In 1978 I was 8 and showed my grandfather a painting I made of the solar system. He was a great painter and sculptor, though to me he was just my grandfather who taught me to play chess (losing on purpose once to build my confidence) and who taught me to count how far away […]

  What can you say when one of your oldest longtime brothers in music leaves this world?   Francois was wearing a t-shirt with wolves on it when I met him working at Tower Records Lincoln Center in the early 90’s. The boss sent him to my receiving department for overtime. I gave him these […]

  Just last week here in NYC, I was down in SOHO to deliver one of my paintings to a dear friend. Even through my COVID mask, I caught a whiff of something I knew so well, but haven’t smelled in years-a true NYC slice of pizza. I jokingly told my friend Joan on the […]

  Part 1 Many moons ago (I just learned that Earth may have had a second moon) I experienced my first knee dislocation. I was in Little League in the late 70’s. I just went down hard to the ground and didn’t know why. I came to recognize the feeling, when your kneecap slides out […]

  One thing I like to do is listen to live music sourced in free jazz/improvisation and try to answer my favorite question when looking at artwork or listening to music-what do you see? I’ve done this many times, but for the first time I wrote it out at the request of writing linear notes […]

Photo: Reuben Radding Last week I was in Washington Square Park in NYC to march with Artists for a free world that was joining up with a massive group with the message to end police murder of Black people and to defund the police. I marched a couple weeks before that, but on this one […]

Photo by Michael Wilderman/jazzvisionsphotos.com   The very first time I met Giuseppi Logan, I didn’t know it was him. He was an older guy looking to get a reed at Sam Ash in Times Square where I worked. I thought I knew all the street musicians in NYC at that time. A name popped into […]

Yesterday we reached over 15,000 cases of Corona here in NYC. We’re now the epicenter of the virus. Why wouldn’t we be? It’s certainly nothing to be proud of. Long term NYC dwellers and survivors sometimes find unity looking at all the things we’ve gone through as a group. Tragically that always leads us back […]

  King Eric For me, Eric Dolphy is the Louis Armstrong of the bass clarinet. I’ll never forget the first time I both heard and saw him for the first time. I had a John Coltrane videotape I rented from the library in the late 80’s. Trane was reaching down into the molten core of […]

I recently received the word that my buddy G had a new round of health adversity. The stars lined up for me to head on out to check on him. I reached out on social media to see if I could assemble a squad to join him in person to lift his spirits. The only […]