp]

Marc Ribot: Map of a Blue City (2025, New West): A jazz guitarist of much note, he has done a wide range of things, ranging from fringe to fusion to agitprop to Postizos Cubanos and Ceramic Dog, tries his hand at intimate singer-songwriter fare here, mostly solo but with the occasional odd guest spot. Hard to hear much here, but some interesting bits. B+(*) [sp]

Viagra Boys: Viagr Aboys (2025, Shrimptech/YEAR0001): Swedish post-punk band, fourth album since 2018. Mixed bag, evidently by design, to dilute the fast and noisy ones. B+(***) [sp]

Jim White/Marisa Anderson: Swallowtail (2022 [2024], Thrill Jockey): Drums and guitar duo, the former an Australian with Chicago connections who's played in many rock bands since 1980 (and not the only Jim White you're likely to run across), Discogs credits him with 7 albums: 1 as the sole name, 2 as the first name (both with Anderson), 4 further down the slug line. Anderson, based in Portland, has a dozen albums since 2005, mostly solo, other duos with William Tyler and Tashi Dorji. B+(*) [sp]

Yeule: Evangelic Girl Is a Gun (2025, Ninja Tune): A "music project" from Singapore, fourth album, started as "glitch pop," this seems more conventionally pop. B+(**) [sp]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

Nellie McKay: Gee Whiz: The Get Away From Me Demos (2003 [2005], Omnivore): Born in London, mother American, grew up in New York, holding dual citizenship. Has since become notable for interpreting others' songs, but wrote her own for her 18-song, 2-CD 2004 debut, which is reprised (or anticipated?) here. Without looking back, the demos don't sound stripped down, possibly because the main instrument is piano. Half (or more) of this makes me wonder whether I underestimated the debut, but caution keeps me from overestimating this nice reminder. Adds three bonus tracks (which do sound like demos). B+(***) [sp]

Moskito: Idolar (2001 [2025], Awesome Tapes From Africa): South African kwaito group, started with Mahlubi Radebe and Zwelakhe Mtshali, adding two more, first album. Not very polished, especially in the rap/vocals, but the beats have grown on me. B+(***) [sp]

Gerry Mulligan: Nocturne (1992 [2025], Red): Baritone saxophonist (1927-96), topped DownBeat's poll a record 29 straight times, with a previously unreleased tape from late in his career, a quartet with Harold Danko (piano), Dean Johnson (bass), and Ron Vincent (drums). B+(**) [sp]

John Surman: Flashpoints and Undercurrents (1969 [2025], Cuneiform): English saxophonist, plays all of them but here just soprano and baritone, plus bass clarinet, has had a notable career on ECM since 1981, but started in 1969 near the founding of the Anglo-European avant-garde with an eponymous album followed by groups called The Trio and S.O.S., and a Penguin Guide crown album, Tales of the Algonquin (1971) -- as well as side-credits like Extrapolation (1969, with John McLaughlin). Cuneiform has uncovered a couple more tapes from 1969 (Flashpoint, and Way Back When), and now this one, a rousing tentet with Kenny Wheeler on trumpet, three more saxophonists (Alan Skidmore, Ronnie Scott, and Mike Osborne), two trombones, piano, bass, and drums. This is rather extraordinary, but the overwhelming power can be a bit much. B+(***) [dl]

Ryan Truesdell: Shades of Sound: Gil Evans Project Live at Jazz Standard Vol. 2 (2014 [2025], Outside In Music): Composer, arranger, conductor, appeared in 2012 with Centennial: Newly Discovered Works of Gil Evans, and followed that up with an excellent live "Gil Evans Project" album, Lines of Color (2015). This Vol. 2 comes from the same stand, and reminds us how impressive the interplay and the solos were. A- [cd]

Old music:

Syran Mbenza: Sisika (1986, Syllart): Congolese soukous guitarist-singer (b. 1950), played in several notable groups, with a few albums under his own name (or M'Benza). Five songs (28:08). B+(***) [sp]

Soft Works [Elton Dean/Allan Holdsworth/Hugh Hopper/John Marshall]: Abracadabra in Osaka (2003 [2020], MoonJune): Soft Machine was a Canterbury prog rock band that started as a vehicle for Kevin Ayers and Daevid Allen, who soon departed for other projects, as did drummer/vocalist Robert Wyatt, leaving a trio that having run out of vocalists gravitated towards jazz, especially when saxophonist Elton Dean joined. Their main run was from 1966-78, with several revivals and spinoffs (Soft Heap, Soft Head, Soft Ware, Soft Mountain, Soft Bounds, and from 2005-15 Soft Machine Legacy). This iteration -- with Dean, Allan Holdsworth (guitar), Hugh Hopper (bass guitar), and John Marshall (drums) -- cut one album before touring Japan, where this was taped. B+(***) [bc]

Soft Works: Abracadabra (2002 [2025], MoonJune): This was the quartet's studio album, released in Japan in 2003, and remastered, with two bonus "live in Tokyo" tracks. Appealing especially at first, but pretty much interchangeable with the live album. B+(***) [sp]

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

  • Alon Farber Hagiga: Dreams | Dream (Origin) [06-16]
  • David Grollman/Andy Haas/Sabrina Salamone: SCRT (self-released)
  • Greg Murphy: Snap Happy (Whaling City Sound) [06-06]
  • Felipe Salles: Camera Obscura (Tapestry) [06-06]
  • Julian Shore Trio: Sub Rosa (Chill Tone) [06-06]

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