Little Simz and Ramsey Lewis

In 1973, the Ramsey Lewis Trio performed their arrangement of “Summer Breeze” by Seals and Crofts on German television. This performance has been viewed an astonishing 1.6 million times on YouTube. I learned that fact from Paul Thompson‘s analysis of the performance, which includes transcriptions of several of Cleveland Eaton’s basslines. Paul’s YouTube channel is one …

The Song Factory course

I have been teaching songwriting for a lot of years as a means to other ends: with my private guitar and production students, with my music tech students, with my music education students, with my music theory students. But this semester at The New School, I get to teach my first actual songwriting class whose …