Wednesday, May 31, 2006

A Small Matter of Programming

One thing I've liked about Billmon's website is that he has a little sidebar item on "Current Reading." I've been wanting to hack something together like that, and finally did. The cover images have been scraped from the usual places, but don't link to the usual stores. Don't have any accounts set up, and don't feel like linking for the hell of it. This could change in the future. In fact, I have a book review section on the website which I've never done much with, but that might be the right place to link if I choose to develop it further.

I also made a slight cleanup of the Links section. Again, the website has long had a Links section, which has almost as long been obsolete: another project desperately seeking time. But the real significance of these two changes is that they break out of the prison formed by the Serendipity blog software. Previously I used the "HTML Nugget" plugin for the links. Now I've created a brand new plugin which evals an arbitrary piece of PHP code. That code sucks in an external PHP file, which I can then program without having to hack through the Serendipity Admin interface. While this may not be a good idea in general, it will be a huge convenience for me. It means I can do development locally, then just blast the changed up.

Feels good to actually do a little programming for once.

Jazz Consumer Guide (#9): Second-Term Blues

The long-awaited, much-agonized-over ninth Jazz Consumer Guide has finally appeared in the Village Voice. The two pick hit slots went to pianists. I often worry that I know nothing and have nothing to say about pianists, but this proves at least that I know what I like. The title, "Second Term Blues," comes from a song on the Mario Pavone album. The guerrilla musician theme is suggested by the wide range of obscure musicians working on various fringes, which more than ever extend worldwide. Even the token retro choices are underground: Bob Rockwell has long worked out of Copenhagen; Harry Allen is based in New Jersey, but most of his records appear first, and often last, in Japan.

As usual, going into this I submitted more than would fit on the allotted page. As a bonus for those who bother to read here -- and if you do, you could figure this out anyway -- the cuts/holdbacks this time were:

• Rabih Abou-Khalil/Joachim Kühn, Journey to the Centre of an Egg (Enja/Justin Time) A-
• Erik Friedlander, Prowl (Cryptogramophone) A-
• Manu Katché, Neighbourhood (ECM) A-
• Charles Lloyd, Sangam (ECM) A-
• Joe Morris Quartet, Beautiful Existence (Clean Feed) A-
• Francis Wong, Legends & Legacies (Asian Improv) A-
• Unexpected, Plays the Blues in Need (Fresh Sound New Talent) HM

No idea why one, and only one, and only that one, of the Honorable Mentions got cut. The Unexpected is a piano trio based in Barcelona, led by Sergei Sirvent Escué, a young player I find consistently engaging. He certainly would have fit nicely with the other pianists. The rest were held back for various obscure reasons -- mostly having to do with getting older records out before they become even older.

As usual, I haven't seen the print version, but I've heard that it has one serious error -- since corrected on the web. The Claudia Quintet saxophonist I identified as Chris Cheek is in fact Chris Speed. I knew that. That was just one of those stupid slip-a-gear mistakes that I seem to be prone to these days, and much worse than when I called Scott Amendola "Steve" given that this error mismapped a real, plausible musician. In case you're wondering why the Voice fact checkers missed this, the simple reason is that there are none. The editors do manage to catch a few things, but they usually -- foolishly -- assume I'm the expert. I try to be, but the fact is I screw up every now and then -- like once per column. So I'd like to make a proposition: I'd like to find one or two folks who'd be willing to fact check my Jazz CG columns. I'll send you a draft when it goes to the editor, and an update when I get it back, and explain how to dig into the secret compartments to follow how I work. Helps to be an expert, but errors like Amendola and Speed/Cheek could have been caught just by comparing my reviews to my notes. No compensation, although I reserve the right to send you some surplus schwag if I'm particularly impressed.

Jazz prospecting for Jazz CG (#10) has started, but only now am I getting serious about it. The collected prospecting notes for JCG #9 are here. This is the background against which the CG was selected. The published column covers 32 records. The prospecting file has notes on 198 records. I've started work on cutting the surplus down -- currently I have 153 rated plus 114 unrated records vying for next column's 30 slots, so realistically that needs to be cut down rather drastically, even though it means skipping over good records. I'm more impressed than ever by how much good jazz is being produced these days.

These are the notes for the records in Jazz Consumer Guide (#9):

