One of the most fascinating books I’ve read in recent years is Orality and Literacy by Walter J Ong, a study of purely oral cultures and the changes in consciousness and culture that occur with the advent of writing, and…
How to Make it in the Music Business
How do you make it in the music business? Practice of course! Seriously though, the real answer is keep your day job. Wait, wait, come back. Ok the real first step is to define what you mean by making it.…
Crying
A musician friend of mine, who passed away recently, once told me that he had stopped listening to sad music entirely, and only wanted to hear happy music. He said that life was sad enough on it’s own and that…
Music for Young and Old
In the past year I’ve been teaching a lot of ukulele classes in the Portland schools. I’ve also done a lot of shows at area retirement homes. I think that playing and teaching music with young and old has given…
Music is Your Friend For Life
I often tell my young students “if you make friends with music now, music will be your friend for life”. At least in my own life, I have found this to be true. I have considered music to be my…
Thelonious Monk
The story of Thelonious Monk is a story of contradictions. A musical revolutionary who lived long enough to be considered old-fashioned. A man with a reputation for erratic behavior who was also a devoted husband and father. A piano player…
The Jazz Loft Project
The Jazz Loft Project is a story told in fragments by disembodied voices. It is a successful work of art made from the ruins of a failed one, a complete work made from an intentionally incomplete one. It is the…
Artists as Workers
In 1935, with the country in the grips of depression, President Franklin Roosevelt created the Federal Music Project, part of Federal Project Number One, which included related programs for visual artists, writers, and the theater. Despite his patrician upbringing, FDR…
Charlie Parker
I’m not here today to talk about Charlie “Bird” Parker as a musical revolutionary. I’m not interested in discussing his troubled life and early death. I don’t want to debate whether he’s the man who destroyed jazz or the man…
Curtis Mayfield
I’m not sure why more people don’t dig Curtis Mayfield. Even a lot of musicians I’ve met don’t know much about his work, or aren’t into it, at least at first. Some find it overproduced, in that 1970s way when…