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Streamnotes (November 2017)

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Don't have time to count, but probably a large edge below for jazz over non-jazz releases, partly because I still get some jazz in the mail, partly because it's easier to find about about jazz things of likely interest, partly because I'm more confident of my views there. Good late run of free jazz albums, bringing my very much in progress Best Jazz Albums of 2017 A-list to a 73-49 edge over Best Non-Jazz Albums of 2017. I should caution you that order of both should shuffle a lot in the next couple weeks.


Most of these are short notes/reviews based on streaming records from Napster (formerly Rhapsody; other sources are noted in brackets). They are snap judgments, usually based on one or two plays, accumulated since my last post along these lines, back on October 31. Past reviews and more information are availablehere (10370 records).


Recent Releases

2 Chainz: Pretty Girls Like Trap Music (2017, Def Jam): A rapper from Georgia, Tauheed Epps, fifth big label album plus a dozen mixtapes, many of the latter playing off the Trap Music concept -- not sure how that fits in here, as this all bangs pretty hard. Runs long, too, but develops some appeal.B+(*)

Thomas Anderson: My Songs Are the House I Live In (2017, Out There): Singer-songwriter from Oklahoma, self-released a long-titled but marvelous debut in 1988 and has kept working at it -- ninth album in my databse, but there are probably more. He's clear enough I can follow the words, and smart enough I want to, and while this may not be his deepest set, the keyboard-heavy music sets it up so elegantly I want to keep working on it.A-

Nicole Atkins: Goodbye Rhonda Lee (2017, Single Lock): Singer-songwriter, fourth album since 2007, based in Nashville but no country influence I can detect. Cites the Brill Building as a prime influence, but don't hear that either.B

Rahsaan Barber: The Music in the Night (2017, Jazz Music City): Tenor saxophonist, based in Nashville, teaches at Tennessee State, has at least one previous album. Standards, some as smoothly honed as "Isn't She Lovely" and "The Girl From Ipanema," easy listening without being overly smooth. Backed by piano-bass-drums, guest guitar on two cuts, a Dara Tucker vocal that doesn't hurt, very pleasant stuff.B+(**) [cd]

Sam Bardfeld: The Great Enthusiasms (2017, BJU): Violinist, from New York, has a couple of previous albums, plays in Jazz Passengers, Roy Nathanson's Sotto Voce, and Bruce Springsteen's E-Street Band. Trio here with Kris Davis on piano and Michael Sarin on drums, pushing the beat every which way.B+(***) [bc]

Cheryl Bentyne: Rearrangements of Shadows: The Music of Stephen Sondheim (2017, ArtistShare): Jazz singer, best known for her long (since 1979) role in Manhattan Transfer, has more than a dozen solo albums (one in 1992, more regularly since 2003), many songbook exercises. Sondheim is probably the biggest name on Broadway not to have entered the Great American Songbook repertoire, partly because he came late to the party. Indeed, if the exception proves the rule, consider "Send in the Clowns": one of his earliest songs (1973), one that Count Basie couldn't swing and Sarah Vaughan couldn't sing, little improved yet it's the best thing here.B- [cd]

Big Thief: Masterpiece (2016, Saddle Creek): Brooklyn indie band, principally singer-guitarist Adrianne Lenker, who can slow the band down to a coo or layer on the noise in this debut album.B+(*)

Big Thief: Capacity (2017, Saddle Creek): Second album, Adrianne Lenker looking very un-rock-star-like on the cover, singing more heartfelt ballads inside.B+(**)

Björk: Utopia (2017, One Little Indian): Icelandic singer-songwriter, many albums since she left the Sugarcubes in 1992, huge star though she works in a unique niche -- folktronica, sources say, but really much weirder than that implies. Sprawling (71:38) album, daunting for non-fans but more listenable than most.B+(*)

Raoul Björkenheim Ecstasy: Doors of Perception (2017, Cuneiform): Finnish guitarist, group name comes from his 2014 album (stylized eCsTaSy), with Paul Lyytinen (saxophones, flute), Jori Huhtala (bass), and Markku Ounaskari (drums). Guitar mostly leads, taking command so thoroughly that the sax eventually reduces to shading, not that it started out that way.B+(***) [dl]

Brian Blade & the Fellowship Band: Body and Shadow (2017, Blue Note): Drummer, released Brian Blade Fellowship in 1998 and this is a 20th anniversary reunion, with Jon Cowherd (keybs), Myron Walden (alto sax), Melvin Butler (tenor sax), and Chris Thomas (bass) continuous members, with Dave Devine taking over the guitar slot. Densely, artfully layered postbop, doesn't move or engage much.B-

Robt Sarazin Blake: Recitative (2017, Same Room, 2CD): Singer-songwriter from Bellingham, Washington; started as Robert Blake, later went as Sarazin Blake, and seems to have settled on this moniker although Robert Sarazin Blake works for his Bandcamp pages. This seems far removed from his folk roots: while I'm often impressed by his wordplay (good examples are "Couples" and "Work"), I'm more so by the music, especially when the decidedly non-folkie saxophone wails.A-

Boneshaker: Thinking Out Loud (2017, Trost): Free sax trio: Mars Williams (reeds, toys), Kent Kessler (bass), Paal Nilssen-Love (drums). Third group album, seems to have mellowed a bit but then Williams reels off the most inspired broken field sax run I've heard all year.A- [bc]

Mihály Borbély Quartet: Be by Me Tonight/Gyere Hozzám Estére (2016, BMC): Hungerian clarinetist, a pleasant (and memorable) surprise for me shortly after I started writing Jazz CG in 2004 but I never ran across him since, until this. The leader also plays tarogato, alto sax, soprano sax, bass clarinet, tilinko, and supelka, Balász Horváth on bass, and István Baló on drums, and most importantly Áron Tálas on piano. Nice but less memorable. B+(**)

Geof Bradfield: Birdhoused (2017, Cellar Live): Tenor saxophonist, mainstream but he's always had an extra edge, leads a sextet here including Marquis Hill on trumpet, Joel Adams on trombone, and Nick Mazzarella on alto sax.B+(**) [bc]

Brand New: Science Fiction (2017, Procrastinate! Music Traitors): Rock band, from Long Island, cut four albums 2001-09, breaking up until 2014 when they returned to the studio and started work on this "fifth and final album." Not sure if disbandment is the result of frontman Jesse Lacey's "sexual misconduct" scandal or just that they're growing tired: this lumbers along with some artfulness, but left me empty.B

Peter Brötzmann/Steve Swell/Paal Nilssen-Love: Live in Tel Aviv (2016 [2017], Not Two): Sax (or clarinet)/trombone/drums, two long improv pieces, full of strife and churn as you might expect, doesn't strike me as favorably as the same trio's recent Live in Copenhagen, recorded six months earlier.B+(**)

Jonas Cambien/Adrian Myhr: Simiskina (2017, Clean Feed): Piano-bass duets, Cambien born in Belgium but based in Myhr's native Norway. Intimate chamber jazz feel, but not so simple.B+(*)

Carn Davidson 9: Murphy (2017, self-released): Large band from Toronto -- two trumpets, two trombones, three saxes, bass and drums -- led by William Carn (trombone) and Tara Davidson (alto sax), playing original material, some arrangements credited to other band members. Has some zip, with no one getting out of line.B [cd]

François Carrier/Michel Lambert: Out of Silence (2015 [2017], FMR): Canadians, alto sax-drums duets, long-time collaborators, working live in London, they must have a dozen of more/less equivalent albums by now, especially if you count the ones with a guest pianist. Still, they all sound great to me, the only way this is not exceptional.A- [cd]

Ernesto Cervini's Turboprop: Rev (2013-16 [2017], Anzic): Drummer, from Canada, has a couple previous albums including one from 2014 titled Turboprop. Sextet, with two saxophones (Tara Davidson and Joel Frahm), trombone (William Carn, who also contributes a song), piano, bass, and drums. Two originals push the peddle, the other pieces mostly from sources I don't recognize, with the Radiohead cover lost on me, but"Pennies From Heaven" is sweet indeed.B+(**) [cd]

Bill Charlap Trio: Uptown Downtown (2017, Impulse!): Mainstream pianist, has worked with trio partners Peter Washington (bass) and Kenny Washington (drums) since 1998 -- hard to ask for better ones, and their early albums were sparkling though it's been a while since I've been impressed.B+(**)

Corey Christiansen: Dusk (2015 [2017], Origin): guitarist, from and still based in utah, has a handful of records since 2008, nice metallic ring to his tone, claims to be exploring Americana here (all originals except for one trad.). mostly backed by bass-drums, adding keyboards and percussion for 3 (of 8) tracks.b+(*) [cd]

Anat Cohen Tentet: Happy Song (2016 [2017], Anzic): Israeli reed player, based in New York, found a niche on clarinet and is the reigning poll winner there. Ten musicians -- trumpet, trombone, baritone sax/bass clarinet, guitar, piano, vibes, bass, and drums -- plus Oded Lev-Ari as Musical Director, who also gets cover credit. Most impressive when they tap into old-time swing, even though they're none too smooth, or throw in a klezmer curveball.B+(***)

Richie Cole: Latin Lover (2017, RCP): Alto saxophonist, cut a record called Alto Madness in 1977 and played up the madman theme for many years, then seemed to disappear, but came back with a strong "Ballads and Love Songs" album in 2016. He doesn't go overboard on his Latin twist album -- guest castanets on one song but otherwise no extra percussion or specialists. Four originals (two with "Breeze" in the title), more standards than trad Latin pieces, but he has fun working on his tinge, and his alto is as lovely as ever.B+(***) [cd]

Michelle Coltrane: Awakening (2017, Blujazz): Singer, refers to John and Alice Coltrane as her parents but was born before they married, so birth father was probably Kenny "Pancho" Hagood, a jazz singer who started in Benny Carter's big band. Discogs credits her singing on a Gap Band album in the 1980s, and it looks like she had one previous album in 1996 as Miki Coltrane. Very capable singer, can't say that "Tin Man" strikes me as a worthy standard but she swings it and adds some Latin percussion. Good band, including brother Ravi and Lonnie Plaxico. Mother Alice gets a credit for a bit of spoken word.B+(**) [cd]

Miley Cyrus: Younger Now (2017, RCA): Sixth studio album, but started as a teen so she's still pretty young: 24. Still, she's sounding older, and more tinged with her country roots -- with or without godmother Dolly Parton singing along.B+(*)

Ori Dagan: Nathaniel: A Tribute to Nat King Cole (2017, Scat Cat): Jazz singer from Canada, Toronto I think, third album, wrote five songs loosely tied in with his subject. Voice is far off the mark, but at least his small group swing stays clear of the big band bombast of Gregory Porter's tribute. Also, Sheila Jordan guests on "Straighten Up and Fly Right."B [cd]

David's Angels: Traces (2016-17 [2017], Kopasetic): Swedish group, David is bassist Carlsson, the "Angels" three women: Sofie Norling (vocals), Maggi Olin (keyboards), and Michala Østergaard-Nielsen (drums), with Olin and Norling writing the majority of the music and lyrics. Third album, Ingrid Jensen adds some trumpet. B+(*) [cd]

Deer Tick: Vol. 1 (2017, Partisan): Dismissed by Christgau as "depressive and folk-leaning" in his rush to get to the simultaneously released Vol. 2, John McCauley's blend of Americana drawl and indie-rock is just a little flat, lacking more in energy than in interest, which is well crafted as always.B+(*)

Deer Tick: Vol. 2 (2017, Partisan): Tries harder to get your attention, starting with a crash of guitar and drums. Band stays loud, which sounds better but little (if any) more interesting.B+(*)

Marc Devine Trio: Inspiration (2017, ITI): Pianist, based in New York, first album, a trio with Hide Tanaka on bass and Fukushi Tainaka on drums -- his website's upcoming shows list includes quartets and quintets led by Tainaka. One original, standards include"Love Me Tender" and "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow" as well as bop standards by Hank Mobley, Hank Jones, and Bud Powell. Expertly, tastefully done.B+(***) [cd]

Die Enttäuschung: Lavaman (2017, Intakt): Translates as Disappointment, a German group, based in Berlin, first recorded in 1995, with Axel Dörner on trumpet, Rudi Mahall on bass clarinet, and a shifting cast at bass and drums -- currently Jan Roder and Michael Griener, plus new this time out Christof Thewes on trombone. All original material, although their roots as a Monk tribute band -- tapped by Alexander von Schlippenbach for Monk's Casino -- show through in their irrepressible bounce and quirk.A- [cd]

Jeff Dingler: In Transit (2017, self-released): Bassist, has at least one previous album, with Brad Shepik (guitar), Lou Rainone (piano), Gustin Rudolph (drums), plus extra percussion on 4/8 tracks. Shepik especially stands out.B+(**) [cd]

DKV Trio: Latitude 41.88 (2014 [2017], Not Two): Trio dates back to 1999: Hamid Drake (drums), Kent Kessler (bass), and Ken Vandermark (unspecified reeds). Eighth album together -- counting as one the 7-CD Past Present (2008-11) -- usually a bit rough and hyper but working in some especially eloquent stretches this time.A- [bc]

Matthieu Donarier/Santiago Quintans: Sun Dome (2017, Clean Feed): Duets, tenor sax/clarinet and electric guitar. Abstract textures, not enough reverb to count as drone, nor interesting enough.B-

Sinne Eeg: Dreams (2017, ArtistShare): Danish jazz singer, eight albums since 2003, wrote six (of ten) songs (all in English), favoring Cole Porter with two covers -- including an"Anything Goes" updated for the Trump era. First-rate band, working in Brooklyn: Joey Baron, Scott Colley, Jacob Christofferson, Larry Koonse.B+(**) [cd]

Christoph Erb/Jim Baker/Frank Rosaly: . . . Don't Buy Him a Parrot . . . (2014 [2017], Hatology): Swiss tenor saxophonist, also plays bass clarinet, a member of Manuel Menguis Gruppe 6 but most of his discography since 2011 has been with Chicago avant-gardists, including the pianist and drummer here.B+(***)

ExpEAR & Drew Gress: Vesper (2015 [2017], Kopasetic): Gress is a well-known, well-regarded, relatively mainstream bassist, and no doubt helps out here (he even contributes 4/9 songs), but bass tends to sink into the background, and he's no exception. Rather, what we have is a Swedish tenor sax-piano-drums trio (Henrik Frisk, Maggi Olin, Peter Nilsson), with Frisk and Olin splitting the other songs 3-2, and the sax sounding especially luscious.B+(***) [cd]

Lorenzo Feliciati: Elevator Man (2017, RareNoise): Mostly plays electric bass, sometimes fretless, but also takes one cut on acoustic and plays some guitar. Lineups vary song to song, with the faster, heavier fusion pieces holding up best, especially when Cuong Vu joins on trumpet.B+(**) [cdr]

Satoko Fujii Quartet: Live at Jazz Room Cortez (2016 [2017], Cortez Sound): With partner Natsuki Tamura on trumpet, Keisuka Ohta on violin, and Takashi Itani on drums. Some sections are so quiet I lose track and start wondering if my equipment (or other gear) is on the fritz. Both Ohta and Tamura also credited with voice -- another distraction. At least it ends strong.B [cd]

Satoko Fujii Orchestra New York: Fukushima (2016 [2017], Libra): Her most star-filled big band, all thirteen names I recognize on the back cover -- 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, 4 saxes, Nels Cline on guitar but no piano, the leader content to conduct -- but none especially stand out from the grooves. Perhaps the somber theme, which starts out too quiet and never quite raises the horror the piece commemorates.B+(**) [cd]

Lee Gamble: Mnestic Pressure (2017, Hyperdub): British DJ and electronica producer, half-dozen albums since 2009. Has a touch of industrial glitz, not much more.B+(*)

Howe Gelb: Future Standards (2016 [2017], Fire): Indie rocker, led Giant Sand from 1985 through 27 albums, started supplementing them with solo albums in 1991, 22 so far, and he's run a couple other bands. Plays cocktail piano and sings in a sly whisper, backed by three bass-drums pairs.B+(*)

Tee Grizzley: My Moment (2017, 300/Atlantic): Detroit rapper Terry Sanchez Wallace, father murdered, mother jailed for drugs, did time himself, first album. Opening freestyle needs work, but he tightens up with some beats.B+(*)

Jari Haapalainen Trio: Fusion Nation (2017, Moserobie): Drummer, born in Sweden, parents Finnish, based in Berlin; trio, with sax (Per "Texas" Johansson) and electric bass (Daniel Bingert), has three short albums (this one is 27:01) all with Fusion in the title. That doesn't quite pigeonhole them -- certainly no throwback to '70s fusion although they do evince a rockish fondness for noise and monster bass riffs.B+(**) [cd]

Taylor Haskins & Green Empire: The Point (2017, Recombination): Usually plays trumpet, but credit here is "Steiner/Crumar EVI" -- stands for Electronic Valve Instrument, a breath-controlled analog synthesizer originally developed in the late 1970s. Band adds pedal steel, acoustic guitar, bass, and drums for a pleasant groove with hints of Hawaiian.B+(*) [cd]

Alexander Hawkins-Elaine Mitchener Quartet: Uproot (2017, Intakt): English group, pianist Hawkins' trio with bass (neil Charles) and drums (Stephen Davis), plus vocalist Mitchener, who has an avant-garde stance that stretches the music out in odd directions, not necessarily making it more pleasing.B+(**) [cd]

Hear in Now [Mazz Swift/Tomeka Reid/Silvia Bolognesi]: Not Living in Fear (2012-14 [2017], International Anthem): Avant string trio: violin, cello, and double bass, respectively, with Dee Alexander singing the title track (Swift also credited with "voice").B+(**)

Vincent Herring: Hard Times (2017, Smoke Sessions): Alto/soprano saxophonist, twenty-plus albums since 1989, multiple side credits with Nat Adderley, Cedar Walton, and John Hicks. Has a quartet here with Cyrus Chestnut, Yasushi Nakamura, and Carl Allen, but adds a lot of guest slots: 3 cuts each for Nicolas Bearde (vocals) and Russell Malone (guitar), more for Steve Turre (trombone), Brad Mason (trumpet), and Sam Dillon (tenor sax).B+(*)

Dre Hocevar: Surface of Inscription (2016 [2017], Clean Feed): Drummer, from Slovenia, several albums, this one strikes me as especially scattered, with piano/voice/electronics/bass/reeds in the credits, yet more often than not they barely break the noise threshold.B-

Adam Hopkins: Party Pack Ice (2015 [2017], pfMENTUM EP): Bassist, from Baltimore, based in Brooklyn, nothing previous under his own name -- indeed, neither cover nor website suggest this is anything other than an eponymous group album, but I first ran across him in Quartet Offensive, and he's played on at least one Ideal Bread album, also with Kate Gentile and Patrick Breiner (one of two saxophonists here; the other is Eric Trudel). Also with guitar (Dustin Carlson) and drums (Nathan Ellman-Bell). But he does compose here, and the publicist thinks this is his album. Seven short but dense/heavy pieces, 24:24.B+(*) [cdr]

Kasai Allstars & Orchestre Symphonique Kimbanguiste: Around Félicité (2017, Crammed Discs): Kinshasa group, has an album in the label's Congotronics series although here they focus more on group singing than on junkyard percussion. But this doubles as a soundtrack, with three Arvo-Part-penned tracks switch over to the Orchestre, totally breaking the intensity and flow.B+(**) [bc]

Kasai Allstars: Félicité Remixes (2017, Crammed Discs): Bonus CD to above but appears as a separate thing for download. The remixes dub in their own distractions, with only a couple cuts showing off the source Congatronics, but at least their are no neoclassical interludes.B+(*)

Kelela: Take Me Apart (2017, Warp): Last name Mizanekristos, born in DC, parents immigrated from Ethiopia, first album but a previous mixtape and EP were well-regarded enough to come to my attention. Soul, the sort of easy-beat warbly keybs in fashion lately, more befitting a singer who skipped gospel to start out in jazz and moonlight with a prog metal band.B+(**)

Jon Langford: Jon Langford's Four Lost Souls (2017, Bloodshot): The once-and-future Mekon, long based in Chicago, went to Alabama and cut this glimpse of the apocalypse the day after the Trump election, a bit unsettled and unsure, except of where their musical roots lie.B+(***)

Large Unit: Fluku (2016 [2017], PNL): Drummer Paal Nilssen-Love's 13-piece band: three reeds, three brass (including tuba), guitar, electronics, doubling up at bass (both electric and double) and drums, plus a credit for "live sound." The long title cut builds on a long rhythmic vamp with all sorts of exciting chaos. Still, they hold your interest when they slow it down for disassembly, probably because you anticipate that it will come together in wonder again . . . as it does.A- [bc]

The Billy Lester Trio: Italy 2016 (2016 [2017], Ultra Sound): Piano trio recorded in Italy with Marcello Testa on bass and Nicola Stranieri on drums. All original pieces, nice show of contemporary postbop.B+(*) [cd]

Harold Mabern: To Love and Be Loved (2017, Smoke Sessions): Pianist from Memphis, first album 1968. One solo track, the rest with Eric Alexander (tenor sax), Nat Reeves (bass), and Jimmy Cobb (drums), plus trumpet (Freddie Hendrix) on three tracks, percussion (Cyro Baptista) on one. I expected something less frenzied for a postbopper in his 80s, and the early sax takes it easy, but the trumpet pushes everyone over the top, and they seem to prefer it like that.B+(*)

Made to Break: Trebuchet (2017, Trost): Ken Vandermark quartet, eighth album since 2013 although half of the personnel has changed, employing Jasper Stadhouders (electric bass) and Christof Kurzmann (electronics) at least since 2015. Three pieces, Vandermark typically awesome, the sound mix around him full of nice surprises.A- [bc]

Markley & Balmer: Standards & Covers (2017, Soona Songs): Lisa Markley and Bruce Balmer, she sings, both play guitar, and despite the title write some extra lyrics -- reworking, for instance, "Lennie's Pennies" into "Hundred in a Dollar.""Lush Life" and "Caravan" are most familiar, nicely done.B+(*) [cd]

Delfeayo Marsalis: Kalamazoo (2015 [2017], Troubadour Jass): Cover reads "An Evening With Delfeayo Marsalis" before the title, so that can be parsed variously. The family's trombonist, leading his quartet (including papa Ellis on piano), recorded live at Western Michigan University. Warm New Orleans vibe, trombone sounds special.B+(**) [cd]

Roy McGrath: Remembranzas (2017, JL Music): Saxophonist, backed by piano, bass, drums, and lots of congas, starting off with a spoken word about immigration, then plunging deep into the Latin tinge. Lots of print on the package, but nearly impossible to read (mostly white on light gray). [CD crapped out near the end, but I figured I had heard enough.]B [cd]

Joe McPhee/Damon Smith/Alvin Fielder: Six Situations (2016 [2017], Not Two): Tenor sax, bass, and drums, recorded live at Roulette in New York City. Unreconstructed free jazz, some remarkable passages where McPhee seems to be accompanying himself with rumble patterns breaking into flights.B+(***)

Lisa Mezzacappa: Glorious Ravage (2017, New World): Bassist, based in San Francisco, has a couple previous albums, leads a large cast here (15 names on back cover, but not clear whether they're all regulars -- the most obvious one is vocalist Fay Victor, who has some trouble navigating the tricky music.B+(*) [cd]

Lorrie Morgan/Pam Tillis: Come See Me & Come Lonely (2017, Goldenlane): Sixteenth album for Loretta Lynn Morgan, starting in 1989 and including one previous duet album with the late Mel Tillis' little girl, two years later with ten albums of her own, one in 1983 and the rest since 1991. All covers, starting with one from K.T. Oslin, some as well known as "Tennessee Waltz" and "The End of the World," unexpected males joining in on a creepy "Summer Wine."B+(**)

Kyle Motl Trio: Panjandrums (2016 [2017], Metatrope): Bassist from San Diego, leading a trio with Tobin Chodos on piano and Kjell Nordeson on bass. Strong, risky piano work, following a solo bass album that rated nearly as high.B+(***) [cd]

The National: Sleep Well Beast (2017, 4AD): Debut album in 2001, seventh overall, singer-lyricst Matt Berenger has a great voice for indie rock, especially when composer-brothers Aaron and Bryce Dessner keep the beats fluid and piquant.B+(***)

Paal Nilssen-Love/Frode Gjerstad: Nearby Faraway (2016 [2017], PNL): Drums-sax duets, the latter playing alto and tenor, also Bb and contrabass clarinet. The drummer has a lot of albums with avant saxophonists. He's very responsive here, and Gjerstad gives him quite a workout.B+(***) [bc]

Pan-Scan Ensemble: Air and Light and Time and Space (2016 [2017], Hispid/PNL): Nine-piece group from Norway, "brass heavy" (three saxophonists I recognize -- Lotte Anker, Anna Högberg, Julie Kjaer -- and three trumpeters I don't), Sten Sandell on piano, two drummers (Paal Nilssen-Love and Ståle Liavik Solberg). Two improv pieces add up to 45:55, a striking free-for-all that retains interest when they separate and stalk one another. B+(**) [bc]

Diana Panton: Solstice/Equinox (2017, self-released): Canadian jazz singer, eighth album, has a couple JUNO Awards, a small and rather cute voice, runs through thirteen songs. Nice band, with Guido Basso on trumpets, Phil Dwyer on saxophones, and Reg Schwager on guitar, but no drummer.B+(*) [cd]

The Paranoid Style: Underworld USA (2017, Bar/None, EP): Principally Elizabeth Nelson, following up her one full-length album with a second (or third) EP, this one six songs, 17:17, with a catchy, single-worthy closer ("Revision of Love") and other snappy songs that have yet to sink in, maybe because I keep thinking "Hawk vs. Prez" should be about jazz.B+(***)

Evan Parker & RGG: Live @ Alchemia (2016 [2017], Fundacja Sluchaj): British free jazz titan, just playing tenor sax this time out, in an improv Krakow set with a Polish trio: Lukasz Ojdana (piano), Maciej Garbowski (bass), Krzysztof Gradziuk (drums). Still, doesn't feel like a pickup band deal. The piano leads and comping are always interesting, and the drummer pays close attention, accenting everywhere. Parker, too, is always on point.A- [bc]

William Parker Quartets: Meditation/Resurrection (2016 [2017], AUM Fidelity, 2CD): The bassist has run two quartet configurations over many years: his freewheeling two-horn Quartet with Rob Brown (alto sax) and Lewis Barnes (trumpet), the latter replaced here by Jalalu-Kalvert Nelson, and the group In Order to Survive with Brown and pianist Cooper-Moore -- both groups with Hamid Drake on drums. One full disc of each here, and while the new trumpet player doesn't match the old one, Cooper-Moore is as breathtaking as ever.A- [dl]

Pere Ubu: 20 Years in a Montana Missile Silo (2017, Cherry Red): Originally from Akron, one of my favorite bands of the late 1970s, in business ever since with singer David Thomas essential for continuity, but while none of the original musicians appear here, I often find the guitar reminding me of The Modern Dance, not to mention the drums.A-

Ivo Perelman/Matthew Shipp: Live in Brussels (2016 [2017], Leo, 2CD): Tenor sax-piano duets, in case you're not sated after seven volumes of The Art of Perelman-Shipp earlier this year. Seems a little sketchy at first, but there are stretches where they click (as usual).B+(**)

Frank Perowsky Jazz Orchestra: Gowanus (2017, Jazzkey): Saxophonist and clarinetist, leads a big band, doesn't list himself among the saxophonists but front and back covers show him with a clarinet. Produced by drummer Ben Perowsky. Recorded in Brooklyn, lots of household names in the band. Four originals, rooted in swing and bop, covering Ellington and Powell with an Ira Hawkins vocal extolling "the Basie sound."B+(*) [cd]

Pink: Beautiful Trauma (2017, RCA): Alecia Moore, from near Philadelphia, Broke through as a punkish pop star just out of her teens, like a generation ago. In 2010 she titled her best-ofGreatest Hits . . . So Far! -- usually the kiss of death for a career, but her 2012 album was solid (some thought better, with world sales pegged at 7 million) and this one only tails off in an overly dramatic finale.B+(**)

Gregory Porter: Nat "King" Cole & Me (2017, Blue Note): Jazz singer, vastly overrated I think, but comes closer to Cole than I expected, a little stuffy but not really the problem. The "core band" (Christian Sands, Reuben Rogers, Ulysses Owens) is probably OK, too, but hard to tell with the London Studio Orchestra slugging out Vince Mendoza's over-the-top arrangements. Still, Porter can't be excused for the one new song he wrote.C+

Lee Ranaldo: Electric Trim (2017, Mute): Sonic Youth founder-guitarist, side projects go back to 1987 but took on a more serious air once the group disbanded, inhabiting an echo of the legend without really being able to flesh it out. Some lyrics by novelist-fan Jonathan Lethem. Guest spot for Sharon Van Etten.B+(*)

Re-TROS: Before the Applause (2017, Modern Sky Entertainment): Chinese rock group, "underground" but how would we know? Some vocals (even some in English), but rhythm tracks predominate, some quasi-industrial, some new wave danceable, some sound like Pulnoc fortified by a Kinshasa junkyard, which is to say really amazing.A-

Jamie Reynolds: Grey Mirror (2015 [2017], Fresh Sound New Talent): Pianist, from Toronto, based in New York, seems to be his first album. Features guitarist Matthew Stevens, with Orlando LeFleming on bass, Eric Doob on drums, and the Westerlies (a trumpet-trombone quartet) on five tracks. Not sure that the latter is a plus -- they certainly change the group's chemistry.B+(**)

Whitney Rose: Rule 62 (2017, Six Shooter): Country singer from Prince Edward Island, cut two albums on a Toronto label, then turned some heads with the EP South Texas Suite early this year. Follows that up here with a third album. Terrific sound and voice, but I can't say the songs stick with you.B+(**)

Daniel Rosenthal: Music in the Room (2016 [2017], American Melody): Trumpet player, based in Boston, teaching at Berklee, has recorded as part of the Rosenthals with his bluegrass-oriented father, in the Sommers Rosenthal Family Band, and in Either/Orchestra, with a previous album under his own name in 2001. Group here adds two saxophones, bass, and drums, for some fairly standard postbop.B+(*) [cd]

Rostam: Half-Light (2017, Nonesuch): Last name Batmanglij, born in DC, parents immigrated from Iran, first solo album after ten years with Vampire Weekend (all three major albums) and a couple side projects. Plays pretty much everything here -- fourteen side credits, but only the cellist on more than one track (4). Finds his own groove, sound a bit off for me, but could be beguiling.B+(**)

Roswell Rudd/Fay Victor/Lafayette Harris/Ken Filiano:Embrace (2017, RareNoise): Trombone-piano-bass trio plus singer, one of the most distinctive ones working today if not always one of the easiest to listen to. In some ways this recalls Rudd's mid-1970s work with Sheila Jordan -- less swing, the pianist a bit more ornate. Victor is especially striking on songs that don't tempt her to scat or vocalise, like "Can't We Be Friends" and "House of the Rising Sun," but she's pretty impressive traipsing over Mingus and Monk. The trombone isn't exactly lovely, but so full of soul it can't be the work of anyone else.A- [cdr]

Adam Rudolph: Morphic Resonances (2017, M.O.D. Technologies): Percussionist, has recorded extensively since 1992, featured mostly as a composer here, with seven pieces divvied up between five groups -- the Momenta String Quartet gets the first two, totalling 26:30, which I find unpleasantly arch, while a flute-guitar duo (Kaoru Watanabe and Marco Cappelli) get two shorter pieces. My favorite by far is the Odense Percussion Group.B+(*) [cd]

Romeo Santos: Golden (2017, Sony Latin): Born in the Bronx, father Dominican, mother Puerto Rican, led the bachata band Aventura (which sold out Yankee Stadium for a concert) before going solo. Third album, mostly in Spanish, got some beat to it.B+(*)

A. Savage: Thawing Dawn (2017, Dull Tools): First name Andrew, singer-guitarist for Parquet Courts taking a solo flyer, stripped down, only hinting at his band sound on the final track, then pulling back.B+(*)

Schnellertollermeier: Rights (2016 [2017], Cuneiform): Quasi-industrial postrock trio, the group name a mashup of member names Andi Schnellmann (bass), Manuel Toller (guitar), and David Meier (drums). Grind impressive at first but doesn't go all that far.B+(*) [dl]

Brandon Seabrook: Die Trommel Fatale (2016 [2017], New Atlantis): Guitarist, based in Brooklyn, tends toward noise but stretches that out some here, the sextet including Chuck Bettis'"throat/electronics," cello, bass, and two drummers. [7/10 cuts]B+(**) [bc]

Sheer Mag: Need to Feel Your Love (2017, Static Shock): Philadelphia rockers, got noticed for three 7-inch EPs (since collected as Compilation) before releasing this debut album. Singer Tina Halliday has a harsh bark, not quite a shriek, and the guitar-bass riffs are solid and tuneworthy.B+(**)

Shelter: Shelter (2016 [2017], Audiographic): Yet another Ken Vandermark group, a quartet, although he only has a 3-2-2-2 composition edge over Nate Wooley (trumpet), Jasper Stadhouders (electric bass and guitar), and Steve Heather (drums and crackle box).B+(***) [bc]

Blake Shelton: Texoma Shore (2017, Warner Brothers Nashville): Big Nashville star with a TV gig I've never seen but most likely why People named him "sexiest man alive." Has a fine country voice, picks down-to-earth songs (only one co-credit here).B+(*)

Idit Shner: 9 Short Stories (2017, OA2): Alto saxophonist, also play soprano, not sure where (or when) she was born, but she studied in Oklahoma City, and is based in Oregon. Backed by piano-bass-drums, all originals except for "Passion Flower," bright postbop.B+(**) [cd]

Paula Shocron/Germán Lamonega/Pablo Diaz: Tensegridad (2016 [2017], Hatology): Piano-bass-drums trio, three joint credits, two for Shocron, one each for the others, plus covers of Mal Waldron and Charles Tolliver. Strong, favoring dense chords over noodling.B+(**)

Jen Shyu: Song of Silver Geese (2016 [2017], Pi): Singer, dancer, multi-instrumentalist (credits here: Taiwanese moon lute, Korean gayageum, piano), born in Illinois, parents immigrated from Taiwan and East Timor, graduated from Stanford ("in opera with classical violin and ballet training"), fourth album, band (Jade Tongue: vibes, flutes, viola, bass, drums, percussion -- all well-known NY names) named for her first, joined here by Mivos Quartet (strings). Music evidently written for a ballet, choreographed by Satoshi Haga. I imagine the total performance to be mesmerizing, but as a record I find it alternately arch and quaint, classical motifs with bent Asian notes -- not my thing, I guess.B+(*) [cd]

Slow Is Possible: Moonwatchers (2016 [2017], Clean Feed): Portuguese group, second album after eponymous effort in 2015: André Pontifice (cello), Bruno Figuera (alto sax), Duane Fonseca (drums), João Clemente (electric guitar/electronics), Nuno Santos Dias (piano), Ricardo Sousa (double bass). B+(*)

Martial Solal & Dave Liebman: Masters in Bordeaux (2016 [2017], Sunnyside): Duets, the French pianist nearly 90 at the time, Liebman playing soprano and tenor saxophones. Six standards, with Miles Davis a common bond, the pianist fascinating, Liebman listening and contributing with great care.B+(***)

Vinnie Sperrazza Apocryphal: Hide Ye Idols (2015 [2017], Loyal Label): Drummer, called his 2014 album Apocryphal and thought that would make a good group name. Quartet with Loren Stillman (alto sax), Brandon Seabrook (guitar), and Eivind Opsvik (bass). I'm not used to Seabrook playing inside the band without his customary cloud of noise, but he fits nicely with Stillman's sweet tone.B+(**)

St. Vincent: Masseduction (2017, Loma Vista): Canadian Annie Clark's fifth (or sixth) album, her bestseller and evidently a critical favorite -- I'd guess top-five in year-end polls but little chance of topping Kendrick Lamar, for starters. A bit arch and arty for my tastes, but always interesting, never more so than here, where half the songs quickly click, and more welcome should I ever give it more than the three spins I've logged. Title song pronounces it "mass seduction" and pairs it with "mass destruction": she has a point, a deeper one than critiquing Trump, although that's part of it.A-

Gabriele Tranchina: Of Sailing Ships and the Stars in Your Eyes (2017, Rainchant Eclectic): Born in Germany, based (I think) in Paris, with an eye on Brazil and other points south -- though two of her covers are from Mancini.B+(**) [cd]

Trio S: Somewhere Glimmer (2017, Zitherine): Doug Wieselman (compositions, clarinets, loops, banjo), Jane Scarpantoni (cello), and Kenny Wollesen (drums, "wollesonics"). Rather quiet, atmospheric even, pleasant and marginally interesting.B+(*)

David S. Ware Trio: Live in New York 2010 (2010 [2017], AUM Fidelity, 2CD): Another posthumous tape for the late tenor sax giant, this one a year after his kidney transplant and about two years before he died. So it's worth noting that he's in remarkable form here, with a couple of solo stretches (some on stritch), but especially when William Parker (bass) and Warren Smith (drums) help out.A- [dl]

