Tuesday, February 28, 2006

I've gotten some flack recently over one of my Jazz Consumer Guide reviews. This sort of thing happens often enough that most writers just wind up shrugging their shoulders and getting back to work. I'm researching this out of curiosity, and this is likely to be a rather boring post. But here goes.

This thread appeared in the latinjazz group at Yahoo:

From Willard Jenkins (Feb. 24, 2006; Another gratuitous commentary):

Here's a recent example of some "critical" commentary which I thought members of this group might find rather questionable at best and may warrant a letter to the editor: from this week's edition of the Village Voice "Jazz Consumer Guide" by someone named Tom Hull who always seems to have a certain cultural tint to his commentary and his capsule review of the following disc:

Hilary Noble & Rebecca Cline: Enclave (Zoho)
. . . Whereas most Latin jazz gravitates toward siesta, leave it to a couple of Yanks to shake things up.

Am the only one to whom this suggests something?

From armali69 (note signed Arturo):

Willard Jenkins wrote [ . . . ]

No, to me at worse it is racist, at best it is condescending right out of the Frito Bandito school of writing. I will write a letter to the editor and the writer for his obvious insensitive and ignorant statement. Ahhhh if Tom only knew how African-ized and Latino-ized his so-called "red, white and blue" culture is . . . he might faint from the shock.

From Jimmy Gonzalez:

Isn't The Village Voice supposed to be a pretty hip insitiution?

From luckeyraffy1925 (signed Richie):

They certainly are Jimmy G.

Unfortunately, when it comes to Latin-oriented music, most publications tend to employ writers who miss the boat more often than not and always over-generalize an entire community based on one thing that one individual may have done or practiced. And who feel the need to use words like "Siesta" or "Spicy."

It isn't always just a "white" journalist who's guilty. There's a whole bunch of non-white writers who tend to over-adulate artists based on who they are and what their stature is and not on their current body of work . . .

From Allan Johnston:

Willard Jenkins wrote [ . . . ]

The first part is obvious -- what about the second part of the quote: "leave it to a couple of Yanks to shake things up"? I wonder how Swiss-born Hilary feels about that insensitive statement . . .

From Gary Eisenberg:

Richie, as is usually the case, you're right on target. It's about stereotyping. And we have to be ever-on-the-lookout to correct the problem where we find it.

That's as far as the thread goes. I'm not familiar with Jenkins, but he works with an outfit called Open Sky Jazz -- describes himself as "an arts administrator, producer, presenter, journalist, broadcaster, educator, and consultant." Client list just shows institutions: BET Jazz, Smithsonian, Tribecca Performing Arts Center, Walt Disney Corp., like that. I wrote to Jenkins and asked if he could clarify or elaborate on the "tint" he detected. He replied:

In this case "tint" regards the whiteness of your columns -- often quite absent artists of "color" . . . and when they do appear they are subject to slams (i.e. "Dud" and that ridiculous comment re. "Yanks" concerning the performance of what is otherwise known as Latin Jazz.

This comment did ring a bell, so I looked up Jenkins in Stuart Nicholson's Is Jazz Dead? -- found Jenkins cited for a piece called "Wynton Bites Back: Addresses His Critics." This column's featured Dud was by the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, led by none other than Wynton Marsalis. I guess you can count this flagship orchestra of the culture establishment as one "of color" -- the names I'm sure of include more blacks than whites, but not by a large margin.

I'll return to the "tint" issue in a bit, but I might as well note here that this particular column is exceptionally skewed to White American artists at the top and to Black American artists at the bottom. The only black artist near the top is Cooper-Moore (Triptych Myth), if indeed he is black (I thought so at one time, but I'm not sure anymore), but a couple more were cut in layout -- had I prioritized the cuts differently I could have ensured a more representative balance, but frankly it never occurred to me.

I found out about this when a Voice editor forwarded a letter quoting Arturo's post above. This letter was from Aurora Flores, who in a subsequent communication wrote:

I don't know about that line since I am not a reader of your column, that would be a question for Willard Jenkins who works for the Smithsonian and for BET Jazz, but the inference that everyone on the Latinjazz egroup is talking about is when you say:

. . . Whereas most Latin jazz gravitates toward siesta, leave it to a couple of Yanks to shake things up."

Frankly, you're suggesting that Latinos who want to play jazz need a "yankee" to make it lively. You are also suggesting that you've listened to all the Latin jazz that's out there. These are just some of the things that make me, personally go "hmmmm."

This clearly shows the lack of knowlege of Latinos and their relationship to jazz since its very beginnings. Yes, it is an offensive term. That's what everyone on that group on yahoo was talking about. I suggest you go on the group and talk w/them yourself. But it is the topic of discussion.

Time to unwind a bit here. That's all the data I have on the complaint -- maybe there are other people elsewhere grumbling, but that's all I've found and heard. So "everyone" on the Yahoo latinjazz group comes to six out of more than 1200 subscribers, plus Flores -- the writer of the only letter the Voice forwarded to me. There are two allegedly inflamatory words that I used: "siesta" and "Yanks." There is Flores' assertion that when I said "most Latin jazz" I was asserting that I've listened to all the Latin jazz that has ever been created -- an impossible and ridiculous standard.

I chose the word "most" both as a hedge against what I don't know and as a qualifier because I do know of exceptions. I'm not an expert on Latin jazz, or on any of the hundreds of more or less distinct forms of music that have come out of Latin America, or on the history or geography or economy or politics of the region, but I do know a fair if superficial amount about all of those. I've listened to about 50 Latin jazz albums since I started the Jazz Consumer Guide. That's far from exhaustive, but it strikes me as a pretty fair sample. I'm still getting my bearings there, and I have a natural reluctance to spout off on things I feel I don't understand well enough. But thus far most of what I've heard is underwhelming: a lot of B/low-B+ stuff that seems to pull its punches. Does it "gravitate toward siesta"? That's another hedge phrase, but I like it -- better than "puts you to sleep" or the hoary "bores you stiff" -- because it suggests that exhaustion is a slow, inexorable process. But it also runs counter to what you expect: bright, bouncy, or as Richie put it, spicy. I find that those attributes give so much of the music an indifferent sameness, even when there's much to admire in the rhytmic complexity, the brashness of the brass, etc. Sure, "siesta" may be a cliché, but it's a word that fits the flow of the sentence. And the point of the sentence isn't my summary judgment on Latin jazz. The first clause is just there to set up the discovery of the exception: the record I was reviewing.

This may be a good time to show you the entire review -- not just the line that Jenkins took out of context:

Hilary Noble & Rebecca Cline: Enclave (Zoho) Good students. Noble studied sax with George Garzone and Yusef Lateef, but he also did extra credit in Afro-Cuban percussion, and he puts both to use here. Cline picked up her piano from Joanne Brackeen and Chucho Valdés, and she delivers the whole package--she's impossible to ignore, even in the background. Whereas most Latin jazz gravitates toward siesta, leave it to a couple of Yanks to shake things up. A MINUS

The "siesta" comment may be unfair about Latin jazz in general. It's certainly not my last word on the subject. But "leave it to a couple of Yanks" means nothing more than that's what happened this time, and arrives with a dash of ironic surprise. Flores is way off base on this one: there's no necessity one way or another; it's more a question of whether one is happy to just go with the flow or whether one wants to stir things up. Latins can, and do, go both ways. On the other hand, the few Yanks who have really impressed me in this music -- a list that includes Kevin Diehl and Mark Weinstein as well as Noble and Cline -- invariably have studied under and play with Latins.

"Yanks" is a word with several overloaded meanings, but I like it and use it quite a bit, both negatively and self-descriptively. As a fan of the Bronx Bombers since age six, I'm not bothered by the baseball connection. I've lived in New York and New England, where the Yanks stood up to the British. I was born and raised in Kansas, a state founded to fight against the slaveholders' South. My mother grew up in Arkansas, but her grandfather fought for the Union before moving to the Ozarks, and her family were Republicans until the Republicans sold out to the Dixiecrats. Those are all things to be proud of, but outside the US, especially in Latin America, Yanks have done much harm, and the term has become one of opprobrium and shame. That's us too, and using the term keeps all its meanings in mind. Noble (didn't know he was Swiss-born) and/or Cline may feel differently, but an outside-inside dynamic is at the core of their album, and that's what I tried to convey succinctly. For whatever it's worth, I believe that most of the interesting things happen at margins, that the clash of cultures is the fount of creation.

