Choice Cuts

He inspired them, neither by authority nor devine right, but by representing the simple and pure aspirations of their youth and by persuading them, by his own example, that these aspirations could be realized in the national struggle for unity and indulgence. What the nation found sacred in him was^a homunculus to whom must be supplied objects of his own size.
^WHO declares swine flue global pandemic^?
[There is a line of volcanic terraforms stretching from central northern california through upper middle Oregon. sisters bend.] ^This happens when an inherited world-view is unable to contain or resolve emotions or intuitions provoked by a new situation or extremity of experience unforseen.^mysteries destroy it by providing the basis for a new world view.
[Heirarchy of value based on fineness subverted by cleverness modifying utility.]
^Thus the uncurious and sluggish Drowsians missed the fact that the supposed grandson of the supposed paralytic did not grow as the years went by, and that his flaxen hair was nothing but an admirable wig; for the Potato Elf had begun to go bald at the very outset of his new existence. Otherwise he had not much changed: his tummy, perhaps, had grown plumper, and purple veins showed on his dingier, fleshier nose.^ Twilight at Drowse was particularly blurry and blue, softening>the blue-haired women of our mountaim tribes when, abandoned by a lover, every morning, with a persistant pressure of brown fingers on the turqouis head of a pin, they prick the >independent but unsatisied>thick spongy tongue of a cacalogical idiot slackly vomiting>that splendid burden of time.

"in between the
punctuating
agonies
life is such a
gentle habit"

the stereo is from the middle of the last century, which as a named thing is an effing terrible thing, and the stereo is disguised as a cabinet, with a hand-painted Chinese motif. It picks up all the doom trumpets in the air, and exudes them in its muffled tin voice.
A little while ago it got to fever pitch, and has stayed there though it seems like they can't keep it up forever, the trumpets. To look outside you would never know it was ending. It's sunny, the trucks rumble and squeak by, startling the cat. The workers get off work and shout across the street to one another as they get in their cars. Laden shopping carts rattle past on their way to the recycling plant, pushed by sad stories. The light fades. At night, souped up Acuras, Toyotas and Hondas peel and scream around the turn, and the house defies the carbonated wind.

"I laughed, I cried, I took my Ritalin"

last night I watched a PBS program on the French Revolution, told through the lives of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, by historians who somehow, despite the messages they were delivering, seemed to act as if they were close personal friends of the King and Queen. Which is awkward. A main point I took away was that, when one looks at upheavals in the past, there is a retrospective mythologizing of the 'idea whose time has come'. The king and queen couldn't conquer and rule it, and despite their best interests were worn down and forced to acquiesce in order to keep their lives and livelihoods (for the nonce).
At this moment Congress is to decide whether certain CEO bonuses should be subjected to taxation. A man has issued a video calling for the heads (and addresses) of particular CEO's. Is this the new manifestation of class warfare in our egalitarian, meritorial, class-free midst? Is Main Street fermenting the gall and rage to storm Wall Street? It seems for sure that there is novel use of divisive class-based rhetoric and widespread 'outrage' (catharsis). Not that I think any of it is mistaken. Just unexpected after what seems like a lull.
Maybe it is just the vengeful set's substitution of the financial sector as foil into the space voided of Bush.
An epithet for the times: A rising tide obscured all rocks.
And by 'class' I don't mean (upper, upper middle...) or (Proletarians, Bourgois...) but I do very much mean a struggle arising from deep seated inequity in the control of the means (of production, reproduction, sustenance...). And today there were a reported 3m strikers in the streets of France.


Digging the Masabumi Kikuchi over at Orgy in Rythm, with Al Foster, Gary Peacock, tablas and percussion. Deep digging groove and melodic soulful and Japanese.

d. cherry & co, etc.

here's a nice, out recording by one of my favorite musicians, recorded 1982 for ECM and including
Colin Walcott on sitar, dulcimer, tablas;
D.C. on the trumpet and something called a doussn'gouni:
"an instrument from Mali that I believe I've seen referred to as a 'hunter's guitar'".
Nana Vasconcelos on berimbau, percussion
oh and all three partake in chanting and humming and trilling and whining. I bought it on reissued cd about 5 years ago because I was getting into D.C. and I liked the cover.

I listened to a Quincy Jones interview on public radio the other night while I was temping as a night watchman. Some memorable points were that he said Herbie Hancock is the best musician he's ever met, that students should learn by intensive mimicry, Tupac wrote whimsical poetry about nature and classical literature, only 5% of Americans use their passport, of the 11% percent that have them, the global economic crisis proves that we are one world, and Q would be honored to be your Secretary of the Arts. I'm all for it.

