New Music

Wayne Shorter

There is a long list of musicians who have turned my head but among those at the top of that list is certainly Wayne Shorter. Though it may not be apparent at first blush, he has influenced me tremendously as a composer. The almost “Webern-like” compression of his forms and highly efficient use of space and harmony is wonderful and […]

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Current music on my iPod

I have been listening again to the two guitar duet albums that Bireli Lagrene and Sylvain Luc recorded (Duet and Summertime). Probably the best acoustic guitar duet recordings I am a aware of. Also, there is a “new” Pat Martino album. Actually, it is a live recording done more than ten years ago but just recently released. It is another

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Thieves and Poets (John Mc Laughlin)

I have always thought that John Mc Laughlin (the guitarist and composer and not the somewhat “right” political commentator) was of legendary status. I am especially keen on Mc Laughlin’s acoustic guitar work. His early 1980’s albums like Belo Horizonte and Music Spoken Here are great records. But his 2003 record Thieves and Poets contains the three movement title track

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Sergio Fiorentino

The stories of unsung heroes in the music world seem endless. I recently ran across one more. Italian pianist Sergio Fiorentino (1927-1998) was a great classical pianist. His career started strong in the early 1950’s until a plane crash in 1954 disabled him for some time. By the late 1950’s he began to re-establish himself and made several recordings for

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