Playlist

I grew up in a house with a radio tuned to classical and easy listening, if it were on at all, and a limited number of records (Mario Lanza, Frank Sinatra, Beethoven) for the “hi-fi,” which my dad persisted in calling a “hi-five” (although the hi-five hadn’t been invented yet, and the hi-fi has long been forgotten). No one in my family could sing, no one played an instrument; actually, no one but me danced, but music resides in my body. Give it the right beats, a saxophone, raging piano rifts, and my body is screaming to get up and fling itself around even in the most contained spaces.

Almost everything I have written has a soundtrack.

A sampling of the soundtrack of my days, and my nights, includes:
Henry Butler
Regina Carter
Carole King
Gladys Knight
Amadou & Mariam
Corey Harris
Anat Cohen
James Booker
Meredith Monk
Mulgrew Miller
Stanton Davis
Bernard Allison
Oumou Sangare
Thelonious Monk
K.D. Lang
Ella Fitzgerald
Dobet Gnahore
Myron Walden
Gil Scott-Heron
Christina Aguilera
Meshell Ndegeocello
Richie Havens
Angelique Kidjo
Lyle Lovett