I picked up this story as I was rushing to wrap up, and spent much
of Saturday ignoring further reports, including a lot of video. The
victim was Alex Pretti, 37, an intensive care nurse at the Minneapolis
VA Health Care System. The shooter was a Border Patrol agent (not ICE,
but part of the same Trump-ordered operation). I'm not going to report
on this at length, but this has become a very big story, and needs a
bit more than I initially provided.
CK Smith [01-25]:
A MN nurse is dead as the government's story falls apart: "Again,
officials say ICE agent acted in self-defense, but video evidence and
witnesses contradict their narrative."
Intelligencer Staff []:
Is Alex Pretti's death the breaking point? "Here are the latest
developments."
Cameron Peters
Zack Beauchamp
[01-25]:
The killing of Alex Pretti is a grim turning point: "Trump's
authoritarianism is becoming less subtle — and more vicious."
Groping for words, but I don't think "subtle" was ever in play.
But Beauchamp wants to contrast the "subtle" arts of a Viktor Orbán
vs. pure brutes like Stalin. But all right-wingers want to be brutes.
The difference between Orbán and Stalin is that the latter had deep
power that the head of a nominally democratic state lacked. Trump
may wish he had that sort of power, but he probably doesn't —
how much he does have is being tested right now.
[01-26]:
So what if Alex Pretti had a gun? "The unbearable hypocrisy of
pro-gun conservatives defending the Minneapolis killing." This isn't
an angle I care much about, probably because I've long ago understood
that gun advocates don't care about logical consequences of so many
people having so many guns. Part of this goes back to the general
conservative belief that rights are something for themselves and
not for other people. (Slavery is a pretty clear cut example.) But
it does seem fair to ask law enforcement how they are able to tell,
in real time and under less than ideal circumstances, when and how
to respect one person's right to bear arms, when not to, and what
to do about it.
Ross Barkan [01-26]:
Trump's losing war on Minneapolis.
Eric Levitz [01-23]:
You don't need to be a liberal to oppose Trump's ICE: "You just
need to care about your own constitutional rights." But you may need
to be at least a little bit of a liberal to understand that your and
other people's rights are connected, so that denying rights to others
also affects you. That's not a concern for conservatives, who believe
different groups can and should be treated differently.
Jeffrey St Clair [01-26]:
Where the sidewalk ends, the lies begin: on the execution of Alex
Pretti.
We live in a country where you can be charged with resisting arrest
without having committed a crime to be arrested for. We live in a
country where even the most passive acts of defiance and resistance
are an excuse to kill you. . . . Americans of conscience also find
themselves in the crosshairs of their own government.
We also live in a country where people, ordinary people, are so
revolted by what's happening that they are willing to go out every day
in Arctic temperatures to confront and resist the paramilitary-style
forces that are terrorizing their neighborhoods, knowing the kind of
violence that might be visited against them.
Alex Pretti was one of those "ordinary" Americans. He didn't do
anything to deserve being assaulted, never mind shot. He did what
nurses are trained to do: help someone who had been hurt, a woman
gratuitously shoved to the ground and pepper-sprayed by a CBP agent, a
woman who had also done nothing to deserve this brutal treatment. Alex
Pretti wasn't the "worst of the worst." He was the best of the best.
Branko Marcetic [01-27]:
Even law enforcement officers think this has gone too far:
"The impunity with which ICE and other DHS agents are carrying out
violence and murders in cities like Minneapolis is so awful that
now scores of law enforcement officials themselves are speaking
out against it."
Aziz Huq [01-27]:
Where is the off-ramp from all this state violence? "It's hard to
think of a parallel effort in US history to build a domestic agency of
violence specialists at the scale of ICE."
Eric Levitz [01-27]:
Trump's deportation forces finally went too far. Not his opinion,
mind you. He's taking his cues from "many Republican senators,
governors, and influencers [who] called for a thorough investigation
into Pretti's killing, as did the NRA."
Jelinda Montes [01-28]:
Rep. Ilham Omar attacked at town hall. And Trump applauded, tweeting
"She probably had herself sprayed, knowing her."
Venezuela: Marco Rubio's 2016 presidential campaign was
a pretty lacklustre affair — I was tempted to say "sad," but
he had no substance to feel regrets over. But later, I found there
was one topic that really animated him, and that is overthrowing
the Chavez/Maduro government in Venezuela. I was surprised when
he appeared on Trump's short list of VP prospects, along with JD
Vance and Doug Burgum. I figured Trump was sniffing for money:
Burgum had his own, and Vance belonged to Peter Thiel. I wasn't
sure who Rubio's sugar daddy was, but he undoubtedly had one.
Nobody makes a serious run for the Republican nomination without
at least one billionaire backer. (Newt Gingrich famously complained
that Romney beat him 5-to-1 on that critical score.) That Rubio
wound up with the Secretary of State post pretty much guaranteed
that Trump would make war on Venezuela. That's just happened.
Paul R Pillar [11-10]:
Dick Cheney's ghost has a playbook for war in Venezuela:
"Trump flirting with regime change in Caracas carries eerie
similarities to the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq."
Joshua Keating [12-12]:
The global shadow economy behind Trump's latest move on Venezuela:
"A black market has been growing for years. The escalation puts a new
spotlight on it."
Vijay Prashad/Taroa Zúñiga Silva [01-03]:
The US attacks Venezuela and seizes its president.
Cameron Peters [01-03]:
How Trump went from boat strikes to regime change in Venezuela:
"The US just attacked Venezela. How did we get here?"
Caitlin Dewey [01-05]:
America's century-long interest in Venezuelan oil: "The long,
fascinating history of US entanglement with the Venezuelan industry."
Seems to me this piece is missing a lot of detail, both on the rise
and fall of Venezuelan oil; e.g., how much light oil can Venezuela
still produce? Or, is the decline due to political factors, including
lost skills, or are they just running out of easy oil? I'm inclined
to believe that Chavez and Maduro have mismanaged the industry, but
that doesn't explain that much decline. Another thing I'd stress is
that Trump's understanding of the oil industry is almost nil, so his
motivations needn't have anything to do with reality.
Eric Levitz [01-05]:
Did Trump really invade Venezuela for oil? "No. Also, maybe."
If he's a rational actor: "no." But he's not, so: "maybe." At
least he's not making up any cockamamie stories about "restoring
democracy," ridding the people autocrats, etc. Those aren't reasons
he in any way cares about. "Taking the oil," on the other hand, is
a reason he can get behind. But, as Levitz notes, the American oil
industry doesn't need or even particularly want Venezuela's crude
(especially the heavy/expensive stuff in the Orinoco reserves).
Oil prices are fairly depressed at present, so the last thing the
industry wants is more supply from countries like Venezuela and
Iran (and for that matter, Russia).
Elie Honig [01-07]:
Why Nicolás Maduro is facing trial in lower Manhattan.
Terry Lynn Karl [01-16]:
Trump's petrostate dilemma in Venezuela: "By capturing his
Venezuelan counterpart Nicolás Maduro, US President Donald Trump
sought to project power abroad but instead exposed his own political
vulnerability. Despite his promise to restore Venezuela's oil
industry, his overt resource grab is far more likely to fuel
regional turmoil."
Francisco Rodriguez [01-16]:
In what world would Trump's oil play actually help Venezuelans?
"It would take major systematic changes both commercially and in
government, and it's unclear whether any of that is in the works
yet."
Benjamin Fogel [01-17]:
We're now in the Sopranos stage of imperialism: "the
transformation of US hegemony into naked extortion. As with the
Mafia, loyalty may ultimately buy nothing, and deals can be broken
at gunpoint."
Chas Danner [01-18]:
How is Trump's Venezuela takeover going? Not as badly as it would
be had the US actually invaded and tried to run things directly. The
big question is whether Trump will be satisfied with Delcy Rodríguez
as "acting president," and whether Rodríguez will be able to satisfy
Trump without having the still intact Chavista power base turn against
her. Thus far she's mostly conceding things that Maduro wouldn't have
had any problem conceding. One could imagine a very different outcome
in Iraq had Bush allowed a more amenable Ba'athist leader like Tariq
Aziz to remain in power, rather than allowing Paul Bremer to push the
entire Ba'athist elite into opposition. Similarly, the US could have
tried to negotiate some form of power-sharing agreement with the
Taliban in 2001 instead of driving them into a civil war they won
20 years later. This type of "occupation" would have been a novelty
for the US, but the concept goes way back. When Alexander destroyed
an enemy army, he usually converted the previous king into a satrap,
paying him tribute but depending on him to maintain order, as his
own army moved on to conquer other lands. The obvious problem with
Trump in Venezuela is that his greed and power lust will overshoot,
putting US forces into another quagmire.
The strange thing is that I could see Trump's smash-and-grab
foreign policy becoming very popular: the idea is to act brashly,
demonstrating his dynamic leadership, then behave sensibly and
even generously afterwards, avoiding the usual consequences and
blowback. Of course, he didn't have to snatch Maduro to get a
pretty decent deal from Venezuela. He could get similarly good
deals from Iran and North Korea. He could have had a big win on
Gaza, but there the problem wasn't a regime he refused to deal
with, but one (Netanyahu's) that didn't take his threat seriously.
His failure in Ukraine is due to the same problem: Putin has no
reason to doubt that he can just string Trump along. Sure, most
of these conflicts can be traced back to Trump's earlier failures,
but few people would notice that, or hold him accountable. The
whole "peace through strength" line is an old con that still
holds many weak minds in its thrall. Hence strong moves impress,
if only one can make them without paying a price for hubris.
William D Hartung [01-22]:
Trump's doubling down on imperialism in Latin America is a formula
for decline.
When war breaks out, my first instinct is to find a good history
book, to help put it into context. I could use one on Venezuela,
preferably by a critical thinker with leftist instincts. I always
start out hopeful and sympathetic to leftist political movements,
even if they often disappoint. And I distrust their right-wing
opponents, who may be right on specifics but remain fundamentally
committed to oligarchy and repression. Here's a list of books
I've noticed, omitting earlier (often more optimistic) books on
Chávez (Tariq Ali, Rory Carroll, Nikolas Kozloff, Miguel Tinker
Salas, etc.).
- Raúl Gallegos: Crude Nation: How Oil Riches Ruined
Venezuela (2016, Potomac Books): WSJ reporter on "how
Maduro inherited a mess and made it worse."
- Richard Hausmann/Francisco R Rodriguez, eds: Venezuela
Before Chávez: Anatomy of an Economic Collapse (2015,
Penn State University Press).
- Carlos Lizarralde: Venezuela's Collapse: The Long Story
of How Things Fell Apart (2024, independent): Goes deep
into history, but works backward, where the first chapter covers
1999-2019 (Chavez/Maduro), then 1922-1998 (oil), then 1498-1821
(colonial period, Columbus to Bolivar), then he returns to Chavez.
Some of the missing 19th century shows up in an epilogue on
"Politics Without a State, 1834-1837."
- Carlos Lizarralde: One in Four: The Exodus that Emptied
Venezuela, 2019-2024 (2025, independent).
- William Neuman: Things Are Never So Bad That They
Can't Get Worse: Inside the Collapse of Venezuela (2022,
St Martin's Press): New York Times reporter, did a stint in Caracas
2012-16, critical of Trump.
- Anya Parampil: Corporate Coup: Venezuela and the End of
US Empire (2024, OR Books): Grayzone journalist, so very
critical of US.
- Joe Emersberger/Justin Podur: Extraordinary Threat: The
US Empire, the Media, and Twenty Years of Coup Attempts in Venezuela
(2021, Monthly Review Press).
- Timothy M Gill: Encountering US Empire in Socialist
Venezuela: The Legacy of Race, Neocolonialism and Democracy
Promotion (2022, University of Pittsburgh Press).
- Dan Kovalik: The Plot to Overthrow Venezuela
(2019, Hot Books): Also wrote The Plot to Scapegoat Russia
(2017), The Plot to Attack Iran (2018), and The Plot
to Control the World: How the US Spent Billions to Change the
Outcome of Elections Around the World (2018).
- Francisco Rodríguez: The Collapse of Venezuela: Scorched
Earth Politics and Economic Decline, 2012-2020 (2025,
University of Notre Dame Press).
- Kike Jiménez Vidal: The Collapse of Venezuela: The Untold
Story of How a Rich Country Became a Failed State (2025,
independent): Sees 1958-78 as a Golden Age, 1979-1998 as the Great
Illusion, followed by Initial Demolition, Totalitarian Offensive,
Economic Collapse, and Diaspora and Deinstitutionalization. This
looks very polemical, but what I've read makes sense.
- Javier Corrales: Autocracy Rising: How Venezuela Transitioned
to Authoritarianism (2023, Brookings Institution Press): The
two most reliable common code words for organizing American liberals
against a foreign foe. Previously co-wrote (with Michael Penfold)
Dragon in the Tropics: Venezuela and the Legacy of Hugo Chavez
(2015, Brookings Institution Press).
- Alistair Pemberton: On the Precipice: The Trump Administration
and the Escalating Path Toward War With Venezuela (2025,
independent): Short (45 pp), published in November.
- Pedro Santos: USA Vs Venezuela War: What Could Possibly
Go Wrong? (2025, independent).
- Anderson M Bean, ed: Venezuela in Crisis: Socialist
Perspectives (2026, Haymarket): "Writing from an anticapitalist,
anti-imperialist, and anti-authoritarian perspective, this volume never
loses sight of the need to stand with the Venezuelan people rather than
their government — even when it claims to be struggling to build
socialism." [Scheduled for 02-17]
Here's an excerpt from Gallego's Crude Nation:
Politicians, like regular Venezuelans, spend oil money generously
while they still have it, because oil prices will fall eventually. And
when that happens, Venezuela is usually left with little to show for
it, with no savings to speak of. It soon dawned on me that Chávez and
his leftist movement were really just a blip in a long history of
larger-than-life leaders who promised to use oil to quickly turn
Venezuela into a modern, powerful nation, only to disappoint voters in
the end. For the better part of the twentieth century, Venezuela
served as a cautionary tale for other nations and regions rich in
natural resources, an example of the fate they must avoid.
Venezuela's troubles go beyond left and right political ideas: the
world's largest oil patch hasn't learned how to properly manage its
wealth. Venezuela is a country that has played and will play an
important role in the global energy industry, as long as cars still
run on gasoline and not on electricity, water, or cow manure. Three
centuries from now, when most of the world's oil is gone, Venezuela
could still be pumping crude, if no other energy source has rendered
oil obsolete. Venezuela's reality is a tale of how hubris, oil
dependence, spendthrift ways, and economic ignorance can drive a
country to ruin. Venezuela can teach us all an important lesson: too
much money poorly managed can be worse than not having any money at
all.
And here's an excerpt from Vidal's The Collapse of Venezuela:
Before oil, Venezuela was a poor nation, yes, but with a real
productive structure. An economy based on coffee, cocoa, and livestock
farming, where value was created by labor, capital, and land. It was a
country of producers, not of parasitic rentiers. Exchange was
voluntary, private property was respected — the the clear
limitations of the time — and the currency, though weak, was
backed by the tangible production of goods.
The arrival of the oil companies wasn't a "blessing." It was the
beginning of a curse. It was the equivalent of injecting a healthy but
poor patient with a miracle drug that generates instant euphoria while
destroying vital organs. This is what serious economists call the
Resource Curse or the Dutch Disease. And what did the state do?
Instead of creating the conditions for oil wealth to strengthen the
private sector, it instead siphoned off revenue through concessions
and centralized it in the hands of the elite in power, first under the
rule of Gómez and then the military.
And then, no doubt, Chávez and Maduro. It's interesting how often
revolutionaries return to the form of those they overthrew, as Stalin
became another Tsar, and the Ayatollah became another Shah. I suspect
the worst cases are where external pressure puts the revolutionaries
on the defensive, and emboldens the old class. That's been a big part
of the story in Venezuela. It also reminds us that no matter how
unsavory the Chavistas are, their opponents are worse.
Iran: I haven't been following news, but my X feed blew up
with tweets on Iran (protests and/or war threats) to which I ascribe
very little credibility. Trying to catch up, I checked out this
Wikipedia article, which tells me that anti-government protests
began on December 28, spreading to many cities, and that they were
met with a stiff government crackdown, including "a massacre that
left tens of thousands of protesters dead." There have also been
counter-protests, defending the regime. While few people doubt that
the Iranian people have grievances with their government, these
events are occurring against a backdrop of severe sanctions and
war threats coming from Israel and the US, who are believed to
support violent subversive groups within Iran, and who have long
promoted propaganda against the regime. Iran has also responded
by shutting down the internet. Thus we have ample reason to doubt
pretty much everything we hear from anyone about what is going
on. I'll pick out some representative articles below, but I don't
expect to get much credible information.
Behrooz Ghamari Tabrizi [12-25]:
Iran and the price of sovereignty: what it takes not to be a
client.
Now, the so-called 12-day war is over. Iranians have returned to the
devastating perpetual violence of U.S. led sanctions and targeted
assassinations by the Mossad. The Trump administration and its
European allies have called on Iran to accept its defeat, surrender
unconditionally, and "return" to the negotiating table. They ask Iran
to dismantle its nuclear technology, halt the production of its
advance missile program, cease its support of the Palestinian cause,
and terminate its network of what is known as the "axis of resistance"
against the Israeli and American expansionism. In other words, become
a client state. Iran is one of the few remaining fronts of defiance
against the American extortionist posture and the Israeli carnage that
has engulfed the Middle East. That defiance comes with a very hefty
price.
Cameron Peters [01-13]:
The scariest thing about Iran's crackdown:
Hamid Dabashi [01-13]:
How Israel and the US are exploiting Iranian protests
: "Genuine
rage over economic stagnation is being manipulated to serve western
political ends."Sina Toosi [01-16]:
This is not solidarity. It is predation. "The Iranian people are
caught between severe domestic repression and external powers that
exploit their suffering."
Robert Wright [01-16]:
The Iranian blood on Trump's (and Biden's) hands. Everything here
is important and worth reading, but one could add more, especially
on Israel's malign influence.
We'll never know if the hopes for Iran that Obama's nuclear deal
fostered would have been realized had Trump not intervened. Maybe
commercial engagement with the world wouldn't have had any internally
liberalizing effect, politically or even economically. And maybe more
economic interdependence with other countries wouldn't have moderated
Iran's policies toward them.
But even if things didn't pan out on those fronts, it seems safe
to say that Iran's people would be much better off economically and
no worse off politically, and some now-dead protesters would still be
alive. And as of today — with another war in the Middle East one
distinct near-term possibility and the violent and chaotic implosion
of Iran another one — that scenario doesn't sound so bad.
It now seems pretty clear that Biden's failure to restore the Iran
deal was evidence of his more subservient posture toward Israel: his
failure on Iran presaged his failure on Gaza. But Obama doesn't merit
much acclaim either. His rationale for negotiating the deal was that
he took Israel's fears of a nuclear Iran seriously, recognizing that
the only way to stop a determined Iran was to negotiate restrictions
that could be enforced. On the other hand, he was careful not to
resolve any other issues, let alone normalize relations, which had
the effect of preserving decades of kneejerk hostility. That attitude
was what made it possible for Trump to break the deal, and it gave
Biden cover to keep from reversing Trump's damage.
Three more charts of interest here: Global AI Computing Capacity
(increasing quite rapidly); President Trump's Approval Rating
(down markedly since the ICE shooting of Renee Good); Evening
News Estimates of Iran Protest Deaths (CBS, since Bari Weiss
took over, is claiming 5-24 [or 40?] times as many deaths as
CNN/ABC/NBC). Also see Wright's earlier post:
Orly Noy [01-16]:
On Iran's protests, Israeli hypocrisy knows no limits: "Only moments
ago, Israelis were cheering on a holocaust in Gaza — and now they
dare to celebrate the valiant uprising of the Iranian people."
Farshad Askari [01-22]:
Iran's protests have gone quiet. But the revolution isn't over.
This feels like a bit of a stretch, but to the extent that the
protests were real, a news blackout isn't likely to keep them away
forever.
MEE [01-23]:
Trump says US 'armada' moving towards Iran: "President warns
Washington is watching Tehran closely as US naval forces move into
region."
Jerome Powell: Trump, who originally appointed Powell to the
post of Fed Chair, is unhappy with him, ostensibly because Trump
wants him to lower interest rates, which Powell had raised as the
conventional antidote to inflation. So Trump is threatening to
prosecute Powell, which isn't going over well with the Fed Chair,
or with the bankers who effectively have captured the Fed.
Cameron Peters [01-12]:
Trump vs. the Fed, briefly explained: "Why Trump is making a bid
to control the US economy." This is somewhat misleading. The Fed doesn't
control the economy. The Fed controls the money supply. This has bearing
on some important aspects of the economy, like inflation and employment.
And those aspects are important enough to people who have a lot of money
(especially banks) that they've long insisted on keeping the Fed free
of "political interference," which is to say to keep it captured by a
higher power: themselves. Thus, for instance, Bill Clinton ditched his
entire economic platform after being elected in 1992, because Alan
Greenspan convinced him it would unsettle the bond market, probably
by threatening to wreck Clinton's economy. Clinton was the first of
the last three Democratic presidents to reappoint a Republican Fed
chair (as Obama did Bernanke, and Biden did Powell). Like all good
Democrats, they recognize that there are higher powers in America,
and behave accordingly. So sure, Trump's move is a power grab, but
we shouldn't fool ourselves into thinking that Powell is on our
side, or think that the "independent Fed" is really a good idea.
Trump's beef with Powell is supposedly about interest rates, but
also about power. The thing to understand about interest rates is
that high interest rates can throttle a booming economy, and very
high interest rates can strangle it; but while lower interest rates
can stimulate the economy, and increase employment (especially when
recovering from a recession induced by high interest rates), low
interest rates can also cause inflation. So Trump's move here is
exactly wrong for fighting inflation. But when the Fed makes it
cheaper to borrow, not everyone benefits equally. The Fed loans
money to banks, who loan money to rich people, who sometimes use
it to build things, but more often (especially when it's cheap)
they use it for speculation, pushing up the price of assets so
as to make themselves feel even richer. And that, of course, is
exactly what Trump wants to see: an asset bubble.
Ian Millhiser
Mike Konczal [01-13]:
The enormous stakes of Donald Trump's fight with Jerome Powell:
"The Fed is the final frontier of his quest to dominate every economic
institution."
Thomas L Friedman [01-13]
Trump's scheming to sack Powell paves the road to constitutional ruin:
Sure, Friedman's an idiot, and there are hundreds of other things that
he could have recognized as "the road to constitutional ruin," but this
(unlike, say, genocide in Gaza) seems to be his red line.
Ryan Cooper [01-14]:
Trump's prosecution of Jerome Powell is even crazier than it looks:
"Messing with Federal Reserve independence might spark inflation, and
everyone hates that." That seems like something people might say, but
I'm less and less convinced that the Fed's rate control is a very
practical tool for controlling inflation. The belief is largely based
on memory of the Volcker recession (1979-82), based on some pretty
sketchy economic theories (like NAIRU), and employed like a wrecking
ball to the entire economy.
Robert Kuttner [01-21]:
The high court sinks Trump's Federal Reserve ploy: "The administration's
clumsy effort to oust Fed governor Lisa Cook is stymied again."
Major Threads
Israel: I collected a bunch of articles early on, in the
immediate aftermath of the ceasefire/hostage swap. Since then,
well . . . Israel has regularly violated the cease fire they had
"agreed" to, and their violations haven't bothered Trump in the
least. I don't have time to seriously update this section, so the
few additions are at best a random sampling.
Jonah Valdez [11-25]:
Gaza humanitarian foundation calls it quits after thousands die
seeking its aid: "The aid group oversaw relief in Gaza during
a period defined by the killings of Palestinians seeking food
during famine." This is "the U.S. and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian
Foundation." When I saw this headline, I assumed that the foundation
was legit, and the headline reflected some sort of Israeli win against
the world's humanitarian impulses. Now it looks like "aid" was really
just bait. And sure, not just to kill Palestinians, which Israel was
already doing regularly and could have escalated without resorting to
such tactics. Rather, the point was to psychologically bind seeking
food to the experience of terror. With the ceasefire, the need for
aid is undiminished. If aid was GHF's purpose, it would still have
much to do. That they're quitting suggests that their real purpose
was something else.
Rather than maintain the existing model of bringing food and supplies
to individuals with most need by delivering goods directly to
communities, GHF established four distribution sites. The foundation
also hired two American logistics and security firms — UG
Solutions and Safe Reach Solutions, led by a Green Beret veteran and
former CIA officer, respectively — to oversee distribution. The
result was the funneling of thousands of desperate people who traveled
long distances into aid sites where long lines often devolved into
stampedes. Gunfire from Israeli soldiers, or private American
contractors, largely former U.S. special forces, was a near-daily
reality. While some of those who survived the deadly queues managed to
bring home boxes of food, the supplies failed to slow the famine
conditions across Gaza which only worsened. The food provided by GHF
was widely criticized by nutritional experts and aid groups as
inadequate to prevent hunger and difficult to prepare (most items
needed water to boil, itself a scarce resource in the territory).
Marianne Dhenin [11-27]:
International tribunal finds Israel guilty of genocide, ecocide,
and the forced starvation of the Palestinians in Gaza: "The
International People's Tribunal on Palestine held in Barcelona
presented striking evidence of Israel's forced starvation of the
Palestinian people and the deliberate destruction of food security
in Gaza." The tribunal is sponsored by
ILPS (International League of Peoples' Struggle), which of course
would find that, not that the evidence can really be interpreted any
other way.
Mitchell Plitnick [11-27]:
Israel is violating ceasefires in Gaza and Lebanon, and Trump is
allowing it: "Israel's goals are clear enough: endless war."
The Trump administration's goals, to the extent one can speak of
them coherently, were to win a couple immediate news cycles, free
the hostages, and set up negotions to make amends to Qatar and
sell more arms to Saudia Arabia. Netanyahu, as he has so many
times before, chose to bend to America's will rather than risk a
break, confident that he will soon enough rebound, because Trump
is just another fickle American fool.
Israel had never heeded the ceasefire to begin with. More than 340
overwhelmingly non-combatant Palestinians have been killed since the
ceasefire was put in place, and over 15,000 more structures in Gaza
have been destroyed, just as flooding, overflowing sewage, rains, and
the cold weather of approaching winter start to hit the already
battered population.
In just the past few days, though, Israel has killed more than 60
Palestinians in Gaza, a sign of escalation. It is no coincidence that
this uptick comes on the heels of Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad Bin
Salman's (MBS) visit to Washington where he once again insisted, much
to Trump's annoyance, that if Donald Trump wanted to see a
normalization deal between his kingdom and Israel, there would need to
be a clear, committed path to a Palestinian state with a
timeline. Whether MBS was sincere about that or not, Netanyahu has no
intention of making even the slightest gesture in that direction, and
the escalation in Gaza was, at least in part, his response to that
part of the Trump-MBS confab.
Qassam Muaddi
Huda Skaik [11-28]:
Gaza's civil defense forces keep digging for 10,000 missing bodies:
"Members of Gaza's Civil Defense force describe pulling decomposing
bodies from collapsed buildings, and digging in hopes that someone
remains alive."
Connor Echols:
Craig Mokhiber [12-01]:
How the world can resist the UN Security Council's rogue colonial
mandate in Gaza. This offers "several ways that states and
individuals worldwide can challenge its illegality." I'm far less
concerned about the legal issues, which get an airing here, or
even the political ones. The resolution is inadequate, and probably
doomed to failure, but do we really want to "block the implementation"?
The pre-resolution baseline was genocide. The only path away was to
get Israel and the US to agree to stop, which could only happen on
terms favorable to those powers, and therefore far short of justice.
While a better resolution would ultimately be better for all concerned,
the immediate need is to hold Israel and America to the terms they've
agreed to — starting with recognition of Israel's violations of
the ceasefire, and Israel's continued aggression elsewhere (beyond
the scope of the Gaza resolution). Moreover, even if Israel relents
and honors the ceasefire, the delivery of aid, etc., Israel still
merits BDS due to its treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank
and within the Green Line.
Philip Weiss [12-02]:
The Israel lobby is melting down before our eyes: "The American
Newish community is in open crisis over its support for Israel after
two years of genocide in Gaza. A key issue in this crisis is a topic
once considered too taboo to criticize the Israel lobby."
Ramzy Baroud [12-02]:
The US-Israeli scheme to partition Gaza and break Palestinian will:
"United Nations Security Council Resolution 2803 is destined to fail.
That failure will come at a price: more Palestinian deaths, extensive
destruction, and the expansion of Israeli violence to the West Bank
and elsewhere in the Middle East."
Matt Seriff-Cullick [12-02]:
Stop calling right-wing criticism of Israel 'anti-Zionism':
"Recent comments by Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens have drawn more
attention to right-wing critiques of US support for Israel., However,
it is a serious mistake for those on the left to see this anti-Israel
criticism as 'anti-Zionist.'" Response to pieces like Jeet Heer
[11-07]:
The return of right-wing anti-Zionism — and antisemitism.
While it's generally the case that antisemites support, or at least
endorse, Israel — it's local Jews they hate, and Israel offers
a convenient option to rid themselves of Jews — while leftist
critics of Israel are almost never antisemitic (we see diaspora Jews
as our natural allies, and indeed many are among us). The primary
motivators here are domestic politics, although the more Israel acts
like a fascist state, the more consistent the left-right differences
become. The subject here is the small schism of right-wing critics
of Israel, who may well be antisemitic, but could just as well be
driven by something else: especially the notion that Israel has been
dragging the US into wars and/or globalization that impinges on their
"America-first" fetishism. In this it helps to distinguish between
pro-Israel (which is mostly about military dominance and alliance) and
Zionist (which is about Jewish immigration to Israel). Right-wingers
can favor Zionism while rejecting the notion that we need to send arms
to Israel.
Joe Sommerlad [12-03]:
Hilary Clinton claims TikTok misinformation is influencing young
people's views on the Israel-Palestine conflict: "unreliable
media on TikTok, making it difficult to have a 'reasonable discussion'
about events in the Middle East." This is pretty short on details, but
Clinton's remarks were delivered at "Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom's
New York City summit," so her complaint seems to have less to do with
"pure propaganda" than with whose "a lot of young Jewish Americans who
don't know the history and don't understand" are exposed to.
Michael Arria:
Michael Leonardi [12-12]:
The criminalization of solidarity: The global war on Palestinian voices
and their supporters, from Israel to Italy and across the western
world.
Eve Ottenberg [01-09]:
By suspending 37 aid orgs is Israel pushing toward a final expulsion?
"At the very least, the decision to cut loose every major Gaza
humanitarian group could led to the utter collapse of Trump's
peace plan."
Ramzy Baroud [01-18]:
A war without headlines: Israel's shock-and-awe campaign in the
west bank. I've always been skeptical of "shock and awe" as a
military tactic: in order to be shocked, you have to survive, in
which case whatever awe there may have been has been dissipated
by the fact that it's now something you have survived. However,
while a single blow dissipates, multiple poundings accumulate:
In her book The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein defines "shock and
awe" not merely as a military tactic, but as a political and economic
strategy that exploits moments of collective trauma — whether
caused by war, natural disaster, or economic collapse — to
impose radical policies that would otherwise be resisted. According to
Klein, societies in a state of shock are rendered disoriented and
vulnerable, allowing those in power to push through sweeping
transformations while opposition is fragmented or overwhelmed.
Though the policy is often discussed in the context of US foreign
policy — from Iraq to Haiti — Israel has employed
shock-and-awe tactics with greater frequency, consistency, and
refinement. Unlike the US, which has applied the doctrine episodically
across distant theaters, Israel has used it continuously against a
captive population living under its direct military control.
Indeed, the Israeli version of shock and awe has long been a
default policy for suppressing Palestinians. It has been applied
across decades in the occupied Palestinian territory and extended to
neighboring Arab countries whenever it suited Israeli strategic
objectives.
In Lebanon, this approach became known as the Dahiya Doctrine,
named after the Dahiya neighborhood in Beirut that was systematically
destroyed by Israel during its 2006 war on Lebanon. The doctrine
advocates the use of disproportionate force against civilian areas,
the deliberate targeting of infrastructure, and the transformation of
entire neighborhoods into rubble in order to deter resistance through
collective punishment.
Gaza has been the epicenter of Israel's application of this
tactic. In the years preceding the genocide, Israeli officials
increasingly framed their assaults on Gaza as limited, "managed" wars
designed to periodically weaken Palestinian resistance.
There's no way to catch up on what's been happening in Israel,
so let's just jump ahead to the last week or so, where we find the
genocide little inconvenienced by Trump's so-called peace plan.
For what little it's worth, I don't think Trump and Netanyahu are
on the same page regarding Gaza: the former is fitfully pushing
his peace/corruption agenda forward, while the latter sabotages
it wherever possible, knowing that even when he has to bend a bit
he can outlast his dullard opponent. And while it would be nice
for the world to reject them both, it's easy to think that the
US is the only party capable of influencing Israel, so the best
we can possibly do is to go along with Trump. Given the people
involved, it's a lose-lose proposition, but one hopes that not
every loss is equal. And nobody's willing to risk bucking the
trend. Russia, China, and Europe have their own problems with
Trump, as do lesser powers like Iran, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia.
None of them care enough about the Palestinians to make a stink.
Nor are they inclined to risk anything for the principle of a
more rational, more just world order.
Paul R Pillar [01-19]:
Phase farce: No way 'Board of Peace' replaces reality in Gaza:
"There is no ceasefire, no aid, no Hamas disarmament, IDF withdrawal
or stabilization force. Just a lot of talk about Trump-run panels
with little buy-in." According to Steve Witkoff, we are already in
Phase Two of Trump's 20-Point Plan.
Davie Hearst [01-20]:
'Board of Peace': Trump is running Gaza, and the world, like a
mafia boss.
Michael Arria [01-22]:
Trump unveils so-called 'Board of Peace': "On Thursday, Donald
Trump formally announced his so-called 'Board of Peace' during the
World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The body has been widely
criticized as an attempt by Trump to undermine the UN and 'takeover
the world order.'"
Craig Mokhiber [01-22]:
A world on its knees: Trump's 'Board of Peace' and the darkness it
promises: "Donald Trump's 'Board of Peace' is the result of the
world bowing before the global rampage of the US-Israel Axis. Once
again, the Palestinian people are being offered as sacrifices, and
along with them, the entire global system of international law."
Qassam Muaddi [01-22]:
How Israel and the US are using the 'shock doctrine' to impose a new
administration in Gaza.
Mitchell Plitnick [01-24]:
The Middle East is at a tipping point as the US fuels crisis across
the region: "Long-standing crises in Palestine, Syria, Lebanon,
Yemen, Sudan, Iraq, and Iran are deepening as the U.S. imprint on
the Middle East shows no signs of weakening."
Michael Arria:
[01-22]:
The Shift: Israeli-American Council summit was the latest reflection
of Israel's failing brand.
[01-22]:
Trump unveils so-called 'Board of Peace': Announced at Davos —
kind of like the Balfour Declaration first appeared as a letter to the
Rothschilds — "the body has been widely criticized as an attempt
by Trump to undermine the UN and 'takeover the world order.'" While
this article is as negative as you'd expect, you really need to read
the "facts only" report in
Wikipedia to get a sense of how truly deranged this organization
is. Some of this was prefigured by Trump's
Gaza peace plan, which led to the prisoner exchanges and Israel's
half-hearted (and since oft-violated) agreement to a ceasefire and
resumption of humanitarian aid to Gaza. That plan had some serious
flaws, but it put the genocide on pause, and the fixes were obvious.
My key points were:
- Israel has to leave Gaza, and cannot be allowed any role in its
reconstruction.
- The people who still live in Gaza must have political control of
their own destiny.
- The UN is the only organization that be widely trusted to guide
Gaza toward self-government, with security for all concerned.
I had some more points, especially on refugees, a right to exile,
and reconstruction aid, but they concerned details. These three points
are fundamental, and the only people who still dispute them are those
who want the wars and injustices to continue. Unfortunately, their
names are Netanyahu and Trump, and they are deeply invested in their
atrocities and corruption. Trump's vision included a Gaza Executive
Board, designed to bypass the UN, ignore the Palestinians, and keep
Netanyahu and Trump involved. The Board of Peace adds additional
layers: a superior Executive Board ("with a focus on diplomacy and
investment"), the Board itself ("mainly leaders of countries": 60
were invited, to form an alternative to the UN, and finally its
permanent chairman:
Trump is explicitly named in the charter as the chairman of the Board
of Peace. He is not subject to term limits and holds the sole
authority to nominate his designated successor. Only he may invite
countries to join the Board, according to the charter's delegation of
the right to the chairman alone. As chairman, he also has the
exclusive authority to create, modify, or dissolve subsidiary entities
of the Board of Peace. All revisions to the charter, as well as
administrative directives issued by the Board of Peace, are subject to
his approval. Trump's chairmanship of the Board of Peace is independent
of his presidency of the United States, and he has indicated that he
wants to remain chairman for life.
Also note that:
Countries that wish to be permanent members of the Board of Peace must
pay US$1 billion into a fund controlled by Trump; otherwise, each
country serves a three-year term which may be renewed at his
discretion.
Trump has already withdrawn the invitation to Canada, after Prime
Minister Mark Carney crossed him at Davos. The 7 initial members of
the BoP Executive Board include Tony Blair and six Americans (Marco
Rubio, Steve Witkoff, and Jared Kushner, along with billionaire Marc
Rowan, Trump adviser Robert Gabriel Jr., and the India-born president
of the World Bank, Ajay Banga). Four of them are also on the Gaza
Executive Board (Witkoff, Kushner, Blair, and Rowan), along with
representatives of several states (Egypt, Qatar, Turkey, UAE), two
token UN representatives, and Israeli billionaire businessman Yakir
Gabay.
This is off-the-charts hubris even for Trump. It's hard to see how
anyone else with an iota of intelligence and/or self-respect can even
entertain such a notion. While hardly anyone is optimistic about this
organization, it's also hard to find anyone who fully gets just how
totally fucking insane the proposition is. This is just a quick
sampling:
Jonathan Cook [01-23]:
Trump's 'Board of Peace' is the nail in Gaza's coffin.
Giorgio Cafiero [01-27]:
Gaza as a post-UN experiment: Inside Trump's Board of Peace.
Ghada Karmi [01-27]:
Trump's Board of Peace: A humiliating insult to Palestinians.
Aaron Boxerman/Isabel Kershner [01-23]:
What to know about Trump's 'Board of Peace': "President Trump's
new organization was established to oversee a cease-fire in Gaza but
has expanded its mandate to other conflicts. Critics say it could
undermine the United Nations."
Dario Sabaghi [01-26]:
No collapse, no reform: What's next for Iran's regime.
Tareq S Hajjaj [01-27]:
As Trump's 'Board of Peace' presses forward, Palestinians in Gaza
fear what lies ahead.
Louis Charbonneau [01-27]:
Trump's 'Board of Peace' puts rights abusers in charge of global
order: "By sidelining the UN and human rights, the US president
is proposing a club of impunity, not peace."
IMEU:
Katarzyna Sidlo [European Union Institute for Security
Studies] [01-18]:
The Board of Peace, Gaza, and the cost of being inside the room:
The title hints at the key point, which is that no nation is going
to be allowed any say over how Gaza is handled without first becoming
complicit with America's coddling of Israel's genocide. The UN went
along with Trump's "peace plan" because it saw no other alternative:
only the US has sufficient leverage to moderate Israel, so what other
choice do you have than to give the US whatever it wants? The Board
of Peace charter makes it clear that Trump's ambitions are even more
monstrous than Netanyahu's. Europe is so used to being led around by
America that the current generation of leadership cannot imagine
reasserting their own sovereignty, even with the costs of failure
spelled out so explicitly. But there is an alternative, which is
to break first with Israel — starting with implementation of
BDS — and then if necessary extend those sanctions to the US,
including a break with NATO, and a reassertion of the primacy of
international institutions, like the UN and the ICC (which at this
point would have little trouble charging Netanyahu and Trump).
Fred Kaplan [01-28]:
A seat on Trump's "Board of Peace" costs $1 billion. Guess who gets
the money. Is it a scam or a delusion? Well, both, and remarkably
brazen in both dimensions.
In his gushing invitation letter, Trump declared that his goal is to
"bring together a distinguished group of nations ready to shoulder the
noble responsibility of building LASTING PEACE." In his snitty
retraction letter to Prime Minister Carney, he brayed that Canada
would thereby be excluded from "what will be the most prestigious
Board of Leaders ever assembled at any time."
If Trump believes his own hype (always an uncertainty), he reveals
here once again that he has no idea what peace, especially "LASTING
PEACE," requires. To the extent Trump currently has the power to
elicit feigned respect and sometimes reluctant obedience from other
world leaders, it's because he is president of the United States
— meaning that he can exert the tremendous leverage of the
world's main currency and most powerful military.
Once his term in the Oval Office ends in three years, no leader
would have any reason to pay him the slightest attention or
courtesy. No leaders embroiled in conflict would welcome the mediation
of his so-called Board of Peace, much less follow its orders.
Russia/Ukraine: This has become the forgotten war. It's been
a stalemate for several years, prolonged initially because Biden
had no desire to negotiate, continued because Trump has no "art of
the deal," and because Putin isn't losing enough to cut his losses.
One thing that isn't clear to me is how intense the war has been
in 2025. It does seem to have been much less intensely reported,
perhaps because Trump sees less value in demonizing Russia so has
cut back the propaganda effort, perhaps because an exhausted media
has had to turn to many other conflicts.
Jackie Abramian/Artin Dersimonian [01-01]:
Listening to what regular Ukrainians are saying about the war:
"A number share their views on how to end what they are calling
the 'conveyor belt of death.'"
MarkEpiskopos [01-06]:
Despite the blob's teeth gnashing, realists got Ukraine right:
"As usual, critics are still trying to launder their abysmal policy
records by projecting their failures and conceits onto others."
On this evidence, I'm not very impressed by the "realists" either.
Stavroula Pabst [01-07]:
US capture of Russian-flagged ship could derail Ukraine War
talks: "Experts say this could also give Europeans permission
to seize Moscow's ships and kill relations." Refers to this, which
suggests the target wasn't Russia but Venezuela:
Tamar Jacoby [01-07]:
Germany's rearmament is stunning: "The country is determined to
strengthen its armed forces in the wake of Moscow's aggression and
Washington's volatility, but doing so doesn't come easily to a nation
chastened by its past." I'm old enough to think that rearming Germany
and Japan is backsliding of the worst sort, but the US has pursued
both for decades now, and has customarily been indulged, mostly as a
form of tribute. The US has few worries, given continued occupation
of bases and control of the supply chain: US weapons are fragile and
inefficient, which makes them both lucrative and harmless. But it's
also a stupid waste on the part of the countries that indulge us,
and it could easily become worse if/when Germany and Japan find they
can no longer trust the US (which is certainly true with Trump).
By the way, Jacoby's main beat is Ukraine, where Europe tends to be
more hawkish than Trump (if not more hawkish than Biden). Recent
pieces:
[10-23]:
Can Europe turn tough talk on Russia into action? "Facing the
Russian threat with less help from America, the continent forges
closer ties to beef up defense."
[11-25]:
Three lessons from Trump's latest plan for Ukraine: "Whatever
emerges from US-Ukrainian talks in Geneva, nothing good is likely
to come from this recipe for appeasing Moscow." But paranoia over
"appeasement" is a recipe for perpetual war. This derives from the
notion that the conflict is purely a power contest between Russia
and NATO, both of which are unlikely to be phased by costs which
are largely suffered by Ukrainians. We need to refocus this on
finding a better outcome for the people involved.
Anatol Lieven [01-15]:
If Europe starts attacking Russian cargo ships, all bets are off:
"The consequences will be negative, from shattering the order it
claims to defend all the way up to a possible nuclear confrontation."
Trump's War and Peace: We might as well admit that Trump's
foreign policy focus has shifted from trade and isolation to war
and terror.
Pavel Devyatkin [10-30]:
Reckless posturing: Trump says he wants to resume nuke testing:
"The president thinks he is signaling power to Russia and China
but this could be the most dangerous gambit yet."
Jack Hunter [12-31]:
4 ways Team Trump reminded us of Bush-Cheney in 2025: "From
WMDs to bombing Iran, the president who consistently mocked the
GWOT is now pushing the same old buttons."
Vijay Prashad [12-02]:
The angry tide of the Latin American far right. I know little
about this, but the news, especially from nations that had leaned
left of late (like Bolivia and Chile) seems grim. Popular anger
against the establishment should favor the left, but periods of
ineffective power only seem to revitalize right-wing politicians
whose own period of power should have thoroughly discredited them.
Joshua Keating:
[12-02]:
Why is Trump suddenly so obsessed with Honduras? "As the US
considers strikes on Venezuela, another Latin American country
has caught the president's attention."
[12-27]:
Why is the US bombing Nigeria? "Humanitarian intervention,
MAGA-style."
[01-06]:
What is the "Donroe Doctrine"? "Trump's new approach to Latin
America is a lot like America's old one." Evidently the New York
Post coined the term "Donroe," which is where it should have died.
My own coinage, which I haven't seen elsewhere (even though it's
pretty obvious) is Bad Neighbor Policy — a reversion to the
pre-FDR era that at the time was most often referred to as "Gunboat
Diplomacy," or as Smedley Butler put it, "a racket." Of course, you
can't exactly go back. America's old attitude toward Latin America
was formed from a sense of racist superiority. Trump's is tinged
with envy, especially for caudillos like Bolsonaro, Millei, and
Nayib Bukele, who exemplify the abuse of power Trump aspires to.
If Maduro really was the "narco-terrorist" of his indictments,
Trump would probably love him.
Elie Mystal [12-03]:
Pete Hegseth should be charged with murder: "Nop matter how you
look at the strikes on alleged 'drug boats' — as acts of war
or attacks on civilians — Hegseth has committed a crime and
should be prosecuted."
Eric Levitz [12-03]:
The twisted reason why Trump is bombing Venezuelan boats: "For
this administration, war crimes are a feature, not a bug."
Blaise Malley [12-04]:
Trump's USIP [United States Institute of Peace] rebrand wields an
olive branch as a weapon: "Trump's name was added to the independent
institute after his administration purged staff." It's now the "Donald
J. Trump United States Institute of Peace," in honor of "the greatest
dealmaker in our nation's history."
Andrew Ancheta [12-04]:
Washington's gallery of puppets: "From Venezuela to Iran, the
United States can always find ambitious would-be leaders willing to
advocate regime change. But they don't have their countries best
interests in mind."
Cameron Peters [12-04]:
Trump's war crimes scandal, briefly explained: "War crimes
allegations are engulfing the Pentagon after a deadly strike in
the Caribbean."
Eldar Mamedov [12-30]:
Five restraint successes — and five absolute fails — in
2025: "Trump's promise of an 'America First' realism in foreign
policy has delivered not a clean break, but a deeply contradictory
picture." I will note that the "successes" are relative and marginal,
while the failures are Iran, Venezuela, Syria, Israel (which they
soft-pedal, but is really much worse), and "Congressional derelict in
of duty on War Powers."
Zack Beauchamp [01-05]:
Donald Trump was never a dove: "How critics of American interventionism
fell for a myth." These are all important points. I'd add several points.
One is that while some "critics of American interventionism" defected to
Trump (e.g., Tulsi Gabbard), in some ways the bigger problem was how so
many supporters of American interventionism fell for the myth and flocked
to support Harris (e.g., the Cheneys), and the welcome she showed them
cemented her credentials as a warmonger (relatively speaking). My second
point is that while Trump might not be as enthusiastic about war as some
conservatives (e.g., Hitler, Netanyahu), he shares with virtually every
other conservative a lust for violence in the support of power, and this
is what in a pinch predisposes him to start wars that people with more
democratic instincts would wish to avoid. My third point is that it was
his opponents (Harris and Hillary Clinton, who both felt more need than
Biden felt to signal "commander-in-chief toughness") who let Trump get
away with his "man of peace" con. It shouldn't have been hard to expose
Trump, but they didn't know how or dare try.
