Walif Chbeir, MD has created a long and distinguished career for himself through his progress and expertise in radiology. Walif first specialized in radiology when he studied at Aix-Marseille University in the Marseille Faculty of Medicine. Since then he has practiced at many hospitals and spent ten years at the Centre de Santé et de Services Sociaux (socials and health services center) de Gatineau in Gatineau, Canada. Now Walif lives in Lebanon.
Recently I traveled for two weeks through the West Bank in Palestine. Despite all the things I’ve read and seen, nothing could have prepared me for what it was like on the ground.
The entire West Bank is under martial law style occupation, where Israeli forces brutalize and harass Palestinians on a daily basis. For just traveling with Palestinians we had M16s pointed in our faces several times. A man almost got executed just feet from us. It’s a war zone–except only one side has military might.
One of the most underreported realities is that Israel is becoming a fascist theocracy, with every administration becoming more fanatical than the last. From life inside the refugee camps to under occupation and settler terror, I give a first-hand account of the real Israel/Palestine on a special two hour edition of Media Roots Radio.
Watch the first segment of The Empire Files’ Palestine series that covers the history of Zionism and brutally honest root of what is behind the so-called “Israel-Palestine conflict.”
Listen to all previous episodes of Media Roots Radio on soundcloud.
In the past week, two very large American sports figures passed away somewhat suddenly. Despite drastically different circumstances, the reaction to the two deaths reminded us all of how human we are, and how quickly life can be taken away. And, when you’ve spent most of your life in the public spotlight, how fond memories, quiet reminiscence and archived footage can be the sole purveyor of what was a lifetime of inspiration gone in a flash.
On Sunday, the world lost two enormous sports figures in Jose Fernandez and Arnold Palmer. Understandably, the sports world grieved the loss of two beloved figures–a young and already dominant Major League Baseball pitcher who perished in a boating accident, and man known as
The King, one of the best golfers in the history of the sport. In the midst of the disbelief and grieving process, however, there is more than just grief and tragedy. There is a sense of bonding as human beings and a sense of togetherness when people in such high stature are taken from us.
Death in absolutely any capacity whatsoever is a tragic circumstance. A life ended becomes a life remembered rather than one experienced or interacted with. When the death happens in the public eye, the number of mourners goes from hundreds to potentially millions. No longer is it friends, family and coworkers who are bowing their heads in utter despair–it’s fans, it’s teammates, it’s countries–it’s humans.
These deaths can bind us as fans, and as empathetic human beings. When Fernandez passed away at the age of 24, his team, the Miami Marlins, canceled their game that afternoon. Other teams around the country honored him with moments of silence–articles about his personality as well as athletic talents began popping up left and right, as did stories of Fernandez the man. The New York Mets–the team Fernandez was set to face on Monday–hung a jersey in the dugout in his honor. Despite being bitter rivals, people everywhere came together to recognize tragedy, and remember who he was and what he contributed to the world.
This isn’t to say that any one death is more tragic than any other–the deaths of Fernandez, Palmer, Prince, Elvis or anyone else in the public eye aren’t inherently more heartbreaking than the death of your cousin or your neighbor. But they do help us understand more about the recovery process and how we, as human beings can sympathize and empathize even with people whom we aren’t acquainted. When Fernandez and Palmer passed away, many people who had never met either of them undoubtedly stepped away to shed tears. These are our heros–these are people whom we look to to distract ourselves in times of dire sadness. They are human beings who are gone before we know it, and leave the Earth without truly grasping the effect that they had.
I am reminded similarly of the piece I wrote on my website just a little bit ago on the power of the Olympics binding us together as national fans. It is a bittersweet feeling to recognize the power of death to do the same. No one in their right mind would say that the deaths of Fernandez, Palmer, or any of the thousands of other deaths that undoubtedly occurred across the world on Sunday were beneficial. But we can say for certain that we as mourners, as sports fans, and most of all as humans, can be brought together through tragedy.
Valentin de
Boulogne, dit le Valentin (1591-1632), de son vrai nom Jean Valentin, est un
peintre français, un des plus talentueux et des plus illustres représentants du
courant des caravagesques.
Jean
Valentin est le fils d'un peintre verrier dont la famille était originaire de
Coulommiers, depuis 1489. Le nom de famille fait référence à la ville de
Boulogne-sur-Mer, au xviiie siècle il est identifié sous le nom de Moïse (ou
Moyse) Valentin, ainsi que Valentin de Coulommier. Il existe une confusion sur
la date de naissance, dans l'acte de décès il est mentionné être mort à l'âge
de 38 ans mais son acte de baptême a disparu.
