Vishtén Spins Acadian Delights

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VISHTÈN

Mōsaïk

Vishtèn Vish004

We’ve come to expect exuberance and joy from Francophone music, but does it sound differently if it comes from outside Québec? What happens when Acadian music is played by twin sisters (Emmanuel and Pastelle LeBlanc) from Prince Edward Island, and a guitarist from the remote Magdalen Islands? And what new potage emerges when we take an Acadian roux and blend it with Mi’kmaq influences, Celtic melodies, and the occasional Moog synthesizer? That’s the mosaic that Vishtèn have been assembling for over a decade and which, on this, their fourth album, comes together in ways that blends the best of the past with just the right contemporary touches. The end product retains the famed ragged tune structure, the constant percussive patter of feet and call-and-echo vocals of Québéçois music, but make it come out in a detectably smoother way. Mōsaïk is, indeed, a collection of small pieces that combine in aesthetically pleasing ways. There are splashes of whimsy (Emmanuelle LeBlanc’s whistle-led instrumental “Tutti Fluti),” some bluesy drama (“Je Pars Pour un Voyage”), crisp guitar work from Pascal Miousse (“Pour Jacob’), and accordion/mouth harp/fiddle party-down tunes (such as “Tempête des Glaces”).  There’s even a moody arrangement of a song inspired by a First Nations legend, “L’Áme Á P’tit Jean,” which has a touch of surf guitar embedded in a meaty hook and supplemented by some spooky Moog. Got that? Trust me–you’ll like it. Rob Weir

Here's a bouncy little Francophone number.

North Sea Gas Turns Up the Heat

NORTH SEA GAS

The Fire and the Passion of Scotland

Scotdisc ITV827

* * * *

North Sea Gas holds own on a formal concert stage, a house concert, or a noisy Highland bar (which is where I first heard them). It might be the hardest-working Scottish band you’ve never heard of, even though founder Dave Gilfillan has been hitting the road for 34 years and the latest album is the band’s eighteenth. NSG–Gilfillan, Ronnie MacDonald, and Grant Simpson–invite adjectives such as protean and quotidian in the very best shadings of meaning. On this album, NSG continues its long tradition as both a cover band and interpreters of traditional songs. As advertised, there’s lots of fire and passion. There are just three of them, but six different instruments are trotted out and bold, booming three-part harmonies (reminiscent of The Tannahill Weavers) makes it seem as if there is a small village on stage. The band rips through a delightful mix of material–old chestnuts such as “Maggie Lauder” and “Fear a’ Bhata,” rousing battle cries the likes of “The Standard on the Braes O’ Mar” and “The Battle O’ Harlaw,” the pathos of “Calling Down the Line,” the bygone nostalgia of “Windmills,” and humorous offerings such as “Aye No No” and “I’m Having a Bit Tonight.” The last, by the way, is one of the filthiest-sounding, innocent songs about dessert you’ll ever hear! NSG do everything with panache and, perhaps, a little bit of cheese, but you’ll savor every crumb.   

Rob Weir

The Non-Reason of Health Care Debates

I doubt she planned on being in this chair!

I have not come to praise Obamacare. I’m on record many times as saying there should be no such thing as for-profit medical care in America–­health should be a human right. But given that this Congress is more likely to abolish gravity than advance public health, I can’t bring myself to bury Obamacare either. We can debate this, but would it be too much to ask that we insist that that discussion rest upon something more substantive than Straw Men?

There are two in particular that have been so endlessly recycled that they even get trotted out on NPR, the closest thing we have to meaty mainstream media here in ‘Merica. The first is that too much money is “squandered” on end-of-life elders; the second is that among the “losers” of health care reform will be younger workers. If ever the adage that foolishness repeated eventually becomes reality holds true, these two cinch the case.

It stands to reason that more money is spent toward the end of one’s life–healthy people tend not to die until they first shed their (apparently) annoying lack of illness. I suppose one could make the case that it makes little sense to approve a heart transplant for a 75-year-old man. Or does it? What if that man was your father? Now how do you feel about it? No doubt about it—the elderly cost more to maintain. We could do what some peoples north of Arctic Circle do; that is, when the elderly become burdensome, abandon them on the tundra until the cold, wolves, or bears finish them off. But spare us pious nonsense about spending too much on old people until you’ve booked tundra passage for your parents and your name appears on a future manifest. Until then, shut up and help pay for hospice care, morphine, and nursing care that eases the passage of elders, lest you appear an idiot, a monster, or both. Let’s call picking up the tab the least we can do for a person who once valued his or her life (and bank account) as much as you value your own.

