The Malaysian Insider :: Showbiz
The Malaysian Insider :: Showbiz |
| Jackson doctor’s attorneys challenge medical expert Posted: 21 Oct 2011 08:22 PM PDT LOS ANGELES, Oct 22 — Attorneys for Dr Conrad Murray yesterday challenged a top anaesthesiology expert over assumptions he made in a courtroom demonstration on how Murray could have given Michael Jackson a deadly drug infusion. The cross examination of Dr Steven Shafer came a day after the expert prosecution witness gave damaging testimony against Murray at his involuntary manslaughter trial in Jackson's 2009 death from an overdose of the drug propofol and sedatives.  Chernoff (right) cross examines Shafer during Murray's trial in Los Angeles on October 21, 2011. — Reuters pic "You certainly do consider that what you have claimed occurred in this case is an extraordinary claim?" Ed Chernoff, the lead defence attorney, asked Shafer on the witness stand. "Not at all," Shafer said. But Chernoff did manage to get Shafer to admit that investigators did not find in Jackson's bedroom a vented IV tube with a plastic spike such as the one Shafer used in his demonstration for jurors. Shafer testified Murray still could have used one and easily balled up the tube and pocketed it before leaving Jackson's Los Angeles mansion. Jurors have heard prior testimony that an IV pole, saline bags and propofol vials were among the items found in Jackson's bedroom and closet after he died on June 25, 2009. Murray has admitted that on the day Jackson died he gave the singer a relatively small dose of 25 milligrams of propofol for sleep. Defence attorneys are challenging the prosecution's argument that Murray could have administered as much as 40 times that amount of the drug afterward through an IV. Defence attorneys have said Jackson might have given himself an extra, fatal dose of propofol when Murray was out of his bedroom. Court proceedings yesterday also pointed to a looming duel between Shafer's testimony and what is expected to come from the defence's propofol expert, Dr Paul White, who is scheduled to take the witness stand next week. Shafer, a professor at Columbia University, said he considers White a friend, but those bonds of friendship appear to be tested by the Murray trial. Yesterday, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael Pastor scolded White for a media report in which he was quoted as uttering the word "scumbag" in court after a prosecutor aided in Shafer's IV system demonstration on Thursday. Pastor, who earlier imposed a gag order for lawyers and witnesses in the trial, told White he had no business making those kinds of comments, and set a November 16 hearing for possible sanctions against the defence expert. "Dr White knows better," Pastor said. Murray, who has pleaded not guilty, faces a maximum sentence of four years in prison if convicted. — Reuters Full content generated by Get Full RSS. |
| Yo Yo Ma turns to bluegrass music for new album Posted: 21 Oct 2011 05:13 PM PDT NEW YORK, Oct 22 — He's known as one of the world's best classical cellists, but for his latest musical effort Yo-Yo Ma has dropped Bach and picked up bluegrass. Grammy Award-winner Ma spent a year recording songs with bluegrass titans Edgar Meyer, Stuart Duncan and Chris Thile for a project entitled "The Goat Rodeo Sessions," an 11-song set of original compositions, due out on October 24.  File photo of Ma playing during ceremonies marking the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2011. — Reuters pic "We started off with the stories, like every culture," Ma told Reuters about this project. "Every culture has its own brand of stories, its characters. There's nothing but similarities (between bluegrass and classical forms). This developed from people trusting and admiring each other. All the music I play is roots based, and it gets further along." While it might surprise some that a proficient classical musician like Ma would transition to this version of Americana, "The Goat Rodeo Sessions" is Ma's second project with Meyer. The two recorded two albums with violinist Mark O'Connor — 1996's "Appalachia Waltz" and 2000's "Appalachian Journey." But these sessions are different, not only with the expansion into a quartet of instruments, but also with the addition of Thile, whose creativity on the mandolin earned him notoriety first with his band Nickel Creek and now with the Punch Brothers. The album drifts between playful songs like "Attaboy" and "Less is Moi," that are tinged with folk elements, to softer, more poignant arrangements on "Franz and the Eagle" and "Helping Hand." Although most of the songs are instrumentals, Thile is joined by Crooked Still's Aoife O'Donovan for vocals on "Here and Heaven" and "No One But You." The cello isn't thought of as a traditional bluegrass instrument the way the banjo is, but Ma said its malleable nature makes it blend-in without sounding out of place. "The cello, as usual, can do a number of different roles," he said. "Sometimes I'm trying to match the violin, the bass, the mandolin. I shift around a little bit — sometimes we're equal voices, sometimes we're particular roles." The title of the record, "The Goat Rodeo Sessions," is a nod to the expression, "goat rodeo," which is often used to describe a situation in which a thousand things must go right in order for something to work. "My worst nightmare was that (the album) would sound like worlds colliding," Thile said. "Music shouldn't sound like some new patchwork genre. The idea was to come up with a collaboration that is seamless. Like a new organism, as opposed to a Frankensteinian monster." While the songs were written prior to hitting the recording studio, the group allowed themselves to improvise and evolve during rehearsals. Doing so gave the record a looser and flowing sound than with classical or bluegrass standards. "I think the music that resulted was a product of a time or place," Thile said. "People coming out of the hills and making Appalachia — that's kind of over. It sounds to me like new music. It doesn't sound like classical music, it doesn't sound like bluegrass. It has this liquid feeling of the various times we were playing." "When I hear the, we are not in the 'whose the author' sort of thing," added Ma. "The music would shift from one rehearsal to another where we'd get information about how the four voices interact and decide 'we should try something like this.' There was a wonderful evolution that occurred right during the recording sessions." — Reuters Full content generated by Get Full RSS. |
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