Todd M. Carlsen

Since: 2026 | Position: Contributor | Reviews Albums | Location: Minneapolis | Page Views: 1,032

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About Me

Todd M. Carlsen is a financial analyst-accountant in Eden Prairie, Minnesota and writes about music. He attended Berklee Online - Berklee College of Music. His critic-level listening was shaped by years of tuning into Leigh Kamman's Jazz Image on MPR.

As a former youth choir soloist, I am deeply drawn to the profound expressiveness of vocal jazz. My listening runs from jazz to popular music, including outlaw country like Willie Nelson. My All About Jazz article about Peggy Lee's prosody genius, “The Myth of the Holy Trinity — It's Actually the Big Four,” made the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music Weekly Digest, sandwiched between two New York Times pieces. I wrote about music for the newspapers in southwest Minneapolis metropolitan area when Let's Go was published. I applied the same analytical discipline I bring to my professional work to a 2025 jazz history project, curating a 600-song canonical playlist that led directly to my Peggy Lee article. While Miles Davis is the best, my favorite is John Coltrane. I honor publisher Michael Ricci and everyone at All About Jazz as a one-of-a-kind resource of highest authority. Explore my curated Spotify playlists via the “Website” button (below): --“119 Jazz” – A mix of canonical jazz tracks and personal taste picks. --“Peggy Lee 88” – Focused on her legendary prosody genius. --“Enrico Pieranunzi Right Now 90 (2026)” – The companion to my most recent article “Enrico Pieranunzi, Right Now.”