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Blog Entries [310 - 319]

Sunday, July 31, 2022

Mostly just noting things this week, although I couldn't help but make the occasional comment.

Louis Anslow: [07-31] Peter Thiel's Candidates Are More Unabomber Than Tech Bro.

Emily Badger/Margot Sanger-Katz/Claire Cain Miller: [07-28] States With Abortion Bans Are Aong the Least Supportive for Mothers and Children. No surprises here.

Dean Baker: [07-29] The Semi-Conductor Bill and the Moderna Billionaires. Unlike Republicans, Democrats at least try to do good things. But they seem incapable of doing them in ways that don't create windfalls for the already-rich. Baker doesn't draw this conclusion, but has examples that point that way (e.g., the "chips" bill).

Ben Burgis:

• [07-29] We Should Have Listened to Bernie Sanders About Ukraine. Sanders wrote an op-ed about Ukraine on Feb. 8, 2022, before Putin invaded: Wem must do everything possible to avoid an enormously destructive war in Ukraine.
• [07-27] How Leftists Should Debate in Mainstream Spaces: For example, Krystal Ball on Bill Maher's show.

Zachary D Carter: [07-29] On Economics and Democracy. A good, general lesson about the New Deal, Keynes, and now. He also suggests that Republicans today are no worse than Democrats were in 1931, so if they could just come up with their own FDR, they could conquer all. But he doesn't nominate any candidates.

Rachel M Cohen: [07-27] The big upcoming vote on abortion rights in Kansas, explained. Also Peter Slevin: [07-30] The first post-Roe vote on abortion.

David Dayen: [07-28] Cut Off Private Equity's Money Spigot. "It is genuinely hard to find a more destructive economic force in America today than the private equity industry."

Andrew Desiderio: [07-28] Pelosi and China: The making of a progressive hawk. An oxymoron? Or just a moron? Related: [07-25] US Officials Grow More Concerned About Potential Action by China on Taiwan. These soto voce concerns are exactly what the Biden administration was doing with Russia prior to the invasion. They can be viewed as taunting or goading, daring China to verify their predictions. Seems especially foolish as long as the war with Russia is going on. Haven't the armchair generals learned that two-front wars are something to avoid?

David Friedlander: [07-25] Why Republicans Stopped Talking to the Press.

Lisa Friedman/Jonathan Wiseman: [07-27] Delay as the New Denial: The Latest Republican Tactic to Block Climate Action.

Jonathan Guyer: [07-29] What think tank drama tells us about the US response to Russia's war: Also see Politico's report: Atlantic Council cuts ties to Koch-funded foreign policy initiative. Koch has his fingers in a number of foreign policy initiatives -- the only one I'm familiar with is the Quincy Institute, which is headed by conservative anti-war historian Andrew Bacevich, and has published many articles I have cited over the years -- including Stand Together, and the Stimson Center, which will take over the Koch-financed NAEI (New American Engagement Initiative). NAEI's previous home was the Atlantic Council, which is largely funded by European governments and "is pro-NATO by design." What seems to be happening is that the think tanks are under increasing pressure to line up behind Ukraine and against Russia. Two related notes: Matthew Rojansky ("director of the Kennan Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center") was blackballed from possible appointment to Biden's NSC because he wasn't hawkish enough on Russia (see Biden won't bring on board controversial Russia expert); Joseph Cirincione, a leading expert on nuclear proliferation, charging the Quincy Institute with pro-Russian bias (see America's Top Anti-War Think Tank Is Fracturing Over Ukraine). Robert Wright has written a detailed review of Cirincione's charges: Anti-war think tank attacked.

Michael Hudson: [07-29] American Diplomacy as a Tragic Drama.

Dhruv Khullar: [07-25] Living Through India's Next-Level Heat Wave.

Paul Krugman:

• [07-26] Recession: What Does It Mean? I've been under the impression that the overly-technical definition of a recession is two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth, which we've just had, but evidently it isn't as simple as that. Krugman followed up with the optimistic How Goes the War on Inflation? and the pessimistic Much Ado About Wages. Also related: Timothy Noah: [07-27] The Economy Is Doing Amazingly Well for One That's Possibly in a Recession.
• [07-25] The Dystopian Myths of Red America. He means the widespread belief among the Republican base that Dems are evil and intent on destroying America, even though there's no real evidence. The belief is pervasive enough that it can be invoked to explain anything. Centrists like to think that Blue America harbors comparable views, and indeed many of us have concluded that the Repugs are indeed evil, but first we demand evidence showing a logical connection, and we're willing to consider alternative theories, like ignorance, stupidity, or a callous disregard for others (which, sure, is a kind of evil). We're also more likely to regard people as complex and nuanced.

Robert Kuttner: [07-29] Another Airline Merger That Would Worsen Inflation: JetBlue buys Spirit Airlines.

Sharon Lerner: [06-30] How Charles Koch purchased the Supreme Court's EPA decision.

Ron Lieber: [07-26] The Case of the $5,000 Springsteen Tickets: Welcome to "dynamic pricing."

Ian Millhiser: [07-25] Gavin Newsom's plan to save the Constitution by trolling the Supreme Court.

Judith Newman: [07-26] The Power of Negative Thinking: Quotes Whitney Goodman: "Positivity lingo lacks nuance, compassion and curiosity."

Rick Perlstein: [07-22] They Want Your Child: "How right-wing school panics seek to repeal modernity and progress." Or, more pointedly: "What they're after is crushing the power of their children -- and all of ours -- to choose their own life: to, in other words, acquire the ability to become free." As Perlstein explains, conservative panics over education are a perennial: he cites instances back to 1923, but could have noted the prohibitions against teaching slaves to read and write. The flip side of this fear that liberals are training students to think for themselves is the belief that good, conservative education can train students who will grow up to respect social hierarchies. (Michael B Katz's The Irony of Early School Reform explains how mid-19th century Massachusetts proponents of mandatory universal education sold their program as a way to "socialize" Irish immigrants.) I've personally found that coercive education is as likely to produce rebellion as obedience, but maybe that's just me. One thing it's not capable of doing is stopping the clock.

Jeremy W Peters: [07-29] Fox News, Once Home to Trump, Now Often Ignores Him: It's been more than 100 days since Fox last interviewed Trump. Given that Fox is the real power in Republican politics, this may mean that Rupert Murdoch has decided to move on. However, Fox was cool on Trump early in the 2016 campaign, so I'm reluctant to read much into this.

Jake Pitre: [07-29] The Internet Doesn't Have to Be This Bad. Review of Jonathan Crary: Scorched Earth: Beyond the Digital Age to a Post-Capitalist World.

Mitchell Plitnick: [07-28] AIPAC declares war on any support of Palestinian human rights.

Alexander Sammon: [07-25] It's Time for Public Pharma: Not the worst idea, but better still would be to end drug patents. Development and testing would be funded through public sources (which could be pooled across nations, as the benefits should be shared by all nations), with funding targeted to medical needs, and all information publicly shared. Approved drugs could then be manufactured competitively, with strict limits on marketing.

Jeffrey St Clair: [07-29] Roaming Charges: Tell Tom Joad the News.

Peter Wade: Trump Sides With Russia Over Brittney Griner.

David Wallace-Wells:

• [07-29] In Compromise, the Climate Left May Be Vindicated: But won't get any credit for it, least of all from the compromisers. For a more critical view, see Branko Marcetic: The Biden-Manchin Climate Bill Isn't Very Good, but It's All We've Got. Also note the bill hasn't passed yet. See Li Zhou: [07-29] Why the Inflation Reduction Act isn't a sure thing. Also Alex Shephard: [07-28] Krysten Sinema's Joe Manchin Moment.
• [07-27] Hardly Anyone Talks About How Fracking Was an Extraordinary Boondoggle: "From 2010 to 2020, U.S. shale lost $300 billion. . . . Between mid-2012 and mid-2017, the 60 biggest fracking companies were losing an average of $9 billion each quarter." And that's before the law suits kick in: Colin Jerolmack: [07-26] A Tiny Pennsylvania Town of 700 People Declared War on the Fracking Industry in 2014. They're Finally Getting Their Day in Court.
• [07-20] Endemic Covid-19 Looks Pretty Brutal.
• [07-14] The Mysteriously Low Death Toll of the Heat Waves in India and Pakistan.

Robert Wright: A couple pieces from his archive:

• [02-21] Why Biden didn't negotiate seriously with Putin: "The two themes that let the Blob carry the day." 1. The Munich Theme; 2. The 'Putin can't be reasoned with' theme."
• [04-28] Is Everything Falling Apart? "Jonathan Haidt thinks so. I'm not so sure."

Note that Bill Russell (88) and Nichelle Nichols (89) died this week. Both made indelible impressions on this teenager growing up in 1960s Wichita.

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Monday, July 25, 2022

July archive (finished).

Music: Current count 38383 [38330] rated (+53), 77 [78] unrated (-1).

Missed last week, so this collects scraps from two weeks, mostly before the day I woke up with crippling hip pain. I'm a bit more functional now, but feel bad enough I'll make this brief.

This is the last Monday of July, so I've opened up a scratch file for August Streamnotes. I haven't done the indexing on the July file (link above). No need delaying this a few hours (or a day or two) just for that.

Robert Christgau's website experienced another resource crunch last week, followed by some kind of server failure. I'm still working on some code that will address one theory of why this has happened (twice now). When I install the "fixes" later this week, it's always possible I could break something, so please refer any problems you find to me.

I've gotten some letters recently encouraging me to write the book, and also asking for help/collaboration on website projects. At present I don't feel up to either, but appreciate the interest and attention.

Sometime during my downtime I played Operator's Manual, a compilation of Buzzcocks singles. Ever since I've been beset by ear worms, especially "Nostalgia for an Age Yet to Come."

New records reviewed this week:

Bedouin/DakhaBrakha: The Bedouin Reworks of DakhaBrakha (2022, Human by Default, EP): Brooklyn-based DJs Rami Abousabe and Tamer Malki, who have a bunch of singles/EPs since 2014, add synth beats to four songs (28:37) from a Ukrainian folk quartet. B+(**) [sp]

Tony Bennett & Lady Gaga: Love for Sale (2021, Columbia/Interscope): Ancient crooner (95) and former pop phenom (35), did an album of standards in 2013, return to formula here, focusing on Cole Porter songs, because, well, they're the top. Usual string arrangements that swing a little but not a lot, two capable voices, no reason to complain, but not much to crow about either. B+(**) [sp]

Cyrus Chestnut: My Father's Hands (2021 [2022], HighNote): Mainstream piano trio, with Peter Washington (bass) and Lewis Nash (drums), aside from a solo "I Must Tell Jesus." Four originals, six covers, "Yesterday" the least valuable. B+(*) [cd]

Mark de Clive-Lowe & Friends: Freedom: Celebrating the Music of Pharoah Sanders (2022, Soul Bank): Keyboard player from New Zealand, albums since 1997. Pays due respect to the music, with Teodross Avery capturing the gravel in the sax, but Dwight Trible struggles with the vocals -- never a great idea. B+(**) [bc]

Elucid: I Told Bessie (2022, Backwoodz Studioz): New York rapper Chaz Hall, probably best known as half of Armand Hammer, has a number of solo albums/mixtapes since 2007. Dedicates this one to his late grandmother. B+(**) [sp]

Yuko Fujiyama/Graham Haynes/Ikue Mori: Quiet Passion (2019 [2022], Intakt): Japanese pianist, probably based in New York, has a short discography going back at least to 1996. With cornet and percussion, some voice. Delivers fair enough on the title. B+(**) [sp]

Vinny Golia/Bernard Santacruz/Cristiano Calcagnile: To Live and Breathe (2017 [2022], Dark Tree): Soprano sax and piccolo -- I have my reservations about the latter, but they're easily forgotten as this masterful performance continues. With bass and drums that captivate even on their own. A- [cd]

David Greenberger & the Waldameer Players: Today! (2022, Pel Pel): Spoken word artist (among other talents), born in Chicago (1954), grew up in Erie, PA, but seems more familiar with Massachusetts these days. Played bass in the band Men & Volts, which connected him with co-producers Sam Kulik, Michael Evans, and Jeff Arnal. Words come from stories told by residents in various senior care homes, and they're often fascinating, even when they wax philosophical ("how is it that we have so much knowledge, and so little wisdom?"; "whatever time is left to you, you have to enjoy it, enjoy every minute"). I've heard a few of these, and they're consistently interesting. If this one is exceptional, it's probably because the music is more than just background. A- [cd]

Tom Harrell: Oak Tree (2020 [2022], HighNote): Postbop trumpet/flugelhorn player, long and steady career since his debut in 1976. Quartet with Luis Perdomo (piano), Ugonna Okegwo (bass), and Adam Cruz (drums). B+(**) [cd]

Colin James: Open Road (2021, Stony Plain): Canadian blues singer-songwriter, guitarist, dropped last name Munn, debut 1988, I liked his second Little Big Band album (1998), but hadn't heard anything since (a gap of 10 albums). B+(*) [sp]

EG Kight: The Trio Sessions (2021, Blue South): Blues singer-songwriter from Georgia (if you care, white and female, initials for Eugenia Gail), Wikipedia links her to Chicago but doesn't explain why. Debut 1997, I was floored by her third album (Southern Comfort) but rarely noticed later ones. Trio has Kight on acoustic guitar, Ken Wynn on guitar and dobro, Gary Porter on drums. I have mixed feelings about the closer, "Hallelujah." B+(**) [sp]

Travis Laplante: Wild Tapestry (2021 [2022], Out of Your Head): Saxophonist, has a few albums since 2011, also in group Battle Trance. One 30:40 piece, for nine-piece group with flute, trumpet, trombone, guitar, harp, bass, and two percussionists. B+(**) [cd]

Lisbeth Quartett: Release (2021 [2022], Intakt): German saxophonist Charlotte Greve, with Manuel Schmiedel (piano), Marc Muelbauer (bass), and Moritz Baumgärtner (drums). Sixth group album, going back to 2009, they fit very easily together. Greve wrote all but one piece, from the bassist. B+(***) [sp]

Mammoth Penguins: There's No Fight We Can't Both Win (2019, Fika): British indie pop band, led by Emma Kupa (formerly of Standard Fare). Third album. B+(**) [sp]

Tumi Mogorosi: Group Theory: Black Music (2021 [2022], Mushroom Hour Half Hour/New Soil): Drummer, from South Africa, plays in Shabaka & the Ancestors, second album as headliner. I'm often impressed by the music, but don't think the vocals add any value. B [bc]

PJ Morton: Watch the Sun (2022, Morton/Empire): New Orleans-based soul singer, solo debut 2005, also plays keyboards in Maroon 5 (since 2012). Racks up some serious guest power here (Nas, Stevie Wonder, Wale, Jill Scott, El Debarge). Treats them well. B+(**) [sp]

Gard Nilssen Acoustic Unity: Elastic Wave (2021 [2022], ECM): Norwegian drummer, runs a couple groups, fourth album with this one, with André Roligheten (reeds) and Petter Eldh (bass). All three contribute pieces. B+(***) [sp]

Matt North: Bullies in the Backyard (2022, self-released): Nashville-based drummer, singer-songwriter, second album (first one, Above Ground Fools, was a good one). B+(***) [sp]

Tyshawn Sorey Trio: Mesmerism (2021 [2022], Pi): Drummer-led trio, with Aaron Diehl (piano) and Matt Brewer (bass). Sorey first appeared in groups led by Vijay Iyer and Steve Lehman. His 2007 debut sprawled over two CDs, including a long stretch on piano, which helped cement his reputation as a composer: ten years later he won a MacArthur "genius" grant, and five years since have revealed a dizzying range of moves, including this mild-mannered, unassuming, yet lovely set of covers. B+(***) [bc]

Elias Stemeseder: Piano Solo (2021 [2022], Intakt): Austrian pianist, based in New York, has appeared in groups with Jim Black, Christian Lillinger, Anna Webber, and others, a couple as leader. This is solo, originals except for a trad piece. B+(**) [sp]

Laura Veirs: Found Light (2022, Bella Union): Folkie singer-songwriter from Colorado, majored in geology, based in Portland, debut 1999, married producer Tucker Martine (2000-19), did a vocal trio album with Neko Case and KD Lang. B+(**) [sp]

Adrian Younge & Ali Shaheed Muhammad: Jazz Is Dead 13: Katalyst (2022, Jazz Is Dead): With 7 songs stretched to 37:55, we'll dispense with the EP designation. The series is usually good enough to make the title ironic, but never great. I've been trying to find a consistent credits parsing, and this is the one that makes the most sense, but looking back I've struggled. The order of the two producers flips back and forth. The number is formatted with or without leading '0's, and many are tempted to credit the featured artist (although JID 001 didn't have just one). Until this one, they all feature still-living artists who made their mark in the 1970s. Katalyst is different: they have one 2020 album, and have mostly worked as the studio band on the other Jazz Is Dead releases. Their specialty is funk-fusion, not far removed from what you might find in a 1970s time capsule. B+(*) [sp]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

Orchestre Massako: Orchestre Massako (1979-86 [2022], Analog Africa, EP): Orchestra and band from Gabon, recorded a dozen or so albums 1979-87, founded a decade earlier by Jean-Christian Mboumba Mackaya (aka Mack-Joss), directed by the military. Scant info on when these four tracks (25:33) were recorded. B+(*) [bc]

Horace Tapscott Quintet: Legacies of Our Grandchildren (1995 [2022], Dark Tree): French label named for Tapscott's greatest album, but nearly everything he does rises to that standard, as each new discovery of an old tape reaffirms. Saxophonist Michael Session is terrific here, trombonist Thurman Green holds up his end, and the piano is frequently miraculous. Only doubt arises with the vocals on two pieces, but why fault Dwight Trible for being too passionate? A- [cd]

The Trypes: Music for Neighbors (1984 [2022], Pravda): New Jersey band, related to the Feelies, released a 4-track EP in 1984, recorded some other stuff collected here -- a somewhat nebulous concept, given that the Spotify stream has 12 tracks, while the CD reportedly has 16 (including two 2017 reunion tracks), and Bandcamp has more B+(**) [sp]

Old music:

Lotte Anker/Craig Taborn/Gerald Cleaver: Triptych (2003 [2005], Leo): Danish saxophonist (tenor/soprano), debut 1996, backed by piano and drums, recorded in Denmark, the first of at least three records they did together. B+(***) [sp]

Lotte Anker/Sylvie Courvoisier/Ikue Mori: Alien Huddle (2006 [2009], Intakt): Anker plays soprano, alto, and tenor sax, backed by piano and electronics -- latter can get noisy. B+(**) [sp]

Marion Brown: Duets (1970-73 [1975], Arista/Freedom): Alto saxophonist (1935-2010), from Atlanta, recorded a couple free jazz classics in the 1960s. Two sets of duets: the first with Leo Smith (trumpet), with both adding percussion; the other with Elliott Schwartz (piano/synth), where Brown also plays some clarinet and piano. B+(*) [lp]

Eliane Elias: Cross Currents (1987 [1988], Blue Note): Brazilian pianist, studied in New York at Juilliard, debut 1985, has had two famous husbands (Randy Brecker, co-producer here, and later bassist Marc Johnson), in what's mostly a trio session with Eddie Gomez (bass) and Jack DeJohnette (drums). She wrote four originals here, but opens with Bud Powell, and closes with "When You Wish Upon a Star." B+(*) [lp]

Pierre Favre: Window Steps (1995 [1996], ECM): Swiss drummer, debut 1964, as a leader 1970 but more often in duos and small groups. Composed the first four pieces here, the other three by band members: Kenny Wheeler (trumpet/flugelhorn), Roberto Ottaviano (soprano sax), David Darling (cello), and Steve Swallow (bass). B+(*) [sp]

Pierre Favre: Saxophones (2003 [2004], Intakt): With ARTE Quartett (four saxophones) and Michel Godard (tuba/serpent). The horns form a choir, which can swell beyond their usual ambient backdrop. The percussion is more interesting when left alone. B+(*) [sp]

Pierre Favre Ensemble: Le Voyage (2010, Intakt): Large group, ten members, includes a saxophone quartet, an extra clarinet, trombone, guitar, bass guitar, bass, and the leader on drums/percussion. Ends strong. B+(**) [sp]

Pierre Favre: Drums and Dreams (1970-78 [2012], Intakt, 3CD): Reissues three early solo drum/percussion albums. B+(**) [sp]

Gabriela Friedli Trio: Started (2010 [2012], Intakt): Swiss pianist, handful of albums since 2003, cover credit for Daniel Studer (bass) and Dieter Ulrich (drums). B+(**) [sp]

David Greenberger/Glenn Jones/Chris Corsano: An Idea in Everything (2013 [2016], Okraïna/Pel Pel): Twenty-eight brief bits of his usual second-hand spoken word wisdom, which are no more or less remarkable than usual, but Jones' banjo renders them folkier than usual, as does Corsano's harmonica and drums. A- [bc]

Barry Guy/Howard Riley/John Stevens/Trevor Watts: Endgame (1979, Japo): British bassist, founded London Jazz Composers Orchestra in 1970 and led them through dozens of albums. Quartet adds piano, drums (and cornet), and alto/soprano sax. B+(**) [sp]

Barry Guy/Marilyn Crispell/Paul Lytton: Odyssey (1999 [2001], Intakt): Bassist-led piano trio, Guy wrote five pieces, the other four are jointly credited. B+(***) [sp]

Barry Guy/Marilyn Crispell/Paul Lytton: Ithaca (2003 [2004], Intakt): Bassist-led piano trio, again, title from a George Vaughan painting. Perhaps too many bass solos, but at best they are mesmerizing. In any case, they spread out the piano explosions, some of Crispell's most dynamic work. A- [sp]

Michael Jaeger Kerouac: Outdoors (2009 [2010], Intakt): Swiss saxophonist, don't know the story behind the group name but this is the second of three 2006-13 albums. Group was originally a quartet with piano (Vincent Membrez), bass (Luca Sisera), and drums (Norbert Pfammatter). This one adds Greg Osby (alto sax on 4/8 tracks), and Philipp Schaufelberger (guitar on 6). B+(**) [sp]

Michael Jaeger Kerouac: Dance Around in Your Bones (2013, Intakt): Third group album, back to original quartet. B+(**) [sp]

The Jazz Singers (1919-94 [1998], Smithsonian, 5CD): Free to choose almost anything over the whole history of recorded jazz (up to release date), this is certain to remind you of dozens of historically significant songs. But in toto, this reminds me of how peripheral vocals have become in jazz. And while one could complain that this slights the later evolution of jazz vocals -- we have, for instance, two songs by Betty Carter, one by Cassandra Wilson, one short one by Jeanne Lee, but no Sheila Jordan, and I could list dozens more -- their inclusion would only remind us that jazz singers have become even more marginal of late. Aside from the occasional jazz musician to have graduated to pop star (like Louis Armstrong and Louis Jordan), he only time vocalists were integral was during the swing era, which a few rare individuals (like Ella Fitzgerald) were able to extend beyond its sell-by date. They also count the blues singers (like Bessie Smith) who dominate the first disc, rounded out with some gospel. But adding Marvin Gaye and Al Green is wishful thinking. Organizing by topics is a mixed blessing, as is the final category of "Novelties and Take-Offs." B+(**) [cd]

Hans Koch/Martin Schütz/Marco Käppeli: Accélération (1987 [1988], ECM): Swiss saxophoninst (tenor/soprano), also plays clarinet and bass clarinet; one of his first records, backed with bass/cello and drums. B+(***)

Hans Koch: Uluru (1989, Intakt): Solo album, 18 pieces, opens on soprano sax, then tenor, then bass clarinet (3 pieces), the back to soprano and tenor. Solo albums always strike me as limited, but he keeps it interesting. B+(**) [sp]

Hans Koch/Stephan Wittwer/Martin Schütz/Jacques Demierre/Andreas Marti/Fredy Studer: Chockshut (1991 [1992], Intakt): Sax and bass clarinet, guitar, cello, piano, trombone, drums. Koch wrote 6 (of 10) pieces, Schütz 3, Demierre 1. The guitar adds a rock component that lifts this up and sometimes lets it down. B+(**) [sp]

Oliver Lake/Christian Weber/Dieter Ulrich: For a Little Dancin' (2009 [2010], Intakt): Alto sax, bass, and drums, the latter two the rhythm section visiting stars can look for in Zürich. (Lake returned to do another album with them in 2013, All Decks.) Seems a bit tentative at first, then Lake breaks out, and the other keep pace. B+(***)

Urs Leimgruber/Christy Doran/Bobby Burri/Fredy Studer: OM Willisau (2008 [2010], Intakt): Swiss quartet, as OM cut four 1976-80 albums for Japo (belongs to ECM), then disbanded to regroup here, 30 years later, so it would be fair to attribute this to the group, but the top banner lists the individual artist names, with the group and title in the same small print at the bottom, under an illustration that superimposes letters 'O' and 'M'. Soprano/tenor sax, guitar, bass/electronics, drums. B+(***) [sp]

Les Diaboliques [Irène Schweizer/Maggie Nicols/Joëlle Léandre]: Splitting Image (1994 [1997], Intakt): Second group album, I filed the first one under first-mentioned vocalist Nicols, still central here, backed by piano and bass. Difficult music, something I have less patience for from a vocalist. B [sp]

Ernst-Ludwig Petrowsky/Michael Griener: The Salmon (2005 [2007], Intakt): Alto saxophonist, also plays clarinet, b. 1933, was one of the founders of avant-jazz in East Germany, although he was often hidden in groups, like BBQ, Globe Unity, and especially Zentralquartett. He does, however, stand out in this duo with drummer Griener. A- [sp]

Barbara Thompson: Heavenly Bodies (1986, VeraBra): British saxophonist, in the late 1960s played in pioneering fusion band Colosseum (whose drummer, Jon Hiseman, she married, and who went on to produce and play on most of her albums). Her main group from 1972 to about 2000, when she was diagnosed with Parkinson's, was Barbara Thompson's Paraphernalia. This is a side project, with strings and trumpets on several quasi-classical cuts. B+(*) [sp]

Barbara Thompson: Songs From the Center of the Earth (1991, Black Sun): Solo saxophone (soprano, alto, tenor), trad pieces (or based on trad themes?), starts and ends Irish, followed by two from 12th century Europe, others from Wales and Germany and Spain and Greece, and points further (Syria, Brazil, Uruguay, Jamaica, Bahamas). B+(*) [sp]

Wildflowers: The New York Loft Jazz Sessions: Complete (1976 [1999], Knitting Factory, 3CD): The 1970s were a dark age for jazz. Key figures died (founders like Armstrong, Ellington, Hawkins, and Webster, and younger lions like Coltrane, Ayler, and Powell), with many more slipping into obscurity. Major labels floundered and in many cases shut down. Miles Davis was an exception, forging a path into jazz-rock fusion that many followed but few found. In the 1980s, a younger generation of jazz musicians seemed to pick up where the late-1960s tailed off, but had to go to Europe or Japan to find labels. That generation gestated in the lofts of New York, especially in Sam Rivers' Rivbea Studios, where these sessions were recorded over 10 days. The roster reads "all-stars" today, but few were widely remembered from the 1960s (Rivers, Marion Brown, Sunny Murray), plus a few who had made a mark in the early 1970s (Anthony Braxton, Roscoe Mitchell, Jimmy Lyons). A- [cd]

Grade changes:

Tommy Womack: I Thought I Was Fine (2021, Schoolkids): Singer-songwriter from Kentucky, based in Nashville, started in a band called Government Cheese, solo albums since 1998, surprises with a couple of covers here ("That Lucky Old Sun," "Miss Otis Regrets"). A straight rocker with some stories, including one about a minister buying ice cream, and another about Elvis. [was: B+(***)] A- [sp]

Tom Zé: Língua Brasileira (2022, Sesc): Iconoclastic Brazilian singer-songwriter, started in the late 1960s with the Tropicália movement, slipped into obscurity but Americans discovered him through two 1990-04 Luaka Bop compilations. I've been up and down on him, and it's hard to explain what works and what doesn't. This one, with its slippery melodies and off-kilter beats, ends on an up. [was: B+(**)] A- [sp]

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

• Quentin Baxter Quintet: Art Moves Jazz (BME) [08-12]
• Cyrus Chestnut: My Father's Hands (HighNote) [05-22]
• Caleb Wheeler Curtis: Heat Map (Imani) [07-15]
• Tom Harrell: Oak Tree (HighNote) [05-22]
• Raymond Byron: Bond Wire Cur (ESP-Disk) [06-17]
• Charlton Singleton: Crossroads (BME) [08-12]
• Josh Sinton: Steve Lacy's Book of Practitioners, Vol. 1 "H" (FIP) [08-12]
• Spinifex: Beats the Plague (Trytone -21)
• Trio Xolo: In Flower, in Song (577) [08-19]
• Bo Van De Graaf: Eccentric Music for Audio Hunters (Icdisc -21)

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Sunday, July 24, 2022

Started to jot down a few links with even fewer comments more than a week ago, and added some more (with longer comments, but not always) over the weekend.

