(a continuation of my Trip through Harrell-land in search of a song (or two or three) for inclusion in my “Horn of Pretty” playlist) Quartet + One = Quintet It was late 1983. The great alto saxophonist Phil Woods was wild about Harrell’s playing and desperately wanted to add Harrell to his decade-old Quartet. The …
Continue reading “Tom Harrell: A Quest. Part 1, The Phil Woods Years – The Phil Woods Quintet”
I like making playlists. I will do this for just about any theme that pops into my head. Some months ago, for example, I was listening for the millionth time to Lee Morgan’s Ceora when it flashed before my mind that there are a number of compositions by jazz trumpeters that I would call “pretty.” …
Continue reading “Tom Harrell: A Quest. Part 1, The Early Years.”
ἀρχὴ παιδεύσεως ἡ τῶν ὀνομάτων ἐπίσκεψις principium eruditionis vocabulorum consideratio est Epictetus I certainly spent a lot of time on Comenius the preceding decade, extolling his usefulness for Latin and Greek vocabulary acquisition and making YouTube videos to that end. I mean a lot of time — my wife got to calling it Comania! Here …
Continue reading “Comenius – Still Useful (or, Comenius Comania)”
Ten years ago, on the brink of retirement, I began dusting off the Latin and Greek I had learned decades ago in college. In the process, I discovered there were two ways of going about learning ancient languages. For lack of better terms, we can call these the grammar-first approach and the natural-language approach. In …
Reflections As The Spirit Moves Me