Trios & Solos

~ Wanted to remark on two exciting new trio records featuring John Patitucci on bass and Brian Blade on drums — both of which, oddly enough, include versions of (or homages to) Coltrane's "Giant Steps." The first is Poesía by pianist Edward Simon (Cam Jazz); the second is Patitucci's own Remembrance (Concord, out on Aug. 4), featuring Joe Lovano on saxophone. Simon's is of course richer in terms of harmony, and it resounds with influences from the pianist's native Venezuela. Patitucci's, on some tracks, incorporates frighteningly good electric bass while preserving an acoustic feel. It's a more straightforward blowing record than Music We Are, Patitucci's recent trio disc with Danilo Perez and Jack DeJohnette, which didn't translate so well to a live setting at the Blue Note in mid-April.

Needless to say, Blade's drumming on both Poesía and Remembrance is key to the music's openness and consistency. Lovano — interacting with Wayne Shorter's rhythm section! —handles the material beautifully as well.

~ Also, two quite incredible solo-piano discs by accomplished masters: Fred Hersch Plays Jobim (Sunnyside) and John Hicks's posthumous I Remember You (HighNote). The sound of Hersch's recording is unreal — explosively crystal-clear in the highest register, which is where Hersch happens to fire off some of his most gripping runs. Hicks's moving recital, captured live in Pennsylvania not long before his death, begins and ends with Monk ("Reflections," "Nutty"). It's a stirring display of unruffled prowess and imagination.

[Fred Hersch's trio plays the Vanguard this week, Tuesday through Sunday. Live webcast on Wednesday night.]

The week on disc (47)

In case you missed the last one...

Chris Potter Underground, Ultrahang (ArtistShare)

Miroslav Vitous Group with Michel Portal, Remembering Weather Report (ECM)

John Hebert, Byzantine Monkey (Firehouse 12)

Sebastiaan Cornelissen, U-Turn (Abstract Logix)

Jacám Manricks, Labryinth (Manricks Music)

Matt Wilson Quartet, That’s Gonna Leave a Mark (Palmetto)

"Begging the question"

Oliver Kamm on the rampant misuse of an important term: "To 'beg the question' does not mean to raise or prompt the question. It means to assume in your premises the truth of your conclusion."

The Spinners, unspun

Something I noticed about "Could It Be I'm Falling In Love" and "Then Came You" by the Spinners, a staple of my AM radio childhood in the late '70s. A bit of music theory/criticism on a Thursday afternoon...



Quick PS: "Then Came You" also has the same passing chord, F/A, corresponding to the G/B in the other song. A detail I forgot to note.

Smart on crime

I just read William Finnegan's New Yorker profile of famed Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, whose idea of effective law enforcement is to deploy a large, heavily armed, flak-jacketed squadron in order to arrest three undocumented cleaning ladies, without notifying the local police in Mesa, Arizona — an arrogant oversight that could have sparked a friendly-fire shootout in a populous American city. Finnegan does a calm, masterly job, portraying Arpaio as a man who would be pitiful if he weren't so powerful; a man who, at the end of the day, cares more about befriending celebrities and chasing publicity than really fighting crime.

Let's contrast that with Sunny Schwartz. To make a long story short, Sunny is practically family to me, and she's written an absorbing page-turner of a book on her innovations in the San Francisco prison system. Far from a dry public policy text, it's an intimate, self-questioning and nondogmatic, often painful memoir, one of the most effective, unforced meldings of the personal and political I've yet to come across. (She discusses the book in a short video on her Amazon page.)

In his New Yorker story, Finnegan mentions Sheriff Arpaio's curtailing of prisoners' TV privileges. I had to laugh. Sunny took away their TV too, but to totally different and far more productive ends. And that's the core contribution of Dreams from the Monster Factory: it upends the soft-on-crime/tough-on-crime dichotomy and takes a long, hard look at getting results. What can be more tough than putting violent offenders in the same room with crime victims and forcing them to confront the consequences of their actions? Encouraging them to get educated and turn their lives around, so that their communities can live in peace? Ultimately, as Sunny shows, the best way to shake up inmates is to humanize them, not dehumanize them. Dehumanization is what they expect. It ensures continuation of the same patterns. Worse, it teaches them to become even more ruthless and deceitful.

Here's the rub: Sunny's approach, as she's the first to admit, isn't successful 100 percent of the time. (What is?) It also requires grueling, risky, nonstop work, and a willingness on the part of public servants to put themselves on the line. People like her are a rare, indispensable asset to our country.

On Bill Carrothers

My preview of pianist Bill Carrothers at the Village Vanguard (now through Sunday), in the current Time Out New York.

[Correction: Drummer Dre Pallemaerts is Belgian, not Danish. I regret the error.]

Philadelphia haps cont'd.

