1989: Culture After the Quake, part two

This was my last article for the doomed  Santa Cruz Sun, a casualty of the Loma Prieta Earthquake of 1989. This was just a lighthearted concert review that seemed to have some resonance at the time. Subsequently I reported on the quake and its aftermath for Thom Zajac's Santa Cruz Comic News, and I'll be re-posting some of those articles in days to come. Please remember that you can donate here and here and here and here to help out the victims of one of the largest earthquakes in recorded history. 

Like everyone else, I was in desperate need of some diversion last weekend; I wanted to hear some loud rock 'n' roll, preferably in a huge crowd of people. Luckily, I had purchased tickets, weeks before the quake, for a show at the Shoreline Amphitheater, featuring my old favorites NRBQ and my new favorites REM.

I never miss a chance to see NRBQ, who l have repeatedly praised in these pages before. The world's greatest bar hand lost none of their impact playing to the half-filled outdoor facility. Allotted a mere half hour as the warmup act, they burned through a half-dozen tunes, all from their new album, at frighteningly rapid tempos. Al Anderson in particular performed guitar heroics above and beyond the call of duty, while we drunken partisans shrieked encouragement. "Who the hell are those guys?" asked a stunned REM fan. NRBQ, we told him, NRBQ.

1989: Culture After the Quake, part one

Even as a survivor of the Loma Prieta Earthquake, I find it nearly impossible to fathom the apocalyptic devastation unfolding in Japan. The quake of October 17, 1989 was 7.1 on the Richter scale, which makes Friday's disaster nearly one hundred times worse. There are tens of thousands dead in Japan; in the Bay Area there were 63. And though the epicenter was in Santa Cruz County, only seven souls were lost. 

As I look back on the articles I wrote at the time, it seems almost quaint how big a deal it was in so many of our lives. And yet disasters have some aspects in common, whatever the scale. They can leave deep emotional scars on both community and individual and, conversely, can serve to bring people together. I have no doubt that the brave and resilient people of Japan will rebuild their shattered communities to be better than ever. And if you want to help, here and here and here and here are some options. 

When the quake hit, I was working in the offices of the Santa Cruz Sun, where we were just about ready to put that paper to bed. That edition was never published. Ten days later, The Sun published its final edition. About a third of our advertisers had gone out of business, and so, consequently, did we. I was asked to survey the quake's impact on the local arts scene:

Santa Cruz is dead; long live Santa Cruz. As all life feeds on death, the death of our downtown gives us the chance to build a new one, like Troy, on the ruins of the old. The gaping holes in our commercial district represent blank canvases, or unwritten musical scores. If we Santa Cruzans could agree on anything, we would find the wealth of possibilities presented here almost intoxicating. As it is, we'll have to balance the various competing interests and settle for as much of a loaf as we can summon up.

I wish we had the nerve, or the wherewithal to grab the great mad architect Hundertwasser and set him loose here, designing the Garden Mall to end all garden malls. Maybe we could summon Claes Oldenberg to create an appropriate local landmark; perhaps a giant banana slug climbing some otherwise undistinguished edifice. How about a few Bucky Fuller domes tossed in here and there, like tomatoes in a salad?

1987: Bourgeois Tagg

Bourgeois Tagg is long gone – they broke up in 1989 – But the opening line of the review gives me the notion to do a "Favorite Bass Players" list, which I'll get to later today.

In my book, a band is only as hot as their bass player - which is why I was doubly impressed at last Saturday's Bourgeois Tagg show. Co-leader Larry Tagg treats his axe like a lead instrument, sputtering out coarse, melodic lines straight through each tune, mixed as prominent as possible. Tagg took several dynamic solos that made guitarist Lyle Workman's polished workouts seem rather unexeptional by comparison.

Search Amazon.com for Bourgeois Tagg

1987: The Neville Brothers/Chris Cain

Add another 24 years to the road schedule of Chris Cain, who's still at it; seems to be based in the East Bay these days. And the Neville Brothers, an American treasure for more than a half century, are still the 600 pound gorilla of New Orleans music. Catch them at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival this May.