The truth is that an unconstrained Trump, acting on his longstanding
hawkish impulses, could cause all sorts of chaos in his remaining
three years. While US military interventionism is very precedented,
Trump's particular brand of it — naked pre-modern imperialism
backed by a modern globe-spanning military — is not.
Americans should be prepared for things to go very, very wrong.
Eric Levitz [01-06]:
The one line that Trump's foreign policy still hasn't crossed:
"After Venezuela, how far could Trump really go?" He's referring to
sending large numbers of American troops into a hostile country. That
may be a matter of time — the argument that he can't control
a nation like Venezuela without putting troops in is hard to resist
once you've decided that control you must — but for now it is
also a matter of design. Trump is basically just a gangster, seeking
tribute, employing extortion to get it. He will break any nation
that resists. He won't promise to rebuild the nations he breaks.
If they don't fall in line he'll just break them again. This, by
the way, isn't an original idea. The neocons c. 2000 were very
big on this idea, which like much of their mindset was based on
Israel. Rumsfeld pushed this line viz. Iraq, but Bush couldn't
let all that oil go to waste, so he set up a crony government
and spent a debilitating decade trying to defend it, to little
avail. I'm not going to argue that Trump is too smart to make
that mistake again, but his basic attitudes — favoring
hard power over soft, never making amends, complete disregard
for however his acts impact other people — are consistent
with Israel's ultra-nationalism writ large, on a global scale.
Ben Freeman/William Hartung [01-08]:
The reality of Trump's cartoonish $1.5 trillion DOD budget proposal:
"This dramatic escalation in military spending is a recipe for more
waste, fraud, and abuse." While promoting "waste, fraud, and abuse"
is by far the most likely rationale between any Trump increase in
spending, one shouldn't overlook the name change from Department of
Defense to Department of War, which would seem to imply a mission
change way beyond ordering new stationery.
Michael Klare [01-08]:
Plunging into the abyss: "Will the US and Russia abandon all
nuclear restraints?" The New START treaty lapses on February 6,
which is the last of the historic arms reduction treaties that
Reagan and Bush negotiated with the Soviet Union in the 1980s.
I don't know to what (if any) extent Putin wants to unshackle
Russia from the agreements of the Soviet era, but several times
during the Ukraine conflict he's threatened to use nuclear weapons
should the US/Europe/Ukraine overstep imaginary "red lines." A
sane US president would take this as a signal to tone conflict
down, settle disagreements, and restore peaceful coexistence,
but Trump isn't one, and in this regard I can't say much better
of Biden and Obama. The neocons have been chafing at any sort
of restrictions on American power since the 1990s, and they
have a powerful lobbying ally in the nuclear industry, which
has been pushing a $1.5 trillion "modernization" of an arsenal
the only purpose of which is apocalypse. Not only is Trump's
sanity open to question here, he is blatantly using the threat
of US military and economic power to extort submissive behavior,
including tribute, from friends and foes alike. He has crossed
the fine line between legitimate business sharks and gangsters.
And nowhere is that more dangerous than in unleashing an unbridled
nuclear arms race.
Cameron Peters [01-09]:
Trump's Greenland push, briefly explained: "Is Trump really serious
about Greenland?" I doubt it, but we suffer from this cognitive limit,
where we find it hard to comprehend that other people believe things
that make no sense whatsoever. The real question with Trump isn't is
he serious? It's can he get away with it? And he's getting away with
a lot of crazy shit no one took seriously when he first broached it.
Sometimes he does it as distraction — it's probably no accident
that Greenland is back in the news after Venezuela. But once he floats
an idea, it then becomes a test of his power, and he's always up for
that. He certainly doesn't want or need Greenland for bases or business,
as the US already has free access to all that. There's no reason to
think he wants the people. The only reason I can come up with is that
he looked at a
Mercator map, which shows Greenland as huge, but also
it would add a bit of visual symmetry with Alaska, like a pair of huge
Mickey Mouse ears floating above the face of America. Maybe he also
thinks that Canada will surrender once it sees itself surrounded on
three sides. Or maybe he's just recycling 19th century fantasies of
ever-expanding American imperialism? Is he really that stupid? Well,
he's also embraced the idea of tariffs, which comes from the same
period, and is every bit as discredited as colonialism and slavery
— another old idea he's disconcertingly fond of.
Other pieces on Greenland, some taking this seriously:
Fred Kaplan [01-08]:
Trump is talking about taking over Greenland. The world is taking
him seriously. He dismisses security concerns, and minerals,
but does bring up an idea that has occurred to me: that Trump is
easily fooled by the distortion of Mercator projection maps, which
make Greenland look much larger and more strategic than it actually
is. He notes alarm about US reliability, not just in Europe but in
South Korea and Japan. "The world is very worried, and we should
be too."
Ryan Cooper [01-08]:
Donald Trump's degenerate plans for Greenland: "The worst president
in history wants conquest for its own sake, even if it opens America
up to nuclear attack."
Joshua Keating [01-08]:
Can anyone stop Trump from seizing Greenland? "Europeans and
Greenlanders are strongly opposed to an American land grab. But
their options are limited." I can think of a few options if anyone
wants to take this seriously:
- Expel the US from NATO. Cancel all existing US arms orders, and
replace them (if needed) with European products (reverse engineering
US ones if that helps, but most US weapons, like the F-35, are crap).
Free from NATO, Europe could probably cut a better deal with Russia
over Ukraine, etc., which might save them from having to re-arm. (I
suspect that Russia fears independent European re-armament more than
they do US global adventurism, which in any case is more focused on
China.)
- Sanction the Trump family personally, including seizing their
properties in Europe, and impounding their funds. This could be
selectively extended, but they don't need to sanction all American
businesses, or boycott American companies.
- Have the ICC file charges against Trump and his chief operatives,
and not just over Greenland.
- Pull the plug on Israel. This can involve sanctions and trade
restrictions.
- Overhaul intellectual property laws, to phase out American claims
in Europe, or at least to tax exported royalties. I'm pretty certain
that Europe would come out ahead if most or even all such laws were
abolished. [PS: See Dean Baker [01-19]:
Time for Europe to use the nuclear option: Attack US patent and
copyright monopolies.]
- Shut down US bases in Europe, as well as agreements that allow
US vessels to dock, planes to land or overfly, etc.
It's time for Europeans to realize that the US isn't their friend,
and that Trump in particular cannot be trusted and should not be
appeased. Literally fighting to defend Greenland may be out of the
question. And fueling a guerrilla operation to drive the Americans
out, like happened in Afghanistan and Vietnam, could be a lot more
trouble than it's worth. So sure, "options to stop it are limited,"
but so is America's desire to paint the map with its colors. And
note that most of what I just suggested would be worth doing even
without Trump's provocation in Greenland. The main thing that Trump
is doing here is to drive home the point that after so many years
of "going along to get along" America has led Europe into a dark
and dreary cul de sac. Realization of that was bound to happen
sooner or later. Trump will be remembered as the accelerant in
the great bonfire of the Americas.
Pavel Devyatkin:
Lois Parshley [01-16]:
The tech billionaires behind Trump's Greenland push.
Sam Fraser [01-17]:
On Greenland, Trump wants to be like Polk: "The president's
motivation isn't security or money, it's manifest destiny."
Kevin Breuninger/Luke Fountain [01-17]:
Trump says 8 European nations face tariffs rising to 25% if
Greenland isn't sold to the US.
Anatol Lieven [01-18]:
Trump's new 'gangster' threats against Greenland, allies, cross
line: "The president declares that he will tariff the life out
of countries if they do not obey him."
Jeffrey Gettleman [01-19]:
Read the texts between Trump and Norway's Prime Minister about
Greenland: "In the exchange on Sunday, Norway's leader sought to
'de-escalate' the growing conflict over Greenland and Trump's latest
tariff threat."
Jonathan Alter [01-21]:
Greenland and the Benjamins: "There's a method behind Trump's
madness and it's colored green." Greenland has lots of physical
assets, and very few people to claim them, which makes the land
ideal for Trump's kind of graft. Sure, this fits roughly into "an
19th and 18th century imperialism tradition, where big countries and
big businessmen use these smaller and weaker countries to extract
resources." But that's only part of the hustle:
The new way they want to do this, ultimately, is through what are
called crypto-states. The reason that Trump pardoned the former
president of Honduras, who was a drug dealer, was because he and other
conservatives in Honduras, plus Peter Thiel (JD Vance's mentor) and
like-minded free-enterprise authoritarians (no longer a contradiction
in terms) in the U.S., favor the establishment of an island state off
the coast of Honduras that would be backed by non-transparent crypto
and free of any regulation by the Honduran government.
The goal now is to do the same with other countries, to create
crypto-states attached to the Marshall Islands, Nigeria, Panama (one
of the reasons Trump is going after the canal) and Greenland.
These crypto-states would be unregulated, yielding huge profits not
just for crypto bros, but for companies trying to extract resources,
and for the politicians (and their families) who helped them do so.
Pavel Devyatkin [01-21]:
Trump's threats against Greenland: When "national security" becomes
imperial expansion: "America has become the threat its own allies
need protection from."
Lukas Slothuus [01-21]:
Trump's Greenland push is about global power, not resources:
Interesting info here on mining on Greenland, which seems like a
very long-term proposition at best. I don't really buy the "global
power" argument either, at least beyond the matter of Trump ego.
Matt Stieb [01-25]:
Will Trump's Greenland deal come with any actual benefits:
Evidently, on his way home from Davos, Trump backed down from his
Greenland threats and claimed victory with some kind of nebulous
deal. Malte Humpert tries to explain.
PS: An old friend of mine wrote on Facebook:
I don't always agree with what President Trump says, but I trust him
to do the right thing. As a 20 year military veteran, I know that
Greenland is a vital part of our global defense. This share shows
a long history of our involvement in Greenland. I believe Trump
wants some form of alliance, treaty or more to secure our defense
as well as the citizens of Greenland.
I wrote a comment on this, but when I returned to Facebook, the
post had disappeared:
I never trust Trump to do the right thing. Even when he gets boxed in
and forced to make a decent gesture, as when he finally told the Jan.
6 rioters to go home, he makes plain his discomfort. But the argument
that there is some defense necessity for seizing Greenland is a flat
out lie. The US already has all the alliances and treaties needed to
build any imaginable defense network in Greenland. Moreover, the way
he's going about this threatens to break NATO apart, which if you buy
any of the US "defense" dogma is a much bigger risk than any possible
gain in Greenland. I don't know what Trump's real reason for his
aggressive pressure on Greenland is, because nothing I can think of
makes much sense (even given his clearly deranged mind), but one
thing I am sure of is that it has nothing to do with defense.
Peter Kornbluh [01-13]:
Trump's predatory danger to Latin America: "The United States
is now a superpower predator on the prowl in its "backyard."
Leah Schroeder [01-14]:
Trump's quest to kick America's 'Iraq War Syndrome': "Experts
say the 'easy' Venezuela operation is reminiscent of George H.W.
Bush's 1989 invasion of Panama, which in part served to bury the
ghosts of Vietnam." Not a very precise analogy, not least because
it involves forgetting that the Panama operation wasn't as fast
and easy as they'd like to remember. But even there, the key to
success was getting out quickly — a lesson they ignored in
invading Afghanistan and Iraq. But thus far, Venezuela is a far
more limited operation than Panama was. It's more akin to the
"butcher and bolt" small wars Max Boot writes about in his 2002
book, The Savage Wars of Peace, which was meant to affirm
that "small wars" always work out fin, so don't worry, just fly
off the handle and let the chips fly. Of course, at that point
Afghanistan was still a "small war" in its "feel good" days, and
Iraq was just another hypothetical cakewalk. Thus far, there is
a big gap between what the US has done in Venezuela and Trump's
talk about running the country. If he's serious, and with him it's
impossible to tell, he's not going to kick anti-war syndrome, but
revive it.
Edward Markey [01-15]:
Donald Trump's nuclear delusions: "The president wants to resume
nuclear testing. Is he a warmonger or just an idiot?"
Valerie Insinna [01-16]:
First Trump-class battleship could cost over $20 billion:
That's the CBO estimate, with follow-on ships in the $9-13 billion
range.
Alfred McCoy [01-20]:
Trump's foreign policy, the comic book edition: "How to read
Scrooge McDuck in the age of Donald Trump." Refes back to Ariel
Dorman's famous Marxist critique of capitalism,
How to Read Donald Duck (1971). Plus ça change, . . .
Mike Lofgren [01-21]:
The Trump-class battleship: Worst idea ever: "It's not just
ruinously expensive; it would weaken the Navy." This opening is
pretty amusing, but it's also rather sad to see critics resort
to Bush-Obama-Biden madness to argue against Trump madness:
It is virtually impossible to name a single initiative of Donald
Trump's that isn't either supremely stupid or downright satanic. From
dismantling public health to pardoning criminals who ransacked the
U.S. Capitol to brazen international aggression, Trump and his toadies
seem hell-bent on destroying the country. With help from Pete Hegseth
and other Trump lackeys in the Pentagon, the president has set his
sights on weakening the military that Republicans claim to love so
fervently.
I agree that they're "hell-bent on destroying the country," but
I'd caution against confusing the country with the Navy. What I see
in the battleship is a probably futile attempt to take a real and
inevitable decline in strength and dress it up as egomaniacal
bluster, especially as the latter's existence will surely tempt
the egomaniac-in-chief to use it.
Peter Kornbluh [01-21]:
Is Cuba next? "As the US attempts to reassert its imperial
hegemony across the hemisphere, Havana is clearly in its crosshairs."
Trump Regime: Practically every day I run
across disturbing, often shocking stories of various misdeeds proposed
and quite often implemented by the Trump Administration -- which in
its bare embrace of executive authority we might start referring to as
the Regime. Collecting them together declutters everything else, and
emphasizes the pattern of intense and possibly insane politicization
of everything. Pieces on the administration.
Matt Sledge [11-26]:
This commission that regulates crypto could be just one guy: an
industry lawyer: "Mike Selig had dozens of crypto clients. Now he
will be a key industry regulator."
Zack Beauchamp [12-03]:
The dark reality behind Trump's new anti-immigrant policies: "His
administration is now openly advancing a worldview built by white
nationalists in the 2010s."
Umair Irfan [12-04]:
Trump's anti-climate agenda is making it more expensive to own a
car: "The president hates EVs. But is policies are making gas cars
more expensive too."
Dylan Scott [12-05]:
RFK Jr.'s anti-vax committee is recklessly overhauling childhood
vaccine policy: "America's vaccine playbook is being written by
people who don't believe in them."
Sara Herschander [12-05]:
200,000 additional children under 5 will die this year — thanks
to aid cuts: "The historic increase in global child deaths,
explained in one chart."
Cameron Peters [12-10]:
The "Trump Gold Card," briefly explained: "A fast-tracked green
card — for $1 million." Of course, where there's gold, platinum
is sure to follow.
Merrill Goozner [12-17]:
Trump's concepts of a non-plan on health care: "The so-called Great
Health Care Plan would do next to nothing to lower overall costs or
premiums paid by individuals, families, and employers."
Christian Paz [12-18]:
Is the Trump administration just a reality TV show? "What
influencers can tell us about Trump's second term." Inerview with
Danielle Lindemann
Avishay Artsy/Noel King [12-21]:
What does Trump's AI czar want? "David Sacks, Trump's go-to
adviser on all things tech, may help decide who wins the AI race
between the US and China." I seriously doubt there is an actual race,
except perhaps to determine which vision of the future bottoms out
first. A race implies a set of common goals. In America, the goal is
what it always is: to build shareholder value for the companies that
control the technology. In China, that may be part of it, but they
may also have other factors to consider. Sacks is also "crypto czar,"
so he's no doubt up on all kinds of scams.
Dylan Scott [12-29]:
The year measles came back.
Sophia Tesfaye [12-31]:
Project 2025 has been a success — with the help of the press:
"Too often, mainstream journalists treated Project 2025 as a claim
to be adjudicated rather than a document to be analyzed. They asked
whether it was 'Trump's plan' instead of examining how likely its
proposals were to be implemented by a Trump administration staffed
with its authors." Related here:
Amanda Becker/Orion Rummler/Mariel Padilla [12-22]:
How much of Project 2025 has actually been accomplished this year?
Quite a bit, but I think the key thing was how quickly and forcefully
Trump seized control of and politicized the federal bureaucracy —
something that conventional rules should have made very difficult.
The key thing here was not just the policies being defined, but the
personnel being lined up for a blitzkrieg. I don't think that DOGE
was part of the Project 2025 plan, but it built on the model of
seizing executive control, including the power to fire people and
impound funds, thereby gaining an unprecedented amount of political
control. So even if the media had recognized that Project 2025 was
the master plan, and debunked Trump's denials of relationship or
interest, they still would have come up short in anticipating the
threat. I think that's because they had little insight into just
who the Republicans were, and how committed they were to what they
saw as their mission to save America and remold it in their own
image. They knew full well that had Harris won, a good 80% of the
issues she campaigned on would never have gotten off the ground
— as indeed had been the case with Clinton, Obama, and
Biden. Democratic campaign failures are not just due to the
perfidy of the politicians. It's also because to change anything
significant, they have to buck a lot of established but well
hidden power centers (especially business lobbies). Republicans
don't have that problem, and can easily ignore countervailing
forces like unions, so they're able to move much more forcefully
than Democrats or the media could ever imagine.
Miles Bryan [01-02]:
How the US shut the door on asylum-seekers: "One of the most
consequential changes to immigration in the US under Trump,
explained." Interview with Mica Rosenberg, of ProPublica. I have
several thoughts on this, including a certain amount of sympathy with
the feeling that the US should limit the number of people it gives
asylum to. But sure, I disapprove of the callousness and cruelty that
Trump is campaigning on. There should be a universally recognized
right to exile. One thing this would do is provide a firmer standard
of applicability than the notion that anyone who has fears should be
eligible for asylum. Also, from the exile's viewpoint, it shouldn't
matter where they move, as long as the conditions that led to exile no
longer exist. A right to exile doesn't mean a right to move to the US,
or any other specific country. You could come up with a formula to
make the distribution more equitable. You could also allow rich
countries to pay other countries to fulfill their obligations. But
this also sets up some criteria for rich countries to calibrate aid in
ways that generate fewer exiles. That could include reducing gang
crime, overhauling justice systems, promoting civil liberties,
reducing group strife, restricting guns, better economic policies with
wider distribution of wealth. The main forces driving people to
emigrate are war, repression, economics, and climate change. Asylum
policy, for better or worse, only treats the symptoms, not the
problems. If Trump was serious about reducing the number of asylum
seekers, he'd change his foreign policy (especially viz. Venezuela,
but Somalia is another glaring example) to help people stay where they
are.
Cameron Peters [01-05]:
Trump's big change to childhood vaccines, briefly
explained.
Arwa Mahdawi [01-13]:
Stephen Miller wants us to fear him. Speaking of Miller:
Umair Irfan [01-14]:
Trump's EPA is setting the value of human health to $0: "The
agency's new math to favor polluters, explained." The whole idea of
trying to run a cost-benefit analysis on public health hazards has
always been fraught with moral hazard: who can, or should, say how
much government or business should spend to save a life, or one's
heath? There's no valid answer, and much room for debate in adjusting
the cost-benefit models, there are two answers that are certainly
wrong: infinity, which would make it impossible to do anything, no
matter how unlikely the risks, and $0, which would allow everything,
no matter how grave the risks. Trump's cronies just picked one of the
wrong answers — the one that best fits their model of
corruption. This is one of the worst things Trump has done to
date. Moreover, this is going to have longer term consequences beyond
the Trump administration: any project approved under these rules will
be all that much harder, and more expensive, to kill in the future,
and the sunk costs will be unrecoverable.
Cameron Peters [01-14]:
The latest on Trump's weaponization of the DOJ, briefly explained:
"A big week for Trump's DOJ doing what he wants."
Emma Janssen [01-16]:
The student loan report the Trump administration didn't want published:
"CFPB's whitewash of the report comes on the heels of repeated attempts
to fire virtually the entire staff and defund the agency. . . . The
bulk of the deleted content from Barnard's report focuses on the
struggles borrowers face and the private student loan companies that
exacerbate them."
Ryan Cooper [01-20]:
How Trump doomed the American auto industry: "Ford and GM made a
big bet on electrification. Then Trump plunged a knife into their
backs."
Almost all of the EV subsidies in the IRA were repealed, as part of
Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Now, thanks to that betrayal, plus
Trump's lunatic trade and foreign policy in general, the American auto
industry is bleeding out. . . .
Contrary to the triumphalism of various EV critics, all this
horrendous waste does not mean that the global EV transition is now in
question. As I have previously detailed, in 2025 a quarter of global
car sales were EVs, led by Southeast Asia, where the EV share of new
car sales in several nations has soared past the 40 percent mark, with
many more nations just behind. China, the largest car market in the
world, went from almost zero to more than half in just five
years. America's failure to gain a serious toehold in EV production
— particularly very cheap models — is a major reason why
the Big Three's share of the global auto market has fallen from nearly
30 percent in 2000 to about 12 percent today, while China's share has
risen from 2 percent to 42 percent.
Brandon Novick [01-23]:
Encouraging crime: settlement rewards Medicare Advantage fraud.
Spencer Overton [01-23]:
12 ways the Trump administration dismantled civil rights law and the
foundations of inclusive democracy in its first year.
Corey G Johnson [01-24]:
Complaint accuses Trump's criminal attorney of "blatant" crypto conflict
in his role at DOJ: "Todd Blanche ordered changes to crypto prosecutions
while owning more than $150,000 in digital assets."
Donald Trump (Himself): As for Il Duce, we need a separate
bin for stories on his personal peccadillos -- which often seem
like mere diversions, although as with true madness, it can still
be difficult sorting serious incidents from more fanciful ones.
David Dayen [10-28]:
Here's what Trump's ballroom donors want: "A comprehensive rundown
of Prospect reporting on the companies that gave to Trump's monument
to himself on the White House grounds."
Cameron Peters [12-02]:
Trump's confounding pardon of a drug lord, briefly explained:
"The former president of Honduras was convicted of trafficking
cocaine. Why did Trump pardon him?"
Rebecca Crosby & Noel Sims [12-04]:
Trump Jr.-backed startup receives $620 million Pentagon loan.
This is followed by a related piece, "Trump family crypto scheme
runs into trouble."
Jason Linkins [12-06]:
Hey, does anyone want to talk about Donald Trump's infirmities?
"He's clearly slipping, mentally and physically, but the political
press suddenly finds it less newsworthy that we have a woefully
aging president."
Constance Grady [12-08]:
The Kennedy Center Honors continue Trump's vengeance on liberal
Hollywood.
John G Russell [12-12]:
Sgt. Trump: The art of implausible deniability: Starts by
quoting Sgt. Schultz from Hogan's Heroes ("I know nothing"),
a claim I've heard Trump saying many times.
One would think Americans would have had enough of Trump's
falsehoods. Credited with telling
30,573 lies during his first term, he repeats them so relentlessly
that the media, numbed by their frequency, no longer bothers to keep
count.
Lies may endure forever, but liars themselves are mortal. At 79,
Trump's days in political power are numbered, yet the damage he has
wrought will outlast him. We must brace ourselves for a post-Trump
America, one that, I fear, may prove as corrosive as his current
reign. The Pandora's box he has opened has unleashed a flood of white
supremacism, misogyny, xenophobia, and transphobia, leaving Hope to
cower meekly inside. Whether that pestilence can ever be contained
again remains uncertain, particularly as it thrives on post-Obama
white racial resentment and dreams of restored hegemony.
I'm less concerned about the "Pandora's box," which I believe
remains long-term decline even without the inhibitions that before
Trump made it less visible, than by how difficult it's going to be
to restore any measure of public trust. It is for this reason that
Democrats along Clinton-Obama-Biden lines have been shown to be
total failures. Most of what Trump has been able to do has been
made possible by the view that Democrats cannot be trusted. One
result is that it will be even harder for Democrats to regain that
trust.
Christian Paz:
[12-12]:
Trump's support is collapsing — but why? "How Trump's
winning coalition is unraveling in real time." This is mostly
theories, with three offered to explain parts of the "coalition"
that have gone wobbly:
- Low-propensity voters
- Affordability voters
- "New entrant" voters
But aren't these all just variants on the theme of people who
simply didn't know any better? That such voters exist at all is
an indictment of the Harris messaging campaign, and the conflicted,
confusing, and apparently corrupt stances of many Democrats. For
Democrats to regain a chance, they're going to have to campaign
for votes, and not just expect Republicans to drive voters into
their arms, while they raise cash and spend it on ads nobody can
relate to. One more point here: "affordability" isn't the only
issue that Trump misled voters on and has since proven them to
be naive at best and more likely stupid: what about all the folks
who thought they wee voting against the Biden-Harris war machine?
[12-29]:
The most volatile group of voters is turning on Trump: "There's
a new line dividing young Americans." New polling shows: "Younger Gen
Z men are more pessimistic about the state of the nation." They're
also "slightly less likely to disapprove of Donald Trump," but the
numbers there are from 64% to 66% for their 23-29 elders.
Garrett Owen [12-18]:
Kennedy Center board vote to rename venue after Trump: "The
president's hand-picked board voted to add his name to the performing
arts venue."
Heather Digby Parton
[12-18]:
Trump's primetime speech was a master class in gaslighting:
"The president's false claims about economic conditions are the
latest indication that he's in serious trouble."
[12-21]:
Trump's crackdown on the left has decades of precedent: "The
Justice Department's plans to target leftist organizations is taking
alarming shape." This was in response to Trump's NSPM-7 (a presidential
memorandum on "Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political
Violence"), targeting the phantom "antifa organization" or maybe just
the general idea that fascism — or Trump, since he's the prime
example of fascism these days — should be opposed. (For more, see
Trump's orders targeting anti-fascism aim to criminalize
opposition.) The "decades of precedent" reflects how easy it's
always been to red-bait supporters of labor unions, civil rights,
world peace, and freedom of speech, but is that still the case?
Trump repeats the magic words about "radical leftists" endlessly,
but who still listens to them? His true believers, and a few
shell-shocked liberals whose cowardice and lack of principles
helped the red-baiters run roughshod over decent, reform-minded
people.
[01-01]:
Trump's cultural coup is doomed to fail: "Artists are protesting
Trump's Kennedy Center takeover — and creating art in defiance
of his repression."
[01-08]:
War has become fashionable again for the GOP: "The right's detour
into pacifism under Trump was never going to stick."
[01-15]:
Trump is something worse than a fascist: She's pushing for "tyrant":
"an ancient word that should nonetheless be familiar to anyone who
recalls the founding ideals of this country." But finding the perfect
epithet is not the real point: each one illuminates (or doesn't) some
facet of a more complex and fractious whole. The question is whether
it helps you understand the problem Trump presents. But once you do
understand, they're all pretty much interchangeable.
Ron Flipkowski:
[12-26]:
25 worst villains of the Trump admin: "The most difficult part
of this exercise was only picking 25." Nonetheless, your favorites
are here, with Stephen Miller at 1 ("the easiest selection"),
followed by Howard Lutnick, Pete Hegseth, Russ Vought, and Todd
Blanche, with Kristi Noem and Tom Homan down at 8 and 9.
[12-27]:
500 worst things Trump did in 2025: "A comprehensive list":
This is just the first 100, which still leaves us in February,
with more than 300 employees of the National Nuclear Security
Admin fired then reinstated after they realized "no one has
taken any time to understand what we do and the importance of
our work to the nation's national security. Also: "After JD
Vance met with the co-leader of Germany's far-AfD party, one
German expert here in Munich said: 'First, America de-Nazified
Germany. Now, America is re-Nazifying Germany.'"
Zack Beauchamp [12-16]:
Trump's war on democracy is failing: "And it's his own fault."
Author diagnoses something he calls "haphazardism." I think he's
trying to impose reason on madness. Trump doesn't really care whether
he kills democracy as a concept, as long as it falls into place and
does whatever he wants. Maybe if he did have a master plan to destroy
democracy, he'd do a more effective job of it. But actually, he's
pretty much succeeding, even if he suffers occasional setbacks by
making it look inept and, well, haphazard. And while haphazardism
isn't as ruthlessly efficient as, well, Hitler, its incoherence
offers a bit of deniability that lets people so inclined to cut
him some slack. One can say something similar about Israel and
genocide. Ineptness and inefficiency seems to be part of the
plan, but both in terms of intent and practice, that's exactly
what they're doing. Just not as efficiently as, well, Hitler.
Beauchamp spends a lot of time quoting the following piece,
which I'd argue is a good example how focusing on ideological
terms like "democracy" and "authoritarianism" misses the mark:
Steven Levitsky/Lucan A Way/Daniel Ziblatt [12-11]:
The price of American authoritarianism. Levitsky splits hairs
arguing that Trump is running an "authoritarian government" but
not an "authoritarian regime," because Trump's "systematic and
regular abuse of power" is "likely to be 'reversed' in the near
future." That's a novel definition of "regime," the only purpose
being to posit a hypothetical system even worse than Trump's. I
tend to use "regime" to describe any government, however stable
or fleeting, that flaunts and abuses its power. Trump may not
do that 100% of the time, but he's gone way beyond any previous
norms, which is why I'm more inclined to say "regime" than
"administration." What's new with Trump isn't ideology but an
opportunism that is rooted in a gangster mentality: the power
has long been there when presidents want to abuse it, but Trump
has done so to an unprecedented degree. That's because gangsters
believe in force, don't believe in limits, and pursue wealth and
power until someone stops them.
Cameron Peters [01-06]:
Trump's January 6 victory lap: "Five years later, the White
House is still rewriting January 6."
Dustin DeSoto/Astead Herndon [01-07]:
How Trump brought the World Cup to America: "The Trump-FIFA
connection, explained."
Moustafa Bayoumi [01-13]:
2026 is already pure chaos. Is that Trump's electoral strategy?
The key argument here is that Trump wants to take the challenge of
making himself the central issue in the 2026 Congressional elections.
This shows a degree of partisan commitment that recent Democratic
presidents never even hinted at. Trump understands that he needs
loyal Republicans to implement his extremist programs, whereas the
Democrats rarely tried to do anything Republicans didn't buy into.
It also expresses confidence that Trump's charisma is so strong he
can motivate his most clueless voters to come out and vote as he
directs. That's a big ask given that Democrats have been much more
motivated in midterms where Republican presidents were the issue
(e.g., in 2006 and 2018). It also depends on Trump being much more
popular in November 2026 than he is now, or ever has been.
Sasha Abramsky [01-16]:
The week of colonial fever dreams from a sundowning fascist:
"The news was a firehose of stories of authoritarian behavior.
We can't let ourselves drown."
New York Times Editorial Board [01-17]:
For Trump, justice means vengeance: Well, where do you think he
ever got such a stupid idea? It's almost impossible to watch a cop
or law and order show and not be told that the good guy's chief
motivation is "to get justice" for someone. And that almost always
boils down to vengeance. I've never managed to read John Rawls'
much-admired
A Theory of Justice, which evidently ties justice to a
concept of fairness, but I'm probably fairly close in asserting
that the point of justice is to restore one's faith in the fair
ordering of society. That suggests to me that the pursuit of
justice can never be attained by simply balancing off injustices.
Any punishment the state metes out must make the state appear to
be more just than it appeared before. Vengeance doesn't do that.
Vengeance just compounds injustice, in the vain hope that somehow
two wrongs can make a right. Ergo, Trump's pursuit of vengeance
(or redemption, as he often calls it), is anti-justice.
PS: In
looking up Rawls, I see that Robert Paul Wolff wrote Understanding
Rawls: A Reconstruction and Critique of A Theory of Justice
(1977). That's out of print, but probably the place to start. I
read several of Wolff's books early on — A Critique of
Pure Tolerance, The Poverty of Liberalism, In Defense
of Anarchism — probably before I went to college. Those
books showed me that it was possible to derive intuitively correct
moral postulates from reason alone, and that in turn convinced me
to use reason to try to find my way out of schizophrenia (at least
as Bateson defined it). More than anything else, I owe those books
my life, and what little I have accomplished in the 55 years since
I read them.
By the way, here's a brief quote from Wolff's A Credo for
Progressives:
The foundation of my politics is the recognition of our collective
interdependence. In the complex world that we have inherited from our
forebears, it is often difficult to see just how to translate that
fundamental interdependence into laws or public policies, but we must
always begin from the acknowledgement that we are a community of men
and women who must care for one another, work with one another, and
treat the needs of each as the concern of all.
In my formulation of this, "complex" is of critical importance, as
the more complex life becomes, the more trust matters, and that in
turn depends on justice, in the sense of confirming that the world
is ordered in a fair and reasonable manner.
Melvin Goodman [01-19]:
Donald Trump, poster child for megalomania:
Megalomaniac: Someone with an extreme obsession for power, wealth,
and self-importance, characterized by grandiose delusions of being
more significant or powerful than they are, often linked to a tenuous
grip on reality.
"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace
alarmed — and hence clamorous to be led to safety — by
menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them
imaginary." H.L. Mencken, "Baltimore Evening Sun," 1920.
The mainstream media continues to describe Donald Trump as an
"isolationist," or a "neo-conservative," or more recently as an
"imperialist." These terms are irrelevant; the term that should be
applied is "megalomaniac" or "narcissist." These terms fit Trump and
help to understand the threat he poses to the peace and security of
the United States and much of the global community.
As he notes, "Trump's narcissism has been on display for decades.
What turns narcissism into megalomania is power.
Harold Meyerson [01-20]:
25th Amendment time for Mad King Donald: "His narcissism has
become psychotically megalomaniacal." I expect a regular stream of
25th Amendment pieces, but the chances of his hand-picked cabinet
of cronies taking his keys away are extremely slim, even if he
was basically a good sport, which he isn't. His staff are even
less likely to move against him (as we saw with Biden). And sure,
this article mentions Mad King George III, but not that he ruled
for 43 years after he lost the American colonies in 1776.
Ed Kilgore [01-22]:
Trump only accepts polls that proclaim his greatness. Trump polls
seem to be part of Kilgore's beat:
Trump in Davos:
Sasha Abramsky [01-23]:
At Davos, the world watched the rantings of a despot: "President
Donald Trump has turned his back on the liberal world order —
and Europe is unlikely to follow." While I don't doubt that Europe
would be wise to break with Trump, I'm not optimistic, either that
they will, or that they'll opt for something better. Right now, Europe
is much more hawkish over Ukraine than the US is. While Obama did most
of the dirty work in Libya, it was largely at Europe's behest —
Libya meant little to the US (or Israel), but much to France and Italy.
More generally, while Europe is more "social democratic" than the US,
in theory at least, the EU is pretty completely in thrall to neoliberal
ideologists, and the continent is chock full of revanchist right-wing
parties, making it more likely that an anti-US backlash will come from
the right than from the left.
Heather Souvaine Horn [01-23]:
Trump's terrifying Davos speech is a wake-up call to the global elite:
"The World Economic Forum has long suggested that its annual lavish party
is about saving the world. Trump just shredded that myth."
Sasha Abramsky [01-23]:
At Davos, the world watched the rantings of a despot: "President
Donald Trump has turned his back on the liberal world order —
and Europe is unlikely to follow."
Margaret Hartmann [01-21]:
The 12 stupidest moments from Trump's Davos speech.
Margaret Hartmann: She's been busy of late, as her main
theme is "Trump's stupidest moments":
[01-20]:
Trump leaks world leaders' private texts in Greenland bullying fit:
"Humiliating foes by sharing their private messages is a common Trump
tactic, but Emmanuel Macron is the first world leader to get this
treatment."
[01-16]:
All of Trump's tacky and trollish White House renovations: "From
demolishing the East Wing to build a ballroom to paving the Rose
Garden, the changes reflect Trump's second-term quest for dominance
and revenge."
[01-16]:
Trump gets Nobel Peace Prize in saddest way possible: "Machado
'presented' her award to Trump . . . but there was no dramatic
made-for-TV reveal, and the Nobel Institute said he's still no
winner." Reminds me of the time Whitey Bulger won the lottery.
[01-14]:
White House calls Trump flip-off an 'appropriate' response: "To
be fair, Emily Post doesn't cover what to do when you're called a
'pedophile protector.'"
[01-09]:
Nobel Institute: Trump can't just take Machado's Peace Prize.
[01-06]:
Trump upset that Maduro and Melania don't respect his dancing:
"Trump does a lot of childish things, but he didn't launch air strikes
because Maduro imitated his dancing — right?"
[01-05]:
The wildest things Trump said about the Venezuela attack: "From
declaring 'nobody can stop us' to coining the term 'Donroe Doctrine,'
Trump's remarks on the attack were staggeringly dumb and brazen."
[12-23]:
MLK Day out, Christmas Eve in? All Trump's holiday changes.
"While Trump can't unilaterally create permanent federal holidays,
he did give federal workers Christmas Eve and December 26 off tis
year."
[12-18]:
White House congratulates JFK on 'Trump-Kennedy Center' renaming:
"Karoline Leavitt announced the possibly illegal move by saying Trump
and the deceased JFK will be a 'truly great team.'"
[12-18]:
Trump plaques make White House wall ex-president burn book: "He
made his 'Presidential Walk of FAme' even more stunningly stupid by
adding plaques insulting Biden, Obama, and his other predecessors."
[12-15]:
Trump's post on Rob Reiner's death is truly deranged: "He falsely
and disrespectfully suggested that the director was murdered due to his
dislike of the president."
[12-13]:
Donald and Melania Trump have themselves an awkward little Christmas:
"Melania shared an unflattering party video after Donald reminisced about
her décor debacles and admitted he's clueless about her next project."
[12-10]:
10 stupid moments from Trump's Pennsylvania rally: "His 'affordability'
speech devolved into racist musings on 'shithole' countries."
[12-03]:
Trump sleeps in Cabinet meeting, rants online all night: "Maybe Trump
should cut back on the 1:30 a.m. Truth Social posts and prioritize keeping
his eyes open during important White House events."
[12-02]:
Trump TikTok challenge: Watch the most awful White House posts:
"Can you make it through these incompetently executed memes, Wicked
deportation jokes, and Trump's thirst traps without scrolling away?"
We should also make brief mention of Canadian Prime Minister
Mark Carney's Davos speech, which provided a stark contrast and
a rare moment of opposition to Trump:
Gabrielle Gurley [01-23]:
The Davos challenge: "Canada's leader steps out to redefine the
global order in the face of American expansionism." As he noted,
"the middle powers must act together, because if we're not at the
table, we're on the menu."
Cameron Peters [01-23]:
The week the US and Canada broke up: "What Mark Carney said in
Switzerland, briefly explained."
Democrats:
Timothy Shenk [09-29]:
Democrats are in crisis. Eat-the-rich populism is the only answer.
Much here on Dan Osborn, whose independent campaign for a Senate
seat from Nebraska in 2024 fell 7 points short, in a state where
Trump beat Harris by 20. His pitch: "a blistering assault on
economic elites, a moderate stance on cultural issues and the
rejection of politics as usual." But he also talks about Mamdani,
and what they have in common. This is the first piece in a
series, which doesn't look all that promising — devoted
Israel war hawk Josh Shapiro is "the future of the Democrats"?
Michelle Goldberg [10-01]:
He's young, talented and openly religious. Is he the savior Democrats
have been waiting for? James Talarico, a Texas Democrat running
for the Senate.
Chris Hayes [10-19]:
The Democrats main problem isn't their message.
Binyamin Appelbaum [11-09]:
Mamdani isn't the future of the Democrats. This guy is.
Josh Shapiro. "Shapiro's version of the Democratic Party is more
patriotic than the GOP and, in some sense, more conservative."
James Pogue [01-12]:
This rural congresswoman things Democrats have lost their minds.
She has a point. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA). By the way,
she also has a primary opponent,
Brent Hennrich, who
came to my attention after Gluesenkamp Perez was "one of the seven
Democrats who just voted to fund ICE." The
others were: Jared Golden (ME-02), Don Davis (NC-01), Tom Suozzi
(NY-03), Laura Gillen (NY-04), Henry Cuellar (TX-28), and Vicente
Gonzalez (TX-34). Elsewhere I see that one Republican, Thomas Massie,
voted no.
Zach Marcus [11-12]:
Draining the online swamp: "Instead of accepting the existing
digital political battlefield as inevitable, Democrats should
challenge it as a root cause of our dysfunctional politics, and
vow to be the party that cleans it up." When I saw this article,
I was hoping for something rather different, but this is a big
subject, with many components, and eventually some things that I
would focus on do show up in the fine print. But the key points
are: (1) the online cybersphere is indeed a swamp, where money
functions like water in physical swamps, and could just as well
be drained; (2) Democrats should see draining this swamp as a
political opportunity, not with a view toward biasing politics
in their direction, but because the swamp is imposing hardships
on literally everyone. A large book could be written about this:
abuse comes in many forms, but it mostly comes down to attempts
to profit: to sell or solicit, directly or through by exploiting
information. One should take care, as few politicians do, not to
impose their own moral and political stances. But any serious
effort to cut back the scams and fraud is bound to be popular,
and how hard can it be to have a significant impact? What is
hard is getting Democrats to see that they need to do a much
better job of serving their voters than their current focus,
which is raising money from the exploiters.
Virginia Heffernan [12-05]:
No, progressives don't want "purity." They just want some courage.
"When left-leaning Democrats complain about corporate influence, it's
not a 'purity test.' It's a demand for a better politics."
Elizabeth Warren [01-12]:
Elizabeth Warren's Plan for a Revived Democratic Party: "The
Massachusetts senator argues that, in order to prevail in the
midterms, the party needs to recover its populist roots —
and fighting spirit."
Erica Etelson [01-15]:
Democrats really can compete in rural America: "The results for
the 2025 election cycle send a powerful message regarding strategies
that connect outside of urban centers." Given who they're running
against, Democrats should be able to compete in literally every
district in America.
Perry Bacon [01-21]:
Abigail Spanberger's first move as Virginia Gov. was a masterstroke:
"Even moderate Democrats can be boldly anti-MAGA. Other centrist
Democrats should follow her example." What she did was move to
force the resignation of several Republican appointees to university
boards. That's the sort of thing Trump has done like crazy, and the
people she's replacing are the sort of partisan hacks Trump has been
appointing.
Republicans: A late addition, back by popular demand,
because it isn't just Trump, we also have to deal with the moral
swamp he crawled out of:
Roger Sollenberger [12-04]:
'George Santos with a gun': The untold story of Cory Mills, a
mercenary in Congress: "The Florida Republican has tried to
leverage his legislative role to the benefit of his arms business.
With that business now in foreclosure proceedings, Mills has little
to show for it."
Christian Paz:
Sarah Jones [12-06]:
The right's post-Trump civil war is already underway: "And
Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts is betting on the
extremists." He's defending Tucker Carlson, who is promoting Nick
Fuentes, who is "king of the
groypers" —
I had to look it up, too; journalistic shorthand, close enough for
practical purposes, is "nazis," mostly because Jews feature prominently
among the many people they hate. Other right-wingers draw the line just
short of gross Judeophobia, especially since they can whitewash their
antisemitism by expressing support and admiration for their fellow
right-wingers in Israel. One phrase that crops up among those who
tolerate ideologues like Fuentes is "no enemies to the right." I'm
actually pretty sympathetic to the notion of "no enemies to the left,"
but I can be picky about who's actually on the left.
Ed Kilgore
[01-14]:
GOP may squeeze in second Big Beautiful Bill before midterms:
Makes sense. They still have the numbers in the House, and they'll
be ok in the Senate with a "budget-reconciliation bill." It will be
a grab bag, but nearly everything they want is odious to count, and
however much they can agree on will be big enough to recycle the
brand name.
[12-22]:
Vance rebrands MAGA revenge as a Christian Crusade: From his
speech at Turning Point USA's AmericaFest 2025 conference, where
he promoted "a strange sort of Christian vengeance for the death
of Charlie Kirk."
Kelli Wessinger/Noel King [12-16]:
Republican woen in Congress are tired of Mike Johnson.
Constance Grady [01-09]:
Erika Kirk and Marjorie Taylor Greene are playing with the same
archetype: "How ambitious is a MAGA woman allowed to be?"
Clarence Lusane [01-15]:
Just as dangerous: Vance and the 2028 election. Even though Vance
offered some memorable quotes dissing Trump, it's quite a stretch to
title a section "A time when Vance was truthful." The case against
such a claim includes nearly all of Hillbilly Elegy.
Economy and technology (especially AI): I used to have a
section on the economy, which mostly surveyed political economics.
Lately, I run across pieces on AI pretty often, both in terms of
what the technology means and is likely to do and in terms of its
outsized role in the speculative economy. I suspect that if not
now then soon we will recognize that we are in a bubble driven by
AI speculation, which is somewhat masking a small recession driven
largely by Trump's shutdown, tariffs, and inflation. In such a
scenario, there are many ways to lose.
Robert Wright [01-23]:
Which AI Titan should you root for? He makes something of a case
for Demis Hassabis ("head of Google's DeepMind"). While the technology
is difficult enough to understand, the business models are even harder
to grasp, because they are based on very large bets on very strange
fantasies of world domination. In this world, even a tiny bit of
self-conscious scruples seems to count for a lot. Still, this is
shaping up as a race to the bottom, where even tiny scruples will
be quickly discarded as signs of weakness.
Jez Corden [11-29]:
OpenAI is a loss-making machine, with estimates that it has no road
to profitability by 2030 — and will need a further $207 billion
in funding even if it gets there. I'm not even trying to follow
things like this, but somehow found the tab open, and decided to note
before closing. My impression is that most tech companies over the
last 30-40 years have been overvalued without a realistic profit path,
but a small number of survivors seem to be reaping the monopoly rents
the speculators hoped for. Still, it wouldn't be hard to deflate them
if we had the insight and political will.
Robert Kuttner [12-01]:
Sources of America's hidden inflation: "How market power jacks up
prices, and how Trump's policies add to the pressure." I've been alluding
to this often of late, so it's nice to see so many of these points being
made.
Ronald Purser [12-01]:
AI is destroying the university and learning itself: "Students
use AI to write papers, professors use AI to grade them, degrees
become meaningless, and tech companies make fortunes. Welcome to
the death of higher education." I'm not sure this is the right
analysis, and not just because I don't have much love for the old
meritocracy that is being wrecked, and not just becuase it never
secured much merit in the first place. The "system" has always
been crooked, which is something folks with the right skills or
hunches have always been able to take advantage of. AI changes
the rules, which means that different strategies and different
people will win, and some of that will seem unjust. I personally
know of a recent case in Arkansas where an AI program was used
by a school to detect possible AI use and falsely accused the
bright daughter of a friend of cheating. We had a long and
fruitless discussion after this on how can someone so charged
prove that the AI program is wrong, but the more important
question is why does it matter? Which gets us back to politics:
in your hypothetical meritocracy, do you want the "merit" (for
more people) or the "ocracy" (to empower and enrich the few)?
The stock bubble behind the AI companies assumes that AI can be
monopolized (kept artificially scarce) allowing its masters
extraordinary powers over everyone else. Does anyone but a few
monomaniacal entrepreneurs actually want that? Much more that
can be unpacked here.
As for the death of higher education, Jane Jacobs analyzed
that in her 2004 book,
Dark Age Ahead, where higher education was one of the
five "pillars of civilization" she identified decay in (the
others were: community and family; science; government; and
culture. In education, she blamed the focus shifting from
learning to credentialism. I think that shift largely happened
in the 1980s, when conservatives decided that education should
be reserved for elites, and enforced that by jacking up the
costs to ordinary people, creating scarcity and desperation,
while the rewards for avarice became ever greater. While AI
may be useful as a tool for learning, its applicability to
scamming credentialism is much more obvious. I'm not someone
who believes that technology is "value neutral," but the values
of the politico-socio-economic system do have profound effects
on how any given technology is used.
Eric Levitz [12-17]:
Can money buy Americans happiness? "The real cause of America's
'vibecession.'"
Part of a series on
The case for growth ("supported by a grant from Arnold Ventures"),
the point of which is that the "degrowth movement" is wrong, because,
well, "more is more." These arguments seem shallow to me. Sure, there
are areas where growth would still help. But there are other areas
where all you really need is better distribution. And there are other
areas where we already have too much, and would be better off slowing
down, or even reversing course. To my mind, "degrowth" is a useful
conceptual tool, one that moves beyond the kneejerk notion that
growth fixes everything. Some (not all) more pieces in the series:
Andrew Prokop [12-12]:
Why America gave up on economists: "Both parties have turned their
backs on traditional economic advice. Is the country paying the price?"
