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Last Week in San Juan

Vallejo Nocturno 2020

Minimalism

From Hazlit, an interview with cultural critic Kyle Chayka on his book about minimalism:

Isabel Slone: Throughout the book, there are snippets of your own interest in minimalism: a wardrobe filled with grey clothing and a relatively empty Brooklyn apartment save for your roommate’s stuff. How would you describe your own personal relationship with minimalism?

Kyle Chayka: I started paying attention in 2015-2016, when I kept seeing the word minimalism pop up all over the place, used to describe the interior of a bar or a restaurant or a hotel. People were also talking about how they were living a lifestyle that didn’t put much stock into material possessions. And I had been looking a lot at this magazine, called Kinfolk, which ushered in this hipster-minimalist aesthetic of Spartan living. Around that time, minimalism was everywhere, but then I remembered that Agnes Martin and Donald Judd were part of an art movement in the 1960s called minimalism, and the work they made seemed to have little connection to what people were talking about as minimalism today. So I got interested in that disconnect between how people were using the word and the origins of the word.

You clearly appreciate the aesthetics of minimalism, but you stop short of calling yourself a minimalist. Why is that?

The aesthetic of minimalism has always really appealed to me; bare empty rooms, the art gallery vibe. But the label of minimalism that emerged over the past 5-10 years actually doesn’t have that much to do with the ideas behind minimalism and minimalist art that attracted me. The thing that makes me hesitant is that minimalism as a concept has been super commodified, as we’ve seen with Marie Kondo selling crystals and tuning forks on her website. Minimalism has become a brand that I don’t think has much in common with the original meaning of the term. I wrote the book in some ways to follow that trail and see what it could mean in the future.

I’m curious about how minimalism came to be associated with affluence. It used to be that owning a lot of material objects telegraphed wealth, but now it seems to be the other way around. How did we get to that point?

Right now, minimalism is this commandment to consume fewer, better things. But aesthetics are always evolving and each era and generation has a different idea of what luxury means. In the 1940s and ’50s, post-WWII, the aesthetic of success and luxury in America was material accumulation. It was a house in the suburbs, a fancy car. But at the same time, artists and writers were rebelling against that, especially in New York. Artists started colonizing the factory neighbourhood of SoHo and moving into these giant lofts. Then over the following decades, that kind of industrial austerity became a luxury aesthetic on its own. From the 1980s to the 2000s, fashion brands adopted the lifestyle of the SoHo loft artist as a marker of cool, which they branded and marketed to us as a quote-unquote authentic way of living. Now every new condo building is a loft.

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From 2012 in Lima

Vallejo Nocturno 2020-Tia Pepa in her Garden

Vallejo Nocturno 2012-Tia Margarita and my brother and I

Vallejo Nocturno 2012- Darsi at Tia Pepa's Garden

Vallejo Nocturno 2020- Sunset from La rosa Nautica in Miraflores in the Pacific

My mother had passed away several months before and we were returning to Lima to see what we needed to do with her apartment. It was in mid-summer and though we were happy to be with our family we were now more acutely aware of the passage of time. Strangely but maybe on purpose I had not seen these fotos which we took on that trip down until a week ago, almost 8 years had passed. People have been born and others have passed away. Some have gotten married others separated.

Ed Morales's Colonial History of Puerto Rico

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Best Music of 2019- Julia Hulsmann Quartet

Moody and turbulent, this ECM group provides listeners with unexpected turns and corners as their music grows on you. A signifciant effort that travels far and wide of the emotion sets-both loud and calm. Hoping they'll return and tour the US as they did several years ago.

From Jazz Trail:

German pianist Julia Hülsmann releases her third quartet album on the ECM label with a significant alteration in the ensemble’s lineup. Saxophonist Uli Kempendorff replaces trumpeter Tom Arthurs, leaving a strong impression through consistent thematic developments uttered with pacifying timbres and noir escapes, or getting the shape of fluid phrases that ramp up the flux of emotions. Remaining undivided for 17 years, the rhythm includes bassist Marc Muellbauer and drummer Heinrich Köbberling.

The 13-track album includes five compositions by Hülsmann and two disparate versions of David Bowie’s 1985 hit “This is Not America”. Kempendorff, Muellbauer and Köbberlingand contribute two compositions each to an album that will put the pianist on the map again.

