Music

Jazz and jazz fusion: Hey Love! Lucy Yeghiazaryan ( spotify ). Vocal jazz by an Armenian-American. Amazing. DOMi and JD Beck Who Asked? ( spotify ). Not super jazzy, but well manicured and intense. Second albums can be tough, but these musicians show they need to be kept track of, looking forward to more output.  James Brandon Lewis Omni ( spotify ). Amazing saxophone lead album.  Pop: They Might Be Giants   The World Is to Dig ( spotify ). They're still spinning out catchy tunes.

Sucked into the bile by a NY Times article by David Allen. (The Times has lifted the limit of 10 free articles, so moving forward looks like free articles.) "As ticket sales fall, donors become more influential and orchestras operate ever more like corporations, where should power lie? Rather than debate such matters calmly, the richest orchestra in the world has devolved into a morass of anonymous quotations, destructive leaks and social media bile." I've always felt that this regime likes the evolution of more poor, more influence for donors.  Adam Nagourney and Robin Pogrebin broke the original story in the Times

James Brandon Lewis Omni and Deface The Currency ( Spotify ). He's a soulful jazz saxophone with some free jazz mixed in.   Sahara Blues by  Tinariwen , from Algeria, world music: Hogar (2026) spotify , YouTube . Amatssou (2023) spotify . Maya de Vitry Violet Light 2022 spotify . Country music, folk music.  Maya de Vitry - in the studio recording "All My Faith" YouTube . Begum Akhtar. I saw her in The Music Room (1958), a movie by Satyajit Ray. The Best of Hindi Ghazals spotify .  Black, Brown and Beige: Duke Ellington with Mahalia Jackson 1958 spotify . A Tick of The Tail by Genesis 1976 (2007 remaster spotify ). Utopia (2017) Bjork spotify . DOMi and JD Beck 2026 Who Asked? Spotify Mulatu Astatke :  New York–Addis–London: The Story of Ethio Jazz 1965–1975 . Nala Sinephro  2021 Space 1.8 spotify .  Nala Sinephro (born 1996) is a Belgian experimental jazz musician based in London. She is best known for her ambient jazz compositions, w...

 

Andrew Kushnir / Drums Chet Doxas / Tenor Sax Matt Dwonszyk / Bass YouTube

Sonny Rollins passed away at 95, yesterday in Woodstock New York.  Someone said all the people in the A Great Day In Harlem famous photo are dead now. Gemini AI confirming it's true. (Miles Davis was born 100 years ago today.) Top 3 Sonny Rollins Albums on Spotify: Night At The Village Vanguard  (1957) ( Wikipedia ) Saxophone Colossus  (1956) ( Wikipedia ) Way Out West  (1957) ( Wikipedia ) All 3 playlist Links to articles: 2020 NY Times interview NY Times Obit Guardian 2022 interview

  Reddit : 5/1 Irreversible Entanglements - Future Present Past (wouldn't be surprised if this ends up my aoty) 5/2 Immanuel Wilkins - Live at the Village Vanguard 5/3 Work Money Death - A Portal to Here 5/4 Gregory Uhlmann - Extra Stars 5/5 Adam O'Farrill - Elephant 5/6 Joshua Abrams - Pulse Meridian Foliation 5/7 Harlan Silverman - Music for Stillness 5/8 Ben Wendel - BaRcoDe 5/9 Morton Feldman 1991 Rothko Chapel YouTube 5/10 Patterns In Motion: The Great Minimalists 2026 YouTube . 5/11 A Feather On The Breath Of God 1982 spotify This is the music of  Hildegard of Bingen , and wow, I quite like it even though I'm a Buddhist. I have written about my respect for her spiritual journey in 2019 when I learned about her, and I've always wanted to find her music. I'm going to look for more versions of her music. One thing you can do on Spotify is choose her as an artist, and then play all the albums. I reverse the order, go from earlier to later.  5/12 Acoustic Gr...

  I saw this glorious painting by  John Singer Sargent at the Met over the summer. At the time it was quite a scandal at the Paris Exhibition with Portrait of Madam X . 4/1 Kacey Musgraves Tiny Desk Concert YouTube 4/2 Deeper Well 2024 spotify . Her new album isn't on Spotify yet.  4/3 Joe McPhee's Nation Time spotify 4/4 John Scofield 2002 Uberjam spotify I've been listening to Uberjam a lot. I like Avi Bortnick on rhythm guitar. I looked through my past postings and I was surprised I hadn't included it. I was reading online about similar albums to A Go Go , which I absolutely love. The drummer reminds me of JD Beck and some Japanese anime music. He didn't drop Madeski, but he dropped Martin and Wood. There's a 20 second rap on the 4th track, "I Brake 4 Monster Booty". Reddit post of European jazz musicians: 4/5 Niclas Knudsen Trio (Denmark) 2025 Nostalgia spotify Guitar with  Anders Christensen (b), Kresten Osgood  (d) 4/6 Neil Cowley T...