• The Harry Allen-Joe Cohn Quartet: Hey, Look Me Over (2004 [2006], Arbors). Cohn is Al's son. He plays guitar, setting the pace but not taking a lot of spotlight. Allen plays retro tenor sax, a throwback to the swing era with Coleman Hawkins his main man, but Al Cohn and Zoot Sims are major touchstones. Indeed, Cohn looms over this particular disc, penning three songs and influencing others. Allen plays wonderfully here -- mostly upbeat standards, with a slow original near the end followed by a vigorous "Pick Yourself Up." A pure delight. Grade here is minimal; could be Pick Hit. A-
• Jimmy Amadie Trio: Let's Groove! A Tribute to Mel Tormé (2006, TP). With similar tributes to Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett, Amadie's piano trio is working its way through the standards songbook much as the singers did -- but without the vocals that defined those singers. Or maybe there's another connection I'm missing, given that five of these eight songs are credited to Amadie. I don't have much to say about him as a pianist, and don't mean any disrespect by that. It's just that in this case the trio is supplemented by "special guest" Phil Woods, who sweeps the boards. Woods' days as a bebopper are long past. When he slowed down he discovered the clean, elegant swing of Benny Carter. When Woods and Carter played together their sounds were distinct, but now that Carter's gone Woods feels free to channel -- never more than here. B+(***)
• Antonio Arnedo: Colombia (2000 [2005], Adventure Music). Arnedo is a Colombian saxophone player. Doesn't specify what kind(s) of saxophone, but my ears and one booklet picture lean toward soprano. There's also a picture of him playing a long skinny instrument, presumably the gaita (different from the Spanish bagpipe of the same name). Recorded in Brooklyn, the rest of the musicians are US-based, with guitarist Ben Monder and percussionist Satoshi Takeishi most prominent here. Rough and exotic, with the first half-plus just bubbling up from the percussion -- every time I hear Takeishi I'm more impressed. B+(***)
• Ray Barretto: Time Was - Time Is (2004 [2005], O+ Music). Time was the time of bebop, the time of jazz's first fling with what much later came to be called world music. Time is is what happens when you get old enough to distinguish it from time was. As bebop-latin fusion, this starts strong, powered by Joe Magnarelli and Myron Walden in the roles of Diz and Bird. As for Chano Pozo, Barretto's played him all his long life long. B+(***)
• Nik Bärtsch's Ronin: Stoa (2005 [2006], ECM). Citing James Brown as well as Kurosawa, Bärtsch's "Zen-funk" is minimalism that doesn't stick in any one groove long enough to risk inscrutability. Bärtsch plays piano, giving the dominant figures an acoustic ring. Clarinet, bass, drums and percussion develop as extra parts in the mechanisms, relating to rhythm like harmony to melody. The notes concede that whatever this is it isn't really jazz. But it hooks the listener with the immediacy of its performance. That's close enough to jazz for me. A-
• Bob Belden: Three Days of Rain (Original Soundtrack) (2001 [2006], Sunnyside). Jazz's utility for movie soundtracks has been demonstrated again and again, although less frequently than should be the case. Dark, dreary, endless rain can easily turn into cliché, but it also provides some unity -- one common problem with soundtracks is that the need to exaggerate dramatic tension leads to a hodgepodge of sounds. Belden scored this, but doesn't play. He leaves that job to a range of players who add their distinctive sounds: piano trios led by Kevin Hays and Marc Copland, guitar by Al Street, trumpet by Scott Wendholt, above all Joe Lovano, who plays a little clarinet and a lot of tenor sax. Movie's set in Cleveland, so you couldn't think of picking anyone else. B+(***)
• James Carter/Cyrus Chestnut/Ali Jackson/Reginald Veal: Gold Sounds (2004 [2005], Brown Brothers). Alan Suback writes: "This album sprang from one question: what album would we want to buy which doesn't exist?" In other words, the record was commissioned to support a promoter's concept that sounded good on paper. That concept is Pavement goes jazz, with James Carter ("simply John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman and Albert Ayler rolled into one") honking. Movies have been pitched with no more detailed fantasy, but not good ones. Same here. Pavement's music is skewed enough that it's going to take more than these mainstreamers to tease something out of it. Chestnut is a particularly uninspired choice, but even Carter misses more than he hits. Two cuts get something going -- "Stereo" and "Here" -- but most go nowhere, or worse: "Cut Your Hair" erupts into nonsense vocals, "Platform Blues" gives Carter a chance to wear out his contrabass sousaphone, and "Trigger Cut" leaves Chestnut home alone. B-
• The Claudia Quintet: Semi-Formal (2005, Cuneiform). Oh dear, here we go again. Almost every jazz artist fits into some reasonably well recognized framework, and almost every such framework has many examples, some of which are inevitably more skilled, more exemplary, or at least more interesting than others. These are the rules that make it possible to, usually quickly, sort out the vast produce of jazz into relatively manageable bins, and as such to give jazz consumers a break. Personal taste enters into this, of course. I happen to like saxophones more than pianos, especially in the stripped down context of trios, so may skew my grades accordingly (or compensate by skewing them otherwise), but give me a batch of mainstream piano trios and I'll probably sort them out reasonably well. John Hollenbeck's Claudia Quintet has two problems here: one is that they're unique -- ain't nobody else remotely similar to them, at least not within jazz. On the big map, I suppose they fit somewhere between minimalists like Philip Glass and post-rock experimentalists like Tortoise, but unlike either, like the jazz musicians they undoubtedly are, they not only play in that uncharted space, they improvise in it. The second problem is that unlike most conceptualists they don't refine and reduce their concept -- they muddy the waters, projecting their ideas in multiple directions until you're never sure just what the concept is. One consequence of this is that the albums are, tastewise anyway, maddeningly inconsistent. I sat on I, Claudia for nearly a year before finally deciding that the marvelous parts outweigh the imponderable parts, and I could do the same here, but experience tells me that in the end the marvels will win out. One thing I have a problem with is the mushiness of the instrumentation: the lead instruments are vibes, accordion, clarinet. On the other hand, that only holds true when Ted Reichman's accordion (or keyboards) holds the center. Matt Moran is one of the most interesting vibraphonists working, and he's just as likely to swing to the rhythm side building on John Hollenbeck's beats. Chris Speed mostly plays clarinet, but he switches to tenor sax on several pieces here, and that provides a huge contrast to the dominant pastels -- every time he does he blows me away. I'm not through here, but I figure it would be chickenshit to sit on the rating. One of the most distinct and exhilarating albums I've heard this year -- and, yes, it's jazz, because that's the sort of thing great jazz aims at. But it's also not as convincing as I'd like. A-
• Jamie Davis: It's a Good Thing (2005 [2006], Unity Music). The new singer for Basie's ghost band splits the difference between Little Jimmy Rushing and suave Joe Williams. The band carries on the late testament tradition -- an orchestra of overwhelming brass with no rough spots or standout soloists, but the harshness of the "atomic" era sound has been ironed out. They may be anonymous as individuals, but they've never been more comfortable as a unity. Package includes a "Making Of" DVD. Haven't watched it, but might be fun. B+(***)
• Taylor Eigsti: Lucky to Be Me (2005 [2006], Concord). I'd like to think that the capital influx Norman Lear et al. dumped into Concord is going to be good for jazz -- that somehow they're going to figure out how to start growing an audience that has been shrinking pretty steadily, at least in the USA, over the last 50-60 years -- but the odds are that what's good for Concord will be bad for everyone else. Eigsti is a hot young property -- a 21-year-old piano whiz on his third album -- and now he's got some money behind him. The album credits include Grooming and Stylist, so he looks as good as he sounds. His everyday trio has been replaced by Christian McBride and Lewis Nash, or by James Genus and Billy Kilson, with horns and guitar added sparingly. He writes a bit, but mostly works a repertoire designed more to show his range than what he can do with it: Coltrane, Porter, Björk, Bernstein, Van Heusen, Eddie Harris, Mussorgsky, the theme song to The Sopranos -- the latter done up-tempo with a horn section then slowed down, at odds with the rest of the album, but I bet Concord has some marketing data to justify it. By itself, this isn't a bad album, and I'm sure he's a nice enough kid -- smart, hard working, should have a long, fruitful life ahead of him. Still, I'm reminded of two things here. One is that Frank Hewitt, a pianist with subtle skills but great erudition, never got the major label contract he coveted because the labels were always looking for young guys who they hoped might expand the market by attracting young fans instead of serving the market that jazz actually has. The other is that Eigsti's choice of a Cole Porter tune, "Love for Sale," begs comparison with another pianist who tackled the same tune near the start of his career. That was Cecil Taylor, 47 years ago. B
