Tune-Up follows with Davis, Lewis, Heath and Roach as the players.
(John Lewis played piano for the first three songs of the Miles Davis Quartet album).
Miles Ahead is the final song of this album with the named four players.
(Charles Mingus played piano for the fourth song, Smooch, of the Miles Davis Quartet album).
Smooch introduced Charles Mingus of Nogales, Arizona to a lineup including Miles Davis, Percy Heath and Max Roach. Smooch, along with When Lights Are Low, Tune-Up and Miles Ahead, were recorded in 1953.
(Horace Silver played piano on the final three songs of the Miles Davis Quartet album).
(Percy Heath played bass on all seven songs of the Miles Davis Quartet album).
Old Devil Moon returned Davis, Silver, Heath and Blakely as the players. This song, along with Four and Blue Haze, were recorded in 1954.
(Max Roach played drums for the first four songs of the Miles Davis Quartet album).
Blue Haze again returned Davis, Silver, Heath and Blakely as the players. The strong opening emphasis for the players, beginning with Heath, then Blakely, then Silver, and finally Davis was an exceptionally nice touch in my opinion.
(Art Blakey played drums for the last three songs of the Miles Davis Quartet album).
Continuing with our year in review, Matt Lynn Digital invites you to look back at the last year in reviews of books, movies, music and television. We look at these with individual categories, one per day through Friday. Today we share book reviews offered by Matt Lynn Digital in 2021.
(The 2020 Pulitzer Prize winner for Fiction winner, The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead, tops our list of 27 books reviewed in 2021 when it comes to our assessment of quality).
Colson Whitehead‘s book 2019 novel The Nickel Boys received the highest rating of all books that we read and rated in 2021, having received 4.25-stars on a scale of one-to-five. The book is historical fiction based on uncovered horrors of the Dozier School for Boys, addressing specific race-based systemic inequities in the 20th century.
(Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony and Cass R. Sunstein wrote Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment).
(Another book receiving 4-stars was The Great Glorious Goddamn of it All by Josh Ritter).
The Great Glorious Goddamn of it AllbyJosh Ritter is a coming-of-age novel of a young boy’s experience during the last days of the lumberjacks looking back as an elderly man at his life, specifically that period as a young man following his father’s death. The Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction in 2019, The OverstorybyRichard Powers, reflects a direct push against the notion of the work of lumberjacks and other efforts against nature in an impassioned work advocating environmentalism. The Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction in 2018, LessbyAndrew Sean Greer, aims to see the world through the lens of awkward romantic entanglements filled with humorous situations, unexpected consolation and discovery, and, ultimately, a better sense of the experience of love for the older gay man aiming to make his way in the world.
(The Light Between Oceans by M. L. Stedman begins another trio of three books earning 4-stars by Matt Lynn Digital).
The Light Between OceansbyM. L. Stedman begins with an emotionally heart wrenching decision around kids from the beginning of the story that throws much of the lives of the central characters into chaos. The moral struggles blur lines of love and loyalty to shocking degrees that lead to deeply resonant places. The dark corners of motivation in All Things Cease to AppearbyElizabeth Brundage, with the underlying motivation for the relevant action within the book operating from a completely different emotional and broken place. The notion of brokenness melts into class and racially based ugliness with The Bonfire of the VanitiesbyTom Wolfe.
(The Joseph Conrad book Heart of Darkness pairs two books that ask the reader to consider motivation and belief within the book’s characters).
The Joseph ConradbookHeart of Darkness indirectly speaks of imperialism and racism. Diverse audiences debate whether the message Joseph Conrad aimed to offer was indeed itself racist; the question of moral superiority is raised through the eyes of Charles Marlow and his obsessive, perhaps mentally ill view of the arguably successful ivory trader Mr. Kurtz. The SurvivorbyKyle Mills places the notion of country, loyalty and motivation based in part on notions of tribal instinct to the test. The questions are couched differently between Mills as inherited from Vince Flynn and Conrad, yet the questions do address questions of values and value in a specific view of life.
(Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson is one of a pair of relatively contemporary political books looking at the sociology of race in the United States that Matt Lynn Digital has rated as 4-stars).
Caste: The Origins of Our DiscontentsbyIsabel Wilkerson makes an affirmative case for systems of caste existing on skin color in the United States. Equivalents are reviewed against the caste systems of India and NaziGermany. The book Race MattersbyCornel West takes critical looks at eight essay length racial subjects that seemingly aim to promote thinking on race beyond the superficial; this aim is one that I see West sharing with Wilkerson.
(Wes Moore and Erica L. Green wrote Five Days: The Fiery Reckoning of an American City, which is one of two books about social unrest in the streets of America that Matt Lynn Digital gave 4-stars in 2021).
(The Cider House Rules by John Irving is one of eight books to receive 3.75-stars on a scale of 1-to-5).
