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Khalidi’s two cents
Rashid Khalidi, disgracefully maligned by the McCain-Palin campaign two months ago, has his turn at bat, talking with Akiva Eldar of Haaretz.
The week on disc (33)
In case you missed the last one… Pete Rodríguez, El Alqiumista/The Alchemist (Conde Music) RIDD Quartet, Fiction Avalanche (Clean Feed) Mark Masters Ensemble, Farewell Walter Dewey Redman (Capri) Odean Pope, What Went Before Vol. 1 (Porter) Luis Perdomo, Pathways (Criss Cross) Nora McCarthy (with John di Martino), Circle Completing (ind.)
Last Knit
Of all the worthy sounds heard Tuesday night, the final night of jazz at the Knit, what stood out most was the slashing, furious freak-jazz of the DaHa Orchestra, short for Andrew D’Angelo and Curtis Hasselbring, both in fantastic form at the helm of a big band. With the unstoppable frenzied pinpoint assault of Jim Black on drums. If it
Brains at the UN
Having written favorably during the campaign about Obama foreign policy adviser Susan Rice, I wanted to express my delight over her appointment as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Just as John Bolton represented the worst that America had to offer the organization, Rice represents the best. John Nichols of The Nation says otherwise and is bashing Rice already — this
Not 9/11
Amitav Ghosh weighs in, on today’s NY Times op-ed page.
Face time with the culprits
Steve Coll has an amazing story about traveling in earthquake-stricken Kashmir on the pontoon boats of Lashkar-e-Taiba, which is very likely the force behind the Mumbai attacks. The question, Coll suggests, is whether Jamat-ud-Dawa, Lashkar’s “legitimate” charity arm, had advance knowledge as well.
Six Picks: December 2008
My monthly list of recommended CDs, as published in All About Jazz-New York, December 2008: Bad Touch, Like a Magic Kiss (ind.) Bill Carrothers, Home Row (Pirouet) Sean Conly, Re:Action (Clean Feed) James Moody/Hank Jones Quartet, Our Delight (IPO) William Parker Quartet, Petit Oiseau (Aum Fidelity) Angelica Sanchez, Life Between (Clean Feed)
Now that’s what I’m talking about
Given that William Dalrymple has told us the Mumbai attackers were “angry and well-educated, middle-class kids furious at the gross injustice they perceive being done to Muslims by Israel, the US, the UK and India in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan and Kashmir respectively,” it’s more than refreshing to see The Daily Show make the needed point: that perpetrators of appalling injustice