Seems like a lot of false equivalence here. Republicans use economists
to ratify their schemes, and sometimes applaud a crackpot idea that
they can use (e.g., the Laffer Curve), but they make little pretense
of following economics, and will readily dispose of any arguments that
question their pet projects (like Trump's tariffs). Clinton and Obama,
on the other hand, sought out neoliberal economists and gave them a
lot of power, because they start from shared pro-business principles.
Biden too, except that a few past figures (like Larry Summers) have
been discredited. Prokop offers an example where Democrats supposedly
have broken with economic orthodoxy, but I've never seen any evidence
of it: price controls. (Unless he means rent control, which is a way
to address certain market failures?)
Bryan Walsh [12-06]:
Breaking free of zero-sum thinking will make America a wealthier country:
"The affordability crisis is a growth crisis." Title is true. Subtitle
is false, stuck in a mindset that sees growth as a panacea. That so much
is unaffordable is only partly due to scarcity (which in many cases is
deliberately imposed). It's mostly due to systematic maldistribution.
Marina Bolotnikova [12-19]:
We need to grow the economy. We need to stop torching the planet.
Here's how we do both. "Let's fix the two massive efficiency
sinks in American life." She identifies those two "sinks" as
"animal agriculture" and cars, and spends most of the article
attacking them (and implicitly those of us who like and want
them), all the while insisting that vital growth would be much
better elsewhere.
Ryan Cooper [12-23]:
Bari Weiss is the propagandist Donald Trump deserves: "The
would-be dictator would get a much better class of censor if his
regime didn't hoist the biggest morons in the country in to
leadership positions." I'm reminded of an old adage attributed
to David Ogilvy: "First-rate people hire first-rate people. Second-rate
people hire third-rate people." That's far enough down the slope to
make the point, although with Trump and his flunkies, perhaps you
should denote inferior classes. Trump seems to hire people who are
unfit for any other job. Sure, Weiss only indirectly works for Trump,
but his worldview infects his supporters.
James Baratta [01-08]:
Ransomware recovery firms share in the hacking spoils: "Incident
response firms negotiate with hackers while also processing payments
to them, leading to potential betrayals of their clients' trust."
Sounds like the
principal-agent problem, or more specifically the risks of trusting
agents who are also paid by other sources (which is most of them these
days, even without considering self-interest conflicts). Needless to
say, the problem is worse in high-inequality societies, especially
where marginal variations take on considerable importance. The greater
the inequality, the harder it is to trust anyone. America is more
inequal now than ever before, which is reflected in the dissolution
of trust.
Adam Clark Estes [01-10]:
AI's ultimate test: Making it easier to complain to companies:
"Imagine actually enjoying a customer service experience." Sure, it
could work, sometimes. I like the idea of being able to get answers
without having to interact with workers, but I've rarely connected
with something the robots could actually answer or handle, so we
spend a lot of time thrashing, which is aggravating to me, but of
course neither the machine nor the company care. AI is mostly used
these days to insulate companies from human contact with customers,
and to train customers into expecting less service. Perhaps if we
had competitive companies, such tactics would be self-limiting,
but more and more we don't.
Constance Grady [01-10]:
Grok's nonconsensual porn proble is part of a long, gross legacy:
"Elon Musk claims tech needs a 'spicy mode' to dominate. Is he
right?"
Harold Meyerson [01-19]:
A new low for American workers: "The share of American income
going to labor is at its lowest level since measurements began."
Jeffrey Selingo [01-20]:
The campus AI crisis: "Young graduates can't find jobs. Colleges
know they have to do something. But what?" Starts with a young college
graduate who applied to 150 jobs, to no avail. "How much AI is to blame
for the fragile entry-level job market is unclear." The author sees an
analogy to his own college years, 1991-94, when the Internet suddenly
became a big thing, causing disruptions as colleges had to scramble to
seem relevant — as they are doing now with programs like "AI
Fluency." I'm afraid I don't have any insight here. AI still strikes
me as a lot of hype wrapped around a few parlor tricks, most of which
have very little relevance to the core economy of goods and services.
But then no one can see the future, or even the present. All we can
do is look back, and try to imagine what that portends. But the 1990s
analogy reminds me of Robert Reich's 1991 book The Work of Nations:
Preparing Ourselves for 21st Century Capitalism, where he came up
the the idiotic idea that we didn't need manufacturing jobs anymore,
because we'd just get high-paying jobs as "symbolic manipulators" and
everything would be wonderful. His buddy Bill Clinton read that and
saw it as a green light to implement NAFTA. We're still reeling from
the consequences of Reich's fantasy. (Clinton may have realized what
would happen to US manufacturing, and simply not cared, but was he
prescient enough to anticipate the damage to Mexican agriculture, the
subsequent explosion of emigration to the US, and the repercussions
for American jobs and politics?) About the only thing I'm sure of
viz. AI is that if Reich's cornucopia of "symbolic manipulator" jobs
had occurred, AI would devastate them, because symbolic manipulation
is literally all that AI does and can ever do. Sure, it may, like
all stages since the dawn of computing, contribute some productivity,
but we'll still depend on real people doing real work for everything
we need to sustain life.
Miscellaneous Pieces
The following articles are more/less in order published, although
some authors have collected pieces, and some entries have related
articles underneath.
Spencer Kornhaber [05-05]:
Is this the worst-ever era of American pop culture? "An
emerging critical consensus argues that we've entered a cultural
dark age. I'm not so sure." I don't recall why I opened this
loose tab — possibly because the article opens with a
quote from Ted Gioia, who used to be a reliable Jazz Critics
Poll voter but abandoned us as he became a Substack star. So,
unable to read the piece, I asked Google to summarize it, and
got this gibberish back:
Spencer Kornhaber's "Is This the Worst-Ever Era of American Pop
Culture?" argues that modern pop culture suffers from stagnation,
cynicism, isolation, and attention rot, driven by nostalgia-focused
economics (IP, old music catalogs), identity politics stifling
creativity, technology fostering loneliness, and algorithmic
distractions eroding focus, leading to a "gilded age" of superficially
polished but shallow content. While acknowledging real problems like
AI and pandemic disruptions, Kornhaber explores this "narrative of
decay" in music, film, and art, but also discusses potential
counter-narratives and signs of hope. . . .
Kornhaber suggests these issues create a paradox: a Gilded Age
where prestigious shows look amazing but lack substance, and where
technological abundance paradoxically leads to cultural scarcity
and decline. He questions if it's truly the worst era, but details
the significant challenges facing creators and consumers, pointing
to a breakdown in cultural progress and originality.
Google also offered a link to:
My own thought on this is that culture increasingly became wedded
to big business over the 20th century, but the bindings have started
to fall apart, as artists are becoming less dependent on capital, and
capital is less able to profit from art. As a consumer, or just as a
person with the luxury of some leisure time beyond what it takes to
satisfy baser needs, I don't see this as, on balance, a particularly
bad thing. While capitalism promoted art in the 20th century, there
is every reason to expect art to continue being created even without
the profit motive. The art will be different: it will be smaller,
less flashy, more personal, more in tune with people's feelings, as
opposed to the ubiquitous sales schemes of the culture industry. I
can think of numerous examples, especially in jazz — which is
much more vital as an art than as a business.
On the other hand, I'm pretty vigilant about picking the music
I listen to, the video I see, the links I follow, and so on. So
I'm inclined to think I'm relatively immune to the effects found in
Kyle Chayka: Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture,
but it's hard to be sure, and they've certainly warped the size and
shape of everyday culture. It's hard to maintain any semblance of
control when you're constantly bombarded by too any options: a
state which reduces both creators and consumers while extracting
maximal shares for the platform.
Lulu Garcia-Navarro [10-18]:
The culture wars came for Wikipedia. Jimmy Wales is staying the
course. Interview, airs out numerous political attacks on
Wikipedia, mostly from people who don't understand facts, or who
understand them all too well. Kurt Andersen
linked to this, and commented: "Reading this Jimmy Wales
interview reminded me in our Fantasyland age what a remarkable
and important creation it is. True pillar of civilization. Runs
on only $200 million a year. Requires out support. So I'm finally
donating." By the way, Wales has a book,
The Seven Rules of Trust: A Blueprint for Building Things That
Last.
Current Affairs [07-16]:
Rent control is fine, actually: "Regulating rent prices is often
called 'bad economics.' But it isn't. The effects of rent control are
complex." Unsigned, but substantial article, covering most of the
bases. A still more obvious point is in the very name: although "rent"
is a word most often used regarding housing, the word itself has more
general economic significance, in that it represents any profits in
excess of free competition. It is, in other words, a market failure,
which can only be constrained by regulation.
Alex Skopic [10-09]:
This is why you don't let libertarians run your country: "In
Argentina, President Javier Milei has screwed the economy up so badly
he needs a $20 billion bailout. That's because his 'free market'
economics don't actually work."
Even more so than Donald Trump to his north, Milei was the kind of
erratic crackpot you can see coming a mile off. This was a man who
dressed up in a superhero suit to sing sad ballads about fiscal
policy, "floated legalizing the sale of human organs" on the campaign
trail, and told reporters he takes telepathic advice from his dogs,
who are clones of his previous dog. You didn't need any special
insight to know he wasn't leadership material. But even those personal
foibles would be inoffensive, even charming, if Milei had a sound
economic agenda. More than the psychic dogs or the yellow cape, the
really unhinged thing about him was that he took libertarianism
seriously, aiming to slash the functions of the Argentinian state
wherever he could. Now, Milei is facing a spiraling series of crises,
from unemployment to homelessness to the basic ability to manufacture
anything. He should serve as a big, red alarm bell for people far
beyond Argentina's shores — because right-wing leaders in the
U.S. and Britain are explicitly modeling their economics on his, and
if they're not stopped, they'll lead us to the same disastrous end
point.
Bad as this sounds:
Dean Baker: This is mostly catching up, but doesn't include
every post, especially in December, but most are worth noting:
[12-08]:
In search of Donald Trump's booming economy: "Trump's claims of
historic economic success collapse under data showing rising costs,
declining manufacturing, and no evidence of his imagined investment
boom."
[12-13]:
Jeff Bezos uses the Washington Post to promote inequality:
"The Washington Post's defense of massive CEO pay illustrates
how billionaire-owned media justify inequality despite weak
evidence that it benefits workers, shareholders, or society."
Refers to a column by Dominic Pino [12-11]:
Starbucks's CEO was paid $95 million. It could be worth every
cent. The rationale is: "Brian Niccol's compensation history
reflects a turnaround skill that can mean billions of dollars."
[12-21]:
How many manufacturing jobs has Trump actually lost? "More
comprehensive employment data show manufacturing job losses
under Trump may be worse than standard monthly reports suggest."
[12-23]:
Donald Trump wants us to pay more for electricity because he is
angry at windmills: "Trump's move to cancel wind projects
will increase power costs, kill jobs, and slow the clean energy
transition."
[12-27]:
Washington Post's Trumpian ideology boils over: "A critique of
Washington Post editorials that distort healthcare and EV economics
to align with Trump-style ideology."
[12-28]:
Did Mark Zuckerberg throw $77 billion of our money into the
toilet? "Mark Zuckerberg's $77 billion Metaverse gamble wasn't
just a corporate misstep, but a massive diversion of talent and
resources with real economic costs as Big Tech now pours even more
money into AI." I think what he's saying here is that when a company
blows a huge amount of money, that's not just a book loss for the
investors, it's also an opportunity loss for everyone. I'm not sure
where he wants to go with this, but I'm tempted to say that tech
companies aren't necessarily good judges, especially as so many of
their schemes are little better than scams.
[01-05]:
Venezuela will pay for its own reconstruction: "Comparing Iraq
in 2003 to Venezuela today shows that Trump's claims of an easy,
self-financing intervention are far less believable than Bush's
already-failed promises." While the analogies are too obvious to
ignore, the differences may matter more. In 2003, there were real
fears of running low on oil, so bringing more oil to market could
be seen as a general economic gain, even if the oil companies
would prefer to just drive the prices up. But we have a glut of
oil right now, and that's with Venezuela, Iran, and Russia largely
out of the market. So I wouldn't bet on Trump wanting to reconstruct
Venezuela, regardless of who plays for it.
[01-05]:
Walz pulls out: chalk up another one for racism, coupled with
Democratic Party and media ineptitude: "Tim Walz's exit shows
how exaggerated fraud claims, media failure, and racialized politics
can end Democratic careers."
[01-07]:
Trump's United States as number three: "Trump's threats and
economic bluster ignore the reality that the US is now only the
world's third-largest economy and increasingly isolated from
larger democratic blocs." Behind China and Europe (EU + United
Kingdom, Switzerland, and Norway). Lots of smaller economies are
also gaining ground: add them together and the US could slip a
notch. Baker cites several examples where Trump's tariffs failed
because the US simply didn't have the economic muscle to enforce
them. That leaves American superiority in arms, which may explain
why Trump is becoming increasingly trigger-happy, but converting
that to genuine economic power may be difficult:
Ordinarily, the old line about herding cats would apply here, but a
government that claims it can do anything it has the military force to
do can help focus minds. Hitler managed to bring together Churchill,
Roosevelt, and Stalin. Trump may have a comparable effect in uniting
the world today.
[01-08]:
Donald Trump's $6 trillion tax hike and increase in military
spending: "Trump's $600 billion military plan would be
financed by higher tariffs that raise prices for US consumers."
But surely it wouldn't just be tariffs paying for this. Income
taxes are a more practical option. If that's impossible, and
it goes straight to the deficit, won't it ultimately be paid
for with inflation? And what about opportunity costs? Imagine
spending that kind of money on something actually useful. Then,
of course, there are risks: the chance that some of these extra
weapons will be used in wars, and everything that entails. Risks
on that level cannot even be hedged against.
[01-09]:
Jobs report and remembering Renee Good "The official response
to the killing of Renee Good — marked by falsehoods from Trump
administration figures — signals a dangerous erosion of
accountability for state violence."
[01-12]:
Three bad items and three good items in the December jobs report:
"The December jobs report shows a softening labor market, with higher
underemployment offset by lower unemployment and slightly faster wage
growth."
[01-12]:
Donald Trump, Mineral Man, vs. sodium batteries: "Trump's mineral
strategy is undermined by China's move toward sodium batteries that
make lithium less critical."
[01-13]:
The billionaires and the November election: "Markets barely
reacted after Trump moved to threaten the independence of the
Federal Reserve."
[01-14]:
Trump takes responsibility for post-pandemic inflation: Trump's
attempt to blame Biden for inflation nearly a year into his term
undercuts his own record and exposes the lagged effects of Trump-era
policies."
[01-15]:
Can the AI folks save democracy? "The AI stock bubble is sustaining
Trump's political support — and its collapse could change US
politics fast."
[01-16]:
We're paying the tariffs #53,464: "Import price data confirm
that Trump's tariffs are largely a tax on Americans, not foreign
countries.
[01-19]:
Trump wants to hit us with a huge tax hike for his demented Greenland
dreams: "Trump's Greenland fixation would hit Americans with a
massive tariff tax while serving no real security or economic
purpose."
[01-19]:
Time for Europe to use the nuclear option: Attack US patent and
copyright monopolies: "Trump's Greenland obsession would raise
prices for Americans, while Europe has a far more effective response
by suspending US patent and copyright protections." As I noted under
Greenland above, this is the kind of
medicine that's actually good for you.
[01-21]:
Patent applications drop 9.0 percent in 2025: not good news:
I doubt the signal here is as strong as Baker thinks, but that
Trump is having a negative impact on research and development is
almost certainly true, and only likely to get worse. The obvious
one is that many (most?) engineers in America are immigrants,
and Trump is trying to drive them away. He's also undermining
education, and any sort of culture of innovation. His tariffs
help companies profit without having to compete, and amnesty
for criminals will only make fraud more attractive. But I don't
feel sad here, because I think patents are bad in general. By
the way, Baker also has a section on "The Imagined Crisis: China
Running Out of People." This is, of course, wrong on many levels.
[01-23]:
Spending under Trump: drugs up, factories down. Trump claims
"he lowered drug prices 1,500 percent and we're bringing in $18
trillion in foreign investment." The former is mathematically
impossible, and the latter is nearly as absurd. And that's without
even going into the question of what foreign investment does to a
country: mostly it means that they own it, and now you're working
for them.
[01-24]:
Mark Carney: world hero: a take on the Canadian Prime Minister's
Davos speech, also noted
elsewhere.
[01-25]:
When it comes to the stock market, Trump is a loser.
[01-26]:
Doing well by doing good: dump your American stocks.
[01-27]:
Donald Trump's $300 billion temper tantrum over Canada: "Feel
like paying another $2,400 a year in taxes because an old man suffering
from dementia got humiliated? . . . Donald Trump is threatening to
impose a 100 percent tax (tariff) on items we import from Canada.".
Ray Moulton [12-30]:
Children and helical time: Starts with a chart which asserts that
half of your subjective experience of life occurs in childhood, between
age 5 ("start of long term memory") and 20 ("midpoint of subjective
life"). The math is just a log function. The question is whether this
intuitively makes sense. I'm not sure it does, and not sure it doesn't.
Perhaps that's because most of the story is focused on kids, and I only
know about being one, not about having them, or even much about living
vicariously through other folks' kids. But I do feel that, in thinking
about memory, I feel an intensity of focus between ages 5-20 that I
lack for anything that came after then
Ian Millhiser: Vox's legal beat reporter,
author of Injustices (2015). If he writes a sequel, it will be
twice as long and only cover 10 years. Some more pieces filed
elsewhere.
[12-01]:
Congress is the Supreme Court's favorite punching bag, and it's
about to get decked: "The GOP justices are about to hand Trump
a victory they have been dreaming about since he was married to
Ivana." The case is Trump v. Slaughter. Scroll down for
the "preordained result." Trump wants to be able to fire at will
government officials whose jobs are supposed to be independent,
and therefore protected from presidential dictates. Rebecca
Slaughter is a member of the Federal Trade Commission.
[12-02]:
Republicans want the Supreme Court to save them from their own inept
mistake: "Meanwhile, Texas Republicans want to immunize their
gerrymander from constitutional review."
[12-03]:
Republicans ask the Supreme Court to gut one of the last limits on
money in politics: "The Court already killed most US campaign
finance law. NRSC v. FEC is likely to give big donors even
more influence."
[12-04]:
The Supreme Court case that could redefine "cruel and unusual,"
explained: "Hamm v. Smith is a death penalty case, but it could
have big implications for anyone acused of a crime."
[12-05]:
The Supreme Court just made gerrymandering nearly untouchable:
"The Court's Texas decision is a victory for Republicans, and it is
a terrible blow to all gerrymandering plaintiffs."
[12-05]
The Supreme Court takes up the most unconstitutional thing Trump has
done: "There is no plausible argument that Trump's attack on
birthright citizenship is constitutional."
[12-08]
How the Supreme Court is using Trump to grab more power for itself:
"The Court's GOP majority wants to grow Trump's authority, but also give
itself a veto power over the president."
[12-10]
The Supreme Court sounds surprisingly open to a case against a death
sentence: "The justices seemed to reject Justice Neil Gorsuch's
earlier call for major changes to the rules governing punishment."
[12-19]
The case against releasing the Epstein files: "DOJ has strong norms
against releasing information outside of a criminal trial, and for good
reasons."
[12-23]
The culture war is consuming the Supreme Court: "The Court's
overall docket is shrinking, even as it hears more and more cases
dealing with Republican cultural grievances."
[12-23]
The Supreme Court just handed Trump a rare — and very significant
— loss: "Even some of the Court's Republicans ruled that his
attempt to use troops against US citizens went too far."
[01-06]
Republicans accidentally protected abortion while trying to kill
Obamacare: To thwart Obamacare, Wyoming passed a state constitutional
amendment which says: "each competent adult shall have the right to make
his or her own health care decisions." Oops.
[01-07]
The Supreme Court confronts the trans rights movement's toughest legal
battle: "Trans advocates would face a difficult road in the sports
cases, even if the Court weren't dominated by Republicans."
[01-07]
Trump's revenge campaign is now putting the entire Justice Department
at risk: "One of Trump's most high-profile DOJ appointments faces
a rare disciplinary threat from the bench." Lindsey Halligan, one
of Trump's personal lawyers, and one of several dubious temporary
prosecutor appointments, noted for filing charges against James
Comey and Letitia James that her predecessor had declined.
[01-07]
Can Minnesota prosecute the federal immigration officer who just killed
a woman? "The short answer is that it is unclear."
[01-13]
The Supreme Court is about to confront its most embarrassing decision:
"The Court must deal with the chaos it created around guns."
[01-13]
The Supreme Court seems poised to deliver another blow to trans
rights.
Pete Tucker [12-04]:
How the game is played: Pull quote talks about how the Koch network
put Antonin Scalia's name on the George Mason law school, and added
something called "the Global Antitrust Institute" ("which works to
ensure that Big Tech isn't broken apart like the monopoists of over
a century ago"). But the article itself starts with a long prelude
on Stephen Fuller, a Washington Post-favored pundit whose "quotes
came cloaked in academic objectivity, owing to his dual titles as
an economics professor at George Mason University and leader of the
school's Center for Regional Analysis" (later renamed the Stephen S.
Fuller Institute).
Jeffrey St Clair:
[12-12]:
Gaza Diary: They bulldozed mass graves and called it peace.
The only things that are dated here are the number of Palestinians
killed since the "cease fire," and the amount of money the US has
spent in aid to Israel, including military operations in Yemen,
Iran, and the wider region (then pegged at $31.35-$33.77 billion
since 2023-10-07).
[12-19]:
Roaming Charges: The politics of crudity and cruelty: Starts
with a story about Rob Reiner, which leads into his murder, followed
by Trump's tweet, where Reiner "passed away, together with his wife,"
after long suffering from "the anger he caused others through his
massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling
disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME." As St Clair notes:
This is evidence of a sick mind: petty, petulant, crude and
sadistic . . . but but also one that likely needed help writing this
depraved attack on two people whose blood was still wet from having
their throats slit by their own tormented son, since the words
"tortured" "unyielding" and "affliction" don't come naturally to
Trump's limited lexicon.
Some more notes (and I'm writing this nearly a month after the
fact):
In the last five years, the wealthiest 20 Americans increased
their net worth from $1.3 trillion to $3 trillion. Whether the economic
policies are those of the neoliberals or the Trump Republicans, the
same people keep making out.
David Mamet has always been a jackass, but whatever's below
rock bottom, he just hit it . . . [Reference to Mamet's piece, "Why
Dr King, Malcolm X and Charlie Kirk were modern prophets."]
Erika Kirk, already a millionaire before the Lord Almighty
claimed her husband, has raked in another $10 million+ since Charlie
ascended to the heavens, according to a report in the Daily Mail.
It really is the prosperity gospel!
John Cassidy, writing in the New Yorker, on how the Trump
family ventures have cashed in on his presidency:
As the anniversary of Donald Trump's return to the White House
approaches, keeping up with his family's efforts to cash in is a
mighty challenge. It seems like there is a fresh deal, or revelation,
every week. Since many of the Trump or Trump-affiliated ventures are
privately owned, we don't have a complete account of their finances.
But in tracking company announcements, official filings, and the
assiduous reporting of several media outlets, a clear picture emerges:
enrichment of the First Family on a scale that is unprecedented in
American history . . . in terms of the money involved, the geographic
reach, and the explicit ties to Presidential actions — particularly
Trump's efforts to turn the United States into the "crypto capital of
the world" — there has never been anything like the second term
of Trump, Inc.
[12-25]:
Goodbye to language: the year in Trumpspeak. The earth's atmosphere
is divided into various layers — troposphere, stratosphere,
ionosphere (which now seems to be subsumed into the mesosphere) —
as the density of air changes various physical properties. Perhaps
we could subdivide the media into analogous layers. One would be
the Trumposphere: the fantasy realm where only what Trump says —
and to some extent what others say about Trump, although that's reported
mostly to keep the focus on Trump — and this seems to account for
at least a third of all "national" news. This is a long piece which
offers pretty comprehensive documentation of 2025 in the Trumposphere.
It is horrifying, or would be if you weren't so used to it by now.
[12-05]:
Roaming Charges: Kill, kill again, kill them all: Starts with
this:
Pete Hegseth is a producer of snuff films. The media-obsessed, if not
media-savvy, Hegseth has produced 21 of these mass murder documentary
shorts in the last three months, featuring the killings of 83 people
— if you take his word for it. Hegseth introduces these kill
shots like Alfred Hitchcock presenting an episode of his old TV show
— without the irony, of course. There's no irony to Pete
Hegseth. No intentional irony, that is. It's all bluster and
protein-powder bravado to titillate the Prime-time Fox audience as
they nibbled at their TV dinners. . . .
The irony, lost on Hegseth, is that these are the precise kinds of
videos that ethical whistleblowers like Chelsea Manning used to scrape
from the secret vaults of the Pentagon and ship to Wikileaks. Videos
of crimes committed by US forces. In his dipsomaniacal mind, Hegseth
seems to believe these snuff films are proof of the power and virility
of the War Department under his leadership. In fact, each video is a
confession. The question is: will he be held to account and who will
have the guts to do it?
[01-09]:
Roaming Charges: An ICE cold blood. Opens with:
Many of the people who have spent the last five years denouncing the
killing of Ashli Babbitt for raiding the Capitol in an attempt to
overturn an election are celebrating the murder of Renee Nichole Good,
a terrified mother killed by masked men from unmarked cars who chased
her down a neighborhood street and shot her in the face. . . .
These kinds of raids, while shocking to most Americans, are familiar
to many immigrants from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, countries
still haunted by the death squads funded, armed and trained by the CIA.
Horrors that they fled and have now reappeared like ghosts from the
past here on the streets of Chicago and Minneapolis and Los Angeles.
They know all too well that collateral damage is a feature of all
paramilitaries.
With the murder of Renee Good, ICE has now advanced from scaring
the hell out of American citizens to killing them.
Also lots of good information here on Venezuela, including "The
New York Times interviews Beelzebub [Elliott Abrams] on Venezuela,
who, surprise!, wants more kidnappings and bloodshed." He also
notes that Israel has violated the ceasefire 969 times over 80
days, "including the killing of 420 Palestinians, the wounding
of 1,141 and allowing only 40% of the aid tracks mandated by the
truce into Gaza." Also: "Israel has killed more than 700 relatives
of Palestinian journalists in Gaza." Also:
Stephen Miller: "We live in a world, in the real world, Jake,
that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is
governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world since the
beginning of time." Almost invariably, people who have lived by
this "iron law" have tended to come to rather unpleasant ends.
[I would have unpacked this view rather differently. One of the
maxims I learned early was "power corrupts, and absolute power
corrupts absolutely." Even if one starts with good intentions,
the resort to power perverts them, and ultimately becomes an
obsession with obtaining and defending ever more power. And
that, of course, produces a backlash, which if unsuccessful
drives the powerful to ever greater atrocities. Whether such
people die in a bunker like Hitler or in bed like Stalin isn't
really the issue. Either way, their memory is cursed by our
wish to have stopped them earlier. Of course, if you don't
start with good intentions, you descend faster, as Miller has
done.]
Of course, there was something deeply wrong with this
country long before Donald Trump came to power. Imagine playing
a New Year's Day football game just down the road from Ground
Zero in Nagasaki, as a celebration of an atomic blast that
killed 70,000 people only five months earlier?
[01-16]:
Roaming Charges: What a fool believes:
It's revolting, but hardly surprising, that a woman (Kristi
Noem) who thought bragging about the time she shot her puppy in the
head for disobeying a command and dumped its body in a gravel quarry
would advance her political career, also thinks it's entirely justified
to shoot a mother of three in the head for "disobeying" confusing
commands from her ICE agents.
Trump has sent 13.6% of all ICE agents to Minneapolis, a city
that represents .13% of the population of the United States.
[01-23]:
Roaming Charges: Are we not men? No, we are DAVOS: "But a funny
thing happened on the way to Davos":
The stock market collapsed. The Prime Minister of Canada cut a trade
pact with China and urged other countries to do the same. Denmark told
Trump to fuck off (literally). Unhelpfully for Trump, the Russians
chose this week to publicly endorse his scheme to snatch Greenland
from the Danes. The European Union, usually so timid and fractious,
resisted his impetuous bullying and threatened to join military
exercises in defense of Greenland and levy retaliatory tariffs of
their own against the increasingly frail US economy.
Trump landed a deflated man. During his nearly incoherent speech at
the World Economic Forum, Trump looked morose and sounded peevish. The
words slurred, the fraying sentences trailing off into the ether. His
insults lacked fire and punch. He rambled aimlessly. His cognitive
decline, never a fall from alpine heights to begin with, was on full
public display.
Was this the fearsome tyrant, so many had trembled in obeisance
before? He looked like an old man, frail in body, infirm in mind. Not
the new Sun King of his cult-stoked fantasies, but a patriarch deep
into his autumn, struggling to find the words for retreat. Trump's
strategy (if you can call it that) for cultivating more enemies than
friends was always doomed to backfire on him. The only question was
how long it would take and how many he'd drag down with him.
So, Trump backed down. The intemperate bombast was spent, replaced
by wheezing and stammering. He backed down on invading Greenland. He
backed down on imposing new tariffs against European nations. He
backed down in front of the elites he both despises and envies.
Bullet points:
Bari Weiss memo to CBS News reporters and anchors: "Yes,
Trump referred to Greenland as Iceland 7 times in his speech, but
make clear that he referred to Greenland as Greenland 13 times."
This week, there was another death in ICE custody. That's 6
in the last 18 days, one every 72 hours — not counting the
people they shoot in their cars.
Matt McManus [01-02]:
Why Fascists always come for the Socialists first: "Here's why
the left poses such a threat to them." This is a long and very well
researched and thought out piece. I've long been skeptical of the
usefulness of labeling anyone fascist, but I've changed my thinking
somewhat over the past year. I think the key thing is that we mostly
understand events through historical analogy. Those of us on the left
were quick to pick up the early warning signs of fascism, but as long
as alternative explanations were possible, most people resisted the
diagnosis. What's different now is that we've reached the point where
fascism is the only close historical analogy. Sure, there are minor
minor deviations, but no other historical analogy comes close. The
point of identifying Trump as a fascist is less to check off a list
of similarities than an assertion that we take him very seriously as
a threat to our world. While many other comparisons may occur to us,
none quite match our fear of fascism.
Eric Levitz [01-12]:
The fiction at the heart of America's political divide: I don't
quite understand why someone who recognizes and basic difference
between left and right can twist himself in such knots of nonsense
as the Hyrum and Verlan Lewis book The Myth of Left and Right.
Levitz shows he understands the difference when he writes:
The ideological spectrum was born in France about 237 years ago. At
the revolutionary National Assembly in 1789, radicals sat on the left
side of the chamber and monarchists on the right, thereby lending
Western politics its defining metaphor: a one-dimensional continuum
between egalitarian revolution and hierarchical conservation. The more
a faction (or policy) promoted change in service of equality, the
farther left its place on this imaginary line; the more it defended
existing hierarchies in the name of order, the farther right its spot.
There are some corollaries, but that's it: hierarchy on the right,
equality on the left. Perhaps the most obvious corollary is that the
right's defense of hierarchy is inherently unpopular, so they are
quick to defend it with violence. The left, on the other hand, has
become increasingly opposed to violence. This should be simple, but
Levitz, like most political analysts, likes to muddy the waters by
saddling left and right with arbitrary positions on other issues
that don't intrinsically divide between hierarchy and equality.
He doesn't fully accept the Lewis case that parties are just
competing interest groups whose policy differences follow group
rather than ideological dynamics, but he readily assumes that
all Democrats are leftist and all Republicans are on the right.
Robert P Baird [01-15]:
The crisis whisperer: how Adam Tooze makes sense of our bewildering
age: "Whether it's the financial crash, the climate emergency
or the breakdown of the international order, historian Adam Tooze
has become the go-to guide to the radical new world we've entered."
There's more here — Tooze has moved from academia into the
public intelligentsia racket as impressively as anyone else I can
think of, and that includes Jill Lepore, Paul Krugman, and Stephen
J Gould — but let's start with the section on Biden Democrats
that Jeffrey St Clair pointed me to:
It was notable, then, that after joining the Brussels panel, Tooze
didn't waste much time before stating flatly that the Biden team had
"failed in its absolutely central mission, which was to prevent a
second Trump administration". Not only that, he argued, but the
dismantling of the liberal world order — something discussed
with much rueful lamentation at the conference — had been
hastened, not hindered, by the Biden veterans on stage. As he'd
written a few months earlier, Tooze saw Biden no less than Trump
aiming "to ensure by any means necessary" — including
strong-arming allies — "that China is held back and the US
preserves its decisive edge".
"I feel the need to say something," [Katherine] Tai said, when
Tooze was finished. She recalled a parable Martin Sheen had delivered
in front of the White House during the 25th anniversary celebration of
The West Wing, the haute-liberal political fantasia that remains a
touchstone for professional Democrats. Sheen's story concerned a man
who shows up at the gates of heaven and earns an admonishment from St
Peter for his lack of scars. "Was there nothing worth fighting for?"
St Peter asked the man. Tai turned the question on Tooze: "Where are
your scars, Adam? I can show you mine."
Recalling this exchange several months later, Tooze was still
flabbergasted. "I'd be silly if I didn't admit that it was a bruising
encounter," he told me recently, in one of three long conversations we
had over the past year. Nevertheless, he said, "it confirmed my
underlying theory about what was going on. These were a group of
entirely self-satisfied American liberal elites who were enacting a
morality tale in which Sheen and The West Wing and that whole highly
sentimental vision of power and politics is a central device. She says
this, I think, meaning to sound tough, like, 'I'm the warrior. Who are
you? You're just some desktop guy.' Which just shows how little she
understands what I'm saying, which is: 'You people are a bunch of
sentimental schmucks who don't understand that you lost. If you had
any self-respect, you would not be on any podium again, ever, sounding
off about anything. Because comrades, if we were in the 30s, I would
have taken you out and shot you. You fail like this, you don't get to
come back and show off your wounds.'"
That's a bit extreme for me: the 30s aren't exactly remembered for
best political practices, and even as a lapsed Christian I'm still
inclined to forgive sins that are sincerely repented. But Tai and her
other Biden hands not only haven't repented for their failures, they're
still in denial, blind-sided by events they thought they were handling
just fine. (In this, the Queen Bee of denial remains Hillary Clinton,
which is why she has absolutely nothing to contribute to the party she
once led.) The piece has much more on Tooze — enough to convince
me to order his book Crashed. It also summarizes a critique of
him by Perry Anderson.
Kate Wagner [01-21]:
The Line, a Saudi megaproject, is dead: "It was always doomed to
unravel, but the firms who lent their name to this folly should be
held accounable." I knew nothing about this project, so found the
Wikipedia entry to be helpful background. Also see the longer
List of Saudi Vision 2023 projects, of which NEOM (including
The Line and Trojena) was by far the most expensive. This reminds
me of some of the Shah's extravagant projects shortly before the
revolution overthrew his regime. I've been thinking a bit about
Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf states in relationship to the
"resource
curse" theory, which explains so much of what went wrong with
Venezuela. Saudi Arabia doesn't look like the economic basket case
we find in Venezuela and Iran, but perhaps that's just because
they've been able to keep selling oil, and thereby able to keep
their own bubble economies from collapsing. They've managed this
by being very submissive to the US and western capitalism, while
they've managed political stability at home through a generous
welfare state for their citizens, combined with the large-scale
import of "guest" workers. Still, their oil wells generate so
much money that they wind up investing in a lot of extravagant
schemes — the Line is relatively benign, at least compared
to the jihad-fanning, gun-running, war-mongering adventurism in
Yemen, Syria, Sudan, Libya, Afghanistan, etc. In terms of GDP,
these petrostates are among the richest in the world, but one
can't help but feel that there is rot and mold just under the
surface, and that whole edifices could suddenly collapse (as
they did in Iran, Iraq, Libya, and Venezuela). Also that the
risk of that happening is much sharper with megalomaniacs in
charge like Mohammed Bin Salman, and especially as Trump turns
the US into a pure gangster state.
Chas Danner [01-24]:
All the terms you need to know for the big winter storm: "From
frost crack to Arctic blast to thunder ice."
Music end-of-year lists: I started collecting these when they
were few and far between, and didn't keep it up. See the
AOTY Lists
for more. Also the Legend
for my
EOY Aggregate. While
substantial (2776 albums), I've done a very poor job of keeping
this file up to date, as is obvious when you compare this year's
legend (116 sources) to the one from
2024 (610 sources).
While I'm likely to add more data to this year's EOY aggregate,
I'm unlikely ever again to match the 2024 total.
Albumism:
The 50 best albums of 2025
Pitchfork:
Pitchfork's 50 best albums of 2025
Rolling Stone:
Rolling Stone's 100 best albums of 2025
Tris McCall:
Pop music abstract 2025: Not a best-of list, as this starts with
disses of Addison Rae and Alex G. Interesting to read so much detail
on records that simply sailed past me without a serious thought.
Geese, for instance, or FKA Twigs. Or Rosalía ("your guess is as
good as mine about how she gets away with this shit").
Dave Moore:
Phil Overeem [Living to Listen] [01-01]:
It will not end here: My 25 favorite records of 2025 (if you don't
give me any more time to think about it)
Chuck Eddy [Poplar Mucilage] [01-15]:
150 best albums of 2025: Chuck Eddy's Substack, message says
"Continue reading this post for free, courtesy of Chuck Eddy,"
but when I click on "Claim my free post" I get "Get the free
Substack app to unlock this post," with a QR code. The email link
is to the app, not to the article. I've never used the app, and
don't want to, although having a Substack of
my own I'm not incurious about how this crap works.
Brad Luen [Semipop Life] [01-24]:
The 15th Annual Expert Witness Poll: Results
Brooklyn Vegan:
Thurston Moore picks the "350 Best Records of 2025": Article
includes top-50, which is good because Moore's own list has vanished.
A lot of very obscure jazz albums there.
Of course, the most important EOY list [for me, anyhow] is:
The 20th Annual Francis
Davis Jazz Critics Poll: See the essays on ArtsFuse, by yours
truly except as noted:
On listmaking:
Album of the Year:
2025 music year end list aggregate: Rosalia edging out Geese
(413-404) was a surprise, especially as a late-breaker among two
albums I didn't especially are for, but both the landslide wins
over two of my A- records — Wednesday (203) and CMAT (187)
— and a following mixed bag: my A- records were by Clipse
(6), Lily Allen (11), Billy Woods (14), Water From Your Eyes (27),
Big Thief (29), Sudan Archives (32), Tyler Childers (43), and
Rochelle Jordan (50). One interesting note here is that they
systematically devalue unranked lists, allowing 5 points each
if the list is 10 albums or less, 3 for 25 or less, and 1 for
ore than 25 albums; ranked lists are given 10 points for 1st
place, 8 for 2nd, 6 for 3rd, 5 for top 10, 3 for top 25, 1 for
other. That's a bit more generous to unranked lists than my
own scheme for my
EOY aggregate,
and also offers a bit more spread for 1-2-3 albums, but the
basic logic is similar.
Some miscellaneous music links:
Tom Lane [01-20]:
2026 Rock Hall Nominee Predictions: Something I have no opinion
about, not least because I have no idea who's in or out, what the
eligibility rules are, and therefore who's missing, even though
hall of fames are something that has always fascinated me. My
rough impression is that the R&R HOF has always been too lax
in its selections, unlike virtually every other HOF. (In jazz,
DownBeat's HOF is hopelessly backlogged, and their peculiar
Veterans Commitee rules have actually made the missing seem to
be more glaring.) Only one on this list I'd be tempted to vote
for is B-52s, although Beck had a couple of very good albums,
my early dislike of De La Soul may have been misguided, and I
wouldn't scoff at Oasis or Luther Vandross (although I wouldn't
pick them either). Speaking of B-52s, I wonder whether Pere Ubu
is in, and if not why not?
[Not:
eligible in 2001.] They're linked in my mind because I saw both
bands at Max's Kansas City in the late 1970s, back when they both
only had singles (and really great ones at that).
- RiotRiot [01-28]:
RIOTRIOT's official 2026 Grammys predictions: I'm not sure I ever
took the Grammys seriously, but certainly not after Robert Christgau
skewered them in 2001's
Forever Old. But this suggests they're not a total wasteland,
for someone who knows where to look.
Nathan J Robinson [01-20]:
Jesse Welles is the antidote to everything that sucks about our
time. I was tipped off to the folksinger-songwriter recently,
and will review albums in the next Music Week.
Books:
Sasha Abramsky: American Carnage: How Trump, Musk, and DOGE Butchered
the US Government: "follows eleven federal workers, in eight
government agencies, from the time they were told they were fired in
the early weeks of Donald Trump's second presidential administration
through to the summer of 2025. . . . Their stories, which show a
country in a profound moment of crisis and dislocation, are America's
stories. What happened to them — the bullying, the intimidation,
the deliberate removal of financial stability — also happened
to hundreds of thousands of other employees."
Sven Beckert: Capitalism: A Global History:
Nelson Lichtenstein [12-04]:
Sven Beckert's chronicle of capitalism's long rise. Review
provides what looks like a good summary of the book, which is
huge and sprawling. Most interesting point to me is that he
starts early and looks everywhere:
"There is no French capitalism or American capitalism," writes
Beckert, "but only capitalism in France or America." And there is also
capitalism in Arabia, India, China, Africa, and even among the
Aztecs. In his narrative of merchants and traders in the first half of
the second millennium, Beckert puts Europe on the margins, offering
instead a rich and, except for specialists, unknown account of how the
institutions vital to commerce and markets, including credit,
accounting, limited partnerships, insurance, and banking flourished,
in Aden, Cambay, Mombasa, Guangzhou, Cairo, and Samarkand. These are
all "islands of capital," a recurrent metaphor in Beckert's book. For
example, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Aden was host to a
dense network of merchants who played a pivotal role in the trade
between the Arabian world and India. It was a fortified, cosmopolitan
city of Jews, Hindu, Muslims, and even a few Christians.
Capitalism spread from these "islands of capital," initially through
trade but increasingly through war, especially where forced labor proved
advantageous for producing fungible goods.
Seven Beckert [11-04]:
The old order is dead. Do not resuscitate. The "old order" he
is referring to is what is commonly alled "the neoliberal order"
("and that held sway until very recently"):
Capitalism is a series of regime changes. Thinking about what unites
them will help us better navigate the current reverberations and think
more productively about the future. All these transitions, and perhaps
the present one as well, were characterized by the inability of the
old regime, in the face of economic crisis and rebellions, to
reproduce itself. All featured disorientation, and an elite belief
that a few tweaks to the old order would allow it to continue. All
confronted a world in which the previous economic regime felt like
the natural order of things — slavery in the mid-19th century,
laissez faire in the 1920s, Keynesian interventionism in the 1960s
and market fundamentalism in the 2000s.
Not once was the old regime resurrected. Instead, capitalism
forged ahead in entirely new directions. We had better accept this
about today, as well.
Unclear what his answer is here, or even whether he has one.
He sees critiques of neoliberalism both on the left and on the
right. He notes that "China was never beholden to the neoliberal
agenda." Also that "the politicization of markets is rapidly
making a comeback," for which he offers both Trump and Biden
examples.
Marc J Dunkelman: Why Nothing Works: Who Killed Progress —
and How to Bring It Back:
Sean Illing [01-12]:
How America made it impossible to build: "A system built to stop
government from doing harm stopped it from doing anything." An
interview with Dunkelman. I'm someone who's strongly oriented
toward building things, so I should be sympathetic to books like
this (the more famous one is Abundance), but I often choke
when I see actual project proposals (especially things like new
sports stadia). One thing I agree with here is "the trust problem
is enormous." That's largely because projects are being driven by
private greed-or-glory-heads, and depend on public finance from
politicians beholden to their sponsors. What we need instead are
more projects driven by consumer/user groups, with compensation
for anyone adversely affected, and some clear criteria for when
the downside exceeds the benefits. If you could do that in a
system that most people could trust, ticking off the checkboxes
could go much quicker (and if they don't tick off, the reasons
will be clear, and not just a game of who bribes whom).
Miles Bryan/Astead Herndon [12-28]:
Ezra Klein's year of Abundance: We've kicked this around before,
so might as well file it here. Klein notes in here that his original
title was "Supply-Side Progressivism," which makes more explicit that
this is a pitch to business that at best hopes to trickle down some
more general value.
Eoin Higgins: Owned: How Tech Billionaires on the Right Bought the
Loudest Voices on the Left:
Ed Meek [08-02]:
How to buy left-wing journalists: Review of Owned,
where the most prominent journalists mentioned are Matt Taibbi
and Glen Greenwald.
Higgins follows Taibbi's investigation into Hunter Biden's laptop (a
favorite target of MAGA supporters). The Biden administration, with
Twitter's cooperation, may have suppressed information about
wrongdoing in these files, but Taibbi never really found anything
substantial. Meanwhile, he was critiqued by the left, relentlessly,
for investigating what partisans saw as a trivial distraction. This
led to Taibbi's move to Substack, where he has a big following.
Higgins points out that Substack was
funded by Andreessen (founder of Netscape) as a
way to move liberal journalists out of mainstream publications.
Along with creating a space for independent voices, Owned
posits that the right wing has been very effective at manipulating and
creating new media to influence Americans to support
Republicans. Substack was part of that
divide-and-conquer strategy.
I read Greenwald's initial 2006 book, How Would a Patriot
Act?, but didn't follow up with later books, and haven't
tried since he bowed out of The Intercept. I read Taibbi as long
as he was in Rolling Stone (but Rolling Stone itself is paywalled
these days), then followed him on Twitter. I read most of his
books up through 2019's Hate Inc.. He's always had a
weakness for both-sidesing (e.g., singling out "9-11 Truthers"
as a left-equivalent of the right's paranoid tendencies), but
his critical views of the right remained sharp. If he was still
freely available, I'd check him out. I don't consider him to
be a traitor/enemy, like David Horowitz.
I hadn't read that point about Substack before, but there is
considerable logic to it. Yglesias and Krugman are prime examples,
although their former publications are also paywalled these days.
I've rarely looked at their Substacks, but so far have managed to
see everything I've looked at. The bigger point is that they're
trying to price any sort of critical commentary out of the reach
of most folks. This follows the same general logic as the move to
quell student demonstrations in the 1980s by making college much
more expensive: on the one hand, you exclude the riff-raff; on the
other, you saddle those who survive the gauntlet with a lifetime
of debt, forcing them to keep their nose to the grindstone, which
is to say work for the increasingly dominant rich. They probably
didn't plan on Google and Facebook sucking up all of the advertising
revenue, but that's what's given them the chance to starve out any
sort of free press.
Will Solomon [2025-01-05]:
How tech billionaires bought the loudest voices on the left and
right: An early review of Eoin Higgins: Owned.
Eoin Higgins [12-27]:
Yes, I'm being sued by Matt Taibbi: This is the story that got
me looking at Higgins' book, so that's why I'm digging up links from
a year ago. I don't see a lot more, at least recent, on his Substack
(and sure, he has one) to stick around, but a couple titles are
Marjorie Taylor Greene makes her move and
Weasel World comes to Minnesota.
Gene Ludwig: The Mismeasurement of America: How Outdated Government
Statistics Mask the Economic Struggle of Everyday Americans:
Former Treasury official under Clinton, a connection that gets him a
nice blurb from Hillary here, set up a nonprofit in 2019 "dedicated
to improving the economic well-being of low- and middle-income
Americans through research and education," starting with his 2020
book,
The Vanishing American Dream: A Frank Look at the Economic Realities
Facing Middle- and Lower-Income Americans.
Jared Bernstein [10-03]:
Measuring the Vibecession: "Why top-line federal statistics miss
the economic pain average Americans feel." Biden's best economic
adviser reviews Ludwig's book, quibbling that the standard measures
aren't "mismeasurement" but merely incomplete. For instance, the
Consumer Price Index is an average, which masks different impacts
among various groups. Unemployment understates underemployment
and other precarity.