Il est
présumé que Valentin s'est formé à la peinture dans l'atelier de son père avant
de se rendre à Paris ou Fontainebleau et suivit l'enseignement de Simon Vouet,
qu'il admirait et dont il s'inspira. Il partit ensuite pour l'Italie.
La première
trace de la présence de Valentin en Italie est mentionnée dans le stati d'anime
de 1620, alors qu'il vit dans la paroisse de Santa Maria del Popolo. Avant
cette date on ne peut que spéculer sur ses déplacements et ses activités.
Tout en
étudiant en Italie, Valentin fut sous l'influence du Caravage et de Bartolomeo
Manfredi. Peintre de scènes de genre et de tableau religieux, il fera sa
carrière essentiellement à Rome.
Le
caravagisme, ou école caravagesque, est un courant pictural de la première moitié du xviie siècle.
Apparu à la
suite du travail du Caravage à la fin du xvie siècle, le caravagisme est
parfois assimilé à une forme de baroque romain face au classicisme des
Carrache. Cette idée est cependant à nuancer en raison des nombreuses similitudes
qui rapprochent ces deux écoles romaine et bolonaise. Ce courant ne doit pas
être décrit comme un groupe ou comme une école, car il ne constituait pas un
mouvement structuré, mais tout au plus une imitation, une influence de
l’Italie. Cette évolution intellectuelle se situe à mi-chemin entre
l’opposition à la rhétorique classique des Académies d’une part, et le brillant
enthousiasme illusionniste du baroque d’autre part.
Caractérisé
par la prédominance de scènes aux puissants contrastes de lumière et d'ombre
transcendées par la maîtrise virtuose du clair-obscur, il se constitue autour
du style du Caravage et de ses plus proches suiveurs, tel Bartolomeo Manfredi.
L’école caravagesque d'Utrecht constitue, quant à elle, un groupe séparé
Valentin de Boulogne (before 3 January 1591 – 19 August 1632),
sometimes referred to as Le Valentin, was a French painter in the tenebrist
style.
Valentin was born in Coulommiers, France, where he was
baptised in the parish of Saint-Denys on 3 January 1591, making 1590 his likely
year of birth. The family name, also spelled Boullogne and Boulongne, appears
to originate from Boulogne-sur-Mer, a city in northern France in the colony of
Pas-de-Calais, though the family had dwelt at Coulommiers since at least 1489.
His father, also named Valentin, and his uncle Jean were both painters.
It can be presumed that Valentin would have first started
painting in his father's studio prior to moving to Paris or Fontainebleau, and
before leaving for Italy. The first specific mention of Valentin's being in
Italy is in the stati d'anime for 1620, when he was living in the parish of
Santa Maria del Popolo. Prior to that date his whereabouts and activities are
unknown.
While studying in Italy under Simon Vouet, Valentin was
under the influence of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio and Bartolomeo
Manfredi.
Caravaggio used a "bold, naturalistic style, which
emphasized the common humanity of the apostles and martyrs, flattered the
aspirations of the Counter-Reformation Church, while his vivid chiaroscuro
enhanced both three-dimensionality and drama, as well as evoking the mystery of
the faith." Caravaggio "followed a militantly realist agenda,
rejecting both Mannerism and the classicizing naturalism" and "in the
first 30 years of the 17th century his naturalistic ambitions and revolutionary
artistic procedures attracted a large following from all over Europe.
Manfredi, also an Italian painter, was known throughout
Italy and beyond as Caravaggio's closest follower. In the dramatically lit
canvases of his later period Manfredi adopted a common theme from
Caravaggio—the tavern scene featuring ordinary people, even religious subjects,
whose figures are depicted close to the surface of the picture to involve the
viewer in the action.
While Caravaggio and Manfredi may have influenced the style
and themes that would become common in Valentin's work, Valentin would study
under Simon Vouet, a Frenchman. In his time, Vouet was considered a leading
French painter. Vouet's earliest work show the influence of Caravaggio, and use
dramatic contrasts of light with a restricted palette of blacks, browns whites.
Valentin had success with a type of composition invented by
Caravaggio in which fortune tellers, drinkers, or gamblers are grouped around a
table. Valentin himself was fond of carousing and fine wine; it is thought that
he died from a chill caught after bathing in a fountain following an evening of
smoking and drinking.[citation needed] His surviving body of work is made up of
around seventy-five paintings. Valentin's genius shows in the subtleness of psychological
expression and interplay among his characters, as well as in the refinement and
finesse of his painting technique.
