Coleman Hawkins - Body and Soul

Classic classic classic jazz performance. Recorded in 1939, pointing down a path that the be-boppers would follow and extend.

Memorial Day

Originally Decoration Day, commemorating the soldiers of the US Civil War.

Small Faces - The Autumn Stone

A beautiful song that's not particularly well known.

RIP Gil Scott-Heron

David Bromberg - I Like to Sleep Late

A song written by Bromberg's onetime employer Jerry Jeff Walker.

Ratko Mladic Caught

Justice.

Police in Serbia have arrested Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb military leader wanted by the United Nations for war crimes committed during the Bosnian war, including the Srebrenica massacre.

nada depends on nothing

Sorry, nothing today.

Bob Dylan - Forever Young

Happy birthday, Bob.

Radiohead - The Tourist

I've actually posted this song before, but that link is broken, and it's been in my head lately, so why not?

Democracy vs. Capitalism

I find this to be extremely depressing, mostly because it seems to be essentially accurate.

Deng bet that, despite grand talk, what mattered most to western nations was the establishment of economic ties, not as a means to an end, but as an end in themselves. So long as he was willing to open the nation to trade, everything else would fall by the wayside. It was a gamble he won. The stark truth of this can be read in the western reaction to the massacre in Tiananmen Square. By 1989, just a decade after Deng shoved open the doors, the US was already so dependent on trade with China and so committed to the idea that the foundation of freedom was free trade, that the response to the Chinese crackdown was extremely muted. Sanctions against China were limited to military sales. Even a bill to allow Chinese students to remain in the US until China's human rights abuses ended was vetoed by President Bush. The first action of the US government wasn't to withdraw from China, but to work toward "improved relations."

REM - It's the End of the World As We Know it (And I Feel Fine)

The obvious choice for today.

Paul and Paula - Hey Paula

Like yesterday's post, an early sixties song about young love.

Randy and the Rainbows - Denise

One of my favorite doo-wop songs.

Philip Roth wins Man Booker International Prize

Not to be confused with the regular Man Booker prize awarded for a novel annually, the International prize is awarded every two years to a novelist for a body of work. Congratulations to an author who has been consistently producing work of a very high quality for decades. The Guardian article is here.

Taj Mahal - She Caught the Katy (And Left Me a Mule to Ride)

Happy birthday to Henry Saint Clair Fredericks, born on this date in 1942, and better known as Taj Mahal.

Small Faces - Lazy Sunday

Classic psychedelia à la Anglaise.

The King's Singers - In dulci jubilo

A melody that is at least six hundred years old, now best known as the Christmas carol "Good Christian Men Rejoice and Sing."

Ultimate Dog Tease

You've probably already seen it a dozen times, but who cares. H/t RBH.

Blogger Antics

Blogger was out of commission, so no post yesterday. I'll have another new one later today.

Traffic - John Barleycorn

Live in the Netherlands in 1970.

When Legends Gather (h/t T. Sutpen)

Left to right: Van Dyke Parks, Randy Newman, and Brian Wilson, in London for Jools Holland's TV show a few days ago.

Cornell Dupree RIP

Cornell Dupree made his living as a top session guitarist, which means that although you may not know his name you've heard his work. He recorded with many famous people (Aretha Franklin and Paul Simon to name only two) in the last forty years or so.

Krugman on "Experts"

I find this article incredibly depressing, because it basically offers no hope. I also think that it's essentially accurate.

The fact is that what we’re experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. The policies that got us into this mess weren’t responses to public demand. They were, with few exceptions, policies championed by small groups of influential people — in many cases, the same people now lecturing the rest of us on the need to get serious. And by trying to shift the blame to the general populace, elites are ducking some much-needed reflection on their own catastrophic mistakes.

John Lennon - Mother

The Crests - Sixteen Candles

One of my favorite records when I was a kid, in retrospect mostly because of the purity and strength of Johnny Maestro's voice.

Cats of War

The USA's most secret covert ops operatives revealed. H/t Digby.

Guitarron

A lot of people I meet in my neck of the woods don't know what a guitarron is, so to provide a little relevant information on Cinco de Mayo, here is a brief example of what one looks and sounds like.

Spirit - Mr. Skin

Happy birthday to Ed "Cass" Cassidy of Spirit, the drummer with the shaved head, sometimes known as Mr. Skin, quondam stepfather to guitarist Randy California, born on this date in 1923.

Andrew Sullivan is Obviously Mistaken, Very Slow to Admit It

Also, dog bites man.

Details here.

H/t Eschaton.

Louis Armstrong & His Orchestra - I'll be Glad When You're Dead, You Rascal You

The President's Speech - Trailer

Takeoff on The King's Speech, shown at last night's White House Correspondent's Dinner.