PS: Added link and notes to Jeffrey St Clair piece below.

Andrew Bacevich: [07-14] Imperial Detritus: After the American Century: Cites, and responds to, Daniel Bessner: Empire Burlesque: What comes after the American Century? Both start with Henry Luce's 1941 coinage of "the American Century," from shortly before the US entered WWII. Luce's essay, rooted in his own peculiar history as a child of missionaries growing up in China, has become emblematic of a major shift in American thinking about the world, as initial fretting over German and Japanese encroachments in Africa and Asia would limit American interests gave way to the realization that by winning WWII (and bankrupting the UK and France) the US could have it all (cf. Stephen Wertheim: Tomorrow the World: The Birth of U.S. Global Supremacy). That left the problem of Communist-led national liberation movements, which is what the Cold War was fought against. We can debate how successful it was, and why it wasn't, but 80 years later it's increasingly clear that the U.S. is a spent force, still ominous but incapable of deciding much less imposing its will. Bessner wants to revive the pre-Luce tradition of restraint, citing Washington and JQ Adams as founding "restrainers." (As Wertheim points out, the term "isolationist" was invented as a pejorative for those who still adhered to traditional American norms, which favored "open door" trade over the colonial prerogatives claimed by European imperial powers. "Isolationists" didn't want to hide from the world; they simply wanted to deal with the world on its own terms, not through the barrel of a gun.)

Dean Baker:

• [06-23] A Cold War with China, Global Warming, and Why We Can't Have Nice Things.
• [07-18] Structuring the Economy to Give Money to the Rich Is Inflationary.
• [07-22] The Fed Should Not Allow Itself to Get Bullied into Bringing on a Recession.

Zack Beauchamp: [07-23] CPAC goes to Israel: Well, Ben Shapiro anyway. "Who is really learning from whom?" The far-right loves Israel's ethnocracy, its cruel repression of the Palestinians, and its quasi-random violence against its neighbors (e.g., [07-21] Israeli Airstrikes Kill Five Syrian Soldiers Near Damascus), and Israelis like American money with no strings attached and veto protection in the UN, but while Israel has picked up some of the artifacts of neoliberalism, no one's in a big hurry to dismantle their welfare state. So it's hard to see someone like Shapiro as doing anything more than stroking their egos. Speaking of which, J.D. Vance took his Ohio Senate campaign to Israel: [07-24] Inside the GOP Freakout Over JD Vance's Senate Campaign.

Bonnie S Benwick: [07-24] Diana Kennedy, cookbook author who promoted Mexican cuisine, dies at 99. I'm not much for Mexican cuisine, but when I decided to buy a serious book on the subject, I picked out Kennedy's The Art of Mexican Cooking.

Matthew Cappucci: [07-22] Why the Dust Bowl was hotter than this heat wave, despite global warming. I've long known that a lot of high temperature records here in Wichita were set in 1936. We've had a couple years in the last 20 that have come close. In 2011, we had 53 days of 100F+. In 2012, we had 36, and in 2000, we had 33. The median since 2000 is 9. We've had 11 through July 23, so we're above average, but not on a record-setting pace. (Forecast is for 100F+ the next 4 days, which will make it 15.) The big difference between now and the 1930s is that so far we've been spared the drought that's struck most points further west -- although most climate models point to a dryer Kansas, which combined with the depletion of the Ogalalla Aquifer could turn western Kansas back into a dust bowl. The article explains "why the Dust Bowl doesn't disprove climate change," lest you be tempted to draw that inference.

David Dayen: [07-18] The Impossible, Inevitable Survival of the Trump Tax Cuts: "How Democrats went from unanimous opposition to an unpopular policy to doing nothing about it in the five years since it became law."

Eleanor Eagan: [07-20] Democrats Need to Fight for a Government That Works: Given that Republicans are always out to cripple government (at least the part that actually works for people), the Democrats' future depends on two things: convincing people that the government can be a blessing, and that Democrats are the only ones who can run government for the benefit of the people. I wouldn't define this, as the author does, strictly on the basis of money appropriated, but that may suffice as a first approximation. Meanwhile, Ryan Cooper: [07-20] Republicans Have Created a Pro-Life Dystopia.

Catie Edmondson: [07-14] Republicans Oppose Measure to Root Out White Supremacy in the Military.

Henry Giroux: [07-22] The Nazification of American Education: Inflammatory title, but then you see the picture of Ron DeSantis and remember, oh yeah, him: indeed, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Then comes a Theodor Adorno quote from 1959: "I consider the survival of National Socialism within democracy to be potentially more menacing than the survival of fascist tendencies against democracy." Of course, DeSantis doesn't call his program "nazification." His term is "patriotic education." He views the schools first and foremost as "propaganda factories" (Giroux's apt term). Second half of the article reviews how Hitler changed education in Nazi Germany. See if you can spot the common threads.

Mark Hannah: [07-18] It's time for a US push to end the war in Ukraine: Well, it's way past time, but the situation is bad and only going to get worse.

Michael Holtz: [07-22] Harvesting Wheat in Drought-Parched Kansas. One caveat here is that Wichita, which is the center of the state's wheat belt, we're actually about +3 inches of rain above normal this year. Still, the U.S. Drought Monitor map shows us "D0 (Abnormally Dry)." There is more severe drought in western Kansas, but without irrigation not much wheat is grown there.

Sarah Jones:

• [07-14] Pregnancy From Rape Is Not a Hoax: Verifies the story of a 10-year-old girl raped in Ohio, who had to go out of state to obtain an abortion. "The right wing is morally unprepared for such a reality."
• [07-15] The False Piety of the Anti-Abortion Movement: "They preached about a moral crisis and were unprepared for what they unleashed."

Fred Kaplan: [07-10] Boris Johnson Diminished Britain on the World Stage: "He promised to make the UK great again. Instead, he left it as just another US sidekick." One thing about former empires is how they preserve the conceit that they should still exercise sway over their former dominions, as if the countries they plundered still owe them deference. You see this in places like Iran and Turkey. You see this with France and Russia poking their noses into former colonies. You see this in Japan and Germany, even though they've explicitly renounced empire-building. You saw this in fascist Italy and Germany, even though the empires they aimed to revive were more than a thousand years removed. But no country exceeds Britain for self-delusion. Ever since Churchill, British leaders seem convinced that they haven't lost an empire, just conned the US into doing their heavy lifting.

Ed Kilgore:

• [07-13] Kansas Is First State to Vote on Abortion Rights Post-Dobbs.
• [07-23] Trump World Plans to Take Over the Deep State. More accurate to say that Trump plans to replace the senior civil service with 50,000 political cronies (lobbyists and right-wing activists), which would go a long ways toward making the federal government even more dysfunctional than it already is. Nor is this just a Trump thing. Rick Scott has a plank in his masterplan to establish 10-year term limits for all civil servants (except for the military, where such a rule would retire the entire general officer core). For more, see: Jonathan Swan: [07-22] A radical plan for Trump's second term. Also: Charles P Pierce: [07-22] Trump 2.0 Could Be Powered by Sycophantic Bureaucrats.

Meryl Kornfield: [07-22] Rio Grande runs dry in Albuquerque for the first time in 40 years.

Kelly McClure: [07-24] Gaetz on ugly women and abortion rights: "The people are just disgusting." In a similar vein, [07-22] Ted Cruz says his pronoun is "kiss my ass".

Ian Millhiser: [07-21] The Supreme Court just let a Trump judge seize control of ICE, at least for now: "Apparently President Biden isn't in charge of the executive branch anymore." This is very bad.

Sara Morrison: [07-22] Amazon wants to be your doctor now, too: "The e-commerce giant is buying One Medical for $4 billion."

Steven Mufson: [07-12] Republicans threaten Wall Street over climate positions.

Olivia Nuzzi: [07-14] Donald Trump on 2024: 'I've Already Made That Decision': "The only question left in the former president's mind is when he'll announce."

Evan Osnos: [07-18] The Haves and the Have-Yachts.

Fintan O'Toole: [07-08] Boris Johnson has vandalised the political architecture of Britain, Ireland and Europe.

Kasha Patel: [07-12] Second glacier avalanche in a week shows dangers of a warming climate. Meanwhile: [07-13] Temperatures soar to 115 in Europe as heat wave expands. Also: [07-14] Unforgiving heat wave in Texas and Southern Plains to worsen next week.

Yumna Patel: [07-23] Israeli Supreme Court rules citizens can be stripped of status for 'breach of loyalty'.

Dave Philipps: [07-14] With Few Able and Fewer Willing, US Military Can't Find Recruits: "Fighting headwinds from the pandemic, the tight labor market and demographic shifts, the armed forces may fall further short of enlistment quotas this year than they have in decades."

Charles P Pierce: [07-22] The Secret of the Jan. 6 Hearings Is That None of It Changes What the GOP Is Now: "Or what it's been for a very long time now." The hearings often play like a lifeline to sane Republicans, but real Republicans know that everyone coöperating with the Committee and/or expressing reservations about Trump is traitorous RINO scum.

John Quiggin:

• [07-05] Would we be better off without corporations?.
• [07-19] Britain: the new El Salvador? Evidently the UK Conservative Party (Rishi Sunak in particular) have fallen for crypto scamming.

Brian Resnick: [07-12] Why the new James Webb Space Telescope images are such a big deal. Also: Farhad Manjoo: [07-14] The Web Telescope Restored (Some of) My Faith in Humanity.

Ingrid Robeyns: [07-04] How to write a good public philosophy book. Author is working on one provisionally titled Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth.

Bernie Sanders: [07-14] The Great Microchip Corporate Giveaway.

Jonathan Schell: [07-24] A Niagara Falls of Post-9/11 Violence: Reprint, with new introduction by Tom Engelhardt, of a 2014 post, which itself was a posthumous reprint of a piece from Schell's 2003 book, The Unconquerable World. I read the book when it first came out, and found it somewhat wanting: a great (indeed, prophetic) title, but the book itself got lost in arcane discussions of sovereignty, and failed to detail the many reasons the world is unconquerable. Still, the analogy to 1914 is again worth pondering. That war officially started with Austria-Hungary invading Serbia, supposedly in response to the assassination of its Archduke, but the key decision that made the war possible, and that caused it to spread so rapidly across Europe, was the "blank check" Germany incited Austria-Hungary with. So far, Biden has stopped short of acceding to Zelensky's demand for his own "blank check," but he's coming close (see White House Approves 16th Weapons Transfer to Ukraine, Total Security Aid Now Over $8 Billion; meanwhile, the recipient of such largesse is more focused on keeping the arms coming than on ending the war: Zelensky Rejects Any Ceasefire With Russia).

Robert J Shapiro: [07-21] The Case for Bill Clinton's Economic Record: "No, progressives, the former president wasn't some neoliberal corporatist helping the rich. Clinton delivered the strongest economy of the past half century and helped working families." Second bit is mostly true, but by weakening unions (remember NAFTA? Shapiro doesn't) and unraveling the safety net (remember "welfare reform"?) the gains that working families made in the late 1990s were easily wiped out in the Bush recessions. The first bit is bullshit. The whole New Democrat concept was the conceit that they could grow the economy more than Republicans, and in doing so they could make the rich even more so. And they were right: the rich never had it so good as under Clinton. He made them tons of money, and left a legacy -- Greenspan, ending Carter-Glass, tax-exempting internet commerce -- that continued to make them money (especially after the Bush tax cuts let them keep more of it). Neoliberalism may not be the ideal term to describe what Clinton did, but what he did was very much within the broader neoliberal game plan. And the epithet sticks because it reminds us that liberals like Clinton (and Obama) did as much to rig the economy for the rich as their Republican opponents ever did.

Alex Shephard: [07-22] The Right-Wing Media Celebrated Biden's Covid Diagnosis. Also: Abdul El-Sayed: [07-21] Biden's Covid Diagnosis and the GOP's Endless Cynicism. By the way, Covid cases are up 19% over 14 days, (129,136), and deaths are up 38% (444).

Katie Shepherd: [07-14] Texas sues Biden administration for requiring abortions in medical emergencies. I read an op-ed last week about how we should stop talking about the possibility that abortion bans could interfere with women getting treatment for ectopic pregnancies and miscarriages, assuring us that none of the bans would interfere with life-saving medical care. Biden tried to codify that reassurance in an executive order. So Texas is suing Biden, in a case that will ultimately be decided by the Federalist Society judges. Panic now?

Jeffrey St Clair: [07-22] Roaming Charges: The Sky Is Frying: If you only follow one link here, make it this one. The introduction on global warming is superb (at least until he veers off with "this was the week Joe Manchin performed a late-term abortion on the fetal remains of Biden's already grossly inadequate climate plan"). After he gets to other subjects, note this: "In 2008, before the Citizens United ruling (another Alito opinion), billionaires contributed $31 million to federal political campaigns. In 2020, billionaires contributed $1.2 billion." Can we really claim to have "freedom of speech" when it's impossible to get a word heard over the megaphones of billionaires? PS: I missed this one from the previous week: Roaming Charges: The Screams of the Children Have Been Edited Out. Quite a bit there on the 10-year-old rape victim who had to go out of Ohio to get an abortion. Much more, of course. One item I was struck by was: "The state of Arizona spends only 6% of its welfare budget on helping poor families, and 61% of it on harassing and punishing poor families through Child Protective Services." Arizona also has a law that "requires 'civilian' oversight boards to be composed of 100% police or former police." Then there's this chart on "Life expectancy vs. health expenditure." Caption: "The Genius of the American Health Care System: Spending more to die younger."

Michael Stavola: [09-21] Toddler grabs gun and shoots self in the leg in east Wichita. Also (from 2017): Boy, 5, shoots himself to death, the KC area's 11th such shooting since 2013. Isn't the NRA mantra "if guns were outlawed, only outlaws would have guns"? Wouldn't that be better?

Matt Stieb: [07-12] John Bolton Admitted on National TV That He Helped Plan Coups. Just none that were even temporarily successful.

Veronica Stracqualursi: [07-22] Newsom signs California gun bill modeled after Texas abortion law: I can't deny that the same idea occurred to me moments after I read about the Texas law, but after a bit of reflection I realized that's a dumb idea. Note that the ACLU is already on the case.

Lena H Sun/Mark Johnson: [07-21] Unvaccinated man in Rockland County, NY, diagnosed with polio: "This is the first US case of polio in nearly a decade." Meanwhile: WHO declares monkeypox a global health emergency as infections soar.

David Weigel: [07-23] On the campaign trail, many Republicans talk of violence. Shortly after adding this, I ran across an à propos meme which said: "Stay away from people who act like a victim in a problem they created."

Philip Weiss:

• [07-19] Israel's advocates offer political cover to Biden over embarrassing trip.
• [07-21] Donna Edwards's defeat affirms the fact, Israel lobby's power comes from the Benjamins.

Tweet from Barbara Res on the late Ivana Trump:

I saw Trump humiliate Ivana. I listened to him put her down in front of others, once to the point of tears. I listened to him complaining about her, to the extent of cursing her out. In my opinion, of course, he raped her. I watched Ivana fall apart in her office. I liked her.

Daily Log

Greg Magarian post on Facebook:

I recently attended an academic conference on the Second Amendment. I presented a draft of the Introduction to a book I'm writing about clashes and interactions between free speech and gun rights. The Introduction makes clear that the book will take a strong position against Second Amendment rights. I'm at an early stage, and when I distributed my draft, I noted several thorny structural issues that I needed help with.

The conference included participants with a diverse range of views. Most of the people who offered comments on my draft were gun rights advocates. Here's the high-level scholarly feedback they gave me:

-- Kyle Rittenhouse (whose story I use to frame the interaction between political protest and gun violence) was the real victim in Kenosha.

-- The cops who killed Breonna Taylor (whose story I mention in framing the Rittenhouse frame) were justified.

-- Gun rights advocates are thoughtful and reasonable, and my suggestion that a substantial number of them are comfortable with political violence is scurrilous. (The commenter, alas, didn't use the word "scurrilous.") However . . .

-- My dismissing the likelihood that our armed populace could legitimately and successfully identify and overthrow a tyrannical U.S. government in the 21st century is absurd.

From this dubious experience I take two apt lessons -- one about speech and the other about guns:

(1) Presenting your work to people who adamantly oppose your worldview isn't nearly as useful as free speech truisms hold, because generally those people just find as many ways as the schedule permits to tell you that they adamantly oppose your worldview, which you already knew.

(2) Gun rights advocates are entitled snowflakes who think the world owes them respect, by which they mean unquestioning solicitude.

(I know -- these "lessons" should have been obvious to me already. I'm slow sometimes.)

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Monday, July 11, 2022

July archive (in progress).

Music: Current count 38330 [38282] rated (+48), 78 [78] unrated (+0).

I wrote up a short Speaking of Which, mostly on Friday and Saturday, then on Sunday added a "brain dump" of my latest thinking on the political book I've been thinking about for 20+ years. After I tweeted about it, I got some much appreciated "write that book" feedback, and even a title suggestion (What Is to Be Done, which someone else pointed out was a Tolstoy title -- I'm pretty sure the copyright has run out on it, unless Disney somehow obtained it). Much easier said than done. I'm considering how it might be possible, but I'm pretty pessimistic at the moment. I can plod through routine work like this week's review haul easily enough, but don't seem to have the ability to discipline myself for major projects.

I was also pleased to see one Twitter follower pull a line out to retweet, on the Republican right:

They were corrupt from the start. Trump's only innovation was that he was utterly shameless about it, which came off to his followers as authenticity and candor. The right has always wanted to speak for the freedom to be cruel.

You probably know the story about how the old-line conservatives in Germany appointed Hitler chancellor because they thought they could control him. They couldn't, and Hitler immediately went on a terror spree, in which several of those conservatives were killed. In retrospect, the guy they really wanted wasn't Hitler. It was Trump, a charismatic buffoon who would entertain the riff-raff while he rubber-stamped their agenda. That Trump lacks the verve and cunning to be Hitler may make him less dangerous, but it doesn't make him the better person.

Meanwhile, the other two components of the Nazi takeover are still intact: the rich right-wingers who tried to pick their puppet-leader, and the ordinary folk who so desperately seek a charismatic champion to follow, in vain hope of vanquishing their imagined enemies. The 2024 primary will be an audition for the grim men with the money, but realistically any Republican would carry their water equally well. The real contest will be to see who can stir the most followers, and that's one where Trump will always beat the Romneys and Ryans, and where a real Hitler will beat Trump. The race to the bottom has begun.

By the way, I've started reading Four Threats: The Recurring Crises of American Democracy, by Suzanne Mettler and Robert C Lieberman. It covers six decades when American politics seemed to be going off the rails (1790s, 1850s, 1890s, 1930s, 1970s, 2010s), and discerns four recurrent threats that appear in many of those crises: political polarization, "who belongs?" (who can or should vote or count), economic inequality, and executive aggrandizement. The time framework has a slightly too pat 40-year periodicity -- although as I noted, the 1990s can be viewed as the revolution that didn't succeed, although it still had repercussions -- and I find the framing of the 1930s troubling (maybe the 1970s also, but the resolution there was clearly for Reagan). As for the threats, some are more like causes, others like consequences, and "executive aggrandizement" is mostly a side effect of complexity (unless it means something else, like war, which is widely, though perhaps wrongly, viewed as a unifying force). So I have reservations, but it is obviously relevant to my book.

I expected the rated count to slip this week, and it did a bit, but recovered when Clifford Ocheltree recommended some blues albums, then pointed out that he got many of his picks from Living Blues annual charts, like this one for 2021. I like classic blues as much as anyone, but I'm not easily impressed by newcomers, so I tend to miss them. Blues is still a category at DownBeat, so I often don't even hear about blues albums until they turn up in their Critics Poll, by which point I find myself having heard only 10-20% of the nominees. I will note that from this particular list, I already had a couple albums listed:

4. Selwyn Birchwood: Living in a Burning House (Alligator) [*]
9. Sue Foley: Pinky's Blues (Stony Plain) [A-]
12. GA-20: GA-20 Does Hound Dog Taylor: Try It . . . You Might Like It! (Karma Chief/Alligator) [**]
15. Crystal Thomas: Now Dig This! (Dialtone) [***]
19. Carolyn Wonderland: Tempting Fate (Alligator) [**]
21. New Moon Jelly Roll Freedom Rockers: Volume 2 (2007, Stony Plain) [**]
25. Robert Finley: Sharecropper's Son (Easy Eye Sound) [***]
27. Maria Muldaur With Tuba Skinny: Let's Get Happy Together (Stony Plain) [A-]
32. Rev. Peyton's Big Damn Band: Dance Songs for Hard Times (Family Owned) [A-]
33. Ghalia Volt: One Woman Band (Ruf) [**]
44. The Black Keys: Delta Kream (Nonesuch) [**]

I voted for the Muldaur album in the DownBeat poll. I've also rated 2021 blues albums not on this list (more than I would have expected; I didn't keep stats or the nominee list this year, as I have done some while back):

• Eric Bibb: Dear America (Provogue) [**]
• Big Chief Monk Boudreux: Bloodstains & Teardrops (Whiskey Bayou) [*]
• Cedric Burnside: I Be Trying (Single Lock) [**]
• Steve Cropper: Fire It Up (Provogue) [**]
• Corey Harris: Insurrection Blues (CRS) [**]
• Queen Esther: Gild the Black Lily (EL) [A-]

I've almost completely switched over to Spotify this week from Napster. Main reason is I still get a lot of hangs and interruptions from Napster, plus their new interface makes it no easier to browse than Spotify, and maybe a bit worse (which is pretty bad). I went to Napster six times below, especially for the Neil Young album. More disturbing are reports of Napster getting into crypto, which I regard as a terminal mark of stupidity if not (yet) much worse.

I had to deal with a "denial of service" attack at the Robert Christgau website last week. As a result, most people saw "out of resource" errors for about 12 hours. They exploited a security hole I was aware of but had been slow to fix. I've plugged the most obvious one, but still have more programming to do to clean up the rest. Meanwhile, I'm monitoring the situation, and blocking IP addresses that look malicious. I sent out a more detailed explanation to the tech mail list.

Following up, I took a look at several nagging problems with my own server. It's mostly been a slow and painstaking learning process, with one issue resolved and another I may just continue to live with.

Thought I was making some progress on the unrated count, but that was wiped out by an unusually large mail haul. Still, I've found a few things I've been wondering about, so I'll get to them next week.

New records reviewed this week:

Caterina Barbieri: Spirit Exit (2022, Light-Years): Italian electronica producer, fifth album since 2017, adds strings, guitar, and vocals to her usual synths. B+(**) [sp]

Sarah Bernstein: Veer Quartet (2022, New Focus): Violinist, leads a string quartet with second violin, viola, and cello. Music not without interest, but I've often found the sound unappealing, and this is a sustained example. B [cd] [09-02]

Burna Boy: Love, Damini (2022, Atlantic): Nigerian singer-songwriter Damini Ogulu, studied in London and Oxford before returning to Lagos. He seems to have kept his UK and US connections, producing a hip-hop fusion that travels effortlessly. First time I heard him was on a Madonna album. This album includes spots for a wide range of guests, from Ed Sheeran to Popcaan, J Balvin to Hus, Blxst and Kehlani. B+(**) [sp]

Tia Carroll: You Gotta Have It (2021, Little Village Foundation): Blues singer, based in California (Bay Area), second album, wrote 3 (of 11) songs. B+(**) [sp]

Columbia Icefield: Ancient Songs of Burlap Heroes (2021 [2022], Pyroclastic): Group name from trumpeter Nate Wooley's 2019 album, also with Susan Alcorn (pedal steel guitar), Mary Halvorson (guitar), and Ryan Sawyer (drums), with Wooley doing the electronics that leave long stretches of barren and desolate ambience. Mat Maneri (viola) and Trevor Dunn (electric bass) also play on one track each. B+(**) [cd] [07-29]

Bob Corritore & Friends: Spider in My Stew (2021, SWMAF/VizzTone): Blues harmonica player, based in Chicago, many albums since 2007, usually sharing the bill with someone like John Primer or Tail Dragger, or with various mixes of his Friends -- he uses eight bass players here, five drummers, four keyboard players, a bunch of singers. B+(**) [sp]

Guy Davis: Be Ready When I Call You (2021, M.C.): Country blues singer, shades of Taj Mahal, early albums in 1978 and 1984, a regular stream from 1993 on. Sharpest song here is "Flint River Blues"; sappiest is "Palestine, Oh Palestine," or maybe "I Looked Around," but credit for trying. B+(***) [sp]

Randal Despommier: A Midsummer Odyssey (2021 [2022], Sunnyside): Alto saxophonist, from Louisiana, duo with guitarist Ben Monder (listed as "featuring" on cover), playing nine pieces, as the fine print notes "The Music of Lars Gullin." If you don't know Gullin, you have some catching up to do: a baritone saxophonist, he was one of Sweden's most eminent jazz musicians from the early 1950s to his death in 1976. This is brief (34:06), surprising, and lovely. B+(***) [cd] [07-15]

Sonny Green: Found! One Soul Singer (2020, Little Village Foundation): Soul singer with some grit in his voice, first album at 77, Discogs credits him with ten singles 1969-75. Reminds one of Z.Z. Hill, a bit of Bobby Bland tool, maybe a dash of Wilson Pickett -- which seemed familiar way back when, but these days you take what you can get. B+(***)

Gwenno: Tresor (2022, Heavenly): Singer-songwriter from Wales, last name Saunders, third album, sings in Welsh and Cornish. B+(**) [sp]

Joshua Hedley: Neon Blue (2022, New West): Country singer-songwriter from Florida, plays violin as well as guitar, second album. B+(**) [sp]

Christone Kingfish Ingram: 662 (2021, Alligator): Blues singer-guitarist from Clarksdale, Mississippi, young (b. 1999), second album. Has some chops. B+(*) [sp]

Eva Kess: Inter-Musical Love Letter (2021 [2022], Unit): Bassist, from Berlin, started her career as a ballet dancer in Brazil, has a couple albums. I was impressed by her mostly strings Sternschnuppen, but thrown by this one, where she doubles the band size, adding some horns and vocals (Mirjam Hässig). Easy enough to blame the latter, but now seems more like an excess of ambition, which can too readily lead to opera. B+(*) [cd] [07-22]

Kirk Knuffke Trio: Gravity Without Airs (2022, Tao Forms, 2CD): Cornet player, many albums since 2009, composed 14 pieces here (90:17), backed by Michael Bisio (bass) and Matthew Shipp (piano), who really keep this moving. A-

Joy Lapps: Girl in the Yard (2022, self-released): Steel pans player, based in Toronto, wrote everything here, "first full-length album" (but several more on her website), draws on African as well as Caribbean sources. Upbeat, flashy, ends strong. B+(**) [cd]

