Dec 31, 2009
Call it "amateur night" or a glamorous evening, New Year's Eve is a key date on everyone's social calendar. Once again I'll be spending the evening in with my wife Nancy and our dogs, Angus and Hamish, eating and drinking to excess and watching old movies.
A perennial favorite song for New Year's Eve, and the Offical...
Dec 30, 2009
All the merriment of the holiday season takes a breather here as we remember those wonderful musicians and jazz figures we lost this year, including:
Composer George Russell, Les Paul, the father of the electric guitar; noted singers Blossom Dearie (click here to listen to "Everything I've Got", a track from...
Dec 29, 2009
Last month celebrates the 40th anniversary of ECM Records, and I offered a number of postings featuring music from this iconic label, including a new CD by Jan Garbarek. For me, one artist represents ECM better than any other - Keith Jarrett.
Jarrett had learned his craft playing with Art Blakey and Charles Lloyd,...
Dec 28, 2009
Looking outside, I can unequivocably state - Spring is NOT here.
But fifty years ago today, Bill Evans was hard at work at what would become Portrait in Jazz, one of his best efforts for Riverside records. I'm not sure if Bill had his tongue firmly in cheek, or whether he simply loved the song, but Rodgers & Hart's
Dec 25, 2009
A Merry Christmas to you all. I am a practicing Jew who does not celebrate Christmas as the birth of the messiah. However, I can appreciate the universal themes of peace, love and understanding that are prevelant this time of year, and so the Offical Straight No Chaser song of Christmas Day is "Peace", written by Horace...