• Exploding Customer: Live at Tampere Jazz Happening (2004 [2005], Ayler). Swedish freebop quartet, led by alto/tenor saxman Martin Küchen, with Tomas Hallonsten on trumpet for a two horn, no piano lineup. They have all the usual virtues: a rockish undertow, no qualms about getting noisy, a flexible bassist in Martin Quigley, and a terrific drummer in Kjell Nordeson. The two horns flare apart as usual, but they're exceptional when they band together, often on fast loops like a flashy circus act. B+(***)
• Garage A Trois: Outre Mer (2005, Telarc). A-
• Moncef Genoud: Aqua (2004 [2006], Savoy Jazz). This is, by any reasonable standards, a very good record. I'm reluctant to push it onto the A-list, but the closest thing to an explanation I can think of is that it does too many things too well. Genoud is a pianist, born in Tunisia in 1961, raised in Switzerland. This is his tenth studio album, but the first with any real US distribution, and given the supporting cast -- more on them later -- is his gala coming out party. I haven't heard any of the others, but The Meeting With Bob Berg has to be worthwhile, and Together with Youssou N'Dour is bound to be interesting. Not sure how well known he is in Europe, but he hasn't appeared in the Penguin Guide yet. He's blind, which is neither here nor there, but tempts me to liken him to Tete Montoliu, although I can't swear by that. He is both a mainstream player and rather idiosyncratic, a guy who plays within given frameworks in his own way. Six cuts here are straight piano trio, with Scott Colley and Bill Stewart as solid as you'd expect. Three evenly spaced cuts add Michael Brecker saxophone, rising majestically from the mix -- one fast, one slow, one just right. Brecker has a huge rep, but I've never warmed to, or even been much impressed by, what Branford calls "that Mikey shit." Still, Brecker's faultless here. The tenth cut reverts to Genoud's European trio, with Dee Dee Bridgewater singing "Lush Life" about as authoritatively as it can be sung. So, every facet of this album impresses. Can I knock him for trying too hard? Guess not. A-
• Ben Goldberg Quintet: The Door, the Hat, the Chair, the Fact (2004 [2006], Cryptogramophone). As Goldberg describes his tutoring by Steve Lacy, one imagines a Zen master. Goldberg's learning is similarly oblique, as is his tribute -- recorded three days after Lacy died, but conceived when the event was foretold. Goldberg plays "Blinks," but otherwise the connections aren't all that easy to decipher. Perhaps Carla Kihlstedt's little vocal is meant to remind us of Aëbi, but it's far less starchy. Throughout what's most fascinating here is the rhythm -- loose and open for the most part, buoyant on "Song and Dance," hypnotic on "I Before E Before I." But the most un-Lacy-like thing here is Goldberg's avoidance of the spotlight. Makes the record more obscure than it ought to be. And more curious than it would be otherwise. B+(***)
• Jason Kao Hwang: Graphic Evidence (2000 [2005], Asian Improv). A specialist in Chinese classical music, it's hard to hear his violin without framing it in his ancestors' homeland. Fellow Asian-Americans Tatsu Aoki and Francis Wong reinforce the location. Aoki's bass complements the violin, as does Wu Man's pipa (a Chinese lute) on two cuts. Wong plays soprano sax -- an instrument Coltrane discovered a new role for by pointing east. Wong too points east, on our globe completing the circle. B+(***)
• Jazz at Lincoln Center's Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra With Arturo O'Farrill: Noche Inolvidable (2005, Palmetto). Records like this one try my patience. I don't know enough about Afro-Cuban big band jazz to make fine distinctions, or even gross distinctions, but isn't it supposed to be more fun than this? Or am I just projecting the Lincoln Center tuxedos back onto the dance floor? The band is huge, especially in the brass department. The percussion is busy, although it's hard to see where it's going. Almost every song has a vocal, with Herman Olivera and Claudia Acuña trading punches, and the vocal cloud makes it not sound much like jazz to me. Given a key or two, this could turn out to be better than I think, but right now it seems equally likely that I'm cutting it some slack to bury it from sight. B
• Brent Jensen: Trios (2006, Origin). No record date. Two sets, one with guitar-bass, the other with bass-drums. Songs are standard jazz fare, so much so that one can imagine this as the orals for a jazz degree program: "Beautiful Love," "Bemsha Swing," "How Deep Is the Ocean," "Giant Steps," "Softly as in a Morning Sunrise," "East of the Sun," "Well You Needn't." I've been reading Stuart Nicholson's Is Jazz Dead?, where he complains much about jazz that points backwards, showing off its competency while hiding its disinterest in innovation. Still, Jensen, an alto saxist, aces everything he touches, and while this breaks no new ground, it succeeds at a more fundamental level: it entertains and delights. B+(***)
• Marc Johnson: Shades of Jade (2004 [2005], ECM). Tough to rate records like this -- supremely accomplished, but lacking the sort of tension that impresses you with how hard they worked. The "they" is appropriate here: at the very least it acknowledges Eliane Elias, who not only plays her usual lush life piano but wrote most of the songs and even gets co-producer credit along with the inevitable Manfred Eicher. According to my best info, Johnson and Elias are married -- her marriage to Randy Brecker is better documented, but evidently over. Johnson is a notable bassist, presumably responsible for the lovely arco on the doleful Armenian song that closes the album -- although it sounds more like cello. The "they" also includes drummer Joey Baron; organist Alain Mallet, not very conspicuous here; and two others who hardly need introduction, especially when they play so close to form: Joe Lovano and John Scofield. B+(***)
• Andrew Lamb & Warren Smith: The Dogon Duo (2004 [2005], Engine). Low budget. Probably the cheapest packaging I've ever seen: a piece of recycled chipboard, a pasted-on piece of foam robber to hold the disc, a pasted-in piece of printer printout for the text. (I doubt that that's just what they send to reviewers, since there's no legal boilerplate, and note that the list price is $6.79.) So everything's recycled but the notes, which are invented on the spot -- sax or flute riffs with Smith's percussion kicking off. Neither musician is brilliant, but the whole primitivism thing doesn't require that. B+(**)
• Steve Lehman: Demian as Posthuman (2005, Pi). Twelve short pieces, structured like a bridge with community on both ends and mostly duo pieces in between, where Lehman plays alto sax against his own programming and Tyshawn Sorey's drums. Dense and cerebral, with no wasted motion. I've written about an interview where Lehman talks about how his work opposes what he sees as the coming dark ages. Hesse's Demian was a guide out of the darkness -- actually, a superficial world of light, or so I gather -- so that seems to be the overarching concept. If so, the point of these pieces may be to create oppositions to force you to think. The duos feel uncommonly compressed, weighted down, although I'm not sure with what. The community pieces are more affirming, with Vijay Iyer's piano the most impressive thing, as usual. A-
• Mario Pavone Sextet: Deez to Blues (2005 [2006], Playscape). Pavone describes this music as upside down, with the piano and bass carrying the melodic line while the horns provide counter motion. That's certainly part of it -- especially why Pavone's bass so often winds up on top, but there's much more going on with convoluted density of Peter Madsen's piano. Also, left out of the equation is Charles Burnham's violin, which can take the high road with Pavone, or more likely the low one with, or in place of, the horns. The hornmen, by the way, are Steven Bernstein (trumpet, slide trumpet) and Howard Johnson (tuba, baritone sax, bass clarinet). They add a lot in small ways but never threaten to run away with a piece. The opening cuts here are as stimulating as anything I've heard this year. The later ones may take more concentration, but the rewards are evident. And no need to ask what "Second-Term Blues" is about -- what the blues has always been about: survival. Grade is a baseline. I'll be auditioning this for a Pick Hit. A-
