“Bollywood Jam,” by the Alex Skolnick Trio:
If you are not familiar with Alex Skolnick’s music, you are missing out. In the 1990s, he was lead guitarist in Testament, one of the big thrash metal bands along with Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax, and Slayer. When he left Testament, Skolnick decided to study jazz at the New School in New York City.
As a teenager, I really liked his lead work on Testament’s Practice What You Preach and The Ritual albums. When I was in grad school, I was very happy to discover that he had recorded two albums of experimental music with Primus drummer Tim “Herb” Alexander and bass wiz Michael Manring under the name Attention Deficit–both their albums are excellent music to work to. I am very happy he is now playing jazz with his trio, turning hard rock and metal classics into jazz standards.
An American in Paris: An Alien Feeling
From Numéro Cinq magazine, an interesting article by Sion Dayson about what it’s like for a biracial American to live in Paris:
Now in France — it’s been five years already — I need not chase slippery identities as I am considered only one thing: a foreigner. Full stop.
Here they keep no statistics on race or ethnicity. This is the land of liberté, egalité, fraternité, after all. Everyone is simply French. It would be “racist” to demand any further information from people, as if those answers mean anything.
When I open my mouth in Paris, the first response is not “welcome,” but “where are you from?” If it were simple curiosity, that would be one thing. (I am a curious person, too.) But there are no follow-up questions, no real interest. Only the need to establish a distance and an unspoken message: You are different from me.