If you’re young and healthy, be thankful not selfish. I nearly spewed when I heard an October 23 NPR story that repeated the line that the young and healthy stood to be “losers” in health care reform because they would end up “paying” for those who are “sick.” Well, duh! What’s the point of insurance other than to have it when needed? What does age have to do with it? Nobody plans or wishes to get sick. I know; I’ve been there. When I was barely in my 30s, I experienced very severe back pain of mysterious origin. I was running every day, ate a healthy diet, wasn’t overweight, and had not injured myself. It took a battery of tests to locate the problem: a bladder tumor pressing against sensitive nerves. It had to be removed and tested–cancer. I was extremely lucky in that it was tiny, completely excisable, and had not spread. An outpatient procedure fixed me, though healing my psychological anxiety took a tad longer.

The moral? What turned out to be a very minor incident wracked up around $40,000 in medical bills before it was said and done. Because I had insurance, I was out for just several hundred dollars of various copayments. Consider this before mounting your prancing young pony and extolling your rosy-cheeked youthfulness–unless you just happen to have forty grand lying around the house for which you have no better use. Human bodies are like cars and houses–use them long enough and things wear out or break. You’ll never know when this will happen. When I go the gym I observe shoulder and knee surgery scars, ugly marks that once held the staples for post-op open heart procedures, and external reminders of hip replacements. Sometimes these bodies are old, but often they are far younger than my own. You just never know…. Insurance protects us from what we can’t  predict, not what we can. If you don’t have it, you’re playing Russian roulette with your future. And, in a very indirect way, you’re also asking me to pay for your gambling habits. If you go broke, who pays your Medicaid bills?

We certainly need a health care debate in this country. Too bad we spend our time knocking over Straw Men instead of dealing with the heart (and knees, shoulders, hips, etc.) of the problem.  Obamacare? It’s little more than a notched stick in the hands of a one-legged man. But in lieu of anything else, the man is glad to have it.

Junkyard Ball an Eclectic Delight

TERO HYVÄLUOMA

Junkyard Ball

Lusti Music and Arts 009

It’s a Celtic music ensemble? No, wait, it’s a small jazz combo. Or is it a Finnish traditional music? I’m sorry; I meant to say this is an album of experimental music. If there’s an award for truth in musical advertising, wrap it and ship to Finland’s Tero Hyvälouma–the music contained on this CD’s eight peripatetic tracks covers so much musical turf that junkyard is as good a classification as any. Pretty fancy junk, though. Hyvälouma is the latest innovative musician to emerge from the Sibelius Academy, where he concentrated on violin. Let’s just say that the academy didn’t sidetrack Hyvälouma’s eclecticism. He is clearly in command of the fiddle, but he also showcases his talents on bouzouki, harmonium, and glockenspiel. (Glockenspiel! Who plays that any more? Glad he does.) Hyvälouma fronts a five-piece band that’s supplemented with 11 guest musicians, so you can add occasional forays into symphonic sounds to the list of influences you’ll hear on this CD. But I pity any retail clerk that has to pick a category into which to stock this CD. The record company calls it “Finnish folk music,” but the album’s sole traditional song, “Läksin mina kesäyonä,” welcomes three female singers into a arrangement that has the feel of ancient music backed by jazz piano. The title track opens with loud accordion and fiddle soaked in enough funk to evoke stride jazz, sans the piano. And when the piano does emerge in the mix, we’re decidedly into progressive jazz territory, complete with Nika Votkin’s bridging drum solo. A bit of scat and double bass and, before you know it, you’re in a place where meaty blues licks intersect with discordance. How about if we just label it eight tracks of intrigue and skillful musicianship? 

Rob Weir

A Trio of World Jazz Recordings

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African Americans invented jazz, but it’s been a global phenomenon since its earliest days. Three new recordings sample current jazz trends in South Africa and Brazil.

