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Six Picks: October 2008
My monthly list of recommended CDs, as published in All About Jazz-New York, October 2008: Bill Cole’s Untempered Ensemble, Proverbs for Sam (Boxholder) Lisle Ellis, Sucker Punch Requiem: An Homage to Jean-Michel Basquiat (Henceforth) Lee Konitz & Minsarah, Deep Lee (Enja) Rudresh Mahanthappa, Kinsmen (Pi) Michael Moore & Fred Hersch, This We Know (Palmetto) Adam Niewood, Epic Journey, Vols. I
Nader’s casual racism
In June, Ralph Nader accused Barack Obama of wanting to “talk white.” Last Friday on Bill Maher, Nader played the racial condescension card once again while making the (defensible) case against sending additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan and Pakistan’s tribal regions. Now, I’m really ashamed that someone from a third-world background like Barack Obama is so unbelievably insensitive about the history
Tomato, tomahto
Obama did fantastically well last night, in my view, but he could have busted McCain on calling the Iranian Revolutionary Guard “the Republican Guard,” which was Iraq’s elite force under Saddam. Obama repeated the mistake himself, in fact.
The current PW
In this week’s Philadelphia Weekly: a preview of Vocal Tracts, a night of experimental voice-oriented music; and a review of Charlie Haden’s Rambling Boy. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that from here forward, I’d be posting these PW items on a weekly basis. Well, funny story. Two days before my move back to New York, news came from
On Keith Jarrett
My review of Keith Jarrett, Gary Peacock and Jack DeJohnette at the Kimmel Center, in today’s Inquirer. Posting will be slow to nonexistent this week. I move back to New York on Wednesday.
The current PW
In this week’s Philadelphia Weekly: my review of Lafayette Gilchrist’s Soul Progressin’ (Hyena), and gig previews of Weasel Walter and Marc Ribot.
Amateur hour at Tikkun
Tikkun magazine, for which I interned in the early ’90s, has published an article by the pseudonymous Israel Shamir, a notorious antisemite and arguably a neo-Nazi. The subject is terrorism, Israel and Palestine. This is sad, because Tikkun originated as a sane voice on the left, dedicated to getting beyond crude and demagogic thinking on the Middle East. Now they