Two giants of our musical times passed from this life this week: Tito Puente and Johnnie Taylor. Tito, the king of Latin jazz; Johnnie, one of the truly great soul voices. Neither from Detroit, but both capturing that same reaching-out, the same impatience with our own shortcomings and the same desire to reach deep into the music and bring out the joy that we heard on display so much last weekend -- especially in Derrick May's soulful, Latin-tinged set on Monday.
In today's New York Times, Ben Ratliff quotes Ornette Coleman from his Thursday night concert along the same lines: There's lots of music that's played because it applies to a particular race or style. But music is not a race or a style. It's an idea ... Sound is free of grammar.
