[audio:http://blogs.kcrw.com/music/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/02-Blue-Moon-11.mp3|titles=02 Blue Moon 1]I have always loved Ahmad Jamal. So did Miles Davis, who always seemed to recognize true originals. Miles was an epicurean, an admirer in women, cars, and…
A few years ago, I received a cd by a bass player I’d never heard of: An artist named Jamie Ousley, and the cd was called O Sorriso Dela. It…
Everybody knows who Philip Glass is. He’s famous for his big productions with Robert Wilson (Einstein on the Beach, Akhnaten, etc). He’s scored many well-known films too, such as Koyaanisqatsi, Powaqqatsi, Bent, Mishima, and others…
Today I went in to a car wash in Santa Monica. I was at the cashier’s when the woman behind the counter made a comment about what a TV commentator…
Voltaire, the great philosopher of the French Englightenment at the end of the 18th century, once observed that all politicians should learn musical harmony. Sometimes we see the counterpart:…
When people think of classical music, they’re usually referring to Beethoven, Mozart, Ravel, and other music written by European composers. Western European classical music is certainly the most complex of…
Guinga is probably the most interesting contemporary Brazilian composer. Nobody knows him here in the U.S. That’s probably because he doesn’t record much, and his cd’s have all been imports,…
A few years ago I was at a salsa club and some snotty New Yorker told me that LA’s clubs were few and mediocre, that New York was soooo much…
On January 10th, 2012, the Spanish label Aliavox will release an amazing collection called Mare Nostrum (the Roman name for the Mediterranean Sea). This new extravagant book & enclosed…
A few years ago Chris Douridas returned from his first trip to Rio with a heavy bag full of Brazilian cd’s. He had spent a wad at Copacabana’s great record…