R.I.P. Teresa Stanley

I was saddened to hear of the death of TERESA STANLEY (71), long-time companion of James "Whitey" Bulger who passed away last August 16 of lung cancer.

I interviewed Teresa on two separate occasions late last year before she knew anything about the cancer. I found her to be haunted by the legacy of personal deception and violent crime left by her ex-common law husband, Whitey Bulger. Teresa was a 26-year old divorcee with four kids when she first met Bulger in 1966. He was not the legendary crime figure he would later become. By her own account, she became comfortable in her life with Bulger, who she knew was in "the illegal gambling business" and possibly a lonshark. She says she did not know of Bulger's many murders.

I first met and interviewed Teresa at Marisola's restaurant in South Boston, a neighborhood bistro well known to the locals. I was introduced to Teresa by Pat Nee, a friend and former criminal rival of Bulger's who, among other things, once did eight years in prison for smuggling guns to the Irish Republican Army back in the 1980s. Teresa used to chuckle whenever I mentioned Pat's name, because she knew Pat didn't care for Bulger, and, in fact, tried to kill him once or twice before they finally formed an uneasy partnership. Teresa later conceded that Nee was probably right in his negative assessment of Whitey.

The second time I interviewed Teresa was over breakfast at the Seaport Hotel on the harbor in Boston. Both interview sessions were lengthy -- two hours or more. And Teresa was very forthcoming and frank about her feelings and emotions. I liked her instantly. My feeling was that she was a good person, very sensitive and sweet, who had made a horrible choice in her life by settling down with a master deceiver like Bulger. She would later pay a heavy price for her associations with Bulger, as she became the subject of FBI and other investigations, was called to testify numerous times at hearings and trials, and was ultimately painted with a "scarlet letter" for having been Bulger's paramour for thirty years.

I spoke with Teresa one last time, earlier this year, when I called her on behalf of Newsweek magazine, who was looking to take her photo to accompany my article. Though she had told no one outside her closest family members of her cancer, she told me. I was shocked. Not only had she just learned of her condition, she was told that the cancer was far advanced. I told her I was sorry and that she deserved better; she was a good person.

There are those who vilify Teresa and hold her partly responsible for Bulger's crimes. I do not. She made a bad choice in love, was perhaps naive, maybe even chose to stick her head in the sand during Whitey's reign of power. When it came out that her lover was alleged to have killed so many people, including young women, she was stunned. When I met her, she still seemed to be partly in a state of shock about the whole thing.

Teresa has now arrived at her place of peace. Let the haters spew their venom. They never had to walk in her shoes.

To read the article that was based, in part, on my interviews with Teresa Stanley, go to following link: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/06/11/whitey-bulger-s-women-inside-the-terror-and-glamor-of-his-ex-girlfriends.html

Review: MULTIVERSE by The Bobby Sanabria Big Band

Bobby Sanabria is a New York City treasure. As a musician, bandleader and educator, his pedigree is impeccable. A master jazz drummer, he was weaned at the knee of Mongo Santamaria, Tito Puente, Dizzy Gillespie, and other jazz legends. Through his own orchestra and smaller groups, and as a music teacher at the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music, he has nurtured, educated and inspired many of the city’s most promising young musicians, just as he was inspired by direct contact with his jazz elders.

On top of all that, Sanabria is from the South Bronx. Even before he became a professional musician, the rhythms and syncopation of the streets where Latin music first took root in NYC became embedded in his DNA. He is the product of an authentic cultural experience based on geography, ethnicity, and musical history. And as a drummer and bandleader, he is among the best in the country, if not the world.

If all that sounds like hyperbole, it’s not. Sanabria’s role in the universe of contemporary Latin jazz really is all that.

Case in point: Sanabria’s new CD entitled MULTIVERSE, which is perhaps the hottest and most ambitious Latin jazz big band record you will have heard in the last decade. I have been listening to Sanabria’s work for a long time, have heard all his CDs, but nothing prepared me for the scope and sheer force of MULTIVERSE. It is a powerful statement of everything this artist has learned up to this point in his career and will no doubt have you on board in anticipation of everything he does in the future.

