Germany may drive Greece, not to despair but into the arms of Russia

Germany's merciless pursuit of the Greeks for debt could turn Greek minds to a rapprochement with Russia.

The Germans are opposing a debt "haircut" and look to the IMF to do something else instead -  http://www.reuters.com/article/us-eurozone-greece-germany-idUSKBN1650AX

"Bavarian Finance Minister Markus Soeder called for a tougher stance in negotiations with Greece, suggesting Athens should only get fresh aid from its lenders against additional collateral such as cash, gold or real estate" - http://www.reuters.com/article/us-eurozone-greece-esm-regling-idUSKBN15Z0JE

(htp for both links to Anonhq)

In addition to recent talk of a rapprochement between Russia and Turkey, last year Russky Mir was already predicting that the EU's economic squeeze will result in a partnership with Moscow (“GREECE CAN ONLY EMERGE FROM EUROPEAN DESOLATION UNITED WITH RUSSIA”, 19 June 2016).

A cover for discussions could be provided by fresh negotiations around the Burgas–Alexandroupoli pipeline, first proposed in the 1990s and far from dead; or the "Turkish stream" gas pipeline, an arm of which is to run into Greece.

Let's not forget that the Communists tried to take over Greece at the end of WW2.

What utter folly and blind greed, to make the Greeks suffer until they turn.

A modern-day Graham Greene would now be frequenting the cafés and restaurants of Alexandroupoli and Thessaloniki.

Friday Night Is Music Night: "Ex Africam..." by JD

Four months to go

Prince Charles: 100 months to save the world

The Prince of Wales is to issue a stark warning that nations have "less than 100 months to act" to save the planet from irreversible damage due to climate change.

The Telegraph - March 7th 2009

Gosh, we now have only four months left till doomsday. Are we worried? Is anyone worried? Was anyone ever worried? Worried enough to do something?

A key feature of the catastrophic climate narrative is how so many people in the public arena are induced to make predictions of doom. Alarming celebrity briefings must be distilled from scenarios created by climate models, but we have known for a long time that climate models cannot make long-term predictions of future climate states.

In sum, a strategy must recognise what is possible. In climate research and modelling, we should recognise that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.

IPCC Working Group I: The Scientific Basis, Third Assessment Report, Chapter 14.

In February 2016 climate scientist Dr. John Christy presented testimony to Congress demonstrating how climate models grossly exaggerate and overestimate the impact of atmospheric CO2 levels on global temperatures .

source

This year Judith Curry produced a lay overview of climate models for the GWPF. Among many other criticisms she wrote.

There are valid concerns about a fundamental lack of predictability in the complex nonlinear climate system.

Yet Prince Charles must have been firmly convinced that his climate predictions were scientifically plausible, likely to happen and not liable to be derailed by that fundamental lack of predictability. As far as one can tell he remains convinced to this day.

Let us move on from Prince Charles to Thomas Kuhn. It’s a substantial jump but I’m sure we can cope.

To the extent, as significant as it is incomplete, that two scientific schools disagree about what is a problem and what a solution, they will inevitably talk through each other when debating the relative merits of their respective paradigms. In the partially circular arguments that regularly result, each paradigm will be shown to satisfy more or less the criteria that it dictates for itself and to fall short of a few of those dictated by its opponent. There are other reasons, too, for the incompleteness of logical contact that consistently characterizes paradigm debates. For example, since no paradigm ever solves all the problems it defines and since no two paradigms leave all the same problems unsolved, paradigm debates always involve the question: Which problems is it more significant to have solved? Like the issue of competing standards, that question of values can be answered only in terms of criteria that lie outside of normal science altogether, and it is that recourse to external criteria that most obviously makes paradigm debates revolutionary.

Thomas S. Kuhn - The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962)

If Kuhn was right, then perhaps we should ask a few questions based on criteria that lie outside of normal science altogether. Why did Prince Charles claim that we are doomed when the IPCC stated quite clearly that the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible? He is not a celebrity poseur and does not appear to be virtue-signalling.

