Sunday, March 05, 2023

Wayne Shorter, 1933-2023 - "Footprints"

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"An important cog in the ever turning wheel of universal humanism has passed through leaving all he touched better than it was befor...
Saturday, February 11, 2023

Burt Bacharach, 1928-2023, "What the World Needs Now is Love"

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Burt Bacharach, who died on Wednesday, had a peripatetic life. He was born in Kansas City, Missouri, spent his teenage years in Forest Hills...
Friday, February 03, 2023

Aly Bain with Jenna Reid - Sophie's Dancing Feet / Andy Brown's Reel

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  I had the pleasure, and honor, of meeting the great Shetland fiddler  Aly Bain  after a  Boys of the Lough  concert at Town Hall in the mi...
Sunday, January 29, 2023

Go Iggles!

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The Philadelphia Eagles, or "Iggles" as true Philadelphians call them, have won the NFC championship, and so will face the AFC cha...
Saturday, January 28, 2023

R.I.P. Tom Verlaine

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Lately this blog has been a sad series of death notices of musicians I've loved:  Jeff Beck , then  David Crosby , and now  Tom Verlaine...
Saturday, January 21, 2023

How I learned to love David Crosby

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The past few months have seen the passing of three musicians who profoundly influenced the development of rock music:  Jerry Lee Lewis ,  Je...
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Wednesday, January 11, 2023

R.I.P. Jeff Beck; another rock great lost.

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Certainly one of rock's most exciting guitarists, Jeff Beck, died today. In the clip above he plays "Little Wing" as a tribute...
Sunday, January 08, 2023

Remembrances and appreciations, 2022

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 On June 2, 1953, Coronation Day, I was with my parents and Rex, the bull terrier mix puppy I had been given as a seventh birthday present, ...

Homage to the King

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Elvis Presley was born on this date, January 8, in 1935. In 1956 I was ten years old and riding with my father in our '55 Chevy on a two...
Wednesday, January 04, 2023

Wherein I connect Edward Hopper with Neil Diamond -- trust me!

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Edward Hopper's "A Room in Brooklyn" (1932) came to me courtesy of my friend  Adrian Rice . My first reaction was, "Wow! ...
Sunday, December 11, 2022

Repast Baroque Ensemble performing music of the Italian baroque.

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Martha and I have been fans of the  Repast Baroque Ensemble ; indeed, have been friends of the musicians, for  almost a decade . This video ...
Saturday, December 03, 2022

The Wayfarers: Appalachian roots music from Southeastern Ohio

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If you've been following this blog for a while, you know that my taste in music is wide ranging. It includes pre-baroque through contemp...
Monday, October 17, 2022

The delights of the Fenimore Art Museum: Part 2: decorative arts, Hirschfeld caricatures, and Americans in Venice

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Across the hall from the  Florida Highwaymen exhibit  was a sign indicating that the gallery there featured "Fanfare for America: 19th ...
Sunday, September 18, 2022

Run Rose Run, by Dolly Parton and James Patterson

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Until a few weeks ago I was one of, I'm sure, a minority of regular American book readers who had never read anything by James Patterson...
Sunday, September 04, 2022

The delights of the Fenimore Art Museum: Part 1, Ralph Fasanella and The Florida Highwaymen

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  The Fenimore Art Museum is on the outskirts of the Village of Cooperstown, New York , named for William Cooper, who founded it in 1786. T...

Pete Seeger - "The Bells Of Rhymney" - live in Australia 1964

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This song began as a poem, "Gwalia Deserta XV", by Idris Davies . "Gwalia Deserta" translates as "Wasteland of Wal...
Tuesday, August 30, 2022

Mikhail Gorbachev, 1931-2022

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 By no reasonable person's standards could he be considered a saint. Attaining the position he held at the apex of his power, General Se...
Thursday, August 25, 2022

A Visit to the Baseball Hall of Fame

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Our return to the Glimmerglass Opera Festival put us close to Cooperstown, New York, best known for being the home of the National Baseball...
Sunday, August 21, 2022

Return to Glimmerglass: Carmen, The Sound of Music, Tenor Overboard, and two new short operas

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Two weekends ago, after a two year hiatus, Martha and I joined our friends Marc and Stewart for a return to the  Glimmerglass Festival , hel...
Monday, May 16, 2022

Paradise Square: ten Tony nominations well deserved

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If the name  Joaquina Kalukango  isn't familiar to you, as it wasn't to me until a few days ago when she was nominated for the Tony ...