I sometimes wonder how it's possible to still enjoy a piece of music when so much sadness is associated with it. Nostalgia can be a powerful adhesive when it comes to attaching music to a moment, even when the reappearance of that moment brings back true pain.

Does… Read full post »

Fans of free jazz are often accused of claiming to like sounds that they can't possibly like. The inference is that we lean toward the "out there" for the sake of shock value. While I will admit that it's sometimes fun to let Peter Brotzmann's plasma-cutter saxophone push my adrenaline levels,… Read full post »

Why do I like that? It's a question that comes up often in my overcharged brain. I listen to a lot of music, pretty much continuously throughout the day. In the course of my reviewing and listening-for-pleasure activities, the answer seems to drop into one of two classes. The more straightforward… Read full post »