Fourteen years of low-paying club dates and blues festivals are finally starting to pay off for the Chris Cain Band. Guitarist Cain, who's spent seven of those years with the current lineup, just turned down a vacancy in Roomful of Blues. He is occasionally recognized on the street in Europe, humbly turning over spare guitar picks and autographs to blues devotees. The band released their first album, Late Night City Blues, in April on the Blue Rock-it label. And at home in Santa Cruz, they continue plugging away, opening for the Neville Brothers last week at the Catalyst, and headlining another Dollar Night tonight.

Last Monday's show demonstrated how well these players have grown on each other, and how hungry they still are. Ron Torbenson started it out with a jovial bassline; the others pounced on it a few bars later when Robert Higgins' impeccable drumming kicked in. Lizz Fischer's keyboards and Noel Catura's saxes give the unit a nice fat sound, and Cain just sails through one joyful solo after another, his head thrown back and ticking like a metronome.

1989: Chet Baker, the Movie

This review appeared in the Santa Cruz Sun in October 1989. An unofficial tribute site for Baker can be found here. The film is not currently available in a US-formatted DVD, and Amazon wants 200 bucks for a VHS copy. But if you can find it for less - a lot less - it's more than worthwhile.

"I must have lived several lifetimes," sighs the great doomed jazzman Chet Baker toward the end of Let's Get Lost, a nonfiction feature film that covers most of them. Chet Baker lived the life of a highly acclaimed young trumpeter and vocalist, an international cult figure and sex symbol, a hounded junkie pursued by paparazzi and police, a toothless has-been pumping gas in San Francisco, and a frail genius resurrected by friends and admirers. Among the admirers was filmmaker Bruce Weber, who spent a lifetime with Baker recording scenes from his last year on earth.

Let's Get Lost tells the story of Baker's lives as a loose, impressionistic collage, anchored by the one constant in his chaotic existence: the ghostly beauty of his music. The films' style was dictated by necessity, due not only to the miniscule (by Hollywood standards) budget, but also to the physical elusiveness of the subject, who would disappear for weeks without a trace.

It works splendidly, though, as Weber ties together his gorgeous black-and-white footage of the ravaged Baker at work and at play, bitter ex-lovers and children, vintage clips of the angelically handsome young trumpeter and disquieting interviews with his final incarnation. Baker's wounded-animal eyes, sunk into his deeply crevassed face, speak more eloquently than his evasive, whispered replies to Weber's queries.

Like any addict, Chet Baker left a trail of emotional wreckage behind him. The portrait that emerges is that of a slick and manipulative con man, occasionally prone to violence, who hurt anyone who ever cared about him. To a person, though, they all suggest a willingness to take him back, forgiving him his trespasses, such is the power of his charisma. In the end, the filmmakers have fallen in love with him, as has the audience, in spite of the coldness of his addiction. Baker's inner warmth and tenderness emerge, not only in the love he inspires, but most movingly in the purity of his singing and playing.

Weber is to be commended, not only for the lyrical quality of his cinematography, but for focusing so unswervingly on the myth of the self-destructive hipster. Despite his work as a fashion photographer, Weber's look at the tragedy of Baker's lifetimes drains the considerable glamour surrounding its subject, revealing the dark flipside of his magnetic attraction.

Besides providing a balanced and heartfelt biography, Weber served his subject well by documenting his still-potent artistry during the last months of his life. Like Dizzy Gillespie, Herbie Hancock and Elvis Costello, Weber gave the man work when he needed it, giving him much-needed exposure and dignity.

Even in his youth, Baker's voice was never strong, but he could bring even the most banal lyric to life with his quaverly emotional timbre. What a revelation, then, when Let's Get Lost closes with Chet wrapping his aching vocals around Costello's "Almost Blue." With its images of "flirting with disaster," or women's eyes "red from crying," it seemed to be written just for that moment. "Almost blue/it's almost touching/it will almost do," he whispers, "there's a part of me that's always true."

Weber's clear-eyed look at his hero, Chet Baker, which never flinches when confronted with the broken manchild he had become, never forgets the part of him that was always true.

1988: NRBQ in Santa Cruz

If that acronym means nothing to you, I'm pleased to introduce you to one of my very favorite bands, celebrating their 45th anniversary next week. The Original Q is no longer active, but you can still catch live dates by the Terry Adams Rock and Roll Quartet, which is not known as TARRQ. Here, try some videos or some albums.

