Scale of the Day: G Dorian

The G Dorian Scale as you would find it on any conventionally tuned equal tempered instrument.

Today is the anniversary of the birth of two more composers who have inspired me:

Art Tatum was clearly in an elite group of intimidatingly gifted jazz pianists. Brimming with talent and inventiveness he revealed some incredible territory for piano improvisation.

Pharoah Sanders. Message From Home has been spinning in my CD player quite a bit the past few months. He taps into a spirituality that cannot be co-opted or maligned. He is the surviving practitioner of the uncompromising truth and personal journey that began with John Coltrane's A Love Supreme and Albert Ayler's Love Cry. The title of the recent Ayler box set acknowledges as much with its title: Holy Ghost; Trane was the Father, Pharoah was the Son. I was the... . Unlike Coltrane and Ayler, Sanders managed to avoid leaving this world through madness and self-destruction. He has continued to record over the past few decades (and hasn't taken on the same cult-figure status bestowed on the "martyred contemporaries").