Harriet Malinowitz: Selling Israel: Zionism, Propaganda, and the
Uses of Hasbara:
Olivia Nuzzi: American Canto: A
journalist
of some fame and ill repute, wrote a memoir, teasing dirt on an
affair with RFK Jr.
Scaachi Koul [12-02]:
Olivia Nuzzi's book has the audacity to be boring: "Never mind
the dogshit writing, the self-mythologizing, the embarrassing metaphors.
How can you make this story so incredibly dull?"
Historians will study how bad this book is. English teachers will hold
this book aloft at their students to remind them that literally anyone
can write a book: Look at this, it's just not that hard to do. Three
hundred pages with no chapter breaks, it swerves back and forth
through time, from Nuzzi's interviews with Donald Trump over the years
to her combustible relationship with fellow annoying journalist Ryan
Lizza to her alleged affair with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as he was
running for president himself. Reading it is like spending time with a
delusional fortune cookie: platitudes that feel like they were run
through a translation service three times.
Tim Wu, The Age of Extraction: How Tech Platforms Conquered the
Economy and Threaten Our Future Prosperity:
Rhoda Feng [12-10]:
The internet's tollbooth operators: "Tim Wu's The Age of
Extraction chronicles the way Big Tech platforms have turned
against their users."
The process by which companies metastasize from creators into
extractors goes something like this: First, they make their platform
"essential to transactions"; next, they hobble or buy rivals; then,
they clone winners, lock partners in, and finally ratchet up fees for
both buyers and sellers. The convenience we prize — our
one-click orders, our autoplay queues — becomes, in Wu's mordant
phrase, "a long slow bet on laziness": a wager that users will
tolerate almost any indignity rather than face the costs of
leaving.
If the platform extraction model has become the dominant template
of 21st-century capitalism, Wu emphasizes that it is by no means
confined to technology. Since the 2008 financial crisis, investors
have begun platformizing entire industries and reorganizing them
around centralized ownership and predictable revenue streams.
He offers examples from health care and housing, showing that
this is not just a high-tech issue. But right now, big future
bets are being placed on tech monopolists:
According to a recent report by
Public Citizen, Trump's return to power has brought a bonanza for
Big Tech. Of the 142 federal investigations and enforcement actions
against technology corporations inherited from the previous
administration, at least 45 have already been withdrawn or halted. The
beneficiaries read like a who's who of Silicon Valley: Meta, Tesla,
SpaceX, PayPal, eBay, and a constellation of cryptocurrency and
financial technology firms.
Since the 2024 election cycle began, tech corporations and their
executives have spent an estimated $1.2 billion on political influence
— $863 million in political spending, $76 million in lobbying,
and a further $222 million in payments to Trump's
own businesses. The return on investment has been immediate: a
sweeping "AI Action Plan" directing the Federal Trade Commission to
review and, where possible, rescind consent decrees that "unduly
burden AI innovation." Among the cases at risk are investigations into
OpenAI and Snap for generative AI harms and antitrust cases against
Microsoft.
Tim Wu [10-25]:
Big Tech's predatory platform model doesn't have to be our future.
A few end-of-year books lists:
Some notable deaths: Mostly from the New York Times listings.
Last time I did such a trawl was on
November 24, so we'll look that far back (although some names have
appeared since):
[11-29]:
Tom Stoppard, award-winning playwright of witty drama, dies at 88.
[12-03]:
Steve Cropper, guitarist, songwriter and shaper of Memphis soul music,
dies at 84: "As a member of Booker T. & the MG's and as a
producer, he played a pivotal role in the rise of Stax Records, a
storied force in R&B in the 1960s and '70s." Discogs credits
him with 12 albums, 473 performances, 405 production, and 4437
writing & arrangement. The former includes a 2011 tribute to
the Five Royales I recommend. His side-credits include Otis Redding,
Wilson Pickett, and many more.
[12-12]:
Joseph Byrd, who shook up psychedelic rock, dies at 87: "A veteran
of the Fluxus art movement, he brought an anarchic spirit to the
California acid-rock scene with his band, the United States of
America." I remember him mostly for The American Metaphysical
Circus, by Joe Byrd and the Field Hippies, a 1969 album I bought
at a time when I had less than two dozen LPs. I don't recall it as
being very good, but it was a concept I was easily attracted to at
the time.
[12-15]:
Rob Reiner, actor who went on to direct classic films, dies at 78:
"After finding fame in All in the Family, he directed winning
films like This Is Spinal Tap, When Harry Met Sally . . . ,
and The Princess Bride and got involved in liberal politics."
I guess this is showing my age, but he'll always be "Meathead" to me,
and he'll never be as famous as his father.
[12-15]:
Robert J Samuelson, award-winning economics columnist, dies at 79:
Washington Post columnist, one of the worst economics writers I've
ever encountered, both in his columns and in his book The Great
Inflation and Its Aftermath: The Past and Future of American Affluence,
where he tries to argue that the inflation of the 1970s was worse than
the Great Depression of the 1930s. But he likes recessions, figuring
they're a natural part of the business cycle. What he can't stand
is anything that might give workers a leg up: government spending,
low unemployment, labor rights. I don't know whether he was personally
miserable, but misery is what he prescribed for the rest of us.
[12-15]:
Joe Ely, Texas-born troubadour of the open road, dies at 78:
"Thanks to his eclectic style and tireless touring, he was among
the most influential artists in the early days of Americana alt
alt-country music." One of the Flatlanders out of Lubbock, his
1978 album Honky Tonk Masquerade is one of my all-time
favorite albums, a perfect sequence of songs which circulates
through my mind for weeks every time I replay it.
[12-16]:
Norman Podhoretz, literary lion of neoconservatism, dies at 95:
"A New York intellectual and onetime liberal stalwart, his Commentary
magazine became his platform as his political and social views turned
sharply rightward." I read him a bit back when Commentary was regarded
as a serious liberal magazine, enough of a connection so that his
later turn to the extreme far right felt like a betrayal, one I've
never found any substance in, just paranoia and chauvinism.
[12-26]:
Michal Urbaniak, pioneering jazz fusion violinist, dies at 82:
"One of the first jazz musicians from Poland to gain an international
following, he recorded more than 60 albums and played with stars like
Miles Davis." His following was aided by a move to New York in 1973,
while others who stayed home remained more obscure.
[12-28]:
Brigitte Bardot, movie idol who renounced stardom, dies at 91:
Iconic, unforgettable in my youth, although I'm not sure how many
of her movies I ever saw. I knew next to nothing about these:
[01-03]:
Asad Haider, leftist critic of identity politics, dies at 38:
"In Mistaken Identity: Race and Class in the Age of Trump,
he argued that focusing on identity obscured a more fundamental
injustice: economic inequality." I haven't read the book, but it
sounds like an analysis I share.
[01-13]:
Daniel Walker Howe, 88, revisionist historian of Jackson's America,
dies: "In a Pulitzer-winning book, he saw modern America's origins
not so much in one president's policies as in the sweeping social and
technological changes wrought in the years 1815-48." His big book was
What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848.
I read the book, and credit it with much of what I know about an
important period of transformation.
[01-13]:
Scott Adams, creator of the satirical 'Dilbert' comic strip, dies
at 68: "His chronicles of a corporate cubicle dweller was widely
distributed until racist comments on his podcast led newspapers
to cut their ties with him." As I recall, he was funnier before
he became successful enough to quit his office job, after which
he had to make shit up. Still, I've experienced instances of
"Mordac, Preventer of Information Services." He used to say he
more resembled the megalomaniac Dogbert than the nerdy Dilbert.
Worse than his racist blurting was his embrace of Trump, leading
to his 2017 book, Win Bigly: Persuasion in a World Where Facts
Don't Matter. It's not impossible that he was onto something
there.
[01-14]
Rebecca Kilgore, 76, dies; acclaimed interpreter of American
songbook: Last heard with Dave Frishberg, reprising an older
relationship. Often sang in swing/trad jazz groups, memorably
including Hal Smith and Harry Allen.
[01-18]:
Ralph Towner, eclectic guitarist with the ensemble Oregon, dies at
85: Also many albums on ECM.
Some other names I recognize:
Molly Jong-Fast [11-29]: Cites quote from
OpenAI is a loss-making machine, with estimates that it has no road
to profitability by 2030 — and will need a further $207 billion
in funding even if it gets there: "All of this falls apart if
humans don't adopt the tech. This is why you've seen Meta cram its
lame chatbots into WhatsApp and Instagram. This is why Notepad and
Paint now have useless Copilot buttons on Windows. This is why
Goodle Gemini wants to 'help you' read and reply to your emails."
Imagine if they just subsidized newspapers and magazines the way
they're subsidizing this slop
Doug Henwood [01-06]: Recalls a Michael Ledeen quote, from 1992:
"Every 10 years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small
crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the
world we mean business."
Tom Carson:
[01-16]:
Minneapolis or no Minneapolis, it's ridiculous and insulting to say
MAGA supporters are a bunch of Nazis. A good many of them, perhaps a
majority, are innocuous Nazi sympathizers, Nazi enablers, Nazi-neutral
in a Too Soon To Tell kinda way, Nazi-curious thanks to The Night
Porter or Ilsa, She-Wolf of The SS, or else plain dimwits who used to
go into daily comas during history classes back when they still had
'em at good old Lowenbrau High. There, does that clear everything up?
We may be angry, but that doesn't give us a license to be unfair.
-
[01-18]:
Some of you stunned people have caught on over the years I'm not the
world's biggest Trump fan. I know, I know, strange but true. But
that's not the most urgent business at hand. The bottom line is that
he's gone drooling loco, stone crazy, beyond barking mad, Old Yeller
would sue for plagiarism AND libel if they hadn't shot him and Rin Tin
Tin's gone MAGA and won't take the case, pretty soon Merriam-Webster
will redefine "white as a sheet" as the penultimate step in the
Republican Party before canonization. He's beyond Renee Good and Evel
Knievel, I stole that from Nietzsche but never trust a Kraut who can't
even take charge of his own mustache, let alone Poland, at least
Hitler knew how to dress for success. He's beyond delusional and so
deep in transactional the last man up his butt will have to bring
along a comb to tart up the President's hair. Arse brevis but hair
longa as Mussolini only wished with his drying Fred Trumpth I mean
dying breath, chump. Siri where's the nearest gas station he's all
hung up on learning to fly and you alone can fix it. He's as goofy as
the Black Plaque his dentist can't find a final ablution for, probably
a Jew ya know, you'd be getting long in the tooth yourself if we
hadn't taken care of those with the pliers, Dr. Rosenfeld. He's non
compos Mentos (he needs candy), looney as Looney iTunes, more gaga
than a gag order shutting Kristi Noem up for Christ's sake, just plain
nuts as the 101st Airborne used to say at Bastogne only this time
we'll get creamed, no sugar. He's got so many screws loose a
whorehouse madam would go bankrupt. And none of the earthworms in
baggy boxcar suits and red ties overrunning the WH, the Capitol, and
SCOTUS are going to do a blessed thing about it, so you can rest easy
in this green land, Mr. President. With love to Allen Ginsberg, your
fellow citizen, Tom.
[01-22]:
The interview I'm hoping to see, and who knows but I may get my
wish. Q: "General Spackleheimer, are you concerned about the
President's mental state?" SPACKLEHEIMER: "Well, I'm not a
psychiatrist, so I don't have any standing to attest to that as a
licensed mental-health expert, of course. That said, it's kind of
jazzy to remember I DO have standing as a professional soldier who's
got so many medals the Army had to tailor a special jacket that
currently reaches to my knees, and I'm as tall as Fred Gwynne on
stilts. So yeah, he's fucking nuts. I mean loco, [gestures with his
former saluting hand], zoom!, you know? I mean, we're so deep in the
shithouse all the cows are on strike."
[01-25]:
I'm a government/Washington D. C. brat and I'd like to think I can
recognize what a well-run Federal agency answerable to the public
looks like. So if anybody out there thinks ICE agents are a) only
hired if they meet rigorous standards qualifying them for
law-enforcement and public-safety duties, b) adequately supervised by
competent professionals who understand the Constitution and the Bill
of Rights, c) adequately overseen by a Congress alert to its
responsibilities as the public's watchdog and ready to restrict or
deny taxpayer dollars to ICE unless the agency submits to agreed-on
guardrails that protect citizens' rights and safety, d) adequately
backstopped by a rough popular, legislative and judicial consensus
regarding said agency's purpose and necessity, e) adequately
restrained by the consequences they'll face if they go rogue, and f)
adequately trained in any field other than brutality, street brawling,
and terrorizing their fellow Americans with threats of harassment,
sanctioned violence, and Mob-style murders of absolutely anyone who
gets in their way or just bugs the shit out of them, lemme
know.
Memes noted:
Original count: 459 links, 31382 words (38692 total)
Current count:
502 links, 34126 words (42166 total)
Ask a question, or send a comment.
Sunday, January 12, 2025
Music Week
January archive
(in progress).
Music: Current count 45431 [45382] rated (+49), 14 [9] unrated (+5).
I published a year-ending Music Week on
December 31,
or at least that's how I timestamped it. My only coincidentally a
New Years resolution was to not publish another until the
20th Annual Francis Davis Jazz Critics Poll was published.
The task of wrapping it up was potentially endless, and I had
to focus to get it done. My initial plan was to aim for Monday,
January 5, but I was nowhere near ready. That should have been
the first Music Week of 2026, but I had virtually no records to
report, and couldn't bother even filing a placeholder. I plugged
on, eventually aiming for the week of January 12. I circulated
drafts of essays on the website, and eventually caught the
attention of ArtsFuse editor William Marx. He figured they
were good enough to go, and so around noon today I relented,
and he published them. I sent him lots of corrections during
the day, and he kept up with them. Finally, I updated the
website, removing the block that kept people from seeing the
results and ballots. I added a table of contents, which I
should be able to just cut-and-paste here:
I had planned on beefing up the articles with extra notes from
voters and other readers, and indeed published a few. Even before
the weekend, I resolved not to hold the essays back until I was
satisfied with the comments. Marx agreed that we could add them
after publication, and that's my current plan. Ergo, I added this
paragraph:
These articles were initially published on January 12, 2026. They
are subject to further revision. In particular, we would like to
supplement these essays with additional comments that help explain
and elaborate on the poll. We welcome additional comments, which
you may submit to
25comments @ hullworks.net.
The email address is a temporary one I can kill off once it's
served its purpose. Anything that
gets to me will work just as well.
I wrote some more about what I'm looking for
here.
I also made this point in an email I sent out widely:
I plan on doing some more editing, adding some more interesting
points, and correcting whatever I screwed up. In particular, I have
more Notes to add, and invite everyone to send in more. There's an
email address for that purposes, but any route that reaches me should
work.
I hope you will read and enjoy what we've collectively created. I
also hope you will write or talk about it in your own media. Let me
know if there is anything I can do to help.
Francis always viewed this as a community project and service. In
this all I've tried to do is to live up to his example.
I throw these pleas out regularly — I made one on Substack
over the weekend, called
Editing Help Wanted — and very rarely get anything back.
I suppose on some level it helps me just to articulate such needs.
If I've learned anything from this poll cycle, it's that time marches
on inexorably, regardless of our desires or intentions. And that at
some point that becomes very depressing.
Anyhow, while the moment of needing editing help has passed —
not that my essays couldn't use more editing, but having been published
that's not so much my problem any more.
I'm rushing this out tonight so you can get the notice of the poll
while it's news. And also so I don't have to work on this, or any other,
post for a week or so. This week is not really going to be mine anyway.
A construction crew is showing up tomorrow morning to tear the roof off
the sucker, and slap a new one on. It's a big job, not so much because
the house is huge as because it was designed to make roofing work as
inconvenient as possible: most of the roof is two stories up, but there
are smaller bits around the sides and there's something like a skirt
between the first and second floors. There's also a carport/patio,
which has its own unique obstacles. This could very well take the
rest of the week, and I'll still have a railing to put up, and work
in the attic to do.
But the roofing job has been hanging over us for several months
now, so it will be a huge relief to get it done. As is getting the
poll done. Not sure what comes next, but I hope it's more interesting
and less wearing than 2025 has been. I should refrain from saying
much more about the future. And just feel fortunate to have gotten
this far.
Lots of records below. Almost all jazz. First part of the period
I tried listening to previously reviewed records, so reviewed next
to nothing. Then I switched gears and started picking off records
I had missed (and the poll has revealed much more I haven't gotten
to yet).
New records reviewed this week:
Sophie Agnel: Learning (2023-24 [2025], Otoroku):
French pianist, placed three records in the poll this year, started
with a solo album in 2000, come up with another here. An especially
striking panorama of sound.
B+(***) [bc]
Brigitte Beraha's Lucid Dreamers: Teasing Reflections
(2024 [2025], Let Me Out): British jazz singer-songwriter, albums
since 2002, third group album, with Alcyona Mick (piano/synth),
George Crowley (tenor sax/bass clarinet/electronics), and Tim Giles
(drums/electronics). As is often the case with originals, I'm slow
on the uptake here, but I am impressed by the jazz feel.
B+(***) [sp]
Blue Moods: Force & Grace (2024 [2025],
Posi-Tone): Mainstream label house band project, third album,
each focuses on a composer, this one on Freddie Hubbard, after
the first two addressed Charles Mingus and Duke Pearson. With
Diego Rivera (tenor/soprano sax), Art Hirahara or Jon Davis
(piano), Boris Kozlov (bass), and Vinnie Sperrazza (drums).
B+(**) [sp]
Silvia Bolognesi & Eric Mingus: Is That Jazz?
Celebrating Gil Scott-Heron Live (2024 [2025], Fonterossa):
Italian bassist, has a fairly wide range of projects since 2005.
Music by Brian Jackson and Scott-Heron, with Mingus handling the
words, punching hard and adding a few of his own.
B+(***) [bc]
Silvia Bolognesi: Jungle Duke (2024 [2025],
Caligola): Italian bassist, leads a group where Chicago saxophonist
Nick Mazzarella is listed as "featuring" through an Ellington
program, mostly early pieces from what's sometimes called the
"Bubber Miley era," although "Dreaming Suite" incorporates a
couple later works ("Ko-Ko," "Such Sweet Thunder").
B+(**) [sp]
Jakob Bro/Wadada Leo Smith/Marilyn Crispell/Andrew Cyrille:
The Montclair Session (2022 [2025], Loveland Music):
Danish guitarist, 20+ albums since 2003, including 8 on ECM, has
been developing relationships with some top players, including
this all-star trio on trumpet, piano, and drums.
B+(*) [sp]
Jakob Bro/Wadada Leo Smith/Marcus Gilmore: Murasaki
(2025, Loveland Music): Guitar/trumpet/drums trio, takes a while
for the trumpet to develop, impressive when it does.
B+(**) [bc]
Jakob Bro & Midori Takada: Until I Met You
(2024 [2025], Loveland Music): Danish guitarist, playing acoustic,
with percussion, piano, and marimba. Takada, from Japan, has been
around the world, starting in classical with a solo debut in Berlin,
moved on to Africa and Indonesia, with a 1983 album "considered an
essential recording of minimalist music in chime with the peak
period ambient and fourth world musics explored by Jon Hassell,
Don Cherry and Brian Eno."
B+(**) [sp]
Jakob Bro Large Ensemble: New Morning (2023 [2025],
Loveland Music): Eleven-piece group, up from his Nonet in 2007 (added
electric bass and keyboards; Bill McHenry took over tenor sax from
George Garzone).
B+(*) [sp]
Jakob Bro & Joe Lovano with Larry Grenadier, Thomas Morgan,
AC, Jorge Rossy & Joey Baron: Live at the Village Vanguard
(2023 [2025], Loveland Music): Bro (guitar) and Lovano (tenor sax)
recorded a Paul Motian tribute together in 2021. Lovano had played
in Motian's trio, along with guitarist Bill Frisell. The tribute
album slotted Bro for Frisell, doubled up on drums, and added two
double basses plus one bass guitar (AC, aka Anders Christensen).
So this is the same band live, reprising/revising most of their
originals, working in a couple more Motian pieces.
B+(***) [bc]
John Butcher/Phil Durrant/Mark Wastell: Around the Square,
Above the Hill (2024, Confront): British avant-saxophonist,
prolific since 1989, here with mandolin/electronics and drums, all
three having intersected many times over the years.
B+(*) [bc]
Caelan Cardello: Chapter One (2025, Jazz Bird):
Pianist, from New Jersey, first album only if you over look Rufus
Reid Presents Caelan Cardello, trio plus tenor sax (Chris Lewis)
on three tracks.
B+(**) [sp]
Dena DeRose: Mellow Tones (2024 [2025], HighNote):
Jazz singer, plays piano, debut 1998, cover says "with special guest
Ed Neumeister," but the trombonist only plays on the first and last
tracks, leaving seven trio tracks with bass (Martin Wind) and drums
(Matt Wilson). The trombone is, indeed, a plus, but she's always in
command.
B+(**) [sp]
Erez Dessel: Pro Fake No Reject (2024 [2025],
Corbett vs. Dempsey): Young pianist, first album, solo.
B+(*) [bc]
Nick Dunston: Reverse Broadcast (2022 [2025],
Carrier): Bassist, has several albums, notable side credits
with Mary Halvorson, Tyshawn Sorey, Ches Smith, and Anna Webber.
One 40:34 piece, with "processed radios" ahead of bass on his
credits list, and cover credits for Wet Ink Ensemble, Katherine
Young, Charmaine Lee, Nina Guo, Lester St. Louis,and Weston
Olencki. Some interesting moments, but not a concept I enjoy.
B [bc]
Nick Dunston: Colla Voce: Praylewd (2025,
Out of Your Head): "These long-form electronic pieces, crafted
from album samples, serve as a non-linear introduction or
follow-up to COLLA VOCE, reflecting cyclical themes of time,
life, and death."
B [bc]
El Infierno Musical: II (2025, Klanggalerie):
Austrian saxophonist Christof Kurzmann is listed as composer
here, reprising a group originally assembled for a 2011 tribute
to Argentinian poet Alejandra Pizarnik. Only Ken Vandermark
remains from the 2011 group, joined by Dave Rempis on sax and
flute, so Kurzmann's credit is reduced by computer and vocals.
Group is rounded out with two cellists (Katinka Kleijn, Lia
Kohl) and drums (Lily Finnegan). The saxes are well behaved,
the drums wide-ranging, and the spoken word interesting.
B+(**) [bc]
Kurt Elling/Christian Sands: Wildflowers Vol. 3
(2025, Big Shoulders): Jazz singer, since his 1995 Blue Note debut
probably the most famous and most widely admired male in the arena,
but while recognizing his technical mastery, I've never liked his
records (and this is number 20 for me). Not that the distinction
matters much, but as he's gotten older (58 now), his voice seems
to have deepened and slowed down, which makes him seem less
pretentious, but not really better. This is his third short album
(5 tracks, 28:03) backed by piano: Christian Sands here, after
Sullivan Fortner and Joey Calderazzo.
B- [sp]
Extraordinary Popular Delusions: The Last Quintet
(2023 [2025], Corbett vs. Dempsey): Late, probably the last record
recorded by Chicago saxophonist Mars Williams, struck by cancer
and dead within three months. Quintet adds a second saxophonist,
Edward Wilkerson Jr., plus Jim Baker (piano), Brian Sandstrom
(bass), and Steve Hunt (drums), with everyone supplementing their
primary credits, including digeridoo (Wilkerson), toys (Williams),
and "miscellaneous paraphernalia" (Hunt). Group name goes back
to a 2010 quartet (minus Wilkerson, who may have been added for
backup, and may have been the lead early, but Williams certainly
got his licks in later). Song titles may have come from Kim
Stanley Robinson, but the Mars featured here was in the room.
A- [bc]
Fred Hersch/Rondi Charleston: Suspended in Time: A Song
Cycle (2025, Resilience Music Alliance): Full cover credit
is "Music by Fred Hersch/Lyrics by Rondi Charleston." She sings,
he plays piano, backed by string quartet and two bassists.
B+(*) [sp]
Art Hirahara: Peace Unknown (2021 [2025],
Posi-Tone): Pianist, from San Francisco, based in New York, has
20+ albums since 2000, playing (along with Boris Kozlov on bass
and Rudy Royston on drums) on nearly everything his label has
released since 2020. Here he lines up their headliners: Diego
Rivera (tenor sax), Alex Sipiagin (trumpet), Patrick Cornelius
(alto sax), and Michael Dease (trombone), with Markus Howell
(alto sax) on two tracks. They can sound like a big band, which
isn't necessarily a plus.
B+(*) [sp]
Johnny Iguana: At Delmark: Chicago-Style Solo Piano
(2025, Delmark): Real name Brian Berkowitz, from Philadelphia,
moved to New York, then to Chicago in 1994, where he's mostly
played in blues bands, and has a previous album called Chicago
Spectacular: A Grand and Upright Celebration of Chicago Blues
Piano. Opens flexing his fingers on "Bass Key Boogie," then
throws you his first change up: "Heart of Gold." Then come five
originals, slipping in "You Never Can Tell" and ending with Jay
McShann.
B+(**) [sp]
Chris Ingham Quintet: Walter/Donald (2025,
Downhome): British pianist-singer, has written many reviews and
several books (Billie Holiday, Beatles, Frank Sinara), nothing
I can find to suggest he's related to Keith Ingham, has previous
project records on Hoagy Carmichael and Dudley Moore. This one
reprises 11 Steely Dan songs, and is dubbed "A Becker/Fagen
Songbook Volume 1." With Harry Greene (sax/guitar), Paul Higgs
(trumpet), bass, and drums.
B+(*) [bc]
Italian Surf Academy + Denver Butson: Ennio Morricone
Is Dissolving (2024 [2025], 41st Parallel): Italian
guitarist Marco Cappelli, from Naples, with Damon Banks (bass)
and Dave Miller (drums), fourth album since 2012; Cappelli's
various projects include an Acoustic Trio, a Derek Bailey
Tribute Band, an Extreme Guitar Project, work with Adam
Rudolph and Evan Parker. Butson is a Brooklyn-based poet, who
recites the title poem, with the group's music weaving bits of
Morricone soundtrack into the guitar jam, in one remarkable
28:54 piece.
A- [bc]
Martin Küchen/Mathias Landæus: Müæm (2023 [2024],
SFÄR): Swedish duo, saxophone (tenor/sopranino) riffing over beats
from analog synths and a drum machine, with various effects, minimal
preparation, and no overdubs. (Landæus usually plays piano, but not
here.)
B+(***) [bc]
Mathias Landæus/Nina de Heney/Kresten Osgood: Dissolving
Patterns (2023 [2025], SFÄR): Swedish pianist, 24 albums
since 1996, trio with bass and drums.
B+(**) [bc]
Hanna Paulsberg Concept & Elin Rosseland: Himmel Over
Hav (2023 [2025], Grappa): Norwegian tenor saxophonist,
fifth group album since 2012, Rosseland a Norwegian singer who
started in the 1980s.
B+(*) [bc]
Hery Paz: Fisuras (2024 [2025], Porta-Jazz/Carimbo):
Cuban saxophonist, based in New York, several albums since 2004,
starts with tenor but credit reads "woodwinds, claves & voice),
backed by Joao Carlos Pinto (keyboard/electronics), Demian Cabaud
(bass/flute/bombo legüero), and Pedro Melo Alves (percussion),
recorded live with Maria Monica ("all live visual sorcery").
Very strong in spots.
B+(**) [bc]
Marcelo dos Reis/Flora: Our Time (2025, JACC):
Portuguese guitarist, more than a dozen albums since 2012,
group name refers to one from 2023, same trio here: Miguel
Falcão (bass) and Luis Filipe Silva (drums).
B+(***) [bc]
Juan Romeros Manuella Orkester: Lua Armonia (2025,
Supertraditional): Argentinian-Swedish percussionist, better known
as Juan Romero, based in Stockholm, 30+ years of side credits,
including Fire! Orchestra and Cosmic Ear recently. Group with
sax (Julia Strzalek), trumpet (Goran Kajfes), keyboards, bass,
and drums, cuts a subtle groove.
B+(**) [sp]
Akira Sakata/Giotis Damianidis/Giovanni Di Domenico/Aleksandr
Škorić/Paal Nilssen-Love/Petros Damianidis/Tatsuhisa
Yamamoto: Hyperentasis: Live in Thessaloniki (2023-25
[2025], Defkaz): Two albums (91:23), the second recorded on the
Japanese alto saxophonist's 80th birthday, both with the Damiandis
brothers (guitar and bass), piano (Di Domenico), and drums
(Škorić on the first, the others on the second).
B+(***) [bc]
Boz Scaggs: Detour (2025, Concord): Singer-songwriter,
recorded a 1965 album, appeared in Steve Miller Band (1968), went
solo in 1969 and gold in 1974 but the hits faded after 1980. Tried
a standards album in 2003 (But Beautiful) and has several
now — I liked 2015's A Fool to Care. Doesn't seem to
have the voice for these songs, but acquits himself fairly well
anyway.
B+(**) [sp]
Noura Mint Seymali: Yenbett (2025, Glitterbeat):
Singer, plays ardine (some kind of harp), from Mauritania, comes
from a long line of Moorish griot, of which her step-mother Dimi
Mint Abba is extra famous.
B+(***) [bc]
Vinnie Sperrazza/Jacob Sacks/Masa Kamaguchi: Play Elmo
Hope (2024 [2025], Fresh Sound): Drums, piano, bass, part
of a series of nine albums, starting with Play Cy Coleman
in 2013, with the trio going back to 2010.
B+(**) [sp]
Kandace Springs: Lady in Satin (2025, SRP):
I've never liked Billie Holiday's 1958 album, and have no desire
to ever hear it again: I hated the string arrangements, and the
singer, whose recent Verve recordings were often still remarkable,
sounded like death warmed over. But the album does have admirers,
so I was tempted to overreact to this project, but some respect
is due. Springs isn't Holiday, but is an impressive singer, and
Orquestra Clássica de Espinho is fine as such things go.
B+(*) [sp]
Ben Stapp: Uzmic Ro'Samg (Live Solo Tuba) (2025,
577): Tuba player, came to my attention with a 2008 trio album,
shows up on occasional records (Steve Swell, Joe Morris, William
Parker). Solo records are always tough, especially for monophonic
horns, which tend to sound naked without the warm harmonics of a
bass, and to lag without the prodding of a drummer, and the
heavier instruments are especially slow and hard to maneuver.
Still, this is intriguing and entertaining, no matter how you
tune in or out. Includes some sousaphone, pedals, and effects.
B+(**) [dl]
David Virelles: Igbó Alákorin (The Singer's Grove) III
[Theatrical Cut] (2025, El Tivoli Productions): Cuban
pianist, moved to Canada in 2001, first album there 2007, later
on to New York with records on Pi and ECM. First two volumes of
this title were combined on a single CD in 2018, an exploration
of old Cuban themes and techniques developed with orchestra and
vocals. This is more rudimentary, or perhaps primitive, with
solo piano and UDO Super 6 synthesizer, some recorded direct
to wax cylinders, introducing a playback sound reminiscent of
vintage sound recordings. Or maybe some of this really is old
("a series of rare danzones by Antonio Maria Romeu from the
1910s"). There is also a (Director's Cut) version with
lots of extra material.
B+(***) [bc]
Gabriel Zucker: Confession (2023 [2025], Boomslang):
Pianist, composer, based in New York, has two previous albums on
ESP-Disk, also credited with synths, electronics, and voice here.
Group includes guitar-bass-drums plus string quartet, but there
are also a dozen more guest spots, and I doubt that accounts for
all of the voices. He has a remarkable c.v., including his Rhodes
scholarship and work "on homeless services and healthcare access
at the Department of Veterans Affairs." I've seen him described
as a "maximalist," which runs counter to my own instincts, perhaps
why I shrugged off his 2018 album with the conclusion, "dramatic,
I guess." First play of this didn't fare any better, but second
play revealed a profusion of details each interesting alone. As
for the whole, it's way over my head.
B+(**) [cd]
Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:
3 Concerts Per A A.T.: In Der Kestner Gesellschaft
Hannover (1998 [2025], Corbett vs. Dempsey): A collection
from a concert series dedicated to Catalan painter Antonio Tàpies,
organized by Günter Christmann, whose trio fills the center section,
following pieces by Yoshukazu Iwamoto, Evan Parker, and Fred Van
hove, and followed by other pieces to Udo Grim, Trevor Wishart,
and Pi-Hsien Chen.
B+(*) [bc]
Rashied Ali Quintet Featuring Frank Lowe: Sidewalks in
Motion (2001 [2025], Survival): Drummer (1933-2009),
originally Robert Patterson, most famous for playing on John
Coltrane's most avant-garde works (1965-67), played with Lowe
(tenor sax) on a notable 1973 duo, Discogs lists 9 Quintet albums
1967-2007 but only regular is Joris Teepe (bass, after 2000).
Also here: Jumaane Smith (trumpet), and Andrew Bemke (piano).
B+(***) [sp]
Derek Bailey/John Stevens: The Duke of Wellington
(1989 [2025], Confront): Guitar (1930-2005) and drums (1940-94) duo,
both important in the British avant-garde (Stevens was a founder of
Spontaneous Music Ensemble). Like much of Bailey's work, this can
be difficult. But I am quite taken with the drums.
B+(*) [bc]
Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers: Strasbourg 82
(1982 [2025], Gearbox): Legendary drummer, took over the Jazz Messengers
from Horace Silver in 1956, and through 1965 developed a reputation for
introducing brilliant new talent. After that the rosters are less notable,
at least until the 1977-82, when Bobby Watson, Wynton Marsalis, Branford
Marsalis, Donald Harrison, and Terence Blanchard passed through. This
particular date with Blanchard (trumpet), Harrison (alto sax), Billy
Pierce (tenor sax), Johnny O'Neal (piano), and Charles Fambrough (bass)
reminds you what hard bop sounded like in the early 1960s.
B+(***) [sp]
The Bottle Tapes (1996-2005 [2025], Corbett vs. Dempsey,
6CD): Chicago had a storied avant-jazz scene back in the 1960s,
when AACM was founded, but got a second jolt in the 1990s when
Ken Vandermark moved in from Boston and started organizing his
groups, many drawing on top European free jazz players. From 1996
he and John Corbett organized weekly sets at the Empty Bottle,
where a steady stream of Europeans could gig with locals, while
being treated like jazz royalty. This collects 41 tracks from
their tapes, including a couple pieces that run quite long —
Peter Brötzmann for 41:16; Alexander Schlippenbach with Evan
Parker, Paul Lytton, and Conrad Bauer for 55:01 — some
short, most in the 10-23 minute range. Solo pieces include
pianists Misha Mengelberg and Irène Schweizer, clarinetists
François Houle and André Jaume, and drummer Milford Graves.
Remarkable stuff, especially the hard-hitting saxes. There
must be tons more where this came from.
A- [dl]
Kenny Burrell With Art Blakey: On View at the Five Spot
Café: The Complete Masters (1959 [2025], Blue Note):
Guitarist, started recording in 1956, many albums up to 2016,
live album originally appeared in 1960 with five tracks, with
piano (Bobby Timmons or Roland Hanna), bass (Ben Tucker), drums
(Blakey), and some fine tenor sax (Tina Brooks), which later
reissues have diluted (7 tracks here, out of 14).
B+(**) [sp]
Jacques Coursil: Black Suite (1969 [2025], BYG):
French trumpet player (1938-2020), parents from Martinique, had
a very interesting life, where he entered traveled around Maruitania
and Senegal from 1958 (befriending Leopold Senghor), moved back to
Paris, then to New York in 1965 (where he played with Sun Ra, Sunny
Murray, and Frank Wright). Back in Paris he recorded this haunting
suite with Arthur Jones (alto sax), Anthony Braxton (contrabass
clarinet), Burton Greene (piano), Bob Guérin (bass), and Claude
Delcloo (drums). He dropped out of music, taught for 30 years,
then picked it up again.
B+(***) [sp]
Miles Davis: The Musings of Miles (1955 [2025],
Craft): Quartet with Red Garland (piano), Oscar Pettiford (bass),
and Philly Joe Jones (drums), his first 12-inch LP (6 songs,
35:46) after several 10-inch albums. Somehow escaped my attention,
unless it got swept up in the many compilations of his Prestige
sessions. Two originals, three standards, "A Night in Tunisia."
Nothing really stands out, other than hints of potential.
[PS: I do have the 8-CD Chronicle: The Complete Prestige
Recordings, long ago deemed a B+. That box includes the
4 much better LPs this group plus John Coltrane recorded in
1956 to work off their contract and move on to Columbia.]
B+(**) [sp]
Yusef Lateef: Golden Flower: Live in Sweden
(1967-72 [2025], Elemental Music): Tenor saxophonist (1920-2013),
was named Bill Evans before he converted to Islam and changed his
name, around 1950. First records in 1957, became increasingly
interested in African and Oriental music, playing a lot of flute,
including many exotic variants. Two sets, the first with Lars
Sjösten (piano), Palle Danielsson (bass), and Albert "Tootie"
Heath (drums); the second with Kenny Barron (piano), Bob Cunningham
(bass), and Heath again. I love the high-powered sax romps. Flute
not so much.
B+(***) [sp]
Spiritual Jazz 18: Behind the Iron Curtain: Esoteric, Modal,
and Progressive Jazz From Central and Eastern Europe (1962-1988)
(1962-88 [2025], Jazzman): Well into an anthology series that started
in 2008, with Spiritual Jazz: Esoteric, Modal and Deep Jazz From
the Underground 1968-77, which collected 12 tracks from artists
only a few I had barely heard of (Lloyd Miller, Mor Thiam, Salah
Ragab, Ronnie Boykins). I expected this bunch to be even more obscure,
but Krzysztof Komeda, Tomasz Stanko, Zbigniew Namyslowski, Ernst-Ludwig
Petrovsky, and ringer Bernt Rosengren are pretty major figures. I've
never quite understood what "spiritual jazz" means, other than "sounds
like Coltrane," which is a pretty surefire prescription.
B+(***) [sp]
Old music:
Jacques Coursil Unit: Way Ahead (1969, BYG):
Recorded a month after Black Suite, minus Anthony Braxton,
so a quartet with alto sax (Arthur Jones), bass (Bob Guérin),
and drums (Claude Delcloo). Some fine trumpet.
B+(**) [yt]
Italian Surf Academy: Barbarella Reloaded (2017,
Mode Avant): Italian guitarist Marco Cappelli's avant surf rock
fusion group, second album, inspired by the movie or possibly
the comic book, with JD Foster on toy keyboards, Luca Lo Bianco
on bass guitar, and Francesco Cusa on drums. [No recording date
on this album, but probably recorded earlier.]
B+(*) [sp]
Italian Surf Academy: Fake Worlds (2016 [2022],
41st Parallel): Guitarist Marco Cappelli's avant-surf-fusion
trio, with Damon Banks (bass) and Dave Miller (drums), described
as later than Barbarella Reloaded although the latter
wasn't released until after this was recorded. Front cover bills
this with three categories: Spaghetti Western, Tex Mex, Exotica
(with the doc connecting Ennio Morricone to Martin Denny).
B+(**) [sp]
Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:
- Eddie Allen's Push: Rhythm People (Origin) [01-16]
- Michael Dease With the MSU Jazz Trombones: Spartan Strong (Origin) [01-16]
- Gil Livni: All In (OA2) [01-16]
- Kate Olsen: So It Goes (OA2) [01-16]
- Paul Ricci: The Path (Origin) [01-16]
- Mattias Svensson: Embrace (Origin) [01-16]
Ask a question, or send a comment.
Wednesday, December 31, 2025
Music Week
December archive
(closed).
Music: Current count 45382 [45342] rated (+40), 9 [3] unrated (+6).
This was originally published as a placeholder. It has since
been updated with all records up through December 31.
I'm holding out for the last day of 2025 to wrap up my December
archive. Even that won't give me a full week after last week's
delayed-until-Thursday
Music Week.
But while most months transition on the last Monday, I've long liked
to give December a tidy calendar completion. My only worry this time
is that I won't find time tomorrow to do what I couldn't possible do
today. Still, let's save the date.
The main reason I wanted to post this early is to give you an
update on the
20th Annual Francis Davis Jazz Critics Poll. I wound up counting
167 ballots. This is net down 10 from 2024. The actual number of 2024
voters who didn't vote in 2025 was minus 30, but we picked up 12 new
voters, and 8 previous voters who had missed 2024. My impression is
that the drop was mostly attributable to too many people having too
much crap going on in their lives. Every year I vow to work harder
and smarter to get more votes out. In some ways I thought I did this
year, but the numbers didn't add up.
Still, we got good results, from a terrific group of critics,
who've once again been a pleasure to work with.
We've voted for 569 new jazz albums and 206 rara avis — a
good third of those are albums I hadn't heard. (I've been frantically
trying to catch up since I started getting ballots back, but steadily
losing ground. I have them marked somewhere, but not easy to count.
I can confirm that that among 2025 releases, so far I've heard
1351 albums (of which
838 are jazz, somewhat
loosely defined.) My own
Best Jazz Albums of
2025 list has grown to 89 ranked A-list (new, +6 late-2024
adds; the old music section is up to 28 + 2). The album counts
are probably a bit more than my usual year, yet I've never felt
further behind. Still, I would be much further behind without
the poll.
The next step for me is to prepare the essays to accompany
the poll results when Arts Fuse publishes them in a few days.
(I'm aiming for Jan. 5, which is scary soon, but also promises
the end of one difficult period, and the start of a hopefully
better one.) The big difference this year is that Francis Davis
is no longer with us. I have no illusions of being able to fill
his shoes. And I'm notoriously bad at pressure deadlines, so
I've come up with a scheme to finesse the essays: I'm going to
write the frameworks, which will explain what the poll does and
what each table is, and then hang some comments on the end. I've
asked for help especially with the comments. I've gotten some,
and will hustle up some more. And in a pinch, I figure I have
quite a bit of old writing I can recycle. So instead of losing
myself in deep thought about the structure of an essay, I can
just slap on some scattered notes.
At least that's the theory. To make it work, I need to solicit
comments, and that's the purpose of this partial Music Week. I've
written this pitch several times already, so I'm just going to
pick one draft up and edit it a bit:
I'm asking anyhow who cares to to send me little paragraph-sized bits
of writing that I can mix into my framework. If it works out, we'll
have more viewpoints, and more insights, than I could ever muster on
my own. (If it doesn't, we'll just have shorter essays, and you can
figure out the data yourself.) The problem, beyond the usual one of
getting anyone to do anything except for cash, is that we have very
little time, and most of you won't be able to see the poll data, let
alone the essay outlines, until after my deadlines. But it shouldn't
be hard to guess what I'm looking for:
Five essays correspond to our five categories (New, Old, Vocal,
Latin, Debut), which is to say albums, and maybe artists or labels. I
could use one small blurb on each of the probable winners (and you can
probably guess who they are) and a few on other albums that have been
unjustly ignored (and again, your guess is probably a good
one).
The "In Memoriam" essay will mostly be a list of people who
died in 2025, with basic one-line identifiers. If you want to say a
bit more about someone in particular, this is your chance. [A very
quickly selected list is
here; for a
much more substantial list, see
Jazz Passings.]
Our founder and namesake, Francis Davis, died in April. I want
to have a piece on "Francis Davis & His Poll," so I would welcome
comments, stories, even complaints there.
We do a list of critics who voted, so that will be in its own
piece this time. The list for this one is on the
website.
I don't expect many comments to this, but if you have one, we have a
place for it.
I'm not looking for comments on the state of the world,
business, the arts, etc., but you're welcome to try. (We don't
have an article planned to hang such things on, but it wouldn't be
hard to set me off. I left it out because I figured we could get
away without one, and I wasn't sure Arts Fuse would even want one.
On the other hand, I'll have plenty to say about such things later
on.)
These comments will be integrated into the articles, in a final
section, where each one will be introduced by the author name (in
bold). It will look rather like a panel discussion transcript. The
comments will be edited, and you will get a chance to see and revise
the edits. We'll decide what to publish, and not. We're looking for
comments that add insight to the articles. We're not looking for
flattery, or controversy. Be critical if you have a point, but if
you want to trash someone, find your own forum for that.
You don't have to have voted to submit comments. You may submit
something from previously published work. We're assuming that
anything submitted is clear for our use. It is possible that we
will add late comments in a revised edition of the essays, but
deadline for publication is Jan. 4, and earlier is better.
If your comment is dependent on some data, please ask. One such
example is data analysis. For instance, if you wanted to calculate
"centrism" for a critics comment, you will need data, and we'll
consider providing it. We may solicit some comments. We may write out
own to try to fill what we perceive as gaps. We may scrounge around
looking for suitable material. If you wish to join us in this project,
just let me know. I run an email list called jpadmin, and its members
get more access (as well as more whiny email from me).
The best way to send comments in email addressed to
25comments AT hullworks.net.
I also want to encourage people to write about the poll on their
own media. Let me know if I can help facilitate that.
One thing I've had no time to do during poll time has been to write
anything for my
Notes on Everyday Life newsletter. I got up Christmas morning, and
wrote a fairly long entry into my online notebook, reminiscing about
Christmases from my childhood up to the present day. About midway through
it occurred to me that I had something that might be worth publishing,
so I started tuning it up a bit. A couple days later, I posted it as
Christmas 1950-2025 (archived copy
here). I had last week's dinner
pic, but I couldn't find anything from back in the day, so I appealed
to my brother's family — they had taken most of the old family
photos when they moved to Washington. My nephew found an old slide of
me in front of an unlit Christmas tree, next to the parachute drop,
which was the ultimate project from the Erector Set, one of my best
remembered Christmas presents. No date given, but I was probably 9
at the time (1959), plus or minus a year but probably not two. The
metal box it came in is to the lower left, and our b&w tv is in
the corner. I think that was our second tv, probably bought around
1957, to be replaced with a color model around 1962-63 (in a wider,
dark brown cabinet). The windows faced west, to the front of the
house, so blinds and curtains were necessary to block out the
afternoon sun. The room had two easy chairs for my parents, facing
the tv, and a couch along the north wall. When we ate dinner, I
sat in the one spot in the dining room that offered a clear view
of the tv, which would be tuned into Huntley-Brinkley at our 5:30
dinner time.
I tried to wrap this up after midnight, but couldn't cope, and
left it for morning. Dec. 31 brought an expansion of this week's
A-list from the three NoBusiness albums to seven widely varied
but still all jazz records. One thing to ponder at this point is
that only one of the seven received any poll votes (Joe Alterman,
one vote by Sanford Josephson). The NoBusiness package and the
Rick Roe were late arrivals. (The other two NoBusiness releases,
Oliver Lake and Bobby Naughton, did receive Rara Avis votes.
Arkady Gotesman would have made my ballot had I heard it in
time.)
While I got very little essay writing done yesterday, I did
finally manage to start reading past Francis Davis essays (as well
as a couple of min), which is giving me a lot to think about. I
noticed, for instance, that Davis rarely flinched from political
issues, even in years when their impact was much less overwhelming
than at present. Also that many of his pieces were pretty short
(whereas some of mine were extravagantly long). I've gotten very
little back on the comment front, which will probably turn out
to be a bust (but is still an interesting concept).
I expect to do better today, and better still tomorrow. At
some point the dam will burst, and I'll have more words than I
know what to do with. For instance, I should be able to do
something with this letter I found (from 2022, by Francis, in
response to a proposal to move the poll, from a voter who has
since parted ways):
Voters and readers alike look at the results and I think assume the
poll conducts itself. It doesn't. Having now conducted 16 of them, I
can say it's hard work (even now with Tom shouldering most of the
load). The work typically begins with finding a host publication
. . . and still another is having to browbeat so many critics into
voting. . . .
I like to think that if I do drop out, Tom or someone else will
take over, though I'm just vain enough to worry it won't be the same
thing without me. (For one thing, it might skew too much to one school
of jazz, to the exclusion of the consensus I've striven for each
go-round.) But whoever wants to continue the poll, assuming I decide
not to, has my blessing.
