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How Donald Trump Killed the Biggest Cliché in Politics

by FranklynSwanton Posted on January 28, 2016

Mother Jones

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The first candidate to use one of the most abused clichés in electoral politics at least had the facts on his side. Just before 5 p.m. on October 11, 1948, President Harry Truman pulled into the train station in Willard, Ohio, and addressed the crowd from the rear platform. In a brief speech that lasted no longer than 12 minutes, he accused his Republican challenger, New York Gov. Thomas Dewey, of obsessing over public-opinion surveys, and then made a historic prediction. “I think he is going to get a shock on the second of November,” Truman predicted. “He is going to get the results of one big poll that counts—that is the voice of the American people speaking at the ballot box.”

And good for him. Four years after Gallup’s preference for Republican candidates prompted congressional hearings, the preeminent polling firm predicted Dewey would win by five points. Truman won by 2 million votes. You’ve all seen the photo.

As candidates dealt with the increasing omnipresence of polls, Truman’s mantra became a handy crutch. At first, the historical allusion was explicit. “In one respect I’m like Harry Truman about polls,” Vice President Richard Nixon told the New York Times in 1959. “We share that in common, plus the fact that we both play the piano. I believe the only poll that counts is that on election day.” As he prepared to face Sen. John F. Kennedy the next year, he told Democrats, “I can agree with the distinguished member of your party, Mr. Truman, when he said that the only poll that counts is the one on election day.”

Nixon’s habitual usage of the term helped usher it into the mainstream. In 1972, his daughter Tricia declared that “the only poll that really counts is the vote on election day.” Four years later, Tricky Dick sent a private note of encouragement to his successor, President Gerald Ford: “Keep that confident, fighting spirit—and the only poll that matters will come out alright on November 2.” Within two years, yet another president, Jimmy Carter, was quoting from the Book of Harry: “Look, the only poll that matters in politics is the poll that the people conduct on election day.”

By 1980, when Carter was still holding out hope for the one true poll, the Times felt comfortable calling the use of the cliché a classic gesture of “politicians running behind.” It has even traveled across the pond (as a corollary to the very British phrase, “Every jockey knows the fence that counts is the last one”), and found an ironic second life among college football fans.

The problem now is that it’s no longer true, for wildly divergent reasons. The polls have been all over the place in 2016, and they’re only getting worse because, as Jill Lepore explained in the New Yorker, the pool of people who participate in them is becoming smaller and less representative. But at the same time, the polls matter more than ever. For the first time in a party-nominating contest, they were used to split the Republican candidate field into two tiers of debates—more than a year before election day.

If the cliché is truly dead (it may be indestructible), then Donald Trump killed it. In a rebuke to the Nixons and Trumans—and basically everyone else—who came before him, he has decided that polls are, in fact, fantastic. He can rattle off the latest results off the top of his head; at the most recent debate, in South Carolina, he even corrected a moderator who misstated the size of his lead. And it’s working. The effect has been to turn the polling industry into a political perpetual-motion machine; poll numbers beget media coverage about poll numbers, which beget even higher poll numbers.

After all this, maybe there’s only one way this story can end:

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How Donald Trump Killed the Biggest Cliché in Politics

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Marco Rubio Turns His Back on Puerto Rico, at His Own Peril

by Tabatha0432 Posted on January 14, 2016

Mother Jones

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In early September, Hillary Clinton and Marco Rubio campaigned in San Juan, the Puerto Rican capital, on the same day—a nod to the island’s importance in the November presidential election, thanks to a surging population of Puerto Ricans in Florida, the mother of all swing states. But the two candidates came bearing very different visions for how the island territory should cope with its severe debt crisis. At a roundtable event, Clinton backed bankruptcy reforms that would spare the island from the worst ravages of austerity at the cost of profits for its Wall Street creditors. “You can’t fix your economy through austerity,” she said. At his own rally across the city, Rubio took Wall Street’s side. The Associated Press reported that Rubio, speaking in Spanish, “railed against giving Puerto Rico bankruptcy protection.”

Rubio wasn’t always a vocal opponent of bankruptcy protections for Puerto Rico. And his current stance is one that, should he become the Republican nominee, would be hard to explain to the hundreds of thousands of Puerto Rican voters in Florida.

