"Take The Inequality Quiz" with Juan Cole

It becomes a larger part of my internet day (internet ritual, religion, or whatever) to look in on Prof Juan Cole's blog. This morning I was directed to Cole's Inequality Quiz by Prof Brian Leiter's very useful, informative, and insightful philosophy blog - links to both are displayed below and on this site's sidebar.
     I found Cole's quiz utterly fascinating and consciousness-opening. If there were such a thing as political debate in our Banana Republic sans bananas, the Inequality Quiz just might open a few folks' eyes, or at least get up a few major-party politicos' noses - "Let that foul air out!" as Mr. 'Jelly Roll' Morton noted.

Thanks to Juan Cole for raising the inequality-stink.

http://www.juancole.com/2011/06/rudolph-us-inequality-quiz.html
http://leiterreports.typepad.com/

Email To A Friend While listening to J.S. Bach

Dear Friend,

I don't think much has changed since C. Wright Mill's Power Elite. I think your friend is correct in his view - just follow the money. By the time a person is elected to congress or becomes president, he or she is already paid for, and bent in the direction of his/her 'betters'/sponsors. Legislation is written and paid for by special interest groups, legitimized by 'think-tanks', and unread, mis-understood, enacted by congress and the president.

   How could the USA have been in a continuous state of war since Korea? How is it that we need 850+/- military bases around the world?  It's still the military-industrial complex. I still Like Ike! I have a very high opinion of our military - lots of smart people.
   I have a very low opinion of our political 'leadership'.
   What is one of the two major exports of the USA? Arms and military technology. Our wars are terrible advertisements for US Arms Dealers. The USA sells a lot of arms around the world, to everyone and almost anyone. It's not guns or butter; it's guns all the way down and all around - Israel, Pakistan, .... "Who will buy and sample ... (our) supply? (Arms) for sale."

   When Thomas Friedman of the stolid New York Times calls for a third party, things are a lot worse than we imagine

Happy Days,

Rayesti

P.S.: Back to Philippe Herreweghe and Collegium Vocale Gent - Bach Motets BWV 225 - 230.

- Show quoted text -

Soul-Stirring: James Brown, Pavarotti & Patricia Kaas

Identical musical arrangements:

James Brown & Pavarotti
http://youtu.be/PF7cLnijKBs

Patricia Kaas
http://youtu.be/UBNi36U4SQI

Whacked-Out By The Propaganda Machines

Jonathan Glover has in his books and articles devoted himself to ethical, moral, and humanitarian  questions concerning life down here on the ground - that is, he speaks to us, to non-professional thinkers and worriers, as well as to his professional colleagues, to the meta-ethical worriers and to the moral procrastinators. Professor Glover's blog http://www.jonathanglover.co.uk/ treats many of the ethical, moral, and humanitarian issues which perplex us today - issues to which we should be alive. He remarks of his important book,

Humanity, a Moral History of the Twentieth Century, argued for the importance of the human responses of sympathy and of respect for people’s dignity. The argument appealed to the horrors that can happen when these responses are over-ridden or anesthetized. But, more generally, there are reasons to think that the purely abstract approach is too detached from other aspects of our humanity, particularly from how our moral outlook is not a purely rationalist affair, but is rooted in experiences and in relationships with people we care about.

It is of course obvious that our responses to the terrors in Africa and the Middle-East have often been both somnambulist and anesthetized - America's presidents and congress are blatant examples. Americans have been subjected to the propaganda machines of both the Democratic and Republican parties for so long that we find it imposible to sort out even the simplest of moral, political, or economic problems. If the Republican party's political strategy is founded on racialist propaganda, what is the Democratic party's political strategy founded on? Apparently the Democrat's 'strategy' is founded upon Anti-Republican propaganda. But whereas Republican propaganda might be termed hard-porn-propaganda, the Democrat propaganda might be termed soft-porn-propaganda.
     What is the purpose of our major political parties pornographic propaganda strategies? Well, for one thing, since both the Democrats and the Republicans are paid-off by the same anti-public-interest groups; the major purpose is to blind and dumb-down their constituents. The Democrat's criticism of the Republican's agenda is so lame and stupid that one wonders whether the Republican propaganda machine wrote it up for the Democrats!
        When Thomas Friedman of the New York Times suggests on Public TV that it's time for a third party, that the major political parties in the United States will continue amplifying our present economic, political, and diplomatic disasters; it's time for whacked-out voters down here on the ground  to wake up. One can (must) hope this will happen.

