Miles For Amateurs
Jul 09, 2020
At some point in the jazz history class I took sophomore year, someone asked our professor, "Hey, Mr. Lowe – do you say 'the blues is,' or 'the blues are?' Without missing a beat, the reply came: "The blues be." Free-jazz...
Honk. Squeee! Blat...
Jul 02, 2020
Moving studios three times in the past five years has definitely been, not to put too fine a point on it, kind of a drag, for all the unsurprising reasons. And yet, it hasn't been completely devoid of positives. To paraphrase the python rock-snake...
The Robot Boss
Jun 25, 2020
Yesterday, I was staring at a Haydn string quartet score. Trying to read it, of course, but ultimately, merely staring at it. I try and I rope off an hour each day to practice counterpoint and composition and it usually flies by; I have to ...
Chasing A Book
Jun 18, 2020
There is, of course, no corporal punishment around our house, but when things are getting too out of line there is one threat I can be heard to issue: "Don't make me tell you a 'When I Was A Kid' story!" As in: "What? your cell reception is no...
Making Movies
Jun 11, 2020
I had a housemate in college who observed that once you spend a certain amount of time on a particularly focused task, it takes a comparable amount of goofing off afterwards to rebalance one's internal academic equilibrium. In other words, spend a...
The Point Is Not To Write Great Music
Jun 04, 2020
It would have been my dad's 85th birthday last week. I inherited my share of traits from him, including, as far as I can tell, a certain desire to get stuff done and keep learning, ideally at the same time. I once asked him why he had changed jobs...
Narrowing The Field
May 28, 2020
Attempting to decipher the hard bop masters has often felt like a sustained, intentional effort to decode a seemingly impenetrable art. Given the high esteem I hold that music in, and how long it has loomed for me as the apex of improvisation in...
Schroeder Gets The Last Word
May 21, 2020
I grew up in a house with basically three kinds of music: Tin Pan Alley tunes, folk revival records, and an assortment of Bach, Beethoven and Chopin piano pieces. The first and the third were generally courtesy of my dad, who played all of it...
The Flying Car
May 15, 2020
Even before the pandemic, I was considered the tech and fixit guy in my house. Which is not a good sign. I do know how to fix things, sort of, but in a "look,you can do this thing with corrugated cardboard and packing tape" kind of way. What few...
Coffee and Fireworks
May 07, 2020
I used to play with this drummer and songwriter named Dave Bush in New York, and to keep things clear, our mutual musician friends referred to us as Dave H. and Dave B. Over time, this became shortened to our respective last initials, which saved...
