Jimmy Sez

It's past my bedtime. I'm sitting at a bar about a mile from my house in southeastern Pennsylvania and about 100 miles The World's Most Famous Arena which is being broadcast on a 10-foot TV screen on the other side of the room. Sitting next to me is another transplanted New Yorker. We promised ourselves we would get together in the wild to watch at least one game of the NBA Finals. As lifelong Knicks fans, we know that these opportunities don't come along very often. An hour before this moment, our choice of watching this game at a bar seemed unwise. The San Antonio Spurs defense was suffocating the Knicks' backcourt. In the rare instance that they had an open look at the basket, shots that were falling with ease for the last two months were clanking off the rim. On the other end of the court, the Knicks were struggling mightily to close out on Spurs shooters who couldn't miss from deep. New York was losing by 29 points on their home court in the third quarter ...

Just a few weeks ago, Aaron Judge had wrapped up the month of April hitting .207, striking out at an alarming rate, and instilling general panic among the Yankee fanbase. What a difference a few weeks can make. Since the calendar turned to May, Judge has been consistently murdering baseballs and suddenly the Yankees lead the American League in runs scored, home runs, walks, on-base percentage, and OPS. Even with Juan Soto's auspicious start to his Yankee career, Judge now leads the team in home runs, walks, slugging and OPS. This is nothing new, of course. When Aaron Judge is healthy, he's always been among the best hitters in baseball. But the recent heater that he's on has revealed a new dimension to his game that we've never really seen before. It's a dimension that Foreigner - the soon-to-be Rock and Roll Hall of Famers - would be proud of . When it gets through to me, it's always new to me Prior to 2024, it was no secret that Judge's power came mostly ...

The jazz world said goodbye to one of its great innovators earlier this month when Chicago native Ramsey Lewis passed away at age 87. While his name may not carry the same gravitas as jazz heavyweights Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, or John Coltrane, his contributions to the artform were just as impactful. KPLU Radio/Wikimedia Commons Chances are if you've never heard of Ramsey Lewis, you've definitely heard him and just didn't realize he was playing the music. In a career that spanned 66 years he recorded more than 80 albums, all of them featuring his distinctive style on piano. A style that was improvisational and deeply rooted in the blues like most great jazz artists, but had an everyman appeal that could please ears unaccustomed to the jazz genre. Most of those ears were introduced to Lewis' music via 1965's "The 'In' Crowd", the highest charting tune of his career. It's easy to see why: Clocking in at just under six minutes, Lewis' si...