As mentioned in Part I, tone color took on a prominent role in classical music in the 19C. The Romantic composers like Wagner, Strauss, Berlioz, Chopin and many others were, I think it is fair to say, somewhat obsessed with it. The composers before them were certainly aware of tone color, but it was […]
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Tag Archives: Music
Ghosts in the Machine, Part IV: Jazz in the Trenches
May 16, 2017 
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This is the fourth in a series of articles on jazz musicians in popular music and jazz and popular music as fields of study in higher education. In my previous articles, I detailed the enormous influence that jazz musicians have had on popular music since the 1960s. This may, early on, have been a matter […]
Continue reading Ghosts in the Machine, Part III: The Ghosts
September 10, 2016 1 Comment
This is the third in a series of articles on jazz musicians in popular music and jazz and popular music as fields of study in higher education. Ghosts in the Machine, Part III: The Ghosts In a recent essay in Commentary, Terry Teachout, arts and culture critic for the Wall Street Journal, makes an argument for […]
Continue reading Ghosts in the Machine, Part I: “Jazz Musicians and Popular Music”
July 9, 2016 5 Comments
Part I: The Machine(s) Jazz and classical musicians have long had a troubled relationship with pop music. (By “pop music,” I mean all styles outside of classical and jazz—country, rock, hip-hop, rap, etc.—any style that enjoys a double-digit market share is properly called “popular”, as opposed to the dismal 4-6% (combined) that is shared by […]
Continue reading Bureaucracy ad NAuSeuM: Is The Unaccredited Life Worth Living?
May 7, 2013 2 Comments
The National Association of Schools of Music (NASM) is an organization that assesses and accredits music schools and music departments across the United States. Towards that end, NASM develops and articulates general curriculum guidelines for music programs in higher education. Music departments must then adhere to these guidelines if they wish to be accredited, […]
Continue reading The Contraction Continues: The Looming Arts Crisis in Higher Education
August 27, 2012 1 Comment
Paul Resnikoff posted this sobering graph at Digital Music News that shows US Department of Labor/Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) statistics from 1999-2011 on music sales and music employment. Needless to say, the picture is not pretty. It seems that despite the RIAA’s extraordinary attempts to curb piracy and file sharing (including suing single moms and storming college […]
Continue reading JEN and JAI: The Jazz Education Network and the Jazz Audiences Initiative (or, “They’re just not that into you.”)
March 3, 2012 2 Comments
In January, I attended the 2012 Jazz Education Network (JEN) conference in Louisville, Kentucky. It was my first time attending this (relatively) new organization’s conference. I had avoided going previously because I was still smarting from the self-inflicted spontaneous combustion of the International Association of Jazz Educators (IAJE) in 2008. The JEN conference was similar to […]
Continue readingKickstarter and Kickbacks: Pomplamoose goes begging
January 24, 2012 2 Comments
When I wrote about Kickstarter in a recent post entitled Beggars’ Banquet: New Music Schemes for New Music Dreams, I mentioned Pomplamoose as a group that seems to be doing very well using their own creative marketing ideas (primarily on Youtube). They’ve received several (hopefully) lucrative advertising contracts with Hyundai and Toyota, they are touring […]
Continue readingBrokeback Motown
November 30, 2011 2 Comments
Part I: The Music I’ve played hundreds, if not thousands, of weddings, holiday get-togethers, corporate parties and other similar events. And I’ve done these types of “gigs” all over North America–Toronto, London, Windsor, New York, Baltimore, Detroit, Lansing, Grand Rapids, Toledo, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Denver, Boulder, Vail, Aspen, Austin, Dallas, Houston, Calgary, Edmonton, and probably another […]
Continue reading Metal and All That Jazz
November 20, 2011 1 Comment
A friend of mine sent me a New York Times article by Ben Ratliff from 2009 entitled Jazz and Metal, Riffs in Arms. I read it, and told my friend that I found it “strange” to which he responded “what’s strange about this?” Ratliff is a noted jazz writer, critic, and historian, so I was […]
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