Kelly Roberti is one of the most capable and expressive bassists in jazz today. He’s also a thoughtful and inventive writer. He’s published poetry and  penned tangos  for international saxophone giant David Murray and others. His collection of ballads is just what you expect: serious and out-of-the-melodic ordinary with an…

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National Book Award winner William T. Vollmann’s essay “Homeless in Sacramento” in the March edition of Harper’s (subscription required to view; we recommend visiting your public library for hard copy) isn’t your usual statistic-heavy speculation on a long-standing problem. As is his practice, Vollmann plunges into his subject, going out to…

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Now here’s something: a collection of poetry inspired by a comic strip. Monica Youn’s Ignatz is surprisingly like George Herriman’s classic cartoon: suggestive, surreal, catty. It’s focus, despite its comic derivation, is the caginess of love,  it’s impact on psychology and our perceptions. There are two voices speaking here, Krazy Kat…

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It’s reassuring to see the theme of  Matt Taibbi’s latest  Rolling Stone piece, “Why Isn’t Wall St. In Jail?” generating some late notice to the Scot-free financial crimes that brought the system (almost) down a couple years or so ago. Tabbi, who in his piece “The Great American Bubble Machine,” famously depicted Goldman Sachs…

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A feature in the March Downbeat on the classical influence in Brad Mehldau’s Highway Rider fails to mention one thing: his previous recording.  Conceived under producer Jon Brion, Largo was a turning point in Mehdau’s style,  showcasing different  instrumentation and styles.  Mehldau even plays vibes on a number of cuts.

Critics were quick to note…

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Making sense of the 1960s is a futile task. Rob Kirkpatrick doesn’t even try. His comprehensive 1969: The Year Everything Changed, offers an overwhelming  compendium of events in that cataclysmic year. The book’s thoroughness, without over-riding purpose, is apparently an attempt to find the year more influential than, say, 1968. Suggesting…

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I thought something was wrong with me as a kid in Newark…I saw the way people of color were treated. Then I thought, Wait a minute.    There’s  nobody in the world that’s better than me. Nobody. And by the same token, I’m not better than anyone else.–James Moody

When James Moody died…

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Somewhere in one of Carlos Castenda’s early books–we don’t remember which one–the Yaqui sorcerer don Juan advises never paying attention to crows. To do so is to acknowledge their bad sign, he warns.  Lyanda Lynn Haupt, in her book Crow Planet, suggests just the opposite. A denizen of Seattle, Haupt says that…

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Because The New York Times didn’t know about my poem:

Fall Back

I.

The moon hangs motionless,

not sliding or ascending,

patient in place between faces,

shiny as change left on the bar.

We’re lost in stop action

a tick past last call, the second

bottoms up this over-served

autumn night.

We could sleep through the do over,

do nothing and lose the given…

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The Rabbit is anxious to see Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman’s Allen Ginsberg film, Howl, which opens today in New York and San Francisco (over a thousand miles from either, I’ll no doubt have to wait for the Netflix release).  Not meaning to sound like Popeye here, but animation fan…

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