Tuesday, January 22, 2013

A New Blog

I've wanted to start a music blog for quite a while.

About a year ago, I began writing Thinking Slowly, a blog about the implications of social science research for politics in this country. Unfortunately, I've been inactive for several months while recovering from an injury. In the last few days, I've resumed Thinking Slowly. While I'm feeling ambitious, now is a good time to start writing about music.

Blues and the Abstract Truth will be about my two favorite musical genres, jazz and blues. Blues is defined broadly to include rhythm and blues and soul music. Other musical genres may slip in occasionally. I'll be writing about blues and jazz from the beginnings of recorded music up to and including the present, but you'll find that I'm strongly imprinted on the post-World War II period—roughly between 1945 and 1970—when when both of these musical forms exploded in both creativity and popularity.

You can expect to read reviews of recent jazz and blues CDs (although I don't hear as much new music as when I was a disc jockey and I got to listen to all the free stuff the record companies sent to the radio station.)  I'll comment on live performances I've seen. (I live in Pittsburgh, which has struggling blues and jazz scenes.) I'll also try to keep you posted on the latest blues and jazz news. Sadly, that news often includes obituaries of both prominent and obscure musicians.

In the past, I've discovered that it's much easier to write about music history than to write about the music itself. It often seems that I lack the vocabulary to explain why I like a particular piece of music. I hope you'll bear with me as I try to learn how to express myself as a music reviewer.

The name of the blog honors the 1961 Impulse LP by composer, arranger and saxophone player Oliver Nelson, which you can listen to in its entirety on You Tube—and I hope you will. In spite of my fondness for the title, it will be obvious that most of what's written here is opinion rather than “abstract truth.” I look forward to reading your questions, comments and criticisms.


Last January through June, I posted five articles about music on Thinking Slowly. I've moved them over here, where they are a much better fit.

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