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On Tigran Hamasyan
My review of pianist Tigran Hamasyan at the Sunside club, in Paris, is now up at JazzTimes.com.
The Kiriakou file
The ABC News interview with former CIA interrogator John Kirikaou (transcript here and here) seems to sidestep what was reported two days ago in the NY Times: that Abu Zubaydah was giving vital information to the FBI before being tortured by the CIA. Kiriakou’s view, that waterboarding is wrong but it works, also obscures the fact that it isn’t just
Blind Boys/Dirty Dozen
My review of the Blind Boys of Alabama and Dirty Dozen Brass Band, a Sunday night double bill at the Kimmel Center, in today’s Inquirer.
Greater Surbiton
Marko Attila Hoare, a Balkan specialist whose views I greatly respect, recently launched a blog called Greater Surbiton. From his bio: I have been variously accused of being a neoconservative, Trotskyite and Croat nationalist and a supporter of Islamism and Western imperialism. Depending on how you define these terms, some or all of this may be accurate. I’m honored to
The week on disc (9)
In case you missed the last one… Carla Bley, The Lost Chords Find Paolo Fresu (Watt/ECM) Asaf Sirkis & the Inner Noise, The Song Within (SAM)Loren Stillman, Blind Date (Pirouet) Dena DeRose, Live at Jazz Standard, Volume One (MaxJazz) Tardo Hammer, Look Stop & Listen: The Music of Tadd Dameron (Sharp Nine)Alan Pasqua, The Antisocial Club (Cryptogramophone)
The JJA Top Tens
The Jazz Journalists Association presents its members’ annual Top Ten CD lists, including mine. I’ll be publishing more year-in-review comments on this blog in the coming days.
Erasing torture
Important detail in this NY Times piece on the CIA torture video coverup. The FBI got Abu Zubaydah to give up Khalid Shaikh Mohammed without using torture; then the CIA began torturing him and it’s far from clear that they got anything. Gov’t officials are cited saying: …Zubaydah, who had been taken to a secret location in Thailand, cooperated with
Stockhausen: a political postscript
I listened to a fair amount of Stockhausen while writing my recent Anthony Braxton feature [pdf]. Now that he has died, I want to vent on an obscure political detail likely to be left out of most of the obits. No, not the notorious 9/11 comment. I’m speaking of Cornelius Cardew’s 1974 essay Stockhausen Serves Imperialism, largely and very deservedly