The opening cut – the theme from the movie “The French Connection” – will cause you to drop whatever you are doing and listen with full attention. The arrangement is complex, with an incredible driving force that has the impact of a NYC traffic jam having been corralled and turned into music. It is a stunning opening salvo to a CD that ebbs and flows in terms of tempo and musical styles but never loses that same high level of integrity.

Within the realm of Afro Cuban, Puerto Rican and American jazz styles, Sanabria’s influences are vast – a multiverse, as folklorist Elena Martínez points out in the CD’s liner notes – and nearly all of those influences can be heard on this new CD. The song “Cachito” opens as an Afro Cuban rumba before transitioning into something more robust and muscular. “Over the Rainbow” is a Latin jazz tribute to the beautiful and familiar ballad, sung by Charaneé Wade, that segues into a melodic cha cha cha. “Wordsworth Ho!” an arrangement by band member Chris Washburn, is another barnburner, with the dissonance of Mingus, driven by Sanabria’s own drumming and a brass section that distinguishes this band as among the elite playing today.

There are ten cuts on MULTIVERSE, every one of them the kind of music you will find yourself absorbing with your heart, hips, feet, culo and intellect. My favorite is, and always will be, the “Afro Cuban Jazz Suite for Ellington,” which is the hottest and most exciting Latin jazz tribute to the Duke that you will ever hear. At fourteen minutes in length, ranging over a number of familiar Ellington compositions, you will wish it went on for at least another hour or two.

Another contribution on the CD worth noting is that of Caridad De la Luz, also known as “La Bruja,” who, like Sanabria, is from the South Bronx. La Bruja is a local legend in the spoken word scene in NYC, a sassy Nuyorican with prodigious poetic gifts and charisma to burn. She adds rap and background vocals to a number of cuts, most notably a swinging tribute to Mario Bauza, narrated in rhyme and verse by La Bruja in her inimitable street style.

As with most bands led by a drummer -- from Buddy Rich to Max Roach to Ray Barretto and beyond – Sanabria’s ensemble is hard-driving and percussive. There is physical power in this music, but also a harmonic precision that turns on a dime. A big band with anywhere between ten to twenty members on different cuts that plays with the dexterity of a small quintet is something that requires a high level of sweat and concentration. In this regard, the Bobby Sanabria Big Band sounds like the musical equivalent of a team of Olympic gold medal winners who have been in training for nearly a lifetime.

This is not pop music, with soothing, saccharine melodies to be played in the background while you are doing domestic chores. MULTIVERSE brings history, inventiveness and the highest levels of musicianship to bear on an essential musical tradition. Sanabria throws down the gauntlet by posing the question: do you have the chops to hear, feel and comprehend all that this music has to offer? If so, bend your ears, hold on to your hats and pay attention, because the Bobby Sanabria Big Band will dazzle your senses, and then some.

To learn more about MULTIVERSE, listen to selected arrangements and/or purchase the CD or download, go to the following link: www.jazzheads.com

COMING SOON TO A THEATER NEAR YOU

Americans love their guns. Whenever there's a mass slaughter, they run out and buy more guns. Guns make insecure people feel secure, powerful, in charge, and Americans, by this standard, are among the most insecure people on the planet. They love to go to movies where people get slaughtered with guns, preferably in slow motion, 10, 20, 30 people slaughtered. This is our gift to world culture. We have a collective orgasm when people get slaughtered with guns on screen...
 
So, a guy in Colorado goes into a movie theater, a fantasy movie, comic book movie, and attempts to slaughter everybody. One of the survivors said he couldn't tell if the sound of gunshots was coming from the movie or the killer's gun. Perfect. Our fantasy world and our reality world are now one. Is anyone surprised? Ho hum. It will happen again. Maybe next time at a theater near you, on some national holiday, when you and the kids are nestling in to enjoy the latest fantasy slaughter fest...
                                                                                   -- T.J. English
                                                                                       7/24/12

THE BULGER CHRONICLES #6: The Friends of Whitey Bulger

You often hear it said that James “Whitey” Bulger corrupted the criminal justice system in Boston.

I say that the criminal justice system in Boston was already corrupt. Bulger plugged into this corrupt system and played it for all it was worth.

Bulger’s career as a gangster was as violent and reprehensible as we are likely to ever see. But he didn’t do it alone. And I’m not referring only to his underworld associates. I’m referring to his enablers. And when I say enablers, I don’t just mean a few agents in the FBI’s Boston office.

