jazz and other heresies

“The Beautiful Complexity of President Barack Obama”

2008-11-09T13:05:00.000-08:00

Many thousands of words have already been committed to paper or cyber paper on the glorious fact of Barack Obama’s, no the country’s transformative victory. Millions of people of all ages, races and creeds danced in the streets, wept, hug, screamed joyfully, both in the USA and around the world.

I am not sure I have much to add to the proceedings. Those who have followed this set of writings know that I threw my lot in with Barack early, after hearing and seeing him at a rally in Oakland in March 2007. I have worked on and off for his campaign since then, and was happiest watching my son come over to be a supporter (an Edwards man) after watching Barack’s Iowa speech in January 2008.

For me, the fact of Barack’s race(S) is emblematic of what Billy Collins so memorably referred to in “On Turning Ten” as “the beautiful complexity” of life. It is true that Barack is the first African-American president, and that is the point. With a Kenyan father and a Kansan mother, and Indonesian step-father and Indonesian-American 1/2 sister, Barack learned from the very start that life is way, way more complicated than the amount of melanin you have in your skin. (It reminds me that when my son was 2 or 3, he used to be under the impression that I was black, because my skin was darker than most “Whites”, esp. in the summer.)

I have always subscribed to the wonderful sayings of Shakespeare, Scott Fitzgerald and H.L. Mencken, credos I have strived mightily to live my life by. The bard reminds us how much there is in heaven and earth beyond what we can dream of in our philosophies, Fitzgerald notes that a first-class mind can hold two equal and opposite ideas in it without going mad, and Mencken observes that for every complex problem there is a simple solution…and it is wrong.

As Nicholas Kristof writes in today’s NY Times, “American voters have just picked a president who is an open, out-of-the-closet, practicing intellectual.” One who embraces nuance and complexity, and is impatient with simple, reductive black and white answers. How fitting symbolically that he is a “mixture” of black and white, a mutt as he playfully called himself. The world is not a place of saints and sinners, of “you’re either with us or against us” bellicosity. Obama says it beautifully. “We can disagree without being disagreeable.”

Those with a sense of certitude, with what Mark Twain called “the calm, cool confidence of a Christian with four aces” that they are right, who once they make a decision, never go back on it, regardless of changing information or circumstances, who surround themselves with an amen corner, well, all I can say is, we just had an administration filled with folks like that, and the results were disastrous. That kind of what Kristof calls being intoxicated with the fumes of moral clarity leads to disaster on every level of our lives. Far better to, again paraphrasing Kristof, strive for an understanding that the world, and each one of us, abounds in uncertainties and contradictions. That is a wonderful thing. The world of psychology views comfort with ambiguity and complexity as a sign of a more evolved intelligence, and by that standard, Obama is likely the most evolved and intelligent president we have had.

Embrace complexity, embrace nuance, seek out dissenting views, understand that, with the exception of a few sociopaths, we are ALL saints and sinners. Barack Obama’s victory is the celebration of beautiful complexity and nuance, of hope for understanding, for reconciliation, for healing, for recognizing that that there is far more that unites us than divides us. I have never read it better than George Santayana’s timeless paean to the world, with all its flaws.

“The world is not respectable; it is mortal, tormented, confused, deluded forever; but it is shot through with beauty, with love, with glints of courage and laughter; and in these, the spirit blooms timidly, and struggles to the light amid the thorns.”

Barack’s triumph is ours, and with it, we all inch a little closer, in all our glorious contradictions and complexity, to the light.

Palintology

2008-09-07T12:19:00.001-07:00

It is not going to be a pretty few days for poll junkies who favor Obama.

I am going on a self-imposed poll fast until Monday, 9/15, at which point the true contour of the race will be clear...

It is kind of the Schawrzenneger model...he announced so late that by the time the truth of his seamy gropenator info came out, it was too late.

This election will NOT be determined by Palin, but there are dueling narratives.

Narrative A) She is a spunky, gutsy maverick, a very attractive and fiery young woman, who takes the sheen off the Obama as change message, and helps McCain reclaim his "maverick" label, aided and abetted by a complicit corporate media, cowed by the fusillade of "sexism" thrown at any inquiry into Palin's fitness for office.

Narrative B) Palin is a far right, corrupt, thuggish and woefully unqualified creationist flat-earther, aptly self-described a pitbull with lipstick, and once independents, esp. independent women figure this out, and esp. when troopergate explodes, she will bea real drag on the ticket, esp. if the corporate media do their job, be investigative reporters instead of court reporters, and insist she answer some questions off script. I mean, is it even that hard, when she reportedly said, upon hearing that Obama had defeated Hillary "so Sambo beat the bitch?"

If narrative A succeeds, it is a nailbiter to the finish. Narrative B takes hold and McCain is finished...

Wes Clark as VP?

2008-08-16T14:01:00.000-07:00

So Wes Clark's site and slogan are "securing America's future", which just happens to be the theme of the VP night at the Dem Convention. I ran across this mind-boggling quote on Congressional Quarterly.

"After all, Clark appeared to dash his hopes of running with Obama in late June when he said getting shot down in Vietnam did not qualify John McCain to be president."

This statement is so astonishing it beggars the imagination. What a fraud, or as Clark called it, a freak machine, the media were.

Is there ANYONE who thinks that being shot down qualifies one to be president of the united states? I would venture to state that there are about 10,000 Americans right now who have been shot down in combat, and would further venture that there are about 5,000 former POWs. Studies have unanimously shown that soldiers who have seen combat are 3 times as likely to suffer mental illness such as PTSD on return, and the stats for a shot down POW who was tortured must be through the roof.

Take a walk down any rundown area of an American city and see how many homeless are mentally ill vets. If anything, it is glaringly obvious we should require candidates to pass a battery of psychological fitness tests before anyone with access to the nuclear button is allowed to be president. For Clark to say that being shot down does not qualify you for president is about as obvious as saying that flying in an airplane does not mean you are capable of self-propelled flight.

I would love to see Clark, since it destroys three aspects of McCain advantage: Military, Older White Male, and prominent Clinton supporter. Plus the Southerner aspect puts McCain in a difficult box. If he appoints a Sarah Palin or a Mitt Romney, he has lost much of the Southern evangelical vote, if he chooses a Huckabee, he loses the independents.

Clark is also a fearless attack dog, who can rip into McCain in a way that no other VP choice can. I see the odds of it happening as only about 20-80, since the Obamas seem pretty risk-averse, so the spin that it is Biden or Bayh is probably right, but it would be a GREAT pick.

On "News" and the low intelligence voter

2008-08-16T11:22:00.001-07:00

fascinating. I just finished reading a survey by Pew research on the party affiliations of those watching, reading and surfing various news sources. Not surprisingly, the survey shows twice as many self-proclaimed Republicans watch Fox "news" (must put propaganda in quotes always) as watch the other corporate cable news organs, CNN and MSNBC. Rasmussen also did a poll showing 87% of Fix noise watchers were going to vote for the grumpy old man this time around. The same survey shows a 65-26 pro-Obama split at CNN and 63-30 pro-Obama at MSNBC. That is interesting to me, because, speaking as someone who WORKS for Obama, I see more pro-Obama folks at MSNBC than at CNN, but somehow, the partisan split is more pronounced at CNN. In either case, the partisan split is very consistent with the Pew poll at CNN and MSNBC. However, it is clear that either a WHOLE bunch of people who watch Fox are lying about their political affiliation or Pew got it very wrong on partisan ID at FOX. You can't have a 39-33 GOP Dem split of Fox viewers, as Pew alleges, and have 87% of Fox viewers planning to vote for Grumpelstiltsen. Not logical. If you use the same kind of ratios for Fox as you do for MSNBC and CNN when comparing rasmussen and Pew, the Fox partisan ratio should be about 65% GOP, 20% Indy and MAYBE 15% Dem. Not the first time Pew has gotten it wrong.

I do watch Fox once in a blue moon during commercials, just to see if it continues to be as caricatured and mockable a "news" channel as I had thought, and...yup...it is still unintentionally funny as hell. Perhaps they are counting those of us who check in once in a while for laughs as among the 33% of Democrats who "watch" Fox. Maybe I shouldn't find it so funny. Remember the study showing a direct correlation between your news source and how informed you were about the Iraq war? 80% of listeners who got most of their news from NPR answered questions correctly about the war, whereas only 20% of regular Fox viewers did. That is the single biggest uncovered story in this election. Like with Bush in 2004, the gap no one will talk about is the intelligence gap. Older, uneducated white voters break for McCain 60-30, whereas voters under 45 with a college degree break for Obama 2 to 1. Those with doctorates support Obama by over 80%, whereas those without high school diplomas support Mccain 70-20. The media are scared of this story, since they will be called "elitist", so I guess we have come to a place in this country where in some corners, being informed is a badge of dishonor.

The GOP target voter this time around? Uninformed, uneducated, afraid, racist and just not very bright, sorry to say. Anyone who would consider voting for McCain after the past 8 years is very rich, very racist, very uninformed or very dumb...sorry to be so blunt, but that is just the way it is.

