niels

Has been a long time ago since I went to a show, but tonight I'm going to see the fantastic Han Bennink/ Ernst Glerum/ Michael Moor trio in Brebl Nijmegen.

Joëlle Léandre/ Benoit Delbecq, François Houle - 14 Rue Paul Fort, Paris [2015, Leo] RED Trio / Gerard Lebik / Piotr Damasiewicz - Mineral [2015, Bocian, vinyl] Daunik Lazro/ Benjamin Duboc/ Didier Lasserre - Pourtant Les Cimes Des Arbres [2011, Dark Tree]

Nexus 70 - De terugkeer van Europa (The Return of Europe) This is a bundle of essays collected by the Nexus institute. This institute tries to keep the values of European humanism alive in these days and age of neo-liberalism, capitalism, declining moral values, and an almost "religious belief" that everything has to be measured by economic (or politic) value. The fantastic essays deal with the questions of what Europe really is (because it is not the EU/Brussel), what makes one a European, what are (or rather were) the European values, how did we lost it (or didn't we?) and is there a way to get back on the right track again. Most of the essays are by thinkers/philosophers/intellectuals etc. of today (Robert Skidelsky, Adam Zagajewski, Adam Zamoyski, Javier Marias, Aykan Erdemir a.o), but throughout the book (like the thread of Ariadne) also ten classic essays have been published from people like: Winston Churchill, Karl Jaspers, Joseph Roth, Stefan Zweig and Robert Musil. I think this book should be essential stuff for everybody who feels himself deeply European and/or connected to the European tradition, but feels very sad when they look at the way things are heading right now with conservatism (and I see this with the Right and the Left) nationalism and post-fascism growing all across Europe.

That's just 3% above our LOWEST tax rate . Highest tax rate here (above €66.000,- gross income a year) is 52%

Thanks! The Cairo Trilogy where the books on my "want" list, but maybe I should try to tackle some of his earlier books before that.

No music, but many great books: - Proust - In search of lost time (Vol.1, 4 and 5) - Milan Kundera - The Art of the Novel (essay) - Honoré de Balzac - Lost Illusions - Fjodor Dostojewski - The Dream, White Nights, the Meek One - Fjodor Dostojewski - The House of the Dead

I'm interested to know what you will think of Mahfouz. He is very high on my "writers I want to investigate list" but haven't had the chance to read anything from him yet.

Spanish Masters at the Hermitage in Amsterdam yesterday. With works of El Greco, Ribera, Velázquez, Goya, and others. This was quite spectacular as these paintings are not often showed in the Netherlands.

Toergenjev (or Turgenev, as he is called in English I think) - Collected works, Vol.01 (Dutch edition) This volume consist of his novels; Rudin, Home of the Gentry, On the Eve and Fathers and Sons. I only read Fathers and Sons before, so this is just a pure joy to read the other novels for the first time finally.

RED Trio + John Butcher - Empire (2011, NoBusiness) First listen, and as expected this is one powerful album. John Butcher really matches great with the RED Trio

I ordered it directly from the label on Bandcamp, and including shipping it only cost me €35,- (very reasonable for a 4CD set I think).

Well, what I find rather intersting is that it is all so extremely American centered. Now I don't know how well Jazz from the rest of the world get exposed in America but this is the first thing I notice about the list. It's nice Chris Lightcap's record on the Portugese Clean Feed label made it for instance, but of all the amazing output on CF this year this whas definately not between the best of them (my personal opinion of course).

Agreed, when looking at my collection I think less than 1/4 has any extensive liner notes. Reading the Point of Departure blog would be a good place to start if you want to learn about the music. The Freejazz blog (only album reviews) is especially nice as it has a new review on a daily basis.

Also a stunning year for me! I want to make a division in the records I liked most from 2015 and some records I bought that are somewhat older, but are not the obvious old classics I finally bought (I think it is less interesting to mention those). As always there is the disclaimer that I fully realize that I have only listened to a fraction of all the records that seemed interesting to me, so these records are just picks from my own collection of records that have been bought. 2015: * Chamber 4 - s/t [FMR] * Shofar - Gold of Malkinia [Kilogram Records] * Rodrigo Amado / Joe McPhee / Kent Kessler / Cris Corsano - This is Our Language [Not Two] * Sant'Anna Arresi Quintet By Evan Parker - Filu 'E Ferru [Not On Label] * Augusti Fernandez - River Tiger Fire [Fundacja Słuchaj!] * Benjamin Duboc / Alexandra Grimal - Le Retour D'Ulysse (Promenade) [Improvising Beings] * RED Trio - Live in Munich [Astral Spirits] * Matthew Shipp, Sabir Mateen, William Parker, Gerald Cleaver - Our Lady Of The Flowers [Rogueart] * Olie Brice / Tobias Delius / Mark Sanders - Somersaults [Two Rivers Records] * Switchback ‎– s/t [Multikulti Project] Older: * Daunik Lazro / Joëlle Léandre - Hasparren [NoBusiness Records] * Joe McPhee / Michael Zerang - Creole Gardens (A New Orleans Suite) [NoBusiness Records] * Other Dimensions In Music - Now! [AUM Fidelity] * X Trio* - Live In Vilnius [NoBusiness Records] * Eve Risser / Benjamin Duboc / Edward Perraud - En Corps [Dark Tree] * Nuts (6) - Symphony For Old And New Dimensions [Ayler Records] * Luis Vicente, Rodrigo Pinheiro, Hernani Faustino, Marco Franco - Clocks And Clouds [FMR] * Lotte Anker / Craig Taborn / Gerald Cleaver - Floating Islands [ILK Music] * RED Trio + Nate Wooley - Stem [Clean Feed] * David S. Ware / Cooper-Moore / William Parker / Muhammad Ali - Planetary Unknown: Live at Jazzfestival Saalfelden 2011 [AUM Fidelity]

Just finished Kamel Daoud's - The Meursault Investigation. A brilliant novel, in which Moussa (the killed Arab in Camus' masterpiece The Stanger) finally gets a name and an existence through the words of his brother Haroen.