Robert Baird

Yet there are country stars today that know and respect the history and yes…actually have taste.

There’s something huge to be said for longevity in the music business and staying true to your vision

Vaya con Dios Jimmy Scott!

While it can be used when talking about any musician, having “chops” is a phrase that applies particularly to saxophonists.

Before there were jam bands, before the term even existed in fact, there was a fabulous, funky assemblage called Little Feat.

The link between jazz and the works of Igor Stravinsky is well known. In Conversations with Igor Stravinsky, his landmark 1959 collaboration with Robert Craft, the composer mentions jazz artists like Art Tatum and Charlie Christian. The fact that Stravinsky was captivated by the improvisational freedom of jazz and its insistent, inventive rhythms makes all his work, especially Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring), a natural for jazz players to play and quote from, and over the years they have more than obliged.

Poor Jimmy Page. After listening to eight tracks from the newly remastered Led Zeppelin studio albums from Atlantic/Swan Song/Rhino, the first three of which, I, II, III, will be released on June 3, the guitar great graciously opened himself to questions. Were the alternate takes, that are the meat of the “companion audio” disc that accompanies each original album, pieced together from a number of alternate takes?