© 2026 Western New York Public Broadcasting Association

140 Lower Terrace St.
Buffalo, NY 14202

Toronto Address:
130 Queens Quay E.
Suite 903
Toronto, ON M5A 0P6


Mailing Address:
Horizons Plaza P.O. Box 1263
Buffalo, NY 14240-1263

Buffalo Toronto Public Media | Phone 716-845-7000
BTPM NPR Newsroom | Phone: 716-845-7040
Differing shades of blue wavering throughout the image
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Jazz Fusion

JAZZ FUSION is a distinct strain of American musical practice; one that Stratton has largely ignored over a lifetime of music listening. Can Richie really catch him up by, once again, making Stratton apply his considerable skills as a listener to a genre of music that has enriched Richie’s own life?

Entering Music 2026
Stratton Rawson grew up in the Hudson Valley of New York State midway between the Hudson River and the Appalachian Trail in the shadow of some the oldest mountains on earth.
Born and raised in Buffalo, New York, Richie English has worked extensively as a pianist, teacher, and composer since childhood. He began studying piano at ten years old with Frieda Manes, and within a year was the youngest piano teacher registered with Denton, Cottier & Daniels in state history.
Latest Episodes
  • Stratton has often been asked if he and Richie ever disagree. His answer has been that, in musical matters, he can’t think of any disagreement, putting the emphasis on the adjective “musical”. Well, that was true enough until they decided to talk about opera by discussing the two greatest opera composers of the 19th century, Giuseppe Verdi and Richard Wagner.
  • Composers are rarely happy people. How do we know this? Because a few composers have told us this in their memoirs. Two of the best are the Memoirs of Hector Berlioz and X-Ray.
  • Stratton often tells Richie how lucky they are because they have available to their ears over one thousand years of music. That’s why Stratton encourages Richie to introduce him to the popular music he pointedly refused to take notice of.
  • Richie can’t really believe that Stratton has spent so much of his time listening to classical music that he has no notion of who Frank Zappa is or who Van Dyke Parks might be. But Richie knows that Stratton, who has a soft spot for Olivier Messiaen and Michael Tippett, is just the kind of guy who’d like the wild music-making of Zappa and Parks.
  • When a listener begins to concentrate on a single composer’s works, they often listen for the piece in which the composer has found his or her own voice, a voice that from then on will mark the music they write as their own.
  • The tale of the careers of two of the most famous women in the 19thcentury is now portrayed as a narrative of suppression and even oppression.
  • Richie invites Stratton to listen to something he has actively avoided for 50 years – PUNK. There’s no telling how he’ll react…
  • Stratton and Richie become aware that even sweet, joyful music-making can hide a suspicious, even outraged, personality.
  • The Oxford Dictionary of Music claims that the term "virtuoso " is from Italian and means “exceptional performer.” By the late 18th century, it changed.
  • At the turn of the 20th century, celebrity was invented as a substitute for genius, while the steady rise of the middle class meant the beginning of mass marketing and the establishment of “popular” music.