Galen Weston: The Space Between (2017, Blujazz): Guitarist, from Toronto, lists as idols Mike Stern, Pat Metheny and Steve Vai. Band shares billing and keeps pushing him, and it helps when alto saxophonist Richard Underhill jumps out front.B [cd]

Mark Wingfield/Markus Reuter/Asaf Sirkis: Lighthouse (2016 [2017], Moonjune): Two guitarists -- Reuter's credit is "Touch Guitars AU8" (8-string, hollow body, individually tunable pickups) -- and drums. Fits neatly into a fusion bag.B [cd]

Deanna Witkowski: Makes the Heart to Sing: Jazz Hymns (2017, Tilapia): Pianist, discography dates back to 1999 -- I have her filed under vocals, but she doesn't sing here. All her arrangements of hymns -- all but one public domain -- for piano trio. Pleasant, and fairly innocuous.B [cd]

Lee Ann Womack: The Lonely, the Lonesome & the Gone (2017, ATO): Country singer, ninth album since 1997, co-wrote half of the fourteen songs -- the Frizzell and Jones covers overdone, the others less memorable but the title mood is sustained.B+(**)

Charlie Worsham: Beginning of Things (2017, Warner Bros. Nashville): Country singer from Mississippi, studied at Berklee, second album, co-credits on 9/13 (really 12) songs, gets a nice neotrad sound but mostly wastes it -- "Southern by the Grace of God" seems more than a little dated, but is still less offensive than "Birthday Suit."B

Eric Wyatt: Look to the Sky (2017, Whaling City Sound): Mainstream saxophonist (tenor, alto, soprano), from Brooklyn, shares a vocal with Andrea Miller, wrote three (of nine) songs, two more by his pianist Benito Gonzalez, with Keyon Harrold on trumpet, plus bass and drums. Takes nearly everything at a breakneck pace, a lot of bounce in his step.B+(**) [cd]

Mark Zaleski Band: Days, Months, Years (2016 [2017], self-released): Alto/soprano saxophonist, third album, also credited with bass, brother of pianist Glenn Zaleski (present), joined by Jon Dean on tenor sax, Mark Cocheo in guitar, and Oscar Suchanek on drums.B+(**) [cd]

Dave Zinno Unisphere: River of January (2017, Whaling City Sound): Bassist, based in Rhode Island, discography shows he's played on a dozen albums but this appears to be his first leading. Quintet, with Eric "Benny" Bloom on trumpet, Mark Tucker on tenor sax, Leo Genovese on piano, and Rafael Barata on drums, with Tucker and Genovese also contributing songs. Mostly upbeat, saxophonist gives a good accounting.B+(*) [cd]

Recent Reissues, Compilations, Vault Discoveries

Dion: Kickin' Child: The Lost Album 1965 (1965 [2017], Norton): I've long been a fan of Dion DiMucci's Bronx Blues: The Columbia Recordings (1962-1965), which traces his shift from doo-wop ("Ruby Ruby,""Donna the Prima Donna") to Dylan emulation, including his 1965 single "Kickin' Child" (third from the end). Columbia released two albums built around the doo-wop singles, then nothing until they mopped up in 1969 (Wonder Where I'm Bound, the title a song from this shelved album). Should at least have some historical value, but I'm with the label here: a single, a couple decent covers (not the Dylan), some really awful shit (the Dylan not the worst).C-

Gentle Giants: The Songs of Don Williams (2017, Slate Creek): Eleven songs, familiar and typical if most not actually written by the late country star, performed by artists of varying quality but distinctive enough they add something to the easy-going vibe that was Williams' trademark. Choice cut: Brandy Clark, "I Believe in You." [Missing on Napster: Garth Brooks, "Good Ole Boys Like Me."]B+(***)

Motörhead: Under Cöver (1992-2014 [2017], Silver Lining Music): English metal band, formed in 2015, hung it up in 2015 when bassist-auteur Lemmy Kilmister died. One of the few metal bands I've tolerated and occasionally enjoyed -- as Christgau noted in 1980, "no preening solos or blow-dried bullshit." Sure, I haven't checked all five of the A- records Christgau identified from 1984-91, but I enjoyed 2011's The World Is Yours. This compiles eleven covers, roughly half from metal bands that I've heard of but mean nothing to me, the other half from the Rolling Stones, Sex Pistols, Ramones, and David Bowie -- all sturdy enough to bear up under the extra weight.B+(***)

Old Music

Mihály Borbély Quartet: Hungarian Jazz Rhapsody (2014, BMC): This slightly earlier quartet has a different pianist, Dániel Szábo, and the leader's credits limited to saxophone and tarogato. Title song actually from Hungarian-American guitarist Attila Zoller, with the remaining pieces by unknown-to-me Hungarian-sounding names. Pretty lively, and good as the new pianist is, this one may be even better. B+(***)

Die Enttäuschung: 4 (2006 [2007], Intakt): German quartet, had an early fascination with Monk. Axel Dörner on trumpet and Rudi Mahall on bass clarinet, plus second bassist (Jan Roder) and original drummer (Uli Jenneißen). Discography unclear, as 1 (2002) is different from their original (1996) eponymous album, and instead of 2 and 3 there's a second eponymous album before 4 and 5.B+(***)

Michael Gregory Jackson: Clarity (1976 [2010], ESP-Disk): Guitarist, first album at 23, also credited with vocals, mandolin, flute, timpani, marimba, percussion, but what caught my attention was the three young horn players: Leo Smith, Oliver Lake, and David Murray. Still, those horns are generally wasted, although Lake has some moments, and gets into the label's ad hoc aesthetic with flute and percussion.B

Woody Shaw: Song of Songs (1972 [1997], Contemporary/OJC): Second album -- Cassandranite has earlier recordings but wasn't released until 1989 -- scales back the debut's sax attack, limiting Benny Maupin to one song, with Ramon Morris on two of the three others. That should bring the trumpet out front more, but he tends to slipstream the freebop.B+(**)

Woody Shaw: The Time Is Right (1983 [1993], RED): Quintet, recorded live in Bologna, Italy, with Steve Turre (trombone/conch shells), Mulgrew Miller (piano), Stafford James (bass), and Tony Reedus (drums). Four cuts, first two by Shaw.B+(**)

Woody Shaw: Imagination (1987 [1998], 32 Jazz): Originally on Muse, which tended to steer the trumpet player back to the mainstream, here with a sharp quintet -- Steve Turre (trombone), Kirk Lightsey (piano), Ray Drummond (bass), Carl Allen (drums) -- playing standards, ending with a blues from Turre.B+(**)

Mars Williams/Paal Nilssen-Love/Kent Kessler: Boneshaker (2012, Trost): Sax-drums-bass trio, Williams started out as a Hal Russell protégé, with Kessler was in the original Vandermark 5, with the Norwegian drummer joining many other Vandermark groups. Basically, just what the title promises. B+(***) [bc]

Revised Grades

Sometimes further listening leads me to change an initial grade, usually either because I move on to a real copy, or because someone else's review or list makes me want to check it again:


Woody Shaw: Blackstone Legacy (1970 [1996], Contemporary): [r]: was B+(**), now B+(***)

Notes

Everything streamed from Napster (ex Rhapsody), except as noted in brackets following the grade:

  • [cd] based on physical cd
  • [cdr] based on an advance or promo cd or cdr
  • [bc] available at bandcamp.com
  • [dl] something I was able to download from the web; may be freely available, may be a bootleg someone made available, or may be a publicist promo

Weekend Roundup

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I spent literally most of last week trying to cook for 60 at the Wichita Peace Center Annual Dinner on Friday, and I've been sore and tired ever since. Thought compiling this post might feel like a return to normalcy, but nothing's normal any more.


Some scattered links this week:

  • Matthew Yglesias: The 4 most important stories of the week, explained: Senate Republicans are on track to pass their tax cut (as, indeed, they did); We found our about more sexual harassers (especially Matt Lauer); After Rexit (Rex Tillerson, rumored gone but hanging on); North Korea launched a long-range ICBM (one that could theoretically hit anywhere in the continental United States). Other Yglesias posts:

    • Republicans may regret this tax bill: This seems intuitively right. The biggest political issue in America today is increasing inequality and its various effects, including the binding of political power and personal security to private wealth. Moreover, this is an issue with a strict partisan divide: Republicans are doing everything they can to concentrate wealth and power in the donor class, and Democrats are more or less opposed to this and more or less in favor of a more equitable society (at least like the ones of the New Deal/Great Society era, but with less racism). To the extent people understand the tax bill, it is wildly unpopular, so it's something Democrats can and will run on. It also goes a long ways toward absolving the Democrats' own culpability for increasing inequality: that the Republicans would, strictly through a party-line vote, do something this brazen when inequality is already so severe (and so unpopular) -- and Trump's deregulation program and blatant surrender of the people's government to business interests -- should expose them for all to see. Yglesias cites Josh Barro: The Republican tax plan creates big long-term opportunities for Democrats. By the way, one thing Barro argues that I don't for a moment believe is: "a corporate tax cut should tend to cause wages to rise a little bit, because a lower corporate tax rate makes the US a more attractive location to employ people."

    • We're all in Kansas now: A reference to Gov. Sam Brownback's notorious tax cuts, the enormous fiscal damage they caused, the slower degradation of infrastructure and services, and their near-zero boost to the economy (possibly sub-zero compared to nationwide economic growth during the same period). The only real difference between what Brownback passed and what the Senate just passed is that the US government is able to float much more debt, and thereby soften the degradation. By the way, Brownback, anticipating confirmation as Trump's Ambassador at Large for Religious Liberty, recently gave a "farewell address," not to the public but to the Wichita Pachyderm Club, where the only advice he could offer to his successor is pray.

    • Trump's Treasury Department is lying about its own analysis of the tax bill

    • The tax bill's original sin: The idea that the corporate tax rate must be reduced from 35% all the way to 20%, a much steeper cut than anyone was even agitating for a few years ago (e.g., the Business Roundtable was proposing 25% as recently as 2015). One thing I don't understand is why no one is pushing a progressive tax on business profits: maybe 10% for the first $1M, 15% for $1-10M, 20% for $10-50M, 25% for $50-250M, 30% for $250M-$1B, 35% for $1-5B, 40% above $5B. Probably those rates should be a bit higher, and various loopholes should be filled -- I'd like to see the overall reform on corporate tax rates produce more (not less) revenue. But something like this would benefit most companies while only penalizing companies that use their sheer size and/or monopoly positions to reap huge profits. And slowing them down would be good for everyone.

    • Matt Lauer totally blew it on Trump's blatant lying about Iraq and Libya

    • The rules of "how Congress works" have changed: Points out that the Senate tax bill faced concerted opposition from many special interest lobby groups ("the National Association of Realtors, the National Association of Homebuilders, the AARP, police unions, hospital associations and the AMA, and the higher education lobby"), as well as polling poorly among the public, yet Republicans stuck to their partisan ideology and passed it anyway. That's not how interest group politics has generally worked in Washington. Yglesias doesn't say this, but it more generally fits the model of class warfare. He does note that the Democrats could have crafted a more viable ACA had they not catered to special interest groups, in the vain hope that selling out to lobbyists would rally Republican support for a bipartisan bill.

      Had Democrats gone down a different path and pushed a bill with a strong public option with payment rates linked to Medicare, we would have seen a very different health policy trajectory over the past few years.

      Premiums would have been lower, which would have meant federal subsidy outlays would have been lower, which would have made it affordable for Congress to make the subsidies more generous. Enrollment in ACA exchanges would have been higher; there would have been no issue with "bare counties"; and, because of lower premiums, the "just pay the fine" option would have been less attractive, leading to more stable risk pools.

    • A deficit trigger can't fix the GOP tax plan

    • Crisis at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Also on this, see Matt Taibbi: Trump's Consumer Victory Officially Makes a Joke of Financial Reform.

    • New dynamic score shows the Senate tax bill raises debt by more than advertised

    • The theory behind Trump's tax cuts is exactly what gave us the failed Bush economy: "An influx of foreign hot money isn't what we need." A lot of meat here, but one could dig deeper. Foreign money will drive up asset prices, which will be a windfall for business owners, but once they sell out those businesses will no longer be rooted in the owners' communities. Foreign ownership of American companies has been a mixed blessing: some have gone easier on depressing labor costs, but most wind up operating as American companies do -- as, indeed, whatever they can get away with here -- and they're ultimately as likely to export or automate jobs away as any other capitalists. As Yglesias notes, much of the influx will eventually be converted into bidding up real estate prices (he calls this "housing boom 2.0" but I'm more skeptical that the subprime boom is repeatable, and unless average Americans start making more money -- inconceivable under Republican rule -- we're all stuck in the subprime market). His other point is that the expected influx will strengthen the dollar, hurting exports and manufacturing jobs, so while the rich get richer, the workers get stiffed.

    • If the GOP tax plan is so good, why do they lie so much about it? Partly, I suspect, it's just force of habit, but they really don't have anything potentially popular to offer -- they're just scamming for the donor class, and they'll make the suckers pay for it.

  • New York Times Editorial Board: A Historic Tax Heist:

    With barely a vote to spare early Saturday morning, the Senate passed a tax bill confirming that the Republican leaders' primary goal is to enrich the country's elite at the expense of everybody else, including future generations who will end up bearing the cost. The approval of this looting of the public purse by corporations and the wealthy makes it a near certainty that President Trump will sign this or a similar bill into law in the coming days.

    The bill is expected to add more than $1.4 trillion to the federal deficit over the next decade, a debt that will be paid by the poor and middle class in future tax increases and spending cuts to Medicare, Social Security and other government programs. Its modest tax cuts for the middle class disappear after eight years. And up to 13 million people stand to lose their health insurance because the bill makes a big change to the Affordable Care Act.

    Yet Republicans somehow found a way to give a giant and permanent tax cut to corporations like Apple, General Electric and Goldman Sachs, saving those businesses tens of billions of dollars.

    Other links on the tax bill:

  • Gordon G Chang: Is Donald Trump Getting Ready to Attack North Korea? One theory floated here is that the US could disable North Korea by bombing the pipeline that delivers oil from China and/or their one oil refinery. Or, better still, the US could intimidate China into shutting down the pipeline. I don't see how North Korea's leadership does not take the former as an opening salvo in a war, one that forces them to retaliate. As for China, they probably understand that keeping their oil lifeline open is necessary to keeping the peace. And there are real limits to how much the US can push China around without hurting American investments in China (or much worse). At some point Trump's people need to decide whether North Korea having a deterrent against an American attack that no one in the US military wants to launch is really such a big problem. At present it mostly seems to be an affront to the egos of those who still believe the neocon sole-superpower promise of world domination. Sadly, most of the writers in this "War in Asia?" issue ofThe National Interest seem to buy into such delusions.

  • Thomas B Edsall: The Self-Destruction of American Democracy: After raising the question of whether Putin backed Trump out of pure malice for the American people, and quoting Henry Aaron (Brookings senior fellow, presumably not the Hall of Famer) that "Trump is a political weapon of mass self-destruction for American democracy -- for its norms, for its morality, for sheer human decency," he has to admit that "we Americans created this mess." Then he starts worrying about America's declining influence and esteem in the world, offering a chart showing only two (of 37) other countries with higher approval numbers for Trump than for Obama: Israel (up to 56 from 49) and Russia (way up to 53 from 11). I think the biggest drop was in Sweden (93 to 10), followed by Germany (86 to 11), Netherlands (92 to 17, South Korea (88 to 17), and France (84 to 14). Britain and Canada dropped down to 23, from 79 and 83 respectively. Still, loss of approval hasn't yet done much damage to the empire (although Egypt's decision to allow Russian air bases is perhaps a harbinger). But this is more to the point:

    Add to Trump's list of lies his race baiting, his attacks on a free press, his charges of "fake news," his efforts to instigate new levels of voter suppression, his undermining of the legitimacy of the electoral process, his disregard for the independence of the judiciary, the hypocrisy of his personal posture on sexual harassment, the patent lack of concern for delivering results to voters who supported him, his contempt for and manipulation of his own loyalists, his "failure of character" -- and you have a lethal corruption of democratic leadership. . . .

    At the moment, Trump's co-partisans, House and Senate Republicans, have shown little willingness to confront him. The longer Trump stays in office, the greater the danger that he will inflict permanent damage on the institutions that must be essential tools in any serious attempt to confront him.

    Edsall's error is that he doesn't recognize that those Congressional Republicans are every bit as contemptuous of democracy as Trump. Indeed, he gives Trump too much credit, and Charles Koch and Paul Ryan not nearly enough.

  • Jill Filipovic: The Men Who Cost Clinton the Election: I'm not so sure about the headline, but is there something more than coincidence going on here?

    Many of the male journalists who stand accused of sexual harassment were on the forefront of covering the presidential race between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Matt Lauer interviewed Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Trump in an official "commander-in-chief forum" for NBC. He notoriously peppered and interrupted Mrs. Clinton with cold, aggressive, condescending questions hyper-focused on her emails, only to pitch softballs at Mr. Trump and treat him with gentle collegiality a half-hour later. Mark Halperin and Charlie Rose set much of the televised political discourse on the race, interviewing other pundits, opining themselves and obsessing over the electoral play-by-play. Mr. Rose, after the election, took a tone similar to Mr. Lauer's with Mrs. Clinton -- talking down to her, interrupting her, portraying her as untrustworthy. Mr. Halperin was a harsh critic of Mrs. Clinton, painting her as ruthless and corrupt, while going surprisingly easy on Mr. Trump. The reporter Glenn Thrush, currently on leave from The New York Times because of sexual harassment allegations, covered Mrs. Clinton's 2008 campaign when he was at Newsday and continued to write about her over the next eight years for Politico.

    A pervasive theme of all of these men's coverage of Mrs. Clinton was that she was dishonest and unlikable. These recent harassment allegations suggest that perhaps the problem wasn't that Mrs. Clinton was untruthful or inherently hard to connect with, but that these particular men hold deep biases against women who seek power instead of sticking to acquiescent sex-object status. . . .

    It's hard to look at these men's coverage of Mrs. Clinton and not see glimmers of that same simmering disrespect and impulse to keep women in a subordinate place. When men turn some women into sexual objects, the women who are inside that box are one-dimensional, while those outside of it become disposable; the ones who refuse to be disposed of, who continue to insist on being seen and heard, are inconvenient and pitiable at best, deceitful shrews and crazy harpies at worst. That's exactly how some commentary and news coverage treated Mrs. Clinton.

    Of course, it's possible that an individual's hostility to Hillary has more to do with her being a Clinton than a woman. There's no doubt that many in the media treated her unfairly. Still, I'm more struck by how gingerly they treated dozens of more damning scandals, especially Trump's own sexual abuse history. Filipovic also wrote: Matt Lauer is gone. He's left heartbreak in his wake.

  • Susan Hennessey et al: The Flynn Plea: A Quick and Dirty Analysis. One recalls that from early on Flynn was offering testimony for immunity. One thing the guilty plea suggests is he does indeed have something to further Mueller's investigation as it closes in on Trump's inner circle. Also note that while investigations into foreign interference in American elections has always focused on Russia, the incident Flynn pleaded guilty to involved lobbying Russia for Israel: see Philip Weiss: Flynn's plea on Russia influence reveals . . . Israel's influence!; also Richard Silverstein: Flynn Pleads Guilty to Lying About Trump Sabotage of Security Council Resolution Against Israeli Settlements. Trump's reaction, of course, was to turn up the crazy: Dana Milbank: Get ready for Trump's fireworks:

    I tried to ignore the Trump shenanigans this week, instead writing about the drug industry executive Trump tapped to oversee drug pricing and about the administration lawyer who orchestrated Trump's takeover of the CFPB after serving as lawyer for a payday lender cited by the CFPB for abuses. But such pieces generate only a fraction of the clicks of pieces I and others write about Trump's pyrotechnics.

    Those pyrotechnics are going to increase now that Mueller has turned Flynn. Trump's distractions will be impossible to ignore. But we -- lawmakers, the media and the public -- need to keep our focus on the real damage Trump is doing.

  • Shira A Scheindlin: Trump's new team of judges will radically change American society:

  • Paul Woodward: Have we been lied to about the Kate Steinle case? Steinle was allegedly killed by an undocumented immigrant, Garcia Zarate, who was acquitted of murder charges last week. Zarate had been deported five times, which "made him a very effective villain for Trump's border security campaign messages." The shooting was clearly an accident, and it's pretty unlikely the case would ever have been prosecuted had Zarate been a card-carrying NRA member. But Trump (aka "the xenophobic, racist, bigot, defiling the Oval Office") went ballistic over the verdict.

Music Week

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Music: Current count 28950 [28931] rated (+19), 390 [391] unrated (-1).

I spent most of last week planning, shopping, prepping, and cooking a massive dinner for the Wichita Peace Center's 25th Annual Dinner, with major (indispensable) help from Janice Bradley, Max Stewart, and Russ Pataki, with a few others pitching in on dinner days, notably including people I didn't know who hung around to help clean up. I fixed a range of Indian dishes: lamb and potatoes in a cream sauce (rogani gosht), tandoori chicken in a tomato-butter sauce (makhni), fish tikka, patiala pilaf (minus the fried onions), a sweet potato/chickpea curry, mattar paneer (peas with cheese), bharta (smoked eggplant), cabbage, kali dal, cucumber raita. We served appetizers at the tables, including a minted aloo chat (potato salad), coconut relish, pineapple sambal, a hot tomato chutney, paratha (flatbread), tapioca chips, a couple of store-bought chutneys (brinjal, lime pickle). Had spice cake and a Moroccan fruit salad for dessert. Best compliment I had was when one friend came up to me and cooed in my ear, "the food is divine." I had my quibbles with the fish and rice -- partly frustration as they were the last things done and both ran into unexpected problems.

Mark McCormick was the featured speaker (buy his new book here). He gave a nice speech, and was even better fielding questions, stressing how we've become disconnected and desensitized to the problems around us. Partial proof of that was evident in the disappointing turnout: a little over 40 people this year, compared to 60 last year. (Not getting an accurate RSVP count until too late, I prepared food for 60, so we had a lot left over.) I was pretty much a wreck by the time it was done. Doubt I'll be able to do it again, but afterwards Max was trying to figure out ways to spread the work out -- I've never been very good at delegating -- and I was wondering whether paella might scale up better. Don't need to decide for nearly a year.

I published the November roll-up ofStreamnotes last week. on Tuesday. With everything else going on, I didn't expect I'd be able to find anything new to add to what I had noted last Music Week. But I found four of this week's five A- records in the day between Music Week and Streamnotes: the David S. Ware archival set (from 2010, so still new enough) wasn't unexpected, and the two Chicago tenor saxophonists (Ken Vandermark and Mars Williams, dba Made to Break and Boneshaker, respectively) were right up my alley. But Re-TROS, a tip from Chris Monsen's 2017-in-progress list, was totally unexpected: a Chinese alt-rock group, at times (but not all the time) sounding like a cross between Pulnoc and Konono No. 1 (on Bandcamp, by the way).

December 3 was the deadline for ballots for Francis Davis' Jazz Critics Poll. I resorted my topjazz picks and submitted the following:

New records:

  1. William Parker Quartets: Meditation/Resurrection (AUM Fidelity, 2CD)
  2. Satoko Fujii Orchestra Tokyo: Peace (Libra)
  3. Gonçalo Almeida/Rodrigo Amado/Marco Franco: The Attic (NoBusiness)
  4. Aki Takase/David Murray: Cherry Shakura (Intakt)
  5. Rich Halley/Carson Halley: The Wild (Pine Eagle)
  6. Rocco John: Peace and Love (Unseen Rain)
  7. Buffalo Jazz Octet: Live at Pausa Art House (Cadence Jazz)
  8. François Carrier/Michel Lambert/Alexey Lapin: Freedom Is Space for the Spirit (FMR)
  9. Mostly Other People Do the Killing: Loafer's Hollow (Hot Cup)
  10. Barry Altschul's 3Dom Factor: Live in Krakow (Not Two)

Reissues or historical:

  1. American Epic: The Collection (1916-36, Third Man/Columbia/Legacy, 5CD)
  2. Paul Rutherford/Sabu Toyozumi: The Conscience (1999, NoBusiness)
  3. The Three Sounds: Groovin' Hard: Live at the Penthouse 1964-1968 (Resonance)

Vocal album: Roswell Rudd/Fay Victor/Lafayette Harris/Ken Filiano: Embrace (RareNoise)

Debut album: Buffalo Jazz Octet: Live at Pausa Art House (Cadence Jazz) -- I allowed that if groups aren't eligible (leader Michael McNeill has several albums under his own name) the best individual pick is probably Kate Gentile:Mannequins (Skirl).

Latin Jazz album: Gabriel Alegria Afro-Peruvian Sextet:Diablo en Brooklyn (Saponegro) -- I noted that Miguel Zenón: Típico (Miel Music) was actually higher on my list, but I thought Alegria's album was more Latin Jazzy.

My ranking is highly proximate. Parker is the only download, and I probably haven't played it enough, but the two contrasting quartets reminds me of Ornette Coleman's marvelous In All Languages, where he split a double-LP among two groups (more distinctive ones than Parker's). Each half is potentially great, but I still haven't moved it above the A- bin. I replayed maybe half of the top ten last week, but there's still not a lot of distance from top to bottom, or even throughout the A-list.

I was going to make a comment based on something Robert Christgau said in a recent Pittsburgh Post-Gazette interview, but I can't look up the quote due to an "ad blocker" snit fit I don't feel like indulging. As best I recall, he said something about most critics viewing EOY lists as personal branding exercises. My list can be viewed that way. To the extent that I have a brand, or a public persona, it's that of someone who listens far and wide, doesn't follow fashion, and doesn't want to get pigeonholed. On the other hand, this year's list is more avant than usual, and leans toward people I've repeatedly favored in the past -- something I've noticed a lot this past year (while suspecting as some kind of a rut, but not caring enough to break out of).

MyBest Non-Jazz of 2017 list is even more problematical, not least because I've cared for it less. I haven't, for instance, played 2nd-ranked Run the Jewels or 3rd-ranked Sylvan Esso since I initially graded them, so early in the year that they were necessarily slotted high on the list. I don't have a Pazz & Jop invitation yet. When I do, I expect I'll do a lot of shuffling, if only to "fit my brand" as it's becoming increasingly impossible to believe that I'm sorting out anything objective.

But if I had to draw a single conclusion out of these lists, it's that nothing this year matters nearly as much to me as the records I've regularly put on top-ten lists in past years -- especially a decade or more back; e.g., in 2007:

  1. Manu Chao: La Radiolina (Nacional/Because)
  2. John Fogerty: Revival (Fantasy)
  3. Powerhouse Sound: Oslo/Chicago Breaks (Atavistic, 2CD)
  4. Gogol Bordello: Super Taranta! (Side One Dummy)
  5. Jewels and Binoculars: Ships With Tattooed Sails (Upshot)
  6. David Murray Black Saint Quartet: Sacred Ground (Justin Time)
  7. Mavis Staples: We'll Never Turn Back (Anti-)
  8. Youssou N'Dour: Rokku Mi Rokka (Nonesuch)
  9. Mostly Other People Do the Killing: Shamokin!!! (Hot Cup)
  10. ROVA: The Juke Box Suite (Not Two)

Or 1997, when the sample size was only 155 records:

  1. Cornershop: When I Was Born for the Seventh Time (Warner Bros.)
  2. Doc Cheatham and Nicholas Payton (Verve)
  3. David Murray: Long Goodbye: A Tribute to Don Pullen (DIW)
  4. Ani DiFranco: Living in Clip (Righteous Babe, 2CD)
  5. Ray Anderson/Mark Helias/Gerry Hemingway: BassDrumBone (Hence the Reason) (Enja)
  6. Bob Dylan: Time Out of Mind (Columbia)
  7. Hamiet Bluiett: Makin' Whoopee: Tribute to the Nat King Cole Trio (Mapleshade)
  8. Latryx: The Album (SoleSides)
  9. Nils Petter Molvaer: Khmer (ECM, 2CD)
  10. Yo La Tengo: I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One (Matador)

I don't have earlier lists I can readily tap into, but 1987 and 1977 would be even more memorable to me -- especially the latter, as it came right after I moved to New York City, during my first stretch writing rock crit for the Village Voice, a time when I really cared about my favorite records, and managed to put a lot of time into them. That doesn't happen any more, and while I suspect the variable is me, I can't totally eliminate the music. I mean, doesn't postmodernism start with ironic detachment? Then why shouldn't it end simply with indifference?

I'm not saying that music in 2017 sucks. This year is more/less as good as last year and the year before and so on -- the only long term trends worth noting are that there's more to listen to every year and less time to devote to it. But what is indubitable is that the world in 2017 sucks, so it's getting harder for music to overcome all that drudgery. And, sure, that's probably worse for someone my age, because pretty much everything gets worse as you get old.

By the way, I have started to aggregate EOY lists, using the same formats and methodology as last year. Thus far I have something like four early lists (Mojo and three British record shops, so all UK) plus three individual JJA top-tens, plus I'm counting my grades as I go along, so take this with several distinct grains of salt. The only thing I'm fairly sure of thus far is that LCD Soundsystem's American Dream is the only record with a decent chance of challenging the obvious favorite, Kendrick Lamar's Damn. Moreover, the three jazz lists I've thus far tallied don't offer a single clue how the Jazz Critics Poll is going to sort out (not a single record appears on more than one ballot so far (nor on mine). If I had to hazard a guess, it would be that Vijay Iyer'sFar From Over wins, but it doesn't have a vote so far.


New records rated this week:

  • Espen Aalberg/Jonas Kullhammar/Torbjörn Zetterberg/Susana Santos Silva: Basement Sessions Vol. 4 (The Bali Tapes) (2016 [2017], Clean Feed): [r]: B+(***)
  • Boneshaker: Thinking Out Loud (2017, Trost): [bc]: A-
  • Eva Cortés: Crossing Borders (2016 [2017], Origin): [cd]: B+(*)
  • Satoko Fujii Orchestra New York: Fukushima (2016 [2017], Libra): [cd]: B+(**)
  • Paul Giallorenzo Trio: Flow (2017, Delmark): [cd]: B+(**)
  • Made to Break: Trebuchet (2017, Trost): [bc]: A-
  • Joe McPhee/Pascal Niggenkemper/Ståle Liavik Solberg: Imaginary Numbers (2015 [2017], Clean Feed): [r]: B+(***)
  • Kjetil Møster/Jeff Parker/Joshua Abrams/John Herndon: Ran Do (2015 [2017], Clean Feed): [r]: B+(*)
  • Jeb Loy Nichols: Country Hustle (2017, Inkind): [r]: B-
  • Penguin Cafe: The Imperfect Sea (2017, Erased Tapes): [r]: B+(**)
  • Margo Price: All American Made (2017, Third Man): [r]: B+(**)
  • Ada Rave Trio: The Sea, the Storm and the Full Moon (2015 [2017], Clean Feed): [r]: B+(*)
  • Re-TROS: Before the Applause (2017, Modern Sky Entertainment): [r]: A-
  • Schnellertollermeier: Rights (2016 [2017], Cuneiform): [dl]: B+(*)
  • Brandon Seabrook: Die Trommel Fatale (2016 [2017], New Atlantis): [bc]: B+(**)
  • David S. Ware Trio: Live in New York, 2010 (2010 [2017], AUM Fidelity, 2CD): [dl]: A-

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries rated this week:

  • Hamad Kalkaba: Hamad Kalkaba and the Golden Sounds 1974-1975 (1974-75 [2017], Analog Africa): [bc]: A-
  • Los Cameroes: Resurrection Los Vol. 1 (1976 [2017], Analog Africa): [bc]: B+(**)
  • Pop Makossa: The Invasive Dance Beat of Cameroon 1976-1984 (1976-84 [2017], Analog Africa): [bc]: B+(*)

Old music rated this week:

  • Mars Williams/Paal Nilssen-Love/Kent Kessler: Bonecrusher (2012, Trost): [bc]: B+(***)


Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

  • Liebman/Murley Quartet: Live at U of T (U of T Jazz): December 15
  • New York Electric Piano: State of the Art (Fervor)

Weekend Roundup

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The Democrats in Congress, especially the leadership, have had a really bad week, and I fear they've inflicted grave wounds on themselves. John Conyers and Al Franken have resigned after enormous pressure from the party leadership, leaving the party with fewer votes, summarily ending two notable careers. I especially blame Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Shumer. Back in 2016 Hillary Clinton like to posit a "Commander-in-Chief Test," figuring she'd compare favorably to Donald Trump by emphasizing her own fondness for military adventures -- I think her hawkishness was a big part of why she lost, but my point isn't to rehash her delusions. Rather, what we saw last week was a "Shop Steward" test, which Pelosi and Shumer utterly failed. They let a little media pressure blow them over. More importantly, they failed to insist on due process, on the most basic principles of traditional American justice, and in doing so they sacrificed political standing and insulted and demeaned the voters who had elected Conyers and Franken.

Supposedly, one thing the Democrats hope to achieve in sacking Conyers and Franken is "the moral high ground" -- demonstrating their superior sensitivity to and concern for victims of sexual misconduct (pretty broadly defined). In theory, this will pay off in defeating Roy Moore in next week's Alabama Senate race and/or in putting pressure on Donald Trump to resign. In fact, Trump was elected president after 19 women accused him of various shades of assault, and after he bragged about as much. While Moore is facing a closer election than Alabama Republicans are used to, he remains the favorite to win Tuesday. And while some Democrats imagine that if Moore wins the Senate will refuse to seat him, I can't imagine the Republicans sacrificing power like that. Nor, quite frankly, should they. (The only duly elected member I can recall either branch of Congress refusing to seat was Adam Clayton Powell, in a shameful travesty -- although, come to think of it, they did take months before allowing Al Franken to enter.)


Some scattered links this week:

  • Matthew Yglesias: 4 stories that mattered in politics this week: The tax reform hit some snags ("Senate Republicans appear to have written a corporate AMT provision that they intended to raise a little bit of revenue in a sloppy way that actually raises a ton of revenue and alienates the businesses who were supposed to benefit from a big tax cut"); President Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital; Al Franken announced he'll resign; The government will stay open for a couple of weeks. Other Yglesias pieces:

    • We have a trial date: March 19, "the beginning of the trial at which the Justice Department will seek to block the merger of AT&T and Time Warner." There is no shortage of good reasons for blocking this merger, and indeed for untangling all of the past mergers between data transit and content companies, although it's surprising to see Trump's DOJ lifting a finger to prevent the further concentration of predatory corporate power.

    • Apple could get a staggering $47 billion windfall from the tax bill:

      What's particularly striking about this windfall is that though Apple has been a fierce advocate for corporate tax reform -- $47 billion is a lot of money after all -- Apple CEO Tim Cook has explained over and over again that shoveling billions into his corporate treasury won't boost his investment spending.

      He already has plenty of cash, but beyond that, when Cook wants Apple to invest more, he borrows the money.

    • Tomorrow's financial crisis today: Points out that less than ten years after the worst recession since the 1930s Trump's administration is working to undermine the Treasury's Office of Financial Research and "let banks take on more risky debt:

      The nature of a banking crisis is you probably won't have one in any given year, regardless of how shoddy your regulatory framework is. As long as asset prices are trending upward, it just doesn't matter. In fact, as long as asset prices are trending upward, a poorly regulated banking sector will be more profitable than a well-regulated one.

      It's all good. Unless things blow up. But if your bad policymaking takes us from a one-in-500 chance of a blow-up in any given year to a one-in-20 chance, you're still in a world where things will probably be fine across even an entire eight-year span in office. Probably.

      Trump has taken a lot of risky bets in his life. And though he's often lost, he's usually been insulated by his inherited wealth and by his very real skill at structuring deals so other people end up holding a lot of the downside. Any presidency inherently has that kind of structure with or without skill. Presidents suffer when they make mistakes, but other people suffer more.

      ?he key phrase here is "as long as asset prices are trending upward." The surest way to keep asset prices rising is to let rich people make and keep more money, which is what happened from the Bush tax cuts forward to 2007-08. What broke then turned out to be pretty simple: a big chunk of those assets were built on subprime mortgages, and the people who signed up for the mortgages weren't able to grow their incomes enough to cover their debts, so they defaulted; meanwhile, the banks had leveraged themselves so much they couldn't cover their losses, so they started to fail in a cascade that threatened to make the "domino theory" look like small potatoes. But the government, especially the Fed, stepped in and pumped several trillions of dollars into the banks to prop them up so they could unwind their losses more gracefully, while the government did very little to help the little people who suffered the brunt of the recession. (I was going to say "virtually nothing," but things like extended unemployment benefits did help keep the recession from matching the desolation caused by the Great Depression.) We're already seeing asset bubbles in things like the stock market. The whole point of Trump's tax cuts and deregulation is to feed this bubble, even though there is no clear way to sustain the trend or to appease the financier's appetite for ever greater profits. Coupled with a massive collapse of business ethics -- this has been growing since the "greed is good" Reagan era, but Trump is an even more shocking role model -- it's only a matter of time before the whole edifice collapses.

    • We need a healthier conversation about partisanship and sexual assault.

