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Jazz Awards
Reminder: The JJA Jazz Awards are tomorrow. I’m up for Blog of the Year (thank you colleagues, readers). Incidentally, the Marsalises and Michelle Obama held a big jazz summit at the White House today. My colleague John Murph was there and should have a report up soon. Thought I’d link again to my recent Z Word piece on jazz and
“Grit”
Yeah, I’m bothered by gentrification and all, but I agree with Jody Rosen: The glorification of crime-ridden ’70s New York has gotten out of hand. Rosen slaps James Wolcott: Evoking the possibility of a “second go-round of the 70s” this time with “those spiky glass buildings that have gone up in recent years … reflecting our own overreaching folly back
Chavez’s loyalties
In case it’s still not clear to Sean Penn and his fellow far-left cultists that Hugo Chavez is a foe of democracy and an ally of police-state thugs the world over: The man has now offered his congratulations to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and railed against those who would “besmirch” his “great victory.”
The Gig
My good friend Nate Chinen has launched a new blog — a replacement of sorts for his now-defunct Jazz Times column. Must-read stuff there already, including an introductory post and some behind-the-scenes musings on his recent NYT Grizzly Bear feature.
Use It
My dear friend Andee Hinds, guitarist/songwriter/performer extraordinaire and helmsman of Black Sugar Transmission, has just released a new EP called Use It, featuring Vernon Reid and other serious guests. BST played a killing show last night at Arlene’s Grocery to celebrate the EP. Here’s a video on the making of Use It, followed by my personal BST favorite, “Nine Butterflies,”
More Muslim Voices blogging
Worthwhile reading from my colleagues Anastasia and Hussein.
Sufism the answer?
Soon after watching “A Thousand and One Voices,” Mahmoud Ben Mahmoud’s absorbing if somewhat somber documentary on Sufi music, I came upon this Foreign Policy piece by Ali Eteraz, on Pakistan’s effort to promote Sufism as a counterweight to Talibanism. (Hat tip Adam LeBor.) Eteraz hates the idea: It signals an increase in the politicization of Islam in Pakistan — if
Hate’s enablers
Much is being said, and correctly so, about the right’s subtle and not-so-subtle enabling of armed wackos like James von Brunn. But may I repeat something I noted the other day? Cynthia McKinney, the 2008 presidential candidate of the Green Party, recently appeared on a racist radio program called The Information Underground, and she did not blink when her interviewer