The resistable rise and fall of Dana Milbank

2008-08-07T11:04:00.000-07:00

as John Edwards and Hillary Clinton and George W all have demonstrated, the public has enormous sympathy and forgiveness for someone who has the courage to say "I was wrong" or "I was mistaken". Edwards did, and Clinton didn't. Bush...well it goes without saying.

A simple "I was given an inaccurate/incomplete quote" is all The Washington Post's Dana Milbank had to do. But I think it goes deeper than that. His entire piece was a hit job on Obama that could have been written by the McCain talking points crew, all of whom were pushing the uppity, arrogant and presumptuous attack, aided and abetted by such as Dowd and Milbank. Even retracting the false quote, the only direct "evidence" he provided of Obama's alleged hubris, would not have changed the fact that he wrote a cynical and dishonest piece. (Interesting how the two have responded to the blowback. Milbank has been stonewalling and dismissive, whereas Dowd has written one of the rarest of items, a Dowd sissifying slam on a GOPPER. We will see if this is an omen or an aberration, once she figures out Obama still won't sleep with her.)

I will not miss him on Keith Olbermann, since his stumbling, unenlightening comments (every third word an uh) were soporific.

As to Olbermann, he redeemed himself by insisting he would not have someone on there who refused to admit a mistake that was widely proven. I do find it comical that his lengthy questions contain the two choices of answer he expects from his guests. I am guessing that is because he knows the answers in advance that his guests are going to give, but the should at least give the pretense of asking a question for which he doesn't know the answer. His approach is more like that of a lawyer, where one never asks a question one doesn't already know the answer for. Here is Olbermann's dignified yet firm dismissal of Milbank.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/8/4/174920/2691/934/562486

I find Rachel Maddow a far better questioner than is Keith, but he is certainly literate, entertaining, and a far more substantive partisan than his reactionary counterparts on Fox and CNN. (Yes, CNN. Glenn Beck and Lou Dobbs certainly qualify as reactionary demagogues.)

On another note, in the midst of the summer of sleaze, some very funny amelioration can be found on the wesbite 23/6.

http://www.236.com/news/2008/08/06/if_they_imd_paris_hilton_and_j_8160.php

The latest spin

2008-08-05T11:31:00.000-07:00

Any honest broker will admit that the relentlessly negative attacks by the McCain campaign, Obama's equivocation on FISA and drilling, and the slavish repetition of McCain talking points by the corporate media (how many reports have you seen telling you that offshore drilling won't even be available for 10 years - that from Bush's department of energy, and will do ZERO to bring down the price now, and, again according to Bush's own energy department, never have more than a "negligible" effect on prices???) have driven Obama down from 50 to 47-46 in the nationals. Depending which poll you choose to believe, McCain is anywhere from 40-47. Both of these are well within margins of error, but I am honest enough to admit that Obama is no more than back to his pre-trip ratings. By the same token, any McCain supporter who is honest needs to be concerned that McCain continues to have a national ceiling of 45-46%. And of course, none of the battleground states have shifted much either way, so the status quo on the Electoral College still strongly favors Obama, with McCain needing an inside straight of Michigan and Ohio to get the nod.

I do think that if Obama does not hit back more forcefully and regain the narrative, something the MSM is loathe to let him do (see the AP's Ron Baum's astonishingly biased "report" on Obama's critique of McCain, leading the report by dissecting Obama) he will be in trouble. But after 3 months of mainly negative press (as confirmed by the study group loved by O"reilly and Hannity of fixed noise), he is still ahead comfortably EV-wise and ahead or tied in the nationals.

That said, if the race looks the way it does now after the conventions, Obama wins...

I still see this as feeling very much like 2 models: Reagan-Carter and Bush-Dukakis, with many more similarities to Reagan-Carter. The three debates will be key. If McCain can come across as affable and at least partially informed (and/or if the media decide to ignore his inevitable gaffes) and, at the same time, Obama turns in a weak and stutter-filled performance like he did when turned on by Gibson and Stephanopolos in Philadelphia, then yikes, all bets are off.

If, on the other hand, Obama is the cool, charismatic and knowledgeable one, using humor to deflect, and is obviously not the monster so doggedly painted by the sour grapes express and McCain shows his increasingly evident mean streak and age-related gaps in memory and sentience, it will be game over, ala Reagan in 1980.

It will either be Obama by 6-7 nationally and a 300-400 EV victory or McCain by a point and a 280-258 squeaker.

The "uppity Barack" meme

2008-08-03T17:01:00.000-07:00

The MSM have been utterly complicitous in pushing the Rove talking points on Obama's uppityness. Like David Gergen said today, they don't need to mention race, as arrogant, elitist, presumptuous do the trick. I think any decent reporter should be taking their cue from this article and calling the MSM and their slavish and knee jerk parrotting of the McCain meme of the day. I defy anyone to find one evenly mildly egotistical quote from Obama that wasn't said in self-mocking jest (other than Dana Milbank's fabricated one) and what could be more beneath contempt than the false "race card" charge by McCain that allowed them to remind everyone of Obama's race one more time. This sad charade has been played out since the rise of Bush 1 and is loathsome and transparently cynical. I am hopeful that the combination of Obama's gifts, enthusiastic supporters, and some semblance of a blowback from the liberal blogosphere, readers/viewers and honest brokers like Gergen and John Weaver will keep the press a little more honest this time, though don't hold your breath for Maureen Dowd and company to come around. The day she writes a scathing dissection of McCain is the day you know the MSM has decided to play it a little more straight up. She and ABC are the canaries in the coal mine of corporate media for how they are going to spin it.

Here's some required reading on the fake "race card" McCain smear being dutifully carried by the corporate media lapdogs:

http://thephoenix.com/Boston/News/65569-Leggo-my-ego/

One more political post for today

2008-08-02T13:34:00.000-07:00

Obama haters skip this post - too many big words and ideas that can't be reduced to a 3 second soundbite. Here, I'll save you the trouble: Barack Hussein Obama is an elitist, presumptuous, arrogant, empty-suited, street-hustling Black Muslim, Messiah-type who faked his birth certificate while snorting coke and getting a ********. Did I miss any of the basic lies and smears? Hope that covers it for the haters and fools out there.

Are they gone, now? Good. For those of you of the sentient persuasion, I have seen this movie work three times now under the Bush/Atwater/Rove gang: Dukakis in 1988, Gore in 2000 and Kerry in 2004. It failed against Clinton in 1992 because Bush 1 was almost as unpopular as Bush 2 is and there was a credible 3rd party candidate to siphon votes from those who hated Bush but couldn't pull the lever for Clinton. It is CRUCIAL to remember that the "liberal" media have once again, as they did in 88, 2000 and 2004, immediately jumped on and slavishly amplified the McCain attack of the day, from presumptuous to vacuous to race card. MORE coverage does not equate to better coverage, as the survey showing far more negative coverage of OBama than McCain in the past 2 months confirms. Of course, conditions on the ground look a lot more like 1992 or 1980 - a massively unpopular incumbent and a very appealing but different and "risky" challenger.

Other different elements:

1) Clinton has already bloodied Obama up with many of the themes the Mcshames are now using whereas the GOP was lying in wait in 1988, 2000 and 2004.

2) Obama is a better, more naturally appealing candidate than any of Bush 1 and 2, Dole, Kerry, Dukakis or Gore. Only Clinton (Bill) rivaled his natural appeal.

3) McCain is an utterly past his prime pol, who comes across as increasingly short-tempered and confused, and has also severely diminished his "straight talk express" brand and replaced it with the "sour grapes" express "low road" express or "early onset" express take your pick.

4) Obama has major appeal to two underrepresented groups of voters, Af-Ams and youth. If the primaries are any indication, they will turn out in record numbers for Obama, and, like in the primaries, the wise heads will pooh pooh the turnout until it happens.

5) For the first time ever, the Dems have money parity with the GOP, allowing Obama to compete in far more states.

6) The Obama crew has more effective and larger groups of paid and volunteer staff in every state.

7) By EVERY poll, Obama voters are far more enthusiastic than are McCain voters. Even on this board, the GOPPERS are virulently anti-Obama, not pro-McCain. In EVERY presidential election since 1932, the candidate with more enthusiastic voters has won.

8) The conventions are back to back, so there is little opportunity for the kind of unchallenged month-long savaging that Kerry endured (utterly ineptly, I might add).

9) Obama is no dummy and is well aware of the vile shenanigans which have been and will be pulled by the McCain campaign, aided and abetted by the corporate media and the right wing echo chamber.

10) Despite Obama's media-created "problem with Latinos", he has more support against McCain among Latinos than any Dem has ever had against a GOPPER, and this could make a crucial difference in Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, Florida and yes, even Texas.

11) While there is no Perot running, both Barr and Nader are mounting national campaigns, and EVERY poll has shown Obama's lead increases by 5-7 points with these two on the ballot. Georgia, Alaska and Nevada are three states where this may be of importance.

12) The nastier and more negative McCain gets, the more it turns off Independent voters who were drawn to his promise of a clean and honorable campaign. I think this may be a zero-sum game.

