Explaining Trump to My Foreign Pals

Hi There Friends-

I am not particularly shooting for having a political blog, nor do I think I have anything that's a lot smarter or more well-researched to say about the current political goings-on in America than the experts whose articles and blogs I read.  That said, I have a Facebook feed full of friends from (and in) other countries who are clearly mystified by the popularity of Donald Trump, and so I write this mainly to address them directly and try to break it down (as I understand/observe it) so that it makes sense, because, as horrifying as he and his candidacy are, they make perfect sense:

We have two parties, Democrats and Republicans.  Abraham Lincoln was a Republican; it started as a progressive party, the slogan of which was "Free Labor, Free Land, Free Men." (Thanks to Kyle Saulnier for hipping me to that.)  The 'Free Labor' doesn't refer to slavery, but to the idea that laborers should be free men, not slaves actual or otherwise to their employers.

At some point around the time of Nixon (the 1960s), the parties flipped, for a lot of complicated reasons, but mainly because Democrat party was split between Northern progressives and southern populists who also happened to be the strongest supporters of institutional racism, segregation, etc.  Nixon's 'southern strategy' of catering to racists and conservative religious people basically flipped those people (southern Democrats) into being Republicans.

Now, in 2016 in the Republican party is basically a combination of people who want to make (and keep) as much money as they can (to the detriment of everything else,) and people who have an ideological opposition to the federal government, taxes, etc.  But there aren't enough rich people and/or people who don't want the government to do anything in this country for Republicans to win elections based on their votes. So they need to bring in more people.  Firstly, they brought in religious people, who will pretty much vote for anyone who says that they are against abortion and gay marriage.  So as long as you don't have a conscience, it's easy to get those people on your side.  But even those people are not enough to do it.

So to get more votes, the Republicans started appealing to uneducated white people. Now, uneducated white people generally are helped by government programs like social security, Obamacare, unions, etc, and the money/we-hate-the-government people that run the Republican party don't like those things.  So in order to get uneducated white people on their side, they have to convince them of a few things that are not true.  (This apparently not terribly hard, given their lack of education and desire to blame someone for their problems... that last bit is pretty universal.) So the money/government-is-bad people tell the uneducated white people who are struggling to find good jobs, save money, retire, etc, that the reason they are having those struggles is because the government is taking money and resources from them and giving to even poorer brown and black people, and immigrants.  Then they say they're going to 'make America Great Again,' which is a sort of code for 'we're going to crack down on black and brown people and immigrants and keep them from getting the stuff the Democrats want to give them, and it'll be like it was before the civil rights movement.'

Of course, the real reason these poor uneducated white people can't get ahead is because their job got moved to India or China, they can't afford to go to college, and government programs that would make healthcare and childcare and public school better are being blocked or destroyed by the traditional money/anti-government Republicans.  But the uneducated white people would much rather blame the people who make them uncomfortable anyway, mainly the black and brown and gay and foreign people, and the white people who make any effort to get along with those people.  (You have people like this in your country too, they're everywhere; I think in Europe they're generally called 'nationalists,' but mainly they're just mild-to-medium racists who believe people who are not like them are a danger to them.)  So the Republicans tell the uneducated white people that that's who's to blame, and then tell them that if they just get the Democrats with all their help for black and brown and gay people and regulations on bank and business out of the way, the uneducated white people can all start small businesses and become rich.

Enter Donald Trump, a rich white man who tells poor white people that the problems in this country are Mexicans, Muslims, and liberals, and that his solution is to make the federal government less like a government and more like a business, which will then make everyone rich winners.

You have probably observed that this is what he says, and what he is doing.  I'm just letting you know that he's only saying what Republicans have been saying for 30 years, but louder, and meaner, and more plainly.  He didn't come out of nowhere.  He makes perfect sense.

Bobby Hutcherson - a reason to listen to the vibraphone

Today is Bobby Hutcherson's seventy-fifth birthday.  I am pleased to see it recognized, at least among my circle of friends and weirdos I don't really know on Facebook.  I was VERY pleased to watch this episode of 'A Night in the Life' featuring Bobby, in which he beautifully discusses aspects of his own history as well as describes his day-to-day life.  (Watch it here.)

I have been trying to make music on the vibraphone since I was about fifteen years old, and for the first decade or so I was at it, my nearly entire focus was on jazz music.  Bobby was not the first vibraphonist I ever heard; I'm sure that distinction goes to some mix of Lionel Hampton (with Benny Goodman) and Arthur Lyman (with Martin Denny.)  I have the strange sensation my Dad had a stray Cal Tjader record in his collection, the origins of which are a mystery, and may have involved a woman. As I began to take the vibes more seriously, I dutifully (and rewardingly) listened to a lot of Milt Jackson's recordings; my favorites are not with the rather predictable Modern Jazz Quartet, but with Monk, with whom he paired so well and played so differently than with anyone else.  I enjoyed the small amount of Victor Feldman's vibes playing there is to find, and marveled at the novelty of hearing Red Norvo's trio with Charles Mingus and Tal Farlow. I was of course blown away by Gary Burton's innovative four-mallet techniques and fluidity, as I am now, and always dug the aggressive bebop fire of Dave Pike (Milt Jackson gets called the 'bebop vibes player' because of time and place and associations, but he always sounds more like a gospel singer or an organist's right hand than like Bird and Diz on the vibes, to me,) and the undeniable individuality of Walt Dickerson and his tiny, lightning-fast mallets.  (I was also into latter-day heroes like Joe Locke, Steve Nelson, and Stefon Harris, but they're of a more recent generation, and unavoidably have less mystique as a result.)