There is much about the Whitey Bulger story that the U.S. Justice Dept. would rather you didn’t focus on and don’t know. I have tried to unearth some of it in the latest installment of THE BULGER CHRONICLES, a series of articles I am doing for Newsweek/Daily Beast. This latest article is about the world that created Bulger, those who sustained his career and gave him his power.

You may remember the great crime novel by George V. Higgins called The Friends of Eddie Coyle, also made into an excellent movie with Robert Mitchum and Peter Boyle. The book and movie details a criminal underworld in which everyone is in on it, the criminals, the cops, the feds. In an effort to manipulate a particular criminal situation to their advantage, all of these players nearly take down each other – and inadvertently take themselves down.

This is not likely to happen with the Bulger fiasco. Oh yes, Bulger will be made to pay. No matter what happens at his trial (if there is a trial), he is likely to die in jail. But other than former FBI agent John Connolly (quoted exclusively in the Newsweek article), no one within the system has been held accountable.

Should you care?

Please click on the link below, read the article, and decide for yourself….

                                                                    -- T.J. English

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/06/17/whitey-bulger-s-trial-conspiracy-john-connolly-speaks.html

In Praise of Pete Hamill

Recently, as president of Irish American Writers & Artists, Inc., a non-profit group, I was given the opportunity to say a few words about the great New York City journalist and author, Pete Hamill. I was also asked to read something from his work, anything I preferred. The occasion was a conference held by the Irish Echo newspaper to draw attention to connections between New York City and Belfast. Both of Hamill’s parents were born in Belfast and came to New York as immigrants.

It was a tremendous honor for me to be part of this tribute to Pete Hamill. Here is a transcript of the speech I gave that night:

Am I the only one who finds it strange that Pete Hamill is sitting right here in the room with us tonight and we’re having some other guy read his work?

Ah well… if you check the listings of writers doing readings around town on a regular basis, appearing on panels and talk shows and whatnot, you know Pete is one of the hardest working men in show business. So, we’re giving you the night off, Pete.

I’m going to read a short passage from A Drinking Life, my favorite book of Pete’s, but first I want to say a few words about Pete’s significance, and reputation, with other writers in New York.

I wasn’t born here in the city. But, like anybody who’s lived in NY a long time – 32 years in my case -- I sometimes imagine and feel like I was born here. When people ask me where I was born and raised, I tell them, ‘The West Side.’ And when they ask where on the West Side, I say, ‘Tacoma, Washington’ … That’s a geography joke. You don’t hear many of those.

When coming to this city with a hungry desire to become a New Yorker, as I did, I’d say there are a number of requirements. One of them should be that you have to drive a taxi in New York for a few years, which I have done. Another is to struggle financially, have your rent jacked up illegally by a landlord, get robbed, or mugged on the street, which has happened to many of us who have been here since the 70s, or 80s or early 90s. This, by the way, is why longtime New Yorkers don’t really consider today’s younger New Yorkers to be New Yorkers at all. As a veteran cabbie once told me, as I was heading out on my first night on the job and I asked him, “Any advice?” He said, ‘Yeah. Remember this. In New York, nobody really loves you until you’ve been mugged.’

The third requirement for becoming a New Yorker is to familiarize yourself, as quickly as possible, with the writing, and persona, of Pete Hamill.

I know that for Brooklynites, especially anybody who grew up in Pete’s generation or the generations immediately following, Pete Hamill’s work holds a special significance. And that’s understandable. Of all Pete’s many subjects as a writer – and he is a beautifully diverse writer, with a healthy and magnanimous curiosity; he writes with grace and erudition about so many things – but of all his subjects, I think you’d have to say that Brooklyn, in many ways, is the central nugget of his identity as a person and a writer.

But here’s the thing: you don’t have to be a Brooklynite to appreciate that. Because when you read Pete’s work, you become a Brooklynite, you become a New Yorker. That is part of the generosity and expansive nature of his writing style, and that is one of the great pleasures of getting to know his work.