The set opens with "The Art of Failing", a cautious sax/piano duet and one of the examples where the musical empathy between the two musicians in question is underlined. They embark on parallel lines on Muellbauer’s “Le Mistral”, a strong effort smoothly introduced by solo piano before segueing into a dissimulated odd pulse that results from the combination of a bass groove and brushed drums. Hülsmann's radiating comping is pretty effective during Kempendorff’s intense statement.

The spacey rendition of Bowie’s “This is Not America” is still permeated with some tension with bass and saxophone sharing responsibilities in the melodic articulation of the theme. The shorter solo piano version of this same tune closes out the album with more desolation than aspiration.

From Big Takeover:

For her tenth album Not Far From Here, German pianist Julia Hülsmann expands her working trio (herself, bassist Marc Muellbauer, drummer Henrich Köbberling) to a quartet with the addition of tenor saxophonist Uli Kempendorff. Though, as leader of the band, Hülsmann sets the agenda, this group is a true collective, with each member bringing tunes to the table.

That approach allows for some contrast, even as the band’s collective will creates a signature stamp. The playfulness of Hülsmann’s “No Game,” for example, balances the smoky atmosphere of Muellbauer’s “Le Mistral,” while Kempendorff’s exploratory “Einschub” works as a foil to Köbberling’s swinging “Colibri 65.” These are also musicians who can improvise with the best of them without showboating. Hülsmann’s piano solos tend to be melodic and concise, much like her tunes and arrangements, while Muellbauer puts his own spin on Charlie Haden’s ultra-tuneful improv style, and Kempendorff holds back the fire until he simply can’t anymore – cf. Muellbauer’s “Wrong Song” and Hülsmann’s title track.

The Quartet also takes on “This is Not America,” a collaborative single from David Bowie and the Pat Metheny Group from the soundtrack to 1985’s The Falcon and the Snowman. While not intended as a statement, it’s hard not to read political intent in the group’s punchy take on this piece – especially when Hülsmann reiterates its importance to the album by adding a second, solo piano version. But social commentary isn’t the mission of the Julia Hülsmann Quartet – making good music is, and that mission is definitely accomplished on Not Far From Here.

From Jazz Views:

Julia Hülsmann's tenure with ECM has produced some fine recordings, each showing progression and development, and also considerable variation in the scope of the material presented and the musicians she chooses to work with. The recordings are now also starting to fall into two separate entities, with each becoming intertwined with the other so that the distinguishing boundaries are becoming increasingly blurred as they themselves become  less rigidly defined.

The first of these entities is the trio with Muellbauer and Köbberling that has now been together as a unit for some seventeen years, and the group have recorded three albums for the label that all have a developmental logic within each individual release and also collectively as the music and musicians evolve, growing ever closer together. The second is Hülsmann's work featuring other musicians, adding a new voice to the existing trio as heard on the quartet recording with Tom Arthurs on In Full View (2013) and again for A Clear Midnight  (2015) with the same quartet but with another additional voice, that of vocalist Theo Bleckmann.

With Not Far From Here, the pianist again looks to shake things up a little differently with saxophonist, Uli Kempendorff, and once again this provides another string to Hülsmann's bow and manages to bring an entirely new sonic palette yet enhance and extend the work of the trio at the same time.  Tenor saxophonist, Uli Kempendorff is well known to all the musicians here having performed together in different ad hoc groups, but it how the tenor is integrated into the overall sound that marks this recording out as something special.

Kempendorff's playing seems to have everything that Hülsmann could want, encapsulating lyricism with an altogether edgier approach that will also venture into freer harmonic and tonal areas leaving the trio to work with or against his lines as the music dictates. Thus, the album gets off to a fine start with the opening number 'The Art of Failing' never an option, but instead a gentle piece that introduces the saxophonist  with a slow and stately composition that evolves gradually. This lyricism continues with the following, 'Le Mistral', that from the initial melodic statement develops into a nice bass led groove that once again finds Kempendorff at his most lyrical and expressive, with a solo that hints of a stronger and more weighty approach that will be heard later in the set.

Best Music of 2019- Blue Heron

Like a well aged Barolo, Early Music done with the nuances and feeling that Blue Heron applies to the complete songs of Ockeghem is a rare treat. On top of that their new album is so well recorded that you feel your with them-lucky to hear these renditions of a composer I had not listen to previously closely. You can hear from his compositions how influential he is.

