Kate McGarrigle died of cancer on monday, she was only 63. I discovered the McGarrigle sisters when I bought their debut album, ‘Kate and Anna McGarrigle’ in 1975. One of my favorite songs on that lp, ‘Talk to me of Mendocino’, presaged my long held dream to move to California, which I did – from 1997 to [...]

…inspired by a full moon and Joe Zawinul’s ‘Midnight Mood’. I seem to gravitate towards titling my work after tunes I love. Bill Evans plays this on his 1968 ‘Alone’ CD and it’s an exquisite interpretation.  I saw Zawinul play a riveting and energetic set at the Perugia Jazz Festival in 2005.  Midnight Mood, oil [...]

UCTV out of Berkeley, CA has some of the best cultural programming you’ll find on television. Here’s a wonderful hour talk with the composer Philip Glass and the music critic Tim Page. In the mid ’60′s Glass studied in Paris with my own piano teacher’s famous teacher, Nadia Boulanger. She evidently never revealed what she [...]

…is the title of the DVD ‘A Story of Jazz in Europe’. I’ve been watching a slew of these inspiring disks about jazz, generously bestowed on me by a friend who worked at Rainbow Media. This one featured unfamiliar (to me) European musicians who carry on the tradition of righteous creativity, unfettered by tradition or [...]

A pal gave me the stunning DVD- BlueNote, A Story of Modern Jazz - guaranteed to make you jump up and schwing, to put it in Alfred Lion terms. Lion and his childhood friend Francis Wolff, built BlueNote into what it became from their pure love of the music. Lion was an immigrant from Germany when he [...]

I love all types of dance and lately, haven’t seen enough live performances. I watched ‘Something to Dance About‘ last night on PBS, a biography about Jerome Robbins. The choreographer who partnered with Leonard Bernstein on West Side Story, directed Peter Pan, Fiddler on the Roof, Gypsy, and so many other wonderful musicals and ballets. [...]

I met a wonderful poet online at Etsy, where I’ve recently begun selling small paintings. We were both featured in a fine art ‘Treasury’, put together by members. His poem ‘Compost’ is apropos for my lead-in to Buy Fresh, Buy Local’s benefit, Down to Earth, that I participated in on Saturday, Jan. 24th. Compost BY GARY J. [...]

Andrew Bird performing Anonanimal at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis.

Ella and Louis singing Irving Berlin. Compliments of Dave Winer’s site, whom I discovered from my recent Twitter meanderings. His quote: ‘So the Internet is a history and heart machine. It’s love and life. Flirting, dancing, swing, and yeah kisses.’

Luciana Souza is the daughter of influential Brazilian musicians, the late Walter Santos and the poet/musician Tereza Souza. The two were composers in the original bossa nova movement, and they later went on to run both a recording studio, Nossoestudio, and a record label, Som de Gente. I’ve been listening to ‘Baioa Melody’ from her 2002 Brazilian Duos CD.  [...]