Over the years, I’ve probably had hundreds of conversations with other writers about Pete’s work. For anyone who is lucky enough to know Pete, the work is informed by your knowledge of him as a person – his basic humanism, the fact that he’s wonderfully learned and well read, a kind of working class bon vivant, a sentimentalist, at times, but one who is always tough minded. And fair. Always fair. Rigorously fair.

But you don’t have to know Pete personally to have been touched by or influenced by his work. It’s the openness and generosity of Pete’s writing style that has inspired so many of us. Pete showed that you could come from the working class, that you didn’t have to have graduated from some fancy journalism program, or be a product of wealth or a conventional education, to have a point-of-view that was valid and important. All that is required is that you apply to yourself the highest standards as a person and a writer, that you write beautifully, with great attention to craftsmanship, that you challenge yourself intellectually, that you go out into the world as an angel of mercy, that you judge no person harshly because he or she is a drunk, or poor, or an the wrong side of the law, or a Bishop. OK, maybe you can be hard on the bishops, but that’s because they represent power and authority and piety. And they should know better.

I never had the good fortune to work alongside Pete, or under him during his various short-lived stints as editor of the News, the Post, or that newspaper in Mexico City – I would have loved to work with Pete there. But I know I speak for a lot of New York writers when I say, I owe a great debt to Pete Hamill. And I feel lucky, and honored, to be the guy who gets to stand here right now and tell him how much his work has meant to me.

And so, with apologies to the Manhattanites, and people from the Bronx, Queens, Staten Island, and Belfast, let’s gather together as Brooklynites and listen to a passage from Pete’s classic memoir, A Drinking Life…

                                                                       -- T.J. English

The Bulger Chronicles: Whitey's Women

Whitey Bulger and Teresa Stanley, in better times.

Posted today on the Daily Beast website  is my fifth installment of The Bulger Chronicles, a series of articles I'm writing on the upcoming trial of Boston gangster James "Whitey" Bulger for Newsweek/Daily Beast. So far I've written articles about Bulger's apprehension from the point of view of former criminal associates and rivals ("Whitey's Payback"); a review of a book by the lone FBI agent who tried to shut Bulger down as a confidential informant for the Feds ("The Man Who Saw Through Whitey"); a report on Catherine Greig, Whitey's girlfriend and companion on the lam for 16 years, as she pleaded guilty in court; and now "Whitey's Women," the accounts of two women who were deeply involved in the lives of Bulger and his crime partner, Steve Flemmi, at the height of their years as gangster.

The article was based on extensive interviews with both women. Especially fascinating was the time I spent with TERESA STANLEY, who was Bulger's common-law wife for 30 years. It was Stanley who, in 1995, was originally going to go on the run with Whitey but decided she could not do it. Whitey exchanged Stanley for his other longtime girlfriend, Catherine Greig, and they disappeared together for the next 16 years, until they were captured in Santa Monica, CA in June 2011.

A recent photo of Teresa Stanley, who is now 70 years old.

I had two lengthy interviews with Teresa, one at Marisola's restaurant in Southie, and another at the Seaport Hotel at Boston harbor. I found her to be a sensitive and intelligent woman, still in a state of shock from all that has been revealed about the man she shared her life with for so many years. There are the murders (Bulger is charged with 19 counts of murder) and criminal pathology, but also Stanley is still shocked that "Jimmy," the man who served as a surrogate father to her four children, had, when they were together, an entirely separate and secret life with his "other woman."

Also interviewed for the article is MARILYN DI SILVA, a woman who in the late 70s was the girlfriend of Steve Flemmi.

I hope to write a few more articles on the Bulger saga leading up to his trial, which is currently scheduled for Nov. 5, 2012.

The article "Whitey's Women" can be accessed at http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/06/11/whitey-bulger-s-women-inside-the-terror-and-glamor-of-his-ex-girlfriends.html.

                                                                          -- T.J. English

RADIO LA CHUSMA: Musical Medicine from the Borderland

In the Southwest border region of the U.S., miraculous things happen with hardly a notice. Border regions, in general, move to the beat of their own rhythm, removed from the rest of the country. In the city of El Paso, way off in the western corner of Texas – as much southern New Mexico as it is Longhorn State – the local culture comes with a decidedly Mexican flavor.