The world's most underrated band blew into town again last Saturday night - four monster talents known collectively as the New Rhythm & Blues Quartet. Those in the know were out in force at the Catalyst, gamely wagging their butts in time to the patented quirky rhythms. The rest of you didn't know what you were missing.

Virtuoso musicianship aside, this may be the funniest band you'll ever see. Just watching their faces can crack you up, never mind some of the goofball songs they play. This is a band that can cover virtually any style of American popular music. They can play jazz straight ahead, sideways or backwards. They can play country ballads or rockabilly, R&B or soul, straight rock 'n' roll or '40s-style swing. And yet, as often as not, they'll follow up a Thelonious Monk tune with something by Alvin and the Chipmunks.

NRBQ's deceptively simple, melodically infectious original tunes define their point of view. Happily devoid of Great Meanings, they have titles like "That's Neat, That's Nice" or "I Feel So Good I Want You to Feel Good Too." The wistful "Ridin' in My Car" and the happy-go-lucky "Me and the Boys" are good-natured slices of life, while ditties like "Down at the Zoo" or "Rats in My Room" would not be out of place on the next Raffi album.

Keyboardist Terry Adams epitomizes the band's manic spirit. "Let's have a good time right now!" he shrieks, pounding out the unrecognizable opening chords to some song until his mates fall in behind him. Adams is like a man possessed. He plays with his fists, his elbows, his feet. He plays two, three keyboards at once. He growls something incomprehensible into the mike. He plays the same note a hundred and forty times in a row. He flails away at dissonant clusters of chords that somehow mesh perfectly with the rest of the band chugging away in the background. Adams, who has toured with jazz artist Carla Bley, plays piano like a cross between Cecil Taylor and Jerry Lee Lewis. And he acts like Pee-Wee Herman on acid. A lot of acid.

Now, even though there's a microphone right in front of him, Adams lurches across the stage to grab the bass player's mike. It's time, once again, for him to poke fun at the rotund, perpetually scowling guitarist, Al Anderson. "Look at him, ladies and gentlemen, I love this man, three hundred pounds of joy, Al Anderson!!!!" With a wan smile, Anderson launches into the old blues classic and more than does it justice. He has a remarkably broad vocal range, employing the upper reaches on old Motown ballads, and digging into the lower end for an authentic rendition of George Jones's "White Lightnin'," complete with belches. While Anderson never shows up in any guitarist's polls, he is a world-class fretboard master. Several times a night, he will lay out a frenetic solo that grabs you by the collar, stares you down and wins.

"All right Joey Spampinato, I saw you in that Chuck Berry movie!!!" bellows Adams as the band swings into "Johnny B. Goode." It is indeed the diminutive bassist's claim to fame (who ever heard of NRBQ, after all?) that Keith Richards selected him for the all-star pickup band that accompanied the maestro for his 60th birthday spectacular. You can never hear the bass in a movie theater though--you've got to see Spampinato up close and personal. Listening to his robust basslines while he shouts out Berry's classic lyrics leaves no doubt what caught Richards's ear. Along with drummer Tom Ardolino, he forms the solid underpinning for NRBQ's maddeningly unique sound.

Believe it or not, these boys were relatively subdued at this gig. Ensconced at the Catalyst after years of dropping into OT's once or twice annually, they appeared to be on their best behavior. For instance, Adams did not wear his hideous red-white-and-blue buckskin jacket, nor did he sing "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" until booed off the stage. And, unfortunately, Ardolino did not emerge from his drum kit to croon a medley of Herman's Hermits hits. Nevertheless, they more than made up for this by bringing along the Whole Wheat Horns, two gentlemen named Jim Bob and Clem who blew some furious charts and arresting solos. Together, the six of them brought down the house with a show-stopping "Me and the Boys" "Get Rhythm" combination. If this isn't one of the best damn bands in the country, you tell me who is.

1988: Liberty Under Siege

This book review was written just after the 1988 elections, but the book itself remains all too timely. I fact, I can't recommend the work of the late Mr. Karp highly enough. All his studies of American history help to shed light on our current situation. See especially Indispensible Enemies and/or The Politics of War, or try a package deal.