Valentin's painting Fortune Teller with Soldiers depicts a
group of young soldiers, one of whom is mesmerized by the fortune teller who is
reading his palm. Behind the gypsy a shadowy figure looks at the viewer with
his finger to his lips in a conspiratorial gesture as he steals the fortune
teller's purse from her pocket. A small child is seen returning the favor by
picking his pockets. While one person's fortune is told, another's is being
stolen; and one thief falls victim to another.
Bill Evans at Town Hall is a live album by American jazz pianist Bill Evans and his Trio, released in 1966.
Writing for Allmusic, music critic Scott Yanow called the album: "... a superior effort by Bill Evans and his trio in early 1966... this live set features the group mostly performing lyrical and thoughtful standards... However the most memorable piece is the 13½-minute "Solo - In Memory of His Father," an extensive unaccompanied exploration by Evans that partly uses a theme that became "Turn Out the Stars."
Track listing
"I Should Care" (Sammy Cahn, Axel Stordahl, Paul Weston) – 5:30
"Spring Is Here" (Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart) – 5:00
"Who Can I Turn To" (Leslie Bricusse, Anthony Newley) – 6:17
"Make Someone Happy" (Betty Comden, Adolph Green, Jule Styne) – 4:45
"In Memory of His Father Harry L. (Prologue/Story Line/Turn Out the Stars/Epilogue)" (Evans) – 13:40
"Beautiful Love" (Haven Gillespie, Wayne King, Egbert Van Alstyne, Victor Young) – 6:56
"My Foolish Heart" (Ned Washington, Victor Young) – 4:51
"One for Helen" (Evans) – 5:51
Personnel
Bill Evans - piano
Chuck Israels – bass
Arnold Wise – drums
Kind of Blue est entièrement basé sur l'approche
modale contrairement aux précédents travaux de Davis au style davantage orienté
hard bop et sa progression d'accords complexes et basé sur l'improvisation.
L'album est composé comme une série d'« esquisses modales », dans lesquelles
chaque musicien a reçu un ensemble de gammes qui indiquent les principales
caractéristiques de l'improvisation et du style. Ce style contraste avec les
méthodes traditionnelles de composition, consistant à fournir aux musiciens les
partitions complètes ou bien en apportant aux musiciens une progression
d'accords comme c'est souvent le cas pour le jazz d'improvisation.
Une approche modale de ce type n'est pas propre à cet
album. Miles Davis avait déjà utilisé cette méthode sur ses albums Milestones
et Porgy and Bess, sur lesquels il exploite les influences modales pour des
compositions de son collaborateur Gil Evans. À l'origine cette approche
originale est développée en 1953 par le pianiste et écrivain George Russell.
Davis voit dans les méthodes de composition de Russell un moyen de s'écarter
des compositions souvent denses de cette époque, que Davis nomme « épaisses ».
La composition modale avec sa dépendance aux gammes et aux modes, représente
comme le rappelle Davis « un retour à la mélodie ». Davis a perfectionné cette
forme de composition contrairement à la progression d'accords simple qui
prédomine dans le bebop. Dans un entretien en 1958 avec le critique musical Nat
Hentoff de The Jazz Review, il déclare : « Absence d'accord... vous donne
beaucoup plus de liberté et d'espace pour entendre des choses. Lorsque l'on va
dans cette direction, on peut y aller pour toujours. On n'a pas à se soucier
des changements et on peut faire plus avec la ligne [mélodique]. Cela devient
un défi pour voir à quel point on peut être innovant dans la mélodie. Quand on
se base sur les accords, on sait à la fin des 32 mesures que les accords sont
terminés et il n'y a rien d'autre à faire que de répéter ce que l'on vient de
faire - avec des variations. Je pense qu'un mouvement en jazz commence loin de
la série classique des accords... il y aura moins d'accords mais des
possibilités infinies à n'en savoir que faire ».
À propos des instructions donné par Miles aux
musiciens, Bill Evans écrit sur le liner notes du LP : « Miles a conçu ces
paramètres seulement quelques heures avant les dates d'enregistrement. » et
ajoute « tu entendras donc quelque chose proche de la pure spontanéité dans ces
interprétations ». Evans poursuit avec une introduction sur les modes utilisés
dans chacune des compositions de l'album.