Noble hasn't posted my review on his website yet, but I hope he does. It's a terrific record, one that should appeal to many folks who, like me, aren't convinced by most Latin jazz.

Since Jenkins raised the issue of a racial "tint" to my column, I decided to take a look at the numbers. There have been eight Jazz Consumer Guides so far, totalling 230 records. I broke them down by rating (pick hits, other A-list, honorable mention, dud of the month, other duds). I then tried to break them down into groups as best I could: US whites, US blacks, Latin Americans, and World (everyone else). In quite a few cases this was hard to do: some I arbitrarily picked a leader for, and some I no doubt got wrong; others I either didn't know or couldn't decide, so they wound up classified Unknown. (The two unknown pick hits were Fieldwork and Sonic Liberation Front.) I summed up the positive ratings as Up and the negatives as Down.

Finally, for reference I did the same thing for a list of 775 new jazz records released in 2005. This gives us a rough baseline to check my numbers against to help identify skews -- or prejudices, although some caution is called for given the small sample sizes and the usual random noise. I used the 2005 list because it was handy and pretty comprehensive. Although I can imagine minor problems with it, I think it provides a fairly accurate picture of the diversity of new jazz today: the ratio of white to black jazz musicians in the US has been rising steadily, as has the ratio of European to American jazz. But before we go further, let's look at the numbers:

Group	US-W	Pct	US-B	Pct	Latin	Pct	World	Pct	Unk
Picks	5	36%	5	36%	1	7%	3	21%	2
A-List	40	53%	14	18%	4	5%	18	24%	6
HM	33	37%	20	22%	2	2%	35	39%	6
DOTM	3	38%	5	63%	0	0%	0	0%	0
Duds	15	58%	7	27%	0	0%	4	15%	2
Up	78	43%	39	22%	7	4%	56	31%	14
Down	18	53%	12	35%	0	0%	4	12%	2
Y2005	266	46%	115	20%	37	6%	164	28%	193

It should be stressed that there's a lot of fuzziness in these numbers, mostly in the determination of which records fit into which columns. Integrated groups, both between white and black and between Americans and others, are very common, perhaps even the rule. The other key point is that randomness itself generates a lot of noise, most likely including most of the noise we see here. On the other hand, if you compare the Up row to the Y2005 row, it will be real hard to conclude that there's any significant skew (or bias) in my ratings. On the other hand, there does appear to be a skew/bias in the Down column: I'm not flagging foreign (including Latin) duds at a representative rate, which in turn elevates the percentages for both whites and blacks.

On the other hand, I didn't need these numbers to identify that bias. My strategy on the positive ratings is to let everyone race and pick whoever wins. The only exceptions to this are that I only rarely cover old music I can review just as well in Recycled Goods and that once Francis Davis writes about something in the Voice I usually decide not to spend my limited space on saying pretty much the same thing. But I cover 5-6 times as many records as Davis, so he would have to have a very severe bias to be reflected in mine. On the other hand, my duds aren't very representative at all of the worst records I hear. I rarely flag a record as a dud merely because it is bad: most are by artists who have some hype going or at least a solid reputation. And since hype and reputation in the US is quite heavily biased toward US artists, there's little reason to bother panning a mediocre or even a rather bad European group.

As for the Latin column, the numbers look plausible, but they're small and easily spoofed. In particular, Dennis González has two of the top ratings. I didn't feel comfortable slotting him under white or black, but the fact is he doesn't play Latin jazz. Noble/Cline and Weinstein are also in the column. But Bryan Lynch isn't -- his HM record is mostly not Latin, even though he plays more Latin jazz than not. Sonic Liberation Front is under Unknown -- the leader is white, the group is half black, and Andy Gonzalez guests, so you tell me. Jerry Gonzalez is in the column, but for an album that is mostly Spanish flamenco. So the only unimpeachable Latino on the A-list is Gonzalo Rubalcaba.

On the other hand, there should be more Honorable Mentions than I've written up. A lot of good records don't get in just because I can't come up with the little squib of text that denotes one in time before the space gets used up. Antonio Arnedo has one I like; Sonido Isleño is another. The late Ray Barretto's Time Was is worth another spin. And I never got Miguel Zenon's latest. But I also haven't been flagging Latin jazz duds, unless you count Maria Schneider's Grammy winner. I don't like Dafnis Prieto's well-regarded record. And I don't like anything I've heard from Arturo O'Farrill, including his Lincoln Center record. (I pulled my punch in not adding that to the Duds list; didn't want it to seem like I was piling on top of Wynton Marsalis, but as Jenkins shows, it doesn't take much to prick their thin skins.) Assuming this doesn't lead to a boycott, I'll have more to say about the music later, as I figure more out.

This has been a lot to write about what was really an insignificant blip. The first I read was Arturo's "if Tom only knew how African-ized and Latino-ized his so-called 'red, white and blue' culture is . . . he might faint from the shock." That really makes for a "say, what?" moment. A previous column was called "The Caribbean Tinge" -- a play on Jelly Roll Morton's famous prescription suggested by pick hits built around Cuban (Sonic Liberation Front) and Guadeloupian (David Murray) drums. My database rates 360 albums from Africa and the Middle East, 254 from Latin America and the Caribbean (not counting 265 from Jamaica). I started as a rock critic and worked my way back to Africa through many paths, including country and bluegrass (773). One can't do the work that I do without developing a profound appreciation of the African roots of so much of what's worthwhile in our culture.

That's a big part of why race has become such a ridiculous concept in jazz today. It's true that racism hasn't vanished from society, and it's true that past racism in addition to present has built up a huge economic and political disadvantage for blacks and others. But strange as it may seem, there really is no racism in jazz any more. I don't think there ever has been much, because almost from the very beginning -- at least from the moment Bix Beiderbecke took up cornet -- any white person who aspired to become a jazz musician did so because of their admiration for the blacks who pioneered the music. And that's still true today, even when over two-thirds of all jazz musicians in America are white. The same thing is true of promoters, writers, fans. Maybe in the Cotton Club days you could still be a racist and like jazz, but it just doesn't work like that any more. Jazz is the antidote to racism. And as jazz spreads around the world it's becoming the antidote to the imperial chauvinism that America has largely fallen prey to. It is light against the coming dark ages. And the critical thing is that jazz is coming from all quarters, and heading everywhere. I'm just trying to do my little part, to shout out when I find something extraordinary. And I don't care who does it or where they come from or what they look like, because all of us need to do the right thing.

Monday, February 27, 2006

There's been a lot of civil war talk since last week's bombing of the Askariyah Shrine in Samarra. Since then Shiite militias or mobs have attacked more than a hundred Sunni mosques, with steady bloodshed despite daytime curfews. The prospect of civil war has long lurked in shadow discussions, especially among Iraq sympathasizers who may not have wanted the US to invade but who fear even worse should the US exit. But even more in the shadows, especially this week, has been whatever the US has been doing. Civil war is a two-edged sword in Iraq, and the US is ambivalent about it.

I suspect this is because the US has always thought that a little civil war would be good for America's position. The US did much to promote sectarian conflict in Iraq from the anti-Saddam revolts in the wake of the first Gulf War to the invasion in the second. The Kurds and the Shiites became America's proxies in the fight against Saddam; as such, they were the bulwark of popular support for the American occupation -- at least while there was any. US popularity collapsed quite quickly, but as the predominantly Sunni resistance grew, Kurdish and Shiite politicians have had to stick close to America's skirts for protection. So again, America's precarious political position has been enhanced by sectarian schism. On the other hand, when it comes to civil war, even for the US there can be too much of a good thing.

A clue to how this plays out was visible in spring 2004 when Najaf and other Shiite cities erupted in revolt while the US was tied down trying to punish the Sunni revolt in Fallujah. At that time, the US risked losing the entire country, so had to back off and work out temporary political deals on both fronts. To defuse the Shiites, this involved bringing Moqtada al-Sadr into politics. As for Fallujah, once Shiite opposition was co-opted and the US election was safely in the bag, Bush proceded to raze the city, inflaming the resistance all the further. Meanwhile, Sadr remains a vocal critic of the occupation, and his political strength in the dominant Shiite coalition has only grown. The resistance must realize that as long as Sunnis are seen as a marginal minority, they cannot win against the Americans. On the other hand, the majority Shiites increasingly have the power to tell the US to leave. The question, then, is how can the resistance drive the Shiites to act against the Americans.

