v a l l e j o n o c t u r n o

Composer, Pianist, and Photographer Sy Johnson Has Passed Away

From the NYT:

Sy Johnson, a Renaissance jazz master — pianist, composer, journalist, photographer — who made his biggest impact as a frequent arranger, orchestrator and all-around right-hand man for the celebrated bassist Charles Mingus, died on July 26 in Manhattan. He was 92.

His wife, Lois Mirviss, said the death, in a hospital, was caused by complications of Covid-19.

The jazz critic Gary Giddins called Mr. Johnson “one of those indispensable people you never heard much about,” and few in the jazz world would disagree. He started out in the late 1950s playing piano, first in Los Angeles and then in New York. He soon branched out to arranging, working not just with Mingus but also with a host of musical luminaries including the saxophonist Lee Konitz and the arranger and bandleader Quincy Jones.

He also wrote words: He conducted a seminal interview with Miles Davis and contributed record reviews to the short-lived quarterly Jazz magazine in the 1970s. He worked on Broadway and even composed his own musical, based on the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. And all along, he toted a 35-millimeter Leica camera, crafting spontaneous, intimate portraits of the jazz scene of the 1960s and ’70s. Many of his photographs were collected in a 2014 book, “Jazz: Personal Encounters.”

Some Recent Photos

Here are some photos from the summer time in 2022:

Most Pernicious Abuse of Power

As the Trump security scandal rolls out I've been wondering why no one is speaking about it in terms of why he was keeping all this information and the context in which he was doing this. This, instead of looking at this issue in isolation which the media often wants you to do as ultimately if it goes to trial they'll need to prove something and not everything. But here it is, the first article that puts things in true perspective. From David Rothkopf at the Daily Beast:

The seizure of documents at Mar-a-Lago—and what we have learned about the former president’s apparent violation of federal laws by keeping them, mishandling them, and obstructing the efforts to return them—must not be seen as an isolated incident. Trump’s disregard for U.S. national security and in particular his contempt for and struggle with the U.S. intelligence community, has been a theme since he first publicly sought the support of an American enemy to help him win the 2016 presidential campaign.

We now know that Trump and his closest advisers were told many times, even before they left office, that the law required them to return all documents to the U.S. government. We know they were informed repeatedly about their legal obligations with regards to the treatment of classified material. We know they ignored that guidance and removed documents illegally. We know they then were asked to return them. Multiple times.

We know they did not comply. We know that when they were forced to comply, they returned some but not all the documents, and that among these were highly sensitive documents—the mistreatment of which could threaten U.S. national security. We know that these documents were stored at Mar-a-Lago, which had been targeted for years—and penetrated—by foreign intelligence organizations. And we know that even after all this, Trump’s lawyers misrepresented that all documents had been returned.

Subsequently, we know that when all efforts to retrieve the remaining documents failed, the Department of Justice sought a subpoena to reclaim them—and that among what they found were more highly classified documents. Since then, we have also heard Trump claim he declassified the documents, the documents were his, the search was illegal, and that he was the victim. We also heard members of his party support him, despite the fact that Trump’s disregard for the law and his recklessness could well have put the lives of members of the U.S. intelligence community and their sources at risk.

I spoke to several national security veterans about Trump’s latest—and one of his most pernicious—abuses of power.

Former CIA Director General Michael Hayden said of the Mar-a-Lago revelations, “Literally, it’s unbelievable.” He described the kind of secrets that appeared to be in Trump’s possession as the core elements—essential to protect. “It’s the bread and butter of intelligence,” Hayden said.

Former Director of National Intelligence (DNI) General James Clapper observed, “The FBI search of Mar-a-Lago—an obvious target of adversary foreign intelligence—is stunning, but not surprising; it seems entirely consistent with the former president’s apparent disdain for the intelligence community and its rules for protection of sensitive information.”

