Michael Robinson Writings About Music

"I enjoyed reading your words. They flowed like good music does." (Marty Morell)

"Your words and music essay is BRILLIANT and thought provoking. You, Paul Desmond and Roger Ruggeri, former principal bassist with the Milwaukee Symphony as well as wonderful composer and arts administrator are top members of my HIGH I.Q. Club." (David Amram)

"Tell him his write-ups are absolutely beautiful and I really enjoyed reading them and re-listening to Bill Evan's great music!!" (Chick Corea)

"Brilliant. I was going to attempt to describe Curry as art instead of basketball, but your eloquent portrayal has left me speechless. A thousand recommends." (NY Times commenter)

"After reading several of your well reasoned, interestingly written, revelatory comments here, I would like to thank you for expanding the understanding and clarifying the limitations of Wesley Morris's piece. "God bless you please, [Mr] Robinson." And may the New York Times give a column to you one day." (NY Times commenter)

"KILLER READING!!" (Jerry Sharell)

"This is really good!" (Swapan Chaudhuri)

These writings, over 300 to date, have been quoted by Carnegie Hall and MIT publications, used for classes at NYU, CalArts and UC Berkeley, and quoted by historian Simon Schama on twitter. The Bob Dylan Archive in Oklahoma procured entire essays for their collection. An Assistant Director of Jazz Studies where Michael Robinson lectured stated these writings deserve to be compiled in books.

Writing about music is an important learning experience for myself, being part of the creative process as a composer and pianist. Hearing how others enjoy and learn from these writings is wonderful. Special thanks to Joel Chadabe, the person who originally advised me to begin writing about my recordings, gradually expanding into covering myriad aspects of music. I love doing so as part of self-realization. (Michael Robinson)

Index for writings about music by Michael Robinson

2023

The God of Rain

 

A True Challenge

 

Ideas

 

Benny and Bird

 

Bespoke Music

 

Robindro Robinson Sitar Piano

 

Tantric Melismas

 

Not Like Before: Michael Robinson's Jazz Without Borders

@ All About Jazz

 

We Are Our Music

 

Present, Past and Future

 

The Six

 

Altering Differences

 

Unique To Themselves

 

Among the Major Food Groups

 

A Nice Fact of Music

 

Approaching What May Be Daunting

 

Changing Perspective

 

With Open Mind

 

As Great As Anyone

 

Singers and Colors

 

Couldn't Do

 

It Has Been Stunning

 

The Only Soul Alive

 

Those Notable Exceptions

 

2022

Raga-Like Conversations

 

Most In Tune

 

Pure Music Manna

 

A Momentous New Form of Modern Jazz

 

Manhattan and Los Angeles Inventions

 

Piano Like Ocean Tide Pool

 

Benny Goodman Is An Equally Important Influence on Lee Konitz

 

Amen To All Three

 

Look

 

Sea Beatles

 

Piano Saptaks and Chakras

 

William and Francis Concur

 

Driving Beloved Teachers

 

Flowed From Their Creations

 

A Special Key

 

Improvised Translucent Mosaics

 

Trane's Trains

 

Profound Spiritual and Intellectual Love

 

Infinite Varieties of Shringara Rasa

 

Burfi and Ravi

 

A Tip From Clint

 

Two Weeks Ago

 

Pharoah Nights

 

Sonny Stitt Influencing John Coltrane

 

They May Be Awakened

 

When Count Basie Met Queen Elizabeth

 

Equinox and the Moonlight Sonata

 

Jazz Beginnings Anew

 

Musical Moksha For Two Dollars

 

Martin Perlich

 

Masters of Introspection

 

While Visiting India with his Mates

 

Gift From Beyond From Chadabe

 

The Summer Kisses

 

On Being Emulated

 

Riding Planets and Star Clusters

 

Melody, Harmony and Computers

 

Gatra Vina Presaging Pianoforte

 

Innervisions

 

Leonard Altman Music Tree

 

Something Mystical

 

