In which the daughter of Louis Armstrong’s musical director, Julliard graduate and studio singer par excellence, sparkles up an old Grateful Dead tune backed by a mandoline, string bass and tambourine.
Jerry would have loved it.

My memories of Janis–the interview, the kiss, and especially the TV performance where she brought plastic Tom to meltdown.

I had a dream–that Roger Treece, the mad genius of modern choral music would join up with Israel’s amazing virtuoso singer Achinoam Nini (Noa) and with my 40-voice vocal orchestra Vocalocity, to make a kind of music that’s never been made before.
Incredibly enough, sometimes dreams come true.

A hopelessly happy jaunt into the 1970s– the sappy grin on the face of lead guitarist, the come-on smile of the backup chick singer gives Michael McDonald, the ‘Oh, I really am cool and hot and couldn’t be enjoying myself more’ look he returns; the illogical, off-the-beat smash of the cymbal on ‘Anybody else would sure-LY know’, the loopy little calliope adornment – every element perfectly enmeshing to form a tapestry of fun-k. And a painfully familiar, seldom-told story. And a crazily cool Italian a cappella version you’ve never heard. Whooo!

James Taylor is a terribly misperceived and underappreciated artist.
That may sound a bit off the mark, seeing as we’re talking about an American Icon, a five-time Grammy Award winner who’s been filling halls regularly for 40 years, one of the best-selling artists of all time.
But thinking that James Taylor is ‘You’ve Got a Friend’ and ‘Fire and Rain’ is like thinking that The Beatles are ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ or Dylan is ‘Blowing in the Wind’.
There’s so, so much more.

I’ve decided.
If I could take just one single piece of music to my desert island, it would be this.

Flowers and pastels and hazy blonde girls tralalaing through a meadow of daisies. Pearl Moskowitz smiling at me in algebra.
I’m in love.

An obscure South African free-jazz bassist recreating Ye Olde Ram’s Trumpet on that hard-bop classic, ‘Shvarim Tru’ah’.
It must prove something. But I’m not quite sure what.
G’mar chatima tova.