Jürgen Klinsmann on the Hot Seat

First-time U.S. Men's National Team soccer coach Jürgen Klinsmann, a former German National Team player, seems to have made his personnel decisions very personal.

Klinsmann recently made the inexplicable decision to not only bench the face of U.S. Men's soccer, Landon Donovan, but to leave him off the U.S. roster for the upcoming World Cup tournament in Rio de Janeiro altogether.  In NFL terms, he's tried to avoid a quarterback controversy by shooting the charismatic incumbent.

We can reasonably conclude that the Donovan decision took on the dimensions of a ego-supremacy battle for Klinsmann.  In the immediate aftermath of the roster decision, his teenaged son crowed at Donovan on Twitter, an immature and classless act but one that also suggests the promulgation of a "Him vs. Us" mentality around the dinner table.  It would appear Daddy has been taking his work home with him.

The Donovan episode reminds me of another battle of wills: German engineers vs. American test pilots in the early days of NASA, as depicted in Tom Wolfe's book and the subsequent movie "The Right Stuff".  The control-minded engineers had designed a faceless, windowless capsule, and barely bothered to disguise their contempt for the pilots, viewing them essentially as laboratory animals; whereupon the daredevil astronauts-in-training rebelled, demanded windows and aircraft controls, and insisted their vessel be recharacterized as a human-piloted spacecraft.

Even if Klinsmann is technically right about Donovan's late-career decline, the roster snub is a crude attempt to squelch the essentially American character of the U.S. team by eliminating its signature player, the one individual whom history suggests can save their bacon in stoppage time. It's a hostile and contemptuous act by an insecure leader.

Landon Donovan's place in U.S. soccer history is secure, with or without Rio.  All he's done since Jürgen Klinsmann's roster debacle is surpass the all-time MLS goals record.  Meanwhile, as the result of one blinkered decision, Klinsmann's tenure in the Western Hemisphere may be over almost before it's begun.

For Evelyn Evelyn, Life is a Cabaret

Cabaret rocker Amanda Palmer and accordianist Jason Webley have teamed up to produce a forthcoming album of oddball songs by "Evelyn Evelyn", a musical act featuring conjoined twin sisters and former circus performers Eva and Lynn Neville who were "discovered" by Palmer and Webley. The twins don't appear much in public, so it is said, but their songs, featuring musings from many angles on the nature of duality in the universe, would be suitable for the old Dr. Demento radio show.



Perhaps predictably, the twins -- more accurately, their producers -- have their detractors. In particular, Disabled Feminists airs a thoughtful protest that, paraphrasing, Evelyn Evelyn is part of a tired, stereotype-laden treatment of Persons With Disabilities (PWD) by the Abled, as it treats them as freakish, and is therefore objectionable on the face of it. Less admirably, Disabled Feminists goes on to warn prospective commenters against posting any counterarguments on its site that would be "derailing" its apparently unimpeachable criticism of the project.

So, I'll do it here. I would respond: Palmer's and Webley's art lies squarely within the cabaret tradition and is entirely appropriate in that context.

Cabaret as a genre provides a safe space for exploring touchy, edgy, even taboo subjects by treating them humorously, satirically, or entertainingly, for the sake of illuminating the humanity at their core. Like gossip, cabaret art is, at least in part, a communal conversation to discuss essential truths and morals, including where the boundaries are.

Consider the satirical show-within-a-show at the Kit-Kat Klub in the movie Cabaret. The stage show and its songs depict poverty, hunger, greed, promiscuity, antiSemitism, Naziism, etc. We gasp when the "bride" is revealed to be an ape, and then Jewish. Is that depiction in the 1970's movie unacceptable on the face of it, due to its vile antiSemitism -- i.e. should the piece never have been written, performed, and filmed at all -- or does it serve an illuminating purpose by laying bare the antiSemitism of 1930's Germany (and elsewhere, and elsewhen) through satirical mockery?

Consider the subjects of Amanda Palmer's songs "Mandy Goes to Med School", "Missed Me", and "Oasis", to name just a few. "Oasis" alone treats alcohol abuse, date rape, teen pregnancy, abortion, manipulation, betrayal, and denial (all in under two minutes). Those are hardly the only examples of difficult subjects in her repertoire. When in "Guitar Hero" the narrator says "Tie them up and feed them the sand -- ha! N****!", is her use of the n-word variant vile and unacceptable on the face of it -- i.e. should the song have never been written and performed -- or does it serve a greater satirical purpose by illuminating the vulgar slang used, by videogamers and soldiers alike, to dehumanize one's virtual and real enemies?

The critics are welcome to say, they don't like this or that or that something is bad or wrong. That's part of the conversation. And granted, the original conception of Evelyn Evelyn seemed more screwball than purposeful or satirical, though the more recently published Evelyn Evelyn background story can be seen as a kind of a text-based cabaret number. My point is, if you're the kind of person who sees Tom Lehrer's "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park" as a political statement against animal rights, you're unlikely to find much of value in Palmer's and Webley's songs -- or indeed, in the entire cabaret tradition.

Aziza Mustafa Zadeh: Jazz and Tiramisu

Have you ever happened across a performer at a quick glance and been captivated instantly with his or her musical art? Such occurred with me about fifteen years ago, when I heard jazz artist Aziza Mustafa Zadeh, an Azerbaijani singer and pianist, for the first time on a Deutsche Welle cable program. Luckily that show was repeated, and I was able to catch her name. I've enthusiastically followed her music and career ever since.

Daughter of Vagif Mustafa Zadeh, a Soviet-era jazz musician who performed at personal hazard behind the Iron Curtain, Aziza also learned from her mother Eliza, an opera singer. Her etherial tonalities are an exotic blend (to the Western ear) of "mugam" scales, evoking a vaguely Arabic or Islamic sensibility, and American jazz riffs and chord progressions. Her tranquil instrumentals featuring this "double jazz", in her father's parlance, are entrancing mood pieces that could serve as the national soundtrack for her homeland, while her faster compositions display her technical virtuosity.

Aziza's incredible, classically trained vocals incorporate influences from mugam to opera to scat-singing jazz improvisation. It is the range and breadth of her vocal talents -- a haunting melody in one phrase, percussive clicks in another, leading to an operatic, high note climax -- that captivate the listener and distinguish her music from garden-variety Eurojazz.

Her most accessible work for fans of American jazz standards is Jazziza, an album of recognizable jazz songs arranged with her own ethnic stylings, sensibility, and wit. Her humorous take on Dave Brubeck's classic, "Take Five", presents her full-throated, operatic voice at a feverish pace, mixing in syncopated scat-singing, articulate "pips" at the top of her range, and, in the album version, tight harmonies (with herself!) and musical puns -- such as the surprise drop-in of the opening tones to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony at a propitious moment.



Based in Germany, Aziza performs mainly in European cities. My beloved spousal unit and I, along with good friends living in Europe, had the high privilege of seeing her concert nearly ten years ago, in Schwetzingen Castle near Heidelberg. Shy in her stage conversation with the audience, her concert presented the full measure of her musical talents. The encore, she explained, was a bit of "dessert"; she altered the lyrics of her very fast, very brief scat song called "Moment" to include the musical refrain, "Tiramisu, tiramisu, tiramisu!"

It's my fervent hope that aficionados of world music and jazz on this side of the Atlantic will have the same opportunity to see her perform live, either solo or perhaps as the featured guest of a symphony orchestra. It will change your concept of what is possible musically. To North American musical directors and impresarios: may I respectfully recommend that you offer Aziza Mustafa Zadeh some tiramisu at the earliest opportunity.