The other day I sat down to listen to some music. K.D. Lang, Chris Boti, Sara Vaughan was my selection. It was nice. It was listening.

Every once in a while, I get a new lease on my listening life; Instead of listening to music, I discover an artist. I have been discovering my whole life. In my salad days (when I was crisp with knowledge and green with my convictions – that’s Willie Shakespeare), I remember discovering the Moody Blues. I just could not believe the writing, the music and the vocals. I also remember discovering a band called Fleetwood Mac and not the annoying Clintonian Rumors, I mean real albums like Penguin, Future Games, Then Play On… My discovery continued with Peter Frampton, Joni Mitchell, Grateful Dead and so on.

And it was not until a dreadlock squirt drone of American Idol, one Jason Castro, who sang a song that absolutely moved me. The name of the song was “Halleluiah” and it was written by someone I never paid any attention to: Leonard Cohen.
I was destined to discover Leonard Cohen. On his Grammy CD, “The Joni Letters”, Herbie Hancock has Leonard Cohen reading the poetic Joni’s Jungle Line from “The Hissing of Summer Lawns” . Juxtapose and just as mysterious, Stereophile wrote a great article on some new re-releases of Leonard’s past work. Needless to say, I am in the process of discovering Leonard and I am quickly buying his albums, going through them, bit by bit. Understanding Leonard’s music, listening as he matures and then changes, trying to understand his musical direction and writing. Truly, discovery is fun. This is how one becomes a “fan”.

Classical music fans discover all the time, whether Antal Dorati or Tchaikovsky. See, that is why two channel is still around…. Its all about discovery.

Hallelujah