Listen: Summertime There is something spooky about Guitar Gabriel’s “Summertime”. “Summertime” is a George and Ira Gershwin song from the musical Porgy and Bess. It is one of the most recorded songs in history according to Wikipedia. On this recording, Michael Parrish plays piano and Mark Levinson sits in on trumpet. In the intro, Mike […]

We heard, sadly, that Adolphus Bell passed away this morning. Last week Aaron, Ardie Dean and I all met up in Birmingham to see our old friend. His four-year fight with lung cancer had taken a turn for the worse and he was fighting pneumonia. Despite his tough situation, Adolphus was clear-headed, watched a beautiful […]

We here at Music Maker are very sorry to hear of the passing of Lou Reed. Back at the beginning of Music Maker, Mark Levinson invited Lou and Laurie Anderson to Cello Studios in NYC to listen to country bluesmen Neal Pattman and Cootie Stark do a recording session with Lee Konitz. It was a […]

Last January Ironing Board Sam appeared on The State of Things with Frank Stasio – they aired the segment again today, right before TENTH debuts in its first screening in Durham NC! (Details here.) If you missed Ironing Board Sam on NPR, make sure you click here to listen to it online! Looking for Sam’s […]

We have all been loving Ironing Board Sam’s recently released album Double Bang! It is a truly amazing blend of Sam’s first CD on the MMRF lable, Going Up!, new album Big Bang!, and 45s Sam recorded in the 1970s. There is so much music on this thing, some of us have labeled it “the […]