Alice Walker - Joining The Freedom Flotilla To Gaza

I think one reason it is so hard for people to deal with the Palestine/Israel issue is that so much of it is unbelievable.

This morning I read a very moving and sane article in today's Guardian newspaper by the American author Alice Walker. In the article, Alice Walker reminds us that Messrs. Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaney gave their lives - lest we forget, they were murdered - coming to the aid of black men, women, and children who were being brutalized in the American South by local police, state troopers and members of the KKK. Today our government stands by, as it did during the Civil Rights Struggle, while Palestinian men, women, and children are brutalized and terrorized by Israeli police and soldiers. Alice Walker writes,

And what of the children of Palestine, who were ignored in our president's latest speech on Israel and Palestine, and whose impoverished, terrorized, segregated existence was mocked by the standing ovations recently given in the US Congress to the prime minister of Israel?

 Lest we overlook the complicity of the United States in these terrible matters, there are not just two ways 'forward' or two 'solutions' to the Israel-Palestine-Problem; there are three ways - (i) the two state solution, (ii) the one state, apartheid, solution, and (iii) the present, 60+ year solution. In real terms, it certainly appears that (iii) is, had been, and will be preferred by Israel and the United States. It's the same kind of policy that is preferred by Democrats and Republicans here at home in their violence against the poor, jobless, and urban population - "Let them die" is the cry. So Israel and the United States share the same goal here - Let them die.

As I've written before, if you want to find out what's not happening here in the USA read the Guardian at least.

Read Alice Walker's article, at least:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/25/alice-walker-gaza-freedom-flotilla
And read her complete article, of which the Guardian article is an excerpt:
http://alicewalkersgarden.com/blog/

Rayesti & Rapper

Rayesti & Sasha - Ann Arbor, Mi.

Saturday Night - Kip Hanrahan, Jack Bruce, Don Pullen

Don't ask What is it? Just Stop, Look, and Listen!

http://youtu.be/SXVwknHtLIg

Don Byas & Lucky Thompson - Two Masters

Don Byas - "I haven't got a style, I just blow like Art."[1] 
I hadn't expected to post anything today. But in getting my CDs in order in connection with friends' visiting us here in Columbus, Ohio, I began thinking about two masters of the tenor saxophone - Don Byas and Lucky Thompson. But prior to this thinking episode, I was forced to think about how rare it is for one to be a part of a really tight, magical, music-making event by means of recordings. Two such magical events involving me involve Don Byas.
     Recently, in connection with my Jackie McLean post, I was taken to Carlos Wesley "Don" Byas (1912 - 1972) by Jackie McLean's comment that Charlie Parker had told him that he (Parker) had learned some saxophone "stuff" from Byas when he was in Paris. Check out Byas' solo on his recording "1944 Stomp" on the Savoy label. His upper register playing has an alto saxophone sound quality - compare this with Parker's relaxed playing on his "Bird of Paradise" recordings - especially the live recording.
     There were other student's. Whitney Balliett wrote,

Byas, pillowy at slow tempos and demonic at fast tempos moved to Europe after the Second World War. He once told the drummer Arthur Taylor, "Trane and I were tight. Every time he came to Europe, the first place he would go to, he would ask, 'Where is Don Byas?' Always went where I was playing, never said hello . . . . He would sit in the club all night and never move. I wouldn't know he was there. I'd say to myself, That looks like Trane sitting back there. So when the set was over, I would go and ask, 'How long have you been here?' He'd say, 'I just came in.'[3]

     It's too bad that Don Byas's duets with bassist Slam Stewart from the famous 1945 Town Hall Concert haven't been reissued on CD. Originally released on Milt Gabler's Commodore label [2], the Town Hall Concert was subsequently reissued as an Atlantic Records' Two-fer. Byas and Stewart burn through "Back Home in Indiana" and "I Got Rhythm"; some of the most remarkable improvising we'll ever hear in a recorded format. My introduction to Don Byas was made through Dizzy Gillespie's Paris recordings with Byas, the fabulous recordings of "Blue and Sentimental", "Cocktails for Two" and three other selections. In 1944 Coleman Hawkins recorded with his Sax Ensemble for Keynote records. The first link below is the ensemble's recording of "On the Sunny Side of the Street" which features Tab Smith (as), followed by Coleman Hawkins (ts), followed by Johnny Guarnieri's piano solo, followed by Don Byas (ts), and Harry Carney (bs).
     The second link below is from the aforementioned Town Hall Concert - "I got Rhythm" with Don Byas and Slam Stewart.
     In 1961 Don Byas made a recording in Paris with Bud Powell (p), Kenny Clarke (d), Idrees  Sulieman (t) and Pierre Michelot (b). This is a remarkable recording. With a rhythm section like this one had better be on "creative alert"; and certainly everyone involved was ready. It has been reported that Byas had lost his creative edge when he moved to Europe. This recording belies that contention. I think that it can be heard in this recording that Byas, Clarke, and Powell invigorate each other's playing. Kenny Clarke did that to musicians - witness Miles Davis's Prestige recordings of "Walkin'", "Blue 'n' Boogie", "Man I Love"....
    So it matters a great deal who master musicians work with. Don Byas/Bud Powell - A Tribute To Cannonball is an outstanding Columbia Records recording, and it's available at your corner (internet) record store!

