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Six Picks: April 2007
My monthly list of recommended CDs, as published in All About Jazz-New York, April 2007: Ralph Alessi, Look (Between the Lines/Challenge) Bobby Broom, Song and Dance (Origin) Anat Fort, A Long Story (ECM) Alvin Fielder Trio, A Measure of Vision (Clean Feed) Russ Lossing/Mat Maneri/Mark Dresser, Metal Rat (Clean Feed) Kendrick Scott, The Source (World Culture)
On Pat Metheny & Brad Mehldau
Go here to read my Philadelphia Inquirer piece on guitarist Pat Metheny and pianist Brad Mehldau.
Ignorance on Atzmon
Gilad Atzmon, the UK-based saxophonist and antisemitic agitator, has once again succeeded in passing himself off as a progressive, appearing at a March 18 forum in Sweden at the invitation of that country’s Social Democratic Party. Ulf Carmesund, a party official, took the Swedish Committee Against Anti-Semitism to task for its condemnation of Atzmon: Gilad Atzmon is himself a Jew,
CD reviews
A small handful of my CD reviews are now online at Jazz Times: Loren Stillman’s Trio Alto Volume One (SteepleChase); a compilation from the Brooklyn Jazz Underground; Kayhan Kalhor & Erdal Erzincan’s The Wind (ECM); and Russell Gunn Plays Miles (HighNote).
Our hopeless war debate
Accompanying George Packer’s extraordinary piece in the print edition of last week’s New Yorker is a photo of an Iraqi man lying dead on a heap of trash, his hands tied behind his back with black cord. From the camera angle it isn’t clear whether the corpse still has a head. This chilling image encapsulates just about everything there is
Happy Newroz
The Kurds (and others) are celebrating Newroz, the new year. The LA Times has a nice photo essay here. I was in Iraqi Kurdistan exactly a year ago, during the holiday. Read here and here.
Gassing Muslims
From Kirk Semple’s March 18 report on al-Qaeda suicide bombings in Ramadi and Amiriya — not the first incidents in which the bombs were spiked with chlorine gas: Insurgents began combining explosives with chlorine gas and other chemicals in January in an effort to sow more fear and havoc among civilians, military officials say. Some local officials blamed militants linked
Remember Ward Connerly?
He made big headlines in the ’90s with his efforts to ban affirmative action, garnering high praise from Newt Gingrich and other rightists. Connerly is still at it — he was behind the deceptively named Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, a ballot proposal that passed in November 2006 but is now facing legal challenges. I’m late in noticing this, but it