LIBERTY UNDER SIEGE American Politics: 1976-1988
By Walter Karp, 1988; Henry Holt & Co., $19.95, 255 pages

Now that George Bush is left holding the tab for Reaganomics, we all need an antidote to the maddening banalities of this election year. This slim volume of polemics may do the trick. In it, one Walter Karp, a contributing editor to Harper's, lays out an inspired 250-page rant against the forces of Oligarchy and Reaction (always capitalized) that have dominated our politics in the last dozen years. He describes, with an almost ferocious indignation, how the powers that be determined to reverse the reforms that grew out of the civil rights and anti-war movements.

In the second half of the book, "The Rule of the Right," Karp details the sorry litany of their successes thus far: the unenforced enviornmental laws, the erosion of civil liverties, the renewed influence of big money on elections, rising official secrecy and censorship, the waning progressiveness of our tax code, and the massive transfers of wealth represented by the deficits. There has even been some degree of success in combating the dreaded "Vietnam Syndrome," the elite term for the perplexing unwillingness of the populace to support interventions abroad.

None of this is unfamiliar terrain. It is in the first half of the book, "Destruction of a President," that Karp argues that the above-mentioned goals - crucial though they were to the forces of Reaction - paled in importance next to the task that really got their backs up: regaining control of the nominating process of the Democratic party.

Events slipped out of the party leaders' control after the debacle of Chicago in 1968. At war with their rank and file both inside and outside the convention hall, they annointed a nominee who had not won a single primary. After Humphrey's defeat, they were confronted with an inexorable clamor for reform. Instead of opting for open defiance, writes Karp, the party leaders decided that "timely concessions to the democratic spirit could always be taken back once that spirit had abated." The first nominee under the reformed party rules, George McGovern, was simply hung out to dry. The second (and last), the self-professed "outsider" who actually captured the Presidency, had a more exacting fate in store for him.

For the sake of his argument, Karp must take Carter's outsider persona and populist rhetoric at face value, without examining his background, which, arguably, offers some evidence to the contrary. Still, he makes a convincing case that Carter, like McGovern, was nomininated by the voters, and not by the party bosses, who gleefully set about sabotaging him from day one.

Karp describes, in some detail, the meticulous dismemberment of Carter's legislative program while his own party controlled both houses of Congress: the SALT II and Panama Canal treaties, the Sorensen and Warnke nominations, the much-ballyhooed National Energy Program, and a slew of proposed reforms. In the case of the Consumer Protection Agency, the Congress reversed itself to kill a bill it had passed earlier over a Republican President's opposition. Of Carter's renowned ineptitude in dealing with Congress, a large measure must be ascribed to underestimating the depth of their rancor for him.

While cheerfully decimating the interloper, the Legislative branch set to work constructing their laughable post-Watergate campaign financing reforms. The bills contained loopholes large enough to fly a B-1 bomber through, and resulted in unprecedented infusions of corporate funds into Congressional campaigns. Thus armed, both policitical parties continued to kick the supine Carter into submission, in order to prove, retroactively, that the selection of Presidents is best left to the professionals. If we are to believe Karp, even the election of Ronald Reagan was not too steep a price to pay for the leading Democrats to regain control of their recalcitrant flock. Witness, after all, the spectacle of the conservative wing of the party backing Ted Kennedy, of all people, against the hapless Jimmy.

Karp does not raise the possibility, explored by others, that the Reagan/Bush campaign - aided by moles in the Carter White House - may have cut a deal with the Iranians to prolong the hostage crisis past Election Day. Nor is the failed Desert One mission, whose participants included Oliver North and Richard Secord, examined at length. Incredibly, it almost doesn't matter. There is scandal enough in the Reagan years, and Karp is less concerned with conspiracy than with collusion.

In any case, a second Carter term would have differed from Reagan's first, mainly in scale and tone. A massive military buildup was planned, the groundwork laid by years of lies about Soviet "superiority" and American "weakness" from the Committee on the Present Danger. Foreign policy under Brzezinski (whose treachery is amply delineated here) could have been only marginally more humane than under Schultz, if that. And the Democratic Congress had already paved the way to huge deficits with tax breaks for the wealthy - however miniscule compared to Reagan's. A victorious Carter would still have been a beaten man.