The most exciting of the three by far is Kheswa & Her Martians, whose Meadowlands, Stolen Jazz (Xippi Phonorecords 32740) is a four-star delight. Nonhlanhla Kheswa hails from Soweto and is a worthy heiress to the legendary Miriam Makeba. Like the latter she possesses a powerful and supple voice that is anything but a classical jazz set of pipes. She can growl and grunt, but her voice naturally gravitates to upper palette  higher tones usually associated with pop singers. All of this is to say that if you like your jazz sultry and smoky, steer clear–Kheswa favors bright, bold, muscular, and sassy. The album’s name is a triple pun in that the music presented was once forbidden and played on the sly in South Africa’s black townships, some of the music has been “stolen” in the sense that it’s been recorded before (including the 1955 title track song), and that which hasn’t been borrowed has been lifted from its original context. Kheswa fronts a seven-piece band that contains two killer saxophonists (Jovan Alexandre and Karim Rome) and a pianist (Taber Gable) who doesn’t merely back the songs, he shapes and orchestrates them. At times Kheswa is swingy, at others as hep as Ella Fitzgerald, and at still others a jazzy version of Angélique Kidjo. I would yield to purists that insist that Kheswa is more of a popularizer than a classic jazz singer, but that’s why I like her so much!

And it’s probably why I found two new offerings from Brazil rather tepid. Of the two, Mario Adnet’s Villa Lobos (Boranda 0020 **) is the more interesting and the more eclectic offering. It also benefits from the addition from really topnotch musicians. This is a theme album dedicated to the songs of Heitor Villa-Lobos (1897-1959), an important Brazilian modernist composer. The repertoire is a plus and a minus. Like many modernists, Villa-Lobos borrowed freely from other sources (chamber music, movie scores, tango, even some faintly Celtic material). As is also the case, some of the Stravinsky-influenced experimental flights are more impressive than riveting.

Too much introspection bored me when listening to Antonio Loureiro’s Só (Boranda 0015 *). This is piano-based jazz that veers into soundscaping by breaking melodies, drifting into improv, and descending into shapelessness. It feels soulful in its own way, but I often wondered if Loureiro had any audience in mind other than himself and the musicians on stage. In Portuguese só means “under” or “who,” but I often found myself leaving off the accent and reacting in English with a simple interrogative: so?

James Connolly Gets Rebellious Treatment

THE JAMES CONNOLLY SONGS OF FREEDOM BAND

Songs of Freedom

PM Press A-017-2

Until World War One, the labor movement, Irish nationalism, and socialism knew no national boundaries and a figure such as politician/rebel/songwriter James Connolly (1868-1916) was as famous in North America as in Ireland or the British Isles. His death at the hands of a British firing squad in the wake of the failed Easter Uprising was mourned across the globe. A new recording and accompanying songbook takes us inside of Connolly’s life, causes, and the protest songs he and others penned and cherished. It’s more than a nostalgia piece, although it evokes the sort of movement songs that dominated the pages of Sing Out! during its early years. The project is the brainchild of Mat Callahan, a San Francisco-based activist and musician who honed his teeth on political rock. This album, for the most part, has a folksier feel. It features nine songs written by Connolly, including “Human Freedom,” “When Labor Calls,” and “Watchword of Labor,” which were known to North American members of the Industrial Workers of the World. (Connolly joined the IWW when lived in America.) The remaining four songs are three in Connolly’s honor, including Irish poet Patrick Galvin’s moving “Where is James Connolly?” and Jim Connell’s internationally famous “The Red Flag.” The last is one of the few tracks that doesn’t quite work, as it is given an agit-rock treatment in which the music overwhelms the lyrics–the latter being the point of social protest music. Aside from this slip, the 13 musicians of the Songs of Freedom Band evoke the community exuberance of comrades singing in support of unions, socialism, and Irish freedom. Callahan’s edited edition of the 1907 The James Connolly Songbook is the sort of historical artifact that’s didactic, but which also makes you think that modern movements could learn a few lessons by delving into it. In Connolly’s spirit, both the CD and the book are borders-defying projects assembled and funded in Ireland, Switzerland, and the United States. 

Rob Weir

Rhymes with Yokel: Why Small Government is No Substitute for the Feds

Bankrupt this guy and....

The current financial mess and Congressional hissy fit have revived the grandest of American sports: ranting over taxes. It is the ultimate Straw Man debate, though. Nobody, and I mean nobody, actually likes to pay taxes. Lefties want to keep their dough just as much as the tempests from the Tea Party. As one of the former, let me make it clear that this lefty doesn’t like paying income tax, sales tax, excise tax, or backdoor levies such as vehicle registration fees, phone surcharges, or turnpike tolls. A particularly loathsome fee is the $1.40 I have to shell out for 14 miles of New Hampshire I drive on I-95 on my way to Ogunquit, Maine. Live free or die my ass–more like live like a freeloader off of money gouged from the Bay State.

