Tag Archives: improvisation
Forever Ornette
My first instrument was the saxophone. That instrument introduced me to performing music and if I hadn’t started playing my horn at the age of 11 I probably would have never started writing my own songs. I still love my saxophone. Even though my singer/songwriter output is balanced on my lyrics, playing the saxophone offers [...]
Adieu, Clown
My favorite Robin Williams’ film is Dead Poets Society, but this scene from Good Will Hunting encapsulates the man’s best work for me: Williams starts off the scene on script, but by the middle, when he mentions his late wife waking herself, farting in her sleep, he’s off and running on one of his can’t-help-it [...]
Astral Weeks at 45
Van Morrison joined the British Invasion with Them until he left the band to meet Dylan and the folk rock revolution head-on with his first great masterpiece, Astral Weeks. Here’s what Rolling Stone has to say about this epic, emotive music: Van Morrison never sounded more warm and ecstatic, more sensual and vulnerable, than on [...]
John Cage VS Sun Ra
Louis VS Schmeling, Ali VS Frazier, Tyson VS Holyfield — it’s rare to see two great heavyweights meet head-to-head. But that’s what happened in 1986 on Coney Island when two champions of avant garde music met for a less-than-bloody collaboration that found a pair of the world’s most out-there tunesmiths having a musical meet-up that [...]