Bobby Hutcherson has easily had the biggest impact on me of any of these great players, and his are, to be honest, the only vibraphone-led albums I find myself wanting to listen to, some ten years after being so fully immersed in both the jazz and vibes worlds.  He recorded on Blue Note with a who's who of great and influential musicians; most of his records from the 60s feature the piano playing of either Herbie Hancock or McCoy Tyner, his drummers Elvin Jones, Tony Williams, until he started making collaborative records with the deeply interesting (and apparently quite hard to deal with) Joe Chambers.  This is all pretty easy to look up, so I shan't go on, book report-style. All I'll say is, the writing on Components, Oblique, Total Eclipse... he's just got a deep talent for making memorable melodies over challenging harmony, in a way that I think often gets attributed only to Wayne Shorter and Herbie.  The music on those albums has that wonderful and now-lost blend of easy-to-understand, almost Horace Silverian composition, combined with a freedom in the solos that allowed for real stretching.  (Makes sense, Bobby's earliest well-known sideman roles in New York were with Eric Dolphy on Out to Lunch and Archie Schepp live at Newport.)

But beyond (and perhaps more important than) these great recordings, Bobby had a profound affect on me when I saw him play live.  The first time was probably in 1999 or 2000, when I was still a teenager, mentally if not legally.  He played music from his only Verve album at the time, Skyline, at the old Iridium, by Lincoln Center.  (That album remains one of the absolute best acoustic jazz albums from that era; great writing, and Bobby was on fire.) His command of the instrument, his presence in the room while still being able to be transported; his focus!  I could not believe how well he played, but it was so much more than that; it was the look in his eyes, it was the weight and magic in the way he stood. I seem to remember chatting with him nervously after (I tend to get quite bratty around celebrity; Bobby Hutcherson is one of the few people who I know I can expect will pull the air from my lungs when I see him walk into a room I am in,) and found him to be a very gentle, charming, quiet man.  None of that was evident while he was playing.  He moved like someone was controlling him with a force he was a little bit afraid of.  (I use past tense only because it's been a number of years since I've seen him live.) And it made the music feel so full of power, and potential, and danger. On another occasion at (was it the Jazz Standard?) I remember his apparent possession was even deeper; clicking his mallet handles like some kind of ritual rattle, and bringing them together on giant bombs of rhythmic cadence during other people's solos, as if he was willing grand moments into being, as if he could feel them coming 30 seconds ahead of time. Felt like magic.  Maybe it was.

Now Bobby is older, and keeping mostly close to home in the Bay Area, an oxygen tank always nearby, enjoying flowers and sunshine, apparently immune to the aging jazz musician's syndrome, the symptoms of which are talking a ton of shit and wondering why they're not more venerated.  He should be; for me, he's speaking the kind of truth and playing the kind of music that people only seem to expect to hear from Wayne Shorter (whom I love dearly, mind you,) and the recently departed Charlie Haden and Paul Motian.  But he seems to be happy about where he is on his seventy-fifth birthday.  I've no great witty conclusion to this blatant fan-post, other than to encourage to listen to Bobby's brilliance on the following:

Eric Dolphy's Out to Lunch

his own Components and Oblique on bluenote

his record with Tommy Flanagan called 'Mirage,' featuring some of the most beautiful marimba playing ever done

the aforementioned 'Skyline,' still quietly one of the best jazz recordings of the 1990s,

and an Abbey Lincoln record from 2000 called Wholly Earth where all of his subtlety, power, warmth, spirituality, and sense of humor comes into play.

Happy Birthday, Bobby.  Thanks so much for all you've given me.  May you live as long as you want to.

Amber Coffman and Beyond: Sexual Harassment in an Industry With No HR Department

I don't know Amber Coffman.  I think we probably have a few mutual friends, but we've never met.  Even if I did know her, I could not say that I know for certain she's telling the truth when she says a music PR guy "rubbed my ass and bit my hair" against her wishes in a bar a few years ago. (She just revealed that in a series of tweets, and it's now a story being posted around Facebook.)  I'm not accusing her of lying, not one bit, I'm just acknowledging that we're talking about something someone said on Twitter, not something that was proven beyond the shadow of a doubt in a court of law.

(read the story here http://pitchfork.com/news/63017-dirty-projectors-amber-coffman-best-coast-and-more-accuse-publicist-of-sexual-misconduct/)

That said, there's a reason I find it incredibly easy to believe, the same way it's very hard to see any bit of doubt in the case(s) against Bill Cosby, with his tens of accusers. (And not, as an alarming number of friends and people I look up to seem to believe, because he's a black celebrity I want to 'take down.') The reason is because I have observed this phenomenon in one form or another with basically every female artist I have worked with in my 15 years of professional music-making in New York; they probably number more than twenty-five, and I've heard about it first-hand from scores of other female colleagues and friends.

