Popular Music

It's possible, for example, to listen to Sly and the Family Stone's "Everyday People" on oldies radio and appreciate the song without realizing how daring its message of racial harmony was when it was released in tumultuous 1968. It's possible to enjoy one of Miles Davis' mournful, muted trumpet solos and know nothing of what drove him to the sound. It's possible to get a vague feeling for Robert Johnson's circumstances by hearing his odd-bar blues, yet still to misunderstand his life and times.

Jazz? In church? On Good Friday? The Gabriels Jazz Band will swing into "Everything I Have Is Yours" and other songs during Good Friday services at Holy Trinity Episcopal Church on April 21. The band, which will also play "Who Can I Turn To" and "Someone to Watch Over Me," is led by a cool, bluesy piano player known in the Philadelphia jazz scene as "the Padre. " And no wonder. He is the Rev. Warren Davis, 72, a retired Episcopal priest. "People tell us that they have found a new and deeper meaning in the words of these familiar songs," Father Davis said.

Rock-and-roll music embodies the spirit of several generations, which is to say raucous and sometimes transgressive behavior by both musicians and their fans, idol worship and mass hysteria. These effects have been observed before, particularly in young people - remember crooners and bobby-soxers? - but rock-and-roll has been an especially persistent and powerful shaper of popular culture. Why else would public television still be reviving musical acts from the 1960s to solicit contributions during periodic fund drives?

Inquirer popular music critic Dan DeLuca's reports from the SXSW Music Festival in Austin, Texas. See his dispatches, including photographs and videos, on his blog, "In the Mix," at .

GAETANO A. MOLIERI was a prodigy, playing the violin at age 5. However, he wound up becoming an internationally known violist because of physical attributes: Long arms and wide hands. At least, that was the idea of one of his teachers as Gaetano was growing up in South Philadelphia. By the time he got to South Philadelphia High School, the viola was his instrument. Gaetano Molieri, a member of the viola section of the Philadelphia Orchestra for 30 years, whose artistry graced a number of other ensembles over the years and who played for some of the greatest conductors in recent history, died Friday.

Excited? Sure, they're excited. You'd be excited, too, if you'd spent all or most of your life in Philadelphia and you were looking forward to your first trip to Europe. Your first airplane trip, for heaven's sake. Most of the 22 members of the 80-member Fellowship Choir who have been selected to accompany a production of The Gospel at Colonus on a seven-week European tour have never flown before. "I'm very excited about it, and honored and blessed, and I can't wait to go," says one of the youngest, lead soprano Darnita Williams, 20, of the West Oak Lane section of the city.

Throughout July, the Delaware County Summer Festival will continue its 22d annual celebration in Rose Tree Park with a play by a theater company, and local musicians playing show tunes and country and popular music. The Atlantic Brass Band, a British-style band that plays marches and popular music, will take the stage Wednesday. In the event of rain, the location will be Penncrest High School in Middletown off Route 352. The Rose Tree Shakespeare Company will put on Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors in a contemporary setting, a Southern California beach in the 1960s, next Thursday and July 11-12.

Paul McCartney, Irving Berlin, and Leonard Bernstein all wrote high-profile music that wasn't entirely theirs. They use orchestrators (Bernstein in West Side Story ), musical secretaries (Irving Berlin), and even collaborators (McCartney's concert works) to help get their thoughts on paper. But then, all three are most famous for their popular music, in which a composer's musical ambitions may outstretch the mechanics of bringing it into being. A classical composer, in contrast, is supposed to be a romantic lone artist communing with the muses - not recycling music from an unused film score or a deceased colleague.

Inquirer popular music critic Dan DeLuca has been reporting from the SXSW music festival in Austin, Texas. See his dispatches, including photographs and videos, on his blog, "In the Mix," at .

Rock-and-roll music embodies the spirit of several generations, which is to say raucous and sometimes transgressive behavior by both musicians and their fans, idol worship and mass hysteria. These effects have been observed before, particularly in young people - remember crooners and bobby-soxers? - but rock-and-roll has been an especially persistent and powerful shaper of popular culture. Why else would public television still be reviving musical acts from the 1960s to solicit contributions during periodic fund drives?

The soundtrack for O Brother, Where Art Thou celebrates its 10th anniversary this month with a fresh reissue that debuts Tuesday. The music that scored the Coen Brothers' Depression-era adaptation of Homer's Odyssey changed popular music in a big way, bringing old-timey mountain music to the forefront of America's pop market for the first time in decades. And we're still feeling the soundtrack's influence. Would the masses have been ready for roots-minded crossover acts Mumford & Sons, Old Crow Medicine Show, the Civil Wars, or the Avett Brothers had it not been for the brave, game-changing appeal of O Brother ?

You were expecting maybe Lawrence Welk? This month, AARP launched a streaming Internet radio service on its website that's designed to help the organization's gray and graying membership stay clued in about what's happening in popular music. And the surprising thing about the 18-channel service, which is free for members and nonmembers at www.AARP.org , is that it's by no means merely a stodgy service meant to soothe senior citizens as they ease their way into a Sinatrian senescence.

GAETANO A. MOLIERI was a prodigy, playing the violin at age 5. However, he wound up becoming an internationally known violist because of physical attributes: Long arms and wide hands. At least, that was the idea of one of his teachers as Gaetano was growing up in South Philadelphia. By the time he got to South Philadelphia High School, the viola was his instrument. Gaetano Molieri, a member of the viola section of the Philadelphia Orchestra for 30 years, whose artistry graced a number of other ensembles over the years and who played for some of the greatest conductors in recent history, died Friday.

Richard F. Robinson, 82, of Lansdowne, a church choir director, cantor, and soloist, died of complications from kidney disease Saturday, Feb. 12, at St. Francis Country House in Darby. For 25 years, Mr. Robinson led the adult choir at St. Philomena's Church in Lansdowne before becoming ill in 2007. He also was a soloist at weddings and funerals and was cantor during Masses, leading the congregation in singing and liturgical responses. Previously, he directed the men's and boy's choir at St. Thomas Aquinas Church in South Philadelphia for 15 years and for several years taught singing at the School of the Holy Child in Rosemont.