Veronica Lewis: You Ain't Unlucky (2021, Blue Heart): Boogie piano-playing blues singer, young (18), from New Orleans, first album, wrote 6 (of 8) songs. She isn't quite right for one of the covers (Louis Jordan's "Is You Is My Baby"), but her piano is fast and furious (including an "Ode to Jerry Lee" that doesn't leave you thinking the wrong Lewis is playing), and she gets a lot of help from the sax (mostly Don Davis). B+(***) [sp]

Yaroslav Likhachev Quartet: Occasional Sketches (2021 [2022], Clean Feed): Russian-born tenor saxophonist, based in Germany, leads a quartet with piano, bass, and drums. B+(***) [bc]

Janiva Magness: Hard to Kill (2022, Fathead): Blues singer-songwriter, from Detroit, grew up in foster homes after both parents committed suicide, cut records in 1991 and 1997 before picking up the pace, including a stretch (2008-12) with Alligator. "Strong as Steel" lives up to its title, but doesn't stay that hard. B [sp]

Metric: Formentera (2022, Metric Music International): Canadian electropop band, debug 2003, principally Emily Haines (vocals, keyboards) and James Shaw (guitar). B+(**) [sp]

John Minnock: Simplicity (2022, Dot Time): Jazz singer, classic crooner voice, writes some lyrics, second album, pianist Mathis Picard writes some of the music, Dave Liebman is featured on soprano sax. More drama than I typically care for, but gets his point across. Closes with "You Don't Know What Love Is." B+(*) [cd]

Moor Mother: Jazz Codes (2022, Anti-): Philadelphia poet Camae Ayewa, fronts the jazz group Irreversible Entanglements, uses this alias for more hip-hop projects, although the genres are pretty fluid for her, as are melodies and beats. Lots of guests here in her expanding universe, making it more complex than art needs to be, but still not as messy as real life. [sp]

Ian Noe: River Fools & Mountain Saints (2022, Thirty Tigers): Country singer-songwriter, from Kentucky, second album. Hooked me with the song that sounded like John Prine, and even though the rest don't quite ring that bell, they're all pretty good. A- [sp]

North Mississippi Allstars: Set Sail (2022, New West): Southern blues-rock band, debut 2000, founded by two sons of Memphis legend Jim Dickinson (Luther and Cody), 13th album. Leans toward funk, but barely registers. B+(*)

Ol' Savannah: They Lie in Wait (2022, Anticapital): Canadian folk group, based in Montreal, albums since 2011. I was skeptical at first, but "Which Side Are You On?" won me over. B+(**) [bc]

Katy J Pearson: Sound of the Morning (2022, Heavenly): UK singer-songwriter, started out as half of Ardyn (two albums 2015-16), second album, produced by Ali Chant (Yard Act) and Dan Carey (Fontaines DC). B+(*) [sp]

John Primer & Bob Corritore: The Gypsy Woman Told Me (2020, SWMAF/VizzTone): Chicago bluesman, born in Mississippi, played behind Junior Wells and Muddy Waters before he moved out front in 1991, and has several dozen albums since. Corritore plays harmonica, third album with Primer, many more albums either listed second or as "Bob Corritore & Friends." First I've heard by him/them, but it sounds classic, hitting the mark every time out. A-

The Duke Robillard Band: They Called It Rhythm & Blues (2022, Stoney Plain): Blues guitarist, sometime singer, co-founder of Roomful of Blues, many albums since 1978, including some where he wanders into jazz. Mostly jump blues songs from the 1940-50s, with 14 guests listed on the front cover. B+(**) [sp]

Curtis Salgado: Damage Control (2021, Alligator): Blues singer, harmonica player, from Everett, Washington, based in Oregon, close to a dozen albums since 1991. Survived liver cancer with a transplant, and came back singing, "the longer that I live, the older I want to get" B+(*) [sp]

Space Quartet: Freedom of Tomorrow (2019-21 [2022], Clean Feed): Fourth album by group led by Rafael Toral, who promises "electronic music with a human touch," aided by alto sax (Nuno Torres), bass (Hugo Antunes), and drums (Nuno Morão). B+(**) [bc]

Ziv Taubenfeld's Full Sun: Out of the Beast Came Honey (2020 [2022], Clean Feed): Bass clarinetist, from Israel, based in Netherlands, band name from his 2020 album. Sextet with Michael Moore (clarinet/alto sax), Joost Buis (trombone), piano, bass, and drums. B+(**) [bc]

Joanne Shaw Taylor: Blues From the Heart: Live (2022, KTBA): British blues-rocker, ninth album since her 2009 debut, also on DVD. Has the guitar. Also has Joe Bonamassa (3 tracks). B+(*) [sp]

There Be Monsters: Rubikon (2021 [2022], Klopotec): Slovenian saxophonist Bostjan Simon, third album for his group, with Mirko Cisilino (trumpet/trombone), Goran Krmmac (tuba), vibes, and drums. B+(*) [bc]

Toro Y Moi: Mahal (2022, Dead Oceans): Chaz Bundick, from South Carolina, a dozen or so albums since 2009, producing a style of electropop called chillwave, although I've also seen this filed as psychedelia. At any rate, not very chill. B [sp]

Viagra Boys: Cave World (2022, Year0001): Swedish post-punk band, fronted by English-singing singer Sebastian Murphy, third album. B+(*)

Wee Willie Walker and the Anthony Paule Soul Orchestra: Not in My Lifetime (2021, Blue Dot): Born in Mississippi, grew up in Memphis, moved to Minneapolis in 1959, sang gospel switching to soul, died at 77 in 2019, so title is pretty literal. Cut some singles as far back as 1959, but the albums only start in 2004. B+(***) [sp]

Steve Washington: Just a Matter of Time (2020, JSP): Soul/blues singer, plays drums and organ, first album, features Lucky Peterson (piano), seems like they go back a fair ways. Not much grit, but that works too. B+(**) [sp]

Hank Williams Jr.: Rich White Honky Blues (2022, Easy Eye Sound): Three years old when his namesake father died, who gave him a nickname (Bocephus) after a ventriloquist dummy, like everything else he both embraced and struggled with. He's 45 years older now than his father was when he died, and while he's never been as intensely productive as his father, he's accumulated 56 albums to date. Only one I count as a winner -- Hank Williams and Friends, from 1975, after a near-death experience -- but I haven't listened to that many, especially since he slowed down after 2000 (this is only his sixth this century). (I've probably heard more by Hank III -- evidently the voice skipped a generation.) Title song boasts that he "knows how to play the blues," despite the obvious handicaps, and namechecks a long list of blues masters, although he no more knew Robert Johnson than he did his father. He sounds more like he's been cribbing his blues from ZZ Top, but that's actually pretty satisfying. B+(***) [sp]

Wu-Lu: Loggerhead (2022, Warp): UK singer-songwriter Miles Romans-Hopcraft, first album was electronic/instrumental, but this third album is chock full of vocals, some rapped, some choral, with scattered sounds, a mix of trip-hop and industrial though rarely anything in particular. B+(*) [sp]

Zola Jesus: Arkhon (2022, Sacred Bones): Goth singer-songwriter Nicole Hummel, aka Nika Roza Danilova (grandparents immigrated from Ukraine, and she liked the Slavic name), born in Arizona, grew up in Wisconsin, first album 2009, this her sixth. B+(**)

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

Bob Corritore & Friends: Down Home Blues Revue (1995-2012 [2022], SWMAF/VizzTone): Chicago harmonica player, doesn't sing, which he makes up for by rotating his many friends. He has four previous albums designated as such, but many more collaborations. This plumbs his vault for 13 songs with 10 friends, the dupes T-Model Ford and Robert "Bilbo" Walker. B+(**) [sp]

Bob Dowe: Build Me Up (1973-78 [2021], Trojan/Sanctuary): Reggae singer (1946-2006), best known for the Melodians, but released this 1974 album under his own name, a second in 1981, and many singles. Reissue, which matches the first disc of a Doctor Bird 2-CD, adds a dozen bonus tracks, which if anything up the ante (though nothing quite rises to the level of the alternate mix of "Girl I've Got a Date," which you know from the group). B+(**) [sp]

Bob Dowe/The Melodians: Build Me Up/Pre-Meditation (1968-78 [2021], Doctor Bird, 2CD): Heard this twofer reissue split into pieces, but easy enough to sum it up. B+(***) [sp]

The Melodians: Pre-Meditation (1968-78 [2021], Trojan/Sanctuary): Legendary Jamaican vocal group, third album from 1978 (which included a couple cuts from 1968) plus extras, on 2-CD with Bob Dowe's Build Me Up from Doctor Bird but digital is split. B+(***) [sp]

Orchestre Volta-Jazz: Air Volta (1974-77 [2022], Numero Group): Group from Upper Volta, a landlocked French colony in West Africa, between Ghana and Mali, renamed Burkina Faso in 1984. Discogs lists these 9 songs as singles, but only provides a couple of dates. Early cuts Sound like junkyard percussion, but that could just be the recording. A slow one ("Djougou Toro") is especially nice. B+(**) [sp]

Neil Young With Crazy Horse: Toast (2001 [2022], Reprise): Previously unreleased 7-song album, from between Silver and Gold and Are You Passionate?, which are both pretty good if not quite landmark albums. B+(**)

Old music:

Francis Bebey: Nandola/With Love: Works: 1963-1994 (1963-94 [1995], Original Music): Born in Cameroon 1929, died in Paris 2001, in between distinguished himself not just as a musician but as a poet, novelist, folklorist, and historian. He studied math to start, but an interest in broadcasting took him to Paris and New York before Kwame Nkrumah persuaded him to move to Ghana, newly independent in 1957. He sang, played guitar and flute, drawing on a wide range of African music, but also got into electronics. This ranges widely, nothing that really blows you away, but interesting pieces abound, and the notes (by John Storm Roberts) help. B+(***) [cd]

Sathima Bea Benjamin: Memories and Dreams (1983 [1986], Ekapa/Blackhawk): South African jazz singer, not sure of her race (father from St. Helena; mother "had roots in Mauritius and the Philippines"), but she left South Africa for Europe with future husband Abdullah Ibraham in 1960, after the Sharpeville Massacre, and lived most of the rest of her life in New York -- where this was recorded, with Onaje Allan Gumbs (piano), Buster Williams (bass), Carlos Ward (sax/flute), and on drums either Billy Higgins or Ben Riley. First side is her chronicle of the struggle against apartheid, "Liberation Suite." Second side has four covers, including two Ellington pieces. B+(***) [lp]

Jack DeJohnette's Special Edition: Audio-Visualscapes (1988, Impulse): Drummer-led quintet, also plays keyboards, same group as above but more electric bass (and probably more flute). Long (74:05), feels muddled. B- [cd]

Paul Rutherford/Derek Bailey/Barry Guy: ISKRA 1903: Chapter One (1970-72 [2000], Emanem, 3CD): Trombone, guitar, bass: three major figures in the British avant-garde, early in their careers (aside from this, Bailey's debut was 1970, Guy's 1972, Rutherford 1975). Originally a 2-LP with 11 Improvisations, the CD reissue adds Offcut 1-3, Extra 1-3, and 38:55 of "On Tour." Abstract and scratchy as you'd expect if you know these remarkable musicians. Rutherford went on to use ISKRA variants for a number of albums, later replacing Bailey with Philipp Wachsmann. B+(***) [cd]

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

• Dan Ex Machina: My Wife (2020, self-released)
• Dan Ex Machina: Bail Shag (2021, self-released, EP)
• Dan Ex Machina: All Is Ours, Nothing Is Theirs (self-released)
• Do'a: Higher Grounds (Outside In Music) [07-15]
• Vinny Golia/Bernard Santacruz/Cristiano Calcagnile: To Live and Breathe (Dark Tree) [06-17]
• David Greenberger & the Waldameer Players: Today! (Pel Pel) [07-22]
• Geoffrey Keezer & Friends: Playdate (MarKeez) [08-12]
• Frank Kimbrough: 2003-2006: Lullabluebye/Play (Palmetto, 2CD) [08-12]
• Travis Laplante: Wild Tapestry (Out of Your Head) [05-27]
• Joy Lapps: Girl in the Yard (self-released) [078-08]
• John Minnock: Simplicity (Dot Time) [05-20]
• Horace Tapscott Quintet: Legacies of Our Grandchildren (1995, Dark Tree) [06-17]
• Walt Weiskopf European Quartet: Diamonds and Other Jewels (AMM) [08-19]

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Sunday, July 10, 2022

Just a few scattered links this week, then I spent a whole day writing an afterword that tripled the length.

One small note from Twitter, where Marc Masters created a meme from three Kathleen Parker headlines:

• Calm down. We'll be fine no matter who wins. [2016, picture of Trump and Clinton debate]
• Calm down. Roe v. Wade isn't going anywhere. [July 3, 2018]
• How could so many have missed what is now so obvious? [July 8, 2022]

Back during WWII, the OSS (the predecessor of the CIA), came up with a term to describe American leftists who warned about the growing threat of Nazi Germany, some of whom were so bothered they volunteered to fight for Spain against Franco and his German and Italian allies. They were called "premature anti-fascists," as if sensible people should hold up and wait until some line-crossing moment when anti-fascism suddenly became fashionable. I always thought that the earlier people recognized problems, the better, but Parker clearly isn't that perceptive. So how come she's a widely syndicated columnist?

Zack Beauchamp: [07-06] How conservatism conquered America -- and corrupted itself: Reviews three books, but the author seems to be working toward a book of his own. The books are: Matthew Rose, A World After Liberalism; Matthew Continetti, The Right; and Tim Miller, Why We Did It. The problem with Rose's illiberal "thinkers" is that hardly anyone on the right understands them, or cares about maintaining ideological continuity between Nazis and today's Republicans. To the extent that people on the right have any ideology, it's closer to the "classic liberalism" of Hayek, Rand and Koch than the völkish romance of Spengler. It's true that the right never had a problem with libertinage-for-us and the-jackboot-for-you. But they didn't become corrupt with Trump. They were corrupt from the start. Trump's only innovation was that he was utterly shameless about it, which came off to his followers as authenticity and candor. The right has always wanted to speak for the freedom to be cruel.

Lindsay M Chervinsky: [07-07] Garland Has to Prosecute Trump for January 6 to Restore Faith in the Justice Department: Problem is it won't work, and more likely will backfire. It will inevitably look political, and Trump is very unlikely to be convicted, so while it may be fun to watch him squirm, it would be a waste of effort. Moreover, even if successful, it's way short of what it would take to "restore faith." Part of the problem is that the obvious charges like seditious conspiracy are bullshit political laws, even if you define them narrowly and document them rigorously. What I would like to see is a Special Prosecutor charged with investigating a wide range of corruption charges, ranging from the scandals that sunk Pruitt and Zinke to the hundreds of millions Jared Kushner got from the Saudis. Even where charges can't be filed, it would open some eyes to get a thorough accounting of the most thoroughly corrupt administration in American history.

Fabiola Cineas: [07-07] What we know about the deadly police shooting of Jayland Walker: "Akron police officers released body camera footage of the killing that raises questions about excessive force." Excessive? Walker was unarmed. Police shot 90 rounds, and hit Walker 60 times.

Ryan Cooper: [07-07] President Biden Is Not Cutting the Mustard: "Young people are abandoning him in droves because he won't fight for their rights and freedo."

Michelle Goldberg: [07-07] The Delightful Implosion of Boris Johnson. She admits to Schadenfreude, but bad as Johnson was, hard to avoid a bit of jealousy that UK Conservatives could put down a dysfunctional leader, while Republicans don't dare touch Trump. The following pieces often return to this theme:

• Stephen Collinson: [07-07] Why Johnson fell but Trump remains his party's de facto leader: Title adds a totally fanciful ". . . for now."
• Charles P Pierce: [07-07] Imagine if Trump Had Gotten the Boris Johnson Treatment.
• Ross Barkan: [07-09] Boris Johnson's Downfall Should Make Americans Jealous.

Jonathan Guyer: [07-05] Inside Ukraine's lobbying blitz in Washington: It's inconceivable running a war in Washington without greasing some palms.

Margaret Hartmann: [07-08] Shinzo Abe, Former Prime Miniser of Japan, Is Assassinated. But isn't it kind of strange that 80% of the article are reproductions of tweets from world leaders, as if any of them have anything at all interesting to say? It's hard to convey how exceptional any shooting is in Japan, where there was only one murder-by-gun in all of 2021. More info:

• Ryu Spaeth: [07-09] The Martyrdom of Shinzo Abe: "His shocking death is of a piece with Japan's history."
Bryan Walsh: [07-08] Shinzo Abe wanted to make Japan a "normal country" -- as he saw it.
• Tobias Harris: [07-09] Shinzo Abe was the most polarizing Japanese political figure of his time. A comment to this article suggested a more pointed one:
• Jake Adelstein: [07-08] Shinzo Abe Was 'Trump Before Trump' -- Except He Pulled It Off.

Ellen Ioanes: [07-09] Protests force Sri Lanka's leaders to resign: "Entrenched corruption and a political dynasty may keep them in power, though."

Paul Krugman: [07-08] Wonking Out: Rockets, Feathers and Prices at the Pump: Finally admits that, "yes, market power can worsen inflation." A paper by Mike Konczal and Niko Lusiani seems to have finally convinced him. Krugman also wrote That Was the Stagflation That Was, where he notes that: "The wholesale price of gasoline has fallen about 80 cents a gallon since its peak a month ago. Only a little of this plunge has been passed on to consumers so far." You still believe all of those articles about how greed has nothing to with gas prices?

Ian Millhiser: [07-09] The post-legal Supreme Court: "The highest Court in the most powerful nation in the world appears to have decided that it only needs to follow the law when it feels like it."

Kate Riga: [07-06] Kansas Republicans Scheduled Big Abortion Vote for Low-Turnout Primaries. Will It Backfire? If Republicans thought their amendment would be popular, they wouldn't have scheduled it on a typically low-turnout primary day, and they wouldn't be lying so much about what it means.

Corey Robin: [07-09] The Self-Fulfilling Prophecies of Clarence Thomas: "For decades, Thomas has had a deeply pessimistic view of the country, rooted in his reading of the Fourteenth Amendment. After the Supreme Court's recent opinions, his dystopia is becoming our reality." Robin has written several books on the reactionary right, including a whole one on The Enigma of Clarence Thomas.

Jeffrey St Clair: [07-08] Roaming Charges: Knocked Out and Re-Loaded. Some of the gun violence statistics actually managed to take me aback. One is that "124 people die every day in the US in acts of gun violence." That works out to 45,260 per year, which is about what I knew, but breaking it down per day makes it seem more inexorably relentless. The other is that we've had "320 mass shootings, putting 2022 on track to finish as one of the deadliest years in US history." But that works out to about 2 per day, which may be par, but feels like less than we hear about many days. St Clair also linked to the following:

• Brett Bachman: [09-23] DeSantis signs bill requiring survey of Florida students, professors on their political views. Florida Republicans like DeSantis and Rick Scott are very much into purging public schools of heretics, so they can get on with brainwashing youths.

The possible political book keeps evolving in my mind. Last week I was debating between writing a Speaking of Which and working on an outline. I decided I could do the former then maybe tack the outline on at the end, but didn't get to it. This week, well, I had a bit of time, so did a quick brain dump on my latest thinking. Titles aren't great, but here's what the structure looks like:

1. Introduction
1. American History in Four Eras
2. What Republicans Have Done
3. How the World Breaks
4. Can Democrats Restore Democracy?
5. The Way Things Ought to Be
6. Afterword

I've written outlines of American History in Four Eras several times (e.g., at some length on Jan. 27, 2019, but also on June 10, 2018, June 2, 2019, Jan. 19, 2000, March 9, 2020, May 31, 2020. The original insight was that US history could be broken up into four long eras of partisan dominance, each starting with a major two-term president and each ending with a disastrous one-termer: Jefferson-to-Buchanan, Lincoln-to-Hoover, Roosevelt-to-Carter, and Reagan-to-Trump. (Washington-to-Adams also fits that criteria, except for length.) In each of these, the dominant party's long rule was interrupted by loss to two opponents: in the Jefferson-Buchanan period, Whigs won by running ex-generals (Harrison and Taylor), but they died in office, having little effect; the other eras were interrupted by two-term each (Cleveland and Wilson, Eisenhower and Nixon, Clinton and Obama; note that none were consecutive, unlike Roosevelt-Truman and Reagan-Bush).

Several things are interesting about all this. One is that the exceptions tried to maneuver under and around the hegemony of the dominant party. Eisenhower and Nixon accepted the "big government" New Deal paradigm, although they sought to undermine it at the edges. Clinton and Obama bought into the pro-business, militarist, "end-of-big-government" Reagan mythology, even if they tried to soften its harsh prescriptions. The earlier periods are messier to map, and one might be tempted to split them. Jackson marks a pretty clean break in the first era; McKinley is the right time to divide the second, but Bryan's takeover of the Democratic Party may have been the more important shift, producing progressive movements in both parties, reflected variously by T. Roosevelt and Wilson. The point I want to draw out here is how operating under the hegemony of a dominant party may be practical politics, it doesn't help you prepare for the crisis that occurs when the dominant party fails.

Another thing is that each era starts with a crisis resulting in a massive shift of power -- in terms of Congress, Reagan is anomalous, but by 1980 the presidency had become so powerful that gave him a lot of leeway. The first three of those eras were marked by initial shifts to the left -- Reagan, again, is the exception, and the Reagan era is again anomalous in that it along represented a turn against a broader and more inclusive democracy. We have to ask how that was even possible.

The answer would appear to be that in all eras, as politics returns to normal, people are less engaged, and special interests worm their way in, exploiting a deeply ingrained (even if very unpopular) tendency toward corruption. After all, getting rich has been a common aspiration and a matter of national pride since colonial days. The Grant and Harding administrations were perhaps the most famously corrupt, and while it's easy to blame them on inattentive leaders, they occurred at points when business was finding government favor especially lucrative (railroads and oil, respectively). But the Republican Party has always looked to government as a source of private riches (in 1860, the campaign slogan urged farmers to vote themselves free land, and manufacturers to vote for tariffs). By the time you get to Reagan and the "greed is good" decade, this penchant for corruption was baked into their DNA. Every Republican administration from Nixon on has been wracked by corruption scandals. We'll return to this frequently throughout the book.

The second section follows the Republicans from the freak election of 1946 (which among other things passed Taft-Hartley) on. We can talk a bit about the Goldwater right, but Richard Nixon is the key figure, because he's the one who taught the party to do whatever it takes, no matter how deceitful, unscrupulous, or plain illegal, to win. We'll look at Kevin Phillips' The Emerging Republican Majority, and how Republicans welded several reactionary factions into a solid base. We'll look at how that base allowed them to recover from defeats when their policies blew up disastrously. And we'll show how those decisions, while allowing them to claim and hang onto considerable power, despite repeated proof of their inability to govern wisely or even competently. Indeed, each time they lose, they bounce back more vicious and insane than ever.

Another thing we need to talk about here is the structure of the Republican Party: particularly, the donor networks, their think tanks and university alliances, the lobbies, allied groups like the NRA, their propaganda organs, and their influence on "mainstream media."

The third section introduces the Republicans' most intractable enemy: reality. Republicans are masters at crafting rhetoric that flatters their supporters and excoriates their imagined enemies (the "radical left"), but their deeply ingrained corruption keeps them from facing their real problems (especially problems they themselves created). In this section, we take a handful of sample subjects, explain briefly how they work, how they eventually break down, and why the Republicans have no solution for them. This chapter could grow into a massive book of its own, so it is important to pick relatively obvious cases. Some possibilities: health care, climate, trade, immigration, civil service, information, education, public welfare, war, justice.

These are all big subjects, so I'm inclined to start with some common threads. First, I'd emphasize how much the world has changed in my lifetime, especially since my grandfather's before me (he was born in 1895). This new world is much more complex, and much harder to understand, especially in its complex interdependency. As a practical matter, we have to delegate large parts of responsibility to experts, and they have to be trustworthy. That's hard in any case, but all the more difficult in a hyper-individualistic society largely driven by the profit motive, with its consequent levels of inequality and injustice.

The individual topics are big and deep, and risk swallowing up our available attention. One approach that may help is to limit analysis to Republican approaches. We don't have to solve health care or climate; just show that Republicans won't, can't, and are only likely to make the situation worse. Chapters two and three should demolish any hope that Republicans might face up to and overcome the problems of the modern world.

The fourth chapter is about and for the Democrats. It starts with some history, a survey of how Democrats have reacted to Republican attacks, probably going back (briefly) to 1946, but mostly we have to deal with the Reagan-Bush-Trump era. That involves spending some time with the New Democrats, to make two important points: one is that their concessions to the Republicans failed politically, both to gain ground in the center and to hold their own base; the other is that they failed to solve major problems, or even to help us understand why such problems matter and persist. Clinton and Obama may have made the world a little better than they found it, but they did not prepare the voters to keep it better, and to keep on working to make it better. Otherwise they would not have lost their Congressional majorities after two years, nor been succeeded by such manifestly incompetent and disastrous presidents as Bush and Trump.

The rest of this chapter is meant to help Democrats campaign more effectively. After all, they are the only alternative to Republicans, who are hopelessly compromised. (Third-party prospects can be easily dismissed.) If we look at real interests, we should be able to show that Republicans favor a vanishingly small minority, which in a democracy should quickly be rendered powerless. We can even point out that Republicans understand this, as they've as much as admitted by their anti-democratic efforts (voter suppression, gerrymandering, unlimited money, etc.; these points may fit just as well in the 2nd chapter). The main way they get away with it is due to their ability to convince voters (who are notoriously ill-informed, and rarely able to grasp complex problems and policies) not to trust Democrats. The only way out of this is for Democrats to show voters that they care about their voters, that they are open and honest and not beholden to special interests. They need to be seen as approachable and sincere. They need to be regarded as fair and just. While this may seem like a high bar, in practice they only need to be seen as clearly better than the Republicans, so by all means point out when Republicans betray public trust, or otherwise attempt to deceive and manipulate voters, such as by appealing to their prejudices.

This chapter is likely to turn into a hodge-podge of political advice, ranging from how to counter stereotypes about Democrats to how to avoid overreacting to problem issues. I won't try to sketch out a list here, but every day I read the paper I run across cases that could be handled better. As critical as I am of businesses, we need them and they need to be profitable, so any policy that hits them needs to be considered carefully. Most policy questions involve tradeoffs, and one needs to be sensitive to all concerned. But "all concerned" needs to include the public, and (even harder to factor in) the future. We need to recognize what we don't (or can't) know, and we need the flexibility to adjust when things don't work out as expected. We need to avoid getting too caught up in our own rhetoric and logic. We need to understand that it's impossible to change things immediately, and that changing things too fast is disruptive and upsetting. On the other hand, that's no excuse for doing nothing.

The fourth chapter will avoid discussions of policy specifics, but it may get into philosophical principles. Democrats need to align themselves more firmly in favor of individual freedom and responsibility, but they also need to be more sensitive to the corrosive effect of power imbalances. Inequality would be less of a problem if it were possible to mitigate the differences in power. Often the easiest way to do this is to create countervailing power forces.

The fifth chapter is reserved for policy matters. I expect that this will eventually be cut from the book, possibly to be spun off into another, but for the time being, it is a place to move policy thoughts out into. I have a lot of policy ideas that I think would be good for Democrats and for the country and the world, but they are outside of the present Overton Window, so they have no value in a book of practical politics. Ending intellectual property and replacing it with a system of public grants and free licenses is a relatively clear example. (Even so, it involves some fairly deep changes in how we think about creativity, incentive, and the public interest.)

The "Introduction" and/or "Afterword" are needed to fit the body of the book into a particular political context. At this point, it's impossible to write this and release it before the November 2022 election, which is likely to significantly alter the landscape.