    • The tax bill is a tax cut, not a culture war: Pushes back against the idea that Republicans chose targets to "reform" by how much they would hurt "blue states" (the SALT deduction being the obvious example). Shows that the overriding reasoning behind the cuts/reforms is to favor the rich over the poor, regardless of where they may live or do business. Of course, the real cost to poor and working Americans won't appear in scoring the bill -- it will come later in the form of service cuts and the ever-widening chasm between "haves and have-nots."

    • Republicans need Roy Moore to pass their tax bill.

    • Groundbreaking empirical research shows where innovation really comes from.

    • Democrats need to get a grip about the budget deficit: "The tax bill is bad, the debt is fine." ARgues that "Bush's deficits were fine and Trump's will be too" and that "Obama's deficits were way too small."

    • Don't worry about the debt.

  • Matthew Cole/Jeremy Scahill: Trump White House Weighing Plans for Private Spies to Counter "Deep State" Enemies: Evidently one of Erik Prince's schemes, notably backed by Oliver North. One suspicious point is that the scheme would still report to CIA Director Mike Pompeo, figuring him more loyal to Trump than to the "Deep State" he nominally manages a big chunk of. Also see Aram Roston: Private War: Erik Prince Has H is Eye on Afghanistan's Rare Metals. Evidently the mercenary leader is trying to turn his private army into some sort of modern British East India Company colossus.

  • Juliet Eilperin: Uranium firm urged Trump officials to shrink Bears Ears National Monument: Helps explain why Trump and Zinke radically shrunk the borders of the National Monument (see maps). The land still belongs to the federal government, but will now be managed by the Bureau of Land Management. For info on what that means, see Adam Federman: This Is How the Trump Administration Gives Big Oil the Keys to Public Lands.

  • Tara Golsham: Rep. Trent Franks, who is resigning immediately, offered staffer $5 million to be his baby surrogate: One of the more bizarre stories of recent weeks: Arizona Republican, "a deeply conservative member of the House Freedom Caucus and one of the most pro-life members of Congress. Evidently he has that kind of money, and assumes it entitles him to run roughshod over others.

  • Jim Kirby: Hillary Clinton's emails got as much front-page coverage in 6 days as policy did in 69: An analysis of New York Times -- your newspaper or preferred media source may vary (with some never matching that 6-day email window), but for a supposedly sober and serious news source, that's pretty disgusting. One might argue that Hillary's email controversy speaks to her character, but no more so than hundreds or thousands of Donald Trump anecdotes. Even so, you'd think it sensible that news coverage of an election would focus more on likely policies and future scenarios than on past personal quirks. The only excuse I can think of is that today's campaigns are often as shallow as the media covering them -- or at least try to be.

  • Rashid Khalidi: After Jerusalem, the US Can No Longer Pretend to Be an Honest Broker of Peace: Actually, that was clear even before Trump ordered the US embassy moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, as Khalidi knows damn well -- he's even written a whole book about it: Brokers of Deceit: How the US Has Undermined Peace in the Middle East. What I've yet to see anyone comment on is why the US didn't move the embassy earlier. The basic reason is respect for international law, which as this week's announcement shows has sunken to new lows in Washington. The 1947 UN resolution proposing partition of the British Mandate in Palestine -- a resolution that David Ben-Gurion lobbied fervently for -- called for dividing the Mandate into two states, but keeping Jerusalem separate as an international area. Immediately on declaring independence in 1948, Israel launched a military offensive aimed at expanding on the borders the UN prescribed. The main target of that offensive was Jerusalem, which wound up divided between Israeli and Jordanian forces. In 1967 Israel launched another war and drove Jordan from East Jerusalem and the West Bank -- territories that the UN ordered Israel to return, despite Israel's almost immediate annexation of Jerusalem and environs. Israel's de facto control of Jerusalem has never been squared away with the rulings of international law, so no country with respect for international law has conceded Israel's claim."Until now," you might say, but the US has increasingly shown contempt for international law, and this is just one more example.

    By the way, a headline in the Wichita Eagle today: "After US decision on Jerusalem, Gaza protests turn deadly." First line of article explains how: "Two Hamas militants were killed in an Israeli airstrike on Saturday after rocket fire from the enclave hit an Israeli town, as the death toll in violence linked to President Donald Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital rose to four." No damage was reported from the Gazan rockets. For info about the other two deaths, see: Peter Beaumont/Patrick Wintour: Two Palestinians shot dead and one critical in riots after Trump speech. Also: Raja Shehadeh: I have witnessed two intifadas. Trump's stance on Israel may ignite a third.

  • Sarah Kliff: Obamacare sign-ups defy Trump's sabotage campaign.

  • German Lopez: Roy Moore: America "was great at the time when families were united -- even though he had slavery." Anyone who thinks that the problem with Moore is his fondness for underaged girls clearly hasn't paid any attention to his politics or to his political legacy. More worrying is Moore's unwavering contempt for the law -- after all, Moore has been stripped of his position on the Alabama Supreme Court for failing to submit to federal law, specifically the First Amendment. When Donald Trump tries to tout Moore as the "law and order candidate" he does little more than expose his own flimsy and dicey relationship to the law. (Meanwhile, Moore's Democratic opponent, Doug Jones, has a distinguished record as a federal prosecutor, credentials that only someone as reality-challenged as Trump can readily dismiss.) I wish I could say that Moore's casual endorsement of slavery is even more shocking, but we've always known him to be a racist. After all, Alabama's given us George Wallace and James Sessions, so how much worse can Moore be? Well, this statement is a pretty good example: "I think it [America] was great at the time when families were united -- even though we had slavery. They cared for one another. People were strong in the families. Our families were strong. Our country had a direction." The most obvious problem is that slavery was a system which denied family life and bonds, one that allowed slaveowners to prevent or break families by selling members. He could hardly be clearer that he doesn't regard blacks as people -- as Lopez notes, only one of many blind bigotries Moore espouses. Still, I detect another curious note in the quote: it's like he's trying to channel ideologues like George Fitzhugh who tried to defend slavery as anti-capitalist -- an alternative to the coarse materialism that Bible-thumpers like Moore so despise.

    More on Moore:

  • Andrew Prokop: Michael Flynn's involvement in a plan to build nuclear reactors in the Middle East is looking even shadier: More "Russia" scandal this past week, but one should recall that Russian schemes under Putin have nothing to do with fomenting world revolution or curtailing US imperial ambitions: they're founded on pure oligarchic greed, which isn't at all unlike the Trump approach to business. E.g., this piece summarizes a "whistleblower" report about a deal Flynn was working on:

    According to the whistleblower, [Alex] Copson flat-out said the following things:

    • That he "just got" a text message from Flynn saying the nuclear plant project was "good to go," and that his business colleagues should"put things in place"
    • That Flynn was making sure sanctions on Russia would be "ripped up," which would let the project go forward
    • That this was the "best day" of his life, and that the project would"make a lot of very wealthy people"
    • That the project would also provide a pretext for expanding a US military presence in the Middle East (the pretext of defending the nuclear plants)
    • That citizens of Middle Eastern countries would be better off "when we recolonize the Middle East"
  • David Roberts: A moment of truth arrives for Rick Perry's widely hated coal bailout: Long article, really should be a much bigger scandal than anything having to do with "sexual misconduct" -- with billions of dollars of benefits going to five coal companies, paid for by rate hikes from millions of consumers, and championed by a moron like Rick Perry, it wouldn't even take much of a stretch from the media to blow this up, but evidently they're too lazy to care.

  • Aja Romano: MSNBC won't cut ties to Sam Seder after all: succumbing to alt-right outrage was a "mistake": Another cautionary tale, showing you can't trust anything reported on right-wing media, and that the kneejerk "zero tolerance" reactions of "liberal" media combines are set up perfectly to be scammed. More: Ryan Grim: MSNBC Reverses Decision to Fire Contributor Sam Seder.

  • Mark Joseph Stern: The Trump Administration Just Declared War on Public Sector Unions.

  • Corey Williams/David Eggert: Conyers' Congressional Seat Won't Be Filled for Nearly a Year: So, Nancy Pelosi browbeat Conyers into resigning his seat, certain that a Democrat would replace him -- the current gerrymander of Michigan concedes that -- but evidently the Republican governor of Michigan can simply hold the seat open for a whole year?

Music Week

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Music: Current count 28995 [28950] rated (+45), 388 [390] unrated (-2).

First time I calculated the rated count I came up with 31, which looked way low. A closer look kicked it up to 37, and then I went back and rechecked everything in the rated list and found a bunch of records missing grades. I also recalled that I had played two Yaeji EPs, so fixed that. Final rated total winds up pretty close to the upper bounds of a good, solid week. Contributing were two things: one was that I was recuperating from the previous week's cooking madness, taking it easy with hardly any distractions; the other was that I used a good deal of my chill time aggregating EOY lists, which suggested a lot of records to check out. Can't say as they've generated a lot of finds thus far, although one list pointed me to the legendary Kenyan band, and their label's Bandcamp page led me to the Andina compilation. My tip for the '90s pop compilation came from Robert Christgau (at the time I couldn't find the other one he liked, Now That's What I Call Tailgate Anthems, but I've found it now, so next week).

I finally got the Jazz Critics Poll ballot data last night, so I'm swamped with work to do to check and format that data. Still not sure when NPR is going to run -- probably this week, quite possibly before I get my part done. Otherwise I'd write something about how the EOY list aggregate is shaping up, but I suppose you cansee for yourself. As I initially suspected, Kendrick Lamar's Damn is well ahead, with the next four slots very close (83-78 by my count, compared to 114 for Lamar and 55 for 6th place Vince Staples: Lorde, LCD Soundsystem, SZA, and St. Vincent. I've compiled far fewer lists than I have in recent years, but I'll note that AOTY's 2017 Music Year End List Aggregate currently shows the same top six albums in the same order (although they have Lorde opening up a clear gap over a virtual tie between LCD Soundsystem and SZA). Their top ten rounds out with War on Drugs, Father John Misty, Sampha, and National, with Slowdive 11th. My top 11 has the same records, order slightly shuffled.

After that we disagree more, with Mount Eerie dropping from 12th on their list to 28th on mine; Tyler the Creator from 13th to 19th; the XX from 21st to 38th, Taylor Swift from 36th to 68th. There are fewer dramatic improvements on my list, although the early UK bias certainly helps Jane Weaver (from 40th to 16th). I'll know more, and be able to say more, next week. One thing I will note is that my list has picked up on so few jazz lists that it's completely useless for predicting the Jazz Critics Poll.

One final note: after reviewing it, I discovered that Octopus is actually scheduled for Jan. 28, 2018 release, so it doesn't appear in my2017 Jazz List. I did find the FCT album after I cast my Jazz Critics Poll ballot, so as usual it took me just a few days to find an A- album I had missed.


New records rated this week:

  • Bargou 08: Targ (2017, Glitterbeat): [r]: B+(**)
  • Courtney Barnett/Kurt Vile: Lotta Sea Lice (2017, Matador): [r]: B+(*)
  • Pan Daijing: Lack (2017, Pan): [r]: B-
  • Kris Davis & Craig Taborn: Octopus (2016 [2018], Pyroclastic): [cd]: A-
  • Angelo Divino: Love A to Z (2017, self-released): [cd]: B-
  • Fabiano Do Nascimento: Tempo dos Mestres (2017, Now-Again): [r]: B+(**)
  • FCT = Francesco Cusa Trio Meets Carlo Atti: From Sun Ra to Donald Trump (2016 [2017], Clean Feed): [r]: A-
  • Nick Fraser: Is Life Long? (2016 [2017], Clean Feed): [r]: B+(**)
  • David Friesen: Structures (2017, Origin, 2CD): [cd]: B+(*)
  • Aldous Harding: Party (2017, 4AD): [r]: B
  • Ryan Keberle/Frank Woeste: Reverso: Suite Pavel (2017 [2018], Phonoart): [cd]: B+(**)
  • King Krule: The OOZ (2017, True Panther Sounds): [r]: B
  • LEF: Hypersomniac (2017, RareNoise): [cdr]: B-
  • Joao Lencastre's Communion 3: Movements in Freedom (2017, Clean Feed): [r]: B+(**)
  • Van Morrison: Versatile (2017, Legacy): [r]: B+(*)
  • New Order: NOMC15 (Pledge Music, 2CD): [r]: B+(***)
  • Gard Nilssen's Complete Unity: Live in Europe (2016 [2017], Clean Feed, 3CD): [r]: B+(***)
  • Orchestre Les Mangelepa: Last Band Standing (2017, Strut): [r]: A-
  • Kelly Lee Owens: Kelly Lee Owens (2017, Smalltown Supersound): [r]: B
  • Phil Parisot: Creekside (2017, OA2): [cd]: B+(**)
  • Princess Nokia: 1992 Deluxe (2017, Rough Trade): [r]: B
  • Nadia Reid: Preservation (2017, Basin Rock): [r]: B+(*)
  • Riddlore: Afro Mutations (2015 [2016], Nyege Nyege Tapes): [bc]: B+(**)
  • Rina Sawayama: Rina (2017, The Vinyl Factory, EP): [r]: B-
  • Sirius: Acoustic Main Suite Plus the Inner One (2017, Clean Feed): [r]: B+(*)
  • Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith: The Kid (2017, Western Vinyl): [r]: B
  • Chris Stapleton: From a Room: Volume 2 (2017, Mercury Nashville): [r]: B+(**)
  • John Stowell/Ulf Bandgren Quartet: Night Visitor (2016 [2017], Origin): [cd]: B+(*)
  • Taylor Swift: Reputation (2017, Big Machine): [r]: B+(**)
  • Tune Recreation Committee: Voices of Our Vision (2017, self-released): [bc]: B+(*)
  • The War on Drugs: A Deeper Understanding (2017, Atlantic): [r]: B
  • Jane Weaver: Modern Kosmology (2017, Fire): [r]: B+(*)
  • Wolf Alice: Visions of a Life (2017, Dirty Hit): [r]: B+(*)
  • Yaeji: Yaeji (2017, Godmode, EP): [r]: B+(**)
  • Yaeji: EP 2 (2017, Godmode, EP): [r]: B+(***)
  • Dave Young/Terry Promane Octet: Vol. 2 (2017, Modica Music): [cd]: B+(*)
  • Neil Young + Promise of the Real: The Visitor (2017, Reprise): [r]: B
  • Waclaw Zimpel/Jakub Ziolek: Zimpel/Ziolek (2017, Instant Classic): [r]: B+(**)

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries rated this week:

  • Andina: The Sound of the Peruvian Andes 1968-1978 (1968-78 [2017], Tiger's Milk/Strut): [r]: A-
  • Bro. Valentino: Stay Up Zimbabwe (1979-80 [2017], Analog Africa, EP): [bc]: B+(***)
  • Oté Maloya: The Birth of Electric Maloya on Réunion Island 1975-1986 (1975-86 [2017], Strut): [bc]: B+(*)
  • Now That's What I Call 90s Pop (1990s [2017], UMG/Sony): [r]: A-

Old music rated this week:

  • Taylor Swift: 1989 (2014, Big Machine): [r]: B+(***)
  • Waclaw Zimpel: Lines (2015 [2016], Instant Classic): [r]: B+(**)


Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

  • Ivo Perelman/Matthew Shipp/William Parker/Bobby Kapp: Heptagon (Leo)
  • Ivo Perelman/Matthew Shipp/Jeff Cosgrove: Live in Baltimore (Leo)
  • Ivo Perelman/Matthew Shipp: Live in Brussels (Leo, 2CD)
  • Ivo Perelman/Nate Wooley/Brandon Lopez/Gerald Cleaver: Octagon (Leo)
  • Ivo Perelman/Matthew Shipp/Nate Wooley: Philosopher's Stone (Leo)
  • Ivo Perelman/Matthew Shipp/Joe Hertenstein: Scalene (Leo)
  • Takaaki: New Kid in Town (Troy)

Music Week

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Music: Current count 29021 [28995] rated (+26), 389 [388] unrated (+1).

Spent most of the week sorting out the Jazz Critics Poll ballots, but got slowed down the last few days. Every year we do a Hanukkah party: no religious significance, basically just an excuse to fry up some latkes for friends. Over the years I've added a few side dishes: I salt-cure a chunk of salmon, make some chopped liver, make my own applesauce (we still buy the sour cream). Last year I baked some rye bread to go with the chopped liver. This year I did honey rye rolls (from The Gefilte Manifesto), and whipped up a batch of their"everything bagel butter." I also had some sauerrubben (salted turnip) left over from a previous meal, and the citrus-carrot horseradish, so I made a terrine of gefilte fish (used dover sole) to go with that. I also fried up and pickled some frozen perch fillets I found in the freezer. The centerpiece were the potato pancakes: 3 lbs of russets, 3 onions, 3 eggs, fried in grapeseed oil in three skillets. I don't get to eat until the frying's done, by which time everyone else are pretty well sated.

For a light dessert, we had a bowl of strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries with a wine-sugar syrup and a second bowl of vanilla cream. I recently bought a 12-cup food processor, which made quick work of the onions and potatoes, the chopped liver, and the other tasks I presented it with (although it wasn't great at mixing up or kneading the bread). Prep work was pretty relaxed. The frying caused problems, first tripping the smoke alarm, then the range hood shut down. Doesn't seem to be a permanent problem, but it's never been so fussy before.

I played golden oldies while cooking, hence the low rated count. Also lost more than a few hours to a carpentry project: a new pantry rack that'll attach to the basement door. Bought some more paint for that today. Should get it up in a couple of days.

One casualty of this work was no Weekend Roundup yesterday. You can, at least, check out Matthew Yglesias: The 4 biggest policy stories of the week, explained: A Democrat won a Senate election in Alabama; Republicans wrote their tax bill; Sexual harassment accusations kept roiling Congress; Net neutrality (i.e., the end of, so your ISP can start auctioning you off to the highest bidder). Given that a candidate as inept and disgusting as Roy Moore still managed to get 650,000 votes (48.4%), I doubt the good news about Alabama will last long. Everything else is more/less horrible. The takeaway is that Republicans don't care about doing vastly unpopular things as long as they advance their owners' agenda. Even if they blow up and cost them a couple elections, like 2006-08, they believe they can claw their way back to power. Yglesias' piece, a piece arguing Why Trump's tax cuts won't be repealed, reveals part of the reason: a profound lack of ambition from the Democrats.

Another thing I didn't have time for was working on theEOY Aggregate List. Picked up a couple lists, but nothing much changed. Much of what I did come up with was suggested by various jazz lists, but still lots of things not on Napster or Bandcamp. Finally wound up with Ron Miles' I Am a Man on YouTube, but that's hardly a fair medium for reviewing. Note three B+(***) records among the vault discoveries: Thelonious Monk, Bill Evans, and Oscar Pettiford all did well in the Jazz Critics Poll, but one spin (especially for the 2CD items) wasn't enough to convince me. Indeed, I also had Call Super pegged at B+(***) before I chanced an extra spin this afternoon, and enjoyed it enough to nudge it over the line.


I was saddened, and given that he was only 61 years old, shocked to hear that Ralph Carney has died. He grew up in Ohio, played clarinet (saxophone, all sorts of other instruments) in the Akron-based new wave rock group Tin Huey -- kind of a big deal c. 1979, with Chris Butler going on to form the Waitresses -- and released a few albums from 1987 on. I'm especially fond of two of the jazzier ones:Carneyball Johnson (2006) and Ralph Carney's Serious Jass Project (2009); also fine, by the latter group, wasSeriously (2011). I wrote him once for records, and he was uncommonly gracious and generous, leading me to his work on several fine "spoken word" albums: Ira Cohen's The Stauffenberg Cycle, Robert Creeley's Really!!, and David Greenberger's OH, PA. He was probably most widely known for his long association with Tom Waits, but he did much more than that.

Keely Smith (originally Dorothy Jacqueline Keely) also passed away last week. She got a job singing for bandleader Louis Prima in 1949, married him in 1953, divorced him in 1961. Prima did some good work as far back as 1934 and had some hits in the '40s, but their period together (along with saxophonist Sam Butera, aka "the wildest") made them stars, especially in Las Vegas. Especially notable is their 1958 Live From Las Vegas. She continued recording up to 1965, then made brief comebacks around 1985 and 2000. The only album I noticed came out in 2005, a thoroughly enjoyable recapitulation of her heyday called Vegas '58 -- Today.


New records rated this week:

  • Fabian Almazan: Alcanza (2017, Biophilia): [r]: B-
  • Denys Baptiste: The Late Trane (2017, Edition): [r]: B+(**)
  • Ernaldo Bernocchi: Rosebud (2017, RareNoise): [cdr]: B+(*)
  • Alan Broadbent With the London Metropolitan Orchestra: Developing Story (2017, Eden River): [r]: B+(*)
  • Call Super: Arpo (2017, Houndstooth): [r]: A-
  • Billy Childs: Rebirth (2017, Mack Avenue): [r]: B-
  • Ben Goldberg School: Vol 1: The Humanities (2017, BAG): [r]: B+(**)
  • Mark Guiliana Jazz Quartet: Jersey (2017, Motéma): [r]: B+(*)
  • Keyon Harrold: The Mugician (2017, Legacy): [r]: B+(*)
  • Jazzmeia Horn: A Social Call (2017, Prestige): [r]: B+(**)
  • Sherman Irby & Momentum: Cerulean Canvas (2017, Black Warrior): [r]: B+(*)
  • Irreversible Entanglements: Irreversible Entanglements (2015 [2017], International Anthem/Don Giovanni): [r]: A-
  • Ingrid and Christine Jensen: Infinitude (2016, Whirlwind): [r]: B+(**)
  • Liebman/Murley Quartet: Live at U of T (U of T Jazz): [cd]: B+(***)
  • Nick Maclean Quartet: Rites of Ascension (2017, Browntasaurus): [cd]: B+(*)
  • Makaya McCraven: Highly Rare (2016 [2017], International Anthem): [r]: B+(***)
  • Zara McFarlane: Arise (2017, Brownswood): [r]: B+(*)
  • Gary Meek: Originals (2017, self-released): [r]: B+(**)
  • Uwe Oberg/Rudi Mahall/Michael Griener: Lacy Pool 2 (2017, Leo): [r]: B+(***)
  • Emile Parisien/Vincent Peirani/Andreas Schaerer/Michael Wollny: Out of Land (2016 [2017], ACT): [r]: B
  • Nicholas Payton: Afro-Caribbean Mixtape (2017, Paytone/Ropeadope): [r]: B+(*)
  • Gary Peacock Trio: Tangents (2016 [2017], ECM): [r]: B+(***)
  • Cécile McLorin Salvant: Dreams and Daggers (2017, Mack Avenue, 2CD): [r]: B+(*)
  • Jeremy Udden/John McNeil/Akyer Kobrinsky/Anthony Pinciotti: Hush Point III (2017, Sunnyside): [r]: B+(*)

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries rated this week:

  • The Bill Evans Trio: On a Monday Evening (1976 [2017], Fantasy): [r]: B+(***)
  • Thelonious Monk: Les Liaisons Dangereuses 1960 (1959, Sam, 2CD): [r]: B+(***)
  • Now That's What I Call Tailgate Anthems (1975-2016 [2017], Sony Music Entertainment): [r]: B+(*)
  • Perseverance: The Music of Rick DeRosa at North Texas (2011-15 [2017], UNT): [cd]: B-
  • Oscar Pettiford Nonet/Big Band/Sextet: New York City 1955-1958 (1955-58 [2017], Uptown, 2CD): [r]: B+(***)

Old music rated this week:

  • Uwe Oberg/Christof Thewes/Michael Griener: Lacy Pool (2006 [2009], Hatology): [r]: B+(***)


Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

  • Wali Ali: To Be (Mendicant)
  • Vinny Golia Wind Quartet: Live at the Century City Playhouse: Los Angeles, 1979 (Dark Tree)

The Incredible Honk

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One of the great trombonists of all jazz history, Roswell Rudd, has just died, at 82, evidently of cancer. He was a major figure in the 1960s avant-garde, later refocusing his sense of the tradition into two especially great albums -- 1974's Flexible Flyer, which restarted Sheila Jordan's brilliant career, and 1982's Regeneration, which rekindled interest in the music of Herbie Nichols -- and after a dozen years away from the studio mounted a marvelously wide-ranging comeback. For all his range, he had a singular sound on trombone -- unflinching, a deep and dirty growl -- which made trombone one of my favorite horns, and set a standard: searching for his name in my writings, I've found myself repeatedly trying to measure up other trombonists to him.

I have no time to write anything that does justice to his music, but I figured the least I could do would be to pluck my various reviews of his work out of my Jazz Guides. In this task, I've been helped by Mindspring'sdiscography, although it unaccountably ends around 2002. All I've managed to do is to make a quick pass to weed out some redundancies and asides. I've also added stubs for a few albums I haven't heard (but by no means all of the ones Rudd played on).


Eli's Chosen Six (1955, Columbia) Rudd started off in this Dixieland group. I've only heard one cut on a compilation, and they seem to be an amusing bunch -- not that I wouldn't rather hear more trombone and less vocals.

Eli's Chosen Six: Ivy League Jazz (1957, Columbia)

Cecil Taylor/Buell Neidlinger: New York City R&B (1961, Candid) Originally issued under the bassist's name, Taylor's name added later as the pianist is the draw, especially on the two shorter trio cuts with Billy Higgins; the other two cuts add horns: Archie Shepp (tenor sax) on both; Clark Terry (trumpet), Steve Lacy (soprano sax), Roswell Rudd (trombone), and Charles Davis (baritone sax) on the closer. [8]

Cecil Taylor/Buell Neidlinger: Jumpin Punkins' (1961, Candid) [+]

Cecil Taylor: Cell Walk for Celeste (1961, Candid) Outtakes from the New York City R&B and Jumpin' Punkins sessions that didn't appear in album form until 1988, most quartet with Shepp, Neidlinger, and Dennis Charles, but two tracks with the extra horn quartet, with Steve Lacy's soprano sax by far the most noteworthy. [7]

The Gil Evans Orchestra: Into the Hot (1961, Impulse -99) Evans' masterpiece was his 1960 Out of the Cool, so this title makes sense as the next step, but the album itself is schizo, with two dull orchestral tracks led by trumpeter John Carisi (they do seem to wake up for the third), and three slices of something else by Cecil Taylor's quintet (Archie Shepp, Jimmy Lyons, Henry Grimes, and Sunny Murray, adding Ted Curson and Roswell Rudd on the closer). [The Taylor tracks were later reissued along with a Rudd session asMixed.] [5]

Steve Lacy/Roswell Rudd: School Days (1963, Hat Art -94) Ken Vandermark named one of his best quartets after this album.[9]

Albert Ayler/Don Cherry/John Tchicai/Roswell Rudd/Gary Peacock/Sunny Murray: New York Eye and Ear Control (1964, ESP-Disk -08) Ayler's record, but all names are on the cover and all are notable, the four horns churning tumultuously, with Ayler's tenor sax reaching for the sacred, and Rudd's trombone plumbing the profane. [6]

Archie Shepp: Four for Trane (1964, Impulse -97)[9]

New York Art Quartet (1964, ESP-Disk -08) One-shot avant-garde group, at least until they reunited for a 35th Reunion record, but an important item in trombonist Roswell Rudd's discography -- he dominates the rough interplay with alto saxophonist John Tchicai, while percussionist Milford Graves is at least as sparkling; the sole artiness is the cut that frames a poem, but it too is a signpost of the times, "Black Dada Nihilismus," by Amiri Baraka. [9]

The Jazz Composers Orchestra: Communication (1964, Fontana) A pathbreaking large group assembled by Carla Bley and Michael Mantler to play their pieces and arrangements, which over the next few years rotated to feature other composers, including Rudd (see Numatik Swing Band, below).

New York Art Quartet: Mohawk (1965, Fontana)

New York Art Quartet: Old Stuff (1965, Cuneiform -10) Short-lived group, long remembered. Danish alto saxophonist John Tchicai teamed with trombonist Roswell Rudd to cut two 1964-65 albums, an eponymous one on ESP-Disk that has remained in print more often than not, and a second that soon vanished, leaving us with nothing more until the pair got together in 1999 and cut 35th Reunion. These radio shots add significantly to their legacy, another 70 minutes (compared to 43 on the first album). The bass and drums slots were variable: Finn von Eyben plays bass here, and Louis Moholo drums. Rudd was working out the logic of free jazz trombone, and Tchicai lets him run with it, filling in and edging around. [9]

New York Art Quartet: Call It Art (1964-65, Triple Point 5LP -13) Extravagant packaging, with the 5 LPs each in its own jacket, packed alongside a 156-page clothbound book, both enclosed in a very handsome plywood box. The group, with Roswell Rudd on trombone and John Tchicai on alto sax, was more at home in Copenhagen than in New York. They cut the one album they're known for on ESP-Disk, another for Fontana in England, but other recordings have leaked out over the years -- notably Old Stuff, released by Cuneiform in 2010, and now this stack of "previously uncirculated" vinyl. Hard for me to evaluate -- among other things I'm no longer accustomed to 15-20 minute chunks -- but everything I play has its fascinating points. [9]

Roswell Rudd (1965, Free America/Verve -05) The great trombonist trades lines with alto saxophonist John Tchicai, creating a bouncy polyphony that never quite slips into a groove; a radio shot tape, sound quality so-so. [+]

Archie Shepp: Live in San Francisco (1966, Impulse -98) [5]

Roswell Rudd: Everywhere (1966, Impulse -67) The trombonist's only name album for a major label in the 1960s, a session -- four cuts, 47:15 -- that has only been reissued as part of Mixed, co-headlined by Cecil Taylor (prepends three Taylor cuts, one with Rudd). With Giuseppi Logan (flute/bass clarinet), Robin Kenyatta (alto sax), Lewis Worrell/Charlie Haden (bass), and Beaver Harris (drums). [8]

Archie Shepp: Three for a Quarter/One for a Dime (1966, Impulse -69) [5]

Archie Shepp: Mama Too Tight (1966, Impulse -98)[5]

Cecil Taylor/Roswell Rudd: Mixed (1961-66, Impulse -08) [+]

The Jazz Composer's Orchestra (1968, JCOA)

Charlie Haden: Liberation Music Orchestra (1969, Impulse -96) [+]

Gato Barbieri: The Third World (1969, Flying Dutchman -70) Front cover just says "Gato" under the title. Album opens with flute, then a little vocal, before blossoming into one of the most identifiable tenor sax tones ever. Interesting line up here, with the first hints of his Latin/tango rhythm melded with Roswell Rudd's trombone growl. [8]

Carla Bley/Paul Haines: Escalator Over the Hill (1968-71, JCOA) [5]

Roswell Rudd and the Jazz Composer's Orchestra: Numatik Swing Band (1973, JCOA) Sheila Jordan sings. [9]

Roswell Rudd: Flexible Flyer (1974, Black Lion -95) One of my all-time favorite albums, with Sheila Jordan singing and Rudd's the only horn voice, remarkably tasteful piano by Hod O'Brien and a rhythm section that could swing free but doesn't.[10]

Steve Lacy/Roswell Rudd/Kent Carter/Beaver Harris: Trickles (1976, Black Saint) [4]

Roswell Rudd: Blown Bone (1976, Phillips)

Roswell Rudd: Inside Job (1976, Arista/Freedom)[3]

Carla Bley: Dinner Music (1976, Watt)

The Carla Bley Band: European Tour 1977 (1977, Watt -78)[+]

Enrico Rava Quartet (1978, ECM) [9]

Laboratorio Della Quercia (1978, Horo)

The Carla Bley Band: Musique Mechanique (1978, Watt -79) The title piece here is broken into three movements, each marked by a striking mechanicalism in the movement: the rhythm lurches in small, sharp locksteps, while there is much huffing and puffing -- notably from the lower reaches of the bass section, especially Bob Stewart's tuba. Roswell Rudd sings during the middle movement, with a similar mechanical thrust. And Karen Mantler's glockenspiel adds something to the final movement. The two other pieces are less distinctive, and less obviously humorous, and for that matter less obviously interesting. [5]

The Definitive Roswell Rudd (1979, Horo)

Roswell Rudd/Steve Lacy/Misha Mengelberg/Kent Carter/Han Bennink: Regeneration (1982, Soul Note -83) [10]

That's the Way I Feel Now: A Tribute to Thelonious Monk (1984, A&M -85) [One track, credited to Terry Adams and Friends.] [+]

Allen Lowe/Roswell Rudd: Dark Was the Night -- Cold Was the Ground (1993, Music & Arts) [+]

Allen Lowe/Roswell Rudd: Woyzeck's Death (1994, Enja -95) The second collaboration, with Lowe (tenor sax) composing up to the title piece and the trombonist contributing the last two pieces. With Randy Sandke (trumpet) and Ben Goldberg (clarinets) backed by piano-bass-drums. A meditation on Georg Buchner's famous play (left unfinished at the playwright's death), a bit awkward and dramatic, but great to hear Rudd. [6]

Steve Swell Quartet: Out and About (1996, CIMP) Probably the best avant-trombonist to come along since Rudd starts his career by entertaining the master.