Codona 3

And here is a re-up, a better file of BPM, a killing fast and precise and scandinavian jazz trio outing with Zappa-tones provided by T. Bozzio's wild compositions.
Info/Try

pithless

the night has released its spores; the slow decay bubbles and murmurs below the stretching surface of artificial light. Most are fast within their chambers, lapped at by the ethereal waters of their dreams. But for those still sucking public air, there would be no need of the blanket of still. The trees silent in their boles. The buildings cease to clamor across the surface of the land, and the voices of humans and machines doppler and reverberate, or do they?
The sound of footsteps at night could be the same as those in the day, after all. But sounds (and other peoples' things) can not hang as long in the day's thin air. They follow a straight line to an early undoing. The lost and the tribes of the lost and their attendants do best not to prick the ears of the stalking phantoms with their silences. And what the day has taken from them dangles ahead before the morning's gate, separated by an infinity of unknowing and surrender from where we were just now. Cassanita: Rob stopped by, he's sorry he missed you. There is a heavy kitchen knife hidden behind a pipe in the stairwell. Strawberry Jones is not allowed on the premises (5.6 Black Female). And Rosy: that guy was here, came to keep you company he says. He likes to keep you company, he says, and from that I know that you are either capable of stone cold indifference or you are a creature of exuperate compassion, sympathy or whatever it is that these words are bound by connotations never to express. Anyways, he's pushed back the release of his rap album to 2017 because 'first impressions are long impressions' and you can't go in to an A&R office with shit. Gotta buy house for his momma-who yes ok is involved with the Gambini crime family and boy is that a rich story mine but it was she that passed on to him his proliferate sweetness, because it sure wasn't...

Brad Mehldau

In honor of the sweet SFJazz line up that came out recently, check out this Brad Mehldau live album (actually only the first of a 2 CD release) featuring awesome versions of 'Wonderwall' and 'Black Hole Sun'. This shit is tight.
Brad Mehldau, p
Larry Grenadier, b
Jeff Ballard, d
More info is here.

Also, please check this out, McCoy Tyner's "Enlightenment Suite".
McCoy, p
Azar Lawrence, ts & ss
Joony Boothe, b
Alphonse Mouzon, d
Live from the Montreaux Jazz Festival, 1973


If you like 'em, tell me about it in the comments. And if anyone would like the second Mehldau CD let me know. Cheers.

Music that filters through the world to my heart like t

To start with, thanks to Smooth @ My Jazz World , Ish at Ile Oxumare , El Goog Ja, Nine Sisters, Oufar Kahn, Orgy in Rhythm and all the other prodigiously active jazz music bloggers who in the last year have worked a crack into the surface of the 70's that I have had the good fortune to slip through, to experience the underneath.
Recently I watched "Amandla": A documentary about the role and development of music through the experiences of the Apartheid in South Africa. Mostly it was interviews with singers and musicians, producers, politicians, poets...etc. , who artistically resisted and reacted during that time, as well some were publicly outspoken and participants in protests and gatherings....but to me the most deeply felt part was the way in which certain songs that were huge hits on the radio (which was owned and broadcast by whites) had these secret, non-english clues and codes and messages in them, and became these anthems a la 'we will overcome'. But in addition to the historical power and significance, I've found out that some of this music is really burning.
The most recognized figurehead of this movement is trumpeter/singer/composer Hugh Masekela. I first had the album "I am not afraid" pictured below:
At first I was let down after the first track which is such a SUCH A killing! version of Dizzy's "Night in Tunisia". Its like he kidnaps the song and makes it a night in the crazed, confused, pissed, passionate government relocation camps of Johannesburg. It kills. The rest of the stuff grew on me too, even the relatively cheesy stuff (tracks 2 & 3). Soul music for sure, the trumpet is sexy, feel good music. You can find it here. I also grabbed "Hugh Masekela is Alive and Well at the Whiskey" which is more soul jazz and seems very natural bridging the Sam Cooke and the Duke, live in Hollywood 1967. Get it here.

Another South African artist from this era to break into the AmerOpean music world was Letta Mbulu. Here is here 1970 Chisa release "Letta". Great soul voice, some great songs and some smooth proto disco. All of it good. Get that bad boy here.

Next up. Recently I've listened to all the Wayne Shorter albums from '64's "Hear no Evil" to '69's "Super Nova". Now, I am an unabashed Weather Report fan, but 'Super Nova', given that it features several future members of that band, along with a pre-return-to-forever Chic, sounds nothing like the proto-Report I expected. And it kills. Find it here.
Anyways I think it goes like this, if I had to rate them:

Super Nova
Adam's Apple
Juju
The Soothesayer
The All-seeing Eye
Hear No Evil
Night Dreamer
Schizophrenia

but shit looking back up there, they are all great and Wayne remains the Mayne in my opinion. They are all available readily online so I won't waste the time to up them or find the links. And then I recently learned that he had this free jazz trumpeter brother Alan. So I get Alan's "Orgasm" with C. Haden, Gato Barbieri and Rashid Ali from 1968. It is really smokin' free jazz like somebody made Don Cherry really mad and he now and then is coming right out at you in predatory bursts, without losing that sense of completely open, sinuous composition that great free jazz hazz.

And here is Steve Grossman, Gene Perla, Don Alias and Jan Hammer doing some pre-Stone Alliance funking. I'd call it hard fusion or just fucking ass kicking music. Even if Steve's aura is the wrong color, he is a great player.