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On Herbie
My review of Herbie Hancock’s recent Carnegie Hall show, online at Jazz Times.
Greenwald misreads Obama
Some very smart liberal bloggers are up in arms about Obama’s perceived move to the center — perhaps with some justification, although Glenn Greenwald’s beef with the Obama patriotism speech borders on dishonest: [Obama] defended his own patriotism by impugning the patriotism of others, specifically those in what he described as the “the so-called counter-culture of the Sixties” for “attacking
Morocco reflections
Almost two years ago, a close friend enthusiastically recommended Paul Bowles’s 1955 novel The Spider’s House — set in Morocco during the struggle for independence from France — as a prescient commentary on Muslim attitudes toward the west (and vice versa), the quagmire in Iraq and so forth. Eager to read it on my recent return from Fes, I was
Video links
Finally got around to posting short YouTube vids from Istanbul, Suleimaniya and Dakar. Enjoy.
Six Picks: July 2008
My monthly list of recommended CDs, as published in All About Jazz-New York, July 2008: Kris Davis, Rye Eclipse (Fresh Sound New Talent) Guillermo Klein, Filtros (Sunnyside) Bennett Paster & Gregory Ryan, Grupo Yanqui Rides Again (Miles High) Mario Pavone, Trio Arc (Playscape) Wadada Leo Smith, Tabligh (Cuneiform) Miguel Zenon, Awake (Marsalis Music)
Letter from Morocco
My take on the Fes Festival in Morocco, in the current edition of the Forward.
Fire at will
So sayeth the Supreme Court. Dahlia Lithwick makes a great point at Slate. Justice Scalia wrote in his Boumediene dissent, concerning the habeas corpus rights of Guantanamo detainees, that “today’s decision will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed.” No such concern in the case of handguns, which kill more Americans in a year than terrorism has in the
“Playing Changes for Change”
Read my column on jazz and politics, in the July/August issue of Jazz Times, here [pdf].