Elton Dean Quartet + Roswell Rudd: Rumours of an Incident (1996, Slam)

Elton Dean/Paul Dunmall/Tony Levin/Paul Rogers/Roswell Rudd/Keith Tippett: Bladik (1996, Cuneiform)

Roswell Rudd: The Unheard Herbie Nichols, Vol. 1 (1996, CIMP) [9]

Roswell Rudd: The Unheard Herbie Nichols, Vol. 2 (1996, CIMP) [5]

Elton Dean's Newsense (1997, Slam -98) The saxophonist in early 1970's prog-rock group Soft Machine, although that barely (and rather obliquely) hints at his jazz career (up to his death in 2006). It helps here to know that Dean led a 1976-81 nonet called Elton Dean's Ninesense (including South Africans Harry Miller, Louis Moholo, and Mongezi Feza, also Harry Beckett from Barbados), so the name here introduces a new nonet. The horns are dense and thick, but few stand out. [6]

Ab Baars Trio + Roswell Rudd: Four (1998, Data)

Steve Lacy/Roswell Rudd: Monk's Dream (1999, Verve -00) [+]

Roswell Rudd: Broad Strokes (1999-2000, Knitting Factory) Eclectic, it sez here. Big groups, small groups, too many vocals (awful ones at that), some great trombone. A mishmash.[5]

Archie Shepp and Roswell Rudd: Live in New York (2001, Verve) Ten or so years ago, Roswell Rudd was working in a Catskills hotel when Francis Davis tracked him down to write a"whatever happened to?" article about him. Since then he's come back big enough to share top billing in this reunion of Archie Shepp's '60s quintet, soon after sharing top billing with Steve Lacy on 2000'sMonk's Dream. This is the better album, partly for the obvious reason that Shepp's run-of-the-mill blues vocals are infintely preferable to Aëbi's stilted operatics. But top-of-the-line billing is not just newfound recognition for the doyen of avant-garde trombonists, this record rides on Rudd's compositions, and resounds with trombone (abetted by second trombonist Grachan Moncur). [9]

Steve Lacy-Roswell Rudd Quartet: Early and Late (1962-2002, Cuneiform 2CD -07) One thing that distinguished both Lacy and Rudd is that they vaulted directly from trad jazz to the avant-garde, pausing only to snatch up the songbooks of Thelonious Monk and Herbie Nichols. Instrumentation had something to do with this: before Lacy, the only known soprano sax master was Sidney Bechet, while, pace J.J. Johnson, the trombone had long been a New Orleans staple for dirtying up the lead trumpet -- Louis Armstrong never went anywhere without a Kid Ory or Trummy Young or Jack Teagarden. The first Lacy-Rudd quartet only cut one album, School Days (1963), but it was landmark enough that Ken Vandermark named his trombone-powered pianoless quartet after it (and everything School Days released was golden). The four early cuts here are unreleased demos -- three takes on Monk and one on Cecil Taylor -- and they are major finds, keys to how to turn a song inside out and make something new of it. The group broke up with Lacy moving to France and Rudd teaming up with Archie Shepp and others before fading into obscurity. Finally, they regrouped for tours in 1999 and 2002, with a new album, Monk's Dream. The rest are live shots from the tours -- long pieces, mostly Lacy's improv frameworks, plus Monk and Nichols and a sprightly pseudo-African riff from Rudd. They don't blow you away so much as they resonate with the authoritative voices of two major careers bound together at their ends. [9]

Sex Mob: Dime Grind Palace (2003, Ropeadope) Group formed in 1998 -- Steven Bernstein (trumpet), Briggan Krauss (sax), Tony Scherr (bass), and Kenny Wollesen (drums -- with nine albums through 2016, this their fifth, joined here and there by various guests, notably Peter Apfelbaum, John Kruth, Scott Robinson, Marcus Rojas, and Roswell Rudd (the latter brings the grind to 10 of 16 cuts). [8]

Roswell Rudd's Malicool (2003, Sunnyside) The veteran avant-garde trombonist meets Toumani Diabate and friends for some rather atmospheric kora, balophone, ngone, djembe, guitar, bass and 'bone. Rudd sounds fine in this context, and Diabate sounds much like he always does, but you'd think the meeting ought to have generated a little more edge. Like maybe they could use a drummer? [+]

Roswell Rudd & the Mongolian Buryat Band: Blue Mongol (2005, Sunnyside) The great jazz trombonist engages a conservatory-trained Mongolian folk group; part of the interest is the similar harmonics between trombone and throat singing, but the highlight is when Rudd cops a Beach Boys line for "Buryat Boogie."[9]

Roswell Rudd/Mark Dresser: Airwalkers (2004, Clean Feed -06) Bass-trombone duo. Seems to me this is more Dresser's show: he does this sort of intimate abstraction quite often, it's always difficult to follow but sometimes interesting when you do. Always great to hear Rudd, and a rare treat to hear him this rough but still in control. But not a record that will convert anyone. [7]

Anita O'Day: Indestructible! (2004-05, Kayo Stereophonic -06) Well into her 80s, she doesn't swing as hard as she used to, and her voice is more gone than not, but she inspires a couple of near-faultless bands. Roswell Rudd rumbles on three tracks, including "Gimme a Pigfoot and a Bottle of Beer." Joe Wilder stands out on the other tracks. O'Day's post-prime recordings have always been a matter of taste and sentiment: you have to like her a lot to see past the decline, but that's easy to do. [7]

Roswell Rudd & Yomo Toro: El Espíritu Jíbaro (2002-06, Sunnyside -07) One of Rudd's world music match-ups, with Bobby Sanabria reinforcing Toro's Puerto Rican country beat, and Rudd just being the great trombonist he's always been. Better than his beatless Mali album; not as intriguing a mix as those Mongolian throat singers. [8]

Roswell Rudd Quartet: Keep Your Heart Right (2007, Sunnyside -08) New album of (mostly) old songs, the few the great trombonist managed to write lyrics for. They're set up for Sunny Kim, the first singer he's used since he rediscovered Sheila Jordan. Unfair for anyone to have to walk in Jordan's shoes, but I'm not sure I'd think much of Kim in any case. To her credit, she fares best on two songs Jordan sung on Flexible Flyer, ably negotiating the same tricky phrasing; elsewhere she ranges from competent to not. Piano and bass do little, and I still wonder what Rudd has against drums (or drummers). The trombone is glorious. [6]

Chuck Bernstein: Delta Berimbau Blues (2007-08, CMB) Minimalist gutbucket blues played on a Brazilian diddley bow, with Roswell Rudd for a choice cut. [8]

Roswell Rudd: Trombone Tribe (2008, Sunnyside -09) Several tribes, actually: the title group with three trombones and Bob Stewart on tuba; one called Bonerama with five plus a sousaphone; the Gangbe Brass Band of Benin; and Sex Mob, which qualifies when Rudd weighs in; also, scattered unnamed groups with everyone from Eddie Bert to Ray Anderson to Josh Roseman. And what do trombone tribes do? Duh, party! [9]

The Second Approach Trio With Roswell Rudd: The Light (2009, SoLyd) Passing through Moscow, the trombone great gets sucked into a maelstrom of flying scat and piano -- like he never left the '60s. [7]

Allen Lowe: Blues and the Empirical Truth (2009-11, Music & Arts 3CD) Probably better known for his books and compilations -- the 9-CD American Pop: An Audio History From Minstrel to Mojo and the 36-CD That Devilin' Tune: A Jazz History plus their separately published books, with a new 36-CD blues series in the works -- than for his original music. I first discovered him when Francis Davis tabbed his first two self-released 1990-92 albums as Pick Hits in an earlier edition of Jazz Consumer Guide -- critical admiration that continues as Davis wrote liner notes for this release. Based in Maine, mostly cut with a local group occasionally spiced with outside star power -- Marc Ribot, Matthew Shipp, Roswell Rudd, Lewis Porter -- this digs deeper than I could have imagined into blues form, blues notes, and blues psyche, turning every aspect over and inside out. Lowe plays alto, C melody, and tenor sax, and guitar. While most of the guitar is played by Ray Suhy or Marc Ribot, Lowe especially stands out on "Williamsburg Blues" -- his guitar with Shipp's piano. Three discs means some sprawl, comparable I'd say to 69 Love Songs in that neither the theme nor the invention wears thin. (Well, maybe a bit in the middle disc.) [10]

Roswell Rudd: The Incredible Honk (2011, Sunnyside) An smorgasbord with Cuban, Cajun, Chinese, and Malian guests, topped by "Danny Boy" stripped down to a bare 'bone. [8]

Roswell Rudd: Trombone for Lovers (2013, Sunnyside) With the "Joe Hill" suite at the end, this could have been calledTrombone for the Masses: I don't mind the rapper there but the NYC Labor Choir takes some getting used to even though I feel like saluting the political point. Everything else is just superb: the opening "Ghost Riders in the Sky" with Steven Bernstein's slide trumpet, Bob Dorough on "Here, There & Everywhere," Fay Victor on"Trouble in Mind," Michael Doucet's violin on "Autumn Leaves" and"Tennessee Waltz," familiar songs that seem perfect when they pop up:"Baby, It's Cold Outside,""Struttin' With Some Barbecue,""Green Onions,""Unchained Melody,""September Song." As for "Joe Hill," well, organize. [10]

Roswell Rudd & Heather Masse: August Love Song (2015, Red House -16) Masse is a singer from Maine, part of the folk group The Wailin' Jennys but also has a couple jazz albums. She wrote one-and-a-half songs here -- the half segues into "Old Devil Moon" -- and the trombonist wrote two songs, the rest from the standards repertoire. With Rolf Sturm on guitar and Mark Helias on bass, what I love is the trombone growl and rumble, but the others, not least the singer, do their part too. [9]

Bob Merrill: Cheerin' Up the Universe (2013, Accurate -15) Trumpet player, crooner, don't know if he's related to the famous songwriter of the same name (1921-98), but is clearly much younger and still living. Band includes John Medeski, Russ Gershon, Nicki Parrott, and George Schuller, and Harry Allen and Roswell Rudd drop in for a cut apiece. [7]

Roswell Rudd/Jamie Saft/Trevor Dunn/Balasz Pandi: Strength& Power (2015, Rare Noise -16) Free jazz quartet, everything joint-credited, presumably improvised on the spot. The trombonist has done things like this in the distant past, none recently, and never has he got the mix this right. Saft has emerged as an exceptional free jazz pianist, and the bassist and drummer know the game. [9]

Roswell Rudd/Fay Victor/Lafayette Harris/Ken Filiano:Embrace (2017, RareNoise) Trombone-piano-bass trio plus singer, one of the most distinctive ones working today if not always one of the easiest to listen to. In some ways this recalls Rudd's mid-1970s work with Sheila Jordan -- less swing, the pianist a bit more ornate. Victor is especially striking on songs that don't tempt her to scat or vocalese, like "Can't We Be Friends" and "House of the Rising Sun," but she's pretty impressive traipsing over Mingus and Monk. The trombone isn't exactly lovely, but so full of soul it can't be the work of anyone else. [9]

Weekend Roundup

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A day late from the usual Sunday, but having missed last week, I figured the exercise would be worthwhile. Like our trash collection, we're running a day late this week.

Growing up we always had a special dinner on Christmas Eve, then gathered around the tree in the living room and opened presents. I gave up on shopping and presents after my parents died in 2000 -- partly, I suppose, because we moved to Wichita in 1999 to be closer to my family, but after doing serious shopping I got sick and missed that last Christmas. We tried to keep the tradition going, but it fizzled out when my brother and his family moved away. The only thing I kept was the Christmas Eve dinner, which I've ever since subjected my sister and her son to. I rustled up a bit pot of paella last night, with a lobster, some shrimp and scallops instead of the usual clams. I figured I'd do some tapas on the side, but didn't come up with much: potatoes with tuna and egg, a white bean salad, a pisto (onions, zucchini, peppers, tomatoes, cooked down to a paste), sauteed mushrooms in garlic sauce, some olives, a loaf of "bake it yourself" garlic bread. Per a tradition that only started after we returned to Wichita, I made date pudding (topped with caramel sauce and whipped cream) for dessert. I was feeling pretty depressed, but the sensation vanished as soon as I started cooking. That's pretty much all I have to show for 2017, but it feels like I'm accomplishing something when I do it.

Biggest story from the last couple weeks were the Republican tax bill: a massive giveaway to corporations, proprietors who can take advantage of the "pass-through income" provisions, and to the growth and consolidation of aristocracy, and eventually a drain on the economy and an excuse for cutting back on actually useful services the government provides. But also very important are the end of FCC"net neutrality" rules and the latest round of sanctions against North Korea. Of course, the latter could instantly jump to the head of the list.


Some scattered links this week:

  • Matthew Yglesias: The 4 most important political stories of the week [Dec. 22]: Congress passed a major tax cut; The government won't shut down for Christmas; Affordable Care Act signups remained robust; Republicans turned on Robert Mueller; and The 4 biggest policy stories of the week, explained [Dec. 15]: A Democrat won a Senate election in Alabama: Doug Jones; Republicans wrote their tax bill; Sexual harassment accusations kept rolling Congress; Net neutrality. Other Yglesias pieces:

    • The real cost of the Republican tax bill: Argues that the models showing revenues down by $1-1.5 trillion will likely be proven low, not least because IRS enforcement under Trump is likely to be slack. I would add that actual revenues in Kansas have consistently fallen short of expectations, because the Brownback cuts allowed unanticipated scams.

    • The tax cut expectations game.

    • What "affordable housing" really means.

    • We're witnessing the wholesale looting of America:

      Throughout the 2016 campaign, the political class talked a lot about "norms" and how Donald Trump was violating them all. He brushed off fact-checkers, assailed the media, went on Twitter tirades against his critics, and dabbled in racism. Since taking office, his norm busting has spread. Members of Congress who under other circumstances might be constrained by shame, custom, or the will of their constituents have learned from Trump's election that you can get away with more than we used to think.

      Norm erosion is real, and it matters. . . . These scholars are all considering deep, long-lasting differences in cultural norms, but we also know from experience that norms can sometimes shift dramatically in unusual circumstances. Sometimes a blackout or other disaster prompts a few people who would ordinarily be too cautious to break store windows in broad daylight to become more brazen. And the normal course of ordinary life flips into reverse, as those with some inclination toward bad acts recognize a moment of impunity and grab what they can, while those who would ordinarily be invested in upholding order are afraid and stay inside. The sheer quantity of bad acts makes it impossible for anyone to hold anyone accountable. Soon, a whole neighborhood can be in ruins.

      Or a whole country. . . .

      It takes a lot more than Donald Trump to orchestrate the kind of feeding frenzy that's currently playing out in Washington. Nothing about this would work if not for the fact that hundreds of Republican Party members of Congress wake up each morning and decide anew that they are indifferent to the myriad financial conflicts of interest in which Trump and his family are enmeshed. Moral and political responsibility for the looting ultimately rests on the shoulders of the GOP members of Congress who decided that the appropriate reaction to Trump's inauguration was to start smashing and grabbing as much as possible for themselves and their donors rather than uphold their constitutional obligations.

    • Why Trump's tax cuts won't be repealed.

    • Republicans are on tilt with their super-unpopular tax bill.

    • Collective ownership of the means of production.

  • Dean Baker: Bubbles: Are They Back?

    Should we be concerned about a bubble now? Stock prices and housing prices are both high by historical standards. The ratio of stock prices-to-trend corporate earnings is more than 27-to-1; this compares to a long-term average of 15-to-1.

    House prices are also high by historic standards. Inflation-adjusted house prices are still well below their bubble peaks, but are about 40 percent above their long-term average.

    Baker also wrote: Diverting Class Warfare Into Generational Warfare: Round LVIII; e.g.:

    It is also important to understand that government action was at the center of this upward redistribution. Without government-granted patent monopolies for Windows and other Microsoft software, Bill Gates would probably still be working for a living.

    We spent over $450 billion on prescription drugs in 2017. Without government-granted patent monopolies we would probably have spent less than $80 billion. The difference of $370 billion is equal to an increase of a 5.0 percentage point increase in the Social Security payroll tax. But the generational warriors don't want anyone talking about how much money our children to pay drug companies with government-granted patent monopolies.

    Baker is a bit confused about Microsoft -- patents played at most a small role in building its monopoly -- the late 1990s antitrust case which Microsoft lost covered much of this -- but copyrights are essential for maintaining it.

  • Zack Beauchamp: We are sleepwalking toward war with North Korea.

  • Sean Illing: How the baby boomers -- not millennials -- screwed America: Interview with Bruce Gibney, author of A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America, which looks to be pretty awful. I don't doubt that various age cohorts grow up with different experiences, but there has always been more variation within a generation than change from one to the next. It's not that Gibney is unobservant -- he identifies Ronald Reagan's 1980 election as the turning point from which today's rot stemmed -- but he pairs his superficial groupings with clichéd analysis and bogus measures (especially the growth of debt). Gibney, like so many reactionaries from the 1950s on, blamed postwar affluence for breeding a generation of selfish ingrates who lack the social solidarity bred in their parents by depression and war. As Gibney puts it:

    I think the major factor is that the boomers grew up in a time of uninterrupted prosperity. And so they simply took it for granted. They assumed the economy would just grow three percent a year forever and that wages would go up every year and that there would always be a good job for everyone who wanted it.

    This was a fantasy and the result of a spoiled generation assuming things would be easy and that no sacrifices would have to be made in order to preserve prosperity for future generations.

    Gibney's argument might be more interesting if he focused on things that were truly new and widespread, like that "boomers" were the first cohort to grow up with television and its mass consumer advertising, with news presented more in images than in words, with world travel reduced from months or weeks to hours, with science promising greater control of nature but also raising the spectre of extinction. Maybe some people responded to such sweeping change by becoming sociopaths, but (for a while, at least) the opposite seemed to be happening: in the late '60s and early '70s, the "boomers" were in the forefront of movements for the environment, sexual equality, for consumer rights, for civil rights and against war. You can argue that the new left was too individualistic and too nonchalant about power, and that those weaknesses made it easier for conservative reaction to seize power -- and beset the country with all the ills Gibney decries. But the fact that Bill Clinton, GW Bush, and Donald Trump were all born in 1946 doesn't make them representative of a generation. Indeed, they were clearly exceptional, carefully selected by unrepresentative powers.

    Nothing actual in this piece about "millennials" -- one's political hopes for them (e.g., Steven Olikara: Here's one reason to be optimistic about politics: Millennials in office) lie not in generational change but in the fact that thanks to the conservative reaction they've been so severely screwed. But that only changes if they recognize the real culprits.

  • Ezra Klein: "An orgy of serious policy discussion" with Paul Krugman.

  • Mike Konczal: "Neoliberalism" isn't an empty epithet. It's a real, powerful set of ideas. Good explanation of the word, if you wind up stuck needing to use it.

  • Kevin M Kruse: The Second Klan: Review of Linda Gordon's book,The Second Coming of the KKK: The Ku Klux Klan and the American Political Tradition.

  • German Lopez: The past year of research has made it very clear: Trump won because of racial resentment: Three charts here, mapping the tendencies of people "least satisfied" with economics, "most sexist," and "most denying of racism" to vote for Trump. The latter two are highly polarized, as well they should be: Trump was blatantly racist and sexist, especially compared to his opponent, and his campaign actively polarized people on those issues, so of course sexists and racists (not uncommonly the same people) voted for him overwhelmingly. Still, to say he won because he appealed to racism you have to quantify how large that voter share was. Given that racists were already highly aligned with the Republican Party it's hard to see a lot of movement on that score, not that were was none. "Economic dissatisfaction" is another story: that the "least satisfied" tilted toward Trump at all is the surprise -- really, a complete breakdown in the Democratic Party's messaging, all the more damning given how easy it should have been to depict Trump as the poster boy for exorbitant greed and privilege. The underlying facts have never been in doubt. That we keep rehashing them has more to do with politics. Sanders supporters were quick to identify the failed economic hopes of the white lower classes because that's one thing their program addressed and could convert into the additional votes necessary to beat Trump and the Republicans. Diehard Clinton supporters like the racism narrative, because it shifts blame from the candidate to the "deplorable" voters.

  • Premilla Nadasen: Extreme poverty returns to America.

  • Rebecca Solnit: Don't let the alt-right hijack #MeToo for their agenda.

  • Matt Stoller: What is net neutrality? It protects us from corporate power.

  • Matt Taibbi: Bob Corker Facing Ethics Questions? What a Surprise:"The Tennessee senator's financial success has been one of Washington's open questions for years." Corker flip-flopped on the tax bill, first voting against it because it would increase the deficit, then voting for it even though its impact on the deficit hasn't changed (but the joint committee added a break on real estate taxes that evidently saves Corker millions of dollars). More on Corker: Mary Papenfuss: #CorkerKickback Turns Up the Flame Under Senator for His Tax Vote Switch. Paul Krugman, in Passing Through to Corruption, also mentions Corker:

    Senator Bob Corker, citing concerns about the deficit, was the only Republican to vote against the Senate version of the tax bill. Now, however, he says he will vote for a final version that is no better when it comes to fiscal probity. What changed?

    Well, one thing that changed was the insertion of a provision that wasn't in the Senate bill: Real estate companies were added to the list of "pass-through" businesses whose owners will get sharply lower tax rates. These pass-through provisions are arguably the worst feature of the bill. They will open the tax system to a huge amount of gaming, of exploiting legal loopholes to avoid tax.

    But one thing they will also do, thanks to that last-minute addition, is give huge tax breaks to elected officials who own a lot of income-producing real estate -- officials like Donald Trump and, yes, Bob Corker.

  • Todd VanDerWerff: Disney acquiring Fox means big, scary things for film and TV: "Here are five reasons the deal is terrifying -- and only one of them is increased media consolidation."


Music Week

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Music: Current count 29058 [29021] rated (+37), 388 [389] unrated (-1).

Extended the week a day, which helped make up for not playing any unrated music on Christmas Eve -- was busy cooking paella for what's left of the family here. Was pleased to see that Cam Patterson finally posted a picture of his legendary crawfish étouffée -- he contacted me many years ago, mentioning his ritual and urging me to write more about my cooking. You can find a picture of my paella here -- had to drag out the big pot for it.

Finally got into the latest batch of Ivo Perelman CDs, and while I choked on Philosopher's Stone (too shrill), the rest proved remarkable. Missing below is Live in Brussels, which I had previously graded B+(**) based on Napster, before I got the CDs. I will give it another shot later on, but seemed unnecessary at the moment. Since I closed off the week, I've discovered Art Pepper'sWest Coast Sessions on Omnivore. I need to replay to first two volumes, but there's a good chance that all six will wind up at A- -- as did the 5-CD box The Hollywood All-Star Sessions, where I first heard most of this marvelous music. I got into the Rolling Stones boots after Laura wanted to hear Beggars Banquet. I reconsidered Angles 9 after it showed up number two on Chris Monsen's list.

Spent several days last week cleaning up the album credits for the Jazz Critics Poll listings. I noted all the new records that got votes in my2017 EOY List Aggregate, but the process was so slow and tedious I postponed work on reissues and the vocal-debut-Latin side-polls. I got far fewer complaints about errors this year than ever before, although I've found so many since the pages went up that I suspect fatigue or indifference as much as anything else. I saw a tweet from poll winner Vijay Iyer bemoaning the shortage of women critics, but that's only one of many identity groups that got shortchanged -- one I've complained about in the past was lack of European critics. I also got a letter from someone complaining about a shortage of jazz radio dj's (we got more of them than women or Europeans). He included a top-100 chart from Jazz Week, which I'll factor into my EOY Aggregate. He stressed that the JW list wasn't a "smooth jazz" list, which is true, but it isn't very adventurous or even interesting: for instance, I only count four records also on my 79 deepJazz A-List (Jack DeJohnette's Hudson, Katie Thiroux's Off Beat, Yoko Miwa's Pathways, and Jimmy Greene's Flowers). Part of the problem is that it doesn't include a single album from the two labels Francis Davis singled out as "gatekeepers" to the polls (ECM and Pi) -- labels which scored 9 of the top 30 new jazz albums (6 and 3 respectively; note that Pi only released 5 albums last year, placing 60% of them in the top 17, the others landing at 60 and 94).

I could just as well complain about the lack of avant-oriented (or even -curious) voters. For instance, Free Jazz Collective just released their Free Jazz Blog's 2017 Top 10 Lists, collecting 21 writers, only three of whom submitted ballots to JCP. I've never been consulted on who gets invited, and especially have no idea who got invited but didn't vote. I do know that JCP typically gets about twice as many voters as JazzTimes for their annual poll, yet relatively speaking remains more open-minded.

I was thinking I'd write something about my EOY Aggregate this week, but I'm running out of time, and it's still in flux even if not changing very fast. But I will list out the current top 20 (my grades in brackets):

  1. 205: Kendrick Lamar: Damn (Top Dawg) [A-]
  2. 143: Lorde: Melodrama (Lava/Republic) [A-]
  3. 134: SZA: Ctrl (Top Dawg/RCA) [**]
  4. 131: LCD Soundsystem: American Dream (DFA/Columbia) [**]
  5. 120: St Vincent: Masseduction (Loma Vista) [A-]
  6. 91: Vince Staples: Big Fish Theory (Def Jam) [**]
  7. 79: The War on Drugs: A Deeper Understanding (Atlantic) [B]
  8. 78: The National: Sleep Well Beast (4AD) [***]
  9. 77: Sampha: Process (Young Turks) [*]
  10. 69: Slowdive (Dead Oceans) [*]
  11. 67: Kelela: Take Me Apart (Warp) [**]
  12. 66: Perfume Genius: No Shape (Matador) [B-]
  13. 60: Father John Misty: Pure Comedy (Sub Pop) [B-]
  14. 60: Thundercat: Drunk (Brainfeeder) [*]
  15. 57: Jay-Z: 4:44 (Roc Nation/UMG) [**]
  16. 57: Tyler the Creator: Flower Boy (Columbia) [B]
  17. 48: King Krule: The OOZ (True Panther Sounds) [B]
  18. 44: Big Thief: Capacity (Saddle Creek) [**]
  19. 42: Fever Ray: Plunge (Rabid/Mute) [*]
  20. 41: Migos: Culture (QC/YRN/300) [***]

All in all, a better bunch of records than I'm used to in EOY lists, although I always find at least one record I can't imagine why anyone would vote for -- this year it's Perfume Genius: I can't hear any reason why anyone would find it attractive, even though on balance it's not so much worse than Father John Misty or War on Drugs. I probably won't spend much more time on this, at least beyond next week. I clearly still have some things that need to be factored in, even if just for my own curiosity. I've currently collected94 lists, which is a far cry from last year's557 lists. Those lists have identified 1481 records so far this year, compared to 4978 in 2016. Pazz & Jop typically comes up with about 1500 records.

By the way, I didn't get an invite from the Village Voice to vote in Pazz & Jop this year. No idea why, other than that they've changed management in the last year, supposedly to a group less inclined to let things run on autopilot. MyYear 2017 list is up to 1001 lines (16 pending, so rated count is 985), which doesn't strike me as bad for a critic. Granted, probably two-thirds of that is jazz -- theNon-Jazz A-List is currently a relatively anemic 51 titles long (compared to 79 jazz), so maybe it's just anti-jazz prejudice taking hold there. Still, feels like a nudge out the door.


I published a "quick and dirty" consumer guide to the recordings of the late trombonist Roswell Rudd:The Incredible Honk (one of his album titles). I was so short of time and uncertain of consciousness that I almost let it go, but it finally cleaned up easily enough. I became a Rudd fan in the late 1970s, when Arista reissued a series of album that originally came out in Paris on Freedom Records. They included two Rudd titles: one chunk of avant-squawk I hated, the other (a jaded swing quartet with Sheila Jordan singing) I absolutely loved. I then tracked down his JCOA album (another good one, also with Jordan), and a few years later I grabbed Regeneration, his Herbie Nichols/Thelonious Monk tribute. That was pretty much his last album for more than a decade, until Francis Davis wrote his 1993 profile (see link below). Rudd returned to the spotlight after that, especially after he hooked up with Verna Gillis -- evidently some kind of world music impressario, hence his albums with musicians from Mali to Mongolia to Puerto Rico. It's been a delight to follow him since I started writing JCG.

Some Rudd links:


I've been toying with the idea of writing an essay on political strategy, tentatively titled A Letter to the Democrats. It would start with a survey of American political eras: one thing I'm struck by is that for 1800-1856 the Democrats only lost two elections (both to short-lived Whig generals); from 1860-1928 the Republicans were dominant with only two Democrats were elected president (two terms each for Cleveland and Wilson); from 1932-1976 only two Republicans won (two terms each for Eisenhower and Nixon); and from 1980-2016 only two Democrats (again two terms each for Clinton and Obama). Mark Lilla talks about "two dispensations" for the last two eras, but that seems like a quaint term. There are plenty of reasons to think that the poles may switch in 2020 -- not least that each era shift was preceded by an exceptionally unpopular one-term president (Buchanan, Hoover, and Carter), and it's hard to imagine that Trump is any different (indeed, he's probably the weakest of the four). On the other hand, the current Republican phase is anomalous in many respects: especially that it represents a shift to the right, whereas all previous era shifts moved toward more democratic/liberal foundations. But there's a lot more interesting stuff that flows from this framework. The main question is how should candidates position themselves to realize the transformation that is possible.

From a practical standpoint, I figure I'd have to knock this essay out in 4-6 weeks, hoping to get it published in March/April so that it might have some immediate effect on the 2018 elections. So it will have to be short, quick, and pointed. I won't be able to do a lot of research, but I thought I'd at least start to make a survey of books I should be aware of. One of the things I did today was to search Amazon for "democrats" -- which turned up nothing of interest. I then tried to refine the search and tried "democratic party prospects" and got what has to be the most useless Amazon results page ever:

  1. The Communist Manifesto, by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
  2. Essential Works of Lenin: "What Is to Be Done?" and Other Writings
  3. Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning, by Jonah Goldberg

I was expecting to find some more recent/less dated strategizing along the lines of E.J. Dionne: They Only Look Dead: Why Progressives Will Dominate the Next Political Era (1996) and John Judis/Ruy Teixeira: The Emerging Democratic Majority (2004), but I'm finding very little of that. Sure, Dionne does have a new book, One Nation After Trump: A Guide for the Perplexed, the Disillusioned, the Desperate, and the Not-Yet-Deported, as does Teixeira,The Optimistic Leftist: Why the 21st Century Will Be Better Than You Think -- but I don't find their cheery optimism at all convincing. I did read Mark Lilla's The Once and Future Liberal, which got me thinking along these lines, but mostly because of its defects. There must be something else worthwhile. Or maybe I've discovered a market gap? Regardless, I've procrastinated so long already that if I do decide to do something, I need to move fast.


New records rated this week:

  • Yazz Ahmed: La Saboteuse (2017, Naim): [r]: B+(**)
  • John Beasley: MONK'estra Vol. 2 (2017, Mack Avenue): [r]: B
  • Sam Braysher With Michael Kanan: Golden Earrings (2016 [2017], Fresh Sound New Talent): [r]: B+(***)
  • Phoebe Bridgers: Stranger in the Alps (2017, Dead Oceans): [r]: B+(*)
  • Peter Brotzmann/Heather Leigh: Sex Tape (2016 [2017], Trost): [r]: B-
  • John Butcher/Damon Smith/Weasel Walter: The Catastrophe of Minimalism (2008 [2017], Ballance Point Acoustics): [r]: B+(**)
  • Collectif Spatule: Le Vanneau Huppé (2017, Aloya): [bc]: B+(**)
  • Dial & Oatts/Rich DeRosa/WDR Big Band: Rediscovered Ellington: New Takes on Duke's Rare and Unheard Music (2017, Zoho): [r]: B+(*)
  • Agustí Fernández/Rafal Mazur: Ziran (2016, Not Two): [r]: B+(*)
  • Champian Fulton & Scott Hamilton: The Things We Did Last Summer (2017, Blau): [r]: B+(*)
  • Frank Gratkowski/Simon Nabatov: Mirthful Myths (2015 [2017], Leo): [r]: B+(**)
  • Charlie Halloran: Ce Biguine! (2017, self-released): [bc]: B+(**)
  • Lilly Hiatt: Trinity Lane (2017, New West): [r]: B+(**)
  • The Jazz Passengers: Still Life With Trouble (2017, Thirsty Ear): [r]: B+(**)
  • Lee Konitz: Frescalalto (2015 [2017], Impulse): [r]: B+(***)
  • Alex Lahey: I Love You Like a Brother (2017, Dead Oceans): [r]: B+(***)
  • Christian McBride Big Band: Bringin' It (2017, Mack Avenue): [r]: B-
  • Ron Miles: I Am a Man (2016 [2017], Yellowbird): [yt]: B+(***)
  • Jason Moran and the Bandwagon: Thanksgiving at the Vanguard (2016 [2017], Yes): [dl]: B+(*)
  • Zaid Nasser: The Stroller (2016 [2017], SteepleChase): [r]: B+(**)
  • Sam Newsome and Jean-Michel Pilc: Magic Circle (2017, Some New Music): [r]: B+(**)
  • Dick Oatts: Use Your Imagination (2016 [2017], SteepleChase): [r]: B+(**)
  • Ivo Perelman/Matthew Shipp/William Parker/Bobby Kapp: Heptagon (2017, Leo): [cd]: A-
  • Ivo Perelman/Matthew Shipp/Nate Wooley: Philosopher's Stone (2017, Leo): [cd]: B+(*)
  • Ivo Perelman/Nate Wooley/Brandon Lopez/Gerald Cleaver: Octagon (2017, Leo): [cd]: A-
  • Ivo Perelman/Matthew Shipp/Joe Hertenstein: Scalene (2017, Leo): [cd]: A-
  • Ivo Perelman/Matthew Shipp/Jeff Cosgrove: Live in Baltimore (2017, Leo): [cd]: B+(***)
  • Red Planet/Bill Carrothers: Red Planet With Bill Carrothers (2017, Shifting Paradigm): [bc]: B+(**)
  • Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah: The Emancipation Procrastination (2016 [2017], Stretch Music/Ropeadope): [r]: B+(**)
  • Shotgun Jazz Band: Steppin' on the Gas (2016 [2017], self-released): [r]: B+(**)
  • Omar Sosa & Seckou Keita: Transparent Water (2017, World Village): [r]: B+(*)

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries rated this week:

  • The Rolling Stones: On Air (1963-65 [2017], Interscope): [r]: B+(**)
  • The Rolling Stones: Live 1965: Music From Charlie Is My Darling (1965 [2014], ABKCO): [r]: B+(**)
  • The Rolling Stones: Ladies & Gentlemen: The Rolling Stones (1972 [2017], Eagle Rock): [r]: A-
  • The Rolling Stones: Sticky Fingers Live at the Fonda Theater 2015 (2015 [2017], Eagle Rock): [r]: B+(*)

Old music rated this week:

  • Allen Lowe/Roswell Rudd: Woyzeck's Death (1994 [1995], Enja): [sp]: B+(*)
  • The Rolling Stones: Singles 1968-1971 (1968-71 [2005], Abkco, 9CD): [r]: B+(***)
  • Roswell Rudd: Everywhere (1966 [1967], Impulse): [r]: B+(***)
  • Sex Mob: Dime Grind Palace (2003, Ropeadope): [r]: B+(***)


Grade (or other) changes:

  • Angles 9: Disappeared Behind the Sun (2016 [2017], Clean Feed): [cd]: [was B+(**)] A-


Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

  • Justin Gray & Synthesis: New Horizons (self-released): January 5
  • Peter Sommer: Happy-Go-Lucky Locals (self-released)

Streamnotes (December 2017)

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Not really ready, but had to push this out before the month and year ended. The 161 records are the most all year, topping 156 in January, even more so 144 last December. This late spurt brings theYear 2017 list to 1023 (including 11 still pending) -- nowhere near a record but a respectable quantity, I'd think. It's been a struggle as promo copies have become scarcer, but the whole year has been a struggle. I fully expected to listen to less this year, but fell back into old habits not knowing what else to do.

Still accumulating EOY lists for myEOY Aggregate, which has been pretty stable almost since the beginning, but as the database grows I become aware of more things I had no awareness of previously. January, as usual, will pick up more of these stragglers. I'll freeze the Year 2017 list in late January -- probably a bit more than2016's 1075 records, though again nowhere near record levels.

As the last hours of 2017 tick away, I've failed to accomplish two fairly mechanical tasks I expected to complete: the compilation of my Jazz Guides, and an update toRobert Christgau's website. The latter is probably still a week away. No idea about the Jazz Guides -- end of January might be possible if I knuckle down, but that would require a big change from recent practice.


Most of these are short notes/reviews based on streaming records from Napster (formerly Rhapsody; other sources are noted in brackets). They are snap judgments, usually based on one or two plays, accumulated since my last post along these lines, back on November 28. Past reviews and more information are availablehere (10531 records).


