For the uninitiated here, “whack jazz” is a term of endearment. It’s jazz that is endearing to me because it’s brave, daring and breaks all the rules about what jazz is supposed to be

Frank Sinatra would have been 97 last Monday. His mystery still lingers with me, as does the memory of a concert — one of Sinatra’s last — when he recaptured all of that complexity.

I am now going to indulge in a little misty-eyed gaze into the crystal ball: Til Tuesday’s album Voices Carry came out in 1985. I was living in an apartment in southern New Hampshire.