I've been kicking around ideas for a political book as far back as the late 1990s. I even took some time off then to work on a draft. I had studied philosophy and sociology in college, but made a career out of software engineering. It occurred to me that one could apply engineering discipline to many political issues without succumbing to the hack mechanistic simplifications common to the genre. Perhaps my personal background would help figure out what might and might not work. But I wasn't satisfied with what I came up with, and shelved it. After 9/11/2001, I took a renewed, more urgent interest in politics, and started blogging. I was dead set against the War on Terror from the very start. By 2004, I saw the need for a narrowly-focused polemic Case Against the Republicans, but missed the election window. Still, I kept turning the ideas around my mind, mostly thinking of a longer time frame. I've been fond of utopian writing since my late teens, so I found the title The Way Things Ought to Be very appealing. (Unfortunately, Rush Limbaugh used it, in a 1992 book that turned out to mostly be an insane rant against Anita Hill.) I've long been struck by the extent of change over the last 150 years, and felt that people everywhere had done a poor job of adjusting their thinking to cope with the times. But while bad ideas were everywhere, really dangerous ones were concentrated in the Republican Party, so I tended to vacillate between focus on urgent vs. important matters. While Obama was president, it seemed more important to think long, but when Trump lucked out, an urgent sense of impending doom took over. In early 2020, I again narrowed the focus and opened a file for A Letter to the Democrats, which I started by copying the "four eras" outline. I hoped to close the door on the Reagan-to-Trump era, and open a new one -- sure Biden didn't rise to the standards of Jefferson, Lincoln, and Roosevelt, but history has never been a mechanical cycle. I imagined a short book, with the four eras for historical background, and a second part closer to chapter four above. I had a short window, and blew it. After the election, it took some time for me to think through the second and third chapters, which again return the focus onto the Republican threat. For a while, the third was "The Way the World Works," but while reading Vaclav Smil's similar title it occurred to me that "Breaks" would be better than "Works." Republicans break things.

It's not that I have had writer's block. I have millions of words written in my various notebook/blog files (collected in 4 huge volumes here), but at this stage I have no confidence in my ability to pull an actual book together. Perhaps it's just a psychotic "will to fail"? But I do think this outline makes sense, and there's no shortage of material to flesh it out -- once you get going, the harder thing is to decide where to stop. The target audience would be active Democrats, who by now fear Republicans as much as I do, but are hard-pressed to formulate effective tactics to oppose them. I have no experience in doing so, but can draw on a lifetime of observing Democrats fuck up and sell out short. The 2016 debacle was not because America was too conservative, but because a critical sliver of the public so distrusted Hillary that they were willing to take a chance on Trump. Incredibly stupid that was, but that's why we need smarter critics.

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Monday, July 4, 2022

July archive (in progress).

Music: Current count 38282 [38227] rated (+55), 78 [87] unrated (-9).

Posted a rather substantial Speaking of Which yesterday. (Added one more link today, after finding a tab I had opened but missed.) After complaining about no Facebook reaction last week, I finally got a like, a comment, and a message from an old Boston friend, so let's dedicate this one to her. I was torn at first between writing one and starting to jot down my latest book thinking. I decided I could do the latter in the end section of the post, but it turns out I never got that far. I had two things I wanted to write about: first was Robert Christgau's Hillary Clinton Lookback; second was further correspondence with Crocodile Chuck, following my last week Q&A. After that it was mostly a matter of filling in the sections on Ukraine, SCOTUS, and the January 6 Committee. As I went through my paces, I found a few more topics to note, and wound up including a couple pages I didn't have much to say about, but felt like bookmarking anyway (e.g., Elizabeth Nelson on Anthony Bourdain, Annie Proulx on swamps).

By the way, I ordered the two Tariq Ali books (on Churchill and Afghanistan). I'm also through the first section of the Millhiser book (Injustices). I was already familiar with a number of the 19th century cases in that section from reading Jack Beatty's Age of Betrayal: The Triumph of Money in America, 1865-1900, but Millhiser's description of the conditions is remarkably good. Millhiser also has a more recent (2021) but shorter (143 pp) book: The Agenda: How a Republican Supreme Court Is Reshaping America, and has written a lot more since then in Vox. Another promising book on the recent Supreme Court is Adam Cohen's Supreme Inequalilty: The Supreme Court's Fifty-Year Battle for a More Unjust America. (Cohen previously wrote a whole book on the Carrie Buck case, which Millhiser presents in 4-5 pages.)

Another valuable critic of the right-wing takeover of the Court is Erwin Chemerinsky, who has a number of books on the subject. The only one I've read so far fits into a slightly different genre: books that offer close readings of America's founding documents and find them compatible with progressive reform. Chemerinsky's is We the People: A Progressive Reading of the Constitution for the Twenty-First Century. A similar book is Danielle S Allen's Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality. I recommend them both (Allen's is especially appropriate on this 4th of July), and even more so Ganesh Sitaraman's The Crisis of the Middle-Class Constitution. I'll also note that two of our greatest historians have found progressive kernels in the Constitution: Gordon S Wood, in The Radicalism of the American Revolution, and Eric Foner, in The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution. I'm fully aware that every step forward is met with vitriol and retrenchment from self-proclaimed conservatives, and that they have often been successful, but when we look back on our history, the moments we're proudest of, and most inspired by, have always aspired toward more universal justice.

I suppose I should note that I started out as a devout believer in what I saw as American ideals, the consistent application of which led me toward a peculiarly individualized understanding of the left. One early step for me was reading Staughton Lynd's Intellectual Origins of American Radicalism (1968). I was so taken by the book that I wrote a defensive letter to Eugene Genovese, who had written a brutal review of Lind's book in The New York Review of Books. Genovese kindly replied, and suggested I read some of his work (which aside from papers at the time was just The Political Economy of Slavery). I did, and that was my introduction to Marxism. I came to understand Genovese's critique, but doubt I ever lost my initial sympathy for Lind -- or for the idea that a better America could draw on the ideals of the Revolution and Reconstruction.

I wrote the above last night, without particularly realizing that today is the 4th of July. We have no holiday plans. I probably won't even bother walking down the block to where the big fireworks show should be visible. I don't mind celebrating the holiday so much -- as I said above, the Declaration of Independence still resonates for me -- but I've come to hate the idea of celebrating by blowing things up.

I don't have much to say about music this week. I'm still trying to track down my long-time unrated list, which is the only reason I bothered with two Christmas albums this week. The top "old music" find this week was an LP I noticed while looking for something else. It turned out to be unrated but not in my unrated list, so finding it was dumb luck. Makes me wonder how many more there are. Otherwise, I've been following tips from more lists than I can keep track of. Some came from mid-year lists, links here.

As we've hit mid-year, I suppose I could offer you a list. The usual full one is here, but to focus a bit, let's omit the jazz (about half of the A-list, more like two-thirds of the overall list), and also omit records Robert Christgau has already reviewed/graded (since you probably know them already). That leaves us with this:

1. Gonora Sounds: Hard Times Never Kill (The Vital Record)
2. The Regrettes: Further Joy (Warner)
3. Charlotte Adigéry & Bolis Pupul: Topical Dancer (Deewee/Because Music)
4. Saba: Few Good Things (Saba Pivot)
5. Bob Vylan: Bob Vylan Presents the Price of Life (Ghost Theatre)
6. Nilüfer Yanya: Painless (ATO)
7. Regina Spektor: Home, Before and After (Sire)
8. Rosalía: Motomami (Columbia)
9. Hailey Whitters: Raised (Big Loud/Pigasus)
10. Craig Finn: A Legacy of Rentals (Positive Jams)
11. Camila Cabello: Familia (Epic)
12. Etran de L'Aïr: Agadez (Sahel Sounds)
13. Wiz Khalifa/Big KRIT/Smoke DZA/Girl Talk: Full Court Press (Asylum/Taylor Gang)
14. Mxmtoon: Rising (AWAL)
15. Lady Wray: Piece of Me (Big Crown)
16. Lyrics Born: Mobile Homies Season 1 (Mobile Home)
17. Charli XCX: Crash (Asylum)
18. Kae Tempest: The Line Is a Curve (Republic)
19. Corb Lund: Songs My Friends Wrote (New West)
20. Lalalar: Bi Cinnete Bakar (Bongo Joe)
21. Elza Soares: Elza Ao Vivo No Municipal (Deck)
22. Freakons: Freakons (Fluff & Gravy)
23. Nova Twins: Supernova (333 Wreckords Crew)
24. Pastor Champion: I Just Want to Be a Good Man (Luaka Bop)
25. Ian Noe: River Fools & Mountain Saints (Thirty Tigers)
26. Buck 65: King of Drums (self-released)
27. Moor Mother: Jazz Codes (Anti-)
28. Fulu Miziki: Ngbaka EP (Moshi Moshi, EP)
29. Bob Vylan: We Live Here (Deluxe) (Venn, EP -21)

I imagine a couple of those will appear in July's Consumer Guide, but don't dare guess which. Two are items I only wrote up today, too late for this post, so they'll be part of next week's (but I'll give you the album covers anyway).

New records reviewed this week:

Angles: A Muted Reality (2021 [2022], Clean Feed): Octet, led by Swedish alto saxophonist Martin Küchen, who has used the group name for a number of projects, usually qualified by the number of players, from 3-9. Three pieces, 38:26. Takes a while to find the track, but impressive when they do. B+(***) [bc]

Avalanche Kaito: Avalanche Kaito (2022, Glitterbeat): "A Burkinabe urban griot [Kaito Winse] meets a Brussels noise punk duo" [Benjamin Chavel on drums/electronics, Amaud Paquotte bass]. A sign of the times, if not much more than that. B+(*) [bc]

Camille Bertault & David Helbock: Playground (2021 [2022], ACT): French jazz singer, fourth album, wrote three songs here, four more coming from the Austrian pianist, with widely scattered covers (Monk, Scriabine, Gismonti, Björk, "Good Morning Heartache"). B+(**) [sp]

Daniel Carter/Matthew Shipp/William Parker/Gerald Cleaver: Welcome Adventure! Vol. 2 (2019 [2022], 577): Label likes to do these staged 2-volume deals, with Vol. 1 out back in 2020. Carter is credited with saxophones and clarinet; the others you know (piano, bass, drums). B+(**) [dl]

Daniel Carter/Patrick Holmes/Matthew Putnam/Hilliard Greene/Federico Ughi: Telepatica (2018 [2022], 577): Leader plays saxes, clarinet, and trumpet; others: clarinet, piano, bass, drums. B+(*) [dl]

Roxy Coss: Disparate Parts (2022, Outside In Music): Tenor saxophonist, fifth album, backed by guitar (Alex Wintz), piano (Miki Yamanaka), bass and drums. B+(**) [sp]

Amalie Dahl: Dafnie (2022, Sonic Transmissions): Danish saxophonist (alto/baritone, also clarinet), based in Trondheim, first album, group listed as Amalie Dahl's Dafnie, but cover parses as above. Quintet with trumpet, trombone, bass, and drums. B+(**) [sp]

Glenn Dickson: Wider Than the Sky (2021 [2022], Naftule's Dream): Klezmer clarinetist, first album under his own name, after group albums with Shirim Klezmer Orchestra and Naftule's Dream. Solo, accompanied by loops. B+(**) [cd] [07-08]

Signe Emmeluth/Dag Erik Knedal Andersen/Magnus Skavhaug Nergaard: The A-Z of Microwave Cookery (2020 [2022], Astral Spirits): Norwegian sax/bass/piano trio, alto/tenor. Joint improv, loses a bit when they slow down, but not much. B+(***) [bc]

David Francis: Sings Songs of the Twenties (2022, Blujazz, EP): Seattle-based standards singer, opens with "Honeysuckle Rose," touches on "Oh, Lady Be Good" and "Rockin' Chair," finishing seven songs in 19:17, not bad, been done better. B [cd]

GoGo Penguin: Between Two Waves (2022, XXIM, EP): British piano trio (Chris Illingworth, Nick Blacka, Jon Scott), albums since 2012, build off a snappy rhythm. Five songs, 24:41. B+(**) [sp]

Hard Bop Messengers: Live at the Last Hotel (2022, Pacific Coast Jazz): Group from St. Louis led by John Covelli (trombone), with Ben Shafer (sax/flute), Luke Sailor (piano), bass, drums, and lounge lizard singer Matt Krieg. Not as hard bop as you'd expect, but they swing some. B+(*) [sp]

Landaeus Trio: A Crisis of Perception (2019 [2022], Clean Feed): Piano trio led by Mathias Landaeus (also some interesting electronics), with Johnny Aman (bass) and Cornelia Nilsson (drums). Pianist has albums going back to 1996, and Trio has appeared on several albums backing up Martin Küchen. B+(***) [bc]

Magnus Lindgren/Georg Breinschmid: Jazz at Berlin Philharmonic XIII: Celebrating Mingus 100 (2022, ACT): Six Mingus classics, four arranged by Lindgren (baritone sax/bass clarinet, from Sweden), the others by Breinschmid (bass, from Austria), both with 20+ year careers that lean toward big bands. Group is an octet (plus vocalist Camille Bertault on one song), which splits the difference between the big bands that have flocked to Mingus since his death and the quintets that Mingus somehow whipped up into sounding even larger. B+(***) [sp]

Jeremy Manasia Trio: Butcher Block Ballet (2021 [2022], Blujazz): Straightforward piano trio, with Ugonna Okegwo (bass) and Charles Ruggiero (drums). B+(*) [cd]

Moskus: Papirfuglen (2020 [2022], Hubro): Norwegian group, albums since 2012, started as a piano (Anja Lauvdal), bass (Fredrik Luh Dietrichson), and drums (Hans Hulbaekmo) trio, but vary their sound more here, adding: synths/cembalo/vocoder, cello/mandolin, jews harp/drum machine/glockenspiel/recorder. B+(**) [bc]

OK:KO: Liesu (2022, We Jazz): Finnish quartet, led by drummer Okko Saastamoinen, with sax (Jarno Tikka), piano, and bass. B+(**) [bc]

Samo Salamon/Arild Andersen/Ra Kalam Bob Moses: Pure and Simple (2021 [2022], Samo): Slovenian guitarist, sends me most of his work, which I'm quite fond of, but rarely this much. The elders on bass and drums are more than inspiring. A- [cd]

Samo Salamon/Sabir Mateen: Joy and Sorrow (2020 [2022], Klopotec): Date given as "a couple years ago." Guitar and tenor sax/clarinet duo. Short (4 tracks, 35:50), some power. B+(***) [bc]

Samo Salamon/Cene Resnik/Urban Kusar: Takt Ars Sessions: Vol. 3 (2022, Samo): Guitar/tenor sax/drums, free improv set, new drummer this time after Jaka Berger on first two volumes. B+(***) [bc]

Linda Sikhakhane: Isambulo (2022, Ropeadope): South African saxophonist (tenor/soprano), studied in New York (Billy Harper was a mentor), based in Norway, third album. His sax has a spiritual (as in Coltrane) vibe to it. Parras and Anna Widauer vocals not so much. B+(**)

Soccer Mommy: Sometimes Forever (2022, Loma Vista): Singer-songwriter Sophie Allison, born in Zürich, grew up in Nashville, third album, starting to lose me. B+(*)

Günter Baby Sommer & the Lucaciu 3: Karawane (2022, Intakt): Venerable German drummer, says here "at the height of his musical career," but he's 78, born in Dresden shortly before the March 1945 fire-bombing that burned much of the city and killed 25,000 (revised estimate, I recall much higher numbers), old enough that he adopted his nickname in honor of Baby Dodds. Still pretty vigorous here. The Lucacius are Antonio (sax), Simon (piano), and Robert (bass), much younger (Antonio was born in 1987), also German (from Plauen). They get better when Sommer lights a fire under them. One highlight is a jive vocal, Sommer again. B+(***) [sp]

Regina Spektor: Home, Before and After (2022, Sire): Singer-songwriter, pianist, born in Moscow, came to US in 1989, and released her first album in 2001. This is number eight. Every song is striking, most lyrics are memorable. A-

The Sun Sawed in 1/2: Before the Fall (2022, self-released, EP): Neo-psychedelic pop outfit from St. Louis, founded 1990 by brothers Ken and Tim Rose, recorded five albums through 2000, one more in 2013, several EPs since 2021. This one is 6 songs, 25:09. B [bc]

Tarbaby Feat. Oliver Lake: Dance of the Evil Toys (2022, Clean Feed): Group a piano trio led by Orrin Evans with Eric Revis (bass) and Nasheet Waits (drums), appeared originally in 2009 on a short eponymous album, with three more albums through 2013, including one with alto saxophonist Lake as a guest. This one also adds Josh Lawrence (trumpet) and extra percussion (Dana Murray) on the title track. Evans' vocal on the opener threw me, but Lake gives another strong performance. B+(**) [bc]

TEIP Trio: TEIP Trio (2020 [2022], Sonic Transmissions): Free jazz trio ("with heavy rock elements") from Trondheim, Norway: Jens-Jonas Francis Roberts (clarinet), Arne Bredesen (guitar), Nicolas Leirtrø (baritone guitar). Closer to ambient, but on the creepy side. B+(*) [bc]

Crystal Thomas: Now Dig This! (2021, Dialtone): Blues singer, plays some trombone, old-fashioned enough the album is in mono, band led by Lucky Peterson on organ, with Johnny Moeller on guitar, plus bass and drums. No originals: writing credits include Albert King, Shirley Scott, Jerry Williams Jr., Janis Joplin. B+(***) [sp]

Kobe Van Cauwenberghe: Ghost Trance Septet Plays Anthony Braxton (2021 [2022], El Negocito): Guitarist, also credited with synths and voice, from Belgium (Antwerp), has a couple albums, including Ghost Trance Solos on this same music. Septet here covers a nice range with trumpet/euphonium, tenor sax/bass clarinet, piano, violin, bass, and drums (no names I recall running into). Four pieces, each 22-25 minutes. I've somehow managed to miss all of Braxton's Ghost Trance Music (GTM) recordings, so entered this with no particular expectations. But for tarters, most pieces are pretty bouncy, in that stilted way of old classical music (Bach?), but much less predictable, and much more interesting. B+(***) [dl]

Bugge Wesseltoft: Be Am (2021 [2022], Jazzland): Norwegian pianist, ventured into electronics with his New Conception of Jazz records. This, however, is mostly solo piano (acoustic, but some electric, kalimba, and effects), with tenor sax (Håkon Kornstad) on two tracks. B+(*) [sp]

Wild Up: Julius Eastman Vol. 2: Joy Boy (2022, New Amsterdam): Large group base in Los Angeles, lots of strings with twice as many reeds as brass, and voices as needed. Did Femenine for their first volume of Eastman compositions, expect to release seven volumes before they're done. The previously unrecorded title piece is especially interesting. B+(**)

Tom Zé: Língua Brasileira (2022, Sesc): Iconoclastic Brazilian singer-songwriter, started in the late 1960s with the Tropicália movement, slipped into obscurity but Americans discovered him through two 1990-04 Luaka Bop compilations. I've been up and down on him, and find this one even more confusing than most. B+(**) [sp]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

A Chant About the Beauty of the Moon at Night: Hawaiian Steel Guitar Masters: Lost + Rare Performances 1913-1921 (1913-21 [2022], Magnificent Sounds): Title about covers it. Sound on the thin side, but could be worse given the dates. An interesting curio. B [bc]

Ingebrigt Håker Flaten/Rolf-Erik Nystrøm: El Sistema (2000 [2021], Sonic Transmissions): Norwegian bass and sax duo, no spec on the saxophone(s), but alto seems to be his first choice. The combination usually favors the saxophonist, but more often than not the bassist is out front. B+(***) [bc]

Malik's Emerging Force Art Trio: Time and Condition (1982 [2022], Moved-by-Sound): Alto saxophonist Maurice Malik King, from St. Louis, first and possibly only album, trio with Zimbabwe Nkenya (bass violin) and Qaiyim Shabazz (congas). B+(***) [bc]

Asha Puthli: The Essential Asha Puthli (1968-80 [2022], Mr. Bongo): Indian singer and actress, early singles with a group called the Surfers (including covers of "Sound of Silence," "Sunny," and "Fever"), appeared on Ornette Coleman's Science Fiction (2 tracks here), at least four albums for CBS in the 1970s (as far as this album goes). Hard to tell much from such scattered examples, but I rather like her disco phase. B+(***) [bc]

Sirone: Artistry (1978 [2022], Moved-by-Sound): Bassist Norris Jones (1940-2009), from Georgia, best known as a member of the Revolutionary Ensemble (with Leroy Jenkins and Jerome Cooper). First of only several albums as leader, with James Newton (flute), Muneer Bernard Fennell (cello), and Don Moye (percussion). B+(*) [bc]

Old music:

Ray Charles: True to Life (1977, Atlantic): On his return to Atlantic, he tries to turn on the genius, and scores some minor successes. B+(**) [yt]

Jason Paul Curtis: These Christmas Days (2017, self-released): Jazz singer, based in Virginia near DC, fourth album (turns out I got the title wrong of the one I've heard). Mostly originals, half done with a big band called Swing Shift, the other half with a 4-piece combo called Swinglab. B- [cd]

Jack DeJohnette's Special Edition: Irresistible Forces (1987, MCA/Impulse): Drummer, used this group name for six albums (1981-91), here a sextet including "special guest" Nana Vasconcelos (percussion). The others are Greg Osby (alto/soprano sax), Gary Thomas (tenor sax/flute), Mick Goodrick (guitar), and Lonnie Plaxico (bass). B+(**) [lp]

Johnny Dyani Quartet: Song for Biko (1978 [1979], SteepleChase): Bassist, one of the Blue Notes exiled from South Africa, settled in Denmark, where he found Don Cherry (cornet), joined here by two more South Africans: Dudu Pukwana (alto sax), and Makaya Ntshoko (drums). The titles may look back to Africa, but the music plunges head first into freedom. A- [lp]

Kansas: Miracles Out of Nowhere (2015, Epic): Prog-rock band out of Topeka, appeared in 1974 with a lousy album featuring an iconic John Brown painting on the cover (part of a mural in the Kansas State Capitol building). Some time later, I wrote a review making fun of them -- I never was very happy with that piece, because it was built on prejudices, but it went over well with my Voice audience -- and never listened to them again -- even after I got this deluxe package, a CD plus a Blue Ray and DVD of a documentary movie about the band (still haven't watched it, and doubt I ever will). I'm only bothering with the CD now because it's on my checklist. It includes spoken word bits, mostly working as intros to the overblown but not always awful music. C+

Steve Lacy: The Door (1988 [1989], Novus): Soprano saxophonist, started in Dixieland, bypassed bebop for the avant-garde, although he often looked back to Monk and Herbie Nichols -- he plays pieces by Monk, George Handy, and Strayhorn/Ellington here, along with three originals. Two duos here, three quintet pieces (with Steve Potts on alto sax and Bobby Few on piano), adding Irène Aëbi (violin) and a second drummer, Sam Woodyard (in one of his last performances), for the Ellington. B+(***) [lp]

Michael Mantler/Carla Bley: 13 & 3/4 (1975, Watt): German trumpet player, the former Lovella May Borg's second famous musician husband -- she started touring as Carla Borg in the late 1950s, then married Paul Bley and kept the name. She made her mark initially as a composer, with George Russell and Jimmy Giuffre recording her pieces. Her and Mantler founded the New Music Distribution Service, for artist-owned small labels (theirs was Watt, named for the Samuel Beckett novel), and the Jazz Composers Orchestra, which recorded notable albums by a rotating cast of leaders (Roswell Rudd's Numatik Swing Band is a personal favorite), including Bley's big opera (Escalator Over the Hill in 1971). This album gave each artist a side to compose and conduct, with Bley's band big (19), and Mantler's humongous (56). Both pieces are ambitious, but Mantler's stands out, not just for its grandeur but for Bley's exceptional piano solo midway. Probably no surprise that Mantler wound up doing soundtracks. B+(**) [lp]

Motohiro Nakashima: And I Went to Sleep (2004, Lo): Japanese electronica producer, Discogs lists four albums (2004-09), this the first, but Bandcamp has more recent material. Plays guitar, keyboards, picks up some folk influence, keeps a nice flow. B+(*) [cd]

Sun Ra and His Interglactic Solar Arkestra: Soundtrack to the Film Space Is the Place (1972 [1993], Evidence): Sixteen tracks for a 1974 sci-fi film directed by John Coney, and written by Ra and Joshua Smith, recycling the title of the group's 1973 Impulse album (5 tracks, 42:51; 2 titles appear in both, but in different versions). Not much mood music, but some vocals help with story hints, or are amusing in their own right. B+(**) [cd]

The U.S. Army Blues: Swinging in the Holidays (2017, self-released): Feels stupid to be listening to Christmas music in July, but feels stupid in December too, and this band always gets my blood up, even when they don't personally deserve it. C [cd]

Cedar Walton: Spectrum (1968, Prestige): Pianist (1934-2013), played in the Benny Golson-Art Farmer Jazztet 1958-61, then with Art Blakey (1961-64), led his own albums from 1967, also the group Eastern Rebellion. Second album, one trio track with Richard Davis (bass) and Jack DeJohnette (drums), four more with Blue Mitchell (trumpet) and Clifford Jordan (tenor sax). B+(**)

Cedar Walton: The Electric Boogaloo Song (1969, Prestige): Quintet, same horns (Blue Mitchell and Clifford Jordan), different bass and drums (Bob Cranshaw and Mickey Roker), with Walton opening on electric piano for the title cut. B

Cedar Walton: Spectrum (1968-69 [1994], Prestige): Twofer CD, adds The Electric Boogaloo Song to the original album (69:26 total). B+(*)

Cedar Walton: Soul Cycle (1970, Prestige): With James Moody (tenor sax), Rudy Stevenson (guitar), Reggie Workman (bass), and Tootie Heath (drums), again opening electric some kind of soul jazz gesture, but acquits himself better on acoustic. B+(*)

Cedar Walton Quartet: Third Set (1977 [1983], SteepleChase): Walton did much of his best work with sax quartets, especially the 1976 album Eastern Rebellion with George Coleman, Sam Jones, and Billy Higgins. He kept the group name, releasing an Eastern Rebellion 2 in 1977 with Bob Berg taking over at tenor sax, and continued using it into the 1990s with Ralph Moore. This is the quartet with Berg, the third from Montmartre in Copenhagen (Second Set is a favorite). Starts with a Higgins tune, followed by two Walton originals, winding up with two shorter Monk pieces. B+(***)

Cedar Walton: Among Friends (1982 [1992], Evidence): This is a trio, with Buster Williams (bass) and Billy Higgins (drums), plus a guest spot for Bobby Hutcherson (vibes). B+(**) [cd]

Cedar Walton Trio: Cedar (1985 [1990], Timeless): Piano trio, five Walton originals plus one each from David Williams (bass) and Billy Higgins (drums). B+(***) [sp]

The Phil Woods Quintet: Heaven (1984 [1996], Evidence): Alto saxophonist, also plays some clarinet here, started in the early 1950s as one of "Bird's children," much later was often found in the company of Benny Carter or Lee Konitz. This comes off as a hard bop quintet, with Tom Harrell (trumpet/flugelhorn) and Hal Galper (piano) giving him a run for the money. B+(***) [cd]

Tom Zé: Grande Liquidação (1968 [2011], Mr. Bongo): Brazilian singer-songwriter Antônio José Santana Martins, discovered for Americans by David Byrne, who packed his 1973-75 singles into Brazil Classics 4: The Best of Tom Zé. This was his first album, from when he was close to the Tropicália movement. Even then, this is odd enough to be called psychedelic, not that I have any idea what that means. Album was originally released as Tom Zé, as was his next two. B+(**) [bc]

Tom Zé: Tom Zé (1970 [2014], Mr. Bongo): Second album, has retained its original eponymous title. Cover suggests a simple singer-songwriter, but nothing with this guy goes quite the way you expect. B+(***) [bc]

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

• Kevin Cerovich: Aging Millennial (CVJ)
• William Flynn: Seaside (OA2) [07-15]
• Meridian Odyssey: Earthshine (Origin) [07-15]
• Tobin Mueller: Prestidigitation (self-released) [06-22]
• Samo Salamon/Arild Andersen/Ra Kalam Bob Moses: Pure and Simple (Samo) [06-01]

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Sunday, July 3, 2022

PS: Added the Demillo paragraph, which I had intended to include in this post.

