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Bill Siegel

Bill Siegel, of New Hampshire, maintains the Web site, www.jimpepperlives.wordpress.com, and can be reached at [email protected]. His work also appears on www.inmotionmagazine.com, in Planet Jazz, and elsewhere.

About Me

I've never been able to read music -- it's easier for me to decipher faded Egyptian hieroglyphics (ok, maybe not. But at least I can make up a story to go along with the hieroglyphs!). And I've never been able to play a string of more than....oh, let's say one...recognizable note on any musical instrument known to humankind (which at least leaves me some off-planet possibilities). Having said all that, as a non-musician, I feel it is only through my writing that I can return even a small bit to all the jazz artists who have enriched my life with their music. I am currently working on a series of articles and interviews related to Native American saxophonist/composer, Jim Pepper (1941-1992), who took the songs and chants he learned from his Indian family and melded them with the jazz form to create an entirely new jazz thing. I am particularly interested in how his influence continues to be felt by a whole new crew of musicians defining the next generation of jazz.