G's Free Thoughts

  Anyone who is semi-serious about playing a musical instrument needs to have a skilled professional in their network to tweak, repair and i...

  Liquid Soul is a Chicago-based ensemble that was launched around 1993 - they are approaching the 30th anniversary of the group's birth...

This is my second post regarding female trombonists. I have talked about Melba Liston , the trailblazing artist that paved the way for so ma...

  Since I picked up my old trombone again back in February , I have been on a journey to re-learn what I used to know and try to improve bey...

  I am a fan of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.  I think he has more heart and than most celebrities, and he really found his voice on t...

  It's pretty easy to list aspects of music. It is ephemeral - you can't touch it. It only exists when it is heard by listeners. Whi...

  When I was a kid, I started playing the trombone. The instrument was not my first choice - I was home with a cold when the 5th graders got...

  The pandemic has truly sucked, but one of the bright spots for me over the past two years has been digging into music and artists that I s...

  I am the guardian of a small, one-eyed black dog named Tai. He has been a fine companion through this horrible pandemic, usually cheerful ...

  My big brother, John, died early in the morning on August 31. I have been processing this loss for the past two weeks and felt the need to...

  I have no significant knowledge when it comes to foreign policy or military strategy. I am an aging white man in the midwestern section of...

  In April, I thought that the pandemic was over. It was a month after I received the J&J "one and done" jab. Vaccination dema...

  I've been listening to Ted Hawkins this morning. His vocals are searing, gritty and insanely emotive. This man had a hard and somewhat...

  So many of us were upended by the pandemic.  In my case, Covid-19 accelerated my retirement. My profession required a lot of face-to-face ...

  Do you have a random event in your life that totally altered your trajectory? I do. It happened in early 1976. I was a senior at the Unive...

  The past year has been devastating. As of 8PM on March 15, 2021, there were 533,057 deaths from Covid-19 in the United States.  Healthcare...

  Even though my kids are grown, I think a lot about being a parent.  I did some things right; lots of things wrong. I did my best in view o...

  As I have stumbled through my life, I struggled to find a set of principles that would provide some guidance and comfort.  I read a lot of...

One of my favorite forms of reflection is to review the known timeline of our planet and then compare that to the timeline of Homo Sapiens. ...

  I am writing this on a Sunday morning from a room on the 4th floor of a Hampton Inn in Davenport, Iowa.  The window overlooks the parking ...