• Gianluca Petrella: Indigo 4 (2004 [2006], Blue Note). Italian trombonist, not yet 30 when this was recorded, with a couple of unheard albums under his belt. Blue Note picked him up because they're part of EMI's multinational megacorp and jazz is bigger in Europe than in its homeland, and he's exactly the sort of prospect that makes majors think jazz has a viable future: well studied but eager to take that extra step and distinguish himself. The covers are Ellington, Monk, Tony Williams, Sun Ra, and "Lazy Moon." The originals weave in and out in complementary ways. As a trombonist he draws on Roswell Rudd, which among other things means he doesn't hesitate to get down and dirty. He also dabbles in electronics -- almost de rigeur these days, especially in Europe. He's complemented here by Francesco Bearzatti on tenor sax and clarinet. The band's one of those piano-less quartets, the two horns free to wheel and deal, with Bearzatti taking advantage of his more nimble horns. But despite his friskiness, Petrella stays within the boundaries of modern postbop: he's an integrator, a constructive traditionalist. B+(***)
• Bob Rockwell: Bob's Ben: A Salute to Ben Webster (2004 [2005], Stunt). This one's too easy, but it's an undeniable pleasure. Rockwell's a mainstream tenor saxman who moved to Copenhagen in 1983, two decades after Webster, and settled into a respected if unspectacular career. He has the broad tone but none of Webster's vibrato, so he keeps a respectful distance while luxuriating in a dozen Webster ballads. I thought I never wanted to hear "Danny Boy" again, but I was wrong. A-
• Ray Russell: Goodbye Svengali (2005 [2006], Cuneiform). Don't have recording dates, so I'm going with the liner notes. In any case I wouldn't count the old tape of Gil Evans piano that Russell overdubs. In this guitarist's tribute to Evans, I'm reminded that Evans himself made a project of arranging Jimi Hendrix for big band, but Russell wasn't Hendrix or similarly inspired -- Larry Coryell is much more to the point, and (of course) McLaughlin. But I don't know Russell's work -- mostly fusion dates going back to the late '60s, but he had more with Evans than the dining relationship mentioned in the notes here. So I suspect he had some insight into an Evans interest in guitar that informs this exceptionally fruitful tribute. B+(***)
• Bernardo Sassetti Trio²: Ascent (2005, Clean Feed). Piano trio from Portugal plus two extra musicians: Ajda Zupancic on cello and Jean-François Lezé on vibes. The vibes aren't conspicuous, but the cello makes a difference, building the soft, luscious texture Sassetti's piano offsets. Not avant-garde or boppish or anything else you can pigeonhole. Just remarkably logical, coherent -- makes perfect sense the way it unfolds. Still don't know how to write about it, but for now, suffice it to say this is the best piano album I've heard since I started doing the Jazz CG. Could be Pick Hit. Could be graded higher. A-
• Alexander von Schlippenbach: Monk's Casino (2003-04 [2005], Intakt, 3CD). Surprising at first that everything Monk wrote can be squeezed onto three discs, but Monk's well started to dry up not far into his career and his later discs are mostly reworkings of his earlier songs. Some of these do run short -- "Crepuscle With Nellie" 2:17, "Pannonica" 1:36, "Stuffy Turkey" 0:44 -- but "Misterioso" stretches to 10:05. Some are straight renditions of the compositions, but work around the themes, much as Monk himself did. Trumpet and bass clarinet recapitulate Monk's own preference for working with horns, but they vary enough from the usual tenor saxmen to illuminate new edges and quirks in Monk's work, much like Steve Lacy and Roswell Rudd did. Schlippenbach himself is less like himself, content to lay back and direct like Monk often did. Still, in total this is a remarkable, and quite marvelous, de/reconstruction. A-
• Irène Schweizer: Portrait (1984-2004 [2005], Intakt). One disc in a slipcase with a thick booklet, packed with excerpts from fourteen albums, by a Swiss pianist I've never heard before, although I've certainly heard of. Nothing in this year's bumper crop of solo piano strikes me as anywhere near as robust as the three solo pieces here. Even better are the duos, mostly with drummers, but two saxophonists I've also never heard of, Omri Ziegele and Co Streiff, also stand out, and the 10:13 "First Meeting" with trombonist George Lewis is riveting from stem to stern. Fred Anderson and Hamid Drake are tight enough that their trio combines the virtues of the duos. That leaves two pieces with Joëlle Léandre and Maggie Nicols, where the latter's artsong vocals would normally turn me off, but somehow here they slip past as high camp. This does what few samplers manage to do: make me want to hear all of the albums they come from. A
• Sonny Simmons: The Complete ESP-Disk' Recordings (1966 [2005], ESP-Disk, 2CD). Simmons was past 30 when he cut his first two albums. Both feature his wife Barbara Donald on trumpet, the first in a quintet with a young John Hicks on piano, the second a sextet with Michael Cohen on piano and Bert Wilson on tenor sax. Before arriving in New York, Simmons had played alto sax mostly in r&b bands, but he had an exceptional sense of the connections between Parker, Coleman and Dolphy, and he sums them up with fierce logic and cunning, even advancing the state of the art a bit. A few years later he returned to the West Coast, fell on hard times, lost his family, became a homeless junkie, scratching for change playing on the streets. He finally got a gig from someone who remembered these albums, cleaned up and came back with a vengeance, turning in his finest work at an age when most people hope to be retired. Both discs are padded with interviews, but the man's got history. A-
• Sonny Simmons: The Traveler (2004 [2005], Jazzaway). Sonny goes to Norway, hooks up with Anders Aarum's piano trio, a string quartet, and veteran reedist Vidar Johansen, who limits himself to flute and conducting. So at first glance this is one of those sax with strings things where the strings just provide a schmeer of background tapestry for a saxophonist. The recent Lee Konitz Jonquil album is typical of the sort, where you wish someone would just lop off the strings and let the man play. I'm not much more impressed with the strings this time, but still they seem to have put Simmons in a particularly fine mood. He has rarely played so clear and cogently -- seems like he's spent most of his career jousting with a second saxophone in bare-bones trios, like his marvelous 1996 Transcendence, so maybe there's something to be said for letting him bask in the glory of a tasteful string section. Kudos also for Aarum, who solos adroitly and provides consistently solid backing. A-
• String Trio of New York With Oliver Lake: Frozen Ropes (2004 [2005], Barking Hoop). John Linderg and James Emery are constants for 25 years now, while the violin slot has pretty much annointed the who's who of the instrument -- Billy Bang, Charles Burnham, Regina Carter, Diane Monroe, now Rob Thomas. Lindberg is, or should be, well known from his own albums. But the one I keep noticing here is Emery. His guitar tends to add color, but in this mix that makes a difference. And his lead piece, called "Texas Koto Blues," is both the simplest and the most striking thing here -- you just know Albert King would get a kick out of it. It's also the one piece where Lake fits in most seemlessly. Elsewhere he challenges the group, mostly for the better. B+(***)
• Kenny Wheeler: What Now? (2005, Cam Jazz). Wheeler's the mild man of Europe's avant-garde. Originally from Canada, he moved to England in 1952 and has been present and accounted for at most of the formative moments in the evolution of European free jazz. But left to his own devices, he prefers flugelhorn over trumpet, and slow tempos over fast ones. He fit much of his career into ECM, but unlike John Surman, say, he scarcely had to adjust his style to fit in. His recent records on Cam Jazz, both as a leader and as a sideman with Enrico Pieranunzi, are in many ways all reflections of one another. They are slow, thoughtful, delicate, hard to get excited about, but not easy to dismiss either. This quartet offers a richer pallette, with Chris Potter's tenor sax complementing Wheeler's flugelhorn, while John Taylor's piano and Dave Holland's bass round out the sound. No drums, leaving the music all flow with little inflection. (The Pieranunzi albums have Paul Motian, whose beside-the-point abstractness amounts to the same thing.) B+(**)
• Miguel Zenón: Jíbaro (2004 [2005], Marsalis Music/Rounder). The first I heard of him was when he won Downbeat's poll for alto sax, TDWR division, a couple of years ago. I got hold of Ceremonial, his then current album, where he impressed me more than the record -- bit fancy for my taste -- but the record could easily have been a HM. Since then he's been showing up everywhere, never disappointing even when the records do. I read a blindfold test with him recently, and he absolutely nailed everything they threw at him. Smart guy, knows his craft inside and out. I should have gotten this record when it came out last summer -- thought I did, but searched all over the place and couldn't find any trace of it. This is his Puerto Rican roots record -- jíbaro is a rural folk-pop style, Edwin Colon Zayas calls it his "country music" -- but Zenón aim for roots. Rather, he writes new pieces mapping the style onto a standard acoustic sax-piano-bass-drums jazz quartet -- no cuatro, guiro, bongo, vocals. The result is jazz centered on jíbaro roots, rather than jazzed up jíbaro or some kind of fusion. It's exceptionally clean and clear, beguiling music. A-

Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Time to get serious about culling surplus records from the active roster for Jazz Consumer Guide (#10). Going into this exercise, I have 153 done records (rated but not written up), and 114 unrated records in the queue -- 34 with non-final prospecting notes, 80 unplayed. I can get about 30 records into a Jazz CG, maybe a couple more if I squeeze real hard. Don't have a good number on the rate of new records, but last year I received about 450 records and was able to work about 110 into Jazz CG, so my long term inclusion rate is about 25%. The current done list are actually the survivors of an ongoing suprplus cull. Going into this exercise, I've already disposed of 80 records, so a reasonable post-cull done list here would be 0.25 * (153 + 80), or 58 records; i.e., down 95. I doubt that I'll get down that low. The records that have survived the ongoing cut are mostly pretty good -- records that deserve notice even if I don't have space for them. (There's also a handful I've kept in reserve as possible duds.)

Sunday, May 28, 2006

Music: Current count 11919 [11883] rated (+36), 860 [848] unrated (+12). Moved a lot of stuff this week, mostly for Recycled Goods -- June column is done, several days early for once. Not a lot of jazz prospecting. Jazz CG will run this week, so that's another milestone.

• The Best of Studio One (1967-80 [2006], Heartbeat): With so much to choose from, this seems arbitrary, skipping the ska years to focus on rocksteady stars -- Ken Boothe, Alton Ellis, John Holt, Slim Smith -- and the rasta roots movement -- the Abyssinians, the Gladiators, Wailing Souls -- and a little rub a dub; with so much to choose from, this holds up anyway. A-
• Dave Brubeck: Jazz: Red Hot & Cool (1954-55 [2001], Columbia/Legacy): Actually, the temperature is pretty tepid, at least when Desmond plays. When Brubeck plays, it's more like ice cold. B+(*)
• Cult Cargo: Belize City Boil Up ([2005], Numero Group): The former British Honduras is a small Anglo enclave facing the Caribbean from the Central American mainland. Its music connects through language to the expected places -- Jamaica, Trinidad, the United States, maybe even the old country -- but judging from this sampler, Belize has yet to develop a distinctive sound of its own. Or maybe the exuberantly recycled '70s soul and disco was what most flattered the compiler's ears? It's hard to fault "Back Stabbers" and "Shame Shame Shame" except for their obviousness. No dates in an otherwise informative booklet, except that the earliest tracks here date from Lord Rhaburn's 1967 sojurn to New York. It's doubtful that later cuts go much past the '70s. Two standouts: Lord Rhaburn's "Disco Connection" boils up as advertised, and Nadia Cattouse's "Long Time Boy" is the odd track out, a folk ballad with a proper English accent. B+(***)
• Ravi Coltrane: Mad 6 (2003 [2003], Eighty-Eights/Columbia): The two other albums I've heard snuck by with A- grades despite doubts that are all the more warranted here. He has a very fleshed out sound, a lot of movement, and runs a pretty hot sextet here -- most impressive is pianist George Colligan. As with the others, I could be overrating this, but it's pretty enjoyable. B+(*)
• Dave Douglas: Strange Liberation (2003, Bluebird): A sextet with Bill Frisell (guitar), Chris Potter (tenor sax, bass clarinet), Uri Caine (fender rhodes), James Genus (acoustic and electric guitar) and Clarence Penn (drums, percussion). Played this three times. Don't have a strong feeling one way or another: don't much care for Potter's soprano or the way Frisell fits in, but the other parts, including Potter's tenor, impress. B+(**)
• Downbeat the Ruler: Killer Instrumentals From Studio One (1967-75 [2006], Heartbeat): Clement S. "Coxsone" Dodd ran one of Jamaica's Big Three sound systems in the early '60s -- Duke Reid and Prince Buster were the other two. Together they were responsible for almost all of the ska that launched Jamaican music as we know it, and they continued to be major creative forces for decades, as ska evolved into rocksteady, reggae, roots, dub, and dancehall. Dodd's legacy comes to forty CDs on Heartbeat -- Reid's Trojan Records may have had more and bigger hits, but in a music that has been slammed as too samey, Dodd distinguished himself as its most steady norm. The base of Dodd's operation was his studio band, which comes through most cearly in their instrumentals. Killer may be an overstatement -- they're more like the meat and potatoes or the rice and beans of reggae, a fine meal in themselves. A-
• Steve Earle: Just an American Boy: The Audio Documentary (2003, E-Squared/Artemis, 2CD): Normally, I'd discount a live double that recaps large swathes of a songbook that is well established on studio albums, but those studio albums don't come with the commentary which at least in this case adds urgency and humanity. He laments Woody Guthrie, then takes giant steps in his shoes. Makes me feel good about feeling bad. A-
• Full Up: More Hits From Studio One (1967-82 [2006], Heartbeat): Aka Best of Studio One, Volume Two, which translates as more of the same, with Bob Andy and Delroy Wilson showing up on the rocksteady side, while Burning Spear and Culture nail down the roots angle; still strikes me as an arbitrary meander through the backwoods of a cultural treasure. B+(***)
• Good for What Ails You: Music of the Medicine Shows 1926-1937 (1926-37 [2005], Old Hat, 2CD): They were called medicine shows because the entertainment was just meant to attract crowds to hear sales pitches for patent medicines. Their heyday came in the late 19th century, but persisted into the era we have records for -- indeed, Porter Wagoner was still hawking for the Chattanooga Medicine Company on his '60s TV show. Picking from the early records of medicine show veterans, this compilation covers the gamut of rural Americana -- music that eventually got sorted out into country and blues but at the time was as complexly mixed as still-present minstrelsy. The music favors songsters, jug bands, and mountain fiddlers, with most of the songs dating well back -- old music that itself was old-fashioned. But delightful as the music is, the package sets a new standard in how such distant history should be presented. The 72-page booklet details every song and every artist, put in context by two expert essays and pictures that show more than can be said. A
• Gospel Music (1937-77 [2006], Hyena): In purely musical terms, one of the finest compilations of classic gospel music ever, able to raise the rafters, but also to hold them intact under the severest of storms; as history, useless, with Joel Dorn's liner notes just adding insult to injury. With even halfway decent documentation this would be an A. As it is, I got the dates from a customer at amazon.com, and they're hardly certain. B+(*)
• Woody Herman: Blowin' Up a Storm! (1945-47 [2001], Columbia/Legacy, 2CD): Essential music from the 1st and 2nd Herds. Stravinsky's "Ebony Concerto" is an interesting twist. A-
• John Hicks: Some Other Time (1981-84 [1994], Evidence): Piano trio with Walter Booker and Idris Muhammad. Reissue of John Hicks (1981 [1984], Theresa 115), plus three previously unreleased tracks. Most of this is brightly played and compelling, but the slower parts are less articulate. B+(*)
• Dave Holland Quintet: Extended Play: Live at Birdland (2001 [2003], ECM, 2CD): This came out around the time when Holland was reaching something of a pinnacle in terms of jazz acclaim. His big band had turned out a very admired album, and his quintet had become the standard for postbop groups. With Chris Potter and Robin Eubanks he had notable soloists, while Steve Nelson's vibes provided an interesting alternative to piano. This takes Holland's pieces to extended lengths, providing everyone with interesting solo space -- as usual, I'm both impressed and slightly peeved by Potter, but I have nothing but admiration for Eubanks. B+(**)
• King Crimson: The 21st Century Guide to King Crimson, Volume Two: 1981-2003 ([2005], DGM, 4CD): Robert Fripp's solo years between his old and new bands were spent on guitar instrumentals, augmented by his frippertronics. During those years prog-rock went the way of the dinosaurs, punk and new wave came in. In reviving King Crimson, he had a brand name brought back the spotlight, but the new band made no effort to sound like the old. Unlike the old band, this lineup proved stable: starting with Fripp, Tony Levin, Adrian Belew and Bill Bruford, two decades later the only change was Pat Mastelotto replacing Bruford. But the music evolved, initially new wave with Talking Heads rips, eventually gravitating toward postmodern sonic pastiche. Like its predecessor, this offers two discs each of studio and live, with a timeline that would be useful if the group much mattered. B
• Gershon Kingsley: God Is a Moog (1968-74 [2006], Reboot Stereophonic, 2CD): Like Gutenberg, Kingsley's first thought on discovering a new technology was to use it to serve the Lord -- resulting in the "electronic prayers" of Shabbat for Today; the electronics take a back seat to the words, sung or lectured, declamatory or didactic; sounds like a smarter Jesus Christ Superstar -- e.g., "poverty is a form of slavery/from the rich we must be free." B
• Frank London's Klezmer Brass Allstars: Carnival Conspiracy (2005, Piranha): The trumpeter behind Hasidic New Wave and the Klezmatics networks, pulling together forty-some musicians from eight countries to rip through songs in four languages interleaved with brassy instrumentals; cover sez "File under: USA / World / Carnival / Klezmer / Brass" -- it's all those things. A-
• Bob Marley & the Wailers: One Love: At Studio One (1964-66 [2006], Heartbeat, 2CD): Juvenilia, more identifiable by C.S. Dodd's studio groove than by the soon to be famous singers -- Peter Tosh and Bunny Livingstone as well as Marley; but even if "Simmer Down" was just a one-shot ska smash, "One Love" pointed forward, and Marley shared writing credits on both; not essential, but critical history. B+(**)
• Willie Nelson: You Don't Know Me: The Songs of Cindy Walker (2006, Lost Highway): Sure, I'm a sucker for this sort of thing, but then Nelson is a world-class interpretetive singer. Walker goes back to the '40s when she wrote or co-wrote such Bob Wills classics as "Bubbles in My Beer" and "Cherokee Maiden" -- it's fine with me for Nelson to do Bob Wills all day long. I know "Warm Red Wine" from Ernest Tubb, "I Don't Care" from Webb Pierce, "You Don't Know Me" from Eddy Arnold. Nelson sweeps all three. A-
• The Rakes: Capture/Release (2005 [2006], V2): At first this sounded like the midpoint between the Buzzcocks and the early Police. Seems like a pretty basic concept -- shouldn't be all that hard to do, but I can't say as I've heard it done many times. Later on they grow a bit, maybe even toward their own sound. A-
• The Rough Guide to Bhangra Dance (1998-2005 [2006], World Music Network): A-
• Pharoah Sanders: Journey to the One (1979 [1992], Evidence): Not wild about the chant, but it's not awful either. Sanders strikes me as a bit underrecorded, but then you wouldn't want to blow out your speakers. But I pulled this off the shelf for the pianist, and John Hicks is repeatedly wonderful. B+(*)
• Julia Sarr/Patrice Larose: Set Luna (2005, Sunnyside/No Format): Based in France, she sings starkly haunting ballads that owe je ne sais quoi to her native Senegal, while he plays flamenco-influenced guitar toned down to her speed; Youssou N'Dour joins for a duet. B
• The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of: The Dead Sea Scrolls of Record Collecting! (1926-32 [2006], Shanachie, 2CD): The cover offers two possible subtitles: the descriptive "Super Rarities & Unissued Gems of the 1920s & '30s" and the hyperbolic "The Dead Sea Scrolls of Record Collecting!" The latter suggests revelations -- new insights into ancient history -- but the booklet is so preoccupied with the anal obsessiveness of record collectors that it scarcely provides any history much less insight. When were these supposedly rare records released? On what labels? Who were these people? Isn't the main point of excavation what it tells you about history? As for the music, these are country tunes, black and white almost equally. Picking songs for their obscurity is as arbitrary as slotting them by chart position, and suffers soundwise, but this still winds up as a better than average period sampler with a few transcendent moments. Despite the R. Crumb artwork, I hate the packaging -- the form factor waste; the trick CD trays that won't release their wares without a struggle; the lazy, frustrating booklet. As for the dates, I spent a couple hours tracking down half of them, and those I could find cluster pretty tightly around 1930. B+(***)
• Lucinda Williams: Live at the Fillmore (2003 [2005], Lost Highway): For my take on live albums of well established studio songbooks, cf. Steve Earle above, and factor in that her studio works are consistently superior to his. Also note that when she calls for revolution at the end, that's her first spoken interlude, and it's just a throwaway. I've seen her live twice, and the songs rule, as they do here. B+(***)

Jazz Prospecting (CG #10, Part 4)

As each month approaches its end, I have to shift gears and scrounge the shelves for Recycled Goods, which takes time away from sorting out the steady flow of jazz prospects. Accordingly, not much of interest this week -- four of five new records this week aren't even jazz. Got so bad I almost decided to skip this week, but a little last minute mop-up helped. Next week gets serious -- about time, considering how heavy the new shelves are. But it's also appropriate: the long-awaited Jazz Consumer Guide (#9) finally hits the streets, in New York anyhow, on Tuesday or Wednesday this week. I still don't know what made the cut and what got held back. Don't have my surplus culled yet, either. Need to work on that. Stand by for announcements. Still don't know much about the longer term prospects for the Voice and/or Jazz Consumer Guide, but until I hear otherwise we'll keep on doing.

