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Keith Jarrett: The Old Country: More From the Deer Head Inn — top-drawer piano-trio jazz

This recording of the pianist’s 1992 gig with bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Paul Motian sounds fluid, focused and fresh

Delaware’s intimate Deer Head Inn occupies a special place in Keith Jarrett’s journey from child prodigy to jazz superstar. It was there that the pianist, fresh out of school, played his first serious jazz trio gig. And it was also there, as drummer with the house trio, that he spent weekends jamming with the venue’s regular visiting jazz stars. In 1964 Jarrett moved to New York. Sideman duties with Charles Lloyd and Miles Davis followed. In 1975 his solo piano recording The Koln Concert established Jarrett as one of his generation’s few jazz superstars.

Yet his affection for that early-years venue never waned and in 1992, some 30 years after moving to New York, Jarrett returned to the Deer Head Inn for a full-to-the-rafters fundraising gig. Gary Peacock, from Jarrett’s Standards Trio, was on bass and Paul Motian, from Jarrett’s American Quartet, was on drums. It was the only time this particular trio line-up ever played together and the pianist and drummer had not performed together for 16 years. Jarrett delivered a lead voice tour de force and the rhythm section an ad hoc masterclass of support.

Seven songs from that gig, released in 1994 under the title At the Deer Head Inn, are established highlights of Jarrett’s voluminous discography. Now, for the first time, The Old Country releases the remaining eight. Jazz standards still mix with songbook evergreens, the trio dovetail brilliantly and the playing is fluid, focused and fresh. Jarrett describes the event as “a reunion and a jam session at the same time,” which exactly fits the music’s warmth, ease and sense of mutual respect.

The opener finds Jarrett at his melodically inventive best, the angularity of Monk’s “Straight No Chaser” is captured and Nat Adderley’s “The Old Country” is soulful and bittersweet. There’s a moving cover of “How Long Has This Been Going On” and the ballad is played beautifully. Here’s top-drawer piano-trio jazz that consistently holds sway.

A grueling election cycle has come to a close. Donald Trump will be the 47th president of the U.S., and, with Republicans in control of the Senate — and possibly the House — his allies are poised to bring sea change to the highest levels of government.

The effects will be acutely felt in the AI industry, which has largely rallied against federal policymaking. Trump has repeatedly said he plans to dismantle Biden’s AI policy framework on “day one” and has aligned himself with kingmakers who’ve sharply criticized all but the lightest-touch regulations.

Biden’s AI policy came into force through executive order, the AI Executive Order, passed in October 2023. Congressional inaction on regulation precipitated the executive order, whose precepts are voluntary — not compulsory.

The AI EO addresses everything from advancing AI in healthcare to developing guidance designed to mitigate risks of IP theft. But two of its more consequential provisions — which have raised the ire of some Republicans — pertain to AI’s security risks and real-world safety impacts.

One provision directs companies developing powerful AI models to report to the government how they’re training and securing these models, and to provide the results of tests designed to probe for model vulnerabilities. The other provision directs the Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to author guidance that helps companies identify — and correct for — flaws in models, including biases.

The AI EO accomplished much. In the last year, the Commerce Department established the U.S. AI Safety Institute (AISI), a body to study risks in AI systems, inclusive of systems with defense applications. It also released new software to help improve the trustworthiness of AI, and tested major new AI models through agreements with OpenAI and Anthropic.

Critics allied with Trump argue that the EO’s reporting requirements are onerous and effectively force companies to disclose their trade secrets. During a House hearing in March, Representative Nancy Mace (R-SC) said they “could scare away would-be innovators and impede more ChatGPT-type breakthroughs.”

Because the requirements lean on an interpretation of the Defense Production Act, a 1950s-era law to support national defense, they’ve also been labeled by some Republicans in Congress as an example of executive overreach.

At a Senate hearing in July, Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, expressed concerns that “preemptive overregulation attempts” would “entrench the tech incumbents that we already have.” Vance has also been supportive of antitrust, including efforts by FTC chair Lina Khan, who’s spearheading investigations of big tech companies’ acqui-hires of AI startups.

