a poem is a sermon
This morning I was a guest on the KZBL “Jamming with Johnny” talking about the Tricentennial CD and my song on it. I realized that the only other time I’ve been on the radio was about 30 years ago back in Los Angeles, when RJ, Dave and I dropped in at KXLU and talked about […]
I’ve been involved in the business (and to some degree, the art) of music for over 30 of my 42 years. I’ve traveled it, studied it, played it, written it and in the process I hope have learned a little about it. I’ve traveled, studied and written other things as well; but underlying everything that […]
The definition of “musician” is given as: 1. a person who makes music a profession, esp. as a performer of music. 2. any person, whether professional or not, skilled in music. Interestingly enough, the definitions of pianist, guitarist, bassist, flautist, etc. are not, as I would have expected “a musician whose instrument of choice, or […]
To call me a musician is to miss an important point. There’s a certain convenience to the label, sure. But labels have a way of limiting their objects, of glossing over the inconvenient details in an attempt to simplify the classification of the whole. There’s a laziness about that kind of thinking. A desperation, almost, […]
I cannot say I learned to dance, although at times I was inspired; and with each wrong note, took a chance that in his band, I might get fired. Precision: like a jeweler’s saw he cut through space and time with life in rhythm, bold and raw. In one small couplet’s rhyme he could encapsulate […]
So many inspirations have escaped, slipped through the cracks, their golden finish tarnished when confronted with the facts Some let their fame get to them, others watched it slip away, often so caught up in business that they never learned to play Fashion changes oh so quickly, and the new face on the scene becomes […]
By the time I got to it, the clarinet was odd; a quaint small instrument for guys who never got the girls (even the ones who played and sat in the same orchestra rows day and day, year after year), who shuffled in the back behind the trumpets and saxophones. It wasn’t really a manly […]