One question this raises in my mind is: is there any consensus any
more? is consensus even possible? and even if it is, would that be a
good thing? Of course, I'm not going to try to answer those questions.
Just to raise them may be all we can do.
Needless to say, I'm way behind on my indexing. I used to laugh
it off when people would comment about all my "hard work," but this
is the year when it's finally gotten hard. I'm looking forward to
working on something else. Or just cleaning up the residual mess,
which is substantial.
New records reviewed this week:
Marshall Allen: The Omniverse Oriki (2023 [2025],
High Two): Alto saxophonist, turned 100 last year, around the time
that New Dawn was being touted as his "debut" album: a lie,
or at least a ridiculous rationalization that proved so attractive
that I wound up rejecting a dozen poll votes for him in the Debut
category. The idea that one can always start afresh is as seductive
as ever, but to promote it you have to overlook 70+ years of real,
substantial accomplishment. True he spent most of his career just
playing in Sun Ra's Arkestra, but after its namesake passed in 1993,
Allen not only took over but put his name on the revitalized ghost
band (at least 6 albums since 1999). Moreover, he's increasingly
played with other ad hoc groups: Discogs has him on the slugline
of 28 more albums, and has him playing on 400. Allen also got votes
(including one Debut) for his Ghost Horizons album, but this
one, where Allen's trio meets up with Kevin Diehl's bata drums and
a Lucumi chorus led by Joseph Toledo escaped attention. It is a
little darker and drabber than their early work as Sonic Liberation
Front, but we're all getting older (even Allen), and the expanding
universe is still getting emptier.
A- [bc]
Joe Alterman Feat. Houston Person: Brisket for Breakfast
(2023 [2025], self-released): Pianist, from Atlanta, blurb cites praise
from Ahmad Jamal, Les McCann,and Ramsey Lewis, and he has a McCann
tribute among his nine albums since 2009. He seems to be a fine
mainstream pianist, with a bass/drums trio playing standards, but
my interest is the saxophonist, approaching 90 when this was cut.
It's a delight, not least when the pianist breaks loose.
A- [sp]
Ashé Mystics: Fizzy Bubble Hummm (2025, High Two):
Another new Kevin Diehl group, "Ashé" a Yoruba word previously
used in a Sonic Liberation Front title (Ashé a Go-Go, from
2005). Trio with Joshua Marquez and Julius Masri, both described
as "multi-instrumentalist," the former more focused on guitar
the latter drums.
B+(***) [bc]
Olie Brice: All It Was (2024 [2025], West Hill):
British bassist, based in London, has led a bunch of album since
2015, with many more side credits. Quartet with Rachel Musson
(tenor sax), Alexander Hawkins (piano), and Will Glaser (drums).
B+(***) [bc]
Cortex & Hedvig Mollestad: Did We Really?
(2025, Sauajazz): Norwegian group led by Thomas Johansson (trumpet)
— with sax, bass, and drums — "(17)" at Discogs, which
credits then with 9 albums since 2011, including this one with the
guitarist.
B+(**) [bc]
Lao Dan/Vasco Trilla: New Species (2024 [2025],
NoBusiness): Chinese musician, trained in traditional flutes,
regarded as a master with a number of albums since 2018, picked
up tenor sax and branched into free jazz, although credits line
here includes "diy flute, dizi (Chinese flute). Duo with Spanish
drummer recorded in Shenzhen, bridges their worlds effectively.
A- [cd]
Lao Dan: To Hit a Pressure Point (2024 [2025],
Relative Pitch): Solo tenor saxophone on 7 (of 9) tracks, with
suona ("a loud, high-pitched Chinese double-reed woodwind") on
one, and "effects" on the other — the last track, which
finally achieves a level of intensity unexpected in solo work.
B+(**) [sp]
Dieuf-Dieul De Thiès: Dieuf-Dieul De Thiès (2024,
Buda Musique): Mbalax group from Senegal, two albums of their early
work from 1981 were compiled by Teranga Beat and released 2013-15.
The group split up in 1983, but regrouped in 2015, touring Europe
in 2017. This is billed as their first studio album, but unclear
when it was recorded. (One credit is that it was recorded by Christian
Hierro, whose technical credits only go back to 2004.)
B+(***) [sp]
Editrix: The Big E (2024 [2025], Joyful Noise):
Fringe jazz guitarist Wendy Eisenberg (guitar), sings in this
post-punk trio with bass (Steve Cameron) and drums (Josh Daniel),
third album since 2021.
B+(*) [bc]
Effie: Pullup to Busan 4 More Hyper Summer It's Gonna Be a
Fuckin Movie (2025, Sound Republica, EP): Korea rapper, 2nd
EP, 6 songs, 13:23, topped a New York Times EOY list, call it
"hyperpop" if you like, all glitchy and senseless.
B [sp]
Peter Evans, Mike Pride: A Window, Basically (2022-25
[2025], Relative Pitch): Avant trumpet and drums duo. This is often
terrific.
B+(***) [bc]
Feeo: Goodness (2025, AD 93): British electronic
composer Theodora Laird, first album after some singles, sings,
which provides most of the focus here, posing as secular gospel,
ethereal and insubstantial.
B [sp]
Frode Gjerstad/Alexander von Schlippenbach/Dag Magnus Narvesen:
Seven Tracks (2024 [2025], Relative Pitch): Norwegian
alto sax/clarinet player, Discogs lists 174 performance credits
since 1983, notably his groups Detail and Circulasione Totale
Orchestra, plus many collaborations ranging from Han Bennink to
Ken Vandermark. Trio with the legendary pianist and a drummer who
has previous duo albums with each.
B+(***) [bc]
ICP Orchestra: Happy Birthday → Naar Zee Z.O.Z.
(2025, ICP): The gang's all here, on the occasion of what would have
been founder-pianist Misha Mengelberg's 90th birthday, with Guus Janssen
filling at the piano, and possibly only drummer Han Bennink still here
from the Instant Composer Pool's 1967 Tentet debut..
B+(**) [bc]
Instant Arts Quartet: Lingua Franca (2023 [2025],
High Two): Philadelphia-based percussionist Kevin Diehl, best known
for leading Sonic Liberation Front, with bass (Pete Dennis) and two
horns: Terry Lawson (tenor sax) and Matt Lavelle (trumpet, alto/bass
clarinet), with some switches to bamboo flute, gong, and bells. The
horns spin freely, relentless conflict and communication, as no one's
writing harmony lines here.
A- [bc]
Fabia Mantwill Orchestra: In.Sight (2025,
GroupUP Music): German saxophonist, sings some, second album,
orchestra is loaded with strings, has half a big band's load
of horns, adds harp and mallets, uses guitar but no piano,
has guest spots for kora, accordion, and lap steel.
B+(**) [bc]
Dave McMurray: I Love Life Even When I'm Hurting
(2025, Blue Note): Saxophonist from Detroit, discography starts
around 1980 with Griot Galaxy and Was (Not Was), has involved a
lot of prominent studio work (B.B. King, Bob Dylan, Gladys Knight,
Rolling Stones, B-52s, Iggy Pop, Bootsy Collins, John Sinclair,
Mitch Ryder, Brian Wilson, Nancy Wilson, Geri Allen, Kid Rock),
with occasional records as a leader (3 1999-2003 albums on Hip
Bop, Blue Note since 2018). I like the grit in his saxophone here.
I'm less impressed with his vocalists (Herschel Boone, Kem).
B+(*) [sp]
Otherworld Ensemble: Soul Bird (2025, Edgetone):
Septet, principally Heikki Koskinen (e-trumpet, piano, tenor
recorder, ocarina, birch bark horn, bird calls) and Rent Romus
(alto & soprano saxes c-flute, bird calls), with all but
Vinny Golia adding to the bird calls chorus.
B+(**) [cd]
Zeena Parkins: Lament for the Maker (2024 [2025],
Relative Pitch): Harpist, from Detroit, straddles avant-classical
and avant-jazz, several dozen albums since 1987, also electronics
here, performing four pieces (12:43 to 17:18), one she composed,
others by Laetitia Sonami, John Bischoff, and James Fei.
B+(*) [sp]
Anaïs Reno: Lady of the Lavender Mist (2025,
Club44): Standards singer, born in Switzerland, moved to New York
when she was 2, second studio album after a fine set of Ellington
& Strayhorn songs in 2021. She wrote a lyric here, again for
an Ellington tune. Featuring Peter Bernstein (guitar), with bass
(David Wong) and drums (Joe Farnsworth).
B+(**) [sp]
Crystabel Efemena Riley: Live at Ormside (2025,
Infant Tree): British drummer, noticed her in the duo @xcrswx (with
Seymour Wright) and the group X-Ray Hex-Tet, first name credit is
this 17:52 drum solo.
B+(*) [bc]
Diego Rivera: West Circle (2023 [2025], Posi-Tone):
Mainstream tenor saxophonist, born in Ann Arbor, long taught in East
Lansing, has close to a dozen albums since 2013, also plays soprano
on two tracks here. Wrote 7 (of 10) songs, with one by his pianist
(Art Hirahara), two covers one from Herbie Hancock. With label
regulars Boris Kozlov (bass) and Rudy Royston (drums). Strong form,
as usual.
B+(**) [sp]
Herb Robertson/Christopher Dell/Christian Ramond/Klaus Kugel:
Blue Transient (2024 [2025], Nemu, 2CD): Trumpet, vibes,
bass, and drums. Trumpet player got his start with Tim Berne in
1983, also played a lot with Mark Helias and Gerry Hemingway, died
in December 2024, so not much after this. The others are German,
8-14 years younger, but they've made the rounds, with Dell having
the highest profile.
B+(***) [cd]
Rick Roe: Wake Up Call: The Music of Gregg Hill
(2025, Cold Plunge): Tenth album I've heard since 2017 of Hill's
compositions, all by Hill's former Michigan State students (Roe,
Michael Dease, Randy Napoleon, Rodney Whitaker, and the younger,
lesser-known Techno Cats). I always figured these were vanity projects,
notable mostly because no other composer with no real performance
credits has done so much promotion. But this postbop with an extra
shot of swing is a consistent delight, especially the tenor sax of
Marcus Elliot, but also some slick piano, with Robert Hurst on bass
and Nate Winn on drums.
A- [cd]
Joris Roelofs/Guus Janssen/Han Bennink: Rite of Spring
(2025, ICP): French-born, Amsterdam-based saxophonist, plays bass
clarinet here, has played
with Vienna Art Orchestra and ICP Septet, joins the latter's pianist
and drummer for a delightful set of standards (mostly Monk), with one
original, two from Janssen, and one from ICP founder Misha Mengelberg.
B+(***) [bc]
Sophie Tassignon: A Slender Thread (2025, Nemu):
Belgian singer-songwriter, sometimes writes lyrics to others' music,
sometimes writes music to other lyrics, sometimes just arranges,
sings, dubs in electronics. Interesting, but leans too classical
for my ears, and not just because the lead composer is someone
named Bach.
B+(*) [cd]
Ziv Taubenfeld/Helena Espvall/João Sousa: You, Full of Sources
and Night (2024 [2025], NoBusiness): Bass clarinet, cello,
drums trio, the former an Israeli based in Lisbon with a half dozen
albums since 2016. The combination works especially well.
A- [cd]
Thalin, Cravinos, VCR Slim, Pirlo & Iloveyouangelo: Maria
Esmeralda (2024, Sujoground): Brazilian rappers, at least
the first three, as individual piece credits tend to follow the
headline order. There is a whole scene here I'm basically clueless
to. I can't follow, and had to turn this up to get any clarity,
but sonically someone suggested DJ Shadow, and this feels like it
may be even heavier.
B+(***) [sp]
Luís Vicente: Live in Coimbra (2020 [2025],
Combustão Lenta): Portuguese trumpet player, has a lot of work
since 2012, solo here, which is always a sketchy proposition.
B+(*) [bc]
Luis Vicente/John Dikeman/William Parker/Hamid Drake: No
Kings! (2022 [2025], JACC): Trumpet, tenor sax, bass, and
drums, one 68:02 live improv from Bimhuis, the title (I suspect)
slapped on post facto.
B+(***) [bc]
Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:
Han Bennink & Misha Mengelberg: ICP010 (1971
[2025], ICP): Dutch avant-garde drummer and pianist, played together
as early as 1961, sharing a credit on Eric Dolphy's Last Date
(1964), co-founders (with Willem Breuker) of Instant Composers Pool
in 1967, this the label's 10th release (1972), titled Instant
Composers Pool at the time.
B+(*) [bc]
Michel Doneda & Frederic Blondy: Points of Convergence
(2014 [2025], Relative Pitch): French soprano saxophonist, also
plays sopranino here, many albums start in 1985, this a duo with
piano. Long album (8 tracks, 106:28), takes a while to kick in
— 6th track, when the piano starts punching hard.
B+(**) [bc]
Bill Evans: Haunted Heart: The Legendary Riverside Studio
Recordings (1959-61 [2025], Craft): The pianist's 1956-63
The Complete Riverside Recordings ran 12-CD, but this narrowly
focuses on the two studio albums he made with his most famous trio,
with Paul Motian (drums) and Scott LaFaro (bass), which came to an
abrupt end when LaFaro was killed in a car crash, just a month after
the live sets they are most famous for (Sunday at the Village
Vanguard and Waltz for Debby, which eventually grew into
their own 3-CD box). CD reissues of the two albums added extra takes,
and this adds still more, reaching 43 tracks, running 212 minutes.
That's a lot more than seems necessary.
B+(***) [sp]
Arkady Gotesman: Music for an Imaginary Ballet
(2000-25 [2025], NoBusiness): Lithuanian drummer, b. 1959, credits
since 1990, some as Arkadijus Gotesmanas, including early work with
Vyacheslav Ganelin and Charles Gayle. This "summation of a thirty-year
journey" impressed first with its earliest recording, a duo with
saxophonist Liudas Mockunas, then skips around, including 2025 live
sets with Jan Makismovic's trio and a duo with Martin Küchen, bits
with Ganelin and Gayle, Ned Rothenberg and Nate Wooley, a drums duo
with Mark Sanders, and more, held together by his own relentlessly
creative percussion.
A- [cd]
Oliver Lake: Live From Studio Rivbea 1975 & 1976 [Rivbea
Live! Series, Volume 4] (1975-76 [2025], NoBusiness): Alto
saxophonist, from St. Louis, early in a long and distinguished career,
two sets (17:06 and 55:52) with Michael Gregory Jackson (guitar) and
Fred Hopkins (bass), different drummers (Phillip Wilson and Jerome
Cooper), plus trumpet (Baikida Carroll) on one long second set cut.
B+(***) [cd]
Bobby Naughton Trio: Housatonic Rumble: Live at Charlie's
Tap (1985 [2025], NoBusiness): Vibraphonist (1944-2022),
from Boston, several obscure albums, side-credits with Leo Smith
and Roscoe Mitchell. Engaging trio with Joe Fonda (bass) and Randy
Kaye (drums).
[cd]
Archie Shepp and the Full Moon Ensemble: Live in Antibes
(1970 [2025], BYG): Tenor saxophonist, a major avant-garde figure
starting out from 1963 (New York Contemporary Five), mostly on
Impulse, but had several albums released in the French Actuell
series 1969-70, with this live set originally appearing in two
volumes. With Clifford Thornton (trumpet/piano), Allen Shorter
(flugelhorn), Joseph Déjean (gitar), and Claude Delcloo (drums).
Quite a bit of piano here, by Shepp as well as Thornton.
B+(**) [yt]
Alan Silva and His Celestrial Communication Orchestra: Luna
Surface (1969 [2025], BYG): Best known as a bassist, born in
Bermuda, grew up in New York, played with Sun Ra in 1964, also Cecil
Taylor, Sunny Murray, and Albert Ayler before this (first or second
album), plays violin here, as does Leroy Jenkins. Large group, from
a session which produced a bunch of albums under various leaders.
Notable here that there were two bassists, Beb Guérin and Malachi
Favors, and that the sax section included Anthony Braxton and Archie
Shepp. Intense, tough going, but short (28:20).
B+(**) [sp]
Old music:
Chuck Redd: All This and Heaven Too (2002, Arbors):
Vibraphonist, also known as a drummer, has several albums and more
credits since 1996, mostly on or adjacent to this retro-swing label,
often working with Charlie Byrd and Ken Peplowski. A name I barely
recognized when he made news recently for canceling a "Trump-Kennedy
Center" Christmas Eve performance, so I thought a refresher would be
in order. (I also see that the Cookers canceled their New Years Eve
gig at TKC.) Mostly trio here with Gene Bertoncini (guitar) and
George Mraz (bass), playing old standards and early bebop (Charlie
Parker, Thad Jones). Rather sedate, although it picks up a bit
when Peplowski (tenor sax/clarinet) guests.
B+(*) [sp]
Joris Roelofs/Han Bennink: Icarus (2018 [2023],
ICP): Duo, the former playing bass and Bb clarinet, the latter
mostly drums, but also credited with "balk, C clarinet, piano."
B+(**) [bc]
Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:
- Naseem Alatrash: Bright Colors on a Dark Canvas (Levantine Music) [02-27]
- Lao Dan/Vasco Trilla: New Species (NoBusiness) [11-08]
- Kris Davis and the Lutoslawski Quartet: The Solastalgia Suite (Pyroclastic) [01-09]
- Maja Jaku: Blessed & Bewitched (Origin) [10-17]
- Oliver Lake: Live From Studio Rivbea 1975 & 1976 [Rivbea Live! Series, Volume 4] (NoBusiness) [11-08]
- Luke Marantz/Simon Jermyn: Echoes (Chill Tone) [01-09]
- Bobby Naughton Trio: Housatonic Rumble: Live at Charlie's Tap (1985, NoBusiness) [11-08]
- Otherworld Ensemble: Soul Bird (Edgetone) [09-30]
- Rick Roe: Wake Up Call: The Music of Gregg Hill (Cold Plunge) [12-19]
- Brad Schrader: Late Nights With Brad Schrader (self-released) [11-20]
- Dave Stryker: Blue Fire: The Van Gelder Session (Strikezone) [01-09]
- Ziv Taubenfeld/Helena Espvall/João Sousa: You, Full of Sources and Night (NoBusiness) [11-08]
- Vance Thompson: Lost and Found (Moondo) [01-16]
- John Vanore & Abstract Truth: Easter Island Suite (Acoustical Concepts) [02-06]
- Gabriel Zucker: Confession (Boomslang) [11-21]
Ask a question, or send a comment.
Thursday, December 25, 2025
Music Week
December archive
(in progress).
Music: Current count 45342 [45282] rated (+60), 3 [1] unrated (+2).
Music Week has been delayed this week because I've been working on
the 20th Annual
Francis Davis Jazz Critics
Poll. Deadline for voting was Sunday, the date of our own annual
Hannukah dinner, so I wound up the day with a mailbox full of late
ballots, which took me a couple more days to get through. I cooked
again on Christmas Eve. It was a smaller affair, but still consumed
a lot of time. I was disappointed in the turnout, so I grubbed a few
last-minute ballots, to finish with 167. That's down 10 from 2024, but
still a pretty solid showing, especially given that the most obvious
difference this year is the degree of wear and tear that practically
everyone is feeling under increasingly trying circumstances.
Next up will be adding footnotes and adjustments to the website,
so we can be clear about records that cross categories and years.
Also some proofreading. But the big part will be interpreting the
data in the form of essays and comments. I'm hoping the essays will
be fairly minimal: just the facts, because I'm not there's that much
more we can really conclude. But I'm open to all sorts of people
offering comments on jazz and the world c. 2025. The most important
thing about the poll is that it brings together many different takes
on the year. I doubt it would help for me to try to distill them all
into my own personal viewpoint.
Still, I doubt that there is any practical way to get anywhere
near all the viewpoints one would like to be able to share. That
requires a level of engagement with the world that I simply don't
have the skills or temperament to do. So I see myself as just some
kind of caretaker for a bigger project that will never be able to
really reveal itself. It's been really frustrating, but it's also
been a really nice change of pace to be able to deal with so many
fine critics on such a personal level.
Expect the next Music Week on December 31. While I normally
aim for Mondays, I like to end December cleanly on the last day
of the year. That was my original target date for handing the
poll package over to ArtsFuse to publish. Given how the weekend
breaks, and how everything this year has taken longer than one
hoped, I think the more realistic date is January 5.
Next year we'll start thinking about resolutions for doing
things differently.
New records reviewed this week:
@xcrswx: Moodboard (2025, Feedback Moves):
British duo of Crystabel Elemena Riley (human/drum-skin) and
Seymour Wright (sax), the latter especially notable for his
work in Ahmed but he's done a fair amount since 2001. Focus
on percussion here.
B+(***) [bc]
David Amram: Honors Guthrie and Ochs: Old Souls
(2025, Guthrie Legacy): A familiar name, but one I haven't thought
of in ages, and can't quite place, even with the help of references
which show he was born in 1930, and worked with Aaron Copland, Dizzy
Gillespie, Jack Kerouac, Pete Seeger, Patti Smith, and many more.
His discography includes soundtracks, string quartets and symphony
orchestras, odes to Lord Buckley and Langston Hughes. Here he and
his quintet offer jazz arrangements of six folk songs for a leisurely
and delightful 29:15.
A- [sp]
Ancient Infinity Orchestra: It's Always About Love
(2025, Gondwana): Fifteen-piece "spiritual jazz ensemble" with reeds
and strings but no brass, led by composer Ozzy Moysey. Second album.
B+(*) [sp]
Believe: Spirits of the Dead Are Watching (2023
[2025], Relative Pitch): Debut group album, from "four of Australia's
most experienced and dedicated improvisers," names I am at best only
marginally acquainted with, on alto sax (Peter Farrar), piano (Novak
Manojlovic), bass (Clayton Thomas), and drums (Laurence Pike). Even
tempered, constantly engaging, a fine album among scores of other
more/less equally fine albums.
B+(***) [sp]
The Brunt [Gerrit Hatcher/Dave Rempis/Kent Kessler/Bill Harris]:
Near Mint Minus (2023 [2024], Aerophonic): Chicago free
jazz group, two tenor saxophonists (Rempis also plays alto/baritone),
backed by bass and drums. Hatcher has several records back to 2017.
B+(***) [bc]
Albert Cirera & Tres Tambors: Orangina (2025,
UnderPool): Catallan saxophonist (tenor/soprano), has produced a
substantial body of work since 2007, has two previous Tres Tambors
albums (2012 & 2017), and a previous title song that goes back
at least to 2013. Leads a quartet, but only one drummer (Oscar
Doménech), with Marco Mezquida (piano/rhodes) and Marko Lohikari
(bass).
B+(**) [bc]
DJ Travella: Twende Dance Classics (2025, Nyege
Nyege Tapes, EP): Tanzanian beatmaker Hamadi Hassani, released
an album in 2020 called Dr. Mixondo, returns here with
four fast ones ("hyper-melodic floor fillers", short at 8:45.
B+(***) [sp]
Pierre Dørge/Kirk Knuffke: Songs for Mbizo: Johnny Lives
Forever (2024 [2025], SteepleChase): Danish guitarist,
albums since 1979, notably with his swing-oriented New Jungle
Orchestra. South African bassist Johnny Dyani (1947-86) landed
in Denmark, and made a big impression on Dørge, who responded
with his 1987 tribute album, Johnny Lives. This one
features the cornet player, backed by bass (Thommy Andersson)
and drums (Martin Andersen).
B+(***) [sp]
Pierre Dørge New Jungle Orchestra: Jazzhus Montmartre
Live (2023 [2025], SteepleChase): Danish guitarist, named
his large band in 1982, affectionately recalling Duke Ellington's
"jungle band" and possibly Django Reinhardt's "hot club," and
he's sustained it for 40+ years. Discogs lists this as their 27th
album. Currently a nine-piece group, mostly playing the leader's
originals.
B+(**) [sp]
Kahil El'Zabar's Ethnic Heritage Ensemble: Let the Spirit
Out: Live at "Mu" London (2024 [2025], Spiritmuse): Group
started with Three Men From Chicago in 1981, the constant
for 40+ years has been the percussionist, group size has varied
but Corey Wilkes (trumpet) and Alex Harding (baritone sax) have
been members since 2007 and 2019, joined here by Ishmael Ali
(cello). Live set, includes such standards as "Summertime" and
"Caravan."
B+(**) [sp]
Phillip Golub/Lesley Mok: Dream Brigade (2023
[2025], Infrequent Seams): Piano and drums duo, both started c.
2020 and are making a name for themselves, but already they want
to sell the album title as group name.
B+(**) [sp]
Gregory Groover Jr.: Old Knew (2025, Criss Cross):
Tenor saxophonist, real name as far as I can tell (middle name George),
father was pastor at an A.M.E. church in Boston, got a degree from
Berklee, second album, 10 originals plus one piece by Jason Moran,
hot shot band: Joel Ross (vibes), Paul Cornish (piano), Harish
Raghavan (bass), and Kendrick Scott (drums).
B+(***) [sp]
Scott Hamilton: Looking Back (2024 [2025], Stunt):
Retro-swing tenor saxophonist, impressive debut in 1977, a steady
player especially of standards ever since. Quartet here with Jan
Lundgren (piano), Hans Backenroth (bass), and Kristian Leth (drums),
ten tracks referencing sax giants and other musicians Hamilton has
played with, occasioned by his 70th birthday. Curious lack of info
on the record (like release date and song credits), despite a fair
number of reviews.
B+(**) [sp]
Jim Hobbs/Timo Shanko: The Depression Tapes (2024
[2025], Relative Pitch): Alto sax and bass duo, were both founders
of the Fully Celebrated Orchestra in 1989 but this is their first
duo album.
B+(**) [sp]
Julia Hülsmann Quartet: Under the Surface (2024
[2025], ECM): German pianist, steady stream of albums since 2000,
fifth Quartet album since 2013: Marc Muellbauer (bass), Martin
Abrahamsen (drums, new here), started with a trumpet player, but
switched to tenor sax (Uli Kempendorff) in 2019. This one adds
Hildegunn Øiseth (trumpet, goat horn) on five tracks.
B+(***) [sp]
Simon Jermyn/Otis Sandsjö/Petter Eldh/Lukas Akintaya:
Obsany (2023 [2025], Elastic): Irish bassist, fifth
album since 2007, based in Berlin after 11 years in New York,
quartet there with sax, electric bass, and drums, adding Michaël
Attias (sax) on three tracks. Nice record, tails off a bit.
B+(**) [sp]
Steve Johns: Mythology (2024 [2025], SteepleChase):
Drummer, has a 2002 album, a few more since. Leads a postbop group
with guitar (John Hart), piano (Greg Murphy), vibes (Monte Croft),
and bass (Joris Teepe), playing four of his own originals, three
from Teepe, one from Hart, and two standards (sung by Croft, who
also plays some harmonica). Discogs credits him with four albums
1989-93, and a 16 year credits gap before he picks up again in
2020, but he's the player you notice most here.
B+(*) [sp]
Laura Jurd: Rites & Revelations (2024 [2025],
New Soil): British trumpet player, debut 2012, probably best known
for her group Dinosaur (3 albums 2016-20). Quintet with folk musos
Martin Green (accordion) and Ultan O'Brien (violin/viola), along
with Ruth Goller (electric bass) and Corrie Dick (drums). The folk
music is vital, and the jazz just builds on it, like Miles on funk.
A- [sp]
Kokayi: Live at Big Ears: The Standard Knoxville, TN
(2025, Why!Not): Bandcamp page threw me with "no, not the Washington,
D.C.-born iconoclast who helped establish the city as a hip-hop
landmark," but Discogs has the same artist (Carl Walker) I had
previously filed under rap working with Steve Coleman in 1995 and
Ambrose Akinmusire in 2025, so while playing this I moved him from
rap to jazz vocals. I can hear the Bobby McFerrin and Jon Lucien
the liner notes cite, but also echoes of Swamp Dogg and Coltrane.
B+(***) [sp]
Sarathy Korwar: There Is Beauty, There Already
(2025, Otherland): US-born, India-raised, London-based percussionist,
has a handful of albums since 2016, thoughtfully tying his whole
world together. This is an enchanting, otherworldly groove album,
with a bit of vocal aura and a few words.
A- [sp]
Mon Laferte: Femme Fatale (2025, Sony Music Latin):
Singer-songwriter from Chile, based in Mexico, 10th album since 2003.
Sounds like something I might like much more if I could understand
the lyrics and focus better on the music.
B+(**) [sp]
Stian Larsen/Colin Webster/Ruth Goller/Andrew Lisle: Temple
of Muses (2022 [2025], Relative Pitch): Norwegian guitarist,
has several free improv albums, here with sax, bass, and drums. Liked
the edginess at first, but seemed to tail off toward the end.
B+(*) [sp]
Tony Miceli: Nico's Dream (2024 [2025],
SteepleChase): Vibraphonist, side-credits at least as far back
as 1991 but counts as his first album. With guitar (Paul
Bollenback), bass, and drums. Zips right along.
B+(**) [sp]
Wolfgang Muthspiel/Scott Colley/Brian Blade: Tokyo
(2024 [2025], ECM): Austrian guitarist, has close to 30 albums
since 1989, some fusion-oriented, some more introspective. His
2006 duets with Blade are a high point, and their work with
the bassist goes back at least to 2000.
B+(**) [sp]
Max Nagl Quintett: Phasolny (2025, Rude Noises):
Austrian alto saxophonist, albums since 1988, quintet with trumpet
(Martin Eberle), trombone (Phil Yaeger), piano, and bass, but no
drums, which gives it a chamber jazz effect, albeit with rather
brassy.
B+(**) [sp]
Gard Nilssen Acoustic Unity: Great Intentions (2024
[2025], Action Jazz): Norwegian drummer, credits pick up around 2007,
notably Cortex (2011-20). Lately he's focused on two groups: Acoustic
Unity (this is their 5th album since 2015), and Supersonic Orchestra
(2 albums since 2020). Core group is a trio with André Roligheten
(sax), Petter Eldh (bass), fortified here with two more "featured"
saxophonists (Kjetil Møster and Signe Emmeluth) as well as Jonas
Alaska (vocals/guitar). This has its moments, but they don't all
line up.
B+(***) [sp]
Arturo O'Farrill & the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra: The
Original Influencers: Dizzy, Chano & Chico [Live at Town Hall]
(2023 [2025], Tiger Turn): Pianist and bandleader, has largely
cornered the market for Afro-Cuban jazz in New York, the far from
missing link between his famous father — the Chico in the
"original influencers" list, along with Dizzy Gillespie and Chano
Pozo mdash; and his soon-to-be famous sons Adam and Zack (trumpet
and drums here). First half is a party with a lot of vocals. Second
takes "Manteca" and turns it into a suite. Both are fun, but neither
is wholly successful.
B+(**) [sp]
Ivo Perelman/Nate Wooley/Matt Moran/Mark Helias/Tom Rainey:
A Modicum of the Blues (2024 [2025], Fundacja Słuchaj):
Brazilian tenor saxophonist, released 6-12 albums annually, I've
heard over 100, many quite good, but it's gotten hard to keep up.
Most are fairly minimal duos or trios, which gives him ample
opportunity to blow. Quintets like this are rare, with trumpet,
vibes, bass, and drums. Only the last track realizes the group's
potential.
B+(***) [dl]
Ivo Perelman/Nate Wooley: Polarity 4 (2025, Burning
Ambulance): Tenor sax and trumpet duo, the fourth entry in a series
of albums by the duo going back to 2020.
B+(*) [bc]
Ivo Perelman/John Butcher: Duologues 4 (2025,
Ibeji): Tenor sax duo (with some soprano?), adds to an ongoing
Perelman series, on top of many previous duos. My download calls
this London Silhouettes, but while the email links to this
series, I cannot find further evidence of the title. I couldn't
bring myself to deal with Perelman's massive Reed Rapture in
Brooklyn, figuring the twelve duo discs would turn into an
endurance contest and wash out into some kind of meaningless B+.
But even with the inevitable limits of all-saxophone groups,
this is remarkably steady and engaging work.
A- [dl]
Rich Perry: Dream (2024 [2025], SteepleChase):
One of a dozen or more fairly major mainstream tenor saxophonists
to emerge in the 1990s — Beautiful Love (1995) is a
good example. Still very much in that vein here, backed by piano
(Gary Versace), bass (Jay Anderson), and drums (John Riley),
playing three originals plus covers from Parker (2), Shorter,
Silver, and Ellington.
B+(***) [sp]
Emma Rawicz: Inkyra (2024 [2025], ACT Music):
Tenor/soprano saxophonist, several albums since 2022, rather
overwhelming postbop group with Gareth Lockrand (flutes), David
Preston (guitar), Scottie Thompson (keyboards), Kevin Glasgow
(electric bass), and Jamie Murray (drums).
B [sp]
Dave Rempis/Nico Chkifi: Aula (2023 [2025],
Aerophonic): Alto/tenor sax, a very strong players since he broke
in with Vandermark 5, in a duo with the Belgian drummer, recorded
in Liege. Seems rather par for the course.
B+(**) [bc]
Dave Rempis/Russ Johnson/Jakob Heinemann/Jeremy Cunningham:
Embers and Ash (2024 [2025], Aerophonic): Saxophonist
(soprano/alto/tenor here), quartet with trumpet, bass, and drums,
live set from the Hungry Brain in Chicago. This freewheeling two
horn, no piano/guitar improv is often thrilling, especially with
such strong and thoughtful players.
A- [bc]
Dino Saluzzi: El Viejo Caminante (2023 [2025], ECM):
Argentinian bandoneon player, now 90, records start around 1972,
joined ECM in 1983, recording regularly through 2011, third album
since. Here he is joined by two guitarists: his son, José Maria
Saluzzi on classical guitar, and Jacob Young on acoustic steel-string
and electric guitars. Very nice mix.
B+(**) [sp]
Loren Schoenberg and His Jazz Orchestra: So Many Memories
(2025, Turtle Bay): Tenor saxophonist (b. 1958), bandleader, Discogs
gives him a lot of "acting, literary & spoken" credits —
especially on Benny Goodman, but he's expert on everything swing, as
much a scholar as a musician. He had five albums under this byline
1987-98, reviving it here (where he plays piano) on discovering, as
the subtitle puts it, "Unheard Eddie Sauter Arrangements for Red Norvo
and Mildred Bailey," to which the cover adds "featuring Kate Kortum
& Warren Wolf."
B+(***) [sp]
Dave Sewelson/Steve Hirsh/Steve Swell/Matthew Shipp/William
Parker: Muscle Memory (2022 [2025], Mahakala Music):
Baritone sax and trombone stars, a piano-bass duo that was good
enough for David S. Ware, and a drummer who knows a label owner
who can't get enough of improv sessions like this.
B+(***) [bc]
Skerik/Brian Haas/James Singleton/Simon Lott: Compersion
Quartet (2024, Royal Potato Family): Tenor saxophonist
Eric Walton, from Seattle, many side credits since 1991, mostly
in fusion groups, including some of the more interesting ones,
like Critters Buggin, Mylab, and Garage a Trois. Here With
piano/harpsichord, bass/trumpet, and drums, with ample effects.
B+(*) [sp]
Sonic Chambers Quartet: Kiss of the Earth (2024
[2025], 577): Two saxophonists, Byron Asher and Tomas Majcherski,
with the latter doing most of the writing, backed by bass and
drums. Not so obvious at first, but the New Orleans connections
have a way of coming out.
B+(**) [dl]
Thomas Strønen/Time Is a Blind Guide: Off Stillness
(2021 [2025], ECM): Norwegian drummer, group name refers back to a
2015 album, same instrumentation with Håkon Aase (violin) and Ole
Morten Vagan (bass) returning, plus replacements at piano (Ayumi
Tanaka) and cello (Leo Svensson Sander).
B+(*) [sp]
Yuhan Su: Over the Moons (2024 [2025], Endectomorph
Music): Vibraphonist, from Taiwan, moved to US in 2008 to study at
Berklee, based in New York, fifth album since 2012. Opens in dazzling
form, with saxophonists Alex LeRe and Anna Webber, Matt Mitchell on
piano, Yingda Chen on guitar, electric bass, drums, and electronics.
Lags a bit when they try to mix it up, like with flutes.
B+(***) [sp]
Things of This Nature: Things of This Nature (2025,
Mahakala Music): Quartet, four musicians I'd never heard of —
Caylie Davis (trumpet), Chris Ferrari (woodwinds), Shogo Yamagishi
(bass), JJ Mazza (drums) — evidently quite young ("One has to
have childhood memories of the Obama administration to create some
of this music"). Strong first impression, but the common tendency
in first albums to show off everything you can do (including the
flute) scatters and winds down.
B+(*) [sp]
Ken Vandermark: October Flowers for Joe McPhee
(2025, Corbett vs. Dempsey): Solo, inspired by McPhee's 1976 solo
album Tenor, and various collaborations since 1996. He
also plays baritone sax, Bb and bass clarinet, 11 compositions
each named for flowers.
B+(**) [bc]
Rufus Wainwright With the Pacific Jazz Orchestra: I'm a
Stranger Here Myself: Wainwright Does Weill (2025, Thirty
Tigers): He's never been the singer or songwriter his father is,
nor am I sure he actually lives up to the camp he aspires to, but
Weill's songs are still magnificent, and it matters that he cares.
B+(*) [sp]
Wrens: Half of What You See (2023 [2025], Out of
Your Head): On paper I figured this group was led by Jason Nazary,
the drummer who produced and took most of the technical credits,
but the album is dominated by rapper Ryan Easter, who also plays
some trumpet, while cellist Lester St. Louis and pianist Elias
Stemeseder work their skewed electronics. Interesting in every
direction.
A- [dl]
X-Ray Hex Tet: X-Ray Hex Tet (2023 [2024], Reading
Group): One-shot sextet, recorded live at the Taktkos Festival in
Zürich, with Seymour Wright (alto sax), Pat Thomas (piano), Billy
Steiger (violin), Edward George (words/electronics), and drummers
Crystabel Riley and Paul Abbott.
B+(*) [bc]
Yes Deer: Everything That Shines, Everything That Hurts
(2025, Superpang): Scandinavian free jazz trio, three 2014-18 albums,
founders Karl Haugland Bjorá (guitar) and Anders Vestergaard (drums)
return here with new saxophonist Signe Emmeluth for two half-title
tracks, total 32:30. Rough, a bit too much for my taste, but very
much the point here.
B+(**) [bc]
Zanussi 3: A Keen Beast (2019 [2025], Sauajazz):
Norwegian bassist Per Zanussi, 80+ side credits since 1995, some
in short-lived groups I recall, recorded 4 Zanussi 5 albums, strips
that down to a basic trio here, with Kristoffer Alberts (sax) and
Per Oddvar Johansen (drums).
B+(***) [sp]
Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:
Charlie Hunter/Bobby Previte/Skerik/Steven Bernstein: Omaha
Diner (2013 [2025], SideHustle): Guitar, drums, sax, trumpet,
released this as an eponymous group album in 2013, the idea being to
"play the hits" — or deconstruct them, as they see fit.
B+(*) [sp]
Ibex Band: Stereo Instrumental Music (1976 [2025],
Muzikawi): Ethiopian band, went through several iterations during
the 1970s before the political situation deteriorated. Discogs
shows them mostly backing singers, especially Mahmoud Ahmed and
Aster Aweke, but they recorded this one instrumental album. The
familiar background to much 1970s Ethiopian pop, growing into
defining groove.
B+(***) [bc]
Masabumi Kikuchi: Hanamichi: The Final Studio Recording Vol.
II (2013 [2025], Red Hook): Japanese pianist (1939-2015),
survived the fire bombing of Tokyo, got a scholarship to Berklee,
worked with Terumasa Hino, Gil Evans, is perhaps best known for his
Tethered Moon trio with Gary Peacock and Paul Motian. Solo piano
here, following an initial volume released in 2023.
B+(**) [sp]
Mujician: In Concerts (1993-2010 [2025], Jazz in
Britain): Long-running (1988-2011) British avant-jazz quartet, with
Keith Tippett (piano), Paul Dunmall (tenor/soprano sax), Paul Rogers
(bass), and Tony Levin (drums). This compiles four live improv sets,
one early (Cheltenham, 1993), one late (Birmingham, 2010), and two
from the middle (Vienna, 2003).
B+(***) [bc]
Yusuf Mumin: Journey to the Ancient ([2025], We Want
Sounds): Saxophonist, from Cleveland, played in Black Unity Trio in
1968, recorded this undated, uncredited "spiritual jazz" tape a bit
later, with Munim also playing cello and flute, with drummer William
Holmes.
B+(*) [bc]
Charles Tyler Ensemble: Voyage From Jericho (1974
[2025], Frederiksberg): Alto saxophonist (1941-92), started with
Albert Ayler in 1965, recorded his debut for ESP-Disk in 1966, has
a hole in his discography from 1967-75, when this album appeared,
but was quite active (albeit little known) from then up to his
death. Backed by bass (Ronnie Boykins) and drums (Steve Reid),
with trumpet (Earl Cross), and on two tracks, Arthur Blythe takes
over on alto sax, moving Tyler to baritone.
B+(*) [sp]
Mal Waldron: Candy Girl (1975 [2025], Strut):
Pianist (1925-2002), first gained fame as accompanist for Billie
Holiday, but that was just a drop in the bucket of a career that
extended another 40 years, producing numerous highlights, like
his work with Eric Dolphy, Steve Lacy, and Chico Freeman; duos
with Archie Shepp and David Murray; an outstanding series of
albums on Soul Note. This, well, is something else, a jazz-funk
groovefest with electric keyboards (Frank Abel as well as Waldron),
bass, and drums, the reissue adding alternative versions to push
the total over the one hour mark.
B+(*) [sp]
Jessica Williams: Blue Abstraction: Prepared Piano Project
1985-1987 (1985-87 [2025], Pre-Echo Press): Pianist (1948-2022),
mastered classical but moved quickly on to jazz, recorded regularly
1976-2014, with some remarkable trio albums. These "lost" tapes are
solo sessions. The piano preparations are fairly mild here, producing
unexpected tones but no great dissonance, developed with considerable
skill.
B+(***) [bc]
Old music:
Keith Tippett: The Unlonely Raindancer (1979
[2019], Discus Music): British avant-pianist (1947-2020), first
record 1972, this a solo, released on 2-LP in 1980, showed up
on a poll ballot but the only reissue I could find is this one.
I'm not much of a solo piano fan, but he's always been a
remarkable player, as is amply demonstrated here.
B+(**) [sp]
Keith Tippett: Blueprint (1972 [1973], RCA):
This was the pianist's first album, with Roy Babbington (bass)
and either Keith Bailey or Frank Perry (percussion), with wife
Julie Tippett[s] on 4 (of 6) tracks (guitar, mandolin, recorder,
voice).
B [yt]
Unpacking: Postponed until next week.
Ask a question, or send a comment.
Wednesday, December 17, 2025
Music Week
December archive
(in progress).
Music: Current count 45282 [45259] rated (+23), 1 [4] unrated (-3).
I'm barely holding it together, although considering the circumstances
one could argue that I'm doing remarkably well. Most of my time is taken
up by the
Francis Davis Jazz Critics
Poll. We are now less than one week away from the deadline, and I've
counted about 40% as many ballots this year as we wound up with last year.
That's probably bodes well, but is laced with a big shot of uncertainty.
That became increasingly nerve-racking as Francis Davis faded into the
background, and is all the more acute now that he's gone. But it's still
not just his poll any more. I worry about wrecking it, but also suspect
that if I didn't do it, no one else would. So after 19 years, consider
this a bonus round.
Tabulating the results is pretty easy. I have a system, some software
I wrote back when I knew how, and I've developed a support network which
provides a set of checks and balances. The real nightmare is figuring
out what to write once the voting ends and winners are determined. I've
toyed around with many schemes to offload my possibly self-imposed burden.
What I've come up with this year is a scheme where I (or possibly someone
else) writes a short, somewhat schematic introduction, followed by a list
or table of data, and a few comments, some by me but most (hopefully)
from ohers. Even if it winds up just being me, the format relieves much
of the (possibly self-imposed?) pressure of having to come up with a
coherent argument. Which, come to think of it, seems right, given that
years are arbitrary time slices.
I've written the idea up
here.
I'm allowing for the possibility of non-voters commenting, and for using
quotes from previously published work. I'm looking for insight, not just
reaction and opinion. But it's ok if the insights are scattered, as is
the world. If you have something to say, feel free to use the email
address in the file. Perhaps I'll add a form. I will add more guidelines,
more specific suggestions, and possibly some results to prime the pump.
But all of this will have to happen between now and the publication of
the results, first week of January (if all goes well).
Light load of albums this week. (The delay to Tuesday didn't help,
except to add a newly discovered A- album. Otherwise, the cutover was
early Monday, but I had little more time to wrap things up.) I can't
blame this on the poll, which keeps me tied to the computer, and feeds
me new finds to check out. Rather, my niece came to visit, which among
other activities allowed me to
cook dinner. I also had house projects, and signed a deal to get a
new roof. The main reason this post is late is that I've been working
in the attic getting ready for the roofers. I'm hoping they will do
their thing later this week, but I'm less and less optimistic. Holidays
are upon us, and weather is often precarious. Besides, it seems like
literally everything is taking much longer than anyone imagined. More
expensive, too.
One thing that's taken longer than expected has been for me to file
my own jazz ballot. I've done very little rechecking — although
the top two albums still sound great, and nothing else I pegged at A-
has caused me any regrets — and I've found very little new that
has forced me to reconsider. Still, I've wound up tweaking the list a
fair bit from
last week's
draft. But let's make this one official:
New Jazz Albums:
- Steve Lehman Trio + Mark Turner: The Music of Anthony Braxton (Pi)
- Miguel Zenón Quartet: Vanguardia Subterranea: Live at the Village Vanguard (Miel Music)
- Archer: Sudden Dusk (Aerophonic)
- Fieldwork: Thereupon (Pi)
- Sheila Jordan With Roni Ben-Hur & Harvie S: Portrait Now (Dot Time) **
- Ivo Perelman & Matthew Shipp String Trio: Armageddon Flower (TAO Forms)
- Rodrigo Amado: The Bridge: Further Beyond (Trost) **
- Isaiah Collier/William Hooker/William Parker: The Ancients (Eremite) **
- أحمد [Ahmed]: سماع [Sama'a] (Audition) (Otoroku) **
- Motian & More: Gratitude (Phonogram Unit) **
Rara Avis (Reissues/Historical):
- James Moody: 80 Years Young: Live at the Blue Note March 26, 2005 (Origin)
- Jimmy Lyons: Live From Studio Rivbea: 1974 & 1976 (NoBusiness)
- Anthony Braxton: Quartet (England) 1985 (Burning Ambulance) **
- Charles Mingus: Mingus in Argentina: The Buenos Aires Concerts (1977, Resonance, 2CD)
- Griot Galaxy: Live on WUOM 1979 (Two Rooms) **
Vocal Jazz:
- Sheila Jordan With Roni Ben-Hur & Harvie S: Portrait Now (Dot Time) **
- Maria Muldaur: One Hour Mama: The Blues of Victoria Spivey (Nola Blue)
- Colin Hancock's Jazz Hounds Featuring Catherine Russell: Cat & the Hounds (Turtle Bay)
- Anthony Joseph: Rowing Up River to Get Our Names Back (Heavenly Sweetness) **
- Dee Dee Bridgewater + Bill Charlap: Elemental (Mack Avenue) **
Latin Jazz:
- Miguel Zenón Quartet: Vanguardia Subterranea: Live at the Village Vanguard (Miel Music)
- Karol G: Tropicoqueta (Bichota/Interscope) **
Debut Albums:
- Colin Hancock's Jazz Hounds Featuring Catherine Russell: Cat & the Hounds (Turtle Bay)
- Nils Agnas: Köper Sig Ur En Kris (Moserobie)
- Thomas Morgan: Around You Is a Forest (Loveland Music)
The ** notation carried over from my
year-to-date file, representing
something I downloaded or streamed. In past years I've been known
to discriinate against such records, but I'm giving up here. Part
of this is that I get less and less in the mail — especially
since Trump turned European imports into a nightmare, although
the labels there have been cutting back for a long time, at least
since our "run like a business" post office started being run like
venture capital prey. Perhaps some is that I can't play CDs in our
new car.