Dr. John: Mercernary (2006, Blue Note): The good doctor attacks the Johnny Mercer songbook, growling and snarling and occasionally kicking its ass. One Mac Rebennack original: "I Ain't No Johnny Mercer." Hardly needs saying! B+(*)

Frank London's Klezmer Brass Allstars: Carnival Conspiracy (2005, Piranha): The trumpeter behind Hasidic New Wave and the Klezmatics networks, pulling together forty-some musicians from eight countries to rip through songs in four languages interleaved with brassy instrumentals. Cover sez "File under: USA / World / Carnival / Klezmer / Brass" -- it's all those things, but I also like the closer for its solemn soulfulness. A-

Irving Fields Trio: Bagels and Bongos (1959 [2005], Reboot Stereophonic): This could, and possibly should, be as tacky as its title and songs like "Havannah Nagilah" suggest, but it isn't, and that works too -- prim, proper, a light touch that keeps the piano up front, leaving the bagel- and bongo-rhythms wafting in the air, faint aromas of the exotic. A-

Ardecore (2005, Il Manifesto). Italian sources classify this as folk or folk-blues, although I suspect that this revisits at old Rome much like the Mekons rework country and western or the Pogues recast Dublin. One clue is that the title translates as "Hardcore"; another is that the core of the band comes from Zu, a group that straddles the politics of the Mekons and the Ex but usually ventures further into avant-jazz territory. But here Luca Mai's bari sax burnishes the luxurious sway of classic Italian melodies, while Giampaolo Felici sings with the coarse authority of a griot or cantor. A-

Toots Thielemans: One for the Road (2006, Verve): The reigning, all but permanent poll winner on "other instrument" -- in his case harmonica -- returns with an album of Harold Arlen songs. Good songs, of course. Harmonica adds soulful texture, but on nine of the songs it's background for nine guest singers, none of whom impress me as much as Carrie Smith did on Sir Roland Hanna's Arlen tribute. Also lurking in the background are uncredited strings. B

And these are final grades/notes on records I put back for further listening the first time around.

Bobby Previte: The Coalition of the Willing< (2005 [2006], Ropeadope): Not sure about the iconography, but the big quote under the clear plastic tray is from George Orwell's 1984, and the liner notes end with "Wake up everybody." Previte, Charlie Hunter, and Jamie Saft try to do their part by cranking up the volume, but all they get for it is a pretty decent fusion album. Skerik and Steve Bernstein help out, and Stanton Moore appears on one track. B+(**)

Dom Minasi: The Vampire's Revenge (2005 [2006], CDM, 2CD): Dedicated to Anne Rice, inspired by her vampire books, of all things, this like so many large-scale projects in the jazz underground depends heavily on the auteur's friends. Critically, I would say, because they're an interesting bunch and add all sorts of strange and wonderful things to Minasi's amusing score. Just to cite a few: Borah Bergman, Perry Robinson, Mark Whitecage, Jason Kao Hwang, Herb Robertson, Steve Swell. Minasi's core trio is solid too, with Ken Filiano and Jackson Krall joining the veteran guitarist. The vampires, on the other hand, enter through Carol Mennie's two scats-plus-shouts -- "just one more" repeats ad infinitum until she takes her "bite" -- and Peter Ratray's somber recitation. B+(**)

Michael Blake: Blake Tartare (2002 [2005], Stunt): Starts and ends soft, with guitar groove and searching sax in between, including pieces by Mingus and Sun Ra that punch up the drama in the middle. Nothing spectacular, but a very satisfying arc. B+(***)

Colin Stranahan: Transformation (2005 [2006], Capri): Led by the drummer, a rather fancy postbop ensemble, with two saxes, piano and bass, plus trumpet on four cuts, vibes on another. Much of this impresses me despite some misgivings about the basic approach. B+(*)

Saturday, May 27, 2006

Ignorance Is Our Business

General Michael Hayden has been swept through the Senate's rubber stamp process to become head of the Central Ignorance Agency -- aka CIA, not to be confused with the actually useful Culinary Institute of America. Virtually no hearings. Fifteen dissents, including one Republican, the generally loathesome Arlen Specter. Even Russell Feingold seemed cautious in his opposition, saying: "I voted against the nomination of General Michael Hayden to be Director of the CIA because I am not convinced that the nominee respects the rule of law and Congress's oversight responsibilities."

This at least gets to the key point: if you're going to have an organization allowed to work in near complete secrecy, you have to staff and manage it with people who are not just trustworthy -- people who are beyond suspicion. Hayden isn't any such thing, but given how the current administration has politicized its use of so-called intelligence, anyone Bush nominated would be instantly tainted. At this point, that means that the problem is not merely a question of who should be director: the CIA has proven to be an intrinsically dangerous organization. That danger is a consequence of the CIA's ability to operate in secret, with little or no public oversight. (Congressional oversight counts for nothing, as the story of Jay Rockefeller shows: having been briefed on the NSA's illegal phone surveillance program, he was prevented from consulting his own legal counsel because the program was classified.) This sets up an atmosphere where CIA operatives can get away with anything, including providing totally wrong "intelligence" -- especially crap that is politically convenient, for their White House masters, or just for themselves.

We know very little about what the CIA actually does with its $40 billion/year. The actual information that they publish, like their nation summaries, amount to a mere drop in Wikipedia's bucket. While there's useful information there, that accounts for next to nothing of what they do. Beyond that, who knows? George Tenet's service in fabricating rationales for Bush's Iraq War got him a presidential medal, but we still know little detail about how the CIA turned out to be so spectacularly wrong. The CIA occasionally crop up in books like Cobra II, where everything they say and do turns out to be completely orthogonal to reality. Looking back at their glory days in the Cold War, we find them consistently misestimating Soviet strength and consistently misunderstanding Soviet intentions. Of course, back then they actually accomplished some things: like turning Iran into our Axis of Evil enemy, and training Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban. Not to mention all those drugs they schlepped from Laos, or the occasional massacre in Latin America, or assassinating Patrice Lumumba, securing the Congo for several decades of what may charitably be described as rape and pillage. Oh, those were the days!

Since Tenet ducked out, the CIA was first handed over to Porter Goss, a political hack whose main task appears to have been to purge anyone who hasn't yet got the lesson that in this administration we make our own reality -- no point consulting anyone else. And now that the people are gone, the Wiretapper General can move his machines in. Sounds to me like a plot line out of 24, and for all we know it may be. That's the problem with keeping everything secret -- you never know what they're up to, what scams they're pulling, when the next gross fuck-up is going to slip out. The core problem, I think, is the word "intelligence" -- either in military parlance as a piece of information or more generally as the skills to systematically process that information, the key to establishing the truth and significance of intelligence is that it be subject to public scrutiny. Secrecy, by hiding information from the public, is the antidote to intelligence. In other words, secret intelligence = ignorance, which explains a lot.

A while back I argued against the Collins-Lieberman plan to demolish FEMA. That department, I argued, isn't intrinsically flawed. It's just being managed by bad people for bad purposes, starting with Bush. In theory, if you get rid of the bad apples, replace them with honest and competent and dilligent people, and give them a clear charter, they can come close to doing their assigned tasks. The CIA is different. Sure, they have the same incompetent and corrupt management, but in their case the whole program is rotten down to its foundation. They should have been abolished back when the Russians cleared out the KGB, if not before. But it's still not too late, even as the costs of not shutting them down keep building up. But given how untouchable they look to Washington politicos, it may be too late for us.

Friday, May 26, 2006

Walk the Walk

One thing I don't understand about George W. Bush is why he's always photographed walking to the podium when he appears before the press. I don't recall any other president being treated that way, except maybe Gerald Ford, but only when he fell down. Are we supposed to be impressed that even if Bush can't talk the talk he at least can walk the walk? One thing that makes this look even weirder is that he makes all his guests walk right along with him. Who can forget the memorable scenes of Bush, Sharon and Abbas hobbling to their three podiums at Taba? I'm reminded of this by pictures of Bush and Blair walking side by side to their joint denial conference. I didn't actually see a harness, but it sure looked like Bush walking his dog. I expect we'll soon see some touched up photos making the point explicit.