Recent Releases

Espen Aalberg/Jonas Kullhammar/Torbjörn Zetterberg/Susana Santos Silva: Basement Sessions Vol. 4 (The Bali Tapes) (2016 [2017], Clean Feed): Three previous volumes listed saxophonist Kullhammar first, with bassist Aalberg and drummer Zetterberg -- perhaps because Aalberg wrote all the pieces (except for a "Javanese traditional"). Last one was recorded in Ljubljana with Jørgen Mathisen. This one in Bali with Santos Silva on trumpet, and everyone dabbling in gamelan. The Indonesian touches are hard to discern, but Kullhammar remains one of the most distinctive saxophonists working. B+(***)

Aesop Rock & Homeboy Sandman: Triple Fat Lice (2017, Stones Throw, EP): Third EP collaboration, five songs, 17:41, the former's word density a plus, especially as the beats (notably piano for the opener) rise to the occasion.B+(***) [bc]

Yazz Ahmed: La Saboteuse (2017, Naim): Plays trumpet and flugelhorn, describes herself as "British-Bahraini" but doesn't elaborate. Second album, has a side-credit with Radiohead and covers one of theirs here, writing all but one of the rest, more often than not with vibraphonist Lewis Wright. Some enticing Arabic rhythmic wrinkles, strong guest spots from Shabaka Hutchings on bass clarinet.B+(**)

Fabian Almazan: Alcanza (2017, Biophilia): Pianist, born in Cuba, raised in Miami, also credited with electronics here, backed by bass (Linda Oh), drums (Henry Cole), and string quartet, with Camila Meza singing and playing guitar. Eleven parts to the title suite, interludes to spotlight the trio instruments, vocals arch and arty.B-

Alvvays: Antisocialites (2017, Polyvinyl): Canadian indie-pop group, second album, Kerri MacLellan the key vocalist, also plays Farfisa adding an organ-like effect to the guitar-bass-drums.B+(**)

Denys Baptiste: The Late Trane (2017, Edition): British saxophonist, tenor and soprano, fifth album since 1999, picks pieces from Coltrane's 1963-67 records backed by a quartet schooled in The Quartet plus "special guests" Gary Crosby (bass) and Steve Williamson (tenor sax). They get the basic idea right, revel in the deep sax search, but in their enjoyment they lose track of Coltrane's own fear and dread.B+(**)

Bargou 08: Targ (2017, Glitterbeat): Named for an isolated valley where the Atlas Mountains of Algeria lap into Tunisia,"a forgotten place." A little rustic for Arabic pop, almost Saharan dry.B+(*)

Courtney Barnett/Kurt Vile: Lotta Sea Lice (2017, Matador): Singer-songwriters, one from Australia, the other from Philadelphia. Last time out she released one of the best records of the 2015 -- not just my opinion there, as it finished 2nd in the Pazz & Jop poll -- while Vile (real name) is well-regarded (27th in same poll), although not much by me. No doubt she brightens up his drab songs, a pretty comfy album until it sours a bit toward the end.B+(*)

John Beasley: Presents MONK'estra Vol. 2 (2017, Mack Avenue): Monk pieces done up big band style -- credits I see look like they could use more trombones, although they weigh in heavily enough, so much so that the Monkishness can get lost. Guests include Dianne Reeves singing "Dear Ruby." Beasley plays keyboards and conducts.B

Ernaldo Bernocchi: Rosebud (2017, RareNoise): All joint credits, so intent is probably eponymous. Leader plays baritone guitar and electronics, joined by FM Einheit ("metals, sand, stones, tools and electronics") and Jo Quail (cello), for a gloomy, nostalgic post-industrial soundscape.B+(*) [cdr]

Blushh + Maddie Ross: Split (2017, self-released, EP): Los Angeles-based DIY rockers, four songs, 11:04, two each: Blushh a guitar-bass-drums quartet with singer Shab Ferdowsi, Ross a single with a similar (same?) band, less catalogue, but more punch.B+(**) [bc]

Sam Braysher With Michael Kanan: Golden Earrings (2016 [2017], Fresh Sound New Talent): Alto sax and piano duo, seems to be the former's first album, while Kanan has a single album from 2002. One Braysher original, the rest a mix of standards and early bop favorites (Parker, Dameron), ending with a brief "Way Down Yonder in New Orleans." Nothing flashy, just easy and intimate, cozy even.B+(***)

Phoebe Bridgers: Stranger in the Alps (2017, Dead Oceans): Singer-songwriter from Los Angeles, first album, starts pretty slow, too wrapped in strings for folk rock, picks up enough speed to disqualify as slowcore either, but sad -- it is that, just not pathetic.B+(*)

Alan Broadbent With the London Metropolitan Orchestra: Developing Story (2017, Eden River): Pianist, perhaps best known as the guy who added lushness (including string arrangements) to Charlie Haden's Quartet West. Goes whole orchestra here, dubbing his piano trio -- with Harvie S (bass) and Peter Erskine (drums) -- in separately. Five pieces by Broadbent, four by others (Tadd Dameron, John Coltrane, Miles Davis twice). Lush and gorgeous, a bit overblown.B+(*)

Brockhampton: Saturation (2017, Question Everything/Empire): Music collective, hip-hop group, "the Internet's first boy band," formed in Texas, based in California, the one member I've heard of before Kevin Abstract. First of three 2017 albums, all but one of the titles four-letter words ("Heat,""Gold,""Star," etc.).B+(*)

Brockhampton: Saturation II (2017, Question Everything/Empire): Growth and development, means using five-letter song titles this time --"Gummy,""Queer,""Jello," etc., even replacing "Skit" with "Scene."B+(**)

Brockhampton: Saturation III (2017, Question Everything/Empire): And on to the six-letter titles: "Boogie,""Zipper,""Johnny," with the former skits now "Cinema 1-2-3."B+(**)

Peter Brötzmann/Heather Leigh: Sex Tape (2016 [2017], Trost): Second duo album together, Leigh playing pedal steel guitar, trying to make it even uglier than Brötzmann's reeds, often succeeding. Can't say that the instrument has ever been played like this before, but while she reminds me of bagpipes, that just goes to show it could be worse. B-

John Butcher/Damon Smith/Weasel Walter: Catastrophe of Minimalism (2008 [2017], Ballace Point Acoustics): Live tape, on the shelf for nearly a decade -- Butcher (soprano/tenor sax), Smith (bass, samples, lloopp), Walter (percussion). Can get rough, and sometimes better for it.B+(**)

Call Super: Arpo (2017, Houndstooth): British electronica producer, Joseph Richmond-Seaton, second album plus a bunch of shorter releases since 2011. The little stutter beats don't seem like much at first, but gradually they grow radiant, and even the electronic washes shimmer.A-

Tyler Childers: Purgatory (2017, Hickman Holler): Country singer-songwriter, Saving Country Music's favorite record of 2017, but while he's got the traditional sound down pat -- it really does sound terrific -- the songs don't manage to stick.B+(**)

Billy Childs: Rebirth (2017, Mack Avenue): Pianist, from Los Angeles, played with J.J. Johnson and Nat Adderley in the late 1970s, eleventh album since 1988. He wrote the first six tracks (one, the title track, co-written by singer Claudia Acuña), covering "The Windmills of Your Mind" and "Peace." He can be a dazzling pianist, but the productions are overkill, especially on the two vocal tracks. Saxophonist Steve Wilson has a nice run on the closer.B-

Collectif Spatule: Le Vanneau Huppé (2017, Aloya): French group, "jazz acoustique," with Chloe Calleston vocals, flutes and saxophones, chromatic harp, cello, bass, two drummers -- precluding any chance this might get pigeonholed as chamber jazz.B+(**)

Eva Cortés: Crossing Borders (2016 [2017], Origin): Singer from Honduras, half-dozen previous albums since 2007, wrote four (of eleven) songs, one in English.B+(*) [cd]

CupcakKe: S.T.D (Shelters to Deltas) (2016, self-released): Chicago rapper, Elizabeth Eden Harris, second mixtape, not yet 20 but, as they say, "barely legal" -- leads off with rap porn like "Best Dick Sucker" and "Cool Fuck," but also raps about growing up rough and throws it all in your face.B+(**)

CupcakKe: Audacious (2016, self-released): Despite the cheesecake on the cover, she dials the porn back a bit -- well, you still get titles like "Spider Man Dick" and "Cock a Doodle Doo," but also"Picking Cotton" on the evolution of slavery and "Birth Mark" like how you carry your scars, the thrills of "running with the LGBT," and how she discovered "Jesus."B+(***)

CupcakKe: Queen Elizabitch (2017, self-released): Artist name Elizabeth Eden Harris, from Chicago, fourth self-released album -- Wikipedia splits calls two of them mixtapes, two "studio albums," but I doubt you can figure out which is which. Order is a bit easier, not so much because she's maturing -- still just 20 -- but over time she draws less on porn (not that "Cumshot" doesn't count here). Also her beats get louder and more cluttered. But her closing freestyle is as sharply political as anything this year.B+(**)

Pan Daijing: Lack (2017, Pan): Born in Guiyang, Southwest China; based since 2016 in Berlin, first album after a couple EPs. Starts with soprano voice against presumably Chinese strings, before moving into her real calling: noise. Relatively choice cut: "The Nerve Meter."B-

Kris Davis & Craig Taborn: Octopus (2016 [2018], Pyroclastic): Piano duets, two of the most accomplished pianists of their generation(s) -- Davis b. 1980, Taborn b. 1970 -- selected from three concerts. Not normally my thing, but remarkable all the way through.A- [cd]

Dev: I Only See You When I'm Dreamin' (2017, Devishot): Devin Tailes, pop singer from California, second album, not all that splashy but knows when to flirt and when to break it off -- title song is about an ex, and she prefers it that way.A-

Dial & Oatts/Rich DeRosa/The WDR Big Band: Rediscovered Ellington: New Takes on Duke's Rare and Unheard Music (2017, Zoho): Pianist Garry Dial and saxophonist Dick Oatts met in Red Rodney's late-1980s quintet and recorded three albums together 1989-93 as Dial& Oatts, hence the attribution. DeRosa, a longtime UNT professor, is an arranger, although Dial has a co-credit in most of the arrangements, and Oatts the rest. The Germans provide the muscle, although Dial and, especially, Oatts claims most of the solos. Delivers on the rare/unheard promise, not least by not sounding very Ellingtonian.B+(*)

Angelo Divino: Love A to Z (2017, self-released): Crooner, unclear on bio but he's worked in New York and Los Angeles, wrote and sang in a piece called "Let Me Be Frank," which hardly needs to be spelled out further. Goes for sappy love songs here, with pianist Rich Eames helping out.B- [cd]

Fabiano Do Nascimento: Tempo Dos Mestres (2017, Now-Again): Guitarist-singer from Rio de Janeiro, second album (in US anyhow), straddles folk and psychedelia, or maybe Brazilian folk just starts out bent like that?B+(**)

FCT = Francesco Cusa Trio Meets Carlo Atti: From Sun Ra to Donald Trump (2016 [2017], Clean Feed): Recorded Nov. 23, a few weeks after the apocalyptic American election. Cusa is a drummer from Italy, discography back to 1997, someone I don't know but most likely should. Trio adds Gabriele Evangelista on bass and Simone Graziano on piano, while Atti plays sax. Titles mostly show interest in economics from Smith to Keynes, but for good measure they toss in a "wrestling bout, refereed by Roland Barthes." Still, no words, just well structured tunes with the sax sharpening the edges.A-

Agustí Fernández/Rafal Mazur: Ziran (2016, Not Two): Piano and acoustic bass guitar duo, the latter producing most of the odd sounds that dominate early, before the pianist really kicks in.B+(*)

Fever Ray: Plunge (2017, Rabid/Mute): Singer-songwriter Karin Dreijer, from Sweden, second solo album after her eponymous 2009 debut, although she's recorded in a number of other projects, notably the Knife (a duo with her brother). Darker and drearier than I expect in a pop record.B+(*)

Nick Fraser: Is Life Long? (2016 [2017], Clean Feed): Toronto drummer, several previous albums, the best showcases for tenor saxophonist Tony Malaby, again featured here along with Andrew Downing (cello) and Rob Clutton (bass). Malaby gets in some monster runs here, too, but the cello gets a lot of space, and when the saxophonist picks the soprano to duet things can get squeaky.B+(**)

Dori Freeman: Letters Never Read (2017, MRI): Folk singer, eponymous debut album last year was very striking. Remarkable voice, nothing affected but everything she does with it is completely stressless -- even a cappella. Short (28:17), but ten songs, none rushed, all satisfying.A-

David Friesen: Structures (2017, Origin, 2CD): Bassist, probably deserves to be noted as a composer too, with a substantial discography from the mid-1970s on. Two sets of duets: one with Joe Manis on tenor/soprano saxophones, with Friesen also playing some piano; the other with Larry Koonse on guitar, a quiet and intimate encounter.B+(*) [cd]

Champian Fulton & Scott Hamilton: The Things We Did Last Summer (2017, Blau): Piano-playing standards singer from Oklahoma, eighth album since 2007. Backed by bass and drums, gives a good showing for her piano and for Hamilton's tenor sax but feels a bit off.B+(*)

Charles Gayle Trio: Solar System (2016 [2017], ForTune): Free jazz saxophonist, in his 40s before he got a chance to record in 1992, his ability to channel raw power perhaps unmatched, although for a while he seemed in danger of wearing out his welcome. Pushing 80, he's playing typically vigorous alto live in Warsaw with local bassist (Kaswery Wojcinski) and drummer (Max Andrzejewski). He also plays quite a bit of piano, here as impressive as his sax.A- [bc]

Paul Giallorenzo Trio: Flow (2017, Delmark): Pianist from Chicago, leads a bright and bouncy trio with Joshua Abrams (bass) and Mikel Patrick Avery (drums).B+(**) [cd]

Ben Goldberg School: Vol. 1: The Humanities (2017, BAG): Clarinet player, discography starts in 1992, sextet -- alto sax (Kasey Knudsen), trombone (Jeff Cressman), accordion/piano (Rob Reich), bass (David Ewell), drums (Hamir Atwal) -- plays six originals"and a Merle Travis hit" ("Nine Pound Hammer").B+(**)

Frank Gratkowski/Simon Nabatov: Mirthful Myths (2015 [2017], Leo): Duets, alto sax/clarinet/bass clarinet and piano, both musicians in their 50s with many free jazz albums. Good match.B+(**)

Mark Guiliana Jazz Quartet: Jersey (2017, Motéma): Drummer from New Jersey, was in the group Heernt, did a duo album with Brad Mehldau. Quartet with Jason Rigby (sax), Fabian Almazan (piano), and Chris Morrissey (electric bass). Some impressive bits, but I don't care for the closing vocals. B+(*)

Charlie Halloran: Ce Biguine! (2017, self-released): Trombonist, originally from St. Louis, based in New Orleans, looks beyond trad jazz, aiming "to capture the dance music of the French Caribbean circa 1950," his old-timey sound underscored by the "pops and scratches" of recording straight to 78 rpm acetate discs.B+(**) [bc]

Aldous Harding: Party (2017, 4AD): "Gothic-folk" singer-songwriter from New Zealand, second album. Voice and guitar, slow and dark (probably the goth part).B

Keyon Harrold: The Mugician (2017, Legacy): Trumpet player, mainstream in 2009 when Criss Cross released Introducing Keyon Harrold, but second album is something else, with funky riddims, guest vocalists, rappers, and occasional clouds of strings. Beware "Ethereal Souls," a good time to jump to "Bubba Rides Again."B+(*)

Emily Herring: Gliding (2017, Eight 30): Austin singer-songwriter with an air of western swing and a few vocal quirks.B

Lilly Hiatt: Trinity Lane (2017, New West): John Hiatt's daughter, based in Nashville, third album. Rocks hard for Nashville, but loses something when she doesn't.B+(**)

Homeboy Sandman: Veins (2017, Stones Throw, EP): Short album, ten cuts, 24:13, seems to be the preferred length for the rapper, typically smart and low-key.B+(**)

Jazzmeia Horn: A Social Call (2017, Prestige): Jazz singer from Dallas, studied at New School, won a Monk Prize in 2015, first album. mostly standards, band seems first rate but it took many clicks to come up with some names: Victor Gould (piano), Ben Williams (bass), Jerome Jennings (drums), plus horns on half of the tracks: Stacy Dillard (tenor sax), Josh Evans (trumpet), Frank Lacy (trombone). Likes to scat, and is pretty good at it.B+(**)

Hvalfugl: By (2017, self-released): Danish trio: bass (Anders Juel Bomholt), guitar (Jeppe Lavsen), piano (Jonathan Fjord Bredholt). Chamber jazz, probably has some folk roots as it seems to have more in common with pre-classical than with jazz. Pretty.B+(**)

Sherman Irby & Momentum: Cerulean Canvas (2017, Black Warrior): Alto saxophonist, made a splash in the late 1990s -- I recommend Big Mama's Biscuits -- half-dozen or so albums since then, some side credits including Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. Leads quintet with Vincent Gardner (trombone), Eric Reed (piano), bass, and drums, plus Wyonton Marsalis and Elliot Mason drop in as guests. Still a remarkable player, enough so that I kinda wish he omitted the other horns and stretched out.B+(*)

Irreversible Entanglements: Irreversible Entanglements (2015 [2017] International Anthem/Don Giovanni): "Liberation-oriented free jazz collective: Camae Ayewa (poet, also dba Moor Mother), Keir Neuringer (alto sax), Aquiles Navarro (trumpet), Luke Stewart (bass), Tcheser Holmes (drums). Group started playing at Musicians Against Police Brutality protests, and have just gotten angrier -- with good reason.A-

The Jazz Passengers: Still Life With Trouble (2017, Thirsty Ear): Roy Nathanson-Curtis Fowlkes group dating back to 1987, broke up after two 1998 albums with Debbie Harry (recommended) but issued Re-United in 2010. Current edition includes vibes (Bill Ware), violin (Sam Bardfield), bass (Brad Jones, drums (Ben Perowsky and E.J. Rodriguez), plus the leaders' alto sax and trombone. No real singers but many voice credits, mixed up eclectic as ever.B+(**)

Ingrid and Christine Jensen: Infinitude (2016, Whirlwind): Trumpet and alto/soprano sax, sisters, from British Columbia, with guitarist Ben Monder also getting cover credit, plus Fraser Hollins (bass) and Jon Wikan (drums). Postbop, flittering on the horizon with mirage-like shimmer.B+(**)

Ryan Keberle/Frank Woeste: Reverso: Suite Pavel (2017 [2018], Phonoart): Trombone and piano, backed by cello (Vincent Curtois) and drums (Jeff Ballard). Original pieces by the leaders plus some joint improv, looking back and drawing inspiration from French composer Maurice Ravel, especially a series of piano pieces from 1914-17. The piano has some nice flourishes, but I like it better when the trombone weighs in.B+(**) [cd]

King Krule: The OOZ (2017, True Panther Sounds): Archy Marshall, from London, mixes styles from punk to rap but, this time at least, slows them down and gives them a darker, more abstract cast.B

Lee Konitz: Frescalalto (2015 [2017], Impulse): Alto saxophonist, probably the first major one after Charlie Parker to go off and do something remarkably different, his tone fairly described as cool but his logic markedly more complex. Still in remarkable form at 88 (when this was recorded), backed by a very capable trio -- Kenny Barron, Peter Washington, and Kenny Washington -- although they may be a bit too mainstream for him. One anomaly: a couple of Konitz vocals -- not much voice, but still musical.B+(***)

Alex Lahey: I Love You Like a Brother (2017, Dead Oceans): Singer-songwriter from Melbourne, Australia, first album, what we used to call power pop, sounds great most of the time but can thicken up and stall when she slows down for melodrama. Not funny enough to catch you quick, but smart enough to keep trying.B+(***)

LEF: Hypersomniac (2017, RareNoise): Initials stand for singer-songwriter Lorenzo Esposito Fornasari. Band includes some fusion/jazztronica notables -- Eivind Aarset (guitar), Nils Petter Molvaer (trumpet), Bill Laswell (bass) -- but net effect is somewhere betweel prog and the softer metals.B- [cdr]

João Lencastre's Communion 3: Movements in Freedom (2017, Clean Feed): Portuguese drummer, leads a piano trio with Jacob Sacks and Eivind Opsvik.B+(**)

Liebman/Murley Quartet: Live at U of T (2017, U of T Jazz): Two saxophonists, both play soprano and tenor, Dave Liebman and Mike Morley, the latter teaches at University of Toronto where the former is a visiting professor. Backed by bass and drums, also faculty. Often terrific.B+(***) [cd]

Nick Maclean Quartet: Rites of Ascension (2017, Browntasaurus): Piano/synthesizer player from Toronto, quartet adds trumpet (Brownman Ali), bass, and drums. Mostly originals (one by Ali), plus four "Herbie Hancock classics" -- fairly generic fusion pieces, although the spoken word bits are pretty smart.B+(*) [cd]

Christian McBride Big Band: Bringin' It (2017, Mack Avenue): Bassist, landed a major label deal for his debut in 1994 and remains a perennial poll winner fourteen albums later. Second big band effort, sixteen pieces plus a couple guests, with Melissa Walker singing two songs. Three originals, trombonist Steve Davis guests on his own song, seven covers, plenty of volume atop phat bass lines, yet it doesn't jell into anything interesting.B-

Makaya McCraven: Highly Rare (2016 [2017], International Anthem): Second generation drummer, has a remix of his last album, and this one is frenetic enough I wouldn't be surprised if another remix is in the works. Nick Mazzarella adds an avant touch on alto sax, as does Ben Lamar Gay on cornet and diddley bow, with bass guitar and turntables punching up the beat.B+(***)

Zara McFarlane: Arise (2017, Brownswood): British jazz singer-songwriter, "born to parents of Jamaican heritage," laps into r&b, credits stress her role as arranger, although drummer Moses Boyd shares most writing credits. Nicely crafted, but pretty close to nicheless.B+(*)

Joe McPhee/Pascal Niggenkemper/Ståle Liavik Solberg: Imaginary Numbers (2015 [2017], Clean Feed): McPhee opens on pocket trumpet before switching to tenor sax. picking up strength as he works through three improv pieces, backed by bass and drums, visiting Brooklyn from Europe.B+(***)

Gary Meek: Originals (2017, self-released): Tenor saxophonist, sixth album since 1991, surprised not to find him in my database, although the side-credits listed on his Wikipedia page aren't major interests of mine: Flora Purim, Airto Moreira, Jeff Lorber, Brian Bromberg, Dave Weckl, Green Day. A couple of those are on hand here (Bromberg, Moreira), as well as Randy Brecker, Mitchel Forman, Bruce Forman, and Terri Lyne Carrington. They keep this centered in the mainstream, letting the saxophone shine.B+(**)

Ron Miles: I Am a Man (2016 [2017], Yellowbird): Cornet player, born in Indiana, based in Denver, tenor so albums since 1990. This one sometimes co-attributed to his notable band: Bill Frisell (guitar), Jason Moran (piano), Thomas Morgan (bass), and Brian Blade (drums). Cool and eloquent, tied into a film but I'm not sure which led to what.B+(***) [yt]

Jason Moran and the Bandwagon: Thanksgiving at the Vanguard (2016 [2017], Yes): Piano trio, group name comes from their 2003 album, with Tarus Mateen on bass and Nasheet Waits on drums, a long running group. Couldn't follow the patter, and didn't get the vocals or some of the electronics, but clearly still a major talent -- just harder to follow since he departed from Blue Note.B+(*) [dl]

Van Morrison: Versatile (2017, Legacy): Thirty-eighth studio album, another quickie, the covers leaning more toward jazz than the blues on Roll With the Punches. Terrific singer, of course, but there's still something rote about the treatments, although "They Can't Take That Away From Me" is pretty convincing.B+(*)

Kjetil Møster/Jeff Parker/Joshua Abrams/John Herndon: Ran Do (2015 [2017], Clean Feed): Norwegian avant-saxophonist with a Chicago-based guitar-bass-drums rhythm section, two members of which also play in the post-rock band Tortoise. They might conjure up memories of the leader's own rock encounters (e.g., Motorpsycho), but nothing really sparks.B+(*)

Zaid Nasser: The Stroller (2016 [2017], SteepleChase): Alto saxophonist, father was bassist Jamil Nasser, not sure how old he is but he's played with Jo Jones, Bill Doggett, and Panama Francis. He recorded two terrific bebop albums for Smalls 2007-09 and that seems to be it. Backed by guitar-bass-drums, two originals, covers include two tunes by Lou Donaldson, right up Nasser's alley.B+(**)

NERD: No One Ever Really Dies (2017, I Am Other/Columbia): Pharell Williams/Chad Hugo group, name an acronym for "No-one Ever Really Dies" so their fifth album's (since 2002; last was 2010) title just reiterates their core idea. Their beats are also recycled, sparer and a tad less catchy than before. Opening line has a point: The truth will set you free/but first it will piss you off."B+(**)

New Order: NOMC15 (2015 [2017], Pledge Music, 2CD): Like Elvis, opens with a bit of Wagner before ploughing into their back catalog. The live ambiance/audience doesn't quite do justice to their greatest songs, which were perfect as minted in the studio, but I'm still amazed that a band of four can play them at all. So maybe the value added here is the human dimension.B+(***)

New York Electric Piano: State of the Art (2017, Fervor): Pat Daugherty's piano trio, Aaron Comess on bass and Richard Hammond on drums -- a group name Daugherty's used since 2002 although he plays quite a bit of acoustic here, as well as some organ.B+(*) [cd]

Sam Newsome/Jean-Michel Pilc: Magic Circle (2017, Some New Music): Duets, soprano sax and piano, the latter filling in and supporting rather than racing ahead (as Pilc is quite able to do). Two improv pieces, seven standards including Ellington, Monk, and Coltrane.B+(**)

Jeb Loy Nichols: Country Hustle (2017, Inkind): Singer-songwriter, born in Wyoming, moved to Wales in the 1980s and formed a group called the Fellow Travellers, which released three albums 1990-93. Tenth album since he went solo in 1997 (a Christgau A- I didn't care for). This one strikes me as too slick and slinky, as he just glides through one throwaway after another.B-

Gard Nilssen's Acoustic Unity: Livei n Europe (2017, Clean Feed, 3CD): Norwegian drummer, plays in Cortex and runs this trio with André Roligheten on sax and Petter Eish on double bass -- their 2015 debut Firehouse is recommended. Three full sets here: the first just the trio at the North Sea Jazz Festival, plus guest tenor saxophonists on the other two: Fredrik Ljungkvist in Ljubljana and Jørgen Mathisen in Oslo. The guests acquit themselves well enough, but I rather prefer the trio. B+(***)

Dick Oatts: Use Your Imagination (2016 [2017], SteepleChase): Alto saxophonist, moved from Iowa to New York in the 1970s, joining the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra. All Oatts originals except for the title piece from Cole Porter. Hard bop lineup, with Joe Magnarelli at trumpet, Anthony Wonsey on piano, all very fluid.B+(**)

Dawn Oberg: Nothing Rhymes With Orange (2017, self-released, EP): Piano-playing singer-songwriter, has a couple of highly literate and slightly jazzy albums, knocked out three short topical songs (8:29), including the title tirade on a president she refuses to name ("rhymes with bump, and dump") and a coda that goes "I'd love to be wrong," all wrapped up in an orange mushroom cloud. A lyric sheet would be helpful, but she lost me with the line about "Putin's bitch" -- shows she misses the real basis of the mutual attraction society.B+(*) [bc]

Uwe Oberg/Rudi Mahall/Michael Griener: Lacy Pool 2 (2017, Leo): Another Steve Lacy tribute band, this one led by German pianist Oberg, plus clarinet (replacing trombone on the first Lacy Pool) and drums. The clarinet is faster and shriller, closer to Lacy although they also remind me of Lacy's affinity for Monk.B+(***)

One O'Clock Lab Band: Lab 2017 (2017, UNT): Home of one of the largest jazz programs in the country, this is UNT's working big band, full of youthful vigor and emerging chops, but still students. Admittedly, if I was teaching I'd grade their efforts higher.B [cd]

Orchestre Les Mangelepa: Last Band Standing (2017, Strut): Kenyan band, formed in Nairobi in 1976, mostly Congolese musicians, contributed two songs to the justly famous Earthworks compilation Guitar Paradise of East Africa. Never toured outside of Africa until 2016, belatedly landing a record on this UK label. This remakes some of their early hits, probably not helped by the mellowing of age, yet remains remarkable. Better late, I suppose, than never.A-

Kelly Lee Owens: Kelly Lee Owens (2017, Smalltown Supersound): Electronica from London, formerly played bass in the History of Apple Pie. First album, muted beats and melancholy moods.B

Emile Parisien/Vincent Peirani/Andreas Schaerer/Michael Wollny:Out of Land (2016 [2017], ACT): Alphabetic order: soprano sax, accordion, voice/percussion, and piano. Of these Parisien is the least important: the others wrote songs (Peirani and Schaerer two each, Wollny one), the accordion is the focal center of the music, and whether or not you like the music depends on how you respond to Schaerer singing, which ranges from operatic to Theo Bleckmann.B

Phil Parisot: Creekside (2017, OA2): Drummer, based in Seattle, second album, was in the earlier group Big Neighborhood. Basically a hard bop quintet -- Tatum Greenblatt on trumpet, Steve Treseler on tenor sax, Dan Kramlich on piano -- all original material, strong up the middle.B+(**) [cd]

Nicholas Payton: Afro-Caribbean Mixtape (2017, Paytone/Ropeadope, 2CD): Trumpet player from New Orleans, started out in the Marsalis-Blanchard mainstream, looked trad for a duo with Doc Cheatham (by far his best album), then got interested in electronics without ever really finding his niche. Still a fine trumpet player.B+(*)

Gary Peacock Trio: Tangents (2016 [2017], ECM): Bassist-led piano trio, with Marc Copland (piano) and Joey Baron (drums). Copland dials it back a notch to give the bassist more space, and that works out nicely.B+(***)

Penguin Cafe: The Imperfect Sea (2017, Erased Tapes): Not to be confused with Simon Jeffes' Penguin Cafe Orchestra, which recorded five studio and two live albums 1976-95, but not unrelated either as the new group -- three albums since 2011 -- is led by son Arthur Jeffes, and plays a similar pop-tinged minimalism, sometimes with all the strings venturing to the lush side, sometimes for the better.B+(**)

Ivo Perelman/Matthew Shipp/William Parker/Bobby Kapp: Heptagon (2017, Leo): Tenor sax backed by piano-bass-drums: Shipp has been a nearly constant companion of late, with the pair releasing seven volumes of The Art of Perelman-Shipp back in March. The best one then was a quartet with Shipp's everyday trio (Michael Bisio and Whit Dickey), but Shipp's played even more with Parker and brought Kapp back from obscurity for a superb duo in 2016 (Cactus; Kapp first made his mark with the other great avant-garde saxophonist from South America, the late Gato Barbieri). Superb all around.A- [cd]

Ivo Perelman/Matthew Shipp/Nate Wooley: Philosopher's Stone (2017, Leo): Wooley's trumpet adds a shrill note, which eventually takes over the album, drawing the saxophonist in.B+(*) [cd]

Ivo Perelman/Nate Wooley/Brandon Lopez/Gerald Cleaver: Octagon (2017, Leo): A rare "pianoless quartet" album, the two horns (tenor sax and trumpet) freewheeling against bass and drums, which help steady the rhythm and fill out harmonically -- chemistry that works admirably.A- [cd]

Ivo Perelman/Matthew Shipp/Joe Hertenstein: Scalene (2017, Leo): Tenor sax with piano and drums. Not sure if the drummer, a German in New York with Jörg his given first name, has ever played in this company before, but he keeps up as the leaders knock out some of their fastest and most furious runs. A- [cd]

Ivo Perelman/Matthew Shipp/Jeff Cosgrove: Live in Baltimore (2017, Leo): Tenor sax, piano, and drums, a live set (the night's second, as it were) cut within weeks of his latest binge of studio albums. No covers, no songs, just a straight 51:00 improv, roughly equivalent to most of this year's extensive series of Perelman-Shipp collaborations. Of course, always nice to have a drummer on hand.B+(***) [cd]

Margo Price: All American Made (2017, Third Man): Country singer-songwriter, born in Illinois, based in Nashville, first album enjoyed a lot of crossover acclaim, and this one is roughly comparable -- although it tails off a bit after three snappy openers and a 6:19 Willie Nelson duet.B+(**)

Princess Nokia: 1992 Deluxe (2017, Rough Trade): Rapper from New York, "of Afro-Puerto Rican descent," first album after several singles, most famously "Bitch I'm Posh." Beats fold back on themselves, and I lost track of how many times she says"suck my dick," so not a great wordsmith. "Deluxe" expands the EP1992 to CD (2LP) length.B

Rapsody: Laila's Wisdom (2017, Def Jam): Rapper Marianna Evans, second studio album. Underground beats mostly from 9th Wonder, featured guests on at least half the tracks, probably too many cooks but many of the writing credits trace back to samples.B+(**)

Ada Rave Trio: The Sea, the Storm and the Full Moon (2015 [2017], Clean Feed): Tenor saxophonist from Argentina, also plays clarinet and flute. Trio with Wilbert De Joode on bass and Nicola L. Hein on prepared guitar, which manages to throw everything off kilter.B+(*)

Red Planet/Bill Carrothers: Red Planet With Bill Carrothers (2017, Shifting Paradigm): Minneapolis-based guitar-bass-drums trio (Dean Magraw, Chris Bates, Jay Epstein -- Magraw was in Boiled in Lead and has seven solo albums) backs off their fusion instincts as the postbop pianist runs away with the album.B+(**)

Nadia Reid: Preservation (2017, Basin Rock): Singer-songwriter from New Zealand, second album, sources peg her as folk but other than remaining credible when she drops down to just voice over guitar I don't hear it -- indeed, when the band chimes in she can rock a little.B+(*)

Riddlore: Afro Mutations (2017, Nyege Nyege Tapes): LA-based MC/beatmaker Henry Lee Owens, has ten or more aliases in his discography including many variations on Riddler -- this one, with a question mark, dates from 2003. Discogs styles this "limited edition of 80" cassette, cut in Kampala, Uganda, as "bass music," although there are hard-to-pin-down wind instruments over the bass riffs and beats. The blues sample on "Whose Gonna Be 2" is a nice change up.B+(**) [bc]

Cécile McLorin Salvant: Dreams and Daggers (2017, Mack Avenue, 2CD): Jazz singer, born in Miami to Haitian father and French mother, moved to France to study voice and law, quickly jumped to the top of the polls. Fourth album is a live double (3-LP), backed by piano trio (Aaron Diehl) and string quartet. I'm not taken with the band, and find the songs scattershot (although I like the French chanson). She does have a knack for working in idiosyncratic bits, probably a big part of her appeal.B+(*)

Rina Sawayama: Rina (2017, self-released, EP): Japanese-born pop singer, grew up and based in London. Eight tracks (including two interludes), 24:51, splashy tricks, rarely connects.B-

Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah: The Emancipation Procrastination (2017, Stretch Music/Ropeadope): Third album this year, completing a trilogy known as The Centennial Trilogy. Mostly plays trumpet, but other instrument credits include "sonic architecture" -- seems to be a canned fusion beat, but not a bad one. Strong sax (mostly Braxton Cook), too much flute, doesn't really support its clever title but as solidly enjoyable as its two predecessors.B+(**)

Shotgun Jazz Band: Steppin' on the Gas (2016 [2017], self-released): New Orleans trad jazz band, principally Marla Dixon, who plays trumpet and sings, mostly a sextet with James Evans on C-melody sax and clarinet, plus trampagne, piano, bass, and drums, with extra trumpet and alto sax/clarinet on 5/18 tracks. With a couple Randy Newman songs, perhaps less trad, more Louisiana.B+(**)

Sirius: Acoustic Main Suite Plus the Inner One (2017, Clean Feed): Duo, based in Portugal, the Swazi-born trumpeter Yaw Tembe and French percussionist Monsieur Trinité (Francisco Trindade). Has a "weird folk" vibe, both deeply rooted and abstract.B+(*)

Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith: The Kid (2017, Western Vinyl): American electronic composer, based in Los Angeles, sixth album since 2012, sings, using her voice as fodder for her electronics. Latter is not without interest, but album is cluttered and often annoying.B

Omar Sosa & Seckou Keita: Transparent Water (2017, World Village): Cuban pianist, left his homeland in 1993 (age 28) and after stops in Ecuador and San Francisco wound up in Barcelona. Keita, born in Senegal, based in England, plays kora, talking drum, and djembe. Several tracks add guests playing bata, sheng, and/or koto, some with vocals (both artists credited, but more Keita's thing).B+(*)

Chris Stapleton: From a Room: Volume 2 (2017, Mercury Nashville): The room is RCA Studio A in Nashville, a short (9 cut, 32:19) sequel to the short (9 cut, 32:49) Volume 1 released seven months earlier, with the same artwork colored differently.B+(**)

John Stowell/Ulf Bandgren Quartet: Night Visitor (2016 [2017], Origin): Two guitarists, backed by bass and drums. Stowell dates back to the late 1970s, when he was closely associated with David Friesen, and he's been a consistently interesting picker. Bandgren is Swedish, has a previous album from 2001. Bassist Bruno Raberg wrote four (of ten) songs, leaving three each for the leaders.B+(*) [cd]

Moses Sumney: Aromanticism (2017, Jagjaguwar): Singer-songwriter from San Bernardino, CA, parents from Ghana, lived for a while in Ghana but "was too Americanized," not that he fits any pigeonhole: vocals draw on a cappella gospel with a bit of folk, music ambient rather than rhythmic. Might grow on you, not that I gave it much of a chance.B+(*)

Taylor Swift: Reputation (2017, Big Machine): Sixth album, first sold five million, second eleven million, fifth ten million, this one (so far, even these days) over two million. Her lyrics are stuffed with clichés and the beats are mechanical, but they're pretty catchy, and the fact that the one I've heard before is the one I found more memorable is likely to change if I found time to play this obsessively. B+(**)

Takaaki: New Kid in Town (2016 [2017], Albany): Pianist Takaaki Otomo, from Kobe, Japan, moved to New York in 2014, leads this trio with Noriko Ueda (also from Japan) on bass and Jared Shonig (from LA) on drums. Two originals, one from Ueda, with producer Bernard Hoffer conspicuous in the credits -- two compositions and five arrangements, including two Gustav Holst pieces. Other covers include John Lewis and Dave Brubeck.B+(**) [cd]

Tune Recreation Committee: Voices of Our Vision (2017, self-released): Cape Town, South African group, led by Mandla Mlangeni (trumpet), with "special guest" Mark Fransman (saxes/flute/accordion) and "legendary" Madala Kunene (guitar). Four pieces, bent rhythms based loosely on local models, often with voices (not wild about these). [NB: Length 34:35, but CDBaby has a 9-cut version.]B+(*) [bc]

Turnpike Troubadours: A Long Way From Your Heart (2017, Bossier City): Country band from Oklahoma, John Fulbright a former member, current crew (five albums in) pretty anonymous, although the slow one,"Pay No Rent," sounds like a long lost Joe Ely tune until it gets condescending.B

Jeremy Udden/John McNeil/Akyer Kobrinsky/Anthony Pinciotti: Hush Point III (2017, Sunnyside): Website insists "it's a band," but the cover lists the members in the order given. Group has two previous albums, Hush Point and Blues and Reds, which both list senior trumpet player McNeil ahead of the saxophonist (alto/soprano), the second clearly attributed to the group.B+(*)

The War on Drugs: A Deeper Understanding (2017, Atlantic): Third album, 2014's Lost in the Dream, was a critical breakthrough, a very good sounding alt/indie band. Since then they've got a bigger label, a bigger sound with more keyboard layers, and a lot longer -- nothing there I count as an improvement.B

Jane Weaver: Modern Kosmology (2017, Fire): British singer-songwriter, played guitar and sang in groups Kill Laura and Misty Dixon before going solo in 2002. Electropop, but not bright and not bouncy, which gives it a veneer of depth I haven't penetrated.B+(*)

Wolf Alice: Visions of a Life (2017, Dirty Hit): British alt/noise group, second album, Ellie Rowsell sings (also plays guitar and keyboards, as does Jeff Oddie). Strong presence and depth -- I can see why people are impressed.B+(*)

Charli XCX: Pop 2 (2017, Asylum): British pop star, Charlotte Aitchison, officially this is a mixtape, her second this year after two studio albums and two early 2012 mixtapes. Beaucoup guests, thirteen on eight (of ten) songs, mostly other sings who don't sound all that different, the effect catchy enough but rather slapdash.B+(***)

Yaeji: Yaeji (2017, Godmode, EP): Based in New York and Seoul, Kathy Yaeji Lee, the first of two EPs (5 tracks, 19:13) that topped Gorilla vs. Bear's EOY list. Disarmingly talkie vocals over deep house beats that sneak up on you.B+(**)

Yaeji: EP 2 (2017, Godmode, EP): Five more cuts, 18:05. Again, vocals barely above a whisper, beats don't grab you much, but you sort of lose track of time and feel satisfied.B+(***)

Dave Young/Terry Promane Octet: Vol. 2 (2017, Modica Music): Toronto group, the leaders play bass and trombone and do the arrangements, all standards and jazz pieces like Gillespie's "Bebop," Mingus' "Duke Ellington's Sound of Love," and pieces by Duke Pearson and Cedar Walton.B+(*) [cd]

