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On Terence Blanchard
My review of the Terence Blanchard-Spike Lee retrospective at the Kimmel Center, in today’s Inquirer.
South Africa: tide turning?
Since last I noted the disgrace of Thabo Mbeki continuing to shill for Robert Mugabe — and let’s face it, “quiet diplomacy” is a sham when your sole function is to take diplomatic pressure off your thuggish neighbor to the north — it seems the tide may have turned in South Africa. ANC officials are taking a different line from
Hillary’s glass house
Oh my goodness, of course, she’s just being helpful. By rehashing the GOP’s phony links between Obama and the Weather Underground, she’s just pointing out that Obama might be headed for trouble in the fall. So better to back-stab him now. That way, the road is clear for right-wingers to flog Hillary’s old ties to a Communist-run Berkeley law firm
IAJE in freefall
Having attended my share of annual IAJE conferences, and having published Willard Jenkins’s critical account of the Toronto confab in the latest issue of Jazz Notes, I’m obliged to note that the 2009 Seattle conference has been canceled. The IAJE is in a state of financial collapse and its recently canned director, Bill McFarlin, has turned out to be the
On Elliott Levin
My profile of saxophonist/flutist Elliott Levin, the front-page feature in the Magazine section of today’s Inquirer.
Live odds and ends
During a marvelous performance of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde (The Song of the Earth) by the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia on Sunday, I flipped through the program and was startled to find that the principal bassist’s name is Miles Davis. Last week I had the rare pleasure of a front-row seat for a performance of Helmut Lachenmann‘s Gran
Mbeki: “No crisis” in Zimbabwe
South African president Thabo Mbeki worsened his country’s AIDS crisis by clinging to scientifically discredited denialist theories; now he’s worsening Zimbabwe’s political crisis by engaging in denialism again. Robert Mugabe’s refusal to disclose the recent election results — and let’s call this by its proper name, electoral fraud — has been compounded by yet more state terrorism against the MDC
On Peter Nero
Peter Nero, conductor of the Philly Pops, played a jazz piano (sort of) concert at the Kimmel on Thursday — my review, in today’s Inquirer.