Remembering David Mancuso, Loft Lord

When placed in chains, they created spirituals that gave birth to much of the music you hear today. Gave them tough, green leaves — long thought to be degenerative cabbage shoots — and the resulting simmered collard greens they made have graced the menus of countless restaurants. Shut their writers out of the mainstream publishing […]

Goodbye, Sharon Jones

You could call singer Sharon Jones one of the last of a small and talented community of Soulful belters. The community just became smaller yesterday with cancer taking Jones away from us. She was 60 years old. You know the type of belters I’m talking about. Koko Taylor is a name that comes to mind. […]

9 PRINCE ALBUMS I PLAY THE MOST

About a year after the release of Prince’s Dirty Mind album, Music industry publication Billboard attempted to answer the question “What is Black music” by creating a Black Singles chart. Reductionist tactics like Billboard’s are worthy of a lengthy post, but I’ll say only this for now: Black creatives and their output over the years […]

AN ALBUM (OR TWO) IN MY HEAD 0065

MAXWELL MAXWELL’S URBAN HANG SUITE 1996 20 years ago yesterday, after a bout of hesitation by Columbia Records and Modern Soul recording artist Maxwell, Urban Hang Suite was released to a consumer market where — for right or wrong reasons — American music executives and many performing artists cowered into creative capitulation by the powerful […]

REMEMBERING MAURICE WHITE

Many of us feel pain after hearing the news of Earth Wind and Fire co-founder Maurice White’s return to the Creator. The emotional outflow has been all over social media since last night, and for good reason. Through EW&F, Maurice help to build an African-inflected, multi-genre sound that extended across astral, diasporic, rhythmic and […]

BEYONCÉ WAS NOT WONDER-FUL

I checked out Beyoncé’s Stevie Wonder tribute performance, but did it differently from many of you. I closed my eyes, and then listened. The musical arrangements were tight—I picked that up straightaway. I then—still with closed eyes—focused on Beyoncé’s vocals and asked myself at the end of her performance, “If Beyoncé released the three Stevie […]

JOE SAMPLE – GROOVE SAINT

Joe Sample’s recent passing brought up a small debate about whether he or his group The Crusaders ever played Jazz music. The debate seems unfair to me since The Crusaders resolved the issue for audiences long ago by removing the “Jazz” prefix from the group’s original name. Perhaps forcing groups into a specific genre helps to bring […]

MR. LEIGH REMIXES JANELLE MONAE & ESPERANZA SPALDING

Premium remixer and Facebook pal Leighton Hema – also known as Mr. Leigh – pulled together a groove-lover’s remix of Janelle Monáe and Esperanza Spalding’s “Dorothy Dandridge Eyes.” Here’s the Jazzy Soul-spiked original version for the sake of reference, and Mr. Leigh’s take is embedded below…

PUFF JOHNSON, 1972-2013

Hearing about the world losing modern Soul singer Puff Johnson to cercical cancer reminds me of a time during the 90’s where Rap music had no problems breathing if attention was oxygen, and the finishing touches were being placed on taming Alternative Rock for its transition to the mainstream. In contrast the mindshare of Jazz bordered […]

GOODBYE, RICHIE HAVENS

Hearing that Richie Havens passed away this week after 50 years of delivering beautiful music to the world doesn’t blunt this sharp sense of loss. Havens’ singing voice riveted to my brain the first time My Father played his records during my early childhood. I was very familiar with Folk music at this point […]