Big Sole Blog (BSB)

Coach Shakira matched Sasha Allen ("At Last") with Shawna P. ("Maybe I'm Amazed"), and I think Shakira was sincere presenting that knock-out-round match-up. Sasha won, rightfully so, but Shawna was a fierce competitor. At least Shakira tried to offer a real battle. Coach Adam Levine, on the other hand, played the audience a bit, pitting Orlando Dixon ("All My Life") against the

I was glad to come across this film about Count Basie. Here is the info on it:Filmmaker Gary Keys' heartfelt tribute to Count Basie and his Orchestra. - Jazz great William "Count" Basie comes back to life in this rich documentary, which traces the history of the pianist, composer, and bandleader over several decades. Filmmaker Gary Keys juxtaposes a roundtable discussion among old cats from

State Laureate of Louisiana, Julie Kane April is gone and with it National Poetry Month. For some, that thirty days of appreciation of the ancient art may be the only time they think about poets and verse or consider how much poetry adds to our lives. Sadly, too, for others, the only time they will hear a poem outside of school may be when someone dies or moves on in some other way.

Birmingham police arrested Martin Luther King Jr. on 12 April 1963, and he penned his famous "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" while imprisoned, slipping it as a crumpled wad of paper to his friend Clarence Jones. Jones did not know what it was until later. On its 50th anniversary, rather than comment on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," I'm commemorating its

I don't know what to say. Police report that two people have died and others have had limbs blown off. CNN.

I am on an Ella Fitzgerald and Count Basie kick right now with frequent turns back to Nancy Wilson. Here's Ella singing "Make Me Rainbows" with the Count Basie Orchestra. There's something about listening to this music that makes me feel my parents, now both deceased, are still very near. Also, a love for this kind of music is one of the things my brother and I shared. He died last year. I

I've said before that Candice Glover is too good for American Idol. I mean that I'd buy her CD right now, especially if she has tracks on it like her rendition of the Cure's "Lovesong." She slayed that song tonight on Ido, seeming to draw on Adele's version of the song but throwing in some Jill Scott flavor. Whatever or whomever Candice drew on tonight, she conjured magic, or as Keith Urban,