So with all of this, am I confident of Obama winning? Yes, but... There is an ugly underbelly of racism and fear of the other that the McCain camp is exploiting, however hamhandedly and ineptly. Estimates are that Obama's name and racial background take about 15 points from him in the polls, so that what would be a landslide if he were a white guy named Barry O'Brien has been made much much closer. I do think McCain's best pick is Sarah Palin, since some Hillary voters are looking for a reason to vote for McCain as they continue their irrational hate for Obama. Sure, it would hurt him with evangelicals, but he's not going to ever get them to love him anyway. Still, the electoral map is very favorable to Obama, and I do believe he and his crew are smart enough to defeat the right wing-generated and corporate media amplified hate and demonization. I would say 60% 300 vote Obama EV win, 25% Obama electoral landslide, 10% 2000 style nailbiter that Obama wins, and 5% McCain EV squeaker/supreme court selected win.a post for those of the sentient persuasion

Finally up for air

2008-08-02T12:05:00.000-07:00

Well, it has been four months since my last post, and frankly, those of you who know me personally know what profound personal challenges have faced me and my family. To be honest, I do know that a fair number of souls read this blog (though with its lack of activity lately, probably far less.) However, I do not feel comfortable sharing intimate aspects of my life with a lot of strangers at this time, and if I were to write about my life, that would be a major topic. Suffice to say there are enormous challenges and a lot of beautiful moments every day, and I am grateful to friends/musicians (from very close to fairly distant) and family for providing support, laughs and love.

My son continues to astound and amaze, and will be starting his sophomore year of college in the fall at 16 (yup!). He is a poli sci major, and one area we have really bonded in is our shared love/morbid fascination for the political process. He has perhaps as good a mind as anyone I know in these areas, and is incredibly well-informed. So, since he and I email back and forth and post to many political sites, I thought I would revive the blog portion of the site as a political commentary. I do understand that some of you will take offense, that rare breed of modern jazz loving right-wing Republican, so please note that my music is a separate beast from this, and you can keep enjoying it, even if you think I am a woefully misguided lover of the "Black Muslim presumptuous, arrogant, vacuous celebrity" Barack Hussein Obama. Surveys show that 4/5 of country music, nascar and baseball fans are conservatives and 3/4 of jazz and basketball fans are progressives, but that still leaves a lot of progressive country music, nascar and baseball fans and a fair number of reactionary jazz and basketball aficionados. Anyway, with that caveat, here's a post to start off the political thoughts for this heated season:

This election is the death rattle for the ugly Nixon Southern strategy begun in 1968 and "improved on" by the Bushes and Lee Atwater/Karl Rove and their relentless character assassination. Other than Reagan, GOP have not had a candidate they feel good about since Eisenhower. The trick is to demonize and caricature the opposition, aided and abetted by the right wing echo chamber and the corporate media.

This will be the ultimate test of that, with a brilliant, young and charismatic, inspiring change agent versus an old, cranky and mentally diminished status quo agent. What makes this the stuff of novels is that Obama, for all his exceptional gifts, fights the reality of his name, appearance and background.

If you had told the Atwater/Rove/Davis crew that they would run a generic "maverick" seasoned Republican war hero against a Biracial man whose last name is one consonant from the demon Osama, whose middle name is the same as the demon Saddam, whose first name sounds like a bird call, who was raised by an atheist single mom in Hawaii and raised for a while in Indonesia, a Harvard Reviewed, inner-city Chicago law professor...

Well, the generic matchup there would have McCain up by 20 on Obama, so it speaks volumes to the strength and power of Obama and the disaster that is McCain that Obama leads. All those factors listed above should be worth 25 points to McCain, so the question should be, why is HE not doing better against "black muslim arrogant celebrity Barack Hussein Obama?"

Any dying animal will fight to the death, and with so many potential criminal cases pending against the Bush crime family, it is no wonder the GOP are fighting ugly and low road. If Obama gets in, some of them will end up prosecuted and in jail...W cannot pardon everyone, and last I checked, he cannot pardon himself.

Stay Tuned...

Joe Klein of all people

2008-03-21T00:21:00.000-07:00

well, Barack's speech was yet another reminder that, every once in a while, a figure of almost unthinkably transcendent grace, authenticity, nuance and wisdom appears on our benighted political landscape. If you read back to contemporary accounts of Lincoln, FDR, RFK, MLK, Coltrane or the Beatles, many small-minded and parched pundits did not see this, making no distinction between a Chase and a Lincoln, or an RFK and a McCarthy...we see this today as well. However, as hoarily cliched as it is to say it, I was proud after his speech, proud that such an imperfect and often reprehensible experiment as our country could produce such a man. I guess I should not be that shocked - we also produced jazz, basketball, Sinatra and the lox shmear, so it happens.

Joe Klein of all people, someone I often think of as a mainstream hack, actually said it really well in old Luce's Time Magazine:

"Whether Obama survives now will depend on the most important and overlooked part of his speech—the final section, in which he challenged the public and, especially, the media to stow the sensationalism: "We can play Reverend Wright's sermons on every channel, every day ... and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words," he said. "But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election we'll be talking about some other distraction ... And nothing will change ... Or, at this moment in this election, we can come together and say, 'Not this time.'"

And that is the existential challenge of 2008: whether we will have a big election or a small one. Will we have a serious conversation about the enormous problems confronting the country—the wars, the economic crisis, the looming environmental cataclysm—or will we allow the same old carnival of swift boats and sound bites? The answer depends on the candidates, of course, and on the media—where cynicism too often passes for insight. But most of all, it depends on you."

word...

Who I am For

2008-02-02T20:21:00.000-08:00

Dear friends, fans and other blog followers,

This was originally sent out as an email. It got such a positive response, and people started forwarding it around and even posting it on their own sites, so I decided to publish it here.

I wanted to share my thoughts with you on the upcoming election. A number of you have asked me about this election and who I am supporting, so I thought I would briefly tell you who and why. Please understand that I respect whatever choice you make. I think it is still a democracy of sorts, and we are still friends if your choice and mine differ. Hopefully, friends can agree to disagree, but I also hope you will consider my thoughts. If you think they are helpful, I am glad. If not, that's o.k. too. We can still be friends. Feel free to forward to people you think might be interested (though I doubt that Fox News types and other intellectually challenged humans will be too receptive.)

Now that John Edwards has dropped out of the race it is crystal clear that either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton will face John McCain in November. If you have followed my blog, you know that I have been a Barack Obama supporter since I heard him at a rally in March 2007. I could write you a long dissertation on why, but essentially it boils down to a recurring theme in my life this past year or so: Choosing hope over fear.

So many of us are afraid to take a chance at what we really want in life, so we choose the "safe" choice over the hopeful one, deferring our desires and dreams, often for the one lifetime we have on this earth. Whether in our relationships, or our jobs or even in our politics, we are so fearful of the new that we choose the old and familiar, even though we know we are dissatisfied with it. As Einstein is famously said to have observed, "the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result." And yet we do practise that insanity in matters of love, career, patterns of thought and politics. This applies when it comes to the Obama/Clinton decision.

Barack Obama and Billary Clinton (let's face it, they are running as a twofer) do not differ substantively on matters of policy, and there is no doubt that each of them would be a significant policy improvement on the Bush-Cheney disaster, on every measure.

I support Barack for a few simple reasons. First and foremost, his approach to politics is unifying, healing, inspiring, inclusive and empowering. You can see that he has a visceral distaste for the attacks and dishonest hits that have become the soundtrack of the Clinton/Bush era. Ironically, since Billary is the female candidate, it is Barack who has the more stereotypically softer and more "female" approach as a leader, looking for the common ground that unifies us, rather than sharpening the edges of division. It is an approach that draws people in, rather than forcing them to take sides.

The reality, as Michael Moore observed, is that most Americans are situationally liberal, but many recoil from that label. From the environment to civil rights to civil liberties to health care to minimum wage to the right to unionize (just a few) most Americans take a progressive view. However, being a liberal has become so demonized, thanks to the echo chamber of the Orwellian Fox News, right wing think tanks (80% of "experts on mainstream media are from them) and right wing hate radio that folks have been conditioned to shy from that self-description. It is Barack's gift to recognize that and speak a language of inclusion that gives those people permission to be a part of a larger purpose. It is no accident that he referenced Reagan. While he was clear that he strongly disagreed with Reagan's policies, he recognized the Gipper's ability to draw a large working majority of Americans to his side through his inclusive and optimistic and hopeful manner. This included many Democrats. Obama has the potential to draw many independents and disaffected Republicans to the causes we all want- to create a working majority for progessive change.

Barack is the most gifted public speaker since MLK and the two slain Kennedy brothers. Possessed of a brilliant intellect married to a powerful humanity, capable of flights of soaring inspiration and self-deprecating humor, he seems...well, authentic. He is believable as a genuine and unprogrammed person. I know that he is a politician, and as he himself has candidly said, all politicians' hands are dirty, but I still see a real human being in there. The ability to inspire, to set a tone and direction for the country, has been the hallmark of every president who has affected people and effected change. From Lincoln to Teddy Roosevelt (two other politicians with very thin resumes), from FDR to JFK to (sadly) Reagan, the politicians who have genuinely changed America's direction, for better or worse, have had the capacity to lift up and inspire with words.

