.Journal de bord.

Dhafer Youssef (oud) with Tigran Hamasyan (piano), Chris...

Thu, 31 May 2012 11:22:48 +0200

Dhafer Youssef (oud) with Tigran Hamasyan (piano), Chris Jennings (double bass) and the uncanny Mark Guiliana (drums) playing Les Ombres Orientales, one of the many excellent tracks of Dhafer’s last album to date, Abu Nawas Rhapsody.

You can listen to the album version on Grooveshark.

Dhafer Youssef is one my two favorite oud players, the other being his tunisian compatriot Anouar Brahem.

Back in 2007, speaking about Byzance, another fantastic track on which Dhafer sides with guitarist Nguyên Lê and trumpeter Paolo Fresu I wrote: Featuring two of my favorite artists, Guitar player Nguyên Lê and Oud player Dhafer Youssef, it has something very special that I can’t define clearly in words, that “transcends” Music and gives me a ruch of amazing and very enjoyable emotions with its oriental, almost hypnotic, tone.

Enough words. I will let the Music speaks for itself.

"So in Europe the depressed economy has caused fiscal crises, in which private investors are no..."

Mon, 28 May 2012 09:58:41 +0200

“So in Europe the depressed economy has caused fiscal crises, in which private investors are no longer willing to lend to a number of countries. And the response to these fiscal crises–frantic, savage attempts to slash spending–has pushed unemployment all around Europe’s periphery to Great Depression levels, and seems at the time of writing to be pushing Europe back into outright recession.”

- Krugman, Paul. End This Depression Now! Page 18. W.W. Norton & Company.

"[…] If this is a terrible time to be young in America, with its 17 percent unemployment rate..."

Sun, 27 May 2012 09:57:35 +0200

“[…] If this is a terrible time to be young in America, with its 17 percent unemployment rate among those under twenty-five, it’s a nightmare in Italy, where the youth unemployment rate is 28 percent, in Ireland, where it’s 30 percent, and in Spain, where it’s 43 percent.”

- Krugman, Paul. End This Depression Now! Page 18. W.W. Norton & Company.

Fitness can have very positive effects on your health and on...

Sat, 26 May 2012 14:55:00 +0200

Fitness can have very positive effects on your health and on your body as this picture demonstrates. It was taken of a man before and after 1 day of bodybuilding. This is science. Absolute guarantee. No scam. No photoshopping. We might have leveraged a bit of time travel to have this man, before and after exercising on the same picture :-)

Well, OK, bodybuilding can make you a bit taller and curl your hair. And if you wonder why the skin is darker, wonder no more! Look at the sun surrounding the subject!

"Educating the young is crucial for the twenty-first century–so say all the politicians and pundits...."

Sat, 26 May 2012 09:56:34 +0200

“Educating the young is crucial for the twenty-first century–so say all the politicians and pundits. Yet the ongoing slump, by creating a fiscal crisis for state and local governments, has led to the laying off of some 300,000 schoolteachers.”

- Krugman, Paul. End This Depression Now! Page 16. W.W. Norton & Company.

"Amid all the excuses you hear for not taking action to end this depression, one refrain is repeated..."

Fri, 25 May 2012 10:01:43 +0200

“

Amid all the excuses you hear for not taking action to end this depression, one refrain is repeated constantly by apologists for inaction: we need, they say, to focus on the long run, not the short run.

This is wrong on multiple levels, as we’ll see later in this book. Among other things, it involves an intellectual abdication, a refusal to accept responsibility for understating the current depression; it’s tempting and easy to wave all this unpleasantness away and talk airily about the long run, but that’s taking the lazy, cowardly way out. John Maynard Keynes was making exactly this point when he wrote one of his most famous passages: “This long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run, we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is long past the sea is flat again.”

Focusing only on the long run means ignoring the vast suffering the current depression is inflicting, the lives it is ruining irreparably as you read this. But that’s not all. Our short-run problems–if you can call a slump now in its fifth year “short-run”–are hurting our long-run prospects too, through multiple channels.