Still, the Reaganauts were set loose to pillage the body politic, and differences in scale and tone turned out to be more surreal than any of us could have imagined. Karp enumerates their high crimes, misdemeanors and their failure to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed." He makes his argument with such vehemence that even the mose jaded amoung us will be left wondering afresh at their audacity.

The author's focus throughout is on the common interests of both party's leadership, and in particular on the perfidy of the Democrats. His account of the implementation of Reagan's contradictory campaign promises- what Karp calls the "Crime of '81" - is exemplary. It is clear that the twin pillars of Reaganism - grotesque tax cuts for the wealthy (including negative taxes for major corporations) and the impossible $2 trillion military package - could not have been achieved without the acquiescence of the Democrats. It is also clear that the resultant tripling of our national debt was not only foreseen but intentional. Stockman and Watt have admitted as much, and Reagan unwittingly corroborated them in a recent Time Magazine interview, saying they knew the numbers wouldn't add up, but "we wanted to see what would happen." Here, too, the complicity of the Democrats was crucial. Karp accuses them by name: O'Neill, Wright, Rostenkowski, Byrd, Nunn (and though unmentioned, the name Bentsen comes to mind). Throughout the second half of the the book, their service to Reagan's agenda matches their hostility to Carter's in the first.

This sad tale is told in dozens of books, from Stern's The Best Congress Money Can Buy, and Brenner's The Lesser Evil, to Gervasi's Myth of Soviet Military Supremacy, and Hertsgaard's On Bended Knee. It is augmented, albeit unintentionally, by the various self-serving memoirs of the Reaganauts. What makes this tome unique is its urgent morality and biting wit.

Karp may well be preaching to the converted here. Though his thesis is unlikely to convince, say, Jeanne Kirkpatrick of the error of her ways, chapter fifteen alone would give a twinge to anyone with a semblance of conscience left. Karp tends to cap off a well-argued paragraph with exclamations like "What loathing of democracy lurks in these hearts!" or "From these lips does anything issue save lies?" The air of derision for the politicians he describes, coupled with a fervent tone that gives new meaning to that abused word "patriotism," makes this book a delight to read.

Liberty Under Seige is likely to be ignored or reviled in the mainstream press, but it has the capacity to fire up even the most apathetic among us with righteous rage. It certainly deserves wider attention in the wake of this pathetic campaign. As Noam Chomsky has noted, "even small differences translate into large effects for our victims, and judgements have to be made accordingly within the political system." Therefore, as Bush presides over economic decline and the Democrats lunge for each other's throats, the informed citizenry have got their work cut out for them.

1991: The Invasion of Panama

This piece was a review of a small but incendiary book from the good folks at South End Press. It appeared 20 years ago in the Santa Cruz Sun.

Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark announced on March 28th that he is forming a Commission of Inquiry to investigate U.S. war crimes in the Persian Gulf War. If the resulting report is anything like the one arising from the invasion of Panama, it is likely to be detailed, shocking, and widely ignored by the corporate media. In the meantime, the grim testimony of the Panama report is worth considering, if only because that little “police action” served in many ways as a dress rehearsal for the fullscale assault on Iraq.

Like the Persian Gulf war, the invasion of Panama was preceded by economic destabilization of the target country and demonization of the leader, a former ally. When the war finally came, it was characterized by relentless overkill in order to annihillate the target’s military capacity, and an indiscriminate use of firepower that resulted in massive civilian casualties.

Eyewitnesses cited in the Panama report provide a sobering contrast to the post-Gulf image of our boys and girls “just doing their job.” Tales are told of U.S. soldiers beating wounded prisoners, running over fallen bodies with their tanks, bulldozing corpses into mass graves, torching houses, machine-gunning unarmed students, even lifting watches and wallets. “They are savages,” wrote one Panamanian soldier to his family. “They have a sick fury. They have massacred our people like animals.”

Indeed, the numbers discussed here regarding civilians killed in Operation Just Cause range considerably higher than the 200 or so conceded to by the U.S. The Commission of Inquiry estimated between 1000 and 4000 Panamanian civilians were killed. A list of 14 mass grave sites was compiled, though the government attempts to prevent by any means possible a thorough accounting of civilian casualties. There are also allegations of a coverup of the number of U.S. soldiers killed in action, perhaps three times as many as the 23 officially listed.