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Abdul Wadud Gone

Vallejo Nocturno 2022 copyright- Abdul Wadud DC Space 1977

I remember seeing Abdul Wadud play numerous times at DC Space with Julius Hemphill. The two had great synergy and could improvise creatively for hours. Yes, I think in 1977 we knew the importance of both of those musicians and the sounds they created but still after those encounters I never ran into Abdul again, I believe.
From The NYT:

For many of his contemporaries, the first taste of his instrumental prowess came via his appearance on Mr. Hemphill’s 1972 album, “Dogon A.D.” (Like many important recordings featuring Mr. Wadud, it is currently not available digitally.)

Over the title track’s unusual loping groove, Mr. Wadud supported Mr. Hemphill’s saxophone lines with crying, bluesy bowed phrases as well as some select, forcefully plucked notes. Baikida Carroll, the trumpeter on that session — and, like Mr. Hemphill, a member of the St. Louis-based Black Artists Group — remembered Mr. Wadud’s insightful questioning during rehearsals about that composition’s 11/16 meter.

“He asked Julius about the relation of the drum part and the cello part, how they hook up,” Mr. Carroll recalled in an interview, adding that he “pointedly observed” Mr. Wadud’s working methods “because I was, like, This is the cat!”

The composer, trombonist and scholar George Lewis said in an interview that he regarded Mr. Wadud’s playing on “Dogon A.D.” as a landmark of 20th-century music. He tied that performance to Mr. Wadud’s later solo recording, “By Myself,” which is currently out of print.

“There’s the electricity — he’s amplified — there’s the funk, there’s the off-meter; a lot of the stuff that turns up being crystallized in ‘By Myself’ is sort of foreshadowed in ‘Dogon A.D.,’” Mr. Lewis said. “It’s like James Brown — but I bet even James Brown couldn’t have done it if it had been in 11/16.” (A 1977 live performance of the piece is included on a boxed set of Mr. Hemphill’s work, released in 2021 by New World Records.)

Mr. Wadud did not record much of his own music, aside from his 1977 solo LP, but his solo work had an impact. Writing in The New York Times about the Abdul original “Camille,” from “By Myself,” the cellist Tomeka Reid praised him for using “the whole range of the cello” and moving “between lyrical, free playing and groove with ease, something I strive to do in my own work.” In a recent interview, Ms. Reid added, “What Pablo Casals did for the Bach suites, I feel like Abdul Wadud did for the new generation of cello in jazz.”

Around the time of “By Myself,” Mr. Lewis chose Mr. Wadud for an ensemble that performed the Lewis composition “Monads,” his attempt to “come to terms” with the graphic scores of the composer Morton Feldman.

“Abdul knew all about that kind of thing; he knew more about it than I did,” Mr. Lewis said. “That combination, of having the strong kind of Black bass and having all these other possibilities — equally strong — made him someone you could work with who was super versatile and could do anything.”

Some Hope

From The Atlantic's David Frum:

The first fact—the rallying to Trump—reminds us that his narrative of personal grievance still deeply moves Republican voters.

The second fact—the Democrats’ improving congressional prospects—reminds us how little Trump’s grievances resonate with the larger voting public. GOP leaders have made a lot of noise about the Democratic obsession with pronouns. But the Trump Republicans have a pronoun problem of their own: Trump demands, and they agree, to talk about “me, me, me” when the electorate has other, real, bread-and-butter concerns.

Big-money Republicans hoped that 2022 would be the year the GOP quietly sidelined Trump. Those hopes have been fading all year, as extreme and unstable pro-Trump candidates have triumphed in primary after primary. Their last best hope was that the reelection of Ron DeSantis as governor of Florida would painlessly shoulder Trump out of contention for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. Now that hope, too, is dying.

DeSantis ran in 2018 as a craven Trump sycophant. He had four years to become his own man. He battled culture wars—even turning against his former backers at Disney—all to prove himself the snarling alpha-male bully that Republican primary voters reward. But since the Mar-a-Lago search, DeSantis has dropped back into the beta-male role, sidekick and cheering section for Trump.

Trump has reasserted dominance. DeSantis has submitted. And if Republican presidential politics in the Trump era has one rule, it’s that there’s no recovery from submission. Roll over once, and you cannot get back on your feet again.