To me, Barack represents the best of what we can be as a country. A biracial child of a Kansas mother and Kenyan father who had spent more time abroad by the time he was 6 than W Bush had by the time he was selected president, is remarkable enough. That the child of a single mother went on to be the first African-American to head the Harvard Law review is remarkable enough. That he walked away from a lucrative future as a lawyer to organize the poorest of the poor on Chicago's south side is remarkable enough. That he became the senator from Illinois by winning 60% of the white vote is remarkable enough. That he opposed the war in Iraq at a time when that was a politically unwise maneuver is remarkable enough. But what is most remarkable is the very encompassing and inclusive nature of his uplifting message, his repeated notion that we are not a collection of Blue states and red States, but we are the United States. It is a beautiful and healing vision after 20 years of the Bush/Clinton wars.

Lastly, this country is held in the lowest regard internationally of any time in its history, thanks to the reductive and dangerous unilateralism of Bush/Cheney. I cannot imagine a more stark and vivid contrast to the fear-mongering hate and fear spread by W and company, to put forth the inspiring, youthful, hopeful, inclusive, biracial Obama as the face of the U.S. The day he is inaugurated will do more to repair America's image in the world than anything else we, as a people could do.

Now a word or two on Billary.

The entire premise of the Clinton campaign seems to have boiled down to experience, that she is a safe choice, a known quantity. This notion of choosing the illusion of safety and predictability is one we grasp at in every area of our lives. It is deftly punctured by the wise Buddhist Pema Chodron, who notes "We can try to control the uncontrollable by looking for security and predictability, always hoping to be comfortable and safe. But the truth is we can never avoid uncertainty. It is part of the adventure."

Since close to 50% of the country says they will not vote for Billary under any circumstance, and she does not connect with many people on a personal level as an authentic and warm person, she is clearly not the most electable candidate. Her whole mantra has been that she is an experienced and tested hand. She will, by implicit and often explicit comparison, tell us that it will be, in many ways, a third term of husband Bill. Let's leave aside that 28 of her 35 years of political experience were in the unelected and unappointed position of being Bill Clinton's wife, including her botched mishandling of health care reform.

The reality is that all of Billary's "experience" bona fides vanish into the ether when she is running against 71 year-old Republican maverick war hero John McCain. He is a man with enormous appeal to independents and is as much a favorite of the media as Billary is a favorite devil. Her assertion to be "tough" enough to be commander in chief also looks ludicrous next to the war-hero warhawk. Republicans can always outmilitary Democrats - think of Dukakis in the tank and Kerry being swiftboated by a draft dodger. It is not fair, but if purple-hearted John Kerry couldn't win against AWOL W Bush, what chance does Billary have against McCain on issues of national security?

Make no mistake. If Billary is the nominee, I will vote for her. However, also make no mistake that you might want to start practising saying President McCain, because he will draw the vote of many independents and draw disaffected Republicans back into the fold. Even if she does eke out a 51% win, the right will dust off the old O'Reilly and Limbaugh-driven Clinton-hating playbook and we will watch that movie we could barely stomach the first time around. Even on policy, I am not a fan of the Clintons. Yes, they are a damn sight better than Bush-Cheney, but Cup of Noodles is also preferable to rocks. Doesn't make it something I enjoy eating. Bill Clinton's cynical realpolitik of triangulation, from health care to don't ask don't tell to nafta to welfare reform lost the Democrats the house in 1994, and there is nothing sadder than a cynical former idealist, which is what Bill Clinton is.

However, like I said, I am not supporting Barack because of my distaste for the Faustian bargains that define the Clintons. No, I am supporting him because, while I do not deify this man, and recognize he has made his deals and compromises, I believe him. It is a powerful and exhilarating thing to be able to support a candidate from a place of hope and optimism, a belief that his election will be a transformational moment unmatched in American politics. At a time when my father is succumbing to Alzheimer's, my marriage to the woman I was with for 25 years has ended, and she, the mother of my son, has been diagnosed with a horrible fatal disease, it would be understandable if I viewed things as pretty hopeless. However, when we have lost the courage to choose our hopes over our fears, whether in the personal or the political world, we have lost everything. We have lost ourselves. As Carlos Quijano said, sins against hope are the only sins beyond forgiveness and redemption. Voting for Barack Obama is an expression of my determination to choose hope over fear, in life, love and yes, even politics.

Thanks for listening and however you are going to vote, please do...

Oh, here's a clip of a Barack speech that may help you understand:

Andrew Gilbert on the Alice Through the Looking glass Bay Area Jazz "controversy"

2007-06-15T16:57:00.000-07:00

Much has been written and said, some overheated, about the manufactured controversy regarding Yoshi's and the Berkeley Jazz Festival. I have read nothing more reasoned, thoughtful, balanced and humane than what Andrew Gilbert wrote in the Contra Costa Times. It is consistent with what I have heard, publicly and privately from every credible jazz musician with whom I have discussed the matter. Here it is in its entirety:

ANDREW GILBERT: JAZZ TALK
Yoshi's: Behind the charges of bias
Contra Costa Times
Article Launched: 06/14/2007 03:04:57 AM PDT

WHEN RACIAL discrimination is the topic of debate, conversations in the Bay Area tend to jump directly to indignation and outrage, skipping calmer and more thoughtful modes of discussion.

And thus the controversy over the absence of African-American bandleaders on a CD produced by Yoshi's to celebrate the club's 10th anniversary at Jack London Square swiftly turned into an angry outcry.

In seeking to quickly and simply compile an album of artists recorded live at the club, Yoshi's artistic director Peter Williams admittedly took an ill-advised shortcut by dealing only with Concord Records, and ended up with a second-rate CD. Shortly after the controversy boiled over in the press, Williams and club owner Kaz Kajimura announced a recall of the offending album, which featured respectable but hardly classic performances by players such as Joe Pass, Marian McPartland and Poncho Sanchez. (The album's two most exciting tracks, by organist Joey DeFrancesco, happen to include two black players -- drummer Byron Landham and tenor sax legend George Coleman -- so the claim that the CD completely ignored African-American artists isn't exactly accurate.)

Acknowledging that a promotional venture intended to showcase the club's legacy had turned into a fiasco, they committed to releasing a second album that better represents musicians who have performed at the venue. While some view the initial Yoshi's anniversary CD as part of a larger revisionist movement that seeks to downplay the African-American roots of jazz, nothing in Williams' seven-year history of booking the club speaks to any kind of racial agenda, and it would be disgraceful if the club heeded the shrill voices calling for his dismissal.

What's particularly depressing is that convincing the club to withdraw the CD is the definition of a Pyrrhic victory. It means there's no new album to create fresh opportunities for musicians, advance anyone's career or put money in a player's pocket. Meanwhile, a new development at Yoshi's with dire implications for jazz musicians of all colors and cultures has gone largely unnoticed.

Starting on June 25 with zydeco accordionist Geno Delafose & French Rockin' Boogie, the club is booking dance bands on Mondays, which means the elimination of some 50 precious slots over the course of a year that have traditionally gone to Bay Area-based jazz artists. Most of the bands slated for Mondays so far are Cuban-style Latin dance combos whose work I love, but there are close to a dozen other venues in the Bay Area that regularly present these groups. There's only one Yoshi's, however (at least until the Fillmore District franchise opens sometime in the fall), and the region's resident jazz musicians depend upon playing Yoshi's for exposure and excellent production values when celebrating the release of a new album. In seeking to draw new audiences, the club is responding to its bottom-line imperative, and that's the painful topic that can't be avoided: how to keep live jazz viable in a market-driven economy.

WAIT, IT GETS WORSE: If the Yoshi's controversy generated more heat than light, the simultaneous attacks on Jazzschool founder Susan Muscarella are far more objectionable. That controversy was sparked by singer Rhonda Benin and Anna de Leon, a longtime pillar of the Bay Area scene as a singer and club owner who now runs Anna's Jazz Island in downtown Berkeley.
On May 19, they went on Doug Edwards' KPFA show "Ear Thyme" and stated that Muscarella was excluding African-American musicians from the Downtown Berkeley Jazz Festival. The fact that Muscarella had yet to finish booking the Aug. 23-26 event would seem to make public charges of under-representation premature, but with passions inflamed, many decided that Muscarella was guilty as charged. Her exemplary track record of presenting a wide array of jazz artists, with particular attention to female instrumentalists often overlooked by other venues, didn't stop some musicians from denouncing her in the press.
Do the charges hold water? When Muscarella appeared on "Ear Thyme" on May 26, Edwards turned the numbers that she had crunched to defend herself against her, noting that when the Downtown festival focused on Latin jazz in 2005, 50 percent of the musicians booked were Latino. But when 2006's festival had a general jazz orientation, 30 percent of the artists were African-American. According to Edwards, since less than half of the musicians booked last year were black, discrimination was evident. But African-Americans don't come close to making up a majority of jazz players in the Bay Area, and to suggest that a festival institute a quota is frankly insulting to black musicians.

Indeed, the Bay Area is blessed with a diverse wealth of talent -- black, white, Latino, Asian-American, Indian and Native American -- and after 10 years of covering jazz here, what I've found remarkable is that so many musicians have made significant contributions, despite the scene's limited resources.