American Alap From Hoboken, Hamlet and Crown Heights

 

Gathering Jazz Spirits With A Lapis Lazuli Ganesh

 

Ticket To Improvise

 

Pilgrimages

 

Prismatizing Standards with Jazz and Raga Amalgams, Polymodality and Equal Temperament Tuning

 

Slowly Melting

 

deLEEcatessin Konitz

 

The Person I Would Most Like To Meet Now

 

Nighttime Onyx Audience

 

Encouraging Words

 

Returning To Lester Young

 

Riding On His Wings: the Beatitude of Barney Bragin

 

Music from the Earth

 

2021

He Played Like A God

 

Composers and Quietude

 

Mahler Divining Jethro Tull

 

The Inspirational Merritt Butrick

 

This Is Wine

 

Like So Many Birds In A Forest

 

Musical Older Brothers

 

Crossing Lines

 

Mathematical and Spiritual Exaltation

 

Standards Proving To Be A Jazz Phoenix

 

Gould Bringing Schoenberg To Life

 

On the Street of Dreams

 

On Losing A Piano Teacher

 

In the Booth with Phil Schaap

 

Musicians and Rooster

 

Jazz Jugalbandis

 

Winter Tale

 

A Visionary Digital Template

 

From One to One Hundred and Fifty-Five

 

My Baseball Record

 

Song of the Day - Delayed Response by Michael Robinson

 

Are Composers Brave?

 

Knight and Day: Music Before and After John Coltrane

 

Loving and Rerigging La Monte Young's Tuning

 

That Gleam That Flows With Grace: Duke Ellington and his Orchestra with Frank Sinatra

 

Upon Being Asked For A Tribute To Bach

 

Mozart Reenacted By Gould

 

About Saints

 

About A Pianist

 

For Joel and His Teacher

 

A Museum Dream

 

Lee Konitz Pictures on the Wall

 

Opposing the Absence of Alternatives

 

Black Connections

 

Momentous Counsel from Reggie Johnson

 

Ram Narayan

 

Make Waves

 

A Dream of Love

 

Well Worth Paying Attention To

 

The Warbler Returns

 

One Thing Music Offers

 

Missing Chick Corea

 

My Breath Is His Breath

 

Concise Discographies for 22 Artists with new commentary

 

Related Links for 16 Composers with new commentary

 

Rafa Gets It

 

Mel and Mel

 

546 Page and 59,329 Note Music Odyssey

 

A Demon's Leisure from Yeats

 

You Surrender Yourself

 

2020

 

From Sea of France to Morning-Star: Missing Discreet Music with Dean Suzuki

 

With George: George Harrison and Michael Robinson

 

Next To A Mountain: Jimi Hendrix, Ravi Shankar and Alla Rakha

 

Myself and Two Contemporaries

 

Meeting Morton Feldman

 

My Heroes

 

Thank You

 

Ushering at Carnegie Hall

 

Year of the Monkey 1920: Ravi Shankar, Charlie Parker and Dave Brubeck

 

My Found Sounds

 

What I Did

 

Genesis of A Musical Form

 

Always New

 

Song for Now

 

Occasionally Coveted

 

First Music Teacher

 

Dutch-Born Shining in Maui

 

An Indian Poet Writes About Music

 

My New Second-Favorite Song

 

[21] by dublab

 

Nights Beyond Forgetting

 

His Wisdom

 

Sorely Needed

 

Embedded Forest Leaves

 

Coincidences Abounding

 

A Prayer

 

It's Mine: Buoyed by Grainger, Wild & Stravinsky

 

Always Within and Never Without You

 

Economy of Fecund Notes

 

Just Amazing

 

Infinite Exploration

 

Rushing Comes From the Devil

 

Labor Day Thoughts on Clavichord, Piano, Chess and Raga

 

A Dream of Love

 

September Response

 

Angel Glow

 

Unforgettable Epiphany

 

Wildly Enthralled

 

What John Cage Was Really Getting At

 