Puerto Rico is currently embroiled in dire financial troubles. The island is $72 billion in debt. In August, Puerto Rico began missing payments to its lenders. Last week, it defaulted on $174 million in payments to creditors. Meanwhile, the island’s economy is floundering, with unemployment at 12 percent. The governor, Democrat Alejandro García Padilla, has repeatedly requested that Congress grant cities and public utilities in Puerto Rico access to Chapter 9 bankruptcy, which would give them the same tools to restructure debt that are available in the 50 states.

Like residents of the District of Columbia, Puerto Ricans lack full congressional representation. The island’s lone representative in Congress is Pedro Pierluisi, who is not allowed a vote on the final passage of legislation even though, as he likes to point out, he represents more people than any other member of the House of Representatives. Since the island doesn’t send anyone to the Senate, Pierluisi has to court friends on the other side of the Capitol to push for Puerto Rico’s interests. “My natural allies in the Senate are the senators who have a significant Puerto Rican presence in their states,” Pierluisi says, ticking off New York’s Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand and Florida’s Bill Nelson and Rubio as his usual Senate partners.

Typically, Rubio has backed Pierluisi’s proposals, he says. In 2013, for example, Rubio introduced in the Senate Pierluisi’s bill to allow Puerto Rico to receive funds to implement electronic medical records.

But that alliance crumbled when Pierluisi asked for help with the island’s debt crisis. “He has supported us on other areas,” Pierluisi says of Rubio. “But not on Chapter 9.”

Democrats approached Rubio’s office earlier this year about co-sponsoring a Chapter 9 bill in the Senate, and they were initially hopeful that he’d sign on when his office didn’t offer any policy objections, according to a Democratic aide in the Senate. But as the process dragged on, Rubio backed away without offering any alternatives or trying to find a compromise. “They ultimately didn’t have substantive issues with what we were talking about but couldn’t commit,” the aide said.

Last month, the New York Times detailed how Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut had initially tried to woo Rubio to join the Democrats’ bill, only for Rubio to back away just three weeks after a fundraiser with a hedge fund founder who had a stake in Puerto Rico’s debt. In November, Fusion reported that six hedge fund executives who hold Puerto Rican debt have donated to Rubio’s presidential campaign.

While perhaps good for his presidential fundraising, Rubio’s decision to back away from bankruptcy protections for the island could haunt him. The same economic turmoil that created the conflict between the island’s government and Wall Street has also spurred the biggest migration of Puerto Ricans to the US mainland since the 1950s and 1960s. Back then, Puerto Ricans headed mainly for New York and New Jersey. This time, about a third of Puerto Ricans coming to the mainland are landing in Florida, an important swing state in this year’s presidential race.

Today, there are more Puerto Ricans living on the US mainland (5.1 million) than in Puerto Rico (3.5 million). As the US economy rebounded from the Great Recession but the island’s economy remained stagnant, migration to the mainland accelerated. Today, there are about 1 million Puerto Ricans in Florida—likely at least 100,000 more than in 2012, although exact figures are hard to come by. That increase is greater than President Barack Obama’s 73,000-vote margin of victory in Florida in 2012.

The Puerto Rican vote in Florida is mostly Democratic, although there are opportunities for Republicans to make inroads into the community. Obama won 77 percent of the Puerto Rican vote in Florida in 2008 and 84 percent in 2012. But it wasn’t too long ago that Jeb Bush won the backing of a majority of Puerto Ricans in his 2002 gubernatorial race, by diligently courting their votes. (Bush, incidentally, supports both Puerto Rican statehood and bankruptcy protections.) In 2010, Rubio significantly outperformed both John McCain’s 2008 campaign and Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign among Puerto Rican voters. If he is the nominee in November, Rubio will have a built-in advantage with Puerto Ricans due to “the Hispanic heritage he brings, the ability to speak the language, and the fact that he’s from Florida,” says Fernand Amandi, a Democratic pollster in Florida.

The newest arrivals from Puerto Rico represent an even bigger opportunity for Republicans. Unlike those who have lived in Florida for years and have forged a connection with the Democratic Party, newcomers don’t strongly identify with either party. (On the island, political divisions are centered on disagreements over Puerto Rico’s status as a territory rather than the left-right breakdown that defines the parties on the mainland.) What they do feel is a connection to the island, its economic distress, and the livelihoods of their family members who remain there.

