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The Christmas season been one of one obituaries. Farewell to the inspiring-but-flawed, the nice-but-probably-mediocre and the dangerously-self-deluded…

And now Saddam Hussein is dead, and we don’t mourn the passing of a murderous dictator. However we should mourn the manner and method of his passing. Capital punishment is a sordid, mechanical ritual that dehumanises both the convicted and the judicial apparatus that condemned them.

Saddam’s untimely death serves no practical purpose. It is a symbolic act that supposedly allows the Iraqi people to expiate the sins of a bloody period of oppression. And all in the midst of another bloody period of chaos in which thousands have died and millions still live in fear.

Saddam’s death is timely only for those who have inconvenient truths to bury – truths that reveal what a destructive and inhuman machine we have built out of international politics and our petty attempts to build empires and buy influence.

Saddam’s Ba’ath party was brought to power in Iraq in a 1963 revolution against the communist-sympathising incumbent with support from the CIA.

In the 1970s and 1980s the Ba’ath régime provided the West with a useful bulwark against Soviet and Islamist influence in the Middle East. During his invasion of Iran in 1980 and the protracted aftermath, Saddam Hussein was given material and intelligence support by numerous Western countries, notably the United Kingdom, France and the United States. And it could be argued that this tacit support from Western backers gave Saddam the false impression that he would be able to annex Kuwait in 1990 – the single deluded act that ultimately led to Saddam’s downfall and greater suffering for the people of Iraq.

Saddam was tried, convicted and executed for his role in just one specific crime: a massacre of Shi’a villagers in Dujail in 1982.

At this stage we don’t know what pressure (if any) was put on the Iraqi courts to choose which of Saddam’s crimes to try first. But Dujail seems a convenient, clear-cut story of internal repression: an easy “gotcha” that would clear Mr Hussein from the decks and minimise embarassment to Western nations who are implicated in his other crimes against humanity.

Although the chief defendent is now dead, Saddam’s trial for the killing of 5,000 people in a 1998 gas attack on the village of Halabja in Kurdistan continues. The Halabja massacre was carried out using gas likely created from precursor chemicals supplied by Western companies, and dropped from Mirage jet fighters supplied by France.

So this morning at dawn, yet another Iraqi has died. But it is all of us who should be hanging our heads in shame. We allow the dirty business of power projection to continue. Geopolitics has always been messy and destructive, but surely there must be another way? We are only hurting ourselves and others.

Let’s make 2007 a year when we humans try to find common ground and work towards a world where we can abandon brute strength and the cynical exertion of force on others. It’s got to start sometime.

James Brown, 1933-2006

Graham Reid’s review of his March 2004 gig at St James (haha) Theatre, Auckland, New Zealand.

Lennox Berkeley – Look Up, Sweet Babe Op.43, No.2

Performed by The Choir of St John’s College Cambridge

From Sacred Choral Music: Naxos 8.557277 [Buy]

Look up sweet babe, look up and see
For love of thee, tho’ far from home,
The East is come to seek herself in thy sweet eyes.
To thee thou day of night, thou East of West
Lo we at last have found the way
To thee the world’s great universal East
The general and indiff’rent day.

- Words by Richard Crashaw (1613-1649)

To everyone who reads this blog (yes, all three of you), have a joyful and peaceful Christmas ! I’ll be spending a few days offline enjoying family time, and be back soon.

(Lennox Berkeley biography)

While my aunt’s away on summer holiday, it’s nice to know that NASA is keeping an eye on her house.

STS-116 astronauts Robert L. Curbeam, Jr. and Christer Fuglesang admire my aunt’s rose garden.

(Original and hi-res image available on Wikipedia. And for a variation on this photo featuring an unexplainable local kiwi joke, see David Slack’s blog.)

(Last couple of discs in the top ten for the year…)

Don McGlashan – Warm Hand (Arch Hill)

A sense of place is a wonderful thing. And a Don McGlashan song is like a trip on the TARDIS – putting the audience in a particular time and space, and then you wait for the small anecdote or grand drama to unfold. Warm Hand is Don’s first release under his own name, and takes us from New York PR man’s office to a 19th Century Tahiti beach, via the Auckland Harbour Bridge to a haunted tourist bus on the Coromandel Peninsula. A welcome addition to the New Zealand popular songbook.

Colin Towns + NDR Big Band: Frank Zappa’s Hot Licks and Funny Smells (Rent a Dog)

The compositions of Frank Zappa need to be approached with caution and full situational awareness. The master’s own live and studio versions of his work are so definitive (and the tunes are so darn difficult to play) that many a band has imploded trying to flip off a quick rendition of Naval Aviation in Art after dinner. So composer and pianist Colin Towns and his German collaborators deserve enormous credit for this live big band album that not only manages to be 100% Zapparific, but is also indutibly a jazz record. Lots of fun !

Lewis Taylor: Stoned (Hacktone)

I first heard Lewis Taylor this year, and it’s become increasingly clear to me that this bloke from north London is a complete genius. Monster guitar chops, a falsetto to hang your hat on, great soul songs and killer arrangements. And for all his talent, Lewis Taylor never shies away from laying down the cheesiest pop moments – check out the transition to a the house groove at 2:20+ on Absolutely Beautiful – and we forgive him because it’s so right. Thanks to ianB (lately of Amen Horn and blogs elsewhere) for the introduction.

Brian Lynch: Simpatico (Artist Direct)

I’m pretty sure that matt would agree with putting this album on the list – check out his recent post on the Brian Lynch-Eddie Palmieri project. Simpatico has recently been nominated for a Latin Grammy, and it deserves all the plaudits (and sales) it can get. It’s a little ripper of a latin jazz record that doesn’t put a foot wrong. A video of the recording session is on YouTube.

Georgia Anne Muldrow: Olesi – Fragments of an Earth (Stones Throw Records)

22 year-old Georgia Anne clearly travels the spaceways, and this solo disc is deeply impressive for one so young. An almost conceptual album that heads stylistically towards hip-hop and nu-soul, but takes its substance straight from afrocentric free jazz of the 1960s and 1970s. Muldrow played, sang and produced almost everything on the record. It is a shame that R’n’B format stations will be too timid to playlist this. (Hat-tip to captain matt of durutti airlines for this find.)

Herbert Howells: Requiem (Naxos)

OK, not a 2006 release, but a top ten for this year would not be complete without acknowledging a (re)discovery of the English choral tradition: something of which in Oxford there is an embarassment of riches. Howell’s Requiem was written in the mid 1930s, and contains some stunning close harmonic writing for choir and organ. This recording was made in 1999 by The Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge under Christopher Robinson, on a disc that also features Howell’s moving memorial to John F. Kennedy, Take Him, Earth for Cherishing.

Branford Marsalis: Braggtown (Marsalis Music)

I had to peel my ears off the wall after this one. As noted only a few weeks ago on these pages, “Rarely have I heard a modern jazz group play classic material like this with such passion and conviction.” Braggtown is more proof that there are still a few musicians out there who can rattle off some visceral acoustic jazz like like it ain’t no thang, and still burn the listeners up.