Here are links to the fifth and sixth tracks from Super Brain: Militarism and Cadaverism are available online as mp3s with accompanying lyrics. (Ben Sommer, voice). Original September premiere at Young Americans for Liberty. Ben describes the songs: Militarism. The inspiration for this piece was the 2000 presidential debates, where George Bush said “don’t mess…

Here’s today’s link to the fourth track from Super Brain: Consumerism is available online as an mp3 with accompanying lyrics. (Ben Sommer, voice). Original September premiere at Young Americans for Liberty. Sommer talks about the song: I wrote it in 1997, in the downtown branch of the San Diego Public Library. I was out west…

Here’s today’s link to the third track from Super Brain: Baby Mother is available online as an mp3 with accompanying lyrics. (Andrew Hickman: tenor saxophone; Ben Sommer: electric bass, electric guitar, percussion, synth, voice; George Arsenault: drums; Randy Pingrey: tenor trombone; Will Caviness: trumpet). Original September premiere at Theo Spark. Sommer notes that “this song…

Here’s today’s link to a just-released song from Super Brain: I Married a Prostitute is the album’s second single, available online as an mp3 with accompanying lyrics. (Ben Sommer: electric bass, electric guitar, voice; George Arsenault: drums). Original September premiere from Blogs ‘n Roses. Enjoy. Visit Ben’s official website at BenSommer.com, and sample Saint Martha…

I’ve posted songs from, and reviewed (highly recommended) Ben Sommer’s first album, america’d. If you’re unfamiliar with Ben’s work, there’s no better time to become acquainted than now. Ben’s a “prog rock composer, performer, writer, and pent-up curmudgeon.” His music combines political and social commentary from an edgy, libertarian angle. Visit Ben’s official website at…

I’m from a jazz household, and true to that tradition, my youngest is learning to sing scat. Here’s Ella Fitzgerald, singing in that style. Enjoy.

I caught this via The Atlantic Wire, and they’re right that it’s brilliant, but it’s confident and unabashed, too.  Hathaway’s  confidence in the trying of something is noteworthy and admirable.  We’re in danger of becoming an oh-so-serious, earnest, and proper people.  I don’t believe that the danger will come to pass– I’m a great optimist…

Armatrading on the uncertain practical consequences of kind words – especially, one would guess, in difficult times.

Two songs for a summer day more than half a century later — Enjoy —

Here’s a protest song, about boxer Rubin ‘Hurricane’ Carter’s conviction (later overturned), but I’ve not posted it for a particular message. (The case is controversial, with conflicting opinions about his guilt; I don’t know.) Instead, it’s here because Dylan’s a powerful storyteller. I was listening to one of his albums recently, and the song reminded…

Sommer’s music is always a treat, and here he insightfully describes the many and particular problems of Dr. K’s foreign policy. Go, Ben, go:

YouTube – “The Pan Piper” by Miles Davis & Gil Evans.