I tried answering Crocodile Chuck's letter last week, but I focused on the big question of inflation, but skipped past his "We didn't vote for WWIII" line. He wrote back, ominously:

Get your affairs in order

WWIII is baked in (Blinken, Nuland must have paid off Erdogan, too)

ps the US will never defend tiddlers like the Baltic States, FIN. They're using them as tripwires, plus, as market expansion for the US's hideously expensive and complex weapons systems. The USA's endgame is to break up RUS into statelets, as a prelude to the Main Event: to do the same to CHI

Chuck is a longtime reader and correspondent, an American familiar with my old St. Louis stomping ground, who sensing doom moved across the Pacific -- and not the only one I know who did that. I doubt I'd be identified as an optimist, but this is a bit too paranoid for me. I seriously doubt that there is any cloistered segment of the American deep state that has anything approaching a serious plan to dismantle China or the Russian Federation. And yeah, I believe there is some kind of "deep state," which ensures continuity of American imperial strategy regardless of changes in elected officials. I just don't think they're that smart or competent. They strike me as more like some bundle of conditioned reflexes, which always return to the old mantras of strength, control, dominance, and hegemony. That said, one of their core beliefs is any degradation of supposed enemies is a zero-sum win for America. So they always see prying former Soviet Republic into the American orbit as desirable, regardless of how Russia may react. They'd love to break Xinjiang and Tibet off China, too, but China doesn't seem to be as fragile as Russia, so for that they have to be contented with Taiwan and jockeying over South China Sea islands. Needless to say, such people are dangerous, and given a free hand they could well start WWIII. But, thus far at least, the system has constrained them. Is anything different now?

Well, a couple things are. The Cold War was built around Kennan's notion of containment, where the US never directly threatened the Soviet Union itself, and generally left it a free hand in dealing with recognized satellites. There were some disputes on the margins (Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, later Afghanistan), but both sides kept them to the margins. This worked partly because although Russia sympathized with anti-colonial liberation movement, they didn't control or depend on them; meanwhile, the US was primarily concerned with continuing the western exploitation of the colonial world (replacing the old powers with globalized companies and local cronies), and didn't need to get too greedy. (Indeed, western companies were quite delighted with the business deals China offered them.) But when the Soviet Union disbanded, America's Cold Warrior got even more greedy and arrogant, with Russia in particular getting the short end of the stick. And with every US effort to nibble a bit more on Russia's borders, the American threat to and contempt for Russia grows more existential. The administration is not completely unaware of this, and seems to be trying to draw a fine line between protecting Ukraine and provoking Russia, and the Americans monitoring that line aren't necessarily the most prudent people possible. Many things they've approved have crossed lines Russia has proclaimed. While none of them have yet led to a really catastrophic response (ranging from Russian attacks outside Ukraine -- e.g., Putin ally says Moscow could torpedo Dutch ports: 'Europe is not invincible' -- to nuclear weapons). On the other hand, other NATO countries, and Ukraine itself, seem less circumspect.

Another thing that I find especially disturbing is how conflict with Russia has become ideologized, especially among Democrats, who have become unusually hawkish. The tendency here is to treat Putin as an aggressively anti-democratic force, both within and beyond Russia, which puts a premium on stopping him sooner rather than later. There is some evidence for this -- the 2016 election interference looms especially large for Democrats -- but beyond ethnic Russians and a few allied groups (as in Transnistria and Abkhazia) it's hard to see Russian nationalism having much appeal. But by taking Putinism as ideology, you're imagining much higher stakes than there are, and that's dangerous.

Chuck wrote me again, making four points which I'll try to condense:

1. There is no "diplomatic progress"; "Biden, Blinken, Nuland" are happy to "fight to the last Ukrainian."
2. Zelensky is just another oligarch ("worth $200M before Feb. 24"), likely to be a billionaire soon from skimming off US aid.
3. The "whole thing" is "USA's 'Last Gasp Grasp' to remain a hyperpower," it "has blown up in its/their face[s]," but covered by by "the greatest PsyOp in history," as reported by a brainwashed media ("NYT, WaPo").
4. The "spike in energy prices is a net transfer of wealth" to "Exxon et al." Then he notes that "50-100M ppl on Earth are starving as a result," and dares call it "genocide."

The third point is the most contentious one here. It's true that Biden and Blinken wanted to reëstablish the US as a world leader -- their slogan was "America's back" -- after Trump's "America first" agenda damaged relationships with Europe while surrendering large chunks of US foreign policy to Israel and Saudi Arabia. Defense of Ukraine was one way to do that, especially in Europe (though not so much elsewhere). I'm not totally clear on the facts, but suppose for the sake of argument the US and Zelensky goaded Putin into his invasion of Ukraine, and therefore deserves some share of blame for the war (although it was Putin who took the bait). How has the war blown up in America's face. Sure, it's cost America a lot of money -- both the state in terms of aid, and the private sector in various kinds of losses and inflation -- but why shouldn't Biden consider that a price worth paying for democracy in Ukraine? (Or for greatly increased US arms sales, and all the other dividends that accrue to America's increased stature among its "allies"?) Granted, it's cost other people and nations more, but since when has the US factored that sort of thing into its calculation? Maybe in the long run those costs will catch up and be regretted, but the zero-summers in the war departments think Russia's losing, so musn't the US be winning?

The other points I've made variants of myself, but I saved the last line for separate treatment: "We all would have been better off under Trump [under whom this never would have happened]." What wouldn't have happened? The invasion? Trump applauded Putin when he did it, so hard to see that as a deterrent. Maybe had Trump not promised support to Ukraine, Zelensky would have been more accommodating, and that might have satisfied Putin, but not according to the logic Putin has given for his decision. Then there's the scenario where Trump vacillates, suggesting Putin has a clear hand to invade, but the Deep State then bullies Trump into fighting, at which point Trump tries to show how tough he is, and blows everything up. Trump's entire foreign policy repertoire is a mix of the worst of Nixon ("mad man" theory) and Agnew ("bag man" corruption). You really don't know what you're going to get, but you can be sure it won't be thought out, and no one will have the slightest idea what the consequences will be.

Still, even if Trump had somehow avoided the war, a second term would have left us so much worse off in so many other areas, it's just mind-boggling to contemplate. By the way, I ran across this Trump quote, a response to Fox News asking him what he'd do differently from Biden in Ukraine:

Well, what I would do, is I would, we would, we have tremendous military capability and what we can do without planes, to be honest with you, without 44-year-old jets, what we can do is enormous, and we should be doing it and we should be helping them to survive and they're doing an amazing job.

If this isn't a simple endorsement of Biden's "amazing job," the only thing it suggests he'd do differently is to send US planes in to enforce some kind of "no-fly zone" -- something Biden has ruled out, because he realizes it doesn't just risk but amounts to direct war with Russia, with all the attendant risks of further escalation to nuclear war. Trump may have been personally inclined to let Putin roll over Ukraine, but when Putin invaded Trump's whole security team would have goaded him to action, and because he wants to be seen as a tough guy, he would have wussed out and went with the flow, projecting his contradictions ever more incoherently.

More on Ukraine, Russia, and Biden's foreign policy:

• New York Times: [07-03] As City Falls, Ukraine's Last Hope in Luhansk Falls With It: Lysychansk, captured a week after Sievierodonetsk. On the other hand, Ukraine has made some progress in the southeast, recovering Snake Island, and some land between Mykolaiv and Kherson.
• Connor Echols: [06-24] Diplomacy Watch: How much is the US focused on it? Not much, but nobody's ruling out; they're just no acting as if they expect anything to happen. Echols also has a piece on MEAD: [06-29] Wait, is there really a new US-led air defense alliance in the Middle East?
• Robin Wright: [07-01] The West Debuts a New Strategy to Confront a Historic "Inflection Point" NATO met in Madrid last week, and used the occasion to condemn and to taunt Russia, and China too. To a large extent, this was Putin's fault: for invading Ukraine, which demonstrated graphically that Russia did not respect boundaries, making its threats much more ominous, but also for demanding that NATO back down and away, as if he was afraid of them. The result was that NATO gave him much more to worry about: alliance with Sweden and Finland, a massive military buildup in countries like Estonia and Poland. Putin gave NATO something it long lacked: a reason to exist. Meanwhile, NATO has given Putin even more reason to panic. One should add that in the heat of the moment, NATO is aso setting its eyes on China, engaging South Korea and Japan to join as some kind of affiliated members. There also seems to be a NATO-like deal brewing around the Persian Gulf, combining the Arab monarchs with their new buddies in Israel to confront Iran. While all of this could be view as a massive revival of the Cold War Pax Americana, it seems just as likely that the US could lose control of its more rambunctious allies (as with the Saudis in Yemen, a war that America is inextricably bound to but seemingly has no say over). Similarly, while Ukraine has no obligations to NATO, Zelensky seems to be in the more powerful position: assured nearly unlimited support, without any strings attached, free to fight at long as he wants. Given how NATO has grown during the war, expect no pressure from there: they're acting as if they expect to war to go on forever.

The Supreme Court term came to an end last week, with a stunning series of rulings as the Bush-Bush-Trump-appointed 6-3 majority is flexing its muscles. The January 6 Committee is demonstrating in increasing detail how Trump tried to end democracy by fraud and, failing that, by force, but these Court rulings finally prove that the poison was administered earlier, in the form of those three (and hundreds of lesser) Court appointments, even if the killing stretches out over the years. As bad as this year's rulings were, it's almost certain that worse are still to come.

How bad was this term? Mark Joseph Stern explains: [06-30] Why Today Felt Like the Most Hopeless Day of the SCOTUS Term gives us a quick rundown of what the Court ruled:

Consider the issues that SCOTUS has resolved this term -- the first full term with a 6-3 conservative supermajority. The constitutional right to abortion: gone. States' ability to limit guns in public: gone. Tribal sovereignty against state intrusion: gone. Effective constraints around separation of church and state: gone. The bar on prayer in public schools: gone. Effective enforcement of Miranda warnings: gone. The ability to sue violent border agents: gone. The Environmental Protection Agency's authority to regulate greenhouse gases at power plants: gone. Vast areas of the law, established over the course of decades, washed away by a court over a few months.

Stern continues:

There is no serious risk of another branch overriding these decisions. The squabbling among our elected representatives is, increasingly, a sideshow, with the court nudging along the decline of voters' ability to shape their democracy. One-third of the court was appointed by a president who lost the popular vote, yet the majority evinces not a shred of caution about overriding the democratic branches or its own predecessors on the bench. It imposes Republican policies far more effectively than the Republican Party ever could. Real power in this country no longer lies in the people. It resides at the Supreme Court.

There is much more worth reading in this piece. For instance, he concedes that Roberts "split the baby" in Biden v. Texas, reversing an egregious lower court ruling that prevent Biden from rescinding Trump's executive order of his "Remain in Mexico" policy. This "looks like a victory for the President. And it is, but only in the sense that five justices took one small step back from the abyss of total judicial lawlessness." He goes on, noting that "texturalism" and "originalism" are guiding ideologies for the right-wing justices only when they can be twisted to support their political prejudices. He concludes:

At the end of her West Virginia dissent, Kagan wrote that the court "appoints itself -- instead of Congress or the expert agency -- the decisionmaker on climate policy." She added: "I cannot think of many things more frightening." The limits of Kagan's imagination, though, are no match for this supermajority. The Supreme Court will give us many, many more reasons to fear it in the coming years. In one sense, this term marked the culmination of multiple decadeslong crusades against liberal precedent. But this was not the grand finale of the conservative revolution. It was the opening act.

More on the Supreme Court and its recent rulines, including abortion:

• Kate Aronoff: [06-30] The Silver Lining in the Supreme Court's Decision to Limit Carbon Emission Regulations: "In West Virginia v. EPA, the court extended a lifeline to the coal industry and questioned the administrative state itself. But it could have been even worse." I've heard that last line a lot over the last couple weeks.
• Andrew Demillo: [06-22] Appeals court upholds Arkansas' Israel boycot pledge law. This reverses a ruling from 2021, which found that "requiring state contractors to pledge to not boycott Israel violates the First Amendment." The law clearly quells dissent by forcing businesses to conform to the political dictates of the state. The Israel lobby has managed to get a number of states to pass similar laws -- most of which have been struck down as unconstitutional. Also see: Rabbis Criticize 8th Circuit Ruling Against Boycotting as a 1st Amendment Right.
• Matt Ford: [06-29] Neil Gorsuch Couldn't Save Tribal Sovereignty From His Conservative Colleagues' Wrath. Also on this, see Charles P Pierce: [06-30] The Majority Opinion in Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta Was Pretty Damn Racist, But With an Interesting Dissenter.
• Ruth Graham: [07-03] 'The Pro-Life Generation': Young Women Fight Against Abortion Rights. I find this group very disturbing, I suppose because I can't understand their motivation.
• Fred Kaplan: [06-26] The End of Roe Is Going to Be a Nightmare for Women in the Military.
• Ed Kilgore: [06-30] State Constitutions Are Now an Urgent Abortion Battleground. Top of the list here is Kansas, where we'll vote on August 2 on a constitutional amendment (dubbed "Value Them Both") that would explicitly remove abortion from the "natural rights" protected by the state constitution (which the KS Supreme Court has ruled includes a right to abortion). Needless to say, if Kansas voters reject this amendment, that would be a big win for abortion rights. Otherwise, Republicans currently have veto-proof majorities in the state legislature, and even if they waver odds are good that they will win the governorship in November. On the Kansas vote, see: Christopher Reeves: [06-29] Kansas' Aug. 2 special election is a first test of abortion rights. We need to get this right.
• Benjamin Hart: [06-30] Biden: Scrap the Filibuster (Once) to Codify Abortion. "Once"? If Democrats have the numbers to pass an abortion bill, won't they also have the numbers to pass other important legislation (voting rights was another one previously discussed in these terms). The filibuster isn't something desirable in its own right; democracy is. And the Senate is far from perfectly democratic, but the filibuster rule hurts Democrats more than Republicans, both because the structure of the Senate makes it harder for Democrats to attain a simple majority, much less a super-majority, and because Democrats are the party that needs to pass reform legislation, while Republicans are often content just to block any change.
• Ellen Ioanes: [07-03] How Dobbs is affecting abortion care, one week on.
• Ed Kilgore: [07-03] Will Dobbs Change the Way We Feel About 'Good' Republicans? Some folks were tempted to honor Liz Cheney and Mike Pence over Jan. 6. They should find it sobering that both are totally in line with ending abortion rights. (Cheney is a co-sponsor of a "fetal personhood" bill.) People are often complicated, and there will occasionally be issues where Republicans can be worked with, but one right answer doesn't prove anything.
• Simon Lazarus: [07-03] The Supree Court Appoints Itself to Be America's Regulatory Czar.
• Carlos Lozada: [07-01] How three major abortion rulings reveal a fractured culture: "From Roe to Casey to Dobbs, the writings of the Supreme Court justices grew more biting, blinkered and divergent."
• Chris Matthews: [06-28] On Abortion, Trump Told Me Women Have to Face "Punishment": This is from a town hall in Wisconsin in March 2016. He includes the whole transcript here, and while it's frequently muddle-headed, when given the choice Trump clearly blames women for everything. However, that wasn't the official "right-to-life" position, which is to hold the doctors and anyone who aids or advises criminally culpable, while treating the woman as a victim (a person who has no agency in the matter). The most striking thing to me was that Trump walked the statement back soon thereafter -- something he never did for things like calling Mexicans rapists or deriding McCain's POW status, but here he clearly felt the need to conform to Republican expectations. (Matthews says the campaign, not Trump personally, issued the retraction.)
• Harold Meyerson: [06-28] Samuel Alito: The 21st-Century Roger Taney. Now there's a blast from the past. Nineteenth-century Supreme Court Justices are an appalling bunch, with Taney merely the most notorious. Ian Millhiser writes about some of the in his book Injustices: The Supreme Court's History of Comforting the Comfortable and Afflicting the Afflicted.
• Ian Millhiser: [07-02] 10 ways to fix a broken Supreme Court: Updated article from October 2020, after Amy Coney Barrett joined the Court, and it was clear how bad the Court was going to become. I thought it was premature to talk about expanding the Court at that point, for while the threat was real and all but guaranteed, few Americans came close to imagining what was happening and what it would mean. Now's a good time to reconsider, but note that the only way any of this works is if Democrats gain more than the current razor-thin margin they hold in Congress. One thing I want to add here is that I've started using "packing the Court" as something Republicans have already done (albeit slowly, without triggering fights on more than one nomination at a time). Restoring the Court to the sort of balance that prevailed before Republicans started adding partisan cronies like Scalia, Thomas, and Alito to the court tries to reverse this packing (I suppose you could call it "unpacking" or "repacking"). Needless to say, Millhiser has had a busy week:
  • [06-30] The Supreme Court hands Biden the smallest possible victory in its "Remain in Mexico" case.
  • [06-30] The Supreme Court's big EPA decision is a massive power grab by the justices.
  • [06-30] A new Supreme Court case is the biggest threat to US democracy since January 6: Moore v. Harper, on gerrymandering state legislatures.
  • [06-28] The Supreme Court just handed down very bad news for Black voters: "Ardoin v. Robertson could foreshadow a new age of widespread racial gerrymandering.".
  • [06-27] The Supreme Court hands the religious right a big victory by lying about the facts of a case.
• Nathan Robinson: [07-01] The Evidence That Abortion Improves Lives: Interview with Diana Greene Foster, author of The Turnaway Study: Ten Years, A Thousand Women, and the Consequences of Having -- or Being Denied -- an Abortion. Lots of people have opinions about abortion, mostly hampered by their inability to imagine situations other women may find themselves in, but few have done any real research on it, so there's a lot here that will be new. Robinson previously [2021-11-10] interviewed Carol Joffe, co-author (with David S Cohen) of Obstacle Course: The Everyday Struggle to Get an Abortion in America.
• Toni Aguilar Rosenthal/Mekedas Belayneh/Glenna Li: [07-01] In the Wake of 'Dobbs', Biden Leans on Familiar Excuses for Inaction: The authors compare this to Roosevelt's response when the Supreme Court vetoed major New Deal legislation, but Roosevelt's threats were much more credible given the Congressional majorities he had to work with. Still, Roosevelt didn't succeed in restructuring the Court, but that was partly because the Court started seeing things his way ("the switch in time that saved nine"). On the other hand, it's much less likely that this Court will shift its view to follow popular opinion, and Biden's not likely to get many chances to add new Justices. The worse the Court gets, the better the chances of restructuring (e.g., see: Trust in Supreme Court falters after Roe decision). But to do so, Democrats are going to need healthier margins than Joe Manchin gives them.
• Lily Sánchez: [06-30] Abortion Restrictions Force Medical Personnel to Commit Grave Ethical Violations.
• Alex Shephard: [06-29] The Gutting of Roe Is the Pinnacle of the Republicans' Anti-Family Agenda -- but Not the End of It.
• Rebecca Traister: [06-30] The Abortion Stories We Didn't Tell: "How decades of silence left us unprepared for the post-Roe fight."
• Jessica Winter: [07-02] The Dobbs Decision Has Unleashed Legal Chaos for Doctors and Patients.
• Andy Borowitz: Been a long time since I cited him, especially after Alex Pareene listed him in one of his hack ratings, but this piece sums up the Supreme Court nicely [06-30] Nation's Fetuses Puzzled Why Supreme Court Wants Them Exposed to Air Pollution.

January 6 Committee: The surprise hearing with Cassidy Hutchinson, who was Mark Meadows' Chief of Staff, provided the best view yet into the White House on the day. The title that sums it up most succinctly is Walter Shapiro: [06-28] President Trump Was a Violent Maniac Behind Closed Doors. Other pieces of note:

• Zack Beauchamp: [06-28] Cassidy Hutchinson just changed everything.
• Tom Boggioni: [07-03] 'All lies': Donald Trump has Sunday meltdown over Cassidy Hutchinson: Nice to know we can still get under his skin.
• Benjamin Hart: [06-29] 'There Was No Way to Have a Rational Conversation With Him': Filmmaker Alex Holder on his interviews with Trump after January 6." Interview with Holder, whose film has been subpoenaed by the Committee.
• Margaret Hartmann: [06-29] The Most Explosive Revelations From Cassidy Hutchinson's Testimony.
• Quinta Jurecic: The January 6 committee is going to have the final word.

• Inkoo Kang: [06-23] The Jan. 6 hearings and the spectacle of competence.
• David Rohde: [06-30] A Potential Criminal Prosecution of Donald Trump Is Growing Closer.
• Alan Z Rozenshtein/Jed Handelsman/Shugerman: [07-01] Cassidy Hutchinson's Testimony Changed Our Minds About Indicting Trump.

Jonathan Chait: [07-01] The Democratic Party Needs Better Moderates: "The centrists have lot of complaints but no solution." Isn't that mostly because they're usually carrying water for business interests? I've said many times they have to move left, because that's where the solutions are. But it's not impossible to imagine moderate programs that make tangible progress on major problems but also respect established business interests and/or cultural concerns. There's little doubt that the left would support serious, practical compromises. (Medicare-for-All advocates in Congress all voted for ACA.) There's also a category that should be very popular among moderates, as it's especially strong among independents and laps into both political parties, but strangely gets no attention (at least among the elected, regardless of party): the political influence of money. Won't someone run with that? Chait cites a piece by Jason Zengerle: [06-29] The Vanishing Moderate Democrat, which argues "their positions are popular," but two 1990s presidential wins for Bill Clinton, while losing decades-long control of Congress, doesn't seem like much proof. For another take on Zengerle see: Ryan Cooper: [06-30] 'Moderate' Democrats Are Anything But.

Robert Christgau: [06-29] The Big Lookback: Hillary Clinton. New introduction for a piece published on October 11, 2016, when it still looked like the nomination of Hillary Clinton for president might work out. It didn't, and that's probably the source of the moment's temptation to say "I told you so" (but for many of us it just underscores her failure). I never doubted that we would have been better off had Hillary won (although it's easy now to overlook that given how she most happily ran on her superior Commander-in-Chief cojones, she could have turned truly awful). Much of the piece focuses on excoriating third parties -- Democrats expect to own the left's votes without doing anything to earn them -- combined with a snide dismissal of Bernie Sanders that only comes up short of a vicious attack because he appreciates Sanders campaigning not just against Trump but for Clinton. Like Christgau, I soured on third parties after 2000, but that was less because I saw Gore's loss as a huge step back (which it turned out to be) than because I realized then that the only path to power for the left would be through the Democratic Party, if simply for the reason that's where the voters most interested in joining us are stuck. (That was clearest here in Kansas, where Gore got over 10 times as many votes as Nader [37.2% to 3.4%], despite the DP not raising a finger to help Gore.) Still, I've never felt the slightest temptation to blame anyone on the left for the Democratic Party's failures, especially when you have candidates like Gore, Kerry, and the Clintons veering to the right figuring that's where they'll find more votes (or at least more donor money). I understand the logic that says "lesser evils are still evil," even if I don't think that's a maxim to live by. (I don't doubt for a moment that Gore would have responded to 9/11 by unleashing the War on Terror, and I rather doubt that he would have stopped short of invading Iraq -- remember, he voted for the 1990-91 war on Iraq, supported Clinton's repeated bombing, and had überhawk Joe Lieberman as his VP. I also doubt he would have fared any better at war. On the other hand, he wouldn't have eviscerated FEMA before Katrina, and he wouldn't have appointed Alito or Roberts to the Supreme Court. In between, there's a lot of iffy policies, not least his sometimes principled, sometimes compromised concern about global warming.) More importantly, I know that when the Democrats sell out or go crazy -- which happened a lot under Clinton, and again under Obama -- the tiny fragment of the left that refused to vote for them will be among the first to stand up for what's right. Still, everyone mourns in their own way -- even those of us who foresaw the Supreme Court threat as far back as the Bork nomination.

Ryan Cooper: [07-01] Mitch McConell Once Again Takes Advantage of Democratic Fecklessness: Examples of how the Democrats are hamstrung by Senate rules and maneuvers, which they don't have the numbers to overcome (and in two particular cases don't seem to have any desire to get anything done). Meanwhile, McConnell can hold out offers of very limited bipartisan support for extortionate prices. And in the end, Democrats will get blamed (and in many cases will blame themselves) for such failures.

Dexter Filkins: [06-20] Can Ron DeSantis Displace Donald Trump as the G.O.P.'s Combatant-in-Chief? The Florida governor has gotten a lot of press, much touting him as the Trumpiest of all the contenders who could pick up the Republican torch should Trump himself falter. Sample:

In a twenty-minute speech, he described an America under assault by left-wing élites, who "want to delegitimize our founding institutions." His job as governor, he said, was to fight the horsemen of the left: critical race theory, "Faucian dystopia," uncontrolled immigration, Big Tech, "left-wing oligarchs," "Soros-funded prosecutors," transgender athletes, and the "corporate media." In Florida, he said, he had created a "citadel of freedom" that had become a beacon for people "chafing under authoritarian rule";

Margaret Hartmann: [07-03] Read the Nastiest Lines From Trump's $75 Burn Book: It's called Our Journey Together, a bunch of pictures with captions evidently written by Trump himself (you can tell because they're stupid and nasty). By the way, Hartmann's The Drama-Lover's Guide to the New Trump Books has been updated [06-29].

Robert Hitt: [06-30] Robocallers Still Have Your Number: "The FCC has implemented new rules, but the decades-old problem requires stronger tactics." This seems like the sort of nuisance problem it should be relatively easy to solve. We get 30+ unwanted phone calls per day on the land line, or presumably unwanted as we don't pick up unrecognized caller ids. Why not automatically kick those calls to a monitoring service, and when a caller's count rises above some modest threshhold, kick off an investigation aimed at shutting them down? Sure, only some of those calls are clearly aimed at fraud, but solicitations for funds are every bit as intrusive, and can feel like harassment. I'd like to see a crackdown on all forms of intrusive advertising, but this is a good place to start (and unlike radio and TV, doesn't require a rethinking of how those industries can be financed). Advertising isn't free speech. Even when it isn't intended fraud, it's much more akin to assault. (Hacking is a similar problem, which isn't taken seriously by the people who could put a stop to it. My server has to fend off hundreds of attacks every day.)

Paul Krugman: Interesting but varied set of pieces here, some in response to books he's been reading:

• [06-27] Why Did Republicans Become So Extreme? He dates this to the 1990s, when Republicans went to such extremes to paint Bill Clinton as some kind of monster, even though he barely split hairs with them on policy, and often reinforced their arguments by adopting their logic. I think what happened was that after Bush won so easily in 1988, they couldn't imagine ever losing the presidency again, and were shocked when they did next time out. Of all the memes, the most telling was how they regarded him as an usurper, someone who took what was rightfully their. Then they discovered that getting nastier somehow got them more votes, enough to flip Congress in 1994, and the die was cast from that point on. Of course, in this they were egged on by the billionaires that funded the "vast right-wing conspiracy" and their Fox propaganda organ. Every time they won again, they doubled down on their most reactionary policies, which invariably blew up in their faces, but not without moving the country significantly to the right. And every time they lost (usually after horrendous wars and recessions), they doubled down again and got even nastier, and bounced right back. That worked in 2010, and it's clearly what they're trying to do this year. Whether it works again depends on how dumb the voters really are. The jury's out on that question.
• [06-28] Technology and the Triumph of Pessimism: That's a big and interesting question, and he has the advantage of an advance copy of Brad De Long's book, due in September, Slouching Towards Utopia (one I'm almost certain to order; De Long is an economist very close to Krugman), which covers the years 1870-1920: two lifetimes end-to-end (5 generations?), during which our understanding of nature and society was totally upended, the result being that we're increasingly estranged and befuddled by it all, in most cases clinging to older ideas ill fit to the modern world, a mismatch that has led to all sorts of anomalies. So I've mostly thought about this question in terms of philosophy (or religion and psychology), but economics may work too, just with more numbers. Krugman provides a link to a profile of Robert J Gordon, who thinks the age of extreme change is winding down. (His big book is The Rise and Fall of American Growth, which I bought but never got around to reading.) I've imagined this same idea configured as an S-curve, with a steep upward slope from 1900-2000, tapered off on both ends.
• [06-30] Crazies, Cowards and the Trump Coup: This one was snatched from last week's headlinse, concluding "Republicans are now a coalition of crazies and cowards. And it's hard to say which Republicans present the greater danger."
• [07-01] Wonking Out: Taking the 'Flation" Out of Stagflation: Key line here is "most economists believe expected inflation is an important determinant of actual inflation." The Fed believed this, and raised interest rates rather sharply. But while prices are still rising, expectations of future price increases appear to be slacking, so we may be quickly torn between the desire to stop inflation and the need to keep the economy from stagnating (a play on the 1970s term stagflation).

