Author name: Mike Shaw

I’ve been watching old John Wayne movies lately. I guess that’s redundant. Anyway, whether he’s the benevolent property owner of […]

My friend and co-author jazz pianist Kevin Bales tells a story about someone complimenting him on a night when he

One of the things I enjoy most about interviewing accomplished musicians for our bi-weekly Music Life and Times podcast is

Louis Armstrong famously gave the following advice to a group of musicians he was recording with sometime in the 1960s:

One of the things you get to do as a musician is play for the events that matter most to

Club owners can be a mixed bag. There are those who consider musicians a necessary evil, the only way to

One of the greatest rewards for learning to play and perform music is the love people have in the hearts

To follow up on my bad piano story of August 19 (“Don’t Shoot the Piano Player”), as if deciding on

As I write in Chapter 25 of my novel, The Musician, “No matter how episodic and desultory their lives, there

I often think of how similar playing music is to other professions that involve performing. Sports is particularly analogous. Think