I've listened to quite a few jazz albums this year (760, vs.
409 non-jazz), but one thing I haven't managed to do is to go back
through the download links I've saved up and see what I'm missing
there. At this point I doubt I ever will. There is just literally
too much to listen to.
New records reviewed this week:
Allo Darlin': Bright Nights (2025, Slumberland):
Indie pop group, started in London by Australian singer-songwriter
Elizabeth Morris as a solo project, morphing into a band. Fourth
album since 2010.
B+(**) [sp]
Bruno Angelini/Sakina Abdou/Angelika Niescier: Lotus
Flowers (2024 [2025], Abalone): French pianist, b. 1965
in Marseille, has more than a dozen albums since 2003, composed
all of the pieces here, many dedicated to prominent civil rights
leaders, joined by two saxophonists (tenor and alto).
B+(**) [sp]
Gregg Belisle-Chi: Slow Crawl: Performing the Music of Tim
Berne (2024 [2025], Intakt): Guitarist, based in Brooklyn,
has several albums since 2015, including two duos and a trio with
saxophonist Berne, and now a second solo album of his compositions.
I have little sense of most jazz musicians as composers, probably
because very few of them manage to get their pieces played by
others. Berne has found a capable ambassador here.
B+(**) [sp]
Jim Black & the Schrimps: Better You Don't
(2024 [2025], Intakt): Drummer, b. 1967 in Seattle, has over
200 side credits since 1989, Tim Berne's Bloodcount and Dave
Douglas's Tiny Bell Trio were important in the 1990s, he led
Alasnoaxis 2000-13, this is his second Berlin-based Schrimps
album, with bass (Felix Henkelhausen) and two saxophonists
(Asger Nissen on alto and Julius Gawlik on tenor).
B+(***) [sp]
The Close Readers: Trees of Lower Hutt (2025, Austin):
New Zealand singer-songwriter Damien Wilkins, has more than a dozen
novels and short story collections since 1990, also recorded three
pretty good albums 2010-14, comes up with another one here. Sounds
a lot like the Go-Betweens.
B+(***) [sp]
Convergence: Reckless Meter (2019 [2025], Capri):
Postbop sextet from Colorado, released three albums 1998-2003, led
by John Gunther (tenor sax), with original members Greg Gisbert
(trumpet), Eric Gunnison (piano), Mark Simon (bass), and Paul
Romaine (drums), plus newcomer Mark Patterson (trombone), each
credited with at least one song.
B+(*) [sp]
De La Soul: Cabin in the Sky (2025, Mass Appeal):
Hip-hop group from Long Island, instant sensations with their 1989
debut, 3 Feet High and Rising. I didn't much care for them
until their 2000-01 albums, but a collection of 1998-2001 singles
is pretty great. Only three albums since 2004, the first without
Maseo, this one finished after Dave (Trugoy the Dove) died in 2023
(he has six lead vocals here).
B+(***) [sp]
Hamid Drake & Pat Thomas: A Mountain Sees a Mountain
(2019 [2025], Old Heaven Books): Drums and piano duo, recorded live
in Shenzhen, China, and released on a label there. Some terrific piano
here, but Drake makes everyone he plays with sound better.
A- [bc]
Effie: Pullup to Busan 4 More Hyper Summer It's Gonna Be a
Fuckin Movie (2025, Sound Republica, EP): Korea rapper, 2nd
EP, 6 songs, 13:23, topped a New York Times EOY list, call it
"hyperpop" if you like, all glitchy and senseless.
B [sp]
Fred Frith/Mariá Portugal: Matter (2023 [2025],
Intakt): British avant-guitarist, active since the 1970s, here in
a duo with the German-based Brazilian drummer, who has a few albums
since 2015. A bit of vocal toward the end.
B+(***) [sp]
Julius Gawlik: It's All in Your Head (2024 [2025],
Unit): German tenor saxophonist (also clarinet), first album as
leader, also plays in Jim Black & the Schrimps, and NDR Big
Band. Quartet with Evi Filippou (vibes), Phil Donkin (bass), and
Jim Black (drums).
B+(***) [sp]
Dave Gisler Trio: The Flying Mega Doghouse (2025,
Intakt): Swiss guitarist, several albums since 2010, this a trio
with bass (Raffaele Bossard) and drums (Lionel Friedli).
B+(*) [sp]
Jimmy Greene: As We Are Now (2024 [2025], Greene
Music Works): Tenor saxophonist, some soprano, mainstream, started
on Criss Cross in 1997, 13th album, backed by piano-bass-drums,
plus extra guitar, organ, and/or percussion on some tracks, and
a Javier Colon vocal.
B+(**) [sp]
Hamell on Trial: Dirty Xmas (2025, Saustex):
No standards here, all originals, dirty is open to interpretation,
so evidently is Xmas.
B+(**) [sp]
Nakibemebe Embaire Group and Naoyuki Uchida: Phantom Keys
(2025, Nyege Nyege Tapes): Ugandan group, released an eponymous album
in 2023, specialize in embaire, which is often described as a xylophone,
but is made up of hollow logs arrayed in the dirt, large enough to be a
team sport. Uchida is a Japanese DJ, credited here with the mix, which
leaves it sounding like a lot of wooden mallet percussion. The group
has a 2023 eponymous album, which I reviewed back then, and don't find
significantly different.
B+(**) [bc]
Otherlands Trio [Stephan Crump/Darius Jones/Eric McPherson]:
Star Mountain (2025, Intakt): Bass/alto sax/drums trio,
all name players, joint credits but Crump has the inside track,
with the new group name evidently spun off from Borderlands Trio,
with McPherson and Kris Davis. Jones seems a bit subdued here, at
least by his usual standards.
B+(**) [sp]
Out Of/Into [Joel Ross/Gerald Clayton/Kendrick Scott/Matt
Brewer/Immanuel Wilkins]: Motion II (2025, Blue Note):
House label supergroup, second album, six originals developed
during a tour, unclear where or when or why but song credits
are widely distributed in the band. Fitting that the mallets
whiz gets first mention.
B+(**) [sp]
Keith Oxman: Home (2024 [2025], Capri): Tenor
saxophonist, mainstream, based in Denver, has a dozen-plus albums
since 1995, this a nice, relaxed quintet with trumpet, guitar,
bass, and drums, playing original pieces.
B+(**) [cd]
Wayne Wilkinson: Holly Tunes (2025, self-released):
Guitarist, from Colorado, has a handful of albums since 2007, this
is billed as a trio with bass and drums, plus "special guest" Thomas
J. Dawson Jr. (piano, strings, organ). Standards done so inoffensively
I didn't even notice most of them.
B- [cd]
Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:
Luke Bell: The King Is Back (2013-16 [2025], All
Blue/Thirty Tigers): Country singer-songwriter, more western than
southern, died young (32 in 2022), leaving three albums 2012-16,
plus now this 28-track collection of engaging and entertaining
scraps. Could be trimmed down, but he was an interesting character
while he lasted.
A- [sp]
Fred Frith: Fred Frith and the Gravity Band (2014
[2025], Klanggalerie): British avant-guitarist, made his mark with
his highly abstract Guitar Solos (1974), has played in prog
rock groups like Henry Cow and Art Bears as well as in jazz and
more classical-oriented ensembles. This group refers back to his
1980 "dance music" album Gravity, most obviously with a
"Dancing in the Streets" medley.
B+(**) [bc]
Fred Frith/Shelley Burgon: The Life and Behavior
(2002-05 [2025], Relative Pitch): Guitar and harp duo. The latter
has some recordings with Trevor Dunn from the period, and scattered
side credits since, ranging from Braxton to Björk to Eyvind Kang to
William Tyler. Within limits, but "telepathic synchronicity" isn't
just a boast.
B+(***) [sp]
Charles Mingus: Mingus at Monterey (1964 [2025],
Candid): Live album, self-released in 1965, had a checkered history
of reissues up to the early 1980s when Fantasy/Prestige got hold
of it, but even they let it slip from sight after 1987. Opens with
a quintet — Lonnie Hillyer (trumpet), Charles McPherson (alto
sax), Jaki Byard (piano), Dannie Richmond (drums) — playing
an Ellington medley, culminating in 13:35 of "A Train" (with John
Handy added on tenor sax), then moves on to "Orange Was the Colour
of Her Dress, Then Blue Silk" (13:38). Then they add extra horns
for a new piece, "Meditations on Intgegration" (24:45).
B+(**) [sp]
Thelonious Monk: Bremen 1965 (1965 [2025], Sunnyside):
Radio shot, with a live audience, part of a European tour that has
produced other similar documents (one from Olympia was recorded the
day before, and another from Olympia a couple months later). Quartet
with Charlie Rouse (tenor sax), Larry Gales (bass), and Ben Riley
(drums) was in peak form, with the once-quirky tunes confirmed as
classics.
A- [bc]
Old music:
Fred Frith: Gravity (1979-80 [1980], Ralph):
British guitarist, started c. 1973 in left-prog Henry Cow, played
on important albums by Robert Wyatt and Brian Eno (and on less
important but still memorable ones by Tom Newman, Jade Warrior
and Art Bears), while releasing his own pathbreaking Guitar
Solos (1974) and, by 1980, hooking up with Henry Kaiser,
Eugene Chadbourne, Lindsay Cooper, and the Residents. He cut
this smorgasbord of deranged dance music on the latter's label,
with dozens of side credits I don't recognize, including a tap
dancer, lots of handclaps, and four names Discogs places under
"Other [criticism]" — worth noting that at the time, I
still regarded him as less notable than Simon Frith, his critic
brother (and I followed the names I dropped above, although I
wasn't much of a Residents fan).
B+(***) [yt]
Grade (or other) changes:
Lily Allen: West End Girl (2025, BMG): British
singer-songwriter, fifth studio album since 2007, 7 years since
number four, a stretch of time covering a marriage and a divorce,
so easy subject matter, which she handles adroitly. Music doesn't
have quite the same zip as the earlier albums, so I hemmed and
hawed, figuring I didn't want to picture her in middle age. But
she's still many times smarter than most other pop stars, and
that extends past her words into her music.
[was: B+(***)]: A- [sp]
Unpacking: Found in the mail last week (not yet counted):
- Herb Robertson/Christopher Dell/Christian Ramond/Klaus Kugel: Blue Transient (Nemu) [09-16]
- Sophie Tassignon: A Slender Thread (Nemu) [06-27]
Ask a question, or send a comment.
Tuesday, December 9, 2025
Music Week
December archive
(in progress).
Music: Current count 45259 [45223] rated (+36), 4 [3] unrated (+1).
We're less than two weeks away from the Dec. 21 deadline for the
20th Annual Francis Davis
Jazz Critics Poll. I have 54 ballots counted, which feels like
good progress, although the pace will still have to pick up to match
last year's 177 voters. I've only invited a little more than a dozen
new critics, and I've only gotten one ballot back from that bunch,
but we've gotten a few ballots from people who missed in 2024. It
helps me to get your ballots in early, not least because I worry a
lot about turnout.
One person who hasn't submitted their ballot yet is me. I did the
cutover on Monday, early enough to post, but I wanted to include my
ballot picks, and didn't figure that out. Actually, I still haven't
figured it out for sure, but what follows is where my list stands
at the present moment:
New Jazz Albums:
- Steve Lehman Trio + Mark Turner: The Music of Anthony Braxton (Pi)
- Miguel Zenón Quartet: Vanguardia Subterranea: Live at the Village Vanguard (Miel Music)
- Archer: Sudden Dusk (Aerophonic)
- Sheila Jordan With Roni Ben-Hur & Harvie S: Portrait Now (Dot Time) **
- Fieldwork: Thereupon (Pi)
- Isaiah Collier/William Hooker/William Parker: The Ancients (Eremite) **
- Colin Hancock's Jazz Hounds Featuring Catherine Russell: Cat & the Hounds (Turtle Bay)
- Ivo Perelman & Matthew Shipp String Trio: Armageddon Flower (TAO Forms)
- Cosmic Ear: Traces (We Jazz) **
- Rodrigo Amado: The Bridge: Further Beyond (Trost) **
Rara Avis (Reissues/Historical):
- James Moody: 80 Years Young: Live at the Blue Note March 26, 2005 (Origin)
- Jimmy Lyons: Live From Studio Rivbea: 1974 & 1976 (NoBusiness)
- Anthony Braxton: Quartet (England) 1985 (Burning Ambulance) **
- Charles Mingus: Mingus in Argentina: The Buenos Aires Concerts (1977, Resonance, 2CD)
- Griot Galaxy: Live on WUOM 1979 (Two Rooms) **
Vocal Jazz:
- Sheila Jordan With Roni Ben-Hur & Harvie S: Portrait Now (Dot Time) **
- Colin Hancock's Jazz Hounds Featuring Catherine Russell: Cat & the Hounds (Turtle Bay)
- Maria Muldaur: One Hour Mama: The Blues of Victoria Spivey (Nola Blue)
- Anthony Joseph: Rowing Up River to Get Our Names Back (Heavenly Sweetness) **
- Dee Dee Bridgewater + Bill Charlap: Elemental (Mack Avenue) **
Latin Jazz:
- Miguel Zenón Quartet: Vanguardia Subterranea: Live at the Village Vanguard (Miel Music)
- Karol G: Tropicoqueta (Bichota/Interscope) **
Debut Albums:
- Colin Hancock's Jazz Hounds Featuring Catherine Russell: Cat & the Hounds (Turtle Bay)
- Nils Agnas: Köper Sig Ur En Kris (Moserobie)
- Thomas Morgan: Around You Is a Forest (Loveland Music)
I haven't logged this yet. I want to give it a day or two to settle
before making it official. (I'll update this post when I do, but I
don't want to hold it up or do something rash.) I'm surprised to note
that two Rara Avis
albums are new discoveries this week (although the Braxton has been
long in hand; I've just been slow getting around to it), after a
couple months with nothing (but SML) coming close. I'm not especially
happy with these lists: everything I recheck from my A-list sounds
really good, but I spend so little time with new records that even
obvious favorites never really sink in, like albums used to do before
I started spreading myself so thin. I will note a couple things:
- I still prefer Amado's 2016 tape The Healing: Live at ZDB
over the new Further Beyond, but rather arbitrarily went with
the latter. It's pretty close, and much more likely to get traction
in the poll. While I often maintain that I don't care who wins, I
do think a bit more recognition of the 21st century's greatest tenor
saxophonist is in order. Something only slightly more qualified could
also be said about Ivo Perelman and Dave Rempis (Archer).
- The ** are residue from my year file, indicating something I
downloaded or streamed. In the past, I've been known to ban such
records from my ballot, but that's getting harder to insist on,
and I'm becoming less materialistic.
- I file Muldaur under rock, thanks to her 1973 breakout hit, as
opposed to her folk music in the 1960s and her turn toward blues
in the 1990s. So I overlooked her in sorting out my jazz list, but
she deserves some props as a jazz singer, especially when she works
with New Orleans-style jazz bands. Her album is actually number one
on my combined
2025 list, ahead of Lehman. I
don't feel it's jazzy enough to list in the New Jazz Albums list,
but at the very least she deserves a Vocal Jazz mention. (So far,
my vote is the only one.)
- One can also argue whether the Anthony Joseph album is jazz,
but it appeals to me like jazz does. I can say the same for Karol
G under Latin.
- I haven't looked below the A- cusp to try to fill out Latin
and Debut, but have done so in the past, and may yet do so this
year. The idea behind the special categories is to get people to
dig deeper. My shortfall suggests I should. Good chance I have
five or more B+(***) records in each.
- I am conflicted about voting for Zenón in Latin Jazz. I've
been in the middle of too many fights over which of his records
are more canonically Latin Jazz than others. I also wonder if
there isn't an element of stereotyping in his many category
wins. On the other hand, this is a very good album, possibly
his best.
- Hancock is clearly eligible for Debut, but Russell even more
clearly is not, and she's the force that lifts the album. Under
Francis Davis rules, the album wouldn't be eligible. Under my
more relaxed rules, it is. I'm inclined to vote for it on the
off chance that it may get a couple more votes, but it doesn't
really fit the concept. Nor does Morgan, who had 150+ album
credits before putting his name first, and wouldn't have been
eligible under old rules.
- I've allowed a Debut vote for Heat On, but didn't
vote for it. The only way it qualifies is if you threat it as
Lily Finnegan's solo debut, but her name doesn't appear on the
cover. That pushes the concept a bit too far for my taste, but
(as I said) I did allow someone else to do it.
What I really
recommend is that you look at my EOY lists (only compiled this week,
and subject to constant revision for the next year or so):
Jazz [76+6 A-list new,
26+2 A-list old; 161+15 B+(***) new, 28+4 B+(***) old], and
Non-Jazz [90+2
A-list new, 8+2 A-list old; 100+1 B+(***) new, 15+2 B+(***) old].
Biggest surprise so far is that I already have more non-jazz than
jazz A-list albums. Usually this time of year jazz is about 30% ahead,
with non-jazz only catching up after I've finished poll work and got
a chance to catch up with the EOY lists. A big part of the reason I
have so much this year is that I've been following HHGA's
The Best Hip Hop Albums of 2025 as they've updated it throughout
the year.
- Saba & No I.D.: From the Private Collection of Saba and No I.D. (From the Private Collection) **
- Apathy: Mom & Dad (Dirty Version/Coalmine) **
- Billy Woods: Golliwog (Backwoodz Studioz) **
- Public Enemy: Black Sky Over the Projects: Apartment 2025 (Enemy) **
- Clipping.: Dead Channel Sky (Sub Pop) **
- Brother Ali: Satisfied Soul (Mello Music Group) **
- Buck 65: Keep Moving (Handsmade) **
- Kae Tempest: Self Titled (Island) **
- Anthony Joseph: Rowing Up River to Get Our Names Back (Heavenly Sweetness) **
- Chance the Rapper: Star Line (self-released) **
- Clipse: Let God Sort Them Out (Roc Nation) **
- Dave: The Boy Who Played the Harp (Neighbourhood) **
- Blueprint: Vessel (Weightless) **
- Open Mike Eagle: Neighborhood Gods Unlimited (Auto Reverse) **
- Sumac and Moor Mother: The Film (Thrill Jockey) **
- Chuck D: Chuck D Presents Enemy Radio: Radio Armageddon (Def Jam) **
- Queen Herawin: Awaken the Sleeping Giant (Matic) **
- MindsOne: Stages (Fort Lowell) **
- Recognize Ali & Tragedy Khadafi: The Past the Present and the Future (Greenfield Music) **
- Vinnie Paz: God Sent Vengeance (Iron Tusk Music) **
- Stress Eater: Everybody Eats! (Silver Age '24) **
- KRS-One: Temple of Hip Hop Global Awareness (R.A.M.P. Ent Agency) **
- Apollo Brown & Bronze Nazareth: Funeral for a Dream (Escapism) **
- Aesop Rock: I Heard It's a Mess There Too (Rhymesayers) **
- Wu-Tang X Mathematics: Black Samson, the Bastard Swordsman (36 Chambers/DNA Music) **
Discounting two titles I picked up from my jazz list plus one
late discovery from 2024, that's still about 25% of my non-jazz
list. I've also done a better-than-usual job of following
Saving Country Music
this year, so my country list (broadly speaking) is nearly as
long:
- Bill Scorzari: Sidereal Days (Day 1) (self-released)
- Helene Cronin: Maybe New Mexico (self-released) **
- Amanda Shires: Nobody's Girl (ATO) **
- Hayes Carll: We're Only Human (Highway 87) **
- Margo Price: Hard Headed Woman (Loma Vista) **
- James McMurtry: The Black Dog and the Wandering Boy (New West) **
- Cam Pierce: A Thousand Lonely Horses (self-released) **
- Sam Stoane: Tales of the Dark West (Cloverdale) **
- Willie Nelson: Oh What a Beautiful World (Legacy) **
- Sunny Sweeney: Rhinestone Requiem (Aunt Daddy) **
- Tyler Childers: Snipe Hunter (Hickman Holler/RCA) **
- Willie Nelson: Workin' Man: Willie Sings Merle (Legacy) **
- Jubal Lee Young: Squirrels (Reconstruction) **
- Gurf Morlix: Bristlecone (Rootball) **
- Hailey Whitters: Corn Queen (Pigasus/Big Loud) **
Of course, one could make this list longer with country-adjacent
singer-songwriters like Hamell on Trial, Jeffrey Lewis, Patterson
Hood, Jason Isbell, Neil Young, Todd Snider, and Dylan Hicks, as
well as bands like Mekons, Wednesday, and Delines. And not a lot
more than accent and branding separates these artists from others.
Plus there's a lot more good country further down the list —
same for hip-hop and everything else, especially jazz, where nearly
everyone is remarkably skilled and inventive, so list placement has
become inescapably quirky and personal. The years when most people
shared the same listening experiences are long gone.
This is going to be another trying week for me. We have another
guest this week, so that will take up much of my time. I'll try to
keep up with the poll tasks. I need to start writing bits and pieces
for the final package. It's also beginning to look like the big roof
project could fall apart. The weather isn't helping, especially with
the latter. It's going to be arduous until the poll appears in the
first week of January. After that is unfathomable.
I have an idea for my next Substack piece, but finding the time
will be difficult. Actually, I have a bunch of ideas. Just too many
other commitments in the meantime.
New records reviewed this week:
Tarun Balani: ڪڏهن ملنداسين
Kadahin Milandaasin (2024 [2025], Berthold): Indian drummer,
from New Delhi, has a few albums since 2012. Title is in Sindhi,
translates as "when will we meet," refers to a grandfather he
never knew and a father who died in 2024, uprooted when Sind
(Karachi) found itself on the Pakistani side of the 1947 partition.
Quartet, recorded in Brooklyn, with Adam O'Farrill (trumpet), Olli
Hirvonen (guitar), and Sharik Hasan (piano/synthesizer).
B+(***) [bc]
Kenny Barron: Songbook (2025, Artwork): Pianist,
b. 1943, recorded some fine albums for Muse starting in 1973, came
to my attention backing Stan Getz on People Time (1991),
Discogs credits him with 98 albums and 770 performance credits,
starting in 1960 with Yusef Lateef, then his brother, saxophonist
Bill Barron. But while he's justly famous for his albums, he may
have had even more impact as an educator: the number of famous
pianists who cite him on their resumes must run well past 100.
One thing he's not especially noted for is accompanying singers
(unlike, say, Tommy Flanagan, or Ran Blake), but there have been
a few (catching my eye, up to 1991, are Maria Muldaur, Sheila
Jordan, and Jay Clayton; next screen adds Helen Merrill, Abbey
Lincoln, Dianne Reeves, and lesser names). This is billed as
his "first album to fully feature vocals." At first, I figured
this was would just be a showcase for singers — he lined up
eight, some famous (Cécile McLorin Salvant, Kurt Elling, Catherine
Russell), some "up and coming" (Tyreek McDole, Ekep Nkwelle, Kavita
Shah) — with his piano trio — Kiyoshi Kitagawa (bass)
and Johnathan Blake (drums) — tying them together. But it
turns out they're all singing his music, with new lyrics by Janice
Jarrett. So it takes longer to sink in than standards, and the
scattered voices depersonalize it a bit. But the piano is superb.
B+(***) [sp]
George Cartwright & Bruce Golden: South From a Narrow
Arc (2025, self-released): Avant-saxophonist, also plays
guitar, b. 1950 in Mississippi but long based in Minnesota, albums
since 1979, best known for his 1981-2003 group Curlew, has more on
his own, some (both old and new) with the Arkansas-based Mahakala
label. Second duo album with Golden ("percussion and lots lots more
plus the cover"). Scratchy at first, remains testy.
B+(*) [bc]
Che: Rest in Bass (2025, 10K): Young Atlanta rapper
Chase Shaun Mitchell (b. 2006), second album. Pitchfork called this
"the platonic idea of rage rap — diced-up lines and constant
distortion, with enough vulnerability to balance the outrageous
hedonism." Maybe if you focus, but why sort the clutter?
B+(**) [sp]
Silvana Estrada: Vendrán Suaves Lluvias (2025,
Glassnote): Mexican singer-songwriter, has a couple albums,
sounds vaguely folkie.
B+(*) [sp]
Al Foster: Live at Smoke (2025, Smoke Sessions):
Drummer, side credits start in 1964 with Blue Mitchell, Discogs
counts 515 album credits, notably played with Miles Davis 1972-85,
not many albums as leader (first in 1978, three with this label
since 2019), but this comes from two live sets celebrating his
82nd birthday, four months before he died. Stellar quartet with
Chris Potter (tenor/soprano sax), Brad Mehldau (piano), and Joe
Martin (bass).
B+(***) [sp]
Billy Hart: Multidirectional (2023 [2025], Smoke
Sessions): Drummer, b. 1940, has more than a dozen albums under
his own name (starting in 1977), scores more slugline credits,
and hundreds of side credits (Discogs says 817, with Jimmy Smith
in 1964 not his first gig but a break out). Earlier this year,
he released a studio album with this quartet: Mark Turner (tenor
sax), Ethan Iverson (piano), and Ben Street (bass). Here's they're
back for a live set (five songs, 47:05).
B+(***) [sp]
James K: Friend (2025, AD93): "Experimental musician
and visual artist from NYC," Jamie Krasner, debut EP in 2013, fourth
album, sings over beguiling electronic beats.
B+(**) [sp]
Led Bib: Hotel Pupik (2025, Cuneiform): British
fusion group, ninth album since 2005, led by drummer Mark Holub,
with Liran Donin (bass) and two saxophonists (Pete Grogan and Chris
Williams).
B+(*) [dl]
Nick León: A Tropical Entropy (2025, Tra Tra Trax):
South Florida electronica/hip-hop producer, fifth album since 2016.
B+(*) [sp]
Los Thuthanaka: Los Thuthanaka (2025, self-released):
Electronic musician Elysia Crampton, born in California, grew up in
Virginia, first album released as E+E in 2008, followed by several
in 2015-18 before adopting the name Chuquimamani-Condori, drawing on
her Bolivian heritage, here in a duo with brother Joshua Chuquimia
Crampton. I'm finding this uncomfortably loud and abrasive, but it's
easy to seel the appeal if you're tuned into the energy.
B+(**) [bc]
Paul Marinaro: Mood Ellington (2022 [2025],
Origin): Standards singer, born in Buffalo, based in Chicago,
has a couple of previous albums from 2015, tackles 25 pieces
from the Ellington songbook, arranged in three sets, backed
by a nine-piece band plus a phalanx of violins. Good singer,
songs not always well suited, arrangements hit and miss.
B+(**) [sp]
Fred Moten & Brandon López: Revision (2025,
TAO Forms): Wikipedia describes Moten as a "cultural theorist,
poet, and scholar whose work explores critical theory, black
studies, and performance studies." His bibliography is split
between "academic" and "creative," with the latter extending
now to three albums since 2022, the first two with López (bass)
and Gerald Cleaver (drums), this just with bass. I doubt I gave
this one enough time.
B+(***) [sp]
Charles Owens Trio: The Music Tells Us (2024,
La Reserve): Tenor saxophonist, b. 1972, which distinguishes him
from another saxophonist, b. 1939 (played with Buddy Rich and
Mongo Santamaria in the late 1960s, has 149 credits at Discogs).
This one debuted in 1999 with quartet including Omer Avital and
Jason Lindner, who led his next two credits. Discogs has a few
more albums, but his Bandcamp has a different batch, and I've
seen reference to, but haven't verified, a box of 2003 live
recordings that appear on neither (some digitals are on Amazon).
Trio with Cameron Ralston (bass) and Koli Shepsu (drums), mostly
standards, starts with "Body and Soul" and ends with "A Flower
Is a Lovesome Thing," with stops along the way for "Nature Boy"
and "Tomorrow Never Knows" (the most interesting, and surprising,
piece here). Owens also plays some piano (Nord Stage 3) here.
B+(***) [sp]
Aaron Parks: "By All Means!!" (2025, Blue Note):
Pianist, albums since 2000, has a trio with Ben Street (bass)
and Billy Hart (drums), adding Ben Solomon (tenor sax) here,
to nice effect.
B+(**) [sp]
Revolutionary Snake Ensemble: Serpentine (2025,
Cuneiform): Boston group led by saxophonist Ken Field, fifth
album since 2003, modeled after New Orleans brass bands but
somewhat removed.
B+(***) [dl]
Joanne Robertson: Blurrr (2025, AD 93): British
singer-songwriter, from Blackpool, based in Glasgow, also a painter
and poet, sixth solo album.
B+(*) [sp]
John Scofield/Dave Holland: Memories of Home
(2024 [2025], ECM): Guitar and bass duo, both legends: Holland
left Miles Davis to record one of the greatest avant-jazz albums
of 1972 (Conference of the Birds), then developed into
one of the definitive postbop composer-bandleaders; Scofield
picked up the fusion banner in 1981 and brought it to a new
level of intricacy and sophistication. Not their first meeting,
but their first duo album together.
A- [sp]
Smerz: Big City Life (2025, Escho): Norwegian
duo, Catharina Stoltenberg and Henriette Motzfeldt, second album,
electronic beats, trip-hop vocals.
B+(**) [sp]
Omar Sosa: Sendas (2025, Otá): Cuban pianist,
b. 1965, moved to Ecuador in 1990, lived in US for a while,
eventually wound up in Spain. Solo, mostly downbeat, a couple
of vocals.
B+(*) [sp]
Adrian Younge [Presents]: Something About April III
(2025, Jazz Is Dead): Los Angeles-based composer-producer, started in
"psychedelic soul," ventured into soundtracks, has lately mostly worked
the Jazz Is Dead franchise with Ali Shaheed Muhammad, which usually
features still-living-but-long-forgotten 1970s jazz figures, raising
more questions than they answer. On his own, Younge's debut album was
2011's Something About April, to which he added a 2016 sequel.
Here he hopes his increasing mastery of his trade — "a 30-piece
orchestra, analog synthesizers, breakbeats and Brazilian vocalists"
— will make the third time the charm. He may be right, but I'm
not sure anyone else cares.
B+(*) [sp]
Adrian Younge: Jazz Is Dead 23: Hyldon (2025, Jazz
Is Dead, EP): The guest star here is Brazilian singer-songwriter
Hyldon De Souza Silva (b. 1951), whose albums started in 1975, for
a twist on the producer's "psychedelic soul" roots.
Eight songs, 24:40.
B+(**) [sp]
Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:
Anthony Braxton: Quartet (England) 1985 (1985
[2025], Burning Ambulance): The alto saxophonist, who started in
AACM in Chicago, cut a Penguin Guide crown-winning solo (For
Alto) that was so ugly even I can't stand it 55 years later,
got a major visibility boost when Arista signed him in the late
1970s, got a long-term teaching gig at Wesleyan whence he has
had several students lauded with genius grants (Mary Halvorson
most famously). Now past 80, he continues to add to the hundreds
of albums in his discography, which is only starting to be
fleshed out with old tapes. One thing that helped solidify
his reputation was his 1980s quartet, with Marilyn Crispell
(piano), Mark Dresser (bass), and Gerry Hemingway (drums),
which ranks among the great quartets in jazz history —
peers include Coltrane's in the 1960s, and Ware's 1990s
(with any of its drummers, but let's say Guillermo E. Brown).
Their 1985 tour of England produced three 2-CD sets at the
time, from Coventry (the Penguin Guide pick), Birmingham,
and London (my pick). This digital-only release collects four
more shows, each with two 36-47 minute sets, from successive
nights in Sheffield, Leicester, Bristol, and Southampton.
Playing them end to end is liable to feel like drowning, but
any time you come up for air, you're likely to notice something
simply brilliant. Ends with a bonus set drawn from soundchecks,
including bits of standards.
A- [dl]
Don Cherry/Latif Khan: Music/Sangam (1978 [2025],
Heavenly Sweetness): Trumpet player (1936-95), originally from
Oklahoma City, gained fame in Ornette Coleman's Quartet, moved
to Europe and expanded his horizons even wider, including this
duo with tabla player (1942-89) from Delhi, during a first
encounter in Paris.
B+(**) [sp]
Griot Galaxy: Live on WUOM 1979 (1979 [2025], Two
Rooms): Jazz band from Michigan, spanned 1972-89, recorded albums in
1982 and 1985, had another live set released in 2003. Names I first
recognize here are Jaribu Shahid (bass) and Tani Tabbal (drums), who
were Sun Ra veterans but I know them mostly from James Carter's 1990s
Quartet. Here they're backing two saxophonists, Faruq Z. Bey and
Anthony Holland. Strong sax interplay, outstanding rhythm section,
some spoken word.
A- [bc]
Old music:
Tarun Balani: The Shape of Things to Come (2020,
Berthold): Indian drummer, same group as his 2025 album: Adam
O'Farrill (trumpet), Sharik Hasan (piano/synthesizer), Olli
Hirvonen (guitar). Bold title, reminiscent of Ornette Coleman
but "things" are vague where "jazz" was specific, and attached
to a short album (5 songs, 31:08). The title piece, which leaps
out of the modal matrix, for a moment anyhow, suggests that the
future is bebop.
B+(**) [bc]
Daniel Carter/Gary Hassay/William Parker: Emanate
(2013 [2015], self-released): No credits on the site, but Rick Lopez
has the lowdown, crediting Carter with tenor/soprano sax, clarinet,
flute, and trumpet, Hassay with alto/soprano sax and vocal, and Parker
with bass and tuba, and setting the date and location as Easton, PA.
B+(**) [bc]
Gary Hassay + Paul Rogers: To Be Free (2004 [2006],
Konnex): Free jazz alto saxophonist, just died (1947-2025), based in
Allentown, PA, which was close enough to New York to get him some
connections (e.g., with William Parker) but keep him obscure. Still,
Discogs credits him with 18 albums since 1996, adding one side credit
for his 1999 Ye Ren album (actually just a duo with Parker). Very
little of his work is available on Spotify, but most of it is
available on Bandcamp, including this remarkable duo with the
British bassist — best known for numerous albums with Paul
Dunmall, but in exceptional form here. I'm not so sure about the
bit of Tuvan throat singing.
A- [bc]
Gary Hassay/Dan DeChellis/Tatsuya Nakatani: Beauty
(2007, Konnex): Alto sax/piano/drums trio, one with several albums
together, although the credits seem to have been missing on the
original release, and are blurred ("saxophones/keyboards/percussion")
on Bandcamp. Seems like they think quieter is prettier, but this is
more striking when they break loose. Includes another "taste" of
throat singing.
B+(**) [bc]
Gary Hassay/Dan DeChellis/Tatsuya Nakatini: Ritual Joy
(2009 [2010], Konnex): Another trio album, with a 57:44 live set
("Haunting Said That") and a 7:36 "Thank You" (order flipped for
the 2015 digital).
B+(**) [bc]
Gary Hassay/Michael Bisio: My Brother (2011,
Konnex): Duo, Hassay playing tenor sax here, with the bassist
who had worked with everyone on the New York avant scene when
William Parker wasn't available.
B+(**) [bc]
Gary Hassay/Dan DeChellis/Tatsuya Nakatini: Seven Pieces
(2015, self-released): Trio (alto sax/piano/drums), no information
on when/where this was recorded, but probably within the 2007-10
window of their other albums. Pieces are untitled and numbered.
B+(*) [bc]
Gary Joseph Hassay/Janet Young: What Remains (2016,
Dbops Music): Hassay starts using his middle name here, playing
saxophones, throat-singing, and also credited with singing bowls
and tuning forks, an interest shared by Young, also credited with
gongs. The vocals finally lost it for me.
B- [bc]
Charles Owens Quartet: Eternal Balance (1999,
Fresh Sound New Talent): Tenor saxophonist, first album, with
Jason Lindner (piano), Omer Avital (bass), and Daniel Freedman
(drums), three originals and four standards.
B+(***) [sp]
Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:
- Negative Press Project: Friction Quartet (Envelopmental Music) [01-30]
Ask a question, or send a comment.
Wednesday, December 3, 2025
Music Week
December archive
(in progress).
Music: Current count 45223 [45202] rated (+21), 3 [1] unrated (+2).
We had guests from Boston Monday-Wednesday, so I paid them attention,
neglecting everything else, especially surveying new music. Actually,
the disruption started earlier, as I had to work around the house to
get guest rooms ready. One thing that involved was clearing or hiding
our construction projects. Monday I made a fairly substantial
dinner, consisting of chicken cacciatore, potatoes dauphinois,
caponata, horiatiki salad, a green beans with pancetta and parmesan
(and, since I was short of pancetta, a lot of speck), with tiramisu
for dessert. It's a menu I had suggested to my nephew for his birthday,
as something fairly easy but still spectacular (although I think I
had a chocolate cake in mind, that being a birthday). Next day we
went out to George's Bistro for something fancier and more expensive.
Didn't see many sights, but not much you can really do in Wichita in
December.
I've fallen several days behind my email in tabulating the
Francis Davis Jazz
Critics Poll. I invited another dozen-plus prospective voters,
and just got a ballot back from one of them. I currently have 35
ballots counted, which seems pretty good with 18 days left until
the Dec. 21 deadline. That's just gauging from memory: at times
like this I wish I had sequence data from previous years, so I
can more accurately gauge progress-to-date. We're at a bit less
than 20% of last year's 177 ballots, so I need to get a good deal
busier in the next 2.5 weeks.
Still time to invite more people, if I can find time to vet them.
Recommendations welcome. (Most I've received recently have been very
good.) The other big thing I have to figure out is the package
articles. I had the thought of trying to commission some extra views
of the data, but I'm having so much trouble finding time for what I
minimally have to do that the extra work of recruitment and editing
may prove beyond my reach. But, in case anyone is interested, some
articles I'd like to see include:
- I'll probably write one of my typical
Nuts & Bolts articles.
- Francis Davis normally would write one of his "state of the union"
essays which would serve as an introduction to the whole poll. I doubt
anyone can fill his shoes, which is one reason I'm pushing for multiple
pieces, but let's list it here in case anyone feels like rising to the
challenge.
- I'd like to see a tribute piece on Francis and his conception and
interest in the poll. I know a lot about the mechanics and history,
but I'm far less certain about what he thought and wanted, and why
he stuck with it so long, against so many obstacles.
- The special categories could each be given their introduction
articles. I'd particularly like to see someone explain and defend
Francis' concept of those categories (I'm not a big believer in
them myself).
- I'd like to see one or more outside takes on the poll, especially
a view from Europe.
- The obituaries list could use a proper introduction.
- I've thought about asking for comments, like in the Pazz &
Jop polls. Problem is, I tried this once, got a very weak response,
and wound up not only throwing the whole thing away but learning
I don't have the skills and temperament to manage such a project.
If we did such a thing, and got a good response, it would easily
break down into obvious subsets (top 10, outliers, state of the
world). It would be nice to have a section of remembrances of
Francis.
I've toyed with the idea of taking some of my money and offering
it for pieces, but there's so little to go around I'm not sure that's
even a good idea. Plus it's becoming increasingly clear that I'm
being stretched to the breaking point this year. I'd be interested
in any reader
comments here (although I'm not
very optimistic about getting any). I will at least run these ideas
past the voters and admin helpers later this week, and try to make
decisions next week.
The other thing I want to stress here is my hope that other
people will write and/or broadcast (or is that podcast?) about the
poll in their own venues after it comes out. If I can be helpful
in that regard, please let me know. The poll is not a commercial
venture. It's not an excuse to throw a gala, to hobnob with the
stars, to hand out trophies. I'm not sure that it even matters who
wins what. But the exercise matters, both in clarifying our own
thinking and in communicating our experiences and expertise to
other people. It helps us find our bearings in an immensely complex
and confusing world. And that the process is relatively free of
commercial pressures and ambitions should be taken as good.
I ran my cutover Wednesday evening, and started to write this.
I got almost this far, before I ran out of gas and decided to give
it another day. My album count is short because I've spent so much
time on other things. Even so, I've failed to make any progress on
my own EOY lists, and very little on my
EOY Aggregate, which
has suddenly fallen very far behind. Much of today was spent
catching up with email, which has brought the ballot count to
40. The number of New Jazz records with votes is up to
241,
with Rara Avis at
53.
I also found myself adding occasional items to the
Loose Tabs draft file.
I got my monthly stats report from
Substack,
which showed +4 subscribers (to 81), and -143 post reads (102;
looks like I only posted once in November). So that's feeling like
a fiasco. My mostly remedial home projects are feeling even more
hopeless, especially as I'm caught between the grinding wheels of
contractors and insurance companies. We were fortunate to mostly
be spared the costs of inflation in 2023-24 — sure, we knew
about food, but we don't need that much, and nothing else had much
impact. But now I'm finding that a new roof costs three times as
much as it did in 2006, and while insurance pretty much covered
that 2006 roof, today's is covering less than half. And the real
problem there isn't even money: it's leverage. There are still
lots of cheap things, where we have lots of competitive choices,
but where we don't, we're really getting screwed. Needless to
add, having a government built on fraud and predatory practices
doesn't offer much hope, let alone protection.
With guests gone, and construction pending (I hope), I've
started to line up a lot of things to listen to, so I imagine
the rest of the year will be chock full of very quick and dirty
reviews. But when I looked as the
Jazz Passings list,
I noticed saxophonist
Gary Hassay among the recently departed (1947-2025): a name
I recall fondly, and felt I should delve into deeper. Reviews
next week, but I went ahead and added the cover scan for To
Be Free (2005) to the otherwise paltry A-list above right.
But he didn't record a lot, and I have trouble getting into the
throat singing.
I'm still happy to send out invitations when I run across a
worthy name. I'm frustrated when I can't figure out an email
address. (I spent some time today looking for Brent Burton,
and I noticed that Mike Jurkovic has a list at AAJ.) I see
that
Fred Kaplan and
Nate Chinen have already published lists, but haven't submitted
ballots.
Well past midnight now, and if I don't file this tonight, I may
never get it done. So basta per ora!
New records reviewed this week:
أحمد [Ahmed]: سماع
[Sama'a] (Audition) (2025, Otoroku): British quartet,
formed 2017 in tribute to bassist Ahmed Abdul-Malik, with Pat
Thomas (piano), Seymour Wright (alto sax), Joel Grip (double
bass), and Antonin Gerbal (drums). Sixth album, follows the
box set Giant Beauty, which got a lot of attention in
2024. Four pieces (66:04). Can grate in spots, but impressive
or maybe I mean awesome. I've listened to a fair amount from
Thomas recently, but Wright, with 60 credits since 2002,
could use further research.
A- [bc]
Lina Allemano Four: The Diptychs (2024 [2025],
Lumo): Canadian trumpet player, divides her time between Toronto
and Berlin, side credits since 1996, albums since 2003, mostly
"Fours," this one with alto sax (Brodie West), bass (Andrew
Downing), and drums (Nick Fraser). Two two-horn interplay can
take off.
B+(***) [bc]
Mia Dyberg/Axel Filip: Hobby House (2025,
Relative Pitch): Danish alto saxophonist, a dozen or so albums
since 2016, this a duo with drums.
B+(**) [sp]
Ryan Ebaugh/Matt Crane/Cameron Presley: Detergent
(2024 [2025], Scatter Archive): Tenor sax, drums, guitar; the former
seems to be younger, with a couple recent albums; the others older,
with side credits starting in the 1990s, albeit mostly in bands with
names like Carpet Floor (Crane) and Upsilon Acrux (Presley). Raw and
harsh, which is the point.
B+(***) [bc]
Rachel Eckroth & John Hadfield: Speaking in Tongues
(2023 [2025], Adhyâropa): Piano and drums duo (well, long list of
keyboards and percussion instruments), former has 7 previous albums
since 2005, latter has a 2022 album and dozens of side credits back
to 2004 (they knew each other in college).
B+(***) [sp]
Anna Högberg Attack: Ensamseglaren (2024 [2025],
Fönstret): Swedish alto saxophonist, plays in Fire! Orchestra,
several other groups, this one was originally a quintet in 2016
but is up to 12 members here.
B+(**) [bc]
Hamilton de Holanda Trio: Live in NYC (2024 [2025],
Sony): Brazilian bandolin player (using a 10-string mandolin here),
dozens of albums since 1998, upbeat trio here with Salomão Soares
(keyboards) and Thiago "Big" Rabello (drums), plus guest spots for
Chris Potter (tenor sax), who makes the most of every opportunity.
B+(**) [sp]
Kelsey Mines/Erin Rogers: Scratching at the Surface
(2022 [2025], Relative Pitch): Bass and sax (tenor/soprano) duo,
weaving together contrasting tones.
B [sp]
Kelsey Mines/Vinny Golia: Collusion and Collaboration
(2025, Relative Pitch): Golia plays piccolo and contrabass flutes,
Bb clarinet, and sopranino saxophone, in a duo with the bassist,
who also contributes "expressive vocal textures."
B [bc]
Oneohtrix Point Never: Tranquilizer (2025, Warp):
Electronica producer Daniel Lopatin, one of the bigger names in
the business since his 2006 debut.
B+(**) [sp]
PainKiller: The Great God Pan (2024 [2025],
Tzadik): Avant-grindcore fusion band, founded 1991 with John
Zorn (alto sax), Bill Laswell (bass guitar), and Mick Harris
(drums, from Napalm Death), released three studio albums (plus
one live) through 1994, has been revived several times since
— sometimes with different drummers, but Harris returns
here. One of many Zorn projects I've missed, so I'm surprised
that the drumming is far from bombastic, and while the sax
can cut to the quick, it's far from relentless, and could even
be called ambient.
B+(**) [yt]
Rin Seo Collective: City Suite (2024 [2025],
Cellar Music): Korean composer/conductor, based in New York,
first album, group a crackling 14-piece big band, to call these
complex and dynamic pieces "impressions of New York" undersells
them severely.
B+(***) [sp]
Shifa: Ecliptic (2023 [2025], Discus Music):
British trio of Rachel Musson (sax), Pat Thomas (piano), and
Mark Sanders (drums), third album, a single 45:57 improv piece.
B+(***) [bc]
Slash Need: Sit & Grin (2025, self-released):
Canadian group, "lyrics by Dusty Lee" (except for a Fang cover),
eight songs, 32:28. Industrial beats, harsh gloom feels real.
B+(***) [sp]
Jason Stein/Marilyn Crispell/Damon Smith/Adam Shead: Live
at the Hungry Brain (2023 [2025], Trost): Bass clarinetist,
many albums since 2008, some exceptional, leads a live improv set
here with piano, bass, and drums.
B+(***) [bc]
Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:
Khan Jamal: Give the Vibes Some (1974 [2025], Souffle
Continu): Vibraphone player (1946-2022), born in Florida as Warren
Cheeseboro but mostly associated with the avant-garde in Philadelphia,
first appeared with Sounds of Liberation in 1972, and with many other
free jazz notables over the years. Three duet pieces here — one
with Clint Jackson III (trumpet), two with drums (Hassan Rashid) —
plus a marimba solo.
B+(***) [bc]
Roland Kirk Quartet: Domino: Live at Radio Bremen TV-Studios
1963 (1963 [2025], MIG): Title invites confusion with his 1962
Mercury album, Domino, with both sessions here leading off with
the title tune. He plays everything, his songbook extending to Mingus.
Backed by George Gruntz (piano), Guy Pedersen (bass), and Daniel Humair
(drums). Package appears to come with a DVD, but I'm only hearing audio.
B+(**) [yt]
Stephen McCraven: Wooley the Newt (1979 [2025],
Moved-by-Sound): Drummer (b. 1954), first of only a handful of
albums as leader, but played extensively with Archie Shepp and
Sam Rivers, and is father of Makaya McCraven. Recorded in Paris
with two saxophonists (Sulaiman Hakim and Richard Raux), piano
(Michel Graillier), and bass (Jack Gregg).
B+(***) [sp]
Barbara Thompson's Paraphernalia: Live at Leverkusen 1994
(1994 [2025], Repertoire): British saxophonist (1944-2022); notable
early side credits with Howard Riley, Michael Gibbs, and Colosseum
(whose drummer she married). Debuted her fusion group Paraphernalia
in 1978, which became her main (but not only) outlet into the 1990s,
when health issues slowed her down.
B+(**) [sp]
Old music:
Khan Jamal Quartet: Dark Warrior (1984 [1995],
SteepleChase): Vibraphonist, recorded this in Denmark with Charles
Tyler (alto/baritone sax), Johnny Dyani (bass), and Leroy Lowe
(drums), adding a little funk quotient.