The government of President Endara, who was sworn in on a U.S. military base as the invasion began, continues to be propped up by the occupation forces who patrol the streets of Panama City to this day. The Commission also uncovered a document which names the Pentagon and State Department officials assigned to run each of the Panamanian cabinet offices. Endara himself, who is regarded as something of a joke by his constituency, gives the lie to the U.S. pretext of combatting drug trafficking as one reason for the invasion. The Commission concludes that “the evidence suggests that the U.S. government and mass media have just as much, if not more information linking senior leaders in the Endara government to drugs as they did implicating Noriega.”

The net effect of installing Endara was to return to power the white minority (the country is roughly 85% people of color) who ruled Panama until 1968, when General Omar Torrijos overthrew the wealthy landowners, and placed blacks and Indians in positions of authority for the first time. Today the former residents of the neighborhoods demolished by U.S. forces are housed in what they invariably describe as “concentration camps.” They could be seen on a recent Frontline special, their lives divided into ten-foot-square cubicles inside a sweltering aircraft hangar. The refugees, who pass through the gates of the barbed wire-enclosed compound at the pleasure of U.S. soldiers, have yet to receive one dime of compensation for their property losses.

It was only in early April of 1991 that the Bush and Endara governments reached agreement on changes in Panama’s bank secrecy laws, thus freeing up a $420 million aid package promised in May 1990 (the U.S. invasion cost $2 billion). The $420 million, of course, is only a loan, and as such will be added to the national debt of Panama, eventually to be taken out of the hides of the country’s rapidly growing underclass. Some $348 million of the total will go either to “reactivate” Panama’s banking system, or to debt payments, thus helping to reactivate our own. Only $3 million is earmarked for housing projects.

Aside from removing from power an embarrassing former ally who boasted of holding extensive blackmail on George Bush, the invasion killed a number of other birds with one stone. It served to prepare both the U.S. public and its military forces for more spectacular military adventures to come, as well as testing the Pentagon’s new pool system for muzzling the press. A great deal of other testing took place as well, including the Stealth bomber, which apparently batted .500, dropping one of its two bombs on a civilian house. Many witnesses spoke of seeing laser weapons in action, and one saw a barracks burned by an incendiary device so hot it left ash outlines of the furniture standing until touched. “They were experimenting on us,” as one Panamanian put it.

The United States seems to have found the experiment successful enough to begin searching for further Just Causes, and this is the primary benefit of the operation for them. An extensive U.S. miltary presence is guaranteed for the forseeable future in this strategic region, which would not have been the case if a less pliable regime were overseeing implementation of the Carter-Torrijos Canal Treaties. Thus, thousands of rapidly-deployable troops will be available for upcoming conflicts in, say, Peru, El Salvador, and/or Cuba. Ramsey Clark, currently gathering the testimony of our Iraqi victims, will certainly have his work cut out for him forming future Commissions of Inquiry — if the lessons of this one are not soon taken to heed.

1988: Sleepy LaBeef Tears the Roof Off

This concert preview appeared in the Santa Cruz Sun in February of 1988. That means that Sleepy LaBeef, is not, in fact appearing at O.T. Price's tonight. But if you're lucky, he may well be appearing in a town near you.

Bob Dylan once said that "rock'n'roll went out with Little Anthony and the Imperials," meaning it had been replaced by something called Rock. But rock'n'roll is alive and well; it's six foot six, 270 pounds, wears an enormous cowboy hat and goes by the name of Sleepy LaBeef.

Born Thomas LaBoeff in Smackover, Arkansas, 1935, he has mastered all the antecedents of the form: gospel, blues, country, soul, swing, rockabilly, and Cajun. He was there in the early Fifties when it all came together, and he's been living it ever since, 200-300 nights a year in roadside bars and honky-tonks. He played with George Jones in the Houston of their youth. He met Elvis there, and ended up on the same label, along with Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, and other proto-rockers. Sun Studios in Memphis, where these gentlemen cut their first sides, is the birthplace of the music that had been gestating across America for the past several generations.

