All That Jazz (and Gram & Emmylou, too)

The usual hot or fun politics and media takes below, plus live music from Rhiannon Giddens, Gary Burton, and Gram Parsons & Emmylou Harris.

But first, jazz great Chick Corea has passed away at the age of 79. Among other things, he helped forge the “jazz fusion” of the 1970s, first with Miles and then with his own Return to Forever, but one of my favorite recordings of the period was a 1973 album by his former sidekick Gary Burton which featured as its lead track this Chick composition. Here it is in a performance much later featuring Gary and Pat Metheny. Don’t miss. Then maybe share or subscribe—it’s free.

News/Politics

Jimmy Kimmel: “Yep, the Democrats’ presentation was so emotional and compelling that Republicans almost looked up from their phones….Most of them are lost causes. Like Tom Cotton, Bill Hagerty—these guys, they would eat the hair out of Donald Trump’s shower drain. But a few of them, who knows? Maybe three ghosts will visit them in the middle of the night tonight.”

Colin Mochrie: “If I ever commit a major crime, I really hope the jury is made up of the people who helped me do it.”

Andy Borowitz: “Senator Marco Rubio revealed on Thursday that he got his highest score ever on Candy Crush Saga during the second impeachment trial of Donald J. Trump. The Florida lawmaker said that he has been playing the video game for years but had never been able to focus on it the way he has during the first two days of the trial.”

The Daily Show reveals a new GOP product: “Impeach Pods,” noise-cancelling headphones that block out all trial evidence of Trump inciting insurrection.

Colbert show, meanwhile, with fun takedown of Trump attorney Bruce Castor miscast as…Atticus Finch.

Nikki, don’t lost that number: Surprising remarks cited from Nikki Haley, seemingly breaking from Trump (will this help or hurt her in 2024?): “He went down a path he shouldn't have, and we shouldn't have followed him, and we shouldn't have listened to him. And we can't let that ever happen again." But the full article paints a far different picture as she flubs any Profile in Courage.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been banned from Instagram for his long-running false claims on Covid-19 and vaccines. Finally. And Project Veritas was kicked off Twitter.

Can Rep. Katie Hill get her job back now or does she have to hire a “polyamorous tantric sex guru” first? In any case, Hill tweeted this morning: “I don’t care at all about Marjorie Taylor Greene’s sex life. I care a lot about all of the terrible things she’s done that affect other people.”

Speaking of hypocrisy, NY Times reported last night: “The influential evangelist Ravi Zacharias, who died last spring, engaged in ‘sexting, unwanted touching, spiritual abuse, and rape,’ according to a report released on Thursday by the global evangelical organization he founded. After initially denying accounts of his misconduct, Ravi Zacharias International Ministries announced that an investigation had found credible evidence of sexual misconduct spanning many years and multiple continents.”

Mike Pence, of course, spoke at his memorial in Atlanta, calling him “a man of faith who could rightly handle the word of truth like few others in our time” and comparing him to Billy Graham.

You may have heard that right-wingers went nuts after hearing that Mark Cuban had ordered that his Dallas Mavs dispense with playing the “Star-Spangled Banner” before home games—in an empty arena. NBA then ordered all teams to play it or else. I love the response by Pelicans’ coach Stan Van Gundy, which echoes what I have long declared: “If you think the anthem needs to be played before sporting events, then play it before every movie, concert, church service and the start of every work day at every business. What good reason is there to play the anthem before a game?”

And on this Trevor Noah points out: “FOX NEWS: America is the land of the free! ALSO FOX NEWS: If the Mavericks don’t play the national anthem before every basketball game we will absolutely lose our shit.”

We’ve long warned that “Covid Hero” Andrew Cuomo’s early response and nursing home dumping will come out and tarnish his image considerably. And now it’s happening.

Media

New York magazine with major hit on the Lincoln Project, claiming its leaders were warned about the predatory behavior of colleague John Weaver. They dispute this. George Conway, a supporter, responded: “This report is disturbing and appalling. The Lincoln Project should hire an independent counsel to investigate these circumstances thoroughly and provide a full accounting of the facts to everyone who worked at the organization, as well as all those who contributed to it.”

Your daily update on the uproar at the NY Times over forcing out Donald McNeil Jr.: Times columnist Bret Stephens says that publisher A.G. Sulzberger “spiked” his column that was supposed to run on Monday in which he took issue with the paper’s handling of the McNeil case. Stephens took issue with the fact that top editor Dean Baquet had said, "We do not tolerate racist language regardless of intent.” Stephens, in the axed column, asked: "Do any of us want to live in a world, or work in a field, where intent is categorically ruled out as a mitigating factor?”

