HeyJaredMusically Speaking
Articles, resources, and reflections from Jarrod Richey on music literacy, hymnody, church music, and the traditions that shape how we sing, dance, and worship together.
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- 12
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- Sep 25, 2026
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Friday FIVE: September 25 - Gone Fishin’ (opens the original)
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In 1951, Bing Crosby and Louis Armstrong teamed up for “Gone Fishin’,” and the recording’s charm comes from the fact that they never try to sound alike. Crosby is smooth, relaxed, and conversational. Armstrong is gravelly, flexible, and unmistakably himself. In this episode, I reflect on the teasing, rhythmic give-and-take, and unlikely vocal blend that make the performance so much fun, and on why some of the best musical partnerships work because the differences stay intact.The Friday FIVE is a
Friday FIVE: September 18 - Chopinesque (opens the original)
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Jon Batiste comes from one of New Orleans’ great musical dynasties, not unlike the Marsalis family. He was playing drums in the Batiste Brothers Band at age eight, earned his bachelor’s and master's degrees in jazz at Juilliard, served as bandleader on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, won the Grammy for Album of the Year for We Are, and won an Oscar for co-composing the score for Soul. In this episode, I reflect on what makes him so remarkable at the piano, feature his iconic Blackbird perfor
Friday FIVE: September 11 - Adagio for Strings (opens the original)
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Samuel Barber composed his Adagio for Strings in 1936 as an intimate meditation inspired by a passage from Virgil's Aeneid. He did not write it for grief. And yet grief found it. On this 25th anniversary of September 11th, I reflect on how this piece became the unofficial anthem of American mourning, from the radio announcement of Franklin Roosevelt's death to the assassination of John F. Kennedy to the days after the attacks in 2001. I also consider Barber's choral arrangement setting the Latin
Friday FIVE: September 4 - Morning Mood (opens the original)
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On September 4, 1907, Edvard Grieg died in Bergen, Norway, the same city where he was born. 119 years later, his music is still among the most recognized in the classical repertoire. In this episode, I reflect on two pieces from his Peer Gynt suite that could not be more different. In the Hall of the Mountain King, which Grieg himself reportedly thought was too crude, and Morning Mood, which reveals the quieter and more luminous side of a composer who spent his whole career writing music that so
Friday FIVE: August 28 - Farther Along (opens the original)
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Dolly Parton passed away this week at the age of 80. In this episode I add to the conversation about her music, hopefully by taking you on some of the backwoods roads rather than the main road of her best known hits. Everybody is doing those right now. Instead I want to point you to the 1987 Trio album with Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt, three of the great voices of that era stripped down to close harmony, acoustic instruments, and no production tricks whatsoever. Along the way I reflect on
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