I have found two go-to principles to preserve whatever integrity, agency, and semblance of sanity I might possess. Keep showing up and protect my heart. The specifics are malleable and the moment-to-moment strategies are situational but I keep coming back to these things and it keeps helping. Showing up is maybe self-explanatory? If there are…
Continue ReadingToday (Feb 4, 2025) marks the 80th anniversary of John Stubblefield’s birth. Stubbs is one of my favorite saxophonists and in a sense an exemplar of the “lost generation” of folks like Victor Lewis and James Williams who, while beloved within the jazz community, fell in the cracks in the 1980s landscape of straight-ahead jazz’s…
Continue ReadingThe spreadsheets get more and more nuanced and my attempts to pare down without missing stuff remain earnest yet quixotic (4-5 full albums and 5-6 partial ones per week on average, though really more than that with some gaps where my ears are consumed by things related to performing or teaching). I’m so awed by…
Continue ReadingSafe passage to pianist Martial Solal, who passed last week at the age of 97. He was a great composer and bandleader, but a truly superlative pianist. I find myself thinking of ways to articulate this. With all due respect to Art Tatum and Earl Hines, he’s one of the all-time greats of solo piano….
Continue ReadingI was inspired to write about Abdullah Ibrahim (formerly Dollar Brand) for two reasons. One, the 90 year old South African pianist and composer is performing in New Haven tonight and I’m excited and moved that I will get to soak in his inimitable vibes. Two, his role as a voice against the oppression of…
Continue ReadingAlto saxophonist Lou Donaldson, who has moved on at the ripe age of 98, is perhaps the foremost example of how intertwined bebop and the blues are. Once a major heir to the Charlie Parker throne, he made a striking number of successful records in the funky acoustic “boogaloo” vein. Yet a focused listen reveals…
Continue ReadingSome artists are so iconic that we refer to them by one name (Ella, Stevie, Joni, Aretha, Clifford) but Quincy Jones only needed one letter. Q was a singular artist in his masterful eclecticism and prolific output. I was maybe in my early 20s when I fully realized that the person arranging some of my…
Continue ReadingWhat a life – I will resist the temptation to fill this with lyrics from Grateful Dead songs or to agonize over the list or the descriptions below and will instead focus on the expediency of shining a light on the singular Phil Lesh, bassist, frequent background vocalist, and occasional songwriter for the Grateful Dead….
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Continue ReadingBill Barron (1927-1989) was an important and brilliant saxophonist (tenor, mostly), composer, scholar, and educator whose work deserves much wider attention. I’m not sure what the universe had in mind in this regard, but I’ve had the privilege of teaching for years now in the Music Department at Wesleyan University, where he taught from the…
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