A Birthday Tribute to ASmooth

Yo, turn the sound up,

Let the frequency be found,

We’re talkin’ 'bout the architect

Behind the Power sound.

 

In the city of angels,

Where the legends are truly grown,

DJ ASmooth sits high a top the hills

On the higher frequency throne.

 

 He ain’t just pushin’ buttons

Or fadin’ out the tracks,

He’s the Imaging Director,

Keepin’ Power to the max.

 

That signature sound,

That West Coast sway and bounce,

He’s weighin’ out the vibes

By the golden pound or ounce.

---

From the 106 peak signal

To the heart of the tree-strewn streets,

He’s the one who makes the city

Feel the heatin’ of the beat.

 

His transitions seem seamless,

The drops sound like thunder,

He leaves the competition

in a state of pure Stevie Wonder.

 

Stutter-steps, lasers,

And the heavy-beatin’ bass,

He puts the sonic identity

All across the Power space.

 

 When the "Power’s" voice a boomin’

And the speakers start to shake,

That’s the ASmooth sound of magic—

No room for deep or shallow fakes.

 

---

He’s the pulse of Los Angeles,

The soul of the dial,

Cuttin' through the static

With a one-of-a-kind style.

 

From the morning show of wake up

To the drive-time traffic flow,

He’s the invisible hand

Makin' the whole engine purr and go.

 

A master of the craft,

A surgeon of the sound,

The heavy-weight champ,

Keepin' the crown in the town.

 

So keep the levels peaked

And the vision in the view,

ASmooth’s at the board—

The LA world’s getting its due!

 

So today is his day

He blows the candles out,

He keeps the levels in the red,

He deserves a big shout out

 

Another year of greatness

For the legend of the dial.

It’s a birthday celebration

For a man of smooth and style

 

For the king of the mix,

Adding another year of fame

To his bag of Dodger tributes

To his super sonic tricks.

 

So drop the birthday track,

 Let the sub-woofers truly swell,

We’re toastin’ to the master

Doin’ it better than any one can tell.

 

From the studio to the cake,

The vibration stayin true,

Happy Birthday to the architect

— ASmooth, this one’s for you!

 

Rest In Peace Bob Weir

 Rest in peace Bob Weir. What started out as a modest text to a couple of relatives who love the Grateful Dead, became a journey though Bob’s s music and career. It was both a sad and joyous journey. It was sad to acknowledge that we wouldn't get to see that one more concert that Bob performed at. But it was joyous because I got to re-listen to much of his music that resulted in some fun evenings. Bob seemed to love to perform in front of small and large audiences, and his frequency of performing and sharing through performing with the Dead or one of the other groups he would work with meant that he was one of the people that I probably saw more than many others. He may be even one of the performers with the greatest number of performances.

I've seen him in number of groups and with a number of people but the one that stands out today is when he was on the bill at the 9:30 Club in DC with the Persuasions, the great acapella group. He sang before them and with them and after them, and their music so intertwined that it seemed to create a new reality of influences and performance. Some of that is summed up in the interview at the following address: https://www.trufun.com/discogr.../persuasions/interview.html Some of what I felt that night could be summed up in a new word that I learned more about yesterday a little before I learned about Bob’s passing and that word is “contranym," a word with opposite meanings. In the roots and the fields the dead played in, and where they play and the roots of the street corner Persuasions and where they sang their harmonies, seemed worlds apart, like opposites in one respect and very blended in another, because of the influences on both groups that often intersected.

Bob’s qualities of modesty and naturalness were often displayed in his role as second fiddle in the Grateful Dead while Jerry was leading (while leading some of his own groups) and then stepping up seamlessly to the leadership role of the most recent versions of the Other Ones and the Dead. He took it on with modesty and a naturalness that allowed him to wear shorts in any kind of weather and say when he was complemented about a particularly great set, well next time I'll mess it up don't worry (Trey Anastasio, the founding spirit of the Phish shared that observation in a recent post). Bob made it all seem easy and natural and fun, and we will miss him but his music and contributions truly live on especially in that one night with the Persuasions in (as they sang "Black Muddy River" and "Might As Well")--so playful and joyful a memory.

