June 24, 2023
Beyond Satire
When our plates are cleared, Lit orders an espresso martini. My brain feels hollow but I order a dessert wine, and leave the selection up to the sommelier. For dessert, I choose the pistachio praline with Grand Marnier bavarois, while Lit orders the honey-roasted fig with a whipped yoghurt pavlova. We can hear his cocktail being shaken over the murmurs of the emptying dining room. from Financial ‘meme-lord’ Litquidity: ‘The market is beyond satire. You can’t make it up’ [FT; ungated]
"Jazz is an exchange of ideas. That's what makes it interesting."
German free jazz saxophonist Peter Brötzmann has died at age 82. Known for albums like Machine Gun, Songlines, Born Broke, and the 2022 Oxbow collaboration An Eternal Reminder of Not Today (and many more), and live shows with Last Exit, William Parker, Hamid Drake, and countless others, he was a towering figure in the small world of free jazz. WKCR has a memorial broadcast scheduled from 4 pm to midnight (EST) today.
I just call it Afro-Fusion
Happy Pride Month! The Ghanaian-American musician Amaarae [Wikipedia] just released her sophomore album Fountain Baby [YT playlist, NPR review] earlier this month. Working loosely within "pop music" in the west, she often finds herself on the outside in her native Accra. Here she talks with KEXP in 2021 with some pandemic acoustic performances. [41m] For a fuller context, here's a talk/discussion about Nigerian and Ghanaian music [Vimeo, 1h10m, rather scholarly but good] and how the alté/alternate music scene fits into the complex world of African music culture featuring Amaarae as a primary example. [more inside]
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