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Best music writing/videos
Jason Gross of Perfect Sound Forever has a great music journalism roundup for 2005 here. [Via Artsjournal.com] And this page takes you to some incredible music videos (remember those?). [Via Phil DiPietro]
The duty to deliberate
Just finished three pretty intense days of jury service. My only previous one was a state trial in 1994, ending in acquittal. This was federal, ending in three guilty verdicts. One passage from the judge’s written charge to the jury stays in my mind: Each juror is entitled to his or her opinion, but you are required to exchange views
Slate props
Not to toot my horn, but there’s a very generous assessment of my recent jazz/hip-hop piece for Slate here.
Happy New Year
All best wishes for 2006. I kick off the year with jury duty. I’ll take this opportunity to post my top 10 live jazz shows (NYC) of 2005, as published in All About Jazz-New York: BRIAN BLADEJon Cowherd, Myron Walden, Melvin Butler, Chris Thomas, Mark GriffithJoe’s Pub, January 13th PAT METHENYLyle Mays, Steve Rodby, Cuong Vu, Antonio Sanchez, Gregoire Maret,
Rewarding genocide
Back after a break–the transit strike and the holidays slowed me down some. My feature on Chris Potter will be published shortly in Jazz Times. I’m currently finishing a piece on Andrew Hill, which has consumed most of my energy and attention. But I wanted to point readers to this piece by Eric Reeves in TNR. Turns out the African
War on Christmas footnote
I should add to my reflections here and here: This talk of a “war on Christmas” in the U.S. trivializes the all-too-real oppression of Christians in such places as Burma, China and North Korea. No one is preventing Christians in the U.S. from worshipping as they please. This country, I might add, is being (mis)governed by a born-again Christian. Likewise,
End-of-year music notes
–Records that didn’t make my 2005 end-of-year list and probably should have:Bill Frisell, East/West (Nonesuch)Vijay Iyer, Reimagining (Savoy Jazz)Miguel Zenon, Jibaro (Marsalis Music)John O’Gallagher, Line of Sight (Fresh Sound New Talent) –Four new albums that make use of strings in bristling, avant-garde ways:Assif Tsahar, Solitude (Hopscotch Records)David Murray, Waltz Again (Justin Time)Michel Lambert, Le Passant (rant)Taylor Ho Bynum, Other Stories
And again
My respondent Pat, from the comments: Obviously, you choose what you want to do. However, I would suggest that you reprioritize your time and energy on your blog and devote a far greater percentage of your time and energy to mobilizing people against the primary cause of the current violence, US occupation, and less of it to obsessing with the