Neil Young + Promise of the Real: The Visitor (2017, Reprise): New (39th studio) album from a Canadian singer-songwriter who's spent most of his life immersed in deep Americana, backed by Lucas Nelson's bland band. As is often the case with immigrants, he appreciates things about America that natives take for granted, and in some ways he's overly generous ("Already Great"), in others he gets overly defensive. None of this brings out his best songwriting, although there's a nice one early on.B

Waclaw Zimpel/Kuba Ziolek: Zimpel/Ziolek (2017, Instant Classic): Two Poles, Zimpel I'm familiar with as an avant (bass) clarinet player; Ziolek seems (I haven't found any credits) to be on guitar and electronics. Four tracks, enough vocals early on to move this out of jazz and into something like Gong-ish prog, but the post-minimalism takes over on the remarkable closer.B+(**)

Recent Reissues, Compilations, Vault Discoveries

Andina: The Sound of the Peruvian Andes 1968-1978 (1968-78 [2017], Tiger's Milk/Strut): Cover notes "Huayno, Carnaval& Cumbia" -- the latter a style associated with Colombia, something I would have thought more common in coastal Lima than the isolated backbone of the country. But the Incan civilization was centered in the Andes, so what do I know? Starts off remarkably upbeat and plays off that in various ways, some corny, which just adds to the fun.A-

The Bill Evans Trio: On a Monday Evening (1976 [2017], Fantasy): Piano trio with Eddie Gomez on bass and Eliot Zigmund on drums, recorded live in Madison, Wisconsin. I don't know much from this period in Evans' discography but I've heard a couple of terrific records from 1978-80, just a couple years before Evans' death. This is close to their order -- I clearly need to take a deep dive to sort them out.B+(***)

Vinny Golia Wind Quartet: Live at the Century City Playhouse: Los Angeles, 1979 (1979 [2017], Dark Tree): Four horns, nothing more, an experiment at the time when sax quartets were just emerging, but half brass (Bobby Bradford on cornet, Glenn Ferris on trombone), the other half reeds (John Carter on clarinet, Golia just credited with"woodwinds").B+(***) [cd]

Hamad Kalkaba: Hamad Kalkaba and the Golden Sounds 1974-1975 (1974-75 [2017], Analog Africa): From northern Cameroon, both sides of all three singles Kalkaba released. Starts super bouncy, a kind of roughed up take on highlife called gandjal. Barely slows down after that, ending too soon at 27:33.A- [bc]

Los Camaroes: Resurrection Los Vol. 1 (1976 [2017], Analog Africa): Group from Cameroon, described as their last album -- I can't find any others, just a bunch of singles 1973-77. Dance pop, similar to the Pop Makossa compilation but more consistent. Six cuts, 32:03.B+(**) [bc]

Thelonious Monk: Les Liaisons Dangereuses 1960 (1959 [2017], Sam, 2CD): Previously unreleased Monk session, mostly versions of well-known Monk tunes recorded by his quartet -- Sam Jones (bass), Art Taylor (drums), and Charlie Rouse (tenor sax) -- plus Barney Wilen (tenor sax) for Roger Vadim's film, but evidently unused and thought lost. The official soundtrack was recorded by Art Blakey (with Wilen), and Duke Jordan later re-recorded his pieces (again, with Wilen). This doesn't strike me as a huge discovery -- sounds pretty familiar -- but at this stage most critics are thrilled to find any unheard Monk.B+(***)

Nice! Jay Saunders' Best of the TWO (2009-14 [2017], UNT, 2CD): Saunders is a trumpet player, has taught at UNT 25 years and directed various UNT Lab Bands -- this selection is from the Two O'Clock Lab Band, scattered over several years. Conventional big band, occasionally with an extra horn or two, bashing about. Ends with two pieces, superb in different ways: a striking Marion Powers vocal of"Detour Ahead," and a rousing "Green Onions."B+(*) [cd]

Now That's What I Call 90s Pop (1990-99 [2017], UMG/Sony): Part of a vast sampler series, the label a joint venture between the two megacorps dominating an industry where creativity has always flowed in from the margins. I've never bothered with their annuals, but having a whole decade to work with here, they make a case for "trickle up." The 1990s were the decade when I finally turned from pop music to new jazz and a systematic dive into old country-blues-pop, so I doubt if I actually own more than a handful of these 18 hits -- "Whatta Man,""Poison,""Gonna Make You Sweat" -- although there are other famous earworms like "MMMBop" and "Livin' La Vida Loca." Cover touts this as "The Ultimate 90s Pop Hits Collection" but that just shows the limits of corporate grasp. It wouldn't be hard to pick out a superior '90s pop mixtape, but this winds up being useful -- the now obscure exceptions that prove the rule.A-

Now That's What I Call Tailgate Anthems (1975-2016 [2017], Sony Music Entertainment): Tag line: "18 Crowd Shakin' Sports Anthems." Cover specifically features football helmets. Actually, none of these songs so much as mentions sports, although four have"party" in the title, so that's a bit closer. Starts with six rock anthems from 1975-86 (Queen, Kiss, Journey, Bon Jovi), then eight generic but upbeat hip-hop pieces (including Pitbull and Black Eyed Peas), Pink's "Get the Party Started," and finally three volleys from Nashville (Sam Hunt, Luke Bryan, Jason Aldean). So could have been expanded into four (count 'em) more generically satisfactory party albums, but it's upbeat (anthemic) enough you don't dwell on the transitions. What you notice instead is the common denominator: testosterone.B+(*)

Oté Maloya: The Birth of Electric Maloya on Réunion Island 1975-1986 (1975-86 [2017], Strut): Réunion is a volcanic island of 970 sq. mi. and 850,000 people in the Indian Ocean, east of Madagascar, southwest of Mauritius. It is still controlled by France, which claimed and settled the uninhabited island in the 17th century, bringing slaves from Africa and later indentured workers from India. This comp picks up from the introduction of western instruments, effectively the emergence of pop as opposed to folk. Still, it's hard to place, with few obvious ties to any source of the island's melting pot. B+(*)

Art Pepper: Presents "West Coast Sessions!" Volume 1: Sonny Stitt (1980 [2017], Omnivore, 2CD): The series collects a series of albums Pepper did for the Japanese label Atlas, where he picked a duet partner whose name appeared on the cover -- Pepper had an exclusive deal with Galaxy at the time. This combines two 1980 albums plus three unreleased cuts, with Stitt on tenor, Lou Levy or Russ Freeman on piano, Carl Burnett on drums, mostly racing through vintage bebop material.A-

Art Pepper: Presents "West Coast Sessions!" Volume 2: Pete Jolly (1980 [2017], Omnivore): Pianist, original name Ceragioli, played in Woody Herman's Third Herd and a great many west coast groups, headlining a few records starting with 1955's Jolly Jumps In. One album, with Bob Magnusson on bass, Roy McCurdy on drums, and Pepper resplendent on alto sax.B+(***)

Art Pepper: Presents "West Coast Sessions!" Volume 3: Lee Konitz (1982 [2017], Omnivore): Released in Japan in 1982, probably recorded a year or two earlier. Whereas Stitt and Pepper tended to melt together, the two altos here remain distinct (more so, of course, when Pepper switches to clarinet) -- Konitz adding a wry edge to Pepper's fluidity. With Michael Lang (piano), Bob Magnuson (bass), and John Dentz (drums).A-

Art Pepper: Presents "West Coast Sessions!" Volume 4 With Bill Watrous (1980 [2017], Omnivore): Trombonist, sitting in with Pepper's working quartet: Russ Freeman (piano), Bob Magnusson (bass), and Carl Burnett (drums). Not the most consistent entry in the series, but terrific more often than not: the rhythm section swings hard, the trombone is a delight, and Pepper if often superb.A-

Art Pepper: Presents "West Coast Sessions!" Volume 5: Jack Sheldon (1980 [2017], Omnivore): Trumpet player, takes a vocal on one of the bonus cuts, came up in big bands including Benny Goodman and Stan Kenton and appears on a couple of Pepper's best records. This is another.A-

Art Pepper: Presents "West Coast Sessions!" Volume 6: Shelly Manne (1981 [2017], Omnivore): Originally released in Japan (only) as Hollywood Jam: Shelly Manne and His West Coast Friends, the drummer joined by Pepper (alto sax), Bob Cooper (tenor sax), Bill Watrous (trombone), Pete Jolly (piano), and Monty Budwig (bass). Seems like Pepper could do no wrong in his last year. Trombone is a nice touch.A-

Perseverance: The Music of Rick DeRosa at North Texas (2011-15 [2017], UNT): Student bands, mostly the One O'Clock Lab Band at UNT, one cut by the UNT Orchestra, playing pieces by DeRosa plus his arrangement of a Billy Strayhorn piece. Lush and overblown, but I suppose that's part of the teaching experience.B- [cd]

Oscar Pettiford Nonet/Big Band/Sextet: New York City 1955-1958 (1955-58 [2017], Uptown, 2CD): Live shots from Birdland by various groups led by the legendary bassist. Group size or composition doesn't make much difference to the boppish sound, although the orchestral instruments the leader is so fond of -- flute, French horn, cello, harp -- are evident. Also, Gigi Gryce and Art Farmer loom large, with Gryce credited -- lots of spoken intros here -- for many compositions.B+(***)

Pop Makossa: The Invasive Dance Beat of Cameroon 1976-1984 (1976-84 [2017], Analog Africa): Pop hits from Cameroon, never a major source of Afropop but wedged just east of Nigeria, "makossa" is the Douala word for dance. A dozen songs by as many artists, a couple of them perked my ears, the others passing by amiably enough.B+(*) [bc]

The Rolling Stones: On Air (1963-65 [2017], Interscope): BBC radio shots from their earliest years, mostly covers including a number of things I don't recall from their albums -- their first three UK albums were mostly covers, with just { 3, 3, 4 } originals. Pretty good sound, most unremarkable although I noticed some quirky they only returned to on Some Girls, their reboot after they got a bit too slick.B+(**)

The Rolling Stones: Live 1965: Music From Charlie Is My Darling (1965 [2014], ABKCO): Peter Whitehead filmed a documentary of the Stones touring Ireland and released it in 1966 as Charlie Is My Darling, capturing band and crowds as they lurched toward stardom. The film was expanded in 2012, with this soundtrack eventually spun off.B+(**)

The Rolling Stones: Ladies & Gentlemen: The Rolling Stones (1972 [2017], Eagle Rock): Key line (from Wikipedia): "The film was sold by The Rolling Stones as a tax-incentive based venture capital investment." Film cut from four 1972 concerts, no songs older than 1968, the concept was that by setting theaters up with a new-fangled quadraphonic sound system viewers would feel like they're in the middle of a 10,000 seat arena. In 2010 it was remastered in HD digital and "shown in select theaters." Of course, nowadays it's just streamable product, probably consumed alone on a phone or tablet. Still, this was when they started referring to themselves as "the world's greatest" and at the time the boast seemed credible.A-

The Rolling Stones: Sticky Fingers Live at the Fonda Theater 2015 (2015 [2017], Eagle Rock): All ten songs from the 1971 album are featured here, the order shuffled, following three non-album openers and three more songs to close -- a concept for a great band that's been living in its back catalogue for decades.B+(*)

The Rough Guide to the Music of West Africa ([2017], World Music Network): A large and varied landscape, stretching from Cameroon to Senegal or maybe Mauritania -- it's always hell trying to figure out where Rough Guides find their picks, even more so when you don't have their booklets (not that they were ever much help in the past). Offhand, Victor Uwaifo dates back to the early 1970s, but most of the other names I recognize passed through the corporation's more contemporary Riverboat label, so they've moved on from searching the world to recycling their own back catalog. A little scattered, but some gems, and ends strong.B+(***)

Sweet as Broken Dates: Lost Somali Tapes From the Horn of Africa (1969-20002 [2017], Ostinato): The notes, so far as I can tell, place most of these songs in the 1980s, most recorded in Mogadishu before Somalia turned into a war-torn failed state, some in Djibouti on the other side of Ethiopia. Lots of keyboard vamps, remarkably consistent for the range of dates and locales.B+(***)

Bro. Valentino: Stay Up Zimbabwe (1979-80 [2017], Analog Africa, EP): Calypso singer Anthony Emrold Phillip, probably from Trinidad but with an eye toward revolution elsewhere, with two long singles (total 17:31), one bemoaning white Rhodesia and South Africa, the other celebrating black power in Grenada.B+(***) [bc]

Old Music

Allen Lowe/Roswell Rudd: Woyzeck's Death (1994 [1995], Enja): The second collaboration, with Lowe (tenor sax) composing up to the title piece and the trombonist contributing the last two pieces. With Randy Sandke (trumpet) and Ben Goldberg (clarinets) backed by piano-bass-drums. A meditation on Georg Buchner's famous play (left unfinished at the playwright's death), a bit awkward and dramatic, but great to hear Rudd.B+(*) [sp]

Uwe Oberg/Christof Thewes/Michael Griener: Lacy Pool (2006 [2009], Hatology): German pianist, plus trombone and drums, playing eight Steve Lacy tunes plus two joint improvs. Nicely twisted, disjointed even.B+(***)

The Rolling Stones: Singles 1968-1971 (1968-71 [2005], Abkco, 9CD): The third such box, with a CD for each single, A and B sides in order -- in one case a 4-song EP, another adding three remixes to "Sympathy for the Devil." I was gifted the first two by the publicist but fell off the list for this one. I found that Singles 1963-1965 was short enough I could consolidate the whole box onto a single (quite extraordinary) CD, but this runs a bit long for that. Useless, I think, but some great songs, and some surprises in the obscurities -- I was thrown by "Out of Time" -- sounds pre-1968, only appearing as a single from 1975's "odds and sods"Metamorphosis, yet one of the best things here.B+(***)

Roswell Rudd: Everywhere (1966 [1967], Impulse): The trombonist's only name album for a major label in the 1960s, a session -- four cuts, 47:15 -- that has only been reissued as part o

Weekend Roundup

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As 2017 ends, I'm reminded of how sick to my stomach I was election night 2016 -- I normally stay up past 4AM, so pretty much the whole weight of the catastrophe was clear before I tried to sleep. At that point I could predict a whole series of unfortunate future events. In that regard, I haven't been especially surprised by what Trump and the Republicans have done in 2017. They've pretty much lived up to the threat they clearly posed -- the main surprises coming in the form of comic excess, like cabinet secretaries Betsy DeVos, Rick Perry, and Ben Carson. Trump himself has proven to be even more of a bloviating buffoon than he was during the campaign. And his scatterbrained reign is succeeding in one important respect where Hillary Clinton's campaign failed: through his own ineptness, he's making it clear that the real threat to most Americans these days comes from regular Republicans. One shouldn't get overoptimistic that Democrats will capitalize on that point with a resounding electoral win in 2018, but that's not as much of a fantasy as it was a year ago when Clinton et al. snatched defeat from what should have been a clearcut victory.


Some scattered links this week:

  • Umair Irlan/Brian Resnick: Megadisasters devastated America this year. They're going to get worse. The big ticket items were hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria, but floods, droughts, tornadoes, wildfires, and other severe weather took their toll.

    Requests for federal disaster aid jumped tenfold compared to 2016, with 4.7 million people registering with the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

    As of October, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had counted 15 disasters with damages topping $1 billion, tying 2017 with 2011 for the most billion-dollar disasters in a year to date. And that was before the California wildfires.

    Many people reflexively blame these disasters on climate change, and there is evidence that some of that is true -- the piece looks at several such arguments. But the price tag is also rising due to increasing development, and also due to infrastructure neglect -- the Puerto Rican power grid the most obvious example. The other big question (not really raised here) is what happens if/when government fails to cope with disaster costs. Unfortunately, we're bound to find out the hard way.

  • Fred Kaplan: The UN Vote on Jerusalem Was a Dramatic Rebuke to Trump That He Brought on Himself: The UN voted 128-9 (with 35 abstentions) to "declare null and void the United States' recent recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel." The US (Trump and Nikki Haley) responded by throwing a hissy fit:

    The rebuke is amplified by the fact that Trump had announced the day before that he would revoke financial aid for any country that voted for the resolution. "Let them vote against us," he said at a cabinet meeting on Wednesday. "We'll save a lot. We don't care. But this isn't like it used to be where they could vote against you and then you pay them hundreds of millions of dollars. We're not going to be taken advantage of any longer."

    Trump's U.N. ambassador, Nikki Haley, wrote a letter to other delegates, warning, "The U.S. will be taking names" during the roll call. "As you consider your vote," she elaborated, "I encourage you to know the president and the U.S. take this vote personally. She then tweeted, "At the UN we're always asked to do more and give more. So, when we make a decision, at the will of the American ppl, abt where to locate OUR embassy, we don't expect those we've helped to target us." . . .

    The countries that voted for the resolution -- or, as Trump sees it, against him -- include four of the five biggest recipients of U.S. aid: Afghanistan, Iraq, Egypt, and Jordan. They also include countries that Trump has courted since taking office -- Saudi Arabia, Russia, China, India, Pakistan, and Vietnam. They also include every country in Western Europe, though Trump might not care about that.

  • Ezra Klein: Incoherent, authoritarian, uninformed: Trump's New York Times interview is a scary read. Charles P Pierce has a similar take on the same interview: Trump's New York Times Interview Is a Portrait of a Man in Cognitive Decline. Trump's becoming so incoherent it's impossible to discern any method in his madness. That may seem alarming, but it's giving too much credit to the office, assuming the myth of leadership that hasn't been true for many years. Even highly competent presidents -- Obama, most clearly, or Clinton or Johnson, or for that matter Eisenhower -- are often prisoners of their administrations, alliances and choices. Having approved a series of astonishingly bad personnel picks, Trump's already handed his administration over to its fate, something which will be increasingly clear as he continues to lose his grip. The best we can do under these circumstances is to refocus on what his staff actually do, and recognize the corruption and moral rot it's shot through with.

  • Paul Krugman: America Is Not Yet Lost: Still, it's been pretty bad:

    Many of us came into 2017 expecting the worst. And in many ways, the worst is what we got.

    Donald Trump has been every bit as horrible as one might have expected; he continues, day after day, to prove himself utterly unfit for office, morally and intellectually. And the Republican Party -- including so-called moderates -- turns out, if anything, to be even worse than one might have expected. At this point it's evidently composed entirely of cynical apparatchiks, willing to sell out every principle -- and every shred of their own dignity -- as long as their donors get big tax cuts.

    Meanwhile, conservative media have given up even the pretense of doing real reporting, and become blatant organs of ruling-party propaganda.

    Like Yglesias below, Krugman sees hope in the broad popular resistance that has risen up against Trump and the Republicans. Still:

    And even if voters rise up effectively against the awful people currently in power, we'll be a long way from restoring basic American values. Our democracy needs two decent parties, and at this point the G.O.P. seems to be irretrievably corrupt.

    Isn't that the rub? The Republicans have clawed their way back into power, after eight GW Bush years that by any objective standards should have been totally discrediting, precisely because most Americans (not just Republicans but many Democrats who supported Clinton) see avarice, greed, power, and corruption as the American value. That is what needs to be changed to restore decency to politics, to make democracy work for all. In that regard, I'd focus more on converting one party than both. The Republicans will change, as they always have, once the vast majority recoil against their corruption. But that won't happen until the people are presented with an honest alternative, which is what Hillary Clinton somehow failed to do in 2016.

    Krugman also wrote: Republicans Despise the Working Class and Republicans Despise the Working Class, Continued:

    Josh Barro argues that Republicans have forgotten how to talk about tax cuts. But I think it runs deeper: Republicans have developed a deep disdain for people who just work for a living, and this disdain shines through everything they do. This is true both on substance -- the tax bill heavily favors owners over workers -- and in the way they talk about it.

    I think one pretty obvious clue came when Ayn Rand groupie Paul Ryan gave a Labor Day speech extolling America's entrepreneurs ("job creators") without even mentioning the people who actually do the work. Such people regard jobs alternatively as charity or more often as a bottom line loss -- an expense best cut by automation or offshoring.

  • Sharon Lerner: Banned from the Banking Industry for Life, a Scott Pruitt Friend Finds a New Home at the EPA: Albert Kelly, head of the EPA's Superfund program -- a job he has no relevant experience for, unless fraud counts.

  • Maryam Saleh: One Year of Immigration Under Trump: My first thought a year ago was that of all the areas Trump could affect as president, the one he's likely to impact most directly, and most cruelly, is immigration. Plenty of competition, and some of his efforts have been partially stymied, but that fear has proven well grounded.

  • Mitch Smith: Fatal 'Swatting' Episode in Kansas Raises Quandry: Who Is to Blame? Big story here in Wichita also noted nationwide. A gamer in Los Angeles called police in Wichita reporting a murder and hostage situation. Police deployed a SWAT team to the prank address and shot and killed a resident.

  • Matthew Yglesias: The political lesson of 2017: resistance works: No week-in-review piece this week, but this is a fair note to strike to sum up the past year. Problem, of course, is that while resistance has halted or slowed down some very bad things, it hasn't won anything of note, while Trump and the Republicans have pushed lots of things through that will be hard if even possible to reverse. True, several attempts at "repeal and replace of Obamacare" failed, but Republicans still managed to sneak a repeal of the "individual mandate" -- never very popular but long touted as the cornerstone of any scheme to get to universal coverage through private insurance -- tacking it onto a bill that was already overwhelmingly unpopular. Where Democrats are easily cowed by any hint of unpopularity, Republicans just get more determined to use the power they have to enact the changes they want, always figuring they can con the public into giving them more power. That the electoral tide has shifted is a good sign, but in the short term will only make them more desperate. The tax bill is a prime example of taking what you can when you can, with no regard to public opinion. Indeed, the whole "smash and grab" operation known as the Trump administration is driven like that.

    Other Yglesias pieces:

    • How to Make Metro Great Again: Tinkering with the DC subway system.

    • The biggest surprise of Trump's first year is his hard-right economic policy: About the only "populist" move of Trump's early campaign was the scorn he heaped on big money donors, a luxury he enjoyed only so long as he could afford to self-finance his campaign. He eased off on that late in the campaign, secure that many voters would cut him some slack compared to the donor queen, Crooked Hillary. There never was any substance to his "economic populism" -- e.g., look at his tax cut proposals during the campaign -- and he wasted no time surrendering all the key economic positions to ultra-rich donors and their lackeys. Less successfully, he's let orthodox Republicans in Congress run his legislative agenda; in exchange, they haven't questioned his personal or political scandals, and more often than not tried to provide him cover. In the end, he lacks both the moral courage and intellectual depth to plot his own way. Hence he's turned himself into little more than a tool, a particularly rusty one at that.

    • The economy is normal again

  • Micah Zenko: How Donald Trump Learned to Love War in 2017: Well, seems to be an inescapable part of the job. In his first year, Obama may not have come to love war -- at least not as ardently as GW Bush in his first year -- but he was well on the way to becoming an enthusiastic participant. Hillary Clinton tried to convince us that she, and not Trump, the one truly prepared to be Commander-in-Chief, but all it takes is deference to the top brass to get passing marks in that test -- something she should have remembered as it was key to husband Bill's embrace of the military in his first war-loving year. The hope some had for Trump was that he would push his fondness for business deals ahead of the failed neocon agenda and realize that customary rivals like Iran, Russia, China, and even North Korea could be turned into business opportunities, benefiting American investors (if not workers).

    In reality, the Donald Trump administration has demonstrated no interest in reducing America's military commitments and interventions, nor committed itself in any meaningful way to preventing conflicts or resolving them. Moreover, as 2017 wraps up, the trend lines are actually running in the opposite direction, with no indication that the Trump administration has the right membership or motivation to turn things around.

    President Trump has maintained or expanded the wars that he inherited from his predecessor.

    As Jennifer Wilson and I pointed out in an appropriately titled column in August, "Donald Trump Is Dropping Bombs at Unprecedented Levels." Within eight months of assuming office, Trump -- with the announcement of six "precision aistrikes" in Libya -- had bombed every country that former President Barack Obama had in eight years. One month after that, the United States surpassed the 26,172 bombs that had been dropped in 2016. Through the end of December 2017, Trump had authorized more airstrikes in Somalia in one year (33), than George W. Bush and Obama had since the United States first began intervening there in early 2007 (30).

    The growth in airstrikes was accompanied by a more than proportional increase in civilian deaths, . . . But as the volume of airstrikes and deaths increased, the Trump administration has subsequently made no progress in winding down America's wars. Moreover, it doesn't even pretend that the United States should play any role in supporting diplomatic outcomes.

    While Obama was campaigning, he liked to say that he wants to change the way we think about war, but in remarkably short time it was he who changed his thinking. Trump scarcely had any thinking to change. His instinct to give the generals unstinting support locked him into Obama's failing wars. The Russia collusion scandal precludes any opening there. Obeisance to Israel and Saudi Arabia have reopened conflict with Iran. His own stupid bluster has turned North Korea into a potential nuclear confrontation. Meanwhile, he's tearing down the international institutions that offer the only path toward peace and stability.

  • TPM: 2017 Golden Dukes Winners Announced! Considering everything they had to choose from, a pretty lame selection: Scott Pruitt is guilty alone of more conspicuous corruption than anyone ranked here. Or maybe they didn't have that much to choose from? Maybe they only read TPM headlines? Rep. Duke Cunningham raked in millions and wound up in jail to get this award named.

Music Week

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Music: Current count 29119 [29058] rated (+61), 364 [388] unrated (-24).

Initial calculation on rated count was +41, which seemed plausible enough, but when I moved the albums list from the scratch file to the notebook I counted 44, so clearly something was amiss. I went back and searched for unrated albums and found 20 I had failed to update -- obviously going back before last week, in some cases more than a year. I don't have a lot of unrated physical 2017 CDs -- maybe a dozen, including some inconvenient but still playable vinyl -- so I've been doing a lot of streaming, especially items from interesting EOY lists, and a fair number of them have been short: the Dawn Oberg is just three songs, more are legitimately EPs, and with the refocusing on vinyl a lot of regular albums clock in close to 30 minutes. I try to work faster streaming, avoiding replays unless I really feel the need to confirm a good record, and short goes faster still.

December's Streamnotes went up on the last possible day, which has in turn pushedWeekend Roundup and this post a day later than normal -- three-day weekends and all that.

I got a last minute Pazz & Jop invite, thanks to some strings Bob Christgau pulled. I finally did a quick sort on my Best Non-Jazz list without actually resampling anything, then slipped William Parker's Meditation/Resurrection into the top ten to maintain a little jazz cred. (Also bumps Kendrick Lamar'sDamn, which I have little doubt will win without me.) I have no confidence that these are the ten best (mostly non-jazz) albums of 2017, but they are good ones, interesting ones, ones worth noting:

  1. William Parker Quartets: Meditation/Resurrection (AUM Fidelity) 12
  2. Orchestra Baobab: Tribute to Ndiouga Dieng (Nonesuch/World Circuit) 10
  3. Sylvan Esso: What Now (Loma Vista) 10
  4. Pere Ubu: 20 Years in a Montana Missile Silo (Cherry Red) 10
  5. Joey Bada$$: All-Amerikkkan Bada$$ (Pro Era/Cinematic) 10
  6. Hamell on Trial: Tackle Box (New West) 10
  7. Re-TROS: Before the Applause (Modern Sky Entertainment) 10
  8. The Perceptionists: Resolution (Mello Music Group) 10
  9. Steve Earle & the Dukes: So You Wannabe an Outlaw (Warner Bros.) 9
  10. Craig Finn: We All Want the Same Things (Partisan) 9

I don't keep track of singles, so I'm hopeless there. One idea that did occur to me was to look up anti-Trump songs. I found lists from Guardian, Mic, Pitchfork, and Rolling Stone. In the end, I picked (only seven, but I expected zero):

  • Joey Bada$$, "Land of the Free" (Pro Era/Cinematic)
  • Oddisee, "NNGE" (Mello Music Group)
  • The XX, "On Hold" (Young Turks)
  • DJ Shadow (feat. Run the Jewels), "Nobody Speak" (Mass Appeal)
  • Perfect Giddimani, "Dollnald Trummp" (Giddimani)
  • L7, "Dispatch From Mar-a-Lago" (Don Giovanni)
  • Dawn Oberg, "Nothing Rhymes With Orange" (self-released)

Obviously, could have done better had I spent more time, but top four would probably have hung on. I did manage to sample another half-dozen songs, including Fiona Apple's "Tiny Hands" and YG's "FDT" (but didn't get to Brujeria's "Viva Presidente Trump!" -- on virtually all the lists -- until too late).


New records rated this week:

  • Aesop Rock & Homeboy Sandman: Triple Fat Lice (2017, Stones Throw, EP): [bc]: B+(***)
  • Alvvays: Antisocialites (2017, Polyvinyl): [r]: B+(**)
  • Julien Baker: Turn Out the Lights (2017, Matador): [r]: B
  • Blushh + Maddie Ross: Split (2017, self-released, EP): [bc]: B+(**)
  • Brockhampton: Saturation (2017, Question Everything/Empire): [r]: B+(*)
  • Brockhampton: Saturation II (2017, Question Everything/Empire): [r]: B+(**)
  • Brockhampton: Saturation III (2017, Question Everything/Empire): [r]: B+(**)
  • Tyler Childers: Purgatory (2017, Hickman Holler): [r]: B+(**)
  • CupcakKe: S.T.D (Shelters to Deltas) (2016, self-released): [r]: B+(**)
  • CupcakKe: Audacious (2016, self-released): [r]: B+(***)
  • CupcakKe: Queen Elizabitch (2017, self-released): [r]: B+(**)
  • Dev: I Only See You When I'm Dreamin' (2017, Devishot): [r]: A-
  • Fever Ray: Plunge (2017, Rabid/Mute): [r]: B+(*)
  • Dori Freeman: Letters Never Read (2017, MRI): [r]: A-
  • Charles Gayle Trio: Solar System (2016 [2017], ForTune): [bc]: A-
  • Justin Gray & Synthesis: New Horizons (2017 [2018], self-released): [cd]: B+(**)
  • Emily Herring: Gliding (2017, Eight 30): [r]: B
  • Homeboy Sandman: Veins (2017, Stones Throw, EP): [r]: B+(**)
  • Hvalfugl: By (2017, self-released): [r]: B+(**)
  • NERD: No One Ever Really Dies (2017, I Am Other/Columbia): [r]: B+(**)
  • New York Electric Piano: State of the Art (2017, Fervor): [cd]: B+(*)
  • Dawn Oberg: Nothing Rhymes With Orange (2017, self-released, EP): [bc]: B+(*)
  • One O'Clock Lab Band: Lab 2017 (2017, UNT): [cd]: B
  • Rapsody: Laila's Wisdom (2017, Def Jam): [r]: B+(**)
  • Dave Rempis/Matt Piet/Tim Daisy: Hit the Ground Running (2017, Aerophonic): [bc]: B+(***)
  • Eve Risser/Kaja Draksler: To Pianos (2017, Clean Feed): [r]: B
  • Serengeti: Jueles/Butterflies (2017, self-released): [bc]: B+(*)
  • Peter Sommer: Happy-Go-Lucky Locals (2017, self-released): [cd]: B+(**)
  • Moses Sumney: Aromanticism (2017, Jagjaguwar): [r]: B+(*)
  • Takaaki: New Kid in Town (2016 [2017], Albany): [cd]: B+(**)
  • Turnpike Troubadours: A Long Way From Your Heart (2017, Bossier City): [r]: B
  • The United States Air Force Band Airmen of Note: Veterans of Jazz (2017, self-released): [cd]: D+
  • Charli XCX: Pop 2 (2017, Asylum): [r]: B+(***)

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries rated this week:

  • Vinny Golia Wind Quartet: Live at the Century City Playhouse: Los Angeles, 1979 (1979 [2017], Dark Tree): [cd]: B+(***)
  • Nice! Jay Saunders' Best of the TWO (2009-14 [2017], UNT, 2CD): [cd]: B+(*)
  • Art Pepper: Presents "West Coast Sessions!" Volume 1: Sonny Stitt (1980 [2017], Omnivore, 2CD): [r]: A-
  • Art Pepper: Presents "West Coast Sessions!" Volume 2: Pete Jolly (1980 [2017], Omnivore): [r]: B+(***)
  • Art Pepper: Presents "West Coast Sessions!" Volume 3: Lee Konitz (1982 [2017], Omnivore): [r]: A-
  • Art Pepper: Presents "West Coast Sessions!" Volume 4 With Bill Watrous (1980 [2017], Omnivore): [r]: A-
  • Art Pepper: Presents "West Coast Sessions!" Volume 5: Jack Sheldon (1980 [2017], Omnivore): [r]: A-
  • Art Pepper: Presents "West Coast Sessions!" Volume 6: Shelly Manne (1981 [2017], Omnivore): [r]: A-
  • The Rough Guide to the Music of West Africa ([2017], World Music Network): [r]: B+(***)
  • Sweet as Broken Dates: Lost Somali Tapes From the Horn of Africa (1969-2002 [2017], Ostinato): [r]: B+(***)

Weekend Roundup

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Started collecting the Yglesias links and Taibbi on Wolff last night, and this is as far as I got today. Of Yglesias' big four stories, I left oil drilling, anti-pot enforcement, and the Pakistan aid cut on the floor: mostly didn't run across anything very good on those subjects, although that's partly because it seems like my source trawling has taken a big hit (especially since Paul Woodward'sWarInContext went on hiatus). That leaves a bunch on the Wolff book, the unseemly end of the Kobach Commission, and some Iran links. Oh, and dumb Trump tricks, but that's a gimme.

Of the missing stories (and, of course, there are many more than the "known unknowns"), the break with Pakistan seems likely to be most fateful. Americans have bitched since 2002 that they're not getting their money's worth in Pakistan, but Pervez Musharraf's turn against the Taliban was never popular there, especially with the ISI, and only a combination of sticks and carrots made the move at all palatable. It remains to be seen whether Trump removing the carrots will tip the balance, but renewed Pakistani support for the Taliban could make the US stake in Afghanistan much more precarious -- at worst it might provoke a major US escalation there, with pressure to attack Pakistan's border territories ("sanctuaries"), with a real risk of igniting a much larger conflagration. Probably won't come to that, but Pakistan is a country with more than 200 million people, with a large diaspora (especially in the UK), with nuclear weapons, with a military which has fought three major wars with India and remains more than a little paranoid on that front.

The reasonable solution for Arghanistan is to try to negotiate some sort of loose federation which allows the Taliban to share power, especially in the Pashtun provinces where it remains popular, while the US military exits gracefully. This is unlikely to happen because the Trump administration has no clue how diplomacy works and no desire to find out. Pakistan could be a useful intermediary, so cutting them out seems like a short-sighted move. But it is a trademark Trump move: rash, unconsidered, prone to violence with no regard for consequences; cf. Syria, Libya, Somalia, Palestine, North Korea. It's only a matter of time before one of those bites back hard.

Same is basically true of the offshore oil leases, but probably on a slower time schedule. It will take several years before anyone starts drilling, and there will be a lot of litigation along the way. But eventually some of those offshore rigs will blow up and spread oil all over tourist beaches in Florida and/or California. Some people will make money, at least short-term, and some will be hit with losses in the longer term, but at least it will mostly be money. That matters a lot to Trump, but less so to you and me.

Less clear what the marijuana prosecution impact will be. In theory Sessions just kicked the ball down to local US attorneys, who can choose to prosecute cases or not. But a year ago Sessions initiated a purge and replaced all of Obama's prosecutors with his own, so it's likely that at least some of them will take the bait and try to make names for themselves. Meanwhile, politicization of the Department of Justice keeps ratcheting up. Trump and Congressional Republicans have renewed attacks on Sessions for failing to protect Trump from the Mueller investigation, and they've gone further to question the political loyalties of the FBI. Meanwhile the courts are increasingly being filled up with Republican hacks. The net result of all this is that people on all sides are coming to view"justice" in America as a vehicle of partisan patronage. It's going to be hard to restore trust in law once it's been abused so severely by goons like Trump and Sessions.

I haven't written much about the whole Russia situation. A big part early on was the fear that neocons were just using it to whip up a new cold war, which is something they were very keen on at least as early as 2001, when Bush took office and Yeltsin gave way to Putin. With his KGB background, it's always been easy to paint Putin as bearing Cold War grudges, even more so as a master of underhanded tactics -- most egregiously, I think, in his reopening of the Chechen War. The Cold War was very good for the defense industry, and generally bad for the American people (as well as many others around the world), so I regard any effort to reignite it as dastardly.

The neocons had modest success doing so during the Obama years, especially with recent sanctions in response to the Russia annexing Crimea and, allegedly, supporting separatists in eastern Ukraine. Hillary Clinton was especially vociferous at Russia-baiting, so it was no surprise that Putin favored her opponent. Trump himself had pitched numerous business ventures to Russian oligarchs, so he must have seemed to Putin like someone to deal with. Indeed, there seems to have been mutual attraction between many Republicans and Putin, possibly based on the former's admiration of strong men and contempt for democracy. It's worth noting that Russia is the only country where the ultra-rich have profited more inequally since 2000 than the United States.