Daniel Larison: [07-01] Another round of talks fail as the Iran nuclear deal appears to be slipping away: "JCPOA opponents planted political poison pills to prevent reentering the deal and Biden is letting them get away with it." You'd think that restoring JCPOA would be a no-brainer. It was a key diplomatic achievement for Obama. Trump violated it for no good reason. While Obama (wrongly, I think) took pains to provide a smooth continuity in foreign policy when taking over from Bush, there's no reason for Biden to follow suit. (He certainly hasn't with Ukraine and NATO.) Coming to an understanding with Iran would not only solve one problem, it would make America look more capable of reason elsewhere. Besides, with Russian oil off the world market, the easiest fix to drive prices back down would be to let Iran back in. On the other hand, Biden is heading off to Israel and Saudi Arabia, no doubt to supplicate like Trump did. Also see:

• Ellie Geranmayeh: [06-28] How to overcome three obstacles to the Iran nuclear deal.

Rebecca Leber: [06-27] The biggest myths about gas prices: Six of them, generally useful but I'd quibble with "Myth 2: Oil companies are price-gouging American consumers." Oil companies are always greedy, always price-gouging, at least within the limits of competition (which is still healthier than it is in most industries). If they weren't, they'd lower their margins to cushion the price shocks, but if they can keep their margins as costs increase, their profits go way up, and that's what we're seeing. I also think that it's likely that there is a massive behind-the-scenes lobbying effort to get articles (like this one) to counter the intuitive idea that oil companies are making out like bandits. I've seen dozens of such articles, which given the push from Bernie Sanders and others for a "windfall profits tax" (as was implemented in the 1970s) is something they'd have a serious interest in promoting. By the way, for a broader review of the role of greed in capitalism, see Nathan J Robinson: [06-20] Is Capitalism Built on Greed? (Executive summary: yes.)

Andrew Marantz: [06-27] Does Hungary Offer a Glimpse of Our Authoritarian Future? Viktor Orbán is certainly popular among elements of the US right that are in any way aware of their fellow fascists around the world -- Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson are obvious examples, but the author also mentions J.D. Vance and Rod Dreher as admirers, and Ron DeSantis as someone who could fit the bill. Orbán came to my attention quite a while ago, and what struck me most was how he used the power of a freak landslide election to consolidate long-term control of the nation, including passing an extensive legal framework that could only be undone by a super-majority: the use of such gimmicks to guarantee right-minority control struck me as very Republican -- although viewed as Orbánist it should seem even more un-American. Choice lines:

Even Trump's putative allies will admit, in private, that he was a lazy, feckless leader. They wanted Augustus; they got a Caligula. . . . What would happen if the Republican Party were led by an American Orbán, someone with the patience to envision a semi-authoritarian future and the diligence and ruthlessness to achieve it?

Elizabeth Nelson: [07-14] Difficult Man: 'Kitchen Confidential' and the Early Days of Anthony Bourdain's Legacy.

Tory Newmyer: [07-03] Bill to grant crypto firms access to Federal Reserve alarms experts: Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is in on this graft (along with a Republican from Wyoming; looks like Wyoming already as some sweetheart deals with crypto grifters). I'm not sure what all the ramifications are, but making crypto "too big to fail" sounds like an awful idea, especially given that it's not actually good for anything (legal, anyway).

Andre Pagliarini: [07-01] Live From Brazil: A Clueless Tucker Carlson: "Fox News's chief wingnut has spent all week fawning over authoritarian President Jair Bolsonaro and making absurd, ignorant statements about the country." Worth remembering here that Carlson is also infatuated with Hungary's Viktor Orbán: see Viktória Serdült: [02-01] Tucker Carlson Has Become Obsessed With Hungary. Here's What He Doesn't Understand.

Annie Proulx: [06-27] Swamps Can Protect Against Climate Change, if We Only Let Them. "Wetlands absorb carbon dioxide and buffer the excesses of drought and flood, yet we've drained much of this land."

Nathan J Robinson: ]07-01] The Incredibly Disturbing Texas GOP Agenda Is a Vision for a Theocratic Dystopia. Too much here to even start getting into, but make sure to check out the contrasting pictures of car-free downtown Ljubljana, Slovenia, and "fucking Houston." And while most of the planks reduce to variants on complete-lawless-freedom-for-me and prohibition-on-you, sometimes it just gets weird, like "enshrining a right to cryptocurrency in the Texas Bill of Rights." Evidently, someone told them crypto is "a right-wing hypercapitalistic technology built primarily to amplify the wealth of its proponents through a combination of tax avoiance, diminished regulatory oversight and artificially enforced scarcity," and they said, "wow, give me some of that."

Walter Shapiro: [06-27] 1989-2001: America's Long Lost Weekend: "From the fall of the Berlin Wall to 9/11, we had relative peace and prosperity. It was an opportunity to salve some festering national wounds. We squandered it completely -- and helped give rise to the crises we're dealing with today." One nugget here is that in his speech accepting the 2000 Democratic presidential nomination, Al Gore spent all of one sentence talking about climate change -- a problem that Gore understood well enough to write a book about in 1992 (Earth in the Balance), but didn't seriously return to until 2006 (An Inconvenient Truth). Shapiro previously covered this territory in [2019-04-29] The Lasting Disappointment of the Clinton Presidency.

Alex Skopic: [04-20] Winston Churchill, Imperial Monstrosity: Not sure how I missed this before, but Tariq Ali has finally released a book we always knew he was uniquely qualified to write, Winston Churchill: His Times, His Crimes. Few people realize this, but Churchill was a uniquely malign force in 20th century politics (he actually got his start at the end of the 19th, his first taste of war -- which he relished -- in the Sudan at the most lop-sided massacre European imperialists ever engineered, followed by a tour of the Boer War in South Africa, where he learned to love concentration camps). During WWI he dreamed of starving all of Germany to death, while he was more directly responsible for the disastrous attack on Gallipoli. He was a diehard defender of the British Empire, yet largely responsible for the most tragic decisions of its retreat: the religious division of Ireland, Palestine, and India, creating conflicts that killed millions and more or less persist to this day. He can even claim credit for starting the Cold War (with his "iron curtain" speech -- he did have a knack for rhetoric). And that's just the broad outline. Ali adds more details, including Churchill's role in the Bengal Famine during WWII. Also a discussion of the mythbuilding that kept elevating Churchill from one disaster after another. By the way, Ali has another recent book: The Forty-Year War in Afghanistan: A Chronicle Foretold, compiled from concurrent writings and wrapped up with a new introduction (probably a well-deserved "I told you so").

Jeffrey St Clair: [07-01] Roaming Charges: Whatd'Ya Expect Us to Do About It? Argues that Democrats, given advance notice of Alito's ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, should have spent that time coming up with a coherent response, including executive orders, to fight back, but instead seem to have spent the time formulating fundraising letters. I've seen a lot of similar recriminations, especially against the "gerontocracy." Not entirely fair, but a predisposition to compromise with an opposite side that can never be satisfied does lead to a lot of backpedaling (and frequent falls on one's ass). Much more, of course, including a line suggesting that maybe the intent, which the Court couldn't discern, of the Clean Air Act was in its title. St Clair also reprinted a 2005 column co-written with Alexander Cockburn on the author of Roe v. Wade's demise: Holy Alito!

Jennifer Szalai: [06-29] 'Why We Did It' Is a Dark Ride on the 'Republican Road to Hell': Review of Republican political operator Tim Miller's book, about why Republicans more or less enthusiastically lined up behind Trump after his 2016 election win. Pretty much as I suspected: they were so desperate to win they abandoned all scruples. Reviewer suggests pairing this with another book by a Republican operative, Stuart Stevens: It Was All a Lie: How the Republican Party Became Donald Trump.

By the way, Covid new cases topped 100,000/day on May 17, and have remained at or above that level ever since, making the last six weeks the fourth highest peak period on record. The number of cases had dropped under 30,000 on March 21. Deaths are up 24% over 14 days ago.

Closing tweet, seems to be related to Jeff Bezos: "If the Biden administration is out of touch with Billionaires, imagine how the average American worker feels."

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Sunday, June 26, 2022

June archive (final).

Music: Current count 38227 [38165] rated (+62), 87 [93] unrated (-6).

Couldn't sleep this morning, so woke up in an exceptionally foul mood. Part of the bad mood had simply carried over from writing yesterday's Speaking of Which, which necessarily focused on the right-wing Supreme Court's renouncing the formerly "settled law" of Roe v. Wade. I've written more than a little on the subject over the years, and I scarcely wanted to rehash all that, but felt obligated to at least register the event and the temperature in the notebook I perhaps foolishly think I might want to look back on some day, as I recollect the changes I've seen.

The post took a lot out of me, and I was further disappointed not to get any reaction at all this morning, either to the regular Twitter or Facebook notices. (I normally limit my use of Facebook to following old friends and family, and normally limit my posts there to food pics.) I mean, I don't mind not getting hate mail, but occasional acknowledgments are appreciated.

The one thing that did lift my spirits is this video, where Olivia Rodrigo calls out the Supreme Court junta by name, with help from Lily Allen. (There's more info in an article here.

This is the last Monday in June, so the monthly archive is officially closed. I haven't done all of the indexing, but the rated count for the 4-week month is 212. I'll finish the indexing and add the Music Week introductions in later this week. Not a lot of work, but I'm hoping to get this out sooner rather than later. Maybe I'll have time to do some yardwork before the trash goes out.

This is probably the first week where I've listened to Spotify more than Napster. Spotify hangs less, and seems to get new records out earlier, and they seem to be a bit easier to find, although I wouldn't say they qualify for a blue ribbon. On the other hand, at least one record below I found on Napster after failing on Spotify.

Also picked up one record under "limited sampling," and it reflects a change in how I'm handling the category. Previously I used it for records where only a few cuts were available on Bandcamp or streaming, but I listened to everything that was available. For Voivod, I simply hit reject 4 tracks in. It wasn't even that I couldn't stand the record; I just got tired of it, and decided I wanted to move on. Good chance there will be more like that in the future. May even encourage me to check out some videos, on the theory that they probably represent choice cuts. I've decided to score such records as rated in the tracking and metacritic files, but I'm not counting them in the rated totals. I may have to fiddle with the tracking stats, as that's where I look to see how many rated records I have each year.

I'm adding some mid-year lists to the metacritic files, starting with those compiled at AOTY, adding in (sometimes informal) lists I'm picking up from Expert Witnesses on Facebook (one with a public link is from Alfred Soto. Few of the lists are ranked, and I'm paying no heed to those that are. Each mention is marked with '+', which is temporary until the EOY lists appear. (I added a couple more -- GQ, Treble, Vulture -- until my eyes gave out. Links are in the legend file files.)

In old music, made some further progress in digging out the unrated albums. Was surprised to find a couple winners there.

Don't know what comes next. I'm too exhausted right now to give it any thought.

New records reviewed this week:

700 Bliss: Nothing to Declare (2022, Hyperdub): Philadelphia hip-hop ("experimental club") duo of DJ Haram (Zubeyda Muzeyyen) and Moor Mother (Camae Ayewa). First album, after an EP, doubles down on the "experimental." B+(*)

Joey Alexander: Origin (2022, Mack Avenue): Actual name Joey Sila, a piano prodigy from Bali, Indonesia, who cut a pretty good first record (My Favorite Things) when he was 11, and is back for his 6th while still just 18. Ten songs spread over 2-LP, all originals, core trio with Larry Grenadier (bass) and Kendrick Scott (drums), joined by guitar (Gilad Hekselman, 3 tracks) and tenor/soprano sax (Chris Potter, 2). He's only grown since his debut, filled out (especially with his writing), turning into a very solid, if not especially remarkable, jazz musician. Helps to be playing with stars, too. B+(***) [sp]

Harry Allen: My Reverie by Special Request (2022, TYR1102): Retro-swing tenor saxophonist, something I especially enjoy, very popular in Japan (where this was released, unsure about the label). Quartet with Dave Blenkhorn (guitar), bass, and drums, playing standard fare (including "Carioca" for a taste of Brazil). B+(**)

Harry Allen & Dave Blenkhorn: Play the Music of Phil Morrison (2022, GMAC): Morrison is a bassist-songwriter, originally from Boston, long based in Brunswick, Georgia, and he plays on this album, along with his regular trio of Keith Williams (piano) and Rudy Manuel (bass). Somehow he hooked up with Blenkhorn (a guitarist from Australia), which brought Allen onto the project. Nice enough, although I wasn't happy when they brought strings in. B+(*)

The Ano Nobo Quartet: The Strings of São Domingos (2021 [2022], Ostinato): From Cape Verde, a guitar quartet named after one of the island nation's famed guitarist-songwriters (1933-2004), the four guitarists only identified as: Pascoal, Fany, Nono, and Afrikanu, with one of them singing. B+(*) [bc]

Anteloper: Pink Dolphins (2022, International Anthem): Chicago group, principally Jaimie Branch (trumpet, sings some) and Jason Nazary (drums), with Jeff Parker producing and filling in elsewhere (guitar, bass, synthesizer, percussion), plus Chad Taylor (mbira) on one track (of 5). Folks like to compare this to electric Miles, which is half-true, but seems sludgier to me. B+(**) [sp]

Edwin Bayard/Dean Hulett/Mark Lomax II: Trio Plays Mingus (2022, CFG Multimedia): Normally the drummer's Trio, based in Columbus, Ohio, probably the best-kept secret in American jazz, but playing a set of five Mingus classics, it's nice to be able to file this under the star saxophonist's name, and to include the bassist on the credit line. As great as Bayard is, he stays pretty close to the melodies, although the drummer takes some liberties. B+(***) [os]

Benny the Butcher: Tana Talk 4 (2022, Griselda/Empire): Buffalo rapper Jeremie Pennick, third studio album after a tall stack (2004-16) of mixtapes, including Tana Talk and Tana Talk 2. B+(**)

Cola: Deep in View (2022, Fire Talk): Canadian indie band, first album, singer-songwriter-guitarist Tim Darcy and bassist Ben Stidworthy fresh from Ought, better than average guitar strum, singer seems a bit iffy, last song a promising change of pace. B+(*)

Theo Croker: Love Quantum (2022, Masterworks): Trumpet player from Florida, seventh album since 2007, uses hip-hop beats, sings some but mostly has guests for that, including Jill Scott, Ego Ella May, Jamila Woods, and Wyclef Jean. Opens with a song proclaiming "jazz is dead," but maybe he just forgot how to enjoy it? B+(*) [sp]

Flasher: Love Is Yours (2022, Domino): Indie band from DC, Emma Baker (drums) and Taylor Mulitz (guitar), both sing, neither particularly well, but they're pleasantly catchy. B+(*) [sp]

Foals: Life Is Yours (2022, Warner): British rock band, seventh studio album since 2008, Yannis Philippakis the singer, all tracks also credited to Jimmy Smith (guitar/keyboards) and Jack Bevan (drums). Half of this sounds a bit like a nod to the Spinners, and half doesn't, although they usually keep the beat going. B+(*)

Gordon Grdina's Nomad Trio: Boiling Point (2022, Astral Spirits): Guitar/oud player from Vancouver, second album with this trio, with Matt Mitchell (piano) and Jim Black (drums). B+(**) [bc]

Gordon Grdina/Mark Helias/Matthew Shipp: Pathways (2021 [2022], Attaboygirl): Guitar/oud, bass, piano, Shipp playing hard enough to make up for the lack of a drummer. B+(***) [bc]

Scott Hamilton: Classics (2022, Stunt): Mainstream tenor saxophonist, many albums since 1977, cherry picks some melodies from classical music here, arranging them for quartet with Jan Lundgren (piano), Hans Backenroth (bass), and Kristian Leth (drums). Lovely, of course, but doesn't swing much. B+(**) [sp]

Hercules & Love Affair: In Amber (2022, Skint/BMG): "Dance music project" by Andy Butler, an American DJ now based in Belgium. Anohni and Elin Eyþórsdóttir appear as vocalists, for a note of unnecessary drama. B

Ari Hoenig Trio: Golden Treasures (2021 [2022], Fresh Sound New Talent): Drummer, from Philadelphia, dozen albums since 1999, trio here with Gadi Lehavi (piano) and Ben Tiberio (bass), wrote three originals to go with six standards, like "Cherokee," "Sophisticated Lady," and "Doxy" (a drum solo to close). B+(*) [sp]

Grace Ives: Janky Star (2022, True Panther Sounds/Harvest): Indie pop singer-songwriter, second album, has some beat and quirk. B+(***) [sp]

Randall King: Shot Glass (2022, Warner Nashville): Country singer, from Lubbock, second album, major label after a self-released debut, writes some but has lots of help, photographed with a guitar but subcontracted that too. What he does have is a first-rate voice, and and the production suggests he grew up on Joe Ely, and would be happy to be mistaken for him -- as you probably would with this in a blindfold test. B+(**) [sp]

Kilo Kish: American Gurl (2022, Kisha Soundscape): Art-pop singer-songwriter Lakisha Kimberly Robinson, second album, of a mixed mind whether she wants to go deep or trashy. B+(*) [sp]

Masayo Koketsu: Fukiya (2021 [2022], Relative Pitch): Japanese alto saxophonist, solo, one 46:32 piece, a bit less ugly than Braxton's For Alto. B

Kristina Koller: Get Out of Town (2022, self-released): New York jazz singer, wrote three (of 12) songs on her debut (2017), third album offers interpretations of eight Cole Porter tunes (short at 28:42), nicely done, didn't find the credits. B+(**) [sp]

David Krakauer & Kathleen Tagg: Mazel Tov Cocktail Party! (2022, Table Pounding): New York-based clarinet player, a klezmer specialist since 1995's Klezmer Madness!, with South African pianist Tagg (also plays accordion an cello, arranges and produces), with Yoshie Fruchter (guitar) and Jerome Harris (bass) in the band, plus various guests, notably vocalist Sarah MK. B+(**) [sp]

Martin Küchen/Agustí Fernández/Zlatko Kaucic: The Steps That Resonate (2021 [2022], Not Two): Sax/piano/drums trio, the former playing soprano and sopranino, recorded at BCMF Festival in Slovenia (the drummer's home turf; the others are from Sweden and Spain). Prickly. B+(**) [sp]

Martin Küchen: Utopia (2021 [2022], Thanatosis Produktion): Swedish saxophonist (tenor/alto here, also tambora and electronics), best known for his Angles groups. This looks to be solo, leaning toward ambient. B

Latto: 777 (2022, RCA): Atlanta rapper Alyssa Stephens, formerly Miss Mulatto, second album (32:54), after EPs and mixtapes (3 each). B+(**)

Charles Lloyd: Trios: Chapel (2018 [2022], Blue Note): Trios seems to be a series name, of which this live recording from Coates Chapel in San Antonio is the first: with Bill Frisell (guitar) and Thomas Morgan (bass) -- evidently drums don't work well in the chapel, but that doesn't recommend the flute, either. B [sp]

Lupe Fiasco: Drill Music in Zion (2022, 1st & 15th): Rapper Wasalu Muhammad Jaco, from Chicago, eighth album since 2006. Finds it groove and hangs in there. B+(***) [sp]

Jamal Moss: Thanks 4 the Tracks U Lost (2022, Modern Love): Chicago DJ, better known as Hieroglyphic Being (or at least should be) and in groups like Africans With Mainframes. More than a dozen albums under his own name (most with 4 in the title). Not obvious how this relates to a 2020 album with much the same title (plus a Vol. 1), credited to Hieroglyphic Being. B+(***) [sp]

Mr. Fingers: Around the Sun Pt. 1 (2022, Alleviated): Larry Heard, from Chicago, DJ and electronica producer, records since 1985, crafts a fine groove. B+(**) [sp]

Muna: Muna (2022, Saddest Factory/Dead Oceans): Indie pop band from Los Angeles, three women, third album. B+(*) [sp]

Vadim Neselovskyi: Odesa: A Musical Walk Through a Legendary City (2022, Sunnyside): Urkainian pianist, based in New York and Dusseldorf, albums since 2013, this one solo. Odesa (formerly and still better known as Odessa) is the 3rd largest city in Ukraine (a bit over one million), a port on the Black Sea well to the west of Crimea, founded by Catherine the Great in 1794 on the site of earlier Greek and Tatar villages (Khadjibey). In 1897, it was the 4th largest city in Russia, with a population 49% Russian, 30% Jewish, 9% Ukrainian, 4% Polish, followed by small numbers of Germans, Greeks, Tatars, and Armenians. The main thing I associate with it was the pogroms of 1881 and 1905. Since then the population has shifted from Russian to Ukrainian (in 1939 Jews were a plurality but they were killed off by the Nazis in WWII; by 2001 Odesa was 61% Ukrainian, 29% Russian). We haven't heard much about Odesa during Putin's invasion, at least after the advance from Crimea halted short of Mykolayiv, although the port is blocked by the Russian navy. None of which matters much in listening to these rhythmically interesting pieces. B+(**) [bc]

Perfume Genius: Ugly Season (2022, Matador): Singer-songwriter Mike Hadreas, sixth album. Not someone I'm ever likely to care enough about to get into the weeds, but his use of electronics is getting better (e.g., "Hellbent"). B+(*)

Phife Dawg: Forever (2022, Smokin' Needles/AWAL): Rapper Malik Taylor (1970-2016), rapper along with Q-Tip in A Tribe Called Quest, which split up after 1998 but reunited for a final album in 2016 when Taylor died. In between, he worked on solo projects, releasing an album in 2000, and working on this over a decade, recording about two-thirds of the eventual album. They did a nice job of conjuring up the right air. B+(**) [sp]

Yunè Pinku: Bluff (2022, Platoon, EP): Asha Catherine Nandy, Malaysian-Irish, dance pop producer (and presumably singer), debuts with 4 songs, 13:54, a decent single and beatwise filler. B+(**) [sp]

Ravyn Lenae: Hypnos (2022, Atlantic): R&B singer from Chicago, last name Washington, first album after three EPs. Thin voice, slinky rhythm, could prove seductive. B+(**)

Wadada Leo Smith: The Emerald Duets (2014-20 [2022], TUM, 5CD): Four sets of trumpet-drums duos, mostly playing Smith's compositions. The one with Han Bennink dates from 2014, the others with Pheeroan akLaff, Andrew Cyrille, and Jack DeJohnette 2019-20, with the latter one lapping over into a fifth disc. DeJohnette and Smith are also credited with a bit of piano. Dive in anywhere. A- [cd]

Wadada Leo Smith: String Quartets Nos. 1-12 (2015-20 [2022], TUM, 7CD): The AACM trumpeter really kicked it into high gear around ten years ago, when he turned 70 -- not that his previous decade wasn't remarkably productive, but since 2011 I'm counting 3 2-CD sets, 2 3-CD boxes, additional boxes of 4-5-7 CDs, and at least 10 singles, including some major comissions (e.g., Great Lakes Suites, America's National Parks). No one doubts his trumpet chops, but this is the sort of move jazz musicians take when they want to be considered seriously as a composer, and that's something I'll never be focused enough to evaluate. It probably doesn't help that I associate string quartets with classical music that drives me up the wall, but I recall listening to more abstract pieces back in the 1970s -- e.g., a 3-LP box called The Avant Garde String Quartet in the U.S.A. -- and this is at least as interesting. The pieces tend toward the 20-30 minute range, so two or three to a CD, except for "No. 11" (98:45, spread over 2 discs), leaving "No. 12" (20:33) alone on disc 7. RedKoral Quartet plays, plus harp on "No. 4" and extras on 6-8: Smith's trumpet is a plus on 6 & 8, but largely negated by Thomas Buckner's voice on 8. Comes wrapped up in one of the label's gorgeous boxes, with a nice booklet. B+(***) [cd]

Bartees Strange: Farm to Table (2022, 4AD): Last name Cox, born in England to an American military family, moved to Germany and Greenland before turning to US and settling in Oklahoma. Second album. B+(*) [sp]

Vieux Farka Touré: Les Racines (2022, World Circuit): Guitarist-singer from Mali, ninth album since 2007, traces his roots, which mostly means his father, Ali Farka Touré, who did more than anyone else to bring this twist on the blues to world attention. B+(***)

Erlend Viken/Jo Berger Myhre/Thomas Strønen: Djupet (2022, OK World): Norwegian trio, playing Hardanger fiddle/octave fiddle, bass/electronics, and drums/percussion. B+(**) [bc]

WeFreeStrings: Love in the Form of Sacred Outrage (2021 [2022], ESP-Disk): String quartet (violins: Charles Burnham and Gwen Lester, viola: Melanie Dyer, cello: Alexander Waterman) plus bass (Ken Filiano) and drums (Michael Wimberly). Dyer formed the group in 2011, but I'm not aware of any other albums. Lovely with a bit of edge. B+(***) [cd]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

Bob Wilber With Dave McKenna and Pug Horton: Original Wilber (1978 [2022], Phontastic): Trad jazz sax/clarinet player, kicked career off in 1959 with a tribute to Sidney Bechet (who he had played with in the late 1940s), many more records up to his death in 2019. With McKenna (piano), Bill Crow (bass), and Connie Kay (drums), with Horton singing three songs. B+(*) [sp]

Wire: Not About to Die: Studio Demos 1977-1978 (1977-78 [2022], Pinkflag): Outtakes from the group's second and third albums (Chairs Missing and 154), only three songs making it to the final albums, but the demos appeared as a bootleg in the 1980s and eventually wound up on "deluxe editions" of the reissues. And if you don't know those albums, you really should start with the superb On Returning comp, which picks up most of their Pink Flag debut. Still, on its own this is remarkably lean and taut, perhaps a bit softer than the punk times called for, but fresher than most contemporary indie bands. A-

Old music:

Grace Ives: 2nd (2019, Dots Per Inch): First album, at least that I know of, although the beats and synths are so sharp I'd be surprised if she didn't have some practice tapes on a shelf or in her attic. B+(***) [bc]

Mandela: Son of Africa, Father of a Nation [Original Soundtrack: The Essential Music of South Africa] (1954-96 [1997], Mango): Seven tracks are labeled "original score" and are connecting passages, the other 19 offer a wide sample of the exceptionally rich legacy of South African music, along with a ringer -- "Nelson Mandela" by the Specials -- that ties it all together. The 1950s cuts are especially welcome. A-

Dudu Pukwana: Zila '86 (1986, Jika): South African saxophonist, started with the Blue Notes and went with them into exile in Europe, playing with the avant-garde but also recording some exceptional township jive (cf. In the Townships, 1973). This band seems to be a crossover attempt, with pop vocals and dance beats, but much more happening. B+(***) [lp]

RG Royal Sound Orchestra: Impact (2009 [2010], RG): Initials stand for Recaredo Gutiérrez, who is also listed as producer, with ike Lewis as orchestra director, five arrangers, and a big band ("a group of A-List Miami-based musicians"). Opens with a flamenco "Hotel California," then doubles down on "My Way." The third song, "Volare," is more of a mambo. Amusing enough, except that it turns nauseous when they take on "Yesterday" and find it's way too slow to mess with. B [cd]

Terry Riley: Poppy Nogood and the Phantom Band/All Night Flight: SUNY Buffalo, New York, 22 March 1968 (1968 [2006], Elision Fields): Live solo set, with Riley playing soprano sax, organ and "time-lag accumulator." "Poppy Nogood and the Phantom Band" was the flip side to his career-defining A Rainbow in Curved Air, expanded here to 39:48, finally released in 1996. B+(*)

Dean Schmidt: I Know Nothing (2006 [2007], OA2): Seattle bassist, this is his first and seems to be his only album, employs 10 additional musicians, not broken down by track but not likely to have three keyboard players or two tenor saxophonists constantly on call. Three percussionists, perhaps (congas, guiro, steel pans/vibes). Schmidt seems to be a Latin afficionado. [ex-cd] B+(*) [sp]

Harvie Swartz & Urban Earth: It's About Time (1988, Gaia): Bassist, debut 1978, I know him best for his duos with Sheila Jordan, released Urban Earth in 1985, and kept the title for a group name here and on at least one more album. With Billy Drewes (soprano sax), Jay Azzolina (guitar), Yves Gerard (drums), and a couple guests, for something quasi-fusion. Later changed his name to Harvie S. B [lp]

Steve Tibbetts: Compilation: Acoustibbets/Elektrobitts/Exotibbets (1976-2010 [2010], Frammis, 3CD): Guitarist, from Wisconsin, debut 1976, recorded mostly for ECM from 1982-2018, the "Acoustibbets" don't go far beyond new age, the "elektrobitts" can have a bit of edge and a lot more beat, and the "exotibbets" flit around the world (but especially Nepal and Tibet). I don't think this career-spanning collection was ever real product, but the promo got distributed wide enough to get logged on Discogs and sold on Amazon. Could be worth a more extended dive, but not now. B+(*) [cd]

Turning Point: Matador (2005, Native Language): Jazz-funk group: Thano Sahnas (guitar), Demitri Sahnas (bass), Steve Culp (keyboards), and John Herrera (drums), with guest spots for sax and violin. [ex-cd] B- [sp]

Twice Thou: The Bank Attack (2012, The Buy Back Initiative/Music Group): Boston rapper Marco Ennis, aka E-Devious, first credits go back to 1986, called his first album Long Time Comin', then took a decade before releasing this one. Staunchly political, starts with a tribute to community group City Life/Vida Urbana before moving out to hunt some bankers. Some of the references are ripped from the headlines, but few feel dated -- especially this week. A- [cd]

Twice Thou: Trials & Tribulationships (2015, The Ennis Group): Old school rapper, moves from the simple world of politics into the more complicated intricacies of relationships. B+(***)

Twice Thou: Loose Screws: Las Aventuras de Tonito Montana (2017, The Ennis Group): Comes up with a gangsta story. B+(*) [sp]

The United States Air Force Band Airmen of Note: The Jazz Heritage Series 2009 Radio Broadcasts (2009, self-released, 3CD): Radio shots, way too much talk, not that the music is much better. Guest artists Kurt Elling, Allen Vizzutti, Rufus Reid. C- [cd]

The United States Air Force Band Airmen of Note: The Jazz Heritage Series 2010 Radio Broadcasts (2010, self-released, 3CD): Same, Dick Golden's talk sounding even more like recruiting ads. Guest artists: New York Voices, Joey DeFrancesco, Gary Smulyan. C- [cd]

The United States Air Force Band Airmen of Note: The Jazz Heritage Series 2011 Radio Broadcasts (2011, self-released, 3CD): Guests are Kurt Rosenwinkel, Al Jarreau, and various almuni. C [cd]

The United States Air Force Band Airmen of Note: The Jazz Heritage Series 2017 Radio Broadcasts (2017, self-released, 3CD): Guests are a step up: Steve Turre, Cyrus Chestnut, and Terell Stafford. The interview with Turre includes a bit about how he figured out how to play shells, where he admits: "I'm not gonna play 'Donna Lee' or 'Giant Steps' on the shells." C+ [cd]

Limited Sampling: Records I played parts of, but not enough to grade: -- means no interest, - not bad but not a prospect, + some chance, ++ likely prospect.