Tonight, Sleepy rolls his 35-foot motor home into O.T. Price's parking lot. Early tomorrow morning, a roomful of blown-away music fans will stagger out, their ears ringing from his eloquent Gibson. Along with bassist Steve Bigelow, drummer Dennis Durango, and an ever-present thermos of coffee, he'll roar through a thick slice of our musical history. The man is an uncredentialed ethnomusicologist; his repertoire numbers literally in the thousands. Working without a setlist, he'll give the Sleepy treatment to anything from "Shake a Hand" to "My Toot Toot" to "These Boots are Made for Walking." No matter what the material, he makes it his own, singing with a resonant baritone as deep as the trade deficit.

If you miss this, you'll have to settle for Nothing But the Truth (Rounder 3072), recorded in a Boston barroom in 1986. His first two albums on Rounder Records, It Ain't What You Eat, It's the Way How You Chew It, (1981) and Electricity, (1983) were merely great; this one is transcendent. He starts off with a drop-dead version of Hank Ballard's "Tore Up Over You" and winds up side two with a nine-minute medley of "Jambalaya," "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On," "Turn Back The Years," "Hey Good Lookin'," and "Folsom Prison Blues." Just as wild is his autobiographical rap over the chugging beat of John Lee Hooker's "Boogie Chillun." Only for Webb Pierce"s "How Do You Talk to a Baby" does the pace dip below manic-then he's off again, relentlessly. If you want to see rock'n'roll to tell your grandchildren about, this is it. If not, fine. More room for me to dance.

Sleepy LaBeef tears the roof off of O.T. Price's beginning at 8:30 tonight .

1989: The Duke of Salsa

I'm going to try to re-post a music article every morning and a politics piece every evening. As for new stuff, I'm a little snowed under right now, but I'll cough up fresh hairballs of prose whenever I'm able. This morning's piece on the venerable Eddie Palmieri appeared in the Santa Cruz Sun in October of 1989, just days before the earthquake that shook that paper out of business.

Eddie Palmieri has been called "the Duke Ellington of salsa," and the comparison is apt, not only for his brilliance in orchestration but for his highly personal piano work. But whereas Duke's playing was subtle and elegant, Palmieri's can be fiery, even manic (he was fired from his first band for breaking the keys).

Another parallel to Ellington is the way in which both musicians revolutionized their chosen fields. Just as Ellington transformed big-band dance music into a means of self-expression, Palmieri has transcended the narrow strictures that define what is and is not salsa music. He was the first to include trombones in the horn section; later there would be electric guitars and violins. Both in his arrangements and his keyboard work, Palmieri incorporated elements of whatever music he was captivated by. One can hear traces of R&B, 20th century composers, rock (both acid and metal), tangos, waltzes and always the strong jazz influence.

The one constant in Palmieri's music is its irresistible danceability. He has studied composition intensively, absorbed his disparate influences and experimented unceasingly in his quest to find the most danceable music on Earth. By all accounts, he succeeded a long time ago.

Palmieri was born in Spanish Harlem in 1936 and raised in the South Bronx. His mother pressed him and his brother into music as a way out of the barrio; both were professionals by their mid-teens. The Puerto Rican community in the '50s was cross-pollinating with Afro-Cuban rhythms to create the infectious new style called salsa. After U.S. ties to Cuba were cut off, the genre solidified and audience expectations became more conservative.

At the same time, Palmieri was being influenced by the no-limits spirit of the '60s to push his music in unforeseen directions. The music industry, however , was more conservative than the audiences. Palmieri found it difficult to break through the segregated marketing strategies. Despite his growing recognition in the '70s, Palmieri's entire career has reflected the tension between the dominant culture and the subculture.

Many musicians less expansive than Palmieri bristle at being labeled, yet he has embraced the word "salsa" - even as it confines him - because its fiercely loyal audiences are his lifeline. Crossover success, as others have shown, can carry a high price. Palmieri has struggled heroically for success on his own terms, and it may not be far off. The ubiquitous Paul Simon has initiated a co-project, and the ensuing attention focused on the potent genius will be all to the good.

These days, Palmieri attempts to both possess and consume his cake by leading three different bands – orquestras in both Puerto Rico and New York, and a touring jazz octet. It is the latter grouping, consisting of two trumpets, three percussionists, violin, bass and piano, that Palmieri will bring to the Kuumbwa Jazz Center on Tuesday. Anyone interested either in serious music or in dancing their fool head off would be well-advised not to pass up this event.