The recent release of my Love Right project has made me reflect on the many others who have used music to paid tribute to those who have departed, whether loved ones or heroes and whether musicians or not. This list centers on those in the middle of this Venn diagram – musicians paying tribute to fellow musicians who were also their friends, and doing so with music created for that purpose.
Continue ReadingI’m a couple days late here, but bravo to the three brilliant and deserving musicians in the newest class of NEA Jazz Masters. I particularly want to shout out the 4th member of that cohort, the historian/producer/archivist/DJ Phil Schaap. He’s a mysteriously polarizing figure (though literally the only criticism I’ve ever heard is that he talks too much, which is maybe true but the absurdity of ME criticizing someone for that is more than my brain can handle) but my goodness has this man spent his life working to elevate the visibility and understanding of the art form he loves from the bottom of his heart and the depths of his utterly remarkable mind.
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