“In Puerto Rico they can’t vote, but we can here,” says Betsy Franceschini, a Hispanic outreach director in Florida for the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration, an arm of the island government that works as a liaison to the federal and state governments. “We want to make sure that whatever candidate we support will stand by our community and stand by during this crisis.”

“We will not forget,” Franceschini adds, “especially in November.”

Maurice Ferré, a former Democratic mayor of Miami who was born in Puerto Rico, believes that US policy toward the island will be more important in the 2016 elections than ever before. “Everyone has family in Puerto Rico, and they’re all being affected by this,” he says. “Pensions are now in doubt, health services are now in question…They’re cutting the police, they’re cutting education.”

Thanks to Florida’s presence among the handful of key swing states that candidates will have to jockey over this fall, small issues like this can take on an outsize importance—even deciding the outcome of the election.

“When you have a state as close as Florida potentially could be, and a lot of people anticipate to be, every segment of the electorate has an overmagnified sense of importance,” says Amandi, the pollster. “If anything, the newer arrivals from Puerto Rico that don’t have as much of a cultural history with either of the two parties here, you might say, are more important because they are potentially up for grabs. And some of these single issues, especially as it relates to the island, could very well be a litmus test issue.” Amandi estimates these recent arrivals in Florida, from the latest migration wave over the past decade, could number around 200,000.

So do the math: In Florida, that means potentially as many as 200,000 up-for-grab voters in a state that could, in a close election, be decided by a few thousand votes.

“The Republicans cannot afford to ignore the Puerto Rican electorate because if they do, they will lose Florida,” says Amandi, noting that the GOP nominee doesn’t need to win a majority of Puerto Ricans, but rather needs to surpass McCain and Romney’s poor showings—as Rubio did in 2010. This time around, Amandi says, Rubio is “going to have to explain to Puerto Rican voters why he is against bankruptcy protections.”

Puerto Rican leaders are already showing their anger at Rubio’s decision to back away from bankruptcy. During a December trip to Washington to lobby for bankruptcy protection, the island’s governor warned that Puerto Ricans in Florida would remember Rubio’s decision not to support bankruptcy come November. “They will be here on Election Day,” he said.

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Marco Rubio Turns His Back on Puerto Rico, at His Own Peril

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The Solar Industry’s Christmas Miracle

by LeeGetz986282874 Posted on December 24, 2015

Mother Jones

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This story was originally published by Slate and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

We all know the hallmarks of the classic business-themed Christmas movie. A good, well-meaning executive faces some tough business fundamentals as the holiday season approaches. Unexpected events deepen the gloom. But just in time for Christmas, a miracle arrives from on high, ensuring peace, prosperity, and happiness for years to come.

It’s a Wonderful Life? Yes. But it’s also the story of solar companies in the past few months. In November, things were looking bleak for the renewable energy sector at large and for solar companies in particular. The sector has been booming since 2009. The price of installing solar panels has come down sharply as scale has risen, new business models have hastened the spread of the technology, and giant companies are entering contracts to buy huge volumes of renewable energy. But none of that would have been possible without 1) the special federal tax breaks and credits for owners of solar panels, and 2) abundant capital seeking returns in a world of extraordinarily low interest rates. And in the second half of 2015, the investment thesis that kept solar stocks burning bright began to dim.

The solar investment tax credit—in which owners of solar-panel systems get a 30 percent tax credit—was always meant to be temporary and is set to expire next year. The Republicans in Congress generally favor fossil fuels over renewables, generally oppose anything President Obama is for, and deny the need to deal with climate change. So as fall settled in, investors began to focus on the fact that by the end of 2016, the solar investment tax credit of 30 percent would fall to 10 percent for commercial systems and disappear entirely for home-based systems.

Another problem: Renewable energy is as much about financial engineering as it is about electrical engineering. For solar to work, investors had to believe that the structures rigged up to build solar would stand up over time. In recent years, energy companies had hived off renewable energy projects into special, publicly traded vehicles—yieldcos—that were supposed to pay dividends. But many of them failed to deliver expected results. Worse, the attractiveness of such fixed-income investments stands in inverse relation to the interest rates available elsewhere. And with the Federal Reserve telegraphing an interest rate increase in December, investors began to flee yieldcos.

