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Six Picks: May 2008
My monthly list of recommended CDs, as published in All About Jazz-New York, May 2008: Jon Balke, Book of Velocities (ECM) Rob Brown Ensemble, Crown Trunk Root Funk (Aum Fidelity) John Ellis, Dance Like There’s No Tomorrow (Hyena) Fieldwork, Door (Pi Recordings) Shot x Shot, Let Nature Square (High Two) Will Vinson, Promises (19/8)
Farrakhan factor
I want this Jeremiah Wright thing to go away, I really do. But Don Wycliff at Commonweal touches a nerve with this qualified defense. I don’t have time to address all of it so I’ll limit my response to the passage on Farrakhan: Nobody at the press club took Wright up on his invitation to name another person, black or
Hillary on O’Reilly
I’ll say it again: Jeremiah Wright is a crackpot, spewing a toxic mix of racial essentialism, conspiracy theory and recycled far-left nonsense. As Barack Obama correctly said, Wright has “a distorted view of America.” But my god, so does Bill O’Reilly. Like Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter and other propagandists of the rabid right, O’Reilly believes America under Bush to be
Obama responds…
…to Reverend Wright with an ironclad denunciation and impeccable moral force. Good. This was absolutely necessary.
CD reviews
I have some CD reviews in the May 2008 Jazz Times: Brian Blade Fellowship, Season of Changes (Verve) Andrew Rathbun, Affairs of State (SteepleChase) Uri Caine, The Classical Variations (Winter & Winter) The Quincy Jones ABC/Mercury Big Band Jazz Sessions (Mosaic)
Supreme Court: voter suppression a-ok!
About a week ago I attended the launch event for the Hip-Hop Team Vote campaign here in Philly. Spearheaded by Russell Simmons (see my cellphone pic at left), Ben Chavis and others, the campaign’s goal is not only to get young voters out to the polls, but to turn them into voting activists — registering their immediate and extended family
Back to life, back to reality
I’m back from a few days in Florida with an unreliable web connection, so I’m just getting the news about the passing of Jimmy Giuffre. Darcy has the best blog roundup, of course. Not sure if anyone else has mentioned it, but one of the least discussed items in the Giuffre/Bley/Swallow catalog is Fly Away Little Bird, recorded in 1992
Hillary on Iran
John Aravosis gets it right: So in the space of 12 hours, Hillary has twice suggested that she’d nuke Iran, but now her staff is saying that she didn’t mean to imply that she would. Maybe she’s just 60 years old and tired, like her husband said she was when she repeatedly lied about Bosnia for four months. So long