And that's the rub. It's the rare well-seasoned player who doesn't believe, often with justification, that he or she has been overlooked and under-employed (a feeling shared by modern dancers, painters and documentary filmmakers, by the way). Many white musicians feel they have lost opportunities due to their race, and it's hardly surprising that some black musicians feel the same way.

Unfortunately, much of the media coverage has fallen into the black-vs.-white paradigm, portraying African-American jazz musicians as united against the perceived injustice perpetuated by Yoshi's and the Downtown Berkeley Jazz Festival. In truth, there's a broader spectrum of opinions, with many defending Williams and Muscarella (while many others want to avoid the messy controversy altogether).

Robert Stewart, the brilliant Oakland-born African-American tenor saxophonist whose resume reads like a jazz hall of fame, has been outspoken in countering the recent charges. But his voice has been conspicuously absent from the press and airwaves, so I'm giving him the last word:

"I'm ashamed of the hostility and triviality that has been directed toward Susan Muscarella and the Yoshi's establishment by black musicians in the Bay Area," Stewart wrote in an e-mail. "Further, though I do not know Susan Muscarella and have never played in her festival nor her school, her efforts to perpetuate the black classical music of America must be acknowledged and applauded, regardless of any personal bias against her as an individual. ... Peter Williams, Yoshi's current artistic director, is also fair and honest in his dealings with black musicians. Consequently, a mere compact disc of live recordings void of black musicians is triviality beyond comprehension, to say the least."

Stumbling on Happiness

2007-05-28T11:46:00.000-07:00

A tendency I have, for better or worse, is to tell my friends about whatever I am reading if I find it exceptionally significant. Recently, I have read three books which are highly complementary and illuminating: Social Intelligence by Harvard Neuropsychologist Daniel Goleman, Perfect Love, Imperfect Relationships by Buddhist Psychotherapist John Wellwood and the book which gives this blog entry its title, Stumbling on Happiness by Harvard Psychologist Daniel Gilbert. (BTW, here is Gilbert's own blog, which is fascinating and wonderfully written:
http://www.randomhouse.com/kvpa/gilbert/blog/)

What I love about the Goleman and Gilbert books in particular is they lay out meticulous research and data to support a lot of what makes intuitive sense. I could spend a blog on each one, but for the Goleman and Wellwood, will simply urge you to check them out, in that order. Then move to this one:

Stumbling on Happiness basically comes from the premise that Humans are the only species that remembers the past, thinks about the future and tries to control it. This is where are our pain and beauty and utter folly comes from. I have often been reluctant to predict the future, and have had close friends ask me what I think will be happening x months from now, do I see myself here, do I see them there, and I always answer I just don't know. I really don't spend a lot of time thinking about the future, because I see it as pretty uncontrollable and unpredictable. For instance, if you had asked me 3 years ago whether I saw myself separated from my wife of a 25 year relationship, I would say absolutely not. Well, that is exactly what is happening. As John Lennon said, life is indeed what happens to you while you are busy making other plans.

Gilbert jumps off from this to say the following. There are 2 impulses for why we try to predict and control the future, both universal and one good, the other sheer folly. The first impulse is that it just makes us feel good and gives us comfort. The 2nd is that we truly think our choices affect our future happiness. Gilbert lays out in wonderful and highly entertaining prose how wrongheaded this 2nd impulse is. I won't bother laying out all the research by which he makes the case, but suffice to say that, for those whose minds are not completely immune to a different idea than the one they currently hold, it is convincing.

By the way, I don't say that last sentence lightly. Gilbert shows that almost to a man and woman, we are NOT open to ideas that contradict our own belief systems, requiring mountains of evidence if it contradicts our views, and little to none if it confirms them. Certainly the creation science debate is a good example of that. We also tend to surround ourselves with people who will confirm the rightness of our perspectives, swimming in an echo chamber of sympathetic murmurings. Tell a devout Christian that there are no contemporary accounts of a man named Jesus during the time the bible says he existed and that the story of his resurrection was a common myth at the time and, if they don't hit you, they will at least block you out. I have experienced many faith-based discussions under various guises, and past a point, there is no evidence that you can give that will sway folks from the Nigel Tufnel in Spinal Tap "it goes to eleven" school of reasoning, especially when it comes to matters of the heart.

W and his acolytes on Iraq is a good example of goes to eleven thinking. One can have faith-based discussions about everything from jazz to relationships to religion to basketball, and it is the rare individual who can actually be open to a point of view that contradicts their faith. My therapist calls it magical thinking. The dressing up of utterly illogical and irrational views in the garb of science or pseudo-science. Whether it is something as benign as someone continuing to insist that echinacea cures colds, even in the face of a massive 10 year double blind study, or as ominous as asserting that being gay is a choice despite all the evidence to the contrary, faith-based truly permeates our interactions, both on a personal and a global level. Our ability to step outside our prison of subjectivity and see another perspective at odds with our own decreases, the closer the matter is to our heart, and when it comes to relationships ranges from mediocre to nonexistent. I am working on mediocrity!

Gilbert also says we tend to view the same actions by ourselves in a very different light than the same actions by another individual. We view ourselves as unique, special, for better or worse, though the commonalities among us are far more than we would like to think. So if I am delayed 10 minutes in meeting a friend, it is unavoidable, no ill intent, terrible traffic, I did my best, he should just relax. If my friend is 10 minutes late, he is a selfish and inconsiderate bastard who is inconveniencing me, perhaps deliberately. We give ourselves the benefit of doubt for an action we find unacceptable in others. Generally, we see ourselves as exceptional, for better or worse, than the general populace, and tend to surround ourselves with people who will confirm either of those traits.

Perhaps the most fascinating phenomenon Gilbert talks about is something he dubs presentism. He discusses how when we imagine the future or remember the past, it looks uncannily like the present. We all remember those Star trek episodes from the 60s where the women are all dressed like, well 1960s go go dancers. That is an example of presentism. Look at 1950s drawings of the future and it is hilarious to see no blacks, latinos, gays, no cell phones, laptops, etc...

There is also the phenomenon of picking and choosing since our memories are falsified repaintings, broad brush strokes reimagined, which also applies to how we remember everything from relationships to vacations. Our minds are utterly incapable of recording and remembering what actually happened. Not only don't we have the storage space, but the way our neurons work doesn't hold the actual memories at all. The chemical soup that is our brain actually invents a new memory each time, based on the most searing experiences from our sense memory. Imagine an enormous game of telephone where the story comes back to you from 1000 voices away. That is how we remember. Gilbert talks about how we describe a particular family vacation as truly wonderful because the first or last thing that happens is what we recall. Say the last thing was a magnificent dinner in a palm-treed courtyard on the Mexican Pacific Coast, we may forget the noisy party or the diarrhea or the big fight with the wife, and when we recall that vacation years later, we will remember it fondly, based on that great last dinner.

Conversely, we can be in an intense romantic relationship with a majority of wonderful and delicious peak moments, but if the last thing that happens in that relationship is a bad experience, we will sometimes view the whole relationship through that prism and assume that it was and will always be that way. And here is where presentism comes in, and this is very much what I am trying to get past in my life. One of the benefits about being like me and not spending a lot of time dwelling in the past or trying to imagine the future is that you tend to be more in the present moment. However, if I am going through a rough relationship patch, which, frankly, I am right now (no self pity here, it happens to all of us, and I have been far more fortunate than most of the folks I know, but I also don't want to deny it), it is hard for me to imagine a future that looks much different than the present. This goes for the good moments, too.

This is where Gilbert's thesis is so important. Humans are so utterly flawed and mistaken in their prediction of the future, because they project a future that looks amazingly like the present and is informed by their completely flawed recall of the past.

Gilbert says this: We believe that we are the best predictors of how our choices will inform our future happiness, and this is where we go so terribly off the track. Far better, he proves, to ask even a random stranger who is going through the experience we may go through what they feel at that moment. Seems counter-intuitive, but the evidence he presents is awfully convincing.

I do believe our biggest challenge is to accept the moment we are in, fully experience it, but not try to control it or assume it will always be this way. The Buddhists were right that change is the only constant, but it never stops us from trying to control an unknowable future by making choices based on a misremembered past and an utterly transient present. The strong likelihood is the future will look far far different than we imagine, and our attempts to control it are misguided at best. Far better to experience where we are, without trying to steer it through our Daliesque recall of the past or Star Trekkish projections of the future.

When I look back on my important relationships, I know there were many many good and bad moments, and no one incident defines the experience. Perhaps this is the blessing of being a jazz player (oh yeah, it is a jazz blog after all) who doesn't plug in worked out licks. There is at least one arena in my life where I can be truly present in the moment. The only solo I think about is the one I am taking. I can't go into a gig and remember that the last time we played this tune the drummer turned the time around so I am not going to play with that drummer again. By the same token, I can't assume that, because we had a peak experience on the tune it will be that way again. All I can do is be in the moment with that drummer and remember that on balance, I love playing with him. If I refuse to play with him again because our last gig was a bad one, I am cutting myself off from a beautiful musical relationship.