B+(***) [sp]
Grade (or other) changes:
Patricia Brennan: Of the Near and Far (2024 [2025],
Pyroclastic): Vibraphonist, from Mexico, based in Brooklyn, follow
up to her poll-winning Breaking Stretch, has had a big year
already with appearances on new albums by Mary Halvorson (A-), Dave
Douglas (**), Tomas Fujiwara (A-), Adam O'Farrill (A-), Dan Weiss
(***), Arturo O'Farrill (***), and Kalia Vandever (***). Original
pieces, a large group conducted by Eli Greenhoe, with piano (Sylvie
Courvoisier), guitar (Miles Okazaki), bass (Kim Cass), drums (John
Hollenbeck), electronics (Arktureye), three violins and a cello.
Seemed nice enough, even with an excess of strings, but poll votes
persuaded me to revisit. Starts off sparkling, which is admittedly
the adjective mallet instruments were designed to evoke. Ends in
ambient territory, but pretty lush.
[was: B+(***)] A- [cd]
Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:
- Convergence: Reckless Meter (Capri) [12-05]
- Keith Oxman: Home (Capri) [12-05]
Ask a question, or send a comment.
Wednesday, November 26, 2025
Music Week
November archive
(final).
Music: Current count 45202 [45155] rated (+47), 1 [12] unrated (-11).
This is a couple days late. While I'm nowhere near as likely as
my father was at my age to nod off, I'm finding it nearly impossible
to get any serious work done after midnight, or even much before. So
when I find myself failing a self-imposed deadline, increasingly I
leave it for a fresher tomorrow.
Last week, I resolved to publish
Loose Tabs
before my next Music Week. Since I number my blog posts — this
goes back to the convention of an earlier generation of blog software
called "s9y" (or "serendipity") — it becomes awkward to change
directions. Besides, I didn't want to change. I had no desire to
hold back comments on the elections past Thanksgiving. On the other
hand, it didn't wrap up easily. Sunday passed unfinished. I finally
posted 10292 words on Monday. I figured I'd do Music Week on Tuesday,
and didn't even get started until after midnight. I was sharp enough
then to effect my cutoff, but not to write an introduction. I punted
again, and didn't get started until 9 PM Wednesday. We're now in a
Cinderella race to see if I can post this tonight before I turn to
pumpkin.
I suppose I should mention that these delays aren't just good old
fashioned writer's block, which I am often prone to. I spent prime
time Saturday shopping for wood for my attic project: 5 sheets of
plywood, 26 2x4s, 4 sheets of foamular, 4 sheets of underlayment,
48 feet each of 2x6 and 1x4 for the railing frame. On Sunday, we
started using some of that, decking the center swath of the attic:
not a huge part of the project, but a critical staging ground for
further work. And Monday I made dinner for guests returning from
a trip to Wales and Bosnia. I had little time to prepare, so I
went with something simple but flexible and usually quite good:
a big
phat thai, with a
water chestnut
salad on the side, and for dessert the
oatmeal stout cake,
but substituting store-bought butter pecan ice cream. I was
distracted enough on Monday I left nearly all of my email for
Tuesday. Which during poll season takes some time to get through.
The
20th Annual Francis
Davis Jazz Critics Poll is coming along nicely. By the time
I finally caught up with my email, I had 24 ballots counted, with
149 new jazz albums named, and a surprise (to me, anyhow) leader.
I've made little progress on a second round of invites, but have
asked my email lists for recommendations. I just haven't had time
to check out the 200-300 extra names I already have collected,
let alone look for new ones. Still, I'm sure there are some good
people we're missing.
I'm afraid I'm feeling kind of schizzy about the poll. On the
one hand, I want to push it to succeed beyond all expectations,
and on the other I'm tempted to drop it and walk away. The obvious
facts are that it's going to run my life between now and the first
week of January, and that I'm not going to be able to get anywhere
near as much done on or with it as I would like. And there's very
little I can do about any of that.
One thing I do know is that the next week is going to be especially
unproductive. We're going to try to work on the house tomorrow, and
get as much done as possible before it gets much colder and possibly
snowy this weekend. But I'm also going to try to cook something: just
a trad family
meatloaf using stuff
I don't have to shop for. Then on Monday we'll have guests from
Boston for a couple days. I'll need to cook something on Monday.
Should be another good excuse to push Music Week back toward the
middle of the week.
How much I can listen to by then is anyone's guess, but I should
at least run across more jazz albums I hadn't heard of. Aside from
the Kirk set and maybe SML, this week's top records were complete
surprises. Hopefully I can get my ballot settled by next week. The
first step is to assemble the jazz and non-jazz EOY files.
PS: I did manage to finish posting this well after midnight
Wednesday, but forgot to mention something fairly important: my server
will be down for much of Monday, December 1, due to a data center
migration by my provider (Shock Hosting; by the way, they've been
terrific so far, providing much improved performance for much less
cost). They offered to move me ahead of time, but I didn't move in
time, and basically decided to ride out the storm. This will affect
several other websites that I host:
Hullworks (mostly jazz poll);
Notes on Everyday Life
(still nothing);
Carol Cooper;
Carola Dibbell;
Barbara Howe.
This won't affect
Robert Christgau,
which is hosted elsewhere, or places like my
Substack.
I also noticed and corrected some fairly severe typos in yesterday's
updates to last Monday's
Loose Tabs.
I also misplaced the Peter Beinart book cover from the Recent Reading
roll. That should now be fixed. I'm about one-third of the way through
the book. It offers a pretty succinct, level-headed detail of what
Israel has done to Gaza, and some measured explanation of why so many
American and Israeli Jews have been so myopic about Israel's actions.
I am hopeful that the remainder will draw out the self-harm that such
myopia is causing. If you are Palestinian, or identify with them, I
don't expect you to care, but the ability to recognize the suffering
of even your enemies is a good trait to cultivate.
Even though this is a holiday, I have a lot of work to do today.
And not a hell of a lot to be "thankful" for, but we do what we can.
New records reviewed this week:
Annahstasia: Tether (2025, Drink Sum Wtr):
Singer-songwriter from Los Angeles, last name Enuke, first
album. Showed up on a jazz vocals list, but she's more folkie,
maybe a touch of Joni Mitchell, deeper voice.
B+(*) [sp]
Bitchin Bajas: Inland See (2025, Drag City):
Chicago group, primarily a side project for Cooper Crain (of Cave),
with Dan Quinlivan and Rob Frye, with more than a dozen albums
since 2010, including collaborations with natural Information
Society, Bonnie Prince Billy, and Olivia Wyatt. This is their
basic instrumental groove album.
B+(***) [sp]
Lena Bloch/Kyoko Kitamura: Marina (2022 [2025],
Fresh Sound New Talent): Russian saxophonist, tenor and soprano,
moved through Israel and Europe to the US, winding up in Brooklyn.
Several albums since 2014. Kitamura is a vocal improviser, also
based in Brooklyn, with several albums since 2012, plus notable
work with Anthony Braxton and William Parker. They are backed by
piano (Jacob Sacks), bass (Ken Filiano), and drums (Michael Smith).
B+(**) [cd]
Kara-Lis Coverdale: From Where You Came (2025,
Smalltown Supersound): Canadian electronica composer/producer,
based in Montreal, has a half-dozen albums since 2014. This one
feels like soundtrack fodder, atmosphere undergirded by dramatic
structure, but little fun.
B [sp]
Peter Evans/Being & Becoming: Ars Ludicra
(2024 [2025], More Is More): Trumpet player, first caught our
attention in Mostly Other People Do the Killing, was also the
first to leave that group. Third group album, with Joel Ross
(vibes/synth), Nick Jozwiak (bass/synth), and Michael Shekwoaga
Ode (drums), plus some guest flute on one track.
B+(***) [sp]
Irving Flores Afro-Cuban Sextet: Armando Mi Conga
(2025, Amor De Flores Productions): Pianist from Mexico, based
om Sam Doegp, has a couple previous albums, recorded this one in
New York with some Latin jazz luminaries, including Giovanni
Hidalgo (congas), Horacio "El Negro" Hernandez (drums), John
Benitez (bass), and Brian Lynch (trumpet).
B+(*) [sp]
Satoko Fujii Quartet: Burning Wick (2025, Libra):
Japanese pianist, well over 100 albums, this is more/less her core
group, with Natsuki Tamura (trumpet), Hayakawa Takeharu (bass), and
Tatsuya Yoshida (drums).
B+(***) [cd]
Marcus Gilmore: Journey to the New: Live at the Village
Vanguard (2024 [2025], Drummerslams): Drummer, has a lot
of side credits since 2005 (Clark Terry, Vijay Iyer) but this
counts as his debut. Sextet billed as a collective, with Morgan
Guerin (EWI), David Virelles (piano), Emmanuel Michael (guitar),
Rashaan Carter (double bass), and Burniss Travis (electric bass
and sound design).
B+(*) [bc]
John Gunther: Painting the Dream (2024 [2025],
Origin): Saxophonist (soprano, tenor, flute, bass clarinet,
electronics), from Denver, second album, trio with Dawn Clement
(piano/rhodes, electronics, sings some) and Dru Heller (drums).
Original pieces (except one from Ron Miles), into expressionism.
B+(**) [cd]
Carrie Jackson: Jersey Bounce (2025, Arabesque Jazz):
Standards singer, from New Jersey, has an r&b/gospel background,
has a 30-year career, only one previous album I've found on Discogs,
possibly more. Big voice, swings, backed by Radam Schwartz (organ),
bass, drums, guitar, trombone (Ku-Umba Frank Lacy) and tenor sax
(Rodrigo Romero).
B+(**) [sp]
Jung Stratmann Quartet: Confluence (2025, self-released):
Korean pianist Sujae Jung and German Wolf Robert Stratmann, based
in New York, have a couple previous releases (but not on Discogs),
working here with Steve Cardenas (guitar) and Marko Djordjevic
(drums).
B+(*) [cd] [12-03]
KeiyaA: Hooke's Law (2025, XL): Singer-songwriter
Chakeiya Richmond, from Chicago, started playing alto sax and into
jazz before switching to neo-soul, self-releasing her debut album
in 2020. Second album, a very tricky thing.
B+(*) [sp]
Lagon Nwar: Lagon Nwar (2025, AirFono): French
group, with Reunionese singer Ann O'aro and Burkinabe drummer-singer
Marcel Balboné, along with saxophonist Quentin Biardeau and bassist
Valentin Ceccaldi, came to my attention on a jazz list but could
have been Afropop.
B+(***) [sp]
Seth MacFarlane: Lush Life: The Lost Sinatra Arrangements
(2025, Verve): Probably better known as an actor than singer, possibly
better known still for his work with cartoons like Family Guy
and American Dad, but he has ten or so albums since 2011, citing
Sinatra as his model. That gave him a chance to look through Sinatra's
library, where he found unused arrangements, mostly from Nelson Riddle,
of songs perfectly at home there. He lives in them comfortably, close
enough for all practical purposes.
B+(***) [sp]
Nicolas Masson: Renaissance (2023 [2025], ECM):
Swiss saxophonist (tenor/soprano), ten or so albums since 2002,
this a quartet backed by Colin Vallon (piano), Patrice Moret
(bass), and Lionel Friedli (drums).
B+(**) [sp]
Camila Nebbia/Gonçalo Almeida/Sylvain Darrifourcq:
Hypnomaniac (2025, Defkaz): Tenor saxophonist from
Argentina, has been pumping a lot of records out recently —
this is the 10th I've heard since 2020, found while looking for
yet another. Backed with bass and drums. Starts and ends strong.
B+(**) [bc]
Camila Nebbia/Marilyn Crispell/Lesley Mok: A Reflection
Distorts Over Water (2024 [2025], Relative Pitch): Tenor
sax, piano, and drums trio. Another typically strong free sax
record.
B+(***) [bc]
Camila Nebbia/Michael Formanek/Vinnie Sperrazza: Live at
Blow Out (2024 [2025], Soundholes): Tenor sax, bass, and
drums, live from a club in Oslo, recorded by Stålke Liavik Solberg,
three numbered pieces where the opener runs 29:02, the rest add
up to another 12:50. Superb once again.
B+(***) [bc]
Ninajirachi: I Love My Computer (2025, NLV):
Australian electronic DJ/producer Nina Wilson, stage name cites
a Pokémon character. First album after singles (starting 2017),
EPs and a mixtape. Credit is for sampler and production, but
music has vocals throughout, with a cartoon metallic thrash that
reminds one of Skrillex, and possibly Avalanches.
B+(**) [sp]
Jake Owen: Dreams to Dream (2025, Good Company):
Country singer, from Florida, eighth album since 2006, fine voice
and trad airs.
B+(**) [sp]
Recognize Ali & Stu Bangas: Guerilla Dynasty 3
(2025, 1332/Brutal Music/Greenfield Music): Underground rapper Nii
Ayitey Ajin Adamafio, from Ghana, working sith Boston-based producer
Stuart Hudgins.
B+(**) [sp]
Recognize Ali & Tragedy Khadafi: The Past the Present
and the Future (2025, Greenfield Music): Producer started
as Percy Chapman, then MC Percy, then Intelligent Hoodlum (for a
1993 album), then adopted his current moniker around 2000, working
with Killah Priest and Capone-N-Noriega. Old style turntablism,
underground, Muslim, political, encyclopedic. Some helpful advice:
"love 'em, pray for 'em, but fuck 'em."
A- [sp]
Dave Rempis/Jason Adasiewicz/Chris Corsano: Dial Up
(2025, Aerophonic): Saxophonist (the whole gamut) with two more
strong live sets, one from Chicago, the other Milwaukee, both
with vibes and drums. Some terrific saxophone, as usual, but the
vibes don't help much.
B+(***) [cd] [12-26]
Bobby Rozario: Healer (2024-25 [2025], Origin):
Young guitarist, so presumably not the only one in Discogs (1965
credit with Sam Butera, a few more including Bette Midler and
Phil Cody). But not his first album: I have one from 2023 in my
database, which I liked. Long list of supporting musicians here,
including some Latin Jazz eminences, and some vocals. He fits in
well, and ties them together.
B+(**) [cd]
Scheen Jazzorkester & Ståle Storløkken: Double Reality
Beyond Space and Time (2024 [2025], Grong): All compositions
by Storløkken, a "synth wizard" from Norway with occasional albums
as far back as 2002 and many side credits since 1991, including
work with Motorpsycho, Supersilent, Elephant9, and Krokofant. The
12-piece big band, with 10 previous albums since 2013, gives him
a lot to work with.
A- [cd]
SML: How You Been (2024-25 [2025], International
Anthem): Second group album by Anna Butterss (bass), Jeremiah Chiu
(synths), Josh Johnson (sax/electronics), Gregory Uhlmann (guitar),
and Booker Stardrum (drums), most with notable parallel solo work.
Recorded live in various venues. The intense rhythm pieces are
super appealing. The ambient pieces slightly less.
A- [sp]
Split System: No Cops in Heaven/Pull the Trigger
(2025, Legless, EP): Actually, just a single, two songs, 6:13.
Garage punk band from Melbourne, mostly singles since 2022, but
Discogs shows a live album and two compilations, which I've
heard but hadn't remembered — both graded B+(***).
B+(**) [bc]
Split System: Live in Stockholm 2023 (2023 [2025],
Legless): Australian punk group, fast and furious, they have a bunch
of singles since 2022, enough to field 16 songs here, averaging a
bit less than 3 minutes. I wasn't really in the mood, but this is
intense, relentless, and as consistent as any punk album I've heard
in quite some while.
A- [bc]
Kevin Sun: Lofi at Lowlands (二) (2024 [2025],
Endectomorph Music): Tenor saxophonist, quickly (2018) established
himself as one of the best, has lately taken to experimentation
with postproduction on his improv trio tracks. He released one
EP-length (23:13), batch in May, and returns here with a slightly
longer (7 tracks, 29:28) edition, with the Chinese for "(2)" added
to the title. (I missed the number on the previous EP, so need to
go back and correct that. Parens might have helped.) I don't much
like the concept here, but he's a terrific musician, and this starts
off quite engaging.
B+(**) [sp]
Chad Taylor Quintet: Smoke Shifter (2024 [2025],
Otherly Love): Drummer, has anchored Chicago Underground Duo (etc.)
since 1998, has led a few albums and played on 150 more, including
powerhouses from Fred Anderson to James Brandon Lewis. Quintet
with Jonathan Finlayson (trumpet), Bryan Rogers (tenor sax),
Victor Vieira-Branco (vibes), and Matt Engle (bass). Exciting
at first, but winds up in a bit of a postbop rut.
B+(**) [sp]
Maxine Troglauer: Hymn (2024 [2025[, Fun in the
Church): Bass trombonist from Germany, first album, with a fairly
major contribution by Peter Evans (trumpet, pocket trumpet), backed
by piano, bass, and drums.
B+(**) [sp]
Carolyn Trowbridge: Found Memories (2025 [2026],
self-released): Austin-based vibraphonist, side-credits since 2009,
first album as leader, quintet with flute (Alex Cole), guitar, bass,
and drums.
B [cd] [01-09]
Jeff Tweedy: Twilight Override (2025, dBpm):
Singer-songwriter, started with Uncle Tupelo (1990-93), since
then has led Wilco (14 albums through 2024) while recording
occasionally under his own name (4 albums 2017-20), now this,
which actually a triple running nearly 2 hours. First song I
noticed was the very last ("Enough"), at which point I saw I
had the damn thing on shuffle (which I've started to use in
the car, but generally abhor). I turned shuffle off, and
picked up from about 7 songs in, so I may have missed one or
two, and heard some others twice. Enough good songs here that
a single-CD might bump it up a notch or two, but nothing bad
to drag it down, and this is about where I usually land with
him.
B+(**) [sp]
Kalia Vandever: Another View (2025, Northern
View): Trombonist, based in New York, fourth album, quartet
with Mary Halvorson (guitar), Kanoa Mendenhall (bass), and
Kayvon Gordon (drums). Nice, steady record.
[sp]
Kenny Wheeler Legacy: Some Days Are Better: The Lost
Scores (2024 [2025], Greenleaf Music): Trumpet (actually
mostly flugelhorn) player from Canada (1930-2014), moved to
England in 1952, put in some years with the bop generation
there (Tubby Hayes, Ronnie Scott) before participating in the
founding of the UK avant-garde, only to wind up as an esteemed
postbop composer on ECM. So this big production — featuring
the Royal Academy of Music Jazz Orchestra, Frost Jazz Orchestra,
and a long list of "special contributions" including saxophonists
Evan Parker and Chris Potter — isn't much of a surprise.
B+(**) [sp]
Stephane Wrembel: Django New Orleans II: Hors Série
(2025, Water Is Life): French jazz guitarist, has had Django Reinhardt
on his mind since he titled his 2005 debut Gypsy Rumble. Since
then he has five Django Experiment albums, and more including
a previous Django New Orleans (2023). Whereas the previous one
was mostly traditional New Orleans pieces (plus "Dinah," "Caravan,"
and one Reinhardt), this one branches out, with Piazzolla, Jobim,
Gainsbourg, and "Nature Boy," plus a couple originals. Sarah King
sings, and the cross-cultural spicing is tasty, including pandeiro,
sousaphone and washboard.
B+(***) [sp]
Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:
Ray Barretto Y Su Orquesta: Celia · Ray ·
Adalberto: Tremendo Trio! (1983 [2025], Craft): Unclear
how to parse the cover, which top left starts with the first names
of the stars (Cruz, Barretto, Santiago), and bottom right cites the
band, which gains the upper
hand on the back cover, then loses it to "Celia, Ray & Adalberto"
on the label. Credits, at least on Discogs, mention the principals
only in passing: the congalero/bandleader Barretto directed/produced;
Santiago for backing vocals (but not for his leads, which are every
bit as prominent as Cruz's). In the end, the music belongs to the
band, as the singers barely stand out.
B+(*) [sp]
Rahsaan Roland Kirk: Live in Paris (1970): Lost ORTF
Recordings (1970 [2024], Transversales Disques): Tenor
saxophonist, also played manzello and strich, often at the
same time (he's also credited with soprano, alto, flute, and
clarinet here). At this point he was well into his Atlantic
period, which was less consistent than the early-1960s work
on Mercury, but continued to stretch out in the spiritual
and cultural space Coltrane opened up. Sextet with trombone,
piano, bass, drums, and percussion. Strong form here.
B+(***) [bc]
Rahsaan Roland Kirk: Vibrations in the Village: Live at
the Village Gate (1964 [2025], Resonance): Previously
unreleased sets originally recorded for a documentary, with Kirk
playing his usual everything, backed by bass, drums, and revolving
pianists (Horace Parlan, Melvin Rhyne, Jane Getz).
B+(***) [cd] [11-28]
Rahsaan Roland Kirk: Seek & Listen: Live at the
Penthouse (1967 [2025], Resonance, 2CD): This one sprawls
onto a second CD, but isn't that much longer (84 minutes vs. 78).
Group is more obscure, with Rahn Burton (piano), Steve Novosel
(bass), and Jimmy Hopps (drums). But the medleys are brighter
here, the originals on the second disc cook, and his vocal to
close is an unexpected delight.
A- [cd] [11-28]
Makaya McCraven: PopUp Shop (2015 [2025],
International Anthem, EP): Drummer, side credits from 2003,
own albums pick up around 2012. This is one of four simultaneous
EPs (also available on 2-CD as Off the Record), a fusion
swing set with guitar (Jeff Parker), bass guitar (Benjamin J
Shepherd), and vibes (Justefan). Five songs, 21:40.
B+(**) [sp]
Makaya McCraven: Hidden Out! (2017 [2025],
International Anthem, EP): Six songs, 23:14, from two sets in
June, one with guitar (Jeff Parker) and double bass (Junius Paul);
the other with trumpet (Marquis Hill), sax (Josh Johnson), and
Paul again. This moves into our "new" (as opposed to "vault")
timeframe, which just goes to show how arbitrary such dates
are.
B+(*) [sp]
Makaya McCraven: The People's Mixtape (2025,
International Anthem, EP): Four pieces, 21:10, with Marquis
Hill (trumpet), Junius Paul (bass guitar), Joel Ross (vibes),
and Jeremiah Chiu (modular synth).
B+(***) [sp]
Makaya McCraven: Techno Logic (2017-25 [2025],
International Anthem, EP): Five pieces, 22:17, mostly with Theon
Cross (tuba, electronics) and Ben LaMar Gay (cornet, voice,
percussion, synths, electronics, diddley bow), with later
overdubs by McCraven.
B+(**) [sp]
Makaya McCraven: Off the Record (2015-25 [2025],
International Anthem): This rolls all four EPs up into a single
CD packaged — a compilation, but as I recall released a
week before the constituent EPs, so should we treat this as "new
music" and the EPs as reissues? — which is handy for those
of us who prefer what now
seems to be considered archaic (or at least dépassé) technology.
I can't speak to whether that makes a difference in how one
hears this music, but I can imagine broader patterns emerging.
As it is, I'm just extrapolating from the streamed EPs. I've
read somewhere McCraven considers himself a "beat scientist."
That seems fair.
B+(**) [sp]
François Tusques/Intercommunal Free Dance Music Orchestra:
Après La Marée Noire: Vers Une Musique Bretonne Nouvelle
(1979 [2025], Souffle Continu): French pianist, recorded his debut
Free Jazz in 1965, recorded Intercommunal Music in
1971, leading to the group which registered four volumes 1974-82,
and possibly a couple more albums like this one. Front cover has
no artist credit, so I'm following Discogs. Back cover has three
lines of credits, with "Sonneurs Traditionnels" in between. The
Celtic component comes from bombarde (an oboe) and binioù koz (a
small bagpipe) but you also get darbuka (a middle eastern drum)
and congas.
A- [bc]
X-Cetra: Summer 2000 [Y2K 25th Anniversary Edition]
(2000 [2025], Numero Group): Pre-teen girl group from Santa Rosa, CA,
three 11-year-olds, one just 9, singing over trip-hop tracks by Achim
Treu, produced by Robin O'Brien (mother of two members, with a real
but obscure discography of her own, centered around home taping
experiments). Original 8-song CDR is expanded here to 11 songs,
28:21. As I understand it, they aimed for something like the Spice
Girls, but what I hear is closer to Kleenex/Liliput.
A- [sp]
Old music:
Stephane Wrembel: Django New Orleans (2022 [2023],
Water Is Life): French guitarist, a Django Reinhart specialist, put
this band together in New York to record traditional New Orleans
pieces à la Hot Club de Paris. Sarah King sings several of them,
starting with "Dinah." She has a voice suited to the period, but
really excels on "Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho."
B+(***) [sp]
Grade (or other) changes:
Cecil McBee: Mutima (1974 [2025], Strata-East/Mack
Avenue): Bassist, hasn't led many albums but side-credits start in
1963 and per Discogs number 463, was especially busy in the 1970s
with Pharoah Sanders and Sam Rivers, slowing down around 2000.
Opens with a long bass solo, followed by a short vocal bit (not
to my liking, and no credit I can see), then a sextet piece with
trumpet (Tex Allen) and two saxophonists (Allen Braufman and George
Adams). Second side opens with another long bass solo, and again
ends with a group blast.
[was: B]
B+(*) [sp]
Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:
- Scheen Jazzorkester & Ståle Storløkken: Double Reality Beyond Space and Time (Grong) [11-10]
Ask a question, or send a comment.
Monday, November 24, 2025
Loose Tabs
Note that I previously weighed in on the elections, the shutdown,
Dick Cheney, Jack DeJohnette, and more in my [11-12]
Notes on Everyday Life.
Also that I've completely lost control of the collection process
here. This column has never been more than a collection of notes,
and its publication has tended to be driven less by a sense that
now I have something complete to say than by the realization that
my notes are fading into the deeper recesses of history, losing
relevance day by day, and I should kick them out before they lose
all purpose and meaning. Still, while much is missing, many of the
things I do latch onto elicit serious thoughts, which I hope will
be useful, and not too repetitive. Editing in these quarters is
very haphazard. I apologize for that, but options are few when
you're already running late. I do hope to do a better job of
editing my
Substack
newsletter. I may even return there with a reconsideration
of what I'm posting here, as I did on Sept. 24 with my
More Thoughts on Loose Tabs.
Given how much other work I have to do today, tomorrow, and the
rest of the week, I might as well post this today (Monday, Nov. 24).
It's already pushed Music Week off until Tuesday, at the earliest.
I may return with change marks here, or may just move on to the
draft file — probably
depends on the story. Meanwhile, I'm restarting my day with the
Deluxe Edition of Jimmy Cliff's The Harder They Come, which
I reviewed
here.
This is an occasional collection of newsworthy links and comments,
much less systematic than what I attempted in my late
Speaking of Which posts. The new name comes from my extensive
use of browser tabs. When I get around to cleaning up, I often find
tabs opened to old articles I might want to comment on and/or refer
back to. So
these posts are mostly
housecleaning, but may also serve as a very limited but persistent
record of what 20+ years ago I started calling "the end of the American
empire" and nowadays feels more like "the end of civilization." I
collect these bits in a
draft file, and flush them
out when periodically. My previous one appeared ? days ago, on
October 21.
I'm trying a experiment here with select
bits of text highlighted with a background
color, for emphasis a bit more subtle than bold or
ALL CAPS. (I saw this on Medium. I started with their greenish
color [#bbdbba] and lightened it a bit [#dbfbda].) I'll try to
use it sparingly.
Topical Stories
Sometimes stuff happens, and it dominates the news/opinion cycle
for a few days or possibly several weeks. We might as well lead with
it, because it's where attention is most concentrated. But eventually
these stories will fold into the broader, more persistent thmes of
the following section.
November Elections: November 4 was the first significant chance
voters had to re-evaluate the choices they made a year ago. Democrats
won pretty much everywhere, despite little evidence that voters are
very pleased with their current Democratic leadership. By far the
most publicized election was the mayoral race in New York City, so
I'll separate that out in a following section.
Nate Cohn [10-15]:
The Supreme Court case that could hand the House to Republicans:
"Democrats could be in danger of losing around a dozen majority-minority
districts across the South if the court struck down part of the Voting
Rights Act."
David A Graham [11-03]:
No politics is local: "State and city elections are now heavily
intertwined with what happens in Washington." Recalling Tip O'Neill's
famous "all politics is local," it isn't hard to argue that these days
the opposite is the case. Written just before the election, he already
understood that elections scattered all around the country would to a
large extent be decided on one's view of Trump. While there's still a
great deal of diversity within the Democratic Party, Republicans are
so in lockstep with Trump, and Trump is so locked into his billionaire
buddies and their propaganda machines as to be mere ciphers.
Matthew Cooper [11-05]:
Why Democrats won: "Donald Trump's unpopularity, the fact that
candidates met the moment in their elections, and the logic of
off-year elections propelled the opposition party to a big
victory."
Dion Lefler [11-05]:
Progressives turn tide, dominate Wichita elections.
Jennifer Bendery [11-05]:
The wildest Democratic victories you may not have heard about:
"ELections for school boards and public service commissions aren't
as sexy as a governor's race, but they matter — and Democrats
swept th em everywhere.
Andrew Prokop [11-05]:
Why Democrats won the 2025 elections: "Democrats romped in both
high-profile and low-profile elections Tuesday, in what clearly seemed
like a national trend."
Kevin Robillard [11-05]:
The backlash to Trump is here — and it's big: "Tuesday
night's elections were a massive sweep for the Democratic Party."
Greg Sargent [11-05]:
Trump humiliation worsens as fresh info reveals scale of GOP losses:
"The results showed that Democrats don't have to choose between
attacking Trump and highlighting the economy. In fact, they are
often inseparable."
Michael Tomasky [11-05]:
Verdict number one: America has big-time buyer's remorse about
Trump: "Elections are the one opportunity we have to see what
the people think. And what they think is clear: Trump sucks."
Bill Scher [11-07]:
Latinos swung left this week: That's trouble for the GOP's 2026 Texas
redistricting gambit.
Ross Barkan [11-10]:
The beginning of the end of MAGA: "Last week's election shows
the movement is nothing without Trump."
And more specifically, Zohran Mamdani:
Zohran Mamdani [09-08]:
New York City is not for sale.
Astead W Herndon [10-14]:
Inside the improbable, audacious and (so far) unstoppable rise of
Zohran Mamdani. Pull quote from Mamdani: "Being right in and
of itself is meaningless. We have to win. And we have to
deliver." Also quotes Mark Levine, saying Mamdani "is the first
nominee in memory that has made a concerted effort to reach out
to people who were against him in the primary."
Nathan J Robinson [11-05]:
Follow Mamdani's example: "This is how you run. This is how you
win. This is the politics we need right now. Democratic socialist
candidates can inspire people again, and fight the right effectively."
Nia Prater [11-06]:
ICE wants NYPD cops who are mad about Mamdani: "The agency put
out a new recruitment ad that tries to promote and capitalize on
postelection angst within the NYPD."
Michael Arria [11-06]:
The Shift: Pro-Israel groups melt down over Mamdani win.
Not that the mayor of New York City could do anything about Israel,
but this shows they may not be as all-powerful as they've long wanted
people (especially Democrats) to think.
Thomas B Edsall [11-11]:
Steve Bannon thinks Zohran Mamdani is a genius. It's not a feint.
Much here about the mobilization of the youth vote, especially how
Mamdani's mobilization of the youth vote dramatically expanded the
electorate, which made it possible to overcome the enormous advantages
Cuomo had in money and regular party support. As for
Bannon, the key
quote is: "Modern politics now is about engaging low-propensity voters,
and they clearly turned them out tonight, and this is kind of the
Trump model. This is very serious."
Paul Krugman [11-17]:
The plutocrats who cried "commie": "About that 'fleeing New York
claim." This cites a pre-election article claiming to have a poll
showing that "Nearly a million New Yorkers ready to flee NYC if Mamdani
becomes mayor — possibly igniting the largest exodus in history."
Post-election: not really.
Brett Wilkins [11-21]:
After threats throughout NYC campaign, Trump lauds Mamdani at White
House: "'I feel very confident that he can do a very good job,"
Trump said of Mamdani after their White House meeting. 'I think he
is going to surprise some conservative people, actually.'" The
pictures of an uncharacteristically beaming Trump have circulated
widely, at least in my circles. I'm not particularly interested in
unpacking their meaning, but should note this odd twist.
Astead Herndon/Cameron Peters [11-22]:
How Zohran Mamdani won over Donald Trump — for now.
MJ Rosenberg [11-25]:
Morris Katz, Jew, 26, is Mamdani's top guy: "Some antisemite, that
Zohran! And Katz is a typical Gen Z Jewish kid."
Federal government shutdown:
Cameron Peters [10-17]
Why is this government shutdown so weird? "Four questions about
the ongoing deadlock, answered by an expert." Interview with Matt
Glassman
("a senior
fellow at Georgetown" and "author of the
Five Points newsletter").
I don't know him, but a glance at his latest
Linkin' and Thinkin' post is more than a little interesting.
I'm getting less from his shutdown analysis here. "Weird" just
isn't much of an analytical tool.
Dean Baker [10-21]:
Roadmap to the shutdown: This is a pretty good summary of the
issues.
Michael Tomasky [11-10]:
Once again, Senate Democrats show they don't get who they represent:
"The party was riding high on election wins, a fractured GOP, and a
flailing Trump. And then the Senate Surrender Caucus handed Republicans
a win." The "Surrender Caucus" names: Catherine Cortez Masto, Dick
Durbin, John Fetterman, Maggie Hassan, Tim Kaine, Angus King, Jacky
Rosen, Jeanne Shaheen.
Andrew Prokop [11-10]:
Democrats were never going to win the shutdown fight. Note that
Prokop was advising against shutdown from the beginning. One thing he
doesn't appreciate is that in shutting down the government, Democrats
acted like they cared enough about Trump's abuses to fight against him.
There aren't many ways one can do that.
Ed Kilgore [11-10]:
Why Democrats couldn't hold out any longer on the government shutdown:
"It only took eight Senate Democrats to decide the pain outweighed the
gain, and now the party must decide whether to fall into civil war or
move on."
Joan Walsh [11-10]:
The bill to end the shutdown is full of giveaways to Republicans.
Corey Robin [11-12]:
Democrats caved in the shutdown because of the filibuster.
"For Democrats, the main issue in the shutdown wasn't electoral
backlash — it was the filibuster. Leadership feared its
removal, viewing it as a safeguard to keep the party's rising
left wing in check." This doesn't make a lot of sense. The
filibuster allows a large but determined minority to obstruct
bills that have thin majority support. The left may be rising,
but they are nowhere near the range where the filibuster works.
I'm not aware of anyone on the left who thinks the filibuster
is a good idea. For now, the filibuster does allow Democrats to
hold up bills like the continuing resolution, but Republicans
could at any point have ditched the rule (as they've already done
for presidential appointments). Since the filibuster more often
helps Republicans than Democrats, there's an argument that it
would be good for forcing the Republicans to get rid of it. But
the "surrender caucus" kept that from happening, perhaps because
they wanted to preserve the filibuster. But if so, it wasn't from
fear of the left. It's because they wanted to preserve what little
leverage they have from being Democrats willing to break ranks.
Even though Schumer didn't vote to surrender, I can see him thinking
preservation of the filibuster helps his leverage. Robin quotes a
piece arguing that some Senate Republicans want to preserve the
filibuster as an excuse "to avoid doing things they don't see as
sound policy or politics without infuriating Trump." If so, it's
them, as opposed to the Democrats they needed to cave in, who are
breathing a sigh of relief at the filibuster's survival.
Gambling and sports: My interest in sports has declined
steadily since the 1994 baseball lockout broke my daily habit of
box score analysis, although over time the political metaphors
and the cultural spectacle have also taken a considerable toll.
My dislike of gambling goes back even further, and not just to
my mother (who loved playing cards, but never for money). The
combination is toxic, but that doesn't begin to convey the many
levels of disgust I feel. So what, now we have a scandal?
That's even more predictable than providing free guns and ammo
to psychopaths.
Dick Cheney: Dick Cheney died, at 83.
I'm showing my age here, but for sheer political evil, no one
will ever replace Richard Nixon in my mind. I'm not alone in that
view. I've loathed Bob Dole ever since his execrable 1972 campaign —
not that I didn't dislike his 1966 campaign, or his tenure in the
House — but I had to concede that he had some wit, especially
for his quip on seeing a "presidents club" picture of Carter, Ford,
and Nixon: "see no evil, hear no evil, and evil." But if you're 20-30
years younger than me, Dick Cheney could have left you with the same
impression. I'll spare you the details, which like Nixon were foretold
decades before his ascent to real power, other than to remind you that
the great blogger Billmon regularly referred to the Bush years as "the
Cheney administration." If you're 20 years younger still, you probably
have Trump in that slot — he's the only one who exercises power
on that level, although the cunning behind it is harder to credit as
sheer evil (but maybe that's just proof of the great dumbing down).
Robert D McFadden [11-04]:
Dick Cheney, powerful Vice President and Washington insider, dies at
84.
Ian Millhiser [11-04]:
Trump's imperial presidency is Dick Cheney's final legacy.
Andrew Cockburn [11-05]:
Cheney: A few reminders of why his death is good riddance.
Jeffrey St. Clair:
[11-07]:
Roaming Charges: The Evil Dead: Title and first section are about
Cheney, starting with the lamentations of key Democrats, especially
those tight enough to single out his family for their "thoughts during
his difficult time," like: Kamala Harris ("a devoted public servant");
Joe Biden ("guided by a strong set of conservative values, Dick Cheney
devoted his life to public service"); Bill Clinton ("throughout his
long career in public service"); Nancy Pelosi ("his patriotism was
clear"); for some reason, he skipped over
Barack Obama ("I respected his life-long devotion to public service
and his deep love of country"). As St. Clair notes, Cheney's years of
"public service" included raking in $54.5 million from Halliburton,
which many times over made their money back in the Iraq War.
[11-05]:
Dick Cheney, Iraq and the making of Halliburton: An excerpt from
the author's book on war-profiteering, Grand Theft Pentagon
(2005), featuring the most obvious and flagrant example (although
I'd bet that Donald Rumsfeld has his own chapter, as well).
[10-31]:
Roaming Charges: Grave disorders.
[11-14]:
Roaming Charges: Ask the Houseman: Trump-Epstein-mania returns.
Cited herein:
[10-27]:
Let the work speak for itself: Sure, basically a fundraising
appeal, but says a lot about the state of journalism today.
Spencer Ackerman [11-04]:
His works completed, Dick Cheney, mass murderer of Iraqis and American
democracy, dies.
Fred Kaplan [11-04]:
Where things really went wrong for Dick Cheney.
Kelley Beaucar Vlahos/Jim Lobe [11-04]:
Cheney, architect of endless war, helped kill our faith in leaders.
Current Affairs [11-20]:
Adam McKay on the late, unlamented Dick Cheney: An interview with
the director of Vice, the 2018 biopic about Cheney.
Epsteinmania, again: Back in the news, by popular demand I guess,
or at least by Congressional demand.
Major Threads
Israel:
Spencer Ackerman [10-15]:
Sharm El-Sheikh shows that the US has learned nothing from Gaza:
"Palestinians are expected to accept the same deal that led to October
7: permanent subjugation under the guise of 'prosperity.'" Tell me
more about this "prosperity" stuff. Even if Trump's buddies make a
killing on some real estate/finance transactions doesn't mean that
anyone in Gaza will get a fair share of the gains — especially
if they don't have the political power to support their claims.
Michael Arria [10-17]:
As support for Israel drops, the mainstream media is becoming even
more Zionist: "Support for Israel is plummeting among the US
public, but Zionism dominates mainstream media more than ever.
Several recent high-profile examples show the staggering disconnect
between the media establishment and its viewers."
Avrum Burg: Former speaker of the Knesset, still
trying to keep something he believes in:
Lydia Polgreen [10-23]:
What happened in Gaza might be even worse than we think. I
think that's very likely, and in this I'm concerned not just in
whether the counted deaths reflect reality but in the overwhelming
psychological toll this war has taken, and not just on Palestinians,
but on others not comparable but still significant. I think most
people find what has happened to be beyond imagination, even ones
close to the conflict but especially those of us who are well
buffered from the atrocities, and even more so those trapped in
the Israeli propaganda bubble.
Qassam Muaddi [10-24]:
Trump's push to uphold Gaza ceasefire is creating a political crisis
in Israel. Starts with a Vance quote about Israel not being a
"vassal state," but the bigger revelation is that Trump seems to be
breaking free of the notion that the US is a vassal state of Israel.
Much of Netanyahu's credibility within Israel is based on the belief
that he possesses magical power to manipulate American politicians,
and that belief starts to fade when he slips. The subordination of
American interests to Israeli whims really took hold under Clinton,
and reached its apogee with Biden, but mostly depended on American
indifference to consequences, which genocide is making it harder to
sustain. And as Netanyahu slips, Israel is not lacking for others
who would like to take his place, whispering sweet nothings into the
ears of Americans while keeping a steady course.
Robert Gottlieb [10-25]:
From Apartheid to Democracy - a 'blueprint' for a different future
in Israel-Palestine: A review of a book by Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man
and Sarah Leah Wilson,
From Apartheid to Democracy: A Blueprint for Peace in
Israel-Palestine, which "describes in granular detail the
conditions for dismantling apartheid in Israel-Palestine." While
I'm happy to see people inside Israel thinking along these lines,
I have to ask what world they think they are living in? Democracy
has always been a struggle between interest groups to establish a
mutually satisfactory division of power. It has sometimes expanded
to incorporate previously excluded groups, but mostly because an
established insider group thought that expansion might give them
more leverage, but it's never been done simply because it seemed
like a good idea. Yet that seems to be the pitch here:
Thus, the Blueprint places the onus on the State of Israel —
as the state exercising effective control over all peoples in
Israel, East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza — to meet its
international legal obligations by ending its crimes and respecting
the rights of all people under its rule. Only once Palestinians
have political, civic, and human rights equal to Israeli Jews
living in the Territory will Palestinians and Israelis be able
to democratically determine what political structures and outcomes
best server their collective, national, political, ethnic, and
religious interests. The Blueprint is not a plan for achieving
national self-determination; it is a plan to create the conditions
under which achieving self-determination and deciding political
issues of governance are possible.
James P Rubin [10-27]:
The only thing that can keep the peace in Gaza: Author is credited
as "a senior adviser to two secretaries of state, Anthony Blinken and
Madeleine Albright," which suggests that the only thing he's qualified
to do is to write New York Times op-eds. He proves his cluelessness
here by focusing on the "international force for Gaza," which he sees
as necessary to fill "the growing security vacuum in Gaza." At every
step on the way, he puts Israel's phony security complaints ahead of
aiding Palestinians. Israel has always been a source of disruption in
Gaza, never of stability. Their removal is itself a step toward order,
which can be augmented by an ample and unfettered aid program. Granted
that the supply lines need a degree of security to prevent looting,
but the better they work, the less trouble they'll elicit. Rubin's
claim to fame here seems to be that he's spent a lot of time talking
to Tony Blair about this. Blair is pretty high up on the list of
people no honest Palestinian can trust in. Rubin's earned a spot on
that list as well.
Jamal Kanj [10-27]:
How Israel-First Jewish Americans plan to re-monopolize the narratives
on Palestine.
Vivian Yee [10-27]:
US assessment of Israeli shooting of journalist divided American
officials: "A US colonel has gone public with his concern that
official findings about the 2022 killing of a Palestinian American
reporter were soft-pedaled to appease Israel." The journalist, you
may recall, was Shireen Abu Akleh. The Biden administration "found
no reason to believe this was intentional," and attributed it to
"tragic circumstances."
Abdaljawad Omar [10-27]:
Israel seeks redemption in the Gaza ruins: "Throughout the Gaza
war, Israel has debated what to call it. The military says 'October
7 War,' while Netanyahu wants 'War of Redemption.' What's clear is
that Israel believes it can only resolve its ongoing cycle of crisis
through genocidal violence." Notes that name chosen for the military
operation was originally "Swords of Iron" (derived from "Iron Wall":
"the fantasy of unbreakable security through permanent domination"),
but that's hard to distinguish from every other exercise in collective
punishment inflicted on Gaza since 2006. The military preference "fixes
the war to a date of trauma, as if to anchor the nation's moral position
in the moment of its own suffering," which is to say that they see one
day's violent outburst as justifying everything that came after, the
details hardly worth mentioning. But that at least treats the war as
a collective national experience. Netanyahu's "War of Redemption" is
his way of saying that the war (by which we mean genocide) simply proves
that he and his political faction were right all along. This makes it
a war to dominate Israel as much as it is a war to destroy Palestine.
Adrienne Lynett/Mira Nablusi [10-26]:
From the margins to the mainstream: how the Gaza genocide transformed
US public opinion: "Two years into the Gaza genocide, public opinion
on Israel, Palestine, and US policy has undergone a profound shift. A
close examination of poll data shows Palestine is no longer a niche
issue but one with real electoral consequences." Which might matter in
a real democracy, but in a nation where politics is controlled by the
donor class, Israel still exercises inordinate influence. Still, as
long as Israel remains a niche issue — something a few people
feel strongly about, but which most people can ignore — I doubt
that shifting opinion polls will have much effect. But it's impossible
to be a credible leftist without taking a stand against genocide and
apartheid. And Democrats need the left more than ever, because they
need to provide a credible, committed, trustworthy opposition to the
Trump right.
Louis Allday [10-30]:
Palestinian scholar who wrote iconic book on Zionism reflects on the
Gaza genocide and our duty to history: "Mondoweiss speaks to
celebrated Palestinian scholar Sabri Jiryis about his life, Zionism,
the genocide in Gaza, and the judgements of history."
Haaretz [11-14]:
Israel's violent Jewish settlers are neither marginal nor a
handful.
Mark Braverman [11-16]:
Charting Judaism's moral crossroads at the Gaza genocide: Book
review of Susan Landau, ed.,
Thou Shalt Not Stand Idly By: Jews of Conscience on Palestine.
"The moral clarity of its contributors is more needed
than ever as the self-proclaimed Jewish state commits a genocide in
Gaza." [PS: Links available on book page to read online or download.]
Craig Mokhiber [11-19]:
The UN embraces colonialism: Unpacking the Security Council's mandate
for the US colonial administration of Gaza: I don't doubt the
validity of the complaints, but it's not like there's any other game
in play. No one can force Israel to heal, other than perhaps the US,
and then only within narrow limits — both constraints imposed
by Israel, and by the peculiar mentality of the Trump administration.
So I can see an argument for rubber stamping this now, then as various
aspects of the scheme fail, lobbying for improvements later. One thing
other countries can do is to put some BDS structures in place, which
can be triggered if/when Israel and/or the US fails, violates and/or
reneges on their promises, or simply doesn't produce a just result.
Mitchell Plitnick [11-14]:
Why normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia won't happen now,
regardless of what Trump wants.
Mattea Kramer [11-20]:
Trump's most original idea ever: An unexpected con to end free speech:
Trump has taken the classic fascist focus on suppressing free speech
and dressed it up as a noble campaign to protect Jews from antisemitism
— their code word for any criticism of Israel, even if it's plain
as day that Israel is committing not just atrocities but genocide. But
I'm not sure the irony works here, because I'm not sure it's ironical.
There isn't that much daylight between Israeli and American fascism,
especially when it comes to suppressing truths and ridiculing justice.
Russia/Ukraine: Nothing much here until Trump, or wheover
speaks for him in such matters, issued his "28-point plan" to end
the war. Reaction predictably, much like his 20-point Gaza plan,
splits between those who realize that Trump's support is necessary
to end the war, even if it is ill-considered, and those willing to
suffer more war for the sake of some principles, no matter how
impractical. Examples of both follow below, and the ones I list
are far from exhaustive. Perhaps at some point I'll find time to
look at the "plan" and tell you what I think should happen, as I
did with Gaza
here and
here. (By the way, the second piece was partly written with
Ukraine in mind, if not as an explicit subject.)
Trump's War and Peace: We might as well admit that Trump's
foreign policy focus has shifted from trade and isolation to war
and terror.