The second major reason for resisting the post-election claims of Russian interference has been how it was used by Clinton dead-enders as an excuse for losing the 2016 election. Their desperation to blame anyone but the candidate has blinded them to the real lessons of the campaign's failure. (Presumably I don't need to reiterate them here.) A third reason, I reckon, is the hypocrisy of blaming Russia while ignoring Israel's much more pervasive involvement in US elections: I've seen numerous liberals describe Trump as "Putin's bitch" (most recently in Dawn Oberg's song, "Nothing Rhymes With Orange"), but if Trump's anyone's bitch, it's Netanyahu's (or more directly, Sheldon Adelson's -- who, as Philip Weiss notes in the link below put more money into the campaign than Trump himself did).

On the other hand, the "Russiagate" story is sticking, and lately the focus has shifted to culprits one feels no sympathy whatsoever for. The problem isn't really collusion: Trump's people were very sloppy about their meetings with Russians, but they were sloppy and inept in pretty much everything they did. On the other hand, it sure looks like they would have colluded had they figured out how, and they were aware enough that they were overstepping bounds to lie about it afterwards -- greatly increasing their culpability. It's also clear that Flynn and Manafort had their own Russian deals, which wound up looking worse than they initially were after they joined the campaign.

What Russia actually did to tilt the election toward Trump wasn't much -- certainly cost-wise it's a small drop in the ocean of money agents working for Adelson and the Kochs spent to get Trump elected. It would be a mistake to play up Russia's hacking genius, just as one shouldn't underestimate the effect of AFP's grassroots organizing. Elections are run in a crooked world -- even more so since the Citizens United ruling unlocked all that "dark money" -- but one thing that Clinton really can't complain about is not having enough money to compete.

On the other hand, what "Russiagate" is making increasingly clear is the utter contempt that Donald Trump and (increasingly) the whole Republican Party have for law, justice, truth, and fairness. I don't hold any fondness for James Comey, whose own handling of the Clinton email server case was shameless political hackery, and I've actively disliked Robert Mueller for decades -- ever since he prosecuted that ridiculous Ohio 7 sedition case (which my dear friend, the late Elizabeth Fink, was a successful defense counsel on). But Trump's interference in their jobs has been blatantly self-serving -- if not technically obstruction of justice easily conveying that intent. We seem to only be a short matter of time until Trump's contempt becomes too blatant to ignore, and while I doubt that will phase his Republican enablers or his most fervently blinkered base, it should at least help bury his awful political agenda.


Meanwhile, here are some other ways Trump has stunk up last week:

  • Matthew Yglesias: Trump's week of feuds with Bannon, Pakistan, marijuana smokers, and ocean waters, explained: Trump broke ties with Steve Bannon; Trump opened up huge areas to offshore drilling; Trump is cracking down on marijuana; Trump is cutting off aid to Pakistan. Trump breaking with Bannon doesn't amount to much, but Bannon will struggle for a while without the Mercers' money. Basically what happened there was that Bannon's always been a side bet for them, useful for electing Trump but unnecessary with Trump in office, able to further their graft. The oil drilling story is a prime example of graft under Trump, while the other two are cases where ideology and arrogance threaten to blow things up. Other Yglesias stories:

    • The Steele dossier, explained, with Andrew Prokop.

    • Cory Gardner showed how Senate Republicans could check Trump if they wanted to.

    • 2018 is the year that will decide if Trumpocracy replaces American democracy: Two takeaway points here: one is that despite all of the chaos surrounding him, Trump has consolidated effective power within the Republican Party, such that opposing him in any significant way marks one has a heretic and traitor; the second is that if Republicans are not rebuffed in the 2018 elections Trump's control will harden and become even more flagrant and dangerous. Yglesias gets a little carried away on the latter point, at one point noting that "even Adolf Hitler was dismissed by many as a buffoon" -- Trump's megalomania is comparatively fickle and suffused with greed, making African dictators like Idi Amin and Mobutu closer role models. He also fails to note the key point: that in all substantive respects, it was Trump who surrendered to the orthodox Republicans. Trump didn't bend anyone to his will; he merely proved himself to be a useful tool of movement conservatism, which in turn agreed to provide him cover for his personal graft. In some ways, this makes the Republicans more vulnerable in 2018, if Democrats can convince voters that the Party and the President are one.

    • The scary reality behind Trump's long Tuesday of weird tweets: "He's relying on Fox News for all his information." Of course, that was equally true before he became president. Back during the campaign, I noted that he didn't engage in didn't follow Republican custom in couching his racism in "dog whistle" terms because he wasn't a "whistler," he was a "dog." Among Republican rank-and-file, his lack of subtlety and cleverness was taken as authenticity and conviction, even though he merely echoed the coarseness he heard on Fox. Of course, one might reasonably expect a responsible statesman to seek out more reliable information, even if as a politician he chooses to bend it to his own purposes. But Trump lacks such skills, and would probably just get confused trying to sort out the truth. Sticking with Fox no doubt makes his life easier, but makes ours more dangerous.

  • Esme Cribb: Trump: 'Ronald Reagan Had the Same Problem' as Me With 'Fake News': Actually, Reagan had the same problem with facts, with truth, although even Reagan knew when to throw in the towel. After all, what was his Iran-Contra quote? "A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions tell me that's true, but the facts and evidence tell me it is not." As Matt Taibbi notes (see link below), Reagan was cognitively impaired well before he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's: e.g., the CIA used to shoot movies to brief Reagan on world leaders, finding that the only way to get his attention. Still, no previous president has shown so little regard for facts or so much hostility to honest investigation so early in his term as Trump. While it's possible that age-related cognitive impairment may contribute to this, it strikes me as overly charitable to blame mental illness. From early on, Trump was a liar and scoundrel, a spoiled one given his inherited wealth, and he's only gotten worse as he's gotten caught up in his many intrigues.

    Josh Marshall (see Is President Trump Mentally Ill? It Doesn't Matter) adds this comment:

    All the diagnosis of a mental illness could tell us is that Trump might be prone to act in ways that we literally see him acting in every day: impulsive, erratic, driven by petty aggressions and paranoia, showing poor impulsive control, an inability to moderate self-destructive behavior. He is frequently either frighteningly out of touch with reality or sufficiently pathological in his lying that it is impossible to tell. Both are very bad.

  • John Feffer: Trump and Neocons Are Exploiting an Iran Protest Movement They Know Nothing About: I don't doubt that most Iranians have good reason to assemble and protest against their government, indeed their entire political system, and indeed as an American I sympathize with the rights of people everywhere to organize and petition their governments for change. But Washington pols habitually play their kneejerk games, touting dissent against so-called enemies while overlooking suppression of dissent by so-called allies, showing their own motives to be wholly cynical. Thus, American support for protests in Iran immediately taints those protesters as pro-American and anti-Iranian. (Nor are we just talking about Trump, who has become little more than an Israeli-Saudi puppet on Iran; Hillary Clinton was also quick to support the Iranian masses against theocracy, jumping to the conclusion that their goals are the same as her own.) For more, see Trita Parsi: These Are the Real Causes of the Iran Protests; Simon Tisdall: Iran unrest: it's the economy, stupid, not a cry for freedom or foreign plotters; and Sanam Vakil: How Donald Trump's tweets help Iran's supreme leader.

  • German Lopez: Trump has disbanded his voter fraud commission, blaming state resistance and Trump's voter fraud commission, explained: Presidential commissions have long been a method for addressing matters of broad and/or deep concern. Lyndon Johnson, for instance, convened two of the more famous ones: the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and the Kerner Commission on domestic violence (i.e., the"race riots" of 1965-68). They've rarely proved very satisfactory, although the commission investigating the Challenger NASA disaster (famously including physicist Richard Feynman) did appear to get to the bottom of the story. But Obama's sop to the deficit hawks, the Simpson-Bowles commission, proved to be biased and useless. There were some suggestions that Trump should have appointed a commission to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 election, but (not by choice) he wound up with a special prosecutor instead. One area where a commission might be useful would be to look into immigration laws and patterns, to try to clear away many of the popular myths on the subject, and try to come up with a sensible balance between all the competing interests and views. (Of course, had Trump done that, he would have stacked the deck supporting his own prejudices, thereby losing any possibility of building consensus.) Instead, the one (and only) problem Trump decided to be worthy of a presidential commission was the vanishingly tiny question of voter fraud. This was widely viewed as a vehicle for Kansas Secretary of State (and ALEC busybody) Kris Kobach, who appeared on Trump's doorstep with a folder full of schemes -- this appears to be the one that struck Trump's fancy: as the article makes clear, "the voter fraud myth has been used repeatedly to suppress voters." And few things have been more evident over recent decades than Republican efforts to undermine the popular vote. Indeed, that makes perfect sense, given that the Republican agenda heaps favors on the rich and powerful while undermining the vast majority -- people who could rise up and vote them out of office if only the Democrats offered a credible alternative.

  • Jeff Sparrow: Milo Yiannopoulos's draft and the role of editors in dealing with the far-right.

  • Michael Wolff: Donald Trump Didn't Want to Be President: An excerpt from Wolff's new book, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, Amazon's #1 bestseller and the talk of Washington (except on Fox News) this past week. The excerpt runs from election night to a few months past inauguration -- Priebus and Bannon are still on board at the end, but probably not Flynn -- but the title focuses on election night, when "the unexpected trend" shook Trump, who "looked as if he had seen a ghost. Melania was in tears -- and not of joy."

    Some other pieces on the book:

  • Lloyd Green: Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House review -- tell-all burns all.

  • Jen Kirby: 8 ways Fire and Fury brings back the cringe of Sean Spicer in the White House.

  • Peter Maass: Enough About Steve Bannon. Rupert Murdoch's Influence on Donald Trump Is More Dangerous.

  • Andrew Prokop: The controversy around Michael Wolff's gossipy new Trump book, explained.

  • Maryam Saleh: Trump on Saudi Leadership Shake-Up: "We've Put Our Man on Top!"

  • William Saletan: What Michael Wolff Got Right About Donald Trump: That Trump makes more sense once you recognize that he never really wanted to win: he was just garnering publicity, building up his brand, so he could exploit it after the rigged election installed Crooked Hillary.

  • Emily Stewart: Trump tweets that he's a genius and "a very stable genius at that!"

  • Matt Taibbi: Why Michael Wolff's Book is Good News: Takes some solace in Trump's incompetence underming his malevolent impulses: "Trump could be cunning, focused and bursting with willpower, in addition to being a gross, ignorant pig. We can only hope that Wolff is right that he isn't both."

  • Philip Weiss: A foreign leader -- Netanyahu -- set Trump's agenda in Middle East, Michael Wolff book says.

  • Richard Wolffe: Trump's Bannon outburst removes any shred of presidential decorum: Maybe the book offers more reason for Trump to strike back at Bannon, but the excerpt (link above) doesn't feature Bannon as either a major source or major player, so it's not clear what got under Trump's skin. Bannon does have enemies both in the White House and elsewhere in the GOP, so maybe they got to Trump first, and that was enough to provoke the tantrum. Wolffe himself notes: "The trigger for the outburst is in fact Trump's trigger-happy nature."

Music Week

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Music: Current count 29150 [29119] rated (+31), 368 [364] unrated (+4).

Expected rated count would be a bit higher, given that I've mostly been working off EOY lists, but it checks out fairly well. Some quick numbers: rated count for2017 releases: 1048; length ofJazz A-List: 80; length ofNon-Jazz A-List: 55; number of new albums inEOY Aggregate: 1936; number of total albums inMusic Tracking List: 2895.

The ratio of Jazz/Non-Jazz A-list always starts out high, but usually balances out around by the end of January. Last year it wound up 75/67 (52.8% jazz, up to 59.2% jazz this year). If I recall correctly, in previous years it was closer to even, sometimes even favoring non-jazz. Most likely explanation is that my ratio of jazz/non-jazz grades is higher than usual: currently 673/296 (69.4% jazz), vs. 689/358 (65.8% -- closer than I expected, but still likely to explain part of the greater split).

Someone pointed out on Facebook that I hadn't given a single A grade to a new release in 2017. I think it's safe to say that's never happened before, although the numbers have been declining, especially the last few years: from 2010 on { 15, 6, 7, 6, 12, 2, 3, 0 }. Several reasons occur to me: the number of physical CDs I've received has been dropping, and I've almost completely stopped buying CDs; I only listen to streamed or downloaded material while working on the computer, and when I do so it's almost something I haven't rated yet. For instance, back in 2010 I rated 133 A/A- records, of which 36 (27.0%) were streamed. This year I have 136 A/A- records, 79 streamed (58.0%). The increase in the top 30 is even more extreme, going from 2 (6.7%) in 2010 to 14 (46.7%) in 2017. Also note that the jazz split in the top 30 increased from 12 (40.0%) to 19 (63.3%).

I've always thought that part of the definition of an A (vs. A-) record was that it held up over many plays over time. Indeed, in past years I routinely promoted 4-6 albums from A- to A at EOY time. This year I got crushed at deadline time and hardly replayed anything, leaving little but memory and notes to help me compile my ballots. It's probably also true that my listening time has declined a bit -- although the number of records processed this year is similar to 2010 (1009 new + 73 old music, vs. 968 new + 81 old in 2017), so maybe I'm rushing more?

Of course, there are other possibilities. While it seems unlikely that there is less good music being released these days, it may well be harder to find. More likely is that my own interest is flagging, whether due to age and creeping infirmity or to general depression. Back in my twenties I discovered music to be a psychic refuge from all sorts of everyday ordeals, and that's a big part of the reason I got so deep into it. While I don't think my taste or erudition or even my memory have declined much, it does seem that music has lost a bit of its magic for me. I wouldn't be surprised if I listen to less and less in the future. But I do note an uptick in unpacking this week, so that may keep me going.

I meant to write more about the EOY Aggregate files (link above), which I've kept adding to. Major adds in the last week include close to forty top-ten lists from the Facebook Expert Witness group, which has produced major spurts for Jens Lekman, Jason Isbell, Waxahatchee, and Alex Fahey (the only one without a Christgau A grade). I've also added Christgau's grades next to mine, so a mutual A- gets an 8 point boost regardless of how obscure (e.g., Matt North, Conor Oberst, Robt Sarazin Blake, Swet Shop Boys, Starlito & Don Trip, Chuck Berry). Neither of these tweaks, nor anything else, has had much impact on the top of the list, which remains: Kendrick Lamar, Lorde, SZA, LCD Soundsystem, St. Vincent, Vince Staples, The National, then a tight knot of (105-100 points): Jay-Z, Sampha, War on Drugs, Slowdive, and Perfume Genius.


New records rated this week:

  • Wali Ali: To Be (2017, Mendicant): [cd]: B+(**)
  • Jeff Baker: Phrases (2017 [2018], OA2): [cd]: B
  • Blanck Mass: World Eater (2017, Sacred Bones): [r]: B+(*)
  • Cigarettes After Sex: Cigarettes After Sex (2017, Partisan): [r]: A-
  • EABS: Repetitions (Letters to Krzysztof Komeda) (2017, Astigmatic): [bc]: B+(***)
  • Hillary Gardner/Ehud Asherie: The Late Set (2017, Anzic): [r]: B+(*)
  • Perfect Giddimani: Live My Life Again (2017, Giddimani): [r]: B+(*)
  • Natalie Hemby: Puxico (2017, GetWrucke): [r]: B+(**)
  • LeeAnn Ledgerwood: Renewal (2016 [2017], SteepleChase): [r]: B+(**)
  • Daniele Luppi and Parquet Courts: Milano (2017, 30th Century/Columbia): [r]: B+(***)
  • Mad Professor/Jah9: Mad Professor Meets Jah9 in the Midst of the Storm (2017, VP): [r]: B+(**)
  • Marker: Wired for Sound (2017, Audiographic): [bc]: B
  • Michete: Cool Tricks 3 (2017, self-released, EP): [sc]: B
  • Roscoe Mitchell: Discussions (2016 [2017], Wide Hive): [r]: B+(**)
  • Youssou N'Dour: Seeni Valeurs (2017, Jive/Epic): [r]: A-
  • Evan Parker/Mikolaj Trzaska/John Edwards/Mark Sanders: City Fall: Live at Café Oto (2014 [2017], Fundacja Sluchaj): [bc]: B+(**)
  • Protomartyr: Relatives in Descent (2017, Domino): [r]: B+(***)
  • As Is Featuring Alan & Stacey Schulman: Here's to Life (2017 [2018], self-released): [cd]: B
  • Thiefs: Graft (Le Greffe) (2017 [2018], Jazz & People): [cd]: B+(**)
  • Tricky: Ununiform (2017, False Idols): [r]: B+(*)
  • Valley Queen: Destroyer (2017, self-released, EP): [r]: B-
  • Ken Vandermark: Momentum 2 & 3 (2016 [2017], Audiographic): [bc]: B+(*)
  • Trevor Watts/Veryan Weston/Alison Blunt/Hannah Marshall: Dialogues With Strings: Live at Café Oto in London (2017, Fundacja Sluchaj): [bc]: B+(*)

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries rated this week:

  • Airstream Artistry: Jim Riggs' Best of the TWO (1991-2008 [2017], UNT, 3CD): [cd]: B+(*)
  • Gary Husband: A Meeting of Spirits (2005 [2017], Edition): [r]: B+(*)
  • Legacy: Neil Slater at North Texas (1982-2015 [2017], UNT, 4CD): [cd]: B
  • Sun Ra: Discipline 27-II (1972 [2017], Strut/Art Yard): [r]: B
  • The Revelators: We Told You Not to Cross Us [20th Anniversary Edition] (1997 [2017], Crypt): [bc]: B+(***)

Old music rated this week:

  • EABS: Puzzle Mixtape (2012-15 [2016], self-released): [bc]: B+(*)
  • The Revelators: Let a Poor Boy Ride . . . (1998 [2009], Crypt): [bc]: A-


Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

  • As Is Featuring Alan & Stacey Schulman: Here's to Life (self-released): February 16
  • Jeff Baker: Phrases (OA2)
  • Raoul Björkenheim Ecstasy: Doors of Perception (2017, Cuneiform): advance
  • Harley Card: The Greatest Invention (self-released): January 12
  • Sylvie Courvoisier Trio: D'Agala (Intakt): January 19
  • Danny Fox Trio: The Great Nostalgist (Hot Cup): January 19
  • Satoko Fujii: Solo (Libra): January 26
  • Jeff Hamilton Trio: Live From San Pedro (Capri): February 18
  • Musique Noire: Reflections: We Breathe (self-released)
  • The Ed Palermo Big Band: The Adventures of Zodd Zundgren (Cuneiform): advance
  • Dan Pugach Nonet: Plus One (Unit): February 16
  • Jamie Saft: Solo a Genova (RareNoise): January 26
  • Mark Wade Trio: Moving Day (self-released): February 2
  • Weird Beard [Florian Egli/Dave Gisler/Martina Berther/Rico Bauman]: Orientation (Intakt): January 19

Weekend Roundup

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After Trump made his "shit-hole countries" comment, Matt Taibbi asked on Twitter whether any president had previously said anything comparable. Not sure what he found out. My own first thought was that Thomas Jefferson probably said something less succinct but roughly equivalent about Haiti, and such views were probably very common among American politicians -- certainly as long as slaveholders remained in power, and probably much later. Indeed, GW Bush's critique of "nation building" was pointedly directed at Haiti, and the Clinton operation Bush so disparaged was primarily instigated to stem the influx of refugees from Haiti's dictatorship. (Indeed, it was Clinton who converted Guantanamo from a navy base into a prison "holding tank" for Haitian refugees.)

But I do want to share one example I picked up from a tweet (byRemi Brulin). This is evidently from a transcript of a conversation between Nixon and Kissinger, from May 4, 1972:

President: I'll see that the United States does not lose. I'm putting it quite bluntly. I'll be quite precise. South Vietnam may lose. But the United States cannot lose. Which means, basically, I have made my decision. Whatever happens to South Vietnam, we are going to cream North Vietnam. . . . For once, we've got to use the maximum power of this country . . . against this shit-ass little country, to win the war. . . . The only place where you and I disagree . . . is with regard to the bombing. You're so goddamned concerned about the civilians and I don't give a damn. I don't care.

Kissinger: I'm concerned about the civilians because I don't want the world to be mobilized against you as a butcher . . .


Some scattered links this week:

  • Matthew Yglesias: The 4 most important stories in politics this week: Trump scuttled a DACA deal; CHIP got cheaper but still didn't pass; Trump said some things; Arizona's Senate race heated up. Other Yglesias posts:

    • Arizona's already very complicated Senate race, explained.

    • Tuesday's DACA negotiation stunt showed how dangerously we've lowered the bar for Trump.

      There's something more than a little pointless about the mental fitness debate. Trump is, for better or worse, now pursuing an utterly orthodox Republican Party approach on every policy issue under the sun. Ultimately, Trump's slothful work habits and boundless incuriosity are more a problem for that party's leaders than for anyone else. If their considered judgment is that this policy agenda is better pursued by a lazy, ignorant cable news addict than by Mike Pence, that's really their problem.

      The agenda itself, however, is a problem. . . .

      On a policy level, however, Ike Brannon and Logan Albright of the Cato Institute have concluded that "deporting the approximately 750,000 people currently in the DACA program would be over $60 billion to the federal government along with a $280 billion reduction in economic growth over the next decade."

      Of course, there is no realistic way that all 750,000 DACA recipients will be deported, but losing legal authorization to live and work in the United States will hurt them nonetheless by forcing them out of the legitimate labor market and into the shadows. A report compiled this summer by the Center for American Progress concluded that obtaining DACA protection raised recipients' wages by 69 percent on average, and it stands to reason that losing it would cause a large-scale reversal with concomitant negative effects for GDP growth, productivity, and tax collection.

      With the economy finally enjoying low unemployment (as Trump likes to brag), there is no conceivable upside to deporting a large group of young, well-educated workers who are contributing meaningfully to the American economy. Which is precisely why Republicans keep teasing their willingness to offer them some legislative relief. But instead of doing the right thing for the country, the GOP is hung up on the idea of using the DACA issue as leverage to jam up the Democrats and either extract some concessions on other immigration issues or force the party into an internecine argument about whether they are doing enough for the DREAMers.

    • Trump is mad that "Sneaky Dianne Feinstein" debunked a key Republican theory on Trump and Russia.

    • Newly released Senate testimony debunks a key conservative theory on Trump and Russia.

    • Donald Trump's phony war with the press, explained.

    • Filing your taxes on a postcard isn't going to happen.

  • Thomas Frank: Paul Krugman got the working class wrong. That had consequences: Frank's been pushing a line about how white blue-collar workers have been flocking to the Republican Party at least since his 2004 book What's the Matter With Kansas?, while Krugman has preferred to point out that base support for the Republicans comes from above-average income families. I've tended to agree with Krugman on this for two reasons: one is that the data generally shows support for Republicans -- even Trump -- is more upscale; the other is that I've felt that the urban professionals Democrats have tried to appeal to lately have been too quick to discard or ignore the white working class, and this blunts their understanding of inequality. Still, if the trend has gotten worse -- and Trump's election argues that it has -- this is largely because Frank is right about the corrosive effects of the New Democrats' appeal to urban elitism. Moreover, it matters not just because it's cost the Democrats some critical elections; it's one problem that would be relatively straightforward to fix. For instance, see: Joan C Williams: Liberal elite, it's time to strike a deal with the working class.

  • Greg Grandin: The Death Cult of Trumpism:

    Trump won by running against the entire legacy of the postwar order: endless war, austerity, "free trade," unfettered corporate power, and inequality. A year into his tenure, the war has expanded, the Pentagon's budget has increased, and deregulation has accelerated. Tax cuts will continue the class war against the poor, and judicial and executive-agency appointments will increase monopoly rule.

    Unable to offer an alternative other than driving the existing agenda forward at breakneck speed, Trumpism's only chance at political survival is to handicap Earth's odds of survival. Trump leverages tribal resentment against an emerging manifest common destiny, a true universalism that recognizes that we all share the same vulnerable planet. He stokes an enraged refusal of limits, even as those limits are recognized. "We're going to see the end of the world in our generation," a coal-country voter said in a recent Politico profile, explaining what he knows is his dead-end support for Trump.

  • Glenn Greenwald: The Same Democrats Who Denounce Donald Trump as a Lawless, Treasonous Authoritarian Just Voted to Give Him Vast Warrantless Spying Powers: The House passed a bill to renew NSA's warrantless eavesdropping on American citizens, rejecting an amendment to at least require a warrant. Among the bill's backers were Nancy Pelosi and the House Democratic leadership, including many who have spent much of the last year arguing that Trump is in league with Putin. For more, see: John Nichols: Democratic Defections Allow an Assault on Civil Liberties to Pass the House.

  • Sean Illing: Richard Rorty's prescient warnings for the American left: Rorty died in 2007, and this is mostly picked up from his 1998 bookAchieving Our Country, a time when what was probably America's largest "left" organization, Move On, was preoccupied with defending President Bill Clinton from impeachment charges based on lies about his consensual but inappropriate sex with a White House intern. That wasn't what you'd call a high water point for the American left. Sure, we might have found ourselves in the same lame position in 2017 had Hillary Clinton been elected president, but while her loss has been a setback for mainstream liberals, it has done wonders to clarify why we need a principled and ambitious left. As such, events have rendered Rorty's book obsolete. Two problems here: first is that Rorty's task -- to explain why the left in America had become atrophied and ineffective -- has been rendered academic by the renascent left; and second, his answer turns out not to have been a very good one. He tries to argue that the problem is that the "reformist left," which had accomplished so many important reforms from 1900 to 1964, gave way to a "cultural left," which abandoned effective politics as it retreated into academia to focus on cultural matters. He starts critiquing the latter by charging that the new left was hostile to "anyone opposed to communism -- including Democrats, union workers, and technocrats." Makes you wonder whether he was paying any attention at all: in the first place, what distinguished the new left from the old was its rejection of the Soviet Union (and its Trotskyite and Maoist critics) as the model and exemplar of socialism. Still, it is true that the new left were critical of US practice in the Cold War -- especially the practice of Democratic Party leaders like presidents Truman, Kennedy, and Johnson. The all-important fact is that the fundamental directive of the Cold War was to undermine labor and anti-colonial movements around the world and ultimately within the US itself. The fact is that Democrats failed to support unions as business waged an unrelenting struggle to contain, cripple, and roll back labor even well before the new left -- and even more so when the New Democrats rose under Reagan and ruled with Clinton.

    I'm getting rather tired of people blaming "the left" for the rise of the right since the late 1970s. The left has never come anywhere near the levers of power in the US. At best, the labor movement in the 1930s, civil rights in the 1960s, antiwar and environment and women in the 1970s, prodded establishment liberals into making some reforms to calm down the challenge. And while Democrats have enjoyed brief periods of power from Carter in 1977 through Obama in 2016, the ones in power have done damn little to advance the quintessential left positions: toward more equality, peace, and freedom.

  • Jonathan M Katz: This is how ignorant you have to be to call Haiti a 'shithole': After overthrowing slavery in 1804, and defeating a force sent by Napoleon to reclaim the colony. France demanded "reparations" in 1825, effectively bankrupting Haiti for the rest of the 19th century. After that, the Americans entered, invading Haiti in 1915 and occupying the country until 1934, returning periodically through CIA coups and other acts, with full-scale military invasions in 1994 and 2004.

    Some more relevant links here:

  • Mike Konczal: 3 Reasons Why Republicans Will Let the Rich Abuse the Tax Code. Also by Konczal: Trump Is Creating a Grifter Economy.

  • Andrew Prokop: Wall Street Journal: Trump's lawyer arranged for $130,000 in hush money for an ex-porn star.

  • Corey Robin: If authoritarianism is looming in the US, how come Donald Trump looks so weak? Offers a cautionary note on the temptation to compare Trump to Hitler, that other notorious racist demagogue who came into power through a crooked back door deal. As Robin points out, the big difference is that a year after seizing power Hitler had consolidated his control to the point where he had thousands of opponents locked up in concentration camps, whereas Trump's most public opponents headline high-rating television shows and are looking forward to massive election wins later this year. Maybe you can liken ICE under Trump to the Gestapo, but their charter is so limited few Americans give them a second thought. I have no doubt but that the Republican Party, with its gerrymanders and voter suppression and psychological research and propaganda machine, has taken a profoundly anti-democratic turn -- I've been reading Nancy McLean's brilliant and deeply disturbing Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America -- and I'm sure Trump would score very high on Theodor Adorno's F-Scale (a measure of "authoritarian personality" developed right after WWII). And, sure, MAGA has overtones similar to Thousand-Year Reich, but Republicans are more interested in smashing and stripping the state than building it up its power. Trump may blunder his way into nuclear war, but he isn't about to conquer the world. Trump's nationalism is peculiarly hollow. Even his racism comes off more as bad manners than as a coherent belief. I'm not one to belittle how much real damage he is doing, but we shouldn't overstate it either. Still, I'm extra worried about his threats because America has already suffered (even if survived) a long series of Republican malefactors, whose repeated depredations have contributed to the toll Trump adds to. Robin does us a service to quoting Philip Roth on Nixon in 1974:

    Of course there have been others as venal and lawless [as Richard Nixon] in American politics, but even a Joe McCarthy was more identifiable as human clay than this guy is. The wonder of Nixon (and contemporary America) is that a man so transparently fraudulent, if not on the edge of mental disorder, could ever have won the confidence and approval of a people who generally require at least a little something of the 'human touch' in their leaders.

  • Tierney Sneed: How Kris Kobach Has Created a Giant Headache for the Trump Administration.

  • Emily Stewart: Hawaii's missile scare "reminds us how precarious the nuclear age is": For nearly a year now Trump and Kim Jong Un have been taunting one another about nuclear war, setting an ominous context for Saturday's false alarm of a "ballistic missilb threat inbound to Hawaii." Also see (posted before the Hawaii event) Robert Andersen/Martin J Sherwin: Nuclear war became more likely this week -- here's why.

    Stewart also wrote: Gamer who made "swatting" call over video game dispute now facing manslaughter charges: This is a local Wichita story. While I believe that the guy who called in the false report that resulted in deployment of a SWAT team and the killing of a totally innocent man is some kind of criminal act, there's been no mention in the local press whatsoever of the SWAT cop who actually fired the shot. The fact that only one cop fired underscores how unclear it was that anyone needed to shoot. I've also seen no discussion of whether it's reasonable policy to dispatch an entire SWAT team to a situation where there has been no on-site investigation to determine that such a response is appropriate -- in this case it clearly wasn't. Speaking of Wichita, also note this story: Wichita Police Officer's Shot Misses Dog, Injures Girl. This was in response to a "domestic dispute," but the man and woman weren't even in the room when, for some unexplained reason (or, I suppose, none) a cop decided to shoot the dog. He missed, the bullet richocheted, and the girl was hit.

  • More fallout from Michael Wolff's Fire and Fury:


Music Week

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Music: Current count 29181 [29150] rated (+31), 367 [368] unrated (-1).

Initial calculation came out at 24 new ratings, surprisingly low. Still, the list below only comes to 26. I looked through the unrated list and found the discrepancies, plus a few others, nudging me over the thirty mark. That should have been easy given the weather and the availability of EOY lists suggesting things to check out. Still, main reason I didn't get more done was the Danny Fox Trio album, which I must have listened to 7-8 times. Came out pretty much as I surmised from the first play, but I couldn't come up with anything to write -- indeed, I don't seem to have any vocabulary to describe what I was hearing. Very frustrating.

Also must have played Gregory Lewis at least five times -- a surprise, but I noticed several critics jumped the gun and listed this 2018 release on their 2017 Jazz Critics Poll ballots. One record with some upside potential that only got two plays was Big K.R.I.T.'s double: I concluded, as far as I got, that first disc is A-, but second falls a bit short.

One thing I could use some help on is proofreading updates to Robert Christgau's CG database. All of the reviews from January through June 2017 arehere (please excuse the style sheet confusion). I'll add a second batch when I get it entered. Christgau is writing a Pazz & Jop piece for the Village Voice this year. Not sure when that's going to be posted, but he expressed a desire that I get his reviews up by then. (Probably won't happen this week, but odds are much better for next.) Main things to look out for are missing italics and elided words -- for technical reasons the things I'm most likely to screw up.

I'm still fiddling with myEOY Aggregate file. It should correlate somewhat well with the Pazz & Jop results, but retains a relative (but not very significant) UK bias, and has a distortion that raised three Expert Witness favorites into the top twenty (Jason Isbell, Jens Lekman, Waxahatchee). I went back and spent more time on several Christgau favorites, resulting in two upgrades (Isbell, Princess Nokia), though I couldn't quite see adding them to my still shortnon-jazz A-list.


New records rated this week:

  • Big K.R.I.T.: 4Eva Is a Mighty Long Time (2017, Multi Alumni/BMG, 2CD): [r]: B+(***)
  • Anouar Brahem: Blue Margins (2017, ECM): [r]: B+(**)
  • Daniel Caesar: Freudian (2017, Golden Child): [r]: B+(*)
  • CunninLynguists: Rose Azura Njano (2017, A Piece of Strange Music/RBC): [r]: B+(**)
  • CupcakKe: Ephorize (2018, self-released): [r]: B+(***)
  • Eminem: Revival (2017, Aftermath/Shady/Interscope): [r]: A-
  • Danny Fox Trio: The Great Nostalgist (2016 [2018], Hot Cup): [cd]: B+(***)
  • Ghostpoet: Dark Days + Canapes (2017, Play It Again Sam): [r]: B+(**)
  • Ishmael Ensemble: Songs for Knotty (2017, Banoffee Pies, EP): [r]: B
  • Kondi Band: Salone (2017, Strut): [r]: B+(***)
  • Gregory Lewis: Organ Monk Blue (2017 [2018], self-released): [cd]: A-
  • Lil Uzi Vert: Luv Is Rage 2 (2017, Atlantic): [r]: B+(*)
  • Roc Marciano: Rosebudd's Revenge (2017, Quality Control/300/Atlantic): [r]: B+(**)
  • JD McPherson: Undivided Heart & Soul (2017, New West): [r]: B+(*)
  • Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band: Front Porch Sessions (2017, Family Owned): [r]: B+(**)
  • Portico Quartet: Art in the Age of Automation (2017, Gondwana): [r]: B+(**)
  • Dan Pugach Nonet: Plus One (2017 [2018], Unit): [cd]: B-
  • Steve Slagle: Dedication (2017 [2018], Panorama): [cd]: B+(***)
  • Mavis Staples: If All I Was Was Black (2017, Anti-): [r]: B+(***)
  • David Virelles: Gnosis (2016 [2017], ECM): [r]: B+(*)
  • Mark Wade Trio: Moving Day (2017 [2018], self-released): [cd]: B+(**)
  • Wiki: No Mountains in Manhattan (2017, XL): [r]: B+(**)

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries rated this week:

  • Otim Alpha: Gulu City Anthems (2004-15 [2017], Nyege Nyege): [bc]: B
  • Willie Nelson: Willie's Stash Vol 2: Willie Nelson and the Boys (2011-12 [2017], Legacy): [r]: B+(*)
  • Hermeto Pascoal & Grupo Vice Versa: Viajando Com O Som: The Lost 1976 Vice Versa Studio Sessions (1976 [2017], Far Out): [r]: B+(**)
  • Soul of a Nation: Afro-Centric Visions in the Age of Black Power: Underground Jazz Street Funk & the Roots of Rap 1968-79 (1968-79 [2017], Soul Jazz): [r]: B+(*)


Grade (or other) changes:

  • Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit: The Nashville Sound (2017, Southeastern): [r]: [was B+(**)] B+(***)
  • Princess Nokia: 1992 Deluxe (2017, Rough Trade): [r]: [was B] B+(***)


Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

  • Dawn Clement: Tandem (Origin): January 19
  • George Cotsirilos Quartet: Mostly in Blue (OA2): January 19
  • Kate McGarry/Keith Ganz/Gary Versace: The Subject Tonight Is Love (Binxtown)
  • Leslie Pintchik: You Eat My Food, You Drink My Wine, You Steal My Girl! (Pintch Hard): February 23
  • Margo Rey: The Roots of Rey/Despacito Margo (Origin): January 19
  • Edgar Steinitz: Roots Unknown (OA2)
  • Kevin Sun: Trio (Ectomorph Music): February 2
  • Thiefs: Graft (Le Greffe) (Jazz & People)
  • Michael Waldrop: Origin Suite (Origin): January 19

Weekend Roundup

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This week marks the first anniversary of Trump's inauguration as president, or as we're more inclined to note: one year down, three more to go. Supporters like to tout the economy, especially the record high stock market -- something which affects few Americans, but at least partially reflects things Trump has actually done, like turning a blind eye to corruption, and slashing corporate tax rates. Supporters also point to low unemployment and marginal wage growth, two trends that started before Trump but at least he hasn't wrecked yet. Also, Trump's approval ratings have seen a slight uptick over the last month, but he is still way under water, with by far the worst ratings of any first-year president since they've been measuring. I'm not sure where Herbert Hoover ranks: by the end of his first year the stock market had crashed and the Great Depression started, but even three years later, with conditions worsening, Hoover's vote share was higher than Trump's approval ratings.

