They don’t want you to know how good light music is Luckily for us, there lived not just one, but TWO excellent Johann Strausses: Sr. (1804–49) and Jr. (1825–1899), who are the heroes of this blog post. While the younger Strauss has thoroughly eclipsed the elder in popularity and acclaim, both were shining stars of…

I vividly remember sitting in my freshman year dormitory at Manhattan School of Music in the early aughts with my trumpet playing roommate, listening with bewildered amusement to the œuvre of Chuck Mangione. It wasn’t until he died today that I heard him associated with the words “smooth jazz” in the NY Times obit. There…