Trump Regime: Practically every day I run across disturbing,
often shocking stories of various misdeeds proposed and quite often
implemented by the Trump Administration -- which in its bare embrace
of executive authority we might start referring to as the Regime.
Collecting them together declutters everything else, and emphasizes
the pattern of intense and possibly insane politicization of everything.
Pieces on the administration.
Daniel Larison
Jonathan V Last [11-03]:
Donald Trump is a Commie: I scraped this quote off a tweet image,
before trying to figure out its source (this appears to be it):
On Friday I wrote about the Trump administration's latest foray
into national socialism:
- Trump wants to build nuclear power plants.
- He has chosen Westinghouse to build them.
- He will pay Westinghouse $80 billion for the projects.
- In return he has compelled Westinghouse to pay him
the government 20 percent of any "cash distributions."
- Between now and the end of January 2029, the government can
compel Westinghouse to go public via an IPO, at which point the
government will be awarded 20 percent ownership of the company,
likely making it the single largest shareholder.
This is literally seizing the means of production. But
to, you know, make America great again. Or something.
Other of Trump's national socialist policies include:
- Refusing to enforce a 2024 law requiring the sale of TikTok
until he was able to compel that business be sold at an extortionately
discounted price to his political allies.
- Creating a Golden Share of U.S. Steel for his government.
- Requiring Nvidia and AMD to pay the government 15 percent
of all revenues from chip sales to China.
- Acquiring a 10 percent ownership stake in chipmaker Intel.
- Acquiring a 15 percent stake in rare earth producers MP
Materials, a 10 percent stake in Lithium Americas Corp., and a 10
percent stake in Trilogy Metals Inc.
- Creating a "Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and Digital Asset
Stockpile."
- Taking steps to create a sovereign wealth fund to be used
as a vehicle for government investment.
- He has demanded that Microsoft fire an executive he does
not like and demanded that private law firms commit to doing
pro bono work on behalf of clients he chooses for them.
At first this read like a right-wing parody rant against socialism,
but the adjective "national" deflects a bit. Still, some of these steps
aren't totally bad — e.g., I can see some value in "a sovereign
wealth fund to be used as a vehicle for government investment," but
I wouldn't trust Trump (or Clinton or Obama) to run it.
Brad Reed [11-17]:
'Americans should be enraged': Reports expose unprecedented corruption
at Trump DOJ.
Donald Trump (Himself): As for Il Duce, we need a separate
bin for stories on his personal peccadillos -- which often seem
like mere diversions, although as with true madness, it can still
be difficult sorting serious incidents from more fanciful ones.
Democrats:
New York Times Editorial Board [10-20]:
The partisans are wrong: moving to the center is the way to win:
Their main evidence is that 13 Democrats who won in districts Trump
won are less left than average Democrats, and 3 Republicans who won
in districts Harris won are less right than average Republicans.
Duh. For a response:
Nathan J Robinson [11-04]:
The case for centrism does not hold up: "The New York Times
editorial board is wrong. Principled politics on the Bernie Sanders
model is still the path forward." I basically agree, but I rather
doubt that the issues are well enough understood or for that matter
can even be adequately explained to make much difference. The bigger
question isn't what you stand for, but whether you stand for anything.
Why vote for someone you can't trust? Sure, someone else may be even
more untrustworthy, and many of us take that into consideration, but
you can never be sure, and the less you know the more confusing it
gets. If the only thing that mattered was the left-right axis, the
centrists should have an advantage, because they promise to expand
on their left or right base. But centrists are deemed untrustworthy,
partly because they try to straddle both sides, and because the easy
out for them is corruption. Sanders stands for something, and you
can trust him not to waver. But also if all politicians were honest,
the left would have a big advantage, because their policies design
to help more people. Conversely, when centrists flirt with and then
abandon leftist policies, it hurts them more, because it undermines
basic trust. Clinton and Obama may have won by straddling the middle,
but as soon as they got elected, they joined the establishment and
betrayed their trust. Right-wingers are more likely to get away with
discarding their platforms, because people expect less from them, so
have fewer hopes to dash.
Timothy Shenk [09-29]:
Democrats are in crisis. Eat-the-rich populism is the only answer.
I've read the author's Realigners: Partisan Hacks, Political
Visionaries, and the Struggle to Rule American Democracy,
which made some interesting choices in the search for pivot
points in American politics, but not his more recent Left
Adrift: What Happened to Liberal Politics, which tries to
anticipate history by focusing on similar figures whose legacies
are as yet unclear: Stanley Greenberg and Doug Schoen. Here he
tries to draw a line between Dan Osborn in Nebraska and Zohran
Mamdani in New York. "Eat-the-rich" is a gaudy image I'm not
partial to, but they do make juicy targets, especially when
you see how they behave when they think they have uncheckable
power.
Chris Hedges [11-03]:
Trump's greatest ally is the Democratic Party: Easy to understand
this frustration with the Democratic Party, especially its "leadership,"
but harder to find a solution. I'm especially skeptical that Hedges'
preference for "mass mobilization and strikes" will do the trick.
If the Democratic Party was fighting to defend universal health care
during the government shutdown, rather than the half measure of
preventing premiums from rising for ObamaCare, millions would take
to the streets.
The Democratic Party throws scraps to the serfs. It congratulates
itself for allowing unemployed people the right to keep their unemployed
children on for-profit health care policies. It passes a jobs bill that
gives tax credits to corporations as a response to an unemployment rate
that — if one includes all those who are stuck in part-time or
lower skilled jobs but are capable and want to do more — is
arguably, closer to 20 percent. It forces taxpayers, one in eight of
whom depend on food stamps to eat, to fork over trillions to pay for
the crimes of Wall Street and endless war, including the genocide in
Gaza.
The defenestration of the liberal class reduced it to courtiers
mouthing empty platitudes. The safety valve shut down. The assault
on the working class and working poor accelerated. So too did very
legitimate rage.
This rage gave us Trump.
I'm more inclined to argue that what gave us Trump wasn't rage but
confusion. Democrats deserve more than a little blame for that —
they haven't been adequately clear on what they believe in (perhaps,
sure, because they don't believe in much) nor have they done a good
job of articulating how their programs would benefit most people
(perhaps because they won't, or perhaps because they're preoccupied
with talking to donors at the expense of voters). Still, this is
mostly the work of what Kurt Andersen called
Evil Geniuses. Give them credit, not least of all for making
Hedges' reasoned complaint sound like enraged lunacy.
Republicans: A late addition, back by popular demand,
because it isn't just Trump, we also have to deal with the moral
swamp he crawled out of:
Zack Beauchamp
[10-17]:
Inside the war tearing the Heritage Foundation and the American right
apart: "A Heritage insider alleging 'openly misogynistic and racist'
conduct shines a light on the right's inner workings." Much ado about
Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes, and Kevin Roberts.
[10-27]:
The GOP's antisemitism crisis: "Nick Fuentes, Tucker Carlson,
and the looming Republican civil war over Jews." Author puts a lot
more effort into untangling this than the subject is worth. The
natural home for anti-semitism (prejudice against Jews in one's
own country) is on the right, because it depends on a combination
of malice and ignorance, and that's where the right thrives. The
left is, by its very nature supportive of equality and tolerant
of diversity, so it is opposed to prejudice against anyone. The
Israel lobby has tried to play both sides of this street. With
liberals, they stress the common bond of American and Israeli
Jews, each with its own history of oppression, as well as their
common legacy of the Holocaust. With the right, they emphasize
their illiberalism, their common beliefs in ethnocracy and the
use of force to keep the lesser races in place. With Christians,
they can stress their joint interest in Jewish repossession of
the Holy Land (albeit for different purposes). And with even the
rawest anti-semites, they welcome the expulsion of Jews from the
Diaspora. However, the more Israel breaks bad, the easier it is
for the right to sell anti-semitic tropes not just to white
nationalists but to Blacks and Latinos who recognize racism
when it becomes as obvious as it is in Israel.
Merrill Goozner [11-06]:
Republicans have stopped pretending to care about health care:
"The long-term medical cost crisis can't be solved without universal
coverage. For the first time in US history, the GOP doesn't even
have a concept of a plan."
Hady Mawajdeh/Noel King [11-15]:
The insidious strategy behind Nick Fuentes's shocking rise: "How
a neo-Nazi infiltrated so deep into the Republican Party."
Christian Paz [11-22]:
What Marjorie Taylor Greene's feud with Trump is really about:
"MTG isn't turning against MAGA. She's trying to save it." Since
this piece appeared:
Economy and technology (especially AI): I used to have a
section on the economy, which mostly surveyed political economics.
Lately, I run across pieces on AI pretty often, both in terms of
what the technology means and is likely to do and in terms of its
outsized role in the speculative economy. I suspect that if not
now then soon we will recognize that we are in a bubble driven by
AI speculation, which is somewhat masking a small recession driven
largely by Trump's shutdown, tariffs, and inflation. In such a
scenario, there are many ways to lose.
Whitney Curry Wimbish/Naomi Bethune [10-02]:
Microsoft is abandoning Windows 10. Hackers are celebrating.
"Advocacy groups warn this will leave up to 400 million computers
vulnerable to hacks or in the dump." Also: "But about 42 percent
of Windows computers worldwide are still using Windows 10." My
counter here is that any orphaned technology should become public
domain. In particular, any orphaned software should become open
source. Moreover, there needs to be minimum standards for support,
beyond which it can be declared as orphaned, so we don't just wind
up with a lot of tech controlled by sham caretakers. I could see
payouts as a way of expediting the transfer of technology to the
public domain, so companies have some incentive to let go of things
they don't really want anyway. I'd be willing to consider a staged
approach, where instead of going into the public domain, the tech
is initially transferred to non-profit customer/user groups, who
can take over the support function, and possibly decide later to
give it to the public. Of course, we could save ourselves a lot of
trouble by getting rid of patents and other forms of censorship in
the first place.
Zephyr Teachout [10-15]:
So long as oligarchs control the public square, there will be
corruption: "It's time to break up Big Media, Big Tech, and
the finance system that binds them together."
Eric Levitz [11-04]:
The most likely AI apocalypse: "How artificial intelligence could
be leading most humans into an inescapable trap." He wobbles a lot
between things that could be good and things that could be bad, but
the latter don't quite rise to the level of apocalypse, unless he
really expects the people who own the AI to use it to target and
wipe out the no-longer-needed workers. I don't quite see how that
works. His point that the way to avoid this "apocalypse" is to
build socio-economic support institutions to spread out benefits
and reduce risks. He sees AI as a resource bounty, like discovering
oil and minerals, and gives Norway as an example of one country
that handled its newfound wealth relatively well, as opposed to
Congo, which hasn't.
Dean Baker: I've cited several of his pieces elsewhere
(on shutdown, health care expense), but much more is worth citing,
and he is an economist:
[11-05]:
New York Times pushes blatant lies about neoliberalism. Always,
you may be thinking, but specifically an op-ed by Sven Beckert
[11-04]:
The old order is dead. Do not resuscitate. Which argues that
"capitalism is a series of regime changes," and notes that "If
Davos was the symbolic pilgrimage site of the neoliberal era,
the annual Conservative Political Action Conference may be
emerging as the spiritual center of a new order." So it sounds
like he's come to bury the old neoliberalism, but his new regime
smells suspiciously like the old regime, except run by people
whose only distinguishing characteristics are meaner and dumber.
Dani Rodrik [11-10]:
What even is a 'good' job? Good question.
Miscellaneous Pieces
The following articles are more/less in order published, although
some authors have collected pieces, and some entries have related
articles underneath.
Daron Acemoglu [01-26]:
A renewed liberalism can meet the populist challenge: Liberalism
is an honorable political philosophy, which for most of its history
has helped not just to increase individual freedom but to more broadly
distribute wealth and respect. (Unlike conservatism, which has rarely
been anything but an excuse for the rich and powerful lording it over
others.) However, something is amiss if this is the best you can do:
At its core, liberalism includes a bundle of philosophical ideas based
on individual rights, suspicion of and constraints on concentrated
power, equality before the law and some willingness to help the
weakest and discriminated members of society.
That "some willingness" doesn't get you very far. That reminds
you that these days liberalism is defined not by what it aspires
to but by what it's willing to discard to preserve self-interest.
Meanwhile, those who still believe that individual rights can be
universal have moved on to the left.
Henry Farrell [10-16]:
China has copied America's grab for semiconductor power: "Six
theses about the consequences." Mostly that the adversarial
relationship between the US and China can easily get much worse.
Or, as the last line puts it: "The risks of unanticipated and
mutually compounding fuck-ups are very, very high."
Yasmin Nair:
[03-15]:
It's freaky that movies are so bad, but AI is not the problem:
No, capitalism is. Although what's freaky is how much the speculative
wealth of capitalism is being propped up by the idea that whoever
controls AI will dominate the world, much like how private equity
companies buy up productive companies, loot them, and drive them
into bankruptcy.
PS: I found this piece from a Nathan J Robinson-reposted
tweet. I was rather taken aback to find this on the bottom
of the page:
Don't plagiarise any of this, in any way. I have used legal resources
to punish and prevent plagiarism, and I am ruthless and persistent.
I'm probably safe here in that I cited her article, but just to
be clear, while I often paraphrase arguments put forth by other
writers in cited articles, nothing I wrote above was actually
derived from her article, which I barely scanned. The title simply
struck me as an opportunity to make a point, so I ran with it —
as indeed I'm doing here. I did do some due diligence and searched
my archives, and found that I had cited Yasmin Nair twice before:
- Yasmin Nair [2024-03-27]:
What really happened at Current Affairs?: I described this as "looks
to be way too long, pained, deep, and trivial to actually read," but
noted that I once had a similar experience.
- Yasmin Nair [2024-08-23]:
Kamala Harris will lose: Cited with no comment. While this
was written in August, I didn't pick it up until I was doing my
post-election Speaking of Which [2024-11-11]. Her ideas
were pretty commonplace among left critics back in August (which
is not to say they had been plagiarized, either from or by her),
and were largely vindicated by her loss. Her main points were:
Harris stands for nothing; Democrats are taking voters for
granted; Even liberal and progressive values are being shunned;
COVID is still around. The latter is a somewhat curious point
she doesn't do much with, but it's rather extraordinary how
quickly and thoroughly lessons and even memories of the pandemic
were not just discarded but radically revised.
My own view was that Harris had made a calculated gamble that
she could gain more votes — and certainly more money, which
she actually did — by moving right than she stood to lose
from a left that had no real alternative. Given that, I didn't
see the value in either arguing with her experts or in promoting
her left critics. Her gamble failed not because she misread the
left (who understood the Trump threat well enough to stick with
her regardless) as because her move to the right lost her cred
with ideologically incoherent voters who could have voted against
Trump but didn't find reason or hope to trust he.
[11-12]:
Kamal Harris's memoir shows exactly why her campaign flopped:
A review of her campaign memoir, 107 Days: "In her new book,
Kamala Harris insists she only lost the election because she didn't
have enough time. But she accidentally demonstrates the real reason:
she's a terrible politician."
[04-10]:
Kamala Harris and the art of losing: Same article, pre-memoir.
Just a stray thought, not occasioned here, but one big difference
between Haris and Mamdani is that she was obviously reluctant to
leave her safe zone, which made her look doubtful, while Mamdani
seems willing to face anyone, and talk about anything. Perhaps one
reason is that he seems to always speak from principles, but he
doesn't use them as cudgels: he's confident enough in what he
stands for to listen to challenges, and respond rationally. Nair's
charge that Harris has no principles may be unfair, but unrefuted
by her campaign.
Thomas Morgan [10-14]:
A universe of possibilities within their resource constraints:
"all about the new album Around You Is a Forest." Morgan
is a jazz bassist of considerable note, out with his first album
as a leader after 150+ albums supporting others. The album was
built using a computer program called WOODS, which takes input
from a musician and turns it into a duet of considerable variety
and charm.
Sean Illing [10-26]:
Why every website you used to love is getting worse: "The decay
of Google, Amazon, and Facebook are part of a larger trend." Interview
with Cory Doctorow, author of
Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do
About It. I've been reading a book called
The Shock of the Anthropocene, which invents a half-dozen
synonyms (Therocene,
Thanatocene, Phagocene, etc.), but misses Doctorow's Enshittocene.
Still, when I mention this concept to strangers, they grasp its
meaning immediately. It's that obvious. I recently read Doctorow's
The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation,
which covers much of the same ground.
Nathan J Robinson:
[10-08]:
The rise of Nick Fuentes should horrify us all: "A neo-Nazi is
trying to fill the void left by the failures of the two major parties.
Unless Americans are offered a visionary alternative, Fuentes' toxic
ideology may flourish."
[09-30]:
The right's latest culture war crusade is against empathy:
"Blessed are the unfeeling, for they shall inherit the GOP. Books,
sermons, and tweets now warn that 'toxic empathy' is destroying
civilization." Cites recent books by Allie Beth Stuckey (Toxic
Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion) and Joe
Rigney (The Sin of Empathy: Compassion and Its Counterfeits).
[11-18]:
There have to be consequences for advocating illegal wars: "Yet
again, the New York Times' Bret Stephens advocates the overthrow of
a sovereign government. Why do the readers of the 'paper of record'
tolerate this dangerous propaganda?" Pundits like Stephens have a
long history of failing upward, because their services are always
in demand no matter how shoddy their track record: they're not paid
for getting it right, just for saying the "right" things. As for
consequences, Robinson proposes to give anyone who cancels their
New York Times subscription a free year of Current Events.
Dylan Scott
[11-04]:
Why are my health insurance premiums going up so much?: "One of the Democrats' best political issues is to
defend the Affordable Care Act. Is it worth defending?" Up to a
point, but valuable as it is, it was never more than a stopgap
solution to some glaring problems (like exclusion of benefits for
"previous conditions").
Dean Baker:
[10-03]:
Health care cost growth slowed sharply after Obamacare: This is a
key story that is easily overlooked, largely because Republicans have
carped endlessly about "Obamacare," and because doing so has obscured
the trends before passage.
In the decade before Obamacare passed, healthcare costs increased 4.0
percentage points as a share of GDP — the equivalent of more
than $1.2 trillion in today's economy. By contrast, in the 15 years
since its passage, health care costs have increased by just 1.4
percentage points.
[11-03]:
Why is healthcare expensive? While the ACA slowed down increases in
health care expenses, it didn't eliminate the really big problem, which
is monopoly rents ("the costly trinity: drugs, insurance, and
doctors").
[11-14]:
Meet the newly uninsured: "Millions of Americans will soon go without
insurance. We spoke with some of them."
Julio C Gambina [11-14]:
How Milei prevailed in Argentina's midterms despite economic and political
problems.
Danielle Hewitt/Noel King [11-22]:
The 2 men fueling Sudan's civil war: "The fall of El Fasher and
Sudan's ongoing conflict, explained by an expert." Alex DeWaal,
executive director of the World Peace Foundation at Tufts.
Some notable deaths: Mostly from the New York Times listings.
Last time I did such a trawl was on
October 21, so we'll look that far back (although some names have
appeared since):
[10-27]:
Jack DeJohnette, revered jazz drummer, dies at 83: "Endowed with
spectacular range, he played with Miles Davis, led New Directions
and Special Edition, and spent decades with Keith Jarrett's Standards
Trio." Also see:
Hank Shteamer [10-27]:
The infinity of Jack DeJohnette: "The drums are almost beside the
point: It was his absolute presence in every musical situation, across
a half-century, that made him one of the creative giants of our
time."
Ethan Iverson [10-28]:
TT 555: Jack DeJohnette: "For many, Elvin-Tony-Jack was and is
the holy trinity. We will not see the likes of them again."
Will Layman [10-29]:
Jack DeJohnette: "One of the best to ever play jazz, the great
drummer (and composer . . . and pianist too) has died. The void is
unusually broad."
[11-06]:
Sri Owen, who popularized Indonesian cuisine, dies at 90: "Settling
in England as a young woman, she turned her nostalgia for the food of
her youth in Sumatra into a career as an influential cookbook author."
I just recently fixed a couple recipes from one of her books.
[11-04]:
Dick Cheney, powerful Vice President and Washington insider, dies at
84: "A former defense secretary and congressman, he held the
nation's No. 2 job under President George W Bush and was an architect
of policies in an era of war and economic change." He has his own
section
above.
[11-07]:
James D Watson, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, is dead at
97: "His decoding of the blueprint for life with Francis H.C.
Crick made him one of the most important scientists of the 20th
century. He wrote a celebrated memoir and later ignited an uproar
with racist views."
[11-15]:
Todd Snider, folk singer with a wry wit, dies at 59: "Mentored
by the likes of Jimmy Buffett and John Prine, his big-hearted
ballads told of heartache even as his humor revealed a steadfast
optimism."
Also see:
Another loose tab I just noticed was a
YouTube
for Snider's 1998 song "Tension," which had a line I've quoted
many times: "In America we like our bady guys dead!" What I had
forgotten was the context: he's quoting a movie director, then
adds, "that's box office, baby!" What was movie lore then has
since become real life, with much more ominous overtones.
[11-24]:
Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, Black Power activist known as H. Rap Brown,
dies at 82: "A charismatic orator in the 1960s, he called for
armed resistance to white oppression. As a Muslim cleric, he was
convicted of murder in 2000 and died in detention."
[11-24]:
Jimmy Cliff, singer who helped bring reggae to global audience, dies
at 81: "His Grammy-winning records as well as his starring role
in the cult movie The Harder They Come in 1972 boosted a career
spanning seven decades."
Some other names I recognize:
Ace Frehley [10-18];
Chen Ning Yang [10-18];
George F Smoot [10-20];
Samantha Eggar [10-22];
June Lockhart [10-25];
Diane Ladd [11-03];
Tony Harrison [11-06];
Paul Tagliabue [11-09];
Lenny Wilkens [11-09];
Cleto Escobedo [11-11];
Sally Kirkland [11-12];
Corey Robin [11-11]: Responds to a complaint by Paul Begala that:
"Zohran Mamdani had the weakest win of a successful New York Democrat
in 35 years." Begala compares Mamdani's 50.4% to Eric Adams (67%) and
Bill DeBlasio (66-73%), without noting that turnout this time was 40%
vs. 23-26% in recent elections, so Mamdani actually got a third more
votes than any of his predecessors. In the comment section, Glenn
Adler explains:
Begala might have added that splitting the vote is the predictable
result when losers of Democratic Party primary elections refuse to
'vote blue no matter who,' and choose to contest the general.
But how many losers of Democratic primary elections for mayor of
New York ever do such a thing? In the last 50 years only two, both
named Cuomo.
After losing a crowded primary to Ed Koch in 1977, Mario Cuomo lost
again to Koch in a run-off, and ran again and lost to Koch in the
general. With the party vote split, Koch received precisely 50% of the
vote. (And, contra Begala, few would have called Koch's win
'weak'.)
The campaign manager in this three-peat defeat? Andrew Cuomo.
My wife worked on a financial newspaper in the late '80s, and one
of the older editors reminisced about playing basketball with Cuomo
when they both attended St John's Prep: "Mario was the only player who
used to steal the ball -- from his own teammates!"
A motto for the Cuomo family crest?
Rick Perlstein [11-18]: Responding to Richard Yeselson:
"Hating Ezra Klein—as opposed to just disagreeing with him
when you think he's wrong—is a weird, yet common pathology
expressed by leftists here."
For me, rooted in a pattern since his desperation to elevate Paul Ryan
as worthy good-faith interlocutor. Charlie Kirk is the apotheosis:
seeing politics as an intellectual game between equal teams, "left"
and "right," systematically occluding fascism's rise. I hate him for
it.
It gets the better of his deeply humane impulses. And makes him far
more powerful than he deserves to be, because there will always be a
sellers market for anyone who helps elites play up the danger of
"left" and play down the danger of "right."
I'm pretty sure I don't hate Klein — I mostly find his
interviews, essays, and the one book I've read (Why We're
Polarized, not the Abundance one) to be informative
and sensible, albeit with occasional lapses of the sort that
seems to help him fail upwards (a pattern he has in common with
Matthew Yglesias and Nate Silver). On the other hand, in my
house I can't mention Klein without being reminded of his Iraq
war support, so some people (and not only leftists) find some
lapses unforgivable. (On the other hand, Peter Beinart seems
to have been forgiven, so there's something to be said for
making amends.)
-
Jeet Heer [11-21]: In response to a tweet with a video and quote
from Sarah Hurwitz, where she argues that "Jewish schools should ban
smartphones to keep youths from seeing the carnage in Gaza." I'm
quoting there from Chris Menaham's tweet. The actual Hurwitz quote
is: "I'm sorry if this is a graphic thing to say, but . . . when
I'm trying to make arguments in favor for Israel . . . I'm talking
through a wall of dead children." Heer responds, "if this is the
case, maybe you should really reconsider your job?" My wife played
me much more of Hurwitz opining, and I found the thinking to be
really circular, but it really boils down to a belief that Jews
are really different from everyone else, and that only Jews matter,
because "we are family." That may explain why some Jews, feeling
very protective of their "family," are willing to overlook "a wall
of dead children," but how can anyone think that argument is going
to appeal to anyone outside the family? "We're family" is something
you tell your family, along with "and I love you," but before
pointing out the atrocities members of your family have committed,
sometimes in your name. But, let's face it, sometimes your family
screws up real bad, and you have to do break with them to save
yourself. For example, the Unabomber was turned in by his brother.
That couldn't have been easy, but was the right thing to do. Mary
Trump wrote a book, which was uniquely sympathetic to her cousin,
but didn't excuse him. Too many Jews to list here have broken with
Israel over the genocide, and many of them over decades of injustice
toward Palestinians. That Hurwitz hasn't suggest to me that she has
this incredibly insular worldview, where the only problem facing the
world is antisemitism, because the only people who matter are Jews.
If you take that view seriously, you might even argue that genocide
in Gaza is a good thing, because it's pushing the world's deep-seated
antisemitism to the surface, so you can see that Zionism is the only
possible answer. But unless you're Jewish, why should you care? And
if you are, why deliberately provoke hate, especially in countries
like the US where most people are tolerant of Jews?
Adam Parkhomenko: Picture of Trump and Obama sitting at some
distance, looking away from each other, which Trump glum and Obama
indifferent. Meme reads: "The next time someone tells you that
America isn't a sick & racist country, just remind them that
this nation is willing to accept treason, rape, and child abuse
from a white president but not healthcare from a black one." Much
more wrong with this, but I limited my comment to this:
I'm not sure it's even possible to malign Trump, but this seems rather
tone deaf a week after the Trump-Mamdani photo op. While Trump is
guilty of much, these particular charges are hardly clear cut --
neglect, carelessness, entitlement, abuse of power, and lots of lying
and conniving are more than obvious -- meanwhile Obama's contribution
to health care was little more than fine tuning, protecting insurance
companies and the rest of the industry from the ire their policies
were provoking, while helping some people afford a bit better care.
Current count:
185 links, 11365 words (14443 total)
Ask a question, or send a comment.
Tuesday, November 18, 2025
Music Week
November archive
(in progress).
Music: Current count 45155 [45120] rated (+35), 12 [16] unrated (-4).
So much stuff up in the air right now I'll need a moment to
map it out. One thing that's taking a lot of my time is work on
or related to the house. We had a hail storm blow through town
in early September, which did some significant and much trivial
damage. It was followed by swarms of insurance adjusters and
roofing companies squabbling over which was which, and who's
on the hook for how much of it. The insurance company decided
we had $25k of damage, but they only had to pay $10k to cover
it. One roofing company contended that the damage was really
$45k, but they offered to do something for $16k. Two more
companies submitted slightly lower bids, figuring that the
insurance was done and just trying to soak up the cash. More
came sniffing around, and for one reason or another made
themselves scarce: was it me they didn't want to deal with,
or the house? One never knows for sure, but my old paranoia
has been kicking in.
So was my own peculiar view on what is important and what
isn't. We spent a lot of time talking about attic ventilation,
but I've had a 25-year itch to do something else with the
attic space — not to finish it, but at least to make
it accessible, and possibly useful as storage space. Also
the carport, which has a patio on top, with rails around the
perimeter that aren't quite straight. So I've come up with
two construction projects that dovetail into roof work but
I'll have to do myself: one is to lay down some more decking
in the attic, raised above a lot of blown-in insulation; the
other is to square away the patio railing. I have a guy lined
up to help me with those two projects. I also finally decided
on a roofer. Now I need to get my projects done approximately
the same time the roofer shows up. That's a challenge, but
I've been putting a lot of thought into it, and hopefully soon
some actual work.
Then there's a dozen more home projects of various size and
urgency. No point listing them here, but just know that there
are many, most trivial and a few not, mostly things I can put
off doing but some turn into emergencies rather quickly. Right
now I interrupt this paragraph to drag trash and recycle bins
to the curb. By the time I returned, I had to attend to a few
more chores. This everyday life is always like that. Not leaving
me much time to write about it as I had intended.
But by far the biggest time sink in my life this past week has
been the
20th Annual Francis
Davis Jazz Critics Poll. I sent out a mass email to prospective
voters on Nov. 12, basically affirming that we are live and open
for business. While that email list is easy for me to send to, it
presents problems for many recipients. What I've found works better
(but still, I can't tell but don't doubt, imperfectly) is to run
my invitation letter through a mail merge program and generate a
batch of letters that I can then send out one-by-one. The program
that spits out the letters works fine. My SMTP service doesn't,
so I have to not only hit "edit" and "send" for each letter, I
have to space those out so my service vendor doesn't think I'm
spamming the world. I wanted to hold off on doing all that until
I had time to review the invite list and do some further research
to qualify more voters. I didn't get any of that done, at least
in time to meet my self-imposed November 15 deadline. So I ran
with what I had, and generated 287 invites. I deleted 2 of them,
and held back another half-dozen (thinking I'd like to add more
personal notes to them), and started sending the rest, a couple
hours into November 16. I finished about 20 hours later. So
that's done. I got one bounce, which I resent to an alternate
address. Since then, I've gotten a small amount of mail back:
4-5 ballots, a dozen-plus promises to vote, and 3-4 notices of
no intention to vote.
I mentioned that in addition to the jazzpoll email
list, I have a jpadmin list for people who are interested
in helping out with various tasks — the bare minimum is
listening to me rant, a sounding board I do very much appreciate.
I've added one name to that list. I've only sent them one update
since last week, but another one will be forthcoming after I get
this posted. I also mentioned that I wanted to set up another
list to update publicists and media about the poll. I call that
jpmedia, and have initialized it with 30+ names/addresses,
but haven't sent anything out yet. My main question for both of
those lists will be to solicit suggestions as to who else we
should invite. But we made enough progress with international
contacts last year to give me a good feeling about this list.
So I should probably hold back the panic.
From this point up to the December 21 deadline, I can possibly
slack off a bit, and just let the ballot accumulate. (Without
checking, I have 2 counted and 4 more in my inbox. I should get
those returned tomorrow.) Still, I have things I can do along
the way: fix any problems with the website; vet and invite a few
more voters; think about the ArtsFuse article package; see if I
can come up with ways to get more publicity for the poll; work
on redesigning the old website, as well as filling in missing
pieces (some of which Francis Davis sent me a year ago). I'll
write more about these things in weeks to come.
With all this happening, along with my general slowdown,
there is little chance I'll do any significant writing the rest
of this year. The core ideas, of course, are still floating
around my head. What happens next is anyone's guess. Meanwhile,
I'll probably kill what little spare time I can find —
mostly blah spots when I'm not feeling up to serious work but
can still do something rote and brainless — adding data to my
EOY aggregate file.
I have to date only added one EOY list, and I doubt I'll be able
to keep up, but I'd be surprised if I don't put some effort into
it. I also expect I'll whip up my usual
EOY lists for
jazz (not updated
since shortly after the mid-year poll) and
non-jazz (just
set up, with no real contents yet, although I was very surprised
to find the A-list non-jazz outnumbering jazz 85-73, both of
which are abnormally long for this point in the year).
I didn't get this up on Monday, so I'm resuming here on Tuesday
(no new records, although there are some drafts in the monthly
archive, linked at the top). I had some more things to mention,
and just ran out of steam.
First, I need to release a Loose Tabs later this week. I've
been
collecting stuff as we
go on — not a lot, and not very consistently — and
it's piled up to the point where some stories are beginning to
decompose and maybe even reek. (The first section is on the
election, followed by the shutdown. I wrote a bit about both
in my Nov. 12
Notes on Everyday Life newsletter. I also wrote about Dick
Cheney and Jack DeJohnette there. Now I need to add Todd Snider.
In the meantime, see Robert Christgau's
Big Lookback.) I'll try to knock that out later this week.
I doubt I can do justice to Snider. I've never been much good
with lyrics, but he has many memorable ones. One that sticks
in my mind is "in America we like our bad guys dead." That
sums up a lot of what's wrong with this country. (That's from
"Tension,"
which goes on to note that "Republicans/ that's what scares people
these days/ that, and uh, Democrats.")
A big chunk of this week's A-list came from Christgau's
Consumer Guide: November, 2025. That came out the same day
as my NOEL post, so I included a checklist of what I had heard
previously and what I hadn't (and in some cases wasn't even
aware of — the Todd Snider and Gurf Morlix albums were
in that category, as well as one of two African albums; the
other I heard on a
Phil Overeem tip,
one of many nearly every week). Given that this week's report
was cut short two days by my delay last week, I'm surprised
that the rated count hit 30. But with ballots and EOY lists
coming in, 'tis the season for moving fast and disregarding
subtlety, confident that the major things you missed during
the year will knock you over anyway.
This got me wondering how my attention this year stacks up against
last year. This year, my
tracking file shows I have 1159
albums rated so far. In
2024 that number was 1524, but
as that includes albums rated after last year's freeze date (Mar.
31, 2025), it should be reduced by at least the number of late
ratings in the
2024 file (79, so 1445). This
year's total is 80.2% of last year's total. We are currently 320
days into 2025, so 87.6% through the year, which suggests that
I'm down 7.4% from last year, but a more realistic gauge of the
year would be February through January, as typically 80% or more
of January reviews are of previous year records. (That's a swag,
but wouldn't be too hard to check
here. To be totally
accurate, you'd also have to factor in reviews of 2024 albums in
February and March, before the March 31 freeze date.) Shifting
January (31 days) into the previous year means we're 289 days
into 2025, so 79.1% done. That means I'm on very close to the
same trajectory as in 2024: extending the current rate of 1159
albums over 289 days to a full year would bring me to 1465
albums, which would be +20 from 2024. I imagine there is some
kind of function that could turn that number into a probability
that I match last year's total, but lacking that, all I can do
is guess, something like 85%. Nine months ago I would have guessed
much less, something like 15%. So, like a Todd Snider concert,
doubt this year's run of reviews is much more than an improbable
"distracrtion from our impending doom." His death is a sobering
reminder of how suddenly 85% can collapse to zero.
New records reviewed this week:
Ata Kak: Batakari (2025, Awesome Tapes From
Africa): Real name Yaw Atta-Owusu, left his native Ghana in 1985
for Germany (and later Canada), recorded one and only album in
1994, Obaa Sima, which remained obscure even there until
Brian Shimkovitz picked up a copy and, when he turned his blog
into a label, reissued it in 2015. This appears to be a new
album, making it his second, the initial hip-hop/highlife mix
skewing towards boom-bap and dance grooves. Six songs, 26:19.
B+(***) [sp]
Bloomers: Cyclism (2022-23 [2025], Relative Pitch):
Free/chamber jazz trio with trumpet (Anne Efternøler) and two
clarinets (Maria Dybbroe, also on alto sax, and Carolyn Goodwin,
also bass clarinet). Songs titles are place and dates, "each
dedicated to an important historical event in the struggle for
women's freedom" — including the 1818 birthdate of Amelia
Bloomer, "whose name became synonymous with the liberational
cycling garment for women in the 1800s."
B+(***) [sp]
Christer Bothén: Christer Bothén Donso N'goni
(2022-23 [2025], Black Truffle): Swedish musician, in his 80s,
most often plays clarinets but has taken an interest in African
instruments, and only plays donso n'goni on this record.
B+(**) [bc]
Juan Chiavassa: Fourth Generation (2024 [2025],
Whirlwind): Drummer, from Argentina, first album as leader,
recorded this in New York, hard to really treat it as a debut
album given that his group consists of John Patitucci (bass),
George Garzone (tenor sax), and Leo Genovese (piano/rhodes),
with featured credits for Mike Stern (guitar) and Pedrito
Martinez (congas), maybe just on the "bonus track." Hard to
mistake the saxophonist.
B+(***) [cd]
The Cosmic Tones Research Trio: The Cosmic Tones Research
Trio (2025, Mississippi): Group from Portland, second album,
includes: Roman Norfleet (alto/soprano sax, alto clarinet, flute,
vocals, percussion); Harlan Silverman (cello, flute, modular synth,
bass, vocals, percussion); Kennedy Verrett (piano/rhodes, duduk,
vocals).
B+(*) [sp]
Eddie Daniels: To Milton With Love (2025,
Resonance): Clarinet and saxophone player, in his 80s, debut
1966, quickly developed an interest in Brazilian music, which
he's pursued recently with tributes to Egberto Gismonti and
Ivan Lins. Here he recreates Milton Nascimento's 1969 CTI
album, Courage, with Anthony Wilson (guitar), Josh
Nelson (piano), Kevin Axt (bass), Ray Brinker (drums), and
the Lyris String Quartet.
B+(**) [sp]
Amir ElSaffar: New Quartet Live at Pierre Boulez Saal
(2023 [2025], Maqām): Iraqi-American trumpet player, born in
Chicago, albums since 2007, often with an Arabic tinge. Member names
are on cover: Tomas Fujiwara (drums), Tania Giannouli (microtonal
piano), and Ole Mathisen (tenor sax).
B+(***) [sp]
Steve Gunn: Daylight Daylight (2025, No Quarter):
Singer-songwriter, from Pennsylvania, based in Brooklyn, has a
couple dozen albums since 2007, including a recent jazz album
with Beings. This one is slow, pretty and very self-contained.
B+(**) [sp]
Lafayette Harris Jr.: All in Good Time (2025,
Savant): Pianist, from Philadelphia, first album in 1993 on
Muse, last couple on Savant, this with bass and drums plus
"special guests" Houston Person (tenor sax) and Jeremy Pelt
(trumpet).
B+(**) [sp]
The Kasambwe Brothers: The Kasambwe Brothers (2025,
MASS MoCA): Very little info here, but what I gather is that they're
three brothers originally from Malawi (or maybe Mombassa, or maybe
that's where they first recorded), that they've been playing for
almost 40 years (since 1987), but that they've only just "made their
first trip to the United States to take part in a residency at MASS
MoCA during which they will record their first full-length album at
Studio 9 and perform in the Hunter Center!" This is presumably that
album, using homemade instruments, playing music that sounds old
and timeless.
A- [sp]
Dave Liebman/Billy Hart/Adam Rudolph: Beingness
(2023 [2025], Meta/Defkaz): From two live sets at the Stone, Liebman
plays soprano sax and wood flutes, with Hart on his drum set and
Rudolph on hand drums, piano, thumb pianos, keyboards, gongs,
dakha de bello, with live electronic processing.
B+(**) [os]
Russ Lossing: Proximity Alert (2025, Blaser Music):
Pianist, from Ohio, debut 1990, has close to 20 albums, this a
trio with Mark Helias (bass) and Eric McPherson (drums), playing
his own original pieces. Fine pianist, strong group.
B+(**) [sp]
Gurf Morlix: Bristlecone (2025, Rootball):
Alt-country singer-songwriter, associated with Blaze Foley early
on, then with Lucinda Williams, moving on to his own albums from
2000 on. I didn't pick up the political overtones Christgau has
applauded until I double-checked, but by then I was already struck
by solid this feels.
A- [sp]
Maren Morris: Dreamsicle (2025, Columbia): Country
singer-songwriter, from Texas, three obscure albums 2005-11 before
she went gold/platinum on Columbia in 2016. With Jack Antonoff
producing (among many others), this moves more into mainstream
pop, or maybe I'm just responding to the hooks. "Deluxe Edition"
includes an extra single, "Be a Bitch."
B+(***) [sp]
Van Morrison: Remembering Now (2025, Exile/Virgin):
Legend, since 1967 has never gone more than 2 years between albums,
creative peak was in the early 1970s, extending to 1982 with Into
the Music and Beautiful Vision, but he's so singular and
magical all he has to do is remind you of his old self. Of course,
he's been less reliable lately, although 2016's Keep Me Singing
and even more so 2012's Born to Sing are outstanding. This
47th studio album has more than a few moments of wonder.
B+(**) [sp]
Willie Nelson: Workin' Man: Willie Sings Merle
(2025, Legacy): At 92, he can still sing other folks' songs better
than they did, even familiar ones from such unimpeachable sources
as Haggard. My only reservation is that his interpretive effort
was zero, even on a song like "Okie from Muskogee," which even
Merle had trouble singing with a straight face. Pure chops, and
not just the singer but the band. At this point I'm not even sure
Lefty Frizzell would be an overreach. Still, I wish he'd do James
Talley. How can he pass up a title like Are They Gonna Make Us
Outlaws Again?
A- [sp]
Red River Dialect: Basic Country Mustard (2024
[2025], Hinterground): English neo-folk band, David Morris the
singer-songwriter-guitarist, eighth album since 2005. Mostly
intimate, but backed with a full band, which fits needs.
B+(***) [sp]
Ted Rosenthal Trio: Classics Reimagined: Impromp2
(2024 [2025], TMR): Pianist, debut 1990, made an appearance in
the Maybeck Hall solo series, looking at his side credits, Randy
Sandke and Ken Peplowski are prominent. I grew up with an intense
distaste for classical music, which he quickly disarms with a
Chopin that reminds me of boogie woogie, and ends with a Chopin
waltz, touching on Beethoven and Brahms, Mussorgsky and Rachmaninoff,
Satie and Elgar and Dvorak. The trio has bass (Noriko Ueda) and
drums (Quincy Davis or Tim Horner), plus guest spots for Peplowski
(clarinet) and Sara Caswell (violin). Only the violin riles up my
allergies, and just barely.
B+(**) [cd]
Saint Pierre: Luck and Gravity (2025, Mutchcrud
Music): Husband and wife team Julia & Danny St. Pierre, from
Texas via California, seems to be their first album, press refers
to Saint Pierre Band but album cover omits "Band," although they
certainly have one, very straightforward rock with big gestures.
Almost good enough to overcome my general disinterest in a style
that reminds me first of the Eagles (but brighter and chirpier,
probably because they aren't assholes).
B+(***) [sp]
Amanda Shires: Nobody's Girl (2025, ATO):
Singer-songwriter from Texas, plays violin, ninth album since
2005, plus collaborations with Rob Picott, Bobbie Nelson, Jason
Isbell, and the Highwomen, and side credits that include John
Prine, Todd Snider, and Luke Combs. While I've seen arguments
that she was ex-husband Isbell's better half, I don't have much
of an impression of her. I still don't, but this sounds quite
accomplished, the arrangements impeccable, strings included,
the voice winning and words (when I notice) a plus.
A- [sp]
Todd Snider: High, Lonesome and Then Some (2025,
Aimless): Folk singer-songwriter, started with Songs for the
Daily Planet in 1994, passed through a period on John Prine's
label — I saw him once, opening for Prine — into a
string of superb albums at least up through 2012. Since then he's
been erratic, aside from a live album where his shtick is as
brilliant as his songs, but even when he's cryptic and/or harsh,
he's worth listening to.
A- [sp]
Spinifex: Maxximus (2025, Trytone): "European
international modern fusion quintet based in the Netherlands,"
a dozen albums since 2011, the "core band" (a sextet since 2017)
directed by Tobias Klein (alto sax), with John Dikeman (tenor sax),
Jasper Stadhouders (guitar), Gonçalo Almeida (bass), Philipp Moser
(drums), and Bart Maris (trumpet), with extra depth here: vibes
(Evi Filippou), cello (Elisabeth Coudoux), and violin (Jessica
Pavone). Extra length, too, with 6 pieces running over 71 minutes.
B+(***) [cd]
Tortoise: Touch (2025, International Anthem):
Chicago group, originally just bass (Doug McCombs) and drums
(John Herndon), conceived of themselves as "post-rock," adding
Dan Bitney and John McEntire for their 1994 debut, with a series
of guitarist before settling on Jeff Parker in 1998. Eighth
studio album, this one coming after a 9-year break. Instrumental,
well practiced grooves.
B+(**) [sp]
Beatie Wolfe & Brian Eno: Luminal (2025,
Verve): Wolfe is a "conceptual artist, composer, producer,
activist" from London, much of which seems to appear as museum
set pieces. She has three 2013-17 albums, and this year three
collaborative albums with Eno: this one appeared at the same
time as Lateral, which was credited first to Eno, and
the later Liminal, which seems to be some kind of remix
or merger or synthesis. Vocals are presumably hers.
B+(**) [sp]
Brian Eno & Beatie Wolfe: Lateral (2025,
Verve/Opal): Came out the same day as Luminal, no vocals,
both with keyboards, although Eno also is credited with guitar.
Better than average ambient, but nothing new about that.
B+(*) [sp]
Beatie Wolfe & Brian Eno: Liminal (2025,
Verve/Opal): Third duo album this year, appeared several months
after the first two, billed as some sort of synthesis of the two
previous efforts but titles are new, and Wolfe's vocals get her
lead credit again. Seems slower and darker than Luminal,
but that's sort of the attraction.
B+(**) [sp]
Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:
Nahawa Doumbia: Vol. II (1982 [2024], Awesome Tapes
From Africa): Singer from southern Mali, released three records on
AS in 1981-82, plus later ones on Syllart (reissued by Stern's Africa).
This label reissued Vol. 3 in 2011, Vol. 1 in 2019, and
here the fill the gap. Not obvious why they waited.
B+(***) [sp]
Ø: Sysivalo (2014-17 [2025], Sähkö):
Unfinished work by Finnish electronica producer Mika Vainio
(1963-2017), mostly short drone and/or blip pieces that add up
to over an hour.
B [sp]
Jean Schwarz: Unreleased & Rarities (1972-2002)
(1972-2002 [2025], Transversales Disques): French ethnomusicologist,
composer, electronic music pioneer, with a couple dozen albums in
this period. This is the first I've heard from him, although he has
on occasion intersected with jazz musicians (notably Michel Portal
and Don Cherry). A bit scattered, but some interesting pieces.
Probably worth a deeper dive.
B+(***) [bc]
Zig-Zag Band: Chigiyo Music Kings 1987-1998 (1987-98
[2025], Analog Africa): "Trailblazers of Zimbabwe's Chigiyo Sound,"
which I've seen described as "a vibrant fusion of reggae, traditional
rhythms, brass arrangements and mbira-inspired guitar," with "raw,
soulful Shona vocals." Discogs lists three 1989-92 albums by this
group. This finds its groove, and keeps the energy up.
A- [sp]
Old music:
Don Cherry/Jean Schwarz: Roundtrip (1977): Live at Théâtre
Réccamier, Paris (1977 [2023], Transversales Disques):
Trumpet player, started with Ornette Coleman and Albert Ayler,
moved to Denmark and expanded his horizons to and beyond Africa.
Schwarz is a French avant-fringe composer, has a coupele dozen
albums since 1974. He is credited here with: tape, synthesizer,
treatments, on a live set that also features Michel Portal (bass
clarinet/sax/bandoneon), Jean François Jenny Clark (bass), Naná
Vasconcelos (percussion), with Cherry on pocket trumpet, ngoni,
whistles, and vocals.
B+(***) [bc]
Tortoise: Millions Now Living Will Never Die
(1995 [1996], Thrill Jockey): Post-rock band from Chicago,
second album (not counting the remix of their 1994 debut),
named by The Wire as their record of the year, dumped
on by Robert Christgau with a scornful B-. Core group of four
(Dan Bitney, John Herndon, Douglas McCombs, John McEntire)
plus new guitarist David Pajo. I'm finding it in between,
nicely centered, ambient with some extra heft but nothing
remotely amazing.
B+(***) [sp]
Tortoise: Tortoise (1994, Thrill Jockey):
First album, Bundy K. Brown was the guitarist at the time.
Strikes me as a bit more tentative.
B+(*) [sp]
Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:
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