Responding to questions from nofunk :

1. Name one jazz album you adore. Or, if you must, name a few. But make sure to tell me why you find it indispensible.

“A Fickle Sonance,” by Jackie McLean. This album is perfectly constructed: not a wasted moment or a wasted note. Jackie was really beginning to stretch out into angular, unusual music and yet the whole things still swings. That’s why it works. It’s really the perfect place to start if you want to hear jazz that’s “out there” yet still has a firm anchor, music that does new things but builds on the familiar. I’ve listened to the title track so often that I’ve memorized every solo. And the album is all the more poignant since Jackie died this year at age 74.

2. I’ve tried writing before, and I’ve been told my writing is good. But when I go back and read what I’ve written, I think it’s total crap and I scrap it. What have you discovered to be your greatest challenge in writing?

The greatest challenges in writing: writing something which I still like the next day, and if I don’t like it the next day the determination to rework it rather than scrap it completely.

3. Oh, what the hell… boxers or briefs?

Boxers 🙂