In this week's Philadelphia Weekly:

Michael Szekely
Sun., July 19, 8:30pm. $5. With Mike Lorenz, Scott Verrastro & Anthony Pirog, George Korein & The Spleen. Gojjo, 4540 Baltimore Ave. 215.238.1236 www.scifiphilly.com

Drummer Mike Szekely belongs to an ambitious new generation of Philly players, who make their homes in free jazz but tend to branch out with ease and authority. An alum of Jackie McLean’s Hartt School of Music, Szekely went on to study with the hugely eccentric Milford Graves at Bennington, then earn a doctorate from Temple. A music head on the philosopher’s level, he keeps busy with singer-songwriter Courtney Parker and at least four different experimental trios, including trombonist Dan Blacksberg’s capaciously inventive unit. In this week’s Sci Fi Philly showcase he leads another initiative with bassist Matt Engle (Shot x Shot) and trombonist Stanley Schumacher (Music Now Ensemble). — David R. Adler

Monkadelphia
Fri., July 17, 5:45-6:45 & 7:15-8:15pm. $12 (free for members, students $8). Philadelphia Museum of Art, 26th St. & the Pkwy. 215.763.8100 www.philamuseum.org

Thelonious Monk, an iconic 20th-century artist, remains a beacon of steadfast individuality in the 21st. Several months ago, Charles Tolliver and Jason Moran staged back-to-back tributes to the late pianist-composer, hailing the 50th anniversary of his historic Town Hall concert in New York. But Monk’s influence looms large in every city where there’s jazz, a point underscored by Philly vibraphonist Tony Miceli and his quintet Monkadelphia. Since the late ’90s Miceli and this shifting cast of local heavyweights — most recently saxophonist Ben Schachter, pianist Tom Lawton, bassist Madison Rast and drummer Jim Miller — have explored Monk’s fabulous melodies and jagged angles with a stirring seriousness of intent. — David R. Adler

Rit Mo Collective

Wed., July 15, 8-11pm. $10. Chris’ Jazz Café, 1421 Sansom St. 215.568.3131 www.chrisjazzcafe.com

Christopher Farrell’s arty-folky 14-piece chamber-rock ensemble can sound a little safe and wallpaper-ish, ethnic around the edges in that PBS-friendly way. But there’s a melodic and textural allure at the heart of their 2008 debut Arianna’s Thread that keeps you in your seat. Strings and percussion from China, India and Africa merge with good old-fashioned pedal steel and banjo and things. And ringleader-composer Farrell plays a good number of the implements himself. A plaintive heartland cry runs through these mostly instrumental tracks; the production style is organic and simply immaculate. Jazz it’s not, but this New York crew, with its admirable know-how, will fit in nicely at Chris’s. — David R. Adler

The week on disc (46)

In case you missed the last one...

Josh Berman, Old Idea (Delmark)

Sam Yahel, Hometown (Posi-Tone)

Henning Sieverts Symmetry, Blackbird (Pirouet)

Pascal Niggenkemper Trio, Pasàpas (Konnex)

Mika Pohjola, Still Alive (Blue Music Group)

Andrew Green, Narrow Margin (Microphonic)

Amy Goodman, hack

Protests are heating up again in Iran, so comment on the following is timely.

In June 2007 I remarked on Amy Goodman's fawning interview with left extremist John Pilger, a declared supporter of the Iraqi insurgency, an admirer of Hezbollah and apologist for Palestinian suicide bombers, and a Balkan genocide revisionist to boot. (Pilger considers himself part of the "peace movement.") Now Goodman has aired another fawning interview with Pilger (hat tip Brett), in which he issues the following Palin-esque statement on Iran:

Now there is no doubt that among the people protesting, the many people protesting in the streets of Iran, are those who want another Iran, those who want greater freedoms, we have heard from that in the past, but without any smoking gun, without any credible information, without any evidence that that election in Iran was rigged. Rigged to get rid of something like 10 million votes. I mean, I don’t think anyone does in an election like in Iran or in the United States, there is a fraud. In most elections, there are. They may well have been extensive fraud in the Iranian elections.

Goodman fails to challenge this doublespeak. No credible information? No evidence of fraud? Iran's Guardian Council has conceded there were widespread irregularities. We also have Chatham House's authoritative study, which Juan Cole endorsed and linked to on June 22. The argument is settled. Goodman posted the Pilger interview on July 6 and she says their discussion occurred "last week." So Pilger is either ignorant of the Chatham House report, or he chooses to deny its existence. (The late Harold Pinter on Pilger — my italics: "He unearths, with steely attention to facts, the filthy truth, and tells it as it is." Nonsense.) It is Goodman's duty as a journalist to mention the Chatham House study to her listeners. Widely hailed on the left as a tough-minded and well-informed interviewer, she is neither.