From the Boston Globe:

Celebrating someone’s 600th birthday is a rare event. To do so over the course of five or six years is an historical rarity. This is what the Blue Heron ensemble and Music Director, Scott Metcalfe have set out to do, performing the complete works of Johannes Ockeghem (c.1420-1497) over the course of thirteen or fourteen concerts that also includes many other composers

Refreshing is Metcalfe’s attitude (and public assertion), that he and the ensemble are growing with new insights through this project. Performing concerts that feature many composers in addition to Ockeghem, he states that once the cycle is complete, they might just start all over again “because we are learning so much.”

From WTJU FM:

There are two things I can count on: blue-chip stocks, and Blue Heron recordings. The former retain their value year after year. The latter produces top-flight recordings.

This new release is no exception. It’s the first installment of a new series, traversing the songs of 15th Century composer Johannes Ockeghem.

Ockeghem was one of the most influential composers of his day and an important member of the Netherlandish School.

This release features eleven of Ockegem’s secular songs. The texts come from French court poetry. Ockeghem’s music infuses these mannered texts with vitality.

Blue Heron performs to their usual high standards. Their balance between blended voices and individual singers is perfect. I could trace the Ockeghem’s complex counterpoint, while still enjoying the overall effect of the music.

Some tracks have instrumental support, though of a limited form. This helps vary the program and adds to the overall listening experience.

Blue Heron continually explores the early music repertoire for the unusual and under-performed. According to their website, the ensemble will be performing Ockegem’s complete works over a series of thirteen concerts. I don’t know how many CDs that translates into, but I’m in.

From The Boston Musical Intelligencer:

Like a well-seasoned string quartet, Blue Heron simply gets better and better. Now celebrating its 21^st season, the ensemble of highly-skilled singers specializes in late medieval and Renaissance music, much of it previously unknown, Under Music Director Scott Metcalfe, they have embarked on a number of ambitious projects, notably the restoration of a repertory of 16^th-century music for Canterbury Cathedral and the ongoing performance of the complete sacred and secular works of the 15^th-century Flemish composer Johannes Ockeghem. Four years ago Blue Heron and Professor Jessie Ann Owens won the Noah Greenberg award in support of another project: a study culminating in the first complete recording of Cipriano de Rore’s 1542 book of five-voice madrigals. The concert on Friday evening, November 1^st at District Hall on Northern Avenue, Boston, celebrated the release of the 2-CD set.

Born in Flanders and recently arrived in Venice to seek his musical fortune, Cipriano (the Italianized form of his name) was 27 or 28 when he published his set of 20 Madrigals for Five Voices (I madrigali a cinque voci) with the well-known Venetian printer Girolamo Scotto. Madrigals — usually settings of a single poetic stanza in no pre-ordained form — appeared in 16^th-century printed collections comprising either the works of several known or anonymous composers or devoted to the works of a single composer. Rather than a score of superimposed parts, each singer read from a separate partbook containing only his or her own music. In program notes and an introductory talk, Owens presented the “programmatic” scenario that she believes guided both Rore’s choice of texts and the ordering of their settings. Several innovations mark the contents of Rore’s book. First of all, a turn away from shorter poems in a lighter style, usually set for four voices in a relatively simple texture, toward more serious texts, particularly those by Petrarch and his imitators. Of the 20 madrigals in Rore’s set, 16 are sonnets, of which 12 are by Petrarch. The two ballate that frame the collection turn out to be by the priest, poet, and novelist Giovanni Brevio. Owens believes Brevio collaborated with Rore in selecting and ordering the texts in his book. In Owens’s reading, the poetic sequence of 16 sonnets depicts the emotional progress of a lover whose beloved has been taken from him. A mood of frustrated desire and profound sadness in the eight sonnets following the opening ballata turns to resignation and acceptance in the second group of eight. Furthermore, the sequence of sonnet settings is arranged modally, shifting halfway through from “minor” to “major.” By Rore’s time, the “minor” modes, Dorian on D (or transposed to G with a B-flat signature) and Phrygian on E had begun to be adopted in polyphony to represent sadness, while the “major” modes on F and G were associated with a brighter mood. The ordering in Scotto’s 1542 print, which must have been specified by Rore and Brevio, places four sonnet settings in modes 1 and 2 at the head of the sonnet sequence, followed by a second group of four in modes 3 and 4. Pivoting to a brighter mood, the last eight sonnet settings include four on F and four on G. Later editions of the 1542 collection by other Venetian printers abandoned this over-arching formal plan, which Professor Owens hailed as “unprecedented in Renaissance music.”

