It’s Kate’s 40th birthday. I was going to write a song, but it’s been a tricky month. I was going to write a rhapsodic essay about all the things she is, but . . . well, I think she’d rather I spend the day with her than spend it doing that. So instead here is a list of some of the things about her I think are fabulous.
Continue ReadingThe air has been thick with “shoulda-been” birthdays, with Ana Grace’s 8th birth anniversary last weekend and my aunt Margie’s 73rd birth anniversary today. On Ana’s birthday a playground was dedicated in her name at Elizabeth Park in Hartford, and while the weather was uninviting, people flocked out to be there and I didn’t see a single person leave. Meanwhile, this weekend I will be celebrating Margie’s life and the music it inspired on Ripples in Baltimore to an audience of her devoted friends and family. Through it all, I can’t stop thinking about the spirit of human connectedness.
Continue ReadingI love the Isley Brothers, and their place in my heart is as unique as their place in music history. I’m hard pressed to think of many other artists who’ve produced strong work with such a diversity of sounds and a consistent evolution over such a long period of time.
Continue ReadingOr maybe “Augmented Piano Trio?” I don’t know what to call it, really, but the Trio plus Chamber-Ensemble on my Ripples album have evoked a lot of questions about the inspiration and methodology behind that music. The hierarchy I had in mind is difficult to articulate. It’s not really “octet music” in the sense of the piano, bass and drums being a rhythm section. Neither, though, is the work of the rest of the ensemble purely decorative window-dressing. Essentially, the trio is the central unit with the rest of the musicians playing a supporting role, but a (hopefully) well-integrated and important one.
Continue ReadingAs a musician, it is a treat whenever the opportunity arises to play with someone who brings out your best. It is, however, a rare and special confluence when you can play with someone who brings out a “best” that you otherwise wouldn’t have even known was in there. So it has gone for ten years now with the members of my Trio, Henry Lugo and Vinnie Sperrazza.
Continue ReadingWe’re not talking about healers in the New Age sense, although there’s nothing wrong with that either. The healers I refer to here are people with the courage and caring and compassion and commitment (stop me before I come up with more words beginning with “c”) to identify someone struggling and reach out to help.
Continue ReadingOne of the core ensembles on Ripples, the Jazz Samaritan Alliance, was borne out of a simple desire for community and collective action. In 2012 I set about assembling a collective of like-minded peers committed both to quality music and the responsibility to use music as a force for good.
Continue ReadingJazz with “crossover instruments” (especially strings) is a tricky endeavor – the music needs to be played accurately, in-tune and so on, but also needs to have the rhythm and phrasing that make it soulful and authentic. It is, however, less tricky with the right people and I was fortunate to have those people for the Ripples trio-plus-chamber session in Meg Okura, Zach Brock, Benjamin Fingland, Erica von Kleist and the chamber-MVP, Dave Eggar.
Continue ReadingA profile of the four fabulous young vocalists who contributed to the “Ripples” album
Continue ReadingIf you tell me “anything you need, just call” that sounds great in a song lyric, but what does it really mean?
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