My musical tastes change and evolve every day. I'm easily bored by conventional sounds, but still dig a well-crafted tune. Here's a little something I wrote about the time I worked with Ellis Marsalis and asked him about James Booker:

Recorded live at some club and edited down to a digestible listening length, James Booker’s album, Resurrection of the Bayou Mahararajah, was a revelation the first time I gave it a listen, and has been ever since. He tears through solo tunes ranging from the soul staple “Knock on Wood” to Chopin’s “Minute Waltz” with such intensity, erratic playfulness and singular ability it’s all the more quizzical and impressive to hear him articulate the strange thoughts running through his head between songs. If I remember correctly, my mom bought me the album for Christmas when I was all of fifteen because she knew I was getting into jazz: https://www.allmusic.com/album/resurrection-of-the-bayou-maharajah-live-at-the-maple-leaf-bar-mw0000103934

I was an artist services coordinator for Ellis Marsalis and his band when they played at a festival in New England a number of years ago. Ellis seemed to know just about every musician who passed through New Orleans, so I asked him about James Booker when I was helping him gather his suitcases in the hotel suite before he checked out. A loaded grin came over his face as he shook his head and went into another tale about a cat he used to know.

“James Booker. The last time I saw James Booker... Well, you have to understand that I had him as a student a long time ago. I was a teacher at a strict Catholic school and James, man, that kid was always getting into trouble. He was goofing around so much that I had to kick him out of the school band that a bunch of these kids had formed. Oh, they thought they were something, but you’ve never seen a sorrier bunch of cats in your life. Now, James could always play, no doubt about that. But he was getting into all kinds of stuff that wasn’t right for anyone at any age, and I couldn’t teach him a damn thing.

Well, the other kids in that band thought it was unfair that I kicked James out, so they decided to boycott my class until I reinstated him. The next day, I go to see the head sister of the school, the meanest sister you ever... Man, she didn’t mess around! As soon as I walked into her office, she took the files of the kids who left my class, slammed them down on her desk and said, “Give me the word and they are gone.” Now, they didn’t deserve that. They were just a bunch of fools that were trying to stick by their friend. I told the sister to hold off and I’d take care of things. I got the kids to come back and James went on being James.

So, the last time I saw him, I was just walking downtown, minding my own and I hear this cat yelling at me. Sure enough it was James Booker, all doped out on something. He comes up to me and says that now he really wants me to teach him some jazz. He kept saying how now he’s really ready to learn. I say sure, sure, whenever you want. A week later he’s dead from an overdose or something. That was the last time I saw James Booker.”