Perhaps economic indicators are overrated? Or maybe it's just that most people aren't feeling part of the much touted growth? What little wage growth there has been most likely gets sucked up by higher prices -- oil, for instance, is up sharply, while help like food stamps is being cut back. But most likely most of us have yet to be hit with the full impact of Trump's regulatory and tax shifts. Moreover, much of what Trump's minions have done over the last year simply increase risk -- something you may not notice and won't have to pay for until it's too late. The most obvious risk is war with North Korea, which hasn't happened but could break out with shocking speed. Other risks, like withdrawal from the Paris Accords on global warming, will necessarily play out slower, but could be even harder to reverse. In between, it's a pretty sure bet that increasing inequality and deregulation will create financial bubbles which will burst and turn into recession. Other instances of risk increase include EPA changes which will increase pollution, changes to Obamacare which will reduce the number of people insured, and continued reduction of educational opportunities -- as the future becomes ever more dependent on people with technical skills, those skills will become rarer (well, except for immigrants, but Trump's working on curtailing them too).


Some scattered links this week:

  • Matthew Yglesias: The government is shutting down because Donald Trump doesn't know what he's doing: The basic argument is that Trump precipitated the government shutdown by rescinding Obama's DACA order, setting the enforcement clock at six months to provide pressure on Congress to do something. However, the Republicans who run Congress don't want to do anything, and their opposition makes it impossible for Democrats to advance any legislation, even when it has support of most Americans and enough Republicans to create a majority. There's little reason to think Democrats would choose to disrupt government simply to force action on DACA, but for twenty years now Republicans have routinely used the threat of shutdown to coerce concessions, and even now they have various schemes up their sleeves -- Trump, in particular, saw this as an opportunity to sneak funding for his Great Wall through. As Yglesias points out, Trump has made this worse by being totally unclear about his own goals and intentions.

    Other Yglesias pieces:

    • Trump's biggest weakness is on regular policy issues.

      And that's the reality of Trumpism. His immigration policies are contrary to the tangible interests of most Americans, and all the rest of his policies are too. Here are a few policy stories from January alone:

      • Trump is opening coastal waters to offshore drilling, even in states whose Republican governors don't want it (to say nothing of states whose Democratic governors don't).
      • Trump's Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced plans to go easier on payday lenders with new, laxer rules down the road and generous waivers immediately.
      • Trump also offered waivers from full regulatory sanctions for a bunch of banks that have been convicted of crimes, including the German giant Deutsche Bank, to which he is personally in debt.
      • Three-quarters of the National Parks Advisory Board quit, citing Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke's "inexcusable" stewardship of precious natural resources.
      • We learned that America has 3.2 million more uninsured people than it did a year ago despite a growing economy, as the Trump administration rolls out a broad suite of Medicaid cuts.

      It's a fallacy to think that Trump's various antics are a deliberate effort to distract attention from these policy issues. A president who was capable of planning and executing a political master plan wouldn't be looking at a 39 percent approval rating amid good economic conditions.

      It is true, however, that discussing Trump primarily as a personality, a media phenomenon, and a locus of culture war politics puts a kind of floor under his support. By contrast, there's basically no constituency at all for Trump's anti-Medicaid agenda, with only 22 percent of Republicans saying they want to see cuts to the program.

    • Donald Trump's terrifying plan to win the 2018 midterms.

    • Congressional Republicans think Donald Trump's sloth and ignorance is a feature, not a bug: "A weak, easy-to-manipulate president is what they want." A nice rundown here of recent cases where Trump started to zag off course only to have his Republican minders turn him around.

    Some other links on the shutdown:

    A couple more thoughts, which occurred to me while reading Krugman but nothing specific there. The constitutional system of checks and balances was set up before anyone had any inkling that there would be political parties, much less that party blocs could distort or even scam the system. The first such flaw was made obvious by the 1800 election, and was quickly patched over by amendment. But later flaws have been harder to fix, especially when becomes committed to exploiting a flaw -- e.g., the Republicans have elected four minority presidents since 1860, versus zero for the Democrats. Up into the 1980s there was a fair amount of bipartisan trading in Congress, mostly because both parties had overlapping minorities -- liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats. Since then, Republicans have captured nearly every right- (or center-) leaning Democratic constituency, and Republicans have adopted internal caucus rules that encourage block voting. After 2008, Republicans took advantage of every parliamentary trick Congress (especially the Senate) had to obstruct efforts by the Democrats -- getting their way almost all of the time. Now, with razor-thin majorities in Congress, they expect to get their way all of the time, even when they're trying to pass enormously unpopular programs -- something they have no qualms or inhibitions about. Those checks always favored inaction over change, which generally suited conservatives, but for the nonce seems about the only recourse Democrats have left, lest the Republicans complete their destruction of liberal democracy -- if the stakes were less you'd never see Democrats holding out anywhere near as tenaciously as Republicans did against Obama.

    The other thing I've noticed is that the Republicans have really mastered the art of being the opposition party, obstructing and haranguing the Democrats and, given the public's deep cynicism about politicians, they've managed to avoid any responsibility for their role in Washington dysfunction. I suspect that one reason Trump won was that the American people wanted to spare themselves another four years of relentless Clinton-bashing. On the other hand, what's worked so well in opposition has done nothing to prepare the Republicans for ruling responsibly. Rather, they've kept up the same old demagoguery, the only difference being that as the party in power they find it more profitable to sell off favors. A year ago some significant number of voters evidently believed that Clinton would be more corrupt than Trump -- either because Trump had no track record in politics, or because the Clinton had faithfully served their donors for decades. What this past year has proven is that Trump has not only taken over the swamp, he's made it more fetid than ever.

  • Kate Aronoff: Stunning Special Election in Wisconsin Shows Scott Walker's Foxconn Deal Isn't the Political Winner It Was Sold As: A state senate district Trump won by 20 points just elected a Democrat.

  • Anna Maria Barry-Jester: There's Been a Massive Shift to the Right in the Immigration Debate: Headline's a bit overstated. What's happened is that between Trump and the anti-immigrant faction of the Republican Party, it's become much harder to get any sort of immigration reform passed. Meanwhile, the pro-immigration faction of the Democratic Party has been forced into a corner, fighting a rear-guard battle to salvage immigration hopes for the most broadly popular segment (the "Dreamers"), often at the expense of others. But underlying views haven't shifted so much, if at all -- indeed, it's possible that the public as a whole is moving slightly more pro-immigrant, in part in reaction to Trump and his racist outbursts.

  • Nathan Heller: Estonia, the Digital Republic: By far the most successful of the former SSRs. Evidently, a big part of their success is how extensively they've "gone digital," wiring the country together and making government open and accessible through those wires. Sample sentence: "Many ambitious techies I met in Tallinn, though, were leaving industry to go work for the state." -- Which is to say, for the public. A lot of this has long seemed possible, but isn't done in the US because the essential degree of trust is inevitably lacking in a system with predatory capitalism and a coercive police state. But a tiny country on the Baltic which twenty years ago was dirt poor can get it together. Interesting.

  • Elizabeth Kolbert: The Psychology of Inequality: Reports on various sociological and psychological studies into how people think about inequality, mostly as summarized by Keith Payne in his book The Broken Ladder: How Inequality Affects the Way We Think, Live, and Die. One thing I've noticed from extensive reading about increasing inequality is that it's easy to recite the numbers that show what's happening with money, but it's much harder to translate those numbers to changes to human lives -- and simply fleshing them out with examples still doesn't seem to work. These studies, in and of themselves, may not be convincing either, but (like the statistics) they help frame the problem. An important piece.

  • Mark Joseph Stern: An Awful Ruling From One of Trump's Worst Judicial Appointees: "John K Bush's opinion in Peffer v. Stephens will let the police ransack almost any suspect's home." Remember, Trump's judges will be around much longer than he will. Just another long-term consequence of a blind, ignorant, stupid decision last November.

  • Matt Taibbi: Forget the Memo -- Can We Worry About the Banks? Also on that memo, see Glenn Greenwald/Jon Schwarz: Republicans Have Four Easy Ways to #ReleaseTheMemo.

  • Robin Wright: One Year In, Trump's Middle East Policy Is Imploding: This makes it sound more coherent than it ever was:

    Trump had four goals in the Middle East when he came into office, beginning with energizing the peace process. The second was wrapping up the war against the Islamic State launched by his predecessor, in 2014. The third was checking Iran's influence in the region and wringing out new concessions on its nuclear program. The fourth was deepening support for a certain type of Arab leader, notably Egypt's President, Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, and the Saudi royal family.

    Moreover, the people tasked with these jobs (e.g., Jared Kushner), show how little care or thought went into the plan. Actually, you could reduce these four ventures into a single directive: do whatever pro-Israeli donors tell you to do. Israel-Palestine peace prospects have been a complete bust, and Trump's vow to remember who voted against the US at the UN will further strain relationships. Even with Trump's full support, the Saudis' adventures are bogged down everywhere. Trump's sniping at Iran has provoked protests, but none of the other parties want to break or change the deal, and there is no evidence that Iran is in violation of it. The war against ISIS may seem like more of a success: the US has helped to drive ISIS out of Iraq and its major strongholds in Syria, but that just means that the conditions that allowed ISIS to emerge -- the power vacuum in Syria and the sectarian regime in Iraq -- have been reset. Maybe if Trump had negotiated a resolution to Syria's civil war the former ISIS area would stabilize, but Trump and Tillerson have failed to negotiate a single treaty -- indeed, they don't seem to have any desire, inclination or skill to do so. The result is that not just in the Middle East but everywhere US relations with world powers have become more strained and dangerous.

    For more on Yemen, see: Nicolas Niarchos: How the U.S. Is Making the War in Yemen Worse.

Music Week

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Music: Current count 29219 [29181] rated (+38), 373 [367] unrated (+6).

Before we get to music, I want to point out Leonard Pitts' column trying to sum up what Donald Trump, his enablers and fellow travelers have wrought in just one year. This would have fit neatly as a coda to yesterday's Weekend Roundup:

You'd be hard-pressed to find a more visceral illustration of how our sensibilities have been bludgeoned into submission in the last year. Surprises no longer surprise. Shocks no longer shock. We have bumped up against the limits of human bandwidth, find ourselves unable to take it all in.

One simply cannot keep up with, much less respond with proper outrage to, all of this guy's scandals, bungles, blame-shifting, name-calling and missteps, his sundry acts of mendacity, misanthropy, perversity and idiocy. It's like trying to fill a teacup from Niagara Falls. It's like trying to read the Internet.

One year later, we've seen a procession of feuds that would impress a Hatfield, a McCoy or a '90s rapper, running beefs with Mitch McConnell, Elizabeth Warren, Bob Corker, Jeff Flake, Jeff Sessions, Dick Durbin, Colin Kaepernick, James Comey, Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski, CNN, The New York Times and reality, to name just a few.

One year later, the man who promised to "work so hard" for the American people is setting new standards for presidential laziness, a short work day, hours of television and endless golf.

One year later, the man who vowed to bring in "the best people" has hired and fired the sorry likes of Michael Flynn, Sean Spicer, Steve Bannon, Omarosa Manigault Newman, Reince Priebus and Anthony"The Mooch" Scaramucci.

One year later, the man who bragged of having "the best words" has pundits parsing the difference between "shithouse" and "shithole" as descriptors of Africa, El Salvador and Haiti, home, collectively, to about 17 percent of humanity.

One year later, the man who asked African Americans "what the hell" they had to lose by voting for him, is praised by tiki-torch-wielding white supremacists -- "very fine people," he says -- and his name is chanted as a racist taunt by white mobs.

One year later, we live in a state of perpetual nuclear stand off, a Cuban Missile Crisis that never ends.

But hey, at least the stock market is doing well.

Almost fifty years ago I read an essay, "The Obvious," by R.D. Laing, which pointed out that different people have very different notions of what's obvious. This resonated with a word I had recently learned from John N. Bleibtreu's book about cognitive differences between different species, The Parable of the Beast (1968). The word was Umwelt, from the German, the world around oneself. Everyone sees a limited slice of the world, at best tenuously connected to other people's slices, and that's been a limitation since time immemorial. Epistemologists like Kant struggled to find interlinked forms beneath the appearances, but there's a more empirical way to show how external changes affect and limit our understanding of the world. Given that our comprehension of the world is achieved and articulated through a prism of language, we generally find ourselves trapped in a world spun by mass media. Hence, overexposure to Trump normalizes him, and changes us. I'm not at all sure this is deliberate -- ineptness seems more plausible -- but it is strangely effective.

But I am sure that there are many forces which seem to subtly shape our environment in ways that serve their purposes and preclude chances for alternatives -- in business, politics, religion, etc. For instance, I have a book on the shelf in front of me by Philip Mirowski calledNever Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, about the 2008 financial meltdown and recession, and more specifically how the crisis, which should have totally discredited neoliberal economic theory, resulted in virtually no real change -- mostly because no one in a position of power could see their way around those beliefs. Obama's election in 2008 represented a desire for change, but it wasn't accompanied by any real change in the way Democrats thought about such basic issues as economics and war.


Listened to quite a few records last week, informed by numerousEOY lists (notably including one from Jason Gross), yet I didn't find much to recommend. I did dig into a bunch of Soul Jazz compilations, which might have fared better if I had the booklets (usually pretty good) to go along with the music. The two A-list records I did come up with turned out to be 2016 releases.

The Village Voice has published a list of the top 100 albums and top 50 singles from its Pazz & Jop Critics Poll, plus two essays: one by Robert Christgau, Personal, Political, and Otherwise: King Kendrick Rules Pazz & Jop; the other by Sasha Frere-Jones, Cardi B: In Control of Pazz & Jop Singles. I don't see complete totals, individual ballots, or critic comments, as in previous years, and I don't see any statistical analysis over at Glenn MacDonald's Furia site, which has been an invaluable resource in recent years (2008-2016). We don't even have such basic information as who voted. I'll hold off on commenting on Pazz & Jop and my own EOY Aggregate until next week, by which point I should have stopped fiddling with the latter.

I've been working on bringing Robert Christgau'swebsite up to date. In my private copy, I now have all of the Expert Witness monthlies up to last week, and I have all of those stuffed into the database. I'm still a day or two away from updating the website, but have squirreled away two files of EW entries in the hopes that someone with better eyes might take a look at them and spot errors. See January 2017-June 2017 and July 2017-January 2018. Email me directly or webmaster (which comes to me). Please excuse the broken style sheet and other links.

The update will also include a 2017 Dean's List (not published at Village Voice). One of the tasks I have left to do is to format that and hook in the links.


New records rated this week:

  • 21 Savage/Offset/Metro Boomin: Without Warning (2017, Epic): [r]: B+(*)
  • Fatima Al Qadiri: Shaneera (2017, Hyperdub, EP): [r]: B
  • Django Bates' Beloved: The Study of Touch (2016 [2017], ECM): [r]: B+(*)
  • Bully: Losing (2017, Sub Pop): [r]: B+(**)
  • Chronixx: Chronology (2017, Soul Circle Music/Virgin): [r]: B+(*)
  • Cleric: Resurrection (2017, Figure, EP): [r]: B+(*)
  • Cleric: Retrocausal (2017, Web of Memory): [r]: B-
  • Sylvie Courvoisier Trio: D'Agala (2017 [2018], Intakt): [cd]: B+(***)
  • Scott DuBois: Autumn Wind (2017, ACT): [r]: B+(***)
  • Fleet Foxes: Crack-Up (2017, Nonesuch): [r]: C+
  • Jeff Hamilton Trio: Live From San Pedro (2017 [2018], Capri): [cd]: B+(**)
  • Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings: Soul of a Woman (2017, Daptone): [r]: B+(*)
  • Stacey Kent: I Know I Dream: The Orchestral Sessions (2017, Okeh): [r]: B+(**)
  • The Koreatown Oddity: Finna Be Past Tense (2017, Stones Throw): [r]: B+(**)
  • Mr. Lif & Brass Menazeri: Resilient (2017, Waxsimile): [r]: B+(*)
  • L'Orange: The Ordinary Man (2017, Mello Music Group): [r]: B+(***)
  • Luka Productions: Fasokan (2017, Sahel Sounds): [r]: B+(**)
  • Miguel: War & Leisure (2017, ByStorm/RCA): [r]: B+(*)
  • Mount Kimbie: Love What Survives (2017, Warp): [r]: B
  • Maciej Obara Quartet: Unloved (2017, ECM): [r]: B
  • Lucas Pino: The Answer Is No (2017, Outside In Music): [r]: B+(***)
  • Queens of the Stone Age: Villains (2017, Matador): [r]: B
  • Real Estate: In Mind (2017, Domino): [r]: B
  • The Regrettes: Feel Your Feelings Fool! (2017, Warner Brothers): [r]: B+(**)
  • Nadine Shah: Holiday Destination (2017, 1965): [r]: B+(*)
  • Ecca Vandal: Ecca Vandal (Dew Process): [r]: B+(**)
  • Weird Beard [Florian Egli/Dave Gisler/Martina Berther/Rico Bauman]: Orientation (2017 [2018], Intakt): [cd]: B+(**)
  • Roy Woods: Say Less (2017, OVO Sound/Warner Brothers): [r]: B+(**)
  • Msafiri Zawose: Uhamiaji (2017, Soundway): [r]: B+(*)

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries rated this week:

  • Acetone: 1992-2001 (1992-2001 [2017], Light in the Attic): [r]: B
  • Boombox: Early Independent Hip Hop, Electro and Disco Rap 1979-82 (1979-82 [2016], Soul Jazz): [r]: A-
  • Boombox 2: Early Independent Hip Hop Electro and Disco Rap 1979-83 (1979-83 [2017], Soul Jazz): [r]: B+(***)
  • Dancehall: The Rise of Jamaican Dancehall Culture (1977-93 [2017], Soul Jazz, 2CD): [r]: B+(***)
  • Deutsche Elektronische Musik 3: Experimental German Rock and Electronic Music 1971-81 (1971-81 [2017], Soul Jazz, 2CD): [r]: B+(*)
  • The Lloyd McNeill Quartet: Asha (1969 [2017], Soul Jazz): [r]: B+(*)
  • The Lloyd McNeill Quartet: Washington Suite (1970 [2017], Soul Jazz): [r]: B
  • New Orleans Funk Vol. 4: Voodoo Fire in New Orleans 1951-77 (1951-77 [2016], Soul Jazz): [r]: A-
  • Punk 45: Les Punks: The French Connection: The First Wave of French Punk 1977-80 (1977-80 [2016], Soul Jazz): [r]: B+(***)
  • Space, Energy & Light: Expermental Electronic and Acoustic Soundscapes 1961-88 (1961-88 [2017], Soul Jazz): [r]: B+(**)

Old music rated this week:

  • Luka Productions: Mali Kady (2016, Sahel Sounds): [r]: B+(*)
  • New Orleans Funk Vol. 3: Two-Way-Pocky-Way, Gumbo Ya-Ya & the Mardi Gras Mambo (1959-84 [2013], Soul Jazz): [r]: B+(***)


Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

  • David Bertrand: Palmyra & Other Places (Blujazz)
  • Nick Biello: Vagabond Soul (Blujazz)
  • Fred Farell: Distant Song (Whaling City Sound): January 26
  • Craig Fraedrich: Out of the Blues (Summit)
  • James Hall: Lattice (Outside In Music): February 8
  • Cecilia Sanchietti: La Verza Via (Blujazz)
  • Steve Swell: Music for Six Musicians: Hommage À Olivier Messiaen (Silkheart)

Weekend Roundup

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I figured the big political story of the week was Trump going to Davos, announcing "America is open for business," and hat-in-hand begging foreign capitalists to invest in America. He'd probably tell you that the reason he's courting foreign investment is to create jobs for Americans, but that's merely a second-order side-effect. The reason capitalists invest money is for profits -- to take more money back out of America than they put in. By "open for business" Trump means "come rip us off -- we'll make it easy for you."

Trump's Davos mission effectively ends any prospect that Trump might have actually tried to implement some sort of "economic nationalist" agenda. The odds that he would do so were never very good. The balance of corporate power has swung from manufacturing to finance, and that has driven the globalization that has undermined America's manufacturing base while greatly increasing the relative wealth of the top percent. Trump himself has benefited from this scheme, not really by working the finance and trade angles as by offering rich investors diversifying investments in high-end real estate.

None of this was really a secret when Trump was campaigning. To the extent he had concrete proposals, they were always aimed at making it easier for businesses, including banks, to screw over customers (and employees), policy consistent throughout his own long career. Given that's all he ever wanted to do, it's not just laziness for him to kick back and let the Republican Party policy wonks go crazy. It's not even clear that Trump cares about his signature anti-immigration stance. Sure, the hard-liners he's surrounded himself with have been able to keep him in line (although his occasional thrashing adds confusion to the issue, and thus far camouflage -- much ado last week about his seemingly generous offer on the "dreamers" wrapped up in numerous unpalatable demands).


Some scattered links this week:

  • Matthew Yglesias: The 4 most important politics stories of the week: The government reopened (until February 8, anyhow); Trump released his hostage demands; Mueller is working on obstruction of justice; Pennsylvania Republicans got some bad news: embattled Rep. Pat Meehan is retiring, and the Supreme Court ruled against a gerrymander map which gave Republicans a 13-5 House margin. Other Yglesias pieces this week:

  • Dean Baker: The Corporate Tax Cut Bonanza.

  • Jane Coaston: In 2008, Hillary Clinton's faith adviser was accused of sexual harassment -- and was kept on: More telling, his victim was reassigned. Still, for me the more shocking (at least more dispiriting) aspect of the story is that she had a "faith adviser." Didn't that sort of role go out of fashion with Rasputin?

  • Masha Gessen: At Davos -- and Always -- Donald Trump Can Only Think in the Present Tense: Notes that Trump managed to get through Davos without making any outrageous faux pas, while media ignored anything of longer-term import:

    Reading the U.S. media, you would think that all the attendees of Davos 2018 cared about was whether Donald Trump obeyed the teleprompter and sounded reasonably civilized while inviting the moneybags of the world to invest in the United States. [George] Soros's remarks got a bit of coverage, while the more visionary conversation seemed not to register at all. This shows how provincial we have become. Our chronic embarrassment -- or fear of embarrassment -- when it comes to our President may be a new phenomenon, but our lack of imagination is not. The American political conversation has long been based on outdated economic and social ideas, and now it's really showing.

    By the way, I haven't seen this in any piece on the web, but Seth Myers, in a subordinate clause, mentioned that no American president had attended Davos before Trump since 2000. That means the last US president to take advantage of the opportunity to pander before the global elites was . . . Bill Clinton. Even there, it's possible that the lame duck was more interested in lining up contributors to his future foundation than anything else. I think I actually recall a story about Clinton in Davos: if memory serves, he skipped out on the ill-fated Camp David negotiations between Barak and Arafat -- his inattention contributing to both failure and the breakout of the so-called Al-Aqsa Intifada following that failure. Should be some sort of cautionary tale, but it's probably true that Trump had nothing better that he was capable of doing.

    For more on what Soros had to say, see: John Cassidy: How George Soros Upstaged Donald Trump at Davos.

  • Ryan Grim/Lee Fang: The Dead Enders: "Candidates who signed up to battle Donald Trump must get past the Democratic Party first."

  • German Lopez: Marshall County, Kentucky, high school shooting: what we know: For starters, two dead, eighteen others injured. Among the factoids:

    • The shooting comes a day after another shooting at a high school in Italy, Texas, where a 16-year-old student shot a 15-year-old girl, who is now recovering from her injuries.
    • This part of Kentucky has seen school shootings in the past, the AP reported: "Marshall County High School is about 30 minutes from Heath High School in Paducah, Kentucky, where a 1997 mass shooting killed three and injured five."
    • So far in 2018, there have been at least 11 school shootings . . .
  • Kali Holloway: Trump isn't crazy, he's just a terrible person: Interview with Allen Frances, the psychiatrist who wrote the DSM entry on narcissistic personality disorder. Frances also has a more general book: Twilight of American Sanity: A Psychiatrist Analyzes the Age of Trump. Such a book could be interesting, but his answers in the interview don't guarantee that it will be.

  • Patrick Lawrence: Now the US is playing spoiler role in Korea, Syria and elsewhere. But why? News items include new, arbitrary and unilateral sanctions against North Korea and Russia, and an avowal to leave US troops in Syria after ISIS has been defeated (meaning, driven from its previous territory). One can think of other cases where the US is acting aggressive arbitrarily with no evident hope or interest in advancing a diplomatic solution. Trump's mandarins seem to regard diplomacy with such phobia they can't even imagine how to accept surrender, much less consider any form of compromise. On Syria, also see Patrick Cockburn: By Remaining in Syria the US Is Fuelling More Wars in the Middle East.

  • Charlie May: The Koch brothers are "all in" for 2018 with plans to spend up to $400 million: As Charles Koch said, "We've made more progress in the last five years than I had in the previous 50."

  • Sarah Okeson: Making the world safe for loan sharks: "Trump's consumer protection office helps payday loan companies exploit borrowers." Moreover, they don't even have to try changing the law. They can just stop enforcing it: Paul Kiel: Newly defanged, top consumer protection agency drops investigation of high-cost lender.

  • Andrew Prokop: Trump's attempt to fire Robert Mueller, explained: The event in question actually happened last June, when the White House counsel threatened to resign rather than carry out the order. Trump was subsequently talked down by White House staff. Strikes me as one of many cases where Trump's default position is to think he can do anything he wants -- even something which is not a very good idea. Very likely Trump ran into problems like that even before becoming president: businessmen routinely check with lawyers before carrying out their arbitrary whims, and probably get shot down a lot. So I wouldn't make a big deal out of this particular incident, but it does illustrate that Trump thinks he's above the law, and that could well turn into a problem. For more, see: Emily Stewart: Lindsey Graham: firing Mueller "would be the end" of the Trump presidency; Esme Cribb: Gowdy to GOP Colleagues: Mueller Is 'Fair' So 'Leave Him the Hell Alone'; Jeffrey Toobin: The Answer to Whether Trump Obstructed Justice Now Seems Clear.

  • Daniel Rodgers: The Uses and Abuses of "Neoliberalism", plus comments Julia Ott: Words Can't Do the Work for Us, Mike Konczal: How Ideology Works, NDB Connolly: A White Story, and Timothy Shenk: Jargon or Clickbait?, plus a reply by Rodgers. I haven't sorted through all of this, but Konczal is certainly right that there is a coherent and dangerous ideology there, even if the word "neoliberalism" isn't an especially good summation of it. My own experience with the word is largely conditioned by the following:

    • I first encountered the word as used by British leftists like David Harvey -- author of A Brief History of Neoliberalism (2005); also see his interview, Neoliberalism Is a Political Project, Thinking Through David Harvey's Theorisation of Neoliberalism, and (more graphically) RSA Animate: Crises of Capitalism -- so it always struck me as an Anglicism, preconditioned by the fact that in British politics the Liberal party is distinct from Labour and rooted in 19th century laissez-faire. Similar liberals once existed in the US, but they generally made their peace with labor in the New Deal Democrats, while conservatives have turned "liberal" into a broad curse word meant to cover any and all leftist deviancies.
    • Granted, since the 1970s a faction of Democrats have wanted to stress both their traditional liberal beliefs and their opposition to social democracy/welfare state, usually combined with support for an aggressive anti-communist foreign policy. Some actually called themselves neoliberals. Later the term became useful to opponents for describing so-called New Democrats, with their eager support for business interests, globalization and ("humanitarian") interventionist foreign policy -- the Clintons, most obviously.
    • Meanwhile, a group which single-mindedly promoted an aggressive, hegemony-seeking foreign policy came to call themselves neoconservatives. While they tended to support conventional conservative causes in domestic policy, they frequently styled their prescriptions for other countries as neoliberalism -- presumably to give it a softer edge, although the agenda meant to impose austerity in government while liberating capital everywhere. For a while I was tempted to treat this as a unified ideology and call it "neoism."

  • Danny Sjursen: Wrong on Nam, Wrong on Terror: Reviews a long list of books about America's Vietnam War seeking to reverse in theory the actual results of the war: failure, withdrawal, and defeat. (One book he doesn't get around to is Max Boot: The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam.) Sjursen points out that many of today's prominent War on Terror architects became officers shortly after Vietnam, so their education was formed in understanding (or more often misunderstanding) that war's lessons. That should give them a head start in rewriting imaginary Wars on Terror -- you know, the kind where we get to win.

  • Matt Taibbi: How Donald Trump's Schizoid Administration Upended the GOP: Taibbi continues to worry about the health of our two-party system.

    Pre-trump, the gop was a brilliant if unlikely coalition -- a healthy heaping of silent-majority racial paranoia, wedded to redundant patriotism and Christian family values, in service of one-percenter policies that benefited exactly the demographic the average Republican voter hated most of all: Richie Rich city dwellers who embraced globalist economics, readThe Economist and may even have been literally Jewish. In other words, Jared Kushner.

    Just 12 months later, all of those groups are now openly recoiling from one another with the disgusted vehemence of a bunch of strangers waking up in a pile after a particularly drunken and embarrassing keg party. Polls show that conservative Christians, saddled with a president who pays off porn stars and brags about grabbing women by the pussy, are finally, if slowly, slinking away from the Trump brand.

    Yacht-accident victim Rupert Murdoch and other GOP kingmakers are in a worse spot. They've watched in horror as once-obedient viewers shook off decades of Frankensteinian programming and went rogue. Since 2016, the audience has turned to the likes of Breitbart and Alex Jones' InfoWars for more purely distilled versions of the anti-government, anti-minority hysteria stations like Fox once pumped over the airwaves to keep old white people awake and agitated enough to watch the commercials. An October Harvard-Harris poll showed 61 percent of Republicans support Bannon's movement to unseat the Republican establishment. . . .

    A year into this presidency, in other words, the Republicans have become a ghost ship of irreconcilable voter blocs, piloted by a madman executive who's now proved he's too unstable to really represent any of them, and moreover drives party divisions wider every time he opens his mouth.

    Taibbi misunderestimates Republicans at all levels. For the base, it would be nice to think that they flocked to Trump over fifteen generic conservative clones because they wanted a candidate who would protect safety nets like Social Security, who would "drain the swamp" of moneyed special interests, who would avoid war, and who might even have the bold imagination to replace crappy Obamacare with single payer. You can find support for all those hopes in Trump's campaign blather, but if you paid more than casual attention you'd realize he was simply the biggest fraud of all. Rather, it's more likely that the base flocked to Trump because they recognized he was as confused and filled with kneejerk spite as they were. Where they misjudged him wasn't on policy; it was in thinking that as a billionaire he must be a functional, competent sociopath -- someone who could act coherently even with an agenda that made no sense.

    On the other hand, all the Republican donor establishment really wanted was a front man who could sell their self-interest to enough schmoes to seize power and cram their agenda through. While Trump wasn't ideal, they realized he had substantial appeal beyond what more reliable tools like Paul Ryan and Mike Pence could ever dream of. Perhaps some recognized the downside of running a flamboyant moron, but even so they've managed to overcome incredible embarrassments before and bounce right back: witness the Tea Party outburst and their triumphant 2010 election just two years after GW Bush oversaw the meltdown of the entire economy. So Trump proves to be a complete disaster? They'll steal what they can while they can, maybe lose an election, and bounce right back as if nothing that happened was ever their fault.

    For more on how they do this, see: Ari Berman: How the GOP Rigs Elections.

  • Rachel Wolfe: The awards for 2018's quintessentially American restaurants all went to immigrants.

Music Week

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Music: Current count 29253 [29219] rated (+34), 378 [373] unrated (+5).

Ran out of time again, so I'll have to let the lists speak for themselves. The reviews will show up in Streamnotes later this week/month, so I probably mean Wednesday, although I'm not sure how I'll manage that either. My mother's birthday -- she would have been 105 -- I usually mark the day with some home cooking (or Chinese, which is most of what we ate together in 2000). But I'm likely to take a break this year and go out for some inferior fried chicken. (I can match hers, but for some reason Strouds can't.)

Wednesday is also the likely freeze date for my2017 list. Seems too early, partly because I didn't get much closure from the Village Voice Pazz & Jop poll. Some hope they will eventually manage to post the ballots, but I'm informed their web platform change made that difficult. Nothing on Glenn McDonald'ssite either, so they've probably frozen him out -- I have little doubt that if he had the data it'd be up now. Still, I noticed a few more pieces dribbling out at the Voice. Here's what I know about so far:

After a long hiatus, I did manage to make a bit of progress on the jazz guides. Up to Adam Schroeder in theJazz '00s file, 80% (minus the groups which I've been collecting for later), bringing the 21st Century guide to 1351 pages. Still, progress is erratic, and I wouldn't bet on much soon.

As I said, no time left to comment, but I will note that one album I initially graded B+(***) based on a download but bumped up after the publicist sent a CDR. Doesn't happen often, but sometimes extra plays do help (at least if the record is good to start with).


New records rated this week:

  • Cardi B: Gangsta Bitch Music Vol. 1 (2016, KSR): [r]: B+(**)
  • Cardi B: Gangsta Bitch Music Vol. 2 (2017, KSR): [r]: B+(*)
  • Stefano Battaglia: Pelagos (2016 [2017], ECM): [r]: B+(**)
  • Beck: Colors (2017, Capitol): [r]: B
  • Dave Bennett: Blood Moon (2017, Mack Avenue): [r]: B+(**)
  • Bibio: Phantom Brickworks (2017, Warp): [r]: B
  • Bicep: Bicep (2017, Ninja Tune): [r]: B+(**)
  • Raoul Björkenheim Triad: Beyond (2016 [2017], Eclipse): [r]: B+(**)
  • The Clientele: Music for the Age of Miracles (2017, Merge): [r]: B+(***)
  • The Courtneys: II (2017, Flying Nun): [r]: B+(**)
  • Charlotte Gainsbourg: Rest (2017, Because Music): [r]: B+(**)
  • EMA: Exile in the Outer Ring (2017, City Slang): [r]: B+(**)
  • Peter Evans/Agustí Fernández/Mats Gustafsson: A Quietness of Water (2012 [2017], Not Two): [r]: B+(*)
  • Mary Gauthier: Rifles & Rosary Beads (2018, In the Black): [r]: B+(***)
  • Nona Hendryx & Gary Lucas: The World of Captain Beefheart (2017, Knitting Factory): [r]: A-
  • Robyn Hitchcock: Robyn Hitchcock (2017, Yep Roc): [r]: B+(*)
  • Ibeyi: Ash (2017, XL): [r]: B+(*)
  • Ted Leo: The Hanged Man (2017, SuperEgo): [r]: B
  • Aimee Mann: Mental Illness (2017, SuperEgo): [r]: B+(*)
  • The Ed Palermo Big Band: The Adventures of Zodd Zundgren (2017 [2018], Cuneiform): [cdr]: C+
  • Leslie Pintchik: You Eat My Food, You Drink My Wine, You Steal My Girl! (2018, Pintch Hard): [cd]: B+(**)
  • Christian Sands: Reach (2017, Mack Avenue): [r]: B+(**)
  • Rev. Sekou: In Times Like These (2017, Zent): [r]: B-
  • Siama: Rivers From the Congo to the Mississippi (2016, Siama Music): [r]: B+(**)
  • Harry Styles: Harry Styles (2017, Columbia): [r]: B
  • Kevin Sun: Trio (2017 [2018], Ectomorph Music): [cd]: A-
  • Steve Swell: Music for Six Musicians: Hommage À Olivier Messiaen (2017, Silkheart): [cd]: B+(***)
  • Zola Jesus: Okovi (2017, Sacred Bones): [r]: B

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries rated this week:

  • Kenny Burrell: A Generation Ago Today (1966-67 [2018], Verve): [r]: B+(*)
  • The Replacements: For Sale: Live at Maxwell's 1986 (1986 [2017], Rhino, 2CD): [r]: B+(**)
  • Buddy Terry: Awareness (1971 [2017], Wewantsounds): [r]: B+(**)

Old music rated this week:

  • Fast 'N' Bulbous: Waxed Oop (An Impetuous Stream Bubbled Up) (2009, Cuneiform): [bc]: A-
  • The Replacements: All Shook Down (1990, Sire): [r]: B+(*)
  • The Replacements: All for Nothing/Nothing for All (1985-90 [1997], Reprise, 2CD): [r]: B+(***)


Grade (or other) changes:

  • Raoul Björkenheim Ecstasy: Doors of Perception (2017, Cuneiform): [cdr]: was B+(***) A-


Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

  • Louise Baranger: Louise Baranger Plays the Great American Groove Book (Summit)
  • Sarah Buechi: Contradiction of Happiness (Intakt): February 16
  • Kaze: Atody Man (Libra)
  • Daniel Levin/Chris Pitsiokos/Brandon Seabrook: Stomiidae (Dark Tree)
  • \\livingfossil//: Never Die! (self-released): February 2
  • Evan Parker/Barry Guy/Paul Lytton: Music for David Mossman: Live at Vortex London (Intakt): February 16
  • Samo Salamon/Howard Levy: Peaks of Light (Sazas)
  • Dolores Scozzesi: Here Comes the Sun (Café Pacific): March 1
  • Mike Vax & Ron Romm: Collaboration (Summit)
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