Who briefs him and with what object? Why does he still seem to believe that we are doomed? This is the kind of criterion we should focus on – the politics of manipulated behaviour.

MUSIC: Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, by Wiggia

Whilst being able to appreciate their ability along with the double bass, I have never really warmed to drum solos any more than double bass solos, their job is to hold the rhythm in place for group or band.

In the big band era drum solos would provide an interlude with the likes of Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich showing their mettle in front of their own bands, all very showbiz, but great drummers in their own right though there were many of the elongated solos that matched marathon dancing and had me reaching for off switch or legging it to the bar. As with all there are exceptions, for me Art Blakey stands out as not only a supreme master craftsman but also someone whom one hears in all his groups yet never intrudes, his drum solos being simply an extension of that amazing drive he pushed all his groups along with.

Born in 1919 he started as so many of his contemporaries with big bands, in his case Fletcher Henderson then Billie Eckstine and then went on to work with be bop founders of Monk Parker and Gillespie. In the mid fifties he founded the Jazz Messengers with Horace Silver the pianist but the group over the years became known more for the nurturing of new found talent and the list was impressive. It included Freddie Hubbard, Wayne Shorter, Wynton Marsalis, Lee Morgan and Bennie Golson.

Blakey had a hard upbringing, losing his single parent mother shortly after he was born and being raised by a woman family friend who took in him and his siblings for some time but it was a period of little hard facts.

His early career is also somewhat muddied although he did start as a pianist, switching to drums in the thirties but who he played with and when is a bit fragmented to say the least during the period up to his big band appointment, and even after that he went and lived in Africa for a couple of years and converted to Islam whilst there. It was suggested that he as with many other black musicians at the time used Islamic names to circumvent the race laws that prevailed in many states at the time, though it seems he forgot all that shortly after return, a sort of George Harrison moment. Horace Silver left the Jazz Messengers after the first year and Blakey added his name to the group where it remained until his last appearance in 1990; he died soon afterwards of lung cancer.

His was a hard bop group when it started out and despite all the reincarnations with his steady stream of new talent this driving style with a blues undertone remained.

This classic is from ‘58 with Lee Morgan on trumpet Benny Golson on sax and Bobby Timmons on piano.



The above quintet was the quintessential Jazz Messengers and the most remembered, it stayed as a quintet for most of its life though an earlier 17 piece big band had the Messengers name and luminaries such as Hank Mobley, Clifford Brown and Jackie McLean played with them.

Below from the “Big Beat” album on Blue Note is The Chess Players; not only on this album is Blakey's unrelenting driving style showcased but it also contains one of the finest trumpet solos in modern jazz by Lee Morgan.



And from the same album It’s Only a Paper Moon, again showing the drumming style of Blakey in all its glory and another tour de force by Morgan.



In ‘61 Blakey added the trombone to his group and it became a sextet, here at Nurnberg in Germany in ‘88 his young band once again show why the Messengers were so popular around the world.



An even bigger group in an “All Stars” tour in Japan in ‘82, giving Curtis Fuller on trombone a chance to shine, an instrument Blakey included for much of the Messengers' life yet rarely seen in modern jazz combos. The number is Blues March written by by Benny Golson who is on tenor sax with Wynton Marsalis on trumpet.

Blues March - Art Blakey and All Star Jazz Messengers (1982) from Wynton Marsalis on Vimeo.


Mosaic was a big success as an album for Blakey and the Messengers recorded in ‘61 live at the Village Gate. It had a slightly different personnel in Freddie Hubbard , trumpet and Cedar Walton piano. Here we have Children of the Night.