The answer is civil war, and the attack in Samarra seems to be the proof of concept. You may be wondering how Sunnis attacking Shiites will lead to the latter expelling the Americans instead of making them more dependent than ever on American allies. The answer depends on splits in both the Sunni and Shiite camps. To see the Shiite split you have to look no further than Sadr's condemnation of the Americans for the Samarra attack. Of course, the Americans didn't actually blow up the shrine, but by invading and occupying Iraq, the US is the ultimate if not the proximate cause of all the turmoil and destruction that ensued. The Shiites need to recognize that the civil war will continue as long as US forces remain, but have hope that it will abate once the US leaves. But the Sunni resistance has the pefect scapegoat in Al-Qaeda, whose presence they only tolerate as long as it helps fight the Americans: get the US out, and responsible Sunnis will purge the anti-Shiite foreign jihadis and work out a power-sharing arrangement.

And that's how the table sits right now. The US position in Iraq is deteriorating almost daily -- both in Iraq and in the US, where more and more conservatives, at least ones with some appreciation for reality, are jumping ship. Meanwhile, Iraq has gone 74 days, and will no doubt go many more, without forming a government following the latest elections. Perhaps it will be impossible to form the requisite supermajority government. Or perhaps a government can only be formed around the consensus of expelling the Americans. Perhaps Bush will finally decide to duck out before the slamming door hits him. Hard to say, but as we approach the third anniversary of the invasion, it looks more and more like the Americans won't be there for the fourth.

The civil war strategy is both desperate and vicious -- one analogy is to a trapped animal that gnaws its own leg off. It seems clear that the resistance is willing to destroy Iraq to save it from the Americans. How long the Americans stay depends on the same willingness to destroy Iraq to save it. Thus far that's exactly the course Bush has stayed with. If he persists, it just means all that more destruction. Both sides have entered into a compact to burn down the house.

Sunday, February 26, 2006

Music: Current count 11621 [11567] rated (+54), 831 [854] unrated (-23). Newly rated count was 24 before I took a look at the unrated list and found a mess of faulty missing paperwork. Cruising throught he oldies this week, including a couple of box sets. March Recycled Goods looks like it's in the bag for once. Made a change in the database by splitting the latin jazz out into its own file. No doubt need some more clean-up there, but the initial breakout has 58 rated, 175 total, a ridiculous 88% metric. The main reason I did this is that I've been getting a lot of latin jazz, but filing some under jazz, some under Latin, some under Brazil, and the latter two were starting to get skewed. After the split my Latin rated list is 90 (50%), Brazil rated 64 (58%). As the metrics indicate, I know much less about the folk and pop music from south of the border than I do about the jazz, which (as I said) I've gotten a lot of lately. As a result of this, I'll probably do some more research and discover more latin jazz I don't know about.

• Come Get It: The Very Best of Aaron Carter (2000-03 [2006], Jive/Legacy): Teen pop hasn't changed much since the '60s -- still a producer's art, and the teens are still stage props, even if a rare one turns out to be Stevie Wonder; not this one, of course -- check the chronology if you must -- but the fresh party jive surprised me enough to smile along. B+(*)
• Citay (2005 [2006], Important): Mostly instrumental rockish album -- "to make it kind of watery and lava-lamp-y" is one of the few lines in leader Ezra Feinberg's notes that make sense. Other lines are totally off-base: "When Citay started I had been thinking of acoustic Led Zep and the first 2 Heart albums. Also the drama throughout Queen II, and the trippy/spooky Black Sabbath bongo songs where Ozzy's voice has tone os chorus." Doesn't remind me of any of those things, and I have no doubt but that's a plus. B+(**)
• Fra Lippo Lippi: Songs (1985 [2005], Rune Arkiv): Norwegian rock band with a Joy Division vibe, but no New Order rhythm section to back it up; this reproduces their third album plus an live set from a year later, where the mystery resolves into kitsch. B-
• The Go! Team: Thunder, Lightning, Strike (2004 [2005], Columbia): I gather there's a cartoon connection here, or something like that. Mostly instrumental, with the synths sounding loud and rather toy-like, a blare of brass made with plastic. The rise is palpable, but my druthers would be for something a shade cooler. B+(***)
• Daryl Hall & John Oates: Rock 'n Soul Part 1 (The Hits) (1976-83 [2006], RCA/Legacy): A 1983 best-of with two bonus tracks, including a rote remake of "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling" in case you missed the blue-eyed soul concept; but their cred working the soul vein has dated poorly, leaving them stranded on the rock side, especially on the later, less genteel cuts. B
• George Jones: Hits I Missed . . . and One I Didn't (2005, Bandit/BNA): I.e., songs that Jones passed on that others had hits with, starting with "Funny How Time Slips Away." Of cousre, damn near every song in Nashville since the '60s got pitched to Jones at some point, so this is just another songbook album. The better known pieces (exception: "Busted") are superfluous, but Jones makes up for missing "Too Cold at Home" (a hit for Mark Chesnutt). B+(*)
• Freddie King: Live at the Electric Ballroom, 1974 (1974 [2006], Shout! Factory): Nothing new in the live set, just long runs on standard fare pumped up for a grand night in the dive; but the live set is framed with pieces of an interview and two samples of the famed electric guitarist going acoustic -- whether that's a plus or minus depends on your scholarly interest. B+(*)
• The Libertines (2004, Rough Trade): I didn't get much out of their first album, and can't remember it at all any more. One consequence is that I'm not sure what expectations I brought to this one, but they weren't the right ones. Soft, tuneful, somewhat elegant even; seems like the sort of thing that someone who cares about this sort of thing might like. But it still seems more likely than not that when/if they release another one I won't recall this one either. B+(*)
• Lio: 25 Years in Pop: Pop Songs & Ballades (1980-96 [2005], ZE, 2CD): Born Wanda de Vasconcelos in Portugal. Raised in Belgium from age six, then at seventeen scored a hit in France ("Le Banana Split"), taking her stage name from the comic Barbarella. More hits followed, plus film roles, plus a stint as a fashion designer. Unrecognized in the US, she is reportedly a big star in France -- big enough, anyway, that the reconstituted ZE label has latched onto her catalog big time: they've reissued seven albums with bonus tracks, available separately or as Pop Box: 25 Years in Pop with a DVD of video clips, plus these two comps: one fast, the other slow, both new wave more/less danceable synth pop, approximating the niche Madonna pioneered over here. But not so compelling, and I suspect not just because I have trouble following the French. I'm working off a "limited collector edition," but ZE's website shows this material (with one extra pop song) as having been released on two separate comps, so I'm grading the two discs separately. Les Pop Songs: B+(*); Les Ballades: B
• Damian "Jr. Gong" Marley: Welcome to Jamrock (2005, Universal): I have some doubts -- mostly that the contemporary veneer sounds thin -- but while this lacks the resonance of classic reggae, it's more impressive as a hip-hop album. A-
• Putumayo Kids Presents: Reggae Playground (1973-2005 [2006], Putumayo World Music): I've been avoiding the Kids series, but perhaps foolishly. While my own childhood favorites included novelties I'm no longer swept away by -- "Puff the Magic Dragon," "The Monster Mash" -- it also included songs I've never had reason to doubt, like "Sixteen Tons" (Ernie Ford's version; Merle Travis came much later). Asheba's "Reggae Lullaby" strikes me as a mistake -- pre-playground, for mothers as much as babies -- and Marty Dread's "Mouse in the House" rubs me the wrong way, but everything else is light and playful and inoffensive, and the closer from Toots is classic. B+(*)
• A Quiet Revolution: 30 Years of Windham Hill (1980-2005 [2005], Windham Hill/Legacy, 4CD): What do you call non-vocal music that's too static for jazz, too informal for classical, too polite for electro-rock, and too indistinct for world? Someone proposed Contemporary Instrumental Music, but the less descriptive New Age seems to have won out. The attributes I gave above are negative, subtractions from other genres that have leaked into New Age, but some of this music started off as utilitarian, meant to facilitate meditation, relaxation, healing, spiritual discovery -- none of which offer any more promise to alert listeners than the shortcomings. Consequently, I know less about New Age than any other semi-popular form on earth -- excepting CCM, heaven forbid, but that's more a matter of aversion than disinterest. But I do know that Windham Hill was one of the genre's keystone labels, and that it concentrated on small scale acoustic works -- guitarists like Alex de Grassi, Michael Hedges, and founder William Ackerman; pianists like Liz Story and George Winston. The first three discs here do a fair job of plotting out this low-keyed music, making for pleasant background. The fourth disc ("Excursions") is corporate sprawl -- mostly vocal pieces by old agers who inadvertently got caught up in the label's fly trap -- Janis Ian, Cesaria Evora, Bobby McFerrin, Tuck & Patti. In the booklet but curiously not on disc: Bluesiana Triangle, one of Art Blakey's last records, with Dr. John and Fathead Newman. It's the only Windham Hill album I know and love, but the message doesn't fit so well here -- "I do believe that when you're dead you're done." With New Age you can die and look pretty forever. B-
• The Righteous Brothers: Retrospective 1963-1974 ([2005], Abkco): Moonglow hawked them as "blue-eyed soul" but Phil Spector was the one who projected their righteousness to celestial spheres; they never reproduced Spector's cavernous sound, but they achieved his grand kitsch at least one more time, on "Soul and Inspiration," and when they regrouped for "Rock and Roll Heaven" you could imagine them ascending; theirs was a thin act, but they laid it on thick, and this covers it well enough. B+(**)
• Paul Simon: There Goes Rhymin' Simon (1973, Warner Bros.): The best songs are on the better Greatest Hits, Etc. The rest threatens to bland out into easy melodicism. B

