AULD LANG SYNE
Like anyone of my age, my encounter with the song "Auld Lang Syne" can be traced to some New Year's Eve when I was a little kid and...
THE TIME I GOT STOOD UP
It doesn't even seem that the concept of getting "stood up" even exists anymore. I mean, who even asks people out on traditional dates? ...
HERBIE
April is Jazz Appreciation Month! I'm always interested in introducing students to some great music. Since most music today is...
LADY SOUL
When I was in my early teens, I used to listen to Top 40 radio on WABC am radio from New York, a ubiquitous voice blaring from transistor...
PEG
I have spent a lot of time dissing certain types of music in these blog posts. I have complained about the poverty of talent and the...
CHRISTMAS JAZZ PART IV or "I Want A Hammond B3 Organ and a Leslie Speaker Under My Tree for Chr
As my loyal readers know, I am a big fan of jazz music during the Christmas/New Year's season. Part of the reason is that Christmas is a...
THE SUMMER OF LOVE (PART IV) DONOVAN
"The ancient book of changes, the “I Ching,” says, 'Music releases the obscure emotions of the heart.'” -Donovan If I associate any...
THE SUMMER OF LOVE (PART III) SGT. PEPPER
During the last week of May, 1967 history was made. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was released and nothing was ever the same again. That's the impact one LP had. Music hadn't sounded like this before. The jacket cover was discussed for weeks. The songs' lyrics were printed on the back of the album jacket--basically declaring that the language of the songs was as worthy of inspection and appreciation as the melodies. This was the first rock/pop album to do such a
THE SUMMER OF LOVE (PART II) PRELUDE (PET SOUNDS)
In May of 1966, the Beach Boys released Pet Sounds, their eleventh album, and by far their most ambitious work to date. In fact, the Beach Boys were not thought generally to have desired to stray far from their proven musical path at all, regularly churning out wonderful harmonies about surfing, cars, and girls. It was, in fact, hard to find any song that they had previously recorded that didn't involve surfing, cars, or girls! But after a crippling anxiety attack, Brian Wi
THE SUMMER OF LOVE (PART II) PRELUDE (REVOLVER)
This should be about the extraordinary impact of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the iconic Beatles album that changed our musical world in the summer of 1967 and the Number 1 album of all time according to Rolling Stone magazine. But in retrospect, we probably should have seen the Beatles' breakthrough coming a year earlier with the release of two other albums, one a huge hit and the other not so much. Those other albums are now ranked # 2 and # 3 all time on the same
