Things I Like about NZ, Part 3
The cops apparently don't wear guns here! I just noticed that today as I was walking down to the harbor to check out the opening ceremony to the month-long NZ International Arts Festival. (Biggest music name: Pat Metheny, who is very long on talent and very short on taste, but he's playing with Christian McBride on bass, so I might just have to check that out.) Anyway, a cop had made a traffic stop, and whadaya know? No firearm, no holster, no nothing. Amazing. They must keep one in the car or something, though, since there is some violence that they have to try to stop.
In general, people occasionally complain about crime being on the rise here. Apparently theft is kind of common. But after living in the US, it seems nearly non-existent to me. And the women I know often remark that one thing they definitely like about living here is being able to feel safe walking around alone.
That point definitely goes in the Kiwi column.
posted by Josh @ 7:07 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
While I don't love everything Pat Metheny has written, he is an incredible talent in jazz composition, in addition to being a great player. There are extremely well known big band charts of his music, for example, and his published book of original compositions is standard reading for jazz musicians across the board. So "short on taste" is at best "short on _your_ taste" or perhaps a claim subject to revision with more data?
Keep this blog going! I'm a faithful reader, if only a sometime commentator!
Saul
Saul, good to hear from you! Right, Metheny deserves credit for compositional chops. I was thinking that he's short on taste in the sense that his overall aesthetic suffers from his using (what I consider to be) too many cheesy synthesized effects and fusion-y arrangements. But, yes this is definitely a matter of my tastes, and maybe I haven't heard enough stuff to give him credit. For what it's worth, this problem of taste for me seems to have become a problem for several very talented jazz guitarists in recent decades, e.g., Lee Ritenour comes to mind. (Though I love Magic Fingers).
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