Saturday, February 25, 2006

I'd like to add another note on the Abba Eban "never missed an opportunity" quote. Much of the staying power of this quote derives from a couple of facts about shifting Arab positions viz. Israel. In 1947, Great Britain dropped the problem of its League of Nations mandate over Palestine into the lap of the United Nations. The UN then, after heavy lobbying by David Ben-Gurion and representatives of the Zionist settlement in Palestine, approved a plan to partition Palestine. The plan was approved by the UN, which gave Israel a fig leaf of international legitimacy -- one they've reminded us of on every possible occasion ever since. Partition was rejected by all Arab groups, both inside and outside Palestine, and for good reason. At the time, Jews made up little more than 30% of the population, and owned a much smaller percentage of the land. Partition proposed to split the territory into two pieces, one with over 50% of the land and a small Jewish majority; the other with the rest except for an international area around Jerusalem and virtually no Jewish population. If, as happened in Turkey, and was to happen in India, partition resulted in mass migration, it would only be Arabs who would be forced to migrate. Israelis like to suggest that if only the Palestinians had agreed to partition in 1947, civil war and the resulting refugee problem would have been averted. Moreover, Israelis argue that the reason Arabs rejected partition was belief that through war they would be able to drive all the Jews from the entire land. It was only as a consequence of the Arab war against Israel was that Israel wound up expanding its territory far beyond the UN partition plan.

The history is actually a good deal more complex -- Israel never accepted the UN borders, which they aggressively overran, and they conspired with the British and its client state of Transjordan to prevent any Palestinian state from forming; Israel also rejected all subsequent UN and American efforts to secure agreeable borders, going so far as to assassinate UN mediator Count Folke Bernadotte. But the Arabs subsequently gave credence to the "missed opportunity" myth by falling back on the UN partition borders as the basis for all of their peace proposals up to the 1967 war. After 1967, the Arabs again retreated, henceforth basing their proposals on the pre-1967 armistice borders (the "green line"), that they had not accepted before 1967. This set up the second "missed opportunity" myth: that had the Arabs accepted the armistice borders there would have been no 1967 war, therefore no expansion and no occupation.

This argument is disingenuous in several critical respects. The first is that just as Israel did not feel constrained by the borders of the UN partition plan they nominally accepted, Israel never felt constrained by the 1949 armistice borders. Israel rejected all Arab efforts to negotiate peace treaties, repeatedly violated the borders with skirmishes and punitive raids, and launched pre-emptive wars in 1956 and 1967 with flimsy excuses. The UN resolutions following the 1967 war set up the "land for peace" exchange that Israel supposedly wanted before the war, but Israel immediately made it clear that it wanted land, not peace, by annexing Jerusalem and starting to build first outposts then settlements in the illicitly acquired, soon to be occupied territories. The only concession that Israel has made to date to the "land for peace" framework was the 1979 treaty with Egypt -- eight years after Anwar Sadat proposed the deal, achieved only under intense American pressure as the US sought to turn Egypt against the Soviet Union. Israel's aggression continued with its invasion and 18-year occupation of Lebanon, arbitrary "reprisal" raids, and a sustained program of assassination and terror aimed at Palestinian refugees.

In fairness, Arabs haven't consistently pursued peace with Israel over the years. They've snapped back and forth, at times violently rejectionist, at times conciliatory -- the failure of each approach leading to the false hopes of the other. But to say that the Arabs have missed opportunities implies that there were finite moments in time when Israel was amenable to peace. One scours the historical record looking for such points, but it's hard to find anything that remotely resembles one. On the other hand, there have been many points when various Arab factions were ready to settle, often on terms that Israel had previously touted, and Israel has rejected nearly all of them.

The reason for this is that Israel was conceived in sin. Some early Zionists had noble dreams, that the oppressed Jewish masses could emigrate to Palestine, buy land, and through their industry raise the living standards of all. But that's not how it worked, and not just because the Jews that followed within Britain's colonialist framework lacked such nobility. The Zionists never meant to integrate into Palestine -- they meant to dominate, paving the way for more and more Jews to take over more and more land. Labor Zionists took the lead by building organizations designed to exclude Palestinians, including the militias that let Israelis take by force what they had been unable to buy: the land and property of 700,000 refugees. Since 1949, Israeli policy has had two prime goals: to deny the refugees' right of return, and to legitimize the usurpation. Just as Israel was forged in a war of conquest, Israel has had to keep the hostilities simmering in order to avoid facing the facts of their founding. They've done just that -- masterfully at first, but as time marched on, as their "facts on the ground" set in, their ingrown militarism has gotten the best of them. Israel has by now clearly won the right to exist in its pre-1967 borders, and to deny return of the refugees (although they remain someone else's problem). But they persist in fighting for more, and not even the facts on the ground support that. The occupation of Lebanon has been abandoned. The settlements in Gaza failed so badly they've already been withdrawn. The settlements in the West Bank have also failed -- they exist only as heavily barricaded military encampments. Maybe they can salvage a little something in Jerusalem, but at what cost? They continue to plow a fortune into their war machine, while their international standing -- so important to their early leaders, including the dazzling Abba Eban -- sinks lower and lower. They've won so often they've never learned their own limits. So they keep fighting, and they keep lying.