Voivod: Synchro Anarchy (2022, Century Media): Canadian metal band, 15th album since 1984. [4/9] - [sp]

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

• Sarah Bernstein: Veer Quartet (New Focus) [09-02]
• Columbia Icefield: Ancient Songs of Burlap Heroes (Pyroclastic) [07-29]
• Randal Despommier: A Midsummer Odyssey (Sunnyside) [07-15]
• Glenn Dickson: Wider Than the Sky (Naftule's Dream) [07-08]
• David Francis: Sings Songs of the Twenties (Blujazz) [04-23]
• Eva Kess: Inter-Musical Love Letter (Unit) [07-22]
• Jeremy Manasia Trio: Butcher Block Ballet (Blujazz) [06-20]
• Miró Henry Sobrer: Two of Swords (Patois, 2CD) [07-15]
• Xiomara Torres: La Voz Del Mar (Patois) [07-15]

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Sunday, June 26, 2022

I suppose after the Roe v. Wade reversal, I have to write one of these, if only as a placeholder in the notebook. As usual, the best place to look on Supreme Court rulings is with Ian Millhiser. Start with: [06-24] The end of Roe v. Wade, explained. As Millhiser notes, this ruling has little to do with legal theory -- it's been increasingly clear for some time that the "conservative majority" is just making shit up (in that, Gore v. Bush back in 2000 was a harbinger) -- but reflects a political coup accomplished through decades of the right scheming to pack the Court with their cultists. I wrote a bit about the politics in a recent Facebook comment to a post by Greg Magarian, a law professor at Washington University, in St. Louis, where I studied for a couple of years). Magarian wrote:

No institution in the United States has taken a harder line against abortion rights than the Catholic Church.

As of 2018, Catholics made up just under a quarter of the U.S. population. About half of them -- just over a tenth of the total population -- typically vote Republican.

Seven of the nine Supreme Court Justices are Catholic. Six of those seven (all but Sotomayor) are Republicans -- two thirds of the total Court.

Those six Catholic Republican Justices make up the entire right-wing majority that voted to uphold the Mississippi abortion law and -- except for Roberts -- to overturn fifty years of abortion rights precedent.

This is what Kavanaugh refers to as "neutrality."

My comment:

Back around 1970, in "The Emerging Republican Majority," Kevin Phillips argued that Republicans would become the majority party if they could flip two traditionally Democratic constituencies -- southern Baptists and northern Catholics. They did this by orchestrating a cultural backlash, most obviously based on race but abortion gave them a way to use religion. (The Schlafly backlash against women's rights was also a factor.) I've long viewed Missouri as the laboratory for this transformation. In the 1950s the state was solidly Democratic, but regionally divided: the cities and river valleys on the D side, the northern plains and the Ozarks on the other. The Danforths share a lot of the credit/blame for this transformation. It took another 20 years for Missouri's anti-abortion politics to spread to Kansas (in the 1990s, although Bob Dole jumped the gun in 1972), where WASP Republicans had easily ruled since the 1860s (aside from a brief Populist interlude) and had no need of such scheming. The Republican use of select Catholic doctrines has mostly been purely cynical (although there are cases of conservatives converting, like Sam Brownback, whose devotion to the cause is more devoutly evil). As for the Catholic dominance of the Supreme Court, that seems to be an artifact of the Federalist Society's control of the nominee list, which was largely a reaction to Souter's apostasy after he joined the court. Conservatives had seen many seemingly solid WASP nominees turn into liberals after joining the Court, and wanted to put a stop to that. I haven't looked into just why the FS almost exclusively nominates Catholics, so I'm reluctant to speculate as to why, other than to note that they have much in common with cults.

Millhiser also wrote a deeper historical piece that you should read: [06-25] The case against the Supreme Court of the United States. I recently picked up a copy of Millhiser's book on this same topic, Injustices: The Supreme Court's History of Comforting the Comfortable and Afflicting the Afflicted. One thing few people realize now is how fortunate those of my age cohort (the "boomers") were to grow up in a period when the Court was expanding individual rights against the tyranny of the politically connected elite. Those days are gone, and outrage against "Supreme Injustice" is coming back. Life was certainly easier and less fraught when we didn't need to worry about the Supreme Court taking our rights away.

Some more links on the Supreme Court this week:

• Zack Beauchamp: [06-24] At least Clarence Thomas's odious Dobbs concurrence was honest. I'm not sure "honest" is the word we're looking for here. Maybe you could say it was "candid" or "revealing" (a subhed is "How Thomas exposed the majority's incoherence"). It's a commonplace to say that "you can't negotiate with terrorists," but isn't the real lesson that you can't compromise with people who are always coming back for more. Thomas may not be a terrorist, but he's sure relentless in his determination to make America bleaker and more cruel.
• Margaret Carlson: [06-25] Apocalypse Now: Abortion, Guns, and the Supreme Court: "Welcome to the new, horrifying normal."
• Irin Carmon: [06-24] The Dissenters Say You're Not Hysterical.
• Jonathan Chait: [06-24] Now We See What Happens When Social Conservatives Take the Wheel: "The Christian right's power finally becomes real." Well, yes and no. They'll still feel like outsiders until they get their way on dozens of other issues. But the right-wing Court has already given them several other victories -- like allowing them to claim a religious exemption against conforming to laws they don't like, and forcing states to subsidize their exclusivist schools -- and no doubt more are coming. This is not a bad time to review Chris Hedges' 2007 book, American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America. Wouldn't be a bad time for him to update it, either.
• Michele Goodwin: [06-26] No, Justice Alito, Reproductive Justice Is in the Constitution. Author is a law professor, and author of Policing the Womb: Invisible Women and the Criminalization of Motherhood. Last year she wrote a piece relevant here: I Was Raped by My Father. An Abortion Saved My Life.
• Melissa Gira Grant: [06-24] The Fight for Abortion Rights Must Break the Law to Win: This article makes me squeamish, because it shouldn't have to be this way. But the struggles for civil rights, for labor rights, women's rights, the environment, against the war machine, both in the US and nearly everywhere else, have often ran up against the written law and its hired thugs. One reason I'm squeamish could even be that the anti-choice movement has so often resorted to criminal behavior on their own -- the assassination of Dr. George Tiller is one we here in Wichita will never forget or forgive.
• Jake Grumbach/Christopher Warshaw: [06-25] Many states with antiabortion laws have pro-choice majorities. But do they have functioning democracy?
• Carl Hulse: [06-24] Kavanaugh Gave Private Assurances. Collins Says He 'Misled' Her. Well, it's not like anyone else was fooled.
• Natasha Ishak: [06-25] Trigger laws and abortion restrictions, explained. Also: In 48 hours of protest, thousands of Americans cry out for abortion rights.
• Ankush Khardori: [06-24] Trump's Big Payback. Easy to write: "Donald rump delivered his end of the bargain he made with Republican elites and voters years ago. Support me despite my corruption, my gross personal failings and transgressions, and my persistent debasement of the presidency, and I'll do your bidding on the issue closest to your hearts: abortion." No doubt that was true for some people, but lots of Trump voters liked his corruption, failings, transgressions, and especially debasement. They may or may not have cared about abortion, but politics is a package business: you have to buy it all, even if you wish you could throw much of it away. If 2016 was a straight up referendum on abortion, Hillary Clinton would have won, but other factors tipped the election, and history isn't forgiving.
• Caroline Kitchener: [06-25] Roe's gone. Now antiabortion lawmakers want more.
• Ezra Klein: [06-26] The Dobbs Decision Isn't Just About Abortion. It's About Power. Interview with Dahlia Lithwick. Transcript here.
• Josh Kovensky: [06-24] Alito Changed Next to Nothing From the Leaked Draft: That was a question that occurred to me but I hadn't seen answered elsewhere. The leaked draft, you may recall, sounded completely bonkers, yet Roberts and Kavanaugh continued to support the finding, even while trying to qualify it in their own opinions.
• Claire Lampen: [06-24] Life After Roe Starts Now: "The Supreme Court decision ensures a health-care crisis that will ripple out across the country." Last paragraph starts: "Despite positioning themselves as 'pro-life,' conservatives show painfully little concern for the children and families their laws will force into existence." Examples follow.
• Jill Lepore: [06-24] The Supreme Court's Selective Memory. It didn't take long to realize that when Scalia spoke of "originalism," he simply meant whatever he happened to think at the time. Scalia's no longer here to channel what the Founders originally thought, but his heirs are equally adept at reinventing the past.
• Ian Millhiser: [06-23] The Supreme Court's new gun ruling means virtually no gun regulation is safe: "New York State Rifle v. Bruen is poorly reasoned. But its implications are potentially catastrophic." Millhiser also wrote: [06-21] The Supreme Court tears a new hole in the wall separating church and state.
• Rani Molla: [06-24] 5 ways abortion bans could hurt women in the workforce.
• Nicole Narea: [06-24] The end of Roe is only the beginning for Republicans, and [06-25] Republicans are eyeing a nationwide abortion ban. Can they pull it off?
• Charles P Pierce: [06-24] The Hard Right Has Gotten What It Paid For: "The Court's decision on Friday was a victory for clinic bombers, murderous snipers, stalkers of doctors, and vandals of all kinds." Points to the deep connection between the Koch network and the Federalist Society, brokering some kind of deal that swung the 2016 presidential election. Also: "States will be in conflict the way they haven't been since the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850."
• Nia Prater: [06-24] 'A Woman Has No Rights to Speak Of': Read Liberals' Supreme Court Dissent.
• Nathan J Robinson: [06-24] The Supreme Court Is Coming Dangerously Close to Complete Illegitimacy. Robinson also wrote back when the draft opinion was leaked [05-07] The Atrocious Reasoning of Samuel Alito.
• Greg Sargent/Paul Waldman: [06-24] 5 big truths about the Supreme Court's gutting of Roe:
  1. The court's decision is both straightforward and incredibly sweeping.
  2. The court is only getting started.
  3. Democrats need a fundamental rethink to meet this moment.
  4. Democrats must make very clear promises about what's next.
  5. Democrats must make this stick -- hard -- politically.
• Dylan Scott: [06-24] The end of Roe will mean more children living in poverty. Curious how "pro-life" concerns end at birth. Scott also wrote: [06-24] The dire health consequences of denying abortions, explained.
• Adam Serwer: [06-25] The Constitution Is Whatever the Right Wing Says It is.
• Jia Tolentino: [06-24] We're Not Going Back to the Time Before Roe. We're Going Somewhere Worse: "We are entering an era not just of unsafe abortions but of the widespread criminalization of pregnancy."
• Jillian Weinberger: [06-24] How the US polarized on abortion -- even as most Americans stayed in the middle.
• Jessica Winter: [06-25] The Supreme Court Decision That Defined Abortion Rights for Thirty Years: "The centrist, compromising view of reproductive rights in Planned Parenthood v. Casely helped clear the path to overturn Roe v. Wade."
• Kate Zernike: [06-25] How Did Roe Fall "Before a Decisive Ruling, a Powerful Red Wave." Singles out the 2010 mid-terms, where Republicans flipped a majority of state legislatures, which they then used to gerrymander districts, rig elections, and introduce an endless stream of bizarre laws. The focus on abortion was just one of many areas where they relentlessly pushed the envelope of what was acceptable, sane even (guns too). "Over time the attack on Roe has become more than an attack on abortion; it has become an attack on democracy."
• Mary Ziegler: [06-24] If the Supreme Court Can Reverse Roe, It Can Reverse Anything. Or, as seems increasingly the case, just make shit up. Those of us old enough to remember right-wingers complaining about liberals "legislating from the bench" are finding this new regime exceptionally bizarre.
• [06-25] 18 Ways the Supreme Court Just Changed America: Various "thinkers" at Politico weigh in, with takes all over the place. At least a third of these are blatantly ridiculous. Even the ones who seem justifiably alarmed don't seem to have a firm grasp of reality. I am especially disturbed by the pictures, here and elsewhere, of the "Students for Life protesters." Who are these women? And how did they get tangled up in this cynical political conspiracy? They seem so happy, failing so completely to grasp that abortion is always an exception, where the rules they think they can impose through their wishes break down in rare but real tragedy. Such naive belief must be delicious, but turns blind and cruel when backed up with the force of law.
  • 'People who seek abortions will seek to circumvent these laws.'
  • Young people 'won't see this country as a democracy.'
  • 'This decision will push abortion to the center of every political race in the country and polarize U.S. politics even more.'
  • This decision will 'give both parties an opportunity to move toward the center on abortion.'
  • 'The court's invalidation of Roe v. Wade will fire the starting gun on yet another wave of overtly violent conflict.'
  • 'In a post-Roe America, I am hopeful that our society will rebuild, and out communities will heal.'
  • 'It's hard to see how the issue will do much at the national level.'
  • This decision will 'place the reproductive health of Black women and other women of color at great risk.'
  • 'The American people will be forced to talk to one another, reason together.'
  • Expectant parents will not be able to fully use the powerful tools and knowledge of genetic testing and prenatal screening.
  • The decision will 'exacerbate the partisan and regional division on abortion that is already in place.'
  • 'There will be civil war.'
  • The anti-abortion movement will 'look to the conservative justices for protection for fetal personhood.'
  • The court could craft 'a new, more modern and justice-focused decision upholding the right to abortion.'
  • 'Conservatives must urgently embrace a whole-life approach.'
  • 'Making abortion illegal will not materially affect the number of abortions.'
  • 'A trajectory of many years of laws that increasingly see women's health and autonomy as secondary to those of fetuses.'
  • 'Abortion opponents will not be appeased until abortion is entirely eliminated.'

Since we're here, some other stories, briefly noted:

Ukraine: The war grinds on, with Russia continuing to make small gains in Luhansk, including their capture of Severodonetsk, and little interest from either side in ending the war. Some stories:

• Katrin Bennhold/Jim Tankersley: [06-26] Ukraine War's Latest Victim? The Fight Against Climate Change. It's hard to wean yourself while you're panicking to get more to make up for lost access to Russian oil and gas. E.g.: Germany will fire up coal plants again in an effort to save natural gas.
• Andrew Cockburn: [06-24] Why Sanctions Always Fail.
• Jen Kirby: [06-23] Russia's territory in Europe is the latest source of Ukraine war tensions: Kaliningrad is a majority-Russian (87%) city and territory on the Baltic Sea, named in 1946 when the Soviet Union started redesigning the borders of eastern Europe. Before, the city was known as Köningsberg, at least after it became part of Prussia in 1525 (or 1657, following a short Swedish occupation). After 1918, it remained part of Germany, but was separated by a Polish corridor. In 1946, 100,000 Germans were expelled, and by 1948 400,000 Russians had moved in, so Stalin decided to keep it as part of the RFSFR instead of giving it to Lithuania (which separates it from Russia, but the Lithuanian population is only 0.4%). However, the land barrier is giving Lithuania an excuse to disrupt land transportation between Russia and Kaliningrad. This strikes me as an unnecessary provocation and a dangerous escalation of the sanctions regime. [PS: Needless to say: [06-24] Russia Blames US for Lithuania's Kaliningrad Embargo.]
• Anatol Lieven: [06-20] Ukraine minister Kuleba accuses critics of being 'enablers of Putin': His is a name you should recognize when it appears in outlandishly hawkish op-eds. I give Biden some credit in not playing Bush's "either you're with us or against us" ultimatum, but Kuleba has no such cares. He is having the time of his life.
• Branko Marcetic: [06-24] Western Sanctions on Russia Aren't Working as Intended: They started with an overestimation of the costs to Russia, and an almost complete ignorance of the self-costs they would produce. They helped to rally public support for Putin in Russia, while they've undercut political support at home -- e.g., their contribution to inflation is hurting Biden, even if support for the war hasn't eroded. I'm not surprised. I've always thought that the best excuse for sanctions was that they were a way to feel like you're doing something to Putin short of directly escalating a war that could easily become worse.
• John P Ruehl: [06-24] The Ukraine War's Role in Exacerbating Global Food Insecurity.
• Liz Sly: [06-25] Russia will soon exhaust its combat capabilities, Western assessments predict. So there's light at the end of the tunnel? Excuse me if I've heard that one before. Unless NATO starts reinforcing troops (which would be a really bad idea), Russia has significantly more resources that it can continue to bring to bear (assuming Putin still wants to).

Inflation: Look: Democrats worked hard to save the economy from collapse during the pandemic, both in early 2020 when the stock market plunged so bad even Republicans were willing to play along, and in early 2021 when they pushed a serious stimulus bill through to get things moving again. The reforms weren't targeted as precisely as possible, so some people came out of the crisis better off than before, while others barely survived. But Republicans had nothing to offer, other than their bitter opposition, which along with a couple of chickenshit Democratic senators eventually brought better prospects to a halt. Meanwhile, the disruptions caused (and still being caused, e.g., in China) by the pandemic messed up supply chains, and sudden shifts in supply and demand got converted into higher prices -- the same sort of price gouging we saw early in the pandemic. All this adds up to higher consumer prices (aka inflation, although many economists tie the word more closely to higher wages, which is what they really get worked up about).

• Ahmari Anthony: [02-10] The Meat Industry's Middlemen Are Starving Families and Farmers.
• Kate Aronoff: [06-24] Inflation Is Scrambling Joe Biden's Brain. Biden's embraced the idea of a "gas tax holiday," where the savings wouldn't amount to much, and almost certainly go not to consumers but to companies profit lines. Kevin T Dugan: [06-22] Joe Biden, Oil Man notes that Republicans oppose Biden's proposal, not wanting to give Biden any credit for lowering prices, especially given that they may already be declining.
• Michael Hudson: [06-22] The Fed's Austerity Program to Reduce Wages. Politicians may cite higher consumer prices as inflation, but the only inflation the Fed takes seriously is wages, not least because the only tool the Fed has to combat inflation is to put people out of work, to make workers desperate enough to accept less. As for the rest: "The Fed is all in favor of asset-price inflation." Also note: "The economy cannot recover as long as today's debt overhead is left in place. Debt service, housing costs, privatized medical care, student debt and a decaying infrastructure have made the U.S. economy uncompetitive."
• Paul Krugman: [06-23] Beware the Dangers of Sado-Monetarism.
• Phillip Longman: [06-20] It's the Monopoly, Stupid: "Unchecked corporate power is fueling inflation."
• Alexander Sammon: [06-21] Skyrocketing Rent Is Driving Inflation.

Eric Alterman: [06-24] Will the Oligarchs Who Own the US Media Save Democracy? Don't Bet on It.

Justin Elliott/Jesse Eisinger/Paul Kiel/Jeff Ernsthausen/Doris Burke: [06-21] Meet the Billionaire and Rising GOP Mega-Donor Who's Gaming the Tax System: Susquehana founder and TikTok investor Jeff Yass.

Ben Jacobs: [06-23] Donald Trump's cuckoo coup: By all rights, the January 6 Committee hearings should be dominating the news this week. Thanks to Republican non-participation, we've never seen Congressional hearings this clear and focused, so free of cant and obfuscation. Sure, the net result is pretty much what we understood at the time: an understanding that led almost immediately to Trump's second impeachment. Jacobs also wrote: [06-22] A new right-wing super PAC is attacking Liz Cheney as a "DC diva". More on the hearings:

• David Brooks: [06-08] The Jan. 6 Committee Has Already Blown It: Doesn't take much to be a "right-centrist" pundit these days, does it? He moans that "these goals are pathetic." Why bother investigating things that merely happened? Why not ask for the impossible? "We need a committee that will preserve democracy on Jan. 6, 2025, and Jan. 6, 2029." But isn't part of the threat to 2025 and 2029 the fact that a lot of people still don't understand the horror of Jan. 6, 2021? Maybe it won't do any good to explain it again, calmly and thoroughly, as the Committee is trying to do, but does Brooks have a better idea? Not this week.
• Jen Chaney/Benjamin Hart: [06-26] What Has Made the January 6 Hearings Such Great Television?
• Richard L Hasen: [06-24] No One Is Above the Law, and That Starts With Donald Trump. I remember hearing that phrase a lot when Clinton was president. Much less so with Bush. And while it's something one would like to think is true about Trump, he seems to have proven that he is, if not above the law, at least beyond its reach. On the other hand, even if it were possible to indict and convict Trump on any of hundreds of possible charges, don't think that would prove the justice system in America is, you know, just. Just lucky, which at the moment it isn't.
• Robert Kuttner: [06-23] The Consequences of Indicting Trump. With right-wingers complaining that the January 6 Committee hearings are a "show trial," it's interesting to imagine how a real trial would be different. For one thing, the power of subpoena and the penalties for perjury would be stronger. The most likely problem is that defining the crime would be more difficult: it is obvious that Trump's efforts to cling to power skitted around all sorts of malfeasances, but he was operating in territory where no one had ever ventured before, and which hadn't been anticipated and coded into law. The other obvious problem is selecting a jury that would be able to judge the case precisely on the merits, without fear of future reprisals. And while the case itself could be presented in non-political terms, it won't be heard that way, at least by the public. Even Kuttner spends much more time speculating on political ramifications.
• Charles P Pierce: [06-23] There's Always One Guy in the Office Who Will Act on the Boss's Worst Ideas: In Trump's DOJ, that turned out to be Jeffrey Clark. Also: Trump's Misfit Goons Simply Could Not Shut Up About What They Were Doing.
• Nathan J Robinson: [06-16] The Dangers of Praising Mike Pence and Liz Cheney: "Democrats need to stop praising horrible neoconservatives."

Kathryn Joyce: [06-24] 'National Conservative' manifesto: A plan for fascism -- but it's not hypothetical. Document, came out of a conference last fall, hard to tell how seriously to take it, but one speaker sequence mentioned here suggests it's not just a few "think-tankers": Rick Santorum, Nigel Farage, Mark Meadows.

Jen Kirby: [06-23] Afghanistan's staggering set of crises, explained: "Almost a year after Kabul's fall and the US's withdrawal, the economy remains in free fall, and the country faces a near-constant humanitarian disaster." Why do you think it was any better when the US military was ensconced in Kabul? Granted, it probably looked better to Americans, with their governmment pumping up a bubble around them, but if it was so great why did the people let the Taliban back in? Not unpredictably, US sore-loserdom has set in, with the US seizing Afghan assets abroad, and refusing to provide humanitarian aid for a crisis large of its own making. Continued US hostility also gives away any change at leverage that engagement might offer. This only plays into the hands of the most reactionary elements of the Taliban, who much like reactionary elements here are the least competent of all possible administrators. Of course, the US has played the sore-loser card many times before. North Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, Syria, and Iran are countries we once supposedly cared for but stand today as monuments to America's hurt vanity. One reason this has popped up again is that Afghanistan was hit by an earthquake last week, killing at least 1,000. See: Adam Weinstein: [06-24] Earthquake poses test of US resistance to the Taliban.

Rohan Montgomery: [06-26] The First Item on the G7 Agenda Should Be to Cancel the Global South's Debt: "The simplest way to fight global warming and injustice at the same time would be for the world's richest countries to end the vicious debt cycle that forces poor countries to exploit natural resources." Of course, it's not going to happen. The reason the G7 is the G7 is that they're happily collecting rent from the rest of the world. Also that most of the rent doesn't go to the governments, but to the moguls and oligarchs those governments serve. After WWII it became clear that Western Colonialism wouldn't be sustainable, so they came up with a new way to continue the exploitation without the political visibility. That was debt, which along with intellectual property rents keeps the Global South down.

Nicole Narea: [06-21] What Eric Greitens's "RINO hunting" ad means for the Missouri Senate race. Gross, gratuitous violence, sure, but isn't it weird when Greitens huffs: "Order your RINO Hunting Permit today!" Here he is, urging followers to commit crimes, but insisting that they need a permit first? And who exactly is issuing these permits?

Nicole Narea: [06-24] Congress passes a landmark gun control package: "Landmark" is a bit of a stretch, as it doesn't do much -- so little a handful of Republicans went along with it, perhaps confident after the Supreme Court's gun ruling this week that the courts will strip it down even further. On that angle, see [06-24] So is Bruen the reaso a few Republicans went along with a gun bill?