That 14 miles is partly what this essay is about. Every time any sort of financial crunch hits, the collective reflex is to start ranting over federal taxes–as if these exist in a vacuum. The tax system is a big daisy chain–every dime you remove from the federal part of it is going to be assessed further down the line. If there are fewer dollars for the feds to give out for colleges, for example, state governments are pressured to come up with the scratch. If they can’t, they tell schools they have to raise their tuitions to erect new facilities, pay profs, or dole out financial aid. Students and their parents then go back to the feds and seek grants, but there are fewer of them, so they seek federal loans instead, only to find out that there’s less money for these as well. So they borrow money from banks, and what are interest rates but a tax under a different name? If you can’t relate to that example, look at what has happened to highway funding over the years. The interstates are rutted because the feds don’t have the money to rebuild them, the bridges are unsafe because cash-strapped states defer maintenance, and your street is filled with potholes because local government isn’t getting any help from the feds or the state. They only get money from one place: you! I now pay almost as much per month in property taxes as I paid for principle when I had a mortgage. My state sales tax has gone up 40%. I hate paying those things!

At the end of the day, though, it boils down to a single question: Which master do you wish to pay? And that’s where the most naïve of all tax debates takes place. Even the Tea Party thinks we need some services, so how do we fund them? This question is where the Loony Right and the Batshit Crazy Left meet–they both think small-is-beautiful decentralization is the way to go. In the abstract, rightwing libertarianism and leftwing anarchism sound really good. Let’s depend upon ourselves, or voluntarily associate with likeminded radically free individuals and live in a society beyond government. The first problem is that it’s all a bunch of romantic twaddle when put into practice, and the second is that it ignores the reality that we need big government more than we need small government.

...you're at this guy's mercy!

Spend enough time observing grassroots government and you’ll come to appreciate why local and yokel rhyme. I lost my romance for localism by observing the institution often upheld as the very model of democracy: town meetings. You have no idea how seriously out-of-touch people can be until you watch two grown men literally come to blows over whether or not to spend town money to dump a load of gravel on a washed out back road! Nor can you appreciate the depths of pettiness until you see half of a town vote to fire two reading teachers, put buckets under a leaky roof, and defund art, music, and all non-sports extracurricular activities rather than raise property taxes by .5%. Think I exaggerate? Look at local schools–firmly under the thumb of local control. To maintain certification, public schools must meet (ridiculously low) state standards and the rest of a child’s educational experience is at the mercy of local school boards and taxpayers. In the 1980s I taught in a Vermont district in which texts were expected to last 15-20 years. (Try teaching anthropology with a book printed in 1964!) Five miles away, in IBM-enriched Essex Junction, schools spent more each year on videotapes than my district spent in five for textbooks. Come to Massachusetts and walk the halls of the new school in tony Newton. Then take a drive to Holyoke High. Still think local control is a wonderfully democratic ideal?

Education is a big job–too big to be left to the whims, budgets, and vendettas of locals. We really hate Big Government, right? Tell me how well local government and private charities handled the Great Depression. Anyone who wants to paint Franklin Roosevelt as a communist had better be prepared to explain how the nation was better off under Hoover than under New Deal. But let’s forget ancient history. Tell me what would have happened without federal presence during the Deepwater Horizon spill, Hurricane Katrina, or Hurricane Sandy. Each of those could/should have been handled better, but while you’re spilling anti-FEMA bile, tell me who else had the resources even to attempt tackling problems of this magnitude. While you’re at it, convince me that the last recession wouldn’t have been much, much worse had it not been for the American Recovery and Investment Act. Though I didn’t care for the bailouts, many economists argue that the Troubled Asset Relief Program staved off a serious depression. We should debate how tax money gets spent, but we again come back to scale. Who was going to take on the collapsing economy, your local bank? If not the feds, who will fund vet hospitals, elder care, energy development, the NIH, the Centers for Disease Control, consumer safety, or the military? (The very thought of the military makes the tax-hating right giddy!) Let’s face it, without the feds, local governments would sell every inch of the National Park System to developers.

We all hate taxes, but don’t confuse what you like with what you need to do. And don’t be a yokel.