Doug Ramsey's blog

[Brian Nation]

I highly recommend checking out Doug Ramsey's blog, Rifftides. I've subscribed for the last couple of months. It's informative, insightful, and always interesting. Ramsey's the author of, among other things, the recent Paul Desmond bio that Ross Taggart says is the best jazz bio he's read. (I couldn't read it because it's a coffee table sized book - too big for carrying on the bus or reading while prone. I'm waiting for the regular version.)

Today's post, Freedom, is especially interesting. The few here who complain when political threads come up that they're not about jazz should read it, as well as those who are unfamiliar with Josef Skvorecky's great stories about being a young jazz fanatic and musician under both the Nazi and Communist regimes. Skvorecky was born in Czechoslovakia and has lived in Canada since 1969.