Incoherent as it is, Pilger's quote above allows him some wiggle room to deny he's wholeheartedly backing the Iranian regime. But there's no mistaking it — in this epic contest between the Iranian people and the baton-wielding state, Pilger is nauseatingly sympathetic toward the latter:

[Obama] has made a number of patronizing appeals to the Iranians, but now, as he is in effect saying, the protesters should be allowed to control the streets of Tehran. Turn that around. What if it was suggested that protesters should be allowed to control the streets of Washington?

Again, Goodman — I remind you, she is host of a program called Democracy Now! — fails to challenge Pilger on this chillingly anti-democratic statement. But it is helpful to know that if unruly mass protests were ever to break out in evil Washington, Pilger would apparently put in a word for random beatings and arrests, shootings, street surveillance, total blockage of the media and social networking and so on. Maybe he feels the Kent State and Chicago '68 protesters had it coming.

Along the way, Pilger hails Democracy Now! as an "alternative source of information." In truth, it is a softball, back-patting forum for the fringe left.

PS — Goodman has also interviewed Cynthia McKinney about her arrest and deportation from Israel. As Adam Holland has reported, McKinney is making the rounds of racist and antisemitic hate radio, first on something called Information Underground, more recently on the program of Daryl Bradford Smith, a fellow who believes in a "Judeo-Bolshevist plot against Christianity." Don't expect Amy Goodman to report on McKinney's hard-right fascist ties anytime soon. And shame on pro-Palestinian activist Adam Shapiro for consorting with her.

Philadelphia haps cont'd.

In the current Philadelphia Weekly:

Edgar Bateman-Julian Pressley Duo
Fri., July 10, 9pm. $10. With Yolanda Wisher & Mark Palacio. Moonstone Arts Center, 110 S. 13th St. 215.735.9600 www.moonstoneartscenter.org

Philly has its historic jazz titans, but let’s not forget workhorses like drummer Edgar Bateman and saxophonist Julian Pressley, who still exert a subterranean influence, setting an example for every questing young player now on the scene. Bateman, now in his 80s, has recorded with everyone from Eric Dolphy and John Handy to Bobby Zankel and Orrin Evans. His supple, free-flowing stick work is ideal in a duo setting like this one with Pressley, a former associate of Illinois Jacquet and a charter member of Odean Pope’s Saxophone Choir. The event takes place under the auspices of Lucky Old Souls, the online radio show, now also a worthy concert series. — David R. Adler

Mi Head UR Head
Sun., July 12, 8:30pm. $5. With Harmolodic Bastards. Gojjo, 4540 Baltimore Ave. 215.238.1236 www.scifiphilly.com

Guitarist Chris Covatta, tenor saxophonist Bryan Rogers, accordionist Dallas Vietty, bassist Todd Erk and drummer Alex Maio have a gift for melodic expansiveness and knotty puzzle-making — just the thing that makes West Philly’s Sci Fi series a national draw for kindred experimental bands. Mi Head UR Head, as this unit is known, goes about its work with a particular philosophical-literary focus. It’s the problem of intersubjectivity, as posed by novelist Milan Kundera — the matter of reconciling one’s solitary perceptions with the wider world. As their MySpace mission statement says: “Music offers us a bridge into another person’s understanding while helping us to experience our own a little deeper.” — David R. Adler

Landon Knoblock
Thu., July 9, 8-11pm. $10. Chris’ Jazz Café, 1421 Sansom St. 215.568.3131 www.chrisjazzcafe.com

Landon Knoblock, a Miami native, is one of the more probing and lyrical pianists on the Brooklyn jazz scene, with a strong sense of modernism’s varied demands. With drummer Jason Furman, he made an album of free improvisations called Uncarved Block. His activities as a leader include two quartet projects — one devoted to the music of the late Andrew Hill, the other boasting the prodigious talents of bassist Ben Allison and trumpeter Ron Horton. This week, however, Knoblock focuses on his trio side, as documented on Listening Between and his latest, The Heartbeat, The Breath. He’ll be joined by bassist Josh Paris and drummer Jeff Davis. — David R. Adler

King Sunny Ade
Tue., July 14, 8pm. Free. Wiggins Waterfront Park, Riverside Dr. & Mickle Blvd., Camden, NJ 856.216.2170 www.ccparks.com

Nigeria’s best-known musical export is Afrobeat, put on the map by the late, great Fela Kuti. King Sunny Ade is a legendary pioneer of an older tradition, jùjú, a Yoruba-language music rooted in the sound of talking drums but amenable to Ade’s sparkling electric guitar and other modernizing elements. “The chairman,” as Ade is known, addresses topics of spirituality and African democratization as he puts his band through the paces in long, inescapably danceable workouts — a natural fit for America’s jam-band circuit (Phish’s Trey Anastasio is a fervent admirer). Seven Degrees North, Ade’s latest U.S. release, refers to the position of Lagos, his home city, relative to the equator. — David R. Adler