This kind of media manipulation doesn't just happen. They do it for a reason, even if it isn't an obvious one. I mean, it can't be that Bush's handlers want to distance their man from FDR -- a somewhat more successful war president. This reminds me of the story about how Bush's father, back when he was VP, took a tour of Jordan and insisted that there be camels in the background for photo ops at every stop. The other question, of course, is why the press puts up with this kind of manipulative horseshit. But I guess we've given up on them.

Meanwhile, the man who almost prevented us from realizing how horrible Bush would turn out to be as president has put a movie together explaining anthropogenic climate change -- that's global warming to you, bub -- to anyone not currently on the oil industry's payroll. I still have my doubts that Gore would be doing anything so useful had he been elected -- there's something about politics in America that drags everyone into the sewer. And it's not just something: a big part of this is the press. Paul Krugman puts it this way:

Why, after all, was Mr. Gore's popular-vote margin in the 2000 election narrow enough that he could be denied the White House? Any account that neglects the determination of some journalists to make him a figure of ridicule misses a key part of the story. Why were those journalists so determined to jeer Mr. Gore? Because of the very qualities that allowed him to realize the importance of global warming, many years before any other major political figure: his earnestness, and his genuine interest in facts, numbers and serious analysis.

And so the 2000 campaign ended up being about the candidates' clothing, their mannerisms, anything but the issues, on which Mr. Gore had a clear advantage (and about which his opponent was clearly both ill informed and dishonest).

Bush's dishonesty could have been investigated back in 2000, if anyone had bothered. Instead, we kept hearing about how Bush was the sort of guy you'd like to have a beer with, while Gore was so totally obsessed with making himself president that he would probably crack up and have to be medicated if he lost the election. If it's unfair to compare Bush and Gore at this point, try comparing Gore to the last Republican to lose a presidential election. After Bob Dole lost, he just took the revolving door into the lobbying end of the racket, representing Dubai Ports and hawking Viagra -- such a Republican way of life, you know, making money, letting others fend for themselves.

At the Bush-Blair blues conference, Bush conceded that he regretted some of the things that he had said -- that "bring it on" and "dead or alive" had unfortunately been misunderstood. Nobody reminded him about "crusade" -- why rehash old news? He also acknowledged that Abu Ghraib had been bad for PR, but insisted that those responsible had been tried and justice done. Makes me wonder why Saddam Hussein didn't think of sentencing his helicopter pilots at Hallabja to several months jail. He must be kicking himself: if only he'd known that that's all it takes to dissociate yourself from a war crime.

Thursday, May 25, 2006

Liberating Iraq: A Howto

Perhaps it's just the engineer in me, but whenever I read about some problem, I can't help but think of ways around it. Bush's Iraq war was probably doomed from the start, but he could have done some things to limit the damage, and maybe they would have been enough to spin it into some sort of success. Of course, he didn't do these things, and I think the reason wasn't just oversight or even excessive optimism: the things that needed to be done weren't in his nature to do. On the other hand, had one the sense to do these things, one would also have had the sense not to start the war in the first place. Still, enumerating the steps he should have taken helps show how hopelessly ill-equipped he was to deal with the real world of Iraq.

1. Solve the Israel-Palestine problem. The dumbest thing anyone said in favor of the Iraq war was that the road to peace in Israel passes through Baghdad. That's exactly bass-ackwards. More than anything else, the Bush needed some credible evidence that the US could be trusted to do right by Iraq, Arabs, and Muslims. Fifty years of sucking up to Israel argues otherwise, and the only way to fix up that image problem is to settle the conflict. Impossible? The Saudis made a sensible proposal and rounded up unanimous support from the Arab League, and Bush just ignored it. The terms were easy to understand and fair: Israel withdraws to 1967 borders, letting the Palestinians govern themselves in the West Bank and Gaza, and every Arab nation normalizes relations with Israel. This grants Israel the one serious red line issue they've fought for since 1948 -- the refugees still need some help somehow, but they won't be able to return to Israel. Sharon would have squealed like a stuck pig, but would he have resisted all the pressure Bush could have brought down on him? Most Israelis support a two-state deal like that, and the US and the Saudis could have greased the deal with a lot of money. (Bush offered Turkey $40 billion just to stage the Iraq war from Turkish soil. You could relocate all the settlers to Las Vegas for less than that.) So sure, it could have been done. And it needed to be done: the occupation of Palestine was the model the US would inevitably be measured against in Iraq. The only way to get past that comparison was to get rid of the model.

2. Patch up the problems with Iran. The US doesn't have a real problem with Islamic theocracies -- I mean, look at our bosom buddies in Saudi Arabia! Iran is an enemy because we had a snit fit when they deposed the Shah, occupied the US embassy, and held our people hostage for a year. Get over it. The Shah was a jerk anyway, and we should be embarrassed for catering to him like we did. We apologize for the Shah and all that silly Axis of Evil stuff; they apologize for the embassy, and Lebanon -- well, thank God that's all over with now. We drop all our embargos. If Iran wants nuclear power plants, well, we'd be happy to sell them stuff that we're scared of building back home, but what the hell, knock yourself out. Iran's a natural ally of the US viz. Iraq, just as they turned out to be an ally in Afghanistan once we had to give up on the Taliban.

3. For that matter, patch up our relations with Syria, Lebanon, and Turkey. Shouldn't be much of a problem after Israel-Palestine is taken care of. Syria's been trying to make nice since 9/11, even offering their services torturing Canadian tourists rendered by the CIA. And Turkey just wanted to keep us from doing something stupid. Kind of like taking the car keys away from a drunk. Can't hold a grudge about that.

4. Change the baseline reason for the war from WMD to Saddam Hussein. Part of the rationale here is the argument that as long as Saddam Hussein is in power he would always be a threat to start wars and develop and use WMD even if he doesn't have any now: the only way to be sure Iraq will peacefully coexist with everyone else is to remove him from power. Reinforce this argument by having the International Criminal Court indict him, his two idiot sons, and anyone else you really need to get rid of -- a short but definite list. One thing this does is to change the focus from something indefinite -- that may not exist, or may just be hidden -- to something readily verifiable.

5. Spell out exactly what you plan to do with Iraq once the US invades and deposes Saddam Hussein. There should be no ambiguity or confusion when a US tank strolls into Baghdad. The list should be clear, and well publicized before any action happens. It should include objectives, like detaining only those indicted by the ICC, and confiscating heavy weapons including any WMD. It should specify the rules of engagement -- e.g., we don't shoot unless we are shot at. It should spell out what happens to existing institutions -- e.g., that they are to be maintained until they are passed on to a newly constituted democratic government. It should explain how that government will be formed. I recommend building government from the bottom up, with substantial federal autonomy for each of the pre-existing governorates, while keeping the oil industry at the federal level, with equitable revenue sharing. I also favor a federal courts system to protect individual liberties. It should specify who does what during the transition period. And it has to specify when, by criteria if not by date, US forces will withdraw. The list can be monitored, and there should be an international system that Iraqis can take complaints to.

6. Take this list to the UN, NATO, the Arab League, anyone else you want help from. Bush needs the UN not just for legitimacy, but also for skills. Let's face it, the US military is real good at blowing things up and moving shit around, but that's as far as the list goes. Even if the US gets its credibility act back together, we still need help doing all those little things that need to be done. Even before this war Iraq's infrastructure had been badly damaged -- the reconstruction list is extensive, and just bringing Iraq back to where it was before Saddam won't be enough.

7. Don't rush, and don't panic. The best solution would be for Saddam to turn himself in and turn his government over intact. Maybe you'll accept a plea bargain -- he testifies before a "truth and reconciliation" commission then goes into comfy exile. Such a commission is a good idea in general -- beyond the ICC indictment list there should be a general amnesty conditional on testimony. It is important that the world learn what Saddam's government did. It is far less important that they suffer for it. The cycle of revenge needs to stop, and this provides an honest way out. But set a date: if Saddam doesn't surrender by then, move in and execute the plan.

This all seems so straightforward that it's remarkable that it's all so inconceivable for anyone anywhere near the center of power in the US. There are two core reasons for this. One is that we've long been convinced of our righteousness -- of the value of applying our way of life to the rest of the world, a fact that was proven by our triumph over fascism in WWII and communism in the Cold War. The other is that we cling to the belief that dominance works -- that as long as we are strong and forceful enough the rest of the world will follow our lead, to their as well as our benefit. Reasons like these are really just conceits: their very persuasiveness depends on never exposing them to examination, which is why no politician would dare suggest otherwise.

