This is one of my favorite albums by Marvin Gaye, which came at a transitional time for him. After recording several pop influenced songs from Motown during the mid 1960s he was interested in changing music, both harmonically, and lyrically. This album opened up several conversations about the social struggles[…]

When I started exploring the music of Yes, I was very fascinated with the sound of Chris Squire’s bass, which had a really huge sound like an electric guitar. He took the bass to new levels of expression at the time, including counterpoint melodies to complement the vocals, guitars, keyboards,[…]

A while ago, when I was first exploring the music of multi-instrumentalist Jacob Collier, my friend Brian played me this album by Take Six. This is their second album, and the last with vocalist Mervyn Warren before he had a very successful career on his own. It’s also my favorite[…]

While I have a lot of fun exploring the classical structures in the progressive rock genre, I thought I would like to share with you my favorite R&B vocal explorations. One day while I was researching the different categories of R&B, I learned about the Neo Soul movement that started[…]

This is my favorite album by Earth, Wind and Fire. It was the first album where the group featured a full sound: band, horns, strings, orchestrations, production, etc. It also features my favorite vocal moments by Maurice White: “Shining Star,” “That’s the Way of the World,” and my personal favorite,[…]

Herbie Hancock is one of my favorite jazz pianists. He’s played with a lot of artists such as Miles Davis and Stevie Wonder. My introduction to him was through his improvisations in “As” from Stevie’s Songs In The Key Of Life. This is my favorite acoustic piano driven album of[…]

This album is my favorite from one of the more current progressive bands who started out in the 1990’s. For me, this album, along with the next pop driven conceptual album, Snow, are my favorite in the Neal Morse era of the band. Ryo Okumoto played a lot of the[…]

This is my favorite organ and piano driven album in the ELP discography. After my mom bought me a Best Of E.L.P. compilation, I was curious to check out the actual albums. After talking with a friend of ours, we started off with Brain Salad Surgery, because it had the[…]

I thought I’d like to share with you one of my favorite contemporary jazz female composers and vocalists. This is one of my favorite albums of Esperanza’s (when she was in her acoustic phase.) I first heard Esperanza at the Hollywood Bowl at a jazz festival with my dad and[…]

I thought I would like to bring in some of my favorite current albums in the jazz area. Jacob Collier is an exciting vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, arranger, composer, etc. He’s probably most famous for his stylistic reharmonizations of songs on YouTube such as Stevie Wonder’s “Don’t You Worry ‘Bout A Thing,”[…]