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Free Aung San Suu Kyi
With Sean Penn and other celebs supporting a budding autocracy in Venezuela, it’s nice to see Jim Carrey making a dead-serious appeal for the freedom of Aung San Suu Kyi. [P.S. – Demonstrations have been flaring up in Rangoon in recent days. Take a moment to appreciate the incredible bravery of the Burmese opposition, whose members are being rounded up
Katrina, two years on
My friend and colleague Larry Blumenfeld has an informative piece in Salon.
The week on disc (2)
In case you missed the last one… Bruce Eisenbeil, Inner Constellation (NEMU): A 27-part free suite (just over 45 minutes), followed by three shorter pieces. Simpatico quintet featuring Nasheet Waits on drums and Aaron Ali Sheikh (curator of this important concert series) on alto. Eisenbeil sounds great on electric and acoustic guitars. James Carney, Green-Wood (Songlines): The graffiti-style cover graphic
The buck stops … where?
It’s an unfolding investigation, with many conclusions still to be drawn, but the implications of this story are absolutely huge. It’s about thoroughgoing corruption in the procurement of weapons for the Iraqi armed forces. We’ve already heard about how the U.S. “cannot fully account for about 110,000 AK-47 rifles, 90,000 pistols, 80 items of body armor, and 115,000 helmets reported
Black Sugar Transmission
Andee Hinds — singer, songwriter, guitar-shredder and not least of all, my good friend — has a new intiative he calls Black Sugar Transmission. It’s fist-pumping, melodic and highly destructive dance-rock, and there are some new tracks mastered by Greg Calbi up at the BST MySpace page. Have fun. More from Andee at Andee’s Vault.
An inconvenient massacre
It’s popular to beat up on the NYT’s Thomas Friedman, but he hits on something important in today’s column, “Swift-Boated By Bin Laden” (TimesSelect). His point: the Bush administration never hesitates to launch vicious p.r. attacks against Democrats but is curiously mute on Qaeda-inspired atrocities such as the anti-Yazidi attacks of August 14, which killed over 500 men, women and
The week live
Quick props to alto saxophonist Bobby Selvaggio, who came through Philly on Wednesday, August 22 in support of his new Playscape CD Unspoken Dialogue. The album features major players like Kenny Werner and Ben Street, none of whom were on hand at Chris’s Jazz Cafe. But the quintet was quite capable — particularly the trumpeter Paul Tynan, whose time feel
The week on disc (1)
At the risk of biting off more than I can chew, I’m going to start this little series to supplement my monthly Six Picks. The volume of music coming my way is just overwhelming — a lot really good, some extraordinary, too much of it getting filed away without comment. I figured it’s time to step up the level of