Still bringing on young talent: Reflections in Blue, a ‘78 recording and Stretching the number recorded in the Netherlands in ‘78 with……Valerie Ponomarev (trumpet) Robert Watson (alto sax) David Schnitter (tenor sax) James Williams (piano) Dennis Irwin (bass) Art Blakey (drums)



Blakey's discography is enormous, there seems to be almost no one he has not played with or backed. He played with Thelonious Monk at the beginning the middle and end of his career and Monk despite having the hugely talented Dannie Richmond on drums for a very large part of his career always placed Blakey in the No.1 slot.

Art was certainly someone who enjoyed life, even if the drugs of the period played their part, he smoked heavily drank and loved food, plus with four marriages and several long time relationships it could be said he stretched the phrase bon viveur to the limit.

I finish with something that is short, it is only part of the number being played and as for the rest who knows where it is, but it shows Blakey in Africa at a Jazz Fesival in ‘87 near the end of his career, still more than capable and with a big band that are really having a blow, featuring Woody Shaw on trumpet and Herbie Hancock on piano, a Night in Tunisia.

Woody Shaw deserves a mention in his own right. Considered by many to be the last great innovator on the trumpet, he was born with perfect pitch and a photographic mind considered to be way ahead of his time; it was a loss to jazz when he died young, his ending is from his biography:

By the late 1980s Shaw was suffering from an incurable degenerative eye disease and was losing his eyesight. Details of the accident are unclear, but on February 27, 1989, Shaw was struck by a subway car in Brooklyn, NY, which severed his left arm. Shaw suffered complications in the hospital and died of kidney failure on May 10, 1989. He was 44 years old.

Friday Night Is Music Night: A Celtic Miscellany, by JD

A selection of traditional music this evening:

JD's curtain-raiser is a traditional Irish song, "Siúil a Rún" (Go, My Love) sung by Nolwenn Leroy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvkSrG69yeo - but unfortunately not embeddable; to give an idea of it, a different version by Clannad is given below:



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Thelonious Monk, a survey by Wiggia

Yes, that was his real name and his middle name was Sphere. largely self-taught, he toured with evangelists in his teens playing the organ, and by his late teens was finding work playing jazz. he then landed a job as the house pianist at Milton's Playhouse in Manhattan where his playing style developed.

Here he met in after-hours sessions Dizzy Gillespie Charlie Parker, Charlie Christian, Kenny Clarke and later Miles Davis; it was an instrumental period during which much of what was to become be-bop was formed.

For a variety of reasons his recording during this early period was spasmodic as was his earning power and although with Blue Note at the time most of what was recorded then did not sell well, it was also during this Blue Note period on the album Criss Cross that the characteristic of Monk's unique jazz style, which embraced percussive playing, unusual repetitions and dissonant sounds was first employed on record, and as he famously said "The piano ain't got no wrong notes!" and in ‘61 followed up with this: “You know anybody can play a composition and use far-out chords and make it sound wrong. It’s making it right that’s not so easy.”

Before the music this short film featuring band members including Sonny Rollins is worth watching as the Muso’s describe their life in music with Monk at that definitive time:

Coltrane, Monk and Rollins Are Definitive from Concord Music Group on Vimeo.


There is an element in his playing, I think, to be found in Brubeck's work a little later which was expanded by block chording.

After ‘52 he signed with the Prestige label and his first significant albums available to the public were issued but despite working with Miles Davis (who found Monk's style “difficult to work with), Max Roach, Art Blakey and Rollins, the sales were still not great.

In one of life's little vignettes he went to Paris and here from Wiki met……..

In 1954, Monk paid his first visit to Paris. As well as performing at concerts, he recorded a solo piano session for French radio (later issued as an album by Disques Vogue). Backstage, Mary Lou Williams introduced him to Baroness Pannonica "Nica" de Koenigswarter, a member of the Rothschild family and a patroness of several New York City jazz musicians. She was a close friend for the rest of Monk's life, including taking responsibility for him when she and Monk were charged with marijuana possession.

It was at Riverside Records ‘55 - ‘61 that Monk found his wider audience and recognition amongst the jazz buying public. “Brilliant Corners” with Sonny Rollins playing mainly Monk's own compositions was his first big seller. Here below is the title track from that album……it is worth noting it was so difficult to play that the recording was stitched together from several takes.

