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Today’s music moment comes about only because of today’s news. The Complete Village Vanguard Recordings 1961, the outstanding performance by the Bill Evans Trio, is one of 25 new additions to the National Recording Registry. In making the announcement, the Library of Congress said the five sets the trio performed on June 25, 1961, “are [...] Tim June 23rd, 2010 | Tags: Bill Evans, jazz, Midweek Music Moment, Music | Category: Music | Leave a comment |
 Print This Post |  Email This PostWith Springsteen and Dylan both releasing new CDs in 2009, you would think that would simplify my choices for album of the year. But Working on a Dream ranks as a below average Springsteen release and I’m enough of a Grinch that even Dylan doesn’t make me want to buy a CD of Christmas [...] Tim December 28th, 2009 | Tags: classic rock, jazz, Music | Category: Music | Comments are closed |
Print This Post | Email This PostBook blurbs often seem the equivalent of movie blurbs. Skepticism seems justified when a publisher puts a blurb smack on the front cover just below the title — especially when it says, “May be the best book ever written about jazz.” Is this honest commentary or gratuitous puffery? With Geoff Dyer’s [...] Tim November 10th, 2009 | Tags: Book Reviews, fiction, jazz, Music, Review Copy | Category: Book Reviews, Music | Comments are closed |
Print This Post | Email This PostUsually, I try to use album releases and recording sessions as the basis for these features. But something struck we when I realized that September 15 was the anniversary of the death of jazz pianist Bill Evans. When he died in 1980, he was barely 51. That’s what struck me. With [...] Tim September 16th, 2009 | Tags: Bill Evans, jazz, Midweek Music Moment, Music | Category: Music | Comments are closed |
Print This Post | Email This PostYou have to be of a certain era for the name Bill Chase to mean much. And it actually could mean something to you in two different contexts. Yet both contexts have an untimely limit. Bill Chase died in a plane crash on August 9, 1974, near Jackson, Minn.. One context is a [...] Tim August 12th, 2009 | Tags: classic rock, jazz, jazz-rock, Midweek Music Moment | Category: Music | One comment - (Comments are closed) |
Print This Post | Email This PostToday’s jazz fan could only dream of a line-up like this: Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, the Modern Jazz Quartet, Billie Holiday, Oscar Peterson, Gerry Mulligan, Lee Konitz. Yet those are just a few of the artists who performed at the first Newport Jazz Festival July 17-18, 1954. Newport is the granddaddy of the [...] Tim July 15th, 2009 | Tags: classic rock, jazz, Midweek Music Moment, Music | Category: Music | Comments are closed |
Print This Post | Email This PostWith the Fourth of July upon us, it seems an appropriate time to celebrate a unique American music: jazz. So, you wonder, why is this post about Frank Zappa? The vast majority of the uninitiated think Zappa was just a weird rock musician. In point of fact, he was a too often [...] Tim July 1st, 2009 | Tags: Frank Zappa, jazz, Midweek Music Moment, Music | Category: Music | Comments are closed |
Print This Post | Email This PostIf you hadn’t heard already — and you should have — Kind of Blue is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. In fact, it was 50 years ago this week — March 2, 1959 — that the first of the two recording sessions that created the best selling jazz album of all time took [...] Tim March 4th, 2009 | Tags: Bill Evans, jazz, John Coltrane, Midweek Music Moment, Miles Davis, Music | Category: Music | Comments are closed |
Print This Post | Email This PostThis time of year has always been one of transitions, even if it’s just an effort to make a New Year’s resolution. The jazz world saw a transition on December 26, 1967. That was the day the Dave Brubeck Quartet formally disbanded. Since the quartet had been founded in 1951, there were two mainstays: [...] Tim December 24th, 2008 | Tags: Dave Brubeck, jazz, Midweek Music Moment, Music, Paul Desmond | Category: Music | Comments are closed |
Print This Post | Email This PostI could simply just rave about how Friday night’s performance by the Joe Lovano Quartet ranks among the top shows in my memory in the SFJB Concert Series. Yet a particular thought often came to mind during the concert: how grateful I am that I had college roommates who helped me develop an appreciation for [...] Tim January 26th, 2008 | Tags: jazz, Music | Category: Music | Comments are closed |
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  The views expressed here are mine and mine alone. I do not speak for my law partners, our associates, staff and clients or my family and friends. Not only should any opinions here not be attributed to them, chances are they probably don't agree with me.
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