These are the notes for the records covered in Jazz Consumer Guide

• Bayashi: Rock (2004 [2005], Jazzaway). Sax trio from Norway with a tough free improv sound. Know very little about these guys: a slightly earlier album is out on Ayler; bassist Bjørn Andresen died shortly after this recording; saxophonist (also bass clarinet and flute) Vidar Johansen also plays in Crimetime Orchestra, and evidently has been around a while; no idea where the name comes from, but google suggests Japan. Most good trios depend on an even balance, but the guy who most impresses me here is drummer Thomas Strønen, who I gather is by far the youngest. B+(***)
• The Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet: Be Music, Night (2004 [2005], Okka Disk). Ken Vandermark's favorite charity. With a front line of Brötzmann, Vandermark, Mats Gustafsson, Joe McPhee, and Jeb Bishop, they are the heavyweight champs in avant-noise. But this record is different in that it features Mike Pearson's homage to Kenneth Patchen. The noise builds fast and furious to start, but takes several breaks as Pearson recites Patchen's poetry, sometimes alone, often with light comping -- light volume that is, Gustafsson's bari sax not so light in any other regard. The range and mix make this more palatable than most of its predecessors, the spoken word providing a dry counterpoint to the potential overkill. Along the way I noticed a remarkable guitar-like section. No guitar in the cast, so I suspect that was the work of cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm. B+(**)
• Uri Caine/Bedrock: Shelf-Life (2004 [2005], Winter & Winter). A very accomplished left-of-mainstream pianist, Caine's side projects have ranged from improvising on Schumann and Mahler to his very old school take on Tin Pan Alley to joining Questlove for The Philadelphia Project and his jazztronica group Bedrock -- a trio with Tim Lefebvre's bass and guitar and Zach Danziger's beats, but most importantly, Caine's electric keyboards. Important acoustic pianists from Chick Corea to Cyrus Chestnut always seem to lose touch when they dabble in electronics, but Caine somehow makes it work -- perhaps because he sticks to the instrument's range, supplementing the beats rather than trying to conquer them. This goes beyond the original 2001 Bedrock album by adding guests, including beat programmers Luke Vibert and DJ Olive, occasional horns, a couple of vocalists even. Closes with Bunny Sigler singing "Sweat" in a rare Philly soul moment that's both classic and futurist. A-
• George Colligan's Mad Science: Realization (2004 [2005], Sirocco Music). Like Uri Caine's Bedrock, this is a trio with guitar-drums led by a first rate pianist on electric keybs. Still, it's more retro. Colligan plays more organ than synth, and Rodney Holmes sticks with his drumkit instead of beat machines. That leaves Tom Guarna in the role of Grant Green -- he doesn't have Green's lyrical touch, but gets the job done. B+(***)
• Jamie Cullum: Catching Tales (2005, Verve Forecast). I can think of a half-dozen definitions of what it means to be a jazz singer at this date, but this doesn't fit any of them. Maybe there's a historical explanation -- I didn't bother chasing down his previous album, let alone its obscure predecessors. But what I hear here is: that his vocal chops are genuine and impressive, and adaptable like an actor; this his guitar, keyboards and drum programming are nothing special; that his songwriting is rock-based and prematurely geriatric; that his gimmick for covers is to slow them down, often by breaking their kneecaps; that his arrangements aim for smooth jazz filigree, but rarely achieve it. Covers like "Our Day Will Come" and "I Only Have Eyes for You" play to his strengths, plus they have indelible melodies. His own songs don't, even when Allen Toussaint and Dan Nakamura try to help out. Probable Dud. C+
• Hamid Drake & Assif Tsahar: Live at Glenn Miller Café (2002 [2006], Ayler). This is volume 2 to an earlier (2001) date released as Soul Bodies. I don't have a particularly good take on Tsahar: he sounds a little bit like everyone, at least going back to Ayler, and maybe to Rollins -- he does 1:25 of "St. Thomas" to close the set, lest the point be missed. But here he's in full bore avant-honk mode, which seems to be his most agreeable speed. Sounds like Drake only has his kit to play with, which limits his options, although he still impresses. B+(***)
• Dominic Duval/Mark Whitecage: Rules of Engagement, Vol. 1 (2002 [2003], Drimala). Aside from BushWacked, this is the only other Whitecage album I know, but I suspect it may be a good place to start with him. Accompanied by Duval's bass, Whitecage works through a set of exercises on clarinet, alto and soprano sax that give a good sense of his range and dynamics. He's an interesting player on the postbop left -- reminds me a bit of Jimmy Lyons in how he evolves and extends compositional fragments for improvisation. This is also a good place to hear Duval -- not a virtuoso, but he's been a workhorse, especially for Bob Rusch's CIMP label, and gets the last word here with a bass solo. This has been on my shelf for a while -- I wrote about it in my 2003 round-up, so it was already a bit old when I started my Jazz CG in 2004, but I think it would be useful to include it as an Honorable Mention along with BushWacked. A Vol. 2 came out later, with Joe McPhee in place of Whitecage -- also good, but I prefer this one. A-
• Peter Epstein/Brad Shepik/Matt Kilmer: Lingua Franca (2003 [2005], Songlines). The back cover suggests to file this under "jazz/world fusion" -- a new genre or category to me. There are hints of divers world beats here and there. Epstein studied with Charlie Haden, James Newton and John Carter, which in turn led him to west African, Indian and Balkan musics -- all evident here in miniscule quantities. Shepik worked with Dave Douglas' Tiny Bell Trio, which explored Balkan motifs. The album is lovely but feels slight, like the idea was to suggest much while revealing little. Kilmer is modestly credited with "percussion" but must be using a wide range of hand drums and other devices. Shepik is credited with "guitars" although some of what he plays is sitar-like. Epstein's alto and soprano sax are more straightforward, adding a light voice and bright tone on top of the shuffle. I've played this a lot; wish I understood it better. A-
• Joe Fielder Trio: Plays the Music of Albert Mangelsdorff (2005, Clean Feed). Most tributes are poor substitutes for the originals, but this one is a much needed clarification. Mangelsdorff was both a pathbreaker -- one of the essential inventors of European avant-garde jazz -- and a virtuosic trombonist, and the two aspects of his playing tended to confound our ability to get a grasp on him. This elemental trio -- just trombone, bass and drums -- concentrates on his melodies, perhaps the least appreciated aspect of his craft. Much appreciated. B+(***)
• FME: Cuts (2004 [2005], Okka Disk). Ken Vandermark's configurations each have their own name, but the names don't always map well to the music. Free Music Ensemble sounds like a chamber group, with someone like Paul Lovens on drums and a bassist -- well, Kent Kessler would do. But Vandermark went punk instead, with Spaceways Inc./Tripleplay bassist Nate McBride and School Days/Free Fall/Atomic drummer Paal Nilssen-Love. Most pieces have both hard and soft parts. The soft ones are free fragments, often with Vandermark on clarinet with minimal counterpoint. But the hard ones burst into some of Vandermark's most roughhouse blowing. Possible pick hit. A-
• Dominic Frasca: Deviations (2003 [2005], Cantaloupe/Serious Music). Minimalism done on 6- and 10-string guitar, the improv constructed not from notes but from whole looping segments. It's been done before on computers, but is especially attractive with the guitar harmonics. B+(***)
• Nnenna Freelon: Blueprint of a Lady: Sketches of Billie Holiday (2005, Concord). Holiday has become so iconic that she's everyone's choice target, but looking at the booklet photos I get the sense Freelon's aiming more at Diana Ross. Her voice is closer to Ross too, but she doesn't want to concede even that -- she wants to show how different, hip, unique she is. In the cases of "God Bless the Child" and "Strange Fruit" -- two songs never associated with anyone else -- her risks pay off. But on covers there's nothing to tie her performances to Holiday's, which makes for a weird kind of tribute. Especially unsettling is her take on "All of Me" -- latin beats, emphasis shifted, no swing. And just to show there's no center here, "Balm in Gilead" goes off over the other deep end. B-
• Joel Futterman/Alvin Fielder/Ike Levin Trio: Resolving Doors (2004, Charles Lester Music). Futterman plays piano, similar to Cecil Taylor as far as one can go with that. Which doesn't mean that he doesn't have his own distinct style, but this is the only of his two dozen albums I've heard thus far, and it isn't easy to focus on him with Ike Levin in the room. Levin plays tenor sax and bass clarinet -- tough, fearless, rough around the edges, but he gets a sweet tone on the one ballad stretch here. He has connections to Fred Anderson and Kidd Jordan, but reminds me as much of Charles Brackeen. Fielder, the drummer, is an AACM founder, with a long resume starting from Sun Ra. All have Chicago ties, although Futterman moved to Virginia in 1973 -- no doubt part of the reason he's remained so obscure. If you imagine this as a piano-sax brawl, which it sometimes sounds like, it's the drummer who keeps both sides swinging. Of course, there's more to it than that. B+(***)
• Joe Giardullo: No Work Today: Nine for Steve Lacy (2004 [2005], Drimala). From John Szwed's liner notes: "God forbid, you run out of breath, and the audience may hear it has running out of ideas." That happens a couple of times here. There's no margin for error, no cover for a slip up or the least bit of sloppiness. Solo saxophone (soprano, no less) requires total concentration by the musician, and little less by the listener. Lacy recorded solo a number of times, but even though I have about 25 of his albums, I don't have a solo one (there are at least five) available for comparison. It's tough to do, and its appeal is limited, so it's all the more remarkable how gracefully Giardullo pulls this off. B+(***)
• Rich Halley Trio: Mountains and Plains (2004 [2005], Louie). I'm so attuned to the sax-bass-drums trio format that I tend to practice reverse discrimination, lest these rather common records take over the CG. Hence, I've been resisting this one, even though, or precisely because, it's right down my alley. Halley is based in Oregon. Has a half-dozen or so well-regarded albums, none of which have crossed my path before. Plays tenor and soprano, mostly tenor. Penguin Guide describes his work as "freebop" -- it's close enough to the tradition for that description to fit. Pieces run fast and slow, and Halley's distinctive both ways. Bassist Clyde Reed and drummer-percussionist Dave Storrs help out -- I especially like a stretch with hand drums. Could hold out for another spin, but this time I think I'll go with my druthers. A-