El Paso butts up against Ciudad Juárez, best known today for its spiraling narco violence. But throughout its history, Juárez has been a vibrant musical crossroads. All manner of musical rhythms coming up from South America and the Caribbean pass through the once-thriving clubs and bars of Juárez, hop the Rio Grande, and cross into the U.S. via El Paso. There, musical styles further mix, cross-pollinate, and create some unique sounds that will inevitably be borrowed, approximated and ripped off by mainstream American music-makers.

    

One of the most eclectic contemporary examples of this unique and infectious borderland melting pot is Radio La Chusma.

The band was formed in 2002 by Ernesto Tinajero, born and raised in El Paso. Ernesto is a proud Chicano, but his musical interests bypass most of the more common borderland styles such as tejano or norteño or mariachi.

Radio La Chusma is, first and foremost, a reggae band, but the band also incorporates cumbia, Afro Cuban music, and world beat rhythms that are a combination of all of the above. In fact, the band is a veritable word beat encyclopedia of sounds.  A shining representation of the borderland not because it adheres to any one localized style, Radio La Chusma inhabits many. It is a band at the crossroads, with a style and sound that crosses borders and cultures with ease.

RASTA MEXICA, the band’s latest CD, is a stellar example of where the band stands philosophically and musically. On the inside of the CD case, the band states its creed: “Thank you Creator for all your blessings. For the Sun, the Moon, our Earth, the air we breath and your life giving waters. Thank you for all our fellow creatures, and thank you for this BEAUTIFUL AMAZING LIFE!”

Radio La Chusma performing at The Irish Mexican Alliance event in El Paso.

The band’s reggae roots are most evident in the CDs first song, “Rasta Mexica,” which is basically a musical statement-of-principles. With the hard-driving reggae guitar rhythms and lead vocals by Ernesto, with Selina Nevarez singing backup, the song is both a musical and lyrical explication of “rasta mestizo,” a style that Radio La Chusma has virtually invented, a combination of reggae and various indigenous musical styles.

The band signals its musical diversity with “Mis Padres,” the very next cut on the CD, which is a cumbia with a Manu Chau-style vocal delivery by Ernesto and a potent brass section of trumpet (Matt Nava), trombone (Marco Guerrero) and alto sax (Maribel Bueno).

Of all the tunes on the CD, my personal favorite is “Oya,” which is not reggae or cumbia. It starts as a Native American chant, and then, led by Ricardo Amaya on djimbe drum, it transitions into a beautiful Afro Cuban grita to the orishas, with lyrical solos by Leo Martinez on jarana and Randy Sanchez on tres. Lose yourself in the exultant melody of this song and you may just have an out-of-body experience.

Radio La Chusma is a party band, a celebration of the human spirit designed to move feet, booties and souls. Every song on RASTA MEXICA is uptempo. The band is attempting to fuse physical liberation (i.e. dancing) with an enlightened political and spiritual consciousness. There are songs about personal liberation (“Rise Up”), economic exploitation (“Night Shift”), and political repression (“Cruzando Fronteras”), but mostly the band is dedicated to good times -- personal liberation not through preachy lyrics but through the release of the physical self through movement, or, as Ernesto sings in “One and Only One”: “When I wake up in the morning, I wanna feel the sun/ When I wake up in the morning, I wanna have a little fun.”

In many ways, Radio La Chusma represents the future of the U.S. encapsulated in one band. They sing in English, Spanish and Spanglish. Their sound is an infectious mix of Caribbean and South American sounds aimed at a mainstream American audience.

At a recent event in El Paso called The Irish Mexican Alliance, which I co-produced and hosted, Radio La Chusma best represented the spirit of the occasion, which was an attempt to bring people together across cultures, continents and borders and call attention to an important issue: the devastation of the U.S.-Mexico narco war in Mexico and the borderland region. Radio La Chusma made it happen; they brought a sense of celebration and fun to what was a serious occasion, a harnessing of mind, body and spirit into a musical sound that is a force to be reckoned with.

The more this band is heard, the more they will be loved. If you have not yet experienced the music of Radio La Chusma, get your hands on a copy of RASTA MEXICA, and you will soon be swaying and booty shaking with the best of them.

Check out one of the band's many videos on YouTube, or listen to sample songs, purchase the CD and learn more about Radio La Chusma at the following link: http://www.reverbnation.com/radiolachusma