Jazz Record Mart

Jazz Record Mart in downtown Chicago claims to be the largest jazz record store in the world. I don't doubt them. I picked out some good finds and left with less money in my wallet than I planned.

Miles Davis is the reason I didn't start listening to much jazz until the last year or two. It's not his fault directly but his many imitators. For years my main experience with jazz was live trios, quartets and quintets copying Davis' early style by playing meandering, jazzy versions of recognizable tunes. Once in a while you would hear a melody come through and think, "oh, now I know what they're playing." Davis could make that work. Many other bands can't.

Combine that with people like Lawrence Welk representing big band and I didn't see the appeal. There's a lot of good jazz out there but there's a lot of bad jazz too. It took watching Ken Burns' Jazz series to find what I like.

Miles still isn't my favorite. I'm not crazy about the trumpet in general and lead trumpet players often sound like they're trying too hard to get my attention. Blending in with the band is not a bad thing. I prefer non-trumpeters like John Coltrane and Benny Goodman.

But...Workin with the Miles Davis Quintet is a good album and I've enjoyed listening to it several times since I brought it home. I'll probably get one more Miles album from later in his career.

One of the first jazz albums I owned was John Coltrane's A Love Supreme on CD. It completely blew me away. Blue Train is my first Coltrane album on vinyl. It makes all the lists of great Coltrane albums everyone should own and now I do. I love it, but A Love Supreme is still my favorite.

I've heard Gil Scott-Heron called a jazz musician and the godfather of hip hop. He's most known for the jasminelive song, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. Some of my favorite songs by Kanye West and Common used samples of Scott-Heron songs.

I was a little disappointed when I got this album home and noticed in fine print that it's a collection of previously released songs. I'd rather have an original full album if it's someone I know I like. The collection is good though so I'm happy with it even though I already have many of the songs on CD. It's always good to have one of his albums around on vinyl just in case you ever find yourself hosting a party full of radical left wing activists.

Charlie Christian caught my attention in the Ken Burns Jazz series as an early innovator of the electric guitar as a lead instrument. So I picked up one of the Benny Goodman Alternate Takes series which has a mix of big band and smaller group recordings with Charlie Christian. It's funny switching from a Coltrane or Davis album with songs that last ten minutes or more to a series of quick three minute numbers that were standard in the 30's and 40's.

Finally, I picked up a copy of a Lou Rawls album, Man of Value. This post is getting long so maybe I'll write about that one another day. I'm eager to get back to Jazz Record Mart, but thankfully, for the sake of my checking account balance, I won't be back in Chicago too soon.

Screw you Rod

The sad thing is that with a blog title like that no one really knows which of many issues I might write about. I don't write about the Governor much because everybody in Springfield already complains about him constantly. But now it's personal.

Springfield is a nice town but it's no Chicago. We don't have the same endless entertainment options, unlimited variety of restaurant choices, skyscrapers, major sports franchises, a world famous theater district, or entire neighborhoods full of Frank Lloyd Wright architecture you can find in the Chicagoland area.

But we do have the Dana Thomas House. It's not just one of the nicest houses to visit in Springfield along with Lincoln's Home. It's considered the world's most complete example of Frank Lloyd Wright's early Prairie Style home architecture and interior design, and one of the nation's most architecturally important residences that's open for the www.chaturbaterooms.com public. It's a site toured by tens of thousands of national and international visitors every year.

Holiday decorations at the Dana Thomas House aren't just a fun holiday activity. It's one of the best annual traditions Springfield, and the entire state of Illinois, has to offer. Besides being an excellent family activity, I've always ranked a Christmas tour at the Thomas House along side the Carillon Festival as the top two best places to take a date in Springfield.

I blame George W. Bush for many things. He lied to the country and the troops to justify the war in Iraq. He worsened a recession when he first took office by talking down the economy and we may be entering a depression as he leaves office. He tarnished the international reputation of the Unites States, perhaps permanently, by condoning acts of torture and unprovoked wars of aggression.

Yet, never in my life have I been able to blame George Bush for messing up my dating life. If anything, I should thank him because I once dated a woman I met at a rally in opposition to a Bush visit in Knoxville.

I've never had reason to blame any politician for messing up my dating life until Rod Blagojevich shut down the Dana Thomas House. That's a pretty big deal considering how meager my dating life is lately, and the Carillon Festival is six months away. For that, for the latest round of state workers to lose their jobs, and for all the much better reasons he's disliked by so many in Springfield: up yours Rod!

Dallman 4 and changing times

It caught me by surprise when someone told me that the SJR quoted my blog in today's editorial about the completion of CWLP's new Dallman 4 coal power plant. There's no doubt that CWLP had good timing.

In 2006 it was still controversial to challenge a proposed coal plant with better pollution controls than existing plants. The agreement reached between CWLP and the Sierra Club looked like a good win-win model and a similar agreement was reached in Kansas City.

In 2009 we have a President who pledged to approve zero new coal-fired power plants. A cap-and-trade bill that would make coal plants more expensive to operate is being debated in Congress. New coal-fired units are considered a financially risky investment and older ones are being shut down. The energy world changed dramatically in three years.

I have mixed feelings about the completion of Dallman 4. On the one hand, it's strange to celebrate a new source of global warming emissions that locks Springfield into using a dirty fossil fuel for three decades or more.

On the other hand, Springfield is significantly reducing its overall carbon footprint by shutting down a much dirtier plant, using wind power, utilizing modern pollution controls, and investing in energy efficiency.