• Sheila Jordan + Cameron Brown: Celebration (2004 [2005], High Note). She's been my favorite jazz vocalist ever since she waltzed away with Roswell Rudd's Flexible Flyer. I saw her once, doing a practicum at Harvard, where she was gracious to students a million miles away from her talent. When she did sing the clarity and resonance of her voice were astonishing, as is her ability to shift the words around to whatever time and mode strikes her fancy. She describes herself as "a little quirky, maybe an acquired taste." But I recall that when I played her for Phil Eder, a friend who had introduced me to plenty great jazz, her voice stopped him dead in his tracks. She came out of a coal town in Pennsylvania to chase Bird, landing his pianist Duke Jordan instead, who left her a name and a daughter. Her first recording was a song for George Russell, followed by Portrait of Sheila, then nothing more for fifteen years. She was close to fifty when she finally got the hang of a vocalist's career, and much of her work since then has been duets with bass only -- Harvie Swartz, then more recently Cameron Brown. This record is a set she sang at the Triad on her 76th birthday -- just her and Brown, plus one brief guest appearance by fellow vocalist Jay Clayton (who really is an acquired taste). The graciousness I saw at Harvard is still here, as is her skill at toying with her songs. The three medleys are the highlights, especially the one where "Fats Meets Bird." A-
• Arthur Kell Quartet: Traveller (2004 [2005], Fresh Sound New Talent). Tight bassist-led quartet with three more musicians already established on the Fresh Sound label: Gorka Benitez (tenor sax, flute), Steve Cardenas (guitar), Joe Smith (drums). Kell's bass firmly anchors his tunes, and he's the critical focal point, but both Cardenas and Benitez excel. A-
• Steve Lacy/Joëlle Léandre: One More Time (2002 [2005], Leo). One of a series of "farewell concerts" that Lacy gave moving back to the US from France -- the farewell made all the more poignant when Lacy passed away. When Lacy picked up the straight soprano sax in the '50s the instrument was identified almost exclusively with Sidney Bechet. Since then, and despite increased competition, it's belonged to Lacy -- all the more remarkable since he has rigorously pursued a career on the edge of the avant-garde, based in Paris, recording numerous albums on widely scattered small labels, often styled as explorations into the apparently inexhaustible inspiration of Thelonious Monk. This one is both typical and exemplary: a duo with bassist Joëlle Léandre, who provides a dense undertow to Lacy's consistent probing. It's basic to his sound, his approach. It's one to remember him by. A-
• Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra: Don't Be Afraid . . . The Music of Charles Mingus (2003 [2005], Palmetto). This became inevitable once flacks tried to draw an orchestral line from Ellington to Mingus to Marsalis -- otherwise, wouldn't Mingus be a bit too outré for the upscale crowd? Mingus has yet to develop into a repertory staple, at least outside of the official tribute bands, filled with old Mingus hands, that Sue Mingus rides herd on, and even there recent albums like I Am Three (Sunnyside) suggest they're running on fumes. (The rule of thumb is that the older albums are the better ones, but I haven't rechecked to see whether they're just less redundant, or the memory is fresher, or what.) What's missing from all the remakes is Mingus himself -- the virtuoso bassist, of course, but more importantly the leader who drove small bands to play huge. Here fifteen musicians play small. At the end of the tricky title piece about the clown, they even laugh small. B-
• Paul Motian/Bill Frisell/Joe Lovano: I Have the Room Above Her (2004 [2005], ECM). Motian's long and distinguished career as a sideman has mostly been built accompanying pianists, going back to Bill Evans, but his own groups never include piano. In the late '80s he put together this trio, back before Lovano and Frisell became the eminences they are now recognized as. In returning to this trio he gives his co-stars plenty of room to work with, but the pieces (aside from the Jerome Kern-Oscar Hammerstein title track) are Motian's, and they establish a rigorous framework -- a set of constraints that Lovano and Frisell have to work within. The music tends to be slow and abstract, and Motian's role is characteristically oblique -- has there ever been another major jazz drummer who cares so little about keeping time? Lovano's ballads work has been uninspiring, but he shows here that whatever problems he has with ballads have nothing to do with tempo: he is thoughtful and eloquent at slow paces. Frisell's role is more limited: he comps, imparting a sweet aftertaste to Lovano, and takes over with his own thoughtful lines. I've been sitting on the fence on this record for quite a while: play it, enjoy it quite a bit, but doubts linger. Looking back over my ratings database list, I find that that happens a lot with Motian. Some day I'll go back over the dozen-plus albums and try to sort them out better. Until then, some caution is in order. B+(***)
• David Murray 4tet & Strings: Waltz Again (2002 [2005], Justin Time). Back in 1998 I decided that Murray's Creole was the record of the year. When I praised the record to Christgau, he tersely wrote back that he hates flutes and the record is covered with them. I'm not a flute fan myself, but I was so caught up in the Guadeloupean drums and the master's sax I had hardly noticed. Murray is so monumental he can overpower your prejudices, and he's done so many times -- despite initial reservations I eventually applauded his latin big band and items like Octet Plays Trane. But the strings here are just too much for me. They are as modern and intrusive as those on Stan Getz' Focus, but denser and indecisive -- little swirling maelstroms, they take over the work to such an extent that even Murray has trouble saying his piece. When he does get a word in edgewise, he's magnificent, of course. But there are plenty of other places to hear him to clearer effect. Guess this has to go on the Duds list. B-
• Hilary Noble & Rebecca Cline: Enclave (2004 [2005], Zoho). A-
• The Onus: Triphony (2003 [2005], Hipnotic). Darryl Harper's clarinet trio has grown on me. First I thought it sounded terrific, then overly long, but with patience I am struck by its pace, its moderation, its maturity. He searches but doesn't rush. B+(***)
• Rake-Star: Some Ra (2003 [2004], Spool/Line). The booklet has pictures but no excuses. Funny to watch a bunch of white guys who look like they just came down from Saturn. Impressive how much they sound like their models, too. B+(***)
• Sam Rivers/Ben Street/Kresten Osgood: Violet Violets (2004 [2005], Stunt). This is one of those old masters goes to Europe and gets roped into a studio things. (Street is presumably American, but he mostly records on European labels. Osgood is Danish.) The pieces include a couple by Osgood, a couple by Rivers, some group improv, and other odds and ends (Ornette Coleman, Lucky Thompson). Still, this is remarkable for how good Rivers sounds, and how neatly this links back to his early work. B+(***)
• Randy Reinhart: As Long as I Live (2004 [2005], Arbors). A trad jazz sideman at least since 1994, playing cornet and trombone alongside the likes of Keith Ingham and Marty Grosz, this is Reinhart's first album as a leader. But really it's a group effort, and this is quite a group. Kenny Davern, Dan Barrett, and John Sheridan each make more of an impression than on their own recent Arbors albums, and guitarist James Chirillo has as many high points -- maybe Arbors should have given him an album too. B+(***)
• Trygve Seim: Sangam (2004 [2005], ECM). A large group, long on horns, especially in the lower registers, but no bass, no drums -- a cello, an accordion, strings added part of the way. The only time it gets going it sounds a bit like tango. Doesn't sound like a good formula, but it's remarkably lovely without ever getting gooey. B+(***)
• Julius Tolentino: Just the Beginning (2005, Sharp Nine). First album by a young alto saxophonist working a mainstream vein. Inlfuences name check Charlie Parker, Phil Woods, Cannonball Adderley, Jackie McLean, Gary Bartz, Kenny Garrett, with McLean a personal connection. Title cut is an original, fast and boppish. On five cuts he picks up extra brass from Jeremy Pelt (trumpet) and Steve Davis (trombone). Jeb Patton plays flashy, hard bop piano, and he's an asset throughout. Final cut is another original, a duo with Patton lamenting the late Illinois Jacquet. A class move. B+(***)
• Triptych Myth: The Beautiful (2005, AUM Fidelity). Another second album where a first album title has mutated into a band name. The real artists are Cooper-Moore, Tom Abbs and Chad Taylor. Their previous album on Hopscotch was a coming out party for reclusive pianist Cooper-Moore, especially combined with his mostly piano-less duo album with Assif Tsahar, America. Until then, the only prospect one had of recognizing Cooper-Moore was by checking the fine print on William Parker's In Order to Survive group, or more lately his work with Tsahar's wife, drummer Susie Ibarra. He's a remarkable pianist, roughly similar to Horace Tapscott, who also developed a uniquely expansive style in similar obscurity on the opposite coast. This one is less explosive than its predecessor, so it takes longer to settle in, but it does. A-
• Assif Tsahar/Cooper-Moore/Hamid Drake: Lost Brother (2005, Hopscotch). No piano from Cooper-Moore this time. He's credited with ashimba, twanger and diddley-bow. Not sure how the first two fit in, but he's turned the latter one-string contraption into a drunken bass; the sound he gets is amazing in its own right, but more remarkably he makes it swing, upifting the whole group. Drake's frame drums are as playful as ever, and with so much good cheer flowing Tsahar opens up in avant-honk mode. I've played this 6-8 times since I got it, working on other things so I've been able to concentrate on it. Could be a pick hit. A-
• Mark Weinstein: Algo Más (2004 [2005], Jazzheads). Leader plays flute; most tracks have vocals; music is Cuban. None of these things incline me to like this record, but I do. The key, I think, is that the music is so primitive. The Afro-Cuban rhythms are mostly hand drums and are rather muted. The vocals are mostly chants. The flutes include alto and bass, which breathe freely and don't force the pitch up into the stratosphere. B+(**)
• Mark Whitecage & the Bi-Coastal Orchestra: BushWacked: A Spoken Opera (2005, Acoustics). One lyric dates from 1776, addressed to a previous George who also had problems with insurgents; title dates from 1990, a previous Bush who meddled cavalierly in Iraq then left the mess to posterity; the rest are clippings from recent news, including reports on Ashcroft and Jesus; none of which matters as much on record as the anarchic jazz that swirls around the words. A-