”

- Krugman, Paul. End This Depression Now! Page 15. W.W. Norton & Company.

Pharoah Sanders is among my favorite, if not sacred, jazz...

Thu, 24 May 2012 21:39:41 +0200

Pharoah Sanders is among my favorite, if not sacred, jazz artists. Ornette Coleman described him as probably the best tenor (sax) player in the world. Our Roots (Began in Africa) is the first track of Message from Home, a record released on Verve Records in 1996 as a CD and a LP (a French pressing, merci beaucoup!).

If you give all due care and respect to this amazing track, you’ll certainly get drawn to the superb percussions played by no less than Hamid Drake.

This track ended the May 22, 2012 JazzaFIP session, a top-notch jazz radio program which is available as a podcast.

Our roots began in Africa. Our roots began in Africa. Our roots…

"One more thing: there has been a sharp increase in the number of Americans aged between twenty-four..."

Thu, 24 May 2012 10:01:26 +0200

“One more thing: there has been a sharp increase in the number of Americans aged between twenty-four and thirty-four living with their parents. This doesn’t represent a sudden rush of filial devotion; it represents a radical reduction of opportunities to leave the nest.”

- Krugman, Paul. End This Depression Now! Page 11. W.W. Norton & Company.

Jazz great Yusef Lateef playing Like It Is. This is the second...

Wed, 23 May 2012 14:31:44 +0200

Jazz great Yusef Lateef playing Like It Is. This is the second track of The Blue Yusef Lateef issued on Atlantic Records in 1968. The strings quartet accompanying Mr. Lateef on this awesome piece of Music is conducted by William Fischer.

jazz. What else?

"Does being unemployed for a long time really erode work skills, and make you a poor hire? Does the..."

Wed, 23 May 2012 10:01:19 +0200

“Does being unemployed for a long time really erode work skills, and make you a poor hire? Does the fact that you were one of the long-term unemployed indicate that you were a loser in the first place? Maybe not, but many employers think it does, and for the worker that may be all that matters. Lose a job in this economy, and it’s very hard to find another; stay unemployed for long enough, and you will be considered unemployable.”

- Krugman, Paul. End This Depression Now! Page 10. W.W. Norton & Company.

"Now, there have always been people claiming that there’s no such thing as involuntary..."

Tue, 22 May 2012 10:42:55 +0200

“

Now, there have always been people claiming that there’s no such thing as involuntary unemployment, that anyone can find a job if he or she is really willing to work and isn’t too finicky about wages or working conditions. There’s Sharron Angle, the Republican candidate for Senate, who declared in 2010 that the unemployed were “spoiled”, choosing to live off unemployment benefits instead of taking jobs. There are the people at the Chicago Board of Trade who, in October 2011, mocked anti-inequality demonstrators by showering them with copies of McDonald’s job application forms. And there are economists like the University of Chicago’s Casey Mulligan, who has written multiple articles for the New York Times website insisting that the sharp drop in employment after the 2008 financial crisis reflected not a lack of employment opportunities but diminished willingless to work.

The classic answer to such people comes from a passage near the beginning of the novel The Treasure of the Sierra Madre […]: “Anyone who is willing to work and is serious about it will certainly find a job. Only you must not go to the man who tells you this, for he has no job to offer and doesn’t know anyone who knows of a vacancy. This is exactly the reason why he gives you such generous advice, out of brotherly love, and to demonstrate how little he knows the world”.

Quite. Also, about those McDonald’s applications: in April 2011, as it happens, McDonald’s did announce 50,000 new job openings. Roughly a million people applied.

”

- Krugman, Paul. End This Depression Now! Pages 6-7. W.W. Norton & Company.

I seldom listen to Electronica. I only do so when a title...

Mon, 07 May 2012 17:23:41 +0200

I seldom listen to Electronica. I only do so when a title catches my ears and grooves me to the bones after listening to it on Radio Nova, one of my favorite radio stations (minus the very annoying ads).

