I present you a tale of affirming and reconnecting with my sense of purpose amidst the anxiety and disorientation of all that’s going on. If you’re needing something like that (or at least a ray of hope that it could happen) then I invite you to read on. I considered keeping this to myself but figured there’s likely someone here who needs to hear it.
Continue ReadingEvery day is a good day to listen to and celebrate Mickey Tucker’s music, but it’s his 79th birthday today, so it’s a particularly good day for it. In early 1996 I was formally introduced to Mickey Tucker’s music. I don’t always remember precise timings of such things (and had heard several of the recordings…
Continue ReadingSo it looks like Bandcamp (already the most musician-friendly online sales platform out there) is once again waiving its fees for 24 hours on Friday 5/1, so artists get 100% of the proceeds – and if you want to buy $100 of folks’ music (and/or a combination of that and online lessons, etc.) and make…
Continue ReadingI missed his eightieth birthday by a day, but nonetheless, here is my humble tribute to maestro Hancock. For someone as widely beloved as he is, I feel like it’s hard to grasp the breadth of his significance because he’s been so versatile and so prolific. There are many things I appreciate about him, but the one thing I’ll focus on right now is his ability to inhabit worlds that might on the surface seem oppositional. The most obvious examples of this are genre-based (synth pop and bebop, hard funk and ethereal movie soundtracks, etc.), but it strikes me on a more molecular level. That is, even when he’s grooving (whether swing or funk or whatever else), there’s a flexibility to his harmonic and rhythmic choices that makes the music breathe; even when he’s playing things that are by definition looser, there’s a rhythmic intention and a melodic directness that make the music earthy. His unique (even while widely imitated) ability to straddle these lines is to my ear fundamental to why his personality shines through no matter the context.
Continue ReadingYesterday we lost Hal Wilner to Covid-19. Among his significant accomplishments was a TV show that aired for two seasons on Sunday nights on NBC between 1988-90. Hosted by David Sanborn (initially alongside Jools Holland), the show never became “popular” per se, but it presented high quality and eclectic music on network TV for two…
Continue ReadingI threw together this list upon a) hearing of the announcement that Bandcamp (already the most musician-friendly online sales platform) would be waiving its fees for 24 hours on Friday 3/20 (so artists get 100% of the proceeds), and b) getting a request from a friend, independent of this announcement, looking to support some independent musicians in this time.
Continue ReadingWhile I knew it was coming, it is surreal to now inhabit a world without McCoy Tyner. If the ONLY thing he had ever done was play in the classic Coltrane quartet, people would be quite rightly eulogizing him left and right. But at the same time, he was playing on some other superlatively important albums, including some of his own, and (with apologies to fans of Paul McCartney, Diana Ross, etc.) I can’t think of a single artist whose work AFTER leaving an acknowledged “supergroup” can match McCoy’s output in terms of sheer amount, consistent quality, and scope of influence. That’s just one way in which he was a singular figure in music.
Continue ReadingAvoiding things can be wonderful. Unfortunately, following the impulse of avoidance often leads to simply deferring, adding to the cumulative stress rather than circumventing it. Knowing the difference is important, and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was remarkably good at that.
Continue ReadingThis is my most stupidly broad Top 10 list undertaking to date. As I started to see folks’ Top-10-(whatever)-of-the-Decade lists, I thought “gee, what are MY 10 favorite albums of the decade?” That was harmless enough, except then I thought “gee, I never compiled my top 10 albums of the 2000s either.” And so on, until I realized that I needed to break it on down by decade going ALL the way back to the 1950s, the first decade when LPs were a thing.
Continue ReadingWhat a year this was for recordings. With the sheer amount of music being put out now it’s of course impossible to keep track of more than a tiny sliver, and it’s virtually impossible to narrow down a small list of favorites from even that sliver. But here we are.
Continue Reading