Several Republicans have equated NIST’s work on AI with censorship of conservative speech. They accuse the Biden administration of attempting to steer AI development with liberal notions about disinformation and bias; Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) recently slammed NIST’s “woke AI ‘safety’ standards” as a “plan to control speech” based on “amorphous” social harms.

“When I’m re-elected,” Trump said at a rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, last December, “I will cancel Biden’s artificial intelligence executive order and ban the use of AI to censor the speech of American citizens on day one.”

So what could replace Biden’s AI EO?

Little can be gleaned from the AI executive orders Trump signed during his last presidential term, which founded national AI research institutes and directed federal agencies to prioritize AI R&D. His EOs mandated that agencies “protect civil liberties, privacy, and American values” in applying AI, help workers gain AI-relevant skills, and promote the use of “trustworthy” technologies.

During his campaign, Trump promised policies that would “support AI development rooted in free speech and human flourishing” — but declined to go into detail.

Some Republicans have said that they want NIST to focus on AI’s physical safety risks, including its ability to help adversaries build bioweapons (which Biden’s EO also addresses). But they’ve also shied away from endorsing new restrictions on AI, which could jeopardize portions of NIST’s guidance.

Indeed, the fate of the AISI, which is housed within NIST, is murky. While it has a budget, director, and partnerships with AI research institutes worldwide, the AISI could be wound down with a simple repeal of Biden’s EO.

In an open letter in October, a coalition of companies, nonprofits, and universities called on Congress to enact legislation codifying the AISI before the end of the year.

Trump has acknowledged that AI is “very dangerous” and that it’ll require massive amounts of power to develop and run, suggesting a willingness to engage with the growing risks from AI.

This being the case, Sarah Kreps, a political scientist who focuses on U.S. defense policy, doesn’t expect major AI regulation to emerge from the White House in the next four years. “I don’t know that Trump’s views on AI regulation will rise to the level of antipathy that causes him to repeal the Biden AI EO,” she told TechCrunch.

Dean Ball, a research fellow at George Mason University, agrees that Trump’s victory likely augurs a light-touch regulatory regime — one that’ll rely on the application of existing law rather than the creation of new laws. However, Ball predicts that this may embolden state governments, particularly in Democratic strongholds like California, to try to fill the void.

State-led efforts are well underway. In March, Tennessee passed a law protecting voice artists from AI cloning. This summer, Colorado adopted a tiered, risk-based approach to AI deployments. And in September, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed dozens of AI-related safety bills, a few of which require companies to publish details about their AI training.

State policymakers have introduced close to 700 pieces of AI legislation this year alone.

“How the federal government will respond to these challenges is unclear,” Ball said.

Hamid Ekbia, a professor at Syracuse University studying public affairs, believes that Trump’s protectionist policies could have AI regulatory implications. He expects the Trump administration to impose tighter export controls on China, for instance — including controls on the technologies necessary for developing AI.

The Biden administration already has in place a number of bans on the export of AI chips and models. However, some Chinese firms are reportedly using loopholes to access the tools through cloud services.

“The global regulation of AI will suffer as a consequence [of new controls], despite the circumstances that call for more global cooperation,” Ekbia said. “The political and geopolitical ramifications of this can be huge, enabling more authoritarian and oppressive uses of AI across the globe.”

Should Trump enact tariffs on the tech necessary to build AI, it could also squeeze the capital needed to fund AI R&D, says Matt Mittelsteadt, another research fellow at George Mason University. During his campaign, Trump proposed a 10% tariff on all U.S. imports and 60% on Chinese-made products.

“Perhaps the biggest impact will come from trade policies,” Mittelsteadt said. “Expect any potential tariffs to have a massive economic impact on the AI sector.”

Of course, it’s early. And while Trump for the most part avoided addressing AI on the campaign trail, much of his platform — like his plan to restrict H-1B visas and embrace oil and gas — could have downstream effects on the AI industry.

