Category: Posts

MUSICAL SHOWS HAVE exploited pretty girls for centuries but does that kind of exploitation belong in jazz? Recently an otherwise top-notch ensemble of middle age men appeared with a cute young woman in the front line. She could play but,…

ESPERANTO, FOR THOSE unfamiliar with it, is an artificial language dating from the 1880s. Its developers hoped it would bridge language barriers between intellectuals and statesmen around the world. It is a tongue without a country and today its speakers…

WE JAZZ MUSICIANS are at war, battling for a share of radio, TV, movie, and Internet exposure to keep our music alive. And the only chance we have to accomplish that is to work together, to help one another. The…

FEW PEOPLE REMEMBER his name or know who he was. Dick Cary was an excellent jazz pianist, composer, and horn player. He was a very intelligent, educated, erudite gentleman. He also was my friend and mentor. He was born on…

I TRIED SOMETHING bizarre this month out of sheer frustration and it worked pretty well. I have been unable to get my “A” team into the studio for four months; someone always is working. So, instead, I used a computer…

SUPPOSE YOUR FAVORITE sport were baseball. How much would you like it if, over the years, teams rarely or never introduced a new player? What if, instead, the same players continued year after year even if they could hardly hit,…

ONE SATURDAY NIGHT near the end of my first semester as a freshman at UCLA the Dave Brubeck Quartet performed at Kirkhoff Hall and, for students, admission was free. The band consisted of its four original members, Paul Desmond on alto…

AT THE AGE of 16 I passed my driver’s test and my parents let me borrow the car on the third Sunday of every month to drive 45 minutes to Glendale. The Southern California Hot Jazz Society met at an…

TURN ON THE radio for music and you will hear vocals. Sure, your city may have a public radio station with a jazz show (usually rebroadcast from another location) or perhaps a few hours of orchestral music. But you will…