David Adler
A new chapter
Blogging these days is slow for many reasons, one being that I’ve accepted a position as adjunct lecturer in jazz history at the Aaron Copland School of Music, Queens College. My course begins August 30, and I’ve been hard at work preparing. Very hard at work. One consequence is the growing stack of new and unlistened-to CD releases near my
No place for racists?
As much as I applaud the NAACP for calling out rampant racism within the Tea Party movement, the problem is this. The NAACP’s rhetorical strategy is a delicate one; they don’t want to alienate masses of blue-collar whites who might be drawn to the Tea Party’s brand of (I would argue phony) libertarianism. So the NAACP instead insists that the
Socialist Worker on Atzmon: “The evidence for these serious charges is damning.”
Yes, it is. So it’s good to see the fringe lefties at Socialist Worker retract and apologize for publishing an interview with a Nazi sympathizer. The fact that they felt no need to vet Gilad Atzmon beforehand speaks volumes, however. “Critics of Israel,” no matter how virulent, have come to be given the benefit of the doubt on the radical
The week on disc (75)
In case you missed the last one… Barry Harris, Live in Rennes (Plus Loin) Kris Davis/Ingrid Laubrock/Tyshawn Sorey, Paradoxical Frog (Clean Feed) Azar Lawrence, Mystic Journey (Further More) Odean Pope, Odean’s List (In and Out) Peter Evans Quartet, Live in Lisbon (Clean Feed) José James & Jef Neve, For All We Know (Impulse!)
Mail bag
Just in case you thought the term “kike” went out of use in the ’50s: here is Ben C. Slocum, who signs off here from South Orange, New Jersey, and who wrote the following in my comments field: “Why all this hysteria over something as negligible as anti-Semitism. Jews are the richest and most privileged people in the world. Israel
Nels Cline in Philly
Missed him last night in New York, but … in the new Philadelphia Weekly: Nels Cline Singers Wed., July 7, 8pm. $15 ($12 advance). With Richard Crandell, Good for Cows. Johnny Brenda’s, 1201 N. Frankford Ave. 215.739.9684 www.arsnovaworkshop.org Long before he became Wilco’s lead guitarist in 2004, Nels Cline was already a leading West Coast avant-gardist, making dissonant garage-jazz with
On Herbie Hancock
My review of The Imagine Project, in Sunday’s Philadelphia Inquirer.
Yotam’s Resonance
This review appears in the July 2010 issue of All About Jazz-New York. — Yotam, Resonance (Jazz Legacy) By David R. Adler Israeli-born guitarist Yotam Silberstein has dropped his surname for performance purposes — he’s simply “Yotam” now. But the crisp and determined quality of his playing remains intact on Resonance, his third disc as a leader. All three outings