Incarnation of Stockhausen Zodiac Timbre

 

In Memoriam Pandit Jasraj

 

Patelson's Crossroads

 

Refined Resplendence: Johnny Magnus

 

Time Enveloped By Ether

 

Beyond Cool

 

Frank Sinatra Reveals the Secret of Music

 

Replying Symbolically

 

Roll Over Nancarrow

 

Welcome Inclusion

 

When Listening

 

First Album Resurrection

 

Pointers Becoming An Appreciation

 

Continually Fascinated

 

Love Stands Still

 

Robindro-Robinson Dream

 

Meruvina Music Archeology

 

Remembering Peter

 

Counting Konitz Letters

 

Took A Look Around

 

Heavenly In Its Brilliance

 

Watts and Decibels

 

Building on Foundations of Freedom

 

Indu and Indra

 

Bird Flight Meruvina Nirvana

 

Beatles Curry

 

Haridas and Shivkumar

 

Ideas Igor Imparted

 

Harpsichord and Indonesian Skin Drums

 

Crossing A Time-Color Desert

 

Konitz Coin Ring

 

Clint Eastwood and Music

 

The Magic of A Liberated Sound

 

Cultural-Lee

 

Harmony of Elements

 

Rasa Mining

 

Melody of Words for Bob Dylan

 

He Was A Music Titan: Lee Konitz

 

Apples and Origins

 

Homeroom

 

A Momentous 'Round Midnight

 

Bill Withers

 

Sinatra and Sleep

 

Presenting An Evolution

 

Meeting Mitzi

 

With the Beatles

 

On Being Asked To Listen To The Berlin Philharmonic

 

Minerals, Gemstones and Music

 

Another Direction For Jazz

 

Louis Prima and John Coltrane By Way of Benny Goodman

 

McCoy Tyner

 

Tenor Madness

 

A Bird Outside

 

Chess Not Checkers

 

What's Key

 

Evolution of Western Music

 

Composer Morning Hair and A Painter

 

Encompassing Composition

 

Dmitri's Drive

 

Ludwig's Precision

 

I'll Take Larry

 

Year of the Monkey 1920: Ravi Shankar, Charlie Parker and Dave Brubeck

 

2019

Allowing My Thoughts

 

Thelonious and Allen Reflect

 

With Three Teachers: Steve Reich, Zakir Hussain & Lee Konitz

 

An Email From Ravi Shankar

 

So What

 

Don and George Thanksgiving

 

Invisible Living Clay

 

Vocal-Lee: Lee Konitz Sings Jazz Standards

 

Momentous Phrase Moment

 

Thank You, Bill

 

Eyes of Night: Sinatra Does Tangerine

 

One Dot World: Eleanor Academia

 

Ted Gioia New Music Recommendation: Spirit Lady

 

Meeting Manzarek

 

Invitation To Hear My Thoughts

 

Potent Memories

 

I Do, Too

 

Glad To Learn

 

Nightclub Dream

 

Post-Music

 

Above the World: Manhattan in June with Lee

 

How High the Moon: Eliot Zigmund and Bill Evans

 

The Musician's Show featuring Michael Robinson

 

Imagined and Deployed

 

Beetle and Beatle

 

Two Worlds At Once

 

The Summer Kisses

 

Seeds from Uday and Robindro

 

Earl and Conlon

 

Dark Star Reborn

 

Azure Pure

 

Syntactical Acclimatization

 

Jazz Swim

 

Awesome Christina

 

Creation-Recording Zeitgeist

 

Spiritual Entreaties

 

Coltrane Was Being Candid

 

The Feeling Is Mutual

 

Gift of a Lifetime from Earl Wild

 

Setting the Bar High

 

 

2018

Maihar Gharana 

 

Over Chicken Soup

 

Sea Changes

 

Surrendering

 

Often Astonished

 

Sharing A Paragraph With Brian Jones

 

Chilling

 

Priceless Musical Gems

 

Overcoming: Don Shirley

 

Setting Sail

 

Divine Influence: Anindo Chatterjee

 

Kindly Grasshopper

 

For My Teacher, Leonard Bernstein, On His 100th Birthday!

