I have scratched together a living, in one way or another, as a writer for more than 60 years now. I was a free-lance writer during the early stages of the Vietnam War. I was the Southwest Division Overnight News Editor for United Press International back when UPI was a legitimate news gathering organization. Following that, I went to the Dallas Morning News where I became the first person to write about rock 'n' roll on a daily basis for a Texas metropolitan newspaper. I later became the News' entertainment editor. Following some stints with a couple of prominent PR firms, I had the extraordinary good fortune to team with two communications legends, Ken Fairchild and Lisa LeMaster, as part of one kick-ass media consulting/crisis communications team. That was followed by stints as a department head with the City of Dallas (and its public information officer); the Dallas Northeast Chamber of Commerce where I had the good fortune to meet and work alongside some of this city's business and political titans; and editorial director for QuestCorp Media until that company went out of business. Now officially retired, concentrating on this blog.
Project Trio's latest album, Instrumental, will be released Friday, May 2. I certainly hope this gem is on it. I've seen them perform this live a couple of times and, trust me on this, it knocks an audience out.
Just got a look at the cover of the upcoming CD, courtesy of Peter Seymour, the world's greatest stand-up bassist. Here it is:
Anthony Tommasini, writing today in The New York Times, listed his choices for the 10 best classical composers of all time. Classical music music, in one of the greatested understatements of all time, is not exactly my forte, so I'm going to defer to Mr. Tommasini on this one, even though I have no idea of who Mr. Tommasini is. Now, if the late, great John Ardoin, who also wrote for the Times as well as Stereo Review, The Dallas Morning News and other publications, had come up with a list like this, I would trust it implicitly and endorse it wholeheartedly.
Tommasini chose Johann Sebastian Bach (pictured) No. 1 "for his matchless ... masterly musical engineering," whatever that means. The rest of his Top 10:
2. Ludwig van Beethoven 3. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
4. Franz Peter Schubert
5. Claude Achille Debussy 6. Igor Stravinsky 7. Johannes Brahms 8. Giuseppe Verdi 9. Richard Wagner 10. Bela Bartok
Gee, and my favorite piece of classical music, 1812 Overture, was obviously written by some clown not even in the Top 10. Goes to show you what I know.