  3/1 Charles Mingus and Eric Dolphy in Belgium - 1964 YouTube Charles Mingus: bass Dannie Richmond: drums Jaki Byard: piano Johnny Coles: trumpet Clifford Jordan: tenor saxophone  Eric Dolphy: alto saxophone, flute, bass clarinet 3/2 Gabrielle Cavassa 2020 spotify Supposedly she's going to get a Blue Note release in 2026.  Switching to Classical music now 3/3  Vox Luminis Kantaten 2025 spotify The ensemble Vox Luminis, led by Lionel Meunier, specialises in English, Italian and German repertoire from the 17th and early 18th century and is internationally acclaimed for its unique sound. A core of vocal soloists is supplemented, depending on the repertoire, with an extensive continuo, solo instruments or a complete orchestra. Vox Luminis is artist in residence at Concertgebouw Brugge. 3/4 Edward Elgar Symphony No. 2 in E flat major, Op. 63 1994 spotify 3/5 BBC3 Radio is classical music. Great online station.  3/6 Piotr Anderszewski Brahms: Late Piano W...

Focusing on 2025 albums to catch up, keep things fresh and new. Spotify said my listening age was 88 in my yearly wrap.  I'm going to publish these when they're full, I just go ahead and put albums I listen to with the next open date. The amount of amazing music to be had on the cheap is heartbreaking.  2/1 Mary Halvorson, About Ghosts 2025 spotify Mary Halvorson , guitar (1-8), synth (Pocket Piano) (1–3, 8) Immanuel Wilkins, alto saxophone (1-2, 4-5) Brian Settles, tenor saxophone (1-2, 5, 8) Adam O’Farrill, trumpet (1-8) Jacob Garchik, trombone (1-8) Patricia Brennan, vibraphone (1-8) Nick Dunston, bass (1-8) Tomas Fujiwara, drums (1-8) Feel like Mary Halvorson is the jazz musician of the year for 2025 as the only artist with two albums on the best albums lists. There are other artists who play on multiple albums, sure, but she headlines two albums that top many lists.  2/2  Yazz Ahmed , A Paradise In The Hold 2025 spotify , YouTube 2/3  Emma Rawicz...

I hate that Spotify took money from ICE.  I watched Heart of Dog 2015, a movie about grief by Laurie Anderson, and while there's only a brief picture of Lou Reed, I'm sure the loss of him in 2013 is present, and the movie ends with a song off Ecstasy, and I realize I'd not listened to any albums since New York 1989, which I love.  1/1/2026 Ecstasy 2000 Lou Reed spotify 1/2 Set The Twilight Reeling 1996 Lou Reed spotify 1/3 Magic and Loss 1993 Lou Reed spotify 1/4 Songs for Drella 1990 Lou Reed spotify The movie Songs for Drella is on Criterion at the moment, and I quite liked that.  1/5  Mister Heartbreak 1984 Laurie Anderson spotify , YouTube "Gravity's Angel" borrows imagery from Thomas Pynchon's novel Gravity's Rainbow (1973). Anderson had "wanted to make an opera of that book ... and asked him if that would be OK... He said, 'You can do it, but you can only use banjo.' And so I thought, 'Well, thanks. I don't know if I could d...

I don't like Chet Baker singing more than one song. I tend to like authenticity over precision and from just the neck up, but his flat tones are just too off for me after a while. I think listening to a lot of music has changed my appreciation some, my taste profile away from authenticity, to more precision and complexity.  I hate how drugs killed the life out of so many musicians. He took it up in 1957. He's singing these songs before he's the addict I'm wary of. Maybe I don't like the fame and money that came his way that made him think he could be a drug addict. I certainly don't like him being voted over Clifford Brown and Miles Davis in 1954, that's just pure racism. I mean he's not bad, he's allowed to be in the top 3, maybe top 10 at the time.  I watched Let's Get Lost  (1988), interviews shortly before he died, some footage when he was younger, lots of talking heads. He seemed quite haunted, a husk of a human. That's what addiction do...

