Category Archives: music essay

Killing Me Softly With His Song

Posted on January 25, 2023 by Mark Kerstetter

Sometime in late ’72 or 3 Roberta Flack was flying in a plane that had a music service and one of the songs on the playlist was “Killing Me Softly With His Song” by Lori Lieberman. Flack listened to it … Continue reading →

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Song of the Mock Turtles

Posted on January 9, 2019 by Mark Kerstetter

From September 1st to December 31st of last year I kept a stuck tune diary, a journal of all of the sticky tunes that visited me, particularly tunes that I awoke with already playing in my head. Of the 122 … Continue reading →

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Lou Reed: Power and Glory

Posted on April 7, 2018 by Mark Kerstetter

Power and Glory—The Situation by Lou Reed I was visited by the Power and the Glory I was visited by a majestic hymn Great bolts of lightning Lighting up the sky Electricity flowing through my veins I was captured by … Continue reading →

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Ben Watson’s Derek Bailey and the Story of Free Improvisation

Posted on September 21, 2015 by Mark Kerstetter

Derek Bailey and the Story of Free Improvisation was published in 2004. Derek Bailey died the following year. Ben Watson’s book is therefore mercifully free of past tense references to its hero. To my mind no one, as a musician … Continue reading →

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Robert Wyatt: Different Every Time

Posted on December 25, 2014 by Mark Kerstetter

You know that saying, the devil is in the detail? I think the devil runs the show, and God is in the detail. —Robert Wyatt* Robert Wyatt’s music has been a source of nourishment for me since the very first … Continue reading →

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My Bob Dylan

Posted on December 14, 2014 by Mark Kerstetter

1976 was the year I discovered music. Not that I hadn’t noticed it before. I had been an enthusiastic member of a Baptist church choir for several years and had even sung solos. But I hungered for something else. My … Continue reading →

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Anthony Braxton: It can’t get any better than this

Posted on May 21, 2014 by Mark Kerstetter

  Earlier this year when the NEA named Anthony Braxton a 2014 Jazz Master, he expressed surprise, noting that for over fifty years the jazz community had ‘pushed him back’. It was indeed a surprise seeing Wynton Marsalis as the … Continue reading →

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Albert Ayler in a Spray of Sunflowers

Posted on February 16, 2014 by Mark Kerstetter

I’m happy to announce that my poem inspired by the life and work of Albert Ayler and his brother Donald has been published in Jerry Jazz Musician. My deep-felt thanks go to Joe Maita for giving this poem a home.

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Growing Up in Public with Lou Reed

Posted on November 12, 2013 by Mark Kerstetter

I had gotten used to the idea of a world without any more great Lou Reed albums. His public appearance after the liver transplant and a somber comment by Laurie Anderson suggested the end might be near. When it came … Continue reading →

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Why I Love Lou Reed

Posted on October 28, 2013 by Mark Kerstetter

It’s somehow fitting that Lou Reed has passed away a few days before Halloween. Halloween is when children are introduced to evil as well as age, decay and death. It is sugar-coated, of course, so that they can begin the … Continue reading →

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