Let me quickly clear this up: none of this is to say that all my wondrous female performer friends shouldn't sleep with any and every older man in the business (or anyone else for that matter) who catches their eye; this is about not being able to do one's job (or pursue one's artistic dreams) without being bothered if not straight-up made to feel in danger by everyone from annoying nobodies to gatekeepers and idols.

Sexual harassment. Look, yes, it runs a range.  At the very least, I have observed every female artist I have ever worked with receive comments (supposed 'compliments') about her appearance from fans, bandmates, bandleaders, clubowners, managers, producers, ""producers"" et al that go beyond just the minor offense of focusing on their looks rather than their art. They tend to be overly specific and creepy, or else some variant on 'You look so good that I'd like to...' There's often unwanted personal communication, like middle of the night texts from someone who's supposed to be booking gigs for them, or flowers with a winky card from the curator of a series. With older grandpa guys, there's a cheek kiss they try to turn into a kiss on the lips, an arm around the shoulders or hand on the back that stays there too long.  Sometimes there's a weird, quasi-business-sounding 'you should come up to the Catskills sometime this summer,' or an overt 'we're going skinny-dipping this weekend, come join us!'  Every so often it's just a 65-year-old man with power or perceived power in the 'industry' straight-up propositioning a young musician in her mid-twenties in the phony spirit of 'I'm from the 60s/70s, when attitudes were different.'

Attitudes have always been the exact same.  Men try to use any power or status that comes their way to have sex with women who are younger, better-looking, more intelligent, more talented, and more interesting than they, and tend to do so in the rudest, most expedient, transactional way possible. This exists in every walk of life and every conceivable career and industry, but it feels especially rampant in the entertainment world because a) professional female entertainers are not taking their careers very seriously if they don't try to make themselves as attractive as they possibly can when they perform (so people are constantly seeing them in sexier clothing and more makeup than you'd expect to see your lawyer or dentist or head architect in,) b) quite often a vibrant flirtatiousness is (true to the style) 'part of the act,' (in cabaret, jazz, country, etc etc etc,) and people get confused and think they have the right to engage the performer in that arena the same way idiots think they can take a swing at Jason Statham in a bar because they saw him in an action movie, and c) there is no human resources department in the world of freelance art.  If a veteran musician hires a woman to play a gig with him at a club and says lewd things to her or pinches her ass, there is no one to formally complain to, no one who's legally bound to then relieve him of his job, or allow her to walk off the job and still get paid.  This kind of behavior is generally expected and accepted from major artists, and it's often played up as part of their persona; "oh, careful, sweetheart, he LOVES the ladies..."

It's also expected from the non-talent in the industry: bookers, agents, money men, venue owners etc etc etc, but in much less of a romantic sex, drugs, and rock n roll way and in much more of a 'guys with money and power think everything belongs to them' way.  As someone who has played with these shiny entertainer women, been employed by them, hired them, and dated them, when I see this behavior, it makes me want to kill.  Firstly, I just want my friends to be happy and comfortable and free of fear and the feeling of being objectified.  Secondly, these are some of the greatest musicians and artists I know, and I find I'm ecstatically making (their) great music with them to the thrill of a big crowd one minute, and the next, I watch them take the $60-on-a-good-night it earned them and walk across the street in their 'show shoes' to try and get a taco from the truck, only to be tailed out there by the lectchy clubowner, the handsy freelance producer, or the middle-aged fan who comes to every show and always flirts while assuring her and everyone around her he's a 'harmless old man,' (or to be cat-called by some asshole who jumped off a garbage truck as she got out the club door.) This can absolutely shatter the amazing high of artistic accomplishment they were riding (which I would be allowed to hold onto in that moment,) and returns them to the role of a lone woman on the street who's got to be careful.  No one deserves to be bothered that way when they're not initiating it, but to know what these particular women can do, hell, what they just did, and to know that everyone SHOULD be bothering them at that taco truck with a pure sentiment of "I love your music, thank you for playing it, you're incredible..." God damn it.

And so, each time this happens, I have ultra-violent fantasies that exceed the limits of both what I am physically capable of and what people will go through without going to the cops.  But I know that punching and shoving and throwing down stairs would do nothing to change this old, tired situation, and would probably horrify my friend/bandmate/girlfriend in question, and most certainly be a case of me projecting a damsel in distress thing onto her that she wants no part of.  So I swallow my anger, and support my friends in whatever way they think will help.  But from now on, I am most certainly going to ask them to consider following the brave example of Amber Coffman.  Sure, there are circumstances where things seem ambiguous, and you don't want to cause someone big problems for dubious reasons.  But in situations like hers, where she was openly harassed by someone who had a reputation for that kind of behavior, I say go for it.  Out him.  Shame him.  Make him famous for it. Because consequences like those are the only way this is going to get better.