After Taffeta Patterns was released, I realized there were some musical connections I had been unaware of while working on my composition and performance realization. Here are three summit songs that come to mind from a vast reservoir. Black music is so much a part of me it's subconsciously in everything I do. Growing up, this has been part of the elemental inner compass directing my life, being drawn to what's best in the world of music transcending whatever boundaries or barriers, and settling for nothing less.

Unable to find a representative video of Bobby Womack performing "Across 110th Street", I settled for the opening of the film he did the music for.  

After listening to the first three videos, allow yourself a moment of acclimation for the fourth video, my Taffeta Patterns, given how the first three use multiple musicians with singers, while the fourth uses the meruvina, which is purely instrumental, presenting a different medium with a different vibe. Ideally, you will find yourself here, there and everywhere, or in the sense of forgetting about time and place, nowhere, man.

- Michael Robinson, April 2021, Los Angeles

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Michael Robinson is a Los Angeles-based composer and writer (musicologist).