By the same thinking, I am trying very hard to look at relationships in full. Every relationship has bad tunes or even bad gigs, but it is the saddest form of presentism to assume, because the last gig was a bad one, that they will all be that way. It's when the majority of gigs are not fun you have to look at making some changes. I don't want to stop playing with someone because the last gig was a bad one, if the gigs have been mainly great.

If we could only treat each other like we treat jazz gigs, we'd be better off. I, for one, want to do that. I'm off for now, stumbling towards happiness.

too funny

2007-05-24T01:10:00.001-07:00

http://www.myspace.com/hboflight

Jon Stewart and Bill Moyers

2007-04-30T01:45:00.000-07:00

This interview is a reason to be hopeful:

Enjoy and you can watch the whole thing at http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04272007/watch.html

something light on a rough rough week for the world

2007-04-20T12:28:00.000-07:00

Atheist Missionaries

2007-04-16T10:36:00.000-07:00

Again thanks to my son for hipping me to John Safran...this is quite brilliant

medieval text support

2007-04-16T10:23:00.000-07:00

This is something anyone who has dealt with tech support will appreciate:

More UnPC Jazz observations

2007-04-15T16:27:00.000-07:00

2. “Jazz was exclusively invented and innovated by African-Americans.”
In light of the whole Imus fiasco, with so much sanctimony and hypocrisy floating around (Al Sharpton as a moral leader - please), I wade delicately in here. For the record, Imus is a bizarre mix of social progressive, humorist, sexist and racist. He has become the sacrificial lamb, and if it means we start calling the thousands of Black men to account who casually call each other "nigger" and call women bitches and hos, I shed no tears for the radio host who wanted it both ways. If he can redeem himself and create a better consciousness, and if we can clean up the rampant misogyny in the hip hop world, so much the better. I shed no tears for Imus, but there are far worse offenders on all sides of the racial and political charade. I am also prompted to post this in part by my objection to the last acceptable racist slander in my progressive set (along with bashing Israel, while being conspicuously silent on such paradises as Sudan and Zimbabwe): The contemptuous phrase "White males". Since both Hitler and Einstein were "white males" I find it as simplistic and bigoted a term as any other, and no more universal.

As for jazz and race, a hot button here. Run for the hills, man, run for the hills. I can understand why many Blacks have laid claim to jazz as their cultural birthright, and it is certainly true that the healthy majority of the great innovators in jazz until the 1960s were indeed Black. However, jazz was a meeting ground, a stew, a mixture of cultures from its earliest times. New Orleans jazz was a blend of Black, Caribbean, Spanish, French and European musicians, influences and bands, and of course the Creoles insisted on their uniqueness from their darker-skinned cousins. Jelly Roll Morton rejected attempts to describe him as black, and by the 1920s some of the most important and influential jazz musicians on the scene were white (Beiderbecke, Teagarden, Trumbauer, the Dorseys, Django) and that has been the case ever since. Richard Sudhalter’s book “lost chords” does an excellent and irrefutable job of laying out the case for the considerable influence of Whites on early jazz. I will repeat, just so no one misunderstands, the substantial majority of great jazz players all the way through the 1950s were Black, no question. However, there has always been a highly significant contribution by Whites (interestingly enough largely Jewish and Italian) since the beginning. Jazz prior to 1960 without Beiderbecke, Teagarden, Shaw, Goodman, both Dorseys, Getz, Gil and Bill Evans, Sims, Cohn, Desmond, Shearing, Mulligan, Baker, Konitz, Tristano, Rodney, Pepper and yes, even Brubeck, would have sounded vastly different than it did. Of course, once we get to the 1960s, with Evans in his prime, Haden, Bley, Jarrett, Corea, Motian, Holland, Mclaughlin, Corryel, Lloyd, Brecker, Liebman, Sanborn and so on and so on, it is clear that the music became truly color blind, even if the audience and industry haven’t. Today, many of the most creative jazzers are not even American, from Nguyen Lee to Richard Bona to Jean Michel Pilc.

So this is my standard disclaimer. Anyone who has read what I wrote on the institutional racism in basketball or checked out my general political orientation will know that I am appalled at the unequal obstacles faced by Blacks at the hands of Whites in almost every aspect of society. Until they find out I am Jewish and that I object vehemently to racist comments, many whites casually spew their bile about blacks (and often about Jews) to me. Oh, and news flash. Stop lumping in Jews with other "Whites", since we have never been wholly accepted by the club. I know the deal here, and it is sickening that so many folks still think in such reductive and scientifically indefensible ways. Race is a social construct, invented to stratify and justify slavery, and is biologically invalid. There are 6 genes out of 40,000 that make up skin color, so I utterly reject any biological deficit or asset being assigned based on race. Also, as a Jew, I am in the unique position of being viewed as white by many in the black community and being viewed as NOT white by many in the white community. This status as an outsider gives me a rare chance to look at it a little less impassionedly. Still, I stand by my main point. Jazz, from its earliest recorded evidence, has always been a mix of cultures, never the exclusive province of one ethnic group.

My son has turned me onto a wonderful social critic and humorist named John Safran. I think his scathing and brave visit to the KKK speaks eloquently to the utter blind alley of race I have written about today.

On Pat Metheney, Rachel Z, Billy Collins, Barack Obama and Mi Vida Loca.

2007-03-29T15:25:00.000-07:00

Last night, thanks to my friends Susan Muscarella and Robert Cole, drummer bro Michael Barsimanto and I caught Pat Metheney’s and Brad Melhdau at Zellerbach. It was the end of an exhausting if fulfilling day, which had started with helping work on the curriculum for a new bachelor’s degree in jazz studies I am involved in designing, went through a vigorous 2 hour union meeting at my college where I am the Union VP, and then went on to helping beginning improv students transcribe a chorus of Miles’ So What. I was quite toasted by the time I went there, and it was a 2 and a half hour concert without a break, but I was very glad to have gone. The thing that struck me the most was the wonderful level of beauty and catharsis intrinsic in Metheney’s playing. Astonishingly, Pat is still only 53! Amazing as that may seem, when one remembers that he burst on the scene as an 18 year old wunderkind, it makes sense. He is about 6 years older than me and more or less from the same generation. I love that generation, the generation of Jaco and Brecker and Lieb and Weather Report, etc…when we were learning to play, we learned Metheney and Charles Lloyd and Wayne and Brecker tunes as happily and readily as standards and Bird and Monk and Mingus tunes. It was a time when jazz drew gladly and unselfconsciously from any and all influences, and there were no stiffbacked, expensive-suited disapproving keepers of the neo-con flame and no ironic eyebrow-raisers who thought that any jazz played with full passion and commitment, mastery and lack of a “concept” was too sincere.

Metheney is a chief exemplar of that catholic and all-embracing approach, equally at home in burning swing, aching pop, singing folk, shredding rock and avant-free-noise. To be frank, much of the material on his own records has been rather maudlin to me, stuffed with lots and lots of pretty “smooth” chords and melodies. However, at other times, his melding of head and heart, utter mastery of his instrument, and beautifully liquid and emotive tone are non pareil, and he, along with Abercrombie, phrases and legatoizes more like a horn player than any other modern guitarist I can think of. At this concert, his range was phenomenal, from blinding swing, to near-grunger, from the most delicate of filigreed acoustic to the ever-controversial guitar-synth tpt sound. Metheney is a true master, and, like all the greats, he is capable of connecting at once on a deeply emotive and cerebral level, effortlessly blended into his unique voice.

I enjoyed the rest of the group too, especially Jeff Ballard, who has brought a certain fire and swing to the rather reserved Mehldau trio. Grenadier, of course, is a flawless and endlessly musical bassist, well-suited to Brad’s aesthetic. I wish Brad had been stronger in the mix. Maybe it was Metheney’s sound man, but Brad was playing a glorious 9 foot Steinway, and the sound was tinny and disappeared into the rest of the band at times. Brad has impeccable and very inventive time and phrasing. I recognize his complete virtuosity. To me, his approach rings a little austere and reserved. I am drawn more towards nakedly emotive, unabashedly beautiful and swinging pianists like Jarrett, Herbie, Bill Evans, Kenny Kirkland and Dave Kikoski, but that is merely a matter of taste, and is a purely subjective response. There is no dispute as to Brad's virtuosity, invention or connection with many music lovers.

Speaking of pianists, my good friend of 27 years now, Rachel Z, was in town at Yoshi’s and asked me to come sit in with her trio last Monday (March 26). I’ve known Rachel since I was 20 and she was 18, so it is great to have such a long friendship, both musical and personal. Her band sounded powerful and has an interesting twist, picking up on Herbie’s New Standards idea. The vast bulk of their tunes are reworkings of contemporary pop, such as Death cab for Cutie, Joy Division, etc. Very cool, and very much jazz, most containing at least a section of burning uptempo swing. Her husband and musical partner is Bobby Ray, a great drummer who draws as much from funk and pop and hip hop as he does from jazz. He reminds me again (there seems to be a theme developing here) of how when we came up, most of the drummers were drawing as much from funk and pop as they were from jazz, as were we all, and I think it was a much more organic and natural way to develop the music than the hot house flowers who can burn on giant steps and do ECM and free, but couldn’t play a shuffle or a funk tune if their lives literally depended on it. Bobby is also an excellent tone painter, and has a lovely and dramatic sense of dynamics. Rachel, of course, draws as much on folk, pop and classical as she does on Herbie and McCoy and Bud, so she too has a very natural synthesis of what has happened in music the past 50 years.

