Month: July 2015

So the man has passed on. Not sure how I managed to miss the news of Ornette Coleman’s death at the time six weeks back, but I did. Now it’s reached me I find myself locked in a bittersweet combination of sadness-at-the-passing and recollection of the joy and inspiration his music has so often provided me. Above all it was thanks to Ornette that at the age of 16 I discovered the world of free jazz, of boundless improvisational freedom bound together with collective emphathy and  responsiveness in a musical embrace that – for me at least – opened up… More

Here is a thoughtful review of Sri Lankan Tamil intellectual and human rights activist Rajan Hoole’s new book: Palmyra Fallen; From Rajani to War’s End. Having made my way through a fair bit of the book – which could certainly have used a decent editor – I find myself firmly in agreement with this reviewer’s main conclusions, reproduced below: Former Sri Lankan President Mahindra Rajapaksa meets with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Tokyo in 2013. “Hoole does not exonerate the Sri Lankan military and indeed, at considerable personal risk, he has meticulously reported on their war crimes and human rights… More