Mar 31, 2018
One of my favorite holidays is the celebration of the Jewish holiday of Passover As the first Seder is tonight, celebrating the Exodus of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt under the leadership of the prophet Moses, I've gone into the category of music that was called "Negro Spirituals" when I was in school, and...
Mar 29, 2018
The fine blog Any Major Dude with Half a Heart (dig that Steely Dan reference) has always gone deep into the crates for goodies, usually of the soul variety. For Holy Thursday, celebrated by Catholics around the world, he has a real winner. Visit his page for the late David Axelrod's "Holy Thursday". As he said on...
Mar 25, 2018
The start of Holy Week for the Christian faith is my cue to put together a podcast of Spiritual Jazz. Whether it has specific religious overtones, as songs in this year's podcast do when referencing the Muslim or Jewish faith; or are built on Spirituals from the African-American lexicon, this is some of the...
Mar 24, 2018
Mark Murphy’s latest CD, Pocketful of Rainbows, continues a trend of merging the singer-songwriter sense with jazz sensibilities. On one level, there is Mark’s smooth voice and lilting acoustic guitar performing songs written by Jackson Browne, Bob Dylan and Hank Williams. On another there is the richness...
Mar 20, 2018
While Winter may officially be dead today, it sure doesn't seem like Spring in my neck of the woods. Here in Western Massachusetts we're bracing for another heavy winter storm tomorrow, the fourth in the past month. It seems like the song of the day will be "Spring Will Be a Little Late This Year". Or maybe "Spring...