Category: Posts

THE FOLLOWING DIATRIBE IS DELIBERATELY CONTROVERSIAL HAVE YOU EVER heard horrible jazz on the radio and wondered how on earth it got there? One big reason is vanity record labels. Around 1980 I noticed the vast majority of selections the Los…

THE FOLLOWING DIATRIBE IS DELIBERATELY CONTROVERSIAL SHOULD ANY KIND of music or art really go out of style? For a valid genre to go out of style seems as ridiculous as the color of your hair going out of style.…

AN EARLIER POST mentioned Artie Shaw. I presume anyone reading this knows Artie was a big band leader in the 1930s and ’40s and one of the best popular clarinetists of all time. One day around 1980 my friend (and…

THE FOLLOWING DIATRIBE IS DELIBERATELY CONTROVERSIAL   EVERY CLARINETIST MUST ENDURE comparison with Benny Goodman and his ability to play lyrically at fast tempos. I might go so far as to say that nobody else I can think of has…

THE FOLLOWING DIATRIBE IS DELIBERATELY CONTROVERSIAL YEARS AGO I asked a couple of musicians with good reputations to record four or five tunes I had hoped would appear on an album. We were acquaintances and colleagues but they insisted I…

THE FOLLOWING DIATRIBE IS DELIBERATELY CONTROVERSIAL Discuss it on our Forum HERE’S WHAT REALLY UPSETS ME: Jazz is commercially dead and that puts one of its feet in the casket of cultural death. It’s just that some musicians haven’t figured…