http://youtu.be/qFDjwYY-aMA
http://youtu.be/-0ypn2rWvFA

[1] From Wikipedia. Art is Art Tatum, of course.
[2] Milt Gabler was the actor Billy Crystal's uncle. He owned the Commodore record store in NYC and founded Commodore Records - recording Billie Holiday, Lester Young, Chu Berry, Buck Clayton, Bud Freeman among others.
[3] Whitney Balliett, Collected Works: A Journal of Jazz - 1954 - 2000, p. 826.

Lucky Thompson - "Soul's Nite Out"[*]
Eli "Lucky" Thompson (1924 - 2005) was introduced to me  in the late 1950s via his playing on Milt Jackson's recording, The Jazz Skyline, with Hank Jones (p), Wendell Marshall (b), and Kenny Clarke (d). A link to the beautiful Hank Jones tune is below. Lucky Thompson's and Milt Jackson's playing fit together perfectly - melodic, original, beautiful sound (no matter what tempo). In addition to the magnificent recordings that Lucky Thompson made with Milt Jackson and Miles Davis his recording, Soul's Nite Out, with pianist Tete Montoliu is outstanding. On this recording Thompson plays soprano and tenor saxophones. By the way, Tete Montoliu recorded with Ben Webster, Dexter Gordon, and Rahsaan Roland Kirk. There are only a few soprano saxophone players whose playing doesn't annoy me after a short while; Lucky Thompson's soprano is a delight to my ears.
     Again, it matters who a music-master-musician works with. Lucky Thompson worked and recorded with Charlie Parker, Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie, Stan Kenton, Billy Eckstein, and the masters referred to herein. His sound on both the tenor and soprano saxophones is unmistakable. His thoughts on the responsibilities of musicians and the musicians' audience were well chosen; but I'm afraid little regarded today. This master musician left the music scene too early because of the exploitive practices of the 'Culture Industry' that he notes in his talk below.


"Angel Face":
http://youtu.be/AforPj4BBQM
Lucky Thompson Speaks:
http://youtu.be/A6Y1nSasQ8I
[*] A Soul's Nite Out is available in MP-3 format from your favorite internet music store. 

Two Regrets - Jackie McLean and Forgetting

I'm fond of telling people that I have two and only two regrets in life. The first, and most important, regret is that I never heard the great alto saxophone master Jackie McLean in person. My second regret is one I can't recall - I have the feeling it was a regret about a book that I had in my hands, but did not purchase. Was it J. Adams' two volume  commentary, The Republic of Plato that I had in hands many years ago at John King Books in Detroit? This feels right. Or was it the three volume Russell and Whitehead Principia Mathematica that I passed up in Ann Arbor years ago? Which of these blunders was the second forgotten regret doesn't matter; although saying that I've only had two regrets - McLean-regret and forgotten-regret - does have a hippy-dippy bite to it, a case of 1 + 1 = 1. A case of a real variable and a dummy variable, a mere place-holder for something real regret-wise, Russell-Whitehead-wise.
     John Lenwood (Jackie) McLean (1931 - 2006) was born in New York City. His informal tutors were Thelonius Monk, Bud Powell, and Charles Parker. In high school he was in a band with Kenny Drew and Sonny Rollins. In addition to being a master improvisor on the alto saxophone he was a music educator.  He was a member of groups headed by Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, and Art Blakey. But for the most part led his own bands. See the very informative links below.
     His saxophone sound was that of a sonic acetylene torch. He adapted some Miles Davis's improvisational moves in his playing, especially in his earlier recordings. Jackie McLean burned - listen to his 1991 live recording of "Cyclical" on The Jackie Mac Attack Live CD. I think this recording is about as close as any of who didn't hear Jackie Mac in person can get to imagining what he sounded like in person - fabulous, intense, angular, impossible to copy or imitate. He had this hipness in his playing that is associated in my mind with trumpet players like Lee Morgan, Charles Tolliver, Woody Shaw, and Donald Byrd - a percussive forward motion. Alto saxophonist and composer Oliver Lake has acknowledged Jackie McLean's influence. I think only very confident alto players of the caliber James Spaulding, Marshall Allen, or Oliver Lake can teach us today about Jackie McLean's deep artistry while displaying their own deep artistry and learning.
     Amiri Baraka's "Jackie Mc - Coming and Going" Chapter 84 in his collection Digging: The Afro-American Soul of American Classical Music takes the reader to Jackie McLean's funeral and discusses his life and music. It is worthy of our attention.
     The music:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8a_NvhwjUag&feature=related
     The interviews:
http://www.wgbh.org/programs/Jazz-Portraits-674/episodes/Saxophonist-Jackie-McLean-9665
http://youtu.be/cfKR3LX559Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X65LyEzkn3U