Le morceau So What se compose d'un mode basé sur deux
gammes : seize mesures sur la première suivies de huit mesures sur la deuxième,
puis à nouveau huit sur la première3. Le thème de 32 mesures (8 x 2 sur un
accord de ré mineur 7e - un pont de 8 mesures sur mi b mineur 7e - 8 sur ré
mineur 7e) qui se prête bien à l'improvisation modale. La composition
Impressions de John Coltrane est construite sur la même grille harmonique.
Selon George Russell, l'improvisation de Miles Davis sur ce morceau est l'une
des plus parfaites de l'histoire du jazz. Russell a d'ailleurs écrit un
arrangement pour big band de ce solo qu'il a enregistré à plusieurs reprises
avec le Living Time Orchestra.
Le titre suivant, Freddie Freeloader est un standard
blues en Si bémol sur 12 mesures où les deux dernières mesures varient une fois
sur deux, la première étant un La bémol et la seconde le Si bémol.
Blue in Green se compose d'une boucle de dix mesures
après une courte introduction de quatre mesures3.
All Blues est un blues en sol de douze mesures en 6/8.
Le dernier titre Flamenco Sketches regroupe une série
de cinq gammes qui sont chacune jouées « aussi longtemps que le soliste le
souhaite jusqu'à ce qu'il ait achevé la série ». Le morceau est fortement
inspiré par Peace piece (album Everybody Digs Bill Evans, Riverside, 1958), un
morceau de Bill Evans qui repose sur deux accords répétés en boucle. Evans
avait d'ailleurs utilisé cette « boucle d'accords » comme introduction pour la
composition de Leonard Bernstein Some other time (morceau non publié sur
l'album de 58, mais disponible sur des rééditions du disque).
Le liner notes mentionne que Davis est l'auteur de
toutes les compositions de l'album, mais des spécialistes prétendent que Bill
Evans a composé une partie ou l'ensemble des morceaux Blue in Green et Flamenco
Sketches. Bill Evans est donné comme coauteur avec Miles Davis du morceau Blue
in Green qu'il enregistre sur son album Portrait in Jazz. La paternité de Bill
Evans sur ce sujet est reconnue en 2002. La pratique consistant pour le leader
d'un groupe à s'approprier la paternité d'un morceau écrit par un sideman se
présente souvent dans le monde du jazz. Ce fut le cas notamment avec le célèbre
saxophoniste Charlie Parker avec Miles Davis lorsque Parker s'est attribué
l'écriture du morceau Donna Lee, écrit par Davis alors qu'il était employé en
tant que sideman dans le quintet de Charlie Parker dans les années 1940. Le
morceau est devenu plus tard un standard de jazz populaire. Un autre exemple
est l'introduction de So What, attribuée à Gil Evans et qui est étroitement
basée sur les mesures de l'ouverture Voiles (1910) du compositeur Claude
Debussy, le second prélude de son premier recueil de préludesa .
By late
1958, Davis employed one of the most acclaimed and profitable working bands
pursuing the hard bop style. His personnel had become stable: alto saxophonist
Cannonball Adderley, tenor saxophonist John Coltrane, pianist Bill Evans,
long-serving bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer Jimmy Cobb. His band played a
mixture of pop standards and bebop originals by Charlie Parker, Thelonious
Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, and Tadd Dameron. As with all bebop-based jazz, Davis's
groups improvised on the chord changes of a given song. Davis was one of many
jazz musicians growing dissatisfied with bebop, and saw its increasingly
complex chord changes as hindering creativity.
In 1953, the
pianist George Russell published his Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal
Organization, which offered an alternative to the practice of improvisation
based on chords and chord changes. Abandoning the traditional major and minor
key relationships, the Lydian Chromatic Concept introduced the idea of
chord/scale unity and was the first theory to explore the vertical relationship
between chords and scales, as well as the only original theory to come from
jazz. This approach led the way to "modal" in jazz. Influenced by Russell's ideas, Davis
implemented his first modal composition with the title track of his studio
album Milestones (1958). Satisfied with the results, Davis prepared an entire
album based on modality. Pianist Bill Evans, who had studied with Russell but
recently departed from Davis's sextet to pursue his own career, was drafted
back into the new recording project, the sessions that would become Kind of
Blue.
Kind of Blue
was recorded on three-track tape in two sessions at Columbia Records' 30th
Street Studio in New York City. On March 2, 1959, the tracks "So
What", "Freddie Freeloader", and "Blue in Green" were
recorded for side one of the original LP, and on April 22 the tracks "All
Blues" and "Flamenco Sketches" were recorded, making up side
two. Production was handled by Teo Macero, who had produced Davis's previous two
LPs, and Irving Townsend.
