The Marlowsphere Blog (#136)

Veterans Day is this Friday, November 11. It became a national holiday in 1938 twelve years after Congress passed a resolution to celebrate it as a national event. It is coincidental that this year it is celebrated in the same week as America’s national and state elections, pitting at the national level one candidate who has a deep knowledge of the military and the international consequences of war (former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton) and another candidate who never served in the military and has bragged about his greater understanding of ISIS than the generals who deal with it every day (Donald Trump).... keep reading »

The Marlowsphere Blog (#135)

It would be easy to make the statement that the younger generation (however you define it) is not being exposed to jazz, America’s classical music, and that is one major reason why jazz is not a popular music anymore.

Well, it would be easy, but it would be a mis-statement for several reasons.... keep reading »

The Marlowsphere Blog (#134)

Letters to Yeyito (Restless Books, Brooklyn, NY, 228 pages, softcover, 2015) by world renowned reed player Paquito d’Rivera has the sub-title “Lessons from a Life in Music.” Fact is the book is much more than that.

It is more than a litany of lessons from a life in music for one major reason: Paquito d’Rivera.... keep reading »

The Marlowsphere Blog (#133)

There we were in the second half of the 20^th century, having experienced the defeat of Nazi Germany and Imperialist Japan that ended WWII, and watched in the late 1970s a pivot towards the west by Communist China following the 1976 demise of dictator Mao Tse-tung (Zedong), and in 1989 even as we watched the horror of Tiananmen Square, we also watched the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin Wall.... keep reading »

The Marlowsphere Blog (#132)

Often enough, creative artists in the various fine and performing arts create works that are infused with themes and concepts that were not consciously intended when the work was aborning. In the case of Francis Ford Coppola’s “Godfather I,” however, the use of doors as metaphor, establishment of relationships, and short-term and evolving transitions is so prevalent it is hard to fathom Coppola was unaware of this cinematic approach.... keep reading »