I’ve been following Santigold’s production on and off for a few years now and so far I dig many tracks. I first heard Disparate Youth a few weeks ago and I enjoy listening it. I like the eery beats and the laid-back voice with a grain of falsetto fabric.

Enjoy!

D’Angelo playing Spanish Joint featured in Voodoo which...

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 11:51:41 +0200

D’Angelo playing Spanish Joint featured in Voodoo which was released in 2000. I can’t express how much I like listening to this song backed by the amazing Roy Hargrove’s trumpet and by no less than Ahmir Thomson a.k.a. ?uestlove of The Roots fame at the drums.

Listen to the music and don’t be taken aback with the muscled attitude on the album’s cover art.

jazz is life. Life is jazz. It is even more true with a grain of soul or two…

The Train From Washington, another great song by Gil...

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 13:21:36 +0200

The Train From Washington, another great song by Gil Scott-Heron, featured in Real Eyes (1980).

[…]
You can depend on the politicians yeah
Always got a point of view
They are contemporary court magicians yeah
Sleight of mouth will dazzle you
You can depend on the repositions from them
Changes that you’ve got to go through
But don’t depend on the train from Washington
It’s one hundred years overdue

"Martine Aubry, a French Socialist, pondered the plight of Europe’s young people. “For the first..."

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 19:18:21 +0200

“

Martine Aubry, a French Socialist, pondered the plight of Europe’s young people. “For the first time,” she said, “parents are saying that things are going to be worse for their children. Before, they saw society as constantly improving.”

A commonplace of our times? Certainly.

[…]

But the point about Ms. Aubry’s remark was that it was made in 1993, when youth unemployment in her own country had also reached more than 23 percent and when the number of young jobless people in Spain was almost 40 percent.

”

- http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/10/world/europe/10iht-letter10.html?_r=1

I’m Gonna Love You Just A Little Bit More Baby by Barry...

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 10:46:21 +0200

I’m Gonna Love You Just A Little Bit More Baby by Barry White. One of the key tracks of his I’ve Got Some Much To Give album, released back in… 1973. The opening beats are completely crazy. And don’t get me started about the arrangements.

You can get a decent vinyl from Discogs.com for as little as 3.50€.

"La frontière entre la gratuité et l’intérêt ne passe pas le long de la haie de notre jardin ou..."

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 10:00:06 +0100

“

La frontière entre la gratuité et l’intérêt ne passe pas le long de la haie de notre jardin ou sur notre palier d’étage, ou même à l’entrée de nos bureaux ! C’est au cœur même de notre être qu’elle s’inscrit. La place que je fais à la gratuité dans ma vie est un choix.

Ce choix ne dépend d’aucun système, je ne suis victime d’aucune conspiration. Il est entre mes mains. Tous les matins, entre l’ombre et la lumière.

Parler de l’ombre, donc, de son omniprésence. Dans l’envie qui se travestit, dans les peurs qui se démasquent. Dans les grandes compromissions déguisées en petits compromis. L’ombre lorsque la force devient violence.

”

- Faber, Emmanuel. Chemins de traverse. Pages 123-124. Editions Albin Michel.

The Bar-Kays playing Son of Shaft live in 1973. Look at those...

Fri, 16 Mar 2012 23:54:38 +0100

The Bar-Kays playing Son of Shaft live in 1973. Look at those incredible outfits and feel the vibes. Funk will never die.

Vijay Iyer Trio’s Historicity album is incredibly good....

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 11:18:58 +0100

Vijay Iyer Trio’s Historicity album is incredibly good. Galang is one of my (many) favorite tracks on the album. The groove and rhythm are simply out-worldly. Who said life can go on without jazz?

Etta James died on Friday January 20 out of leukemia...

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 01:18:23 +0100

Etta James died on Friday January 20 out of leukemia complications. She had many ups and downs throughout her career while struggling with drug addiction. Nonetheless, her powerful voice with its huge range cannot be ignored among the constellation of great music artists. Rest in peace Etta, may your contributions stay with us forever.