Israel is less a cause than a supreme example of this stubborn belief in self-righteous dominance. Israel is the only nation in the world today whose political system insists that one broad class of people are entitled to systematically repress another, yet we never allow ourselves to notice -- raise even the faintest question and Israel's flacks jump all over you, frantically trying to change the subject because Israel's behavior cannot survive scrutiny. By never challenging Israel, the US has become complicit in all that Israel does, which leads us to engage in the same sort of desperate escape from the real impact of our acts.

Few people in America actually believe that "might makes right" -- the opposite is closer to what they believe, but American might has gone off on its own, following its own brutal logic. Optimists hope for some silver lining in all that power; cynics look for ways to exploit it for their own benefit. But neither group -- the opposite ends of the respectable political spectrum these days -- dare rein it in. When I was a child, people liked to quote Lord Action: "power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely." That's not something you hear much of these days. America's empire depends on circumspection, on plausible denial. The reason is that nobody wants to be under some empire's thumb -- two-plus centuries of revolution have made this point time and again. But America's power has become so corrupt that Bush and the neocons make no effort to hide it. No, they flaunt it, and that above all else was their purpose in Iraq. To succeed at what they wanted, they not only had to achieve short term goals like deposing Saddam Hussein. They had to bend the Iraqi people to their will, because only in doing so would they succeed in showing the world the hopelessness of defying American power. In that they failed, and that is why they failed.

The alternate approach I outlined above tried to minimize the raw use of power by finding points where we could establish that what we wanted to do was right -- so clearly right that others could see us in that light and assent to our plans. This allows that power may still be needed to overcome someone like Saddam Hussein who has repeatedly abused his power. But by stating our intents clearly and constraining our methods, we make it clear that we have no hidden agendas. Bush couldn't do this, not because he couldn't buck AIPAC, but because he had his own hidden agendas he didn't dare expose. Those of us who knew that, in our bones or in our minds, opposed his war -- not to save Saddam Hussein, who we have nothing but contempt for, but to save America from the consequences of Bush's extraordinary arrogance.

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Cobra Poisoning

I marked a few quotes while I was reading Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq (2006, Pantheon). The book was written by Michael R. Gordon, a New York Times correspondent who was "embedded" in the operation's command headquarters, and Marine General Bernard E. Trainor. Gordon and Trainor had collaborated on a similar book about the 1990-91 Iraq, which had become the definitive inside story of that war. Gordon and Trainor had extraordinary access to US military sources involved in this war, including still classified debriefings of Iraqi military sources.

The quotes don't attempt to synopsize the book. They are, rather, items that I found particularly revealing.

Page 145-146:

Lieutenant Colonel Steven Peterson, one of Marks's planners, identified another problem with Eclipse II [McKiernan's postwar plan], one that went to the core of the CENTCOM plan and the effort to apply the principles of transformation in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. To encourage the collapse of Saddam's regime and speed the push to Baghdad, the air and ground campaign was designed to destroy the regime's command and control -- the "shock and awe" promised by Franks. Yet, some command and control was essential, for the postwar plan assumed that McKiernan would use Iraqi Regular Army forces, police, adn institutions tohelp maintain order. There was little in the way of a U.S. reserve should the Iraqis not be up to the task or could not be controlled. This contradiction and its potential to undermine U.S. postwar efforts were noted by Peterson in a classified assessment he prepared before the war.

"Over a month before the war began, the Phase IV planning group concluded that the campaign would produce conditions at odds with meeting strategic objectives," Peterson later wrote in an unpublished paper that he submitted to the National War College, course work that became the talk of military war colleges but was never noted by the media. "They realized that the joint campaign was specifically designed to break all control mechanisms of the regime and there would be a period following regime collapse in which we would face the greatest danger to our strategic objectives. This assessment described the risk of an influx of terrorists to Iraq, the rise of criminal activity, the probable actions of former regime members, and the loss of control of WMD that was believed to exist."

To hedge against the risk that a newly liberated Iraq could spin out of control and that WMD would go missing, Peterson and his fellow planners stressed the need to seal the borders, identify infrastructure that needed to be protected, and gather Iraqi troops and resources to quickly reestablish control of the country. But Peterson understood all too well that McKiernan had only a limited number of forces and was struggling to persuade Washington to send the reinforcements, military police, and support he believed were needed. Not even Peterson thought there were a lot of extra troops to take on the missions he foresaw for Phase IV. Zinni had based his old 1003 plan on the assumption that it took more troops to secure the peace than to upend Saddam's regime, and the rejection of that assumption had led to a dilemma. "No officer in the headquarters was prepared to argue for actions that would siphon resources from the war fighting effort, when the fighting had not yet begun," Peterson wrote. "The war was not yet started, let alone finished, when these issues were being raised. Only a fool would propose hurting the war fighting effort to address post-war conditions that might or might not occur."

Peterson's paper spoke volumes about the incessant pressure to fight the war with as few troops as possible, the military's unease about the outcome and its unwillingness to take a firm stand on troop requirements for a phase of the conflict that was replete with uncertainty. The military's reluctance to address this, Peterson concluded, was one of the biggest mistakes of the war.

In other words, there was an inherent contradiction between the goal of destroying Iraq's command and control and the need to use those same mechanisms to secure Iraq once the enemy was defeated. One alternative would have been to provide sufficient manpower to establish a new command and control system. How much manpower that might have actually taken had never been more than a wild guess in previous war plans -- I suspect that Zinni's 380,000 figure was better tuned to dissuading his hot-headed political bosses from doing something stupid than it was a careful estimate of the all the ways invasion of Iraq could go wrong.

The book discusses Rumsfeld's ideology of "transformation" -- the idea that employing more precision technology would make it possible for the US to fight wars with less manpower. Following this line of logic, Rumsfeld bullies Franks into radically reducing his manpower requests for the invasion of Iraq. One aspect of this is discussed: reduction in manpower reduces logistic requirements, which allows the US to deploy its forces faster. Not discussed is a much more important matter: in order to sell the war, Rumsfeld and his cabal had to make the war to be as painless and risk-free as possible. If the generals insisted on the originally planned troop levels or more that would tip the public off that occupation wouldn't be a cakewalk and arouse the opposition. Publicly airing the risks of occupation would risk the whole adventure. Accordingly, Rumsfeld had to not plan seriously for the occupation because any realistic plan would weaken the rush to war.

Ironically, the one part of the postwar plan they couldn't sandbag was WMD, since that was their cassus belli. Accordingly, any military planner was free to raise the question of what happens when Iraq's WMD are deployed in any context.

P. 152:

Though the particulars of his speech were misleading, Rumsfeld had given a surprisingly blunt and public explanation of the "enabling" philosophy of nation-building that he and Rice had trumpeted. In short, the war seemed like a win-win situation. The United States could oust a dictator, usher in a new era in Iraq, shift the balance of power in the Middle East in the United States's favor, all without America's committing itself to the lengthy, costly, and arduous peacekeeping and nation-building, which the Clinton administration had undertaken in Bosnia and Kosovo. The new policy would be best for both sides, Americans and Iraqis, or so the theory went.

Not everyone was as sanguine about the postwar scenario. Joe Collins, the Pentagon official who dealt with peacekeeping operations, was anxious about what might unfold. Collins was very much a supporter of the president, but he feared that the occupation might be much more burdensome than the White House anticipated. With the lean force the U.S. was sending, it would be hard to safeguard the vulnerable supply lines, he feared. Administering the peace could be more costly and problematic as well. Collins shared his worries with Elliott Abrams. The invasion, he fretted, might be the Bush administration's political undoing. "The way I do the math, Bush will be a one-term president," Collins said. "That's not the way Karl Rove sees it," Abrams quipped. The White House's political maestro had famously drafted a memo that predicted that the war could be a boon to the president's reelection effort, which, to the embarrassment of the White House, had leaked.

P. 168, just before the start of the war:

That evening, a Pentagon aide passed a message to a senior military public affairs officer in the Gulf from Torie Clarke, the Pentagon spokesperson. POTUS, the president of the United States, wanted the military to facilitate three types of news reports: of Iraqis celebrating the arrival of the victorious American troops, of allied shipments of humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi population, and of the newly discovered arsenals of WMD. The White House seemed secure in its cause and confident of victory. Bush was convinced that grateful Iraqis and disclosed WMD would provide the White House with the ultimate photo op.

The administration's allies in Washington were ca