Here's to A Better Fan Expereince

The Washington Nationals should take a lesson from the Savannah Bananas, who played up the road last weekend to sell-out crowds and enthusiastic fans in Baltimore last weekend. The Bananas prioritize putting on a good show for their fans by hustling and playing solid baseball, along with their trick plays and humorous antics.  The NY Times recently chronicled several lessons that could be learned by Major League Baseball from the Bananas at: 

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6535476/2025/08/05/savannah-bananas-what-can-mlb-learn/

Unfortunately, the Nationals’ recent performances, like the one I witnessed at Nats Park on Tuesday night against the also struggling Oakland A's, was almost an insult to their fans.  Loyal fans still come in respectable numbers but get little respect.  The Nats lacked hustle, made baserunning and, fielding blunders, and often seemed not to care how the game was going. 

Just as a responsible supermarket gives refunds to customers for a poor product, the Nationals should offer refunds when their on-field performance is similarly subpar. Have to listen to loud celebratory walk-up music for batters that seem lost at the plate and are losing by a large margin feels insulting to the loyal fans and to the music itself. Instead of celebratory songs, replacing it with silence or playing satirical versions of the walk up songs would be more appropriate until the batters and the team performs better.

The team's late-game highlights on the scoreboard are another point of concern and an insult to the fans. When  eighth inning highlights consist of little more than the Nats players taking the field to start the game, the results of the President's Race, and the replaying of merely routine fielding plays, it is a sign of hyping poor performance. It is also disrespectful and insulting to the fans to ignore the often spectacular plays by the opposing team, especially in a lopsided game, and only replay routine, decent plays of the Nats.  The A's lead off batter, catcher, Shea Langeliers made baseball history becoming just the second catcher in Major League history to homer three times out of the leadoff spot and the first since Travis d’Arnaud did it for the Rays on July 15, 2019,.and being the first player to have three homers in his first career game batting leadoff since 1900.   But this was never recognized at Nat's Park, but see:  https://www.mlb.com/news/shea-langeliers-multi-homer-game-leadoff-spot for the homers.

While Nats fans are generally resilient, loyal and hopeful for the next game, the owners and players need to do more to earn the continued support of the fans. I hope this message reaches the Nationals' management and inspires them to put on a better show for the fans or pay the price of refunding the inflated ticket prices paid by the fans.

All That Jazz and Education Too

 On April 10, the magic of jazz, teaching, learning, improvisation, individuality, and teamwork came together in the DC. On that day, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) enthusiastically co-hosted its annual "Jazz Informance" (a mix of performance and jazz teaching and learning) in collaboration with the Herbie Hancock institute of Jazz (HHIJ). Along with the work of that day, came some cool jazz from the Institute’s Peer-to-Peer Jazz Quintet. four of the most gifted and talented high school jazz students from performing arts schools in DC, Baltimore, and NYC, along with a gifted music teacher from the Baltimore School for the Arts, and an off-the-charts, very talented jazz trumpeter, recording artist and educator Sean Jones.

The students were: Quinn Rehkemper, alto saxophone, senior—Baltimore School for the Arts; Ben Sherman, tenor saxophone, senior—LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts; José André Montano, piano, senior—Duke Ellington School of the Arts; and Julian Frazier, drums, senior—Baltimore School for the Arts. The teacher was Ed Hrybyk, bass, Director of Jazz Studies—Baltimore School for the Arts. They played flawlessly the carefully-curated works of Wayne Shorter. Herbie Hancock, Charlie Parker, Kenny Durham, and Dizzy Gillespie.

Maureen Dowling of ED and the Deputy Secretary of Education, Cindy Marten (who was hosting a very special guest—her mother, who was celebrating a birthday), introduced the program, and Dr. J.B. Dyas from the HHIJ, a gifted jazz educator (along with the performers), gave a creative lesson to the audience making the complexities of jazz simple and understandable, and showing what really makes jazz the magic that it is. I had the honor of giving short closing remarks about the connections between the lessons of jazz and good teaching, and I also read a poem from a collaboration of authors that I will leave anonymous for now (but I identify in the video linked below).

In a packed Education Department auditorium of students and their teachers from around the DC area, and ED colleagues (with an online audience watching as well), we became part of a joyful and soulful celebration of spontaneity, risk-taking, individuality, collaboration, resilience, teamwork, trust, and freedom that exemplify the American spirit, the principles of leadership, and good teaching at its finest. On this day, at ED. history was created before our eyes and ears, and classics were remade in honor of this special occasion.

When responding to audience questions, the students were as articulate and thoughtful with words as they were with their music. If you ever doubted that students of all ages can learn, that good teachers can teach even the most difficult of subjects, and that people of all views and backgrounds can get engaged and emerge from their comfort zones to take a risk, and collaborate for the greater good, your doubts were put to rest in ninety bar-raising minutes.