What I also think is cool is that they have given a young woman bassist, Maeve, from the New School, a chance to tour with them, and she has grown exponentially as a player the past year since I heard her last. There is a grand tradition of nurturing young players, and I know that I was given an opportunity to play with masters long before I had any business on the stage with them, so it is nice to see that tradition continue with Rachel, Bobby and their young bassist. I hasten to add that she absolutely has business on the stage, and I am very excited to watch her continued development. Obviously, this is what I do in all of my jazz teaching, mentoring and playing with young talent, so it resonates with me very much that they are doing this in Rachel’s group. (In a related development, on my gig at Anna’s Jazz Island on April 6, I too will be using a youngster on a gig, a 15-year-old pianist named Danny Mertens. I don’t want to build Danny up too much, but I will leave it at saying that this is the first time I have ever hired someone that young for a gig, and I think he is ready.)

Later, Rachel and Bobby and I hung at an Oakland Chinese restaurant until 3 in the morning, catching up and shooting the shit. I mentioned to them both that I am working on several very exciting musical projects and thought they would be ideal for one in particular: I have gotten the go ahead from the poet Billy Collins to set his poems to music, which is a major thrill. I love his poetry, feeling it is the equivalent of a Wayne Shorter song (the highest praise I can give), seemingly simple and deceptively so, but packing an enormous amount of craft and, more importantly, a profound emotional wallop beneath the surface. This has been very exciting music for me to work on, as it brings me full circle to the time I set Langston Hughes poems to music for a song cycle when I was 24. Now, I feel that I have a mature and distinct voice as a composer, and the joy of working with Billy’s wondrous language is that it allows me to naturally draw from all of the elements that make up my musical language, from jazz to pop to folk to 20th century classical. Therefore, I need musicians who are also comfortable and conversant with all of these worlds, and both Rachel and Bobby Ray are. Stay tuned on this one…

Speaking of upcoming projects, I have interesting ones on the horizon this next year include a 2 drummer, 2 sax record with Dave Liebman, Steve Smith and Lieb’s drummer Marko Marcinko. This is Marko’s brainstorm and should be very cool…as well, the brilliant guitarist John Stowell and I are planning to document our ongoing musical association with a recording in June. Another cool one is that LA drummer Michael Barsimanto and I hope to do some sort of tour and recording in the fall, possibly with Lieb. Bars has become a good friend and is a world-class modern drummer, so that should be fun. Locally, I am part of a very high-level collective, a chordless quintet made up of yours truly, John Gove on trombone, Erik Jekabson on Tpt, Peter Barshay on bass and Jeff Marrs on drums. A pianoless modern messengers so to speak. We’ll be doing our debut gig at Pearl’s on April 26, and it should be worth checking out. John is just about the only trombone player I have ever played with who makes you forget he is playing a basically unplayable instrument (unplayable for modern jazz that is). He phrases beautifully, never stumbles on the changes, head or tempo, and is just a damned good musician. Erik is an outstanding soloist, very musical and thoughtful, and of course Peter and Jeff have turned into probably the most fiery and “East Coast” style rhythm section in the Bay Area. We will be recording that group this Spring as well.

Lastly, I have been asked by my wife Carla, to produce her jazz CD this fall. This is probably the furthest thing from nepotism one could imagine, because Carla and I are going through a truly painful and wrenching separation after 25 years. However, we have a powerful creative connection and mutual admiration society. I believe she is as good a singer as I have ever worked with, and again (the theme is tied up) draws, as all of the good musicians who grew up in the 70s and 80s did, comfortably from jazz, folk, pop and classical elements, so I look forward to that.

Frankly, to get a little confessional here, between the separation and the ongoing progressive illness of my father, this has been an extremely tough personal run for me, and the hardest thing for me is to sit with the aloneness and pain of not being with the person one fell in love with in 1981, to sit with that reality, rather than rush to someone else too soon so as to mask the pain of mourning. In a deep irony, the man I would turn to in years past for words of wisdom is my father, and his illness makes him incapable of that. They say that separating (not ready to use the D word yet) is as hard as the death of a loved one, and the support for it is haphazard, since your married friends can’t relate or are terrified that the virus will infect them, and your single friends, some of whom have been single for too many years don’t have a lot of sympathy for your newly single state. However, I have had a number of friends, usually folks who have been through the “D” word, who can relate and listen to one’s tale of woe.

It is a fascinating experience to be going through this as my “career” cup seems to be filling up. I do count my blessings. As I speak, the warm sun is outside the door, the dogs contentedly rest after a daily run (Duke has lost 11 lbs on our Labrador weight-loss program), my jazzschool ensemble has won 3 more downbeat awards, I may do 6 CDs this coming year and am writing and playing better than ever. I continue to live a life where I make an excellent and relatively secure living solely from playing and teaching jazz, which I know is a rarity. I live in the most desirable area in the entire country, far from the cold and heat and the red state fox news lunacy. Other than the fact that my favorite style of coffee, french press, raises bad cholesterol, the daily comforts are good. I am thankful for all of that and, of course, most of all for the continued joy of seeing my astounding son grow and develop. He will be back soon, and, sore back willing, I will take him to see the Phoenix Suns against the Warriors tonight.

I am sure that a subheading of optimist is Warriors fan, and there is no doubt I am an optimist, so I will leave you with this. Rebecca Solnit observed that the only unforgivable sin is to sin against hope. In that regard, I have thrown my lot in with Barack Obama, who evinces a sincerity and authenticity and hopefulness I have never experienced with a politician. I went to his rally in Oakland and it was magnificent. 12,000 people jammed into every corner, on every lamp post, some of us even climbing on news trucks to catch a glimpse. I choose to believe. He is the anti-Hillary, that charisma-challenged, calculating and utterly inauthentic Clinton, and I think he, as a vehicle for hope and change, can bring us forward. I don’t think he is perfect, but that is fine, and as I have been repeatedly reminded, perfect is the enemy of good. However, my support of a candidate is usual the kiss of defeat, so, in light of that, I shall volunteer for Hillary. Here's to hope...

a few observations

2007-03-16T00:47:00.000-07:00

It has been a long while since I have posted, so just a few thoughts to break the drought. It has been a long and strange journey for me the past 3 years, far too much to get into here, but suffice to say my life has gone through some cataclysmic upheavals. Really, the unsettled weather started about 6 years ago. Nothing that most humans don't experience, but it has been tumultuous and humbling. Still there is much good that has transpired the past few months. I got the green light on perhaps the best music I think i have ever written, involving a very prominent poet who's words move me and inspire. (more to come.) there are also three other very cool recording projects in the works, have done some very fun gigs, taught a couple of times at Stanford, my jazzschool group has received a couple of tremendous national honors, and, perhaps most important of all, my father has been much better recently, and I am committed to visiting him as much as possible. I have recently read a poem about relationships describing them as vines entwined, and how the stronger vine can suffocate the weaker, and how it takes an intrepid gardener to cut them so they can grow separately. Perhaps, though humans are not vines. It is a more complicated proposition. What I do know is that it is impossible for a vine or a human to separate from another vine (or human) while simultaneously being wrapped around a new vine (or human). The vine (or human) that is simultaneously being separated and rewrapped will once again suffocate. I know in my life I have always been defined and self-defined by my relationship to a woman, and now I am engaged in the tough and arduous process of redefining myself autonomously. It is quite a trip, it is very early, and I hve absolutely no idea how it will turn out, but I am grateful for the support of my friends and the beauty of watching my son thrive and prosper...lastly, I have been to many fairly stultifying meetings lately in my new job as vice-president of my college's union. I will say this: in my experience, as a general rule, folks who use the phrase "think outside the box" don't, and folks who are creative don't hold workshops or seminars or read self-help books on how to be creative...they simply create. I leave you with this positive affirmation...

Phil Woods on Bud Shank

2007-02-01T22:11:00.000-08:00

My friend, Michael Barsimanto, one of Lieb's fave unsung drummers, sent me this letter from Phil Woods. Hard to argue with his sentiment nor his way of expressing it.

Hello Jazz lovers, wherever you are!

I continue to be a fly on the windshield of the jazz industry. (HA!) I presume you know that Bud Shank was fired from his post as founder and guiding light of the Bud Shank Workshop in Port Townsend, WA. He has been the 'man' there for 25 plus years, assembling one of the best teaching ensembles ever! But now they want a younger man with young ideas! Outsourcing the wrong guy folks! It only takes forever to learn this music thing and even longer to come to terms with this jazz thing. And they want a younger guy. Any damn fool can play when they are 20, or 30, 0r 40, 50, 60. But try cutting the mustard when you are in your late 70's! Now anyone that can do that has acquired knowledge that no younger person can ev er hope to learn.