Friday, February 24, 2006

Yesterday the Wichita Eagle published yet another letter from Judy Press, the Israel lobby's designated publicist for these parts. I've responded to her propaganda in the past, but didn't bother with her last one, which harped on Iranian president Ahmadinejad's recent anti-Israel rhetoric. I might not have bothered with her party line on Hamas either, but I'm really sick and tired of people citing that Abba Eban witicism as if it held even a kernel of truth. So I wrote the following and sent it to the paper.

It is fitting that Judy Press, in her letter insisting that "Hamas be isolated," ends by shamelessly quoting Abba Eban's old Big Lie: "The Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity [for peace]." When, exactly, did the Palestinians ever have any such opportunity? Press claims that the Palestinians just missed one by "electing a party committed to violence when they could have had peace." But Israel had already refused to deal with the Palestinian Authority in its unilateral withdrawal from Gaza and its unilateral carving up of the West Bank. Fateh lost the elections because they couldn't deliver peace, because Israel never offered any such thing.

On the other hand, at this point it is grossly unfair to describe Hamas as "committed to violence." Hamas has unilaterally disengaged from fighting back at Israel for over a year now. Hamas won because Palestinians are disgusted by Fateh's failure to deliver tangible results from Israel, and Hamas at least is committed to not playing along with Israel's efforts to finalize Sharon's solution to the occupation. I don't expect Hamas to fare any better, because only Israel has the power to make peace. And, pace Eban, it is Israel that has never missed an opportunity to concoct excuses to prolong the dispossession and occupation of the Palestinians.

While the history of this conflict is complex and tangled, right now it should be obvious that it could be resolved peacefully in an instant. Our failure to recognize this and our unwillingness to work toward doing the right thing divides the world to our detriment. But in the end, it is up to Israel to make peace. Given their repeated failures to do so, perhaps we should act to isolate them.

Several thread run through this letter. It would take a lot more space to disentangle them and to document my assertions. I won't try to do that here: the history itself is an open and shut case, a point that is powerfully reinforced by Richard Ben Cramer's How Israel Lost (looking at Israel's current socio-political landscape) and Michael Neumann's The Case Against Israel (examining the logic and moral framework of Zionism). That a more/less just peace can be had if (and only if) the Israelis willed it has been demonstrated by numerous viable ad hoc peace plans (my own plan, the Geneva Accords, the Saudi plan; hell, even the Quartet Roadmap would work if Israel got earnestly behind it). And more and more people are coming to realize this. For instance, this from Jennifer Loewenstein at Counterpunch:

For those who haven't noticed, Israel opposes a two-state solution. It also opposes a one-state and a bi-national state, a federated secular state, and the zillion interim-state solutions that have been drawn up and debated and argued over the years. It opposes them because it opposes the presence of another people on land it has claimed as the exclusive patrimony of the Jews.

The other thread of note is how the US is recapitulating Israeli militarism for no good reason whatsoever. The US is a pluralist society. We haven't always lived up to our ideals, but we did finally get to the point where the solution to the Indian problem and the solution to the slavery-segregation problem was inclusion: Indians and Afro-Americans are full-fledged American citizens. Israel could do the same, but refuses, so why should we support them in taking such an un-American stand?

And the traditional US relationship to the rest of the world is that we'd like to see freedom spread and we'd like to do business with everyone, but (again, with a couple of embarrassing exceptions) we don't have any desire to rule over other people. Israel could do the same, but refuses, so why should we support them in taking yet another un-American stand? In its blind support of Israel, the US is betting our reputation in the world on a losing proposition for principles hardly any of us believe in. And unfortunately it's not just the Bush regime that's stuck in this rut: Congress's knee-jerk reaction to the Hamas election was to vote almost unanimously to prohibit any aid from going to the Palestinians, whose economy is choked off within Israel's barricaded ghettos.

We have lots of problems that are intrinsically difficult to deal with. This isn't one of them. This one is easy. All it really takes is a little effort to get past the nonsense Israel's advocates try to drown us in and the resolve to do the right thing.

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

The controversy over the deal whereby Dubai Ports World will take over management of six major U.S. ports (New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New Orleans, and Miami) provides us with a quick check on how little most Americans -- at least the politico-talking class -- know about how the world works. Oddly enough, the only politician thus far who has managed to keep his positions straight on this one is GW Bush. He may not know much, but at least he knows that the princes of the United Arab Emirates got enough cash to be kowtowed to. And he understands that his administration's prime directive is to kowtow to whoever's got the cash, regardless of silly old-fashioned ideas like nationalism, racism, or Christian bigotry. If the Republican masses are confused now, that's largely because they had rallied to Bush around just those ideas. Many Democrats are similarly confused, and at least as irate given that they've tried to make an issue out of port security back in 2004.

The key fact is this: the capitalist class today is international, and its members have much more in common with each other than any of them have with their nominal countrymen. In effect, they form a single world-wide political party, with a program that calls for the unlimited movement of capital and profits across national borders. (Conversely, labor movements, which once aspired to internationalism, have been effectively locked up within national borders, and disempowered as a result.) The capitalist class dominates the politics of many countries, including Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf oligarchies, but its most important stranglehold is the United States. What this means is that when one speaks of a unipolar world with a single superpower, the real identity of that superpower is the capitalist class. And as its capo, Bush owes much more to the princes of Dubai World Ports than he does to his rank and file gun nuts and sex phobics.

The real issue here has little to do with security, terrorism, etc., here. It's about money and control. The deal is that Dubai Ports World is buying these ports from a British company called P&O for $6.8 billion. Like all prices, this is important information. What it tells us is that some fairly savvy capitalists think that there's enough money in managing these ports to recoup a nice profit on $6.8 billion. Those profits will be sucked out of the US and into the UAE, although some may eventually find their way back here to buy up more of America. Of course, in this case the investment mostly goes to the English, who bought the business from Americans sometime in the past, so this deal isn't even one that helps balance the trade deficit.

On the other hand, this raises a long lost issue, which is how the ports got privatized in the first place. This seems like one case where public ownership would make a lot of sense. That's basically because the sole purpose of private companies is to extract the maximum profit possible from the property, which in the case of a port would be some substantial degree of monopoly. On the other hand, the public would have every reason to run the ports as efficiently as possible in order to pass the cost savings on to, well, the public. (Of course, you do run the risk that a bureaucrat like Robert Moses will come up with some rather strange ways of serving the public.)