 

A Song Born For Me

 

Neil and Jack

 

Pretty Funny, Actually

 

Joe Nails It

 

A Vision In Rainbow

 

Rev. John Garcia Gensel

 

Whole Lotta Tabla

 

Protean Polyphony Polynesia

 

People Tapestry

 

Red Coffee Cup

 

Beyond Forgetting: Stan Getz Ascends

 

Prevailing

 

Two-Part Inventiveness

 

Spring and Spring

 

Wisdom From the Beatles

 

Pastures of Plenty

 

Coexistence Equation

 

137

 

Jazz Beyond Jazz

 

How Music Relates

 

Riders On the Storm

 

Melody of Rhythm: Ravi and Dmitri

 

A Trance of Relaxation

 

Voyage of Life

 

From A Danish Princess to Winter Fantasy

 

Simply Put

 

And Now She's In Me, Always With Me

 

Vision-Mathematical Music

 

 

2017

Blue Rainbow Art 

 

One and Won

 

Maria Improvisation

 

Equally Precious

 

Together They Make Music

 

The Sounds of Music

 

Sing Me A Song

 

Genie Genre

 

Velvet Air

 

Sensational Supersessions

 

Equally Different

 

Aural Memory

 

Magical Times

 

Flavored Sound

 

Concord Columbo

 

From Claude To Charles

 

Crucial Crossroad

 

Tatum Revelations

 

The Party Line

 

Dizzying Art

 

Source and Sorcerer

 

Natural Music

 

Meruvina: Composition and Performance Coalesce

 

The Greatest Composer

 

Origins of Music

 

Gently Waking

 

His Has I Me Mine Ours

 

Red Licorice

 

Climbing Rocks and Colored Stones

 

Exemplars from Konitz and Tristano by Way of India

 

Under Jakaranda-Tinted Skies

 

Driving with Pandit Jasraj

 

Purposeful Placement

 

Symphonic Transfiguration

 

Music Brewing

 

Pulchritudinous Brewers

 

Raga and Soul

 

Apollonic Radiance

 

Mozart and Mockingbirds

 

Tree Music

 

John Lennon's Musical Intuition

 

Triad and Triads

 

Sounds from Silence

 

Music Out of This World

 

Malleable Music Maze

 

Before His Time

 

 

2016

Foods of the World

 

Familiar Flourish

 

Moon Necklaces

 

A Stranger Nobody Sees

 

Gadd's Glow

 

Refracting Musical Light Through Time and Place

 

Extemporaneously

 

A Musical Hypothesis: Liberace and Bill Evans

 

One Nature of Collaboration

 

Promised Land

 

Our Collective Solitude and Beyond

 

Shakti's Chanteuse: Joni Mitchell

 

Nautical Moccasin Elusive Blues

 

Eagle Rock

 

Thoughts So Sublime: Helen Vendler Invents

 

Allen and William and James

 

Jerry and Buddy

 

Jaded Juggarnauts

 

Keeping the History of Jazz Real

 

Manhattan Riches

 

Cajoling the Stormy Sea

 

Phantom Puppet Poetry: Vladimir's Vicissitudes

 

Extremes

 

A Massive Bedrock

 

Two Not One and Sacking A Miscue

 

Astonishing Auditory Auteur: Silence Is Emboldened

 

The Life of Thought

 

Jackie's Jazz

 

Sea Turtles and Prince

 

Breakfast with Frank

 

Alone Together

 

Gratitude for Pierre Boulez

 

Steph Curry, the Prophet of Basketball

 

Songs by a Malibu Musician Saint

 

Transpicuous Nebulosity

 

This Mild Equator

 

Wooden Ships

 

The Sun of Music

 

Music of Reflexive Adjusts

 

Moving Past

 

 

2015

For Tangerines, Oranges and Mangos

 

