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Articles by Ben Sparks

10
My Playlist

In Praise of Playlists

Read "In Praise of Playlists" reviewed by Ben Sparks


Some analytics up front. I sat down and tried to come up with a guess as to how many complete albums I listen to a year. A rough approximation. My guess is about 1,000, a little less than three a day. You can come up with your own number. Next I went to some discographies and tried to count the number of works, including their work as sidemen, of three trumpeters and three saxophonists I love: ...

13
Play This!

Carla Bley On The Creation Of Birds Of Paradise

Read "Carla Bley On The Creation Of Birds Of Paradise" reviewed by Ben Sparks


A glorious 28 minutes, full of humor and insight, about the process of working through her fantastic composition, “Birds of Paradise," that appears on Big Band Theory. Nicely filmed and recorded. Lots of extended close ups of various band members at work. Lots of Carla. All wonderful. A revelation. ...

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