"Ethics beyond moral theory" - Love Calls

I have written elsewhere of my personal problems with both ethics and aesthetics - too much theory and too little attention to what happens down here on the ground, in our cities and trailer-parks and in our concert halls and clubs. As Joy says to Darnell (characters on my favorite TV show, My Name is Earl): "Darnell are you trying to make a point? You know I don't like points!" You know I don't like the scientism found in philosophical ethics and aesthetics. And with respect to aesthetics. my stance is that of professing "anti-aesthetics" - theory-theory scientism parallels are to be found in ethics and aesthetics.
     Timothy Chappell of the Open University has written a beautiful paper entitled, "Ethics beyond moral theory" (linked below). Prof Chappell writes,

The characteristic trouble with moral theories starts when each of them tries to take over the party. Or, to take a more scientific metaphor, the trouble starts when we forget that our theoretical idealisation is just that—an idealised model and no more—and try and treat it as if it was a complete and literal description of reality. The moment where we forget that we are talking about an idealised system, and start imagining we are talking about reality as it is, is the moment where scientism emerges from science; at the moment in ethics, moral theory emerges from moral thought. [pps. 3-4]

Chappell runs down the supposed explanatory benefits of ethical theory-construction and finds them illusory or otherwise wanting. In his closing remarks, Chappell writes about the need to account for love in our ethical outlook. He writes,

I said ... that love (of people, or prized possessions, or pet projects, or pets, or...) is central to any adequate and liveable ethical outlook. And ... I stressed the central role of love, within any such ethical outlook, in motivation and deliberation (and hence in explanation and prediction too). As I said there, love is something that can take us “beyond good and evil”, beyond the whole idea of morality (though to say that love transcends the moral need not be to say that love is immoral). [25]

Time spent with Timothy Chappell's thoughts on our ethical outlook will be worthwhile.

http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/philosophy/docs/ethics_beyond_moral_theory.pdf

   

 

Well, The Politics Rest is Over (Only Briefly)

I couldn't help passing along an article that appeared in today's Guardian. Viz.:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/03/israel-government-reckless-mossad-chief

P.S. Last evening I started watching (again) the BBC production of I Claudius. What I try to avoid, viz., politics, leads to what I'm trying to avoid, viz. ..... Oh, well.

P.P.S. Since I made the mistake of railing on about politics, and the Israel-Palestine-60-year mess specifically, I decided to look at The Jerusalem Post newspaper. In an article by Avi Perry I found this:

The humiliation of 1948 and the call to redeem lost honor is more exigent for the Palestinians than the call for a peace offensive. In this context, the PM had no choice but to dispel illusions in his speech to Congress.

What more is there to say? Nothing. Just a kind of Karl Kraus juxtaposition. I recommend Dicta and Contradicta, a translation of Kraus by Jonathan McVity, U. Illinois Press 2001; especially the section "The Press, Stupidity, Politics". One finds such topical delights as,

Politics has all the suspense of a thriller. The gesticulations of diplomacy present the comedy of states blackmailed by an international gang. [49]  

Giving Politics a Rest

I hope not to devote much more 'ink' to politics - my readers know where the information and insights are. Unless I'm provoked, that is.
    I'll have something to say about music in a few days. And if provoked, I might rant on in my anti-aesthetics groove. But my attention is focused presently on Richard Gaskin's book, The Unity of the Proposition, OUP 2008. We all know how one thing leads to another. So until next time, happier days to all.