In fact, Baquet has now walked back that “intent” claim in a statement yesterday: "In our zeal to make a powerful statement about our workplace culture, we hamhandedly said something that some of you saw as threatening to our journalism.... Of course intent matters when we are talking about language in journalism." One Times staffer, talking to CNN, calls the whole episode “a fucking disaster.”

Music

The annual announcement of this year’s nominees for induction into the hallowed—or hollow, depending on your point of view—Rock & Roll Hall of Fame came down this week. It was greeted with the usual consensus that “nobody cares” and then fierce argument, seemingly by tens of millions, over the selections and omissions. We will refrain from that except to note that two of this year’s front-runners are already enshrined as part of combos (Tina Turner with Ike, and Carole King in the songwriting wing with Gerry Goffin) but now deserve separate recognition. Actually, I care more about finding out if those copies of Crawdaddy that I helped edit are still on display in Cleveland.

Of course, one of the many problems with the selection process is “criteria.” Can an inductee be a truly crucial innovator and influencer or does he/she/they also have to sell a boatload of records (which seems to usually be the case)? Do they even have to be loosely defined as coming from a “rock & roll” tradition (this went out the window almost from the start)? So we are left with Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s definition of porn—you know it when you see it, or in this case, hear it.

So every year fans make pitches for their faves, some laughable, others carrying some weight—e.g. the perennial push for the late Warren Zevon who has not even made a nominating ballot. Another omission close to my heart is Gram Parsons, who certainly did not sell a ton of records, but was briefly in a HOF band (the Byrds), another great outfit (The Flying Burritos) and then recorded two tremendous solo albums before throwing away his life and career. Gram did not have the longevity gene but was a prime mover for the entire county-rock craze of the late 1960s and 1970s (hello, Eagles), and famously pushed country on the Stones (“Wild Horses” etc.)—and then he launched Emmylou Harris. Rolling Stone observed eight years ago on his failure to make the hall: “Whatever the reason, it's wise to assume this will be fixed in the next few years. Odds are about 99 percent that Keith Richards will deliver his induction speech.” 

I’ll write more about Gram down the road, as I researched and wrote key sections of our groundbreaking Crawdaddy probe into Gram’s life and death in 1976. For now, something you probably have missed: Almost no videos of Gram and Emmylou exist, but here is a grainy B & W tape of one of his true rock’n roll tunes (are you listening HOF?). Yes, I saw them do this at Max’s in NYC in 1973. For sure you’ve never seen Emmy like this!

Film

I don’t know if the new documentary is any good but have to love the title: There Is No “I” in Threesome.

In case you’ve been wondering whatever happened to actress Shelley Duvall, especially after her unfortunate encounter with Dr. Phil: Hollywood Reporter found her in Texas, still with partner (a former bandmate and boyfriend of Madonna), and with some revealing words about working the Kubrick on The Shining. (h/t J.P. Demeter).

Will likely have some words to share soon about the movie I previewed not long ago here, Judas and the Black Messiah, which dropped this morning on HBO Max. Also, we started the new series The Investigation on HBO Max, directed by Borgen veteran Tobias Lindholm (who I talked with a good deal when he was hired to write the first script for the movie based on my book The Tunnels). It seems quite good.

Song Pick of the Day

Thanks to subscriber J. Matlock for posting link to an “Our Roots” Spotify list created by Rhiannon Giddens. A lot of terrific and important songs listed there, from Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Nina Simone to Alabama Shakes. I’ve already posted a couple of Giddens songs in he past month but here’s another favorite—straight from her own list—and live at Bonnaroo no less. We were lucky enough to catch her doing this a couple years ago in NYC in a concert promoting Ken Burns’ country music PBS series.

Greg Mitchell is the author of a dozen books, including the bestseller The Tunnels (on escapes under the Berlin Wall), the current The Beginning or the End (on MGM’s wild atomic bomb movie), and The Campaign of the Century (on Upton Sinclair’s left-wing race for governor of California), which was recently picked by the Wall St. Journal as one of five greatest books ever about an election. For nearly all of the 1970s he was the #2 editor at the legendary Crawdaddy. Later he served as longtime editor of Editor & Publisher magazine. He recently co-produced a film about Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and now has written and directed his first feature, Atomic Cover-up, which will have its American premiere at a festival this spring.