Although handouts supplied complete texts and translations, Scott Metcalfe’s dramatic readings in English, followed by readings in Italian by Mario Moroni, certainly awakened our senses. Blue Heron’s six singers — soprano Margot Rood and countertenor Martin Near alternating on treble parts, tenors Owen McIntosh, Jason McStoots, and Sumner Thompson, and bass Paul Guttry — sang in perfect attunement with one another as they exchanged exquisite details of phrasing and dynamics and executed shifting rhythmic patterns with apparent ease. The opening ballata set an anguished tone: “I sang while I burned from the living flame/of my fire . . . “ Complex polyphony of interweaving voices in staggered imitative entries gave way to a declamatory outburst in the final, repeated line: “Oh! peace has no place in the hearts of lovers.” The first sonnet of the collection, Petrarch’s famous “Hor che’l ciel et la terra e ‘l vento taci” (Now that the heavens and the earth and the winds are silent), opened quietly, but a dramatic shift appeared already in the second quatrain with the declamation of the words “Veggio, penso, ardo, piango” (I wake, I think, I burn, I weep). Originally written by Francesco Maria Molta to mark the impending departure of Pope Paul III’s niece Vittoria Farnese from Rome, “Altiero sasso” (Proud rock) fits neatly into the sequence of sonnets on abandonment, ending climactically with the line “Cinti d’horor al suo partir vi lassi” (Shall leave you wrapt in horror at her departure). At the center of the sonnet sequence, “Tu piangi, et quella per qui fai tal pianto/Ne ride, et ride ‘l ciel che l’ha raccolta” (You weep, and she for whom you weep/laughs, and heaven laughs, which has received her) by Antonio Tebaldeo, pivots from weeping to acceptance, as the tonality pivots from “minor” Phrygian on E to “major” Lydian on F. Text-generated motives drawing on the rich imagery in Petrarch’s “Quel sempre acerbo et honorato giorno” (That forever cruel and honored day) enhanced the rhythmic vitality of Rore’s setting. In the final sonnet, Petrarch’s “Amor, che vedi ogni pensiero aperto” (Love, you who see plainly my every thought) the bereaved lover declares himself content with the restrained desire that remains to him.

 

Drug Use in the 3rd Reich

 

From a review of the book Blitzed at Not Even Past, makes one wonder what's keeping the slug in DC up:

A German novelist and screenwriter, Norman Ohler first happened upon the topic of drug use in the Third Reich through a Berlin-based DJ, who told him that drugs were widespread at the time. Intending to write a novel on the subject, Ohler went into the archives in search of historical detail for his book. What he found in military records and the personal papers of Hitler’s physician was so astounding that Ohler left the world of fiction to write a work of history.

The result is the highly readable, bitingly ironic Blitzed, that, although not without problems, lends a fresh perspective on Hitler and the Second World War. In sum, Ohler aims to show that drug use was rife in Nazi Germany. From its rise through to its collapse, German citizens were high, German soldiers were high, and Hitler was high.

In the 1920s, many Germans turned to artificial stimulants to cope with the trauma of WWI, Ohler argues, and eventually Nazi promises of collective ecstasy and euphoria became like a drug itself. In 1937, in a pharmaceutical factory not far from Berlin, the pharmacist Dr. Fritz Hauschild found a drug to match the social intoxication of the time: Pervitin.

The first German methylamphetamine, Pervitin was a performance-enhancing drug that gave the consumer an “artificial kick” of heightened energy, alertness, euphoria, and intensified senses, often lasting more than 12 hours. Pervitin was marketed to Germans as a panacea cure for anything from depression to “frigidity” in women. By 1939, the drug was also distributed among German army battalions as they swept through Poland and France without sleep and without halt.

Ohler even goes so far as to say that the use of Pervitin was crucial to Germany victory in France in 1940. The German surprise-strategy to drive tanks through the Ardennes – later coined the “sickle cut” by Winston Churchill – was a near-impossible operation, argues Ohler, that only stood a chance if the Germans could drive day and night without stopping. Learning from the use of Pervitin during the Polish campaign, army officials realized that overcoming fatigue was just as crucial as tactic and equipment. The Wehrmacht ordered 35 million tablets for the campaign.