As was
Davis's penchant, he called for almost no rehearsal and the musicians had
little idea what they were to record. As described in the original liner notes
by pianist Bill Evans, Davis had only given the band sketches of scales and
melody lines on which to improvise.[7] Once the musicians were assembled, Davis
gave brief instructions for each piece and then set to taping the sextet in
studio. While the results were impressive with so little preparation, the
persistent legend that the entire album was recorded in one pass is untrue. Only "Flamenco Sketches" yielded a
complete take on the first try. That take, not the master, was issued in 1997
as a bonus alternate take. The five
master takes issued, however, were the only other complete takes; an insert for
the ending to "Freddie Freeloader" was recorded, but was not used for
release or on the issues of Kind of Blue prior to the 1997 reissue. Pianist
Wynton Kelly may not have been happy to see the man he replaced, Bill Evans,
back in his old seat. Perhaps to assuage the pianist's feelings, Davis had
Kelly play instead of Evans on the album's most blues-oriented number,
"Freddie Freeloader". The live
album Miles Davis at Newport 1958 documents this band. However, the Newport
Jazz Festival recording on July 3, 1958, reflects the band in its hard bop
conception, the presence of Bill Evans only six weeks into his brief tenure in
the Davis band notwithstanding, rather than the modal approach of Kind of Blue.
Kind of Blue
is based entirely on modality in contrast to Davis's earlier work with the hard
bop style of jazz and its complex chord progression and improvisation. The
entire album was composed as a series of modal sketches, in which each
performer was given a set of scales that defined the parameters of their improvisation
and style. This style was in contrast to
more typical means of composing, such as providing musicians with a complete
score or, as was more common for improvisational jazz, providing the musicians
with a chord progression or series of harmonies.
Modal jazz
of this type was not unique to this album. Davis himself had previously used
the same method on his 1958 Milestones album, the '58 Sessions, and Porgy and
Bess (1958), on which he used modal influences for collaborator Gil Evans's third
stream compositions. Also, the original
concept and method had been developed in 1953 by pianist and writer George
Russell. Davis saw Russell's methods of composition as a means of getting away
from the dense chord-laden compositions of his time, which Davis had labeled
"thick." Modal composition, with its reliance on scales and modes,
represented, as Davis called it, "a return to melody." In a 1958
interview with Nat Hentoff of The Jazz Review, Davis elaborated on this form of
composition in contrast to the chord progression predominant in bebop, stating
"No chords ... gives you a lot more freedom and space to hear things. When
you go this way, you can go on forever. You don't have to worry about changes
and you can do more with the [melody] line. It becomes a challenge to see how
melodically innovative you can be. When you're based on chords, you know at the
end of 32 bars that the chords have run out and there's nothing to do but
repeat what you've just done—with variations. I think a movement in jazz is
beginning away from the conventional string of chords... there will be fewer
chords but infinite possibilities as to what to do with them."
As noted by
Bill Evans in the LP liner notes, "Miles conceived these settings only
hours before the recording dates." Evans continued with an introduction
concerning the modes used in each composition on the album. "So What"
consists of two modes: sixteen measures of the first, followed by eight
measures of the second, and then eight again of the first. "Freddie
Freeloader" is a standard twelve-bar blues form. "Blue in Green"
consists of a ten-measure cycle following a short four-measure introduction. "All Blues" is a twelve-bar blues
form in 6/8 time. "Flamenco Sketches" consists of five scales, which
are each played "as long as the soloist wishes until he has completed the
series".
Liner notes
list Davis as writer of all compositions, but many scholars and fans believe
that Bill Evans wrote part or the whole of "Blue in Green" and
"Flamenco Sketches". Bill Evans assumed co-credit with Davis for
"Blue in Green" when recording it on his Portrait in Jazz album. The
Davis estate acknowledged Evans' authorship in 2002. The practice of a band
leader's appropriating authorship of a song written by a sideman occurred
frequently in the jazz world, as legendary saxophonist Charlie Parker did so to
Davis when Parker took a songwriting credit for the tune "Donna Lee",
written by Davis while employed as a sideman in Charlie Parker's quintet in the
late 1940s. The composition later became
a popular jazz standard. Another example is the introduction to "So
What", attributed to Gil Evans, which is closely based on the opening
measures of French composer Claude Debussy's Voiles (1910), the second prelude
from his first collection of preludes.