The Cider House RulesbyJohn Irving uses historical fiction along with the notion of orphanages, abortion and the personal lives of people behaving poorly to see people as they are, arguably as broken people sometimes doing things against decent standards. A portion of the book is tedious before becoming more interpersonally engaging. Cloud Cuckoo Land: A NovelbyAnthony Doerr uses parallel narratives bound together in a unique manner to cope with realities that tie to common narratives across distinct circumstances of tragedy, grief and loss. A Gentleman in MoscowbyAmor Towles approaches the depths of human feeling, diminishing distinctions of social class and the aftermath of the Russian Revolution with his book. The notion of punishment is captivity through confinement in a hotel in Moscow, Russia where, in confinement, the central character faces moral ambiguity in family life.
(Ill Will by Dan Chaon enters a psychological mystery territory with this work of fiction that earned 3.75-stars).
Ill WillbyDan Chaon connects parts of people’s past and present in showing tricky ways that the mind works to protect itself in the moment. The story takes some dark turns through external manipulations, leading to exceptionally scaring outcomes in the present. Pursuit of HonorbyVince Flynn is the third Mitch Rapp book to land in our review this year. The counterterrorism sensibility coupled with the meddling congress angles remain as strong as ever. Like with Ill Will, I found Pursuit of Honor entertaining.
(Thunderstruck by Erik Larson brings the string of fiction books reviewed in 2021 by Matt Lynn Digital to a close).
(George Vecsey wrote Stan Musial: An American Life, a biography awarded 3.5-stars by Matt Lynn Digital).
Stan Musial: An American LifebyGeorge Vecsey earned 3.5-stars on a scale of 1-to-5. The biography tells an interesting base narrative of the man without firsthand interviews with the man. That the story included a bit of a heavy regional slant could have worked better for me, though the information in telling me about the man was helpful.
Matt Lynn Digital appreciates your continued interest in the content we offer. Should you have albums that you’d like us to review, or similar work to that mentioned above, please be sure to let us know.
(David Zucchino wrote the 2021 Pulitzer Prize winning book Wilmington’s Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy).
The Wilmington Coup and Massacre of 1898 occurred in a fashion wherein the “the multiracial … city government of Wilmington, North Carolina, was violently overthrown on November 10, 1898, and as many as 60 Black Americans were killed in a premeditated murder spree that was the culmination of an organized months-long statewide campaign by white supremacists to eliminate African American participation in government and permanently disenfranchise Black citizens of North Carolina” (Encyclopedia Britannica).
(This historical marker in remembrance of the Wilmington Coup and Massacre of 1898 was installed in Wilmington, North Carolina to remember the violence and government overthrow committed in the name of skin color).
In the months leading up to the election of November 1898 in North Carolina, virulent hatred was stirred between predominantly white and black populations. The gains of African Americans in the south with Reconstruction following the American Civil War was not met well with those that lost political, economic and social control following the war. Social stereotypes were used to instigate angry or bitter disagreement spurred in part through “virulent racist propaganda” (Encyclopedia Britannica) perpetuated in large measure by newspapers in Raleigh, Charlotte and Wilmington. The notion was “to eliminate forever, by ballot or bullet, voting and office-holding by Blacks” (Encyclopedia Britannica) in North Carolina. The means of this were spelled out in Wilmington’s Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy.
(Editor Alex Manley‘s Daily Record office was burned in the Wilmington Coup and Massacre of 1898).
The black-owned newspaper The Daily Record in Wilmington was a specific target of the coup and massacre in the build-up and conduct of the rioting that occurred as part of the coup. Alex Manly editorialized for The Daily Record. “In an editorial published August 18, 1898, Manly challenged interracial sexual stereotypes, condemning white men for taking advantage of black women. His assertion that it was no worse for a white woman to be sexually involved with a black man than a black woman to be sexually involved with a white man infuriated conservative local Democrats, who were able to capitalize on white fears of interracial intimacy at the ballot box” (Blackpast.org). This debate fanned negative sentiment against the multi-culturalism across North Carolina and the American south, in addition to putting Manly‘s life at risk.
(The Daily Record newspaper was burned in the Wilmington Coup and Massacre of 1898. This image is used on the cover of David Zucchino‘s 2020 book Wilmington’s Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy).
The book itself tells the story of the above with an engaging degree of detail, intrigue, and depth. The information shared goes well beyond the notion of dates and names into identifying motivations, methods and precisely who had something to gain, to lose, and circumstances of both. I was stricken by the use of the media to fan popular opinion against reason, fairness and self-interest with such intensity. The power of group thinking overrode interpersonal motivation and the tendency towards stewardship for many. This is a clear story that David Zucchino captures with Wilmington’s Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy.
(David Zucchino wrote Wilmington’s Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy, which was released in January 2020).
There are many books on the relationships among groups in the United States that you can aim to learn from. It is my feeling that you can do worse than Wilmington’s Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy by David Zucchino; I grant the book 4-stars on a scale of 1-to-5.
Matt Lynn Digital 