Jazz

Conditions of the Tournament

Music history is replete with stories of artists meeting an early demise: Chopin, Django, Dinu Lipatti, William Kapell, and even Scriabin all passed on young. Perhaps Lipatti and Kapell are less well known, but they are very important musicians in my estimation. Lipatti (1917-1950) was a fantastic composer and pianist who thankfully left us some recordings, though precious few, and

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Quixote

Quixote — Written and performed by Reynold Philipsek, copyright 2017, available as a complimentary download on the Free MP3s page. The 17th Century Spanish tale by Miguel de Cervantes of Don Quixote and his adventures has inspired many artists. Both Orson Welles and Terry Gilliam spent considerable time, money and energy shooting miles of film to no avail or a

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Babushka

For some odd reason Autumn stirs deep memories in me. As of late I have thought a lot about my grandmother. She spoke very little English and always pronounced my name as “Ronyal”. She was a very tiny woman and a prolific rose gardener. Only now (alas, too late) do I realize what a unique link I had not only

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Writers Block etc.

A pretty sure sign that your having “writers block” is when you commence making lists of your favorite compositions much like I did in my last blog. I have had “blocks” before and I don’t much let them upset me like I used to. S. J. Perelman (perhaps my favorite writer) explained them as being the natural consequence of having

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