Sandra Wachter, a professor in data ethics at the Oxford Internet Institute, urged regulators, regardless of their political affiliations, not to lose sight of the dangers of AI for its opportunities.

“These risks exist regardless of where you sit on the political spectrum,” she said. “These harms do not believe in geography and do not care about party lines. I can only hope that AI governance will not be reduced to a partisan issue — it is an issue that affects all of us, everywhere. We all have to work together to find good global solutions.”

Elon Musk – the billionaire CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI, and the owner of The Boring Company, Neuralink, and X – took a sharp swing to the right this election to support president-elect Donald Trump, using his vast wealth, influence, and megaphone on X to influence the outcome of the election.

Musk’s support came in spite of Trump’s anti-EV stance and climate change skepticism, and it’s a pivot from the executive’s relationship with Trump years ago. Musk served on two advisory councils during Trump’s first term, but left them both in protest of Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accords.

Musk – who is worth over $260 billion and donated over $100 million to a pro-Trump super PAC – is now poised to be the incoming president’s most influential political and business adviser. Trump promised Musk the position as head of a new Department of Government Efficiency during a September appearance at the Economic Club of New York.

(Musk has nicknamed the not-yet-formed department DOGE, a nod to his meme cryptocurrency, causing the coin to jump in market capitalization over 6% in the last 24 hours.)

The role could give the billionaire executive the power to recommend deep cuts to what he thinks of as a “vast federal bureaucracy…holding back America in a big way.”

During Trump’s victory speech, he gave his biggest donor a shout out, calling him a “super genius” and adding that “we need to protect our geniuses.” Trump said separately on Tuesday night, “A star is born, Elon.”

Many have predicted that there will be a falling out between the two huge personalities before Trump’s four-year term is over, but even if a fraction of Musk’s plans for DOGE become reality, it could mark one of the most consequential instances of a businessman helping shape the policy and regulations that govern his businesses.

Here’s what we think a Trump win means for Musk and his businesses.

While Trump has gained power largely by marketing himself as a good businessman, despite several bankruptcies, Musk can at least claim that he has been successful in his endeavors (X notwithstanding). According to Jon McNeill, former president of Tesla, that’s due to a formula that is centered around innovation through subtraction and radically simplifying problems.

This includes steps like questioning every requirement, deleting every step possible in the process before building them back in, and automating workflows. We should expect to see Musk take a similar approach to government spending if he is appointed to his promised role, which would task him with conducting a “complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government and making recommendations for drastic reforms,” according to comments made by Trump in September.

On Tuesday night, Musk said he would look to trim the fat of all government agencies, livestreaming a Q&A as he flew on a private jet from Texas to watch the election results with Trump at Mar-a-Lago.

“There’s a lot of duplicate responsibility where multiple agencies actually have overlapping portfolios,” Musk said. “There’s a lot of people that work for the government that we just need to transition them to more productive roles in the private sector.”

Musk noted that job cuts would be done “in a humane way” and floated the idea of paying government employees for two years while they searched for new jobs. He also mused about imposing term limits on bureaucrats.

“We still want to see regulations, they just need to be necessary,” he said. “I liken it to referees on a field. You don’t want to have no referees, but you don’t want to have more referees than players. That’s crazy.”

Musk’s businesses have themselves received government assistance across numerous administrations. Most recently, Tesla benefitted from the Biden Administration’s Inflation Reduction Act, which provided hundreds of billions in subsidies for investing in renewable energy projects, as well as EV tax credits for buyers.

Tesla has earned more than $2 billion in 2024 from clear air credits that it sells to other automakers under Environmental Protection Agency rules.

Now Trump, who has talked previously about ending a non-existent “EV mandate,” is expected to roll back many of Biden’s EV policies. If he ends subsidies for EVs, that could be additional good news for Tesla given that many of its rivals are still trying to catch up to it.

“Tesla has the scale and scope that is unmatched in the EV industry and this dynamic could give Musk and Tesla a clear competitive advantage in a non-subsidy environment,” Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said.

Tesla stock is up almost 15% Wednesday.

