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Six Picks: July 2006
My monthly list of recommended CDs, as published in All About Jazz-New York, July 2006: Kris Davis, The Slightest Shift (Fresh Sound-New Talent) Frank Kimbrough, Play (Palmetto) Bennie Maupin, Penumbra (Cryptogramophone) Ursel Schlicht/Robert Dick, Photosphere (NEMU) Jamie Stewardson, Jhaptal (Fresh Sound-New Talent) Marcus Strickland, Twi-Life (Strick Muzik)
Whose national interest?
In the Sunday NY Times of July 2, the Council for the National Interest Foundation (CNI Foundation) ran a huge full-page ad abutting the editorial page. The headline: “America and Israel: A Troubling Alliance.” There are quotes from Pat Buchanan and others. The text calls for a two-state solution in Israel/Palestine and a fundamental reassessment of the U.S.-Israel alliance. CNI
Monk, Coltrane… Wilbur Ware
Interesting note about this new two-disc item, Thelonious Monk with John Coltrane: The Complete 1957 Riverside Recordings, which combines most of the music from two of my favorite discs: Monk’s Music (sextet with Coltrane and Coleman Hawkins) and Thelonious Monk with John Coltrane (quartet with just Coltrane). “Ruby, My Dear,” one of Monk’s best songs and one of the finest
Wayne Shorter
That’s me with tenor/soprano saxophonist Wayne Shorter, arguably the greatest American composer alive. We’re backstage at Carnegie Hall following the incredible Herbie Hancock concert last Friday, the JVC festival’s last blast. I was embarassed to pose for this, but my friend forced me. (Hey, if it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t have gotten backstage at all.) We also met Herbie,
MoMA
Spent a late afternoon/early evening at the newly renovated Museum of Modern Art — it’s free on Fridays from 4pm to 8pm, courtesy of Target (yeah, the superstore). Fantastic space. Galleries that go on and on. The fifth floor (early 20th-century painting) is my favorite. Three images stuck with me the most. Top: Paul Klee, “Around the Fish” (1926) Middle:
NYT “Swift” story — a footnote
Conservative radio host Melanie Morgan of San Francisco would have the NYT’s Bill Keller executed for printing the Swift terror-financing story: If he were to be tried and convicted of treason, yes, I would have no problem with him being sent to the gas chamber. It is about revealing classified secrets in the time of war. And the media has
Damned if you do…
Chaos as usual in Iraq — this from an NYT report on sectarian fighting north of Baghdad: Gun battles also broke out Wednesday in the market in central Baquba, as Shiite militiamen fought with Sunni Arab insurgents, according to a shopkeeper, Hassan Abdul Fattah, 25. The Shiite militiamen had distributed fliers in the morning warning Sunni storeowners to keep their
Halliday on the Rushdie affair
Speaking of politics as pure cynicism, there is an interesting summary of the Satanic Verses affair of 1989 in Fred Halliday’s indispensable little book 100 Myths About the Middle East. The Rushdie affair is Halliday’s Myth No. 97. The myth, more accurately speaking, is the notion that Rushdie committed “blasphemy” by any stretch. The Satanic Verses is complex, imaginative and