Though I knew she had been ill for some time, it was still a shock to hear that Aretha Franklin  (1942-2018) had moved to hospice care...

Douglas Kearney Posting poems about art works and ones using ekphrasis has been illuminating, because one thing I've always known a...

Florence Price The treasures of the past may seem lost, but often enough, they are merely forgotten, or hidden. Such is the case with ...

South African trumpeter and musician Hugh Masekela at St. Lucia Jazz festival, May 2012. (Reuters/Andrea De Silva) This past week broug...

The new year brought with it the saddening news that the golden-voiced Natalie Cole (1950-2015) had died of congestive heart failure, at Ce...

It felt momentarily like a light went out in the world when Riley B.--"B. B."--King (b. September 16, 1925, near Itta Bena, Miss...

Cecil Taylor Today is pianist and composer Cecil Taylor 's 86th birthday. One of the true originals of late 20th century American m...

Reading Fly Brother 's blog entry today reminded me that back in the early 1990s, two different friends introduced me to the music ...

I was so sorry to learn of the death of composer, singer and hitmaker Nick Ashford (1941-2011), who with his fellow songwriter and later...