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On Pat Metheny
I have the featured CD review — Pat Metheny’s Day Trip — in the March issue of Jazz Times. Leaving town now, back on February 15. But watch this space; I might be able to post while away.
Housekeeping and departure…
I’m leaving imminently for a brief trip to Dakar, Senegal, where I’ll be part of a press contingent learning about Youssou N’Dour’s micro-credit initiative called Birima. This is modeled of course on the Nobel Peace Prize-winning efforts of Muhammad Yunus of Bangladesh, whose concept of the “social business entrepreneur” is very much worth checking out. Yunus’s explanation of his Grameen
The week on disc (12)
In case you missed the last one… Matt Davis’s Aerial Photograph, Before the Stars Burn Out (Vandolah Sounds, 2006)Howard Alden & Ken Peplowski, Pow-Wow (Arbors)Mark O’Leary, On the Shore (Clean Feed) Herb Robertson NY Downtown Allstars, Real Aberration (Clean Feed) Paul Hanson, Frolic in the Land of Plenty (Abstract Logix) Ryan Blotnick, Music Needs You (Songlines)
Head scarf drama
Turkey’s parliament has lifted the ban on womens’ head scarves in universities, a politically fraught move that nonetheless should be welcomed. “Secular” protesters are taking to the streets with their flags and fervor, which is why I put “secular” in quotes — these folks are under the sway of a competing religion, Kemalism, the near-deification of Kemal Ataturk and the
You want “specifics”?
I am so tired of people, like James Wolcott, regurgitating the line that Hillary Clinton offers “specifics” while Obama offers none. Please. Go here to the “Issues” section of Obama’s website and you will find specific after specific on no fewer than 20 relevant policy categories. Wolcott sniffs: “… [Obama’s] summons to history and call to hope seems to transcend
Political bits, bytes cont’d.
~ A friend noted that I’d yet to offer my take on Ron Paul, so for the record: he’s an irrelevant kook with ties to the xenophobic paleo-right, and he’s stated that he doesn’t accept the theory of evolution. (Like others similarly ignorant of science, Paul seems to think that the word “theory” is synonymous with “wild guess.”) And yet
On Tim Berne’s Bloodcount
My piece on the reunion of Tim Berne’s Bloodcount, in the current Philadelphia Weekly.
The day after
You look at the Democratic electoral map and you see something incredible: a resounding “yes” vote for Obama’s message, stretching from Connecticut to Georgia to New Mexico to Idaho. Andrew Sullivan says it best: “…the race goes on and [Obama] may not ultimately win the nomination. But he will have won this campaign. And he will have won the argument.”