{"id":6225,"date":"2016-12-10T19:26:45","date_gmt":"2016-12-10T19:26:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.artinfo.com\/blunotes\/?p=6225"},"modified":"2016-12-10T19:26:45","modified_gmt":"2016-12-10T19:26:45","slug":"never-wanted-a-blog-never-expected-a-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/2016\/12\/10\/never-wanted-a-blog-never-expected-a-trump\/","title":{"rendered":"Never Wanted a Blog, Never Expected a Trump…"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"220px-liberation_music_orchestra-1\"<\/a>I never wanted a blog. I resisted having a blog. The only thing I hated more than that invented word, blog, was its bastard form as a verb.<\/p>\n

And then I found myself doing that, blogging.<\/p>\n

When Artinfo.com asked me to create a jazz blog in 2012 I said yes. I knew my stuff\u2014about jazz and culture, about New York and New Orleans, about ideas beyond those categories and places\u2014would get read by folks outside my usual music-world echo chamber, owing to Blouin Media’s broad international reach and visual-arts focus. Plus, the site looks\u00a0terrific. The\u00a0things that I couldn\u2019t fit into The Wall Street Journal, of which there were many, spilled into \u201cBlu Notes.”<\/p>\n

Still, I really never wanted to blog.<\/p>\n

And until the blog disappeared in late October\u2014a problem\u00a0since resolved by Artinfo’s tech gurus\u2014I didn\u2019t think I\u2019d miss it.<\/p>\n

For month or so, I felt\u00a0like I\u2019d evaporated from the digital sphere. The distressing \u201cpage not found\u201d message made it seem\u00a0as if I\u2019d been ripped out of a binding or blown away by a stiff wind.<\/p>\n

To a degree, I<\/em> was not found: I felt\u00a0lost.<\/p>\n

I guess I did, and do, want to blog.<\/p>\n

So now I’m back in business: Blu Notes rides again. Please saddle up with me once more…<\/p>\n

For now, I\u2019ll take the easy way out by attempting to lure you to a Daily Beast piece<\/a> of mine, the first thing I wrote of any substance after that thing happened on November 8.<\/p>\n

It’s about a new release from the Liberation Music Orchestra, which was led by bassist Charlie Haden from 1968\u2014that’s\u00a0the cover of the group’s debut album up top\u2014until his death in 2014. (I wrote a more straightforward album review<\/a> for The Wall Street Journal.)<\/p>\n

My piece is about the promise and purpose of that band in world suddenly colder and confusing, and about what elections might have to do with jazz and vice versa.<\/p>\n

That story, which\u00a0to my delight, ran not under the heading \u201cjazz\u201d but under \u201chealing,” began with the excerpt below:<\/p>\n

HEALING<\/p>\n

Jazz Great Charlie Haden\u2019s Liberation Music Orchestra Is a Balm for the Post-Election Blues<\/span><\/p>\n

The late Charlie Haden and his Liberation Music Orchestra made powerful, sophisticated protest music. His final recording arrives just when we need it most.<\/p>\n

By\u00a0LARRY BLUMENFELD<\/a><\/p>\n

Did Charlie Haden know we\u2019d be living in\u00a0Donald Trump<\/a>\u2019s America?<\/p>\n

The great bassist, who died in 2014 at 76, first served notice as a musical revolutionary in\u00a0Ornette Coleman\u2019s quartet<\/a>\u00a0in 1959. Through a career that never waned, Haden\u2019s warm and woody tone, his disarming way with a melody and intuitive connection with fellow improvisers made for unusual clarity and intimacy in any context. He was also perhaps jazz\u2019s truest and most effective radical in the political sense. He assembled his Liberation Music Orchestra\u200a\u2014\u200athe defining expression of his ideals\u200a\u2014\u200ain 1969, to make his version of Vietnam War-era protest music. He reconvened the group whenever a Republican was in the White House: The orchestra\u2019s 2005 release,\u00a0Not in Our Name<\/em>, was a defiant statement against the Bush administration\u2019s Iraq War.<\/p>\n

Haden had begun planning another Liberation Music Orchestra album several years ago, before post-polio syndrome set in (related to a teenaged bout with the disease) and eventually took his life. A new CD fulfills that ambition.\u00a0Time\/Life: Song for the Whales and Other Beings<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(Impulse!) begins and ends with the final recordings of Haden leading this group during a 2011 concert in Belgium and, in between, features three studio tracks made in 2015, with the orchestra led by Carla Bley. It was released on Nov. 4. Even then, Bley\u200a\u2014\u200athe pianist and arranger for Haden\u2019s orchestra from its start\u200a\u2014\u200aand Ruth Cameron Haden\u200a\u2014\u200ahis widow, and the album\u2019s producer\u200a\u2014\u200athought, as did the rest of us, that victory was imminent for\u00a0Hillary Clinton<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The album now seems suddenly, alarmingly, timely.<\/p>\n

For more, go\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I never wanted a blog. I resisted having a blog. The only thing I hated more than that invented word, blog, was its bastard form as a verb. And then I found myself doing that, blogging. When Artinfo.com asked me to create a jazz blog in 2012 I said yes. I knew my stuff\u2014about jazz … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Never Wanted a Blog, Never Expected a Trump…”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[176,12,246,458],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6225"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6225\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}