I don't know how AI music is a problem if I'm going and looking for specific albums when I go to Spotify.  12/1/2025 A Flat, G Flat and C 1966 Yusef Lateef YouTube I was looking for a jazz album where the  theremin is played, and this one does, not in the first songs though, so listen further in. 12/2 Kuni Mikami 2018 Keep On Swinging spotify I looked him up because he's playing at Mezzrow the night I looked it up, not in December. I do these in advance. 12/3 Kuni Mikami 2023 Happy Birthday YouTube 12/4 Barry Harris 1957 If I Live Again spotify He was Kuni Mikami's teacher for 10 years. 12/5 Barry Harris 1960 At The Jazz Workshop (Live) spotify 12/6  Cynthia Erivo 2025 I forgive you spotify 12/7 Ariana Grande 2025 Brighter Days Ahead spotify 12/8 Wicked spotify 12/9 Wicked: For Good spotify 12/10 Wicked Original Broadway Cast spotify 12/11 The Stare (2024) by Consider the Source spotify 12/12 Thundercat: It Is What It Is (2020) spotify 12/13 The Y...

I'm watching a man on the inside , and they ask what's the best concert you've been to. I've seen the Violent Femmes a few times, Neil Young, Rush, Van Halen. Seeing Neil Peart drum was awesome.  I've seen so many jazz concerts, operas. Since my memory has faded, I'd say seeing Eddie Van Halen doing Eruption was amazing, Rush, was amazing, Prince in Manchester was amazing. The last jazz set I saw was Ari Hoenig, and that was amazing.  I remember really enjoying Cosi Fan Tutte, a Mozart Opera at a small place. I saw John Lithgow at the intermission, I could have gone over and talked to him if I had a good question for him. I saw Satyagraha at the Met, Philip Glass came up on stage and took a bow. I saw Philip Glass do Wichita Vortex Sutra: Pt 2, and that was amazing. I shook Sam River's hand, when he was playing with Andrew Hill. I saw Phil Collin, Brandi Carlile. I saw REM at Madison Square Garden, and my wife said she'd never heard me yell so much. I we...

Phil Schapp's parents were introduced to each other by Red Rodney , jazz trumpeter. They were real jazz lovers, and got a son who a was a jazz lover.  Phil Schaap has 10 years of Birdflight on his website , his radio show on WKCR, the Columbia radio station. He died in 2021. He started broadcasting in 1970! The website has 2008-2018 of his morning show Birdflight.  I remember a friend yelling, "shut up" because he talked a lot, because he knew so much. He was a real institution for those who loved jazz. You quickly realize after listening to him that you don't know anything, and that can be discomforting, and because he knows so much, he talks and talks and talks. He received six Grammy Awards over the course of his career. He was talking to jazz musicians when he was 5, and weaves his life through the lives of jazz musicians. Count Base and big band jazz weaves into his bird show because the show had huge ratings, and he never gave it up. Many jazz musicians moved to...

There's a fascinating article about modernism in the NY Times . My goal has been to share all 10 gift articles every month, and I'm out, so I can't share this article today. Pierre Boulez ’s “ Le Marteau Sans Maître ” (wikipedia) came out 70 years ago, and sounds as modern as anything out today.  The Times didn't create an album on Spotify, but I found an able that has that ditty.  The next piece is " Dark With Excessive Bright " by Missy Mazzoli is the next one.

  11/1 Tame Impala 2025 Deadbeat spotify 11/2 Brandi Carlile 2025 Return to myself spotify 11/3 Pierre Boulez 2004 Le Marteau Sans Maître spotify 11/4  Nujabes 2005 Modal Soul spotify 11/5 J Dilla 2001 Welcome to Detroit spotify 11/6 I don't want to do too many playlists, but I found this one for upcoming and new independent artists . 11/7 Polyrhythm Addicts 1999 Rhythm Related spotify 11/8 Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) watch by Charismatic Voice YouTube . I watched a lot of her videos, but haven't watched her recently, but thought it would be lovely to see her comments on singing. I love the Rocky Horror Picture show. This video is 3 hours and 15 minutes.  Elizabeth Zharoff was an opera singer who didn't listen to any popular music growing up, and goes over popular music like she's never heard it, and she discusses the vocal aspect, and reminisces about her career, she's chosen to raise children, and this is second career.  In high school I went to the mid...

This album came out in 1983 when I was in high school. It's a favorite album of mine. The cover has kudzu , a vine introduced into Georgia, where the band is from.  People visit the picture on the back. It fell down and they rebuilt it.  I'm putting the lyrics to each song, perhaps mistaken, perhaps right, which I got of the internet. 1. Radio Free Europe Lyrics: [Verse 1] Beside yourself if radio's gonna stay Reason, it could polish up the gray Put that, put that, put that up your wall That this isn't country at all [Pre-Chorus] Raving station Beside yourself [Verse 2] Keep me out of country in the word Deal the porch is leading us absurd Push that, push that, push that to the hull That this isn't nothing at all [Pre-Chorus] Straight off the boat Where to go? [Chorus] Callin' on in transit Callin' on in transit Radio Free Europe Radio Beside defyin' media too fast Instead of pushin' palaces to fall Put that, put that, put that before all That this...