Miscellaneous

The following essay was written in the summer of 2020 to recognize the centennial of Charlie Parker, and was published in the November-December 2020 issue of The Duke Ellington Society (NY) Newsletter. The Charlie Parker Centennial – August 29, 2020 In late summer 2020, as we confront the health and economic consequences of a frightening… Read more

2020 was certainly a challenging year, one that brought destructive weather, wildfires, acrimonious politics and a deadly pandemic that is not only killing hundreds of thousands worldwide but also causing vast economic dislocations. Many in the arts have suffered as venues have been forced to close temporarily or permanently and jazz musicians are among those… Read more

Although an only child, I come from a musical family. My father played the violin and one of his sisters was a piano teacher. My maternal uncle is the late composer David Diamond who often lived with us in Rochester, NY, in the 1940s and 1950s. The clarinetist Z. Mitchell Weiss is my first cousin… Read more

I recently saw the movie, “Green Book,” which is based on the life of pianist Donald Shirley (1927-2013). In 1998, I interviewed Shirley as part of the research carried out by Michael Fitzgerald and myself, culminating in the biography, “Rat Race Blues: The Musical Life of Gigi Gryce.” Gryce and Shirley grew up together in… Read more