SpaceX stands to benefit from the Trump administration, too. During his first term, Trump enacted a number of major changes to American space policy, including standing up the U.S. Space Force and re-establishing the National Space Council for the first time in 24 years. There aren’t anticipated to be any major changes to America’s space priorities, especially its flagship program to return humans to the moon, Artemis. But the 2024 Republican Party platform included a clear, albeit brief, paragraph that space was a key emerging industry in which America should play a leading role: the country will send astronauts “back to the moon, and onward to Mars,” the document states.

In recent weeks, Trump has significantly upped his talk of space exploration. At an October 24 rally, he gave SpaceX’s crewed missions to Mars his blessing: “We will land an American astronaut on Mars. Thank you, Elon. Get going, get that spaceship going, Elon.” In a separate speech, he said he wanted “to reach Mars before the end of my term.”

The next Earth-Mars transfer window is in 2026, so an uncrewed mission to Mars could indeed take place before the end of this second Trump term. It’s likely no coincidence, given the time Musk and Trump spent together on the campaign trail, that this is the most recent timeline that Musk himself has given for SpaceX’s plans for the Red Planet: “The first Starships to Mars will launch in 2 years…If those landings go well, then the first crewed flights to Mars will be in 4 years,” he said on X.

Hitting those timelines could require changes within the Federal Aviation Administration, which regulates commercial launches in the United States. SpaceX has been waging an increasingly public war of words over the FAA’s purported inability to keep up with the pace of commercial innovation. The agency’s “superfluous” delays, as SpaceX put it in a recent blog post, could be a prime target for Musk’s proposed Department of Government Efficiency.

Musk isn’t the only space billionaire eager to make connections with the President: Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin welcomed a visit from Trump at the end of October. (On the same day, the Washington Post, owned by Bezos, announced it would not endorse a presidential candidate for the first time in the paper’s history.)

As for X, the Musk-owned social media platform, and xAI, his burgeoning AI company, the impacts of Trump’s win are less clear, though Musk has begun to speculate already on potential ripple effects.

More than 200 advertisers have stopped advertising on X since Musk took over, including Apple, Disney, IBM, Paramount, and Sony. Musk thinks that will change now that Trump has won the White House.

A recent global survey conducted by market research firm Kantar found that 26% of marketers plan to decrease spending on X in 2025 due to concerns that extreme content on the platform could damage their brands. Still, during Musk’s recent appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, he said, “I think if Trump wins, we’ll see probably most of the boycott lift.”

X has also been the focus of several federal investigations, including from the Federal Trade Commission, which has investigated the platform’s privacy practices under Musk, of whom FTC Chair Lina Khan has been openly critical. In late October, Musk said, “She will be fired soon.”

Musk has also gone head-to-head with the Securities and Exchange Commission over the years. Last year, the agency sued Musk and tried to subpoena him in relation to his purchase of Twitter stock and disclosures about his investment in the company. Musk called for a “comprehensive overhaul” of the SEC in response.

Meanwhile, Musk’s AI company, xAI, which is reportedly hoping to raise several billion dollars atop its recent $6 billion Series B at a $40 billion valuation – might benefit from a lack of AI regulation from the Trump administration. Experts say they expect a light-touch regulation approach from Trump, one where he relies on existing legislation rather than passing any new laws.

Matt Mittlesteadt, a research fellow at George Mason University, thinks the biggest impact to AI could come from trade policies. Trump has proposed a 10% tariff on all U.S. imports and 60% on Chinese-made products, which could have an economic impact on the AI sector.

As of this morning, Chat.com now redirects to OpenAI’s AI-powered chatbot, ChatGPT. An OpenAI spokesperson confirmed the acquisition via email.

Chat.com is one of the older domains on the web, having been registered in September 1996. Last year, it was reported that Hubspot co-founder and CTO Dharmesh Shah acquired Chat.com for $15.5 million, making it one of the top two all-time publicly reported domain sales.

The domain name doesn’t appear to have changed hands since it sold last year, indicating that OpenAI isn’t hosting ChatGPT on Chat.com — so this probably doesn’t represent a brand change.