Jim Robbins/Thomas Fuller/Christine Chung: [06-15] Flooding Chaos in Yellowstone, a Sign of Crises to Come.

Jeffrey St Clair: [06-24] Roaming Charges: The Anal Stage of Constitutional Analysis.

Raymond Zhong: [06-24] Heat Waves Around the World Push People and Nations 'To the Edge'.

Daily Kos headlines:

• Charles Jay: [06-26] Gorsuch poised to accomplish his mother's mission of undermining the EPA in upcoming SCOTUS ruling.
• Lauren Sue: [06-26] Sarah Huckabee Sanders promises kids in womb will be 'as safe as they are in a classroom'.
• News Corpse: [06-26] The Crowd Goes Wild for Allegedly 'Misread' Comment Thanking Trump for 'Victory for White Life'.

I've started following Rick Perlstein's Twitter feed. Here's one highly a propos:

The rationalizations you'll be hearing right-wingers slinging for all the misery their ideas are about to loose on the world will be epic. More and more people will realize how surreal their mental world can be. The fever will not "break"; the fever is the whole enchilada.

I also follow Zachary Carter, whose book The Price of Peace is one of the best I've read in the last couple years, but I take exception to this:

Feels a lot like a crisis of inaction. Bad things keep happening and Biden can't or won't respond. Today's Roe repeal is the sort of thing that could be a political opportunity for Democrats, but the party has no plausible plan to do anything about it.

But aren't there several plausible plans in play: blue states are passing legislation codifying support for abortion rights, and offering sanctuaries; Congress could do the same if Democrats had slightly larger majorities; with larger majorities, the Supreme Court itself could be reformed (the subject of an op-ed by Jamelle Bouie: How to Discipline a Rogue Supreme Court. Sure, some Democratic plans in the past haven't worked out so well, like Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign, which was at least partially sold on the need to prevent the right-wing takeover of the Supreme Court.

There are other areas where Biden and the Democratic leadership are coming off as more inept, not least because they are conflicted. There is no good solution for inflation without also considering all other economic factors, including inequality and the environment, and sane people have serious disagreements about what to do when there. Also on the Ukraine War and many other foreign policy disasters, which are the end result of decades of bad policy and missed opportunities. The simple fact is that any time a Democrat gets elected president -- and that only seems to happen after a Republican has made a total botch of the world -- that Democrat is going to be hit with multiple crises that have been gestating over long periods of time, then hampered by not having the power or the good will to do what really needs to be done. Somehow Republicans get a free pass on blame, and new chances to fuck things up even more, knowing that Democrats will have to clean up their messes, and will be found wanting for doing so, which will kick off yet another cycle of rage and retribution.

The 2022 elections will ultimately come down to one question: do voters want the emotional satisfaction of punishing the Democrats for everything that's gone wrong, or will they wise up to the fact that Republicans have nothing constructive to offer, and that the only way to actually fix our problems is to give Democrats the power to do so? If the latter, of course, we'll have to keep a close eye on them, but at least we'll be dealing with people who recognize problems and are willing to reason about how best to solve them.

I've been reading Matthew Yglesias since he started blogging, at least up to the point when he went to Substack and started charging monthly (and also writing columns for Bloomberg, which for all I know probably has its own paywall). I sometimes wonder whether I should at least follow his Twitter feed, but sometimes a tweet like this leaks through:

I mean the obvious answer is that Hillary Clinton should have adopted more moderate positions on issues in 2016, allowing her to win slightly more votes and become president. That's the central failure of Democratic strategy over the past decade.

I'm hard pressed to recall what "more moderate position" she didn't adopt in 2016. As Jeet Heer noted, for VP she picked "a pro-life Catholic man like Tim Kaine." Was that meant to reassure us that she'd fight to the end to protect abortion rights? Besides, she did win "slightly more votes," but lost the election because she didn't win them where she most needed them. Folks who voted for Trump because they thought he's "fight for them" were foolish and stupid, but they got the body language right -- the mistake was in thinking Trump identified with them. But Hillary, despite all her sabre-rattling, was never going to "fight" for anyone. She was always going to bend over for the highest bidder. And thanks to our two-party system, she was all that stood between Trump and us.

One last tweet, from Barack Obama, hitting key points succinctly enough to be worth quoting:

Today, the Supreme Court not only reversed nearly 50 years of precedent, it relegated the most intensely personal decision someone can make to the whims of politicians and ideologues -- attacking the essential freedoms of millions of Americans.

One more thing: I'd like to quote a particularly good paragraph by No More Mr. Nice Blog, which starts with a quote from a Ross Douthat column I didn't think worth citing above:

I guess whenever liberals are doing anything more than sending money to organizations we hope will sustain our civil rights, that's "radicalization" in Douthat's eyes. Yes, we're angry, and we're in the streets. But why does Douthat believe the anti-abortion movement will need "durable majority support"? Universal background checks and an assault weapons ban have "durable majority support." Higher minimum wages have "durable majority support." Roe itself had "durable majority support." The right doesn't care. The right knows how to hold on to power without having any popular positions, and the right also knows how to gum up the works when it temporarily loses power so it will regain power quickly. The right doesn't need a popular stance on abortion, any more than it needs a popular stance in guns or wages. It just needs to cling to power by any means necessary.

Ever since Biden took office and the Democrats tied up the Senate, we've been seeing Republicans put on a master class in "clinging to power" and "gumming up the works" -- often with the help of self-hating Democrats and a mainstream media that keeps legitimizing Republicans no matter what they say or do.

The people on the right who are "hostile to synthesis, conciliation and majoritarian politics" aren't "forces," they're the entire right. Even the ones who drew the line at returning an unelected president to office believe that the right should do whatever it can get away with, national consensus be damned.

And (there's no point in me inserting the Douthat quotes, because you can imagine them already):

Stop snickering. He really believes this. He thinks it's actually possible that a movement almost monomaniacally devoted to punitive acts will do a 180 and empathetically expand aid to poor parents in the name of conservatism. . . . Yes, once again Douthat is digging in the dung pile of the contemporary right, convinced that there must be a compassionate-conservative pony in there somewhere.

He also quotes from that "NatCon Manifesto" (see Kathryn Joyce link above).

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Monday, June 20, 2022

June archive (in progress).

Music: Current count 38165 [38120] rated (+45), 93 [97] unrated (-4).

When I mentioned to my wife that I had written a "rant about reparations" yesterday, she visibly gulped. This morning she admitted "it was not as bad as I feared." See: Speaking of Which. When I wrote the piece, I wasn't aware (or didn't recall, or maybe I noticed but it just didn't sink in) that the State of California had a task force studying reparations, and that it had just [June 1] released an interim report. Otherwise, I would have included some links, like:

• Emmanuel Felton: [06-01] California calls for 'comprehensive reparations' for Black Americans.
• Taryn Lyna: [06-01] California task force suggests reparations in report detailing lasting harms of slavery.
• Maanvi Singh: [06-01] 'Atrocities in every sector': California's reparations panel details discrimination.

It seems very likely to me that a 500 pp report would contain a lot of information that should be better known, and that they would come up with a number of proposals that are worth considering in their own right, even if (like me) you are wary of trying to sell them as reparations. (Not that there aren't some people who buy into the "liberal guilt trip" logic they usually come off as, and certainly not to offend the people who really do feel guilty.) For instance, one apparently modest proposal is to end "voter approval for publicly funded 'low-rent housing.'"

One pet idea I have is to designate the poorest neighborhoods in major cities as "upgrade zones," where money would be offered to resident homeowners to improve their properties. Advisers would be provided to help owners plan their upgrades, and to negotiate fair prices with contractors, and review their work. The lender (probably city government) would receive a lien to cover the cost of upgrades, but the lien would be written off over 10-20 years, provided the original owner continues to occupy the house. Owners could choose to resell their houses, in which case the remaining lien would be paid off ahead of previous mortgages. Property tax assessments would also be frozen as long as the lien exists, but may be adjusted when the property is sold. This wouldn't help renters much, but could be combined with a program to help renters buy their houses, and thereby become eligible for upgrades.

Needless to say, a similar type of program could be offered more broadly for "green" upgrades, which is another case where helping individual homeowners helps the whole public. I've got a lot of ideas along these lines. If I was younger I'd consider opening a "think tank." Actually, 20+ years ago I had the idea of writing open source business plans, which other people could pick up and run with. (For an example on home automation, look here.)

I did write a bit about inflation yesterday, but more and more I'm convinced that what we're seeing is a self-induced oil panic -- the decision to blockade Russian oil after Putin invaded Ukraine is the pivot, but sanctions against Iran and Venezuela, and continuing conflict in Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Yemen also reduces supply -- compounded by monopolistic concentration, which gives companies great leeway to raise prices. In this context, raising interest rates if a blunt and misguided weapon. The one area where higher interest rates may help is in reducing the amount of profitable leverage available to speculators who are to some extent driving up prices. (If you think prices are going to rise, you can bet on that, and help make it happen. But higher interest rates make such bets more expensive and more risky -- especially with the Fed threatening to induce a depression.) I'm glad I'm not one of the economists who recommended that Jerome Powell be re-appointed "because he had learned his lesson." I've always said that Biden should have appointed someone who would look out for him.[*] (Obama made the same mistake with Bernanke, and Clinton with Greenspan.)

[*] I considered singling Larry Summers out, because I was so offended by a line asserting that Summers has been proven right in his prediction that Biden's early stimulus would be inflationary. Now I see that Summers is still peddling the discredited NAIRU theory, saying: "We need five years of unemployment above 5% to contain inflation -- in other words, we need two years of 7.5% unemployent or five years of 6% unemployment or one year of 10% unemployment." As Jeff Stein noted, what Summers is calling for is "devastating joblessness for millions of poor American workers." Zachary Carter added that this is "really bad economics." I miss George Brockway, who worked so hard to expose the intellectual and moral vacuity behind NAIRU (stands for Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment; Yglesias has a piece on NAIRU here; Brockway wrote about it in his collection of New Leader columns, Economists Can Be Bad for Your Health: Further Reflections on the Dismal Science).

At this point, the single most important thing Biden should be doing is impressing on Zelensky the need to end the war, and reassuring Putin that if a fair solution is arrived at, Russia can be more secure and engage world commerce without being plagued by sanctions. He also needs to start dealing honorably with the raft of countries that are currently on the US "shit list" (most likely to be joined soon by Colombia and Brazil[**]).

[**] As Ryan Grim tweeted, "The Colombian right conceded the election, acknowledged it was fair and represented the will of its people." Then he cited the reaction from Ron DeSantis: "The election in Colombia of a former narco-terrorist Marxist is troubling and disappointing. The spread of left-wing totalitarian ideology in the Western Hemisphere is a growing threat. Florida stands with Colombian Americans on the side of freedom." When are Americans going to understand that immigrants no longer get to dictate who wins in the countries they left? I'm especially sick and tired of Cubans, who were generously welcomed to America (despite the fact that some of them turned out to be Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio), holding American foreign policy hostage just to vent their spite. (Sure, one can say the same thing about East Europeans who came here and turned into political totems -- e.g., to pick a more recent example than Zbigniew Brzezinsi or Madeleine Albright, Ukrainian war hawk Alexander Vindman.)

Feeling better this week, if not about the world, at least in my little corner of it. The mini-split air conditioner in the bedroom appears to be truly fixed, which is good for a couple more hours of sleep most nights. These days, even trivial tasks like replacing a porch light or a toilet fill valve feel like accomplishments. Finally making some progress with sorting and storing. Even managed to get the "unrated" list below 100. I have little idea where those 93 LPs and CDs actually are (other than a pile of USAF CDs), but the search is on.

Didn't have too much trouble finding new records to play this week. The demo queue is pretty close to empty, aside from two Wadada Leo Smith boxes (12-CD total, enjoying Emerald Duets today). Dave Sumner's Bandcamp reports pointed me to a lot of interesting items, as did Christian Iszchak's consumer guide (Lalalar wasn't an instant hit, but I stuck with it). Auntie Flo and Shawneci Icecold seemed interesting enough to merit a bit of a dive, even though not much came out of it. I heard about the latter because he wrote in, and I felt like doing some due diligence. I suppose I should mention that the father of one of the Nova Twins is a virtual friend of my wife's. That may have put some pressure on me to get to the record early, but I also pegged their debut, Who Are the Girls, at A-, so it was only a matter of time.

I'm hoping to do a Q&A sometime this week, although I don't currently have a lot to chew on.

New records reviewed this week:

Chad Anderson: Mellifluous Excursions Vol. 1: Where You Been (2022, Mahakala Music): Drummer, has a previous solo album, with Zoh Amba (sax/flute), Warren Smith (vibes), and Barry Stephenson (bass), plus Ankhitek's sharp spoken word on two tracks. B+(***) [bc]

Auntie Flo & Sarathy Korwar: Shruti Dances (2022, Make Music): Former is Brian D'Souza, a British DJ/producer, originally from Goa, "known for taking World Music into the future." Discogs lists four previous records, possibly worth a deep dive. Korwar was born in the US, raised in India, based in London, a percussionist I've had my eye on -- his More Arriving was on my 2019 A-list. His tabla contrasts with the electronics ("meditative drones"), an intriguing synthesis but ultimately a bit thin. B+(**) [sp]

Yaya Bey: Remember Your North Star (2022, Big Dada): R&b singer, originally from Brooklyn, based in DC, second album, nice flow but gradually loses definition. B+(**) [sp]

Steve Davis: Bluesthetic (2022, Smoke Sessions): Mainstream trombonist, debut 1995, I should probably go back and check out his early albums on Criss Cross, but they are probably much like his recent batch. A compatible, distinguished group here: Peter Bernstein (guitar), Geoffrey Keezer (piano), Steve Nelson (vibes), Christian McBride (bass), and Willie Jones III (drums). Not so bluesy, but nice ballad ending. B+(*)

Tetel Di Babuya: Meet Tetel (2021 [2022], Arkadia): Singer from Brazil, also plays violin, actual name Marcela Venditti (or Marcela Sarudiansky -- the name used for the song credits). Mostly in English, with one cover (the closing "Someone to Watch Over Me"), although others (like "Willow Don't You Weep") are substantially familiar. B+(**) [cd]

Donkeyjazz: Play the Blues (2021, Singo): When Napster updated their web interface recently, they offered me a list of "popular jazz artists," headed by this outfit I had never heard of. (Followed by: Maureen, George Benson, Boney James, Fireboy DML, Soul II Soul, Kenny G, Gregory Porter, Nina Simone, Brian Culbertson, Herbie Hancock, Jean Turner; so 4 of 12 I've never heard of; 2 are legends with as many bad records as good; 1 perhaps could have been a legend but wasted it completely; 1 is a singer with some critical rep but nothing I like; 1 is a r&b group with 2 good records 1989-90 but has nothing since 1997; rest, as far as I know, are pop jazz hacks.) When this came up again, I figured WTF and clicked on it. I mean, there's lots of stuff I haven't heard of, and some of it might be worth hearing. But I was surprised to find that Discogs haven't heard of Monkeyjazz either, and shocked that Google has nothing on the album (not even the Napster link). Closest I came was a brief YouTube video ("Donkey Jazz - Freestyle rap/jazzy au piano"), but no vocals here, and the keyboard is vanishingly thin. By the way, Singo is a German company that provides a conduit to streaming platforms, and if you pay them enough they can impersonate a label. Presumably this placement is testimony to their ability to manipulate streaming platforms, because nothing else explains it. C

Binker Golding: (2021 [2022], Gearbox): British tenor saxophonist, best known for his Binker & Moses duo but has several albums on his own: this a quintet with guitar (Billy Adamson), piano (Sarah Tandy), bass and drums. I go up and down on this: an impressive player, has some terrific runs, but all seems a bit slick. B+(***) [sp]

Cameron Graves: Live From the Seven Spheres (2022, Mack Avenue): Keyboard player, two previous studio albums, member of collective West Coast Get Down, straddles jazz and whatever (website sez: "Classical, Rock and Hip-Hop"). B-

I Am [Isaiah Collier & Michael Shekwoaga Ode]: Beyond (2021 [2022], Division 81): Chicago-based sax and drums duo, also features "Sound Healer Therapist and Poet" Jimmy Chan on the 11:29 intro. That didn't engage me, nor did the spiritual searching, but a track toward the end, "Omniscient (Mycellum)," does get it on. B+(**) [bc]

Shawneci Icecold/Daniel Carter/Brandon Lopez: Toro (2021, Underground45): Pianist, seems to have a good deal more than the two albums listed on Discogs, and more hip-hop than jazz, but this (one track, 51:09) is free jazz, with bass (Lopez) and whatever Carter feels like (sounds like trumpet, not his main instrument, then alto sax, but no faster). B+(*) [sp]

Shawneci Icecold/Daniel Carter: Familiar Roads (2021, Underground45): Piano and sax duo, nice but doesn't push very hard. B [sp]

Shawneci Icecold & Fatlip: Carte Blanche (2021, Underground45, EP): Hip-hop, appears on streaming services but hard to find further information, but presumably the jazz pianist (above) does the beats (no evident piano). Rapper is probably Derrick Stewart, ex-Pharcyde, but I'm not sure of that. Five songs, 15:45. B+(*) [sp]

Shawneci Icecold & Rob Swift: For the Heads That Break (2022, Fat Beats, EP): Hip-hop, eight short pieces, 11:27, Swift (Robert Aguilar), who started in the 1990s in the X-Ecutioners, brings the turntable spin. B+(*) [sp]

Brian Jackson: This Is Brian Jackson (2022, BBE): Mostly known as the guy who wrote the music for Gil Scott-Heron (1971-80), has a couple albums of his own, as well as other collaborations, including a recent Jazz Is Dead. This is on a reissues label with a soft spot for 1970s jazz-funk (e.g., Roy Ayers), but is presumably new ("first solo album in over 20 years"). Still, doesn't sound new. B+(*)

Jones Jones: Just Justice (2020 [2022], ESP-Disk): Avant-sax trio with Larry Ochs (tenor/sopranino), Mark Dresser (bass), and Vladimir Tarasov (drums). Fourth group record, starting with sets in St. Petersburg and Amsterdam released in 2009. B+(***) [cd]

Kaleiido: Elements (2022, Exopac): Danish group, or duo: Anna Roemer (guitar) and Cecille Strange (sax), second (or third) album. Tranquil enough this could pass for ambient. B+(*)

Lalalar: Bi Cinnete Bakar (2022, Bongo Joe): Turkish group, generate an enticing but not especially distinctive grind. Title translated to "all it takes is a frenzy." Takes a while to grow on you, as it's less about the frenzy than the steady power, the relentless flow. A-

Brian Landrus: Red List (2021 [2022], Palmetto): Baritone saxophonist, also plays bass clarinet, various flutes. Dedicates this music to "the preservation of our endangered species," with several prominent examples on the cover. He recruited a large supporting cast, and his own leads flow impeccably. B+(***) [cd] [06-17]

George Lernis: Between Two Worlds (2021 [2022], Dunya): Drummer/percussionist, also santur, has at least one previous album. Title is a 5-part suite (24:38), plus three other pieces. Cover notes "Ft. John Patitucci," probably because he's better known than the more prominent musicians: Burcu Gulec (voice), Emiel De Jaegher (trumpet), and Mehmet Ali Sanlikol (piano/voice/oud). B+(*) [cd]

Linus + Nils Økland/Niels Van Heertum/Ingar Zach: Light as Never (2021 [2022], Aspen Edities): Folk-oriented jazz duo of Ruben Machtelinckx (guitar/baritone guitar/banjo) and Thomas Jillings (tenor sax/alto clarinet/synthesizer). debut 2014, later albums with guests, including 2017's Mono No Aware with this trio (hardanger fiddle, euphonium/trumpet, percussion). B+(*) [bc]

Kjetil Mulelid Trio: Who Do You Love the Most? (2021 [2022], Rune Grammofon): Norwegian pianist, based in Copenhagen, has two previous trio albums plus a solo; backed by Bjørn Marius Hegge (bass) and Andreas Skår Winther (drums). B+(**)

Nova Twins: Supernova (2022, 333 Wreckords Crew): British melting pot "bass-heavy duo fusing grime and punk," Amy Love and Georgia South, second album after several EPs. Drums and guitar give them some cred among metalheads, but the bass is a whole lot funkier, and they get up in your face. A-

Jessica Pavone/Lukas Koenig/Matt Mottel: Spam Likely (2019 [2022], 577): Viola/electronics, drums, keytar/3 string guitar (a "keytar" is a lightweight synthesizer on a strap like a guitar). Two pieces (the other is "Binge Listen"), improvs that start with an interesting sound and expand upon it. A-

André Rosinha Trio: Triskel (2022, Nischo): Portuguese bassist, third album, a trio with João Paulo Esteves da Silva (piano) and arcos Cavaleiro (drums). B+(**) [bc]

Felipe Salles/Zaccai Curtis/Avery Sharpe/Jonathan Barber: Tiyo's Songs of Life (2022, Tapestry): Compositions by Tiyo Attallah Salah-El (1932-2018), né David Riley Jones, fought in Korean War, returned to play saxophone, but wound up spending the last 50 years of his life in jail. Salles is a tenor saxophonist, was born in Brazil, came to US in 1995, teaches at U. Mass., has a half-dozen records. He arranged Salah-El's compositions, radiantly backed by piano, bass, and drums. A- [cd]

Satoyama: Sinking Islands (2021 [2022], Auand): Italian quartet, "deeply influenced by the north european jazz, contemporary classical music and world music," fourth album, members play trumpet (Luca Benedetto), guitar (Christian Russano), bass, and drums. B+(**) [bc]

Matthew Shipp Trio: World Construct (2021 [2022], ESP-Disk): Piano trio, with Michael Bisio (bass) and Newman Taylor Baker (drums). Shipp has recorded many albums like this, the third with this lineup for this label -- Trio albums with Bisio go back to 2009, with Baker to 2015 (before that, you mostly get William Parker and Whit Dickey). Rhythm has always been his strong suit, and you hear that most clearly when he picks up the pace. B+(***) [cd]

Josh Sinton/Tony Falco/Jed Wilson: Adumbrations (2021 [2022], Form Is Possibility): Leader plays baritone sax, alto flute, and bass clarinet; eighth album since 2011 (plus group work, like in Ideal Bread); backed with piano and drums. B+(***) [cd]

Torben Snekkestad/Søren Kjaergaard: Another Way of the Heart (2021 [2022], Trost): Former plays tenor/soprano sax, trumpet, and clarinet, duo with piano. B+(*) [bc]

Sprints: Manifesto (2021, Nice Swan, EP): Irish post-punk quartet, lead singer/songwriter Karla Chubb, backed by guitar-bass-drums. Four songs, 13:06. B+(*) [bc]

Sprints: A Modern Job (2022, Nice Swan, EP): Moves beyond punk with the spoken word opener, "How Does This Story Go?" -- the music, not the attitude. Title song reveals ambition: "I wish I had a life/ and I wish that this wasn't it." Five songs, 15:29. B+(***) [bc]

SSWAN [Jessica Ackerley/Patrick Shiroishi/Chris Williams/Luke Stewart/Jason Nazary]: Invisibility Is an Unnatural Disorder (2020 [2022], 577): A while back, I got a package of CDs on the 577 label that hadn't been released yet (4 of 5 I couldn't even find release dates for, and this one is still close to 3 months out, but the demo queue is damn near empty). This is about what I'd expect: three pieces (36:52) of medium tempo, medium noise avant tinkering. Principles play: guitar, sax, trumpet, bass, and drums. I especially like the way the guitar weaves in and out. B+(***) [cd] [09-02]

Gebhard Ullmann/Gerhard Gschlössl/Johannes Fink/Jan Leipnitz/Michael Haves: GULFH of Berlin (2018 [2021], ESP-Disk): First four -- tenor sax/bass clarinet, trombone/sousaphone, bass/cello, drums -- released a 2014 album called GULF of Berlin. In addition to his initial, Haves adds "live sound processing" (whatever that is). B+(**) [cd]

Devin Brahja Waldman & Hamid Drake: Mediumistic Methodology (2019 [2022], Astral Spirits): Alto sax/drums duo. Starts a little slow, but doesn't leave at that. B+(**) [bc]

Weakened Friends: Quitter (2021, Don Giovanni): Indie band from Portland, Maine; second album after a couple EPs, Sonia Sturino the singer/guitarist, with Annie Hoffman (bass/vocals) and Adam Hand (drums). B+(**)

Tommy Womack: I Thought I Was Fine (2021, Schoolkids): Singer-songwriter from Kentucky, based in Nashville, started in a band called Government Cheese, solo albums since 1998, surprises with a couple of covers here ("That Lucky Old Sun," "Miss Otis Regrets"). A straight rocker with some stories, including one about a minister buying ice cream, and another about Elvis. B+(***)

Eri Yamamoto/Chad Fowler/William Parker/Steve Hirsh: Sparks (2022, Mahakala Music): Japanese pianist, has had a close relationship with Parker (bass) since she moved to New York. Hirsh plays drums, with Fowler playing stritch and saxello, instruments which dial back his sound just enough to make clear how inventive he can be. A- [bc]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

Barney Wilen: Zodiac (1966 [2022], We Are Busy Bodies): French saxophonist (1937-96), backed by Karl Berger (vibes/piano), Jean-François Jenny Clark (bass), and Jacques Thollot (drums), plays 12 short pieces (one for each zodiac sign), intended as a soundtrack but the movie never got made. B

Old music:

Auntie Flo: Goan Highlife (2011, Huntleys & Palmers, EP): Brian D'Souza, originally from Goa -- a colonial enclave claimed by Portugal in 1510 that India invaded and annexed in 1961 -- moved to Glasgow, and eventually to London. This was his first record, two tracks, 12:44: Indian percussion/strings, chants, some electronics, the seed of a formula. B+(*) [sp]

Auntie Flo: Future Rhythm Machine (2021, Huntleys & Palmers): First legit album, eight tracks, 33:04, three with featured guests. Still seems to be dancing around the concept. B+(*) [sp]

Auntie Flo: Theory of Flo (2015, Huntleys & Palmers): Second album, features a singer named Anbuley on six (of 10) tracks. B+(*) [sp]

Auntie Flo: Radio Highlife (2018, Brownswood): Bigger album, more guests, many from Africa, although nothing that especially strikes me as classic highlife. B+(**) [sp]

Jakuzi: Hata Payi (2019, City Slang): Turkish synthpop band, second album. Not exactly Krautrock, but not far removed. B+(**)

Sarathy Korwar & Upaj Collective: Night Dreamer Direct-to-Disc Sessions (2019 [2020], Night Dreamer): London-based drummer, draws on Indian percussion, second album with this fluid group (5 members here -- sax, guitar, keyboards, violin, drums -- vs. 11 for their 2018 My East Is Your West). B+(***) [bc]

The United States Air Force Academy Band: The Falconaires: Sharing the Freedom (2010 [2011], self-released): Other name on the cover is "Lieutenant Colonel Larry H. Lang, Commander." Big band, playing standards with a few originals mixed in, with TSgt Crissy Saalborn taking three vocals. Her "Nature Boy" isn't bad, but all the TSgt- and MSgt- and SMSgt-prefixes gives me the creeps. Nor do I take comfort in that the USAF has worse ways of "sharing the freedom." B- [cd]

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

• Jones Jones: Just Justice (ESP-Disk) [06-18]
• Brian Landrus: Red List (Palmetto) [06-17]
• Matthew Shipp Trio: World Construct (ESP-Disk) [06-17]
• Wadada Leo Smith: The Emerald Duets (TUM, 5CD) [06-17]
• Wadada Leo Smith: String Quartets Nos. 1-12 (TUM, 7CD) [06-17]
• Gebhard Ullmann/Gerhard Gschlössl/Johannes Fink/Jan Leipnitz/Michael Haves: Gulfh of Berlin (ESP-Disk -21)
• WeFreeStrings: Love in the Form of Sacred Outrage (ESP-Disk) [06-17]

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