The jazz existence, or any existence is not about getting somewhere it is all about the voyage. No one can ever master life, only experience it and contribute something to making the world a better place to be an artist. ARTIST is the key word. If you want to be a practical musician, great. Get some gigs and have a good life. But if you want to be a jazz musician, the requirements are more stringent. An awareness of world culture is a good place to start! Learn something about food and wine, learn a language, read a book, paint a painting, see an O'Neill play, stare at a sunset. Write a rondo, for heaven's sake—be somebody! And no matter how long you do it, you will barely touch the surface of this passion called life, the jazz life! You have to be a warrior. Bud Shank is a warrior, a tough one who has survived! What he has to teach is incalculable to measure. And they want a younger guy. How about Norah Jones to teach jazz singing ? Yeah! Right! Bud and I have been doing many gigs together, Toronto festival, North Sea and others. We broached Concord records to try and secure a one shot record deal for Yoshi's in November. They said that instrumental music doesn't sell anymore! Imagine! A company founded on instrumental music, great music, decides that it doesn't sell anymore. I am mad as hell and will continue to rant and rave about these things until my last breath. Culture in America is going to hell in a hand basket. (I love that saw - don't know what it means but love it still.) Keep the song alive. Until next time stay well. And thank you for being a part of my thing!

Phil Woods

a brief one

2007-01-31T10:27:00.000-08:00

As I watch the almost inconceivably varied ways in which humans currently kill, maim, torture, revile and debase each other, all in the name of various Gods, I am reminded that Richard Dawkins, author of "the God Delusion" has a great observation. I am paraphrasing, but essentially he says "Everyone is an atheist about all Gods except one. We atheists just take it one more step." "God is a concept by which we measure our pain" was a pretty sharp thought for a working-class kid from Liverpool. We come from Chimps (patriarchal, meat-eating, monogamous and warlike) and Bonobos (matriarchal, vegetarian, polyamorous and nurturing) so the question is, can the bonobos seduce the chimps before the chimps kill us all? First thing we have to deal with is there is a mix of chimp and bonobo in each one of us and I am trying very hard to get my inner bonobo to seduce my inner chimp...not sure how well that is working out. It is not too much of a stretch to say Bush is our collective Chimp and, perhaps, Obama can be our collective Bonobo?

Ultimately, if we believe in free will (and that's come into serious question!), the choice is ours...

something fun and light (we could use it)

2007-01-23T23:03:00.000-08:00

My good friend Mike Charlasch sent me this. A lot of fun - wonder who won the debate?

For Michael Brecker

2007-01-15T22:58:00.000-08:00

I recall Gil Evans being interviewed on Miles Davis for some documentary or other a number of years back. His main point was that sound innovators, people who changed the very nature of the sound of the instrument were rare indeed, and that Miles (of course) was one of those extremely rare diamonds. I write this on Monday, two days after hearing of the death of Michael Brecker and can’t help but observe that Michael fell into that category as well. An incredibly small # of musicians have changed the way most of us play and think about this or any music, and Michael was one of the chosen few.

I heard about his passing as I walked into the exhibit hall at the IAJE in Manhattan and it was a moment of utter shock to get the news. I needed to be alone for some time and even wondered how I would be able to talk with people in what is a pretty intense and self-promoting atmosphere at times. Then I decided to continue on in to the maze of booths. After all, who would possibly understand the collective and individual loss more than my fellow jazz monks? As terrible as it was to know he was gone (as was Alice Coltrane, rest her soul), it seemed completely right in some way to be here, at the epicenter of the jazz universe, with thousands of others who would understand who had been taken away better than virtually anyone else we could be with. As I walked around, I found myself in the sad position of telling some friends about it, while others already new. Sometimes, we just had to look at each other and we both knew we knew. Sometimes, the simple phrase “you’ve heard?” was all we needed to say. There was a true melancholy infusing the enormous exhibit space, the hotel lobbies and the bars where various performances were going on. Most of us were reflecting on the day, lost in our sadness and gratitude that Brecker had been in the musical world and remembering him and what he had meant to each of us. My heart went out especially to Lieb, manfully holding court in his booth as well-intentioned strangers and near strangers offered their sympathies to him. I remember hoping he could find a space and time to get away to be with his own thoughts for a man who had become almost a brother to him.

Even though we had all known about Michael’s illness for years it was a profoundly sad moment. We had all grown to love him in our own way, and, like every self-respecting musician I know of Jewish descent (and many non-Jews), I got tested in the vain hope that I was a match. How could ANY sax player make a different choice? Simply put, as a friend of mine observed, Michael is in the DNA of every saxophonist of the past 30 years, easily the most universally influential jazz musician since Coltrane. Even those who consciously and deliberately chose another path were doing so in reaction to Michael. It was said of Michael’s very close friend, Joe Lovano, that one reason he worked so much was that he was the “anti-Brecker” stylistically, and people were tired of all the pallid Brecker clones out there, esp. in the mid-1980s. No coincidence that three genuine originals like Brecker, Liebman and Lovano were drawn to play together in the last few years Michael was with us.

On a personal level, I got to know Michael just a little, and felt privileged to have been able to do so. My friends James Genus and Rodney Holmes were playing with the Brecker Brothers and James went on to play in Mike’s quartet for a number of years. As well, my friend Steve Smith was very close with Michael, as was my friend and mentor Lieb. In those contexts and others, I got to see him in more relaxed settings, away from the adoring mobs of sax players who flocked to his gigs. Mike didn’t want to be anybody’s hero or icon. As a matter of fact, it was only when I was able to step past my own stark musical adulation and speak about the mutual pitfalls and interests that all sax players and humans have that I was able to connect with him on a human level. He was witty, fun-loving, thoughtful, curious, extremely self-deprecating and generous. To witness such an unimaginably virtuosic innovator being almost unthinkably humble about his gifts was a lesson learned. It was also consistent with what I have observed again and again. The truly good and great musicians are often the most open and happy and supportive of other good musicians (famous or not). They know their gifts and have no real compulsion to either advertise them or run down others.
He was kind enough to write nice things about a couple of my records and my music, an altruism he replicated with dozens and dozens of other musicians. I will always be grateful and humbled that he did so, and that he took the time to email me on occasion, even during his wrenchingly difficult illness.

What was it about his playing that was so compelling? Well, words are always an imperfect vehicle for describing a discreet language like music, so forgive my efforts, but here’s how I see it:

I remember the first time I ever heard him play. It was on Billy Cobham’s Crossroads record, and there was a solo sax break with drums. Mike’s combination of a searingly beautiful, slightly edgier, more soulfunk Trane sound, utterly precise and surefooted rhythm, incorporation of Trane’s (and I later discovered his, Liebman and Grossman’s innovations forged in the ferment of late 1960s early 1970s NYC) harmonic breakthroughs, and an unprecedented level of virtuosic fire – these were all there then and I still hear them as the hallmarks of his unique and massively pervasive presence in our collective saxophone unconscious.

Mike’s playing, while eons-deep in the language of Trane, as well as the great soul jazz players, was also completely contemporary and present-day. I have never heard a more exciting sax soloist, and he had the ability, like all transcendent jazz artists, to communicate on both the head and the heart level, reaching layman, master musicians and everyone in-between. Mike’s combination of perfect intonation, comprehensive mastery of every facet of the horn, unprecedented virtuosity, incredible instinct for building and developing a solo into a Bacchanalian frenzy of precise intensity, all of these were sui generis. He spawned years and years of fervent disciples, and I can think of at least 25 or so current tenor players who owe their living as international jazz players to their unadulterated plagiarism of Brecker. I myself am a reformed Breckerholic, ever grateful to Dave Liebman for steering me away from the path of slavish imitation at an early enough age. I am reminded of my wise composition teacher Robert Didomenica’s adage about Mozart and I tell my students the same thing about Michael. “You can’t be Michael Brecker. He’s already done that. You have to be yourself.”

I am in a position now where I hear and, fairly regularly, teach some of the beautiful hot house flowers coming up through the specialized schools. What with all the honors bands, grammy bands, special camps, festivals, myriad transcription books, play-a-longs, meticulously presented fake books, method books, etc, etc, the students have so much more opportunity and can get there so much quicker than we could. And yet…and yet. I think of the massive variety of work experience Brecker’s generation and even mine had, from blues dives to r& B joints, to wedding gigs, to rock clubs, and I sometimes think that our antisepticising and museumising of the music has taken something sacred and profane out of it. Michael’s marriage of the urgency and rawness of blues, soul and funk with the melodicism and soaring sound of pop and the high church of John Coltrane is the epitome of what I think a modern musician should be. We need to get some of that blood and blues so well-shouted by Michael Brecker back into the music before it all becomes precious temperature-controlled orchids disconnected from the wilderness and the urgent cry which infuses all vital music with its life pulse.

Even if I had never gotten to know him, Mike Brecker’s playing would have transformed my life as it changed the musical lives of so many countless others. His brilliance, universal sound, unparalleled virtuosity and melding of Trane, funk-soul and the lofts changed the saxophone, changed music and, by doing so, changed the world. Michael Brecker will be missed but he will live on through all of us. He is in the DNA of everyone who plays and listens to music today.