Finally, the entire renewable industry depends to a large degree on the zeitgeist. When the world is in a green mood, when it looks like there will be a widespread, coordinated effort to combat climate change, investors get psyched about solar. When it appears that the will for collective action is fading, investors get the blahs. And throughout October and November, it was common to hear observers argue that the much-bruited Paris conference was going to be a bust, that it would deadlock over conflicts between rich and poor nations.

There’s a cruelty and ruthlessness to the markets, which can provide a fire hose of capital on Monday only to shut it off entirely on Tuesday. And that’s what began to happen in November. Stock markets are famously futures markets, and forward-looking investors suddenly didn’t like what they were seeing in the future. The stock of SunEdison, the self-proclaimed “largest global renewable energy development company,” fell from a high of $31.50 in July to a low of $2.86 on Nov. 19—a loss of 91 percent. The stock helped sandbag the performance of well-known hedge fund manager David Einhorn, whose sale of a big chunk of SunEdison stock helped increase the melancholy. Analysts began to question the company’s liquidity, which is poison for a company with lots of debt. SolarCity, the giant rooftop-panel installer founded by Elon Musk and his cousins, saw its stock fall from $62 in May to $25 in early November, a decline of about 59 percent.

Like George Bailey, investors and executives at solar companies were essentially teetering on the bridge outside of town.

And then a series of miracles happened. On December 12, the Paris climate talks concluded with an unexpectedly strong agreement among countries to attempt to limit emissions. The US publicly recommitted to green policies, and a large number of giant, influential global companies signed on to an initiative to get 100 percent of their energy from renewable sources. Investors began to reconsider their pessimism.

Next, Washington delivered—defying the conventional wisdom. Newly installed House Speaker Paul Ryan realized that he’d have to negotiate with congressional Democrats if he wanted to get a budget and tax deal before the end of the year. And as they came to the table, another miracle happened: The Democrats held fast. On December 14, Democrats indicated they would be willing to support the Republican-backed effort to lift the ban on oil exports—but only if the Republicans would consent to measures including a multiyear extension of renewable energy credits. It worked. Last Friday, Congress voted to extend the 30 percent solar investment tax credit through 2019, and then to reduce it to 10 percent through 2022.

That move instantly made the US solar industry viable for another six years. Investors were elated. SolarCity’s stock popped as details of the budget agreement began to emerge and then soared on its announcement. By Friday, the stock was above $56, up about 117 percent from its November low. SunEdison’s stock closed on Friday at $6.51, up 127 percent in a month. The Guggenheim Solar ETF is up about 30 percent from Nov. 19 through last Friday.

God bless us, everyone.

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The Solar Industry’s Christmas Miracle

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Congress Allows DC to Sled, But Not to Regulate the Sale of Marijuana

by ElmoDonohoe Posted on December 16, 2015

Mother Jones

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Residents of Washington, DC, have taken major issue with Congress on two big local priorities in the past year: legalizing marijuana and sledding on the slopes of the US Capitol. DC voters approved a ballot measure last November to legalize weed by a 65-27 percent margin, only to be told by Congress that the city couldn’t regulate or tax the sale of the drug. And residents flocked to the Capitol with their sleds after a heavy snow in March, only to be thwarted by Capitol police.

In its omnibus budget deal released Tuesday night, Congress tackled both of these issues, granting DC its wish on one but not the other. Sledding, the body determined, would be permitted; regulating the marijuana market would not.

The District of Columbia—home to more than 650,000 people, making it more populous than Vermont or Wyoming—lacks a voting representative in Congress, and its budget is subject to congressional approval, a unique carve-out that no other US city or state must contend with.

As part of a larger deal to keep the government funded for the next year, Congress is asking Capitol police to let kids from the surrounding neighborhoods bring their sleds to the slopes outside the building, among the best in the town. But while the kids can frolic, Congress still wants to prevent the adults in town from buying and selling a once-illegal substance.