The power of music to influence thinking skills, the power of teaching and learning, the power of being open to new views and ideas, the power of taking risks and learning from the mistakes that might come, all came together through the sounds and the words of a diverse team of gifted. yet humble student musicians and teachers, playing with an experienced virtuoso.

This was truly a lesson and an experience for the ages during Jazz Appreciation Month, and was a great prelude to International Jazz Day, which is commemorated on April 30.

I invite you to watch the event video for the full experience at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d73zwuzhryc

Enjoy, but please feel no pressure to watch.

All reactions:

23Howard Kaufman, Dennis Koeppel and 21 others

And The Band Played On and Then There Was One: The Big Weight: Marking Robbie Robertson's Passing:

 I hope you do not mind my somewhat stream of consciousness.

A couple of years ago for Native American Heritage month in November, I did a joint informal program (in words and sounds) with a music representative of the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian on the many contributions of indigenous people to rock, pop, blues, jazz, folk, and country. Among many other artists, I talked about Robbie 's contributions as a child of a mom who was Cayuga and Mohawk, raised on the Six Nations Reserve southwest of Toronto, Ontario, and a son of a Jewish biological dad. I noted his Canadian roots and his ability to compose and perform the perfect Americana earth rock song book.

After seeing Robbie as a backup to Ronnie Hawkins and rockabillying to "Susie Q," and other billydom classics, I first saw Robbie live as a member of the Hawks, the backup band for Dylan relatively shortly after Dylan went partly and then almost fully electric. That first live appearance was at the Philadelphia Academy of Music (a classical music venue similar to NYC's Carnegie) after winning a radio trivia contest for tickets. Dylan did the first half of the concert acoustically and then after intermission, brought up the electric guitar and harmonica, and the Hawks, and they played masterfully while being soundly booed by the half or more of the audience that were folkie purists. I was slightly conflicted by my then fuller allegiance to the more pure folk, but at the same excited by the reworking of some of the Dylan “classic” songs turning electric and rocking and shaking the classic hall.

I next saw Robbie at the Brooklyn Academy of Music with his new group, the Band, making their first "major" appearance outside of their now legendary Big Pink Woodstock home base. It was their professional debut as a group, and it was my first voluntary assignment as a rock critic for the regional, almost legendary "Good Times/Action World" publication--now in its 54th year..

At first, the Band seemed a little shaky as they quickly worked into their more natural groove, while I was trying to find my inner voice as a critic. Their earthly driven sounds of American story-ied life, "driving ol Dixie down," and pulling into "Nazareth," quickly lifted my confidence to appreciate on multi-levels this very basic music and we together became a natural force of unified nature.

Robbie contributed a lot to this North Americana life while rockabillying, Dylan-backing, Banding it and soloing over the years, and now he has danced his "last waltz: and returned to the earth and nature he lifted up, Thanks for reading and rocking through.

Where I have been and where I am bound

 As our world spins rapidly into the future of advanced intelligence (artificial, generative, and otherwise), and some new realities (virtual, hybrid, physical, electronic, acoustic, and the like (or not like)), it is refreshing sometimes to step away and feel the breeze for a moment. Remember what it was like to rediscover a missing part of a puzzle, or a pair of shoes or another article of clothing that you wore for just a short period of time (in the longer scheme of things at least), that you hadn't seen for a while. It had gone out of mind and body, and maybe a little bit out of style, but refreshingly and somewhat joyfully it just turned up and reappeared. For me, it turned up one clear and peaceful night as I was looking for something else. And I just had to stop to take in the moment and be mindful that there really is more to our variety to life than all we are experiencing in our usual day-to-day and my hum and my drum moments. There is time to step out and up, up and away from what has maybe become a comfortable routine, and into something bigger and a little different.

That was the feeling I got last night when I heard Tom Paxton and friend-ster, Don Henry easily playing their guitars, and singing and harmonizing a variety of what probably are still characterized and genre-ified as "folk songs." There were both, what had become old standards mixed in with some new (hopefully to be) standards that had been written during the recent COVID and Zoom-fed times. There was the clear and clean guitar playing backup for some satirical and straightforward songs and emotion-filled stories; and there was the whimsical, easy-going stage banter that should be heard more in these often described as anxiety-ridden times. They anchored their songs with an earthy wit and wisdom that filled and sprayed into the cooler and calm night air. Paxton was as softly plugged-in and present as ever, and Henry was a willing and playful companion as they embodied the characters they played in their songs. On a bare regional park Amphitheatre stage nestled comfortably amongst the trees, the audience often sang along and willingly participated in the sense of an easy closeness that beckoned the coming of summer.