Critics have pointed out that Ohler tends to make sweeping generalizations. Does the evidence he presented, in fact, allow Ohler to say that many or most German citizens and soldiers were taking methylamphetamines? In a scathing review, historian Richard J. Evans wrote that Ohler severely overstates the role of drugs in both civil society and the military effort. “To claim that all Germans, or even a majority of them, could only function on drugs in the Third Reich,” writes Evans, “is wildly implausible.” While it may be difficult to pinpoint how many ordinary Germans took Pervitin, Ohler makes a convincing case for its methodical use and central role in the 1940 campaign.

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Bran Castle in Romania

Vallejo Nocturno 2020 - Bran Castle 2007

From Wikipedia:

Bran Castle (Romanian: Castelul Bran; German: Törzburg; Hungarian: Törcsvár) is a castle in Bran, 25 kilometres (16 mi) southwest of Brașov. It a national monument and landmark in Romania. The fortress is on the Transylvanian side of the historical border with Wallachia, on road DN73.

Commonly known outside Romania as Dracula's Castle (although it is one among several locations linked to the Dracula legend, including Poenari Castle and Hunyadi Castle),^{[citation needed]} it is often erroneously referred to as the home of the title character in Bram Stoker's Dracula.^{[citation needed]} There is no evidence that Stoker knew anything about this castle, which has only tangential associations with Vlad the Impaler, voivode of Wallachia, the putative inspiration for Dracula.^{[citation needed]} Dutch author Hans Corneel de Roos proposes as location for Castle Dracula an empty mountain top, Mount Izvorul Călimanului, 2,033 metres (6,670 ft) high, located in the Călimani Alps near the former border with Moldavia.^{[1][full citation needed]} Stoker's description of Dracula's crumbling fictional castle also bears no resemblance to Bran Castle.

The castle is now a museum dedicated to displaying art and furniture collected by Queen Marie.^[2] Tourists can see the interior on their own or by a guided tour. At the bottom of the hill is a small open-air museum exhibiting traditional Romanian peasant structures (cottages, barns, water-driven machinery, etc.) from the Bran region.^[3]

^{Vallejo Nocturno 2020- Bran Castle 2007}

A second 9/11

 

Vallejo Nocturno 2020 -the day after 9/11

From Tom Englehardt, something close to what I've been thinking and feeling:

Here's the question at hand -- and I guarantee you that you’ll read it here first: Is Donald Trump the second or even possibly the third 9/11? Because truly, he has to be one or the other.

Let me explain, and while I do, keep this in mind: as 2019 ends, thanks to Brexit and the victory of Boris Johnson in Britain’s recent election, the greatest previous imperial power on this planet is clearly headed for the sub-basement of history. Meanwhile, that other superpower of the Cold War era, the Soviet Union, now Russia, remains a well-sauced Putinesca shadow of its former self. And then, of course, there’s the country that, not so long ago, every major American politician but Donald Trump proclaimed the most exceptional, indispensable nation ever.

As it happens, the United States -- if you didn’t catch the reference above -- has been looking a bit peaked lately itself. You can’t say that it’s the end of the road for a land of such wealth and staggering military power, enough to finish off several Earth-sized planets. However, it’s clearly a country in decline on a planet in the same condition and its present leader, Tariff Man, however uniquely orange-faced he may be, is just the symptom of the long path to hell in a handbasket its leadership embarked on almost three decades ago as the Cold War ended.

Admittedly, President Trump has proved to be the symptom from hell. To give him full credit, he’s now remarkably hard-at-tweet dismantling the various alliances, agreements, and organizations that U.S. leaders had assembled, since 1945, to make this country the Great Britain (and beyond) of the second half of the twentieth century and that’s an accomplishment of the first order.

And keep in mind the context for so much of this: it’s happening in a country that may be experiencing an unprecedented kind of inequality. It’s producing billionaires at a staggering clip with just three men already possessing wealth equivalent to that of half the rest of the population; this, mind you, at a moment when the globe's 26 richest people reportedly are worth as much as half of everyone else, or 3.8 billion people. And this in a world in which, as the income of that poorest half of humanity continues to decline, the wealth of billionaires increases by $2.5 billion a day and a new billionaire is minted every two days.

Had all of this not already been so and had a sense of decline not been in the air, it’s inconceivable that those heartland white Americans who had come to feel themselves on the losing end of developments in this country would have sent a charlatan billionaire into the White House to represent them (or at least to give the finger to the Washington establishment). And all this on a planet that itself, in climate terms, appears to be in unprecedented decline.

Think of the above as part of what's come down, metaphorically speaking, since those towers in New York fell more than 18 years ago.

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