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It was the 50th anniversary of not only the most enduring but the most popular TV entertainment program of our lives, Saturday Night Live. The show opened with Paul Simon and Sabrina Carpenter signing Simon’s “Homeward Bound,” the Simon & Garfunkel hit from 1966. An opening exchange between Simon and the Garfunkel substitute ensured we…

As seen on The EarRelevant Reader, 23 February, 2025 Jazz, by its very nature, is complex, and improvisation is the defining characteristic of jazz. That combination makes the music challenging enough to play, but add the condition that the players take the stage without rehearsal, without ever having played together, often without having met each…

In anticipation of the 2025 Valentine’s weekend edition of the annual Emory University Jazz Fest, we talked with Gary Motley, the founding director of Emory’s Jazz Studies program, which includes an annual Emory Jazz Fest, held this year from February 13-15 in the University’s Emerson Concert Hall. Parts of the interview can be found as…

A July 2022 Harvard Medical School report reaffirms what multiple researchers have been saying about music, that it impacts health-related quality of life, that it provides “release, relaxation and rehabilitation,” according to the report. The article cited evidence that such activities as singing and playing an instrument as well as simply listening to music “can…

One of the returns from learning to play music comes when you have a chance to play, even informally, for people you have recently met. My wife Linda and I recently returned from a SeaDream cruise. SeaDream is a small cruise line, just two small ships, about 90 passengers per cruise; in fact, their slogan…

Johnny Catena, the much loved owner of Café 290, Atlanta’s premier music venue for more than 30 years, passed away on November 15, 2024. More than a club owner, Johnny was the quintessential bigger-than-life character, a lover of music and the musicians who play it. In our newly posted Episode 49 of Music Life and…

In my novel, The Musician, my protagonist, Tom Cliffe, argues with an old college buddy named Stecky that his life as a musician requires him to be more responsible than Stecky who took over his dad’s real estate business after college. Near the end of a drawn-out and alcohol-fueled argument, Tom leans into Stecky: “And…

On Friday, November 15, the Red Light Café hosted a packed house for Vinnie D’Agostino and friends, the saxophonist supported by Kevin Bales on piano, Terrell Montgomery on bass, and Dave Potter on drums, four masters of their instruments playing expertly, often furiously as they fulfilled the promise of the show’s title, “Feel the Burn.”…

It might be your last concern. All you did; all you accomplished; your successes more than your failures. When you are gone, who will remember what you have done? That is one more consideration, one more thing that drives those who play and perform music. We want to leave an impression, like a song or…

We know that music is an essential part of everyone’s life, listeners as well as players. And that playing music well is a joy, a feeling unlike any other. But there are many ways playing music as a career make for a great life. A few benefits I’ve enjoyed along the way: Mike Shaw