Writings about Music

Piano Improvisation Series

Manhattan and Los Angeles Inventions

Luciano

Luciano, of Italian and Chinese lineage, enjoyed a taste of Eggs Benedict this morning, a recipe invented in Manhattan.

Modern jazz, also invented in Manhattan, had Charlie Parker, his mother Native American, his father African American and Native American, figuring out how to play what he heard inside in terms of melody touching the higher intervals of chords.

Born in Manhattan, my father's side from Russia, my mother's side from Hungary and Poland, all Jewish, it's been exhilarating discovering how to play what I hear inside, too, originating in Los Angeles, forging new pathways, raga orientation synergizing with jazz orientation, melody touching standards polymodally.

- Michael Robinson, December 2022, Maui

 

© 2022 Michael Robinson All rights reserved

 

Michael Robinson is a Los Angeles-based composer, programmer, jazz pianist and musicologist. His 198 albums include 151 albums for meruvina and 47 albums of piano improvisations. Robinson has been a lecturer at UCLA, Bard College and California State University Long Beach and Dominguez Hills.