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Joe Zawinul passes
I’ll go out on a limb and say Miles Davis couldn’t have done it without him. On the occasion of Zawinul’s death from cancer at 75, I thought I’d relink to my October ’06 Jazz Times review of Forecast: Tomorrow, the recent three-disc Weather Report collection from Legacy. I saw Zawinul only once, with Weather Update, his retooled, ethereal, vamp-oriented,
Remembering
I wasn’t able to work this into my piece on the writings of Amitav Ghosh, but the following passage from his 1988 novel The Shadow Lines stopped me short. It’s not about 9/11, obviously. It’s a semifictional account of anti-Muslim communal violence in Calcutta in 1964. Parallel anti-Hindu riots erupted in Dhaka, East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) around the same time;
On Aesop Rock
My review of Aesop Rock’s show at the Starlight Ballroom in Philly, in today’s Inquirer.
Bin Laden speaks
A couple of things stand out, aside from the priceless shout-out to Noam Chomsky: You permitted Bush to complete his first term, and stranger still, chose him for a second term, which gave him a mandate from you — with your full knowledge and consent — to continue to murder our people in Iraq and Afghanistan. Then you claim to
Matthew Shipp Trio
An engaging Philadelphia performance last night by pianist Shipp, bassist Joe Morris and drummer Whit Dickey, the lineup heard on Shipp’s latest for Thirsty Ear, Piano Vortex. Thus began the fall season of the Ars Nova Workshop. ANW practically is the creative jazz scene in Philly. When the Jazz Awards ballot next circulates, Jazz Journalists Association members should keep ANW
Six Picks: September 2007
My monthly list of recommended CDs, as published in All About Jazz-New York, September 2007: Rob Brown Trio, Sounds (Clean Feed) Paquito D’Rivera Quintet, Funk Tango (Sunnyside) Charles Davis, Land of Dreams (Smalls) Jason Lindner Big Band, Live at the Jazz Gallery (Anzic) David Murray Black Saint Quartet, Sacred Ground (Justin Time) Jacques Schwarz-Bart, Soné Ka La (Emarcy)
On Amitav Ghosh
The Autumn 2007 edition of Democratiya is now available, and I’m proud to be in the Table of Contents along with Todd Gitlin, Jean Bethke Elshtain, Barry Rubin and others. My review of Amitav Ghosh’s Incendiary Circumstances: A Chronicle of the Turmoil of Our Times is here.
Marlon Simon’s Nagual Spirits
Two lively sets last night at Chris’s, here in Philly, by the Venezuela-born drummer and Latin jazz bandleader Marlon Simon, brother of piano phenom Edward. (The new Nagual Spirits album is Rumba A’ La Patato.) Renato Thoms was a juggernaut on congas. Good original tunes, but the highlight was a fast, Latinized reading of Bobby Watson’s “Fuller Love,” from the