Trump specializes in creating dominance-and-submission rituals. His Republican base is both the audience for them and the instrument of them. But to those outside the subculture excited by these rituals, they look demeaning and ridiculous. Everybody else wants jobs, homes, cheaper prescription drugs, and bridges that do not collapse—not public performances in Trump’s theater of humiliation.

Midterm elections are usually referendums on the pressing issues of the day. Voters treat them, in effect, as their answer to the implied question: “Got any complaints?” And because voters usually do have complaints, the president’s party tends to take losses. But this time, the loudest complaints of the “out” party are becoming very far removed from most people’s lives.

Progress

 

Manuel Astur in an interview:

I mean this habit we have where we constantly think of, for example, how foolish 20^th century Europeans were because they let the Nazis in. We are convinced that we are immune to such things, because we are smarter, because we are alive. It is as if there is some merit to being alive, or as if it is a punishment to have died. We are just specks of dust. Grains of sand on an endless beach, right? 30,000 years ago, give or take, even the man who was covered in furs and shit, who hunted mammoths—he was already like us: he already had the same intelligence, ten fingers and gripping hands, and he had the same eyes; he saw reality just like us. The only thing that has changed is the narration, how that reality is told. Other than that, there is no difference. So why do we think we are better? It has to do with the religion of progress, this religion in which we live where we are always ‘improving’. In the word ‘progress’, this cultural evolution or the evolution of the human race, as if we are always a renewed and better version of humanity. The 2.0 version or the 3.0. It’s nonsense. Today, with covid and climate change, maybe we’re starting to realise that. We are beginning to suspect that we are not as cool and special as we thought. We are as dumb as we have always been as a society, and we make the same mistakes. But it also has to do with the fact that the dead are not here to protect themselves, we can say what we want about them, and we can reduce them to a stereotype.

5 Recent Photos

During the last month I've probably taken more photographs than ever before. There have been various situations and always plenty of music but in reality it has centered more on wanting to photograph things that I find interesting and unlike earlier times I'm finding much to be interested in. Also I'm looking at what I'm taking so it gives me good feedback for what ever I''ll be doing. These are 4 random photos from the last 4 weeks.

Vallejo Nocturno 2022 Copyright- August and July 2022

It Can't Get Any Better

From Washington Monthly:

It is typical of Trump that he would not understand the difference between Nixon’s private crime and the lawful government investigation into his own long history of allegedly criminal conduct. The man runs his family business like a mafia don and ran the White House similarly. He does not think in terms of institutions but in terms of absolute personal loyalty. As president, Trump saw the institutions of government, from the Justice Department to the military, as mere extensions of his own will. The real estate tycoon saw the Attorney General and the Justice Department as his personal attorney and law firm. He fumed that his generals were not as loyal as Hitler’s commanders in World War II. (An historical ignoramus, Trump also failed to grasp how often the Fuhrer’s commanders disobeyed him and even tried to assassinate him.) He emulates and admires dictators who run their countries like personal fiefdoms and treat their economies as family cashboxes.

Trump also projects his abuse of power onto his enemies. He falsely accused President Barack Obama of personally orchestrating the Russia probe and of wiretapping Trump Tower. He constantly made constant references to Watergate back then as well, even as he was begging Russia to hack Hillary Clinton and the DNC. His close friend Roger Stone was in close contact with Wikileaks at the time. Despite its denials, Wikileaks almost certainly received the hacked information directly from Russia. Then Trump obstructed justice at least ten times in Robert Mueller’s probe—felonies that Mueller himself (and hundreds of other federal prosecutors) said merited prosecution. We will likely never know the extent of his complicity in the historic crime that Russian hackers perpetrated against Clinton and the DNC.

Now Trump is projecting his own unwitting consciousness of guilt onto President Biden. Per Rolling Stone, the real estate magnate is not only storming around his Bedminster, New Jersey golf club like a trapped crime boss he also presumes that President Biden himself is listening in on him:

“This summer, Trump has asked close associates if they think his communications are being monitored by the feds, or — per his phrasing — “by Biden.”

This is not some Shakespearian metonymy. Trump believes that Biden is personally controlling Attorney General Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray. After all, it’s what he would do—indeed, it’s the sort of thing he often tried to do in demanding that “his” Justice Department prosecute his enemies.

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