The budget deal includes a rider first implemented last year that prohibits the city government from using any of its money to further legalize marijuana in the nation’s capital. After voters approved Initiative 71 last November—which legalized home growth and possession of small amounts of the drug—the city has been stuck in a gray area. Residents can now safely keep a small stash of weed at home without fear of being arrested by local cops, but there’s no legal way for them to buy the drug, unless they qualify for a medical marijuana prescription. The city council was on track to pass rules to allow for a marketplace and taxation system, like those in Colorado and Washington state, late last year before Congress intervened, much to the consternation of local officials. As I wrote earlier this summer:

There are a whole host of reasons the city government and voters would prefer a market where marijuana is sold in approved storefronts just like liquor. As Colorado has shown with its regulated system, bringing drug sales out of the black market can be a boon for tax revenue, with the state set to collect about $125 million this year from marijuana sales taxes. And before the ballot initiative last year legalized personal possession of small quantities of the drug, studies had shown that black residents of DC were 8.05 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana than white residents, even though black people and white people smoke pot at equal levels nationally.

That rider barred the city from regulating marijuana sales until government funding ran out. Tuesday night’s deal extends the prohibition through next September—and effectively signals that stripping the District’s ability to regulate a drug it has legalized has become a de facto part of any deal to keep the government from shutting down.

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Congress Allows DC to Sled, But Not to Regulate the Sale of Marijuana

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This Painting Is Going to Become Iconic

by KindraPVLC Posted on November 13, 2015

Mother Jones

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The unfolding tragedy in Paris is almost unspeakably horrific and awful. I’m sort of at a loss for words. This viral painting from Twitter is deeply moving.

Correction: Friday, November, 12 2015: 7:16 pm ET: Originally I said this was a Banksy painting but that’s just because I’m an idiot.

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This Painting Is Going to Become Iconic

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The First Viral Video Ever Was Recorded 45 Years Ago Today

by PamCarstensen83 Posted on November 13, 2015

Mother Jones

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On November 9, 1970, George Thornton, an engineer at the Oregon Department of Transportation, had a mission: remove a 45-foot sperm whale washed ashore the Oregon coast just south of the Siuslow River. But how?

As The Oregonian‘s Stuart Tomlinson puts it in Thornton’s obituary in 2013:

ODOT officials struggled with what to do with the whale. Rendering plants said no thanks. Burying was iffy because the waves would likely have just uncovered the carcass. It was too big to burn.

So the plan was hatched: Let’s blow it up, scatter it to the wind and let the crabs and seagulls clean up the mess. So Thornton and his crew packed 20 cases of dynamite around the leeward side of the whale, thinking most of it would blow into the water. At 3:45 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 12, the plunger was pushed.

The whale blew up, all right, but the 1/4 mile safety zone wasn’t quite large enough. Whale blubber and whale parts fell from the sky, smashing into cars and people. No one was hurt, but pretty much everyone was wearing whale bits and pieces.

At that moment on November 12, 1970—45 years ago today—the decaying whale erupted into the public consciousness and eventually became a viral sensation. It was keyboard cat before cats had keyboards. “It went viral before the internet had the infrastructure to support viral videos,” Andrew David Thaler wrote in Vice‘s definitive history, “when mailing a six minute clip via USPS was faster than downloading.”

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The First Viral Video Ever Was Recorded 45 Years Ago Today

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Everyone In California Is Freaking the Hell Out About a UFO

by EmilioDelgadillo Posted on November 8, 2015

Mother Jones

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The government says it was a missile launch. That hasn’t stopped people from freaking out.

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Everyone In California Is Freaking the Hell Out About a UFO

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Pope Francis Will Allow Priests to Forgive Women Who Have Had Abortions

by AntoineFurst Posted on September 1, 2015

Mother Jones

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On Tuesday, Pope Francis announced that during the church’s upcoming Holy Year of Mercy, which runs from December 8, 2015, to November 20, 2016, he will allow priests the discretion to forgive women who have had abortions. The move effectively lifts the church’s policy that can lead to women being excommunicated for procuring an abortion, for the time being at least. In normal circumstances, these women are required to seek forgiveness from a senior priest who specializes in such confessions, which can be a complicated process.

In a letter from the Vatican, Francis called on the church to practice mercy toward women who seek such forgiveness:

For this reason too, I have decided, notwithstanding anything to the contrary, to concede to all priests for the Jubilee Year the discretion to absolve of the sin of abortion those who have procured it and who, with contrite heart, seek forgiveness for it. May priests fulfil (sic) this great task by expressing words of genuine welcome combined with a reflection that explains the gravity of the sin committed, besides indicating a path of authentic conversion by which to obtain the true and generous forgiveness of the Father who renews all with his presence.

