dev

1
Jun

Six Picks: June 2009

My monthly list of recommended CDs, as published in All About Jazz-New York, June 2009: Jack DeJohnette/John Patitucci/Danilo Perez, Music We Are (Golden Beams) Paul Giallorenzo, Get In to Go Out (482 Music) Michael Musillami Trio + 3, From Seeds (Playscape) The Naked Future, Gigantomachia (ESP-Disk) Jeremy Udden, Plainville (Fresh Sound New Talent) WHO Trio (Michel Wintsch/Gerry Hemingway/Baenz Oester), Less

Read more

28
May

“Drobkin”

“Old Jews Telling Jokes,” a new website, was just covered in New York magazine and I was astonished to find that members of my extended family, and old college friends of my parents, are among the featured performers. Including this man, Malcolm Busch, who hasn’t aged a day since I met him when I was a kid. Wait for the payoff:

27
May

On Rebecca Martin

My preview of Rebecca Martin at Joe’s Pub (May 31), in the current Time Out New York.

23
May

Cheney: Supreme Court deliberations support terror

Not in so many words. But reading Jeffrey Toobin’s New Yorker piece on Chief Justice Roberts, I paused after this: Last year, Roberts dissented from Kennedy’s opinion for a five-to-four Court in Boumediene v. Bush, which held that the Military Commissions Act of 2006 violated the rights of Guantanamo detainees. And then I thought of this remarkable statement from Dick

Read more

23
May

The day in bigotry

From this NYT story on Coloradans who don’t want Guantanamo detainees moved to a nearby federal supermax prison: “People here are good Christian conservatives,” said Tom Baron, who described himself as a struggling small-business man, co-owner with his wife, Marie, of Donuts and Dogs, a coffee shop. Mr. Baron said he thought that large numbers of Muslims — the family

Read more

22
May

PMP magazine

I have a jazz survey piece, somewhat out of date, in the annual Philadelphia Music Project magazine. Go here for “Jazz Horizons: A Diverse Lineage in Context.” If you access the entire magazine via pdf and scroll to page 38, you can also find my report on Philly book lectures by Ben Ratliff and Alex Ross.

20
May

On the Sun Ra Arkestra

In the current Philadelphia Weekly: Sun Ra ArkestraSun., May 24, 8pm. $10. Johnny Brenda’s, 1201 N. Frankford Ave. 215.739.9684 www.johnnybrendas.com Pianist, bandleader and self-proclaimed extraterrestrial Sun Ra (Herman Poole Blount) died in 1993, but he remains an “Afrofuturist” black culture icon whose influence always extended beyond avant-garde jazz. His example looms particularly large in Philadelphia, where he lived from 1968

Read more

20
May

On Adam Rudolph

My preview of Adam Rudolph’s Go: Organic Orchestra (Roulette, May 25), in the current Time Out New York.