Luminous Ecstasy: the Music of Bill Evans

 

Beyond the Crowd: Lee Konitz

 

Beethoven's Blog

 

The Forgotten Pot

 

When a Negative Brews a Positive

 

Painting Raga Composition Junction

 

Rapturous Resonance: Phil Lives

 

Janis Joplin and the Houseguest

 

California Dreamers

 

I'm Getting Sentimental Over You Unsentimentally

 

Manhattan Smoke and Miracle Mile Incense

 

Six Seas: Conlon, Charles, Claude, Charlie, Chick and Chirico

 

Deciphering Desmond

 

Mesmeric Mantra Enchants Even Ravens

 

Sinatra and Shiva: Unexpected Connections Abound in Music

 

Deploying Energy: About Composition

 

Pristine Atmospheres: the Music of Dizzy Gillespie

 

Land of Pancakes: Walking Miracle Mile and More

 

Finding Nazir: The Precious Generosity of Nazir Ali Jairazbhoy

 

 

2014

Mas que Nada

 

White Jade Floating: Time in Music

 

Into a Newborn Day: Words Inspiring Jazz

 

You Say Hindustani I Say North Indian - Let's Call the Whole Thing woOff and warp

 

Silhouetted by the Sea: Bob Dylan in Mississippi

 

Transcendental Consolidation: The Music of Stan Getz

 

Indian Summer in Forests of Azure: Time and Thyme with Ray Manzarek

 

Two of a Kind: Bob Dylan and Charlie Parker

 

Leonard Altman: Music Rescuer

 

Beginning Composition

 

Music for Rain

 

 

2013

Bird and Dizzy's Music Blitzkrieg: the Influence of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie

 

President of the Cool

 

Lips and Music Wed: Songstress Judy Collins

 

Reconstructing Ratzo's Reflexivity

 

Seraphic Surge: Conguero Poncho Sanchez

 

Batiked by an Apsara: Catharine Buchanan

 

Decoding a Bacchus from Bonn and a Visionary from Varanasi: Ludwig van Beethoven, Ravi Shankar and Harihar Rao

 

That Rhythm Dance You Into Sunlight: The Music of Michael Jackson

 

Conflagrating Rag and Tal: Jackie McLean and Jack DeJohnette

 

Ethereal Ebony: The Majesty of Red Garland

 

Human Counterpoint: The Music of NBA Basketball

 

Advocating Ad: The Paintings of Ad Reinhardt

 

Lee and Leonard: Konitz Figures In West Side Story

 

 

2012

East West Side Story: Ravi Shankar and Leonard Bernstein

 

Wellspring of Joy: Rollan Masciarelli

 

The Doors

 

Stupendous in Invention

 

Light the night: The Music of Laura Nyro

 

Mellifluous Marv: Homage to Marv Albert

 

The Preeminence of Winter: Johnny Winter

 

Three Suns: Swapan, Anindo and Zakir

 

 

2011

The Search For A New Instrument

 

 

2010

Michael Robinson, John Cage and Digital Music

 

Fence Sounds

 

Saptaka Sea: Sailing In The Melakartas of Karnatica

 

Sam Cooke: The Mystery of the Beatles' Musical Origin Solved

 

 

2004

Meruvina: Composition and Performance Coalesce

 

 

2003

Shivkumar Sharma: Spiritual High

 

 

2002

Charukeshi In Lahaina: An Evening With George Harrison

 

Pandit Jasraj: The Perfect Notes

 

Zakir Hussain: The Instrument Is Alive

 

Composing With the Raga Form and Technology

 

 

2001

Ali Ahmad Hussain: Weaving A Cosmic Rug

 

 

2000

What Is A Raga?

 

 

1998

Shivkumar Sharma: Painting With Mallets and Strings

 

Lee Konitz: The Miracle of Improvising

 

 

1997

Autobiography

 

Special thanks to Joel Chadabe for suggesting writing liner notes for my albums, subsequently expanded to addressing myriad music subjects.