I remember that back in the '80s there was quite some discussion about how foreigners were buying up large chunks of America, but in the '90s that topic faded, even though the phenomenon never abated. One reason was that the US kept running trade deficits. In order to finance such deficits, the money has to come back somehow -- buying government debt is one way, but buying property is another. I'd like to see a study of how much of America (or what we think to be America, like US-based publicly-held corporations) is owned by non-Americans. Not that it matters much in terms of how things work -- as I said, American capitalists are very much like capitalists anywhere -- but it starts to provide some ammunition for a nationalist (i.e., patriotic) critique of international capitalism. Another study I'd like to see is a survey of capital ownership in the Arab world. It's clear to me that the main reason Bush is so interested in Arab oil isn't so that Americans can burn it up in SUV's. The real reason is more like that the US and the Arabs are the main (only?) countries that recognize oil as private property, and that's the basis of their kindred capitalist classes. As long as the oil profits remain private, it doesn't much matter who burns the oil. What matters to the likes of Bush is that the profits and capital circulate and grow among the capitalists. From their viewpoint, all national interests are anathema. (Had Saddam Hussein invested wisely in US ports instead of building up his nation's army and threatening our buddies in Kuwait he'd be dining on barbecue at the Bush ranch as we speak.)

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

My 8th Jazz Consumer Guide column was posted by the Village Voice today. Actually, the post date was Feb. 17, but in their rush to get done before the three-day weekend, they inadvertently posted the entire edited column, including all the items that got cut from the print version (out today or tomorrow). For the record, the cuts were:

• The Claudia Quintet: Semi-Formal (Cuneiform) [A-]
• Miles Davis: The Cellar Door Sessions 1970 (Columbia/Legacy) [A-]
• Garage A Trois: Outre Mer (Telarc) [A-]
• Steve Lehman: Demian as Posthuman (Pi) [A-]
• Bob Rockwell Quartet: Bob's Ben: A Salute to Ben Webster (Stunt) [A-]
• Sonny Simmons: The Traveller (Jazzaway) [A-]
• Brent Jensen: Trios (Origin) [B+]
• Myron Walden: This Way (Fresh Sound New Talent) [B+]
• Tony DeSare: Want You (Telarc) [B+]
• Ron Blake: Sonic Tonic (Mack Avenue) [B+]

Most of these will appear in the next Jazz CG column, but some may be relegated to surplus. Walden, DeSare, and Blake have slipped twice thus far. They're getting old, and while they're good albums, there's too much competition to keep slipping them into the end of the list. Miles Davis will appear in a Recycled Goods, which may be where it winds up. Francis Davis has already written about it in the Voice -- another reason not to reuse it, even though it was written to nitpick. But the others are a leg up on next time.

They didn't cut any of the duds, which is where I would have started. I don't really get many jazz duds, and rarely feel like picking on those I do get. Do you really need me to tell you that Acoustic Alchemy and the Yellowjackets suck? Or that Debby Boone bears more resemblance to her father than her mother-in-law? Or that the reason Jamie Cullum doesn't measure up to Harry Connick Jr is Mark Bolan brain damage? But the Voice insists on such human sacrifices. But maybe it is of interest that I can't handle the strings on the latest album by David Murray -- otherwise my favorite living saxophonist. (Check my database for 30-40 Murray albums I do recommend. And check the prospecting notes for more details, which may make all the difference in the world.)

The schedule on this column has been revised several times, moving it back, then suddenly moving it forward. One casualty of this is that I don't have my surplus notes worked out. I'll try to get them posted in a week or two. I currently have 188 albums in the "done" file -- competing with the ten leftovers, the pending shelves, and whatever else shows up for 25-30 slots next time, so I need to get real and move half of the "done" file into surplus. I've started prospecting again, but probably won't post any for a couple of weeks until I can get back into the swing of it.

Sunday, February 19, 2006

Music: Current count 11567 [11537] rated (+30), 854 [864] unrated (-10). Spent this past week (first post-Jazz CG) digging through the recycleds, including a couple of the boxes.

• American Primitive Vol. II: Pre-War Revenants (1897-1939) ([2005], Revenant, 2CD): The late John Fahey's label pursues primitivism for its own sake, generalizing the misfit's rather dubious rule that if something's obscure it might be interesting. They brag that the names collected here -- Geeshie Wiley, Elvie Thomas, Nugrape Twins, Homer Quincy Smith, Blues Birdhead -- are "too obscure even for Harry Smith." It's more true that Smith, and Allen Lowe in his even more catholic American Pop, had the whole field open and no qualms about fame one way or another, so they helped themselves to recognized classics, and established a few little-knowns along the way. Dean Blackwood, by digging deeper here, performs a useful service in recovering this lost history -- despite the title dates, only one minstrel song is older than 1926, but the sonic challenges are no less for that. But one reason it holds together better than you'd expect is that while the names are obscure the melodies have much in common with songs you've heard from Smith and Lowe. Maybe these unknowns weren't such misfits after all. A-
• Luiz Bonfá: Solo in Rio 1959 (1959 [2005], Smithsonian/Folkways): An early solo outing by one of the key figures in Brazilian guitar; mostly lightly sketched originals, a quick course in samba, but his style becomes clearer on his covers, which lean towards Cole Porter; this is much expanded from the original LP, picking up cuts with vocals, something he is not famous for. B+(**)
• James Chance & the Contortions: Buy (1979 [2004], ZE): Originally attributed to the Contortions, at a time when Chance was beginning to cultivate an alter ego the leader of James White and the Blacks; the Contortions were one of the post-punk New York bands Brian Eno produced for No New York, possibly the last serious attempt to find the new thing on the avant fringe of the old things; the jagged rhythms and skronk sax seem less extreme now than then, but also less developed. B+(***)
• James Chance & the Contortions: Paris 1980: Live aux Bains Douches (1980 [2004], ZE): Like most live albums, a bit thin and unsteady, but for one who wanders as erratically as Chance, at least some of the lurches here work as improv; self-contortions as usual, plus a James Brown nod on "King Heroin." B
• Cristina: Doll in the Box (1980 [2004], ZE): She's a disco clone programmed by August Darnell (aka Kid Creole), but no mere coconut; she takes charge with lyrics like "Don't Be Greedy"'s "I won't share you with another mate/I'm not that liberal and you're not that great"; and the bonus tracks include squeaky, breathless covers of "Drive My Car" and "Is That All There Is?" The core LP was originally released here as Cristina, and has long been a favorite. A-
• Cristina: Sleep It Off (1984 [2004], ZE): For her second (and evidently last) album, Cristina Monet switched to Don Was for an erudite new wavish mix, ranging from the Rotten-like "Don't Mutilate My Mink" to the Reedish "He Dines Out on Death" to the Brecht-Weill "Ballad of Immoral Earnings," with a pumped up cover of Van Morrison's "Blue Money" that should have been a hit. A-
• Joe Cocker: Mad Dogs & Englishmen (Deluxe Edition) (1970 [2005], A&M, 2CD): 35th anniversary edition, my how time flies! Cocker was a minor English pop singer but not a writer -- an interpreter of others' songs, already a rarity in 1970, at least among artists who got any play. He needed a band for a US tour, so he hooked up with Leon Russell, who assembled a band from a circle also working with Delaney & Bonnie and/or Eric Clapton (dba Derek & the Dominos), including Carl Radle, Jim Gordon, and Bobby Keys. The result was a combination medicine show and gospel revival, captured on film and in a 2-LP soundtrack that was one of the essential documents of the time. It sounds rather dated now, but the "deluxe edition" does right by restoring the full length and glory of the concert, including two Russell leads that bring out his blackface, and the obvious, over-the-top "With a Little Help From My Friends." A-
• Digable Planets: Beyond the Spectrum: The Creamy Spy Chronicles (1993-94 [2005], Blue Note): This best-of plus four rarities improves on two two decade-old albums by keeping their hipster jones in check with air-light beats and sly words. I've always approved of their concept, but was severely turned off by parts of their first album. Might be a good idea to dig it up again and re-check what bugged me, but this one doesn't begin to suggest the problem.