drstewartsmith.bsky.social
Writer: jazz, improvised, experimental, Scotland & the avant-garde @ The Wire, Bandcamp, The Quietus, We Jazz, Guardian. Associate lecturer Newcastle University. Musician. He/him. 🇵🇸
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All those early David records are fascinating. LOM is solo piano, but the ensemble ones with Abdul Wadud are great too.
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ICYMI, my interview with Davis. daily.bandcamp.com/features/ant...
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Anthony Davis’s brilliant piano playing is kinda overshadowed by his great achievements as a composer, but he’s great on this. My wife recently picked up his Lady of Mirrors, gorgeous stuff.
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From the same store. AACM forever!
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Those two are great. Also been digging the new Ambrose Akinmusire, Laura Cocks, Brandon Lopez/DeYeon Kim, Yeong Lim Yang and the forthcoming Mary Halvorson/Sylvie Courvoisier.
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My bad, the Ballard is 60s.
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A couple of 70s gems.
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Glad you're enjoying the music. Of her recent releases, this one is also superb. angelicasanchezpyroclastic.bandcamp.com/album/nightt...
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Well yes, hence the duplicity of Starmer's leadership campaign. Even I didn't think he'd be *this* right wing & incompetent, so I can cut centre-left people who voted for him in good faith some slack. My point is that centrist pundits who spent years slagging off the left have some bridges to build.
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I mean, it would be nice if they did, but what really matters is that they give his policies a fair hearing. As 2017 showed, many voters found that this social democratic programme wasn't so scary after all. Might even be good for the majority. Which is why the Lab right had to crush it.
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I don't disagree, but I'd say one faction has done a lot more harm than the other.
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Not aimed at you. Ofc there were legitimate criticisms to be had of Corbyn's leadership, but there was also a lot of bad faith stuff along with a deliberate strategy from the right to undermine him, even if it meant losing the 2019 election. McSweeney is perfectly open about this.
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I'm all for coalition building. Yet it was the centre who refused to work with the left, reacted hysterically to the Corbyn project, called us idiots & children etc. I'm glad people are coming round to the right wing disaster of Starmer/McSweeney, but a little self-reflection goes a long way.
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Starmer & McSweeney purged anyone to the left of Blair and are now alienating their centre-left base with their illiberal and racist policies. I'm glad people are waking up to this reality, but a bit of self-reflection from certain centrist commentators wouldn't go amiss.
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I'm all for coalition building, but it's a bit rich to see centrist commentators who spent years undermining a social democratic project & calling the left children & idiots now acting upset that their boy Starmer has turned out to be the right wing disaster we said he'd be (and then some).
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Of course Ian Dun has never expressed anger or victimhood when getting dunked on by leftist shitposters. He is above it all, sensibly ensconced at the centre of his golden horseshoe.
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How on earth do you have a career as a political commentator when your basic political comprehension is so poor? People who are to your left and right annoy you, therefore they are the same?
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Does seem like audiophile woo. Apparently a clamp can help stabilise a warped record but all the stuff about transforming the soundstage seems dubious.
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Toxic masculinity describes particular behaviours. It’s not saying all men are toxic. If you want to talk about why men are embracing the right we need to talk about deindustrialisation, class, and the failures of neo-liberalism, in its liberal & conservative forms.
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There’s a good documentary on them streaming in the UK. Worth looking out for stateside. Along with The Associates, Scotland’s greatest post-punk art rock band. They were proper working class autodidacts of the kind Thatcherism sought to crush.
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The demo of I’ll Keep It With Mine is stunning and then you’ve got the unfinished gems like She’s Your Lover Now.
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BOB take of VOJ is definitive but Take 5 (rehearsal)chugs along nicely. Fascinating to hear it take shape. Take 3 of It Takes a Train… has a cheeky groove and stinging Bloomfield leads.
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Such a great collection. The fast version of Visions of Johanna!
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Wyatt’s last recording to date - with the great Mary Halvorson’s Code Girl - is a gem, this tune in particular. Fantastic trumpet solo from Adam O’Farrill too. youtu.be/a689HlvUESM?...
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Wyatt with Charlie Haden & Carla Bley’s Liberation Music Orchestra 2009. Always regret missing this gig, but I did see Ornette & Haden the following night & met Robert & Alfie outside. They were absolutely lovely. youtu.be/41rDOELDivk?...
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Sod it, I’m a keep going! I hear a lot of Carla Bley in Wyatt’s music & their collabs over the years are all wonderful. Nick Mason’s Fictitious Sports is a Bley album in all but name. This is a brilliant & hilarious Philip Glass nod with a beautifully droll Wyatt vocal. youtu.be/KlV0buSQaOo?...
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Aye good shout, that’s Orphy too.
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One last tune, cos it’s beautiful. youtu.be/3Jm1YW_rNGE?...
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Wyatt & Alfie Benge have written many important songs exploring the human cost of Western imperialism. Out of the Blue depicts a young person whose home is destroyed during the War On Terror but could easily be about the genocide in Gaza. youtu.be/FnjnzeR7AIM?...
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“They say the working class is dead, we’re all consumers now… people doing frightfully well, there’s others on the shelf.” An amazing song on the ravages of Thatcherism/neo-liberalism and the need for a movement built on solidarity. Sadly as relevant as ever. youtu.be/aWPRHqptlVU?...
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It’s a mark of Wyatt’s generosity that he’ll give over entire tracks to his collaborators. This was my introduction to the great Orphy Robinson. Magical xylosynth solo. youtu.be/Hl6pH5YpLsQ?...