From this period Bags Groove, Blue Monk, and Round Midnight were all destined to become jazz standards. From 62 – 68 he was with Colombia records which gave him greater exposure and several classic albums came from that source, Misterioso, Criss Cross, and Straight, No Chaser among them.

That was really the end of his recording life. Apart from the aforementioned bits and pieces, Black Lion Records in ‘71 did a very good 3 CD compilation that’s worth seeking out.



During the Riverside period other to-become-classic Monk albums were released, including Monk's Music, Thelonious Monk with John Coltrane, At the Blackhawk etc etc. Many were live club recordings and the one at the Five Spot Cafe with Johhny Griffin is a good one.

There was also Thelonious Monk Orchestra at the Town Hall, an album that had Monk's music and Hall Overton's arrangements; it failed to some degree for lack of time and inadequate sound yet had the makings of something special. Sadly it was never followed up, this and a ‘63 concert at the Philharmonic Hall were the only large ensemble works of Monk, yet the good bits on this album justified more in this vein. Here to give a flavour of the Town Hall album is Little Rootie Tootie, it has a wonderful bass quality to sound provided by the brass section that had been supplemented in this tentet.



And here is a rare piece of good judgment by the Beeb to record Monk playing his classic composition Straight No Chaser with Charlie Rouse on tenor. Mind you, the Beeb were guilty of a lot of good taste back then in many areas; not now.



This recorded in Denmark in ‘66 is Don’t Blame Me, a piano solo showing all the art and craft that he had in his own inimitable style; lovely piece.



As with so many jazz musicians of that era drugs were never far from the scene and Monk's strange behaviour later in life that went undiagnosed by the medical profession meant he had withdrawn from public life by the mid seventies and his patroness cared for him in NY as she had earlier when he was struggling for work, until his death in ‘82. She also, it should be noted, cared for Charlie Parker in his last days; strange but true.

From his live gig at the Five Spot Cafe with Johnny Griffin on tenor, “Blue Monk”, another unmistakable Monk composition:



Those lost early years, recording wise, and his sparse later output meant that releases during those last years and after his death were often bad recordings, parts of sessions and forgotten items cobbled together. Amongst all of that were some very good works that deserved to be heard and much that should have stayed in the box. It was very much a lottery as to what you purchased of his works as everyone cashed in on the grounds that all had a historic musical reason to be heard. Of course Monk was gone and almost certainly wasn’t capable of directing what should or should not be released in his last years anyway; most has since disappeared.

Having said that, the old Esquire label with its lovely thick vinyl platters had a couple of good ones I seem to remember; that now seem also to have disappeared .

This next is not all Monk, he plays two piano solos and then at this ‘69 Berlin concert you get Joe Williams thrown in and the “divine” Sarah Vaughan as well, your full pound's worth and good sound quality to boot:



Finally, the Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane playing Ruby My Dear from 1957:



I only saw Monk live once at the Festival hall in London. It was not the greatest of experiences as the performance was late starting and Monk himself did not appear on stage for three numbers, leaving his “trio” to carry on without him. When he did deign to appear there was no apology, nothing. This was I think in the early seventies; whether he was being a diva or on something and getting his head together before appearing on stage is as mysterious now as then, though we do know through biographies on the man that odd behaviour had become almost the norm later in life and he had been hospitalised after being picked up by the police on one occasion, so we never will know how much of that manifested itself in public. But it did little for the concert as many people were slightly pissed-off by the time he appeared,. Doesn’t stop me appreciating his music of course; it’s just a small anecdote from years ago.

Friday Night Is Music Night: Musical Balm, by JD

Photograph taken in Barter Books, which is in the old railway station in Alnwick

"All thing shall be well;..... Thou shalt see thyself that all MANNER [of] thing shall be well;" ― Julian of Norwich; Revelations of Divine Love xxxii