While the announcement still condemns abortions as a major transgression—a Vatican spokesman on Tuesday emphasized the decision is by “no means an attempt to minimize the gravity of the sin”—the move continues what some are calling Francis’ more progressive papacy, compared with that of his predecessors.

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Pope Francis Will Allow Priests to Forgive Women Who Have Had Abortions

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BREAKING: Tamir Rice Investigation Results Released by County Prosecutors

by MarylouBozeman Posted on June 13, 2015

Mother Jones

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The long-awaited findings of a probe into the death of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, who was shot and killed by a police officer in a Cleveland park last November, were finally released Saturday afternoon by the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office.

The publication of hundreds of pages of documents marks a significant milestone in the long and complicated search for answers surrounding the boy’s death. County Sheriff Clifford Pinkney’s office took over the investigation from the Cleveland police department in January. Then, five months later, the sheriff’s office handed over its findings to county prosecutor, Timothy J. McGinty, who has led the efforts since, and released today’s findings. Next, McGinty’s office will decide what additional investigation might be required, after which prosecutors will present evidence to a grand jury to determine whether criminal charges are warranted.

“The death of a citizen resulting from the use of deadly force by the police is different from all other cases and deserves a high level of public scrutiny,” McGinty said in a statement accompanying the trove of documents.

Here are some of the major findings contained in today’s report. We’re making our way through the report now and will update this list:

Sheriff’s investigators interviewed 27 people, including the officers who arrived after the shooting, the 911 caller, paramedics, friends of Rice, and workers at at the Cudell Recreation Center, which is near the site of Rice’s death.
Officers Timothy Loehmann, who fired the fatal shots, and Frank Garmback, who drove the squad car, have yet to speak to investigators, despite multiple attempts to interview Loehmann and Garmback since the Cleveland police department handed over the case in January.
Rice’s mother, Samaria Rice, also declined to speak with investigators.
The 911 dispatcher who relayed the message to Loehmann and Garmback “refused to answer questions (per her attorney) about not relaying specific information related to the 911 call.” A county official familiar with the case confirmed to Mother Jones that the dispatcher did not answer questions as to why she failed to mention that Rice was possibly a “juvenile” and that his weapon was probably “fake.”
According to witness interviews, it remains unclear whether Loehmann shouted commands at Rice from inside the police car before firing his gun. A weapons inspection showed that Loehmann fired two shots at the boy within one to two seconds of exiting the vehicle.
One witness, who said she was about 315 feet from the scene, said she was getting into a car when she heard, “Pop pop…Freeze let me see your hands…Pop.”

Saturday’s release comes days after community leaders in Cleveland filed affidavits asking a municipal judge to seek charges against the officers involved. The judge responded on Thursday saying he believed there was probable cause to bring charges including murder and involuntary manslaughter.

Since Rice’s death on November 22, 2014, questions have mounted about why it has taken so long to investigate the incident. As Ayesha Bell Hardaway, a former Cuyahoga County assistant prosecutor, told Mother Jones, “Half a year is an extremely long time,” especially given the video of the shooting, the details of the 911 calls, and “the questions raised about Officer Loehmann’s fitness for duty.”

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BREAKING: Tamir Rice Investigation Results Released by County Prosecutors

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John Coltrane for Experts

by GiselleBatson Posted on March 9, 2015

Mother Jones

The John Coltrane Quintet Featuring Eric Dolphy
So Many Things: The European Tour 1961
Acrobat
So many “things” indeed! This intriguing four-disc collection of concert performances from November 1961 features six different renditions of the standard “My Favorite Things, each running 20 to 29 minutes, along with more compact versions of “Blue Train,” “I Want to Talk About You.” and other Coltrane favorites. These previously bootlegged concerts were taken from radio broadcasts and suffer slightly from thin sound, but are more than listenable. If So Many Things isn’t for beginners, it’s great extra-credit listening: With multi-instrumentalist Eric Dolphy briefly in the lineup, Coltrane was pushing his tenor and soprano sax chops into new territory, leaving behind traditional melodies and song structures in a restless search for fresh ideas and approaches—a quest he would continue until his death in 1967. The harsher extremes of his final years are yet to be reached, and there’s a mesmerizing, meditative quality to the music throughout that’s dreamy, yet subtly urgent.

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John Coltrane for Experts

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