Not quite as passionate politically as a Phil Ochs or a Pete Seeger, or as bluesy-real as a Mississippi John Hurt or a Lightnin' Hopkins, or as deeply poetic as a Dylan or a Leonard Cohen, or as profoundly sincere sounding as a Joan Baez, a Joni Mitchell, or a Judy Collins, or as electo-phi-ingly prepared to enter the rock pantheon as a Bruce Springsteen, or a Crosby, Stills, Nash or a Young, Tom was always regarded as a solid first-stringer who sang and wrote songs that seemed like they had always been there and never written at one point in time. For anyone who monitored the Village, the Boston/Cambridge, or the Chicago folk scene or casually followed the collegiate folk boom of the time, Paxton has always been considered one of the humble greats (the Grammys even honored him with a Lifetime Achievement Award). Tom (and his friend Don) still own and hone their homey, unprepossessing voices to spin tales lightly with the easy accompaniment of the guitars that string subtly yet are filled with fun and variety.

Paxton exudes a pleasant aw-shucks informality and endearing casualness even on somewhat life-changing if not sustaining topics such as eternal friendship and the hopefully eternal environment. Whether its hearing or singing along to "Bottle of Wine," "Ramblin' Boy" "The Last Thing on My Mind," or "Can't Help But Wonder Where I'm Bound," I now know a little bit more about where I have been, "and where I am bound."

All reactions:

31Jean Farkas, Jeffrey Golland and 29 others

Jazzing for EDucation and Freedom

 On April 4, summer came early (for a day or two at least) to the DC area and on that day, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) hosted its tenth (or so) annual Jazz Informance (part performance, and part jazz lesson) in collaboration with the Herbie Hancock institute of Jazz (HHIJ). Along with the heat, came some hot jazz from four of the most gifted and talented high school jazz students from performing arts schools in DC, Baltimore, and NYC, playing with a gifted music teacher from Baltimore School for the Arts, and an off-the-charts, talented jazz trumpeter and educator Terrell Stafford.

The students were: Quinn Rehkemper, alto saxophone, junior—Baltimore School for the Arts; Seif Gharsellaoui, tenor saxophone, senior—LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts; José André Montano, piano, junior—Duke Ellington School of the Arts; and Julian Frazier, drums, junior—Baltimore School for the Arts. The teacher was Ed Hrybyk, bass, Director of Jazz Studies—Baltimore School for the Artts.

They played flawlessly the works of Hank Mobley. Joe Henderson, Dizzy Gillespie, and Miles Davis. And after a standing ovation from the audience, they played an encore with a special "One by One" tribute to the recently deceased, Wayne Shorter (a special friend of Herbie Hancock and jazz enthusiasts around the world).

Maureen Dowling of ED and Secretary of Education, Miguel Cardona, introduced the program, and I had the honor of giving short remarks as well as introducing a master jazz instructor, Dr. J.B. Dyas from the HHIJ. Dr. Dyas (along with the performers) gave a lesson or two to the audience making the complexities of jazz simple and understandable, and showing what really makes jazz the magic that it is. .

In that packed Education Department auditorium of students and their teachers and ED colleagues (with on line audience watching as well), we became part of a joyful and soulful explosion of spontaneity, risk-taking, individuality, collaboration, teamwork, trust, and freedom that exemplify the American spirit and the principles of leadership at its finest. On this day, at ED. history was made and remade.

When responding to audience questions, the students were as articulate and thoughtful with words as they were with their music. If you ever doubted that students of all ages can learn, that good teachers can teach even the most difficult of subjects, and that people of all views can get engaged and come out of their comfort zones to collaborate for a greater good, your doubts were put to rest in ninety short and shining minutes. The power of music to influence thinking skills, the power of teaching and learning, the power of being open to new views and ideas, the power of taking risks and learning from the mistakes that might come, all came together through the sounds and the words of a diverse team of gifted. yet humble student musicians and teachers, playing with an experienced virtuoso. This was truly a lesson and an experience for the ages. You can experience it for yourself at:

https://mediasite.ed.gov/.../9e75a52127564d8bb6d96151752d...

But please feel no pressure to watch.