New programs are ramping up that will help customers reduce their carbon emissions and their utility bill. I see this phase as the most exciting part of the CWLP/Sierra Club agreement with the greatest potential for long-term positive impact. There's no solution to climate change without reducing our energy use, and early investments will promote economic growth locally. Taking full advantage of efficiency programs and building more local sources of renewable energy should be the next steps.

It's impossible to not be impressed by the engineering feat of building it. I drive nearby often enough that I got to watch the plant grow. I respect the people who managed to design and build it without any major setbacks or injuries.

Publicly owned utilities usually have lower rates, better customer service, and reliably produce cleaner power than private ones. I complain about CWLP sometimes, like anyone else, but owning our own utility is one of the best things Springfield has going. It means that when people complain, somebody actually has to listen.

Noon rally against the escalation

If you haven't been to a peace rally since Obama took office then today is your chance. There's a Springfield rally against the escalation of troops in Afghanistan today (12/2/9), 12-1pm, in front of the Federal Building on 6th & Monroe.

I expect that people will have different reasons for going to the rally. Some people think a war that kills or injures thousands of innocent Afghan civilians, many of them from US bombing campaigns, is the wrong response to an immoral attack on American civilians. Others may simply want Obama to know that he doesn't have a blank check of support for continuing the war indefinitely. More will remember the last President who promised to get out of a war by sending more troops in. It will be interesting to see if the rally is joined by partisans who oppose anything that comes from Obama.

During the campaign, Obama promised to withdrawal troops from Iraq and send more to Afghanistan. So this move isn't a big surprise. What many of Obama's supporters in the peace movement hoped for is a President who would at least listen to the public when they speak out against war, instead of manipulating public fear to start new ones. He has less than three years to end the war if he wants to keep those voters in the Presidential primary.

If nothing else, it's a refreshing change to have a President who can look our troops in the eye and give them an honest answer about why he's sending them to war. It feels good to have national discussion with a press that no longer stifles dissent, and public debate that goes beyond merely countering the lies of a President. This is what America must have been like before George Bush.

Take the green train

The SJR has a story about Amtrak being promoted as an eco-friendly travel option. I like taking it to Chicago whenever I go. I don't have to pay for parking or deal with city traffic. And as much as I like Amtrak, I'm in love with the L. I even wrote a song about the Red Line. Yes, I'm a dork.

The story presentedon www.jasminlive.mobi is a good example of how passenger rail drives economic development. Land values and businesses grow around good public transportation. That means there are some up-sides to the possibility of having a high-speed passenger rail corridor and multi-modal center in the middle of downtown Springfield along the 3rd Street corridor.

Yes, there are problems with installing double tracks along the 3rd St corridor, just as there are problems with consolidation on 10th. Neither option is going to cause the destruction of downtown. It's a little irritating to see the downsides of one option over-hyped while drawbacks to the other are ignored. In some ways, the 3rd Street corridor will help downtown grow.

We'll only see the full economic and environmental benefits if we abandon the idea that public transportation is only for people with no other travel options. The trouble with the proposed multi-modal on 11th is that it's based on twenty year old backward ideas about mass transit.

The proposed 11th Street site is surrounded by important social service agencies. No one has been able to answer whether they plan to: 1) Force service agencies out to make room for the promised economic development, or 2) Ask tourists to walk by two shelters, rehab centers and the county jail near a high crime neighborhood at nighttime if they want to visit Springfield. Those are the only two options and neither one sounds appealing.

The local press finally started covering the full picture so we should be able to have a rational discussion about high-speed rail soon, without all the apocalyptic talk of Springfield's impending doom.

This song has been stuck in my head for the last two days...

Does Illinois need clean coal?

One of the most interesting parts of the two hearings on the Taylorville Energy Center (TEC) was learning about the process of coal gasification and carbon capture. The TEC, proposed by Tenaska Inc, uses a gasification process that turns coal into syngas, which is converted into Substitute Natural Gas (SNG). Once the conversion is complete, they'll either use the SNG to power a steam turbine or sell it on the market.

Some CO2 from the plant may be captured, or the company can buy carbon offsets instead if they don't capture enough. Currently, their IEPA permit doesn't require them to capture any carbon at all. Some CO2 may also be sold on the market through a $1 Billion pipeline proposed across Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi that would connect to "Enhanced Oil Recovery" projects along the Gulf Coast.

The company often points out that the entire process will make the plant's air pollution comparable to a natural gas plant. That's a real accomplishment for a coal facility. But it makes me wonder. Is there another alternative that would have low emissions comparable to natural gas that doesn't involve billions in subsidies and extra costs on consumers?

Oh yeah! Actual natural gas!

New discoveries mean natural gas is abundant, cheap, and cleaner than coal. Not only that, we already have natural gas plants online that aren't being used to full capacity.

They're also more compatible with wind farms because they power up in response to wind fluctuations faster than coal plants can. If we want to grow new wind farms, then solar and natural gas are much more complementary power sources than coal.

So why should we spend billions in taxpayer dollars to construct a very expensive, unproven substitute for something that's already built, plentiful, cheap, and cleaner? Well, it's good for the Illinois coal mining industry.

Politicians and economic development officials who live in the past hold onto the idea that coal always has been and always will be the economic engine driving the downstate economy. We're supposed to believe that what's good for the coal industry is good for Illinois.

As I've written before, mine mechanization (not environmental regulation) is the primary reason why the United States has lost most coal jobs, even while the amount of coal being extracted goes up. Building more plants won't bring a significant number of mining jobs back to Illinois.

It's a false hope being peddled by the coal industry and it's the wrong way to revitalize our regional economy. If we want real economic growth in downstate Illinois then we need politicians to stop pandering with coal industry nostalgia and start creating real green jobs.